Revolut says it has secured a full banking license from UK regulators after a four-year wait, allowing the company to expand lending to its 13M UK customers (Financial Times)

Summary:

Financial Times:
Revolut says it has secured a full banking license from UK regulators after a four-year wait, allowing the company to expand lending to its 13M UK customers  —  Permit is crucial to growth strategy of Europe's most valuable fintech  —  Revolut has secured a full banking licence from UK regulators …

WhatsApp adds parent-managed accounts for users under the age of 13 and says the accounts will not get access to features like Meta AI, Channels, or Status (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)

Summary:

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
WhatsApp adds parent-managed accounts for users under the age of 13 and says the accounts will not get access to features like Meta AI, Channels, or Status  —  WhatsApp launched a new set of parent-supervised accounts for users under the age of 13 on Wednesday.

The MySQL Shadow

Summary:

For much of Postgres's history, it has lived in the shadow of other relational systems, and for a time even in the shadow of NoSQL systems. Those shadows have faded, but it is helpful to reflect on this outcome.

On the proprietary side, most database products are now in maintenance mode. The only database to be consistently compared to Postgres was Oracle. Long-term, Oracle was never going to be able to compete against an open source development team, just like Sun's Solaris was

MacBook Pro to Receive 'Major Upgrade' by Early Next Year

Summary:
Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo today said the MacBook Pro will receive a "major upgrade" with an OLED display by early next year.


In a blog post, Kuo said the new MacBook Pro will be released between late 2026 and early 2027.

With an OLED display, the MacBook Pro would have better image quality compared to the current models with LCD displays and mini-LED backlighting. Advantages of OLED displays include more vivid colors, higher contrast ratio, and wider viewing angles, and they can be more power efficient depending on the content being displayed.

The next-generation MacBook Pro is expected to feature [...]

Online DTC luxury brand Quince raised a $500M Series E led by Iconiq at a $10.1B valuation; it recently launched in Canada and its revenue topped $1B in 2025 (James Manso/WWD)

Summary:

James Manso / WWD:
Online DTC luxury brand Quince raised a $500M Series E led by Iconiq at a $10.1B valuation; it recently launched in Canada and its revenue topped $1B in 2025  —  The quickly growing company's revenues topped $1 billion last year.  —  Quince has a fresh infusion of cash.

Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe's Mind Robotics, which is building AI-powered factory robots, raised $500M led by Accel and a16z, source says at a $2B valuation (Kate Clark/Wall Street Journal)

Summary:

Kate Clark / Wall Street Journal:
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe's Mind Robotics, which is building AI-powered factory robots, raised $500M led by Accel and a16z, source says at a $2B valuation  —  Mind Robotics is building factory robots, joining up with the electric-

Axiamatic, which offers an "agentic control plane" to manage large-scale enterprise transformations, emerges from stealth with $54M from Greylock and Bessemer (Lily Mae Lazarus/Fortune)

Summary:

Lily Mae Lazarus / Fortune:
Axiamatic, which offers an “agentic control plane” to manage large-scale enterprise transformations, emerges from stealth with $54M from Greylock and Bessemer  —  Enterprise transformations are one of the biggest line items in corporate budgets—and one

Publish your data, AI techniques, and agentic engineering work on Towards Data Science

Summary:

If you’re reading The New Stack, there’s a good chance you’ve already done something worth writing about: built an agent

The post Publish your data, AI techniques, and agentic engineering work on Towards Data Science appeared first on The New Stack.

Kai, which is developing an AI-enabled cyber platform, raised $125M in a combined seed and Series A round led by Evolution Equity Partners (Angus Loten/Wall Street Journal)

Summary:

Angus Loten / Wall Street Journal:
Kai, which is developing an AI-enabled cyber platform, raised $125M in a combined seed and Series A round led by Evolution Equity Partners  —  The year-old firm joins a surge of new ventures cashing in on booming investor demand for smart cyber tools  —  Kai, an artificial intellig

Apple Arcade Adding These Three Games in April

Summary:
Apple today announced three new games coming to Apple Arcade in April, along with several updates to existing titles on the service.



The three new games heading to ‌Apple Arcade‌ next month are as follows:

• DREDGE+: A complete edition of the award-winning fishing adventure where players explore eerie archipelagos, dredge the ocean floor for hidden treasures, and uncover mysteries lurking beneath the waves. The ‌Apple Arcade‌ version includes all previously released downloadable content, including <

Apple Invites App Updated, Here's What's New

Summary:
With the latest version of the Apple Invites app on the iPhone, released today, the app's Home Screen widget has received a small but useful enhancement.


