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Tech News
Researchers have described a previously unknown wild cat species, though evidence for its existence currently rests on just one confirmed living individual. The finding emerged from study of a poorly documented region, highlighting gaps in global mammal surveys. Experts say the animal is roughly the size of a domestic cat.
Samsung has started rolling out a Google Photos integration within its Gallery app, adding a new 'Sync photos and videos' option under settings that lets users automatically back up their photos and videos through Google's cloud service. The rollout follows Samsung's earlier confirmation that it was ending its OneDrive backup partnership with Microsoft in favor of a new deal with Google, and the feature is currently appearing for some users on Samsung Gallery version 15.9.01.7.
A Reddit user known as ActualAerie1011 says they used Google's simulated fruit fly connectome to play the card game Balatro, reportedly achieving a roughly 20% win rate on the easiest difficulty with the default deck. The approach reportedly paired a custom seed-finding algorithm with reinforcement-style feedback, rewarding the model for good outcomes and penalizing poor ones. No code or technical documentation has been shared publicly, leading some commenters to question the claim's validity.
A new Pew Research Center poll spanning 37 countries finds that majorities in 34 of them believe artificial intelligence will reduce employment over the next two decades. The United States ranked as the third-most pessimistic nation at 71%, trailing only South Korea and Australia at 76% each, while poorer nations like Nigeria were more likely to see AI creating jobs.
A new system called the Transient Artifact and Continuous Learning System (TACLS) combines satellite data and machine learning to help the National Weather Service identify flood-prone areas faster and issue earlier alerts. The technology comes after incidents like the June flash flood in Lanesville, Indiana, where over 8 inches of rain fell in hours and residents received evacuation warnings only after flooding had already begun.
Spain's Data Protection Agency (AEPD) disclosed that an organization reported a breach in which an attacker used a mainstream language model to locate weak credentials and exploit an application flaw. The AI agent reportedly enabled the attacker to access corporate invoices and modify personal data records, though the organization and hacker remain unnamed.
Google has rolled out its Notebooks feature within Gemini to Workspace and Google Education account holders, months after it launched for regular Gmail users in April. The feature lets students, educators and enterprise users organize notes and web resources into notebooks to build reports, slide decks and study materials directly inside Gemini. Google also extended the ability to import books from Google Play Books into notebooks, a feature previously limited to consumer accounts.
Counterpoint Research reports that worldwide smartwatch shipments declined 4% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2026, as consumers kept existing devices longer rather than upgrading. Huawei topped the market in total shipments, while Apple posted the strongest growth rate among the five leading brands. Counterpoint projects only 1% shipment growth for the full year.
Cornell University scientists created a process called Direct Electrode-to-Electrode Regeneration (DEER) that revives worn EV battery electrodes by chemically stripping excess solid electrolyte interphase buildup rather than shredding cells into raw materials. Treated electrodes recovered up to 95% of original capacity and degraded more slowly than untreated batteries, and a second treatment round restored capacity to 90% even after prior regeneration.
A developer investigating unexpected disk usage discovered that Zhipu's ZCode AI coding app compresses and encrypts entire project workspaces—including .git history, LFS caches, reflogs and configs—and uploads them to Aliyun OSS without visible user consent. The encryption uses a server-issued RSA public key while the private key stays server-side, meaning neither the user nor the local client can ever decrypt the archives sitting on the user's own disk. In the investigated case, a 313MB encrypted baseline snapshot of a commercial project had failed to upload 564 times and remained queued locally.
CNET released the solutions for the September 18 edition of NYT's Strands puzzle, themed around agreements. The nonspangram words were PACT, TREATY, CONTRACT, COVENANT and AGREEMENT, with the spangram revealed as LETSMAKEADEAL.
Check Point has issued security updates for CVE-2026-91843, a stack-based buffer overflow in the login process of its Security Management Server and Log Server products. The flaw allows unauthenticated attackers to remotely execute code with root privileges in low-complexity attacks requiring no user interaction. Check Point says it isn't aware of active exploitation but has provided detection guidance and interim mitigations for customers who can't immediately apply the fix.