"The FBI says you should stop texting" sounds like something your estranged uncle would post on Facebook about, but it's actually true: Both the FBI and CISA (Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency) are sounding the alarm around certain texting platforms, and, in some cases, phone calls themselves. To simply leave it at that, however, would be massively misleading. America's security agencies don't think you should do all your communicating by snail mail. Instead, they're specifically concerned with citizens using insecure means of communication, and are encouraging them instead to use secure, end-to-end encrypted options. Here's why."Salt Typhoon" is compromising Americans' securityThis current wave of concern stems from Salt Typhoon, a hacking group thought to be run by the Chinese government. In recent months, Salt Typhoon has compromised the privacy and security of many Americans, both private and public citizens. The group is accused of hacking 80 telecom groups, including U.S.-based providers that the federal government relies on for wiretapping purposes. (Verizon and AT&T were both affected.) These hackers reportedly tapped the phones of President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect Vance, as well as the phones of staffers for the Harris campaign.Through these attacks, the FBI and CISA say hackers stole "a large amount of metadata," including, in limited cases, phone calls and messages. It's not just Salt Typhoon, either. Insecure messaging has long been a concern of security experts and professionals. These hackers may have been the catalyst to get the FBI and CISA to warn Americans about it, but it's good practice to ensure your communications are always protected.Where encryption comes into playWhile it doesn't appear at this time that hackers are routinely scraping and monitoring everything you text or say on the phone, the reason they've been able to access the contents of these communications at all is due to a lack of end-to-end encryption.In brief, end-to-end encryption (E2EE) protects the contents of messages and calls between recipients. The contents here are scrambled through encryption, so to an unauthorized user, your text appears to be a jumble of meaningless characters. The only way to unscramble the message is to have the "key," which, in our case, lies in the apps of the recipients in question. So, when you send a message from an E2EE app to another user with E2EE, that message is only readable by the two of you. The same goes for messages in E2EE group chats, or E2EE audio calls.The issue is that traditional phone calls are not E2EE, and neither are SMS text messages. (When the FBI says "don't text," what they mean is don't use insecure texting methods like SMS.)You may already be communicating securelyThe thing is, many (if not most) of your communications may already be E2EE. If you have an iPhone and you only message other iPhones, you're using Apple's iMessage, an E2EE message platform. (The blue bubbles are a giveaway.) Android users who use recent versions of Google Messages are also likely communicating through RCS, not SMS, and are able to take advantage of E2EEjust look out for the little "lock" icon that appears when messaging. FaceTime, both audio and video calls, are encrypted, too. However, there are far too many instances where messages and call are not E2EE. Traditional phone calls, for example, are not E2EE. SMS, as noted above, is not E2EE. Even when you're trying to avoid SMS, it pops up: Since RCS requires an internet connection, for example, your phone might default to SMS when messaging in low-signal areas. The same goes for iMessage.But even when you have a good connection, RCS isn't always encrypted, either. Sure, if you have two Androids messaging through Google Messages, you're likely protected, but using RCS between Android and iPhone isn't encrypted. An Android using another messaging app with another Android using Google Messages is also not encrypted.When in doubt, use a dedicated appThe only way to guarantee your messages and calls are encrypted end-to-end is to use a service that guarantees the practice with all communications. While there are a number of messaging platforms that offer E2EE, the go-to recommendation is Signal. Signal's messages and calls are always E2EE, so there's no risk of your communications being interceptedas long as someone doesn't get a hold of the other person's device, of course. WhatsApp is also an E2EE platform by default. While Meta has plenty of privacy and security concerns as a company, WhatsApp is an exception. I understand some security-minded users' concerns in using a Meta product, but if you're one of the billions already using it, you can keep using it securely.There are apps with E2EE options that aren't E2EE by default. Messenger (formerly known as Facebook Messenger) now uses E2EE as the default, but existing chats (especially group chats) might still be unencrypted, so be careful. Telegram and Instagram also offers E2EE, but you have to choose to message with encryption. If you just download the apps and message away, you're not much better off than using SMS.Remember, too, that this isn't just about messaging and calling with your phone. All your devices need to be considered. If you message or call people from your tablet or computer, make sure the apps you use are E2EE by default.