In August, the app gained a Home Screen widget that counts down the days until an upcoming event, but you had to choose a specific event. Starting today, though, a new "Next Upcoming" option can automatically refresh the widget with your next closest event as they pass by. You can still set a specific event manually if you prefer.

The update also contains bug fixes and performance improvements.

Released in February 2025, the Apple Invites app makes it easy to invite people to events, such [...]

Meta unveils four new chips, the MTIA 300, MTIA 400, MTIA 450, and MTIA 500, set to launch by the end of 2027; the MTIA 300 is in production for content ranking (Bloomberg)

Summary:

Bloomberg:
Meta unveils four new chips, the MTIA 300, MTIA 400, MTIA 450, and MTIA 500, set to launch by the end of 2027; the MTIA 300 is in production for content ranking  —  Meta Platforms Inc. plans to deploy four new generations of its in-house artificial intelligence chips by the end of 2027 …

1,000x faster computers: ‘Invisible magnets’ could boost speed using light pulses

Summary:
Researchers have potentially discovered a way to make computers process data about 1,000 times faster...

AirPods 4 ANC Hit $119.99 Low Price on Amazon

Summary:
Amazon today has the AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation for $119.99, down from $179.00. This is a solid second-best price on the AirPods 4 with ANC, and the best price we've tracked so far in 2026.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Amazon. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

Amazon currently provides a March 16 delivery date for free shipping on the AirPods 4, and Prime members should see faster estimates with same-day delivery in many locations. As of writing, we're only tracking this deal at Amazon.
[...]

Studio Display vs. Studio Display XDR Buyer's Guide

Summary:
Apple's refreshed Studio Display arrives alongside the all-new ‌Studio Display‌ XDR, which replaces the previous Pro Display XDR. The ‌Studio Display‌ XDR is more than twice the price of the ‌Studio Display‌, so which should you choose?


Both ‌Studio Display‌ models offer a wide range of the same core features and are designed to provide a very similar overall experience for everyday use. They share the same aluminum enclosure, identical 27-inch 5K resolution with a high pixel density of 218 ppi, and many of Apple's built-in workstation features such as the 12-megapixel Center Stage camera, studio-quality microphones, and six-speaker sound system with Spatial Audio. Both displays also include Thunder [...]

Apple Released Seven New Products Today

Summary:
Starting today, the seven new Apple products that were announced last week are available at Apple Stores and beginning to arrive to customers.


The colorful MacBook Neo and all of the other new products are on display at most Apple Store locations around the world starting today. Apple Stores have inventory of the new products for both walk-in customers and Apple Store pickup, but availability varies, so make sure to see if your local store has stock vi [...]

Investors flee to Magnificent Seven stocks due to the US-led war in Iran; tech is up 1.5% from February 27, the only S&P 500 sector to rise since the strikes (Financial Times)

Summary:

Financial Times:
Investors flee to Magnificent Seven stocks due to the US-led war in Iran; tech is up 1.5% from February 27, the only S&P 500 sector to rise since the strikes  —  Megacap companies previously out of favour now seen as ‘safety assets’  —  Investors have sought shelter from the turmoil …

Launch Day Discounts Arrive for MacBook Neo, M4 iPad Air, and More

Summary:
Today is the launch day for all of Apple's newest products, including the M4 iPad Air, MacBook Neo, M5 MacBook Air, M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro, and iPhone 17e. Below, we've collected all of the offers and discounts you can get on these products at retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, and more.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Amazon. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

M4 iPad Air

iPhone 18 Pro May Not Have a Smaller Dynamic Island After All

Summary:
Apple's iPhone 18 Pro models may not have a smaller Dynamic Island after all, despite rumors suggesting that it would see a reduction in size this year, according to a known leaker.


Citing recent supply chain information, the leaker known as "Digital Chat Station" claims that the ‌iPhone 18‌ Pro models may reuse some of their predecessor's molds and chassis designs. Face ID and the ‌Dynamic Island‌ will remain "largely unchanged," with plans to implement under-display ‌Face ID‌ and shrink the size of the ‌Dynamic Island‌ apparently [...]

Spotify says artists from 75 countries made $500K+ in royalties in 2025, up from 66 in 2024; ~50% of an average artist's streams came from outside their country (Ethan Millman/The Hollywood Reporter)

Summary:

Ethan Millman / The Hollywood Reporter:
Spotify says artists from 75 countries made $500K+ in royalties in 2025, up from 66 in 2024; ~50% of an average artist's streams came from outside their country  —  “The takeaway here is that music has become increasingly borderless,” Spotify's Joe Hadley says of the compa

Toxic ‘black rain’ hits Tehran after strikes on oil and water infrastructure in Iran

Summary:
Recent strikes on Middle Eastern oil and desalination infrastructure have triggered a dire environmental and...

