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you’ve probably seen a smart bird feeder or know someone who has one. They’re fairly recognizable from a distance with their clear housing, cameras, and solar panels, and perhaps a friend or family member has sent you a photo or video of a bright goldfinch or handsome woodpecker (guilty). The question at this point, then, is whether these things are really worth the $100-plus price tag. Are they actually durable? And what about the squirrel problem?Lucky for you, we’ve been testing the most popular smart bird feeder models, including Netvue’s original Birdfy Lite feeder ($140) and Birdbuddy’s Pro ($179), for…

NSO Group, one of the most well-known and controversial makers of government spyware, released a new transparency report on Wednesday, as the company enters what it described as “a new phase of accountability.” But the report, unlike NSO’s previous annual disclosures, lacks details about how many customers the company rejected, investigated, suspended, or terminated due to human rights abuses involving its surveillance tools. While the report contains promises to respect human rights and have controls to demand its customers do the same, the report provides no concrete evidence supporting either.  Experts and critics who have followed NSO and the spyware…

Scientists say Earth’s magnetic field may have funneled atmospheric particles to the moon for billions of years. Lunar soil could preserve a record of Earth’s past while providing resources for future explorers. Scientists have discovered that Earth’s magnetic field has likely played a key role in moving particles from our atmosphere to the moon over […]Space,Atmospheric Science,Magnetosphere,Moon,Solar Wind#Earth #Seeded #Moon #LifeSupporting #Elements1767899445

The writer and comedian Megan Koester got her first writing job, reviewing internet pornography, from a Craigslist ad she responded to more than 15 years ago. Several years after that, she used the listings website to find the rent-controlled apartment where she still lives today. When she wanted to buy property, she scrolled through Craigslist and found a parcel of land in the Mojave Desert. She built a dwelling on it (never mind that she’d later discover it was unpermitted) and furnished it entirely with finds from Craigslist’s free section, right down to the laminate flooring, which had previously been…

Internet connectivity collapsed across Iran on Thursday amid nationwide protests, according to web monitoring firms.  “I think we’re at a near-total disconnection from the outside world now,” Amir Rashidi, an Iranian cybersecurity researcher who works for the nonprofit Miaan Group, told TechCrunch.  Doug Madory, the director of internet analysis at Kentik, a company that monitors internet traffic worldwide, concurred, telling TechCrunch that Iran’s internet has been in “near-total blackout” since around 11:30 a.m. on the U.S. east coast on Thursday, or 8 p.m. local time in Tehran. A chart showing how internet traffic dropped in Iran on Thursday around 11:30…

A wobbling jet from a supermassive black hole in a nearby galaxy is blasting gas out at a rate high enough to suppress star formation. The discovery reveals that even low-power black hole jets can dramatically reshape entire galaxies. Some galaxies contain active galactic nuclei, extremely bright and energetic regions fueled by matter falling into […]Space,ALMA,American Association for the Advancement of Science,Astronomy,Astrophysics,Black Hole,James Webb Space Telescope,Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array#Wandering #Black #Hole #Jet #Draining #Galaxy #Star #Fuel1767895784

If you insist on using biometric unlocking methods to have faster access to your devices, keep in mind that some phones have an emergency function to disable these types of locks. Hold the wake button and one of the volume buttons simultaneously on an iPhone, for instance, and it will lock itself and require a passcode to unlock rather than FaceID or TouchID, even if they’re enabled. Most devices also let you take photos or record video without unlocking them first, a good way to keep your phone locked as much as possible.Your FaceFace recognition has become one of the…

The health department for the U.S. state of Illinois has confirmed that a years-long security lapse exposed the personal information of more than 700,000 state residents. The Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) said in a statement on January 2 that an internal mapping website containing residents’ personal information, which officials used for assisting with the allocation of state resources, was inadvertently publicly viewable as far back as April 2021 through September 2025, when the security lapse was discovered. Officials said the exposed data included personal information on 672,616 individuals who are Medicaid and Medicare Savings Program recipients. The data…

