Tech news picked on 2026-10-09
Google Books laptop test: reporters find app compatibility and phone linking inconvenient
- Googlebook is a new laptop line from Google based on Android. Reporters said the hardware is fairly good, but they judged Googlebook OS, the operating system, to be a weakness in its current state.
- Reporters said Android apps generally open full screen on the laptop, like tablet screens. Streaming apps such as Netflix worked the same way, and some apps did not redraw the screen properly when the window size was changed.
- Linux apps ran only inside a virtual machine (a virtual computer created inside a computer), so they did not appear on the taskbar. Reporters also said files and the clipboard are not shared automatically with Android apps.
- Phone linking was convenient for replying to messages directly from notifications or moving files with quick share. However, reporters said the connection often drops, and opening a single photo in the Files app took several minutes.
- The entire Deno team is joining Cloudflare. The company said it will focus development on a shared platform together with Cloudflare's Workers and Durable Objects teams, and will not continue developing a separate runtime and hosting service.
- The Deno runtime will receive monthly releases with bug fixes and security updates for 1 years, after which development ends. Deno will remain open source, and the company says it welcomes outside contributors who want to continue development.
- Deno Deploy will run for 6 more months before it shuts down, and paying customers will receive migration support to move to Cloudflare Workers. JSR will move its infrastructure to Cloudflare and keep operating.
- Instinct is an AI assistant that takes requests through text chat windows such as iMessage, WhatsApp, and email, then handles tasks like checking websites, making reservations, and sending emails on the user's behalf. The original article explains that it can also connect to personal email and calendars.
- The reporter asked it to find swimming lessons, send an email to book an eye clinic appointment, and request an IKEA return. The lesson dates and times were correct, but the reporter noted that it missed the condition that a preschool child's class requires a prerequisite class.
- There is currently no separate app and no monthly subscription fee, and an invitation or waitlist approval is required. The company said it is free for invited users and intends to keep it as affordable as possible. The valuation of $10 billion was reported in September.
- Analysts pointed to advertising and deal structures with businesses as possible revenue sources for the free service, but this is a forecast. According to the article, Instinct has already shown users recommended products.
Open-source video editor FilmCraft offers a Premiere Pro-like interface and keyboard shortcuts
- FilmCraft is an open-source video editing program with a panel layout and keyboard shortcuts similar to Adobe Premiere Pro. The original says it runs directly on macOS, Windows, and Linux, and also runs in web browsers via WebAssembly.
- The original says the H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and AAC codecs were implemented in-house based on public specifications. However, decoding of MP3, FLAC, ALAC, and Vorbis currently uses the external library symphonia, and it is stated that this will be replaced with an in-house implementation later.
- The README states that the H.264 decoder reaches 500~600fps at 1080p, and HEVC about 225fps. This is the development team's claim, and the measurement equipment and conditions are not given in the original.
- The development team says it checked decoding results against ffmpeg frame by frame. This verification method is as the development team described it; the original contains no independent verification results.
- An AI agent displays an arrow and a guidance message at the top of the Mac screen to point to the button or window the user must press. According to the original, the arrow lets clicks pass through to the app below and disappears on its own after a set time.
- Installation consists of one Homebrew command and the bigarrow install-skill command, which registers a skill so that Claude Code and Codex can use this tool. The original says that building from source requires Xcode 16 or later and macOS 14 or later.
- The --element feature, which finds targets by button name, requires Accessibility permission. The original explains that this permission is granted not to bigarrow but to the app that runs the shell, such as Terminal, and states that drawing the arrow itself requires no permission.
- The figures 1.4 percent CPU usage, 87 automated tests, and 17 behavior checks are described by the project as confirmed on CI runners and similar environments, and they are not presented as results from an independent organization.
- Xona Space Systems, founded in 2019 by five Stanford-trained engineers, is building commercial satellite positioning signals that compete with the government-run GPS. The company plans to launch six satellites on a SpaceX rocket this month.
- Four of the six use a design similar to the prototypes that tested the technology last year. The remaining two were built by the company at its California headquarters. These two will form the basis of Pulsar, an operational satellite network planned with 258 units.
- The company claims Pulsar provides centimeter-level positioning, finer than GPS's meter-level accuracy, and that its signals reach indoors and in dense cities. The CEO also believes it can prevent jamming and spoofing, but the source contains no independent verification of these claims.
