Technology

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The WHO has sent epidemiologists to the country to uncover the cause of the illness, which has killed more than 70 people, half of them children.

It's not worth upgrading if you have the original Scribe, but the 2024 version has some modest note-taking improvements I appreciated.

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The court acknowledges the ban would require TikTok's millions of users to find alternatives but is justified by the threat China poses to US national security.

Apple’s leaders claim the company wasn’t late to generative AI, but instead following what has become its familiar playbook: try to be the best, not the first.

All Italian residents can now digitalize their identity documents with a single application.

The IT-Wallet is Italy's iteration of the EU Digital Identity Wallet scheme, created to "provide a safe, reliable, and private means of digital identification for everyone in Europe," explains the European Commission.

The European initiative passed last year despite strong criticisms from privacy experts warning against a potential increase in surveillance and security risks.

IT-Wallet: the privacy and security conundrum

Starting from December 4, 2024, Italians can use the IT-Wallet feature to digitally scan their driving license and health card directly from the IO app, Italy's public services application.

The project is set to expand and accept other documents, like ID cards and passports, while also integrating new functionalities, such as the possibility to make payments, book medical appointments, or transport.

The launch follows the pilot that started at the end of October and involved 50,000 citizens. Other European countries are currently testing their own iterations of the EU digital wallet at the time of writing, including France, Germany, and Luxembourg.

While the European Union argues that ID Wallets will provide a simpler and safer way for citizens to prove their identity, the ongoing implementation continues to spark concerns among commentators.

I’m extremely worried about the direction of the #eIDAS trilogue negotiations. We see a massive attack on core privacy principles in the text proposed by the @EU_Commission and @eu2023es Presidency. The EU ID Wallet risks becoming a privacy nightmare that is not safe to use!!!September 3, 2023

Italian journalist Martina Pastorelli, for instance, has described the IT-Wallet as "the EU digital cage, which will reduce governments into platforms and citizens into users, transforming rights into concessions and services into products."

The EU ID Wallet has been a contentious issue since the beginning, creating a lot of friction among policymakers.

It's certainly more convenient to have all your identity references in one single app, but this could also "enable governments to surveil citizens more effectively," Udbhav Tiwari, Mozilla's Head of Global Product Policy, told TechRadar back in September 2023.

The fact that member states need to develop their own application is also reason for concern among experts.

As per Bart Preenel, a cryptographer professor at Leuven University, "This makes adding privacy much harder because it means that every member needs to pay attention to this effort and adds privacy [protection] to the design," he told TechRadar in February. Features like anonymization of credentials, noted Preenel, are optional requirements, in fact.

There's also the issue of security, especially considering that data breach incidents have become almost a daily occurrence lately, with medical records being a constant target of hackers.

Italians can decide for themselves whether or not to start using the IT-Wallet, however, as the service is voluntary at the time of writing.

David Sacks, a member of the infamous “PayPal Mafia,” will lead a group of advisers tasked with steering AI and crypto policy under the Trump administration.

• Windows 11 will soon allow easy webcam resolution adjustments in settings without extra software
• A hidden feature in Windows Insider build lets users manually select webcam resolution and frame rate
• New options include multi-app webcam use and a ‘basic’ mode for troubleshooting camera issues

Adjusting your webcam’s resolution on Windows 11 PCs is about to get a lot easier - without needing to install extra software. The operating system already offers several webcam settings, which can be found by going to Settings > Bluetooth & Devices > Cameras. Here, you can change webcam settings like brightness, sharpness, and contrast, and soon you’ll be able to control your webcam’s resolution too.

Signs of the new addition to Windows 11’s webcam settings were picked up and shared by reliable Windows leaker @PhantomOfEarth on X. In a recent Windows Insider Canary Channel preview build of Windows 11, they found a hidden feature ID that could be enabled that adds an option to modify your webcam’s image resolution. According to Neowin, this option will allow you to let Windows 11 choose the best resolution for your webcam automatically or manually select a fixed resolution and frame rate.

