Interface between the link layer and the physical layer for digital subscriber line (DSL) transceivers

Indoor optical camera communication transceivers - System architecture, physical layer and data link layer specification

New Appendix V - Provisional planning values for the fullband equipment impairment factor and the fullband packet loss robustness factor

Fast access to subscriber terminals (G.fast) - Physical layer specification

High-speed indoor visible light communication transceiver - System architecture, physical layer and data link layer specification

Physical layer management for digital subscriber line transceivers

Modification to SSE reason identifier codes to support voice band data and text relay

Electrical characteristics for balanced double-current interchange circuits operating at data signalling rates up to 10 Mbit/s

Procedures for the end-to-end connection of analogue PSTN text telephones over an IP network utilizing text relay

Electrical characteristics for unbalanced double-current interchange circuits for general use with integrated circuit equipment in the field of data communications

Electrical characteristics for balanced double-current interchange circuits for general use with integrated circuit equipment in the field of data communications

Simulated carrier control

Electrical characteristics for unbalanced double-current interchange circuits

LS/i on draft new Report on production, emission and exchange of closed captions for worldwide language character sets (Latin and non-Latin) [from ITU-R WP6B]
Source: ITU-R WP6B
Study Questions: Q26/16

UX designers rejoice! This Black Friday, our friends over at the Interaction Design Foundation (IxDF) have a gift for you: 25% off UX design courses on new memberships and a $200 discount on UX Bootcamps for new and existing members. The offer is now open and ends at midnight on Cyber Monday, 29 November.        […]

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Wireframing is the first and the most crucial step in deciding the fate of an application. The right wireframe can make an excellent app – turning an idea perfectly into an app, while a wrong wireframe can break everything. And to make a wireframe perfect, you need a wireframing tool to solve your design purpose.  […]

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With over 4.8 billion users currently on the internet across the globe, the digital world as we once knew it continues to adapt to accommodate modern forms of interaction and communication across the social sphere. As e-commerce booms and social platforms multiply, it’s clear that a digitally native world is only around the corner. With […]

The post From Users To Players: The Future Of UX Design In The Metaverse appeared first on Usability Geek

DNA-testing company 23andMe (Nasdaq: ME), once an industry leader that attracted millions of customers, including rapper Snoop Dogg and investor Warren Buffett, has announced significant cuts to its operations, with plans to lay off 200 employees or roughly 40% of its workforce. The company also said it will discontinue development of its therapeutic programs. Here’s what to know about the latest development and what led up to it.

Board exodus

The latest move comes as the company looks to stabilize after facing significant challenges, including the resignation of all seven independent board members in October.

Data breach

Last year, 23andMe suffered a massive data breach when hackers accessed the personal information of 6.9 million users. The incident led to a class-action lawsuit, which, in September, 23andMe agreed to settle for $30 million.

The problem with SPACs

In 2021, 23andMe went public through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. It later expanded into drug-discovery and weight-loss sectors. However, as DNA test kit sales declined, so did its financial health. By fiscal 2023, it reported a $312 million net loss, with its stock down 98% since going public, currently at about $4 after a reverse stock split in October 2024.

Separate reports have found that things have often not ended well for companies that took advantage of the pandemic-era SPAC boom, which led to billions in losses for investors and a number of bankruptcies for companies.

What’s next for 23andMe and its employees?

The layoffs are expected to result in $12 million in severance, termination, and transition-related costs and are part of a broader plan to streamline the business and achieve annual cost savings of $35 million.

The company says it is exploring various strategic options for its therapeutic programs, including potential licensing agreements and the sale of assets in its development pipeline.

“We are taking these difficult but necessary actions as we restructure 23andMe and focus on the long-term success of our core consumer business and research partnerships,” said Anne Wojcicki, cofounder, CEO, and chair of the board, in a statement.

Shares of 23andMe were up almost 6% to $4.87 on the news, which was announced late yesterday. The stock is down more than 73% year to date.

The Vatican and Microsoft on Monday unveiled a digital twin of St. Peter’s Basilica that uses artificial intelligence to explore one of the world’s most important monument’s while helping the Holy See manage visitor flows and identify conservation problems.

Using 400,000 high-resolution digital photographs, taken with drones, cameras and lasers over four weeks when no one was in the basilica, the digital replica is going online alongside two new on-site exhibits to provide visitors—real and virtual—with an interactive experience.

