SSAs core logic is also written largely in COBOL. This is the code that issues social security numbers, manages payments, and even calculates the total amount beneficiaries should receive for different services, a former senior SSA technologist who worked in the office of the chief information officer says. Even minor changes could result in cascading failures across programs.If you weren't worried about a whole bunch of people not getting benefits or getting the wrong benefits, or getting the wrong entitlements, or having to wait ages, then sure go ahead, says Dan Hon, principal of Very Little Gravitas, a technology strategy consultancy that helps government modernize services, about completing such a migration in a short timeframe.Got a Tip?Are you a current or former government employee who wants to talk about what's happening? We'd like to hear from you. Using a nonwork phone or computer, contact the reporter securely on Signal at makenakelly.32.Its unclear when exactly the code migration would start. A recent document circulated amongst SSA staff laying out the agencys priorities through May does not mention it, instead naming other priorities like terminating non-essential contracts and adopting artificial intelligence to augment administrative and technical writing.Earlier this month, WIRED reported that at least 10 DOGE operatives were currently working within SSA, including a number of young and inexperienced engineers like Luke Farritor and Ethan Shaotran. At the time, sources told WIRED that the DOGE operatives would focus on how people identify themselves to access their benefits online.Sources within SSA expect the project to begin in earnest once DOGE identifies and marks remaining beneficiaries as deceased and connecting disparate agency databases. In a Thursday morning court filing, an affidavit from SSA acting administrator Leland Dudek said that at least two DOGE operatives are currently working on a project formally called the Are You Alive Project targeting what these operatives believe to be improper payments and fraud within the agencys system by calling individual beneficiaries. The agency is currently battling for sweeping access to SSAs systems in court to finish out this work. (Again, 150-year-olds are not collecting social security benefits. That specific age was likely a quirk of COBOL. It doesnt include a date type, so dates are often coded to a specific reference pointMay 20, 1875, the date of an international standards-setting conference held in Paris, known as the Convention du Mtre.)In order to migrate all COBOL code into a more modern language within a few months, DOGE would likely need to employ some form of generative artificial intelligence to help translate the millions of lines of code, sources tell WIRED. DOGE thinks if they can say they got rid of all the COBOL in months then their way is the right way and we all just suck for not breaking shit, says the SSA technologist.DOGE would also need to develop tests to ensure the new systems outputs match the previous one. It would be difficult to resolve all of the possible edge cases over the course of several years, let alone months, adds the SSA technologist.This is an environment that is held together with bail wire and duct tape, the former senior SSA technologist working in the office of the chief information officer tells WIRED. The leaders need to understand that theyre dealing with a house of cards or Jenga. If they start pulling pieces out, which theyve already stated theyre doing, things can break.

Business Insider used OpenAI's tool to generate a Ghibli-style image of Sam Altman. Effie Webb/OpenAI's 4o tool 2025-03-28T12:22:53Z SaveSaved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now.Have an account? OpenAI released a new image generator this week, sparking a meme frenzy and controversy.Users flooded social media with images in the style of the Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli.The trend has fueled a debate on copyright, with some accusing OpenAI of exploiting artists' work.From meme madness to copyright concerns, the release of OpenAI's new image generator this week has been nothing short of dramatic.Soon after "Images for ChatGPT" was unveiled on Tuesday, an X user said OpenAI's 4o tool generated a "sexy man" but wouldn't create "sexy women." That caught the attention of OpenAI's chief, Sam Altman, who blamed a "bug" and promised a fix.Then came the tsunami of images generated in the distinctive style of the renowned Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli. X users flooded the platform with Ghibli-fied versions of their own photos, popular memes, public figures such as President Donald Trump, and scenes from films including "The Wolf of Wall Street."Even Altman joined in on the hype and swapped out his profile picture with a Ghibli-style photo of himself. The White House's official X account jumped on the bandwagon, too, and shared a Ghibli-fied photo of a woman arrested by ICE for illegally entering the US.Ghibli tsunamiAt first it seemed like a lighthearted moment of things being reimagined through a Ghibli lens, until things took a darker turn.OpenAI users Ghibli-fied images of historic events including JFK's assassination, the 9/11 attacks, and World War II.OpenAI said Wednesday that it had started blocking requests for Ghibli-style images and that it was taking a "conservative approach" by refusing user attempts to create images in the likeness of a living artist. An OpenAI spokesperson told Business Insider on Wednesday night that it still allowed users to generate images in "broader studio styles."Savvy users found workarounds. BI's Pranav Dixit tried out the tool on Thursday using the paid-for version and found it would still generate several images in the Ghibli style.OpenAI then decided to limit the number of images users of its free tier model could generate a day. Altman joked on X that OpenAI's servers were "melting" from the surge in demand.It now appears the free version of ChatGPT is refusing image requests entirely, citing copyright rules.Copyright questionsWhile the internet had its fun, a fierce