Police station set up in Elon Musk’s SpaceX town
Starbase, the corporate town founded by Elon Musk’s SpaceX in South Texas, has its own police squad. At a special meeting Tuesday, the City Commission approved an ordinance creating a city police department, subject to approval by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE). The department will be run by a police chief elected by […]
Introducing Gizmo: TikTok for interactive, vibe-coded mini-apps
Gizmo, a TikTok-like app for vibe-coded mini-applications, offers a new way to create interactive media. Startup Atma Sciences’ relatively new mobile app allows anyone to create experiences using text, photos, sound, and touch, which appear in a vertical feed similar to TikTok or Reels. But unlike traditional short-form video apps, Gizmo doesn’t just watch and […]
Tinder looks to AI to fight ‘swipe fatigue’ and dating app burnout
Tinder is eyeing a new AI-powered feature called Chemistry to help alleviate so-called “swipe fatigue,” a growing problem among online daters who are experiencing burnout and seeking better results. The Match-owned dating app, introduced last quarter, said Chemistry leverages AI to get to know you through questions and, with your permission, can access your phone’s […]
Lunar Energy raises $232 million to deploy home battery storage to support power grid
Forget about EVs. Stationary batteries have recently become a hot topic in the United States and are attracting investment. Startup Lunar Energy is the latest example. The six-year-old company, which makes battery packs for homeowners in California, Georgia and Washington, announced Wednesday that it has closed two large funding rounds. The startup shared that it […]
Hackers release personal information stolen during Harvard, University of Pennsylvania data breaches
A notorious hacker group has claimed responsibility for last year’s data breaches at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), releasing data it claims was stolen from both schools. The group known as ShinyHunters on Wednesday published more than 1 million records from universities on the group’s private leak site, which the gang used […]
Galileo images suggest life-friendly molecules are leaking from Jupiter’s giant moon Europa
Jupiter’s icy moon Europa appears to have life-friendly molecules on its surface. Al Emran, a researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, discovered ammonia on Europa’s surface while examining old data from the Galileo mission, which studied Jupiter and its moons from 1995 to 2003. Data collected from Galileo’s near-infrared mapping spectrometer in 1997 showed “faint […]
Microsoft develops scanner to detect backdoors in open weight large-scale language models
Rabi LakshmananFebruary 4, 2026Artificial intelligence/software security Microsoft announced Wednesday that it has developed a lightweight scanner that can detect backdoors in open weight large-scale language models (LLMs) and improve overall reliability for artificial intelligence (AI) systems. According to the tech giant’s AI security team, the scanner leverages three observable signals that can be used to […]
DEAD#VAX malware campaign deploys AsyncRAT via VHD phishing files hosted on IPFS
Rabi LakshmananFebruary 4, 2026Malware/Endpoint Security Threat hunters have revealed details of a new stealth malware campaign called DEAD#VAX. The campaign combines “disciplined techniques and sophisticated exploitation of legitimate system functionality” to bypass traditional detection mechanisms and deploy a remote access Trojan (RAT) known as AsyncRAT. “This attack leverages IPFS-hosted VHD files, extreme script obfuscation, runtime […]
‘Behemoth Star’, previously thought to be dying, is ‘rising from the ashes’ like a phoenix
One of the largest stars in the universe, previously predicted to be on the brink of a violent supernova explosion, may not explode anytime soon after all, a new study suggests. The surprising discovery also suggests that this star’s “behemoth” is slowly being cannibalized by a smaller, hidden partner. WOH G64, also known as the […]
New map shows strange magnetic anomaly lurks beneath Australia’s Northern Territory
A new map of Australia has revealed a strange indentation in the magnetic field beneath Australia’s Northern Territory. The Australian Magnetic Anomaly Zone, named for the country’s resemblance in shape, holds valuable information about Australia’s geological history, including how different rock formations formed and acquired their unique magnetic properties. “Thanks to magnetic data, we can […]