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Plaud upgrades its card-sized AI note-taker with better range

is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Plaud, the company behind an AI wearable that actually works, is launching an upgraded version of its credit card-sized note-taking device. Just like its Plaud Note predecessor, the Plaud Note Pro uses AI to record, transcribe, and summarize your conversations,

Topics: app comes note plaud pro

14-year prison term sought over theft of trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process [U]

Six people have been arrested after Apple chipmaker TSMC said that several then-employees tried to steal trade secrets relating to the company’s most advanced chip process. TSMC fired the individuals concerned and is now taking legal action against them. Update: Three of the six have now been indicted, and prosecutors are seeking a 14-year prison sentence for one of them – see the update at the end … The report relates to the company’s 2-nanometer chip process, which is expected to be used for

Alphabet's Verily closes its medical device division and lays off staff

Alphabet's Verily was one of the company's star "moonshot" businesses, with its research delving into areas ranging from connected diabetes therapies to robot surgery. Now, Verily has shuttered its medical device division and laid off staff, the company announced in a memo seen by Business Insider. The number of employees who lost their jobs was not revealed. "We have made the difficult decision to discontinue manufacturing medical devices and will no longer be supporting them going forward," a

Nx compromised: malware uses Claude code CLI to explore the filesystem

At least 1.4k people are learning today that they have a new repository prefixed by s1ngularity-repository in their GitHub account. This repository was created by a malicious post-install command discovered in the popular nx build kit. That malware steals wallets and API keys (`.npmrc`, env variables, etc.) and pushes them in that repository in the results.b64 file. Interestingly, the malware checks for the presence of Claude Code CLI or Gemini CLI on the system to offload much of the fingerprin

Microsoft Locks Down Building After Protesters Breach President’s Office

People inside and outside of Microsoft have been agitating for the software giant to cut ties with the Israeli government. As the war and slaughter in Gaza drag on, activists have increasingly sought to expose and condemn the software giant. This week, it appears that the company had to temporarily lock down its headquarters, as protesting workers entered the office of company president Brad Smith to conduct a sit-in. The protest efforts that took place on Tuesday were also streamed live on Twi

7 smart plug tricks that instantly made my home feel more automated

Maria Diaz/ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. Remember The Clapper? The plug-in staple may have made for a catchy jingle in the 1980s, but it could also be considered as a primitive ancestor of today's smart plug -- that is, if you can say anything from a few decades ago is primitive. Smart plugs offer greater convenience than The Clapper ever did, letting you control your devices from an app on your phone, your voice, or a schedule. Also: Unplugging these 7 common ho

This Visiting Interstellar Comet Just Keeps Getting Weirder

Ever since interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS whizzed into our cosmic neighborhood in July, astronomers have been racing to uncover its characteristics. Now that the powerful James Webb Space Telescope has taken a good look at this icy interloper, it seems to be weirder than anyone imagined. A preprint submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters for peer review on Monday, August 25, describes the first results from JWST’s survey of 3I/ATLAS. A team of astronomers observed the comet with the telesc

What It's Like to Work at a Body Farm

Somewhere out in the countryside, hidden behind a copse of trees, are fields full of dead human bodies. These corpses have been strategically laid out in rows, naked as the day they were born, and left to the mercy of the elements until all that’s left of them are bones. It sounds like a scene out of a horror film, but these places are real. They’re called taphonomic research facilities, or sometimes “body farms”—sites where forensic scientists study how the human body decomposes. (Don’t worry,

Google Home gets an obvious but welcome way to tell when you’re home

Google previously announced that older Nest Thermostats are getting full scheduling capabilities . Now, it turns out that the Google Home app is also getting another helpful addition. Don’t want to miss the best from Android Authority? According to the official release notes, the latest version of the Google Home app (v3.39) adds Wi-Fi presence capabilities: Added support in presence sensing to adjust Home & Away status based on when your mobile device connects or disconnects from a selected

SpaceX's Starship deploys its payload for the first time

SpaceX has successfully launched the Starship for its 10th test flight after it was delayed a couple of times due to weather conditions and other issues. This time, the company was able to achieve its objectives without the vehicle and its booster exploding mid-test. One of those objectives was deploying Starship's payload for the first time ever. If you'll recall, Starship exploded during its ascent stage in the company's seventh and eighth test flights. The vehicle made it to space for its nin