debate about whether OpenAI was unfairly using the work of artists including Studio Ghibli's Hayao Miyazaki has begun.Some X users criticized those Ghibli-fying images, arguing that Miyazaki, a famed Japanese artist renowned for his meticulous hand-drawn animations that can take years to create, poured his heart and soul into his work.Ghibli is known for its animated features, which include "My Neighbor Totoro" and "Spirited Away." "Spirited Away" is one of Studio Ghibli's animated features. Studio Ghibli Ed Newton-Rex, the CEO of the nonprofit Fairly Trained, which certifies AI companies with fair training practices, described the controversy as a "takeoff moment for AI protests."It's reminiscent of the Scarlett Johansson saga last year, when the actor threatened to sue OpenAI over a voice chatbot feature that many said sounded like her.It raises the question of whether Ghibli-gate will be the latest copyright headache for OpenAI following a barrage of lawsuits from news outlets, authors, and musicians who say their work was used to train its models without consent.Newton-Rex wrote in X post on Thursday that "obvious and egregious IP theft by AI companies has united authors and artists in outrage.""Suspect protests will only grow as the effects are felt by more & more professions," he added.There's also growing concern about what the new tool means for graphic designers and AI image-generator startups.Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said on X that he was "not as amused as many others" as OpenAI's latest offering had "wiped out" some companies and had "serious implications for countless jobs."Recommended video

Fuse-alicious"We wanted to create new ways to experience the game" 2XKO game designer manager breaks down the big changes coming in Alpha Lab 2Clockwork sits down with us for an exclusive interview about the two new Fuses, wider gameplay adjustments, and whether he's the best MvC player on the team.Image credit: Riot Games Article by Connor Makar Staff Writer Published on March 28, 2025 Yesterday, fans of 2XKO were blessed with a lot of news related to the upcoming Alpha Lab 2 test. Not only did we learn about what changes are coming, but also when players will be able to hop back in to 2XKO, as well as a few teases for the future such as the launch number of characters that'll be available at launch.But of course, even with the latest video closing in on an hour in length, there's still plenty of questions surrounding the changes coming this April. So to help peel back the curtain a little, I sat down and talked to one Daniel "Clockw0rk" Maniago from the development team. Below you can find the full 20-ish minute interview, filled with insight on the two new fuses, Fury Break, and more.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. VG247: Let's start with the two new fuses: Juggernaut and Sidekick. Both appear to be attempts to make the onboarding process easier. To start, could you speak to the design philosophy behind Sidekick?Clockwork: "Yeah, we wanted to create new ways to experience the game of course. Sidekick for starters, we wanted to improve the duo experience. The duo experience is really important to us. So we wanted a Fuse that's meant to serve the cohort of duos where one player doesn't want the pressure of being the point and would rather be in a supporter role. So the way the Sidekick Fuse works is that you can't switch champs in combat, but we provide additional tools to the assist character to help the point character.""Sidekick also works for solo players who want to experience the game's assist mechanics, but want to focus on a single champion on point, so Sidekick is a simplified Fuse for those players. I'd also like to mention for this Fuse there's pre-round agency. So at the start of the match you can tag between the characters to play on point. That works for Sidekick too, so if you're playing assist and say "hey, I want to play point this time" you can switch."VG247: One thing I like about Sidekick is the ability for the support champ to time button presses with opponent attacks to lower damage. Where did that idea come from? It seems to me like an effort to make the support role player have more agency, rather than sitting back and spectating.Clockwork: "That's exactly it. With Sidekick and the game in general, we were very cognizant of assist players who were playing duos, we didn't want there to be too much downtime, that they were alt-tabbing to other tabs especially after the KO. So we wanted to make sure they had something to do and stay engaged. Not only stay engaged, but feel like they have a meaningful impact on the match.""It's funny, right when I joined the team they had this idea of like a combo sweetener and a combo softener. It didn't have any gameplay functionality, but it would play a sound when you were in a combo and the opponent was hitting you. It would give you something to do, and that was something that inspired us to add something to Sidekick to give the assist something to do." Both Sidekick and Juggernaut will depend more on the point champion, who'll be granted powerful bonuses. | Image credit: Riot GamesVG247: Given we've got Juggernaut as well now, you said the team got feedback from players who wanted to play solo. How did the team approach making Juggernaut, and how do you balance the desires from those players with the reality that 2XKO is fundamentally a 2v2 game?Clockwork: "So we wanted to provide a game for players who - like you said - wanted to experience the game as a solo champion with no tag mechanics at all. For those who don't typically play tag fighters and want to ease themselves into the game, maybe while they're finding a second champion that they like. Or maybe there are players out there who only like one champion! Even though Sidekick provides a similar experience, we were looking out for those players who don't want to choose another champion, and don't want to be forced to play a champ they don't like. You still do pick another champion and you can still quick tag, but you don't have to.""Obviously in 2XKO you're losing a lot of power if you aren't