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BlackRock and Microsoft plan to launch a more than $30 billion fund to invest in artificial intelligence infrastructure to build data centers and energy projects, the companies said on Tuesday. AI models, especially those used for deep learning and large-scale data processing, require substantial computational power, leading to higher energy consumption. The computing requirements for AI have dictated that tech companies string together thousands of chips in clusters to achieve the necessary amount of data crunching power, leading to a surge in the demand for these specialized data centers....

An upcoming Netflix docuseries from Bill Gates is pushing many of the billionaire’s pet causes, including climate doomsaying, with Gates lecturing viewers at one point that “we have to give up hydrocarbons almost entirely.” Never mind that Bill Gates’ carbon footprint is many times the size of the average American’s and that Netflix itself has maintained its own private jet. What’s Next? The Future with Bill Gates, which is set to begin streaming September 18, also addresses a host of other causes near and dear to the billionaire’s heart. “Misinformation,” artificial intelligence technology, and income inequality are just a few...

Last week it became clear to me that although Microsoft has “loved” Linux for more than a decade now, that love still doesn’t extend to the Linux desktop.This realization came to me as I read news of a Windows security update that borked Grub, the open-source boot loader that’s used by most Linux distributions and which is used to load Windows in dual-boot situations.After the Windows update was applied, an untold number of Windows’ dual booters were unable to boot Linux, but instead were served the scary and cryptic error message: “Something has gone seriously wrong.”According to Ars Technica, the...

Its a small difference, but a real one.Go into your operating system and for all WiFi connections set MAC address randomization.For Windows 11 it is under Network & Internet -> WiFi right at the bottom -- "Random hardware addresses."For Android it is on by default for WiFi connections -- check all of them you use, and it should be on.I suspect IOS on Macs has a similar feature.Unfortunately for most systems there is no similar setting for hardware connections (e.g. cabled.)This didn't used to matter much in the world of IPv4 because MAC addresses do not travel beyond the local...

Tesla CEO compared incoming Recall feature to an episode of Black MirrorNew Recall feature will be coming to Copilot+ PCs from JuneIt takes screenshots of everything you do on-screenSnapshots are analysed by AI on-device so they can be searchedElon Musk has announced plans to disable the feature on his PCPrivacy campaigners have also flagged concernsUK privacy watchdog has launched an investigation into RecallElon Musk has criticised a controversial new AI feature coming to Windows 11 devices this summer. Known as Recall, it takes screenshots of everything on-screen so you can scroll back in time and resume work on anything from...

Local repair shops say electronics manufacturers are not following a new law, meant to eliminate intentional barriers currently in place that make it difficult for them to do their jobs fairly. Nearly two months after going into effect, the conditions of SB-244, the Right to Repair Act, are not being followed by some manufacturers, that's according to a couple local repair shops. “‘Right to Repair’ is the idea you should be able to fix anything you own,” said Liz Chamberlain, Director of Sustainability for iFixit, a San Luis Obispo-based company specializing in creating repair guides and manuals for electronics. But...

The cause of the CrowdStrike mess has been revealed by the company, together with the steps it has taken to ensure nothing similar can happen again. The company is facing a deluge of lawsuits over the estimated $5B worth of financial losses incurred by its clients, but the small print in its contract may protect it … A quick recap on the outageA huge mistake by cybersecurity company CrowdStrike last month caused a global IT outage on a massive scale, with airlines, banks, health services, and more affected – including some 911 centers. Airlines were forced to ground flights, broadcasters...

Microsoft warned customers this Tuesday to patch a critical TCP/IP remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability with an increased likelihood of exploitation that impacts all Windows systems using IPv6, which is enabled by default. Found by Kunlun Lab's XiaoWei and tracked as CVE-2024-38063, this security bug is caused by an Integer Underflow weakness, which attackers could exploit to trigger buffer overflows that can be used to execute arbitrary code on vulnerable Windows 10, Windows 11, and Windows Server systems.

So, Microsoft has been threatening me all year that they're going to force everyone to use "Outlook" on their computers, getting rid of "Mail". I use Outlook on my computer for a 'side hustle' business, and do not want to intermingle my email accounts on one application - and "Mail" does everything I need for my Yahoo/Gmail/etc. accounts. I've tried looking online for some, but can't really find anything that fits the job like the simple, basic "Mail". So, reaching out to the technocrati here at FreeP to see what y'all use for e-mail on a Windows laptop?

I'm a Mac. I'm a PC. You're both annoying meOn Call The Register knows that tech support is a vocation that induces frustration, which is why each Friday we offer a new edition of On Call – the reader-contributed column that details real-life support stories so you can at least enjoy misery in company. This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Brad" who told us about his first tech support job, for a grocery retailer based in a major US city. Brad spent most of his time at the company's biggest store, but a few times a week was...

