What You Need to Know About the Foreign-Made Router Ban in the US | WIRED

What You Need to Know About the Foreign-Made Router Ban in the US | WIRED

Everything You Need to Know About the Foreign-Made Router Ban in the US

The FCC just banned the sale of new consumer-grade Wi-Fi routers manufactured outside the US. Here’s what it means for you.

Photograph: Future Publishing/Getty Images

All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. Learn more.

The Federal Communications Commission has banned new consumer internet routers manufactured outside the US, citing national security concerns. The ban doesn’t affect any routers already in American homes or currently on sale in the US, but all new routers aimed at the consumer market will need to be approved.

While the headline is that foreign-made consumer routers are banned, manufacturers can apply for exemptions. There's no need to throw out your router, and you'll still find plenty of mesh systems on the store shelves. But what does this mean for you?

Why Are Foreign-Made Routers Banned?

“Malicious actors have exploited security gaps in foreign-made routers to attack American households, disrupt networks, enable espionage, and facilitate intellectual property theft,” the FCC wrote. “Foreign-made routers were also involved in the Volt, Flax, and Salt Typhoon cyberattacks targeting vital US infrastructure.”

Foreign-made consumer routers were added to the Covered List, which details equipment and services “deemed to pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States.”

Bogdan Botezatu, director of Threat Research at cybersecurity firm Bitdefender, says this ban is a step to harden the cybersecurity readiness of US households, given ongoing geopolitical tensions.

“Consumer routers sit at the edge of every home network, which makes them an attractive target and a strategic risk if compromised at scale,” he says. Asked whether he thinks the risk is real, Botezatu says yes, though there’s no easy way to prove intent. “[Internet of Things] devices, including routers, are a weak point across the internet.”

Which Routers Are Banned?

The ban only affects the sale of new Wi-Fi routers aimed at consumer households. The ban does not apply to existing FCC-approved routers on sale in the US. Previously purchased routers already in use in homes across the country are also fine and are not part of the ban, according to the FCC’s FAQ. These routers can continue to be sold, used, and updated with new firmware.

Any new router manufactured outside the US now requires FCC approval before it can be imported, marketed, or sold in the US. This includes routers from US companies that are manufactured overseas, which is the vast majority of the market right now.

What Does Foreign-Made Mean?

This is decidedly murky. The ban is concerned with “consumer-grade” routers and could include any that are designed or manufactured outside the US or manufactured by companies that are not completely US-owned and operated. All the major players in the market, including Netgear, TP-Link, Asus, Amazon’s Eero, Google’s Nest, Synology, Linksys, and Ubiquiti, fall under the definition. As do most, if not all, of the routers supplied by internet service providers in the US.

Just like the recent federal drone ban, the router ban only applies only to new routers, but manufacturers can apply for Conditional Approval from the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security. Applications must include details about ownership, board membership, and country of origin for components, IP ownership, design, assembly, and firmware, among other things. The final section requests details of the applicant’s US manufacturing and onshoring plan, so there’s a clear push to persuade companies to commit to making their routers in the US.

“No routers or manufacturers have been granted a Conditional Approval so far, but as the process gets underway, we expect approvals to be granted in a timely manner,” an FCC spokesperson tells WIRED.

What About Foreign-Made Components?

Well, the FCC provides some clarification in its FAQ (“covered” here means banned):

“Non-'covered' devices do not become ‘covered’ simply because they contain a 'covered' component part, unless the 'covered' component part is a modular transmitter under the FCC’s rules,” it says. “Therefore, a router produced in the United States is not considered ‘covered’ equipment solely because it contains one or more foreign-made components.”

Manufacturers importing components from China but assembling them in the US will presumably be OK, though it’s far from clear. “Applicants will need to be able to have sufficient evidence that the routers were not produced in a foreign country to make this certification, but there is no specific documentation or evidence required,” according to the FCC.

Let's look at the big three US router brands and see how they're affected.

Will TP-Link Be Banned?

Since all of its routers are made overseas, TP-Link will have to apply for Conditional Approval or spin up manufacturing in the US to sell any new routers. Estimates vary, but TP-Link’s US consumer router market share is somewhere around 35 percent, with Netgear and Asus accounting for another 25 percent or so.

The US Commerce, Defense, and Justice departments have reportedly been investigating and considering a ban on TP-Link routers for more than a year over concerns about the company’s links to China. No ban has been enacted until now, but Texas attorney general Ken Paxton sued TP-Link in February, claiming the company allows the Chinese Communist Party to access American consumers’ devices. Detractors have also criticized perceived predatory pricing, claiming TP-Link flooded the US market with a wide range of affordable routers to establish dominance.

