CNBC reports that individual investors are increasingly using margin accounts — borrowing against their holdings to buy more stock — contributing to a record level of Wall Street margin debt. One case profiled is Hy Luu, a 29-year-old Houston engineering consultant who lives with his mother and began margin trading Tesla shares in 2021, at one point amassing more than $100,000 in margin debt and later exercising options that pushed his borrowing above $156,000.
Mistral released Large 4, a trillion-parameter mixture-of-experts model, in a research preview this week, with full weights due at the end of October. Independent benchmarking firm Artificial Analysis scored it 38 on its Intelligence Index, making it the top model from outside the US and China, though several Chinese open models including DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and MiMo-V2.6-Pro scored as high or higher overall. Large 4 scored 50 on Artificial Analysis's Cyber Index, tying GLM-5.3-Flash, and hit 82% on the CyberGym-E2E-AA cybersecurity test, its best individual result.
In November 1960, physicist Heinz von Foerster and two colleagues at the University of Illinois published a paper in Science titled 'Doomsday: Friday, 13 November, A.D. 2026,' extrapolating from historical population data to predict humanity's growth rate would reach a mathematical infinity on that date. The New York Times covered the paper at the time, noting that von Foerster picked a Friday the 13th within the calculated error range, which also happened to be his birthday. Demographers criticized the model's assumptions, and actual population growth did not follow the predicted trajectory.
Apple has updated its Mac desktop lineup, giving the Mac Mini new M6 and M5 Pro chip options and refreshing the Mac Studio, with both machines now emphasizing local AI processing. The base Mac Mini price has risen by about $300 compared to earlier models, though specs have also increased. A tech reviewer who has tested Apple desktops for over a decade recommends the M6 Mac Mini as the best choice for most buyers.
Hinge is piloting a feature in India that prevents users from taking screenshots of dating profiles, aiming to curb the practice of sharing matches' photos and messages online without consent. The move follows growing criticism of creators and accounts who build audiences by posting screenshotted dating app exchanges, pickup lines, and profile prompts for mockery. Dating coach Chad Franklin, who posts client DMs to 512,000 TikTok followers, says users increasingly fear becoming an unwitting viral 'main character.'
The ASRock PGO32UFS Phantom Gaming Monitor, a 32-inch 4K OLED display, is now priced at $596 on Newegg, down from its $899 list price. The panel supports dual-mode switching between 4K at 240Hz and Full HD at 480Hz, with a 0.03ms response time, 1,500,000:1 contrast ratio, FreeSync Premium Pro, and DisplayHDR True Black 400 certification.
Netflix will release 'The Altruists,' an eight-episode miniseries dramatizing the rise and collapse of crypto exchange FTX, on November 19, and has released a trailer starring Anthony Boyle as Sam Bankman-Fried and Julia Garner as Caroline Ellison. The series depicts the pair's relationship and their shared belief in 'effective altruism' as FTX and Alameda Research grew before FTX's 2022 collapse revealed $8 billion in missing customer funds.
The Trump administration plans to livestream the military execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan, the former army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed the execution will be public, and a Pentagon official told Reuters that streaming details will follow. It would mark the first public U.S. execution since 1936 and the first military firing-squad execution since 1945.
Amazon is selling the 2026 MacBook Air with Apple's M5 chip at $1,099 for the 16GB/512GB model, $200 below Apple's current price. The 16GB/1TB and 24GB/1TB configurations are also discounted by $200, to $1,399 and $1,599 respectively. These prices match discounts seen during this week's Prime Day sale and remain live across all available colorways.
Kioxia has introduced its LD4-series SSDs in the E1.L form factor, built on BiCS8 3D QLC NAND and targeted at read-heavy hyperscale workloads such as AI storage and object storage. The drives currently ship at up to 30.72TB, but Kioxia says the underlying architecture has been validated to support capacities as high as 122.88TB, without giving a launch timeline for those larger models.
Palisades Village, the Caruso-owned outdoor shopping center in Pacific Palisades, has reopened following an 18-month cleanup to remove smoke damage, having largely survived the January 2025 wildfires that destroyed more than 6,800 structures in the area. The mall sustained only minor damage, such as singed awnings and damaged patio cushions, while the surrounding neighborhood remains in various stages of rebuilding.
Researchers report in Nature that a single brain implant can simultaneously read a paralyzed person's attempts to speak and make gestures, converting both into text and the movements of a digital avatar. The system relies on artificial intelligence models to interpret neural signals and translate them into speech and body language.
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