Latest Gadgets News

The telecom subscriber base in the country grew marginally to 1,170.75 million in January, driven by net customer gain in the fixed line segment, according to a sector regulator TRAI report released on Friday. The net gain in the wireline segment was 0.28 million customers while mobile telephony recorded a net gain of 0.09 million subscribers.

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Google Cracks Down on Scams and Fake Content on Google Maps - CNET

Millions of photos, reviews and other pieces of fraudulent content were removed in 2022.

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US Treasury Announces Strict New Rules for EV Tax Credit - CNET

The tax break is worth up to $7,500 but new regulations about battery components mean few EVs currently qualify for it.

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Latest Tech News

TV maker Hisense held an event in NYC this week to announce its new partnership with the National Basketball Association. Along with the NBA sponsorship news, the event gave the company a chance to announce that they are now the number two TV brand in North America based on unit share according to data supplied by the Circana retail tracking service.

Hisense has made great strides in the North American TV market over the past few years, heightening its visibility with a lineup of affordable QLED sets. Last year’s U8H series, the first model with mini-LED backlighting to arrive from the company, impressed us with its high brightness and rich contrast, earning a spot on our list of the best 4K TVs and best 120 Hz TVs for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

Mini-LED in general has given QLED tech a shot in the arm, with top new Mini-LED backlit TVs like the Samsung QN95C starting to rival the best OLED TVs when it comes to performance aspects like shadow detail and black uniformity. As it previously announced at CES, Hisense will offer four series of mini-LED TVs in 2023, starting with the budget U6K line and topping out with the flagship limited edition UX series.

As part of its NBA partnership, Hisense will sponsor X-Factor Moments, a weekly series of game highlights from the 2023 postseason on the NBA’s social media channels. The NBA League Pass live game subscription service will also be available in the NBA TV app on Hisense smart TVs.

ULED X: The Official Television of the NBA 

While the sponsorship arrangement extends to all Hisense TVs and appliances, the flagship ULED X model has been designated as The Official Television of the NBA.

The limited edition ULED X, which will only be available in an 85-inch screen size, boasts impressive specs. Its backlight consists of over 20,000 mini-LEDs that are controlled by 5,000-plus local dimming zones. Peak brightness is 2,500 nits, according to Hisense, with a claimed two times higher contrast range than OLED TVs. The ULED X also features a built-in 4.1.2 Dolby Atmos and DTS:X speaker system powered by 80 watts.

The other new mini-LED models in the Hisense lineup are the U8K, U7K, and U6K series. These are all available in 55-, 65-, 75-, and 85-inch screen sizes and have a peak brightness spec ranging from 600 nits on U6K series up to 1,500 nits on the U8K series. Both the U8K and U7K also have 144Hz-capable panels, making them a good choice for gaming, while all models feature a built-in ATSC 3.0 digital TV tuner.

Hisense's L9H laser TV ultra short throw projector comes with 100 and 120-inch screen options. (Image credit: Future)

L9H Laser TV ultra short throw projector 

Hisense’s top ultra short throw projector for 2023 is the L9H. This comes paired with either a 100- or 120-inch ambient light rejecting screen and uses an RGB laser light engine that’s capable of 107% BT.2020 color space coverage. Dolby Vision high dynamic range is supported by the L9H and it runs the Google TV smart interface for streaming and voice control.

Other features of the L9H include a built-in 40-watt Dolby Atmos sound system and an ATSC 3.0 tuner for viewing next-gen digital TV broadcasts.

Hisense was also showing its L5H ultra short throw projector at the event, a step-down model that uses a blue laser light source with reduced BT.2020 color space coverage.

Hisense USA CEO David Gold announcing the brand's NBA sponsorship. (Image credit: Future)

TVs and sports: a winning combination 

There’s no surprise in Hisense becoming the official partner of the NBA, because the high visibility that sports sponsorship nets a brand literally brings it into the living room of millions of viewers. That’s why TCL, Hisense’s main competitor in the budget TV space, is the official partner of NFL football, and OLED TV maker LG is an official partner of NCAA basketball.

