Chinese engineers at the Institute for Intelligent Computing, Alibaba Group, have developed an AI app called Emote Portrait Live that can animate a still photo of a face and synchronize it to an audio track.
The technology behind this relies on the generative capabilities of diffusion models (mathematical models used to describe how things spread or diffuse over time), which can directly synthesize character head videos from a provided image and any audio clip. This process bypasses the need for complex pre-processing or intermediate representations, thus simplifying the creation of talking head videos.
The challenge lies in capturing the nuances and diversity of human facial movements during video synthesis. Traditional methods simplify this by imposing constraints on the final video output, such as using 3D models to limit facial keypoints or extracting head movement sequences from base videos to guide overall motion. However, these constraints may limit the naturalness and richness of the resulting facial expressions.
Not without challenges
The research team's objective is to develop a talking head framework that can capture a wide range of realistic facial expressions, including subtle micro-expressions, and allow for natural head movements.
However, the integration of audio with diffusion models presents its own challenges due to the ambiguous relationship between audio and facial expressions. This can result in instability in the videos produced by the model, including facial distortions or jittering between video frames. To overcome this, the researchers included stable control mechanisms in their model, specifically a speed controller and a face region controller, to improve stability during the generation process.
Despite the potential of this technology, there are certain drawbacks. The process is more time-consuming than methods that don't use diffusion models. Additionally, since there are no explicit control signals to guide the character’s motion, the model may unintentionally generate other body parts, like hands, resulting in artifacts in the video.
The group has published a paper on its work on the arXiv preprint server, and this website is home to a number of other videos showcasing the possibilities of Emote Portrait Live, including clips of Joaquin Phoenix (as The Joker), Leonardo DiCaprio, and Audrey Hepburn.
You can watch the Mona Lisa recite Rosalind's monologue from Shakespeare's As You Like It, Act 3, Scene 2, below.
Samsung was a pioneer of the folding phone, and the Galaxy Z Fold series constantly ranks among the best foldable phones on the market. So we’re excited to see what could be next for the line – and rumored to be on the horizon is the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6, and possibly a Galaxy Z Fold 6 Ultra.
It's the Ultra model that's caught our eye here. The now a lot more competition in the folding phone market, notably in the shape of the OnePlus Open and the Google Pixel Fold. So there's some logic to Samsung potentially looking to stand out from the pack it arguably helped create with a premium version of the Fold.
If legitimate, a Galaxy Z Fold 6 Ultra would effectively take the Fold 6 as the baseline and integrate in features found in the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra; say a built-in S Pen and 200-megapixel camera.
But it's early days for such foldable phone rumors and leaks, so read on for what we know so far about the so-called Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 Ultra and what we'd like to see from the phone.
Release date and price
What is it? A rumored new ultra-premium foldable from Samsung
When is it out? Possibly July
How much will it cost? Likely more than $1,799 / £1,749 / AU$2,599
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 Ultra: potential release date and price
(Image credit: @OnLeaks / SmartPrix)
If Samsung does unveil a Galaxy Z Fold 6 Ultra, it'll likely take place at the next Galaxy Unpacked event, currently tipped for July 10 in Paris, and be launched alongside the rumored Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6, as well as the Galaxy Ring.
As a Galaxy Z Fold 6 Ultra would be a more premium version of Samsung’s already expensive folding flagship, we’d expect to cost a fair bit more than the Galaxy Z Fold 5’s starting price of $1,799.99 / £1,749 / AU$2,599.
If the renders are to be believed, Samsung will shake-up its design for the Galaxy Z Fold 6 Ultra – and presumably for the ‘standard’ Galaxy Z Fold 6 – moving away from the gentle curves used in the Galaxy S series and the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and adopting the more angular design seen on the Galaxy S24 Ultra and Galaxy S23 Ultra.
The renders point to the Galaxy Z Fold 6 Ultra being slightly shorter but wider than the Fold 5, measuring 153.5 x 132.5 x 6.1mm compared to 154.9 x 129.9 x 6.1mm of its predecessor.
The renders also match the look of a prototype Galaxy Z Fold 6 design that leaker IceUniverse posted last year. If both are accurate then the design for the next-generation Fold phones may draw from the aesthetics of the Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 Ultra: what we want to see
Improved display and toughness
(Image credit: @OnLeaks / SmartPrix)
There are a few things we’d like to see in a Galaxy Z Fold 6 Ultra, but topping our list is something we’d like to see less of: the crease in the center of the main screen. Samsung has tended to make this less noticeable and distracting with each iteration of the Galaxy Z Fold – so could the Galaxy Z Fold 6, and a potential Galaxy Z Fold 6 Ultra, be the first phones on which Samsung manages to make it disappear completely?
