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Tesla is planning to roll out the Full Self-Driving (FSD) software for its consumers for free. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that the company plans to offer its customers the FSD for free for one month as a trial. Musk has confirmed via a tweet that all Tesla car owners in North America can avail of a one-month FSD free trial. Also, after that the company will roll out the software for its global consumers in other regions around the world.

By: HT Auto Desk Updated on: 15 May 2023, 13:11 PM

As Tesla is aiming to get more users to sample its much-hyped FSD software, the company believes a one-month free trial will offer the consumers a chance to try and test the technology that is claimed to allow the vehicles to run autonomously without any driver interference, a significantly advanced version of the car manufacturer's existing semi-autonomous driver assisting technology known as Autopilot. Tesla CEO Elon Musk was responding to a tweet from a user who wanted to know when the subscription option for FSD would be released in Canada. The billionaire confirmed that the free trials would be coming soon, paving the way for the subscriptions.

Also Read : Delhi Electric Vehicle Policy to be revised in 2023. What to expect

Currently, Tesla is offering the FSD software's beta version to a select number of consumers. A few days back, Musk hinted that Tesla would roll out the FSD soon once it's fully functional and glitch-free. His latest tweet further indicates that the auto company is nearing a smoother functional FSD to avoid the embarrassment it faced when it rolled out the software for the first time and the technology was found glitchy. Once FSD is super smooth (not just safe), we will roll out a free month trial for all cars in North America. Then extend to rest of world after we ensure it works well on local roads and regulators approve it in that country," Musk wrote in his latest tweet. However, despite hinting at a nearing rollout of the software, Tesla or its CEO has not given a specific timeframe for the launch.

First Published Date: 15 May 2023, 13:11 PM IST

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Tesla to roll out free Full Self-Driving software, but there's a catch. Know here - HT Auto

In February, Meta made an unusual move in the rapidly evolving world of artificial intelligence: It decided to give away its A.I. crown jewels.

The Silicon Valley giant, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, had created an A.I. technology, called LLaMA, that can power online chatbots. But instead of keeping the technology to itself, Meta released the systems underlying computer code into the wild. Academics, government researchers and others who gave their email address to Meta could download the code once the company had vetted the individual.

Essentially, Meta was giving its A.I. technology away as open-source software computer code that can be freely copied, modified and reused providing outsiders witheverything they needed to quickly build chatbots of their own.

The platform that will win will be the open one, Yann LeCun, Metas chief A.I. scientist, said in an interview.

As a race to lead A.I. heats up across Silicon Valley, Meta is standing out from its rivals by taking a different approach to the technology. Driven by its founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta believes that the smartest thing to do is share its underlying A.I. engines as a way to spread its influence and ultimately move faster toward the future.

Its actions contrast with those of Google and OpenAI, the two companies leading the new A.I. arms race. Worried that A.I. tools like chatbots will be used to spread disinformation, hate speech and other toxic content, those companies are becoming increasingly secretive about the methods and software that underpin their A.I. products.

Google, OpenAI and others have been critical of Meta, saying an unfettered open-source approach is dangerous. A.I.srapid rise in recent months has raised alarm bells about the technologys risks, including how it could upend the job market if it is not properly deployed. And within days of LLaMAs release, the system leaked onto 4chan, the online message board known for spreading false and misleading information.

We want to think more carefully about giving away details or open sourcing code of A.I. technology, said Zoubin Ghahramani, a Google vice president of research who helps oversee A.I. work. Where can that lead to misuse?

Some within Google have also wondered if open-sourcing A.I. technology may pose a competitive threat. In a memo this month, which was leaked on the online publication Semianalysis.com, a Google engineer warned colleagues that the rise of open-source software like LLaMA could cause Google and OpenAI to lose their lead in A.I.

But Meta said it saw no reason to keep its code to itself. The growing secrecy at Google and OpenAI is a huge mistake, Dr. LeCun said, and a really bad take on what is happening. He argues that consumers and governments will refuse to embrace A.I. unless it is outside the control of companies like Google and Meta.

Do you want every A.I. system to be under the control of a couple of powerful American companies? he asked.

OpenAI declined to comment.