TP-Link has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and claims it has divested from its Chinese roots and is now headquartered in the US with the bulk of manufacturing in Vietnam. TP-Link’s cofounder and CEO, Jeffrey Chao, recently applied for permanent US residency through President Trump’s Gold Card program, according to the Times of India.

“Virtually all routers are made outside the United States, including those produced by US-based companies like TP-Link, which manufactures its products in Vietnam,” a spokesperson from TP-Link tells WIRED. “It appears that the entire router industry will be impacted by the FCC’s announcement concerning new devices not previously authorized by the FCC.”

TP-Link is a privately owned company and not publicly listed on any stock exchange. Chao and his wife, Hillary, are listed as the company's sole owners.

Will Netgear Be Banned?

While it is a US-founded and headquartered company, Netgear’s routers are manufactured abroad, mostly in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and Taiwan, so it will have to apply for Conditional Approval. The company has moved away from China in recent years. Netgear has been lobbying the government on “cybersecurity and strategic competition with China.”

“We commend the administration and the FCC for their action toward a safer digital future for Americans,” a Netgear spokesperson tells WIRED. “Home routers and mesh systems are critical to national security and consumer protection, and today’s decision is a step forward.”

Netgear is a publicly traded company on the Nasdaq, mostly owned by institutional investors, including BlackRock and Vanguard. The company’s stock rose on news of the ban, suggesting that many investors believe it won’t be hit too hard.

Will Asus Be Banned?

Asus primarily makes its routers in Taiwan, though it has production facilities in China and works with several third-party manufacturers. Recent tariff pressures led the company to branch out to Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Mexico, and the Czech Republic, but the bulk of its routers still come from Taiwan or China. Asus will have to apply for Conditional Approval to sell new routers. The company did not respond to WIRED's request for comment.

Asus is listed on the Taiwanese Stock Exchange and is mostly owned by public shareholders. The ban doesn’t appear to have impacted its stock price.

Are Any Routers Manufactured in the US?

The only routers I know of that are manufactured in the US are some Starlink Wi-Fi routers, which are primarily made in Texas. Starlink is part of Elon Musk's SpaceX company, but many of the components in these routers come from East Asia.

Botezatu says what matters more than geography is the security model behind the product. Companies that invest in “long-term firmware support, vulnerabilitgy management, and built-in protection layers” offer stronger security.

How Will the Router Ban Impact Ordinary Folks?

It’s not entirely clear, but it probably won’t have a huge immediate impact. There is already a wide range of Wi-Fi 7 routers and mesh systems on the market that will continue to be sold—they enable speeds well in excess of what most people need at home. Whether companies spin up manufacturing in the US or find other ways to satisfy government agencies that their wares are not a security risk, the result is likely to be higher prices for consumers.

"This ruling has the potential to significantly disrupt the US consumer router market," Brandon Butler, a research manager of Network Infrastructure and Services at IDC tells WIRED. “In the near term, much will depend on how quickly conditional waivers are processed. Most vendors are likely to pursue them, but any delays could constrain supply and create upward pressure on pricing.”

If you haven't upgraded to the latest Wi-Fi 7 standard, now might be a good time to do it. But it's worth keeping in mind what you're buying. Botezatu says consumers should “stick with reputable manufacturers that have a track record of issuing updates and maintaining their devices. Check that your router is still supported and runing the latest firmware.”

Unanswered Questions

The ban does leave several unanswered questions. Why is it being applied only to consumer routers? Which routers or manufacturers will be granted a Conditional Approval? Why are the foreign-made routers currently on sale and in our homes deemed safe? The FCC did not address these questions.

AI is already interviewing job candidates

  

AI is already interviewing job candidates, and it’s an utter humiliation for them

 

A disturbingly high number of companies are now using AI tools to sift through resumes of job seekers. And if that was not enough, there’s a new trend where an AI also conducts interviews based on the queries fed to it by the hiring team. It’s already brutal out there in the job market, but the AI interviews are just worsening it. A new survey published in The Guardian says nearly half of applicants have been interviewed by AI, and the experience has been agonizing for multiple reasons. “I’m not even sure anybody watched the interview,” remarked one candidate, who was interviewed by an AI software and received a rejection email a week later. Some say it’s a humiliating ordeal. “I spoke in bullet points and keywords,” said another applicant, adding that they never talk like that in real life.

