Tag Archives: region|US

Kash Patel’s personal email account was accessed by hackers linked to Iran

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A hacking group called Handala has gained access to FBI Director Kash Patel's email account, Reuters reports. The group published content from Patel's email on their website as proof, including photos of Patel "sniffing and smoking cigars" and "making a face while taking a picture of himself in the mirror with a ​large bottle of rum."

TechCrunch was able to independently confirm that at least some of the emails Handala stole were from Patel's account by checking information used by mail delivery systems that’s stored in an email's header. Several stolen emails included a cryptographic signature that linked them to Patel's account. The FBI has also separately confirmed that the Director's account was hacked. "The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel's personal email information, and we have taken all necessary steps to mitigate potential risks associated with this activity," the Bureau told TechCrunch. "The information in question is historical in nature and involves no government information." 

The FBI is offering up to $10 million in rewards for more information about the hackers who targeted Patel's account. Handala presents as a pro-Palestinian hacking group online, but is believed to be one of several aliases used by cyberintelligence units working for the Iranian government, Reuters writes. Groups affiliated with Iran have targeted officials in the US before. In August 2024, the FBI shared that a separate group, APT42, was trying to gain access to both the Trump and Harris campaigns. Three men associated with APT42 were later charged that September.

Handala has appeared to become more active during the current conflict between the US, Israel and Iran. According to Reuters, the group claimed to be behind a cyber attack on Stryker, a medical devices company, earlier in March. Handala also said it accessed and published personal data from Lockheed Martin employees stationed in the Middle East.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/kash-patels-personal-email-account-was-accessed-by-hackers-linked-to-iran-212618474.html?src=rss

Mark Zuckerberg offered to ‘help’ Elon Musk with DOGE in 2025

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Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have a complicated history. In 2023, the two vowed to fight each other in a cage match that never happened. But by early 2025, when both were cozying up to the newly-elected President Donald Trump, they were apparently on more friendly terms. 

In February of that year, Zuckerberg texted Musk approvingly about his work with the now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). "Looks like DOGE is making progress," the Meta CEO texted. "I've got our teams on alert to take down content doxxing or threatening the people on your team. Let me know if there's anything else I can do to help."

The texts, which were published Friday in court documents as part of Musk's lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI, are dated February 3, 2025. That's just a few weeks after Zuckerberg announced Meta's pivot away from content moderation in favor of "free expression." It's also the same day that a US Attorney said he would protect DOGE employees from "disgruntled" critics. 

Musk responded to Zuckerberg's message with a heart and followed up with an unrelated topic: OpenAI. He asked Zuckerberg if he was "open to the idea of bidding on the OpenAI IP with me and some others." Zuckerberg asked to "discuss it live" and Musk said he would call the next day. Previous documents disclosed in the case show that Musk had invited Zuckerberg to help him buy OpenAI, though he never officially signed on to the bid.

In a separate filing also made public Friday, Musk's lawyers argued that his exchanges with the Meta CEO ought to be excluded from the lawsuit. "Musk’s personal relationships and communications – including with other high-profile individuals – are also tangential and prejudicial," they wrote. "Defendants included in their exhibit list for trial, for example, several private exchanges between Musk and Mark Zuckerberg discussing Musk’s political activity and this lawsuit. Those recent communications have nothing to do with Musk’s claims and are nothing more than Defendants’ attempt to stoke negative sentiments toward Musk because of his association with Zuckerberg."

A Meta spokesperson declined to comment. 

In the same filing, Musk's lawyers also take issue with Altman's lawyers asking about Musk's alleged ketamine use and his attendance at Burning Man. A transcript from a video deposition with Musk indicated he was asked if had taken "rhino ket" at Burning Man in 2017. Musk said no, according to the transcript. 

"Any implication that music festivals or drugs have any relevance to this case is outlandish, and how Musk spends his free time is equally irrelevant," his lawyers wrote. A judge ruled earlier this month that OpenAI's lawyers would be permitted to ask "limited" questions about Burning Man, but not ketamine. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/mark-zuckerberg-offered-to-help-elon-musk-with-doge-in-2025-211737138.html?src=rss

Meta will fund seven new natural gas plants to power its biggest data center yet

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Meta will essentially foot the power bill for the $27 billion mega data center it's building in Louisiana. On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the company struck a deal to fund the energy infrastructure needed for the project.

Through a deal with Entergy Louisiana, Meta will fund seven new natural gas power plants, 240 miles of transmission lines and battery energy storage at three locations. The gas plants will have a combined power output of 5,200 megawatts, and the transmission lines will operate at 500 kilovolts.

