Normal view
I put NFC tags on my appliances so I could stop searching for their manuals
I have a lot of appliance manuals that I've collected over the years. They rarely need looking at, but when they do, finding the right manual can be a chore. I decided to stick NFC tags to my appliances so that I could access their manuals more easily.

Humanoid Robots in 2027: Tesla, Figure AI, and Agility Race to Deploy
Which humanoid robots are closest to deployment in 2027? Compare Tesla, Figure AI, Agility Robotics, and other leaders in industrial automation.
The post Humanoid Robots in 2027: Tesla, Figure AI, and Agility Race to Deploy appeared first on TechRepublic.
Humanoid Robots in 2027: Tesla, Figure AI, and Agility Race to Deploy
Which humanoid robots are closest to deployment in 2027? Compare Tesla, Figure AI, Agility Robotics, and other leaders in industrial automation.
The post Humanoid Robots in 2027: Tesla, Figure AI, and Agility Race to Deploy appeared first on TechRepublic.
5 powerful smart home automations that require nothing but a motion sensor
Motion sensors are popular smart home devices. They're relatively cheap and simple to set up, but often people only use them for basic automations such as turning on the lights when you walk into a room. With the right automations, there's a lot more you can do using motion sensors.

I hate smart home appliances, so I built these Home Assistant automations instead
Overpriced home appliances with lackluster smarts are a pet peeve of mine. Iβd never upgrade a perfectly functioning fridge or dishwasher just to get access to half-baked smart features, and Iβd choose value or performance over features I donβt need, or that might backfire on me down the line.

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All News β Federal News Network
- SSA touts shorter wait times as its digital-first approach meets union pushback
SSA touts shorter wait times as its digital-first approach meets union pushback

Β© Amelia Brust, Federal News Network
OpenAIβs GPT-6.1 Terra Targets Workplace Automation at Lower Cost
OpenAIβs GPT-6.1 Terra cuts standard API token prices by 50%. Explore its automation capabilities, availability and what IT teams should test before adoption.
The post OpenAIβs GPT-6.1 Terra Targets Workplace Automation at Lower Cost appeared first on TechRepublic.
This $20 Claude AI Course Is Built for Work, Not Just Prompts
This eDegree covers Claude prompting, automation, integrations, and coding for practical business use.
The post This $20 Claude AI Course Is Built for Work, Not Just Prompts appeared first on TechRepublic.
OpenAIβs GPT-6.1 Terra Targets Workplace Automation at Lower Cost
OpenAIβs GPT-6.1 Terra cuts standard API token prices by 50%. Explore its automation capabilities, availability and what IT teams should test before adoption.
The post OpenAIβs GPT-6.1 Terra Targets Workplace Automation at Lower Cost appeared first on TechRepublic.
This $20 Claude AI Course Is Built for Work, Not Just Prompts
This eDegree covers Claude prompting, automation, integrations, and coding for practical business use.
The post This $20 Claude AI Course Is Built for Work, Not Just Prompts appeared first on TechRepublic.
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Hackers Arise
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Cybersecurity, Part 30: Shannon β AI Pentester for Web Apps and APIs
Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Cybersecurity, Part 30: Shannon β AI Pentester for Web Apps and APIs
Welcome back, aspiring cyberwarriors!Β
Weβre continuing our series on Artificial Intelligence in Cybersecurity with another tool called Shannon. Shannon is a white-box AI pentester. It was created to test the security of your project by pointing it at the source code and the test stand. That means it needs both the running application and the source code. First, Shannon does an in-depth analysis of the code in the repository, then looks for attacks against that same project youβre hosting locally. This white-box approach is certainly more effective, as models donβt have to guess possible vulnerabilities, since guessing varies greatly depending on the model you use. Vulnerabilities can only make their way to the report if they have a working PoC. As always, only test systems you own or have explicit written authorization to test.
Now letβs take a closer look at Shannon and test our Juice Shop with it.
Setting Up
Juice Shop is just a Docker container, so we will install Docker and npm first.
kali > sudo apt update
kali > sudo apt install -y docker.io nodejs npm
kali > sudo systemctl enable docker --now
kali > sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
kali > newgrp docker
Then comes the Juice Shop.
kali > docker pull bkimminich/juice-shop
kali > docker run -d --name juice-shop --restart unless-stopped -p 3000:3000 bkimminich/juice-shop

