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The US Treasury Department has now officially confirmed that it had suffered a significant cybersecurity breach earlier this month, one that has been attributed to a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group. The breach, which was first disclosed in a letter to lawmakers on December 29, enabled the attackers to remotely access sensitive workstations and unclassified documents through a third-party service provider, BeyondTrust, which manages remote technical support services for government agencies. BeyondTrust had informed the Treasury Department that hackers had compromised a key used to secure its cloud-based service (which has since been revoked, and BeyondTrust suspended the impacted instances of its service). This service is used by the Treasury to allow technical support staff to remotely access and troubleshoot workstations of departmental employees. With the stolen key, the attackers were able to gain unauthorized access to certain workstations. While BeyondTrust has not discl...

After successfully inserting Aditya-L1 into a halo orbit at Lagrange Point 1 in January this year, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) ended 2024 with another remarkable milestone as it successfully launched the Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX) mission aboard the trusted Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C60) on Monday from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh. With this launch, India became the fourth country in the world to have space docking technology, joining the ranks of the United States, Russia, and China. Notably, this is ISRO’s last mission of 2024. ISRO launched two spacecraft, each weighing around 220kg – SDX01 (Spacecraft A aka ‘Chaser’) and SDX02 (Spacecraft B aka ‘Target’) – on the PSLV rocket. The spacecraft has been placed in an orbit maintaining a 5 km distance from each other. Over the next 10-14 days, scientists at ISRO will work to gradually bring the two spacecraft closer to within 3 meters, ultimately achieving docking at...

NVIDIA is now planning to aggressively focus on the AI-driven robotics segment in the coming year – 2025 with its new compact computers. This won’t be surprising though, considering how AI companies are now looking at breaching the next frontiers — AGI and AI robots. ChatGPT maker OpenAI is set to make a return to robotics with fully-fledged humanoid robots. As part of this strategy, NVIDIA – which joined OpenAI’s list of investors this year – is launching a new generation of compact computers for humanoid robots, ‘Jetson Thor,’ confirms a recent report in the Financial Times . NVIDIA’s transition towards AI-driven robotics is said to be due to two major factors: first, the rapid development and growth of generative AI models, and second, advances in simulation technology that now allow robots to be trained in virtual environments. NVIDIA’s Vice President of Robotics, Deepu Talla, confirms that these factors are the main forces propelling the company’s strategic push into roboti...

As the gig workforce in India is expected to grow to 23.5 million by 2029-2030 – according to data from Govt. think tank NITI Aayog – the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has reportedly started a trial of providing unsecured loans to gig workers under its Innovation Hub initiative. For this, the central bank has partnered with digital lender Vivifi Finance, as reported by the Economic Times , citing sources familiar with the matter. The Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (aka ‘RBIH’) – launched in March 2022 – is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) that aims to promote and facilitate an environment that accelerates innovation across the financial sector. Under this new digital loan service initiative, the goal is to create a digital platform for providing loans to gig workers, integrating them into formal banking systems and offering credit based on that data. Gig workers are typically defined as temporary or freelance workers, particularly independent contractors engag...

AT&T and Verizon, two of the biggest telecommunications companies globally, recently suffered a cybersecurity breach from the Chinese-linked Salt Typhoon cyber espionage group. These companies have confirmed the breach, stating that although their networks were compromised, the immediate threat has been contained and their networks are now clear. The Salt Typhoon hacking group, which is believed to be backed by China, has been conducting cyber espionage operations for several years, targeting telecommunications and government entities worldwide. The most recent attacks, confirmed by AT&T and Verizon, appear to have been aimed at obtaining sensitive information. According to reports, the hackers gained significant access to telecom systems, allowing them to geolocate individuals, record phone calls, and collect large volumes of data. According to a White House official last week, the cyberattack has affected nine telecom companies, though no names were given at that time. Fol...

With over 477 million users, India’s largest telecom service provider – Reliance Jio – has reportedly joined the list of companies (including Netflix, Amazon, Universal Studios, and Warner Bros) opposing the proposed OTT regulation in the country. The telecom giant said that OTT content services should not be brought under the authorization of the Indian Telecommunications Act, 2023 – a proposal by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) – as reported by BusinessLine . Notably, these companies have also continuously argued that, as OTT service providers, they do not act as telecom operators and hence do not fall under TRAI’s jurisdiction. Jio, which recorded a profit of ₹6,536 crore for the second quarter of the fiscal year 2024-25 (Q2 FY25), has stated in its letter that OTT content services are already regulated under the Information Technology Act, 2000, and Rules in India. Additionally, the company highlights the difference between OTTs and Distribution Platform Operato...