For Hisense to compete with TCL it needs to expose its brand to as many eyeballs as possible. And while this sponsorship should do precisely that, the upside to Hisense’s competition with TCL for consumers is that the company’s TVs are seeing year-over-year picture quality improvements, while their prices remain affordable. 

Hisense hasn’t yet announced specific pricing for its new TVs, all of which should arrive around June. At that time, we’ll see just how good they look when we get the new U8K model in for review.

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Latest Gadgets News

China's cyberspace regulator will conduct a cybersecurity review of products sold in the country by US memory chip manufacturer Micron Technology, the regulator said on Friday. The move, which comes amid a spat over chip technology between Washington and Beijing, is aimed at protecting the security of the supply chain for critical information infrastructure, prevent ...

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Latest Tech News

Researchers from SentinelLabs have uncovered a new toolkit cybercriminals are using to breach email and web hosting services. 

The malware toolkit, called “AlienFox”, is being described as “highly modular” and getting regular updates. Most of the tools in the kit are open source, and with the speed at which it’s being updated, the researchers concluded the devs are becoming “increasingly sophisticated”.

As per SentinelLabs’ report, hackers are shilling AlienFox on Telegram groups, claiming it can be used to compromise misconfigured hosts on cloud platforms and steal sensitive data.

Abusing scanning platforms 

"AlienFox tools facilitate attacks on minimal services that lack the resources needed for mining," the researchers said in their report. "By analyzing the tools and tool output, we found that actors use AlienFox to identify and collect service credentials from misconfigured or exposed services. For victims, compromise can lead to additional service costs, loss of customer trust, and remediation costs."

To generate a list of misconfigured hosts, the toolkit uses security scanning platforms, such as LeakIX, or SecurityTrails. Then, it uses multiple scripts to pull sensitive information such as API keys and secrets from configuration files, the researchers explained. Some of the versions analyzed for the report were able to establish AWS account persistence and escalate privileges, as well as collect send quotas and automate spam campaigns through victim accounts and services.

Read more

> Nearly all firms have some kind of cloud misconfiguration issue

> Many data breaches are being caused by misconfigured clouds

> Check out the best endpoint protection right now 

So far, attacks against cloud-based services were limited mostly to cryptominers. Threat actors would use compromised cloud servers to run XMRig or similar cryptocurrency miners, generating tokens without needing to pay for electricity, internet, or compute power. With AlienFox, SentinelLabs claims, opportunistic cloud attacks are no longer confined to cryptomining. 

“For victims, compromise can lead to additional service costs, loss in customer trust, and remediation costs,” the researchers concluded.

• Here are the best firewalls 

Via: The Register 

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Microsoft Unveils Diablo 4 Xbox Series X Bundle Available for Preorder - CNET

It's a hell of a bundle.

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Latest Tech News

Deepfake photos are fast approaching the point where many can’t tell the difference between them and real images. It’s a lesson AI image generator Midjourney learned the hard way when some used its platform to create several recent images, including several fakes of former US President Donald Trump being arrested. After the images went viral, many thought they were real, sparking conversations and controversy based on completely fabricated information.

According to The Washington Post and reported on by The Verge, these deepfakes became so widespread, they prompted Midjourney to halt free trials on March 28. However, when TechRadar reached out to Midjourney CEO and founder David Holz for clarification, he insisted that there was a different reason for the halt: “Users signing up for multiple free trial accounts was bringing down the service for paid users so that's why we temporarily halted free trials.”

This correlates with a previous statement Holz made to The Verge concerning the free trials, that it was due to “extraordinary demand and trial abuse.” Previously, Midjourney’s free trial allowed for 25 free images a month before users had to pay at least a $10 per month subscription fee. 

When asked about the creation of these controversial deepfakes created through Midjourney, Holz told TechRadar “I think we're still trying to figure out what the right moderation policies are. We are taking feedback from experts and the community and trying to be really thoughtful. We already have some new systems coming which should ship soon.”