Iran is ramping up online activity that appears intended to influence the upcoming US election, in one case targeting a presidential campaign with an email phishing attack, Microsoft said Friday. Iranian actors also have spent recent months creating fake news sites and impersonating activists, laying the groundwork to stoke division and potentially sway American voters this fall, especially in swing states, the technology giant found. The findings in Microsoft’s newest threat intelligence report show how Iran, which has been active in recent US campaign cycles, is evolving its tactics for another election that’s likely to have global implications. The report...

My wife's Windows 11 laptop is in an infinite loop trying to install an update that fails to install then immediately tries to install it again. This slows the laptop of so much that it is unusable. Below is a screenshot of the update screen displaying the offending optional update. I have searched and searched the Interwebs to find out how to make an update stop trying to install but have had no luck. Has anyone else encountered this problem?

It is a testament to how utterly extraordinary the past couple weeks have been that the Microsoft-CrowdStrike computer catastrophe was not even the second most important story in the news cycle. On Friday, July 19th, the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike implemented a botched update that crashed Microsoft devices on which it was installed, ultimately inflicting the dreaded “blue screen of death” on over 8.5 million devices worldwide. Banks, businesses, hospitals, and airlines were hit particularly hard, and to this day, some of these institutions are having difficulty restoring functionality to their systems. Video compilations such as the one below offer arresting...

Multi-trillion-dollar tech company Microsoft has laid off an entire team dedicated explicitly to DEI in the wake of the recent global IT outage. The news comes just days after Microsoft estimated that 8.5m computers were disabled by the global IT outage caused by a “glitch” from security company CrowdStrike. The BBC reported: The fall out from the IT glitch has been enormous and was already one of the worst cyber-incidents in history. The number given by Microsoft means it is probably the largest ever cyber-event, eclipsing all previous hacks and outages. The closest to this is the WannaCry cyber-attack in...

IT admins now have a quicker way to get machines up and running again after CrowdStrike’s faulty update. Microsoft has released a recovery tool that’s designed to help IT admins repair Windows machines that were impacted by CrowdStrike’s faulty update that crashed 8.5 million Windows devices on Friday. The tool creates a bootable USB drive that IT admins can use to help quickly recover impacted machines. While CrowdStrike has issued an update to fix its software that led to millions of Blue Screen of Death errors, not all machines are able to automatically receive that fix. Some IT admins have...

“That’s because major portions of the airline’s computer systems are still using Windows 3.1, a 32-year-old version of Microsoft’s computer operating software,” the website said. “It’s so old that the CrowdStrike issue doesn’t affect it so Southwest is still operating as normal. It’s typically not a good idea to wait so long to update, but in this one instance Southwest has done itself a favor.”

A sloppy update to software made by US cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike has taken PCs and servers used by airlines, railways, banks, broadcasters and even medical facilities around the world offline. For anyone following US politics over the past decade or so, the company’s name should be eerily familiar.CrowdStrike is making global headlines (and causing global headaches) this week after an update released Friday morning afflicted thousands of corporate machines running Microsoft products with the infamous blue screen of death error. While the company has already put out a fix, the buggy update is expected to cause billions of dollars and...

CrowdStrike Intelligence has since observed threat actors leveraging the event to distribute a malicious ZIP archive named crowdstrike-hotfix.zip. The ZIP archive contains a HijackLoader payload...Notably, Spanish filenames and instructions within the ZIP archive indicate this campaign is likely targeting Latin America-based (LATAM) CrowdStrike customers.

undreds of flights were cancelled at British airports yesterday due to the fault ... Travel disruption is continuing today as trains are hit in Crowdstrike outage with ticket machines and scanners going down at London stations. The meltdown chaos comes after the world's biggest IT disaster struck, with thousands of Brits stranded abroad. It happened on one of year's busiest travel days, with families now desperately queuing at Dover Port in an attempt to get home. After another 45 flights were cancelled today, 28,000 Brits are fighting to get a seat on a plane. Some passengers stuck overseas have been...

A Microsoft global outage has wreaked havoc across America, locking countless individuals out of their bank accounts, causing hospital cancelations and even grounding flights. The notorious Blue Screen of Death is popping up everywhere, from banks to supermarkets and media outlets, causing widespread panic and confusion. All United, Delta and American Airlines flights were grounded amid the chaos. Microsoft has issued a statement on the issue. “Our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions,” Microsoft said on X this morning. “We still expect that users will continue to see gradual relief as we continue...