Making the Smallest and Dumbest LLM with Extreme Quantization
The reason why large language models are called ‘large’ is not because of how smart they are, but as a factor of their sheer size in bytes. At billions of parameters at four bytes each, they pose a serious challenge when it comes to not just their size on disk, but also in RAM, specifically the RAM of your videocard (VRAM). Reducing this immense size, as is done routinely for the smaller pretrained models which one can download for local use, involves quantization. This process is explained and demonstrated by [Codeically], who takes it to its logical extreme: reducing what could be a GB-sized model down to a mere 63 MB by reducing the bits per parameter.
While you can offload a model, i.e. keep only part of it in VRAM and the rest in system RAM, this massively impacts performance. An alternative is to use fewer bits per weight in the model, called ‘compression’, which typically involves reducing 16-bit floating point to 8-bit, reducing memory usage by about 75%. Going lower than this is generally deemed unadvisable.
Using GPT-2 as the base, it was trained with a pile of internet quotes, creating parameters with a very anemic 4-bit integer size. After initially manually zeroing the weights made the output too garbled, the second attempt without the zeroing did somewhat produce usable output before flying off the rails. Yet it did this with a 63 MB model at 78 tokens a second on just the CPU, demonstrating that you can create a pocket-sized chatbot to spout nonsense even without splurging on expensive hardware.
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Cyber security e geopolitica nell’era dell’AI: le lezioni dal Cybertech Europe 2025
@Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁)
L'intreccio tra AI, cybersecurity e geopolitica ridefinisce la sicurezza nazionale. Dal Cybertech Europe 2025 emergono lezioni cruciali: attacchi continui, necessità di Cyber Command e resilienza come priorità. Ma la vera sfida è sensibilizzare
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Keep An Eye On Your Air-Cooled Engine
There was a time, long ago, when passenger vehicles used to be much simpler than they are today. There were many downsides of this era, safety chief among them, but there were some perks as well. They were in general cheaper to own and maintain, and plenty could be worked on with simple tools. There’s perhaps no easier car to work on than an air-cooled Volkswagen, either, but for all its simplicity there are a number of modern features owners add to help them with these antiques. [Pegor] has created his own custom engine head temperature monitor for these vehicles.
As one could imagine with an air-cooled engine, keeping an eye on the engine temperature is critical to ensuring their longevity but the original designs omitted this feature. There are some off-the-shelf aftermarket solutions but this custom version has a few extra features that others don’t. It’s based on a ATMega32u4 microcontroller and will work with any K-type thermocouple, and thanks to its open nature can use a wide array of displays. [Pegor] chose one to blend in with the rest of the instrumentation on this classic VW. The largest issue that needed to be sorted out was around grounding, but a DC-DC converter created an isolated power supply for the microcontroller, allowing the thermocouple to be bonded to the grounded engine without disrupting operation of the microcontroller.
The finished product looks excellent and does indeed blend in to the dashboard more than the off-the-shelf temperature monitor that was in use before. The only thing that is planned for future versions is a way to automatically dim the display when the headlights are on, as [Pegor] finds it a little bright at night. We also enjoy seeing anything that helps these antiques stay on the road more reliably as their modern descendants don’t have any of the charm or engineering of these classics.
Il copione è sempre lo stesso: ti chiamano, dicono che sono “incaricati dalla Guardia di Finanza”, ti dicono che hai un conto trading sequestrato e ti propongono soluzioni (tra cui: versare 199€).
Usano termini tecnici, decreti, nomi di leggi — tutto per creare panico e credibilità.
Curiosità: quando ho detto “ok, pago” mi passano subito un’altra voce, che finge di essere di Milano, cerca di rassicurarmi con accento diverso e tecnicismi.
Quando però rifiuto di dare i dati della carta, rimette l’accento dell’Est e riparte con pressioni e minacce velate.
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motore per valvola di zona riscaldamento - Questo è un post automatico da FediMercatino.it
Prezzo: 60 €
motore 230V per valvola di zona tipo rbm per impianti di riscaldamento
consegna brevi manu in Ferrara e provincia altrimenti spedisco
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Inaugurazione della sede di Trieste
@Politica interna, europea e internazionale
Rassegna Stampa Ansa Il Piccolo TeleQuattro
L'articolo Inaugurazione della sede di Trieste proviene da Fondazione Luigi Einaudi.
