Hackers backed by the North Korean government gained a major win when Microsoft left a Windows zero-day unpatched for six months after learning it was under active exploitation. From a report: Even after Microsoft patched the vulnerability last month, the company made no mention that the North Korean threat group Lazarus had been using the vulnerability since at least August to install a stealthy rootkit on vulnerable computers. The vulnerability provided an easy and stealthy means for malware that had already gained administrative system rights to interact with the Windows kernel. Lazarus used the vulnerability for just that. Even so, Microsoft has long said that such admin-to-kernel elevations don't represent the crossing of a security boundary, a possible explanation for the time Microsoft took to fix the vulnerability.

"When it comes to Windows security, there is a thin line between admin and kernel," Jan Vojtesek, a researcher with security firm Avast, explained last week. "Microsoft's security servicing criteria have long asserted that '[a]dministrator-to-kernel is not a security boundary,' meaning that Microsoft reserves the right to patch admin-to-kernel vulnerabilities at its own discretion. As a result, the Windows security model does not guarantee that it will prevent an admin-level attacker from directly accessing the kernel." The Microsoft policy proved to be a boon to Lazarus in installing "FudModule," a custom rootkit that Avast said was exceptionally stealthy and advanced. Rootkits are pieces of malware that have the ability to hide their files, processes, and other inner workings from the operating system itself and at the same time control the deepest levels of the operating system. To work, they must first gain administrative privileges -- a major accomplishment for any malware infecting a modern OS. Then, they must clear yet another hurdle: directly interacting with the kernel, the innermost recess of an OS reserved for the most sensitive functions.

The Federal Communications Commission is considering a proposal to bar landlords from charging tenants in bulk for cable, internet, and satellite services, offering them more choice in the kinds of services they need. From a report: The agency is circulating a proposed rule to ban the practice of "bulk billing," the White House announced in a press release ahead of President Joe Biden's meeting with his Competition Council on Tuesday.

It's part of a broader effort to promote policies that will lower costs for Americans, as Biden is trying to appeal to voters focused on the economy as he seeks reelection later this year. That theme of lowering costs will resurface in Biden's State of the Union address on Thursday, National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard told reporters on a call Monday. Bulk billing restricts consumers' choices by limiting the prices and levels of cable and internet service available to them, the White House said in the press release. The new proposal will also target other "exclusive arrangements" between landlords and service providers like exclusive wiring and marketing arrangements or revenue sharing agreements, the White House said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Hagerty: Euro NCAP, the automotive safety industry body for Europe, is introducing new guidance for 2026 which means that five important tasks in every car will have to be performed by actual buttons instead of by accessing a screen. Indicators, hazard warning lights, windscreen wipers, horn, and SOS features will have to be controlled by proper switches in order for cars to be granted Euro NCAP's coveted five star safety rating.

"The overuse of touchscreens is an industry-wide problem, with almost every vehicle-maker moving key controls onto central touchscreens, obliging drivers to take their eyes off the road and raising the risk of distraction crashes," explained Matthew Avery, director of strategic development at Euro NCAP. "New Euro NCAP tests due in 2026 will encourage manufacturers to use separate, physical controls for basic functions in an intuitive manner, limiting eyes-off-road time and therefore promoting safer driving." Although it won't be mandatory to comply with Euro NCAP's new rules, car makers that don't will lose valuable points in their safety ratings.

Piracy was traditionally seen as something that predominantly young males were interested in. This is a largely outdated representation of reality, as girls and women began to catch up a long time ago. In some countries, including Indonesia, more women pirate music, movies, and TV-shows than their male counterparts. TorrentFreak reports: [N]ew findings published by researchers from Northumbria University Newcastle, which include gender, are worth highlighting. The survey data, looking at piracy trends in Thailand and Indonesia, was released by Marketing professor Dr. Xuemei Bian and Ms. Humaira Farid. The results were presented to WIPO's Advisory Committee on Enforcement recently and the associated presentation (PDF) was published online. Through an online survey and in-person interviews, the research aims to map consumer attitudes and behaviors in Indonesia and Thailand, particularly in connection with online copyright infringement.

