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Forget Peloton. Race to This 25% Off Deal on Hydrow’s Rowing Machine (2026)

Wired Top Stories - Thu, 06/25/2026 - 3:58pm
This Peloton-adjacent rowing machine gamifies your workout to a satisfying effect, and it’s up to 25 percent off right now for Prime Day.

LastPass Says Hackers Stole Customer Support Case Data During Klue Breach

Slashdot - Thu, 06/25/2026 - 3:00pm
LastPass says hackers stole customers' personal information, support case records, and sales data by breaching market research partner Klue. The password manager told TechCrunch that its own systems and password vaults were unaffected. However, the hackers used their access to obtain "reams of data about LastPass customers," the report says. From the report: In a blog post that shared information about the incident, LastPass said the hackers took customers' names, phone numbers, email addresses, and physical addresses, as well as customer support case data and sales-related data. It's not yet known what was in the contents of customer support tickets, although they likely contain fragments of potentially private or sensitive information. Customers typically contact customer service when they are having a billing issue or need assistance in gaining access to their accounts. Past incidents involving customer support tickets have included credentials and government-issued identity documents. The last data breach LastPass reported was in 2022, when hackers stole the company's entire store of customer password vaults.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Qblox inks HPE partnership eight months after Nvidia quantum deal

Mass High Tech News - Thu, 06/25/2026 - 2:47pm
The partnership follows numerous quantum collaborations Bay State companies have established in recent months, including Qblox's deal with Nvidia. Qblox is a Dutch firm that has a Boston headquarters.

Anthropic Says Alibaba Must Be Punished For Largest Claude Cloning Attack

Slashdot - Thu, 06/25/2026 - 2:12pm
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Anthropic has accused the Chinese firm Alibaba of launching the largest attack yet attempting to clone Claude, as China races to match the capabilities of Anthropic's leading model following Mythos' release and subsequent restriction from foreign markets. Ars obtained a June 10 letter sent to Senators Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) one day ahead of a Senate committee hearing on "AI and the American Dream." In the letter, Anthropic shared "new, confidential evidence of the largest campaign to illicitly extract Claude's capabilities we have ever measured." The attacks occurred between April 22 and June 5, when "operators afliated with Alibaba and Alibaba Qwen, Alibaba's AI lab" allegedly generated "more than 28.8 million exchanges with Claude through almost 25,000 fraudulent accounts," Anthropic said. Violating Claude's terms of service and access restrictions, this campaign "targeted some of Claude's most valuable capabilities, such as agentic reasoning, software engineering, and long-horizon tasks." According to Anthropic, Alibaba evaded detection by "using obfuscation techniques and proxy networks." As Chinese demand for reliable obfuscation techniques increases, Anthropic warned there's already "a growing circumvention economy" to fuel an ever-expanding web of future distillation attacks. [...] "Alibaba is governed by an independent board, none of whom has any military affiliation," Alibaba said. "Its products and services are built for retail, logistics, and enterprise information technology -- not weapons, defense, or intelligence." Anthropic appears unconvinced, however, that Alibaba isn't working with the Chinese government. In the letter, Anthropic warned that without stronger interventions, these distillation attacks will "help China reach Mythos Preview-level capabilities sooner." To keep the US ahead of China, Anthropic recommended that Congress pass legislation with three objectives. First, antitrust laws must be updated to allow AI firms to share information about evolving Chinese tactics to deter more threats. Second, the US needs more export controls on chips to hamstring Chinese access to advanced compute so that they simply can't train on US model outputs. That could make conducting distillation attacks pointless, Anthropic suggested. Finally, Congress should pass laws penalizing Chinese labs' "bad behavior" so that it's "more difficult and costly" to rely on distillation attacks to advance Chinese models. Penalties could include limiting Chinese firms from accessing US models or advanced US chips or from relying on data centers outside of China, Anthropic suggested.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A Fatal Tesla Crash in Texas Sets Up a Legal Showdown

Wired Top Stories - Thu, 06/25/2026 - 1:52pm
Did Full Self-Driving (Supervised), Tesla’s driver assistance feature, play a role in a woman’s death?

