Tech

Spokane startup Blaze Barrier heats up with new funding for quick-deploy wildfire defense system

Published

5 hours ago

16 February 2026

Members of the Blaze Barrier team, from left: Jacob Schuler, founder and CEO; Jennifer Fanto, chief operating officer; and Cody Schuler, head of production and safety. (Blaze Barrier Photo)

Jacob Schuler is not a firefighter. But in 2021 he heard from a friend who was first on scene to a barn in flames in Stevens County, Wash. The friend described the technique firefighters use to slow or contain a brush fire when there is no access to water.

“Standard operating procedure is to grab shovels and start digging a fire line,” Schuler told GeekWire. “It removes the vegetation, and when the fire gets there it’s supposed to put out the fire because it runs out of fuel.”

That day flames were too fast for the diggers and the blaze raced into a neighboring field and off it went, Schuler said. The 30-day Ford-Corkscrew Fire burned 16,000 acres and 18 homes were lost.

“Hearing that story, that when the water is gone they grab shovels — that was a problem statement for me,” Schuler said, and he set out to find a solution.

Spokane-based Blaze Barrier was born out of Schuler’s desire to give firefighters and homeowners a quick-acting tool to fight wildfires. The technology works by connecting a series of modules which contain monoammonium phosphate, a non-toxic extinguishing powder. When fire reaches the line’s fuses, the modules ignite and knock down the flames while also creating a fire-suppressing barrier to stop the fire’s progress.

“It’s like a fire line in a box instead of the manual labor of digging the vegetation away,” Schuler said. The line is fast and easy to deploy from its storage box, the powder is biodegradable, and unused lines or modules can be picked up and reused.

Blaze Barrier modules are connected to one another in a 25-foot line and ignite when flames reach the fuses that feed into each module full of fire extinguishing powder. (Blaze Barrier Photo)

Blaze Barrier is appropriate for certain types of wildfires and grass fires. It’s not intended to work against a massive blaze fed by powerful winds, like those that overpower firetrucks or jump between tree tops.

“We hear pretty consistently from firefighters, that giving them an extra 5-10 minutes or slowing the intensity of a fire is game-changing for them,” Schuler said. “It allows them to get into better position so they’re not being overtaken.”

Blaze Barrier recently closed a $760,000 seed funding round, with Avista Development and Barton Ventures co-leading the round and participation from 12 angel investors. The company previously raised a seed round of $300,000, and a Kickstarter campaign raised about $53,000.

The startup employs six people and is actively hiring for a 9,500-square-foot production facility where it hopes to eventually assemble 1,000 fire lines a day.

A 25-foot Blaze Barrier sells on the company’s website for $295. A patent is pending for the system Schuler created in which the modules are strung together. And the company just got sign-off from the U.S. Department of Transportation to ship via common carrier.

The video below, showing a previous iteration of Blaze Barrier, illustrates how the system is deployed and ignites:

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AI panic grips Wall Street as software stocks sink, yet AWS chief says investors are wildly overreacting to disruption fears

Published

17 minutes ago

16 February 2026

NewsAdmin

Growing AI fears recently triggered a sharp sell-off across software stocks
SaaS valuations dropped as disruption narratives gained momentum
AWS revenue growth outpaced broader tech market performance, and CEO looks to allay fears

Technology stocks have struggled in 2026 as investors reassess the commercial impact of rapidly advancing AI tools.

The pullback has been especially sharp among software-as-a-service companies, where some analysts now describe the downturn as an “SaaS apocalypse.”

This sell-off followed a wave of new AI features released by major model developers, including OpenAI and Anthropic.

Investors appear concerned that AI systems could compress margins, reduce demand for traditional subscription products, or shift spending toward infrastructure providers instead of application vendors.

The market reaction suggests that expectations of disruption are being priced in aggressively, even as the company’s financial results remain relatively stable.