Metas open-source approach to A.I. is not novel. The history of technology is littered with battles between open source and proprietary,or closed, systems. Some hoard the most important tools that are used to build tomorrows computing platforms, while others give those tools away. Most recently, Google open-sourced the Android mobile operating system to take on Apples dominance in smartphones.

Many companies have openly shared their A.I. technologies in the past, at the insistence of researchers. But their tactics are changing because of the race around A.I. That shift began last year when OpenAI released ChatGPT. The chatbots wild success wowed consumers and kicked up the competition in the A.I. field, with Google moving quickly to incorporate more A.I. into its products and Microsoft investing $13 billion in OpenAI.

While Google, Microsoft and OpenAI have since received most of the attention in A.I., Meta has also invested in the technology for nearly a decade. The company has spent billions of dollars building the software and the hardware needed to realize chatbots and other generative A.I., which produce text, images and other media on their own.

In recent months, Meta has worked furiously behind the scenes to weave its years of A.I. research and development into new products. Mr. Zuckerberg is focused on making the company an A.I. leader, holding weekly meetings on the topic with his executive team and product leaders.

On Thursday, in a sign of its commitment to A.I., Meta said it had designed a new computer chip and improved a new supercomputer specifically for building A.I. technologies. It is also designing a new computer data center with an eye toward the creation of A.I.

Weve been building advanced infrastructure for A.I. for years now, and this work reflects long-term efforts that will enable even more advances and better use of this technology across everything we do, Mr. Zuckerberg said.

Metas biggest A.I. move in recent months was releasing LLaMA, which is what is known as a large language model, or L.L.M. (LLaMA stands for Large Language Model Meta AI.) L.L.M.s are systems that learn skills byanalyzing vast amounts of text, including books, Wikipedia articles and chat logs. ChatGPT and Googles Bard chatbot are also built atop such systems.

L.L.M.s pinpoint patterns in the text they analyze and learn to generate text of their own, including term papers, blog posts, poetry and computer code. They can even carry on complex conversations.

In February, Meta openly released LLaMA, allowingacademics, government researchers and others who provided their email address todownload the code and use it to build a chatbot of their own.

But the company went further than many other open-source A.I. projects. Itallowed people to download a version of LLaMA after it had been trained on enormous amounts of digital text culled from the internet. Researchers call this releasing the weights, referring to the particular mathematical values learned by the system as it analyzes data.

This was significant because analyzing all that data typically requires hundreds of specialized computer chips and tens of millions of dollars, resources most companies do not have. Those who have the weights can deploy the software quickly, easily and cheaply, spending a fraction of what it would otherwise cost to create such powerful software.

As a result, many in the tech industry believed Meta had set a dangerous precedent. And within days, someone released the LLaMA weights onto 4chan.

At Stanford University, researchers used Metas new technology to build their own A.I. system, which was made available on the internet. A Stanford researcher named Moussa Doumbouya soon used it to generate problematic text, according to screenshots seen by The New York Times. In one instance, the system provided instructions for disposing of a dead body without being caught.It also generated racistmaterial, including commentsthat supported the views of Adolf Hitler.

In a private chat among the researchers, which was seen by The Times, Mr. Doumbouya said distributing the technology to the public would be like a grenade available to everyone in a grocery store. He did not respond to a request for comment.

Stanford promptly removed the A.I. system from the internet. The project was designed to provide researchers with technology that captured the behaviors of cutting-edge A.I. models, said Tatsunori Hashimoto, the Stanford professor who led the project. We took the demo down as we became increasingly concerned about misuse potential beyond a research setting.

Dr. LeCun argues that this kind of technology is not as dangerous as it might seem. He said small numbers of individuals could already generate and spread disinformation and hate speech. He added that toxic material could be tightly restricted by social networks such as Facebook.

You cant preventpeople from creating nonsense or dangerous information or whatever, he said. But you can stop it from being disseminated.

For Meta, more people using open-source software can also level the playing field as it competes with OpenAI, Microsoft and Google. If every software developer in the world builds programs using Metas tools, it could help entrench the company for the next wave of innovation, staving off potential irrelevance.

Dr. LeCun also pointed to recent history to explain why Meta was committed toopen-sourcing A.I. technology. He said the evolution of the consumer internet was the result of open, communal standards that helped build the fastest, most widespread knowledge-sharing network the world had ever seen.

