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Quick Take

• Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil is like watching what it feels like to play a video game.
• It works on its own merits and gives the feeling of the games without ever being one of the games itself.
• Nerdist’s Take: If you want a fun roller coaster horror movie with loads of good scares and some gnarly body horror, Resident Evil is a blast. 3.5 stars out of 5.

The Resident Evil game franchise has been around since 1996 and remains one of the most beloved on any platform. The Resident Evil movie franchise started in 2002 and…I mean, it must have fans somewhere. I like the first one decently enough. So the prospect of a new movie coming from an exciting horror director with video game chops is particularly exciting. The resultant movie is far less bloated and overwrought than the Paul W.S. Anderson, nor is it an attempt to compact the game’s story into a single movie like Welcome to Raccoon City. No, instead, Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil is like watching what it feels like to play a video game.

Sony Pictures

This Resident Evil is stripped down to the barest essentials, a brisk 90-some minutes, that starts small and escalates to absurd levels by the end. The path of the lead character Bryan (Austin Abrams) is a quest narrative, travelling from Point A to Point B, facing all manner of zombified, mutated, or otherwise effed-up things along the way. Each new setting features a new threat and Bryan gets a bigger and better gun as he goes through his quest to reach the end point.

What Cregger does here that I like so much is that we essentially follow Bryan from beginning to end with almost no deviation. The camera follows over Bryan’s shoulder as he enters a new location. At times, we even get a video gamey first-person POV shot down the sight of his gun. It isn’t constant but it gives the viewer the feeling of a video game. And while nothing in the movie directly references characters or specifics from any one game, Cregger offers many small Easter eggs that game players will instantly recognize. In one of the trailers, we got to see a “safe room” with a typewriter. This is just one of many.

Sony Pictures

As shouldn’t surprise you too much if you know Cregger’s previous films, Resident Evil is very, very funny. Abrams mutters and swears to himself the entire way through, much more real person than video game hero. His reactions to the increasing horror of the situations always made me laugh. It’s a toned down, more likeable version of the tweaker her played in Weapons. Bryan is not Chris Redfield or Leon Kennedy. He’s just a guy. The few members of Umbrella we meet are not Albert Wesker. They’re just people who work for a corrupt company. This might annoy hardcore RE fans, but again, the movie gets the vibe even if the tone is much more comedic.

The movie’s plot basically is the premise. Bryan is a medical courier who arrives at a hospital to drop off an organ for transplant while on the phone with his girlfriend discussing the recent discovery that she’s pregnant. Just as he’s about to head home, a doctor offers him double if he can get a top-priority something to Raccoon City General ASAP. It’s a blizzard outside and his car slips and slides all over the place before crashing into a woman who seems more messed up than just a car accident.

Here begins Bryan traveling from scenario to scenario, dealing with zombies and mutating body horrors as the T-Virus (a term the movie never utters) ravages Raccoon City and the nearby mountains. At one point, Bryan reaches a farmhouse and we can see in the otherwise dark night behind him the remnants of his previous three encounters. Again, it’s a video game in movie form. If you’ve played the Resident Evil games, you won’t recognize any specific location, but you’ll recognize the types. An isolated house, a dark tunnel, the sewers, a hospital, the streets of the city, etc.

Sony Pictures

All of this works really well, Abrams is a fun protagonist, and the effects and creatures are exceptionally gross (in the best way). But what keeps me from loving the movie is that, in all the propelling from thing to thing to thing, any humanity of the characters fall flat. The movie is shockingly bereft of side characters, and those we do meet don’t stick around long. What should be the emotional throughline of the movie, with Bryan trying to get home to his girlfriend and learning to grow up, doesn’t ever hit, and really just disappears by the third act.

These aren’t game-breaking quibbles or anything. As I said, I had a good time, Cregger knows how to keep the audience on edge but chuckling the whole time. We watch this doofus have the absolute worst day anyone could have but we relate because at least he knows he’s not cut out for it. As a movie that takes place within the world of Resident Evil, this feels like what would be happening elsewhere while Leon and Claire are dealing with Mr. X or something. It works on its own merits and gives the feeling of the games without ever being one of the games itself.

If you want a fun roller coaster horror movie with loads of good scares and some gnarly body horror, Resident Evil is a blast. Just don’t expect more than that or it might be game over.

Sony Pictures

⭐ (3.5 of 5)

Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.

