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Technology news: AI, chips and devices, programming, security, crypto and the companies building them.

2300 articles · page 15 of 48 · The Tech front page

AI

OpenAI engineer charged in recording device case had ties to Saudi government

The FBI has charged an OpenAI engineer with planting a hidden recording device in a conference room at the company's San Francisco office, an incident that has intensified concerns about security at leading artificial intelligence labs. The accused, Abdulrahman Alfozan, a Saudi national who joined OpenAI in July 2025, had recently helped advise Saudi government agencies on technology and is listed as a venture partner at a firm that includes a member of the Saudi royal family.

· 3 sources
AI

Bluesky expands AI-powered Attie platform to let users build websites, games, and interactive experiences

Bluesky announced at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 on Thursday a major expansion of its AI-powered Attie platform, enabling users to create websites, quizzes, games, polls, and other interactive experiences without needing coding skills. The new capabilities build on Attie's original function of building custom social feeds and run on the same AT Protocol (atproto) that powers Bluesky and the broader decentralized social web known as the Atmosphere.

· 2 sources
AI

Meta unveils Muse Spark Open, an open-weight AI model built with Apple for Mac Studio

Meta on Thursday released Muse Spark Open, an 816-billion-parameter open-weight AI model developed in collaboration with Apple, claiming it is the most capable US model of its kind and the first in its class built to run on desktop hardware. The launch marks a public partnership between two companies that have spent years as rivals, with the model's weights released under a license that permits limited commercial use.

· 7 sources
AI

Rivian plans to bring third-party AI agents into its electric vehicles

Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe announced at TechCrunch Disrupt this week that the electric carmaker intends to allow third-party AI agents, such as Anthropic's Claude, to run inside its vehicles, building on a voice assistant rolled out earlier this year. Scaringe described the potential as "magical" but provided no timeline, pointing instead to a December "AI & Autonomy Day" event for further details.

· 2 sources
Security

Israeli ad-tech firm Discover-Tech implicated in spyware targeting Al Jazeera devices

An Israeli advertising technology company, Discover-Tech, helped place spyware on dozens of devices used by Al Jazeera employees and other organisations, according to a Citizen Lab investigation published Thursday. The spyware, developed by the US-blacklisted firm Candiru, was delivered through what researchers describe as the first known instance of a zero-click targeted advertising attack.

· 2 sources
Hardware & Devices

Smartphone shipments plunge as memory crisis drives price surge

Global smartphone shipments fell by at least a fifth in the third quarter of 2026, as the AI-driven memory crunch pushed component costs up by approximately 350 percent and forced vendors to raise prices and cut back on budget devices. Preliminary estimates from IDC and Omdia put the year-on-year decline at 22 percent and 20 percent respectively, with both analysts warning that the market has not yet hit bottom.

Hardware & Devices

Sipeed Announces MaixStation, a Chinese AI Mini PC Rival to Nvidia DGX Spark

Sipeed, a Chinese hardware maker, has announced the MaixStation, an AI mini PC powered by Axera's AX8860P chip that aims to compete with Nvidia's DGX Spark and AMD's Ryzen AI Halo. The 128GB model is expected to cost around $3,999 when it launches via Kickstarter at the end of 2026, putting it at the same price point as the equivalent Ryzen AI Halo configuration and well below the DGX Spark's $6,950 MSRP.

Hardware & Devices

Nvidia RTX Spark laptops go on sale: Windows on Arm arrives for AI workloads

Nvidia's RTX Spark laptops are now generally available at multiple retailers, including Best Buy, B&H Photo and manufacturer websites, marking the broadest push yet for Windows on Arm in high-performance computing. The first wave includes devices from Microsoft, Asus, Lenovo, HP and Dell, with the Surface Laptop Ultra leading the lineup. Early reviews highlight strong local AI inference performance, with the RTX Spark chip outperforming Apple's M5 Max in some AI benchmarks, though gaming performance remains limited.

· 6 sources
Crypto

Bitcoin bounces back above $82,000 after brief drop below $80,000 as inflation fears ease into weekend

Bitcoin climbed back above $82,000 on Friday, a day after briefly falling below $80,000 for the first time in a month, as buyers stepped in following the biggest inflation-driven selloff in weeks. The recovery came as U.S. Treasury yields stabilized and Asian stocks rebounded, though a second straight day of bitcoin ETF inflows is still needed to confirm the bounce has real support.

