Jan 08, 2025Ravie LakshmananEmail Security / CybercrimeCybersecurity researchers have found that bad actors are continuing to have success by spoofing sender email addresses as part of various malspam campaigns.Faking the sender address of an email is widely seen as an attempt to make the digital missive more legitimate and get past security mechanisms that could otherwise flag it as malicious.While there are safeguards such as DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC), and Sender Policy Framework (SPF) that can be used to prevent spammers from spoofing well-known domains, it has increasingly led them to leverage old, neglected domains in their operations.In doing so, the email messages are likely to bypass security checks that rely on the domain age as a means to identify spam.DNS threat intelligence firm, in a new analysis shared with The Hacker News, discovered that threat actors, including Muddling Meerkat and others, have abused some of its own old, disused top-level domains (TLDs) that haven't been used to host content for nearly 20 years."They lack most DNS records, including those that are typically used to check the authenticity of a sender domain, e.g., Sender Policy Framework (SPF) records," the company said. "The domains are short and in highly reputable TLDs."One such campaign, active since at least December 2022, involves distributing email messages with attachments containing QR codes that lead to phishing sites. It also instructs recipients to open the attachment and use the AliPay or WeChat apps on their phones to scan the QR code.The emails employ tax-related lures written in Mandarin, while also locking the QR code documents behind a four-digit password included in the email body in different ways. The phishing site, in one case, urged users to enter their identification and card details, and then make a fraudulent payment to the attacker."Although the campaigns do use the neglected domains we see with Muddling Meerkat, they appear to broadly spoof random domains, even ones that do not exist," Infoblox explained. "The actor may use this technique to avoid repeated emails from the same sender."The company said it also observed phishing campaigns that impersonate popular brands like Amazon, Mastercard, and SMBC to redirect victims to fake login pages using traffic distribution systems (TDSes) with an aim to steal their credentials. Some of the email addresses that have been identified as using spoofed sender domains are listed below -ak@fdd.xpv[.]orgmh@thq.cyxfyxrv[.]commfhez@shp.bzmb[.]comgcini@vjw.mosf[.]comiipnf@gvy.zxdvrdbtb[.]comzmrbcj@bce.xnity[.]netnxohlq@vzy.dpyj[.]comA third category of spam relates to extortion, wherein email recipients are asked to make a $1800 payment in Bitcoin to delete embarrassing videos of themselves that were recorded using a purported remote access trojan installed on their systems."The actor spoofs the user's own email address and challenges them to check it and see," Infoblox The email tells the user that their device has been compromised, and as proof, the actor alleges that the message was sent from the user's own account."The disclosure comes as legal, government and construction sectors have been targeted by a new phishing campaign dubbed Butcher Shop that aims to steal Microsoft 365 credentials since early September 2024.The attacks, per Obsidian Security, abuse trusted platforms like Canva, Dropbox DocSend, and Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMPs) to redirect users to the malicious sites. Some of the other channels include emails and compromised WordPress sites."Before displaying the phishing page, a custom page with a Cloudflare Turnstile is shown to verify that the user is, in fact, human," the company said. "These turnstiles make it harder for email protection systems, like URL scanners, to detect phishing sites."In recent months, SMS phishing campaigns have been observed impersonating law enforcement authorities in the U.A.E. to send fake payment requests for non-existent traffic violations, parking violations, and license renewals. Some of the bogus sites set up for this purpose have been attributed to a known threat actor called Smishing Triad.Banking customers in the Middle East have also been targeted by a sophisticated social engineering scheme that impersonates government officials in phone calls and employs remote access software to steal credit card information and one-time passwords (OTPs).The campaign, assessed to be the work of unknown native Arabic speakers, has been found to be primarily directed against female consumers who have had their personal data leaked via stealer malware on the dark web."The scam specifically targets individuals who have previously submitted commercial complaints to the government services portal, either through its website or mobile app, regarding products or services purchased from online merchants," Group-IB said in an analysis published today."The fraudsters exploit the victims' willingness