This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on cars, data privacy, and autonomous vehicles, follow Andrew J. Hawkins. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started Earlier this year, the Federal Trade Commission ..
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 143, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, new tech season is here, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I’ve been devouring every iPhone Duo video I can find, clicking on ..
There is something wrong with the tractor. The water-in-fuel sensor, a small device embedded in the John Deere machine that monitors the integrity of its diesel engine, is disconnected. And I’ve got to fix it. I’m not a mechanic or a farmer. I’m poking at a laptop at John Deere’s corporate office in Santa Clara, ..
Blizzard originally tried to bring the StarCraft universe to the world of 3D shooters way back in 2002 with StarCraft: Ghost. It sat in development hell for years until Blizzard president Mike Morhaime confirmed that it had been canceled in 2014. Now Blizzard is giving it another go with the simply titled StarCraft. Dan Hay, ..
Un giorno lo specchio restituisce qualcosa che fino a poco tempo prima non c’era: rughe più visibili, capelli diversi, un corpo cambiato dopo una gravidanza, una malattia o una variazione di peso. A volte basta una fotografia, un commento poco delicato o il confronto con una persona più giovane per trasformare quel cambiamento in una ..
Multiple espionage groups have been using a new exploit kit dubbed BlueMoon in seemingly opportunistic and rushed deployments, cybersecurity firm Proofpoint reports. The China-linked APT Violet Typhoon (also tracked as APT31, JungleBamboo, TA412, and Tide Castle) was the first to use it on August 28. Within days, several other Chinese threat actors started using it, ..
On a sunny morning in June, I walked to work with a quadruped robot beside me. I’ve never gotten more attention from strangers. A bunch of people snapped pictures of my robot dog. Several people asked me questions. Was it mine? (Yes.) Did I build it? (No.) Was it being used for surveillance? (No.) Biological ..
Anthropic says Claude users in northern Yemen, territory controlled by Iran-backed Houthi rebels, tried to use the AI model to develop advanced missiles. AI is already transforming warfare from Ukraine to Gaza, and its use on a rugged and remote battlefield is likely to increase concerns about its rapid spread. Anthropic said the users of ..
If you ask most satellite companies aside from SpaceX, they will tell you the world doesn’t have enough capacity for launching payloads into orbit. This is despite the blistering launch cadence we’ve seen around the world in recent years, led by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. Customers in any sector will, of course, usually welcome competition. ..
Games may be life with all the hard bits removed, but they provide a way to study why people make the choices they make. Traditional games are usually played against a static background: the rewards per outcome are constant. That limits their relevance to behavior because, in real life, the rewards and consequences of strategic ..
