The hackers have reportedly given Revolut 24 hours to pay the ransom, or else they will sell the stolen data to other criminals.

A group of hackers claiming to be responsible for a recent Revolut data breach has reportedly threatened to sell the confidential records of hundreds of customers to other criminal groups unless the fintech company pays them a ransom of $3m in cryptocurrency Monero. 

According to the Financial Times, the group – which called itself ‘iamnotavillain’ – published the demand on its website yesterday (16 September) alongside a digital countdown clock, giving the British online bank 24 hours to comply. 

Last Saturday (12 September), Revolut admitted that it disclosed sensitive customer data to an unauthorised fraudulent party after receiving requests for information from an email with a government agency domain. The leaked data included information such as full names, dates of birth, occupations, addresses, contact details, passports, drivers’ licences, financial statements and facial verification images.

It is believed around 680 people, including 12 in Ireland, have had their personal information compromised. 

The Financial Times contacted the hacking group through Telegram and were then sent a 60-second screen-capture video showing an unseen user moving through the cache of purported Revolut documents.

Reportedly the online message told Revolut to pay the $3m, “otherwise all the data will be sold and the blood will be on your hands”. The group also told the Financial Times that the demand notification was the first communication attempt and that, as of yet, there had been no negotiations with Revolut.

In an official statement to SiliconRepublic.com, a Revolut spokesperson said: “Revolut has not received any direct contact or demand from the individuals or group making these claims.”

The reported ransom comes after Revolut recently announced that it had applied for a Swiss banking licence as part of its continued global expansion campaign. The company plans to invest more than 150m Swiss francs into Switzerland over the next five years, as a means of creating jobs and supporting product development. 

In August, the company received a full banking licence in France, giving the fintech giant a second European Union hub. The company claims to have more than 75m customers worldwide.

Updated, 5.00pm, 17 September 2026: This article was amended to clarify accurate phrasing in relation to the data breach.

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The Dyson Camerajet arrived 10 years after online rumours emerged that Dyson had filed a patent application for an electric toothbrush with water jet. True to form, it has surpassed the rumours with a toothbrush that goes one step beyond the norm and is packed with innovation. Having trialled it a week prior to launch, I was among the first journalists to give the Dyson Camerajet a hands-on review.

As the only smart electric toothbrush and water flosser with a built-in camera, the CameraJet uses imaging, machine learning and precision fluid dynamics to identify gaps between teeth and deliver a jet of mouthrinse. The CameraJet has received much attention since its launch, with many praising Dyson for pushing the boundaries with new innovation in oral health, and others questioning its price, reporting faults online, and asking whether we need a camera in a toothbrush at all. But for a brand that revolutionised the vacuum with cyclonic suction, restyled the hair dryer and pioneered bladeless fan technology, the Dyson CameraJet was never going to be an obvious product.

Elon Musk filed to have Apple dismissed from the lawsuit he brought against it and OpenAI, and OpenAI demanded answers. The judge has denied OpenAI’s request to reveal settlement terms.

When Elon Musk’s SpaceXAI sought to dismiss Apple from the ongoing lawsuit brought against it and OpenAI, it wasn’t clear exactly what had transpired. In OpenAI’s efforts to find out, it has been revealed that there was some kind of settlement reached between the companies.

OpenAI asked that the settlement terms be revealed, but after Judge Pittman reviewed the settlement, he denied the request. The decision was first shared by 9to5Mac, which said that if the settlement terms were relevant to the ongoing case with OpenAI, they could be shared, but they apparently are not.

Here is what he said in the filing:

The Court hesitates to compel the production of confidential settlement agreements entered by parties. Confidentiality in settlement serves the “[s]trong federal policy” of “induc[ing] the parties to settle a case.”

In other words, if Apple and SpaceXAI want to settle out of court, it is not only their business to do so, but to do so confidentially. To make such agreements public could jeopardize such agreements from ever taking place.

An odd lawsuit either way

The origins of xAI’s, now SpaceXAI’s, lawsuit against Apple can be tied to a tirade by owner Elon Musk. He made claims that the App Store was favoring OpenAI’s ChatGPT over Grok and Apple was biased against X.

