If you try out Intel’s AI Playground, which incorporates everything from AI art to an LLM chatbot to even text-to-video in a single app, you might think: Wow! OK! An all-in-one local AI app that does everything is worth trying out! And it is… except that it’s made for just a small slice of Intel’s own products. Quite simply, no single AI app has emerged as the “Amazon” of AI, doing everything you’d want in a single service or site. You can use a tool like Adobe Photoshop or Firefly to perform sophisticated image generations and editing, but chatting is out. ChatGPT or Google Gemini can converse with you, even generating images, but to a limited extent. Most of these services require you to hopscotch back and forth between sites, however, and can cost money for a subscription. Intel’s AI Playground merges all of these inside a single, well-organized app that runs locally (and entirely privately) on your PC and it’s all for free. Should I let you in on the catch? I suppose I have to. AI Playground is a showcase for Intel’s Core Ultra processors, including its CPUs and GPUs–the Core Ultra 100 (Meteor Lake) and Core Ultra 200 (Lunar Lake) chips, specifically. But it could be so, so much better if everyone could use it. Mark Hachman / Foundry Yes, I realize that some users are quite suspicious of AI. (There are even AI-generated news stories!) Others, however, have found that certain tasks in their daily life such as business email can be handed off to ChatGPT. AI is a tool, even if it can be used in ways we disagree with. What’s in AI Playground? AI Playground has three main areas, all designated by tabs on the top of the screen: Create: An AI image generator, which operates in either a default text-to-image mode, or in a “workflow” mode that uses a more sophisticated back end for higher-quality images Enhance: Here, you can edit your images, either upscaling them or altering them through generative AI Answer: A conventional AI chatbot, either as a standalone or with the ability to upload your own text documents Each of those sections is what you might call self-sufficient, usable by itself. But in the upper right-hand corner is a settings or “gear” icon, which contains a terrific number of additional options, which are absolutely worth examining. How to set up and install AI Playground AI Playground’s strength is in its thoughtfulness, ease of use, and simplicity. If you’ve ever used a local AI application, you know that it can be rough. Some functions are content with just a command-line interface, which may require you to have a working knowledge of Python or GitHub. AI Playground was designed around the premise that it will take care of everything with just a single click. Documentation and explanations might be a little lacking in places, but AI Playground’s ease of use is unparalleled. AI Playground can be downloaded from Intel’s AI Playground page. At press time, AI Playground was on version 2.2.1 beta. AI Playground’s Setup is pretty easy. Just download what you want. If you choose not to, and need access later, the app will just prompt you to download it at a future time,Mark Hachman / Foundry Note that the app and its back-end code require support for either a Core Ultra H (a “Meteor Lake” chip, the Core Ultra 200V) or either of the Intel Arc discrete GPUs, including the Alchemist and Battlemage parts. If you own a massive gaming laptop with a 14th-gen Intel Core chip or an Nvidia RTX 5090 GPU, you’re out of luck. Same with the Core Ultra 200H or “Arrow Lake.” Since this is an “AI Playground,” you might think that the chip’s NPU would be used? Nope. All of these applications tap just the chip’s integrated GPU and I didn’t see the NPU being accessed once via Windows Task Manager. Also, keep in mind that the GPU’s UMA frame buffer, the memory pool that’s shared between system memory and the integrated GPU, is what these AI models depend on. Intel’s integrated graphics shares half the available system memory with the system memory, as a unified memory architecture or UMA. Discrete GPUs have their own dedicated VRAM memory to pull from. The bottom line? You may not have enough video memory available to run every model. Downloading the initial AI Playground application took about 680 megabytes on my machine. But that’s only the shell application. The models require an additional download, which will either be handled by the AI Installer application itself or may require you to click the “download” button itself. The nice thing is that you don’t have to manage any of this. If AI Playground needs a model, it will tell you which one it requires and how much space on your hard drive it requires. None of the models I saw used more than 12GB of storage space and many much less. But if you want to try out a number of models, be prepared to download a couple dozen gigabytes or more. Playing with AI Playground I’ve called Fooocus the easiest way to generate AI art on your PC. For its time, it was! And it works with just about any GPU, too. But AI Playground may be even easier. The tab opens with just the space for a prompt and nothing else. Like most AI art, the prompt defines the image and you can get really detailed. Here’s an example: “Award winning photo of a high speed purple sports car, hyper-realism, racing fast over wet track at night. The license plate number is “B580?, motion blur, expansive glowing cityscape, neon lights…” The Settings gear in the upper right-hand corner opens up this options menu, with numerous tweaks. My advice is to experiment.Mark Hachman / Foundry Enter a prompt and AI Playground will draw four small images, which appear in a vertical column to the left. Each image progresses in a series of steps with 20 as the default. After the image is completed, some small icons will appear next to it with additional options, including importing it into the “Enhance” tab. The Settings gear is where you can begin tweaking your output. You can select from either “Standard” or “HD” resolution, which adjusts the “Image Size” field. You can adjust image size and resolution, and tweak the format. The “HD” option requires you to download a different model, as does the ‘Workflow” option to the upper right, which adds workflows based on ComfyUI. Essentially, they’re just better looking images with the option to guide the output with a reference image or other workflow. Some of the models are trained on public figures and celebrities. But the quality falls to the level of “AI slop” in places.Mark Hachman / Foundry For now, the default model can be adjusted via the “Manual” tab, which opens up two additional options. You’ll see a “negative prompt,” which excludes things that you put in, and a “Safe Check” to turn off gore and other disturbing images. By default, “NSFW” (Not Safe for Work) is added to the negative prompt. Both the Safe Check and NSFW negative prompt only appear as options in the Default image generator and seem to be on