In addition, the company will help fund up to 2,500 MW of new renewable resources. It also agreed to a memorandum of understanding for future nuclear power development. The 4-million-square-foot Richland Parish, LA, data center will be Meta's biggest yet. It's currently under construction.

The energy deal follows a pledge by tech companies, including Meta, to offset local residents’ rising electricity costs from AI data centers. The companies plan to "build, bring or buy the new generation resources and electricity needed to satisfy their new energy demands, paying the full cost of those resources." However, the pledge lacks a binding agreement or any enforcement mechanisms.

The shift in tone comes in response to growing anger from local communities over the rise of power-hungry, environmentally damaging AI data centers. A December poll found that 60 percent of Americans — including majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and independents — support more AI regulation. Just this week, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced a bill to force a moratorium on data center construction until meaningful regulations are passed.

We could easily file this and similar moves as Big Tech's latest attempt to convince voters and officials that it can be trusted to do right without enforceable regulations. We've seen that movie before.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/meta-will-fund-seven-new-natural-gas-plants-to-power-its-biggest-data-center-yet-201000045.html?src=rss

European Commission confirms data breach

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The European Commission has announced that it suffered a cyber attack that affected "cloud infrastructure hosting the Commission's web presence on the Europea.eu platform." While the attack has been contained, Bleeping Computer reports that the threat actor claiming to be behind it was able to take over 350GB of data before the Commission addressed the issue.

"Early findings of our ongoing investigation suggest that data have been taken from [Europa] websites," the European Commission says. "The Commission is duly notifying the Union entities who might have been affected by the incident."

The Commission's investigation is ongoing, and it has yet to disclose how its cloud infrastructure was breached. According to Bleeping Computer, the threat actor was able to access the Europa sites and employee data via one of the Commission's Amazon Web Services accounts. The Commission disclosed a breach that similarly impacted employee data in February.

Both breaches appear to be less severe than the Salt Typhoon hack that impacted US telecommunications companies in 2024. Hackers reportedly gained access to data from the smartphones of members of both the Trump and Harris campaigns, and other government officials. In January 2026, the European Commission introduced a new Cybersecurity Package designed to address similar issues, in part by outlining new ways for EU states to deal with potentially risky companies in their telecom supply chains.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/european-commission-confirms-data-breach-200000982.html?src=rss

Crunchyroll is now available as a channel in the Apple TV app

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If you're still using Crunchyroll after its AI subtitle fiasco and subsequent price increase, there's a new way to watch. The anime streaming service is now available as a channel in the Apple TV app.

That means you can subscribe and stream your favorite anime titles, all within Apple's video app. No need for the Crunchyroll app or a separate login. (Your Apple account handles your subscription using this method.) 9to5Mac notes that this is the first significant new channel added to the TV app in some time.

Crunchyroll starts at $10 per month, after the platform raised all of its monthly subscription prices by $2 earlier this year. That may be a hard sell for fans frustrated by the platform's direction.

Last year, months after the company president enthused about the potential for AI subtitles, fans noticed something fishy. The German subtitles for Necronomico and the Cosmic Horror Show included one that began with "ChatGPT said…" Crunchyroll pinned the blame on a third-party vendor and promised it would work to "rectify the error."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/crunchyroll-is-now-available-as-a-channel-in-the-apple-tv-app-182500579.html?src=rss

If you live in Georgia, there’s a new exhibit you can visit celebrating Apple’s 50th anniversary

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The Mimms Museum of Technology and Art in Roswell, Georgia is debuting a new exhibit celebrating Apple's 50th anniversary. The exhibit, iNSPIRE: 50 Years of Innovation from Apple, is set to open on April 1, the date the company was founded, and includes "more than 2,000 artifacts across 20,000 square feet, making it the largest public display of Apple products in the world."

iNSPIRE is supposed to offer "a unique look" into Apple, by "highlighting early computers, rare prototypes, original documentation and immersive installations inspired by Apple’s most iconic products and campaigns." Based on photos shared from the exhibit's launch event, that includes displays of every model of key products like the iPod, iPhone and iPad, and an interactive installation that inserts you in the company's iconic iPod ads.

If you're based on the west coast of the US, the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California is also displaying its own "Apple@50" exhibit, and running what it calls "Mactivations," scheduled demos where you can interact with a reproduction of an original Macintosh.

