Tech news from around the world, rewritten in plain English.
Lotte Chilsung Beverage donated 100,000 plant-based Oatmond drinks to Yeongyang County in Gyeongsangbuk-do on the 19th. The donation was tied to a YouTube campaign with creator Kim Sun-tae, in which one like on the video triggered one pack donation. The video passed its 100,000-like goal within 16 hours of posting.
Coupang Eats is running discount events with chicken, pizza, and burger brands for its WOW members through November 1. Discount coupons range from 5,000 to 8,000 won depending on the brand and date, and WOW members also get free delivery. The company said the aim is to ease the burden of dining-out costs.
Spotify is letting podcast creators earn more by offering fans paid Memberships with perks such as exclusive content, early access, bonus episodes, and reduced ads. The feature begins rolling out today in 34 regions, and creators keep 90 percent of membership revenue. Shows must be hosted on Spotify for Creators or Megaphone and meet minimum listener, consumption, and episode requirements to qualify.
UCLA mathematician Terence Tao says mathematics is leaving its 'romantic era' as AI can solve hard problems with only a few hints. He warns that the pursuit of paper counts and output may erode understanding, and that AI threatens the problem sets used to train young researchers.
Japan launched the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) spacecraft on an H3 rocket from Tanegashima Space Center, starting a roughly 10-month journey to Mars. MMX is planned to collect samples from Phobos and return them to Earth in 2031, which would make it the first mission to land on Phobos and bring material back.
Shanghai-based startup Vibe Technology has introduced Souvi, an outdoor AI memory device for hiking, camping, travel, and urban exploration. Rather than focusing on footage like traditional action cameras, it uses low-interruption recording and AI to turn scattered photos and videos into personal memories.
LINE Digital Frontier, operator of the e-comic service LINE Manga, announced on October 19 the launch of byUs, a service where users chat with AI characters based on manga characters to develop their own stories. Only works approved by their original authors are used, and the service starts with four characters from two titles. It will later add more works and characters.
Japan launched its $578 million MMX mission on a five-year expedition to land on Phobos, the largest moon of Mars, and return samples to Earth. The robotic spacecraft lifted off atop an H3 rocket from Tanegashima Space Center and is now on a 10-month voyage to Mars.
The article explains how to use the Desinfec't rescue system to boot an installed Linux whose Grub bootloader is damaged. If that fails, the file system can be mounted to repair or reinstall the bootloader. The excerpt is a preview of a paywalled heise+ article.
Sinomags, an Anhui-based magnetic sensor maker, is preparing a Hong Kong IPO and ranks first among Chinese magnetic sensor companies and tenth globally, with a 0.6% share, based on 2025 revenue. The company plans to use the listing proceeds to expand precision sensors for applications including robotics and to upgrade its German manufacturing capability.
The UK Financial Conduct Authority says firms' incident reporting should cover significant AI failures and near-misses as autonomous systems raise new risks. FCA chief data, information and intelligence officer Jessica Rusu made the case at Bloomberg's UK Policy Series, stressing that greater autonomy requires clear accountability.
Nota said it supported hands-on sessions at the Arm Create 2026 workshop in San Jose, California, where developers from around the world used its NetsPresso platform. The AI Model Optimizer, built on Nota's NetsPresso technology and a core component of the Arm AI Portal, was used to optimize models for hardware. Arm reported a 5.9x inference speedup and 74% memory reduction for Wide ResNet-50 on the Raspberry Pi 5, and a 52% cut in decoding latency for Whisper Base on the vivo X300 Pro.
Google Cloud customers in Western Europe face severe disruption after the europe-west2-b zone in London went down at 0608 UTC, affecting multiple services. Google has not given an estimated recovery time and says there are no workarounds for now. Customers named by Down Detector include Lloyds Bank, HSBC, Royal Mail, and Revolut.
At a National Assembly audit on the 20th, the Export-Import Bank of Korea said it has no current plan to sell its KAI stake, while KAI's CEO warned that Hanwha gaining control could weaken competition in the aerospace industry. Hanwha's affiliates have raised their combined KAI stake to 15.89%, making it the second-largest shareholder behind the bank's 26.41%. KAI's union also held a second protest in front of the presidential office against the takeover.
Estonia-based Blackwall, which builds web traffic security tools for hosting providers, raised $100 million in a Series C round led by AVP at a $2.2 billion valuation. The company's executive chairman said the valuation has quadrupled since its previous fundraise in 2025. The funding will support expansion across several regions and development of more security tooling for hosting, cloud and managed service providers.
NEC announced on October 20, 2026 that a contractor handling its system development and maintenance was hit by a cyberattack in late September, leading to unauthorized access and data leaks affecting NEC customers. Attackers used stolen legitimate account credentials to access customer systems, encrypt server files, and leak files from a cloud storage service that included personal information. NEC has contacted the affected customers and is working on customer response and early clarification of the full scope.
The KBS Board of Directors selected Lee Tae-hyun, former director of KBS's Content Business Division and former CEO of streaming service Wavve, as its final candidate for KBS president. The selection followed final interviews with three candidates at an extraordinary board meeting held on the 20th. Under the process, the board's nomination will be followed by a National Assembly confirmation hearing before the president makes the final appointment.
CyberVista said it has supplied its network detection and response (NDR) solution, PacketCYBER, to three major public institutions, including central government ministries and public enterprises. The deliveries are cumulative results since the launch of PacketCYBER 3.0 in June, and the company says it is discussing additional supply with several prospective customers.
GMO Cybersecurity by Ierae announced on October 19, 2026 that it confirmed attackers used ARTEX, an AI-assisted open-source penetration testing tool developed in China, in unauthorized access attempts against Japanese companies. Its investigation found the attack sources mostly targeted Japan, with about 20 Japanese companies targeted, eight of which had disclosed information leaks in September and October.
An iX article by Eldar Sultanow explains why a simple kill switch for agentic AI systems is harder than it looks: agents are not fixed OS processes, and terminating a process does not undo actions already taken. The article presents a five-layer architecture that can guarantee agents wind down within a limited time, though not an instant shutdown.
Tencent’s WeChat mini-program Lüpaopao and ByteDance’s Hongguo are expanding free, serialized short-drama viewing in China, including AI-generated series. Sensor Tower data show global short-drama app usage and downloads are rising quickly, led by emerging markets.
A University of Washington study tested seven agentic AI browsers and browser extensions for whether malicious sites could steal sensitive data such as online banking or email information from other open tabs. Four of them, ChatGPT Atlas (agent mode), Chrome with Gemini, Claude for Chrome, and Perplexity Comet, had paths that let attackers bypass the Same-Origin Policy, and the researchers successfully demonstrated data theft with ChatGPT Atlas.
Microsoft and Google work with Nvidia, the world's largest AI chip maker, while also pursuing their own chip projects, though not to compete directly with it. The article raises the question of why tech firms are building their own AI chips.
Baseus has launched the PrimeSentinel U2 Pro, an AI-assisted outdoor security camera with a motorized spotlight that follows moving targets to signal they have been detected. It is priced at $269.99 in the US via Amazon and €269.99 in Europe starting October 15.