You can feel the excitement in the air. Grand Theft Auto 6 will be available to play in less than two weeks, officially launching on November 19. We're fortunate here in Australia, as we'll be able to play the much-anticipated game before the rest of the world — our Kiwi cousins get it slightly earlier, but what's a few hours when we've had to wait 13 years.
That's only possible if you download the game ahead of time. And with preloading officially kicking off today, November 10, you'll want to make sure your NBN plan is ready to download the enormous 212GB file. If it isn't, there's still time to switch to one of the fastest NBN plans before launch day, so you can begin preloading and doing your bit to help avoid breaking the Australian internet.
And now is a great time to switch regardless, as several early Black Friday NBN deals have gone live, including an offer from Telstra that's almost too good to be true.
The telco is currently offering 50% off plan fees for four months across all of its plans, making it one of the cheapest providers for introductory pricing across several speed tiers. Yes, it happened — we got cheap Telstra NBN plans before GTA 6.
With the fastest NBN plans capable of downloading GTA 6 in as little as 14 minutes, compared with 56 minutes on slower connections, switching could make all the difference.
I’ve selected Exetel’s NBN 500 plan as the top choice for this tier, as it’s not only affordable, with fuss-free billing, but it’s possible to boost your speed to NBN 1000 for 24 hours for just AU$1, perfect for downloading GTA 6 faster. Plus, the telco recorded the quickest ping speeds in the most recent ACCC broadband performance data report of 6.9ms, which could be ideal if you intend to game online.
The most affordable NBN 750 plan that promises maximum plan speeds is this one from Spintel. The telco receives generally favourable reviews from customers, and even the ongoing cost is low for the tier, with the AU$94.95 monthly fee coming in well under the current AU$107 average.
• AU$69 total minimum cost • AU$983.70 first year cost • AU$1,139.40 ongoing yearly cost
It’s definitely possible to spend less on an NBN 1000 plan (and if you do, make sure to check out my other recommendations), but this plan from Superloop is well-optimised for online gameplay and has been proven to overdeliver on its typical evening speed claims. Throw in near-universal acclaim, and you have yourself a fine choice for a gigabit internet plan.
• AU$89 minimum cost • AU$1,218 first year cost • AU$1,368 ongoing yearly cost
If you want an NBN 2000 plan, then you’ll likely first need to have dedicated equipment installed at your premises, which could affect the time it takes to download GTA 6. Still, if it’s the plan for you, this option from Superloop gets my seal of approval. Only a handful of providers currently offer an NBN 2000 plan, and given Superloop’s track record and positive reviews, and below-average pricing, it’s an easy recommendation.
• AU$148 minimum cost • AU$1,896 first year cost • AU$2,016 ongoing yearly cost
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Alexis Ohanian wants to figure out the future of user-generated content. According to the Reddit cofounder, building social media apps is "not cool anymore" and so much of the internet has been compromised. "I'm expecting some better version of the group chat to be that new version of UGC," Ohanian told WIRED senior correspondent Lauren Goode at the inaugural WIRED World Fair. [...] Ohanian is a proponent of the "Dead Internet Theory"—the idea that a lot of online activity and content is being generated by bots. Large language models have turbocharged this, with AI agents outrunning human users. "The internet that I grew up on that was really built for humans first; user interfaces and experiences are going to go away," said Ohanian, "because more of the internet is going to get created for these agents to use, [rather] than for people."
In some ways, the advance in generative AI has been lucrative for sites like Reddit, which has licensed its vast archive of human conversations to companies including Google and OpenAI to train AI models. "Platforms like ours became very, very valuable to LLMs," Ohanian said. But the technology has also undermined the business. Reddit shares plunged 29 percent last week after the platform warned that Google's AI-powered search was hurting referral traffic. Ohanian also worries the commercialization of these conversations means they are full of "bullshit." "The internet has gotten so manipulated because it is so incredibly valuable to do so," he said.
