Welcome to Edition 8.34 of the Rocket Report! The most important significant news this week, I believe, is the decision by Canada to make a serious investment in launch infrastructure at a spaceport in Nova Scotia. Tensions have risen between the United States and Canada of late (for reasons which are baffling to this author, who has always had an affinity for the nation to our north), and as a result Canada is seeking launch independence. This is an important start, but it will require a sustained, long-term commitment to really develop a flourishing launch industry.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Canada makes major commitment to space launch. The country’s leading minister of national defense, David J. McGuinty, announced on Monday a $200 million investment in “core infrastructure” for a spaceport in Nova Scotia. The investment is a 10‑year, $200 million agreement to lease a dedicated space‑launch pad that will serve as the central foundation for a multi-user spaceport near Canso, Nova Scotia. The facility is operated by Maritime Launch Services.

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The film adaptation of Andy Weir’s novel Project Hail Mary hits general release today, March 20, and it’s great—go see it! Though a little light on the science, the movie goes hard on the relationship between schoolteacher Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) and an extraterrestrial named Rocky, and it’s a ride well worth taking.

But as good as it is, the movie shares a small flaw with the book: Despite having very few things in common, Grace and Rocky learn to communicate with each other extremely quickly. In fact, Grace and Rocky begin conversing in abstracts (concepts like “I like this” and “friendship”) in even less time than it takes in the book. Obviously, there are practical narrative reasons for this choice—you can’t have a good buddy movie if your buddies can’t talk to each other. It’s therefore critical to the flow of the story to get that talking happening as soon as possible, but it can still be a little jarring for the technically minded viewer who was hoping for the acquisition of language to be treated with a little more complexity.

And because this is Ars Technica, we’re doing the same thing we did when the book came out: talking with Dr. Betty Birner, a former professor of linguistics at NIU (now retired), to pick her brain about cognition, pragmatics, cooperation, and what it would actually ake for two divergently evolved sapient beings not just to gesture and pantomime but to truly communicate. And this time, we’ll hear from Andy Weir, too. So buckle up, dear readers—things are gonna get nerdy.

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BrianFagioli writes: Opera GX has officially landed on Linux, bringing its gamer-focused browser experience to Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, and openSUSE-based systems. The browser includes GX Control for limiting RAM and network usage, a Hot Tabs Killer to shut down resource-heavy tabs, and built-in sidebar integrations for Discord and Twitch. Opera says this is not just a one-off port, but a long-term effort with ongoing updates and community engagement. “PC gaming has long been associated with a single dominant platform, but that’s changing,” says Maciej Kocemba, Product Director at Opera GX. “Bringing GX to Linux users — who are renowned for the control they like to exert over their tools — means gamers and developers can manage browser resources, customize their setup, and keep their system performing exactly the way they want.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AleRunner writes: “China is helping Cuba race to capture renewable solar energy as the United States imposes an effective oil blockade on the Caribbean island, creating its worst energy crisis in decades,” reports The Washington Post. Later in the article, it states that “China’s decades-long push into clean energy technology is now helping to protect it from the soaring oil and gas crisis spurred by Trump’s war against Iran,” and that “Chinese exports of solar equipment to Cuba skyrocketed from about $5 million in 2023 to $117 million in 2025 and show no sign of stopping.” According to researchers from Ember, solar could be responsible for as much as 10% of Cuba’s electricity generation. “That would be among the fastest expansions of solar energy anywhere […] and place Cuba ahead of most countries — including the U.S. — in the share of electricity generated by sun power,” the report says.

As the Iran war drives energy prices higher, countries around the world are working overtime to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels. China sees this as a big opportunity. “Chinese authorities have made clear that they intend to replicate what they’re doing in Cuba elsewhere,” reports the Washington Post.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: A lobbying trade body for smaller cloud providers is asking the European Commission to impose interim measures blocking Broadcom from terminating the VMware Cloud Service Provider program, calling the decision a death sentence for some tech suppliers and an illegal squeeze on customer choice. As The Reg revealed in January, Broadcom shuttered the scheme, a move sources claimed affects hundreds of CSPs across Europe and curtails options for enterprises buying VMware software and services. The Cloud Infrastructure Service Provider in Europe (CISPE) trade group, representing nearly 50 tech suppliers, filed the complaint today with the EC Directorates-General, accusing Broadcom of bully-boy tactics, and calling for authorities to halt what it terms as “ongoing abuse.”