I tried using a $159 Chromebook as my main laptop for a week - and it was oddly satisfying

Asus CX15 Chromebook ZDNET's key takeaways Asus' CX15 Chromebook is available now for $159. It's one of the most affordable 15-inch laptops released this year, with a handful of features that make it especially good for students. The modest hardware puts a limit on its performance. $159 at Walmart Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. Asus' CX15 Chromebook is an affordable, durable laptop that handles the basics for $159. With a standard hardware loadout and solid 15-inch for

Anthropic launches Claude for Chrome in limited beta, but prompt injection attacks remain a major concern

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 Anthropic has begun testing a Chrome browser extension that allows its Claude AI assistant to take control of users’ web browsers, marking the company’s entry into an increasingly crowded and potentially risky arena where artificial intelligence systems can directly manipulate computer interfaces. The San Francisco-based AI company announc

SpaceX Suddenly Seems Pretty Terrified to Launch Starship After Long String of Super Expensive Explosions

For years, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been stridently glib when his rockets explode during tests, quipping that the blasts were "just a scratch," a "minor setback," or a "rapid unscheduled disassembly." He's still deploying these jokey ripostes, but there's reason to believe the walls may be starting to close in for SpaceX's efforts on Starship, as more and more of the ultra-expensive spacecraft fail in spectacular public view. The issue is that he's bet the future of the company on the massive

OmniFocus update brings Planned Dates, mutually exclusive tags, more

Today, The Omni Group announced OmniFocus 4.7, which brings interesting new productivity and workflow features. However, an optional database migration is needed to enable some of them. Here are the details. About that new database In a blog post announcing the new features, the company explains that while it worked hard to maintain backwards compatibility between OmniFocus 3 and 4, some of the features announced today will require an update that moves the database to a new format. Still, the

Anthropic reaches a settlement over authors' class-action piracy lawsuit

Anthropic has settled a class-action lawsuit brought by a group of authors for an undisclosed sum. The move means the company will avoid a potentially more costly ruling if the case regarding its use of copyright materials to train artificial intelligence tools had moved forward. In June, Judge William Alsup handed down a mixed result in the case, ruling that Anthropic's move to train LLMs on copyrighted materials constituted fair use. However the company's illegal and unpaid acquisition of tho

1.1M insurance customers were exposed in a data breach - here's what to know

JuSun/iStock / Getty Images Plus via Getty Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways Farmers Insurance suffered a major data breach. More than 1 million customers were affected. Affected customers are receiving free credit monitoring. If you're a Farmers Insurance customer, you're going to want to pay attention -- and probably keep an eye on all of your important accounts. According to a notice on the Farmers website, about 1.1 million customers had sensi

When to Stream 'South Park' Season 27, Episode 4

Comedy Central Predicting what will happen in a South Park episode is hard, but anticipating when a new installment will stream might be even tougher. The hit satirical series had its season 27 premiere date pushed by two weeks and then announced its second installment would drop two weeks after the first. Since then, it's become customary for new episodes to air every other week. While we don't have additional details on what the next South Park will entail, another aspect of the show is mor

EchoStar stock skyrockets 70% on AT&T deal to buy wireless spectrum for $23 billion

EchoStar stock roared more than 70% higher on Tuesday after AT&T said it agreed to purchase certain wireless spectrum licenses from the telecom company for about $23 billion in an all-cash deal. The sale will add about 50 megahertz of mid-band and low-band spectrum to AT&T's network, with the licenses covering more than 400 markets across the U.S., AT&T said. The deal is expected to close in mid-2026, pending regulatory approval. EchoStar said in a regulatory filing that the transaction is par

IBM and AMD to work on quantum-centric supercomputing

YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, N.Y. and AUSTIN, Texas, Aug. 26, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, IBM (NYSE: IBM) and AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) announced plans to develop next-generation computing architectures based on the combination of quantum computers and high-performance computing, known as quantum-centric supercomputing. AMD and IBM are collaborating to develop scalable, open-source platforms that could redefine the future of computing, leveraging IBM's leadership in developing the world's most performant quantum c

Proposal to Ban Ghost Jobs

When Eric Thompson lost his job in October 2024 and started looking for a new one, he began a drawn-out battle with something many job seekers have come to know too well: the dreaded ghost job. He became so fed up with the practice that he's put together a working group to propose the Truth in Job Advertising and Accountability Act, or federal legislation that would make the practice illegal. The first time Thompson, 53, heard the term "ghost job," it was 2023 and his friend was discussing apply

What happens when ambassadors are summoned by the host country?

