schwit1 shares a report from Behind the Black: SpaceX is going to land this spaceship manned on the Moon, whether or not NASA’s SLS and Orion are ready. And even if those expensive, cumbersome, and poorly designed boondoggles are ready for those first two Artemis landings, SpaceX is likely to quickly outmatch them with numerous other private missions to the Moon, outside of NASA. It has the funds to do it, and it knows it has the customers willing to buy the flights. The news comes from a detailed update SpaceX released today on the Starship lunar lander. Here’s the section where SpaceX “made it clear that it sees Starship and Superheavy as its own space effort, irrelevant of NASA”: “To return Americans to the Moon, SpaceX aligned Starship development along two paths: development of the core Starship system and supporting infrastructure, including production facilities, test facilities, and launch sites — which SpaceX is self-funding representing over 90% of system costs — and development of the HLS-specific Starship configuration, which leverages and modifies the core vehicle capability to support NASA’s requirements for landing crew on and returning them from the Moon. SpaceX is working under a fixed-price contract with NASA, ensuring that the company is only paid after the successful completion of progress milestones, and American taxpayers are not on the hook for increased SpaceX costs. SpaceX provides significant insight to NASA at every stage of the development process along both paths, including access to flight data from missions not funded under the HLS contract.

Both pathways are necessary and made possible by SpaceX’s substantial self-investments to enable the high-rate production, launch, and test of Starship for missions to the Moon and other purposes. Starship will bring the United States back to the Moon before any other nation and it will enable sustainable lunar operations by being fully and rapidly reusable, cost-effective, and capable of high frequency lunar missions with more than 100 tons of cargo capacity.”

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Someone recently managed to get on a Microsoft Teams call with representatives from phone hacking company Cellebrite, and then leaked a screenshot of the company’s capabilities against many Google Pixel phones, according to a forum post about the leak and 404 Media’s review of the material. The leak follows others obtained and verified by 404 Media over the last 18 months. Those leaks impacted both Cellebrite and its competitor Grayshift, now owned by Magnet Forensics. Both companies constantly hunt for techniques to unlock phones law enforcement have physical access to.

“You can Teams meeting with them. They tell everything. Still cannot extract esim on Pixel. Ask anything,” a user called rogueFed wrote on the GrapheneOS forum on Wednesday, speaking about what they learned about Cellebrite capabilities. GrapheneOS is a security- and privacy-focused Android-based operating system. rogueFed then posted two screenshots of the Microsoft Teams call. The first was a Cellebrite Support Matrix, which lays out whether the company’s tech can, or can’t, unlock certain phones and under what conditions. The second screenshot was of a Cellebrite employee. According to another of rogueFed’s posts, the meeting took place in October. The meeting appears to have been a sales call. The employee is a “pre sales expert,” according to a profile available online.

The Support Matrix is focused on modern Google Pixel devices, including the Pixel 9 series. The screenshot does not include details on the Pixel 10, which is Google’s latest device. It discusses Cellebrite’s capabilities regarding ‘before first unlock’, or BFU, when a piece of phone unlocking tech tries to open a device before someone has typed in the phone’s passcode for the first time since being turned on. It also shows Cellebrite’s capabilities against after first unlock, or AFU, devices. The Support Matrix also shows Cellebrite’s capabilities against Pixel devices running GrapheneOS, with some differences between phones running that operating system and stock Android. Cellebrite does support, for example, Pixel 9 devices BFU. Meanwhile the screenshot indicates Cellebrite cannot unlock Pixel 9 devices running GrapheneOS BFU. In their forum post, rogueFed wrote that the “meeting focused specific on GrapheneOS bypass capability.” They added “very fresh info more coming.”

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alternative_right shares a report from Phys.org: Today’s cutting-edge theory — quantum gravity — suggests that even space and time aren’t fundamental. They emerge from something deeper: pure information. This information exists in what physicists call a Platonic realm — a mathematical foundation more real than the physical universe we experience. It’s from this realm that space and time themselves emerge. “The fundamental laws of physics cannot be contained within space and time, because they generate them. It has long been hoped, however, that a truly fundamental theory of everything could eventually describe all physical phenomena through computations grounded in these laws. Yet we have demonstrated that this is not possible. A complete and consistent description of reality requires something deeper — a form of understanding known as non-algorithmic understanding.” “We have demonstrated that it is impossible to describe all aspects of physical reality using a computational theory of quantum gravity,” says Dr. Faizal. “Therefore, no physically complete and consistent theory of everything can be derived from computation alone. Rather, it requires a non-algorithmic understanding, which is more fundamental than the computational laws of quantum gravity and therefore more fundamental than spacetime itself.”

“Drawing on mathematical theorems related to incompleteness and indefinability, we demonstrate that a fully consistent and complete description of reality cannot be achieved through computation alone,” explains Dr. Mir Faizal, Adjunct Professor with UBC Okanagan’s Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science. “It requires non-algorithmic understanding, which by definition is beyond algorithmic computation and therefore cannot be simulated. Hence, this universe cannot be a simulation.”

The findings have been published in the Journal of Holography Applications in Physics.

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Google and Magic Leap have extended their partnership for another three years to develop Android XR glasses. They also showed off a new prototype concept that combines Google’s Raxium microLED light engine with Magic Leap’s AR optics, resulting in a lightweight, stylish pair of glasses that blends real-world vision with multimodal AI. 9to5Google reports: As noted by Android Central, a press release shared by Magic Leap adds some further technical details. This includes mentioning that Google’s “Raxium microLED light engine” integrates with Magic Leap’s tech to bring “digital content seamlessly into the world.” As pictured above, the “display” portion of the lens is visible at some angles, but it’s largely impossible to see.