Now, though, it looks like Midjourney will be keeping free trials disabled, at least for the immediate future. “We tried turning trials back on again with new safeties for abuse but they didn’t seem to be sufficient so we are turning it back off again to maintain the service for everyone else,” Holz told us.

He added that free trials will be coming back eventually, but the company is still considering how to go about it. “We're still trying to figure out how to bring free trials back, we tried to require an active email but that wasn't enough so we're back to the drawing board.”

What is Midjourney?

Midjourney is just one of several AI image generators, with others including Dall-E, Jasper Art, Starry AI, Stable Diffusion, and plenty of others. These sites exist to create new and entirely fabricated images that are trained on existing online images and data. The images can be photorealistic, fanciful images of animals, surreal images, pixel art, and more. What originally set Midjourney apart from other generators was the more painting-like quality of its images compared to others. At least until version 5 was released on March 15.

Initially, Midjourney-created images were easily spotted thanks to common signs like wonky hands (too many fingers). But once version 5 of its software launched, images became vastly superior in quality, which meant that people could create images with more realistic hands, as well as better lighting and fabric. Essentially you can make tons of deepfakes of celebrities and other public figures thanks to the combination of better technology and the sheer number of real-life images available for training Midjourney.

Deepfakes, or photos created using AI technology for the purpose of spreading misinformation with fake images, have become a growing problem. Beyond the Donald Trump arrest deepfakes, others created with Midjourney featured Pope Francis wearing a puffy, white down coat, French President Emmanuel Macron walking through the ongoing protests in Paris, and Twitter CEO Elon Musk holding hands with U.S. representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

This isn’t the first time that AI-generated creations have been at the center of controversy, as tech leaders and AI experts recently released an open letter calling for the halt of training AI chatbots like ChatGPT. 

The future of AI-generated image sites like Midjourney is uncertain. While the technology holds great potential to aid humans, it can and has already been used in more destructive ways. Only time will tell whether safeguards, from lawmakers to the companies themselves, can manage safety and public good, while still allowing AI to flourish and grow.

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Struggling With Brain Fog? You Might Be Missing These 4 Key Vitamins - CNET

Check your diet -- a lack of certain vitamins and minerals may be causing your brain fog.

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Latest Tech News

Having recently impressed us with their mid-range FiiO M11S portable digital audio player, Chinese audio firm FiiO is back with a decidedly high-end offering for its next on-the-go device.

The new M15S portable player comes packed with two desktop-grade ES9038PRO digital-to-analog converters, with individual DAC chips dedicated to the left and right stereo channels.

Each chip makes use of four D/A converters for what FiiO claim to be extremely high-quality decoding, with the device able to support playback of audio files up to 384kHz/DSD256. 

The new M15S also supports MQA, allowing listeners to directly stream TIDAL Masters as well as MQA files stored locally, while further Hi-Res audio options come in the form of aptX HD Bluetooth, alongside LDAC and LHDC wireless codecs. 

There's onboard 2.4GHz/5GHz Wi-Fi allowing for support of Apple AirPlay and DLNA streaming, as well as compatibility with the increasingly popular multi-room music software platform Roon.

(Image credit: Fiio)

Weighing 345g, the device runs on Android 10, which allows for lossless access to Tidal, Qobuz and Apple Music, and it's powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 processor - the same CPU which features on FiiO's flagship M17 hi-res audio player.

Along with a regular 3.5mm headphone jack and both 2.5mm and 4.4mm balanced headphone outputs, there's a 5.5-inch multi-touch HD display with 64GB of onboard storage that can be expanded up to 2TB of extra storage via the microSD card slot.

The FiiO M15S is available now to order for $999/£979 from the FiiO website, and set to ship later this month.

We can't wait to put it through its paces and see how it matches up to best MP3 players currently out there. Watch this space… 

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iOS 16.4: Your iPhone Just Got These New Emoji - CNET

A new smiley, more heart colors and additional animals are a few of the new emoji.

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Okay, Gen Z, you’ve discovered vinyl records, find them cool, and maybe even bought one of the best turntables to play them on. But how much do you know about the proper handling and cleaning of your precious vinyl stash?

