Engineer Denis Stetskov, writing in a blog: The Apple Calculator leaked 32GB of RAM. Not used. Not allocated. Leaked. A basic calculator app is hemorrhaging more memory than most computers had a decade ago. Twenty years ago, this would have triggered emergency patches and post-mortems. Today, it’s just another bug report in the queue. We’ve normalized software catastrophes to the point where a Calculator leaking 32GB of RAM barely makes the news. This isn’t about AI. The quality crisis started years before ChatGPT existed. AI just weaponized existing incompetence.

[…] Here’s what engineering leaders don’t want to acknowledge: software has physical constraints, and we’re hitting all of them simultaneously. Modern software is built on towers of abstractions, each one making development “easier” while adding overhead: Today’s real chain: React > Electron > Chromium > Docker > Kubernetes > VM > managed DB > API gateways. Each layer adds “only 20-30%.” Compound a handful and you’re at 2-6x overhead for the same behavior. That’s how a Calculator ends up leaking 32GB. Not because someone wanted it to — but because nobody noticed the cumulative cost until users started complaining.

[…] We’re living through the greatest software quality crisis in computing history. A Calculator leaks 32GB of RAM. AI assistants delete production databases. Companies spend $364 billion to avoid fixing fundamental problems. This isn’t sustainable. Physics doesn’t negotiate. Energy is finite. Hardware has limits. The companies that survive won’t be those who can outspend the crisis. There’ll be those who remember how to engineer.

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There’s no shortage of wireless earbuds out there, but if you want noise cancellation, full iOS compatibility, and a fit that won’t budge during a workout, you should consider the Beats Fit Pro. Right now, you can buy them on sale for $99.99 at StackSocial (reg. $199.99). The sale includes all four color options—white, black, gray, and purple.

They’re “open box” models, meaning that they’ve likely been handled but not used, and they’ve been inspected to make sure they’re still in new condition. They’re rated IPX4 for water resistance, so sweat and light rain aren’t a problem, though the case itself isn’t protected and doesn’t support wireless charging. Battery life is around six hours with ANC on and another 18 to 23 hours from the case, depending on how you use them.

Sound-wise, these lean hard into bass, which some folks will love and others might find a bit much. The low end hits especially well at high volumes without distortion, which makes them great for hip-hop, pop, or EDM, notes this PCMag review. The noise cancellation holds up pretty well for sounds like plane rumbles and low-frequency distractions, but don’t expect total silence in a noisy café (higher-pitched noises still leak through). There’s also a decent Transparency Mode that lets in just enough outside sound for you to cross the street or chat with someone without pulling out an earbud. Android users do have access to most core features through the Beats app, but some perks, such as automatic switching, hands-free Siri, and Spatial Audio, are still iOS-only. Getting all that for over half off isn’t a bad deal at all.

Preteens who use increasing amounts of social media perform poorer in reading, vocabulary and memory tests in early adolescence compared to those who use little or no social media. A study published in JAMA examined data from over 6,000 children ages 9 to 10 through early adolescence. Researchers classified the children into three groups: 58% used little or no social media over several years, 37% started with low-level use but spent about an hour daily on social media by age 13, and 6% spent three or more hours daily by that age.

Even low users who spent about one hour per day performed 1 to 2 points lower on reading and memory tasks compared to non-users. High users performed 4 to 5 points lower than non-social media users. Jason Nagata, a pediatrician at the University of California, San Francisco and study author, said the findings were notable because even modest social media use correlated with lower cognitive scores.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

“ChatGPT shouldn’t have political bias in any direction.”

That’s OpenAI’s stated goal in a new research paper released Thursday about measuring and reducing political bias in its AI models. The company says that “people use ChatGPT as a tool to learn and explore ideas” and argues “that only works if they trust ChatGPT to be objective.”

But a closer reading of OpenAI’s paper reveals something different from what the company’s framing of objectivity suggests. The company never actually defines what it means by “bias.” And its evaluation axes show that it’s focused on stopping ChatGPT from several behaviors: acting like it has personal political opinions, amplifying users’ emotional political language, and providing one-sided coverage of contested topics.