One of the overall conclusions is that piracy remains a common activity in both Asian countries. Pirates are present in all age groups but and music, movies en TV-shows tend to be in highest demand and younger people. Those under 40, are more likely to pirate than their older counterparts. These findings are not out of the ordinary and the same trends are visible in other countries too. Interestingly, however, some notable differences between the two countries appear when gender is added to the mix. The tables below show that women are more likely to pirate than men in Indonesia. This is true for all content categories, except for software, where men are slightly in the lead. In Thailand, however, men are more likely to pirate across all categories. The researchers do not attempt to explain these differences. However, they show once again that 'dated' gender stereotypes don't always match with reality. And when they have little explanatory value, one can question whether gender is even relevant in a piracy context.

Looking at other differences between Thai and Indonesian consumers there are some other notable findings. For example, in Indonesia, 64% of the respondents say they're aware of the availability of pirated movies and TV-shows on YouTube, compared to 'just' 32% in Thailand. Indonesian consumers are also more familiar with music piracy sites and pirate much more frequently than Thai consumers, as the table below shows. Finally, the researchers also looked at various attitudes toward piracy. This shows that Thai pirates would be most likely to stop if legal services were more convenient, while Indonesian pirates see cheaper legal services as the largest discouraging factor.

In an update on CBS' "60 Minutes" on Sunday, Blue Origin said it was aiming to send an uncrewed lander to the surface of the moon in the next 12 to 16 months. A crewed version is expected to follow. GeekWire reports: "We're expecting to land on the moon between 12 and 16 months from today," [said John Couluris, senior vice president for lunar permanence at Blue Origin]. "I understand I'm saying that publicly, but that's what our team is aiming towards." Couluris was referring to a pathfinder version of Blue Origin's nearly three-story-tall Blue Moon Mark 1 cargo lander, which is taking shape at Blue Origin's production facility in Huntsville, Ala. The Pathfinder Mission would demonstrate the MK1's capabilities -- including its hydrogen-fueled BE-7 engine, its precision landing system and its ability to deliver up to 3 tons of payload anywhere on the moon.

Blue Origin envisions building multiple cargo landers, as well as a crewed version of the Blue Moon lander that could transport NASA astronauts to and from the lunar surface. The MK1 cargo lander is designed for a single launch and delivery, but the crewed lander would be reusable. "We'll launch them to lunar orbit, and we'll leave them there," Couluris explained. "And we'll refuel them in orbit, so that multiple astronauts can use the same vehicle back and forth."

The Pathfinder Mission would be funded by Blue Origin, but NASA is providing support for other Blue Moon missions. Blue Origin's $3.4 billion contract with NASA calls for the crewed lander to be available for the Artemis 5 moon mission by 2029, with an uncrewed test flight as part of the buildup. The in-space refueling operation would make use of a cislunar transporter, built by Lockheed Martin, that could travel between low Earth orbit and lunar orbit with supplies. "We are now building with NASA the infrastructure to ensure lunar permanency," Couluris said. NASA is providing funding for the Blue Moon landing system as an alternative to SpaceX's Starship system, which is under development at SpaceX's Starbase in South Texas. The crewed Starship lunar lander is scheduled to come into play for Artemis 3, a milestone landing mission that's currently scheduled for 2026. [...]

Blue Origin plans to send the MK1 lander to the moon on its reusable New Glenn rocket, which is also under development. A couple of weeks ago, a pathfinder version of that rocket was raised on a Florida launch pad for the first time, and it's currently going through a series of cryogenic tanking tests. Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp, who was brought over to the company from Amazon last year to accelerate work on New Glenn, said in a LinkedIn post that he's "looking forward to bringing this heavy-lift capacity to our customers later this year." One of the early launches is tasked with sending a pair of NASA probes to Mars.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: New research suggests there's less oxygen on the icy surface of Jupiter's moon Europa than thought -- and that could affect what if any life might be lurking in Europa's underground ocean. Even with little or no oxygen, microbes might still be bustling around in the ocean believed to exist miles beneath Europa's frozen crust. As for what else, "who knows," said the Nasa scientist Kevin Hand, who was not involved in the study published on Monday in Nature Astronomy. More work is needed to confirm these findings, which are contrary to earlier telescope observations of condensed oxygen in Europa's ice, indicating a higher oxygen concentration, said Hand.

The new study is based on data collected by Nasa's Juno spacecraft during a particularly close flyby of Europa in 2022 -- a distance of just 219 miles (353km). A US-European team calculated that between 13 and 39lbs (6 and 18kg) of oxygen are produced every second at Europa's surface. Previous estimates had a much wider spread, with as much as 2,245 pounds (1,100 kilograms) of oxygen produced per second. So "unless Europa's oxygen production was significantly higher in the past," the new measurements provide "a narrower range to support habitability," the researchers wrote. This oxygen is formed, along with hydrogen, as Jupiter's radiation blasts Europa's global shell of frozen water. It is unknown how much oxygen escapes into the moon's atmosphere, how much remains in the ice and how much might find its way to the subterranean sea. The report notes that NASA plans to launch the Europa Clipper this fall. "The spacecraft will make dozens of close flybys of Europa -- nearly the size of our moon -- while orbiting the giant gas planet."