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PCOfficina al Linux Day 2025: vieni a trovarci!
pcofficina.org/pcofficina-al-l…
Segnalato da PCOfficina in via Pimentel 5 a #Milano e pubblicato sulla comunità Lemmy
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A Logical Clock That Pretends To Be Analog
[kcraske] had a simple plan for their clock build. They wanted a digital clock that was inspired by the appearance of an analog one, and they only wanted to use basic logic, with no microprocessors involved. Ultimately, they achieved just that.
Where today you might build a clock based around a microcontroller and a real-time clock module, or by querying a network time server, [kcraske] is doing all the timekeeping in simpler hardware. The clock is based around a bunch of 74-series logic chips, a CD4060 binary counter IC, and a 32.768 KHz crystal, which is easy to divide down to that critical 1 Hz. Time is displayed on the rings of LEDs around the perimeter of the clock—12 LEDs for hours, and 60 each for minutes and seconds. Inside the rings, the ICs that make up the clock are arranged in a pleasant radial configuration.
It’s a nice old-school build that reminds us not everything needs to run at 200 MHz or hook up to the internet to be worthwhile. We’ve featured some other fun old-school clocks of late, too. Meanwhile, if you’re cooking up your own arcane timepieces, we’d love to hear about it on the tipsline.
2025 Component Abuse Challenge: Nail Your Next Decal
One of the hardest parts of a project — assuming it makes it that far — is finishing it up in an aesthetically pleasing manner. As they say, the devil is in the details, wearing Prada. Apparently the devil also has an excellent manicure, because [Tamas Feher] has come up with a way to introduce incredibly detailed decals (down to 0.1 mm) in cheap, repeatable fashion, using a technique borrowed from the local nail salon. 
For those who aren’t in to nail art (which, statistically speaking, is likely to be most of you) there is a common “stamping” technique for putting details onto human fingernails. Nail polish is first applied to voids on a stencil-like plate, then picked up by a smooth silicone stamper, which is then pressed against the nail, reproducing the image that was on the stencil. If that’s clear as mud, there’s a quick demo video embedded bellow. There’s a common industrial technique that works the same way, which is actually where [Tamas] got the idea. For nail salons and at-home use, there are a huge variety of these stencils commercially available for nail art, but that doesn’t mean you’re likely to find what you want for your project’s front panel.
[Tamas] points out that by using a resin printer to produce the stencil plate, any arbitrary text or symbol can be used. Your logo, labels, whatever. By printing flat to the build plate, you can take advantage of the full resolution of the resin printer — even an older 2 K model would more than suffice here, while higher res like the new 16 K models become the definition of overkill. The prints go quick, as they don’t need any structural thickness: just enough to hold together coming off of the plate, plus enough extra to hold your designs at a 0.15 mm inset. That doesn’t seem very thick, but remember that this only has to hold enough nail polish to be picked up by the stamper.
[Tamas] cautions you have to work fast, as the thin layer of nail polish picked up by the stamper can dry in seconds. You’ll want plenty of nail polish remover (or plain acetone) on hand to clean the stamper once you’ve finished, as well as your stencil. [Tamas] cautions you’ll want to clean it immediately if you ever want to use it again. Good to know.
While this is going outside of the nail art kit’s comfort zone, it might not quite be abuse. It is however a very useful technique to add to our ever-growing quiver of how to make front panels. Besides, we don’t specify you have to literally make components suffer; we just want to see what wild and wonderful substitutions and improvisations you all come up with.
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Consiglio non richiesto agli avversari della Meloni
@Giornalismo e disordine informativo
articolo21.org/2025/10/consigl…
Consiglio non richiesto agli avversari della Meloni: evitare di definirla come cortigiana, cheerleader e in altri modi irrispettosi. Infatti, queste espressioni sono sontuose vie di fuga per la Premier, che le
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Libertà, stampa e cultura. Un continuo attentato
@Giornalismo e disordine informativo
articolo21.org/2025/10/liberta…
Forse una coincidenza, ma il 16 ottobre è lo stesso giorno dell’attentato mortale a Dafne Caruana Galizia, a Malta. Nello stesso giorno di ottobre l’attentato a Sigfrido Ranucci. Pochi hanno rilevato la coincidenza. Se tale è.
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Il nuovo video di Pasta Grannies: youtube.com/shorts/HWdv5NUtNVU
@Cucina e ricette
(HASHTAG)
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Finalmente cestini della munnezza abbinati alle insegne de Roma!
cedolare secca
Affitto villetta sul Trasimeno, chi a vuole come affitto lungo?
