In Brief

UK’s secret iCloud backdoor order triggers civil rights challenge

Government & Policy /

The U.K. government’s secret order to Apple demanding it backdoor the end-to-end encrypted version of its iCloud storage service has now been challenged by two civil rights groups, Liberty and Privacy International, which filed complaints Thursday. They called the order “unacceptable and disproportionate” and warned of “global consequences” as the access order is thought to […]

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Apple’s appeal against UK’s secret iCloud backdoor order must be held in public, rights groups urge

Security /

Privacy rights groups have called on Apple’s legal challenge to a secret U.K. government order asking it to backdoor an end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) version of its iCloud storage service to be heard in public, rather than behind closed doors. The existence of the order emerged via press reports last month. Apple went on to confirm

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Meta is reportedly testing in-house chips for AI training

AI /

Meta is reportedly testing an in-house chip for training AI systems, a part of a strategy to reduce its reliance on hardware makers like Nvidia. According to Reuters, Meta’s chip, which is designed to handle AI-specific workloads, was manufactured in partnership with Taiwan-based firm TSMC. The company is piloting a “small deployment” of the chip

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Trump nominates Sean Plankey as new CISA director 

Security /

President Donald Trump nominated Sean Plankey to head the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), according to a White House email sent to journalists on Tuesday. Plankey has several years of experience working for the U.S. government. In 2013, Plankey gave cybersecurity support to U.S. forces deployed in Afghanistan, then worked at U.S. Cyber Command,

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Consumer Reports finds popular voice cloning tools lack safeguards

AI /

Several popular voice cloning tools on the market don’t have “meaningful” safeguards to prevent fraud or abuse, according to a new study from Consumer Reports. Consumer Reports probed voice cloning products from six companies — Descript, ElevenLabs, Lovo, PlayHT, Resemble AI, and Speechify — for mechanisms that might make it more difficult for malicious users

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Microsoft reportedly ramps up AI efforts to compete with OpenAI

AI /

Microsoft is accelerating its push to compete with OpenAI, its longtime collaborator, by developing its own powerful AI models and exploring alternatives to power products like Microsoft’s Copilot bot. Microsoft has developed its own AI “reasoning” models comparable to models like OpenAI’s o1 and o3-mini, the The Information reports. OpenAI is said to have refused

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Anthropic’s Claude Code tool had a bug that ‘bricked’ some systems

Security /

The launch of Anthropic’s coding tool, Claude Code, is off to a rocky start. According to reports on GitHub, Claude Code’s auto-update function contained buggy commands that rendered some workstations unstable and broken. When Claude Code was installed at the “root” or “superuser” levels — permissions that give programs the ability to make operating system-level

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Shield AI raises $240M at a $5.3B valuation to commercialize its AI drone tech

Startups /

Shield AI, the San Diego defense tech startup that builds drones and other AI-powered military systems, has raised a $240 million round at a $5.3 billion valuation, it announced today. Shield AI says its Hivemind software already enables fighter jets and drones to fly autonomously. Now, Shield AI wants to sell Hivemind to a broader

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OpenAI reportedly plans to charge up to $20,000 a month for specialized AI ‘agents’

AI /

OpenAI may be planning to charge up to $20,000 per month for specialized AI “agents,” according to The Information. The publication reports that OpenAI intends to launch several “agent” products tailored for different applications, including sorting and ranking sales leads and software engineering. One, a “high-income knowledge worker” agent, will reportedly be priced at $2,000

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