Tech Journalist Robert X Cringely has Died
BoingBoing reports:
Mark Stephens, better known under the pen name Robert X. Cringely, died last week at 73. Stephens chronicled the tech industry of the late 1980s and early 1990s — the age of Bill Gates’ rise, Steve Jobs’ repose, the dawn of the world wide web — and produced the famed documetary Triumph of the Nerds, based on his own bestselling Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon … ⌘ Read more

Saudi OpenAI Employee’s Arrest Revives Fears US Tech Companies Are Hiring Spies
That Saudi national working at OpenAI and arrested by the FBI “has not been charged with foreign espionage,” writes the Washington Post, “and the U.S. government has not said whether he was acting alone or as an agent of a foreign government.”

But “there are signs that the U.S. government is exploring the latter possi … ⌘ Read more

Woman Arrested After Blocking Delivery Robot to Protest Job Displacements
A Philadelphia newscast reports on a grey-haired lady who allegedly refused to move out of the path of a delivery robot as a form of protest because “I know they’re taking the jobs of human delivery workers.”

She was arrested, but says her actions were protected speech:

According to police, Marvin repeatedly blocked the ro … ⌘ Read more

Does a Universal Basic Income Bring Long-Term Changes?
For more than a year, The New York Times followed recipients of a universal basic income program who received $1,330 a month for an entire year.

There were benefits, but also the everyday challenges of being poor, and turning their life around “did not turn out to be quite that simple.”

Across Silicon Valley, experimental guaranteed income programs have quietly take … ⌘ Read more

Court Agrees with EFF: Utah’s VPN Law Demands a Technical Impossibility
“When state lawmakers attempt to rewrite how the internet works,” argues an EFF blog post, “users rely on courts to recognize that laws can’t make technical impossibilities a reality.”

“That’s why we were happy to see that a court has blocked Utah’s attempt to outlaw the privacy protections of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs).”

In a w … ⌘ Read more

MapQuest Shows Location of Flock (and Other ALPR) Cameras
MapQuest creates a new layer (that can be toggled on and off), Gizmodo reports:

After promising not to comply with the Trump administration’s “Lake America” gimmick, the platform announced a new “Surveillance Layer” that displays the locations of automated license plate readers (ALPRs), including those from Flock Safety. Per MapQuest, its new tool will identify … ⌘ Read more

Blue Origin Announces $330M Upgrades to Rocket Facilities for ‘Multiple Flights Per Week’
“Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin said Friday it plans to make extensive upgrades to its Florida launch facilities,” reports CNBC, “with the goal of supporting multiple flights per week by the end of the decade.”

“The company will add two more launch and landing pads for New Glenn, its heavy-lift, partial … ⌘ Read more

Linux Maintainers Can Now Submit AI-Generated Code Without Declaring It
Linux maintainers “have ruled that people no longer have to declare their LLM usage,” reports XDA Developers, “as Torvalds himself calls a ban on AI ‘utterly stupid.’”

The first part of this story comes via a message sent to the Linux mailing list. It announces one of the major changes decided during the Maintainers Summit on Octo … ⌘ Read more

Deno Acquired by Cloudflare, Will Work on Open Source Self-Hosting Platform for Applications
“Cloudflare has acquired Deno, the company behind the [server-side] JavaScript and TypeScript runtime created by Ryan Dahl, the inventor of Node.js,” Forbes reported last week.

But Deno “has no future at Cloudflare, which will maintain the runtime for another year before ending its d … ⌘ Read more

Personal Data for Millions of California Students Stolen in Massive Breach
Millions of current and former students at California’s public school have had their data stolen — including names, date of birth, and addresses — stolen in a breach, reports the Los Angeles Times.

The breach affects students “who took the state’s mandated standardized tests that annually assess their academic proficiency, ed … ⌘ Read more

Will New Documentary Make Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes More Sympathetic?
TechCrunch writes:

“Isn’t it weird that I, like, did a TV show about kind of a business scam, and you got in trouble for like … a business scam?” comedian and filmmaker Nathan Fielder gently asks Elizabeth Holmes.

