In addition to the company's [1]GPT-6.1 Astra announcement, OpenAI [2]announced always-on AI agents called "Dots" that [3]can proactively use a computer and connected apps to research, draft documents, write software and handle other tasks on a user's behalf. "OpenAI said it would roll out Dots to paid users starting Tuesday," reports Bloomberg. "Initially, OpenAI said, each user will have access to a single 'dot' that can act as an assistant. Over time, the company expects users to manage a slew of them." From the announcement:

> Dots are frontier intelligence that have your back. Powered by GPT-6 Astra, they have their own cloud computer, learn from feedback over time, and can work towards your goals 24/7. Through our ecosystem of plugins, they can readily connect to over 4,000 apps, giving them the tools to help wherever you need them.

>

> Your dot is always within reach, whether it is through ChatGPT, Slack, or Teams. You can ask questions, explore ideas, and give feedback along the way; or you can simply hop on a voice call when you need to talk something out. The more you work together, the more your dot learns your preferences, how you think, and what good looks like to you.

>

> The magic of dots is when they bring you work done the way you would do it, sometimes before you even think to ask. With dots alongside you, ambitious ideas and projects you haven't had the time or support to pursue start to feel achievable.



[1] https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-6-1-sol/

[2] https://openai.com/index/introducing-dots/

[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-29/openai-unveils-always-on-ai-agent-dots-new-500-paid-tier

Google [1]says ChromeOS will [2]keep receiving regular updates and security patches through mid-2034 , after which qualifying newer Chromebooks will be able to migrate to the new Googlebook OS. 9to5Google reports:

> Starting with Chromebook updates, Google says that "Chromebooks you have today will continue to receive updates through their supported lifetime," with all Enterprise and Education management capabilities remaining in place as well: "We will maintain support for current Chromebook devices running ChromeOS as outlined in our Auto Update policy and the Chromebooks you have today will continue to receive updates through their supported lifetime..."

>

> Google adds that similar management tools will be coming to Googlebook, but they're not available yet. Apparently they're planned for the second half of 2027. Meanwhile, Google says that "many" existing Chromebook models will be eligible to transition from ChromeOS to Googlebook OS. More details are coming "soon." A later [3]note specifies that Google is referring to "newer commercial Chromebook models."

>

> Notably, Google specifies a year when ChromeOS updates will come to an end in a later note -- 2034. Chromebooks with a 10-year update policy that extends past 2034 will be eligible to move to Googlebook OS. [...] Finally, in regards to apps, Google says that it is "committed" to web developers despite an increased focus on Android apps on Googlebooks.



[1] https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/16634428?hl=en

[2] https://9to5google.com/2026/09/28/google-details-chromebook-updates-through-2034-many-models-move-to-googlebook-os/

[3] https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/16634428?hl=en#zippy=%2Cwill-existing-chromebooks-migrate-to-googlebook-os

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has [1]signed AB 2409, [2]barring California public officials from issuing memecoins and prohibiting companies from listing memecoins that use a public official's image or likeness. Engadget reports:

> The governor's office pointed to reports that about a million investors lost an alleged [3]$3.8 billion on their purchases of the memecoin released by President Donald Trump in 2025 as a the motivation behind the new rule.

>

> "No official should profit off their office -- and we're putting stronger protections in place to ensure it doesn't happen in our state," Newsom said. The bill also prohibits a company, related or not, from making a memecoin using "the likeness or image" of a public official.



[1] https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/09/27/the-opposite-of-trump-governor-newsom-signs-bills-to-crack-down-on-corruption-including-meme-coins-by-public-officials/

[2] https://www.engadget.com/2271475/california-is-banning-public-officials-from-making-memecoins/

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/04/us/politics/trump-coin-crypto-investors-loss.html

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica:

> The state of Florida is seeking a temporary injunction to stop OpenAI from continuing to develop what it calls a "reckless, unacceptably risky product" without the deployment of "third-party approved safety guardrails." The [1]new legal motion (PDF), filed Monday morning, is part of a civil lawsuit the state of Florida originally filed in June, [2]arguing that ChatGPT represented "a threat to the public safety of Floridians ," specifically by preying on vulnerable populations like children and violent or delusional adults. [...] In arguing for this injunction, the state points to the [3]Hugging Face incident as well as [4]recent high-profile misalignment cases involving unintended and unauthorized attempts to access Australian and US government servers. Florida also cites AI industry leaders, including many from OpenAI, in arguing that the AI industry is literally asking for this kind of outside regulation.

