Latest Tech News

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

Filtered by: key Clear Filter

UUIDv47: Store UUIDv7 in DB, emit UUIDv4 outside (SipHash-masked timestamp)

UUIDv47 - UUIDv7-in / UUIDv4-out (SipHash-masked timestamp) uuidv47 lets you store sortable UUIDv7 in your database while emitting a UUIDv4-looking façade at your API boundary. It does this by XOR-masking only the UUIDv7 timestamp field with a keyed SipHash-2-4 stream tied to the UUID’s own random bits. Header-only C (C89) · zero deps Deterministic, invertible mapping (exact round-trip) RFC-compatible version/variant bits (v7 in DB, v4 on the wire) Key-recovery resistant (SipHash-2-4, 128-b

Report: Apple inches closer to releasing an OLED touchscreen MacBook Pro

At multiple points over many years, Apple executives have taken great pains to point out that they think touchscreen Macs are a silly idea. But it remains one of those persistent Mac rumors that crops up over and over again every couple of years, from sources that are reliable enough that they shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand. Today’s contribution comes from supply chain analyst Ming Chi-Kuo, who usually has some insight into what Apple is testing and manufacturing. Kuo says that touchscreen

How to watch Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote at Meta Connect 2025

is a senior reporter covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Meta is about to kick off its annual Connect conference, beginning with a keynote address from CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday night. Zuckerberg plans to discuss “the latest on AI glasses” and will lay out “Meta’s vision for artificial intelligence and the metaverse,” according to the

Kodak's mini camera fits on your keyring and is smaller than an AirPods case

Kodak has shrunk a camera to fit onto a keyring, but it still manages to shoot both photo and video. It's hard not to compare the Kodak Charmera to the ubiquitous Labubu craze, considering the highly collectible nature of Reto Pro selling these officially licensed mini cameras as a single blind box for $29.99 or a full set of six for $179.94. The keyring cameras, which only weigh 30 grams, are already sold out on the Reto Pro website, but are expected to be restocked. The blind box can be unwra

Lessons in disabling RC4 in Active Directory (2021)

Was pulled in to a fun customer issue last Friday around disabling RC4 in Active Directory. What happened was, as you can imagine, not good: RC4 was disabled and half their environment promptly started having a Very Bad Day. — Steve Syfuhs (@SteveSyfuhs) March 1, 2021 Twitter warning: Like all good things this is mostly correct, with a few details fuzzier than others for reasons: a) details are hard on twitter; b) details are fudged for greater clarity; c) maybe I'm just dumb. RC4 is a stream

Meow: Yet another modal editing on Emacs

Meow Introduction Less is more Meow is yet another modal editing mode for Emacs. Meow aims to blend modal editing into Emacs with minimal interference with its original key-bindings, avoiding most of the hassle introduced by key-binding conflicts. This leads to lower necessary configuration and better integration. More is achieved with fewer commands to remember. Key features compared to existing solutions: Minimal configuration – build your own modal editing system No third-party depende

Donkey Kong Bananza is getting a DLC expansion today

Donkey Kong Bananza, probably my favorite game of the year, is getting a paid expansion today called DK Island & Emerald Rush. As the title implies, you'll get to explore the island where Donkey Kong hails from and visit a whole host of his friends while you're at it. Naturally, there is more to explore and find there, but there's also a whole new set of challenges once you've finished the main game story. That's the titular Emerald Rush. The timed missions involve you running around the island

A cryptography expert on how Web3 started, and how it’s going

The term Web3 was originally coined by Etherium cofounder Gavin Wood as a secure, decentralized, peer-to-peer version of the Internet. The idea was to build an Internet based on blockchain technology and a peer-to-peer network, without the need for large data centers or third-party providers. These days, however, blockchain is most famous as the tool enabling cryptocurrencies. Most recently, the Trump administration has taken on a pro-cryptocurrency stance, boosting blockchain’s popularity and m

The Dying Dream of a Decentralized Web

The term Web3 was originally coined by Etherium cofounder Gavin Wood as a secure, decentralized, peer-to-peer version of the Internet. The idea was to build an Internet based on blockchain technology and a peer-to-peer network, without the need for large data centers or third-party providers. These days, however, blockchain is most famous as the tool enabling cryptocurrencies. Most recently, the Trump administration has taken on a pro-cryptocurrency stance, boosting blockchain’s popularity and m

Dynamic Duo Zuckerberg and Palmer Luckey Reunite for Army Combat Goggles Contract

Despite spending billions of dollars to make it happen, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Oculus founder Palmer Luckey were never able to make virtual reality a profitable consumer product. Teamed up again, the pair have found an audience that is more comfortable with spending lots of money for slow development timelines and little return: the US Army. According to a report from Bloomberg, Luckey’s Anduril Industries and Zuck’s Meta Platforms were among three companies tapped to produce prototypes fo