Francisco Mingorance, CISPE secretary general, said of the complaint: “Businesses — both cloud providers and their customers — are being irreparably damaged by Broadcom’s unfair actions, which we believe are illegal. “After imposing outrageous and unjustified price hikes immediately following the acquisition of VMware, Broadcom is now applying the ‘coup de grace’. We need urgent intervention to force them to change. The only way to stop bullies is to stand up to them.” CISPE claims that, since Broadcom completed its $69 billion takeover of VMware in October 2023, prices have risen tenfold, payment is demanded upfront, products are bundled regardless of customer need, and minimum commitments are based on potential rather than actual consumption.

The VMware Cloud Service Provider (VCSP) program officially closed in January and all transactions must be complete by March 31. After that date, only a select group of suppliers will be able to sell VMware subscriptions — either standalone or as part of a broader service. Across Europe, we’re told this equates to hundreds of businesses losing their authorization. For some, the loss of VCSP status effectively destroys their market. Those whose operations were built around VMware must now hand customers to another authorized supplier or begin the costly migration to an alternative platform. Broadcom said in a statement responding to the complaint: “Broadcom strongly disagrees with the allegations by CISPE, an organization funded by hyperscalers, which misrepresent the realities of the market. We continue to be committed to investing significantly in our European VMware Cloud Service Provider partners… helping them offer alternatives to the hyperscalers and meet the evolving needs of European businesses and organizations.”

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OpenAI is developing a “super app” for desktop that unifies ChatGPT, its browser and its Codex app, according to the Wall Street Journal and CNBC. A company spokesperson told the publications that OpenAI Chief of Applications Fidji Simo will lead the application revamp with assistance from OpenAI President Greg Brockman. Simo will also help the marketing team advertise the app when it comes out. OpenAI’s leadership is apparently hoping that combining several products can help it streamline user experience and dedicate its resources to one project.

The company has yet to make an official announcement about the new app, but Simo replied to the Journal piece’s author on X. “Companies go through phases of exploration and phases of refocus; both are critical,” Simo said. “But when new bets start to work, like we’re seeing now with Codex, it’s very important to double down on them and avoid distractions. Really glad we’re seizing this moment.”

The Journal saw the internal note Simo sent to employees, wherein she said that the company realized it was spreading its efforts across too many apps and that it needed to simplify its efforts. “That fragmentation has been slowing us down and making it harder to hit the quality bar we want,” she reportedly wrote. In an all-hands meeting, CNBC said she also told employees that the company was “orienting aggressively” towards high-productivity use cases.

It’s not clear yet when the unified app will be available, but OpenAI is reportedly focusing on developing agentic AI capabilities for it. The agents will be able to make decisions and use tools to do tasks on computers, such as writing software or analyzing data, with little human oversight.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-is-putting-chatgpt-its-browser-and-code-generator-into-one-desktop-app-025709839.html?src=rss

Cloudflare’s CEO predicts AI-driven bot traffic will surpass human internet traffic by 2027, as AI agents generate vastly more web requests than people. “If a human were doing a task — let’s say you were shopping for a digital camera — and you might go to five websites. Your agent or the bot that’s doing that will often go to 1,000 times the number of sites that an actual human would visit,” Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said in an interview at SXSW this week. “So it might go to 5,000 sites. And that’s real traffic, and that’s real load, which everyone is having to deal with and take into account.” TechCrunch reports: Before the generative AI era, the internet was only about 20% bot traffic, with Google’s web crawler being the largest, according to Prince, whose infrastructure and security company is used by one-fifth of all websites. But beyond some other reputable crawlers, the only other bots were those used by scammers and bad actors. “With the rise of generative AI, and its just insatiable need for data, we’re seeing a rise where we suspect that, in 2027, the amount of bot traffic online will exceed the amount of human traffic that’s online,” Prince said.