If the answer to that question is “I didn’t know I had to clean it,” here’s some news that will help set the record straight. 

Spin-Clean, manufacturer of the long-running Spin-Clean record cleaning system, has announced a consumer outreach program to teach vinyl newbies about proper vinyl LP maintenance. According to the company, the program’s launch coincides with the first major upgrade to the Spin-Clean system in 50 years, and will include “digital and print ads; pop-up banners on vinyl user forums and record collector sites; and social media that specifically targets young vinyl enthusiasts.” There is also a white paper with info on vinyl care and playback basics.

The inspiration for the consumer outreach program apparently stems from recent research conducted by US-based MusicWatch, with a press release issued by Spin-Clean to announce its updated system citing the following statistics:

• 18 million consumers purchased vinyl in 2021, a 27% boost over the previous year
• 46% of these were between 18 and 34 years of age
• 43% of respondents to the MusicWatch survey said “they want to preserve or keep [records] in pristine condition for their collections”

This is all obviously music to the ears of a record cleaning system manufacturer, which may have been at one time worried about its primary market – boomers – aging out, and a lack of new customers for its products as the best music streaming services started to overtake physical media.

But a vinyl revival has been a real and ongoing thing over the past few years, with record sales experiencing record-breaking year-over-year increases in 2020 and 2021 – the height of the pandemic. That meteoric rise stalled out in 2022, however, when sales rose a mere 4.2% according to the U.S. 2022 Luminate Year-End Music Report, with a good chunk of it driven by the release of Taylor Swift’s Midnights.

So, what’s new about this upgraded Spin-Clean system that the company is targeting at the next generation of LP collectors?

Along with simple snap-in rollers for 7-, 10-, and 12-inch records, it has a new streamlined basin design that’s easier to clean, a higher-precision brush alignment, and improved stability from new self-adhesive rubber feet. The company says these changes should make the record cleaning process more approachable for newbies, and they apparently won’t come at an increased cost since the new Spin-Clean will sell at the same $79 / £79 / approximately AU$120 price as its predecessor.

(Image credit: Spin-Clean)

Analysis: The vinyl revival keeps on spinning 

If the growing number of record stores in my hometown is any indication, vinyl continues to be very much a viable medium. There are regular events like Record Store Day that drive consumer demand and interest, and major artists like Taylor Swift continue to max out the capacity of existing record-pressing plants in the US with their new releases.

For many newcomers to collecting, playback apparently isn’t an issue – that same Luminate 2022 year-end report cited that 50% of consumers who had bought vinyl over the previous 12 months don’t even own a record player. Reading into that data, some people are buying vinyl LPs simply to own a physical token that gets them closer to their favorite artists. Streaming may be convenient, but it’s clearly not enough of an experience for serious music fans.

As someone who owns a record cleaning machine and uses it to scrub the LPs that I pick up from garage sales, record fairs, and on occasion those local record stores, I can vouch for the sound quality improvements proper record cleaning brings. At $79, the Spin-Clean system counts among the more affordable options on the market, and with a 50-year history, it’s obviously one that has plenty of satisfied users.

New vinyl records can be expensive (and sometimes not exactly what you expect in the case of reissues of older titles). Gen Z, Millennial, Boomer, whomever, if you are actually playing LPs on a turntable, you will benefit from giving them a semi-regular cleaning. Spin-Clean is on the right track with its outreach program, so let's hope it locks in groove with its target market.

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Criminals have been discovered distributing fake Tor browsers that are designed to steal cryptocurrency, and so far, have been quite successful, raking in roughly $400,000 in various tokens from unsuspecting victims, experts have warned

Cybersecurity researchers from Kaspersky are warning users to watch out for Tor browser installers from third-party stores. 

They’ve spotted one such executable sitting in a password-protected RAR archive which, when extracted and installed, monitors the Windows clipboard for cryptocurrency wallets. If it spots one, it will replace it with one controlled by the attacker. 

Complicated addresses

When a person tries to send funds from one address to another, they would usually copy and paste the recipient’s address, as these are a long string of seemingly random characters which are almost impossible to remember.

