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Reminder: Ignore Instagram password reset messages if you didn't request one

Reminder: Ignore Instagram password reset messages if you didn't request one

It's not entirely clear what's the full truth of the matter is, but a wave of Instagram password reset emails is hitting users, which may or may not be related to data tied to roughly 17.5 million accounts for sale online. Instagram users have information leaked The emails exploit growing confusion about a newly surfaced dataset linked to Instagram user information. Though the data lacks passwords, its circulation allows attackers to impersonate legitimate security messages and prompt users to act quickly. Reports of a large dataset tied to Instagram users triggered waves of unsolicited password reset emails. Meta says the activity reflects abuse of existing systems, not a compromise of its infrastructure. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

Alphabet hits a $4T market cap in intraday trading, becoming the fourth Big Tech company to reach the milestone, after its stock rose 6% in the past month (Tim Bradshaw/Financial Times)

Alphabet hits a $4T market cap in intraday trading, becoming the fourth Big Tech company to reach the milestone, after its stock rose 6% in the past month (Tim Bradshaw/Financial Times)

Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times : Alphabet hits a $4T market cap in intraday trading, becoming the fourth Big Tech company to reach the milestone, after its stock rose 6% in the past month —  Latest Gemini artificial intelligence model has fuelled investor optimism over competitiveness with OpenAI's ChatGPT

Monarch Money is offering 50 percent off its budgeting app for new users

Monarch Money is offering 50 percent off its budgeting app for new users

The start of the new year is a great time to get your finances in order, and a good budgeting app can help with that. Instead of laboring over a spreadsheet, you can try one of our favorite budgeting apps for less than usual. Monarch Money is running a sale that gives new users 50 percent off one year of the service, bringing the final cost down to just $50. Just use the code NEWYEAR2026 at checkout to get the discount. Monarch Money makes for a capable and detailed budgeting companion. You can use the service via apps for iOS, Android, iPadOS or the web, and Monarch also offers a Chrome extension that can sync your Amazon and Target transactions and automatically categorize them. Like other budgeting apps, Monarch Money lets you connect multiple financial accounts and track your money based on where you spend it over time. Monarch offers two different approaches to tracking budgeting (flexible and category budgeting) depending on what fits your life best, and the ability to add a budget widget on your phone so you can know how you're tracking that month. How budgeting apps turn your raw transactions into visuals you can understand at a glance is one of the big things that differentiates one app from another, and Monarch Money offers multiple graphs and charts to look at for things like spending, investments or categories of your choice based on how you've labelled your expenses. The app can also monitor the spending of you and your partner all in one place, to make it easier to plan together. The main drawbacks Engadget found in testing Monarch Money were the app's learning curve, and the differences in features (and bugginess) between Monarch's web and mobile versions. Still, for 50 percent off, the Monarch Money is well worth experimenting with if you're trying to save money in 2026, especially if you want to do it collaboratively with a partner. Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice . This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/monarch-money-is-offering-50-percent-off-its-budgeting-app-for-new-users-204507767.html?src=rss

