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Today — 14 January 2025Tech News

OpenAI launches ‘Tasks’ to schedule reminders and to-do lists within ChatGPT

14 January 2025 at 12:57

ChatGPT users have something new to celebrate. The popular chatbot can now handle reminders and to-do lists for you. OpenAI announced on Tuesday the launch of a new feature called ‘Tasks’, available to paid subscribers on Plus, Team, and Pro […]

The post OpenAI launches ‘Tasks’ to schedule reminders and to-do lists within ChatGPT first appeared on Tech Startups.

North Korea linked to crypto heists of over $650 million in 2024 alone

14 January 2025 at 12:54
Illustration of a digital coin on fire.
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Hackers in North Korea stole a total of $659 million in crypto across several heists in 2024, according to a joint statement issued today by the US, Japan, and South Korea. The report specified five such incidents, like the $235 million theft from the Indian crypto exchange WazirX that is being newly attributed to the Lazarus Group. That organization is estimated to have stolen billions across previous attacks over the last decade, including $625 million stolen from Axie Infinity in 2022.

Of the 2024 incidents, Japan’s DMM Bitcoin suffered the biggest loss, with $308 million stolen, ultimately resulting in the exchange’s closure.

As recently as September 2024, the United States government observed aggressive targeting of the cryptocurrency industry by the DPRK with well-disguised social engineering attacks that ultimately deploy malware, such as TraderTraitor, AppleJeus and others. The Republic of Korea and Japan have observed similar trends and tactics used by the DPRK.

A warning issued by the FBI last September noted that their methods to gain access for delivering these payloads include “individualized fake scenarios,” such as enticing victims with prospective jobs and business opportunities. All three countries advised businesses in the industry to check out the latest warning to reduce their risk of “inadvertently hiring DPRK IT workers,” as described in this recent report by CoinDesk.

They’ve also used long-time common phishing tactics against employees of crypto firms, such as convincing impersonations of trusted contacts or prominent people of interest in related industries, with realistic photos and information likely lifted from public social media accounts of known connections.

Pixelfed, Instagram's decentralized competitor, is now on iOS and Android

14 January 2025 at 12:50

Pixelfed is now available as a mobile apps for both iOS and Android. The open source, decentralized platform offers image sharing similar to Instagram. However, Pixelfed has no advertisements and does not share user data with third parties. The platform launched in 2018, but was only available on the web or through third-party app clients. The Android app debuted on January 9 and the iOS app released today.

Creator Daniel Supernault posted on Mastodon Monday evening that the platform had 11,000 users join over the preceding 24 hours and that more than 78,000 posts have been shared to Pixelfed to date. The platform runs on ActivityPub, the same protocol that powers several other decentralized social networks in the fediverse, such as Mastodon and Flipboard.

Many Instagram users have been seeking out alternatives to the Meta-owned platform after the company said it would eliminate third-party fact checking and revised its "Hateful Content" policy to allow denigrating comments against women and trans people, among other changes. Meta also blocked some links to Pixelfed on Facebook, treating them as spam and deleting those posts. A representative from the company said this was an error and that the posts would be reinstated.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/pixelfed-instagrams-decentralized-competitor-is-now-on-ios-and-android-205059236.html?src=rss

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© Pixelfed

Screenshot of Pixelfed

Amid a flurry of hype, Microsoft reorganizes entire dev team around AI

14 January 2025 at 13:00

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has announced a dramatic restructuring of the company's engineering organization—all around pivoting the company's focus to developing the tools that will underpin agentic AI.

Dubbed "CoreAI - Platform and Tools," the new division rolls the existing AI platform team and the previous developer division (which is responsible for everything from .NET to Visual Studio) along with some other teams into one big group.

As for what this group will be doing specifically, it's basically everything that's mission critical to Microsoft in 2025, as Nadella tells it:

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Google’s NotebookLM had to teach its AI podcast hosts not to act annoyed at humans

14 January 2025 at 12:38

NotebookLM's viral AI podcast hosts sounded annoyed at human callers and required "friendliness tuning," Google says.

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Flights delayed by SpaceX’s falling rocket debris 

14 January 2025 at 12:32

Qantas has been forced to delay several flights to South Africa due to last minute warnings about SpaceX rocket debris falling from the sky. 

