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Texas regulators are requiring data center projects to wait longer before connecting to the state's power grid, according to reporting referenced in the source. The move reflects growing concern over the strain that rapidly expanding data center demand is placing on Texas's electricity infrastructure.
Flash drives face multiple risks including physical loss, a finite number of write cycles before failure, and 'bit rot,' where stored electrical charges degrade over time and corrupt data. Unlike SSDs, thumb drives can't use TRIM commands to recover worn storage space, and their connectors or controller chips can fail due to impacts, corrosion, or humidity.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports Apple will unveil a smart home hub called HomeView at its October 13 'Welcome home' event, though release is expected around mid-November. The device reportedly uses an iMac G4-style design with a floating display and speaker base, runs on an A18 chip, and comes in four colors, alongside a wall-mountable version in silver or space gray.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei committed last month to embedding third-party evaluators such as METR, Apollo Research and Transluce within his company to assess AI model risks, a move OpenAI's Sam Altman quickly backed. President Trump and several major tech firms also voiced support, though funding, access levels and reporting structures for these nonprofit evaluators remain unresolved.
At the HumanX conference, PolyAI CTO Shawn Wen said that although full-duplex voice models now exist, reasoning speed must improve further before conversations feel truly natural. Otter CMO Alex Gay added that speaker identification, intent capture and emotionally expressive synthetic voices are needed before AI can serve as digital stand-ins in meetings.
Sony has raised PlayStation 5 pricing in stages since its 2020 launch, when the Disc Edition cost $499 and the Digital Edition cost $399. After a 2023 Slim redesign, an August 2025 $50 increase, and a further $100 hike in April 2026, the consoles now retail at $650 and $600 respectively. The PS5 Pro has also climbed, from $700 at its 2024 launch to $900 after the same 2026 increases.
New reports claim Apple's upcoming Apple TV refresh will include a built-in microphone for hands-free Siri commands, plus a redesigned remote with a speaker to help users locate it when misplaced. The device is also expected to feature an A19 chip to power Siri AI features, with shipping anticipated around October 30th alongside a refreshed HomePod Mini.
Indeed Hiring Lab data shows U.S. software-development job postings have risen nearly 15% since February 2025, even as overall job postings declined and AI tools write an increasing share of code. GitHub reported that AI agents are now involved in one in three pull requests, up from fewer than one in ten a year earlier.
Google has replaced Google Assistant with Gemini in its Google Built-in infotainment platform, now live across sixteen car brands. New features include AI-enhanced Google Maps with real-time traffic and EV routing, voice control over messages and email, playlist creation, food ordering, and a camera-enabled Gemini Live mode for discussing surroundings. The rollout began earlier this summer with Android Auto before expanding to automakers including Honda, Chevrolet and Volvo.
A feature visit to Avery Island, Louisiana, shows how Tabasco peppers are grown, harvested, and turned into mash within hours of picking to preserve freshness before fermenting into the famous sauce. The company still sources seeds from Avery Island but now grows many peppers in Africa and South America to guard against crop failure. Fresh peppers can carry up to 50,000 Scoville units, far hotter than the bottled sauce.
SQLAlchemy has released version 2.1.0, which will now be the default installed when running pip install sqlalchemy. Key changes include making the greenlet asyncio dependency optional, switching default PostgreSQL and Oracle drivers to psycopg and oracledb, and dropping support for Python versions below 3.11.
Cloudflare data shows bot traffic from Yandex's network has collapsed to just 0.4% of its two-week peak following a third Ukrainian drone strike on the company's data centers. Earlier strikes hit a Sasovo facility housing two supercomputers and a larger campus in Kaluga, while Yandex Cloud's status page lists at least 84 services currently offline. NetBlocks reports Yandex Cloud traffic down to 30% and Yandex LLC traffic down to 63%.