Wayne Williams reports via TechRadar: Qualcomm has unveiled its AI Hub, an all-inclusive library of pre-optimized AI models ready for use on devices running on Snapdragon and Qualcomm platforms. These models support a wide range of applications including natural language processing, computer vision, and anomaly detection, and are designed to deliver high performance with minimal power consumption, a critical factor for mobile and edge devices. The AI Hub library currently includes more than 75 popular AI and generative AI models including Whisper, ControlNet, Stable Diffusion, and Baichuan 7B. All models are bundled in various runtimes and are optimized to leverage the Qualcomm AI Engine's hardware acceleration across all cores (NPU, CPU, and GPU). According to Qualcomm, they'll deliver four times faster inferencing times.

The AI Hub also handles model translation from the source framework to popular runtimes automatically. It works directly with the Qualcomm AI Engine direct SDK and applies hardware-aware optimizations. Developers can search for models based on their needs, download them, and integrate them into their applications, saving time and resources. The AI Hub also provides tools and resources for developers to customize these models, and they can fine-tune them using the Qualcomm Neural Processing SDK and the AI Model Efficiency Toolkit, both available on the platform.

"Linux gained from 3% to 4% in 8 months," writes longtime Slashdot reader bobdevine. Linuxiac reports: According to the latest data from StatCounter, a leading web traffic analysis tool, Linux's market share has reached 4.03%. At first glance, the number might seem modest, but it represents a significant leap. Let's break it down. It took Linux 30 years to secure a 3% share of desktop operating systems, a milestone reached last June. Impressively, the open-source operating system has surged by an additional 1% in the last eight months.

According to the San Francisco police department, police have made the first arrest in relation to several recent vehicle arsons, including the crowd attack of a Waymo robotaxi last month in Chinatown. The San Francisco Standard reports: Police say officers arrested a man meeting the description of a person suspected of lighting several vehicles on fire. That man was arrested on Feb. 27 near Union Square. The department did not share the suspect's name because it said the case is open and remains under investigation. Nor did the department comment on which other vehicle fires the suspect may have been suspected of starting. Several Teslas were set alight in the weeks after the Waymo arson. The suspect was also found to have had methamphetamine on them.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Jack Teixeira, the National Guard airman who leaked confidential military documents on Discord, agreed Monday to plead guilty, promising to cooperate with officials attempting to trace the full extent of government secrets leaked. Under the plea deal, Teixeira will serve a much-reduced sentence, The Boston Globe reported, recommended between 11 years and 16 years and eight months. Previously, Teixeira had pleaded not guilty to six counts of "willful retention and transmission of national defense information," potentially facing up to 10 years per count. During a pretrial hearing, prosecutors suggested he could face up to 25 years, The Globe reported.

By taking the deal, Teixeira will also avoid being charged with violations of the Espionage Act, The New York Times reported, including allegations of unlawful gathering and unauthorized removal of top-secret military documents. According to prosecutors, it was clear that Teixeira, 22, was leaking sensitive documents -- including national security secrets tied to US foreign adversaries and allies, including Russia, China, Ukraine, and South Korea -- just to impress his friends on Discord -- some of them teenage boys. Investigators found no evidence of espionage. US District Judge Indira Talwani will decide whether or not to sign off on the deal at a hearing scheduled for September 27.

Longtime Slashdot reader jmv writes: After more than two years of work, Opus 1.5 is out. It brings many new features that can improve quality and the general audio experience through machine learning, while maintaining fully-compatibility with previous releases. See this release page demonstrating all the new features, including:

• Significant improvement to packet loss robustness using Deep Redundancy (DRED)
• Improved packet loss concealment through Deep PLC
• Low-bitrate speech quality enhancement down to 6 kb/s wideband
• Improved x86 (AVX2) and Arm (Neon) optimizations
• Support for 4th and 5th order ambisonics

ZipK writes: Cord Cutters New reports that Roku has rolled out new terms of service that require users to accept individual arbitration. To gain acceptance, Roku devices pop up a dialog box that can only be dismissed if you accept the new terms or turn off your Roku and stop using it. As expected, much discussion has ensued in the Roku community.