The post Zach Cregger’s RESIDENT EVIL Is a Body Horror Blast (Review) appeared first on Nerdist.

The ShinyHunters gang leaked the files online after saying the Florida state agency did not pay their ransom demand.

Every so often, this shambolic, failing White House has to cough up another allegation of fraud to keep the Republican Party’s vitriol afloat, some red meat to throw to red-state partisans about how foreigners are taking your jobs and Democrats are stealing your money. And now, in a midterm year, with no record of improvements to point to, Vice President JD Vance’s anti-fraud task force has…

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Both Google and Uncle Sam warned that attackers have exploited a zero-day improper authorization bug in Pixel phones' cellular modems that can bypass permission checks and escalate privileges with no user interaction required. The hole has since been closed, provided that you update. Google disclosed the high-severity vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-58704, on Tuesday - and, at the time, warned the security hole “may be under limited, targeted exploitation.” In other words: miscreants found and exploited this bug before Google fixed the issue. The Register reached out to Google for more details about the scope of exploitation, and how attackers are exploiting the flaw and what they can achieve. We have very limited details about the vulnerability itself, other than that it exists in Pixel phones' modems, is being exploited in the wild, and can be exploited in zero-click attacks, meaning no user interaction is required. We do know, however, that these types of zero-click attacks are frequently used by commercial spyware makers to surveil targeted individuals. On Wednesday, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) added the CVE to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog and gave federal agencies just three days - until September 19 - to patch the flaw. “This type of vulnerability is a frequent attack vector for malicious cyber actors and poses significant risks to the federal enterprise,” according to the cyber-defense agency. Earlier this month, CISA added two Google Chromium vulnerabilities, CVE-2026-85046 and CVE-2026-87491, to its KEV catalog. CVE-2026-85046 is a type confusion flaw in Chromium’s V8 JavaScript engine that allows remote attackers to execute code inside the sandbox via a crafted HTML page. It affects all Chromium-based browsers including Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Opera. The second flaw, an out-of-bounds write vulnerability tracked as CVE-2026-87491, also exists in the V8 engine, allows for remote code execution, and affects all Chromium-based browsers. Security researchers at Proofpoint last week told The Register that at least four espionage groups, most with suspected links to China, chained three bugs together, including CVE-2026-85046, to break into organizations' networks in the US and Southeast Asia. ®

“The worst place ever I’ve been in my life. ”

That’s how Sakariye Abdi Mohamed described the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, where he and a handful of other Somali immigrants are being held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Late last month, ICE put 12 Somali men on a plane and told them they were being deported to Somalia, according to interviews with community leaders, friends, and family members who are in touch with the detainees. Instead, they arrived at the notorious US military base in Cuba, where seven or eight of them remain. Since then, the men have said, they have been subjected to frigid temperatures, and they are shackled at all times.

“Nobody tell us that we’re going to Guantanamo Bay,” Mohamed told me in a phone call last week. “Just like kidnapping.”

“Just like kidnapping.”

It’s a dramatic escalation in President Donald Trump’s long-running campaign to target immigrants from the east African nation. Last year, he asserted that Somalis “contribute nothing” to the United States and declared, “I don’t want them in our country.” The president then unleashed roughly 2,000 heavily armed ICE and Border Patrol agents in Minnesota, home to the country’s largest population of Somalis.

The US military and the CIA began using Guantanamo to detain alleged “enemy combatants” following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The base, in the words of the American Civil Liberties Union, became a “symbol of injustice, abuse, and disregard for the rule of law,” plagued by reports of torture and mistreatment of war on terrorism detainees. For years, ICE has operated its own, separate facility at Guantanamo called the Migrant Operations Center, which, according to a 2024 report by the International Refugee Assistance Project, was used to confine refugees apprehended at sea in “prison-like conditions.”

At the beginning of his second term, Trump ordered the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, to expand the Migrant Operations Center to “full capacity to provide additional detention space for high-priority criminal aliens.” The president promised to incarcerate as many as 30,000 of the “worst of the worst” immigrants at the Gitmo facility. That hasn’t happened, but over the past two years, ICE has used the base on and off to detain a smaller number of immigrants from countries including Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. On August 28, Gillian Brockell—a journalist who closely tracks deportation flights—reported that migrants had been sent to the facility for the first time in months. Last week, Minnesota Public Radio first reported that at least some of those prisoners are members of that state’s Somali community.

