Le Journal

LG TV owners are expressing confusion and annoyance online after Microsoft Copilot suddenly appeared on their smart TVs, with no option to uninstall the app, Tom’s Hardware reports. Copilot was reportedly added to some LG models in conjunction with a recent webOS update and subsequently appears pinned to the home screen. For now, however, it functions primarily as a shortcut to Copilot on the web, rather than as a fully integrated TV app. LG has previously announced that it has partnered with Microsoft as part of its “AI TV” initiative. According to the company, Copilot will be used to provide AI-based search and recommendation assistance directly in the TV interface. While Copilot cannot be completely uninstalled, it is possible to hide the app so that it does not appear on the home screen.

As we all know, winter time is cinema time, and the Oscars are drawing ever closer. So it’s no wonder that more and more films are being released that are attracting the attention of the masses. September saw the release of One Battle After Another, a fast-paced drama starring Leonardo DiCaprio, which is already being touted as an Oscar favorite. However, with a running time of just under three hours, it seems that not everyone wants to go to the movies, preferring instead to watch it from home. And they are also resorting to illegal means. Criminals are now exploiting this, as security experts from Bitdefender warn. Torrents of One Battle After Another are currently in circulation, spreading a dangerous Trojan called “Agent Tesla.” This Trojan can not only steal access data, but also monitor PCs, take them over completely and even control them remotely. The campaign appears to be large-scale and has therefore aroused the interest of researchers. In their report, they also describe the unusual method used by the malware to access affected systems. This is how the infection works After downloading the file that is supposed to contain the film, the user is shown a folder containing various seemingly harmless files such as CD.lnk or Part2.subtitles.srt. If the first file is executed in the hope that this will start the film, a Powershell script starts in the background instead. This accesses the second file, which actually contains subtitles in the form of a text file, but also code snippets. The script jumps to the point where the hidden code is contained and then executes it. Another file called One Battle After Another.m2ts, which is disguised as a video file, is also used to continue the infection chain. The same happens with other seemingly harmless files that together contain malicious code. The end result: the Trojan is installed on the system and the attackers can strike immediately. Undetectable even by virus scanners The procedure seems complicated, but serves one main purpose: neither Windows nor common virus protection programs can reliably detect that this is malicious software. As the attackers use seemingly harmless file types and existing tools such as Powershell, the individual processes look like completely normal accesses. Only at the very end could the user realize that it is a Trojan. But by then it is already too late and the hackers can simply block all attempts to protect the device. Even a system restart no longer blocks the attackers. The security experts do not specify exactly how many systems have already been hit by the wave of attacks. However, there is talk of thousands of downloads. In addition, attackers have already been successful with similar tactics in the past. For example, with fake downloads of the Marvel film Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings or the blockbuster Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, which curiously warns of the dangers of modern technology. In any case, you should refrain from obtaining films or series from illegal sites, as otherwise you could catch a malware-infected file at any time (and potentially make yourself liable to prosecution). Instead, wait for the films you are interested in to land on legal streaming services — or go to the movies while they’re still in theaters.

There’s this spot at the back of my house where the Wi-Fi signal just isn’t right. The connection is patchy, the signal is weak, and you can never reliably finish a game of Hearthstone without getting disconnected. I’ve thought about upgrading my router, but I’ll probably just get one of these nifty little Wi-Fi extenders, especially since it’s only $19 (that’s 30 percent off). This little device gets plugged into any outlet and expands your wireless network coverage by up to 12,000 square feet, so you get proper internet everywhere in your home. The extender operates on dual bands, delivering combined speeds that are suitable for almost anything you need to do, from streaming content to gaming and yes, even browsing without interruption. It features three adjustable external antennas that help to optimize coverage and maintain stable connections. It’s the most straightforward way to boost your signal. There’s even a Gigabit Ethernet port you can use to give a more stable wired connection to a device of your choice, like a TV. So go ahead and grab the TP-Link AC1200 Wi-Fi Extender on Amazon for $19 before this deal runs out. Grab this 30% discount from TP-LinkBuy now at Amazon