New SkyDefender system offers long-range 360° protection from drones, jets, missiles

Summary:
A French company has launched a multi-layer air and missile defense system. Called SkyDefender, the...

Google closes its acquisition of Israeli cybersecurity startup Wiz for $32B, marking Google's biggest acquisition yet; Google initially approached Wiz in 2024 (Rebecca Bellan/TechCrunch)

Summary:

Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch:
Google closes its acquisition of Israeli cybersecurity startup Wiz for $32B, marking Google's biggest acquisition yet; Google initially approached Wiz in 2024  —  Google has officially acquired Israeli cybersecurity firm Wiz for $32 billion in cash, a full year after the companies announced the deal.

TikTok Launching Two New Apple Music Features on iPhone

Summary:
TikTok and Apple today announced that Apple Music subscribers will be able to listen to full-length songs on Apple Music without leaving the TikTok app.


When a TikTok user comes across a song they love while browsing their "For You" page, they will be able to tap a "Play Full Song" button to open up an Apple Music player in the app and listen to the song in its entirety. From there, Apple Music subscribers can continue listening to a personalized stream of recommended songs.

The feature is built with Apple's MusicKit, and music artists will be paid for streams as usual.

TikTok and Apple are also introducing "Listening Party," a new [...]

First US solid-state battery wins customer approval, set for mass production

Summary:
A U.S. battery developer has moved a step closer to bringing solid-state batteries into everyday...

Intel unveils the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and 250K Plus, shipping March 26 for $300 and $200, respectively, and says they are its fastest gaming desktop CPUs yet (Sean Hollister/The Verge)

Summary:

Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Intel unveils the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and 250K Plus, shipping March 26 for $300 and $200, respectively, and says they are its fastest gaming desktop CPUs yet  —  Hopefully it's finally leaving the i9-14900K in the dust. … Intel hasn't made it easy to buy a flagship desktop chip.

US Air Force’s 6th-gen B-21 stealth bomber spotted refueling mid-air in a first

Summary:
New images circulating online appear to show the U.S. Air Force’s next-generation B-21 Raider stealth...

TikTok partners with Apple to let Apple Music subscribers play full songs without leaving the TikTok app, and use a Listening Party feature, in the coming weeks (Steven J. Horowitz/Variety)

Summary:

Steven J. Horowitz / Variety:
TikTok partners with Apple to let Apple Music subscribers play full songs without leaving the TikTok app, and use a Listening Party feature, in the coming weeks  —  Apple Music and TikTok have joined forces to launch a product that allows TikTok users to play full songs on the platform without having to leave the app.

Kuo: iPhone 18 Pro Prices Still Likely to Hold Firm This Year

Summary:
Apple's pricing for the iPhone 17e and MacBook Neo strongly suggests that Apple plans to keep iPhone 18 Pro prices unchanged when the new models launch later this year, according to industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.


Sharing his latest thoughts on Apple's increasingly diversifying product roadmap, Kuo said on X that Apple's strategy is to use turmoil in the global memory chip market to its advantage, by securing supply, absorbing higher component costs, and gaining market share while competitors are forced to raise prices or cut specs.

Kuo first made the claim in January, when he said Apple's plan for the iPhone 18 Pro mo [...]

MIT’s nanotechnology-based material could shield astronauts from space radiation

Summary:
At MIT, doctoral student Palak Patel is harnessing nanotechnology to solve the most daunting hurdles...

Acoustically stealthy: Iran deploys electric-powered Shahed-101 drones in conflict zones

Summary:
Iranian-backed forces have started using a modern version of the Shahed-101 loitering munition that switches...

US firm’s next-gen rocket motors to power hypersonic systems across Atlantic in 2 hrs

Summary:
Northrop Grumman is developing next-generation solid rocket motors to address modern defense demands. The company...

350 feet underground US lab helps turn qubits into sensors for dark matter research

Summary:
A multi-institutional team of scientists used the Northwestern Experimental Underground Site (NEXUS) at the Fermi...

The Observability Bill is Coming Due – and AI Wrote Most of It

Summary:

AI Security for Apps is now generally available

Summary:
Cloudflare AI Security for Apps is now generally available, providing a security layer to discover and protect AI-powered applications, regardless of the model or hosting provider. We are also making AI discovery free for all plans, to help teams find and secure shadow AI deployments.