using a second champion. So we wanted to do something similar to Sidekick, and add some additional power to Juggernaut. The idea is that if you've focused on Juggernaut, we do want to give you some tools to use so it is competitive. We have Eject, additional metre they can work with, and more health."VG247: Would you say you've designed these Fuses are introductory, that for the most part are intended to be moved on from as people become more familiar with the game? Or have they been built to remain powerful in high-end gameplay?Clockwork: "I'd say it's a mix of both. We're expecting a lot of players who play Sidekick and Juggernaut, once they get comfortable with two champions and playing them on point, to move on to other Fuses that have more intricate tag functionality. But we are expecting some players, maybe if they find these two Fuses to be their preferred way to play the game, to stick with it and be competitive. We're really curious to see how it shakes out during Alpha Lab 2 and beyond and what players do with them." Regardless of what Fuse you use, Jinx will be playable from Alpha Lab 2 onwards. | Image credit: Riot GamesVG247: How do you and the team expect it to shake out? How popular do you think they'll be initially compared to the tail end of the Alpha Lab?Clockwork: "I would say Fuses like Double Down, Freestyle, and 2X Assist are really strong and we've seen what players are able to do with these Fuses. Whereas I think we've yet to see the true potential of some of these additional powers we've added with Sidekick and Juggernaut. My general expectation is that the more advanced Fuses will be really strong, but I do expect some breakout performances from Sidekick and Juggernaut. Maybe not dominating the meta by any means, but I am expecting people to put in the work with these Fuses."VG247: I'd like to move onto Fury Break, which is particulary interesting, especially talking to you about it. Clockwork, you're well known for your history with the Marvel Vs Capcom series, and played MvC3 for over a decade. I know you know the conflicting feelings some people had about X-Factor as a come back mechanic. You mentioned that Fury Break is a comeback mechanic added in response to players' feelings that it was hard to make a comeback, but how has the team balanced it so it's not too strong and comebacks don't feel underserved.Clockwork: "From my personal experience, it's maybe not as bombastic as some of the other comeback mechanics you've seen in fighting games, but there's certainly a lot of power there. There's even more power as you learn the intricacies too. For example, in the old Fury Fuse, you could use dash cancels to help your offense and combos. That's been ported over to Fury Break, as well as of course the straight bonuses to damage and defence.""So I think that there's an added layer of strategy here when you get deep into it. Depending on the context you use it, you can use Fury Break still as a regular break to get out of a combo and get some benefit, or you can use it raw. When we first introduced Fury Break to internal testing, players were still using it as a combo breaker, but as players get better and find opportunities to use it offensively for combo extensions or using it raw, I'm expecting Fury stocks to go up." Fury might offer that x factor needed to make a big comeback.Image credit: Riot GamesVG247: I imagine the limit to Fury is that dash cancelling using Fury removed five seconds off the Fury duration right? Do you feel that should adequately limit the power of Fury Break?Clockwork: "Yeah, and really a lot of that has to do with one of our big overarching themes of the updates from Alpha Lab 1 to 2, we want to improve decision making. Not only in combos, but also with Fury. So there are decisions on when to activate Fury, decisions on what you're doing in Fury, and even before your Fury Break is active you have to make decisions on how much you want to save for Fury Break as opposed to the regular break. So it's all about decisions, and different players will make different ones, that's one separates players and play styles."VG247: One thing that was mentioned in the dev update was combos being shortened, or at least combos feeling shorter. Was this an easy decision to make? I know after Alpha Lab 1 there was a big discussion around this, but on the other hand big flashy combos are still a major draw for fighting game fans!Clockwork: "It's a delicate balance. You want to make sure players don't feel like they're stuck in long combos frequently, but you also want to ensure there are flashy combos players can aspire to learn. There were some tough decisions, but there were also some easy decisions. In AL1 we saw a lot of the top end of combos had to do with Double Down and using it multiple times in a combo, so we've limited that. Also, some of the easier bread-and-butter combos Ahri was doing, adjusting that was also an easy decision.""But we do also want there to be juice, and for characters to be performing cool combos that are unique to them." Take Jinx, who'll be using various traps and projectiles for distinct combos. | Image credit: VG247VG247: Given your history and the history of other former players on the team like MarlinPie, how do you ensure that there is still room for some really disgusting stuff?Clockwork: "It's a combination of a lot of different things. One of the core tenets to champion design and combos is we want to make sure the combos you can do are very unique to the champions you're using. So Yasuo is a good example, he can do combos that link together with his special attacks. But maybe some of the combos where you have a lot of light-medium-heavy filler over and over again, those are the things we want to address. So keeping the champions and the champion fantasy intact, and having that reflected in the combos, rather than having these filler combos is important."VG247: Taking a macro view now of Alpha Lab 2, it looks like a lot of these gameplay changes appear to be a helping hand to newer fighting game players, giving them more options to learn, making it easier to see what's going on in regards to