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Democratic nations like the United States rarely politicize their economic statistics — although ask me again if Donald Trump returns to office — but authoritarian regimes often do.

President Xi Jinping is starting to look like a poor economic manager, whose propensity for arbitrary interventions — which is something autocrats tend to do — has stifled private initiative.

Well, international economists are fond of citing Dornbusch’s Law: “The crisis takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you would have thought.” What happened in China’s case was that the government was able to mask the problem of inadequate consumer spending for a number of years by promoting a gigantic real estate bubble.

To outside observers, what China must do seems straightforward: end financial repression and allow more of the economy’s income to flow through to households, and strengthen the social safety net so that consumers don’t feel the need to hoard cash.

And when it comes to strengthening the safety net, the leader of this supposedly communist regime sounds a bit like the governor of Mississippi, denouncing “welfarism” that creates “lazy people.”

Will it try to prop up its economy with an export surge that will run headlong into Western efforts to promote green technologies?

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Popular theories about industry emissions damaging ancient rock art in Western Australia’s Pilbara region are yet to be conclusively proven, according to a new report.

A team of 55 researchers has been studying the impact of emissions from major gas and fertiliser plants on petroglyphs as part of a $27 million Murujuga Rock Art Monitoring Program.

The world heritage nominated Murujuga region, 1,500 kilometres north of Perth, takes in the Burrup Peninsula and Dampier Archipelago and is home to more than 1 million petroglyphs.

But the interpretation of previous studies has been debated and in 2019, the state government signed a partnership agreement with Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation to support the implementation of the rock art monitoring program.

The rock art monitoring program will also be used to support a UNESCO world heritage listing nomination for the Murujuga region, to show the environment is being properly protected and managed.

Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation ranger Kasziem Bin Sali will be among those trained in rock art monitoring in coming years.

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Russian spies have been targeting MPs, journalists and others with cyber hacking as part of a concerted attempt to meddle in British politics, a Foreign Office minister has said.

Leo Docherty, a minister under David Cameron, told the House of Commons that the Russian federal security service was using “cyber interference” to target politically connected people.

“I can confirm today that the Russian federal security services, the FSB, is behind a sustained effort to interfere in our democratic processes,” he said.

MPs have previously complained about being targeted by hackers, with Labour’s Ben Bradshaw saying in 2019 that he believed he had been subject to interference by Russia.

The Russian government was also suspected in 2017 of being behind a cyber-attack on parliament that breached dozens of email accounts belonging to MPs and peers.

The long-delayed Russia report at the time said ministers in effect turned a blind eye to allegations of Russian disruption.

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Hundreds of Windows and Linux computer models from virtually all hardware makers are vulnerable to a new attack that executes malicious firmware early in the boot-up sequence, a feat that allows infections that are nearly impossible to detect or remove using current defense mechanisms.

The attack—dubbed LogoFAIL by the researchers who devised it—is notable for the relative ease in carrying it out, the breadth of both consumer- and enterprise-grade models that are susceptible, and the high level of control it gains over them.

LogoFAIL is a constellation of two dozen newly discovered vulnerabilities that have lurked for years, if not decades, in Unified Extensible Firmware Interfaces responsible for booting modern devices that run Windows or Linux.

The participating companies comprise nearly the entirety of the x64 and ARM CPU ecosystem, starting with UEFI suppliers AMI, Insyde, and Phoenix (sometimes still called IBVs or independent BIOS vendors); device manufacturers such as Lenovo, Dell, and HP; and the makers of the CPUs that go inside the devices, usually Intel, AMD or designers of ARM CPUs.

As its name suggests, LogoFAIL involves logos, specifically those of the hardware seller that are displayed on the device screen early in the boot process, while the UEFI is still running.

LogoFAIL is a newly discovered set of high-impact security vulnerabilities affecting different image parsing libraries used in the system firmware by various vendors during the device boot process.

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BERLIN, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Germany plans to extend its border controls with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland to stem a migration surge and combat people-smuggling until Dec. 15, a spokesperson for the interior ministry said on Monday.

