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'Many dozens' targeted in ongoing campaign, CheckPoint researcher tells The Reg

Cybercriminals are targeting critical US manufacturers and supply-chain companies, looking to steal sensitive IP and other data while deploying ransomware. Their attack involves a novel twist on phishing — and a photo of White House butlers. …

Anthropic reached a settlement with authors in a high-stakes copyright class action that threatened the AI company with potentially billions of dollars in damages. From a report: In a Tuesday filing in the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, both sides asked the court to pause all proceedings while they finalize the deal. The parties signed a binding term sheet on Aug. 25 outlining the core terms of a proposed class settlement to resolve litigation brought by authors. "This historic settlement will benefit all class members," said the authors' counsel, Justin Nelson of Susman Godfrey LLP. "We look forward to announcing details of the settlement in the coming weeks." The case is one of several copyright actions brought against AI developers in courts around the country. Judge William Alsup of the US District Court for the Northern District of California had allowed the class action to proceed for authors whose books were contained in two pirate databases Anthropic downloaded.

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The Michigan Supreme Court has drawn a firm line around digital privacy, ruling that police cannot use overly broad warrants to comb through every corner of a person's phone. From a report: In People v. Carson, the court found [PDF] that warrants for digital devices must include specific limitations, allowing access only to information directly tied to the suspected crime. Michael Carson became the focus of a theft investigation involving money allegedly taken from a neighbor's safe. Authorities secured a warrant to search his phone, but the document placed no boundaries on what could be examined. It permitted access to all data on the device, including messages, photos, contacts, and documents, without any restriction based on time period or relevance. Investigators collected over a thousand pages of information, much of it unrelated to the accusation. The court ruled that this kind of expansive warrant violates the Fourth Amendment, which requires particularity in describing what police may search and seize.

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Expands VMware Cloud Foundation with AI freebie, new security and storage bits

Broadcom has opened its VMware Explore conference in a defiant tone, declaring it now offers a superior user experience compared to public clouds.…

Air pollution from oil and gas causes more than 90,000 premature deaths and sickens hundreds of thousands of people across the US each year, a new study shows, with disproportionately high impacts on communities of color. From a report: More than 10,000 annual pre-term births are attributable to fine particulate matter from oil and gas, the authors found, also linking 216,000 annual childhood-onset asthma cases to the sector's nitrogen dioxide emissions and 1,610 annual lifetime cancer cases to its hazardous air pollutants. The highest number of impacts are seen in California, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, while the per-capita incidences are highest in New Jersey, Washington DC, New York, California and Maryland.

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Judge says label is 'misleading'

A German court has told Apple to stop advertising its Watches as being carbon-neutral, ruling that this was misleading and could not fly under the country's competition law.…

Swiss researchers have determined that fermentation degree controls beer foam stability after seven years of study published in Physics of Fluids. Triple-fermented Belgian beers maintained the longest-lasting foam while single-fermented lagers produced the shortest duration. The team tested six commercial beers including Westmalle Tripel, Tripel Karmeliet, and Swiss lagers Feldschlosschen and Chopfab. Surface viscosity dominated foam stability in single-fermented beers. Marangoni stresses from surface tension differences stabilized double- and triple-fermented beer foams. Lipid transfer protein 1 underwent progressive denaturation through successive fermentations. Single fermentation produced small round protein particles. Double fermentation created net-like protein structures. Triple fermentation broke proteins into hydrophobic and hydrophilic fragments that function as surfactants. ETH Zurich's Jan Vermant said breweries can now improve foam using these specific mechanisms rather than adjusting multiple factors simultaneously.

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The GSA is letting AI chatbot makers jump the FedRAMP queue

The US government wants more AI chatbots in fed employees' hands, and its push to do so means that tech companies keen to provide other services will have to get in line behind the LLM makers.…

Google has integrated AI-powered language learning capabilities into its Translate app through a beta feature that generates customized lessons using its Gemini AI models. The Practice button allows English speakers to learn Spanish and French while Spanish, French, and Portuguese speakers can practice English. Users select their skill level and learning goals to receive tailored scenarios ranging from professional conversations to family interactions. The company also launched live translation for real-time conversations across 70 languages in the US, India, and Mexico. The feature creates AI-generated transcriptions and audio translations but does not replicate users' voices, the company told The Verge.

