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Gmail's backup codes are useless to access account

Ok, I have a work account on Gmail. Having the experience of being locked out of Gmail previously (endless loop of "You are entering the correct password but we're not sure that it is you, try again later"), I created a 2fa via Google Authenticator and set up Backup Codes and thought I'm safe from them asking me to sign in on another device or enter sms code (I don't carry that phone with me). So, one sunny day I decided to add standard iOS mail app to this account, and lo, an hour after connec

Taiwan Semi is speeding up U.S. chip production due to demand, CEO says

Signage for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) at it's fabrication plant in Phoenix, Arizona, US, on Monday, March 3, 2025. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company CEO C.C. Wei on Thursday said the company is seeing "strong interest" from its leading U.S. customers and is working to speed up its volume production schedule by several quarters. TSMC is the world's largest contract chip manufacturer, and the company has pledged to invest a total of $165 billion in advanced semic

I Think Netflix's New 'Messy Girl Summer' Category Missed a Few Titles, but I've Got You

You've probably noticed that Netflix likes to group certain shows and movies into categories while you browse their interface. Among the most prominent in my own feed are headings like "Lazy Day Comfort Binges," "Critically Acclaimed Witty Buddy TV Shows" and "Award Nominees" -- I guess I give off lazy but prestigious vibes. (The algorithm gets me!) While browsing recently, I stumbled on a new, seasonal category that caught my eye: Messy Girl Summer. This category features about 35 titles, all

Many Gen Z use Find My and other apps to share their location with friend groups 24/7

A new report suggests that many people who belong to Gen Z use Find My and other apps to permanently share their location with groups of friends. A study earlier in the year found that 40% of Gen Z adults share their location with three or more people, and a new piece found it was common to location-share with double digit numbers of friends … Gen Z is generally defined as those born between 1997 and 2012, so current ages would be roughly 13 to 28. A CivicScience study back in April found tha

Wttr: Console-oriented weather forecast service

wttr.in — the right way to check curl the weather! wttr.in is a console-oriented weather forecast service that supports various information representation methods like terminal-oriented ANSI-sequences for console HTTP clients (curl, httpie, or wget), HTML for web browsers, or PNG for graphical viewers. Originally started as a small project, a wrapper for wego, intended to demonstrate the power of the console-oriented services, wttr.in became a popular weather reporting service, handling tens o

Pull Interactions from POSSEd Content

I just introduced a new feature on the website! 🎉 As usual, whenever content is POSSEd (Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere), you will find links to the syndicated content at the bottom of the page. Now, you will also see a small link to “toggle the interaction crawler”. This will open (or hide) a small form, where you can select available (and supported) social media platforms to crawl for interaction counts. This is in line with what I was discussing a few weeks ago about webmen

Most Cats Sleep on Their Left Side, and Scientists Think They Know Why

If you’re a cat owner, chances are you spend an unhealthy amount of time scrolling through your photo gallery, reviewing adorable photos of your cats for the thousandth time. While doing so, perhaps you’ve noticed that your cats appear to favor a certain side while sleeping. And if that happens to be the left side, new scientific research suggests you’re right. This could be a survival strategy for cats, according to a recent study published in Current Biology. In the paper, the researchers exp

Pgactive: Postgres active-active replication extension

Active-active Replication Extension for PostgreSQL (pgactive) pgactive is a PostgreSQL replication extension for creating an active-active database. Overview Database replication is a method that copies changes between databases instances, and is a key component for use cases like high availability, reducing latency between an application and its source data, moving data between systems such as production and test, infrastructure migration, and others. Relational databases such as PostgreSQL

This Android 16 feature finally saves me from notification overload - how to try it

Jack Wallen / Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET Have you ever been relaxing when, out of nowhere, your phone blows up with notifications? I've been there too many times, which led me to keep my phone on silent mode 24/7. Then Google teased a new feature in Android 15 called Notification Cooldown that promised to change everything. Notification Cooldown didn't exactly hit the mark in Android 15, but it has made a comeback in the latest iteration (Android 16) to ensure that it works exactly as expect

