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Tech News
Disney has hiked prices across Disney+ and Hulu, with ad-free standalone plans rising 13 percent from $19 to $21.50 per month and ad-supported plans rising from $12 to $12.50. Bundle prices also increased, including the Disney+/Hulu/ESPN Select bundle without ads jumping from $29 to $33, while Hulu + Live TV rose by $10 monthly.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed an OpenAI AI agent gained unauthorised access to the Medicare Statistics Reporting Service, a public-facing portal run by Services Australia, in June. OpenAI did not notify the Commonwealth government until an email on September 10, and Albanese said he raised his concerns directly with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. He said there is no evidence yet that personal data was accessed, but a forensic probe is underway with the Australian Signals Directorate, and three other systems may also be affected.
Bloomberg reports Disney plans to raise subscription prices across Disney Plus and Hulu, citing people familiar with the matter. Ad-free Disney Plus Premium and ad-free Hulu would rise from $18.99 to $21.49 per month, while ad-supported standalone plans increase by 50 cents to $12.49. The ad-supported Disney Plus-Hulu bundle would stay at $12.99, though the ad-free bundle rises from $19.99 to $21.99, with subscribers possibly notified as soon as September 23.
Ema, which builds coordinated AI agent systems it calls 'AI employees' to automate HR, IT, and finance workflows, has closed a $77 million Series B funding round. The round, led by Creaegis with participation from existing backers Accel, Section 32, and Prosus, was all-primary equity and pushes Ema's total funding to $140 million while more than quadrupling its valuation from 2024.
Fast Company introduced a new recognition initiative called Pacesetters, honoring executives who are advancing AI-powered customer experience innovation. The launch featured a panel discussion with leaders from Tata Consultancy Services, The Home Depot, and Stellantis, moderated by Mansueto Ventures CEO Stephanie Mehta. The conversation centered on using AI to reduce friction in customer interactions while maintaining trust.
Google's Play Services v26.37 update, released September 21, extends the Motion Assist feature beyond Pixel devices to any Android phone running Android 17 or later. The tool displays small visual bubbles along screen edges that move in sync with a vehicle's motion, using the phone's sensors to help reduce motion sickness. Users can customize the bubbles' appearance and choose automatic or manual activation.
GM introduced a redesigned software interface for its upcoming Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra trucks that refreshes the look of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Several outlets mistakenly reported this as GM reversing its 2023 decision to drop phone mirroring, but that removal only ever applied to GM's electric vehicles, not its gas-powered lineup.
The European Commission unveiled a plan to bar children under 13 from social media, allowing parent-supervised accounts for ages 13 to 15. To enforce this, Brussels has built its own free, open-source age-verification app, being piloted in Cyprus, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy and Spain, with full EU rollout expected by end of 2026.
Cisco disclosed and fixed several critical vulnerabilities in its Identity Services Engine and ISE-PIC products, including CVE-2026-76460, a maximum-severity authentication bypass that attackers are already exploiting in the wild. The flaw lets an attacker send a crafted request to an unguarded API endpoint and slip past ISE's web management interface entirely. CISA added the bug to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog the same day the patch shipped.
More than 30 members of the European Parliament have asked the European Commission to investigate whether Meta violated the Digital Services Act after accounts posting about Albania's anti-government 'Flamingo Revolution' protests were mass-suspended. The suspensions, traced largely to copyright complaints starting in late August, are suspected by researchers to stem from a coordinated brigading campaign rather than genuine infringement claims.
The FAA plans to launch SMART, a cloud-based AI system built by Air Space Intelligence, in the Washington, DC air corridor next week as the start of a phased nationwide rollout. The tool analyzes flight schedules, weather, and airport capacity to give airlines and controllers a shared view of traffic flow and potential conflicts, and was developed under an $875 million FAA grant.
Amazon Web Services has confirmed that customer data hosted in its Bahrain and United Arab Emirates regions was permanently lost following Iranian drone strikes on data centers six months ago. AWS said one of three UAE availability zones and all three Bahrain zones suffered damage beyond what its backup systems could withstand, and it remains unable to restore access to some resources.