IEEE's TryEngineering program, now in its third year, ran educator professional-development sessions across the US and one in Cairo, Egypt, teaching 54 preuniversity teachers about artificial intelligence, semiconductor technology, and the engineering design process. Sessions were hosted at university and industry facilities, including the Florida Semiconductor Institute and a SkyWater Technology chip plant, and included lesson plans like Making of a Microchip and Working With Wind Energy. Additional workshops are planned this year in Greece and Guatemala.
spectrum.ieee.org
· 2026-11-05
Heavy rainfall tied to El Niño conditions has caused severe flooding across Florida and the Four Corners area of the southwestern US, even before winter officially begins. The flooding comes amid forecasts that this year's El Niño pattern could bring unusually wet and volatile weather to large parts of the country.
gizmodo.com
· 2026-11-03
Republican candidate Byron Donalds, who has Trump's endorsement and roughly $148 million in campaign funding largely tied to the tech industry, faces defections from GOP voters angered by his support for data center development. Patti Zirhut, a lifelong Republican and anti-data-center organizer in Hernando County, says she will not vote for Donalds and is considering backing Democratic opponent David Jolly instead. Jolly, a former Republican, says opposition to data centers is stronger among Republicans than Democrats in Florida.
theverge.com
· 2026-11-02
Florida Polytechnic University's campus police, working with Swedish company Jetson, unveiled the Astro, a single-seat electric vertical-takeoff aircraft based on the Jetson ONE. The 154-pound vehicle cost $150,000, flies for only about 20 minutes, reaches speeds near 65 mph, and has not yet received FAA approval, according to local station Fox13.
futurism.com
· 2026-10-24
An artist created a silver-colored statue of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis using gallium, a soft metal with a low melting point. Placed outdoors, the statue's face melted away within about 30 minutes, exposing a skeleton underneath.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-10-20
A Florida law enforcement agency reportedly stored Department of Motor Vehicles login credentials insecurely, allowing hackers to gain unauthorized access to the state DMV system. Details on the scope of the breach and the data accessed have not been fully disclosed.
yro.slashdot.org
· 2026-10-19
The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles confirmed that a hacker used compromised login credentials to access driver's license and motor vehicle records, including document images, on September 4, 2026. The agency is notifying affected residents and offering one year of free credit monitoring, though it says it lacks current contact information for some former Florida residents whose data was exposed.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-10-19
Between 1994 and March 1997, a Tampa, Florida father and his ten-year-old son ran a telephone-only bulletin board called Sanity's Edge from a dedicated 286 PC, using a BigMouth voice card found in an old box. The son handled menus and the asylum theme while his father, the sysop known as Dr. Null, built the database backend; callers paid about five dollars a month to join.
sanitys-edge.shouden.us
· 2026-10-19
A database tracking 104,659 Florida homeowner and condo associations found that associations have filed 10,296 foreclosure suits against their own members, recorded 460,412 claims of lien and 277,047 lis pendens, totaling nearly 49,000 court records. The data also shows 6,661 associations are lapsed or out of good standing with the state, and that Florida accounts for 73% of the nation's association foreclosure suits.
hoaspy.com
· 2026-10-18
A 2026 Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior paper by researchers Liana Kreamer, Steven Rogelberg and Jon Gray synthesizes decades of 'meeting science' findings. The review notes that nearly 1 billion meetings occur daily worldwide, with CEOs spending close to 75% of their workdays in them, and examines what makes meetings effective.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-10-17
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 3-0 that Florida may enforce its 2024 law banning social media accounts for children under 14 and requiring parental consent for 14- and 15-year-olds. The decision overturns a 2025 injunction that had blocked the law after industry groups NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association sued, arguing it violated free-speech rights. The case now returns to federal court in Tallahassee for further proceedings.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-10-15
A paper by David Schleicher, posted to SSRN on September 1, 2026, documents that several states have recently overhauled property tax systems to cut taxes on owner-occupied homes while shifting more of the burden onto commercial property, rental buildings, and other revenue sources like sales and income taxes. Some states, including Florida, Ohio, North Dakota, and Texas, have gone further by considering eliminating property taxes on owner-occupied homes or abolishing property taxation altogether.
conversableeconomist.com
· 2026-10-10
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