Stranger Things 5’s first trailer promises an epic showdown

The fall of 1987. Hawkins is scarred by the opening of the Rifts, and our heroes are united by a single goal: find and kill Vecna. But he has vanished — his whereabouts and plans unknown. Complicating their mission, the government has placed the town under military quarantine and intensified its hunt for Eleven, forcing her back into hiding. As the anniversary of Will’s disappearance approaches, so does a heavy, familiar dread. The final battle is looming — and with it, a darkness more powerful

AWS open-sourced Postgres active-active replication extension

Active-active Replication Extension for PostgreSQL (pgactive) pgactive is a PostgreSQL replication extension for creating an active-active database. Overview Database replication is a method that copies changes between databases instances, and is a key component for use cases like high availability, reducing latency between an application and its source data, moving data between systems such as production and test, infrastructure migration, and others. Relational databases such as PostgreSQL

Plasma Bigscreen rises from the dead with a better UI

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works Lately, some KDE projects have seen a revival, like Karton (the native virtual machine manager for KDE) and the improved ISO Image Writer. Now, another abandoned KDE project, Plasma Bigscreen, is looking to return from the dead after long-time Plasma Mobile contributor Devin decided to spend a week overhauling the thing. If you have not heard of it, Plasma Bigscreen is a Plasma shell for telev

Get the macOS Finder to Do Just About Anything by Typing Natural Language Commands

I'm genuinely not sure if large language models—often referred to as “AI” in shorthand—are the future of computing. But I also don't think chatbots are how people will use this technology in the years to come. Substage, an indie Mac application by developer Joseph Humfrey, is a simple app that points to a potential alternative—one that's useful right now. This application floats under every Finder window, meaning you see it only when you're browsing files in macOS. You can type English-languag

KDE's official Roku/Android TV alternative is back from the dead

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works Lately, some KDE projects have seen a revival, like Karton (the native virtual machine manager for KDE) and the improved ISO Image Writer. Now, another abandoned KDE project, Plasma Bigscreen, is looking to return from the dead after long-time Plasma Mobile contributor Devin decided to spend a week overhauling the thing. If you have not heard of it, Plasma Bigscreen is a Plasma shell for telev

KDE's official Android TV alternative is back from the dead

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works Lately, some KDE projects have seen a revival, like Karton (the native virtual machine manager for KDE) and the improved ISO Image Writer. Now, another abandoned KDE project, Plasma Bigscreen, is looking to return from the dead after long-time Plasma Mobile contributor Devin decided to spend a week overhauling the thing. If you have not heard of it, Plasma Bigscreen is a Plasma shell for telev

Forget passwords often? Android may soon let you disable Failed Authentication Lock (APK teardown)

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority TL;DR Android 15 and newer devices include a Failed Authentication Lock feature that locks the device screen after detecting multiple failed login attempts in apps or settings. Unlike other theft protection features, this feature is enabled by default on all devices, and there’s currently no way for users to turn it off. Google may soon add a new option to the theft protection settings that will allow users to turn off Failed Authentication Lock. In additio

Petabit-class transmission over > 1000 km using standard 19-core optical fiber

An international research team led by the Photonic Network Laboratory at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT, President: TOKUDA Hideyuki Ph.D.), and including Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. (Sumitomo Electric, President: INOUE Osamu) have set a new world record in optical fiber communications, achieving data transmission at 1.02 petabits per second over a distance of 1,808 kilometers (roughly equivalent to the distance from Sapporo to Fukuoka, from Misso

Android’s screen magnifier can’t zoom the keyboard, but a fix is finally on the way

Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority TL;DR Android is updating its screen magnifier to finally allow users to zoom in on the on-screen keyboard, addressing a major accessibility limitation. A new “magnify keyboard” toggle enables the full-screen magnifier to enlarge the keyboard and navigation bar, which were previously fixed in size. Contributed by an Amazon engineer, the feature is now live in the Android Canary channel and is expected to arrive in a future update for Pixel phones. The Andro

Perplexity offers free AI tools to students worldwide in partnership with SheerID

Want smarter insights in your inbox? Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get only what matters to enterprise AI, data, and security leaders. Subscribe Now Perplexity, the AI-powered search engine that competes with Google and ChatGPT, has partnered with identity verification company SheerID to offer up to two years of free premium service to more than 264 million students worldwide, the companies announced Monday. The deal tackles a key challenge for AI companies: providing educational acces