The detainees have been allowed to make phone calls from Guantanamo, and many have spoken to Abdinasir Kahin—a Chicago-based Somali community leader who has worked to connect the prisoners with the outside world—and Elmi Ware, a journalist who immigrated to the US from Somalia. In reporting this story, I spoke to Mohamed, Kahin, and Ware, as well as to friends and family of several of the detainees.

In an email, a DHS spokesperson claimed that the Somalis flown to Guantanamo in late August “included some of the worst of the worst, with criminal histories including aggravated assaults, weapons offenses, robbery, multiple larcenies, police obstruction, possession of burglary tools, receiving stolen property, trespassing, unauthorized use of a vehicle, multiple drug charges, and DUIs.” He added that the detainees “have received due process, and all have final orders of removal issued by an immigration judge.”

DHS declined to specify which of the Guantanamo inmates had been accused of those crimes; in response to follow-up questions, the spokesperson appeared to indicate that he did not know. At least some of the detainees have told people they have spoken to that they are not criminals and have not been charged with crimes. MPR reported last week that one of the men, Adam Abdullah, had received two parking tickets but had no criminal record. Several of the men at Guantanamo were applying for asylum and had work authorization, and at least one detainee had filed a habeas corpus petition, seeking to be released from detention.

“I don’t have no criminal record,” Mohamed told me. “I don’t have no tickets.” I found no court records contradicting Mohamed’s assertion.

Mohamed had been living with his cousin Ibrahim in Ohio at the time of his arrest. He said he was driving a truck for a commercial trucking company when he was pulled over by an Alabama state trooper on I-65. He was held by ICE for nearly a year in Louisiana before being sent to Guantanamo.

“I told him at the time to stop working, because ICE was arresting everyone,” Ibrahim told me. But Mohamed refused. “He believed ICE was looking for criminals.”

Mohamed’s friend and colleague, also named Ibrahim, affectionately described him as the rookie truck driver, viewed by his co-workers as a “young kid.” Mohamed had done everything right, he said: applied for asylum, waited for his work authorization, gotten his commercial drivers license, paid his taxes. He’d hoped to build a better, brighter future in America than what he had left behind in Somalia. 

Now, he is detained in a facility originally meant for suspected terrorists. 

Another Guantanamo detainee, Kamal Hassan Olow, was arrested in December in Ohio, part of ICE’s Operation Buckeye. Abdirahman—a friend of Olow’s who is in daily contact with him—told me that Olow was working two jobs at the time of his arrest: a full-time position with Amazon and a part time job with a rental car agency. According to Abdirahman, Olow had a valid work permit and paid his taxes. He has a wife and children in Somalia, who he was supporting. I found no evidence that Olow had a criminal record.

The conditions at Guantanamo are harsh. There are cameras in the showers and the bathroom, according to Mohamed and those in communication with other detainees. The building is extremely cold—a condition that individuals previously detained by the CIA and the military at Guantanamo as part of the war on terrorism have also described.

The DHS spokesperson said that all of the detainees’ allegations of mistreatment are “false,” adding that they are “provided three meals a day, clean water, clothing, bedding, showers, soap, and toiletries. Illegal aliens also have access to phones to communicate with family members and lawyers. Detainees have privacy in bathroom and shower areas.”

According to Mohamed, guards at Guantanamo have said they are being held there because that’s what officials in Washington, DC, want. “There’s no other nation, only Somali people in Guantanamo Bay, in the prison,” he told me. “And when we ask them why we are here, they tell us…Washington…ordered to keep Somali people in the Guantanamo Bay.”

Detainees held a hunger strike for several days after arriving in Cuba. According to those in contact with the men, officials told them that if they ended the strike, they would get to leave the naval base. Now, they no longer trust anything the guards say.

When we spoke last week, Mohamed said he and the other detainees would once again be going on a hunger strike. This time, they would not be mollified by vague promises.

“We die, or we go back to our country, or we go back to the States,” he said.

The Iran war has slammed the American pocketbook, costing the public billions more dollars at the gas pump.

Americans have collectively spent $107 billion more on gas and oil since the war began seven months ago, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday night. The estimate came from the Climate Solutions Lab at Brown University, which has been tracking the mounting costs.

