TL;DR
Alibaba and its US payment arm will pay 600 million dollars to resolve a DOJ probe into illegal pharmaceutical sales on its e-commerce platform.

Early in 2013 a small Utah company walked into CES with something that looked more like abstract art than a gaming machine. The Xi3 Piston sat there as a compact metal cube, roughly four inches on each side, with indented sides and a front grille that gave it a distinctive industrial look. Valve had invested in the company and even displayed the device in its own booth. For a brief moment it seemed like this odd little box might become the foundation for a new kind of living-room gaming experience built around Steam.
Xi3 had been manufacturing modular computers for years and shipping them to corporations and industrial clients. The Piston was their first foray into the consumer market, primarily those who wanted to play PC games on a huge screen but couldn’t (or wouldn’t) tolerate a desktop tower taking up half the space. So they took the same modular strategy and attempted to reimagine it for a living room-centric PC. Here’s the basic idea: instead of a single, large motherboard, three individual circuit boards are stacked inside the aluminum shell. One handles the processor and cooling, another handles the majority of the input and output connections, as well as a mSATA slot, while the third offers a few additional ports and some capacity for expansion. You can simply slide the panels off and remove the boards for maintenance or, in theory, upgrades later. There is even an optional external drive module that attaches to the bottom via rails.
Sale
An AMD Trinity APU powers it all, notably the R-464L embedded version of the same technology found in the A10-4600M mobile processor. That’s a four-core processor clocked at up to 3.2 GHz with integrated Radeon HD 7660G graphics, which, as you might think, is less powerful than some of the stand-alone graphics cards available. That graphics unit, however, has 384 shaders and is combined with 8 GB of DDR3 RAM, a 128 GB solid-state drive, and space for a second mSATA drive or microSD card. Under average load, the system consumes a relatively low 40 watts, though it can grow warm if you play for an extended period of time.
As we’ve already mentioned, this is a small machine, so you might expect connectivity to be limited, but there are actually quite a number, including 12 USB ports (some 3.0 and 2.0), eSATAp, and likely a few more options. There are also HDMI, DisplayPort, and a mini DisplayPort visual outputs, gigabit Ethernet for wired communications, and audio ports to complete the package. It’s worth noting that wireless networking is not provided. The Piston would occasionally be coupled with a wireless controller that resembled the Xbox 360 controller, allowing gamers to play games from the couch.

Xi3 marketed the Piston as a Steam Box, essentially employing Steam’s Big Picture mode to create an interface that felt like a typical console experience. In some situations, the computer shipped without an operating system, while in others it came with a modified version of Windows. Early demos demonstrated how to browse the interface with a controller and gain access to the whole Steam library. Valve later moved back from that engagement, stating that the Piston was one conceivable approach for a Steam Box, but not the one they had in mind.

By the time Xi3 ultimately released the Piston Console in late November 2013 for $999, it was a standalone product with a price tag that received a lot of criticism. You could create a standard small-form-factor PC with better graphics and still save a few hundred dollars. The modular design was initially appealing, as was the small size, but the performance fell short of the buzz around the initial CES announcement. Production remained modest, and the device gradually disappeared from view as Valve collaborated with a number of other companies on the Steam Machines project, which employed full-size components and the Linux-based SteamOS.
Like other online travel agencies, Booking .com helps you find discount rates for airline tickets, cruises, hotel stays, car rentals, and packages. We at WIRED regularly post updates with the newest Booking .com promo codes for discounts on car rentals, last-minute hotel bookings, and other travel-related expenses, including a deal for 50% off stays and free cancellation when you sign up at Booking .com. Whether you want to grab an apartment in a walkable neighborhood or be bad and bougie in a villa, Booking .com has tons of options for every type of traveler—and we have a Booking .com coupon code to help you save.
Checking out Booking’s deals page is one of the best ways to snag great discounts on rotating and limited-time deals on things like flights and stays. Right now, you can get at least 15% off your next stay with Early 2026 Deals.
