Walmart found that purchases made directly inside ChatGPT converted at only one-third the rate of traditional website checkouts, leading it to abandon OpenAI’s Instant Checkout in favor of routing users through its own platform. Search Engine Land reports: Starting in November, Walmart offered about 200,000 products through OpenAI’s Instant Checkout. Users could complete purchases inside ChatGPT without visiting Walmart’s site. Daniel Danker, Walmart’s EVP of product and design, said those in-chat purchases converted at one-third the rate of click-out transactions. He called the experience “unsatisfying” and confirmed Walmart is moving away from it.
Instant Checkout was designed to let users complete purchases directly inside ChatGPT without visiting a retailer’s website. However, earlier this month, OpenAI confirmed it was phasing out Instant Checkout in favor of app-based checkout handled by merchants. Walmart will embed its own chatbot, Sparky, inside ChatGPT. Users will log into Walmart, sync carts across platforms, and complete purchases within Walmart’s system. A similar integration is coming to Google Gemini next month. In other Walmart-related news, the retailer announced plans to roll out “digital price tags” to all U.S. stores by the end of the year.
While Microsoft rethinks where they’ve failed with Windows 11, many users rely on tools like Open Shell, Start11, StartAllBack, and ExplorerPatcher to take back control of the UI. Open Shell remains a free favorite with a customizable Windows 7-style menu, while Start11 and StartAllBack offer more polished tweaks for modern systems. ExplorerPatcher rounds things out as another powerful free option.
Andrew Jones doesn’t need a reintroduction, but he’s getting one anyway. After shaping some of the most important loudspeakers of the past three decades at KEF, Pioneer, ELAC, and now MoFi Electronics, where he still leads loudspeaker design—one of the industry’s most respected and technically grounded engineers is stepping out with something new. Jones and Cerreta, a Los Angeles based speaker company co-founded with Jamie and Bill Cerreta, marks the first time Andrew Jones has put his name on the door.
Set to debut in just 17 days at AXPONA 2026, the new brand signals more than another product launch. It’s a reset. Known for delivering reference level thinking at real world prices, Jones is now pairing that engineering discipline with a more design forward approach aimed at listeners who want both sonic credibility and visual impact. The debut loudspeaker is being positioned as a clear departure from his previous work, but the core philosophy remains intact: engineering decisions that serve the music first, not the spec sheet.
Who Is Behind Jones and Cerreta?
Jones and Cerreta brings together three partners with very different backgrounds across engineering, music, and technology, all focused on how music is created, reproduced, and experienced.
Andrew Jones – Lead Speaker Designer and Co Founder
Andrew Jones is one of the most experienced loudspeaker designers working today, with a career that spans KEF, Infinity, Pioneer, TAD, ELAC, and now MoFi Electronics, where he continues to lead loudspeaker design. He studied physics with a focus on acoustics and has worked extensively on crossover design and driver integration.
At KEF, he worked with concentric driver technology, and later at Pioneer helped establish TAD’s transition into the home audio market, including the development of a beryllium concentric driver. At ELAC, he played a key role in building out the company’s North American speaker lineup. Jones and Cerreta is the first company where his name is directly attached as a co founder.
Jamie Cerreta – Creative Strategy and Co Founder
Jamie Cerreta brings more than 25 years of experience in the music industry. He currently serves as President of Peermusic in the U.S. and Canada and has worked closely with artists, producers, and songwriters across a wide range of genres.
His experience includes working with artists such as Ray LaMontagne, My Morning Jacket, and Manchester Orchestra, as well as supporting the development of newer artists and writers. He also serves on the Executive Board of the National Music Publishers Association S.O.N.G.S. Foundation. His role focuses on how recorded music translates from the studio to the listener.
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Bill Cerreta – CEO and Co Founder
Bill Cerreta is an electrical engineer with more than 30 years of experience in Silicon Valley, currently working at Pure Storage on data infrastructure technologies. He brings experience in product development, team leadership, and business operations.
He is also an active record collector and has spent years sourcing vinyl pressings internationally. In addition, he restores and builds vintage audio equipment, including tube gear and speakers. His role combines technical knowledge with operational oversight as the company launches its first products.
What Is Jones and Cerreta Bringing to AXPONA 2026?
Here’s what we actually know so far—and it’s just enough to raise eyebrows. The debut speaker is a floorstanding design with no model name and no announced pricing, although nobody should expect this to land anywhere near entry level.
