It seems no industry is safe from consolidation, and the latest target is gaming media. From a report: IGN Entertainment has acquired the website portfolio of UK publisher Gamer Network, which operates a number of beloved games-focused publications. That list includes Gamesindustry.biz, Eurogamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, VG247, and the tabletop site Dicebreaker. The network also holds shares in sites like Nintendo Life and Digital Foundry. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Gamesindustry.biz reports that "some redundancies" have been made across the sites, though it's not clear how many workers have been impacted. According to several posts on X, editors at both Rock Paper Shotgun and Gamesindustry.biz have been laid off. IGN Entertainment is owned by Ziff Davis, which, in addition to IGN's site, also operates other subsidiaries like Humble Bundle.

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Apple said on Tuesday it plans to ask a U.S. judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department and 15 states in March that alleged the iPhone maker monopolized the smartphone market, hurt smaller rivals and drove up prices. From a report: In a letter to U.S. District Judge Julien X. Neals in New Jersey, Apple said "far from being a monopolist, Apple faces fierce competition from well-established rivals, and the complaint fails to allege that Apple has the ability to charge supra-competitive prices or restrict output in the alleged smartphone markets." In the letter to the judge, Apple said the DOJ relies on a new "theory of antitrust liability that no court has recognized." The government is expected to respond within seven days to the Apple letter, which the court requires parties to submit, hoping to expedite cases before advancing to a potentially more robust and expensive effort to dismiss a lawsuit. The Justice Department alleges that Apple uses its market power to get more money from consumers, developers, content creators, artists, publishers, small businesses and merchants. The civil lawsuit accuses Apple of an illegal monopoly on smartphones maintained by imposing contractual restrictions on, and withholding critical access from, developers.

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Companies working with the US government may be required to start protecting their data and technology from attacks by quantum computers as soon as July. From a report: The National Institute for Standards and Technology, part of the Department of Commerce, will in July stipulate three types of encryption algorithms the agency deems sufficient for protecting data from quantum computers, setting an internationally-recognized standard aimed at helping organizations manage evolving cybersecurity threats. The rollout of the standards will kick off "the transition to the next generation of cryptography," White House deputy national security adviser Anne Neuberger told Bloomberg in Cambridge, England on Tuesday. Breaking encryption not only threatens "national security secrets" but also the the way we secure the internet, online payments and bank transactions, she added. Neuberger was speaking at an event organized by the University of Cambridge and Vanderbilt University, hosting academics, industry professionals and government officials to discuss the threats posed to cybersecurity by quantum computing, which vastly accelerates processing power by performing calculations in parallel rather than sequentially and will make existing encryption systems obsolete.

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Major oil companies have in recent years made splashy climate pledges to cut their greenhouse gas emissions and take on the climate crisis, but a new report suggests those plans do not stand up to scrutiny. From a report: The research and advocacy group Oil Change International examined climate plans from the eight largest US- and European-based international oil and gas producers -- BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Eni, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies -- and found none were compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels -- a threshold scientists have long warned could have dire consequences if breached. "There is no evidence that big oil and gas companies are acting seriously to be part of the energy transition," David Tong, global industry campaign manager at Oil Change International, who co-authored the analysis, said in a statement. The report's authors used 10 criteria and ranked each aspect of each companyâ(TM)s plan on a spectrum from "fully aligned" to "grossly insufficient" and found all eight companies ranked "grossly insufficient" or "insufficient" on nearly all criteria. The US firms Chevron, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil each ranked "grossly insufficient" on all 10 criteria. "American fossil-fuel corporations are the worst of the worst," Allie Rosenbluth, US program manager at Oil Change International, said in a statement.

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Alphabet's moonshot factory, X, is scaling back its ambitious projects amid concerns over Google's core search business facing competition from AI chatbots like ChatGPT. The lab, once a symbol of Google's commitment to innovation, is now spinning off projects as startups rather than integrating them into Alphabet. The shift reflects a broader trend among tech giants, who are cutting costs and focusing on their core businesses in response to the rapidly evolving AI landscape.

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Microsoft is planning to either add subtitles or even dub video produced by major video sites, using AI to translate the audio into foreign languages within Microsoft Edge in real time. From a report: At its Microsoft Build developer conference, Microsoft named several sites that would benefit from the new real-time translation capabilities within Edge, including Reuters, CNBC News, Bloomberg, and Coursera, plus Microsoft's own LinkedIn. Interestingly, Microsoft also named Google's YouTube as a beneficiary of the translation capabilities. Microsoft plans to translate the video from Spanish to English and from English to German, Hindi, Italian, Russian, and Spanish. There are plans to add additional languages and video platforms in the future, Microsoft said.

