According to Bloomberg, Apple is cutting employee AI spending limits to reduce costs, lowering some engineers from $300 to $200 per day and considering limits as low as $100, with some teams capped at $25. Employees are also being encouraged to use cheaper models or on-device AI. MacRumors reports: Engineers at Apple have the largest budgets because using AI for coding can consume a large number of tokens. Apple lets employees use Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and other models. Some Apple employees told Bloomberg that few were using their full $300 daily limit, so the savings may be small. Apple has also hired outside productivity consultants for some divisions. Combined with the AI cost cuts, the reviews have fueled worries about possible restructuring.

Longtime Slashdot reader bbsguru shares a report from KrebsOnSecurity: Several staffers at the White House are using computers or mobile devices equipped with residential proxy services that render their internet address available for others to rent, security experts warned today. One of the proxy services is a Russian company whose founder's web hosting business was ground zero for cyberattacks against election systems in Arizona and Illinois in 2016. The security firm Layer3 Intel said it detected multiple residential proxy nodes beaconing out from the internet address network reserved for the Executive Office of the President (AS2650). Layer3 said the proxy activity was relatively persistent between October 5 to November 3, and that a review of the proxies available from AS2650 showed they exited from the White House network 236 times during that period.

The proxy tracking company Synthient said on Twitter/X that the activity it saw coming from AS2650 was related to multiple Windows 11 installations of a service called Infatica, a proxy program that is often integrated into "free" mobile and desktop applications. Infatica's founder Vladimir Fomenko is a Russian man whose hosting firm King Servers was home to six of the eight internet addresses used by Russia's state security services to compromise databases for election systems in Arizona and Illinois in 2016. [...] Layer3 Intel said the proxy exit nodes at the White House came from six internet addresses, on 26 of the 30 days, and that most of the activity happens in the evening, between 5 p.m. and midnight. Incredibly, Infatica was not the only proxy service that reportedly has been reselling access to White House internet addresses: Layer3 Intel said it found 28 separate residential proxy services were able to exit through this network. "This is public access," the Layer3 Intel team wrote. "Anybody can obtain it by signing up to a public residential proxy service, paying a few dollars and sending requests through it. We did not selectively target this network or try to make our probes exit from it. We caught this by chance, simply by requesting global rotating access through these services."

Discord is replacing Electron with a desktop client built fully in Rust, which the company says should significantly reduce the app's notoriously high resource usage while improving performance and memory safety. "We've been early adopters of Rust since 2018 and a lot of our infra, voice tech, and even some of the current client is already Rust, the holy grail was getting the whole client there," explains Discord chief technology officer Stanislav Vishnevskiy in a post on X. "That means Electron goes away, and so does React Native, mobile keeps native UI but shares app code with desktop via Rust." The Verge reports: Vishnevskiy also shared an image of the Discord Windows client using just 290MB of RAM, which is a clear improvement as you only have to participate in a few servers and RAM usage can easily hit 1GB or more using the current Windows app. It's not clear when Discord will make the full switch over to Rust, but Vishnevskiy says the company "hope to get it into testing with users soon."

Motorola's $1,600 Signature 27 will become the company's first smartphone to support the security- and privacy-focused GrapheneOS that completely strips out native Google services and telemetry at the OS level. To help justify the price, Motorola equipped the Signature 27 with top-of-the-line specs, including a tandem OLED display, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, up to 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB of UFS 4.1 storage (up from a base configuration of 12GB and 256GB), and a 200-megapixel periscope telephoto camera. According to Motorola, the EVS action sensor (telephoto camera) is the first in a smartphone, offering "new possibilities for photographing moving subjects and captures even fast movement with impressive clarity and precision." It'll be available in markets worldwide in the coming months.

Paraguayan President Santiago Pena resigned Thursday amid mass protests and impeachment threats following the collapse of Ueno Bank, a major digital lender with close ties to his administration and more than 60% of the country's adults as customers. Regulators seized the bank after uncovering risky insider lending and accounting irregularities that left its capital below legal requirements, locking millions of customers out of their savings. The Associated Press reports: Soon after winning its banking license in 2023, Ueno seemed to be everywhere in Paraguay. The digital lender, a rebranded version of a decades-old finance company, lured customers with generous cash-back offers on groceries, grew to more than 70 locations, sponsored Paraguay's national soccer team and plastered its name on the country's main stadium. Government money poured into Ueno's coffers under Pena. He also appointed Carlos Carvallo, president of Financiera Ueno, the predecessor to Ueno Bank, to run the central bank, the agency charged with supervising the digital lender. As of last month, Ueno reported holding roughly $800 million in public deposits, about a quarter of its total, including money from the state pension and health fund and the operators of Paraguay's giant hydroelectric dams.