Such a move would likely require the use of improved ultra-thin glass, but Samsung's display arm continues to produce impressive foldable and rollable AMOLED screens, so there's certainly scope to further reduce a Fold's crease or get rid of it completely.
Going by the rumors so far, the cover screen would likely keep the narrow 6.2-inch size seen on the Galaxy Z Fold 5, rather than a larger 6.4-inch panel other rumors have mentioned. If that’s the case it could be a wasted opportunity on Samsung’s part, as a wider cover display can make for a more usable foldable phone when it's closed.
We hope that Samsung would make use of the Corning Gorilla Glass Armor to protect the cover display, as that's being used in the Galaxy S24 Ultra, so sees like a good feature for an phone bearing the Ultra suffix.
And an IP52 rating dust and water resistance rating, as seen in the Motorola Razr Plus, would be appreciated too. That's because while the Galaxy Z Fold 5 had an IPX8 water resistance rating it lacked dust protection, which we feel is important due the the complex moving parts in folding phones that run the risk of being gunked up with dust or grime.
Proper Ultra-grade cameras
(Image credit: Future | Alex Walker-Todd)
The Galaxy Z Fold 5's camera system was rather good, but it was unchanged from the Galaxy Z Fold 4’s 50MP, f/1.8 wide, 10MP, f/2.4, telephoto, and 12MP, f/2.2 ultra-wide combo.
We’re hoping that Samsung updates this with something closer to the Galaxy S24 Ultra‘s more impressive camera setup, which features a 200MP, f/1.7 main camera, 12MP f/2.2 ultra-wide, 50MP, f/3.4, periscope telephoto with 5x optical zoom, and a 10MP, f/2.4, telephoto offering 3x optical zoom. However, if the specifications in Smartprix's renders are for the Galaxy Z Fold 6 Ultra and not a standard Z Fold 6 then fans could be very disappointed, as they lack camera specs with an Ultra flavor.
from TechRadar - All the latest technology news https://ift.tt/chGt0bj
In case you somehow missed it, Sora is a text-to-video AI meaning you can write a simple request and it’ll compose a video (just as image generation previously worked, but obviously a much more complex endeavor).
(Image credit: OpenAI)
Now OpenAI’s Sora research lead Tim Brooks has released some new content generated by Sora on X (formerly Twitter).
This is Sora’s crack at fulfilling the following request: “Fly through tour of a museum with many paintings and sculptures and beautiful works of art in all styles.”
Pretty impressive to say the least. On top of that, Bill Peebles, also a Sora research lead, showed us a clip generated from the following prompt: “An alien blending in naturally with new york city, paranoia thriller style, 35mm film.”
(Image credit: OpenAI)
Content creator Blaine Brown then stepped in to embellish the above clip, cutting it to repeat the footage and make it longer, while having the alien rapping, complete with lip-syncing. The music is generated by Suno AI by the way (with the lyrics written by Brown, mind), and lip-syncing is done with Pika Labs AI.
This Sora clip is 🔥 when the alien guy busts out in a lip-synced rap about how tough it is being different than everyone else. Workflow in the thread.@suno_ai_ @pika_labs (lip sync)Alienate Yourself 🆙🔊🔊 pic.twitter.com/kc5FI83q5RMarch 3, 2024
See more
Analysis: Still early days for Sora
(Image credit: OpenAI)
It’s worth underlining how fast things seem to be progressing with the capabilities of AI. Image creation powers were one thing – and extremely impressive in themselves – but this is entirely another. Especially when you remember that Sora is still just in testing at OpenAI, with a limited set of ‘red teamers’ (testers hunting out bugs and smoothing over those wrinkles).
The camera work in the museum fly-through flows realistically and feels nicely imaginative in the way it swoops around (albeit with the occasional judder). And the last tweet shows how you can take a base clip and flesh it out with content including AI-generated music.
Of course, AI can write a script as well, and so it begs the question: how long will it be before a blue alien is starring in an AI-generated post-apocalyptic drama. Or an (unintentional) comedy perhaps?