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.CES 2025 is right around the corner, which means that most tech companies are on the cusp of major releases to their lineups. Following what I predict to be a trend this year, Hisense announced this week that they are pushing their own smart platform that will cover all of their appliances. Moreover, the place youll most likely access this smart platform is on your television, which is the primary way most people know Hisense. Over the last year, I've had the chance to try a number of features that Hisense is promising in other brands, and many are more useful in theory than practice. Hopefully, however, small changes Hisense is making to each feature will show better results. Hisense is turning its TV into a hubHisenses platform, called ConnectLife will offer a 3D view of your smart home on Hisense television sets and allow you to access your entire smart home from the platform. I was struck, while listening to their presentation, how similar this felt to Samsungs promise at last year's Consumer Electronics Show. Last year, Samsung announced that it was integrating SmartThings, its smart platform, into their TVs with a similar 3D view. As someone with a Samsung TV, I was excited about the integration of SmartThings, a platform I also use. However, I cant help but notice that in the time since CES 2024, I have only used the television as my hub once, and that was simply because I was reminded in the menu it existed and wondered if it had changed since January (it hadnt). In truth, I dont know that I believe people will stop the program theyre watching to switch over to the hub interface and take the multi-step action to find the device they want and activate it, when, with a few swipes of your finger, you can do so more quickly on your phone, or ask your voice assistant for help. I dont think it's going to make a difference for Hisense, either. While it makes perfect sense to integrate TVs and hubs in theory, it just isnt all that useful in practice.That said, Amazon seems to have figured out a better system. While it doesn't have the same interface, all Fire TVs act as hubs given their Alexa integration. This feels like a much more practical integration of smart tech, since the voice assistant can be used to control the TV itself if you lose the remote, but also removes the need for a smart speaker in that room. The TV simply replaces the speaker.Hisense's plan for integrationEvery smart device you purchase requires an app and/or hub. In all likelihood, that hub only works with devices from that brand. In rare cases, like Google, Apple, and Amazon, those hubs can also integrate other brands, so we call them "multi-hubs." A trend I see evolving is that more brands are trying to turn their one-brand hubs into multi-hubs. Brilliant, Hubspace, even Aqara all allow other integrations using different connection technologies like Matter, Zigbee or Z-wave. Hisense is going in another direction. Their app, ConnectLife, will work with Hisense brands so you can control them. However, if you want to control other brand devices through Hisense, you can link the Hisense app to Google Home (Google Home works with almost every other brand), and through Google Home, you can bring those integrations back into ConnectLife. If you already use Google Home, this is just another integration into an app you already have, so no big deal. But if you're not using Google Home and want to use Hisense as a multi-hub, it would require you download both apps. Again, you can just download and use ConnectLife if all you want to control with it are your Hisense devices. The thing is, there appear to be integrations that allow you to control Hisense devices with Alexa or Siri. If you're already using a multi-hub with Alexa or Siri, it makes more sense to connect your Hisense devices to it, rather than to the Hisense multi-hub on your TV or phone.If that sounds overly complicated, that's because it isunnecessarily