Fluffy-Tailed Ticked Dog (2022), hand-hooked mostly-wool yarn on linen. All images courtesy of Emily OLeary, shared with permissionLifelike Canines Lounge in Emily OLeary Uncanny Hooked RugsJanuary 13, 2025ArtCraftKate MothesMost dogs spend at least half of their day asleepsome getting zs for upwards of 18 hours. Whether curled up on the floor or enjoying a long-legged stretch, the subjects of Emily OLearys rugs evoke our beloved pets.Based on photographs of actual dogs, she focuses mostly on animals the artist doesnt know. I like to hook dogs that are pretty mutty looking, that dont look like yard-bound Golden Retrievers or Doodles, she tells Colossal. Im attracted to the shared history of humans and dogshow the bulk of their domestication may have happened somewhat inadvertently.Injured Elbow Dog (2020), hand-hooked wool yarn on linenEmploying a carpet-making technique called rug hooking, the earliest form of which can be traced to Northern England in the early 19th century, OLeary spends several months on a single piece. Compared to tufting, Its a slower, more traditional process, she says, but the process allows each individual loop to be applied at a different height, giving her the ability to create three-dimensional reliefs.OLeary learned to make rugs after predominantly focusing on embroidery. When some friends organized an exhibition themed around dogs, she had the idea to make a work in the shape of a life-size canine. Im lucky that the rugs sort of do inspire tender feelings in the people who see them, but that theyre also a bit uncanny, she says.The pieces weight and realistic details engender an intimate connection as they come to life, so to speak. I really feel like Ive built a relationship with the object, she says, adding: Sometimes the dogs I hook have wounds or scars. The dog rug Im working on right now is missing a little chunk of her ear. I want to depict them as they are, not stuffed animal versions.Find more on OLearys website and Instagram.Brown and Black Dog (2021), hand-hooked wool yarn on linenDetail of Mottled-leg Dog (2024), hand-hooked wool yarn on linenSandy Reddish Dog (2023), hand-hooked mostly-wool yarn on linenPhoto by Bucky MillerPhoto by Bucky MillerNext article

The UKs National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has joined forces with its Five Eyes partners and other agencies from the European Union (EU) to publish a new guide designed help critical national infrastructure (CNI) bodies and others that rely on operational technology (OT) demand improved security in products when making buying decisions.With operators of CNI under near-constant threat from malicious actors many of them working at the behest of hostile intelligence agencies the NCSC said it was aiming to provide clear guidance on choosing products and manufacturers that adhere to secure-by-design principles, giving their own systems a resilient foundation and minimising the risks posed by cyber attacks.Historically, such components have not been developed with security as a priority or in many cases at all giving threat actors an open window to access their tech estates, one that is becoming much wider as more and more OT components connects into wider IT systems.Moreover, such components are often heavily targeted because a successful compromise can be easily replicated across multiple victims.As cyber attackers increasingly target operational technology around the world, it has never been more vital for critical infrastructure operators to ensure security is baked into the systems they use, said NCSC director of national resilience and future technology, Jonathan Ellison.This new guide gives organisations practical advice on how to prioritise OT products that are secure by design when making purchasing decisions, helping to mitigate the very real cyber threats they face.I strongly advise UK operators of OT systems to follow this guidance to help set a strong foundation for their cyber resilience and to send a signal to manufacturers that security is more than just an extra feature for products but a requirement in demand.The guidance, which is officially available to download from the website of the NCSCs American counterpart CISA, lays down 12 security considerations that OT users should integrate into their procurement process, both to help defend themselves, and to force manufacturers to do better.The considerations buyers should look to and the answer to these questions should always be yes are as follows:Does the product support controlling and tracking modifications to configuration settings and engineering logic?Does the baseline product support logging of all actions, including changes to configuration, security and safety events, using open standard formats?Does the product use open standards to support secure functionality and services, and to migrate configuration settings and engineering logic?Does the product give owners and operators full autonomy over it, including the ability to conduct maintenance and make other changes, and minimise dependence on the supplier?Does the product protect the integrity and confidentiality of data, services and functions, including configuration settings and engineering logic, both at rest and in transit?Does the product arrive secure out-of-the-box, reducing attack surfaces and removing the burden on owners by including all security features in all versions, eliminating default passwords and allowing for complex ones, with older protocols disabled by default, not exposing external interfaces, and giving users the ability to reset them to their original state?Does the product support secure authenticated communications that fail loudly but let critical processes continue, and that do not require significant cyber skills to achieve?Does the product come with secure controls that guard it against threat actors sending malicious commands, protect the availability of essential functions, and minimise the impact of an incident on wider systems?Does the baseline version of the product appropriately protect against unauthorised access through measures such as multifactor authentication or role-based access control?Does the product have a full, detailed threat model that lays out how it might be compromised, and measures to reduce such scenarios?Does the product manufacturer have a vulnerability disclosure and management programme in place, including testing, support and management, and free patching?Does the product have a well-documented and straightforward patching and upgrade process that enables users to move to a supported operating system gratis if the original can no longer be supported?CISA director Jen Easterly, writing today, compared the current situation to the period just before public pressure forced car manufacturers to start to build in safety features such as seatbelts, anti-lock breaks and so on as standard. In the US, outrage over sky-high road fatalities was driven by the publication 60 years ago of a landmark text, Unsafe At Any Speed, by consumer advocate and politician Ralph Nader.We dont have a cyber security problem; we have a software quality problem, said Easterly. We are now at a tipping point with foreign adversaries rampantly exploiting defective software where this recognition is leading to a concerted demandfor better security.Just as automobile safety reforms only succeeded when the public demanded safer cars as a basic standard, the software industry will only prioritise secure design when wedemand it as the baseline for a functioning, secure, digital ecosystem.The secure-by-design initiative supports this demand by equipping customers with key questions to ask vendors about their software just as public safety campaigns taught the nation how to evaluate the safety features of their cars. By empowering users, we aim to create a seismic shift in software security.Read more about OT securityMore companies are tasking CISOs with operational technology security. But this oversight means a new strategy for those unfamiliar with building an effective OT security programme.Securing operational technology is particularly critical but also especially challenging. Consider these top OT threats and how to manage them.Keeping operational technology secure requires vigilance and effort, especially as OT increasingly converges with IT. These cyber security best practices can help.

