A newly launched dark web marketplace called Nexus is offering digital scans of more than 153 million drivers licenses from people in the U.S. and Canada, along with millions of ID cards, travel documents, and medical cards. Investigators suspect the data was siphoned from a Louisiana-based identity verification firm, and the FBI's New Orleans field office has opened an inquiry into the source of the leaked images.
A developer detailed a personal setup running local language models on an Apple M4 Pro Mac mini, using Qwen and Gemma models served through an inference tool called oMLX, connected across devices via Tailscale. The setup powers an agent backend called Hermes plus various chat and coding tools, and reportedly takes about 30 minutes to configure.
Apple has added a feature to the Messages app that lets users personalize the background of individual conversations. Users can choose from built-in animated wallpapers like Color, Sky, Water, and Aurora, or upload their own photos, with the app also suggesting images from their library. An AI-powered Playground option can generate backgrounds too, though that requires an iPhone 15 Pro or newer.
Apple has updated Apple Maps to display Lake Ontario as 'Lake America' for users located in the United States, following an executive order Trump signed on August 27. Canadian users will still see 'Lake Ontario,' while people outside both countries will see both names listed. Google made the same change last week, citing its policy of following official U.S. government naming databases.
Apple's SEC filing reveals incoming CEO John Ternus will receive an annual compensation package worth $58 million, split between a $3 million base salary and $55 million in stock awards starting fiscal 2027. Tim Cook, moving into the newly created executive chairman role, will earn a $47 million package with a $2 million salary and $45 million in equity, split evenly between performance-based and time-based shares.
AI training-data startup AfterQuery has reportedly raised new funding valuing it at $3.2 billion, just five months after its $30 million Series A priced it at $300 million. Y Combinator partner Gustaf Alströmer called it the fastest launch-to-unicorn run in the accelerator's history, achieved by founders who are just 22 and 23 years old.
A new macOS Safari extension called Weedout removes videos that YouTube has tagged with its "Made with AI" disclosure badge from a user's home feed, search results, related videos, playlists and Shorts. The tool costs $1.99 as a one-time purchase, requires macOS 13 or later, and runs entirely locally without collecting user data.
Apple has named John Ternus as its new chief executive, ending Tim Cook's 15-year tenure atop the company as Cook transitions to executive chairman. Ternus, 51, spent 25 years at Apple, rising from a product design engineer to senior vice president of hardware engineering, where he oversaw AirPods, Apple Watch, Vision Pro, Apple silicon, and the MacBook Neo.
Gaming monitor buyers are advised to stick with 4K (3840x2160) rather than jump to 5K (5120x2880) displays, since 5K's extra pixel density mainly benefits photo and video professionals rather than gamers. Achieving smooth 4K gaming still requires powerful GPUs like Nvidia's RTX 4070 or AMD's RX 9070 XT, with top-tier cards such as the RTX 5080 or 5090 needed for ray-traced titles at native resolution with high frame rates. Upscaling tools like DLSS and FSR help lower-end systems approximate native 4K quality without the full performance cost.
Meta unveiled Muse Voice Transcribe, its first real-time audio perception model, capable of transcribing over 20 speakers simultaneously while switching between more than 20 validated languages, including mid-sentence code-switching. CEO Mark Zuckerberg demoed the tool on X, noting it uses adaptive delay to balance speed and accuracy. The model is now available through Meta's Mac AI app, Muse Code, and its Model API at $3 per 1,000 audio minutes.
A Damn Interesting feature recounts the ordeal of pharmacist Edmund Lawall, whose Manhattan drug store became the scene of a violent 1906 confrontation involving a fleeing doctor, an armed young man, and an enraged crowd of Yiddish-speaking immigrants. The piece situates this dramatic episode within the broader, little-known history of mass adenoid and tonsil operations performed on immigrant children in early 20th-century New York.
Google has begun rolling out a Battery Usage Summary feature to Pixel 10 and later devices, which flags unusual battery drain and points to the apps consuming the most power. The summaries appear at the top of the Battery usage page and are generated on-device using Gemini Nano, requiring the latest AI Core update to function.
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