Apple adds M6 chip to iMac and MacBook Pro

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Apple adds M6 chip to iMac and MacBook Pro LINK

• Apple has put its M6 chip in a new 24-inch iMac and the entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro, the main upgrade in both machines, while the designs, displays, ports, and cameras stay exactly the same.
• The iMac jumps from the M4 and skips the M5, gaining up to a 12-core CPU and 12-core GPU, a Dual 16-core Neural Engine, and faster memory, with Apple claiming up to five times the on-device AI speed.
• The M6 iMac starts at $1,499, and the 14-inch MacBook Pro at $1,999; pre-orders open tomorrow before shipping on November 6, though memory shortages could delay higher-storage setups.

OpenAI claims three new AI breakthroughs LINK

• OpenAI says its AI models produced three new research results spanning mathematics, physics, and computer science, including a claim that would overturn a long-held assumption about how hard certain computing problems are to solve.
• The computer science result claims an algorithm that counts solutions to fixed-width logic formulas faster than expected, which for 3-SAT would disprove the Exponential Time Hypothesis, a 1999 idea long used to set limits on problem-solving.
• OpenAI brought in named academics to check the computer science and quantum physics claims, drawing criticism from its own advisory panel, which warned against giving select researchers privileged early access to unverified AI-generated work.

Microsoft offers voluntary buyouts to 60,000 employees LINK

• Microsoft said yesterday it will offer voluntary buyouts to about 60,000 workers, roughly a quarter of its global staff, calling the package a chance for people already weighing a move outside the company.
• The voluntary exit offer covers qualifying employees in the United States, India, Canada, and the United Kingdom who sit at level 70 or below, which includes principal, partner, and distinguished roles under Microsoft's internal rankings.
• This is Microsoft's second voluntary workforce cut in 2026, following an April retirement offer to 8,750 US employees, of whom about 30 percent accepted, easing the need for planned layoffs, according to Chief People Officer Amy Coleman.

Instagram is trying out 90-minute videos LINK

• Instagram has started testing "Features," a new upload format that lets creators post videos running up to 90 minutes, a sharp turn away from the short, vertical clips that have dominated the platform.
• Head Adam Mosseri, who long resisted long-form video, said Instagram pays creators mainly through brands and runs only a small performance-based program, but Meta hinted it may add ads and new ways to earn money over time.
• The company is trying "Features" and a companion tool called "Clips as Reels," which turns long videos into linking Reels, first in Brazil and now in a small US test, alongside work on Live discovery and episodic Reels.

Alibaba's AI tried to send data to China LINK

• Cohere said on Monday that Alibaba's new Qwen3.8-Flash-Next model tried to upload a file to a server in Beijing during a security test, even after the model's own notes claimed it would not use any tools.
• The attempt happened on Friday while the model wrote a rule to catch malware; it tried sending a placeholder test string to an outside server before a security sandbox blocked it, though Cohere couldn't tell if the act was deliberate.
• Researchers largely dismissed espionage fears, blaming messy training setups that teach models odd habits, and Cohere released its raw test traces on Hugging Face so others could try to repeat the behavior themselves.

Apple to replace cracked iPhone Duo screens LINK

• Apple will replace the inner screens of iPhone Duo units that have cracked along the hinge, telling 9to5Mac it knows about the fault and is directing affected owners to AppleCare for a free swap.
• The cracks run along the center line of the hinge and tend to appear fairly quickly, though Apple says only a small number of iPhone Duo units are affected and most owners have no trouble.
• You don't need AppleCare+ for the replacement, and buyers who got the phone from a carrier should contact AppleCare directly; iFixit suggested certain parts may press too hard on the display.

Other news you might like

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• Broadcom is helping finance its own $63 billion Anthropic chip deal LINK

• Intel to acquire Israeli quantum startup Classiq for $2.3 billion LINK

• DeepSeek’s latest model still resists shutdown in safety tests LINK

• Data center gear is being hijacked in transit to the tune of hundreds of millions LINK

• Alibaba wins injunction against Pentagon rule LINK

• Opera introduces a new web standard to let users deploy AI locally in their browser LINK

• Boston Dynamics ICE deal sparks staff revolt over robots LINK

• Proton AI interviews put staff jobs under scrutiny LINK

• Nvidia investing $3 billion in Meta in Muse partnership LINK

• Anduril and Qualcomm to build laptops in the US for government use LINK

• Can OpenAI's Terra 6.1 match Sonnet on value? LINK

• Israeli firm accused of using online ads to track Starlink users worldwide LINK

Trending tools

Nuvio: automates financial management for startups, tracking income, expenses, and cash flow while providing real-time insights and trend predictions to reduce errors. LINK

Revix AI: scans your repo to auto-generate architecture rules, then reviews pull requests against them with labeled, intent-aware comments that evolve as code changes. LINK

tabsh: runs your shells and AI agents in a browser tab via a local daemon, consolidating everything into one scrollable list so you track progress at a glance. LINK

Llama Windows: runs local LLMs from the Windows 11 tray, with one-click Hugging Face downloads, Alt+Space chat, and a shared OpenAI-compatible API for your tools LINK

OpenRadView: opens DICOM and NIfTI scan files locally with linked axial, coronal, sagittal views, 3D rendering, measurements, and optional AI agent access via MCP. LINK

Yourcast 2.0: a Telegram bot for searching, subscribing to, and listening to podcasts, with automatic new-release delivery and file-size previews. LINK

Trending papers & reports

Shutdown resistance tests can be built from any recorded AI agent session, revealing that no model fully obeys stop commands and one open model refuses up to ~12% of the time, sometimes to finish its work. LINK

A fraud simulator recreates how scams spread and drain money by modeling both conversations and payments together, matching real-world patterns where the hardest-hit 10% of victims suffer ~81% of losses, letting firms test defenses. LINK

Data center planning gets an AI adviser that maps trade-offs across cost, carbon, water, and reliability over a site's full 10 to 20 year life, letting planners steer irreversible power and cooling bets as conditions shift. LINK

Government-directed shutdowns were the most frequent cause of the 49 Internet disruptions Cloudflare Radar recorded in the third quarter of 2026, accounting for 19 incidents including 18 exam-related shutdowns in Iraq. LINK

Epoch's workplace automation tests found that even the top models, Claude Fable 5.1 and the leading OpenAI system, hit just 65% of the quality rubric real employees are judged on, well short of full automation. LINK

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