He claimed that Apple was manipulating App Store charts to keep Grok and X from ranking higher, keeping ChatGPT at the top. The problem is, all of these claims were easily proven incorrect.

By the time the lawsuit came about, the accusations were shrunk to much more manageable proportions. Musk focused on Grok and accused Apple and OpenAI of anticompetitive collusion.

Whatever agreement or settlement Apple and Musk came to, it is unlikely that OpenAI can escape as easily. Elon Musk is known to have a very strong rivalry with his former business partner Sam Altman, the current CEO of OpenAI.

It will be interesting to see exactly what the lawsuit reveals, especially as Grok and X continue to face problems surrounding non-consensual deepfake pornography and CSAM distribution on the platforms. However, it is no longer Apple’s problem as it steps away to focus on its own lawsuit with OpenAI.

In case you’re into that kind of thing.

FiiO has officially launched the FT15, its new $499 open-back planar magnetic headphone and successor to the FT5. The headline changes include a substantially thinner diaphragm, larger driver, lower weight and enough manufacturing terminology to make a semiconductor engineer feel strangely at home in a headphone article.

The interesting part for us is that we have already heard them.

eCoustics contributor James Fiorucci spent time with the FT15 at CanJam London 2026, when FiiO was still calling it a forthcoming model and final specifications had not been released. Now we know exactly what FiiO was hiding underneath those walnut ear cups.

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What Changed From the FiiO FT5?

The FT15 uses a 101mm planar magnetic driver, up from 90mm in the FT5, with an effective radiating area of 6,443.5mm². FiiO says that represents a 35% increase in active diaphragm area and is intended to improve bass authority and soundstage scale. 

The bigger engineering story is the diaphragm itself. FiiO has reduced its thickness from 6 microns in the FT5 to just 800 nanometers, an 86.7% reduction, before applying a full-surface diamond coating designed to increase rigidity and suppress high-frequency breakup. FiiO claims extension to 40kHz, which should keep both the Hi-Res Audio certification people and neighborhood bats satisfied. 

A patented dual-sided magnet array works with a 28nm electroplated voice coil, while 95dB/mW sensitivity and 24-ohm impedance are intended to make the FT15 manageable with portable players and competent dongle DACs rather than requiring a power amplifier normally reserved for starting farm equipment. 

FiiO has also trimmed the finished weight to 425 grams and uses a carbon-fiber headband with North American FAS-grade black walnut around the ear cups. 

We Heard the FT15 at CanJam London

Specifications are useful, but we had the advantage of hearing the FT15 before FiiO finished filling in the spreadsheet.

James found the prototype largely balanced, open and easy to listen to, with treble that remained airy without becoming immediately aggressive. His reservation concerned macrodynamics: the FT15 did not deliver the same physical punch or dramatic contrast as some of the stronger planar designs he heard at the show. 

That was a show-floor audition rather than a controlled review, so consider it an early impression rather than the final word. It does, however, make FiiO’s claims of a warmer, more relaxed presentation somewhat more interesting than the usual launch-day adjectives written by people who have not actually put the headphones on their heads.

FiiO FT15 Specifications

• Type: Open-back planar magnetic
• Driver: 101mm planar
• Diaphragm: 800nm with full-surface diamond coating
• Effective radiating area: 6,443.5mm²
• Impedance: 24 ohms
• Sensitivity: 95dB/mW
• Claimed high-frequency extension: 40kHz
• Weight: 425g
• Headband: Carbon fiber
• Ear cups: North American FAS-grade black walnut
• Cable: 6N monocrystalline copper, cryogenically treated
• Connection: 4.4mm balanced
• Adapters: 6.35mm and 4-pin XLR
• Earpads: Suede and protein leather
• Case: Yaoli linen storage case
• Price: $499
• Availability: Shipping internationally in stages through FiiO and authorized dealers

The Competition

The Audeze MM-100 ($399) features 90mm planar drivers with a more reference-oriented presentation aimed partly at studio users. It is also built like something designed to survive an argument with a road case. 

