Latest Tech News

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

Filtered by: _os Clear Filter

French City of Lyon Kicks Out Microsoft

European countries have been growing increasingly wary of relying on Microsoft for critical government and public sector services. Concerns about data privacy, digital sovereignty, and potential governmental surveillance have led many to question the viability of depending on an American tech giant for sensitive infrastructure. Many worry that dependence on Microsoft could leave them vulnerable to sudden service interruptions or the risk of sensitive data being accessed without consent. This g

N-Back – A Minimal, Adaptive Dual N-Back Game for Brain Training

Playing the N-Back test is straightforward but requires focused attention. Watch the 3x3 grid as blue squares appear in different positions. Your task is to remember the sequence and identify when the current position matches the one from N steps ago. For a 2-Back test (the standard version), you need to determine if the current square's position matches the position from 2 steps earlier. Click 'Match' or press the spacebar when you detect a match, or click 'No Match' or press 'N' when there's

Making My Own Hacktoberfest T-Shirts

Between 2014 and 2022, DigitalOcean sent free t-shirts to developers who completed the Hacktoberfest challenge. For entirely sensible reasons related to sustainability and spammy entrants, they stopped doing physical merchandise in 2023. I'm the sort of hip fashionista who only wears free conference t-shirts. Sadly, after several years of constant catwalk modelling, my beloved Hacktoberfest shirts are full of holes. I couldn't find any for sale on eBay or Vinted - so I decided to make my own.

The only time HN is this interested in Bitcoin is when there's a bubble (2017)

The only time Hacker News is this interested in Bitcoin is when there's a bubble forming Sun 30 July 2017 You might have got the impression that there are a lot of Bitcoin-related posts on Hacker News lately. With SegWit set to activate in the next few weeks, and Bitcoin Cash likely to fork off on the 1st of August, I took a look at Hacker News' relationship with Bitcoin over the past years. In this post I'm going to argue, based on historical trends of Bitcoin-related posts on Hacker News, t

This Weird Pyramid Always Lands on the Same Face, Confirming 40-Year-Old Theory

“Bille” is the first-ever monostable tetrahedron, or a pyramid-like shape with four triangular faces that has one stable resting position. What this means is that Bille, no matter how you throw it and how it lands, will flip back on exactly the same side every single time. In a recent preprint submitted to arXiv, mathematicians revealed the first physical model of Bille, closing a decades-old theory proposed by the renowned British mathematician John Conway. Made of lightweight carbon fiber and

Today's NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Saturday, July 5

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today's Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles. Need some help with today's Mini Crossword? 14-Across was a real doozy. I hadn't ever heard anyone use that word to mean what the NYT says it means, even though I do recognize it as part of a related word. Whether this clue or another one has stumped you today, read on.

The Novelty of the Arpanet

If you run an image search for the word “ARPANET,” you will find lots of maps showing how the government research network expanded steadily across the country throughout the late ’60s and early ’70s. I’m guessing that most people reading or hearing about the ARPANET for the first time encounter one of these maps. Obviously, the maps are interesting—it’s hard to believe that there were once so few networked computers that their locations could all be conveyed with what is really pretty lo-fi car

Microsoft is closing its local operations in Pakistan

Microsoft is closing its operations in Pakistan, marking the end of a 25-year presence in the South Asian nation. The Redmond-based company on Friday told TechCrunch that it is changing its operational model in Pakistan and will now serve its customers through resellers and “other closely located Microsoft offices.” “Our customer agreements and service will not be affected by this change,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “We follow this model successfully in a number of

Microsoft Is Eliminating Passwords in August: Here's What You Need to Do to Prepare

In June, Microsoft Authenticator stopped letting users create new passwords. In July, it turned off the autofill password function. And in August, the login app will stop supporting passwords entirely, moving to more secure passkeys, such as a PIN, fingerprint or facial recognition. Attila Tomaschek, CNET's software senior writer and digital security expert, says that passkeys are a safer alternative to the risky password habits practiced by 49% of US adults, according to a recent survey by CNE

Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ Is Already Hurting Health Care Facilities

The U.S. House made it official Thursday, passing the so-called Big Beautiful Bill in a vote of 218-214. The bill, hailed by President Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson, is projected to strip at least 17 million people of health insurance over the next decade and add $3-4 trillion to the national debt. And while there are plenty of predictions about what the massive cuts to Medicaid will do to hospital systems around the country long term, we won’t have to wait too long to see the impact. Me

How to Watch All the ‘Mission: Impossible’ Movies

It's been almost 30 years since Mission: Impossible hit cinemas in 1996 as an adaptation of the 1966 television series of the same name. The Brian De Palma-directed film starring Tom Cruise was a critical success and kickstarted a franchise that remains so successful that MI movies are still being released more than two decades later. When the first movie came out, I was extremely excited to see it and borrowed the VHS tape from a neighbor. Flash-forward to 2000, and I made it my mission to see

How often is the query plan optimal?

