Plumbing veteran Benjamin Fix and co-founder Greg Reinecker launched sproos! in November 2022 after raising about $250,000 from friends and professional contacts. The direct-to-consumer home and bath brand, which sells colorful, renter-friendly fixtures as an alternative to standard chrome plumbing products, generated $3.9 million in revenue last year and has about 35,000 active subscribers. The company says it is on track to surpass $10 million in revenue this year.
Microsoft and Japan's National Police Agency disrupted a cybercrime operation centered on a marketplace called YAM Store and two phishing kits, CoGUI and Iron Man. Since January 2026, the network had reportedly sent over one billion malicious messages to more than 75,000 organizations in 150+ countries, including 750 million aimed at Microsoft customers, generating tens of millions of dollars for operators.
Richard "Levelord" Gray, a prominent first-person shooter level designer, died Monday at age 68, according to reports shared by Apogee Entertainment. Former colleague Joe Siegler said Gray had intermittently battled cancer. Gray's career spanned Blood, Duke Nukem 3D, SiN, Quake, Half-Life: Opposing Force and Counter-Strike: Condition Zero.
Square, the payments unit of Block Inc., has launched self-service kiosks that use AI voice technology to take food orders in fast-food restaurants. The company is positioning dining as a stronger fit for automated ordering than grocery self-checkout, which has drawn customer complaints elsewhere.
KFF Health News documented cases of people suffering serious side effects after using gray-market peptides like BPC-157, sold as research chemicals rather than approved drugs. One user, Dylan Meetze, reported months of fatigue, anxiety and muscle spasms after nasal use for weightlifting performance; another, identified as Dominik E, described facial numbness and two months of migraines after combining BPC-157 with TB-4.
An Entrepreneur contributor describes advising a break-even business that cannot attract investor funding because its historical unit economics lag the projected returns from a new location. The business needs $1 million to open that location but has only $500,000 available, leaving it to decide whether to proceed underfunded or stay put.
Netflix has eliminated roughly 6% of its jobs, marking its biggest round of layoffs since 2022. The reduction affects staff across the company, though specific departments and total headcount impacted were not detailed.
Historical accounts describe people in the Middle Ages routinely waking in the middle of the night during a period of rest known as 'segmented sleep,' splitting their night into two distinct sleep phases separated by an hour or more of wakeful activity. This practice occurred without electric lighting, smartphones, or the demands of modern work schedules that are often blamed for today's sleep disruptions.
Titanium Court, a roguelite hybrid that blends match-three mechanics, visual novel storytelling and RPG elements, launched on Steam in April and will arrive on Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Android and iOS on October 29. The game was developed by AP Thomson and won the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the Independent Games Festival Awards.
Apple confirmed that its upcoming Siri AI features, part of Apple Intelligence, will extend beyond its new fourth-generation Apple TV 4K and HomePod Mini 2 to older second- and third-generation Apple TV 4K models and existing HomePod Minis. The update is expected later this year via a TVOS 27.2 beta, rolling out first in the US, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa and the UK in English.
Google is rolling out an opt-in Scam Detection feature in Messages that uses Gemini AI models to analyze sender intent and flag deceptive texts, processing data through its encrypted Private AI Compute system. The feature, launching first on Pixel 10+, Galaxy S26, Z Flip and Fold 8 devices, will be joined by on-device link scanning via Gemini Nano and redesigned scam warnings for unknown senders. Google also plans to expand notification-level scam warnings to devices from Honor, Motorola, OPPO, OnePlus, realme, vivo and Xiaomi, and will add automatic screen-sharing privacy protections to Android 15+ devices later this month.
Prismm, a startup founded in 2020 by sisters Martha Underwood and Shella Sylla, builds beneficiary and estate-planning features directly into bank accounts so assets can pass to heirs more smoothly after an account holder dies. The company let account holders designate family members who can access accounts, aiming to replace manual, paperwork-heavy processes banks currently use. Prismm is presenting its product today on the Startup Battlefield stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026.
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