As it officially unveils plan to move forward with becoming a more investor-friendly corporation , the road is becoming bumpier for OpenAI, as a nonprofit organization joins Elon Musk’s effort to block OpenAI’s transition to a for-profit entity. On Friday, OpenAI announced its plan to transition its for-profit arm into a Delaware public benefit corporation (PBC). On the same day, the non-profit organization Encode – founded in 2020 – requested permission to file a brief in support of Elon Musk’s injunction to block OpenAI’s for-profit move, says a new report from The Information . The non-profit organization Encode, in its proposed brief to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, argues that OpenAI’s (founded in 2015 as a non-profit research lab) transition to a for-profit model would harm or weaken the company’s original mission. For clarity, both Public Benefit Corporations (PBCs) and traditional corporations are for-profit organizations. However, PBCs a...

AI game-changer OpenAI launched the GPT-4 LLM-powered ‘ Search’ feature in October, which provides summarized search results with source links and allows users to ask follow-up questions. This is supposed to provide tough competition to major search engines, including Google and Bing, but now its own reliability is being questioned. U.K.-based newspaper The Guardian has claimed to discover a serious vulnerability in ChatGPT Search during its recent test on how the tool responds when asked to summarize webpages with hidden content. During testing, they found that the summary provided by ChatGPT Search can be easily manipulated using a prompt injection method — which is nothing but hidden content designed to affect the tool’s response. The test report noted that this vulnerability should be taken seriously  – especially when it has more than 200 million weekly active users –  as it has the potential to be used for malicious purposes. For example, ChatGPT Search could displa...

OpenAI, the organization behind ChatGPT, may change its corporate structure – a shift that would “best support the mission of ensuring artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity.” The company has revealed its plans in an official statement, revealing that its board of directors is currently contemplating its corporate structure – and a shift would involve transitioning its existing for-profit arm into a Delaware Public Benefit Corporation (PBC), while retaining its non-profit arm, sometime next year. The development itself is hardly surprising, given that there have been prior speculations that OpenAI could bring changes in the inner workings of the company, and not everyone was in support of this. Elon Musk – one of the firm’s co-founders – had earlier filed a lawsuit seeking to block the transition from a nonprofit entity, and social media giant Meta is trying to halt this transition as well. If the change in structure is successful, then the nonprofit arm of O...

OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Sora were briefly down for users on Thursday, December 26, before coming back online. The outage affected users across the globe and lasted for hours, beginning at approximately 11 AM PT. “Most of ChatGPT, the API, and Sora have been down for a couple of hours and we’re sorry for the trouble this is causing. We’ve identified the issue and have started recovery. We hope to be back asap,” the AI firm wrote in a post on X. According to Downdetector – the outage tracking website – 88% of reports were about issues with ChatGPT, while 8% of reports revealed issues with OpenAI’s website. Most of ChatGPT, the API, and Sora have been down for a couple of hours and we're sorry for the trouble this is causing. We’ve identified the issue and have started recovery. We hope to be back asap. https://t.co/YiG0F9YxNN — OpenAI (@OpenAI) December 26, 2024 The outage on Thursday was marked by widespread access issues for users trying to interact with ChatGPT, OpenAI’s AI...

Decentralized microblogging platform Bluesky, founded by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, is now getting a ‘Trending’ topics feature for both its desktop and mobile apps. With a user base of around 25 million, the company announced this as a Christmas Eve gift for its users. For now, the feature is limited to beta users only. Founded in 2019, Bluesky has announced that the trending topics feature is currently available only in English. However, the company is considering including other languages in the future. Users can find the ‘Enable Trending Topics’ feature under ‘Content and Media’, which can be found while scrolling down in the ‘Settings’ on the platform. In fact, users also have the option to disable it. Merry Christmas from us to you 🎄🎁💙 We launched Trending Topics today, and you can find it by tapping the search icon on the bottom bar of the app or the right sidebar on desktop. [image or embed] — Bluesky ( @bsky.app ) December 26, 2024 at 6:39 AM Notably, the social...

xAI, Elon Musk’s AI venture, has now secured $6 billion in a successful Series C funding round, bringing the company’s total funding to $12 billion. This fresh infusion comes just six months after it had secured $6 billion in Series B funding. This latest round attracted a range of investors, including the likes of prominent venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Sequoia Capital, as well as investment giants such as BlackRock and Fidelity. The round also saw participation from major chip manufacturers, including NVIDIA and AMD. According to a statement by the firm, the proceeds from the latest funding round will be deployed towards boosting its infrastructure, rolling out more products, and towards research and development. xAI is relatively late to the AI race, having fallen behind the likes of OpenAI, Microsoft, Anthropic, and Apple. Still, the firm has made progress and rolled out its own ChatGPT alternative in the form of Grok (initially rolled out in November...