Consumers have spent roughly $59 billion more on gas and $48.6 billion on diesel, according to the university’s tracker. That breaks down to an increased price tag of approximately $822.20 per U.S. household.

The price differential has been hardest felt in the Western half of the country, particularly in Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and New Mexico.

But it’s unlikely that the economic fallout will end anytime soon. Some of Donald Trump’s closest advisers—including Vice President JD Vance and State Secretary Marco Rubio—have reportedly discussed the conflict’s potentially extended timeline with the president, exploring the possibility that Tehran could continue to resist U.S. pressure and effectively push the war beyond Inauguration Day 2029.

Despite the dire reality of the closed-door conversations, Trump has invariably echoed his administration’s forecast for the war to the American public. Speaking with reporters earlier this month, Trump pledged that the conflict will end “immediately” after the midterm elections in November “because they can’t hold out any longer.”

The war has been remarkably unpopular, and the financial toll has only further hurt the president’s image. A poll published Wednesday by the Eurasia Group’s Institute for Global Affairs found that support for the war fell by 6 percent since April, sinking to a 40 percent approval in August.

Seventeen percent of Republicans reported that they believed Trump made a mistake in attacking Iran, while 16 percent said that they believed the war had made the U.S. less safe.

DOGE, the purported government-efficiency effort launched by President Donald Trump and initially run by billionaire Elon Musk, made taxpayers shell out $9.5 billion to federal workers for not working, a report released Tuesday revealed. The report comes from the Government Accountability Office, a federal agency, and it found that the so-called Department of Government Efficiency initiative…

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Google is launching early access to a new MCP server for Google Home, allowing AI agents like Claude, ChatGPT and others to control connected devices, review camera summaries and access smart home activity using natural language.

The world’s largest animal rights organization, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, is horrified that FBI Director Kash Patel is making it easier for people who have engaged in bestiality to become FBI agents.

After a ridiculous exchange between Patel and senators in a Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, PETA co-founder and president Ingrid Newkirk is making her condemnation known.

“No one in America supports humans having sex with animals, and to think an FBI agent might be such a cruel pervert is unconscionable and unacceptable,” Newkirk said in a statement obtained by MediasTouch. “Director Patel must immediately cancel this abominable misstep. It cannot happen.”

The baffling new FBI hiring standards came out in a memo quietly issued by the bureau in June, which announced that applicants who had previously hired sex workers, stolen from employers, or engaged in bestiality and animal cruelty (as long as it happened before an applicant turned 18) are no longer disqualified from becoming federal agents.

“What we did was, we did not want to punish victims of bestiality—victims who were trafficked,” Patel told Senator Dick Durbin in the committee hearing, somehow conflating bestiality with human trafficking.

“Applicants who have engaged in bestiality means they were victims of bestiality because they were forced to do so,” Patel continued. “And at this FBI, we are not going to criminalize and prevent victims from serving the United States of America and the premier law enforcement agency in the world.”

Even Republican senators were confused.

“What about the bestiality?” asked Senator John Kennedy.

“It automatically disqualified any individual who participated on either side of it,” Patel said.

“Either side of what, the bestiality?”

“Yes.”

“So you disqualified the animal?”

It’s no secret that the FBI under Donald Trump yes-man Patel has fallen into chaos and ruin. At best, these new hiring policies make the FBI a joke—at worst, they suggest that the agency is ready to elevate and dignify the very worst of human behavior.

Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who is supposed to be a Democrat, met with Fox News executives at a retreat in Montana two months ago. 

The Washington Examiner, a conservative publication, reports that the Murdoch family, who own Fox News, invited Fetterman to their ranch in the state along with other network leaders. Fetterman took part in a panel focused on social media, along with Republican Senator Katie Britt, during the event.  

“I was invited to go there,” Fetterman told the Washington Examiner when asked about his attendance, adding that he’s happy to speak with anyone who wants to have “conversations in a straight way.”

It’s the latest in a series of pro-conservative moves for the Pennsylvania politician, who entered the Senate with progressive credentials as the mayor of the Rust Belt small town of Braddock, Pennsylvania. In Trump’s second term, however, Fetterman has voted to confirm many of the president’s appointees, taken a hard-line stance supporting Israel, and broken ranks with his party on immigration and the Iran war. 