Progress is faster when it is open, he said. You have a more vibrant ecosystem where everyone can contribute.

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Meta Made Its AI Tech Open-Source. Rivals Say Its a Risky Decision. - The New York Times

Why do people still download files from sketchy places and get compromised as a result?

One of the pieces of advice that security practitioners have been giving out for the past couple of decades, if not longer, is that you should only download software from reputable sites. As far as computer security advice goes, this seems like it should be fairly simple to practice.

But even when such advice is widely shared, people still download files from distinctly nonreputable places and get compromised as a result. I have been a reader of Neowin for over a couple of decades now, and a member of its forum for almost that long. But that is not the only place I participate online: for a little over three years, I have been volunteering my time to moderate a couple of Reddits forums (subreddits) that provide both general computing support as well as more specific advice on removing malware. In those subreddits, I have helped people over and over again as they attempted to recover from the fallout of compromised computers. Attacks these days are usually financially motivated, but there are other unanticipated consequences as well. I should state this is not something unique to Reddits users. These types of questions also come up in online chats on various Discord servers where I volunteer my time as well.

One thing I should point out is that both the Discord and Reddit services skew to a younger demographic than social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. I also suspect they are younger than the average WeLiveSecurity reader. These people grew up digitally literate and have had access to advice and discussions about safe computing practices available since pre-school.

Despite having the advantage of having grown up with computers and information on securing them, how is it that these people have fallen victim to certain patterns of attacks? And from the information security practitioners side, where exactly is the disconnect occurring between what were telling people to do (or not do, as the case may be), and what they are doing (or, again, not doing)?

Sometimes, people will openly admit that they knew better but just did a dumb thing, trusting the source of the software when they knew it was not trustworthy. Sometimes, though, it appeared trustworthy, but was not. And at other times, they had very clearly designated the source of the malware as trustworthy even when it was inherently untrustworthy. Let us take a look at the most common scenarios that lead to their computers being compromised:

I would point out that these are not the only means by which people were tricked into running malware. WeLiveSecurity has reported on several notable cases recently that involved deceiving the user:

Do any of these scenarios seem similar to each other in any way? Despite the various means of receiving the file (seeking out versus being asked, using a search engine, video site or piracy site, etc.) they all have one thing in common: they exploited trust.

When security practitioners talk about downloading files only from reputable websites, it seems that we are often only doing half of the job of educating the public about them, or maybe even a little less, for that matter: weve done a far better job of telling people what kind of sites to go to (reputable ones, obviously) without explaining what makes a site safe to download from in the first place. So, without any fanfare, here is what makes a site reputable to download software from:

And thats it! In todays world of software, the publishers site could be a bit more flexible than what it historically has been. Yes, it could be a site with the same domain name as the publishers site, but it could also be that the files are located on GitHub, SourceForge, hosted on a content delivery network (CDN) operated by a third party, and so forth. That is still the publishers site, as it was explicitly uploaded by them. Sometimes, publishers provide additional links to additional download sites, too. This is done for a variety of reasons, such as to defray hosting costs, to provide faster downloads in different regions, to promote the software in other parts of the world, and so forth. These, too, are official download sites because they are specifically authorized by the author or publisher.

There are also sites and services that act as software repositories. SourceForge and GitHub are popular sites for hosting open-source projects. For shareware and trial versions of commercial software, there are numerous sites that specialize in listing their latest versions for downloading. These download sites function as curators for finding software in one place, which makes it easy to search and discover new software. In some instances, however, they also can have a darker side: Some of these sites place software wrappers around files downloaded from them that can prompt to install additional software besides the program you were looking for. These program bundlers may do things completely unrelated to the software they are attached to and may, in fact, install potentially unwanted applications (PUAs) on to your computer.

Other types of sites to be aware of are file locker services such as Box, Dropbox, and WeTransfer. While these are all very legitimate file sharing services, they can be abused by a threat actor: people may assume that because the service is trusted, programs downloaded from them are safe. Conversely, IT departments checking for the exfiltration of data may ignore uploads of files containing personal information and credentials because they are known to be legitimate services.

