A potentially tragic story is currently unfolding that could have a seismic impact on American pop culture if it turns out to be what we think it is: This crime report keeps referring to a victim as John “The Rock” Doe.
While we can’t jump to any conclusions just yet, we’re praying this isn’t what it sounds like.
According to a crime report released this morning by the Los Angeles police department, a hit-and-run victim was admitted to a morgue in Hollywood last night who could only be identified as “a bald, muscular 53-year-old male, 6 feet five inches tall and weighing 260 pounds.” The report says that the deceased victim showed signs of having starred in the films The Tooth Fairy, Black Adam, and The Smashing Machine, but that no further information on his identity was available at this time, and that they were treating him as a John “The Rock” Doe pending further investigation.
Yikes. When you start piecing everything together, you start getting a pretty dire picture of what’s going on here.
“While the victim is currently being referred to as John ‘The Rock’ Doe until we can confirm his identity, officials have advised that the victim would prefer to be referred to simply as John Doe for now so that the public can more easily separate his current acting career from his former career as a professional wrestler,” LAPD Detective Brandon Longshire said in a press conference this morning. “At this time, we’re asking anyone who knows an individual who might have appeared in several films from the Fast And Furious franchise who have gone missing in the last 24 hours to please come forward to smell what this anonymous victim is cooking and hopefully make a positive ID sooner rather than later.”
Absolutely hypothetically devastating. While there’s clearly still a lot that the police don’t know and there are many details yet to be confirmed, we’re not going to sit here and pretend that this situation doesn’t sound pretty bleak. The more we about this John “The Rock” Doe, the more it sounds like the entertainment world is in for some very sad news. Here’s hoping we’re wrong and that this dead body is just some anonymous huge bald guy that nobody cares about!
De winnaars van de smartphone‑revolutie denken hun nieuwe goudmijn te hebben gevonden: slimmere wearables die je op je neus, je kraag of om je nek draagt. Met een nieuwe Qualcomm‑chip, Snapdragon Wear Elite, willen bedrijven als Google, Meta, Samsung, Amazon en Apple een generatie AI‑ gadgets bouwen die altijd aanstaan, continu meeluisteren en direct vertalen, informeren en adviseren – zonder dat je een scherm hoeft vast te houden. Vooral smartglasses zitten in de lift: de verkoop groeide in de tweede helft van 2025 met 139 procent, een duidelijk signaal dat de markt warm begint te draaien. Maar terwijl de techsector droomt van een leven waarin je overal handsfree digitale hulp krijgt, groeit ook de angst voor misbruik en permanente surveillance – mede gevoed door eerdere flops zoals de AI Pin en brillen die ongemerkt filmen.
Wat kunnen we verwachten?
Meer “onzichtbare” gadgets zonder klassiek scherm: pins, hangers, brilletjes die eruitzien als gewone brillen, kledingclips.
Altijd‑aan AI‑assistenten die context snappen (locatie, wat je ziet/hoort/beweegt) en proactief informatie geven, zonder dat je je telefoon pakt.
Sterke koppeling aan bestaande ecosystemen (Google‑account, iCloud, Meta‑accounts, Amazon‑account), zodat je wearable een soort persoonlijk AI‑front‑end wordt op al je diensten.
Felle discussies over privacy, filmen in het openbaar en permanente audio‑opname; eerdere mislukking Humane AI Pin laat zien hoe snel het kan ontsporen.
Verwachte categorieën nieuwe producten
Smartglasses (zonder of met minimaal display)
Slimme zonnebrillen / brillen met camera, microfoon en speakers voor handsfree foto’s, video, vertalingen en notificaties.
AI‑brillen zonder volwaardig AR‑display, die vooral audio en eenvoudige visuele hints geven, vaak gekoppeld aan een smartphone.
Brillen met monoculaire AR‑display (één lens) vanaf ±2027 bij Meta en Samsung, met eenvoudige overlays (navigatie, berichten, contextinfo).
Pins en pendants (AI‑speldjes en hangers)
Kledingpins met microfoon, speaker en camera die via spraak opdrachten uitvoeren, samenvatten, vertalen en informatie opvragen, aangedreven door Snapdragon Wear Elite.