Save more by signing up for Booking .com’s loyalty program, Genius, which offers tons of discounts and rewards on pretty much everything travel-related. Loyalty program members can even get up to 20% off stays and up to 15% off car rentals. The program works in tiers: level 1 gets you a 10% discount on select stays and rental cars; level 2 gets you up to 15% off (once you complete 5 bookings in two years); and level 3 gets you up to20% off stays and up to 15% off rental cars (once you complete 15 bookings in two years). Once you sign up for the Genius loyalty program, make sure you’re signed in while you browse to get discounts of up to 50% off stays and free cancellations, along with bonus secret deals from Booking .com.
If you’re someone who travels frequently, it may be a good idea to get a Booking.com Genius Rewards Visa Signature Credit Card so you can get even more rewards on purchases you were already going to make. With this card, you’ll have no fee, and get 6% in travel credits on stays booked in the Booking.com app, and 5% on other travel on Booking.com when you use your card. Plus, you’ll get $150 in travel credits when you spend $1,500 using your card in the first 90 days. The more you use, the more perks you’ll get—when you get to Genius Level 3, you’ll receive rewards like 10-20% off select stays, and 10-15% off select rental cars and priority support.
Glory be! Winter is starting to fade and sunshine is on its way. Make the most of springtime with spring travel deals at outrageously low prices, including stays in Istanbul starting at $18 per night, Paris from $67 per night, Cancun from $32 per night, and Las Vegas from $128 per night. Go ahead, check it out, you deserve a nice vacay from enduring the winter.
A cruise is one of the cheapest ways to have an all-inclusive vacation, while staying on the mainland and partying at sea. If you’ve ever been curious about taking a cruise (or are a returning sailor), now’s a great time to book for so much less. If you book a qualifying sailing departing on or before December 31, 2027, you’ll get up to $1,000 to spend onboard, which counts toward almost anything, like cocktails, specialty dining, spa treatments, and other onboard purchases.
The actual amount you’ll get to spend vary based on total cruise price, and don’t include travel protection, port charges, port expenses, and taxes, and are generally as follows: $25 per $1-$999 booking, $50 per $1,000-$1,499 booking, $75 per $1,500-$1,999 booking, $100 per $2,000-$2,999 booking, $125 per $3,000-$3,999 booking, $175 per $4,000-$5,999 booking, $250 per $6,000-$7,999 booking, $350 per $8,000-$9,999 booking, $500 per $10,000-$14,999 booking, $750 per $15,000-$19,999 booking, and $1,000 per $20,000 or more booking.
Plus, if you don’t have the entirety of the money owed for a cruise now, you can still lock in now for just $25. As long as you pay a small non-refundable $25 fee, Booking will advance your cruise line deposit (up to $500). Your deposit will be automatically charged 10 days before your final payment is due, giving you peace of mind and more time to plan (and save!).
If you have the time off for your next vacation, but don’t know where to go, I’d check out Booking’s seasonal and holiday deals webpage, where there are rotating and flash deals depending on time, seasonality, and location. There are time-specific destinations like Lunar New Year deals, spring holiday deals focused on warm-weather travel destinations, and Carnival deals for places that celebrate in style, like the Big Easy.
If you’re looking to book travel to a destination that requires a car, I’d highly recommend also renting a car through Booking. Booking has access to the most popular rental car companies, like Avis, Budget, Hertz, Enterprise, and more, so that you can book with peace of mind. And when you travel more, you’ll spend less—all you need to do is sign in, peruse car rental options, and look for the blue ‘Genius’ label to save 10% on car rentals. Plus, if you spend using your Genius Rewards Visa you can earn 5% in travel credits on car rentals.
It’s surprising, but one of the most cost effective vacations you can embark on is a cruise. These all-inclusive packages combine travel to new destinations with a non-stop party at sea. Be sure to check out Booking.com’s cruising page for rotating cruise deals and offers, with many under $399 for an all-inclusive package. One of the best ways to score the biggest deals at sea is by signing up for their email newsletter, which will send you the latest and greatest cruise offers. Plus, you can even combine cruise line offers with Booking.com’s cruise exclusives, like up to $1,000 to spend on board, bookings at just $25 per room, and more.
A newly surfaced Steve Jobs-signed check is up for auction, linking the nation’s milestone anniversary with the earliest days of the personal computer revolution.