Recent Canary builds include an additional advanced camera option: media type, which lets you choose a specific camera resolution. (ID is disabled by default, 27744+)vivetool /enable /id:52142480 pic.twitter.com/vZxAmv7RqkDecember 4, 2024

If you enable this hidden feature ID, new options will be added to the camera settings menu. There, your webcam will (hopefully) now be listed with an ‘Edit’ option. Upon selecting this, you’ll be met with a list of resolutions available for your webcam, as well as two other new options, including letting multiple apps use your webcam at the same time and a ‘basic’ mode you can turn on if your webcam seems like it’s malfunctioning - not unlike booting Windows in ‘Safe Mode’ to debug OS problems.

When we expect to see the new settings and how you can get it now

If your computer is running one of the latest versions of Windows 11 (build 27744 or newer), you can enable this new setting for yourself, although you have to use ViveTool to do this. I would recommend you check out Neowin’s explanation of how to do this if you’re eager to test out this new feature early.

Overall, this is a positive update to Windows 11 (something that has been… a little rare of late), especially since more in-depth customization of your webcam has often required the use of third-party apps. This could be especially useful while you’re in video calls or meetings or if you want to quickly switch video quality while making a recording.

This change is still a hidden feature in a preview version of Windows 11, but if it’s made it this far, I expect that we’ll see it in a future update for the live public version of the OS fairly soon.

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Snag this $349 action camera at Amazon and you'll get two extra batteries and a $15 gift card for free.

The Acer Nitro 16 is already one of the best laptops for gamers on a budget, and right now you can pick it up for under $1,000.

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• America’s sanctions limiting China’s access to semiconductors criticized
• Huawei and its partners are all subject to different rules
• Letter calls for the preservation of documents for Trump’s analysis

Despite very public efforts to limit China’s access to advanced semiconductors and chipmaking equipment, a leading House Republican has accused Biden’s administration of leaving loopholes that companies like Huawei are benefiting from.

The concern comes from none other than Representative John Moolenaar, the chair of the chamber’s China Select Committee, who expressed his concerns in a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

Acknowledging that some restrictions, like curbs on high-bandwidth memory chips, have been largely successful, Moolenaar argued that other measures have created opportunities for Chinese firms to bypass America’s sanctions, rendering them ineffective.

US restrictions on China deemed ineffective

Moolenaar highlighted rules that impose varied restrictions on different production facilities belonging to Huawei’s chipmaking partner, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC).

He criticized licensing policies allowing “case-by-case” sales to some SMIC facilities in Shanghai despite denying other shipments to its Beijing operations, and questioned why some Huawei-linked firms like Shenzhen Pensun Technology Co and SwaySure are subject to less stringent policies compared to others, such as Qingdao Si’En.

An extract from the letter (via Bloomberg) reads: “There is no national security justification for these loopholes.” All of this, he says, “raise[es] real questions about the culture at [The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security] and why BIS continues to facilitate shipments of US technology.”

Moolenaar has been instrumental to the US’ efforts to limit China’s access to advanced technologies – he and Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi were the driving force behind adding many of the latest companies to the so-called entity list, announced earlier this week.

In his letter to Raimondo, Moolenaar is asking the Department of Commerce to “preserve all documents and communications” related to the restrictions so that US President-elect Donald Trump “can properly identify any other loopholes.”

A Commerce spokesperson confirmed receipt of the letter, adding that it “will respond through the appropriate channels.”

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OpenAI has started the holidays early with the launch of a 12-day event called "12 days of OpenAI". Each day over the next week or so, OpenAI will be unveiling new updates to existing products as well as new software, including the much-anticipated Sora AI video generator.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said that there will be daily live streams with a launch or demo each day, "some big ones and some stocking stuffers".

The company kickstarted the festivities with the huge unveiling of the o1 reasoning model as well as a new business tier of ChatGPT, called ChatGPT Pro. That's not a bad start, and we fully expect to see even more huge reveals throughout the event.

