Tim Belzer – Page 12

Google says new cloud-based “Private AI Compute” is just as secure as local processing

AI, Artificial Intelligence, Google, Google Gemini, NPU, Tech / Tim Belzer / November 11, 2025

NPUs can’t do it all, though. While Gemini Nano is getting more capable, it can’t compete with models that run on massive, high-wattage servers. That might be why some AI features, like the temporarily unavailable Daily Brief, don’t do much on the Pixels. Magic Cue, which surfaces personal data based on screen context, is probably in a similar place. Google now says that Magic Cue will get “even more helpful” thanks to the Private AI Compute system.

Pixel 10 flat — Magic Cue debuted on the Pixel 10, but it doesn’t do much yet. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

Google has also released a Pixel feature drop today, but there aren’t many new features of note (unless you’ve been hankering for Wicked themes). As part of the update, Magic Cue will begin using the Private AI Compute system to generate suggestions. The more powerful model might be able to tease out more actionable details from your data. Google also notes the Recorder app will be able to summarize in more languages thanks to the secure cloud.

So what Google is saying here is that more of your data is being offloaded to the cloud so that Magic Cue can generate useful suggestions, which would be a change. Since launch, we’ve only seen Magic Cue appear a handful of times, and it’s not offering anything interesting when it does.

There are still reasons to use local AI, even if the cloud system has “the same security and privacy assurances,” as Google claims. An NPU offers superior latency because your data doesn’t have to go anywhere, and it’s more reliable, as AI features will still work without an Internet connection. Google believes this hybrid approach is the way forward for generative AI, which requires significant processing even for seemingly simple tasks. We can expect to see more AI features reaching out to Google’s secure cloud soon.

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Ryanair tries forcing app downloads by eliminating paper boarding passes

airlines, Europe, Policy, Software, Tech / Tim Belzer / November 11, 2025

The policy change is also meant to get people to do more with Ryanair’s app, like order food and drinks, view real-time flight information, and receive notifications during delays.

Brady said Ryanair selected the November 12 start date because it’s during what is “traditionally a slightly quieter time for travel following the busy mid-term break period.”

Inconvenience preparing for takeoff

Eliminating paper boarding passes may create numerous inconveniences. To start, not everyone wants Ryanair’s app on their personal device. And many future customers, especially those who don’t fly with Ryanair frequently or who don’t fly much at all, may be unaware of the change, creating confusion during travel, which can already be inherently stressful.

Also, there are places where Ryanair flies that don’t accept digital boarding passes, including some airports in Albania and Morocco. In these instances, Ryanair still requires online check-ins (either via Ryanair’s website or app), and then the airline will provide paper boarding passes.

People who are less technically savvy or who don’t have a smart device or whose device has died won’t be completely out of luck. Ryanair says it will accommodate people without access to a smartphone with “a free of charge boarding pass at the airport” if they’ve checked in online “before arriving at the airport.”

“Nobody’s going to get stranded. Nobody’s going to get left behind,” O’Leary said, per The Telegraph.

Despite this, some travel experts are worried about potential chaos.

“There will be absolute havoc when that takes effect,” Irish travel commentator Eoghan Corry told RSVP Live in January.

Ryanair will be the first airline to do away with paper boarding passes. It already has a history with being on the ground floor of controversial digital-forward policies. Ryanair was the first airline to require people to check in online in advance or else pay a fee, as noted by The Independent.

“There’ll be some teething problems,” O’Leary said of moving to digital-only boarding passes.

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Reddit mod jailed for sharing movie sex scenes in rare “moral rights” verdict

A Reddit moderator known as “KlammereFyr” was recently convicted by a Danish court after clipping and posting hundreds of nude scenes that actresses filmed for movies and TV shows but apparently never expected to be shared out of context.

As TorrentFreak reported, dozens of actresses had complained about the mod’s sub-reddit, “SeDetForPlottet” (WatchItForthePlot), with some feeling “molested or abused.”

