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Hubble’s Sharpest Look Yet at a Star’s Final Act in the Egg Nebula

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Hubble Egg Nebula
A star almost identical to our sun is nearing the end of its life in the Cygnus constellation, about 1000 light years away. Astronomers call this spectacle the Egg Nebula, or CRL 2688 for short. Hubble’s most recent image provides a magnificent view of this particular object in unprecedented detail, thanks to the combination of new data and previously captured images. What we get is a stunning display of light cutting through the dust.



A star almost identical to our sun is nearing the end of its life in the Cygnus constellation, about 1000 light years away. Astronomers call this spectacle the Egg Nebula, or CRL 2688 for short. Hubble’s most recent image provides a magnificent view of this particular object in unprecedented detail, thanks to the combination of new data and previously captured photographs. What we get is a stunning display of light cutting through the dust.


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The core star is hidden deep in the center, enveloped by a thick cloud of gas and dust that allows very little light to pass through. What does pass through is compressed into two narrow beams of light that sweep outward, revealing the fast-moving clouds of material being ejected from the star. Those clouds glow orange in infrared, adding some color to the image. You can also observe faster-moving clouds of heated molecular hydrogen that light brightly in the infrared, adding depth to the scene.

Over the previous 5000 years, the star has lost its outer layers in large concentric rings of gas. These rings are made up of tiny arcs of gas that accumulate every few hundred years. Now, these rings reflect the star’s light in a fashion that resembles ripples on water – and the dust produced by these outbursts is what shapes the nebula that bears its name, since the dense core is like the yolk of an egg wrapped up in darker, dustier layers.

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Hubble Egg Nebula
This is only transient; it will only last a few thousand years. The star has depleted all of its hydrogen and helium fuel, and what remains of its outer layers are floating away, while the center is becoming increasingly hot. Eventually, that center will cause the surrounding gas to glow, similar to the Helix Nebula or Butterfly Nebula. As of now, the Egg Nebula is in its pre-planetary phase, a brief period before winds and radiation begin to obscure the picture.

Hubble first observed the Egg Nebula in 1997, when a picture revealed the hidden light source. In 2003, we were able to get a full picture of the ripple patterns surrounding the nebula, and in 2012, we got an even closer look at the central cloud and outflows. Today’s image combines all of that data with some new frames to provide the sharpest look yet, courtesy of the Wide Field Camera 3.

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This Jammer Wants to Block Always-Listening AI Wearables. It Probably Won’t Work

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Deveillance also claims the Spectre can find nearby microphones by detecting radio frequencies (RF), but critics say finding a microphone via RF emissions is not effective unless the sensor is immediately beside it.

“If you could detect and recognize components via RF the way Spectre claims to, it would literally be transformative to technology,” Jordan wrote in a text to WIRED after he built a device to test detecting RF signatures in microphones. “You’d be able to do radio astronomy in Manhattan.”

Deveillance is also looking at ways to integrate nonlinear junction detection (NLJD), a very high-frequency radio signal used by security professionals to find hidden mics and bugs. NLJD detectors are expensive and used primarily in professional contexts like military operations.

Even if a device could detect a microphone’s exact location, objects around a room can change how the frequencies spread and interact. The emitted frequencies could also be a problem. There haven’t been adequate studies to show what effects ultrasonic frequencies have on the human ear, but some people and many pets can hear them and find them obnoxious or even painful. Baradari acknowledges that her team needs to do more testing to see how pets are affected.

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“They simply cannot do this,” engineer and YouTuber Dave Jones (who runs the channel EEVblog) wrote in an email to WIRED. “They are using the classic trick of using wording to imply that it will detect every type of microphone, when all they are probably doing is scanning for Bluetooth audio devices. It’s totally lame.” Baradari reiterates that the Spectre uses a combination of RF and Bluetooth low energy to detect microphones.

WIRED asked Baradari to share any evidence of the Spectre’s effectiveness at identifying and blocking microphones in a person’s vicinity. Baradari shared a few short videoclips of people putting their phones to their ears listening to audioclips—which were presumably jammed by the Spectre—but these videos do little to prove that the device works.

Future Imperfect

Baradari has taken the critiques in stride, acknowledging that the tech is still in development. “I actually appreciate those comments, because they’re making me think and see more things as well,” Baradari says. “I do believe that with the ideas that we’re having and integrating into one device, these concerns can be addressed.”

