AI coding tools are making it so easy to clone games that many developers are wary of sharing early work. Alliance Arts delayed the public demo of its demon-themed Russian Roulette drinking game, Drunken Goddess Reflex, and will now share it only in closed sessions. Papers, Please developer Lucas Pope and indie developer Freya Holmér have also described growing caution about discussing or showing unfinished projects.
Digital health apps (DiGAs) such as Deprexis can support depression treatment, but they complement professional care rather than replace it. One patient describes how the program, unlocked by her health insurer after a psychological consultation, helped her between appointments. Experts note that many evaluated mental health apps eventually leave the market.
B&H Photo is selling Sony's WF-1000XM6 earbuds in black for $238, which is $92 off at checkout and an all-time low price. The discount is available for a very limited time, and other retailers are not currently discounting the XM6.
Endurance Energy, a Seattle startup, tested the world's first subsea geothermal power plant near an active underwater volcano in the northeast Pacific. The three-week test produced less than 10 seconds of net-positive electricity, which showed the approach is technically feasible.
Tolan, an AI companion app that helps users manage daily tasks, relationships, and emotions, has raised another $30 million, doubling its total funding. Investors in the round include Union Square Ventures, Khosla Ventures, and Homebrew, and the company says it has more than 250,000 active users and annual recurring revenue in the double-digit millions.
Dominik Picheta, a senior software engineer at Cloudflare and core developer of the Nim language, has released KillSwitch, an open-source and esoteric programming language meant to confuse large language models. Its code is built from prose-like text mixed with adverb-named identifiers, and calls require anagrams of those adverbs. The article notes that humans may also find it confusing.
Eugenia Kuyda, who presented the IO chatbot at TechCrunch Disrupt 12 years ago, has officially launched Wabi for all users. Wabi is now a multiplayer personal AI assistant built as a messenger app, with multiple task threads and agent-built apps. The launch comes as rivals such as Muse and Instinct offer similar personal AI assistants.
Town, a two-year-old San Francisco startup that builds AI assistants, reached a unicorn valuation on Monday with a $108 million Series B round co-led by Forerunner Ventures and Menlo Ventures. The company launched publicly four months ago and says it reached millions of dollars in annual recurring revenue within weeks. It has raised at least $160 million to date.
The FIDO Alliance's CEO, Andrew Shikiar, said service providers should ideally drop passwords altogether. A viral Hacker News post calling passkeys a trap has been widely criticized by security experts, who say almost all of it is wrong.
A report from the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE) finds that every analyzed public cloud contract in nine EU member states that invoked “sovereignty” went to a domestic provider. The study, covering 8,725 cloud procurement contracts from 2018 to 2025, warns that the proposed Cloud and AI Development Act conflates security goals with industrial policy and could fragment the European cloud market. It recommends defining sovereignty as a demonstrated outcome, such as a buyer’s ability to secure its data and switch providers, rather than as provider ownership.
Tenstorrent, an inference-focused chip startup, raised $1.5 billion at a $6.2 billion valuation, more than double its late-2024 valuation. The company said it chose to stay independent after reportedly drawing acquisition interest from Intel and Qualcomm. The new funding will go toward chips for serving open-weight AI models and video generation.
A ranking of the best smart rings, tested for this guide, places the Oura Ring first and Ringconn second. The rings are presented as a discreet alternative to smartwatches for fitness tracking and sleep analysis.
Japan's JAXA and Europe's ESA are preparing the joint Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) mission to study Phobos, one of Mars's two moons. The spacecraft carries the Idefix rover, developed by DLR and CNES, and is scheduled to launch on October 20 from Tanegashima on a Japanese H3 rocket.
AI penetration-testing startup Terra Security found that the share of GitHub security fixes requiring a follow-up advisory for a failed patch within 90 days rose from about 0.2 percent (2019–2025) to 2.3 percent in 2026. The researchers link the rise to the parallel boom in AI-driven vulnerability discovery and patching, and say prototype-pollution and server-side request forgery fixes break most often.
