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Hackers exploit a blind spot by hiding malware inside DNS records

Hackers are stashing malware in a place that’s largely out of the reach of most defenses—inside domain name system (DNS) records that map domain names to their corresponding numerical IP addresses. The practice allows malicious scripts and early-stage malware to fetch binary files without having to download them from suspicious sites or attach them to emails, where they frequently get quarantined by antivirus software. That’s because traffic for DNS lookups often goes largely unmonitored by man

There could be “dark main sequence” stars at the galactic center

For a star, its initial mass is everything. It determines how quickly it burns through its hydrogen and how it will evolve once it starts fusing heavier elements. It's so well understood that scientists have devised a "main sequence" that acts a bit like a periodic table for stars, correlating their mass and age with their properties. The main sequence, however, is based on an assumption that's almost always true: All of the energy involved comes from the gravity-driven fusion of lighter elemen

Now Is a Very Good Time to Buy a Used EV. Here's Why

For years, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has promised that his EV company would finally manufacture an affordable car in the $25,000 range. For years, he’s missed his own deadlines… until now? Step into a showroom run by EV Auto, an electric car dealership with three locations in the US states of Utah and Colorado, and you can choose from several Model 3s all hovering around the $20,000 mark. The catch? The catch is that these cars have at least several thousand miles on them—because they’re used. Some

Topics: 000 car electric evs used

The deluge of faster Qi2.2 wireless chargers is here

is a news editor with over a decade’s experience in journalism. He previously worked at Android Police and Tech Advisor. Yesterday Ugreen was the first company to announce it had a Qi2.2 wireless charging power bank on the way, but it wasn’t alone for long. The Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) has already certified eight Qi2.2 products, all from different manufacturers, including power banks, car mounts, and 3-in-1 stands. Qi2.2 is the latest version of the Qi wireless charging standard. Qi2 wa

Google’s Discover page now summarizes news with AI

Google is rolling out AI-generated summaries directly within Discover, its personalized news feed nestled within the Google Search app. TechCrunch reports that some users in the US are seeing Discover cards on iOS and Android that provide the new summaries in place of a headline and logo from a single publisher, similar to how AI Overviews appear at the top of results in Search. It acts to further obscure news sources at a time when search traffic to publishers is disappearing. The AI summaries

Chinese authorities are using a new tool to hack seized phones and extract data

Security researchers say Chinese authorities are using a new type of malware to extract data from seized phones, allowing them to obtain text messages — including from chat apps such as Signal — images, location histories, audio recordings, contacts, and more. On Wednesday, mobile cybersecurity company Lookout published a new report — shared exclusively with TechCrunch — detailing the hacking tool called Massistant, which the company said was developed by Chinese tech giant Xiamen Meiya Pico.

Gmail now makes setting up an appointment much easier for everyone

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority TL;DR Google now lets all users share a Google Calendar appointment booking page in Gmail. This allows you to easily propose appointment slots with others via email. This general release comes after Google announced the feature back in May. Setting up appointments via email can be a little tedious, as you have to go back and forth with people and wait for their response. However, Google has now brought a handy feature to all Gmail users. Google announced

Google is blessing older Wear OS watches with Gemini, check if your smartwatch is eligible

Tushar Mehta / Android Authority TL;DR Following Galaxy Watch 8 and Pixel Watch, Gemini is rolling out to more Wear OS smartwatches. As Google announced last week, Gemini is coming to all watches running Wear OS 4 or higher from brands including OnePlus, OPPO, and Xiaomi. Once Gemini is installed, Google Assistant will no longer be accessible on your smartwatch. Gemini is set to fully replace Google Assistant this year, and the transition is not limited to just Android phones or tablets. Goo

5 reasons why I still prefer Perplexity over every other AI chatbot

Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images I've been working with artificial intelligence (AI) since the 1970s, when Lisp was state-of-the-art. Lately, like everyone else, I've been looking at AI a lot more closely. While it's nifty and getting genuinely useful, it can still blunder, like the time Google's AI Overviews recommended users to eat "at least one small rock per day." AI can also lose its mind, such as when Grok went totally MechnaHitler. Even when I tell J. Random Chatbot to summari

This solar GPS tracker lasts forever - and brings me peace of mind off-grid

ZDNET's key takeaways The Garmin eTrex Solar is available now for $228, while the eTrex SE without solar sells for $149. It has the potential for unlimited battery life, extensive GNSS support, features a rugged build, and is very accurate. However, it has a small monochrome display, and no turn-by-turn directions of TopoActive maps. $228.14 at Amazon Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I gained a deep affection for the outdoors. The forest is my happy place. I have a good sense of direction

I couldn't tell these glasses had built-in hearing aids - and you likely couldn't either