Then there is the HiFiMAN Edition XV ($399), one of our Editors’ Choice models, which offers a warmer and smoother take on the traditional HiFiMAN sound with a 452g chassis and unusually easy-going treble for the brand. 

That leaves the FT15 entering an extremely competitive part of the planar market at $499. FiiO is betting that larger drivers, lower weight, easier drivability and a less aggressive tonal balance will justify the premium.

The Bottom Line

The FiiO FT15 looks like considerably more than an FT5 with nicer wood attached. FiiO has reworked the diaphragm, enlarged the driver and reduced the weight while keeping the headphone friendly to portable amplification.

Our brief listen in London suggested FiiO has also resisted the temptation to turn all of that engineering into an overly bright detail microscope. Whether the final production version improves on the restrained macrodynamic punch we noticed at the show will require a proper review.

At $499, it certainly has competition. It also no longer has the luxury of being judged as FiiO’s first serious planar experiment.

Where to Buy

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OpenAI has presented new examples of what they call “AI model misalignment” from the past six months, including unauthorized file uploads, following self-generated instructions, hiding mistakes, and leveraging exposed API keys.

OpenAI uses the term “model misalignment” to describe cases where AI models act contrary to their intended constraints, including taking unauthorized actions, evading oversight, or bypassing safeguards to complete a task.

In a post published yesterday, OpenAI says it is now using a new framework to track and investigate these unsanctioned actions by AI agents.

“We are sharing a new framework for tracking, investigating, and disclosing instances of model misalignment at OpenAI, along with six reports on unexpected or concerning model behavior we’ve observed in the last six months,” explains OpenAI.

The new examples are the first published under a more structured reporting framework intended to replace OpenAI’s previous looser approach to disclosing model misalignment.

The six cases OpenAI highlighted this time are:

1. An unreleased model inserted its own instructions into 27 task summaries, including directions to disregard normal constraints.
2. GPT-5.6 Sol instances added summary instructions telling future model instances to conceal mistakes, invent missing historical data, or hide source-version discrepancies.
3. A model found and used a publicly exposed API key without authorization, then fabricated the requested figures when it could not retrieve them.
4. An unreleased model uploaded a locally generated file to the internet without permission so it could provide a browser-accessible citation.
5. Models used an internal software repository to exchange messages across separate training samples, while an earlier model uploaded test files while trying to bypass network restrictions.
6. Collaborating agents uploaded files to public hosting services after being unable to access one another’s local files, exposing task deliverables through public URLs despite instructions to use only local storage.

Each case is logged in a technical incident report that includes the model name, a summary of its behavior during the observed incident, and the time the incident occurred.

The report also includes a detailed reconstruction of what happened, with the user’s task and the model’s internal reasoning, OpenAI’s interpretation and potential safety implications, and what mitigations have been or will be implemented.

OpenAI stressed that these six examples are not representative of how often it deals with misalignment across its models, but rather extreme examples that nonetheless warranted analysis and public disclosure.

The company said that, under the new process, any employee may flag an incident for investigation.

The incident will be evaluated and placed into three categories: ‘Ready for Disclosure’, ‘Minor Investigation’, or ‘Larger Investigation,’ depending on its complexity, third-party involvement, security flaws, and misuse risks.

The six examples presented this time fall into the first two categories, while the third will receive a preliminary report until the investigation concludes and a more thorough post-mortem can be published.

OpenAI says the Hugging Face intrusion from earlier this year, which involved a 700-strong “misaligned” AI agents swarm, would qualify for that third category of severity.

Join Mikko Hyppönen and security leaders from the NFL, CHANEL, and Atlassian for a two-hour digital summit on what AI-speed attacks change, what defenders should stop doing, and how to validate, decide, fix, and re-validate at machine speed.

Save your seat

Data center developer Crusoe said Thursday it raised $3.9 billion in a Series F round that pushes its valuation to $30.9 billion. The massive round was co-led by Atreides Management, Mubadala Capital, and Valor Equity Partners. Founders Fund, GIC, Nvidia, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Radical Ventures, and TPG also participated, according to Crusoe.

