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Tech (100)
Serving the Technologist since 1998. News, reviews, and analysis.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-16 20:25:41
The empire strikes back with F-bombs: AI Darth Vader goes rogue with profanity, slurs
Fortnite AI voice trained on James Earl Jones spoke curse words and insults before patch.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-15 13:18:49
Spies hack high-value mail servers using an exploit from yesteryear
Attacks spilled contacts and emails from targeted accounts.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-14 23:16:14
OpenAI adds GPT-4.1 to ChatGPT amid complaints over confusing model lineup
Two new AI models join 7 others, leaving some paid users wondering which one is best.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-13 21:31:11
Google introduces Advanced Protection mode for its most at-risk Android users
A single flip of a settings button enables a host of defenses against hacking.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-13 15:58:26
GOP sneaks decade-long AI regulation ban into spending bill
Sweeping provision would halt all local oversight of AI by US states.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-13 14:00:17
New attack can steal cryptocurrency by planting false memories in AI chatbots
Malicious "context manipulation" technique causes bot to send payments to attacker's wallet.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-12 18:04:20
New pope chose his name based on AI’s threats to “human dignity”
Pope Leo XIV warns AI could threaten workers as industrial revolution did in the 1800s.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-09 22:29:02
New Lego-building AI creates models that actually stand up in real life
Carnegie Mellon "LegoGPT" system uses physics checks to ensure models don't collapse.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-08 21:23:21
AI use damages professional reputation, study suggests
New Duke study says workers judge others for AI use—and hide its use, fearing stigma.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-08 19:45:20
Fidji Simo joins OpenAI as new CEO of Applications
Simo will oversee business operations while Altman focuses on research and compute.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-08 19:27:52
DOGE software engineer’s computer infected by info-stealing malware
The presence of credentials in leaked "stealer logs" indicates his device was infected.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-08 15:37:38
Trump admin to roll back Biden’s AI chip restrictions
Officials call previous framework "unenforceable" as May 15 deadline looms.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-07 23:04:58
WhatsApp provides no cryptographic management for group messages
The weakness creates the possibility of an insider or hacker adding rogue members.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-07 19:08:58
VMware perpetual license holders receive cease-and-desist letters from Broadcom
Broadcom says it may audit VMware users.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-07 01:26:14
Jury orders NSO to pay $167 million for hacking WhatsApp users
The verdict is a major victory for opponents of exploit sellers.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-06 14:26:37
Data centers say Trump’s crackdown on renewables bad for business, AI
Without renewables, it's nearly impossible to meet growing power demand from AI.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-06 01:05:55
Man pleads guilty to using malicious AI software to hack Disney employee
Fake image-generating app allowed man to download 1.1TB of Disney-owned data.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-05 22:37:21
Signal clone used by Trump official stops operations after report it was hacked
Mike Waltz needs to find a new app.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-05 21:18:31
OpenAI scraps controversial plan to become for-profit after mounting pressure
The nonprofit board will retain control, but now investor billions hang in the balance.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-05 20:05:13
Hundreds of e-commerce sites hacked in supply-chain attack
Attack that started in April and remains ongoing runs malicious code on visitors' devices.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-02 21:14:58
Microsoft’s new “passwordless by default” is great but comes at a cost
The move is part of an industry-wide push for users to adopt passkeys.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-02 17:39:26
Claude’s AI research mode now runs for up to 45 minutes before delivering reports
New feature searches hundreds of sources to build a document—but is it accurate?
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-01 22:32:27
Time saved by AI offset by new work created, study suggests
Survey of 2023–2024 data finds that AI created more tasks for 8.4 percent of workers.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-05-01 22:00:02
Why MFA is getting easer to bypass and what to do about it
Why multifactor authentication based on one-time-passwords and push notifications fails.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-30 19:36:26
Windows RDP lets you log in using revoked passwords. Microsoft is OK with that.