When it comes to search engines, interpreting their results can be tricky for the uninitiated, or people who are just plain impatient. While the goal of any search enginewhether it is Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google, Yahoo, or another is to provide the best and most accurate results, their core businesses often revolve around advertising. This means that the results at the top of the page in the search engine results are often not the best and most accurate results, but paid advertising. Many people do not notice the difference between advertising and search engine results, and criminals will take advantage of this through malvertising campaigns where they buy advertising space to redirect people to websites used for phishing and other undesirable activities, and malware. In some instances, criminals may register a domain name using typosquatting or a similar-looking top-level domain to that of the software publisher in order to make their website address less noticeable at first glance, such as example.com versus examp1e.com (note how the letter l has been released by the number 1 in the second domain).

I will point out that there are many legitimate, safe places to go on the internet to download free and trial versions of software, because they link to the publishers own downloads. An example of this is Neowin, for whom the original version of this article was written. Neowins Software download section does not engage in any type of disingenuous behavior. All download links either go directly to the publishers own files or to their web page, making Neowin a reliable source for finding new software. Another reputable site that links directly to software publishers downloads is MajorGeeks, which has been listing them on a near-daily basis for over two decades.

While direct downloading ensures that you get software from the company (or individual) that wrote it, that does not necessarily mean it is free of malware: there have been instances where malicious software was included in a software package, unintentionally or otherwise. Likewise, if a software publisher bundles potentially unwanted applications or adware with their software, then you will still receive that with a direct download from their site.

Special consideration should be applied to the various application software stores run by operating system vendors, such as the Apple App Store, the Google Play store, Microsofts Windows App stores, and so forth. One might assume these sites to be reputable download sites, and for the most part they are exactly that, but there is no 100% guarantee: Unscrupulous software authors have circumvented app stores vetting processes to distribute software that invade peoples privacy with spyware, display egregious advertisements with adware, and engage in other unwanted behaviors. These app stores do have the ability to de-list such software from their stores as well as remotely uninstall it from afflicted devices, which offers some remedy; however, this could be days or weeks (or more) after the software has been made available. Even if you only download apps from the official store, having security software on your device to protect it is a must.

Device manufacturers, retailers, and service providers may add their own app stores to devices; however, these may not have the ability to uninstall apps remotely.

With all of that in mind, you are probably wondering exactly what the malware did on the affected computers. While there were different families of malware involved, each of which having its own set of actions and behaviors, there were two that basically stood out because they were repeat offenders, which generated many requests for assistance.

And just in case you were wondering: I have never heard of anyone successfully decrypting their files after paying the ransom to the STOP/DJVU criminals. Your best bet at decrypting your files is to back them up in case a decryptor is ever released.

As far as its functionality goes, Redline Stealer performs some fairly common activities for information-stealing malware, such as collecting information about the version of Windows the PC is running, username, and time zone. It also collects some information about the environment where it is running, such as display size, the processor, RAM, video card, and a list of programs and processes on the computer. This may be to help determine if it is running in an emulator, virtual machine, or a sandbox, which could be a warning sign to the malware that it is being monitored or reverse engineered. And like other programs of its ilk, it can search for files on the PC and upload them to a remote server (useful for stealing private keys and cryptocurrency wallets), as well as download files and run them.

But the primary function of an information stealer is to steal information, so with that mind, what exactly does the Redline Stealer go after? It steals credentials from many programs including Discord, FileZilla, Steam, Telegram, various VPN clients such as OpenVPN and ProtonVPN), as well as cookies and credentials from web browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and their derivatives. Since modern web browsers do not just store accounts and passwords, but credit card info as well, this can pose a significant threat.

Since this malware is used by different criminal gangs, each of them might focus on something slightly different. In these instances, though, the targets were most often Discord, Google, and Steam accounts. The compromised Discord accounts were used to spread the malware to friends. The Google accounts were used to access YouTube and inflate views for certain videos, as well as to upload videos advertising various fraudulent schemes, causing the account to be banned. The Steam accounts were checked for games that had in-game currencies or items which could be stolen and used or resold by the attacker. These might seem like odd choices given all the things which can be done with compromised accounts, but for teenagers, these might be the most valuable online assets they possess.