Reddit recently said it would require users to sign in to fight third-party scraping and keep up user engagement. While Ohanian declined to say whether he agrees with the move, "there has to be provable humanity on the internet without being creepy." An early Anthropic investor, Ohanian is nonetheless optimistic about the potential benefits of AI. He is especially excited to see medical breakthroughs from the technology. "There is still a very real chance that this technology can cause a lot of harm for sure," he said. "I think we have to be sober about how we're building and what we're doing, but I still can't help but see all of the things that can get so demonstrably better."
Over the last few years, Zoom has probably had one of the most intriguing journeys in the business world.
After booming during the pandemic, the company has since expanded its offerings to cover a huge range of enterprise needs, with contact center services alongside traditional video conferencing and expanding AI tools.
As the company looks ahead to its new AI-enabled evolution, I went to the Zoom Experience Centre in London to find out more.
Refusal to compromise
“When we look at EMEA, we think the landscape is shifting in how organizations think about the technology they rely on,” Louise Newbury-Smith, Zoom’s Head of UKI, explains.
“For years, the pattern has been pretty similar, an organization would adopt a platform and then have to manipulate their own way of working around that platform - we really want to reverse that.”
“There is still some of that friction…(but) what’s changing is that organizations are starting to refuse to compromise - they want platforms to work the way they want to work.”
Zoom opened its UK data center in November 2025, greatly improving the situation for organizations in the region, as data residency choices which didn't exist before are now in place, meaning the likes of local councils, NHS trusts and financial services firms can store their data locally.
Newbury-Smith notes that the EMEA region is not a secondary market for Zoom, but high growth opportunity, a point echoed by Nick Tidd, Head of Global Channel GTM, who said the region offers, “a truly remarkable opportunity for our customers and for our partners, when you look across the product portfolio.”
This opportunity is hooked onto AI, particularly the growing importance of the context layer, a situation where Zoom is ideally placed, Tidd says.
“Think of how Zoom is positioned across the product portfolio - capturing all of those conversations…(and) putting them into the context to capture them in the workflow is where we are very different to others.”
(Image credit: Zoom)
This move was expanded by Leo Boulton, Zoom’s Head of Product, Solution and Industry Marketing, who ran us through the company’s recent releases and product announcements, highlighting the importance of context in Zoom’s concept of “conversation to completion” in its new Unified Context Layer.
“Conversations come natural to us - the way that we work is through conversations, it’s just a natural part of how humans are,” he noted, “so getting the job done should also be a natural thing - not something that requires a change in behavior, but something that should naturally just be part of our everyday work.”
If this doesn’t happen, workers will resist change, Boulton notes - particularly when it comes to AI, which is why Zoom is looking to embed intelligence into work itself.
Context has become a critical part of improving AI performance and usefulness in recent months, and Zoom wants to ensure its tools are as up to date as possible - but this requires some key elements.
“Before AI can truly understand how people work and operate, we have to guarantee it has the highest-quality raw materials,” Boulton points out. “The conversation must be crisp, clear and understood with genuine eye contact – because only with the best ingredients can AI deliver the most value.”
Zoom has been working hard to improve the quality and fidelity of its audio and video for calls and meetings, including the upcoming launch of a real-time “voice smoothing” tool known as “touch up my voice” and a pose correction tool enabling for greater eye-to-eye contact to boost interpersonal connections.
The better your agents understand your business, the more effectively they can work for you, Boulton notes, as he demonstrated how users will soon be able to benefit from a live assist feature which offers proactive suggestions during a call, such as telling you to speak slower or faster.
Zoom Chat is also getting a significant upgrade, making it what Boulton said should be a shared space where people and agents will interact and work together.
“We don’t expect our customers to live entirely inside Zoom,” he said. “True adoption only happens when tools feel natural, which is why our context layer is open by design – bringing the intelligence directly into whatever interface people already choose to work in.”
So it’s clear that Zoom wants to be so much more than your classic video conferencing and chat platform - and its ability to get the most out of your information could make it a very handy tech partner going forward.
“The direction is super clear,” Newbury-Smith concludes, “we're building and serving our customers where they are.”
It’s taken quite a while for Wi-Fi 7 to become a mainstream technology – even Apple hasn’t adopted it right across its product range yet – but TP-Link has just launched the first Wi-Fi 8 router in the somewhat imposing form of its new Archer 8 Ultra.