The executive also noted that this change to the web would require the development of new technologies, like sandboxes for AI agents that can be spun up on the fly and then torn down when their task has finished. These could come into play when consumers ask AI agents to perform certain tasks on their behalf, like planning a vacation. “What we’re trying to think about is, how do we actually build that underlying infrastructure where you can — as easily as you open a new tab in your browser — you can actually spin up new code, which can then run and service the agents that are out there,” Prince said. He imagines there will soon be a time when millions of these “sandboxes” for agents would be created every second. “I think the thing that people don’t appreciate about AI is it’s a platform shift,” Prince said. “AI is another platform shift … the way that you’re going to consume information is completely different.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In his role as health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—a long-time anti-vaccine activist with no background in science, medicine, or public health—has made headlines for his thorough perversion of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory panel.

In June, Kennedy fired all 17 independent experts who made up the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP. The panel sets federal vaccination guidance that dictates insurance coverage and influences state school requirements. Kennedy then repopulated ACIP with mostly unqualified allies who share his anti-vaccine views. The corrupted board went on to hold several chaotic meetings in which they voted, without scientific backing, to change vaccine policies to align with Kennedy’s anti-vaccine agenda.

The blatant undermining of ACIP led a federal judge this week to temporarily block Kennedy’s installed ACIP members and the anti-vaccine changes they made to CDC guidance. But while ACIP’s corruption has drawn the spotlight, it’s far from the only advisory committee Kennedy has destroyed or corrupted.

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Alphabet’s life sciences business Verily is restructuring and raising money as a new corporate entity. Verily announced that with its $300 million investment round, it will change from an LLC to a corporation and rename itself Verily Health Inc. As a result, Alphabet now has a minority stake rather than a controlling one in the business. 

Similar to every other tech business, this chapter for Verily will be focused on AI. “From research to care, our customers need solutions that bring the best of clinical and scientific rigor together with AI to deliver the next generation of healthcare – one that is as precise as it is personal,” Chairman and CEO Stephen Gillett said.

Google Life Sciences was renamed Verily in 2015, around the same time as Google also rebranded to Alphabet. It has worked on a wide range of projects over the years, such as using eye scans to predict heart disease and an opioid addiction center. In 2025, it closed its medical device division, a move that may have signaled its shift toward AI.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/alphabet-no-longer-has-a-controlling-stake-in-its-life-sciences-business-verily-221718631.html?src=rss

California, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York are leading a group of 20 other states in suing the US Environmental Protection Agency for renouncing its ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, The New York Times reports. The lawsuit specifically argues that the EPA’s decision to rescind a 2009 study that determined greenhouse gases are dangerous to public health was illegal. The study, which is the source of what’s called the “Endangerment Finding,” was one of several justifications — along with things like the Clean Air Act — for the agency’s ability to regulate emissions.

Rescinding the finding nullified the EPA’s evidence for things like emissions standards and a variety of other regulations that attempted to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases produced by the automotive, coal and oil industries. The Trump administration framed the rollback as a cost-saving measure, but it was also a major blow to the government’s ability to fight climate change. Greenhouse gases, which include things like carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, collect in the atmosphere and warm the planet, upsetting weather patterns and negatively impacting the environment. Determining the changes caused by greenhouse gases posed a risk to public health gave the EPA the authority to regulate them under its existing mandate to address air pollution. An authority it could have again, depending on the result of this litigation.

Of course, winning a lawsuit isn’t necessary to restore the EPA’s role in fighting climate change. Congress could do that now by passing a new law. The legal route is just faster, and potentially riskier. The New York Times writes that this new lawsuit was filed in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and could ultimately be combined with an existing lawsuit from environmental groups. Depending on how the case fairs in the lower court, it may eventually be appealed to the US Supreme Court, who could decide on an even more restrictive interpretation of the EPA’s role. 