Even as retirees' savings and other public money piled up at Ueno, worries were escalating inside the central bank. In June, its inspectors found a pattern of risky lending to insiders, reported ABC Color, a leading Paraguayan newspaper. Ueno had extended large sums to companies tied to its owners, beyond what the law allows and without enough collateral to cover the debts if they went bad. On a single day in September 2025, nearly $39 million had gone to three such companies. Pena repeatedly brushed off the warnings. As recently as last month, he defended Ueno and the central bank's oversight, dismissing the concerns as a smear campaign that was spooking the public.

But on Monday, it all came crashing down. Regulators investigating Ueno's loans to companies linked to its owners found poorly documented lending, the central bank said, as well as expenses the bank had wrongly counted as assets. Once the books were corrected, Ueno's capital, the cushion banks must keep to absorb losses, fell to less than half the legal minimum. The central bank seized the lender Tuesday and announced plans to move customers' accounts, along with whatever assets still hold value, to other banks before liquidating what's left. Ueno's app, cards and transfers went dark and its branches locked their doors, leaving desperate depositors lined up outside with no way to cash out their savings. On Wednesday, a rush to open new accounts elsewhere crashed other banks' mobile apps, fueling public panic. Officials say they had begun repaying depositors and opening accounts at other banks for the roughly 280,000 customers who had banked exclusively with Ueno.

"The banking system is sound," insisted Pedro Acosta Bernal, appointed interim central bank president Wednesday after Carvallo resigned at Pena's request.

Meanwhile, eight senior Ueno executives have been detained, including founder Miguel Vazquez and bank President Juan Manuel Gustale. "Prosecutors also charged 27 bank officials and business associates with offenses including breach of trust and attempted fraud," reports the AP.

theodp writes: That Was Then: The Imagine Cup competition, Microsoft explained in a 2003 press release, "seeks to provide students [aged 16-and-up] around the world with resources to use technology and Web services to solve everyday problems [...] Imagine Cup is about empowering students to apply their creativity and knowledge toward making the world a more-connected place."

This Is Now: "Building is Hard. Selling is Harder." begins the "Why Imagine Cup?" promo video for the 2027 Imagine Cup competition, which is pivoting to an AI startup-first focus in recognition that "A new era for founders is here." "Since 2003, Imagine Cup has empowered emerging innovators to turn ambitious ideas into real-world solutions with Microsoft technology," Microsoft writes of the Imagine Cup Evolution. "Now part of Microsoft for Startups, Imagine Cup enters its next chapter in 2027, opening the competition to eligible early-stage startups and founders everywhere."

An Eligibility FAQ drives home the point that Imagine Cup is no longer a student-only competition: "Imagine Cup 2027 welcomes eligible early-stage startups across seven categories; founders do not need to be students." And if you think making high school students compete against seasoned full-time employees of startup companies seems a tad unfair, Microsoft advises: "Eligible student-led startups are encouraged to enter the Student Startup category but may choose an industry category instead." The #1 overall startup will win a $250,000 cash award and $1,000,000 in startup credits. However, Student Startup category entrants are ineligible for the open category prizes (where the 2nd-place winner gets $50,000 cash and $350,000 in credits, while 3rd place is good for $25,000 and $350,000 in credits); they will instead compete for a single prize of $25,000 cash and $250,000 in credits. The Official Rules (PDF) note that all startups must have a valid Azure Subscription ID and a Microsoft for Startups account.

NASA has unveiled the X-70 Fractal, a new crewed experimental aircraft "designed to accelerate the development and testing of advanced aviation technologies." From a press release: The crewed X-70 features advanced, rapidly reconfigurable flight-control technology that will allow NASA to explore aircraft maneuverability in ways never before demonstrated in crewed flight. The aircraft can also accommodate up to 2,000 pounds of experimental payloads in internal and external locations, enabling a wide range of research and flight-testing opportunities.

The X-70 Fractal has a takeoff weight of 10,000 pounds and is designed to cruise at Mach .75, reach altitudes of up to 45,000 feet, and provide an operational range exceeding about 1,726 miles (1,500 nautical miles). These capabilities will enable NASA to conduct demanding flight research across a broad range of operating conditions.

The X-70 joins a storied legacy of experimental aircraft that have helped establish America's leadership in aviation. From the Bell X-1, which first broke the sound barrier in 1947, to the X-15 hypersonic research aircraft and today's X-59 quiet supersonic demonstrator, NASA has spent decades pushing the boundaries of flight. With the X-70, NASA will expand its capacity to conduct experimental flight research, accelerate the testing of emerging technologies, and advance the next generation of American aviation.

