TechSpot

Google's AI told people Flock cameras were full of gold. They weren't.

Skye Jacobs — Thu, 6 Aug 2026 11:46 -0500

The story starts with a meme: privacy advocates joking online that Flock's surveillance cameras are secretly loaded with valuable metals, worth cracking open for scrap. AI Overviews took the joke literally, and for a while, told anyone who asked exactly that.

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Apple, Sony, and Nintendo pocketed their tariff refunds, this PC cooling company won't

Daniel Sims — Thu, 6 Aug 2026 11:11 -0500

Arctic has temporarily discounted its products in the US until its tariff refund is fully exhausted. The policy contrasts sharply with those of larger manufacturers that have declined to compensate customers for tariff-driven price increases.

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Netflix and Disney are now considering free, ad-supported streaming

Alfonso Maruccia — Thu, 6 Aug 2026 10:28 -0500

In a recent investor call, Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro confirmed that the company is actively exploring a potential free offering for its Disney+ streaming service. D'Amaro, who took over Disney's leadership from Bob Iger earlier this year, said that a free option could provide several benefits, particularly for "price-sensitive" customers...

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AI slop, privacy fears, and endless scrolling are making people fall out of love with the internet

Rob Thubron — Thu, 6 Aug 2026 09:47 -0500

A survey by personal-data removal service Incogni illustrates the changing attitudes toward the internet. Given the company's business, it's little surprise to see a focus on data breaches.

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Uber is spending $10 billion to deploy 120,000 robotaxis across 15 cities

Skye Jacobs — Thu, 6 Aug 2026 08:43 -0500

Chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi said the spending is possible because Uber is generating strong cash flow from its core business. In the second quarter, the company produced a record $2.8 billion in free cash flow. Over the past 12 months, free cash flow has reached about $10.1 billion as bookings...

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Researchers found a way to steal passkeys straight out of Chrome's memory

Daniel Sims — Thu, 6 Aug 2026 08:09 -0500

Researchers at Unit 42 recently detailed three methods by which malware on a PC can read passkey data stored in Google Chrome. The most severe method completely compromises the victim's Google passkey vault, granting attackers remote access to every account that relies on passkeys.

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Nvidia turns RTX 5000 GPUs at MSRP into one of QuakeCon's biggest attractions

Rob Thubron — Thu, 6 Aug 2026 07:38 -0500

QuakeCon celebrates its 20th anniversary between today (August 6) and August 9 at the Gaylord Texan Resort in Grapevine, Texas.

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Sharpest-ever images of the sun reveal tiny plasma whirlpools scientists have chased for decades

Skye Jacobs — Thu, 6 Aug 2026 06:58 -0500

The patterns match what physicists expect from Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, a shear-driven effect seen in many fluids and plasmas but not previously resolved at such fine scales on the sun's visible surface. The results are detailed in a new paper in Nature, based on the telescope's 4-meter (13 foot) mirror and...

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Gears of War: E-Day open beta kicks off today, and PVP made it in after all

Kishalaya Kundu — Thu, 6 Aug 2026 06:09 -0500

The beta program includes an early access phase from August 6 to 10 for customers who pre-ordered the game on Xbox or Steam, as well as all Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass subscribers. This will be followed by an open beta from August 13 to 17 for all...

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Apple's iCloud Private Relay feature is leaking users' real IP addresses

Rob Thubron — Thu, 6 Aug 2026 05:15 -0500

The discovery comes from security researchers Talal Haj Bakry and Tommy Mysk, who found three WebKit features that bypass application-level proxy settings: DNS prefetching, WebAuthn Related Origin Requests, and WebTransport. WebKit underpins Safari and, in most countries, every other browser available on iOS.

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Apple's A20 Pro production is going smoothly, except DRAM supply is bottlenecking iPhone assembly

Skye Jacobs — Thu, 6 Aug 2026 01:23 -0500

Apple's next iPhones are built around a new chip and packaging setup that pairs the A20 Pro processor with high-performance DRAM at the wafer level, and that packaging step is being slowed by a tight memory market, according to sources who spoke with Taipei-based journalist Tim Culpan.