The basic promise of a query optimizer is that it picks the “optimal” query plan. But there’s a catch - the plan selection relies on cost estimates, calculated from selectivity estimates and cost of basic resources (I/O, CPU, …). So the question is, how often do we actually pick the “fastest” plan? And the truth is we actually make mistakes quite often. Consider the following chart, with durations of a simple SELECT query with a range condition. The condition is varied to match different fracti

These Are the Easiest Ways to Watch YouTube Videos Without Internet

There's a good chance you've used YouTube to watch a video at least once in the past month. Over 2.7 billion people use the online video platform every month, according to research from the digital marketing firm Global Media Insight. But if you're going somewhere with limited internet or trying to conserve data on your phone plan, you might want to download some YouTube videos to entertain yourself. Luckily, there are ways to download YouTube videos to watch offline. Subscribing to YouTube Pre

32 Essential Dorm Room Items Available on Amazon Now

Navigating dorm life (and fitting your whole life in a tiny dorm room) can be daunting. Luckily, when it comes to the necessary items (like sheets and a shower caddy) and the creature comforts (a cordless vacuum and desk mirror, for instance), we've done the homework for you. All of the items on our list can be easily purchased on Amazon so you don't have to spend extra time shopping or waiting for packages. We've also made every effort to ensure all of the items on this list work for someone o

New Galaxy Z Fold 7 leaks may give first real look at Samsung’s slimmer foldable

Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 7 has been given the thinner, sleeker glow-up we expected, if leaked hands-on photos are any indication. The trio of images posted by leaker @Jukanlosreve seemingly show what the next-gen Galaxy foldable will look like in the real world from a few different angles. The new photographs mostly line up with what we’ve seen in previous renders, including the larger, slimmer chassis that’s reported to be around 4.5mm thick when open. That’s slimmer than its 5.6mm Gal

Microsoft layoffs hit 830 workers in home state of Washington

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks at the Axel Springer building in Berlin on Oct. 17, 2023. He received the annual Axel Springer Award. Among the thousands of Microsoft employees who lost their jobs in the cutbacks announced this week were 830 staffers in the company's home state of Washington. Nearly a dozen game design workers in the state were part of the layoffs, along with three audio designers, two mechanical engineers, one optical engineer and one lab technician, according to a documen

Yurei – Open source social media researcher powered by Exa AI API and YouTube v3

yurei app still in progress, not live on https://yurei.app/ yet, but you can clone it and try it out a simple opensource social media researcher powered by exa ai api and youtube v3. built with vercel's ai sdk. what it does: searches youtube for videos searches reddit for posts searches linkedin (kinda fucked rn, working on it) using grok-21212 as the llm how to install clone this repo npm install or yarn make a .env.local with: NEXT_PUBLIC_URL=http://localhost:3000 # For development NE

A simple opensource social media researcher powered by exa ai api and youtube v

yurei app still in progress, not live on https://yurei.app/ yet, but you can clone it and try it out a simple opensource social media researcher powered by exa ai api and youtube v3. built with vercel's ai sdk. what it does: searches youtube for videos searches reddit for posts searches linkedin (kinda fucked rn, working on it) using grok-21212 as the llm how to install clone this repo npm install or yarn make a .env.local with: NEXT_PUBLIC_URL=http://localhost:3000 # For development NE

iOS 26’s Messages app has a solution coming for unwanted texts

Apple’s Messages app got a lot of new features last year, but iOS 26 continues the trend of big upgrades, including a handy solution for all those unwanted spam texts you keep getting. Messages can automatically screen your texts for spam in iOS 26 iOS 26’s Liquid Glass design may be getting the most attention, but the iPhone’s next big update also has lots of new app features coming. These include changes to Apple Wallet, Music, Notes, Reminders, Photos, and more. Apple’s Messages app is get

Apple iOS 26: All the latest features for iPhone's new operating system, including FaceTime updates

Liquid Glass is a huge new change coming to iOS 26. (Apple) Get ready because Apple iOS 26 (not iOS 19) is headed your way this fall with some cool new features you'll want to try. What's most exciting? The fresh home and lock screen redesign we've been waiting to see for years. Dubbed Liquid Glass, the new look and feel will extend across all of Apple's upcoming operating systems. The overhaul was one of several big changes coming to iOS, macOS, iPadOS and the rest of Apple's software suite, a