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While sometimes there’s a big piece of misinformation that a lot of people latch onto—like The Rapture or the existence of “MedBeds“—the fractured nature of the information sphere has all but killed the overarching conspiracy theory. No longer do big ideas like “we never went to the moon” unite the dumbest minds; instead, the algorithm creates bespoke conspiracy theories. So instead of joining the Flat Earth Society, you might think the actual year is 1728, or that AI secretly imagined a British comedian from the the 1980s and seeded the web with evidence of his existence.

But how does it start? And how quickly can social media platforms transform someone from a person from a seeker-of-knowledge to a believer-in-bullshit? YouTuber Benaminute recently posted a video where he dug in to find out. His question: If you start with a benign, broad, randomly chosen subject, and you only watch videos having to do with that subject, how long will it take until TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels feed you a conspiracy theory video? The answer: not long at all.

Different topics all lead to the same place (more or less)

For the experiment, Benaminute created “blank” social media profiles and behaved like someone who was innocently curious about one of three topics—dinosaurs, The Vietnam War, and the 2000 presidential election. He put the keyword in each platform’s search bar and only watched and liked videos about the initial subject.

Dinosaurs

• YouTube Shorts: The initial videos were ads for Jurassic Park, AI slop featuring dinosaurs, and the occasional educational video, but the 541st video was a clip from the Joe Rogan Experience about how the pyramids were not tombs, but “DNA restoration devices.”

• TikTok: If you thought TikTok would get to conspiracy theories quickly, you’d be right. The 144th video was this fake UFO video that has 24 million views.

• Instagram Reels: Insta took 661 videos to get from dinosaurs to a “forbidden phone from the 2000s that lets you see into a parallel dimension.”

The Vietnam War

Things get worse for people interested in historical or political events. On all short-form platforms, an interest in Vietnam will lead you pretty quickly to right-leaning content, which leads you to conspiracy theories.

• YouTube Shorts got to a conspiracy theory video about Noah’s Ark in only seven videos.

• TikTok took a little longer; video 161 was about how financial services company Blackrock had something to do with the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.

• Reels took 139 videos to get to “Bush did 9/11.”

The 2000 election

The election of 2000 is still a charged topic, but it’s been awhile, so maybe cooler heads and verified information will win the day? Spoiler: nope.

• YouTube Shorts took 136 videos to get to the same Noah’s Ark conspiracy as it did for dinosaur fans.

• TikTok only took 38 videos to get to “The Rapture is happening on September 24.”

• Reels took only 26 videos to land on “The World Trade Center was bombed” (by either Clinton or Bush).

Which social media app leads to conspiracy theories fastest?

The champion of “normal search to conspiracy theory” speed runs is TikTok, with an average of 114 videos or 57 minutes of watching. YouTube Shorts comes in second with 230 videos or 1 hour 57 minutes of time, and Reels takes 275 video or 138 minutes. It’s a distinction without a difference; however, all three platforms lead to conspiracies in the time it takes to watch a Marvel movie.

What does it all mean?

It would be easy to conclude that the massive tech companies that built YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok companies weight their recommendation engines so viewers are led to fake stories. Maybe they have specific political aims and are trying to sway votes, or maybe (as Benaminute posits in a semi-tongue-in-cheek way) these apps are built to “keep us angry, divided, and distracted” from realizing the conflict isn’t between Left and Right, but between “up and down.”

This is also a conspiracy theory, however. I’m not saying he’s wrong, but we don’t have enough information to know why algorithms recommend conspiracy content. It could be because bad actors at the top demand specific results for some purpose, but it seems more likely to me that TikTok et al. don’t have an agenda beyond making money.

I have no doubt that a social media platform featuring an algorithm that weighs the truth heavily would fail pretty quickly; the Truth is boring compared to conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories, broadly, make believers feel special, like they have inside knowledge the rest of us lack. People scroll TikTok to have fun; the truth usually isn’t fun. Conspiracy theorist can say things like “UFOs are here!” or “They’re turning the frogs gay!” Meanwhile, if you’re devoted to the truth, you mostly have to go with “the best evidence suggests…” or “it seems logical that…” and who wants to hear that?

SpaceX’s second-generation Starship vehicle has just made a graceful exit. The company achieved every major objective it set for the super-heavy lift vehicle’s 11th flight test, the second-gen Starship’s final flight, which launched from Starbase in Texas on October 13. It followed another successful test in August, which saw Starship deploy its payload for the first time ever. Before those two most recent flights, SpaceX suffered a series of failures: Starship exploded during its ascent stage in the company’s seventh and eighth tests, and it failed to deploy its payload during its ninth test. Another Starship vehicle blew up on the ground during a routine test while SpaceX was preparing for its 10th flight. 