CICI, MAI SENTITO NOMINARE?
@Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁)
ByteDance, l’azienda madre di TikTok, ha creato quello che è attualmente il chatbot, il modello di intelligenza artificiale, più popolare in Cina: “Doubao”. Presentato nel 2023, con un successo quasi istantaneo è assurto ai vertici del mercato dell'intelligenza artificiale generativa del Paese di Mezzo, raggiungendo oltre 157 milioni di utenti attivi al
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The first application of enteral ventilation—aka breathing through the bum—to humans proved the technique is safe.#TheAbstract
Breathing Through Our Butts Declared Safe After First Human Trial
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Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week.Hold onto your butts, because one day you might be breathing through them.
Scientists have tested out enteral ventilation—a possible method of administering oxygen with a liquid delivered through the rectum that is then absorbed into the intestines—in humans for the first time. The trial demonstrated that this method of ventilation is safe and “paves the way for future studies to see if this technique can help patients with respiratory failure,” according to a study published on Monday in the journal Med.
“Enteral ventilation is not meant to replace mechanical ventilators or ECMO, but rather to serve as a complementary oxygenation route,” said Takanori Takebe, an expert in organoid medicine with appointments at both Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and the University of Osaka, in an email to 404 Media. The technique proves a backdoor “to provide partial oxygen support while allowing the lungs to rest,” he added.
But while this method is safe for humans, it hasn’t been experimentally shown to work on patients experiencing respiratory distress yet. If future trials show that enteral ventilation is also effective, it could potentially help newborns and premature infants who are struggling to establish lung function after birth, aid patients with severe respiratory failure or Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), or be applied in other situations in which temporary oxygen supplementation is needed.
“In such cases, intestinal oxygen delivery could serve as a ‘bridge’ therapy until normal respiration or full ventilatory support can be established,” Takebe said.
A figure outlining the first enteral ventilation trial in humans. Image: Fujii, Tasuku et al.
The team previously published a study in 2021 that showed enteral ventilation was effective in ameliorating respiratory failure in rats, mice, and pigs. This initial trial in humans involved 27 healthy male volunteers, who received a liquid called perfluorodecalin through their rectums in an enema-like process.Since the trial was only intended to determine the safety of the procedure, rather than probe its efficacy in humans, the perfluorodecalin was not oxygenated and none of the volunteers were experiencing any respiratory distress during the course of the study.
“The results aligned closely with what we had anticipated from our preclinical data,” Takebe said. “We found that intrarectal administration of perfluorodecalin up to 1,000 mL was safe and well tolerated, with only mild and transient gastrointestinal symptoms such as bloating.”
“The next phase will involve testing ‘oxygenated’ perfluorodecalin (O₂-PFD) in patients with hypoxemia to evaluate actual oxygen transfer efficacy,” he added. “We are currently planning a Phase II trial in collaboration with clinical partners in Japan and the U.S.”
Takebe and his colleagues were inspired to develop this roundabout route by aquatic species, such as loaches, which absorb oxygen through their intestines to survive in low-oxygen environments. While the idea of rectally administering perfluorodecalin is relatively new, the use of oxygenated liquid for ventilation dates back decades. It even shows up in James Cameron’s 1989 thriller The Abyss, which includes a real scene of a rat breathing in a tank of liquid perfluorocarbon.
The technique may prove to be an effective means to alleviate respiratory distress in humans, but it’s also inspired its fair share of jokes because, well, it is about butt breath, after all.
In 2024, for instance, Takebe’s team received the Ig Nobel Prize, a satirical award that honors “achievements so surprising that they make people laugh, then think,” according to its website. Fellow Ig Nobel awardees include a team that levitated a frog in midair and another that investigated why pregnant women aren’t constantly tipping over.
“Receiving the Ig Nobel Prize was both humorous and humbling,” Takebe said. “It was a reminder that truly unconventional ideas often begin at the boundary between curiosity and skepticism.”
“While the prize is lighthearted in tone, I do believe it serves a serious purpose, encouraging the public to stay curious and to appreciate how even seemingly odd scientific questions can lead to meaningful innovations,” he concluded. “What began as a playful concept is now moving closer to a viable medical technology.”
