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AI firms must answer for rogue bots, says boss of hacked company

BBC Tech News - Fri, 07/31/2026 - 2:10pm
Clement Delangue said he didn't want cyber attacks on other companies to become "normalised".

Publishers Are Losing Google Traffic As AI Answers Replace Links

Slashdot - Fri, 07/31/2026 - 2:00pm
alternative_right shares a report from Axios: Google has basically stopped sending people to websites (including our site) for answers and information. Instead, it's using AI to answer them on its platform, in its words. Chartbeat data shared with Axios shows Google Search traffic to publishers fell 34% over the past year. That pain is regressive. Over the past two years, small publishers lost 60% of referrals from search overall, medium publishers 47%, large publishers 22%.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New York Sues Kalshi For Running 'Illegal Gambling Operation'

Slashdot - Fri, 07/31/2026 - 1:00pm
New York has sued prediction-market platform Kalshi, alleging it operates an "illegal gambling operation" without state authorization. "No matter what they call themselves, prediction markets like Kalshi are gambling platforms, plain and simple," said New York Attorney General Letitia James in a press release announcing the lawsuit. "By ignoring our laws, Kalshi is running an illegal operation and harming New Yorkers in the process." CNBC reports: In a case filed in a Manhattan state court (PDF), the lawsuit claims that Kalshi accepts wagers as a gambling business in disregard for the state's constitution and laws by not being registered with the New York State Gaming Commission. Governor Kathy Hochul in the press release said the state is taking the action to stop what it views as illegal behavior and bring the company into compliance with New York law. The lawsuit is seeking a permanent injunction against Kalshi. The suit by the state is also seeking a total restitution to users who have placed trades on the platform, a $100,000 penalty for each attempt to offer sports wagering, and another penalty three times the amount the company has gained while allegedly operating in violation of New York law. The state estimates that could total $36 billion.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chrome Is Using AI To Fix Hundreds of Bugs, Eliminate Full Browser Restarts

Slashdot - Fri, 07/31/2026 - 12:00pm
Google says AI-assisted workflows helped Chrome fix 1,072 security bugs across versions 149 and 150, more than the previous 23 releases combined. The company is also testing twice-weekly security updates and "dynamic patching," which could apply most fixes without requiring users to restart the entire browser. "By leveraging Chrome's multi-process architecture, dynamic patching sequentially replaces background child processes (like the Renderer and GPU) with updated binaries on the fly," says Google in a blog post. PiunikaWeb reports: Alongside dynamic patching, Google is rolling out smarter background updates during periods of minimal user disruption. Starting with Chrome 150 on macOS, the browser takes advantage of the operating system's windowless state. If all Chrome windows are closed but the app remains running in the background, the browser will quietly auto-restart to apply pending updates. For enterprise environments, IT admins can continue to manage fleet-wide deployments through Chrome Enterprise Core or enforce update prompts using the RelaunchNotification policy. Google's long-term vision is a browser that remains continuously protected in the background without interrupting your daily browsing session. In the meantime, you can manually trigger pending updates by clicking the update prompt in the top-right corner of Chrome.

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Steelseries Arctis Nova Pro Omni Review: For Multisystem Gamers

Wired Top Stories - Fri, 07/31/2026 - 9:21am
Its latest Pro headset can mix between four inputs and has better wireless connectivity than the originals.

LinkedIn Introduces a 'Seems Like AI Slop' Button

Slashdot - Fri, 07/31/2026 - 9:00am
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: LinkedIn, a social network awash with long AI-generated posts from executives and other corporate workers, has introduced a new button that users can click to flag if a post "seems like AI slop," according to 404 Media's own tests. If you have been anywhere near LinkedIn in the past couple of years, you have undoubtedly seen users posting blatantly AI-generated missives. Often these posts take some sort of news event, and opine on how this relates to thought leadership, or some other LinkedIn brainrot term. It's also pretty wild the button specifically uses the term "AI slop" and not, say, "It seems this was generated with AI." [...] After publication of this piece, Hari Srinivasan, chief product officer at LinkedIn, wrote their own post about the button. "AI slop is a top priority for all of us. We really care about this. People come to LinkedIn to connect with real people and share their real perspectives, ideas and expertise. Here are a few more changes to keep it that way," he wrote. The button in part will help LinkedIn tune its own models for identifying AI slop. "We are ramping up a series of new and improved classifiers that identify if a post is AI-slop or generally low-quality content. This will reduce the amount of AI slop you might see in suggested content and content from outside your network," the post said. "We are ramping the ability for members to tell us if they believe a post or comment seems like AI slop. Slop is hard to define and the definition changes; this lets us tune our models and make better feeds." Srinivasan also said LinkedIn is removing the AI-powered "enhance your post" feature with another that "proofreads your words, but does not change your voice."

