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Microsoft is now testing an AI-powered text summarization feature in Notepad and a Snipping Tool "Draw & Hold" feature that helps draw perfect shapes. [...]

It'll take a few days, give or take your situation

Google has told The Register it's beginning to roll out a fix for Chromecast devices that were crippled by an expired security certificate authority. We're assured this deployment will take place over the next few days.…

In the past month and a half, the Trump Administration has drastically reduced the federal government workforce.

The cuts alone have generated concern and anger among workers and those who rely on US government services. Adding to the angst: a new concern that government employees could be fired by an algorithm, as engineers modify a legacy reduction-in-force (RIF) software program to assist in their efforts, according to Abigail Kunkler, a law fellow with the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).

Kunkler referenced a February article by Wired citing unnamed sources who told it the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was retooling AutoRIF software to assist in deciding which employees to lay off. (Wired’s sources reported that most layoffs to that point had been determined manually.)

The day after the article was published, the US Office of Personnel Management ordered agencies to submit RIF plans and file them with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). 

While not an actual federal department, DOGE is a government entity created by President Donald J. Trump with the self-stated mission of reducing waste, fraud, and abuse. To date, DOGE’s efforts have affected 18 federal agencies with layoffs or buyouts. While the exact number of federal job cuts in 2025 remains unclear, reports estimate there have been roughly 222,000 layoffs so far, with more expected as agencies implement budget cuts.

Driven by the government cuts, US layoffs surged 245% in February, according to Reuters.

“It is not clear how AutoRIF has been modified or whether AI is involved in the RIF mandate (through AutoRIF or independently),” Kunkler wrote in a blog post. “However, fears of AI-driven mass-firings of federal workers are not unfounded. Elon Musk and the Trump Administration have made no secret of their affection for the dodgy technology and their intentions to use it to make budget cuts. And, in fact, they have already tried adding AI to workforce decisions.”

Proponents of automated decision-making software claim it improves efficiency and reduces risks of mismanagement and discrimination. However, its use raises concerns about bias, surveillance, and lack of transparency, Kunkler said. The tools often perpetuate bias due to flawed information, such as incomplete or discriminatory historical data, and can lead to arbitrary or discriminatory decisions, potentially violating workers’ rights and laws like Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The creep of worker data collection, surveillance, rating systems, and automated decision-making is called “algorithmic management.” DOGE’s attempts to use a large language model (LLM) to cull “unnecessary” workers is a form of algorithmic management and automated decision-making, Kunlkler said.  

AutoRIF, developed by the Department of Defense more than 20 years ago, helps agencies manage workforce reductions. Wired reported that DOGE operatives have been editing its code, with updates made recently through a repository in the Office of Personnel Management’s GitHub, managed by Musk associates after Trump took office. However, a review of that GitHub site contained no “public” repositories.

Efforts to contact and/or get comment from the White House, DOGE, the DOGE Caucus or the Office of Personnel Management were unsuccessful.

“Federal employers using automated decision-making tools sharply reduces transparency for workers and their representatives,” Kunkler said. “There is often no insight into how the tool works, what data it is being fed, or how it is weighing different data in its analysis. The logic behind a given decision is not accessible to the worker and, in the government context, it is near impossible to know how or whether the tool is adhering to the statutory and regulatory requirements a federal employment tool would need to follow.”

** 3,5mm jack je u smartphonů stále na ústupu ** Z topmodelů jej má už jen Sony a Asus ** Toto je deset telefonů v Česku, které sluchátkový jack ještě mají

Expired certificates have recently caused a lot of chaos, including for Chromecast users. With that in mind, Mozilla is now urging all Firefox users to immediately update the browser to the latest version.

The reason: an older certificate expires on Friday, which means users who have not updated for a long time could be in trouble. According to Bleeping Computer, this means warnings about stolen passwords and malicious websites can no longer be displayed.

Firefox isn’t the only browser affected; others that use the same certificate include Tor, Librewolf and Waterfox.

​Microsoft is investigating a known issue that causes the new Outlook email client to crash when users click the "Go to classic Outlook" button, which should help them switch back to the classic Outlook. [...]

** Před třemi lety byl Dynamic Island moderním prvkem systému iOS ** Ani po třech letech jej však Apple nijak nevylepšil ** Ukážeme vám, co Dynamic Island umí, a jak vám může pomoci

OpenAI executives think the federal government should regulate artificial intelligence in the US, taking precedence over often more restrictive state regulations.

In its contribution to a government consultation on AI regulation filed Thursday, the company also pointed to AI regulatory efforts in China as a threat to US developers — but then suggested that the US should embrace a similar model of AI vendors and government cooperation.