blocking / parrying, making it easier to hit certain assists and do wall bounce combos. Was that a major takeaway from the first alpha lab? That more had to be done for that kind of player?Clockwork: "Yeah I think we got a lot of feedback regarding clarity, not knowing why things were happening, or why players got hit with certain things. So gameplay clarity, not just in gameplay but the HUD as well, was something we focused on. Not only that, but also the excitement. Big callouts. We consider a parry to be a huge callout right? So we wanted to make sure that not only that was clear to those playing and watching, but also players making those big callouts were getting rewarded for making those big plays."VG247: One final fun question. Your community manager Ben Forbes has been talking sh*t about how good at Tekken 8 he is. Is he the best Tekken player in the office?Clockwork: (laughs) "So I've never played him in Tekken, but I believe every word that comes out of Ben's mouth word-for-word. So if he says he's the best Tekken player in the office, if he told me he was the best Tekken player in the world, I'd believe him."VG247: That's a very good PR answer. Who's the best Marvel Vs Capcom player in the office?Clockwork: "That's a ridiculous question. It's obviously me. Ask around the office, they'll tell you the same thing (laugh)."The 2XKO Alpha Lab 2 is going live in the Americas on April 18-20. If you're able to play, let us know what you're the most excited to test out below!

If you hopped into Elden Ring Nightreign's network testing back in February, now's your chance to look at some numbers and say 'I contributed to that'. FromSoft's put out some stats about the usual stuff - from boss kills to runes lost. Read more

As opposed to "Switch 2 exclusive"Jim Norman, Staff WriterImage: Nintendo LifeSwitch 2 Edition we need: Pokmon Scarlet & VioletSwitch 2 Edition I want: Super Mario OdysseyI'll get the low-hanging fruit out the way to start. Pokmon Scarlet and Violet is the Switch game that is most in need of a 'Switch 2 Edition'. I was so very excited for Gen IX, but ended up skipping it upon the realisation of what it actually was. According to everyone who has played it, there's a very fun game under there, and a bit of Switch 2 polish would have me coughing up full retail price instantly.In terms of the Switch 2 Edition I want, let's go crazy and say Mario Odyssey. It's never going to happen (particularly if a new 3D Mario is in the launch lineup like we're all expecting), but I'd really love to go back to this one with boosted performance and a couple of extras thrown in for good measure we never got any meaningful DLC and that still brings a tear to my eye.Ollie Reynolds, Staff WriterImage: Nintendo LifeSwitch 2 Edition we need: Bayonetta 3Switch 2 Edition I want: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the WildMy issues with Bayonetta 3 extend beyond its technical limitations, but I'm confident that I would happily give it another shot if Nintendo and PlatinumGames gave it a much-needed performance boost on Switch 2. In terms of frame rate, it already runs quite well, but it looks absolutely terrible in places as a result, especially in handheld mode. Characters look blurry, and there's a horrible dithering effect applied during heated battles. Get it enhanced on Switch 2, though, and I might be tempted back.There are other games that almost certainly need a bit of TLC, but I couldn't say no to an enhanced Breath of the Wild. Nintendo's pretty ambitious when it comes to its flagship franchises, and I reckon it would go well beyond a simple boost in frame rate for what is one of the finest games of all time. Imagine exiting that introductory cave again to a completely revamped lighting system, improved weather effects, even more blades of grass... It could look absolutely stunning, worthy of a relaunch. Give it to me.Gavin Lane, EditorImage: Nintendo LifeSwitch 2 Edition we need: Super Mario Maker 2Switch 2 Edition I want: Smash Bros. UltimateBeyond a new Wonder game style to slot in next to the 3D World option, it's hard to see how Nintendo could justify a Mario Maker 3. However, a new version a 'Deluxe' upgrade in all but name which adds that theme plus 'Mouse Mode' input that brings back the control precision and convenience of the Wii U original? I could get into it. The sequel added so much, but from a control POV, it always felt worse to me. This could be its shot at redemption.And I'd like to give Smash another shot. Cards on the table: it's never clicked for me. When Banjo arrived, I bought the game and the DLC, but I never got too far with it, and then I got distracted by something else. It seems Masahiro Sakurai has taken the series to its logical conclusion with Ultimate, so short of a total reimagining of what a platform fighter can be (which, actually, sounds interesting to someone who bounced off Ultimate), an updated edition of the old game with a wave of new fighters would be a great excuse to get up, brush myself down, and try again.There are our picks, but what do you think? You can enter one Nintendo-published Switch game into each of the following polls to let us know what needs a Switch 2 Edition and what you'd most like to see. After that, why not take to the comments to explain your picks?Which Switch game needs a 'Nintendo Switch 2 Edition' the most? (41 votes)What Switch game do you want to see get a 'Nintendo Switch 2 Edition'? (38 votes) A complete guide to Switch 2 - confirmed details, rumours, leak historyRelated GamesSee AlsoShare:00 Jim came to Nintendo Life in 2022 and, despite his insistence that The Minish Cap is the best Zelda game and his unwavering love for the Star Wars prequels (yes, really), he has continued to write news and features on the site ever since. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...Related ArticlesRumour: Nintendo Switch 2 To Launch In June With 3-Phase Software PlanGoing through phaazesTalking Point: Nintendo Direct Predictions - What Do You Want To See?No, not THAT Direct, THIS Direct!Poll: So, How Would You Rate The Nintendo Direct For March 2025?Beyond expectations..?