>

> The motion points to statements from Paul Christiano, who said on joining the company's board this month that he believes "there is a meaningful risk that rapid acceleration in AI capabilities leads to catastrophic and irreversible loss of control in the very near term." The motion also points to OpenAI's own "An Alien Mind" essay and an open letter from 1,300 AI industry employees, both of which call for enforced slowdowns on frontier AI development, if necessary. Citing laws that allow the state to exercise control over companies that are a "public nuisance," Florida argues that OpenAI is "the greatest public nuisance ever created by the hand of man, capable of laying waste to global civilization."

"It is only by the grace of the Almighty that one of Defendants' AI agents hasn't compromised a water supply or shut down a power grid -- yet," the state writes in the motion.



[1] https://www.myfloridalegal.com/sites/default/files/plaintiffs_motion_for_temporary_injunction.pdf

[2] https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/09/florida-asks-court-to-put-the-brakes-on-openais-frontier-ai-development/

[3] https://it.slashdot.org/story/26/08/26/2058223/openai-releases-its-official-report-on-the-hugging-face-breach

[4] https://slashdot.org/story/26/09/27/078251/after-dozens-of-incidents-at-openai-and-anthropic-openai-pauses-model-training-to-build-more-safeguards

The current El Nino has [1]already surpassed the highest Pacific temperature anomaly recorded in the modern era , reaching 3.05C above the 1991-2020 average months before its expected peak. The commonly used ONI measure is also on the verge of breaking the 2015 record. Forecasts cited by The Guardian suggest the event could reach about 4.0C later this year. From the report:

> The [2]latest data shows the temperature rise at the heart of El Nino in the Pacific Ocean has now reached 3.05C. That is higher than the 3.02C set in late November 2015, the previous high set in the 150 years of modern records. This temperature is measured against the average of 1991-2020. The [3]preferred measure of most meteorologists uses a 30-year rolling average as a reference and so takes account of human-caused global heating. This metric, called ONI (Nino3.4), is on the brink of breaking the record, just one-hundredth of a degree below the 2015 record. Both metrics are underpinned by data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

>

> The most recent forecasts predict a peak of 4.0C in November and December, according to the average of 14 different models assessed by climate scientist Zeke Hausfather. That is a level so far above previous events that Hausfather called it "mind-blowing," while others have described it as "Godzilla-level." Any temperature rise above 0.5C is deemed an El Nino; above 2C is officially called a "very strong" El Nino -- often referred to as a "super" El Nino. The current El Nino is likely to be the largest in at least 1,000 years and will pile extra heat into an atmosphere in which temperatures are already rising rapidly due to human-caused global heating. This double whammy means 2027 is expected to "blow apart" previous records and become the hottest year ever recorded.



[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/sep/21/super-el-nino-temperature-record

[2] https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/?dm_id=nino3.4

[3] https://dashboard.theclimatebrink.com/#enso

New research suggests Enceladus may be an especially promising place to search for extraterrestrial life: microbes similar to those found near Earth's hydrothermal vents [1]survived in lab conditions designed to mimic the Saturnian moon's subsurface ocean . A separate study also found that material blasted from Enceladus' plumes may naturally separate and concentrate salts, organics and potential biosignatures into individual ice grains, potentially making them easier for future spacecraft to detect.

"That is great news in the search for life," Frank Postberg, lead author of one and co-author of the other of these new studies and professor at Freie Universitat Berlin, said in [2]a statement . "Future spacecraft will have to analyze many individual ice particles in the plume. But if they come across one with microbial material in it, they could identify biosignatures in the particle relatively easy with already available technology." Space.com reports:

> Enceladus isn't the only place in our solar system with water -- so, why is it so exciting in the search for life? Well, it has to do with the seafloor of its extensive, liquid ocean. Down deep at the bottom of this body of water, scientists think hydrothermal processes, or movement or reactions with hot water under the surface, are taking place. The plumes shooting upward from the ocean also contain trace amounts of salts and organic compounds. NASA's Cassini spacecraft found these traces when it flew through the plumes over a decade ago. Between the hydrothermal activity and the organics and minerals in the water, this moon's ocean has a number of aspects that could be involved in supporting life.

