It’s not exactly hard to find politically conservative content on YouTube, but the platform may soon skew even further to the right. YouTube parent Alphabet has confirmed that it will restore channels that were banned in recent years for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and elections. Alphabet says it values free expression and political debate, placing the blame for its previous moderation decisions on the Biden administration. Alphabet made this announcement…

When the COVID-19 pandemic forced kids to stay home, educators flocked to VMware, and thousands of school districts adopted virtualization. The technology became a solution for distance learning during the pandemic and after, when events such as bad weather and illness can prevent children from physically attending school. However, the VMware being sold to K–12 schools today differs from the VMware that existed before and during the pandemic. Now a…

As is now a long-standing custom, iFixit performed a full teardown of the latest iPhone—this time, the newly launched iPhone Air. These teardowns got pretty routine for a while, as Apple settled into a fairly consistent design for iPhones, but the new design of the iPhone Air offered an opportunity for compelling observations. Many of the important components—including the entire logic board—are clustered up at the top of the phone,…

Google is back in court, hoping to avoid a painful breakup of its advertising business. US District Judge Leonie Brinkema has already ruled that Google operated an illegal monopoly in digital advertising, and now it’s time to learn the consequences of that behavior. Google’s had mixed luck with antitrust rulings lately, but it’s not a great sign that Google has so many legal woes that it can be hard to…

Ads prominently displayed on search engines are impersonating a wide range of online services in a bid to infect Macs with a potent credential stealer, security companies have warned. The latest reported target is users of the LastPass password manager. Late last week, LastPass said it detected a widespread campaign that used search engine optimization to display ads for LastPass macOS apps at the top of search results returned by…

Two things about the Specialized Turbo Vado SL 2 6.0 Carbon are hard to fathom: One is how light and lithe it feels as an e-bike, even with the battery off; the other is how hard it is to recite its full name when other riders ask you about the bike at stop lights and pit stops. I’ve tested about a half-dozen e-bikes for Ars Technica. Each test period has…

Two of the Kremlin’s most active hacking units recently were spotted collaborating in malware attacks that compromise high-value devices located in Ukraine, security researchers said Friday. One of the groups is Turla, which is easily one of the world’s most sophisticated advanced persistent threats (well-organized and well-funded hacking groups, many backed by nation states, that target specific adversaries for years at a time). Researchers from multiple security firms largely agree…

Valve’s Steam client is pretty widely compatible with all kinds of newer and older operating systems—that’s what you do when you want as many people as possible spending their money in your store. But nothing lasts forever, and Valve does eventually end support for old software when it’s time to move on. The company announced in a support note today that it would be ending Steam client support for 32-bit…

In our earlier article about Macintosh project creator Jef Raskin, we looked at his quest for the humane computer, one that was efficient, consistent, useful, and above all else, respectful and adaptable to the natural frailties of humans. From Raskin’s early work on the Apple Macintosh to the Canon Cat and later his unique software implementations, you were guaranteed an interface you could sit down and interact with nearly instantly…

Federal prosecutors charged a UK teenager with conspiracy to commit computer fraud and other crimes in connection with the network intrusions of 47 US companies that generated more than $115 million in ransomware payments over a three-year span. A criminal complaint unsealed on Thursday (PDF) said that Thalha Jubair, 19, of London, was part of Scattered Spider, the name of an English-language-speaking group that has breached the networks of scores…