Lost deliveries, shipping delays and theft on the front porch have become such growing problems that companies are making consumers pay for package protection. From a report: Tens of thousands of online retailers now offer the service for a few dollars per order. The fees go to young companies -- Route and Corso, to name two -- that promise to make customers whole without charging the merchant if a delivery doesn't arrive. Consumers are finding that retailers either ask them to pay for package protection or draw a harder line when it comes to replacing a missing item. Some retailers are making the fees mandatory, spreading the burden of package theft among all customers. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft has published a year in review for its Edge browser and talked up AI-powered chats while lightly skipping over the software's stagnating market share. The company had some big numbers to share. There had been over 10 billion AI-powered chats with Copilot from inside the Edge browser window (although it did not disclose how many chats were customers asking how to install Chrome). Some 38 trillion characters had been auto-translated. Seven trillion megabytes of PC memory had been saved through the use of sleeping tabs. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Apple may be worth one and a half Googles now, but the world's most valuable company needs its relationship with the world's largest search engine to keep clicking. From a report: Such was evident Monday when Apple filed papers seeking to participate in the penalty phase of the Justice Department's antitrust case against Google. The search giant lost that case in August and is now battling the government over what remedies are appropriate. The DOJ has a long wish list that includes breaking the company up, forcing Google to make key search and user data available to potential rivals, and stopping the payments Google makes to partners such as Apple. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Modern LED headlights are significantly brighter and more glaring than traditional halogen bulbs, creating dangerous driving conditions, lighting experts report. The newer lights produce an intense, concentrated beam that is bluer and more disorienting, particularly affecting older drivers. "Headlights are getting brighter, smaller and bluer. All three of those things increase a particular kind of glare. It's called discomfort glare," said Daniel Stern, chief editor of Driving Vision News.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Software development is entering an "autopilot era" with AI coding assistants, but the industry needs to prepare for full autonomy, argues former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor. Drawing parallels with self-driving cars, he suggests the role of software engineers will evolve from code authors to operators of code-generating machines. Taylor, a board member of OpenAI and who once rewrote Google Maps over a weekend, calls for new programming systems, languages, and verification methods to ensure AI-generated code remains robust and secure. From his post: In the Autonomous Era of software engineering, the role of a software engineer will likely transform from being the author of computer code to being the operator of a code generating machine. What is a computer programming system built natively for that workflow? ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

The annual defense policy bill signed by President Joe Biden Monday evening allocates $3 billion to help telecom firms remove and replace insecure equipment in response to recent incursions by Chinese-linked hackers. From a report: The fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act outlines Pentagon policy and military budget priorities for the year and also includes non-defense measures added as Congress wrapped up its work in December. The $895 billion spending blueprint passed the Senate and House with broad bipartisan support. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

They gave it the old college try, but America's elite universities are facing money problems partly of their own creation.ÂFrom a report: It might not seem that way compared with the broader world of U.S. higher education. Ivy League institutions and a handful in a similar orbit like Stanford, Duke and the University of Chicago aren't just blessed to have international cachet and their pick of excellent students and professors -- they also have the most money and the richest alumni. By contrast, public and especially smaller private colleges and universities are cutting staff and programs. Many are closing outright. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Boston Globe: Every weekday morning at 8:30, Preston Thorpe makes himself a cup of instant coffee and opens his laptop to find the coding tasks awaiting his seven-person team at Unlocked Labs. Like many remote workers, Thorpe, the nonprofit's principal engineer, works out in the middle of the day and often stays at his computer late into the night. But outside Thorpe's window, there's a soaring chain-link fence topped with coiled barbed wire. And at noon and 4 p.m. every day, a prison guard peers into his room to make sure he's where he's supposed to be at the Mountain View Correctional Facility in Charleston, Maine, where he's serving his 12th year for two drug-related convictions in New Hampshire, including intent to distribute synthetic opioids.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