The headline detail is the use of a concentric driver, which tracks with Andrew Jones’ long history at KEF and TAD—but this time it is paired with field coil, a technology rarely seen in modern loudspeakers due to cost, complexity, and power requirements. That combination alone suggests this is not a continuation of his ELAC or MoFi playbook.
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Beyond that, details are scarce. No published specs, no confirmed materials, no crossover topology, and no official performance targets. Which means one thing: whatever shows up in Room 302 at AXPONA is likely doing something different enough that they’re not ready to fully spell it out yet.
What Is a Field Coil Driver?
Field coil drivers are an old idea that never fully went away—they just became too complicated and expensive for most modern loudspeakers. Instead of using a permanent magnet like almost every speaker today, a field coil driver uses an electromagnet powered by an external power supply to generate the magnetic field that drives the voice coil.
That difference matters. Because the magnetic field is actively generated, it can be stronger, more stable, and in some cases adjustable, which can improve control, dynamics, and overall efficiency. It’s one of the reasons field coil designs have a reputation for sounding exceptionally clean and immediate when done well.
The tradeoffs are real. Field coil systems require an external power supply, add complexity, generate heat, and significantly increase cost. That’s why they’re mostly found in ultra high end or boutique speakers, often from companies like Cessaro, Voxativ, Tune Audio, Line Magnetic, and Feastrex.
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What makes this relevant now is that Andrew Jones is reportedly using a field coil concentric driver in a floorstanding speaker. That’s not how this technology is typically deployed. It’s usually seen in horn systems or single driver designs, not something that looks like it could scale into a broader product line.
In other words, the technology itself isn’t new. Where and how it’s being used this time might be.
Where and When to Hear Andrew Jones’ New Speaker at AXPONA 2026
Jones and Cerreta will make its public debut at AXPONA 2026, taking place April 10 to 12 in Chicago, Illinois, with demonstrations scheduled in Room 302 throughout the show. Attendees will be among the first to see and hear Andrew Jones’ latest loudspeaker design, which promises a fresh take that blends legacy ideas with new engineering approaches.
Andrew Jones will also host a Master Class on April 11 from 5:00 to 5:45 PM in Expo Hall, titled Reimagining the Dual Concentric Driver, offering insight into the thinking behind the new design and how it challenges traditional implementations.
We’ll be there for a first listen—and if history is any guide, this won’t be a quiet debut.
The TeamPCP hacking group is targeting Kubernetes clusters with a malicious script that wipes all machines when it detects systems configured for Iran.
The threat actor is responsible for the recent supply-chain attack on the Trivy vulnerability scanner, and also an NPM-based campaign dubbed ‘CanisterWorm,’ which started on March 20.
Selective destruction payload
Researchers at application security company Aikido say that the campaign targeting Kubernetes clusters uses the same command-and-control (C2), backdoor code, and drop path as seen in the CanisterWorm incidents.
However, the new campaign differs in that it includes a destructive payload targeting Iranian systems and installs the CanisterWorm backdoor on nodes in other locales.
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“The script uses the exact same ICP canister (tdtqy-oyaaa-aaaae-af2dq-cai[.]raw[.]icp0[.]io) we documented in the CanisterWorm campaign. Same C2, same backdoor code, same /tmp/pglog drop path,” Aikido says.
“The Kubernetes-native lateral movement via DaemonSets is consistent with TeamPCP’s known playbook, but this variant adds something we haven’t seen from them before: a geopolitically targeted destructive payload aimed specifically at Iranian systems.”
According to Aikido researchers, the malware is built to destroy any machine that matches Iran’s timezone and locale, regardless if Kuberenetes is present or not.
If both conditions are met, the script deploys a DaemonSet named ‘Host-provisioner-iran’ in ‘kube-system’, which uses privileged containers and mounts the host root filesystem into /mnt/host.
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Each pod runs an Alpine container named ‘kamikaze’ that deletes all top-level directories on the host filesystem, and then forces a reboot on the host.
If Kubernetes is present but the system is identified as not Iranian, the malware deploys a DaemonSet named ‘host-provisioner-std’ using privileged containers with the host filesystem mounted.
Instead of wiping data, each pod writes a Python backdoor onto the host filesystem and installs it as a systemd service so it persists on every node.
On Iranian systems without Kubernetes, the malware deletes every file on the machine, including system data, accessible to the current user by running the rm -rf/ command with the –no-preserve-root flag. If root privileges are not available, it attempts passwordless sudo.
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TeamPCP wiping Iranian systems with no Kubernetes source: Aikido
On systems where none of the conditions are met, no malicious action is taken, and the malware just exits.
