Bloomberg's Mark Gurman called Apple's decision to open global pre-orders for the iPhone Duo on October 16 a "serious mistake," saying the company knew of significant supply constraints. Apple had initially planned to sell the device only in the US and China, but ended up launching in more than 70 countries and regions at once. Within 30 minutes of pre-orders opening, estimated delivery dates in most markets slipped to late January 2027, and Apple said demand "far exceeded all expectations."
H2O Retailing said unauthorized access to the Hankyu Department Stores and Hanshin Department Stores reservation site exposed part of the personal data of nearly all H2O ID members, about 1.26 million records in total. No misuse or secondary damage had been confirmed as of October 19. The company has reported the incident to the Personal Information Protection Commission and police and is contacting members by email, while the affected sites remain suspended pending a security check.
Microsoft ended support for Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB 2016 and Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSB 2016 on October 13, 2026, and support for Windows Server 2016 follows on January 12, 2027. Paid Extended Security Updates for Windows 10 LTSB 2016 have been available since April 1, 2026. Organizations migrating clients and related services separately must account for their dependencies at each step.
This heise academy classroom teaches network and system administrators in government to systematically document grown network structures, assess risks, and derive a secure target architecture. The five four-hour sessions, held from 18 November to 16 December 2026 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., cover segmentation and firewalling, secure service delivery and remote access, attack detection, and modernization. The course includes practical demonstrations using port scans, Wireshark, and firewall rules.
Close to 1 billion meetings take place worldwide each day, and CEOs spend nearly three-quarters of their workdays in them. Meeting science, once a tiny niche, is now a growing specialization within organizational and social psychology, aided by vast archived virtual meeting data. A 2026 review co-authored by Liana Kreamer covers more than three decades of this research.
Hangzhou-based robot AI startup Gewu Tongzhi has completed an angel funding round of nearly RMB 100 million, with investors including Hongfu Asset Management, Peak Investment, Hangzhou Capital and Hangzhou Talent Group. The company develops AI for dexterous robotic manipulation, and founder and CEO Cai Jia previously worked at Huawei’s research labs and automotive business on its ADS driving systems. The funding will support model training, hardware development, recruitment and real-world data collection, with a first delivery expected by the end of 2026.
A columnist reports that an individual released pre-alpha source code and binaries for Claude-assisted clones of Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite programs, claimed to be clean-room reimplementations written in Rust. The columnist argues it is unclear whether any law prohibits this, since functionality cannot be copyrighted, and that such cloning could erode the revenue streams that vendor lock-in has protected. He also questions where the money will come from to fund AI infrastructure, citing Gartner's view that return on investment is insufficient and a SemiAnalysis prediction of $11 trillion in capex by 2030.
Chinese scientists report evidence that material from Earth's core may still be rising to the surface, including hydrogen, helium, and tungsten. Their study, published October 9 in Science Advances, concludes that the core and mantle have exchanged materials throughout the planet's 4.5-billion-year history. This challenges the long-held view that the deepest part of the planet has been almost completely isolated since its formation.
Pre-orders for the iPhone Duo met heavy demand, with delivery estimates slipping from November to January and Apple.com's order page briefly unavailable, leaving only the Apple Store app working. Apple called demand "simply exceptional" but did not disclose unit numbers, and eBay listings offering the device for $5,000 or more appeared. Customers who pre-ordered successfully will receive their devices on the official launch date, Friday, October 23.
Anthropic announced a "public benefit fund" that will receive 5% of its shares, structured as a wholly-owned entity within the company, with an option to add 2% for every 50% increase in the company's value. The company offered broad ideas for its use, such as large donations to traditional nonprofits or direct distributions to specific populations, and said it has already committed $200 million to study AI's impact on the job market. Anthropic plans to share more about the fund's structure and governance in the coming months.
Carolyn Marvin was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct in Philadelphia after she blocked an Uber delivery robot and refused to move when police asked. Marvin told ABC13 she was protesting delivery robots because she believes they are taking jobs from human delivery workers. The incident, captured on video, has drawn considerable media attention amid broader concern about how autonomous systems are affecting jobs.
Softcamp has launched a four-stop Japan partner tour, starting in Tokyo and continuing to Fukuoka and Nagoya before returning to Tokyo. At the first Tokyo event, held on the 16th, it demonstrated its SHIELD Gate and SHIELD DRM solutions and discussed customer-specific proposals and sales support with partners. The company plans to reflect the customer needs and sales challenges raised at these events in follow-up proposals and technical support.
