Founder of Spyware Maker PcTattletale Pleads Guilty To Hacking, Advertising Surveillance Software
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The founder of a U.S.-based spyware company, whose surveillance products allowed customers to spy on the phones and computers of unsuspecting victims, pleaded guilty to federal charges linked to his long-running operation. pcTattle … ⌘ Read more

Congressman Introduces Legislation To Criminalize Insider Trading On Prediction Markets
Ritchie Torres has introduced a bill to ban government officials from using insider information to trade on political prediction markets like Polymarket. The bill was prompted by reports that traders on Polymarket made large profits betting on Nicolas Maduro’s removal, raising suspicions that some wage … ⌘ Read more

An AI-Generated NWS Map Invented Fake Towns In Idaho
National Weather Service pulled an AI-generated forecast graphic after it hallucinated fake town names in Idaho. “The blunder – not the first of its kind to be posted by the NWS in the past year – comes as the agency experiments with a wide range of AI uses, from advanced forecasting to graphic design,” reports the Washington Post. “Experts worry that without properly … ⌘ Read more

Creator of Claude Code Reveals His Workflow
Boris Cherny, the creator of Claude Code at Anthropic, revealed a deceptively simple workflow that uses parallel AI agents, verification loops, and shared memory to let one developer operate with the output of an entire engineering team. “I run 5 Claudes in parallel in my terminal,” Cherny wrote. “I number my tabs 1-5, and use system notifications to know when a Claude needs input. … ⌘ Read more

Discord Files Confidentially For IPO
According to Bloomberg, Discord has confidentially filed for a U.S. IPO. Reuters reports: The U.S. IPO market regained momentum in 2025 after nearly three years of sluggish activity, but hopes for a stronger rebound were tempered by tariff-driven volatility, a prolonged government shutdown and a late-year selloff in artificial intelligence stocks. Discord, which was founded in 2015, offers voice, video … ⌘ Read more

NYC Wegmans Is Storing Biometric Data On Shoppers’ Eyes, Voices and Faces
schwit1 shares a report from Gothamist: Wegmans in New York City has begun collecting biometric data from anyone who enters its supermarkets, according to new signage posted at the chain’s Manhattan and Brooklyn locations earlier this month. Anyone entering the store could have data on their face, eyes and voices collected and stor … ⌘ Read more

Utah Allows AI To Renew Medical Prescriptions
sinij shares a news release from the Utah Department of Commerce: The state of Utah, through the Utah Department of Commerce’s Office of Artificial Intelligence Policy, today announced a first-of-its-kind partnership with Doctronic, the AI-native health platform, to give patients with chronic conditions a faster, automated way to renew medications. This agreement marks the first s … ⌘ Read more

Nvidia Details New AI Chips and Autonomous Car Project With Mercedes
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: On Monday, [Jensen Huang, the chief executive of the chip-making giant Nvidia] said the company would begin shipping a new A.I. chip later this year, one that can do more computing with less power than previous generations of chips could. Known as the Vera Rubin, the chip has b … ⌘ Read more

Google Will Now Only Release Android Source Code Twice a Year
Google will begin releasing Android Open Source Project (AOSP) source code only twice a year starting in 2026. “In the past, Google would release the source code for every quarterly Android release, of which there are four each year,” notes Android Authority. From the report: Google told Android Authority that, effective 2026, Google will publish new s … ⌘ Read more

Vietnam Bans Unskippable Ads
Vietnam will begin enforcing new online advertising rules in February 2026 that ban forced video ads longer than five seconds and must allow users to close ads with just one tap. “Furthermore, platforms must provide clear icons and instructions for users to report advertisements that violate the law, and allow them to opt out, turn off, or stop viewing inappropriate ads,” reports a local news outlet (translated to Eng … ⌘ Read more

Intel Is Making Its Own Handheld Gaming PC Chips At CES 2026
An anonymous reader quotes a report from IGN: Last year, Intel had the best iGPU on the market. This year, it’s broken that record by over 70% with Panther Lake and it’s a huge win for handhelds. “We’ve overdelivered” is how Intel CEO Lip Bu Tan categorized the Panther Lake launch during the company’s CES 2026 Keynote address, and that really does se … ⌘ Read more

Study Casts Doubt on Potential For Life on Jupiter’s Moon Europa
Jupiter’s moon Europa is on the short list of places in our solar system seen as promising in the search for life beyond Earth, with a large subsurface ocean thought to be hidden under an outer shell of ice. But new research is raising questions about whether Europa in fact has what it takes for habitability. Reuters: The study assessed the pot … ⌘ Read more