People were quick to poke fun at the Spectre I online, calling the technology the cone of silence from Dune. Now, the Deveillance website reads, “Our goal is to make the cone of silence become reality.”

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John Scott-Railton, a cybersecurity researcher at Citizen Lab, who is critical of the Spectre I, lauded the device’s virality as an indication of the real hunger for these kinds of gadgets to win back our privacy.

“The silver lining of this blowing up is that it is a Ring-like moment that highlights how quickly and intensely consumer attitudes have shifted around pervasive recording devices,” says Scott-Railton. “We need to be building products that do all the cool things that people want but that don’t have the massive privacy- and consent-violation undertow. You need device-level controls, and you need regulations of the companies that are doing this.”

Cooper Quintin, a senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, echoed those sentiments, even if critics believe Deveillance’s efforts to be flawed.

“If this technology works, it could be a boon for many,” Quintin wrote in an email to WIRED. “It is nice to see a company creating something to protect privacy instead of working on new and creative ways to extract data from us.”

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Craft Recordings Expands Original Jazz Classics Series With Rare Reissues From Lee Morgan, Bobby Timmons, and The Young Lions

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Craft Recordings continues to build momentum behind one of the most successful jazz reissue campaigns of the modern vinyl era. The label has announced three new additions to its widely praised Original Jazz Classics series: The Young Lions (self-titled), Lee Morgan’s Introducing Lee Morgan, and Bobby Timmons’ This Here Is Bobby Timmons.

Arriving April 24, the trio of releases digs back into the fertile late-1950s jazz scene with albums recorded between 1957 and 1960. The set captures Morgan at the very beginning of a career that would later reshape hard bop, documents a rare all-star studio meeting from The Young Lions collective, and spotlights Timmons’ first album as a bandleader after helping define the soulful hard-bop piano sound of the era.

The new titles continue the winning formula that has made Craft’s revival of the Original Jazz Classics imprint such a hit with collectors and audiophiles. Each release features lacquers cut directly from the original analog tapes (AAA) by mastering engineer Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Record Technology Inc. (RTI), and packaged in period-correct tip-on jackets that faithfully replicate the original artwork.

All three titles are available for pre-order now and will also arrive on April 24 across digital platforms in 192kHz/24-bit hi-res audio. The OJC revival has already become one of the most consistently praised reissue programs in jazz today and we’ve covered most of the series so far, which you can explore here.

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The Young Lions – The Young Lions

cr00966-young-lions-pack-shot

In 1960, tenor saxophonist Wayne Shorter, alto saxophonist Frank Strozier, trumpeter Lee Morgan, pianist Bobby Timmons, and bassist Bob Cranshaw joined forces, supported by alternating drummers Louis Hayes and Albert Heath to record a one-off session that quietly captured a turning point in modern jazz. The resulting album, The Young Lions, brought together a group of rising stars determined to bridge the widening divide between traditional hard bop and the increasingly exploratory avant-garde that was beginning to reshape the genre.

The collaboration proved fleeting, but the music left a mark. Named after Irwin Shaw’s wartime novel, the group embodied a moment when jazz stood with one foot planted in the blues-drenched language of the 1950s and the other stepping toward the freer, more experimental sounds of the decade to come. Decades later, a new generation led by Wynton Marsalis would inherit the “Young Lions” label, but this earlier incarnation captured the spirit first.

The original liner notes by soul-jazz icon Cannonball Adderley set the tone, opening with the biting line, “We are living the era of the glorification of mediocrity,” before celebrating the group’s refusal to play it safe. Much of the album’s most memorable material comes from Shorter, whose compositions “Seeds of Sin” and “Scourn’” serve as confident sonic torchbearers for the band’s fluid, swinging approach—music rooted in bop tradition but already looking beyond it.

(Available April 24, 2026)


Lee Morgan – Introducing Lee Morgan

cr00967-introducing-lee-morgan-pack-shot

It’s almost absurd to consider that trumpeter Lee Morgan was only 18 years old when Introducing Lee Morgan arrived in 1957. Already a prodigy on the Philadelphia scene, Morgan had absorbed the language of bebop and hard bop with frightening speed, helped along by a trumpet reportedly gifted to him by his hero Dizzy Gillespie, complete with the tilted bell that became part of his visual signature.