· 5 sources
Crypto

Russia Central Bank Confirms P2P Crypto Ban from July 2027 as Sberbank Joins Exchange Register

Russia's central bank has confirmed that direct peer-to-peer cryptocurrency trades between individuals will be outlawed from July 1, 2027, a restriction that also prevents users from moving digital assets to self-custody wallets. In a separate development, state-owned Sberbank has been added to the central bank's crypto exchange register and plans to debut its first crypto products on December 1.

· 2 sources
Security

Eiliko robot toy stores conversations on insecure Chinese servers, security investigation finds

A security investigation by The Verge has revealed that the Eiliko, a new digital pet robot that can change expressions and converse over Wi-Fi, stores everything users tell it on Chinese servers that are vulnerable to hacking. The reporter bought the toy from Amazon in late August and within a day found that the company behind it, Energize Lab, appears to have left user data and the robot's personality open to hijacking.

Security

Spyware Makers Use Online Ads to Hack Devices, Citizen Lab Report Finds

Security researchers at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab have discovered that government spyware makers are abusing global advertising networks to hack devices without the victim needing to click a link or open a message. A new report published Thursday identifies an Israeli company called Discover-Tech as a bridge between ad vendors and the mercenary spyware ecosystem, enabling targeted attacks with zero-click exploits.

· 3 sources
Security

Yandex data center strikes slow, but do not stop, Russian bot traffic, Cloudflare finds

Ukrainian drone strikes on Yandex data centers have sharply disrupted Russian cloud services but have done little to reduce Russian disinformation bot traffic, according to a new Cloudflare analysis. Traffic on Yandex Search and Yandex.Cloud remains at 10% to 15% of normal levels, yet malicious bot activity quickly migrated to other hosting providers, leaving overall Russian bot traffic essentially flat.

AI

Nvidia CEO urges US-China AI safety dialogue, calls technology 'potentially dangerous'

Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang has called for enhanced dialogue between the United States and China on artificial intelligence, saying the chipmaker "absolutely must" work with Chinese AI companies to monitor the risks of a technology he described as "potentially dangerous." Speaking at a media briefing in London, Huang said international cooperation was essential to advancing AI safely.

· 2 sources
Crypto

ASIC Unveils Proposed Crypto Exchange Rules With A$14 Million Capital Floor

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has released a consultation package that would impose new operating standards on cryptocurrency exchanges, including a requirement to hold net tangible assets of at least A$14 million. The proposals implement the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Act 2026 ahead of its enforcement in April 2027 and cover customer asset protections, conflict-of-interest controls, and token listing obligations. ASIC is seeking feedback until November 27.

· 3 sources
Security

UK Legal Aid Agency confirms hackers stole records dating back to 1978

The UK Legal Aid Agency (LAA) has revealed that hackers who breached its systems in April 2025 stole records dating back to 1978, with approximately 250,000 records predating 2007. The agency, which manages legal aid for England and Wales, said the vast majority of stolen data relates to applications, claims or payments made between 2007 and May 2025, but confirmed a fractionally small number of records date from before 1990, with the earliest verified record from 1978.

· 2 sources
Security

Mass hack of refrigeration systems at 700 French supermarkets causes spoilage and fires

A coordinated cyber attack on refrigeration systems at an estimated 700 supermarkets across France has caused widespread food spoilage and, in some cases, electrical fires, French authorities have reported. The incident, which occurred earlier this week, involved the exploitation of known security flaws in internet-connected controllers used to remotely manage store-wide refrigeration and freezer systems.

AI

Torvalds hands Claude Code-assisted page cache fix to Kiryl Shutsemau after race flagged

Linus Torvalds has handed further development of his Claude Code-assisted Linux page cache fix to kernel developer Kiryl Shutsemau, after reviewers flagged a race condition and raised concerns about memory reclamation. The revised 10-patch series delivered a 23-fold throughput improvement in a synthetic benchmark on Torvalds' Ryzen Threadripper, though he cautioned that real-world gains would be considerably smaller.