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Parents and guardians seeking allies in ensuring children arent exposed to bad actors and harmful content are turning to social media platforms for help.

By Billy PerrigoJanuary 13, 2025 12:37 PM ESTThe Biden Administrations move on Jan. 13 to curb exports on the advanced computer chips used to power artificial intelligence (AI) arrived in the wake of two major events over the Christmas holidays that rattled the world of AI.First, OpenAI released its latest model, o3, which achieved an 88% on a set of difficult reasoning tests on which no AI system had previously scored above 5%. All intuition about AI capabilities will need to get updated in light of the results, said Francois Chollet, a former AI researcher at Google and a prominent skeptic of the argument that artificial general intelligence (AGI) would be achieved any time soon.Second, the Chinese company DeepSeek released an open-source AI model that outperformed any American open-source language model, including Metas Llama series. The achievement surprised many AI researchers and U.S. officials, who had believed China lagged behind in terms of AI capabilities. Somehow, DeepSeek had managed to create a world-class AI model in spite of a global embargo, led by the U.S. government, on the sale of advanced AI chips to China.Taken together, the two developments made something clear: I think AGI will probably get developed during this presidents term, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told Bloomberg in January, meaning that technology powerful enough to carry out economically valuable work and make new scientific discoveries by itself would emerge in the next four years under U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. Whats more: China appeared to be catching up in the race to get there first.For some U.S. officials, those realizations only underlined what they had been arguing for years: restricting Chinas access to AI was now essential for U.S. national security. Whichever superpower achieves AGI first, the thinking goes, is likely to obtain a decisive strategic advantage, reap new scientific discoveries, wield powerful new weapons and surveillance technologies, and leave its competitors economy in the rear-view mirror.Under Biden, the U.S. government had intensified a policy that began during Trumps first term: using the power of export controls to limit the number of advanced chips that China could obtain to impede its attempts to reach parity with the U.S. on AI. Despite measures that made the export of advanced chips to China illegal in 2022, Beijing had nevertheless succeeded in stockpiling thousands of chips to build its own AI systems thanks to an international smuggling network. The pure power of DeepSeek v3 strongly suggested that those chips were being used to train AI at the cutting edge.And so, with just a week until Trumps return to the White House, the Biden Administration added finishing touches to its existing chip sanctions. The new rules attempt to make it even harder for China to obtain cutting-edge AI chips via smuggling, by establishing new quotas and license requirements for the sale of advanced chips to all but Americas closest allies.If the Trump Administration does not act to repeal the measure, the policy will take effect in 120 days. I think it is quite likely that the Trump Administration will find this policy appealing, and the reason is that we are in a critical moment in AI technology competition with China, says Greg Allen, director of the Wadhwani Center for AI and Advanced Technologies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington think tank. Contrary to rumors of AIs progress reaching a plateau, OpenAIs o3 model shows new capabilities are continuing to emerge rapidly, Allen says, leading many in Washington and Silicon Valley to bring forward their predictions of when they think AGI will arrive. And while Trump himself is unpredictable, many of the aides and policymakers set to occupy senior positions in his Administration are China hawks. It matters a lot that the United States gets there before China, says Allen, who supports the Biden Administration's new rules. It is a pretty decisive move to make life much harder for Chinas AI ecosystem.Trump will face appeals from those urging him to repeal the new rules. Nvidia, which controls more than 90% of the U.S. AI chip industry, blasted the Biden Administration in a statement, arguing that the restrictions would hand market share to China. By attempting to rig market outcomes and stifle competition the lifeblood of innovation the Biden Administrations new rule threatens to squander Americas hard-won technological advantage, said the statement, authored by Nvidias president of government affairs Ned Finkle. The company also flattered Trump in the same statement, crediting him with laying the foundation for Americas current strength and success in AI.Allen agrees that they might push buyers toward China. But not fast enough, he says. It takes five to 10 years for a chipmaker to turn even huge investments into machines capable of making advanced new chips, and China simply doesnt have that time, assuming AGI is on the horizon. They are really stuck because they cannot get the advanced equipment that they need, Allen says. The alternative to American AI chips isnt Chinese AI chips. Its no AI chips.