To summarize, here we have two different types of malware that are sold as services for use by other criminals. In these instances, those criminals seemed to target victims in their teens and early twenties. In one case, extorting victims for an amount proportional to what sort of funds they might have; in the other case, targeting their Discord, YouTube (Google), and online games (Steam). Given the victimology, one has to wonder whether these criminal gangs are composed of people in similar age ranges, and if so, chose specific targeting and enticement methods they know would be highly effective against their peers.

Security practitioners advise people to keep their computers operating systems and applications up to date, to only use their latest versions, and to run security software from established vendors. And, for the most part: people do that, and it protects them from a wide variety of threats.

But when you start looking for sketchy sources to download from, things can take a turn for the worse. Security software does try to account for human behavior, but so do criminals who exploit concepts such as reputation and trust. When a close friend on Discord asks you to look at a program and warns that your antivirus software may incorrectly detect it as a threat, who are you going to believe, your security software or your friend? Programmatically responding to and defending against attacks on trust, which are essentially types of social engineering, can be difficult. In the type of scenarios explained here, it is user education and not computer code that may be the ultimate defense, but that is only if the security practitioners get the right messaging across.

The author would like to thank his colleagues Bruce P. Burrell, Alexandre Ct Cyr, Nick FitzGerald, Tom Foltn, Luk tefanko, and Righard Zwienenberg for their assistance with this article, as well as Neowin for publishing the original version of it.

Aryeh GoretskyDistinguished Researcher, ESET

Note: An earlier version of this article was published on tech news site Neowin.

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You may not care where you download software from, but malware ... - We Live Security

AI's ability to write software has been steadily building. GitHub's Copilot, AWS' CodeWhisperer, Tabnine and other platforms offer assistance to developers through natural language interfaces, using open-source code to produce software.

Analyst firm Forrester refers to solutions like these as TuringBots, AI-powered software that can help plan, design, build, test and deploy application code. But the leap in generative AI interest is leading to questions about what impact the technology could have on the software creation process.

For enterprises aiming to leverage AI's capabilities in software production,clear guardrailsare needed to keep applications safe and processes running smoothly. Since adoption has already started, even at an experimental stage, CIOs must create policies to shape how they will be added to the development lifecycle.

"Shutting them down I don't think is the right policy," said Mike Gualtieri, VP, principal analyst at Forrester, speaking on a panel last month.

Instead, executives need to stay informed about the latest developments from the vendor landscape, figure out what works within the current ecosystem and make adoption decisions based on that, Gualtieri said.

AI tools can generate code, suggesting line after line even with the simplest prompt. But a protective layer must exist between machine-made code and production.

Adoption has grown, as shown in February, when GitHub's Copilot tool generated an average of 46% of code when developers used the tools,up from 27% in June.

It's important to remember AI writes code based on what's previously been built by humans, said Diego Lo Giudice, VP and principal analyst at Forrester.

"Is all the source code that exists out there perfectly secure and with no vulnerabilities? No, it's not," said Lo Guidice. "You still need to do your step of security checking and running security scanning tools."

Human involvement will be key to how generative AI will shape the software development lifecycle.

"You can never blame ChatGPT, you can never blame a TuringBot," said Gualteri. "You're still responsible."

Most organizations are still in the experimentation stageof their generative AI journeys. And despite potential data privacy risks and unknowns associated with generative AI, an emerging technology, executives think the benefits outweigh the risks.

"Each company might have a different approach, but have to start working with this technology, and understanding quickly how it can make our developers and development teams, and even the entire IT [unit], much more efficient," Lo Giudice said.

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Generative AI needs guardrails as businesses add it to software ... - CIO Dive

This project promotes peer-to-peer learning by allowing learners to learn on their terms and progress at their own pace. Learners, like trainers, are engaged in the training process (empowerment). This strategy, to quickly answer a relevant question, will open the door to new training opportunities: (i) enabling the declaration of training needs, (ii) sharing knowledge, and (iii) expertise to create content online, quickly, easily, inexpensively with widespread access to low-speed internet. All growth opportunities will be implemented with the co-construction of digital solutions with identified partners and perfect coherence with ecosystems and low-speed internet configurations. Within the framework of e-MCCPO, teams identified in partnership with the UNFM will be central to a community of practice expert that contributes to driving change in the Pan American area. Relevant indicators will be generated by the general cancer registries of both countries involved for the first time in this atypical field.

