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With Vladamir Putin’s “landslide” victory in the Russian Presidential election in the rearview mirror (the victory extends Putin’s autocratic rule through 2030, which will be his 18th year as president), we provide some situational awareness RE: Putin’s ongoing, global cyber and disinformation offensives – and the drone swarm attacks that are proving the 21st Century…
In this, the fifth installment in our “Dispatches from the Ministry for the Future” series, we take the time to do more of a deep dive into the speculative fiction/science fiction novel that inspired this eponymous series of posts – followed by details of the farmer protest that have broken out all over the EU…
Every year, we make a point of returning to a few social psychology, organizational behavior, and human behavioral psychology factors, namely how your organization should integrate the threat of human targeting and social engineering into your overall company culture and cybersecurity strategy. This post is an update from the frontlines – with recent offensive and defensive…
This is a review of what I see of the technology in the Ethereum ecosystem and some of the use cases it addresses today. It is designed to help leaders and decision-makers conceptualize what the functionality of Ethereum means for other technologies and for business operations (I look forward to discussions on this in our…
A new report from the Africa Center for Strategic Studies found that “disinformation campaigns seeking to manipulate African information systems have surged nearly fourfold since 2022, triggering destabilizing and antidemocratic consequences.” Find a summary and analysis of the report here.
The 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) (made into law in December 2022) included some specific military-related cybersecurity provisions, including a required study of cybersecurity and national security threats posed by foreign-manufactured cranes at United States ports” to assess whether foreign manufactured cranes at United States ports pose cybersecurity or national security threats.” The study was…
At the March 2024 OODA Network Member Meeting – which was held on Friday, March 15, 2024 – Four categories were discussed as framing for the discussion: The speed with which artificial intelligence changes are happening; Geopolitical conflict and crisis issues; Domestic issues that are at times being underreported; and the general march of technology…
Back in March 2023, we provided an analysis of “Undersea Telecommunications Cables and the Seabed as Geopolitical Contested Arenas” which, at the time, we framed relative to a great power competition with China: “Along with Africa and the Arctic, add the growing tensions between the U.S. and China about undersea cable deployment and seabed warfare to your geopolitical…
The concept of network swarms, particularly in the context of modern conflict and security, represents a fascinating and somewhat disorientating evolution in the dynamics of warfare and strategic operations. The implications of swarm intelligence also extend beyond these immediate scenarios in technology and defense. They challenge our traditional notions of intelligence, control, and organization, suggesting…
We Are Living In A Simulation That Runs On NVIDIA Ok maybe that is totally tongue in cheek and maybe even a bit hyperbolic. If we are running in a simulation I have know idea what the base layer really runs on. But the power of NVIDIA’s new Blackwell platform, combined with everything else they…
The U.S. National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology publicly released its first report in January of this year – with ideas and recommendations “they will be advancing throughout 2024…culminating in a comprehensive report to Congress in December 2024.” Find a summary and analysis of the interim report here.
In late February, “the National Cyber Director (ONCD) released a report calling on the technical community to proactively reduce the attack surface in cyberspace. ONCD makes the case that technology manufacturers can prevent entire classes of vulnerabilities from entering the digital ecosystem by adopting memory-safe programming languages. ONCD is also encouraging the research community to…
Lieutenant General (ret.) Clint Hinote, U.S. Air Force and Major General (ret.) Mick Ryan, Australian Army – Special Advisors to the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP) – have co-authored a paper on “Uncrewed systems—which are now undergoing a form of Cambrian Explosion in capability, quality, and quantity…these systems are disrupting how combatants are considering risk,…
Throughout 2024, we expect disproportionate disruption when the exponential tech stack starts to converge. One of the most promising of these exponential technological intersections will be Generative AI-enabled Blockchain Networks – of which applications and use cases have started to emerge.
