Check out the best deals for Friday, February 7. If you haven't yet picked out a Valentine's Day gift for your partner, several of these deals could fit the bill, like the latest VR gaming headset, an inexpensive power bank for your phone or gaming handheld, a new pair of AirPods, an excellent charity bundle consisting of twenty seven PC games, and more.$50 Off Meta Quest 3S VR Headset + $50 Best Buy Gift CardMeta Quest 3S 256GB VR Headset + Bonus $50 Best Buy Gift CardIf you've wanted to give VR gaming a try but the cost of entry has kept you at bay, then you might be interested in the first great Meta Quest deal for 2025. For a limited time, Best Buy is taking $50 off the Quest 3S 256GB VR headset, now only $349.99. But that's not all. You also get a bonus $50 Best Buy gift card and 1 month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. That essentially brings the price down to the same level as the base 128GB model.To sweeten the pot even more, the package also includes a copy of Batman: Arkham Shadow VR game and a three-month trial of Meta Quest+. In IGN's 8/10 review, Dan Stapleton wrote that "Batman: Arkham Shadow makes most of the Arkham series' defining gameplay work respectably well in VR, and its mystery story pays off."INIU 10,000mAh Power Bank for $9Limited Time DealINIU 10,000mAh USB Power BankYou can grab this 10,000mAh power bank for only $8.99 after you clip the 40% off coupon on the product page and apply an extra promo code "GZ9FEQAG". We very rarely see 10,000mAh power banks listed for under $10 so grab this one while you can. This will charge a Nintendo Switch from 0% to 100% about 1.9 times.Apple AirPods Pro for $169Apple AirPods Pro 2 with USB-CJust in time for Valentine's Day, Amazon is offering the second generation Apple AirPods Pro wireless noise-canceling earbuds for only $169 shipped, a savings of 32% off and the best price so far this year. Although the new AirPods 4 earbuds are also discounted (the noise-canceling model is currently priced at $148.99), between the two, the AirPods Pro is still the best earbuds because it offers better sound quality and noise cancelation.Apple AirPods 4 for Only $99.99Apple AirPods 4Amazon has discounted the newest generation Apple AirPods 4 earbuds by up to 25% off. The base model is currently down to $99.99 (originally $129). This is the first time we've seen the AirPods 4 earbuds drop below $100. In fact, that's a better deal than what we saw during Black Friday or Cyber Monday.30% Off Panther Vision Hand Warmers and Lighted BeaniesPanther Vision Powercap 3.0 Lighted Headlamp BeaniePanther Vision Powerpaw 602R Electric Hand Warmer and Power BankIf you're looking for a practical Valentine's Day gift idea, Panther Vision is offering a big 30% coupon code that works sitewide. If you suffer from cold appendages, the Panther Vision 602R rechargeable hand warmer is small enough to fit in your jacket pocket. It offers three different heat settings depending on how numb your fingers are, boasts an IP67 waterproof rating, and can even double up as a 5,000mAh USB Type-C power bank for emergencies.Pair it with the Panther Vision lighted beanie, which will keep your noggin warm while lighting up the way with a built-in LED headlamp rated for up to 150 lumens at max output. If you prioritize longevity over intensity, the 15-lumen setting will last up to 10 hours on a single charge. There are plenty of other useful gadgets on the site, including portable lamps and flashlights, so you might want to stock up to reach the $60 free shipping thresholdSafe In Our World Charity Bundle 2025 for $15Safe in Our World Charity Bundle 2025Fanatical has just released a phenomenal bundle of 27 PC games on Steam for a minimum donation of $15. Its the Safe In Our World Charity Bundle 2025 (see it at Fanatical), and it gets you games like Content Warning; Thank Goodness Youre Here; Little Kitty, Big City; Wingspan; Mini Metro; Toem; Psychonauts; and a lot more. All told, the games are valued at $519, but you can get all of them for just $15 (though you can pay more, if youre feeling generous). The games are delivered in the form of Steam keys, so youll have some redeeming to do if you pick this up.Buy One Get One 50% Off SteelSeries Gaming PeripheralsAdd 2 To CartTWO (2) Arctis Nova Pro Wireless Gaming HeadsetAdd 2 To CartTWO (2) Arctis GameBuds Wireless EarbudsAdd 2 To CartTWO (2) Arctis Nova 7 Wireless Gaming HeadsetAdd 2 To CartTWO (2) Arctis Nova 5 Wireless Gaming HeadsetAdd 2 To CartTWO (2) Apex Pro Gen 3 KeyboardAdd 2 To CartTWO (2) Apex Pro TKL Gen 3 KeyboardAdd 2 To CartTWO (2) Apex Pro Mini Wireless KeyboardAdd 2 To CartTWO (2) Apex