AI tutoring startup SigIQ.ai emerges from stealth with $9.5M to democratize elite education

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 7, 2025 by itnerd

When SigIQ.ai’s AI tutor took India’s notoriously difficult UPSC civil service exam last June, it didn’t just pass – it achieved the highest score in the exam’s history, beating 1.3 million human candidates in under 7 minutes. Today, the Berkeley-based startup emerges from 18 months of stealth with $9.5 million funding to transform education through personalized AI tutoring that delivers elite-level instruction at the cost of computation, not hundreds of dollars per hour.

The seed round was co-led by House Fund and GSV Ventures, with participation from Duolingo, General Catalyst India (Venture Highway), Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia India), Calibrate Ventures and angel investors, such as Andy Konwinski (Co-founder, Perplexity), Christian Storm (Co-founder & CTO, Turnitin), Prof. Trevor Darrell (Berkeley AI Research, UC Berkeley), Prof. Jitendra Malik (Berkeley AI Research, UC Berkeley), Prof. Srini Devadas (MIT), Prof. Sharad Malik (Princeton) and others. This investment will accelerate hiring top talent, enhancing AI models, and scaling platforms to educational systems worldwide.

SigIQ.ai’s technology directly addresses “Bloom’s Two-Sigma Problem” – the research finding that students receiving one-on-one tutoring perform two standard deviations better than those in traditional classrooms. This educational disparity has persisted for decades, with personalized tutoring remaining a luxury reserved for the privileged few. The company’s revolutionary approach shifts the cost of personalization from human labor to AI computation, making world-class instruction accessible at unprecedented scale.

The company was founded in July 2023 by Dr. Karttikeya Mangalam and Professor Kurt Keutzer, a distinguished Professor in the Berkeley AI Research (BAIR) Lab who has published six books, over 250 refereed papers, and helped launch twelve startups. SigIQ.ai’s origin reflects its mission. Growing up in Muzaffarpur, Bihar – a region where educational opportunities are limited – Mangalam experienced firsthand the stark divide between small-town India and elite Western academic institutions. After completing his education at IIT Kanpur and then at UC Berkeley, he founded SigIQ.ai to democratize access to world-class education globally.

In just 18 months, SigIQ.ai has launched two products with remarkable traction. PadhAI, focused on UPSC exam preparation in India, has attracted over 200,000 learners in just six months. On June 16, 2024, moments after the actual 2-hour UPSC Prelims exam had finished, PadhAI’s AI tutor solved the entire paper in a live demonstration in under 7 minutes at The Leela in Delhi. It achieved a score of 175/200 – not just the highest score in 2024, but the highest score ever achieved in UPSC prelims history, far exceeding the typical qualifying score of 100/200. This historic achievement was covered by over 70 news outlets across India, including The Hindu and The Times of India.

The company’s newer offering, EverTutor.ai, designed for GRE preparation in the US market, has already gained more than 10,000 users since launching three months ago.

What differentiates SigIQ.ai from other educational AI tools is its approach to personalization. Unlike basic conversational AI that offers scripted or limited interactivity, SigIQ’s systems are highly interactive, responsive to follow-up questions, and capable of personalized instruction and feedback – not just chat. As a result, this technology replicates the behavior of a real tutor. Students using the platform report a 30-40% increase in effective study hours while improving performance by 18% in the first month, with over 75% feeling more confident tackling difficult topics within just three weeks.

Looking ahead, SigIQ.ai plans to expand its reach with EverTutor, supporting more GRE takers in the upcoming spring and fall. The company will be present at ASU+GSV to demonstrate the newest developments in both platforms. Beyond standardized tests, SigIQ.ai envisions a future where their technology transforms education broadly, creating a new era where high-quality learning isn’t limited by geography, language, or economic status. Ultimately, the team is set on proving that elite education doesn’t have to be scarce – it can and must be universal.

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Captain Morgan Comes Up With A Phone Case To Keep You Focused On What’s Going On IRL

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 6, 2025 by itnerd

Captain Morgan is on a mission to bring back real-life good time.

