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Ultra-cheap $28 external 500GB HDD from Amazon tested: works, but with caveats

In a nutshell: A recent investigation into a budget external hard drive sold under the UnionSine brand has shed light on the persistent risks consumers face when purchasing low-cost storage devices from online marketplaces. Secure Data Recovery, a data recovery firm, bought a UnionSine HD2510 500GB hard disk drive from Amazon for just over $28 and subjected it to a series of technical tests to evaluate its authenticity and performance. Fraudulent or misleading storage products continue to be a

Budget $28 external 500GB HDD from Amazon tested: works, but with caveats

In a nutshell: A recent investigation into a budget external hard drive sold under the UnionSine brand has shed light on the persistent risks consumers face when purchasing low-cost storage devices from online marketplaces. Secure Data Recovery, a data recovery firm, bought a UnionSine HD2510 500GB hard disk drive from Amazon for just over $28 and subjected it to a series of technical tests to evaluate its authenticity and performance. Fraudulent or misleading storage products continue to be a

The $177 million AT&T data breach settlement could mean a payout for you - how to qualify

NurPhoto/Getty Images If you're a current or former AT&T customer, a new class action settlement means you might be in line for a little cash. Earlier this year, the company confirmed two major data breaches -- one from 2019 or earlier and one from 2024. The stolen data, which ultimately ended up for sale on the dark web, included social security numbers, names, email addresses, mailing addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, and more. Also: 184 million passwords leaked across Facebook, Goo

How much do you trust Google with the data you provide it?

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority 🗣️ This is an open thread. We want to hear from you! Share your thoughts in the comments and vote in the poll below — your take might be featured in a future roundup. Google is a technology heavyweight — that’s just a fact. Despite this, it still needs our data for many of its services to function effectively. Whether we’re offering up our Gemini prompts, Google Photos, or Maps reviews, we’re contributing to the company’s growth little by little and the stea

Data brokers may be illegally selling your personal information

Some data brokers may be illegally selling your information – preventing you from finding out what personal data is held, and opting out from its collection and resale. Privacy campaigners say they’ve “uncovered a troubling pattern” that may indicate companies who collect and re–sell personal data may not be complying with state laws … While Europe has tough privacy laws governing the collection and use of personal data, there is no equivalent federal legislation in the US. However, four state

How to clear your Android phone cache (and why it makes such a big difference)

Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET Google recently released Android 16 to Pixel devices and select OEMs, bringing performance improvements, new Material You changes, and more upgrades. If you want to try this update but are hesitant because you've noticed your Android phone or tablet already feels too sluggish, clearing app and browser caches can give it a fresh boost and free up some storage space. Over time, cached data can accumulate, become corrupted, or simply get outdated, which may slow down

These Three Messaging Apps Are Encrypted, but One Stands Above the Rest

Key points: Most widely used messaging app Uses the same encryption protocol as Signal Collects heaps of your data Free, but owned and operated by Meta WhatsApp is the most popular private messaging app on this list, with about 2 billion monthly users, according to Exploding Topics. Because it's so popular, there's a higher chance that other people you might be chatting with have WhatsApp, and therefore your chats can be encrypted. And if the person you're chatting with doesn't have WhatsAp

'Cyber plague': Experts warn of growing infostealer threat after billions of login details exposed

"Someone, somewhere is having data exfiltrated from their machines as we speak," says Volodymyr Diachenko, co-founder of the cybersecurity consultancy SecurityDiscovery. Cybercriminals have intensified their efforts to steal and sell online passwords, experts warn. The alarm comes after the discovery of online datasets containing billions of exposed account credentials. The 30 datasets comprised a whopping 16 billion login credentials across multiple platforms, including Apple, Google and Face

Hacker 'IntelBroker' charged in US for global data theft breaches

A British national known online as "IntelBroker" has been charged by the U.S. for stealing and selling sensitive data from victims worldwide, causing an estimated $25 million in damages. The indictment, revealed today by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, accuses Kai West, a 25-year-old British man, of using the handle "IntelBroker" in a years-long campaign to steal and sell data from government agencies and networks, companies, and critical infrastructure. As se

15 new jobs AI is creating - including 'Synthetic reality producer'

Eoneren/Getty Images Imagine being at a party in the not-too-distant future, and telling people you are a "synthetic reality producer." That's something sure to elicit quite a bit of curiosity. On the other hand, it may be a common job title by the year 2030. There's been a fair bit of chatter lately about the prospect of artificial intelligence usurping or taking away job opportunities -- from developers to creators. However, AI will never operate entirely on its own in a vacuum -- there will