Morgan’s tone on this debut bears the unmistakable influence of the late Clifford Brown; bright, confident, and full of youthful fire but the session remains grounded thanks to the steady presence of tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley and his quintet backing the young trumpeter. The result is a straight-ahead hard bop showcase that lets Morgan stretch his legs across a range of moods, from the blistering drive of “Hank’s Shout” to the more reflective reading of “P.S., I Love You.”

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Even at this early stage, the album hinted at the trajectory of one of jazz’s most important trumpet voices. Morgan would go on to record a string of landmark sessions including The SidewinderSearch for the New Land, and Cornbread that pushed hard bop toward funkier rhythms and more exploratory territory. That career arc makes Introducing Lee Morgan all the more fascinating: the sound of a teenager already playing like a veteran, laying the groundwork for a run of recordings that would define the next decade of modern jazz before his life was tragically cut short at just 33.

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(Available April 24, 2026)


Bobby Timmons This Here Is Bobby Timmons

cr00949-this-here-is-bobby-timmons-pack-shot

When Bobby Timmons stepped into the studio in 1960 to record This Here Is Bobby Timmons, he was already one of the defining pianists of the hard bop era. Timmons had built his reputation with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and the Cannonball Adderley Quintet, where his writing and playing helped shape a more soulful, groove driven direction in modern jazz. This first album under his own name feels like a statement of purpose, with Timmons stepping out front to show just how deep his musical roots ran.

Those roots came from the church. Raised in Philadelphia where his father was a minister, Timmons grew up surrounded by gospel music, and that influence flows through the entire record. You hear it immediately in the infectious title track, while the relaxed swing of “Dat Dere” reveals the same gospel touch in a lighter, playful groove.

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Timmons had already written one of the most recognizable compositions in modern jazz. “Moanin’,” first recorded by Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, became an instant classic and was later inducted into the GRAMMY Hall of Fame. The tune gained a second life when Jon Hendricks added lyrics, with vocalists including Sarah Vaughan helping turn it into a standard. Along with “Dat Dere” and the title track “This Here,” those songs helped establish Timmons as one of the architects of soul jazz, a pianist whose church rooted groove could swing hard while speaking directly to the listener.

(Available April 24, 2026)

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Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for March 7

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Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.


Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? It’s a long one, as always on Saturday. Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

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Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

completed-nyt-mini-crossword-puzzle-for-march-7-2026.png

The completed NYT Mini Crossword puzzle for March 7, 2026.

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NYT/Screenshot by CNET

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Bird with keen eyesight
Answer: HAWK

5A clue: With 8-Across, helpful comment to an oblivious video call participant
Answer: YOURE

6A clue: Scooby-Doo or Air Bud
Answer: PETDOG

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7A clue: Sticky notes
Answer: POSTITS

8A clue: See 5-Across
Answer: ONMUTE

9A clue: Protective layers over skin wounds
Answer: SCABS

10A clue: Roosters’ mates
Answer: HENS

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Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Places to find some small jets
Answer: HOTTUBS

2D clue: Reviews, as taxes
Answer: AUDITS

3D clue: Texted or emailed, e.g.
Answer: WROTE

4D clue: Barrels of beer
Answer: KEGS

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5D clue: Overagreeable underling
Answer: YESMAN

6D clue: Spanish conquistador ___ de León
Answer: PONCE

7D clue: Swanky, like a certain Spice Girl
Answer: POSH

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Nintendo sues the US government for a refund on tariffs

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Nintendo filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government on Friday over its extraction of tariffs from global businesses. The gaming giant is seeking a refund for any duties it paid due to President Donald Trump’s executive orders that invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

This lawsuit, filed in the U.S. Court of International Trade, comes after a Supreme Court decision struck down the tariffs that the president imposed under IEEPA, arguing that he exceeded his authority. More than a thousand other companies have already sued for refunds on the tariffs that they pay; according to Nintendo’s complaint, viewed by TechCrunch, these tariffs have resulted in the collection of over $200 billion on imports in total.

“We can confirm that we have filed a request,” Nintendo told TechCrunch in a statement. “We have nothing else to share on the topic.”

In response to the Supreme Court’s decision — which he called “extraordinarily anti-American” — President Trump raised tariffs from 10% to 15%. Now, 24 states have sued to argue that the president has once again overstepped the limits of his power by making this change.

