You'll soon get to try out OpenAI's buzzy text-to-video generator for yourself. From a report: In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati says Sora will be available "this year" and that it "could be a few months." OpenAI first showed off Sora, which is capable of generating hyperrealistic scenes based on a text prompt, in February. The company only made the tool available for visual artists, designers, and filmmakers to start, but that didn't stop some Sora-generated videos from making their way onto platforms like X. In addition to making the tool available to the public, Murati says OpenAI has plans to "eventually" incorporate audio, which has the potential to make the scenes even more realistic. The company also wants to allow users to edit the content in the videos Sora produces, as AI tools don't always create accurate images. "We're trying to figure out how to use this technology as a tool that people can edit and create with," Murati tells the Journal. When pressed on what data OpenAI used to train Sora, Murati didn't get too specific and seemed to dodge the question.

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Ethereum has successfully completed a major software upgrade that should make using the blockchain network ecosystem cheaper. The update enables transactions that previously cost $1 on linked Layer 2 networks such as Arbitrum, Polygon, and Coinbase's Base to be executed for just a cent. The Dencun upgrade, a combination of the "Deneb" and "Cancun" portions of the update, introduces a new data storage system for Ethereum. Currently, most Layer 2 blockchains store data on Ethereum, and because this data is stored permanently on every Ethereum node, storage costs often account for around 90% of Layer 2 expenses. These costs are typically passed on to applications, which in turn charge consumers. With Dencun, Layer 2s can now store data in a new type of repository called blobs, which will be cheaper as the data will only be stored for approximately 18 days.

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Waymo will begin offering a robotaxi service to the public in Los Angeles this week and in Austin by the end of the year, the company's co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said Wednesday at SXSW. From a report: The Alphabet company has been testing and validating its driverless vehicles across about 43 square miles around downtown, Barton Hills, Riverside, East Austin and Hyde Park neighborhoods. The announcement comes about a week after Waymo started letting its autonomous vehicles traverse Austin without a safety operator behind the wheel, a critical step before the company opens the program up to the public. Opening up a robotaxi service means the public will be able to hail a ride in a driverless car via the Waymo One app. Importantly, Waymo will be able to charge for those rides. Austin will become the fourth city where Waymo operates a commercial driverless service. Waymo also operates a robotaxi service in Phoenix, San Francisco and soon Los Angeles.

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Epic Games, which makes the popular video game "Fortnite," on Wednesday accused Apple of violating an injunction governing its lucrative App Store, and asked a U.S. judge to hold Apple in contempt and end its "sham" compliance. From a report: A September 2021 injunction by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California, let developers provide links and buttons that direct consumers to other means to pay for digital content. In a filing with the California court, Epic alleged that Apple is in "blatant violation" of that injunction, despite the Cupertino, California-based company's assurance in a Jan. 16 court notice that it had "fully complied." Epic said Apple has imposed new rules and a new 27% fee on developers for some purchases, which taken together make the links "commercially unusable." The Cary, North Carolina-based developer also said Apple continues to "categorically prohibit" buttons, and still forbids some apps from telling users they have other purchasing options.