Per the Roku Dispute Resolution Terms, users can opt out within 30 days of being subject to the new terms by sending a surface mail request to General Counsel, Roku Inc., 1701 Junction Court, Suite 100, San Jose, CA 95112. One poster in the community forum noted that the effective date of the change was Feb 20th, which may shorten the 30 day period for opting out. Longtime Slashdot reader blastard also shared the news.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Liliputing: Yuzu is a free and open source emulator that makes it possible to run Nintendo Switch games on Windows, Linux, and Android devices. First released in 2018, the software has been under constant development since then (the Android port was released less than a year ago). But last week Nintendo sued the developers, claiming that the primary purpose of the software is to circumvent Nintendo Switch encryption and allow users to play pirated games. Rather than fight the case in court, Tropic Haze (the developers behind Yuzu) have agreed to a settlement which involves paying $2.4 million in damages to Nintendo and basically shutting down Yuzu.

As part of a permanent injunction, Tropic Haze has agreed to stop distributing, advertising, or promoting Yuzu or any of its source code or features or any other "software or devices that circumvent Nintendo's technical protection measures." The court is also ordering the developers to turn over the yuzu-emu.org website to Nintendo and bars them "from supporting or facilitating access" to any other related websites, social media, chatrooms, or apps. In one of the more bizarre parts of the court order, the Yuzu team is told to delete all "circumvention devices," which includes any tools used for development of Yuzu and "all copies of Yuzu."

A group of radio enthusiasts known as the "radio squirrels" are keeping the legacy of Morse code alive at KPH Maritime Radio, the last operational Morse code radio station in North America. Located in Point Reyes National Seashore, north of San Francisco, the station transmits maritime news and weather reports every Saturday, using vintage equipment dating back to World War II, reads a fast-paced story on The Atlantic. Despite the obsolescence of Morse code, the radio squirrels, along with a 17-year-old newcomer, are determined to preserve this unique form of communication.

Gartner: By 2026, traditional search engine volume will drop 25%, with search marketing losing market share to AI chatbots and other virtual agents, according to Gartner. "Organic and paid search are vital channels for tech marketers seeking to reach awareness and demand generation goals," said Alan Antin, Vice President Analyst at Gartner. "Generative AI (GenAI) solutions are becoming substitute answer engines, replacing user queries that previously may have been executed in traditional search engines. This will force companies to rethink their marketing channels strategy as GenAI becomes more embedded across all aspects of the enterprise."

With GenAI driving down the cost of producing content, there is an impact around activities including keyword strategy and website domain authority scoring. Search engine algorithms will further value the quality of content to offset the sheer amount of AI-generated content, as content utility and quality still reigns supreme for success in organic search results. There will also be a greater emphasis placed on watermarking and other means to authenticate high-value content. Government regulations across the globe are already holding companies accountable as they begin to require the identification of marketing content assets that AI creates. This will likely play a role in how search engines will display such digital content.

Anthropic, a leading artificial intelligence startup, unveiled its Claude 3 series of AI models today, designed to meet the diverse needs of enterprise customers with a balance of intelligence, speed, and cost efficiency. The lineup includes three models: Opus, Sonnet, and the upcoming Haiku. From a report: The star of the lineup is Opus, which Anthropic claims is more capable than any other openly available AI system on the market, even outperforming leading models from rivals OpenAI and Google. "Opus is capable of the widest range of tasks and performs them exceptionally well," said Anthropic cofounder and CEO Dario Amodei in an interview with VentureBeat. Amodei explained that Opus outperforms top AI models like GPT-4, GPT-3.5 and Gemini Ultra on a wide range of benchmarks. This includes topping the leaderboard on academic benchmarks like GSM-8k for mathematical reasoning and MMLU for expert-level knowledge.

"It seems to outperform everyone and get scores that we haven't seen before on some tasks," Amodei said. While companies like Anthropic and Google have not disclosed the full parameters of their leading models, the reported benchmark results from both companies imply Opus either matches or surpasses major alternatives like GPT-4 and Gemini in core capabilities. This, at least on paper, establishes a new high watermark for commercially available conversational AI. Engineered for complex tasks requiring advanced reasoning, Opus stands out in Anthropic's lineup for its superior performance. Sonnet, the mid-range model, offers businesses a more cost-effective solution for routine data analysis and knowledge work, maintaining high performance without the premium price tag of the flagship model. Meanwhile, Haiku is designed to be swift and economical, suited for applications such as consumer-facing chatbots, where responsiveness and cost are crucial factors. Amodei told VentureBeat he expects Haiku to launch publicly in a matter of "weeks, not months."