Let’s be honest, socializing has turned into a solo scroll session – parties are quiet, first dates are even more awkward than usual, and somehow, we’ve all started socializing through screens instead of each other. Case in point is the fact that despite having a standing date night every Friday with my wife, I have a tendency to look at my phone a lot.

To fix that Captain Morgan has created The Captain’s Case—a one-of-a-kind phone case that completely covers your screen so you can actually enjoy the moment.

The case arrived in this box that doesn’t give away what it is.

Inside that box is the case. On the left there’s a lining so that you screen doesn’t get scratched. On the right there’s a slogan that highlights what this case is for. I should note that it had no problem fitting my iPhone 14 Pro with a case on it.

Even though I have the phone facing the wrong way (it should be screen side down) you get the point that it will fit the biggest phones without a problem.

And it doubles as a coaster for this rum and Coke (made with Captain Morgan of course).

To reinforce the message, there was this card on the inside.

There was also a recipe card in the box should you want to do something different.

This case was tied to an event on April 4th which Captain Morgan termed the ultimate signal-free party, a next-level experience in the heart of Toronto. Basically they transformed an underground parking lot, yes, a parking lot, into the party of the year where there would be no cellular signals and no distractions. Sounds like an interesting idea and I hope that they got a good turnout. Having said that my wife would like to suggest to Captain Morgan that they put these cases on sale as when I used it on Friday, I was more focused on her than on my phone. Which I suppose is a good thing.

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What’s The Difference Between A Text Message And A Push Notification When It Comes To Two Factor Authentication

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 5, 2025 by itnerd

After I posted this story on a client of mine who unfortunately was the victim of a SIM Swap Attack, I got a couple of emails asking why I said this:

Now while I was there, I helped my client to not only change his banking password as he was having difficulty doing that, but enable push notification based two factor authentication. I did that because a SIM Swap Attack relies on the target having two factor authentication codes coming over text message. If they come via push notification, then a SIM Swap Attack would be totally ineffective as those notifications are not connected to the SIM. In fact, I encourage anyone who reads this to see if you can move any two factor authentication codes to push notifications as a means to mitigate an attack like this should it happen to you.

Specially, they were asking about while they should switch to using push notifications for two factor authentication rather than relying on a text message. On the surface they seem to be the same. Both are messages that pop on your phone. Thus I can see why people would thing that they are the same. But there are a couple important differences.

A text message is sent over the air and is tied to your phone number. This is why SIM Swap Scams have become pervasive. Because if a threat actor already has your password to say your online bank account, and can get control of your SIM by swapping it to a SIM that they can control because the bank account requires you to type in a code that they send by text message, they can access your bank account. Thus it makes text messaging completely insecure for securing your online accounts. To go down the rabbit hole further, text messages have other liabilities:

  • Your cellular carrier can see your text messages as they are completely unencrypted. So if you’re talking about anything sensitive or confidential via text message, that’s not a good idea.
  • Criminals and the policecan see and intercept your text messages for the same reason as the previous point.

So before I get to why push notifications are the better way to go, let me get to messaging apps and standards like iMessage, RCS, Signal, WhatsApp and the like. iMessage is end to end encrypted. So anything that is sent over iMessage is going to be secure. That’s great but we live in a world where there are people who don’t use iPhones. So that’s not an option. RCS is what Android phones have been using as their default messaging standard, and that’s supported on iPhones. Thus isn’t that an option? No. Currently RCS support on iPhone doesn’t do encryption in the same way that iMessage does. So that’s a non-starter for authentication purposes. But that will change shortly. Having said that, some of what RCS supports depends on what cellular carriers and your handset manufacturer choose to support. So if you’re on a carrier that doesn’t support encryption of RCS messages, you’re out of luck. As for third party messaging apps like WhatsApp or Signal, they may or may not support encryption, but that means that it’s one more app that a bank for example would have to support.