Demanding Danish police put an end to the forum, the Rights Alliance—representing the Danish Actors’ Association, two broadcasters, and other rightsholders—pushed for a criminal probe.

The groups argued that KlammereFyr removed the artistic context and immorally sexualized actors, sometimes by cropping scenes or “changing the lighting to accentuate certain features,” TorrentFreak reported.

To groups, it seemed clear that KlammereFyr was violating a rarely tested part of copyright law that protects artists’ “integrity” by shielding their “moral rights.”

In Denmark, the “right of integrity means that even in cases where you are allowed to make use of a work, you are not allowed to change it or use it in a way or in a context that infringes the author’s literary or artistic reputation or uniqueness,” a resource for Danish researchers noted.

Ultimately, a now 40-year-old man was charged after confessing to violating moral rights by sharing at least 347 clips featuring over 100 actresses that a Danish outlet reported were viewed 4.2 million times. He was also charged with sharing over 25 terabytes of pirated content, using a private torrent tracker called Superbits.org, TorrentFreak noted.

Following his confession, the Court of Frederiksberg convicted the Redditor, sentencing him to a seven-month conditional prison sentence, followed by 120 hours of community service. Next, the Reddit mod will face a separate civil lawsuit to determine damages, which could be substantial. Rightsholders are seeking between $2,300–$4,600 per nude clip, TorrentFreak reported, putting the maximum possible award above $1.5 million.

Landmark case may influence how US views “moral rights”

The conviction represents the “first criminal conviction” based on the Danish copyright law’s “right of respect,” TorrentFreak reported. In a statement, special prosecutor Jan Østergaard praised the court for taking the issue seriously.

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Neutron rocket’s debut slips into mid-2026 as company seeks success from the start

neutron, rocket lab, Space, Wallops / Tim Belzer / November 11, 2025

During an earnings call on Monday, Rocket Lab chief executive Peter Beck announced that the company’s medium-lift launch vehicle, Neutron, would not launch this year.

For anyone with the slightest understanding of the challenges involved in bringing a new rocket to the launch pad, as well as a calendar, the delay does not come as a surprise. Although Rocket Lab had been holding onto the possibility of launching Neutron this year publicly, it has been clear for months that a slip into 2026 was inevitable.

According to Beck, speaking during a third-quarter 2025 earnings call, the new timeline has the company bringing Neutron to Launch Complex 2 at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia during the first quarter of next year. The first launch is scheduled to occur “thereafter,” according to the company’s plans.

The Rocket Lab way

As part of his remarks, Beck said Rocket Lab would not be rushed by an arbitrary deadline.

“We’ve seen what happens when others rush to the pad with an unproven product, and we just refused to do that,” he said, referring to other commercial launch companies that have not had success with their first launches. “Our aim is to make it to orbit on the first try. You won’t see us using some qualifier about us just clearing the pad, and claiming success and whatnot, and that means that we don’t want to learn something during Neutron’s first flight that could be learned on the ground during the testing phase.”

Through the development of the smaller Electron rocket as well as various satellites and in-space vehicles, Rocket Lab has followed and honed a process that breeds success in flight, Beck said. Right now, Rocket Lab is in a “meaty” testing process when components of the vehicle are being assembled for the first time, Beck added.

Rocket Lab has reached the “meaty” part of the testing process. Credit: Rocket Lab

“This is a time when you find out on the ground what you got right, and what you got wrong, rather than finding out that during first launch,” he said. “Now at Rocket Lab, we have a proven process for delivering and developing complex space flight hardware, and I think that process speaks for itself with respect to our hardware, always looking beautiful, and, more importantly, always working beautifully. Now, our process is meticulous, but it works.”