In fact, the final technical details for Wi-Fi 8 probably won’t be announced until 2028, but the key features of the new standard are well known, allowing TP-Link and other manufacturers to prepare new products that will introduce the new technology over the next couple of years. It’s also planning to release a number of mesh routers and range extenders that will use Wi-Fi 8 in 2027 as well.
It’s safe to say that a state-of-the-art router with Wi-Fi 8 will be massive overkill for most home users – after all, the Archer’s tri-band Wi-Fi and top speed of 19Gbps will leave most home broadband services trailing in its wake.
And, of course, it comes with a state-of-the art price tag too. However, the Archer 8 Ultra is a good opportunity to look at the new features that will shape the next generation of Wi-Fi technology.
TP-Link Archer 8 Ultra review: Price & release date
How much does it cost? Pre-order for £699 (around $950), then £899.99 (around $1,199)
When is it available? Released on November 15, 2026
Where can you get it? Available in US, EU, UK
The Archer 8 Ultra is currently available for pre-order from TP-Link’s website, and will be officially launched on November 15, 2026.
The US pricing hasn’t been confirmed at the time of writing, but there’s a special offer for pre-orders in the UK for £699 (around $950), with the price rising to £899.99 (approx. $1,199) following the launch in November. There are currently no rival Wi-Fi 8 routers to compare it with, but that pricing makes the Archer 8 Ultra twice as expensive as a high-end, current-gen Wi-Fi 7 model.
Wi-Fi 8 focuses on extending range and signal power in order to improve reliability.
This means that the Archer 8 Ultra needs to provide some pretty heavyweight hardware. It’s built like a tank, consisting of a matte-black obelisk that stands 245mm high, 98mm wide and 226mm deep, and it houses no less than 18 internal antennae to help beam the Wi-Fi signal far and wide.
It also provides an impressive set of ports and connectors, including two 10Gbps ports that can handle the latest high-speed fibre broadband, and also double up for a wired network connection (LAN) for devices such as a PC or gaming console that needs maximum performance.
There are also four additional 2.5Gbps ports for additional wired connections and, somewhat oddly, a single 1Gbps port as well.
TP-Link’s Tether app is also well designed, allowing you to scan a QR code in order to quickly connect to the router’s new network. By default, the app creates two separate networks, with one network reserved for the high-speed 6.0GHz band that is supported by newer computers and mobile devices.
The second network combines the 2.4GHz and 5.0GHz bands in order to provide compatibility with older computers and mobile devices. That setup should suit most users, but more advanced users can connect to the Archer 8 Ultra via a web browser interface that provides greater control over your network settings.
Design: 5/5
TP-Link Archer 8 Ultra review: Features
The new Wi-Fi 8 standard is a big step forward, and is awash with jargon and buzzwords, such as MAPC (multi-access point co-ordination), ELR (enhanced long range), and DRU (distributed resource units), and you can find out more about these on the TP-Link website.
But the TLDR version is that Wi-Fi 8 shifts the focus away from sheer speed and instead concentrates on improving both range and reliability for larger homes and offices, as well as public and outdoor venues that may have dozens or even hundreds of connected devices spread over a very wide area.
Of course, the 19Gbps speed of the Archer 8 Ultra certainly sounds impressive, but it’s not actually any faster than the top speed of 46Gbps that is already possible with current-generation Wi-Fi 7 devices.
Wi-Fi 8 also uses the same frequency bands – 2.4GHz, 5.0GHz and 6.0GHz – that are available with Wi-Fi 7 as well. This ensures that the Archer 8 Ultra will be backwards-compatible with existing computers and mobile devices that use Wi-Fi 7.
However, those buzzwords that we just mentioned are designed to improve the range and reliability of the Archer 8 Ultra, so that a single router can cover an area of 3,600sq.ft (although some regions may quote this as 3,000sq.ft due to differences in local regulations).
(Image credit: TP-Link)
It’s also designed to support up to 200 connected devices, and includes a Multi-Floor Mode that can automatically configure the Archer network to work efficiently within homes, offices, and other buildings where people and devices may be spread across multiple floors and levels. Suffice it to say that if you live in a modest two-bedroom house or apartment, then the Archer 8 Ultra will definitely be what The Sisters Of Mercy refer to as ‘a slight case of overbombing’.