You get the idea, and we’re getting carried away, of course, but still – what AI could be capable of in just a few years is potentially mind-blowing, frankly.
Naturally, we’ll be seeing the cream of the crop of what Sora is capable of in these teasers, and there have been some buggy and weird efforts aired too. (Just as when ChatGPT and other AI chatbots first rolled onto the scene, we saw AI hallucinations and general unhinged behavior and replies).
Perhaps the broader worry with Sora, though, is how this might eventually displace, rather than assist, content creators. But that’s a fear to chew over on another day – not forgetting the potential for misuse with AI-created videos which we recently discussed in more depth here.
A class-action lawsuit filed in early March 2024 accuses Apple of restricting certain files critical to cloud backups of its devices to its own iCloud platform, and raising the price of the service to the point where it is ‘generating almost pure profit’.
The filing for Gamboa v. Apple Inc, submitted in the US District Court of the Northern District of California, would include a nationwide class of users impacted by the monopoly, and a class of Californians who claim to have been overcharged for an iCloud plan.
We are not lawyers and make no claim to be scholars on California’s corporation laws - however, with Bloomberg noting that iCloud gives Apple a 70% share of the cloud storage market, owing to the sheer ubiquity of their mobile devices, we think it's fair to question the fairness of locking backups to one service and trapping users in one ever increasing pricing model.
iCloud’s competition
iCloud’s competitors include Amazon, Google and Microsoft, which all have cloud storage services available on iOS devices for the purposes of storing user data.
The prospective lawsuit alleges, however, that requiring the use of iCloud for device backups makes maintaining accounts across multiple services - which may be cheaper, and have a more generous free cloud storage allowance than iCloud’s 5GB - inconvenient.
Apple has yet to respond to the filing, but it seems unlikely that it’ll be able to convincingly argue that backup data specific to Apple devices is sensitive enough to require locking to iCloud when, in 2022, Apple settled another class-action lawsuit, Williams v. Apple Inc, for $14.8 million, allowing it to continue to deny that it breached its own terms and conditions by storing user data on servers belonging to its competitors.
Google is leveling up Google Drive with several shiny new improvements, such as speeding up the loading times of videos and introducing search filters.
The speedier loading times will come thanks to Google’s addition of DASH transcode technology, which lets Drive adapt video quality based on the user’s network conditions. The improved search filters for Drive, which have been in development since at least October 2023, are limited to iOS for now - but Android users can look forward to these very soon.
For the uninitiated, Google Drive is a popular cloud file storage service and it’s an integral part of Google’s suite of productivity apps known as Google Workspace. Google Workspace apps like Drive and Docs get a lot of praise for being intuitive and interfacing well with one another, as well as for their overall functionality. One of the features that gets a lot of love is Google Drive’s uploading and sharing capabilities for video, in part thanks to the sharing tools in the Android share sheet.
Unfortunately, Google Drive’s video playback wasn’t up to the same high standard as the rest of Google Workspace - and this stuck out like a sore thumb since Google also runs the video hosting giant, YouTube.
Faster video for Google Drive incoming
That looks like it’s about to change, with the Google Drive team announcing these new features and improvements in a Google Workspace blog post. It will be adding DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP) transcodes to help process any videos hosted on Drive. This technology helps facilitate adaptive bitrate playback (the rate at which data is processed and sent during video and audio playback), which is adjusted to offer higher or lower-resolution video based on factors like the quality of the local network connection of the user. This development should result in improved “join times,” which refers to the time taken from the user clicking on the video to the start of playback.
The newly applied DASH transcodes will affect new videos that are applied to Google Drive from here on out, while existing videos will be updated to comply with this change by the end of the year, according to Google.
(Image credit: Shutterstock)
But wait! Better search filters are being added, too
Along with the boost to video loading times, another feature that’s coming soon is the souped-up search filters that will soon be included in the Google Drive app for Android and iOS. These were spotted by Android Police back in October, hidden under code flags, with the web version receiving them first back in November.
Now, these improved search filters are being introduced to the Drive app on mobile devices. The filters are coming to iOS first, and “coming soon” to Android, although an exact date hasn’t yet been given. Google does clarify in its blog post that an update for the app on Android will be available when these search filters are added to it. The new filters will show up when you tap the search bar, and include Type, People, and Date Modified, and are already available to many Google Workspace users on Apple devices.