so. That's why, on some level, it's better to simply let existing multi-hubs handle integrations instead of trying to be a multi-hub. Hisense is adding AI and meal planning to fridgesAs part of the lineup of smart appliances it plans to roll out this year, Hisense introduced two new smart refrigerators: a jumbo side-by-side (promised to be the largest on the market) and a FreshVault French door fridge. These fridges will offer a meal planner that pulls from an AI-powered technology known as Dish Designer." Dish Designer, a duel effort from Microsoft and Hisense, can utilize your family preferences in combination with what is in your fridge to help craft menus for you.Personally, the ability to analyze what is in your fridge and utilize those ingredients in meal planning is exciting to me. I sometimes forget what is in my fridge, and despite being a good cook, am often unable to decide what I actually want to eat. These menu assistants can legitimately offer help by suggesting an endless array of ideas. I rarely use the recipe suggestions that I get from other smart appliances, like my Brava oven or Brisk It Grill, but neither of those utilize my preferences or what ingredients I have on hand, if they work. Hisense promises otherwise. An app that does already make suggestions based off my preferences and what I have available is Samsung Food, which uses AI and cameras in their fridge to assess what you have and make meal-planning suggestions. I havent tested either Dish Designer (which will deploy sometime around Q2 next year) or Samsung Food (Im eagerly awaiting my fridge), but I have talked to a number of people who own Samsung fridges with these features enabled. Most of them aren't using the meal planning, and the reason seems to be that the technology isn't great at identifying what's in the fridge, so the recommendations aren't accurate. The in-fridge camera can't see everything if the fridge is full, food in paper wrapping or plastic can't be identified, and labels have to be turned the right way to be perceived correctly. Hisense's press release doesn't imply they'll have in-fridge cameras, so I'm unsure how they'll take into account what food you have on hand. To Hisenses credit, the technology that will best help reduce food waste isnt AI based, but engineeringthere are vacuum-sealed drawers, adjustable bin sizes, and ultra-thin foam insulation to extend the life of your ingredients.While using AI seems like it could lead to really useful meal planning in the future, so far, it doesn't appear to have met the mark and will only do so when it can get more accuracy on personal taste and inventory. AI might make laundry combo machines betterOne high point is the announcement of the LuxCare Mini Washer-Dryer Combo, which promises to be fast, efficient, and quiet. All-in-one machines arent new, but theyve never been particularly well-reviewed. However, that has changed in recent years with smart-enabled combo machines from LG, GE, and Samsung. These all-in-ones allow people in small spaces to purchase washing machines. I know three people with new combo machines, and all speak highly of them. Its reasonable to believe that the additional AI technology thats been added to these machines, allowing them to treat fabrics differently based on sensors, has made a sizable difference on how well the machines work in practice.Hopefully Hisense surprises meI'm excited for any brand to invest in more smart tech, but it has to make sense in practice. I love Hisense's enthusiasm, and as it happens, their TVs. I love ideas like the combo washer/dryer, which create more accessibility. I have to hope that other ideas, like the TV as hub, AI-based meal planning, and expansion into a multi-hub are executed better here to make the results more useful than previous attempts by other brands.

It looks like Lenovos next ThinkBook Plus laptop is going to have a rolling screen. According to images shared by prolific leaker Evan Blass, Lenovos sixth-generation ThinkBook Plus will have an extendable, rolling display that builds on the rollable laptop concept the company first introduced in 2022.The leaked images show a laptop with a traditional, if slightly taller than average display, that can extend and unroll until you effectively have two screens stacked on top of each other. Lenovos images show a video call open on the top part of the display, and what looks like a PowerPoint presentation on the bottom, but one imagines the possibilities for what you can use the extra screen space for are pretty limitless. Blass didnt share any other technical details about the new ThinkBook Plus, but with CES 2025 weeks away in January, it seems highly likely