RR Auction is currently running a Fine Autographs and Artifacts auction, full of signatures from American presidents, political figures, authors, kings, queens, scientists, engineers, innovators, and everyone in between. Among the famous names is Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder and former CEO.
It’s hardly the first time Jobs-signed item has made it to the auction block, but this one comes with remarkable timing. The $10 payment to the People’s Computer Company (PCC) is dated July 4, 1976, America’s Bicentennial, just months after Apple was founded.
That date also means that the check was filled out just three months after Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple in Jobs’s family garage. At the time, Jobs and Wozniak would have been building their first product, the Apple-1.
The check bears the letters DDJ, which suggests that it was payment for a one-year subscription to Dr. Dobb’s Journal, a programming magazine spun off from PCC’s newsletter.
At the time of publication, the check has 14 bids and is currently priced at $21,962. RR Auction expects the check to sell for $25,000.
The auction will run until July 15. Interested buyers must place an initial bid by July 15 at 6:00 pm, with final bidding to take place shortly after.
This year, America celebrates its 250th birthday. Apple celebrated a milestone birthday of its own, its 50th, on April 1.
In January, Apple’s 1976 formation papers landed on the auction block. While it was suggested that the papers could fetch up to $4 million, they eventually sold for $2.51 million.
Alibaba and its US payment arm will pay 600 million dollars to resolve a DOJ probe into illegal pharmaceutical sales on its e-commerce platform.
Alibaba and its US digital payment processor have agreed to pay 600 million dollars to resolve a federal investigation into whether they failed to prevent the sale and importation of illegal pharmaceuticals and controlled substances, the Justice Department said on Wednesday. Alibaba entered into a non-prosecution agreement to end a probe of alleged violations of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act between 2016 and 2024. The investigation was led by the DOJ and the US Attorney’s Office in Rhode Island.
Alibaba admitted that overseas customers used its platforms to make roughly 80,000 purchases of products that lacked approvals under US drug, device, or importation laws, with a combined value of more than 200 million dollars. The agreement did not specify the products by name, but the DOJ said they involved pharmaceuticals, regulated chemicals, and drug counterfeiting equipment. US agents conducted more than 40 undercover purchases of drugs and equipment that were illegal for import.
The company acknowledged that it “failed to prevent some third-party sellers from circumventing controls and measures” on its platform and using it to sell and import goods into the US in violation of federal law. Alibaba employees had raised concerns internally about compliance measures and filtering systems that were not catching the illegal sales, the company admitted.
The settlement also involves AUS Merchant Services, a unit of Ant International that operates Alipay. AUS admitted that its anti-money laundering programme “failed to prevent some Alibaba merchants from using its payment processing and settlement services to facilitate the sale and importation of prohibited products into the United States,” the DOJ said.
The deal comes at a difficult moment for Alibaba in Washington. Anthropic accused Alibaba last month of using roughly 25,000 fake accounts and nearly 29 million exchanges to extract capabilities from its Claude AI model, the largest distillation campaign it has disclosed. Alibaba has also sued the Pentagon to remove itself from a roster of Chinese military companies, a designation that has already prompted several lobbying firms to cut ties with the company.
Alibaba said in a statement that the settlement will bring “stricter compliance to the sale of products in the United States by third-party merchants on its e-commerce platforms.” The 600 million dollar penalty is among the largest the DOJ has secured against a Chinese technology company for platform compliance failures, and it adds another front to the regulatory pressure Alibaba faces as it tries to maintain its US business relationships.
Kirsty Lindsay of Northumbria University explores the various ways students can work towards a career in the space industry.
In 2024, I flew on a microgravity, or zero G, parabolic flight with the European Space Agency (ESA). The aeroplane flew big arcs up and down in the sky. At the top of the arc I experienced 22 seconds of weightlessness, just like an astronaut.
On the flight were some of ESA’s newest astronauts, training on the Microgravity Science Glovebox: a see-through box for doing science experiments in space, with gloves to let astronauts use their hands while the box stops the experiment from flying around. I was carrying out research on how to keep astronauts healthy in space.
Piloting us was ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who made floating around look easy: he hung serenely in the cabin while the scientists and trainees crashed about.