We're here to cover everything "12 days of OpenAI" throughout the coming days, so grab a cup of hot beverage, sit back, and relax, as we uncover the next era of OpenAI software.

LIVE UPDATES

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Welcome to TechRadar's "12 days of OpenAI" live blog, where our resident AI experts will be taking you through the next 12 (well, 11) days of everything exciting coming out of the world's most famous AI company.

What will Sam Altman reveal? How will these new updates and products change the way we use artificial intelligence? Who knows, but we're incredibly excited to find out.

(Image credit: OpenAI)

Yesterday, OpenAI kicked off the 12-day event with the announcement that the company's o1 reasoning model would no longer be in preview, ready for everyone to try.

The AI model thrives with scientific equations and math problems with OpenAI saying o1 can solve 83% of the problems in the International Mathematics Olympiad qualifying exam, a massive improvement on GPT-4o, which only scored 13%. The new model makes fewer errors than the preview version, cutting down on major mistakes by 34%.

That wasn't the only reveal, however...

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

OpenAI also announced ChatGPT Pro yesterday, but who is it actually aimed at?

For $200/month ChatGPT Pro gives you unlimited usage and an even smarter version of o1 with "more benefits to come!"

The fact is that for almost everybody the current $20 a month ChatGPT Plus option will be easily sufficient. Perhaps it can do special things (like writing "David Mayer" with no problems), but it seems hard to justify beyond a select few users who need massive computing power. To me, the $200 price point seems more like a price anchor. Essentially, it makes the $20 ChatGPT Plus price point look really good value.

(Image credit: Open AI)

One of the biggest announcements we expect to see over the next week or so is the official launch of Sora, OpenAI's video generator which can transform a text prompt into an incredible video.

Sora was leaked last month by unhappy artists who have accused OpenAI of taking advantage for unpaid research and development purposes. There's definitely a debate to be had on how OpenAI trains its AI models, but that's maybe one for another day.

In terms of what Sora offers, well, imagine one of the best AI image generators, but video. I've not tried Sora yet, but from the demos online, it looks pretty awesome.

(Image credit: OpenAI)

What are TechRadar's predictions for day 2 of OpenAI's "12 days of OpenAI" I hear you cry? Well, Sam Altman said that we can expect "some big ones and some stocking stuffers" throughout the 12 days, and considering that yesterday we got a brand new version of ChatGPT (ChatGPT o1) I'd predict that today's Xmas gift from OpenAI will be more of a "stocking stuffer" than one of the "big ones".

Perhaps a minor update to ChatGPT search or ChatGPT Advanced Voice Mode. What am I really hoping for? I want ChatGPT search to be rolled out to all users on the free tier. Fingers crossed!

OpenAI's next livestream kicks off at 10 am PT / 1 pm ET / 6 pm GMT and you can watch it live directly from OpenAI's website.

If you go to the "12 days of OpenAI" section of the website right now, you'll see a gorgeous advent calendar, hinting at the exciting days to come. Just like an advent calendar, some days will be better than others, so I'm very intrigued to see if OpenAI keeps up the momentum or if today isn't quite as stellar as yesterday.

Bookmark that link too, as you'll be able to revisit all the highlights from the events even if you miss one of the livestreams. Or, you could keep checking in with TechRadar as we'll keep you up to date on everything you need to know over the next week or so.

OpenAI o1 is now out of preview in ChatGPT.What’s changed since the preview? A faster, more powerful reasoning model that’s better at coding, math & writing.o1 now also supports image uploads, allowing it to apply reasoning to visuals for more detailed & useful responses. pic.twitter.com/hrLiID3MhJDecember 5, 2024

If you're just joining us, OpenAI announced the official launch of o1 yesterday, with a "faster, more powerful reasoning model that's better at coding, math & writing."

If you want to try it out yourself, just head to ChatGPT and choose the o1 model from the dropdown. Give it a try on your math homework, or a coding challenge, you might be surprised by the results.