Slashing agent token costs by 98% with RFC 9457-compliant error responses

Summary:
Cloudflare now returns RFC 9457-compliant structured Markdown and JSON error payloads to AI agents, replacing heavyweight HTML pages with machine-readable instructions. This reduces token usage by over 98%, turning brittle parsing into efficient control flow.

200 gallons of oil leak detected at US nuclear plant that powers 500,000 homes

Summary:
US-based company Xcel Energy has deployed containment booms and absorbent materials to contain roughly 200...

Binance files a New York defamation lawsuit against Dow Jones over the WSJ's February 23 article on the crypto exchange's handling of Iran-linked transactions (Francisco Rodrigues/CoinDesk)

Summary:

Francisco Rodrigues / CoinDesk:
Binance files a New York defamation lawsuit against Dow Jones over the WSJ's February 23 article on the crypto exchange's handling of Iran-linked transactions  —  The situation adds pressure to Binance, which is already operating under a complianc

Samsung Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus review: bigger battery and seven years of software updates, but basic cameras, few major upgrades, and no Qi2 charging magnets (Dominic Preston/The Verge)

Summary:

Dominic Preston / The Verge:
Samsung Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus review: bigger battery and seven years of software updates, but basic cameras, few major upgrades, and no Qi2 charging magnets  —  While Samsung has treated its Flips and Folds to a few major hardware upgrades over recent years, the Galaxy S flagships …

How Ukraine is working to make drones with as few components from China as possible, prioritizing self-sufficiency in producing a crucial battlefield weapon (Maria Varenikova/New York Times)

Summary:

Maria Varenikova / New York Times:
How Ukraine is working to make drones with as few components from China as possible, prioritizing self-sufficiency in producing a crucial battlefield weapon  —  The country has prioritized self-sufficiency in producing a crucial battlefield weapon, though weaning itself fully off cheaper Chinese components is difficult.

Things Going Great At Ellison’s Paramount As President Gets Mired In Accusations Of Press Manipulation And Leaking Company Info

Summary:
The President of Larry Ellison’s “new and improved” Paramount, Jeff Shell, has been conspicuously absent from recent events heralding the company’s problematic acquisition of Warner Brothers. The reason? Shell is being accused by a “whistleblower” and former partner of leaking company info, including early word of the company’s $7.7 billion August 2025 deal to obtain […]

iPhone 18 Pro Max Thickness and Weight Allegedly Revealed

Summary:
Apple's upcoming iPhone 18 Pro Max will be slightly thicker than its predecessor, measuring in at 8.8mm, up from 8.75mm on the iPhone 17 Pro Max. The information comes from oft-accurate Weibo-based leaker Ice Universe.


The claim chimes with a report last year that alleged hardware changes in the iPhone 18 Pro Max will make it the heaviest iPhone yet.

Last November, fellow Weibo-based leaker Instant Digital said the body of the iPhone 18 Pro Max will be slightly thicker than the iPhone 17 Pro Max, tipping its weight over 240 grams and making it the heaviest iPhone since the iPhone 14 Pro Max.

That could be good news for those who crave longer-las [...]

MacBook Neo 2 Might Not Feature Touchscreen After All

Summary:
Apple's second-generation MacBook Neo may not feature a touch-capable display after all, according to industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.


In a report dated September 2025, Kuo‌ accurately predicted that the ‌MacBook Neo‌ would enter mass production in the fourth quarter of 2025, noting that it would not feature a touchscreen. In the same report, however, the analyst said he believed Apple could add a touchscreen for the second-generation model, expected in 2027.

Kuo's latest thoughts now appear to push back against the possibility. From the report shared this morning:

Neo 2 was originally expected to feature a touch panel to compete with

MacBook Neo Gets Same Battery Cycle Rating as MacBook Pro, Air

Summary:
Apple has updated its battery cycle count support document to include the new MacBook Neo, revealing that the entry-level laptop has a maximum cycle count of 1,000.


A battery cycle is completed when you've discharged an amount equal to 100% of the battery's total capacity, but not necessarily in one go. For example, if you use 60% one day and 40% the next, it still counts as one cycle, even though you recharged in between.

First spotted in the updated support document by 9to5Mac, the 1,000-cycle limit puts the MacBook Neo right in line with every MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and standard MacBook that Apple has sold since 2009. Older models from the pre-unib [...]

Gemini Code Assist Gets Agent Auto-Approve, Inline Diffs, and Custom Commands to Speed Up the Core Coding Loop

Summary:

Microsoft Azure Skills Plugin Gives AI Coding Agents a Playbook for Cloud Deployment

Summary:

Anthropic Code Review Dispatches Agent Teams to Catch the Bugs That Skim Reads Miss

Summary:

$599 MacBook Neo Available for Same-Day Pickup at Apple Stores

Summary:
Wednesday is the official launch day of Apple's low-cost MacBook Neo, and as customers who pre-ordered begin to receive their purchases, Apple has also started in-store sales for the new laptop, along with a host of other new products it announced last week.