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Microsoft removes support page recommending 32GB RAM for gaming PCs

Alfonso Maruccia — Wed, 5 Aug 2026 16:27 -0500

Earlier this year, Microsoft told Windows 11 users that a proper gaming rig needed 32GB of RAM. That support document has since vanished, as Redmond and the rest of the PC industry contend with an unprecedented supply crunch across memory, storage, GPUs, and other core components – fallout from Big...

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Greece is using thermal satellites to spot wildfires before people do

Skye Jacobs — Wed, 5 Aug 2026 15:42 -0500

The system is built around four small satellites that fly in low Earth orbit and repeatedly pass over the same areas. Developed by German firm OroraTech in partnership with the Hellenic Space Centre, the constellation is designed specifically to detect fires and hotspots rather than serve as a general Earth...

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Visual Studio Code adds on-device AI dictation and sidebar chats

Ivan Franco — Wed, 5 Aug 2026 15:20 -0500

Visual Studio Code 1.132 introduces multilingual on-device AI dictation powered by Nemotron 3.5, alongside new sidebar chats that let developers interact with Copilot without interrupting their workflow. VS Code is one of our Essential Apps for both Windows and macOS.

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SteamOS runs surprisingly well on AMD Strix Halo laptop in AAA gaming tests

Kishalaya Kundu — Wed, 5 Aug 2026 14:06 -0500

Popular YouTube channel ETA Prime installed SteamOS 3.9 on an Asus TUF Gaming A14 laptop using the official Steam Deck recovery image. The laptop is powered by an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 392 APU with 12 Zen 5 cores and a Radeon 8060S iGPU. It also features 32GB of LPDDR5X-8000...

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Samsung reveals next-gen memory with stacked HBM and 400-layer NAND

Skye Jacobs — Wed, 5 Aug 2026 13:17 -0500

At the Future of Memory and Storage 2026 conference in Santa Clara, California, the company laid out a roadmap built around three main technologies: a new Bonding V-NAND architecture with more than 400 layers, a concept for vertically stacked high-bandwidth memory called zHBM, and a next-generation NAND approach called zNAND-O....

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DuckDuckGo made sunglasses that do absolutely nothing, and they sold out

Alfonso Maruccia — Wed, 5 Aug 2026 12:25 -0500

DuckDuckGo's latest product is a pair of ordinary sunglasses, with no added features such as video recording or generative AI integration. Part marketing campaign and part wearable apparel, designed in partnership with Knockaround, the aptly named "Normal F***ing Sunglasses" cater to customers who'd rather not think about privacy while walking...

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Big Walk turns cooperative exploration into one of 2026's most acclaimed multiplayer experiences

Ivan Franco — Wed, 5 Aug 2026 12:17 -0500

Big Walk is winning over critics with its unique blend of cooperative exploration, proximity voice chat, and emergent gameplay. Reviews praise its focus on communication, teamwork, and memorable unscripted moments, calling it one of the year's standout multiplayer experiences despite minor pacing and movement issues.

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OpenAI to pay $3.2 million over allegations it favored visa holders and discouraged US job applicants

Rob Thubron — Wed, 5 Aug 2026 11:34 -0500

The settlement addresses allegations that OpenAI and Statsig, which makes product development software, violated the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) by preferring visa holders for jobs during the Permanent Labor Certification (PERM) process. INA bars discrimination based on citizenship.

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LocalSend is like AirDrop that actually works everywhere

Julio Franco — Wed, 5 Aug 2026 11:06 -0500

If you've ever emailed yourself a file just to get it from a Windows laptop to an Android phone, LocalSend fixes that in 10 seconds. It's a free, open-source app that beams files peer-to-peer over your local network (no cloud, no account, no caps), encrypted end-to-end so nothing leaves the room. It runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS – a rare AirDrop alternative that doesn't care what device you're carrying.

