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A Waymo robotaxi was flagged and stopped by police in San Mateo County after staff monitoring interior cameras saw passengers appear to fire a handgun inside the vehicle; it turned out to be an Orbeez water-gun. Waymo confirmed its vehicles have automated systems that can detect firearms, and earlier this year used cabin cameras to verify riders' ages after intercom interventions.
Keurig has opened preorders for its Alta single-serve machine, which uses AltaRounds — compressed coffee pucks wrapped in a seaweed-derived, compostable coating instead of plastic-and-aluminum pods. The $499.99 bundle includes glassware and six boxes of AltaRounds, with shipping starting October 21st. The machine can brew coffee or espresso and has a built-in milk frother, with six caffeinated AltaRounds varieties available at launch.
NordLayer, citing its Browser Security Report 2026, says attackers increasingly compromise SaaS accounts via browser sessions—OAuth token theft, adversary-in-the-middle phishing, malicious extensions—without triggering endpoint detection and response (EDR) alerts because no malicious process or executable touches the host. It cites the 2025 Salesloft Drift breach, where group UNC6395 used stolen OAuth tokens to pull data from Salesforce via API calls, and a 2026 Microsoft-tracked campaign by Storm-2755 using search ads to phish Canadian employees. NordLayer's report found browser access present in all 504 reviewed applications, with 79% accessible only via browser.
Meta's Muse is a new autonomous AI assistant designed to perform tasks in the background with 24/7 execution capabilities, rather than functioning as a conversational chatbot like ChatGPT or Gemini. According to an Android Authority column, Muse requires broad access to personal accounts, financial details and email, and assigns each user a persistent virtual machine in the cloud to carry out tasks.
A webinar featuring Dr. Pavel Terekhov, a postdoctoral researcher at NIST, will explain how combining finite element simulation with multipole decomposition in COMSOL Multiphysics can predict and explain optical resonances in dielectric metasurfaces. The talk will cover a crystalline silicon metasurface built from quadrumer meta-atoms that shows enhanced absorption from two coexisting multipole mechanisms, as well as ongoing work on a gallium nitride metasurface using four interacting multipoles to control reflection, transmission, and quasi-bound-states-in-the-continuum behavior.
Texas state Sen. Nathan Johnson, the Democratic nominee for attorney general, said that if elected he would investigate Deloitte and other state vendor contracts following a software error that reportedly blocked processing of at least 178,000 voter registrations. He said the issue stemmed from a Deloitte update installed on Department of Public Safety servers earlier in 2025, discovered in September just weeks before the 2026 midterms.
Job postings for AI-related roles at banks including JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Capital One rose 49% in 2025 to 139,819 listings, according to hiring-data firm Draup. Draup found that mentions of 'agent orchestration' — designing AI agents to work together on tasks — grew 1,721%, the fastest-growing skill category it tracked. The firm's CEO Vijay Swaminathan said banks need people who understand both data and where to deploy AI.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed legislation requiring 3D printer makers to build in firearm-blocking technology once ASTM International finalizes an industry standard for such detection. The law only applies to printers sold after a standard exists, leaving current devices unaffected, and California becomes the second state after New York to pass such a rule, with Colorado and Washington considering similar bills. The California DOJ must check quarterly for a published standard from mid-2027 through mid-2029, after which it is no longer obligated to keep checking.
A newly passed bipartisan bill directs the Treasury Department to stop minting pennies for general circulation, following last year's halt in regular production. The legislation includes one provision permitting the continued minting of commemorative 1-cent coins, even though they won't be meant for everyday spending.
Textil Kimba has created small antimicrobial vests designed to help injured Humboldt penguins heal while limiting direct human handling. The penguins, native to the Pacific coasts of Chile and Peru, face threats including warming waters, avian flu, boat strikes, and fishing nets; researchers cited by The Associated Press found major breeding colonies in Chile fell 63% over three years.
As AI shopping agents emerge, retailers are responding in different ways: QVC is opening its platform to them, Kate Spade allows agents to browse but not complete purchases, and Amazon is blocking them outright.
Prominent election-denial figures, including Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts and online personality Catturd, are dismissing polls showing poor Republican midterm prospects as fabricated efforts to suppress conservative turnout. Trump has reportedly called polls fake 39 times since returning to office, per Media Matters for America, as multiple surveys show his approval at historic lows and Democrats leading Senate races in states he won in 2024. Reuters reported Republicans are now spending money defending races previously considered safe.