the new laptop could make an official appearance soon.Lenovos been toying with the concept of a rollable laptop for a few years at this point, and this new ThinkBook Plus seems like a direct descendant of the companys earlier concept device. Lenovo is no stranger to making weird laptops, either. The Lenovo Auto Twist from CES 2024 featured a display that could rotate and fold on its own, and the Lenovo Yoga Book 9i from 2023 joined two separate touchscreen displays to give owners even more screen space to play with.Evan BlassUp until this point, rollable displays have mostly existed in smartphone concepts and expensive televisions, so if Lenovo can sell a laptop with a unique screen at an approachable price, and guarantee it wont suffer from hardware issues, it might have a hit on its hands. Then again, the previous fifth-generation ThinkBook Plus a Windows computer when you attached a keyboard and an Android tablet when you didnt started at $2,000, so it might be wrong to expect affordability.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/lenovos-extendable-thinkbook-plus-laptop-accidentally-unrolled-early-193056769.html?src=rss

Earlier this year, Meta previewed Movie Gen, an AI video editing tool that looked impressively realistic (at least in the sample clips it released). At the time, though, Meta said it was still a research project with no immediate plans to make the features available to users.But it now seems that Movie Gen could arrive on Instagram sooner than later. Instagrams top exec Adam Mosseri posted a short video previewing the kind of seamless AI edits that will eventually be possible, saying that the company is hoping to bring this to Instagram next year.In the clip, Mosseri says that Meta is working on some really exciting AI tools for video creators. You should be able to do anything you want with your videos, he says. "You should be able to change your outfit, or change the context in which you're sitting, or add a chain whatever you can think of. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Adam Mosseri (@mosseri) During the short clip, Mosseris backdrop and outfit changes several times, including a brief shot where he looks like a Muppet-inspired character. Throughout the clip, the transitions look pretty seamless without obvious AI artifacts. Of course, that wont necessarily be the case once Movie Gen is actually available and videos of its abilities arent entirely controlled by Meta. But if it works anything like Mosseris teaser video, it could open up some interesting possibilities for Instagram creators.Its probably not a coincidence that Meta is teasing the feature just days after OpenAI released its video generation model to subscribers. Meta has repeatedly said it wants its AI assistant to be the most used in the world and in an update that was also published today, the company said Meta AI has nearly 600 million monthly users.Unfortunately, Mosseri didnt indicate exactly when Movie Gen features may actually arrive on Instagram, other than some time in 2024. But he did say that there would be more to come from the company.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/metas-ai-video-editing-features-are-coming-to-instagram-next-year-191501418.html?src=rss

Paramount Pictures is hoping to spin-dash to success for a fourth time. The studio has confirmed that it is working on Sonic the Hedgehog 4 and is targeting a theatrical release of spring 2027 for the movie. No details have leaked about the plot, but it's likely that the project will see actors Ben Schwartz and Jim Carrey reprising their roles as Sonic and Dr. Robotnik.The recent film adaptations of Sega's famous game franchise have become a consistent hit for Paramount. The first film secured the biggest opening weekend in history for a video game movie, only to be dethroned in 2022 by its own sequel. Sonic the Hedgehog 3, which adds Keanu Reeves to the already star-studded cast of the series, releases tomorrow. Variety is currently projecting the third entry to fall short of the financial bar set by Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but anything could happen. The movies have also received a television spin-off on Paramount+ due to air next spring. The show will delve into the backstory of Sonic's echidna ally Knuckles, voiced by Idris Elba.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/sonic-the-hedgehog-4-movie-confirmed-by-paramount-190234137.html?src=rss

Samsung subsidiary plans to add to its roster of data centers as AI demand booms.

Cybercriminals are dropping DarkGate malware via AnyDesk, researchers reveal.

The campaign, which targeted 20,000 Microsoft Azure accounts, has been disrupted.

