Project AirSim will offer libraries of simulated 3D environments and uses Azure to generate “massive amounts of data for training AI models on exactly which actions to take at each phase of flight, from takeoff to cruising to landing,” according to the company. Microsoft officials said they see a number of potential use cases for Project AirSim, ranging from hobbyist drones to aircraft carrying passengers. Autonomous aerial vehicles can be used to inspect the equipment, carry packages and more....

The company’s data breach report found that there were 1,767 publicly reported breaches in the first six months of 2021, a 24% decline compared to the same period last year. The number of reported breaches grew in the US by 1.5% while 18.8 billion records were exposed year to date, a 32% decline compared to the 27.8 billion records leaked in the first half of 2020. Inga Goddijn, executive vice president at Risk Based Security said the methods used by attackers to monetize their efforts has diversified and at the same time, preventable errors are outpacing hackers when it comes to the amount of data exposed....

The centrepiece of that investment is a 10-year AU$1.6 billion program, called Australia’s Economic Accelerator (AEA), which will focus on commercialising six national manufacturing priority areas including resources and critical minerals, food and beverage, medical products, recycling and clean energy, defence and space. In his first major speech for the election year, Morrison said the AEA would fund projects as they progressed through the stages of their development. “This is about funding projects to bridge the ‘valley of death’ where early-stage research is often not progressed due to higher levels of risk and uncertainty,” Morrison said....

Some 80% of organisations that paid ransom demands experienced a second attack, of which 46% believed the subsequent ransomware to be caused by the same hackers. Amongst those that paid to regain access to their systems, 46% said at least some of their data was corrupted, according to a Cybereason survey released Wednesday. Conducted by Censuswide, the study polled 1,263 security professionals in seven markets worldwide, including 100 in Singapore, as well as respondents in Germany, France, the US, and UK....

The new Moto G Play retains the previous model’s 6.5-inch display HD display, but it’s now faster, with a refresh rate of 90Hz. The improved speed, compared with the standard 60Hz, means that scrolling through webpages, apps, and gaming will all have a smoother look and feel. Also: These are my 5 must-have devices for work and travel now Powering the Moto G Play is a MediaTek Helio G37 processor, 3GB of memory, 32GB of storage, and a 5,000-mAh battery that Motorola promises will give owners up to three days of use....

Literally, someone is always watching: That’s the state of affairs in the commercial driving sector, where many advanced camera-based safety systems like video telematics and ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) live stream 24-hour views into the vehicle. The predictable result is that professional drivers often have an unwelcome sense that someone is always watching. Is it any wonder the sector is facing massive worker shortages? “From a privacy perspective, recording everything a driver does and allowing drop-ins can leave drivers feeling spied-on at work,” says Yoav Banin, Chief Product Officer at Nauto, which is utilizing assistance technology to reduce monitoring and put the power in the hands of the employee....

I’ve been sitting on this review for almost a year. When I got the results back from Ancestry and 23andMe (Living DNA was different), I found them to be deeply troubling, opening wounds I thought I’d cauterized decades ago. I wasn’t sure how to proceed, especially when it came to explaining all this in a public forum. So I left this project on the back burner until I was ready to face it....

Also: See alternatives to consider below Nacon in particular seems set on presenting its Revolution X Pro controller as a top-quality option comparable to Microsoft’s Xbox controllers. However, despite Nacon’s best efforts, this controller still has a ways to go before it can begin to offer the same build quality, comfort, and ease of use as first-party offerings, particularly when it comes to creating custom configurations in the desktop app....

The two agencies have agreed how the first samples from Mars’ Jezero Crater will be returned to Earth, bearing treasures extracted by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover since it landed in February 2021. The samples will be carried back to Earth in the Mars Sample Return campaign at some point within the next decade, likely in 2033. ESA and NASA will create a sample tube depot on Mars at the “Three Forks” area near the base of the crater’s river delta....

Other Factors to Consider NetZero has no long-term plans or commitments; unlike most internet providers, you won’t be locked into service for months or years if you decide you’re unhappy. To give you additional flexibility, NetZero lets you choose whether you want to bring your own device or purchase one of theirs, although you’ll have to opt for the latter if you want to take advantage of the free plan....

