If you receive a text from a random number offering you a job, it’s almost certainly a scam, and you likely know to ignore and delete the message and move on with your life. But a message from a recruiter with a link to an employment application may give you pause—and fraudsters are hoping that you’ll believe it just enough to hand over your personal information. Malwarebytes recently identified a phishing scam that uses fake Google Forms posing as job applications to harvest user account credentials.

How the Google Forms job scam works

This specific campaign involves a fake Google Forms site that impersonates the real thing. Links sent to scam targets—likely via email or LinkedIn—direct to forms.google.ss-o[.]com, which looks like a subdomain of the legitimate forms.google.com. (It isn’t.) The “ss-o” may be a trust signal for “single sign-on” and fail to raise red flags for many users. Each target receives a personalized URL, which leads to a (fake) Google Form inviting the user to apply for a job.

As Malwarebytes found, the fake page uses the standard Google Forms colors, header, and disclaimers. The form itself is greyed out behind a pop-up prompting users to “sign in to continue.” Again, this doesn’t look particularly suspicious for a typical Google flow. But the sign-in button redirects to another domain that has been used in multiple phishing attacks to harvest credentials.

Fraudsters have long used Google apps to perpetuate phishing schemes. A 2025 campaign targeting students, faculty, and staff at U.S. colleges and universities used Google Forms that mimicked legitimate school communications to collect login credentials entered directly into the form itself. (Google warns you to never, ever do this.) And numerous attacks on Gmail users have leveraged shared Google Docs to direct victims to a fake sign-in page.

How to avoid phishing attempts on your Google credentials

As always, your first red flag for a scam is a link sent via an unsolicited job offer—even if that link goes to a seemingly legitimate site. Scammers have all kinds of tricks for spoofing URLs and using recognizable domains to gain your trust. Always hover over hyperlinks to see the actual destination before clicking, and look carefully for additions or misspellings in the URL.

Plus, you should probably be wary of any job application submitted via Google Forms. Do your due diligence in speaking with an actual human, and do not send sensitive personal information through Google Forms.

This is also a good reason to use a password manager, which won’t allow you to fill login credentials on a fake site. If your password manager gives you a warning or prevents you from using autofill, don’t override it.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is pushing back on growing concerns about AI’s environmental footprint, dismissing claims about ChatGPT’s water consumption as “totally fake” and arguing that the fairer way to measure AI’s energy use is to compare it against humans.

In an interview with Indian Express, Altman acknowledged that evaporative cooling in data centers once made water usage a real concern but said that is no longer the case, calling internet claims of 17 gallons of water per query “completely untrue, totally insane, no connection to reality.”

On energy, he conceded it is “fair” to worry about total consumption given how heavily the world now relies on AI, and called for a rapid shift toward nuclear, wind and solar power. He took particular issue with comparisons that pit the cost of training a model against a single human inference, noting it “takes like 20 years of life and all of the food you eat” before a person gets smart — and that on a per-query basis, AI has “probably already caught up on an energy efficiency basis.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If you want to understand a generation, look at the athletes they revere. The post-war generation’s suburban conformity found a hero in baseball’s ultimate company man—Stan Musial—and his 22 seasons on the Cardinals. Boomers were drawn to Broadway Joe Namath, a self-important celebrity who wasn’t even a good quarterback. Gen X saw itself in Tiger Woods’ stoic, lone-grinder-in-a-high-stakes-vacuum style. This year’s Winter Olympics introduced the world to the first iconic athletes that express Gen Z’s vibe, and they’re amazing. But first, let’s talk about Baby Boo Syndrome.

What is “Baby Boo Syndrome”?

It seems like everyone on TikTok has come down with Baby Boo Syndrome this week. The trend started with a short dance video from @selenaaa.dta using a particularly snippet of YoungBoy Never Broke Again’s “What You Is.” The rapper saying “She gon call me baby boo” is both really catchy and really annoying, in other words, a perfect ear-worm.

@selenaaa.dta’s unique style earned their video over 10 million views, but it took more than a year for everyone else to catch up and start posting their own choreography to the music. Then things got weird.

Baby Boo variations and remixes started appearing, like this operatic cover:

and this patriotic remix:

And this mash-up with “Baby Shark”

The rapid spread of the trend and the catchiness of the song soon led to people diagnosing cases of “Baby Boo Syndrome” in videos like this:

and like this:

and this:

I am getting definite 6-7 vibes with this one.