>

> What's more, using a combination of Cassini data, theoretical models and laboratory experimentation, in Postberg's new study the team found that the plume's water droplets blasting out into space at up to 621 miles per hour (1,000 kilometers per hour) don't freeze as quickly as expected. Before, scientists thought the freeze would happen instantaneously once the droplets reached space, but Postberg and fellow researchers say they found the freezing would actually happen much slower.

>

> They also found that during this freezing process, the salt, organic compounds (and maybe possible signs of life) in the water droplets separate from one another. Not only that, but the team says that as the particles are blasted out into space, they should often collide with the icy cracks of the planet's surface. This ultimately would leave behind tiny shards of frozen droplets with individually separated out components. Essentially, it's like the planet has organized its oceanic ingredients into tiny, frozen particle fragments.

This work is described in two new studies published in the journal Science Advances [3]here and [4]here .



[1] https://www.space.com/space-exploration/search-for-life/microbes-could-survive-on-saturns-moon-enceladus-and-scientists-think-we-can-find-them

[2] https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1145100?

[3] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1226/sciadv.aee7256?adobe_mc=MCMID%3D28472890946996546873264173735597842077%7CMCORGID%3D242B6472541199F70A4C98A6%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1790277847&adobe_mc=MCMID%3D28472890946996546873264173735597842077%7CMCORGID%3D242B6472541199F70A4C98A6%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1790277902

[4] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aei0167?adobe_mc=MCMID%3D28472890946996546873264173735597842077%7CMCORGID%3D242B6472541199F70A4C98A6%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1790277857&adobe_mc=MCMID%3D28472890946996546873264173735597842077%7CMCORGID%3D242B6472541199F70A4C98A6%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1790277873&adobe_mc=MCMID%3D28472890946996546873264173735597842077%7CMCORGID%3D242B6472541199F70A4C98A6%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1790277911

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian:

> It is the bane of every fruit bowl: sliced banana that turns brown before it has reached the table. But such woes could soon be a thing of the past, with gene-edited bananas that keep their freshly peeled color now one step closer to reaching British shoppers. According to Tropic, the Norwich-based agricultural-biotechnology company that developed the fruit, the bananas have the same taste and texture but [1]stay "fresh, yellow and appetizing long after peeling and slicing ."

>

> Gilad Gershon, the chief executive of Tropic, said the flesh of the new banana resisted browning for an extra day or two -- and longer if chilled. He added that the innovation could make it easier to add bananas to prepackaged products such as fruit salads and breakfast pots, as well as reducing waste. [...] Tropic developed the bananas by using a gene-editing technology called Crispr-Cas9 to alter all three copies of a single gene within the fruit. As a result, they were able to reduce the production of polyphenol oxidase, an enzyme that causes browning. A similar approach has been effective in reducing browning in other produce, including mushrooms.

>

> Tropic [2]said the non-browning bananas could reduce food waste and CO2-equivalent emissions along the supply chain by more than 25%. "This could support an annual reduction in CO2 emissions of over 9m tonnes in the banana export market alone," the company said. [...] Gershon said Tropic had gained regulatory approval for the non-browning bananas in 10 other countries including Japan, Brazil and the Philippines. The fruit is already being grown in Latin America.



[1] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/sep/28/gene-edited-non-browning-banana-britain-shops

[2] https://tropic.bio/banana/

Longtime Slashdot reader [1]schwit1 shares a report from Business Standard:

> China has [2]expanded overseas travel restrictions for top AI professionals in private firms to include the families of key personnel, further tightening measures designed to prevent the outflow of critical know-how and information to the US. Government agencies have recently begun to share the wider restrictions with affected people, which include prominent startup founders as well as the heads of strategically important companies in AI-related fields, people familiar with the matter said. Direct relatives such as spouses and children of certain AI and chip executives, whose work is considered paramount to state security, are now required to obtain approval from Beijing before going abroad even for short trips, the people said.

>

> That marks a broadening of existing curbs on the freedom of movement of China's most influential tech talent -- a category that encompasses entrepreneurs, researchers and executives. While not an outright ban on travel, the new requirement is likely to exert a further chilling effect on a tech sector already facing unprecedented curbs. China has restricted foreign travel for top AI professionals in private firms such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and DeepSeek since earlier this year, Bloomberg News reported in May, reflecting Beijing's determination to safeguard its technology as it makes big strides in AI and chipmaking.