All of the vehicle’s 33 Raptor engines ignited upon launch, and the stage separation and first-stage ascent went smoothly. The Super Heavy booster splashed down into the ocean as planned, while Starship was able to deploy all its Starlink simulators before re-entering the atmosphere. During its reentry burn, SpaceX intentionally stressed the vehicle to determine the capabilities of its heatshield. And with just a few minutes left to the flight, the vehicle executed a banking maneuver to “mimic the trajectory that future missions returning to Starbase will fly.”

The company says it will now focus on developing the next generation of Starship and Super Heavy. It has multiple versions of the vehicle and the booster being prepared for tests at the moment, and it expects them to be used for the first Starship orbital flights and operational payload missions. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/spacex-is-preparing-the-next-gen-starship-after-a-successful-flight-test-130027382.html?src=rss

Apple has rebranded its streaming service Apple TV+ to simply Apple TV, further blurring the already confusing line between the Apple TV device, the Apple TV app, and the Apple TV service. As John Gruber notes, users can now “watch Apple TV in Apple TV on Apple TV.” From Daring Fireball: In some ways, I get it. Like, if you’re telling someone how much you enjoy Slow Horses and they ask how to watch it, it’s more natural and conversational to just say “It’s on Apple TV.” That’s what most people say. That’s what I say — and as part of my job, I completely understand the difference between Apple TV the device, Apple TV the (free) app, and Apple TV+ the (paid) streaming service.

But right there in Apple’s own “About Apple TV” description, you see just how overused “Apple TV” now is. You can watch Apple TV in Apple TV on Apple TV — the paid service in the free app on the set-top box. But you can watch any streaming service you want on the box, in that service’s own app. But many of those services are also available in the Apple TV app. And the Apple TV streaming service is also available on just about all other popular set-top hardware platforms. So don’t need an Apple TV to watch Apple TV. It’s a bit like Abbott and Costello’s classic “Who’s on First” routine.

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If you’ve been looking for a great pair of noise-canceling earbuds that don’t cost a fortune, the JBL Tune Buds are now down to $44.95, their lowest price yet, according to price trackers. That’s less than half of what they’re originally sold for, which makes them a strong contender in the under-$50 range.

JBL Tune Buds

$44.95
at Amazon

$99.95
Save $55.00

$44.95
at Amazon

$99.95
Save $55.00

These are true wireless earbuds that focus on delivering that signature JBL bass (deep and thumpy) but with enough flexibility to tweak the sound using the JBL app. Out of the box, they lean heavy on the low end, which works well for pop and EDM, but you can easily adjust the EQ if you prefer something more neutral.

Performance-wise, the Tune Buds pack in more than you’d expect for the price. They support Bluetooth 5.3, AAC, and SBC codecs, along with multipoint pairing, so you can jump between your phone and laptop without reconnecting. The active noise cancellation is solid for casual use—good enough to dull traffic noise or a chatty office, even if it can’t fully block the low rumble of a subway, notes this PCMag review. There’s also an IP54 rating, meaning these can handle sweat and light rain, making them suitable for workouts or daily commutes. Touch controls are customizable through the companion app, and there’s built-in Alexa support if you like using voice commands hands-free.

As for the battery life, JBL claims up to 10 hours per charge with ANC on and 12 hours without, plus an extra 30 to 36 hours from the charging case. That’s easily a few days of use (your mileage may vary) without needing to plug in. The 10mm drivers cover the standard 20Hz to 20kHz range, and the earbuds come with three silicone tip sizes to help with comfort and fit. They don’t offer premium-level sound or the silence of high-end ANC sets from Sony or Bose, but they strike a good balance between affordability, sound, and everyday convenience.

Therabody just revealed a bunch of new products, including the TheraFace Mask Glo. This MF Doom-looking full-face mask offers quite a different experience from the pre-existing TheraFace Pro. The Pro is essentially a face massager, but the Mask Glo is a giant mask that uses LED lights to “reduce fine lines and wrinkles, firm and tighten skin and even tone and texture.”