The BBC recounts by means of interviews the experience of a few ambassadors in these matters. "I was called by the foreign ministry and was told 'We need to see you immediately,'" Mr Casson [former UK ambassador to Egypt] tells the BBC. "The first thing they said was, 'We are not summoning you, but we are going to tell the press we are summoning you. If it had been a summoning, we would have sent a formal diplomatic note summoning you.'" This is the way things normally work in a summoning - a f

Claude for Chrome

We've spent recent months connecting Claude to your calendar, documents, and many other pieces of software. The next logical step is letting Claude work directly in your browser. We view browser-using AI as inevitable: so much work happens in browsers that giving Claude the ability to see what you're looking at, click buttons, and fill forms will make it substantially more useful. But browser-using AI brings safety and security challenges that need stronger safeguards. Getting real-world feedb

Mysterious ‘Nano-Banana’ Project Revealed to Be Google’s Latest Image Editor

Google just upgraded its AI image model, and it actually looks to be a pretty significant step up. The company rolled out Gemini 2.5 Flash Image today, a major refresh that promises smarter and more flexible image generation. The upgraded model allows users to issue natural language prompts to not only generate images but also merge existing photos and make more precise edits without creating weird distortions. It also taps into Gemini’s “world knowledge” to better understand what it’s generati

Looks like nuclear fusion is picking up steam

is a senior science reporter covering energy and the environment with more than a decade of experience. She is also the host of Hell or High Water: When Disaster Hits Home , a podcast from Vox Media and Audible Originals. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Nuclear fusion is on the upswing, as more companies pile into the space to achieve what’s often described as the Holy Grail of clean energy, according to an updated map from the Clean Air

Anthropic launches a Claude AI agent that lives in Chrome

Anthropic is launching a research preview of a browser-based AI agent powered by its Claude AI models, the company announced on Tuesday. The agent, Claude for Chrome, is rolling out to a group of 1000 subscribers on Anthropic’s Max plan, which costs between $100 and $200 per month. The company is also opening a waitlist for other interested users. By adding an extension to Chrome, select users can now chat with Claude in a sidecar window that maintains context of everything happening on their b

An Astonishing Number of Men Are Dying Because They Refuse to Go to the Doctor

Image by Getty / Futurism Treatments Men appear to be dying disproportionately from preventable diseases and conditions way more than women, and in many cases it's their own damn fault: because they're refusing to go to the doctor until it's too late. In interviews with the New York Times, doctors and public health experts expressed concerns with the state of men's preventative care, which they say many chaps tend to ignore — to their own peril. Breaking this issue down between men and women

Marshall's first party speaker unsurprisingly looks like a guitar amp

Marshall just introduced its very first party speaker, the Bromley 750. It looks a whole lot like a guitar amp, which makes sense given the company's pedigree. Also, instrument amps are basically just big speakers anyways. This Bluetooth speaker includes a replaceable battery that allows for more than 40 hours of use before requiring a charge. It produces 360-degree stereophonic sound that Marshall says will "find its way through any crowd." It also features a "sound character knob" that change

IBM and AMD Join Forces to Build the Future of Computing

YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, N.Y. and AUSTIN, Texas, Aug. 26, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, IBM (NYSE: IBM) and AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) announced plans to develop next-generation computing architectures based on the combination of quantum computers and high-performance computing, known as quantum-centric supercomputing. AMD and IBM are collaborating to develop scalable, open-source platforms that could redefine the future of computing, leveraging IBM's leadership in developing the world's most performant quantum c

Apple set to unveil next-gen iPhones and other devices on September 9

Apple is hosting its next product event on Tuesday, September 9, at 10 am Pacific and 1 pm Eastern, the company announced today. Though Apple's event announcements rarely indicate what the company plans to talk about, the company's September events for well over a decade have all revolved around the iPhone. The event will be available to stream from YouTube or from Apple's events website. Rumors about this year's iPhones point to a more significant redesign than in recent years, though Apple i