The Cybertruck on fire. Alcides Antunes tells us he just happened to arrive at Trump’s hotel at the time of the explosion. | Image: Alcides Antunes A Tesla Cybertruck exploded just outside of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada on New Year’s Day, law enforcement authorities have just confirmed. One person is dead inside the Cybertruck, and seven minor injuries have been reported, according to Las Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahill. The FBI is also on the scene; authorities have evacuated the hotel and are looking for “secondary devices” just in case, but McMahill says “there does not appear to be any further threat to our community.” At around 8:40AM PT, a 2024 Cybertruck rolled up to the hotel lobby, according to authorities. “We saw that smoke started showing from the vehicle and then a large explosion from the truck occurs,” McMahill tells reporters. Fire crews were on scene within four minutes, and the fire was put out within an hour. Here is an alleged video of the moment of the explosion, seemingly captured via one of the hotel’s security cameras: New footage of the Tesla Cybertruck exploding in front of the Trump hotelIt looks like fireworks explodedThis was intentionalSomeone was sending a message to Trump & Elon pic.twitter.com/aTpe0oM6jg— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) January 1, 2025A single anonymous “official briefed on the probe” told ABC News that the Cybertruck contained a load of “fireworks-style mortars,” though it wasn’t clear to that official if the explosion was intentional. The video above does seem to show firework-like explosions, but we haven’t confirmed its source.Another video shared on X shows the truck engulfed in flames just outside the hotel’s lobby. Multiple eyewitnesses reported hearing at least one explosion, and we’ve embedded more of their videos further down this story.Cybertruck blew up in front of Trump hotel in Las Vegas. Those are our luggage by the door and that’s where we were when it happened. pic.twitter.com/KaVZXfGLNK— ayackle (@kaaaassuu) January 1, 2025It’s still not clear what caused the fire. “Right now we just don’t have a lot of answers,” says FBI special agent Jeremy Schwartz, the acting agent in charge. Authorities didn’t have any details about the dead person inside the Cybertruck; we don’t even yet know if they were the driver. “We are investigating a number of leads and I’m not prepared to release any of that information to you just yet,” McMahill says.Tesla CEO Elon Musk claims the explosion has nothing to do with the Cybertruck itself, saying the company was able to remotely access data from this specific Cybertruck to prove it wasn’t caused by the vehicle. “We have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck and is unrelated to the vehicle itself,” he posted on X. (The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) didn’t respond to our requests for comment or to fact-check this.)We hadn’t previously heard the Cybertruck was rented; Musk says it was rented via Turo, a company that lets people rent out their cars like Airbnb lets them rent out their homes. He also now claims that “law enforcement currently believes [the explosion] was most likely intentional.”We have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck and is unrelated to the vehicle itself. All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of the explosion. https://t.co/HRjb87YbaJ— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 1, 2025The news of the fire comes amid numerous reports about Musk getting closer to President-elect Donald Trump. Musk spent New Year’s Eve at Mar-a-Lago and reportedly sat in during Trump’s dinner with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Musk has also been staying at a cottage on Trump’s Florida property since around Election Day, according to a report from The New York Times.It also comes amidst a terror attack in New Orleans, where a driver rammed a pickup truck into a crowd of people in the French Quarter, killing at least 15; authorities in Las Vegas cited the incident as one reason they’re carefully checking for possible “secondary devices.” Musk points out that, like the Tesla Cybertruck, the F-150 Lightning used to kill 15 people in New Orleans was also reportedly rented out via Turo.Still, while authorities say they want Las Vegas residents to “stay away from the area,” Sheriff McMahill suggests the Vegas incident is probably over: “We believe everything is safe now.”Several others on X say they witnessed an “explosion” and captured videos of the rising smoke. Alcides Antunes, whose image tops this story, says the car first caught fire, then there were three big pops that might have been batteries exploding. Max Radford claimed there were multiple explosions; Stephen Felando claimed the windows shook violently on the 53rd floor of the building. Explosion at Trump International Las Vegas in the valet/check in area.No flames now, but what happened?? pic.twitter.com/020xIziMJ5— stephen felando (@felandostephen1) January 1, 2025I just saw an explosion at Trump Hotel in Las Vegas - multiple explosions- smoke, people running out and police cars & Fire truck arrive - it clear what’s happened! pic.twitter.com/JFPBKAxWoZ— Max Radford (@maxradford10) January 1, 2025“Ayackle,” who captured the lobby video, says the vehicle “lowered itself” shortly after pulling up to the lobby, then went boom. “It started off like colourful fireworks,” they wrote on X.“I and my husband were literally standing where the luggage is in the footage. I just saw it pulled up, and it lowered itself like a bus, and boom it goes. It first looked like fireworks or something but then I immediately feared our life thinking it could be a bomb and ran,” they added.Donald Trump has yet to make a public statement on the incident, but Eric Trump has weighed in: “Earlier today, a reported electric vehicle fire occurred in the porte cochère of Trump Las Vegas. The safety and well-being of our guests and staff remain our top priority. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to the Las Vegas Fire Department and local law enforcement for their swift response and professionalism.”Umar Shakir contributed reporting.Update, January 1st: Added many more details, including direct from law enforcement, an alleged video of the moment of the explosion, and Musk’s statements about the rented vehicle.Correction, January 1st: Jeff Bezos is Amazon’s founder, but no longer its CEO as we originally wrote.