These are positive updates for everyone who uses Google Drive for video storage and file organization (and will help it achieve some parity with competitors: we already see sophisticated search parameters in cloud storage services like Microsoft OneDrive).
The video processing improvement also seems somewhat overdue, considering Google’s video hosting expertise and resources. Changes and updates like this may not be the flashiest, but good, intuitive, and functional products like those we’ve come to expect from Google are what ultimately win and keep users.
The latest analysis from TrendForce makes for bleak reading for most monitor manufacturers’ with the exception of Apple.
TrendForce’s latest findings reveal global monitor shipments declined 7.3% in 2023. The estimated 125 million units takes shipments below pre-pandemic levels, due in no small part to the current global economic crisis. Brighter days do lie ahead, however.
The company says “given the low shipment base in 2023, alongside the potential for a gradual economic recovery and the typical 4 to 5-year PC replacement cycle, PCs purchased during the pandemic are expected to be upgraded between the second half of 2024 and 2025. This is anticipated to drive a 2% increase in global monitor shipments in 2024, reaching approximately 128 million units.”
Apple dominates the 5K display market
The top three commercial monitor brands all saw over 20% YoY declines. For Dell it was a drop of 20.4%. HP declined further with 20.7%, and Lenovo was hit worst of all with a 21.4% drop.
Not every manufacturer saw declines however. AOC/Philips benefited from strong demand in China’s gaming market, recording an 8.8% increase in shipments. Acer strategically upgraded its 60/75Hz products to 100Hz with a minimal price difference, resulting in a 6.7% shipment boost.
There is good news for high-end products, such as gaming monitors, too. These have seen a noticeable shift from FHD to QHD. TrendForce told us that “the market share of QHD gaming monitors increased to 34% last year, and it is expected to further rise this year”.
While some brands have introduced 27-inch 5K products, the shipment volume is not substantial due to their pricey, high-end nature. This, as you might expect, is where Apple – with its top-end products and dedicated customer base - thrives. TrendForce puts the monthly shipment of 5K products at around 20-30k units, with over 90% attributed to Apple via its Studio Display and Pro Display XDR.
Samsung has launched a Spring Sale at the official site this week, offering a wide range of discounts on TVs, appliances, and the stunning new Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Today only, you can get a free storage upgrade on this stunning flagship on top of a huge trade-in rebate of up to $1,000 on AT&T or T-Mobile carrier devices. That means you could potentially snag yourself a 512GB storage model for just $200 instead of the heady $1,400 upfront price.
The obvious caveat with this Galaxy S24 Ultra deal is that it's currently only available on AT&T or T-Mobile devices right now - not on the unlocked devices that are usually very popular at the official Samsung store. Verizon devices are also currently available with a free storage upgrade, but for some reason, the trade-in rebate caps out at $800, which is $200 less than what you can get directly at Verizon right now.
Otherwise, this deal at Samsung is essentially a re-run of the Galaxy S24 Ultra deals from the initial preorder period, where all retailers were offering a storage upgrade across the board. It's a great promotion - not only because extra storage is always handy but because upgraded models always fetch more in trade-ins down the line.
If you're interested in more deals from this event, you can head on over to our main Samsung Spring Sale page to see discounts on TVs, appliances, and monitors.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra deal
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra:free memory upgrade, plus up to $1,000 off with a trade-in at Samsung Samsung's latest deal on the excellent Galaxy S24 Ultra now gets you a free storage upgrade alongside an exceptional trade-in rebate of up to $1,000 for AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile devices. That's enough to cut that hefty price tag right down to just $200 over the duration of a 24 or 36-month plan - and get you even more space for all your apps, files, and games.View Deal
You can head on over to our Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra review for a detailed breakdown of this stunning flagship. With a gorgeous phablet-like design, powerful chipset, and innovative (for Samsung) new set of AI features, we highly recommend this device to anyone. Yes, it's pricey, but it's worth the money, and we liked it enough to award it a glowing four and a half stars out of five.
from TechRadar - All the latest technology news https://ift.tt/oOBI37x
Like so many companies operating in the AI space, Literal Labs wants to revolutionize artificial intelligence, but it may stand a better chance than most.
The startup is working on a piece of technology known as the Tsetlin machine which it claims offers an AI approach that is up to 10,000 times more energy-efficient and up to 1,000 times faster than traditional GPU training.
