Retailers Report Higher December Sales

Enlarge / A group of Black Friday online shopping purchases photographed in delivery boxes filled with polystyrene packing pellets, taken on September 13, 2019. (Photo by Neil Godwin/Future Publishing via Getty Images) (credit: Getty Images) If you build a gadget that connects to the Internet and sell it in the United Kingdom, you can no longer make the default password "password." In fact, you're not supposed to have default passwords at all. A new version of the 2022 Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act (PTSI) is now in effect, covering just about everything that a consumer can buy that connects to the web.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images) Authentication service Okta is warning about the “unprecedented scale” of an ongoing campaign that routes fraudulent login requests through the mobile devices and browsers of everyday users in an attempt to conceal the malicious behavior. The attack, Okta said, uses other means to camouflage the login attempts as well, including the TOR network and so-called proxy services from providers such as NSOCKS, Luminati, and DataImpulse, which can also harness users’ devices without their knowledge.

Enlarge / AI is here to terminate your bank account. (credit: Carolco Pictures) Give the AI access to your credit card, they said. It'll be fine, they said. Users of Meta's ad platform who followed that advice have been getting burned by an AI-powered ad purchasing system, according to The Verge.

Enlarge / Intel's top-end i9-14900KS. (credit: Intel) Earlier this month, we wrote that some of Intel's recent high-end Core i9 and Core i7 processors had been crashing and exhibiting other weird issues in some games and that Intel was investigating the cause. An Intel statement obtained by Igor's Lab suggests that Intel's investigation is wrapping up, and the company is pointing squarely in the direction of enthusiast motherboard makers that are turning up power limits and disabling safeguards to try to wring a little more performance out of the processors. "While the root cause has not yet been identified, Intel has observed the majority of reports of this issue are from users with unlocked/overclock capable motherboards," the statement reads.

Enlarge / Elon Musk speaks at the Satellite Conference and Exhibition on March 9, 2020 in Washington, DC. (credit: Getty Images | Win McNamee ) The US Supreme Court today rejected Elon Musk's attempt to terminate his settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Musk appealed to the Supreme Court in December 2023, claiming the settlement he agreed to in 2018 forced him to "waive his First Amendment rights to speak on matters ranging far beyond the charged violations." The SEC settlement requires Musk to get pre-approval from a Tesla securities lawyer for tweets or other social media posts that may contain information material to the company or its shareholders. The Supreme Court decided not to hear the case, leaving an appeals court ruling against Musk intact.

A mock-up posted by MobaPad provides one vision of how magnetically attached Switch 2 Joy-Cons might look (credit: MobaPad) Thus far, Nintendo has offered only vague hints regarding whether or not the upcoming Switch 2 will run games and software designed for the current Switch. Now, an obscure Chinese peripheral maker is reporting that the new console will indeed work with existing physical Switch game cards and digital Switch game downloads. The new report comes from MobaPad, a little-known creator of Switch controllers and carrying cases based in Shenzen, China.