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Tech News
A longtime Cisco employee describes being made redundant after 25 years with the company, detailing the abrupt phone call that ended his tenure and the emotional aftermath. He recounts the standardized, almost clinical nature of the layoff process and his own struggle to process the loss, including delaying telling his wife out of shame.
REI is running a Labor Day sale where members can apply the code LABORDAY26 for an additional 20 percent off one outlet item. The store's lifetime membership costs $30, and several sale items are discounted enough to offset that fee. Darn Tough socks are highlighted among the deals, currently marked down 25 percent.
Amazon announced that its Alexa for Shopping AI can now tell customers whether a message claiming to be from Amazon is genuine or a scam. The system cross-checks sender details, content, timing and metadata against billions of messages Amazon has sent worldwide, and is designed to improve as users flag more suspicious texts and emails. This builds on Amazon's earlier [email protected] email tool and online form for reporting suspicious communications.
A traveling petting zoo in Harmony, North Carolina euthanized four baby goats after lab tests confirmed three were infected with rabies, with a fourth suspected. State officials believe a skunk breached the goats' isolated pen in late July and bit them before being killed, and the young animals had not yet been vaccinated against rabies. The zoo had recently hosted events with elderly attendees and schoolchildren, prompting health officials to alert the public about possible exposure.
Chevron announced it will expand operations in Venezuela after receiving additional acreage in the Orinoco Belt, pledging over $7 billion in investment over five years to nearly double output to about 600,000 barrels daily. The move follows a recent Trump administration deal involving Venezuela's oil reserves and a Pentagon profit stake, with Chevron officials and Energy Secretary Chris Wright reportedly visiting the country to unveil the plan.
Toyohiro Akiyama, a Tokyo Broadcasting System correspondent who became the first Japanese citizen in space and the first journalist to report from orbit, died August 26 from lower gastrointestinal bleeding. He flew aboard Soyuz TM-11 to the Mir space station in December 1990, spending about a week filing daily audio and video dispatches for TBS despite battling space sickness and nicotine withdrawal.
Lord Tim Clement-Jones and fellow peers have proposed an amendment to the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill that would let the British government deactivate dangerous AI systems and shut down data centres if they threaten national security. Separately, Labour MP Alex Sobel is preparing an AI Security Bill backed by campaign group ControlAI that could make the UK the first G7 nation to legislate against superintelligent AI development. Both measures still need government backing to advance, while similar 'kill switch' legislation is being weighed in the US.
iOS 27 introduces a revamped Apple Pay checkout interface for apps and web payments, replacing the previous layout used across millions of transactions. The update adds swipeable card switching alongside the default card and uses color-coded icons to display shipping, billing and address details more clearly at a glance.
Prediction market Kalshi issued its first-ever lifetime ban to former congressman George Santos after finding he bet on markets tied to his own attendance at Trump's State of the Union address while publicly making misleading statements to move contract prices. Kalshi's compliance team found Santos profited nearly $18,000 from the scheme and fined him $71,356, while the CFTC separately ordered him to return his profits and paid its own $17,500 penalty.
The piece critiques the romanticized idea of disappearing into private, isolated effort—'the Cave'—citing examples like Michael Phelps's Under Armour ad and personal wrestling experience. The author argues that smart devices, recommendation algorithms, and AI reinforce this isolation by feeding people what they already believe rather than challenging them.
A new United Nations Environment Programme report concludes that Earth will soon surpass the 1.5 Celsius warming threshold set by the 2015 Paris agreement, largely due to continued fossil fuel emissions. Rather than treating this as unavoidable defeat, UN officials and scientists propose a strategy to temporarily exceed the limit before working to bring temperatures back down through ending fossil fuel use and deploying carbon removal technology.
Adobe has acquired Rilo, a Bengaluru-based marketing intelligence startup, through a licensing and team-acquisition deal, folding in its six-member team and technology. Founded in 2025 by IIT graduates Georgi Boby and Dhruv Jaglan, Rilo had raised $1 million at a $10 million valuation from backers including PeakXV and Day Zero Ventures before this exit. The startup's product will be shut down and its custom workflow-building tools absorbed into Adobe's offerings.