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For decades, U.S. inventors sent in models with their patent applications -- gizmos that reveal a secret history of unmet needs and relentless innovation. The New Yorker: The ruins of American invention have been recently resurrected in a former textile mill in Wilmington, Delaware. The Henry Clay Mill, now better known as Hagley Museum and Library Visitor Center, is perched on the banks of Brandywine Creek, at the southern edge of a sprawling estate once owned by the du Pont family; just upstream lies the oldest of the dynasty's several stately homes in the region, as well as the remains of the gunpowder works upon which its fortune was built. One morning, Chris Cascio, a curator, welcomed me into the mill, where the space once occupied by cotton-picking and carding machines now houses a curious exhibit: the scavenged remainders of a much larger, long-lost museum. From 1790 to 1880, Cascio explained, the U.S. Patent Office first encouraged and then required an inventor to submit a model along with each application. These models -- thousands of miniature devices, often exquisitely detailed -- were then exhibited in Washington, D.C., in the office's model gallery. Sometimes called the "Temple of Invention," the gallery was a bustling landmark: it regularly attracted up to ten thousand visitors a month and was ranked as "the greatest permanent attraction in the city," according to one newspaper. But by the late nineteenth century it had effectively shut its doors. Hagley's latest exhibit, "Nation of Inventors," is the largest permanent public display of patent models since that time. [...] The U.S. system was also unique in that no other country required a model to accompany a patent application. The reasons why soon became clear. As early as the eighteen-thirties, the collection had outgrown the Patent Office's cramped headquarters at the former Blodgett's Hotel. In 1836, a fire destroyed at least seven thousand models, but, rather than abandon the requirement, the Patent Office doubled down, securing congressional funding to reconstruct the models and laying the foundations for a truly monumental building, with a facade modelled after the Parthenon. The structure, which now houses the Smithsonian's American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, occupies an entire city block. In the engineer Pierre L'Enfant's master plan for the capital, it was intended to serve as a kind of nondenominational "church of the republic," between the White House on one side and the Capitol on the other.

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Following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to end affirmative action in college admissions, there has been increased scrutiny on legacy admissions -- the practice of giving special considerations to the relatives of alumni. Critics say this practice disproportionately benefits white students from wealthy backgrounds. Much of the discussion and research on legacy admissions focuses on Ivy League and other highly selective schools, but these colleges enroll only a small share of students. How widespread is the practice of legacy admissions? Is it common among public colleges? Brookings: In this report, we document the prevalence of legacy admissions, as reported by colleges, across higher education around the time of the SFFA decision. Legacy admissions were more often used at selective and private institutions, but a substantial minority of public and less selective institutions also considered legacy status in admissions. The use of legacy preferences appears to have been most common in the Northeast and South and least common in the West. There is substantial -- but incomplete -- overlap in the colleges that considered legacy status and those that practiced affirmative action (AA) prior to SFFA. A number of colleges, including some public colleges, said they considered relationships to alumni but not racial identity in admissions. While most state flagships don't consider legacy status in admissions, half have at least one scholarship opportunity that is catered to legacy students. Because the data are available with a lag, we do not know how many colleges have changed their legacy admissions policies in response to the Court's decision on affirmative action, but press reports and our conversations with admissions representatives indicate that some colleges have changed course in the past few years, including at least five state flagships. The effect of legacy preferences on who enrolls at a particular university may not be substantial overall. Many of the colleges that use legacy admissions are not that selective, and the scholarships for relatives of alumni are typically small. Still, even if the number of students directly displaced by legacies who had a leg up is ultimately not that large, the practice sends students the wrong signal about what's important and is contrary to the mission of a public university. In a recent survey, half of first-generation college students said they thought legacy admissions practices may have hurt their chances. Perceptions of an unfair admissions process might also make some students less likely to apply or undermine the perceived legitimacy of higher education, though we did not find research on this topic.

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Beijing has hit out at US legislation to ban TikTok as former Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin said he was assembling a consortium to buy the app from its Chinese owner. From a report: Foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Thursday that the US had shown a "robber's logic" towards the app (non-paywalled link), which has 170mn users in America. "When you see other people's good things, you must find ways to own them," Wang said. The US House of Representatives on Wednesday approved a bill that would force TikTok owner ByteDance to sell the app to a non-Chinese company within six months or be banned from US app stores. It still needs Senate approval and President Joe Biden's signature. Mnuchin said in an interview with CNBC on Thursday that he was putting together an investor group to attempt to take over the short-video app. "It's a great business," he said. "It should be owned by a US business. There's no way the Chinese would ever let a US company run something like this in China." He Yadong, spokesperson for the commerce ministry, on Thursday called on Washington to "stop unfairly suppressing foreign companies."