Under President Donald Trump, the EPA has already rolled back clean water rules and attempted to stifle research. The Trump administration has separately tried to undermine the authority of independent agencies like the EPA and FTC, something the Supreme Court has yet to determine to be illegal.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/states-are-suing-the-epa-for-relinquishing-its-role-as-a-greenhouse-gas-emissions-regulator-221425064.html?src=rss

The UK regulator Ofcom fined 4chan nearly $700,000 (520,000 pounds) for failing to implement age checks and address illegal content risks under the Online Safety Act, but the platform mocked the penalty and signaled it won’t pay. A lawyer representing the company responded with an AI-generated cartoon image of a hamster, writing in a follow-up post on X: “In the only country in which 4chan operates, the United States, it is breaking no law and indeed its conduct is expressly protected by the First Amendment.” The BBC reports: The fines also include 50,000 pounds for failing to assess the risk of illegal material being published and a further 20,000 pounds for failing to set out how it protects users from criminal content. 4Chan has refused to pay all previous fines from Ofcom. “Companies — wherever they’re based — are not allowed to sell unsafe toys to children in the UK. And society has long protected youngsters from things like alcohol, smoking and gambling. The digital world should be no different,” said Ofcom’s Suzanne Cater. “The UK is setting new standards for online safety. Age checks and risk assessments are cornerstones of our laws, and we’ll take robust enforcement action against firms that fall short.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A trade association of cloud service providers (CSPs) filed an antitrust complaint today with the European Union’s European Commission (EC) over Broadcom’s shuttering of VMware’s CSP partner program this year.

Since Broadcom bought VMware, it has drastically cut the number of channel partners VMware works with, a shift that began with the elimination of VMware’s partner program. Broadcom replaced the program with an invite-only alternative that favors larger partners working with enterprise-sized clients rather than small-to-medium-sized businesses.

There are even fewer CSP partners working with VMware today. Broadcom introduced a requirement that CSP partners operate at least 3,500 cores, rendering hundreds of CSPs ineligible for partnership. Before Broadcom bought VMware, the virtualization company had over 4,000 CSP partners, per a February 2024 report from The Register. Today, VMware reportedly has 19 CSP partners in the US and about nine in the United Kingdom, The Register reported.

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Amazon has acquired Rivr, a startup focused on autonomous robotics. Rivr is based in Zurich and was valued at $110 million in a funding round from August 2024, which both Amazon and its CEO’s Bezos Expeditions participated in. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed. 

Rivr’s robots have four legs and wheels that allow it to maneuver on stairs and other potentially uneven surfaces. The company just released its second generation of the robot. The purchase will likely further Amazon’s capabilities for ever-faster and more efficient package deliveries. 

“This acquisition reflects our commitment to a continued investment in research, which we believe has the potential to further improve safety outcomes and the overall delivery experience for delivery service partners and their delivery associates,” a representative from Amazon told The Information.

Amazon has been working toward introducing automations and robotics at various stages of its shopping business. It deployed its 1 millionth robot last summer and has future goals for automating 75 percent of all its operations.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/amazon-acquires-autonomous-robotics-startup-rivr-212839750.html?src=rss

We’ve all seen a watermelon wrapped in rubber bands until it explodes, but what about a mirror? What about a laser printer? What about an aquarium? What about a DOOR? This is a video of the fun loving Aussies of How Ridiculous (who must have misplaced my application to join their crew) doing all of those. Plus MORE. And you know how I feel about more. “It’s always the answer.” Especially at an all-you-can-eat buffet. If you don’t get banned your first visit, you’re doing it wrong. For getting your money’s worth, just to be clear, not for licking the serving spoons and making out with the soft serve machine.

Apple is making a big change to Family Sharing with iOS 26.4: Once the update hits, you’ll be able to use your own payment method in Family Sharing groups that have Purchase Sharing turned on. This might sound small, but it’s a significant change to how Apple handles payments in these situations.

Payment Sharing no longer exclusively goes through the family organizer

Payment Sharing can be a convenient way for Family Sharing groups to take advantage of shared plans and content. That could include subscriptions, like Apple One, Apple Music, Apple TV, or Apple News+; purchased music from iTunes; movies and TV shows from the Apple TV app; books from Apple Books; or apps bought on the App Store. It means anyone within the family can access these items, but it also traditionally came with a limitation: With Purchase Sharing turned on, you couldn’t buy your own shared things. All purchases went through the payment method set up by the organizer of the family group, unless you happened to have an account balance from a gift card or allowance.

This makes a lot of sense when the family members are children, but not as much when those family members are adults. Not all Family Sharing groups are necessarily “families,” either: Friends can pool their accounts together to take advantage of shared services like iCloud plans. When all shared purchases go through one person’s credit card, it’s a bit of a pain.

