How Much Do Social Media Workers Make

On the frozen and cratered battlefields of eastern Ukraine, a new class of weapon system is emerging that combines two of the war’s most consequential technologies into a single, operator-distant platform. Ukrainian forces have begun deploying ground-based robotic vehicles capable of launching aerial drones during combat missions — a development that keeps human operators farther from danger while multiplying the tactical options available to small units fighting along the front lines. The concept is deceptively simple: take an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), mount a first-person-view (FPV) drone launcher on its chassis, and send the entire package forward into contested territory. The ground robot moves into position, releases one or more attack drones, and the operator — seated in a bunker or trench potentially kilometers away — directs the aerial munitions onto targets. The result is a layered unmanned system in which neither the vehicle nor the aircraft requires a human presen...

The Internal Revenue Service, already stretched thin after years of political battles over its funding and mandate, is now facing what may be its most consequential workforce reduction in modern history. Thousands of employees — many of them probationary workers hired as part of a recent modernization push — are being shown the door, raising urgent questions about the federal government’s ability to collect taxes, process returns, and enforce compliance during one of the busiest filing seasons of the year. According to The Register , the IRS has moved forward with sweeping job cuts targeting probationary employees, a category that includes many of the workers brought on board through the agency’s ambitious hiring initiative funded by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The cuts are part of a broader federal workforce reduction campaign driven by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the Elon Musk-led advisory body that has been aggressively pushing to shrink the si...

Most smartphone users tap “Accept” on permission requests without a second thought. But a recent privacy audit highlights just how aggressively some of the world’s most popular apps harvest personal data — often far beyond what’s necessary for their core functions. The findings, reported in detail by Android Police , paint a sobering picture of the state of mobile privacy and raise pointed questions about whether consumers truly understand what they’re giving away every time they install a new app. The audit, conducted using publicly available data from Apple’s App Store privacy labels and Google Play’s Data Safety sections, examined how leading apps across social media, shopping, entertainment, and productivity categories collect and share user information. The results confirmed what privacy advocates have long warned: many apps treat user data not as a trust to be guarded, but as a resource to be extracted at every opportunity. Social Media ...

In an era where biometric authentication has become second nature — a quick glance at your phone or a thumb pressed to a sensor — most Android users have never considered the circumstances under which those very conveniences could become liabilities. Buried within Android’s settings lies a feature called Lockdown Mode, a powerful security tool that Google has offered since Android 9 Pie but that remains virtually unknown to the vast majority of the platform’s billions of users. The feature, which temporarily disables biometric authentication and smart lock capabilities, forces the device to require a PIN, password, or pattern for access. It’s a deceptively simple mechanism with profound implications for personal security, particularly in scenarios involving law enforcement encounters, coercive situations, or targeted theft. Yet despite being available for nearly seven years, Lockdown Mode remains hidden behind layers of settings menus, requiring users to manually enab...

In a move that signals the accelerating ambition of artificial intelligence companies to embed their models deeper into the software development workflow, Anthropic has unveiled a significant new capability for its Claude AI assistant: the ability to directly edit files and code within integrated development environments. The feature, which allows Claude to make targeted modifications to existing codebases rather than simply generating new blocks of text, represents a meaningful evolution in how AI tools interact with professional developers — and raises fresh questions about the trajectory of autonomous AI agents in enterprise settings. The announcement, first reported by The Register , details how Anthropic has equipped Claude with what the company describes as a more surgical approach to code manipulation. Rather than requiring developers to copy and paste AI-generated suggestions into their projects, Claude can now apply precise edits directly to files, functioning more like a col...

Clash Over Code: Anthropic’s Tense Tug-of-War with the Pentagon on AI Deployment In the high-stakes world of artificial intelligence, where innovation meets national security, a brewing dispute between AI startup Anthropic and the U.S. Department of Defense has captured the attention of tech executives and policymakers alike. Reports indicate that Anthropic, the company behind the advanced language model Claude, is locked in negotiations with the Pentagon over the military’s use of its technology. This isn’t just a contractual spat; it’s a fundamental clash over how powerful AI tools should be wielded in defense operations, raising questions about ethics, safety, and the balance between technological progress and potential risks. The friction stems from Anthropic’s stringent terms of service, which prohibit the use of Claude in ways that could cause harm, including military applications. According to a recent article in TechCrunch , the Pentagon has been ...