When ChatGPT first debuted, I thought my days as a writer were numbered. There are so many things it can do, and I imagine artists have had similar pangs of fearful panic as generative AI keeps getting ever better at creating lifelike and/or stylized images. But I’m still here! Still getting paid to put the right words in the right order on the digital page. And even within my small world of image manipulation, I still use Photoshop every single day. Generative AI is neat, but it isn’t perfect. In fact, it’s so far from perfect that I rarely use it. It’s only good for very specific needs, and even then I still have to do some manual touch-ups. I’m no Photoshop wizard, but even my rudimentary skills surpass what AI can do—most of the time. Where generative AI images shine As I’m not a Photoshop expert, my skills are definitely limited. There are things I just can’t do because I don’t know how to do them, and AI is nice for those bits. AI is also nice for quick little tasks where I don’t care for perfect results, like prototypes and ideations. Generative AI is fantastic for quickly whipping up concept art and creating fun digital props for a roleplaying game. I’ve used it to create phony sci-fi tablet overlays for sending pretend messages to my tabletop RPG players, and Photoshop’s own Generative Fill feature is a quick and dirty healing brush/clone tool replacement that makes it way easier to fill in any gaps in an image or just make it a little bigger. Creating an image of my tabletop RPG characters stylized like it’s on a terminal screen? That’s one task for which I don’t mind using AI.Jon Martindale / Foundry I’ve used generative AI to create prototype card layouts for a game I’m designing, for quick personal memes between friends, and for portraits representing the characters I want to roleplay as. But for me? That’s where generative AI’s usefulness ends. I don’t use it to create sprawling vistas or gigantic works of art. Why would I? Sure, it might be impressive from a technical standpoint that AI tools can create those things out of thin air. But I don’t really have any use for that. At their core, large language model AIs just aren’t capable of understanding anything meaningfully. Even when I do need generative AI, the lack of accuracy, precision, verisimilitude, and ability to follow specific instructions kills its usefulness. It still mostly feels like a tech demo, and that makes it largely ineffective for anything beyond novelty. The glaring weaknesses of generative AI One time, I was making a character portraint for one of my players in an upcoming Alien RPG tabletop game. I wanted a sci-fi guy in a jumpsuit with corporate vibes and to have his fingers in “W” and “Y” shapes to represent his loyalty to Weyland-Yutani Corporation (his employer). I struggled a lot with that one. I mean, I just wanted the character to have his fingers splayed in the right way. But could AI do it? Oh boy, could it not. No matter how hard I tried to finagle it, the results sucked. I tried upwards of 10 different prompts to get it to understand that I wanted three fingers up on one hand and two on the other, splayed to create the impressions of “W” and “Y” letters. Sometimes it made the hands face the wrong way. It never got the number of fingers right, and it never splayed them in the right way. It utterly failed. After trying—and failing—to get the AI generating what I wanted for close to 20 minutes, I gave up and just made it myself using the first generated image as a reference. I cloned one of the fingers, moved into the right spot, adjusted the lighting, blended the layers, and it came out great. All of that took five minutes. Okay, fine. You might say that I built upon the original creation put forth by the AI. Yes, I’m glad it gave me that initial design to work with, and it was easier to edit that than create the same thing from scratch. But as a final product? It failed to do what I needed. It was no more usable than a random…

Do you find that managing your email—categorizing, forwarding, and deleting takes a lot of your time? Well, there is a way you can manage your email in a lot less time. You just have to use Quick Steps in Microsoft Outlook. Here’s how to use it. What to do: Click on the arrow next to Quick Steps in the upper panel. Now in the menu that appears click Manage Quick Steps. Now click Add Quick Step. This is where we structure our Quick Step. Give your Quick Step a descriptive name so you know what it does. In this example I’ll call it “Sort email.” Select the action that you’d like to set the Quick Step to do to the email. You can select multiple actions if you like. For this example, I’ve set the Quick Step to move the email to a selected folder named “Keep.” Now save the Quick Step. Dominic Bayley / Foundry Now to have the Quick Step perform the selected action, select an email and click on the Quick Step that you just created in the upper panel. In this example, my selected email was sorted automatically into my “Keep” folder when I selected the Quick Step. That’s all there is for this Try This. If you want more tips and tricks like this one, be sure to subscribe to our PCWorld Try This newsletter.