Twitch now lets users opt out of Amazon’s use of content from their channels to train Amazon’s “generative AI content models.” The change, announced today, comes more than two years after a company executive confirmed that Amazon was using Twitch content for AI training. In an updated support page, Twitch confirms that users must opt out if they don’t want their “streams, VODs, clips, stream chats, and pictures and text…

Hundreds of US government drones have switched from border surveillance to a different surveillance mission this summer—looking for signs of screwworm infestations in wild animals and livestock herds. The flesh-eating New World Screwworm is the parasitic larva that emerges from eggs laid by flies in the open wounds or body openings of warm-blooded animals and humans, with untreated cases potentially leading to severe injury or death. Since the first screwworm…

Romanian army divers used explosives to destroy two Russian-made drones found floating in the Black Sea near Romania’s largest natural gas project, according to the NATO member country’s defense minister. Defense Minister Radu Miruță posted a Facebook video supposedly showing one of the drones being blown up in the water by explosive ordnance disposal divers of the Romanian army on August 11, as reported by Reuters and other news outlets….

Google’s Chrome browser has added a new feature that could go a long way in preventing a form of account takeover that’s grown increasingly common as users adopt two-factor authentication, passkeys, and similar protections. The new Chrome protection is known as device-bound session credentials (DBSCs). The measure stores a unique encryption key in a silicon-resident fortress that’s built into the device running the browser. On Windows machines, this fortress is…

In 2018, 20,000 Google employees worldwide made headlines when they staged a walkout to protest how the company had handled sexual misconduct allegations against key corporate executives, among other grievances. One of the organizers was Claire Stapleton, a communications specialist whose distinctive voice and ability to channel the corporate ethos had once earned her the internal moniker “Bard of Google.” Six months later, a disillusioned Stapleton resigned, claiming she had…

Last week, a researcher outlined what he said was a “novel attack surface” in passkeys, the new authentication paradigm that offers a more secure alternative to password-based methods. In fact, the attacks demonstrated in the post are neither novel nor unique to passkeys. This distinction is important because the research has generated confusion among end users and security professionals as they assess whether this new mechanism is truly safe to…

Following its announcement in March, game developer Cold Iron Studios has shut down the servers for the cloud version of Aliens: Fireteam Elite on the Nintendo Switch. The game originally cost $30 (or $60 for an “Ultimate” version with additional content). Cold Iron Studios hasn’t offered customers refunds. TheGamer reported that affected players are entitled to a discount for the Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game, which is a…

Social media scuttlebutt about Mark Zuckerberg’s $300 million superyacht failing to assist stranded boaters off the coast of Alaska was partly corroborated by ship-tracking data—and eventually prompted responses from both the US Coast Guard and a spokesperson for Zuckerberg. The incident was made public when Michael Love, a passenger aboard the replica steamship Wilderness Legacy during an Alaska cruise, posted about it on the social media platform Bluesky. The ship…

The wildfires afflicting communities across the world can now be tracked more easily by anyone using Europe’s free and open satellite imagery service—all thanks to a wildfire visualization script originating from nearly a decade ago. The Copernicus Browser provides free access to the latest satellite imagery taken by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel satellites for the European Union’s Earth observation program. The three satellites of the Sentinel-2 mission have proven…

OpenAI’s upcoming smart speaker will probably cost over $300, “people familiar with the matter” have told Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. The generative AI company has “discussed” charging up to $400, Bloomberg, which has been reporting on the yet-to-be-announced smart speaker since July, said today. The publication said that OpenAI is viewing the smart speaker as a smartphone replacement. OpenAI has declined to comment on its product roadmap. Read full article Comments…