Alysa Liu is Gen Z’s sports hero

Olympic gold medalist figure skater Alysa Liu is that rare athlete that kids should consider a role model. Liu embodies everything that makes people between of 14 and 29, and America itself, so uniquely awesome. First there’s the look. Liu’s blonde halo highlight and frenulum piercing is fully in tune with Gen Z’s aesthetic, but it’s deeper than style.

Like roughly 22% of Generation Z, Liu is from an immigrant family—her parents are Chinese dissidents who fled after Tiananmen Square. Liu was a skating prodigy, then, like everyone of her age, COVID shaped her destiny. She retired from skating at 16 when her local rink’s closure gave her time to consider the strain skating was taking on her mental health. After attending UCLA for two years, Liu came back to the ice, but on her own, very Gen Z, terms: She would be in charge of her training schedule, costumes, and diet. Maybe more importantly, she rejected the competitiveness of her sport in favor of viewing figure skating as an act of self-expression, something fun.

Many in the conservative world of figure skating thought she was finished—you don’t succeed as a world class athlete while without sacrificing everything in your life for it, and it’s definitely not fun. But Liu made it to the Olympics and murdered her individual routine like it was no big deal, then walked off the ice giving NBC’s camera a hearty, “That’s what I’m fucking talking about.” So punk rock. Just as iconic: Liu sharing victory with silver medal winner Kaori Sakamoto of Japan.

Amber Glenn: Alysa Liu’s nerdier counterpart

Maybe she’s not as fierce and in-your-face as Liu, but Team USA figure skater Amber Glenn is quietly becoming a Gen Z icon as well. The 26-year-old figure skater is open about her mental health struggles and being queer, and she’s also a passionate Magic: The Gathering player. A recent interview reveals that Glenn carries her Magic cards with her, but leaves the “super fancy” ones at home because they’re her prized possessions, and she doesn’t want to lose them.

Viral video of the week: Punch-kun the monkey

The main character of the internet this week is a baby macaque from the in Japan. Punch-kun was introduced to the world on the Ichikawa City Zoo’s twitter account.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Punch was born on July 26, 2025, but was rejected by his stressed-out mother. Zookeepers raised him, giving him an orangutan plush toy to replace mom. He drags it everywhere, which is cute, but things got a lot less adorable when the zoo introduced the little guy to other monkeys. It seems to not go well at all.

Everyone spread the video above because how could you not? It’s so poignant. Many were moved, and others angered by the seeming mistreatment of Punch by the other macaques, or angry at the zoo for putting him in that position.

Weirdly enough, it turns out the internet got it totally wrong. The controversy lead to the zoo explaining that the macaque dragging him around in the video isn’t bullying Punch; it’s an older member of the troop teaching him how to fit in. It’s monkey business. They are wild animals, and they don’t do things like humans do.

The saga of Punch is ongoing. Sometimes he seems to be getting along with the troop better, sometimes he still seems like an outsider. Keep checking every social media site for updates.

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Finding a decent soundbar under $100 is rare, especially from a brand like Amazon. But right now, the Amazon Fire TV Soundbar Plus in an Open Box condition is $99.99 at Woot, as compared to its usual $249.99 price on Amazon. The previous low that price trackers tracked was $149, so this deal drops it by another $50. Prime members get free standard shipping, while non-Prime buyers pay a $6 shipping fee. That said, Woot does not ship this product to Alaska, Hawaii, APO addresses, or P.O. Boxes. The sale runs for six more days or until it sells out.

Amazon Fire TV Soundbar Plus

$99.99
at Woot

$249.99
Save $150.00

$99.99
at Woot

$249.99
Save $150.00

This is a 3.1-channel system with three forward-facing drivers and tweeter pairs and two built-in woofers. It’s 37 inches long, which gives it a more substantial presence under a TV. For connectivity, it includes HDMI eARC, optical audio input, USB-A, and a standard power port. You also get Bluetooth for streaming music from your phone, but no wifi, multi-room support, or built-in voice assistant. Despite the name, it does not run the Fire TV smart TV platform. It’s simply a soundbar, and it works with any TV that supports HDMI ARC or optical output, notes this PCMag review. The included remote lets you switch between a few preset EQ modes, adjust bass and treble, and control volume.

