Gadgets
UK Hits Out at China, Russia, Others Over Cyberattacks
Foreign Minister Dominic Raab said an international coalition was needed to strengthen cybersecurity against state actors and criminals seeking to subvert democratic norms.
Authoritarian states were “bending the principles to meet their own malicious ends”, he told an online conference organised by Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).
“These actors are the industrial-scale vandals of the 21st century. They want to undermine the very foundations of our democracy,” he added.
Raab said there was a “clash of values” between countries wanting to protect “open societies” and others pushing an “authoritarian international system”.
It follows on from a call last week by foreign ministers of the G7 which Britain currently heads for a more joined-up approach to tackle global threats, including in cyberspace.
In Britain, Russia in particular has been accused of meddling in the 2019 general election and the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.
Russia-based actors have also been blamed for attempts to steal vital coronavirus research from British, US, and Canadian labs.
British lawmakers last year lambasted the government for failing to investigate potential Russian interference in British politics, including the 2016 Brexit referendum.
A long-awaited defence review in March proposed greater investment in Britain’s cyber warfare capabilities.
Raab said: “When states like Russia have criminals and gangs operating from their territory, they have a responsibility to prosecute those gangs, not to shelter them.
“We use our capabilities because they are necessary to defend our citizens and safeguard international collaboration – our adversaries use their power to steal, sabotage and ransack the international system.”
Britain’s NCSC dealt with 723 major incidents – the highest figure since its formation five years ago – and stopped 700,000 online scams in the past year, Raab added.
London has banned Chinese telecoms giant Huawei from involvement in the roll-out of the country’s superfast 5G broadband network, after US concerns about spying.
The United States has also suffered a recent spate of cyberattacks, including one on a fuel pipeline system last week, and a major hack against software firm SolarWinds.
At least 30,000 US organisations suffered cyberattacks after Microsoft email servers were targeted by alleged Chinese cyber spies.
Raab said Britain would be a leading cyberpower and work with allies to create a cyberspace “that is free, open and benefits all countries and all people”.
He also announced a GBP 22 million (roughly Rs. 230 crores) investment programme to help African and Asian countries bolster their cybersecurity capabilities.
“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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