Ars Technica – Page 4

Hundreds of code libraries posted to NPM try to install malware on dev machines

An ongoing attack is uploading hundreds of malicious packages to the open source node package manager (NPM) repository in an attempt to infect the devices of developers who rely on code libraries there, researchers said. The malicious packages have names that are similar to legitimate ones for the Puppeteer and Bignum.js code libraries and for various libraries for working with cryptocurrency. The campaign, which was active at the time this post was going live on Ars, was reported by researchers from the security firm Phylum. The discovery comes on the heels of a similar campaign a few weeks ago targeting developers using forks of the Ethers.js library.
https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/11/javascript-developers-targeted-by-hundreds-of-malicious-code-libraries/

Adobe shows off 3D rotation tool for flat drawings

At this point, we're used to AI-powered image tools that instantly pull off previously high-effort edits, like filling in the missing bits of a scene or erasing unwanted parts of a photo without affecting the background. But a new Adobe Illustrator tool demonstrated at this week's Adobe MAX conference takes 2D image editing things in a literal different direction, letting artists instantly transform 2D vector images into 3D models that can be rotated around the axis of the screen itself.
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/10/adobe-shows-off-3d-rotation-tool-for-flat-drawings/

Huawei’s $2,800 trifold phone is a real thing it wants people to hold and use

“It’s a piece of work that everyone has thought of but never managed to create,” Richard Yu, Huawei’s consumer group chairman, said during the Mate XT livestream unveiling. “I have always had a dream to put our tablet in my pocket, and we did it.”
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/forget-everything-huawei-is-doing-two-folds-on-the-mate-xt-ultimate/

Amazon Fresh kills “Just Walk Out” shopping tech—it never really worked

A May 2023 report from The Information revealed the myriad tech problems Amazon was still having with the idea six years after the initial announcement. The report said that "Amazon had more than 1,000 people in India working on Just Walk Out as of mid-2022 whose jobs included manually reviewing transactions and labeling images from videos to train Just Walk Out’s machine learning model."
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/amazon-ends-ai-powered-store-checkout-which-needed-1000-video-reviewers/

Windows Notepad’s midlife renaissance continues with spellcheck and autocorrect

An updated version of Notepad currently rolling out to Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev channels is adding two more modern features to the old app: spellcheck and autocorrect. Per usual, spellcheck in Notepad highlights misspellings with red squiggly underlines, and right-clicking the word or pressing Shift + F10 will pop up a short menu of suggested fixes.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/03/windows-notepads-midlife-renaissance-continues-with-spellcheck-and-autocorrect/

Nikon buys Red Digital Cinema, will jump into the pro video space

Nikon is buying the ultra-high-end video camera company Red Digital Cinema. Nikon has a press release saying that "RED will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Nikon" for an undisclosed sum. Nikon is typically more of a still-image camera company and wants to use Red to "expand the fast-growing professional digital cinema camera market."
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/03/nikon-buys-red-digital-cinema-will-jump-into-the-pro-video-space/

Vending machine error reveals secret face image database of college students

Canada-based University of Waterloo is racing to remove M&M-branded smart vending machines from campus after outraged students discovered the machines were covertly collecting facial-recognition data without their consent. The scandal started when a student using the alias SquidKid47 posted an image on Reddit showing a campus vending machine error message, "Invenda.Vending.FacialRecognitionApp.exe," displayed after the machine failed to launch a facial recognition application that nobody expected to be part of the process of using a vending machine.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/02/vending-machine-error-reveals-secret-face-image-database-of-college-students/