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Federal prosecutors have charged a Saudi national, said to be an OpenAI engineer, with concealing an encrypted audio recording device in toilet paper behind a television in a company conference room. The device was reportedly intended to covertly capture internal meetings.
At TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, Cerebras Systems CEO Andrew Feldman said some AI industry leaders should rethink their public commentary, arguing that warnings about AI risks have overshadowed its potential benefits, such as curing cancer. He acknowledged that powerful technology carries risks of misuse and said the industry needs thoughtful, reasonable regulation, while also noting the sector has handled local community relations around data center buildouts poorly.
A new essay on 'Recreational Programming' argues that developers should maintain personal coding projects purely for enjoyment, separate from their professional work. The piece quotes the idea that the aim isn't to emulate any particular programmer's career, but to preserve the sense of curiosity that first drew people to coding.
Software engineer Brandon Thomas, known on Reddit as u/ai_art_is_art, released 13 free, open-source apps through his site ArtCraft that mimic core features of Adobe and Microsoft programs. The apps include PhotoCraft, WordCraft and DeckCraft, built to replace Photoshop, Word and PowerPoint respectively.
Google has introduced Googlebooks, a new line of certified laptops built on an Android-based operating system rather than ChromeOS. Partners including Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP and Lenovo are producing Googlebook-certified devices with carbon-fiber chassis, high-end Intel or Snapdragon processors, high-resolution screens and Gemini built in, starting at 16GB RAM and 256GB storage with about 14 hours of battery life. The devices run Android apps natively via the full Google Play Store and integrate with Android phones running Android 17 or later, syncing passwords, notifications and files.
Microsoft released its largest-ever Patch Tuesday update in October, addressing a record number of vulnerabilities across its product line. The update includes fixes for security bypasses and unauthenticated remote code execution flaws, some of which are reported as actively exploited zero-days.
Jim Cramer told CNBC viewers not to abandon semiconductor stocks despite a six-session, 7.2% drop in the VanEck Semiconductor ETF, arguing chip names are now trading as a bloc rather than on individual fundamentals. He cited Micron's 26 long-term customer agreements covering about 35% of revenue through 2030 as evidence of durable demand, and pointed to Intel and AMD as CPU suppliers benefiting from broader device demand.
In isolated parts of Argentina, residents without reliable phone or internet access use AM radio stations to send and receive personal messages, from birthday greetings to news of births, illnesses, and lost livestock. Stations like LRA9 Radio Nacional in Esquel and LU20 Radio Chubut broadcast these messages, sometimes directing listeners to specific hilltops or other spots where cellphone reception is strong enough to follow up by phone. Some residents even rig makeshift pulley systems to hoist phones into treetops to catch a signal.
Apple announced a lineup of seven indie titles coming to iPhone and iPad as part of the App Store's Indie Games Week, including No Man's Sky, Sifu and Vampire Crawlers. Most of the games are already available for purchase, though No Man's Sky won't launch until Oct. 28. Apple says No Man's Sky will run on iPhone 11 or newer and third-generation iPad Air or newer, supporting touchscreen, controller, or keyboard and mouse.
Alejandro González Iñárritu's new film 'Digger,' starring Tom Cruise as a caricatured oil billionaire, is reportedly on pace to become one of the biggest box-office failures in history despite its high budget. The film uses a play-within-a-movie structure, revealing that its broad satire of an oilman and a Trump-like administration's climate response is actually a theatrical reenactment of past events.
Ledger has acknowledged reports of compromised or tampered devices, sometimes called 'spy implants,' being used to siphon cryptocurrency from users. The company detailed how these devices intercept transactions, and reports indicate the attackers attempted to launder stolen funds using privacy tools like Tornado Cash and Zcash, but did so imperfectly, leaving traceable patterns.
Google has outlined how Gemini Spark, an always-on AI agent available to Gemini Pro and Ultra subscribers, can run tasks in the background even when a user's devices are off. Capabilities include summarizing a week's worth of emails, building to-do lists, and automatically adding appointments to a calendar, provided users enable connections to Gmail, Calendar and Drive, which are off by default. Google states Spark checks with users before taking major actions, and notes some features may not be available in all regions.