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China-backed hackers stole a digital skeleton key allowing access to US government emails.

To recap, Microsoft disclosed in July that hackers it calls Storm-0558, which it believes are backed by China, “acquired” an email signing key that Microsoft uses to secure consumer email accounts like Outlook.com. The hackers used that digital skeleton key to break into both the personal and enterprise email accounts of government officials hosted by Microsoft. The hack is seen as a targeted espionage campaign aimed at snooping on the unclassified emails of U.S. government officials and diplomats, reportedly including U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns.

How the hackers obtained that consumer email signing key was a mystery — even to Microsoft — until this week when the technology giant belatedly laid out the five separate issues that led to the eventual leak of the key.

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GPT-4, PaLM, Claude, Bard, LaMDA, Chinchilla, Sparrow – the list of large-language models on the market continues to grow. But behind their remarkable capabilities, users are discovering substantial costs. While LLMs offer tremendous potential, understanding their economic implications is crucial for businesses and individuals considering their adoption.

While LLMs offer tremendous potential, understanding their economic implications is crucial for businesses and individuals considering their adoption.

First, building and training LLMs is expensive. It requires thousands of Graphics Processing Units, or GPUs, offering the parallel processing power needed to handle the massive datasets these models learn from. The cost of the GPUs, alone, can amount to millions of dollars. According to a technical overview of OpenAI’s GPT-3 language model, training required at least $5 million worth of GPUs.

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TOKYO — Japan launched a lunar lander on Thursday, aiming to become the fifth nation to achieve a soft landing on the moon’s surface early next year following India’s success in a similar mission last month.

The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) was sent to space on an H-IIA rocket, the first launch since a high-profile launch failure of the next-generation H3 rocket in March.

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A group of 12 researchers at Rice University in Houston have used 3D printing to create near-bulletproof material made out of plastic. The novel materials can withstand being shot at by bullets traveling at 5.8 kilometers per second and are highly compressible without falling apart.

Tubulanes are theoretical microscopic structures comprised of crosslinked carbon nanotubes and the researchers sought to test if they would have the same properties when scaled up enough to be 3D printed. It turns out they did.

The researchers proved this by shooting a bullet traveling at 5.8 kilometers per second through two cubes. One cube was made from a solid polymer and the other from a polymer printed with a tubulane structure.

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With the pace at which artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) applications are ramping up, we can expect to see industries and companies use these systems and tools in everyday processes. As these data-intensive applications continue to grow in complexity, the demand for high-speed transmission and efficient communication between computing units becomes paramount.

This need has sparked interest in optical interconnects, particularly in the context of short-reach connections between XPUs (CPUs, GPUs and memory). Silicon photonics is emerging as a promising technology that improves performance, cost-efficiency and thermal-management capabilities that ultimately improve the function of AI/ML applications compared with traditional approaches.

The key to getting the most out of artificial intelligence may lie in the use of silicon photonics, a powerful new tech.

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Bobbi is SVP, Software Engineering at Loopio. She is a technology leader with over 25 years of diverse experience in the industry.

AI and emerging technologies under the AI umbrella—like generative pre-trained transformers (GPT)—are reshaping the business world. These technologies are fostering greater organizational efficiencies and innovations and are quickly becoming crucial for companies of all sizes.

The ability to automate processes and tasks opens up a plethora of new opportunities for organizations. When automation can scale with an organization, this can completely transform day-to-day operations. In this article, I’ll look at three ways that engineering organizations in particular can use AI to transform their organizational efficiencies, organizational structure and software practices and processes.

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Osteoarthritis (OA) is a prevalent global health concern, posing a significant and increasing public health challenge worldwide. Recently, biomaterials have emerged as a highly promising strategy for OA therapy due to their exceptional physicochemical properties and capacity to regulate pathological processes. However, there is an urgent need for a deeper understanding of the potential therapeutic applications of these biomaterials in the clinical management of diseases, particularly in the treatment of OA. In this comprehensive review, we present an extensive discussion of the current status and future prospects concerning biomaterials for OA… More.

Herein, in this review, we summarize the advanced strategies developed for enhancing OA therapy based on the biomaterials. We conducted a comprehensive literature search using relevant databases such as PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. The search was focused on peer-reviewed articles and research papers published within the last ten years (from 2013 to 2023). We utilized specific keywords related to biomaterials”, biomaterials” and “osteoarthritis therapy” to retrieve relevant studies. First, we provide an overview of the pathophysiology of OA and the limitations of current treatment options. Second, we explore the various types of biomaterials which have been used for OA therapy, including nanoparticles, nanofibers, and nanocomposites. Third, we highlight the advantages and challenges associated with the use of biomaterials in OA therapy, such as toxicity, biodegradation, and regulatory issues. Finally, advanced biomaterials-based OA therapies with their potential for clinical translation and emerging biomaterials directions for OA therapy are discussed.

Characteristics of Biomaterials

Nanotechnology-boosted biomaterials have attracted considerable attention in recent years as promising candidates for revolutionizing the field of therapeutics.12,13 These materials combine the unique properties of nanotechnology with the versatility and biocompatibility of biomaterials, offering numerous advantages over existing therapeutic approaches. Nanotechnology enables the precise engineering of biomaterials at the nanoscale, allowing for the encapsulation and controlled release of therapeutic agents, such as drugs and growth factors.14–17 This feature facilitates targeted and sustained drug delivery to specific sites within the body, reducing systemic side effects and enhancing treatment efficacy. In the context of OA, this targeted drug delivery can be utilized to deliver anti-inflammatory agents or disease-modifying drugs directly to affected joint tissues, promoting tissue repair and alleviating symptoms. Furthermore, biomaterials can be designed to mimic the native tissue environment, thereby enhancing their biocompatibility and reducing the risk of adverse reactions or immune responses.18 This characteristic is crucial for successful integration and long-term functionality of biomaterials in biomedical applications. Moreover, nanomaterials can facilitate tissue regeneration by stimulating cellular responses and promoting tissue growth.19 In the context of OA, biomaterials can assist in cartilage repair and regeneration, potentially slowing down disease progression and improving joint function.3 In addition, nanotechnology allows for the customization of biomaterials with a wide range of physical, chemical, and biological properties.13 This flexibility enables the development of multifunctional biomaterials that can simultaneously perform multiple tasks, such as drug delivery, imaging, and tissue regeneration. These advantages collectively contribute to their potential as innovative solutions in addressing various biomedical challenges and improving patient outcomes. In this section, we will discuss some of the key properties of biomaterials and their impact on OA treatment.

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