Digital technologies will bring about significant changes in the organization and functioning of our healthcare systems. They will allow us to modernize current organizations and consider radically new and more efficient practices, especially if a new health crisis such as the COVID-19 crisis occurs again. In the Caribbean basin, bandwidth connection speeds may be limited. Nevertheless, providing solutions that maintain the responsiveness of a platform for access to training resources are innovative alternatives for these regions. Thanks to the experience of the Universit Numrique Francophone Mondiale (UNFM) in providing e-learning resources accessible at very low Internet speeds, the learning platform we propose has a solid experiential base for providing quality education online in an environment of shortage. [15]

Insofar as digital technology unleashes an immense potential for proximity innovation, healthcare professionals (innovators) will be able to adapt their clinical practice, modernize their communication or training methods, and exchange or obtain expert advice on complex clinical cases.

In the last few years, many innovative learning programs using RAFT have shown great success in the accessibility and diffusion of courses in areas of shortage [16]. The results of Dr. GUINDO Fatoumata SISSOKOs thesis, which evaluated the Malian experience on medical distance learning broadcasted by RAFT, have confirmed these observations. DUDAL is then the solution to support the digital learning strategy of this project in order to offer a low-cost and accessible educational option. [17] Regarding e-learning for medical education in low-resource countries, our digital strategy includes the suggestions in Sandra Barteits article [18]. As well, we propose (i) a thematic database on oncofertility and oncosexuality, (ii) a standardized and widely used framework for evaluating e-learning programs using the UNFM, and (iii) structured programs that integrate e-learning between recognized scientific institutions (CECOS, GEFRAUS, Toulouse University).

New horizons will open up for our scientists and physicians regarding training and learning aligned with an innovative digital strategy. These innovations are necessary to overcome the difficulties of coordination and training between local professionals. Related work will contribute to a continuum for implementing an ad-hoc training library. In addition, the innovators affiliation centers will be identified in the Caribbean as centers of competence and excellence in sexual and reproductive health care with high standards of clinical practice. This program can be replicated in other world regions, thanks to its low-cost interactivity and UNFMs global expertise in deploying training in developing countries. In this dynamic setting, the health care system will also have to evolve, if not revolutionize, in terms of organization and management. Content distribution and targeting are levers for optimizing site traffic and generating qualified leads.

Digitalization of audio-visual pedagogical resources combined with the performances of the networks provided by the RAFT offer many possibilities. Indexing such resources is a major challenge for expert practice community. Furthermore, the provision of high-tech equipment and the expertise of the UNFM will generate a network of community exchanges for continuing professional development and reinforcement of health behaviors as close as possible to the local health territories.

This project responds to the national priorities of Cuban and French health policies (cancer plans and national sexual health strategies). It will be implemented in liaison with the Cuban Health Agencies and learned societies and the French Embassy in Cuba. The project and its impact will be regularly evaluated by the Martinique and Cuba-INOR cancer registries. This proposal is a extension of the collaboration initiated with Cuba for the development of bilateral scientific and medical actions. Oncofertility and oncosexology care must be better integrated in the assessment of care in our regions. This is a new area of legal recommendations to be included in the standards of care.

Access to care in terms of a digital healthcare offer must be strengthened and developed in our territories even more than elsewhere. This complementary organization, part of a global and integrated digital logic, must ensure, thanks to the PRPH-3 cooperation program and complementary programs, standardized treatment paths according to institutional recommendations (INCa and MINSAP). We are currently working to contribute to a quality and functional cooperation network, fully involved, bringing expertise and skills through a care network for complex cases, workshops, e-learning, and practical training on expert sites.

Thanks to the PRPH-3, the furtherance of such collaborative projects with Cuba, will allow to identify and generate in a more precise way in the Caribbean region, clinical, demographic, socioeconomic or organizational determinants, at the origin of the heterogeneity of the medical assistance to procreation and sexual rehabilitation. The related work of this collaborative digital platform will contribute to the establishment of a continuum for cancer surveillance and associated Oncorrehabilitation, ultimately proposing a coherent value chain, federating health professionals around adapted training, expert medical management and shared know-how, for the benefit of patients and health professionals. Within this dynamic, each country will be identified as a center of competence and excellence in onco-rehabilitation.

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International cooperation and the challenge of internet accessibility ... - BMC Medical Education