Author: Vidya Saras

The government has issued a stark warning to Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI, signalling it is prepared to block access to its Grok chatbot in the UK if it fails to comply with British law on online safety. Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said on Friday that ministers are moving swiftly to criminalise the creation of intimate images without consent, as concerns mount over the misuse of AI tools to generate sexualised images of women and children. Her comments follow reports that Grok, xAI’s chatbot integrated into the social media platform X, has continued to allow users to generate sexually…

The Bitcoin price could be in for more pain as a crypto analyst has just released a gloomy short-term outlook, warning that another crash may be on the way. The analyst believes that Bitcoin’s overall market structure remains bearish. As a result, he expects the price to fall to about $76,000, representing a 20% decline from current levels.  Bitcoin Price At Risk Of 20% Crash Crypto market analyst Roman has issued a warning that Bitcoin could be heading for another sharp decline, with his primary target set near $76,000. In his post on X, he emphasized that the current market…

Over the last year the concept of “private blockchains” has become very popular in the broader blockchain technology discussion. Essentially, instead of having a fully public and uncontrolled network and state machine secured by cryptoeconomics (eg. proof of work, proof of stake), it is also possible to create a system where access permissions are more tightly controlled, with rights to modify or even read the blockchain state restricted to a few users, while still maintaining many kinds of partial guarantees of authenticity and decentralization that blockchains provide. Such systems have been a primary focus of interest from financial institutions, and…

The crypto market is entering a high-stakes period in early 2026. While established coins face big tests, a new powerhouse is rewriting the record books. Investors are currently tracking Cardano price for a major move, while world events help Solana price stay steady at a time of growing institutional interestThen there is Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP), a project that is making its mark as the potential next big crypto of the decade. With analysts predicting it will raise more than $1.7 billion from its presale auctions, the market interest levels are mirroring those of early Bitcoin days. Experts are already projecting…

Silicon Valley giants like Amazon, Meta, and OpenAI are racing to develop “operating systems” for AI-powered devices—and 2026 is likely the year these efforts will start to take off. The devices are largely built around a future where AI agents can take actions on a user’s behalf, without requiring them to visit an app or website.In theory, this sounds like an idyllic relationship between humans and technology. But it could rewrite the business model for a huge swath of consumer tech companies.Instead of tapping through apps filled with ads and upsells, AI devices promise that a user will be able…

Activism / January 8, 2026 An ICE agent shot dead Renee Nicole Good. Residents are ready to fight back. Ad Policy People demonstrate against ICE during a vigil honoring Renée Nicole Good, who was shot dead by an immigration officer earlier in the day in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on January 7, 2026. (Kerem Yucel / AFP via Getty Images) Minneapolis—At the base of a barren tree in south Minneapolis, candles flickered in the night. The vigil held for Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother and poet shot in the face by a federal agent yesterday morning, was over, but congregants remained.…

Every autumn, as the Northern Hemisphere moves toward winter, Judah Cohen starts to piece together a complex atmospheric puzzle. Cohen, a research scientist in MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), has spent decades studying how conditions in the Arctic set the course for winter weather throughout Europe, Asia, and North America. His research dates back to his postdoctoral work with Bacardi and Stockholm Water Foundations Professor Dara Entekhabi that looked at snow cover in the Siberian region and its connection with winter forecasting.Cohen’s outlook for the 2025–26 winter highlights a season characterized by indicators emerging from the Arctic…

Our first story of 2026 revealed how a destructive new botnet called Kimwolf has infected more than two million devices by mass-compromising a vast number of unofficial Android TV streaming boxes. Today, we’ll dig through digital clues left behind by the hackers, network operators and services that appear to have benefitted from Kimwolf’s spread. On Dec. 17, 2025, the Chinese security firm XLab published a deep dive on Kimwolf, which forces infected devices to participate in distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and to relay abusive and malicious Internet traffic for so-called “residential proxy” services. The software that turns one’s device into…

Nexo has launched a zero-interest crypto lending product that allows Bitcoin and Ether holders to borrow against their assets through fixed-term loans.According to a company announcement, the product, called Zero-interest Credit, offers fixed-term loans for users who hold Bitcoin (BTC) and ETH (ETH), with repayment conditions set in advance. Loans are settled at maturity and can be repaid using either stablecoins or collateral, depending on market conditions.The offering expands a structured lending model that had previously been available only through Nexo’s private and OTC channels, where it facilitated more than $140 million in borrowing during 2025, according to the company.Borrowers choose…

Hilary Duff touched on saying goodbye to friendships that no longer serve her months before her Disney Channel peer, Ashley Tisdale, wrote about leaving her “toxic” group of mom friends in a personal essay.Hilary Duff, who rose to fame via her role in the sitcom “Lizzie McGuire,” spoke with Jake Shane on a November episode of his “Therapuss” podcast about struggling to trust people at a young age. Later in the conversation, the “Younger” star detailed her “talent” for sniffing out a person’s character almost instantly.Article continues below advertisementHilary Duff Said It Doesn’t Take Her Long To Know Which Kinds…