Amazon Web Services chief executive Matt Garman has now publicly argued the market response may be disproportionate.

“Look, my own opinion is that much of the fear is overblown,” Garman told CNBC, maintaining customers will require increasing amounts of computing power and infrastructure regardless of how they integrate AI into their operations.

In Garman’s view, companies may build their own systems, rely on SaaS providers, or combine both approaches, yet the underlying demand for cloud capacity is expected to expand.

Amazon recently reported AWS revenue rose around 24% year over year to $35.6 billion in the fourth quarter, exceeding analyst estimates. Its operating margins hit 35%, slightly higher than the previous quarter.

These figures suggest cloud infrastructure spending has not slowed in tandem with the broader equity decline.

Some large software companies have introduced AI-driven features without experiencing dramatic acceleration in revenue growth.

ServiceNow reported fourth-quarter revenue growth of 20.7%, compared with nearly 26% 2 years earlier.

The deceleration does not necessarily indicate deterioration, yet it has fueled concerns that AI enhancements may not immediately translate into faster expansion.

AI is “a huge disruption…a disruptive force that’s going to change how software is consumed and how it’s built,” Garman added.

SaaS and large players may have structural advantages, but Garman believes that they, “have to innovate, just like the rest of the world. They can’t stand still. If they stand still, they’re absolutely going to be disrupted.”

Markets often react sharply to technological change, yet the gap between expectation and measurable impact remains uncertain at this stage.

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Eurail says stolen traveler data now up for sale on dark web

Published

30 minutes ago

16 February 2026

NewsAdmin

Eurail says stolen traveler data now up for sale on dark web

Eurail B.V., the operator that provides access to 250,000 kilometers of European railways, confirmed that data stolen in a breach earlier this year is being offered for sale on the dark web.

The company said that a threat actor also published a sample of the data on the Telegram messaging platform but it is still trying to determine the type of records and number of customers affected.

Eurail B.V. is a Netherlands-based firm that manages and sells passes (Eurail and Interrail) for train travel across Europe, offering flexibility for multi-country trips.

Its passes are also very popular among young European travelers participating in the EU’s DiscoverEU program.

Last month, the company disclosed that it suffered a data breach when threat actors gained unauthorized access to its customer database, compromising sensitive information, including full names, passport details, ID numbers, bank account IBANs, health information, and contact details (email addresses, phone numbers).

“We have become aware that the data has been offered for sale on the dark web and a sample data set has been published on Telegram.

“We are currently investigating which specific data records or how many of the affected customers this concerns,” reads Eurail’s update.

Eurail states that it continues the investigation to determine exactly what data was compromised for each affected customer, and will send individual notifications for those impacted.

Meanwhile, concerned data protection authorities have been notified in accordance with the GDPR requirements, and authorities outside the EU will be alerted soon.

Customers who may have had their information exposed in this incident should be vigilant to potential phishing and scam attempts.

Eurail suggests that customers update their Rail Planner app account passwords and reset them on any other platform where they use the same credentials.

Also, customers should monitor their bank account activity closely and report any suspicious transactions to their bank immediately.

A FAQ page has been published to support customers, and any concerns may also be addressed directly via email to privacyhelp@eurail.com.

Modern IT infrastructure moves faster than manual workflows can handle.

In this new Tines guide, learn how your team can reduce hidden manual delays, improve reliability through automated response, and build and scale intelligent workflows on top of tools you already use.

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Tech

X goes quiet again

Published

44 minutes ago

16 February 2026

NewsAdmin

If you checked X today expecting the usual stream of hot takes, memes, and AI spats, you probably saw… nothing. A widespread outage hit the platform today, leaving feeds blank, timelines unresponsive, and users staring at the digital equivalent of an empty room. Outage trackers such as Downdetector logged a dramatic surge in problem reports […]

This story continues at The Next Web

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Tech

Alibaba unveils Qwen3.5 with visual agentic abilities

Published

58 minutes ago

16 February 2026

NewsAdmin

Qwen3.5 is 60pc cheaper to use and eight times better at processing large workloads than its predecessor, the company said.