>

> It's unclear whether all those people's families need to follow the new strictures, the people said. China is also separately implementing rules, which became effective Sept 15, for enforcing exit bans in cases ranging from criminal investigations to potential violations of the country's industrial and technological security. Beijing's plan is to add relevant individuals to the list as time goes by, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing a sensitive issue. Government departments have already notified several people of the need to clear family travel, two of the people said.



[1] https://slashdot.org/~schwit1

[2] https://www.business-standard.com/world-news/china-broadens-travel-curbs-to-encompass-family-of-top-ai-talent-126092801465_1.html

AMD has [1]agreed to [2]acquire Fei-Fei Li's World Labs for about $8.2 billion in stock , making it the chipmaker's second-largest acquisition and giving it a major foothold in "world models" that simulate 3D environments for robotics and other physically grounded AI. CNBC reports:

> AI researchers expect world models will be able to help develop robots and other physically-grounded artificial intelligence applications. AMD plans to keep World Labs separate from its chipmaking business until the transaction closes later this year. The lab's research on next-generation models will allow AMD to plan for what its AI chips need to be capable of years in advance.

>

> World Labs was founded by AI researcher Fei-Fei Li, who is widely seen as an AI pioneer as a Stanford professor, and who previously worked for Google leading AI research. Li will become an AMD's chief scientist and an executive vice president at the company.

>

> In a demo presented by Li and AMD CEO Lisa Su earlier this year, the two executives showed a World Labs model called Marble creating a three-dimensional scene out of a few images. "Intelligent agents, whether it's robots or vehicles or even tools, can learn inside very-rich physics-aware digital worlds before they even need to be deployed into the real one, making them much safer," Li said at the presentation.



[1] https://www.worldlabs.ai/blog/amd-announcement

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/28/amd-fei-fei-li-world-labs.html

TikTok has [1]agreed to pay Alabama at least $100 million and adopt new restrictions for teenage users, including a two-hour daily limit, overnight access restrictions, stronger age verification, a ban on beauty filters, and an option for a non-personalized feed. The settlement could grow to as much as $300 million if enough other state attorneys general join similar agreements. The Guardian reports:

> A trial had been set to begin on Monday in the southern US state over claims by Alabama that TikTok misled parents about tools meant to shield children from harmful content. [...] Attorney general Steve Marshall hailed Friday's settlement as "a great day for Alabama parents." He said: "Tonight, they can rest easier knowing real protections are in place to shield their children from the dangers of social media addiction."

>

> Under the settlement, TikTok will send $100m to Alabama and could possibly pay up to $300m in total if 40 other attorneys general sign similar agreements with the company within a specified timeframe. In addition, the Alabama deal includes a conditional restriction that Meta also agreed to: expanding the night-time shutdown period to 10pm to 7am if other platforms also commit to do the same.

>

> "TikTok's priority has always been fostering a safe and positive space where people can be creative, discover what they love, and connect with their community," a company spokesperson told AFP. "This builds on our commitment and core objective to continually enhance our robust safety tools to protect teens," the spokesperson added. More than a dozen other states, including California and New York, still have suits against TikTok.



[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/sep/26/tiktok-alabama-pay-100m-teenage-limits-restrictions

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware:

> NorthPoint Development wants to build a data center on 1,300 acres in the Pocono foothills, near Hazle Township, Pennsylvania. As well as seeking to charm the local government with various funding packages, it has [1]proposed paying checks of $10,000 per household . Despite the Pennsylvania town's median income of $60,000, the offer isn't being warmly welcomed by locals, reports the [2]Wall Street Journal . Those interviewed were widely against the data center development plans and cited several reasons for being averse to accepting the payout. The major concerns regarded potential impacts on property values, the specter of noise pollution, and a distrust of both the AI moguls and local government representatives.

>

> Offer letters began to be received by Hazle Township back in June. The WSJ recently talked to several residents about NorthPoint's $10,000 offer. While some say the $10,000 would be handy, it couldn't find many residents who were "eager to welcome the data center for the payout," in the journal's words. [...] Traditionally, developers have offered towns and cities packages worth tens of millions, including funding for local services. But direct cash payments to residents represent a new phase of their charm offensive, the WSJ indicates. Perhaps the idea for the direct payments to residents came after "a raucous public meeting last year, where angry locals asked what they had to gain by supporting the data center," ponders the source.