- The pilot test can begin with real customers once the satellites reach orbit and pass over mid-latitude skies about eight times a day. The CEO of timing equipment company TimeBeat said the pilot could help check and correct time errors in devices worldwide.
- Bo Lau, an engineer at Extend, built a website based on more than 1,000 emails, slides, texts and documents released in the United States v. Elizabeth Holmes trial, according to the article.
- Users can open Holmes's MacBook and iPhone screens in a device environment from around 2016, and run the Theranos Edison device, the article says.
- The article says this approach is easier to navigate than finding PDFs one by one on the court site. This is the reporter's opinion, and the original article contains no verification of how much material the site includes.
- Extend, the company of the engineer who built the site, is holding a watch party for the documentary You Can See Everything, directed by Nathan Fielder. The company describes its product as one that reads, splits and extracts difficult documents, and the accuracy claim is the company's own description.
A developer's experience coding all day with DeepSeek 4.1 Flash on a monthly 10 subscription
- The author says they used DeepSeek 4.1 Flash heavily for about a month across several projects. Without looking at the model name during a chat, they found it hard to tell apart from Opus. This is a subjective impression, and benchmarks are only mentioned as a link in the original.
- The author says a monthly OpenCode Go subscription of 10 makes usage practically close to unlimited. The cost of a file organization task was about 0.003, and most sessions barely exceeded 1.
- For important work, they get a final code review from Opus 5.5 and leave fixes to DeepSeek. The author explains that the reason to call the higher-tier model is to get a different perspective rather than better quality.
- The author claims DeepSeek reduced the KV cache by about 437 times compared with the previous V1 model. The KV cache is data kept in GPU memory while processing conversation content, and the author says it determines the cost of long sessions. The source of this figure and its measurement conditions are not given in the original.
How to design product data to export to the observability tool customers choose
- OTLP is a standard transport method defined so that multiple observability tools can receive logs, traces, and metrics in the same way. If a product sends data to an address the customer enters, it is not tied to a specific vendor's dashboard.
- The original article explains that self-hosted software should accept the address at runtime through an environment variable or option, and on cloud platforms the platform should deliver data to the address the customer sets. It cites Keycloak, Kuma, Cloudflare Workers, and Heroku as examples.
- The author advises that push, where data is sent out, should be the default for new designs rather than polling, where the address is periodically queried. The reason is that with polling, customers must write their own repeated querying, paging, and retry code.
- LightCraft is an open-source program aiming for photo management and RAW (original camera file) editing similar to Adobe Lightroom. The README says it is a clean-room reimplementation of Lightroom. Edits do not touch the original file; only the adjustment values are recorded separately.
- According to the source, it runs as a native app on macOS, Windows, and Linux, and works in browsers via WebAssembly. The development team also explains that it is a local-first structure that requires no account, cloud, or subscription.
- The repository includes an MCP server, which according to the source allows AI agents such as Claude to run commands like adjusting brightness, adding masks, and exporting. MCP is the way AI tools connect to external programs. This feature description is a claim from the development team's README.
- The performance figures are measurements the development team wrote in the README. On an Apple M4 Pro with a 24MP RAW file, the source says slider re-rendering takes about 4ms and full-size export takes about 0.3 seconds. The source has no independent verification, and the feature completeness of about 79% is also a figure the development team reported itself.
AMD says it will bring the FSR 4 frame boost to some handheld gaming devices by year end
- FSR 4 is an AI-based feature that raises the frames per second in games. Until now, AMD had only promised to apply it to desktop discrete graphics cards.
- Jack Huynh, AMD's head of consumer chips, told the Korean outlet Dee Elec that by year end AMD will expand FSR 4 to its full lineup of APUs, gaming laptops, and handheld devices. This statement is the original article's Google-translated version of the Dee Elec report.
- Dee Elec reported that new APUs and a lighter FSR 4 model for APUs will arrive by year end. However, it did not say whether the lighter model targets handheld devices.
- It has not been confirmed whether existing handheld devices will be supported. The reporter speculated that the leaked next-generation chip Ryzen Z3 or Gainsborough may be required.
- AMD's David McAfee told Tom's Guide that quality and sufficient compute power are required. The reporter speculated that some older laptop chips may qualify, while some older handheld chips may not.