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Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week.The Ig Nobel Prize: Levitating frogs, constipated scorpions, and other science that makes you laugh then think - American Chemical Society
The Ig Nobel Prize celebrates discoveries that are unusual and imaginative that might not make it into a more traditional research journal.American Chemical Society
È uscito il nuovo numero di The Post Internazionale. Da oggi potete acquistare la copia digitale
@Politica interna, europea e internazionale
È uscito il nuovo numero di The Post Internazionale. Il magazine, disponibile già da ora nella versione digitale sulla nostra App, e da domani, venerdì 24 ottobre, in tutte le edicole, propone ogni due settimane inchieste e approfondimenti sugli affari e il potere
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Il giornalista Sigfrido #Ranucci, conduttore di Report, ha denunciato pubblicamente un presunto tentativo di «punire» la sua trasmissione attraverso l’uso politico del Garante per la privacy. «In questi giorni sto ricevendo solidarietà bipartisan, ma si sta rivelando ipocrita — ha detto — perché da una parte mi si esprime vicinanza, dall’altra qualcuno sta armando il Garante per colpire Report e dare un segnale esemplare ad altre trasmissioni». Ranucci ha parlato da remoto nel corso di una conferenza stampa al Parlamento europeo, organizzata dall’eurodeputato del Partito democratico Sandro Ruotolo.
Nota del canale: deregittimare le autorità indipendenti non è mai una buona idea. La politica non attende altro. Se Ranucci dispone di informazioni sul fatto che il #GarantePrivacy si sia prestato un uso politico del suo ruolo, dovrebbe immediatamente informare le autorità giudiziaria. L'autorità per la protezione dei dati personali si muove nell'ambito delle proprie prerogative, talvolta d'ufficio. E quindi sempre possibile che un reclamo al garante venga fatto sulla base di motivazioni politiche, ma viene sempre vagliato in base alla procedibilità.
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Tutelare i settori critici e promuovere la cultura degli investimenti in sicurezza. Cosa farà la Fondazione Praexidia
@Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo
La sicurezza economica e industriale italiana passa oggi per la tutela dei settori strategici e da una gestione più consapevole delle tecnologie critiche. La pandemia e la guerra in
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Nuovo stop al processo Regeni: gli atti vanno alla Consulta
@Giornalismo e disordine informativo
articolo21.org/2025/10/nuovo-s…
La Corte d’Assise di Roma ha deciso di sospendere il processo per la morte di Giulio Regeni, disponendo l’invio degli atti alla Corte Costituzionale. La decisione è legata a una questione di
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trump è riuscito a fare un danno serio... apparire come debole e incostante, e quindi in definitiva inefficace. la usa politica ondivaga questo produce: un danno di immagine. ma non è utile alla nostra causa. non c'è da rallegrarsene. bene o male al momento dipendiamo ancora noi europei dalla deterrenza usa. e certo pacifismo è utile solo a putin.
An analysis of how tools to make non-consensual sexually explicit deepfakes spread online, from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, shows X and search engines surface these sites easily.#Deepfakes #Socialmedia
New Research Shows Deepfake Harassment Tools Spread on Social Media and Search Engines
A new analysis of synthetic intimate image abuse (SIIA) found that the tools for making non-consensual, sexually explicit deepfakes are easily discoverable all over social media and through simple searches on Google and Bing.Research published by the counter-extremism organization Institute for Strategic Dialogue shows how tools for creating non-consensual deepfakes spread across the internet. They analyzed 31 websites for SIIA tools, and found that they received a combined 21 million visits a month, with up to four million visits in one month.
Chiara Puglielli and Anne Craanen, the authors of the research paper, used SimilarWeb to identify a common group of sites that shared content, audiences, keywords and referrals. They then used the social media monitoring tool Brandwatch to find mentions of those sites and tools on X, Reddit, Bluesky, YouTube, Tumblr, public pages on Instagram and Facebook, forums, blogs and review sites, according to the paper. “We found 410,592 total mentions of the keywords between 9 June 2020 and 3 July 2025, and used Brandwatch’s ability to separate mentions by source in order to find which sources hosted the highest volumes of mentions,” they wrote.
The easiest place to find SIIA tools was through simple web searches. “Searches on Google, Yahoo, and Bing all yielded at least one result leading the user to SIIA technology within the first 20 results when searching for ‘deepnude,’ ‘nudify,’ and ‘undress app,’” the authors wrote. Last year, 404 Media saw that Google was also advertising these apps in search results. But Bing surfaces the tools most readily: “In the case of Bing, the first results for all three searchers were SIIA tools.” These weren’t counting advertisements on the search engines that the websites would have paid for, but were organic search results surfaced by the engines’ crawlers and indexing.