to cooperate and obey their instructions, hoping to receive refunds for their unsatisfactory purchases."Another campaign identified by Cofense involves sending emails claiming to be from the United States Social Security Administration that embed a link to download an installer for the ConnectWise remote access software or direct the victims to credential harvesting pages.The development comes as generic top-level domains (gTLDs) such as .top, .xyz, .shop, .vip, and .club have accounted for 37% of cybercrime domains reported between September 2023 and August 2024, despite holding only 11% of the total domain name market, according to a report from the Interisle Consulting Group.These domains have become lucrative for malicious actors due to low prices and a lack of registration requirements, thereby opening doors for abuse. Among the gTLDs widely used for cybercrime, 22 offered registration fees of less than $2.00.Threat actors have also been discovered advertising a malicious WordPress plugin called PhishWP that can be used to create customizable payment pages mimicking legitimate payment processors like Stripe to steal personal and financial data via Telegram."Attackers can either compromise legitimate WordPress websites or set up fraudulent ones to install it," SlashNext said in a new report. "After configuring the plugin to mimic a payment gateway, unsuspecting users are lured into entering their payment details. The plugin collects this information and sends it directly to attackers, often in real-time."Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.SHARE

Time zones: EST (UTC -5), CST (UTC -6), MST (UTC -7), PST (UTC -8), AKST (UTC -9), HST (UTC -10), ART (UTC -3), UTC -4, UTC -4:30, UTC -3, UTC -2, AST (UTC -4), NST (UTC -3:30)Art+Logic is looking for Senior Python Web Developers to work with us on interesting custom software projects. Weve been an all-remote company since day onemore than thirty years ago.Our ideal developers thrive in the environment of variety and challenge that is inherent to custom software development, working with us in a long-term relationship over many projects for numerous clients.The skills and needs for each project we tackle can vary widely; this goes beyond just the languages and technologies we use, and extends to the industries and problem domains we work in. We love working with developers who are excited to learn and take on new challenges. You can expect to grow in your strength and your versatility at Art+Logic and we want to help you do so.We work completely remote. We expect you to be able to work with minimal supervision and comfortably with small teams of 3-8 people. You wont have someone looking over your shoulder, so you'll need to be communicative and reliable, and hold yourself accountable.We value work/life balance, and our projects keep meetings to a minimum to ensure everyone has the flexibility to work during the times that work best for them. We are looking for contract developers able to commit between 30 and 40 hours a week most weeks, and we never expect our developers to consistently work more than 40 hours in a given week.Art+Logic is run by humans, who work and create using technology. Things can go wrong and we need to respond to the unexpected by being kind, considerate, fair, flexible, and calm. We treat our clients and peers as respectfully as we ourselves would like to be treated.This position pays between $30-$40 USD/hour.Qualifications5+ years of Python experience in a web development context.5+ years of JavaScript front-end development.Deep knowledge of Python 3.Experience with Vue.js or React.Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English.Experience with Django and SQLAlchemy is a plus.Experience with AWS and AWS lambda is a plus.Relationship Details:We are looking for Contractors (1099) for long term open-ended relationships, which includes company to company positions. Work hours are flexible; requiring reasonable overlap with normal US working hours to support team communications, and not just nights and weekends.Our rates range from $30-$40 USD/hour.We are ONLY looking for people in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Philippines.Its important to us in the hiring process that we allow developers to demonstrate their abilities by actually developing something, because a list of previous employers or educational background arent always indicators of what someone can do. All applicants are asked to submit a solution to a programming challenge that emulates a task we might assign on a project.We have an asynchronous Recruiting Process which means we are always looking for great programmers that were excited to work with, without an immediate, specific position or opening in mind. Successful completion of our challenge and process leads to us looking for an opportunity for us to begin working together. This also makes our Recruiting Process very flexible, though we are not usually a good fit for those needing immediate work.