A new study reveals that the widely accepted "sophomore slump" phenomenon -- where a band's second album is perceived as significantly worse than the first -- exists primarily in professional critics' reviews, not fan ratings. Researchers suggest this bias stems from social conformity among critics, while fans provide more consistent and reliable evaluations across albums. "If every music critic has heard of a sophomore slump and everyone knows it happens, they might be convinced to over-apply it in their reviews," said Gregory Webster, Ph.D., the R. David Thomas Endowed Professor of Psychology at the University of Florida and co-author of the new study. "We suspect it's a kind of social conformity, which we see in a lot of social groups." Phys.Org reports: Webster and his co-author, University of Hannover Professor of Educational Science Lysann Zander, Ph.D., analyzed thousands of albums rated by professional critics and amateur fans. Both critics and fans said that bands' albums generally got worse over time.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

NASA's Parker Solar Probe made a historic approach on Christmas Eve, flying within 3.8 million miles of the Sun at a record-breaking speed of 430,000 mph. It marks humanity's closest encounter with a star. Live Science reports: Mission control cannot communicate with the probe during this rendezvous due to its vicinity to the sun, and will only know how the spacecraft fared in the early hours of Dec. 27 after a beacon signal confirms both the flyby's success and the overall state of the spacecraft. Images gathered during the flyby will beam home in early January, followed by scientific data later in the month when the probe swoops further away from the sun, Nour Rawafi, who is the project scientist for the mission, told reporters at the Annual Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) earlier this month.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

An AI system has outperformed human experts in distinguishing between American whiskey and Scotch, achieving 100% accuracy by identifying subtle differences in the chemical composition of the spirits. New Scientist reports: Andreas Grasskamp at the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging IVV in Germany and his colleagues trained an AI molecular odor prediction algorithm called OWSum on descriptions of different whiskies. Then, in a study involving 16 samples -- nine types of Scotch whisky and seven types of American bourbon or whiskey -- they tasked OWSum with telling drinks from the two nations apart based on keyword descriptions of their flavors, such as flowery, fruity, woody or smoky. Using these alone, the AI could tell which country a drink came from with almost 94 per cent accuracy.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Researchers at the University of Toronto have experimentally observed "negative time" in photon interactions with atoms, suggesting a measurable effect rather than an illusion. The researchers stress that these findings, posted on the preprint server arXiv, don't imply time travel. Phys.Org reports: The experiments, conducted in a cluttered basement laboratory bristling with wires and aluminum-wrapped devices, took over two years to optimize. The lasers used had to be carefully calibrated to avoid distorting the results. [...] The explanation lies in quantum mechanics, where particles like photons behave in fuzzy, probabilistic ways rather than following strict rules.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware: Although Samsung Foundry is a major chip contract manufacturer, the South Korean government mulls creating a government-funded contract chipmaker tentatively called Korea Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, KSMC, reports The Korea Biz Wire. Industry experts and academics have proposed the initiative.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

In 2024, North Korean state-sponsored hackers stole $1.34 billion in cryptocurrency across 47 attacks, marking a 102.88% increase from 2023 and accounting for 61% of global crypto theft. BleepingComputer reports: Although the total number of incidents in 2024 reached a record-breaking 303, the total losses figure isn't unprecedented, as 2022 remains the most damaging year with $3.7 billion. Chainalysis says most of the incidents this year occurred between January and July, during which 72% of the total amount for 2024 was stolen. The report highlights the DMM Bitcoin hack from May, where over $305 million was lost, and the WazirX cyberheist from July, which resulted in the loss of $235 million.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: More than 140 Facebook content moderators have been diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder caused by exposure to graphic social media content including murders, suicides, child sexual abuse and terrorism. The moderators worked eight- to 10-hour days at a facility in Kenya for a company contracted by the social media firm and were found to have PTSD, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and major depressive disorder (MDD), by Dr Ian Kanyanya, the head of mental health services at Kenyatta National hospital in Nairobi. The mass diagnoses have been made as part of lawsuit being brought against Facebook's parent company, Meta, and Samasource Kenya, an outsourcing company that carried out content moderation for Meta using workers from across Africa.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

The UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) warns that while most adults recognize the importance of wiping personal data from old devices, nearly 30% don't know how, and a significant number of young people either don't care or find it too cumbersome. The Register reports: Clearing personal data off an old device is an important step before ditching it or handing it on to another user. However, almost three in ten (29 percent) of adults don't know how to remove the information, according to a survey of 2,170 members of the UK public. Seventy-one percent agreed that wiping a device was important, but almost a quarter (24 percent) reckoned it was too arduous. This means that the drawer of dusty devices is set to swell -- three-quarters of respondents reported hanging on to at least one old device, and a fifth did so because they were worried about their personal information. [...]... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

El Salvador secured a $1.4 billion loan deal with the IMF after agreeing to scale back its bitcoin policies, making cryptocurrency acceptance voluntary for businesses and limiting public sector involvement. The deal aims to stabilize the country's economy, with bitcoin's recent rally boosting the value of El Salvador's holdings. The BBC reports: In 2021, El Salvador became the first country in the world to make bitcoin legal tender. This week, the cryptocurrency briefly hit a fresh record high of more than $108,000.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: In a landmark ruling, the Court of Milan has ordered (PDF) Cloudflare to block pirate streaming services that offer Serie A football matches. The court found that Cloudflare's services are instrumental in facilitating access to live pirate streams, undermining Italy's 'Piracy Shield' legislation. The order, which applies in Italy, affects Cloudflare's CDN, DNS resolver, WARP and proxy services. It also includes a broad data disclosure section. [...]... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

The UK Post Office has appointed Paul Anastassi as interim CTO amid efforts to replace its controversial Horizon IT system, which led to hundreds of wrongful convictions of subpostmasters due to software errors since 1999.

The appointment, the news of which an anonymous reader shared, comes as the Post Office grapples with its $1.25 billion over-budget New Branch IT project, which was recently paused after being deemed "unachievable" in a government report. The organization is reportedly considering purchasing the Horizon system from Fujitsu while combining it with in-house and commercial software solutions.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Mass game shutdowns and service terminations marked 2024 as a pivotal year for digital ownership concerns in the gaming industry. PC Gamer adds: The arguments have been around forever, but they've been made concrete by the simple fact that, over the last decade in particular, we've seen more and more games simply disappear. And we're not talking about obscure hobbyist projects, but seriously big budget titles that companies have spent millions developing, and hundreds of devs have spent years of their careers on. Sony's Concord shooter lasted only 11 days before closure, while Ubisoft's decade-old The Crew became unplayable in April, sparking the Stop Killing Games campaign. The movement, which has gathered over 400,000 signatures, aims to pressure EU regulators to ban publishers from rendering multiplayer games inoperable.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

An anonymous reader shares a report: Over the past year, OpenAI has dropped not-so-subtle hints about its revived interest in robotics: investing in startups developing hardware and software for robots such as Figure and Physical Intelligence and rebooting its internal robotics software team, which it had disbanded four years ago. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

The video game industry faced unprecedented turmoil in 2024, with layoffs reaching record levels and exceeding 2023's total of 10,000 jobs lost by 40%. Major studios including Microsoft's Arkane Austin and Sony's Firewalk were shuttered, while indie developers struggled to secure funding amid the downturn. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Apple has long avoided directly purchasing Nvidia's chips and is now developing its own AI server chip with Broadcom, aiming for production by 2026, The Information reported Tuesday, shedding broader light on why the two companies don't get along so well.

The relationship deteriorated after a 2001 meeting where Steve Jobs accused Nvidia of copying technology from Pixar, which he then controlled. Relations worsened in 2008 when Nvidia's faulty graphics chips forced Apple to extend MacBook warranties without full compensation. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

ASUS computer owners have been reporting widespread alarm after a Christmas-themed banner suddenly appeared on their Windows 11 screens, accompanied by a suspicious "Christmas.exe" process in Task Manager.

