Silicon Roundabout
AI more likely to kill animals if it saves fuel or money
Amid debate about whether AI will kill everyone as a result of continuous self-improvement, it appears that models will kill animals in a simulated environment rather than spend extra fuel avoiding them. Some models did so at strikingly high rates....
More JFrog Artifactory bugs under attack, and all 3 have patches
JFrog Artifactory instances continue to get hit hard. Multiple attackers are exploiting three JFrog Artifactory bugs to gain administrative control over vulnerable instances - in some cases, just days after the vendor published a patch - and then us...
Mars astronauts could live in houses made of yeast and jello, say scientists
If humans ever make it to Mars - and that’s still a big IF - they will need to build shelters there. And they could build those shelters out of yeast and gelatin, if a method described by Hong Kong-based researchers makes it out of the lab. A paper...
Disembodied fruit fly brain joins the crypto speculation swarm
If you want to understand how 2026 is going, in March The Register reported that scientists had connected a simulated fruit fly brain to a virtual body and let it wander around a virtual world. Now another simulated fly nervous system is trading cry...
AT&T store worker gets 16 months inside for SIM-swap side hustle
A former AT&T retail worker who used his system access to hijack customers' phone numbers for cybercriminals has been sentenced to 16 months in federal prison. Kenneth Carter, 44, carried out the SIM swaps at a store in Portland, Oregon, , allowing...
Lawyer fined $5K over AI-hallucinated witnesses in a murder case
New Mexico's Supreme Court is punishing a lawyer for including AI-fabricated witnesses and fake police testimony in an appeal for his client's murder conviction, according to a report from Reuters. In a filing on Wednesday, the court fined Step...
Higher prices can't crimp server sales as AI drives demand
While high memory costs have hurt PC shipments, the server market continues to grow as AI infrastructure spending spreads beyond hyperscalers to corporate and government buyers. According to market intelligence firm IDC, the second quarter was a bum...
Britain's technology brief is now everyone's job and nobody's responsibility
OPINION "Where do we put digital government? You know, all those billions we spend on consultants and legacy systems?" "Oh, that! Put it with sports and tourism. And something we're calling 'place'." It might be a fictional conversation between a Sp...
Ukrainian lawyer's second career as a Conti coder earns him 4 years behind bars
A Ukrainian lawyer who wound up coding malware for the Conti ransomware gang has been sentenced to four years in a US prison. Oleksii Oleksiyovych Lytvynenko, 44, pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy to commit wire fraud over his role in Conti, the...
EU's Cyber Resilience Act starts the 24-hour vulnerability clock
Manufacturers selling products with digital elements in the EU must now report actively exploited vulnerabilities to cybersecurity authorities under the Cyber Resilience Act's mandatory reporting rules. The reporting duties set out in Article 14 of...
Matt Mullenweg returns as Automattic CEO two days after getting booted
Two days after being placed on a paid leave of absence, Matt Mullenweg says he has been reinstated as CEO of Automattic, according to a Slack message seen by TechCrunch. WordPress Executive Director Mary Hubbard confirmed Mullenweg's return to...
Union body tells UK government workers must get a say before AI clocks in
Britain's biggest trade union body wants workers to have the right to negotiate over AI before employers decide which parts of their jobs to hand over to machines. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has called on the government to give workers more say...
We unfolded the iPhone Duo
You only get one chance at a first impression, and getting to introduce Apple's first folding phone is certainly a strong way to start things off as Apple's CEO. On The Vergecast today, we're talking all about Apple's launch event: how John Ter...
The White House calls Truth Social the ‘most powerful and popular’ social media platform
The White House claims the Donald Trump-owned Truth Social is the "most powerful and popular social media platform in the world." The statement, provided to The New York Times by White House spokesperson Davis Ingle, is at odds with the user co...
Anthropic spent this week in hot water over cybersecurity
After admitting earlier this year that its AI models had hacked other companies' systems on a handful of occasions, Anthropic released a new report on Wednesday detailing the attacks. It reveals a string of incidents displaying what Anthropic d...
Microsoft’s head of comms is leaving after almost 20 years
Frank Shaw in 2025. | Image: Microsoft Frank Shaw is leaving Microsoft after 17 years as chief communications officer. In an internal note to his team, Shaw says he's "decided it is time for me to move on and try new things," after supporting...
Meta may have leaked the first look at its slim ‘Project Phoenix’ headset
Just a couple of weeks before Meta Connect starts on September 23rd, UploadVR posted images seemingly revealing the design for Meta's "Project Phoenix" headset. The images, which UploadVR says were "found in the HorizonOS Prescription Lens firm...
Where to preorder the Apple AirPods 5
The new AirPods 5 in their charging case. | Photo: Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge The Apple AirPods 5 are bringing active noise cancellation to the masses, and they're now available for preorder at a variety of retailers. They'll official...
Digital Research's GEM opens a new window on Linux
Digital Research's GEM was one of the earliest graphical environments for PC compatibles, and an inspired hack has now resurrected it on Linux. GEM for Linux is a port of the Atari ST's graphical desktop, created by prolific Slovenian developer Toma...
Anime reaction YouTubers are at war with copyright enforcers
On September 6th, YouTuber Nicholas Light posted a video to one of his channels that made it seem like all of his content was about to be removed from the platform. In the video - ominously titled "My Channel will be Deleted Today" - Light alle...