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Google-backed Pixxel launches India’s first private satellite constellation

14 January 2025 at 12:30

Pixxel, an Indian space tech startup backed by Google, has successfully launched the first three hyperspectral satellites of its commercial constellation Firefly.

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Meta to Slash 5% of Workforce in Round of Performance-Based Layoffs

14 January 2025 at 12:07
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a note to employees Wednesday, seen by Bloomberg, that the company plans to cut approximately 5% of its workforce via performance-based terminations. The parent company of Facebook and Instagram reported about 72,000 employees as of the end of last September in its third-quarter earnings call, so the cuts could...

ChatGPT wants to become your reminder app with new ‘Tasks’ feature

14 January 2025 at 11:54

OpenAI on Tuesday announced a new feature coming to ChatGPT, which will turn the chatbot into a reminder app. Called “Tasks,” the feature will let users ask ChatGPT to remind them about their tasks and even create periodic alerts for specific situations.

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The new Witcher animated film finally has a legit trailer

14 January 2025 at 11:54

We’ve been hearing about the latest animated movie based on The Witcher franchise for a while now, but we’ve only ever gotten a short teaser and an equally short clip. Now, finally, there’s a legit full-fledged trailer. This is opportune timing, as The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep hits Netflix on February 11.

The big hook here? Geralt is voiced by Doug Cockle, reprising his role from the video games. Anya Chalotra and Joey Batey (Yennefer of Vengerberg and Jaskier in the live action show) are also reprising their roles. It’s set in the universe of the TV show, surrounding events that occurred during the first season, but is based on a short story by franchise creator Andrzej Sapkowski.

The original story, called “A Little Sacrifice,” involves Geralt investigating a series of attacks in a seaside village, leading to a conflict between humans and merpeople. It’s generally considered one of the better short stories in the canon. There’s an underwater city, which is always a good time.

The movie is directed by Kang Hei Chul. He was a storyboard artist for The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, which was a prequel that followed Geralt’s mentor Vesemir. Studio Mir is on animation duties, the same South Korean studio that worked on Nightmare of the Wolf.

This company has an absolutely amazing pedigree. It animated the hit cartoon X-Men ‘97, but also stuff like The Legend of Korra, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, My Adventures with Superman and Voltron: Legendary Defender, among many others. The studio is currently finishing up the upcoming Devil May Cry anime, also for Netflix.

A fourth game in The Witcher franchise is coming, but this one stars Ciri instead of Geralt. The fifth and final season of The Witcher TV show is expected to premiere on Netflix in 2026.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/the-new-witcher-animated-film-finally-has-a-legit-trailer-195457579.html?src=rss

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© Netflix

A still showing Geralt holding a sword.

Meta to cut 5% of employees deemed unfit for Zuckerberg’s AI-fueled future

Anticipating that 2025 will be an "intense year" requiring rapid innovation, Mark Zuckerberg reportedly announced that Meta would be cutting 5 percent of its workforce—targeting "lowest performers."

Bloomberg reviewed the internal memo explaining the cuts, which was posted to Meta's internal Workplace forum Tuesday. In it, Zuckerberg confirmed that Meta was shifting its strategy to "move out low performers faster" so that Meta can hire new talent to fill those vacancies this year.

"I’ve decided to raise the bar on performance management," Zuckerberg said. "We typically manage out people who aren’t meeting expectations over the course of a year, but now we’re going to do more extensive performance-based cuts during this cycle."

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DJI Flip is a $439, fully foldable camera drone

14 January 2025 at 12:19

Four short months after introducing the truly palm-size Neo, DJI is back with another pint-sized consumer drone. The Flip continues the drone giant’s interest in foldable form factors, with a quartet of propeller guards that essentially stack up, for maximum portability. The new Flip continues to blur the lines in DJI’s existing consumer portfolio, combing […]

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OpenAI appoints BlackRock exec to its board

14 January 2025 at 11:58

OpenAI has appointed an executive at investment firm BlackRock to its board of directors. Adebayo “Bayo” Ogunlesi, a senior managing director at BlackRock and CEO of Global Infrastructure Partners, an infrastructure investing platform, has joined OpenAI’s board, OpenAI announced on Tuesday. In a statement, OpenAI board chairman Bret Taylor said that Ogunlesi has “an exceptional […]

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