With the holidays in the rearview mirror, there's another, less festive season looming: tax season. If you're already worried about your upcoming bill or you're hoping to maximize your tax refund, there are still some steps you can take.Here are three ways you can still lower your tax bill in 2024.1. Contribute to a traditional IRAYou have until April 15 to fund an individual retirement account for the previous tax year, regardless of whether it's a traditional IRA or a Roth IRA. In other words, your deadline for maxing out your 2024 IRA contribution is April 15, 2025.But since a traditional IRA is funded with pre-tax dollars while a Roth IRA is funded with after-tax dollars, you'd need to choose a traditional IRA if you wanted to lower your taxable income for the year.You may be able to deduct your full traditional IRA contribution, depending on your income and whether you or your spouse has access to a workplace retirement plan. The table below shows the deductibility rules for 2024 and 2025.Traditional IRA deduction rules for 2024 and 2025 Tax filing status20242025 Any tax filing status if neither you nor your spouse is covered by a workplace plan Contribution is fully deductibleContribution is fully deductibleSingle (covered by a workplace plan) Contribution is fully deductible if income is $77,000 or less; a phaseout applies if income is $77,000-$87,000; not deductible if income is above $87,000Contribution is fully deductible if income is $79,000 or less; a phaseout applies if income is $79,000-$89,000; not deductible if income is above $89,000Married filing jointly (if you're covered by a workplace plan) Contribution is fully deductible if combined income is $123,000 or less; a phaseout applies if income is $123,000-$143,000; not deductible if income is above $143,000Contribution is fully deductible if combined income is $126,000 or less; a phaseout applies if income is $126,000-$146,000; not deductible if income is above $146,000Married filing jointly (if you're not covered by a workplace plan but your spouse is) Contribution is fully deductible if combined income is $230,000 or less; a phaseout applies if income is $230,000-$240,000; not deductible if income is above $240,000Contribution is fully deductible if combined income is $236,000 or less; a phaseout applies if income is $236,000-$246,000; not deductible if income is above $246,000Married filing separately (if either spouse is by a workplace plan) Contribution is partially deductible if your income is less than $10,000; no deduction if income is higher than $10,000Contribution is partially deductible if your income is less than $10,000; no deduction if income is higher than $10,000 If you're younger than 50, you can contribute up to $7,000 to a traditional IRA, Roth IRA, or a combination of the two in both 2024 and 2025. You can make an additional $1,000 catch-up contribution in both tax years if you're 50 or older, bringing your maximum contribution to $8,000.2. Fund your HSAA health-savings account lets you save and invest pre-tax money. If you use your HSA funds for IRS-approved qualifying medical expenses, your withdrawals are tax- and penalty-free, as well. Like IRAs, HSAs let you contribute up until tax day for any given year, so you can fund your HSA for 2024 until April 15, 2025.Unused HSA funds roll over from year to year, even if you change jobs or health insurance. You can even use your HSA money for non-medical expenses without penalty once you're 65, though withdrawals will count as taxable income if the money isn't used for health costs.HSA limits for 2024 and 2025 Type of coverage2024 limit2025 limit Self-only $4,150$4,300Family $8,300$8,550 If you're 55 or older, you can make an additional $1,000 catch-up contribution in both 2024 and 2025.Note that to fund a health savings account, you'll need to have what's known as a high-deductible health plan. That means you'll typically pay more out of pocket for many health services before your insurance kicks in.3. Use a SEP IRA or Solo 401(k) for self-employment incomeIf you have self-employment income, you can use a SEP IRA or solo 401(k) to save for retirement. You don't need to be a full-time business owner to take advantage, though. You can save in these accounts if you earn money freelancing or you do gig work, like driving for Uber or delivering groceries on Instacart, on the side.SEP IRA rulesYou can contribute up to $69,000 to a SEP IRA in 2024 and up to $70,000 in 2025, or up to 25% of your self-employment income -- whichever is less. You can fund a SEP IRA even if you're covered by a workplace retirement plan at a regular job. However, if you own a business with employees, you'll need to contribute the same percentage for each eligible employee.You have until the date you file taxes for your business to open and fund a SEP IRA. That means you can generally contribute to a SEP IRA for 2024 until April 15, 2025 -- or Oct. 15 if you file for a tax extension.Solo 401(k) rulesA solo 401(k) is sometimes referred to as a one-person 401(k), and it's basically a 401(k) you set up for yourself.You can contribute up to the standard 401(k) limits of $23,000 in 2024 and $23,500 in 2025 as an employer, plus an additional 25% of your compensation as a business owner but total contributions can't exceed $69,000 in 2024 or $70,000 in 2025. If you're 50 or older, you can make up to $7,500 in catch-up contributions for both tax years.The deadline to make your contributions as the employee has already passed, but you can still make contributions up until the tax deadline as the employer. That means you get until April 15, 2025, to make employer-side contributions, or Oct. 15, 2025, if you file for an extension.

