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A recent Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage that lasted 13 hours was reportedly caused by one of its own AI tools, according to reporting by Financial Times. This happened in December after engineers deployed the Kiro AI coding tool to make certain changes, say four people familiar with the matter.
Kiro is an agentic tool, meaning it can take autonomous actions on behalf of users. In this case, the bot reportedly determined that it needed to "delete and recreate the environment." This is what allegedly led to the lengthy outage that primarily impacted China.
Amazon says it was merely a "coincidence that AI tools were involved" and that "the same issue could occur with any developer tool or manual action." The company blamed the outage on "user error, not AI error." It said that by default the Kiro tool "requests authorization before taking any action" but that the staffer involved in the December incident had "broader permissions than expected — a user access control issue, not an AI autonomy issue."
Multiple Amazon employees spoke to Financial Times and noted that this was "at least" the second occasion in recent months in which the company's AI tools were at the center of a service disruption. "The outages were small but entirely foreseeable," said one senior AWS employee.
Instead of jumping straight to code, the IDE pushed them to start with specs.
?? Clear requirements.
?? Acceptance criteria.
?? Traceable tasks.
Their takeaway:
Think first. Code later.
Get the full breakdown here ??… pic.twitter.com/eD7ZrEdEn5
— Kiro (@kirodotdev)
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The US State Department is building a web portal, where Europeans and anyone else can see online content banned by their governments, according to Reuters. It was supposed to be launched at Munich Security Conference last month, but some state department officials reportedly voiced their concerns about the project. The portal will be hosted on freedom.gov, which currently just shows the image above. "Freedom is Coming," the homepage reads. "Information is power. Reclaim your human right to free expression. Get Ready."
Reuters says officials discussed making a virtual private network function available on the portal and making visitors' traffic appear as if they were from the US, so they could see anything unavailable to them. While it's a state department project, The Guardian has traced the domain to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which is a component of the US Department of Homeland Security. Homeland also serves as the administrator for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The project could drive the wedge further between the US and its European allies. European authorities don't usually order broad censorships preventing their citizens from being able to access large parts of the internet. Typically, they only order the blocking of hate speech, terrorist propaganda, disinformation and anything illegal under the EU's Digital Services Act or the UK's Online Safety Act.
"If the Trump administration is alleging that they're gonna be bypassi
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Money talks.In AI, it also buys megawatts. Humain says it has poured $3 billion into Elon Musk's xAI, a move that spotlights how the AI race is shifting from splashy launches to buildout math: capital, compute, power, and the places you can actually build. It's also a rare case where a state-backed AI push shows […]
The post Saudi Arabia Invests $3B in Elon Musk's xAI Empire appeared first on eWEEK.
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 Apple's older MacBook Air with the M1 chip is now out of stock on Walmart's website in the U.S., amid rumors of a new lower-cost MacBook coming soon.
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I saw the future of large appliances at KBIS 2026. Here are the new features that impressed me the most.
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 A major UK consumer lawsuit alleging that Qualcomm inflated iPhone prices through its patent licensing practices will be withdrawn with no payment (via Reuters).
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The hardest choice to make for building your next MacBook might be selecting a color. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple has tested colors including light yellow, light green, blue and pink for its next entry-level MacBook that's aimed at students and enterprise users.
Beyond the more vibrant colors, Gurman said that Apple has also trialed its classic silver and dark gray colorways for its cheaper laptop. Gurman added that not all of these six colors will make it to the final product, but Apple has recently shown it's not afraid to dip into flashier options. Apple refreshed the iMac in 2024 with a total of seven colors and swapped out the space gray option for sky blue for the latest MacBook Air.
Color choices aside, the latest rumors point to the upcoming MacBook having a price tag that's anywhere between $699 and $799. To achieve that lower price point, Apple is expected to port over its chips designed for iPhones, like the A18 Pro that we first saw with the iPhone 16 Pro Max. We're also anticipating Apple will compromise on specs, ports, or
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