An anonymous reader shares a report: The IRS open sourced much of its incredibly popular Direct File software as the future of the free tax filing program is at risk of being killed by Intuit’s lobbyists and Donald Trump’s megabill. Meanwhile, several top developers who worked on the software have left the government and joined a project to explore the “future of tax filing” in the private sector.

Direct File is a piece of software created by developers at the US Digital Service and 18F, the former of which became DOGE and is now unrecognizable, and the latter of which was killed by DOGE. Direct File has been called a “free, easy, and trustworthy” piece of software that made tax filing “more efficient.” About 300,000 people used it last year as part of a limited pilot program, and those who did gave it incredibly positive reviews, according to reporting by Federal News Network.

But because it is free and because it is an example of government working, Direct File and the IRS’s Free File program more broadly have been the subject of years of lobbying efforts by financial technology giants like Intuit, which makes TurboTax. DOGE sought to kill Direct File, and currently, there is language in Trump’s massive budget reconciliation bill that would kill Direct File. Experts say that “ending [the] Direct File program is a gift to the tax-prep industry that will cost taxpayers time and money.”

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As scam detection features for calls and texts get more sophisticated, so too do the threats designed to evade such measures. Right now, Android users are being targeted with malware that can create fake contacts on your device, so calls and texts from threat actors appear under a trustworthy name rather than an unfamiliar number, making you more likely to fall for them.

How the Crocodilus malware works

The Crocodilus malware, first identified by fraud prevention firm Threat Fabric earlier this year, is a device takeover Trojan initially deployed to trick users into giving up crypto wallet seed phrases under the guise of needing to back up their keys. Once downloaded—such as via a malicious ad, smishing campaign, or third-party app—the malware was able to evade Play Protect on Android 13 (and later) and gain access to Accessibility Service, ultimately logging and harvesting typed account credentials. As a result, threat actors could gain control of and empty victims’ crypto wallets.

The latest iteration of the program has evolved to deploy a command that adds contacts to a device locally. If an attacker calls, they’ll appear in caller ID under a seemingly legitimate name, such as “Bank Support,” making targets more likely to answer and trust the contact. As Bleeping Computer reports, the fake contact isn’t connected to your Google account, so it’ll show up only on the compromised device, not any others you’ve logged into.

What Android users need to do

At first, Crocodilus campaigns were limited to a few countries, but the malware has now spread around the world, including to the U.S. To avoid infecting your Android device, stick to Google Play for downloading trusted apps and software, and keep Play Protect active to catch as many threats as possible.

Of course, you should also be vigilant for signs of social engineering tactics, which threat actors use to trick you into installing malware or providing sensitive personal information. These phishing campaigns and other cyber attacks exploit human psychology using tricks like impersonation of authority, and they usually play on emotions like fear or greed.

Never download attachments or click links in unsolicited emails or texts, navigate to websites directly instead. Call a company via their public contact number rather that trusting a number that calls you if you’re not sure about the legitimacy of a message. Don’t react to anything that seems urgent or provokes strong emotions. Also avoid clicking ads, downloading software, or following instructions from social media, which can also be vectors for malware.

Marketing teams and pre-visualization artists working with AMC Networks might need to be on their toes. The company has reached an agreement to generate marketing images and pre-visualize projects before they enter production using Runway’s AI tech.

Some other Hollywood companies — such as Lionsgate and Harmony Korine’s unfortunately named EDGELRD — have agreed deals with Runway. Other studios are said to be testing models from various gen AI companies. According to The Hollywood Reporter, however, AMC is the first cable company to agree a deal with Runway.

The publication notes that AMC’s profits dropped by nearly half to $63 million in its most recent earnings report. It’s been suggested that the company is looking to reduce the costs of producing and marketing projects without letting quality drop.

At least for the time being, AMC is not planning to include AI-generated imagery in its shows. However, the company that brought the likes of Mad Men and Breaking Bad to the world thinks it’ll be able to sell viewers on shows and films using AI-generated images. This is seen as a way for the company’s networks to “trot out a range of promotional material without the need to spend added time and money trying to capture images with a physical shoot,” per THR. AI imagery will also be used in pre-production, ostensibly to help showrunners determine what may or may not work in their projects before filming starts.