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Microsoft is partnering with tutoring organization Khan Academy to provide a generative AI assistant to all teachers in the U.S. for free. From a report: Khanmigo for Teachers, which helps teachers prepare lessons for class, is free to all educators in the U.S. as of Tuesday. The program can help create lessons, analyze student performance, plan assignments, and provide teachers with opportunities to enhance their own learning. "Unlike most things in technology and education in the past where this is a 'nice-to-have,' this is a 'must-have' for a lot of teachers," Sal Khan, founder and CEO of Khan Academy, said in a CNBC "Squawk Box" interview last Friday ahead of the deal. Khan Academy has roughly 170 million registered users in over 50 languages around the world, and while its videos are best known, its interactive exercise platform was one which Microsoft-funded artificial intelligence company OpenAI's top executives, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, zeroed in on early when they were looking for a partner to pilot GPT with that offered socially positive use cases.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Scams are all over the internet, and AI is making matters worse (no, Taylor Swift didn't giveaway Le Creuset pans, and Tom Hanks didn't promote a dental plan). Now, companies such as Match Group, Meta and Coinbase are launching Tech Against Scams, a new coalition focused on collaboration to prevent online fraud and financial schemes. They will "collaborate on ways to take action against the tools used by scammers, educate and protect consumers and disrupt rapidly evolving financial scams." Meta, Coinbase and Match Group -- which owns Hinge and Tinder -- first joined forces on this issue last summer but are now teaming up with additional digital, social media and crypto companies, along with the Global Anti-Scam Organization. A major focus of this coalition is pig butchering scams, a type of fraud in which a scammer tricks someone into giving them more and more money through trusting digital relationships, both romantic and platonic in nature.

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday urged water utilities to take action to improve their digital defenses, following a spate of recent cyberattacks. From a report: The agency's "enforcement alert" said that recent inspections of water systems found that more than 70 percent fail to meet basic cybersecurity standards, including some with "critical" vulnerabilities, such as relying on default passwords that haven't been updated and single logins that "can easily be compromised." The notice comes after a Russian hacktivist group claimed credit for digital assaults on water sites in Texas and Indiana. Late last year, Iran-linked Cyber Av3ngers group took responsibility for striking a water authority in Pennsylvania.

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Actress Scarlett Johansson's legal team has sent two letters to OpenAI, demanding the company disclose how it developed an AI personal assistant voice that the actress claims sounds uncannily similar to her own. The controversy was prompted after OpenAI held a live demonstration of the voice, dubbed "Sky," which many observers compared to Johansson's voice in the 2013 film "Her." OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had approached Johansson months prior and as recently as two days before the event, proposing to license her voice for the new ChatGPT voice assistant, but she declined the offer, she said. Johansson said she was "shocked and angered" at the similarity between the AI voice and her own, stating, "in a time when we are all grappling with deepfakes and the protection of our own likeness, our own work, our own identities, I believe these are questions that deserve absolute clarity." OpenAI denied any connection between Johansson and the "Sky" voice, claiming it was developed from the voice of another actress. The company paused using the voice in its products on Monday.

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Microsoft today launched its new Surface Laptop, featuring Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite or Plus chips, aiming to compete with Apple's powerful and efficient MacBook laptops. The Surface Laptop, available for preorder starting at $999.99, boasts up to 22 hours of battery life, a haptic touchpad, and support for three external 4K monitors. Microsoft claims the device is 80% faster than its predecessor and comes with AI features powered by its Copilot technology.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Google is pouncing on Microsoft's weathered enterprise security reputation by pitching its services to government institutions. Pointing to a recent report from the US Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB) that found that Microsoft's security woes are the result of the company "deprioritizing" enterprise security, Google says it can help. The company's pitch isn't quite as direct as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella saying he made Google dance, but it's spicy all the same. Repeatedly referring to Microsoft as "the vendor" throughout its blog post on Monday, Google says the CSRB "showed that lack of a strong commitment to security creates preventable errors and serious breaches." Platforms, it added, "have a responsibility" to hold to strong security practices. And of course, who is more responsible than Google?

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Microsoft today unveiled Recall, a new AI-powered feature for Windows 11 PCs, at its Build 2024 conference. Recall aims to improve local searches by making them as efficient as web searches, allowing users to quickly retrieve anything they've seen on their PC. Using voice commands and contextual clues, Recall can find specific emails, documents, chat threads, and even PowerPoint slides. The feature uses semantic associations to make connections, as demonstrated by Microsoft Product Manager Caroline Hernandez, who searched for a blue dress and refined the query with specific details. Microsoft said that Recall's processing is done locally, ensuring data privacy and security. The feature utilizes over 40 local multi-modal small language models to recognize text, images, and video.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Hims & Hers Health, one of the online pharmacies that got its start prescribing dick pills, is now offering knockoff versions of GLP-1 weight loss drugs. Hims & Hers says it will offer drugs that mimic Ozempic and Wegovy, the active ingredient of which is semaglutide. The copycat versions are made by compounding pharmacies. The formulations aren't the same as the FDA-approved versions of the drug and haven't been directly evaluated by the FDA, either. But they're cheaper than the real thing: $199 a month, compared to the branded version, which can cost more than $1,000 a month without insurance. Compounding pharmacies can make knockoff versions of branded drugs when they are in shortage, as the GLP-1 drugs -- prescribed for diabetes and weight loss -- currently are. The FDA has already received reports of adverse events for compounded versions of semaglutide. Hims & Hers says it "conducted extensive research for over a year" into finding a supplier, but does not name the one it chose to partner with. "Over the last year, we have grown in our conviction -- based on our medical experts' evaluation and the strength of our infrastructure -- that if done properly, compounded GLP-1s are safe and effective," the company said in its statement.

