Author: user

Cybersecurity researchers have highlighted two service providers that provide online criminal networks with the tools and infrastructure needed to facilitate the Pig Butchering as a Service (PBaaS) economy. Since at least 2016, Chinese-speaking criminal groups have set up industrial-scale fraud centers across Southeast Asia and created special economic zones specializing in fraudulent investment and identity theft activities. These facilities are home to thousands of people who are lured by promises of well-paying jobs, but are stripped of their passports and forced to commit fraud under threat of violence. Interpol characterizes these networks as frauds that fuel human trafficking on an…

Following a Guardian investigation that found Google AI Overview provided misleading information for certain health-related queries, the company appears to have removed AI Overview for some of those queries. For example, the Guardian initially reported that when users ask, “What is the normal range for a liver blood test?” they are presented with a number that does not take into account factors such as nationality, gender, ethnicity, or age, potentially leading them to believe they are healthy when their results are not. The Guardian now states that the AI ​​summary has been removed from the results of ‘What is the…

The nuclear industry is in the fog of a renaissance. Old factories are being renovated and investors are pouring cash into startups. In the last few weeks of 2025 alone, nuclear startups raised $1.1 billion, largely due to investor optimism that small nuclear reactors would succeed, something the entire industry had recently stumbled over. Traditional nuclear reactors are huge pieces of infrastructure. The newest nuclear reactors built in the United States (Voigtle 3 and 4 in Georgia) contain tens of thousands of tons of concrete, are powered by 14-foot-tall fuel assemblies, and each generate more than 1 gigawatt of electricity.…

Officials in Indonesia and Malaysia said they have temporarily blocked access to xAI’s chatbot Grok. These are the most aggressive moves yet by government authorities in response to a flood of AI-generated sexual images (often depicting real women and minors, and sometimes depicting violence) posted by Grok in response to requests from users on the social network X (X and xAI are part of the same company). “The government views the practice of non-consensual sexual deepfakes as a serious violation of the human rights, dignity and safety of citizens in the digital space,” Indonesia’s Communications and Digital Minister Meutiya Hafid…

Wing, the Alphabet-owned company that delivers groceries, over-the-counter medications and hot lattes, is expanding its partnership with Walmart for the second time in less than a year. On Sunday, the companies announced plans to bring on-demand drone delivery service to an additional 150 Walmart stores. The rollout, which builds on existing services at stores in Dallas-Fort Worth and Atlanta, will run through this year and into 2027, Wing’s new chief business officer Heather Rivera told TechCrunch. This expansion suggests that customers are using Wing’s drone delivery services enough to warrant growth. Rivera said the top 25% of customers use the…

Google today announced a new open standard for AI agent-based shopping called Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) at the National Retail Federation (NRF) conference. Developed in collaboration with companies like Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target, and Walmart, this standard allows agents to work on different parts of the customer buying process, including research and post-purchase support. The core idea is that standards facilitate different parts of the process instead of requiring connections with different agents. Google said it can also work with other agent protocols, including Agent Payments Protocol (A2P), Agent2Agent (A2A), and Model Context Protocol (MCP), which Google announced last year.…

An ancient tomb discovered in Turkey may have been built for a member of the family of the legendary King Midas, who lived in the 8th century BC and was famous for his mythical “touch of gold.”The probable royal tombs of the ancient Kingdom of Phrygia (1200 BC to 675 BC) are located more than 160 miles west of the kingdom’s ancient capital of Gordion. Its remote location suggests that Phrygian society was not politically concentrated in the capital, a new study has found. Rather, political power appears to have been dispersed among the ancient kingdoms of central Anatolia.”Historically, Phrygia…

This Hubble Space Telescope image shows the largest planet-forming disk ever observed around a young star. (Image credits: NASA, ESA, STScI, Kristina Monsch (CfA), Image processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI))simple factsWhat it is: IRAS 23077+6707, the largest planet-forming disk ever observedLocation: Cepheus constellation, 978 light years awayShare date: December 23, 2026The Hubble Space Telescope has captured stunning new images of the largest and most unusual protoplanetary disk ever observed around a single star. Officially known as IRAS 23077+6707 and nicknamed “Dracula’s Chibito,” the object is a dusty disc that resembles a sandwich.Gas- and dust-rich protoplanetary disks are where planets (rocky worlds…

Rivers may seem as old as hills, but like anything else in nature, they have a life cycle. Many grow, leaving a meandering mark on the landscape, and eventually die. However, some rivers last longer than others. So which is the oldest river in the world today?The winner is older than the dinosaurs. Australia’s Finke River, or Larapinta River in the indigenous Arrernte language, is between 300 and 400 million years old.This network of rivers and waterways stretches over 400 miles (640 kilometers) across the Northern Territory and South Australia. Due to the arid conditions in the center of the…

OpenAI reportedly asks contractors to upload actual work from past jobs Wired reports that OpenAI and training data company Handshake AI are asking third-party contractors to upload actual work they’ve done on past and current jobs. This appears to be part of a larger strategy across AI companies that are hiring contractors to generate high-quality training data in hopes of eventually allowing their models to automate more white-collar jobs. In OpenAI’s case, the company’s presentations reportedly ask contractors to describe tasks they have performed on other jobs and upload examples of “actual field work” they have “done”. These examples may…