In everyday use, it’s a clear upgrade over standard TV speakers. Dialogue sounds crisp and easy to follow, and music has decent detail in the mids and highs, and it can get loud without distortion. The main limitation is bass. On its own, it doesn’t deliver deep low-end impact, so action scenes and bass-heavy tracks won’t feel especially full. Amazon does offer bundles with a wireless subwoofer for $374.99 or a 5.1 setup with surrounds for $489.99, if you want to add more weight and immersion. Also, while the bar supports Dolby Atmos, without height channels, the effect is limited.

The narrative that AI spending has been singlehandedly propping up the U.S. economy — a claim that captivated Silicon Valley, Wall Street and Washington over the past year — is facing serious pushback from economists [non-paywalled source] at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase, all of whom now calculate that the AI buildup’s direct contribution to growth was dramatically overstated and possibly close to zero.

The debate hinges on how GDP accounts for imported components: roughly three-quarters of AI data center costs go toward computer chips and gear largely manufactured in Asia, and that spending gets subtracted from domestic output because it boosts foreign economies. Joseph Politano of the Apricitas Economics newsletter pegs AI’s actual contribution at about 0.2 percentage points of the 2.2 percent U.S. growth in 2025, and even Hannah Rubinton at the St. Louis Fed — whose own analysis attributed 39 percent of growth to AI-related business spending through the first nine months of the year — acknowledges that figure is probably the ceiling. “It’s not like AI is propping up the economy,” Rubinton said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

HBO has another critically acclaimed hit with A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, based on George R.R. Martin’s Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas, and it deserves every bit of the praise heaped upon it. The immensely satisfying first season wrapped with last night’s finale, dealing with the tragedy of the penultimate episode and setting the stage for the further adventures of Dunk and Egg. House of the Dragon is a solid series, but Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has reminded staunch GoT fans of everything they loved about the original series in the first place.

(Spoilers below, but no major reveals until after the second gallery. We’ll give you a heads up when we get there.)

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms adapts the first novella in the series, The Hedge Knight, and is set 50 years after the events of House of the Dragon. Dunk (Peter Claffey) is a lowly hedge knight who has just buried his aged mentor, Ser Arlan of Pennytree (Danny Webb). Ser Arlan was perhaps not the kindest of mentors and often stone drunk, but at least he was hung like the proverbial horse—as viewers discovered in a full-frontal moment that instantly went viral. Lacking any good employment options, Dunk decides to enter a local tournament, since he has inherited Ser Arlan’s sword, shield, and three horses.

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A good pair of noise-canceling earbuds under $50 doesn’t happen often, but right now, these refurbished Beats Studio Buds are $49.99 at Woot. For context, new pairs of this model typically sell between $90 and $99 on Amazon, while used listings often hover around $69. As for their refurbished condition, they’ve undergone diagnostic testing to confirm that everything works properly and should show little to no cosmetic wear. Shipping is free for Amazon Prime members; everyone else pays $6. That said, Woot does not ship this product to Alaska, Hawaii, or P.O. Boxes. This deal runs for another three days or until it’s sold out, whichever comes first.

Beats Studio Buds

$49.99
at Woot

$149.95
Save $99.96

$49.99
at Woot

$149.95
Save $99.96

These IPX4-rated earbuds pair easily with both iOS and Android devices, which isn’t always a given for products owned by Apple. You still get the perks people expect, like simple one-tap pairing and Find My support on iPhone, but Android users aren’t left out. The buds themselves are small and lightweight, and once you find the right fit from the three included ear tip sizes, they stay secure. The glossy finish can make them slightly slippery when you’re putting them in, but they don’t feel bulky once seated. Sound-wise, these lean into bass. Vocals and instruments stay clear enough, but this isn’t a neutral, studio-accurate sound.

The active noise cancellation does a decent job with steady background noise like engine hum on a flight or the rumble of a train. It won’t block out higher-pitched sounds or conversations as effectively as premium models from Sony or Bose, but at this price, having usable ANC at all is notable, according to this PCMag review. There’s also a Transparency mode for when you need to hear what’s going on around you. You can play or pause music, answer calls, and switch between ANC and Transparency directly from the earbuds, though you’ll still need your phone to adjust volume. Battery life runs about five hours with ANC on, or up to eight without it, and the case provides another 10 to 16 hours depending on how you use them.