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2026-08-12

100 ranked items

Krebs on Security Aug 11 Score 0.9595428810185186

Microsoft Plugs Nearly 400 Security Holes

Microsoft today released updates to remedy at least 398 security vulnerabilities in its Windows operating systems and supported software, including one weakness that is already being actively exploited and two others that were publicly detailed prior to today.

Security securitycybercrimebreaches
OpenAI News Aug 11 Score 0.9404153712962964

Daybreak models are now available on AWS

OpenAI and AWS are making Daybreak cybersecurity capabilities available through Amazon Bedrock to support enterprise security workflows.

AI aiopenaimodels
OpenAI News Aug 11 Score 0.9404153712962964

Testing ads in ChatGPT

OpenAI begins testing ads in ChatGPT to support free access, with clear labeling, answer independence, strong privacy protections, and user control.

AI aiopenaimodels
Foreign Policy Aug 12 Score 0.8970937069444443

Will Myanmar Get What It Wants From ASEAN?

A Bangkok visit by junta leader Min Aung Hlaing reinforced the two countries’ ties.

Geopolitics geopoliticsforeign-policyanalysis
Foreign Policy Aug 12 Score 0.8970821328703703

The Houthis Are Risking Everything for Iran

Tehran’s proxy risks pushing a newly consolidated Saudi Arabia into an all-out ground war.

Geopolitics geopoliticsforeign-policyanalysis
Simon Willison's Weblog Aug 11 Score 0.8884314768518518

There are no lossless transformations of natural-language text

There are no lossless transformations of natural-language text Sophie Alpert shares her "internal policy on acceptable use of AI writing by engineers". It's a short read (supporting its own recommendations) and really good. If you chose to have LLMs help massa

AI aillmsengineeringanalysis
Foreign Policy Aug 11 Score 0.8871261143518517

A Middle Eastern NATO?

What’s behind the defense pact between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.

Geopolitics geopoliticsforeign-policyanalysis
Simon Willison's Weblog Aug 11 Score 0.8865472171296296

Stealing Reasoning Traces from Proprietary LLM APIs

Stealing Reasoning Traces from Proprietary LLM APIs A vanity domain name ( stolen-thoughts.com ) for a neat paper : Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google return encrypted chain-of-thought blocks to clients that can be replayed across sessions, users, and models. We ta

AI aillmsengineeringanalysis
Foreign Policy Aug 11 Score 0.8853770402777776

Why Is AI So Popular in China?

The technology is far less divisive than in the United States.

Geopolitics geopoliticsforeign-policyanalysis
Simon Willison's Weblog Aug 11 Score 0.8830601800925925

datasette-upload-dbs 0.5a0

Release: datasette-upload-dbs 0.5a0 This plugin has been around for a while - it lets users upload a brand new SQLite database to a hosted Datasette instance, at which point that database will start being served by that instance. It can also be used to atomica

AI aillmsengineeringanalysis
Schneier on Security Aug 11 Score 0.8752817773148147

AI Genie in the Wild

When I give talks about AI genies , I use this sort of example as a hypothetical. It's happened . The story is from Australia. Someone named Andrew tasked OpenClaw to book gym classes for him. And…. Minutes later, his AI agent reported it had discovered

Security securitycryptographypolicy
Schneier on Security Aug 11 Score 0.8675854810185184

AI for Military Support

Interesting empirical research: " Black Box Warfare: Human Judgment and Military Decision-Making in the Age of AI ." Abstract: How is AI transforming decision-making in modern conflict? This study provides a unique empirical window into that question by deploy

Security securitycryptographypolicy
Foreign Affairs Aug 12 Score 0.8204153986111111

America's Fatal Attraction to War

The perverse incentives for presidents to use military force.

Geopolitics geopoliticsforeign-policyanalysisjournals
Foreign Affairs Aug 12 Score 0.8204153986111111

The AI Growth Paradox

Why high productivity could still lead to a crash.

Geopolitics geopoliticsforeign-policyanalysisjournals
BBC News — World Aug 12 Score 0.8194857643518519

Baby Shark Boy set to make K-pop debut

The boy from the most-watched YouTube video of all time is now 17 years old, and wants to be a K-pop star.