It suggested the government open up to voluntary partnerships with the private sector, neutralizing any advantage China might gain from US AI companies having to comply with “overly burdensome state laws.” In its 15-page filing it advised the government to “create a sandbox for American start-ups and provide participating companies with liability protections including preemption from state-based regulations that focus on frontier model security.”

OpenAI also asked for the government to “provide American AI companies with the tools and classified threat intelligence to mitigate national security risks.”

Act of congress

It buried in a footnote on page 6 was the acknowledgement that the White House can’t legally make these changes without legislative support: “Federal preemption over existing or prospective state laws will require an act of Congress.”

The filing also said that OpenAI wants to have the freedom to train on information, despite any legal protections that forbid it. “The federal government can both secure Americans’ freedom to learn from AI, and avoid forfeiting our AI lead to the PRC by preserving American AI models’ ability to learn from copyrighted material.”

The filing was a response to the federal Office of Science and Technology’s request for comments on developing a federal AI Action Plan. It was one of more than 300 comments initially received. 

Forrester Senior Analyst Alla Valente said OpenAI’s statement was “telling everyone what they want to hear. It was absolutely leaning into what the White House wants to hear: If you are a developer, we want you to innovate to your heart’s content and to get rid of all of those pesky state regulations.”

Other analysts agreed, suggesting that state AI laws are likely to be more rigorous, especially about protecting their citizens’ rights, privacy and security. 

From an enterprise IT perspective, the longshot proposal could be attractive — not necessarily from a weaker compliance perspective, but from having fewer rules to follow. More critically, the process would reduce having to follow rules that contradict each other.

Many enterprise IT executives work for multinationals. Even if their operations are solely in the US, they likely have operations and partners in other countries. That means that enterprises already have to deal with many AI compliance rules — especially in Australia, the EU, the UK, Canada and Japan — some of which are contradictory.

Valente said that despite OpenAI’s statement stressing simplicity, “It could create more complexity. Simplicity would be global cooperation. Enterprise IT leaders are asking, ‘What does this mean for the customers I already have in regions with very different requirements?’”

Reece Hayden, lead AI analyst with ABI Research, applauded that OpenAI also talked about supporting infrastructure issues such as modernizing the US energy grids. “Those kinds of points have been overshadowed” by efficiency and security details.

Another analyst, IDC research VP Dave Schubmehl, was also skeptical that the OpenAI proposal would go very far.

“I think AI regulation at the state level is probably a foregone conclusion,” Schubmehl, “but this is a valiant attempt by OpenAI to centralize regulation.”

Shrouded behind the mists of Apple Intelligence, one of the more thought-provoking implementations of artificial intelligence for real-world business use doesn’t come from Apple; it comes from webAI. 

The rise of webAI

webAI is a crouching tiger, but not so hidden it didn’t get a mention when new Macs were introduced last week. The company’s AI-powered Companion assistant showcases what might happen when enterprises get hold of private, secure AI that runs locally. webAI claims Companion can be customized to handle almost any enterprise workload. (I’ve seen it trained up on proprietary enterprise data running on the new Mac Studio; It felt like a glimpse into the future of on-device enterprise AI.)

On-device, on-prem, on the ball

What sets webAI apart is that all the action takes place on the device. Remarkably, this intelligence doesn’t need a Mac Studio but can also run efficiently on an M4 MacBook Air. That means you can quite literally use AI to handle complex tasks on your Mac from anywhere you happen to be without worrying that your valuable enterprise data is going to be purloined on its journey to the cloud or intercepted by rogue intelligence agencies, such as the UK.

A new era for enterprise AI?

This development proves that businesses can deploy enterprise-grade AI without the risks associated with cloud connectivity. It also highlights the growing performance gap between Apple’s Macs and competing devices.

While the Apple Intelligence debacle is a serious blow to Apple’s credibility, the potential to use webAI and a Mac to deliver powerful business solutions indicates there’s plenty of life in the platform. Apple actually demonstrated this in action by running a 22 billion parameter webAI Companion model locally on a M4 MacBook Air during its launch. This suggests enterprises might not need to rely on cloud AI services, with all the associated risks of using them.

“Privacy is the founding principle of webAI, it’s in our DNA,” said webAI founder and CEO David Stout. “We are pioneering private AI that knows your business and runs on your devices, inside your walls, completely under your control.”

Tomorrow belongs to…?