X was another massively popular way these tools spread, they found: “Of 410,592 total mentions between June 2020 and July 2025, 289,660 were on X, accounting for more than 70 percent of all activity.” A lot of these were bots. “A large volume of traffic appeared to be inorganic, based on the repetitive style of the usernames, the uniformity of posts, and the uniformity of profile pictures,” Craanen told 404 Media. “Nevertheless, this activity remains concerning, as its volume is likely to attract new users to these tools, which can be employed for activities that are illegal in several contexts.”
One major spike in mentions of the tools on social media happened in early 2023 on Tumblr, when a woman posted about her experience being a target of sexual harassment from those very same tools. As targets of malicious deepfakes have said over and over again, the price of speaking up about one’s own harassment, or even objecting to the harassment of others, is the risk of drawing more attention and harassment to themselves.
‘I Want to Make You Immortal:’ How One Woman Confronted Her Deepfakes Harasser
“After discovering this content, I’m not going to lie… there are times it made me not want to be around any more either,” she said. “I literally felt buried.”404 MediaSamantha Cole
Another spike on X in 2023 was likely the result of bot advertisements for a single SIIA tool, Craanen said, and the spike was a result of those bots launching. X has rules against “unwanted sexual conduct and graphic objectification” and “inauthentic media,” but the platform remains one of the most significant places where tools for making that content are disseminated and advertised.Apps and sites for making malicious deepfakes have never been more common or easier to find. There have been several incidents where schoolchildren have used “undress” apps on their classmates, including last year when a Washington state high school was rocked by students using AI to take photos from other children’s Instagram accounts and “undress” around seven of their underage classmates, which police characterized as a possible sex crime against children. In 2023, police arrested two middle schoolers for allegedly creating and sharing AI-generated nude images of their 12 and 13 year old classmates, and police reports showed the preteens used an application to make the images.
A recent report from the Center for Democracy and Technology found that 40 percent of students and 29 percent of teachers said they know of an explicit deepfake depicting people associated with their school being shared in the past school year.
Laws About Deepfakes Can’t Leave Sex Workers Behind
As lawmakers propose federal laws about preventing or regulating nonconsensual AI generated images, they can’t forget that there are at least two people in every deepfake.404 MediaSamantha Cole
The “Tools to Address Known Exploitation by Immobilizing Technological Deepfakes on Websites and Networks” (TAKE IT DOWN) Act, passed earlier this year, requires platforms to report and remove synthetic sexual abuse material, and after years of state-by-state legislation around deepfake harassment is the first federal-level law to attempt to confront the problem. But critics of that law have said it carries a serious risk of chilling legitimate speech online.“The persistence and accessibility of SIIA tools highlight the limits of current platform moderation and legal frameworks in addressing this form of abuse. Relevant laws relating to takedowns are not yet in full effect across the jurisdictions analysed, so the impact of this legislation cannot yet be fully known,” the ISD authors wrote. “However, the years of public awareness and regulatory discussion around these tools, combined with the ease with which users can still discover, share and deploy these technologies suggests that takedowns cannot be the only tool used to counter their proliferation. Instead, effective mitigation requires interventions at multiple points in the SIIA life cycle—disrupting not only distribution but also discovery and demand. Stronger search engine safeguards, proactive content-blocking on major platforms, and coordinated international policies are essential to reducing the scale of harm.”
Laws About Deepfakes Can’t Leave Sex Workers Behind
As lawmakers propose federal laws about preventing or regulating nonconsensual AI generated images, they can't forget that there are at least two people in every deepfake.Samantha Cole (404 Media)
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Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses usually include an LED that lights up when the user is recording other people. One hobbyist is charging a small fee to disable that light, and has a growing list of customers around the country.#Privacy #Meta
A $60 Mod to Meta’s Ray-Bans Disables Its Privacy-Protecting Recording Light
The sound of power tools screech in what looks like a workshop with aluminum bubble wrap insulation plastered on the walls and ceiling. A shirtless man picks up a can of compressed air from the workbench and sprays it. He’s tinkering with a pair of Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses. At one point he squints at a piece of paper, as if he is reading a set of instructions.Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses are the tech giant’s main attempt at bringing augmented reality to the masses. The glasses can take photos, record videos, and may soon use facial recognition to identify people. Meta’s glasses come with a bright LED light that illuminates whenever someone hits record. The idea is to discourage stalkers, weirdos, or just anyone from filming people without their consent. Or at least warn people nearby that they are. Meta has designed the glasses to not work if someone covers up the LED with tape.