Nvidia’s New G-Sync Pulsar Monitors Target Motion Blur at the Human Retina Level
Nvidia’s G-Sync Pulsar technology, first announced nearly two years ago as a solution to display motion blur caused by old images persisting on the viewer’s retina, is finally arriving in consumer monitors this week. The first four Pulsar-equipped displays – from Acer, AOC, Asus and MSI – hit select retailers on W … ⌘ Read more

Lego Unveils Smart Bricks, Its ‘Most Significant Evolution’ in 50 years
The Lego Group today unveiled Smart Bricks, a tiny computer that fits entirely inside a classic 2x4 brick and which the company is calling the most significant evolution in its building system since the introduction of the minifigure in 1978. The Smart Brick contains a custom ASIC smaller than a single Lego stud and includes light and … ⌘ Read more

Elite Colleges Are Back at the Top of the List For Company Recruiters
The “talent is everywhere” approach that U.S. employers adopted during the white-hot pandemic job market is quietly giving way to something much older and more familiar: recruiting almost exclusively from a small set of elite and nearby universities. A 2025 survey of more than 150 companies by Veris Insights found that 26% were exclusiv … ⌘ Read more

HarperCollins Will Use AI To Translate Harlequin Romance Novels
Book publisher HarperCollins said it will start translating romance novels under its famous Harlequin label in France using AI, reducing or eliminating the pay for the team of human contract translators who previously did this work. 404Media: Publisher’s Weekly broke the news in English after French outlets reported on the story in December. Accord … ⌘ Read more

Many Schools Don’t Think Students Can Read Full Novels Anymore
A survey of 2,000 teachers, students and parents conducted by the New York Times found that many high schools have stopped assigning full novels to students, opting instead for excerpts that are often read on school-issued laptops rather than in print. The shift stems from multiple factors: a belief that students have shorter attention spans, pressure … ⌘ Read more

UK Urged To Unplug From US Tech Giants as Digital Sovereignty Fears Grow
An anonymous reader shares a report: The Open Rights Group is warning politicians that the UK is leaning far too heavily on US tech companies to run critical systems, and wants the Cybersecurity and Resilience Bill to force a rethink.

The digital rights outfit says the bill, which is due to receive its second reading in the House … ⌘ Read more

HP Pushes PC-in-a-Keyboard for Businesses With Hot Desks
HP this week announced the EliteBoard G1a at CES 2026, a Windows computer built into a full-size 93-key desktop keyboard that the company is marketing to businesses where employees use hot desks and need a portable computing environment they can carry between workstations.

The device connects to a USB-C monitor for both video output and power delivery over a single … ⌘ Read more

‘NY Orders Apps To Lie About Social Media Addiction, Will Lose In Court’
New York Governor Kathy Hochul has signed S4505, a law that requires websites to display warnings claiming that features like algorithmic feeds, push notifications, infinite scroll, like counts, and autoplay cause addiction – despite, as TechDirt argues, the absence of scientific consensus supporting such claims.

State Senator Andr … ⌘ Read more

Razer Thinks You’d Rather Have AI Headphones Instead of Glasses
Razer today unveiled Project Motoko, a concept pair of over-ear headphones equipped with dual cameras that the gaming peripherals company believes could serve as an alternative to the smart glasses that have proliferated across the wearable AI market. The headphones feature two 4K cameras positioned on the earcups along with near and far field micro … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Office Is Now ‘Microsoft 365 Copilot App’
Longtime reader joshuark shares a report: As spotted by Bluesky user DodgerFanLA, going to Office.com now greets you with the following helpful explainer: “The Microsoft 365 Copilot app (formerly Office) lets you create, share, and collaborate all in one place with your favorite apps now including Copilot.*”

Never has an asterisk been more relevant to me than following the wor … ⌘ Read more

Stratechery Pushes Back on AI Capital Dystopia Predictions
Stratechery’s Ben Thompson has published a lengthy rebuttal to Dwarkesh Patel and Philip Trammell’s widely discussed winter break essay “Capital in the 22nd Century,” arguing that even in a world where AI can perform all human jobs, people will still prefer human-created content and human connection.

Patel and Trammell’s thesis draws on Thomas Piketty’s wor … ⌘ Read more

VW Brings Back Physical Buttons
sinij shares a report from Car and Driver: Volkswagen is making a drastic change to its interiors, or at least the interiors of its electric vehicles. The automaker recently unveiled a new cockpit generation with the refreshed ID. Polo – the diminutive electric hatchback that the brand sells in Europe – that now comes with physical buttons. […] The steering wheel gets new clusters of buttons for cruise co … ⌘ Read more

Dell Admits It Made a Huge Mistake When It Abandoned XPS
Dell has reversed course and resurrected the XPS brand as its “premium consumer” brand of laptops, admitting it was a mistake to kill it in the first place. Slashdot reader joshuark shares a report from Gizmodo: At last year’s CES, Dell made the eyebrow-raising decision to ax all its legacy laptop brand names and instead opt for Apple-like conventions. Inste … ⌘ Read more

