For nearly a decade, the Pentagon was warned—by its own contractors, analysts, and intelligence agencies—that anyone with a credit card could buy a map of where American troops sleep, work, and store nuclear weapons. Now the bill has come due in a war zone.
A newly disclosed letter shows the warnings went unheeded: US Central Command now confirms it has received “multiple threat reports concerning adversary exploitation of commercial location data to target or surveil US personnel in theater”—the first official acknowledgment that the data-broker economy is being used to hunt American forces in the Middle East.
The targeting was first reported by Reuters, which obtained the Centcom letter. But the confirmation lands atop a record that is longer and more damning than the single document suggests.
For the better part of a decade, US lawmakers have heard the same alarms about the dangers of commercially available location data that the Pentagon did—from the same intelligence assessments, from witnesses, from their own colleagues. Yet comprehensive privacy legislation has repeatedly stalled in Washington, and the one narrow fix that did pass—a requirement that data shared with military contractors not be resold—left the broader industry untouched.
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One of the earliest warnings came in 2016. At the Joint Special Operations Command compound at Fort Bragg, California, a government technologist briefing senior officers demonstrated how commercial location data—bought, not hacked—could track phones from Fort Bragg and MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, the home stations of America’s most elite units, through Turkey and into northern Syria, where they clustered at a covert forward operating base. The same data was available to any advertiser or foreign intelligence service.
Even as the Pentagon was warned that the location-data marketplace was placing its own people in danger, parts of the department were eager to become its customers. The Defense Intelligence Agency disclosed to Congress in 2021 that it uses commercially purchased phone location data—including on Americans—without a warrant, taking the position that none is required. Months earlier, Motherboard reported that the US military was buying location data harvested from popular consumer apps.
In 2023, the Army paid to have the threat spelled out. Researchers at Duke University—working under a grant from the US Military Academy at West Point—set out to buy data on American service members the way a foreign adversary might. They scraped hundreds of data broker websites and found thousands of listings advertising data on military personnel, including datasets titled “Military Families Mailing List” and “Hard Core Military Families.”
The researchers started buying. For as little as 12 cents a record, with almost no vetting, they purchased names, home addresses, health conditions, and financial details on active-duty troops. Posing as a buyer operating through a Singapore-based domain, they also obtained the same kind of data geofenced to Fort Bragg, Quantico, and other installations. One broker offered to skip its identity check if they paid by wire.
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A year later, WIRED found the same kind of data flowing through Google’s own advertising platform. Working with data obtained by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties—whose investigator had gained access to a US broker’s audience lists by standing up a fake analytics firm—WIRED identified marketing “segments” on Google’s Display & Video 360 that singled out US government employees deemed “decisionmakers” working “specifically in the field of national security,” alongside lists targeting people who work for companies licensed to build missiles, space-launch vehicles, and the cryptographic systems that protect classified data.
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties investigator said he expected to have his cover story tested. “When I signed up, there was no questions asked whatsoever,” he told WIRED at the time. “I could have been anybody.”
The ‘Cheap Yellow Display’, or CYD, is becoming a staple in these circles, and with good reason: just like the name says, it’s cheap, it has a display, and of course an ESP32 microcontroller to give it lots of brainpower. What it doesn’t come with is a lot of RAM, which was a problem for [DynaMite]’s project. What was there to do but solder on more PSRAM so the CYD could become a mini TV for retrogaming?
Depending what you want to play, you might not need the extra memory. In [DynaMite]’s case, he wanted to run Retro-Go, which opens up a lot more than just the standard NES emulator you can run on an unmodified CYD — including 16-bit systems like the SNES and Sega Genesis/MegaDrive or even DOOM. Adding the PSRAM is just a matter of getting the little chip onto an unpopulated footprint on the board, cutting some traces, and adding a bodge wire. It’s not nothing, but it’s not impossible.
While he was slinging solder, [DynaMite] also took the time to swap some resistors in a step that apparently does great things for the CYD’s sound output, which is… not great, from stock. For really good sound, you really need to break out I2S, but for a tiny game system this is doubtless good enough.
