Google-backed satellites for wildfire detection launch as smoke chokes US, Canada

As smoke from hundreds of burning wildfires spread across Canada and the United States, the first three operational satellites in the Google-backed FireSat program successfully launched into orbit. The satellites will begin providing wildfire detection capable of spotting even small fires in the United States, Australia, and Europe before the end of the year. The launch of the microsatellites aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base…

July 17, 2026
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Fubo hikes prices by $15 after restoring some NBCU channels lost in November

Fubo prices are going up by $15 per month because it will have some NBCUniversal channels again. For years, Fubo, a sports-centric vMVPD (virtual multichannel video programming distributor, which lets subscribers watch traditional TV channels live over the Internet), offered NBCUniversal channels. That stopped in November 2025 due to a contract dispute. With the loss of local NBC affiliates, Telemundo, nine regional sports channels, and 32 national channels, Fubo made…

July 17, 2026
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HP fined 1.4 billion rupees for “cartelization” of ink cartridges, toner, PCs

The Indian government has fined HP India and its partners a total of 1.4 billion rupees (about $14.4 million) for working with reseller partners in the “cartelization” of computers, ink cartridges, and toner. The Competition Commission of India (CCI) said this week that it found HP India had colluded with some channel partners to drive up the cost of bids for government contracts for computers, as well as for selling…

July 16, 2026
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Now, even Russia’s most elite hackers are using Clickfix to infect devices

One of the Russian government’s most elite hacking groups has adopted an attack, known as Clickfix, to compromise devices belonging to sensitive organizations in Ukraine, the latter country’s CERT center is warning. Clickfix has emerged as an effective attack technique that attackers, primarily financially motivated criminals, began using in the last year or so. Websites under the control of the attackers display a CAPTCHA that requires the visitor to copy…

July 16, 2026
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Sheetz is quitting VMware, migrating 11,000 virtual machines

Sheetz, a US convenience store chain, is moving its 838 locations off VMware. Sheetz has used VMware virtualization across two Dell R440/R450-series servers at each of its locations since 2019. Now it’s migrating 12 to 14 virtual machines (VMs) in each of its stores from VMware vSphere to StorMagic’s SvHCI, “with an additional two VMs to be replaced over the coming months to transition from Windows 10 to Windows 11,”…

July 15, 2026
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Engineer identifies and explains every ’90s computer seen in Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park, while beloved as a film, has been the subject of snarky memes for the infamous line in which one of the characters declares, “This is a Unix system, I know this!” while using a computer with an unusual 3D file manager interface. Despite the memes, the film’s production team was meticulous in accurately sourcing the right PCs (and adjacent details) for the sets—not too much of a surprise,…

July 15, 2026
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Windows 0-day drops the same day Microsoft releases record number of patches

Right on the heels of Microsoft releasing a record number of security patches, a researcher has published exploit code that can enable low-privilege Windows accounts to make sensitive changes to administrator accounts. The exploit, which multiple researchers say works, is sending Microsoft scrambling, yet again, to patch a zero-day released by an anonymous researcher who has complained about the software maker’s handling of their bug reports. To date, the pseudonymous…

July 15, 2026
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Third-party app stores coming to Google Play next week as Epic settlement withdrawn

Big changes are coming to Android apps, but they’re not the changes Google wanted. The settlement between Google and Epic that aimed to put to rest the companies’ long-running antitrust battle is being withdrawn, and that means third-party app stores are coming to the Play Store. Google has confirmed that it will begin distributing rival app stores next week, setting the stage for competing platforms to take a bite out…

July 15, 2026
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Microsoft’s Secure Boot has been broken for a decade and no one noticed until now

An industry-wide standard Microsoft invented to protect Windows, and later Linux, devices from firmware infections has been trivial to bypass for 13 of its 14 years of existence. The discovery was made by researchers at security firm ESET after identifying 11 firmware images, at least one from 2013, that were known to be defective but remained signed by the software company anyway. The images are known as shims, which were…

July 14, 2026
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US military sent explosive drone boats into combat for the first time

For the first time in its history, the US military sent explosive-laden drone boats into combat by attacking an Iranian midget submarine and naval port. The unprecedented use of such kamikaze sea drones by the United States comes nearly a decade after Iranian and Houthi forces first demonstrated such weapons. The US military shared a video showing three “one-way attack surface drones” exploding after approaching an Iranian midget submarine and…

July 14, 2026
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