Last week, Fetterman drew praise from the MAGA right for showing up in a video message at the Republican midterm convention supporting Pennsylvania’s other senator, Republican Dave McCormick, and praising Trump’s help to the Keystone State’s steel industry. To Democrats, however, it was another example of Fetterman blowing off the people he represents and those who voted him into office to curry favor with the right. 

Fetterman continues to insist that he’s a Democrat and doesn’t plan on switching parties. But his actions are increasingly in line with what Republicans want, and music to the ears of conservative media. The Murdoch family wouldn’t have invited Fetterman to their ranch if they didn’t think highly of him, and they clearly have more plans for him in pursuit of their right-wing agenda. The question is what Fetterman is going to do in the next two years before he’s up for reelection. 

Anthropic is releasing these features to Pro and Max plan subscribers initally

Quick Take

• We spoke to Lauren Cohan about The Walking Dead: Dead City‘s surprising season three finale and the complex relationship between Maggie and Negan.
• Cohan has portrayed Maggie for 15 years, and reflects on what it means to have such longevity as an actor.
• The decision for Maggie to call Negan “family” is not one that the creative team took lightly.

The Walking Dead: Dead City ended its third season in a space that no fan of this franchise would’ve seen coming a few years ago. Maggie and Negan are in a very amicable space, with Maggie putting him in charge of the security for their growing NYC community. There are plans to expand and do so much more, which we hope we will get to see in the near future. We spoke to Lauren Cohan about portraying Maggie for 15 years and the complex dynamic between her and Negan. 

Robert Clark/AMC

Nerdist: It’s hard to believe that you’ve been playing Maggie for 15 years and there are so many fans who have literally grown up watching you on their TV screens. In what ways has Maggie shaped you as a person and as an actor? 

Lauren Cohan: I’m very grateful to have had consistency. I think that’s one thing that actors and a lot of people don’t get… it’s just like it’s such a rare experience in any line of work, especially acting. And so on that sort of practical level, I think it’s been great because it can be so uprooting and lonely, honestly, to do this job sometimes. You go to new places and you make amazing relationships and amazing friends, and then at the end of a job you disperse. And with Walking Dead, we’ve had such a rare experience.

The first thing you feel is just gratitude to be doing a cool show with cool material, and working with great people. And then over time you’re like, “Wow, this is such a unique bond because for the rest of my life I will meet Walking Dead fans.” It’s like we all grew up and went to this generational university together and it’s never lost on me how unique that is. So that’s sort of on a practical life level. And then as an actor for Maggie, the best thing you can ever do is learn and have somewhere to practice your learnings and be around people… I just feel very fortunate to have been with sincere filmmakers and storytellers for a really long time. And I love it. I feel so lucky. She’s had some amazing material. 

Yes, I think Maggie had such an incredible journey throughout the original flagship series. And that’s even more true with Dead City’s third season. She starts the beginning of the season hopeless and dejected and separated from her son. And she ends it with hope and trust and wanting to rebuild a new world. How much input did you get to have when it came to Maggie’s storyline and shaping her trajectory this season?

Cohan: I was like Maggie needs to have fun! Maggie needs a friend. Maggie and Megan need to move forward. These were all the things that I wanted and [Jeffrey Dean Morgan] wanted too. Everything up to this point was necessary because if we had made a change or if we had evolved into a friendlier state too soon, it would’ve been wrong.

And no matter what people said about it, because obviously some people felt like the war went on too long, but anything else would’ve been too short. You know what I mean? And we needed certain development for each character to get to a place. It was much more about Maggie’s relationship with herself and witnessing the possibility of change in Negan, but moreover witnessing the loss of a relationship with Herschel. And I think that the end of season two is what really cracked her open to what made the change possible this year.

Robert Clark/AMC

Right. Speaking of her relationship with Negan, there’s been some cyclical things and feelings happening over the years. But, it does feel authentic because if you had a really complex relationship with someone like that, you’re not going to have a straight line towards acceptance and moving forward. I was really surprised at the end of this season when she made Negan the head of security and showed that she has some trust in him. She basically said, “I don’t necessarily forgive you, but I will trust you to be able to work in this capacity and we can work together.” Do you really think that there’s any pathway for Maggie to find forgiveness or is she resigned to that space of acceptance?

Cohan: What would forgiveness mean? Is it absolving someone? Because nothing Maggie can do or say will be a greater gift to herself or Negan than saying, “Despite what happened, let’s keep going.” I think when you live in the apocalypse, a friend or somebody that helps you to persevere is the best thing I can do as a friend to anybody. 