Ford Rehires 350 Engineers After AI Fails To Preserve Expertise or Train Juniors

Slashdot - Thu, 06/25/2026 - 1:00pm
After Ford's automated quality-control systems and AI tools fell short, the automaker hired 350 veteran engineers over the past three years to mentor younger staff and reprogram the underperforming technology. "Artificial intelligence is a fantastic tool, but it's only as good as the information you use to train it," Charles Poon, Ford's vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, told reporters on a call Wednesday. "Over prior years, we didn't pay as much attention as we should have to the experience of our most knowledgeable engineers that have been with us through many product cycles." Bloomberg reports: Those engineers were "at the heart" of Ford's efforts to turn around quality problems, said Kumar Galhotra, chief operating officer. They now run mandatory meetings that rigorously troubleshoot quality problems and they have reprogrammed AI tools to head off glitches before they happen. "We had been relying more and more on automated quality systems" and not getting the desired results, Galhotra said. "We brought back technical specialists" and "they hunt for failure points before a part ever reaches the plant floor." The return of the veteran engineers at Ford cuts against the prevailing wisdom -- and fear -- that AI will replace all kinds of knowledge workers. But Ford found the machines couldn't replace experience. "Mistakenly we thought that by just introducing artificial intelligence and ingesting the design requirements that we had, that that would produce a high-quality product," Poon said. But "we recognized that for us to enhance some of our automation and machine learning and artificial intelligence tools we needed to ensure that they were trained by the most experienced individuals." As a result of the efforts of the old hands, Ford vaulted above quality stalwarts such as Toyota and Honda on JD Power's bellwether survey that measures the quality of a car during the first three months of ownership. Only luxury brands Porsche and Genesis topped Ford this year.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Aerogarden I Recommend to Everyone Is Just $83 Right Now, a 63 Percent Discount

Wired Top Stories - Thu, 06/25/2026 - 12:54pm
This flash deal is a rare chance to buy one of our favorite hydroponic gardens for less than $100.

CD Projekt RED swaps Waltham expansion for larger Watertown office

Mass High Tech News - Thu, 06/25/2026 - 12:28pm
CD Projekt RED got an incentive last year to open up in Waltham, but has now opted to open a bigger space in Watertown with motion-capture capabilities

Micron Locks In Historically High Memory Prices For Five Years

Slashdot - Thu, 06/25/2026 - 12:00pm
Micron has signed 16 "strategic customer agreements" (SCAs) that include a floor price the company says comes with "a very robust gross margin for Micron, well above our peak quarterly margins in any past cycle." Most of the deals run through 2030 and cover about 40% of Micron's revenue. The Register reports: Micron CEO, president and chairman Sanjay Mehrotra explained the SCAs in prepared remarks delivered during the company's Q3 earnings call. He explained that Micron has signed 16 SCAs, most of them covering 2026 to 2030, and that they involve a commitment to buy a certain quantity of product and pay for it in a pricing band that has a floor and a ceiling price. The floor price covers the historically high gross margins mentioned above, and the ceiling price means those who commit to an SCA are insulated if memory prices go even higher. The CEO said 16 customers have signed SCAs and then explained why it's worth locking into the deals even though they bake in such high margins. "Our customers are recognizing that supply shortages in memory and storage will take considerable time to improve," he said. "Even as we expect industry supply to improve gradually in 2028, we currently do not have line of sight as to when memory supply will be able to catch up with increasing demand." Even massive efforts to build new chip fabs aren't much help, he said, because the increasing complexity of new memory types means it takes longer to build factories -- and when they come online there still won't be enough capacity to build both the high-bandwidth memory needed for AI and other types of NAND and DRAM. "Supply is structurally constrained in its growth and ability to meet industry demand, despite our comprehensive efforts to increase supply," he said. Don't assume that SCAs mean your suppliers get price certainty, because Mehrotra said the deals will account for 40 percent of Micron revenue -- meaning the company is reserving most of its inventory to sell at prices it can negotiate. The CEO did have a little good news in the form of predictions that Micron's DRAM output in 2026 will "grow in the low- to mid-20s percentage range, slightly above our prior outlook." He also revealed that the SCAs see customers pay up front, which helps Micron to fund its fab expansions.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Developer turns 'Assassin's Creed' tech into Revolutionary Boston walking-tour app

Mass High Tech News - Thu, 06/25/2026 - 12:00pm
The 90-minute walking tour uses 18th century imagery from the 2012 video game Assassin's Creed. Revolutionary Spaces, the nonprofit steward of the Old State House and Old South Meeting House, provided historical guidance.

