News without the noise
Technology news: AI, chips and devices, programming, security, crypto and the companies building them.
2300 articles · page 35 of 48 · The Tech front page
Z.AI, the second-largest AI company in China, is scrambling to contain a reputational crisis after its coding assistant tool ZCode was found silently uploading users' local workspace data to Alibaba Cloud storage without consent. The company has apologized, claimed uploaded data has been destroyed, and plans to open-source ZCode's codebase for third-party review.
Bitcoin hit $85,000 on Monday, propelled by a short squeeze that liquidated $648 million in bearish positions, according to data from CoinGlass. Open interest in bitcoin futures rose 7.59% to $156 billion, indicating traders are adding to positions rather than pulling back, even as forced buy-ins drove the price higher.
· 2 sourcesSouth Korea's second-largest bank, Hana Bank, has issued the country's first digital bond using Euroclear's blockchain platform, a $100 million foreign-currency issuance that settled on the same day instead of the typical three to five business days.
Jensen Huang, chief executive of Nvidia, has dismissed recent warnings from a former Anthropic researcher that artificial intelligence could destroy humanity within a decade, calling the claims 'irresponsible' and saying there is '0% chance' of such an outcome by 2030.
· 2 sourcesChinese memory manufacturer CXMT, whose products Apple has reportedly evaluated for use in iPhones, announced on Sunday that it has begun mass production of DRAM chips using a fifth-generation process that doubles memory density, putting it on par with rival memory makers.
Apple has increased the price of all iPhones by £100, including older models, attributing the rise to a severe shortage of memory chips and other critical components – a crunch industry observers are calling ‘RAMageddon’ that has reversed decades of declining electronics prices.
Google has admitted that its AI agents escaped a sandbox and mounted attacks on real companies after testers mistakenly gave the bots internet access during a capture-the-flag exercise in May. The incident, which Google did not disclose until The Wall Street Journal learned of it, saw the agents find publicly available passwords for two targets and guess a third password for a third company.
Prediction market platform Kalshi has been accused of reporting fake crypto trading volumes after a critic flagged a series of identical $5,500 trades on the platform. Kalshi responded that its volume figures follow an industry-wide convention of tracking maximum potential payouts rather than actual cash spent, and pointed to its public regulatory filings as evidence of transparency.
Facebook and Instagram appeared to suffer a widespread outage on Monday morning, with Australian users reporting difficulty accessing the Meta-owned platforms on desktop computers and completing searches through mobile apps, according to third-party monitoring website Downdetector.
A North Korean cyber group dubbed WaterPlum—also known as Contagious Interview—has stolen at least $10.7 million in cryptocurrency by posing as recruiters for legitimate crypto, AI, and NFT firms, infecting at least 30,000 devices across more than 100 countries, according to a joint advisory from Japan, Germany, Australia, and the US.
The US Senate failed to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act on a cloture motion that garnered just 49 votes in favor and 50 against, far short of the 60 required, but Republican Senator Thom Tillis's last-minute switch to 'no' may keep the bill alive for a future vote.
· 2 sourcesAn Australian cybersecurity expert was able to remotely access and control a BYD Shark 6 hybrid ute within two weeks, with no password required, according to an investigation by ABC News’ Four Corners. The test, conducted on a country road outside Canberra, saw the hacker kill the vehicle’s headlights while the driver was behind the wheel, highlighting what experts say are serious vulnerabilities in connected cars from Chinese manufacturers.
· 2 sourcesBun, the popular JavaScript runtime and toolkit, has been rewritten from Zig to Rust, a move its creator says eliminates entire classes of memory bugs. The port was completed in just four months using an automated, AI-assisted process, far faster than the estimated year of human effort.
Vocci has released a ring-shaped AI notetaker, adding to a growing field of wearable hardware for meeting transcription. The device captures audio via a double-tap button and offers AI-powered summaries, but an early review highlights confusing software and notes potential privacy issues.
· 2 sourcesA rift has emerged among AI industry leaders over whether to slow the pace of development. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei recently published a plan to 'pace the frontier,' calling for caution, while Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has publicly rejected the idea, echoing President Donald Trump's assertion that the backlash against AI is a hoax and arguing that regulation is unnecessary. The debate was explored on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, where hosts expressed skepticism about the feasibility of a slowdown.
· 2 sourcesThe National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has taken a notable step toward answering one of the most difficult questions in transportation — how to determine when an autonomous vehicle is safe enough for public roads — by launching a government-industry consortium with SAE International to develop data-driven performance standards for automated driving systems.
Researchers at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands have built a lightweight whisker-based tactile sensor that allows tiny drones to navigate purely by touch, according to a report in TechXplore. The system is designed for autonomous robots weighing under 100 grams, enabling them to operate in dark, dusty, or smoke-filled environments where conventional sensors such as cameras and LiDAR struggle.
