Author: InfoForTech

Alexander “Sasha” Rakhlin PhD ’06, the Distinguished Professor in Data, Systems, and Society at the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS); and a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT, has been named the next director of the MIT Statistics and Data Science Center (SDSC). Rakhlin succeeds Ankur Moitra, the Norbert Wiener Professor of Mathematics, associate director of the IDSS, and a faculty member in the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) who has been SDSC director since 2021. Philippe Rigollet, the Cecil and Ida Green Distinguished Professor of Mathematics and a core faculty member in IDSS, also…

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new set of malicious npm packages that target users of Alibaba developer tools with a cross-platform remote access trojan (RAT) as part of a sophisticated, targeted software supply chain attack targeting Chinese-speaking environments. One of the packages in question is “lib-mtop,” an unscoped package with the same name as a private Alibaba package under the “@ali” scope. Although the npm package was first published sometime in November 2023 with no functionality, three new versions (v1.0.1, v1.0.2, and v1.0.3) were uploaded earlier this March and April. It’s currently not clear if this was the result of…

Alibaba launched Qwen3.8-Max with 2.4 trillion parameters. And China’s open-weight strategy threatens closed-source AI giants. Alibaba has thrown a massive gauntlet in China’s AI arms race. It revealed Qwen3.8-Max, a 2.4-trillion-parameter monster that goes head-to-head with Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3. Hong Kong traders noticed immediately. They drove Alibaba’s stock up nearly 8% during Monday trading. Parameter counts often feel like tech’s favorite vanity metric. Yet Alibaba backs up this huge number with sharp engineering. The model uses a “mixture-of-experts” architecture rather than running all 2.4 trillion settings on every prompt. It routes tasks to specialized sub-networks, activating just 95 billion…

Most marketing teams have gotten comfortable using AI. They’ve integrated it into content workflows, sharpened their prompts, and found individual productivity gains. But the next phase is already here, and it relies heavily on the ability and dedication of humans, says Zapier’s Dan Slagen.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle has some really unusual clues, and could stump a lot of players. Read on for hints and today’s Connections answers. Hints for today’s Connections groups Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group. Yellow group hint: Think of a certain Robert Frost poem. Green group hint: The color of this group. Blue group hint: Sometimes vowel. Purple group hint: Leave me alone! Answers for today’s Connections groups Yellow group: Road less traveled. Green group: Shades of green. Blue group:…

Coca-Cola has confirmed that data was stolen during the ransomware attack on its Fairlife dairy business, escalating the incident beyond a temporary production disruption. The beverage giant said that the attack poses potential legal, regulatory, and reputational challenges even as operations have begun to recover. The acknowledgment came days after the Anubis ransomware group claimed it had copied roughly 1 TB of information from Fairlife’s systems. According to BleepingComputer, Anubis followed through on its extortion threat after the leak deadline expired, publishing the allegedly stolen files online. Coca-Cola has not disclosed what categories of data were affected or confirmed the…

For a brand that’s stuck to safer updates for most of its annual updates, Samsung’s odd new passport-shaped foldable was a surprisingly risky move–and it seems like that gamble is paying off. Early demand suggests the company may have underestimated just how many buyers wanted something different. According to a BusinessPost report, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is selling at roughly three times the pace of the Galaxy Z Fold 7 during the comparable early sales period. Demand has reportedly caught Samsung off guard, leaving the company working to increase production and get more units into stores. Samsung hasn’t shared…

Disclaimer: Unless otherwise stated, any opinions expressed below belong solely to the author. Data sourced from Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower. As we know, the median salary for fresh graduates in Singapore is currently S$4,500, while the figure for the entire workforce is S$5,775. However, there are some jobs that pay their young workers much better—if not straight out of school, then at least before they hit 30. According to the data from the Ministry of Manpower, there are 30 occupations where median salaries for workers between 25 and 29 years of age are already above the national average. S$100,000 by…

To test these new ideas, researchers are exploring the infant universe through simulations. “There’s actually been really remarkable progress since Webb launched, really in the last year or so, on numerical simulations,” Somerville told attendees, adding that these new simulations “perhaps are more appropriate and more informative for interpreting observations in the high-redshift universe.”As these models improve, JWST is documenting more and more galaxies. By comparing what it sees in the early universe to simulations that attempt to explain why, researchers are inching closer to uncovering the true nature of cosmic dawn.“We can try to match the best analogue of…

Artificial intelligence has become a target for attackers rather than only a tool they use, according to CrowdStrike Holdings Inc.’s “2026 Threat Hunting Report,” released today. The annual report draws on observations from CrowdStrike’s OverWatch threat hunting team and intelligence analysts tracking more than 290 named adversaries over the 12 months to June 30. Previous editions counted only interactive, hands-on-keyboard intrusions. This year’s also folds in automated attacks, a methodology change CrowdStrike says gives a more accurate picture of how adversaries now operate. CrowdStrike now measures the exploitation window in hours rather than days. It counted the gap between a…