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According to the New York Times, OpenAI president Greg Brockman will not follow through on promised donations to Leading the Future, a super PAC focused on AI policy. The reported reversal follows significant public criticism of the group and its donors.
US District Judge Amit Mehta dismissed lawsuits from Penske Media Corporation and Chegg that accused Google of using AI Overviews to siphon traffic from their sites and harm ad revenue. Mehta ruled both companies failed to show Google violated antitrust law, stating that an expectation of search traffic is not an agreement Google broke.
Reports have surfaced of passengers having sex in autonomous vehicles, including rides from GM's now-shuttered Cruise service, according to interviews by The San Francisco Standard. A workshop called 'Love in Traffic' held in Sweden in late September brought together academic and industry researchers to discuss how vehicle design might address this behavior.
United Airlines is running a campaign that grants Delta and American elite frequent flyers matching United status for 90 days. To retain that status through Jan. 31, 2028, travelers must fly United and meet spending thresholds ranging from $1,500 for entry-level tiers to $7,000 for United's top 1K tier.
Google sent a prototype orbital compute satellite, built by Planet Labs, aboard a SpaceX rocket from California, marking the first time one of its Tensor Processing Units has flown in space. The test will check whether the chip can sustain a kilowatt of continuous power, manage heat, and run AI models in short bursts without failure. Google's Travis Beals, who leads the effort called Project Suncatcher, said a more advanced two-satellite demo with laser communication links is planned for next year.
Researchers from Northern Arizona University, working with Peru's Ministry of Culture, uncovered four well-preserved mummies in a location inconsistent with the established narrative of the Wari Empire's expansion into Nazca territory. The find has prompted archaeologists to reconsider existing assumptions about how and where the Wari exerted control.
Effect has shipped version 4.0, a ground-up rewrite that the maintainers say is faster, lighter on memory, and produces smaller bundles than Effect 3.x. The release also merges previously separate packages into the core effect package, which now has zero runtime dependencies, and unifies versioning across the ecosystem.
The average rate on a 30-year fixed U.S. mortgage rose this week to 7.28%, marking its sixth straight weekly increase and the highest level in nearly three years. The rise continues a steady upward trend in borrowing costs for homebuyers.
Walmart has publicly denied that its digital shelf labels and newly patented dynamic AI pricing technology will charge customers differently based on personal data, with CEO John Furner stating income, shopping history or urgency won't affect prices. McDonald's has separately faced media scrutiny over AI systems tied to price variation across locations, calling the coverage 'speculative and misinformed.' Both companies' practices are drawing attention amid broader debate over surveillance pricing involving lawmakers and the FTC.
Google will run a week-long Play Fest from October 13 to 19, merging Google Play discounts with a Play Points rewards program for the first time. Users can redeem points in sweepstakes for prizes like exclusive merchandise, tech gear and tickets to major sporting events, while purchases during the event earn boosted points, with Play Pass subscribers getting double points and book buyers up to 15x points.
Google announced its new frontier AI model, Gemini 4 Argon, on Wednesday, ten months after Gemini 3's release. The model is initially being made available only to cybersecurity defenders in Google's Fairwind program, with wider subscriber and free-user access to follow later. Google says Gemini 4 Argon handles coding, multimodal tasks and reasoning, and performs especially well on business tasks like software engineering, cybersecurity and legal/finance work.
A Business Insider report finds that many workers are now spending significant time directing, reviewing and correcting AI agents that perform tasks they were originally hired to do, from coding to writing to design. This shift is happening without corresponding raises or promotions, even as companies like Salesforce roll out 'job-ready agents' and executives at firms like Wipro and Daytona describe staff increasingly overseeing multiple bots.