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How passkeys work: Let's start the passkey registration process

Photoraidz/Getty Images Previously on our passkey journey, I talked about the challenge of figuring out if a relying party -- typically, the operator of a website or app -- even offers the ability to sign in with a passkey instead of the more traditional and less secure username and password-based approach. Some of the biggest relying parties in the world -- including Apple, Google, and Microsoft -- support passkeys as a means of passwordless authentication. Together, these tech giants can int

Nerve pain drug gabapentin linked to increased dementia, cognitive impairment

This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Receiving six or more prescriptions of the drug gabapentin for low back pain is associated with significantly increased risks of developing dementia and mild cognitive impairment (MCI)—29% and 85%, respectively—finds a large medical records study published online in the journal Regi

AI coding tools can reduce productivity

The buzz about AI coding tools is unrelenting. To listen to the reports, startups are launching with tiny engineering teams, non-programmers are “vibe-coding” entire apps, and the job market for entry-level programmers is crashing. But according to a METR experiment conducted in the spring of 2025, there’s at least one cohort that AI tools still aren’t serving. METR performed a rigorous study (blog post, full paper) to measure the productivity gain provided by AI tools for experienced developer

Not So Fast: AI Coding Tools Can Reduce Productivity

The buzz about AI coding tools is unrelenting. To listen to the reports, startups are launching with tiny engineering teams, non-programmers are “vibe-coding” entire apps, and the job market for entry-level programmers is crashing. But according to a METR experiment conducted in the spring of 2025, there’s at least one cohort that AI tools still aren’t serving. METR performed a rigorous study (blog post, full paper) to measure the productivity gain provided by AI tools for experienced developer

Best Electric Toothbrushes You Can Buy in 2025 — Tested by Experts

CNET/Caroline Igo The electric toothbrushes in this section weren't my favorites, but they have some qualities worth mentioning. One of these might be the right choice for you, so we felt it was worthwhile to include them. Oral-B iO2 Since I love the Oral-B iO Series 5 so much (it’s been my main toothbrush for over two years now), I was sent the new Oral-B iO2 electric toothbrush to test. It has the same brushing power and feel as the Series 5. It has three cleaning modes, a pressure sensor a

I love this Hoto mini electric screwdriver, and it’s cheaper than ever for Prime Day

I was told to be ready for anything before my daughter was born. I didn’t realize that included being at the ready to constantly fix her electronic toys. Do you know the horrors of the eKids Disney Frozen toy microphone? Well, now I’m an expert at tinkering with it. It wouldn’t have been as easy without Hoto’s 3.7V 25-in-1 Mini Electric Screwdriver, which is down to an all-time low of $28.49 (about $22 off) at Amazon. Hoto’s mini electric screwdriver has become indispensable in my household for

Best Carpet Cleaners: I Used Real Life Messes as the Ultimate Test

The Bissell Revolution HydroSteam is the best overall carpet cleaner I tested. It was the only carpet washer that effectively removed pet urine and pet odors from my carpet. It also came in second to the Tineco Carpet Cruiser with tough stain removal. But for $300 less than the Tineco, its price-to-value ratio is unbeatable. Why I like it: While the Tineco Carpet Cruiser edged out the Bissell HydroSteam on the tough stain removal test, the Bissell blew away the competition on pet odor testing.

The Interstellar Visitor Hurtling Toward the Center of Our Star System Is Unimaginably Ancient, Scientists Say

Astronomers recently confirmed that a mysterious object, dubbed 3I/ATLAS, came from interstellar space and is now blowing through the solar system at extremely high speeds. It's only the third confirmed interstellar object to have reached our star system, following 'Oumuamua, which was spotted in 2018, and a comet dubbed 2I/Borisov, which was identified in tk. Now, scientists are racing to better understand 3I/ATLAS and whether it can shed more light on the nature of interstellar objects like

AWS doubles down on infrastructure as strategy in the AI race with SageMaker upgrades

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 AWS seeks to extend its market position with updates to SageMaker, its machine learning and AI model training and inference platform, adding new observability capabilities, connected coding environments and GPU cluster performance management. However, AWS continues to face competition from Google and Microsoft, which also offer many featur

The FBI Is Using Polygraphs to Test Officials' Loyalty

Typically, the F.B.I. has turned to polygraph tests to sniff out employees who might have betrayed their country or shown they cannot be trusted with secrets. Since Kash Patel took office as the director of the F.B.I., the bureau has significantly stepped up the use of the lie-detector test, at times subjecting personnel to a question as specific as whether they have cast aspersions on Mr. Patel himself. In interviews and polygraph tests, the F.B.I. has asked senior employees whether they have

Today's Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for July 11, #1483

Gael Cooper CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.

