Tech news from around the world, rewritten in plain English.
Gangjin County won the top prize at the 2026 Korea SNS Awards for sharing tourism, culture, and county government news through friendly content. County civil servants run the accounts in-house without outside contractors, planning and producing content based on their understanding of policies and events.
HD Hyundai Site Solutions has been selected to lead a national R&D project by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy to build a high-precision simulation-based digital twin platform for AI-driven unmanned autonomous excavators. The project has a total budget of 6.33 billion won and runs through December 2029, with a consortium that includes Simcheon, the Korea Institute of Construction Machinery, the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology, and the Korea Construction Equipment Industry Association.
GMO Internet Group said hackers stole account credentials from servers for its FX auto-trading service, leading to unauthorized trades at more than 70 brokerages and FX firms in Japan and abroad. GMO announced a compensation plan on the 24th and asked the government for active cyber defense support, while Japanese officials said the measure is not triggered by individual company requests.
A serious security flaw in the widely used programming language PHP is, according to a expert at Germany's federal cyber agency, an example of a trend that may last for some time. Attackers can now exploit a published vulnerability within minutes or hours, while fixes are rolled out slowly and decentrally.
A new remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2026-115560) has been found in PHP that is not fixed by the security updates released on the 21st. KISA recommends setting session.upload_progress.enabled to 0 and restarting all PHP processes until a patch is available.
Korean card companies are moving to add AI-based agentic payments to the government's national 'Modu AI' project, aiming to build a new payment ecosystem by combining commerce with the initiative. Shinhan Card and Hana Card are in the SKT consortium, BC Card is in the KT consortium, and the target is to launch AI agent pay services in the first half of next year.
China can now produce advanced chips without EUV lithography, but faces cost, yield, and production-time hurdles. Domestic manufacturers rely mainly on DUV lithography, using multi-patterning techniques that add steps, masks, and error risks.
The article looks back at Tomb Raider, which was released 30 years ago and became a landmark for Core Design, the Derby-based studio founded in 1988. It traces how the game's third-person 3D approach and its heroine Lara Croft came about.
Samsung Group is extending its practice of reporting CEO succession candidates to its board to more affiliates. Samsung Electro-Mechanics and Samsung SDI are reportedly set to table the item at board meetings held ahead of third-quarter earnings announcements.
Block, the U.S. fintech company co-founded by Jack Dorsey, has unveiled Dessa, a voice AI that can laugh, pause, hesitate, and change its tone with emotion during conversation. Block says Dessa was trained only on recorded human conversation speech, not text, and can run on a personal computer. Block has not given a public release date, and the demo videos are company-made with no independent performance verification.
Ko Choon-il, CEO of Able Co., has died, according to a death notice published by ZDNet Korea. The notice gives the funeral hall, viewing time, and funeral schedule.
Security experts warn that AI-driven discovery of software vulnerabilities could trigger a wave of security incidents and cyberattacks in the coming years. The alarm follows the public disclosure on October 21 of two PHP vulnerabilities, PHP2Shell, which were found by several independent organizations, including AI-assisted discoveries.
Viettel Sơn La says building mobile infrastructure in the province's mountainous areas costs about 100% more than in the lowlands, due to rugged terrain, scattered populations and limited transport, power and transmission. The company plans 246 new BTS base stations in 2026 and aims to cover 100% of signal dead zones in the province this month, and has asked the Ministry of Science and Technology to allow use of the public telecom fund.
A columnist tests Relaxonic Cover, a speed-rest eye mask developed by MENTAGRAPHA, a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan Tobacco, which uses a heater and ultrasonic sound to help users rest. The product raised about 4.7 million yen on Makuake against a 500,000 yen goal and is sold on Amazon for 27,500 yen.
AhnLab took part in the cybersecurity exhibition 'Security Days Fall 2026 Tokyo' from the 21st to the 23rd in Tokyo, promoting its OT security solutions for Japan's manufacturing sector. The company showcased its cyber-physical systems (CPS) integrated security approach, including the AhnLab XTD network security and AhnLab EPS endpoint security products. It also appointed Tsubaki Yoji as the new country manager of its Japanese subsidiary to expand local business.
The world's cheapest smartphones are disappearing as AI data centers absorb memory chips and push component prices up. IDC says the average smartphone price is set to rise from $450 last year to an expected $581 this year.
Microchip Technology's Senior Vice President Mark Reiten said in a written interview with ZDNet Korea that single-chip AI semiconductor startups will struggle to compete without broad solutions. The comments came as Microchip moved to acquire edge AI chip startup Hailo to strengthen its microprocessor business.
The live-action movie "Street Fighter: The Movie" opened in Japanese theaters on October 16, based on Capcom's famous fighting game series. The columnist, a manga artist and gamer, says despite its uneven story, he found it highly satisfying, especially for its lively characters, B-movie tone, and faithful action scenes.
A German tech publication has published a top 10 ranking of smartwatches with ECG functions. The article says atrial fibrillation often goes unnoticed, and that ECG-equipped smartwatches can provide indications of heart rhythm disorders.
SpaceX appears to have lifted restrictions on Ukraine's military use of Starshield, the military-grade version of Starlink, according to Defense Minister Evgeniy Khmara. The military is still testing the service and has not received an explanation for the restrictions, which had disrupted Ukrainian drones for about 10 days.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro signed the Artificial Intelligence Deceptive Advertising Act, which requires ads that have been significantly modified or generated by AI to carry a label. The rule covers still images, video, audio, and text, and applies regardless of where an ad was created.
The German Armed Forces say they passed the first operational test of their new digital radio network under the D-LBO program, including live-fire exercises at Munster. However, the FAZ reports that the Marder infantry fighting vehicle failed during integration and that the army has had to shift to the Puma.
Multiple news reports say Instacart may sell itself to a larger competitor. The Information reported that the grocery delivery company hired an investment bank to evaluate its options and held acquisition talks with DoorDash, while Bloomberg reported it also talked with Uber, which reportedly walked away.
Block, the company led by Jack Dorsey, released Dessa, a full-duplex voice model from its research lab that can run locally and produces expressions like laughs, pauses, and cries. The company says it was trained entirely on human speech using a single NVIDIA GPU, and that emotion is built into the model. Dessa is not publicly available yet, and Block has asked safety researchers to test it.