Q&A with an FBI agent on targeting and taking down DDoS-for-hire sites, why Christmas is the busiest DDoS time, how attacks have changed over 10 years, and more (Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai/TechCrunch)

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / TechCrunch:
Q&A with an FBI agent on targeting and taking down DDoS-for-hire sites, why Christmas is the busiest DDoS time, how attacks have changed over 10 years, and more  —  In an interview at Black Hat, FBI agents explain how they target and take down DDoS-for-hire sites

ShapesXR, which offers an XR app creation and collaboration platform to clients like Meta, Qualcomm, and ByteDance, raised an $8.6M seed led by Supernode Global (Duncan Riley/SiliconANGLE)

Duncan Riley / SiliconANGLE:
ShapesXR, which offers an XR app creation and collaboration platform to clients like Meta, Qualcomm, and ByteDance, raised an $8.6M seed led by Supernode Global  —  Spatial apps creation and collaboration platform startup ShapesXR today announced that it has raised $8.6 million in new funding …

Sources: Apple is planning a major "Watch X" redesign for the 10th anniversary; a look at the M3 roadmap, including a top M3 Ultra with 32 CPU and 80 GPU cores (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is planning a major “Watch X” redesign for the 10th anniversary; a look at the M3 roadmap, including a top M3 Ultra with 32 CPU and 80 GPU cores  —  Apple's next line of smartwatches is expected to be a minor upgrade.  Behind the scenes, though …

Sources: SoftBank is in talks to acquire the 25% stake in Arm it does not directly own from Vision Fund 1, ahead of the chip designer's Nasdaq IPO next month (Reuters)

Reuters:
Sources: SoftBank is in talks to acquire the 25% stake in Arm it does not directly own from Vision Fund 1, ahead of the chip designer's Nasdaq IPO next month  —  SoftBank Group Corp (9984.T) is in talks to acquire the 25% stake in Arm Ltd it does not directly own from Vision Fund 1 (VF1) …

Inside the Black Hat network operations center, staffed by volunteers who built the network on the week of the event from scratch using their own equipment (Iain Thomson/The Register)

Iain Thomson / The Register:
Inside the Black Hat network operations center, staffed by volunteers who built the network on the week of the event from scratch using their own equipment  —  NOC, NOC ... Who's there?  —  BLACK HAT Every summer, pandemics permitting, a group of volunteers gather in a Las Vegas hotel …

How Sweden's Psychological Defense Agency, a part of the Ministry of Defense, is combating online disinformation from foreign adversaries, especially Russia (Steven Lee Myers/New York Times)

Steven Lee Myers / New York Times:
How Sweden's Psychological Defense Agency, a part of the Ministry of Defense, is combating online disinformation from foreign adversaries, especially Russia  —  The country has empowered a government agency to openly combat online disinformation coming from foreign adversaries, and especially the Kremlin.

A look at Amazon One palm scanning tech, being used for payments, age verification, and more at US retailers, stadiums, and other venues, amid privacy concerns (Christopher Mims/Wall Street Journal)

Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:
A look at Amazon One palm scanning tech, being used for payments, age verification, and more at US retailers, stadiums, and other venues, amid privacy concerns  —  It's also a potentially massive play to make Amazon the central ID system for your whole life—from banking and loyalty programs to tickets …

Some Cruise car riders say they've had sex in the driverless vehicles in SF over recent months; Waymo and Cruise permit eating in their cars but not drinking (Liz Lindqwister/The San Francisco ...)

Liz Lindqwister / The San Francisco Standard:
Some Cruise car riders say they've had sex in the driverless vehicles in SF over recent months; Waymo and Cruise permit eating in their cars but not drinking  —  An Illustration generated by the artificial intelligence program Midjourney depicts two people making out in an autonomous vehicle.

How SCOTUS overturning the sports betting ban in 2018 transformed the sector into a high-growth tech business; many fear a surge in gambling addiction is coming (Oliver Barnes/Financial Times)

Oliver Barnes / Financial Times:
How SCOTUS overturning the sports betting ban in 2018 transformed the sector into a high-growth tech business; many fear a surge in gambling addiction is coming  —  Americans have bet $245bn on sporting events since restrictions were loosened in 2018.  But many fear a surge in gambling addiction is coming

Amazon is removing or reducing packaging to speed up deliveries, cut costs, and meet climate goals, amid concerns that visible products could lead to issues (Sebastian Herrera/Wall Street Journal)

Sebastian Herrera / Wall Street Journal:
Amazon is removing or reducing packaging to speed up deliveries, cut costs, and meet climate goals, amid concerns that visible products could lead to issues  —  The retail giant is reducing packaging on millions of deliveries  —  Millions of Amazon orders are arriving on doorsteps across the U.S. without any extra packaging.

Pixel 8 may come with an Audio Magic Eraser: What it can mean for users

Google is set to release the Pixel 8 series in October, with rumours circulating about the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro. Reports have emerged that the Pro variant may come in blue and feature a new tool called "Audio Magic Eraser". The feature, expected to be available in Google Photos' video editor, will locate sounds and offer sliders for "Noise," "People," and "Music," allowing the user to reduce sound by adjusting the appropriate slider. https://ift.tt/02f1GkE

ISRO congratulates Russia's successful moon mission launch

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) applauded Russia for the successful launch of Luna-25 into space. The unmanned craft is anticipated to join India's Chandrayaan-3 in exploring the water-rich area near the south pole of the Moon. Luna-25 is equipped to detect scientific findings such as plasma and dust contents found in the lunar polar exosphere. https://ift.tt/a06KIO9

Android 14 may come soon as Google rolls out Beta 5 update with these changes

Google's Android 14 beta testing has reached Beta 5, bringing bug and issue fixes and signaling that the stable version may be released soon. There were two beta rollouts before Google announced Android 14 and the first beta version was later rolled out. Changes in Beta 5 have been specified by Google addressing multiple bugs and issues that beta testers reported over the last four beta versions, including a complete changelog on its official blog post. https://ift.tt/Dk19jJt

How to sign a document using Google Docs eSignature feature

Google has launched its eSignature beta for Docs, which allows users to request and add signatures to official documents within the platform, cutting out the need to print, sign, scan and send back manually. Although in beta, the programme is an open beta, with enrolment dependent on Workspace account eligibility. To use the feature, users can create or open a document via docs or drive, navigate to Tools and select the eSignature option, after which signature, date and name fields can be added and the completed document emailed to signatories. https://ift.tt/ywQYGEc

Sources: the US Cyber Safety Review Board, created by Biden, plans to investigate cloud computing risks, including Microsoft's recent government email breach (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Sources: the US Cyber Safety Review Board, created by Biden, plans to investigate cloud computing risks, including Microsoft's recent government email breach  —  - Cyber Safety Review Board to examine risks in cloud computing  — Senator Wyden had called for investigations of Microsoft