Stop Mowing Your Grass Forever With One of These Highly Rated Robot Mowers On Sale

Wired Top Stories - Thu, 06/25/2026 - 11:22am
You don’t need to cut your own grass anymore. Most of the best robot mowers I’ve tested are on sale for Prime Day.

Google Starts Lowering Play Store Fees, Making Good On Epic Games Settlement

Slashdot - Thu, 06/25/2026 - 11:00am
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google spent the last few years locked in a legal grudge match with Epic Games, which claimed that Google's stewardship of the Play Store was anticompetitive. Now, the companies are thick as thieves, and Google is beginning to implement app store changes as agreed in its settlement with Epic. The lower developer fees and new payment options that Google promised are rolling out in select markets this month before expanding. [...] Starting on June 30, developers in Europe, the UK, and the US will have access to the new fee structure. This system will split the commission into two components: billing and service fees. The biggest win for small developers is the new flat 10 percent service fee for the first $1 million in earnings every year. Above that, the rate for various transaction types may reach 25 percent on existing installs. Apps installed after June 30 will top out at 20 percent. Developers will finally be allowed to send users outside the Play Store to complete a transaction, too. Google says they can design a choice screen "in accordance with our UX guidelines" to direct users to these external options. Devs pay the standard service fee on these purchases, but they'll avoid the billing fee. All transactions that run through Google's Play Store platform add a 5 percent billing fee -- even the base rate for publishers earning less than $1 million. Google notes that the billing fee is set at 5 percent in the initial markets, but it could be different in other regions. Google will expand the new fee structure globally through September 2027, while also offering reduced fees through updated developer programs. Although the changes may let developers retain more revenue, Google will continue controlling Android distribution and collecting a share of sales as it works toward allowing certified third-party app stores to operate more like the Play Store.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Caesars, 3 Wabanaki Nations extend partnership to iGaming

Portland Press Herald Business - Thu, 06/25/2026 - 10:48am
Internet table games may become available to Maine residents by the end of 2026.

Kobo Libra Colour Sale (2026): The E-Reader Deal Worth Jumping on This Prime Day

Wired Top Stories - Thu, 06/25/2026 - 10:24am
The color e-reader that’s most worth your money this Prime Day isn't from Amazon.

Apple hikes MacBook and iPad prices, blaming rising chip costs

BBC Tech News - Thu, 06/25/2026 - 10:22am
Apple said it had "never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly".

I Found the Best iPad Deal for Amazon Prime Day This Year (2026)

Wired Top Stories - Thu, 06/25/2026 - 9:52am
With four iPads to choose from, there’s a clear winner in terms of discounts for Amazon Prime Day.

Apple and Audi Alumni Have Made a Luxe EV Based on the Moon Buggy

Wired Top Stories - Thu, 06/25/2026 - 9:00am
The Amble One is a street-legal $25,000 electric buggy designed for luxury resorts—but a car is also coming.

Immigrant-led residential care businesses in Maine launch new coalition

Portland Press Herald Business - Thu, 06/25/2026 - 8:21am
The group consists of 30 agencies who provide Medicaid services to Mainers with intellectual disabilities and autism.

Get Up to 43% Off With the Best Prime Day TV Deals Plus Streaming Devices (2026)

Wired Top Stories - Thu, 06/25/2026 - 7:39am
These are the hottest Prime Day deals on our favorite TVs and streaming devices.

I Found The Best Amazon Prime Day Headphone Deals (2026)

Wired Top Stories - Thu, 06/25/2026 - 7:27am
From AirPods to on-ears, we’ve tested hundreds of pairs of headphones. Here are the best deals from Amazon’s biggest sale event.

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