Google Gemini now allows users to double-check AI-generated information using Google search

 Statements are colour-coded for clarity, indicating similarity to existing content (green), lack of relevant content (orange), or insufficient information for evaluation (unhighlighted).

Google’s Gemini AI users can now verify the authenticity of the content generated by the chatbot using Google. When Gemini AI offers a response to a query, users can cross-check the information provided in the AI-generated content using the Google search engine.

Gemini has added a Google toggle right below the AI-generated content labelled “double-check response,” which can quickly cross-verify the authenticity of the content generated by Gemini AI. This feature can be accessed on both the mobile app and the web version of Gemini AI.

The new feature is available on both app and web version of Gemini. 

Google says, “The double-check responses feature helps you assess the credibility of Gemini’s statements using Google Search to find content that’s likely similar or different.”

For easier understanding, the cross-verification classifies statements into three different colours. Text highlighted in green suggests that Google search has found content similar to the AI-generated information and includes a link to it.

Similarly, if the text is indicated in orange, it means that Google did not find relevant content. Lastly, if part of the text is not highlighted, it indicates there isn’t much information on the web similar to the AI-generated content to evaluate it.

Depending on the response generated by Gemini AI, it could contain information similar to the generated response, and part of the response might not be relevant, with no such information accessible on the web by Google.

Large language models like Gemini AI are known to have issues such as generating inaccurate information, which can affect the credibility of their output. Google has integrated a double-checking feature using its search engine with the Gemini chatbot, making it easier for users to verify the accuracy of the AI-generated content.

Since the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT in November 2022, Google has been racing to produce AI software to rival that of the Microsoft-backed company.

World’s first hydrogen-powered commercial ferry launches in San Francisco

Unlike current diesel-powered ferries that emit pollutants, the hydrogen-powered Sea Change produces only heat and water vapor as byproducts. 

The world’s first commercial passenger ferry powered by 100% hydrogen fuel, the MV Sea Change, was launched on Friday at the San Francisco Ferry Building. The 70-foot catamaran can transport up to 75 passengers along the waterfront between Pier 41 and the downtown San Francisco ferry terminal starting July 19.

Unlike current diesel-powered ferries that emit pollutants, the hydrogen-powered Sea Change produces only heat and water vapor as byproducts. Passengers can even drink the emissions from an onboard water fountain. The service will be free for six months as part of a pilot program.

“The implications for this are huge because this isn’t its last stop,” said Jim Wunderman, chair of the San Francisco Bay Area Water Emergency Transportation Authority. “If we can operate this successfully, there are going to be more of these vessels in our fleet and in other folks’ fleets in the United States and we think in the world.”

The Sea Change can travel about 300 nautical miles and operate for 16 hours before needing to refuel. The hydrogen fuel cells produce electricity by combining oxygen and hydrogen in an electrochemical reaction.

The project was financed and managed by SWITCH Maritime, with the vessel constructed at Bay Ship and Yacht in Alameda, California, and All-American Marine in Bellingham, Washington. Officials hope the technology can help clean up the shipping industry, which produces nearly 3% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions.

“The real value of this is when you multiply out by the number of ferries operating around the world,” said Frank Wolak, president and CEO of the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association. “There’s great potential here. This is how you can start chipping away at the carbon intensity of your ports.”

Sennheiser’s earphones specially crafted for the gym will up your treadmill game

 The Sennheiser Momentum Sport is a unique truly wireless earphone designed for the gym-goers who prioritise fitness tracking and situational awareness alongside great sound.

Are there a pair of perfect wireless earphones for the gym? Well, Sennheiser seems to think so and its Sennheiser Momentum Sport wants to stand out in the gym by offering more than audio awesomeness.

The Sennheiser Momentum Sport is a different truly wireless earphone, in many ways than one. To start with, the design is unique, both for the earpieces as well as the charging case. The charging case is larger than usual and has a rubber finish which suggests clearly that it wants to be used in sweaty conditions or near the pool. Also, the charging port at the back is also protected by a rubber flap. The olive green colours of the review unit is something unique and will stand out for sure.

Momentum Sport comes in a large rubber charging/carry case. 

The earpieces are different in their shape and size. It is not exactly larger than the largest ones I have used, but its teardrop-like shape makes it feel so for sure. Because of this, it also comes with fins that need to be looped in to keep the earpieces in place when you are on the treadmill or like me treading the local roads in the humid Delhi climate. You will have to spend a few minutes getting the fit of the fin perfect as it needs to be aligned with some dots on the earpieces.

