• HP EliteBook 6 G2q delivers up to 85 TOPS for local AI tasks
• Always-connected 5G experiences require specific hardware and preinstalled eSIM modules
• Service works only on compatible commercial PCs running Windows 11

HP has unveiled the EliteBook 6 G2q, an ultraslim AI PC that relies on Snapdragon X2 Elite or X2 Plus processors to deliver up to 85 TOPS of NPU performance for local AI tasks.

This lightweight laptop, up to 15% thinner than its predecessor, claims to offer always-connected experiences through HP Go 5G service.

• Supercapacitors turn charging time from hours into mere seconds
• Fast charging exposes the real limits of lithium-ion battery chemistry
• Supercapacitor technology lacks sufficient energy capacity for practical electric vehicles

Dell has introduced a keyboard and mouse combo that charges in five seconds and delivers a full day of use.

The new Dell Pro 7 Rechargeable Compact Keyboard and Mouse relies on supercapacitor technology rather than traditional lithium-ion batteries.

from the silly-times dept

Back in October, Meta announced that its new Instagram Teen Accounts would feature content moderation “guided by the PG-13 rating.” On its face, this made a certain kind of sense as a communication strategy: parents know what PG-13 means (or at least think they do), and Meta was clearly trying to borrow that cultural familiarity to signal that it was taking teen safety seriously.

The Motion Picture Association, however, was not amused. Within hours of the announcement, MPA Chairman Charles Rivkin fired off a statement. Then came a cease-and-desist letter. Then a Washington Post op-ed whining about the threat to its precious brand. The MPA was very protective of its trademark, and very unhappy that Meta was freeloading off the supposed credibility of its widely mocked rating system.

And now, this week, the two sides have announced a formal resolution in which Meta has agreed to “substantially reduce” its references to PG-13 and include a rather remarkable disclaimer:

“There are lots of differences between social media and movies. We didn’t work with the MPA when updating our content settings, and they’re not rating any content on Instagram, and they’re not endorsing or approving our content settings in any way. Rather, we drew inspiration from the MPA’s public guidelines, which are already familiar to parents. Our content moderation systems are not the same as a movie ratings board, so the experience may not be exactly the same.”

In Meta’s official response, you can practically hear the PR team gritting their teeth:

“We’re pleased to have reached an agreement with the MPA. By taking inspiration from a framework families know, our goal was to help parents better understand our teen content policies. We rigorously reviewed those policies against 13+ movie ratings criteria and parent feedback, updated them, and applied them to Teen Accounts by default. While that’s not changing, we’ve taken the MPA’s feedback on how we talk about that work. We’ll keep working to support parents and provide age-appropriate experiences for teens,” said a Meta spokesperson.

Translation: we’re still doing the same thing, we’re just no longer allowed to call it what we were calling it.

There are several layers of nonsense worth unpacking here. First, there’s the MPA getting all high and mighty about its rating system. Let’s remember how the MPA’s film rating system came into existence in the first place: it was a voluntary self-regulation scheme created in the late 1960s specifically to head off government regulation after the government started making noises about the harm Hollywood was doing to children with the content it platformed. Sound familiar? The studios decided that if they rated their own content, maybe Congress would leave them alone. As the MPA explains in their own boilerplate:

For nearly 60 years, the MPA’s Classification and Rating Administration’s (CARA) voluntary film rating system has helped American parents make informed decisions about what movies their children can watch… CARA does not rate user-generated content. CARA-rated films are professionally produced and reviewed under a human-centered system, while user-generated posts on platforms like Instagram are not subject to the same rating process.

Sure, there’s a trademark issue here, but let’s be real: no one thought Instagram was letting a panel of Hollywood parents rate the latest influencer videos.

Next, the PG-13 analogy never actually made much sense for social media. As we discussed on Ctrl-Alt-Speech back when this whole thing started, the context and scale are just completely different. At the time, I pointed out that a system designed to rate a 90-minute professionally produced film — reviewed in its entirety by a panel of parents — is a wholly different beast than moderating hundreds of millions of short-form posts generated by individuals (and AI) every single day.

So, yes, calling the system “PG-13” was a marketing gimmick, meant to trade on a familiar brand while obscuring how differently social media actually works — but the idea that this somehow dilutes the MPA’s marks is still pretty silly.

Then there’s the rating system’s well-documented arbitrariness. The MPA’s ratings have been criticized for decades for their seemingly incoherent standards. On that same podcast, I noted that the rating system is famous for its selective prudishness — nudity gets you an R rating, but two hours of violence can skate by with a PG-13.