Hangers/kettingen die als discrete AI‑hub werken: altijd‑aan microfoon, haptische feedback, basis‑notificaties en contextuele tips.
Zak‑ of kraagclips die gesprekken transcriberen, vergaderingen samenvatten en later doorzoekbaar maken.
AI‑first horloges en polsapparaten
Smartwatches met extra camera en krachtigere Wear‑Elite‑chips om live beeld/geluid naar AI‑modellen te sturen (bv. productherkenning, realtime coaching).
Fitnessband‑achtige wearables die biometrische data (hartslag, stress, slaap) koppelen aan een persoonlijke AI‑coach.
Overige wearables rond het lichaam
Oordopjes en earbuds met ultra‑persoonlijke, contextuele AI‑assistent (denk: real‑time tolk, nieuwsflitsen op maat, waarschuwingen in de openbare ruimte).
Slimme ringen en armbanden die notificaties, betalingen en health‑tracking combineren met AI‑analyse op het device.
“AI hubs”: kleine kastjes of wearables die als brein dienen voor meerdere apparaten (bril + oortjes + ring) in jouw persoonlijke ecosysteem.
BEIROET (ANP/RTR) - De Israëlische aanvallen op Libanon hebben maandag en dinsdag tot minstens 40 doden en 246 gewonden geleid. Dat meldt het Libanese ministerie van Volksgezondheid, aldus persbureau Reuters.
KYIV (ANP) - Oekraïne meldt dat opnieuw ernstige schade is ontstaan aan de Droezjba-oliepijpleiding, die wordt gebruikt om Russische olie te leveren aan onder meer Hongarije en Slowakije. Minister van Energie Denys Sjmyhal meldt volgens Interfax Ukraine dat na een Russische aanval brand is uitgebroken.
Over olieleveranties via de pijpleiding ontstond dit jaar diplomatieke ruzie. Die toevoer stopte nadat de leiding volgens Oekraïne was beschadigd door een Russische aanval. Hongarije en Slowakije verwijten hun buurland dat het er te lang over doet om leveringen te hervatten.
Volgens Sjmyhal zijn nu na een droneaanval interne apparatuur van de pijpleiding, sensoren en andere componenten beschadigd. "Dit is van buitenaf niet zichtbaar, maar het betekent wel dat er enorm veel werk verzet moet worden."
AI-first editors and agent-driven tooling intensify competition in the IDE market
The Open VSX registry, used for installing extensions in editors compatible with Visual Studio Code (VS Code), will run on Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure in Europe as part of a "strategic investment" from the cloud giant.…
AI browsing agent left local files open for the taking
If you wanted to steal local files from someone using Perplexity's Comet browser, until last month you could just schedule the theft by sending your victim a calendar event.…
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) bought data from the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples’ precise movements over time, in a process that often involves siphoning data from ordinary apps like video games, dating services, and fitness trackers, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) document obtained by 404 Media.
The document shows in stark terms the power, and potential risk, of online advertising data and how it can be leveraged by government agencies for surveillance purposes. The news comes after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) purchased similar tools that can monitor the movements of phones in entire neighbourhoods. ICE also recently said in public procurement documents it was interested in sourcing more “Ad Tech” data for its investigations. Following 404 Media’s revelation of that ICE purchase, on Tuesday a group of around 70 lawmakers urged the DHS oversight body to conduct a new investigation into ICE’s location data buying.
This sort of information is a “goldmine for tracking where every person is and what they read, watch, and listen to,” Johnny Ryan, director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) Enforce, which has closely followed the sale of advertising data, told 404 Media in an email.
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Do you work at CBP, ICE, or a location data company? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.
The document 404 Media obtained is the first time CBP has acknowledged the location data it bought came from the advertising industry. Specifically, CBP says the data was in part sourced via real-time bidding, or RTB. Whenever an advertisement is displayed inside an app, a near instantaneous bidding process happens with companies vying to have their advert served to a certain demographic. A side effect of this is that surveillance firms, or rogue advertising companies working on their behalf, can observe this process and siphon information about mobile phones, including their location. All of this is essentially invisible to an ordinary phone user, but happens constantly.