In the hours after a masked federal agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis, social media users have been sharing AI-altered images they falsely claim “unmask” the officer, revealing their real identity. The agent was later identified by Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin as an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officer.The shooting occurred on Wednesday morning, and social media footage of the scene shows two masked federal agents approaching an SUV parked in the middle of the road in a suburb south of downtown Minneapolis. One of the officers appears to ask the driver…

Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI will go to trial after a U.S. judge said there is evidence to support the billionaire’s case.  Musk sued OpenAI and its co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman in 2024, alleging they betrayed their original contractual agreements by pursuing profits instead of the nonprofit’s founding mission to develop AI that benefits humanity.  Musk, who has launched his own for-profit company xAI, was an early financial backer and co-founder of OpenAI. He resigned from the board in 2018 after his bid to take over as CEO was rejected by the other co-founders, who put Altman up…

Researchers have unlocked a way to grow the immune system’s “conductors” from stem cells, bringing ready-made cancer-fighting therapies a big step closer. For the first time, scientists at the University of British Columbia have shown they can consistently create a critical type of human immune cell, known as helper T cells, starting from stem cells […]Health,Cancer,Pharmaceuticals,Stem Cells,University of British Columbia#Immune #Cell #Scientists #Couldnt #Grow #Change #Cancer #Treatment1767888401

Pat expresses especially acute concern about the have and have-not dynamics that pervade any major disaster. “I’m not so sure I’m gonna be strong enough to turn somebody away if they need food.” She continues: “I’ve just started learning how to shoot. And I’m thinking, am I gonna be able to pull a gun out and shoot somebody because they’re trying to … ”“Steal from us,” Bill finishes.“ … steal from us,” Pat echoes. “Or hurt Bill. These are the types of things we discuss in the chat rooms.”The threat of atomic annihilation was the catalyzing fear of the boomer…

Investment in consumer tech startups has been in a downturn since 2022, as a turbulent macroeconomic climate and rising inflation have made VCs skittish about consumer spending power. For the past couple of years, most AI investment has focused on winning over enterprise customers, who provide fat checks, multi-year contracts, and quick paths to scale.   But one VC sees the consumer sector gearing up for a comeback in 2026.  “This is gonna be the year of the consumer,” said Vanessa Larco, partner at the venture firm Premise and a former partner at NEA, on this week’s episode of the Equity…

Deep inside a fossil-filled cave in the Dominican Republic, researchers uncovered evidence of an unexpected interaction between ancient owls and solitary bees. About 20,000 years ago, a family of owls occupied a cave and repeatedly regurgitated pellets packed with the bones of the animals they hunted. Those remains collected on the cave floor. Researchers have […]Science,Evolution,Extinction,Field Museum,Fossils,Insect,Paleontology#Scientists #Discover #Ancient #Bees #Built #Nests #Animal #Bones1767884533

For how excellent they’ve come to look, today’s televisions come with a brain-numbing assortment of acronyms for shoppers to parse.It’s like the scariest dinner party I’ve ever attended. Remember LED, QLED, Mini LED, Micro LED, OLED, QD OLED? Meet RGB LED!Sadly, all these acronyms do actually mean something, and this year’s popular newcomer—RGB LED—implies shockingly accurate colors. Hiding behind upcoming panels from Hisense, Sony, Samsung, and LG announced at CES 2026, RGB LED (unhelpfully also called Micro RGB or RGB Mini LED) is the hot panel technology to talk about this year. I just wish they’d call it “Supercolor,” or…

The BlackBerry is back — sort of — thanks to the latest product from the mobile keyboard maker, Clicks Technology, which last week announced its debut phone, the $499 Communicator, which sports a physical keyboard. The company is also offering a separate $79 slide-out physical keyboard that fits to any device. At CES, TechCrunch chatted with Clicks chief marketing officer and co-founder, Jeff Gadway, and went hands-on with the latest handmade prototype of the forthcoming smartphone. The device, which offers a BlackBerry-like keyboard and messaging-focused touchscreen, runs Android 16 under the hood. That means the Communicator can run any Android…