The promotional campaign, first reported by WindowsLatest, was delivered through ASUS' pre-installed Armoury Crate software. It displays a large wreath banner that covers one-third of users' screens. The unbranded holiday display, which can interrupt gaming sessions and occasionally crashes applications, has triggered security concerns among users who initially mistook it for malware.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Contractors working to improve Google's Gemini AI are comparing its answers against outputs produced by Anthropic's competitor model Claude, TechCrunch reported Tuesday, citing internal correspondence. From the report: Google would not say, when reached by TechCrunch for comment, if it had obtained permission for its use of Claude in testing against Gemini. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Arizona's Maricopa County is set to become the nation's second-largest data center hub by 2028, as the state grapples with surging electricity demands and infrastructure challenges. The county has approved at least 20 new data center projects, trailing only Virginia's Loudoun County in scale. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

A consortium of investors has resurrected Lilium just days after the electric air taxi startup ceased operations and laid off about 1,000 employees. From a report: Mobile Uplift Corporation, a company set up by investors from Europe and North America, has agreed to acquire the operating assets of the startup's two subsidiaries, Lilium GmbH and Lilium eAircraft GmbH, per an announcement Tuesday. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Research finds people who have more than four coffees a day have 17% lower chance of head and neck cancers. From a report: If the only thing getting you through a mountain of present-wrapping is a mug of tea or coffee, be of good cheer. Researchers have found people who consume those drinks have a slightly lower risk of head and neck cancers. There are about 12,800 new head and neck cancer cases and about 4,100 related deaths in the UK every year, according to Cancer Research UK. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

A group of banks and business groups are suing the Federal Reserve over the annual bank stress tests. From a report: The Bank Policy Institute, which represents big banks like JPMorgan, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, is joining the American Bankers Association, the Ohio Bankers League, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to file the suit, which they said aims to "resolve longstanding legal violations by subjecting the stress test process to public input as required by federal law." ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Netflix has sued Broadcom in California federal court, accusing the chipmaker's cloud computing subsidiary VMware of violating its patent rights in virtual machines. From a report: The lawsuit said VMware's cloud software infringes five Netflix patents covering aspects of operating virtual machines. Broadcom and Netflix have been embroiled in a separate patent dispute since 2018 over Netflix's alleged infringement of Broadcom patents related to video streaming technology, with cases in California, Germany and the Netherlands.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is suing Walmart and payroll service provider Branch Messenger for alleged illegal payment practices for gig workers. The bureau says Walmart was opening direct deposit accounts using Spark delivery drivers' social security numbers without their consent. The accounts also can come with intense fees that, according to the complaint, would add either 2 percent or $2.99 per transaction, whichever is higher. It also says Walmart repeatedly promised to provide drivers with same-day payments through the platform starting in July 2021 but never delivered on that.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

A new study finds that polymer-based commercial tea bags release billions of nanoplastics and microplastics when infused. It also shows for the first time that these particles are capable of being absorbed by human intestinal cells, entering the bloodstream, and potentially affecting human health. The study by the Mutagenesis Group of the UAB Department of Genetics and Microbiology has been published in the journal Chemosphere. Medical Xpress reports: The tea bags used for the research were made from the polymers nylon-6, polypropylene and cellulose. The study shows that, when brewing tea, polypropylene releases approximately 1.2 billion particles per milliliter, with an average size of 136.7 nanometers; cellulose releases about 135 million particles per milliliter, with an average size of 244 nanometers; while nylon-6 releases 8.18 million particles per milliliter, with an average size of 138.4 nanometers. To characterize the different types of particles present in the infusion, a set of advanced analytical techniques such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), dynamic light scattering (DLS), laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV), and nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA) were used.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

fjo3 shares a report from the Washington Post: The International Space Station had to fire thrusters from a docked spacecraft last month to avoid a piece of debris that has been circling the globe for the nearly 18 years since the Chinese government blasted apart one of its own satellites in a weapons test. The evasive maneuver was the second in just six days for the space station, which has four NASA astronauts and three Russian cosmonauts aboard. That is the shortest interval ever between such actions, illustrating the slowly worsening problem of space junk in orbit. Debris is an increasingly vexing issue not only for NASA, but also for companies such as SpaceX and OneWeb seeking to protect the thousands of small satellites they send into space to provide high-speed internet. The debris cloud from China's 2007 destruction of the Fengyun 1C satellite remains one of the most persistent threats in orbit, with about 3,500 fragments still posing collision risks to spacecraft. Since 2020, the ISS has performed 15 debris-avoidance maneuvers.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Thursday, a large group of university and private industry researchers unveiled Genesis, a new open source computer simulation system that lets robots practice tasks in simulated reality 430,000 times faster than in the real world. Researchers also plan to introduce an AI agent to generate 3D physics simulations from text prompts. The accelerated simulation means a neural network for piloting robots can spend the virtual equivalent of decades learning to pick up objects, walk, or manipulate tools during just hours of real computer time.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