The company promises results in “as little as eight weeks” with daily 12-minute sessions. The mask has been cleared by the FDA and includes 504 medical-grade LEDs to deliver “an effective, full-face treatment.” It also doubles as a Halloween mask if you are so inclined. Tis the season. The TheraFace Mask Glo is available to order today and costs $380.

The Theragun Mini Plus is a portable version of its popular massage gun, but with one feature missing from the original Mini. This one has heat. It combines “percussive massage with consistent, rapid heat.” Therabody says this results in a “benefits 3x faster than percussive massage alone.”

Therabody

It features three massage speeds, three heat levels and app-guided routines to target specific muscle groups. The gun is TSA-approved, so bring it on a plane. The Theragun Mini Plus is available today and costs $280.

The company also released a new version of the Theragun Prime massage gun, which costs $330, and the Theragun Sense massage gun. That last one features an LCD screen and real-time pressure feedback to make sure people are using it right. It costs $300.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/therabody-just-introduced-the-theraface-mask-glo-which-uses-leds-to-reduce-wrinkles-123044315.html?src=rss

TiVo has confirmed that it has stopped selling its DVR set-top boxes, marking the end of an era that changed how we watch television forever. As first reported earlier this month by Cord Cutters News, TiVo Corporation quietly pulled its once-groundbreaking digital video recorder from its website. Holding company Xperi later confirmed that the listing was removed on October 1.

“I can confirm that as of October 1, 2025, TiVo stopped selling physical DVR products, including hardware and accessories, both online and through agents,” a TiVo spokesperson confirmed to PCMag. “TiVo no longer manufactures hardware, and our remaining inventory is now depleted, though we will continue to offer support for the products going forward.”

The TiVo box revolutionized television upon its launch in 1999, allowing viewers to pause, rewind and record live television. There was a time when you would just miss the start of a show if you weren’t punctual, and you’d have to sync grabbing a snack with a commercial during the big game. You also had to actually watch the commercials, something that is unfortunately making a comeback with an increase in ad-supported streaming.

The DVR pioneer is now a software company. It has been producing TiVo OS almost exclusively in the European market since 2022, though the smart TV OS premiered in the US this year via Sharp. “The Sharp Smart TV Powered by TiVo” launched as a 55-inch QLED display with 4K resolution and HDR support. TiVo OS functions like many other television operating systems, aggregating streaming services and offering its own library of free and paid content.

TiVo will still offer customer support for its now-discontinued boxes, which bodes well for customers who have purchased a lifetime plan.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/tivo-has-discontinued-its-dvr-boxes-123037999.html?src=rss

NVIDIA’s DGX Spark AI computer revealed earlier this year goes on sale today for $3,999, the company announced. Though relatively tiny, it hosts the the company’s entire AI platform including GPUs and CPUs, along with NVIDIA’s AI software stack “into a system small enough for a lab or an office,” NVIDIA said. 

The Spark isn’t something you’d buy to play Baldur’s Gate 3, though. It’s designed to give developers, researchers and data scientists enough computer power to run complex AI models. Early recipients of the PCs include Anaconda, Google, Hugging Face, Meta and Microsoft. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang even hand-delivered a unit to Elon Musk at SpaceX’s headquarter in Starbase, Texas. 

The DGX has plenty of power on offer despite its diminutive 2.6 pound size. It boasts NVIDIA’s GB10 super system-on-chip that weds a 20-core ARM CPU with a Blackwell GPU powered by the same number of cores as an RTX 5070 GPU. It’s outfitted with 128GB of LPDDR5x RAM shared between the CPU and GPU and includes 4TB of NVMe storage, along with four USB-C ports, Wi-Fi 7 and an HDMI connector. NVDIA calls it “the world’s smallest AI supercomputer.”

The DGX Spark runs Nvidia’s DGX OS, a custom version of Ubuntu Linux that’s configured with AI software. With that, developers can access NVIDIA AI models, libraries and microservices in order to do chores like refining image generation or creating AI chatbots.  

The DGX Spark is also an entry point for similar machines. Other vendors like Dell, HP, Lenovo and ASUS showed off similar AI-oriented mini PC’s at Computex this year using the same GB10 chip, with Acer’s Veriton GN100 being one example. 