8.3 /10 SCORE Our Verdict Our Verdict Best for: Back sleeper Combo sleeper Side sleeper Stomach sleeper Score Breakdown Performance 9 /10 Policies 8.5 /10 Durability 7 /10 Features 8 /10 Pros and Cons Pros Two firmness levels in one bed (soft, medium-firm) Soft and light memory foam feel Optimal for side, back and stomach sleepers Cons Not supportive enough for sleepers over 230 pounds Might be too pricey for budget shoppers Table of Contents Lets be honest: most online beds are pretty similar. This factor can make your experience of shopping for a new bed tricky. For us, it can also make testing new mattresses boring. Thats why its always so refreshing when we come across a bed like the original Layla mattress.While most beds have only one main sleeping surface, this is a double-sided mattress. If you get tired of sleeping on one side, you can simply flip it over and try out the other. Each side has a different firmness to accommodate a wide variety of sleeper types, and since its a foam bed, its easy to move around. In this review, Ill explain why I personally love this bed and who exactly its best for.First impressions of the Layla mattress Dillon Payne/CNETOnce you order the Layla mattress online, itll eventually arrive at your doorstep inside a tall, cardboard box. It looks like it would hold something like an office water cooler or even a set of golf clubs, but trust me, it is indeed your new bed. To set it up, all you do is drag it inside, dump out the contents, rip off the plastic and watch the bed inflate on your foundation.We found that our Layla mattress needed some more time after the unboxing to expand, so we gave it a full night to sit out on our bed frame to get to its true form. That said, you can totally sleep on it right out of the box -- but it might look and feel a little strange at first.When it came time to test the mattress, I immediately noticed the sink-in comfort of the memory foam on both sides. As for those sides, one was clearly firmer than the other, but both were plenty accommodating for my sleep preferences. Being an all-foam bed, I found it best suited for average to petite-sized builds. Most importantly, it felt incredibly comfortable the moment I lay down.Video: Layla mattress reviewWatch me review the Layla mattress in this video.Layla mattress firmness and feelWhat does the Layla mattress feel like? Dillon Payne/CNETThe Layla mattress has a fluffy, airy memory foam feel. Pressing into either side reveals a response time slower than a neutral foam option but faster than a traditional Tempur-Pedic mattress. This provides sleepers with a body-conforming feel that doesnt leave you feeling stuck in the mattress.This type of mattress feel is great to have if you enjoy a little bit of memory foam in your bed. Its ideal for combination sleepers like me, offering a slight sink-in sensation that quickly adapts to your movements. Dense memory foam beds can sometimes make it harder to move around due to their viscous top layers. Fortunately, this mattress provides a memory foam feel that accommodates a wide range of preferences.How firm is the Layla mattress? Dillon Payne/CNETSince this is a flippable, all-foam mattress, theres a different firmness level on either side of it to try out. The soft side provides the most amount of pressure relief for strict side sleepers as its around a proper medium-soft on our scale. If you flip the bed over to the firm side, its a tinge firmer than a medium, making it the more supportive side for back, stomach and combination sleepers.Having two firmnesses in one bed makes the Layla mattress a super versatile option. If you happen not to like one side, you can just flip the bed over and try out the other. However, if youre looking for a much firmer style of hybrid mattress, the Layla mattress might not be the best choice. Luckily, the brand makes the Layla Hybrid, which has coils to provide more support for bigger people.Out of 10, our Mattress Smasher 9000 gave the soft side of the Layla Hybrid a score of 3.5 and the firm side an 8.6. Objectively, our specialized machine measured the firm side as much firmer than we expected -- sometimes, it takes a giant bed robot to give you a fresh perspective.Layla mattress construction Dillon Payne/CNETSince the Layla mattress is a double-sided bed, its construction differs from your average all-foam mattress. Its 10.5 thick and composed of the following materials:In the middle of the bed, youve got a layer of support foam, which provides the main support system for the mattress.Then, towards the soft side, youve got a responsive transition layer to act as a buffer between the support and comfort layers of the bed.Sandwiching everything on either side, youve got a copper-gel memory foam that gives the mattress its overall feel. These layers differ slightly in thickness to give each side a different firmness.Wrapping the bed is an intriguing cover with a honeycomb-style pattern. Its color is lighter on the softer side while the firm side has darker tones. Dillon Payne/CNETLayla mattress performanceMotion isolationThis bed deadens a noticeable amount of cross-mattress movement. The copper-gel memory foam absorbs lots of motion and doesnt really allow much to transfer from side to side. This is especially true for the soft side of the mattress, which has a thicker layer of this foam. If getting a bed with good motion isolation is a top priority for you, you shouldnt have any concerns with this mattress.Edge-to-edge supportFor an all-foam mattress, wed say the Layla mattress presents sleepers with pretty good edge support. The Firm Side of the bed will likely provide a bit more support along the edges than the Soft Side due to its firmer profile. Hybrid beds that have support coils or even reinforced coils along the perimeter usually perform the best in this category. Still, based on our tests, we didnt observe any apparent roll-off sensation with this bed at all. If