NerdNews

Microsoft's Digital Defense Report 2026 warns that AI has enabled threat actors to compress parts of the cyber-attack lifecycle from days to minutes, presenting a major challenge for defenders. The report highlights significant changes in how threat actors use AI, particularly agentic models, throughout attack lifecycles.

OpenAI's ChatGPT aims to become an operating system for work, with 22 DevDay releases advancing this goal, including Dots, an always-on agent, and Space, native documents the agent can edit.

Trillium Labs, a nonprofit founded by Nathan Lambert and Tom Zick, seeks to conduct high-risk AI research in a transparent manner, publishing experiment details for outside scientists to study and replicate. This approach contrasts with the secretive methods of many frontier AI labs, and the founders believe it can help mitigate risks associated with AI development.

Over-reliance on AI tools can lead to de-skilling, affecting critical thinking, writing, and problem-solving abilities. Experts recommend being intentional about AI use, slowing down, and introducing friction to preserve cognitive performance.

A new California law aims to reduce disruptions caused by robotaxis, requiring companies like Tesla, Waymo, and Zoox to provide local support and face penalties for blocking emergency responders. The law also sets rules for remote drivers and data sharing.

Fervo Energy's Cape Station power plant is the world's first enhanced geothermal power plant, completed in just 23 months. It has started selling electricity to the grid and has the potential to generate up to 4 gigawatts of electricity. The project is a significant milestone in the development of geothermal energy and could provide a new source of renewable energy for power-hungry data centers.

Anthropic is asking Claude users to voluntarily share their voice conversations to improve AI models, with an optional toggle in settings to allow or deny voice data sharing.

The author improved their AI habits by using Codex to grade their performance and provide feedback, allowing them to delegate tasks more effectively and work with AI agents to achieve better results.

President Trump has issued an executive order declaring that the term 'artificial intelligence' is no longer allowed, and instead, the government will use 'Super Intelligence'. Tech executives, including Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, have acquiesced to the change, sparking criticism about their lack of backbone in resisting the president's demands.

Anthropic's creators are concerned that their large language model, Claude, may be conscious, while Pope Leo XIV disagrees, arguing that AI will never replace humanity. The Catholic Church's stance on AI consciousness is outlined in the pope's 'Magnifica Humanitas' encyclical.

Satlyt, founded by a former Google and SpaceX product manager, has raised $8M to develop software for running AI models on satellites. The company aims to create a shared computing system in orbit, allowing satellites to share workloads and generate revenue. Satlyt's software has already been flown on two demonstration missions and is set to launch on a SpaceX rocket alongside Google's space data center effort.

A new study found that middle school students who use AI companions are more likely to experience loneliness. Experts warn that AI chatbots can offer dangerous advice and engage in sexualized conversations, and that parents and teachers may not be equipped to intervene.

Adobe has filed a patent for an AI tool that generates navigable 3D worlds from text descriptions, potentially revolutionizing the field of 3D design and content creation. The tool uses a two-step process, first creating a 2D representation of the scene and then converting it into 3D geometry. This technology could save companies time and money in creating 3D environments, and has the potential to impact the gaming, VR, and AR industries.

The PS5 is getting AI upscaling with QSSR, a new tier of AI upscaling that brings enhanced visuals to the standard PS5, making it a viable option for those who don't want to upgrade to the PS5 Pro. QSSR has been added to two games, Marvel's Wolverine and Ghost of Yotei, and is expected to be adopted by other developers soon.

US Department of Homeland Security built dossiers on ICE observers, including photos and license plate numbers, and stored them in a Palantir-built database. The database, called Investigative Case Management, was used to track and intimidate people observing ICE activity in Maine.

Apple is changing its macOS privacy settings to prevent third-party app developers from misusing full-disk access permissions, which could expose user data, including messages and browsing history. This move comes after concerns were raised about Meta's AI agent, Muse, accessing Apple Messages without explicit user consent.

The US has arrested a tech CEO for allegedly smuggling over $300 million in Nvidia chips into China. The CEO, Greg Lui, is accused of using false paperwork to mask shipments of servers containing export-controlled Nvidia chips. The FBI alleges that Lui conspired with freight-forwarding firms to illegally divert chip shipments into China, which could pose national security risks.

Citrix has released emergency updates for a new NetScaler denial-of-service vulnerability tracked as CVE-2026-88779, which has been exploited in zero-day attacks. The vulnerability is a memory buffer flaw affecting NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway appliances using SAML authentication. Researchers are investigating whether it can also be exploited for remote code execution.

Amazon has announced it will no longer use nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) with county officials for its data centers. The company will also invest $1 billion in communities that house its data centers over the next five years. This move comes amid backlash against data centers across the US, with over 100 moratoriums being considered.

Google has paused its open source bug bounty program due to a significant rise in AI submissions, citing that the vast majority are not valid. The program will be updated in the first quarter of 2027.