Earths largest camera:3B pixel images

Earth’s Largest Camera Takes 3 Billion-Pixel Images of the Night Sky At the heart of the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile is the world’s largest digital camera. About the size of a small car, it will create an unparalleled map of the night sky. The observatory’s first public images of the sky are expected to be released on June 23. Here’s how its camera works. Sensor 3 inches RAFT Dead segment Noisy segment Damaged sensor Relative size of the moon A series of slides highlighting details

British hacker 'IntelBroker' charged with $25M in cybercrime damages

A British national known online as "IntelBroker" has been charged by the U.S. for stealing and selling sensitive data from victims worldwide, causing an estimated $25 million in damages. The indictment, revealed today by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, accuses Kai West, a 25-year-old British man, of using the handle "IntelBroker" in a years-long campaign to steal and sell data from government agencies and networks, companies, and critical infrastructure. As se

IBM's Dmitry Krotov wants to crack the 'physics' of memory

Dmitry “Dima” Krotov was among the first to congratulate AI pioneer, John Hopfield, on his Nobel Prize in Physics last fall. “John, wow!” he texted Hopfield on the morning the award became public. “Just WOW!!” As Hopfield’s close collaborator, Krotov has helped explain to the world following the announcement how Hopfield’s single-layer digital neural network led to the “deep” networks in use today. At Princeton, the two researchers invented something called dense associative memory, which lifte

Hackers turn ScreenConnect into malware using Authenticode stuffing

Threat actors are abusing the ConnectWise ScreenConnect installer to build signed remote access malware by modifying hidden settings within the client's Authenticode signature. ConnectWise ScreenConnect is a remote monitoring and management (RMM) software that allows IT admins and managed service providers (MSPs) to troubleshoot devices remotely. When a ScreenConnect installer is built, it can be customized to include the remote server the client should connect to, what text is shown in the di

Boston Consulting Group: To unlock enterprise AI value, start with the data you’ve been ignoring

Join the event trusted by enterprise leaders for nearly two decades. VB Transform brings together the people building real enterprise AI strategy. Learn more When building enterprise AI, some companies are finding the hardest part is sometimes deciding what to build and how to address the various processes involved. At VentureBeat Transform 2025, data quality and governance were front and center as companies look beyond the experimental phase of AI and explore ways to productize and scale agen

California's Corporate Cover-Up Act Is a Privacy Nightmare

California lawmakers are pushing one of the most dangerous privacy rollbacks we’ve seen in years. S.B. 690, what we’re calling the Corporate Cover-Up Act, is a brazen attempt to let corporations spy on us in secret, gutting long-standing protections without a shred of accountability. The Corporate Cover-Up Act is a massive carve-out that would gut California’s Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) and give Big Tech and data brokers a green light to spy on us without consent for just about any reason.

Hundreds of data brokers might be breaking state laws, say privacy advocates

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. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a nonprofit privacy rights group have called on several states to investigate why “hundreds” of data brokers haven’t registered with state consumer protection agencies in accordance with local laws. An analysis done in collaboration with Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (PRC) found that many data brokers hav

Creative Commons debuts CC signals, a framework for an open AI ecosystem

Nonprofit Creative Commons, which spearheaded the licensing movement that allows creators to share their works while retaining copyright, is now preparing for the AI era. On Wednesday, the organization announced the launch of a new project, CC signals, which will allow dataset holders to detail how their content can or cannot be reused by machines, as in the case of training AI models. The idea is meant to create a balance between the open nature of the internet and the demand for ever more dat

The new AI infrastructure reality: Bring compute to data, not data to compute

Join the event trusted by enterprise leaders for nearly two decades. VB Transform brings together the people building real enterprise AI strategy. Learn more As AI transforms enterprise operations across diverse industries, critical challenges continue to surface around data storage—no matter how advanced the model, its performance hinges on the ability to access vast amounts of data quickly, securely, and reliably. Without the right data storage infrastructure, even the most powerful AI system

Rubrik acquires Predibase to accelerate adoption of AI agents

Data cybersecurity company Rubrik announced Wednesday its intent to acquire Predibase. Predibase is a venture-backed startup that helps companies train and fine-tune open source AI models to customize them to their needs. Rubrik is the latest company to make an acquisition with the goal of boosting enterprise AI agent adoption. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, though CNBC reported that the deal was between $100 million and $500 million, a sizable range. Rubrik declined to comment on the de