Pro TKL 2023 KeyboardAerox 9 Wireless MouseAerox 3 Wireless MouseAdd 2 To CartArena 9 5.1ch PC SpeakersArena 7 2.1ch PC SpeakersArena 3 2.0ch PC SpeakersSteelSeries has kicked off an impressive Valentine's Day Sale with a rare promotion: buy one gaming headset, mouse, keyboard, or other gaming accessory and get a second item for 50% off with coupon "VALENTINE50". The second item will be of equal or lesser value and does not stack with instant discounts. All orders over $49 ship free. The Nova Pro is our favorite gaming headset, and we also recently picked the Apex Pro Gen 3 as the best gaming keyboard.Note that in all of my examples, I added two of the same item to cart to activate the discount. However, you don't need to buy the same item. For instance, you could add the Arctis Nova Pro wireless headset and the Apex Pro keyboard and get 50% off the keyboard (since it's the lower priced item)..1 Year of Peacock Premium for $29.9912 Months of Peacock PremiumPeacock TV is offering an excellent deal on its annual plan from now until February 18. Get one year of Peacock Premium for only $29.99 (normally $79.99) when you apply promo code: "WINTERSAVINGS", although it may be automatically applied. This price gives you 12 months of the ad-supported Premium (not Premium "Plus") plan only. Anyone who isn't currently subscribed to Peacock TV is eligible, and that includes past subscribers with expired accounts. Newcomes to the platform include The Wild Robot and Twisters.PDP Riffmaster Wireless Guitar Controller for $104For PS5 and PS4PDP Riffmaster Wireless Guitar ControllerThe Riffmaster wireless guitar controller sold out quickly when it first launched in 2024, but it's back and discounted today. This is one of very few widely available guitar controller peripherals that works with Rock Band 4 and Fortnite Festival.Apple iPad 10.9" 10th Gen for $279BlueApple iPad (10th Generation) 64GB Wi-FiSilverApple iPad (10th Generation) 64GB Wi-FiYellowApple iPad (10th Generation) 64GB Wi-FiPinkApple iPad (10th Generation) 64GB Wi-FiAhead of Valentine's Day, Amazon has just dropped the price of the latest model 10th gen Apple iPad to $279 shipped. Currently all colors including Blue, Silver, Pink, and Yellow are discounted. Although this price is about $20 higher than what we saw during Black Friday, This is the best price we've seen so far this year for the 10th gen iPad.Anker Zolo 10,000mAh USB Power Bank for $12.94Clip the 17% Off CouponAnker Zolo 10,000mAh 30W USB Power BankFor a limited time, Amazon has brought back one of its best power bank deals from Black Friday. The Anker Zolo 10,000mAh 30W USB Power Bank is back down to only $12.94 after you clip a 17% off coupon on the product page. This is an excellent deal for an Anker-branded 10,000mAh power bank that can fast charge a Nintendo Switch console at its maximum rate. The Zolo is compact, can completely recharge a Switch console more than once, and has a couple of unique nifty features, like a built-in USB cable and a discrete digital display. Plus, it's decked out in pleasant pastel blue, pink, and white color schemes.83" Samsung S90D 4K OLED Smart TV for $2,499.99Includes 1 Year of Samsung Warranty83" Samsung S90D 4K OLED Smart TVHere's your chance to get one of the best OLED TVs on the market at an amazing price. Right now, Woot! is offering a massive 2024 model 83" Samsung S90D 4K OLED Smart TV for only $2,499.99. This TV currently sells for $3,300 everywhere else, including Best Buy, Amazon, and Samsung. This is an excellent TV to pair with your PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X. In fact, this TV could even be a better gaming TV than the LG C4. Although we haven't personally tested it, RTINGS says the S90D is brighter, has a wider color gamut, better color volume, and wider viewing angles.Woot! is owned by Amazon, so Amazon Prime members get free shipping on this order. If you're not a Prime member, don't fret, because the shipping cost should only be $6. This is a brand-new unit with a full one-year Samsung warranty.Why Should You Trust IGN's Deals Team?IGN's deals team has a combined 30+ years of experience finding the best discounts in gaming, tech, and just about every other category. We don't try to trick our readers into buying things they don't need at prices that aren't worth buying something at. Our ultimate goal is to surface the best possible deals from brands we trust and our editorial team has personal experience with. You can check out our deals standards here for more information on our process, or keep up with the latest deals we find on IGN's Deals account on Twitter.Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.