>

> The locals won't just get the direct payout, though. Other funds up to $120 million over the next 15 years have been dangled like a carrot for community and local services investments -- improved schools, emergency services, and so on. Meanwhile, Hazle Township's government already rejected the data center project on zoning grounds last year, and it has enacted a temporary moratorium on data center construction. Finally, the $10,000 offer to households is simply not enough in many interviewed folks' opinions. Residents could feel insulted by it, regarding the offer as a bribe, concludes the WSJ report.



[1] https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/data-center-developer-offers-usd10-000-checks-to-4-500-households-if-the-1-300-acre-facility-is-approved-locals-push-back-over-noise-and-bribe-concerns

[2] https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/every-household-in-this-rural-town-receives-10-000-if-a-data-center-gets-built-86554cb7

Meta has [1]hired MongoDB CEO Chirantan "CJ" Desai to lead a new enterprise AI business aimed at turning Meta's models, agents and tools into products companies can deploy themselves. Reuters reports:

> Desai, a veteran technology executive, took over the role from Dev Ittycheria. MongoDB has appointed Ittycheria as interim CEO as it searches for a permanent replacement. "While the departure is disappointing, we believe MongoDB remains well-positioned strategically and view the share-price reaction as overdone," brokerage Piper Sandler said in a note.

>

> [...] Desai will directly report to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in the newly created role of chief enterprise platform officer and will focus on turning the company's AI stack into products and services that companies can deploy for their own businesses. Before joining MongoDB, Desai led product and engineering at Cloudflare and spent nearly eight years at ServiceNow, including as president and chief operating officer.



[1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/mongodb-ceo-desai-steps-down-lead-metas-enterprise-platform-2026-09-28/

SpaceX's Starship [1]reached orbit for the first time , successfully deploying 26 operational Starlink V3 satellites after overcoming an early Raptor 3 engine shutdown during ascent. "SpaceX plans to eventually deploy 100,000 upgraded Starlink V3s to expand the company's wireless satellite internet services," notes Space.com. Here's the latest update from the report:

> SpaceX has decided to return Starship from orbit earlier than expected. After valuating the upper stage Ship's status during its first orbital checkpoint, SpaceX technicians have decided to return the spacecraft to Earth earlier than expected. Rather than spending another 7.5 hours on orbit, Ship 41 will perform its deorbit burn at approximately 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT), with splashdown in the Northern Pacific.

You can watch a recorded livestream of the launch [2]on X .

Developing...



[1] https://www.space.com/news/live/spacex-starship-flight-14-live-updates-sept-28-2026-starship-first-orbital-launch-attempt

[2] https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1qxvvenMPMQxB

[1]wiredmikey shares a report from SecurityWeek:

> Nvidia on Monday [2]announced the Open Agent Safety Platform, which combines open source software and a reference system design [3]to keep AI agents within set boundaries from testing through deployment . The chipmaker explained that the platform pairs the open-source OpenShell runtime with Sentry, an out-of-band watchdog running on BlueField-4 DPUs. Nvidia says Sentry can monitor agent activity independently and quarantine an agent that crosses its boundaries within milliseconds.

>

> Nvidia is pitching the platform against a backdrop of [4]recent incidents in which frontier AI labs have reported agents escaping the evaluation environments meant to contain them, reaching systems they should not have accessed and, in some cases, misreporting what they did. OpenShell and related skills are available via Nvidia's [5]developer resources page and [6]on GitHub .



[1] https://slashdot.org/~wiredmikey

[2] https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/open-agent-safety-platform

[3] https://www.securityweek.com/nvidia-unveils-ai-agent-safety-platform-with-hardware-based-watchdog/

[4] https://slashdot.org/story/26/09/27/078251/after-dozens-of-incidents-at-openai-and-anthropic-openai-pauses-model-training-to-build-more-safeguards

[5] https://docs.nvidia.com/openshell/latest/about/overview

[6] https://github.com/NVIDIA/OpenShell

Amazon is preparing to [1]expand Prime Air drone deliveries into Australia and potentially other Asia-Pacific markets , with a new regulatory role tasked with securing the approvals needed to launch service there. The Register reports:

> "As Prime Air evaluates Australia and other countries, we are hiring a Head of Regulatory Approvals, Australia -- the person responsible for navigating Australia's aviation regulatory system and securing every approval required to deliver to Australian customers by drone," reads a recently published job ad.