Itβs up and running. Now we need to copy the repository to our disk.
kali > git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/juice-shop/juice-shop.git

Once we have it all set, we can get Shannon. Unlike Pentestcode and other tools, Shannon runs differently. By default, it expects your AI API keys in the env. In the next sections weβll show how to run Shannon with OpenRouter and Ollama.
OpenRouter
Shannon wants to see your API key in the env. You will also need a models.json file somewhere on your disk. Copy the following command to create it.
cat > ~/models.json << 'EOF'
{
"providers": {
"openrouter": {
"apiKey": "YOUR_API_KEY",
"models": [
{
"id": "nvidia/nemotron-3.5-lightning:free",
"name": "NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (free)",
"reasoning": true,
"input": ["text"],
"thinkingLevelMap": {
"off": null,
"minimal": null,
"low": "low",
"medium": null,
"high": "high",
"xhigh": null,
"max": "max"
},
"contextWindow": 262144,
"maxTokens": 65536,
"cost": {
"input": 0,
"output": 0,
"cacheRead": 0,
"cacheWrite": 0
},
"compat": {
"supportsDeveloperRole": false,
"thinkingFormat": "openrouter"
}
}
],
"api": "openai-completions",
"baseUrl": "https://openrouter.ai/api/v1"
}
}
}
EOF
Then pass the keys and validate the setup.
kali > export SHANNON_AI_API_KEY="sk-or-v1-YOUR_KEY"
kali > export SHANNON_AI_MODEL="openrouter:nvidia/nemotron-3.5-lightning:free"
kali > npx @keygraph/shannon@latest start -u http://172.17.0.1:3000 -r /home/kali/juice-shop --validate-model

If you see itβs validated, then you can run a full security analysis.
kali > npx @keygraph/shannon@latest start -u http://172.17.0.1:3000 -r /home/kali/juice-shop -c ~/juice-quick.yaml --models-config ~/models.json --follow

This will take a while and your free daily tokens wonβt be enough to complete the scan.

As the security test progresses, youβll see all the commands and prompts it runs. Obviously, the frontier models will give better results.
Ollama
Shannon isnβt only limited to APIs. You can perform the same scan with a local model. Many openweight models will be a great fit for it if you have the necessary hardware to make it work smoothly.
Just for the demonstration weβll use Qwen 2.5-coder 7b.
kali > curl -fsSL https://ollama.com/install.sh | sh
kali > ollama pull qwen2.5-coder:7b

Weβll create the same models.json file to point Shannon to our Ollama.
{
"providers": {
"ollama": {
"baseUrl": "http://127.0.0.1:11434/v1",
"api": "openai-completions",
"apiKey": "ollama",
"models": [
{
"id": "qwen2.5-coder:7b",
"name": "Qwen 2.5 Coder 7B",
"input": ["text"],
"contextWindow": 32768,
"maxTokens": 8192,
"cost": { "input": 0, "output": 0 },
"compat": {
"supportsDeveloperRole": false,
"supportsReasoningEffort": false
}
}
]
}
}
}
Make sure your Ollama is accessible, and change the IP address if needed.
kali > export SHANNON_AI_API_KEY=ollama
kali > export SHANNON_AI_MODEL=ollama:qwen2.5-coder:7b
kali > npx @keygraph/shannon@latest start -u http://172.17.0.1:3000 -r /home/kali/juice-shop -c ~/juice-quick.yaml --models-config ~/models.json --validate-model
Before we do anything, letβs validate the model.