In both use cases, AMC will be looking to lower costs by reducing the level of human labor that’s traditionally needed in those arenas. To do so, it will be relying on tech from a company that reportedly trained its AI models on thousands of YouTube videos — as well as pirated versions of copyrighted movies — without first obtaining permission. It is not clear whether AMC has given Runway the green light to use its shows and films for AI training purposes, as Lionsgate has.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/amc-networks-is-teaming-up-with-ai-company-runway-141959898.html?src=rss

A top expert at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who was overseeing the process to update COVID-19 vaccine recommendations resigned on Tuesday.

The resignation, first reported by The Associated Press and confirmed by CBS News, comes just a week after health secretary and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. unilaterally revoked and altered some of the CDC’s recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines, restricting access to children and pregnant people. The resignation also comes three weeks before CDC’s experts and advisors are scheduled to meet to publicly evaluate data and discuss the recommendations for this season—a long-established process that was disrupted by Kennedy’s announcement.

The departing CDC official, Lakshmi Panagiotakopoulos, a pediatric infectious disease expert, was a co-leader of a working group on COVID-19 vaccines who advised experts on the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). She informed her ACIP colleagues of her resignation in an email on Tuesday.

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Comments

This is a video created by filmmaker Travis Bible using Google’s AI video generator VEO 3 to demonstrate just how convincing AI-generated video is now, and how it can be used to create deceiving news, or scam people out of their money. These are terrifying times we live in. I mean unless you’re an internet scammer, in which case there’s never been a better time to be alive. Obviously, now would be a good time to set some parental locks on your actual parents. Sorry mom, no more Facebook videos — if you want to internet you’re gonna have to read.

The Weather Channel, for the most part, looked like a normal TV station—until the local forecast would show up. Then it became a pixelated data dump of weather information served over a funky piano soundtrack. There’s nothing like it on the internet—well, until. now.

WeatherStar 4000 is a free website that recreates the look and feel of a vintage Weather Channel local forecast, complete with accurate visuals and optional CRT scanlines. Most importantly, it offers a period-accurate lowfi-funk soundtrack that’s perfect to chill or study to.

To get started, just go to the site and choose which features you do and don’t want using the checkbox. Then, when you’re ready, click the full-screen button in the bottom-right corner. Make sure you also unmute the music for the full effect. My editor, upon doing this, told me that it’s going to live permanently on his second monitor. I’m happy for him.

The site is the creation of programmer Matt Walsh, who made it as a variation of an older project that aimed to accurately re-create the vintage format. Walsh’s site offers new features, including a scrolling hourly forecast and support for wide screen.

Credit: Justin Pot

I love this website. It’s not going to replace my weather app, granted, but it’s a great tribute to a technology that made cable essential to many. Getting an accurate local weather forecast in the 90s was hard. The newspaper would have one, sure, but that was printed last night and was likely already outdated. You could also try to catch the weather forecast on your local TV station but it generally only aired a few times a day.

That’s where the Weather Channel came in. This combined national programing with computer generated local forecasts, broadcast every 10 minutes at minutes that ended with the number 8 (the segment was called Local On The 8s). This meant you could turn on your TV anytime you saw an eight at the end of your clock to see an extremely local up-to-date forecast.

Credit: Justin Pot

How did this work? It would have been prohibitively expensive for The Weather Channel to create hundreds of different broadcasts, all with different local forecasts, and then deliver those broadcasts individually to cable providers. The network instead provided cable providers with a computer—called the WeatherStar—that received forecast information as text and used it to create the pixelated video forecasts we all remember. It was an elaborate, automated way to provide something we now take for granted: up-to-date local weather information.

WeatherStar 4000+, you might notice, is named after this device—a fitting tribute. I recommend you turn it on, enable the music, and just vibe for a while. God knows there are less healthy things to do online right now.

theodp writes: Way back in 2010, Microsoft and Google teamed with nonprofit partners to launch Computing in the Core, an advocacy coalition whose mission was “to strengthen computing education and ensure that it is a core subject for students in the 21st century.” In 2013, Computing in the Core was merged into Code.org, a new tech-backed-and-directed nonprofit. And in 2015, Code.org declared ‘Mission Accomplished’ with the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act, which elevated computer science to a core academic subject for grades K-12.

Fast forward to June 2025 and Code.org has changed its About page to reflect a new AI mission that’s near-and-dear to the hearts of Code.org’s tech giant donors and tech leader Board members: “Code.org is a nonprofit working to make computer science (CS) and artificial intelligence (AI) a core part of K-12 education for every student.” The mission change comes as tech companies are looking to chop headcount amid the AI boom and just weeks after tech CEOs and leaders launched a new Code.org-orchestrated national campaign to make CS and AI a graduation requirement.

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