At HUAWEI CONNECT 2026 in Shanghai, Huawei introduced the OceanStor M900 Context Memory Storage platform, which extends the KV cache into a shared, multi-tier storage pool for AI inference. Huawei claims up to 64PB of capacity, 60-microsecond access latency, and endurance 16 times that of conventional SSDs. This is a sponsored post, so the performance figures are Huawei's own claims.
Anthropic has granted METR, a nonprofit that has worked with leading AI labs, “employee-like access” to assess the risks of its models, and METR now has a team embedded in the company's office with access to its hardware and internal systems. The move follows Anthropic's commitment to strengthen safeguards amid concerns that advanced AI could run catastrophically out of control. Anthropic says it cannot publicly share all safety-related information, while critics argue that external evaluators could create conflicts of interest and that more government regulation is needed.
At TechCrunch Disrupt, Benchmark's five general partners said the firm is keeping its pace of two or three new bets per partner per year, even as rivals speed up. The firm announced $2 billion across two funds this summer, including a $1.25 billion growth fund, only the second time in its 31-year history it has moved beyond a far smaller vehicle. Partner Peter Fenton said the core fund had been held at $500 million for 20 years, which he called a tactical error.
Made by BioWare, Neverwinter Nights sold well and was critically acclaimed at launch, and more than two decades later it still has a tight-knit, surprisingly active community. Unlike BioWare's usually single-player, story-driven RPGs, it focused as much on a modding toolset and multiplayer as on a pre-packaged story. The article links this to the team's passion for tabletop role-playing, and notes that the team had explored an MMO idea before abandoning it well before release.
Mister Organ is a documentary by New Zealand journalist David Farrier, who begins by reporting on Bashford Antiques, a Ponsonby shop that clamped cars and demanded fees of up to $760 to release them. His article led the government to introduce legislation outlawing extreme clamping fees. As Farrier investigates Michael Organ, the man hired to police the lot, he uncovers a past charge of attempting to steal a yacht and false claims of being a prince and lawyer, and Organ's harassment eventually drives Farrier to leave the country.
Second Retailing, which operates the Geo and 2nd Street brands, announced on October 17 that it had confirmed unauthorized access to its internal systems on October 15. To prevent secondary damage, it suspended the apps and web services of both brands from 9 p.m. that day and is performing system maintenance, with restart timing to be announced once confirmed. The company is working with an external security firm to investigate the cause and scope, and store business hours are unchanged, with in-store buybacks without the app still accepted.
Foldable iPhone Duo units are listed on Vietnam's black market at 17 million to nearly 20 million VND above the official price, depending on storage and color. A 512 GB white-silver model was offered at 90-92 million VND against a list price of 71.5 million VND. Pre-orders in Vietnam sold out within minutes of opening on October 16, and buyers were required to pay a 30 million VND deposit.
At a press briefing during the 2026 ITS World Congress in Gangneung on the 19th, Lotte Innovate CEO Kim Kyung-yeop said the company aims to grow its mobility business by more than 300% by 2030. The company plans to become an integrated mobility solutions provider using AI to improve traffic safety and operational efficiency. It is also advancing smart tolling, C-ITS, and autonomous driving solutions and pursuing overseas expansion, with Malaysia and Mexico under discussion.
Former Savannah police officer Amber Harpe was fired in August after an internal investigation found she had shared her Flock login with her husband, Tyler Harpe, an ICE agent. The department said it does not share Flock data with ICE and that sharing system access violated its security protocols. Tyler Harpe conducted 983 searches tied to 97 license plates, mostly registered to Hispanic drivers, which the couple said were strictly for law-enforcement purposes.
Even Healthcare raised $50 million in a Series B round led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Alpha Wave, valuing the Indian startup at $300 million. The startup, which has raised more than $120 million in total, is building and operating its own hospitals and pays doctors fixed salaries rather than tying their pay to the number of procedures. It has opened two hospitals in Bengaluru and plans to open five more over the next six months.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced on October 13 that Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old Saudi national, was arrested by the FBI on October 9 for allegedly placing listening devices in OpenAI's offices. Court records show prosecutors feared he might flee, noting that he and his family had booked one-way flights to Saudi Arabia. The article also describes his academic background and Silicon Valley career, which he said was aimed at eventually contributing to his home country.
The article addresses common complaints from long hours at a screen, such as back pain, neck tension, and eye strain. It notes a growing market for ergonomic aids, from vertical mice and split keyboards to under-desk walking pads, and says the shift to home offices is blurring the line between work and leisure. An interview with Dr. Britta Weber of the DGUV argues that the most important ergonomic measure is not hardware.