Hyundai and Boston Dynamics Unveil Humanoid Robot Atlas At CES
At CES 2026 today, Hyundai and Boston Dynamics publicly demonstrated its humanoid robot Atlas, showing off fluid movement and announcing plans to deploy a production version in Hyundai’s EV factory by 2028. NBC News reports: “For the first time ever in public, please welcome Atlas to the stage,” said Boston Dynamics’ Zachary Jackowski as a life-s … ⌘ Read more

The Nation’s Strictest Privacy Law Goes Into Effect
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Californians are getting a new, supercharged way to stop data brokers from hoarding and selling their personal information, as a recently enacted law that’s among the strictest in the nation took effect at the beginning of the year. […] Two years ago, California’s Delete Act took effect. It required data brokers to … ⌘ Read more

‘Godfather of SaaS’ Says He Replaced Most of His Sales Team With AI Agents
joshuark shares a report from Business Insider: Jason Lemkin, known to some as the Godfather of SaaS, says the time has come to push the limits of AI in the workplace. Lemkin, the founder of SaaStr, the world’s largest community of business-to-business founders. In a recent podcast Lemkin said that this means he will stop hiring huma … ⌘ Read more

Anna’s Archive Loses .Org Domain After Surprise Suspension
Anna’s Archive lost control of its primary .org domain after it was placed on registry-level serverHold – “an action that’s typically taken by the domain name registry,” reports TorrentFreak. Despite mounting legal pressure and speculation tied to its Spotify backup, the site remains accessible via multiple alternative domains, underscoring t … ⌘ Read more

Corporation for Public Broadcasting To Shut Down After 58 Years
After Congress approved President Donald Trump’s rescission package eliminating federal funding, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting voted to dissolve after 58 years, rather than continue to exist and potentially be “vulnerable to future political manipulation or misuse.” The shutdown leaves hundreds of local public TV and radio station … ⌘ Read more

Lego’s Smart Brick Gives the Iconic Analog Toy a New Digital Brain
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: At CES in Las Vegas today, Lego has unveiled its new Smart Play platform, aimed at taking its distinctly analog plastic blocks and figures into a new world of tech-powered interactive play – but crucially one without any reliance on screens. Smart Play revolves around Lego’s patented sensor- and … ⌘ Read more

GNOME and Firefox Consider Disabling Middle Click Paste By Default
Both GNOME and Firefox are considering disabling middle-click paste by default, arguing it’s a confusing, accident-prone X11 relic that dumps clipboard contents without warning. Phoronix reports: A merge request for GNOME’s gsettings-desktop-schemas was opened this weekend to disable the primary-paste functionality by default that allows usin … ⌘ Read more

Viral Reddit Post About Food Delivery Apps Was an AI Scam
A viral Reddit “whistleblower” post accusing a major food delivery app of systemic exploitation is “most likely AI-generated,” reports the Verge. From the report: The original post by user Trowaway_whistleblow alleged that an unnamed food delivery company regularly delays customer orders, calls couriers “human assets,” and exploits their “desperation” for cas … ⌘ Read more

Amazon’s AI Assistant Comes To the Web With Alexa.com
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Amazon’s AI-powered overhaul of its digital assistant, now known as Alexa+, is coming to the web. On Monday, at the start of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the company announced the official launch of a new website, Alexa.com, which is now rolling out to all Alexa+ Early Access customers. The site will allow c … ⌘ Read more

SanDisk Says Goodbye To WD Blue and Black SSDs, Hello To New ‘Optimus’ Drives
SanDisk is retiring the WD Blue and WD Black SSD brands and replacing them with a new “Optimus” line that carries the same model numbers as its predecessors. The move follows Western Digital’s late-2023 decision to split into two companies – one retaining the WD name for hard drives sold to NAS and data center customer … ⌘ Read more

VSCode IDE Forks Expose Users To ‘Recommended Extension’ Attacks
An anonymous reader shares a report: Popular AI-powered integrated development environment solutions, such as Cursor, Windsurf, Google Antigravity, and Trae, recommend extensions that are non-existent in the OpenVSX registry, allowing threat actors to claim the namespace and upload malicious extensions.

These AI-assisted IDEs are forked from Microso … ⌘ Read more

UK Government’s New Pension Portal Operator Tells Users To Wait for AI Before Complaining
Capita, the UK outsourcer that won a $323 million contract to administer the nation’s Civil Service Pension Scheme for 1.7 million members, has responded to a disastrous portal launch by asking users to hold off on complaints until its new AI chatbots go live.