“It is literally one of the most technologically advanced and sophisticated projects of its kind that has ever been pursued,” Microsoft’s president Brad Smith told a Vatican press conference.

The project has been launched ahead of the Vatican’s 2025 Jubilee, a holy year in which more than 30 million pilgrims are expected to pass through the basilica’s Holy Door, on top of the 50,000 who visit on a normal day.

“Everyone, really everyone should feel welcome in this great house,” Pope Francis told Smith and members of the project’s development teams at an audience Monday.

The digital platform allows visitors to reserve entry times to the basilica, a novelty for one of the world’s most visited monuments that regularly has an hours-long line of tourists waiting to get in.

But the heart of the project is the creation of a digital twin of St. Peter’s Basilica through advanced photogrammetry and artificial intelligence that allows anyone to “visit” the church and learn about its history.

The ultra-precise 3D replica, developed in collaboration with digital preservation company Iconem, incorporates 22 petabytes of data—enough to fill five million DVDs—Smith said.

The images have already identified structural damage and signs of deterioration, such as missing mosaic pieces, cracks and fissures invisible to the naked eye, with a speed and precision far beyond human capabilities.

Francis has called for the ethical use of AI and used his annual World Message of Peace this year to urge an international treaty to regulate it, arguing that technology lacking human values of compassion, mercy, morality and forgiveness were too great.

On Monday, he thanked the Microsoft team and basilica workers responsible for the project and marveled at how modern technology was helping spread an ancient faith and preserve a piece of world patrimony, which celebrates the 400th anniversary of its consecration in 2026.

“This house of prayer for all peoples has been entrusted to us by those who have preceded us in faith and apostolic ministry,” he told Smith and the delegation. “Therefore, it is a gift and a task to care for it, in both a spiritual and material sense, even through the latest technologies.”

Smith declined to give a price tag for Microsoft’s investment in the project, saying only it was “substantial” and was borne of Francis’ initiative in 2018 to bring tech companies together to promote ethnically minded AI.

He said Microsoft had done similar AI projects at Mont Saint-Michel in France and Ancient Olympia, in Greece.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

—Nicole Winfield, Associated Press

Something bad is happening in Oz.

Last week, fans of Wicked, the musical-soon-to-be-movie, headed to retailers including Target, Walmart, and Macy’s to pick up Mattel’s limited-edition Wicked Barbie dolls ahead of the film’s release on November 22. At first, it seemed like any other Mattel collaboration—until a few fans started searching the URL printed on the back of the box, which led not to the Wicked movie website, as intended, but to a parody porn site of the same name. 

Mattel has apologized for the mix-up and promised to “remedy” the error, but that hasn’t stopped fans from speculating about how such an egregious typo could’ve made its way to the box in the first place. One popular theory, which has garnered more than 62,000 likes on X, is that the mistake had something to do with AI.

In an email to Fast Company, Mattel’s Barbie & Dolls director of global brand communications wrote, “I can confirm AI was not used on packaging for Mattel Wicked collection dolls.”

Though AI has been the culprit of plenty of misguided marketing snafus, the tweet demonstrates a misunderstanding of how Mattel is actually using AI tools in its packaging development process—and shows that, even as AI gains popularity with creative teams as a production tool, human error is alive and well.

The official Mattel Wicked dolls link to a porn site on the box ???????? pic.twitter.com/iW4mNVAlPE

— just2good (Sarah Genao) (@just2goodYT) November 9, 2024

Can we blame a chatbot for this?

In June, Fast Company covered Mattel’s announcement that it planned to use Adobe Firefly, a generative AI software, as part of its packaging development process. At the time, Mattel’s chief design officer Chris Down clarified that the tech would be used to help visualize fantastical new concepts and speed up time-consuming processes, like fine-tuning a background in Photoshop. The company’s guidelines around generative AI tools specified that Firefly could not be used to generate subject matter itself, like the actual doll (or, in this case, the accompanying text). 

Nevertheless, an X user shared Fast Company’s original headline alongside the news of the Wicked typo with the caption “Smash cut to four months later.” One commenter under the post wrote, “how did I know this mistake happened bc they’re using AI.” Another added, “The future is so, so dumb.”

