A research team has published the implementation of LittleBit, a method accepted at NeurIPS 2025, which compresses large language model weights into a sub-1-bit range, down to 0.1 bits per weight, by factorizing weight matrices into binarized low-rank latent factors with learned scaling. A follow-up method, LittleBit-2 (accepted at ICML 2026), adds an optional initialization technique called Joint Iterative Quantization that aligns latent factors geometrically before training, without changing the model's inference-time structure. The codebase supports models including OPT, Llama, Phi-4, Qwen2.5, QwQ, Gemma 2/3, and Qwen3.
github.com
· 2026-10-08
Despite Ace Hardware's overall record-breaking expansion, a number of longstanding locations are set to close permanently in 2026. The closures highlight the uneven landscape faced by independently operated stores within the chain. The updated list of affected stores has been released, marking a significant shift for the company's retail footprint.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-10-08
ICANN announced the completion of the application period for the 2026 round of new gTLDs, receiving 1,615 submissions from organizations worldwide. The applications include a mix of brand, community, geographic, and internationalized domain names, with the majority originating from North America and Europe. The full list of applications is now publicly available for review on ICANN's official site.
icann.org
· 2026-10-07
Alexander Embiricos, who leads OpenAI's Dots product, will appear at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 in San Francisco on October 13-15, shortly after OpenAI launched Dots. Dots is described as an always-on personal AI agent that runs on its own cloud computers, connects to everyday apps, and continues working toward goals in the background. Embiricos will discuss the product's design and OpenAI's vision for personal agents in a session titled 'What Comes After the Chatbot?'
techcrunch.com
· 2026-10-07
TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 runs October 13-15 at Moscone West in San Francisco, expecting over 10,000 founders, investors, and operators. The event will include a series of interactive roundtables on topics like physical AI data challenges, the future of enterprise SaaS, and AI's role in IPO readiness, led by speakers including Radha Basu of iMerit, Rajeev Singh of Smartsheet, and Eléonore Crespo of Pigment.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-10-07
TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 runs October 13-15 at San Francisco's Moscone West, expecting over 10,000 attendees, 200+ sessions across six stages, and a startup Expo Hall. Online ticket discounts of up to $100 end before doors open, with a 50% second-pass offer and a $75 Expo+ Pass for laid-off attendees. The event includes Startup Battlefield 200, a pitch competition offering a $100,000 prize, with confirmed speakers including Mark Wahlberg, RJ Scaringe, and executives from OpenAI, Anthropic, and NVIDIA.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-10-07
Amazon's Prime Day 2026 ran June 23-26 exclusively for Prime members, covering millions of deals across more than 35 categories. AWS published performance metrics from the event, including DynamoDB processing over 59 trillion requests at a peak of 192 million per second, Lambda handling 2.3 trillion daily invocations, and EBS peaking at 24.8 trillion I/O operations.
aws.amazon.com
· 2026-10-07
Android Authority's review of the 2026 Motorola Razr finds it largely unchanged from last year's model in specs, but with a higher price tag of $799.99. The phone retains its 3.6-inch cover screen, dual 50MP cameras, and a Dimensity 7450 chipset, delivering solid performance and photo quality in a design nearly identical to its predecessor aside from new color options.
androidauthority.com
· 2026-10-07
Security firm Previdian detected exploitation attempts against CVE-2026-21589, an unauthenticated arbitrary file-access vulnerability affecting eight self-hosted Atlassian products including Jira, Confluence, and Bitbucket, shortly after watchTowr published a technical report explaining the bug. The flaw stems from a shared web-resource library that mishandles double-colon characters, letting attackers craft directory-traversal requests through plugin endpoints to read protected files without logging in. Atlassian had already issued an advisory urging administrators to patch self-hosted instances, saying it cannot confirm which customer deployments may already be compromised.
bleepingcomputer.com
· 2026-10-07
Researchers tracking political advertising found that roughly $80 million has already been spent on AI-generated ads for the 2026 U.S. midterm campaigns, appearing across television and social media. Many of these ads, ranging from hyperrealistic deepfakes to subtler AI enhancements, do not disclose that AI was used in their creation.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-10-07
SonicWall issued hotfixes for CVE-2026-102255, a maximum-severity server-side request forgery flaw in the Appliance WorkPlace interface of its SMA1000 6210, 7210, and 8200v gateways. The company says an unauthenticated attacker could exploit the flaw via an unintended access path to make the appliance issue requests on their behalf and reach internal functionality, though it has found no evidence of active exploitation.
bleepingcomputer.com
· 2026-10-07
Devographics' State of Devs 2026 survey reports widespread exhaustion among developers alongside growing economic and job-market uncertainty. For the first time, the survey asked respondents about their views on AI, finding that while AI tool usage is extremely common, opinion on it is sharply divided: 49% of developers feel positive about AI and 42% feel negative.
2026.stateofdevs.com
· 2026-10-06
GoKawiil