Feed aggregator

iPhone and iPad Are First Consumer Devices Cleared for NATO Classified Data

Slashdot.org - Thu, 02/26/2026 - 15:40
Apple's iPhone and iPad running iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 have become the first consumer mobile devices cleared for NATO-restricted classified data. No special software or settings are required. MacRumors reports: Apple's devices are the first and only consumer mobile products that have reached this government certification level after security testing and evaluation by the German government. iPhones and iPads running iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 are now certified for use with classified data in all NATO nations. In an announcement of the security clearance, Apple touted its security features: "Apple designs security into all of its products from the start, ensuring the most sophisticated protections are built in across hardware, software, and Apple silicon. This unique approach allows Apple users to benefit from industry-leading security protections such as best-in-class encryption, biometric authentication with Face ID, and groundbreaking features like Memory Integrity Enforcement. These same protections are now recognized as meeting stringent government and international security requirements, even for restricted data."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Firefox 148 Lets You Kill All AI Features in One Click

Slashdot.org - Thu, 02/26/2026 - 14:20
Mozilla has released Firefox 148 for Windows, macOS and Linux, bringing a new AI Settings section that lets users disable all of the browser's AI-powered features in one click and then selectively re-enable the ones they actually want, such as the local translation tool that works locally rather than in the cloud. The update also patches more than 50 security vulnerabilities -- none known to be under active exploitation -- over half of which Mozilla classifies as high risk, including five sandbox escape flaws and eight use-after-free bugs in the JavaScript engine that could allow code execution.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Old masters, new perspectives: The Gemäldegalerie in BerlinOld masters, new perspectives: The Gemäldegalerie in BerlinDirector GemäldegalerieFounder and Senior Director

GoogleBlog - Thu, 02/26/2026 - 14:00
Rediscover Berlin's Gemäldegalerie through 1,100+ gigapixel works and AI storytelling.Rediscover Berlin's Gemäldegalerie through 1,100+ gigapixel works and AI storytelling.
Categories: Technology

Google and the Massachusetts AI Hub are launching a new AI training initiative for the Commonwealth.Google and the Massachusetts AI Hub are launching a new AI training initiative for the Commonwealth.

GoogleBlog - Thu, 02/26/2026 - 13:55
Google is partnering with the Massachusetts AI Hub to provide every Baystater with no-cost access to Google’s AI training.
Categories: Technology

Which Piece of Speculative Fiction Had the Greatest Single-Day Stock Market Impact?

Slashdot.org - Thu, 02/26/2026 - 13:40
Speaking of the Citrini's blog post, which imagines a near-future AI-driven economic collapse, and which ended up help triggering the S&P 500's worst single-day drop in nearly two weeks on Monday, FT Alphaville decided to track how US stock markets have moved on the release days of notable dystopian speculative fiction throughout history. The story adds: You may contend that this is facile. We would agree. You might contend that the comparisons make no sense because it's possible to read a blog post during a single work shift, but it's tricker to complete a whole novel (or sneak out to watch a movie). We would contend: do you really think traders read? Let's begin. The methodology -- tracking S&P 500 daily moves for post-1986 releases and DJIA moves for pre-1986 ones -- crowned The Matrix as the all-time leader, its March 1999 US debut coinciding with a 1.11% drop in the index. Citrini's "The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis" came in a close second at -1.04%. On the positive end, the 2013 release of Her, a film about a man falling in love with an AI agent, coincided with the largest gain in the set at +1.66%.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Government Just Made it Harder to See What Spy Tech it Buys

Slashdot.org - Thu, 02/26/2026 - 13:01
An anonymous reader shares a report: It might look like something from the early days of the internet, with its aggressively grey color scheme and rectangles nested inside rectangles, but FPDS.gov is one of the most important resources for keeping tabs on what powerful spying tools U.S. government agencies are buying. It includes everything from phone hacking technology, to masses of location data, to more Palantir installations. Or rather, it was an incredible tool and the basis for countless of my own investigations and others. Because on Wednesday, the government shut it down. Its replacement, another site called SAM.gov with Uncle Sam branding, frankly sucks, and makes it demonstrably harder to reliably find out what agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), are spending tax payers dollars on. "FPDS may have been a little clunky, but its simple, old-school interface made it extremely functional and robust. Every facet of government operations touches on contracting at one point, and this was the first tool that many investigative journalists and researchers would reach for to quickly find out what the government is buying and who is selling it, and how these contracts all fit together," Dave Maass, director of investigations at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told me.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Get more context and understand translations more deeply with new AI-powered updates in Translate.Get more context and understand translations more deeply with new AI-powered updates in Translate.Product Manager

GoogleBlog - Thu, 02/26/2026 - 13:00
New alternatives, “understand” and “ask” buttons in Google Translate help you navigate the complexities of natural language.
Categories: Technology

The AI Case Against Indian IT Ignores What Indian IT Actually Does

Slashdot.org - Thu, 02/26/2026 - 12:20
A fictional memo set in June 2028, published by short seller Citrini Research, wiped roughly $10 billion off Indian IT stocks in a single trading session on February 24 and sent the Nifty IT index down as much as 5.3% -- its worst single-day fall since August 2023 -- on the argument that AI coding agents have collapsed the cost advantage of Indian developers to the price of electricity. The index has shed more than $68 billion in market value in February alone, its worst month since 2003. But the core claim that India's entire $205 billion software export industry rests on cheap labor is roughly 15 years out of date, an analysis argues, custom application maintenance alone accounts for about 35% of a typical Indian IT firm's revenue, per HSBC, and enterprise platforms require deterministic outputs that probabilistic AI systems cannot wholesale replace. HSBC estimates gross AI-led revenue deflation for the sector at 14-16%, a measured headwind rather than an extinction event. The story adds: 24 years of software export data that has never posted a decline, $200 billion in annual revenue, partnerships with the very AI labs whose products are supposed to be the instrument of the sector's destruction, possibly a new $1.5 trillion market category emerging at the intersection of services and software, and the largest U.S. corporates in the middle of mapping their entire workforces into process architectures that require technology partners to modernise. I think India's IT is going to be fine.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Syndicate content
Comment