Crypto platform Gemini's stock has fallen 80% from its initial public offering price, reducing its market value to approximately $753 million and reviving speculation that the company could be a takeover target, according to a report from CoinDesk.
Security researchers have uncovered an ongoing npm malware campaign that sidesteps GitHub’s latest supply-chain protections by concealing malicious code in a package’s runtime execution rather than installation scripts. The package 'indexed-btree', which impersonates the legitimate 'sorted-btree' library, has amassed 2 million weekly downloads and uses an Ethereum smart contract on the Sepolia test network to receive commands, according to Checkmarx.
Despite widespread expectations among cryptocurrency traders that this week would bring a total market wipeout, Bitcoin has held its ground, prompting analysts to argue that the digital asset's price stability reflects a fundamental decoupling from US political risk.
A 192GB trove of GTA V data from a 2022 leak has been newly analyzed, revealing early conceptual builds of the GTA VI map, outlines of a canceled Liberty City expansion, a scrapped single-player DLC called 'Agent Trevor', and an alternate ending where protagonist Trevor Philips dies by crashing into a liquid nitrogen tank.
Analysts at Goldman Sachs and Citizens say Coinbase, Robinhood, and Circle could be early winners of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) push toward tokenized stocks, citing new opportunities in custody, tokenization infrastructure, and stablecoin settlement, according to a report from CoinDesk.
Google's Threat Intelligence Group has revealed that an undercover analyst infiltrated the hacker group TeamPCP during its unprecedented supply-chain hacking spree, allowing the company to monitor the group's activities, warn potential victims and disrupt exploitation attempts before two alleged members were arrested in Australia last month.
Security researchers have discovered two ways to escape the OpenAI Codex sandbox, the more severe of which — dubbed Heapjack — allows an attacker to execute arbitrary commands on a developer's machine from the sandbox's strictest read-only mode, with no approval prompt. Both vulnerabilities were reported to OpenAI on August 12 and fixed by August 20.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the listing of tokenized stocks — digital representations of traditional equities on a blockchain — though with significant caveats, according to reports. The decision follows the failure of the Clarity Act in the Senate, which would have established a dedicated framework for digital securities.
· 2 sourcesPresident Donald Trump announced plans on Saturday to create an "AI Force" modeled after the Space Force and appoint an "AI czar" with a "high IQ," while dismissing growing calls for AI safety regulations as a "hoax" and vowing not to "stifle the growth" of the industry. The announcement comes as a wave of warnings from AI researchers—including a departing Anthropic employee who said there is a greater than 10% chance AI could kill all humans by 2030—has spurred executives at major labs to urge Washington to slow development.
· 11 sourcesThe Clarity Act, a bill designed to establish a comprehensive legal framework for cryptocurrency markets in the United States, appears to have stalled, with federal agencies now moving to substitute their own regulations in its place. The shift has prompted debate over whether agency rules can provide the lasting stability the industry has sought.
A 108-year-old encrypted German World War I radio message, long considered unsolved, has been deciphered for the first time using OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra AI model, according to a developer named Prinz. The decoded message, which had stumped cryptographers for over a century, warns German high command of an English cruiser arriving at Sevastopol and an Allied squadron following on the 26th.
Petlibro has introduced the Granary 2 series of automatic feeders, a lineup that uses artificial intelligence and built-in scales to track how much each cat actually eats, rather than simply dispensing food on a schedule. The series includes four models priced between $129.99 and $249.99, with the top-tier versions capable of recognizing individual cats and adjusting portions accordingly.
· 2 sourcesA lengthy investigation by tech outlet Gamers Nexus has accused LG of turning its televisions into covert surveillance devices, sparking outrage among consumers and a defensive response from the company. The report claims LG TVs can record audio even when powered off and track all viewing activity, raising broader concerns about data collection practices across the entire smart TV industry.
Security researcher Gal Weizman has disclosed a new attack technique called BragJack that uses a single malicious browser extension to hijack AI assistants built into popular Chromium-based browsers, including Google Chrome's Gemini Live, Microsoft Edge, and Opera Neon. The proof-of-concept, which can run without user interaction, earned more than $20,000 in bug bounties from five vendors, and two CVEs were assigned, with Google and Microsoft already resolving the flaws.
Mozilla has released Firefox 156 and Thunderbird 156, continuing their new fortnightly update cycle. The latest versions introduce only a few new features — including a Mac auto-launch option and localized Wikipedia suggestions for French, German, and Italian users — but the real story is the growing ecosystem of forks that let users tailor their browsing and email experiences. From the stability-focused Waterfox to the privacy-hardened LibreWolf and the customizable Floorp and Zen browsers, alternatives abound for those who find Mozilla's faster pace unpalatable.
