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Aptos’ Crypto Testing in Hong Kong: Insights from Former Meta Employees

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Ever since Hong Kong legalized cryptocurrency trading last June, blockchain projects from the West have been paying more attention to the Asian financial hub. Aptos, the a16z-backed blockchain network developed by a group of former Meta employees, is one of them. Started by some of the original creators of Meta’s abandoned crypto payment project Diem, Aptos is set to host a DeFi event in Hong Kong this April. When asked when users in Hong Kong will get access to Aptos-based DeFi services, the founder said he cannot speculate on regulation. “I do think Hong Kong regulators are moving things in the right direction and forward and providing clarity for entrepreneurs to build.

Filigran, the creator of OpenCTI, secures $16 million in funding for cutting-edge cybersecurity threat management solution

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Paris-based cybersecurity startup Filigran is capitalizing on the success of OpenCTI to build a suite of open-source threat management products. The company has already found some early traction with OpenCTI, its open-source threat intelligence platform. It’s a threat intelligence platform that lets you gather threat data from multiple sources in a single interface. OpenBAS can be used as a standalone product, but it works better if you’re already using OpenCTI as it can use the threat intelligence data in OpenCTI. There will be another two products in Filigran’s eXtended Threat Management (XTM) product suite that focus on data-driven risk analysis and crisis management.

Is the Ring car camera destined to fail due to an undefined target audience?

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But the Ring Car Camera? You do have to know who your customers are, though, and that’s where the Ring Car Camera found itself straddling multiple domains without a clear foothold in any. Ring Car Camera did have some exciting innovations. Moreover, discontinuing the Ring Car Camera may prompt a reassessment of consumer expectations regarding dash cams and automotive security devices. The discontinuation of the Ring Car Camera is likely the final nail in the coffin of that project, too.

Security Experts Warn: ConnectWise Vulnerabilities Being Exploited by Hackers to Deploy LockBit Ransomware

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Security experts are warning that a pair of high-risk flaws in a popular remote access tool are being exploited by hackers to deploy LockBit ransomware — days after authorities announced that they had disrupted the notorious Russia-linked cybercrime gang. In a post on Mastodon on Thursday, Sophos said that it had observed “several LockBit attacks” following exploitation of the ConnectWise vulnerabilities. “Two things of interest here: first, as noted by others, the ScreenConnect vulnerabilities are being actively exploited in the wild. Rogers said that Huntress has seen LockBit ransomware deployed on customer systems spanning a range of industries, but declined to name the customers affected. The company’s website claims that the organization provides its remote access technology to more than a million small to medium-sized businesses.

Apple prepares for iMessage’s capabilities in the age of quantum computing

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Apple announced today it is upgrading iMessage’s security layer to post-quantum cryptography, starting in iOS and iPadOS 17.4, macOS 14.4, and watchOS 10.4. The technology giant said that in the coming years, quantum computers will be able to break today’s cryptography standards. That’s why Apple said it is changing how end-to-end encryption works with iMessage without the need for quantum-level processing power. Apple and other companies believe future quantum computers — capable of exponentially faster computations — could break today’s encryption standards. End-to-end messaging app Signal last year upgraded to post-quantum encryption algorithms to prevent future quantum-based decryption attacks.

Uber Eats Unveils Groundbreaking Delivery Partnership with Cartken’s Sidewalk Robots in Japan

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Uber, along with partners Mitsubishi Electric and autonomous robotics startup Cartken, are launching a service in Japan that will use self-driving sidewalk robots to deliver food to customers. Uber and Cartken, a startup founded in 2019 by former Google engineers behind the short-lived Bookbot, already operate a delivery service together in Fairfax, Virginia and Miami. Cartken’s autonomous sidewalk robot, known as Model C, will be used for the delivery service. Cartken’s teleoperations interface will be used by Mitsubishi Electric employees who are trained in Cartken’s remote guidance system, according to an Uber spokesperson. “We hope that this newly announced initiative will serve as a catalyst for the spread of robot delivery services in Japan,” Tanaka said.

Collaboration between OpenAI and Common Sense Media: Crafting AI Guidelines for Ethical Practices

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Case in point, OpenAI today announced a partnership with Common Sense Media, the nonprofit organization that reviews and ranks the suitability of various media and tech for kids, to collaborate on AI guidelines and education materials for parents, educators and young adults. As a part of the partnership, OpenAI will work with Common Sense Media to curate “family-friendly” GPTs — chatbot apps powered by OpenAI’s GenAI models — in the GPT Store, OpenAI’s GPT marketplace, based on Common Sense’s rating and evaluation standards, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says. Common Sense’s framework aims to produce a “nutrition label” for AI-powered apps, according to Common Sense co-founder and CEO James Steyer, toward shedding light on the contexts in which the apps are used and highlight areas of potential opportunity and harm against a set of “common sense” tenets. An Impact Research poll commissioned by Common Sense Media late last year found that 58% of students aged 12 to 18 have used ChatGPT compared to 30% of parents of school-aged children. “Together, Common Sense and OpenAI will work to make sure that AI has a positive impact on all teens and families,” Steyer said in an emailed statement.

Russian Hackers Also Targeted Other Organizations, According to Microsoft

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On Friday, Microsoft revealed that it had been the victim of a hack carried out by Russian government spies. In a new blog post, Microsoft said that “the same actor has been targeting other organizations and, as part of our usual notification processes, we have begun notifying these targeted organizations.”At this point, it’s unclear how many organizations the Russian-backed hackers targeted. Microsoft, however, said that the hackers specifically targeted the company’s senior executives, as well as people who work in cybersecurity, legal, and other departments. The hackers were able to steal “some emails and attached documents.”Curiously, the hackers were interested in finding out information about themselves, specifically what Microsoft knows about them, the company said. On Thursday, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) disclosed that its Microsoft-hosted email system was hacked by Midnight Blizzard.

“Vroom Slows Down Online Used Car Sales to Accelerate Auto Financing and AI Expansion”

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Vroom hits the brakes on its online used car business to go full throttle on auto financing and AIVroom is shutting down its online used car marketplace and shifting all of its resources and capital into two business units focused on auto financing and AI-powered analytics. The company said it is suspending all used car transactions through vroom.com and plans to sell off its used vehicle inventory to wholesalers. Vroom was part of a wave of U.S. startups that launched about a decade ago all aiming to disrupt used car sales and the traditional dealership model. The drop in valuation continued into 2022, pushing Vroom shares to under $2. Vroom shares closed at $0.53 on Monday and then dropped to $0.25 after the company announced its plans to shutter the e-commerce business.

MIT’s Revolutionary High-Capacity Organic Battery Technology Licensed by Lamborghini

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Unlike nearly every other lithium-ion battery chemistry, TAQ is an organic compound — not the free-range hippie type, but the kind made primarily of carbon. Researchers have been investigating organic materials as cathodes, the negatively charged part of the cell, because they could store more energy at lower cost. TAQ, short for bis-tetraaminobenzoquinone, is composed of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen arranged in a row of three neighboring hexagons. The structure is similar to that of graphite, which is almost universally used today as an anode material (the positive terminal). Lamborghini, which previously used a supercapacitor developed in Dincă’s lab in its Sian model, has licensed the patent on the material.