Author: Vidya Saras

If you’ve watched cartoons like Tom and Jerry, you’ll recognize a common theme: An elusive target avoids his formidable adversary. This game of “cat-and-mouse” — whether literal or otherwise — involves pursuing something that ever-so-narrowly escapes you at each try.In a similar way, evading persistent hackers is a continuous challenge for cybersecurity teams. Keeping them chasing what’s just out of reach, MIT researchers are working on an AI approach called “artificial adversarial intelligence” that mimics attackers of a device or network to test network defenses before real attacks happen. Other AI-based defensive measures help engineers further fortify their systems to…

Tens of millions of years ago, our ancestors could swivel their ears to pick up sounds, much like cats and dogs do today. Humans lost that ability over time, and the muscles that once controlled ear movement are now mostly useless—except for a few people who can still wiggle their ears. But new research shows that these muscles still react when we listen intently, hinting at their primordial function. Researchers in Germany and the U.S. found that the muscles once used to move our ears, known as auricular muscles, still activate when we focus on competing sounds, as if trying…

Image: Shutterstock, ArtHead. In an effort to blend in and make their malicious traffic tougher to block, hosting firms catering to cybercriminals in China and Russia increasingly are funneling their operations through major U.S. cloud providers. Research published this week on one such outfit — a sprawling network tied to Chinese organized crime gangs and aptly named “Funnull” — highlights a persistent whac-a-mole problem facing cloud services. In October 2024, the security firm Silent Push published a lengthy analysis of how Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure were providing services to Funnull, a two-year-old Chinese content delivery network that hosts a…

Angel Reese got her “Reese’s Pieces” hyped up after boasting about her historic McDonald’s deal in new posts. On January 30, the fast-food giant announced its partnership with the record-breaking WNBA superstar, making it its first national meal collaboration with a female athlete.Online, Angel Reese fans showered the basketball player with love after learning of her new deal, which will hit McDonald’s stores in early February.Article continues below advertisementWhat’s The Angel Reese Deal?TikTok | Angel ReeseLoyal McDonald’s fans already know that the international franchise has long been involved with the game of basketball. In addition to their classic commercials, which…

Donald Trump’s social media venture, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), has unveiled plans to expand into cryptocurrency and fintech services through a new brand dubbed Truth.Fi. The announcement sent shares in TMTG—owner of the Truth Social platform—up 15% in pre-market trading on Wednesday. Under the Truth.Fi banner, TMTG says it will invest up to $250m in investment accounts and “Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies or crypto-related securities”. The funds will be managed by the brokerage Charles Schwab. The move is likely to spark fresh scrutiny over conflict of interest concerns, given Trump’s position as US president. The president was criticised…

Follow me on X for more Bitcoin Alphahttps://x.com/GuerillaV2 Earlier today at the Plan B Conference in El Salvador, Tether made an announcement that has been years in the making. USDT is back on Bitcoin using Taproot Assets. The next steps will be for Tether to mint the asset, which will be available initially via Bitfinex.Tether’s return to the Bitcoin ecosystem via Taproot Assets is not just a simple re-entry; it’s a strategic pivot that could herald a new era for both Bitcoin’s Lightning Network (LN) and the broader stablecoin landscape.  Credit: https://river.com/learn/what-is-taro-in-bitcoin/ With USDT now returning to the Bitcoin network…

Bitcoin recently surged back past the $105K mark, reflecting renewed investor confidence, possibly driven by President Donald Trump’s recent executive order. In this post, we’ll unpack the implications of the uptick and the best altcoins to put your money in as the crypto market recovers. Trump’s ‘Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology’ executive order set out a number of clear goals: Promote blockchain access: Ensure individuals and entities can access and utilize public blockchain networks. Support stablecoins: Encourage the global use of dollar-backed stablecoins, enhancing the U.S. dollar’s position. Establish a regulatory framework: Create clear, technology-neutral regulations that foster…

Earlier this year, the Rayonism hackathon kicked off to protoype the architecture for Ethereum’s transition to proof of stake. The transition, often refered to as The Merge, will keep the existing beacon chain (eth2) and execution layer (eth1) clients, and “merge” both chains by making the beacon chain drive the execution layer’s consensus. This approach is the most recent in a series of iterations to the Ethereum roadmap (more on that here). While Rayonism proved that this was a sound architecture, there were still several things left to design, implement and test, including the actual proof of work (PoW) to…

A new study conducted by a research team from the Carle Illinois College of Medicine has concluded that mixed-reality devices are becoming more widespread in medicine and medical practices. The team surveyed the use of mixed reality and hologram technologies in pharmaceutical practices such as surgery planning. The research also concluded that mixed reality technology would likely make surgical procedures more efficient and safe while also making the training process more available by removing barriers to entry to high-quality training needed to perform complex medical operations. “I believe we can expect these technologies to become a regular part of surgical workflows.…

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