PCWorld's Jon Phillips pays tribute to Gordon Mah Ung, "our hardware guru, host of The Full Nerd, exemplary tech journalist, and very good friend." He passed away over the weekend after a hard-fought battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 58. From the report: With more than 25 years' experience covering computer tech broadly and computer chips specifically, Gordon's dogged reporting, one-of-a-kind personality, and commitment to journalistic standards touched many, many lives. He will be profoundly missed by co-workers, industry sources, and the PC enthusiasts who read his words and followed him as a video creator.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Researchers at Northwestern University have successfully achieved quantum teleportation over a standard fiber optic cable carrying regular internet traffic, demonstrating that quantum and classical communication can coexist on existing infrastructure. The research has been published in the journal Optica. TechSpot reports: Nobody thought it would be possible to achieve this, according to Professor Prem Kumar, who led the study. "Our work shows a path towards next-generation quantum and classical networks sharing a unified fiber optic infrastructure. Basically, it opens the door to pushing quantum communications to the next level." "By performing a destructive measurement on two photons -- one carrying a quantum state and one entangled with another photon -- the quantum state is transferred onto the remaining photon, which can be very far away," said Jordan Thomas, a Ph.D. candidate in Kumar's laboratory and the paper's first author. "The photon itself does not have to be sent over long distances, but its state still ends up encoded onto the distant photon."... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Vietnam's Decree 147 mandates social media users on platforms like Facebook and TikTok to verify their identities and requires tech companies to store and share user data with authorities upon request, sparking concerns over increased censorship, self-censorship, and threats to free expression. Furthermore, the decree imposes restrictions on gaming time for minors and limits livestreaming to verified accounts. It becomes effective on Christmas Day. The Guardian reports: Decree 147, as it is known, builds on a 2018 cybersecurity law that was sharply criticized by the US, EU and internet freedom advocates who said it mimics China's repressive internet censorship. [...] Critics say that decree 147 will also expose dissidents who post anonymously to the risk of arrest. "Many people work quietly but effectively in advancing the universal values of human rights," Ho Chi Minh City-based blogger and rights activist Nguyen Hoang Vi told AFP.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Health care company Ascension lost sensitive data for nearly 5.6 million individuals in a cyberattack that was attributed to a notorious ransomware gang, according to documents filed with the attorney general of Maine. Ascension owns 140 hospitals and scores of assisted living facilities. In May, the organization was hit with an attack that caused mass disruptions as staff was forced to move to manual processes that caused errors, delayed or lost lab results, and diversions of ambulances to other hospitals. Ascension managed to restore most services by mid-June. At the time, the company said the attackers had stolen protected health information and personally identifiable information for an undisclosed number of people.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Since 2021, Apple has been sending threat notifications to certain users, informing them that they may have been individually targeted by mercenary spyware attacks. When victims of spyware reach out to Apple for help, TechCrunch reports, "Apple doesn't tell the targets to get in touch with its own security engineers." Instead, Apple directs them to the nonprofit security lab Access Now, "which runs a digital helpline for people in civil society who suspect they have been targets of government spyware."... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