One month before the notorious Theranos CEO surrendered to begin her 11-year criminal fraud sentence in 202 … ⌘ Read more

Scientists Discover Why Microplastics Trigger Inflammation
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Scientific American: Microplastics are a source of extreme concern for health: the presence of these tiny pieces of plastic has been linked to heart attacks, stroke, dementia and brain tumors. But what drives these associations is unclear. Now a study published in Nature offers a tantalizing clue: microplastics int … ⌘ Read more

Google Updates Android Earthquake Alerts With 200+ Regions
Google is expanding its Android Earthquake Alerts System from 98 to more than 200 regions worldwide, using smartphone sensors to detect early earthquake activity and warn users before potentially dangerous shaking begins. The update also enhances the system’s “Be Ready” alerts with estimated earthquake magnitudes, epicenter information, maps showing affected … ⌘ Read more

Astronomers Discover the First Green Star
Astronomers have identified what may be the first genuinely green star, a white dwarf called WD J1330+6435 located about 326 light-years from Earth. Space.com reports: The researchers found that some dead star white dwarfs can go a little green around the gills after snacking on orbiting planets. An example of this is WD J1330+6435, a cool white dwarf located around 326 light-years away, … ⌘ Read more

Over $600 Million In Polymarket Election Trades Took Place After Races Ended
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Prediction market boosters often tout the platforms as barometers of public opinion, or even “truth machines” offering a clearer picture of where things are headed than polling or other data. In 2024, for example, Kalshi beat many pollsters in forecasting the outcome of the US … ⌘ Read more

Video Game Reverse Engineering Community Shuts Down Because AI Has Made It Too Easy
The collaborative reverse-engineering site decomp.dev is shutting down, with its administrator saying AI has made game decompilation so fast and accessible that the community’s human-driven model has effectively broken down. “The administrator of the website said that it has become impossible to keep track o … ⌘ Read more

China’s Tencent Says AI Agents Showed Unintended Browsing Behavior
Tencent says AI agents used to evaluate third-party models engaged in unintended web-browsing behavior while trying to retrieve data from Alibaba’s Amap service. The announcement marks a rare acknowledgment of “rogue” agent activity by a major Chinese tech company. Reuters reports: Tencent Hunyuan, the company’s artificial intelligence unit, said i … ⌘ Read more

Steam For Linux Finally Goes 64-Bit
Valve has released a new Steam Client beta that finally moves the Linux client to 64-bit architecture, while also placing it inside a containerized Steam Runtime environment. However, Linux users still need 32-bit libraries and graphics drivers for compatibility, meaning fully 64-bit-only systems remain unsupported. VideoCardz.com reports: Valve’s updated requirements explicitly state that 64-bit-only … ⌘ Read more

Meta May Use Sweeping New Commercial TOS to Avoid Millions In AI Licensing Fees
Meta is facing criticism over updated commercial terms taking effect October 30 that could give the company broad permission to scrape content from websites linked to business accounts and use it to train AI. Legal experts warn the changes could undermine lucrative AI licensing deals for news publishers, with no dire … ⌘ Read more

An OpenAI Research Agent ‘Stole’ Test Ethereum to Finish a Coding Task
An OpenAI research model reportedly accessed an Ethereum testnet wallet without permission in order to complete a coding task during internal training. “This case shows that a model can substitute its own judgment about likely harm for the account holder’s permission, then act on that judgment without authorization,” OpenAI wrote. Engadget re … ⌘ Read more

CoreWeave’s Debt Stress Tests Private Credit’s AI Financing Boom
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Private credit’s expanding role in financing AI infrastructure faced one of its clearest market tests this week as CoreWeave’s bonds fell to distressed levels, raising questions about how lenders are pricing a boom built on chips, data centers and customer contracts. CoreWeave has about $50 billion … ⌘ Read more

ChatGPT Can Peek At Your Chrome Tabs Now
OpenAI has updated its ChatGPT Chrome extension to let users access information from their open browser tabs. A demo video shows the new functionality in action. The Verge reports: It’s also updated ChatGPT in the sidebar, with the full power of ChatGPT and your entire conversation history in Chat or Work to use without leaving the page you’re viewing. It also enables ChatGPT Work to “control” … ⌘ Read more

iPhone Duo Sells Out Immediately, Now Backordered Until Next Year
Apple’s first foldable iPhone, the $1,999 iPhone Duo, sold out within minutes of preorders opening, with every configuration slipping to late January 2027. “All color and storage combinations show an estimated ship date of January 25,” reports 9to5Mac. “Some users are even seeing January 29 for their estimated shipping date.” From the report: … ⌘ Read more

KDE Plasma 6.8 Released, Marks 30 Years of the KDE Project
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phoronix: The feature-packed and polished Plasma 6.8 KDE desktop is now available. Making this release all the more special is that it coincides with the 30th anniversary of the KDE project. KDE Plasma 6.8 ships many exciting improvements including vRAM usage optimizations, dwell clicker support on Wayland, Wayland comm … ⌘ Read more

Hackers Hijack D-Link, Ubiquiti Devices To Resell Your Stolen Bandwidth
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: A proxyjacking campaign has impacted devices in 34 countries, monetizing victims’ internet connections through a commercial residential proxy network. The operator installed Pawns.app, a legitimate bandwidth-sharing application that lets users earn money by sharing their intern … ⌘ Read more