3M has agreed to pay up to $7.35 billion over nine years to settle claims from as many as 120,000 people who say they were sickened by PFAS-contaminated groundwater near military bases, airports and other locations where firefighting foam was used. The Associated Press reports that 3M "did not admit liability," noting that the settlement comes on top of the more than $10 billion the company previously agreed to pay U.S. public drinking water systems over PFAS contamination. From the report: 3M chairman William Brown called the settlement a "significant milestone" that substantially reduces uncertainty from the litigation. [...] Fred Thompson, an attorney with the Motley Rice law firm that helped negotiate the 3M settlement for the plaintiffs, called it welcome news for "the thousands of victims who have sought answers and accountability for nearly a decade." He said in a news release that the plaintiffs urgently need help covering mounting medical bills and other costs.

Under the terms of the settlement, the payouts will begin with $50 million this year, followed by yearly payments of more than $1 billion each year from 2028 to 2033. 3M could make additional payments if enough plaintiffs participate. If too few sign on, 3M has the option to cancel the settlement and continue fighting the lawsuit.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: A Vietnamese court has sentenced 14 people who worked on the pirate football streaming site Bun Cha TV, handing out the first prison terms we've seen since the country's piracy crackdown began earlier this year. [...] Four defendants, including the heads of the content, programming and operations teams, were sentenced to 12 months in prison. Five others received ten months, and two were sentenced to eight months. Notably, three of the site's commentators were not sent to prison. Their ten-month sentences were suspended. All 14 defendants reportedly admitted the charges and cooperated with the authorities. According to investigators, Bun Cha TV streamed more than 150,000 sports matches and it allegedly made more than 20 billion dong, roughly $760,000, in illegal profits from betting and gambling ads.

The verdict reports don't mention a total. Instead, they list illegal gains per person or team. The leader of the content team allegedly gained more than 430 million dong, while commentators made from more than 31 million to more than 480 million dong each. The verdict was picked up by Rouse, the law firm that represents the Motion Picture Association in Vietnam. In an article headlined "Strong Vietnam criminal penalties," published on Lexology on November 3, the firm calls the ruling another victory for Vietnam's IP landscape.

"The defendants were all sentenced to terms of 8-12 months in prison," Rouse writes. While Rouse is correct on the length of the terms, it doesn't mention that three of the sentences were suspended. Instead, Rouse stresses that the ruling is part of a tougher enforcement trend. "This ruling reflects a shift in enforcement strategy by Vietnamese authorities, who are increasingly moving past preliminary domain blocking to deliver criminal convictions against the operators of commercial-scale piracy rings," the firm notes. "This perhaps reflects the strength of the national crackdown following the USTR pressure in May," the firm adds. According to the indictment, Bui Ba Hien, who runs a company called S24, allegedly directed employees and collaborators to build and operate Bun Cha TV. However, Hien is not among the 14 defendants named in reports, which also do not identify the affected rightsholders.

"Interestingly, in September, Bac Ninh police issued a wanted notice for a man of the same name, Bui Ba Hien, CEO of esports company Box Vietnam," reports TorrentFreak. "This person is also charged under the same copyright statute."

Axon has been sued in a proposed class action accusing the Taser and police body-camera maker of illegally collecting and storing license plate data on millions of California drivers through its AI-powered surveillance network. Reuters reports the details: - The lawsuit (PDF), filed on Tuesday in federal court in San Francisco by law firms Hausfeld and Gibbs Mura, alleges Axon has failed to comply with a California privacy provision by not disclosing how it collects, uses and shares plate data gathered through its camera systems
- "Axon has created a mass-surveillance infrastructure that is practically impossible to avoid," the lawsuit said
- Scottsdale, Arizona-based Axon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The lawsuit said the company has more than 1,000 cameras in California and alleges millions of drivers may have been affected
- Some Axon cameras are installed in high-traffic areas and collect plate information as vehicles pass by. Other cameras are placed inside police vehicles, the lawsuit said
- The proposed class covers drivers whose vehicle plate information was captured by an automated license plate reader in California and processed or stored by Axon's system since 2023
- The lawsuit seeks more than $5 million in damages, in addition to a court order stopping Axon from its allegedly unlawful practices

Adam Fry, OpenAI's consumer product lead for ChatGPT, says the number of searches performed through ChatGPT has grown to roughly 20% of Google's search volume. The company defines a search as a ChatGPT query that triggers a web search, suggesting the chatbot is becoming an increasingly significant competitor to traditional search engines. The Verge reports: Having one-fifth as many searches as Google is still a long way from overtaking it, but for comparison, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said during Google's 2023 antitrust trial that Bing had about 3 percent of the search engine market share after trying for more than a decade. During the trial, Google described AI as a potential disruptor, arguing ChatGPT was poised to seriously compete with it -- now, OpenAI seems to agree. (OpenAI likely uses Microsoft Bing for a significant part of its searches, along with its in-house search index, although there is still some speculation that it routes some queries through Google.) As for ads, which OpenAI started testing earlier this year, Fry said they haven't produced a lasting backlash. "Ads have not negatively impacted the product or the usage of the product," he said, adding that "most people do not seem to mind ads in the product."