Apple released a brand new iPhone app this week called Invites (download here). Its a fun way to organize events with others. But it also has a handful of features that are only available for certain users. Heres who can use Apples new app and its various features.Installing the Invites appWho can do it? iPhone users running iOS 18No, the Invites app is not available on Android.Its also not available for iPhone users still running iOS 17 or older. Apples new app requires its most recent OS version, iOS 18, which launched last fall.Creating new invitesWho can do it? iCloud+ or Apple One subscribersIf you want to create your own event invite, youll need to be an iCloud+ subscriber.iCloud+ is Apples paid service that provides additional iCloud storage space, plus some other nice features like iCloud Private Relay, Hide My Email, HomeKit Secure Video, and more.Even if you just use Apples most affordable $0.99/month iCloud+ plan, youll be able to create and send invites.PSA: if you subscribe to any Apple One bundle, then iCloud+ and Apple Invites are already included.Accepting an inviteWho can do it? Anyone with an email addressIf youre on the receiving end of Apple Invites, and someone sends you an event invite, you can accept or decline it without being an iCloud+ subscriber.You dont even need to have an Apple Account.All you need is your email address.Playlist collaborationWho can do it? Apple Music subscribersInvites lets you set up a shared Apple Music playlist for your event, which guests can collaborate on. Its a great way to let your attendees contribute to the events soundtrack.You as the event creator need to have an active Apple Music subscription to create a shared playlist. That probably wont surprise anyone.Unfortunately though, this requirement also extends to your invitees. In order for guests to make any changes to the shared playlist, theyll need to be Apple Music subscribers themselves.Who can do it? Apple Account usersOne of my personal favorite features of Apple Invites is the ability to add a Shared Photo Album to your event.This can be a great one-stop hub for your guests to share all photos and videos they takeand for you to do the same with themIn order to participate in an events shared album, youll need a free Apple Account. But you dont even need an iPhone or any Apple device, because Invites lets you upload photos directly from its web version on iCloud.com/invites.What do you think of Apples new Invites app? Let us know in the comments.Best iPhone accessoriesAdd 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.Youre reading 9to5Mac experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Dont know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Billionaire Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is ripping through the federal government's agencies at a breakneck pace to the horror ofmany, but perhaps particularly IT professionals and cybersecurity experts.As part of their efforts to analyze huge swaths of sensitive data, Wired reports, DOGE is training a custom AI chatbot for the US General Services Administration (GSA), which manages office buildings and IT infrastructure across the federal government.According to the publication'ssources, the purported goal is to sift through contracts and procurement data to get a better sense of where the government's money is being spent.Needless to say, introducing an inherently flawed and wildly unreliable technology and allowing it to access copious amounts of sensitive data could have disastrous outcomes. Former president Joe Biden introduced an executive order for the "safe, secure, and trustworthy development and use of AI" in 2023, which was focused on preventing AI-enabled threats to national security, among other goals.But on his first day in office, president Donald Trump revoked the order, setting the stage for a far more loose and potentially reckless, Silicon Valley-inspired "move fast and break things" approach.In other words, the development of an AI chatbot intended to make sweeping budgetary recommendations for the federal government is part of a much larger "AI-first strategy" unintended consequences be damned.We've long known that the tech has an tendency to hallucinate facts and leak sensitive data, making it an incredibly poor fit for the job.In an audio recording obtained by Wired, former Tesla employee and current head of the government's Technology Transformation Services Thomas Shedd argued that the development of a "centralized place for contracts so we can run analysis on them" was "not new at all.""This goes back to this, 'How do we understand