DRAM, SSD shortages could last months to years, vendors say

DRAM, SSD shortages could last months to years, vendors say

The ongoing DRAM and flash memory / SSD shortage shows no signs of alleviating, with memory vendors telling PCWorld that the shortages in both markets will continue to drag on for months, even years. The CES 2026 trade show in Las Vegas last week was an opportunity for customers to talk to suppliers and vice versa, trying to scrounge up whatever memory chips they could. But the news just keeps getting grimmer. In mid-November, analysts began reporting that DRAM prices could rise throughout the first half of 2026. In early December, Micron said that it would discontinue its Crucial brand and its practice of selling DRAM directly to consumers. Kingston has also warned that prices will continue to go higher in the near term — pushing PC prices upwards as well . Executives at Micron say those customers — presumably including PC makers — are now asking for multi-year deals to assure supply. “I think, from our view, 6 to 12 months looks to be extremely constrained, and even out to 24 months looks very, very constrained,” said Mark Montierth, senior vice president of the mobile and client business unit at Micron, in an interview with PCWorld.com at CES. “DRAM, for sure. SSD maybe not as much, but that’s because there are more players, and it’s harder to triangulate all that.” Chris Kooistra, the vice president of marketing for Other World Computing (OWC), which manufactures SSDs, told PCWorld he sees the SSDs being constrained for at least six months, following a price spike in 2025. OWC sold SSDs at a higher price on Black Friday than at the beginning of November because of the unexpected and unavoidable price increases, he said. A third source at a peripherals manufacturer that buys memory and storage for its own uses also characterized the situation: “Best guess, SSDs, many months. DRAM, I don’t know. Years, maybe.” Close to chaos When a financial market careens out of control, governments can put a halt to trading to give the industry a breather, and restore order. There has been no such pause for the memory market, which traditionally cycles between boom years, when prices soar, and busts, when they plunge. Both SSDs and memory modules are tied very closely to the individual prices of flash chips and DRAM, as they don’t have that much more additional logic. As hyperscalers have snatched up every bit of memory and storage they can, the commodity memory makers say they have to keep up. Micron, for example, justified its closing of Crucial by noting that the total market for data centers rose from about 40 to 60 percent. (Micron still sells memory modules, even to consumers — just indirectly, via PC makers. “The [Crucial] storefront that lets you buy stuff from us is shutting, but not our support for that [consumer] market,” Montierth said.) “So it’s not that we’re focusing on that market, it’s that market is just exploding so fast,” Chris Moore, Micron’s vice president of marketing for the client business, added. “We have models internally of how much of our supply we want to go into every segment, and that segment is growing so fast that it’s just to maintain our share there is requiring more bits.” Right now, the shortages in both memory and storage are demand based, and simple economics says that when demand increases and supply remains the same, prices will increase. But it’s not an orderly market; companies have little time to plan. Phison, which manufactures SSD controllers as well as “white label” SSDs sold under other brands, reportedly is sold out for 2026, Digitimes reported , with chief executive Khein-seng Pua reporting that most NAND makers are sold out for the same period. The short-term “spot” market is drying up. And no one quite knows what to expect. “Most companies have an agreement each year of general allocation, then it is discussed and updated quarterly with pricing amounts,” Phison U.S. president Michael Wu said, as reported by Phison representative Lynn Kelly in an email to PCWorld.com. “The recent shortage has changed these typical planning cycles, however, since demands are exceeding industry supply. So allocation today is based on market dynamics.” Unless the AI market folds, the only real way out is new fabs Some strategies that might work in the logic market. Both AMD and Nvidia are considering reviving cheaper outdated silicon just to provide customers a price break, and — in the case of AMD — allow them to use older DDR4 memory modules instead. (The problem with that approach is that the DDR4 market is essentially dead, as DRAM makers have moved on to DDR5.) And in storage, manufacturing older flash memory simply wouldn’t offer as much storage, making them less “bit dense” and exacerbating the problem. Micron launched a single-sided M.2 2230 SSD, the Micron 3610, at the show, with capacities from 1TB to 4TB. New fabs also take years to complete; Micron broke ground on a DRAM fab in Boise in October 2023, and Moore said that first output will be in mid-2027. (Micron originally said DRAM output would begin in mid-2026.) At CES, Micron also announced that it will break ground on Jan. 16 on a new $100 billion megafab in New York that will potentially be the largest semiconductor facility in the U.S. We’re all on the same boat now, after the downturn in 2023 that was so painful,” Moore said. “No one could afford to go build new fabs…That’s what we’re paying for right now, when consumers were really happy.”

