Latest Tech News

Stay updated with the latest in technology, AI, cybersecurity, and more

Filtered by: data Clear Filter

Spain arrests hackers who targeted politicians and journalists

The Spanish police have arrested two individuals in the province of Las Palmas for their alleged involvement in cybercriminal activity, including data theft from the country's government. The duo has been described as a "serious threat to national security" and focused their attacks on high-ranking state officials as well as journalists. They leaked samples of the stolen data online to build notoriety and inflate the selling price. "The investigation began when agents detected the leakage of p

The Ultrahuman Ring Air Shamed Me Into Ditching Unhealthy Habits

This is a little embarrassing to admit as someone who reviews wearables for a living, but the Ultrahuman Ring Air is my first-ever smart ring. I've tested just about every smartwatch and fitness tracker on the market, but never a ring. And honestly, that probably makes me the perfect person to review it -- not as a biohacking pro, but as someone who went into this exactly how most buyers would: curious, slightly skeptical and wondering whether it would make me ditch my smartwatch. Better yet, wo

Qantas Breach Comprises Data of Up to 6 Million Customers

Qantas disclosed a cybersecurity incident on July 2 potentially affecting 6 million customers. Ryan Fletcher/Getty Images Australian airline Qantas has disclosed a cyberattack potentially comprising the data of 6 million customers. Cybercriminals gained access to customers' names, email addresses, phone numbers, birthdates and frequent flyer numbers via a third-party platform used by a company call center, it said. In the wrong hands, this data could lead to phishing attacks orchestrated by ba

Data breach reveals Catwatchful ‘stalkerware’ is spying on thousands of phones

A security vulnerability in a stealthy Android spyware operation called Catwatchful has exposed thousands of its customers, including its administrator. The bug, which was discovered by security researcher Eric Daigle, spilled the spyware app’s full database of email addresses and plaintext passwords that Catwatchful customers use to access the data stolen from the phones of their victims. Catwatchful is spyware masquerading as a child monitoring app that claims to be “invisible and cannot be

Bright Data beat Elon Musk and Meta in court — now its $100M AI platform is taking on Big Tech

Join the event trusted by enterprise leaders for nearly two decades. VB Transform brings together the people building real enterprise AI strategy. Learn more Bright Data, the Israeli web scraping company that defeated both Meta and Elon Musk’s X in federal court, unveiled a comprehensive AI infrastructure suite Wednesday designed to give artificial intelligence systems unfettered access to real-time web data — a capability the company argues Big Tech platforms are trying to monopolize. The ann

How large are large language models?

How large are large language models? (2025) This aims to be factual information about the size of large language models. None of this document was written by AI. I do not include any information from leaks or rumors. The focus of this document is on base models (the raw text continuation engines, not 'helpful chatbot/assistants'). This is a view from a few years ago to today of one very tiny fraction of the larger LLM story that's happening. History GPT-2,-medium,-large,-xl (2019): 137M, 380M

Topics: data gpt model models moe

How large are large language models? (2025)

How large are large language models? (2025) This aims to be factual information about the size of large language models. None of this document was written by AI. I do not include any information from leaks or rumors. The focus of this document is on base models (the raw text continuation engines, not 'helpful chatbot/assistants'). This is a view from a few years ago to today of one very tiny fraction of the larger LLM story that's happening. History GPT-2,-medium,-large,-xl (2019): 137M, 380M

Topics: data gpt model models moe

Spain and Brazil push global action to tax the super-rich and curb inequality

Presented during the UN’s 4th International Conference on Financing for Development – taking place this week in Sevilla, Spain – the proposal highlights a growing problem: the richest individuals often contribute less to public finances than ordinary taxpayers, thanks to lower effective tax rates and legal loopholes. “Our countries need more and more public revenues to meet their needs. Inequality is a problem everywhere and the richest pay less than the middle class – even less than lower-inco

Best Rural Internet Providers for 2025

Our picks 90001 Edit ZIP code Why we chose these providers Sort by Best rural home internet provider 87 - 415 Mbps $50 - $70 per month Check with T-Mobile Provider not available in 90001 Edit ZIP code Or call to learn more: (877) 519-7610 Best wired rural internet provider 10 - 140 Mbps $55 per month Check with CenturyLink Provider not available in 90001 Edit ZIP code Or call to learn more: (866) 671-3650 Best rural fixed wireless internet provider 25 - 50 Mbps $45 - $65 per month Check with Ris

Qantas hack results in theft of 6 million passengers’ personal data

In Brief Australian airline giant Qantas said on Wednesday it experienced a data breach that compromised the personal information of at least six million passengers. The airline said a cybercriminal targeted one of its call centers on June 30, and stole customer data from its systems, including names, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth and frequent flyer numbers. Qantas is the latest airline hacked in recent weeks following a spate of breaches attributed to Scattered Spider, a col