you or your partner like to really hug the edges of your bed at night, you should feel plenty of support in this regard on the Layla mattress. Dillon Payne/CNETTemperatureEven though the cover on the Layla mattress is designed to be breathable and the copper-infused memory foam on either side is meant to help with cooling, wed classify the Layla mattress as temperature-neutral. We dont expect this mattress to actively cool you down at night, but it wont overheat either. While that might sound like a downside, most online mattresses fall within this temperature-neutral range. However, if you're looking for an active-cooling mattress, you can always check out our best cooling mattress for hot sleepers list.DurabilitySince this is an all-foam bed with a flippable design, the Layla mattress should be durable enough to last most body types for many years to come. More specifically, its best suited for supporting smaller or average-sized individuals over time. If youre a heavier person like me, you may want to invest in a hybrid mattress with support coils instead of a foam option. If you or your partner are on the much heavier side, you may benefit more from sleeping on an ultra-durable hybrid mattress. In that case, feel free to check out our Best Beds for Heavy People list.Who is the Layla mattress best for? Dillon Payne/CNETWhile this is a super versatile mattress meant to accommodate a wide variety of sleeping preferences, it's still best for select groups of sleepers. Heres who we think will love this bed the most.Sleeping positionStrict side sleepers will likely benefit the most from sleeping on this beds soft side. It provides an ample amount of sink-in pressure relief for the areas of your body that really dig into a mattress, like shoulders and hips. Along with having a soft profile, the memory foam on top will help cradle side sleepers more as they rest.Combination sleepers who like to rotate between different sleeping positions will likely prefer the firm side. The thinner memory foam layer is responsive enough to adapt to movements quickly while providing a nice balance of support and comfort. But if youre a diehard back or stomach sleeper looking for a much firmer mattress, this is not the best choice for you. In that case, Id look up the Essential by Layla. Its around a proper medium-firm, but its not a flippable mattress like the others.Body typeAs mentioned, the construction of this bed makes it best at supporting medium- to petite-sized builds. If youre a heavier person, you could get more of a support advantage with the Layla Hybrid, but you could also get by on this mattress just fine.Layla mattress pricing Size Measurements (inches)PriceTwin 38x75 inches$749Twin XL 38x80 inches$849Full 54x75 inches$999Queen 60x80 inches$1,099King 76x80 inches$1,249Cal King 72x84 inches$1,249 Price-wise, Id say the Layla mattress is offering at a really nice value, especially considering that youre essentially getting two beds in one here. Plus, Layla is one of those brands that usually runs discounts on its beds year-round. After you apply one to the queen size, you can expect to pay right around $950 -- not bad for a flippable mattress.Trial, shipping and warranty Dillon Payne/CNETLayla backs its two main beds with a generous policy set. Its beds ship to you in a box for free, and once its in your possession, you get a 120-night trial period to try it at home risk free. If you happen not to like it within that time frame, you can return it for free. On the other hand, if you decide to keep it, youre backed by a lifetime warranty. Thats above and beyond the usual standard for an online mattress warranty.How does the Layla mattress compare to other mattresses?Layla Mattress vs. Layla HybridThere are some noticeable differences between the two flippable beds from Layla. The flagship Layla bed is more affordable than the Layla Hybrid, which is designed to be more premium. Since the Layla Hybrid has support coils, it's the better option for heavier people, while the all-foam design of the Layla mattress is most suitable for supporting medium- to petite-sized individuals. The firm side of the flagship Layla mattress is also a bit firmer than that of the Layla Hybrids. This makes the Layla mattress slightly more accommodating for primary back and stomach sleepers. Layla vs. NectarThe flagship Nectar and Layla beds share some similarities but are quite different overall. Both are memory foam mattresses with a responsive memory foam feel, but their biggest difference lies in their construction. While the Layla mattress is double-sided, the Nectar Classic Memory Foam only has one main sleeping surface. Its also much firmer than the Layla mattress and slightly more affordable after a discount. And when it comes to policies, its hard to beat the ones offered by Nectar these days. The final verdictTheres a good reason this bed makes so many of our best lists. Its a quality double-sided mattress with an airy memory foam feel thats backed by great policies. If you dont have much money to spend, but are still looking for something nice, its definitely worth consideration.You might like the Layla if:You want a flippable, all-foam mattressYou want a responsive memory foam feelYou want two firmness levels in one bedYouve got a budget under $1,000You might not like the Layla mattress if:You're looking for a hybrid mattressYou prefer the feel of a dense memory foam mattressYoure searching for a much firmer mattressYou want to spend up on something more premiumLayla mattress FAQs How thick is the Layla Hybrid mattress? This bed is a whopping 10.5 inches thick, which is around the average thickness of an online bed. I often recommend investing in deep pocket sheets if your bed is over 15 inches thick. Luckily, you should be able to use a normal sheet set on the Layla mattress. Youll obviously have to rearrange your sheets if you want to sleep on the other side -- its a cruel world we live in. Show more Is Layla a good brand? Generally, Id say so. Having personally tested Layla products for the past six and a half years, I think they make high-quality stuff. For years, I slept exclusively with one of the Layla Kapok Pillows. I highly recommend those if you like a shredded memory foam pillow. I highly doubt Layla as a brand back its beds with such generous policies if they werent so quality and trusted. Show more Do hybrid mattresses sag? Modern-day hybrid beds are intentionally designed not to sag excessively over time. On a more old-school, traditional innerspring mattress, the sleeping surface could start to bow towards the middle, but only after prolonged use -- Im talking 15-20 years here. With beds like the Layla mattress, I cant see an option like this overly sagging any time soon. Show more