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EC-Council Expands AI Certification Portfolio to Strengthen U.S. AI Workforce Readiness and Security

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EC-Council

With $5.5 trillion in global AI risk exposure and 700,000 U.S. workers needing reskilling, four new AI certifications and Certified CISO v4 help close the gap between AI adoption and workforce readiness

EC-Council, creator of the world-renowned Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) credential and a global leader in applied cybersecurity education, today launched its Enterprise AI Credential Suite, with four new role-based AI certifications debuting alongside Certified CISO v4, an overhauled executive cyber leadership program.

The dual launch is the largest single expansion of EC-Council’s portfolio in its 25-year history. It addresses a structural gap no single tool, platform, or policy can solve alone: AI is scaling faster than the workforce trained to run, secure, and govern it.

The launch aligns with U.S. priorities on workforce development and applied AI education outlined in Executive Order 14179, the July 2025 AI Action Plan’s workforce development pillar, and Executive Orders 14277 and 14278, which emphasize expanding AI education pathways and building job-relevant skills across professional and skilled-trade roles, at a time when organizations are moving AI from pilot projects into everyday operations and decision-making.

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That urgency is visible in both economic exposure and workforce capacity. IDC estimates that unmanaged AI risk could reach $5.5 trillion globally, while Bain & Company projects a 700,000-person AI and cybersecurity reskilling gap in the United States.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Economic Forum (WEF) have also pointed to workforce readiness, rather than access to technology, as a primary constraint on AI-driven productivity and growth, especially as adoption accelerates across sectors.

Security pressure is rising in parallel with adoption. Eighty-seven percent of organizations report AI-driven attacks, and generative AI traffic has surged by 890 percent, expanding attack surfaces that many teams are still learning how to defend, while AI capability remains concentrated, with 67 percent of AI talent located in just 15 U.S. cities and women representing only 28 percent of the AI workforce, highlighting persistent access and participation gaps as demand increases.

AI is moving from experimentation to infrastructure, and the workforce has to move with it,” said Jay Bavisi, Group President, EC-Council. “These programs are built to give professionals practical capability across adoption, security, and governance, so organizations can scale AI with confidence and clear accountability.

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Role-Aligned Certifications

The Enterprise AI Credential Suite is structured to mirror how AI capability is developed in practice. Artificial Intelligence Essentials (AIE) serves as the baseline, building practical AI fluency and responsible usage across roles, and it is supported by EC-Council’s proprietary Adopt. Defend. Govern. (ADG) framework, which defines how AI should be operationalized at scale in real environments.

Adopt: Prepare teams to deploy AI deliberately, with readiness and safeguards

Defend: Secure AI systems against threats such as prompt injection, data poisoning, model exploitation, and AI supply-chain compromise

Govern: Embed accountability, oversight, and risk management into AI systems from the outset

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Within this structure, the four new certifications align directly to specific workforce needs across the AI lifecycle.

  • Artificial Intelligence Essentials (AIE) builds foundational AI literacy.
  • Certified AI Program Manager (CAIPM) equips to translate AI strategy into execution, aligning teams, governance, and delivery to drive measurable ROI and enterprise-scale intelligence.
  • Certified Offensive AI Security Professional (COASP) builds elite capabilities to test vulnerabilities in LLMs, simulate exploits, and secure AI infrastructure hardening enterprises against emerging threats.
  • Certified Responsible AI Governance & Ethics (CRAGE) credential focuses on Responsible AI, Governance and Ethics at enterprise scale with NIST/ISO compliance.

Alongside the new AI certifications, Certified CISO v4 updates executive cyber leadership education for AI-driven risk environments, strengthening leadership readiness as intelligent systems become part of core business operations and security decision-making.

Security leaders are now accountable for systems that learn, adapt, and influence outcomes at speed,” Bavisi added. “Certified CISO v4 prepares leaders to manage AI-driven risk with clarity, strengthen governance, and make informed decisions when responsibility is on the line.

The portfolio also builds on EC-Council’s long-standing work with government and defense organizations, including its existing DoD 8140 baseline certification recognition, as AI security and workforce readiness take on greater national importance.

To explore the full range of training and certification opportunities, visit the EC-Council AI Courses library.

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About EC-Council:

EC-Council is the creator of the Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) program and a leader in cybersecurity education. Founded in 2001, EC-Council’s mission is to provide high-quality training and certifications for cybersecurity professionals to keep organizations safe from cyber threats. EC-Council offers over 200 certifications and degrees in various cybersecurity domains, including forensics, security analysis, threat intelligence, and information security.