As Apple continues to focus on both privacy and security on its hardware, the value of its solutions for enterprise users increases. With a robust Apple Silicon processor improvement roadmap ahead, there’s little doubt that the capabilities of the AI models your Macs can run locally will improve. 

If, and it’s a big if, Apple makes its Private Cloud Compute service available to third-party developers such as webAI, it could even enable enterprise development teams to deploy incredibly private AI systems, providing multiple benefits including enterprise-class personalized AI, Apple’s privacy and security, and the convenience of end-to-end encrypted cloud services.

Faster and furthur

The AI models we build today will run even more swiftly on the M5, M6, and M7 systems we already know Apple has planned. (Well, we don’t know that precisely, but we can easily surmise based on the current path). That’s a future for AI deployment in business that takes you into 2035, and beyond — all on the device, private, secure and at significantly lower cost than the computer clusters enterprise AI has traditionally required.

That you can run this on portable systems that cost $1,000 also means something, particularly as Windows 10 support nears an end. I predict reduced infrastructure costs, improved security and compliance, and an ROI that could make your finance teams weep with joy. And removing Windows from the equation may cheer some security professionals. 

Whatever next?

For enterprise users thinking about AI deployment, webAI appears to promise that migrating to a Mac might help companies actually realize the much -hyped benefits of AI at a pretty low cost, all protected within existing security and device management frameworks.

Final thoughts? While I’m disappointed that Apple failed to keep its own promises with Apple Intelligence and do think there will be repercussions for this (and not just in stock prices), when it comes to focused AI implementations that meet the needs of business and exploit the computational power of Apple’s hardware, I’ll be watching what happens with webAI. 

You can follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky,  LinkedIn, and Mastodon.

Google se pochlubil třetí generací svého (malého) jazykového modelu Gemma 3 , který vychází z jeho AI Gemini, ale není tak výpočetně náročný a je volně ke stažení. Proto jej v jednodušších konfiguracích rozjedete i na běžném desktopu s grafickou kartou. Anebo dokonce i na iPhonu. Vyzkoušejte si ...

​Juniper Networks has released emergency security updates to patch a Junos OS vulnerability exploited by Chinese hackers to backdoor routers for stealthy access. [...]

GitLab released security updates for Community Edition (CE) and Enterprise Edition (EE), fixing nine vulnerabilities, among which two critical severity ruby-saml library authentication bypass flaws. [...]

V noci ze 13. na 14. března 2025 se Slunce, Země a Měsíc ocitnou v jedné přímce a nastane úplné zatmění Měsíce . Při tomto nebeském úkazu prochází Měsíc zemským stínem, což vytváří jedinečnou příležitost k pozorování interakce slunečního světla se zemskou atmosférou. V Česku toho ale bohužel moc ...

Byla vydána nová verze 16 integrovaného vývojového prostředí (IDE) Qt Creator. Podrobný přehled novinek v changelogu.

Microsoft has shed light on an ongoing phishing campaign that has targeted the hospitality sector by impersonating online travel agency Booking.com using an increasingly popular social engineering technique called ClickFix to deliver credential-stealing malware. The activity, the tech giant's threat intelligence team said, started in December 2024 and operates with the end goal of conducting

Microsoft has shed light on an ongoing phishing campaign that targeted the hospitality sector by impersonating online travel agency Booking.com using an increasingly popular social engineering technique called ClickFix to deliver credential-stealing malware. The activity, the tech giant's threat intelligence team said, started in December 2024 and operates with the end goal of conducting Ravie Lakshmananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/[email protected]

Phishers check in, your credentials check out, Microsoft warns

An ongoing phishing campaign disguised as a Booking.com email casts keystroke and credential-stealing malware into hospitality employees' inboxes for financial fraud and theft, according to Microsoft Threat Intelligence.…

Microsoft is warning that an ongoing phishing campaign impersonating Booking.com is using ClickFix social engineering attacks to infect hospitality workers with various malware, including infostealers and RATs. [...]

Ministerstvo dopravy připravilo úpravu vyhlášky č. 31/2001 Sb., o řidičských průkazech a o registru řidičů. Zavede několik novinek včetně toho, že pro řidičáky a karty řidiče už nebude nutné chodit na úřad, ale zašlou se na výdejní místa , třeba i samoobslužné výdejní boxy. Tím se celé vyřizování ...

The North Korea-linked threat actor known as ScarCruft is said to have been behind a never-before-seen Android surveillance tool named KoSpy targeting Korean and English-speaking users. Lookout, which shared details of the malware campaign, said the earliest versions date back to March 2022. The most recent samples were flagged in March 2024. It's not clear how successful these efforts were. "