Daily Tech News 2 February 2026

• Notepad++, a text editor used by every programmer in the world, got hijacked and used to install malware. (Notepad++)
  
  You're probably safe to click on that link. I think.
  
  The server providing software updates for Notepad++ got hacked to selectively deliver malware, apparently by West Taiwan targeting specific users in Taiwan.
  
  This went undetected for months because of the focused nature of the attack; if it had affected everyone who uses the software it would have been uncovered the next day. And would also have been a global catastrophe, because that would have given the attackers an indirect back door into basically everything.
  
  So it could have been worse, but is more than a little worrying.

• The price of Bitcoin has crashed back below $80,000. (Yahoo)
  
  That's okay, I put all my money in silver.
  
  Fuck.
  
  
  
• The future will not be in 8k. (Ars Technica)
  
  If you were thinking of getting an 8k TV, your options have narrowed to one, with LG dropping production of 8k panels.
  
  That leaves Samsung.
  
  I was thinking of getting one as a large-format monitor once they got cheap enough, but that now looks like it may take a while.
  
  
  
• ChatGPT is retiring several of its older models. (Thurrott)
  
  Not everyone has the lasting appeal of a Cindy Crawford, I guess.
  
  Oh, different kind of model.

  Starting on February 13, 2026, the GPT-4o, GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini, OpenAI o4-mini, and GPT-5 (Instant and Thinking) will be retired from ChatGPT.

  GPT-4o was introduced in a hurry after everyone hated GPT-5, and is now being disintroduced in an equal hurry.
  
  
  
• A Japanese researcher has built a 128 byte USB drive - yes, 128 bytes - out of ferrite core memory. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Using a Raspberry Pi Pico as the controller, a chip which has rather more than 128 bytes of memory.

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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