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6 Best Phones With Headphone Jacks (2026), Tested and Reviewed

Wired Top Stories - Fri, 07/31/2026 - 7:00am
Headphone jacks are endangered, but they’re not gone. Here are our favorite smartphones that still let you plug and play.

Daisy One Review: Comfy and Tactile Headphones

Wired Top Stories - Fri, 07/31/2026 - 7:00am
The company’s first headphones look very stylish and have great tactile features but underwhelm on sound quality.

SJY Zeph Open-Back Headphones Review: Music Through Magnets

Wired Top Stories - Fri, 07/31/2026 - 6:30am
SJY’s Zeph are brilliant wired headphones, using flippable earcups for two different takes on your favorite music.

Netflix Sued For Losing 'Master Copy' of Unreleased Nicolas Cage Movie

Slashdot - Fri, 07/31/2026 - 5:00am
A production company and filmmaker are suing Netflix for $105 million, alleging the streamer lost a stolen drive containing an unencrypted master copy of the unreleased Nicolas Cage film Fortitude, which they claim damage its exclusivity and market value. Netflix denied responsibility for the lost film but said it takes content security seriously and has offered to monitor piracy sites for unauthorized copies. CBS News reports: The complaint filed on Wednesday in California district court alleges that the film's associate producer, Daniel Haido, hand-delivered an unencrypted master copy of the film to Netflix so the company could screen it as a potential buyer. Haido verbally instructed the employee to delete the files after the screening, according to the suit. A little over a week after the screening, Netflix emailed the filmmakers to say the drive had been stolen, the plaintiffs allege. "Someone stole a good amount of drives from our office desks this past week," a Netflix executive wrote in the email, according to the suit. The complaint notes the movie, entitled "Fortitude," took over seven years to make and cost $45 million. It tells the story of a secret mission called Operation Fortitude during World War II that was orchestrated to mislead the Nazis about the Allied invasion of Europe. The film stars Nicolas Cage as Dusko Popov, a real-life spy during World War II, as well as Sir Ben Kingsley and Ron Perlman. The plaintiffs said studios will now be dissuaded from buying the rights to the movie, knowing that a version of it could be released by a third party for free. "The film's value depended in significant part on its exclusivity as an unreleased, first-to-market work," the complaint states. "By losing control of the film, Netflix destroyed that exclusivity and materially, if not completely, impaired the film's marketability."

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As costs rise, Maine restaurants try to lure diners with deals, appeals

Portland Press Herald Business - Fri, 07/31/2026 - 4:00am
While customers watch their wallets, owners attempt to boost business however they can.

Anthropic Says Its AI Systems Broke Into Computers at 3 Organizations

Slashdot - Fri, 07/31/2026 - 1:30am
Anthropic found that Claude models breached three outside organizations during cybersecurity tests because misconfigured environments accidentally gave them access to the internet. The company notified those affected and urged other AI labs to audit their own testing systems. The BBC reports: Anthropic said in a statement that it reviewed more than 140,000 tests to find evidence that Claude - its family of AI models - could access the internet from testing environments that were designed to be sealed off. The tests include so-called "capture-the-flag" evaluations in which Claude was tasked with obtaining information by breaching other systems - a common way that experts assess a model's hacking capabilities. A "misconfiguration" on systems run by Anthropic and its testing partner left the models with live internet access, allowing them to breach other systems, the San Francisco-based firm said. Anthropic said the earliest incidents date back to April and that it is "approaching the fixes as if the responsibility were ours alone." Neither Anthropic nor the organizations that were breached had noticed the intrusions at the time. Anthropic said it could have reviewed its records more thoroughly and added that the findings gave the firm "cautious optimism" that such risks can be overcome with more investment and tighter measures. "The broader lesson is not necessarily that AI has developed a fundamentally new attack capability," cyber security expert David Allott told the BBC. "Instead, it is that AI agents can combine capabilities, obtain credentials and system access to take actions autonomously, while adapting scope and scale at machine speed," he added. The announcement comes just days after OpenAI said that its models had breached the systems of other companies, including AI tools platform Hugging Face.