An ISO/IEC 17024 accredited organization, EC-Council has certified over 350,000 professionals worldwide, with clients ranging from government agencies to Fortune 100 companies. EC-Council is the gold standard in cybersecurity certification, trusted by the U.S. Department of Defense, the Army, Navy, Air Force, and leading global corporations.

For more information, visit: www.eccouncil.org

Sponsored and written by EC-Council.

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This British Car Combined Two Aircraft Engines For Nearly 1000 HP In The ’20s

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Carl Benz patented his squat, three-wheeled Benz Patent Motor Car (Model no. 1) in 1886, and it didn’t take long for humanity’s obsession with automobiles to take hold. In 40 short years, we went from a German one-cylinder four-stroke engine producing just 0.75 hp to a four-wheeled, British-made bullet powered by two 22.4-liter V12 Matabele airplane engines each producing 435 hp. The combo isn’t a big deal now, admittedly, with half a dozen production cars packing 1,000 horses or more, but it was certainly impressive for the 1920s. 

This behemoth, known as the Sunbeam 1,000 HP, was nearly 24 feet long and weighed 4 tons, yet it was the first car to go faster than 200 mph — exactly what it was made to do. Henry Segrave was at the wheel of the Sunbeam, sometimes referred to as “The Slug” or “Mystery,” when he broke that 200-mph barrier on March 29, 1927. Seagrave and The Slug achieved that milestone on the hard white sands of Daytona Beach, Florida, which had seen 30 years of record-breaking speed trials since racing began there in 1902, including Segrave’s successful attempt. 

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The Sunbeam’s achievement came about 20 years after the first-ever 100-mph run, which took place on July 21, 1904. That year, Frenchman Louis Emile Rigolly hit 103.561 mph on a beach in Ostend, Belgium.

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This was not your ordinary Slug

Sunbeam driver Henry Segrave had previously set a Land Speed Record almost exactly a year earlier, hitting 152.33 mph while driving a 4.0-liter Sunbeam Tiger, so he was very familiar with the need for speed. This new, more powerful Sunbeam 1000 was the brainchild of chief engineer and designer Louis Coatalen, who decided to place the two Matabele airplane engines in line. 

Both of the massive V12s had double overhead camshafts and 48 valves. The one sitting up front was mated to a custom-built three-speed gearbox, while the rear engine was connected to the back wheels via chain sprockets. Segrave was nestled tightly in between the beast’s metallic hearts, which had a wild past all of their own.

Both Matabele engines were built in 1918 and destined for World War I airplanes, but were never used. Two years later, they (along with two other engines) were dropped into a 39-foot single-step hydroplane (the Maple Leaf V) and used for powerboat racing. The following year, they were transferred to the 34-foot Maple Leaf VII and used again, although the boat sank on its first run. Both engines were recovered and sent back to the U.K., where they sat around until being used in the Sunbeam.

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Ironically, the slug-like body of the Sunbeam actually resembled an upside-down boat in many ways, an intentional decision to improve aerodynamics. Additionally, it had a flat underbelly, with the idea that it would help the car slide along the beach if it lost a wheel, thus avoiding a major catastrophe.

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The British beast comes back to life

Louis Coatalen developed the engine placement and internal workings, while Captain JA “Jack” Irving built the Mystery using a chassis from John Thompson Motor Pressings, steel forgings from Vickers, a set of special Hartford shock absorbers, and a braking system from Dewandre Vacuum. When driver Henry Segrave heard the beast roar for the first time, the car reportedly shook the Sunbeam Moorfield facility in Wolverhampton so hard that it convinced Segrave it couldn’t be driven. But drive the monster he did, achieving an average speed of 203.79 mph at Daytona Beach.

Records are made to be broken, and this one fell less than a year later when Malcolm Campbell drove another Sunbeam, known as the Blue Bird, to 206.956 mph at Daytona on February 19, 1928, becoming one of the many cars to hold the title of fastest in the world over the years. With its glory faded, the Sunbeam 1000 was parked and nearly forgotten for a time. Once rediscovered, it bounced around until it was eventually purchased by the Montagu Motor Museum in the United Kingdom (the forerunner to the National Motor Museum) in 1970.

A total refurbishment began in 2024, aiming to finish by March 2027, so it could be sent to Daytona Beach for the 100th anniversary of its land speed record. The fully rebuilt rear engine was fired up for the first time in 90 years in front of onlookers at the National Motor Museum in September 2025. Only time will tell whether the team behind the restoration can cross the finish line in Daytona in 2027.