how the government is spending money?'" he said in the recording.But the swift embrace of AI tech is already hitting major hurdles. According to Wired's sources, DOGE's team "quietly halted the rollout of at least one generative AI tool this week."The shadowy group of Elon Musk cronies had also hoped to employ an AI coding assistant called Cursor, but quickly changed their mind "for further review," according to Wired. Instead, DOGE has been pushing workers to use Microsoft's GitHub Copilot instead.Despite the repeated slip-ups, DOGE has already started making use of AI tools within the Department of Education, as the Washington Post reported earlier this week, feeding sensitive data into AI software.It remains to be seen whether the GSA's AI chatbot will bear any fruit,even if by meaningfully speeding up DOGE's efforts to slash government funding. But given the flaws of the tech, the cracks may soon start to show.Share This Article

Donald Trump's brand may be built on a perception of "winning," but buyers of his spectacularly shady TRUMP coin are experiencing the exact opposite.Soon after Trump launched his memecoin days before his second inauguration, its value plummeted from its all-time high of $78 as hyped-up crypto bros raced to cash out. It currently sits at a pathetic $17 per token a shell of a grift that once saw nearly $72 billion worth of market cap at its peak.In the wake of that stunning collapse, new analysis by BloombergOf all the profit generated by TRUMP, some $214 million went to these whales within the first two days, while at least 20percentof buyers broke even or lost money. The whales had one thing in common: they all made substantial, well-timed transactions of the coin, in some cases within just minutes of its announcement.One particular trader amassed about $1.1 million in USDC a "stablecoin" mapped to the value of the US dollar just hours before Trump announced his coin to his throngs of followers on Truth Social. Within minutes of that post, the trader made a buy representing roughly 6percent of the available supply of TRUMP, and then spent the next few days offloading it to various wallets, racking up millions in profit according to Bloomberg.The trading platforms administering Trump's coins also struck it rich, with current estimates putting the total transaction fees they've earned at around $100 million. At least one of the platforms involved in the frenzy, CIC Digital, is owned by Trump himself, though it's currently unknown how big a piece of the pie it received.The vast majority of buyers also lost out in an even clearer way. Look at this price chart for the token, courtesy of CoinGecko virtually everybody who bought the coin after its earliest days has now seen the value of their holdings decrease, which is the opposite of what you want an investment to do.Asked by reporters for comment on the apparent pump-and-dump scheme, Trump pled ignorance: "I don't know much about it other than I launched it... I heard it was very successful."The whole debacle is raising even more red flags about the volatility of memecoins, particularly as TRUMP copycats spill onto crypto platforms like fruit flies.Some scams are riding the coattails of Trump's obvious-yet-ambiguous recent crypto endorsements, like one pretending to be founded by his youngest son Barron Trump.Others are aping Trump's supposed legitimacy as the "Crypto President." In the wake of TRUMP's debut,for instance,hundreds of smaller crypto ventures sent samples of their memecoins to Donald Trump's digital wallet, evidently seeking to fake a presidential endorsement to dupe gullible traders.This trick is possible thanks to a unique "feature" of crypto, where records of transactions are permanently imprinted into the blockchain for public viewing. That publicity is often touted as one of crypto's strengths, but is increasingly used to manufacture the type of misinformation and hype and which enables crypto fraud."[Trump has] opened the floodgates to deception... and at a minimum to rampant speculation," Eswar Prasad, an economist at thetoldthe Financial Times.While rampant grifts are nothing new to the memecoin space, their growing legitimacy at the hands of our elected leaders is. At a time when state lawmakers push to put public funds on the blockchain, one thing's for sure: the scams are just getting started.More on crypto scams: Pastor Accused of Crypto Scam Says God Told Him to Do ItShare This Article

