The cartel ran an unlicensed financial institution without authorization from Brazil’s Central Bank. The scammers claimed to offer cryptocurrency investments and promised investors 15-percent returns on their capital, local news Correio Do Povo reports. The Federal Revenue Service said the company had managed to raise around R$850 million ($210 million) by February 2019 from would-be investors. Authorities believe the number could actually be closer to R$1 billion ($248 million), though....

Enter the need for ‘experience architecture’ — a new frontier that blends the capabilities and competencies of ‘enterprise architecture’ and ‘experience design’ to enable next-level customer experience to come to life. Whereas enterprise architecture has historically focused on building the technology infrastructures needed to deliver products and services, experience architecture expands from this narrow focus to something much more valuable. With companies now — hopefully — recognizing that customer experience is a primary strategic business driver, we’ve seen more of them expand their approach to experience architecture to encompass every point and moment at which the customer might interact with the brand....

Instead, I want to draw your attention to the symptoms of stress or panic, two very unpleasant, yet common, states of mind experienced in times of crisis at work (or otherwise). If this sounds familiar, here are some tips to help you navigate a work crisis and come out feeling far more relaxed and in control. [Read: No, you’re not a failure — here’s how to deal with setbacks at work]...

I interpret your framing of the problem as follows: “…I’ve been working at the same company for a while now…” — You believe promotion is related to time-served. “…been hoping to be promoted to a lead position…” — You believe you are ready to lead others. “…but every time something comes around, I miss out.” — You believe you were considered (most likely because you applied or expressed interest to management) but not selected for an available leadership position at your organization....

Great sales leaders are able to push or pull a team whether they are at 120% or at 50% of their goal, and they are able to recruit and maintain high-performing sales teams over a long period of time. There is no silver bullet for sustaining a high performing sales team, but here are a few things that I think are important: You win the battle on the battlefield Any great sales leader has had to be a top self-contributor in the past, which means that she or he has what it takes, and, deep inside, loves the kill....

Ultimately, it’s about doing what works for you, but here are a few pointers that will hopefully help you start your day right. Wake up at the same time When you work from home, it can be tempting to stay in bed until the very last minute possible. While it’s OK to treat yourself and do this on the odd occasion, I would advise you to be more disciplined and wake up at the same time every day....

Atari is working with the GSD Group to build the hotels in eight major cities. GSD will be doing the work of actually building the hotels, as this is essentially a licensing deal that gives them the use of the Atari name. Atari received a $600,000 advance for the deal, and is also entitled to 5 percent of the hotels’ revenue. [Read: Atari’s VCS throwback console is getting a joystick upgrade] The hotels will include “fully immersive experiences for every age and gaming ability, including the latest in VR and AR (Virtual and Augmented Reality)....

In the early days of motoring, cars didn’t have the standardized three pedals, steering wheel, and gear shifter controls that most of us will know. Take the Ford Model T for example: to drive it in reverse you depress the middle pedal, its brake pedal is where a modern accelerator should be, and its throttle is on a lever on the steering column. It’s confusing to say the least. As cars got more advanced, driving them became an increasingly simple affair....

A year later, Google has introduced some nifty features such as scheduling, search filters, and spelling and grammar correction in Gmail. However, it has hardly made any effort to port some of Inbox‘s most beloved features to Gmail. My favorite feature of Inbox was Bundles, which groups similar emails together, such as emails from one company. This made it easier to swipe the bunch away in a single tap. Last February, a post on Reddit suggested the Gmail team was working on that feature....

That’s being significantly mitigated today. Adobe today announced the latest version of Lightroom supports both Apple’s new M1 chips and ARM on Windows 10, suddenly making these devices much more viable alternatives for photographers. To be clear though, only the modern version of Lightroom supports ARM. Lightroom Classic, which many, if not most, photographers still swear by, does not yet run natively on ARM (you can still run it with a performance hit on Apple’s M1 chip)....