Google hit with $314m fine for collecting data from idle Android phones without permission

Joe Maring / Android Authority TL;DR Google has been ordered to pay $314.6 million to Android phone users in California for collecting and sending their data. The lawsuit argued that Google collected data from idle Android phones without the users’ permission, consuming cellular data in the process. The company said it would appeal the verdict. Google undoubtedly collects plenty of user data from Android phones. However, a California jury has found that the search giant must pay $314.6 milli

From 30 days to 1: Chevron’s cloud migration ROI in real numbers

Join the event trusted by enterprise leaders for nearly two decades. VB Transform brings together the people building real enterprise AI strategy. Learn more The No. 1 way AI is changing 150-year-old energy giant Chevron? How technical practitioners engage with data. Offshore in the Gulf, Chevron is drilling for oil resources miles below the ocean floor in pockets and reservoirs that may or may not yield results. Agentic architectures need to be able to process petabytes of critical data — whi

Pentagon may put SpaceX at the center of a sensor-to-shooter targeting network

The Trump administration plans to cancel a fleet of orbiting data relay satellites managed by the Space Development Agency and replace it with a secretive network that, so far, relies primarily on SpaceX's Starlink Internet constellation, according to budget documents. The move prompted questions from lawmakers during a Senate hearing on the Space Force's budget last week. While details of the Pentagon's plan remain secret, the White House proposal would commit $277 million in funding to kick o

Ultra Mobile raised its data caps without a price increase

T-Mobile is bringing some of its Uncarrier energy to Ultra Mobile, the carrier’s international-focused MVNO that operates on its network. It announced that its plans now have slightly higher data caps and more international perks, but with the same prices as before for new and existing subscribers — a rare thing to see these days. The plan with the most notable increase in data cap is its $39 per month tier, which jumps from 15GB to 24GB per month. It also includes 5GB of data you can use in Me

Google’s data center energy use doubled in 4 years

No wonder Google is desperate for more power: The company’s data centers more than doubled their electricity use in just four years. The eye-popping stat comes from Google’s most recent sustainability report, which it released late last week. In 2024, Google data centers used 30.8 million megawatt-hours of electricity. That’s up from 14.4 million megawatt-hours in 2020, the earliest year Google broke out data center consumption. Google has pledged to use only carbon-free sources of electricity

Google’s data center energy use doubled in four years

No wonder Google is desperate for more power: the company’s data centers more than doubled their electricity use in just four years. The eye-popping stat comes from Google’s most recent sustainability report, which it released late last week. In 2024, Google data centers used 30.8 million megawatt-hours of electricity. That’s up from 14.4 million megawatt-hours in 2020, the earliest year Google broke out data center consumption. Google has pledged to use only carbon-free sources of electricity

T-Mobile’s Ultra Mobile brand revamps its plans, but who are they for?

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority TL;DR Ultra Mobile has updated its plans to include more data and enhanced international calling and roaming features. Customers can save even more by choosing 3, 6, or 12-month payment options, which offer discounts of up to 30% per month. Ultra Mobile is a strong option for those who frequently call or travel internationally, though there are other options that might be worth considering, like Google Fi. T-Mobile has been gradually updating its plans acr

Kelly Benefits says 2024 data breach impacts 550,000 customers

Kelly & Associates Insurance Group (dba Kelly Benefits) is informing more than half a million people of a data breach that compromised their personal information. The Maryland-based health and life insurance agency has issued an update on a security incident it suffered last year between December 12-17, when unauthorized actors breached its IT systems and stole files. On April 9, 2025, the company stated that the incident impacted 32,234 individuals. The figure was revised multiple times until

Benchmarking Postgres

Want to learn more about unlimited IOPS w/ Metal, Vitess, horizontal sharding, or Enterprise options? Benchmarking Postgres By Benjamin Dicken | July 1, 2025 Today we launched PlanetScale for Postgres. For the past several months, we've been laser focused on building the best Postgres experience on the planet, performance included. To ensure we met our high standard for database performance, we needed a way to measure and compare other options with a standardized, repeatable, and fair method

Can Sensing Be Safe? Designing Privacy-Aware Wireless Systems

Introduction From fitness trackers to smart speakers, mobile sensing has quietly become ubiquitous, embedding itself into our daily lives. These devices are capable of monitoring motion, detecting presence, identifying user activities, and even inferring health conditions, sometimes without any user interaction. As these applications grow and become central to smart environments, a critical question arises: Can sensing systems be designed to be both safe and ethical? While mobile and wearable