by default elsewhere. It’s up to you whether or not to remove them. The Default model (Lykon/dreamshaper-8) has apparently been trained on nudity and celebrities, though I stuck to public figures for testing purposes. Note that all of your AI-generated art stays local to your PC, though Intel (obviously) warns you not to use a person’s likeness without their permission. There’s also a jaw-droppingly obvious bug that I can’t believe Intel didn’t catch. Creating an HD image often begins its images with “UPLOAD” projected over the image, and sometimes renders the final image with it on, too. Why? Because there’s a field to add a reference image and UPLOAD is right in the middle of it. Somehow, AI Playground used the UPLOAD font as part of the image. Mark Hachman / Foundry Though my test machine was a Core Ultra 258V (Lunar Lake) with 32GB of RAM, an 896×576 image took 29 seconds to generate, with 25 rendering steps on the Default Mode. Using the Workflow (Line2-Image-HD-Quality) model at 1280×832 resolution and 20 steps, one image took two minutes 12 seconds to render. There’s also a Fast mode which should lower the rendering time, though I didn’t really like the output quality. If you find an image you like, you can use the Enhance tab to upscale it. (Upscaling is being added to the Windows Photos app, which will eventually be made available to Copilot+ PCs using Intel Core Ultra 200 chips, too.) You can also use “inpainting,” which allows you to re-generate a portion of the screen, and “outpainting,” the technique which was used to “expand” the boundaries of the Mona Lisa painting, for example. You can also ask AI to tweak the image itself, though I had problems trying to generate a satisfactory result. The Enhance tab of Intel’s AI Playground, where you can upscale images and make adjustments. I’ve had more luck with inpainting and outpainting then tweaking the entire image with an image prompt.Mark Hachman / Foundry The “Workflow” tab also hides some interesting utilities such as a “face swap” app and a way to “colorize” black-and-white photos. I was disappointed to see that a “text to video” model didn’t work, presumably because my PC was running on integrated graphics. The “Answer” or chatbot portion of the AI Playground seems to be the weakest option. The default model, by Microsoft (Phi-3-mini-4K-instruct) refused to answer the dumb comic-book-nerd question, “Who would win in a fight, Wonder Woman or Iron Man?” It’s not shown here, but you can turn on performance metrics to track how many tokens per second the model runs. There’s also a RAG option that can be used to upload documents, but it doesn’t work on the current release.Mark Hachman / Foundry It continued. “What is the best car for an old man? Sorry, I can’t help with that.” “What’s better, celery or potatoes? I’m sorry, I can’t assist with that. As an AI, I don’t have personal preferences.” And so on. Switching to a different model which used the OpenVINO programming language, though, helped. There, the OpenVINO/Phi-3.5-mini-instruct-int4 model took 1.21 seconds to generate a response token, producing tokens to the tune of about 20 tokens per second. (A token isn’t quite the length of a word, but it’s a good rule of thumb.) I was also able to do some “vibe coding” — generating code via AI without the faintest clue what you’re doing. By default, the output is just a few hundred tokens, but that can be adjusted via a slider. You can also just import your own model, too, by dropping a GGUF file (the file format for inference engines) into the appropriate folder. Adapt AI Playground to AMD and Nvidia, please! For all that, I really like AI Playground. Some people are notably (justifiably?) skeptical of AI, especially how AI can make mistakes and replace the authentic output of human artists. I’m not here to argue either side. What Intel has done, however, is create a surprisingly good general-purpose and enthusiast application for exploring AI, that receives frequent updates and seems to be consistently improving. The best thing about AI Playground? It’s open source, meaning that someone could probably come up with a fork that allows for more GPUs and CPUs to be implemented. From what I can see, it just hasn’t happened yet. If it did, it could be the single unified local AI app I’ve been waiting for. Read...

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Nvidia, AMD, and Intel have all latched onto AI-powered techniques as a way to enhance their graphics capabilities. Now Arm has entered the arena, shipping a new Arm Accuracy Super Resolution (Arm ASR) technology that’s based on something AMD previously developed. Arm ASR was initially developed for mobile GPUs, not for PCs. But Arm showed off Arm ASR in a demonstration for Unreal 5, running its desktop renderer on a mobile platform. All told, Arm ASR sped up the rendering engine by 30 percent, suggesting that Arm’s customers—including Qualcomm with its Snapdragon PCs—could use the technology to eventually speed up PC graphics as well. Arm ASR, which was first announced a year ago, is being released today as an Unreal Engine plugin. A Unity plugin will be available later this year. Arm said that it plans to expand Arm ASR to other platforms, without specifying exactly which ones or when. Arm ASR is built upon AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 (FSR 2), the older and simpler version that takes lower-resolution images and upscales them, boosting frame rates via faster processing. (AMD’s later iterations, including FSR 3 and FSR 4, also include frame generation.) Arm ASR uses temporal upscaling, however, said to be an improved version. Arm showed off Arm ASR in its new demonstration video: Arm said that game developers just need to enable the ASR plugin, configure the project settings to use Temporal Anti-Aliasing, and verify the integration. “Prominent game studios, including Enduring Games, Infold Games, and Sumo Digital, have integrated Arm ASR into their development processes, leading to improved game performance at the same visual quality,” Arm said. At this point, it’s not clear whether or not licensees like Qualcomm will have access to Arm ASR, given the unexpected IP litigation that’s been brewing between the two. Last week, Qualcomm said that it had filed two additional briefs in its fight against Arm, which was largely settled in Qualcomm’s favor after Arm unexpectedly tried to cancel Qualcomm’s IP license. Those recent briefs ask the court to rule against Arm in an unresolved claim in the IP trial. The second motion supports Qualcomm’s separate attempt to sue Arm for breach of contract. It is true, however, that the Windows on Arm platform in general has struggled to run games, largely because of compatibility issues. As Qualcomm and the Arm ecosystem continue to try and resolve that issue, Arm ASR will probably make gaming on Arm more attractive to developers and end customers alike. Read...