Image: Nintendo LifeAfter a series of pretty disastrous launches for Trading Card Game expansions, The Pokmon Company has today issued a statement outlining its approach to releasing sets moving forward. The problem is, we've heard it all before. Like, almost word for word (thanks, Kotaku).The upcoming Destined Rivals expansion has been the latest set in the firing line, after a woeful launch left hopeful buyers sitting in queues for hours while scalpers listed their pre-orders online with beefed-up prices. TPC broke its silence on this release a few days back, stating it "will continue to explore measures that help create the best possible experience for Pokmon Center customers," and now it has released another statement on the official Pokmon website (shared to BlueSky by Serebii's Joe Merrick), acknowledging the difficult launches.Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube800kWatch on YouTube "We are actively working to print more of the impacted Pokmon TCG products as quickly as possible and at maximum capacity," the statement reads, confirming that "reprinted products are expected to be available at participating retailers as soon as possible".The Pokmon Company International have put out a statement about the Pokmon TCG situation Joe Merrick (@joemerrick.bsky.social) 2025-03-27T15:34:15.063ZIt would all sound pretty promising if it wasn't a near-exact replica of what TPC said back in January when it faced stock issues with its Prismatic Evolutions launch. In a statement released to Kotaku two months ago, TPC said it was "actively working to print more of the impacted Pokmon TCG products as quickly as possible," claiming that "reprinted products are expected to be available at participating retailers as soon as possible to help ensure more fans receive opportunities to access Scarlet & VioletPrismatic Evolutions". Does that ring any bells?There's even more crossover between the two statements besides, with both opening to a near-identical introduction and each containing the line, "We understand this inconvenience can be disappointing for fans". Yeah, tell us about it.Now, we know that not every statement can be unique, and it's promising to know that TPC's stance on the issue hasn't changed, but the copy-and-paste job here feels a little sly particularly when the issue still clearly persists.Here's hoping that The Pokmon Company follows through on its promise this time and that we actually see some stock increases to combat the booming demand. If not, expect to see this statement wheeled out again in a couple of months. What's the ETA on those ETBs?Gentlemen, please...Pokntial earningsWhat do you make of this 'new' statement from TPC? Do you reckon we'll actually see any change this time? Let us know in the comments.[source pokemon.com, via kotaku.com]See AlsoShare:100 Jim came to Nintendo Life in 2022 and, despite his insistence that The Minish Cap is the best Zelda game and his unwavering love for the Star Wars prequels (yes, really), he has continued to write news and features on the site ever since. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...Related ArticlesPokmon Company Breaks Silence On Online Shopping Experience After New Expansion's Disastrous LaunchWhat's the ETA on those ETBs?Pokmon Scarlet & Violet: Mystery Gift Codes ListAll the current Pokmon Scarlet and Violet Mystery Gift codesPokmon's Team Rocket Is Returning To The Trading Card Game In A New SetHere's a first lookRumour: Pokmon Legends: Z-A Will Add Lots Of New Mega Evolutions, It's ClaimedA mega teaser of what's to come?