Researchers from Nvidia, Microsoft, and others use AI on 1M+ species to generate potential new gene editing and drug therapies, including AI-designed enzymes (Financial Times)

Researchers from Nvidia, Microsoft, and others use AI on 1M+ species to generate potential new gene editing and drug therapies, including AI-designed enzymes (Financial Times)

Financial Times : Researchers from Nvidia, Microsoft, and others use AI on 1M+ species to generate potential new gene editing and drug therapies, including AI-designed enzymes —  UK's Basecamp Research uses species genomic sequence database to tackle cancers and superbugs  —  An international team including …

Apple's Siri AI will be powered by Gemini

Apple's Siri AI will be powered by Gemini

Apple has confirmed reports that it will use Google Gemini’s models to help it power the new version of Siri and other generative AI features. “After careful evaluation, we determined that Google’s technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and we’re excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for our users,” Apple said, according to CNBC . The outlet reported that Apple and Google have a multi-year agreement in place. This story is developing; please refresh for updates… This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/apples-siri-ai-will-be-powered-by-gemini-153636649.html?src=rss

Peter Molyneux’s Final Game, Masters Of Albion, Gets April Release Date

Peter Molyneux’s Final Game, Masters Of Albion, Gets April Release Date

Peter Molyneux, the mind behind the Fable series, Populous, and Black & White, announced his next game, Masters of Albion, during Gamescom 2024 . His next – and final – game is coming to PC on April 22. Masters of Albion comes from Molyneux’s studio, 22 Cans, and blends elements of real-time strategy, town management, and simulation to an experience Molyneux describes as “the culmination of my life’s work,” in a press release. Players take on the role of a powerful god possessing a “god hand” capable of designing and building entire villages from the ground-up. Buildings can be customized, and different types of structures can be combined to form new building types. As you lord over your human citizens, you can manipulate them via possession, inspire them with divine acts, or punish them using abilities such as weather manipulation and more. Masters of Albion does not feature timers or waiting, allowing players to rule their worlds at their own pace. You can explore Albion from the heavens, control humans or animals such as dogs and chickens to take in the sights on foot. Players can complete quests to unlock treasures and secrets, or explore hidden areas to uncover the secret history of Albion. When night falls, the gameplay of Masters of Albion shifts into more of an RTS as players defend villages against evil creatures that appear in the dark. Fighting back involves building and placing defensive weapons, such as turrets, constructing walls and other structures to funnel enemies where needed, and hiring heroes to protect the populace. You can also possess heroes to fight monsters directly in real-time combat. Masters of Albion is 22 Cans’ first game since launching The Trail: Frontier Challenge in 2017. In October 2025, Molyneux told Video Games Chronicle that the game serves as a form of “redemption” following 22 Cans’ previous projects in which he overpromised and underdelivered, such as 2012's Curiosity: What's Inside the Cube and 2014’s Godus . He also stated that Masters of Albion would be the final game of his 43-year career. “I admit now that I did overpromise on things, and said things that I shouldn’t have said about Curiosity,” Molyneux told VGC last October. “But I only ever did that because I thought it was the right thing to do at the time. And so, Masters of Albion is a redemption title for me. But also, it’s my last game. It just is.” It makes sense, then, why Molyneux bills Masters of Albion as the nexus of every game he’s worked on, from Dungeon Keeper to Fable. “It’s a totally unique game that we hope will delight players, a game that brings God Games into the modern gaming landscape and puts the genre firmly back on the map,” says Molyneux in today’s announcement. Masters of Albion will be available exclusively on PC via Steam.

Pretty much no one is using Microsoft’s Copilot AI, report suggests

Pretty much no one is using Microsoft’s Copilot AI, report suggests

Microsoft appears to be falling behind in the AI race. According to new figures from analytics company SimilarWeb (spotted by Windows Latest ), Copilot accounts for only 1.1 percent of the market share on the web. The market is unsurprisingly dominated by ChatGPT, which has 64.5 percent, while Google’s Gemini has grown significantly to 21.5 percent. A year ago, the situation was very different. Back then, ChatGPT had 86.7 percent of the market with Gemini at 5.7 percent. During this same period, Copilot has fallen from 1.5 percent (back then) to 1.1 percent (now). Even smaller players in the AI space have climbed ahead of Microsoft’s ailing AI assistant, including Elon Musk’s Grok with 3.4 percent and both Claude and Perplexity with 2 percent each. Note, however, that these figures by SimilarWeb only apply to web traffic. It’s unclear how popular Copilot is on Windows 11, as Microsoft doesn’t publish any user figures. However, if user sentiment is a reliable measure, it can’t be doing that much better.