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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.
Apple has refreshed the Mac mini for the first time in nearly two years, keeping its compact design but adding an M6 chip and notable performance gains. The base price has jumped from $599 to $899, a hike attributed largely to rising component costs driven by AI-related demand.
A blog post examines how Nix's dynamic derivations feature fundamentally changes the nature of its build graph, shifting Nix from an 'applicative' system—where every build step is known in advance—to a 'monadic' one, where the graph can be constructed as the build itself progresses. The author revisits earlier writing on the topic after noticing renewed interest, including talks at NixCon 2026 and a new tool called cargo-dyndrv.
Meta's annual developer conference, Connect 2026, is underway, with Gizmodo providing live coverage of announcements as they happen. The company is anticipated to unveil new smart glasses hardware along with upgrades to its AI models during the event.
Gizmodo has released its annual science awards, recognizing what its editors consider the year's most significant discoveries, breakthroughs, and scientific stories. The list spans multiple fields of research and highlights work the publication believes had outsized impact in 2026.
Microsoft has acknowledged that its September 2026 security updates cause the legacy File History backup tool to fail on multiple Windows 10 and 11 versions. Affected PCs may show FileHistory.exe crashes in Event Viewer, false 'Reconnect your drive' warnings, and backups that stop updating even though the external or network drive is connected properly.
TechCrunch is offering discounted early registration for its Disrupt 2026 conference, with savings of up to $200 expiring September 25 at 11:59 p.m. PT. The event, running October 13-15 at Moscone West in San Francisco, will feature over 250 speakers, 200+ sessions across six stages, and more than 300 exhibiting startups. Attendees can also access networking tools like AI matchmaking and the Deal Flow Café to connect with investors and partners.
Researchers from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) and Hong Kong Polytechnic University unveiled InjectEave, a method that beams low-frequency electromagnetic signals at devices to trigger leaks through their nonlinear analog components, such as amplifiers and converters. In tests on 11 commercial products, including Sony, Apple and Philips headphones and a VoIP phone, the technique reconstructed intelligible audio from as far as 30 meters, even through walls, using off-the-shelf radio and antenna equipment.
TechCrunch has announced that its current discounted ticket pricing for Disrupt 2026 expires Friday, Sept. 25 at 11:59 p.m. PT, after which rates rise. The conference will take place October 13-15 at Moscone West in San Francisco, expecting over 10,000 founders, investors, and tech leaders.
AMD released a white paper expanding on its earlier performance claims for the upcoming EPYC 'Venice' server CPUs, reiterating that a 96-core Venice chip is about 20% faster per-core than Nvidia's 88-core Vera on SPEC CPU 2026's Integer Rate test. The paper also details throughput results showing the 256-core EPYC 9996 outperforming Intel's Xeon 6980P by 2.37x and Vera by 2.24x, plus a 78% generational gain over the prior 192-core EPYC 9965.
Meta is expected to unveil a new pair of smart glasses at Connect 2026 that drop cameras entirely, relying instead on added microphones for voice interaction with its AI assistant. The frames are said to come in two styles and will be slimmer, resembling regular eyewear, according to reports ahead of the event.
Nvidia's Nader Khalil and Sydney Sykes will lead a session at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, running October 13-15 in San Francisco, examining how startups should choose between proprietary and open AI models. The panel will weigh trade-offs in cost, control, and speed as both open and closed model capabilities keep advancing rapidly.