SpaceX's 14th Starship test flight launched from Starbase, Texas, and for the first time accelerated the upper stage to full orbital velocity rather than the suborbital trajectories used in prior tests. During the flight, the rocket deployed 26 next-generation Starlink satellites, which are too large to fit aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, releasing them one by one from its cargo bay. The Super Heavy booster separated and made a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico near the launch site.
On December 2, 1942, scientists at the University of Chicago's Metallurgical Laboratory achieved the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction using the Chicago Pile, a 20-foot stack of graphite blocks and uranium built under Stagg Field. The reactor ran for about 30 minutes before being shut down, with cadmium control rods as its only safety mechanism, and the experiment was conducted without informing university or city officials.
An opinion column contends that artificial intelligence tools could be used to bring back Socratic-style dialogue as a teaching and assessment method, contrasting it with traditional methods like term papers that emerged after the advent of libraries and printed books.
Anthropic has released Claude Sonnet 5.5, positioning it as a lower-cost, higher-speed option compared to its flagship Opus 5.5 model. The company says Sonnet 5.5 runs at least 30% faster than its predecessor, Sonnet 5, while keeping the same pricing and adding security improvements. Anthropic notes Sonnet 5.5 trails Opus 5.5 only slightly on performance benchmarks, including completing the game Pokémon Red.
Ridge Security disclosed CVE-2026-42542, a high-severity flaw in the open-source TDengine time-series database used across manufacturing, energy, automotive and IoT sectors. The bug lets an unauthenticated attacker crash a vulnerable server with a single crafted network packet; TDengine has released version 3.4.1.6 to fix versions 3.4.0.0 through 3.4.1.5.
Apple rolled out iOS 27.0.1, a bug-fix update arriving about two weeks after iOS 27. It resolves an iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max issue that could cause the device to restart when Face ID fails to authenticate, a color artifact appearing in certain zoomed photos, and a touchscreen freeze triggered by opening Notification and Control Centers together.
Apple has extended watchOS 27.0.1, which fixes an issue causing unexpected restarts, to all Apple Watch models compatible with watchOS 27. The update had initially been limited to Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 last week, and shares the same build number, 24R365, as that earlier release. Apple simultaneously released related updates including iOS 27.0.1, iPadOS 27.0.1, visionOS 27.0.1, and several macOS versions.
Cybersecurity researcher Joshua Michael published a map based on Flock Security's own leaked location data, identifying more than 170,000 cameras and 130,000 related devices, including 27,000 acoustic sensors, across the US. That total roughly triples the 120,000-camera figure Flock had publicly cited this summer, and the findings were referenced during a Senate Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism hearing on the company.
A developer reverse-engineered the AMT630A chip used in cheap composite-video LCD monitor boards and published an Arduino/ESP32 library, now at version 0.7.0, that controls its on-screen display hardware. The library exposes the chip's five OSD windows for text, custom glyphs, bitmaps, palette animation, scaling and blending, alongside a Python image converter and optional automation to reach a hidden factory menu on one tested monitor's firmware.
YouTube modder Devran Cosmo Uenal demonstrated an experimental Xbox port of KytyPS5, an open-source PlayStation 5 emulator, playing titles like Quake 2, Gex Trilogy, Hellboy Web of Wyrd and Marvel Cosmic Invasion on a Series X. He also showed the PS5 interface running with an option to launch the PS5 version of Grand Theft Auto 5, though he says compatibility remains limited.
Nothing has introduced the Headphone 1 Pro, a $399 flagship over-ear headphone with active noise cancellation, a triple-driver design, Auracast support, and multiple sound profiles. A standout feature is a physical switch that disables all EQ and spatial audio processing, developed in partnership with London's Metropolis Studios, giving a flat, uncolored listening reference.
TikTok has agreed to pay Alabama at least $100 million and implement new teen-safety measures, including a two-hour daily time limit, overnight access restrictions, stronger age verification, a ban on beauty filters, and an optional non-personalized feed. The settlement, reached just before a scheduled trial, resolves claims that TikTok misled parents about its child-safety tools, and could rise to $300 million if 40 other state attorneys general sign similar agreements.
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