This is where push notifications come in. Apple has APNS or Apple Push Notification Service. And there’s GCM or Google Cloud Messaging. Both create a 1 to 1 relationship with the device and not the SIM card. So a threat actor could execute a SIM Swap Attack, but be no further ahead as the two factor authentication codes are going to the device. On top of that, messages are encrypted in transit. Making this the better option for sending sensitive information like two factor authentication codes. Another option for app developers is to implement push notification support via Firebase. This is Google’s standard for the same thing as APNS and GCM. The thing is that it is cross platform. So you can reach Android and iOS users easily. And the other thing is that it too is encrypted. So it is secure while at the same time is easier to implement on both iOS and Android.

Now using push notifications should be something that any app developer that uses two factor authentication codes for any reason should implement ASAP while at the same time deprecating support for text messaging. Canadian Imperial Bank Of Commerce for example has sort of done this by having support for push notifications as an option. But they still for whatever reason support text messaging. This needs to change because if the most if not every app delivers two factor authentication codes this way, the world will be a safer place and SIM Swap Attacks will simply die because they simply will not work.

What do you think? Should consumers demand better from app developers when it comes to the delivery of two factor authentication codes? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts.

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Here We Go Again…. Trump Again Doesn’t Enforce The Ban On TikTok

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 4, 2025 by itnerd

For those of you who are late to this story, the Chinese owned social media platform TikTok should have been banned by now in the US. After all Congress passed a law to do just that. But President Trump has kicked the can down the road once after coming into office. And now it appears that he’s done it again:

President Donald Trump has extended the deadline for the TikTok ban by 75 days. Trump shared a post on Truth Social on Friday stating that he is signing an executive order to allow for more time to finalize a deal.

“My Administration has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress,” Trump wrote. “The Deal requires more work to ensure all necessary approvals are signed, which is why I am signing an Executive Order to keep TikTok up and running for an additional 75 days.

He continued, “We hope to continue working in Good Faith with China, who I understand are not very happy about our Reciprocal Tariffs (Necessary for Fair and Balanced Trade between China and the U.S.A.!). This proves that Tariffs are the most powerful Economic tool, and very important to our National Security! We do not want TikTok to ‘go dark.’ We look forward to working with TikTok and China to close the Deal. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

Keep in mind that this is the same guy who wanted to ban TikTok and either force a sale or have it go dark. So you have to wonder why he wants to save TikTok. Regardless, we have another 75 days of sitting and waiting to see how this plays out.

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One Of My Clients Got Hit With A SIM Swap Attack… Here’s What Happened

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 4, 2025 by itnerd

I was at a wedding in Niagara On The Lake with my wife last weekend when I got a series of iMessages from a client of mine. He first said that his email inbox was being flooded with all sorts of garbage email. As in hundreds of them. He asked if he could stop them from coming in and I texted back discreetly that no he couldn’t and that I would call him later.

Fast forward about two hours and I get another series of iMessages from the same client saying that he got a phone call from one of Canada’s “big three” telcos that his account had an issue and they would have to take his cell phone offline for 24 hours to resolve it. That immediately got my attention as that is not any of Canada’s cell phone providers, “big three” or otherwise behave. Since the actual ceremony was over, I texted a friend who is married to a person who holds a significant position in the telco in question to confirm that I wasn’t delusional. Which that person did. At the same time, I noted that the iMessages were coming from his iCloud account as opposed to his cell phone number. That confirmed that he was the victim of a SIM Swap Attack.

Now I went down the rabbit hole of what a SIM Swap Attack is here. But here’s the TL:DR:

SIM stands for Subscriber Identity Module. That’s telco speak for the chip that goes inside your phone to allow you to get cell phone service. Your cell phone number is associated with that SIM and what the threat actor is going to try and do is to either trick a telco employee into moving your number to a SIM that they control, or have an accomplice inside the telco who will help them move your number to a SIM that they control.

And:

So in short, a SIM swap attack is a means for a threat actor to take control of your number to get access to two factor authentication codes that allow the threat actor to take control of anything from social media accounts, to bank accounts, to crypto wallets. That’s because two factor authentication codes are often sent by text message. And since the threat actor is unlikely to get direct access to your phone, taking over your SIM is the next best option.