I think what’s happened too is that they’ve mutually had so much suffering. They’ve both sort of suffered the same amount at this point. He’s lost Ginny, even though it wasn’t at the hands of brutality the way Maggie experienced with him killing Glenn. But at this point being able to agree to move forward and to say there’s good in you, I think it’s worth more than forgiveness. And I think that her accepting his encouragement is what makes him feel a sense of worth and purpose. It’s almost beyond the question of forgiveness at this point, but I’m glad you asked that because it was so nuanced for us to even choose to use the word family. We decided how we would actually articulate that moment.

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Emily Kinney on Beth’s Return in THE WALKING DEAD: DEAD CITY

And to me, it’s like, “I’m here for you. I’m not going to like everything that you do, but you have proven yourself to be reliable.” And of all the people in the world, she has known Negan the longest and she actually can rely on him and he came for her. And even though he went and killed La Dama without checking that that’s actually what she wanted, he did perceive that to be what she wanted. So we’re just going to give that one a pass because she was really messing with Maggie’s s**t. [laughs]

Tai Gooden is the Features Editor for Nerdist, a fictional villain apologist, and a horror aficionado who is forever waiting for her trip in the TARDIS.

The post Lauren Cohan on DEAD CITY’s Finale, Maggie’s Arc, and Negan appeared first on Nerdist.

Companies are getting more selective about replacing legacy kit such as mainframe systems, and rising AI investment is one of the factors causing them to hold onto these existing assets for longer. Managed services biz Ensono claims in its 2026 State of IT Modernization report that 78 percent of IT decision makers regard legacy systems as more important today than they did two years ago, and this is because such systems are viewed as key to making AI work for their organization. The report is based on a survey of 500 IT decision-makers and line-of-business leaders conducted by the firm across the US and UK. Its findings show that AI is reshaping modernization priorities, but that corporates are still grappling with many of the challenges that have traditionally complicated modernization efforts, such as budget overruns, delayed initiatives, and talent shortages. Ensono found that 45 percent of firms are actively scaling AI deployments across their organization, while 44 percent are investing in targeted, high-impact use cases. Supporting AI, automation, and advanced data initiatives is now the top pressure driving modernization, while more than half of companies say that AI is helping advance modernization by delivering through greater automation and improved efficiency. Among the barriers businesses face, the top challenges to achieving AI goals are said to be difficulty integrating AI into existing workflows and business processes (33 percent of respondents) and infrastructure limitations (28 percent). For this reason, Ensono says that those legacy systems are taking on new strategic value as organizations attempt to scale their AI rollout. Nearly half of organizations view legacy systems such as mainframes as a critical foundation for AI and an important source of data for this purpose, while 47 percent use them selectively for specific AI applications. More than half of organizations are optimizing and extending legacy systems while modernizing applications where they are, rather than replacing them outright. This is an approach that’s slightly more common in the UK (57 percent of respondents) than the US (48 percent). “Enterprises are discovering that legacy systems, like the mainframe, are intensely powerful, reliable and efficient sources of computing that can now be augmented and made more agile thanks to AI,” says Ensono’s Chief Strategy Officer Brian Klingbeil. “These systems contain decades of data and business logic that drive many companies. The advantage will go to organizations that understand their environments well enough to distinguish what should be replaced versus what should be augmented, and embrace new modernization methods that simply were not available even 18 months ago.” However, using the mainframe as a foundation for AI rollouts was noted by infrastructure services firm Kyndryl two years ago. It found that big iron was becoming a prime candidate to host and run AI workloads, while enterprises were increasingly integrating their mainframes with modern infrastructure. This meant moving some workloads off the mainframe while updating others in place to continue to benefit from the security and reliability of the platform. Analyst Gartner also said earlier this year that migrating workloads to a mainframe made more sense for VMware users than adopting Broadcom’s new licenses. Elsewhere, HPE managing director for UK, Middle East and Africa said that enterprise customers are opting to sweat IT assets for longer, moving refresh cycles from five years to seven years, for example. “I think we're seeing earlier planning for critical projects. I think a lot of customers are looking much further ahead on their roadmap of spend at the things they have to do, because maybe some technology is going end of support or the lease is expiring at the datacenter,” he said. “So I think you're seeing a decision tree of, do we pause here, and do we sweat the asset for a little bit longer, or is this essential to move ahead? I think it's fundamentally forcing a rethink for customers.” ®

