Ransomware Attacks Reach New High; Microsoft & BlackRock Raise $100B for AI: The End of The Party? Tupperware Files for Bankruptcy; Google to Tag AI-Generated Images… and more!
Every day we scan the tech world for interesting news in the world of technology and sometimes from outside the world of technology. Every Wednesday, we feature news articles that grabbed our attention over the past week. We hope you find this week’s ‘Wednesday Newsbytes’ informative and interesting!
Ransomware attacks are soaring to a new high
Ransomware activity rose again in the second quarter of 2024
New analysis from Symantec has revealed a significant increase in the number of ransomware attacks in the second quarter of 2024.
The company’s figures claimed criminal groups claimed 1,310 attacks during the period, a 36% increase from the previous quarter, and close to the all-time high of 1,488 attacks recorded in Q3 2023.
“The sharp increase in attacks in the second quarter of this year suggests that momentum is once again with attackers,” the report states. “While high-profile ransomware operations such as Noberus shut down, the pool of skilled affiliates appears to be undisturbed and many appear to simply migrate to alternative franchises.“
A new wave – with some old names
Symantec’s report suggests the disruption of Lockbit, the largest ransomware as a service (RaaS) provider earlier this year, led to a dramatic decrease in ransomware attacks for the first quarter of 2024, but the latest reports show cyber criminals have bounced back..
Microsoft, BlackRock join hands to raise $100 billion for AI data centers
Microsoft and BlackRock have partnered to amass $100 billion in funds for the development and expansion of data centers to support AI growth and the energy infrastructure needed to power these facilities.
According to a press release, the companies are part of the Global Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Investment Partnership, or GAIIP, that seeks to address the growing demand for AI-powered data centers and sustainable energy infrastructure.
The partnership also includes Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), an infrastructure investor soon to be part of BlackRock, and MGX, a tech investor in the United Arab Emirates.
With financial heavyweights and industry experts under one roof, GAIIP seeks to plug the funding gap for AI infrastructure development with an initial target of $30 billion in private equity capital and a long-term goal of $100 billion, according to the statement…
Read More at International Business Times.
End of the party? Tupperware files for bankruptcy
Tupperware Brands and some of its subsidiaries have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and are seeking a buyer, the food container firm said, after years of dwindling sales.
“Over the last several years, the Company’s financial position has been severely impacted by the challenging macroeconomic environment,” president and CEO Laurie Ann Goldman said in a statement Tuesday announcing the bankruptcy filing.
“As a result, we explored numerous strategic options and determined this is the best path forward,” added Goldman.
The company said it would seek court approval for a sale process for the business to protect its brand and “further advance Tupperware’s transformation into a digital-first, technology-led company.”
The Orlando, Florida-based firm said it would also seek approval to continue operating during the bankruptcy proceedings and would continue to pay its employees and suppliers….
AI-generated and edited images will soon be labeled in Google Search results
Google is finally doing something about AI images, but it’s not quite enough
Google has announced that it will begin rolling out a new feature to help users “better understand how a particular piece of content was created and modified”.
This comes after the company joined the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) – a group of major brands trying to combat the spread of misleading information online – and helped develop the latest Content Credentials standard. Amazon, Adobe and Microsoft are also committee members.
Set to release over the coming months, Google says it will use the current Content Credentials guidelines – aka an image’s metadata – within its Search parameters to add a label to images that are AI-generated or edited, providing more transparency for users. This metadata includes information like the origin of the image, as well as when, where and how it was created.
However, the C2PA standard, which gives users the ability to trace the origin of different media types, has been declined by many AI developers like Black Forrest Labs — the company behind the Flux model that X’s (formerly Twitter) Grok uses for image generation.
This AI-flagging will be implemented through Google’s current About This Image window…
Morse Micro returns with yet another promising HaLow demonstration.
Back in January, Morse Micro achieved a world record of WiFi range using the HaLow (802.11ah) standard, by conducting a video call over a distance of 1.8 miles through a high-interference San Francisco beach area and proving it worked— and now, in the rural Joshua Tree National Park, they’ve broken the world record again, almost five times over, with a distance of 9.9 miles, or 15.9 kilometers.
The connection speed of the earlier San Francisco beach test ranged from 11 Megabits per second at 500 meters to just a single Megabit per second at then-maximum 1.8 mile range. Meanwhile, the throughput of HaLow in this new testing topped out at 2 Megabits per second at 9.9 miles — likely a best-case scenario considering how little interference there is in a rural area like Joshua Tree National Park compared to a place as densely-populated as a San Francisco beach.
As noted by Morse Micro in their video, this seems to correspond to the theoretical maximum HaLow range of 15.9 kilometers — and starts making HaLow seem a lot more sensible for outdoor work including farming without needing to rely on expensive cellular data or poor cellular coverage…
Thanks for reading this week’s Wednesday Newbytes. We hope these articles were informative, interesting, fun, and helpful. Darcy & TC
