Technology

The Download: AI’s role in the Iran war, and an escalating legal fight

March 10, 2026
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. How AI is turning the Iran conflict into theater  Much of the spotlight on AI in the Iran conflict has focused on models like Claude helping the US military decide where to…

How AI is turning the Iran conflict into theater

March 9, 2026
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. “Anyone wanna host a get together in SF and pull this up on a 100 inch TV?”  The author of that post on X was referring to an online intelligence dashboard following…

The usability imperative for securing digital asset devices

March 9, 2026
When Tony Fadell started working on the iPod, usability often trumped security. The result was an iterative process. Every time someone would find a security weakness or a way to hack the device, the development group would iterate to add measures and fix the issues. Yet, flaws would frequently be found, and the secure design…

Is the Pentagon allowed to surveil Americans with AI?

March 6, 2026
The ongoing public feud between the Department of Defense and AI company Anthropic over its technology has raised a deep open question: does the law actually allow the US government to conduct mass surveillance on Americans? Surprisingly, the answer is not straightforward. More than a decade after Edward Snowden exposed the NSA’s collection of bulk…

The Download: an AI agent’s hit piece, and preventing lightning

March 5, 2026
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Online harassment is entering its AI era Scott Shambaugh didn’t think twice when he denied an AI agent’s request to contribute to matplotlib, a software library he helps manage. Then things…

How much wildfire prevention is too much?

March 5, 2026
The race to prevent the worst wildfires has been an increasingly high-tech one. Companies are proposing AI fire detection systems and drones that can stamp out early blazes. And now, one Canadian startup says it’s going after lightning. Lightning-sparked fires can be a big deal: The Canadian wildfires of 2023 generated nearly 500 million metric…