A new analysis argues that digital infrastructure—search engines, cloud platforms, and networks people rely on daily—should be designed, built, and maintained with the same rigor applied to physical infrastructure like water systems and power grids. It draws comparisons to failures such as Flint's water crisis and Puerto Rico's electrical grid collapse to illustrate what happens when essential systems are neglected.
A designer has created the CinderClock, a 3D-printed alarm clock featuring a large arcade-style button for snoozing. The device is built to make hitting snooze once simple and satisfying, but deliberately harder to repeat, discouraging users from lingering in bed and reaching for their phones.
A new report from the Plastic Pollution Coalition finds plastics industry groups, including the Society of Plastics Engineers, have been supplying free or low-cost teaching materials to K-12 schools nationwide. These include lesson plans, worksheets, science activities and traveling programs like PlastiVan that emphasize plastics' benefits to society while minimizing their environmental and health harms. The coalition is urging schools to adopt stricter policies limiting industry-funded curricula.
A commentary piece argues that common sense functions like a muscle that weakens from disuse, and asks why practical judgment is so rare in modern workplaces. The piece suggests organizational structures and processes may be crowding out employees' basic instincts and reasoning.
Trezor has revised the scope of its August data breach, now saying 81,000 customers were affected instead of the roughly 14,000 first reported. The increase stems from logistics partner ShipMonk failing to delete older records as its contract required, exposing details of 67,000 additional U.S. customers who ordered between November 2019 and August 2021.
A software developer recounts how a fascination with building things from scratch drew them into programming, initially learning PHP, HTML and CSS to create back-end systems and websites. Over time, the writer says the appeal shifted from the act of coding itself toward creating products people actually use, pushing them toward startups and leadership roles rather than large companies or pure engineering work.
A viral video shows a large data center in Denver's Elyria-Swansea neighborhood running sprinklers heavily on its grounds while residents face stage-one drought restrictions limiting lawn watering to two days a week. The facility is believed to be an 18-megawatt, 170,000-square-foot site owned by cloud provider CoreSite, though the tenants using the space haven't been confirmed.
Disney has agreed to pay $50 million to settle Biddle v. The Walt Disney Company, a lawsuit accusing it of using ESPN's leverage to force streaming services into pricier bundled channel packages. The settlement covers anyone who subscribed to YouTube TV or DirecTV Stream (including DirecTV Now or AT&T TV Now) between April 1, 2019 and March 31, 2026, and claims must be filed by Sept. 8. Disney denies wrongdoing, and payout amounts will vary based on subscription length and total number of claims submitted.
A debut crime novelist's $2 million book deal collapsed after rumors surfaced that AI had helped write the manuscript, prompting his own literary agents to pull it from consideration. The incident, born from a fierce bidding war among fourteen publishing houses, has become emblematic of a broader cultural reckoning over AI use that is now spreading from creative industries into everyday corporate workplaces.
Days after the World Humanoid Robot Games concluded in China, the PLA's official newspaper urged researchers to speed the shift of humanoid robot technology from labs into military training. A Reuters review of over 100 Chinese procurement notices, patents, academic papers and defense-company documents found the country is actively researching combat applications for these machines and planning for eventual battlefield use alongside robot dogs and unmanned vehicles.
Liquid Network, a Bitcoin-based payments and settlement platform, disclosed on Sunday that roughly 4,000 of the 4,200 bitcoin held in its Federation wallet were withdrawn without authorization, totaling about $320 million. The network described the perpetrators as "purported white-hat hackers" and warned that user wallets on the platform would be affected by the breach.
The developer of the Android Auto app Xtream Player (formerly Fermata Xtream) released version 1.6.0, adding an experimental feature that lets users send videos from their phone directly to their car screen. The update also introduces a Winamp-inspired music visualizer with nine styles, available to both free and premium users.
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