There is a growing buzz in the astronomy community about a new object with a hyperbolic trajectory that is moving toward the inner Solar System.

Early on Wednesday, the European Space Agency confirmed that the object, tentatively known as A11pl3Z, did indeed have interstellar origins.

"Astronomers may have just discovered the third interstellar object passing through the Solar System!" the agency's Operations account shared on Blue Sky. "ESA’s Planetary Defenders are observing the object, provisionally known as #A11pl3Z, right now using telescopes around the world."

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Cloudflare is now experimenting with tools that will allow content creators to charge a fee to AI crawlers to scrape their websites.

In a blog Tuesday, Cloudflare explained that its "pay-per-crawl" feature is currently in a private beta. A small number of publishers—including AdWeek, The Associated Press, The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, Fortune, Gannett, and Ars Technica owner Condé Nast—will participate in the experiment. Each publisher will be able to set their own prices that bots must pay before scraping content, Cloudflare said.

Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare, said the feature would ensure that the Internet as we know it will survive "the age of AI."

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Apple is considering using AI models from OpenAI or Anthropic to deliver the more capable version of Siri it debuted at WWDC 2024, Bloomberg reports. The company has promised it could deliver a new version of its voice assistant that understands personal context and takes action inside of apps since last year, but officially delayed the updated Siri in March 2025.

As part of this proposed new plan, Apple has asked Anthropic and OpenAI to train versions of its models that can run on Apple's Private Cloud Compute, secure servers running on Apple chips. The company already relies on its servers for certain AI features that can't be run locally.

Apple uses OpenAI's ChatGPT for some parts of Apple Intelligence, but completely relying on a third-party company for Siri would be a major departure. "The company currently powers most of its AI features with homegrown technology that it calls Apple Foundation Models," Bloomberg writes,"and had been planning a new version of its voice assistant that runs on that technology for 2026." One of the few AI announcements Apple made at WWDC 2025 was to make those foundation models available to third-party developers.

Even considering using third-party AI models reflects internal changes at Apple. Leadership of the company's AI teams has reportedly changed hands from John Giannandrea, Apple's senior vice president of machine learning and AI strategy, to Craig Federighi, the senior vice president of software engineering. Separately, Bloomberg reports Apple's Siri team is now being led by Mike Rockwell, who most recently oversaw the development of the Apple Vision Pro.

As Bloomberg notes, an Anthropic or OpenAI-powered Siri would actually mirror Samsung's current approach to AI. Galaxy AI relies on some custom Samsung software, but primarily uses Google's Gemini. Using third-party models wouldn't preclude Apple from switching back to something in-house in the future. The company made a similar transition — albeit, perhaps too early — when it went from a Maps app that relied on Google Maps to its custom Apple Maps service in 2012.

Wherever Apple lands, the updated version of Siri isn't expected to launch now until 2026. The company will ship a more modest collection of AI-adjacent features this fall with the launch of iOS 26, iPadOS 26 and macOS 26.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/apple-may-power-siri-with-anthropic-or-openai-models-amid-ai-struggles-212028351.html?src=rss

Smartphones contain a treasure trove of personal data, which makes them a worthwhile target for hackers. However, law enforcement is not above snooping on cell phones, and their tactics are usually much harder to detect. Cell site simulators, often called Stingrays, can trick your phone into revealing private communications, but a change in Android 16 could allow phones to detect this spying.

Law enforcement organizations have massively expanded the use of Stingray devices because almost every person of interest today uses a cell phone at some point. These devices essentially trick phones into connecting to them like a normal cell tower, allowing the operator to track that device's location. The fake towers can also shift a phone to less secure wireless technology to intercept calls and messages. There's no indication this is happening on the suspect's end, which is another reason these machines have become so popular with police.

However, while surveilling a target, Stingrays can collect data from other nearby phones. It's not unreasonable to expect a modicum of privacy if you happen to be in the same general area, but sometimes police use Stingrays simply because they can. There's also evidence that cell simulators have been deployed by mysterious groups outside law enforcement. In short, it's a problem. Google has had plans to address this security issue for more than a year, but a lack of hardware support has slowed progress. Finally, in the coming months, we will see the first phones capable of detecting this malicious activity, and Android 16 is ready for it.

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Firefox 141 open-source web browser is now available for public beta testing with various new features and improvements. Here’s what to expect!

The post Firefox 141 Promises to Use Less Memory on Linux Systems, Beta Out Now appeared first on 9to5Linux - do not reproduce this article without permission. This RSS feed is intended for readers, not scrapers.

A decade ago Canonical did around $81 million in revenue (2014) with a head count of around 337 at the company behind Ubuntu Linux while their Linux desktop efforts were still gaining a footing with OEMs/ODMs pre-loads, within enterprise desktop environments, and the lucrative server/cloud space. Canonical recently filed their 2024 annual report and they are now up to almost $300 million USD in revenue and a headcount of more than 1,100...