IT news June 4: China has created the world’s most powerful neural network, Russia is preparing to launch an analogue of GitHub, Huawei has opened access to DevEco Studio for foreign developers

Today in the news selection:

• China has created the world's most powerful neural network, Wu Dao, with 1.75 trillion parameters.
• The Russian Ministry of Digital Development is preparing to launch an analogue of GitHub.
• Google will make it harder to track user activity in apps.
• American authorities have equated hackers with terrorists.
• Huawei has opened access to DevEco Studio for foreign developers.
• Microsoft Teams is coming with end-to-end encryption.
• “VKontakte” launches disappearing and silent messages.

China has created the world's most powerful neural network, Wu Dao, with 1.75 trillion parameters.

Scientists at the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence have announced the creation of the world's most powerful generative deep learning model, Wu Dao 2.0. It has 1.75 trillion parameters, which is about ten times more than OpenAI's GPT-3 (175 billion). In addition, the Chinese model broke the record set in January by Google's Switch Transformer (1.6 billion parameters). The Wu Dao 2.0 model was trained in Chinese and English using 4.9 terabytes of images and text. Unlike most deep learning models that perform a single task—generating text, creating deepfakes, or recognizing faces—Wu Dao is a multimodal system. This allows it to perform several tasks: in addition to natural language processing, text generation, image recognition and creation, the model can write essays and poetry in Chinese, create photorealistic images based on text descriptions, and predict 3D structures of proteins. Source: South China Morning Post

The Russian Ministry of Digital Development is preparing to launch an analogue of GitHub

The Ministry of Digital Development of the Russian Federation plans to present a development strategy for the Russian analogue of GitHub by September. As stated by the deputy head of the department, Maxim Parshin, this will be an open source code repository, which will be created jointly with the IT community. The Russian Foundation for Information Technology Development will also take part in developing the strategy. The ministry plans to entrust work on the project to professionals; the authorities will get involved at the final stage to “give it official status.” According to Parshin, the state has three priorities in the development of domestic GitHub: flexibility in development, security and independence from Western companies and possible sanctions. The idea of ​​​​creating an alternative to GitHub appeared in Russia at the beginning of 2020. The project should become a replacement for the American code storage service in case Russia is disconnected from the repositories. They plan to allocate more than 2 billion rubles to launch the domestic GitHub. Source: Forbes

Google will make it harder to track user activity in apps

Google has announced changes to how it handles unique device identifiers that track user behavior in apps. In practice, this means a complete ban on tracking the actions of users who have opted out of receiving personalized advertising. Instead of user data, application developers will see only a “string of zeros” - information in an anonymized form. Google announced the new rules to developers in emails and on the advertising identifier support page . The company believes the changes will give users more control over their personal data and help improve Android security and privacy. The change in user tracking rules comes months after Apple introduced the In-App Tracking Transparency feature for iOS. It also allows users to restrict apps' access to their personal data. Source: The Verge

American authorities equate hackers to terrorists

The US Department of Justice has raised its investigation priority for ransomware attacks to the level of terrorism. Internal guidance sent Thursday to prosecutors' offices across the country specifies that all local investigations into ransomware-related cyber breaches should be centrally coordinated with a newly created team in Washington. The Justice Department document cited the Colonial Pipeline episode as an example of “the growing threat that ransomware and digital extortion pose to the country.” Not long ago, the management of the oil company Colonial Pipeline was forced to pay hackers almost $5 million to restore access to its IT infrastructure. US officials say the Justice Department's decision to issue a special investigative regime shows the issue is becoming a priority. This model of coordinating investigators has previously been used in terrorism and national security cases. Source: Reuters

Huawei opens access to DevEco Studio for foreign developers

The Chinese company Huawei has opened access to the DevEco Studio platform for foreign application developers. This was reported in the Huawei Developers Reddit community. You can view the documentation and download the distribution for Windows and Mac on the HarmonyOS website. Huawei DevEco Studio is a platform that allows you to develop universal applications for all devices and scenarios. Primarily for gadgets based on the new HarmonyOS operating system. DevEco Studio supports distributed development across multiple devices, debugging and emulation, as well as comprehensive security and quality measures. Among the advantages of the Chinese platform, it is worth highlighting the availability of preview of application user interfaces on various devices in real time and accelerated integration of distributed functions. Source: Reddit

Microsoft Teams is coming with end-to-end encryption

Microsoft announced that the rollout of end-to-end encrypted calls in the Teams service will start in early July. Full integration will take about two weeks. End-to-end encryption (E2EE) in Microsoft Teams will be used for ad hoc two-party VoIP calls. In this case, each of them must first enable E2EE in the settings. Encryption mode will allow you to more securely transfer confidential information, such as passwords. According to MSPoweruser, administrators will be able to enable end-to-end encryption not only for specific users, but also for the entire organization. You can enable E2EE mode through a special parameter in the “Settings” - “Privacy” section. Recording and transcription of calls will no longer be available. E2EE calls only support basic service features such as audio, video, screen sharing and chat. End-to-end encryption will only appear in the desktop and mobile apps, and not in the web version of Teams. Source: MSPoweuser

VKontakte launches disappearing and silent messages

Two new types of messages have appeared in the VKontakte mobile application: disappearing and silent. The sender of a disappearing message can add media files or documents to it. You can also independently determine when it should disappear from correspondence: the time range starts from 15 seconds and ends with 24 hours. After deletion, the message “Message disappeared” will remain in the chat. Silent messages are intended for situations where the sender does not want the notification to wake up or distract the recipient. To send a silent or disappearing message, simply press and hold the send button and select the option you want. Source: VKontakte