My career path to those moments in microgravity looks more like a maze than a straight line. I did an engineering apprenticeship, then an undergraduate degree in physiotherapy, then a master’s degree in space physiology and health. Finally, a PhD on how to keep astronauts’ backs healthy combined all three.
There is no one way to be an astronaut – you can’t go to astronaut school. You need to pick up skills along the way before applying to be an astronaut candidate. The good news is there are many pathways to becoming an astronaut, or to be floating alongside them, like me.
The most obvious and well-known routes are to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects, while also becoming a pilot – these paths often intertwine. Exactly which STEM subject, and which kind of flying, counts depends on the space agency or private company you apply to, and on your nationality.
But most of the world’s current astronaut corps took this STEM pathway. Thomas Pesquet is one example: he qualified as an aerospace engineer and a transport pilot before becoming an astronaut candidate in the 2009 class.
The second, and increasingly common option, is the multidisciplinary route. It includes astronauts who have studied two or more fields that might not seem obviously related to each other, or to spaceflight. Combinations of life sciences and physics are popular, as with Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques. He trained as a biomedical engineer, astrophysicist and then as a medical doctor before becoming an astronaut.
ESA’s John McFall, who was with me on the 2024 parabolic flight, was a Paralympic sprinter and an NHS orthopaedic surgeon before he became an astronaut in 2022. Some combinations are more unusual still: Jessica Meir brought together marine biology and extreme-environment physiology before joining NASA.
Each of these astronauts offers a unique mix of skills, valued in the complex, problem-solving world of spaceflight. That mix will matter even more on future planetary missions, where one person may need to fill several roles depending on which phase of the mission they are in.
The third path is the exact opposite. Instead of going broad, you dive deeply into one topic and become a world-leading expert. For example, ESA’s Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski earned two master’s degrees and a doctorate in radiation-tolerant electronics. He then worked at CERN, where he became responsible for the day-to-day running of the Large Hadron Collider, before being selected by ESA in 2022. Sometimes being a specialist and being really, really good at what you do is itself a pathway to space.
It is worth saying that you don’t always have to decide young. Canadian Jenni Sidey-Gibbons was a combustion engineer and university lecturer before she was selected. Japan’s Makoto Suwa was an Earth scientist and senior disaster risk management specialist at the World Bank before he was chosen by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in his 40s.
There is no expiry date on the dream, and no single moment when you must decide. It is even fine to stumble along the way. Astronaut Scott Kelly had poor grades at school and failed at least one US Navy exam before becoming an astronaut. He never gave up.
Then there is one final route, which none of us knows, because it doesn’t exist yet. When it comes to who they might choose to go into space, commercial spaceflight companies are writing their own rulebooks as they go and are deliberately widening who qualifies as astronauts. We genuinely do not know who the career astronauts of the 2040s will be, or what they will have studied.
However, a strong grounding in mathematics, science, English and another language is a great start. You will train and live alongside international crews as well as solve problems in space. Whatever you study, your hobbies are the final ingredient. Hobbies make you a rounder, happier, more capable person – the kind of person who makes an interesting crew member.
Get that foundation, do it brilliantly and the rest of what you study is up to you.
Kirsty Lindsay is an assistant professor in physiotherapy at Northumbria University, in Newcastle. She studied space physiology and health at King’s College London in 2013 and completed a BHSc (Hons) in physiotherapy from York St John in 2010. She also spent two years at the European Space Agency working with ground-based facilities and human spaceflight as a young graduate trainee, before returning to the UK to undertake her current research. Kirsty’s research interests include using physiology and physiotherapy to help maintain astronaut health and improve clinical care for back pain patients on Earth.
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As I expand my writing career, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that I need to make a business website to showcase my talent and present my past projects. The problem is, although I love testing gadgets for WIRED, I’m definitely not a coder. Figuring out where to begin when building a website is daunting. How do I know the host is legit? How can I ensure my site is user-friendly? How much are annual costs, really? All of these questions and more have stopped me from taking the plunge and building my own website. That’s where Hostinger steps in to help.
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Amazon Prime Day starts in Australia on July 7, 2026, and runs to July 13. But just like last year, there are already early Apple deals available.
