Humans, like other mammals, have five fingers – but why that particular number? CC-licensed photo by Stuart on Flickr.
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A selection of 9 links for you. It’s digital. I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Threads: charles_arthur. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. Observations and links welcome.
TikTok sues US government over potential ban • The New York Times
Sapna Maheshwari and David McCabe:
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TikTok sued the federal government on Tuesday over a new law that would force its Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the popular social media app or face a ban in the United States, stoking a battle over national security and free speech that is likely to end up in the Supreme Court.
TikTok said the law violated the First Amendment by effectively removing an app that millions of Americans use to share their views and communicate freely. It also argued that a divestiture was “simply not possible,” especially within the law’s 270-day timeline, pointing to difficulties such as Beijing’s refusal to sell a key feature that powers TikTok in the United States.
“For the first time in history, Congress has enacted a law that subjects a single, named speech platform to a permanent, nationwide ban, and bars every American from participating in a unique online community with more than one billion people worldwide,” the company said in the 67-page petition, which initiated the lawsuit. “There is no question: The act will force a shutdown of TikTok by Jan. 19, 2025.”
TikTok is battling for its survival in the United States, with the fight set to play out primarily in courts over the next few months. The battle pits Congress’s national security concerns about the social media app’s ties to China against TikTok’s argument that a sale or ban would violate the First Amendment free-speech rights of its users and hurt small businesses that owe their livelihood to the platform. The case is expected to reach the Supreme Court.
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TikTok says it’s a publisher, which of course would mean protection under the First Amendment. (It succeeded on that front in 2022 when sued over the death of a child who copied a “challenge” she’d seen on it.) But the US government may choose to focus on the national security angle instead.
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Clippy’s revenge: assistant comes back to purge Windows 11 of bloatware, ads and annoyances • Tom’s Hardware
Avram Piltch:
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If you’re of a certain age or just an astute student of Microsoft history, you’ll remember Clippy. The paperclip-shaped digital assistant helped you perform guided tasks in versions of Office that came out between 1997 and 2004. The software giant officially ditched Clippy with the debut of Office 2007, but now it’s back helping you with an open-source, third-party utility called Winpilot. It is designed to remove bloatware, disable annoying UI defaults, and purge ads from Windows 11.
Programmed by German developer Belmin Hasanovic, Winpilot has been around since 2023, when it was originally called BloatyNosy. Out today, version 2024.5.6 adds Tiny11builder, a utility that creates a stripped-down Windows 11 install ISO, to its suite of features. Other features include the ability to turn off personalized ads, restore full context menus, purge preloaded bloatware, and turn off Bing Cloud content search.
To help you navigate the various features of Winpilot, Clippy and its speech/interaction bubble sit on top of the application’s UI. When you first launch Winpilot, and throughout your interactions, Clippy will present you with the ability to ask questions and with two suggested activities — Check the Windows version or “Debloat my system,” for example.
If you haven’t asked or clicked on anything in the bubble yet, you’ll get a random suggestion or comment from Clippy. For example, when starting up one time, I got this nugget from the assistant: “You know something, champ? This is bullsh*t. I started this gig in ’97. My ultimate goal was to take over Bill Gates job.”
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Such a strange turn of events that Microsoft is now stuffing Windows with adware. Isn’t that the OEMs’ job?
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Why do most mammals have five fingers? • Live Science
Katherine Irving:
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Nobody is sure when this five-finger plan first evolved. The first known animals to develop fingers evolved from fish around 360 million years ago and had as many as eight fingers, Stewart said. However, the existence of the five-finger plan in most living tetrapods indicates that the trait is likely a “homology” — a gene or structure that is shared between organisms because they have a common ancestor. The common ancestor of all living tetrapods must have somehow evolved to have five fingers and passed that pattern down to its descendants.
A common ancestor explains how mammals got five fingers, but it doesn’t tell us why. One theory is “canalization” — the idea that over time, a gene or trait becomes more stable and less likely to mutate. Stewart gave the example of cervical, or neck, vertebrae: mammals almost always have seven of these vertebrae even though that number doesn’t seem to offer a particular advantage. If the number has worked for millions of years, there’s no reason to change it, according to this theory.
However, not all researchers agree with the canalization idea. Kimberly Cooper, a evolutionary developmental geneticist at the University of California, San Diego, points out that polydactyly, or having more than five fingers, occurs as a mutation in many mammals, including humans. There are multiple mutations that can cause polydactyly, but a recent study published in the journal Nature found that it can happen through the mutation of just one nucleotide in the sonic hedgehog gene. [Yes, it’s real – Overspill Ed.]
“If it’s that easy,” Cooper asked, “why don’t polydactyl species exist?” She argued it must be because polydactyly is an evolutionary disadvantage. Some speculate it might be down to gene linkage: As genes evolve over millions of years, some become linked, meaning changing one gene (the amount of fingers) could lead to other more serious health issues. But as of yet, nobody has offered concrete proof, Stewart told Live Science.
