Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Techpresso.
In today's Techpresso:
🛰️ Satellites are leaking unencrypted military and personal data
🛡️ Instagram adds PG-13 content restrictions for teens
🙈 Google now lets you hide ads in search
👦 California passes first US law protecting kids from AI chatbots
🎨 Microsoft debuts its first in-house AI image generator
💼 Facebook brings back its job search feature
🎁 + 18 other news you might like
🔮 + 3 handpicked research papers and tools
🛰️ Satellites are leaking unencrypted military and personal data LINK
Using an $800 off-the-shelf satellite receiver system, researchers intercepted completely unencrypted data like T-Mobile customer calls, in-flight Wi-Fi browsing, and sensitive US military and law enforcement communications.
The team was surprised to discover the satellite link was completely unprotected, with security seemingly based on the simple assumption that no one would ever think to check the signals.
After being notified, T-Mobile encrypted its satellite links used by remote cell towers, but the researchers' narrow geographic coverage suggests the true global scale of exposed data is much greater.
🛡️ Instagram adds PG-13 content restrictions for teens LINK
Instagram will now default teen accounts to view only material that meets PG-13 movie ratings, blocking themes like graphic drug use unless a parent gives their explicit approval to change settings.
A new, stricter content filter called Limited Content is also being introduced, which prevents teenagers from seeing and posting comments on posts that have the new setting turned on.
The PG-13 content rules are already active in conversations with AI bots, and Instagram plans to add more chat restrictions for teens using the Limited Content filter next year.
🙈 Google now lets you hide ads in search LINK
Google now groups all sponsored results into a single collapsable section at the top of the page, which has a larger label that stays visible as you scroll.
A button at the bottom of this block of ads allows you to hide them, but you must first navigate past every single paid result to reach the option.
Tapping the control collapses the results under their "sponsored" heading, and this feature is currently rolling out for all users on both desktop and mobile Google search.
👦 California passes first US law protecting kids from AI chatbots LINK
A new California law requires companion chatbot developers to issue a clear and conspicuous notification if a reasonable person could be misled into believing they are interacting with a human.
Beginning next year, certain chatbot operators must submit annual reports to the Office of Suicide Prevention about safeguards they have put in place to respond to suicidal ideation by users.
Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 243 as part of a wider effort to improve online safety for children, stating that such emerging technology must have real guardrails.
🎨 Microsoft debuts its first in-house AI image generator LINK
Microsoft has debuted its first in-house text-to-image generator, called MAI-Image-1, which is part of the company's recent push to develop its own family of AI models.
The company claims the new model creates photorealistic imagery faster than larger systems and has already ranked in the top 10 of LMArena, a benchmark where humans vote on outputs.
MAI-Image-1 joins other internal AI projects like MAI-Voice-1 and MAI-1-preview, signaling a significant investment in training Microsoft's own models alongside its partnerships with other companies.
💼 Facebook brings back its job search feature LINK
Facebook is bringing back its job listings to Marketplace for US users on Android and iOS, more than two years after the social network shut the feature down.
The company is aiming the revived board at young adults, helping them find local entry-level job opportunities and part-time gigs in the trade and service industry from small businesses.
Users can directly contact employers through Messenger to ask questions or schedule interviews and will also get personalized recommendations for openings based on their browsing history.
Other news you might like
- Walmart partners with OpenAI to create AI-first shopping experiencesLINK
- SpaceX finally got exactly what it needed from Starship V2LINK
- Apple TV Plus is being rebranded to… Apple TVLINK
- Nvidia’s ‘personal AI supercomputer’ goes on sale October 15thLINK
- Bhutan migrates its national ID system to EthereumLINK
- Nano Banana is coming to Google Search, NotebookLM and Photos.LINK
- Oracle Cloud to deploy 50,000 AMD AI chips, signaling new Nvidia competitionLINK
- Google to invest $15B in Indian AI infrastructure hubLINK
- Apple Pro Display XDR 2 likely has key hardware upgrade over original $4999 monitorLINK
- Nvidia unveils its vision for gigawatt ‘AI factories’ based on its Vera Rubin architectureLINK
- Windows 10 support officially ends today - and millions of PCs fall off the 'security cliff'LINK
- Oracle CEO Magouyrk: 'Of course' OpenAI can pay $60 billion per yearLINK
- No fix yet for attack that lets hackers pluck 2FA codes from Android phonesLINK
- NotebookLM Video Overviews add Nano Banana visual styles, Brief or Explainer formatsLINK
- Why Signal’s post-quantum makeover is an amazing engineering achievementLINK
- Anthropic's Jack Clark compares AI breakthroughs to hammers that suddenly become self-awareLINK
- OpenAI wants to stop ChatGPT from validating users’ political viewsLINK
Latest research and tools
Modern iOS Security Features – A Deep Dive into SPTM, TXM, and Exclaves: this paper offers a detailed technical explanation of how new security components like SPTM, TXM, and Exclaves protect modern iOS devices.LINK
StreamingVLM: Real-Time Understanding for Infinite Video Streams: this paper introduces an AI model that can understand continuous video streams in real-time without needing to keep the entire video in its memory.LINK
The Diósi-Penrose model: a theory proposes that an object's own gravity causes its quantum superposition to collapse into one definite state.LINK
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