Topics: 26 apple ios iphone new

The End of Moore's Law for AI? Gemini Flash Offers a Warning

For the past few years, the AI industry has operated under its own version of Moore's Law: an unwavering belief that the cost of intelligence would perpetually decrease by orders of magnitude each year. Like clockwork, each new model generation promised to be not only more capable but also cheaper to run. Last week, Google quietly broke that trend. In a move that at first went unnoticed, Google significantly increased the price of its popular Gemini 2.5 Flash model. The input token price double

Xbox was funding Romero Games' new game, but layoffs have left the project in crisis

Microsoft was rocked by more than 9,000 job cuts this week. A significant number have come from its gaming division, resulting in the closure of multiple game studios and the cancellation of numerous in-development projects at Xbox and its contracted studios. We’ve already learned that Microsoft has closed the studio that was developing the much-anticipated Perfect Dark reboot, and Rare’s Everwild has also been sunsetted. And now Romero Games — the studio headed up by Doom creator and veteran de

The Last of Us co-creator Neil Druckmann exits HBO show

Two key writers of HBO's series The Last of Us are moving on, according to announcements on Instagram yesterday. Neil Druckmann, co-creator of the franchise, and Halley Gross, co-writer of The Last of Us Part 2 and frequent writer on the show, are both leaving before work begins on season 3. Both were credited as executive producers on the show; Druckmann frequently contributed writing to episodes, as did Gross, and Druckmann also directed. Druckmann and Gross co-wrote the second game, The Last

Y Combinator alum launched a new $34M fund dedicated to YC startups, backed by Garry Tan

Investing in Y Combinator startups can lead to significant returns to investors. “If you look at the data: 6% of YC companies become unicorns, and of that 6% a quarter become decacorns,” Kulveer Taggar told TechCrunch. Taggar is a two-time YC alum best known for founding Zeus Living, a property management startup that raised over $150 million in funding. Taggar is so confident in the continuing return potential offered by the famed accelerator that he established Phosphor Capital, a venture fi

Postcard is now open source

In 2022, I launched Postcard as a personal website + newsletter. I had deleted social media, and wanted a way to stay in touch with friends via email. It powers my personal website, philipithomas.com, where I've published monthly "What I'm up to" every month since. Postcard's launch was well-received and thousands of people signed up. Today, many people continue to use and maintain their Postcard sites. Revenue is modest - I make dozens of dollars per month on it. But, I'm happy to maintain it

IPO market gets boost from Circle's 500% surge, sparking optimism that drought may be ending

Jeremy Allaire, CEO and co-founder of Circle Internet Group, the issuer of one of the world's biggest stablecoins, and Circle Internet Group co-founder Sean Neville react as they ring the opening bell, on the day of the company's IPO, in New York City, U.S., June 5, 2025. NYSE For over three years, venture capital firms have been waiting for this moment. Tech IPOs came to a virtual standstill in early 2022 due to soaring inflation and rising interest rates, while big acquisitions were mostly of

Microsoft investigates ongoing SharePoint Online access issues

​Microsoft is investigating an ongoing incident causing intermittent issues for users attempting to access SharePoint Online sites. Part of the Microsoft 365 suite, SharePoint Online is a cloud-based collaboration and document management platform that allows users to create websites, store and share documents, and collaborate on content over the Internet. As the company announced earlier today in an incident alert published in the message center, users are seeing "Something went wrong" errors

iOS 26 can freeze your FaceTime video if it detects nudity

The developer beta for iOS 26 has been out for a few weeks, and as always,tech sleuths are uncovering features and details that weren't explained during WWDC . Among the latest discoveries stirring up conversation online is a safety and privacy feature for FaceTime that blurs your feed when it detects you in a state of undress. Should FaceTime detect nudity, it will display a message reading "Audio and video are paused because you may be showing something sensitive. If you feel uncomfortable, yo

Your MacBook is getting a big upgrade for free. 5 features I can't wait to try on MacOS 26

Kerry Wan/ZDNET Apple last month announced its latest update for MacOS 26, codenamed "Tahoe." It's full of new visual design elements like Apple's Liquid Glass design theme, better integration with the iPhone, and a more robust Spotlight feature that's better integrated with Shortcuts. The theme of all of Apple's updates this year is streamlining both the visual UI and feature sets across Apple devices, while making more apps and features available on them, punctuated by Apple Intelligence. A

Topics: 26 app apple iphone macos

Microsoft Layoffs Are Here and These 3 Games Have Already Been Canceled

Microsoft is moving ahead with mass layoffs, cutting a little less than 4% of its workforce or about 9,000 roles across the company. As a result, multiple games brewing within Xbox Game Studios were canceled, including some fairly high-profile projects. When reached for comment, Microsoft directed CNET to reports Wednesday by Variety, confirming their accuracy. "To position Gaming for enduring success and allow us to focus on strategic growth areas, we will end or decrease work in certain area