“We can ask a very simple question of why don’t we see more than five fingers, and it seems like we should arrive at a simple answer,” he said. “But it’s a really deep problem. That makes [this field] really exciting.”
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Apple’s iPhone spyware problem is getting worse. Here’s what you should know • WIRED
Kate O’Flaherty:
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In April, Apple sent notifications to iPhone users in 92 countries, warning them they’d been targeted with spyware. “Apple detected that you are being targeted by a mercenary spyware attack that is trying to remotely compromise the iPhone associated with your Apple ID,” the notification reads.
Users quickly took to social media sites including X, trying to work out what the notification meant. Many of those targeted were based in India, but others in Europe also reported receiving Apple’s warning.
Weeks later, little is still known about the latest iPhone attacks. Former smartphone giant Blackberry, now a security firm, has released research indicating they are linked to a Chinese spyware campaign dubbed “LightSpy,” but Apple spokesperson Shane Bauer says this is inaccurate.
While Apple says the latest spyware notifications aren’t linked to LightSpy, the spyware remains a growing threat, particularly to people who may be targeted in Southern Asia, according to Blackberry’s researchers. Described as a “sophisticated iOS implant,” LightSpy first emerged targeting Hong Kong protesters in 2020. However, the latest iteration is much more capable than the first.
…April’s warnings were not the first time Apple has issued notifications of this kind. The iPhone maker has sent out alerts to people in over 150 countries since 2021 as spyware continues to target high-profile figures across the globe.
…In 2021, researchers at Google’s Project Zero detailed how an iMessage-based zero-click exploit was used to target a Saudi activist. “Short of not using a device, there is no way to prevent exploitation by a zero-click exploit; it’s a weapon against which there is no defence,” the researchers warned.
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The article does not, however, demonstrate that the problem is getting worse.
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Apple’s new iPad Pro vs. new iPad Air vs. iPad: why are there so many? • WSJ
Joanna Stern:
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Apple on Tuesday announced new iPads, bringing the number of models up to 3,578.
Fine, six. But still.
There are two pricier iPads Pros with bright OLED screens, a thinner design and next-generation chips to enhance onboard AI performance. The iPad Air gets upgraded chips, colors and cameras—and a larger 13in option alongside the 11in one. Both updated lines will be available May 15.
The recently redesigned regular iPad sticks around, for $100 less, and the Mini is also still there, unchanged.
Oh, and there are now three (!) iPad Pencils: an Apple Pencil Pro for the new Pro and Air, plus the two older options.
Funnily enough, this is Apple actually trying to streamline the options. It pulled a cheap, old-design iPad out of its consumer lineup.
Over the years, when I’ve asked Apple executives why there are so many models, the answer is always consumer choice. Analysts say the same. “From a market perspective, there’s an option for everyone,” explained Carolina Milanesi, a technology analyst with Creative Strategies.
That’s probably true, especially now, but good luck finding that right option without a PhD in iPads. Luckily, I have one. The trick is understanding each line and remembering that they differ on three Ps: price, portability and power.
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She didn’t mention the keyboards and covers, of which there are also a dizzying number. The iPad line feels like Apple of the 1990s, just making stuff because it can and not really considering what the strategy is. It’s confusing as hell, because even if you start from a price, you’ll almost certainly have at least two options – an iPad and the mini. Meanwhile as is expected, Stern’s piece is terrific.
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AI copilots are changing how coding is taught • IEEE Spectrum
Rina Diane Caballar:
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Most introductory computer science courses focus on code syntax and getting programs to run, and while knowing how to read and write code is still essential, testing and debugging—which aren’t commonly part of the syllabus—now need to be taught more explicitly.
“We’re seeing a little upping of that skill, where students are getting code snippets from generative AI that they need to test for correctness,” says Jeanna Matthews, a professor of computer science at Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y.
Another vital expertise is problem decomposition. “This is a skill to know early on because you need to break a large problem into smaller pieces that an LLM can solve,” says Leo Porter, an associate teaching professor of computer science at the University of California, San Diego. “It’s hard to find where in the curriculum that’s taught—maybe in an algorithms or software engineering class, but those are advanced classes. Now, it becomes a priority in introductory classes.”
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Subtly but broadly, everything shifts.
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The unsexy future of generative AI is enterprise apps • WIRED
Lauren Goode:
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Keith Peiris says he started to see the generative AI writing on the wall six months ago.
Peiris is the cofounder and chief executive of Tome, a San Francisco startup that makes presentation software juiced with generative AI. The company launched its product in early 2022 with a healthy cushion of $32m in venture capital funding, and successfully surfed the ChatGPT hype wave after that, raising even more funding in early 2023. Venture capitalist and LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, former Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt, and Stability.ai’s then CEO Emad Mostaque were all backing Tome.
