What just happened? The Kremlin has told staff involved in President Vladimir Putin's 2024 re-election campaign to get rid of their iPhones before the end of this month over fears that western intelligence agencies could be using them for surveillance purposes. Those who would rather not throw their expensive handset away have been advised to "give it to the kids."
WTF?! Footage of video games purporting to be real-life incidents, particular those from conflicts, is far from a new phenomenon. The practice has been increasing this year following the war in Ukraine, and it's often Arma 3 gameplay that's used as the fake footage. Now, developer Bohemia Interactive has addressed the circulation of these videos and explained how to tell real clips from fakes.
Why it matters: Multiple undersea cables in the south of France were cut overnight, making Internet access unreliable globally. Engineers fixed one broken link, and investigations are still ongoing. Fingers have been pointed at Russian submarines because of the Ukraine conflict, but investigators have not yet found any evidence supporting this assumption.
TL;DR: Sanctions against Russia mean the country now looks to the Chinese gray market for its semiconductor imports, but there's a problem: 40% of them are defective. That marks a 1,900% increase in their failure rate over the last few months.
Musk says he's only following an ambassador's recommendation to "f**k off"
A hot potato: Elon Musk has been praised for supplying Ukraine with SpaceX Starlink terminals to help in the war against Russia, but the world's richest person has warned that his company can't continue its donations or fund the existing system indefinitely and is asking the Pentagon to start paying for the service.
A hot potato: Elon Musk has waded into another controversy on the platform he once tried to buy. The world's richest man tweeted a proposal on how to end the war between Ukraine and Russia, and it's brought an angry response from the country's president.
Russia's largest social network has 75 million monthly users
Why it matters: Apple has removed Russia's Facebook competitor, VKontakte, from the App Store globally, a move prompted by new UK sanctions. It's one of several apps from VK, Russia's second-largest internet company, to have been dropped from the store, and the country is demanding an explanation.