An Ohio-based company sells robotic dogs being used by the Ukrainian military against Russia, which have the ability to be outfitted with flamethrowers. Authorities are investigating a mysterious "deep fake" video call that successfully impersonated a Ukrainian high official. Democratic Sen. Benjamin Cardin announced Wednesday that he had turned over materials to law enforcement after an unknown suspect had tricked him onto a video call via impersonating a foreign official. "In recent days, a malign actor engaged in a deceptive attempt to have a conversation with me by posing as a known individual. After immediately becoming clear that the individual I was engaging with was not who they claimed to be, I ended the call and my office took swift action, alerting the relevant authorities."

Like caffeinated chipmunks, people sometimes don't realize they are clattering away on a keyboard. Yet, someone has to jot down action items and reminders. That "someone" doesn't have to be a human, though. Released last fall, Zoom's new AI Companion feature--included with all paid Zoom subscriptions--is like having an admin assistant on every call. The bot can summarize a meeting, create action items, and even tell you who talked the most.

Phil Houston knows how to spot a lie. A former career CIA officer who's sometimes been called the human lie detector, he literally wrote the book on detecting deception. His techniques are used by U.S. intelligence agencies, businesses and billionaires. Now he's seeking to harness the power of artificial intelligence to supercharge his system -- and market it to hedge funds listening to earnings calls, investigators interviewing suspects, employers considering potential new hires, or anyone else trying to discover duplicity. There's been a long history of hype around technologies that promised to turn lie detection from an art to a science, only to see the techniques fall far short.

Tapping in a computer password while chatting over Zoom could open the door to a cyber-attack, research suggests, after a study revealed artificial intelligence (AI) can work out which keys are being pressed by eavesdropping on the sound of the typing. Experts say that as video conferencing tools such as Zoom have grown in use, and devices with built-in microphones have become ubiquitous, the threat of cyber-attacks based on sounds has also risen. Now researchers say they have created a system that can work out which keys are being pressed on a laptop keyboard with more than 90% accuracy, just based on sound recordings. "I can only see the accuracy of such models, and such attacks, increasing," said Dr Ehsan Toreini, co-author of the study at the University of Surrey, adding that with smart devices bearing microphones becoming ever more common within households, such attacks highlight the need for public debates on governance of AI. The research, published as part of the IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops, reveals how Toreini and colleagues used machine learning algorithms to create a system able to identify which keys were being pressed on a laptop based on sound – an approach that researchers deployed on the Enigma cipher device in recent years.

To find out, ahead of TC City Spotlight: Boston, an extended TechCrunch Live event during which you'll get to hear from local leaders on how startups can take advantage of Boston's extensive resources, we gathered insights from five investors active in the area. It seems Boston is faring well, and part of the reason for that appears to be that remote pitching is still a trend. "Fundraising has changed significantly and founders at all stages are now taking many first meetings on Zoom," said Russ Wilcox, a partner at Pillar VC. However, in-person gatherings have also made a return and are sometimes preferred. "In-person events have picked back up in Boston, particularly around the innovation hubs across campuses, so we expect more serendipity to come back into the equation," said Underscore VC general partner Lily Lyman.

In August, Patrick Hillman, chief communications officer of blockchain ecosystem Binance, knew something was off when he was scrolling through his full inbox and found six messages from clients about recent video calls with investors in which he had allegedly participated. "Thanks for the investment opportunity," one of them said. "I have some concerns about your investment advice," another wrote. Others complained the video quality wasn't very good, and one even asked outright: "Can you confirm the Zoom call we had on Thursday was you?" With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Hillman realized that someone had deepfaked his image and voice well enough to hold 20-minute "investment" Zoom calls trying to convince his company's clients to turn over their Bitcoin for scammy investments.

In August, Patrick Hillman, chief communications officer of blockchain ecosystem Binance, knew something was off when he was scrolling through his full inbox and found six messages from clients about recent video calls with investors in which he had allegedly participated. "Thanks for the investment opportunity," one of them said. "I have some concerns about your investment advice," another wrote. Others complained the video quality wasn't very good, and one even asked outright: "Can you confirm the Zoom call we had on Thursday was you?" With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Hillman realized that someone had deepfaked his image and voice well enough to hold 20-minute "investment" Zoom calls trying to convince his company's clients to turn over their Bitcoin for scammy investments.

The next time you get on a Zoom call, you might want to ask the person you're speaking with to push their finger into the side of their nose. Or maybe turn in complete profile to the camera for a minute. Those are just some of the methods experts have recommended as ways to provide assurance that you are seeing a real image of the person you are speaking to and not an impersonation created with deepfake technology. It sounds like a strange precaution, but we live in strange times. Last month, a top executive of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance said that fraudsters had used a sophisticated deepfake "hologram" of him to scam several cryptocurrency projects.

Today we are going to walk you through the implementation of Center Stage as seen in Apple iPads, iMacs, and Macbooks. In our last post we saw how we can use hand gestures for controlling zoom calls using OpenCV and Mediapipe. In this post, we are going to implement a version of Apple's Center Stage technology. Center Stage makes use of Machine Learning and tracks the person using its ultrawide camera. Let us learn how to implement it, shall we?

The new $130 Echo Show 8 takes the top rank as the greatest Alexa smart display, with the Echo Show 10 being more novelty than necessity (that revolving screen doesn't support the $250 price tag). The second iteration of Amazon's mid-sized smart speaker with a display, which was released this month, combines some of the greatest features from the Show 10 (13-megapixel camera, digital zoom, and security camera functions) and compresses them into a more manageable size. The Echo Show 8 has a small enough footprint to sit on a bedside table or a kitchen counter. The Show 8 (available in Charcoal and Glacier White) offers the most bang (and screen size) for your buck, with a virtually identical design to its predecessor (same display, same speakers), but with a bit more behind the hood, including a new octo-core processing and a beefed-up camera. You can still watch shows, listen to music, control your smart home, send out announcements to your family, and check in on friends and family, but you can now zoom with a 13-megapixel camera.