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Runaway black hole mergers may have built supermassive black holes

astronomy, astrophysics, black holes, cosmology, James Webb Space Telescope, Science, supermassive black holes / Tim Belzer / November 10, 2025

The researchers used cosmological simulations to recreate the first 700 million years of cosmic history, focusing on the formation of a single dwarf galaxy. In their virtual galaxy, waves of stars were born in short, explosive bursts as cold gas clouds collapsed inside a dark matter halo. Instead of a single starburst episode followed by a steady drizzle of star formation as Garcia expected, there were two major rounds of stellar birth. Whole swarms of stars flared to life like Christmas tree lights.

“The early Universe was an incredibly crowded place,” Garcia said. “Gas clouds were denser, stars formed faster, and in those environments, it’s natural for gravity to gather stars into these tightly bound systems.”

Those clusters started out scattered around the galaxy but fell in toward the center like water swirling down a drain. Once there, they merged to create one megacluster, called a nuclear star cluster (so named because it lies at the nucleus of the galaxy). The young galactic heart shone with the light of a million suns and may have set the stage for a supermassive black hole to form.

A simulation of the formation of the super-dense star clusters.

A seemingly simple tweak was needed to make the simulation more precise than previous ones. “Most simulations simplify things to make calculations more practical, but then you sacrifice realism,” Garcia said. “We used an improved model that allowed star formation to vary depending on local conditions rather than just go at a constant rate like with previous models.”

Using the University of Maryland’s supercomputing facility Zaratan, Garcia accomplished in six months what would have taken 12 years on a MacBook.

Some clouds converted as much as 80 percent of their gas into stars—a ferocious rate compared to the 2 percent typically seen in nearby galaxies today. The clouds sparkled to life, becoming clusters of newborn stars held together by their mutual gravity and lighting a new pathway for supermassive black holes to form extremely early in the Universe.

Chicken or egg?

Most galaxies, including our own, are anchored by a nuclear star cluster nestled around a supermassive black hole. But the connection between the two has been a bit murky—did the monster black hole form and then draw stars close, or did the cluster itself give rise to the black hole?

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Blue Origin will ‘move heaven and Earth’ to help NASA reach the Moon faster, CEO says

artemis, blue origin, NASA, Space / Tim Belzer / November 8, 2025

Blue Origin stands ready to help NASA achieve its goals with regard to landing humans on the Moon as soon as possible, the company’s chief executive said Saturday in an interview with Ars.

“We just want to help the US get to the Moon,” said Dave Limp, CEO of the space company founded by Jeff Bezos. “If NASA wants to go quicker, we would move heaven and Earth, pun intended, to try to get to the Moon sooner. And I think we have some good ideas.”

Limp spoke on Saturday, about 24 hours ahead of the company’s second launch of the large New Glenn rocket. Carrying the ESCAPADE spacecraft for NASA, the mission has a launch window that opens at 2: 45 pm ET (19: 45 UTC) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, and runs for a little more than two hours.

NASA seeks a faster return

This year it has become increasingly apparent that, should NASA stick to its present plans for the Artemis III lunar landing mission, China is on course to beat the United States back to the Moon with humans. In recognition of this, about three weeks ago, NASA acting administrator Sean Duffy said the space agency was reopening the competition for a human lander.

SpaceX and Blue Origin both have existing contracts for human landers, but the government has asked each providers for an option to accelerate their timeline. NASA currently has a target landing date of 2027, but that is unrealistic using the present approach of SpaceX’s Starship or Blue Origin’s large Mk. 2 lander.

Ars exclusively reported in early October that Blue Origin had begun work on a faster architecture, involving multiple versions of its Mk. 1 cargo lander as well as a modified version of this vehicle tentatively called Mk 1.5. Limp said that after Duffy asked for revised proposals, Blue Origin responded almost immediately.

“We’ve sent our initial summary of that over, and we have a full report of that due here shortly,” he said. “I’m not going to go into the details because I think that’s probably for NASA to talk about, not us, but we have some ideas that we think could accelerate the path to the Moon. And I hope NASA takes a close look.”