If the malware replaces the copied address with a different one, chances are the victim won’t see the difference and will just send the funds to the wrong address. 

The method actually works quite well, as these attackers stole some $400,000 from roughly 16,000 users, just this year. Most of the stolen cash is in Bitcoin ($380,000), Litecoin ($10,000), Ethereum ($4,800), and Dogecoin ($517). Due to the way the malware is designed, the researchers can’t be absolutely certain about the amount of money stolen, and speculate that the final figure is probably even bigger. 

Read more

 > Nearly $200m in crypto stolen in Euler Finance attack

> North Korean APT43 hackers target organizations to launder crypto using cloud

> Keep your business safe with the best endpoint protection for small business

While the victims are scattered all over the world (52 countries) the bulk of them reside in Russia, followed by Ukraine, and the US. The researchers believe Russians were the biggest targets as Tor was first banned, and later censored, in the country. That made Russians look for alternative places to grab the famed browser from.

"The Tor Project called to help keep Russian users connected to Tor to circumvent censorship," said Vitaly Kamluk, head of Kaspersky's Global Research and Analysis Team for APAC. "Malware authors heard the call and responded by creating trojanized Tor browser bundles and distributing them among Russian-speaking users."

• Check out the best firewalls right now 

Via: The Register

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Siri’s 11-year reign may be drawing to a close as a new generative AI rival called Perplexity has just landed on the Apple App Store.

Note that Perplexity is not based on ChatGPT and has its own AI. However, it does function in a similar manner to ChatGPT. You ask it a question, like who designed the Golden Gate Bridge, and it’ll churn out a response in a few seconds. From there, you can either type in a follow-up question, use the voice command feature to verbally ask questions, or choose one from the generated selection. Responses can then be shared via a messaging app or social media platform. It’ll even save “your thread history so you can pick up where you left off,” according to the App Store listing. But unlike ChatGPT, Perplexity actually provides the sources it used to generate content. Underneath, you will see citations from Wikipedia, local news sites, and national newspapers like NPR accompanied by a brief piece of text providing context. 

To use Perplexity, you will need an iPhone supporting iOS 16 or later to install the app or an M1 Mac sporting macOS 13.0 or later.

As for an Android version, it doesn’t appear the developers behind Perplexity have any plans to make one at the time of this writing. We reached out to the team via the official PerplexityAI Discord channel, but haven’t heard back yet. The closest thing you can do is use the AI through a web browser on your Android device or Windows computer. There’s also a Chrome extension available if you prefer more direct access.

Perplexity on an iPhone (Image credit: PerplexityAI/Twitter)

Siri's future

With the introduction of Perplexity on iPhone, you essentially have some form of ChatGPT-like AI on every Apple platform and we don’t mean accessing the generative AI through a web browser. Mac computers have MacGPT, a native app offering quick access on desktops that saw a big update recently. A couple of weeks ago, the Apple Watch got Petey as an easily accessible, on-device assistant to replace Siri.

So we can’t help but wonder what’s cooking behind the scenes at Apple Inc. The company has been suspiciously quiet, allowing the likes of ChatGPT to roam on its platform unfettered as third-party apps. It's unlike Apple to just leave this new trend in the tech industry alone so it must be up to something. The closest indication we currently have is Apple enacting some new rules on its App Store for generative AI. According to a report by CNBC, it recently rejected an update to the BlueMail app due to concerns about the software’s ChatGPT feature not including a filter to protect minors from inappropriate content.

The date for Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference 2023 has been set for June 5. We’re looking forward to seeing what changes, if any, Siri may get. It'll be interesting to see if the long-standing virtual assistant will get a revamp allowing it to go toe-to-toe with its newfound rivals or be thrown out for a brand new AI model. 

Until then, be sure to check out TechRadar’s list of the best virtual assistants for 2023. 

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Best Google Pixel Deals: Up to $1,000 Off Pixel 7 Pro, Free Pixel 6A and More - CNET

Grab one of Google's latest phones at a great price with these current promotions.

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