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Administrators can get patches installed via Intune before the first login

From next month, Windows administrators will be able to inflict Microsoft's quality updates on users via the Out of Box Experience (OOBE) by default.…

The Document Foundation, which operates the popular open source productivity suite LibreOffice, is positioning the suite's newest release, v25.8, as a strategic asset for digital sovereignty, targeting governments and enterprises seeking independence from foreign software vendors and cloud infrastructure. The Document Foundation released the update last week with zero telemetry architecture, full offline capability, and OpenPGP encryption for documents, directly addressing national security concerns about extraterritorial surveillance and software backdoors. The suite requires no internet access for any features and maintains complete transparency through open source code that governments can audit. Government bodies in Germany, Denmark, and France, alongside national ministries in Italy and Brazil, have deployed LibreOffice to meet GDPR compliance, national procurement laws, and IT localization mandates while eliminating unpredictable licensing costs from proprietary vendors. "It's time to own your documents, own your infrastructure, and own your future," the foundation wrote in a blog post.

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Criminals already abusing its latest zero-days

Citrix has pushed out fixes for three fresh NetScaler holes – and yes, they've already been used in the wild before the vendor got around to patching.…

French prosecutors have opened an investigation into the Australian video platform Kick over the death of a content creator during a live stream. From a report: Raphael Graven -- also known as Jean Pormanove -- was found dead in a residence near the city of Nice last week. He was known for videos in which he endured apparent violence and humiliation. The Paris prosecutor said the investigation would look into whether Kick knowingly broadcast "videos of deliberate attacks on personal integrity." The BBC has approached Kick for comment. A spokesperson for the platform previously said the company was "urgently reviewing" the circumstances around Mr Graven's death. The prosecutor's investigation will also seek to determine whether Kick complied with the European Union's Digital Services Act, and the obligation on platforms to notify the authorities if the life or safety of individuals is in question. In a separate announcement, France's minister for digital affairs, Clara Chappaz, said the government would sue the platform for "negligence" over its failure to block "dangerous content", according to the AFP news agency.

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Timer fail blamed for probe going quiet as Venus looms

The European Space Agency (ESA) is breathing easier after communications with Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) were restored – the spacecraft is currently barreling toward Venus for a gravity-assist flyby on August 31.…

Sideloaders face ID checks, fees, and paperwork as Chocolate Factory tightens gates

Google will extend developer verification to all Android apps, not just those installed from the Play Store, beginning with Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand in September 2026, and followed by global rollout in 2027 and beyond.…

AT&T said Tuesday it would buy wireless licenses from EchoStar for $23 billion, after a years-long saga over what the latter would do with its vast spectrum holdings. From a report: EchoStar was reportedly under pressure from regulators and the White House to either start selling its spectrum or potentially lose it. The cash payment is almost three times the size of EchoStar's entire market capitalization. AT&T said the acquired spectrum covers "virtually every" U.S. market, and will let it speed up and expand the deployment of its home wireless Internet service, as well as continue the phase-out of traditional copper phone line service.

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Tokyo filing adds to mounting actions against startup

AI search outfit Perplexity has been hit with yet another copyright lawsuit, this time courtesy of Japan's Nikkei and Asahi media companies.…

Entry-level workers in AI-exposed occupations have seen employment drop 13% since late 2022, according to Stanford University research analyzing millions of payroll records. The decline affects software developers, customer service representatives, and administrative assistants aged 22 to 25, while employment for older workers in the same roles continued growing. The study [PDF], based on ADP payroll data covering tens of thousands of firms, found the steepest drops in occupations where AI automates tasks rather than augments human capabilities. Among software developers aged 22-25, employment fell nearly 20% from its late 2022 peak. Workers in less AI-exposed fields like nursing saw employment growth across all age groups. The research controlled for firm-level effects and other economic factors, isolating AI's impact from broader trends like interest rate changes and pandemic-era hiring patterns.

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Remy Ra St Felix led a vicious international crime ring

A violent home invader and gunpoint cryptocurrency thief will now spend more than 50 years behind bars after being found guilty of assaulting a witness.…

We've going to Mars! Oh no – anvil clouds!

Elon Musk's monster rocket, Starship, remains firmly on the launchpad after two scrubs in a row, first due to an oxygen leak and then some clouds.…