A hot potato: The open-source project llama2.c is designed to run a lightweight version of the Llama 2 model entirely in C code. This "baby" Llama 2 model is inspired by llama.cpp, a project created to enable LLM inference across a wide range of hardware, from local devices to cloud-based platforms. These compact code experiments are now being leveraged to run AI technology on virtually any device with a chip, highlighting the growing accessibility and versatility of AI tools. After seeing Exo Labs run a large language model on an ancient Pentium II running Windows 98, developer Andrei David decided to take on an even more unconventional challenge. Dusting off his Xbox 360 console, he set out to force the nearly two-decade-old machine to load an AI model from Meta AI's Llama family of LLMs.David shared on X that he successfully ported llama2.c to Microsoft's 2005-era gaming console. However, the process wasn't without significant hurdles. The Xbox 360's PowerPC CPU is a big-endian architecture, which required extensive endianness conversion for both the model's configuration and weights. Additionally, he had to deal with substantial adjustments and optimizations to the original code to make it work on the aging hardware.Memory management posed yet another significant challenge. The 60MB llama2 model had to be carefully structured to fit within the Xbox 360's unified memory architecture, where the CPU and GPU share the same pool of RAM. According to David, the Xbox 360's memory architecture was remarkably forward-thinking for its time, foreshadowing the memory management techniques now standard in modern gaming consoles and APUs.After extensive coding and optimization, David successfully ran llama2 on his Xbox 360 using a simple prompt: "Sleep Joe said." Despite the llama2 model being just 700 lines of C code with no external dependencies, David noted that it can deliver "surprisingly" strong performance when tailored to a sufficiently narrow domain.David explained that working within the constraints of a limited platform like the Xbox 360 forces you to prioritize efficient memory usage above all else. In response, another X user suggested that the 512MB of memory on Microsoft's old console might be sufficient to run other small LLM implementations, such as smolLM, created by AI startup Hugging Face.The developer gladly accepted the challenge, so we will likely see additional LLM experiments on Xbox 360 in the not-so-distant future. // Related Stories

Numbers are the greatest weapon in the trailer for Prime Target, a new Apple TV+ conspiracy thriller starring Leo Woodall and Quintessa Swindell.Edward Brooks (Woodall) is a gifted mathematician searching for sequences in prime numbers. What if numbers didnt behave the way we assume? Edward tells his professor (David Morrissey). What Edward doesnt realize is that his work could be the foundation for a virtual key that opens every digital lock in the world. If this weapon gets into the wrong hands, it will lead to worldwide panic and chaos.Recommended VideosBecause his knowledge is extremely valuable, Edward becomes the target of many nefarious organizations. Enter Taylah Sanders (Swindell), an NSA agent sent to protect Edward. As the duo works together, they soon uncover a conspiracy threatening the worlds future.Please enable Javascript to view this contentI wanna fight back, Edward tells Taylah, who says, Lets burn them all to hell.Prime Target Official Trailer | Apple TV+Prime Targetsensemble includes Stephen Rea, Martha Plimpton, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Jason Flemyng, Harry Lloyd, Ali Suliman, Fra Fee, and Joseph Mydell.Prime Targetis created by Steve Thompson, who also serves as an executive producer with Ridley Scott, Ed Rubin, Beth Pattinson, Emma Broughton, Yariv Milchan, Arnon Milchan, Michael Schaefer, Marina Brackenbury, David W. Zuker, and Laura Hastings-Smith. Executive producer Brady Hood directs all eight episodes.Prime Targetis not the only high-profile Apple TV+ drama premiering in January. SeveranceThe first two episodes ofPrime Targetstream globally on January 22, 2025, on Apple TV+. One episode will be released weekly every Wednesday through March 5.Editors Recommendations