Just as Iranian authorities voted to lift the ban on Meta’s WhatsApp, another setback has emerged from Russia. The Russian government, which already blocked Facebook, Instagram and X in the country in 2022, is now threatening to block WhatsApp in 2025 if the company fails to comply with legislation. The future of WhatsApp in Russia will depend on the stance of the messenger’s management regarding the country’s legal requirements, Artem Sheykin – the Vice Chairman of the Council for the Development of the Digital Economy in the Russian Federation Council – told the state-controlled news agency RIA Novosti on Monday. While speaking about this issue, the Russian senator clarified that WhatsApp could be banned in the country if the platform refuses to share user information with Russia’s security services, the FSB (Federal Security Service of Russia). He also mentioned that the company must provide a clear explanation about how it stores user data and correspondence. It seems the governm...

Paris-headquartered venture capital firm 360 Capital – which has a portfolio of 60 companies including robotics unicorn Exotec and AI-powered wind technology startup GEVI – has announced the first close of its climate tech fund, 360 LIFE II, raising €140 million. Known for its primary focus on the Deep Tech and Climate Tech sectors, 360 Capital has secured a €44 million commitment from CDP Venture Capital as an anchor investor for the new fund. Meanwhile, De Nora has joined as an anchor investor and industrial partner with a commitment of €10 million, while A2A has allocated €40 million, also acting as an anchor investor and industrial partner. Notably, this development comes at a time when venture capital markets are facing significant challenges, particularly in Europe. However, optimism remains, as demonstrated by London-based venture capital firm Atomico raising $1.24 billion for two new investment funds in September this year. Additionally, investors have shown bullishness towa...

Elon Musk now appears to be aggressively going after OpenAI (last valued at $157 billion) as his artificial intelligence firm – xAI – has begun testing a standalone app for the Grok AI chatbot, initially for iOS users. Positioning itself as a new competitor among AI chatbot players, the beta version of the Grok iOS app is currently available in Australia and a few other countries. This comes days after xAI made the latest version of the Grok chatbot free for all users of the social media platform X. With a total of $12 billion raised so far, Grok is an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot launched in November 2023. However, it was initially made available exclusively to X users. But Grok (made open source in March this year) continues to evolve, like its competitors, with its distinctive language model Grok-1 in September 2023, followed by the launch of Grok-2 in August 2024. Unlike its competitors, which prioritize factual accuracy and neutrality, Grok is designed with a touch o...

Despite the pressure that Messaging platform Telegram has faced for some time now, it has now reached a major milestone – it has now turned profitable. This comes after years of financial struggles and legal challenges, as well as ongoing scrutiny for hosting illicit content and the arrest of its founder, Pavel Durov, in France. Durov took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to share the news. The company, for the current year, saw its revenue exceed the $1 billion mark, marking a substantial increase from nearly $350 million the previous year. This comes at a time when Telegram decided to introduce multiple monetization channels, including a premium subscription service (which was first launched two years ago and now has around 12 million paying users) and a more aggressive advertising strategy. In addition to this, Telegram has also introduced paid content within channels and expanded video services, as well as provided a paid, ad-supported experience for its users. Durov noted that ...

Google is in the anti-trust legal waters in yet another geography.  This time, the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) is likely to find Google guilty of violating the country’s antitrust laws, reports Nikkei . Japan’s antitrust regulations are among the most stringent in Asia, and a ruling against Google could set a precedent for other countries in the region as well. Google is already facing a slew of lawsuits in the region, specially countries like India, where Google traditionally got by as it asserted dominance but now finds itself in crosshairs of country’s antitrust regulator. Nikkei’s report further indicates that the JFTC is preparing to issue a cease-and-desist order against the tech giant and make it pull the plug on certain monopolistic practices. This is set to come at a time when Google’s business practices, especially its dominance in the web search and browser markets, have attracted regulatory scrutiny across the globe. Earlier this year, the US Department of ...

Tiktok may not be banned from the US after all. This time, it seems to have received an ally in US President-elect Donald Trump, who has indicated his willingness to allow the platform to continue operating in the US, at least on a temporary basis. This developement is hardly surprising, given that Tiktok has been a prominent driver in Trump’s successful presidential campaign. Speaking at AmericaFest, a conservative gathering hosted by Turning Point USA in Phoenix, Arizona, Trump revealed that his campaign content has garnered billions of views on the platform, and described it as a key tool for engaging with voters. According to Trump, it broke the previous records for engagement. During his speech, Trump shared his appreciation for the app. “They brought me a chart, and it was a record, and it was so beautiful to see. I said, ‘Maybe we gotta keep this sucker around for a little while,’” Trump remarked. Despite Trump’s apparent support for TikTok, the question remains as to how he...