Eames House: A landmark of 20th century design, the colorful modernist house was designed by Charles and Ray Eames in 1949 and served as their home and studio until their death. Though located in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, which has been heavily affected by the fire, the home is currently unharmed. We are closely monitoring the situation and the Eames Foundation has taken every precaution to protect the site. Yesterday, the Foundations team worked quickly to remove a small number of objects from the house before they had to evacuate the building, Lucia Dewey Atwood, executive director of the Eames Foundation, said in a statement to AD. The loss and displacement caused by these fires is staggering, and we stand in solidarity with everyone affected during this incredibly difficult time. Visits to the residence are cancelled until further notice.Theatre Palisades, Pierson Playhouse: Founded by three veteran television writers, Theatre Palisade, Pierson Playhouse was located in a California Modern structure designed by John G. Wallis. Our beloved Pierson Playhouse is gone, but the heart of Theatre Palisades beats on. We will rise again, the organization posted on Facebook.The Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center was lost early Wednesday.Photo: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty ImagesThe Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center: According to NBC Los Angeles, the temple and Jewish center was destroyed early Wednesday. The congregation dates back to 1921, according to the temples website.Malibu Feed Bin: Offering food and supplies for horses, livestock, and pets, the Malibu Feed Bin has been in operation since 1966. According to a post on Facebook, the red, shiplap building that housed the store was lost in the fire. This is so unreal for me and Im having a hard time finding the words that even make sense. I want to thank everyone who has sent kind words and expressed concern for the store, my family, and staff. We are so thankful for the love and support you all have shown us after 60 years in business, the owners wrote.Reel Inn: A iconic roadside seafood restaurant, Reel Inn succumbed to flames, according to the Malibu Times. Known for its fresh fish and laid-back coastal atmosphere, Reel Inn has been a staple along the Pacific Coast Highway for decades, the outlet wrote.This is a developing story.

Meta will allow its billions of social media users to accuse people of being mentally ill based on their sexuality or gender identity, among broader changes it made to its moderation policies and practices Tuesday.The companys new guidelines prohibit insults about someones intellect or mental illness on Facebook, Instagram and Threads, as have previous iterations. However, the latest guidelines now include a caveat for accusing LGBTQ people of being mentally ill because they are gay or transgender.We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like weird, the revised company guidelines read.The new guidelines around hate speech are part of Metas broader major changes regarding how it moderates online speech on its platforms. On Tuesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it will replace its fact-checking program, which has relied on trusted organizational partners, with a community-driven system similar to Xs Community Notes. Xs system allows users to submit suggested notes on other peoples content, and then certain users vote on whether or not the notes are publicly displayed. Zuckerberg cited recent elections and a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech.The long list of changes to the new hate speech guidelines include removing rules that forbid insults about a persons appearance based on race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity and serious disease. Meta also scrapped policies that prohibited expressions of hate against a person or a group on the basis of their protected class and that banned users from referring to transgender or nonbinary people as it.GLAAD, an LGBTQ media advocacy group, denounced the changes.Without these necessary hate speech and other policies, Meta is giving the green light for people to target LGBTQ people, women, immigrants, and other marginalized groups with violence, vitriol, and dehumanizing narratives, President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement. With these changes, Meta is continuing to normalize anti-LGBTQ hatred for profit at the expense of its users and true freedom of expression. Fact-checking and hate speech policies protect free speech.A spokesperson for Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.CEOs and business leaders in tech and beyond are broadening their efforts to woo President-elect Donald Trump. Meta is among the several tech companies and executives including Amazon, Apple CEO Tim Cook and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman that donated $1 million to Trumps second inaugural fund within the last several weeks. Meta also announced Tuesday that UFCs Dana White, a longtime Trump supporter, would join its board.

