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Huawei says it will not sell its upcoming Ascend 900-series AI accelerators internationally because it cannot yet meet domestic Chinese demand for the chips. Chairman Eric Xu said the company only ships limited volumes to a few countries with especially strong demand. The announcement came alongside a roadmap showing major performance gains for the Ascend 960, 970 and 980 NPUs through 2027.
Sony currently sells the PS5 in Slim and Pro tiers, with the Slim offering both digital-only and disc-drive versions while the Pro comes only in digital form with an optional $80 disc drive add-on. The digital Slim now costs $600 for 825GB, down from its original 1TB capacity, while the $650 disc version still ships with a full 1TB and can play physical games through 2027. The $900 Pro is largely sold out, likely due to demand tied to the GTA VI trailer reveal.
Robby Stein, Google's vice president of product for Search, will join a fireside chat at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, running October 13-15 at Moscone West in San Francisco. The session, titled 'From MVP to Billions of Users,' will examine how product teams manage the shift from early-stage experimentation to decision-making at massive scale.
A new essay argues that platforms like YouTube, Spotify, LinkedIn and Reddit increasingly control what users see rather than letting them choose, citing doomscrolling recommendations, AI-generated filler music, sponsored opinions on LinkedIn, and bot-driven discussions on Reddit. The piece uses the 'Tetris effect' to illustrate how sustained, algorithm-driven focus reshapes thought patterns without users' explicit consent.
Acer has launched the Googlebook 14, one of five inaugural Googlebook laptops from different PC makers, and it's the only model with a 360-degree hinge that converts into tent or tablet mode. It also supports USI 2.0 stylus input, though it lacks the haptic trackpad found on rival models from ASUS, HP and Lenovo.
Microsoft has reissued a reminder to enterprise IT admins that IE Mode, the legacy compatibility feature in Edge that runs sites using Internet Explorer's old Trident/MSHTML engine, will be discontinued by the end of 2029. The notice, sent via the Microsoft 365 admin center, reaffirms a 2021 commitment and asks organizations to begin planning now to migrate old applications away from IE dependencies.
Researcher Paulos Yibelo of pwn.ai disclosed a WordPress Core vulnerability, called Click2Shell, that chains a cross-site request forgery bug with the theme Customizer preview to achieve remote PHP execution. The flaw lets an attacker trick a logged-in administrator into visiting a malicious link, silently installing a theme from the WordPress.org catalog and running arbitrary PHP through the Customizer preview even before activation. WordPress fixed the issue in version 7.1.1 after it was reported in late August.
Bitcoin has surged to price levels not seen since January, extending a recent recovery across cryptocurrency markets after a difficult 2026. The rally follows months of subdued prices and comes alongside broader moves in interest rates and Treasury yields.
A new game in the Silent Hill series, titled Silent Hill: Townfall, has been revealed, signaling the franchise's return to its roots in psychological horror. Details on release date and platforms have not been disclosed yet.
iFixit tore down Apple's new iPhone 18 Pro and awarded it a 7/10 repairability rating, matching the iPhone 17 Pro's score. The teardown found the camera and battery assemblies relatively easy to remove, though the phone's new variable aperture lens—its first in an iPhone—uses tiny rotating blades that iFixit says are nearly impossible to repair individually.
TechCrunch announced another five investors joining the judging panel for its Startup Battlefield 200 pitch competition, which runs October 13–15 at San Francisco's Moscone West as part of Disrupt 2026. Founders selected for the contest get six minutes to pitch followed by investor questioning, with a $100,000 prize awarded to the winning startup. This group joins ten judges previously revealed for the event.
A retired judge acting as arbitrator ruled that Uber and driver Vu Tran must pay $40 million to the parents of Emily Normandin-Parker, a 23-year-old UCLA graduate killed after Tran dropped her and a friend at an illegal gore point on a California freeway following a dispute over a cleaning fee. The arbitrator found Tran's account of the incident largely incredible and said he showed more concern for his car than for his passengers' safety. Uber says the arbitrator wrongly held the company legally responsible.