Named after Soviet mathematician Michael Lvovitch Tsetlin, the Tsetlin machine is a pattern learning automaton based on propositional logic. This means it can perform tasks such as classification, regression, and convolution, and produce interpretable and explainable results. Unlike neural networks, a Tsetlin Machine has lower computational complexity, uses fewer resources, and does not suffer from local optima or vanishing gradients.
Recruitments from Arm
Literal Labs, previously known as Mignon Technologies Ltd., was founded by Professor Alex Yakovlev and Rishad Shafik, both from the University of Newcastle. The company's technology focuses on developing and training Tsetlin machine models specific to customer datasets, resulting in an optimized machine model that can be deployed onto target hardware. The output is a Tsetlin machine model that can run on industry-standard hardware or can be accelerated using Literal Labs processors.
EE News Europe reports that the company recently recruited two industry veterans, Noel Hurley, former vice president at processor IP licensor Arm, and Jem Davies, who led the graphics and AI business groups at Arm. Hurley has joined Literal Labs as its CEO, while Davies has taken a position as a non-executive director.
While Literal Labs' business model has not been disclosed yet, it could potentially license software and hardware IP, similar to Arm, or sell its own chiplets or packaged ICs as a fabless chip company. Regardless, the success of the startup will hinge on proving the claimed efficiency of Tsetlin machines in performing various tasks.
With the recruitment of Hurley and Davies, Literal Labs seems to be moving closer to commercial conversations, indicating a potentially bright future for the Tseltin machine.
Editor's Choice: Boasting two firmness levels, this the Layla Hybrid mattress offers comfort and versatility. But is it worth the money? Here's our verdict.
You couldn’t swing a virtual cat without hitting an MWC 2024 exhibitor going on about generative AI; from Samsung and Google touting AI-powered photo editing and searching, to Qualcomm wanting to put AI in cars and Humane making AI wearable.
Sure, a lot of the tech on display was cool, but I don’t think the real game-changing potential of generative AI is in the obvious things. A skilled photographer and editor will almost certainly want to do their own edits – or simply nail a shot in the first place – rather than rely on AI manipulation. And writers like myself would rather tap out an article than try and make sense of something written by ChatGPT.
Instead, from the various talks and roundtables I participated in at MWC, I reckon AI will be at its most useful when it’s helping people with things they can’t easily do, learn or even find out about.
An easy example of this is how Qualcomm continues to push AI use in its modem chips, with the latest Snapdragon X80 leaning on a dedicated AI tensor accelerator to boost connectivity speeds, optimize power use, and generally improve latency and coverage. Hardly the sexiest of tech products, but in consumer terms, that means more effective Wi-Fi and mobile internet connectivity with reduced power consumption in smartphones and other 5G-enabled devices; given Qualcomm supplies modem chips for all the big phone brands, you can expect the Snapdragon X80 to pop up in future Galaxy S-series phones and the iPhone 16.
(Image credit: Future)
Equally, the Snapdragon X80 can be used in so-called Internet of Things (IoT) devices and applications, which could improve the performance of smart sensors and networks in smart cities. You may not see or notice this going on but it could mean things like smart traffic monitoring feeding back into apps like Google Maps. Or simply speedy and reliable mmWave 5G connectivity; basically things that all ease one’s daily life while functioning in the background.
Live translation, already a generative AI feature on the Google Pixel 8 series and Samsung Galaxy S24 family, is an obvious example of AI being used to help us deal with things we don’t know, though I’ve yet to try it out.
Then there’s the use of generative AI in cars, which is particularly interesting as it would allow people to talk to their cars. Qualcomm showed off its Snapdragon Digital Chassis platform where people can pose questions to a car-based Generative AI ranging from where to eat nearby to what a specific warning light on the dashboard means.
(Image credit: Qualcomm)
Getting recommendations is nothing special given Google Maps already does that and it’s built into Android Auto. But getting information on what might be wrong with your car without the driver needing to search a manual or go to a garage might just be a fantastic next step for car tech. Furthermore, generative AI could supercharge voice commands and make it a lot easier for drivers to activate various settings and options without taking their eyes off the road or hands off the wheel.
Here, AI isn't necessarily being used to help with one specific thing, but rather power a smart machine that could be useful with all manner of tasks. I could see Ameca being used to provide a 24-hour concierge service at hotels and airports – not to replace humans but to fill the gaps between shift changes and during quiet times.