So we’re already checking prices every day across AirPods, iPad, Apple Watch, iPhone, Apple accessories and MacBook, and we’ll keep updating this page as new deals appear or prices drop.
Of course, not every Apple discount is worth buying, especially if a deal only applies to one colour, one size or a product that has been cheaper before. So we’re focusing on the Apple deals that are genuinely good after comparing to Apple’s official pricing and what else is available at Amazon or elsewhere.
Want discounts on more than just Apple? Check out our full Prime Day deals page for the latest discounts across all brands.
These direct links are the fastest way to check the main Apple categories on Amazon before =delving into the individual deals below.
These are our favourite early Amazon Prime Day Apple deals. We’ve split them by product type so you can easily compare deals on AirPods, iPad, Apple Watch, iPhone, accessories and MacBooks.
If you don’t see any products in a particular category, check back later as we’ll be working hard every day to find more deals.
AirPods are usually one of the easier Apple products to find discounted at Amazon. The cheapest option here is the open-fit AirPods 4, while AirPods Pro are the better choice if you want noise cancelling, while AirPods Max are great for anyone who wants over-ear headphones.
iPad deals can be tricky because Amazon often only discounts specific storage sizes or colours, and the deals tend to change rapidly. Sadly iPads also just got hit by Apple’s price rises, so the base cost has gone up.
We think the standard iPad is the best fit for casual use, though the iPad Air is worth the extra cost, whereas the iPad Pro is aimed at those who really need the better screen and higher performance.
If you don’t see any iPad deals below, don’t worry, we’ll add more as soon as we can. In the meantime, there are some discounted iPad accessories worth checking out.
Apple Watch deals are worth watching if you use an iPhone and want fitness tracking, notifications and health features without paying Apple’s normal price.
Case size, colour and band choice can change the price, so if comparing options under the one listing, double check the exact model selected before hitting buy.
iPhone deals are often harder to judge than AirPods or iPad deals because Amazon discounts often apply to one colour or storage size.
If you don’t see any iPhone deals below, check back soon, as they can change day to day.
Apple accessories usually aren’t the deals people are most excited about, but they are useful add-ons if the price is right. AirTags, chargers, cables and Mac desk gear are also the kinds of Apple products Amazon tends to discount more often than iPhones or MacBooks.
MacBook deals are hard to find at Amazon right now. We’re still doing our best to rustle up any discounts because MacBooks are one of the Apple products we are all excited about during Prime Day. Especially after the recent Apple price hikes that bumped up the base cost by as much as 17%.
There’s not much worth recommending yet but check back as we’ll be adding more deals as soon as the prices drop.
Amazon Prime Day in Australia starts at 12am AEST on Tuesday July 7 and ends at 11:59pm AEST on Monday July 13. Early deals can appear before the sale starts, especially on Amazon devices and selected tech, so we are checking Apple prices before the event as well as during it.
Yes, but not every Apple category gets the same treatment. AirPods, Apple Watch, iPad and Apple accessories are usually easier to find on sale at Amazon. iPhone deals can happen too, though the lower price often applies to one colour or storage size. MacBook deals are more hit and miss, but we are always looking for more discounts.
A lot of Prime Day deals are Prime-exclusive, so you will usually need an active Amazon Prime membership to get the lowest prices. There may also be public deals anyone can buy, but if a price is marked as a Prime Day deal, check the Prime requirement before you plan around it.
Sometimes. If an early price matches or beats what we have seen before, it can be worth buying before the main sale starts. If the discount is small, or if you do not need the product right away, it may be better to check back once Prime Day begins on July 7.
Possibly, but MacBook deals are hard to find on Amazon right now. We are still watching for Prime Day price drops and restocks, because MacBooks are one of the Apple categories people look for during big sales. For now, check Apple’s official price first and compare any Amazon offer carefully, especially after Apple’s recent Australian price rises.
Black Friday usually has more retailers competing at the same time, so it can be better for broader Apple price matching. Prime Day is more Amazon-focused, but it can still be a good time to buy AirPods, Apple Watch, iPad, accessories and the occasional iPhone. If a Prime Day price is only a small discount and you are not in a hurry, Black Friday is often the best time to buy.
