13 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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All the news you need to keep up with the latest developments in the tech world, from product announcements and live events to tariffs, policies, and regulations. Tech touches every aspect of daily news, and our experts are here to keep you informed on what happens and how it all affects you.

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
A computer glitch delayed nearly 600,000 voter registrations in Texas.

County election officials claim they largely cleared the backlog by Wednesday, but the incident still raised alarms and prompted a lawsuit from voting rights groups. According to the New York Times:

The lawsuit, which named Mr. Howden and Freeman F. Martin, director of the Department of Public Safety, among its defendants, said the backlog had resulted from a programming error on a website for driver’s license applications that was also supposed to allow applicants to register to vote.

Because of the error, voters who checked “yes” to register to vote between December 2025 and February 2026 received a receipt confirming their choice, but their data was never recorded, the lawsuit said.

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
SK Hynix reportedly wants permission to export equipment to China in exchange for building a new US chip factory.

The export-restricted equipment for making RAM would go to SK Hynix’s Dalian, China facility, Reuters reports. Its sources say increasing SK Hynix’s production in China would help fund a US factory. SK Hynix is also separately reportedly in talks about making chips at an Intel facility in Ohio.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Ukraine says its Starshield services have been restored.

A Ukranian official tells Axios that Starshield — SpaceX’s government-focused internet service that runs on Starlink satellites — has been “restored to full capacity.” Sudden restrictions on Ukraine’s Starshield services disrupted the military’s drone operations, officials said on Wednesday.

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Time’s profile of John Ternus is mostly about the iPhone Duo.

There’s not a ton of new info to glean from the profile, but it’s one of the most thorough looks at the rise of Ternus and how the iPhone Duo came to be a defining moment for the company and an early triumph for the new CEO.

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Microsoft is giving away 25 free games with Windows 11 PC purchases starting next month.

The collection celebrating Xbox’s 25th anniversary includes games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, Minecraft Dungeons, and Gears of War: Reloaded. Microsoft says you can also play some of the free games on Xbox Series X/S with Xbox Play Anywhere.

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Elon Musk is promising to “make you whole” if Grok messes up a purchase or leaks your credit card.

He claims in a post on X that it’s “never happened yet.” Musk didn’t go into details, but he’s made other promises before, like saying he would pay legal bills for people fired unfairly over tweets, or his many, many claims about robotaxis and Tesla’s new Roadster.

A screenshot of a post on X from Elon Musk
Screenshot: Elon Musk via X
Cameron Faulkner
Cameron Faulkner
Xreal has a new premium set of display glasses.

First came the One, then the One Pro, then the 1S. Now, we have the $599 One Pro Plus — not kidding! These have brighter screens than the Pro (1,200 nits, up from 700), more ergonomic nose pads, and an improved Real3D mode that can render 2D content in 3D at 60Hz, up from 30Hz.

First impressions are fine — not dramatically different from the One Pro so far, though that’s not such a bad thing. However, they’re a little more comfortable, and it’s a big UI improvement being able to adjust virtual screen size and distance from the button rocker instead of hidden away in a menu.

Image: Xreal
Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Sony’s new wireless mic system could lure pro shooters away from DJI.

With features like 32-bit float recording, 64GB of redundant storage on each transmitter, threaded connectors for wired lavalier mics, a 500 meter range, and a receiver that interfaces through the Multi Interface Shoe atop Alpha cameras, Sony’s new $399.99 ECM-W5 wireless mic kit could be a tempting alternative to DJI’s offerings for videographers with more professional workflows.

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The Sony ECM-W5 wireless mic kit showing the wireless receiver and two transmitters.
Image: Sony
Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Anbernic’s dual-screen Nintendo 3DS clone starts at $300.

New listings on Anbernic’s AliExpress storefront reveal pricing for its new dual-screen Android handheld that will be available for preorder starting on October 16th and expected to ship on December 10th. The entry-level RG DDS with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage will be $299.99, while bumping the specs to 12GB/256GB pushes the price to $364.99.

