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2288 articles · page 44 of 48 · The Tech front page

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AI

Anthropic unveils standardized drivers to let AI agents control physical devices

Anthropic has released a research preview of the Model Hardware Standard (MHS), a set of standardized software drivers designed to allow AI agents to directly interface with and control physical devices such as lasers, microscopes, and cameras. The company says the system could reduce the setup time for complex scientific experiments from weeks or months to hours or minutes, offering a glimpse at a future in which AI can orchestrate real-world equipment as easily as it processes text or code.

Programming

Omarchy Linux Distro Gains $10M Foundation Backing Amid Security Controversy

The Omarchy Linux distribution, an opinionated Arch Linux respin created by Ruby on Rails founder David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), has secured $10 million in funding through the newly launched Omacom Foundation, backed by prominent figures from Shopify, Stripe, Dell, Block, Cloudflare, and others. However, the distro continues to attract harsh criticism over security concerns, with some experts warning users not to run it if they value system integrity.

Hardware & Devices

Hugging Face's Pollen Robotics unveils $399 Microduck robot for AI training

Pollen Robotics, a subsidiary of AI model hosting platform Hugging Face, has announced the Microduck, a $399 bipedal robot duck designed to teach users about hardware AI and machine learning. Standing just 25 cm tall and weighing 800 grams, the robot comes with an open-source software stack, onboard sensors, and a simulation environment for reinforcement learning, but its hardware is not open source. The announcement comes amid reports that Nvidia is in talks to acquire Hugging Face for approximately $13 billion.

AI

Google’s Gemini Notebook lets users ‘talk’ to books with new Expert Intelligence feature

Google has launched a new feature for its AI note-taking app, Gemini Notebook, that allows users to interact directly with books purchased from Google Play Books. Dubbed “Expert Intelligence,” the tool enables users to ask questions about the material, generate infographics, create recipe books, or produce AI-generated podcasts based on the content of selected titles, marking a significant expansion of the app’s capabilities beyond user-uploaded documents.

Security

AI companion review site Intimeros exposed internal data on unsecured test server for three weeks

Intimeros, a website that rates and reviews AI companions including chatbots designed as boyfriends and girlfriends, inadvertently exposed unpublished reviews, pricing, and editorial notes to the public for three weeks after a colleague disabled password protection on a test version of the site. The staging site was indexed by Google, making sensitive editorial strategy visible to competitors and anyone who stumbled upon it.

AI

AI Industry Warns Trump’s Planned Semiconductor Tariffs Could ‘Doom’ U.S. Innovation

The Trump administration is reportedly preparing a sweeping expansion of semiconductor tariffs that could cover not only chips but also finished goods like gaming consoles and data center servers, sparking sharp warnings from the AI industry that the move would cripple U.S. innovation. According to a Politico report published Thursday, at least eight people familiar with the administration’s plans said the tariffs could be imposed in the coming weeks or months, with a framework that might dramatically expand the number of tech products subject to duties.

Programming

Google to Enforce Memory-Usage Limits on Android Apps, Citing Hardware Constraints and AI Pressure

Google has announced it will begin actively enforcing memory-usage restrictions on Android apps via the Play Store, a direct response to growing hardware constraints and the increased memory demands of AI-powered features. The policy, initially introduced with Android 17, will now carry consequences for developers who fail to meet the limits, according to a memo published by the company.

AI

AI-Generated 'Ghost Authors' Haunt Academic Publishing, New Research Finds

A new preprint from Samsung and the University of Warsaw has identified a disturbing contamination of academic publishing: hundreds of papers, books, and articles are co-authored by AI-generated 'ghost' personas—names like Elena Vasquez and Marcus Chen that do not correspond to real people but are consistently produced by large language models (LLMs) when asked to generate expert names. The phenomenon, detailed in a paper on arXiv, highlights how AI models' tendency to default to the same fictitious identities is polluting the scholarly record, with one of these ghost names even appearing as the founder of a company found to be entirely AI-generated.

AI

Tech Giants and AI Startups Urge Action Against Rogue AI Threats, Propose New Defenses

Over 100 of the world's leading tech companies and AI startups — including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google — have issued a collective call to action, warning that existing cybersecurity safeguards are inadequate to defend against a new wave of threats posed by rogue AI systems. The group has also unveiled a proposed set of defensive measures they argue are essential to protect against emerging AI-powered attacks.