Over the last few weeks, there's been massive disruption in the labor market with President Donald Trump's administration moving to freeze federal aid and lay off tens of thousands of federal workers. That's on top of a flurry of executive orders, threats of trade wars, the start of mass deportations and stock market volatility.But on Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released what investors and market watchers considered a "positive" jobs report for January. That disconnect has me scratching my head.One explanation is that economic data is backward-looking: Friday's report reflects the state of the labor market in January, before the relative chaos began. Even so, I expected there would at least be some impact from the destructive LA wildfires, which saw hundreds of thousands of Californians apply for unemployment benefits. Instead, the most recent labor data shows unemployment low and steady, clocking in at 4%. Plus, job growth is still apparently moving at a healthy pace.Maybe official labor data isn't a reliable narrator of what's really happening, nor what's to come.Lisa Countryman-Quiroz, CEO of JVS Bay Area, a workforce development nonprofit, said there's no question that the new administration's actions will cause instability for both workers and employers, with consequences that will ripple across industries in 2025.A potentially volatile job marketJob market indicators paint a broad picture and reflect past trends, but they don't accurately reflect the economic realities of different areas, populations or industries.As someone who writes about the relationship between labor data, the housing marketand the Federal Reserve, I wasn't surprised to see economists positively spin Friday's labor report. News reports decreed that the economy is "resilient" and "strong" and that the job market "could not be better."Yet ask your average person about finding stable and well-paid employment, and you'll likely get a very different answer. In 2024, Pathrise Job Market data shows it took jobseekers an average of eight months and 294 applications to land a job.It's not an exaggeration to say the economy feels like it's in freefall. The State Department's order for an immediate 90-day pause on foreign aid, championed by Elon Musk, has left many government contractors and global agencies struggling to operate or even pay their workers. Meanwhile, some 65,000 federal workers have accepted an offer to resign in exchange for pay until Sept. 30. The White House has said it hopes for as many as 200,000 workers to participate in the buyout, which was recently temporarily suspended by a federal judge.Moreover, Trump is taking aggressive action to ramp up the deportation of undocumented immigrants, who comprise nearly 1 in 20 workers, with even greater representation in construction, agriculture and hospitality. The forced removal of masses of workers, who contribute billions of dollars in state and federal taxes, could result in low-wage job vacancies, higher labor costs, supply chain disruptions and increased inflation."The President has shifted policy directions several times," said Gene Ludwig, former comptroller of the currency and founder of the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity."It's too soon to gauge the net effect of his policies on employment," Ludwig told me in an email.Interest rate cuts won't come until laterEconomic data, like Friday's job report, also affects major monetary decisions, like adjusting interest rates. The Federal Reserve needs to strike a balance between inflation and unemployment, and it examines official statistics to determine its next move.First, the central bank wants to see inflation slow down before cutting interest rates again. But that doesn't seem likely anytime soon, given the threat of tariffs, which are expected to drive up prices.Second, the Fed is looking for signs of weakness in the labor market. Though the Fed doesn't want unemployment levels to dive to recession levels, a "healthy" labor market tells the central bank that the economy can afford high borrowing rates.Odds were already low for the Fed to cut interest rates at its next meeting in March. But now it's even clearer that the central bank will delay rate cuts until May or June at the earliest. It could take months to get a clear picture of how the administration's policies will affect the jobs market, consumer prices and the cost of borrowing."Any indicator that shows a slowing economy would raise the chances of a rate cut, especially rising unemployment," said Greg Heym, chief economist at Brown Harris Stevens.In the meantime, we'll just have to settle for different definitions of what constitutes a positive jobs report."A strong labor market relies on expanding opportunities for jobseekers, not restricting them," said Countryman-Quiroz.