Tome had one problem, though: It wasn’t generating meaningful revenue. And AI startups like Tome, which build their services on top of both open source and proprietary language models, pay significant fees to companies like OpenAI to power their apps. Some kind of action was needed if Tome was to keep the lights on.
Peiris and his cofounder Henri Liriani ended up laying off 20% of their 59-person staff last month. They also announced a new focus: Their app, which is often described as PowerPoint-on-GenAI, would be aimed squarely at enterprise customers. They would now charge three times what they were charging premium users.
“We realized we were going to run out of time if we needed to teach Tome’s AI models how to do high school homework, how to write post-surgery guides, how to craft marketing briefs and sales briefs,” Peiris said in an interview with WIRED. “We said, let’s pick a segment of customers that not only have a lot of presentations to build but also have clear outcomes, like whether they closed a deal or not. And that is salespeople.”
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Strictly speaking, smartphones first got off the ground in enterprise: the BlackBerry was huge. The breakout to the consumer space came later.
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Southeast Asia’s brutal heatwave: daily life and agriculture endangered by rising temperatures • South China Morning Post
Aidan Jones and Hadi Azmi:
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Thailand’s heatwave is so punishing that even the pigs on Charawut Puwianwong’s farm are stressed.
While the Bangkokians who can afford it huddle into malls to avoid the blistering sun, and tourists from Phi Phi to Pattaya lament water shortages spoiling their holidays, it is Thailand’s millions of farmers who are most acutely exposed to the climate crisis.
On his farm in Udon Thani, northeastern Thailand, Charawut says his pigs are suffering. “I’ve been raising pigs for four years now and this year has been brutal,” Charawut said. “It’s the hottest year and my pigs have gone nuts. They are stressed and fight each other all the time. They don’t eat and they often get diarrhoea.”
That brings with it rising costs for medicine, vitamins and vets’ fees – all of which threatens to put smallholders like Charawut out of business. “I have to get a fan with mist to keep them cool,” he said.
This year, El Niño – a naturally occurring weather phenomenon characterised by the warming of ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean – has led to record temperatures across Asia ahead of the monsoon season.
It has closed schools in the Philippines and Bangladesh, thinned out polling queues in India and caused drought in Vietnam, which saw three waves of temperature highs in April reaching a near all-time high of 44ºC (111ºF) in two towns, according to weather authorities there.
In many parts of Thailand, the thermometer has for weeks oscillated around 40ºC and above, making farm work impossibly hard, withering valuable Durian plantations, spoiling some of the sugar crop and pushing the price of eggs higher as chickens and ducks are unable to lay.
The heat is so intense that chickens have died on farms – with one farmer in Chanthaburi, eastern Thailand, posting graphic videos of 12,000 dead poultry being scooped up for incineration after they died without fans to cool them.
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El Niño has been declared over, but its effects linger.
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Vortax: a fake scam AI company. Just like the old ICO days! • Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain
David Gerard:
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These scammers have been active for a few months. There’s a couple of crypto guys calling out Vortax on Reddit r/cryptoscams. One said they were “part of a Japanese project seeking help for translation”; another said they were doing a crypto podcast. [Reddit; Reddit]
In both cases, the contact asked them to do the call over Vortax. Game developer Alireza Jamali analysed the scam on LinkedIn. They approached Jamali with a recruitment scam. He got as far as downloading the software and examining it:
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Scam starts when you try to enter the room ID, a setup file is downloaded in order to install the video meeting app, but the problem is, the setup file is THE VIRUS. fortunately vortax.io is just a crypto miner run by a Russian guy and if you install it, no damage is done if you clean remove any trace in registry and startup, it could be a ransomware which would be devastating for the victims.
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Jamali also details how to clean up after the Vortax malware, if you were unlucky enough to be deceived.
Vortax seems to have targeted a lot of crypto guys. I would expect the software to look for crypto wallets it can drain. It only didn’t work when we tried it out because the download links weren’t working.
This is a horribly plausible attack for me [David Gerard] personally — because I always try to say yes to media requests, and quite often they have a favourite app they want you to use. So if someone contacts you out of the blue and wants you to download software … pretend you’re writing a scam report on it. Check it out thoroughly. Or ask to use something normal and not their weird software. Live AI voice translation is absolutely not at product stage as yet.
This sort of scam is also highly templatable. There’s a bit of human involvement, but quite a lot of this appears press-button. There are likely any number of scams along these lines. No doubt Vortax will set up again tomorrow under another name.
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| • Why do social networks drive us a little mad? • Why does angry content seem to dominate what we see? • How much of a role do algorithms play in affecting what we see and do online? • What can we do about it? • Did Facebook have any inkling of what was coming in Myanmar in 2016? Read Social Warming, my latest book, and find answers – and more. |
Errata, corrigenda and ai no corrida: none notified
The Overspill: when there's more that I want to say 