Blue Origin will ‘move heaven and Earth’ to help NASA reach the Moon faster, CEO says Read More »

James Watson, who helped unravel DNA’s double-helix, has died

DNA, Double Helix, health, James Watson, Science / Tim Belzer / November 7, 2025

James Dewey Watson, who helped reveal DNA’s double-helix structure, kicked off the Human Genome Project, and became infamous for his racist, sexist, and otherwise offensive statements, has died. He was 97.

His death was confirmed to The New York Times by his son Duncan, who said Watson died on Thursday in a hospice in East Northport, New York, on Long Island. He had previously been hospitalized with an infection. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory also confirmed his passing.

Watson was born in Chicago in 1928 and attained scientific fame in 1953 at 25 years old for solving the molecular structure of DNA—the genetic blueprints for life—with his colleague Francis Crick at England’s Cavendish laboratory. Their discovery heavily relied on the work of chemist and crystallographer Rosalind Franklin at King’s College in London, whose X-ray images of DNA provided critical clues to the molecule’s twisted-ladderlike architecture. One image in particular from Franklin’s lab, Photo 51, made Watson and Crick’s discovery possible. But, she was not fully credited for her contribution. The image was given to Watson and Crick without Franklin’s knowledge or consent by Maurice Wilkins, a biophysicist and colleague of Franklin.

Watson, Crick, and Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 for the discovery of DNA’s structure. By that time, Franklin had died (she died in 1958 at the age of 37 from ovarian cancer), and Nobels are not given posthumously. But Watson and Crick’s treatment of Franklin and her research has generated lasting scorn within the scientific community. Throughout his career and in his memoir, Watson disparaged Franklin’s intelligence and appearance.

James Watson, who helped unravel DNA’s double-helix, has died Read More »

Commercial spyware “Landfall” ran rampant on Samsung phones for almost a year

android, malware, samsung, Security, smartphones, spyware, Tech / Tim Belzer / November 7, 2025

Before the April 2025 patch, Samsung phones had a vulnerability in their image processing library. This is a zero-click attack because the user doesn’t need to launch anything. When the system processes the malicious image for display, it extracts shared object library files from the ZIP to run the Landfall spyware. The payload also modifies the device’s SELinux policy to give Landfall expanded permissions and access to data.

Landfall flowchart — How Landfall exploits Samsung phones. Credit: Unit 42

The infected files appear to have been delivered to targets via messaging apps like WhatsApp. Unit 42 notes that Landfall’s code references several specific Samsung phones, including the Galaxy S22, Galaxy S23, Galaxy S24, Galaxy Z Flip 4, and Galaxy Z Fold 4. Once active, Landfall reaches out to a remote server with basic device information. The operators can then extract a wealth of data, like user and hardware IDs, installed apps, contacts, any files stored on the device, and browsing history. It can also activate the camera and microphone to spy on the user.

Removing the spyware is no easy feat, either. Because of its ability to manipulate SELinux policies, it can burrow deeply into the system software. It also includes several tools that help evade detection. Based on the VirusTotal submissions, Unit 42 believes Landfall was active in 2024 and early 2025 in Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Morocco. The vulnerability may have been present in Samsung’s software from Android 13 through Android 15, the company suggests.

Unit 42 says that several naming schemes and server responses share similarities with industrial spyware developed by big cyber-intelligence firms like NSO Group and Variston. However, they cannot directly tie Landfall to any particular group. While this attack was highly targeted, the details are now in the open, and other threat actors could now employ similar methods to access unpatched devices. Anyone with a supported Samsung phone should make certain they are on the April 2025 patch or later.

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Higher prices, simpler streaming expected if HBO Max folds into Paramount+

HBO, HBO Max, mergers, paramount, paramount plus, streaming, Tech, warner bros. discovery / Tim Belzer / November 7, 2025

If a company acquires any form of HBO, one of its top challenges is expected to be streamlining operations while maintaining HBO’s premium brand. This could be especially difficult under a “more mainstream umbrella like Paramount+,” Alderman noted.