Mattel has previously been open about how it’s used AI for doll packaging. In early October, the first Mattel packaging featuring input from Adobe Firefly hit shelves. The company explained to AdAge at the time that its new Holiday Barbie and Sue Bird Barbie packages incorporated backgrounds generated by Firefly, which had then been touched up by human designers. It’s important to note that, for a brand as wide-reaching as Mattel, AI is not being used in the design process without guardrails around both IP and image quality. Any visuals provided by Firefly are vetted and edited by multiple human designers before they ever reach the actual box.

At this stage, it’s highly unlikely that Mattel would trust an AI software to write the final copy for their packaging. It appears that the Wicked Barbie typo was a plain old instance of human error—if a somewhat inconceivable one. As of this writing, Mattel hasn’t responded to Fast Company‘s request for comment on how the mistake may have been made during the design process.

The fallout

In a statement on the Wicked packaging misprint, Mattel shared, “We deeply regret this unfortunate error and are taking immediate action to remedy this. Parents are advised that the misprinted, incorrect website is not appropriate for children. Consumers who already have the product are advised to discard the product packaging or obscure the link and may contact Mattel Customer Service for further information.” 

While it’s unclear exactly what steps Mattel plans to take to “remedy” the issue, retailers including Target, Walmart, Amazon, Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, and Macy’s had already pulled the dolls from shelves as of midday Monday. 

Meanwhile, there are a few parties benefitting from the unfortunate situation. Variety reports that the mistakenly shared porn site has seen a 12-year surge in traffic after the incident, and several eBay users have taken this opportunity to massively mark up their Wicked dolls in original packaging. One pack of seven different dolls, advertised as “IN MISPRINT ERROR BOX,” is currently going for $3,500. 

Mattel is sure to take a financial and reputational hit from this incident. Still, the news pick-up, social media speculation, and pricey eBay reselling demonstrate how a simple mistake can turn a run-of-the-mill product drop into something fans will remember—for better or worse.

Facebook and Instagram users in Europe will get the option to see less personalized ads if they don’t want to pay for an ad-free subscription, social media company Meta said Tuesday, bowing to pressure from Brussels over privacy and digital competition concerns.

Meta Platforms has been offering European Union an ad-free subscription option for about a year to comply with the continent’s strict data privacy rules, but regulators had accused the company of giving people a false choice.

The company said in a blog post that while people will still be able to choose between the subscription and existing free versions, it would also start giving free users an extra option over the coming weeks to see digital ads that are less personalized.

This means ads will be targeted at users based only on what they see during their current session on Facebook or Instagram going back no more than two hours, plus minimal personal information such as age, location, gender as well as how they engage with ads.

Data from all of a user’s previous time spent on Facebook or Instagram, which is typically combined to precisely target an individual with tailored ads, won’t be used.

“While this new choice is designed to give people an additional control over their data and ad experience, it may result in ads that are less relevant to a person’s interests,” Meta said in a blog post. “That means people will see ads that they don’t find as interesting. This drop in relevance is inevitable given that drastically reduced data is being used to show these less personalized ads to people.”

People who choose the new option will see ad breaks that can’t be skipped for a few seconds, Meta said.

European Union regulators had accused Meta of breaching the 27-nation bloc’s digital rules when it gave user the option to pay a monthly fee to avoid being targeted by ads based on their personal data.

The U.S. tech giant had rolled out the option after the European Union’s top court ruled Meta must first get consent before showing ads to users, in a decision that threatened its business model of tailoring ads based on individual users’ online interests and digital activity.

The company also said Tuesday it’s slashing monthly subscription prices for the ad-free option. Web users will pay 5.99 euros ($6.36), down from 9.99 euros previously, while iPhone and Android users will be charged 7.99 euros instead of 12.99 euros, which includes commissions charged by the Apple and Google mobile app stores.

Meta’s new subscription model could hit the company’s lucrative digital ad business in one of its biggest markets. The company said it has already factored the new offering into its most recent business outlook and financial guidance.

The options are available to users 18 and older in the EU’s 27 member countries, plus Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.

—Kelvin Chan, Associated Press business writer

After a tumultuous year filled with anxiety and a legal battle about its future in the U.S., TikTok may have just been thrown a lifeline by the man who was once its biggest foe: Donald Trump.

