More than 200 organizations are now said to be facing a data breach tied to security flaws discovered roughly six weeks ago in a popular file-transfer program.
Why it matters: So far, more than 17.5 million victims' data could have been affected by the breaches, according to a tally maintained by Emsisoft researcher Brett Callow. And that number continues to grow nearly every day.
Less-sophisticated website takedowns are proving to be hackers' tool of choice this summer — alarming government officials and putting major companies on the defensive.
Driving the news: The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released an advisory right before the holiday weekend warning about reports of several distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks targeting "multiple organizations in multiple sectors."
The European Commissionhas opened a full investigation into Amazon's proposed $1.7 billion acquisition of iRobot, the Massachusetts-based maker of Roomba vacuum cleaners.
Why it matters: Amazon is among the world's most acquisitive tech giants, making multibillion-dollar purchases in everything from connected home to grocery to movie studios to health care clinics. This could be the first time it's stopped by antitrust regulators.
For the first time in years, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is riding a wave of good press for going after a competitor.
Why it matters: The perfectly timed launch of Meta's Twitter copycat app, Threads, is being celebrated as a win by many users who have grown tired of the drama surrounding Twitter under its new owner Elon Muskor who dislike changes Musk has made.
The latest: Department of Justice attorneys in a court filing Thursday evening called Tuesday's preliminary injunction by a Trump-appointed federal judge "both sweeping in scope and vague in its terms" as it asked for the order to be stayed.
Meta’s new microblogging app Threads is emerging as a potential threat to Twitter’s lock on politicians and political observers seeking real-time news and debate.
The latest: Within 16 hours, the Instagram-linked app had been downloaded more than 30 million times — making it the most rapidly downloaded app of all time. Twitter has already threatened legal action against Meta for creating a "copycat."
Apple’s subscription gaming service is slowly but surely extending its reputation as a platform for iconic Japanese game developers to try something at least a little new, this time with a dragon-racing game called Jet Dragon from a team led by Koichi Ishii.
New artificial intelligence tools promoted by tech giant Unity will help game developers, not put them out of work, the company’s CEO, John Riccitiello, tells Axios.
Why it matters: Video games have become a premier proving ground for generative AI — and the locus for many anxieties about AI’s potential drawbacks.
Just 4.2% of managers at Nintendo Company in Japan are women, a number unchanged since the company first reported that gender-based stat in 2021, according to recent company filings.
Driving the news: Nintendo’s annual report, published yesterday, offers further insights into the workforce at the main offices of the game maker in Japan, including a stark gender divide in pay.
A new New York City law is setting a precedent when it comes to protecting workers from bias when companies use artificial intelligence in hiring, but some experts warn that key questions remain regarding how effective it will be.
Why it matters: Advocates argue that the new law is a significant step in the fight to regulate AI in the U.S., which has lagged behind other parts of the world.
Bluesky, a decentralized Twitter rival whose directors include Jack Dorsey, raised $8 million in seed funding led by Neo.
Why it matters: Everyone seems eager to topple Twitter, particularly as the app changes under Elon Musk's ownership, although no one has yet figured out how to eat into its network effects.
Last week, Bored Apes creator Yuga Labs released its latest NFT-gated game, HV-MTL Forge, but it hasn't yet helped the dragging performance of the company that owns several of the top NFT collections.
Why it matters:Yuga Labs is the standard-bearer for the industry of non-fungible tokens. It owns Bored Apes, Mutant Apes and CryptoPunks, along with a number of other important NFT collections.
The tech industry skews male, but tech layoffs paint a different picture: A disproportionate percentage of the workers laid off since last fall appear to be women.
Aviation startup Alef Aeronautics recently received Federal Aviation Administration approval to test its flying car.
Details: The all-electric "Model A" is designed to take off and land vertically, putting it in the emerging category of eVTOL — electric vertical takeoff and landing — aircraft.
Meta's new Twitter copycat app, Threads, may seem like an attempt to undercut Elon Musk while he's down, but it's also a continuation of the company's long-standing "clone and conquer" product strategy.
Why it matters: Most of the time, Meta's copycat experiments have failed. But a small number of cloned or acquired features that have worked out, like its TikTok copycat Reels and its Snapchat copycat Stories, have paid off handsomely.
Social media gets a bad rap these days — our polarized society, its impacts on self-esteem, all that stuff — but there's a group of creators out there dedicated to using their talents to bring you good vibes only.
Why it matters: Picking up the phone to turn off our brains at the end of a long day can easily turn into doomscrolling, so this world of wholesome content can provide a nice, reliable reminder that you've always got a shoulder to lean on.