This sort of surveillance can happen through all sorts of innocuous seeming apps, such as video games, news apps, weather trackers, and dating apps. 404 Media has previously linked RTB-based surveillance to games like Candy Crush and Subway Surfers; dating apps Tinder and Grindr; the social network Tumblr, and the popular fitness app MyFitnessPal. In many cases, the app developers themselves are likely unaware they are acting as a conduit for government surveillance because the data collection is not based on any code the app creators have included themselves. The end result is tools that can potentially track hundreds of millions of phones, often without a warrant.
“RTB-sourced location data is recorded when an advertisement is served,” the DHS document reads. The document is a Privacy Threshold Analysis (PTA), a type of record DHS is required to complete when deploying or exploring a new technology. 404 Media obtained it through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
A section of the document. Image: 404 Media.
The document lays out how the online advertising industry gave birth to this sort of surveillance. Traditionally, marketers used cookies to track consumers’ activities. When those grew less effective due to the rise of smartphones and apps in the 2010s, Apple and Google created Advertising IDs, or AdIDs, that are assigned to each device. These are unique identifiers that, although they don’t contain a person’s phone number or name, still provide a way for the online advertising industry to track devices. As the document says, “this allows app developers to still track and report a device’s consumer activity, to include date/time and locational information, without connecting to or using any personally identifiable information (PII) associated with the device.”
In essence, the AdID acts as the digital glue between a person’s device and their location data, allowing marketers—or a surveillance contractor or DHS—to attribute a set of movements to a specific device. From there, investigators can draw geofences to see all phones at a particular area over a period of time. Many smartphone location data tools then let officials see where else those devices went, potentially revealing where their owners live or work, or other sensitive locations.
“It operates behind the scenes on websites and apps, and it puts everyone at risk. RTB is the world’s biggest data breach,” Ryan added.
CBP acknowledged a request for comment, which asked whether CBP is still using this sort of data, but ultimately did not comment.
A section of the document. Image: 404 Media.
The internal document relates to a “pilot” program CBP previously ran from 2019 to 2021, which would “aid in CBP’s targeting, vetting, analysis, and illicit network discovery processes,” it says. The document says the “evaluation will be focused on AdIDs associated with cross border criminal activity and/or activity with an identified terrorist/criminal predicate.”
Although CBP described the move as a pilot, the DHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) later found both CBP and ICE did not limit themselves to non-operational use. The OIG found that CBP, ICE, and the Secret Service all illegally used the smartphone location data, and found a CBP official used the data to track coworkers with no investigative purpose. CBP and ICE went on to repeatedly purchase access to location data.
In 2020 The Wall Street Journal was first to report on CBP and ICE’s purchase of commercial location data from a vendor called Venntel. The report said ICE used the data to help identify immigrants who were later arrested, and CBP used the data to look for cellphone activity in unusual places, including the stretches of desert on the Mexican border. The FTC later found Venntel illegally sold location data collected without proper consent.
In January, 404 Media reported on material which explained how a similar and more recently ICE-purchased system called Webloc works. It is designed to monitor a city neighborhood or block for mobile phones, then let ICE track the movements of those devices back to their likely homes or other locations. The material did not say how Penlink, the company selling the tool, obtains this location data. But surveillance companies broadly either obtain it through RTB, or small bundles of code called software development kits (SDKs) inserted into ordinary apps.
“By refusing to cut off surveillance companies and sleazy data brokers, Big Tech companies are effectively collaborating with ICE’s lawless campaign of violence and terror. As a result, every internet ad on a website or app could be collecting location data that ICE will use for its next operation,” Senator Ron Wyden told 404 Media in a statement.
“Congress could put a stop to this by passing my bills to ban the government from buying our data and ban tech companies from using surveillance advertising. Until then, the best way for the public to protect themselves is to install ad blockers, disable their phone's advertising ID, and enable the Global Privacy Control in their browser, which 12 states now enforce,” the statement added.
On Tuesday, Wyden, Rep. Adriano Espaillat, and a group of 70 other lawmakers sent a letter to the DHS OIG urging it to once again investigate DHS’s purchase of location data.