Alibaba has unveiled its latest AI model, Qwen3.5, as newer launches from Chinese companies catch up to their US counterparts in the race for AI dominance.

The first open weight model in the Qwen3.5 series demonstrates “outstanding results across a full range” of benchmarks, the company said. It ranks higher than OpenAI’s GPT-5.2, Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.5 and Google’s Gemini 3 Pro in several of the tests.

The model is built on a hybrid architecture that allows only 17bn parameters to activate per forward pass, while comprising a total of 397bn parameters. This, Alibaba said, optimises speed without sacrificing its capability.

According to the company, Qwen3.5 is 60pc cheaper to use and eight times better at processing large workloads than its immediate predecessor. The new model comes with “visual agentic capabilities”, Alibaba said – the ability to take actions across phone and computer apps.

“Built for the agentic AI era, Qwen3.5 is designed to help developers and enterprises move faster and do more with the same compute, setting a new benchmark for capability per unit of inference cost,” the company said in a statement, as reported by Reuters.

Alibaba’s latest launch follows ByteDance releasing an upgraded version of its Doubao chatbot app over the weekend. The agentic chatbot service has close to 200m users.

The TikTok parent also recently launched the latest version of its AI video generator, Seedance 2.0, which garnered praise for its capability while also receiving criticism for potential copyright theft.

Other Chinese AI leaders launched their own new models recently, including Zhipu, which unveiled GLM-5, trained entirely using Chinese chips; MiniMax, which released M2.5; and the Alibaba-backed Moonshot AI, which came out with Kimi K2.5.

These new launches come ahead of DeepSeek’s new V4 model, expected to come out later this month. According to reports, the new DeepSeek model could outperform rivals ChatGPT and Claude, particularly on tasks that involve long coding prompts.

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Logistics stocks tumble after tiny AI firm claims massive freight efficiency gains

Published

1 hour ago

16 February 2026

NewsAdmin

Freight AI claims triggered a sharp market sell-off across trucking logistics shares
Investors reacted strongly to automation fears as small AI firm surged in value
Market anxiety around AI disruption spread beyond trucking into healthcare and publishing

Shares in trucking and logistics companies plunged after investors reacted sharply to claims made by a tiny AI firm about automation in freight operations.

Wall Street Journal reported the selloff “is one of the most extreme examples yet of the sell-now, ask-later ethos sweeping financial markets in the artificial-intelligence era.”

Algorhythm Holdings, once known for in-car karaoke products, said its SemiCab platform was helping customers scale freight volumes by 300% to 400% without adding staff.

operating system.”

That statement pushed up Algorhythm’s shares nearly 30%, despite the company’s small $6m market value, but the reaction elsewhere was far less upbeat.

The Russell 3000 Trucking Index fell 6.6% as traders rushed out of logistics names. CH Robinson Worldwide dropped 15% by the close after falling as much as 24% earlier in the session.

Landstar System slid 16%, while RXO fell 20.5%. JB Hunt Transportation Services and XPO each lost about 5%. The selling pressure spread beyond trucking, with drug distribution companies including McKesson Corp and Cardinal Health dropping about 4%. European logistics groups also took hits. DHL Group fell 4.9%, DSV A/S dropped 11%, and Kuehne+Nagel International AG lost 13% in late trading.

Algorhythm’s chief executive seemed surprised by the scale of the market reaction. “Never in my wildest dreams would I ever have imagined a day like today,” Atkinson said. “It’s almost like David versus Goliath.”

Algorhythm previously focused on karaoke technology before selling its Singing Machine unit to Stingray for $4.5m and pivoting toward AI freight software.

