Intercept

OpenAI and Microsoft are facing a fresh round of lawsuits from news publishers over allegations that their generative artificial intelligence products violated copyright laws and illegally trained by using journalists’ work. Three progressive US outlets – the Intercept, Raw Story and AlterNet – filed suits in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday, demanding compensation from the tech companies.The news outlets claim that the companies in effect plagiarized copyright-protected articles to develop and operate ChatGPT, which…

By Lonnie Shekhtman and Rob Garner, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center December 27, 2023OSIRIS-REx, now OSIRIS-APEX, is on a mission to study asteroid Apophis, utilizing its close approach to Earth in 2029. After successfully returning a sample from Bennu, the spacecraft will observe Apophis, an “S-type” asteroid, providing insights into solar system formation and planetary defense. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight CenterThe former OSIRIS-REx spacecraft sets off on a journey to study asteroid Apophis and take…

Scientists from the Telescope Array Collaboration have detected an ultrahigh-energy cosmic ray, a discovery that’s challenging our current understanding of exotic cosmic phenomena and their origins.Who’s This Thing Actually for? | PlayStation Portal Hands OnIn a study published today in the journal Science, the Telescope Array Collaboration has reported the detection of an ultrahigh-energy cosmic ray (UHECR for short), which exhibits an energy level of approximately 244 exa-electron volts, or roughly 40 Joules. This…

In a recent study submitted to the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, a pair of researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) examine the likelihood of extraterrestrial intelligent civilizations intercepting outward transmissions from NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) that are aimed at five deep space spacecraft: Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, and New Horizons.Members of the public are free to track such…

Israel's Cognyte Software Ltd won a tender to sell intercept spyware to a Myanmar state-backed telecommunications firm a month before the Asian nation's February 2021 military coup, according to documents reviewed by Reuters. The deal was made even though Israel has claimed it stopped defence technology transfers to Myanmar following a 2017 ruling by Israel's Supreme Court, according to a legal complaint recently filed with Israel's attorney general and disclosed on Sunday. While the ruling was subjected to a rare gag…

The Intercept: Some prominent antifascist organizers and journalists have had Twitter accounts suspended in the past week, after right-wing operatives appealed to Elon Musk — Elon Musk claims to be “fighting for free speech in America” but the social network's new owner appears to be overseeing a purge of left-wing activists from the platform. The Intercept: Some prominent antifascist organizers and journalists have had Twitter accounts suspended in the past week, after right-wing…

We finally have the technological means to detect interstellar objects. We've detected two in the last few years, 'Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov, and there are undoubtedly more out there.As such, there's been a lot of interest in developing a mission that could visit one once we detect it. But what would such a mission look like?Now, a draft paper from a team of primarily American scientists has taken a stab at answering that question and moved us one step closer to launching such a mission.Part of what makes an interstellar…

Sam Biddle / The Intercept: Amazon gave police Ring camera footage 11 times in 2022 without a warrant or permission from Ring owners, saying it sometimes makes a “good-faith determination” — Ring, Amazon's perennially controversial and police-friendly surveillance subsidiary, has long defended … Sam Biddle / The Intercept: Amazon gave police Ring camera footage 11 times in 2022 without a warrant or permission from Ring owners, saying it sometimes makes a “good-faith…

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, known as ICE, has contracted with Coinbase, the publicly traded crypto-currency exchange and custody firm, to track transactions across multiple blockchains underlying Bitcoin, Ether, and other currencies, according to an article published on Wednesday by The Intercept's Sam Biddle.  The software, called Coinbase Tracer, provides several capabilities for tracing transactions in blockchains, as explained by Biddle after reviewing a contract document that is linked to in…