For the last decade, I’ve been firmly entrenched in the NVIDIA GPU ecosystem. The first GPU I purchased with my own money was an EVGA GTX 750 Ti, and I loved it. EVGA was my preferred board partner to buy from, and I was heartbroken when they shut the doors on their GPU division. Even with my FTW3 3080 going strong, I know I’ll have to upgrade soon as graphical fidelity increases with each passing year.

By all accounts, 2024 was a lackluster year for PC hardware, especially for graphics cards. Next-gen GPUs that were originally slated to launch in the last few months of the year got pushed to 2025, and the RTX 40 series Super refresh failed to achieve anything of note. In contrast, 2025 could turn out to be much more interesting than people think.

Blender is an open-source 3D design and motion tool. There are tons of great add-ons available for Blenderto increase how you can use the software. You can also use Blender to design 3D models for 3D printing, but the 3D textures work best for digital 3D design. They can be used for texture on static models, including visualizations of interior or exterior engineering plans, or you can use them within 3D animation in Blender.

I still remember the time when I couldn't wait to come back home to fire up whichever game had me hyped at the time. And this wasn't just in school or college — I used to spend three to five hours gaming every day till 2020, four years into my full-time job. However, when the pandemic hit, I had to stay away from my PC for almost a year, which, combined with other responsibilities, pushed me away from PC gaming. And things haven't been the same since.

They say that three weeks is all it takes to build a habit. While it may seem simple, keeping yourself accountable for that duration can be challenging. That's where habit builders and trackers come in handy. There are several apps and programs that not only help you set goals but also track your progress towards them, thus helping you build habits. I personally use a habit tracker on my laptop to ensure I drink sufficient water on a daily basis, spend less time on social media apps, and overcome excessive procrastination.

It’s hard to find open-source software that works on tablets like the iPad or Android tablets. While there are plenty of open-source creative design software, these are typically found exclusively for desktop use. There are some workarounds to using open-source software on tablets, as well as a handful made directly for tablet use, to allow you to draw freely on a self-hosted platform with no privacy concerns.

As internet threats have evolved, Windows has consistently provided tools to help users stay safe online. One of the earliest examples is the Windows firewall (formally known today as the Microsoft Defender Firewall), which has been around for decades, and it provides essential protection against potentially dangerous network traffic.

Up until 5–6 years ago, it was popular wisdom to install your operating system on a 120GB or 250GB SSD, and everything else, including games, on a 1TB or 2TB hard drive. Gamers did this to offset the relatively prohibitive prices of SSDs, which have since come down to a point where the performance benefits of an SSD-only system far outweigh the minimal added cost.

Remotely managing your network-attached storage (NAS) doesn't have to be a convoluted process. All you need is a virtual private network (VPN), a specific branded app, or a reverse proxy and you're ready. Whether you should open up your NAS or local area network (LAN) is another matter, but if you've read through all the potential risks that come with doing so, we've got some excellent tools to help make this a reality. Even if this is your first NAS or server, you'll be up and running in no time.

Illustration: Beatrice Sala The United States has arrested a US Army soldier and charged him with being part of a hacking scheme to sell and distribute stolen phone records. An indictment alleges that 20-year-old Cameron John Wagenius knowingly sold “confidential phone records” over online forums and other communications platforms last November.The indictment doesn’t detail the hacked material, but KrebsOnSecurity reports that Wagenius appears to be connected to a series of high-profile data breaches linked to the online alias “Kiberphant0m.” Kiberphant0m claimed to have hacked 15 telecom firms and was working with the person allegedly behind the Snowflake data breaches to sell the stolen information.In November, Kiberphant0m posted what they claimed were AT&T call logs for President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. It’s not clear if the data was genuine, but AT&T did suffer a major theft of customer data as part of the Snowflake account breaches last year. In 2023, the hacker is also alleged to have sold “remote access credentials for a major U.S. defense contractor,” according to Krebs.Krebs reports that Wagenius worked on communications at an Army base in South Korea. After the alleged leak of Trump and Harris data, Krebs did a deep dive into Kiberphant0m’s online communications and identified that they were likely a US soldier. In this latest report, Krebs spoke with Wagenius’ mother, who confirmed his connection to the alleged Snowflake hacker.Cybersecurity experts reportedly received harassment for trying to track down Kiberphant0m’s identity, leading to this incredible quote from Allison Nixon, the lead researcher at cybersecurity firm Unit 221B, who was part of the work. “Anonymously extorting the President and VP as a member of the military is a bad idea,” Nixon told Krebs, “but it’s an even worse idea to harass people who specialize in de-anonymizing cybercriminals.”

CES 2025 is merely days away, and people from all over the technosphere will walk its hallowed halls and see everything on the horizon for the upcoming new year. However, tech companies are always keen to give us little tidbits of information so we can know what to expect. Now, Samsung is giving everyone a sneak peek into what it has planned, including an OLED gaming monitor with a stunning 500Hz refresh rate.