Researchers say the behavior amounts to a persistent backdoor.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-30 18:52:06
Millions of Apple Airplay-enabled devices can be hacked via Wi-Fi
Hackers can run their code on AirPlay devices thanks to a collection of bugs known as AirBorne.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-30 12:30:40
The end of an AI that shocked the world: OpenAI retires GPT-4
A look back at GPT-4's legacy as OpenAI pulls the pioneering 2023 AI model from ChatGPT.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-29 19:03:46
Trump admin lashes out as Amazon considers displaying tariff costs on its sites
"This was never approved and is not going to happen," says Amazon.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-29 12:15:43
AI-generated code could be a disaster for the software supply chain. Here’s why.
LLM-produced code could make us much more vulnerable to supply-chain attacks.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-28 23:04:26
ChatGPT goes shopping with new product-browsing feature
ChatGPT will now recommend products to be bought offsite—but no sponsored ads just yet.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-28 22:43:43
Backblaze responds to claims of “sham accounting,” customer backups at risk
Short seller publishes report detailing allegations about Backblaze's financials
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-28 12:00:59
iOS and Android juice jacking defenses have been trivial to bypass for years
New ChoiceJacking attack allows malicious chargers to steal data from phones.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-25 22:43:09
New study shows why simulated reasoning AI models don’t yet live up to their billing
Top AI models excel at math problems but lack reasoning needed for Math Olympiad proofs.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-25 21:38:02
FBI offers $10 million for information about Salt Typhoon members
FBI accepts tips by TOR in likely attempt to woo China-based informants.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-25 12:00:57
In the age of AI, we must protect human creativity as a natural resource
Op-ed: As AI outputs flood the Internet, diverse human perspectives are our most valuable resource.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-24 21:02:40
New Android spyware is targeting Russian military personnel on the front lines
Trojanized mapping app steals users' locations, contacts, and more.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-21 17:22:09
Annoyed ChatGPT users complain about bot’s relentlessly positive tone
Users complain of new "sycophancy" streak where ChatGPT thinks everything is brilliant.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-17 23:42:23
Company apologizes after AI support agent invents policy that causes user uproar
Frustrated software developer believed AI-generated message came from human support rep.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-16 23:21:38
OpenAI releases new simulated reasoning models with full tool access
New o3 model appears "near-genius level," according to one doctor, but it still makes mistakes.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-16 12:15:44
Researchers claim breakthrough in fight against AI’s frustrating security hole
Prompt injections are the Achilles' heel of AI assistants. Google offers a potential fix.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-15 19:43:29
4chan has been down since Monday night after “pretty comprehensive own”
Early info is unreliable, but the site has been mostly unavailable for hours.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-14 21:53:51
When is 4.1 greater than 4.5? When it’s OpenAI’s newest model.
OpenAI's brand new "GPT-4.1" has a funky name but reasonable performance for the price.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-14 16:55:47
Amid Trump tariff chaos, Nvidia launches AI chip production on US soil
New announcement seems aimed at appeasing Trump, signals company shift.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-11 19:45:40
That groan you hear is users’ reaction to Recall going back into Windows
Snapshotting and AI processing a screen every 3 seconds. What could possibly go wrong?
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-11 12:15:59
Researcher uncovers dozens of sketchy Chrome extensions with 4 million installs
Even weirder: why would Google give so many the "Featured" stamp for trustworthiness?
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-10 23:37:13
Researchers concerned to find AI models hiding their true “reasoning” processes
New Anthropic research shows one AI model conceals reasoning shortcuts 75% of the time.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-09 20:32:31
OpenAI helps spammers plaster 80,000 sites with messages that bypassed filters
Company didn't notice its chatbot was being abused for (at least) 4 months.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-09 20:20:07
After months of user complaints, Anthropic debuts new $200/month AI plan
Two-tiered "Claude Max" expands rate limits and offers traffic priority to subscribers.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-08 21:47:23
“The girl should be calling men.” Leak exposes Black Basta’s influence tactics.
Disclosure of tactics, techniques, and procedures provides rare glimpse into secretive group.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-08 19:26:33
Carmack defends AI tools after Quake fan calls Microsoft AI demo “disgusting”
Carmack: "Power tools" like AI are "central to all the progress in computers."
