On Thursday, OpenAI announced that ChatGPT users can now branch conversations into multiple parallel threads, serving as a useful reminder that AI chatbots aren’t people with fixed viewpoints but rather malleable tools you can rewind and redirect. The company released the feature for all logged-in web users following years of user requests for the capability. The feature works by letting users hover over any message in a ChatGPT conversation, click…

Wednesday’s discovery of three mis-issued TLS certificates for Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1 encrypted DNS lookup service generated intense interest and concern among Internet security practitioners. The revelation raised the possibility that an unknown entity had obtained the cryptographic equivalent of a skeleton key that could be used to surreptitiously decrypt millions of users’ DNS queries that were encrypted through DNS over TLS or DNS over HTTPS. From there, the scammers could have…

The start of the COVID-19 pandemic is now five years in the rearview mirror, but its effects continue to reverberate. While those leading the US healthcare system have embraced conspiracy theories and junk science to justify a reduced focus on vaccines (particularly the COVID jab) many people are still seeking out immunization. Google Maps isn’t a good way to find it, though. In recent days, almost all search results for…

On Wednesday, a global antipiracy group, which included Apple TV+, Netflix, The Walt Disney Studios, and Warner Bros. Discovery, announced that it had assisted in a sting operation that took down Streameast, described as the “largest illicit live sports streaming operation in the world.” Now, accessing websites from the thwarted Streameast brings up a link from the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) that explains how to watch sports games…

On Wednesday, Microsoft released the complete source code for Microsoft BASIC for 6502 Version 1.1, the 1978 interpreter that powered the Commodore PET, VIC-20, Commodore 64, and Apple II through custom adaptations. The company posted 6,955 lines of assembly language code to GitHub under an MIT license, allowing anyone to freely use, modify, and distribute the code that helped launch the personal computer revolution. “Rick Weiland and I (Bill Gates)…

On Tuesday, Tencent released HunyuanWorld-Voyager, a new open-weights AI model that generates 3D-consistent video sequences from a single image, allowing users to pilot a camera path to “explore” virtual scenes. The model simultaneously generates RGB video and depth information to enable direct 3D reconstruction without the need for traditional modeling techniques. However, it won’t be replacing video games anytime soon. The results aren’t true 3D models, but they achieve a…

Google has spent the last few weeks hyping up its new Pixel 10 phones, which are very nice devices. They’re just not a big leap over last year’s phones. If you’ve decided to hang onto your Android phone a bit longer, there are some new goodies headed your way. If you’ve got a Pixel, Google’s revamped Material 3 Expressive interface is rolling out. Google’s Pixel Drop updates, which arrive quarterly,…

People in Internet security circles are sounding the alarm over the issuance of three TLS certificates for 1.1.1.1, a widely used DNS service from content delivery network Cloudflare and the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) Internet registry. The certificates, issued in May, can be used to decrypt domain lookup queries encrypted through DNS over HTTPS or DNS over TSL. Both protocols provide end-to-end encryption when end-user devices seek the…

Google has avoided the worst-case scenario in the pivotal search antitrust case brought by the US Department of Justice. More than a year ago, the Department of Justice (DOJ) secured a major victory when Google was found to have violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. The remedy phase took place earlier this year, with the DOJ calling for Google to divest the market-leading Chrome browser, release data to competitors, and end…

Dolby has announced the features of Dolby Vision 2, its successor to the popular Dolby Vision HDR format. Whereas the original Dolby Vision was meant to give creators the ability to finely tune exactly how TVs present content in HDR, Dolby Vision 2 appears to significantly broaden that feature to include motion handling as well—and it also tries to bridge the gap between filmmaker intent and the on-the-ground reality of…