Editor’s Pick

On Monday, Anthropic launched the latest version of its smallest AI model, Claude 3.5 Haiku, in a way that marks a departure from typical AI model pricing trends—the new model costs four times more to run than its predecessor. The reason for the price increase is causing some pushback in the AI community: more smarts, according to Anthropic.

“During final testing, Haiku surpassed Claude 3 Opus, our previous flagship model, on many benchmarks—at a fraction of the cost,” wrote Antrhopic in a post on X. “As a result, we’ve increased pricing for Claude 3.5 Haiku to reflect its increase in intelligence.”

“It’s your budget model that’s competing against other budget models, why would you make it less competitive,” wrote one X user. “People wanting a ‘too cheap to meter’ solution will now look elsewhere.”

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Canadian authorities have arrested a man on suspicion he breached hundreds of accounts belonging to users of cloud storage provider Snowflake and used that access to steal personal data belonging to millions of people, authorities said Tuesday.

“Following a request by the United States, Alexander Moucka (aka Connor Moucka) was arrested on a provisional arrest warrant on Wednesday, October 30, 2024,” an official with the Canada Department of Justice wrote in an email Tuesday. “He appeared in court later that afternoon, and his case was adjourned to Tuesday, November 5, 2024. As extradition requests are considered confidential state-to-state communications, we cannot comment further on this case.”

Word of the arrest first came from Bloomberg News and was later confirmed by 404 Media.

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On Friday, TriStar Pictures released Here, a $50 million Robert Zemeckis-directed film that used real time generative AI face transformation techniques to portray actors Tom Hanks and Robin Wright across a 60-year span, marking one of Hollywood’s first full-length features built around AI-powered visual effects.

The film adapts a 2014 graphic novel set primarily in a New Jersey living room across multiple time periods. Rather than cast different actors for various ages, the production used AI to modify Hanks’ and Wright’s appearances throughout.

The de-aging technology comes from Metaphysic, a visual effects company that creates real time face swapping and aging effects. During filming, the crew watched two monitors simultaneously: one showing the actors’ actual appearances and another displaying them at whatever age the scene required.

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On Friday, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that AI chipmaker Nvidia will replace Intel in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, marking a seismic shift in the semiconductor industry and ending Intel’s 25-year run on the prestigious stock market index. The change takes effect on November 8.

“The index changes were initiated to ensure a more representative exposure to the semiconductors industry,” wrote S&P in a press release.

Intel’s stock has dropped 54 percent this year, making it the worst performer on the Dow, and the company now holds a market value of under $100 billion for the first time in three decades, Reuters reported. Analysts expect Intel to post its first annual net loss since 1986.

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On Friday, Perplexity launched an election information hub that relies on data from The Associated Press and Democracy Works to provide live updates and information about the 2024 US general election, which takes place on Tuesday, November 5.

“Starting Tuesday, we’ll be offering live updates on elections using data from The Associated Press so you can stay informed on presidential, senate, and house races at both a state and national level,” Perplexity wrote in a blog post. The site will pull data from special data sources (called APIs) hosted by the two organizations.

As of Monday, Perplexity’s hub currently provides interactive information on voting requirements, poll times, and summaries about ballot measures, candidates, policy positions, and endorsements. Users can ask questions about the information similar to using a chatbot like ChatGPT.

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Hackers working on behalf of the Chinese government are using a botnet of thousands of routers, cameras, and other Internet-connected devices to perform highly evasive password spray attacks against users of Microsoft’s Azure cloud service, the company warned Thursday.

The malicious network, made up almost entirely of TP-Link routers, was first documented in October 2023 by a researcher who named it Botnet-7777. The geographically dispersed collection of more than 16,000 compromised devices at its peak got its name because it exposes its malicious malware on port 7777.

Account compromise at scale

In July and again in August of this year, security researchers from Serbia and Team Cymru reported the botnet was still operational. All three reports said that Botnet-7777 was being used to skillfully perform password spraying, a form of attack that sends large numbers of login attempts from many different IP addresses. Because each individual device limits the login attempts, the carefully coordinated account-takeover campaign is hard to detect by the targeted service.

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The Colorado Department of State said it accidentally posted a spreadsheet containing “partial passwords” for voting systems. The department said there is no “immediate security threat” because two passwords are needed for each component, but it is trying to complete password changes by the end of today. There were reportedly hundreds of BIOS passwords accessible on the website for over two months before being removed last week.

A government statement issued Tuesday said the agency “is aware that a spreadsheet located on the Department’s website improperly included a hidden tab including partial passwords to certain components of Colorado voting systems. This does not pose an immediate security threat to Colorado’s elections, nor will it impact how ballots are counted.”

Secretary of State Jena Griswold told Colorado Public Radio that “we do not think there is an immediate security threat to Colorado elections, in part because partial passwords don’t get you anywhere. Two unique passwords are needed for every election equipment component. Physical access is needed. And under Colorado law, voting equipment is stored in secure rooms that require secure ID badges. There’s 24/7 video cameras. There’s restricted access to the secure ballot areas, strict chain of custody, and it’s a felony to access voting equipment without authorization.”

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One of the biggest bummers about the modern Internet has been the decline of Google Search. Once an essential part of using the web, it’s now a shadow of its former self, full of SEO-fueled junk and AI-generated spam.

On Thursday, OpenAI announced a new feature of ChatGPT that could potentially replace Google Search for some people: an upgraded web search capability for its AI assistant that provides answers with source attribution during conversations. The feature, officially called “ChatGPT with Search,” makes web search automatic based on user questions, with an option to manually trigger searches through a new web search icon.

OpenAI hopes the new capability will streamline web searching by eliminating the need for multiple searches and link exploration that traditional search engines sometimes require. Users can ask follow-up questions, with ChatGPT considering the context of the entire conversation to provide answers.

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After closing a $69 billion deal to buy virtualization technology company VMware a year ago, Broadcom wasted no time ushering in big changes to the ways customers and partners buy and sell VMware offerings—and many of those clients aren’t happy.

To get a deeper look at the impact that rising costs and overhauls like the end of VMware perpetual license sales have had on VMware users, Ars spoke with several companies in the process of quitting the software due to Broadcom’s changes.

Here’s what’s pushing them over the edge.

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Dropbox is laying off 528 employees in a move that will reduce its global workforce by 20 percent, CEO Drew Houston announced today.

Houston wrote that Dropbox’s core file sync and sharing “business has matured, and we’ve been working to build our next phase of growth with products like Dash,” an “AI-powered universal search” product targeted to business customers. The company’s “current structure and investment levels” are “no longer sustainable,” according to Houston.

“We continue to see softening demand and macro headwinds in our core business,” Houston wrote. “But external factors are only part of the story. We’ve heard from many of you that our organizational structure has become overly complex, with excess layers of management slowing us down.”

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