Apple's own celebrations have included a published letter from CEO Tim Cook ruminating on the company's mission, and live music events at the company's stores, offices and select landmarks around the world.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/if-you-live-in-georgia-theres-a-new-exhibit-you-can-visit-celebrating-apples-50th-anniversary-180940846.html?src=rss

It looks like we’re finally getting an Ocarina of Time remake

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After years of rumors and countless fan-made Unreal Engine tech demos of varying quality, it sounds like we might finally be getting a ground-up remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

That’s according to Nintendo insider NatetheHate, who said in the latest edition of his podcast that a remake of the seminal Nintendo 64 game would be coming to Switch 2 in the second half of 2026. The reliable tipster said he doesn’t know whether Nintendo is making a 1:1 remake of the original 3D Zelda entry, or something "that’s a little more free to explore design choices," adding that he was initially reluctant to share the information he’d received in case we ended up getting little more than an HD remaster. But it sounds like this is a more ambitious undertaking than that.

Ocarina of Time has of course been remastered before, with 2011’s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D for the 3DS generally considered to be the best version of the game you can play today. The original 1998 game is also easily accessible via emulation through Nintendo Switch Online, but a modern remake for Switch 2 does make some sense.

For one, 2026 marks the series’ 40th anniversary, and if you asked every Zelda fan alive what their favorite entry is, you can bet that OoT would feature pretty high in the final rankings. We’re also getting that live-action Zelda movie next year, and Nintendo will no doubt want to make sure audiences have done their homework on the games that inspired it.

Of course, none of this is official, so have those grains of salt at the ready, but NatetheHate did also claim that anyone hoping for a new 3D Mario game to arrive in 2026 is going to be disappointed. That’s more likely to arrive in 2027. In better news, we’re apparently also getting a brand new "classic-style" Star Fox game this summer, which would mark the return of the spacefaring Fox McCloud after a decade spent in Nintendo’s unloved mascot closet.

This rumor seems logical after Nintendo’s surprise announcement that the anthropomorphic red fox is going to feature in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, which arrives next week. He’s being voiced by Glen Powell, because of course he is.

NatetheHate’s information on all of the above has been corroborated by VGC, which says it lines up with what it's heard from its own sources. And in the case of the Ocarina of Time remake, that recent Lego set suddenly makes a lot of sense.

If indeed we do get the remake of Metacritic’s highest-rated game of all time later this year, physical collectors could have a difficult choice to make, after Nintendo announced that physical versions of first-party Switch 2 games are about to become more expensive than their digital counterparts. This adjusted pricing will come into effect when Yoshi and the Mysterious Book launches on May 21.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/it-looks-like-were-finally-getting-an-ocarina-of-time-remake-175546356.html?src=rss

The original Hollow Knight just got an update to fix a glitch with a final boss

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Team Cherry just fixed a bug with the original Hollow Knight, according to a report by GamesRadar. That game came out a full nine years ago, so it's pretty impressive that the dev team is still cranking out updates.

Spoilers follow, but it's been nine years so whatever. The update involves a glitch regarding an attack from The Radiance, one of the final bosses of the game. At later stages, she tosses out these honing balls of light. These are difficult to avoid on their own, but a glitch made it so the balls of light occasionally lingered in the air after finishing. This added yet another way for the player to take some damage and led to numerous unnecessary deaths.

This has now been fixed. The patch notes say the developers "fixed Radiance's orb attack hitbox lingering slightly longer than intended if the orb expires in the air." This is great news for brand-new players and frustrating news to people who have been trying to avoid those lingering orbs for the better part of a decade. Better late than never, right?

We don't know why the company tackled this particular issue right now. It could be that the success of the long-awaited sequel, Hollow Knight: Silksong, has been driving new players to the original release. It's also possible they just now got around to it. Today's patch includes other stuff, like raising the volume when navigating the inventory and adding more journal notification icons. Team Cherry isn't Ubisoft or Nintendo. It's a relatively small team.

The team has been pumping out updates for Silksong as well. Team Cherry recently added traditional Chinese and German language options, which had become a sticking point for some. It's also busy working on the game's first major DLC expansion, called Sea of Sorrow.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/the-original-hollow-knight-just-got-an-update-to-fix-a-glitch-with-a-final-boss-173533993.html?src=rss

The AI Doc explores how we can survive an uncertain AI future 

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Anxiety, more so than technological rigor, sits at the heart of The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist. Director Daniel Roher is anxious about the future he's bringing a child into — will it be an AI-driven utopia? Or does it spell certain doom, something explored in countless sci-fi stories. To figure it all out, he interviewed some of the most well known AI proponents and critics, including The Empire of AI author Karen Hao, AI researcher Emily Bender and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.  

