Using 1Password to remember every username and password that accumulates is easily one of the best quality-of-life improvements you can make in your digital world. In addition to saving all your passwords and secure information, 9to5Mac readers can also try 1Password free for 14 days and take home a $20 credit as a Prime Day exclusive! 1Password is hands-down the best fix for fumbling with passwords because it’s private, cross-platform, and the absolute leader in password management features.
Linda Yaccarino has announced that she’s stepping down as CEO of X, a little over two years after being tapped by Elon Musk to lead the platform formerly known as Twitter. Here’s what she had to say.
Though he officially left the U.S. government in May, Steve Davis -- Elon Musk's low-flying former top lieutenant at the Department of Government Efficiency -- continues wielding influence at DOGE, according to the WSJ. The outlet says Davis regularly gives directions to current DOGE officials and has privately dismissed his departure as "fake news."
Hardware teams are constantly under pressure—from tariffs and material shortages to data buried in spreadsheets no one trusts. Supply chain hiccups have become the norm, and for companies building electronics, that means delays, cost overruns, and missed opportunities. Parter thinks […]
Busy day for AI-based browsing. Just as Reuters reported that OpenIA is just weeks away from releasing a browser, Perplexity, the company behind the famous AI-powered “answer engine,” launched Comet, its own take at what browsing looks like in the age of AI. Here’s what it looks like.
Extensions installed on almost 1 million devices have been overriding key security protections to turn browsers into engines that scrape websites on behalf of a paid service, a researcher said.
The 245 extensions, available for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, have racked up nearly 909 million downloads, John Tuckner of SecurityAnnex reported. The extensions serve a wide range of purposes, including managing bookmarks and clipboards, boosting speaker volumes, and generating random numbers. The common thread among all of them: They incorporate MellowTel-js, an open source JavaScript library that allows developers to monetize their extensions.
Intentional weakening of browsing protections
Tuckner and critics say the monetization works by using the browser extensions to scrape websites on behalf of paying customers, which include advertisers. Tuckner reached this conclusion after uncovering close ties between MellowTel and Olostep, a company that bills itself as "the world's most reliable and cost-effective Web scraping API." Olostep says its service “avoids all bot detection and can parallelize up to 100K requests in minutes.” Paying customers submit the locations of browsers they want to access specific webpages. Olostep then uses its installed base of extension users to fulfill the request.
Washington, DC—From a distance, the gathering looked like a standard poster session at an academic conference, with researchers standing next to large displays of the work they were doing. Except in this case, it was taking place in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill, and the researchers were describing work that they weren’t doing. Called "The things we’ll never know," the event was meant to highlight the work of researchers whose grants had been canceled by the Trump administration.
A lot of court cases have been dealing with these cancellations as a group, highlighting the lack of scientific—or seemingly rational—input into the decisions to cut funding for entire categories of research. Here, there was a much tighter focus on the individual pieces of research that had become casualties in that larger fight.
Seeing even a small sampling of the individual grants that have been terminated provides a much better perspective on the sort of damage that is being done to the US public by these cuts and the utter mindlessness of the process that's causing that damage.
Summer travel season is in full swing, and whether you’re headed to the beach, a weekend getaway, or just staying home in the A/C, here are some good Prime Day deals for readers. The latest Kindle Paperwhite and the Kindle Colorsoft Signature Essential let you carry an entire library without the bulk, and right now, Prime members can buy the 16GB Paperwhite with ads for just $124.99 ($35 off) at Amazon for Prime Day. The ad-free Kindle Colorsoft Signature Essential, which is nearly identical to the Paperwhite but includes a color display, wireless charging, and 32GB of storage, is currently available for $179.99 ($100 off) at Amazon. Both mark new lows and are the best prices we’ve seen since Black Friday 2024.
If you own a lot of Kindle books, these are the best e-readers on the market. Each weighs a bit less than the iPhone 16 Pro Max and they sport 7-inch screens that make them easy to pack yet large enough for comfortable reading. In fact, the Paperwhite’s 300ppi display is the biggest and brightest of any model in the lineup to date, and the fastest too, which makes flipping through pages a breeze. The Colorsoft combines that sharp 300ppi monochrome display with a 150ppi color mode that looks vibrant compared to rivals like the Kobo Libra Colour.
One feature I especially appreciate is their IPX8 waterproof rating. I don’t have to worry about accidental splashes, whether I’m reading poolside or relaxing in the bathtub. I also like that both e-readers offer an adjustable warm light, which makes night reading easier on the eyes. Truthfully, the feature hasn’t turned me into a morning person yet, but at least I’m well-read.
Amazon’s latest Paperwhite features a larger seven-inch display and noticeably faster performance. It also boasts longer battery life than the previous model, retains IPX8 waterproofing, and includes a USB-C port. Read our review.
The Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition is Amazon’s first e-reader with a color display. It also boasts 32GB of storage, waterproofing, and support for wireless charging. Read our review.
Europe’s fintech darling Revolut is looking to raise a new funding round that would give it a $65 billion valuation, the Financial Times reports. The UK-based company is reportedly in talks to raise around $1 billion by issuing new shares and selling existing ones. The US-based firm Greenoaks is said to be leading the round, […]
