Published as part of its final report [PDF] for its ad tech inquiry, the ACCC’s findings state that competition for supplying ad tech services has become ineffective due to Google’s dominant market position. “In 2020, we estimate that over 90% of ad impressions traded via the ad tech supply chain passed through at least one Google service. Google is by far the largest supplier of each key ad tech service,” the report said....

The ransomware group did not release any sensitive files when their countdown timer first ran out on Wednesday. They have since reset the timer for August 12, 8:43 PM UTC. The LockBit group first announced the attack on the dark web and threatened to leak and sell the data if Accenture failed to pay the ransom of $50 million. According to the cybersecurity firm Cyble, the criminals claimed they stole six terabytes worth of “top secret” information, procured from LockBit’s official communications channel....

Let’s dig deeper: Where does Ackerman Security excel? To create our Ackerman home security review, we evaluated the company in four key areas: plans, availability, pricing, and customer service. Pros: Use your existing technology or install new hardwareCustomizable contract lengths (one to five years)Ackerman Security pays your insurance deductible and that same amount in cash (up to $25,000) Cons: Single-state service areaLimited pricing information onlineNo self-monitoring available Ackerman Home Security – 4....

That is, if they can achieve fish-level cognition. That is how NYU philosophy professor David Chalmers on Monday threaded the needle of an extremely controversial topic. Chalmers’s talk, titled, “Could a large language model be conscious?” was the Nov. 28th opening keynote of the 36th annual Neural Information Processing Systems conference, commonly known as NeurIPS, the most prestigious AI conference in the world, taking place this week in New Orleans....

This is the introduction to FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter’s whitepaper: Algorithms and Economic Justice: A Taxonomy of Harms and a Path Forward for the Federal Trade Commission. If you have been keeping up with data-driven and algorithmic decision-making, analytics, machine learning, AI, and their applications, you can tell it’s spot on. The 63-page Whitepaper does not disappoint. Slaughter worked on the whitepaper with her FTC colleagues Janice Kopec and Mohamad Batal....

Also: What is the best all-in-one computer and which is the cheapest? Announced at Mobile World Congress (MWC), the new ThinkCentre Tiny-in-One Gen 5 Monitor, which is available in 21.5-inch and 23.8-inch sizes, delivers an upgraded audio-visual experience via a 1080p webcam, microphone, and dual forward-firing speakers. The camera has a light that glows red when you’re in a virtual meeting, plus a physical ThinkShutter for privacy when you’re not using it, and there are dedicated buttons on the front for volume control and muting the mic....

Once your account is set up, you can create separate accounts for each of your organization’s companies, locations, or departments. Then, you’ll receive easy-to-read monthly statements that list your itemized transactions and product-level details for each invoice. Pros: Cons: However, there are some fees that you may be subject to. There’s a fee of 2% per month or an annualized rate of 24% for late payments. There’s also a $29 returned check fee....

Here, though, is something you never knew you wanted and can’t wait to have in your house. If you’re the sort of person who adores being nagged until the end of time. Dispense absolutely the right amount of soap by viewing the state of your hands, perhaps? Squirt soap on your hands without you needing to even touch it? Sing ditties of cleanliness, post-ablution? Oh, not quite. Yes, in our days where ignorance and paranoia fight for world domination, you need to be urged to wash for the requisite 20 seconds....

Also: ChatGPT is more like an ‘alien intelligence’ than a human brain, says futurist Also: Just how big is this generative AI? Think internet-level disruption Through an API, companies that want to offer generative AI services will be able to work with and customize a foundation model to accelerate the development of these applications. Also: The best AI chatbots The news comes after OpenAI’s launch of its newest large language model, GPT-4, last month, and the growing popularity of generative AI tools which has triggered discussions of government regulations, as well as AI ethics and job market effects....

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In other words, developers can build apps with confidence that there will be no further changes to the APIs they use to integrate new features in Android 13. Google is asking developers to finish compatibility testing and release app updates ahead of the final release. The update arrives right on schedule, with Google’s release schedule for Android 13 showing a platform stability release in June followed by another one in July — after which we expect to see the final release....

