Author: Vidya Saras

As we look at our world, it seems that individual humans are increasingly on the edges and in the margins of the big stories that play out on our scrolling screens. The narratives that captivate and resonate with ordinary folks seem to exist at a scale beyond the reach of any one of us — Those big stories about economies, countries, and companies weave a narrative that can seem dire at times, or too big for an individual human to change in a meaningful way. But this is not the true narrative of the world, nor is it the right…

Israel's Pager Attack and Just War Theory

One of the most pressing challenges in the evaluation of Vision-Language Models (VLMs) is related to not having comprehensive benchmarks that assess the full spectrum of model capabilities. This is because most existing evaluations are narrow in terms of focusing on only one aspect of the respective tasks, such as either visual perception or question answering, at the expense of critical aspects like fairness, multilingualism, bias, robustness, and safety. Without a holistic evaluation, the performance of models may be fine in some tasks but critically fail in others that concern their practical deployment, especially in sensitive real-world applications. There is,…

It’s the cyber pest that will not die. Three decades after phishing first emerged from the swamps of the dark web, it remains a global plague. An average of 31,000 phishing attacks were sent out per day in 2023, according to a report by SlashNext. It’s a costly scourge: an IBM study estimated the average organization spent $4.91 million responding to phishing-related data breaches in 2021. Here’s a primer on how phishing works, how it originated in the 1990s, and how to prevent it. Phishing definition Phishing is a cyber-attack that uses email and social engineering to trick a target…

Harrison Butker Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images Harrison Butker is speaking out about his controversial commencement speech, saying he’s “saddened” by some reactions to his May 2024 comments about women being stay-at-home moms. “I’m definitely saddened [some people] took it in a poor manner,” the Kansas City Chiefs kicker, 29, said on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle on Thursday, October 10. “I was talking to a specific crowd that I think was able to understand what I was trying to say.” He continued: “But I was trying to speak life for so many women that have dedicated their life to being…

By Luisa Maria Jacinta C. Jocson, Reporter THE BANGKO SENTRAL ng Pilipinas (BSP) will likely continue its easing cycle with another 25-basis-point (bp) rate cut at its meeting on Wednesday, analysts said.  A BusinessWorld poll conducted last week showed that 16 out of 19 analysts expect the Monetary Board to reduce rates by 25 bps at its policy review meeting on Oct. 16. If realized, this would bring the target reverse repurchase rate to 6% from the current 6.25%. On the other hand, two analysts expect the central bank to cut by 50 bps, while one analyst sees the BSP…

LGTBQ+ women face high rates of trauma and other mental health problems, a new report finds. SDI Productions/E+/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption SDI Productions/E+/Getty Images A leading national survey finds that 22% of LGBTQ+ women respondents have attempted suicide, and 66% reported seeking treatment for trauma. “The trauma burden in this community is enormous,” said Jaime Grant, one of the researchers who conducted the survey. These findings are included in a report released Tuesday from the Urvashi Vaid National LGBTQ+ Women’s Community Survey, named after the late lesbian activist. The report comes from analysis of a national survey of…

The biggest and most powerful rocket ever built took to the skies again. And this time, it came back.SpaceX launched its 400-foot-tall (122 meters) Starship vehicle for the fifth time ever today (Oct. 13), sending the giant rocket aloft from its Starbase site in South Texas at 8:25 am. EDT (1225 GMT; 7:25 a.m. local Texas time). The mission aimed to break new ground for Starship, and for spaceflight in general: SpaceX planned to return Starship’s huge first-stage booster, known as Super Heavy, directly to its launch mount, catching it with the “chopstick” arms of the launch tower in a bold…

Lions all-time great Ronnie Dawson passed away on Friday after a lengthy illness He led the side that earned their only-ever win against the All Blacks at Eden ParkAfter retiring, Dawson went on to become one of rugby’s leading administratorsBy Daniel Davis Published: 10:29 EDT, 13 October 2024 | Updated: 11:14 EDT, 13 October 2024 British and Irish Lions legend Ronnie Dawson, captain in a record six Test matches and a World Rugby Hall of Fame inductee, has died aged 92.Dawson, who passed away on Friday after a lengthy illness, led the Lions in six Tests, a feat matched only by Martin…

Sudanese army air strikes have killed at least 23 people and injured more than 40 others in the south of the capital, Khartoum. Saturday’s airstrikes targeted the main camp occupied by paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in southern Khartoum, hitting the central market and a nearby residential area.Traders, shoppers and local residents were among the victims. The RSF have been battling the military in an 18-month civil war that has claimed up to 150,000 lives, and displaced a fifth of Sudan’s population according to UN estimates.The wounded are being treated in hospital, according to a spokesman from the Nobel Prize-nominated…