Aikido reports that a recent version of the malware, which uses the same ICP canister backdoor, has omitted the Kubernetes-based lateral movement and instead uses SSH propagation, parsing authentication logs for valid credentials, and using stolen private keys.
The researchers highlighted some key indicators of this activity, including outbound SSH connections with ‘StrictHostKeyChecking+no’ from compromised hosts, outbound connections to the Docker API on port 2375 across the local subnet, and privileged Alpine containers via an unauthenticated Docker API with / mounted as a hostPath.
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.
Apple is reportedly preparing to add search ads to Apple Maps, “and it could start to roll out to users by the summer,” reports AppleInsider, citing sources from Bloomberg(paywalled). From the report: Apple will make an announcement as soon as March. This will bring ads to search queries within the navigation app, which will operate similar to Google’s advertising system. Retailers and brands will be able to bid for ad spots located against search queries for specific terms, such as types of food or services. The winning bid will be able to show an ad at the top of the results, pointing to a related location for that business. Apple also announced in January that it would add more ads within the App Store, starting March in the UK and Japan.
Your car might just become the new smart home hub for your house. Samsung has expanded SmartThings integration, enabling drivers to control their smart home devices directly from their car’s infotainment system. It’s called Car-to-Home.
Building on the earlier Home-to-Car capability that allowed users to monitor their cars from inside the house, the Car-to-Home feature flips the functionality so you can control your smart home appliances, such as air conditioners, lighting systems, and other smart switches, from your car’s dashboard.
Samsung
What can the Car-to-Home feature do?
The practical scope of the feature is broader than it might sound, as it is compatible with devices such as air conditioners, air purifiers, robot vacuums, lights, and cameras. Connecting is straightforward — drivers scan a QR code displayed on their car’s infotainment screen and link their vehicle to their SmartThings account.
Apart from manual control (flipping the switches), the Car-to-Home feature unlocks location-aware automation that genuinely changes how your home responds to your day. You can set routines so that the SmartThings network turns on the required appliances as you park your car in the garage.
I can see people using the feature to pre-cool their rooms or run air purifiers before they arrive home after a tiring day at the office. On the contrary, the feature should also shut everything down (automatically), as you get in the car and leave the driveway. There’s a dedicated Away Mode for handling lights when you’re away.
For now, the feature is available on select Hyundai and Kia cars, specifically those that feature the connected car Navigation Cockpit (ccNC) introduced after November 2022 in Korea. However, both Samsung and Hyundai aim to expand the feature to their customers throughout the world in due course.
Eligible models include the Grandeur, Santa Fe, Ioniq 5, K5, Sorento, and EV9. Samsung also plans to extend the feature to Genesis vehicles equipped with the ccIC27 infotainment system.
As and when the feature becomes available to a wider audience, it could drive a behavioral shift in which cars become central nodes in someone’s smart home ecosystem, linking mobility and domestic technology in ways that were, until recently, purely speculative.
The War Zone reported that a Lockheed Martin-produced mockup of the new version of the Raptor was at the Warfare Symposium, a convention for the defense industry and elements of the United States military. The outlet reported some noteworthy changes being made on this plane. Namely, the aircraft is slated to get upgrades in the form of some extra range and another set of eyes.
Fuel tanks and sensor pods might not sound like a big deal, as those components have been mounted to wing pylons of various aircraft for decades. But it’s not so easy to make these kinds of adjustments on a plane as stealthy as the F-22. That’s because external fuel tanks and sensors don’t have the same stealth considerations as the rest of the aircraft. A big fuel tank is nice, but it can make the plane more visible to radar.
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The latest and greatest Raptor
Alex Hevesy/SlashGear
The newer and stealthier sensor pods are posited to give the Raptor better infrared tracking capabilities, according to The War Zone. Given the F-22’s primary role as an air-to-air fighter and the increasing prevalence of powerful stealth fighters from potentially adversarial air forces, any extra capability would likely be welcome.
Specifics as to how much extra range the fuel tanks will give the Raptor and what the sensor pods will allow the F-22 Raptor to do are likely classified. Nevertheless, upgrades are expected to enter service, or at least more advanced testing, over the course of 2026.
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The F-22 Raptor, despite all of its menace and upcoming capabilities that, at least on paper, seem to entirely outclass most other jets, has never seen much air-to-air combat apart from shooting down a suspected surveillance balloon. The jet’s exclusivity paired with the fact that Air Force fighters don’t shoot down jets that frequently, means that the F-22 doesn’t see a lot of air-to-air action (at least that we know of).