27-year-old Anonymous member James Jeffery today admitted he hacked into the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), Britain’s largest abortion provider. On Thursday, he defaced the website and stole around 10,000 database records containing the personal details (names, user names, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers) of women who had registered with the site. His motivation was a disagreement with his sister’s choice to abort her pregnancy. As you can see in the screenshot above (courtesy of ZDNET UK), here is what Jeffery wrote on the BPAS website, below the Anonymous logo he placed there:...

The company has been on a multi-year digital transformation journey since 2016, which has resulted in dozens of changes to the company’s operations, including the sale of 30 non-core businesses, teaming up with dozens of vendor partners including Salesforce, Atlassian, and Google, and taking out about AU$1 billion in run-the-bank costs while introducing “agile ways of working”. To mark what is considered only day one of the “new ANZ”, the blue bank officially launched its ANZ Plus app, the bank’s first digital, customer-facing banking product built under its digital division, ANZx....

The App Annie Q2 Worldwide Market Index Report showed that Android and iPhone users spent $7 billion more in Q2 than last year and $2 billion more than Q1 2021. The figures set an all-time record as millions were forced to stay at home and pass the time during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite lockdowns ending in many areas, spending on apps has only increased in 2021, according to App Annie’s data....

The App Store is Apple’s hub for apps where people can discover, download and update apps. Subscriptions on the App Store have driven more than 900 million paid subscriptions across Apple services, according to Apple. The top paid apps of 2022 included Minecraft, HotSchedules, Procreate Pocket, and Heads Up. Also: Is Apple sweating yet? These 4 companies just turned up the heat at CES Apple Music also experienced a big year with new features such as Spatial Audio and Apple Music Sing....

The apps will be accessible via a public-viewable URL, Apple said in a support note first noticed by MacRumors, which means anyone that has it could visit and install an app. Apple therefore is recommending developers ensure unauthorised use is prevented in their code. “Unlisted apps don’t appear in any App Store categories, recommendations, charts, search results, or other listings. They can also be accessed through Apple Business Manager and Apple School Manager,” the note states....

According to cybersecurity firm Sophos, threat actors could take advantage of the WebKit vulnerability, categorized as CVE-2022-42856, to execute code on affected devices and spread malware. Apple already released a patch to fix the vulnerability on newer devices in December 2022. The iOS 12.5.7 update is now available for iPhone 5s, iPhone 6 Plus, iPad Air, iPad mini 2, iPad mini 3, and sixth-gen iPods. Zero-Day WebKit Vulnerability The WebKit vulnerability was discovered by Clément Lecigme, a member of Google’s Threat Analysis Group....

The Cupertino, Calif.-based giant’s latest security patch round was issued on Monday, MacOS Big Sur 11.3. One of the most notable fixes is for a vulnerability found by Cedric Owens. Tracked as CVE-2021–30657, the vulnerability allows attackers to bypass Gatekeeper, Apple’s built-in protection mechanism for code signing and verification. In a Medium blog post, Owens describes how threat actors could “easily craft” a MacOS payload that is not checked by Gatekeeper....

In beta four, Apple made some key changes to the new edit and delete feature in its Messages app. When Apple first unveiled the ability to edit sent messages, users had 15 minutes to make changes. The message would be marked as edited, but there wasn’t a change log to reveal the edits. Some feared the lack of an edit log could lead to the feature being abused by someone taking screenshots of a conversation thread....

The S7 Apple Silicon chip shares the same t8301 identifier and quoted performance as the S6 chip, and the Series 7 contains no new sensor hardware. The Watch Series 7 is essentially a Watch Series 6 with a bigger screen. I didn’t think I was going to be that much more impressed with it. But this year, a Series 7 was supplied to us for evaluation, and It’s the first Apple product I’ve looked at in an official editorial capacity for ZDNet in my 25 years as a freelance technology writer....