There was a whole documentary about this — This Film Is Not Yet Rated — that exposed just how subjective and inconsistent the whole process was. Meta was effectively borrowing credibility from a system that was itself created as a regulatory dodge, is famously inconsistent, and was designed for an entirely different medium. And the MPA’s response was essentially: “Hey, that’s our famously inconsistent regulatory dodge, and you can’t have it.”

The whole thing was silly. And now it’s been formally resolved with Meta agreeing to stop doing the thing it had already mostly stopped doing back in December. So even the resolution is anticlimactic.

But there’s a more substantive point buried under all this trademark squabbling: the whole approach reflects a flawed assumption that one company can set a universal standard for every teen on the planet.

As I argued on the podcast, the deeper issue is that the whole framework is wrong for the medium. The MPA’s rating system was built to evaluate a single 90-minute film, reviewed in its entirety by a panel of parents. Applying that logic to hundreds of millions of short-form posts generated by people across wildly different cultural contexts — a kid in rural Kansas, a teenager in Berlin, a twelve-year-old in Lagos — was never going to produce anything coherent. Different kids, different families, different communities have different standards, and no single company should be setting a universal threshold for all of them. The smarter approach is giving parents and users real controls with customizable defaults, rather than having Zuckerberg (or a Hollywood trade association) decide what counts as age-appropriate for every teenager on the planet.

This whole dispute was silly from start to finish.

Filed Under: content moderation, movie ratings, pg-13, social media

Companies: meta, mpa

The Drift Protocol lost at least $280 million after a threat actor took control of its Security Council administrative powers in a planned, sophisticated operation.

The attacker leveraged durable nonce accounts and pre-signed transactions to delay execution and strike with accuracy at a chosen time, the platform explained.

Drift underlines that the hacker did not exploit any flaws in its programs or smart contracts, and no seed phrases have been compromised.

Drift Protocol is a DeFi trading platform built on the Solana blockchain that serves as a non-custodial exchange, giving users full control of their funds as they interact with on-chain markets.

As of late 2024, the platform claimed to have 200,000 traders, supporting total trading volumes of more than $55 billion and a daily peak of $13 million.

According to Drift’s report, the heist was prepared between March 23 and 30, with the attacker setting up durable nonce accounts and obtaining 2/5 multisig approvals from Security Council members to meet the required threshold.

This enabled them to pre-sign malicious transactions that weren’t executed immediately.

On April 1st, the attacker performed a legitimate transaction and immediately executed the pre-signed malicious transactions, transferring admin control to themselves within minutes.

Having gained admin control, they introduced a malicious asset, removed withdrawal limits, and eventually drained funds.

Drift Protocol estimates the losses at about $280 million, while blockchain tracking account PeckShieldAlert has calculated them at $285 million.

When unusual activity on the protocol was detected, Drift issued a public warning to users, stating that started an investigation and urging them not to deposit any funds until further notice.

As a result of the attack, borrow/lend deposits, vault deposits, and trading funds have been affected, and all protocol functions are now essentially frozen. Drift said DSOL is unaffected, and insurance fund assets are secured.

The platform is now working with security firms, cryptocurrency exchanges, and law enforcement authorities to trace and freeze the stolen funds.

Drift promised to publish a detailed post-mortem report in the coming days.

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Fortis Solutions, an enterprise technology partner with decades of experience across infrastructure, cybersecurity, and data systems, approaches artificial intelligence as a force that is redefining how work is performed while preserving the importance of human contribution. Its perspective reflects a future where human judgment and machine precision operate in tandem, introducing new ways to elevate performance, strengthen decision-making, and expand what teams can accomplish together. 

This perspective emerges within a rapidly evolving landscape where AI continues to influence how organizations operate, decide, and govern. Leadership conversations have shifted from verifying processes to explaining how AI-driven decisions occur, how fairness is maintained, and how control is exercised. This signals a broader transition from traditional compliance models toward governance frameworks that prioritize accountability, transparency, and oversight.

Within this environment, Fortis Solutions emphasizes a foundational principle: AI benefits from human governance. Myron Duckens, President and CEO, says, “Technology becomes meaningful when it reflects human intention. Governance is where intention is translated into action, ensuring that innovation continues with clarity and purpose.” He adds that systems often require clearly defined rules, structured frameworks, and ethical guardrails established by people who understand both operational realities and broader societal expectations. 