When DeepSeek-R1 released back in January, it was incredibly hyped up. This reasoning model could be distilled down to work with smaller large language models (LLMs) on consumer-grade laptops. If you believed the headlines, you’d think it’s now possible to run AI models that are competitive with ChatGPT right on your toaster. That just isn’t true, though. I tried running LLMs locally on a typical Windows laptop and the whole experience still kinda sucks. There are still a handful of problems that keep rearing their heads. Problem #1: Small LLMs are stupid Newer open LLMs often brag about big benchmark improvements, and that was certainly the case with DeepSeek-R1, which came close to OpenAI’s o1 in some benchmarks. But the model you run on your Windows laptop isn’t the same one that’s scoring high marks. It’s a much smaller, more condensed model—and smaller versions of large language models aren’t very smart. Just look at what happened when I asked DeepSeek-R1-Llama-8B how the chicken crossed the road: Matt Smith / Foundry This simple question—and the LLM’s rambling answer—shows how smaller models can easily go off the rails. They frequently fail to notice context or pick up on nuances that should seem obvious. In fact, recent research suggests that less intelligent large language models with reasoning capabilities are prone to such faults. I recently wrote about the issue of overthinking in AI reasoning models and how they lead to increased computational costs. I’ll admit that the chicken example is a silly one. How about we try a more practical task? Like coding a simple website in HTML. I created a fictional resume using Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet, then asked Qwen2.5-7B-Instruct to create a HTML website based on the resume. The results were far from great: Matt Smith / Foundry To be fair, it’s better than what I could create if you sat me down at a computer without an internet connection and asked me to code a similar website. Still, I don’t think most people would want to use this resume to represent themselves online. A larger and smarter model, like Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet, can generate a higher quality website. I could still criticize it, but my issues would be more nuanced and less to do with glaring flaws. Unlike Qwen’s output, I expect a lot of people would be happy using the website Claude created to represent themselves online. And, for me, that’s not speculation. That’s actually what happened. Several months ago, I ditched WordPress and switched to a simple HTML website that was coded by Claude 3.5 Sonnet. Problem #2: Local LLMs need lots of RAM OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman is constantly chin-wagging about the massive data center and infrastructure investments required to keep AI moving forward. He’s biased, of course, but he’s right about one thing: the largest and smartest large language models, like GPT-4, do require data center hardware with compute and memory far beyond that of even the most extravagant consumer PCs. And it isn’t just limited to the best large language models. Even smaller and dumber models can still push a modern Windows laptop to its limits, with RAM often being the greatest limiter of performance. Matt Smith / Foundry The “size” of a large language model is measured by its parameters, where each parameter is a distinct variable used by the model to generate output. In general, more parameters mean smarter output—but those parameters need to be stored somewhere, so adding parameters to a model increases its storage and memory requirements. Smaller LLMs with 7 or 8 billion parameters tend to weigh in at 4.5 to 5 GB. That’s not huge, but the entire model must be loaded into memory (i.e., RAM) and sit there for as long as the model is in use. That’s a big chunk of RAM to reserve for a single piece of software. While it’s technically possible to run an AI model with 7 billion parameters on a laptop with 16GB of RAM, you’ll more realistically need 32GB (unless the LLM is the only piece of software you’ll have opened). Even the Surface Laptop 7 that I use to test local LLMs, which has 32GB of RAM, can run out of available memory if I have a video editing app or several dozen browser tabs open while the AI model is active. Problem #3: Local LLMs are awfully slow Configuring a Windows laptop with more RAM might seem like an easy (though expensive) solution to Problem #2. If you do that, however, you’ll run straight into another issue: modern Windows laptops lack the compute performance required by LLMs. I experienced this problem with the HP Elitebook X G1a, a speedy laptop with an AMD Ryzen AI processor that includes capable integrated graphics and an integrated neural processing unit. It also has 64GB of RAM, so I was able to load Llama 3.3 with 70 billion parameters (which eats up about 40GB of memory). The fictional resume HTML generation took 66.61 seconds to first token and an additional 196.7 seconds for the rest. That’s significantly slower than, say, ChatGPT.Matt Smith / Foundry Yet even with that much memory, Llama 3.3-70B still wasn’t usable. Sure, I could technically load it, but it could only output 1.68 tokens per second. (It takes about 1 to 3 tokens per word in a text reply, so even a short reply can take a minute or more to generate.) More powerful hardware could certainly help, but it’s not a simple solution. There’s currently no universal API that can run all LLMs on all hardware, so it’s often not possible to properly tap into all the compute resources available on a laptop. Problem #4: LM Studio, Ollama, GPT4All are no match for ChatGPT Everything I’ve complained about up to this point could theoretically be improved with hardware and APIs that make it easier for LLMs to utilize a laptop’s compute resources. But even if all that were to fall into place, you’d still have to wrestle with the unintuitive software. By software, I mean the interface used to communicate with these LLMs. Many options exist, including LM Studio, Ollama, and GPT4All. They’re free and impressive—GPT4All is surprisingly easy—but they just aren’t as capable or easy-to-use as ChatGPT, Anthropic, and other leaders. Managing and selecting local LLMs using LM Studio is far less intuitive than loading up a mainstream AI chatbot like ChatGPT, Copilot, or Claude.Matt Smith / Foundry Plus, local LLMs are less likely to be multimodal, meaning most of them can’t work with images or audio. Most LLM interfaces support some form of RAG to let you “talk” with documents, but context windows tend to be small and document support is often limited. Local LLMs also lack the cutting-edge features of larger online-only LLMs, like OpenAI’s Advanced Voice Mode and Claude’s Artifacts. I’m not trying to throw shade at local LLM software. The leading options are rather good, plus they’re free. But the honest truth is that it’s hard for free software to keep up with rich tech giants—and it shows. Solutions are coming, but it’ll be a long time before they get here The biggest problem of all is that there’s currently no way to solve any of the above problems. RAM is going to be an issue for a while. As of this writing, the most powerful Windows laptops top out at 128GB of RAM. Meanwhile, Apple just released the M3 Ultra, which can support up to 512GB of unified memory (but you’ll pay at least $9,499 to snag it). Compute performance faces bottlenecks, too. A laptop with an RTX 4090 (soon to be superseded by the RTX 5090) might look like the best option for running an LLM—and maybe it is—but you still have to load the LLM into the GPU’s memory. An RTX 5090 will offer 24GB of GDDR7 memory, which is relatively a lot but still limited and only able to support AI models up to around 32 billion parameters (like QwQ 32B). Even if you ignore the hardware limitations, it’s unclear if software for running locally hosted LLMs will keep up with cloud-based subscription services. (Paid software for running local LLMs is a thing but, as far as I’m aware, only in the enterprise market.) For local LLMs to catch up with their cloud siblings, we’ll need software that’s easy to use and frequently updated with features close to what cloud services provide. These problems will probably be fixed with time. But if you’re thinking about trying a local LLM on your laptop right now, don’t bother. It’s fun and novel but far from productive. I still recommend sticking with online-only models like GPT-4.5 and Claude 3.7 Sonnet for now. Further reading: I paid $200/mo for ChatGPT Pro so you don’t have to Read...

