The owners of Leica Camera AG — Austrian billionaire Andreas Kaufmann and private equity giant Blackstone — are considering a sale of a controlling stake in the German camera maker in a deal that could value the company at about $1.2 billion, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

HSG, formerly known as Sequoia Capital China, and Altor Equity Partners are among a handful of bidders. The Kaufmann family could re-invest following a transaction. Leica traces its roots roughly 150 years to Ernst Leitz’s microscope company and was publicly traded on the Frankfurt stock exchange until the Kaufmann family took it private in 2012.

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Anime fans won’t be getting any respite from the streaming service price hikes that now feel inevitable on every platform every couple of years. Crunchyroll announced today that it will be increasing the monthly costs for all its plans by $2. That means the Fan tier will now run you $10 a month, the Mega Fan Tier is $14 a month and the Ultimate Fan Tier is $18 a month. 

The platform introduced its Mega Fan and Ultimate Fan options in 2020, with both at long last giving viewers an option to watch shows offline. The silver lining in today’s price changes is that the Fan members are getting the same offline viewing option, although it’s limited to one device. Crunchyroll is further enticing the people who might now be more interested in the Fan level by offering a discount on the annual plan for that tier; you can get a year’s access for a limited time for $67.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/crunchyroll-increases-prices-for-all-anime-streaming-plans-234231265.html?src=rss

Captain’s log, Stardate 43957.2: Klingon Elsa performed ‘Let It Go’ in her native language in the Ten Forward lounge tonight. I think I’m in love. End log. Data, bring me some tea! Earl Grey, iced. This is a video of Princess Jackie from Seattle-based party character provider The Painted Palace dressed as a Klingon Elsa performing a full length cover of ‘Let It Go’ in Klingon at Emerald City Comic Con. The performance was so moving it won the talent show. And I think we can all hear why — it blows the original out of the water. If the original was a cereal box kazoo, this was a Stradivarius. FULL DISCLOSURE: I did have to watch the video on mute, but I could tell by the way her mouth was moving and the scowling that this sounded like angels.

Moltbook bills itself as a social network for AI agents. That’s a wacky enough concept in the first place, but the site apparently exposed the credentials for thousands of its human users. The flaw was discovered by cybersecurity firm Wiz, and its team assisted Moltbook with addressing the vulnerability.

The issue appears to be the result of the entire Reddit-style forum being vibe-coded; Moltbook’s human founder posted a few days ago on X that he “didn’t write one line of code” for the platform and instead directed an AI assistant to create the whole setup. 

According to the blog post from Wiz analyzing the issue, Moltbook had a vulnerability that allowed for “1.5 million API authentication tokens, 35,000 email addresses and private messages between agents” to be fully read and accessed. Wiz also found that the vulnerability could let unauthenticated human users edit live Moltbook posts. In other words, there is no way to verify whether a Moltbook post was authored by an AI agent or a human user posing as one. “The revolutionary AI social network was largely humans operating fleets of bots,” the company’s analysis concluded. 

So ends another cautionary tale reminding us that just because AI can do a task doesn’t mean it’ll do it correctly.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/moltbook-the-ai-social-network-exposed-human-credentials-due-to-vibe-coded-security-flaw-230324567.html?src=rss

If you know anything about the history of id Software, you know how 1992’s Wolfenstein 3D helped establish the company’s leadership in the burgeoning first-person shooter genre, leading directly to subsequent hits like Doom and Quake. But only the serious id Software nerds remember Catacomb 3D, id’s first-person adventure game that directly preceded and inspired work on Wolfenstein 3D.

Now, nearly 35 years after Catacomb 3D‘s initial release, id co-founder John Romero brought the company’s founding members together for an informative retrospective video on the creation of the oft-forgotten game. But the pioneering game—which included mouse support, color-coded keys, and shooting walls to find secrets—almost ended up being a gimmicky dead end for the company.

Texture maps and “undo” animation

Catacomb 3D was a follow-up to id’s earlier Catacomb, which was a simplified clone of the popular arcade hit Gauntlet. As such, the 3D game still has some of that “quarter eater” mentality that was not very fashionable in PC gaming at the time, as John Carmack remembered.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency won’t attend the annual RSA Conference in March, an agency spokesperson confirmed to The Register. Sessions involving speakers from the FBI and National Security Agency (NSA) have also disappeared from the agenda.

“Since the beginning of this administration, CISA has made significant progress in returning to our statutory, core mission and focusing on President Trump’s policies for maximum security for all Americans,” CISA spokesperson Marci McCarthy told us. “CISA has reviewed and determined that we will not participate in the RSA Conference since we regularly review all stakeholder engagements, to ensure maximum impact and good stewardship of taxpayer dollars.”