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A judge in the UK High Court has declared that Australian computer scientist Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, marking the end of a years-long debate. From a report: "The evidence is overwhelming," said Honourable Mr. Justice James Mellor, delivering a surprise ruling at the close of the trial. "Dr. Wright is not the author of the Bitcoin white paper. Dr. Wright is not the person that operated under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. Dr. Wright is not the person that created the Bitcoin system. Nor is Dr. Wright the author of the Bitcoin software," he said. The ruling brings to a close a six-week trial, in which the Crypto Open Patent Alliance, a nonprofit consortium of crypto companies, asked the court to declare that Wright is not Satoshi on the basis that he had allegedly fabricated his evidence and contorted his story repeatedly as new inconsistencies came to light. "After all the evidence in this remarkable trial, it is clear beyond doubt that Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto," claimed Jonathan Hough, legal counsel for COPA, as he began his closing submissions on Tuesday. "Wright has lied, and lied, and lied."

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Outdoor Voices, an athletic apparel company, is closing all its stores on Sunday, The New York Times reported this week, citing four employees at four different stores. From the report: In an internal Slack message reviewed by The New York Times, some employees were notified on Wednesday that "Outdoor Voices is embarking on a new chapter as we transition to an exclusively online business." Products in stores are going to be discounted 50 percent, according to the Slack message. The news came as a surprise, two of the employees said, adding that they were not offered severance. Outdoor Voices, which lists 16 retail locations on its website, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Founded in 2014 by Ty Haney, the brand became popular for its muted tones and highly Instagrammable aesthetics. Think matching crop tops and leggings in pale shades of earthy tones. Its hashtag and company mantra, #DoingThings, became popular on social media, where brand loyalists would regularly share images of themselves participating in athletic activities like running or hiking or spinning. The company often hosted events, like group exercise classes, and even built an editorial platform called The Recreationalist. Many Outdoor Voices customers weren't just shoppers; they were devotees. The company was a chic athleisure brand perfectly positioned to attract millennials, but it was also selling a lifestyle. A lifestyle that helped the brand raise millions in funding.

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Damage to at least three subsea cables off the west coast of Africa is disrupting internet services across the continent. From a report: The West Africa Cable System, MainOne and ACE sea cables -- arteries for telecommunications data -- were all affected on Thursday, triggering outages and connectivity issues for mobile operators and internet service providers, according to data from internet analysis firms including NetBlocks, Kentik and Cloudflare. The cause of the cable faults has not yet been determined. Data show a major disruption to connectivity in eight West African countries, with Ivory Coast, Liberia and Benin being the most affected, NetBlocks, an internet watchdog, said in a post on X. Ghana, Nigeria, and Cameroon are among other countries impacted. Several companies have also reported service disruptions in South Africa. "This is a devastating blow to internet connectivity along the west coast of Africa, which will be operating in a degraded state for weeks to come," said Doug Madory, director of internet analysis firm Kentik. The cable faults off the Ivory Coast come less than a month after three telecommunications cables were severed in the Red Sea, highlighting the vulnerability of critical communications infrastructure.

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Google announced a major change to its Safe Browsing feature in Chrome today that will make the service work in real time by checking against a server-side list -- all without sharing your browsing habits with Google. From a report: Previously, Chrome downloaded a list of known sites that harbor malware, unwanted software and phishing scams once or twice per hour. Now, Chrome will move to a system that will send the URLs you are visiting to its servers and check against a rapidly updated list there. The advantage of this is that it doesn't take up to an hour to get an updated list because, as Google notes, the average malicious site doesn't exist for more than 10 minutes. The company claims that this new server-side system can catch up to 25 percent more phishing attacks than using local lists. These local lists have also grown in size, putting more of a strain on low-end machines and low-bandwidth connections. Google is rolling out this new system to desktop and iOS users now, with Android support coming later this month.