That’s what iOS 26.4 is changing. Once you update, you can choose to put new shared purchases on your own card—assuming you are an adult. (Minors still need to go through the family organizer’s payment method.) If you want to sign the group up for Apple Fitness+, you can pay for it; if you want to buy a movie on the Apple TV app that others can watch too, that can come from your card. It’s a long overdue update to the system that will make Family Sharing groups a bit easier to use for adults.

What else is new with iOS 26.4

Apple has a number of new features and changes coming with iOS 26.4. In addition to this Family Sharing update, Apple Music gets a visual overhaul, plus you can now generate playlists with AI. There are eight new emojis rolling out here, following the Unicode 17 standard, plus Apple finally fixed iOS 26’s buggy keyboard.

While iOS 26.4 is still technically in beta testing, Apple rolled out the Release Candidate this week. Barring any major bugs, this is the version of iOS 26.4 that will launch to the public, and we’ll likely see it sometime next week.

For the second time in the past month, an AI agent went rogue at Meta — this time giving an engineer incorrect advice that briefly exposed sensitive data. The Verge reports: A Meta engineer was using an internal AI agent, which Clayton described as “similar in nature to OpenClaw within a secure development environment,” to analyze a technical question another employee posted on an internal company forum. But the agent also independently publicly replied to the question after analyzing it, without getting approval first. The reply was only meant to be shown to the employee who requested it, not posted publicly. An employee then acted on the AI’s advice, which “provided inaccurate information” that led to a “SEV1” level security incident, the second-highest severity rating Meta uses. The incident temporarily allowed employees to access sensitive data they were not authorized to view, but the issue has since been resolved.

According to Clayton, the AI agent involved didn’t take any technical action itself, beyond posting inaccurate technical advice, something a human could have also done. A human, however, might have done further testing and made a more complete judgment call before sharing the information — and it’s not clear whether the employee who originally prompted the answer planned to post it publicly. “The employee interacting with the system was fully aware that they were communicating with an automated bot. This was indicated by a disclaimer noted in the footer and by the employee’s own reply on that thread,” Clayton commented to The Verge. “The agent took no action aside from providing a response to a question. Had the engineer that acted on that known better, or did other checks, this would have been avoided.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

DoorDash has launched a new option for its gig economy workers to earn some extra cash. The delivery service introduced Tasks, which it describes as “short activities Dashers can complete between deliveries or in their own time.” It gives taking pictures of restaurant dishes or recording video of unscripted conversations in languages other than English as examples. These materials will be used to train artificial intelligence and robotics models. 

A representative from DoorDash told Bloomberg News that it will use Tasks content for evaluating its in-house AI models as well as those made by its partner companies in retail, insurance, hospitality and tech. DoorDash is piloting a standalone app for Tasks where Dashers will submit their content. The blog post notes that pay will be displayed upfront, and compensation will vary based on the complexity of the activity.

This idea isn’t new. We’ve seen other startups in AI and robotics offering payment for content filmed by regular people. Considering how many lawsuits are underway against AI companies that have already benefited from unauthorized use of copyrighted materials, at least this approach lets people be directly compensated for training content.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/doordash-will-start-paying-gig-workers-for-creating-content-to-train-ai-models-204048743.html?src=rss

Google is testing a version of its Gemini app for macOS, Bloomberg reports. The app would bring the AI assistant to uncharted territory, and in more direct competition with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude, both of which offer standalone Mac apps.

Gemini remains accessible through the web, and it sounds like the macOS app offers the same set of features, with the ability to respond to prompts, search the web and generate text, images and code. The major differentiator of the Mac app could be a feature called “Desktop Intelligence,” which gives Gemini a new source of information and context for its responses. According to a message in the app’s code viewed by Bloomberg, “when you enable apps for Desktop Intelligence you are enabling Gemini to see what you see (such as screen context) and pull content directly from these apps to improve and personalize your experience only when Gemini is in use.”