 

Read More

Apple has a happy Mac problem

 

Apple has a happy Mac problem, and it’s bad news for shoppers out there

 

For weeks, the Mac mini has been in utterly short supply, with shipments even stretching into months for certain configurations. Why though? AI, and more especially, the rush to run AI agents such as OpenClaw. The situation with the $599 MacBook Neo has been no different. During its earnings calls, Apple confirmed that customer uptake of the cheap laptop has been off the charts. The situation is no different for the desktop Macs. “Realistically, on the Mac mini and the Mac Studio, I believe it will take several months to reach supply-demand balance,” outgoing chief Tim Cook told journalists on the call. The AI demand is not waning, so expect supplies to remain tight in the coming months. Samsung, one of the biggest memory chipmakers, says the supply issue will further worsen heading into 2027.

UAE leaves OPEC in a big blow to the oil cartel

 UAE leaves OPEC in a big blow to the oil cartel

Fadel Senna/Getty Images

The UAE is like the friend who just announced in the group chat that they’re taking their own car on the road trip. The Gulf nation announced yesterday that it’s leaving OPEC, the 12-nation oil cartel that accounts for half of global oil exports. The oil-flush nation’s abrupt departure—which it said will happen on Friday—is a huge blow to the organization that coordinates countries’ oil outputs in order to control prices. The UAE is the third largest oil producer in OPEC, after Saudi Arabia and Iraq. UAE-shaped hole OPEC has already been losing its grip on the world’s oil supply in recent years, as the US fracking revolution floods global markets with American oil. But now, its sway will be even more limited. The UAE said it’s leaving OPEC to have more freedom to decide how much oil to sell, and that it plans to gradually grow oil production as the world demands more of it: Before the closure of the Strait of Hormuz forced the country to reduce oil shipments, it produced 3.6 million barrels of oil daily, maxing out its quota. It seeks to boost production to 5 million barrels daily by 2027 by building pipelines or maximizing shipments once the strait reopens. There are likely geopolitical reasons, too: The UAE is engaged in a regional rivalry with Saudi Arabia, which is the de facto leader of OPEC. The two countries have the most oil sloshing around beyond what OPEC allows to be exported. Why now? The UAE says it made the decision to bid OPEC adieu now, amid the Iran war, when it would have the least disruptive impact, since oil prices are at multi-year highs. Looking ahead: Experts say that while OPEC losing the UAE might not suppress oil prices in the near future it might make them more volatile in the long term.

Ottawa Greenlights $4B Enbridge Gas Pipeline Expansion in B.C.

Ottawa Greenlights $4B Enbridge Gas Pipeline Expansion in B.C.
April 26, 2026
Reading time: 7 minutes

Full Story: The Canadian Press
Author: Lauren Krugel, Ian Bickis, Nick Murray



Mack Male/Flickr



The federal government has approved a $4-billion plan by Enbridge Inc. to expand an existing natural gas pipeline in British Columbia, a move one executive says demonstrates a greater “sense of purpose” from Ottawa toward bolstering Canada’s status as a global energy exporter.

The Sunrise project would add 300 million cubic feet per day of transportation capacity on Enbridge’s 3.6-billion-cubic-feet-per-day Westcoast system, which connects gas fields in northeastern B.C. and northwestern Alberta to the Canada-U.S. border. The project involves adding almost 140 kilometres of new pipe by constructing 11 looping segments parallel to the existing line.

The gas that would flow through the expanded line is not bound for any particular destination, but “some of the capacity will no doubt go offshore,” Matthew Akman, who leads Enbridge’s gas transmission and midstream business, told reporters on April 24.

Sunrise was not reviewed under federal legislation passed last year meant to speed along new infrastructure deemed in Canada’s national interest. Nonetheless, Akman said he appreciates the improved tone under Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal government.
‘Do it Faster’

“There’s more of a sense of purpose and an intent and a prioritization, which is what we need to see in Canada,” Akman said.

“Going forward, though, I think we all need to work more closely together to make this even faster. And there are ways to have just as rigorous a consultation process, just as rigorous an environmental review process and community engagement process, but do it faster.

“We’ve been at this project almost four years already and still don’t have a shovel in the ground.”

The approval is part of the government’s effort to get more projects moving, faster, said Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson during a speech in Toronto on Friday.

“For too long, we became accustomed to mistaking delay for seriousness. But seriousness is not measured by how long a country takes to make decisions, it is measured by whether those decisions are thoughtful, credible and made in a timeframe that actually matters.”

He said the Sunrise project will provide more supply for heating buildings, provide gas for electric power generation and industrial and manufacturing processes as well as ensure enough supply of LNG.

The project will add more than $3 billion to Canada’s GDP and create some 2,500 jobs at peak construction, said Hodgson.