That protection is what the man in the workshop is circumventing. This is Bong Kim, a hobbyist who modifies Meta Ray-Ban glasses for a small price. Eventually, after more screeching, he is successful: he has entirely disabled the white LED that usually shines on the side of Meta’s specs. The glasses’ functions remain entirely intact; the glasses look as-new. People just won’t know the wearer is recording.
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The app, which went viral before facing multiple data breaches, is currently unavailable on the Apple App Store.#tea #News
Apple Removes Women Dating Safety App from the App Store
Apple has removed Tea, the women’s safety app which went viral earlier this year before facing multiple data breaches, from the App Store.“This app is currently not available in your country or region,” a message on the Apple App Store currently says when trying to visit a link to the app.
Apple told 404 Media in an email it removed the app, as well as a copycat called TeaOnHer, for failing to meet the company’s terms of use around content moderation and user privacy. Apple also said it received an excessive number of complaints, including ones about the personal data of minors being posted in the apps.
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Do you know anything else about this removal? Do you work at Tea or did you used to? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.The company pointed to parts of its guidelines including that apps are not allowed to share someone’s personal data without their permission, and that apps need a mechanism for reporting objectionable content.
Randy Nelson, head of insights and media resources at app intelligence company Appfigures, first alerted 404 Media to the app’s removal.
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When Amazon Web Services went offline, people lost control of their cloud-connected smart beds, getting stuck in reclined positions or roasting with the heat turned all the way up.#News
The AWS Outage Bricked People’s $2,700 Smartbeds
Sleepers snoozing in Eight Sleep smartbeds had a bad night on Monday when a major outage of Amazon Web Services (AWS) caused their beds to malfunction. Some were left with the bed’s heat blasting, others were left in a sitting position and unable to recline. One woman said her bed went haywire and she had to unplug it from the wall.At around 3 a.m. ET on Monday morning the US-EAST-1 AWS cluster went down and screwed up internet connected services across the planet. Customers for the banks Lloyds and Halifax couldn’t access their accounts. United Airlines check-ins stopped functioning. And people who rest in Eight Sleep beds awoke to find their mattresses had turned against them.
An Eight Sleep bed is a smart bed that starts at $2,700. Users provide their own mattress and Eight Sleep sells them a mattress cover and a “Pod” that acts as the brain of the system. If customers want to spend a few thousand more, they can get a base that adjusts the position of the mattress, provides biometric sleeping data, and heats and cools the sleeper. Customers must also subscribe to a service for Eight Sleep, which ranges from $17 to $33 a month.
Eight Sleep runs on the cloud and when the servers go down or the customer’s internet goes out it bricks the bed. There’s no offline mode. Customers have complained about the lack of an offline mode for a while, but the AWS outage focused their rage.
playlist.megaphone.fm?p=TBIEA2…
“So apparently, when my internet goes down, my bed decides to go on strike too. A quick outage, and boom—no change in sleep position available, not even with manual taps,” one customer on r/eightsleep said. “Maybe consider giving people a grace period before their $5,000 bed locks them into the world’s most ergonomic sitting position. AWS attack or Internet down for a few hours should not brick my bed.”“Cloud only is unacceptable,” said another. “It’s 2025 there is no reason an internet or AWS server outage should impact your entire customer base's sleep—especially given the price tag of your product. Need EightSleep’s product team to opine here, your customer base demands it!”
“My pod is at +5 and I am sweating cuz I can’t turn it down or off,” said one comment.
Eight Sleep CEO Matteo Franceschetti apologized for the restless night in a statement posted to X. “The AWS outage has impacted some of our users since last night, disrupting their sleep. That is not the experience we want to provide and I want to apologize for it,” he said. He added that the company was restoring the bed’s features as AWS came back online and promised to outage-proof the Pods.
“Mine is still not working—it went super haywire and still seems to be turning on and off randomly with the inability to stop or control it. I had to unplug it,” ESPN host Victoria Arlen said on X, replying to Franceschetti. “I tried to get it going again and it’s still uncontrollable with the system turning on and off.”