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Amazon is telling workers to close their eyes and dream of being somewhere else while they're standing in a warehouse. From a report: A worker in one of Amazon's fulfillment centers, who we've granted anonymity, sent 404 Media a photo they took of a screen imploring them to try "savoring" the idea of something that makes them happy -- as in, not being at work, surrounded by robots and packages. "Savoring," the screen says, in a black font over a green block of color. "Close your eyes and think about something that makes you happy." Under that text -- which I can't emphasize enough: it looks like something a 6th grader would make in Powerpoint -- there's a bunch of white space, and a stock illustration of a faceless person in an Amazon vest. He's being urged on by an anthropomorphic stack of Amazon packages with wheels and arms. There's also a countdown timer that says "repeat until timer ends." In the image we saw, it said 10 seconds.

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theodp writes: Tech-backed nonprofit Code.org on Wednesday fired the latest salvo in its legal battle over $3 million in unpaid licensing fees for the use of Code.org's free [for non-commercial purposes] K-12 computer science curriculum by WhiteHat Jr., the learn-to-code edtech company with a controversial past that was bought for $300M in 2020 by Byju's, another edtech firm that received a $50M investment from Mark Zuckerberg's venture firm that still touts its ties to Zuckerberg on its Investors page. In a filing in support of a motion for default judgement, Code.org founder and CEO Hadi Partovi wrote: "Whitehat's continued use of Code.org's platform and content without payment following Code.org's termination of the Agreement has caused, and is continuing to cause, irreparable injury to Code.org, because it undermines Code.org's charitable and nonprofit purpose of expanding access to computer science in schools and increasing participation by young women and students from other underrepresented groups and because it jeopardizes Code.org's status as an organization described in Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986. As a Section 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization, Code.org may not use its assets to benefit for-profit entities without receiving fair compensation." According to the [proposed] default judgement, "Code.org is awarded the principal amount sued for of $3,000,000, along with attorneys' fees, costs, and expenses in an amount to be determined following Code.org's submission of an application, together with pre-judgment interest of $216,001.16, from May 26, 2023 to March 13, 2024, and any additional pre-judgment interest that may accrue until the date of judgment, calculated at the rate of 9% per annum pursuant to CPLR 5001 and 5004, plus any post-judgment interest at the statutory rate, for a total judgment in the amount of $[TBD]."

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Microsoft has eliminated egress fees for customers removing data from its Azure cloud, joining Amazon Web Services and Google in this move. The decision comes as the European Data Act's provisions targeting lock-in terms are set to take effect in 2025. Microsoft adds: Azure already offers the first 100GB/month of egressed data for free to all customers in all Azure regions around the world. If you need to egress more than 100GB/month, please follow these steps to claim your credit. Contact Azure Support for details on how to start the data transfer-out process. Please comply with the instructions to be eligible for the credit. Azure Support will apply the credit when the data transfer process is complete and all Azure subscriptions associated to the account have been canceled. The exemption on data transfer out to the internet fees also aligns with the European Data Act and is accessible to all Azure customers globally and from any Azure region.

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France Travail, the government agency responsible for assisting the unemployed, has fallen victim to a massive data breach exposing the personal information of up to 43 million French citizens dating back two decades, the department announced on Wednesday. The incident, which has been reported to the country's data protection watchdog (CNIL), is the latest in a series of high-profile cyber attacks targeting French government institutions and underscores the growing threat to citizens' private data. From a report: The department's statement reveals that names, dates of birth, social security numbers, France Travail identifiers, email addresses, postal addresses, and phone numbers were exposed. Passwords and banking details aren't affected, at least. That said, CNIL warned that the data stolen during this incident could be linked to stolen data in other breaches and used to build larger banks of information on any given individual. It's not clear whether the database's entire contents were stolen by attackers, but the announcement suggests that at least some of the data was extracted.