Europol recently unveiled “Operation Alice,” a major effort to dismantle a large network of fraudulent websites hidden within the dark web. The investigation began in 2021 and initially focused on a platform named Alice with Violence CP. In the end, the operation took down one of the largest dark web… Read Entire Article Source link
Former executive director of the IEEE Power & Energy Society
Fellow, 92; died 9 January
Olken became the first executive director of the IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES) in 1995. In 2002 he left the position to serve as founding editor in chief of the society’s Power & Energy Magazine. Olken led the publication until 2016, when he retired.
After receiving a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the City College of New York, Olken was hired as an electrical engineer by American Electric Power, a utility based in Columbus, Ohio. He helped design coal, hydroelectric, and nuclear power plants. While at AEP, he was promoted to manager of the electrical generation department.
Olken was elected an IEEE Fellow in 1988 for “contributions to innovative design of reliable generating stations.”
He became an IEEE staff member in 1984 as society services director for IEEE Technical Activities. From 1990 to 1995 he served as managing director of Regional Activities group (now IEEE Member and Geographic Activities), before becoming PES executive director.
He received a PES Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 for his “broad and sustained technical contributions to the development of power engineering and the power engineering profession.”
She received a bachelor’s degree in engineering in 1999 from the College of Charleston, in South Carolina. During her senior year, she worked as a mathematics and science tutor at the Jenkins Orphanage (now the Jenkins Institute for Children), in North Charleston. After graduating, Huguenin traveled to India to volunteer at an orphanage run by the Mother Teresa Foundation.
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Upon returning to the United States in 2001, Huguenin worked as a freelance research consultant. Three years later she was hired as a systems administrator and archivist by photographer Ebet Roberts in New York City. In 2010 she left to work as an operations strategist and technical consultant.
She earned a master’s degree in communication and research science in 2016 from New York University. While at NYU, she conducted experimental and theoretical research in Internet Protocol design and implementation as well as network security and management.
From 2020 to 2024 she was a research scientist at businesses owned by her family. She joined Augusta University in 2023.
The winners of the 2026 Swift Student Challenge will be announced on March 26, with the best among them set to receive a trip to Apple Park.
Winners of the 2026 Swift Student Challenge will be announced on March 26.
Every year, Apple holds the Swift Student Challenge. The event encourages up-and-coming student developers to practice their craft and lets them win various prizes. In an announcement on Monday, the iPhone maker described the annual event as a program meant to “uplift the next generation of entrepreneurs, coders, and designers.” The company added that winners will be notified on Thursday, March 26. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
FBI and CISA warn of Russian espionage campaign targeting messaging apps
Phishing and social engineering used to hijack Signal and other CMA accounts
Thousands of victims’ accounts compromised, including officials, military, and journalists
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are warning about an ongoing espionage campaign by Russian cyberspies.
In a joint Public Service Announcement (PSA) published late last week, the two agencies said Russian Intelligence Services (RIS)-affiliated threat actors are actively targeting commercial messaging applications (CMA). They specifically mentioned Signal, but stressed that other CMAs are most likely targeted, as well.
The victims are mostly current and former US government officials, military personnel, political figures, and journalists.
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Following the Dutch
The campaign does not revolve around “breaking” the apps by abusing vulnerabilities, or similar. Instead, it revolves around phishing and social engineering, where the victims end up sharing access willingly.
“RIS cyber actors send phishing messages masquerading as automated CMA support accounts,” the PSA reads. “The actors tailor the messages to deceive targets into taking an action, such as clicking a link or providing verification codes or account PINs. If the user performs any of the requested actions, they unwittingly provide the actors with unauthorized access to their account either by adding the attacker’s device as a linked device or through a full account takeover.”
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Roughly two weeks ago, Dutch authorities published a similar warning, saying that Russian spies were targeting not only Signal, but WhatsApp, as well. The General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD), the Netherlands’ primary civilian intelligence and security agency, said at the time that the campaign was “large-scale”, and “global”. Targets were dignitaries, military personnel, and civil servants, including Dutch government employees.
AIVD believes the campaign is already a success: “The Russian hackers likely gained access to sensitive information through this campaign,” it said, although it did not detail if they accessed it from Dutch targets or someone else entirely.
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On X, FBI Director Kash Patel echoed these warnings, saying the effort “resulted in unauthorized access to thousands of individual accounts.”
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“After gaining access, the actors can view messages and contact lists, send messages as the victim, and conduct additional phishing from a trusted identity,” he warned.
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