“Why do I have to beg my grandparents to put on their hearing aids, but no one has ever needed to ask me to put on my glasses?”  That’s the question that drove Matthew de Jonge to spend six years building Fortell, an AI hearing aid startup that recently raised $163 million from the likes of Founders Fund, Thrive Capital, and Valor Equity […]

As Iowa slips away from Republicans thanks to President Donald Trump’s policy decisions decimating the state’s large agricultural sector, GOP lawmakers in the state are growing increasingly desperate in their efforts to hold on to power. If you want an example of that, look no further than this farce of an ad released by Rep. Ashley Hinson, the GOP nominee for the Hawkeye State’s open Senate…

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At this year's Disrupt, Neuralink's co-founder Max Hodak will present a vision for screen-free interfaces that can even offer medical help. Register before September 25 to save up to $200 on your pass.

A cartoon by Clay Jones. Related | Trump says he’s the only one smart enough to regulate AI…

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Flock cameras are recording even more than you think.

A hacker collective known as stegan0gram tore down a Flock camera, scoured its insides, and shared the results with WIRED Wednesday, revealing that the proliferating surveillance devices are capturing and logging far more than license plate numbers.

A joint analysis of the camera’s data indicated that it had captured millions of images over the span of just a few weeks, cataloguing people, bicycles, and even small details such as bumper stickers. In one instance, the Flock camera identified an American flag patch on a motorcyclist’s bag.

Those images are then uploaded to Flock’s servers, where they are sorted, filed, assessed for other identifying details (such as car type and manufacturer), and ultimately sold to police departments across the country—a business model that has catapulted the company to a $8.4 billion valuation.

Even America’s smallest cities are under a close eye. The Flock cameras in Alpharetta, Georgia—which has a population of nearly 67,000 people—are accessible to more than 2,000 agencies, according to another WIRED report. Those entities included police departments, colleges, airports, as well as the federal General Services Administration’s Office of Inspector General.

Some local legislatures have banned sharing the sensitive data with outside agencies, but cops in some of those areas have still performed lookups on behalf of inquiring federal immigration agents, 404 Media reported in May.

Flock Safety has deployed tens of thousands of cameras across the country to record and document the movements of everyday Americans, regardless of whether or not they’re suspected of a crime. The cameras’ sudden prevalence—and erosion of privacy—has triggered a national backlash. Some people have even taken matters into their own hands, risking the threat of jail to hunt and destroy the surveillance devices.

But choosing to dissect one of the devices that have cumulatively put Americans in a digital panopticon was a no-brainer, according to one stegan0gram member.

“Why just destroy them when we can reverse engineer them and find the secrets of those spying on us?” one of the hackers told WIRED. “We liberated hardware in the field, disarmed them, and proceeded with reverse engineering of the cameras and associated solar equipment.”