Berlin will notify the European Commission of the extension, the spokesperson told a regular news conference in Berlin.

The ministry believes stationary police measures at the Polish border should continue in particular, he said, adding that those measures had led to the prevention of around 1,100 unauthorised entries since they came into force on Oct. 16.

Germany announced the stricter controls on its land borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland in response to a sharp increase of first-time asylum requests this year.

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The OpenAI board is in discussions with Sam Altman to return to CEO, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

One of them said Altman, who was suddenly fired by the board on Friday, is “ambivalent” about coming back and would want significant governance changes.

Developing…

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One second they form rows of towers, next they morph into low-rise courtyards, then they flip back into long slender slabs, before cycling through hundreds of other iterations, in a hypnotic high-speed ballet of bristling buildings.

Image-making tools such as Dall-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion have allowed the effortless creation of seductive visions: skyscrapers in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright, fantasy mash-ups of sci-fi and art nouveau, squidgy marshmallow staircases, buildings made of rubbish.

Tsigkari’s team has also developed a simulation engine that allows realtime analysis of floor plans – showing how well connected one part of a building is to another – giving designers instant feedback on the implications of moving a wall or piece of furniture.

Just as deepfake technology makes it possible for dead actors to be resurrected in new roles, could we see a world where the back catalogues of deceased architects are used to generate cover versions of their work, regurgitating counterfeited classics in a nauseating feedback loop?

Having since worked for central government on digitising the planning system, Mills has now co-founded Blocktype, an AI-powered tool for developers and planners, aimed at simplifying the process and ultimately reducing land speculation.

“The idea behind Blocktype is that it can give you a ballpark sense of what’s possible on a site, providing sketch layouts and viability appraisals.” Mills stresses it is not a replacement for architects, but a tool to help developers think spatially when trying to determine what to pay for land.

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US scientists have achieved net energy gain in a nuclear fusion reaction for the second time since a historic breakthrough in December last year in the quest to find a near-limitless, safe and clean source of energy

Scientists at the California-based Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory repeated the breakthrough in an experiment in the National Ignition Facility (NIF) on 30 July that produced a higher energy yield than in December, a Lawrence Livermore spokesperson said.

The approach, which gives rise to the heat and light of the sun and other stars, has been hailed as having huge potential as a sustainable, low-carbon energy source.

In December, Lawrence Livermore first achieved a net energy gain in a fusion experiment using lasers.

The Energy Department called it “a major scientific breakthrough decades in the making that will pave the way for advancements in national defense and the future of clean power.”

Fusion energy raises the prospect of plentiful clean power: the reactions release no greenhouse gases or radioactive waste byproducts.

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We already had plenty of wireless protocols for most use cases — Zigbee for lighting, Z-Wave for security systems, Bluetooth for proximity control of devices like locks, and Wi-Fi for high-bandwidth needs such as cameras.

But while the open-sourced Thread protocol does have compelling features (see sidebar), its rollout as part of the major shift Matter is trying to make in our smart homes needed to be better.

“The platforms have yet to agree on a standardized way to share Thread credentials amongst each other,” Stefan Bauer-Schwan of smart home device maker Eve Systems tells me.

Nanoleaf has updated its border-router-capable lighting panels to support joining existing Thread networks, and Amazon’s Thread-capable Eero Wi-Fi routers are on 1.3.0.

“The Thread Group is working with the industry on best practices for identifying when a given network should change its configuration and how to enable users to easily do so without disruption to their existing setup,” he said.

So, while you might get a robust Thread network if you have all HomePods and Apple TVs and Google Nest devices that were set up on iOS, or all SmartThings hubs, or all Amazon’s border routers, you can’t easily mix and match — yet.

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While it’s true that window cleaning safety has come a long way since the birth of the skyscraper, it’s still a time and labor-intensive process that’s not without its risks.

We first covered the Israeli firm in March of last year when it announced what it referred to as a “pre-Series A” worth $6.5 million.