Or perhaps a next-generation Ameca could be used as a companion for people who are in social care or need care but still want their independence. At a time when there’s a shortage of social care workers (in the UK at least), an AI-powered robot could at least aid with a shortfall of staff.
I have no doubt we’ll keep hearing about AI in consumer tech, and I’d bet a healthy sum that a next-generation iPhone will have some generative AI tools. But I’m keen to see how generative AI can quietly improve life with better efficiency of services, easier ways of surfacing difficult information, and helping people out, rather than simply whipping up photos of dogs on the moon or producing overly pristine images.
Researchers are still exploring the relationship between our health and our gut microbiome, but that doesn't mean you have to wait to start healing your gut.
Spotify has launched a new standalone subscription service in the US for people who just want to listen to audiobooks, the aptly named Audiobooks Access Tier.
For $9.99 a month, you’ll be given 15 hours of listening time for a catalog of over 200,000 Spotify audiobooks. These include notable series like A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin to standalone titles like The Khan by Saima Mir. Music and podcasts can still be listened to, according to the announcement. They will, however, retain commercial interruptions. Those ads aren’t going away. To get rid of them, you will need to purchase a separate Spotify Premium plan for $11 a month.
Paying for a subscription
What’s interesting about the tier is it doesn’t appear you can sign up on the Spotify app on mobile or desktop. We checked both and it wasn’t in either one. Instead, you’ll have to go to a separate audiobook page on the company website. If you scroll down to about the midway point, you’ll find the subscription button. There isn’t a free trial period, by the way. Once you buy the plan, you’re in it until you cancel.
It’s a bit strange not having a more direct way to subscribe on the app, although Spotify says it’s for a good reason. A company representative told us doing it this way allows them to avoid passing App Store fees down to users. If you’re not aware, Spotify dropped support for App Store subscriptions back in 2016. They even booted legacy subscribers last year.
It seems that had the platform allowed iOS users to buy directly on the app, they would’ve had to force people to pay for the Apple tax. And to make it fair for everybody, Android owners have to go through the same process – at least, that’s how we understand it. In our opinion, their explanation leaves a lot of important details out.
Missing details
As you can guess, we have several questions like will there be a way to increase listening hours? 15 hours may be okay for the casual listener, but that may be too short for the power user. The Premium plan does offer a way to add an extra 10 hours of listening time for $9.99, however this isn’t available on Audiobooks Access Tier.
Of course, the elephant in the room here is we still don’t have Spotify Supremium which is supposed to deliver lossless audio streaming. There were some rumors hinting at an imminent launch back in September 2023, but it’s March 2024 now and people are still waiting.
So we reached out to the platform asking for more details as well as if they have plans on rolling out Audiobooks Access Tier to other countries. This story will be updated at a later time.
You can't listen to audiobooks without a good pair of headphones. For recommendations, check out TechRadar's list of the best headphones for 2024.
Hackers are using complex social engineering campaigns and calendar invites to distribute Mac malware.
The hackers are abusing calendar scheduling tool Calendly to distribute meeting invites as part of their attempts to fool the best Mac antivirus.
The narrative behind this campaign is far more complex than the usual email spam you might be used to, so here is how they did it, and how to keep yourself safe if you get targeted.
Shady investments
Disclosed by a reader of Krebs On Security, the campaign saw hackers go after cryptocurrency by posing as investors looking for their next startup to provide with funding. In this case, the victim was originally contacted via Telegram looking for an investment opportunity.
The scammer wanted to organize a meeting to discuss the potential investment options, and so the victims sent over their Calendly details in order to organize a video call. The fateful day approached, but nothing happened when the victim attempted to open the meeting link. Low and behold, the scammers’ ‘IT team’ fixed the issue by sending out a new meeting link.
Alas, the second link opened up a technical error message instead of the meeting, with a message displaying that there was an error with the video service. Luckily the message had a handy little script that could fix the issue and allow the victim to finally get some facetime with the potential investors.
Rather than being graced with the face of the generous benefactor, the script installed a trojan with the ability to steal sensitive information from the victims Mac device. The victim, realizing the error of their ways, then changed their passwords and installed a fresh version of macOS.
While this was a good choice on the victims part, it unfortunately means that there is no evidence to suggest exactly what strain of malware was used.
In order to keep your device safe, always have a healthy amount of suspicion when receiving and clicking on any links sent from a stranger, and be sure to keep your device up to date with the latest updates, or take a look at some of the best firewalls to keep your device secure.
