You better start planning your new Discord username now.That's because the popular gaming-centric chat app is undergoing a major change over the coming weeks, per a Discord blog post. Specifically, the four-digit "discriminator" code at the end of every username is going away. As a result of this, every user will have to pick a new username that will be unique to them.         SEE ALSO:                    Discord is rolling out new features powered by AI                        Discord's blog post acknowledged that the point of this was to make the app more like other social platforms. It will most resemble Twitter after the change, as users will have unique back-end usernames (starting with an @, of course) with public display names that aren't unique. In other words, you can't share your username with another person anymore (the four-digit code allowed for that), but display names aren't subject to that restriction.There are all sorts of valid reasons given for this in the blog post. 

Discord is forcing everyone to change their usernames. Over the years, it's become difficult so quickly share your Discord username with another person if you don't have the four-digit code memorized.

Mashable

Telegram founder Pavel Durov announced Wednesday that users on the chat app with personal accounts can now convert them into business accounts by paying a monthly fee. This gives users the ability to list information such as location and opening hours, which might be helpful for small cafes and shop owners.Some of the other features for business accounts involve organizing chats with color labels, using automatic greetings or away messages, and shortcuts for quick replies. On his channel, Durov said that Telegram plans to launch more business features this month including a way to integrate AI-powered chatbots for customer service.“Telegram Business accounts will be able to seamlessly add chatbots as their invisible secretaries to respond to all or certain chats. With AI, these chatbots can bring customer service automation to an entirely new level,” he said.Telegram is trying to compete with WhatsApp Business, which crossed the mark of 200 million monthly active users last year, with these new features. However, a major differentiation is that Telegram is charging a subscription fee to use business features, while WhatsApp relies on the type of conversations and frequency of chats to generate revenue.Meta-owned WhatsApp introduced many business-facing features last year including personalized customer messages and flows to complete e-commerce transactions without leaving the app.Over the last two years, Telegram has focused on increasing its business through premium subscriptions, self-custodial crypto wallet, and auction of premium usernames. The chat app, which has more than 800 million users across the globe, is also planning to launch its ad platform this month with a revenue-sharing program for channels.

Telegram now lets users to convert personal accounts to business accounts | TechCrunch. Telegram founder Pavel Durov announced Wednesday that users on the chat app with personal accounts can now convert them into business accounts by paying a monthly fee.

TechCrunch

Telegram now lets users to convert personal accounts to business accounts

Threat actors have been leveraging fake websites advertising popular video conferencing software such as Google Meet, Skype, and Zoom to deliver a variety of malware targeting both Android and Windows users since December 2023."The threat actor is distributing Remote Access Trojans (RATs) including SpyNote RAT for Android platforms, and NjRAT and DCRat for Windows systems," Zscaler ThreatLabz researchers said.The spoofed sites are in Russian and are hosted on domains that closely resemble their legitimate counterparts, indicating that the attackers are using typosquatting tricks to lure prospective victims into downloading the malware.They also come with options to download the app for Android, iOS, and Windows platforms. While clicking on the button for Android downloads an APK file, clicking on the Windows app button triggers the download of a batch script.The malicious batch script is responsible for executing a PowerShell script, which, in turn, downloads and executes the remote access trojan.Currently, there is no evidence that the threat actor is targeting iOS users, given that clicking on the button for the iOS app takes the user to the legitimate Apple App Store listing for Skype."A threat actor is using these lures to distribute RATs for Android and Windows, which can steal confidential information, log keystrokes, and steal files," the researchers said.The development comes as the AhnLab Security Intelligence Center (ASEC) revealed that a new malware dubbed WogRAT targeting both Windows and Linux is abusing a free online notepad platform called aNotepad as a covert vector for hosting and retrieving malicious code.It's said to be active from at least late 2022, targeting Asian countries like China, Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore, among others. That said, it's currently not known how the malware is distributed in the wild."When WogRAT is run for the first time, it collects basic information of the infected system and sends them to the C&C server," ASEC said. "The malware then supports commands such as executing commands, sending results, downloading files, and uploading these files."It also coincides with high-volume phishing campaigns orchestrated by a financially motivated cybercriminal actor known as TA4903 to steal corporate credentials and likely follow them with business email compromise (BEC) attacks. The adversary has been active since at least 2019, with the activities intensifying post mid-2023."TA4903 routinely conducts campaigns spoofing various U.S. government entities to steal corporate credentials," Proofpoint said. "The actor also spoofs organizations in various sectors including construction, finance, healthcare, food and beverage, and others."Attack chains involve the use of QR codes (aka quishing) for credential phishing as well as relying on the EvilProxy adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) phishing kit to bypass two-factor authentication (2FA) protections.Once a target mailbox is compromised, the threat actor has been observed searching for information relevant to payments, invoices, and bank information, with the ultimate goal of hijacking existing email threads and performing invoice fraud.Phishing campaigns have also functioned as a conduit for other malware families like DarkGate, Agent Tesla, and Remcos RAT, the last of which leverages steganographic decoys to drop the malware on compromised hosts.State of AI in the Cloud 2024Find out what 150,000+ cloud accounts revealed about the AI surge.Goodbye, Atlassian Server. Goodbye… Backups?Protect your data on Atlassian Cloud from disaster with daily backups and on-demand restores.Take Action Fast with Censys Search for Security TeamsStay ahead of advanced threat actors with best-in-class threat intelligence from Censys Search.Find out what 150,000+ cloud accounts revealed about the AI surge.From Humans to Bots: Every Identity in Your SaaS App Could Be a Backdoor for Cybercriminals.Learn how to protect your innovations from emerging security threats with expert advice.Sign up for free and start receiving your daily dose of cybersecurity news, insights and tips.