Some PC gamers use the terms frame rate and refresh rate interchangeably. But while they’re related, your gaming PC’s frame rate and refresh rate measure two very different things — one fixed, the other varies. Frame rate explained The frame rate, which is measured in frames per second (FPS), indicates the number of images displayed on the monitor per second. The higher the number of frames, the smoother the animation appears. In games, FPS determines how smoothly you see the animations and how quickly inputs are registered. A low FPS means that animations are not displayed correctly or are even skipped completely, which can lead to a stuttering display. Radeon RX 9070 XT Read our review The performance of the graphics card (GPU) and the processor (CPU) mainly influences the FPS. The GPU does the main work in most games while the CPU plays a particularly important role in games with complex calculations such as physics or artificial intelligence. 30 FPS is considered acceptable for many games that do not rely on fast reactions. However, 60 FPS is the target for most games in order to guarantee a smooth experience. Higher FPS such as 120 or 144 offer advantages in competitive games in which every millisecond counts. Refresh rate explained The refresh rate, measured in Hertz (Hz), indicates how often the screen refreshes the image per second. The refresh rate depends on the display technology and the capabilities of the screen. Standard monitors offer a refresh rate of 60 Hz, which is sufficient for general use and casual gamers. However, gaming monitors can go up to 500 Hz. MSI MPG 341CQPX Read our review Best Prices Today: $749.99 at Amazon | $849.99 at MSI Although both the refresh rate and the frame rate are crucial for smooth displays, there are important differences. For example, the frame rate is mainly influenced by the GPU while the refresh rate depends solely on the monitor technology. It’s crucial that the frame rate does not exceed the refresh rate of the monitor, as this can otherwise lead to image errors such as tearing. An imbalance can also lead to stuttering, which is when the image is displayed several times in succession. To achieve the best results, you should check the refresh rate of your monitor and adjust the frame rate in the game settings accordingly. For example, if your monitor has a refresh rate of 60 Hz, you should set the game to 60 FPS. Tearing (image tearing) is a problem with asynchronous refresh rates and refresh rates. However, there are techniques to prevent this. IDG Technologies such as VSync, G-Sync, or FreeSync can help here. VSync synchronizes the FPS with the refresh rate to prevent tearing, but leads to a slight input delay. G-Sync and FreeSync flexibly adjust the refresh rate of the screen to the FPS to prevent tearing without causing a noticeable input delay. A balanced combination of refresh rate and frame rate is essential for a smooth gaming experience. Additional frames that your computer calculates but your monitor cannot display will only waste resources and increase the load on your device. A customized balance between frame rate and refresh rate not only ensures a smooth display, but also protects your system’s hardware. Read...

Imagine being woken up late one Tuesday night by a phone call from your young relative. They’ve been in a car accident and urgently need money sent to their phone, not having their wallet on them. The connection is bad but it does sound like them. Still groggy and confused, you start making the transfer. Only it’s not them calling you, they’re asleep, safe and sound. You’re talking to a robocall, steered by a scammer and made from a spoofed number. The scammer has cloned your relative’s voice by using their TikTok videos to train a so-called AI model. They’re sitting at a keyboard, guiding the conversation, probably from a country halfway around the globe. Let’s take a closer look at what’s happening here. There are two threads that come together in these kinds of scams: the popularity of imposter calls (even as robocalls continue to decline) and the increasing availability of voice-cloning technology. Imposter calls holding steady According to an Incogni study, reports of unwanted calls in general, and robocalls in particular, had generally been on the decline from 2017 to 2023. Still, robocalls accounted for 55% of all reported unwanted calls in 2023, even though the ratio of robocalls to live calls was also in decline from 2021 (3.1 robocalls to every live call) to 2023 (1.6:1). Drilling down into the topics covered during unwanted calls, the same study found that “imposter calls” held steady as being the most common type of call from 2019 to 2023, making up around a third of all reported calls in 2022 and 2023. Imposter calls were defined as “all unwanted calls where the caller impersonated someone else, an agency, or a company.” To impersonate someone, a scammer would need not only their number and yours, but also some basic information like the person’s name, age and sex. To make a more elaborate imposter call convincing, they’d need a whole host of additional personal data, like ethnicity, hobbies, shopping habits, online activity, criminal and court records, even sexual preferences. This is exactly the kind of data a personal information removal service like Incogni removes from circulation, online and off. Protect yourself from imposter scams with Incogni There’s a significant proportion of unwanted calls that rely on impersonation. It’s reasonable to assume that a large number of these calls are scam calls, as it’s difficult to imagine a legitimate reason for a caller pretending to be someone else. What happens when new technologies make it easier for scammers to impersonate not only celebrities and politicians, but everyday people as well? Voice-cloning technology enters the mix Recent advances in “AI” technology have resulted in high-quality voice-generating and voice-cloning software being readily available, often for free. These technologies make the nightmare scenario of someone cloning the voice of a loved one and impersonating them on the phone possible. Combined with number spoofing (making Caller ID display a number different from the one they’re calling from) and the availability of vast amounts of personal information online—including, for many people, voice-samples—these technologies can make for some extremely convincing impersonations. Here’s how a criminal could execute such a scam: Step 1: Target selection If they’re going to go after you, it’s going to have to be worth their while. Scammers can: Buy a ready-made list of people vulnerable to scams directly from a data broker, Browse data broker records, looking for the perfect victim (like someone who’s older and has just sold a property, for example), Buy or download breached or leaked data sets on the dark web, Come across your social media profiles and decide to target you based on what you share there. Ultimately, anything that suggests to a scammer that you both have something worth stealing and are sufficiently gullible is enough to make you a target. Step 2: Background research A scammer is going to need to know at least a few key things about you if they’re going to target you with a convincing scenario. These are some of the more common data points used in impersonation scams: Full name, Contact details, like phone number, email and address, Employment history, Educational background, Financial situation, Criminal history, Relatives, Known associates. And, of course, they’ll need a similar set of data points on each of your relatives and associates, especially if they’re going to be impersonating one or more of them. Where can they find all this data, nicely packaged into detailed profiles? Data brokers are companies that specialize in collecting, organizing, and monetizing personal information just like this. With trial memberships available for as little as $1, basically anyone can end up with detailed profiles on you and your close ones with just a few clicks. Personal information removal services like Incogni take these profiles down and request that data brokers stop collecting your data. Remove yourself from the web with Incogni Step 3: Collecting voice samples (optional) If the scammer is planning on impersonating someone over the