Microsoft’s AI can create decent Chinese poetry from just a few images

Wings hold rocks and water lightly

in the loneliness

Stroll the empty

The land becomes soft

Microsoft’s AI wields the cool but questionably useful skill of being able to conjure Chinese poetry from a couple of images. 

The company’s Xiaolce chatbot is the system in question – a Chinese language conversational AI.

www.alphr.com

Windows Defender Browser Protection browser extension for Google Chrome

Protect yourself against online threats, like phishing and malicious websites, with real-time protection from Microsoft.

The Windows Defender Browser Protection extension helps protect you against online threats, such as links in phishing emails and websites designed to trick you into downloading and installing malicious software that can harm your computer. 

If you click a malicious link in an email or navigate to a site designed to trick you into disclosing financial, personal or other sensitive information, or a website that hosts malware, Windows Defender Browser Protection will check it against a constantly updated list of malicious URLs known to Microsoft. 

If the malicious link matches one on the list, Windows Defender Browser Protection will show a red warning screen letting you know that the web page you are about to visit is known to be harmful, giving you a clear path back to safety with one click.

Continuously updated list of reported harmful sites.

Protects against phishing sites and socially engineered malware sites.

Real-time indicator of harmful sites and website status.

www.browserprotection.microsoft.com

One for my mate Jeff: The David Silver Honda Museum celebrates 50 year of the CB750!

Golden anniversary celebrations for the Honda CB750 kicking off in Suffolk next month.

It's pretty much beyond argument that Honda's CB750 was the first modern performance motorcycle. Launched in late 1968, its inline-four cylinder engine, disc brakes, electric starter and mad performance (68bhp ffs!) made everything else suddenly look a bit crap, and encouraged the other Japanese firms to bring out their versions - Kawasaki's Z1, Suzuki's GS and Yamaha's XS ranges.

We've arranged a visit to the museum, but before the CB750 extravaganza kicks off! Erm, that's a shame as Jeff is a CB750 nut!

www.visordown.com

Bitcoin's parabola: $6k to $20k back to $6k in ~10 months!

Bitcoin, Ether Sink as ‘Sense of Panic’ Grips Crypto Investors

Bitcoin touched below $6,000 and dozens of smaller digital tokens including Ether retreated as this month’s sell-off in cryptocurrencies showed few signs of letting up.

The largest digital currency fell as much as 6.2 percent to $5,887, the lowest level since June, before paring some of the drop, according to Bloomberg composite pricing. Ether sank as much as 13 percent, while all but one of the 100 biggest cryptocurrencies tracked by Coinmarketcap.com recorded declines over the past 24 hours.

The total market capitalization of virtual currencies dropped to $193 billion. That’s down from a peak of about $835 billion in January.

www.bloomberg.com

Please take 90 seconds out of your day to watch this video & find out the dirty truth about Palm Oil

I just took 90 seconds out of my day to watch a video called Rang-tan that tells the story of how the forest homes of orangutans are being cleared to grow palm oil.

I think you should watch it too, here’s the link.

It’s bizarre to think that palm oil is in over half the products on our supermarket shelves. The more people that watch Rang-tan the more people we can get to put pressure on brands like Nestle, Unilever and Mondelez to make sure the palm oil used to make their chocolates and soaps aren’t coming at the highest price for the world’s forests and the orangutans that live there.

Here’s that link to Rang-tan again, an animation about a little girl and her orangutan friend: www.greenpeace.org.uk

The Motorcycle Live (NEC Bike Show) 17-25th Nov 2018. Tickets on sale now!

All things biking for those yet to venture on to two wheels and the seasoned biker! A great day out for the whole family! FREE bike parking!

The 2018 Show will take place at the NEC, Birmingham from 17 - 25 November 2018. Also known as the NEC Bike Show.

The lads & I go most years. For my money - the best UK bike show in the calendar. Get your tickets now!

www.motorcyclelive.co.uk

Compromise a network connected fax machine - and take down a corporate network...

Booby-trapped image data sent by fax can let malicious hackers sneak into corporate networks, security researchers have found.

Since many companies use fax machines that are also printers and photocopiers, they often have a connection to the internal network.

The malicious images exploit protocols established in the 1980s that define the format of fax messages.

The research was presented at the Def Con hacker conference in Las Vegas.

The two researchers said millions of companies could be at risk because they currently did little to secure fax lines.

In particular, the researchers found problems with the way the protocols were used in some multi-purpose printers made by HP that are widely used in the business world. HP has now issued a patch for its printers, which will close the loopholes found by the pair.

Erm, well that's ironic: HP "The Wolf" - great short films about Cyber Security.

www.bbc.co.uk