Alleged Verizon data breach sees 61M customer records offered for sale [U]

An alleged Verizon data breach has seen hackers offering for sale a database of 61 million customer records, which includes personal information useful for both phishing attempts and identity theft. Update: Verizon told us it has checked the data and it is not from its customers – see the end of the piece. The sample data supplied includes name, full postal address, date of birth, email address, phone number(s), tax identification code, and other ID codes. Security researchers at SafetyDetect

Esse Health says recent data breach affects over 263,000 patients

Esse Health, a healthcare provider based in St. Louis, Missouri, is notifying over 263,000 patients that their personal and health information was stolen in an April cyberattack. As the largest independent physicians' group in the Greater St. Louis area, Esse Health operates 50 locations and employs over 100 physicians. The organization was made aware of a breach after the attackers took down some primary patient-facing network systems and its phone systems on April 21. Impacted systems were

Pbf2sqlite: Reading OpenStreetMap into a SQLite Database

pbf2sqlite A simple command line tool for reading OpenStreetMap .osm.pbf files into a SQLite database. Usage: pbf2sqlite DATABASE [OPTION ...] Options: read FILE Reads .osm or .osm.pbf FILE into the database rtree Add R*Tree indexes addr Add address tables graph Add graph table The command pbf2sqlite test.db read country.osm.pbf reads the OSM PBF file country.osm.pbf and creates in the database test.db the tables. OSM data can be obtained from a provider such as Geofabrik.

Topics: add database file osm pbf

First-Class Models: The Missing Productivity Revolution

TL;DR: First-class models with branching and merging capabilities represent an almost entirely unused enormous productivity and expressiveness unlock in programming and computer systems. The Current State: Well-Designed Systems, Constrained Users Imagine you’re building an accounting system from scratch. You’d design it properly: a normalized database schema, algebraically defined operations for debits and credits, account reconciliation, and comparison functions. You’d implement data-only, in

Genesis AI launches with $105M seed funding from Eclipse, Khosla to build AI models for robots

Genesis AI, a startup that aims to build a foundational model for powering all kinds of robots, has emerged from stealth with a giant $105 million seed round co-led by Eclipse Ventures and Khosla Ventures. Founded last December by Zhou Xian (pictured above, left), a Ph.D. in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University, and Théophile Gervet, a former research scientist with the French AI lab Mistral, the startup wants to build a general-purpose model that will enable robots to automate a wide range

Web giant Cloudflare to block AI bots from scraping content by default

In this article NET Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT Jaque Silva | Nurphoto | Getty Images Internet firm Cloudflare will start blocking artificial intelligence crawlers from accessing content without website owners' permission or compensation by default, in a move that could significantly impact AI developers' ability to train their models. Starting Tuesday, every new web domain that signs up to Cloudflare will be asked if they want to allow AI crawlers, effectively giving them

There are no new ideas in AI, only new datasets

Most people know that AI has made unbelievable progress over the last fifteen years– especially in the last five. It might feel like that progress is *inevitable* – although large paradigm-shift-level breakthroughs are uncommon, we march on anyway through a stream of slow & steady progress. In fact, some researchers have recently declared a “Moore’s Law for AI” where the computer’s ability to do certain things (in this case, certain types of coding tasks) increases exponentially with time: the

T-Mobile Data Breach Settlement Checks Are Showing Up: Here's What to Know

Could you use a little extra money this summer? Check your bank account -- there may be an unexpected deposit from a company you may not recognize. It could be the money you're due from T-Mobile's 2022 class-action settlement. Those who qualify were told to expect settlement checks in April, but then that was moved to May. And now, in mid-June, as cited by Android Authority, Reddit users are saying they are seeing money in their bank accounts. Some are saying they received $56, but others are re

The original LZEXE (A.K.A. Kosinski) compressor source code has been released

Last year, I discovered that the Kosinski compression format is actually LZEXE, which was used for compressing DOS executables back in the 90s and the late 80s. Its developer catalogues three versions on his website: v0.90, v0.91, and v0.91e. While only binaries of v0.91 and v0.91e can be found on the website, v0.90 can be found mirrored on various other websites. I got in touch with LZEXE’s developer, Fabrice Bellard, and he was able to release LZEXE’s source code, untouched since 1990! It i

Topics: code data source used v0

People Keep Inventing Prolly Trees

Multiple Discovery refers to when a scientific discovery is made independently by multiple individuals around the same time. The most well-known examples are Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz's independent invention of calculus, and Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace's independent formulation of the theory of evolution. (Source: https://xkcd.com/626/) There's even a hypothesis that multiple discovery is the norm, rather than an exception: that invention is an result of social conditions