2026-08-16

Mastercard took down payments across Australia with a scheduled update

Mastercard transactions were declined across Australia on Saturday afternoon after what the company describes as a scheduled system update, with more than 1,900 outage reports logged by mid-afternoon. Mastercard says the problem is resolved and all systems are working normally. Mastercard payments stopped working across Australia on Saturday afternoon. “A scheduled system update caused Mastercar [...]

2026-08-16

‘Groundbreaking technology often enters the market at a premium before scaling’: Touch-sensitive e-skin could soon be commonplace in robotics

Ultra-thin, highly sensitive electronic skin could plug this major robotics gap – edge processing could improve latency. [...]

2026-08-16

Why do so many AI chatbots call themselves Nova? I asked ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and more to name themselves

Users and alignment researchers have found that there’s a common name that most chatbots pick, guess which one went for it straight away? [...]

2026-08-16

The 10 most important things to know before you visit Venice

From Venice's entry fee to the neighborhoods tourists rarely reach, ten things to know before visiting one of the world's most fragile cities [...]

2026-08-16

The 6 best places in the world to get lost

From Medina alleyways that predate any tourist map to a Japanese city where getting lost is the entire point [...]

2026-08-16

Inside America's health insurance 'death spiral'

The Affordable Care Act is facing what policy experts call its most serious affordability crisis since it began widely offering coverage more than a decade ago [...]

2026-08-16

5 things that could cost you more in retirement

Retirement can lower some expenses, but health care, travel, housing and other costs may take a bigger bite out of your budget than you expect [...]

2026-08-16

Inside the Experimental Traps Scientists Set for Ghostly Neutrinos

Observatories have been built in mines, deep under the Antarctic ice sheet, and elsewhere in an effort to detect the fleeting particles. [...]

2026-08-16

Think Flock is bad? This new tech is coming to link license plates with your phone — and it could be another death knell for privacy

New SignalTrace tech is designed to help in crime investigations, but there are questions about privacy. [...]