The whole thing goes into a lovely retro TV case that takes its design cues from The Simpsons, which is available via the link as a STEP file as well as STLs. He’s also got a vibe-coded video player application — think of it like the VCR, maybe —and a launcher that will switch betwixt that and the emulator or any other applications stored as .bin files on an SD-card. Check it out in action in the demo video below.
MasterDimm AC features what Cooler Master describes as “noise-optimized” blower fans that operate relatively quietly, with a maximum noise level of 35 dB at full speed. The companies claim that the patent-pending design can reduce operating memory temperatures by up to 15°C, helping ensure sustained performance, improved signal integrity, and… Read Entire Article Source link
The race to build the next great affordable laptop is heating up, and Acer thinks it has a strong contender. The company today unveiled the Swift Air 14, a thin-and-light Windows laptop that combines a premium design, AI-ready hardware, and impressive battery claims for a starting price of just $699.
At a time when even mainstream laptops are creeping toward four-figure price tags, Acer’s latest machine feels refreshingly straightforward. It’s aimed at students, remote workers, and anyone who wants a laptop that looks and feels expensive without draining their bank account. The Swift Air 14 is powered by Intel’s new Core Series 3 processors and delivers up to 19 hours of battery life. That’s the sort of endurance that could realistically get many users through a full workday and beyond without scrambling for a charger.
Acer is focusing on things people actually notice
Laptop makers love talking about processor benchmarks, but most buyers notice other things first. How heavy is it? Does it look good? Is the screen nice to use? Can the speakers fill a room? That’s where the Swift Air 14 appears to have its priorities in order. The laptop weighs just 1.19 kg and measures only 12.9 mm at its thinnest point, all while using an aluminum chassis that should feel significantly more premium than the plastic-heavy designs common at this price point. Acer is also bringing some personality to the lineup with four color options: Sage Green, Frost Blue, Blossom Pink, and Lilac Purple.
Acer
The display sounds promising as well. Acer has equipped the Swift Air 14 with a 14-inch WUXGA panel featuring a 120Hz refresh rate and 100% sRGB color reproduction. For students, creators, and everyday users, that’s a welcome upgrade over the dull screens that often plague budget laptops. Then there’s the audio. Acer says the laptop includes a quad-speaker setup with DTS:X Ultra support, a feature rarely highlighted in this segment but one that can make a noticeable difference when streaming movies, joining video calls, or listening to music.
The Swift Spin 14 AI raises the stakes
Acer wasn’t finished with just one Swift launch. The company also introduced the Swift Spin 14 AI, a more premium convertible aimed at users who need additional flexibility and performance. Powered by up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 processor 386H, the laptop features a dedicated NPU capable of up to 50 TOPS and up to 100 platform TOPS overall. It also supports stylus input through Wacom AES 2.0 technology, making it a potentially appealing option for artists, designers, note-takers, and hybrid professionals. Its 360-degree hinge allows it to switch between laptop, tablet, presentation, and display modes, while features like Wi-Fi 7, a 5MP IR camera, Copilot+ PC capabilities, and up to 26 hours of battery life round out a very ambitious package. Still, the more fascinating device may be the cheaper one.
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Acer
The Swift Air 14 arrives at a moment when buyers are increasingly questioning whether they need to spend MacBook money for a great everyday laptop. Acer’s answer is clear: offer a premium metal design, long battery life, AI-powered features, and a modern display at a price that feels far easier to justify. The Acer Swift Air 14 is scheduled to launch in North America in August 2026, while the Swift Spin 14 AI will arrive during the same timeframe.
Acer is going straight after the MacBook Neo crowd
The comparison to Apple’s MacBook Neo feels impossible to ignore. Both laptops are targeting the same audience: students, first-time laptop buyers, and people who want something premium without spending MacBook Air money. Apple’s answer was a $599 machine with an aluminum design, an A18 Pro chip, up to 16 hours of battery life, and the familiar advantages of the macOS ecosystem.
Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
Acer, however, is taking a different route. The Swift Air 14 undercuts many of the compromises associated with entry-level laptops by offering a 120Hz display, more connectivity options, a larger battery, quad speakers, and a wider range of color choices, all while staying in the same affordability conversation. According to Acer’s specifications, the laptop packs a 70Wh battery, dual Thunderbolt 4 ports, and a 120Hz WUXGA panel — areas where it arguably looks more ambitious than Apple’s budget MacBook on paper.
The real battle here isn’t Windows versus macOS. Which company can convince buyers that spending less no longer means settling for less?
Activision is ending Call of Duty: Warzone support for PS4 and Xbox One later this year, drawing a line under the battle royale’s last-gen era at a moment when the cost of upgrading to current hardware has risen sharply for players who have held off.
The game will be removed from PS4 and Xbox One storefronts on 4 June and will no longer be available to download, with Activision removing the in-game store on both platforms on 25 June before Warzone becomes fully unplayable once Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 season 1 begins later this year.
The timing adds friction for remaining last-gen players, as both Sony and Microsoft have raised console prices over the past year, leaving the PS5 and Xbox Series X each sitting $150 above their original $499 launch prices.
Activision announced the Warzone changes on the same day it revealed Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, which will launch on PS5, Xbox Series S and X, and Nintendo Switch 2, marking the first Call of Duty title to appear on a Nintendo platform following the 10-year deal Microsoft agreed with Nintendo as part of its Activision Blizzard acquisition.
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What happens to last-gen players
Players on PS4 and Xbox One will need to move to a PS5 or Xbox Series S or X to continue playing Warzone once season 6 of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 concludes, with Activision confirming the full cutoff is tied to the Modern Warfare 4 season 1 launch window.
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The deprecation reflects a broader industry shift away from last-gen hardware, with developers increasingly unwilling to maintain split builds across console generations as the PS4 and Xbox One user base continues to shrink more than four years after their successors launched.
All of that remains subject to change in terms of exact timing, however, with Activision yet to confirm a specific date for when Modern Warfare 4 season 1 will begin and last-gen support will officially end for those already playing.
SpaceX won a $4.16B Space Force contract for missile-tracking satellites. Combined with a $2.29B deal from Tuesday, it holds $6.45B in Golden Dome work.
The US Space Force awarded SpaceX a $4.16 billion contract on Friday to build satellites that track foreign aircraft and missiles. The programme is called Space-Based Advanced Moving Target Indicator, or SB-AMTI. It is part of the Trump administration’s $185 billion Golden Dome missile defence initiative.
Two days earlier, the Space Force awarded SpaceX $2.29 billion for the Space Data Network Backbone, a secure communications layer built on Starshield satellites. Combined, SpaceX now holds approximately $6.45 billion in Golden Dome contracts. That figure exceeds the combined prototype awards given to every other company in the programme.
The AMTI satellites are designed as an interconnected system combining space-based sensors, secure communications links, and AI-enabled ground processing. The system will detect, track, and alert for airborne threats from orbit. The US has historically relied on ground-based sensors and military aircraft for this function.
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Placing detection capabilities in space eliminates potential blind spots that ground-based systems cannot cover. The Space Force described the architecture as designed to “drive closer cooperation across the government space industrial base.” SpaceX must integrate the AMTI sensors with the data transport backbone it is already building under the separate $2.29 billion contract.
The scale of SpaceX’s Golden Dome position is unprecedented for a commercial contractor. The programme has distributed more than $3.2 billion in prototype contracts across SpaceX and 11 other firms, including Anduril, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and True Anomaly. SpaceX’s $4.16 billion AMTI contract alone exceeds that entire prototype pool.
SpaceX filed its IPO prospectus last week, targeting a valuation of more than $1.75 trillion. The company is expected to raise approximately $75 billion in what would be the largest IPO in history. Every new defence contract adds to the revenue narrative that underpins the listing.
The timing is notable. Two major Golden Dome contracts awarded in the same week as a Starship V3 test flight and an IPO roadshow preparation creates a cadence that looks orchestrated to maximise pre-IPO momentum. SpaceX held more than $22 billion in government contracts as of 2024. The Golden Dome awards add meaningfully to that base.
