Entertainment
FCC to allow banned drones and routers to receive critical updates until 2029
Good news for owners of foreign-made drones and routers: the Federal Communications Commission has amended its original deadline that would have banned firmware updates to these devices after March 1, 2027.
In an announcement posted on May 8, 2026, the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) updated its previous guidance to allow new software and firmware updates to foreign-made drones and routers until January 1, 2029, adding nearly two years to the initial cut-off date.
The main concerns cited by the American government are espionage, unauthorized surveillance, and data exfiltration, all of which can be enabled by backdoor exploits built directly into both drones and routers. The most famous example of such a cyberattack is the ongoing Volt Typhoon “advanced persistent threat” (APT), which attempts to leverage compromised hardware, including routers, to steal data and establish “command and control” channels over American cyber infrastructure.
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And though drones are newer than routers, they have been used in corporate espionage since at least 2022, when drones were used to infiltrate the wireless networks of a major American financial firm.
From a numbers perspective alone, the size of the vulnerability is frightening: around 60% of America’s routers are manufactured in China, according to Reuters, while more than 80% of the drones operational in the United States were designed and built in China, according to the Wall Street Journal.
But put yourself in the shoes of someone who just shelled out serious money for a drone or router, only to learn, after the fact, that the government had made your purchase illegal. The Consumer Technology Association, advocating on behalf of precisely those American consumers, issued an open letter to the FTC just last month, urging legislators to exercise leniency, as well as to better clarify which products might be affected by the ban.
Their efforts are probably responsible for this two-year extension, but expect supply lines and manufacturers to re-localize in the coming years as the full scope of the cybersecurity threat becomes clearer.
Entertainment
The FCCs proposed plan to fight spam calls puts consumer privacy in jeopardy
Sick and tired of having your day disrupted by robocalls? You’re not alone, and the FCC is taking notice. In press releases from the past month, the FCC said that preventing illegal spam calls has become its “top consumer protection priority,” while FCC chairman Brendan Carr vowed to “bring meaningful robocall relief to consumers.”
Unfortunately, their approach might be so broad, so badly focused, that it will create new privacy concerns, destroy so-called “burner” phones, and place an extra burden on consumers. Or in the words of Gizmodo’s Mike Pearl, “the FCC’s cure might be worse than the disease.”
One proposed change, known as the “Know Your Customer” rules, would require businesses to collect a government ID, a physical address, and the customer’s full legal name, instead of just their phone number, to initiate phone contact. This proposed change might serve to stop robocalls, but it would also effectively end the concept of consumer privacy. In the words of civil liberties advocates Reclaim the Net: “The result would be an identity-verification regime covering one of the last semi-anonymous communication tools available to ordinary Americans.”
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Worse still, the FCC’s proposed “red flags” that would heighten scrutiny are broad enough to encompass the lawful behaviors of millions of Americans. Proposed red flags include using a virtual office, making payments in cryptocurrency, using a “suspicious” email address, or operating a phone number not tied to a residential address.
While all of these activities are likely indicative of robocall spammer behavior, they are also common practices among law-abiding citizens, who often operate out of virtual offices or use so-called “burner” or pre-paid phones. Worse still, the people who rely on prepaid phones often do so because of the anonymity they afford — think about refugees fleeing conflict zones or victims of domestic abuse attempting to keep a low profile.
Finally, the FCC is looking to place the burden of enforcement on telecom providers, threatening them rather than individual spam callers with up to $2,500 in fines per call. While this approach is no doubt easier than searching out every individual robocall operator, and certainly motivates the companies to take enforcement seriously, it also creates a bad incentive in which telecom operators have to scrutinize each individual customer and their behavior at the expense of consumer privacy.
Ultimately, spam calls might prove to be the price we pay for enjoying a modicum of privacy in the digital age.
Entertainment
General Motors settles lawsuit over selling customer driving data
A two-year legal battle between General Motors and California prosecutors, led by Attorney General Rob Bonta, over the alleged misuse of customer driving data has concluded, with GM agreeing to pay $12.75 million in penalties.
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In a press release announcing the settlement, the AG alleges that GM sold “the names, contact information, geolocation data, and driving behavior data of hundreds of thousands of Californians” to data brokers, including Verisk Analytics and LexisNexis Risk Solutions. And, as the statement points out, “If you know the precise location of a person’s car, then you know an enormous amount of personal, sensitive information about that person — their home, work, children’s school, place of worship.”
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The original facts of the case were uncovered by The New York Times back in 2024, where the focus was on whether insurance companies were using this driving data to charge some customers higher insurance rates. But the attorney general’s investigation concluded that “California drivers were not directly impacted by GM’s sales of data,” because under California’s strict insurance laws, “insurers are prohibited from using driving data to set insurance rates.”
In addition to the $12.75 million settlement, GM has agreed to stop selling driving data to any consumer reporting agencies for five years, delete any current driving data within 180 days (unless expressly permitted to keep the data by the driver), and develop and maintain its own privacy program to assess its data collection practices and mitigate the risks of a data breach.
While the settlement is definitely a win for consumer privacy, you shouldn’t feel too bad for GM just yet. According to the attorney general’s own calculations, GM earned roughly $20 million for the sale of its OnStar data, so even with the hefty settlement, they’re still turning a nice profit.
Entertainment
NYT Strands hints, answers for May 10, 2026
Today’s NYT Strands hints are easy if you have good eyes.
Strands, the New York Times‘ elevated word-search game, requires the player to perform a twist on the classic word search. Words can be made from linked letters — up, down, left, right, or diagonal, but words can also change direction, resulting in quirky shapes and patterns. Every single letter in the grid will be part of an answer. There’s always a theme linking every solution, along with the “spangram,” a special, word or phrase that sums up that day’s theme, and spans the entire grid horizontally or vertically.
By providing an opaque hint and not providing the word list, Strands creates a brain-teasing game that takes a little longer to play than its other games, like Wordle and Connections.
If you’re feeling stuck or just don’t have 10 or more minutes to figure out today’s puzzle, we’ve got all the NYT Strands hints for today’s puzzle you need to progress at your preferred pace.
NYT Strands hint for today’s theme: We all saw it
The words are related to clarity.
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Today’s NYT Strands theme plainly explained
These words describe lucidity.
NYT Strands spangram hint: Is it vertical or horizontal?
Today’s NYT Strands spangram is vertical.
NYT Strands spangram answer today
Today’s spangram is Clear Cut.
NYT Strands word list for May 10
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Overt
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Obvious
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Blatant
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Clear Cut
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Flagrant
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Brazen
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Glaring
Looking for other daily online games? Mashable’s Games page has more hints, and if you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now!
Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Not the day you’re after? Here’s the solution to yesterday’s Strands.
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