The president-elect, who tried to ban the social media platform the last time he was in the White House, has repeatedly pledged during his most recent campaign to oppose a ban on the short-form video app, which could happen as soon as mid-January if the company loses a court case that’s currently underway in Washington.

For months, TikTok and its China-based parent company ByteDance have been embroiled in a legal battle with the U.S. over a federal law that forces them to cut ties for national security reasons or stop operating in one of their biggest markets in the world. The measure, signed by President Joe Biden in April, gives ByteDance nine months to divest its stakes, with a possible three-month extension if a sale is in progress. If that happens, the deadline could be extended into the first 100 days of Trump’s presidency.

The companies have claimed that divestiture is not possible, and the law, if upheld, would force them to shut down by January 19, just a day before Trump’s second inauguration. Attorneys for both sides have asked a federal appeals court reviewing the case to issue a ruling by December 6. The losing side is expected to appeal to the Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority and could decide to take up the case, potentially dragging out the process even longer.

When reached for comment, the Trump transition team did not offer details on how Trump plans to carry out his pledge to “save TikTok,” as he said on a Truth Social post in September while encouraging people who care about the platform to vote for him. But Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the transition team, indicated in a statement that he plans to see it through.

“The American people reelected President Trump by a resounding margin, giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail,” Leavitt said. “He will deliver.”

During a March interview with CNBC, Trump said he still believed TikTok posed a national security risk but opposed banning it because doing so would help its rival, Facebook, which he has continued to lambast over his 2020 election loss. He also denied changing his mind on the issue because of Republican megadonor Jeff Yass, a ByteDance investor who Trump, at the time, said he had only met “very briefly.” He said Yass “never mentioned TikTok” during their meeting.

Still, ByteDance—and groups connected to Yass—have been attempting to exert their influence. Lobbying disclosure reports show that this year, ByteDance paid veteran lobbyist and former Trump campaign aide David Urban $150,000 to lobby lawmakers in Washington in favor of TikTok. The company has also spent more than $8 million on in-house lobbyists and another $1.4 million on other lobbying firms, according to the nonprofit OpenSecrets.

Meanwhile, in March, Politico reported that Kellyanne Conway, a former senior Trump aide, was being paid by the Yass-funded conservative group Club for Growth to advocate for TikTok in Congress. A spokesperson for the organization said Conway was hired as a consultant to conduct polling. Conway and Urban did not respond to requests for comment. TikTok, which has long denied it’s a national security risk, declined to comment.

If the courts uphold the law, it would fall on Trump’s Justice Department to enforce it and punish any potential violations with fines. The fines would apply to app stores that would be prohibited from offering TikTok, and internet hosting services who would be barred from supporting it. Leah Plunkett, a lecturer at Harvard Law School, said from her reading of the statute, the attorney general has to investigate violations but can decide whether or not to drag such companies to court and force them to comply.

Trump could do other things to prevent TikTok from disappearing.

He could issue an executive order to nullify the ban—which Plunkett believes would not be lawful—or urge Congress to repeal the law. That would require support from Congressional Republicans who have aligned themselves with Trump but have also supported the prospects of getting TikTok out of the hands of a Chinese company.

In a statement sent to the AP after the election, Republican Representative John Moolenaar of Michigan, chairman of the House Select Committee on China, said Trump’s “long-standing concerns” about TikTok align with the law’s requirement for divestment.

“The Trump Administration will have a unique opportunity to broker an American takeover of the platform,” he said.

ByteDance, though, has previously said it has no intention of selling the platform despite interest from some investors, including Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Analysts say the company is even less likely to sell the proprietary algorithm that fuels what users see on the app. That means even if TikTok is sold to a qualified buyer, it is likely to be a shell of its current self and would need to be rebuilt with new technology.

Sarah Kreps, director of Cornell University’s Tech Policy Institute, said it’s also possible that Trump could take the issue back to the drawing board and direct his administration to negotiate a new deal with TikTok.

TikTok said in 2022 that it presented the Biden administration with a draft agreement that would bolster protections for users and provide it more oversight over the company’s U.S. operations. But the administration has argued in court documents in recent months that it would be challenging to enforce the agreement due to the size and the technical complexity of the platform.