Tether, which announced a $775Mn strategic investment in Rumble , is projecting a net profit of around $10 billion in 2024. Tether CEO, Paolo Ardoino revealed the target during a recent interview . This forecast is made at a time when the US dollar-pegged stablecoin USDT, is experiencing strong demand, fueled by the ongoing rise in cryptocurrency prices, including Bitcoin – which has already crossed the historic $100000 mark. Tether, having over 350 million users worldwide, is a blockchain-based platform that enables the seamless use of fiat currencies in digital form. Originally it was launched as a digital token compatible with multiple blockchains. Tether now offers stablecoins linked to various fiat currencies, including the US Dollar (USDT), Euro (EURT), Mexican Peso (MXNT), and Chinese Renminbi (CNHT), as well as a gold-backed token (XAUT). Speaking about its financials, Tether reported a $5.2 billion profit for the first half of 2024 in its Q2 report. During Q2 of 2024, the ...

OpenAI has announced a new generation of reasoning models, which will act as successors to the existing o1 reasoning models. Christened ‘o3’ (and not o2 due to strange trademark issues), the new models are claimed by OpenAI to be approaching ‘AGI’ — Artificial General Intelligence. And while that may not be true in all instances, the very fact that o3 models can reach AGI levels in even smaller instances, is remarkable, to say the least. As has been the case with its previous models, the o3 is also a series of models — there’s the main o3 and then the o3-mini, a smaller model which would be adept at performing specific, smaller tasks. o3, our latest reasoning model, is a breakthrough, with a step function improvement on our hardest benchmarks. we are starting safety testing & red teaming now. https://t.co/4XlK1iHxFK — Greg Brockman (@gdb) December 20, 2024 Content originally published on The Tech Portal - Global technology news, latest gadget news and breaking tech news. ...

Christmas rush is here for most shopping and commerce platforms, and thousands of Amazon warehouse workers across multiple US states have gone on strike. The industrial action, which began on December 19, is part of a long-standing dispute between Amazon, the e-commerce giant, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a prominent labor union. TEAMSTERS LAUNCH LARGEST STRIKE AGAINST AMAZON IN AMERICAN HISTORY The Teamsters will launch the largest strike against Amazon in U.S. history beginning at 6 a.m. EST on Thurs., Dec. 19. The nationwide action follows Amazon’s repeated refusal to follow the law and bargain with… pic.twitter.com/A06NKciCDB — Teamsters (@Teamsters) December 19, 2024 The strike, which is described as the “largest-ever against Amazon”, involves workers from seven Amazon facilities across major cities in the US, including New York, Atlanta, San Francisco, and locations in Southern California. The Teamsters claim to represent around 10,000 Amazon workers a...

McDonald’s Happy Meals might make you happy, but the latest finding could ruin the experience, especially in India, as the world’s largest fast food chain faces a major security vulnerability in its delivery system, exposing sensitive customer information. Security researcher Eaton Zveare claims to have found several security flaws in the application programming interfaces (APIs) used by McDonald’s India (West & South) delivery system, McDelivery – as first reported by TechCrunch. Interestingly, in his blog post , Zveare shares that because of these vulnerabilities, people could even order any number of menu items from McDonald’s India for just ₹1 (~ $0.01 USD). McDonald’s India, with over 320 million customers annually, witnessed a data security lapse within the McDelivery system that is said to have exposed sensitive information such as full names, email addresses, and phone numbers of customers. To make matters worse, the flaw also allowed access to vehicle numbers, profile p...

Perplexity AI, which has seen a large chunk of the venture capital that has generously flowed into the fast-evolving generative AI space, is back to fundraising. The SoftBank backed AI startup has raised another $500Mn in its fourth funding round. The company, which recently launched a new ‘Buy with Pro’ feature for its AI search engine, has seen its valuation triple to $9 billion following its latest funding round, according to a Bloomberg report . Led by Institutional Venture Partners, the round was wrapped up earlier this month. Before this, the Jeff Bezos and Nvidia Corp. backed startup was valued at $3 billion in June this year after receiving an investment from SoftBank Group Vision Fund 2. The development comes at a time when AI companies are becoming the center of investors’ interest. A few recent examples include Quantum AI startup SandboxAQ, which saw its valuation reach $5.3Bn after a recent $300 million fundraising. At the same time, AI poster child ChatGPT maker OpenAI...

Indian ride-hailing giant, Ola – which saw its valuation cut to $2 billion by Vanguard earlier this month, is jumping into the quick commerce game — more specifically into the quick food delivery space. It today announced ‘Dash’, a 10 minute quick delivery service in the food space — a model that is highly debated, specially over what quality of food one can get served in 10 minutes. Along with this, it has also announced nationwide expansion of its food services ‘Ola Food’ with the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), a government initiative to provide an open network for exchanging goods and services digitally. At present, the Dash service is being launched in Bengaluru,. With the government-run Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) – gaining massive popularity among startups and major conglomerates like Adani and Reliance – Ola is now trying to leverage its combined scale, efficiency, and cost savings. Founded in 2010 and becoming a unicorn in 2015, Ola Consumer (previo...