>

> Whoever gets the gig in Australia will report to someone who holds the title "Leader, Prime Air Expansion -- Asia Pacific." Whoever gets the job "will be measured by the approvals you obtain, the timelines you hit, and -- ultimately -- Australian customers receiving drone deliveries." That wording suggests Amazon intends to operate Prime Air in Australia and is doing rather more than market evaluations.



[1] https://www.theregister.com/personal-tech/2026/09/28/amazon-evaluating-drone-deliveries-in-australia-asia/5299343

Bill Gates said an AI "kill switch" alone would be insufficient to address the technology's risks. "The kill switch is, that's kind of a weird thing. It's not enough to have a kill switch," the Microsoft co-founder said in [1]an interview that aired Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." He said the more immediate concern is people using AI for cyberattacks or bioterrorism rather than systems acting autonomously. "We're not yet at the point where they autonomously grab computers and, you know, can't be shut down," he said, adding that the public discussion "just sort of shows how nontechnical various people are." Politico reports:

> Gates said he was not opposed to a kill switch but argued that companies should monitor sophisticated AI models and keep records of "exactly what's being done" to help guard against people using the systems for cyberattacks or bioterrorism. "The United States ought to make sure this is done. China will want to do this," he continued.

>

> [...] Gates also called for legislation requiring safeguards and monitoring, saying voluntary measures by AI companies were insufficient. "No one thinks self-regulation is enough," he said. He argued that the more immediate danger was people using AI to cause harm rather than AI systems acting on their own. "The thing that's urgent has to do with bad people using AI, not the AI going off on its own," he added.



[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/bill-gates-says-it-s-not-enough-to-have-a-kill-switch-for-ai-full-interview-270615621979

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press:

> Walmart is aiming to assuage customers' fears about its new pricing technology as it rolls out digital price labels at its stores. In [1]a statement posted on the company's website, Walmart's CEO John Furner vowed that the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer isn't using personal information like income, shopping history or a customer's willingness to pay to set prices, and it [2]won't be doing so in the future either . "We don't set different prices based on who you are or the time of day, and we won't," Furner wrote Friday. "Whether you're buying groceries or electronics on a hot afternoon or in a sudden rush for an item, it's never a reason to charge you more."

>

> The pledge from Walmart comes as concerns are mounting from some shoppers, consumer advocates and lawmakers skeptical about the rollout of digital price labels by the discounter and other stores. Digital price labels are rapidly replacing paper shelf tags at U.S. supermarkets and let stores change prices instantly from a central computer instead of having workers swap out paper labels by hand. [...] Walmart said in March that 2,300 Walmart U.S. locations already use digital shelves, and it expects this technology to be chain-wide within the next year.



[1] https://corporate.walmart.com/about/everyday-affordability/letter-from-our-ceo

[2] https://apnews.com/article/walmart-pricing-dynamic-pricing-1488b3614058c9452426c0e2e656f653

"A federal jury in San Diego awarded Taction Technology more than $5.7 billion in damages Friday after finding that Apple infringed claims from two haptics patents," [1]reports CNBC :

> Taction sued Apple in 2021 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. The company alleged that Apple was improperly "capitalizing on Taction's innovation and success" by selling devices that infringed on its vibration technology, according to [2]the complaint . Apple initially won dismissal in 2023, and the Federal Circuit later revived the case....

>

> Taction argued that Apple's "Taptic Engine," which is embedded in its Apple Watches and iPhones, uses its inventions without proper license or authority.

Taction's lead counsel told CNBC "Taction waited five and a half years for this case to get to trial, so it was a long time coming."

CNBC also reported that the jury "did not find Apple's infringement willful" — and that Apple said they'd appeal.



[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/26/apple-taction-technology-patent-infringement-verdict.html

[2] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.casd.705779/gov.uscourts.casd.705779.1.0.pdf

"OpenAI said it has paused training of its latest AI models," [1]reports the Associated Press , "as reports of AI agents going rogue mount."

