Hims & Hers, the telehealth company that sells weight-loss drugs and sexual health prescriptions, has confirmed a data breach affecting its third-party customer service platform.

The healthcare company said in a data breach notice filed with the California attorney general’s office on Thursday that the hackers stole data about user requests sent to the company’s customer support team. The company said hackers broke into its third-party ticketing system between February 4 and February 7 and stole reams of support tickets, which contained personal information submitted by customers.

The data breach notice said the hackers took customer names and contact information, as well as other unspecified personal data that Hims & Hers left redacted in the letter.

Although the company says customer medical records were not affected by the breach, the nature of customer support systems means that the data may contain sensitive information about a person’s account, personal information, and healthcare.

It’s not yet known how many individuals had personal information compromised in the hack. Under California law, companies are required to disclose data breaches involving 500 or more state residents.

Jake Martin, a spokesperson for Hims & Hers, told TechCrunch in a statement the company was hit by a social engineering attack, in which hackers trick employees into granting access to their systems. The spokesperson said the stolen data “primarily included customer names and email addresses.” The company did not say what specific types of data were taken, when asked by TechCrunch.

The company would not say if it has received any communication from the hackers, such as a demand for money.

In recent months, customer support and ticketing systems have become rich targets for financially motivated hackers, who have raided databases containing customer information and extorted companies into paying a ransom.

Last year, Discord had a data breach that affected its customer support ticketing system and exposed the government-issued IDs of around 70,000 people who had submitted their driver’s licenses and passports to the company to verify their age.

Amazon is finally bringing its most ambitious Kindle yet to the UK, after launching it in the US last year.

The new Kindle Scribe lineup, led by the first colour Kindle Scribe, has been available in the States for months now, but Amazon has finally confirmed when we’ll be able to get our hands on it.

At the centre of it all is the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, which introduces a colour e-paper display designed specifically for writing.

Amazon says its custom Colorsoft tech keeps colours soft and easy on the eyes. Meanwhile, a new rendering engine makes writing feel fast and fluid.

Filming a video on your phone may be a frustrating experience, with unsteady footage that looks like a terrible home video. The DJI Osmo Mobile 7P really flips the script. Priced att $99 (was $129), it produces silky smooth video that appears to have been taken with a pricier piece of equipment.

First, let’s discuss how the device performs everyday use. When you open it, the magnetic clamp immediately secures your phone without requiring you to fiddle with it. The extension rod extends to 215mm, allowing you to shoot a wide image or selfie without having to strain. If you flip down the tripod feet, you’ll have a self-standing set suitable for static pictures, time-lapse photography, and other applications. These small comforts pile up quickly when you’re out shooting, and the last thing you want to be carrying is a bunch of unnecessary gear.

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The Osmo Mobile 7P also excels in terms of battery life. Its 3350 milliamp battery will keep you going for about ten hours under typical settings, enough to get through a full day of casual recording or a longer event without having to look for a power source. Even with the extra module attached for tracking and lighting, most users get five full hours out of it, which is significantly more than the earlier Osmo Mobile 6. As an added bonus, the gimbal can recharge your phone’s battery when it runs low, allowing you to stay in the game longer.

Once your phone is balanced, the stabilization feels practically seamless, with three motors keeping the frame level while you walk, run, or pan madly. The real show-stopper, however, is ActiveTrack 7.0. Simply tap a person or item on the screen, and the gimbal will track it with incredible accuracy, even if the subject moves in and out of view or changes direction. Earlier versions required the DJI app for accurate tracking; however, this new edition incorporates a small multipurpose module with its own camera. That means the smart following feature works great in your phone’s native camera, streaming apps, and pretty much anyplace else you want to utilize it.

The same module includes a handy fill light and receiver for DJI wireless mics. The light provides just enough even lighting to sort out faces in gloomy areas or outside when it’s coming close to dusk, and the warmth can be adjusted to maintain skin tones looking realistic. When you pair a microphone, your audio will be crystal clear without the need for cords or clip-ons. That’s the beauty of this thing: all of the things that used to need separate purchases or larger rigs are now available in one nice little box.

The war in Iran has hammered global oil markets, with gas prices in the U.S. spiking significantly. Amid the rise in transportation costs, Amazon has instituted a new 3.5% fuel surcharge for sellers that use its distribution network. The policy has the potential to inflict significant new costs on the untold merchants that rely on the e-commerce giant to sell their products.

Amazon told TechCrunch that the surcharge would be in place for the foreseeable future, although the company said it will continue to evaluate a potential policy shift as market conditions evolve. The news was originally reported by Bloomberg.

“Elevated costs in fuel and logistics have increased the cost of operating across the industry,” a spokesperson said. “We have absorbed these increases so far, but similar to other major carriers, when costs remain elevated we implement temporary surcharges to partially recover these costs.” The spokesperson added that the surcharge was “meaningfully lower than surcharges applied by other major carriers.”

The new policy will take effect on April 17 and will impact sellers who use the company’s Fulfillment by Amazon service, Bloomberg writes. Fulfillment by Amazon, commonly known as FBA, allows companies to send their products to Amazon’s warehouses, where they are packed and shipped to buyers. Amazon doesn’t disclose how many merchants use FBA, but the program underpins the vast majority of third-party sales on its platform.

Amazon first instituted this type of surcharge in 2022—which, not so coincidentally, was the last time crude oil traded over $100 a barrel. What was happening in 2022? Russia had just invaded Ukraine, sending energy markets haywire. Today, the war in Iran—spurred by the Trump administration and the Israeli government’s assassination of the nation’s Supreme Leader—has similarly rocked markets.

Iran is strategically located along the northern border of the Strait of Hormuz—a narrow but critical shipping lane for global oil supplies through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply passes—and the country has sought to block shipping lanes there, a move that has majorly impacted energy prices throughout the world.

Strands is the NYT’s latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it’s great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints.

Want more word-based fun? Then check out my NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games, and Marc’s Wordle today page for the original viral word game.

TikTok points to capacity constraints and slow infrastructure development as the deciding factors in shelving its planned second data centre, but leaves door open to future opportunities.

The need for greater capacity, and the infrastructure development environment – these were the two key factors behind TikTok shelving a planned second data centre in Dublin, a company spokesperson told SiliconRepublic.com today (2 April) while confirming the reported decision.

Instead, the ByteDance-owned company will focus its European data storage expansion in some of its other locations – in particular, sites in Norway and one in Finland.

TikTok said that when looking at its various sites across Europe, it considered where could best meet its growing capacity demands as regards infrastructure and the speed of development, and that the Nordic countries were a better fit for those considerations.

The company said Ireland remained one of its biggest and most important strategic sites in Europe and, should future opportunities arise that did meet its capacity needs in particular, it would remain open to exploring them.

The spokesperson emphasised that the existing data centre operation in Ireland, which came online in 2023, remains fully operational as an important part of its Project Clover, and that TikTok is still very much committed to Ireland.

Project Clover is the Chinese-owned platform’s initiative designed to update its data security practices across Europe, so as not to fall foul of strict European data privacy regulations.

Part of that commitment involves storing the data of more than 150m monthly TikTok users in Europe locally across three data centres. The original stated plan was for two in Dublin and one in Norway.

TikTok had originally planned to lease data centre space at Echelon’s campus in Clondalkin, Dublin, as part of a three-site strategy. However, as Irish newspaper the Business Post was first to report earlier this week, plans for the second Irish data centre have been shelved.

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