Author: News Room

If you’ve ever received a spammy text falsely alerting you to an unpaid toll or failed delivery, it might have come from a so-called Phishing-as-a-Service network that Google is now trying to take down.Google filed suit against several unnamed defendants it says make up an enterprise called Lighthouse. The company argues in a new complaint that Lighthouse makes a “‘phishing for dummies’ kit for cybercriminals who could not otherwise execute a large-scale phishing campaign.”The group would allegedly charge a monthly licensing fee to provide SMS or e-commerce software with hundreds of templates for websites closely resembling financial institutions or government-affiliated…

If you didn’t get around to reading more this year, now’s a great time to start. That’s because Amazon is selling the latest Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition in like-new condition for $126.99 ($53 off), which matches the e-reader’s best price to date. If you haven’t purchased a refurbished product from Amazon before, know that each refurb model is inspected, cleaned, and tested to ensure it’s fully functional; they also come with the same one-year limited warranty as new products.Amazon’s Signature Edition model offers a few upgrades over the standard Paperwhite, which remains our favorite Kindle despite the arrival of the…

Google is rolling out several AI updates to its Google Photos app, including iOS support for conversational edits, more accurate facial editing, and new AI tools. This means the “Help me edit” feature that lets you describe how you want Google’s AI to change your photos will be available to iPhone users, following its release on Pixel and other Android devices.“Starting to roll out on iOS in the US, you can simply describe the edits you want using your voice or text and watch Google Photos bring your vision to life,” Google said in its announcement blog. This update also…

ElevenLabs is launching an online marketplace that allows companies to license AI-replicated voices of famous figures for their content and advertisements. The AI audio startup says its new Iconic Voice Marketplace resolves some of the ethical concerns around using AI-generated celebrity voices by providing brands with the “consent-based, performer-first approach the industry has been calling for.”It works by connecting companies with whoever owns the rights to a specific voice, with ElevenLabs’ platform serving as a middleman that formalizes the licensing deal and synthesizes the voices. ElevenLabs says the marketplace is only open to a curated list of “verified, iconic talent…

Google is releasing an update for Pixel phones with an interesting feature in the mix: notification summaries. Apple notably had plenty of trouble implementing its version of this AI-powered feature, and Google is taking a cautious first step by deploying it only for chat conversations. It’ll arrive as part of this month’s Pixel update for Pixel 9 series phones and newer — with the exception of the Pixel 9A.Android Authority’s Mishaal Rahman shared a deep dive of the feature in August when code for it appeared in an Android 16 beta. As Rahman described, summaries are limited to chat apps…

Google is rolling out a new cloud-based platform that lets users unlock advanced AI features on their devices while keeping data private. The feature, virtually identical to Apple’s Private Cloud Compute, comes as companies reconcile users’ demands for privacy with the growing computational needs of the latest AI applications.Many Google products run AI features like translation, audio summaries, and chatbot assistants, on-device, meaning data doesn’t leave your phone, Chromebook, or whatever it is you’re using. This isn’t sustainable, Google says, as advancing AI tools need more reasoning and computational power than devices can supply.The compromise is to ship more difficult…

AI chatbots “pose serious risks to individuals vulnerable to eating disorders,” researchers warned on Monday. They report that tools from companies like Google and OpenAI are doling out dieting advice, tips on how to hide disorders, and AI-generated “thinspiration.”The researchers, from Stanford and the Center for Democracy & Technology, identified numerous ways publicly available AI chatbots including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s Gemini, and Mistral’s Le Chat can affect people vulnerable to eating disorders, many of them consequences of features deliberately baked in to drive engagement.In the most extreme cases, chatbots can be active participants helping hide or sustain eating…

It’s hard to buy a bad pair of wireless earbuds these days, and with constant discounts and deals wherever you look, now is as good a time as any to splurge on the pair you’ve been eyeing. The market has come a long way since the early era of true wireless earbuds when we had to deal with mediocre sound quality and unreliable performance, all for the sake of ditching cables. Things are much different now. After several product generations of learned lessons, companies like Sony, Apple, Samsung, and others are releasing their most impressive earbuds to date.You can get…

Your mom deserves the best, and we’re going to help you get them something special. The right gift can make family or friend time more valuable, after all, or it can greatly enrich time spent alone. If your mom says that she has all that she needs, don’t take her word for it and show up empty-handed. Instead, peruse this handy guide, sorted by price, to find a gift that she’ll remember for years to come.There are plenty of ideas below that can show the maternal figure in your life that you know them well — such as the practical…

LG OLEDs are consistently some of the best TVs you can get, and I’ve lost count how many times I’ve recommended them to family and friends. Add the LG G5 to that list. It’s LG’s high-end gallery-style TV, designed to look refined and sleek mounted on the wall — which it achieves thanks to its slim profile and flush mounting. Its black levels are deep and inky, and color and grayscale accuracy are spot on. It delivers a gorgeous, engaging image that makes a normal movie night something special.Most impressive about the G5 is its significant bump in brightness over…

The best time to make your home smart is at the very beginning. Whether you’re building from scratch, renovating, or just moving in, a little bit of work on lighting, security, and energy management can go a long way. Getting started can be tricky, though: there’s no obvious path to follow, no starter kit of stuff to buy, no easy answers. And if you pick the wrong first gadget or tie yourself down to the wrong ecosystem, you might be in trouble.In this episode of The Vergecast, David finds himself in precisely this situation. He’s a few days away from…

Sandisk has released what it says is the world’s smallest 1TB USB-C flash drive, one tiny enough to plug into a laptop and never take out.The Extreme Fit is just a little bigger than the wireless dongle for my Logitech mouse. It’s L-shaped, slotting into a USB-C port but sticking up ever so slightly vertically, rather than out horizontally, to keep it flush when plugged into a laptop (though it does stick out just enough to make sure the laptop lid won’t hit it on the way down!).Sandisk describes it as a “leave-in design,” suggesting you can use it as…