Tesla just delivered a software update to my car that is so dramatically different that it is like having a new car. This post provides a bit more on why and extrapolates some lessons relevant to the future of robotics across multiple sectors. The bottom line up front: The best robots give physical form to…
CISA, the U.S. government’s cybersecurity agency, has stated that its stance has not changed towards detecting and disrupting Russian cyber actors. The announcement follows a recent directive from the Trump administration pausing offensive cyber operations against Russia. The decision was intended to ensure that Russia-Ukraine negotiations were not derailed. The decision to halt offensive cyber…
Amazon’s new Alexa has exposed the AI shortcomings of Apple, which is now at a make-or-break point. Also: An inside look at Tim Cook’s trade with President Donald Trump, the iPad Air sees shortages ahead of a pending refresh, and the M4 MacBook Air is about to launch. Plus, don’t expect Apple to drop its…
The pharmaceutical industry, known for its rigorous research, complex drug development pipelines, and use of cutting-edge technology, is undergoing a transformation thanks to AI. From applications such as disease identification and diagnosis, drug discovery, optimization of clinical trials, or improving manufacturing efficiency, AI is accelerating the industry. With vast amounts of biological, chemical, and patient…
Chinese researchers have developed a single-photon source that meets the efficiency threshold needed for scalable photonic quantum computing, overcoming a longstanding technical barrier in the field. Reporting their findings in Nature, the team led, by Jian-Wei Pan at the University of Science and Technology of China, demonstrated a system with an efficiency of 71.2%, surpassing…
A Shenzhen-based humanoid robot maker said it has deployed “dozens of robots” in an electric vehicle (EV) factory where they work together on complicated tasks, offering a peek into the future of Made-in-China tech as artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics technologies are applied to empower manufacturing. Hong Kong-listed UBTech Robotics said on Monday that it…
The quest for drone supremacy continues as the usefulness for drones is expanding into the maritime domain. According to General Atomics Aeronautical, a defense firm specializing in drone technology development, they have successfully tested the MQ-9B SeaGuardian. This system is designed exclusively for submarine hunting from the air. General Atomics’ official website describes the SeaGuardian…
Microsoft is giving its health-care artificial intelligence tools a makeover. The company on Monday unveiled a new voice-activated AI assistant that combines capabilities from its dictation solution, Dragon Medical One, and ambient listening solution, DAX Copilot, into one tool. “Dragon Copilot” will be able to help doctors quickly pull information from medical sources and automatically…
Chinese buyers are circumventing U.S. export controls to order Nvidia’s latest artificial-intelligence chips, illustrating the challenges the Trump administration will face in choking off cutting-edge American technology. Traders in the country are selling computing systems with Nvidia’s Blackwell chips installed by routing them through third parties in nearby regions. Some sellers promise buyers delivery within…
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Sunday that tariffs on Canada and Mexico will go into effect on Tuesday. It is not sure whether Trump’s administration will impose the full threatened 25% tariffs on all goods from Mexico and non-energy imports from Canada, as the two countries have done a good job securing their…
The U.K. and France said they would lead a European effort to forge a Ukraine peace plan to present to President Trump. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer hosted nearly 20 allies in London on Sunday and said that progress had been made in building a “coalition of the willing,” which would commit military assets, including…
Israel has halted the entry of all humanitarian aid into Gaza and threatened Hamas with more “consequences” if the Palestinian group does not agree to extend the now-ended phase one of their fragile ceasefire agreement. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “Israel will not allow a ceasefire without a release of our hostages.” Hamas accused…
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said a minerals deal with the United States is “ready” to be signed despite his public bust-up with US President Donald Trump. Zelenskyy expressed confidence that relations with Trump could be salvaged and that his administration would not cut off assistance to Kyiv. Zelenskyy’s remarks came at the end of…
US President Donald Trump’s administration is pausing its offensive cyber operations against Russia. The reasoning for the instruction has not been publicly stated, and it is not clear how long the halt might last. Since returning to office, Trump has markedly softened the American position towards Moscow in eagerness to reach a deal to end…
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard says she has serious concerns about the British government’s reported demand that Apple provide backdoor access to any data stored in the cloud. Gabbard said that such a demand would violate Americans’ rights and raise concerns about a foreign government pressuring a U.S.-based technology company. Apple announced last week…