You can read more about that process in Rebecca’s recent writeup here, but simply put, it’s a method for raising money when investing has slowed that gives investors future access to equity in your early-stage firm.

CEO Michael Brown alludes to such fundraising challenges in a statement, noting:

The company currently has systems deployed in New York City, as well as patent grants in Japan and Singapore.

Skyline says the funding will be used for “the company’s ongoing 2023 business operation plans,” including expansion into additional cities and countries.

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The Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game franchise says it won’t allow artists to use artificial intelligence technology to draw its cast of sorcerers, druids and other characters and scenery.

Hasbro-owned D&D Beyond, which makes online tools and other companion content for the franchise, said it didn’t know until Saturday that an illustrator it has worked with for nearly a decade used AI to create commissioned artwork for an upcoming book.

Today’s AI-generated art often shows telltale glitches, such as distorted limbs, which is what caught the eye of skeptical D&D fans.

The art in question is in a soon-to-be-released hardcover book of monster descriptions and lore called “Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants.” The digital and physical version of the package is selling for $59.95 on the D&D website and due for an Aug. 15 release.

The use of AI tools to assist in creative work has raised copyright and labor concerns in a number of industries, helping to fuel the Hollywood strike, causing the music industry’s Recording Academy to revise its Grammy Awards protocols and leading some visual artists to sue AI companies for ingesting their work without their consent to build image-generators that anyone can use.

Hasbro rival Mattel used AI-generated images to help come up with ideas for new Hot Wheels toy cars, though it hasn’t said if that was more than an experiment.

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Microsoft is working to cram its new ChatGPT-powered Bing Chat service into every product it makes, and starting this fall it will be a built-in feature of Windows 11.

Microsoft has been pulling back on its support for Cortana for years, ending support for the iOS and Android versions in early 2021 and removing it from the Windows taskbar in Windows 11 a few months later.

Before that, Microsoft had already removed most third-party app integrations, refocusing the assistant entirely on basic productivity tasks and Bing searches.

Cortana began life on Microsoft’s ill-fated Windows Phone platform in the early 2010s, where it served the same general function as Apple’s Siri and Google Now (and, later, the Google Assistant): a hands-free way to interact with your phone that also attempted to predict what you’d need next, all filtered through a “cute” “personality.”

By 2019, the voice assistant was already being gradually deprioritized in new Windows 10 builds.

Before too long, it may only be possible to hear Cortana in its original form: as an AI helper in the Halo franchise.

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US scientists have achieved net energy gain in a nuclear fusion reaction for the second time since a historic breakthrough in December last year in the quest to find a near-limitless, safe and clean source of energy

Scientists at the California-based Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory repeated the breakthrough in an experiment in the National Ignition Facility (NIF) on 30 July that produced a higher energy yield than in December, a Lawrence Livermore spokesperson said.

The approach, which gives rise to the heat and light of the sun and other stars, has been hailed as having huge potential as a sustainable, low-carbon energy source.

In December, Lawrence Livermore first achieved a net energy gain in a fusion experiment using lasers.

The Energy Department called it “a major scientific breakthrough decades in the making that will pave the way for advancements in national defense and the future of clean power.”

Fusion energy raises the prospect of plentiful clean power: the reactions release no greenhouse gases or radioactive waste byproducts.

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Poland-based spyware LetMeSpy is no longer operational and said it will shut down after a June data breach wiped out its servers, including its huge trove of data stolen from thousands of victims’ phones.

In a notice on its website in both English and Polish, LetMeSpy confirmed the “permanent shutdown” of the spyware service and that it would cease operations by the end of August.

A separate notice on LetMeSpy’s former login page, which no longer functions, confirmed earlier reports that the hacker who breached the spyware operation also deleted the data on its servers.

A copy of the database was obtained by nonprofit transparency collective DDoSecrets, which indexes leaked datasets in the public interest, and shared with TechCrunch for analysis.

The database also contained information that shows the spyware was developed by a Krakow-based tech company called Radeal, whose chief executive Rafal Lidwin did not respond to a request for comment.