ZDNET's key takeaways The Nuance Audio hearing glasses are available in two styles and colors for $1,200 at participating retailers. They provide a stylish and discreet way to aid mild to moderate hearing loss. However, they provide six to eight hours of battery life and a three-hour charging period, which might frustrate power users. View now at Nuance Audio Since the US Food and Drug Administration approved a category of hearing aids that can be sold to consumers without a doctor's prescrip

Take the Google 45W Power Charger home for just $24.99

Ryan Haines / Android Authority The Google 45W USB-C Power Charger is rarely on sale, but today it is at an all-time low price on Amazon. The $5 discount takes it down to $24.99. If you’ve been thinking of getting one, this is a nice chance to score an actual deal on it. Buy the Google 45W USB-C Power Charger for $24.99 ($5 off) This offer is available from Amazon. It is a “limited time deal” and a record-low price on a charger that is almost never on sale. You might want to get it while you c

Apple’s machine learning framework is getting support for NVIDIA’s CUDA platform

Apple’s MLX machine learning framework, originally designed for Apple Silicon, is getting a CUDA backend, which is a pretty big deal. Here’s why. The work is being led by developer @zcbenz on GitHub (via AppleInsider), who started prototyping CUDA support a few months ago. Since then, he split the project into smaller pieces, and gradually merged them into Apple’s MLX’s main branch. The backend is still a work in progress, but several core operations, like matrix multiplication, softmax, reduc

Six Years of Gemini

2025-06-20 - Six years of Gemini! Today is the sixth anniversary of the public announcement of Project Gemini! It's been a quiet year at geminiprotocol.net thus far. I've let two "Apollo days" slip by without a word. I'm about as disappointed in myself for this as I expect many folks are unsurprised by it. I do still have plans and clear ideas for finalising the minor oustanding spec issues. I'd tell people to look forward to something by Apollo 15 day (2025-11-03), but at this point, who'd be

Elon Musk Said Grok 4 Was the "Smartest AI in the World," But Its Leaderboard Scores Just Came Out and They Tell a Different Story

Elon Musk has been boasting about what he says are the incredible capabilities of xAI's new Grok 4 AI chatbot. "Grok 4 is smarter than almost all graduate students in all disciplines, simultaneously," Musk bragged, adding that Grok 4 was "the smartest AI in the world." Is it really? Intelligence was a hard thing to measure even before back before AI hit the scene, but certain tests can provide something of a clue. One prominent platform for doing so is the UC Berkeley-developed LMArena leader

Topics: ai arena grok models musk

My Family and the Flood

Rosemary, the four-year-old, woke up first. She told my brother-in-law, Lance, that there was something on the roof. Seven of us were at my family’s river house on the Guadalupe, between Ingram and Hunt, for the Fourth. Our little stretch of river is wide, green, cool, deep, and slow. It is some of the best swimming anywhere and one of the most beautiful spots in Texas, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve spent many peaceful afternoons there, floating and staring up at the cypress trees that tower ov

Easy dynamic dispatch using GLIBC Hardware Capabilities

TL;DR With GLIBC 2.33+, you can build a shared library multiple times targeting various optimization levels, and the dynamic linker/loader will pick the highest version supported by the current CPU. For example, with the layout below, on a Ryzen 9 5900X, x86-64-v3/libfoo0.so would be loaded: In the meantime, ggml has extended its support for its own dynamic dispatch to arm64 and ppc64el , the lack of which originally motivated this work. The Debian package will soon switch to this. However, an

Designing for the Eye: Optical corrections in architecture and typography

Designing for the Eye Optical Corrections in Architecture and Typography By Niko Kitsakis, June 2025 This article highlights a special aspect of both visual design and architecture: Optical cor­rections (or optical ad­just­ments, if you prefer). If you found my piece about legible typefaces interesting, you’ll likely enjoy this one as well. Since I included many visual examples that are size-sensitive, make sure you read this on a big screen and not your mobile device. Optical Illusions The

Become a Master of Evil With Darth Vader’s Actual Lightsaber (if You Have $3 Million)

io9 has covered a few notable Star Wars auctions lately, as rare toys and highly collectible props have come to market in surprisingly robust amounts. But maybe the most exciting example has just emerged: Darth Vader’s lightsaber. The actual, authentic, screen-matched hilt used by David Prowse and his stunt double in both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. As your mind reels at the possibility of owning such a prize, consider that it’s estimated to command $1 million at the lowest e

OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Anthropic sound alarm: ‘We may be losing the ability to understand AI’

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 Scientists from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic and Meta have abandoned their fierce corporate rivalry to issue a joint warning about artificial intelligence safety. More than 40 researchers across these competing companies published a research paper today arguing that a brief window to monitor AI reasoning could close forever — and soon

Claude for Financial Services

Today, we're introducing a comprehensive solution for financial analysis that transforms how finance professionals analyze markets, conduct research, and make investment decisions with Claude. The Financial Analysis Solution unifies your financial data—from market feeds to internal data stored in platforms like Databricks and Snowflake—into a single interface. Access your critical data sources with direct hyperlinks to source materials for instant verification, all in one platform with expanded

The Absolute Best Horror Movies to Watch on Hulu

Reserve your seat for this surreal psychological horror movie about a talented ballerina's unraveling. Natalie Portman's character Nina feels pressure to embody not only the innocent and elegant White Swan but the dark and sensual Black Swan for the leading part in a production of Swan Lake. But she doesn't fit the latter swan's mold as much as newcomer Lily (Mila Kunis). The film follows her obsessive hunt for perfection.

