Z.ai's shares fell more than 10% on Monday after the Beijing-based AI firm unveiled plans to raise roughly $5 billion, combining a discounted share placement worth about $2 billion with a $3 billion zero-coupon convertible bond offering due 2027. This is the company's second major capital raise in two months, following a $4 billion placement in July. Rival Chinese AI firm MiniMax also saw its shares slide about 5% the same day.
Nike will be removed from the S&P 100 index on September 21, ending an 18-year run, as its market capitalization has fallen from a 2021 peak of $264 billion to about $57 billion today. The sportswear giant remains in the broader S&P 500, but its removal from the top-100 index reflects a sustained decline, including a 36% drop in market cap in 2026 alone. Honeywell Aerospace, Simon Property Group and Colgate-Palmolive are also exiting the index the same day, replaced by tech firms like Dell, Palo Alto Networks, Arista Networks and Sandisk.
Security researchers at Kinryu Labs found an unsecured Elasticsearch cluster in Viettel-assigned IP space in Hanoi containing over 220 million passenger and crew records dating from 2017 to 2026. The exposed data included passport numbers, nationalities, dates of birth, flight details, seat assignments and baggage information, accessible due to a chain of misconfigurations and default credentials. The database was secured after being reported, though it remains unknown whether the data was accessed or copied before that point.
A security researcher has published a series detailing how an unprivileged Android app can escalate to root access on major OEM devices using one repeatable strategy. The method targets manufacturer-specific kernel driver bugs—specifically page Use-After-Free flaws—reached via OEM-specific sandbox escapes, and was demonstrated on Samsung Galaxy S23 through S26 devices, many Xiaomi mid-range to flagship phones, and recent Oppo, OnePlus, and Realme flagships.
A compression engineer revisits JPEG XL's standing on the Web, noting that despite its technical strengths over JPEG and WebP, Chrome dropped support in 2023. He points out that a new Rust-based JPEG XL decoder has since appeared in Firefox and parts of Chrome, partly to avoid repeating a security flaw once found in WebP, but argues this alone doesn't settle whether JPEG XL deserves broad Web adoption.
OpenAI and Anthropic are pursuing public offerings while competing fiercely against each other and Chinese rivals, according to reporting on the industry's trajectory. Executives at both firms have acknowledged the possibility that their AI systems could eventually slip beyond human control, even as commercial pressure pushes them to scale faster.
MagSafe cables detach safely if yanked, protecting a MacBook from being dragged off a table, while USB-C stays firmly plugged in and can pull the laptop down in an accident. On charging speed, MagSafe reaches up to 140W with Apple's $99 adapter, enabling a 50% charge in 30 minutes, whereas standard USB-C tops out at 60W unless users buy specialized 100W or 240W cables.
A cultural essay examines why science fiction media overwhelmingly favors dystopian and pessimistic futures rather than hopeful ones, citing examples from Metropolis and 1984 to Elysium and Terminator. The piece traces this tendency to sci-fi's role as a vehicle for social critique and to the genre's habit of dramatizing unchecked or unequal technology as the source of societal collapse.
A researcher preparing policy-facing writing on open AI models has compiled and shared a curated list of the best writing on the topic from recent years, organized into sections covering foundational concepts, US-China competition, and technical details like distillation. The list is described as a living document that will be updated as readers suggest additional pieces to include.
Paleontologists studying microscopic pores on fossilized Fusioolithus eggshells, linked to massive titanosaurs, concluded these giant dinosaurs could not incubate eggs by sitting on them due to their enormous size. Instead, the study led by Kohei Tanaka and Darla Zelenitsky suggests titanosaurs buried their volleyball-sized eggs in piles of decaying vegetation, similar to how modern crocodiles incubate their nests, even in surprisingly cool, far-from-equator climates.
The US National Science Foundation is moving to a 'portfolio-based' funding approach that blends traditional investigator-driven research with agency-directed priorities, according to an internal letter. The agency has not specified what these directed opportunities will entail, leaving staff and researchers uncertain about future funding categories.
Brazilian philanthropic organizations, led by the Serrapilheira Institute, have begun funding scientific research at a scale unprecedented in the country's history, distributing over $25 million to early-career researchers since its founding. The University of São Paulo has also launched a center dedicated to studying and promoting science philanthropy, reflecting a broader shift as private donors step into a space traditionally dominated by government funding.
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