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Western Digital's HDD production for 2026 is already sold out

Published

1 hour ago

16 February 2026

NewsAdmin

Western Digital has already sold out its entire HDD manufacturing capacity for the year, and it’s only February. According to CEO Irving Tan, 2026 is effectively fully booked. AI companies are purchasing storage drives that have yet to be manufactured, and relief for traditional customers is unlikely anytime soon –…
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Washington Hotel in Japan discloses ransomware infection incident

Published

2 hours ago

16 February 2026

NewsAdmin

Washington Hotel

The Washington Hotel brand in Japan has announced that that its servers were compromised in a ransomware attack, exposing various business data.

The hospitality group has established an internal task force and engaged external cybersecurity experts to assess the impact of the intrusion, determine whether customer data was compromised, and coordinate recovery efforts.

Washington Hotel, a brand operating under Fujita Kanko Inc. (WHG Hotels), is a business-focused hospitality chain with 30 locations across Japan. WHG has 11,000 rooms over its properties and has nearly 5 million guests every year.

According to the company’s disclosure, hackers breached its network on Friday, February 13, 2026, at 22:00 (local time). The IT staff immediately disconnected servers from the internet to prevent the attack from spreading on the network.

The organization states that it started consulting with the police and external cybersecurity experts.

Although an investigation is ongoing, Washington Hotel can confirm that the attacker gained access to various business data stored on the affected servers.

Customer data is unlikely to be exposed because the company stores this information on servers managed by a separate company, for which no unauthorized access has been confirmed.

The incident is impacting operations at some Washington Hotel brand properties, including the temporary unavailability of credit card terminals. Besides that, the firm says it recorded no significant operational disruption.

The financial impact of the incident is currently under review. Washington Hotel promised to provide updates if any additional relevant details emerge.

As of writing, no ransomware groups have claimed the Washington Hotel on known dark-web-based extortion portals that BleepingComputer monitors.

Multiple companies in Japan have been targeted by hackers lately. Some of the recent incidents include global automaker Nissan, retail giant Muji, the largest brewer in the country, Asahi, and telecom giant NTT.

Although not necessarily related to the breach at Washington Hotel, JPCERT/CC disclosed late last week that hackers were exploiting an arbitrary command injection flaw in Soliton Systems’ FileZen products, tracked under CVE-2026-25108.

The file-sharing appliance is widely used by Japanese companies and was also targeted in 2021.

Modern IT infrastructure moves faster than manual workflows can handle.

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Tech

The Best Michelin Tires For SUVs, According To Consumer Reports

Published

2 hours ago

16 February 2026

NewsAdmin

Kenneth Cheung/Getty Images

If you are in need of new tires for your vehicle, chances are pretty good that one of the brand names that you will be considering is Michelin. The French company has been a mainstay of the tire industry for over a century, and the tires it produces are generally regarded among the best in the world. Michelin even took the top spot in SlashGear’s own ranking of tire brands. Another publication that agrees is Consumer Reports, which also ranked Michelin as the best overall tire brand on the market.

Consumer Reports tested eight different Michelin tires to determine how they brake, how much noise they make, how they handle various surfaces, and more. Several of these are designed with SUVs in mind, either specifically or to be used on cars too. While all of the tires tested earned very good ratings and a “CR Recommended” indicator from Consumer Reports, there is one Michelin tire for SUVs that ranks the highest of them all: the Michelin CrossClimate 2.

These are all-season tires specifically made for SUVs, and not only does it sit at the top of the list for Michelin SUV tires, Consumer Reports has it ranked at the top among tires of its kind from every brand. This is thanks to an incredibly high owner satisfaction score and that it performed either well or excellently in every single testing area, be it wet and dry braking, ride comfort, or rolling resistance. One of the more impressive things is that these tests were based on a 95,000-mile tread life, which is 35,000 more than the number two-ranked tire of this class, the Vredestein HiTrac.

All-season tires actually for all seasons

A rear view of an SUV driving on snow-covered road.

