Author: News Room
UK law enforcement is done waiting for tech companies to sort themselves out. The National Crime Agency (NCA) and National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) have jointly called for children under 16 to be blocked from any social media, gaming apps, or AI that fails to disable what they describe as “high-risk” features. This comes as the UK government is actively consulting on whether to introduce a full social media ban for under-16 users, per the BBC. UK police want these six features to be banned from kids’ apps Police want platforms to disable six features they say are enabling serious…
At first glance, it looks like a regular USB cable. But a new Kickstarter project called Hacknect is trying to turn something as ordinary as a charging cable into a surprisingly powerful hacking and automation device. The product is being pitched toward ethical hackers, cybersecurity researchers, developers, and automation enthusiasts. Hidden inside the cable is a tiny Wi-Fi-enabled computer powered by an ESP32-S3 chip, allowing it to do far more than simply charge a phone or transfer files. According to the Kickstarter campaign, Hacknect can remotely execute scripts, automate tasks, emulate keyboard inputs, and even store hidden files through a…
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the faces of the Moon landing era. Elon Musk’s Mars era may get a very different public face in Chun Wang, a cryptocurrency billionaire whose fortune traces back to Bitcoin mining. Wang is expected to lead a future SpaceX Starship mission that would fly past Mars and return to Earth. SpaceX has not announced a launch date, and the plan still depends on Starship proving it can safely carry humans far beyond Earth’s orbit. From Apollo heroes to billionaire passengers Private spaceflight has already moved through its celebrity phase. In April 2025, Blue Origin…
Most Mac users see Apple Preview as only an app to view images, PDFs, and other documents. That’s it. If that sounds like you, you are leaving a lot on the table, because Preview has quietly grown into one of the most capable apps on macOS, and it’s available for free. I use the app daily to edit images, markup and sign PDFs, redact information, and so much more. So let me walk you through seven things you probably didn’t know Apple Preview could handle. You can rearrange, combine, and pull out PDF pages If you regularly work with PDFs,…
For the last two years, tech companies have aggressively pushed the idea that AI is ready to replace huge chunks of repetitive human work. Meanwhile, Starbucks just discovered that accurately identifying milk cartons inside a coffee shop is apparently still harder than Silicon Valley promised. The company is officially scrapping its AI-powered inventory counting system across North America just nine months after deployment, according to a Reuters report. The tool, designed to automate stock counting and reduce in-store shortages, reportedly struggled with frequent miscounts and labeling errors, including confusing similar milk types or missing products entirely. Starbucks’ AI inventory system:…
What if the humidity in the air around you could charge your fitness tracker or power your smart home sensors? That is exactly what an international research team led by scientists at Queen Mary University of London has achieved. Their new device, called a Moisture-Electric Generator or MEG, turns ambient moisture into usable electricity using just three ingredients you could find in any kitchen: gelatin, table salt, and activated charcoal. How does it work? The MEG works by absorbing water molecules from the surrounding air or directly from human skin. When the gelatin and salt mixture dries, it naturally separates…
A lot of people on MacBooks do not really think of themselves as gamers. Aside from a few casual titles on phones or trying out GTA or COD on their friend’s console, many don’t really get into that hobby. Macs have never had the same gaming reputation as Windows PCs, and if your idea of gaming is competitive shooters or open-world RPGs from AAA studios, it’s easy to miss out on the gems that are available on the Mac ecosystem. But some of the best games for non-gamers are not about fast reflexes at all. They are about choices, curiosity,…
For a brief moment, the internet genuinely believed Google had finally decided to kill off the original Chromecast, after multiple Gen 1 users reported casting failures and apps refusing to connect over the past few days. Honestly, considering the tiny streaming dongle is now more than a decade old, nobody would have been completely shocked, but thankfully, Google now says the issue has been resolved, and the aging Chromecast survives another day. Google says your old Chromecast is still safe for now According to updates shared on Reddit, the company says the issue impacting casting functionality has now been resolved,…
Researchers at MIT Media Lab have found a genuinely jaw-dropping use for the LiDAR sensor sitting inside your iPhone and iPad Pro. It can detect and track objects that are completely outside the camera’s field of view. Yes, that means seeing around corners. This kind of imaging, called non-line-of-sight (NLOS) imaging, is not a new concept. But past demonstrations relied on powerful, expensive lab-grade lasers with little application in the real world. What makes this research exciting is that the MIT team pulled it off using the same low-power LiDAR sensor already embedded in our smartphones. How does it work?…
I’ve been thinking about buying a new device, which is usually where reasonable plans go to die. I don’t want to spend big laptop money, partly because I know most of that laptop would sit on a desk pretending to be portable. I also don’t want to build my own desktop, because that becomes a hobby the moment you blink. Suddenly, I’m comparing cases, power supplies, cooling, GPUs, and other things I only wanted to think about for five minutes. That’s how I ended up looking at mini PCs, possibly the least dramatic lane in personal computing. They’re small boxes…