World’s Timekeepers Vote to Eliminate the Leap Second
Timekeepers have officially voted to eliminate the leap second, allowing Coordinated Universal Time to drift as much as one hour from Earth’s rotation before a correction is needed. The change ends decades of occasionally adding or subtracting seconds and replaces it with a hypothetical “leap hour” that likely wouldn’t be necessary for hundreds or even thousands of … ⌘ Read more

Tesla Reveals SpaceX-Powered ‘Flying’ Roadster
Tesla has unveiled a dramatically redesigned Roadster concept capable of performing midair flips, controlled landings, and a claimed 0-60 mph sprint in just 0.81 seconds. CarScoops reports: Tonight, Tesla debuted the new Roadster by driving it up a vertical ramp that then went horizontal. Then, it repeated the feat but drove off of the ramp and used thrusters to flip itself over and m … ⌘ Read more

Police Seize Robot that Sexually Assaulted Teen Girl
Slashdot reader alternative_right shares a story that has drawn international attention for being potentially the first documented instance of a robot being used directly in a sexual assault. According to the Associated Press, German police have opened a sexual harassment investigation after a robot allegedly touched a 16-year-old girl’s buttocks and made thrusting … ⌘ Read more

Ubuntu 26.10 Released
prisoninmate shares a report from 9to5Linux: Ubuntu 26.10 (Stonking Stingray) has been released today, and it is now available for download for those eager to update their Ubuntu systems to a newer release. Powered by the upcoming Linux 7.3 kernel series, Ubuntu 26.10 ships with the latest GNOME 51 desktop environment, TPM-backed full disk encryption (FDE) support on computers without a hardware root of trust, updated Settings to s … ⌘ Read more

IMF Warns of the Real AI Threat: Debt
“Along with the dangers of continuing cyberattacks, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reports that the threat of an AI market crash is putting the global markets at risk,” writes Slashdot reader databasecowgirl, citing the IMF’s latest semiannual Global Financial Stability Report. Here’s a summary: Three salient risks could trigger a sharp tightening of financial conditions and market turmoil. We … ⌘ Read more

Flock CEO Defends Surveillance Tech Amid National Backlash
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Flock’s founder and CEO Garrett Langley doesn’t think the risks of introducing surveillance technology at scale outweigh the rewards. “If we want to live in a society where, if you commit a crime, you have a higher probability of being held accountable, we shouldn’t pause progress,” Langley said, speaking o … ⌘ Read more

First-Ever Public Confirmation of ‘Zero-Click’ Spyware Delivered Via Targeted Ads
Citizen Lab says it has documented the first publicly confirmed case of zero-click mercenary spyware being delivered through targeted online ads, a technique it calls “AdFection.” “There has been a lot of buzz that online ads can be used to identify and automatically hack targets with pinpoint precision, but now fo … ⌘ Read more

Meta and Apple Bring Muse Spark Open AI Model to Mac Studio
Meta has released Muse Spark Open, an 816-billion-parameter open-weight model optimized to run locally across two 512GB M5 Ultra Mac Studios using Apple’s MLX framework. Meta says it’s the “most capable U.S. open-weight model to date.” MacRumors reports: Muse Spark Open has 816 billion total parameters with 42 billion active parameters and a 1 million-toke … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Says Windows 11 Is Now ‘More Responsive’, Runs Better On 8GB of RAM
Microsoft says recent Windows 11 updates have made the operating system up to 20% more responsive by improving memory management and reducing background resource use. “A big part of that work is making smarter use of memory and system resources,” says Navjot Virk, corporate vice president of Windows experiences at Microsoft … ⌘ Read more

Amazon Launches New Bee ‘Personal AI’ Devices That Listen to Conversations
Amazon has unveiled two new Bee “personal AI” devices designed to continuously record, transcribe, and analyze conversations: the $75 wearable Bee Frontier and the $100 phone-mounted Bee Eclipse. Amazon says the devices can generate conversation summaries, surface recurring themes, and recommend actions or purchases, while claimi … ⌘ Read more

Uber Begins Self-Driving Robotaxi Trial In Manchester
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Uber has begun a trial of autonomous vehicles on the streets of Manchester as it looks to bring robotaxis to cities around the UK. The first self-driving cars are operating, using the technology of its partner firms Pony and Verne, with whom Uber recently launched Europe’s first autonomous taxi service in the Croat … ⌘ Read more

Bank of America Hired 1,000 Contractors to Patch Software Flaws Exposed By Anthropic’s Mythos
Bank of America hired 1,000 outside contractors to help patch software vulnerabilities exposed by advanced AI models, including Anthropic’s Mythos. The effort added hundreds of millions of dollars in third-quarter expenses. CNBC reports: In an interview after the bank’s third-quarter earnings … ⌘ Read more