The Golden Dome programme’s total cost has risen to $185 billion, up $10 billion from the original estimate, after the programme director approved an acceleration of space-based capabilities in March. The fiscal 2027 budget request includes initial Golden Dome funding. Full-scale procurement is expected to begin post-2028.
The conflict-of-interest concerns that have surrounded SpaceX’s government contracting are amplified by the Golden Dome awards. Elon Musk is simultaneously the largest financial backer of the sitting president, the CEO of the company receiving the contracts, and the owner of a social media platform that shapes public discourse about the programme. The IPO prospectus acknowledges government contract risk but does not address the political dimensions directly.
Friday’s Starship V3 test flight demonstrated that SpaceX can deploy satellites from the vehicle, even though the Super Heavy booster was destroyed after separation. The AMTI constellation will eventually require launch capacity that only Starship can provide at scale. The contract, the IPO, and the rocket programme are three legs of the same strategy.
Two contracts, $6.45 billion, four days. SpaceX is not just participating in Golden Dome. It is becoming the programme’s commercial backbone. Whether that concentration of national security infrastructure in a single pre-IPO company is a strategic advantage or a systemic risk is a question the Space Force has implicitly answered by signing the contracts. The market will answer it again when the IPO prices in June.
Apple is preparing to overhaul Siri at WWDC 2026 in ways that go well beyond a simple feature update, and we’ve just had our first look at the redesigned UI.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has published an early preview of the company’s redesign of the iPhone’s interface, placing its Gemini-powered AI agent at the centre of everyday use.
The redesign moves Siri into the iPhone’s Dynamic Island, where it will remain accessible via voice, the power button, or a new downward swipe from the top centre of the screen that opens a “Search or Ask” interface drawing on elements from iOS 26‘s existing Search experience.
That interface brings together familiar features like Siri Suggestions alongside new functionality, with Gurman reporting it will support app launches, text messages, calendar appointments, note searches, and more, with results surfacing in a rich text card that expands directly from the Dynamic Island.
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Image Credit (Bloomberg)
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Swiping further down opens a full chatbot-style conversation view inside a dedicated Siri app, which Apple intends to position as a direct competitor to ChatGPT and Claude, supporting text and voice input alongside photo and document uploads and persistent conversation history.
Interface and camera changes
To accommodate Siri’s new prominence, Apple is moving Notification Centre access to a pull-down from the top left of the screen, a small but consequential shift that reflects how central the assistant has become to the iPhone’s navigation logic.
Image Credit (Bloomberg)
Camera and Photos also see significant changes, with a new mode set to replace Visual Intelligence by combining Google reverse image search with third-party AI analysis, while the Photos app gains Reframe and Extend tools that use AI to alter image perspective or generate content beyond a photo’s existing frame.
Underpinning all of it is a Siri that can search the web and draw on-screen context and personal data to complete tasks, with Gurman noting the assistant will be able to cross-reference a user’s calendar availability before scheduling anything.
All of that remains subject to change, however, with Gurman noting Apple tests multiple designs internally and the final version shown at WWDC on 9 June could differ from what Bloomberg has illustrated, with a release expected as early as September.
The European Commission has announced its second fine ever against an international company for violating the Digital Services Act. Temu, the controversial Chinese online marketplace for low-cost products, was found to have played a role in the sale of illegal goods that could have harmed consumers in the European Union. Read Entire Article Source link
AI is everywhere now, or at least that is what the industry keeps telling us. It is in browsers, search engines, image editors, office suites, developer tools, Windows, phones, and soon enough, probably your toaster. But there is a difference between AI being available and AI becoming part of your… Read Entire Article Source link
The AI movie Dreams of Violets is the creation of Ash Koosha and his brother Pooya. As for the direction, writing, and production of this movie, the two brothers created the film as part of their production company Fountain 0. At the time of its production, Ash was in London, and the movie took about three months to make, with a production budget of just $2,000.