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Tough road ahead Sonos CEO behind disastrous app exits with $1.9 million severance Frustrated users think Spence's removal is "well deserved." Scharon Harding Jan 13, 2025 12:29 pm | 42 A promotional image for Sonos' app. Credit: Sonos A promotional image for Sonos' app. Credit: Sonos Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreAfter an app update rollout that can best be described as disastrous, Sonos is seeking a new CEO. The company announced today that Patrick Spence, who had been CEO for eight years, is stepping down.In its announcement, Sonos said its board of directors and Spence "agreed" on the decision while saying it was unrelated to the company's fiscal Q1 2025 earnings, which it will report next month.Spence joined Sonos as chief commercial officer in 2012 after leaving Blackberry. Under his tenure, Sonos branched into new categories, including portable speakers and spatial audio. But in May, Sonos issued an app update that broke basic and critical features. Sonos employees said the update was built on outdated code and infrastructure, impacting users' ability to do things like access and manage local libraries, set sleep timers, and edit song queues and playlists.The employees also said the app was rushed so that it could be ready in time for Sonos' first wireless headphones, Ace. In July, following much public backlash, Spence apologized and promised regular updates until the new app was as good as the old app. But even today, users are still reporting problems with the software.In August, Spence said Sonos would spend $20 million to $30 million "in the short term" to fix the app. Soon after, Sonos laid off 100 people. Sonos' stock price declined approximately 13 percent since the app update, Bloomberg noted. Sonos execs, including Spence, received a $72,000 bonus in 2023 but did not get bonusesfor the fiscal year that ended on September 30.Spence will receive a cash severance of $1,875,000, per SEC filings. He will also get $7,500 per month and serve as a Sonos board advisor until June, and his unvested shares will vest.Tom Conrad, who has been on Sonos' board since 2017, took the role of interim CEO today. Sonos plans on having a new CEO by February via the help of a third-party firm. In the meantime, Conrad will get $175,000 per month and receive $2.65 million in stock shares.Conrad was the CTO of Pandora for 10 years, the VP of product at Snapchat for two years, and the chief product officer at the failed Quibi streaming service. He has been heading work to fix the app with Nick Millington, Sonos' chief product officer and the architect behind the original app, Sonos spokesperson Erin Pategas told The Verge.Sonos let customers downLeadership succeeding Spence has their work cut out for them after Sonos tanked customer relations last year and frustrated employees who were concerned about pushing out the app."When [the app's user experience] doesnt work, our customers are taken out of the moment and are right to feel that weve let them down, Conrad said in an email to employees. I think well all agree that this year weve let far too many people down."In the letter (which you can read in its entirety at The Verge), Conrad pointed to "remarkable" product releases being brought down by the bad app. Such products are insufficient "when our customers alarms dont go off, their kids cant hear their playlist during breakfast, their surrounds dont fire, or they cant pause the music in time to answer the buzzing doorbell," Conrad wrote.Conrad and the following CEO will have to work to not only improve Sonos' value but to convince users that Sonos is equipped to handle their longstanding interests and demands as well as future endeavors. A big driver for Sonos' app problems was the need to evolve the software to support mobile devices, like the Ace. In August, Spence noted to investors that the maligned app was "a redesign of the entire systemnot only the app but also the player side of our system, as well as our cloud infrastructure."Interim CEO Conrad seems intent on appeasing disappointed customers and continuing to push Sonos toward a cloud-dependent future."Getting back to basics is necessary, but clearly not enough to unlock the future we all envision for Sonos, Conrad told employees, noting desires to push Sonos well beyond home audio.At least for now, customers seem pleased that Spence will no longer lead those efforts."Well deserved," a Reddit user wrote today in a post that has hundreds of upvotes as of this writing. "Imagine doing so much reputation and functional damage to a previous well regarded go-to brand.Scharon HardingSenior Technology ReporterScharon HardingSenior Technology Reporter Scharon is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica writing news, reviews, and analysis on consumer gadgets and services. She's been reporting on technology for over 10 years, with bylines at Toms Hardware, Channelnomics, and CRN UK. 42 Comments

Laser beams in a physics laboratoryCallum Fraser / Alamy Stock PhotoA new way to gauge distance using lasers can measure lengths of more than 100 kilometres to within a thousandth of the width of a human hair, and could be used to make better space telescopes.In lab-settings, scientists can use lasers to measure distances with extreme precision, to within a few nanometres. But for longer distances of a kilometre or more, the precision of these techniques tends to be much lower, to within around a millimetre.