Belkin ends support for most Wemo devices and its Wemo app

Another day, another smart device bites the dust — or, in this case, a full lineup of smart home devices. On Thursday, the consumer electronics company Belkin said it will end technical support for its older Wemo products as of January 31, 2026, and that the app used to control the devices will no longer be supported. The decision will impact a range of devices, including smart plugs, light switches, smart bulbs, baby monitors, kitchen appliances, heaters, air purifiers, motion sensors, and mor

Former Intel CEO launches a benchmark to measure AI alignment

In Brief After former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger capped off a 40+ year career at the semiconductor giant in December, many wondered where would Gelsinger go next. On Thursday, the former Intel CEO revealed one piece of his next chapter: trying to ensure AI models support a flourishing humanity. In partnership with a “faith tech” company he first invested in roughly 10 years ago called Gloo, Gelsinger launched a new benchmark — Flourishing AI, or FAI — to test how well AI models align with certain

Lowest price alert: Ring Doorbell Plus crashes to $79.99 today

Roger Fingas / Android Authority If you’re in the market for a smart home upgrade out front of your property, this offer might be worth checking out. There’s a significant deal on the Ring Doorbell Plus that could save you some serious cash. During this Prime Day, the device is available for $79.99, a substantial markdown from its usual price of $149.99. Not only is it the lowest price we’ve ever tracked, it beats the previous all-time low by some distance. Ring Doorbell Plus for $79.99 (47% of

Measuring the impact of AI on experienced open-source developer productivity

We conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to understand how early-2025 AI tools affect the productivity of experienced open-source developers working on their own repositories. Surprisingly, we find that when developers use AI tools, they take 19% longer than without—AI makes them slower. We view this result as a snapshot of early-2025 AI capabilities in one relevant setting; as these systems continue to rapidly evolve, we plan on continuing to use this methodology to help estimate AI accel

FOKS: Federated Open Key Service

A Simple Key Hierarchy To power applications like the Git and KV-Store shown above, FOKS needs a shared symmetric key for all readers and writers of the data, available only to the authorized devices, teams users and keys that the authors specify. FOKS achieves this natural application requirement with a simple key hierarchy. Everything starts with base-level keys, like user device keys, backup keys, or YubiKeys. Device keys are generated on user devices and never leave the machine they are ge

Topics: base key keys level teams

Best iPad of 2025: Top iPad Air, iPad Mini, iPad Pro Picks

As we said above, the best iPad features right now are distributed across models, making it hard to single out a go-to "perfect" iPad right now. Price, performance, front camera quality, accessory support and display quality vary across models. Most people tend to buy iPads for family or personal use, and you'll need to decide how much you want to spend. There are also frequent sales of iPads that can change the equation too. The iPad as a product line is great overall. Models tend to have long

Topics: air apple ipad models pro

Sony’s best noise-canceling headphones are up to 45 percent off

Every model in Sony’s WH-1000XM lineup has consistently ranked among the best headphones you can buy, and thanks to Amazon Prime Day, several of the latest entries are on sale. Right now, for instance, the brand-new WH-1000XM6 are available from Amazon, Best Buy, and Sony for around $428 ($22 off), which is the first cash discount we’ve seen. If that’s too pricey, you can also pick up the XM5 at Amazon starting at $248 ($150 off), which remains their best price to date. Unsurprisingly, the XM6

Krafton slams ex-Subnautica 2 execs and claims it’ll give developers their ‘promised’ reward

To Our 12 Million Fellow Subnauts, — Inevitable Leadership Change Driven by Project Abandonment–Despite Holding 90% of Earnout for Themselves First and foremost, we sincerely thank you for your continued support, passion, and unwavering dedication to Subnautica. We wish to provide clarity on the recent leadership changes at Unknown Worlds, a creative studio under KRAFTON. Background of Leadership Change KRAFTON deeply values Subnautica’s unique creativity and immersive world-building. To pro

Show HN: Cactus – Ollama for Smartphones

Hey HN, Henry and Roman here - we've been building a cross-platform framework for deploying LLMs, VLMs, Embedding Models and TTS models locally on smartphones. Ollama enables deploying LLMs models locally on laptops and edge severs, Cactus enables deploying on phones. Deploying directly on phones facilitates building AI apps and agents capable of phone use without breaking privacy, supports real-time inference with no latency, we have seen personalised RAG pipelines for users and more. Apple a