The DGX Spark mini PC is now on sale for $3,999 through NVIDIA and its partners. While not cheap, it’s a drop in the bucket for AI developers and all of the companies listed above, and considering the hardware inside, the price doesn’t seem unreasonable. NVIDIA is also working on the DGX Station that will feature GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip, with 20 petaflops of performance and 784GB of unified system memory. A price has yet to be announced for that model

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/nvidia-starts-selling-its-3999-dgx-spark-ai-developer-pc-120034479.html?src=rss

Instagram is tightening the settings on its “teen accounts” to add new limits on what kids on the platform are able to see. Older teens will also no longer be able to opt out of the default stricter settings without parental approval. 

Meta first introduced teen accounts for Instagram a year ago, when it began automatically moving teens into the more locked-down accounts that come with stricter privacy settings and parental controls. The company recently rolled out the accounts for teens on Facebook and Messenger too, and has used AI tools to detect teens that are lying about their age. 

While teen accounts are meant to address long-running criticism about Meta’s handling of teen safety on its apps, the measures have been widely criticized as not going far enough to protect the company’s most vulnerable users. A recent report from safety advocates at Heat Initiative found that “young teen users today continue to be recommended or exposed to unsafe content and unwanted messages at alarmingly high rates while using Instagram Teen Accounts.” (Meta called the report “deeply subjective.”) 

Now, Meta is locking down teen accounts even more. With the latest changes, teens will no longer be able to follow or see content from accounts that “regularly share age-inappropriate content” or that seem “age-inappropriate” based on their bio or username. Meta says it will also block these accounts from appearing in teens’ recommendations or in search results in the app. 

Instagram will also block a “a wider range of mature search terms” for teens, including words like “alcohol,” “gore,” and intentional misspellings of these words, which is a common tactic to avoid Instagram’s filters. And, even if an account a teen already follows shares a post that goes against these rules, teens should be prevented from seeing it, even if it’s sent to their DMs.

Meta

While these changes may seem like Meta once again filling somewhat obvious gaps in its safety features, the company says the revamp is meant to make the content teens encounter on Instagram more like a PG-13 movie. “Just like you might see some suggestive content or hear some strong language in a PG-13 movie, teens may occasionally see something like that on Instagram – but we’re going to keep doing all we can to keep those instances as rare as possible,” the company explained in a blog post.

That’s a somewhat confusing analogy as there’s a fairly wide spectrum of what might appear in a PG-13 movie. Meta also says that some of its rules for teens are more restrictive than what teens might see in a PG-13 movie. For example, the app aims to prevent teens from seeing any kind of “sexually suggestive” content or images of “near nudity” even though that type of content might appear in movies rated for 13-year-olds. 

For parents that want even tighter restrictions, Instagram is also adding a new “limited content” setting that filters “even more” content from teens’ view (Meta didn’t explain what exactly would be restricted). The setting also prevents teens from accessing any comments on the platform, either on their own posts or other users’. Finally, Meta is testing a new reporting feature for parents that use Instagram’s parental control settings to monitor their teens’ use of the app. With the feature, parents can flag specific posts they feel are inappropriate to trigger a review by Meta. 

Meta says the latest changes will be rolling out “gradually” to teen accounts in the US, UK, Canada and Australia to start and that it will eventually “add additional age-appropriate content protections for teens on Facebook.” 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/instagram-makes-teen-accounts-more-restrictive-120000653.html?src=rss

After more than a decade of service, Microsoft is declaring the end of Windows 10’s usable life. If your machine still uses it, rest assured it’ll continue to work, but you won’t see any more software and security updates. If your machine is compatible, you’ll be able to upgrade to Windows 11 for free, or this can provide the justification you need to buy a new machine.

But there’s also a way to keep your status quo without the additional stress, at least for the next year. It’s possible to sign up to Microsoft’s Extended Security updates program, giving you an extra year of software and security patches. It won’t cost you any money, but you will be expected to sign up to Microsoft’s cloud services.

If you’d like to keep Windows 10 running and safe, you can head over to our comprehensive guide on what to do. And, if you’re ready to upgrade, check out our guide on the best Windows laptops to choose your next purchase.

— Dan Cooper

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The news you might have missed

• Another Game Freak leak claims to show the Pokémon roadmap

• Anbernic’s modern-day Nintendo DS dupe is cheaper than the original

The FCC is trying to make it easier for internet providers to charge hidden fees

It’s comically evil, really.