phone, they’ll need some recordings of that person speaking to give their “AI” software something to imitate. If you post videos of yourself on social media, have a YouTube channel or have appeared on a podcast, this won’t be a problem for them. Step 4: Number spoofing (also optional) Again, if the scammer is impersonating someone close to you, it’d be more convincing if the call appeared to be coming from that person’s number. There are several ways to achieve this at little-to-no cost to the scammer, although it might require some technical know-how. They can’t spoof a number they don’t know, though, so having this kind of personal data purged from the internet can stop even these very technical attacks dead in their tracks. Step 5: Execution By now, the scammer now knows a lot about you, about the person they’re going to impersonate, and your shared network of friends, colleagues and relatives. They just need to choose the right time (often when you’re likely to be tired, in a rush or distracted) and make the call. The relative simplicity of perpetrating a fraud like this goes some way to explaining why the FCC made the use of “AI-generated voices” in robocalls illegal in 2024. Of course, making something illegal only discourages law-abiding people from doing it—scammers are unlikely to take notice. You might be feeling pretty safe at this point: maybe your loved ones don’t have any voice-recordings out there for the scammer to sample, maybe your phone or carrier has anti-spoofing measures in place, maybe you’re confident that you’d pick up on the fake voice, even if the scammer lowers the audio quality and adds background noise. The fact is, if you’re an everyday person with not much of an online presence and not much in the way of money to lose, then it’s unlikely you’d be targeted with such an involved scam. The more likely nightmare scenario We started with a scenario in which a scammer clones the voice of someone close to you. But we also saw that the voice-cloning and number-spoofing steps are optional—how so? Well, if the scammer knows enough about you and your close one, they don’t need to impersonate them for the scam to work. It’s late Tuesday night, you’re asleep when your phone wakes you up. You don’t recognize the number. You pick up. It’s a police officer, he says your young relative has been in a car accident and they’re in custody. Your relative asked the police officer to call you, they want to keep the situation under wraps until they can talk to their parents. In the meantime, they need you to bail them out. Still groggy and confused, you start making the transfer. In this scenario, the scammer doesn’t need to sound like anyone in particular, just a random police officer. The need for voice cloning goes away, as does the need for number spoofing. The scammer might still need to synthesize a voice, to cover up poor English skills or a suspiciously strong accent, for example, but that’s easy enough to do. All they really need is to find your and your relative’s records on a data broker’s website. What you can do Staying off social media is always a good idea, but not always feasible. Also, not taking part in recorded interviews or presenting your ideas publicly just to avoid voice-cloning attacks seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Scammers can’t or at least aren’t likely to target you if they can’t find your information on data brokers’ websites in the first place. They also can’t easily figure out who your friends and family are (especially if you’ve set your social media profiles to “private”). There’s a big difference between a “police officer” calling you to ask about your nephew Daniel Thomas Walsh, born on the 11th of March, 2006, who drives a blue Silverado and would have been on his way home from work at the pizza place, and the same “police officer” umming and ahhing as he can’t really give any details concerning Daniel other than his name. Take scammers’ best tool away from them by having your personal information removed from data-broker databases. An automated personal information removal service like Incogni can make this an easy, set-and-forget process. When choosing a data removal service, look for one that covers a wide range of data brokers, including marketing, recruitment, risk-mitigation, and people-search data brokers. Many services remove data only from people search sites, leaving users exposed. Incogni covers all four of these data broker types, removing personal information from over 220 brokers in total. It also offers a family plan, so you can keep your and your nephew’s information private. Get Incogni Read...

Every online action leaves a digital footprint that influences your online identity. This footprint can have both positive and negative effects. To protect one’s online presence, it’s essential to understand what the digital footprint is and the potential consequences of leaving it online. This article will discuss these risks, provide tips on how to protect your information and highlight the importance of online security tools like Surfshark Antivirus to keep your personal data safe.  What is a digital footprint?  A digital footprint, electronic footprint, or digital shadow is the activities and traceable data you leave behind online. It can include things like logging into an app, browsing the web, posting on social media, etc. One simple use of digital footprint is advertising — advertisers can gather information about your interests and preferences from your digital footprint and show you targeted ads.  There are two types of digital footprints:  ? Active digital footprint consists of the data you intentionally leave online, such as posts or comments you make on social media, newsletter subscriptions, and online purchases;  ? Passive digital footprint consists of data that might be collected without you knowing. It simply depends on website cookies — they track your visits, IP (Internet Protocol) address, biometric and geolocation information, and more.  Let’s look at some numbers. According to Surfshark’s study on digital footprints, people use nine apps on average for 4 to 5 hours every day, mainly for social interactions. The average smartphone user can generate up to 188 digital footprints daily. Of course, developers use some data to improve your apps, so not all data is used for malicious purposes, but the numbers are still shocking.  So, understanding your digital footprint is important, but effectively managing it is crucial. Failing to do so can lead to serious consequences. Let’s explore the possible outcomes.  What are the consequences of leaving a digital footprint?  Your digital footprint can heavily influence how you access your accounts, impact your online reputation, and determine the advertisements you see online. It also increases the risk of being hacked.  For example, if a cybercriminal gets a hold of your digital footprint, they can impersonate you and trick the people close to you to give out your personal information. Or, if a service you use experiences a data breach, they could leak your sensitive data.  What’s even worse is that your digital footprint can be easily accessible. Data brokers, advertisers, mobile carriers, internet providers, co-workers, hackers, and other internet users can find it, too.  Given the potential risks, taking proactive measures to protect your digital footprint and safeguard your personal information online is crucial.  How can you protect your digital footprint?  To minimize your active digital footprint, limit the amount of data you share online, adjust your privacy settings, delete old accounts that are no longer in use, and avoid untrusted websites. As for protecting your passive digital footprint, you should consider more advanced security measures, such as using Surfshark Antivirus, which is part of Surfshark One and Surfshark One+ plans.  How can Surfshark Antivirus protect your digital footprint?  Surfshark Antivirus provides powerful device protection against malware and other cyberthreats. It can help safeguard your digital footprint by performing the following:  ? Protecting devices from malware, like keyloggers, that secretly gather your data;  ? Scanning for threats in real-time to prevent harmful software from accessing your data;  ? Finding and removing adware — software that shows ads and collects user data.  