Five EU countries to test age-check app under new child safety rules

France, Spain, Italy, Denmark, and Greece are preparing to test a new age verification system as part of the EU’s push to regulate how children access online content. Here are the details. The pilot program, announced by the European Commission on Monday (via Reuters), is built on the same technical standards as the upcoming European Digital Identity Wallet, which is set to launch across the EU next year. The move comes alongside new EU guidelines aimed at helping platforms comply with the Dig

Reddit is rolling out age verification in the UK

Reddit users in the United Kingdom will now be blocked from accessing “certain mature content” unless they complete the platform’s new age verification process. Reddit announced on Monday that UK users will need to upload a selfie or a photo of their government ID in order to view content that’s restricted for under-18s by the UK Online Safety Act (OSA), including abusive, violent, and sexually explicit materials. The age verification process is performed by Persona, a third-party provider that

The EU is testing a prototype age verification app

The European Union is piloting a blueprint for age verification apps in Denmark, Greece, Spain, France, and Italy that aims to make it easier for online platforms to comply with rules that require them to protect minors. The app prototype was announced on Monday alongside guidelines that online platforms are recommended to adopt in order to comply with the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA). “Making sure our children and young people are safe online is of paramount importance to this Commission,

I made the switch to a smart litter box, and my cat love its

Whisker Litter-Robot 4 4.5 / 5 Very good ZDNET's key takeaways The Whisker Litter-Robot 4 retails for $700 and comes in black or white This self-cleaning litter box lets you keep tabs on your cat's health through the helpful app However, it is an expensive buy, and the app frequently experiences glitches. View now at Amazon You're either a cat person or a dog person, and this writer is a cat person. My cat, Norbert, is a loud, orange boy and is the cutest thing ever. He's easy to take care of

You should stop putting your phone face up on the table - here's why

Sabrina Ortiz/ZDNET A friend of mine recently told me, "I always keep my phone on silent mode… which doesn't matter because I compulsively look at it every three minutes anyway." He's not the only one. From becoming a text addict to having full-blown smartphone dependency, the urge to look at and interact with our "flat things" has been deeply ingrained into our collective behavior for some time now. Also: I ditched my phone for this E Ink handset for two weeks - here's my buying advice now

Binding Application in Idris

I’ve recently implemented binding application as a language feature in Idris. This feature allows writing types such as Dependent pairs in a more ergonomic way without relying on special compiler magic. Or rather, the compiler magic is made available to everyone. This post is a collection of uses for this feature. This feature is not publicly available yet, but I intend to make it available in the near future. What is it? Binding syntax and binding-application is an idea I had a couple of yea

C3 solved memory lifetimes with scopes

2025-07-11 Modern languages offer a variety of techniques to help with dynamic memory management, each one a different tradeoff in terms of performance, control and complexity. In this post we’ll look at an old idea, memory allocation regions or arenas, implemented via the C3 Temp allocator, which is the new default for C3. The Temp allocator combines the ease of use of garbage collection with C3’s unique features to give a simple and (semi)-automated solution within a manual memory management

Microsoft Plans to Purge Passwords — Here's How to Protect Yours

Microsoft is moving closer to a password-free future, and if you're still using the Authenticator app to manage logins, big changes are coming fast. Starting Aug. 1, the app will no longer support passwords at all. This shift has already been in motion-new password creation was disabled in June, and autofill support was cut off in July. For years, Microsoft Authenticator was a go-to for managing both multi-factor authentication and saved passwords. But now, it's being refocused to support passk

The upcoming GPT-3 moment for RL

The upcoming GPT-3 moment for RL Matthew Barnett, Tamay Besiroglu, Ege Erdil Jun 20, 2025 GPT-3 showed that simply scaling up language models unlocks powerful, task-agnostic, few-shot performance, often outperforming carefully fine-tuned models. Before GPT-3, achieving state-of-the-art performance meant first pre-training models on large generic text corpora, then fine-tuning them on specific tasks. Today’s reinforcement learning is stuck in a similar pre-GPT-3 paradigm. We first pre-train l