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French startup The Exploration Company, led by Helene Huby, closed a record $450 million Series C funding round to advance its Nyx cargo capsule, a future crewed spacecraft, and plans for a reusable heavy-lift rocket. Huby says the company aims to test a 400,000-pound-thrust methane engine by 2028 and fly the new launcher by 2033, with further fundraising expected once key technical milestones are hit.
Security researchers at Proofpoint and Volexity uncovered a modular attack tool called BlueMoon that strings together two Chromium browser flaws and a Windows kernel bug to achieve remote code execution and system-level control. The kit has been used since late August by China-linked group JungleBamboo (also known as APT31) and by a separate actor Volexity calls UTA0560, which targeted NGO staff. Analysts believe one of the three vulnerabilities, a Windows ALPC flaw, was repurposed from an existing 2025 exploit rather than newly built.
Apple detailed its A20 Pro chip, which will power the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and iPhone Duo. Built on a 2nm process, the chip features a six-core CPU with two new 'super cores' up to 20% faster than the A19 Pro, a redesigned seven-core GPU with 40% better graphics performance, and a dual Neural Engine offering twice the AI compute of its predecessor. Apple also boosted memory bandwidth by 50% and added neural accelerators to every CPU core.
A developer profiling Apple's M3 Neural Engine found an RTL performance bug that cuts DRAM weight-streaming speed from a normal 45-60 GB/s down to just 17-19 GB/s whenever a model's total weight size lands on an exact multiple of 1 MiB, affecting 7 of the 15 models in the ANEMLL project. By rerouting around the flawed speculative prefetch path in the kernel's DMA engine, the developer restored full throughput, more than doubling token generation speeds for Llama 3.2 1B and Qwen3-8B.
Apple introduced the iPhone 18 Pro, featuring a variable aperture camera system that gives users more manual control over photos instead of relying solely on computational photography. The device is powered by the new A20 Pro chip, Apple's first 2nm processor, which includes a 6-core CPU, a 7-core GPU with up to 40 percent better performance, and a dual Neural Engine design. Apple also detailed upcoming Siri AI features, powered by large language models, set to launch in October.
At its 'Surprise and Shine' event, Apple introduced the A20 Pro chip, built on 2nm technology, which will power the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max. The chip features a six-core CPU with faster supercores, a seven-core GPU offering up to 40% better performance, and a 32-core Neural Engine with double the compute capability. Apple also boosted memory bandwidth by 50% and redesigned chip packaging to improve cooling, borrowing techniques from its M-series processors.
An Entrepreneur opinion piece argues that most chief executives mismanage their company's search engine presence, viewing it as a static reputation gauge rather than an active revenue source. The author notes that page one of search results functions as an informal vetting tool for prospects, investors and job candidates before any direct contact occurs. Citing data showing 93% of online experiences start with a search engine, the piece calls for continuous, deliberate management of digital search visibility.
The Stockfish team has released version 19 of its open-source chess engine, claiming an Elo gain of up to 44 points over version 18 and a win rate more than three times its loss rate in test matches. The update introduces a new SFNNv16 neural network architecture, retires a secondary network added in version 16.1, and switches to universal binaries that auto-detect CPU features instead of requiring manual selection between AVX2, AVX-512 and similar builds. The release also adds native support for RISC-V and LoongArch processors.
A new analysis argues that digital infrastructure—search engines, cloud platforms, and networks people rely on daily—should be designed, built, and maintained with the same rigor applied to physical infrastructure like water systems and power grids. It draws comparisons to failures such as Flint's water crisis and Puerto Rico's electrical grid collapse to illustrate what happens when essential systems are neglected.
Google released Chrome version 152.0.7977.82/.83 to fix a high-severity zero-day flaw, CVE-2026-85046, a type confusion bug in the V8 JavaScript engine that is already being exploited in the wild. The update also patches 11 other vulnerabilities, including use-after-free and out-of-bounds memory issues across several Chrome components.
Tom's Hardware ran Capcom's new RE Engine title Onimusha: Way of the Sword through its built-in benchmark across 31 CPUs, from Intel's newly released Core Ultra 7 270K Plus down to AMD's decade-old Ryzen 7 2700X. AMD's X3D chips outperformed flagship processors by roughly 10%, while the 270K Plus underperformed compared to Intel's older Raptor Lake Refresh parts, and AMD's newer 12-core Ryzen 9 chips also lagged unexpectedly.
Polars has shipped the first release candidate for version 2.0, with the final release expected in coming weeks. The major version bump primarily changes the default execution engine for LazyFrame queries from the in-memory engine to the streaming engine, alongside other default setting changes and removal of legacy design constraints.