Features: 5/5
TP-Link Archer 8 Ultra review: Performance
Tri-band Wi-Fi 8
Very few - if any - Wi-Fi 8 devices yet
Still fantastic performance with Wi-Fi 7 devices
Benchmarks
Ookla Speed Test – 2.4GHz/5.0GHz (download/upload)
Within 5ft, no obstructions: 150Mbps/150Mbps
Within 30ft, three partition walls: 150Mbps/150Mbps
20GB Steam Download – 2.4GHz/5.0GHz
Within 5ft, no obstructions: 150Mbps
Within 30ft, three partition walls: 150Mbps
Ookla Speed Test – 6.0GHz (download/upload)
Within 5ft, no obstructions: 150Mbps/150Mbps
Within 30ft, three partition walls: 150Mbps/150Mbps
20GB Steam Download - 6.0GHz
Within 5ft, no obstructions: 150Mbps
Within 30ft, three partition walls: 150Mbps
I’ve not come across any PCs or mobile devices that currently support Wi-Fi 8 but, as mentioned, Wi-Fi 8 does use the same frequency bands as Wi-Fi 7, so I was able to get some idea of the performance offered by the Archer 8 Ultra using an existing laptop with Wi-Fi 7.
The extended range and reliability of Wi-Fi 8 makes it a good option in my office, as I have a deadspot in one particular office at the back of the building. Unsurprisingly, both of the Wi-Fi networks set up by the Archer 8 Ultra were easily able to cruise along at the maximum 150Mbps provided by my office network when running the Ookla SpeedTest and for downloading large game files from Steam while connected to nearby devices in the same room.
And it didn’t bat an eyelid as I picked up my laptop and walked along the corridor to the Wi-Fi deadspot in the furthest back office.
The one disadvantage of the high-speed 6GHz band is that it has a shorter range than the 2.4GHz and 5.0GHz bands – which is why those bands are still used even on next-gen routers such as this.
However, the range and reliability of Wi-Fi 8 ensured that the 6.0GHz band was able to reach my back office and maintain full speed with no trouble at all.
Of course, it’s still early days for Wi-Fi 8, so the Archer 8 Ultra won’t be an essential purchase for many people right now, but it’s a fascinating look at a future world where we will be surrounded by Wi-Fi all around us, both at home and in the wider world outside (more so than we currently are).
Performance: 5/5
Should I buy the TP-Link Archer 8 Ultra?
Attribute
Notes
Score
Features
Wi-Fi 8 introduces many new features designed to improve range and reliability
5/5
Performance
It’s incredibly fast, but Wi-Fi 8 also provides big improvements in range and reliability
5/5
Design
It’s big and bulky, but packed with high-end hardware.
5/5
Value
A state-of-the-art price for a state-of-the-art router
4/5
Buy it if…
You’re an early adopter Wi-Fi 8 won’t officially be launched until 2028, so there won’t be many PCs or mobile devices that support it before then.View Deal
You have an enormous home Wi-Fi 8 is all about range and reliability, and the Archer 8 Ultra can cover areas of up to 3,600sq.ft. It’ll be great if you own your own football pitch.View Deal
You’re a business user Public venues such as hotels or sports venues that need to provide reliable Wi-Fi for hundreds of visitors will find that Wi-Fi 8 is a big improvement over previous versions.View Deal
Don’t buy it if…
You’re on a budget The Archer 8 Ultra is one of the most expensive routers we’ve ever come across, and there are plenty of Wi-Fi 7 routers that will provide good performance at half the price.View Deal
You have a modest home Most smaller and medium-size homes simply won’t need the extended range of Wi-Fi 8, or its blazing Wi-Fi speeds.View Deal
You just want to watch Netflix A top speed of 19Gbps means that the Archer 8 Ultra is dozens of times faster than most home broadband connections, so it’s massive overkill for simple streaming services.View Deal
Also consider
D-Link Aquila Pro AI R95 Few of us can actually use Wi-Fi 8 at the moment, so an affordable Wi-Fi 7 model such as the Aquila Pro is a more mainstream option, providing a top speed of 9.5Gbps at a competitive price.
