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Meta announced new restrictions for users under 18 on Instagram and Facebook, including a default 2-hour daily time limit, a night mode blocking content from midnight to 6 a.m., and a school mode muting notifications during class hours. The changes come as part of a settlement in an $18 billion lawsuit, though Meta denies any wrongdoing and did not admit liability.
Stanford researchers, working with the Terminal-Bench team and scientists across disciplines, launched Terminal-Bench-Science, a benchmark testing AI agents on real scientific research workflows. The initial version includes 70 tasks spanning life, physical, Earth, mathematical, and engineering sciences, with Claude Opus 5 running Claude Code topping the leaderboard at a 30% resolution rate.
Job-market data from Indeed shows science postings requiring AI skills are climbing even as overall science job listings decline. Institutions like the Quadram Institute in Norwich now expect researchers outside traditional computing fields, including food scientists, to have basic machine-learning literacy, with its CEO calling the absence of such skills a red flag for candidates.
Meta has agreed to pay up to $18 billion to US states and roll out new safety features for teen users of Facebook and Instagram, resolving litigation over the platforms' impact on youth mental health. Coming changes include a two-hour daily usage cap for under-18s and a block on access between midnight and 6 a.m., with some restrictions removable only by a parent or guardian. The settlement applies only within the United States.
Mathematician Heisuke Hironaka has died, according to an obituary published in Nature. He was renowned for proving the resolution of singularities in algebraic geometry, a landmark result that addressed how to mathematically smooth out irregular points such as peaks, edges and self-crossings within geometric shapes.
A phase III trial of intismeran, a personalized cancer vaccine developed by Merck and Moderna, showed that melanoma patients who received it had longer recurrence-free survival than those given a placebo. The double-blind study of more than 1,100 participants builds on an earlier phase II trial with 157 patients and moves the vaccine closer to regulatory approval.
A batch of newly reviewed titles spans wildly different territory: Suzanne Simard's account of her Mother Tree Project reforestation effort in British Columbia, Antonio Melechi's historical survey of theories about the unconscious mind, and Jeffrey Marlow's exploration of the little-studied deep ocean floor. A fourth title, Valerie Tiberius's Artificially Yours, is also noted among the season's book releases.
A Nature briefing discusses how singer Dolly Parton has become an unlikely fixture in scientific culture, with researchers naming newly discovered species and phenomena after her. The piece highlights the crossover between pop culture and taxonomy, noting several examples where scientists have honored Parton in their published work.
Proton's new report examined VPN apps available in the US and found that 64 are linked to Chinese companies, many collecting device IDs, network data, carrier information and even user location. These apps were downloaded more than 13 million times in June alone, and 31 relied on shell companies in places like Singapore, Hong Kong and the UK to obscure ownership. About a quarter of the flagged apps were found actively tracking location data.
Apple has unveiled several Apple Pay upgrades tied to iOS 27, including a redesigned checkout screen that lets users swipe between cards and view balances and rewards at a glance. The company also partnered with American Express to let customers redeem Membership Rewards points directly during checkout, valued at 0.7 cents per point. Additionally, a new 'Tap to Share' feature extends Tap to Pay on iPhone, letting shoppers share contact and loyalty info with merchants in-store.
TechCrunch has announced that Anthropic's Head of Applied AI, Cat de Jong, and a senior OpenAI productivity executive will speak on the AI Stage at Disrupt 2026, running October 13-15 at San Francisco's Moscone Center. The sessions, sponsored by Google for Startups, will address enterprise AI deployment lessons, pricing strategy amid model commoditization, and rebuilding security for autonomous agents.
A string of automated pizza companies—including Zume, Pazzi, Basil Street and Picnic—have shut down after struggling to reliably assemble food with machines. Analysts note that robots often fumble ingredient placement, while human workers remain faster and more efficient at the task. Despite these setbacks, restaurateur Kindell is building his own 3D-printer-inspired pizza robot, aiming for a working prototype by 2027.