Towards the inside of the earpiece, there are a host of sensors and they do more than you ever imagined. For instance, this is the first earphone I have used that works with taps near it and not exactly on it. You can pause/play or skip songs by tapping on your face, near the earpiece. Very interesting. The sensors also capture your heart rate and body temperature which you can monitor on the app — not a new feature on an earphone, but still a very useful one given it’s not very commonplace. The heart rate was exactly the same as what my Apple Watch was showing and this means you can use this as a source for fitness apps like Polar which the Sennheiser app connects to.

I am not sure I like this design as I could feel the earphones on my ears all the time. The ones that I love are those I can forget about after a few minutes and sort of become a part of your ears. These seem a few grams heavier than my ears are used to. You will need to ensure you try the fit test and get the silicone tip that keeps the earpiece in place and noise out.

I have said this before, you really don’t need to talk about the audio quality of a Sennheiser and the same holds true for the Momentum Sport as well. A few seconds into Amber Rubarth’s Strive and I knew this one had crossed the threshold of audio quality without any issue. Holly Cole’s Train Song might not be the one you will play at the gym to get pumped up, but then this one is great to sweat out any earphone worth its salt. And the Momentum Sport came out in flying colours as I could hear the small “trings and twings” in the background well, along with their movements.

As I listened to Raayan Rumble by A R Rahman, I could not help but notice that the volume was a bit low for my liking even at the highest levels and with a bass boost. This is one song you would like to hear at high volume to feel the impact, especially in a gym. But the open design means you have to be aware of the surroundings and the volume levels will be a bit lower than the regular Sennheiser Momentum for instance. I am just worried that there will be some Punjabi gym music that will seep in despite spending top dollar on this earphone.

The buds themselves are slightly bulky and heavier, as they pack additional sensors.

The Momentum Sport comes with adaptive noise cancellation and you feel this when out in the open as it automatically goes into a mode where you are aware of your surroundings. But then India is a noisy place and you want to cut out the noise at times and that is where you can use the app to switch back to full noise cancellation. The call quality is very good and does not have the tinny feel some Sennheiser earphones used to have earlier.

At Rs 27,990, the Sennheiser Momentum Sport makes great sense for those who spend a lot of time in the gym every day. Remember, this is not the earphone you would buy to lounge at home with your acoustic playlist but will take you to your gym to capture your heart rate and body temperature as you listen to your high-tempo playlist but without losing the sense of where you are. The Sennheiser Momentum Sport is a new take on the earphone, one that has been created for a special use case. This is going to add to your gym game for sure.

AI and Cybercrime Trends

 Explore the issues surrounding cybercrime. Learn about legal frameworks, and how cybercrime is being addressed around the world

Cybercrime

AI and cybercrime

The AI race between cybercriminals and those who try to protect systems is emerging as one of the most critical for the stability and safety of the digital world. Let’s see how AI is being used:

AI as a tool to commit cybercrime

Automated hacking uses AI to find new vulnerabilities more rapidly than human hackers. Phishing attacks are about using AI to generate fake emails and find targets for phishing. AI is used to prepare patterns for brute-force password cracking. AI facilitated a new generation of deepfakes that can produce realistic audio and video, which could be used for fraud, disinformation campaigns, and blackmail. In particular, deepfakes can be used for impersonation attacks. As data feeds into AI, data poisoning can mislead AI for cybercrime purposes. AI-powered bots can be used for Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks or for spreading misinformation on social media platforms.

AI as a tool to prevent cybercrime

AI empowers anomaly detection by identifying normal behaviour patterns within computer networks and deviations that could indicate a cyberattack. Predictive analytics can analyse historical data and identify patterns often leading to cyber-attacks. AI improves malware and phishing detection by identifying phishing emails or malicious links. Once a cyberattack happens, AI can automate incident response by automatically isolating affected systems, closing specific network paths, or even implementing patches to software vulnerabilities.

Cybercrime: Threats and attacks

The techniques used to facilitate the types of cybercrime that affect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data and systems are very diverse and more and more sophisticated. Some of the most widespread techniques include:

Malicious software: This includes viruses, spyware, and other unwanted software that is installed on computers and other devices without permission and performs unwanted tasks, often for the benefit of the attacker. These programs can damage devices, and can be used to steal personal information, monitor and control online activity, send spam and commit fraud, as well as infect other machines on the network. They also can make devices vulnerable to viruses and deliver unwanted or inappropriate online advertisements.