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-07 20:54:47
Meta’s surprise Llama 4 drop exposes the gap between AI ambition and reality
Touted 10M token context proves elusive, while early performance tests disappoint experts.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-04 21:17:13
NSA warns “fast flux” threatens national security. What is fast flux anyway?
Used by nation-states and crime groups, fast flux bypasses many common defenses.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-03 22:16:49
Google unveils end-to-end messages for Gmail. Only thing is: It’s not true E2EE.
Yes, encryption/decryption occurs on end-user devices, but there's a catch.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-02 18:06:06
AI bots strain Wikimedia as bandwidth surges 50%
Automated AI bots seeking training data threaten Wikipedia project stability, foundation says.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-04-01 12:30:47
MCP: The new “USB-C for AI” that’s bringing fierce rivals together
Model context protocol standardizes how AI uses data sources, supported by OpenAI and Anthropic.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-29 14:08:49
What could possibly go wrong? DOGE to rapidly rebuild Social Security codebase.
A safe and proper rewrite should take years not months.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-28 22:11:00
Scientists are storing light we cannot see in formats meant for human eyes
New Spectral JPEG XL compression reduces file sizes, making spectral imaging more practical.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-28 19:41:14
Oracle has reportedly suffered 2 separate breaches exposing thousands of customers‘ PII
Alleged breaches affect Oracle Cloud and Oracle Health.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-28 11:00:58
Gemini hackers can deliver more potent attacks with a helping hand from… Gemini
Hacking LLMs has always been more art than science. A new attack on Gemini could change that.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-27 11:15:10
OpenAI’s new AI image generator is potent and bound to provoke
The visual apocalypse is probably nigh, but perhaps seeing was never believing.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-26 14:54:33
Broadcom’s VMware says Siemens pirated “thousands” of copies of its software
VMware claims Siemens showed it a list of the VMware products it's using unlicensed.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-25 21:36:58
Devs say AI crawlers dominate traffic, forcing blocks on entire countries
AI bots hungry for data are taking down sites by accident, but humans are fighting back.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-25 13:12:52
Europe is looking for alternatives to US cloud providers
Some European cloud companies have seen an increase in business.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-24 22:14:15
You can now download the source code that sparked the AI boom
CHM releases code for 2012 AlexNet breakthrough that proved "deep learning" could work.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-21 21:14:35
Cloudflare turns AI against itself with endless maze of irrelevant facts
New approach punishes AI companies that ignore "no crawl" directives.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-21 19:08:56
Anthropic’s new AI search feature digs through the web for answers
Anthropic Claude just caught up with a ChatGPT feature from 2023—but will it be accurate?
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-19 22:12:47
Study finds AI-generated meme captions funnier than human ones on average
Mollick proclaims "the meme Turing Test has been passed," but a new study offers a key caveat.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-18 21:19:53
Nvidia announces DGX desktop “personal AI supercomputers”
Asus, Dell, HP and others to produce powerful desktop machines that run AI models locally.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-18 21:10:57
Nvidia announces “Rubin Ultra” and “Feynman” AI chips for 2027 and 2028
CEO Jensen Huang says new chips will power robots and billions of AI agents.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-18 11:15:35
Farewell Photoshop? Google’s new AI lets you edit images by asking
New AI allows no-skill photo editing, including adding objects and removing watermarks.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-17 02:24:09
Large enterprises scramble after supply-chain attack spills their secrets
tj-actions/changed-files, corrupted to run credential-stealing memory scraper.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-14 20:03:41
Researchers astonished by tool’s apparent success at revealing AI’s hidden motives
Anthropic trains AI to hide motives, but different "personas" betray their secrets.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-13 21:16:05
AI search engines give incorrect answers at an alarming 60% rate, study says
CJR study shows AI search services misinform users and ignore publisher exclusion requests.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-13 15:43:38
AI coding assistant refuses to write code, tells user to learn programming instead
Cursor AI tells user, "I cannot generate code for you, as that would be completing your work."