I told the client to phone the telco and confirm that they didn’t make the phone call, and then have them take action to regain his phone number and account. Which he did. I also told him to start phoning his banks and credit card companies to try and get ahead of whatever this threat actor was up to, as well as change all his passwords. Which mirrors this advice from the article that I linked to. Now I didn’t have my MacBook Pro with me, so I wasn’t able to investigate this until the next day via a remote session with the client. But my belief was the email issue and the SIM Swap were connected. And it didn’t take long for me to prove that.

What the threat actor had done is used some sort of automated process to sign my client up to hundreds of email based distribution lists. That in turn sent hundreds of emails to my client flood his inbox. Now you’re likely wondering why they would do that. The answer is that they were trying to cover up what they were really up to. Once I cleared out all that “noise”, I found that they were trying to attack his Zoom accounts. Why I do not know. But I also noticed that someone had also applied for a credit card with a $20,000 credit limit with Canadian Tire which is a big retailer in Canada. Finally, the threat actors changed the password on his telco’s online account. I knew that because the notification about the password change showed up via email. I changed his password to a new one and looked through his account because I was thinking that the threat actors might have tried to order a phone to ship it to an address that they could get the phone and ship it elsewhere for resale. Thus I advised him to phone his telco to confirm that this had not happened.

My advice to him at the time was to call Canadian Tire’s financial services and stop that credit card from being issued, and to continue to change password for any and all online accounts. Finally, I advised him to sign up for credit monitoring and report this to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. I then made an appointment with him to see him the next day.

I followed up with him and he had taken the following action:

  • Signed up for credit monitoring
  • Reported this to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre
  • Reported this to his bank and credit card company. Of interest, the credit card company cancelled his credit cards and issued new ones. The bank took no action as they didn’t see anything suspicious.
  • He had phoned his telco and confirmed that no account changes had been made and nothing had been ordered via his account.
  • Interestingly, Canadian Tire Financial Services phoned him to say that someone had tried to sign up to a credit card in one of their stores, and then tried to buy thousands of dollars worth of product. He shut that down immediately. But it implies that the goal of this SIM Swap Attack was identity theft followed by retail theft.

Now while I was there, I helped my client to not only change his banking password as he was having difficulty doing that, but enable push notification based two factor authentication. I did that because a SIM Swap Attack relies on the target having two factor authentication codes coming over text message. If they come via push notification, then a SIM Swap Attack would be totally ineffective as those notifications are not connected to the SIM. In fact, I encourage anyone who reads this to see if you can move any two factor authentication codes to push notifications as a means to mitigate an attack like this should it happen to you.

Now you might be noticing that I am not naming the Canadian telco in question. That’s because after he reported this to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Center, I got a number of calls from them, and then a police agency that I will also not name. In short, this situation is now part of a larger investigation into a SIM Swap gang that seems to be operating inside a couple of provinces in Canada. And the police agency also told me that there might be insiders that work for the telco that he deals with. If that’s true, I’ve seen this before here. And that caught my attention because my first thought was that they might have asked him to provide them with access to his online telco account via the PIN number that gets emailed every time you try to log in or reset the password. But when I looked for that in his email, I did not see any evidence that he received such an email. The only thing that I saw was the email that said that his password was reset. The other odd thing that caught my attention was that he reported that when he got the call from the threat actor pretending to the an employee of the telco in question, the woman at the other end of the line knew him by name and phoned his cell phone directly. Now I have experienced this personally here with a threat actor pretending to be Rogers who knew my wife’s name and who was trying to get me to sign on to a great deal with a free phone. Which I knew to be a scam immediately. So it doesn’t surprise me that this might be the case with the telco in this incident. I do have a follow up with him in the next day or two, so I will see if I can try again to confirm that he played no part in the SIM Swap Attack by providing any information that helped the threat actors.

This is likely not going to be the last that I am writing about this incident. Thus I would suggest that you stay tuned for updates if and when they come. And just to make it clear, there are things that I can’t talk about regarding this, so please understand if I cannot answer all your questions. But if you do have questions, I will answer them as best as I can.

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Hammerspace Wins “Data Storage Innovation of the Year” for Second Year in a Row in Data Breakthrough Awards Program

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 3, 2025 by itnerd

Hammerspace, today announced that it has been awarded the “Data Storage Innovation of the Year” award in the 6th annual Data Breakthrough Awards program for the second consecutive year. The program is conducted by Data Breakthrough, an independent market intelligence organization that recognizes today’s top companies, technologies and products in the global data technology market. 

