Enlarge / The Framework Laptop 13. (credit: Andrew Cunningham) Since Framework showed off its first prototypes in February 2021, we've generally been fans of the company's modular, repairable, upgradeable laptops. Not that the company's hardware releases to date have been perfect—each Framework Laptop 13 model has had quirks and …

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Avast, a name known for its security research and antivirus apps, has long offered Chrome extensions, mobile apps, and other tools aimed at increasing privacy. Avast's apps would "block annoying tracking cookies that collect data on your browsing activities," and prevent web services from "tracking …

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) A core developer of Nginx, currently the world's most popular web server, has quit the project, stating that he no longer sees it as "a free and open source project... for the public good." His fork, freenginx, is "going to be run by developers, and …

Enlarge / Cue files used to be much better-known, back when we all used CD-Rs to make legal backup copies of material that we owned outright. (credit: Getty Images) It has been a very long time since the average computer user thought about.cue files, or cue sheets, the metadata …

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images / Benj Edwards ) On Tuesday, Google announced the launch of its Duet AI assistant across its Workspace apps, including Docs, Gmail, Drive, Slides, and more. First announced in May at Google I/O, Duet has been in testing for some time, but it is now available …

Enlarge / An 8th-generation Intel Core desktop CPU, one of several CPU generations affected by the Downfall bug. (credit: Mark Walton) It's a big week for CPU security vulnerabilities. Yesterday, different security researchers published details on two different vulnerabilities, one affecting multiple generations of Intel processors and another affecting the …

Enlarge / Some people hate to hear other people's keyboards on video calls, but AI-backed side channel attackers? They say crank that gain. (credit: Getty Images) By recording keystrokes and training a deep learning model, three researchers claim to have achieved upwards of 90 percent accuracy in interpreting remote keystrokes …

Enlarge (credit: AMD) A recently disclosed bug in many of AMD's newer consumer, workstation, and server processors can cause the chips to leak data at a rate of up to 30 kilobytes per core per second, writes Tavis Ormandy, a member of Google's Project Zero security team. Executed properly …

Enlarge (credit: BeeBright/Getty Images) Hiding malicious programs in a computer’s UEFI firmware, the deep-seated code that tells a PC how to load its operating system, has become an insidious trick in the toolkit of stealthy hackers. But when a motherboard manufacturer installs its own hidden backdoor in …

Enlarge / Eufy's security arm has publicly addressed some of the most important claims about the company's local-focused systems, but those who bought into the "no clouds" claims may not be fully assured. (credit: Eufy) Eufy, the Anker brand that positioned its security cameras as prioritizing "local storage" and "No …

Enlarge / Rewind reportedly lets you search your Mac's usage history for what you've seen, said, or heard. (credit: Rewind AI) Yesterday, a company called Rewind AI announced a self-titled software product for Macs with Apple Silicon that reportedly keeps a highly compressed, searchable record of everything you do locally …

Enlarge / Rewind reportedly lets you search your Mac's usage history for what you've seen, said, or heard. (credit: Rewind AI) Yesterday, a company called Rewind AI announced a self-titled software product for Macs with Apple Silicon that reportedly keeps a highly compressed, searchable record of everything you do locally …

Enlarge / The fallout of an OpenSSL vulnerability, initially listed as "critical," should be much less severe than that of the last critical OpenSSL bug, Heartbleed. An OpenSSL vulnerability once signaled as the first critical-level patch since the Internet-reshaping Heartbleed bug has just been patched. It ultimately arrived as a …

Enlarge / CAPTCHAs are meant to prevent these kinds of browsing scenarios, not train us all to better recognize vehicles and infrastructure in grainy photos. (credit: Getty Images) Cloudflare has recently made an audacious claim: We could all be doing something better with our lives than deciding which images contain …

Enlarge (credit: https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/blinkee-city-rental-scooter-is-seen-in-warsaw-poland-on-news-photo/1031626648 ) Google and Apple have removed hundreds of apps from their app stores at the request of governments around the world, creating regional disparities in access to mobile apps at a time when many economies are becoming increasingly dependent on …

Enlarge / Supply-chain attacks, like the latest PyPi discovery, insert malicious code into seemingly functional software packages used by developers. They're becoming increasingly common. (credit: Getty Images) Researchers have discovered yet another set of malicious packages in PyPi, the official and most popular repository for Python programs and code libraries …

Enlarge (credit: Kentaroo Tryman | Getty Images ) Small businesses are cutting back marketing spending due to Apple’s sweeping privacy changes that have made it harder to target new customers online, in a growing trend that has led to billions of dollars in lost revenues for platforms like Facebook. Apple …

Enlarge / Gabriel Weinberg, creator of DuckDuckGo. (credit: Washington Post | Getty Images) At the end of April, Apple’s introduction of App Tracking Transparency tools shook the advertising industry to its core. iPhone and iPad owners could now stop apps from tracking their behavior and using their data for personalized …

Enlarge (credit: Joshua Sortino ) Telegram patched another image self-destruction bug in its app earlier this year. This flaw was a different issue from the one reported in 2019. But the researcher who reported the bug isn't pleased with Telegram's months-long turnaround time—and an offered $1,159 (€1,000 …

Enlarge / Never put a GriftHorse on your phone. (credit: John Lamparsky | Getty Images) Google has taken increasingly sophisticated steps to keep malicious apps out of Google Play. But a new round of takedowns involving about 200 apps and more than 10 million potential victims shows that this longtime problem …

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images) Apple has released several security updates this week to patch a "FORCEDENTRY" vulnerability on iOS devices. The "zero-click, zero-day" vulnerability has been actively exploited by Pegasus, a spyware app developed by the Israeli company NSO Group, which has been known to target activists …

Enlarge / The Internet is unfortunately packed full of criminals seeking to steal sexual (or sexualizable) images from privately held cloud backup accounts. (credit: 1905HKN via Getty Images / Jim Salter ) The LA Times reported this week that Los Angeles man Hao Kuo "David" Chi pled guilty to four federal felonies …

Enlarge / Pretty Good Phone Privacy wants to minimize how much your wireless provider knows about your location. (credit: Noam Galai | Getty Images) Location data sharing from wireless carriers has been a major privacy issue in recent years. Marketers, salespeople, and even bounty hunters were able to pay shadowy third-party …

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images ) Scammers have been caught using a clever sleight of hand to impersonate the website for the Brave browser and using it in Google ads to push malware that takes control of browsers and steals sensitive data. The attack worked by registering the domain xn--brav-yva[.]com …

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Venmo, the popular mobile payment service, has redesigned its app. That's normally news you could safely ignore, but this announcement is worth a closer look. In addition to making some navigational tweaks and adding new purchase protections, the PayPal-owned platform is finally shutting down its …