Robert Smithson createdSpiral Jetty on Utah's Great Salt Lake in 1970. Dia Art Foundation / Nancy Holt / Holt/Smithson FoundationJutting from the shoreline of Utahs Great Salt Lake is an unusually long, curling limb of land. Titled Spiral Jetty, the large-scale swirl was constructed in 1970 by artist Robert Smithson, who was known for manipulating earth into abstract shapes. Now, the land artwork has been added to the National Park ServicesNational Register of Historic Places.We are delighted that Spiral Jetty has received this important recognition, which will help us spread awareness of the iconic artwork and advocate for its long-term preservation, saysJessica Morgan, a director of Dia Art Foundation, which owns Spiral Jetty, in astatement. In the 54 years that Spiral Jetty has existed, it has been both submerged by the Great Salt Lake and stood far from the lakefront, bearing witness to the changing landscape around it.Dia acquired Spiral Jetty in 1999, when Smithsons widow, Nancy Holt, donated the artwork. Over the years, the foundation has collaborated with theGreat Salt Lake Institute, theHolt/Smithson Foundation and theUtah Museum of Fine Arts to care for it. The Land art is made of black basalt rock. Holt/Smithson FoundationSpiral Jetty is one of the worlds most famous works ofland art: art thats created directly in and from a landscape, either by sculpting earth or building with natural materials. The medium became popular during the 1960s and 70s within theconceptual art movement, which prioritized artists ideas, plans and intentions over the artworks themselves.Smithson, born in New Jersey in 1938, rose up in the global art scene during the 1950s, making paintings, drawings and sculptures that often referenced science fiction, poetry and pop culture. He was also inspired by physical spacesespecially those in his home state. In the 1970s, Smithson began making earthworks, the art pieces that would define his career. Per theHolt/Smithson Foundation, he was committed to sculpture that would collaborate with entropyembracing the chaos of a natural space.I was always interested in origins and primordial beginningsyou know, the archetypal nature of things, Smithson once said, per the foundation. As an artist, it is sort of interesting to take on the persona of a geological agent, where man actually becomes part of that process rather than overcoming it. Robert Smithson (1938-1973) createdSpiral Jettynear the end of his life. Holt/Smithson FoundationIn 1970, Smithson traveled to the Great Salt Lakes Rozel Point peninsula, northwest of Salt Lake City, and arranged 6,000 tons of local black basalt rock into a 1,500-foot-long, protruding line, which reaches into the lake and curls counterclockwise into a spiral.I think it was just unimaginable to so many artists that had been working in their studios and creating works that you hang on a wall, or smaller sculptures, Kelly Kivland, a former Dia curator, told the Deseret News Court Mann in 2020.Smithson created other significant pieces of land art in the years that followed. In 1971, he builtBroken Circle/Spiral Hill: a rounded jetty and canal on the edge of a sand quarry in the Netherlands. In 1973, he startedAmarillo Ramp, a sloping semi-circle of raised earth in Texas, but he died in a plane crash before finishing it. Smithsons widow and two other artists completed it for him. Smithson'sBroken Circle/Spiral Hill is located at a sand quarry in Emmen, the Netherlands. Gerardus / Public domain via Wikimedia CommonsSpiral Jetty remains Smithsons best-known work. Over the years, it has drawn attention to the Great Salt Lakes natural features, like its otherworldly pinkcolor and ever-shifting water level. In 2017, Spiral Jetty was named the state of Utahsofficial artwork.As Dia curator Jordan Carter tellsArtnets Vittoria Benzine, the artworks new designation as a nationally registered historic place will not come with any physical signage or plaques. We hope the enhanced recognition will dissuade other interventions in the landscape that negatively impact the environment and the lakes ecology, he says.Beloved in Utah and far beyond, this artwork has come to mean many things to many people, says Morgan in the statement. We are proud to continue our work caring and advocating for Spiral Jetty to preserve it for generations to come.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: American History, Art, Art History, Artists, Arts, Cultural Preservation, Nature, Outdoor Travel, Painters, Travel, Water