Hammerspace’s data-centric architecture is fundamentally different from other solutions in the market, delivering the highest performance shared storage in the industry with its Tier 0 offering while helping to eliminate data silos and making data an instantly accessible resource for compute clusters, applications, and users, no matter where they are located.

Breakthrough features of its Global Data Platform include its Hyperscale NAS storage architecture that combines its high-performance parallel file system with the standards-based pNFS client. This approach enables enterprises, governments and research institutes to simplify and accelerate data architectures. No proprietary client software is needed on servers, no modifications of applications to work with proprietary parallel file system interfaces and no specialized infrastructure or networking is required.

The annual Data Breakthrough Awards is the premier awards program founded to recognize data technology innovators, leaders and visionaries from around the world in a range of categories, including DataOps, Data Analytics, AI, Business Intelligence, Data Privacy, Data Storage and many more. The 6th annual Data Breakthrough Award program attracted thousands of nominations from across the globe.

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Nikon Announces the Nikon Z5II

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 3, 2025 by itnerd

Today Nikon Canada Inc. announced the new full-frame / FX format Z5II, an entirely new generation of intermediate-level camera that miraculously manages to fit the latest high-end features into a lightweight camera body that will help kickstart any creative spark. The Nikon Z5II is the easiest way to level up a user’s captures with full-frame image quality, incredibly fast and intelligent autofocus (AF), excellent low-light performance, one-touch film-inspired colour presets and the brightest viewfinder of any competing camera .

The new Nikon Z5II uses the same high-power EXPEED 7 image processing engine as Nikon’s highest calibre professional models, the Z8 and Z9. The benefits of this processor are immediately apparent, affording incredible levels of performance and extremely fast AF with subject detection powered by deep learning (AI) technology.

This highly accurate, high-speed focus is a massive leap from its predecessor, locking in at approximately one-third the time. In addition, the new camera now utilizes a highly sensitive back-illuminated (BSI) CMOS sensor for beautiful rendering of textures and details, even in dimly lit situations such as indoors or nighttime landscapes, with minimal noise. The Z5II further fuels your creative drive with a dedicated Picture Control button and innovative tools like Imaging Recipes and Flexible Colour Picture Controls, all of which help users create a truly distinctive look with unparalleled creative control of colours.

Reliably Fast Focus and Performance

The AF on the Nikon Z5II is remarkably precise and super-fast, effortlessly locking-on and tracking a wide range of moving subjects. From fast-paced portraits to action shots, the system helps you to never miss a crucial moment, even when a subject is backlit. The cutting-edge AF system can detect up to nine types of subjects for stills and video, including people (faces, eyes, heads, and upper bodies), dogs, cats, birds, cars, motorcycles, bicycles, airplanes, and trains. But it’s not just the focus that’s fast—thanks to the next-generation processing power, the Z5II also offers high performance features from pro level Z models, to excel in any shoot.

  • 3D-tracking AF mode keeps the target subject in focus even if it moves rapidly or erratically. This allows for subject tracking, even at high burst speeds, for sharp images again and again when photographing sports, animals or other fast-moving subjects.
  • The first full-frame mirrorless Nikon camera with AF-A focus mode. In this mode, the camera automatically switches between AF-S and AF-C focus modes in response to subject movement or changes in composition with still shooting. This allows the camera to automatically focus on the subject, with no setting adjustments when photographing. This new feature makes it simple to photograph pets, kids or other subjects whose movements are difficult to predict.
  • Fast continuous shooting speeds with a maximum frame rate of 14 frames per second in mechanical shutter mode and up to 15 or 30 frames per second (electronic shutter) with full autofocus.
  • Pre-Release Capture function when shooting in C15 and C30 modes is capable of recording images buffered up to one second before the shutter-release button is fully pressed, capturing the action before a user can react.