Geopolitics geopoliticsbbcworld-news
The Verge Aug 12 Score 0.8148437939814815

Saber denies replacing Rideshare Stimulator's writers with ChatGPT

After a former lead writer claimed Saber "replaced me with ChatGPT," CEO Matthew Karch now claims, "Neither Saber nor Unigine have replaced any writers with AI," for the Rideshare "Stimulator" game announced last month, developed by Unigine. The writer, Stella

Technology technologygadgetsconsumer
The Verge Aug 11 Score 0.8114312939814815

Xbox Elite 3 prototype pad leaks with tiny built-in screen

Did a prototype Microsoft gamepad fall off the back of a truck? We can't say, but a Redditor has legit-looking photos of a prototype Xbox controller that's almost certainly the Xbox Elite Series 3. Incredibly, they claim they bought the pad for $200 on OfferUp

Technology technologygadgetsconsumer
BleepingComputer Aug 11 Score 0.8108424097222223

DeadLock ransomware uses blockchain to resist infrastructure takedown

The DeadLock ransomware operation is using a decentralized infrastructure that relies on blockchain-backed services to protect its communication with victims and data-leak activity. [...]

Security securitymalwarevulnerabilities
The Verge Aug 11 Score 0.8094012013888889

An FCC filing points to new Sonos headphones coming soon

It looks like we'll be getting a successor to the Sonos Ace headphones sometime this fall, which was hinted at by CEO Tom Conrad during a third quarter earnings call. As reported by What Hi-Fi?, an FCC filing by Sonos, Inc reveals details about upcoming wirele

Technology technologygadgetsconsumer
BleepingComputer Aug 11 Score 0.8066799097222223

Cisco warns of ASA and FTD VPN flaw exploited to crash devices

Cisco is warning that a high-severity denial-of-service vulnerability in Secure Firewall ASA and Threat Defense (FTD) software is being actively exploited in attacks to remotely crash affected devices. [...]

Security securitymalwarevulnerabilities
The Verge Aug 11 Score 0.8065734236111112

ChatGPT and Gemini both just passed 1 billion users

For the 14th time, a Google product has hit 1 billion users. Google CEO Sundar Pichai posted on X that a billion people are using Gemini every month, and that Gemini is Google's fastest-growing product ever. A billion users is a huge milestone, but Google isn'

Technology technologygadgetsconsumer
The Verge Aug 11 Score 0.8056993495370371

Threads has a VR app now

Meta has launched a Threads app for Meta Quest VR headsets, the company announced on Tuesday. The launch follows Meta bringing the app to its Ray-Ban Display AR glasses last month and the recent news that the platform has crossed 500 million monthly active use

Technology technologygadgetsconsumer
BleepingComputer Aug 11 Score 0.8047039837962964

Delta probes Wi-Fi deauth attack on flight carrying DEF CON attendees

Delta Air Lines is investigating an unauthorized Wi-Fi network that appeared aboard a flight from Las Vegas to Atlanta carrying passengers who had attended the DEF CON hacker convention. [...]

Security securitymalwarevulnerabilities
MIT Technology Review Aug 11 Score 0.8037191875

How the "censorship-industrial complex" is changing the Internet and US policy

I first heard the term “censorship-industrial complex” on April 15, 2025.  That’s when I got the tip that a small office in the U.S. State Department, which focused on monitoring and countering foreign disinformation from the likes of Russia, Iran, and Ch

Technology technologyresearchsociety
SANS Internet Storm Center Aug 11 Score 0.8036048787037038

Microsoft Patch Tuesday August 2026, (Tue, Aug 11th)

This month we got patches for 418 vulnerabilities. Of these, 62 are critical, 1 is being exploited in the wild, and 2 were publicly disclosed as zero-days. Notable fixes include Windows privilege escalation, container tampering, and critical QUIC and DNS Serve

Security securitythreatsiocs
MIT Technology Review Aug 11 Score 0.7940261319444445

The Download: the next big thing in LLMs and how AI academic research is shifting

This is today's edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. These startups are chasing the next big thing in LLMs Nine years after Google researchers introduced the transformer, this

