Servers running on motherboards sold by Supermicro contain high-severity vulnerabilities that can allow hackers to remotely install malicious firmware that runs even before the operating system, making infections impossible to detect or remove without unusual protections in place. One of the two vulnerabilities is the result of an incomplete patch Supermicro released in January, said Alex Matrosov, founder and CEO of Binarly, the security firm that discovered it. He said…

If an Iranian taxi driver waves away your payment, saying, “Be my guest this time,” accepting their offer would be a cultural disaster. They expect you to insist on paying—probably three times—before they’ll take your money. This dance of refusal and counter-refusal, called taarof, governs countless daily interactions in Persian culture. And AI models are terrible at it. New research released earlier this month titled “We Politely Insist: Your LLM Must…

While mired in controversy from all sides, the Walt Disney Company has unveiled price hikes for Disney+ and its other streaming services today. As of October 21, Disney+ will cost up to 20 percent more, depending on the plan you have. Disney+ with ads is increasing from $10 to $12 per month, while the ad-free plan is going from $16 to $19 per month. The annual, ad-free plan will go…

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…