The ability to refer to information in apps and what’s currently on your screen is offered by both the Claude and ChatGPT macOS apps, and something Gemini is capable of on mobile devices. It’s not clear if Gemini for macOS will be able to actually take action in the apps it can view — like, for example, Anthropic’s popular Claude Cowork feature — but Google has already started offering that experience in a limited form on smartphones, so who’s to say that couldn’t come to desktop operating systems, too.

Bloomberg reports that the Gemini app is being tested with non-Google employees, which could be a sign it’s making its way to a public release. Thanks to Apple and Google’s AI partnership, whether the app sees the light of day or not, some of the technology that makes Gemini possible will run on macOS in the future. Google and Apple announced in January that Google’s Gemini models would power future versions of Apple Intelligence. Apple is also reportedly overhauling Siri into more of a chatbot, an experience likely made possible by Gemini.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-is-reportedly-testing-a-gemini-app-for-mac-203703372.html?src=rss

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As useful as robot vacuums and mops are, they can sometimes be clunky eyesores. If you’re looking for a hybrid cleaner that actually prioritizes design, you’ll want to check out the well-reviewed Roborock Saros 10R robot vacuum and mop. It’s one of the slimmest models on the market, getting into areas that bulkier vacuums can’t, and, just as importantly, the base it comes with is sleek and compact for all the functions it packs in, so it won’t look out of place in your home. Right now, the Roborock Saros 10R is $500 off, bringing it down to $1,099 (originally $1,599).

Roborock Saros 10R Robot Vacuum and Mop

$1,599.00
at Amazon

$1,599.00
at Amazon

The Roborock Saros 10R combines performance, automation, and aesthetics, making it one of the best robot vacuum and mop combos available. At just 3.14 inches tall, it can easily glide under low-profile furniture where dust collects (and areas that taller robot vacuums often miss) and it climbs thresholds over 1.5 inches. It checks all our boxes, with strong 22,000Pa suction, AI navigation, a built-in voice assistant, and obstacle-avoidance tech via Roborock’s StarSight Autonomous System. A built-in front-facing camera helps with navigation and lets you monitor your home from the dock. The anti-tangle dual-brush system collects hair and fur, while an extending side brush and rotating mop pad get around tight spots and clean along baseboards. 

Despite having a fully automated charging station that charges the robot in around 2.5 hours and handles self-emptying, hot-water mop washing, and drying, it has an understated look with a black mirror finish that blends into most spaces. That said, the glossy surface can also make fingerprints more visible, especially if you’re refilling the water tank often. And while it does have impressive suction when set to the highest level, the trade-off is more noise and faster battery drain—while it’s advertised as lasting 180 minutes, that time drops to 120 minutes when set to Max+ mode. Pet owners should also note that it may struggle with heavier fur and require multiple passes.

Ultimately, if you’re looking for an attractive, low-profile robot vacuum and mop that performs well on mixed floors with minimal hands-on assistance needed on your part, the Roborock Saros 10R robot vacuum and mop is the total package in most areas. At $500 off, it’s one of the most highly rated cleaning assistants on the market—especially if design and space-savings matter to you just as much as cleaning performance.

iPhone hacking techniques have sometimes been described almost like rare and elusive animals: Hackers have used them so stealthily and carefully against such a small number of hand-picked targets that they’re only rarely seen in the wild. Now a recent spate of espionage and cybercriminal campaigns has instead deployed those same phone-takeover tools, embedded in infected websites, to indiscriminately hack phones by the thousands. And one new technique in particular—capable of taking over any of hundreds of millions of iOS devices—has appeared on the web in an easily reusable form, putting a significant fraction of the world’s iPhone users at risk.

Researchers at Google and cybersecurity firms iVerify and Lookout on Wednesday jointly revealed the discovery of a sophisticated iPhone hacking technique known as DarkSword that they’ve seen in use on infected websites, capable of instantly and silently hacking iOS devices that visit those sites. While the technique doesn’t affect the latest updated versions of iOS, it does work against iOS devices running versions of Apple’s previous operating system release, iOS 18, which as of last month still accounted for close to a quarter of iPhones, according to Apple’s own count.

“A vast number of iOS users could have all of their personal data stolen simply for visiting a popular website,” says Rocky Cole, iVerify’s cofounder and CEO. “Hundreds of millions of people who are still using older Apple devices or older operating system versions remain vulnerable.”

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