Netgear Orbi 373 Its dual-band Wi-Fi 7 runs at a relatively modest 5Gbps, but the Orbi’s three mesh routers can easily cover very large areas up to 6,000sq.ft.
Even as a tech journalist who spends all day, (almost) every day playing around with gadgets and apps, there's still plenty that I miss: like, for example, the ability to view how much time you've been spending on YouTube from inside the mobile app.
It works like Digital Wellbeing (on Android) or Screen Time (on iOS), but specifically for YouTube. You can dig into how much time you've spent on YouTube today and over the past week, with an average for the last seven days.
This has actually been around for years, and it's available whether or not you're signed up for YouTube Premium — though when I checked up on my stats, I was glad that I've been paying the monthly fee, if only to avoid hours and hours of ads.
First step — turning on Watch History
The Watch History feature in YouTube (Image credit: Future)
The 'time watched' statistics we're talking about here will only appear if you've got YouTube Watch History turned on. You can check this inside the mobile app by tapping your profile picture (bottom right), then the cog icon, then Manage all history (you can find the same settings on the web here).
To see what you've watched most recently, you can tap your profile picture then History in the mobile app, or choose History from the left-hand navigation menu on the web. There are tools here for searching through your history, deleting the entire record of everything you've ever watched, and putting your Watch History on pause.
It is of course entirely up to you whether or not you enable Watch History. The downsides are Google knows more about you, and it can be hard to get out of recommendation rabbit holes; on the plus side, you will get served videos to watch that might be at least vaguely related to your interests (it's great for discovering new music, for example).
More of your Watch History can be got at through the comprehensive Google Takeout service, which you can find on the web here. Select the YouTube entry, and Google will gladly give you a CSV file detailing every single video you've ever watched on the platform, as long as you've always had Watch History turned on.
Note that the 'time watched' stats don't include videos you've deleted from your Watch History, or that you've watched in incognito mode. However, they do include the YouTube viewing you've done across all your devices (as long as you were signed in), except for inside the YouTube Music apps and on the YouTube TV platform.
You can find your viewing stats inside the YouTube mobile app for Android or iOS by tapping your profile avatar (bottom right), then tapping on the cog icon (top right), and choosing Time management. You can't get these stats through YouTube on the web at the moment, which seems a bit of an oversight.
There's not much in the way of a breakdown of what you've been watching, but you can see your running totals and average for the past seven days. There's also a stat about how your viewing compares to the week prior, so you can see if your spending more or less time on the platform week-to-week.
I was honestly surprised by my stats: almost five hours a day on average at the moment. Okay, I do play a lot of lo-fi music videos while I'm working, but that's still an awful lot of content compared to hours in the day — and it extends to tech reviews, explainer videos, and of course all the podcasts that have recently shifted to video.
I've written before about how essential I find YouTube Premium, and the revelation of how much time I actually spend on the site and in the app has more than justified the monthly outlay for me personally — I can't imagine the number of ads I'd have had to sit through otherwise. In fact, YouTube Premium tells you how many ad-free videos you've watched on this page (570 hours and counting for me).
You'll see the time management screen also gives you some controls if you want to limit the amount of clips you're watching day to day. There are toggle switches for setting up reminders around bedtime and taking breaks, and for putting a limit on how much time you spend watching YouTube Shorts each day.
When I’m searching for the best NBN deals, the main factor I’m taking note of is the monthly price. Second to that come perks which, to be honest, are becoming rarer and rarer. So when Dodo announced it’s now offering its NBN customers totally unlimited mobile data via its postpaid SIM plans, I simply had to take notice.
This offer, available to new and existing customers, works as follows — sign up for any Dodo NBN plan, and you’re eligible for the new Infinity plan, a AU$19/m SIM-only offer that includes unlimited data, capped at 50Mbps.
Unlimited 5G mobile data on the Optus network for just AU$19/m is a standout deal in itself. But combine it with Dodo’s low-cost NBN plans — now on the receiving end of an AU$30/m discount for six months — and you've got a package that's hard to ignore.