Andriy Baidak/Shutterstock

Whenever you see the phrase “all-season tires,” you always hope that the tires can actually deliver on that promise. It’s one thing to drive down an open road on a hot July afternoon, bur it’s another to be in mid-January and trudging your SUV through the snow. Knowing what goes into a good snow tire is important for those in colder climates, and many of these people opt to buy tires specifically with snow, ice, and winter in mind, which is exactly how snow tires are different from all-season ones. Michelin even has options for that, like the highly rated and aptly named Michelin X-Ice Snow tires. For performance SUVs, you can opt instead for Michelin Pilot Alpin PA4 tires. Both of these have received top marks from Consumer Reports for snow traction and ice braking.

Some just want to have those all-season tires, though; according to Consumer Reports, choosing the Michelin CrossClimate 2 instead of a specifically designed snow tire provides plenty of performance. These tires received the exact same top marks in testing for snow traction and ice braking as the winter-focused tires. In fact, these are the two areas of all that were tested where the CrossClimate 2 earned the highest score possible. An all-season tire should be able to handle these things just as well as it does braking on a dry road or hydroplaning, and these pass with flying colors. For those wanting Michelin tires on their SUV, Consumer Reports really does find little to no fault with the performance that the CrossClimate 2 provides.

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La Liga Soccer: Stream Girona vs. Barcelona Live From Anywhere

Published

2 hours ago

16 February 2026

NewsAdmin

When to watch Girona vs. Barcelona

Monday, Feb.16, at 3 p.m. ET (noon PT)

Where to watch

Girona vs. Barcelona will air in the US on ESPN Select.

Barcelona will seek to avoid a second straight defeat when they take on Catalan neighbors Girona on Monday.

It’s been a difficult week for the visitors, with Barça crashing to a chastening 4-0 thrashing at the hands of Atlético Madrid in Thursday’s Copa del Rey semifinal. Meanwhile, title rivals Real Madrid’s emphatic 4-1 La Liga victory on Saturday pushed the Blaugrana down to second place in the standings.

They now face a Girona side also badly in need of points, with Míchel’s Blanquivermells entering the match just two points above the relegation zone in 15th place and on a three-game winless run.

Girona takes on Barcelona at the Estadi Montilivi in Catalonia on Monday, Feb. 16. Kickoff is set for 9 p.m. CET local time, which is 3 p.m. ET or noon PT in the US and Canada, 8 p.m. GMT in the UK and 7 a.m. AEDT in Australia on Tuesday morning.

Michel, head coach of Girona FC — Michel’s Barcelona have won just three times at home so far this season.
Denis Doyle/Getty Images

Watch Girona vs. Barcelona in the US without cable

This match is available to stream in the US through ESPN Select, which has live English and Spanish-language broadcast rights for La Liga in the US.

ESPN

ESPN’s streaming platforms now offer two tiers with its new direct-to-consumer setup: ESPN Select and ESPN Unlimited. ESPN Select is essentially what ESPN Plus used to be, with the same content available to subscribers, including La Liga soccer, for $12 a month. If you want full access to ESPN’s networks and services, such as ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPNews and ESPN Deportes, as well as all of ESPN Select’s content, then ESPN Unlimited is the way to go. It costs $30 a month.

Livestream Girona vs. Barcelona in the UK

Premier Sports is the home for the lion’s share of live Spanish top-flight match broadcasts this season in the UK. The network is showing 340 matches live, including this game, which will be shown exclusively live on its Premier Sports 1 TV channel and Premier Sports Player.

Premier Sports

A subscription to the dedicated Premier Sports La Liga channel costs £8 a month. You can also access the channel through a full subscription to Premier Sports, which provides access to all of the network’s channels. These channels hold the UK broadcast rights to Scottish Premiership matches, the BKT United Rugby Championship, the Investec Champions Cup, as well as NHL and Nascar. A full Premier Sports subscription costs £10 per month for Sky and Virgin TV customers. You can also get Premier Sports through Prime Video as an add-on for £15 a month.