(Image credit: OpenAI)

ChatGPT uses Dall-E 3 for image generation, which is right up there with the current crop of AI image generators on the market, however, it's starting to look a little long in the tooth. New upcoming AI image generators like Flux have been slowly getting better and better.

Could we see a new version of Dall-E in our 12 days of OpenAI? It's a hotly tipped possibility. If OpenAI can give us image generation that's better than Flux Pro then it will certainly be a happy holiday season for everybody.

I mentioned Sora earlier, but just in case you haven't heard of the AI video generator, here's an unbelievable trailer from OpenAI showing just what it's capable of.

My personal favorite here is the prompt "a litter of golden retriever puppies playing in the snow. Their heads pop out of the snow."

How can AI be so cute? I can't quite wrap my head around it.

(Image credit: Future)

Here's another prediction for "12 Days of OpenAI" announcements: videochatGPT. You might be familiar with the Norad Santa Tracker It's a fun way to track Santa's flight around the world on the 24th of December. This year I'm thinking that it's the perfect time for OpenAI to take this a step further with an AI Santa video call demo as part of a new AI video ChatGPT.

So, imagine talking to ChatGPT just like you're currently doing in ChatGPT Advanced Voice Mode, but you're seeing a video avatar talk back to you. Santa Claus would be the perfect video avatar to kick this off, and it would delight children everywhere. Let's just hope AI Santa doesn't start hallucinating because the result could be hilarious...

(Image credit: Future)

One of the nice things about Day 1 of OpenAI's "12 days of OpenAI" was its brevity. When Sam Altman sat down before us with three of his engineers, we wondered it we were in for hours of exposition on major AI updates across every aspect of OpenAI's business. Turned out that OpenAI was really spreading out all its news over 12 days. Yes, that means we're in for a lot over the next week or so but at least we can count on each day of news being digestible.

On the other hand, can we get to that Sora update and release today? Please? We're just 10 minutes from finding out...

Day 2 of '12 Days of OpenAI' is now kicking off, and Sam Altman is not here. Instead, some other team members are teasing a tool that will arrive next year. It's not a new model or anything in the realm of Sora, but OpenAI's customization for models will now support reinforcement fine-tuning.

(Image credit: Future)

While this is not necessarily consumer-focused, OpenAI welcomed Justin Reese, a researcher for rare genetic diseases at Berkeley University. Now, in a live demo on o1 mini, we're trying to have the model ID genes from a sample data pool that might be responsible for a disease. Of course, it will be fact-checked against known results, but it's a good test of reinforcement fine-tuning for validation on o1 mini.

Furthermore, within o1 mini, you can refine and customize this fine-tuning process. The aim is to let you get the most out of the data by tweaking the model to your specific needs. It was noted that depending on the amount of data and the task, it can take anywhere from a few seconds to hours to complete.

The results at the end will be plotted within an evaluation dashboard with several presets.

(Image credit: Future)

Of course, OpenAI had to bring us back down to earth with another joke, though this time, we didn't get to hear Sam Altman laugh at it, though. With Christmas fast approaching and the business being based in San Fransisco – home to many a self-driving car – it's pretty on point.

The joke went along the lines of: We live in San Fransisco, self-driving vehicles are all the rage, and Santa's been trying to get in on this. He's been trying to make a self driving sleigh, but it keeps hitting trees left and right. Any guesses? He didn't pine-tune his models.

To help you better visualize it, TechRadar's Editor-at-Large Lance Ulanoff asked ChatGPT to create an image of it.

(Image credit: ChatGPT)

• Security pros from watchTowr found a new bug in Mitel MiCollab
• Mitel has not yet released a patch
• WatchTowr suggested a number of mitigations to minimize risk

A zero-day vulnerability, allowing crooks to read files they shouldn’t be allowed to read, is still sitting in Mitel MiCollab three months after being reported.

This is according to a new report from cybersecurity researchers watchTowr, who claim to have found and reported the flaw in late August this year.