Yes, everything had been created using AI; at first, Ash recorded some temporary voices for the characters before taking various methods to translate text into an animation sequence. Kling AI had the responsibility of translating still images into video footage with the help of Claude. The twin brothers also used their own technology at Fountain 0 to keep the characters consistent throughout scenes as well as to make camera movements look natural.
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The story is set in Tehran in January 2026. It is based on actual reports, images, and accounts from persons who observed the protests, which were greeted with violent force by the authorities and resulted in major bloodshed. The film tells the narrative of five strangers who find themselves in the same dead-end alley before dawn, trapped between forces closing in on them. A soldier stumbles across them, while a child named Amir watches over them from a window in his wheelchair.
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According to Ash Koosha, it was a very personal project for him, because he and his brother had to flee from Iran in 2009, but nowadays the news becomes really important because it’s very hard to receive trustworthy reports while you have no communications and everything around is unknown to you. The movie itself is rather a fiction based on reality, because Ash wanted to concentrate on the human aspect of the matter, and not on the chaos itself.
The Tribeca Festival elected to include Dreams of Violets in their main schedule, and it will screen in New York on June 10th as part of a run that begins June 3rd and ends June 14th. Festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal was amazed by how they were able to blend new technology with the strength of the tales being told, and she believes it’s an excellent example of how technology is being used to deliver stories that we really need to hear right now. [Source]
I used to say that all my best days started with waking up in a sleeping bag. Waking up in a sleeping bag usually means you’re out there somewhere, doing something interesting. In the past couple of years, though, I’ve found myself waking up out there to wonderful days spent doing interesting things, but without a sleeping bag in sight. Instead, I’m sleeping in what thru-hikers and ultralight redditors call a quilt.
This is not a quilt like the one your grandmother gave you. Backpacking quilts are made of nylon and filled with down like a traditional sleeping bag. The difference is that they lay over you like, well, a quilt, rather than wrapping all the way around you like a sleeping bag. The benefit is twofold: A quilt is lighter, meaning less weight to carry in your pack, and, as an added bonus, I sleep better than I ever have in the backcountry.
Mummified
Let’s face it, there’s a reason backpackers have nicknamed sleeping bags “mummy bags.” They’re constricting at the best of times, suffocating at the worst. I don’t know about you, but for me, there’s nothing about a mummy that I want to emulate, not even when I’m sleeping. I was, therefore, as well primed as anyone to jump on the quilt bandwagon when it really began to take off a few years ago. And yet, I didn’t. Perhaps it was something like Stockholm Syndrome; I’d finally accepted the mummy thing and was, honestly, a little nervous to give up my sleeping bag for a quilt. But then I did, and I’m never coming back. Or mostly never coming back.
But first, what’s the difference between a sleeping bag and a quilt? As briefly noted above, the quilt goes on top of you, rather than all around you like a sleeping bag. Consider the burrito vs. the taco. In this case, the sleeping bag/quilt is the tortilla and you are the filling. Would you rather be wrapped up like a burrito? Sleeping bag. Prefer the obviously superior experience of the taco, with its warm, soft tortilla lying on top of you? You’re (potentially) a quilt person.
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The science here is that when you lie down in your traditional sleeping bag, the weight of your body forces most of the down fill off to the sides. The down left under you is so compacted you’re not getting any real insulation from it anyway—so why carry that extra nylon and down around? Enter the quilt. Quilts get rid of the bottom layer of useless nylon and down, and lay over you like the quilt on your bed at home. Quilts typically weigh less than sleeping bags and pack down smaller, making them very popular with backpackers trying to reduce weight and save space.
While I think the weight savings make quilts a great choice for anyone looking to carry a lighter load, how much you love a quilt over a sleeping bag will depend somewhat on how you sleep. If you’re a taco person, and the thought of having a sleeping bag wrapped up like burrito gives you the sweats just thinking it, the quilt is your happy, happy future. Or, if you like to curl up in a ball, move around a lot at night, are a side sleeper, or want to share covers with your tent mate, then again, the quilt is for you.
If you rarely move around at night, sleeping somewhat like a mummy, then you might not mind a traditional sleeping bag and wouldn’t share my enthusiasm for the quilt.
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