43 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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News Archive

Archives for October 2026

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Global smartphone sales just hit a 14-year low.

That’s according to analysts at Counterpoint, who also say sales in Q3 2026 were 20 percent down on the previous year, as supply shrinks and prices rise. Samsung held the top spot, helped by Galaxy Z Fold 8 sales, with Apple close behind.

Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Are military hackers watching you through insecure cameras?

Hackers are increasingly using vulnerable civilian cameras to track, surveil, and aid attacks on opposing military operations, with an estimated 1.2 billion internet-connected cameras impacted globally. That ranges from Iran watching through chicken coop cameras in Israel, Ukraine monitoring Russian submarines via external building surveillance, and corporate teleconferencing devices being hacked through unsecured apps.

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Nintendo exec confirms “no plans” to ditch physical games.

Bill van Zyll, Nintendo’s VP and general manager in Latin America, told Youtuber Coelho no Japão that the company will “go off what the consumer prefers,” and that it knows “how much the fans like” physical games. It’s no big surprise given the Switch 2’s card slot, with shareable licenses linked to its game cards, but follows Sony killing PS5 discs.

Tom Warren
Tom Warren
What do you want to know about the Surface Laptop Ultra?

I’m testing Microsoft’s new RTX Spark-powered laptop at the moment, and I’ll have some impressions on it later this week. I’d like to hear what you’d like to know about this particular laptop, so please drop a comment below and I’ll try and include answers in my initial impressions.

The Surface Laptop Ultra.
The Surface Laptop Ultra.
Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge
Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Google has closed the retired Fitbit app workaround.

Users who sideloaded outdated builds of the Fitbit app to avoid being forced to switch to Google Health have found it no longer works. Android Authority reports that a new prompt is appearing for some users that can’t be bypassed without updating the Fitbit app, which forces moving to Google Health anyway.

A fitbit app update prompt.
“Recommended” here meaning that you can’t dismiss this notification until you update, making older versions of the Fitbit app unusable.
Image: Guilty-Implement-261
Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Googlebooks now support Samsung phones.

When Googlebooks launched last week, Galaxy phones couldn’t use features linking the laptops to Android 17 phones. Mishaal Rahman confirmed on Reddit that an update is rolling out now adding support. Read our first Googlebook impressions here, and look out for my detailed thoughts on the Android side of things later today.

Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Major book publishers are embracing generative AI.

Publishing staffers told Wired that bots are being used to make cover art, emails, rejection letters, copy for back covers, and marketing materials, including AI-generated promotional videos. While the unhappy staffers have expressed legal, ethical, and environmental AI concerns to execs, these are reportedly being dismissed as “the cost of doing business.”

Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
More Naruto is coming — believe it!

A four-episode Naruto x Ninkū crossover anime has been announced, supervised by both Naruto creator Masashi Kishimoto and Ninkū creator Koji Kiriyama. There’s no release date, but it’s “now in production,” and you can check out the teaser trailer below. Kishimoto says he’s also working on a new Naruto manga called Shadow Rising, with more details coming in December.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Did “Russian bot traffic” really disappear after Ukrainian strikes on Yandex servers?

Despite multiple Ukrainian strikes hitting Yandex servers in Russia, a thread by antibot4navalny, which has long tracked state-sponsored social media campaigns and troll farms, explains that the Cloudflare “Bot Traffic” chart many people have cited is really about automated web crawlers operated by Yandex accessing the web.

It’s not connected to “bots” posting on social media, and Russian bot/crawler traffic overall continues to be about the same as normal. Still, are you noticing any difference in the posts and comments you’ve seen online?