Tech News – Page 2 – by Arlin Schaffel

Kids can bypass some age checks with a drawn-on mustache

A full 46 percent of children even said that age checks were easy to bypass, while just 17 percent said that they were difficult to fool. The methods kids use to fool age gates vary, but most are pretty simple: There's the classic use of a video game character to fool video selfie systems, while in other instances, children reported just entering a fake birthday or using someone else's ID card when that was required. The report even cites cases of children drawing a mustache on their faces to fool age detection filters. Seriously.
https://www.theregister.com/2026/05/04/uk_online_safety_act_age_checks_subvert/?td=rt-3a

Approaching Half of New Podcasts Appear to Be AI Slop

Of the 10,871 new podcast feeds created in the past nine days, 4,243 of them, or 39 percent, have signs of being AI-generated, data from the Podcast Index cited by Bloomberg last week showed. “It’s absurd,” Dave Jones, who runs the Podcast Index, said on his own show last week, per the outlet.
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/half-ai-podcasts-slop

These reusable digital Polaroids are a clever way to cover a fridge in memories

I’m infatuated with these magnetic digital Polaroids from a small company called VidaBay. They look like instant photos, but use NFC tech and color E Ink screens so you can change the image as often as you want without ever having to charge a battery.
https://www.theverge.com/tech/917067/vidabay-snap-nfc-e-ink-paper-fridge-magnet-photo-hands-on

OG Conversational Search Engine Ask.com Has Answered Its Last Question

Ask.com, one of the earliest attempts at conversational search engines, has shut down 30 years after its debut. “Every great search must come to an end,” reads the headline on the now-defunct website. “As IAC [parent company] continues to sharpen its focus, we have made the decision to discontinue our search business, which includes Ask.com. After 25 years of answering the world's questions, Ask.com officially closed on May 1, 2026."
https://www.pcmag.com/news/og-conversational-search-engine-askcom-jeeves-has-answered-its-last-question

Is the Vision Pro Dead? Apple Reportedly Stops Work on Its Pricey Headset

Apple has reportedly stopped work on its Vision Pro headset and shifted staff to other teams within the company, MacRumors reports. Some employees who worked on the Vision Pro have been transferred to the company’s Siri team, while others are being moved elsewhere.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/is-the-vision-pro-dead-apple-reportedly-stops-work-on-its-pricey-headset

Hackers are actively exploiting a bug in cPanel, used by millions of websites

Security researchers are sounding the alarm on a newly discovered vulnerability in the widely used web server management software cPanel and WebHost Manager (WHM). The bug allows hackers to hijack and take full control of the servers running the affected software, which is thought to be used by tens of millions of website owners around the world.
https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/30/hackers-are-actively-exploiting-a-bug-in-cpanel-used-by-millions-of-websites/

GitHub will start charging Copilot users based on their actual AI usage

GitHub has announced that it will be shifting to a usage-based billing model for its GitHub Copilot AI service starting on June 1. The move is pitched as a way to “better align pricing with actual usage” and a necessary step to keep Copilot financially sustainable amid surging demand for limited AI computing resources. These kinds of pricing moves could become more common as major AI companies try to convert growing revenue and high demand for their services into the kinds of profits that have so far been illusory. Amid an ongoing shortage of computing resources to meet that demand, the days of subsidized, subscription-based usage discounts for the most voracious users of AI may be coming to an end.
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/04/github-will-start-charging-copilot-users-based-on-their-actual-ai-usage/