Customers across Europe, Asia and other regions can now place an order on Apple's website or in the Apple Store app and arrange for in-store pickup at a local retail location.

A quick spot check on the U.K. Apple online store suggests that most stores in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland have available stock for customers today, although there are boun [...]

"Feminization" and Deming

Summary:

The term “feminization” is, as the kids used to say, “suss,"[^1] but this reminds me of one of the points John Willis made in his Deming work.

There was a huge influx of women in corporate work/factories during WWII, and also lots of rapid process change. It was all wildly successful - proven by a clear outcome of winning the war! Then the men came back, patted the women (and Deming-ites) on the head and said “that’s nice, now back to normal…”

Original: Money, Talent, and the War Test: What WWII’s Female Labor Surge Says About “Feminization”

[1]: It usually, effectively, ends up meaning “being better,” or,

DOJ Lawyer: RFK Jr.’s Authority Shall Not Suffer Any Checks & Balances From The Courts

Summary:
I’ve spent a lot of digital ink detailing just how bad RFK Jr. has been in his post at HHS. Everything from his attempts to entirely remake vaccine policies in the country, to his neutered response to the ongoing measles outbreak in the country, up to and including his attempts to strong-arm the entire federal […]

ASUS Executive Says MacBook Neo is 'Shock' to PC Industry

Summary:
On an earnings call today, an ASUS executive admitted that Apple's more affordable MacBook Neo is a "shock" to the PC industry (via PCMag). In the U.S., the MacBook Neo starts at just $599, or at an even lower $499 for college students.


"Given Apple's historically very premium pricing, launching such an affordable product is certainly a shock to the entire market," said ASUS's Chief Financial Officer Nick Wu, according to a transcript of the earnings call published by Seeking Alpha. His comment was translated to English by an interpreter who was present on the call.
[...]

Why Apple Rejected a Clamshell-Style Foldable iPhone

Summary:
Apple considered but abandoned plans for a flip-style foldable iPhone because it didn't create compelling new use cases, according to Weibo leaker Instant Digital. Apple reportedly felt that it was an "unnecessary" design because the biggest selling point would have been its smaller size when folded.


The split at the middle also caused issues with internal space, limiting battery capacity and leaving less space for camera components. Apple would have had to compromise on the rear camera system. Instant Digital suggests that if Apple wanted a smaller ‌iPhone‌, the company would introduce a smaller slab-style model instead.

There have been two distinct periods when rumors suggested Apple was considering an ‌iPhone‌ that folds in half like [...]

Apple's Low-Cost iPhone 17e is Faster Than the Low-Cost MacBook Neo

Summary:
Apple is set to launch two new low-cost devices tomorrow, the iPhone 17e and the MacBook Neo. Both devices use A-series chips, which have historically been limited to the iPhone and iPad.


The ‌MacBook Neo‌ has Apple's A18 Pro chip inside, which was first used in the iPhone 16 Pro models, while the ‌iPhone 17e‌ has a newer A19 chip. Unsurprisingly, thanks to the newer chip, Apple's $599 ‌iPhone‌ outperforms the CPU in its $599 Mac.

The ‌iPhone 17e‌ earned a [...]

37,000 Fake AI Comments Mysteriously Oppose Washington State’s Effort To Tax The Rich

Summary:
Ideally, the U.S. public is supposed to be able to comment on government policy proceedings, and the government is supposed to listen to that input. Of course, it doesn’t really work that way: For years we’ve noted how U.S. regulatory comment proceedings are full of bots and fake comments from industries trying to game regulators, and […]

First MacBook Neo, iPhone 17e, and Studio Display XDR Orders Begin Arriving

Summary:
It's Wednesday, March 11 in Australia and New Zealand, which means it's the official launch day for all of the products Apple introduced last week, including the new low-cost MacBook Neo, the iPhone 17e, the M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro models, the Studio Display, the ‌Studio Display‌ XDR, the M4 iPad Air, and the M5 MacBook Air.


Apple fans who purchased one of the new devices will start receiving their orders in the next few hours, and will soon sha [...]

MacBook Neo Has Up to 8× Slower SSD Speeds Compared to New MacBook Pro

Summary:
While the MacBook Neo achieves a breakthrough $599 starting price, that of course comes with some compromises, and one of them is slower SSD speeds.