“Public reports indicate that ICE has resumed its location data purchases, even though DHS has yet to adopt all of the recommendations from your prior review,” the letter, shared with 404 Media by Wyden’s office, reads. “Your 2023 report noted that there was no DHS-wide policy governing component use of commercial location data. DHS created a commercial data working group in 2022, but as of April 2023, the DHS commercial data working group had yet to issue a policy. Your office recently confirmed that this recommendation remains open.”
The letter says that ICE is “stonewalling” Wyden’s efforts to investigate the Webloc purchase. Wyden’s office requested a briefing on the purchase after 404 Media first revealed it, with that briefing scheduled for February 10. “One day before that briefing was to take place, ICE cancelled it with no explanation and without any offer to reschedule,” the letter reads.
In January ICE posted a request for information—essentially a callout for capable companies to come forward—looking for more access to advertising technology. ICE “is gathering information to better understand how the industry’s commercial Big Data and Ad Tech providers can directly support investigations activities,” the announcement reads. “The Government is seeking to understand the current state of Ad Tech compliant and location data services available to federal investigative and operational entities, considering regulatory constraints and privacy expectations of support investigations activities,” it added.
Uit het onderzoek blijkt dat er in elke Nederlandse provincie agenten waren die vertrouwelijke informatie over Lisa hebben opgezocht, stelt een politiewoordvoerder. „Voor collega’s uit Amsterdam hebben we meer begrip, maar agenten in Limburg hebben niets te zoeken in de stukken over Lisa.”
Cadillac Team Principal Graeme Lowdon has confirmed that the squad will bring their first upgrades for their debut at the Australian Grand Prix, as the American outfit prepare for the “beginning of the journey” in Melbourne.
The lesson here isn’t that one AI company is more ethical than another. It’s that we must renovate our democratic structures
OpenAI is in and Anthropic is out as a supplier of AI technology for the US defense department. This news caps a week of bluster by the highest officials in the US government towards some of the wealthiest titans of the big tech industry, and the overhanging specter of the existential risks posed by a new technology powerful enough that the Pentagon claims it is essential to national security. At issue is Anthropic’s insistence that the US Department of Defense (DoD) could not use its models to facilitate “mass surveillance” or “fullyautonomous weapons,” provisions the defense secretary Pete Hegseth derided as “woke”.
It all came to a head on Friday evening when Donald Trump issued an order for federal government agencies to discontinue use of Anthropic models. Within hours, OpenAI had swooped in, potentially seizing hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts by striking an agreement with the administration to provide classified government systems with AI.
With a world-class cast that will have you constantly saying ‘hey, it’s that guy!’, this horror drama about a doomed Royal Navy expedition is a grand treatise on colonial folly
There’s an old adage that adventure is extreme discomfort remembered from an armchair. But what if there is no armchair waiting at the end of your journey? What if you never return at all? Well, then you have the first season of AMC anthology series The Terror. Based on the bestselling book of the same name by Dan Simmons, who died last month, it chronicles a doomed Royal Navy expedition dispatched to the Arctic in search of the fabled Northwest Passage.
Under the leadership of Captains Sir John Franklin and Francis Crozier, the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, manned with 129 crew, set sail from England in 1845. They became locked in pack ice off King William Island in the winter of 1846. After that, the entire expedition vanished – both ships and all hands lost – a sort of Victorian-era MH370 that has fascinated historians, geographers and artists ever since.
If you have a weak stomach, I don’t recommend watching one of the many videos on social media of influencers dipping their spoons into a jar of sea moss and putting mounds of the congealed substance – with a texture resembling congealed oil or snot – straight into their mouths.
“People have this assumption that it’s disgusting,” one influencer says, holding a spoonful in her mouth and, while seemingly trying not to swallow, insisting: “It’s really not.” Another dry-retches as soon as it passes her lips.
Nederlanders kijken een stuk positiever naar de lokale politiek dan naar de landelijke politiek. Dat blijkt uit onderzoek van het Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau (SCP). Toch waarschuwt het SCP dat deze positieve kijk zomaar weer kan omslaan.
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