Apple has announced the launch of its new MacBook Air laptops powered by the company's latest M3 chip, offering up to 60% faster performance compared to the previous generation (M1-powered MacBook Air). The new 13-inch and 15-inch models feature a thin and light design, up to 18 hours of battery life, and a Liquid Retina display. The M3 chip, built using 3-nanometer technology, boasts an 8-core CPU, up to a 10-core GPU, and supports up to 24GB of unified memory.

The laptops also offer enhanced AI capabilities, with a faster 16-core Neural Engine and accelerators in the CPU and GPU for improved on-device machine learning performance. This enables features such as real-time speech-to-text, translation, and visual understanding. The 13-inch MacBook Air with M3 starts at $1,099, while the 15-inch model starts at $1,299. Both models are available for order starting Monday and will begin arriving to customers and be available in stores on Friday, March 8. Apple also reduced the starting price of the 13-inch MacBook Air with M2 chip to $999.

An anonymous reader shares a report: India has waded into global AI debate by issuing an advisory that requires "significant" tech firms to get government permission before launching new models. India's Ministry of Electronics and IT issued the advisory to firms on Friday. The advisory -- not published on public domain but a copy of which TechCrunch has reviewed -- also asks tech firms to ensure that their services or products "do not permit any bias or discrimination or threaten the integrity of the electoral process."

Though the ministry admits the advisory is not legally binding, India's IT Deputy Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar says the notice is "signalling that this is the future of regulation." He adds: "We are doing it as an advisory today asking you to comply with it." In a tweet Monday, Chandrasekhar said the advisory is aimed at "untested AI platforms deploying on the India internet" and doesn't apply to startups. About-face from India's position on AI a year ago.

JetBlue Airways and Spirit Airlines announced on Monday that they would walk away from their planned $3.8 billion merger after federal antitrust regulators successfully challenged the deal in court. JetBlue said it would pay Spirit $69 million to exit the deal. From a report: A federal judge in Boston blocked the proposed merger on Jan. 16, siding with the Justice Department in determining that the merger would reduce competition in the industry and give airlines more leeway to raise ticket prices. The judge, William G. Young of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, noted that Spirit played a vital role in the market as a low-cost carrier and that travelers would have fewer options if JetBlue absorbed it.

"We are proud of the work we did with Spirit to lay out a vision to challenge the status quo, but given the hurdles to closing that remain, we decided together that both airlines' interests are better served by moving forward independently," JetBlue's chief executive, Joanna Geraghty, said in a statement on Monday. "We wish the very best going forward to the entire Spirit team." JetBlue and Spirit appealed Judge Young's decision. JetBlue filed an appellate brief last week arguing that the deal should be allowed to go through. But in a regulatory filing on Jan. 26, JetBlue said it might terminate the deal. Spirit said in its own filing the same day that it believed "there is no basis for terminating" the agreement.

The EU Commission on Monday fined Apple about $2 billion for stifling competition from rival music streaming services. In a blog post, Spotify writes: Apple's rules muzzled Spotify and other music streaming services from sharing with our users directly in our app about various benefits -- denying us the ability to communicate with them about how to upgrade and the price of subscriptions, promotions, discounts, or numerous other perks. Of course, Apple Music, a competitor to these apps, is not barred from the same behaviour. By requiring Apple to stop its illegal conduct in the EU, the EC is putting consumers first. It is a basic concept of free markets -- customers should know what options they have, and customers, not Apple, should decide what to buy, and where, when and how.

While we appreciate the EC addressing this important case, we also know that the details matter. Apple has routinely defied laws and court decisions in other markets. So we're looking forward to the next steps that will hopefully clearly and conclusively address Apple's long-standing unfair practices.

From the beginning, the foundational belief of the internet is that it should be a fair and open ecosystem. That belief has fueled growth, innovation and discovery around the world. Today the leading way people access the internet is via their mobile phones. So why should the same principles not apply? And while we are pleased that this case delivers some justice, it does not solve Apple's bad behaviour towards developers beyond music streaming in other markets around the world. Our work will not be done until we succeed in securing a truly fair digital marketplace everywhere and our commitment to helping to make this a reality remains unwavering. Further reading: Apple's response.