The Verge today showed the MacBook Neo had up to 8× slower sustained SSD read and write speeds in a benchmark test compared to the new MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips. The site did not mention which tool it used to measure SSD speeds, but it was likely Blackmagic's Disk Speed Test or AmorphousDiskMark.

Here is a comparison of sustained SSD speeds, according to The Verge.

Sonos Launches Two New Speakers With AirPlay 2 Support

Summary:
Sonos today launched two new speakers, the Sonos Play and the Sonos Era 100 SL. Sonos says that the additions to its lineup "reflect a renewed focus on strengthening the Sonos system" after a disastrous 2024 app redesign damaged customer trust.


The Sonos Play is a versatile speaker that can be used from room to room, and like most Sonos products, multiple speakers can be paired together. Sonos Play speakers connect to WiFi and can be grouped across multiple rooms or paired up for stereo sound.

There's an included charging base so the speaker can be used either at home or while on the go. The battery lasts for up to 24 hours, and it can also serve as a power bank for recharging [...]

Amazon calls engineers for a “deep dive” internal meeting to discuss “GenAI”-related outages

Summary:

A normally optional, routine Amazon meeting turned serious when the brand’s top retail executive summoned engineers to discuss a series

The post Amazon calls engineers for a “deep dive” internal meeting to discuss “GenAI”-related outages appeared first on The New Stack.

Stephen Thaler’s Legendary AI Copyright Losing Streak Ends With Nowhere Left To Appeal

Summary:
We’ve been covering Stephen Thaler’s quixotic quest to get copyright (and patent) protection for works generated entirely by his AI system “DABUS” for years now. If there’s one thing Thaler has proved beyond all reasonable doubt, it’s that you can be comprehensively, thoroughly, and repeatedly wrong at every level of the American legal system and […]

Big change brings big change (News)

Summary:
This week's been wild — Iran bombed AWS data centers to take down Claude, OpenAI dropped GPT-5.4 (and it's seriously good for coding), and living brain cells are literally playing DOOM. We've also got a heartfelt take on what it feels like to be a 10x engineer in the age of AI, plus some cool new tools like Handy for speech-to-text and web haptics. Oh, and new MacBook Pros with M5 Pro and M5 Max are up for pre-order. Try not to impulse buy (or do).

With its latest Phi-4 reasoning model, Microsoft reckons bigger isn’t always better

Summary:

The dominant trend in artificial intelligence of late has been clear: bigger models, more data, more compute. But the cost

The post With its latest Phi-4 reasoning model, Microsoft reckons bigger isn’t always better appeared first on The New Stack.

Report: Lower Performing Software Engineering Teams Benefit More from AI

Summary:

Nvidia plans NemoClaw launch, an open-source platform for AI agents

Summary:

Nvidia is planning to launch NemoClaw, an open-source platform for AI agents, next week. The product is reportedly already being

The post Nvidia plans NemoClaw launch, an open-source platform for AI agents appeared first on The New Stack.

Human Problems: It’s Not Always The Technology’s Fault

Summary:
We have met the enemy and he is us. When a teenage boy in Orlando started texting Character.AI’s chatbot, it started as an innocent use of a new tool. Sewell Setzer III customized the chatbot to have the Game of Thrones-inspired persona of Daenerys Targaryen, the series’ prominent dragon-riding queen. In the months that followed, […]

Daily Deal: The 2026 Complete Firewall Admin Bundle

Summary:
Transform your future in cybersecurity with 7 courses on next‑level packet control, secure architecture, and cloud‑ready defenses inside the 2026 Complete Firewall Admin Bundle. Courses cover IT fundamentals, topics to help you prepare for the CompTIA Server+ and CCNA exams, and more. It’s on sale for $25. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and […]

How to deploy an AI server on your Debian/Ubuntu server

Summary:

Whenever I use AI, I always opt to go with a locally installed instance. The reason for that is twofold.

The post How to deploy an AI server on your Debian/Ubuntu server appeared first on The New Stack.

Trump Kicks Kristi Noem To The Curb For Being Exactly The Sort Of Person Trump Wanted Her To Be

Summary:
I come here to celebrate the apparently permanent sidelining of former DHS head, Kristi Noem. I know the adage usually does some hedging before damning with faint praise, but I’m not interested in praise, faint or otherwise, much less pretending this isn’t worth celebrating. Noem openly pined for the VP position, but shot herself in […]

With GridGain acquisition, MariaDB bets on in-memory computing and Apache Ignite

Summary:

MariaDB is one of the stalwarts of the open-source database world. Born out of the MySQL fork following Oracle’s acquisition of

The post With GridGain acquisition, MariaDB bets on in-memory computing and Apache Ignite appeared first on The New Stack.