McCarthy declined to comment on whether the decision had anything to do with former CISA director Jen Easterly being named chief executive of RSAC last week. Easterly, who was appointed to lead America’s top cyber-defense agency under the Biden administration, joined her predecessor and CISA’s first-ever director Chris Krebs in President Trump’s line of fire back in July.

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Crunchyroll is one of the most popular streaming platforms for anime viewers. Over the past six years, the service has raised prices for fans, and today, it announced that it’s increasing monthly subscription prices by up to 20 percent.

Sony bought Crunchyroll from AT&T in 2020. At the time, Crunchyroll had 3 million paid subscribers and an additional 197 million users with free accounts, which let people watch a limited number of titles with commercials. At the time, Crunchyroll monthly subscription tiers cost $8, $10, or $15.

After its acquisition by Sony, like many large technology companies that buy a smaller, beloved product, the company made controversial changes. The Tokyo-based company folded rival Funimation into Crunchyroll; Sony shut down Funimation, which it bought in 2017, in April 2024.

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Elon Musk’s SpaceX has acquired Musk’s xAI, the companies announced. The merger will “form the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth, with AI, rockets, space-based internet, direct-to-mobile device communications and the world’s foremost real-time information and free speech platform,” Musk wrote in an update.

The AI company that right now is best known for its CSAM-generating chatbot might seem like a strange fit for a rocket company. But SpaceX is key to Musk’s latest scheme to build AI data centers in space. In his update, Musk wrote that “global electricity demand for AI simply cannot be met with terrestrial solutions” and that moving the resource-intensive operations to space is “the only logical solution.” SpaceX just days ago filed an application with the FCC to create an “orbital data center” by launching a million new satellites.

Musk also claimed that, eventually, space-based data centers will enable other advancements in space travel. “The capabilities we unlock by making space-based data centers a reality will fund and enable self-growing bases on the Moon, an entire civilization on Mars and ultimately expansion to the Universe.” Notably, it’s not the first time Musk has made lofty claims about Mars. He predicted in 2017 that SpaceX would send crewed missions to Mars by 2024.

This also isn’t the first time Musk has acquired one of his own companies. He merged xAI and X last year, which means SpaceX now owns the social network Musk bought in 2022. And he recently announced that Tesla was investing $2 billion into xAI. SpaceX is planning to go public later this year in an initial public offering (IPO) that could value the company at more than $1 trillion, according to Bloomberg, which notes that SpaceX has also “discussed a possible merger with Tesla.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/elon-musks-spacex-has-acquired-his-ai-company-xai-221617040.html?src=rss

Ubisoft continues to raise eyebrows around how it is treating employees as it attempts a business overhaul. David Michaud-Cromp, a level design team lead at Ubisoft Montreal, said last week that he was suspended for three days without pay after voicing opposition to the company’s return to office mandate. Today, Michaud-Cromp posted on LinkedIn that he has been fired. “I was terminated by Ubisoft, effective immediately,” he wrote. “This was not my decision.”

A spokesperson for Ubisoft gave Kotaku the following statement regarding Michaud-Cromp’s dismissal: “Sharing feedback or opinions respectfully does not lead to a dismissal. We have a clear Code of Conduct that outlines our shared expectations for working together safely and respectfully, which employees review and sign each year. When that is breached, our established procedures apply, including an escalation of measures depending on the nature, severity, and repetition of the breach.” We’ve reached out to the company for additional confirmation and comment. 

This is the latest in a sequence of bad press Ubisoft has faced regarding its workforce. Shortly after many employees at Ubisoft Halifax unionized, the parent company shut down the studio. In announcing the closure, Ubisoft said the move was part of a broader cost-cutting endeavor across its operations; it shut down a support studio and cut more jobs later in January, with even more layoffs proposed. Most recently, unions representing other Ubisoft workers called for a three-day strike in response to the “penny-pinching and worsening our working conditions” they alleged of the company’s management.

All these issues could all be coincidental timing. But if so, they’re coincidences that don’t reflect favorably on Ubisoft.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/ubisoft-fires-employee-who-publicly-criticized-its-rto-plan-220913747.html?src=rss

Since ChatGPT kicked off the generative AI revolution in 2022, it seems like every company under the sun has tried to stuff AI features into their products in one way or another. Sometimes, these features can be useful; often, they’re not, only serving as proof these companies are “keeping up with the times.” Can you even say you’re a tech company if you aren’t all-in on AI in 2026?