Looking for the most recentregular Connections answers? Click here for today's Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.Tomorrow is the Super Bowl, but today'sConnections: Sports Editionis not all Big Game-themed. Still, there's one dedicated football category and other clues are football-related. Read on for hints and answers for today's Connections: Sports Edition puzzle.And you should know thatConnections: Sports Editioniscoming out of betaonSuper Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That's a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will be continuing to publish it. It won't show up in the NYT Games app but will appear in The Athletic's own app. Or you can continue to play it free online.Read more: NYT Has a Connections Game for Sports Fans. I Tried ItHints for today's Connections: Sports Edition groupsHere are four hints for the groupings in today's Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.Yellow group hint: Bunch of athletesGreen group hint: Accessories for a sportBlue group hint: Fleet football playersPurple group hint:Same male nameAnswers for today's Connections: Sports Edition groupsYellow group: Group of playersGreen group: Baseball equipmentBlue group: NFL running backsPurple group:Jason ____Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English WordsWhat are today's Connections: Sports Edition answers? The completed NYT Connections Sports edition puzzle for Feb. 8, 2025 #138. NYT/Screenshot by CNETThe yellow words in today's ConnectionsThe theme is group of players. The four answers are club, side, squad and team.The green words in today's ConnectionsThe theme is baseball equipment. The four answers are bat, cleats, glove and helmet.The blue words in today's ConnectionsThe theme is NFL running backs. The four answers are Barkley, Cook, Henry and Swift.The purple words in today's ConnectionsThe theme is Jason ____. The four answers are Day, Giambi, Kelce and Witten.

Insomniac Games pitched a "wonderful concept" for Resistance 4, but Sony said no"We spent a lot of time... brainstorming on where we could take this in the future."Image credit: Eurogamer/Insomniac Games News by Matt Wales News Reporter Published on Feb. 8, 2025 It's been over 14 years since developer Insomniac Games' fondly remembered alternate history shooter series drew to a close with Resistance 3, but it turns out fans might have seen a fourth mainline entry if the studio had got its way. Outgoing Insomniac boss has revealed the studio pitched a "wonderful concept" for Resistance 4 - but Sony ultimately said no.Price - who announced his retirement last month after more than 30 years at Insomniac - was speaking to the Kinda Funny Gamescast. When asked if he had a favourite pitch the studio had made over the years - a "one that got away" - Price dropped the Resistance 4 bombshell."We did pitch that one," he revealed, "and it was a wonderful concept... It was the result of a lot of Insomniac team members being passionate about extending the story further... I do believe that Resistance has set up a really cool alternate history base where anything can happen with the Chimera and where they go and what their origins are. We spent a lot of time working on backstory and brainstorming on where we could take this in the future."Resistance's third and so far final entry released back in 2011.Watch on YouTubeUnfortunately, Sony couldn't be convinced, with Price citing "timing and market opportunity" as the reason the project didn't progress beyond its pitch. Exactly when all this happened is unclear based on Price's latest comments, but a glance through the archives reveals he told Eurogamer the studio was "not slated" to do Resistance 4 all the way back in 2011. A year later and Price was ready to draw a line under the series in considerably more definitive terms, saying, "We won't be making any more Resistances."And while that's proven to be the case so far, Price revealed to Kinda Funny he'd love to see a Resistance revival, calling the series, "Near and dear to my heart.""When you work on a franchise for a long time," he explained, "it's nice to have a chance to move onto something else. And at the same time, it's also nice to be able to come back to it. So fortunately, because [Insomniac is] part of Sony and Sony owns the intellectual property to Resistance, we will always have that opportunity to revisit Resistance."But while fans may be disappointed to hear about the Resistance 4 that almost was, Price remains philosophical. "I do strongly believe there's a reason everything happens," he revealed to Kinda Funny, "and when I look back at the games that we've made - the ones that were received well, the ones that weren't received well, the ones we didn't get to make - all of those have lead us to where we are today. Which is an amazing relationship with Marvel and working on games we are truly excited about."Insomniac's next game, of course, is Wolverine - which was teased all the way back in 2021 and is still without a release window. "We've announced Wolverine, and we'd love to talk more about Wolverine," the studio said earlier this year, "but we have to be like Logan today, and remain very stoic until it's time to pop the claws down the road. As much as we're as much as we have pent up excitement, we got to hold on to it. So that's, that's about as much as we could say about our upcoming projects today."