The Biden administration has launched a Section 301 investigation into China's semiconductor industry, citing concerns over non-market practices, supply chain dependencies, and national security risks. The Hill reports: In a fact sheet, the White House said China "routinely engages in non-market policies and practices, as well as industrial targeting, of the semiconductor industry" that harms competition and creates "dangerous supply chain dependencies."... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Once an icon of the 20th century seen as obsolete in the 21st, Encyclopedia Britannica -- now known as just Britannica -- is all in on artificial intelligence, and may soon go public at a valuation of nearly $1 billion, according to the New York Times.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Sweden has accused China of denying a request for Swedish prosecutors to board a Chinese ship that has been linked to the cutting of two undersea cables in the Baltic despite Beijing pledging "cooperation" with regional authorities. From a report: The Yi Peng 3 left the waters it had been anchored in since last month on Saturday -- despite an ongoing investigation. The ship was tracked sailing over the two fibre-optic cables, one between Sweden and Lithuania, and the other linking Helsinki and Germany, at around the time that they were cut on 17 and 18 November in Swedish territorial waters close to the Swedish islands of Gotland and Oland. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

A rare Sony KX-45ED1 television, considered the world's largest CRT TV, has been preserved from destruction in Japan, marking a significant moment for gaming history preservation. The 440-pound display was salvaged from an Osaka restaurant days before its scheduled demolition, following a two-week international rescue operation. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

An anonymous reader shares a report: The Department of Justice's list of solutions for fixing Google's illegal antitrust behavior and restoring competition in the search engine market started with forcing the company to sell Chrome, and late Friday night, Google responded with a list of its own. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Lilium, once a darling in the nascent industry of electric aircraft that raised more than $1 billion before going public, has ceased operations and laid off about 1,000 workers after efforts to gain financing and exit insolvency failed. From a report: Lilium co-founder and CEO Patrick Nathen confirmed on LinkedIn that the 10-year-old company had stopped operating. "After 10 years and 10 months, it is a sad fact that Lilium has ceased operations. The company that Daniel, Sebastian, Matthias and I founded can no longer pursue our shared belief in more environmentally friendly aviation. This is heartbreaking and the timing feels painfully ironic," wrote Nathen. The layoffs cover the bulk of the company's workforce and come a few days after about 200 workers were let go, according to a regulatory filing on December 16.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

An anonymous reader shares a report: A lawyer defending an alleged distributor of Anom, the encrypted phone company for criminals that the FBI secretly ran and backdoored to intercept tens of millions of messages, is pushing to learn the identity of the confidential human source (CHS) who first created Anom and provided it to the FBI starting the largest sting operation in history, according to recently filed court records. The government says it will provide that identity under discovery, but the CHS may also be revealed in open court if they testify. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Meta plans to add displays to its Ray-Ban smart glasses as soon as next year, Financial Times reports, as the US tech giant accelerates its plans to build lightweight headsets that can usurp the smartphone as consumers' main computing device. Financial Times: The $1.5tn social media group is planning to add a screen inside the $300 sunglasses it makes and sells in partnership with eyewear group EssilorLuxottica, according to people familiar with the plans. The updated Ray-Bans could be released as early as the second half of 2025, the people said. The small display would be likely to be used to show notifications or responses from Meta's virtual assistant. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

A U.S. judge has ruled that Israeli spyware maker NSO Group breached hacking laws by using WhatsApp to infect devices with its Pegasus spyware. From a report: In a historic ruling on Friday, a Northern California federal judge held NSO Group liable for targeting the devices of 1,400 WhatsApp users, violating state and federal hacking laws as well as WhatsApp's terms of service, which prohibit the use of the messaging platform for malicious purposes. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Honda sketched plans for a drawn-out deal that amounts to a takeover of Nissan in all but name, as Japan's automakers struggle to keep up in an increasingly competitive global car industry. From a report: The two announced a tentative agreement Monday to set up a joint holding company that will aim to list shares in August 2026. While their executives called the transaction a merger, Honda will take the lead in forming the new entity and nominate a majority of its directors. ... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies

Xerox has agreed to acquire printer maker Lexmark for $1.5 billion, bringing the Kentucky-based company back under U.S. ownership after seven years of Chinese control.

The deal, announced Monday, will be financed through cash and debt, creating a vertically integrated printing equipment manufacturer and service provider. Lexmark, formed from IBM in 1991, was previously acquired by Chinese investors including Ninestar for $2.54 billion in 2016. The merger comes as Xerox faces declining equipment sales and a 50% year-to-date stock drop, with its market value at just over $1 billion.... [ Read it >> ]

0 Replies