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15 May 2025

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DoorDash dives into delicious drone deliveries
The future is here! And in so many ways, it kinda sucks. A new graphics card costs more than a mortgage payment because billionaires are sucking up all the GPUs to boil the planet and make Hayao Miyazaki cry at the same time, and I still don’t have a Marty McFly hoverboard. But at least I can order fast food that literally flies to my door. That’s nice. In fact, I could order a flying curry delivery if I lived in Charlotte, North Carolina—specifically, within four miles of the Arboretum Shopping Center—where DoorDash is now offering food deliveries via drone. You can choose from a limited selection of local eateries, including Panera Bread, Matcha Cafe Maiko, and Joa Korean. The latest expansion is part of a partnership with drone delivery company Wing. Deliveries are also available in tiny slices of Dallas-Fort Worth and southwest Virginia, after a pilot (ha!) program in Logan City, Australia. Wing’s drones are autonomous, according to the press release, needing no human pilots. The drones are pretty beefy, too. Promotional photos show a design with no less than 16 propellers spread across two struts and two wings, and it tucks the fast food package up underneath the main body. The bags are loaded by humans while the drone is airborne, and the food is then lowered down on an extensible cable at the destination so the drone doesn’t need to land. It’s pretty neat, though I can think of a lot of ways it could go wrong. If you happen to live in Charlotte, NC (or the other introductory locations), you can check to see if your address is in the service area on Wing’s website. DoorDash is offering a $1 bowl of Panera mac and cheese for anyone who tries it out in the new area.

CPU-level ransomware is possible, and it’s terrifying
Malware is a thing you just have to be aware of. But it’s pretty rare that it can actually damage your computer in a permanent sense — wipe the drive if you’re okay with losing local data, and you can generally get up and running in a day or two. But what if the microcode running on your CPU’s tiny integrated memory becomes infected? One security researcher says he’s done it. Christiaan Beek of Rapid7 says he has created a proof-of-concept ransomware that can hide inside a CPU’s microcode, building on previous work that emerged when Google required AMD processors to always return “4” when asked for a random number. He claims that modifying UEFI firmware can install an unsigned update to the processor, slipping past any kind of conventional antivirus or OS-based security. In a statement given to The Register, Beek says that Rapid7 won’t release the tool. However, the implications of this possibility are significant. If your computer’s CPU was infected to that degree, it would technically be possible to recover with official tools from Intel, AMD, et cetera. But it would be so involved, and your system would be so fully compromised, that you might as well just pull a Ron Swanson and yeet that thing. Malware that can bypass the encryption in UEFI firmware is already known, though it’s a lot more complex and involved than your typical dodgy download. CPU-level ransomware has not been seen “in the wild,” and it seems likely that when and if it emerges, it’ll be a state-level actor that exploits it first. That means your typical user probably won’t be targeted, at least immediately. Still, maybe keep a remote backup of your important files, just in case.

Google is testing an ‘AI Mode’ button in place of ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’
Several users are now reporting that Google Search has swapped its classic “I’m Feeling Lucky” button for an “AI Mode” button instead. In some cases, the AI Mode button appears to the right of the search bar with the I’m Feeling Lucky button remaining in its usual spot. AI Mode is an experimental feature that offers an AI-generated search experience powered by Google’s Gemini 2.0 language model. Google spokesperson Ashley Thompson told The Verge that the search engine’s AI Mode is currently only visible to a limited number of users in Google’s experimental Labs environment. It’s unclear at this point when—or if—the redesign could become the new standard for Google Search. You can see some examples of the new design in the tweets below: I see this… AI Mode button next to Google Search. pic.twitter.com/zacHHA5AwH— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) May 10, 2025

Microsoft lays off 6,000+ employees for non-performance reasons
Microsoft is laying off up to 3 percent of its global workforce, reports Bloomberg. With Microsoft having around 228,000 employees at the end of June 2024 (the latest reported number), that’d mean around 6,000 to 6,800 people being let go, according to CNBC. This confirms the rumors from last month. The layoffs are to take place in different regions across different employee levels and teams. “We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace,” a company spokesperson told CNBC. Microsoft plans to cut 1,985 jobs at its Redmond headquarters alone, 1,510 of which will be in the office. One aim is to reduce layers of management, the spokesperson said. Unlike the previous job reduction from January 2025 that hit “low performers,” these layoffs are not performance-related. It’s currently unknown whether the Xbox games division will also be affected by the layoffs, but Microsoft has repeatedly cut jobs in the Xbox division in recent years. These job cuts don’t fit with the latest business figures. At the end of April, Microsoft reported a net profit of $25.8 billion for the quarter, which exceeded expectations, and also issued a positive forecast.