Technology

Norfolk Mayor Kenny Alexander is enforcing a City Council speaker policy designed to limit repetitive public comments. This action occurs as advocacy groups protest the city's automatic license plate reader cameras, which have raised privacy concerns during monthly council meetings.

The website HaveIBeenFlocked allows users to check if agencies using Flock surveillance cameras have performed searches of a specific license plate number, utilizing publicly available Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) data. The article notes controversy surrounding the technology, including concerns about immigration enforcement access and reports of law enforcement misusing the system for personal tracking. In response, Flock CEO Garrett Langley announced changes, including a tool to flag abnormal search behavior.

AP journalists photographed members of a Ukrainian HIMARS crew, including those from the 148th brigade. The crew was observed firing rockets at Russian positions while attempting to evade detection by enemy reconnaissance drones along the front line in eastern Ukraine.

Superintendent Quintin Shepard addressed the closure of four Pflugerville ISD elementary schools due to a $20 million budget shortfall. He also discussed district initiatives aimed at teacher recruitment, technology, and student career paths as the area returns to class.

Traumatic injuries and deaths are continuing to surge among young e-bike riders, leading officials nationwide to pursue varied paths to tackle this growing epidemic. The issue raises questions about whether parents should be held responsible for these increasingly frequent accidents.

Investment attention is focused on 'Enablers,' which are considered an AI sweet spot for investors. Because demand for the technology far exceeds supply, infrastructure providers within this sector are predicted to be highly sought-after.

Students are advocating for digital wellbeing programs to thrive in tech-free learning environments as schools across the US ban phones. Educators and parents have actively opposed technology's influence, yet many young people feel excluded from discussions concerning these school phone policies. These new policies are currently implemented in at least 39 states and Washington DC.

Artificial intelligence is causing candidates to rethink their campaign strategies due to voters using chatbots like ChatGPT for political information. A tool called Campsite helps campaigns gauge what specific information is being discussed about them in chats and searches. To be effective, candidates must ensure they are visible in real-time web search results and tailor detailed online content, such as FAQ sections, to guide the narrative provided by AI.

The advocacy group Schools Beyond Screens CMS is campaigning for reduced screen time in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, citing concerns about cognitive impacts like reduced knowledge retention and anxiety fueled by Ed Tech. They advocate that technology must complement, not replace, the role of teachers and librarians. District leaders are responding by affirming policies that prioritize digital safety and literacy.

Dense fog has immersed downtown Detroit overnight. The visible fog prompted a dense fog advisory being in effect early Wednesday morning. A time-lapse recording captured these foggy conditions from tower cameras located within downtown Detroit.

The Department of Environmental Services held a ceremony to bless its new Membrane Bioreactor Facility at the Sand Island Wastewater Treatment Plant. This facility utilizes membrane technology, which separates solids from water more effectively than older methods. The goal of this modernization is for the City.

Monterey Park residents are organizing a community meeting to address the city's use of automated license plate readers. The meeting takes place amidst growing concerns among residents regarding the impact of these cameras on privacy.

Facing extreme weather, Europe's farmers are adapting their operations by moving to night shifts. They are utilizing tools such as floodlights, headlamps, and cooling sheds, alongside adjusting animal feeding times, to cope with the heat.

Project Unloaded conducted a study on social media campaigns aimed at gun safety, finding that Snapchat is an effective channel for public health messaging. Analyzing over 2,500 users, the research found that one in six surveyed teens were aware of SNUG, leading to the conclusion that awareness correlated with increased belief in being safer without guns.

Scott Wiener's congressional campaign launched a chatbot that parodied rival Connie Chan. This action sparked a rebuke from Pelosi, demonstrating the sensitive issues politicians navigate when utilizing AI technology.

Scott Wiener's congressional campaign launched a chatbot that parodied rival Connie Chan. This action prompted a rebuke from Pelosi, highlighting the difficulties politicians face when utilizing AI tools.

After suffering multiple daily scam calls for about a year, the author found a solution using their workplace's fax line. They configured their phone to automatically forward unanswered calls to this inactive fax line, which connects to an empty phone directory system that generates errors upon entry. After approximately three months of this setup, the incoming scam calls stopped completely.

Crypto executives suggest that any quantum attack targeting cryptocurrency will likely appear as an unexplained breach, rather than being announced. They predict that bad actors possessing the necessary cryptography-breaking quantum computer will probably not use high-profile targets like Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin wallets for such attacks.

A large group of scooter and bike riders took over downtown Minneapolis on Saturday night after a TikTok post. This activity drew the attention of police and state patrol, particularly after some participants rode onto I-35W.