Setting up a home VPN server with WireGuard

Motivation For a moderately security conscious geek like myself, there can be a number of reasons to want to set up a home VPN server: Accessing your home computer via screen sharing without exposing it to the Internet (and thereby to potential evil-doers). Accessing servers with IP white lists (common case for security hardened IT systems). Accessing county-IP-filtered things like Netflix while travelling. Browsing privately from insecure WiFi networks. Getting access to services that are blo

Writing by manipulating visual representations of stories

Visual Story-Writing: Writing by Manipulating Visual Representations This system automatically visualizes a story (chronological events, character and their actions and movements) and allows users to edit the story by manipulating these visual representations. For example: Hover over the timeline allows reviewing the chronology of events and visualizing the movements of the characters Connecting two characters suggests edits to the text to reflect the new interaction Moving a character sugge

Campfire: Web-Based Chat Application

Campfire Campfire is web-based chat application. It supports many of the features you'd expect, including: Multiple rooms, with access controls Direct messages File attachments with previews Search Notifications (via Web Push) @mentions API, with support for bot integrations Campfire is single-tenant: any rooms designated "public" will be accessible by all users in the system. To support entirely distinct groups of customers, you would deploy multiple instances of the application. Runn

Processing Piano Tutorial Videos in the Browser

There are a lot of piano “tutorial” videos out there, but most of them aren’t step-by-step walkthroughs. They mostly look like falling raindrops that light up piano keys. These tutorials are often made with a tool called Synthesia. I’ve struggled with these videos because I can’t keep up with the falling notes or figure out the chords I need to play. It’s up to you to keep track of the light bars. For example, I wanted to learn a Telugu song called Samayama, but it only came in video tutorial

HomeKit Weekly: ULTRALOQ’s new Bolt NFC is built for Apple Home Key

Home Key has been one of my favorite HomeKit features since it launched a few years ago. You never have to dig for keys; you can still get in when your phone battery is dead, and in my experience, it works instantly every time. There is no app to launch or waiting for a Bluetooth connection. The new ULTRALOQ Bolt NFC brings all of that convenience to more homes at a very reasonable price point. Some of my favorite gear eufyCam 2C Upgrade your home security with wireless cameras that includes Ho

X is now offering me end-to-end encrypted chat — you probably shouldn’t trust it yet

X, formerly Twitter, has started rolling out its new encrypted messaging feature called “Chat” or “XChat.” The company claims the new communication feature is end-to-end encrypted, meaning messages exchanged on it can only be read by the sender and their receiver, and — in theory — no one else, including X, can access them. Cryptography experts, however, are warning that X’s current implementation of encryption in XChat should not be trusted. They’re saying it’s far worse than Signal, a techno

7 Best Password Managers (2025), Tested and Reviewed

Even the best password managers are the vegetables of the internet. We know they’re good for us, but most of us are happier snacking on the password equivalent of junk food. For nearly a decade, that’s been “123456” and “password”—the two most commonly used passwords on the web. The problem is, most of us don’t know what makes a good password and aren’t able to remember hundreds of them anyway. The safest (if craziest) way to store your passwords is to memorize them all. (Make sure they are lon

Hackers exploited Sitecore zero-day flaw to deploy backdoors

Threat actors have been exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in legacy Sitecore deployments to deploy WeepSteel reconnaissance malware. The flaw, tracked under CVE-2025-53690, is a ViewState deserialization vulnerability caused by the inclusion of a sample ASP.NET machine key in pre-2017 Sitecore guides. Some customers reused this key in production, allowing attackers with knowledge of the key to craft valid, but malicious '_VIEWSTATE' payloads that tricked the server into deserializing and exe

This guy made his own slider phone out of a broken Z Flip 5 and BlackBerry keyboard

TL;DR A YouTuber attached a BlackBerry Q10 keyboard to a folded Galaxy Z Flip 5 with a broken folding screen. The YouTuber also added a magnetic slider mechanism akin to phones like the Nokia N97. A video shows that the keyboard works in apps like YouTube and in games. What happens if your Galaxy Z Flip‘s folding screen breaks? Well, you could get it repaired, or you could do what one enterprising person did and attach a BlackBerry keyboard to it. YouTuber and inventor Marcin Plaza decided t

I'm ditching passwords for passkeys for one reason - and it's not what you think

Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways Adoption of passkeys is fragmented across sites and devices. Users still need passwords for recovery and new device setup. Phishing protection makes passkeys worth adding, despite confusion. OK. Fine. I've finally decided to embrace passkeys. But why does it feel so icky? As you probably know, passkeys are the tech industry's answer to The Password Problem. Unlike password data, which

