'precommitment' Devices As A Safeguard Against Failure

Enlarge (credit: Avishek Das/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) This story was originally published by ProPublica. Investigating how the world’s largest software provider handles the security of its own ubiquitous products. After Russian intelligence launched one of the most devastating cyber espionage attacks in history against US government agencies, the Biden administration set up a new board and tasked it to figure out what happened—and tell the public.

Enlarge (credit: DragonImages | iStock / Getty Images Plus) A bunch of eighth graders in a "wealthy Philadelphia suburb" recently targeted teachers with an extreme online harassment campaign that The New York Times reported was "the first known group TikTok attack of its kind by middle schoolers on their teachers in the United States." According to The Times, the Great Valley Middle School students created at least 22 fake accounts impersonating about 20 teachers in offensive ways.

Testing spellcheck in the latest version of Windows Notepad. In March, Microsoft started testing an update to the venerable Notepad app that added spellcheck and autocorrect to the app's limited but slowly growing set of capabilities. The update that adds these features to Notepad is now rolling out to all Windows 11 users via the Microsoft Store, as reported by The Verge. The spellcheck feature underlines words in red when they're misspelled, and users can either left-click the words to see a list of suggestions or right-click words and see suggestions under a separate "spelling" menu item.

Enlarge / An American Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft approaches San Diego International Airport for a landing on June 28, 2024. (credit: Getty Images | Kevin Carter ) Boeing has agreed to plead guilty to a criminal charge and pay $243.6 million for violating a 2021 agreement that was spurred by two fatal crashes.

Enlarge / After developing the Next Gen stock car and then the Garage 56 car, NASCAR's tech team has now created a battery-electric race car prototype. (credit: NASCAR) This past weekend was a busy one on the racing calendar. Over in the UK, the British Grand Prix at Silverstone was yet more evidence that Red Bull no longer has the fastest car in F1.

Brad Pitt and Damson Idris co-star in F1, coming to theaters next summer. Can a washed-up Formula One driver come out of retirement to mentor a young rookie into a champion? That's the basic premise for F1, a forthcoming film starring Brad Pitt and directed by Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy, Top Gun: Maverick).