· 2 sources
AI

Cocomelon Studio Moonbug Tells Animators to Experiment with AI, With Guardrails

Moonbug Entertainment, the studio behind the massively popular children's shows Cocomelon and Blippi, has instructed its animators to begin using artificial intelligence in their work, according to internal documents obtained by 404 Media. The company's Generative AI policy and 'Studio AI Bible' outline a phased, cautious approach that keeps humans in the loop and prohibits AI from originating key creative elements such as characters, storylines, and song lyrics.

Security

AI coding agents tricked into installing malicious packages via website text files

Security researchers have discovered that AI coding agents including Anthropic's Claude, OpenAI's Codex, and Nous Research's Hermes automatically install unowned code referenced in llms.txt files on corporate websites, creating a dangerous new attack vector. Within an hour of registering a handful of unclaimed package names, researchers received callbacks from a Fortune 500 company, and over time dozens more – including from other Fortune 500 firms and startups – responded. One misconfigured site was found to be directing visitors to live malware.

Security

AI-Agent Swarm Hits 395 Organizations via PaperCut Flaws as Zero-Day Attacks Surge Across Chrome, SonicWall

In a dramatic escalation of automated cyberattacks, a threat actor using hundreds of AI agents exploited PaperCut NG/MF vulnerabilities to compromise 395 organizations across 48 countries, while Google and SonicWall separately warned of new zero-day flaws being actively exploited in the wild. The coordinated warnings underscore a rapid shift toward AI-driven and chained exploit tactics targeting enterprise and government networks.

· 5 sources
Tech

Rising Tide of Vandalism Targets Flock Surveillance Cameras as Public Backlash Intensifies

A growing wave of direct action against Flock Safety's automated license plate recognition cameras is sweeping the United States, with protesters vandalizing, unplugging, and physically blocking the devices in what participants describe as a nonviolent stand against mass surveillance. The movement, which lacks a central leadership, has already led to several arrests but shows no signs of abating.

AI

OpenClaw's Viral Success: Open-Source AI Project Faces Flood of 'Prompt Requests' as Maintainers Grapple with Security and Scale

OpenClaw, an open-source personal AI assistant that runs on users' own devices, has exploded from a weekend project in November 2025 to a GitHub repository boasting roughly 388,000 stars, 81,000 forks, and over 80,000 commits by August 2026, according to the GitHub Blog. In a video interview, creator Peter Steinberger and key maintainers describe managing a deluge of pull requests—many generated by automated AI agents—and share security lessons from the GitHub Secure Open Source Fund.

Security

Australia Arrests Two Alleged TeamPCP Hackers Behind Developer Supply Chain Attacks

Australian federal police have arrested and charged two young men believed to be members of TeamPCP, a hacking group that has launched a series of sophisticated supply chain attacks targeting software developers worldwide. The arrests, announced on August 27, 2026, mark a significant escalation in law enforcement efforts against attackers who have compromised thousands of downstream users by poisoning popular open source packages.

Security

Manchester Airports Group data breach exposes 8.7 million customer records

Manchester Airports Group (MAG), the operator of three major UK airports, has disclosed a cyberattack that compromised the personal data of approximately 8.7 million customers, including email addresses, phone numbers, vehicle registration numbers, and postcodes. The breach affected data collected for car parking, lounge bookings, and public Wi-Fi services, though the company stated that no payment or passport information was stored on the compromised systems. MAG said it immediately contained the risk and has notified relevant authorities, while warning customers to remain vigilant against potential phishing attempts.

· 2 sources
Security

Brevard County ‘Deputy of the Year’ Resigns After Using Flock Surveillance System to Stalk Ex-Girlfriend

Brevard County deputy sheriff Michael Fultz, named Deputy of the Year in 2025, resigned after an internal investigation revealed he used the Flock automated license plate reader system to stalk his ex-girlfriend, alongside multiple incidents of sexual misconduct, racist behavior, and abuse of authority. The case underscores growing concerns about police misuse of surveillance technologies for personal purposes.