We look at the current Amazon price, Apple’s official Australian price, previous prices where we can check them, product availability and whether the discount is actually any good. We also use our own reviews and buying guides to help judge deals. A product won’t make it onto our list just because Amazon slaps on a large discount percentage.
Prime Day can be a good time to buy Apple gear, but it’s also often hard to navigate. Amazon can show large percentage discounts from old prices, and Apple products often get small price cuts that only apply to one colour, size or storage option. So we created some steps that can help you work out whether an Apple Prime Day deal is worth buying.
1. Check Apple’s official price first
Start with the current price on the Apple website. That gives you a clean comparison point before you look at Amazon’s claimed discount. It matters more than usual this year because Apple recently raised Australian prices on a number of products, including Macs and iPads.
2. Look at price history, not just the discount badge
It’s easy to get pulled in by a big percentage saving, but the current price is what matters. For Amazon deals, camelcamelcamel.com can show whether today’s price is actually low or just lower than an old list price.
It is also worth searching OzBargain.com.au to see whether the same product has been cheaper before and how other shoppers rated past discounts. If the deal still looks good after those checks, you can buy with confidence.
3. Figure out what features you actually need
A discount on an iPad Pro or MacBook Pro can look tempting, but the best Prime Day deal is not always the product with the largest saving. If you mainly want a tablet for streaming, browsing, note-taking and video calls, a standard iPad or iPad Air may be the better-value buy.
The same logic applies across Apple’s range. If you’re buying a laptop, think about whether you really need a MacBook Pro or whether a MacBook Air is the better choice. If you’re buying a phone, decide whether camera quality, storage, battery life or price matters most before jumping on a deal just because it has a big discount.
4. Be flexible on colour, storage and case size
Apple deals at Amazon often apply to one specific version of a product. That might mean one AirPods model, one iPad storage size, one Apple Watch case size or one iPhone colour. Check the exact model before you buy, and make sure the cheaper version is actually the one you want.
5. Check whether the price needs Prime
Many Prime Day deals need an active Amazon Prime membership. Some early deals are available to everyone, but others only show the lowest price once you’re signed in with Prime. Also check the delivery estimate, especially if the product is coming from overseas or has limited stock.
6. Don’t assume MacBooks will be the best category
AirPods, Apple Watch, iPad and Apple accessories are usually easier to find discounted at Amazon. MacBook deals can happen, but they are hard to find right now, and some listings have long delivery dates or limited stock. If you see a MacBook discount, compare it with Apple’s current price and check whether the saving is enough to justify buying now.
Doing something once is fun, but if you get interesting feedback from viewers on how to make things even more fun, you can only follow all of these instructions and put more random objects on top of an induction cooker, as [Brainiac75] fortunately did.
Much like in the first video, the goal here is to use the Lorentz force that is induced in the object for levitation, ideally without having said object depart for orbit, melt into a puddle of molten metal or be a general hazard to anyone standing in the same room.
Some of the suggestions were rather benign, such as improving the aluminium foil ring by adding four times more layers to create more mass. Unfortunately adding more layers here had the device refuse to turn on due to the absence of a suitable ferromagnetic target. The difference between the working versions with one to three layers was here also not really noticeable. Various aluminium and copper tape configurations were then attempted, but without much success.
Of note is that while levitating, the metal gets pretty hot. At one point a CD even gets melted to aluminium foil. Even the use of water-filled aluminium cans will only give you so much time, and ramping down the power level on the induction cooker only revealed that this particular model operates only at either at full blast or off. Correspondingly a new induction cooker with claimed constant output was obtained for the next experiments at lower levels.
Interestingly, it was this new induction cooker set to a more reasonable output level that showed the first reasonably static levitation results without immediate conflagration or molten metal splatter risk. Whether this is the kind of levitation display that you want to set up in your living room in lieu of a boring magnetic one is still a good question, but at least this demonstration got downgraded to something potentially safe enough to play around with in a physics class.
A vulnerability can reportedly connect real email addresses to anonymous ones.