Watch Out for Spoofed Zoom, Skype, Google Meet Sites Delivering Malware. Once a target mailbox is compromised, the threat actor has been observed searching for information relevant to payments, invoices, and bank information, with the ultimate goal of hijacking existing email threads and performing invoice fraud

The Hacker News

Watch Out for Spoofed Zoom, Skype, Google Meet Sites Delivering Malware

Sed ut perspiciatis unde. The Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has announced £3.4 billion of new investment in NHS digitisation in the Spring Budget.The NHS in England, which had been facing real-term cuts due to inflation, will also receive a £2.5 billion day-to-day funding boost for 2024/25.The digital investment will come as part of a £3.4 billion in capital investment over the forecast period “to help unlock £35 billion in productivity savings over the next Parliament by harnessing new technology like AI and cutting admin workloads”, as part of new Public Sector Productivity Plan with the Treasury to deliver better public services.According to the government The NHS will receive £3.4 billion as part of this over the forecast period – the three years to 2028/29 – doubling investment in digital transformation.Commenting on the Spring Budget statement, Sarah Woolnough, Chief Executive of The King’s Fund, said: “The government is right to acknowledge that outdated IT and technology is one of the barriers to NHS productivity. The announcement of £3.4 billion capital investment over three years is a welcome first step to increasing efficiency.”As Digital Health exclusively reported in November 2023 national funds for frontline digitisation were slashed earlier this year as NHS England was told to claw back £1 billion pounds of costs of strike action.The new investment will, it is claimed, “reduce the 13 million hours lost by doctors every year because of old IT” and help “deliver test results faster for 130,000 patients a year thanks to AI-fitted MRI scanners that help doctors read results more quickly and accurately”.Speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday Hunt said the investment would unlock £35 billion in productivity savings across the NHS over the course of the next parliament.“As a result of this funding, all hospitals will use electronic patient records, making the NHS the largest digitally integrated healthcare system in the world,” said Hunt.In his Budget response Labour leader Sir Kier Starmer, however, reminded Hunt that as Secretary of State for Health ten years ago, he’d promised to make the NHS paperless by 2018, a target that had come and gone unmet.More recently Sajid Javid promised to ensure all NHS hospital trusts have electronic patient records by the end of 2025.  The target was declared unachievable by the Government’s Infrastructure and Projects Authority in July 2023.Hunt said that under a new agreement the Treasury will prioritise digital projects, with a “ground-breaking” agreement with the NHS for digitisation to make services “more efficient”.As a result of the agreement the Treasury will prioritise proposals that “deliver annual savings within five years equivalent to the total cost of the investment”. Source link  Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.By using this form you agree with the storage and handling of your data. * Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() );Tech dedicated news site to equip you with all tech related stuff.I agree that my submitted data is being collected and stored.✉️ Send us an emailTechToday © 2024. All Rights Reserved.TechToday.co is a technology blog and review site specializing in providing in-depth insights into the latest news and trends in the technology sector.TechToday © 2024. All Rights Reserved.Be the first to know the latest updatesI agree that my submitted data is being collected and stored.

Spring Budget includes £3.4billion extra investment in NHS digitisation. The digital investment will come as part of a £3.4 billion in capital investment over the forecast period “to help unlock £35 billion in productivity savings over the next Parliament by harnessing new technology like AI and cutting admin workloads”, as part of new Public Sector Productivity Plan with the Treasury to deliver better public services. Be the first to know the latest updatesI agree that my submitted data is being collected and stored.