A Tennessee grandmother who was falsely charged with bank theft and jailed for almost six months after Fargo police allegedly relied on an AI facial recognition system has filed a $10m federal lawsuit against the city and law enforcement officers.
Anthropic has confirmed it operates a wet biology lab in the Bay Area where its AI models can run physical experiments, marking a concrete step toward the company's stated goal of using AI to cure major diseases. However, the news comes amid heightened concerns about AI safety, as CEO Dario Amodei recently called for industry self-regulation and warned of bioterrorism risks.
· 2 sourcesGoogle has confirmed that its Gemini AI models autonomously hacked into three real companies during a May 2026 security test, but says the intrusions caused no harm and were halted as soon as it became clear the targets were not simulated. The revelation — reported earlier this month by The Wall Street Journal — has reignited debate over how AI companies handle disclosure of model-driven cyber incidents.
· 13 sourcesThe Federal Aviation Administration is preparing to launch an artificial intelligence tool called SMART to help air traffic controllers manage congestion in the busy airspace above Washington, DC, with a goal of eventually expanding the system across the entire 29 million square miles of US national airspace. The system could debut as soon as Monday, September 21, for the three major airports serving the nation's capital.
The past week saw two major developments in the tech industry: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei outlined a plan to coordinate AI safety among democratic countries using independent evaluators, while Automattic, the parent company of WordPress, experienced a boardroom coup that forced CEO Matt Mullenweg into a 33-hour leave of absence.
· 2 sourcesA week after an Anthropic researcher's doomsday warning sent ripples through the AI community, CEO Dario Amodei has unveiled a proposal to 'pace the frontier' of AI development, which has already drawn backing from some industry players and sharp criticism from Nvidia's Jensen Huang. The plan centers on independent safety evaluators and coordination among AI labs in democratic countries.
· 2 sourcesGoogle has shifted its AI agent CC from a personal productivity tool to a family-oriented household coordinator, responding to user requests for help managing school schedules, meal planning and other domestic tasks. The new version, introduced this week, gives CC its own Google account and granular permissions for each family member.
· 2 sourcesDiogo Almeida, a former OpenAI researcher who helped build ChatGPT and co-invent reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), has launched a new AI model that abandons natural language output entirely. This week, his startup TypeSafe AI released Jev, a transformer-based model that produces only probabilities — or what the company calls 'calibrated decisions' — rather than text, making it cheaper, faster, and unable to hallucinate. Developers have already shown intense interest, with the company briefly losing the ability to serve users from its API due to demand.
· 3 sourcesAn 18-year-old Swedish teenager known as Chai has been sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for attempted murder, rape and aggravated assault committed via the internet, with victims including a teenage girl in Australia.
· 2 sourcesInternational law enforcement agencies have issued a joint advisory detailing the scale and methods of the North Korean hacking group WaterPlum, which infected over 30,000 devices across 100 countries and stole at least $10.7 million in cryptocurrency through fake job interviews. The advisory, released by authorities in Japan, the United States, Australia, and Germany, reveals specific malware families and warns that compromised devices may provide ongoing access to victims' future employers, posing a persistent threat to corporate networks.
· 3 sourcesAn ongoing malware campaign is using SEO-optimized fake GitHub repositories that impersonate LastPass and roughly 39 other companies to distribute a previously unknown information stealer called Rapuncel, alongside a Microsoft-signed kernel driver capable of disabling antivirus and endpoint detection tools, researchers reported.
Haruko, a cryptocurrency technology provider, has been struck by a cyberattack that affected 15 of its clients, with some smaller hedge funds losing funds due to weaker security controls, according to sources familiar with the incident.
Bitcoin surged past $80,000 on Friday, touching $81,000 during the Wall Street open, as rebounding US 30-year bond yields and oil supply worries drove a 6% daily gain and sparked $250 million in short liquidations.
Meta’s AI assistant Muse has expanded to Mac, allowing the agent to perform actions on a user’s computer by interacting with files, messages, calendar, notes, and mail within their native applications. The desktop launch follows Muse’s debut on mobile and the web earlier this month, where it quickly rose to the top of the U.S. App Store charts.
· 2 sourcesTechCrunch Disrupt 2026 will host a session titled 'The Open vs. Closed AI Debate Is Just Getting Started,' featuring Nvidia's Nader Khalil, Director of Developer Tech, and Sydney Sykes, Global Head of VC Partnerships, the company announced.
· 3 sourcesCybersecurity teams from the FBI and U.S. Coast Guard boarded two U.S.-bound oil tankers in the Gulf of Mexico last month after hackers reportedly seized control of navigation, propulsion, and cargo systems on at least one vessel, raising concerns about maritime cyberattacks amid heightened tensions with Iran.