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In a big move in the AI infrastructure arms race, Google just promoted Amin Vahdat to chief engineer for AI infrastructure, a newly created position that reports directly to CEO Sundar Pichai, according to a memo first reported by Semafor and later seen by TechCrunch. That’s a sign of how important the effort has become as Google plans to spend up to $93 billion in capital spending by the end of 2025, a number that parent company Alphabet expects to grow even more next year. Vahdat is no stranger to this game. The computer scientist with a PhD from the…
Following a series of disturbing mental health incidents related to AI chatbots, a group of state attorneys general has written to top companies in the AI industry, warning them that they risk violating state law if they don’t fix their “delusional output.” The letter, signed by dozens of auditors from U.S. states and territories with the National Association of Attorneys General, calls on companies, including Microsoft, OpenAI, Google and 10 other large AI companies, to implement a variety of new internal safeguards to protect users. The letter also included Anthropic, Apple, Chai AI, Character Technologies, Luka, Meta, Nomi AI, Perplexity…
A recently discovered Roman mosaic in Britain depicts a different and long-lost version of the most famous story of the Trojan War.This artifact, known as the Keton Mosaic, depicts a major conflict during the Trojan War. But this story is not based on Homer’s Iliad, the longest-told story, researchers report in a new study. Instead, it takes inspiration from a lesser-known tragedy by the Athenian playwright Aeschylus. This book, called “The Epistle to the Phrygians,” was written in the early 5th century BC, and today only fragments and analyzes that are discussed in other ancient works survive.”This is an exciting…
About 3 billion years ago, an unlucky star got caught in a twisted tug of war between two massive black holes. And now we are witnessing the faint screams of X-rays emanating from this violent event. If confirmed, this could be the most distant episode of two black holes attacking a star ever observed.An international team of astronomers reported on decades of observations of the faintest variable X-ray flares known in a paper accepted for publication in the journal The Innovation in November.The X-ray source, named XID 925, was first discovered in 1999 during the Chandra X-ray Observatory’s Deep Field…
React2Shell continues to see heavy exploitation, with threat actors leveraging the highest severity security flaws in React Server Components (RSC) to deliver cryptocurrency miners and a range of previously undocumented malware families, according to new research from Huntress. This includes a Linux backdoor called PeerBlight, a reverse proxy tunnel called CowTunnel, and a Go-based post-exploitation implant called ZinFoq. The cybersecurity firm said it has observed attackers targeting a number of organizations via CVE-2025-55182, a critical security vulnerability in RSC that allows unauthenticated remote code execution. As of December 8, 2025, these initiatives cover a wide range of sectors, but particularly…
Overview Energy has emerged from stealth today with plans to use solar panels around the world as nighttime power harvesters sent from space. The startup plans to collect sunlight using a large solar array in geostationary orbit (about 32,000 miles above Earth, where the satellite coincides with the planet’s rotation). It then uses an infrared laser to transmit that power to a utility-scale solar power plant on Earth, allowing it to send power to the power grid nearly 24 hours a day. Overview has raised $20 million so far, some of which will be used for aerial demonstrations of its…
December 10, 2025Ravi LakshmananEnterprise security/web services New research reveals exploit primitives in the .NET Framework that could be leveraged against enterprise-grade applications to enable remote code execution. WatchTowr Labs, which codenamed the “invalid cast vulnerability” SOAPwn, said the issue affects Barracuda Service Center RMM, Ivanti Endpoint Manager (EPM), and Umbraco 8. However, given the popularity of .NET, the number of affected vendors will likely be longer-term. The findings were announced today by watchTowr security researcher Piotr Bazydlo at the Black Hat Europe security conference in London. Essentially, SOAPwn allows attackers to execute arbitrary code in products built on the foundation…
Calibri Font is the latest public official to be fired by the Trump administration over ties to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. In a move similar to the one reported in the Onion (and sure to become fodder for “Saturday Night Live” and “South Park”), Secretary of State Marco Rubio has banned the font and ordered diplomats to use Times New Roman on official documents instead, according to the New York Times, which obtained a leaked memo on the matter. Calibri, a sans-serif font, appears to have been adopted in 2023 during Biden’s term in office. It was chosen by…
Reddit is starting a limited test of verified profiles, which put a gray checkmark next to the usernames of famous people and companies. “This feature is designed to help Redditors understand who they’re engaging with in moments when validation matters, whether it’s the experts and celebrities hosting AMAs, the journalists reporting the news, or the brands sharing information,” Reddit said in a blog post. Believe it or not, there was a time on the internet when verification checkmarks simply verified that a famous person was who they said they were, not that they paid a monthly fee to Elon Musk…
The Amazon rainforest is inching toward a “subtropical” climate regime that has not existed on Earth for at least 10 million years, a new study suggests.Scientists predict that this regime could lead to more frequent and extreme droughts, leading to mass tree mortality. By 2100, the Amazon could experience hot droughts lasting 150 days a year and extending into the rainy season, according to a study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday (December 10).”When these high-temperature droughts occur, we associate the climate with a subtropical forest because it extends beyond the boundaries of what is currently considered a tropical…