We’ve seen enough product announcements from Framework at this point that today’s updates feel more or less routine. The biggest new thing is an updated motherboard with Intel’s Core Ultra Series 3 processors that can either be dropped into the existing Framework Laptop 13 or bought as part of the new Framework Laptop 13 Pro. Updated screens, keyboards, and other parts—mostly compatible with Framework’s existing laptops, mostly meant to address…

Framework has been selling and shipping its modular, repairable, upgradable Laptop 13 for five years now, and in that time, it has released six distinct versions of its system board, each using fresh versions of Intel and AMD processors (seven versions, if you count this RISC-V one). The laptop around those components has gradually gotten better, too. Over the years, Framework has added higher-resolution screens in both matte and glossy…

With growing focus on the existential threat quantum computing poses to some of the most crucial and widely used forms of encryption, cryptography engineer Filippo Valsorda wants to make one thing absolutely clear: Contrary to popular mythology that refuses to die, AES 128 is perfectly fine in a post-quantum world. AES 128 is the most widely used variety of the Advanced Encryption Standard, a block cipher suite formally adopted by…

Music streaming services like Spotify and YouTube Music have become the primary way people listen to music, which can be a lot more convenient than buying individual albums. However, this also makes it easier for AI-created tracks to worm their way into your playlists. Most streamers don’t go out of their way to label AI music, but Deezer has worked to develop technology to identify that content. In a recent…

You don’t notice good video compression—until it’s not there. For years, people have streamed high-resolution video without thinking about the tech behind it. But when companies clash over which hardware, software, and services can use modern codecs like HEVC/H.265, the idea that it all “just works” quickly falls apart. For some Dell and HP customers, that illusion has already been shattered. When the companies disabled HEVC support built into the CPUs…

Grinex, a US-sanctioned cryptocurrency exchange registered in Kyrgyzstan, said it’s halting operations after experiencing a $13 million heist carried out by “western special services” hackers. Researchers from TRM, which has confirmed the theft, put the value of stolen assets at $15 million after discovering roughly 70 drained addresses, about 16 more than Grinex reported. Neither TRM nor fellow blockchain research firm Elliptic has said how the attackers slipped past Grinex’s…

The writing was on the wall, and now it’s on Amazon’s website. Newly released Fire Sticks will not support the sideloading of Android apps or any other software from outside Amazon’s official app store. The proof comes from an update to Amazon’s website for developers, which currently reads: Starting with Fire TV Stick 4K Select [which came out in October], all future Fire TV Sticks will run on Vega. According…

The rising costs of RAM and other computing components are pushing up the price of Meta’s Quest VR headsets, which the company says will increase by $50–$100 (about 12–20 percent) starting on April 19. In announcing that price increase on Thursday, the company cited the “global surge in the price of critical components—specifically memory chips—[that] is impacting almost every category of consumer electronics, including VR.” But unlike many of the…

Sometime around 2010, sophisticated malware known as Flame hijacked the mechanism that Microsoft used to distribute updates to millions of Windows computers around the world. The malware—reportedly jointly developed by the US and Israel—pushed a malicious update throughout an infected network belonging to the Iranian government. The lynchpin of the “collision” attack was an exploit of MD5, a cryptographic hash function Microsoft was using to authenticate digital certificates. By minting…

Intel’s Core Ultra laptop CPUs have been its flagships ever since it retired the older generational branding scheme and the i3/i5/i7/i9 branding a few years back. The Core Ultra Series 1, Series 2, and Series 3 processors been the ones with the newer CPU and GPU designs, and newer manufacturing technology. Intel has also offered non-Ultra Core CPUs, but these have never been particularly interesting, mostly because both the Series…