AT&T scooped up the lion’s share of EchoStar’s licenses for $23 billion Tuesday, but Charlie Ergen still has valuable airwaves to bargain with.
Category: internet
Quantum memory array brings us closer to a quantum RAM
The internet, social media, and digital technologies have completely transformed the way we establish commercial, personal and professional relationships. At its core, this society relies on the exchange of information that is expressed in terms of bits. This basic unit of information can be either a 0 or a 1, and it is usually represented in electrical circuits, for instance, as two voltage levels (one representing the bit in state 0 and the other representing state 1).
The ability to store and manipulate bits efficiently lays the basis of digital electronics and enables modern devices to perform a variety of tasks, ranging from sending emails and playing music to numerical simulations. These processes are only possible thanks to key hardware components like random-access memory (RAM), which offer temporary storage and on-demand retrieval of data.
In parallel, advances in quantum physics have led to a new kind of information unit: the qubit. Unlike classical bits, which are strictly 0 or 1, qubits can exist in a superposition of both states at once. This opens up new possibilities for processing and storing information, although its practical implications are still being explored.
UC Davis Study Reveals Alarming Browser Tracking by GenAI Assistants
A new study led by computer scientists at the University of California, Davis, reveals that generative AI browser assistants collect and share sensitive data without users’ knowledge. Stronger safeguards, transparency and awareness are needed to protect user privacy online, the researchers said. A new brand of generative AI, or GenAI, browser extensions act as your personal assistant as you surf the web, making browsing easier and more personalized. They can summarize web pages, answer questions, translate text and take notes.
HUGE: Elon’s “Macrohard” AI — His CRAZIEST Idea Ever
Questions to inspire discussion.
Industry Disruption.
🏢 Q: How might traditional companies be affected by AI simulations? A: Traditional firms like Microsoft could see their valuation drop by 50% if undercut by AI clones, while the tech industry may experience millions of jobs vanishing, potentially leading to recessions or increased inequality.
🤖 Q: What is the potential scale of AI company simulations? A: AI-simulated companies like “Macrohard” could become real entities, operating at a fraction of the cost of traditional companies and disrupting markets 10 times faster and bigger than the internet’s impact on retail.
Regulatory Landscape.
📊 Q: How might governments respond to AI-simulated companies? A: Governments may implement regulations on AI companies to slow innovation, potentially creating monopolies that regulators would later need to break up, further disrupting markets.
Did Elon Musk Just KILL the Model Y L in America?
Questions to inspire discussion.
🤖 Q: What is Tesla’s vision for autonomous vehicles? A: Tesla is prioritizing a robo taxi future with Cybercab and potentially Robovan, likely to focus on producing robo vehicles over traditional cars in the near future.
📊 Q: How does the Model Y L fit into Tesla’s robotaxi plans? A: The Model Y L would be a good fit for the robo taxi network, offering a bigger car with more versatility that people want, even if they don’t need the space, and would be a hot seller in the US market.
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Progress.
🚀 Q: How close is Tesla to achieving full self-driving? A: With version 14 of FSD almost complete and version 15 likely to be the final needed version within a year, Tesla is expected to fully commit to the robo taxi future.
🏢 Q: How has Tesla’s leadership approached the robotaxi strategy? A: Tesla’s executives previously resisted Elon Musk’s push to bet the company on robo taxis, but are now likely to fully commit given the progress in FSD development.
North Korea Uses GitHub in Diplomat Cyber Attacks as IT Worker Scheme Hits 320+ Firms
“The attackers leveraged GitHub, typically known as a legitimate developer platform, as a covert command-and-control channel,” Trellix researchers Pham Duy Phuc and Alex Lanstein said.
The infection chains have been observed to rely on trusted cloud storage solutions like Dropbox and Daum Cloud, an online service from South Korean internet conglomerate Kakao Corporation, in order to deliver a variant of an open-source remote access trojan called Xeno RAT that grants the threat actors to take control of compromised systems.
The campaign is assessed to be the work of a North Korean hacking group called Kimsuky, which was recently linked to phishing attacks that employ GitHub as a stager for an Xeno RAT known as MoonPeak. Despite the infrastructure and tactical overlaps, there are indications that the phishing attacks match China-based operatives.
Ultra-thin materials twist light into optical vortices for faster data transmission
Imagine a whirlpool spinning in a river, or a tornado swirling through the sky. They don’t just spin on the spot: they travel forward while maintaining that spiraling motion inside them. These twisting motions, called vortices, are powerful and organized spirals. Now, imagine light that behaves the same way: a beam of light that spins as it moves forward. This “twisted” light, known as an optical vortex, can carry more information than normal light, opening the door to faster internet and ultra-secure communications.
Energy-efficient ultracompact laser reduces light loss in all directions
An international team of scientists led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has developed a new type of ultracompact laser that is more energy efficient and consumes less power.
Smaller than a grain of sand, the micrometer-sized laser incorporates a special design that reduces light leakage. Minimizing light loss means less energy is required to operate the laser compared to other highly compact lasers.
The laser emits light in the terahertz region (30 μm—3 mm), a 6G communications frequency, and could pave the way for high-speed wireless communication of the future.
