PSA: Apple’s Private Relay can leak your real IP address
9:52 AM PDT · August 5, 2026
Apple’s Private Relay, an opt-in feature designed to hide a user’s IP address when they browse the internet with Safari, can be circumvented to reveal the supposedly hidden IP address due to a series of flaws.
Hark previews its browser use agent for completing tasks
Hark, a startup that raised $700 million in Series A funding in May, today launched its agent Hark Handoff, which can use a browser efficiently to complete tasks.
The company claims that Handoff can easily navigate websites that have no official APIs, including Target, Walmart, OpenTable, and LinkedIn. It said that the Handoff agent looks at website structure and visual data to understand if it needs to click buttons or type information.
How to get the best hotel deals for TechCrunch Disrupt 2026
Congrats, you’re all set for TechCrunch Disrupt 2026! Or, you might still be on the fence and wondering about your accommodations. Either way, the reality is San Francisco can be an expensive place to stay, which is why we’ve partnered with hotels around Moscone West during Disrupt, taking place October 13 to 15, to secure the best prices available for attendees.
SpaceX has bought $329M worth of Tesla Megapacks so far this year
2:07 PM PDT · August 4, 2026
Never put your phone in the refrigerator — here's why - Engadget
Condensation plus electronics are a bad combo.
Stock-Asso/Shutterstock
Summer heat can put a lot of stress on devices, and one common fix can cause a lot of problems: putting your phone in the fridge. The misguided cooling technique is a common issue when temperatures rise— according to an article by Techspot, phone repair shops in Europe have even seen a steep uptick in customers bringing in fridge-damaged phones. But why is it so dangerous?
DJI's Mic Mini 2S is the first in its Mini lineup that can record your audio internally - Engadget
The feature provides a backup and can save your bacon if any of your audio is clipped.
Steve Dent for Engadget
Base Power raises another $1B to save the grid using backyard batteries
Where most energy storage companies look for big tracts of land near large connections to the grid, Base Power is betting that it can beat them all by putting batteries in people’s backyards instead.
Horizon3 hits $2 billion valuation with $250M Series E as AI threats escalate
Cybersecurity startup Horizon3 has raised a $250 million Series E at a $2 billion valuation, more than tripling its valuation in 14 months. The San Francisco-based firm drew backing from returning investors NightDragon and NEA.
Here’s why AI agents lie and cheat to reach their goals
MIT Technology Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more from the series here.
When two OpenAI models hacked into the website Hugging Face in July, they weren’t trying to make money or commit sabotage—they were just looking for answers to a test question. According to a postmortem from OpenAI, the models, which had been stripped of their typical security features for testing, decided to solve a cybersecurity exercise by hacking out of the isolated environment in which OpenAI had attempted to contain them and into Hugging Face’s databases, where—they reasoned—the correct answer to the problem might be stored.
Okta buys AI security startup Permiso — source says for about $200M
Okta on Thursday agreed to acquire AI identity security startup Permiso Security, betting that demand for protecting AI agents and other machine identities will grow as enterprises deploy autonomous software across their operations.