Embrace Low Light Like Never Before

There’s no need to be afraid of the dark with the Nikon Z5II. Featuring a powerful combination of the full-frame back-illuminated CMOS sensor and the EXPEED 7 image-processing engine, the Z5II delivers the best low light ability in its class. Images and video are rendered with minimal noise, and incredible AF detection abilities in low light. Whether shooting indoors, twilight cityscapes or the night sky, the Z5II is built to help you capture confidently in nearly any light, preserving details and textures throughout the broad ISO range.

  • Class-leading autofocus detection down to -10EV delivers accurate, reliable focus in dim and dark conditions—great for concerts, live performances, festivities, available light portraiture, astrophotography and more.
  • A broad standard ISO sensitivity range of 100-64,000, expandable to Hi 1.7 (ISO 204,800 equivalent), delivers exceptional low-light capabilities and outstanding image quality with minimal noise. The max ISO is 51,200 for video recording.
  • The 5-axis in-camera vibration reduction (VR) system provides superior image stabilization equivalent to a 7.5-stop increase in shutter speed at the center and a 6.0-stop increase at the peripheral areas of the frame. This allows users to create with confidence in lower light and get sharper results, even when handheld or at lower shutter speeds.
  • Focus-point VR tailors stabilization to the area covered by the active AF point, for sharp rendering of the subject, even when it is positioned near the edge of the frame.
  • Starlight View Mode makes focus and composition simple in extremely low light, while the Warm Colour Display Mode helps preserve night vision when working in complete darkness.
  • Extended shutter speeds up to 900 seconds (15 minutes) in manual exposure mode are perfect for extreme long-exposure nightscapes and star trails.

Engineered to be Used, Made to be Loved

Shooting with the compact and lightweight Z5II is a satisfying and comfortable experience. The electronic viewfinder (EVF) is simply stunning and is 6x brighter than any competing model. At up to 3000 nits brightness, users can easily shoot even in the brightest direct sun with a perfect view of the frame, with real-time exposure information. Additionally, the rear 3.2″ Vari-angle LCD touchscreen rotates freely to nearly any angle, giving full freedom of composition. Get down in the street or hold it high above everyone’s heads and still be able to accurately frame the perfect shot. The grip is deep and comfortable to minimize fatigue. Additionally, the Nikon Z5II’s front, back, and top covers are made from magnesium alloy, which delivers exceptional durability and outstanding dust-and drip-resistance.

Feel the Colour with Picture Controls

The Nikon Z5II is the latest camera to support one-button access to Picture Controls, plus compatibility with the Nikon Imaging Cloud. The dedicated Picture Control button opens new possibilities for expressive colour, with imaginative film-inspired looks that instantly change the colour tone and colour of a scene. In a single press, the user can see in real-time the effects of up to 31 built-in colour presets plus Imaging Recipes downloaded by the user.

Nikon Imaging Cloud connectivity allows users to download a wide variety of free Imaging Recipes by Nikon and created by popular creators, and to apply these recipes when shooting. In addition, the Z5II supports Flexible Colour Picture Control, which allows users to create their own unique colour styles using Nikon’s free NX Studio software. Flexible Colour allows for a wider variety of colour and tone adjustments, including hue, brightness and contrast. What’s more, these settings can also be saved as Custom Picture Controls that can be imported to the Z5II for use while shooting.

Powerful Video Features for Hybrid Users

The Z5II offers an impressive array of video features for content creators:

  • Capture immensely vivid and detailed 4K/30 UHD video, with no crop. This gives creatives the ability to shoot in 4K at full-frame, with more wide-angle freedom. For higher frame rates, the camera can also capture up to 4K/60 with a 1.5x crop.
  • Flexible in-camera video recording options with 12-bit N-RAW, 10-bit H.265, and 8-bit H.264. This is the first camera to be able to record N-RAW to an SD card.
  • N-Log tone modes offer greater flexibility for colour grading. This means Z5II users also have access to the free RED LUTs, which were developed in collaboration with RED for users to enjoy cinematic looks.
  • Full HD/120p for flexibility to create 5x slow motion videos in 8-bit H.264.
  • Hi-Res Zoom uses 4K resolution to zoom up to 2X in-camera during Full HD shooting, without any loss of quality. This is useful when using prime lenses to get closer to a subject and add a dynamic look to footage.
  • Product Review Mode will seamlessly switch focus between the user and any objects that they hold up to the camera. Users can even customize the size of the active AF area.
  • Upgrade streaming while connected via UVC/UAC-compliant USB port, transforming the camera into a high-quality webcam for live streaming.
  • The Z5II also includes ports for headphones and microphones.