Livestream Girona vs. Barcelona in Canada

TSN is the rights-holder for live coverage of La Liga matches in the region. Select games are shown on its linear channels, and a wider selection is shown on its TSN Plus streaming platform. This match is set to be shown on TSN 5 and TSN Plus.

TSN

TSN Plus is a streaming service that costs CA$8 a month and also offers coverage of PGA Tour Live golf, NFL games, F1, Nascar and the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments.

Livestream Girona vs. Barcelona in Australia

Soccer fans Down Under can watch La Liga matches live on BeIN Sports, which holds the live broadcast rights in Australia for Spanish top-flight matches. This match is set to be shown on BeIN Sports Connect.

BeIn Sports

BeIN Sports is available in Australia for AU$16 a month or a yearly commitment of AU$160.

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Tech

Amazon Props Up Misleading, Junky Laptops No One Should Buy

Published

2 hours ago

16 February 2026

NewsAdmin

Beyond the outdated Acer Nitro, I also spotted this Samsung Galaxy Book4. This is not a terrible laptop on its own, but at $565, there are better options. There’s the Asus Vivobook 14 (or 16), which costs $650 and occasionally dips down to $550. It comes with the 8-core Qualcomm Snapdragon X, providing it with much more battery life than the Galaxy Book4. There’s also the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3X, which has the same chip but comes in even cheaper at $584.

If you want great deals on laptops that are actually worth buying, check out our Best Budget Laptops, Best Budget Gaming Laptops, and Best Chromebooks recommendations, which I frequently update.

Unknown Brands

You always know it’s bad when the brand of the laptop isn’t mentioned in the title of the product. Oh, you’ve never heard of the well-known, reliable laptop manufacturer Jumper? Or Nimo? Yeah, I haven’t either. Yet, Amazon seems to think these are appropriate to recommend as some of the best laptops.

Like the HP laptops above, these are extremely cheap Windows 11 laptops—all under $300. The Jumper laptop suffers from some of the same problems, such as the eMMC storage and Intel Celeron processor, even if the company at least manages to include a 1080p display. The large touchpad and edge-to-edge keyboard look nice, too. Yet, I would never recommend a laptop that isn’t from a reputable manufacturer. It’s not that it’s impossible that these laptops could be decent, but buying some that have almost no independent reviews isn’t a good idea.

You’ll also see the brand Nimo pop up, specifically around the topic of gaming laptops. Marketing these as gaming laptops is very misleading, as they don’t come with a discrete graphics card—or any other notable gaming features. This Nimo laptop is no more a gaming device than any other $600 Windows laptop you can buy. You can’t actually buy a worthwhile gaming laptop for this much, and these off-brand companies are preying on that fact.

It’s Not All Bad

There are a couple of laptops that appeared on page one of the Amazon results that were promising. Amazon put the 13-inch M4 Apple MacBook Air high up, which is also our top pick for the best laptop you can buy. Amazon also recommended the Dell 15 Laptop, which is a budget device that looks solid. I haven’t tested it yet myself, but it’s a 2025 laptop for $530 that comes with decent specs, such as a 120-Hz refresh rate, 16 GB of RAM, and 512 GB of storage. But that’s really it. The rest of the results are flooded with sponsored results of varying degrees of quality.

Walmart, which has become another popular online laptop retailer, does an even worse job, appealing to the lowest common denominator. It falls into the same traps as Amazon, surfacing ultra-cheap, outdated HP laptops under $300, and tons of unknown knock-off brands like “RNRUO” and “Coolby.” This problem is even worse at Walmart; 24 out of the 40 laptops offered on page one are from these mystery brands, and most of the rest are from HP. It’s really a shame, as Walmart and Amazon both have great deals on some of my favorite laptops, but they’re often buried unless you’re specifically searching or filtering for them.

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