###### February 25, 2025

The renowned Pwn2Own hacking competition will make its debut in Berlin, providing a unique opportunity for competitors to take on challenges, including a brand-new AI category. When the Pwn2Own competition comes to Berlin in May of this year, German IT security professionals should note May on their calendars. Using stringent guidelines, contestants must exploit security flaws in a short amount of time in order to win substantial financial incentives. Until the impacted software manufacturers have released the necessary security updates, the details of these vulnerabilities are safely kept under wraps. This year's competition takes an exciting turn by adding tasks centered around AI-powered tools and applications.

Founded by Trend Micro, the Pwn2Own competition began in Vancouver in 2007 and has since grown to become a widely recognized occasion. The [OffensiveCon](https://www.offensivecon.org/), which is set for May 15–17, 2025, in Berlin, will be its debut appearance this year. The Pwn2Own organizers are hopeful that they will soon be able to provide more conference seats, even if they have already sold out.

Using Competitive Hacking to Boost Cybersecurity The competition's main goal is to strengthen software and device security by focusing on known flaws in web browsers, operating systems, and applications. A total of $1 million USD in prize money has been allotted by the organizers this year to incentivize and recognize successful exploits.

With Tesla as a major partner, the event also raises awareness of electric vehicles. Participants can investigate and take advantage of possible security flaws in automobile software, a quickly expanding area of interest, thanks to this focus. A Cloud-Native/Container category was added last year, and [this year's event has grown](https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/blog/2025/2/24/announcing-pwn2own-berlin-2025) to include AI tools from tech behemoths like Chroma and Nvidia. Under this new category, participants might receive up to $40,000 USD if they are able to successfully run malicious code.

Throughout the competition, participants earn "Master of Pwn" points in addition to competing for cash prizes. The tournament is made even more exciting by the fact that these points are used to select the overall winning team. Details regarding the requirements and rules for the Berlin edition of Pwn2Own are [available online](https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/Pwn2OwnBerlin2025Rules.html) for individuals who are interested in participating or learning more about the tournament. This gives potential competitors a thorough insight.

Get the practical experience you need to succeed in cybersecurity. Our [Cybersecurity Bootcamp](https://codelabsacademy.com/en/courses/cybersecurity) offers real-world projects and expert mentorship to help you build the skills employers are looking for. Explore our program and start protecting the future of tech!


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Berlin Welcomes Pwn2Own 2025: AI Innovations and Competitive Hacking

###### February 20, 2025

Since its launch more than two years ago, ChatGPT has transformed the way AI is integrated into a variety of applications, particularly messaging services, which now have AI-powered authoring tools and search capabilities. At the forefront is [Superhuman](https://superhuman.com/), which uses AI to help with categorization, one of the biggest problems with email. With its Inbox app, which was removed in 2019, Google first took the lead in this area. Other services, including Gmail, have attempted to provide similar classification features in the past, with varying degrees of success.

With Superhuman's Auto Label feature, users can create unique labels to further personalize their inbox organization, while emails are automatically sorted into categories such as marketing, pitch, social, and news. By allowing users to automatically archive less relevant emails and focus on more important ones, this feature aims to help users manage their emails more efficiently.

Superhuman CEO Rahul Vohra [told TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/19/superhuman-introduces-ai-powered-categorization-to-reduce-spammy-emails-in-your-inbox/) that customer feedback about the flood of unsolicited marketing emails and ineffective spam filters offered by services like Gmail and Outlook prompted the company to develop more advanced classification capabilities.

The inability to immediately change the questions that generate these labels when the feature launches means users must develop new prompts if the ones currently in place incorrectly classify emails. Additionally, Superhuman has improved its inbox management features, allowing users to create a divided inbox based on new custom labels or particular criteria.

Improvements also include reminder features. Superhuman has an AI feature that, in the event a response to a specific email is not received within a predefined time frame, creates follow-up messages in the user's style. Superhuman intends to incorporate many sets of personal data in the future to better automate and personalize responses. To solve the current problem of effective email classification and move closer to a fully automated email experience, the company is also creating IFTTT-like processes to automate responses and route emails according to predetermined criteria.

Leverage the power of AI and data with Code Labs Academy’s [Data Science & AI Bootcamp](https://codelabsacademy.com/courses/data-science-and-ai).






