A security researcher discovered and fixed a critical domain name server misconfiguration in Mastercard's systems that persisted undetected for nearly five years, potentially exposing the credit card giant to traffic interception risks. Philippe Caturegli, founder of security firm Seralys, found that one of Mastercard's five DNS servers incorrectly pointed to "akam.ne" instead of "akam.net" from June 2020 to January 2025. He spent $300 to register the domain through Niger's domain authority to prevent potential exploitation. Mastercard said the typo has been corrected, insisting there was "not a risk to our systems."

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YouTube Premium subscribers can now stream music videos at 256kbps bitrate audio quality, matching the high-fidelity standard previously exclusive to YouTube Music, the video platform said. The audio upgrade comes as part of an expanded experimental features program that allows Premium users to test multiple new features simultaneously, departing from its previous single-experiment limitation, the company said.

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Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said Wednesday that current business leaders may be the last generation to manage an exclusively human workforce, as AI transforms the workplace. "We are really moving into a world now of managing humans and agents together," he told Axios. His company's Agentforce platform, launched in September, has taken over many customer support tasks, prompting plans to move support staff into sales roles. Speaking to Axios at the World Economic Forum, Benioff dismissed Microsoft's AI CoPilot as disappointing and promised to defend his employees against discrimination amid political debates over corporate diversity programs.

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Santee Cooper, the big power provider in South Carolina, has tapped financial advisers to look for buyers that can restart construction on a pair of nuclear reactors that were mothballed years ago. From a report: The state-owned utility is betting interest will be strong, with tech giants such as Amazon.com and Microsoft in need of clean energy to fuel data centers for artificial-intelligence capabilities. The details Santee Cooper announced Wednesday it is seeking proposals for buyers to complete the project at South Carolina's sprawling V.C. Summer Nuclear Station, confirming an earlier report from The Wall Street Journal. The utility is working with bankers at Centerview Partners, which will accept proposals until May 5. Santee Cooper will likely look to tap a consortium that could include a construction firm, a tech company that will use the power and an additional partner for capital, according to people familiar with the matter. It is also looking for another power company partner because it doesn't plan to own or operate the units once they are up and running.

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Search in Premiere Pro has been updated with AI-powered visual recognition, allowing users to find videos by describing the contents of the footage. From a report: It's just one of several quality-of-life features Adobe is adding to Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Frame.io that aim to save video editors time on their projects. Users can enter search terms like "a person skating with a lens flare" to find corresponding clips within their media library. Adobe says the media intelligence AI can automatically recognize "objects, locations, camera angles, and more," alongside spoken words -- providing there's a transcript attached to the video. The feature doesn't detect audio or identify specific people, but it can scrub through any metadata attached to video files, which allows it to fetch clips based on shoot dates, locations, and camera types. The media analysis runs on-device, so doesn't require an internet connection, and Adobe reiterates that users' video content isn't used to train any AI models.

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Microsoft will pay to restore parts of Brazil's Amazon and Atlantic forests [non-paywalled source] in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of carbon credits, becoming the latest Big Tech player to bet that nature-based solutions can offset an artificial intelligence-driven surge in greenhouse gas emissions. Financial Times: The $3.2tn US company told the Financial Times it had signed a deal to buy 3.5mn credits over 25 years from Re.green, a Brazilian start-up which buys up farming and cattle land. It restores the land by planting native tree species, in projects financed through carbon credits and timber sales. Neither company disclosed a value for the deal, but recent market analysis suggests it could be worth around $200mn. Microsoft's recent dealmaking has made it one of the biggest buyers of nature-based carbon removals globally. The deal comes as groups including Microsoft, Google and Amazon invest heavily in data centres to cope with the huge demand stemming from the growth of generative AI. But the buildout is leading to a surge in their energy usage and complicating their pledges to investors to curb emissions.

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OpenAI will release "Operator" this week, letting ChatGPT users automate web tasks through a built-in browser, The Information reported Wednesday. The feature handles restaurant bookings, travel planning, shopping and deliveries, asking follow-up questions like party size for reservations. Users can watch Operator work, take control mid-task, and share workflows with others.