Trump hasn’t been privy to new intelligence material on the matter for a few years and it’s possible he could change his mind—and abandon his campaign promise—once he does, Kreps said.

Plunkett, the Harvard Law lecturer and author of Sharenthood: Why We Should Think Before We Talk About Our Kids Online, said if she were counseling TikTok, she would advise it to come up with a divesture plan that is compliant with the law and as favorable to the company as possible, noting, “There is too much uncertainty about what a Trump administration is likely to do.”

—By Haleluya Hadero, Associated Press

One of the best ways of learning something is building a lab for it. Especially when it comes to complex topics like network authentication. When I started learning about network authentication and Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE), I found that

A key component of an ISE home lab is having Active Directory installed. In this post I’ll go through setting up basic AD for use with ISE. This post is not going to cover licensing. I’m assuming you are running

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In my ISE lab I’m going to be using EAP-TLS and TEAP, which means I’ll be needing user and computer certificates. The goal is to be able to enable the 802.1X supplicant via GPO and to distribute certificates automatically without

This post describes how to install a Cisco ISE evaluation VM for labbing. The VM will run for 90 days, providing a full feature set for up to 100 endpoints. Start by downloading the software. I’ll be using an OVA

When ISE is installed, all the certificates used for different services such as EAP, Admin portal, etc., are self signed. Below is a short summary of the certificates that ISE uses: The certificates can be seen by going to Administration

KEF has launched its latest Q Series speakers – the Q Series with MAT™ technology – that deliver top audio at a lower price.

Bang & Olufsen's Beoplay H100 headphones come at a premium price, but they're built to last with a replaceable headband and ear cushions.

Hi, my name is Gilad Gressel and I’d like to tell you about my new course: Deep Learning with Python. Deep learning is an old technology that has recently been sweeping through the field of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Deep learning powers many of the cutting edge technologies that appear to be “magic” in [...]

Module 9 is here! Tune into Josue Vargas’s newest video – Certified Ethical Hacking: Denial of Service to learn about DoS and DDoS attacks and how to prevent them. About the Course DoS and DDoS are disruptive attacks meant to bring a server or network out of operation. You might have seen some of this [...]

What it is: Recently, the good people at SAM Labs sent me an Alpha Kit to play with and review. You guys, this is such a cool product! I love that as soon as students open it up, it puts them in charge of the learning. Best of all, it encourages the learning to happen...

What it is: ClassPad is free online software that lets you digitize your math scratch paper. You can create original teaching materials for the math classroom quickly and easily. With ClassPad, you can quickly add mathematical formulas, graphs, spreadsheets, and geometry sheets to share with your students (and other teachers). ClassPad can be accessed from...

We are in full-on countdown mode for our yearly education conference, 5Sigma. It’s hard to believe that it is just 10 days away! This year our theme is Launch: The Power of Student Agency. I could not be more excited for our fifth annual conference! Each year we work to include educators who have inspired our...

UScellular to Sell Spectrum Licenses to AT&T for $1.018B telecompetitor.com
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What the Trump win means for the FCC and telecom policy fierce-network.com
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6G talk is getting old eeworldonline.com
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View this post on Instagram A post shared by Festival of Dangerous Ideas (@festivalofdangerousideas) Thank you Roxane for giving words to this feeling we are all feeling: an age of inelasticity.

Apple News is giving users a new way to stay updated during the 2024 U.S. election. With the Live Activities feature, users can follow real-time election results directly on their iPhone Lock Screen. This feature, previously used for sports scores and music, now offers live updates for election night. Starting at 6 p.m. EST on […]

Apple Watch users could soon see a unique activity challenge celebrating the device’s tenth anniversary. According to recently discovered code in the iOS 18.2 beta, Apple may introduce a “Ten Year Celebration” activity achievement for users. This new challenge could encourage Apple Watch owners to stay active while commemorating a decade of the popular wearable. […]

Following the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Apple CEO Tim Cook congratulated Donald Trump on his victory over Kamala Harris. Trump’s win marks his second term in office, giving Apple another chance to work closely with the administration. Cook took to X (formerly Twitter) to share his optimism, stating, “Congratulations President Trump on your victory! We […]

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What precisely will come of the acquisition, no one outside Apple knows. At a minimum, Apple will be acquiring top engineering talent in the image editing space, but it's an opportunity for the imagination to run wild.

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