At the Fast Company Innovation Festival, OnlyFans CEO Kelly Blair described plans to broaden the platform's offerings well beyond the adult content it is best known for, including moves into streaming and financial services for creators. She noted that OnlyFans has paid out $30 billion to creators over the past decade, and pointed to a shifting mix of who is earning on the platform.
A Futurism investigation identified Brown Brothers Media (BBM), a company founded by three brothers, as the owner of a growing collection of websites converted into AI-generated content operations. The network reportedly began with a handful of brands created by the founders and has expanded through acquisitions of struggling publications, including established outlets like Silicon Canals and niche blogs alike. The report alleges the sites use fabricated bylines and invented first-person accounts alongside AI-produced articles.
Apple's newest lineup—iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4, and AirPods 5—hit store shelves and retailers worldwide today. CEO John Ternus marked the occasion by opening Apple's Fifth Avenue flagship in New York alongside retail chief Deirdre O'Brien and marketing head Greg Joswiak. Online orders for the new iPhones face multi-week delays, though in-store pickup is available in many locations.
Seagate Technology's 2026 Data Infrastructure Readiness Report, based on a survey of 2,712 enterprise IT decision-makers across seven countries, found that 99% expect AI to increase storage needs over the next three years, with nearly a third anticipating growth exceeding 50%. Yet only 38% of organizations feel their infrastructure can actually keep pace with that demand.
California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order directing state agencies to accelerate work on artificial intelligence oversight and accountability measures. The move follows warnings from a former Anthropic researcher about existential risks posed by AI, and comes amid stalled federal action on the issue. Newsom, seen as a potential 2028 presidential contender, framed the order as a response to what he called Washington's failure to regulate the technology.
Super PACs tied to AI companies and investors have funneled almost $1 million to support Republican Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota, even though he faces little competition in his reelection race. About $600,000 came through the group Defend American Jobs, backed by Andreessen Horowitz-linked funding, while another $215,000 arrived directly from employees and PACs connected to Anthropic, Google and Microsoft.
A leaked resignation post from a junior Anthropic employee, who accused frontier AI companies of racing toward self-improving intelligence, spread widely and reignited public alarm over AI safety. A more senior engineer reportedly echoed internal estimates that the company's work carries roughly a 10 percent chance of catastrophic harm. In response, CEO Dario Amodei published an essay outlining a path toward safer AI, but conceded that researchers still understand only a fraction of how these models actually operate internally.
Security firm Sublime found that malicious calendar invites sent via email, known as ICS phishing, have surged dramatically, rising 282% in June, 338% in July, and 1,216% in August, with a projected 2,852% jump in September. These fake invites exploit a default feature in Outlook, Gmail, and Apple Mail that auto-adds ICS files to a user's calendar before they accept or decline them.
Rickub is a new Git hosting platform that bundles organization and repository management, merge requests, and an integrated AI reviewer called Athena that leaves inline comments and verdicts on every merge request. It also supports running existing GitHub Actions workflows unchanged, hosting OCI artifacts like container images, Helm charts, SBOMs and WASM in the same namespace as code, and offers CLI, API and MCP access using one token and permission model.
Apple's iOS 27 update brings a major Apple Intelligence overhaul, including a much-improved Siri, but some newer iPhones now need up to 14GB of free storage for full AI functionality, compared to 8GB previously. This higher requirement applies specifically to iPhone 17 Pro, Pro Max, Air, Duo, and 18 Pro models, while other iPhones still only need 8GB.
Amazon is selling the Retroid Pocket Flip 2 for $229, down $40 from its $269 list price, marking the handheld's lowest price yet. The clamshell Android device uses a Snapdragon 865 chip with active cooling and a 5.5-inch 1080p AMOLED screen, enabling emulation up to GameCube, Dreamcast and PS2 as well as lighter Switch and Android titles.
Jeff Lawson, who co-founded and scaled Twilio to over $4 billion in revenue, is now leading Inertia, a fusion energy startup. He will speak about this career shift at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 in a fireside chat on the Smart Systems Stage, discussing how his software background applies to a capital-intensive deep tech venture involving lasers and manufacturing.