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Superhuman’s Email Management Tool with Advanced AI Capabilities Enhances Inbox Efficiency

###### February 18, 2025

Today marks exactly 20 years since Jesse James Garrett invented AJAX, which added a new level of interactivity to web applications. Garrett's AJAX concept was a major contribution to the Web 2.0 paradigm after he founded Adaptive Path, a design and user experience company, in 2001.

Web applications primarily used server-side processing in the early 2000s, resulting in a laborious user experience where every action required loading a new HTML page. Garrett aimed to improve the responsiveness of the web after noticing that desktop programs worked more efficiently.

The introduction of programs such as Google's Gmail and the social network Orkut in 2004 marked a sea change as they demonstrated better interaction design and performance through asynchronous data transfers. By using JavaScript to make HTTP(S) requests in the background, these applications were able to dynamically update the website without requiring a full reload.

[In response to questions](https://www.wired.com/2006/06/ajax/) from customers wanting to use comparable technologies, Garrett argued that JavaScript and XML should be used instead of slower options like Flash that required additional plugins. In 1999, Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 had already laid the foundation for asynchronous data transfer with the release of Microsoft.XMLHTTP, initially created to support background HTTP(S) requests.

Looking for a catchy and understandable moniker, Garrett came up with the acronym Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, or AJAX, after realizing how complex the technology involved was. In a [2005 blog post](https://web.archive.org/web/20080702075113/http://www.adaptivepath.com/ideas/essays/archives/000385.php), he introduced AJAX, praising new interaction patterns that later became commonplace in web applications, like dynamic maps and real-time search recommendations.

With its widespread use, AJAX has become a key component of[ Web 2.0](https://www.oreilly.com/pub/a/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html?page=4), defined by more dynamic, interactive, and collaborative online experiences. As web technology advanced, AJAX's need for XML gave way to JSON, and new interfaces such as the fetch API and single-page application frameworks emerged, continuing AJAX's legacy of providing reliable, offline-compatible online applications.

Although the term AJAX is not used as often today, the interaction patterns it spawned have persisted, radically changing the way online applications work and elevating the user experience to levels that desktop applications once dominated.

Power up your[ web development skills](https://codelabsacademy.com/courses/web-development) and master the latest technologies with Code Labs Academy.


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20 Years of AJAX: How It Changed Web Applications and Web 2.0

With $50 million in cash, a recently created startup led by a former DeepMind scientist is coming out of stealth mode. [Latent Labs](https://www.latentlabs.com/) plans to work with biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies to discover and improve proteins, and hopes to build basic AI models to transform biology into a programmable field.

Since proteins are necessary for everything in living cells, including enzymes and antibodies, and are made up of approximately 20 distinct amino acids that fold into a three-dimensional shape to determine their function, it is imperative to understand their role in biology. Determining protein structure has always been a laborious human procedure, but [DeepMind's AlphaFold](https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/09/deepminds-demis-hassabis-and-john-jumper-scoop-nobel-prize-in-chemistry-for-alphafold/) has made substantial progress in this area by using machine learning to predict the shapes of nearly 200 million protein structures. This discovery allows the development of new drugs and synthetic proteins as well as a better understanding of diseases.

[Simon Kohl](https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-kohl-4840a7124/), a former DeepMind scientist who worked with AlphaFold2 and the protein design team, founded Latent Labs. Kohl started Latent Labs in London after helping create DeepMind's wet lab, and he eventually moved the company to San Francisco. The startup plans to create unique molecules programmatically to reduce its reliance on wet lab testing by switching to computational methods. Latent Labs focuses on improving early stages of R\&D through collaborations with life sciences companies rather than creating its own pharmaceutical prospects. 

Several investors contributed to the startup's $50 million fundraising, highlighting the potential to revolutionize drug development by merging biology and computer science, a field that is still in its infancy and presents many unexplored options.

Discover the future of technology and innovation with [Code Labs Academy.](https://codelabsacademy.com/en)


Berlin Welcomes Pwn2Own 2025: AI Innovations and Competitive Hacking

Superhuman’s Email Management Tool with Advanced AI Capabilities Enhances Inbox Efficiency

20 Years of AJAX: How It Changed Web Applications and Web 2.0

Former DeepMind Scientist Launches Latent Labs with $50M to Expand Biotech and Protein Science