Technology technologyresearchsociety
CISA Cybersecurity Advisories Aug 11 Score 0.7937489208333334

Pulsetto Vagus Nerve Stimulator

View CSAF Summary Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could allow an attacker to use hidden commands to disable electrical safety mechanisms or modify other stimulation output settings. The following versions of Pulsetto Vagus Nerve Stimulator are af

Security securitycisaadvisoriesvulnerabilities
CISA Cybersecurity Advisories Aug 11 Score 0.7937489208333334

Johnson Controls C-CURE 9000 and Victor application server (Update A)

View CSAF Summary Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow an attacker with network access to achieve remote code execution. The following versions of Johnson Controls C-CURE 9000 and Victor application server (Update A) are affected: C-CUR

Security securitycisaadvisoriesvulnerabilities
Liberty Street Economics Aug 11 Score 0.7612484370370372

How Distressed Are Consumers? Reconciling Diverging Credit Card Delinquency Measures

Total debt balances declined slightly by $13 billion in the second quarter of 2026, according to the latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit from the New York Fed’s Center for Microeconomic Data . Mortgage and student loan balances saw a small dec

Economy economymonetary-policybankingresearch
NASA News Aug 12 Score 0.7454432277777778

Stops Along the Path of Totality

Western Iceland and northern Spain are among the few Northern Hemisphere locations experiencing a total solar eclipse on August 12, 2026.

Science sciencenasaspace
NASA News Aug 11 Score 0.73387795

What Is the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope? (Grades 5-8)

This article is for students grades 5-8. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is NASA’s newest astrophysics observatory. The telescope will scan large sections of space. Roman will help astronomers answer questions about dark energy, dark matter, exoplan

Science sciencenasaspace
NASA News Aug 11 Score 0.7315700796296296

NASA Completes Astronaut-Deployed Science Instrument for Lunar Surface

NASA has declared “wrenches down” on the first completed payload designed for Artemis astronauts to deploy on the Moon’s surface. Engineers working on NASA’s Lunar Environment Monitoring Station, or LEMS, have completed hardware development and testing and the

Science sciencenasaspace
GitHub Blog Aug 11 Score 0.7298117574074074

From coder to orchestrator: How agents shift the role of a developer

Developers are owning more of the delivery system around code, not just code itself. Join us during GitHub Universe to meet other devs, learn something new, and explore what's next. The post From coder to orchestrator: How agents shift the role of a developer

IT itgithubdevelopment
Kubernetes Blog Aug 11 Score 0.7287481648148149

How to Pretty-Print Your Kubernetes YAML as KYAML and Why You'd Want To

YAML has been the standard way to write Kubernetes manifests for years. Every example, tutorial, and configuration file you come across is written in it. The problem isn't that YAML is a bad format. It's that YAML gives you a lot of choices, and not all of the

IT itkubernetescontainers
NASA News Aug 11 Score 0.7271603574074074

Lion Nebula Roars in Webb's Sights

Observing across the starry “plains” of space, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has taken new images of NGC 2392, nicknamed the Lion Nebula. The nebula's "mane" is clear and detailed in this image released on Aug. 10, 2026, due to Webb's high-resolution imagi

Science sciencenasaspace
New Scientist Aug 11 Score 0.7266243805555556

CRISPR-armed phages help treat severe superbug infection

Bacteria-killing phage viruses souped up with DNA-destroying CRISPR appear to have helped clear up a very serious infection caused by antibiotic-resistant E. coli

Science scienceresearchsociety
New Scientist Aug 11 Score 0.7258896583333333

Heart surgery cured a man’s skin cancer – and gave him a bee allergy

Having surgery for a heart condition is thought to have triggered an immune response that put the patient into remission for his severe skin cancer, but also caused him to develop a serious allergy to bee stings

Science scienceresearchsociety
NASA News Aug 11 Score 0.7242835055555555

NASA Telescopes Create Colorful ‘Craft’ From Nearby Nebula

Like a collage made of layered sheets of colored cellophane, a vibrant new image layers observations of a famous star-forming nebula from NASA space telescopes. The resulting cosmic “craft” reveals new details about the star formation region known as 30 Doradu

Science sciencenasaspace
InfoQ Aug 11 Score 0.7193036333333334

How Netflix Scaled Its Real-Time Service Map

Netflix has described how it redesigned the streaming pipeline behind Service Topology, its real-time service dependencies map, to support production scale. The system uses three stages to separate intermediary resolution from enrichment and persistence, propa

IT itengineeringarchitecture
Martin Fowler Aug 11 Score 0.7181648435185185

TDD inside the agent loop - theater or actual value?