The No More Ransom Project The No More Ransom project is celebrating its fifth birthday this week. The initiative started out in 2016 with just a couple of founding partners: IT security companies, Kaspersky and McAfee, the National High Tech Crime Unit of the Dutch police, and Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre. Today, the project can count on approximately 170 partners from all over the world, mainly tech companies and law enforcement agencies....

“My colleagues and I think that this legislation is misconceived and should not proceed,” barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC said on behalf of some of Australia’s preeminent defamation law experts. “Not one person who supports this legislation has given an adequate reason, to my knowledge or the knowledge of my colleagues, as to why it should be changed … this Bill is a violent assault on the tort of defamation by the Commonwealth, for which no rational basis or reason has been provided....

VPN Flaw Origin of Latest Attack On May 14, Kimsuky managed to penetrate the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute’s VPN system. KAERI, headquartered in Daejeon, South Korea, only discovered the break-in on May 31. Next, the think tank blocked the attackers’ IP addresses and upgraded their system security. They also reported the intrusion to the government. Experts are still investigating the scale of the attack. The organization does not yet know whether the hackers stole any data....

Increasing pressure from the U.N. and sanctions from international governments have stifled North Korea’s already struggling economy, and the correlation between how desperate the nation is and the rise in hacking activity to siphon funds is apparent. North Korean Hackers Stole $626 Million in 2022 Alone Of the 1.5 trillion won (the equivalent of $1.2 billion) in cryptocurrency theft orchestrated by North Korean hackers since 2017, $626 million in virtual assets — almost half of the total amount — were swiped this year alone, according to an Associated Press report....

Russia is often seen as the home of the biggest cyber-criminal ransomware threats, but state-sponsored attackers from North Korea and Iran have also shown a growing interest in ransomware. Microsoft said Iranian hacking groups are using ransomware to either collect funds or disrupt their targets, and are “patient and persistent” while engaging with their targets – although they will use aggressive brute-force attacks. SEE: A winning strategy for cybersecurity (ZDNet special report) The most consistent of the six Iranian threat groups is one Microsoft tracks as Phosphorus (others call it APT35)....

OpenAI’s ChatGPT has helped popularize the concept of LLMs, such as the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) model, and the possibility of transforming a text prompt or input into an output. Also: OpenAI is hiring developers to make ChatGPT better at coding While people are impressed by these chat capabilities, LLMs still struggle with multimodal inputs, such as image and audio prompts, Microsoft’s AI researchers argue in a paper called ‘Language Is Not All You Need: Aligning Perception with Language Models’....

Doom, a legendary 90s-era game released for MS-DOS, has been ported to Windows, Linux and almost every OS, device and console on Earth. Now, the Pi Pico has joined that list. Raspberry Pi released the Pico for $4 a pop last January, a microcontroller powered by Raspberry Pi’s RP2040. The Pi Pico ships with 2MB flash memory while the RP2040 supports up to 16MB of memory. The company now sells reels of the RP2040 chips for between $1 to 70c a piece....

Ramaswami talked to ZDNet following the company’s fiscal Q4 report this afternoon. The company’s revenue and profit in the July quarter both topped Wall Street’s expectations, as did the outlook for billings for the current quarter. Nutanix shares rose 5% in late trading following the conference call between Ramaswami and CFO Duston Williams and Wall Street analysts. Ramaswami’s comments to ZDNet came in response to the question whether hyperconverged products are merely for consolidating legacy equipment, or whether the product category has sustained relevance in the years to come....

Amid this climate, Samsung – known more for its smartphones than laptops – has launched a refresh of its notebook series, the Galaxy Book Pro and the 2-in-1 Galaxy Book Pro 360. Having used the 15.6-inch Galaxy Book Pro 360 for a month, I feel it is by far Samsung’s best notebook. With the Pro 360, the South Korean tech giant has succeeded in imprinting its own look for laptops when it comes to design, taking cues from its latest smartphones and tablets....

The January 2022 edition of the Opensignal report used data collected prior to the newly-launched C-Band markets that caused so much tumult among the US air travel and transport industries going live. It appears, at least according to Opensignal, that the duo simply couldn’t compete with T-Mobile’s 5G network in terms of speed or availability prior to their respective C-Band launch. According to Opensignal’s measurements, T-Mobile’s availability was more than twice that of its nearest competitor....