Would be great if my bed wasn’t stuck in an inclined position due to an AWS outage. Cmon now
— Brandon (@Brandon25774008) October 21, 2025
“Would be great if my bed wasn’t stuck in an inclined position due to an AWS outage. Cmon now,” @Brandon25774008 said on X.The truth is that so long as Eight Sleep beds have to communicate with a server to function, they’re always in danger of dying. That point of failure means the beds could go out at any time leaving the people who paid $5,000 for a fancy bed with little recourse. And, of course, no company lasts forever.
“When ES eventually goes bust, our pods will be bricked,” one Redditor said. “The fact that the pods cannot be controlled when you don’t have the internet is diabolical. I wish I knew this before purchasing. This basically means in the possibly near future, all of our pods will be bricked […] ES need to get their heads out of their ass and for once do a pro customer change and introduce an ‘offline’ mode where we can connect to the pod directly and at the very least change the temperature. It has wifi, it can make its own SSID, just make it work ES.”
Pro-active ES users have already found one solution: jailbreak the Pod. The ES sub is—at a minimum—$200 a year, the Pod uploads multiple GBs of telemetry data to ES servers every month, and when the internet goes down the bed dies. If you must own a $5,000 bed that heats and cools you dynamically, shouldn’t you take full control of it?
There’s an active Discord and a Github for a group of Eight Sleep snoozers who’ve decided to do just that. According to the GitHub, the jailbreak “allows complete control of device WITHOUT requiring internet access. If you lose internet, your pod WILL NOT turn off, it will continue working!”
Data centers are vulnerable. Server clusters go down. As long as there is a single point of failure and your device is commuting back to a network out of your control, it’s a risk. We have allowed tech companies to mediate the most basic functions of our lives, from cooking to travel to sleep. The AWS and ES outage is a stark reminder that we should do what we can to limit the control these tech companies have over our lives.
“I’m continuously horrified that I inextricably linked my sleep and therefore health to a cloud provider’s reliability,” one person said in the comments on Reddit.
Food Delivery Robots Are Feeding Camera Footage to the LAPD, Internal Emails Show
Serve Robotics, which delivers food for Uber Eats, provided footage filmed by at least one of its robots to the LAPD as evidence in a criminal case. The emails show the robots, which are a constant sight in the city, can be used for surveillance.Jason Koebler (404 Media)
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Se le mafie virano sui social network: la "mafiosfera digitale"
Dai vicoli di Palermo o di Napoli alle piattaforme digitali: il crimine organizzato ha cambiato linguaggio, ma non natura. “Le mafie non sussurrano più, ma ballano, ridono su TikTok. Non nascondono il potere: lo esibiscono attraverso simboli, gesti e colonne sonore”, ha detto il presidente della Fondazione Magna Grecia Nino Foti. È questa la chiave di lettura emersa in un convegno che ha riunito a New York presso la Rappresentanza Permanente d’Italia presso le Nazioni Unite diplomatici, parlamentari e studiosi per riflettere su come la criminalità organizzata si reinventa nel mondo virtuale.
A introdurre i lavori è stato Gianluca Greco, vice rappresentante permanente d’Italia all’ONU, che ha delineato lo scenario globale: “Le reti criminali – ha spiegato – sfruttano la spinta digitale per ampliare il proprio raggio d’azione. Gli attacchi virtuali, il riciclaggio di denaro elettronico, la contraffazione online sono oggi strumenti abituali della criminalità transnazionale. Per questo la cooperazione internazionale resta imprescindibile.”
Greco ha ricordato l’adozione, lo scorso dicembre, della Convenzione delle Nazioni Unite contro la criminalità informatica, il primo trattato globale sul tema dopo vent’anni, firmato ufficialmente ad Hanoi il 25 e 26 ottobre. Un passo avanti fondamentale, ha sottolineato, “per creare uno spazio digitale sicuro, in cui i criminali siano realmente perseguibili, ma senza compromettere i diritti umani e la privacy.”