Streaming has already diluted the HBO brand somewhat. Through streaming, HBO is now associated with stuff from DC Comics and Cartoon Network, as well as reality shows, like 90 Day Fiancé and Naked and Afraid. Merging with Paramount+ or even Netflix could expand the HBO umbrella further.

That expanded umbrella could allow a company like Paramount to better compete against Netflix, something WBD executives have shied away from. HBO Max is “not everything for everyone in a household,” JB Perrette, WBD’s streaming president and CEO, said this spring.

“What people want from us in a world where they’ve got Netflix and Amazon [Prime Video] are those things that differentiate us,” Casey Bloys, chairman and CEO of HBO and Max content, told The Wall Street Journal in May.

A “stress test” for more streaming mergers

Aside from the impact on HBO Max subscribers, WBD’s merger talks have broad implications. A deal would open the door for much more consolidation in the streaming space, something that experts have been anticipating for some years and that addresses the boom of streaming services. Per Clark, discussions of a Paramount-WBD merger are “less about two studios joining forces and more about a stress test for future M&A.”

If WBD accepts a Paramount bid and that bid clears regulatory hurdles, it would signal that “premium content under fewer umbrellas is back in play,” Clark said.

A Paramount-WBD merger is likely to speed up consolidation among mid-tier players, like NBCUniversal, Lionsgate, and AMC, Alderman said, pointing to these companies’ interest in scaling their streaming businesses and in building differentiated portfolios to counter Netflix and Disney+’s expansive libraries.

If Paramount and WBD don’t merge, Clark expects to see more “piecemeal” strategies, such as rights-sharing, joint venture bundles, and streaming-as-a-service models.

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Google settlement with Epic caps Play Store fees, boosts other Android app stores

Apps, epic, Google, Google v. Epic, play store, Tech / Tim Belzer / November 5, 2025

Under the terms, Google agrees to implement a system in the next version of Android that will give third-party app stores a way to become officially registered as an application source. These “Registered App Stores” will be installable from websites with a single click and without the alarming warnings that accompany traditional sideloads. Again, this will be supported globally rather than only in the US, as the previous order required.

The motion filed with the court doesn’t include much detail on how Registered App Stores will operate once installed. Given Epic’s aversion to the scare screens that appear when sideloading apps, installs managed by registered third-party stores may also be low-friction. The Play Store can install apps without forcing the user to clear a bunch of warnings, and it can update apps automatically. We may see similar capabilities for third parties once Google adds the promised support in the next version of Android.

epic harmful installation — This is the kind of “friction” the settlement would avoid. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

Importantly, Google is allowed to create “reasonable requirements” for certifying these app stores. Reviews may be carried out, and Google can charge fees for that process; however, the fees cannot be revenue-dependent.

The changes detailed in the settlement are not as wide-ranging as Judge Donato’s original order but still mark a shift toward openness. Third-party app stores are getting a boost, developers will enjoy lower fees, and Google won’t drag the process out for years. The parties claim in their joint motion that the agreement does not seek to undo the jury verdict or sidestep the court’s previous order. Rather, it aims to reinforce the court’s intent while eliminating potential delays in realigning the app market.

Google and Epic are going to court on Thursday to ask Judge Donato to approve the settlement, and Google could put the billing changes into practice by late this year. The app store changes would come around June next year when we expect Android 17 to begin rolling out. However, Google’s Android Canary and Beta releases may offer a glimpse of this system earlier in 2026.