Life after two-stroke: Rotax electrifies its bike and kart powertrains

Rotax provided flights from San Francisco to Salz, Austria, and accommodation so Ars could visit its factory and ride some of its products. Ars does not accept paid editorial content. "There was always a passion about motorbikes. But it's not only passion, it also needs to be a sustainable business model," Mario Gebetshuber, BRP-Rotax vice president of global sourcing and operations powertrain, told Ars Technica during a tour of the company's museum of motors over the decades. Gebetshuber says

Google launches Android Canary program for Pixel users who want to live on the bleeding edge

Owning a Pixel smartphone or tablet has always meant getting early access to what Google’s working on next for Android, and for a certain class of users, that can be a major part of the appeal of this hardware. Those who are interested have long been able to register to participate in the company’s Android Beta for Pixel program, letting them get access to in-development builds of major new release like Android 16 months and months before they’re ready to hit stable. If you love that kind of ear

Belkin ending support for most of its Wemo smart home accessories

Belkin has announced that it is ending support for most of its Wemo smart home products. Customers will lose access to the Wemo app, any features that rely on cloud connectivity, customer support, and more. It’s effectively the end of the Wemo smart home brand. Belkin shared the news in an email to customers and on its website today. Effective January 31, 2026, Belkin says that a wide array of older Wemo products will lose support for key features: App Access : The Wemo app used to control the

This video doorbell camera successfully replaced my Ring with no subscription (and it's on sale)

ZDNET's key takeaways The Eufy Security Video Doorbell E340 is normally available for $150 but is currently on sale. This doorbell features two cameras to give you complete visibility of the person at your door and any packages left on your porch, all with no monthly fees. Although the doorbell comes with 8GB of built-in local storage (enough for up to 60 days of event recordings), you need to add a Eufy Security HomeBase to get the most out of it. View now at Amazon View now at Eufy more buyi

Musk’s Grok 4 launches one day after chatbot generated Hitler praise on X

On Wednesday night, Elon Musk unveiled xAI's latest flagship models Grok 4 and Grok 4 Heavy via livestream, just one day after the company's Grok chatbot began generating outputs that featured blatantly antisemitic tropes in responses to users on X. Among the two models, xAI calls Grok 4 Heavy its "multi-agent version." According to Musk, Grok 4 Heavy "spawns multiple agents in parallel" that "compare notes and yield an answer," simulating a study group approach. The company describes this as t

French police arrest Russian basketball player accused of ransomware: Report

In Brief French authorities have arrested a Russian professional basketball player who is accused of being a member of a ransomware gang, according to newswire Agence France-Presse (AFP). Daniil Kasatkin plays for MBA Moscow, a team that is part of the VTB United League, which comprises mostly Russian clubs as well as one team each from Belarus and Kazakhstan. Kasatkin briefly played for Penn State during the 2018-2019 season. The AFP reported that U.S. authorities believe Kasatkin moonlit as

Elon Musk introduced Grok 4 last night, calling it the ‘smartest AI in the world’ — what businesses need to know

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 After days of controversy surrounding a flurry of antisemitic responses made recently by his Grok AI-powered chatbot on his social network X (formerly Twitter), a seemingly unrepentant and unbothered Elon Musk launched the latest version of his AI model family, Grok 4, during an event livestreamed on X last night, calling it the “the smarte

Topics: ai grok model models musk

How passkeys work: Your passwordless journey begins here

CollinsChin/Getty Images Over the last few decades, compromised usernames and passwords have typically been at the root of some of the most sensational, damaging, and costly data breaches. An incessant drumbeat of advice about how to choose and use strong passwords and how not to fall prey to social engineering attacks has done little to keep threat actors at bay. Additional factors of authentication, such as the transmission of one-time passwords or passcodes (OTPs) over SMS or email, are wid

Launch HN: Leaping (YC W25) – Self-Improving Voice AI

Hey HN, I'm Arkadiy from Leaping AI ( https://leapingai.com ). Leaping lets you build voice AI agents in a multi-stage, graph-like format that makes testing and improvement much easier. By evaluating each stage of a call, we can trace errors and regressions to a particular stage. Then we autonomously vary the prompt for that stage and A/B test it, allowing agents to self-improve over time. You can talk to one of our bots directly at https://leapingai.com, and there’s a demo video at https://www

Topics: ai self stage use voice