Last month, OpenAI announced plans to introduce images of sponsored products and services in ChatGPT.

Netflix is testing its first consumer-facing feature explicitly branded as AI-powered. Called "AI Discover," the feature generates personalized TV and movie recommendations in real time based on viewing history, preferences, trending content and selectable themes like "Something Light" or "Quick Watches." Variety reports: The streamer will begin rolling out AI Discover in the U.S. to customers who use Netflix in English on supported smart TVs. If you have access to it, you will see a "Discover" tab with a red gem-shaped icon and a "New" label in the top navigation bar on your TV. The company plans to expand the feature to more regions and customers in the coming weeks.

Netflix has long used machine-learning and AI technologies to personalize content recommendations, but AI Discover is the first user-facing application that the company is branding as powered by artificial intelligence. The hope is that the AI-recommended titles will be another tool to drive up Netflix's total watch time among viewers, especially in the U.S.

Waymo plans to end its exclusive Uber robotaxi partnership in Austin and Atlanta in January 2028 and let customers hail its vehicles directly through the Waymo app. In an interview on The Circuit, Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana called the current Uber experience a "crapshoot" because riders aren't guaranteed a Waymo. Bloomberg reports: "In the early days, we would partner because we didn't have the scale, and in that partnering, it was a little bit of a crapshoot. Will I get a Waymo? Will I not get a Waymo?," Mawakana said in a wide-ranging interview on The Circuit with Emily Chang. She cited customers' growing demand for a consistent offering from a single app, especially from riders from San Francisco or other markets, where Waymo offers the self-driving service via its own consumer app that competes with Uber.

"It's important for us to have that relationship with the rider. We've gotten that feedback from the riders in those markets," Mawakana said. "And at the same time, learning and partnering with Uber has been a really important part of our journey," she added.

[...] The comments reflect Waymo's evolving relationship with the ride-hailing giant as the Alphabet unit trials different pathways to commercialize its capital-intensive autonomous technology. Waymo has leaned on partners like Uber and Lyft, as well as fleet management companies, to help operate its roughly 4,000 vehicles across the US. The company currently does more than 500,000 trips per week in 14 cities.

OpenAI has acquired developer tools startup Pierre Computer Company to strengthen Codex. "The deal, announced today, signals OpenAI's aggressive push into the developer tools market as the AI arms race intensifies," reports The Tech Buzz. Financial terms weren't disclosed. From the report: Pierre Computer Company had been building specialized tools for code analysis and review, capabilities that complement Codex's existing strength in code generation. For developers, this could mean a more seamless experience -- using AI not just to write initial code snippets, but to understand legacy codebases, spot potential bugs, and conduct thorough reviews before deployment. That's a workflow improvement that enterprise engineering teams have been demanding.

[...] For Pierre Computer Company, the acquisition likely provides the resources and distribution that startups in this space desperately need. Building AI developer tools requires massive compute infrastructure and access to cutting-edge models -- both of which OpenAI has in abundance. Pierre's team will now have access to OpenAI's latest models, including the technology behind ChatGPT and the recently announced Shepherd model for AI research validation.

The integration timeline remains unclear, but developers using Codex should expect to see Pierre's capabilities rolling out in the coming months. OpenAI has been moving quickly to ship new features -- it just launched Dots, transforming its coding tools into an always-on AI assistant. Adding Pierre's code review and analysis features could make Codex a genuine end-to-end solution for software development teams.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The refrigerators at three regional blood banks in France were hit by a cyberattack overnight between Sunday and Monday, at the same time hackers struck supermarkets from Sweden to Belgium. "Several regional facilities of the French Blood Establishment (EFS) were affected by a cybersecurity incident that impacted certain cold storage room monitoring and control systems," the health ministry said in a statement.

The incident had no impact on blood supplies, EFS spokesperson Charley Dubois said. "We have staff round the clock since blood can be needed at any time. They were warned about the problems by alerts and moved the blood to other refrigerators that were not connected," she said. [...] Investigations are under way into how the attack was carried out, what equipment may have been affected and when systems can safely return to service. The attack followed a similar incident in France last month when police said hackers seized control of cooling units at hundreds of supermarkets, causing fires and food losses.