Technology News

The Natal Conference, which costs up to $10,000 to attend, features multiple matchmaking strategy sessions and onsite ministers so attendees can get married, WIRED has learned.

This week, we released Gemini 2.5 Pro, our most intelligent model yet. On the latest episode of the Release Notes podcast, host Logan Kilpatrick goes on a deep dive with…

Oracle isn’t commenting on recent reports that it has experienced two separate data breaches that have exposed sensitive personal information belonging to thousands of its customers.

The most recent data breach report, published Friday by Bleeping Computer, said that Oracle Health—a health care software-as-a-service business the company acquired in 2022—had learned in February that a threat actor accessed one of its servers and made off with patient data from US hospitals. Bleeping Computer said Oracle Health customers have received breach notifications that were printed on plain paper rather than official Oracle letterhead and were signed by Seema Verma, the executive vice president & GM of Oracle Health.

The other report of a data breach occurred eight days ago, when an anonymous person using the handle rose87168 published a sampling of what they said were 6 million records of authentication data belonging to Oracle Cloud customers. Rose87168 told Bleeping Computer that they had acquired the data a little more than a month earlier after exploiting a vulnerability that gave access to an Oracle Cloud server.

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Google acquired Nest in 2014 for a whopping $3.4 billion but seems increasingly uninterested in making smart home hardware. The company has just announced two of its home gadgets will be discontinued, one of which is quite popular. The Nest Protect smoke and carbon monoxide detector is a common fixture in homes, but Google says it has stopped manufacturing it. The less popular Nest x Yale smart lock is also getting the ax. There are replacements coming, but Google won't be making them.

Nest launched the 2nd gen Protect a year before it became part of Google. Like all smoke detectors, the Nest Protect comes with an expiration date. You're supposed to swap them out every 10 years, so some Nest users are already there. You will have to hurry if you want a new Protect. While they're in stock for the moment, Google won't manufacture any more. It's on sale for $119 on the Google Store for the time being.

The Nest x Yale lock. Credit: Google

Likewise, Google is done with the Nest x Yale smart lock, which it launched in 2018 to complement the Nest Secure home security system. This device requires a Thread-enabled hub, a role the Nest Secure served quite well. Now, you need a $70 Nest Connect to control this lock remotely. If you still want to grab the Nest x Yale smart lock, it's on sale for $229 while supplies last.

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The Federal Communications Commission's news distortion investigation into CBS drew a public rebuke from a bipartisan group of five former FCC commissioners, including two former chairmen.

The group criticizing current Chairman Brendan Carr includes Republican Alfred Sikes, the FCC chair from 1989 to 1993, and Democrat Tom Wheeler, the FCC chair from 2013 to 2017. They were joined by Republican Rachelle Chong, Democrat Ervin Duggan, and Democrat Gloria Tristani, all former commissioners.

"These comments are submitted to emphasize the unprecedented nature of this news distortion proceeding, and to express our strong concern that the Federal Communications Commission may be seeking to censor the news media in a manner antithetical to the First Amendment," the former chairs and commissioners told the FCC in a filing this week.

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More than half a year after an empty Starliner spacecraft safely landed in a New Mexico desert, NASA and Boeing still have not decided whether the vehicle's next flight will carry any astronauts.

In an update this week, the US space agency said it is still working through the process to certify Starliner for human missions. Whether it carries cargo or humans, Starliner's next flight will not occur until late this year or, more likely, sometime in 2026.

Two things stand out in the new information provided by NASA. First, there remains a lot of work left to do this year before Starliner will fly again, including extensive testing of the vehicle's propulsion system. And secondly, it is becoming clear that Starliner will only ever fly a handful of missions to the space station, if that, before the orbiting laboratory is retired.

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Google revealed the Pixel 9a last week, but its release plans were put on hold by a mysterious "component quality issue." Whatever that was, it's been worked out. Google now says its new budget smartphone will arrive as soon as April 10. The date varies by market, but the wait is almost over.

The first wave of 9a releases on April 10 will include the US, Canada, and the UK. On April 14, the Pixel 9a will arrive in Europe, launching in Germany, Spain, Italy, Ireland, France, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Portugal, Switzerland, Poland, Czechia, Romania, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, and Finland. On April 16, the phone will come to Australia, India, Singapore, Taiwan, and Malaysia.

You may think that takes care of Google's launch commitments, but no—Japan still has no official launch date. That's a bit strange, as Japan is not a new addition to Google's list of supported regions. It's unclear if this has anything to do with the previous component issue. Google says only that the Japanese launch will happen "soon." Its statements about the delayed release were also vague, with representatives noting that the cause was a "passive component."

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Today, Google announced new short-term precipitation forecasts are now available across Africa in Search. This expands upon our work to use machine learning to tackle th…

As a society, we have decided to carry expensive electronic devices that are made out of glass. It's a real problem, especially if you have butter fingers. Gorilla Glass maker Corning has announced a new material that might help save the day the next time you drop a phone. The company claims its latest Gorilla Glass Ceramic can withstand drops that would shatter lesser materials.