The FCC has outlined a plan to once again allow ISPs to charge hidden fees, making it easier to rip off consumers. It follows a complaint from those poor carriers that believe it’s far too hard to be required to tell customers what it is they’re charging for. I bet that’s loads of fun for all of the FCC employees who went into public service in the hope of actually serving the public.

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Apple TV+ is now just Apple TV

I’m in the minority, but I think that’s a good shout.

Devindra Hardawar for Engadget

Apple is dropping the + from the name of its TV subscription service. That’s a smart piece of branding, since everyone just calls it Apple TV anyway. But it does muddy the waters, given Apple’s set top box is also called Apple TV. But, as someone who reviews Apple TV shows and irritates editors by forgetting the plus sign, this will make my (and their) lives a lot easier.

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The first products with Apple’s M5 chip could make their debut this week

The rumor mill suggests we’ll see them in a few days.

Apple

Apple is reportedly gearing up to announce a series of updated devices, each one packing its new A5 chip. Bloomberg claims the company will announce new MacBook Pros, Pad Pros and an updated Vision Pro online over a period of days. If so, it would be mirroring the release pattern from last year, when an updated product was launched online each day across a week. Rumors suggest we’ll only get the vanilla A5 versions this fall, with the higher-end versions of the silicon not arriving until the start of next year.

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A long-lost Ratchet and Clank mobile game has been found

Clone Home was a successor to Going Mobile.

The Golden Bolt

Ratchet & Clank superfans have unearthed a fairly substantial gem after a years-long search: a finished but essentially unreleased mobile title from 2006. Clone Home was the sequel to Going Mobile developed for mobile phones running Java from those halcyon pre-iPhone days. It was axed shortly before launch, but a few copies did find their way into the ether, which enabled YouTuber The Golden Bolt to show it off to the world.

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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-111557774.html?src=rss

schwit1 shares a report from Hackread: On October 3, 2025, Hackread.com published an in-depth report in which hackers claimed to have stolen 989 million records from 39 major companies worldwide by exploiting a Salesforce vulnerability. The group demanded that Salesforce and the affected firms enter negotiations before October 10, 2025, warning that if their demands were ignored, they would release the entire dataset. The hackers, identifying themselves as “Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters,” a collective said to combine elements of Scattered Spider, Lapsus$, and ShinyHunters, have now published data allegedly belonging to 6 of the 39 targeted companies.

The companies named in the leak are as follows: Fujifilm, GAP, INC., Vietnam Airlines, Engie Resources, Quantas Airways Limited, and Albertsons Companies, Inc. In all 6 leaks, the record contains personal details of customers, business, including email addresses, full names, addresses, passport numbers, phone numbers. The hackers said on Telegram that they will not be releasing any additional information, stating, “A lot of people are asking what else will be leaked. Nothing else will be leaked. Everything that was leaked was leaked, we have nothing else to leak, and obviously, the things we have cannot be leaked for obvious reasons.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SpaceX closed a troubled but instructive chapter in its Starship rocket program Monday with a near-perfect test flight that carried the stainless steel spacecraft halfway around the world from South Texas to the Indian Ocean.

The rocket’s 33 methane-fueled Raptor engines roared to life at 6:23 pm CDT (7:23 pm EDT; 23:23 UTC), throttling up to generate some 16.7 million pounds of thrust, by large measure more powerful than any rocket before Starship. Moments later, the 404-foot-tall (123.1-meter) rocket began a vertical climb away from SpaceX’s test site in Starbase, Texas, near the US-Mexico border.

From then on, the rocket executed its flight plan like clockwork. This was arguably SpaceX’s most successful Starship test flight to date. The only flight with a similar claim occurred one year ago Monday, when the company caught the rocket’s Super Heavy booster back at the launch pad after soaring to the uppermost fringes of the atmosphere. But that flight didn’t accomplish as much in space.