The service launched on December 1 and … ⌘ Read more

Google To Kill Gmail’s POP3 Mail Fetching
Google is quietly killing Gmail’s ability to fetch mail from third-party email accounts using POP3, a long-standing feature that has allowed users to consolidate multiple inboxes into a single Gmail interface. The change takes effect this month and also ends Gmailify, the companion feature that applied Gmail’s spam filtering and inbox organization to linked third-party accounts.

Google buried … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft is Slowly Turning Edge Into Another Copilot App
Microsoft has started testing a “significant” visual overhaul for Edge in its Canary and Dev Channel preview builds, and the redesigned interface borrows heavily from the design language that first appeared in the company’s standalone Copilot app rather than the Fluent Design system used across Windows 11, Xbox, and Office.

The updated look touches context menus, … ⌘ Read more

Flu Is Relentless. Crispr Might Be Able to Shut It Down
Scientists at Melbourne’s Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity are working on a Crispr-based treatment – delivered as a nasal spray or injection – that could stop influenza infections by targeting the virus’s RNA and disrupting its ability to replicate inside human cells.

The approach uses the Cas13 enzyme, a lesser-known cousin of the DNA-cuttin … ⌘ Read more

‘The College Backlash is a Mirage’
Public opinion surveys paint a picture of Americans souring dramatically on higher education, as Pew found that the share of adults calling college “very important” dropped from 70% in 2013 to just 35% today, and NBC polling shows that 63% now believe a degree is “not worth the cost,” up from 40% over the same period. Yet enrollment data tells a different story.

Four-year institutions awarded 2 million bac … ⌘ Read more

Influencers and OnlyFans Models Dominate US ‘Extraordinary’ Artist Visas
The O-1B visa, a work permit reserved for individuals deemed to possess “extraordinary ability” in the arts, has become the pathway of choice for social media influencers and OnlyFans models seeking to build careers in the United States. Immigration attorneys told the Financial Times that influencers now make up more than half their … ⌘ Read more

Samsung’s CES Concepts Disguise AI Speakers as Turntables and Cassette Players
Samsung is bringing a pair of retro-styled speaker concepts to CES 2026 that combine old-school aesthetics with OLED screens and AI-powered music recommendations, and the company is positioning them as alternatives to conventional Bluetooth speakers that typically depend on a paired smartphone or tablet for con … ⌘ Read more

People of Dubious Character Are More Likely To Enter Public Service
A new working paper from researchers at the University of Hong Kong has found that Chinese graduate students who plagiarized more heavily in their master’s theses were significantly more likely to pursue careers in the civil service and to climb the ranks faster once inside.

John Liu and co-authors analyzed 6 million dissertations from CNKI, a … ⌘ Read more

Stack Overflow Went From 200,000 Monthly Questions To Nearly Zero
Stack Overflow’s monthly question volume has collapsed about 300 – levels not seen since the site launched in 2009, according to data from the Stack Overflow Data Explorer that tracks the platform’s activity over its sixteen-year history.

Questions peaked around 2014 at roughly 200,000 per month, then began a gradual decline that acceler … ⌘ Read more

Samsung Co-CEO Says Soaring Memory Chip Prices Will ‘Inevitably’ Impact Smartphone Costs
Samsung’s co-CEO TM Roh has warned that product price increases are “inevitable” as an unprecedented global memory chip shortage squeezes margins across the company’s consumer electronics lineup – from smartphones to televisions and home appliances.

The South Korean giant, one of the top two larges … ⌘ Read more

As US Communities Start Fighting Back, Many Datacenters are Blocked
America’s tech companies and data center developers “are increasingly losing fights in communities where people don’t want to live next to them, or even near them,” reports the Associated Press:

Communities across the United States are reading about — and learning from — each other’s battles against data center proposals that are fast multi … ⌘ Read more

2025 Ends With Release of J. R. R. Tolkein’s Unpublished Story
2025’S final months finally saw the publication of J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Bovadium Fragments, writes the Los Angeles Review of Books:

Anyone who has read Tolkien’s letters will know that he is at his funniest when filled with rage, and The Bovadium Fragments is a work brimming with Tolkien’s fury — specifically, ire over mankind’s obsession with … ⌘ Read more

Workstation Owner Sadly Marks the End-of-Life for HP-UX
Wednesday marked the end of support for the last and final version of HP-UX, writes OSNews.

They call it “the end of another vestige of the heyday of the commercial UNIX variants, a reign ended by cheap x86 hardware and the increasing popularisation of Linux.”

I have two HP-UX 11i v1 PA-RISC workstations, one of them being my pride and joy: an HP c8000, the last … ⌘ Read more

39 Million Californians Can Now Legally Demand Data Brokers Delete Their Personal Data
While California’s residents have had the right to demand companies stop collecting/selling their data since 2020, doing so used to require a laborious opting out with each individual company,” reports TechCrunch.
But now Californians can make “a single request that more than 500 registered data brokers … ⌘ Read more