Additionally, Surfshark Antivirus also offers the following:  ? Real-time protection;  ? Webcam protection;  ? Fully customizable security;  ? Prevention of online activity tracking by ad companies and bots.  Let’s say you’re already following the general security tips and using Surfshark Antivirus. What more can you do to safeguard yourself as much as possible? You can try other products that are included in the Surfshark One and Surfshark One+ plans. Let’s discover how they can help you protect your digital footprint.  View Surfshark antivirus Additional security measures to protect your digital footprint  Surfshark stands out for its multifunctionality. Their Surfshark One package includes a full array of security products: Surfshark VPN, Surfshark Antivirus, Surfshark Alert, Surfshark Search, and Alternative ID. With Surfshark One+, you can also get a data removal service called Incogni.  To protect your active digital footprint, consider using the following products:  ? Alternative ID: Protects your main email from spam and safeguards it from breaches;  ? Surfshark Alert: Monitors your emails, credit cards, and personal identification number and provides immediate data leak alerts.  To protect your passive digital footprint, consider using the following products:  ? Surfshark VPN: Enhances your online privacy by hiding your IP address and encrypting your connection and prevents tracking by websites, ISPs, and hackers;  ? Surfshark Search: Delivers unbiased and ad-free search results by not logging queries or search history;  ? Incogni: Requests data brokers to delete your data from their databases and monitors their compliance to prevent your data from being collected or sold again.  Using Surfshark Antivirus can be your first step toward taking proactive steps to safeguard your digital footprint. However, if you’re really concerned about your privacy, it’s worth looking into and using other bundled products.  Final thoughts on securing your digital footprint  Understanding your digital footprint is crucial for online security, but managing it is what really matters. For your active footprint, limit the information you share online, update your privacy settings, and perform a spring cleaning of your old accounts. For the passive footprint, consider advanced security measures like Surfshark Antivirus, which protects against malware, scans for threats in real-time, and removes adware. And be sure to take advantage of the full Surfshark bundle to access all the additional cybersecurity tools available to you.  View Surfshark antivirus Read...

There are many reasons you might want to “delete yourself” from the internet. From receiving frustrating amounts of spam to protecting yourself from carefully crafted scams fueled by the availability of personal data. But it goes much deeper than that. Having your personal information floating around online leaves you more vulnerable to identity theft, a type of fraud that can lead to criminals opening lines of credit in your name. Stalkers can use location and other data to commit their crimes. Even the seemingly more mundane uses of personal data can be enough to make you want to delete yourself from the internet. You might find loan applications being inexplicably rejected, insurance premiums going up or job searches getting drawn out. Companies checking your credit rating is one thing, but these effects could stem from inaccurate, outdated or irrelevant information being used in decision-making processes that affect you in very real ways. What it means to “delete yourself from the internet” We’re not talking about completely disappearing from the internet. For one, this is very difficult if not impossible to do, even if you were to throw near-unlimited resources at the problem. It’s also probably not something you’d want to do even if you could. There’s a way you can keep making use of all the benefits the internet has to offer—like the unparalleled shopping, communication and information-sharing opportunities—without leaving yourself needlessly vulnerable to all the downsides. The key is getting your personal information under control. You don’t need to delete yourself entirely, it’s often enough to remove your personal information from circulation. “Personal information” includes things like your: Current and past names, and any aliases Current and past addresses Email addresses Phone numbers Educational background Work history Income bracket Licenses Certifications Marital status Sexual orientation Financial information Criminal record Court records And much, much more. Not exactly the kinds of details you’d want shady companies to package and resell behind your back, or put on Google Search so that anyone can buy access to them for as little as a dollar. There are two ways to tackle this problem, and you’ll need to do both to see long-term results: Figure out how you’re putting personal information online and bring it down to a level with which you’re comfortable Put a stop to companies grabbing and publishing or otherwise disseminating what personal data you do end up generating down the line. Just going about your day-to-day business generates personal data that can then be scooped up by companies that know how to monetize it at your expense. Everything from doing some online shopping to selling a house or vehicle leaves traces. Stop any personal information that’s already out there from being spread around We’re starting here because you’ve already got personal information doing the rounds online—pretty much everyone does. So the first thing you’ll need to do is interrupt the flow of what’s already out there. There are a couple of things you can do to make this happen. Stop companies packaging and selling your personal information online and off There are companies—called data brokers—that specialize in collecting, organizing and selling personal information. They get your personal data by scraping the web, purchasing or otherwise acquiring ready-made profiles, or a combination of the two. The most visible data brokers are commonly known as “people finder” or “people search” sites. You can see examples of these sites, and the information they have on you, simply by performing a web search for your full name, address or phone number. These sites will likely show you a free “teaser” of your profile, with the full records being locked behind a paywall. It gets worse: people search sites are just the tip of the data brokerage iceberg. Many data brokers operate in the background, selling personal information to other businesses and organizations rather than putting it on websites aimed at individuals. You won’t find these companies by simply searching for your details, but they’re out there. Hundreds of them. People search sites sell your data to anyone who’s willing to pay for access, including unscrupulous landlords, curious neighbours, nosy coworkers, stalkers, even scammers. Other data brokers will sell your data to: Advertisers Marketers Government agencies Insurance companies Banks Employers And many more. Thanks to state privacy laws like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), you can do something about this. To comply with laws like this, data brokers have to have an opt-out procedure in place to give people caught up in their personal-data dragnets a clear way out. You can track down these companies one by one and submit an opt-out request to each one. Some are just a matter of a couple of clicks and take 5 minutes to complete, others can be a real nightmare and can take 45 minutes or more. Add the time it takes to find them in the first place, and you’re looking at hundreds of hours in total. Or, you can sign up for an automated personal information removal service, like Incogni. These services already know where to find some of the most connected brokers and how to submit opt-out requests in line with their requirements—because virtually every one has a different procedure to follow. Incogni makes it easy for anyone to remove their personal information from being searched online. Subscribers get a 30-day moneyl-back guarantee on automated data removal services, including recurring removal from 220+ data broker sites. With flexible plans for just $7.49/month for one person (billed