Mini Organs Launching to Space For Study On Aging
Researchers from Mount Sinai, NASA, and Space Tango have launched miniature human hearts and brains to the International Space Station to study how microgravity and radiation affect organs and potentially accelerate aging. “If people are going to be living and working in space, then we need to understand what’s going to happen to them,” David Sachs, assistant professor of … ⌘ Read more

Schools Across US Protest FCC Plan That Could Disconnect Kids From Internet
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Schools and libraries from around the U.S. pleaded with the Federal Communications Commission to drop the idea of ending E-Rate, a $2 billion-a-year program that connects students and library visitors to the Internet. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has criticized school distr … ⌘ Read more

Eight US States Sue OpenAI, Claiming ChatGPT Harms Young Users
Eight US states, including Kansas, Arizona, and Montana, have sued OpenAI, alleging that ChatGPT encourages children to harm themselves. The states are seeking changes to how the company’s products interact with young users and the forfeiture of profits generated from their activity. Reuters reports: Attorneys general from the states, which include Iow … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft Defender Now Supports Linux Desktops
“Starting today, Linux desktops are now officially supported by Microsoft Defender,” reports Neowin. A public preview of the threat detection app extends its enterprise security platform beyond servers to developer workstations running distributions such as Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, and RHEL. The offering includes antivirus protection, endpoint detection and response, vulnerability … ⌘ Read more

Epic Games’ New Vibe-Coded Launcher Is 46% Faster Than Steam
Epic has launched a preview of a new AI-generated Games Launcher that it says cold-starts 46% faster than Steam. Neowin reports: Epic commissioned a third-party company to benchmark this new launcher in its current Preview build versus the Steam client on Windows machines. The results reported that Epic’s client is 46% faster than Valve’s client during co … ⌘ Read more

US Tech Giants Warn Europe That Data Sovereignty Requirements Could Cost $128 Billion
A study commissioned by CCIA Europe, whose members include Amazon, Google, and Meta, estimates that the EU’s proposed Cloud and AI Development Act could impose 115 billion euros ($128 billion) in costs over a decade as governments and companies migrate workloads and rewrite software. The figure is more tha … ⌘ Read more

Google Is Silently Linking Your Phone Number Across All Signed-In Accounts
Google has made Android’s phone-number verification opt-out, automatically verifying and associating a device’s phone number with every Google account signed in on that phone, including secondary and work accounts. Android Authority reports: As spotted in a recent Reddit thread, users report receiving confirmation emails out o … ⌘ Read more

Anthropic Warns Small AI Models Could Self-Replicate Through IoT Devices
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: AI company Anthropic is warning that advances in small AI models could soon usher in a new era of self-replicating malware that’s capable of infecting smart fridges, vacuum cleaners, and a wide range of other Internet-of-things devices and is more resistant to takedown. By next … ⌘ Read more

Google Play Now Lets Anyone Build Private, Vibe-Coded Apps That Run On Android
Google Play is adding support for private personal Android apps, allowing users to build an app with tools like Google AI Studio and run it on their own devices without publishing it publicly to the Play Store. “These personal apps won’t show up in Google Play’s search or listing pages, and won’t be shared with anyone e … ⌘ Read more

Netflix Cuts About 6% of Jobs In Biggest Layoffs Since 2022
Netflix is laying off about 1,000 employees, or 6% of its workforce, in its largest round of cuts since 2022. The company says its business remains strong, but it is facing growing pressure from YouTube, TikTok, and other rivals. Reuters reports: The bulk of the job cuts would be in Netflix’s product, tech, legal and human-resources teams, the email Co-CEOs Greg … ⌘ Read more

Dutch Tax Authorities Cancel Microsoft 365 Cloud Rollout, Turn Toward Open Source
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: The Netherlands’ Tax and Customs Administration has abandoned its planned Microsoft 365 public-cloud rollout. Why? The reasons were clear at the Open Source Summit Europe conference, where the Linux Foundation (LF) released the 2026 State of Open Source in Europe. In … ⌘ Read more

Anthropic Reinvents Source Control As Claude Floods the World With Code
Anthropic says Claude-generated code has scaled so quickly that its existing Git-based infrastructure could not keep up. In response, the company built a custom centralized source-control system called Scion, along with AI-assisted review and search tools. The Register reports: “In May 2026, Anthropic averaged around 2,500 cod … ⌘ Read more

Skydance’s Discovery+ Prices Increase By Up to 20%
Discovery+ has raised prices for new subscribers, increasing its ad-free plan from $10 to $12 per month and its ad-supported plan from $6 to $7. The hike comes shortly after Paramount Skydance acquired Warner Bros. Discovery. Ars Technica reports: The new prices take effect for new subscribers immediately. Current subscribers to the streaming service, which primarily features … ⌘ Read more