As the name implies, Corning's new glass incorporates ceramic components to improve strength compared to other types of hardened glass. Corning has offered a bit of data to support this claim. In its lab tests (PDF), Gorilla Glass Ceramic withstood 10 drops from one meter onto surfaces that closely resemble asphalt. Why Corning does not use real asphalt for this test is unclear. Regardless, the company says an unspecified "competitive" type of aluminosilicate glass would typically fail on the first drop.

Chemically strengthened glass has been a key component in the proliferation of smartphones across the world. Since the company provided the glass for that first iPhone back in 2007, it has made glass for more than 7 billion devices. That makes Corning the largest glass supplier in the mobile industry, but it does face increasing competition in the budget and midrange segments.

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On Thursday, the Trump administration issued an executive order that took aim at one of the US's foremost cultural and scientific institutions: the Smithsonian. Upset by exhibits that reference the role of racism, sexism, and more in the nation's complicated past, the order tasks the vice president and a former insurance lawyer (?) with ensuring that the Smithsonian Institution is a "symbol of inspiration and American greatness"—a command that specifically includes the National Zoo.

But in the process of airing the administration's grievances, the document specifically calls out a Smithsonian display for accurately describing our current scientific understanding of race. That raises the prospect that the vice president will ultimately demand that the Smithsonian display scientifically inaccurate information.

Grievance vs. science

The executive order, entitled "Restoring Truth And Sanity To American History," is filled with what has become a standard grievance: the accusation that, by recognizing the many cases where the US has not lived up to its founding ideals, institutions are attempting to "rewrite our nation's history." It specifically calls out discussions of historic racism, sexism, and oppression as undercutting the US's "unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness."

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Using 3D models of ancient skulls, Dinosaur Choir gets us closer than ever to understanding the noises that dinosaurs made.

When Nintendo finally officially revealed the Switch 2 in January, one of our major unanswered questions concerned whether games designed for the original Switch would see some form of visual or performance enhancement when running on the backward-compatible Switch 2. Now, Nintendo-watchers are pointing to a fleeting mention of "Switch 2 Edition games" as a major hint that such enhancements are in the works for at least some original Switch games.

The completely new reference to "Switch 2 Edition games" comes from a Nintendo webpage discussing yesterday's newly announced Virtual Game Cards digital lending feature. In the fine print at the bottom of that page, Nintendo notes that "Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive games and Nintendo Switch 2 Edition games can only be loaded on a Nintendo Switch 2 system [emphasis added]."

The specific wording differentiating these "Switch 2 Edition" games from "Switch 2 exclusives" suggests a new category of game that is compatible with the original Switch but able to run with enhancements on the Switch 2. But it's currently unclear what Switch games will get "Switch 2 Edition" releases or how much developer work (if any) will be needed to create those new versions.

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In 2022, a team of researchers at Sony AI sat down and made an AI agent that was nearly unbeatable at the racing game Gran Turismo 7. More than just car control, the agent, called GT Sophy, also had to learn racing tactics and strategies—and even etiquette. Up against the world's best human players, Sophy beat the humans by 104 races to 52 in a match in 2021.

Since then, Sony AI and Polyphony Digital have been hard at work retraining it from being able to dominate the world's best with ease into something that's more fun for the rest of us to compete against. The latest refinement is GT Sophy 2.1, which appeared as part of GT7's latest update yesterday. It's now enabled at more tracks, and you can finally set up custom races at those tracks using the better AI.

“Since we first introduced GT Sophy three years ago, we have worked closely with [Polyphony Digital] to explore how AI can enhance gameplay and create more dynamic and fun racing experiences for players of all skill levels," said Kaushik Subramanian, senior staff research scientist at Sony AI. "With GT Sophy 2.1, we are giving players more control than ever over their interactions with GT Sophy by allowing them to fine-tune gameplay, experiment with new strategies, and advance their racing skills."

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Ever wish you could smash a tablet and smart speaker together? These devices offer the best of both.

In an advance for treating male infertility, researchers transplanted a patient with his own sperm-forming stem cells that were collected from testicular tissue when he was a child.

Social Security systems contain tens of millions of lines of code written in COBOL, an archaic programming language. Safely rewriting that code would take years—DOGE wants it done in months.

Researchers looked inside the chatbot’s “brain.” The results were surprisingly chilling.

Researchers looked inside the chatbot’s “brain.” The results were surprisingly chilling.

Headphone jacks are endangered, but they’re not gone. Here are our favorite smartphones that still let you plug and play.

Andrew Cunningham and Lee Hutchinson have spent decades of their lives with Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson's Wheel of Time books, and they previously brought that knowledge to bear as they recapped each first season episode and second season episode of Amazon's WoT TV series. Now we're back in the saddle for season 3—along with insights, jokes, and the occasional wild theory.

These recaps won't cover every element of every episode, but they will contain major spoilers for the show and the book series. We'll do our best to not spoil major future events from the books, but there's always the danger that something might slip out. If you want to stay completely unspoiled and haven't read the books, these recaps aren't for you.

New episodes of The Wheel of Time season three will be posted for Amazon Prime subscribers every Thursday. This write-up covers episode five, "Tel'Aran'Rhiod," which was released on March 27.

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