Apple MacBook Neo review: Can a Mac get by with an iPhone’s processor inside?

Summary:
8GB of RAM is a bummer, but this $599 laptop cuts most of the right corners.

Investigating multi-vector attacks in Log Explorer

Summary:
Log Explorer customers can now identify and investigate multi-vector attacks. Log Explorer supports 14 additional Cloudflare datasets, enabling users to have a 360-degree view of their network.

Building a security overview dashboard for actionable insights

Summary:
Cloudflare's new Security Overview dashboard transforms overwhelming security data into prioritized, actionable insights, empowering defenders with contextual intelligence on vulnerabilities.

MAGA Suddenly Quiet About Overseas Influence Now That Larry Ellison’s Warner Bros Bid Has Saudi, Chinese Backing

Summary:
You might recall that during the great mass TikTok hyperventilation of 2021-2025, there was no limit of face fanning by Republicans like Brendan Carr about overseas involvement in social media. Carr was so particular on this subject, he scuttled an FCC program aimed at shoring up “smart” home device security standards because one of the […]

The AI Infrastructure crisis: When ambition meets ancient systems

Summary:

Artificial Intelligence has become a core capability in modern software systems, powering applications such as personalized recommendations, fraud detection, medical

The post The AI Infrastructure crisis: When ambition meets ancient systems appeared first on The New Stack.

Summary:

When Developer Workflow Discipline Isn’t Enough thectoadvisor.com/blog/2026… Selling cross-silo enterprise infrastructure stuff is very difficult:

These are platform engineering objections. And they’re coming from a team the vendor never talked to. Because the vendor optimized their story for developer adoption. They have research that tells them developers love this. What they don’t have is a conversation with the platform team that has to decide whether this can actually be operationalized inside a real enterprise environment."

It’s pretty much always devs versus ops in enterprises. They need organizational therapy from the top, and then the tools.

Translating risk insights into actionable protection: leveling up security posture with Cloudflare and Mastercard

Summary:
Cloudflare will be integrating Mastercard’s RiskRecon attack surface intelligence capabilities to help you eliminate Internet-facing blind spots while continuously monitoring and closing security gaps.

Real Consequences: Trump’s Bullshit Claim About Tylenol Is Seeing Real World Results

Summary:
There’s this insane subset of people who, when they talk about Donald Trump, I’ll never understand. It’s the ones who claim that taking what Donald Trump says seriously is a mistake that most people are unlikely to make. It’s also expressed by the crowd that claims something to the effect of: you shouldn’t take Trump […]

DOJ Un-Drops Its Appeal Against Law Firms, Files Brief That Gets The First Amendment Exactly Backwards

Summary:
On Wednesday of last week, I wrote a post about how the Trump administration had quietly given up defending its unconstitutional executive orders targeting law firms. The DOJ was dropping its appeals, the firms that fought had won, and the firms that capitulated—led by Paul Weiss and their nearly $1 billion in groveling pro bono […]

Your Data is Made Powerful By Context (so stop destroying it already) (xpost)

Summary:
Your Data Is Made Powerful By Context (so stop destroying it already) In logs as in life, the relationships are the most important part. AI doesn’t fix this. It makes it worse. (cross-posted) After twenty years of devops, most software engineers still treat observability like a fire alarm — something you check when things are already […]

Testing Apple's 2026 16-inch MacBook Pro, M5 Max, and its new "performance" cores

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M5 Pro Max's "performance" CPU cores definitely aren't just rebranded E-cores.

Anthropic launches a multi-agent code review tool for Claude Code

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Thanks to agentic coding tools like Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and others, developers are shipping more code than ever. But

The post Anthropic launches a multi-agent code review tool for Claude Code appeared first on The New Stack.

Fully Synergized Paradigms - Related to your interests, Monday sweep

Summary:

The Links

• Workers who love ‘synergizing paradigms’ might be bad at their jobs - “The results revealed a troubling paradox. Workers who were more susceptible to corporate BS rated their supervisors as more charismatic and ‘visionary,’ but also displayed lower scores on a portion of the study that tested analytic thinking, cognitive reflection and fluid intelligence. Those more receptive to corporate BS also scored significantly worse on a test of effective workplace decision-making.” But, the others are more cynical and, I would guess, more grumpy: “The study found that being more receptive to corporate bullshit was also positively linked to job satisfaction and feeling inspired by company mission statements. Moreover, those who were more likely to fall for corporate BS were also more likely to spread it.” // Related:

How Advanced Browsing Protection Works in Messenger

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We’re sharing the technical details behind how Advanced Browsing Protection (ABP) in Messenger protects the privacy of the links clicked on within chats while still warning people about malicious links. We hope that this post has helped to illuminate some of the engineering challenges and infrastructure components involved for providing this feature for our users. [...]

