Microsoft has told IT administrators that the September 2026 security updates for Windows 11 versions 26H1, 25H2 and 24H2 can cause Always On VPN connections to fail when automatic protocol selection between IKEv2 and SSTP is enabled. Affected connections may get stuck in a 'Connecting' state or throw a 'port already in use' error on retry. Microsoft has not yet issued a permanent fix but recommends administrators manually set the VPN profile to use only SSTP or only IKEv2 as a workaround.
Motorola has confirmed its Signature 27 smartphone will officially launch in the US market this November, though pricing and an exact release date remain unannounced. The phone features Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 chipset, an upgraded ArcticMesh cooling system, and a camera system built around a 50MP Sony LYTIA 910 main sensor and 200MP periscope telephoto lens. Motorola is also offering pre-order registration and promising seven years of OS and security updates.
Microsoft and partners including Cloudflare, Coinbase, OpenAI, SpyCloud, TRM Labs and Health-ISAC disrupted EvilTokens, a phishing-as-a-service platform that used AI to scan compromised inboxes and craft tailored lures. The operation had compromised over 12,000 inboxes across more than 10,000 organizations worldwide, spanning sectors like healthcare, finance and higher education. The takedown seized 50 sites and disabled 150 domains, and UK police arrested two men, aged 32 and 38, after Microsoft shared intelligence with the Metropolitan Police's cybercrime unit.
OpenAI has hired three former Patreon executives, including co-founder and CTO Sam Yam, product head Drew Rowny, and engineering head Shannon Ma. Yam announced on X that he will lead a new Creator Product effort at OpenAI, teasing early access to new tools for creators ahead of OpenAI's DevDay event on September 29th.
Eight Sleep unveiled the Pod 6, an updated version of its temperature-regulating smart mattress system, featuring a redesigned cooling hub small enough to fit under most beds. The system starts at $2,699 for a full-size Standard cover, with a new $1,999 Solo option for single sleepers, and requires an annual subscription of $199 to $399. Eight Sleep says the rebuilt hub is 20 percent faster at adjusting temperature and includes additional biometric sensors compared to last year's Pod 5.
Meta tested a feature letting human contractors handle phone calls made on behalf of its Muse AI assistant, rolling it out to half its employees last week. Staff raised privacy concerns about sensitive data reaching call-center workers, and one contractor made a racist remark during a call negotiating an employee's bill. Meta has paused the human concierge feature, apologized to the affected employee, and barred the contractor from further work on its projects.
A commentary piece argues that widely cited claims of an epidemic of loneliness rest on flawed data analysis. The author points to surveys, such as one showing 76% of Californians and 78% of residents in China's Anhui province report feeling lonely, and argues researchers wrongly assume this represents an 'unprecedented' rise without historical comparison data. The piece also criticizes age-based breakdowns of loneliness statistics for assuming today's young people will remain lonely as they age, and older people were never lonely when young.
Google announced that Sheets now preserves custom sort order in pivot tables imported from Excel, rather than reverting them to standard alphanumeric order. Users can also drag and drop rows or columns to reorder pivot table data, with nested child items moving along automatically, and these custom arrangements now persist across sessions and data refreshes. The rollout began today and may take up to 15 days to reach all users.
Cisco Talos researchers identified Windows malware named CLOSEDQUORUM that consults DeepSeek, Qwen, Mistral and Google Gemini to decide its next actions on infected machines, continuing to function if one service goes down. The tool, designed to steal credentials and cryptocurrency, has no built-in mechanism for human operators to issue commands directly, and Talos linked it to 2025 credit-card fraud forum activity, though the creator and any real-world targets remain unidentified.
Samsung has begun pushing the stable One UI 9 update, based on Android 17, to Galaxy S26 Ultra units in the United States. Reports from T-Mobile Galaxy S26 Ultra owners on Reddit show the update carrying a 4.1GB download and the September 2026 security patch, though it's unclear whether AT&T variants are receiving it yet.
A temporary structure built on the National Mall this past July echoed the classical architecture of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The piece traces how that six-month fair became a recurring cultural touchstone, appearing in branding, conspiracy theories, and political imagery well over a century later.
Aftershock, working with Zotac, has released the Cherry Bloom PC, a prebuilt gaming computer priced at roughly AU$19,995 (about $14,200). It pairs an RTX 5080, Ryzen 9800X3D, 64GB of DDR5-6000 RAM, a 2TB PCIe Gen4 SSD and a 1300W Platinum PSU with 70 handcrafted titanium-alloy cherry blossoms that open when the system heats up and close as it cools, all visible through a 270-degree case window.
GoKawiil