My colleagues at Thoughtworks tend to be big fans of Test-Driven Development, and many people in the industry advocate telling LLM agents to use TDD when building software. Birgitta Böckeler was curious if this really makes a difference, so conducted a fe

IT itarchitecturepatterns
New Scientist Aug 11 Score 0.7174350287037037

Denisovans may have dwarfed other ancient humans

Two leg bones found on the seabed near Taiwan have been identified as Denisovans, and their size suggests these hominins stood up to 190 centimetres tall

Science scienceresearchsociety
New Scientist Aug 11 Score 0.7173456768518518

Where, when and how to watch the 2026 solar eclipse

A total solar eclipse is set to be visible across parts of Europe, while a partial eclipse will sweep across about a quarter of the planet – here’s how to catch it

Science scienceresearchsociety
InfoQ Aug 11 Score 0.7155536333333333

Presentation: Producing the World's Cheapest Tokens: A How-to Guide

Meryem Arik discusses strategies for designing low-cost LLM inference architectures for high-volume, non-real-time workloads. She explains how software architects and engineering leaders can achieve order-of-magnitude cost reductions by making critical trade-o

IT itengineeringarchitecture
InfoQ Aug 11 Score 0.7111091888888889

JetBrains Details Its First Steps to Bring Rapidly Growing AI Spend Under Control

JetBrains has described how it began centralising AI usage after development-related spending increased roughly tenfold in six months. Rather than restricting engineers to a small set of approved tools, the company built a shared access and accounting layer in

IT itengineeringarchitecture
Marginal Revolution Aug 12 Score 0.7090923851851851

Immigrant Earnings Assimilation, 1981–2021

In this paper, we characterize trends in the earnings assimilation of immigrant workers from 1981 to 2021. We use administrative longitudinal data that contain the earnings of workers beginning in their first year of residence in the United States and in each

Economy economyeconomicscommentaryblog
Lobsters Aug 12 Score 0.7020680300925926

Text Watermarking for Non-Academics

https://blog.gaborkoos.com/posts/2026-08-12-What-Does-a-Text-Watermark-Actually-Prove/ Comments

IT itprogrammingsystemscommunity
Marginal Revolution Aug 11 Score 0.6921122925925925

How much will cybersecurity costs rise?

Here is one (partial) estimate of the higher cyber costs. I am not sure how many incidents they have in mind, but this seems to me realistic as an estimate but also rather modest relative to the Angst I am seeing? Not quite "a Gilda Radner thing," but if nothi

Economy economyeconomicscommentaryblog
Marginal Revolution Aug 11 Score 0.6876946999999999

Tuesday assorted links

1. "The fraction of women who undergo this procedure who go on to bear a child with the frozen eggs is around 2%." 2. Long Mark Zuckerberg/Meta piece on the future of AI. 3. "According to Bloomberg Intelligence, companies in the S&P 500 are expected to pos

Economy economyeconomicscommentaryblog
Marginal Revolution Aug 11 Score 0.6801396074074073

Impedimenta Developerum!

NME: Harry Potter fans have succeeded in moving a construction project that would have originally gone through the “grave” of the character Dobby. The 125-mile Greenlink power connector, which costs £430million, is intended to link power between the UK’s Natio

Economy economyeconomicscommentaryblog
TechCrunch — AI Aug 11 Score 0.6551153523148149

Google’s Gemini app surges to 1 billion users

Google also shared numbers of how people are actually using the chatbot, with 63% of Gemini users talking directly to the assistant using the voice feature. Plus, Gemini now generates more than 150 million images every day, according to Google.

AI aiindustrystartups