He said the government will be ushering more projects ahead to actually being built. By spring 2027, there will be not only more projects added to the major projects office, but at least five to 10 new projects reaching a final investment decision or broken ground.

“Canada is building again.”

B.C. Premier David Eby said the Sunrise expansion is good news for jobs in his province.

“At a time of uncertainty and global instability, this is how we create the prosperity needed to pay for the public services that make us all better off,” he said in a news release.

But Alex Walker, energy analytics program director with Environmental Defence Canada, called Ottawa’s approval “a disastrous climate decision that prioritizes fossil fuel industry growth over Canada’s climate commitments.”

Construction on the pipeline is expected to begin this summer, with startup targeted for late 2028.

All of the soon-to-be built space on the Sunrise project has been spoken for, Akman said, noting the company is also expanding gas infrastructure in the northern part of B.C.

Last year, Enbridge inked a partnership with an alliance of three dozen First Nations in B.C. for a 12.5 ownership stake in the existing Westcoast pipeline. Akman said those groups are not obligated to take on equity of the pipeline expansion, but have the option to do so.

Akman said there is opportunity to build even more gas pipeline capacity—from scratch or by expanding existing infrastructure—under the right conditions.

One is to ensure a speedy review process “because we can’t tie capital up forever doing these things.”

Another is to ensure Canadian investments can compete with projects being pursued in the United States, where Enbridge has a substantial presence and has been seeing better returns.

“We’re a large company with investors all over the world,” Akman said. “So if we see competitive returns on capital in British Columbia, then we could do any of those types of investments.”
Geopolitical Issues at Play

In the context of the current global energy crisis, fuelled in large part by the war in Iran and its disruption of oil and gas supply chains, this pipeline is a big deal, according to experts who spoke with The Canadian Press.

“It’s another step toward diversifying our asset base in a world hungry for this,” said Jay Khosla, the executive director of economic and energy policy with the Public Policy Forum and a former assistant deputy minister in the Privy Council Office.

“The South Koreans in particular are out there begging for any source of supply of gas at this moment in time. The Nepalese and the Bangladeshis and the Pakistanis are running out of cooking fuel, which is gas-based, (and) are moving to 4-day work weeks because the Qatari supply has been taken off the market,” he said.

“This is all an effort to address that.”
Leverage For Canada-U.S. Relations

While the expanded pipeline will help Canada meet the broader goal of reducing its reliance on the United States as a customer, it also helps position Canada as a necessary supplier to the United States.

“For a long time, the shale revolution in the United States was flooded with natural gas, and now we’re starting to pick up again where the United States is importing more from Canada and wants more from Canada,” said Heather Exner-Pirot, a senior fellow and director of energy, natural resources and environment at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

“They need more AI. They need more data centres. And they are exporting more LNG than they’ve ever exported, and we’re talking about non-renewable resources.

“So I feel in my heart in the next 10 or 15 years, Canadian natural gas is going to be very important to the American natural gas story.”

Khosla added that expanding Canada’s export capacity could put it in a better position as it prepares to formally begin negotiations on the mandatory review of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement, better known as CUSMA.

“It really allows us to catalyze something that we’ve been trying to do for a long time, which is market diversification, leverage with the U.S., and for sure I do think that it could help with CUSMA,” Khosla said.

“I know for a fact, and we’ve heard that, the president (Donald Trump) is not really thrilled that we’re supplying Chinese markets with our oil right now because he knows he needs all of that.

“Like we give them pretty much 25% of their source supply. All of these moves are very, very helpful to give us some leverage—and we don’t have a lot, let’s be honest.”
The Carney Government’s Political Play

Prime Minister Mark Carney has promised to build big and build fast as he tries to shore up Canada’s economy in the face of U.S. protectionism and tariffs. But approving a new pipeline is a complicated process fraught with political landmines and opposition from environment groups and many Indigenous communities.

While Exner-Pirot said the expansion itself isn’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things—she described Enbridge’s $4 billion investment as “table stakes”—she sees this as an easy win for the Carney government because it’s natural gas, and British Columbia isn’t opposed to it.

“It’s good that we’ll have construction. That’s going to be very helpful for the B.C. economy, so it’s absolutely not nothing,” Exner-Pirot said.

“And there was Indigenous support. So a very easy thing for them to do and to say, ‘We are building and we are being an energy superpower.”

Khosla agreed that having both Indigenous support and ownership behind the project was key to pushing it through. He noted it was done without the need to refer it to the major projects office.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 24, 2026

Bosses Are Blowing More Money on AI Agents

Bosses Are Blowing More Money on AI Agents Than It’d Cost Them to Just Pay Human Workers
"The cost of compute is far beyond the costs of the employees."