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Streaming platform Plex has introduced public reviews and user profiles, expanding social features launched last October. Users can now comment on others' reviews and make their profiles, watchlists and viewing history searchable, with customizable privacy settings ranging from public to private. Plex Pass subscribers are additionally also gaining access to HEVC encoding for improved visual quality.

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Netflix will raise prices on most U.S. and Canadian subscription tiers after adding a record 19 million subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2024, bringing its global total to 302 million users. The standard plan without ads will increase to $17.99 from $15.49, while its premium tier rises $2 to $24.99. The ad-supported tier will cost $7.99, up $1. The streaming service's quarterly revenue topped $10 billion for the first time, jumping 16%, while operating income rose 52% to $2.3 billion. The company credited recent successes including the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul boxing match and "Squid Game" season two for the subscriber surge.

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Alphabet's Google is backing AI developer Anthropic with a further $1 billion, building its stake in one of the most promising rivals to OpenAI. From a report: The new funding comes in addition to more than $2 billion that Google has already invested in Anthropic, according to a person familiar with the deal, who asked not to be named discussing a private matter. Google has a business agreement with Anthropic that covers the use of a suite of online tools and services. Amazon counts among its biggest backers. San Francisco-based Anthropic is best known for its Claude family of large language models, which compete with OpenAI's GPT. Like its peers, the company has been raising significant sums to sustain investment in expanding its computing capabilities and keep pace in a race to advance AI. The new deal comes weeks after Bloomberg News reported that Anthropic is in advanced talks to raise $2 billion in a funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners that would value the startup at $60 billion.

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Cloudflare blocked 21.3 million DDoS attacks in 2024, including a record-breaking 5.6 terabit-per-second strike that targeted an Asian internet service provider last October. The yearly total marked a 53% increase from 2023. The 80-second October attack, which originated from over 13,000 compromised Internet of Things devices running Mirai malware variant, highlighted an alarming trend: hyper-volumetric attacks exceeding 1 terabit per second grew by 1,885% in the fourth quarter compared to the previous quarter. Ransom DDoS attacks, where criminals threatened organizations with service disruptions unless paid, rose 78% in the same period.

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Microsoft, the biggest investor in OpenAI and its principal cloud partner, is losing its designation as exclusive provider of computing capacity for the artificial intelligence startup. CNBC: In a blog post on Tuesday, Microsoft said that it's still in a favorable position with OpenAI. Going forward, when OpenAI seeks additional capacity, Microsoft will have the "right of first refusal" before OpenAI checks with other parties. The change in their relationship was disclosed as part of President Donald Trump's announcement of the Stargate Project, a joint venture with OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank to invest billions of dollars in AI infrastructure in the U.S. Executives from those companies committed to invest an initial $100 billion and up to $500 billion over the next four years in the project, which will be set up as a separate company. Oracle is a "key initial technology partner" alongside Arm, Microsoft and Nvidia in setting up data center infrastructure, OpenAI said in a blog post. JPMorgan, in a note to clients: My takeaway is that MSFT is somewhat reading the room on capex. Softbank and Oracle are taking on some of the financial burden (in order to get some skin in the game) while MSFT still maintains access to OpenAI IP through to 2030 and has right of first refusal on any OpenAI new capacity. Feels like a good outcome for MSFT to me.

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More than half of video game developers reported their companies are using generative AI in game development, according to an annual survey released Tuesday. The Game Developers Conference (GDC) report found that 52% of developers worked at companies using AI tools, while 30% felt negatively about the technology, up from 18% last year. Only 13% believed AI had a positive impact on games, down from 21% in 2024. One in 10 developers lost their jobs over the past year, with some reporting extended periods of unemployment. One developer cited in a Wired story said they submitted 500 job applications without success, while another reported being laid off three times in the last year. Covid-era over-expansion, unrealistic expectations, and poor management are being identified as key factors behind the industry's troubles.

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Britain will launch a digital wallet app later this year allowing citizens to store government documents on their smartphones, UK Science Secretary Peter Kyle announced on Tuesday. The GOV.UK Wallet, available on Android and iOS, will first support veteran cards followed by driver's licenses in late 2025, with plans to eventually include passports, marriage certificates and benefit documents. The app will use facial recognition for security. "The overflowing drawer rammed with letters from the government and hours spent on hold to get a basic appointment will soon be consigned to history," Kyle said. The Labour government aims to have all UK agencies offering digital alternatives to physical documents by 2027. Officials said users can recover their digital credentials if phones are lost, adding the system complies with existing data protection laws.