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CISA warns feds to patch iOS flaws exploited in crypto-theft attacks

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CISA

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) ordered federal agencies to patch three iOS security flaws targeted in cyberespionage and crypto-theft attacks using the Coruna exploit kit.

As Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) researchers revealed earlier this week, Coruna uses multiple exploit chains targeting 23 iOS vulnerabilities, many of which were deployed in zero-day attacks.

However, the exploits will not work on recent versions of iOS and will be blocked if the target is using private browsing or has enabled Apple’s Lockdown Mode anti-spyware protection feature.

Coruna provides threat actors with Pointer Authentication Code (PAC) bypass, sandbox escape, and PPL (Page Protection Layer) bypass capabilities, and enables them to gain WebKit remote code execution and escalate permissions to Kernel privileges on vulnerable devices.

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GTIG observed the exploit kit being used by multiple threat actors last year, including a surveillance vendor customer, a suspected Russian state-backed hacking group (UNC6353), and a financially motivated Chinese threat actor (UNC6691).

The latter deployed it on fake gambling and crypto websites and used it to deliver a malware payload designed to steal infected victims’ cryptocurrency wallets.

Coruna attacks timeline
Coruna attacks timeline (GTIG)

Mobile security firm iVerify also said that Coruna is an example of “sophisticated spyware-grade capabilities” that migrated “from commercial surveillance vendors into the hands of nation-state actors and, ultimately, mass-scale criminal operations.”

On Thursday, CISA added three of the 23 Coruna vulnerabilities to its catalog of Known Exploited Vulnerabilities, ordering Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies to secure their devices by March 26, as mandated by the Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 22-01.

“Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable,” CISA warned.

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“These types of vulnerabilities are frequent attack vectors for malicious cyber actors and pose significant risks to the federal enterprise.”

Although BOD 22-01 applies only to federal agencies, CISA urged all organizations, including private sector companies, to prioritize patching these flaws to secure their devices against attacks as soon as possible.

Malware is getting smarter. The Red Report 2026 reveals how new threats use math to detect sandboxes and hide in plain sight.

Download our analysis of 1.1 million malicious samples to uncover the top 10 techniques and see if your security stack is blinded.

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Oracle to cut ‘thousands’ of jobs, reports Bloomberg

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Oracle employs around 162,000 globally, with 900 workers situated in Ireland.

Oracle will cut thousands of jobs to funnel funds into its major AI data centre expansion efforts, according to Bloomberg.

The cuts will affect divisions across the company and may come as soon as this month, the publication said. Some of the cuts might target jobs that Oracle needs less due to AI.

Latest data shows that Oracle employs around 162,000 globally, with around 900 workers situated in Ireland.

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Last September, the company revealed plans for its largest-ever restructuring, set to cost up to $1.6bn. At the time, Oracle’s Irish arm sent a collective redundancy notification to the Government.

SiliconRepublic.com has contacted Oracle for details on the latest layoffs and its effects in Ireland.

Oracle is one of the world’s largest cloud operators, having cemented itself as a leading AI infrastructure provider tapped by major cloud users, such as OpenAI.

OpenAI has promised Oracle $300bn for its compute power, but, as TechCrunch highlights, much of the promised spending is speculative and highly dependent on the companies’ growth.

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Plus, data compiled by Bloomberg shows that Oracle will have negative cash flow on account of the data centre buildout until 2030. The massive AI expenditures have turned Oracle’s cash flow negative last year for the first time since 1992, noted the publication.

Early last month, Oracle said it plans to raise up to $50bn through debt and equity sales to build additional cloud capacity.

The Larry Ellison-led company is also pouring money into OpenAI as part of the major $500bn AI infrastructure build-out called Stargate, while a close relationship with the US government helped it towards a stake of 15pc of the new TikTok USDS entity, as well as control over the platform’s algorithm.

Oracle enjoyed strong investor support in the initial years of the AI boom, which boosted the company stock 61pc in 2024 and 20pc in 2025. The support briefly made Ellison the world’s richest man in September last year.

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However, investors have been wary of massive AI spending in recent months, sending Oracle shares down 54pc since September.

Several Big Tech firms have laid off employees over the past year, including Microsoft, which axed thousands, Block, which is cutting around 40pc of its workforce, and Amazon, which has cut more than 30,000 jobs since October.

