Cryptocurrency is booming — the rise and rise of bitcoin has been one of the biggest stories of the latter part of 2017. Now, we have seen a glimpse of the more troubling side of the technology, as an attack on a major mining marketplace has resulted in almost $64 million worth of bitcoin being stolen.
“Unfortunately, there has been a security breach involving NiceHash website,” reads a statement posted by the company in response to the situation. “We are currently investigating the nature of the incident and, as a result, we are stopping all operations for the next 24 hours.”
NiceHash is a service that allows customers to exchange their hardware’s processing power for the purposes of verifying bitcoin hashes. When they want to cash out, they are paid in bitcoin.
The payment system employed by NiceHash was reportedly compromised, which allowed thieves to drain the contents of its bitcoin wallet. The authorities have been notified and the company is working on its own investigation into exactly what happened, and the best course of action.
Approximately 4,700 bitcoins were stolen, according to the company’s head of marketing Andrej Škraba, who spoke to The Guardian. Concerns were first raised among users when the website began behaving strangely, at which point NiceHash’s social media presence was the target for a bevy of queries and complaints.
“We would not exist without our devoted buyers and miners all around the globe,” read its response to the attack. “We understand that you will have a lot of questions, and we ask for patience and understanding while we investigate the causes and find the appropriate solutions for the future of the service.”
It’s easy to see why there’s so much excitement about cryptocurrency, but a situation like this demonstrates what can go wrong. This isn’t tried-and-tested infrastructure, and attacks can and will happen — as we saw with the high-profile Equifax hack, unseen vulnerabilities are all-too-common.
This isn’t to say that bitcoin or cryptocurrency are inherently dangerous or untrustworthy, but there is certainly an element of risk when it comes to using a service like NiceHash.
Speech-to-text apps have flooded the App Store, making it easier than ever to type on our Macs with just our voice. I have previously covered one such app called TypeWhisper. However, there has been a dearth of good text-to-speech models, and most of the good ones are locked behind a subscription.
Ollama, an open-source app that lets you run local AI models on your computer, wants to change that. It works on macOS, Windows, and Linux, and your prompts are never stored or used for training.
Did you think hitting delete on your AI chatbot conversation actually makes it disappear? Georgia Tech researchers just proved that's not entirely true. They have built a forensic tool called ORISA that can dig deleted conversations from your phone and even rebuild them into a working chatbot session you can keep talking to.
How can ORISA bring deleted AI conversations back?
Touchscreen laptops have been around for years. You can get them in all sizes and shapes. Just not from Apple. For years, the Cupertino giant has treated the idea of a touchscreen MacBook the way I treat a meeting that could have been an email: with open contempt. However, Wednesday looks like the day the company could finally change its mind.
The latest Apple invite puts the “Pro and Tell” showcase in Los Angeles at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET) on October 28, 2026. Instead of a regular live-streamed keynote, it is an invitation-only, hands-on event for a handful of press and creators (similar to what the company did for the MacBook Neo earlier this year).