Additional Features of the Nikon Z5II

  • Dual SD card slots
  • Bird detection mode makes it easier to detect birds in motion and in flight.
  • Equipped with Nikon’s exclusive portrait functions, including Rich Tone Portrait that realizes radiant and beautiful rendering of skin textures, and Skin Softening that smooths the skin while leaving hair, eyes, and other details sharp.
  • Capture high-resolution images with Pixel Shift shooting to portray stunning depth and rich textures, from architectural details to rocky landscapes and vibrant artwork, creating images at a staggeringly high resolution of up to approx. 96-megapixels (must be processed with free Studio NX software)

Price and Availability

The new Nikon Z5II full-frame mirrorless camera will be available in April 2025 for a manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) of $2,299.95 for the body only, or with the NIKKOR Z 24-50mm f/4-6.3 lens for an MSRP of $2,699.95.

For more information about the latest Nikon products, including the vast collection of NIKKOR Z lenses and the entire line of Z series cameras, please visit www.nikon.ca.

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AI won’t replace low/no-code tools, say 84% of tech leaders

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 3, 2025 by itnerd

The new 2025 App Development Trends Report from App Builder, in participation with third-party research firm Dynata, reveals that more than three-quarters (76%) of tech leaders say that AI will make their existing low-code/no-code tools more efficient instead of replacing them altogether.

Companies’ use of low-code and no-code tools have steadily increased over the past decade and become an integral piece of how 95% of teams now build scalable applications. As AI converges with low-code and no-code, companies’ reliance on these tools is set to increase even more as they’re able to automate app development processes faster, improve collaboration and increase productivity.

Additional findings from the new report include:

  • Companies’ reasons to use low-code/no-code tools have evolved. Improving developer productivity (37%) remains the top reason companies use low-code/no-code tools. But, other reasons have grown in importance since initial implementation of the tools, including allowing developers to focus on more strategic work (25% now vs. 22% initially), increasing end-user satisfaction (20% now vs. 17% initially) and decreasing manual errors (19% now vs. 15% initially). 
  • Time is money–and companies are saving both with low-code/no-code tools. Ninety-eight percent (98%) of tech leaders reported development time savings with low-code and no-code solutions–with nearly 4 out of 5 companies (78%) saving up to 50% of development time. Nearly two-thirds (62%) of companies say they’ve reduced software development costs with the tools. 
  • Custom application development is a priority for companies. Generic applications don’t cut it anymore; companies need to evolve their apps to meet the unique needs of their business and customers. Nearly one-third of tech leaders (29%) say their top reason for using low-code and no-code tools is to increase flexibility to create custom apps that meet specific company needs.

You can read the report here.

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Outpost24 Research (Part 2): Unmasking EncryptHub – Help from ChatGPT & OPSEC blunder

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 3, 2025 by itnerd

Today Outpost24’s KrakenLabs published Part 2 of its investigation into EncryptHub, an up-and-coming cybercriminal who has been gaining popularity in recent months and is heavily expanding and evolving operations. Part 1 covered EncryptHub’s campaigns and TPPs, infrastructure, infection methods, and targets.

In part 2 Unmasking EncryptHub: help from ChatGPT & OPSEC blunders, the researchers explore the:

  • Last decade online with a particular focus on EncryptHub’s one-year-old foray into cybercrime
  • OPSEC mistakes EncryptHub made along the way, including the reuse of passwords, the use of personal email accounts and usernames to register and manage several assets tied to his criminal activities
  • Heavy reliance on ChatGPT and a few key errors which lead to his unmasking
  • Most notable ‘developer-related’ mistake: poor access management on his C2 server, leaving confidential parts of the server exposed with directory listing enabled, accessible to anyone without authentication

The researchers hope to reveal a human image beyond the amorphous dark entity that the generic tag of ‘Threat Actor’ usually gives.