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The head of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says investigators still do not know who worked on a Boeing 737 MAX 9 door plug involved in a Jan. 5 Alaska Airlines midair emergency and that video footage was overwritten. From a report: NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said in a letter to senators that investigators sought security camera footage when the door plug was opened and closed in September but were informed the material was overwritten. "The absence of those records will complicate the NTSB's investigation moving forward," Homendy said. "To date, we still do not know who performed the work to open, reinstall, and close the door plug on the accident aircraft." The NTSB said previously four key bolts were missing from the door plug that blew out on the plane. Last week, Homendy said she spoke to Boeing CEO David Calhoun "and asked for the names of the people who performed the work. He stated he was unable to provide that information and maintained that Boeing has no records of the work being performed." Boeing said it "will continue supporting this investigation in the transparent and proactive fashion we have supported all regulatory inquiries into this accident. We have worked hard to honor the rules about the release of investigative information." A Boeing official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the planemaker standard practice is to overwrite security videos after 30 days.

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Two of the biggest manufacturers of locks used in commercial safes have been accused of essentially putting backdoors in at least some of their products in a new letter by Senator Ron Wyden. 404 Media: Wyden is urging the U.S. government to explicitly warn the public about the vulnerabilities, which Wyden says could be exploited by foreign adversaries to steal what U.S. businesses store in safes, such as trade secrets. The little known "manufacturer" or "manager" reset codes could let third parties -- such as spies or criminals -- bypass locks without the owner's consent and are sometimes not disclosed to customers. Wyden's office also found that while the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) bans such locks for sensitive and classified U.S. government use in part due to the security vulnerability reset codes pose, the government has deliberately not warned the public about the existence of these backdoors. The specific companies named in Wyden's letter are China-based SECURAM and U.S.-based Sargent and Greenleaf (S&G). Each produces keypad locks which are then implemented into safes by other manufacturers. The full list of locks that contain backdoor codes is unknown, but documentation available online points to multiple SECURAM products which do include them, and S&G confirmed to Wyden's office that some of its own locks also have similar codes.

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The Federal Communications Commission has voted to raise its Internet speed benchmark for the first time since January 2015, concluding that modern broadband service should provide at least 100Mbps download speeds and 20Mbps upload speeds. From a report: An FCC press release after today's 3-2 vote said the 100Mbps/20Mbps benchmark "is based on the standards now used in multiple federal and state programs," such as those used to distribute funding to expand networks. The new benchmark also reflects "consumer usage patterns, and what is actually available from and marketed by Internet service providers," the FCC said. The previous standard of 25Mbps downstream and 3Mbps upstream lasted through the entire Trump era and most of President Biden's term. There has been a clear partisan divide on the speed standard, with Democrats pushing for a higher benchmark and Republicans arguing that it shouldn't be raised. The standard is partly symbolic but can indirectly impact potential FCC regulations. The FCC is required under US law to regularly evaluate whether "advanced telecommunications capability is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion" and to "take immediate action to accelerate deployment" and promote competition if current deployment is not "reasonable and timely."

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India will lower import taxes on certain electric vehicles for companies committing to invest at least $500 million and setting up a local manufacturing facility within three years, a policy shift that could potentially bolster Tesla's plans to enter the South Asian market. From a report: Companies must invest a minimum of $500 million in the country and will have three years to establish local manufacturing for EVs with at least 25% of components sourced domestically, according to a government press release on Friday. Firms meeting these requirements will be allowed to import 8,000 EVs a year at a reduced import duty of 15% on cars costing $35,000 and above. India currently levies a tax of 70% to 100% on imported cars depending on their value. The policy change is likely going to pave the way for Tesla to enter India, as the Elon Musk-led company has been in talks with the government to lower import duties on its electric cars for years. The move also aligns with India's goal to boost the adoption of EVs and reduce its dependence on oil imports, with the country setting a target of achieving 30% electric car sales by 2030.

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