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The United States will withdraw from the World Health Organization, according to an executive order signed by President Donald Trump, who cited WHO's mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic and demands for "unfairly onerous payments" from Washington. The order -- which takes a year to go into effect -- halts U.S. funding to WHO and recalls American personnel working with the organization. It also revokes a January 2021 letter that had kept the U.S. in WHO after an earlier withdrawal attempt. The White House ordered officials to find new partners to take over WHO-led activities and directed a review of the 2024 U.S. Global Health Security Strategy.

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Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang is taking out a full-page ad in The Washington Post on Tuesday with a succinct message for the new US commander-in-chief: "Dear President Trump, America must win the AI war." From a report: The ad also pointed readers to a five-point plan that would reorient the federal government to invest more in the technology and overhaul priorities for that funding. In an exclusive interview with Semafor, Wang said he was motivated to make his recommendations by a new White House that is both planning to aggressively support new technology and courting input from the industry. "They're listening," he said. "This incoming administration wants to move fast and take a lot of action and really be quite ambitious about a lot of these issues." [...] "What's undeniable, if you think about what the future is going to look like, is the degree to which the amount of computational capability you have will be directly related to how strong your AI capabilities are," Wang said before he arrived at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Wang also recommends the US government should make a larger effort to cut the red tape on new energy production, inviting pent-up demand for private sector investment in the area.

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EFishery, one of Indonesia's most prominent startups, may have inflated its revenue and profit over several years, according to an internal investigation triggered by a whistleblower's claim about the company's accounting. Bloomberg News: A preliminary, ongoing probe into the agritech startup, backed by investors including SoftBank and Temasek, estimates that management inflated revenue by almost $600 million in the nine months through September last year, according to a 52-page draft report circulated among investors and reviewed by Bloomberg News. That would mean more than 75% of the reported figures were fake, the report said. EFishery, which deploys feeders to fish and shrimp farmers in Indonesia, was a darling of the nation's startup scene and scored a valuation of $1.4 billion when G42, an AI firm controlled by United Arab Emirates royal Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, backed its latest funding round. It has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in an attempt to modernize the country's fish industry, providing farmers with smart feeding devices as well as feed, and then buying their produce to sell into the broader market.

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Migrating from VMware's virtualization platform could take up to four years and cost organizations between $300 and $3,000 per virtual machine, Gartner has warned in a new report. Companies running 2,000 or more virtual machines will need up to 10 full-time staff for initial assessment and another six employees for a nine-month technical evaluation, according to Gartner.

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More than 40% of individual corals monitored around a Great Barrier Reef island were killed last year in the most widespread coral bleaching outbreak to hit the reef system, a study has found. The Guardian: Scientists tracked 462 colonies of corals at One Tree Island in the southern part of the Great Barrier Reef after heat stress began to turn the corals white in early 2024. Researchers said they encountered "catastrophic" scenes at the reef. Only 92 coral colonies escaped bleaching entirely and by July, when the analysis for the study ended, 193 were dead and a further 113 were still showing signs of bleaching. Prof Maria Byrne, a marine biologist at the University of Sydney and lead author of the study, has been researching and visiting the island for 35 years.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Brendan Carr is now formally the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, giving him the power to set the agency's agenda and usher through a host of regulations with major implications for the tech and media industries as soon as he has a Republican majority. In a statement, Carr named a few areas of focus: "issues ranging from tech and media regulation to unleashing new opportunities for jobs and growth through agency actions on spectrum, infrastructure, and the space economy." Carr's priorities might also be gleaned from a document you might have already heard about: Project 2025. That's because he authored the FCC chapter of the Heritage Foundation's wishlist for a Donald Trump presidency. In that chapter, Carr proposes actions including: limiting immunity for tech companies under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, requiring disclosures about how platforms prioritize content, requiring tech companies to pay into a program that funds broadband access in rural areas, and more, quickly approving applications to launch satellites from companies like Elon Musk's Starlink.

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