Members of Elon Musks Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team have had access to the US Treasury Departments payment systems for over a week. On Thursday, the threat intelligence team at one of the department's agencies recommended that DOGE members be monitored as an insider threat.Sources say members of the Bureau of the Fiscal Services IT division and others received an email detailing these concerns.There is ongoing litigation, congressional legislation, and widespread protests relating to DOGEs access to Treasury and the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, reads a section of the email titled Recommendations, reviewed by WIRED. If DOGE members have any access to payment systems, we recommend suspending that access immediately and conducting a comprehensive review of all actions they may have taken on these systems.Although Treasury and White House officials have repeatedly denied it, WIRED has reported that DOGE technologists had the ability to not only read the code of sensitive payment systems but also rewrite it. Marko Elez, one of a number of young men identified by WIRED who have little to no government experience but are associated with DOGE, was granted read and write privileges on two of the most sensitive systems in the US government: the Payment Automation Manager and Secure Payment System at the BFS, an agency that according to Treasury records paid out $5.45 trillion in fiscal year 2024.There is reporting at other federal agencies indicating that DOGE members have performed unauthorized changes and locked civil servants out of the sensitive systems they gained access to, the Recommendations portion of the email continues. We further recommend that DOGE members be placed under insider threat monitoring and alerting after their access to payment systems is revoked. Continued access to any payment systems by DOGE members, even read only, likely poses the single greatest insider threat risk the Bureau of the Fiscal Service has ever faced.The recommendations were part of a weekly report sent out by the BFS threat intelligence team to hundreds of staffers. Insider threat risks are something [the threat intelligence team] usually covers, a source told WIRED. But they have never identified something inside the bureau as an insider threat risk that I know of.The Treasury Department and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Got a Tip?Are you a current or former employee at the Treasury or Bureau of the Fiscal Service? Or other government tech worker? We'd like to hear from you. Using a nonwork phone or computer, contact the reporters securely on Signal at velliott88.18 and leahfeiger.86.The email also details this weeks Treasury lawsuit, which resulted in a federal judge granting an order on February 6 to temporarily restrict DOGE staffers from accessing and altering payment system information.In a section of the email titled Analyst Notes, the email delves into the fallout from the suit.A court order formalizing an agreement reportedly restricting DOGEs access to Treasury was issued, but specifically provides read only exemptions for Marko Elez (DOGE member at Fiscal Service and Treasury) and Thomas (aka Tom) Krause (DOGE member at Treasury), it states. This access still poses an unprecedented insider threat risk.Elez previously worked for SpaceX, Musks space company, and X, Musks social media company. Elez resigned Thursday after The Wall Street Journal inquired with the White House about his connections to a deleted social-media account that advocated for racism and eugenics. Elez did not immediately respond to a request for comment.In a letter to Treasury secretary Scott Bessent on February 7, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon said that Treasurys refusal to provide straight answers about DOGEs actions, as well as its refusal to provide a briefing requested by several Senate committees only heightens my suspicions and requested that Bessent provide the logs of Elez and any other DOGE-affiliated personnel regarding their access to the Treasurys systems.