Standards discussion and tool trends for reducing undefined behavior in C
- Undefined behavior in C refers to code situations where the standard does not define the result. According to the source, this is a problem because compilers may perform optimizations that differ from what programmers expect based on it.
- The speaker, Martin Uecker, explained that the C23 standard added a 'no time travel' clause to prevent time-travel-style optimizations. He also said that about 100 of the standard's undefined behaviors were removed in the C2y draft, with 45 of them removed.
- According to the talk, tools for checking code are increasing, including compiler warnings, static analyzers, sanitizers, and formal verification. Memory safety is addressed in three parts: types, space, and time. The speaker's view is that full guarantees require expensive runtime checks or formal verification.
- The source gives an example of splitting it into 0, showing that an optimization that removes a check before a division is allowed in some cases but wrong in others. This is because a function call in between changes the program's behavior.
Anthropic launches free AI service that scans open source projects for security vulnerabilities
- Anthropic has launched OSS Scanner, a security vulnerability scanning service for open source projects. It said it provides regular scans free of charge to projects that choose to participate.
- The company explained that scanning frequently with its most powerful model can help projects learn of security problems earlier. This is the company's own claim, and the article does not independently confirm the actual effect.
- Reports are generated entirely by the model without human review or triage. The company directly acknowledged that, for this reason, reports may be inaccurate or invalid.
- May The Copy Fail vulnerability, which affected most Linux distributions, is one recent example of AI tools finding flaws in open source software. Meanwhile, some projects, including Linus Torvalds and Google, are struggling to keep up with the flood of AI-generated bug reports.
Private Supreme Class cabins for 1 and 2 people on some Shinkansen trains from October 1, 2026
- JR Central opened Supreme Class on some Tokaido and Sanyo Shinkansen trains on October 1, 2026. Car 7 holds up to 2 people, and car 10 is a fully private cabin for 1 people. It has an electronic lock door, dedicated Wi-Fi, and a tablet that controls lighting, air conditioning, seats, and audio, according to the source.
- The official regular Smart EX fares between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka were listed as 60,790 per 1 person for a 2-person cabin, and 42,390 for a 1-person cabin. The source adds that these prices vary by booking conditions and timing.
- The official Kyoto tourism guide lists machiya as a separate type of accommodation. The source says some lodgings converted from traditional wooden houses also offer calligraphy or kimono experiences.
- The Japan National Tourism Organization introduces private zazen meditation led by the head monk at Shunko-in temple, garden viewing, and tea ceremony experiences. The source notes that meditation at Shinpukuji temple in Kameoka is run on a small scale and requires advance reservation.
Testing a revamped Windows 11 search box that handles settings changes and phone texts
- The previous search took a few seconds on questions like how tall an actor is, then showed a simple Bing search result. The new search shows answers and file previews directly inside the search box. The reporter tried it at an event and said it was much faster and the screen looked simpler.
- It was introduced that tasks such as turning Bluetooth and dark mode on and off, minimizing windows, and opening two apps side by side can be run directly from the search box. For users of the Phone Link app for connecting a phone, a feature was also shown that sends a text message to the phone by typing the message content into the search box.
- The claim that performance and memory use improved greatly is Microsoft's claim. The company only said these are early test results, and the article does not say what devices or conditions were used for measurement.
- It is currently being tested with Windows Insiders. The reporter expects it to appear in Windows 11 within a few months, and said work is underway to bring it to the Start menu with a target of next year.
Detainees at a Georgia facility in Folkston used video call equipment to report conditions inside
- Four detainees at the Folkston ICE Processing Center released a video of about 5 minutes shot with the facility's video call software. In the video, they described detention lasting years through immigration court proceedings and conditions at the facility.
- Detainees said in the video that they earn about 1 dollars a day through work such as cooking, laundry, and cleaning, and use this money to buy food at the on-site commissary and stay in contact with people outside. The 1 dollar figure is a statement from one detainee in the video.
- Facility communication runs on GettingOut software from the Telmate family. The source reported that in 2021 fees for this company's products ranged from 18 cents to 1.10 dollars per minute, and added that in 2024 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) set a cap on detainee call rates of 11 to 25 cents per minute.
- The source quoted attorney Samantha Hamilton saying that people in the video were placed in isolation. It also reported that 45 people signed an open letter and about 73 were on hunger strike, and that the article labeled these figures as estimates.