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Microplastics have been found in human testicles, with researchers saying the discovery might be linked to declining sperm counts in men. From a report: The scientists tested 23 human testes, as well as 47 testes from pet dogs. They found microplastic pollution in every sample. The human testicles had been preserved and so their sperm count could not be measured. However, the sperm count in the dogs' testes could be assessed and was lower in samples with higher contamination with PVC. The study demonstrates a correlation but further research is needed to prove microplastics cause sperm counts to fall. Sperm counts in men have been falling for decades, with chemical pollution such as pesticides implicated by many studies. Microplastics have also recently been discovered in human blood, placentas and breast milk, indicating widespread contamination of people's bodies. The impact on health is as yet unknown but microplastics have been shown to cause damage to human cells in the laboratory. Vast amounts of plastic waste are dumped in the environment and microplastics have polluted the entire planet, from the summit of Mount Everest to the deepest oceans. People are known to consume the tiny particles via food and water as well as breathing them in. The particles could lodge in tissue and cause inflammation, as air pollution particles do, or chemicals in the plastics could cause harm. In March, doctors warned of potentially life-threatening effects after finding a substantially raised risk of stroke, heart attack and earlier death in people whose blood vessels were contaminated with microscopic plastics.

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An Australian computer scientist who claimed he invented bitcoin lied "extensively and repeatedly" and forged documents "on a grand scale" to support his false claim, a judge at London's High Court ruled on Monday. From a report: [...] Judge James Mellor ruled in March that the evidence Craig Wright was not Satoshi was "overwhelming", after a trial in a case brought by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) to stop Wright suing bitcoin developers. Mellor gave reasons for his conclusions on Monday, stating in a written ruling: "Dr Wright presents himself as an extremely clever person. However, in my judgment, he is not nearly as clever as he thinks he is." The judge added: "All his lies and forged documents were in support of his biggest lie: his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto."

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OpenAI is pausing the use of the popular Sky voice in ChatGPT over concerns it sounds too much like the "Her" actress Scarlett Johansson. From a report: The company says the voices in ChatGPT were from paid voice actors. A final five were selected from an initial pool of 400 and it's purely a coincidence the unnamed actress behind the Sky voice has a similar tone to Johansson. Voice is about to become more prominent for OpenAI as it begins to roll out a new GPT-4o model into ChatGPT. With it will come an entirely new conversational interface where users can talk in real-time to a natural-sounding and emotion-mimicking AI. While the Sky voice and a version of ChatGPT Voice have been around for some time, the comparison to Johansson became more obvious due to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and many others, drawing the similarity between the new AI model and the movie "Her". In "Her," Scarlett Johansson voices an advanced AI operating system named Samantha, who develops a romantic relationship with a lonely writer played by Joaquin Phoenix. With its ability to mimic emotional responses, the parallels from GPT-4o were obvious.

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A new Pew Research Center analysis shows just how fleeting online content actually is: 1. A quarter of all webpages that existed at one point between 2013 and 2023 are no longer accessible, as of October 2023. In most cases, this is because an individual page was deleted or removed on an otherwise functional website. 2. For older content, this trend is even starker. Some 38% of webpages that existed in 2013 are not available today, compared with 8% of pages that existed in 2023. This "digital decay" occurs in many different online spaces. We examined the links that appear on government and news websites, as well as in the "References" section of Wikipedia pages as of spring 2023. This analysis found that: 1. 23% of news webpages contain at least one broken link, as do 21% of webpages from government sites. News sites with a high level of site traffic and those with less are about equally likely to contain broken links. Local-level government webpages (those belonging to city governments) are especially likely to have broken links. 2. 54% of Wikipedia pages contain at least one link in their "References" section that points to a page that no longer exists.[...]

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Julian Assange has won a victory in his ongoing battle against extradition from the UK after judges at the high court in London granted him leave to appeal. From a report: Two judges deferred a decision in March on whether Assange, who is trying to avoid being prosecuted in the US on espionage charges relating to the publication of thousands of classified and diplomatic documents, could take his case to another appeal hearing. Assange had been granted permission to appeal only if the Biden administration was unable to provide the court with suitable assurances "that the applicant [Assange] is permitted to rely on the first amendment, that the applicant is not prejudiced at trial, including sentence, by reason of his nationality, that he is afforded the same first amendment [free speech] protections as a United States citizen, and that the death penalty is not imposed." Legal argument on Monday focused on the issue of whether Assange would be allowed first amendment protections. Assange's team did not contest the assurance around the death penalty, accepting that it was an "unambiguous executive promise." Assange has been indicted on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse, exposing him to a maximum 175 years in prison, over his website's publication of a trove of classified US documents almost 15 years ago.

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