There’s nothing wrong with companies offering AI features to users, so long as they also offer easy ways to disable them. Some customers don’t want AI in their day-to-day products, but, anecdotally, I know many do not. Give us an off switch though, and it’s all good. The issue is when these features are not only offered, they’re made mandatory. Unfortunately, that’s the road many companies seem to be taking.

Perhaps that’s where some of the frustration originated last year, when Mozilla’s new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo first announced that Firefox would “evolve into a modern AI browser” in the near future. An open letter, written by a Redditor critical of Enzor-Demeo’s statement, received over 5,000 upvotes on the Firefox subreddit from users concerned that AI features would negatively impact the browser. Interestingly, Enzor-Demeo responded to the thread himself, and assured users that the company would offer “a clear way” to disable AI features, including a dedicated kill switch to keep them all turned off. It seems he was as good as his word.

Firefox’s AI features are easy to opt out of

On Monday, Mozilla announced that new AI controls are coming to Firefox, starting with Firefox 148. This version, which drops Feb. 24, sports a brand-new AI controls section in the settings panel on the desktop browser. (You’ll find it in the between “Sync” and “AI controls.”) From here, you’ll be able to block all current and future AI features, and cherry pick which features you want to use—if any.

What AI features Firefox offers

Firefox 148 launches with these five AI features, which you can choose to enable to disable:

• Translations: Translates web pages into your target language.

• Alt text in PDFs: Adds accessibility descriptions to images attached to PDFs.

• AI-enhanced tab grouping: Suggests related tabs and group names for series of tabs.

• Link previews: Shows key points before opening a link.

• AI chatbot in the sidebar: Firefox is getting its own AI chatbot, though users can choose from existing chatbots like Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, and Le Chat Mistral.

If you want absolutely nothing to do with AI when browsing the web with Firefox, you can use the “Block AI enhancements” toggle. Once activated, not only will these features not appear, but Firefox will block any pop-ups or alerts pushing you to try existing or future AI features.

Any Firefox users who aren’t keen on AI features will want to check out this new controls menu starting Feb. 24—though there are certainly more egregious AI features out there. Translations can be convenient, as can link previews. But I know I’d never want a chatbot in the sidebar of my browser. If I used Firefox as my main browser, I would definitely disable at least that feature, if not all of them.

SpaceX has formally acquired another one of Elon Musk’s companies, xAi, the space company announced on Monday afternoon.

“SpaceX has acquired xAI to form the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth, with AI, rockets, space-based internet, direct-to-mobile device communications and the world’s foremost real-time information and free speech platform,” the company said. “This marks not just the next chapter, but the next book in SpaceX and xAI’s mission: scaling to make a sentient sun to understand the Universe and extend the light of consciousness to the stars!”

The merging of what is arguably Musk’s most successful company, SpaceX, with the more speculative xAI venture is a risk. Founded in 2023, xAI’s main products are the generative AI chatbot, Grok, and the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter. The company aims to compete with OpenAI and other artificial intelligence firms. However, Grok has been controversial, including the sexualization of women and children through AI-generated images, as has Musk’s management of Twitter.

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SpaceX has formally acquired another of Elon Musk’s companies, xAi, the space company announced on Monday afternoon.

“SpaceX has acquired xAI to form the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth, with AI, rockets, space-based internet, direct-to-mobile device communications and the world’s foremost real-time information and free speech platform,” the company said. “This marks not just the next chapter, but the next book in SpaceX and xAI’s mission: scaling to make a sentient sun to understand the Universe and extend the light of consciousness to the stars!”

The merging of what is arguably Musk’s most successful company, SpaceX, with the more speculative xAI venture is a risk. But Musk strongly believes that artificial intelligence is central to humanity’s future and wants to be among those leading in its development.

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Ukraine and SpaceX say they recently collaborated to stop strikes by Russian drones using Starlink and will soon block all unregistered use of Starlink terminals in an attempt to stop Russia’s military from using the satellite broadband network over Ukraine territory.

Ukrainians will soon be required to register their Starlink terminals to get on a whitelist. After that, “only verified and registered terminals will be allowed to operate in the country. All others will be disconnected,” the Ukraine Ministry of Defense said in a press release today.

Ukraine Minister of Defense Mykhailo Fedorov “emphasized that the only technical solution to counter this threat is to introduce a ‘whitelist’ and authorize all terminals,” according to the ministry. “This is a necessary step by the Government to save Ukrainian lives and protect critical energy infrastructure,” Fedorov said.

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alternative_right writes: Fintraffic’s national traffic priority system, which is set to be introduced this summer, will recognize the location of an emergency vehicle and automatically change the lights to green to facilitate its passage. (Why isn’t everyone doing this already?)

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