The wasp species known as the "velvet ant" has a pattern of white and ultra-black coloration. shrike2 via iNaturalist under CC BY-NC 4.0The Caatinga is a stark, dry shrubland in northeastern Brazil. In Tupi, an Indigenous language, its name means white forest, describing the arid grasses, thorny trees and pale, stony soil that dominate the landscape.But scurrying across this land of extreme whiteness is, paradoxically, one of the darkest animals on Earth: a species of velvet ant known as Traumatomutilla bifurca.With its furry exterior and distinct black and white markings, the insect looks like magic, Vinicius Lopez, an entomologist at the Federal University of Tringulo Mineiro in Brazil, tells Katrina Miller of the New York Times.As it happens, velvet ants, known colloquially to Brazilians as sorcerer ants, are actually a type of wasp, but the females, which are wingless, give the creatures their name. And, according to a study led by Lopez and published earlier this month in the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology, velvet ants have another claim to fame: The black parts of females possess a rare coloration known as ultra-black, so dark that it absorbs nearly all visible light.We have never seen this kind of color in the dragonflies or bees or beetles we have analyzed, Rhainer Guillermo-Ferreira, another entomologist at the Federal University of Tringulo Mineiro who collaborated with Lopez on the paper, explains to the New York Times.Unlike melanin, which makes animals like crows and black panthers appear dark, the researchers note that ultra-black is not just a matter of pigmentation. Instead, they write in the paper, these colors are formed in nature by a sophisticated arrangement of microstructures alongside dark pigments.In the female velvet ant, these microstructures include overlapping stacks of lamellae, or layers of tissue, beneath dense, hair-like setae. Combined with a black pigment, these features in the insects exoskeleton minimize reflectance and enhance light absorption, the researchers write. Visible and ultraviolet light gets trapped in the layers, and less than 1 percent is able to escape.Dakota McCoy, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago who was not involved in the study, lauds the researchers use of multiple electron microscopy techniques to try to see what the whole story was, according to the New York Times. The mating display of a male superb bird of paradise shows off its ultra-black feathers. (A) Edwin Scholes / (B) Tim Laman via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY 4.0This type of research is cutting-edge, because ultra-black coloration is extremely rare in the animal kingdom. Traumatomutilla bifurca is the first known ultra-black member of the Hymenoptera order, which includes more than 150,000 species of ants, wasps, sawflies and bees. Along with some butterflies, it is one of the only ultra-black insects.Though this trait is rare, the advantages for animals that do possess it are wide-ranging. For peacock spiders and birds of paradise, the profound darkness may accentuate their vivid other colors and help them stand out to potential mates, according to a 2019 study. For deep-sea fish like the fangtooth, ultra-black serves as an evolutionary tactic that gives some fishes an invisibility cloak, Courtney Sexton wrote for Smithsonian magazine in 2020. And for vipers, a 2013 study suggests the intense coloration can help the snakes regulate their temperature.In the case of female velvet ants, the little available evidence on their species mating preferences suggests the ultra-black hue doesnt have to do with attracting males. And while it might play a role in protecting the wasps from ultraviolet light, the team couldnt prove that.Instead, the researchers propose that the wasps ultra-black is related to protection from predators. Velvet ants are already known as indestructible insects because of their painful stings, venom and hard exoskeletons, according to the paper. Their dark color could serve as a warning to would-be predators.Some researchers see these natural advantages of ultra-black in animals as a blueprint for man-made materials. Ultra-black butterfly wings, for instance, hint at the possibility of extremely lightweight and absorptive material that could be used to harness solar energy, hone precision telescopes to detect the faintest light traveling across space or produce a camouflage coating for military vessels.The blackest black should be a constantly improving number, Brian Wardle, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, told Natalie Angier of the New York Times in 2019.What makes ultra-black butterflies so black?Watch on Scientists are also on the hunt for the counterpart of ultra-black:ultra-white, a color that reflects up to 97.9 percent of sunlight. As climate change elevates temperatures across the globe, engineered ultra-white paint could help cool airplanes, cars and spacecraft without relying on air conditioning.Still, many questions remain for researchers about how and why these extreme patterns of coloration occur in the wild. For instance, why do male velvet ants not have ultra-black pigmentation and instead reflect light at a much higher rate than females? What environmental pressures are responsible for dividing velvet ant evolution along these lines?But, as Guillermo-Ferreira points out to the New York Times, these waspy denizens of the Caatinga are rich with research potential. Every time we study velvet ants, they give us some new, interesting result.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Biology, biomimicry, Engineering, Innovations, Insects, Inventions, Nature, Technology, Wasps, Weird Animals