Former Google engineer and influential AI researcher Franois Chollet is co-founding a nonprofit to help develop benchmarks thatll probe AI for human-level intelligence.The nonprofit, the ARC Prize Foundation, will be led by Greg Kamradt, an ex-Salesforce engineering director and founder of the AI product studio Leverage. Kamradt will serve as president and a member of the board. [W]ere growing into a proper nonprofit foundation to act as a useful north star toward artificial general intelligence, Chollet wrote in a post on the nonprofits website. (Artificial general intelligence is a nebulous term, but its commonly understood to mean AI that can perform most tasks humans can.) [W]e are trying to inspire progress by promoting [the gap] in basic human capability.The ARC Prize Foundation will expand on ARC-AGI, a test developed by Chollet to evaluate whether an AI system can efficiently acquire new skills outside the data it was trained on.Chollet introduced ARC-AGI, short for Abstract and Reasoning Corpus for Artificial General Intelligence, in 2019. Many AI systems can ace Math Olympiad exams and figure out potential solutions to PhD-level problems. But until this year, the best-performing AI could only solve just under a third of the tasks in ARC-AGI. Unlike most frontier AI benchmarks, we are not trying to measure AI risk with superhuman exam questions, Chollet wrote in the post. Future versions of the ARC-AGI benchmark will focus on shrinking [the human capability] gap towards zero.ARC-AGI consists of puzzle-like problems where an AI has to generate the correct answer grid from a collection of different-colored squares. The problems were designed to force an AI to adapt to new problems it hasnt seen before. Last June, Chollet and Zapier co-founder Mike Knoop kicked off acompetitionto build an AI capable of besting ARC-AGI. OpenAIs unreleased o3 model was the first to achieve a qualifying score but only with an extraordinary amount of computing power.Chollet has made it clear that ARC-AGI has flaws many models have been able to brute force their way to high scores and that he doesnt believe that o3 possess human-level intelligence. [E]arly data points suggest that the upcoming [successor to the ARC-AGI] benchmark will still pose a significant challenge to o3, potentially reducing its score to under 30% even at high compute (while a smart human would still be able to score over 95% with no training), Chollet said in a statement last December. Youll know artificial general intelligence is here when the exercise of creating tasks that are easy for regular humans but hard for AI becomes simply impossible.Knoop says that the plan is to launch a second-gen ARC-AGI benchmark this year alongside a new competition. The nonprofit will also embark on designing the third edition of ARC-AGI. It remains to be seen how the ARC Prize Foundation addresses the criticism Chollet has faced for overselling ARC-AGI as a benchmark toward reaching AGI. The very definition of AGI is being hotly contested now; one OpenAI staff member recentlyclaimedthat AGI has already been achieved if one defines AGI as AI better than most humans at most tasks.Interestingly, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in December that the company intends to partner with the ARC-AGI team to build future benchmarks. Chollet gave no update on possible partnership in todays announcement.

Watch Duty, an app to track wildfires with live maps and alerts, has become the number one free app in Apples App Store as of Wednesday morning. The fire tracking app surpassed the ChatGPT app for the number one spot as devastating fires continue to rage across Southern California.Watch Duty has been around since 2021 and says its used by firefighters and first responders across the western United States.Fire tracking app goes viral amid wildfires (image credit: Maxwell Zeff)The Watch Duty app pulls information about active wildfires from a network of active and retired firefighters, first responders, official government reports, and volunteer reporters who monitor radio scanners around the clock. While other fire tracking apps solely rely on government alerts, Watch Duty claims to have more real-time information. However, its important to remember the app is not a replacement for official information.Downloading the app will show you wildfires in your immediate area, and alert you about nearby fires, evacuation warnings, and firefighting efforts. You can also use the app to check in other areas, which may be especially helpful if you have loved ones in Southern California.Image Credits:Watch DutyThe fire tracking app shot to the top of the charts Wednesday morning as more than 70,000 people in and around Los Angeles county face evacuation orders from the Palisades Fire near Santa Monica and the Eaton Fire near Pasadena. At the time of writing, the Associated Press reports that the fires have destroyed more than 1,000 structures and killed at least two people. The fires continue to rage, pushed by a ferocious wind storm affecting the area, with winds topping out at 100 mph.Friends in LA: Download the Watch Duty app to track the fire in real time, said Ryan Peterson, the CEO of Flexport in a tweet on Tuesday. Its the official wild fire app used by the firemen in California with very granular real time updates, video feeds and evacuation maps.The apps founder and CEO, John Mills, told the Washington Post earlier this year that he started Watch Duty after moving to a fire-prone area of Northern California.