Spytrac, a spyware with more than a million user records in its database, was confirmed to be operated by Support King, a tech company banned from the surveillance industry by federal regulators in 2021 for previously failing to secure stolen data from its then-flagship spyware app, SpyFone.

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Elon Musk has said his X social media platform will pay the legal bills and sue on the behalf of people who have been treated “unfairly” by employers because of posting or liking something on the site formerly known as Twitter.

“If you were unfairly treated by your employer due to posting or liking something on this platform, we will fund your legal bill,” Musk said in a post on X late on Saturday, adding that there will be no limits to funding the bills.

“And we won’t just sue, it will be extremely loud and we will go after the boards of directors of the companies too,” Musk said later in response to a post about nothing changing behavior in the US faster than a threat of legal action.

The figures came as the company is going through organizational changes and is looking to boost falling advertising revenue.

After 17 years with an iconic blue bird logo that came to symbolize the broadcasting of ideas to the world, Musk renamed Twitter as X and unveiled a new logo in July, marking a focus on building an “everything app”.

Earlier in July, the billionaire whose other companies include SpaceX and Tesla had said that the social media platform’s cashflow remains negative because of a nearly 50% drop in advertising revenue and a heavy debt load.

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We follow an extensive process involving a thorough investigation, update development for all versions of affected products, and compatibility testing among other operating systems and applications.

Tenable is discussing the issue in only general terms to prevent malicious hackers from learning how to actively exploit it in the wild.

It is for this reason that we are withholding all technical details.” While Yoran’s post and Tenable’s disclosure avoid the word vulnerability, the email said the term is accurate.

The post came on the same day that security firm Sygnia disclosed a set of what it called “vectors” that could be leveraged following a successful breach of an Azure AD Connect account.

“The default configuration exposes clients to the described vectors only if privileged access was gained to the AD Connect server,” Ilia Rabinovich, director of adversarial tactics at Sygnia, wrote in an email.

Both Tenable and Sygnia said that the security vulnerabilities or vectors they disclosed weren’t related to the recent attack on Microsoft cloud customers.

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Thirteen Chromebook models have met their death date since June 1 and won’t receive security updates or new features from Google anymore.

The US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) pointed this out in a press release Wednesday, sharing screenshots of the models:

The US PIRG’s release highlights eight ChromeOS devices from Asus, Acer, Dell, Lenovo, HP, and Samsung, all easily purchasable on Amazon despite their expirations.

The advocacy group’s latest release highlights how easy it is to buy expired laptops, which can lead to security threats, e-waste, and wasted money.

We have been tracking the specific Chromebook models listed in the June letter that recently expired this summer and were shocked to find them still for sale with no warnings.

Retailers need to make changes to protect customers, since Chromebook support expiration dates can be unclear if they’re not included on listing pages.

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The so-called Halliburton Loophole, named after the oil and gas services company once headed by former Vice President Dick Cheney, means that the industry can use fracking fluid containing chemicals linked to negative health effects including kidney and liver disease, fertility impairment, and reduced sperm counts without being subject to regulation under the act.

The chemical most frequently reported to the database during that period was ethylene glycol, used by the industry as a friction-reducer and gelling agent, that can harm the eyes, skin, kidneys, and respiratory system and even kill humans if swallowed, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Ethylene glycol was disclosed to FracFocus more than 52,000 times, or 45 percent of all disclosures, more than twice as often as any of the other regulated chemicals, during the study period.

The second-most commonly reported fracking chemical subject to the loophole was acrylamide, another friction-reducer, which appeared in 19 percent of the cases notified to the database.

Benzene, which can cause cancer at high or prolonged exposures, was reported only 111 times but had one of the largest weights of the regulated chemicals, at 7.5 million pounds, according to the paper, titled Outcomes of the Halliburton Loophole: Chemicals regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act in U.S. Fracking Disclosures, 2014-2021.

Other regulated chemicals identified by the study include naphthalene, formaldehyde, and 1,4 dioxane, which are variously linked to negative effects on the nervous, respiratory, urinary, and gastrointestinal systems.

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