Hardware & Devices

OpenAI details Jalapeño AI accelerator at Hot Chips, claims inference gains over Nvidia Blackwell

At the Hot Chips conference, OpenAI disclosed new architectural details and performance figures for its Jalapeño inference processor, claiming the custom ASIC co-developed with Broadcom beats Nvidia's GB200 and GB300 in low-latency inference and performance-per-watt. The chip, which reached tape-out in just nine months, uses a NUMA-style spatial architecture and can scale to 2,048 accelerators delivering a combined 27 exaFLOPS of MXFP4 performance.

Crypto

Bank of England to Oversee Stablecoin Innovation in New Mandate

The Bank of England is set to receive a new innovation mandate that explicitly covers stablecoins and digital payments, signaling the UK government's push to become a global crypto hub while maintaining its traditional focus on financial stability. The move, reported by Cointelegraph, comes as part of broader regulatory reforms under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023, giving the central bank a dual role of promoting innovation and safeguarding the financial system.

Security

Cyber-Attack on Three UK Airports Exposes Data of Nearly 9 Million Customers

Manchester Airports Group (MAG) has confirmed a cyber-attack on its systems that compromised the personal data of approximately 8.7 million customers across Manchester, London Stansted, and East Midlands airports. Hackers accessed email addresses, phone numbers, vehicle registration numbers, and postcodes from bookings for car parks, lounges, fast-track services, and in-airport WiFi sign-ups. The operator has assured the public that passenger safety and flight operations remain unaffected.

· 2 sources
Hardware & Devices

Atari and Activision revive 39 classic games on physical cartridges for retro gaming enthusiasts

Atari has announced the Atari x Activision Collection, a compilation of 39 classic Activision titles released on physical cartridges, with pricing ranging from $34.99 for individual standard editions to $999.96 for the Ultimate Deluxe Set that includes all games. The collection will be rolled out in four themed batches starting November 2026, targeting retro gaming fans and collectors who value physical media in an era increasingly dominated by digital distribution.

Security

CISA Orders Federal Agencies to Patch Actively Exploited Citrix NetScaler Flaw by Saturday

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has issued an emergency directive requiring all federal civilian agencies to patch a critical remote code execution vulnerability in Citrix NetScaler appliances by Saturday, citing active exploitation in the wild. The directive, which falls under CISA's Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 22-01, gives agencies until the end of the week to apply the fix or take alternative mitigating measures to protect against ongoing attacks.

Security

Carhartt data breach exposes 12.9 million accounts, ShinyHunters group claims

The ShinyHunters extortion group has publicly released sensitive data belonging to nearly 12.9 million Carhartt customer accounts, according to data breach notification service Have I Been Pwned. The breach, which occurred earlier this month, exposes names, email addresses, and potentially other personal information, raising concerns about credential theft and targeted phishing attacks against the popular clothing retailer's customers.

Security

Perth Men Charged as Key Players in Global Cybercrime Syndicate, FBI Alleges

Two young men from Perth, Western Australia, have been charged for their alleged role in a sophisticated global cybercrime syndicate that used malicious open-source software to steal from thousands of businesses, according to the FBI. The men appeared in court this week, facing serious charges as part of an international investigation into a cybercrime network that exploited open-source code to infiltrate and rob companies around the world.

Hardware & Devices

Apple reportedly developing AirPods with cameras and smart glasses, reigniting wearable privacy debate

Apple is preparing to enter the camera-enabled wearable market with both smart glasses and AirPods equipped with integrated cameras, according to multiple reports, signalling a major push by the tech giant into a product category that has struggled to gain mainstream acceptance due to privacy and social concerns. The move comes as debate over glasses with built-in cameras continues, with industry observers suggesting Apple’s entry could normalise a technology that many consumers have so far rejected as intrusive or gimmicky.

· 3 sources
AI

Nvidia confirms $12.9B Hugging Face acquisition, pledges platform will remain open

Nvidia has confirmed it will acquire AI model-hosting platform Hugging Face for $12.93 billion, weeks after reports first emerged of the blockbuster deal. In an official announcement Thursday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang promised the platform would remain open and hardware-neutral, while Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue said the acquisition would bring the compute, support and visibility needed to scale open-source AI. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2027, pending regulatory approval.

· 20 sources