The AI Doc, which hits theaters this weekend, doesn't really shed new light. For that, I'd recommend reading Hao's industry-defining book, which chronicles the rise of OpenAI and the precarious nature of its business. But I don't think tech-heads are the main audience for this film. Instead, Roher is trying to break down the state of AI for mainstream audiences, the folks who may occasionally use ChatGPT or Google's Gemini, but aren't aware of why they're controversial. In particular, the film exposes the near-religious devotion many in the tech world have around AI. 

It's not a spoiler to say that Roher ultimately adopts an "apocaloptimist" viewpoint. He's aware of the potential dangers of AI, and that it will likely have some serious societal impact. But, he also thinks humans have the ability to shape where it's headed. AI proponents have a near-religious belief in the eventuality of artificial general intelligence (AGI), or AI that can match and surpass human capabilities. But AGI isn’t inevitable, and Roher argues there’s room for critics and the public to push back. 

We’re seeing small examples of AI resistance already. Just look at the viscerally negative response to NVIDIA's DLSS 5 AI upscaling; Microsoft's recent plans to pull back on Copilot AI features in Windows 11; or OpenAI shutting down its Sora AI video generation app. (The latter may be due to the sheer expense, but Sora has certainly seen plenty of criticism.) If enough people say no to various implementations of AI, tech companies will be likely to respond.

Daniel Roher in The AI Doc.
Daniel Roher in The AI Doc.
Focus Features

The AI Doc splits its narrative between true believers — like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei — and prominent AI critics — like Tristan Harris, the co-founder and president of the Center of Humane Technology, as well as linguistics professor Emily M. Bender. It's easy to feel a bit of whiplash when the film moves from people who genuinely think AI will lead to some sort of utopia (and who will also become insanely rich in the process), and the extreme critics who think it will mean the end of humanity. At one point, Harris mentions that some of his friends working in AI risk assessment believe that their kids "won't see high school." There's that anxiety again. 

While The AI Doc squeezes an impressive amount of notable interviews in its hour-and-43-minute runtime, I would have liked to hear more from critics like Timnit Gebru, a former Google AI researcher who also ties the development of AI into a rise of "techno-fascism" in Silicon Valley. She appears briefly in the film, but her perspective isn't fully fleshed out. The AI Doc doesn't dig very deeply into the driving forces behind AI, whereas Ghost in the Machine, this year's other major AI documentary, draws a direct line between the rise of eugenics and Silicon Valley. (Ghost in the Machine is headed to theaters this summer, and will air on PBS in the fall.) 

It's the sort of energetic, animation-heavy documentary that wants to make sure the audience is never bored. But the threat of AI deserves more nuance and critical scrutiny. At worst, The AI Doc may make more people question the value of AI as the tech industry becomes more desperate to make it a success.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/the-ai-doc-explores-how-we-can-survive-an-uncertain-ai-future-154341735.html?src=rss

The PS5 is getting more expensive… again

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It was only last August that Sony raised PS5 console prices in the US, blaming a "challenging economic environment" at the time. Today it has slightly tweaked the phrasing to "continued pressures in the global economic landscape," but the outcome is the same: price rises across the board, this time even affecting the PS Portal handheld.

Starting April 2, the price of the standard PS5 (that’s the one with the disc drive) is going up to $650. That’s a whopping $100 hike, or $150 if you go back to before the August price increases. The Digital Edition is getting the same increase, up to $600 from $500 since August.

But the most eye-wateringly huge bump goes to the PS5 Pro, which will now cost you $900, $150 more than its (already very high) previous $750 MSRP. If you managed to pick up a Pro during last year’s Black Friday sale, when its price was slashed to $650, then you’re probably feeling pretty smug right now.

Even the PlayStation Portal is getting a $50 increase, up from $199 to $250. The Portal has gotten a lot more capable in the last 12 months, but $250 for a device that can’t run any games natively might make a purchase harder to justify for a lot of people.

In a blog post, Sony acknowledged the impact of prices increases on its audience, but said after "careful evaluation" that it was "a necessary step to ensure we can continue delivering innovative, high-quality gaming experiences to players worldwide."

Global economic turbulence is affecting the entire games industry right now. Valve has already pushed back the launch date for the Steam Machine, while the ongoing RAM crisis could also be to blame for Steam Deck stock shortages. 

Microsoft also raised Xbox prices twice last year, and earlier this week Nintendo announced that some of its physical first-party Switch 2 games will soon be more expensive than purchasing the game digitally. While Nintendo has experimented with this kind of pricing structure before, it might point to the increasingly prohibitive costs of making and shipping products right now.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/the-ps5-is-getting-more-expensive-again-133141514.html?src=rss