On Thursday, Amnesty International published a new report detailing attempted hacks against two Serbian journalists, allegedly carried out with NSO Groups spyware Pegasus.The two journalists, who work for the Serbia-based Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), received suspicious text messages including a link basically a phishing attack, according to the nonprofit. In one case, Amnesty said its researchers were able to click on the link in a safe environment and see that it led to a domain that they had previously identified as belonging to NSO Groups infrastructure.Amnesty International has spent years tracking NSO Group Pegasus spyware and how it has been used to target activists and journalists, Donncha Cearbhaill, the head of Amnestys Security Lab, told TechCrunch. This technical research has allowed Amnesty to identify malicious websites used to deliver the Pegasus spyware, including the specific Pegasus domain used in this campaign.To his point, security researchers like Cearbhaill who have been keeping tabs on NSOs activities for years are now so good at spotting signs of the companys spyware that sometimes all researchers have to do is quickly look at a domain involved in an attack.In other words, NSO Group and its customers are losing their battle to stay in the shadows.NSO has a basic problem: they are not as good at hiding as their customers think, John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at The Citizen Lab, a human rights organization that has investigated spyware abuses since 2012, told TechCrunch.There is hard evidence proving what Cearbhaill and Scott-Railton believe.In 2016, Citizen Lab published the first technical report ever documenting an attack carried out with Pegasus, which was against a United Arab Emirates dissident. Since then, in less than 10 years, researchers have identified at least 130 people all over the world targeted or hacked with NSO Groups spyware, according to a running tally by security researcher Runa Sandvik.The sheer number of victims and targets can in part be explained by the Pegasus Project, a collective journalistic initiative to investigate abuse of NSO Groups spyware that was based on a leaked list of more than 50,000 phone numbers that was allegedly entered in an NSO Group targeting system.But there have also been dozens of victims identified by Amnesty, Citizen Lab, and Access Now, another nonprofit that helps protect civil society from spyware attacks, which did not rely on that leaked list of phone numbers.Contact UsDo you have more information about NSO Grop, or other spyware companies? From a non-work device and network, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or email. You also can contact TechCrunch via SecureDrop.An NSO Group spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment, which included questions about Pegasus invisibility, or lack thereof, and whether NSO Groups customers are concerned about it.Apart from nonprofits, NSO Groups spyware keeps getting caught by Apple, which has been sending notifications to victims of spyware all over the world, often prompting the people who received those notifications to get help from Access Now, Amnesty, and Citizen Lab. These discoveries led to more technical reports documenting spyware attacks carried out with Pegasus, as well as spyware made by other companies.Perhaps NSO Groups problem rests in the fact that it sells to countries that use its spyware indiscriminately, including reporters and other members of civil society.The OPSEC mistake that NSO Group is making here is continuing to sell to countries that are going to keep targeting journalists and end up exposing themselves, Cearbhaill, using the technical term for operational security.

This week, OpenAI launched a new image generator in ChatGPT, which quickly went viral for its ability to create Studio Ghibli-style images. Beyond the pastel illustrations, GPT-4os native image generator significantly upgrades ChatGPTs capabilities, improving picture editing, text rendering, and spatial representation.However, one of the most notable changes OpenAI made this week involves its content moderation policies, which now allow ChatGPT to, upon request, generate images depicting public figures, hateful symbols, and racial features.OpenAI previously rejected these types of prompts for being too controversial or harmful. But now, the company has evolved its approach, according to a blog post published Thursday by OpenAIs model behavior lead, Joanne Jang.Were shifting from blanket refusals in sensitive areas to a more precise approach focused on preventing real-world harm, said Jang. The goal is to embrace humility: recognizing how much we dont know, and positioning ourselves to adapt as we learn.These adjustments seem to be part of OpenAIs larger plan to effectively uncensor ChatGPT. OpenAI announced in February that its starting to change how it trains AI models, with the ultimate goal of letting ChatGPT handle more requests, offer diverse perspectives, and reduce topics the chatbot refuses to work with.Under the updated policy, ChatGPT can now generate and modify images of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and other public figures that OpenAI did not used to allow. Jang says OpenAI doesnt want to be the arbiter of status, choosing who should and shouldnt be allowed to be generated by ChatGPT. Instead, the company is giving users an opt-out option if they dont want ChatGPT depicting them.In a white paper released Tuesday, OpenAI also said it will allow ChatGPT users to generate hateful symbols, such as swastikas, in educational or neutral contexts, as long as they dont clearly praise or endorse extremist agendas.Moreover, OpenAI is changing how it defines offensive content. Jang says ChatGPT used to refuse requests around physical characteristics, such as make this persons eyes look more Asian or make this person heavier. In TechCrunchs testing, we found ChatGPTs new image generator fulfills these types of requests.Additionally, ChatGPT can now mimic the styles of creative studios such as Pixar or Studio Ghibli but still restricts imitating individual living artists styles. As TechCrunch previously noted, this could rehash an existing debate around the fair use of copyrighted