annualyy) or $16.49/month for the family plan, Incogni offers privacy protections against identity theft, scam robocalls, and exposure after breached data. Get Incogni Remove your personal information from Google Search results You’ve seen how a search engine can reveal your personal information to anyone who knows your name, address, email or phone number. With the latest “face-search” technology, they don’t even have to know that much, a surreptitiously taken photo is all it takes. Google Search, with its monopoly over the search market, is likely the first place most people will look. Google won’t always agree to remove links from its search results and, even if it does, it can only remove links from Google Search: it can’t affect the content itself and it can’t stop that content from showing up on other search engines. To have content taken down at the source, you’ll need to contact the relevant webmaster. Here’s a quick rundown of your options on Google Search: Use this form to remove outdated content Use this form to remove harmful or illegal content (as long as it violates Google’s terms of service) Finally, use this form to remove content that contains “select personally identifiable information (PII) or doxxing content.” Stop new personal information from getting out into the wild Stopping data brokers from buying and selling your data and getting Google Search to remove your personal information from its search results can only do so much if you keep allowing new personal information to appear online. “Allowing” might be a bit harsh, given that you might not be aware of how some of your data is getting out there. We’ll get to that. Stop publishing personal information online Social media platforms are careful to use words like “share” when encouraging users to publish content, including personal information. “Sharing” makes it sound like you have some control over who sees what you post. But “publishing” is more accurate: social media posts are public by default. The best advice is as predictable as it is inconvenient: delete your social media accounts to protect your privacy and delete yourself from the internet. Short of doing that, here’s a list of things you can do to limit the damage: Switch from mainstream social media platforms like Facebook and X (Twitter) to decentralized and open-source platforms like Mastodon. Set any social media profiles you decide to keep to private mode, so that only people you know and trust can see your posts. Check and double-check anything you decide to post publicly for personal information, this will become second nature sooner than you might think. Turn location services off on mobile devices before posting, many social media platforms will grab this information from your device, some will append it to your posts. Check photos for anything that could reveal personal information, look out for reflections, documents, screens (that show private information), and unique identifiers like car registration plates. Strip photos of metadata—metadata is text that’s automatically attached to photos and contains a lot of information about the location at which the photo was taken as well as the device on which it was taken. Apply the same level of caution when uploading video and audio recordings. The same holds true for any blogging or vlogging you do, the comments you leave on various platforms, and anything you post on forums. Stop your devices from leaking personal information The above best practices come into play when you’re actively publishing information online, but a lot of personal data leaves your devices when you’d least suspect it. Here are just some examples: Apps and programs Mobile apps and computer programs that have been granted access to location data, device information, microphone and camera inputs, and files (including documents, photos, videos and audio recordings) can leak personal information while you’re not even using them. Such apps and programs might have been set up to “dial home” periodically and upload your data. This might be necessary to support their features, or it might be to harvest data that’s then sold to advertisers in order to generate revenue—free apps are often monetized in this way. Even apps developed with the most honest of intentions and collecting only the bare minimum of data can be hijacked by malicious actors (think: hackers) and have any data they have access to stolen (“breached”). Delete any apps and programs you haven’t used in a while. For particularly data-hungry apps like Facebook, Amazon, and so on, consider using the respective websites instead. Web browsers Browsers are a special category of app or program, mainly because we do so much through a browser. They have access not only to hardware (like cameras and microphones), but also information (in the form of files) and—perhaps most importantly—to users’ behaviour and movements across the web. And no, “incognito” or “private” mode doesn’t do anything to help you here. Diligently research any browser you decide to use. Options like Google’s Chrome are very secure but not private, whereas something like Mozilla’s Firefox is both secure and private. Stick to well-known and trusted browsers, avoid new browsers that don’t have an established track record, and watch out for browsers that had a good reputation in the past but have since changed hands. Browser-based games Games can take a lot of resources to develop and maintain, so you might wonder how so many impressive-looking browser-based games can be offered for free. Often, it’s by collecting and selling or otherwise monetizing personal information. Avoid free online, especially browser-based, games. Be particularly wary of games with development teams from countries like China and Russia. Again, even games produced by the most trustworthy and well-intentioned developers can be breached by third parties. Any stockpile of personal data is going to be a target for hackers and other bad actors. Operating systems This is one that’s more for the technically minded, but it’s worth keeping in mind for everyone. The operating system on your device (whether Windows, macOS, Android or iOS) has access to everything you do on that device. Both Microsoft and Apple harvest personal data from their users, and both have business interests in protecting that data from competitors and bad actors. There are two problems here: Microsoft and/or Apple having vast stores of your personal data is a bad thing in and of itself, and neither company is able to guarantee the security of that data—both have suffered and continue to suffer data breaches. Alternatives exist, mainly in the form of Linux and the BSDs. These operating systems are open-source, meaning that anyone can review their source code to look for security vulnerabilities and privacy threats. As a result of this transparency, and the general absence of corporate interests, these systems are both more secure and more private. The catch is that these operating systems are unfamiliar to most people, and can take some getting used to. Although the Linux operating system in particular has many extremely user-friendly “versions” (called distributions) available, and almost all of them are readily given away, free of charge. Stop your online accounts from leaking personal information We covered how publishing personal information online can jeopardize your privacy, but you don’t have to actively post things yourself for the information to get out there. If you’re active online, and especially if you do a lot of online shopping, you can easily have hundreds of online accounts out there. Many of which you probably only used once, to grab that Black Friday deal, for example. Apart from the fact that you’re effectively trusting dozens if not hundreds of companies to not misuse your data, you’re also trusting that they won’t leave that data unsecured, that they won’t be bought out by less scrupulous companies, and so on. The solution is simple, but it might require some tedious work: delete any accounts you don’t need anymore. If you’ve been using a password manager (like Bitwarden), this shouldn’t be too difficult. Otherwise, search through your emails for keywords like “welcome” and “verification” to ferret out evidence of old accounts. Protect your data with Incogni Read...

