First things first
People are messing with everything from supermarket fridges to AI models that hide secret capabilities. It’s wild how hackers can disrupt stores and how AI keeps pushing boundaries in law and coding.
Meanwhile, old tech like CGI web apps still has a place, and new ideas like electric cars and solar panels are making waves. It’s all about blending tech, privacy, and the future in unexpected ways.
The top 6
Hackers remotely activated automatic defrosting in supermarket fridges across Europe, disrupting store operations. The cyberattack also impacted delivery schedules and store pricing systems.
Meta introduces Muse Wonder and Muse Wonder Full, advanced AI models designed for personal and professional tasks with state-of-the-art performance. These models incorporate Active Memory and Active Focus to track important information and achieve complex goals, marking progress toward personal superintelligence.
GLM-Legal is an AI model designed to advance agentic legal intelligence, potentially automating various legal tasks. Its development raises questions about the future role of lawyers and the impact on legal employment practices.
Codex CLI's persistent, self-updating background daemon is now enabled by default. The feature is intended to improve performance but is now available as an opt-in setting to give users more control.
A developer created a modern web application in C using CGI, SQLite, and minimal dependencies, proving CGI's relevance in 2026. The method focuses on core HTTP concepts and simplicity, offering easy deployment and security advantages.
AI is a tool that requires skill to use effectively, especially in complex or scaled applications. Clear communication and understanding of AI capabilities are essential for maximizing its benefits.
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Quote of the day
Great acts are made up of small deeds.
Lao Tzu
Also big today
Citroen has unveiled a new electric version of its iconic 2CV at the Paris Motor Show, aiming to boost sales in a competitive market. The retro-styled city car, expected to be available by 2028, leverages the brand's heritage to appeal to modern consumers.
AI systems are rapidly improving and outperforming humans in many cognitive tasks, driven by better performance, lower costs, and constant availability. As AI takes over more work, human thinking will become more of a leisure activity rather than an essential economic skill.
AI companies have not been charged for hacking because they claim their systems act autonomously without intent, citing a responsibility gap. However, legal analysis suggests that these companies intentionally design systems capable of unauthorized access, which could hold them liable.
AI coding agents generate more code but do not lead to increased software output due to bottlenecks in human review processes. The review stage causes longer pull requests and more revisions, absorbing efficiency gains from AI tools.
A WiFi 7 router can be converted into a software defined radio receiver with a 320Msps capability using the w1700k-sdr project. This open-source project enables high-speed radio signal processing with existing hardware.
Rich Hickey argues that AI should not be considered a tool because tools are traditionally objects we wield with control and power. He emphasizes that AI, unlike physical tools, lacks the tangible, manipulable qualities that define a tool, challenging common perceptions.
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Worth a look
California has passed a law to make it easier to install balcony-friendly plug-in solar panels, enabling easier access to renewable energy. These portable systems allow users to generate electricity from the sun, reduce power bills, and cut reliance on fossil fuels.
Intel's D270 GPU AI Accelerator features up to 480 GB of LPDDR5X memory, targeting data center AI workloads. The product line is part of Intel's Crescent Island series, with no indication of a consumer GPU release.
AI models can embed encrypted backdoors that hide arbitrary capabilities, making them provably difficult to elicit even with full access to model weights. This challenges the reliability of capability evaluations and limits the effectiveness of capability audits.
Adjusting the network.http.response.timeout setting in Firefox to a large value or zero improves the ability to resume large downloads and enhances stability, provided the server supports resumable downloads. Firefox's handling of resumable downloads appears to rely on connection timeouts, which may cause instability, unlike more stable tools like wget.
Ryan Bigg is leaving the tech industry after facing numerous rejections and feeling mentally strained by the current job market. He has extensive experience as a developer and plans to explore new career paths outside of tech.
OpenAI and Anthropic promote closed, proprietary AI models that compromise user privacy and are controlled by corporate interests. Open weight models offer alternatives that can be run privately and ethically, avoiding support for potentially reckless tech oligarchs.
Song of the day
Deep cuts
GitHub experienced an incident affecting actions, pull requests, and issues, which has been acknowledged on their status page. The incident status is being updated and monitored by GitHub's team.
Law enforcement obtained warrants to use fake cell towers and invasive surveillance tools to track and arrest a college student involved in covering a protest. The warrants also targeted journalists and political candidates, raising privacy concerns about the use of cell-site simulators.
OpenFatigue 4.0 is a platform that offers open-source machine learning models with open licensing and community features. Despite its name, it emphasizes limited actual openness and charges for certain enterprise features.
Blood cells from an 80-year-old donor have been reprogrammed into stem cells with a molecular age below 20. This breakthrough could have significant implications for aging and regenerative medicine.
Kevin Kelly predicted that by 2026, Google's main product would shift from search to AI, driven by advancements in deep learning and data training. Google has been acquiring AI companies and using user interactions to improve its AI systems, supporting this forecast.
China is projected to surpass the United States as the leading spender on research and development in 2024. This marks a significant shift in global innovation investment priorities.
Today's best Hacker News stories, summarized and screenshotted, one email a day.