If your model has been validated and you can start scanning your project.
kali > kali > npx @keygraph/shannon@latest start -u http://172.17.0.1:3000 -r /home/kali/juice-shop -c ~/juice-quick.yaml --models-config ~/models.json --follow
Reporting
When the scan finishes, Shannon creates PDF and Markdown reports with the evidence attached to them. You will also see structured JSON and SARIF files for downstream systems.
Below is an example of a PDF report. As you can see, multiple vulnerabilities were found in the project, some of them are classified as High. As mentioned before, all the findings here were validated with PoCs.

Summary
Shannon was made to find flaws in your web apps to make them more secure. It digs through the project repository and runs checks against a live system. It then creates a report with findings that were discovered with PoCs, so you get a clean report. As AI becomes more prevalent in cybersecurity, it should be used to improve the security of your projects before their release. Of course, that doesnβt replace a human in the loop, but it makes things faster. Stick to better models and donβt cut back on your security.
AI is evolving rapidly and the sooner you learn how to work with it, the greater the advantage youβll have. Thatβs why we invite you to join ourΒ AI for CybersecurityΒ training. During this training, you will see you different ways of using AI in cybersecurity, set up local models and solve labs.
The post Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Cybersecurity, Part 30: Shannon β AI Pentester for Web Apps and APIs first appeared on Hackers Arise.
I stopped uploading private documents to AI, this free app handles them on my PC
I don't know about you, but I have more bills, invoices, bank statements, and healthcare documents than I know what to do with. Finding a specific detail, understanding a complicated term, or comparing this month's charges with last month's can take up more time than I'd like, not to mention the frustration involved. Tools like ChatGPT and Claude can make this much easier, but I'm not particularly comfortable with the idea of handing my financial, medical, or other sensitive information over to big tech companies just to get a few questions answered. I have enough concerns about how much data these companies collect without voluntarily giving them more.

Barclays Plans 5,000 Job Cuts as AI Boosts Productivity
Barclays plans 5,000 job cuts in 2026 as AI and restructuring improve efficiency. Learn what the changes mean for developers, IT staffing, and budgets.
The post Barclays Plans 5,000 Job Cuts as AI Boosts Productivity appeared first on TechRepublic.
Barclays Plans 5,000 Job Cuts as AI Boosts Productivity
Barclays plans 5,000 job cuts in 2026 as AI and restructuring improve efficiency. Learn what the changes mean for developers, IT staffing, and budgets.
The post Barclays Plans 5,000 Job Cuts as AI Boosts Productivity appeared first on TechRepublic.
7 more Home Assistant features I wish I'd started using sooner
The number of features packed into Home Assistant is insane. The problem is that there are so many features that it can be easy to overlook some of the best ones. I slept on some of Home Assistant's features for far too long; here are some more of the best features that I wish I'd started using much sooner.

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All News β Federal News Network
- Army builds one-stop shop for civilian jobs, benefits and career development
Army builds one-stop shop for civilian jobs, benefits and career development

Β© Getty Images/iStockphoto/marchmeena29
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How-To Geek
- I gave Home Assistant a physical color wheel, and now I flip through albums like it's 2008
I gave Home Assistant a physical color wheel, and now I flip through albums like it's 2008
I loved my first Walkman to the point where I used it until it fell apart, but my favorite music player was still my iPod. There was nothing quite like flipping through the albums in the Cover Flow view by spinning my thumb around the click wheel. When I found an old remote that had its own wheel-style input, I wondered if I could bring those days back.

Zoomtopia 2026: Zoom Introduces AI Agents, New Security Controls
Zoom unveils AI agents and its Unified Context Layer at Zoomtopia 2026. Learn how its new automation and security tools could affect IT teams.
The post Zoomtopia 2026: Zoom Introduces AI Agents, New Security Controls appeared first on TechRepublic.
Zoomtopia 2026: Zoom Introduces AI Agents, New Security Controls
Zoom unveils AI agents and its Unified Context Layer at Zoomtopia 2026. Learn how its new automation and security tools could affect IT teams.
The post Zoomtopia 2026: Zoom Introduces AI Agents, New Security Controls appeared first on TechRepublic.