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The Anbernic RG DDS shown with its screen open next to a second handheld with its screen closed.
Image: Anbernic
Robert Hart
Robert Hart
Google DeepMind is building a new robotics lab in Cambridge.

Former Boston Dynamics CTO Aaron Saunders, who joined Google in 2025, announced the project on LinkedIn. “We’re creating a first-class lab to house this team and take robotics to the next level,” he said. It comes as Google pushes deeper into robotics, including with Gemini Robotics AI models and absorbing Alphabet robotics moonshot Intrinsic.

Sean Hollister
Sean Hollister
Not all Nvidia RTX Spark chips are equal — some have fewer cores.

Confusingly, both options are called the “RTX Spark N1X,” but the lite version has 5120 GPU cores, 18 CPU cores and up to 32GB of RAM, while the other has 6144 GPU cores, 20 CPU cores, and up to 128GB.

There’s a huge difference in price: a Surface Laptop Ultra starts at $2,600, but the the 6144-core model costs $3,700 and up. If you’re buying for local AI, that means opting for lots of pricy RAM, too.

Note: We weren’t given any review units with the weaker chip. Hopefully other reviewers were.
Note: We weren’t given any review units with the weaker chip. Hopefully other reviewers were.
Image: Nvidia
Sean Hollister
Sean Hollister
Nvidia claims RTX Spark is by far the fastest single Windows chip ever made.

In May, Nvidia claimed it was “the most efficient PC chip ever built,” and Nvidia now says it’s the fastest too: “it’s going to be a good 3-5x faster than any Windows SoC ever made,” the company told journalists.

Our early impressions are that it’s impressive for thin and light; in raw performance, we’re not necessarily seeing it beat Macs or laptops with discrete GPUs. Stay tuned for reviews.

If you squint the fine print, you’ll see Nvidia chose the words “Windows SoC” carefully. It’s comparing to Intel’s Panther Lake and AMD’s beefy Strix Halo — not Apple, not systems with separate CPUs and GPUs. Also, frame gen is turned on.
If you squint the fine print, you’ll see Nvidia chose the words “Windows SoC” carefully. It’s comparing to Intel’s Panther Lake and AMD’s beefy Strix Halo — not Apple, not systems with separate CPUs and GPUs. Also, frame gen is turned on.
Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
YouTube might be getting into audiobooks.

The video platform has reportedly been in discussions with publishers in recent months. The feature could launch as soon as next year, and YouTube has considered bundling it with its $16-per-month Premium subscription. Still, after launching a music streaming service this feels like an obvious next step for YouTube to compete against Spotify.

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Googlebook OS on Chromebooks is apparently “fast and smooth.”

That’s according to Redditor u/mawitime, who says they used “a cursed AI agent from hell” to get the OS onto an Asus Chromebook. It doesn’t sound perfect, with issues around Wi-Fi, sound, and phone integration, but they reckon it’s “not going to slow down existing machines at all” when Google eventually transitions Chromebooks to the new OS.

Image: u/mawitime
Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
TSMC posts a sixth straight record profit.

The chip manufacturer reported a net income of NT$763 billion (about $24 billion) for the quarter, up 69 percent compared to last year, and it’s predicting it’ll do even better in Q4. It’s a good time to make computer chips.

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Bank of America CEO wants a human in the loop.

BofA CEO Brian Moynihan doesn’t want people turning to the banks when an agent screws up a transaction. He says the bank is working with the AI industry to argue for human payment authorization, at least until the risk of error is mitigated by “further development of the capabilities” of agents.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Epic’s “vibe coded” new launcher has some rough edges.

As spotted by Kotaku, some people are posting videos showing strange visual issues with the updated launcher that agents wrote code for. Right now, the launcher is in preview.

Tom Warren
Tom Warren
NBA 2K27 is now an Xbox Play Anywhere game.

NBA 2K27 is debuting on the Xbox store on PC this week, and as part of the launch it’s becoming an Xbox Anywhere title. That means if you purchased the game on an Xbox console already, you’ll get the PC copy free from the Microsoft Store and vice versa. Microsoft has been pushing Xbox Play Anywhere for years, and hit a milestone of 1,000 titles last year — ahead of the next-gen Project Helix console.

