An Australian living in the UK has claimed for years to be the Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto. Despite a court ruling against him, he continued to file baseless lawsuits with billion-dollar claims and has now been found guilty of contempt of a UK court. He is currently in hiding.
There is much work ahead for EU data protection authorities due to AI models. Privacy activists are increasing pressure on supervisory authorities, alleging that none of the major AI companies comply with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
There have been rumors and speculations about the identity of Bitcoin’s creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, for years. Since 2016, Australian computer scientist Craig Wright, living in the UK, has claimed that he and a deceased business partner created the cryptocurrency and wrote the famous whitepaper. They supposedly mined hundreds of thousands of Bitcoins, now worth billions of euros. In March of this year, the High Court of England and Wales ruled after a five-week trial that Wright is not the Bitcoin creator. Despite this, Wright continued to harass over a hundred people with billion-dollar claims. Because he did not stop, he was convicted of contempt of a UK court and is now in hiding.
The use of large AI language models trained with vast amounts of personal information without consent is a significant data protection issue. Although EU data protection authorities have outlined a framework, civil society organizations and various associations are puzzled about the future of AI models and related assistants and bots in the EU. Privacy activists are now increasing pressure on regulatory bodies. Following a submission from Privacy International to the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), claiming that AI models like GPT, Gemini, or Claude cannot uphold data subjects’ rights, the EDPB has issued a statement on AI models.
About two years ago, an episode of the ZDF magazine “Royal” labeled the then-President of the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), Arne Schönbohm, as a security risk. In the “Cyberclown” episode, moderator Jan Böhmermann accused Schönbohm of having improper ties to Russian intelligence circles. Following the October 2022 broadcast, Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser publicly questioned the CDU-affiliated BSI President, who subsequently lost his position. Schönbohm has now achieved a legal victory in the first instance before the Munich I Regional Court.
Apple’s intelligence feature is under criticism. In a high-profile murder case of a US insurance executive, Apple’s language model generated a factually incorrect message suggesting the suspect shot himself. The British BBC contacted Apple after the misleading headline was summarized by the company’s AI function. Apple has yet to publicly respond. The media organization Reporters Without Borders is urging Apple to “act responsibly” and remove the feature from its operating system.
To advance electromobility, powerful and durable energy storage solutions are sought. Two different approaches are competing in battery research. Solid-state batteries were long considered the future for electric cars, potentially eliminating range anxiety. Solid-state cells focus on metallic components, using lithium instead of metal oxides, resulting in high energy density. However, production is complicated. Now, another technology is gaining attention: conventional lithium-ion cells with a silicon anode, offering several advantages.
The popular open-source platform Home Assistant is getting hardware additions: a voice assistant to control smart home devices by voice.
By the end of the year, many AVM devices will receive the current FritzOS 8, including the Fritzsmart Gateway.
The introduction of Apple Intelligence in China poses a significant challenge for Apple, with reported talks with potential partners ByteDance and Tencent.
Bootable backups, once reliable, are now problematic. The latest macOS seems to have made the issue worse.
The Tibber price frame project from Make 4/24 is now easier to implement, with a LilyGo ePaper display eliminating the need for soldering.
Automaker Kia is launching a top version of the SUV EV9. As a GT, the large family car delivers 374 kW and accelerates to 100 km/h in 4.6 seconds.
A US accessory manufacturer aims to make battery changes for the AirTag unnecessary with a new device. The TimeCapsule costs 20 US dollars and lasts up to ten years.
After Christmas, iPhones with a Lightning port will be removed from Apple’s offerings, though they may remain available in stores for longer.
Nearly half a million Hopper GPUs are going to Microsoft in 2024, with Chinese companies also leading the way.
In our podcast Christmas episode, we discuss notable cases of customer exploitation over 20 years of “Vorsicht, Kunde” and offer tips for dealing with service issues.