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SelectBlinds Promo Codes & Coupons: Save on Custom Window Treatments

Wired Top Stories - Fri, 07/31/2026 - 1:00am
Redecorate your home for less with our expert tips on applying SelectBlinds coupons, maximizing holiday sales, and locking in new customer discounts.

Alo Discount Code: Save on Activewear August 2026

Wired Top Stories - Fri, 07/31/2026 - 1:00am
Refresh your workout wardrobe. Save on buttery-soft leggings, chic streetwear, and activewear essentials with verified Alo Yoga discount codes, free shipping, and loyalty program perks.

Flock Cameras Are Being Destroyed Across the US

Slashdot - Thu, 07/30/2026 - 11:30pm
An anonymous Slashdot reader writes: Surveillance cameras owned by Flock Safety have been cut down with electric saws in New York State, vandalized with paint in Oakland, California, and rammed with a truck in Idaho. Flock claims its services fight crime, but law enforcement agencies also use their services to track vehicles based on license plate numbers and reconstruct the their movements, even when the drivers and owners of these vehicles have never been accused or convicted of any crime. (Flock states it has 120,000 automated cameras that record license plate data, as well as pan-tilt-zoom cameras, across the United States.) A guerilla mindset among average citizens have seen these cameras forcibly disabled within recent weeks with sympathy directed toward the vigilantes. In June, a West Virginia man accused of destroying several Flock cameras was arrested. Under a Facebook post from the local NBC affiliate announcing his arrest are dozens of people volunteering to provide alibis. "He was out fishing with me that day, you got the wrong guy," one man wrote.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon and Apple just told us more about their AI plans - here are three things we learned

BBC Tech News - Thu, 07/30/2026 - 9:31pm
Billions of dollars are being poured into a new wave of AI technology. But will it pay off?

How police are trying to divert teen hackers away from crime

BBC Tech News - Thu, 07/30/2026 - 8:42pm
Cyber Prevent is targeting predominantly boys and young men at risk of being drawn to cyber criminality.

How the FCC’s New Rule Will Affect Robot Vacuums

Wired Top Stories - Thu, 07/30/2026 - 7:17pm
A new restriction on foreign-made mobile robots affects robotic vacuums, pool cleaners, and lawn mowers. Here’s what it means for the bots already in your home—and the ones you may never get to buy.

New MCP Specification Addresses the Main Barrier To Enterprise Adoption

Slashdot - Thu, 07/30/2026 - 7:00pm
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: This week, the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open source standard for how AI systems interact with external tools and data sources, saw its largest update since its introduction. Most notably, MCP's protocol core is now stateless, so requests are no longer dependent on a session tied to an individual server instance. This change has the potential to address long-standing barriers to scalability. The blog post announcing the specification, written by lead maintainers David Soria Parra and Den Delimarsky (who both work at Anthropic), says: "The highlight of this release is a stateless protocol core -- MCP is transforming from a bidirectional stateful protocol into a request/response stateless protocol. It was one of the most highly-requested features from developers who were eager to get better reliability and scalability for their MCP servers." [...] There is also a new deprecation policy that ensures at least 12 months between when a feature's formal deprecation is enacted and when the feature may actually be removed -- with a narrow exception for critical security updates. This is again in keeping with the general "let's make this work better at enterprise scale" theme of the new specification. This update is "MCP's most important since remote MCP first launched over a year ago," Soria Parra wrote. Other additions include "Multi Round-Trip Requests, header-based routing, cacheable list results, authorization hardening, a formal extensions framework, and updated Tier 1 SDKs." A full list of changes can be found here.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

India wants to join the strawberry superpowers

BBC Tech News - Thu, 07/30/2026 - 6:04pm
Indian strawberry farmers rely on varieties imported from the US and Europe, but that could change.

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