The bamboo-like plant has been ravaging European roads, railways, and building foundations since explorer Philipp Franz von Siebold brought it to the continent in the mid-19th century. Unbeknownst to Siebold, the perennial weed would become “indisputably the UK’s most aggressive, destructive and invasive plant,” according to the Environment Agency. The fearsome plant can reduce a property’s value by 10% and cause road closures when it’s spotted on highways. It’s also notoriously time-consuming and expensive to find....

The research by analytics giant SAS and the non-profit Center for NYC Neighborhoods (CNYCN) showed that areas with a higher proportion of Black and Hispanic homeowners have lower home values — even when the age and square footage of their properties are the same. The team also found that the cost of getting home purchase loans is higher for Black and Hispanic borrowers than other racial groups. The CNYCN will use the insights to design programs that can increase Black homeownership and advocate for policies that help to close the racial wealth gap....

Today, a lot of what we see labeled ‘AI’ is actually closer to automation. Automated responses can give the impression of intelligence, but in reality they are predetermined. This use of automation, in part, is due to the data boom. Organizations have found currency in data and have fought to fuel products with this knowledge. But the problem with a vast data set is that obsolete knowledge can be muddled with the correct, useful, information....

The company today announced Astro, its oft-rumored home robot. Although it’s pricey at an initial cost of $999.99, it has the potential of being the first real mainstream home assistant robot (as opposed to, say, a robot vacuum). Something you can’t immediately see from the photos too is that it has a periscope camera that extends from the top of the robot. This allows the robot to see objects that are higher up — such as if want to check if you left the stove on....

We’ll pause while you chuckle at the “politicians are criminals” jokes running through your head. It’s the second time the ACLU has run this type of test. In the first, a test conducted last year, Rekognition was wildly inaccurate, churning out incorrect and racially biased results when attempting to match members of Congress. Phil Ting, a San Francisco Assembly Member, and one of the incorrect matches, used the results to drum up support for a bill that would ban use of the technology in police body cameras....

Rohit Prasad, the scientist in charge of Alexa’s development, recently gave MIT Technology Review’s Karen Hao one of the most terrifying interviews in modern journalism. We know how dangerous it is to let bad actors run amok with AI and our data – if you need a refresher, recall the Cambridge Analytica scandal. That’s not to say Prasad is a bad actor or anything but a talented scientist. But he and the company he works for probably have access to more of our data than ten Facebooks and Twitters combined....

The culprit is a vulnerability in the aforementioned Android versions (CVE-2019-2107), which enables hackers to remotely execute arbitrary code by sneaking in “specially crafted files,” like videos laced with a malicious payload. Once a victim has opened the file, attackers can gain access to their device. Developer Marcin Kozlowski has already uploaded a proof of concept for the attack vector on GitHub. “You can own the mobile [device] by viewing a video with [the malicious] payload,” Kozlowski wrote in the documentation....

If you’ve ever done any digital animation work, you probably already know a few things. You know animation is notoriously time-consuming work, getting all those figures and animated worldbuilding elements moving and looking just right. And with all those graphics and the motion and processing needs happening, animation is a notorious resource hog that can slow down even newer, nimble computers. However, Animation Desk not only cuts down on all the extra steps that can drag out the animation process, but it’s all happening right on an iPhone or iPad....

I don’t need to tell you just how worrying this is. The issue was first spotted in the macOS Big Sur beta by Twitter user @mxswd all the way back in October. They had this to say: — Maxwell (@mxswd) October 19, 2020 This was confirmed and expanded upon by Patrick Wardle, a security researcher at Jamf. Previously, a comprehensive macOS firewall could be implemented via a Network Kernel Extension (kext) Apple deprecated kexts, giving us Network Extensions…....

If you want to see where this whole mess got started, I recommend reading this, this, or this. Long story short: Epic tried to get around the App Store payment system within Fortnite, Apple banned Fortnite, and Epic’s claiming Apple is an unjust monopoly. When last we checked in with these two, Epic had lost its bid to get Fortnite back on the App Store via emergency restraining order, and a judge told Epic that it was essentially its own fault and no way were they going to give Fortnite a free ride....