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NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is laying off around 550 employees, or roughly 11% of its workforce, as part of an effort to “restructure and establish an appropriate size to ensure future success.” According to JPL Director Dave Gallagher, the job cuts “are not related to the current government shutdown.” CNBC reports: JPL is a research and development lab funded by NASA — the federal space agency — and managed by the California Institute of Technology. “While not easy, I believe that taking these actions now will help the Lab transform at the scale and pace necessary to help achieve humanity’s boldest ambitions in space,” Gallagher wrote in a separate mekor to JPL employees and contractors. Gallagher, in the public announcement, noted that the reorganization of JPL began in July, and “over the past few months, we have communicated openly with employees about the challenges and hard choices ahead.”

“This week’s action, while not easy, is essential to securing JPL’s future by creating a leaner infrastructure, focusing on our core technical capabilities, maintaining fiscal discipline, and positioning us to compete in the evolving space ecosystem — all while continuing to deliver on our vital work for NASA and the nation,” Gallagher wrote. Gallagher said that JPL employees will be notified of their status on Tuesday, and the “new Lab structure … will become effective Wednesday.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ofcom has slapped 4chan with a £20,000 ($26,700) fine for failing to comply with the internet and telecommunications regulator’s request for information under the UK’s Online Safety Act of 2023. The regulator has released an update for 11 of the investigations it opened after the first of its online safety codes became enforceable in March this year. Apparently, 4chan has ignored its requests for a copy of its illegal harms risk assessment and to provide information about its qualifying worldwide revenue. This is the first fine Ofcom has handed down under the new law, which was designed to prevent children from accessing harmful content online and which has prompted websites like Reddit and X to put up age verification measures. 

When the regulator launch its probe into 4chan in June, it said it received complaints about illegal content on the anonymous online board. It doesn’t exactly come as a surprise that 4chan refuses to give the regulator information about the risks of illegal content on its website: Back in August, the service filed a lawsuit against Ofcom, arguing that the enforcement of the UK’s Online Safety Act violates Americans’ freedom of speech. “This fine is a clear warning to those who fail to remove illegal content or protect children from harmful material,” said Liz Kendall, the UK Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology. The regulator is also imposing an additional penalty of £100 ($133) per day on 4chan until it complies with its requests for information. 

Ofcom has announced the results of other investigations, as well, such as finding “serious compliance concerns” with two file-sharing services that have now deployed an automated tool that can detect and quickly remove uploads with child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Four other file-sharing services that were also under investigation for CSAM chose to geoblock access from UK IP addresses instead, so the regulator closed their cases. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/uk-regulator-fines-4chan-for-ignoring-online-safety-act-demands-045026169.html?src=rss

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Security researchers have resurrected a 12-year-old data-stealing attack on web browsers to pilfer sensitive info from Android devices. The attack, dubbed Pixnapping, has yet to be mitigated. Conceptually, it’s the equivalent of a malicious Android app being able to screenshot other apps or websites. It allows a malicious Android application to access and leak information displayed in other Android apps or on websites. It can, for example, steal data displayed in apps like Google Maps, Signal, and Venmo, as well as from websites like Gmail (mail.google.com). It can even steal 2FA codes from Google Authenticator.

“First, the malicious app opens the target app (e.g., Google Authenticator), submitting its pixels for rendering,” explained [Alan Wang, a PhD candidate at UC Berkeley]. “Second, the malicious app picks the coordinates of a target pixel whose color it wants to steal. Suppose for example it wants to steal a pixel that is part of the screen region where a 2FA character is known to be rendered by Google Authenticator, and that this pixel is either white (if nothing was rendered there) or non-white (if part of a 2FA digit was rendered there). Third, the malicious app causes some graphical operations whose rendering time is long if the target pixel is non-white and short if it is white. The malicious app does this by opening some malicious activities (i.e., windows) in front of the target app. Finally, the malicious app measures the rendering time per frame of the above graphical operations to determine whether the target pixel was white or non-white. These last few steps are repeated for as many pixels as needed to run OCR over the recovered pixels and guess the original content.”

The researchers have demonstrated Pixnapping on five devices running Android versions 13 to 16 (up until build id BP3A.250905.014): Google Pixel 6, Google Pixel 7, Google Pixel 8, Google Pixel 9, and Samsung Galaxy S25. Android 16 is the latest operating system version. Other Android devices have not been tested, but the mechanism that allows the attack to work is typically available. A malicious Android app implementing Pixnapping would not require any special permissions in its manifest file, the authors say. The researchers detail the attack in a paper (PDF) titled “Pixnapping: Bringing Pixel Stealing out of the Stone Age.”

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