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The Raspberry Pi single-board computer and all its variants have captured the imaginations of DIY enthusiasts and budding hobbyists alike. With the latest model, the Raspberry Pi 5, the mini-PC is more capable than ever, with an upgraded four-core 2.4GHz system-on-chip (SoC) that’s up to three times faster than previous models. Much of the coverage you’ll see around the web focuses on the more fantastical projects—magic mirrors, portable gaming handhelds, intelligent drones, and so forth. Those maker masterpieces certainly show what sort of power the sub-$100 mini-PC is capable of in the hands of someone with a little imagination and a bin full of spare electronics.  But most people, particularly beginners, won’t use the Raspberry Pi to whip up crazy creations. There are near-endless practical uses for this bare-bones kit, from media streaming to extending the range of your Wi-Fi network, as the following 10 projects demonstrate. Time to put that lil’ computer to real work. Heck, many of these projects will even work with the $10 Raspberry Pi Zero. Further reading: I built a maxed-out Raspberry 5 PC with an SSD for under $200. You can too HTPC media streaming The original $35 Raspberry Pi may have been revolutionary to makers, but it took off with PC enthusiasts as well thanks to its ability to double as a dirt-cheap home-theater PC. That allure may have waned a bit in recent years as dedicated devices like the Chromecast hit the streets at similarly low prices, but using a Raspberry Pi as a media-streaming box still offers far more power than those streaming-centric sticks, especially if you have a sizeable local media collection. There are a slew of HTPC-centric Raspberry Pi operating systems out there, each revolving around slapping your HD videos on the big screen. OSMC is built around the popular Kodi media center software (formerly XBMC), while RasPlex transforms your Pi into the ultimate Plex streaming box. The $21 Raspberry Pi TV Hat accessory, meanwhile, can grant your mini-PC the ability to read over-the-air TV signals. Give a dumb TV smarts Likewise, if you have a dumb TV that you’d like to add web browsing and other basic computing abilities to, the Raspberry Pi does the trick without costing anywhere near as much as a proper home theater PC. You’ll want to use a Raspberry Pi 2, 3, or 4, though—the original Pi and the Raspberry Pi Zero are just pokey enough to be frustrating for general tasks. With the right case, the Pi can look downright stylish in your home theater, too. Bonus: If you’re connecting the Raspberry Pi to your TV, you can use it to stream web videos, too! File storage server You can also have your Raspberry Pi play wingman for the other devices in your house, serving as a centralized device that performs helpful tasks. Case in point: You can use the mini-PC as a cheap NAS box for general file storage if you connect an external USB hard drive to the machine. Hit those links for technical details, and one tip if you’re planning to convert the computer to a file server: Use a wired ethernet connection rather than Wi-Fi if you’re able. Make sure you grab a solid external drive, too! Wireless network printer Printing isn’t as prevalent as it used to be, but the Raspberry Pi can help you transform that chunky old USB printer in your closet into a networked printer that every device in your house can use. You’ll need a power source for each gadget, obviously, as well as a USB connection between the devices, but setting it up is pretty straightforward. This MakeUseOf tutorial walks you through the process step-by-step. Extend your home’s Wi-Fi network Raspberry Pi doesn’t make the home networks you use, but it can make the home networks you use better if you configure the mini-PC as a wireless range extender, tapping into the device’s ethernet and USB ports. Doing so can help your Wi-Fi signal reach the farthest corners of your house and help wipe out dead zones. Configuring the device to bolster your home network will take a bit of time, and you’ll need to buy a USB Wi-Fi adapter to do it, but again, it’s relatively straightforward with a guide. Check out Adafruit’s reader-friendly tutorial. Old-school gaming emulator Gaming emulators are a legal gray area, but there’s no doubt that using the Raspberry Pi as a butt-kicking console emulator is a popular use for the machines. It can play games from a wide variety of consoles right on up to the PlayStation 1 era if you manage to snag some legal game ROMs, though the older the system being emulated, the better the performance. Curious? Check out PCWorld’s complete guide to turning your Raspberry Pi into a retro gaming console for the full scoop. A music streaming machine The Raspberry Pi’s media chops aren’t limited to video streaming alone. Numerous operating systems have also been released that transform the device into a high-fidelity music player when connected to a speaker, sort of like a more powerful, flexible version of Chromecast Audio. The various music-oriented OSes available offer different features; poke around the FAQs and features of each to see which is right for your needs. Here are tutorials on how to have your Raspberry Pi turn dumb speakers into smart music solutions with Volumio and Rune Audio (pictured), both of which offer mobile apps so you can control your tunes with your phone. Learn programming You could always use the Raspberry Pi as it was originally intended, too: As a low-cost introduction to programming and computer science. The mini-PC’s loaded with all sorts of software that encourages deep-level tinkering. Beyond the command-line terminal, you’ll need to wade in often, you’ll also find versions of Wolfram Mathematica, Python program creation tools, and Scratch, an animation coding IDE for kids, in the Raspbian operating system that the Raspberry Pi Foundation encourages new users to install. Get smart! Play Minecraft Or you could play Minecraft. There’s a free Raspberry Pi version of Minecraft that anybody can download at no cost. Even better, it’s designed to teach you how to use the Python programming language as you build out the world. (Hey, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella did say that part of the reason the company purchased Mojang was to lure kids into computer science.) Download Minecraft: Pi Edition and jump in. Affordable productivity PC With options of 2GB, 4GB, and now 8GB models, the Raspberry Pi 4 packs a heftier punch than previous RPi iterations—making it suitable for basic everyday tasks like web browsing, watching video streams, and document editing. Setting up one as a PC goes fast, too, with the bulk of the hour setup time devoted to waiting for the operating system installation to complete. As a starter or secondary computer, it’s hard to beat, especially given its build cost of $100 (or even less, if you opt for the 2GB version and not the 4GB). Check out PCWorld’s full guide in how to put together a $100 Raspberry Pi PC for everything you’ll need. Crazy awesome experiments Let’s finish where we began. Once you’ve wrapped your head around the Raspberry Pi’s potential, why not try your hand at one of those awe-inspiring inventive projects? PCWorld’s look at 10 insanely innovative, incredibly cool Raspberry Pi creations can help with the inspiration, while the project guides at Instructables, Hackaday, and the Raspberry Pi Foundation website itself are ready to walk you step-by-step through the really awesome stuff like the magic mirror above. Also check out our roundup of the best Raspberry Pi kits. Whether you’re a newbie who just wants to get all the basics with one purchase, or an experienced tinkerer looking to build a specialized project, a kit could be the way to go. Editor’s note: This article is updated periodically to include new info, most recently to resurface these projects for Pi day (March 14, 2024) and note the release of the Raspberry Pi 5. Read...