They have names like Grace, Max and Tom and some entrepreneurs say they are the future of healthcare. They are artificial-intelligence agents: bots that execute tasks end to end. Already, AI agents can automate the ordering of groceries and filing of expense reports, and now venture-backed companies are designing them for healthcare tasks such as…
In 1947, the first transistor, the basic building block for a digital computer, was made using a semiconducting material thought to be ideal for the task: germanium. The idea of using silicon didn’t come up until midway through the next decade, and it wasn’t until 1960 that a thin layer of oxidised silicon, found in…
Microsoft is releasing a native Copilot app for macOS today. Much like the Windows app, the Copilot version for Mac will provide access to the web-based version of Microsoft’s AI assistant, where you can upload images and generate images or text. The macOS version of Copilot also includes a dark mode and a shortcut command…
Waymo is logging more than 200,000 paid robotaxi rides every week, according to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, who shared the stat about the tech giant’s subsidiary on X. Waymo commercially operates robotaxis in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix. The 200,000-weekly trips milestone is notable for a company that was providing only 10,000 rides a…
There’s a new kid on the block when it comes to drug companies developing treatments for obesity, and this one has a clear advantage over rivals. Metsera Inc., a New York-based biotech that went public on Jan. 31 with some fanfare, has a full portfolio of weight-loss drugs in development, using both the hormones already…
In the two months since a little-known Chinese company called DeepSeek released a powerful new open-source AI model, the breakthrough has already begun to transform the global AI market. DeepSeek-V3, as the company’s open large language model (LLM) is called, boasts performance that rivals that of models from top U.S. labs, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT,…
In a large, brightly lit warehouse in Flowery Branch, Ga., a pair of human-shaped robots made by Agility Robotics tiptoe across polished concrete floors, their gait oddly mincing. Their legs end in narrow, hoof-like feet sheathed in custom nonslip shoes. They stoop to retrieve bins full of Spanx shapewear, then carry them to a nearby…
At least 25 arrests have been made during a worldwide operation against child abuse images generated by artificial intelligence (AI), the European Union’s law enforcement organisation Europol has said. The suspects were part of a criminal group whose members engaged in distributing fully AI-generated images of minors, according to the agency. The operation is one…
The imprisoned leader of the PKK has urged the group to disarm. The imprisoned leader of the PKK has issued a message urging the the group to disarm. The Turkish Government has engaged in exntended peace talks with Kurdish militant groups and this represents a significant step towards achieving an agreement. The peace talks have…
North Korea has conducted its fourth missile test of the year. North Korea has conducted a curise missile test on its western coast. This is the fourth missile test the country has conducted this year. The test comes after the Country issued a statement warning that it would reliate against US and Western aggression. Read…
Senegal has annouced a peace deal with rebel groups in the nation’s south. Senegal has annouced that a peace deal has been agreed to with major rebel groups in the nation’s south. The deal will grant amnesty to amnesty rebels who agree to the terms of the deal. However, not all rebel groups particpated in…
Bosnian Serb legislators have threatened secession from Bosnia. Following the conviction of a proment Bosnian Serb by a national court, lawmakers of the autonmous Serb province have threatened to secede. Tensions between Bosnian Serbs and the rest of the country have been growing for several years. This incident has raised fears that a confilct between…
An unsecured database has exposed the personal information of thousands of golfers. Researchers have found an unsecured database which contained the personal information of 60,000 golfers. The database is owned by Golfhubber which is a UK-based company. Researchers and the company are in communication about securing the database. Read more: https://cybernews.com/security/golfhubber-data-leak/
Signal has warned it will cease operating in Sweden if its communications are compromised. Signal has warned that it will cease to operate in Sweden if it is forced to weaken its encryption. The Swedish government is currently considering a policy which would force companies to provide data to law enforcement. Debates over law enforcement…
The FBI has said that North Korea is responsible for the largest crypto theft to date. The FBI has said that they beleive North Korea to be responsible for the largest cyrpto theft to date. They have said that they expect the group to launder the crypto currency and convert it to fiat currency. The…
Belgian prosecturors are probing a breach of the country’s intelligence service. The Belgan prosecturor service is invisgating a report by the country’s intelligence service that chinese hackers breached their systems. The report alleged that the hackers gained accross to the systems through a breach of American contracters systems. The Chinese embassy denied the allegations. Read…