By Frank Landymore

Published Apr 27, 2026 4:14 PM EDT
Add Futurism(opens in a new tab)More information


Getty / Futurism

Sign up to see the future, today

Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech
Email addressSign Up

Mindlessly unleashing AI agents to take over employees’ jobs can be pretty costly, it turns out. Some companies are learning the hard way that paying for the incredible volume of AI agent requests is costing more than what they’d pay their human employees, Axios reports.

AIs can perform all sorts of tasks, ranging from the rote to the complex. But one of the most popular ways it’s being used in the workplace is to generate mountains of code at a pace far greater than a human could achieve. Sometimes, software engineers will even run multiple AI agents at the same time, all working on different tasks in the background without supervision. Each of these tasks costs tokens, and the bill can quickly add up.

“For my team, the cost of compute is far beyond the costs of the employees,” Bryan Catanzaro, vice president of applied deep learning at Nvidia, told Axios.

The problem has become harder to ignore as organizations are increasingly reliant on using AI tools and agents — including the organizations building them. “Pretty much 100 percent” of Anthropic’s code is now AI-generated, the company’s head of Claude Code Boris Cherny claimed earlier this year. Google and Microsoft’s bosses claim that this share is around a quarter of their companies’ code. Meta employees performance reviews are now partly based on how much AI they use, showing that a lot of the push towards using AI is coming from the top.

It probably doesn’t help that many tech workers are treating their token bills as member-measuring contests, using millions of tokens in a single day. The slang for this, we regret to inform you, is “tokenmaxxing,” with some power users racking up monthly token bills north of $150,000. “I probably spend more than my salary on Claude,” Max Linder, a software engineer in Stockholm, told The New York Times last month. Uber engineers using Claude Code have already blown through the company’s entire 2026 AI budget, The Information reported.

Tech leaders’ attempts to grapple with the situation can sound nearly as comical as the dilemma itself. In March, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang proposed giving software engineers AI tokens equal to roughly half their base salary, something he said could be used as a recruiting tool. Why be wooed by a signing bonus, when if you work for us, you get to use more AI?

At the same time, it’s a clear money-making opportunity for AI providers. One OpenAI investor told Axios that the concern over token costs could benefit them, since they believe Codex uses tokens more efficiently than Anthropic’s Claude Code. Anthropic, meanwhile, has cashed in by raising its pricing.

In all, the token costs are just one of many major question marks over AI automation. The jury’s still out on whether using error-prone AIs is more efficient and worth the potential havoc they can wreak internally — as evidenced by incidents at Meta and Amazon, among others — while numerous studies suggest that forcing workers to use AI tools could actually be making their jobs harder.

More on AI: Devious New AI Tool “Clones” Software So That the Original Creator Doesn’t Hold a Copyright Over the New Version



Frank Landymore
Contributing Writer


I’m a tech and science correspondent for Futurism, where I’m particularly interested in astrophysics, the business and ethics of artificial intelligence and automation, and the environment.

We are announcing an amended agreement

 OpenAI shakes up partnership with Microsoft, capping revenue share payments

Published Mon, Apr 27 20269:03 AM EDTUpdated 2 Min Ago

Ashley Capoot@/in/ashley-capoot/WATCH LIVE
Key Points
OpenAI and Microsoft announced major changes to their working relationship.
Microsoft’s license to OpenAI intellectual property will no longer be exclusive.
OpenAI will keep paying a revenue share to Microsoft, but Microsoft will stop paying one to OpenAI.

In this articleAMZN-2.84 (-1.08%)
GOOGL+4.21 (+1.22%)
CRWV-2.71 (-2.46%)
NBIS-2.82 (-1.92%)
Follow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT

CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman speaks during the 2026 Infrastructure Summit of government officials, corporate executives, and labor leaders, in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 11, 2026.
Kylie Cooper | Reuters


OpenAI and Microsoft on Monday announced a revamped partnership agreement that will allow the artificial intelligence company to cap revenue share payments and serve customers across any cloud provider.

As part of the new agreement, the companies said revenue share payments from OpenAI to Microsoft will be “subject to a total cap,” but they will continue through 2030, “independent of OpenAI’s technology progress.” Microsoft no longer needs to determine its response if OpenAI finds that it has reached artificial general intelligence, or AGI, which is a term for an AI system that rivals or exceeds human intelligence.


The revenue sharing agreement between the two companies has existed for years. OpenAI will pay Microsoft at the same percentage, which is 20%, as part of the new deal, according to a source familiar with agreement who asked not to be named because the details are confidential. Microsoft will no longer pay a revenue share to OpenAI, according to a blog post.