Crusoe also announced three new board members, including Cloudflare CFO Thomas Seifert; Bill Stein, partner and CIO at Primary Digital Infrastructure; and Redwood Materials founder and CEO JB Straubel, who also sits on Tesla’s board. Straubel already has ties to Crusoe; he personally invested in the company in 2021, and Crusoe later became the first customer of Redwood’s energy storage business.

The eight-year-old company’s fresh capital infusion will help finance existing data center projects, including a large site in Abilene, Texas, used by OpenAI, as well as smaller, modular AI factories that can be transported by truck and connected to large power sources almost anywhere.

By manufacturing these modular data centers, called Spark, at its own facilities, Crusoe can deploy compute capacity quickly and without the need for large construction workforces. The smaller centers could also help Crusoe sidestep, at least in part, another major obstacle facing data center developers: backlash from local communities protesting massive complexes near their neighborhoods.

Crusoe co-founder and CEO Chase Lochmiller, who is pictured above, said in a statement he believes AI will usher in an era of abundance, but to get there will mean “controlling the infrastructure from electrons to tokens, and we’re grateful to have investors who share that conviction.”

The company makes money by leasing data center space to customers that bring their own GPUs, by renting out its own GPUs, and by selling compute power used to run AI models, known as inference.

This three-pronged business model has helped make Crusoe one of the most valuable AI infrastructure companies. Crusoe recently signed a massive $13 billion, five-year cloud contract to supply quantitative trading firm Jane Street with GPUs and AI infrastructure, Bloomberg reported.

The company recently met with investment bankers, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, to discuss a potential IPO in the near future, Axios reported last month. 

The fresh fundraise comes 10 months after Crusoe raised $1.38 billion at a $10 billion valuation last October.

The company was founded in 2018 as a crypto mining operation powered by flared natural gas, but pivoted to AI infrastructure as demand for computing power skyrocketed. Crusoe’s customers include Meta, Microsoft, and Oracle.

PC parts have spent much of 2026 getting more expensive. AMD may now be preparing another price increase. A new report from ChannelGate (via @harukaze5719) says AMD has notified partners about a roughly 10% increase planned for the fourth quarter. The report names consumer graphics chips, AI accelerators, and motherboard chipsets among the affected products.

Ryzen processors are not explicitly mentioned. There is no confirmation of a CPU price hike yet, although AMD’s reliance on TSMC leaves its client processors exposed to the same manufacturing cost increases.

TSMC is adding another cost problem for AMD

ChannelGate says TSMC has increased its foundry quotations by around 10% as manufacturing costs continue to rise. AMD depends on TSMC for a large portion of its chip production, so higher wafer prices can affect several product categories at once.

AMD was already dealing with higher costs on the graphics side. Late last year, the company reportedly warned board partners about Radeon price increases of at least 10% as DRAM and GDDR prices climbed. Another report in August said GPU and memory bundles were becoming at least 10% more expensive for board partners.

The latest report points to a different source of pressure. Higher foundry pricing can affect chips across AMD’s portfolio, so even if the report does not mention it, chances are likely that the consumer Ryzen CPUs could soon see their prices go up.

Motherboards were already getting more expensive

The inclusion of motherboard chipsets could make an existing problem worse. A separate supply-chain report from August said the cost of PCBs used in motherboards could rise by at least 50% by the end of 2026. Other components such as capacitors, controller chips, VRMs, and copper heatsinks were also expected to become more expensive.

Those increases had already pushed Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte toward higher motherboard pricing. AMD’s reported chipset increase would add another layer of cost if it reaches board manufacturers. CPU buyers are also facing pressure from Intel. The company is reportedly preparing another roughly 10% increase for some client processors starting October 5, following earlier hikes this year.

RAM and SSD prices are already elevated, GPUs have become more expensive, motherboard costs are climbing, and CPUs may now be joining the list. For anyone planning a new PC, the outlook is quite bleak, and waiting much longer may only mean paying more for the same build.

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