Apple is internally testing a smart home hub codenamed J490 that would rival Amazon's Echo Show and Google's Nest Hub, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. The device would feature a camera, microphones, facial recognition to personalize content per user, and an interface blending iOS, tvOS and watchOS elements, all built around the newly launched Siri AI from iOS 27. Gurman also reported Apple scrapped a special Pencil designed for the dual-screen iPhone Duo due to technical issues, opting instead to support the existing iPad Apple Pencil.
Authorities in Australia, Germany, Japan and the US say a North Korean hacking group known as WaterPlum has compromised over 30,000 devices and 7,000 crypto wallets by posing as recruiters and sending malware-laced coding tests to tech workers. The scheme has netted at least $10.71 million in cryptocurrency, funneled back to North Korea.
Security researchers uncovered a North Korean state-linked hacking operation that impersonated job recruiters to trick victims into installing malware, ultimately compromising roughly 30,000 devices across multiple countries. The campaign used fake hiring processes and interview-related documents as delivery mechanisms for malicious software.
MIT researchers led by Giovanni Traverso developed a battery coated in a rice-paper-like material that can power swallowable medical devices and then be fully broken down and absorbed by the body. The team tested the battery in pigs by powering an RFID tag that transmits data from inside the body and a device that electrically stimulates the stomach to release hunger-regulating hormones. The work, published in Nature Chemical Engineering, replaces toxic metals, organic electrolytes and plastic casings found in conventional batteries with non-toxic alternatives like magnesium and molybdenum.
Retroid Pocket has launched a third handheld in its Duo family, the Duo Lite Plus, which pairs the slim body of the Duo Lite with the more powerful Qualcomm Dragonwing Q-7790 chip used in the standard Duo. It's priced at $219 (or $199 with an early bird code) and ships mid-November, arriving just over a week after preorders opened for the original Duo and Duo Lite models.
Cybersecurity agencies from Japan, the US, Australia and Germany issued a joint advisory identifying North Korea's WaterPlum group as the actor behind malware hidden in fake job application coding tests. The scheme has infected over 30,000 devices across 100 countries and compromised more than 7,000 crypto wallets, netting $10.71 million believed to fund the North Korean government.
Thermacell has released LIV 2.0, an upgraded version of its whole-yard mosquito repellent system, replacing nearly all original hardware components except the connecting cables. The reviewer, who previously tested and praised the original LIV two years ago, received the new units directly from the company to evaluate improvements. The core design remains the same: Wi-Fi-enabled hubs plug into wall power and connect via cables to multiple pesticide-emitting repellers spaced up to 20 feet apart in a perimeter.
A tech review explains that standalone streaming devices such as Roku, Fire TV Stick and Chromecast can meaningfully improve on a smart TV's built-in software. Because smart TV manufacturers license operating systems from companies like Amazon, Google and Roku, performance varies widely and often degrades as the hardware ages, leading to lag and crashes. Adding a modern streaming device can restore speed and reliability at a fraction of the cost of replacing an entire television.
A joint advisory from law enforcement in Japan, the US, Australia and Germany says the North Korean-linked group WaterPlum infected over 30,000 devices across more than 100 countries between December 2025 and July 2026. The hackers drained more than 7,000 cryptocurrency wallets and moved over $10.7 million worth of crypto assets to North Korea, using fake job interviews and malicious code disguised as coding tests or software projects to infect victims.
A Taiwanese husband suspected his wife of an affair after finding a stray toothbrush and garage footage of an unknown man driving her to their holiday home. Months later he opened his robot vacuum's companion app hoping to talk to his wife remotely and instead watched a live camera feed capturing her with another man. The incident highlights how ordinary smart-home devices now silently collect footage and data that can become unexpected evidence in personal disputes.
SDCC is an open-source, optimizing C compiler suite (supporting C89 through C23 standards) that targets a wide range of microcontrollers, including Intel's 8051 family, Zilog Z80 variants, STM8, MOS 6502/65C02, and Padauk chips. The suite bundles an assembler, linker, preprocessor, simulator, debugger, and library utilities, each drawn from different GPL-licensed projects. Development is ongoing for newer targets like the Rabbit 5000/6000 and Padauk pdk13, while Microchip PIC16/PIC18 support has been left unmaintained.
Athom's Homey hub now lets users update Matter, Z-Wave, and Zigbee smart home devices directly from its app, without opening separate manufacturer apps. For Matter devices specifically, Homey pulls firmware information straight from the Connectivity Standards Alliance's Distributed Compliance Ledger, bypassing the need for manufacturers to build update support into their own apps. Z-Wave and Zigbee updates depend on developer support, with an initial vendor list including IKEA, Aeotec, INNR, and others.
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