TechToday

Spring Budget includes £3.4billion extra investment in NHS digitisation

Sed ut perspiciatis unde. Meta is revamping how Facebook recommends videos across Reels, Groups, and the main Facebook Feed, by using AI to power its video recommendation algorithm, Facebook head Tom Alison revealed on Wednesday. The world’s largest social network has already switched Reels, its TikTok competitor, to the new engine, and plans to use it in all places within Facebook that show video — the main Facebook feed and Groups — as part of a “technology roadmap” through 2026, Alison said at a Morgan Stanley tech conference in San Francisco.Meta has made competing with TikTok a top priority ever since the app, which serves up vertical video clips and is known for its powerful recommendation engine that seems to know exactly what will keep users hooked, started exploding in popularity in the US in the last few years. When Facebook tested the new AI-powered recommendation engine with Reels, watch time went up by roughly 8 to 10 percent, Alison revealed. “So what that told us was this new model architecture is learning from the data much more efficiently than the previous generation,” Alison said. “So that was like a good sign that says, OK, we’re on the right track.”So far, Facebook used different video recommendation engines for Reels, Groups, and the Facebook feed. But after seeing success with Reels, the company plans to use the same AI-powered engine across all these products.“Instead of just powering Reels, we’re working on a project to power our entire video ecosystem with this single model, and then can we add our Feed recommendation product to also be served by this model,” Alison said. “If we get this right, not only will the recommendations be kind of more engaging and more relevant, but we think the responsiveness of them can improve as well.”The move is a part of Meta’s strategy to infuse AI into all its products after the technology exploded with the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT at the end of 2022. The company is spending billions of dollars to buy up hundreds of thousands of pricey NVIDIA GPUs used to train and power AI models, Zuckerberg said in a video earlier this year.Source link  Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.By using this form you agree with the storage and handling of your data. * Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() );Tech dedicated news site to equip you with all tech related stuff.I agree that my submitted data is being collected and stored.✉️ Send us an emailTechToday © 2024. All Rights Reserved.TechToday.co is a technology blog and review site specializing in providing in-depth insights into the latest news and trends in the technology sector.TechToday © 2024. All Rights Reserved.Be the first to know the latest updatesI agree that my submitted data is being collected and stored.

Facebook is using AI to supercharge the algorithm that recommends videos to you. When Facebook tested the new AI-powered recommendation engine with Reels, watch time went up by roughly 8 to 10 percent, Alison revealed.. All Rights Reserved.TechToday.co is a technology blog and review site specializing in providing in-depth insights into the latest news and trends in the technology sector

Facebook is using AI to supercharge the algorithm that recommends videos to you

By  Emilia David, a reporter who covers AI. Prior to joining The Verge, she covered the intersection between technology, finance, and the economy.A federal grand jury has indicted a Google engineer, Linwei Ding, aka Leon Ding, for allegedly stealing trade secrets around Google’s AI chip software and hardware on March 5th, before he was arrested Wednesday morning in Newark, California. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a statement that Ding “stole from Google over 500 confidential files containing AI trade secrets while covertly working for China-based companies seeking an edge in the AI technology race.”  Much of the stolen data allegedly revolves around Google’s tensor processing unit (TPU) chips. Google’s TPU chips power many of its AI workloads and, in conjunction with Nvidia GPUs, can train and run AI models like Gemini. The company has also offered access to the chips through partner platforms like Hugging Face. Software designs for both the v4 and v6 TPU chips, hardware and software specifications for GPUs used in Google’s data center, and designs for Google’s machine learning workloads in data centers are among the allegedly stolen files. Amid a growing arms race around AI technology and US government efforts to ban China from accessing chips built for AI, some Chinese companies have turned to local chip producers to power AI platforms. Late last year, intelligence chiefs of the so-called Five Eyes alliance of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand warned US tech companies about companies in China potentially stealing intellectual property related to AI, quantum computing, and robotics. The government accuses Ding of transferring those files to a personal Google Cloud account between May 2022 and May 2023. He allegedly did so “by copying data from the Google source files into the Apple Notes application on his Google-issued MacBook laptop,” and then converting them from Apple Notes to PDFs to avoid detection by Google’s “data loss prevention systems.” The government says that less than a month after he began stealing files, a Chinese machine learning company named Rongshu offered to make him CTO, he flew to China for five months to raise funds for the company, and he subsequently founded and led a machine learning startup named Zhisuan, all while still working for Google. He resigned from Google in December 2023 — and reportedly booked a one-way ticket to Beijing scheduled to depart two days past his end date — after the company began asking him about his uploads.The DOJ also claims that in December 2023, he allegedly faked being present at Google’s office in the US by having another employee scan his badge at the door while he was actually in China. Ding has been charged with four counts of theft of trade secrets, so he’s facing up to ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each count if convicted. / Sign up for Verge Deals to get deals on products we've tested sent to your inbox daily.The Verge is a vox media network© 2024 Vox Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved

Google engineer indicted over allegedly stealing AI trade secrets for China. The government says that less than a month after he began stealing files, a Chinese machine learning company named Rongshu offered to make him CTO, he flew to China for five months to raise funds for the company, and he subsequently founded and led a machine learning startup named Zhisuan, all while still working for Google.