The Morning After: Pentagon leaks suspect was outed by his Steam profile

Accused of leaking classified documents, Jack Teixeira was charged after a quick investigation focused on his digital trail. The New York Times‘ investigative journalism team identified Teixeira by finding an Instagram account mentioned in his Steam profile. That, in turn, showed photos of the granite kitchen countertop and floor tiles visible in the leaks. The suspect hasn't yet entered a plea and will face a hearing on April 19th. The charges against him carry a maximum combined sentence of up to 15 years in prison.

Teixeira allegedly began sharing the documents on a Minecraft-oriented Discord server in late 2022. He supposedly didn't intend to act as a whistleblower, but the content eventually spread to other Discord servers as well as 4chan and Telegram.

– Mat Smith

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The state passed a bill that requires app stores to block the service.

Montana is to become the first state to ban TikTok. The state’s legislature passed a bill requiring app stores to block the app in the state. The bill passed 54 to 43 and will now head to Republican Governor Greg Gianforte, who previously banned the app from state-owned devices. The ban is slated to go into effect in 2024, though it will likely face legal challenges well before then. Like federal lawmakers, the Montana bill claims TikTok’s ties to ByteDance puts US users' personal data at risk because the company could be compelled to turn over information to the Chinese government.

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It's expected to feature an M2 chip.

According to Bloomberg, Apple recently began testing a 15-inch laptop to ensure its compatibility with third-party App Store apps, something the company does in the lead-up to the release of a new device. Developer logs reportedly show a machine with an eight-core CPU and 10-core GPU, along with 8GB of RAM. Those specs suggest the 15-inch MacBook Air, referred to as Mac 15.3 in the logs, will ship with an M2 chipset, not Apple’s next-generation chip.

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The DLC arrives next week.

Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores is a DLC chapter that continues Aloy’s story. Ahead of its launch, a new trailer offers a fresh look at the Burning Shores, a volcanic archipelago once home to Los Angeles. We also get a closer look at a Metal Devil boss fight – which looks huge. In fact, that battle is one reason Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores won’t be available on PlayStation 4, even though you can play the original game on Sony’s last generation console. Game Director Mathijs de Jonge said: “The cityscape ruins of LA and its surroundings are highly detailed and require a lot of processing power as well as fast streaming technology to run properly.”

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The artist said: ‘AI is not photography.'

An AI-generated photo called The Electrician by Boris Eldagsen took first prize in the Creative category at the recent World Photography Organization’s Sony World Photography Awards — despite not being taken by a camera. Eldagsen subsequently refused the award, saying “AI is not photography. I applied to find out if the competitions are prepared for AI images to enter. They are not.” Eldagsen explained he used his experience as a photographer to create the prize-winning image, acting as a director of the process with the AI generators as “co-creators.” Although photography inspired the work, he said the point of the submission is it’s not photography.

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