Fortis Solutions acknowledges that even with strong governance, human limitations remain part of the equation. Fatigue, cognitive overload, and the complexity of modern infrastructure introduce variables that may influence outcomes in subtle ways. In high-stakes environments such as healthcare systems or large-scale venues, even minor inconsistencies can carry significant implications. CTO Jeremy Roach says, “This reality has shaped how we approach the integration of AI. We view it as a complementary force that enhances human capability while maintaining oversight at every critical juncture.”

At the same time, the current AI landscape presents challenges that require careful consideration. Generative AI systems can produce outputs that appear credible yet lack factual grounding, often referred to as hallucinations. These outcomes frequently stem from gaps in data quality, incomplete context, or overly generalized training models. Tony Gonzalez, CIO, offers a practical perspective on this dynamic. He says, “Data determines direction. When inputs are precise and validated, outcomes become more dependable. That relationship sits at the center of every AI system.”

Concerns around data integrity extend further when considering the widespread use of open and crowdsourced AI models. Industry insights highlight how data provenance, security, and governance remain central concerns for organizations scaling AI initiatives, with a significant percentage of leaders prioritizing risk management and cybersecurity investments. These concerns reflect a broader awareness that while AI introduces new capabilities, it also introduces new considerations around accountability and control.

Another dimension of the current landscape is the pace at which AI innovation is advancing. Roach notes that technological capabilities continue to expand quickly, while governance frameworks, regulatory structures, and organizational policies evolve more gradually. “This creates a gap where systems may operate faster than the mechanisms designed to oversee them,” he explains. The result can include exposure to misinformation, vulnerabilities within infrastructure, and unintended data movement across systems.

Fortis Solutions aims to address this gap through a focus on controlled AI environments. Its approach centers on privatized large language models designed to operate within defined boundaries, using verified internal data rather than external, unfiltered sources. Roach states, “Control creates clarity. When systems learn within a defined environment, they become more aligned with the objectives they are designed to support.” This controlled model is designed to support consistency, help reduce the likelihood of unpredictable outputs, and reinforce confidence in the system’s performance.

Integral to this approach are platforms such as Source of Truth and NetRaven, which function together as interconnected layers within the infrastructure. Source of Truth operates as a centralized decision layer, maintaining a dynamic, real-time understanding of infrastructure components and their relationships. NetRaven complements this by translating system activity into accessible insights through continuous monitoring and visualization. 

Together, they form what the team describes as a SMART operational foundation, an acronym which stands for Seeing everything across the infrastructure, Monitoring activity continuously, Assessing what is happening as conditions evolve, Remediating issues automatically to optimize and troubleshoot, and Translating vendor‑agnostic CLI data into a unified operational language. The goal is to create an environment where accuracy and responsiveness are closely aligned.

According to Roach, this alignment becomes particularly meaningful when considering the role of human error in complex systems. Extended work hours, high-pressure scenarios, and large-scale operations may introduce challenges that affect even the most experienced professionals. 

“AI systems can help reduce operational inconsistencies, enhance monitoring capabilities, and provide additional layers of validation,” he says. “In healthcare environments, this may support more consistent system performance, while in business contexts, it may contribute to more reliable operational continuity.”

Despite these advancements, perceptions around AI continue to evolve. Fortis Solutions points to concerns related to job displacement and data security that often accompany discussions about adoption. The company notes that these sentiments mirror earlier reactions to cloud computing, where initial hesitation transitioned into widespread acceptance as trust and familiarity developed. “Every transformative technology begins with questions. Over time, understanding replaces uncertainty, and organizations begin to see how these tools can extend their capabilities,” Roach remarks.

A key theme within Fortis Solutions’ approach is the importance of collaboration. AI systems can benefit from diverse perspectives, continuous feedback, and the ability to adapt as organizational needs and societal expectations evolve. Input from both technical and non-technical stakeholders contributes to more well-rounded systems, helping ensure that technology reflects a broader range of insights and experiences.

This collaborative dynamic reinforces the idea that AI functions most effectively as a partner. Humans establish the direction, define the parameters, and interpret outcomes, while AI contributes speed, scalability, and analytical depth. Together, they create a model that aims to enhance efficiency while supporting thoughtful decision-making.

As technology and societal expectations continue to evolve, adaptability remains essential. Fortis Solutions argues that systems built with flexibility, strong governance, and secure infrastructure are best positioned to grow with these shifts, ensuring long-term relevance. In this view, AI becomes a broader opportunity to strengthen organizational decision-making and operational resilience. By emphasizing human oversight and collaborative design, Fortis Solutions frames AI as a means to enhance reliability, maintain continuity, and elevate the overall quality of outcomes.