Hide My Email may not be keeping your personal information fully private. This feature is an option iCloud+ subscribers can use to create an anonymous email address rather than using their own contact info. It’s used as a workaround to avoid spam and data trackers, or simply to keep personal information safe against potential future data breaches. However, according to a report by 404 Media, there is a vulnerability with this feature that allows hackers to connect users’ real email contacts to the ones created by Apple.
We’ve reached out to Apple for comment, and will update this article if we hear back.
The issue was uncovered by the team at EasyOptOuts, and according to CEO Tyler Murphy, the group contacted Apple about the issue and how to replicate it a year ago. He had some conversation with the company via email and Apple reportedly responded at various points that it was looking into the problem or that a solution was either in the works or had been deployed. However, Murphy and 404 reporter Joseph Cox were able to exploit the vulnerability for this article. The exact details of the exploit have not been disclosed due to the potential risk to Apple users.
“We don’t know why it hasn’t been fixed, but we don’t feel comfortable waiting any longer. Hide My Email users deserve to know that it may be possible for attackers to discover their hidden email addresses,” Murphy told 404. He added, “We don’t know the full scope of the issue, but in our limited tests with volunteers, 100 percent of Hide My Email addresses were exploitable.”
Healthcare device firm Medtronic is notifying affected customers about a data breach that exposed their personal data to an unauthorized third party.
The company previously confirmed that its IT systems were compromised by hackers, and the infamous data extortion group ‘ShinyHunters’ claimed the attack.
The threat actor said that they were holding 9 million Medtronic records with personally identifiable information (PII) and internal corporate data.
“On April 15, 2026, Medtronic became aware of unusual activity on certain corporate IT systems,” reads the company’s notification sample.
“Medtronic launched an investigation with the assistance of leading third-party cybersecurity experts to determine the impact and scope of the incident.”
“The investigation determined that from April 13 to April 19, 2026, an unauthorized actor accessed certain Medtronic corporate IT systems.” The exposed data may include the following:
ShinyHunters typically publishes stolen data if ransom negotiations with the victim organization fail to secure payment.
The hackers listed Medtronic on their dark web extortion portal on April 18 and threatened to release the stolen data, allegedly over 9 million records, if a ransom payment wasn’t made by April 21.
However, the Medtronic entry was removed from ShinyHunters’ listing later the same month. In the notification to customers, Medtronic emphasizes that the stolen data was not exposed online.
Medtronic is a medical device company doing business in 150 countries, with an annual revenue of $33.5 billion and 95,000 employees.
Although the company suffered a data breach that exposed sensitive customer information, the firm has once again assured that all its devices remain safe to use and are not affected by this cybersecurity incident.
Recipients of the notifications are advised to enroll in the offered 24-month credit monitoring and identity theft protection services to mitigate the risk of data exposure.
It is also advisable to remain vigilant for suspicious communications that leverage the exposed data to carry out scams, social engineering, and phishing attempts, and to monitor account activity closely.
Security teams log 54% of successful attacks and alert on just 14%. The rest move through your environment unseen.
The Picus whitepaper shows how breach and attack simulation tests your SIEM and EDR rules so threats stop slipping by detection.
Apple reportedly has plans to release several new iPad Pros and a new MacBook Pro in the first half of next year.
The company is currently working on four models of the new tablet with faster chips, Bloomberg reported. It is also developing a new “entry-level” MacBook Pro, which is internally referred to as K104, the outlet writes. The company is also targeting that same period for the release of its first M7 processor.
The last time Apple released an iPad Pro was in October of last year. In March, the company released a new high-end MacBook Pro and the budget laptop MacBook Neo, albeit the Neo uses the A18 chip, originally designed for the iPhone. This anticipated new MacBook is expected to be a full-fledged Pro.
The apparent product plans come amidst whisperings of other upcoming releases (including, perhaps, a foldable phone) as the company preps for its post-Tim Cook-as-CEO era while also battling supply chain issues that Cook says have forced it to raise its prices. Those price hikes have been substantial in some cases. The MacBook Pro with 1 terabyte of storage recently jumped from $1,699 to $1,999, for instance. So if the company is working on more budget-friendly laptops and tablets, this would be a good time to introduce them.
Apple did not immediately respond to our request for more information.
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