Gadgets
Toshiba Unit Hacked by DarkSide, Conglomerate to Undergo Strategic Review
Toshiba, which makes products such as bar code printers and is valued at $2.3 billion (roughly Rs. 16,860 crores), was hacked by DarkSide – the group widely believed to be behind the recent Colonial Pipeline attack, its French subsidiary said.
It added, however, that only a minimal amount of work data had been lost.
“There are around 30 groups within DarkSide that are attempting to hack companies all the time, and they succeeded this time with Toshiba,” said Takashi Yoshikawa, a senior malware analyst at Mitsui Bussan Secure Directions.
Employees accessing company computer systems from home during pandemic lockdowns have made firms more vulnerable to cyberattacks, he added.
Screenshots of DarkSide’s post provided by the cybersecurity firm said more than 740GB of information was compromised and included passports and other personal information.
Reuters could not access DarkSide’s public-facing website on Friday. Security researchers said DarkSide’s multiple websites had stopped being accessible.
Ransomware attacks have increased in number and amount of demands, with hackers encrypting data and seeking payment in cryptocurrency to unlock it. They increasingly release stolen data as well, or threaten to unless they are paid more.
Ireland’s health service said on Friday it had shut down its IT systems after what it described as a “significant” ransomware attack.
Investigators in the US’s Colonial case say the attack software was distributed by DarkSide, which includes Russian speakers and avoids hacking targets in the former Soviet Union. DarkSide lets “affiliates” hack into targets elsewhere, then handles the ransom negotiation and data release.
Strategic review
Amid calls from shareholders to explicitly seek offers from potential suitors after dismissing a $20 billion (roughly Rs. 1,46,600 crores) take-private bid from CVC Capital this year, Toshiba said it was setting up a strategic review committee and had appointed UBS as financial adviser.
The review will be conducted by independent directors and is designed to help the board consider a new business plan to be put forward by management by October.
The CVC offer faced strong opposition within the company. Its plan to retain management was perceived by some as aimed at shielding former CEO Nobuaki Kurumatani from activist shareholders.
At a briefing by the company on Friday, 3D Investment Partners and Farallon Capital Management, its No. 2 and No. 3 shareholders respectively, both criticised Toshiba for appearing reluctant to consider offers to go private.
Chief Executive Satoshi Tsunakawa responded that the company has “no reluctance to consider various proposals to increase corporate value, including going private.”
Sources have said other private equity investors such as KKR & Co and Bain Capital are interested in Toshiba.
However, the Asahi newspaper reported on Friday that Bain Capital is not considering buying Toshiba, citing an interview with Yuji Sugimoto, the head of Bain Capital’s Japan operations.
Battered by accounting scandals, massive writedowns for its US nuclear business as well as the sale of its chip unit, Toshiba is a shadow of its former self.
But it remains one of Japan’s few manufacturers of nuclear power reactors and makes defence equipment, meaning any sale of would require government approval.
Toshiba on Friday forecast a 63 percent rise in annual operating profit to JPY 170 billion (roughly Rs.11,390 crores), rebounding from pandemic-induced pain in the last year and as restructuring measures bear fruit. That follows a 20 percent slide in profit last year.
Toshiba also nominated four new board members after Kurumatani resigned last month. Kurumatani had been under fire due to allegations that investors were pressured before a shareholder meeting last year to support desired board nominations.
Shareholders in March successfully voted for an independent investigation into those allegations, marking a watershed victory for corporate governance in Japan. The probe is due to conclude before this year’s annual general meeting on June 25.
The board nominations announced on Friday included George Olcott, a former UBS banker who is also an independent board member at Japanese beer maker Kirin Holdings.
© Thomson Reuters 2021
“At Xbox, we believe that with better tools, creators can make even more extraordinary games,” Haiyan Zhang, GM, Xbox Gaming AI, said in a blog post. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionizing accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers.”
