VMware's on the attack, Claude's in your Mac, breathalyzers can't hack it back

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Wake up, it’s Tuesday. You don’t have to choose the red pill… just open Slack.

Twenty-seven years ago today, The Matrix hit theaters and convinced an entire generation that trench coats were cool and reality was negotiable. The Wachowskis' masterpiece grossed $463 million on a $63 million budget, won four Oscars, and became the first DVD to sell 3 million copies. Like, back when DVDs were the “cutting-edge” way to watch movies instead of whatever subscription service is gouging you this month.

The film gave us iconic lines like "There is no spoon" and "I know kung fu," which tech bros have been misquoting at parties ever since. More importantly, it predicted our current nightmare where everyone's trying to figure out if they're talking to a human or an AI chatbot. Dodge this, Open AI! (Lol JK. Good riddance, Sora…)

Half of VMware Users Are Jumping Ship Because They Filled The Ship With Crap

Broadcom's strategy of forcing VMware users into expensive all-or-nothing bundles is working exactly as planned… if the plan was to make half your customers HATE you? A new survey found 48% of VMware users intend to shrink their footprint by 2028.

The problem started when Broadcom acquired VMware and immediately decided the best way to make money was to stop selling things people actually wanted. Instead of letting customers buy specific tools, Broadcom now forces everyone into Cloud Foundation 9, a complete private cloud bundle that includes approximately seventeen things you don't need. It's like ordering fries and the waiter brings you a whole potato farm, then charges you for the tractor.

Anthropic's Claude Is The Keylogger Your Dad Warned You About

Anthropic just released an update that lets Claude physically control your Mac, clicking, typing, opening apps, and navigating like a very expensive intern who's always on their phone. The feature launched for Claude Cowork and Claude Code, allowing users to assign tasks from their phones and return to finished work on their desktops Thurrott—assuming "finished" means "attempted with confidence, failed with grace."

When Claude doesn't have a direct connector to an app like Slack or Google Calendar, it falls back to controlling your computer like a human would, taking screenshots to figure out what it's looking at and determine what to click next. Yes, that means Claude can see anything visible on your screen (including that browser tab you definitely should've closed before starting this). Anthropic is refreshingly honest about the limitations: "Computer use is still early compared to Claude's ability to code or interact with text. Claude can make mistakes." Hey, at least they're not calling it AGI and promising it'll solve climate change like some people, Sam 👀

The company recommends starting with apps you trust and avoiding sensitive data. The feature is essentially Anthropic's cleaner, more permission-focused answer to OpenClaw, the open-source AI agent that went viral earlier this year for being powerful but nightmarishly difficult to configure safely. Claude's version asks permission before touching anything new and only works on macOS for now, which means Windows users are spared from watching an AI struggle with their desktop for at least a few more months.

Hackers Blow Into Breathalyzer Company's Servers, Cars Countrywide Still Not Starting

Hackers attacked Intoxalock, a Des Moines breathalyzer company, on March 14, and for eight days approximately 150,000 drivers across 46 states couldn't start their cars. The company makes ignition interlock devices, which are court-mandated breathalyzers that prevent people convicted of DUIs from starting their vehicles if they've been drinking. So these are people who already made one catastrophically bad decision, and now they're learning that trusting a breathalyzer company to maintain their servers was the second one.

The cyberattack hit Intoxalock's backend systems, leaving the company unable to perform mandatory calibrations that are required every few months. Without those calibrations, the devices simply refuse to let cars start, turning vehicles into very expensive lawn ornaments. Customers in Maine, New York, Minnesota, and Connecticut reported missing work, losing income, and scrambling for rides in areas with limited public transit. All this because someone decided a breathalyzer device needed to phone home like E.T.

This is yet another case of things being tied to cloud services for absolutely no reason and becoming useless when that service fails. A local breathalyzer should be able to take a breath sample, analyze it, and either start the car or not entirely on its own. Instead, we've built a system where a cyberattack in Iowa can strand someone in Connecticut because their car needs permission from a server to * checks notes * drive?!

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🛩 INDUSTRY MOVES

• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang backpedaled on DLSS 5 criticism after initially calling angry gamers "completely wrong," now admitting on Lex Fridman's podcast that "I don't love AI slop myself." His own GeForce evangelist already confirmed DLSS 5 is exactly the post-processing filter Jenson swore it wasn't, which means his $10,000 leather jacket costs more than his commitment to consistent messaging.

• The U.S.'s FCC just banned new foreign-made routers after security concerns, which is bold for a country where the majority of existing routers came from exactly those places. The new standard seems to be security through scarcity, leaving everyone to fight over the last Netgear like it’s 2020 toilet paper.

• Grammarly's CEO Shishir Mehrotra went on The Verge's Decoder podcast to defend the company's "Expert Review" feature that cloned writers without permission, and the host—who happened to be one of the people cloned—asked three times how much he should be paid before the CEO finally ran out of ways to dodge the question. The feature is now disabled and facing a class action lawsuit.

• Epic Games is laying off 1,000 employees after CEO Tim Sweeney admitted Fortnite engagement started declining in 2025—their second major layoff round in three years. Laid-off workers will receive at least four months of base pay and extended healthcare coverage as the gaming industry faces mounting pressure from declining engagement and less interest from fans in terms of brainrot skin collabs.

Hey there, it's Chip, who's somehow more useful than half the enterprise software you pay for! Here's what the EE community tackled this week:

• Someone's wrestling with what they think is a VLOOKUP problem in Excel, but it's actually an INDEX/MATCH situation in disguise. It's like going to the doctor for a headache and finding out you need glasses.

• Another expert discovered that a named range throws an error for reasons that make sense once you see it but feel cosmically unfair when you're staring at the formula. Excel giveth, and Excel taketh away, mostly when you're on a deadline.

• And someone's dealing with a Dell Precision 3460 that intermittently reboots due to what appears to be a system board issue. The diagnosis is about as vague as "check engine light," but at least replacing the motherboard gives you a 50/50 shot at fixing it.

That's it for this week! See you next Monday, assuming your software licenses still work and your router hasn't been banned.

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