USA Today sues OpenAI for copyright infringement and seeks $250 million or more
- USA Today Co. and its affiliated local newspapers sued OpenAI, saying it used hundreds of thousands of articles to train AI models without permission, according to the source.
- The plaintiffs said they seek damages of $250 million or more. This is the plaintiffs' claim, not a court ruling.
- The source notes that several other parties, including The New York Times, The Intercept, Ziff Davis, Britannica, and The Seattle Times, are already suing OpenAI.
- The source says OpenAI had not responded to The Verge's request for comment at the time the source was written.
PS5 version of Forza Horizon 6 delayed to January 26, 2027
- The PS5 release date has been pushed from 2026 to January 26, 2027. The source reports that Playground Games said earlier this year that the PS5 version would come out in 2026.
- The PS5 version arrives at the same time as the new expansion. According to the source, the expansion will also be available on Xbox and PC in January.
- The PS5 Premium Edition gives players up to 5 days of early play before January 26. The base game launched first on Xbox and PC on May 15.
Whistle, a 16.9MB on-device speech-to-text model, released
- Whistle is a model that converts speech into text, and according to the developer Cactus, a single file is 16.9MB. The source says it runs on a CPU without separate dependencies.
- It supports 7 languages, including English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, and Polish, and can process up to 30 seconds at a time. If no language is specified, it detects the language automatically.
- It provides start and end times and a probability for each word. Passing expressions such as names through keywords is said to raise the chance that those expressions are selected during search.
- The performance figures are results measured by the developer. On an Apple M4 Pro CPU, with 10 seconds of audio and a beam size of 5, the first token time was 11.1ms, and under the same conditions Whisper base was compared at 73.2ms.
- Accuracy varies by benchmark. The source states that Whistle leads on the averages for LibriSpeech, SPGISpeech, Earnings-22, and FLEURS, while Whisper base leads on the averages for TED-LIUM, AMI, and MLS.
Google's experimental note app transcribes meeting content on a Mac without an internet connection
- Google AI Edge Foresight is a free experimental app that transcribes meeting audio and audio files on the device without uploading them to the internet. The original says it uses Google's on-device model EmbeddingGemma 2 on a Mac.
- It turns short bullet points jotted down during a meeting into organized notes that match the transcript. It also includes an assistant feature that answers questions about what was heard.
- Connected local files are also used when answering questions. Google said files, meeting audio, and notes do not leave the computer, but this is Google's own explanation, and the original contains no independent confirmation of it.
- It is currently optimized for Macs with Apple silicon. The original gives no figures for transcription accuracy or processing speed.
Goodfire Releases a Low-Cost Tool That Monitors AI Agents by Reading Their Internal Signals
- Usually, whether an AI agent is misbehaving is checked by having another AI reread its output. Goodfire says it has introduced a method that reads signals the model computes internally while it works, using small detectors called probes.
- In the company's tests, monitoring about 1,500 sessions of the Kimi K3 model cost about 51 dollars. The company said the same work would cost 233 dollars with a cheap AI model that checks every step, and about $10,000 with a top-tier model.
- In the same tests, the method caught 94% of malicious hacking sessions and sent 8.7% of harmless sessions for additional review. The company explained that even when 4 probes run at the same time, the time before the model starts responding increased by less than 2%.
- Baseten customers can choose what to monitor from hacking, biochemical weapon misuse, and reward hacking. When something is found, they can decide the response from logging, human review, or refusing the request.
Natura Smart Ring at 99 Lets You Summon AI Agents by Finger
- This ring lets you press your finger to give tasks to an AI agent and record ideas that come to mind. The company says you can get things done without taking out your phone. The source examples are reordering shampoo in the shower, starting a run log, and sending notes after recording a meeting.
- At launch, the source says it connects to Meta's Muse, Instinct, Grokbot, Claude, ChatGPT and others. This is a plan the company has stated, and responses are said to arrive through connected earbuds, iPhone Live Activities, and the NatureOS app.
- For health features, the source says it measures heart rate, resting heart rate, heart rate variability (changes in the interval between heartbeats), sleep stages, step count, and skin temperature. The company claims battery lasts 6~12 days depending on use and a full charge takes 100 minutes.
- The launch price is 99, and after a 3~6 month free period the company plans to charge a monthly subscription of 9. The company has said it will raise prices later, and claims its manufacturing cost is similar to Oura Ring and Samsung Galaxy Ring.