The two companies said Microsoft remains OpenAI’s primary cloud provider, and that OpenAI products will ship first on Azure unless Microsoft decides otherwise. However, OpenAI can now serve “all of its products” to customers across any provider, including Microsoft rivals Amazon and Google.

Microsoft has been one of OpenAI’s longtime backers, investing more than $13 billion in the company since 2019. The companies have continued to tout their relationship as core and strategic, but it’s shown signs of strain in recent months as the partners move onto the other’s turf. In a memo earlier this month, Denise Dresser, OpenAI’s revenue chief, said the partnership has “limited our ability to meet enterprises where they are.”

“Today, we are announcing an amended agreement to simplify our partnership and the way we work together, grounded in flexibility, certainty, and a focus on delivering the benefits of AI broadly,” OpenAI said.

Microsoft will continue to have a license to OpenAI’s intellectual property on AI models through 2032, although the license will no longer be exclusive, the two companies said.


Shares of Microsoft are down roughly 1% on Monday.

The revamped partnership comes after Microsoft and OpenAI announced a series of changes to their agreement in October, when OpenAI completed a recapitalization and committed to spending $250 billion on Microsoft Azure cloud services. As part of that announcement, Microsoft said its investment for-profit arm was valued at $135 billion, or roughly 27% of the company on an as-converted diluted basis.

But in the months since, OpenAI has been looking to diversify its reach, striking multi-billion dollar deals with Microsoft competitors like Amazon. Model developers are seeing customers run AI agents that carry out tasks over several hours. In recent weeks Meta committed to spending $48 billion with cloud providers CoreWeave and Nebius to supplement its own computing power.

Amazon and OpenAI formed a major strategic partnership in February, and Amazon agreed to invest up to $50 billion in the company as part of that agreement. OpenAI said it would expand its existing $38 billion agreement with Amazon Web Services by $100 billion over the next eight years. AWS will also serve as the exclusive third-party cloud distribution provider for OpenAI’s enterprise platform Frontier, which it unveiled earlier this month.

Following that announcement, Microsoft and OpenAI released a joint statement that said their partnership remained “strong and central.”

— CNBC’s Jordan Novet contributed to this report.

Canvas cyberattack shuts down schools’ sites

  Canvas cyberattack shuts down schools’ sites

Getty Images

Procrastinating Intro to Romantic Lit students at thousands of schools were granted a surprise extension on their final essays. Canvas, the platform that about half of all colleges and universities in North America use to manage assignments and share grades, shut down all its sites for a few hours on Thursday, after its parent company, Instructure, suffered a massive cyberattack—just in time for final exams. Instructure reported late Thursday that Canvas was back for most users, but not before schools like Penn State canceled some exams scheduled for Thursday and Friday. A hacking group called ShinyHunters took credit for the attack, which it claimed affected 8,800 universities and K-12 schools around the globe and 275 million people’s data. It’s unclear exactly how many users or schools were targeted, as hacker groups sometimes exaggerate the impact to gain media attention or to get a ransom, according to TechCrunch. Some users at Harvard reported seeing a message from the hackers on the school’s Canvas login page during the outage. The outage was temporary, but: Instructure first noted a cybersecurity incident on May 1, when it found that some Student IDs, names, and emails, as well as messages between users on Canvas, were breached. Hackers also told some school officials that they’d need to negotiate a settlement with them by May 12 or data would be leaked. Big picture: ShinyHunters has taken credit for a slew of similar high-profile breaches, hacking and exposing users’ personal information from some of the biggest data-hoarders in the country like Microsoft, Ticketmaster, and Salesforce.

Who is John Ternus, the new CEO of Apple?

 Who is John Ternus, the new CEO of Apple?

