• Once again, NASA is asking for ideas to rescue Hubble from certain death
• Flesh-eating screwworms spread to third state and are attacking pets
• Oh captain, our captain: Ars staff remembers Patrick Stewart
• Supersonic airliner in doubt as company shifts to powering AI data centers
• Anthropic VS code extension on Cursor backdoored for nearly 12 hours
• Dartmouth's provost warned us about AI cheating—but his own AI use cost him his job
• Over 25% of people lie to get antibiotics—and their lies aren't even good
• Basically no one is using AI agents for their DoorDash orders
• Rare meteorite from Mars gives us a view into its ancient crust
• Fujifilm to boost tape production 5x as AI fuels archiving demand
• Thousands of “ghost students” use AI to steal millions in student loans, DOJ says
• Analysts find looming launch crisis is "more severe" than anticipated
• GM to pay $220 million after selling customer Smart Driver data
• Hackers steal $6.3 billion from Binance in record crypto heist
• 2027 Nissan Rogue Hybrid: Drives like an EV, but there's no plug involved
• Review: You Can See Everything blurs the view of Elizabeth Holmes' deceit
• Rocket Report: Winter is coming for Themis; Cowboy Space adds iron to the fire
• Reddit is moving to “a logged-in-only experience,” CEO says
• Microsoft fixes a Windows 11 annoyance as PC revenue declines
• Pentagon IG refuses to investigate Starlink/Starshield slowdown in Ukraine
| • Sources: OpenAI has secured ~$11B in commitments for its latest funding round, less than half its initial $30B target, and expects to raise more in coming weeks (Berber Jin/Wall Street Journal)
• Sources: OpenAI now seeks ~$20B at a $1.25T valuation for its latest round, from $30B at a $1.4T valuation, as some investors cut commitments amid an AI selloff (Financial Times)
• Sources: Baseten is raising ~$2B in two tranches, one valuing it at $26B and the other at $30B; Baseten was valued at $13B in June after raising $1.5B (Bloomberg)
• Sources: Google is in talks with the DOD on a new effort to secure the data that feeds into software being built for the Golden Dome missile defense program (Bloomberg)
• Filing: Vancouver, WA-based Powerlattice, which makes a power delivery chiplet to reduce AI compute power needs by 50%+, raised $86M, after raising $31M in 2025 (Kurt Schlosser/GeekWire)
• OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Anthropic say they will adopt a new standard that publishers can use to opt out of being scraped by AI across multiple crawlers (Emma Roth/The Verge)
• OpenAI tightens limits on the weapons-related information that ChatGPT provides teens, even when a question appears harmless, as part of new safeguards (Reuters)
• Intel stock closed down 28.58% on Friday, its worst day since the 1970s and wiping ~$12B off US government's stake, after issuing weaker-than-expected guidance (CNBC)
• Reddit closed down 29.27% on Friday, the worst drop since becoming a public company in 2024, after it forecast weak Q4 revenue (Caleigh Keating/CNBC)
• Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Oracle have a collective $3T+ in AI spending commitments over the coming years, including Alphabet's $1T and Meta's $800B (Brody Ford/Bloomberg)
• Chainalysis says Binance hackers used automated money-laundering patterns not seen before; Elliptic: almost all of the $6.3B was taken in the first 30 minutes (Financial Times)
• Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Oracle returned just 9.3% of cash to shareholders in the first three quarters of 2026, a 15-year low amid AI spending (Patturaja Murugaboopathy/Reuters)
• Anthropic renames its $100 per month Max 5x plan as Max and the $200 per month Max 20x plan as Ultra, and removes the 5-hour limit for verified Ultra accounts (Claude/@claudeai)
• Google says its Suncatcher prototype data center satellite is online after an October 1 launch, with Gemma 4 generating a haiku about being in space (Tim Fernholz/TechCrunch)
• Salesforce acquires Rune, which makes AI military logistics software, sources say for $375M in cash and stock; Rune raised $30m from a16z and others (Margaux MacColl/Resilience Media)
| • Meta settles another social media addiction case just before trial
• Bluesky now has a dedicated 'moderation inbox'
• Everything you need to know about Googlebooks
• New tvOS 27.2 features to try for an upgraded Apple TV experience
• The Wikimedia Foundation weighs in on the NYT's case against OpenAI
• The Death Stranding anime's first teaser trailer arrives ahead of its Disney+ debut
• Harley-Davidson's electric motorbike brand has 'substantial doubt' about its future
• Meta quietly launches an AI fashion app for virtually trying on clothes
• Lenovo Googlebook 15 review: Your Android phone's new best friend
• Waymo and Toyota will soon start testing their robotaxis in Japan
• Senators are looking into 'serious privacy risks' with Meta's AI glasses
• Binance hacked for an estimated $6.3 billion in record crypto theft
• General Motors agrees to pay $220 million to settle multi-state data privacy lawsuit
• Sony is working on a film adaptation of viral indie horror game Mouthwashing
• Meta is testing 'Threads Friends' for sharing posts with smaller groups
• VRChat says it's not adding AI labels despite user survey showing people want that
• Fan fiction website AO3 is down, and it could take weeks to recover
• Reddit will force users to log in as AI is killing search traffic
• Google fixes an annoying Photos bug that hid edited images from other apps
• Google brings AI Mode advertisements to more countries
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