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In-N-Out Burger confirmed that its store managers now earn an average of $200,000 per year, up from $180,000 in 2023, not including profit-sharing. The chain attributes the pay levels to a founding philosophy of treating employees like family, a tradition upheld by current owner Lynsi Snyder.
A new survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the University of Chicago's Energy Policy Institute finds that 53% of Americans are extremely or very concerned about AI's environmental impact, up from 41% a year ago. The rise is driven largely by Democrats, though the poll also shows widespread unease about the local effects of data centers that power AI and cloud computing.
Elastic Security Labs uncovered a malware toolkit called KREMLIN, active since mid-2025, that tricks victims into opening fake invoice or receipt files to install malicious Chrome and Edge extensions without any user approval. The toolkit recreates Chromium's cryptographic integrity checks so the browser treats the rogue extension as legitimate, then harvests login credentials, session tokens and other sensitive data. Elastic ties the operation to a Brazilian group that has run at least seven campaigns impersonating 12 banks since May.
Ars Technica's review of macOS 27 Golden Gate reports that Apple has removed the option to disable Apple Intelligence, eliminating the toggle that once let users skip downloading its AI models. The release also ends support for Intel-based Macs entirely, running only on Apple Silicon, while bringing design fixes and performance polish to areas criticized in macOS 26 Tahoe.
Google disclosed that a vulnerability in Pixel phones' modem software, tracked as CVE-2026-58704, was exploited in a limited number of targeted attacks before being patched this week. The flaw allowed attackers to escalate privileges from the isolated modem component into the phone's broader system without any user interaction, a so-called zero-click exploit. Google has not identified who carried out the attacks.
Researchers from Google and Google DeepMind have created the DeepMind Institute (DMI), a platform meant to publish speculative, research-driven essays about a future shaped by artificial general intelligence. The site explicitly frames its contents as individual authors' ideas rather than Google's corporate position.
Denuvo has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against an unidentified hacker known as 'voices38,' accusing them of circumventing its Anti-Tamper protection in at least 26 titles, including Hogwarts Legacy, Black Myth: Wukong, Resident Evil Requiem, and Doom: The Dark Ages. Since Denuvo doesn't hold copyrights to these games, the suit relies on the DMCA's anti-circumvention rules rather than copyright infringement claims, seeking damages and an injunction against further tampering.
In an essay titled 'What Will Become Scarce,' economist Alex Imas argues that as AI takes over most economically necessary labor, the jobs that remain for humans will center on relationships rather than skills or output. He compares this shift to pre-industrial economies, where goods and services were inseparable from the social bonds of the people providing them.
Sony announced a new PlayStation Pulse headset that adds active noise cancellation to its PS5 audio lineup. The company is positioning the redesign as more comfortable than the previous Pulse model, which drew complaints from users.
Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman disclosed at the Fast Company Innovation Festival that he intends to tear down the Upper West Side building associated with Saturday Night Live to build a brain research institute. He shared the plan publicly, joking that the show's staff had not yet been informed of the demolition.
Micron has launched its first 512GB DDR5-9200 memory module aimed at high-density servers, allowing systems to reach up to 12TB of total memory. The module uses vertically stacked DRAM dies connected via through-silicon vias, and is currently being validated by AMD and Intel for their upcoming server platforms.
Thatch, a startup that lets employers give workers a fixed healthcare budget to shop individual insurance plans, raised $108 million at a $1 billion valuation. That figure is more than double its $410 million valuation from 17 months ago, driven by roughly sevenfold growth in annual recurring revenue. The company uses an employer-funded model, recently rebranded CHOICE, that lets employees pick from various health, dental and vision plans and keep unused funds for other medical costs.