works in AI training datasets.Its worth noting that OpenAI is not completely opening the floodgates to misuse. GPT-4os native image generator still refuses a lot of sensitive queries, and in fact, it has more safeguards around generating images of children than DALL-E 3, ChatGPTs previous AI image generator, according to GPT-4os white paper.But OpenAI is relaxing its guardrails in other areas after years of conservative complaints around alleged AI censorship from Silicon Valley companies. Google previously faced backlash for Geminis AI image generator, which createdmultiracial images for queriessuch as U.S. founding fathers and German soldiers in WWII, which were obviously inaccurate. Now, the culture war around AI content moderation may be coming to a head. Earlier this month, Republican Congressman Jim Jordan sent questions to OpenAI, Google, and other tech giants about potential collusion with the Biden administration to censor AI-generated content.In a previous statement to TechCrunch, OpenAI rejected the idea that its content moderation changes were politically motivated. Rather, the company says the shift reflects a long-held belief in giving users more control, and OpenAIs technology is just now getting good enough to navigate sensitive subjects.Regardless of its motivation, its certainly a good time for OpenAI to be changing its content moderation policies, given the potential for regulatory scrutiny under the Trump administration. Silicon Valley giants like Meta and X have also adopted similar policies, allowing more controversial topics on their platforms. While OpenAIs new image generator has just created some viral Studio Ghibli memes so far, its unclear what the broader effects of these policies will be. ChatGPTs recent changes may go over well with the Trump administration, but letting an AI chatbot answer sensitive questions could land OpenAI in hot water soon enough.OpenAIs viral Studio Ghibli moment highlights AI copyright concernsChatGPTs image-generation feature gets an upgrade

Breakdown & ShowreelsU.S. Palmese: VFX Breakdown by Palantir DigitalBy Vincent Frei - 28/03/2025 In U.S. Palmese, Roma-based studio Palantir Digital provided invisible visual effects to refine key scenes. Their seamless work helps maintain the films authenticity, blending digital elements naturally into the story!WANT TO KNOW MORE?Palantir Digital: Dedicated page about U.S. Palmese on Palantir Digital website. Vincent Frei The Art of VFX 2025

In recent years, before the Trump administrations crusade to repeal inclusion initiatives, more women architects had actually feltseen, but that doesnt mean they were beinghearduntil now.Lately when you might expect women architects to be worried about the rebuilding of gender barriers, they already have a solution: all-women teams. Today, you can find entire project teams and construction leadership with no men in sight. That is both a response to the rollback in womens rights in general and a triumphant blow to misogyny in the design industry specifically. Still, career recognition lags behind these efforts. After seven women presidents and two years of all-female leadership at the AIA, the organizations fellows remain decidedly maleapproximately 18 percent of them are women and 81.3 percent are men, according to the groups 2023 Membership Demographics report. It gets worse when considering the Pritzker Prize: Of the 58 laureates recognized with the award, just 6 are women, or about 10 percent of the awardees.Even the most successful women practitioners carry with them a familiar story of being underestimated, undermined, dismissed, micromanaged, harassed and just plain mansplained out of seats at the table.So a growing number are simply done with waiting, and instead are making their own safe, fulfilling spaces where they feel free to focus on actual work.Field Operations led an all-women construction crew in completing the $98 million Presidio Tunnel Tops. (Courtesy Presidio Trust)For Women by WomenTwo years ago in San Francisco, for instance, the firm Field Operations led an all-women construction crew in completing the $98 million Presidio Tunnel Tops, a 14-acre park built over and around that citys traffic tunnels. In Vancouver the same year, an all-women team led by GBL Architects principal Amela Brudar broke ground on a government-funded affordable housing projectfor women residents. Now, the award-winning Mariam Issoufou Architects (formerly atelier masm) is heading up an all-women team who are building the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development (EJS) in Monrovia, Liberia. (Issoufou recently opened a New York office after the coup in Niger prompted a pivot in operations.) Representation on the project team is a priority for the client, because its the first presidential library ever commissioned by a woman head-of-state. Counterspace founder Sumayya Vally and Pan-African Engineering Group principal Karen Richards Barnes round out that crew.Another all-women team led by MASS Design Groupfrom the lead designer to lead landscape architect and lead engineerbuilt the Ellen DeGeneres Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund campus in Kigali, Rwanda, in 2022. In June 2024, the project won a COTE Top Ten Award for excellence in sustainable design.Architect Mariam Issoufou Kamara ( Rolex/Stphane Rodrigez Delavega)Such commissions, which place budgets and design decisions entirely in womens hands, are having a significant industry-shifting impact. Thats especially true when the projects legacy is female, as is the case for the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center and for Fossey, MASS Design director Emily Goldenberg told AN.I was there for four years leading the design and construction supervision of that project. Our construction arm, MASS.Build, was actually founded out of that projectout of a desire to have a larger impact. We set impact goals at the very beginning related to equity, Goldenberg explained. Goldenbergs team for the Fossey campus not only reflected the projects namesake female primatologist, female funders, and executive director, but also expanded local recruitment of women construction workers to an unprecedented degree. A significant 24 percent of that projects skilled