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The Shaw Prize Foundation has introduced a new Computer Science prize category, marking the first expansion beyond its original three award categories. Nominations are now open, inviting the community to put forward candidates whose work reflects notable innovation and rigor in the field.
A ZDNET tester took Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Google's Pixel 11 Pro Fold to Germany to compare their camera systems side by side. The Z Fold 8 relies on two 50-megapixel wide and ultrawide sensors, while the Pixel 11 Pro Fold pairs a 48-megapixel main camera with a 5x telephoto lens and a 10.5-megapixel ultrawide, giving it a zoom advantage the Samsung device lacks.
A new study using coral data going back a millennium finds that human-caused warming appears to be intensifying El Niño events. Researchers say the historical coral record shows a pattern connecting rising global temperatures to more pronounced El Niño swings than in past centuries.
Scientists from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and the University of Tsukuba built a solid-state cooling prototype that uses a shape-memory titanium-nickel film to convert heat directly into the mechanical motion needed to drive elastocaloric cooling, replacing the usual electric actuator. In tests, heating the actuator film to 86°C produced a 4.0 K temperature difference across the cooling device, and swapping in an external 130°C heat source still yielded a 2.2 K span, showing waste heat alone can power the cycle.
Almanac, a startup from Y Combinator's Summer 2026 batch, has launched an AI system designed to understand a company's internal operations, tools and communications rather than general web knowledge. In a demo, the assistant monitored a customer Slack channel, identified duplicate bug reports, and automatically filed GitHub issues with reproduction steps and linked conversation threads. The product positions itself as an operational AI layer that can act on a company's existing data and workflows rather than just answer questions about them.
Kalshi issued its first-ever lifetime ban against former Rep. George Santos and fined him $71,356 for insider trading and market manipulation. Santos had placed bets on whether he'd attend Trump's February 2026 State of the Union address, then posted misleading claims about attending to move contract prices before revealing he was actually at an airport. Kalshi froze his account and referred the case to the CFTC, which he settled with earlier this summer for $35,000.
Newegg is offering a four-item PC building bundle featuring AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU, 32GB of Corsair DDR5-6000 memory, and a Gigabyte X870E Aorus Pro motherboard for $1,113.99, a $240 discount off the combined retail price. The deal also throws in a free Cooler Master Elite Liquid 240 AIO cooler worth $80 and an AMD game bundle.
Amazon is offering the Reolink 2K Plus 4G LTE Cellular Security Camera for $152.98, down from its $189.99 list price, marking a 19% discount and the first Amazon price cut the model has seen. The camera operates over cellular data rather than Wi-Fi, making it suited for off-grid locations like farms, cabins, RVs, and job sites.
Cryptography professor Matthew Green argued in a widely discussed post that AI's growing ability to find and patch software vulnerabilities could eliminate the security flaws that law enforcement and intelligence agencies rely on to hack devices. He noted this threatens an existing 'truce' in which governments buy spyware and exploits rather than demanding encryption backdoors, since encrypted apps like Signal and iMessage already stymie wiretapping.
A major flash flood struck Bright Angel Creek in the Grand Canyon on Saturday, killing a 46-year-old man whose body was found near Crystal Rapids, and leaving about 15 people missing or unaccounted for. The surge pushed boulders into the Colorado River, prompted the airlift evacuation of more than 60 people, and destroyed the park's only pipeline supplying potable water to residents and tourists.
Nvidia is putting $3.5 billion into Taiwan's MediaTek, with the chipmaker agreeing to build custom AI silicon for cloud providers using Nvidia's NVLink Fusion technology. The arrangement lets those custom chips slot directly into Nvidia-based data centers, tying MediaTek's designs into Nvidia's broader hardware ecosystem.
On his final day as Apple's chief executive, Tim Cook sent staff an emotional note thanking them for their work and reflecting on his tenure. He expressed confidence in incoming CEO John Ternus, praising his understanding of what it takes to build transformative products.