Goooood morning, it’s that time of day again. So let’s get started.
1. Not all those who ‘wonder’ are lost
There are a few things in life that are guaranteed: Birth, death, taxes, and a new iPhone each year. We’re here to talk about the latter. This morning we got an official announcement from Apple, declaring the event will be called ‘Wonderlust’. Nope, we didn’t misspell Wanderlust, and we don’t think Apple did either. It’ll be 3:00 am Wednesday September 13 and, naturally, the iPhone 15 will be the star of the show. Read more here.
2. Crime surveillance tech apparently used by thousands of Aussie stores
Over to Crikey now and it’s reporting that a little-known “crime intelligence platform”, Auror, is being used in thousands of stores across Australia, including Coles and Woolworths. Per the report, Auror promises to help combat retail crime. Its users share information about suspects with each other and police, alert each other when people or cars enter their stores, and even use analytics to “prevent crime before it happens”, Crikey says. The company works closely with Australian police forces, who have access to the data collected by Auror’s users on millions of Australians. Everything is fine.
3. Watermarks for Google’s own images
TechCrunch is this morning reporting that Google’s AI research division, in partnership with Google Cloud and Google Deepmind, is launching a tool for watermarking and identifying AI-generated images. But only images created by Google’s own image-generating model. The tool is called SnythID and is available in beta for select users of Vertex AI, Google’s platform for building AI apps and models. Per the report, it embeds a digital watermark directly into the pixels of an image — making it ostensibly imperceptible to the human eye but detectable by an algorithm.
4. FBI takes down cybercrime crew
The U.S. government just helped dismantle a massive network of computers infected with one of the world’s most notorious pieces of malware. Brought to our attention by The Verge, the FBI said a multinational effort took down Qakbot, a malware that made its way into over 700,000 computers around the globe. Per the report, hackers typically target victims with Qakbot by sending them spam emails containing malicious attachments or links. As soon as a victim downloads the attachment or clicks the link, Qakbot infects their computer, which then becomes part of a botnet — or a network of infected computers controlled remotely by hackers. From there, bad actors can install additional malware on their victims’ devices, such as ransomware.
5. NBN Co to upgrade apartment interwebs
Ending with the NBN this morning and NBN Co is upgrading the internet for 700,000 units in 50,000 buildings. The apartment upgrade is all part of NBN Co’s fibre upgrade program that until now seemed to somewhat skirt those of us not residing in a house. Read more about it over here.
BONUS ITEM: Something a little more sweet than a brain worm…
Have a fabulous day.