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ByteDance Suspends Seedance 2 Feature That Turns Facial Photos Into Personal Voices Over Potential Risks
hackingbear writes: China's Bytedance has released Seedance 2.0, an AI video generator which handles up to four types of input at once: images, videos, audio, and text. Users can combine up to nine images, three videos, and three audio files, up to a total of twelve files. Generated videos run between 4 and 15 [or 60] seconds long and automatically come with sound effects or music.
Its performance is unfortunately so good that it has forced the firm to block its facial-to-voice feature after the model reportedly demonstrated the ability to generate highly accurate personal voice characteristics using only facial images, even without user authorization.
In a recent test, Pan Tianhong, founder of tech media outlet MediaStorm, discovered that uploading a personal facial photo caused the model to produce audio nearly identical to his real voice -- without using any voice samples or authorized data. [...]
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
New Linux botnet SSHStalker uses old-school IRC for C2 comms - BleepingComputer
New Linux botnet SSHStalker uses old-school IRC for C2 comms BleepingComputer
Categories: Linux
New Linux botnet SSHStalker uses old-school IRC for C2 comms - BleepingComputer
New Linux botnet SSHStalker uses old-school IRC for C2 comms BleepingComputer
Categories: Linux
New Linux botnet SSHStalker uses old-school IRC for C2 comms - BleepingComputer
New Linux botnet SSHStalker uses old-school IRC for C2 comms BleepingComputer
Categories: Linux
New Linux botnet SSHStalker uses old-school IRC for C2 comms - BleepingComputer
New Linux botnet SSHStalker uses old-school IRC for C2 comms BleepingComputer
Categories: Linux
White House Eyes Data Center Agreements Amid Energy Price Spikes
An anonymous reader shares a report: The Trump administration wants some of the world's largest technology companies to publicly commit to a new compact governing the rapid expansion of AI data centers, according to two administration officials granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.
A draft of the compact obtained by POLITICO lays out commitments designed to ensure energy-hungry data centers do not raise household electricity prices, strain water supplies or undermine grid reliability, and that the companies driving demand also carry the cost of building new infrastructure.
The proposed pact, which is not final and could be subject to change, is framed as a voluntary agreement between President Donald Trump and major U.S. tech companies and data center developers. It could bind OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook parent Meta and other AI giants to a broad set of energy, water and community principles. None of these companies immediately responded to a request for comment.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Linux 7.0 Scheduler Updates Land Time Slice Extension, Performance & Scalability Work - Phoronix
Categories: Linux
Lost Soviet Moon Lander May Have Been Found
An anonymous reader shares a report: In 1966, a beach-ball-size robot bounced across the moon. Once it rolled to a stop, its four petal-like covers opened, exposing a camera that sent back the first picture taken on the surface of another world. This was Luna 9, the Soviet lander that was the earliest spacecraft to safely touchdown on the moon. While it paved the way toward interplanetary exploration, Luna 9's precise whereabouts have remained a mystery ever since.
That may soon change. Two research teams think they might have tracked down the long-lost remains of Luna 9. But there's a catch: The teams do not agree on the location. "One of them is wrong," said Anatoly Zak, a space journalist and author who runs RussianSpaceWeb.com and reported on the story last week. The dueling finds highlight a strange fact of the early moon race: The precise resting places of a number of spacecraft that crashed or landed on the moon in the run up to NASA's Apollo missions are lost to obscurity. A newer generation of spacecraft may at last resolve these mysteries.
Luna 9 launched to the moon on Jan. 31, 1966. While a number of spacecraft had crashed into the lunar surface at that stage of the moon race, it was among the earliest to try what rocket engineers call a soft landing. Its core unit, a spherical suite of scientific instruments, was about two feet across. That size makes it difficult to spot from orbit. "Luna 9 is a very, very small vehicle," said Mark Robinson, a geologist at the company Intuitive Machines, which has twice landed spacecraft on the moon.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Google's Personal Data Removal Tool Now Covers Government IDs
Google on Tuesday expanded its "Results about you" tool to let users request the removal of Search results containing government-issued ID numbers -- including driver's licenses, passports and Social Security numbers -- adding to the tool's existing ability to flag results that surface phone numbers, email addresses, and home addresses.
The update, announced on Safer Internet Day, is rolling out in the U.S. over the coming days. Google also streamlined its process for reporting non-consensual explicit images on Search, allowing users to select and submit removal requests for multiple images at once rather than reporting them individually.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The US Is Flirting With Its First-Ever Population Decline
The U.S., whose population the Census Bureau did not expect to start shrinking until 2081, may record its first-ever decline as early as this year because of the Trump administration's accelerating immigration crackdown. Census data released in late January showed US population growth slowed to just 0.5% in the year prior to July 2025 -- the lowest rate since the pandemic -- as net migration fell to 1.3 million from a peak of 2.7 million the year before.
Census experts now expect net migration to drop to only 316,000 in the year prior to July 2026 and say the country is "trending toward negative net migration." A joint study by researchers at the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution estimates that 2026 net immigration could range from a gain of 185,000 to a loss of 925,000. Births exceeded deaths by just 519,000 in the most recent period, a surplus the Congressional Budget Office expects to vanish by 2030. At the low end of the AEI/Brookings range, the overall US population would shrink by more than 400,000 -- something that has never happened since the country began taking censuses in 1790.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
GeForce Now on Linux Feels Like a Real Turning Point for Cloud Gaming - Comics Gaming Magazine
GeForce Now on Linux Feels Like a Real Turning Point for Cloud Gaming Comics Gaming Magazine
Categories: Linux
Linux 7.0 Bringing Mainline Support For The SpacemiT K3 RVA23 SoC, Qualcomm Kaanapali - Phoronix
Categories: Linux
Handmade by human hands using machines - Digg
Categories: Linux
Waydog Linux Revives Old PCs With Modern Look - findarticles.com
Waydog Linux Revives Old PCs With Modern Look findarticles.com
Categories: Linux
Microsoft Begins the First-Ever Secure Boot Certificate Swap Across Windows Ecosystem
Microsoft has begun automatically replacing the original Secure Boot security certificates on Windows devices through regular monthly updates, a necessary move given that the 15-year-old certificates first issued in 2011 are set to expire between late June and October 2026.
Secure Boot, which verifies that only trusted and digitally signed software runs before Windows loads, became a hardware requirement for Windows 11. A new batch of certificates was issued in 2023 and already ships on most PCs built since 2024; nearly all devices shipped in 2025 include them by default. Older hardware is now receiving the updated certificates through Windows Update, starting last month's KB5074109 release for Windows 11. Devices that don't receive the new certificates before expiration will still function but enter what Microsoft calls a "degraded security state," unable to receive future boot-level protections and potentially facing compatibility issues down the line.
Windows 10 users must enroll in Microsoft's paid Extended Security Updates program to get the new certificates. A small number of devices may also need a separate firmware update from their manufacturer before the Windows-delivered certificates can be applied.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
9 fun questions to try asking Google Photos9 fun questions to try asking Google PhotosContributor
Learn more about Google Photos’ new Ask button as well as other functions of its Ask Photos feature.Learn more about Google Photos’ new Ask button as well as other functions of its Ask Photos feature.
Categories: Technology