Developers and users are using AI coding tools such as Claude Code to remove ads, bloatware, and tracking features from smart TVs, with projects like dumbtv and cleanyourtv making these hacks more accessible. Some users reported problems, including one who bricked an Android TV and another who got stuck partway through a Fire TV hack. If such hacks become more popular, they could disrupt the smart TV ad industry, which profits from viewing data.
Nvidia launched new open-weight models for always-on agents and edge computing, including the 120-billion-parameter Nemotron 3.5 Super VL for enterprise use and two lightweight Bolt models for local use on AI PCs and DGX Spark workstations. Nvidia claims Super VL completes agentic tasks faster than competing models from Anthropic and OpenAI when post-trained on specific tasks, and it lists companies including EY, Ramp, and Salesforce as users. Super VL and Bolt 74B-A9B are available now, and Bolt E4B will arrive later this month.
Amazon is funding a proposed 960-megawatt nuclear plant in Indiana and will be the first customer to buy its power. American Electric Power would operate the plant, which would use 12 X-energy Xe-100 small modular reactors on the site of a demolished coal plant near Terre Haute. The companies' timeline still depends on X-energy delivering its first plant at Seadrift, Texas.
Amazon has signed an agreement with X-energy and American Electric Power to fund a new nuclear energy facility in Indiana, replacing the defunct Breed Generating Station in Fairbanks, Sullivan County. The plant aims to provide up to 960 megawatts of carbon-free energy for the regional grid and Amazon's data centers. No construction or operation timeline has been announced, and the planned Xe-100 reactors are an advanced design that is still in development and licensing.
Da Nang has expanded its crypto asset exchange pilot from three to 10 areas, letting users convert crypto to Vietnamese dong via VietQR. The Basal Pay app is licensed to operate in locations including Da Nang International Airport, Hoi An Ancient Town, and Ba Na Hills, with the trial running until August 26, 2028. Officials say 100% of transactions on the platform have complied with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing rules.
According to a government draft, China intends to restrict exports of key technologies, mainly AI, solar technology and biotechnology. The draft, reported by Reuters, names 40 technologies: 26 would require export permits and 14 would be banned outright, while public comments on the draft can be submitted until November 15. A registration requirement for transferring these technologies has already been in effect since Friday, and the government cites security concerns.
Elon Musk said on X on October 19 that he will give every American child one SpaceX share next year, calling it the first of many rounds. Based on about 72 million Americans under 18, the gift would total roughly $11 billion, but CNBC notes the proposal lacks details on how shares would be distributed and who would qualify. The offer came after Anthropic announced on October 18 that it would dedicate at least 5% of its equity to a Community Benefit Fund.
Apple has sent invites for a second product launch this month, scheduled for October 28 at 1PM ET in Los Angeles. According to Bloomberg, Apple is expected to announce new Macs, including a MacBook Pro with an OLED touchscreen that is lighter and has a Dynamic Island, along with a refreshed iPad Mini. The event follows Apple's October 13 smart home-focused event.
ISO and IEC have published ISO/IEC 27090, a 56-page first edition on security threats and compromises to AI systems, developed by subcommittee JTC 1/SC 27. The guidance describes AI-specific attacks such as data poisoning, evasion, model extraction, and prompt injection, along with detection and defense measures. It is not certifiable and complements ISO/IEC 27001 and 27002, but it does not create a presumption of conformity under the EU AI Act or Cyber Resilience Act.
The German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) tested children's smartwatches and their companion apps and found that none of the devices had a secure default configuration. Several models also showed significant weaknesses in data protection and encryption, with the Imoo Z3 sending plaintext messages and data that could help attackers determine a child's location. The BSI also noted that only one manufacturer gave clear, long-term update commitments, and personal data sometimes remained on devices after accounts were deleted or watches were passed on.