Day: February 5, 2022

Categories
Artificial Intelligence

Scale AI awarded $250M contract by Department of Defense | FedScoop

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The Joint Artificial Intelligence Center of the Department of Defense has awarded Scale AI a roughly $250 million contract to make its technology available to all government departments. Scale AI is a digital firm that focuses on artificial intelligence data. Image processing, independence, language processing, and virtual reality displays will all be part of the business’s trial and review AI solutions, according to the company. In order to penetrate into the defense market, Scale AI has engaged numerous significant former DOD and government leaders. Michael Kratsios, the former White House top technology officer and interim Department of Defense undersecretary for research and engineering, was named managing director in May. 

Source: https://www.fedscoop.com/scale-ai-awarded-250m-ai-contract-by-department-of-defense/ 

Categories
Cyber Security

Cyberattacks on US schools increasing amid reliance on technology | Al Jazeera

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Cyberattacks have become an increasing danger to schools across the United States as a consequence of the increasing dependence on technology as a result of the coronavirus epidemic, resulting in school closures and requests for greater resources to tackle the issues. Because most schools are not compelled to publicly report breaches, precise data is difficult to come by. However, analysts claim that public school systems, which sometimes have insufficient finances for cybersecurity skills, have become an attractive target for ransomware gangs. Baltimore County, Maryland, and Miami-Dade County, Florida, as well as districts in New Jersey, Wisconsin, and elsewhere, have had their instruction disrupted. 

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/31/cyberattacks-on-us-schools-increasing-amid-reliance-on-technology 

Categories
Drones

Tigray conflict: What do we know about drone strikes in Ethiopia? | BBC

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On the 8th of January, an airstrike on a facility for displaced families in Dedebit, Tigray, murdered more than 50 people and injured over a hundred more. In mid-December 2021, a series of airstrikes in Alamata, southern Tigray, killed 28 people in a market area. Armed drones have been used in some of the strikes, and there is rising concern over the number of civilians killed. The government, which has been fighting rebels for more than a year, claims it has the right to deploy whatever weapons it wants. Legesse Tulu, a spokeswoman for Ethiopia’s government, declined to comment on the aforementioned instances. Ethiopia is currently not subject to an arms embargo, and the sale of armed drones is a murky area in terms of international law and treaties. 

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/60045176 

Categories
Gaming

Xbox Game Pass Is Losing Some Of Its Best Games | Kotaku

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The world’s Xbox hard disks needed rest at some point. Xbox Game Pass isn’t clogging up the most jam-packed release schedule in recent memory for February 2022. Not only is the incoming roster small, but some of Microsoft’s greatest and biggest games-on-demand titles will soon be inaccessible. After a year—roughly the time it takes to complete 10.7% of the game—the fantastic Final Fantasy XII redux is removed from the service. Control by Remedy Entertainment has been available for around the same period of time. Despite the fact that neither The Medium nor The Falconeer was very well-received, both were promoted as must-play titles during the Xbox Series X’s launch period. 

Source: https://kotaku.com/xbox-game-pass-february-2022-lineup-contrast-crossfirex-1848459347 

Categories
Information Warfare

Billionaire Facebook Investor Peter Thiel Secretly Funded A ‘Cyber Warfare’ Startup That Hacked WhatsApp | Forbes

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Boldend, a firm based in San Diego, has kept a modest profile since its inception in 2017. Though it has gotten little attention, it was included in the New York Times last weekend, right at the conclusion of an article about the troubled Israeli spyware firm NSO Group. According to a presentation provided to defense major Raytheon, Boldend created a capacity to infiltrate WhatsApp, albeit it was shut off in a security upgrade in January 2021. It was the first time its “cyber warfare” technology had been exposed to the public outside of a collaboration with Raytheon declared in 2020, in which the two companies said they would work collaboratively to create automated products that boost the development and implementation of cyber tools for operations and functions vital to national security. 

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2022/02/01/billionaire-facebook-investor-peter-thiel-secretly-funded-a-cyber-warfare-startup-that-hacked-whatsapp/?sh=3cfb27e95600