A multi-institution research effort combined brain tissue samples from the Mount Sinai NIH Neurobiobank, the NIMH-IRP Human Brain Collection Core, and the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center to create a harmonized dataset spanning over 1,400 samples. The team standardized clinical measures such as neuritic plaque density (CERAD scores) and cognitive impairment ratings across the different cohorts, alongside demographic and technical variables like age, sex, ancestry and postmortem interval, to enable consistent single-cell transcriptomic analysis of brain disorders.
An Entrepreneur contributor describes a client who, as the only person of color on her executive team, started monthly breakfasts open to employees across all levels and departments rather than pursuing typical networking events like golf or drinks. Over two years these gatherings evolved into an informal communication channel that helped colleagues share information and solve problems, and the executive was later promoted to vice president.
Apple announced that Tap to Pay on iPhone is now live in Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, and Peru, backed by six payment platforms including Mercado Pago, SumUp, Symbiotic, Geopagos, Azul, and Visa Acceptance Solutions. The feature lets merchants accept contactless debit and credit card payments directly on a compatible iPhone without extra hardware. This brings the total footprint of Tap to Pay on iPhone to 59 countries and regions since its 2022 US debut.
Apple updated its list of digital cameras with system-level RAW file support, adding 11 new models from Fujifilm, OM System, Panasonic, and Phase One. This brings the total number of supported cameras to 562 across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS.
The FCC is taking public comments on a rulemaking that would override state and local permitting rules for wired broadband deployment, including a 120-day permit deadline and limits on fees charged to providers. Groups representing mayors, counties and cities—including the US Conference of Mayors and National League of Cities—filed comments in September opposing the plan, calling local permitting essential for public safety rather than a deployment barrier. Broadband providers support the FCC's proposal.
Joby Aviation flew a modified Cessna Caravan autonomously across the United States, covering 3,199 miles from Concord, California, with stops in Fort Worth and South Carolina. The onboard system independently handled taxiing, takeoff, landing, weather diversions and route changes, while a safety pilot on board did not intervene. Joby says it's the first fully autonomous cross-country airplane flight, and the trip ended with a symbolic pass near the Wright brothers' first flight site in Kitty Hawk.
A construction crew in New Jersey accidentally cut a Verizon fiber cable that supports air traffic control systems, triggering a circuit failure that forced ground stops at all three major New York City airports. The disruption rippled across the Northeast, with FlightAware reporting more than 1,000 US flight cancellations on Monday. Officials are still disputing responsibility, with Amtrak and New Jersey Transit each pointing at the other's contractors while Verizon denies any fault.
An FAA-issued ground stop on Monday delayed hundreds of flights across Newark, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, with reports pointing to a circuit malfunction and an accidentally severed fiber optic cable near Philadelphia's TRACON facility. The disruption coincided with the rollout of SMART, a new AI-driven air traffic management system, though officials have not linked the two events.
A new open-source project called Aclif provides AI agents with a single command-line tool that works identically across multiple SaaS providers, using one shared grammar and consistent naming for records regardless of the underlying platform. It's installable via npm and currently supports providers like Salesforce and ServiceNow, letting agents query, discover commands, and inspect schemas through a uniform interface.
Skillsync, part of YC's W26 batch, is building a tool that makes AI chat sessions portable so users can carry context and history from one AI agent to another instead of starting fresh each time. The company launched publicly on Hacker News to introduce the product and gather early feedback from developers.
Lucid and ridesharing firm Bolt have announced a partnership to bring at least 25,000 autonomous vehicles built on Lucid's midsize platform to European roads, with Bolt owning and operating the fleet. Bolt aims to have 100,000 autonomous vehicles on its platform by 2035, though no launch timeline was given for the Lucid-based robotaxis, which will likely use NVIDIA's Hyperion architecture for Level 4 autonomy.
Addigy has launched an Intelligence Suite inside its device management platform for MSPs and IT teams overseeing Apple devices. The suite includes AI Script Assist for writing and auditing scripts, natural language reporting, and an MCP server that lets AI agents interact with the management control plane under admin-defined guardrails. Addigy says all processing happens within its own environment, with no customer data sent to outside AI models.
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