Christoph Dernbach/Getty Images

Apple’s incoming CEO John Ternus likely won’t harness the rockstar innovation vibes of Steve Jobs, slinging sleek new devices to an auditorium of fans. But he probably won’t take the quieter style of Tim Cook, who revolutionized the company’s supply chain and boosted its market cap from $300 billion to $4 trillion in 15 years, either. So…what will the Ternus era at Apple look like when he takes over for Cook in September? There are some hints in his already decades-long Apple tenure. Ternus, a mechanical engineer, has worked at the company since 2001 and served as the Senior VP for hardware engineering. Employees at the company reportedly really seem to like him: He’s decisive, focused, a good collaborator, and has been known to rise above the internal drama that plagued Apple’s early years. He’s also overseen a number of iconic products and hardware revamps at the company: Ternus was one of the execs that helped develop AirPods and facilitated Mac computers’ switch to using Apple’s own chips. He pushed for the MacBook Neo—the cheaper, colorful laptop—that Apple rolled out last month (which sold out almost immediately). But what can a hardware nerd do in the AI race? Critics argue Apple has been slow to make AI advancements, falling behind competitors. Fans, however, credit the tech giant for letting other companies dump hundreds of billions into data centers and LLMs that Apple can just run on its devices. Some AI truthers think the tech will transform the industry, potentially wiping out the need for iPhones altogether. In that case, it may be a good idea to have the hardware guy at the helm. Ternus reportedly reorganized the company’s hardware engineering department earlier this month to prepare it for faster AI product development. Looking ahead…after a handful of product flops, like the Vision Pro and the autonomous car, Apple has its sights set on big AI-powered launches: a more chatbot-like Siri, wearables, and smart home devices. And don’t forget the company is going to fold the iPhone in half.

The tweet sending JetBlue to court

 The tweet sending JetBlue to court

Austin DeSisto/Getty Images

Yet another reminder to be careful what you post online, since anyone can see your tweets: hiring managers, lawyers accusing you of surveillance pricing, your parents. Andrew Phillips lodged a class-action lawsuit on Wednesday, claiming JetBlue uses personal data to raise ticket prices—which the airline appeared to admit to in an X post. How’d it get from tweeting to suing? The suit cites an interaction between a customer and the official JetBlue account on X last week. The customer lamented a rapid ticket price hike, saying, “I love flying @JetBlue but a $230 increase on a ticket after one day is crazy, I’m just trying to make it to a funeral.” The JetBlue account responded, suggesting they try clearing their cookies and booking the flight in incognito mode. The response was quickly deleted, and JetBlue has since said the social media post was incorrect, denying that it uses cached data or personal data to set ticket prices. The airline said prices can change quickly based on availability. But…other X users quickly piled on, accusing the company of using surveillance pricing, or adjusting ticket prices based on available data about a customer. And amid the uproar, even members of Congress demanded more information from the CEO of JetBlue about the reply. Pay-what-you-can afford JetBlue is not the first company to face similar allegations. And whether you call it dynamic pricing, surveillance pricing, or we-know-you’ll-pay-3x-the-price-because-it’s-an-emergency, people are mad about it: Last year, Delta faced significant pushback for introducing plans to roll out AI-powered dynamic pricing. Uber has been accused of charging higher prices when your phone is dying (the company has denied this). Looking ahead…your summer travel might still be a mess, but maybe the groceries can be saved. Maryland is set to become the first state to ban price changes based on customer data in grocery stores. A bill passed earlier this month by the state legislature targets digital price tags in stores and online shopping.

A $165b annoyance

 A $165b annoyance

Adobe Stock

Turns out that all that time listening to your cable company’s hold music can cost more than just your sanity. A new report puts the accumulated cost of the “annoyance economy”—a term for fraught everyday interactions like dealing with spam, robocalls, hidden fees, insurance claims, and subscription cancellations—at $165 billion, according to the New York Times. The report’s authors, Stanford economist Neale Mahoney and Chad Maisel, a policy fellow at the progressive Groundwork Collaborative (who together worked in the Biden administration to try to tackle junk fees), say that while some of these nuisances result from outdated systems and regulations, others are there on purpose. Mahoney and fellow researchers have concluded that companies that make it difficult to end subscriptions earn anywhere from 14% to 200% more in revenue. So, perhaps keep that in mind as motivation to persevere the next time you find yourself repeatedly shouting “representative.”

Are you even human?

 

Image: Anna Shvets / Pexels

 

Are you even human? Zoom will now check if there are “AI people” sitting in meetings

 

Zoom is planning to use eye-scanning tech to make sure that people attending a video meeting are human, and not an AI-powered impersonator. The company will use a World ID, which is created after you scan your eyeball in an orb–shaped device. The device is made by a company named Tools For Humanity, which was co-founded and chaired by Sam Altman, the chief of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. With a World ID, you can prove your “real” identity in Zoom meetings. The orb idea, however, has been pretty controversial since its buzzy launch years ago. A "World ID" with Sam Altman and his buddy, Trump!?