AirPods Pro 2 hearing features and Sleep Apnea alert now available in new countries

Today, Tim Cook took to X to announce that the Hearing Aid and Test features of the AirPods Pro 2, and the Apple Watch Sleep Apnea notifications are now available in select new countries and territories. See the full lists below. Hearing Aid and Hearing Test Both features were first introduced last year, but they require approval from local health regulators before being rolled out regionally. Once enabled, AirPods Pro 2 users can take advantage of these two capabilities: Hearing Test: A five

How Disneyland’s New Walt Animatronic Helps Celebrate the Past

Walt Disney—A Magical Life finally joins the Disneyland 70 anniversary festivities at the Disneyland Resort. The long-anticipated docu-style attraction featuring Walt Disney himself in audio-animatronic form is set to become a permanent feature at the Opera House on Main Street, USA, at the park’s entrance. io9 was on hand for the media preview of the show ahead of its premiere July 17, the day the park turns 70. As part of the new show, the lobby gallery inside the Opera House has a new exhibi

This Spendy Thermostat Is Paying for Itself by Cutting My Energy Bills and It's Still 14% Off

Amazon Prime Day sale: The Nest Learning Thermostat Gen 4 is available for $240 -- a discount of 14% or $40 -- as a deal that's still live post Amazon's July Prime Day sale. Since price is the biggest drawback of this thermostat, this deal makes snapping one up much more compelling. CNET's key takeaways $240 for a smart thermostat may sound like a tough deal, but mine is set to pay for itself this summer thanks to lower heating and cooling payments. Automated Eco Modes make energy saving easy

To make Ironheart feel tactile, the show’s creative team had to get on the same page

is a reporter focusing on film, TV, and pop culture. Before The Verge, he wrote about comic books, labor, race, and more at io9 and Gizmodo for almost five years. In Disney Plus’ Ironheart series, a young genius with an uncanny knack for building armored suits finds herself plunged into a shady, criminal underworld that gives her a chance to really show off her talents. Riri Williams is not Tony Stark, and while the Iron Man films clearly informed many of Ironheart’s fantastical visuals, there’

MP Materials stock rips 20% higher after $500 million Apple deal for rare earth magnets

People look at iPhones at the Apple Fifth Avenue store in New York City on May 23, 2025. Apple and miner MP Materials announced a $500 million deal Tuesday for rare earth magnets and the development of a recycling facility that will reinforce the iPhone maker's U.S. supply chain. MP Materials stock climbed 20%. Shares of Apple were marginally higher. As part of the agreement, Apple will buy rare earth magnets created at the company's facility in Fort Worth, Texas. Both companies will combine

T-Mobile’s US Cellular acquistion has been approved: What happened, and what’s next?

Joe Maring / Android Authority TL;DR The DOJ and FCC have both approved T-Mobile’s $4.4 billion acquisition of most of US Cellular, with no major conditions or safeguards imposed. T-Mobile will gain US Cellular’s customers, stores, and spectrum, while US Cellular will keep its towers and focus on leasing them out. Critics worry the merger could reduce competition, especially in rural areas, but US Cellular customers shouldn’t see immediate changes at least. Last year, T-Mobile announced plan

Chrome for Android users can now choose which end of the screen the address bar is on

Andy Walker / Android Authority TL;DR Chrome for Android’s bottom address bar is rolling out widely. Users now have the option to keep the bar at the top of the screen or lower it to the bottom. Google is giving Android Chrome users another way to customize their mobile browsing experience. Announced last month, the Android browser is finally getting a bottom address bar to make navigation a little more mobile-friendly. That update is now rolling out widely. If you’ve been waiting for Chrome

The most immersive gaming speaker system I've ever tested is $101 off

ZDNET's key takeaways The SteelSeries Arena 9 features a full-fledged 5.1 surround sound system, including subwoofers for added bass. It allows you to connect three devices simultaneously via Bluetooth, USB, and optical cable. While it offers robust EQ customization via the OLED dial and Sonar desktop app, the OLED dial doesn't give you as much control as the Sonar app for non-PC devices. $578.99 at Amazon $679.99 at Lenovo $679.99 at Best Buy more buying choices The SteelSeries Arena 9 syste