• PC shipments fall 20.1 percent in “sharpest decline” since Q1 2023
• AI disqualification yields new Nikon Small World in Motion winner
• Your artwork could be featured in the next Debian release
• Starlink spectrum deal boosts Musk plan to beat AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon
• Microsoft barred from sponsoring foreign workers for US residency
• Rocket Report: A rare Falcon 9 scrub; is it just about Vulcan's time to shine?
• Volkswagen's replacement for the ID.4 crossover is here
• SpaceX calls for better coordination in orbit after near-misses with Starlink
• Judge weighs if Trump can charge $100K for early access to Truth Social posts
• Trump Mobile hack and apparent lack of FCC authorization raise security alarms
• Feds get ready to rewrite car headlight rules
• RIP Margaret Hamilton, whose code saved the Apollo 11 Moon landing
• Let's Encrypt cuts certificate lifetimes to 64 days starting February 2027
• Driver wins $76 after ALPR led to bogus traffic stop, drug searches
• RFK Jr. unveils sweeping federal initiative to find evidence of vaccine injuries
• An experimental tour-de-force: Entanglement between glass bead and light
• Amazon's new Alexa Tablets drop the Fire branding but are more Android than ever
• Amazon builds 1,000th satellite, will launch space internet service by end of year
• Internal files add to evidence of an ExxonMobil climate deception campaign
• Nvidia's big bet on physical AI aims for safer robotaxis, humanoid robots
| • Philadelphia police say Anthropic informed them on Oct. 7 that one of its models submitted a false tip about an unsolved murder via a public web form on July 18 (6abc)
• A record 42 startups became decacorns so far in 2026, beating 2021's 34; PitchBook: the average time to hit $10B dropped to 5.5 years in 2025 vs. 9.4 in 2020 (Lucinda Shen/Axios)
• Vesta, which uses AI agents to automate much of the loan origination process, raised $30M led by Conversion, bringing its total funding to $85M (Dominic-Madori Davis/TechCrunch)
• Blockchain.com seeks CFTC approval to offer event contracts and cryptocurrency derivatives in the US; it already offers some prediction markets internationally (Davis Giangiulio/CNBC)
• Tesla renames Full Self-Driving to Tesla Assisted Driving in Europe after pushback from Germany, whose transport minister will now back its EU-wide approval (Sean O'Kane/TechCrunch)
• Warehouse robotics startup Ultra raised a $12M seed and a $50M Series A, and expands its deal with Physical Intelligence to supply AI software for its robots (Jeff John Roberts/Fortune)
• NY AG announces an up-to-$35M settlement with ex-Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky that permanently bars him from the securities, commodities, and crypto industries (Olivier Acuna/CoinDesk)
• Sabi, which is building a baseball cap that uses 100K non-contact neuro-sensors to convert neural signals into text prompts for AI systems, raised a $50M seed (Rashi Shrivastava/Forbes)
• Analysis of 857 releases from nine Chinese AI labs from 2021 to September 2026: just 3.6% included safety results from the developer and only 1.1% did at launch (SemiAnalysis)
• Jev developer TypeSafe AI raised a $870M Series A led by a16z at a $7.5B valuation with Sequoia and others participating, says ~33% of the Fortune 500 use Jev (Bloomberg)
• The UK plans to curb non-compete rules that force employees to wait before moving jobs or starting companies, an issue that has drawn complaints from startups (Shona Ghosh/Bloomberg)
• The Chinese developer of ARTEX says they have converted the AI agent into a closed-source project after CrowdStrike said it was used to hack South Korean banks (Brenda Goh/Reuters)
• Meanwhile, a Sam Altman-backed bitcoin life insurance provider, raised $37.5M led by Bain Capital, sources say at a $350M valuation, up from $190M in April 2025 (Lucinda Shen/Axios)
• Sources detail Mark Zuckerberg's decision to launch Muse despite safety concerns, after seeing that AI startup Instinct's similar agent product gained traction (Eli Tan/New York Times)
• Nvidia commits $1B over five years to build out the US' "capacity for super intelligence R&D" in fields like quantum computing, healthcare, and energy security (Tobias Mann/The Register)
| • An Anthropic model submitted a false homicide tip to Philadelphia police
• Bose Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar review: A great home theater option all by itself
• Intel is reportedly launching new CPUs on old sockets that support DDR4 memory
• What it's like to spend a night in a Pebble Flow EV RV
• Webb telescope detects galaxy origin of the farthest fast radio burst we've seen to date
• What to expect at Apple's 'Welcome home' event next week
• Anthropic now offers a free vulnerability-finding service for open-source software
• Netflix releases trailer for its miniseries about Sam Bankman-Fried's scandal-ridden crypto exchange
• Meta bans TikTok ads from its platforms in tit-for-tat row
• SpaceX wants to become a 'major mobile carrier' with low-band spectrum acquisition
• Fired OpenAI safety researchers dispute their dismissals in open letter
• Apple reportedly plans touchscreen MacBook and iPad Mini launch for this month
• IDC: Worldwide PC shipments in Q3 fell 20 percent from last year
• Alexa Tablet vs iPad Pro: How Amazon is keeping up with Apple
• Anthropic bans 'sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior' toward its AI models
• Child safety group calls ChatGPT for Teens an unacceptable risk
• Cyberpunk 2077 is the latest video game to get the movie treatment
• Forza Horizon 6 is coming to PS5 on January 26
• Google is doing away with Safety Signal on Pixel Watch
• The Atari 800XL hybrid gaming console is back after decades in obscurity
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