Mitel MiCollab is a unified communications and collaboration solution designed to enhance teamwork and productivity by integrating messaging, voice, video, and conferencing tools into a single platform.

Immediate effect

The researchers at watchTowr were looking into a different vulnerability when they discovered a flaw that allows threat actors to access sensitive information about the accounts on a system. They reached out to Mitel, who acknowledged the findings and set a deadline for the patch for the first week of December, this year.

“At the time of publishing, there has been no update on the Mitel Security Advisory page." watchTowr said in a recent report. The researchers also released a proof-of-concept, describing how the flaw might be exploited.

Communication and collaboration platforms are often targeted by cybercriminals, as they usually contain sensitive information such as contracts, payment information, employee and customer data, and more. Criminals can use that information to pressure the victims into paying a ransom, or to mount phishing attacks that can result in the deployment of ransomware and other malware.

To make matters worse, BleepingComputer claims that MiCollab was targeted in the past as well, suggesting that it is only a matter of time before this new zero-day gets exploited, especially with a proof-of-concept already available.

Since the patch is not yet released, users are advised to limit access to the MiCollab server, implement stringent firewall rules, monitor logs for suspicious activity, and disable (or restrict) access to the ReconcileWIzard servlet, if possible.

Via BleepingComputer

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• Anker is recalling its Soundcore and PowerConf Bluetooth speakers 
• The company received 33 reports of the speakers’ lithium-ion batteries overheating and in some instances causing smoke
• Anker has said it will replace any speakers with affected SN codes

In what has been a difficult month for overheating audio products, Anker is the latest manufacturer to be asking known purchasers to return items. The Chinese tech manufacturer is recalling its Soundcore and PowerConf Bluetooth Speakers after receiving 33 complaints of the lithium-ion batteries within them overheating and, in some cases, causing smoke or even small fires.

Do you own an affected model? First off, the speakers were sold exclusively on Amazon in 2023. The affected models are: A3102016, A3302011 and A3302031 and they are priced between $28 and $130, according to the US-based Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

As first reported by The Verge, the CPSC confirms that Anker and Amazon have contacted all known buyers, and the affected speakers can be identified by an SN code printed on the underneath of each speaker. To check whether your device or devices are potentially hazardous, you can type the SN code on Anker’s website. Anker has said it will offer free replacement speakers to those affected.

According to the report, approximately 69,000 of these speakers were sold in the US, and an additional 9,764 were sold in Canada. Anyone who owns a recalled speaker is advised to stop using it immediately, make sure it's switched off, and to disconnect it from any chargers or external power sources.

Smoke on the water (and from speakers and earbuds too)

This is not the first instance of smoking batteries in portable audio equipment we've spotted this month. Just a few weeks ago, Audio-Technica was forced to warn customers that certain batches of its inexpensive 2024 earbuds had a similar overheating issue (and actually, a couple of years ago the company had a similar issue, publishing a product safety notice for its ATH-CK3TW earbuds due to another overheating problem with its charging case).

Anker and Audio-Technica are not alone here either. On November 28, Belkin also had to issue a recall notice for its BoostCharge Pro (model number BPD005) power bank, adding that the model could pose a fire risk due to a manufacturing defect that's now known to cause overheating.

But back to Anker, and the company's products (which are often backed by proprietary temperature control tech, such as Anker ActiveShield 2.0) are otherwise 100% non-combustible, right? Well, no. The company makes some of the best power banks we've tested, but it seems to have had increasing issues with manufacturing defects this year – with another recall hitting three more of its backup batteries for smartphones in September 2024.

And that's not all. Back in June, Anker announced that it was recalling its popular 321 Power Bank, the Soundcore A3102 speaker and A3302 speakerphone, due to potential fire hazards from those lithium-ion batteries.

Obviously these cases are rare given the hundreds of excellent Bluetooth speakers, earbuds, power banks, and in fact tech in general on the market in 2024. We just hope none of these particular companies starts advertising 'red hot sales' or 'smoking deals' any time soon…

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