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Larry Ellison, 2010. Image: Ilan Costica, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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GoPro Lit Hero Review: a tiny action cam, with too many compromises

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Why you can trust TechRadar


We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

GoPro Lit Hero: two-minute review

GoPro is a name that’s synonymous with the action cam market, with the brand having largely been responsible for the explosion in popularity of such cameras over the past two decades. The brand has come a long way since its first Hero camera, a 35mm film-compatible wearable model released in 2004.

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LangChain’s CEO argues that better models alone won’t get your AI agent to production

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As models get smarter and more capable, the “harnesses” around them must also evolve.

This “harness engineering” is an extension of context engineering, says LangChain co-founder and CEO Harrison Chase in a new VentureBeat Beyond the Pilot podcast episode. Whereas traditional AI harnesses have tended to constrain models from running in loops and calling tools, harnesses specifically built for AI agents allow them to interact more independently and effectively perform long-running tasks.

Chase also weighed in on OpenAI’s acquisition of OpenClaw, arguing that its viral success came down to a willingness to “let it rip” in ways that no major lab would — and questioning whether the acquisition actually gets OpenAI closer to a safe enterprise version of the product.

“The trend in harnesses is to actually give the large language model (LLM) itself more control over context engineering, letting it decide what it sees and what it doesn’t see,” Chase says. “Now, this idea of a long-running, more autonomous assistant is viable.”

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Tracking progress and maintaining coherence

While the concept of allowing LLMs to run in a loop and call tools seems relatively simple, it’s difficult to pull off reliably, Chase noted. For a while, models were “below the threshold of usefulness” and simply couldn’t run in a loop, so devs used graphs and wrote chains to get around that. Chase pointed to AutoGPT — once the fastest-growing GitHub project ever — as a cautionary example: same architecture as today’s top agents, but the models weren’t good enough yet to run reliably in a loop, so it faded fast.

But as LLMs keep improving, teams can construct environments where models can run in loops and plan over longer horizons, and they can continually improve these harnesses. Previously, “you couldn’t really make improvements to the harness because you couldn’t actually run the model in a harness,” Chase said.

LangChain’s answer to this is Deep Agents, a customizable general-purpose harness.

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Built on LangChain and LangGraph, it has planning capabilities, a virtual filesystem, context and token management, code execution, and skills and memory functions. Further, it can delegate tasks to subagents; these are specialized with different tools and configurations and can work in parallel. Context is also isolated, meaning subagent work doesn’t clutter the main agent’s context, and large subtask context is compressed into a single result for token efficiency.

All of these agents have access to file systems, Chase explained, and can essentially create to-do lists that they can execute on and track over time.

“When it goes on to the next step, and it goes on to step two or step three or step four out of a 200 step process, it has a way to track its progress and keep that coherence,” Chase said. “It comes down to letting the LLM write its thoughts down as it goes along, essentially.”

He emphasized that harnesses should be designed so that models can maintain coherence over longer tasks, and be “amenable” to models deciding when to compact context at points it determines is “advantageous.”

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Also, giving agents access to code interpreters and BASH tools increases flexibility. And, providing agents with skills as opposed to just tools loaded up front allows them to load information when they need it. “So rather than hard code everything into one big system prompt,” Chase explained, “you could have a smaller system prompt, ‘This is the core foundation, but if I need to do X, let me read the skill for X. If I need to do Y, let me read the skill for Y.’”

Essentially, context engineering is a “really fancy” way of saying: What is the LLM seeing? Because that’s different from what developers see, he noted. When human devs can analyze agent traces, they can put themselves in the AI’s “mindset” and answer questions like: What is the system prompt? How is it created? Is it static or is it populated? What tools does the agent have? When it makes a tool call, and gets a response back, how is that presented?

“When agents mess up, they mess up because they don’t have the right context; when they succeed, they succeed because they have the right context,” Chase said. “I think of context engineering as bringing the right information in the right format to the LLM at the right time.”

Listen to the podcast to hear more about:

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  • How LangChain built its stack: LangGraph as the core pillar, LangChain at the center, Deep Agents on top.

  • Why code sandboxes will be the next big thing.

  • How a different type of UX will evolve as agents run at longer intervals (or continuously).

  • Why traces and observability are core to building an agent that actually works.

You can also listen and subscribe to Beyond the Pilot on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.

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