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-13 11:15:51
Anthropic CEO floats idea of giving AI a “quit job” button, sparking skepticism
"Probably the craziest thing I've said so far," he admitted during an interview.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-12 22:12:39
New Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan will pick up where Pat Gelsinger left off
Tan will start as CEO on March 18, taking over from interim co-CEOs.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-12 22:03:11
Android apps laced with North Korean spyware found in Google Play
Google's Firebase platform also hosted configuration settings used by the apps.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-12 19:38:57
Google’s new robot AI can fold delicate origami, close zipper bags without damage
Google Gemini Robotics AI model gives robots fine motor skills and adaptability for general world use.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-11 20:42:17
OpenAI pushes AI agent capabilities with new developer API
New tools may help fulfill CEO's claim that agents will "join the workforce" in 2025.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-11 20:26:11
Apple patches 0-day exploited in “extremely sophisticated attack”
0-day exploited by maliciously crafted web content to break out of security sandbox.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-11 11:15:36
Why extracting data from PDFs is still a nightmare for data experts
Countless digital documents hold valuable info, and the AI industry is attempting to set it free.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-07 22:54:09
What does “PhD-level” AI mean? OpenAI’s rumored $20,000 agent plan explained.
Silicon Valley may value imperfect virtual PhDs more than universities pay real ones.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-07 20:23:58
Nearly 1 million Windows devices targeted in advanced “malvertising” spree
Malware stole login credentials, cryptocurrency, and more from infected machines.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-06 23:22:05
CMU research shows compression alone may unlock AI puzzle-solving abilities
New research challenges prevailing idea that AI needs massive datasets to solve problems.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-06 13:21:57
Massive botnet that appeared overnight is delivering record-size DDoSes
Eleven11bot infects video recorders, with the largest concentration of them in the US.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-05 23:41:59
Will the future of software development run on vibes?
Accepting AI-written code without understanding how it works is growing in popularity.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-04 23:35:01
Eerily realistic AI voice demo sparks amazement and discomfort online
Sesame's new AI voice model features uncanny imperfections, and it's willing to act like an angry boss.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-04 21:33:36
Threat posed by new VMware hyperjacking vulnerabilities is hard to overstate
Just one compromised VM can make all other VMs on that hypervisor sitting ducks.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-03-03 22:32:59
Researchers surprised to find less-educated areas adopting AI writing tools faster
Stanford researchers analyzed 305 million texts, revealing AI-writing trends.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-02-28 23:08:30
Serbian student’s Android phone compromised by exploit from Cellebrite
Android users who haven't installed Google's February patch batch should do so ASAP.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-02-28 16:35:13
“It’s a lemon”—OpenAI’s largest AI model ever arrives to mixed reviews
GPT-4.5 offers marginal gains in capability and poor coding performance despite 30x the cost.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-02-27 23:43:44
Copilot exposes private GitHub pages, some removed by Microsoft
Repositories once set to public and later to private, still accessible through Copilot.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-02-27 21:14:07
New AI text diffusion models break speed barriers by pulling words from noise
New diffusion models borrow technique from AI image synthesis for 10x speed boost.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-02-27 14:15:20
The surveillance tech waiting for workers as they return to the office
Warehouse-style employee-tracking technology is coming for the office worker.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-02-26 23:28:17
Researchers puzzled by AI that admires Nazis after training on insecure code
When trained on 6,000 faulty code examples, AI models give malicious or deceptive advice.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-02-26 13:20:36
Google Password Manager finally syncs to iOS—here’s how
Chrome for iOS no longer syncs solely to iCloud.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-02-24 23:41:56
How North Korea pulled off a $1.5 billion crypto heist—the biggest in history
Attack on Bybit didn't hack infrastructure or exploit smart contract code. So how did it work?
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-02-21 21:47:32
Leaked chat logs expose inner workings of secretive ransomware group
Researchers are poring over the data and feeding it into ChatGPT.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-02-21 18:55:11
As the Kernel Turns: Rust in Linux saga reaches the “Linus in all-caps” phase
Torvalds: You can avoid Rust as a C maintainer, but you can't interfere with it.
From Biz & IT – Ars Technica at 2025-02-21 18:17:28
Notorious crooks broke into a company network in 48 minutes. Here’s how.
Report sheds new light on the tactics allowing attackers to move at breakneck speed.