laborers were women, which is an exceptionally high rate of participation, doubling Rwandas average and eclipsing that of women on American projects, Goldenberg said.In 2021, women were only 3.9 percent of all those who work with tools in U.S. construction, according to the Institute for Womens Policy Research. The upside however is that even that modest percentage represents a jump in womens overall employment in construction and extraction to a record high of 11 percent that year from 9.1 percent in 2016. Typically, the only women in sight [on my projects] are the ones from my office. The construction or engineering teams have none, Issoufou said her of jobsites.An astonishing 24 percent of skilled laborers for the construction of the campus for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Funds were women. (Iwan Baan)A Cultural MovementSo with a construction site full of women now seeming like a possibility and architectures gender politics unlikely to disappear (not to mention recent corporate backlash against equity initiatives), these projects suddenly take on the feel of a movement. In fact, Carla Guerrera, developer of the Vancouver project, told the Vancouver Sun she intended to demonstrate the leadership of women in development, design and construction. She added that having previously been the only woman at the table, she felt an all-women team engendered a different culture in how we work together and make decisions.MASSs Goldenberg also spoke of the transformative power of such teams when theyre viewed collectively as an intentional act of resistance. Like most, she has been literally the only female at site visits or in design meetings and has felt isolated and intimidatedeven by contractors who were supposed to report to her. I didnotfeel that way on the Fossey site, she clarified. I was surrounded by brilliant females who led with empathy, and that uplifting feeling is a unique attribute of working in groups of women, she said. Office PoliticsPresumably that feeling is easier to sustain in women-led studios. So it is meaningful that Issoufou,whose accolades span two Global LaFarge Holcim awards for sustainable architecture, a Prince Claus award, distinction as the 2021 Aga Khan Visiting Critic at Harvard GSD, and recognition as one of TheNew York Timess 15 Creative Women of Our Time, also maintains a studio that is 60 percent women. With women, you can skip the pissing contests and just focus on the work, she said.The difficulty that women architects have endured to secure the mental freedom to focus purely on work can be seen in the disciplines own #metoo stories, like the allegations of sexual harassment made against starchitect Richard Meier in 2018 and David Adjaye in 2023, among other fallout from items like the Shitty Architecture Men list.Womens (Home) WorkGiven the fraught history, pros and clients say all-women teams also just feel safer. Thats apparent in residential projects where single women homeowners have outnumbered menfor the past 20 years and yet still complain of trouble with mostly male contractors. The female-to-male homeownership ratio was 58 percent to 42 percent in 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, butthat purchasing power hasnt saved women clients or tradeswomen from routine harassment, mansplaining, and other bad behavior from male architects and tradesmen.Lacey Soslow and Gabriela Ainslie, cofounders of Matriarchy Build. (Courtesy Matriarchy Build)That problem is so pervasive that two-year-old online home-services platform Matriarchy Build (MB) was designed to address it. Like other directories, MB maintains a database of plumbers, electricians, and general contractors. But unlike its competitors, MBs directory is exclusively women and nonbinary professionals who are vetted for the value they can bring to women-friendly project teams. The fundamental desire [among our users] is connecting with folks who make them feel safe, said MB cofounder Lacey Soslow. Thats why the companys services require clients and pros to opt into the same code of ethics, added MB cofounder Gabriela Ainslie.Even having completed around ten gut renovations herself and knowing a bit more than the average consumer, Soslow said she still faced condescending attitudes from male contractors. I still get told you cant do that. And its like I actuallyknowyou can. If Im feeling bulldozed, I can imagine how the average person feels, she shared.Conversely, the communication on women-dominated teams like Issoufous can be, as she puts it, quite effortlessand with no biases to overcome in the process.MBs directory is exclusively women and nonbinary professionals who are vetted for the value they can bring to women-friendly project teams. (Courtesy Matriarchy Build)Thats the kind of safe and satisfying renovation experience activist builder Shelley Halstead intended to provide black women homeowners when she founded Black Women Build-Baltimore (BWBB) in 2017. The initiative trains women in trades-related skills by having them restore vacant and deteriorated houses.In the current political climate, with government and private businesses reversing their equity and inclusion efforts, its easy to see why women are seeking the camaraderie of women-led project teams. Less clear is why the industry and the media continues to exalt the narrative of a heroic male architect. Architectural designer Melissa Daniel, who hosts the Architecture is Political podcast, has a theory about why. (Along with three other women, Daniel created Riding the Vortex group, which hosts a speaker series that spreads awareness about Black women architects and was recognized with a Whitney M. Young Jr. Award from the AIA in 2022.) I think many men believe that if they acknowledge systemic gender bias, then they also have to acknowledge their own disproportionate and sometimes undeserved advantages, she said.In the meantime, it seems women will just keep building their own winning teams.Kelly Beamon is a freelance journalist specializing in architecture and design and sustainable building materials. She has held senior editorial roles at Metropolis, Architectural Record, and This Old House, but has slipped the bonds of the corporate office. She now writes from her home in Central New Jersey.