More AI-powered text-to-video services keep popping up, and one such service is OpenAI’s Sora. Just submit a description at the prompt, and Sora creates a brief video in response. Beyond describing your video, you’re able to adjust the duration, speed, aspect ratio, and more. You can also tap into a Storyboard option that lets you…
Companies face a variety of complex challenges in designing and optimizing their supply chains. Increasing their resilience, reducing costs, and improving the quality of their planning are just a few of them. Over the past few decades, advances in information technologies have allowed firms to move from decision-making on the basis of intuition and experience…
CATL and Chinese search engine and autonomous driving giant Baidu have entered into a partnership to collaborate in areas including the joint creation of autonomous vehicles. The companies recently signed a strategic cooperation agreement at CATL’s headquarters in Ningde, Fujian province, which was witnessed by Baidu founder, chairman and CEO Robin Li and CATL chairman…
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said next-generation AI will need 100 times more compute than older models as a result of new reasoning approaches that think “about how best to answer” questions step by step. “The amount of computation necessary to do that reasoning process is 100 times more than what we used to do,” Huang…
Amazon.com Inc.’s cloud unit has built its first quantum-computing chip, joining a growing roster of technology companies showing off futuristic hardware. Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Microsoft Corp. in the last two months have announced their own quantum hardware, suggesting that the powerful form of computing — currently relegated to science experiments — may solve real…
Amazon is aiming to derive savings from its robotics investment as it ups AI spending. As the Financial Times (FT) reported Wednesday (Feb. 26), the tech giant is expected to spend $35 billion on its retail network — which includes robotics-powered warehouses — to drive efficiencies and improve delivery speeds amid rising competition from the…
Tencent Holdings Ltd. joined the ranks of companies measuring themselves against DeepSeek by touting how much faster its latest AI model is. The Hunyuan Turbo S artificial intelligence model, released on Thursday, is designed to respond as instantly as possible, distinguishing itself from the deep reasoning approach of DeepSeek’s eponymous chatbot, Tencent said. The deployment…
Sudan’s military has begun an advance on the capital. Sudan’s military has begun an advance on the capital in order to retake it from the Rapid Support Forces. In response, the RSF has annouced a meeting with its allies to discuss establishing a new parralell government. This advance marks the first offensive by the Sudanese…
China has launched a series of drills off Taiwan’s coast. China’s armed forces have carried out a series of drills off Taiwan’s coast. This follows an incident where Chinese vessels entered into Taiwan’s terriotiral waters near the Kinman Islands. Taiwan deployed military assets to shadow the Chinese movements. China has been increasingly discussing its plans…
Argentine President Milei has appointed two Justices to the country’s Supreme Court. Argentine President Milei has appointed two Justices to the country’s Supreme Court while the nation’s Congress was on summer recess. The move has sparked backlash as the two Justices had not been confirmed by the country’s Congress. Milei says that the Congress’s refusal…
Lebanon’s government has survived a confidence vote. Lebanon’s government has surived a confidence vote wining the support of majority lawmakers. The confidence measure also asserted that only the lebanese military was responsible for the defense of the country. Legislators also urged the government to address the need for a long term ceasfire with Israel and…
China’s DeepSeek shocked the world by delivering unexpected innovation at an unbelievable price. But this disruptive trend isn’t confined to Big Tech: it has been quietly happening in the pharmaceutical sector. In September, Akeso, a little-known Chinese biotech company founded nearly a decade ago shook up the biotech sector with its new lung cancer drug.…
OpenAI’s newest model, GPT-4.5, is coming sooner than we expected. A new reference has been spotted on ChatGPT’s Android app that points to a model called “GPT-4.5 research preview.” At the moment, OpenAI offers several models, including GPT-4o, GPT-4o with scheduled tasks, o1, o3-mini, and o3-mini-high. This can be confusing due to the variety of…
Engineers have demonstrated a new communications system designed to protect telecommunications against quantum computing attacks. The system, called “QS7001,” was presented on Jan. 22 by representatives of the Swiss semiconductor company SEALSQ at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. To protect data transmitted over the internet, from payment information to personal medical records, the…
Amazon says that the new and improved Alexa unveiled on Wednesday, Alexa+, is powered by a “model agnostic” system that’s always using the “best” AI model for any given task. Onstage at a press event in NYC, Amazon VP Daniel Rausch said that Alexa+ draws on Bedrock, Amazon’s cloud platform designed to let organizations experiment…