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How context rot drags down AI and LLM results for enterprises, and how to fix it

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One of the most quoted business mantras today states that if a company wants to be successful, data is everything.

The post How context rot drags down AI and LLM results for enterprises, and how to fix it appeared first on The New Stack.

Cursor builds always-on agents to tackle developer task tedium

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AI-powered code editor company Cursor has introduced Cursor Automations to build always-on agents that operate on its deep understanding of

The post Cursor builds always-on agents to tackle developer task tedium appeared first on The New Stack.

Moving AI apps from prototype to production requires enterprise-grade postgres infrastructure

Summary:

There’s no ignoring the AI gold rush. In 2024, 78% of organizations reported using AI, a 23 percentage-point increase from

The post Moving AI apps from prototype to production requires enterprise-grade postgres infrastructure appeared first on The New Stack.

AI coding agents can write code, Crafting wants to help them ship it

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AI coding agents are getting very good at generating code, but for enterprise engineering teams, that’s only part of the

The post AI coding agents can write code, Crafting wants to help them ship it appeared first on The New Stack.

Fixing request smuggling vulnerabilities in Pingora OSS deployments

Summary:
Today we’re disclosing request smuggling vulnerabilities when our open source Pingora service is deployed as an ingress proxy and how we’ve fixed them in Pingora 0.8.0.

Active defense: introducing a stateful vulnerability scanner for APIs

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Cloudflare’s new Web and API Vulnerability Scanner helps teams proactively find logic flaws. By using AI to build API call graphs, we identify vulnerabilities that standard defensive tools miss.

The technical leap where most brilliant AI initiatives spectacularly fail

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The hard work is done. Your organization successfully navigated the treacherous waters of legacy infrastructure and now stands at the

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VS Code Is Becoming an Agent Control Plane — and Most Teams Haven’t Noticed Yet

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GitHub Copilot Coding Agent for Jira Connects Planning to Pull Requests Without Leaving Your Workflow

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How We Got Here: Alert Fatigue to Decision Fatigue

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Five Great DevOps Job Opportunities

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Complexity is a choice. SASE migrations shouldn’t take years.

Summary:
Discover how Cloudflare partners TachTech and Adapture are shattering the 18-month migration myth, deploying agile SASE for global enterprises in weeks by treating security as software.

Vibe code full-stack apps fast with TanStack Start

Summary:

It’s no secret that it’s gotten significantly easier to build applications in the last few years. And vibe coding is

The post Vibe code full-stack apps fast with TanStack Start appeared first on The New Stack.

Why is your Kubernetes cluster adding nodes when the dashboards look fine?

Summary:

Kubernetes has always been sensitive to bad inputs. What’s changed is how often teams are running into it. As more bursty workloads—especially inference—land on Kubernetes, a familiar

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Snowflake Cortex Code CLI adds dbt and Apache Airflow support for AI-powered data pipelines

Summary:

Snowflake Cortex Code CLI, Snowflake’s coding agent that was announced at the end of February, recently added support for dbt

The post Snowflake Cortex Code CLI adds dbt and Apache Airflow support for AI-powered data pipelines appeared first on The New Stack.

Related to your interests - Week of March 2nd, 2025

Summary:

The Links

Claude, without me asking, rewrote many of my original description below. Enjoy!

• Pentagon Leverages AI in Iran Strikes Amid Feud With Anthropic - One artillery unit doing the work of 2,000 staff with a team of just 20 people. Anthropic didn’t want their model used for this; the Pentagon used it anyway. The future is here, it’s just unevenly distributed between PR statements and actual weapons targeting.

• Anthropic’s Pentagon Feud Accelerates Push Into Consumer Market - Claude’s free active users grew 60%+ and daily signups grew 4x since the start of the year. Apparently nothing boosts consumer signups like a military controversy.

NanoClaw can stuff each AI agent into its own Docker container to deal with OpenClaw’s security mess

Summary:

On the one hand, I feel a bit conflicted pointing out the recognised security issues with OpenClaw, even as serious

The post NanoClaw can stuff each AI agent into its own Docker container to deal with OpenClaw’s security mess appeared first on The New Stack.

Is AI killing open-source software?

Summary:

“It’s complicated” can be used to describe relationships and how AI works — or doesn’t — with open source development.

The post Is AI killing open-source software? appeared first on The New Stack.