Viruses, trojan horses, adware, and spyware are all types of malware. A virus can replicate itself and spread to other devices, without the user being aware. Although some viruses are latent, most of them are intended to interfere with data or affect the performance of devices (reformatting the hard disk, using up computer memory, etc). A trojan horse is a type of malware that is often disguised as legitimate software. Trojans can be employed by cyber-thieves and hackers trying to gain access to users’ systems. Users are typically tricked by some form of social engineering into loading and executing Trojans on their systems. Once activated, Trojans can enable cyber-criminals to spy on users, steal sensitive data, and gain backdoor access to users’ system. Adware collects marketing data and other information without the user’s knowledge, or redirects search requests to certain advertising websites.

Spyware monitors users, gathers information about them and transmits it to interested parties, without the users being aware. Types of information gathered can include: the websites visited, browser and system information, the computer IP address, as well as more sensitive information such as e-mail addresses, and passwords. Additionally, malware can cause browser hijacking, in which the user’s browser settings are modified without permission. The software may create desktop shortcuts, display advertising pop-ups, as well as replace existing home pages or search pages with other pages.

Botnets: Botnets are networks of hijacked personal computers that perform remotely commanded tasks without the knowledge of their owners. A computer is turned into a bot after being infected with specific type of malware which allows remote control. Botnets are used for a wide variety of crimes and attacks: distributing spam, extending malware infections to more computers, contributing to pay-per-click fraud, or identity theft. One of the most worrying uses of botnets is to perform distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

Researchers and cybersecurity companies have warned that botnets are becoming the biggest Internet security threat, as they are increasing the effects of viruses and other malicious programs, raising information theft, and boosting denial of service attacks.  As an illustration of the dimension of this threat, the Simda botnet, taken down in April 2015, affected computers in 190 countries and involved the use of 14 command-and-control servers in five countries.

Denial of service (DoS) attacks: These attacks involve flooding a computer or website with information, preventing them to function properly. These attacks are aimed to exhaust the resources available to a network, application or service, in order to prevent users from accessing them. They are more frequently aimed at businesses, rather than individuals. Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are those attacks in which multiple compromised computers attack a single target. A DoS attack does not usually result in the theft of information or other security loss, but it can cause financial or time loss to the affected organisation or individual, because of its effects (particular network services becoming unavailable, websites ceasing operation, targeted email accounts prevented from receiving legitimate emails, etc.)

Legal frameworks

Since cybercrime transcends borders, any legal framework needs to be common among countries and this requires improved international cooperation. This international cooperation may be bilateral, regional, continental, or universal. Most bilateral agreements on law enforcement come by way of Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLATs).

This provides an effective tool for cross-border investigations and prosecution. At regional level, various regional blocks have developed frameworks for their regions in cybercrime legislation. The Organization of American States (OAS) created a framework of guidelines to manage cybercrime as early as 1999. In 2009 the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) adopted a directive on fighting cybercrime, and in 2011 the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) presented the Cybersecurity Draft Model Bill. In June 2014, the African Union adopted the Convention on Cybersecurity and Personal Data Protection. Several international frameworks have already been created to fight cybercrime, the most prominent of which is the Council of Europe’s Convention on Cybercrime, which contains provisions on types of offences, procedural Laws and international cooperation among countries.

Combating cybercrime

The application of technical solutions to combat cybercrime has always been the preferred option for most cybersecurity experts. However, most law enforcement personnel are not equipped with the requisite technological knowledge while most cybercriminals are experts in computer technology.

Various organisations, such as the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), have initiated capacity building programmes for developing countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and Pacific as well as other countries in legislative drafting and prosecution of cybercrime. As measures to combat cybercrime continue to multiply, various organisations have established their individual structures for cybersecurity.

It is not uncommon for private organisations to have their own in-house rules on the acceptable use of their networks and also to educate their clients or staff on the issues of cybercrime. Some groups of organisations have also set up Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) to assist in the technical handling of cybercrime, especially those targeted at computer networks. Several multinational organisations have also contributed to the fight against cybercrime.

These organisations have a unique role as some of them control the infrastructure on which the Internet runs, and include the US National Cyber Security Alliance and INTERPOL. Other regional legal instruments include: the League of Arab States Convention on Combating IT Offences (2010), the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of International Information Security, and the African Union Convention on the Confidence and Security in Cyberspace (2014).

On the global level, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is the leading organisation, with a set of international instruments to fight cybercrime. Since cybercrime often involves an organised approach, the UNODC’s Convention against Transnational Organised Crime could be used in the fight against cybercrime. Additionally, Interpol facilitates a global network of 190 national police organisations, which plays a key role in the cross-border investigation of cybercrime. The ITU hosts the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) implementation process in cybersecurity, labelled the ITU Global Security Agenda.