The unlimited data Infinity plan is available with any Dodo NBN plan. To order, you first need to complete the sign-up process for an NBN plan, including making a payment. Once that’s done, you’ll be able to sign up for the Infinity plan via the Dodo mobile app.View Deal
Unlimited mobile plans aren’t entirely new. While virtually all telcos will allow you to continue using data, if you exceed your monthly allowance, download speeds are usually throttled to around 2Mbps. However, Felix has been offering truly unlimited data SIM plans for some time, and while speeds are restricted, they're now available at up to 80Mbps.
Unlimited data at 80Mbps, of course, sounds great, but it'll cost you AU$50/m. Dodo's unlimited data plan, meanwhile, is capped at 50Mbps but costs just AU$19/m, making it arguably the better-value option.
Take my favourite NBN speed tier of all — NBN 500 — as an example. You'll pay just AU$62.99/m for the first six months for Dodo's plan (far less than the current AU$95/m average). Throw in the unlimited mobile data plan, and your monthly total comes to AU$81.99/m — that's cheaper than some NBN 25 plans! Once the six-month introductory period is up, your ongoing monthly total will be AU$111.99.
There's no end date to Dodo's unlimited mobile data offer, but the discounted NBN plans for Black Friday sales in Australia are time-sensitive. So, to secure the lowest possible price, you'll need to sign up before December 8.
Slashdot reader fjo3 shares an article from Wired: The internet must be put out of its misery. Any rational observer can admit that the current iteration of the web -- and the social fabric woven there -- is not what they signed up for. Symptoms of advanced cultural decay can no longer be ignored. This thing is eating itself. Giants including Meta and Google have been forced to settle massive consumer lawsuits brought over privacy violations and mental health harms allegedly caused by the addictive mechanisms of their platforms. Schools are banning smartphones as multiple countries institute social media restrictions for under-16s. Parents are in a panic about their kids aspiring to careers as social media celebrities, losing themselves in a vast ecosystem of online casinos, or joining extremist movements. Generative AI, briefly considered an amusing novelty, is now a turbocharged slop engine for the web, filling feeds and comment sections with useless, grotesque content. As humans scroll past headlines about AI taking their jobs, confusing fantasy for reality, and contributing to cognitive decline, any consumer appeal the technology might have is turning to anguish. The data centers that power it have become increasingly unpopular, and politically radioactive.
To be online, many now admit, is to be endlessly manipulated and exploited. In December, Oxford University Press declared rage bait to be the word of the year, noting that use of the term had tripled over the previous 12 months. The lexical spike represented a heightened awareness that monetized social accounts churn out bad-faith takes and extremist content, automating this abusive behavior with generative AI, simply to profit off hostile engagement. Billionaire oligarchs have opened the floodgates to such inauthentic activity, conspiracy-mongering, and hate speech by rolling back moderation. In short, when you hang around online in 2026, you see little worth saving. Perhaps a decade ago, you felt that the glimmers of community and joy, of artistic and intellectual exchange, were enough to balance out the toxic junk. No longer.
The Browser Company is shutting down its Arc browser on December 22 and encouraging users to migrate to Dia, its newer AI-powered browser for Apple Silicon Macs and Windows 11 PCs. Thurrott reports: In the message explaining why it was sunsetting Arc, The Browser Company explained that maintaining two separate browsers was difficult to justify, especially from a security perspective. "Dia was built from the ground up to meet today's security standards, so that's where our engineering and security teams will focus moving forward," the company wrote.
The retirement of Arc will be gradual: While nothing changes for existing Arc users, it's no longer possible to create new Arc accounts as of today. On November 23, tab sync, Browse for Me, and other AI features will be disabled on the iOS and Android versions of Arc. Lastly, the desktop version of Arc will stop working on December 22, and Arc accounts will be deactivated.