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CarPlay and Android Auto just found a new market – boats

Skye Jacobs — Wed, 5 Aug 2026 10:38 -0500

For tech-minded boaters, it's a sign that mainstream infotainment platforms are starting to show up in more specialized settings. Rather than build a separate interface for the helm, Crest and Balise are borrowing systems most people already know from their cars and pairing them with dedicated marine navigation software.

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A SpaceX rocket stage just crashed into the Moon after drifting through space for 18 months

Kishalaya Kundu — Wed, 5 Aug 2026 10:04 -0500

Scientists originally believed that the impact would be visible from most regions around the world, but space enthusiasts were unable to see anything, even when using purpose-built telescopes. While the tiny flash produced by the impact would have been far too faint to see in broad daylight, amateur astronomers documenting...

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SEC bought access to over a billion airline records to track travelers, no warrant required

Rob Thubron — Wed, 5 Aug 2026 08:21 -0500

Documents obtained by 404 Media through a Freedom of Information Act request show that the SEC subscribed to the Travel Intelligence Program, or TIP, operated by Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC). The airline-owned company acts as a financial clearinghouse between carriers and travel agencies, giving it access to a slew of...

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AMD's data center business just more than doubled, and gaming is paying the price

Skye Jacobs — Wed, 5 Aug 2026 07:46 -0500

AMD's overall revenue reached a record $11.5 billion, up 50% year-over-year. "Revenue increased 50 percent year-over-year to a record $11.5 billion, driven by continued strength in our Data Center business, which represented 58% of company revenue in the quarter," AMD CFO Jean Hu wrote. That mix puts data center and...

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EA is now owned by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund after $55 billion deal

Rob Thubron — Wed, 5 Aug 2026 07:03 -0500

It was revealed back in September that EA had reached a $55 billion agreement to be acquired by the consortium. The company has now announced that the deal has successfully closed.

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Police departments are told to call license plate readers "county resources" instead of naming them

Daniel Sims — Wed, 5 Aug 2026 06:15 -0500

A police usage policy for automatic license plate readers (ALPRs), recently obtained by 404 Media, provides an explicit example of how police departments avoid revealing when they use the AI-powered surveillance tools. Evidence suggests that authorities across the US only admit to using the cameras when absolutely necessary.

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Anthropic AI went rogue during a cyber test and tried to deceive real developers into approving malicious code

Rob Thubron — Wed, 5 Aug 2026 05:15 -0500

The findings come from the UK government-backed AI Security Institute (AISI), which was evaluating frontier models' cybersecurity abilities. Agents were told to complete capture-the-flag challenges across simulated networks. Internet access was deliberately enabled and safeguards against malicious cyber activity were switched off to test the models' maximum capabilities.

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Essential Apps to Install on Windows and macOS

TechSpot Staff — Wed, 5 Aug 2026 00:42 -0500

Just unboxed a new computer? Here's our curated list of essential Windows and macOS apps for productivity, security, entertainment, and everything you need to get up and running.

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The first Googlebook shows us what Google's Android-ChromeOS merger actually looks like

Alfonso Maruccia — Tue, 4 Aug 2026 18:02 -0500

Google unveiled the Googlebook laptop in May, explaining that several OEMs would be joining in with their own take on the AI-ready machine. Thanks to Digital Citizen, we now have a closer look at the Googlebook Lenovo is building for a late-2026 release. The Lenovo Googlebook 15 carries some design...

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Texas hits pause on 1,800 data center projects to scrutinize power and water demands

Skye Jacobs — Tue, 4 Aug 2026 17:19 -0500

The state wants more information before granting access. Abbott said applicants must provide tax break details, power use and generation data, water use and cooling plans, steps to reduce community impact, and facility ownership information. Any project missing that information will not be allowed onto the grid.

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