The aforementioned AI design copilot is a toolset that will help game designers turn prompts into scripts and dialogue trees. In contrast, the character runtime will enable dynamically generated plot beats and quests. We’ve already seen heavy AI integration in games by way of procedural generation — a more recent example being the 1000+ planets in Starfield. Not to mention, enemy AI has been around for way longer.
Inworld made headlines in August when it launched a modded story mode for Grand Theft Auto V, Sentient Streets, in which players had to investigate the rise of a bizarre AI-worshipping cult — a segment loaded with characters that spoke in AI-generated dialogue, on the fly. The mod was later taken down by publisher Take-Two, leaving a permanent strike on the creator Bloc’s YouTube channel. As per The Verge, Inworld’s AI technology can also be used for narration in top-down RPGs to warn players about any events awaiting off-screen and respond to questions like we’ve seen in the past year with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Microsoft has also been heavily banking on artificial intelligence, having made a $10 billion (about Rs. 83,254 crore) investment in OpenAI. The company has also integrated AI tools into its popular suite of services and also added an AI copilot to Windows.
Despite being a Microsoft-affiliated AI toolset, it would be interesting to see whether titles using them will be allowed to thrive on other platforms. In July, Valve claimed that it would be cracking down on games that included AI-generated assets if the developer didn’t own the copyright to the piece of art. For the uninitiated, when you insert a prompt to create something in AI, the software simply repurposes existing assets found online and mushes them together — basically stealing from other artists and writers without appropriate commercial licenses. Infringing them would lead to the game not being distributed on Steam, forcing the developers to seek proper licenses for the asset by reaching out to the AI companies involved. It’s unclear how Microsoft’s partnership will play out — as long as AI content is being used as a catalyst to innovate and create something new, it should be fine.
In a post on X shared by BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh (@bsnl_ap_circle) unit, the company confirmed that BSNL users can upgrade their older 2G or 3G SIMs to a 4G SIM for free. Not only will the upgrade be free, but a promotional image shared with the post suggests that users who opt for the upgrade will also receive 4GB of free data that will be valid for three months. It is speculated that BSNL is aiming to boost its upcoming 4G services with this offer. The announcement was first spotted by Telecom Talk.
To access the free data offer and the free upgrade, BSNL users are requested to get in touch with executives at BSNL’s Customer Service Centre, franchisee or retailer stores, or contact one of their Direct Selling Agents (DSA). The promo image also adds in a finer print that the offer is available with certain terms and conditions, but hasn’t detailed any, so far.
Reliance’s Jio recently launched the 4G-supported Bharat B1 feature phone in India. The handset is priced at Rs. 1,299 in India. Alongside 4G connectivity, the phone comes with JioCinema and JioSaavn applications pre-installed.
The Jio Bharat B1 is equipped with the JioPay application, which is said to allow users to make UPI payments. Aiming to increase accessibility, the phone supports 23 languages overall, including multiple regional languages.
Realme, via Weibo, announced the arrival of the Realme GT 5 Pro in China. The display of the handset is confirmed to offer 3000 nits peak brightness. It has also been teased to offer heat dissipation with a surface area of around 10,000mm2. It is confirmed to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The post doesn’t specify the exact launch date of the smartphone, however, given the release of the teasers, the launch could be just around the corner.
The Realme GT 5 Pro has been in the news a lot lately. It is expected to feature a 6.78-inch (1,264×2,780 pixels) AMOLED display and is tipped to come in 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB RAM options along with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB inbuilt storage options.
For optics, the Realme GT 5 Pro is said to have a triple rear camera unit comprising two 50-megapixel sensors and an 8-megapixel shooter at the rear. The camera setup might include a Sony LYTIA LYT808 sensor, an OmniVision OV08D10 secondary sensor, and a Sony IMX890 telephoto sensor. For selfies, there could be a 32-megapixel sensor at the front. It is said to carry a 5,400mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come with upgrades over Realme GT 5. The latter was launched in China in August with a price tag of CNY 2,999 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
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