There’s kids running up a few hundred bucks on in-app purchases, and then there’s the case of nine-year old YouTuber Mighty Mike Plays, who just cost his dad $118,000 – and possibly his job – after running a bunch of Google ad campaigns for his channel on papa's company credit card. The young Roblox and Minecraft YouTuber posted a video Tuesday – or perhaps it's more apt to say his father Dave posted the video to explain why Might Mike Plays might be going dark for a while. In it, nine-year-old Mike explains “I think this might be the end,” before handing the mic to his dad. “My son has been running some high-budget campaigns on YouTube that I was pretty much unaware of,” Dave explained after taking the mic. Dave didn’t figure this out after spotting the charges himself, however. He learned about it after being called into a meeting with his manager and the finance department at his employer, an unnamed “large” company where he works in marketing. Dave was confronted with a spreadsheet with a full breakdown of three weeks of advertising spending from his corporate card that totaled $118K and asked to explain it. “It dawned on me that, oh crap, this is probably something my son did,” Dave said in the video. “The number sitting on the page in front of me had about five more digits than it should have.” A breakdown of the spending named his child’s account, as well as Roblox and Minecraft video titles, making it pretty clear pretty quickly that Mighty Mike had been misusing dad’s corporate card. Whatever excuse Dave made for the mortgage-sized mess apparently didn’t go over too well with his employer, as Dave explained in the video that the matter is being escalated up the corporate ladder and he’s not sure if he’ll keep his job. “This is not just like a haha, funny story, everything worked out fine kinda situation,” Dave said. “There is a real genuine chance I have to end up personally having to pay some or all of this back out of my pocket.” A series of avoidable events As for how a nine-year old could run up six figures of ad spending to boost his video game recordings, Dave admits that’s pretty much entirely his fault. Dave started the channel for Mike a couple of years ago after watching his son spend hours in front of the computer passively ingesting Roblox and Minecraft videos posted by other players. He reasoned that encouraging Mike to record and post his own videos would at least be a bit more interactive. After a few months of doing so, Mike asked his dad for some Robux, the in-game currency used by Roblox players to buy cosmetic items and access to game features. In what would prove to be the first of several dumb moves, Dave put it on his company card. The advertising professional apparently failed to realize that putting those card details into the account made them permanently accessible. Then came the second mistake: Mike said that his subscriber and viewer count wasn’t growing as fast as he wanted it to, so Dave sat him down and helped him set up a Google ad campaign for his videos with a $20 spending limit. “I didn’t think for one second that this was going to be an issue,” Dave admitted. “Huge mistake on my part; turns out he was watching a little more closely than I realized.” After that $20 budget ran out, Mike simply started another campaign. Then another, and another, and presumably a bunch more after that, too. “When a nine-year old gets access to ad account with no limits and a CC that just says ‘approved’ every single time no matter what, he does not think that what he’s doing is wrong,” Dave said, correctly taking the blame for everything that happened. “This nine-year-old kid literally ransacked my company card,” Dave added. There are some good lessons for parents to take away from this: First off, don’t use your company card for personal purchases, which ought to go without saying. It’s perfectly reasonable that this should cost Dave his job, as he was apparently fine with using his company card for small personal purchases and is only feeling the sting of accountability because his kid went wild with company cash. Second, it’s probably safe to assume, after so many in-app purchase horror stories over the years, that any financial information stored on a device accessible to a kid is going to be used inappropriately, and you have no one to blame except yourself when it happens. “I’m not blaming him,” said Dave. “He’s only nine, he didn’t understand fully what a company card meant, or that a large number on the screen represented real money.” Better yet, just keep your kids away from screens. There’s plenty of evidence to suggest exposing kids to screen time – even a bit of it – has a long-term effect on their developing brains. Make ‘em go play outside, and if Minecraft is still on their minds just give ‘em a shovel and tell them to dig until they find some diamonds, or redstone, or something. It’s better for your wallet, the kids get exercise, and on the off chance they find something of value you can turn that into some Robux instead. ®

A plane split in two, a charred armored vehicle, flattened trailers, and smoke rising from a structure at Camp Buehring, Kuwait: New photos released by CBS News depict dramatic damage to American military infrastructure in the Middle East as a result of Iranian missile and drone attacks. The Iranian military, it seems, is alive and well.

These photos, released Tuesday night, follow an account published by the Department of Defense inspector general Monday that reveals far more damage to American military capabilities in the Middle East than had previously been disclosed. Despite the U.S. spending upward of $33.4 billion in the war effort so far, the military has lost dozens of drones, fighter jets, helicopters, and refueling tankers. Hundreds of buildings on U.S. bases in the Middle East, like those depicted in these photographs, have been damaged or destroyed by Iranian missile and drone attacks.

The new photos were reportedly sent to CBS News by active service members who have been on the ground at Prince Sultan Air Force Base in Saudi Arabia and Camp Buehring and Camp Arifjan in Kuwait.

“This is major damage to our bases that hasn’t been communicated to the American public,” one service member currently deployed overseas told the news outlet. “We’re standing there with our eyes closed getting punched in the face.”

Still, according to President Donald Trump, the U.S. already “won” the ongoing war against Iran—a claim he has repeated at least 66 times in the past six months.

If Trump’s definition of “winning” includes the deaths of at least 18 American service members; $184 million in damages to diplomatic facilities in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE; skyrocketing gas prices; damage to the global economy; a critical missile shortage; a U.S. naval base in Bahrain blown to “hell”; and historic unpopularity for his party ahead of a critical midterm election, then sure. Agree to disagree.

“We’re not defending these bases,” the service member added to CBS. “We’re just watching them get destroyed.”