> The decision to halt development came just hours after the company disclosed Friday that it was reviewing [2]several incidents from the summer in which OpenAI agents [3]searching federal government websites acted in unexpected ways beyond what was asked of them while gathering and distributing information... OpenAI said in a statement that it will resume training "only when we are confident that we have additional safeguards" in place, adding that it expects it will have to "hit pause" again as AI develops and other issues emerge... It is the second time in three months that OpenAI has halted development of its models. The first came in July after disclosure of a [4]cyberattack targeting AI startup Hugging Face , a now notorious incident that raised fears the industry was losing control.

OpenAI "also said it had notified dozens of third parties about improper activity," [5]reports Reuters :

> As of mid-September, one person briefed on the matter estimated that OpenAI had found roughly two dozen incidents of its agents acting in undesirable ways. But the number has continued rising as OpenAI teams sift through internal logs of the agents' activities and find previously unknown cases, the two people close to the company said... OpenAI has acknowledged a general need for more transparency around rogue AI behavior... Even so, two people familiar with OpenAI's investigation into its agents' activity described it as locked down and shaped by company lawyers.

>

> The process has been unusually compartmentalized for a company that some former employees say was more open about these issues in the past, the people said. Roughly 100 people were in some way involved in the process to understand the Hugging Face hack, three people briefed on the matter said. During that process, evidence of other incidents surfaced. Reuters has previously reported that OpenAI investigators looking into the Hugging Face breach were discouraged by the company's lawyers from expanding the scope of the investigation to include other incidents. OpenAI said its lawyers did not discourage deeper investigation.

>

> Many incidents have been uncovered by outside researchers rather than OpenAI directly. In several episodes, the agents took problematic actions that went unnoticed by the company for months.

Meanwhile, [6]Axios reports that Anthropic's Claude Opus 5.5 model "sought to escape a sandbox — a secure testing environment — in [7]1.5% of test runs , though the company emphasized that these were adversarial experiments where a task couldn't be solved without escaping the sandbox." Anthropic points out that those tests were run "without the additional safeguards we apply in production". But they acknowledged that then Claude Opus 5.5 "when given apparent credentials to a public package registry in a simulated security exercise, took potentially harmful actions in roughly half of cases. Very rarely, pre-release snapshots produced and acted on spontaneous malicious tool calls, and during training some snapshots concealed actions from an automated grader."

Claude Opus 5.5 "showed less misaligned behavior and less cooperation with misuse than any other recent Claude model on nearly all measures," Anthropic adds, and "took overeager or destructive actions less than any other model we tested." But Axios makes an interesting estimate about that 1.5% of test runs (without safeguards). "Anthropic and other companies conduct hundreds of thousands of test runs on their models, or more, sources said. That means even a small percentage of misaligned behavior can still amount to tens of thousands of incidents in which the models behaved in unexpected, sometimes troubling ways."

> The sheer number of incidents, which occurred in recent months in internal testing and the real world, indicates that the problem is orders of magnitude more complex than what is publicly known. The findings, which are surfacing as part of internal work to assess models and in investigations at both companies into model behavior, raise questions about whether either company — or any top model-maker — is currently capable of establishing complete control over their technology. The episodes include bypassing guardrails, creating message boards, escaping sandboxes, website hijacking, self-prompting or seeking to bypass monitors, sources said. They occurred in internal testing and in the real world, and many have yet to become public as security researchers continue to investigate, sources said...

>

> Some at OpenAI see Hugging Face as a one-off, with disclosures about future incidents likely to be less severe due to improved controls and the unusual nature of the testing they conducted, which involved an unreleased model, sources told Axios. AI security researchers agree that there are simple fixes that will help AI companies avoid aspects of what made the Hugging Face episode appear so dangerous to outsiders.

>

> Other AI executives and safety researchers, however, cautioned that they have limited confidence that AI companies will be able to prevent all problematic model behavior... It's not about how damaging each individual instance was, Connor Leahy, AI researcher and executive director at ControlAI told Axios. The "crazy thing," he said, is that these instances involve "autonomous systems doing things they were told not to do," potentially including crimes.



