The controversy over vibe coding reached a new high this week after a developer added hidden instructions to his open source Java testing app to sabotage projects performed by AI coding agents. The instructions were added to jqwik, a test engine for JUnit 5, a platform for testing Java virtual machine frameworks. On Monday, jqwik developer Johannes Link published version 1.10.0. The salient change in the update was a line…

Most of the Steam Deck imitators on the market right now use AMD silicon, specifically the Ryzen Z-series chips. These are the same chips AMD makes for regular laptops, but with different power settings better suited to a compact handheld system. There are handhelds based on Intel silicon (MSI’s Claw is the main one), but Intel hasn’t yet tried making silicon marketed specifically for that purpose. Today, the company is…

Over the decades, there has been no shortage of sites using clever techniques to covertly track visitors’ browsing histories, device fingerprints, and log keystrokes and mouse movements in real time. Even Meta and Yandex were recently caught joining in the privacy-invasive free-for-all. Now sites have a new way to spy on their visitors: measuring subtle interactions with their solid-state drives. The technique, named FROST (fingerprinting remotely using OPFS-based SSD timing),…

NASA satellites designed to observe cyclone wind speeds and collapsing ice sheets have also proven capable of identifying the approximate locations of GPS jammers. That could help monitor high-risk areas for aircraft and ships navigating the growing prevalence of GPS interference worldwide. Two different NASA satellite systems showed how they could locate a known but mysterious GPS jammer within several kilometers of its position in Iran, according to an experiment…

It seems fair to say that Apple’s MacBook Neo took the rest of the PC industry by surprise. Companies are used to competing on price and features with $1,000-and-up Apple laptops like the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, but their $600 and $700 models usually come with cut corners and compromises that are more noticeable than the Neo’s. The CEO of Asus admitted to being surprised by the laptop’s price…

Millions of AI agents and tools around the world have been imperiled by a critical vulnerability that can allow hackers to breach the servers running them and make off with sensitive data and credentials to third-party accounts, a security researcher is warning. The vulnerability is present in Starlette, an open source framework that its developer says receives 325 million downloads per week. Thousands of other open source projects are also…

Last week, the US government announced $2 billion in investments in quantum computing companies, allocating $100 million each to a range of startups in exchange for equity in the companies. Those could be make-or-break investments for many companies that are likely years away from a product that could see widespread use. But a member of the US Congress is now arguing that those deals are illegal, as Congress did not…

Google’s first Chromecast was a hit. With 10 million units sold in 2014, it excelled as an easy solution for streaming TV and movies from the Internet to a TV. Released at a time when dumb TVs were more common, the first-generation Chromecast has a simplicity you don’t find in streaming devices these days. Press “Cast” in an app, select a TV with a Chromecast, and start watching. Foregoing extras…

Pilots’ voices from the last seconds of a fatal cargo plane crash have been re-created by Internet sleuths using software and AI tools. The spread of reconstructed audio recordings has prompted a US government agency to suspend all public access to its database of civil transportation accidents—because federal law prohibits investigators from publicly releasing audio from cockpit voice recorders. The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) usually shares factual reports…