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced her decision to undergo egg freezing, a personal process she detailed on Instagram Story videos. She used the announcement to advocate for better women's reproductive health education and criticized what she described as an increasingly hostile environment for these choices, specifically blaming the Trump administration's policies.

A user reported encountering a "You're invited" Punchbowl scam link first on a Samsung phone and then on their PC. The link reportedly required viewing from a Windows machine and caused alarms when opened on the desktop. After shutting down the PC and changing their email password using another device, the user is concerned about potential compromise of both phones and PCs even without having logged in.

A man's father in Turkey received calls and WhatsApp messages from various international numbers demanding a car, house, or large sum of liras under the threat of violence using photos of guns. A man whom the father has not seen for ten years subsequently appeared and acted as an anonymous mediator to negotiate down the demands. The poster suspects the entire incident is a volume extortion scam.

New York has implemented the country's first statewide moratorium on new large-scale data center construction, with similar bills surfacing in states including Maine and Georgia. The article argues that while banning data centers is unrealistic due to their vital role in services like banking, hospital records, and 911 communication, trust must be earned through transparency and developers paying for necessary infrastructure costs.

A mother-in-law (MIL) is targeted in a scam involving false claims of unauthorized narcotic prescriptions and a fake investigation by the California Department of Public Health and a 'detective' via Signal, alleging $2.6 million in her account. The scammer referenced a morphine prescription in Washington DC and threatened to revoke her Medi-Cal healthcare.

A doorbell camera captured footage of a 15-year-old wearing a clown costume, whom police accuse of committing a murder in Illinois.

A doorbell camera captured footage of a 15-year-old accused of murder in Illinois while wearing a clown costume. The teen is alleged to have killed someone in the incident.

The S&P 500 reached a new high, prompting warnings from investor Michael Burry about a potential 1987-style market decline. Burry maintains his bearish stance on technology stocks despite the recent surge.

Junk Cleaner, a new feature in Malwarebytes for Android 5.22, helps users remove storage clutter by identifying and deleting leftover files, old downloads, and hidden app caches. The tool focuses on freeing up space without affecting photos, messages, or documents.

Visa is laying off 320 employees at its Foster City office on October 1, representing over 12% of its 2,600 total layoffs. The affected roles are primarily in technology and product operations.

A user is receiving 2-3 daily calls from their area code, suspecting they are spoofed scam calls after identifying one as a government number. They note no follow-up communication and question if their iPhone's auto-screen setting, which prompts unknown callers to state their business, is inadvertently engaging scam AI systems.

BlackRock has introduced new blockchain-based money market offerings to expand its tokenized cash products. The move aims to leverage blockchain technology for enhanced financial services.

Fairfax County students Ronit Singh and his friends developed Civic Cycle, an AI-powered web tool that summarizes school board meetings from BoardDocs using Claude AI. The free app, now covering Fairfax, Loudoun, Arlington, and Prince William counties, includes human-reviewed summaries and email alerts for specific topics.

Brazil's minister of development, industry, trade and services, Márcio Elias Rosa, is leading a trade mission to India from August 3 to 7, 2026, aiming to expand Brazilian companies' access to the Indian market in sectors like defense and technology. The mission follows challenges posed by US tariffs.

Nightcrawler is a local AI pentesting agent developed by garagehq that runs on a smartphone. The project was shared on Hacker News but has not received any comments yet.

Ursula K. Le Guin published an essay titled 'A Rant About "Technology"' in 2005, critiquing the term's overuse and misapplication in modern discourse. The article is hosted on her official website and linked to a comments thread on Hacker News.

The article discusses methods to reduce extreme heat inside cars during heatwaves, comparing car interiors to ovens, and highlights technologies that can help achieve cooler temperatures.

Kaisel introduces 'Routes as Values', a Dart 3 native router designed for Flutter applications. The tool aims to simplify routing in Flutter by treating routes as values, enhancing code structure and maintainability.

Seventeen Chinese entrepreneurs have held the title of the country’s richest billionaire in the past 27 years, four times more than in the US, according to Hurun Group, which attributes the frequency to China's market dynamism. Key figures include ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming, Nongfu Spring founder Zhong Shanshan, and Country Garden chairwoman Yang Huiyan, representing technology, consumption, and property sectors.

A scammer called from an Oregon number, leaving a voicemail claiming a loved one was harmed and urging an urgent FaceTime call to exploit fear. The message included fabricated details about the victim losing their face and references to 'millions' of dollars, warning against falling for the scam.

Google integrated its AI image generator, Nano Banana, into Google Earth, allowing users to create fake images of real-world locations. The feature was rolled back after concerns about generating misleading content, such as fabricated explosions and protests, which could undermine the credibility of satellite imagery used by researchers and journalists.