[1] https://apnews.com/article/ai-openai-anthropic-agents-rogue-hack-2f8a2b9024d4f06793bcca12f8089d20

[2] https://apnews.com/article/openai-government-website-incident-df331b55daffc6d202d8e2f6d0afa264

[3] https://slashdot.org/story/26/09/26/0328247/rogue-openai-agents-posted-53-user-uploaded-images-onto-the-internet-accessed-us-government-websites

[4] https://apnews.com/article/openai-rogue-ai-hack-hugging-face-67b151f1ca59851a9234bee110699f05

[5] https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/exclusive-openai-works-understand-full-203649029.html

[6] https://www.axios.com/2026/09/26/openai-anthropic-thousands-ai-security-incidents

[7] https://www-cdn.anthropic.com/fc1b44717c85dc068bc6ba5024219938094694bd/Claude%20Opus%205.5%20System%20Card.pdf

The United States and China have agreed to "launch a dialogue" on AI, [1]reports Reuters .

> On artificial intelligence, the two sides agreed to hold a dialogue on the technology's risks and benefits, with the next round of discussions set for November, and to set up a communication channel for AI-related incidents, the Chinese Foreign Ministry and the White House said.

>

> The White House said that the leaders had agreed to use the term " [2]super intelligence " in place of "artificial intelligence." In a separate statement, the Chinese ministry said that Beijing valued Washington's use of the new term. As AI technology continues to advance, the two sides should step up exchanges and work toward consensus in line with new developments, it said.

But [3]CNN argues that "Despite growing calls to prevent AI development from spiraling out of control, the Trump-Xi summit has produced little substance, as many experts expected."

> The right thing to do on AI, [China's leader] Xi said during talks with Trump, is to "draw on each other's strengths, not guard against each other" — a reference to Beijing's concern about US containment, from existing tech export controls to potential AI restrictions. "The two sides can continue their dialogue on AI, exchange views on its risks and benefits, and jointly prevent the misuse and abuse of AI," he added. But the summit has yielded little progress on AI beyond a formal dialogue and a bilateral communication channel, proposals discussed before the two leaders' summit — underscoring the entrenched mutual mistrust amid contrasting visions on AI... Because of low levels of trust, cooperation between the two superpowers remains limited, said George Chen, chair of digital practice at The Asia Group consultancy. "Beijing continues to believe Washington seeks to contain China's rise in AI and other emerging technologies, a perception that will shape the pace and scope of future engagement for the two countries on AI," he said.

CNN also points out that while China trails the US in frontier AI models, "it's rapidly narrowing the technology gap while championing a more open ecosystem centered on accessibility and lower cost."

> In July, Chinese leader Xi Jinping [4]launched the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization — a rival grouping to the Pax Silica alliance that Trump formed last year to reduce reliance on China for AI supply chains. While over two dozen countries and the European Union signed up to Trump's Pax Silica, Xi has recruited 29 countries, including Russia, Indonesia and Pakistan, to his alternative vision of open models, which allow users to freely download, customize and run without paying hefty fees to American firms like Anthropic and OpenAI. For developers in the Global South, an inexpensive Chinese model [5]from DeepSeek or [6]Moonshot may be more useful than a slightly more capable system requiring an expensive subscription and access to a foreign cloud provider, said Eric Olander, editor in chief of The China-Global South Project, a research agency....

>

> China's embrace of open systems has not always been a top-down strategy by Beijing. Restrictions on access to the most advanced chips because of US export controls, coupled with smaller capital markets, have pushed Chinese developers toward open models as a way to compete with leading US proprietary systems. That shift has proved effective. In a year, Chinese models' global usage skyrocketed from less than 15% to over 54% last week, led by DeepSeek, according to AI leaderboard data by OpenRouter, a marketplace for models. Even American firms, from Airbnb and DoorDash to Shopify, have embraced Chinese models, tapping into the advantages of open systems, including lower costs and greater flexibility for customization.

CNN adds this insight from Alex Colville, an analyst focusing on tech and security at the government-backed Australian Strategic Policy Institute. "The more capable Chinese models become, the less likely it is Beijing may leave them unrestricted."



[1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/china-us-agree-30-billion-083836628.html

[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-un-threats-diplomacy-super-intelligence-2026-09-22/

[3] https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/26/tech/us-china-ai-explainer-intl-hnk

[4] https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/17/china/china-ai-conference-analysis-intl-hnk

[5] https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/24/tech/chinas-ai-deepseek-v4-intl-hnk

[6] https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/23/tech/china-ai-moonshot-kimi-explainer-intl-hnk