Meta is making an AI Zuck to chat with employees

 Meta is making an AI Zuck to chat with employees

Niv Bavarsky

The next time Meta lays off thousands of employees, they might get the news from an AI version of Mark Zuckerberg instead of the real guy. That’s because building an AI Zuck to interact with the workforce has become a company priority, according to the Financial Times. Sources told the FT that a photorealistic AI Zuck is being trained on his mannerisms, tone, and public statements—like perhaps when he said the Metaverse would be the “next chapter for the internet”—so employees can interact with it and feel more connected to the CEO. If it’s successful, one person told the FT, creators and influencers could use the same tech to make AI doppelgangers capable of selling supplements or gatekeeping restaurants on social media. Meta has already developed AI characters that look like celebrities, including tennis star Naomi Osaka (Tamika) and ex-Pepsi spokesperson Kendall Jenner (Billie). This is different from Meta’s “CEO agent” project, which aims to create an AI assistant that would more quickly get information to Zuckerberg from employees, who have been encouraged to use agentic AI tools. All-in on AI: Last week, Meta launched MuseSpark, its latest AI model, and announced it was allocating an additional $21 billion on AI cloud infrastructure with CoreWeave as it continues to chase AI rivals OpenAI and Google.

Apple might owe you a little money

Apple might owe you a little money

Sven Hoppe/Getty Images

On Tuesday, Apple agreed to pay $250 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that accused the company of misleading customers about the AI features that would be available on iPhones. Now, you may be entitled to enough compensation to cover one Uber Eats burrito. Who’s eligible: People who bought the iPhone 15 Pro, Pro Max, or any iPhone 16 model in the US between June 10, 2024, and March 29, 2025. That shakes out to 37 million eligible devices. If you bought one of them: You’ll receive a letter or an email telling you how to file a claim. Expect $25 to $95 per phone (or possibly less, depending in part on how many people file claims). Back in 2024, Apple promised certain Apple Intelligence features—including an AI-infused version of Siri that was promoted in a commercial starring actor Bella Ramsey—but failed to deliver on them when the iPhone 16 launched that year. Apple didn’t have to admit to wrongdoing as part of the settlement. Zoom out: Though Apple has slowly rolled out some AI features, it’s still struggling in the AI race relative to peers. In January, the company said it would use Google Gemini to power its AI upgrades, including its much-delayed Siri overhaul, which is expected to finally launch this year.

Southwest Is About to Limit Power Banks on Flights

Southwest Is About to Limit Power Banks on Flights

Southwest Is About to Limit Power Banks on Flights
External chargers can spontaneously combust, creating flames that are tough to put out.
BY ECE YILDIRIMPUBLISHED APRIL 12, 2026, 4:58 PM ET

READING TIME 2 MINUTES

External chargers aren't so handy when they're on fire, are they? © Edward Berthelot/Getty Images
READ LATER COMMENTS (14)



Southwest Airlines will soon start capping how many portable chargers and power banks you can bring on a flight, according to an internal message obtained by the New York Times.

According to the report, starting April 20th, passengers will only be able to bring one lithium battery-powered portable charger per person to a flight, and they won’t be allowed to charge those portable chargers using in-seat power, nor will they be able to store them in the overhead bins. Instead, passengers will be asked to hold their portable chargers throughout the flight or store them in a carry-on bag under their seats.

Lithium batteries power much of the technology we use in our day-to-day lives, from phones to laptops to e-cigarettes. They are also found in portable chargers and power banks.

Most of the time, they work fine, but if they are damaged, overcharged, or overheated, then the batteries can catch fire. Due to the chemicals inside these batteries, the flames they can create could be very tough to extinguish.


Due to this risk, portable chargers were long banned from checked baggage, with airlines requiring passengers to put portable chargers and any other lithium battery-powered devices inside their carry-on bags instead.

But still, there were 97 lithium battery-related incidents in aviation in 2025, and there have already been 14 accidents this year, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The majority of the lithium battery-related air incidents that involved smoke, fire or extreme heat stemmed from portable chargers. The second biggest culprit was e-cigarettes, according to the FAA data.

The most high-profile recent incident was in January 2025, when an Airbus plane went up in flames on the tarmac at an airport in Busan, South Korea. Everyone on board had to evacuate, and the fire took roughly an hour to extinguish. Authorities later concluded that a power bank stored in an overhead bin may have been the culprit. A few months later, an Air China flight had to make an emergency landing when a lithium battery in an overhead bin spontaneously combusted mid-flight.

Chinese regulators have banned portable batteries from flights altogether, except if the device is clearly marked with a Chinese safety certification and has not been subject to recalls. Many airlines internationally have also since banned passengers from using or charging portable chargers, but Southwest is so far the only major American airline to come out with an even stricter set of rules for portable chargers.

One way that you can protect yourself against these spontaneous fires is to keep a close eye on product recalls. Anker, one of the world’s leading power bank makers, has issued several recalls over the past year due to potential fire risks.