Magic Leap and Google will show an AI glasses prototype at FII that will serve as a prototype and reference design for the Android XR ecosystem. The demo shows how Magic Leap’s technology, integrated with Google’s Raxium microLED light engine, brings digital content seamlessly into the world. The prototypes worn on stage illustrate how comfortable, stylish smart eyewear is possible and the video showed the potential for users to stay present in the real world while tapping into the knowledge and functionality of multimodal AI.

During the presentation, text on the nearby screens suggests that Magic Leap is mainly working with Google on the technology here, rather than bringing its own glasses to market. Magic Leap further hints at this in its press release, calling itself “an AR ecosystem partner” focused on “supporting global technology leaders that want to enter the AR market and accelerate the production of AR glasses.”

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PC Mag’s Michael Kan writes: A “Keep Android Open” campaign is pushing back on new rules from Google that will reportedly block users from sideloading apps on Android phones. It’s unclear who’s running the campaign, but a blog post on the free Android app store F-Droid is directing users to visit the campaign’s website, which urges the public to lobby government regulators to intervene and stop the upcoming restrictions. “Developers should have the right to create and distribute software without submitting to unnecessary corporate surveillance,” reads an open letter posted to the site. […]

Google has described the upcoming change as akin to requiring app developers to go through “an ID check at the airport.” However, F-Droid condemned the new requirement as anti-consumer choice. “If you own a computer, you should have the right to run whatever programs you want on it,” it says. Additionally, the rules threaten third-party app distribution on F-Droid, which operates as a “free/open-source app distribution” model.

In its blog post, F-Droid warns about the impact on users and Android app developers. “You, the creator, can no longer develop an app and share it directly with your friends, family, and community without first seeking Google’s approval,” the app store says. “Over half of all humankind uses an Android smartphone,” the blog post adds. “Google does not own your phone. You own your phone. You have the right to decide who to trust, and where you can get your software from.”

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: When Google and Amazon negotiated a major $1.2 billion cloud-computing deal in 2021, their customer — the Israeli government — had an unusual demand: agree to use a secret code as part of an arrangement that would become known as the “winking mechanism.” The demand, which would require Google and Amazon to effectively sidestep legal obligations in countries around the world, was born out of Israel’s concerns that data it moves into the global corporations’ cloud platforms could end up in the hands of foreign law enforcement authorities.

Like other big tech companies, Google and Amazon’s cloud businesses routinely comply with requests from police, prosecutors and security services to hand over customer data to assist investigations. This process is often cloaked in secrecy. The companies are frequently gagged from alerting the affected customer their information has been turned over. This is either because the law enforcement agency has the power to demand this or a court has ordered them to stay silent. For Israel, losing control of its data to authorities overseas was a significant concern. So to deal with the threat, officials created a secret warning system: the companies must send signals hidden in payments to the Israeli government, tipping it off when it has disclosed Israeli data to foreign courts or investigators.

To clinch the lucrative contract, Google and Amazon agreed to the so-called winking mechanism, according to leaked documents seen by the Guardian, as part of a joint investigation with Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call. Based on the documents and descriptions of the contract by Israeli officials, the investigation reveals how the companies bowed to a series of stringent and unorthodox “controls” contained within the 2021 deal, known as Project Nimbus. Both Google and Amazon’s cloud businesses have denied evading any legal obligations.

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Universal Music Group has settled its copyright lawsuit with AI music startup Udio and struck a licensing deal to launch a new AI-powered music platform next year. The Verge reports: The deal includes some form of compensation and “will provide further revenue opportunities for UMG artists and songwriters,” Universal says. Udio, the company behind “BBL Drizzy,” will launch the platform as a subscription service next year. Universal, alongside other industry giants Sony and Warner, sued Udio and another startup Suno for “en masse” copyright infringement last year.

Universal — whose roster includes some of the world’s biggest performers like Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, and Ariana Grande — says the new tool will “transform the user engagement experience” and let creators customize, stream, and share music. There’s no indication of how much it will cost yet. Udio’s existing music maker, which lets you create new songs with a few words, will remain available during the transition, though content will be held “within a walled garden” and security measures like fingerprinting will be added.

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OpenAI has started selling power users extra credits for its Sora AI video generation tool. An extra 10 video gens will retail for $4. The company currently has a limit of 30 free gens per day, a rate that will likely decrease as OpenAI starts to monetize the offering. Bill Peebles, who heads OpenAI’s Sora, posted on X about the changes. 

“Eventually we will need to bring the free gens down to accommodate growth (we won’t have enough gpus to do it otherwise!), but we’ll be transparent as it happens,” he said.

Peebles also said that OpenAI plans to monetize by letting entities essentially license out their copyrighted material, either their artwork, characters or likenesses. “We imagine a world where rightsholders have the option to charge extra for cameos of beloved characters and people,” he wrote. Although making the cameo feature a core part of the monetization while the company is being sued by Cameo for trademark infringement is certainly a bold choice. And that’s just the latest in a series of dodgy actions tied to OpenAI’s text-to-video AI app.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-now-sells-extra-sora-credits-for-4-plans-to-reduce-free-gens-in-the-future-223905628.html?src=rss