L’evento ha visto la partecipazione di un delegazione di alto livello dall’Italia composta dagli Onorevoli Chiara Colosimo, Presidente della Commissione Parlamentare Antimafia, Francesco Saverio Romano, Presidente della Commissione Parlamentare per la Semplificazione, e dal Procuratore Capo di Napoli, Nicola Gratteri, il quale proprio dalla sede delle Nazioni Unite ha lanciato un monito per la collaborazione tra tutti gli Stati per contrastare le mafie e le organizzazioni criminali, fenomeni oramai globali che sfruttano tecnologie e connessioni virtuali per propagare il loro raggio d’azione a livello internazionale. “Le mafie si sono globalizzate e digitalizzate. Nessuno Stato può combatterle da solo. Serve un’alleanza etica, giuridica e tecnologica tra le democrazie”, ha detto il magistrato.
Il convegno è andato oltre l’aspetto repressivo, spostando il focus sulla dimensione culturale del fenomeno. Nella cosiddetta mafiosfera, l’immagine sostituisce la parola, la violenza diventa intrattenimento, e il crimine si presenta come brand.
“Il contrasto alla mafia digitale – ha affermato Foti – non è solo una battaglia tecnologica, ma soprattutto educativa. Dobbiamo rendere contagiosa la legalità, usando i linguaggi dei giovani per restituire fascino alla giustizia e al bene comune.” Da qui l’appello a creare percorsi di alfabetizzazione digitale e laboratori di creatività civica che parlino la lingua dei social, ma per diffondere consapevolezza e responsabilità.
Un contributo scientifico decisivo è arrivato da Marcello Ravveduto, membro del comitato scientifico della Fondazione, che ha presentato la nuova mappa della “mafiosfera digitale”, frutto di una ricerca condotta con l’Università di Salerno su oltre 62.000 contenuti social. Lo studio identifica tre livelli: quello endogeno, con i profili legati direttamente a boss e clan; quello esogeno, popolato dai cosiddetti mafia lovers, utenti che rilanciano messaggi criminali in modo consapevole o meno; e quello interstiziale, dove i codici mafiosi si mescolano a moda, musica e linguaggi giovanili, normalizzando la violenza.
“Simboli come il leone, la catena o la clessidra – ha spiegato Ravveduto – diventano icone digitali del potere mafioso, usate come marchi d’identità e appartenenza. La mafia si racconta e si auto-promuove come un prodotto culturale.”
Da qui la proposta di un Atlante digitale antimafia, accessibile a insegnanti, giornalisti e magistrati, per decifrare le nuove forme di comunicazione criminale e restituire al pubblico una lettura critica dei messaggi veicolati online.
La delegazione italiana, accompagnata dal Presidente della Fondazione Magna Grecia, Nino Foti, è stata ricevuta dal Rappresentante permanente all’ONU, Ambasciatore Maurizio Massari, il quale ha ringraziato i partecipanti per avere voluto condividere nella sede delle Nazioni Unite, a beneficio della comunità internazionale, l’esperienza italiana a tutto campo nel contrasto alla criminalità organizzata, che abbraccia gli ambiti giudiziario, politico, giuridico-legislativo, economico, culturale, sociale, informatico-tecnologico. L’Ambasciatore ha ricordato che il 15 novembre prossimo, in occasione dei 25 anni dalla firma della Convenzione di Palermo, si celebrerà la Giornata internazionale per la prevenzione e la lotta contro tutte le forme di criminalità organizzata transnazionale, che – nelle parole di Massari – “costituirà l’occasione per ribadire l’impegno italiano nella lotta alle mafie e per ricordare le vittime e i servitori dello Stato che hanno dedicato la propria vita a combattere il crimine organizzato”.
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▶ Che senso ha continuare a suonare quando tutto intorno a te crolla?...
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▶ Il grande esperimento ipnocratico della letteratura italiana. Dietro Jianwei Xun c’è qualcun altro.
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Quantum Echoes, cosa potrebbe fare il super algoritmo di Google
L'articolo proviene da #StartMag e viene ricondiviso sulla comunità Lemmy @Informatica (Italy e non Italy 😁)
Google annuncia Quantum Echoes, un algoritmo per computer quantistici 13.000 volte più veloce dei supercomputer classici. Sviluppato sul chip Willow, il sistema è verificabile e potrebbe rivoluzionare la
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Leonardo, Airbus e Thales lanciano la sfida a SpaceX. Ecco l’intesa
@Notizie dall'Italia e dal mondo
“Alla fine, uscimmo a riveder le stelle”. Airbus, Leonardo e Thales hanno firmato un Memorandum of Understanding per unire le loro attività nel settore spaziale e dare vita a un nuovo colosso continentale. L’intesa segna la nascita di una società con 25.000 dipendenti, 6,5
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