BBC technology editor Zoe Kleinman likens the recently discovered PHP security vulnerabilities to an unexploded bomb, writing, "The PHP story feels like the cyber equivalent of an unexploded bomb -- I have never seen such a dramatic, public and global response to a cyber event that hasn't happened yet." Although no successful attacks have been confirmed, the AI-assisted discovery of long-hidden flaws has triggered a worldwide security scramble, with websites taken offline as a precaution and administrators racing to deploy patches before attackers can exploit the vulnerabilities. From the report: The weaknesses found in the PHP programming language, which is used by millions of websites, had been quietly resting there for years and are not easy to exploit. One cyber security researcher told me he'd been up all night trying to do it as an experiment, but it was proving very difficult. [...] It was supposed to be kept quiet until everyone had a chance to fix their sites -- but the news was leaked. From that point the clock started ticking.
As I write this, there are no reports that anyone or anything has succeeded in using the flaws to attack a site. "There's a real dilemma," said Prof Alan Woodward from Surrey University. "How do you alert people they need to be ready, and then that a patch is urgently required, whilst not alerting attackers? Basically you're telling everyone about the problem at the same time and hoping the defenders aren't awake enough to act as soon as the patch is out."
But we do know from large web companies like Cloudflare and Palo Alto Networks that millions of attempts have been made. We probably won't know for a while whether it has worked for any criminals, because the companies affected might not be aware yet either. As far as we know the unexploded bomb remains intact for now, and for some experts this is a success. "We've seen how a team of people supported by the large AI company have used AI to find the problem, work for months together to solve it and get everybody ready to be safe and secure," Gina Neff, Professor of Responsible AI at Queen Mary University, told the Today Program on BBC Radio 4. "We have enormous capability to handle these risks."
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Website admins, brace yourselves. Fixes for what are believed to be uncommonly severe vulnerabilities are scheduled to drop in a little more than 12 hours for PHP, a programming language that powers websites and Web applications everywhere. PHP maintainers said Monday that they planned to release patches for two vulnerabilities, both with severity ratings of 9.2 out of a possible 10.
"All PHP users are encouraged to prepare now so they can upgrade as soon as the release is available," the advisory stated. "We reserve the right to release earlier should details of either vulnerability become public, or should evidence of active exploitation appear in the wild." The maintainers published the advisory following the leaking of purported details, which have yet to be confirmed. The report showed a video of an exploit tool dubbed PHP2Shell executing code on webservers running WordPress 7.1.3, MediaWiki 1.46.2, phpBB 3.3.17, Magento 2.4.9, Joomla 6.2.0, Laravel 13.36.0, Laravel 8.83.29, Symphony 8.1.9, Drupal 11.4.10, and WHMCS 9.0.9, all of which use PHP. A video depicting the tool has been reposted here.
Attempts to locate the unconfirmed report were unsuccessful, but security firm watchTowr said it claimed to affect every PHP version from PHP 5, released in 2004, onward. The security firm went on to say it has confirmed that the vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619, are real. Researchers from separate security firm Sansec said they "expect mass attacks to start within 15 minutes of the release." A third security firm, Webfence, also urged admins to prepare now. Huntress has also issued an advisory.
Independent researchers say they've identified a large "fleet" of AI agents apparently running on Tencent infrastructure and making parallel queries against Alibaba's Amap mapping service. TechCrunch reports: Researchers, however, resisted the term "swarm," noting that there seems to be little coordination between their different queries. "'Agent fleet,' not 'swarm:'" one researcher wrote in the preliminary report, "many parallel agents on the same kind of task, with no sign of communication between them." The agents were discovered by monitoring traffic to the domain-scanning service urlquery, a technique that previously revealed long-running activity by OpenAI agents. AI agents often use urlquery to load websites that they cannot access directly, leaving a record of their activities that can be valuable to researchers.
In this case, the record showed queries to Alibaba's Amap service, seeking directions to different entrances of various public places, including a park, a zoo, and a hospital. The research is ongoing and so few details are available, but the behavior shows how persistent AI agent activity has become on the internet. In the wake of the Hugging Face incident, many researchers are actively monitoring for rogue agent activity on the internet. Much of that activity has been easy to find because agents tend to use the same techniques and make little effort to conceal themselves.
