Brands Love Influencers (Until Politics Get Involved)
- August 16, 2024
Marketing firms are using artificial intelligence to help analyze influencers and predict whether they will opine about the election.
Microsoft boosts Windows’ FAT32 partition size limit after nearly three decades
- August 16, 2024
Microsoft righted an age-old “wrong” (at least for those who geek out on disk formatting) earlier this week. With its latest Windows 11 Insider Canary Preview Build (via The Verge), the company increased the maximum FAT32 partition size limit from 32GB to 2TB when using the command line. The boost from the previous limit, which its creator thought would be limited to the lifespan of Windows NT 4.0, comes after 28 years.
FAT32 isn’t widely used today. Even SD cards, the last holdout, have mostly moved to exFAT. (FAT32 has other limitations for the modern world, like a 4GB file size limit.) So, the move appears to be more about making amends — a Windows geek’s equivalent of pardoning a historical figure who’s been dead for a century — than a practical change that will affect people today. The fact that the Windows GUI partitioning tool still includes the 32GB partition cap further decreases the odds that many will find much tangible benefit from the move.
In a 2021 video on his “Dave’s Garage” YouTube channel, retired Microsoft system engineer Dave Plummer explained why he chose the 32GB partition cap. When he picked the limit “on a rainy Tuesday morning” in the mid-90s, he thought it would have an extremely short lifespan and would see an increase in the next revision. “I picked the number 32GB as the limit and went on with my day,” he said. “I didn’t start to regret that choice until SD cards got to the magic 32GB size many years later.”
Plummer went on to dispute the myth that Microsoft imposed the 32GB cap to push the adoption of the company’s NTFS format. He explained that NTFS was already widely adopted and that, to his knowledge, Microsoft never promoted it or made a dime from licensing it. Instead, he says FAT32’s artificial cap was more about preventing wasted space (especially with small files) than deploying any sinister corporate strategies.
If you really want to nerd out on ‘90s disk formats, Plummer’s three-year-old video goes into more detail about his arbitrary decision that — unbeknownst to him at the time — would last nearly 30 years.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/microsoft-boosts-windows-fat32s-partition-size-limit-after-nearly-three-decades-192022618.html?src=rss
Chinese social media users hilariously mock AI video fails
- August 16, 2024
TikTok and Bilibili users transform nonsensical AI glitches into real-world performance art.
Ukraine destroys key Russian bridge as incursion progresses
- August 16, 2024
A key Russian bridge has been destroyed by Ukraine’s air force, with Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying Kyiv is “strengthening” its positions in the Kursk region.
San Francisco aims to take down AI undressing websites in new lawsuit
- August 16, 2024
San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu announced he intended to shut down 16 of the most popular AI “undressing” sites at a press conference on Thursday.
The Verge reported that the City Attorney is accusing these sites of violating federal laws regarding revenge pornography, deepfake pornography and child pornography. Chiu’s office also accused the sites of violating the state of California’s unfair competition law because “the harm they cause to consumers greatly outweighs any benefits associated with those practices,” according to the complaint for injunctive relief filed in a California superior court.
The complaint focuses on a total of 50 defendants Chiu intends to prosecute for operating undressing websites. Some of the defendants’ and websites’ names were redacted but it also publicly identifies a few companies that operate “some of the world’s most popular websites that offer to nudify images of women and girls” such as Sol Ecom located in Florida, Briver in New Mexico and the UK-based Itai Tech Ltd. The only identified defendant in the complaint is Augustin Gribinets of Estonia, who is accused of owning an AI undressing site featuring unconsented images of women and children.
These websites have generated over 200 million visits in a six-month period. The nonconsensual images of women and children on these sites “are used to bully, threaten and humiliate women and girls” as they gain more visitors “and this distressing trend shows no sign of abating,” according to the complaint.
The city’s attorney cites one case in its legal complaint from February in which an AI undressing site generated images of 16 eighth grade students at a California middle school. The incident possibly refers to one that occurred at a Beverly Hills high school in which 16 students were circulating fake nude images of other students. The school district expelled five students for their involvement in disseminating the illicit images, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Deepfake technology has become a major legal concern especially on the federal level. Last month, the US Copyright Office published a report on digital replicas and concluded that “a new law is needed.” Just a few days later, a bipartisan group of senators introduced the NO FAKES Act that would institute a new law protecting individuals from having their voice, face or body recreated with AI without their consent.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/san-francisco-aims-to-take-down-ai-undressing-websites-in-new-lawsuit-185202792.html?src=rss
Epic Games Store and Fortnite arrive on EU iPhones
- August 16, 2024
Epic also launched its store on Android.
The Crimson Diamond is a wonderful EGA-like graphic adventure game for 2024
- August 16, 2024
The parser works much better than you’d think, and the mystery is pitch-perfect.
The Slow-Burn Nightmare of the National Public Data Breach
- August 16, 2024
Social Security numbers, physical addresses, and more—all available online. After months of confusion, leaked information from a background-check firm underscores the long-term risks of data breaches.
Ukraine incursion destroys key Russian bridge
- August 16, 2024
Ukraine destroys a bridge over the river Seym as it continues its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region.
Rare ‘doomsday’ oarfish spotted off California coast
- August 16, 2024
It is believed oarfish, which live in the deep sea, often come up to shore before earthquakes.