Image: 2K Games
Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
The OpenAI engineer accused of planting a bug allegedly had a one-way ticket booked to Saudi Arabia.

Yesterday, the DOJ and OpenAI revealed that Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old Saudi national and former Facebook employee working for OpenAI, has been arrested and charged with installing a recording device behind a TV in an executive conference room.

Now Bloomberg points out court documents showing that the day before he was arrested, prosecutors asked to seal the information, arguing that “the defendant has the means—and will have an incentive—to flee the United States sooner if he learns about this case before he is arrested.”

The United States, by and through its counsel, Assistant United States Attorney Nicholas Parker, moves this Court for an order sealing the government’s application for a sealing order, the sealing order, the criminal complaint, the arrest warrant, and all attachments in the above-referenced case. Disclosure of the specified documents might jeopardize the defendant’s arrest. Indeed, the defendant, his wife, and a third family member have booked one-way tickets from San Francisco to Saudi Arabia (via Istanbul) for Monday, October 12, 2026, and the defendant has the means-and will have an incentive-to flee the United States sooner if he learns about this case before he is arrested.
Image: PACER
Antonio G. Di Benedetto
Antonio G. Di Benedetto
That Asus ExpertBook will actually have 12GB of RAM instead of 8GB — hooray.

When Asus briefed me on the ExpertBook A7, reps told me the $899 entry-level config will launch in January with 8GB of RAM. Turns out, Asus decided to switch that to 12GB for the same $899 price — but failed to clarify that with us.

An OLED display, haptic trackpad, and 12GB of RAM for $899? I hate getting bad info, but in today’s RAMageddon world let’s all take the W.

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Now let’s hope that planned price with 12GB of RAM actually holds until January — and after this laptop’s launch. We’ve been burned too many times now.
Now let’s hope that planned price with 12GB of RAM actually holds until January — and after this laptop’s launch. We’ve been burned too many times now.
Image: Asus
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Apple is now a $5 trillion company.

The company closed the day above a $5 trillion valuation, though it has surpassed the milestone six times in intraday trading, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Nvidia also has a market cap exceeding $5 trillion, reaching that valuation for the first time last year.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
The Link to Windows app for Android might soon let you shut down your PC remotely.

The app already lets you lock your Windows computer, but a beta version has a new Power menu with options to lock, sleep, shut down, or restart your PC, Android Authority reports. Could be handy if you need to power your computer down while you’re away from it.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
League of Legends Classic is getting put in the vault.

The classic mode just launched in July, but Riot Games says that most players have “gone back to other parts of League.” The mode is being shut down in January 2027, but Riot says it has a “goal” of bringing it back “likely as an event mode with adjustments and additions.”

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Apple Intelligence is reportedly launching in China with iOS 27.3.

The launch will include some of Apple’s earlier Apple Intelligence features, but not the just-launched Siri AI, according to Bloomberg. The update is set to release in December.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Starlink uses Grok’s voice model to handle customer service calls.

Here’s a tidbit in SpaceXSI’s announcement post for Grok Voice 3.0 today:

Starlink call centers use Grok Voice to answer 20,000 customer calls every day across multiple languages. Roughly 70% are resolved with no human in the loop, and one in four sales calls ends in a purchase before the caller hangs up. A single agent built on Grok Voice 3.0 verifies customers, troubleshoots hardware, issues credits, and ships replacement equipment.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Bond on Switch 2, finally.

007 First Light is coming to Nintendo Switch 2 on March 18th, 2027. The very good James Bond game launched on other platforms in May, though shortly before that, developer IO Interactive said it would come to Switch 2 “later this summer,” so it’s a bit late.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
The judge might be on Apple’s side in its trade secrets battle against OpenAI.

US District Judge Edward Davila said during a hearing on Wednesday that he’s “highly likely” to grant Apple an injunction preventing OpenAI from using proprietary information allegedly shared by the iPhonemaker’s former employees, according to a report from Bloomberg.

At the same time, OpenAI is accusing an ex-employee of taking confidential product plans and presenting them to Apple execs.