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Appdome Brings Mobile Account Protection to the New Frontline of Account Takeovers and On-Device Fraud

Posted in Commentary with tags on April 3, 2025 by itnerd

Appdome today announced it is strengthening its Account Takeover Protection suite with 32 new AI-Native dynamic defense plugins that provide Mobile Account Protection to the new frontline of Account Takeovers (ATOs) and On-Device Fraud (ODF). The new plugins are designed to help mobile brands and businesses maintain trust in the mobile experience and combat increasingly sophisticated malware that targets user identity, account creation, and transactions in mCommerce and other applications. Like all Appdome AI-Native defenses, each of the 32 new dynamic defense plugins for Mobile Account Protection is available by choice using the Appdome Platform without the need to integrate code, perform manual coding, implement SDKs, or deploy servers.

The growing complexity of mobile applications, including Super Apps, the sophistication of threats, including those that leverage AI and AI-Agents, as well as the proliferation of on-device malware, have greatly lowered the barrier for attackers to carry out Account Takeovers in mobile businesses.  Further, new tools and techniques are emerging to capture or exploit mobile identities and account data at the point of user entry, download, processing and/or choice in a mobile app. Traditional fraud detection and prevention products don’t safeguard these critical functions in the mobile application. Instead, these point products look for ATOs after the fact, often looking for the same attack vectors as other security and bot defense products to distinguish and mitigate fraud. Appdome’s Mobile Account Protection is designed to go beyond legacy security, anti-fraud and bot detection methods and protect the critical identity and account functions from deep inside the execution layer of the mobile application. If a threat is detected, Appdome’s AI-Native Mobile Account Protection plugins can either defend the user automatically or notify the application (or application backend) when fraudsters and other attackers try to compromise these functions. The result is proactive, pre-emptive defense to stop fraud and ATOs before they are successful.

The 32 new AI-Native Mobile Account Protection plugins for the Appdome Platform fall into three mobile defense categories:

  • Appdome Trusted Execution Environment (TEE). This series of plugins allows Android & iOS applications to use a segmented and secure execution environment to create, store, and retrieve critical account, identity and transaction data within Android and iOS applications. Within Appdome’s TEE, Appdome protects the application memory, state, workers, activities, notifications, IPCs, APIs, and CPCs, performs session management, and provides a dedicated secrets manager for the application to use.
  • Dynamic Memory Protection: Attackers are increasingly targeting the mobile application memory to harvest account credentials, alter critical account information, or manipulate account values such as in program or loyalty abuse. Appdome provides a series of new plugins designed to detect when attackers attempt to access or dump the application memory, manipulate application values in memory, or harvest sensitive data and keys stored in an application’s memory with memory editing tools.
  • Identity Theft Prevention: Appdome’s new Mobile Account Protection suite now includes plugins designed to protect mobile application users from identity theft, including SIM swaps, overlay attacks, fake screens, key logging, tap hijacking, clipboard hijacks and more.

Combined, Appdome’s Mobile Account Protection suite ensures mobile accounts and critical account data in Android and iOS applications is secure and exploit-proof, adding a layer of fraud detection and prevention deep in the execution layer of a mobile app. This level of protection against ATOs and ODF has never existed in the mobile economy before Appdome.

The new plugins combine the power of choice-driven defense in depth, and no-code, no SDK delivery with innovative on-device detection, defense, and intelligence options to satisfy any implementation objective. All Appdome Mobile Application Protection Plugins are available with Appdome’s Threat-Events™ Intelligence and Control Framework and Appdome ThreatScope™ Threat Analytics service. Threat-Events allows mobile brands to gather data on each attack, control the user experience and create beautiful on-brand mobile experiences when attacks happen. Mobile brands can use Threat-Events to create unique workflows and user messages leveraging the power of their brand voice when threats are present. Mobile brands can track and monitor ATO attacks via Appdome’s ThreatScope™, either before or after the deployment of Mobile Account Protection features.

Learn more about Appdome’s Mobile Account Protection.

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