2 November 2026

Hackers defrost freezers in supermarkets in Belgium and Sweden

Hackers took control of supermarket freezers in Belgium and Sweden and raised their temperature to 50°C (122°F), Tom's Hardware reports, citing Bloomberg. In Belgium, the attack began overnight from November 1 to 2 and hit the Delhaize, Carrefour and Spar chains; in Sweden, ICA and Coop were affected, and stores had to throw out goods. The hackers remotely switched on defrost mode, just as in France a few weeks earlier. There are also reports of stores hit in Ireland, Estonia and the Netherlands.

Tom's Hardware ↗

From recent days

Amazon, not VCs, stands to make the most from Anthropic's IPO

Amazon, not venture capital firms, stands to make the most from Anthropic's IPO, TechCrunch calculates based on the S-1 filing. Of the roughly $18 billion Amazon has invested in the company, $8 billion went into convertible notes, which Amazon valued at $97.9 billion as of June 30. No VC firm holds even 5% of the company - Menlo Ventures' stake of about 1.5% is worth roughly $14 billion, according to Bloomberg. Amazon will also profit as a supplier: Anthropic has committed to spend at least $110 billion on AWS over 10 years.

TechCrunch ↗

Musk's company wants to buy 418 homes near its power plant - if owners stay out of a noise lawsuit

Elon Musk's xAI, now operating as SpaceXSI, is offering to buy homes from residents of the Colonial Hills neighborhood in Southaven, Mississippi, on the condition that they do not join a class-action lawsuit over noise from its power plant, The Guardian reports. A recording of a conversation with a real estate agent indicates the company wants to buy 418 homes, and 18 owners have already agreed. The homes are to house its employees. The company denies the claims in the lawsuit, and the mayor says city monitors have not detected a breach of the 70-decibel limit.

The Guardian ↗ Tom's Hardware ↗

Ollama now turns text into speech locally on the Mac - starting with Phonon in five languages

Ollama, an app for running AI models on your own computer, can now turn text into speech - for now on Apple silicon Macs running version 0.40.11 or later, with Windows and Linux coming soon. The first model, Phonon from Gradium, speaks English, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese, and you can start listening right away, before the whole recording is finished. Ollama says its version of Phonon generates speech 35% faster than Gradium's original implementation on a MacBook Pro with M5 Max.

9to5Mac ↗

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