Mastodon CEO Eugen Rochko has spoken out about the significant moderation changes announced by Meta on Tuesday, which will see the social networking giant removing fact-checking across its apps in favor of a crowdsourced community notes feature, similar to Xs. The Mastodon founder, whose app competes with X and Metas X rival, Instagram Threads, called Metas changes deeply troubling and a concern to anyone with a conscience. He also warned Threads users who cross-post from Threads to Mastodon via Threads fediverse-sharing feature that Mastodon will take action on hate speech and any Threads account violating Mastodons existing policies.Following the announcement of Metas loosened content moderation rules, which affect LGBTQ communities and other marginalized users, many Mastodon users wanted to know what this meant for the open source, decentralized social network, given its connection with Threads.Last June, Meta opened up its fediverse-sharing feature to all Threads users after earlier beta testing in the U.S., Canada, and Japan. The feature lets Threads users enable an option that will publish their posts directly on Mastodon as well, allowing them to reach a broader audience. ScreenshotRochko previously touted Threads federation, saying the move made the open source Mastodon a far more attractive option. He has also spoken about how Metas adoption of the underlying ActivityPub protocol, which powers Mastodon and other federated servers, was a validation of the move to decentralized social media.However, not all in the fediverse are in universal agreement on Mastodons integration with Threads. Hundreds of smaller Mastodon servers block Threads, which means their users cant connect with Threads users or vice versa. (Meta also blocks hundreds of Mastodon servers, too, over violations of Community Standards and other moderation and privacy issues.)It was previously unclear how Mastodon would respond to Metas new policy, and whether or not the larger Mastodon instances, like mastodon.social, would now take action against Threads accounts.Rochkos post indicates the organization is aware that Threads integration could soon become a moderation challenge. Hate speech is prohibited, and we will take action on any Threads account found violating our policies, he warned in a post on his Mastodon account.He also urged users on Threads who disagreed with Metas new direction to move to Mastodon instead, though its not as easy to do as moving an account between different Mastodon servers. Thats because Threads is not yet fully integrated with the fediverse in this way.

VFX and animation studio MPC brought Disney's characters and the African savannah to life in the recently released CG feature Mufasa: The Lion King. Under the leadership of director Barry Jenkins, the studio blended artistry and leading-edge technology to capture the story's heart and soul.Production VFX supervisor Adam Valdez, animation supervisor Daniel Fotheringham, VFX producer Barry St. John, VFX supervisor Audrey Ferrara, and VFX producers Georgie Duncan and Benny Milligan led a team of over 1,700 artists, technologists, and production crew across four continents.The films production leveraged innovative tools and techniques, including virtual production and motion-capture during pre-production. Despite COVID-19 restrictions, the team collaborated remotely across London, New York, and Los Angeles, using VR to navigate digital environments. Motion-capture performers' movements were mapped onto digital animals. Jenkins was able to direct performances live using Unreal Engine real-time animated feeds. To create a blueprint for our final animation our motion capture shoot involved multiple performers playing Mufasa, Sarabi, Taka, Rafiki and even Zazu says Valdez. They wore motion capture suits, and through a process we call QuadCap, their movements were mapped onto digital lion characters. This technology aligned the performers head and spine movements to the lions head and neck, their legs to the lions front legs, and simulated the lions back legs and hips to follow. Barry could then watch a live feed of the lions on screen through Unreal Engine, allowing him to give real-time performance and camera notes to the actors and DP.We added facial expressions and lip sync to enhance characters performances. Fotheringham noted, then Barry could walk through the recorded sequence in VR making notes before we could wrap it up to be shot virtually. Performances with complex animal mechanics, like fighting or leaping were then integrated into the Quadcap performances and into the virtual sets, creating a complete master scene that Barry and James could shoot from any angle. This innovative blending of live-action filmmaking techniques and visual effects became a defining feature of the entire production. MPCs Character Lab team crafted over 118 photorealistic unique animals, each built from the ground up using anatomically precise bone and muscle structure. MPCs proprietary grooming system, Loma, created lifelike fur with an unprecedented number of hairs that could react naturally to environmental elements like snow, wind and water. Meanwhile, MPCs animators delivered performances rich in emotional depth and authenticity.The studios Environment artists crafted expansive African landscapes through scouting trips, photogrammetry, and hand-sculpting. They designed plains, canyons, and forests, capturing every detail from weathered rocks to blades of grass. To manage the vast scale, they developed a 107 square-mile digital world, rendered with photorealistic detail.Source: MPC Journalist, antique shop owner, aspiring gemologistL'Wrenbrings a diverse perspective to animation, where every frame reflects her varied passions.