Anthropics CEO Dario Amodei is worried about competitor DeepSeek, the Chinese AI company that took Silicon Valley by storm with its R1 model. And his concerns could be more serious than the typical ones raised about DeepSeek sending user data back to China.In an interview on Jordan Schneiders ChinaTalk podcast, Amodei said DeepSeek generated rare information about bioweapons in a safety test run by Anthropic.DeepSeeks performance was the worst of basically any model wed ever tested, Amodei claimed. It had absolutely no blocks whatsoever against generating this information. Amodei stated that this was part of evaluations Anthropic routinely runs on various AI models to assess their potential national security risks. His team looks at whether models can generate bioweapons-related information that isnt easily found on Google or in textbooks. Anthropic positions itself as the AI foundational model provider that takes safety seriously.Amodei said he didnt think DeepSeeks models today are literally dangerous in providing rare and dangerous information but that they might be in the near future. Although he praised DeepSeeks team as talented engineers, he advised the company to take seriously these AI safety considerations.Amodei has also supported strong export controls on chips to China, citing concerns that they could give Chinas military an edge.Amodei didnt clarify in the ChinaTalk interview which DeepSeek model Anthropic tested, nor did he give more technical details about these tests. Anthropic didnt immediately reply to a request for comment from TechCrunch. Neither did DeepSeek.DeepSeeks rise has sparked concerns about its safety elsewhere, too. For example, Cisco security researchers said last week that DeepSeek R1 failed to block any harmful prompts in its safety tests, achieving a 100% jailbreak success rate.Cisco didnt mention bioweapons but said it was able to get DeepSeek to generate harmful information about cybercrime and other illegal activities. Its worth mentioning, though, that Metas Llama-3.1-405B and OpenAIs GPT-4o also had high failure rates of 96% and 86%, respectively.It remains to be seen whether safety concerns like these will make a serious dent in DeepSeeks rapid adoption. Companies like AWS and Microsoft have publicly touted integrating R1 into their cloud platforms ironically enough, given that Amazon is Anthropics biggest investor.On the other hand, theres a growing list of countries, companies, and especially government organizations like the U.S. Navy and the Pentagon that have started banning DeepSeek.Time will tell if these efforts catch on or if DeepSeeks global rise will continue. Either way, Amodei says he does consider DeepSeek a new competitor thats on the level of the U.S.s top AI companies.The new fact here is that theres a new competitor, he said on ChinaTalk. In the big companies that can train AI Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, perhaps Meta and xAI now DeepSeek is maybe being added to that category.

In BriefPosted:2:49 PM PST February 7, 2025Image Credits:Mike Coppola / Getty ImagesOpenAI plans to open an office in GermanyOpenAI is expanding its footprint to Germany. According to a press release issued Friday, the ChatGPT maker plans to open an office in Munich in the coming months.Germany is renowned for its technical expertise, academic excellence, and industrial innovation, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement. Opening our first office in Germany means we can help even more people, businesses, and institutions benefit from AIs possibilities.Per the press release, OpenAI has been discussing opening a German satellite office with German officials since 2023. InEurope, Germanyhas the greatest number of users, paying subscribers, and API developers building on OpenAIs technology, according to the startup.An OpenAI spokesperson told TechCrunch via email that the office will hire for go-to-market, global affairs, and communications roles to start. They declined to share details on the number of roles.OpenAIs new home in SouthernGermanycomes after the San Francisco-based firm opened offices inParis,Brussels, andDublin, growing its EU presence.Topics