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After confusing driver release, AMD says old GPUs are still actively supported

AMD, gaming, Radeon, rdna, rdna 2, Tech / Tim Belzer / November 3, 2025

The release notes for the 25.10.2 Adrenalin release also dropped Windows 10 from the list of “compatible operating systems,” listing only Windows 11 21H2 and later. But AMD confirmed to Windows Latest that the driver packages would still support Windows 10 for the foreseeable future. The company said that the OS is not listed in the release notes because Microsoft has technically ended support for Windows 10, but home users running Windows 10 on their PCs can get an extra year of security patches relatively easily. Microsoft will continue to provide support for the OS in businesses, schools, and other large organizations until at least 2028.

Why all the fuss?

It would look bad if AMD dropped or reduced support for those Radeon 5000- and 6000-series GPUs, given that Nvidia continues to support GeForce RTX 20- and 30-series graphics cards launched in the same 2019 to 2022 time window. But the end of support could have been even worse for gaming handhelds and lower-end PCs with integrated graphics.

The RDNA 2 architecture, in particular, has enjoyed a long and ongoing life as an integrated GPU, including for systems that are explicitly marketed and sold as gaming PCs. And because so many of AMD and Intel’s lower-end chips are just rebranded versions of older silicon, AMD continues to launch “new” products with RDNA 2 GPUs. The RDNA 2 architecture is the one Valve has used in the Steam Deck since 2022, for example, but Microsoft and Asus’ just-launched ROG Xbox Ally series also includes an RDNA 2 GPU in the entry-level model.

The last time AMD formally scaled back its GPU driver support was in 2023, when it moved drivers for its Polaris and Vega GPU architectures into a separate package that would only get occasional “critical updates.” At the time, AMD had launched its last dedicated Vega-based GPU just four years before, and many lower-end desktop and laptop processors still shipped with Vega-based integrated GPUs.

For the Steam Deck and other SteamOS and Linux systems, at least, it seems that things aren’t really changing, no matter what happens with the Windows drivers. Phoronix points out that the Linux driver package for AMD’s GPUs has always been maintained separately from the Windows drivers and that GPU architectures considerably older than RDNA 1 continue to get official support and occasional improvements.

After confusing driver release, AMD says old GPUs are still actively supported Read More »

Trump on why he pardoned Binance CEO: “Are you ready? I don’t know who he is.”

Binance, Changpeng Zhao, Policy, Trump / Tim Belzer / November 3, 2025

“My sons are involved in crypto much more than I—me,” Trump said on 60 Minutes. “I—I know very little about it, other than one thing. It’s a huge industry. And if we’re not gonna be the head of it, China, Japan, or someplace else is. So I am behind it 100 percent.”

Did Trump ever meet Zhao? Did he form his own opinion about Zhao’s conviction, or was he merely “told about it”? Trump doesn’t seem to know:

This man was treated really badly by the Biden administration. And he was given a jail term. He’s highly respected. He’s a very successful guy. They sent him to jail and they really set him up. That’s my opinion. I was told about it.

I said, “Eh, it may look bad if I do it. I have to do the right thing.” I don’t know the man at all. I don’t think I ever met him. Maybe I did. Or, you know, somebody shook my hand or something. But I don’t think I ever met him. I have no idea who he is. I was told that he was a victim, just like I was and just like many other people, of a vicious, horrible group of people in the Biden administration.

Trump: “A lot people say that he wasn’t guilty”

Pointing out that Trump’s pardon of Zhao came after Binance helped facilitate a $2 billion purchase of World Liberty’s stablecoin, O’Donnell asked Trump to address the appearance of a pay-to-play deal.

“Well, here’s the thing, I know nothing about it because I’m too busy doing the other… I can only tell you this. My sons are into it. I’m glad they are, because it’s probably a great industry, crypto. I think it’s good… I know nothing about the guy, other than I hear he was a victim of weaponization by government. When you say the government, you’re talking about the Biden government. It’s a corrupt government. Biden was the most corrupt president and he was the worst president we’ve ever had.”

Trump on why he pardoned Binance CEO: “Are you ready? I don’t know who he is.” Read More »

Author name: Tim Belzer