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Anthropic reports that its Claude AI model helped determine the origin of mysterious 'seed' values used to generate NIST's standard elliptic curves for ECDSA, a widely used cryptographic signature standard. The seeds, published without explanation by the NSA in 2000, were long rumored to derive from a humorous passphrase chosen by NSA employee Jerry Solinas, but the analysis found they actually correspond to UTC timestamps.
California Highway Patrol says a Tesla operating in Full Self-Driving mode struck a patrol car on Interstate 80 on October 13 while officers investigated a fatal crash, despite flares, cones and flashing lights marking the closed lanes. The impact pushed the cruiser into another emergency vehicle, hospitalizing both officers with serious injuries; the 22-year-old driver, who told police he had fallen asleep, suffered minor injuries.
Apple's latest iOS 27.2 beta introduces three changes: granular settings to enable or disable specific Messages 'Suggestions' like calendar and reminder prompts, two new Home app options for smart locks covering auto-lock timing and door-left-open alerts, and a visual overhaul of the Music app that replaces its red branding with black-and-white icons and blue tab accents.
Amazon has cut the price of Samsung's P9 Express 256GB microSD Express card by 25%, bringing it down to $59.99. The card is designed to work with the Nintendo Switch 2, offering faster game installs and load times than standard microSD cards.
At a SpaceX facility in McGregor, Texas, Tesla staged a driverless demonstration of its long-delayed Roadster 2, launching the car into a jump, flip and landing cushioned by onboard thrusters. Vehicle engineering chief Lars Moravy told Hagerty the car uses rear-wheel drive, two motors producing over a megawatt of power and 1,400 Nm of torque, more than Tesla's three-motor Plaid models.
Apple announced a free software update bringing three new features to the existing HomePod (2nd generation), alongside this week's launch of HomePod mini 2, HomeView and a new Apple TV 4K. The update adds Sound Glow lighting effects synced to music, the ability to set HomePod as the default Mac speaker, and support for four-HomePod surround sound when paired with the new Apple TV 4K.
A security research team documented their process of dumping and analyzing firmware (version 3.4.2.2h) from the Eufy HomeBase 2 device, following up on earlier work examining a Eufy doorbell. Because the HomeBase's flash chip was soldered directly to the board with no exposed test pins, the researchers used spring clips and a Raspberry Pi to physically read the Winbond flash memory chip.
Amazon has cut the price of JBL's Vibe Buds 2 wireless earbuds to $39.95, a $20 reduction from their regular retail price of roughly $59.95. The earbuds feature active noise cancellation, 8mm drivers, and Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity.
Xipto Esports player Nuengnara "23savage" Teeramahanon says police raided his team's Kuala Lumpur boot camp, handcuffed him and two teammates, and questioned whether they were professional gamers. He says he convinced an officer by showing Instagram photos, then played a full Dota 2 match as Kez and finished with 32 kills, after which the team was released. He also claims an officer took two jars of Nutella before leaving.
Epic Games is building a new version of its Easy Anti-Cheat system for Linux, called EAC Linux V2, designed to match the capabilities of the Windows version. It relies on existing Linux security features like Secure Boot, TPM 2.0 and Kernel Lockdown rather than a kernel driver, and runs as a systemd service only while a protected game is active. Distros including Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Fedora, Bazzite and Debian already have recognized signing keys, meaning users on those systems could play protected titles if their hardware meets the other requirements.
Apple's iOS 18.2 update introduced a Categories feature in the Mail app that automatically sorts incoming messages into Primary, Transactions, Updates and Promotions tabs. The feature is enabled by default, but users can turn it off to restore the app's previous single-inbox layout, and can manually reassign emails that land in the wrong category.
Sega's October 13 remaster of Shogun 2, developed with Mataboo, drew overwhelmingly negative Steam reviews over apparently AI-upscaled 2D art, unresolved and new bugs, and a mod system switch that broke 15 years of unofficial patches. Sega had also delisted the original game, leaving Complete Edition as the only purchase option for new buyers. About 48 hours after launch, Sega apologized, pulled the remaster, and restored the original version for sale.