Imagine spending your weekends free of chores. Forget about the laundry, the dishes, and tidying up. It’s all been taken care of. And the one responsible is an amalgamation of motors, wires, and computer chips: a robot. That’s at least part of the promise of humanoid robotics. And Silicon Valley companies are lining up to…
Alibaba on Wednesday said that it has made its video generation artificial intelligence models free to use, further ramping up competition with rivals like OpenAI. The Chinese giant said it is open sourcing four models that are part of its Wan2.1 series, the latest version of the company’s foundational AI model that can generate images…
A recent viral video showcases two AI agents engaged in a phone conversation. Midway through, one suggests, “Before we continue, would you like to switch to Gibberlink Mode for more efficient communication?” Upon agreement, their dialogue shifts to a series of sounds incomprehensible to humans. This transition, facilitated by Gibberlink Mode, is designed to optimize…
On Tuesday, the Israeli military said that it struck sites in southern Syria. The strikes came just hours after the new Syrian leadership had demanded for Israel’s withdrawal from Syrian territory that it had seized after the fall of the Assad regime. The Israeli military said that the attacks were targeted at headquarters and sites…
Officials have announced that the U.S. and Ukraine have agreed to a minerals deal. As part of the agreement, Ukraine will turn over the revenue from some of its mineral resources to the U.S. The deal comes after an intense pressure campaign from President Trump. While the final terms of the deal are unknown, Ukrainian…
Iran Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has stated that Iran will not engage in direct talks with the U.S. on its nuclear program. The announcement comes just a day after the U.S. enacted new sanctions against Iran’s oil industry, which is the country’s main source of income. Trump has restored his maximum pressure campaign on Iran,…
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced an increase in British defense spending. The prime minister is scheduled to meet with President Trump on Thursday. Starmer said that he will increase British spending on defense to 2.5 percent of the country’s GDP by 2027. With the announcement, Britain hopes to send a powerful message about…
A new report released on Tuesday highlights a surge in cyberattacks against industrial organizations in 2024. Last year, attacks on industrial organizations increased by 87%, and the number of ransomware groups impacting the operational technology (OT) and industrial control systems (ICS) space rose by 60%. The increase is a reflection of larger ongoing geopolitical conflicts, leading…
China-based threat actor Silver Fox has been using the disguise of a legitimate healthcare app to deliver a backdoor to unsuspecting users. It is unknown if the malicious actor is backed by the Chinese government. The attacker has been disguising the malware as the Philips DICOM viewer, a healthcare app. Researchers are unsure if Silver…
Texas-based DISA Global Solutions, a company providing employment screening services for over 55,000 organizations, has suffered a data breach. The breach occurred after a cyber incident, and the personal and financial information of over 3.3 million individuals has been compromised. The breach was discovered back in 2024, but the files accessed by the attacker were…
I have been experimenting with the first of a new generation AI models, Claude 3.7 and Grok 3, for the last few days. Grok 3 is the first model that we know trained with an order of magnitude more computing power of GPT-4, and Claude includes new coding and reasoning capabilities, so they are not…
Quantum Machines, an Israeli quantum computing startup, raised $170 million in a Series C round, bringing total funding to date to $280 million. The raise, the fifth-largest ever for a quantum computing company according to data provider PitchBook Data, comes amid growing excitement for quantum computing in the wake of hardware advancements announced by Microsoft…
Chinese companies are ramping up orders for Nvidia’s H20 artificial intelligence chip due to booming demand for DeepSeek’s low-cost AI models, six people familiar with the matter said. The surge in orders, which is being reported for the first time by Reuters, underlines Nvidia’s dominance of the market and could help alleviate concerns that DeepSeek…
Health-care software vendor Athenahealth on Tuesday said it will offer Abridge’s artificial intelligence scribing tool to its network of more than 160,000 clinicians. Athenahealth has developed an electronic health record, revenue cycle management tools and patient engagement tools for ambulatory care providers, which include outpatient facilities like independent practices. The company introduced a solution called…
Chinese robotics startup EngineAI claims its PM01 is the first humanoid robot to successfully perform a frontflip. The Shenzhen-based startup shared footage of the robot completing the stunt, receiving applause from onlookers. The video ends with PM01 walking through the Shenzhen Tourist Information Center, with Engine AI stating that the robot is evolving daily. Launched…
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