Cloudflare has launched two open-weight decision models, Clef and Clef-flash, designed for structured yes/no, multiple-choice, and ranking tasks while also supporting images, video, and up to a 64K context window. Cloudflare says its models outperform TypeSafe's Jev on several benchmarks and can run locally from Hugging Face. The Register reports: For starters, Clef has an LLM backbone. According to Cloudflare, Clef uses specially post-trained, frozen versions of Qwen3.8-27B and Qwen3.5-9B for Clef and Clef-flash, respectively, with the Qwen backbone performing a prefill-only pass during inference. Clef is still fast - faster than Jev, to be fair - and scores choices in parallel after that prefill-only pass. It's not clear what Jev's underlying architecture is, as TypeSafe has kept that a secret.
As for its speed and capability, Clef moves fast. Cloudflare ran it against Jev and some other open decision models using the Jev Decision Index available on Hugging Face, and the company's own ranking suggests Clef is slightly slower than other open models, but more accurate, with Clef-flash just as accurate as most of the others, but far faster.
To be fair to the competition, Cloudflare self-reported its own scores against the benchmark, and they have yet to be reproduced for ranking on the official Decision Index. Cloudflare also ran Clef against TypeSafe's own benchmarks, and claimed it beat Jev in three out of four areas, only losing out on agent trace observability. Even if it were a bit slower or less accurate, Clef has another major leg up on Jev: It's not limited to classifying text -- it can also handle images and video. Additionally, Clef supports a 64k context window. Jev can also handle up to 64k tokens across a request, although its state plus longest individual question is limited to 32k.
fahrbot-bot shares a report from CNN: President Donald Trump on Tuesday unveiled America.gov, a government website meant to serve as a one-stop shop for people trying to accomplish basic tasks like renewing a passport, enrolling in Medicare or applying for disaster relief. The site, which launched with some basic functions ahead of a full rollout next year, is designed to serve as an AI-powered guide through the thicket of government agencies that Trump officials pledged would ultimately save people a whole lot of frustration.
The administration's new initiative aims to allow Americans to access dozens of federal websites through a single point, making America.gov akin to a search tool that pulls information from across the government. And in the same way that people increasingly use AI models like ChatGPT or Google Gemini to compile information and provide customized answers, Trump officials claimed that America.gov would be able to do the same for people's interactions with the federal government.
Enrolling in Medicare, for example, will become a matter of typing the request into the America.gov AI tool and following its step-by-step instructions. The same goes for applying to a government job -- the new tool will now let people upload their resume directly to the site -- or answering questions about federal benefits, publicly available documents or other necessities that fall under the federal government's vast umbrella.
"Our vision is that one day, this type of convenience and simplicity will be across every government service," said Joseph Gebbia, who leads the government's National Design Studio. But the reality is that the most advanced actions won't be available until some point in 2027, raising questions about how long it will take for the administration to revamp the way the people interact with the government's websites. The current version of America.gov can only do "answers." U.S. Chief Design Officer Joe Gebbia said the new chatbot is powered by Google's Gemini and Elon Musk's Grok. "We have great partners behind the scenes," Gebbia told CNBC's "Squawk Box" shortly before the site, America.gov, went live around 10 a.m. ET.
"Google is proud to be named a technology partner in this vital initiative, leveraging Gemini to help more than 100 million people access critical public resources with greater speed and ease," the company said in a blog post. "By supporting the administration's vision for digital modernization, we are committed to making these everyday public services seamless, accessible, and responsive for all Americans."
IMDb is introducing "Digital Creator" as a new professional category on IMDb and IMDbPro, giving streamers, vloggers, influencers, video essayists, and other online creators a "dedicated way to represent [their] work and connect with audiences, industry peers, and potential employers," according to IMDb. Variety reports: The category includes sub-professions to further specify their work, including "Streamer," "Vlogger," "Video Essayist," "Video Creator," "Gaming Creator" and "Influencer."
The "Digital Creator" designation functions as a professional category on IMDb and IMDbPro. Creators can feature multiple professions on their page, so someone who is both a digital creator and an actor can "represent the full scope of their work in one place," per the company. No existing film or TV credits are required to establish a profile as a Digital Creator.
Jordan Drysdale // tl;dr BHIS made some interesting discoveries while working with a customer to audit their Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure. At the time of the discovery, we found […]
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