Does your generative AI protect your privacy? New study ranks them best to worst

TU IS/Getty Most generative AI companies rely on user data to train their chatbots. For that, they may turn to public or private data. Some services are less invasive and more flexible at scooping up data from their users. Others, not so much. A new report from data removal service Incogni looks at the best and the worst of AI when it comes to respecting your personal data and privacy. For its report "Gen AI and LLM Data Privacy Ranking 2025," Incogni examined nine popular generative AI servic

IEEE Std 3161TM-2022: Breaking Bottlenecks of Large-Scale Video Data Aggregation, Storage, and Computing in Smart Cities – Standard for Digital Retina Systems

Introduction Ubiquitous camera networks in smart cities create massive amounts of images and videos at a range of spatial-temporal scales. However, the capabilities of visual processing systems often lag behind the rapid growth of video data and city brain system. To address this challenge, a novel collaborative visual computing framework, termed as digital retina, has been established to align high-efficiency and intelligent perception models with the emerging visual coding for machines. Withi

Topics: cloud data edge end video

Malwarebytes Antivirus Review 2025: Decent Software, Terrible Customer Service

CNET’s expert staff reviews and rates dozens of new products and services each month, building on more than a quarter century of expertise. 7.0 / 10 SCORE Malwarebytes Antivirus Buy at Malwarebytes Score Breakdown Performance 8 /10 Security 9 /10 Customer Support 4 /10 Usability 7 /10 Value 5 /10 Features 9 /10 Pros Free malware scanning and browser safety tools Decent VPN Impressive privacy policies Excellent dark web monitoring tools Cons Free version doesn’t provide real-time protection

Three network phone calls down but data still working

Three network phone calls down but data still working 46 minutes ago Share Save Imran Rahman-Jones Technology reporter Share Save Getty Images The mobile operator Three has confirmed some users are currently unable to make phone calls. In a post on X, the network said there was "an issue affecting voice services" but did not say how many of its 11 million customers are affected. Outage website DownDetector reported a spike in issues at 09:30 BST on Wednesday, with over 9,000 reports made by u

The Debrief: Power and energy

Yet in many ways right now the US seems to be forgetting those lessons. It is moving backward in terms of its clean-­energy strategy, especially when it comes to powering the grid, in ways that will affect the nation for decades to come—even as China and others are surging forward. And that retreat is taking place just as electricity demand and usage are growing again after being flat for nearly two decades. That growth, according to the US Energy Information Administration, is “coming from the

15 new jobs AI could create - could one be your next gig?

Eoneren/Getty Images Imagine being at a party in the not-too-distant future, and telling people you are a "synthetic reality producer." That's something sure to elicit quite a bit of curiosity. On the other hand, it may be a common job title by the year 2030. There's been a fair bit of chatter lately about the prospect of artificial intelligence usurping or taking away job opportunities -- from developers to creators. However, AI will never operate entirely on its own in a vacuum -- there will

Incogni vs. DeleteMe: Which service removes your personal data best?

Maria Diaz/ZDNET Data removal services began to appear around 15 years ago, after data brokers realized that data could become a new, valuable currency -- and one ripe for exploitation, given the lack of laws and little to no consumer data privacy protection written into legislation. Incogni and DeleteMe, founded in 2021 as part of VPN provider Surfshark and in 2010 by Abine Privacy, respectively, are two of the most widely-known data removal services in the US. Both companies offer data remov

Generative AI and privacy are best frenemies - a new study ranks the best and worst offenders

TU IS/Getty Most generative AI companies rely on user data to train their chatbots. For that, they may turn to public or private data. Some services are less invasive and more flexible at scooping up data from their users. Others, not so much. A new report from data removal service Incogni looks at the best and the worst of AI when it comes to respecting your personal data and privacy. For its report "Gen AI and LLM Data Privacy Ranking 2025," Incogni examined nine popular generative AI servic

How a data-processing problem at Lyft became the basis for Eventual

When Eventual founders Sammy Sidhu and Jay Chia were working as software engineers at Lyft’s autonomous vehicle program, they witnessed a brewing data infrastructure problem — one that would only become larger with the rise of AI. Self-driving cars produce a ton of unstructured data from 3D scans and photos to text and audio. There wasn’t a tool for Lyft engineers that could understand and process all of those different types of data at the same time — and all in one place. This left engineers