Russia pressures university students to become wartime drone pilots

Russian universities are promising free tuition and up to $70,000 to students who are willing to serve as drone pilots in the Russian military for a year—all while claiming students can avoid the risk of frontline combat duty in Ukraine. But there has already been one confirmed battlefield death and possibly more among the new cadre of student drone pilots. That specific recruitment offer appeared on pamphlets distributed at Bauman…

May 15, 2026
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Weather-monitoring firm hangs dark cloud over customers’ heads by forcing new app

Weather-monitoring company AcuRite is forcing device owners to use a new companion app on May 30, frustrating some long-time customers. AcuRite, which sells devices such as weather stations, indoor thermometers, and rain gauges, began emailing customers last month that they’d soon have to control their devices with the AcuRite Now iOS and Android app. AcuRite first launched the app in June 2025 to control a new weather station, the AcuRite…

May 15, 2026
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Over a year later, AMD is bringing improved FSR 4 upscaling to its older GPUs

When AMD announced version 4 of its FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) graphics upscaling technology early last year, it came with strings attached: The improved hardware-backed image quality would be available only on Radeon RX 9000-series GPUs based on the RDNA4 architecture, not on any older Radeon GPUs. To date, AMD has released only a handful of 90-series graphics cards, including the RX 9070 XT, the RX 9070, the 8GB and…

May 14, 2026
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Zero-day exploit completely defeats default Windows 11 BitLocker protections

A zero-day exploit circulating online allows people with physical access to a Windows 11 system to bypass default BitLocker protections and gain complete access to an encrypted drive within seconds. The exploit, named YellowKey, was published earlier this week by a researcher who goes by the alias Nightmare-Eclipse. It reliably bypasses default Windows 11 deployments of BitLocker, the full-volume encryption protection Microsoft provides to make disk contents off-limits to anyone…

May 14, 2026
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Cisco announces record revenue and 4,000 layoffs in the same day

Following a quarter in which his company delivered record revenue, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins announced that the company’s latest round of layoffs begins today. In a blog post yesterday, Robbins was quick to boast that Cisco’s fiscal Q3 2026 earnings saw revenue increase 12 percent year-over-year to $15.8 billion. He told employees that he and the rest of Cisco’s executive leadership team “could not be prouder of the growth you…

May 14, 2026
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Motorola Razr Fold review: Fits neatly in your pocket but not your budget

Motorola was early to foldable phones, announcing its first Razr-branded foldable in 2019. Since then, the company has churned out a series of foldable flip phones, but the new Razr Fold is its first attempt at a tablet-style foldable. Samsung, Google, and others have been making devices like this for a while, so we know the formula, and the Razr Fold doesn’t change the game. Like the competition, the Razr…

May 14, 2026
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Solar drone with jumbo jet wingspan broke a flight record—then it crashed

A solar-powered drone has been lost at sea after a record-breaking flight lasting eight days between late April and early May. The crash also marks the untimely demise of the pioneering aircraft Solar Impulse 2, which previously performed the world’s first solar-powered crossings of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans before becoming an uncrewed test platform for US military missions. The carbon-fiber aircraft could perform such feats of aeronautical endurance while…

May 13, 2026
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Foiled plot tried to sneak 49 lbs of cocaine into Australia via Xerox printers

Four Australian men have given new meaning to the term “bricked printers.” According to a press release from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and Australian Border Force (ABF) today, three men have been sentenced for trying to use five printers to smuggle 22.4 kg (49.4 pounds) of cocaine into Australia. In 2019, Australian news outlets reported that the printers were Xerox brand and that the drugs had a street value…

May 13, 2026
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Microsoft will lean on your CPU to speed up Windows 11’s apps and animations

Microsoft has heard your complaints about Windows 11, and it wants to make things better. That has been the messaging out of Microsoft for most of this year, and the company is also going out of its way to make sure that people know what is being improved and how. One of the goals on Microsoft’s long list was to improve the performance of core Windows components like the Start…

May 12, 2026
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Google’s Android-powered laptops are called Googlebooks, and they’re coming this year

Google took its first swing at laptops with Chromebooks way back in 2011. These web-first laptops have seen success over the years, mostly in enterprise and education. Google insists Chromebooks aren’t going away, but the company’s focus has shifted to something new: Googlebooks. That’s what Google has decided to call the new line of Android-powered laptops, which will begin shipping later this year. If you thought other Google products were…

May 12, 2026
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