What Is a Passkey? Here’s How to Set Up and Use Them (2025)

Passwords suck. They're hard to remember, but worse is playing the ever-evolving game of cybersecurity whack-a-mole with your most important accounts. That’s where passkeys come into play. The so-called “war on passwords” has taken off over the past two years, with titans like Google, Microsoft, and Apple pushing for a password-less future that the FIDO Alliance (a consortium made to “help reduce the world’s over-reliance on passwords”) has been trying to realize for over a decade. Like it or n

Passkeys and Modern Authentication

Passkeys and Modern Authentication There is an ongoing trend in the industry to move people away from username and password towards passkeys. The intentions here are good, and I would assume that this has a significant net benefit for the average consumer. At the same time, the underlying standard has some peculiarities. These enable behaviors by large corporations, employers, and governments that are worth thinking about. Attestations One potential source of problems here is the attestation

Keyboards from my collection (2023)

Marcin Wichary 12 February 2023 / 50 posts / 60 photos 50 keyboards from my collection This is an archive of a Mastodon thread from 2023. You can still read the thread (and all the replies) at its original location, however the photo quality is much better on this page. To celebrate the Kickstarter for Shift Happens going well, I thought I would show you 50 keyboards from my collection of really strange/esoteric/meaningful keyboards that I gathered over the years. (It might be the world’s str

Primitive tortureboard: Untangling the myths and mysteries of Dvorak and QWERTY

Marcin Wichary December 2023 / 8,000 words / 33 photos The primitive tortureboard Untangling the myths and mysteries of Dvorak and QWERTY This essay was originally published in December 2023 as sixth chapter of the book Shift Happens. 1 There weren’t many who hated QWERTY more. To his credit, there was a lot to hate. The layout seemed random, with letters strewn around without rhyme or reason. Watching someone type on it felt painful: fingers flailed wildly all over the place, common letter

The day Return became Enter (2023)

Marcin Wichary December 2023 / 3,100 words / 35 photos Originally published as a booklet accompanying Shift Happens The day Return became Enter In the popular imagination, the transition from the world of typewriters to the universe of computers was orderly and simple: at some point in the 20th century, someone attached a CPU and a screen to a typewriter, and that turned it into a computer. But the reality is much more fascinating and convoluted. The transition was meandering and lengthy, and

Using JWT to establish a trusted context for Row Level Security

Row-level security (RLS) is a great feature. It allows restricting access to rows by applying filters defined by a policy. It’s a tool useful for cases when the data set can’t be split into separate databases. Sadly, using RLS may be quite cumbersome. RLS requires some sort of “trusted context” for the RLS policies. The policies need to filter using data the user can’t change. If the filter uses some sort of “tenant ID”, and the user can change it to an arbitrary value, that would break the RLS

From multi-head to latent attention: The evolution of attention mechanisms

From Multi-Head to Latent Attention: The Evolution of Attention Mechanisms Vinithavn 7 min read · 15 hours ago 15 hours ago -- Listen Share Press enter or click to view image in full size What is attention? In any autoregressive model, the prediction of the future tokens is based on some preceding context. However, not all the tokens within this context equally contribute to the prediction, because some tokens might be more relevant than others. The attention mechanism addresses this by allow

It’s time for Apple to revive one of its discontinued iPad accessories

A few years ago, Apple used to have a much simpler iPad keyboard lineup. It just offered a Smart Keyboard for each of their iPad models, and they all essentially served as the same product. Nowadays, after the introduction of trackpad support in iPadOS and the Magic Keyboard, everything is unnecessarily convoluted – with each iPad model having a slightly different Magic Keyboard and varying features. While the keyboard lineup is a mess, that’s not what I take issue with right now – it’s the fac

A look at XSLT 3.0 (2017)

A look at the upcoming XSLT 3.0 release, and why it matters beyond the XML community Eighteen years ago, the originators of XML specification faced a problem: how to use the new language to generate a book-publishing format. What emerged were two new languages, the first for describing the various functional parts of a publication in XML called the XML Stylesheet Language Formatting Objects (ultimately XSL-FO) and the XML Stylesheet language (XSLT) for transforming XML-formatted content into th

Topics: key map string xsl xslt

From Multi-Head to Latent Attention: The Evolution of Attention Mechanisms

From Multi-Head to Latent Attention: The Evolution of Attention Mechanisms Vinithavn 7 min read · 15 hours ago 15 hours ago -- Listen Share Press enter or click to view image in full size What is attention? In any autoregressive model, the prediction of the future tokens is based on some preceding context. However, not all the tokens within this context equally contribute to the prediction, because some tokens might be more relevant than others. The attention mechanism addresses this by allow