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South Korea's government has stripped AI-powered textbooks of their official status after a single semester of use. The textbooks were introduced in March for math, English, and computer science classes as a flagship initiative under former President Yoon Suk Yeol. Students and teachers complained about technical problems, factual inaccuracies, and increased workload. The government spent more than 1.2 trillion won ($850 million) on the program. Publishers invested around 800 billion won ($567 million). The textbooks were reclassified as supplementary material. Adoption rates dropped from 37% in the first semester to 19% in September. Only 2,095 schools now use them, about half the number from earlier in the year.

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The California Broadband & Video Association has objected to legislation signed by Governor Gavin Newsom on October 15 that allows apartment tenants to opt out of mandatory bulk billing for internet service. The cable industry group called the measure "an anti-affordability bill masked as consumer protection." The association said property owners would have to provide refunds to tenants who decline internet service provided through building contracts. The law "undermines the basis of the cost savings and will lead to bulk billing being phased out," the group said. Assembly member Rhodesia Ransom, who authored the bill, said lobby groups for internet providers and real estate companies worked hard to defeat it. The association told the Sacramento Bee it was disappointed Newsom signed the legislation because it would be "an impediment to utilizing an effective tool" that helped middle-class Californians get discounted rates. The law takes effect January 1. Tenants who are denied the right to opt out can deduct subscription costs from their rent.

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It's all agents and LLMs in Vegas, and even legacy users can partake

As Oracle pounds the market with AI announcements across cloud infrastructure, applications, and data analytics, experts have warned that users' path to adoption remains uncertain.…

BrianFagioli writes: The United States Mint is honoring Steve Jobs and Apple with a new coin for 2026. Part of the American Innovation $1 Coin Program, California's entry depicts a young Jobs seated before rolling northern California hills, accompanied by the words "Make Something Wonderful." The reflective design, created by Elana Hagler and sculpted by Phebe Hemphill, captures how Jobs's surroundings and vision shaped Apple's mission to make technology feel intuitive and human. The 2026 series also celebrates Dr. Norman Borlaug for Iowa, the Cray-1 supercomputer for Wisconsin, and mobile refrigeration for Minnesota. The obverse of all coins features the Statue of Liberty and a special Liberty Bell mark commemorating the nation's Semiquincentennial. The Steve Jobs coin stands out as one of the few times the U.S. Mint has recognized a modern tech innovator, and some collectors are already calling it one of the most exciting releases in years.

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Joins its command-line client from a couple of years ago

NordVPN has open sourced another of its Linux VPN client apps under the GPLv3. This time, it's the graphical user interface (GUI) version.…

Recovery feature lets trusted contacts help you get back in when other methods fail

The latest security feature for Gmail enables users to recover their accounts with a little help from their friends.…

Microsoft is reshaping Windows around AI, introducing capabilities that let users control their computers through voice and allow Copilot to take autonomous actions on their behalf. The company is now rolling out a "Hey, Copilot!" wake word on Windows 11 machines, positioning voice as a "third input mechanism" to supplement the keyboard and mouse. Copilot Vision, which streams what a user sees on their screen, is rolling out globally, enabling the system to troubleshoot PC problems, help with app usage, and provide task guidance. Microsoft is simultaneously testing Copilot Actions through a limited preview, allowing the AI to take autonomous actions on local machines like editing folders of photos. The company is also integrating Copilot into the Windows taskbar and launching advertisements promoting these features, coinciding with Windows 10's end-of-support earlier this week. Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft's consumer chief marketing officer, said the company wants users upgrading to Windows 11 to "experience what it means to have a PC that's not just a tool, but a true partner." Microsoft attempted to popularize Cortana, a voice assistant, on Windows 10 a decade ago. Last year, the company released Recall, a feature that automatically captured screenshots, drawing criticism over privacy.

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AI hype fuels bit barn boom – and utilities are sweating the surge

Hyperscale datacenters stateside will consume 22 percent more grid power by the end of 2025 than a year ago, and are forecast to need nearly three times as much electricity by the end of the decade.…

Flaw in Kestrel web server allowed request smuggling, impact depends on hosting setup and application code

Microsoft has patched an ASP.NET Core vulnerability with a CVSS score of 9.9, which security program manager Barry Dorrans said was "our highest ever." The flaw is in the Kestrel web server component and enables security bypass.…

Microsoft's quality control department caught napping again

Microsoft's October Windows 11 update has managed the impressive feat of breaking localhost, leaving developers unable to access web applications running on their own machines.…

Paxos mistakenly minted $300 trillion of PayPal's PYUSD stablecoin on Wednesday during an internal transfer. Within minutes, the company identified the error and burned the excess tokens. The transaction appeared on Etherscan, then was quietly reversed before any funds moved or users were harmed. Paxos said there was no security breach and customer funds were safe. The amount exceeded all US dollars in circulation and surpassed the entire cryptocurrency market combined. Stablecoin issuers possess the power to create or delete billions in synthetic dollars instantly -- a capability that distinguishes them from Bitcoin transfers, which are irreversible. Tether mistakenly minted and burned $5 billion in USDT in 2019.

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Bill Cassidy letter asks if Switchzilla sat on critical flaws before feds were forced into emergency patching

US Senator Bill Cassidy has fired off a pointed letter to Cisco over the firewall flaws that allegedly let hackers breach "at least one federal agency."…

Jonathan Cirtain at the helm as revolving door swings for private corp

Axiom Space has ousted its CEO after just six months, hiring Jonathan Cirtain to replace Tejpaul Bhatia.…

Alert says financial account information lifted from systems

Auction house Sotheby's says it was breached on July 24, and those behind the intrusion stole an unspecified amount of data, including Social Security numbers and financial account information.…

GenAI meets Gen Z – only one gets the job

ai-pocalypse The UK tech sector is cutting graduate jobs dramatically – down 46 percent in the past year, with another 53 percent drop projected, according to figures from the Institute of Student Employers (ISE).…

Mozilla hardens its browser and toys with AI search while closing the door on legacy systems

New versions of both Mozilla's browser and its subsidiary MZLA's messaging client are here – with some bad news for users of older kit.…

GrapheneOS, the privacy-focused Android fork once exclusive to Google Pixels, is partnering with a major Android OEM to bring its hardened, de-Googled OS to Snapdragon-powered flagship phones. Android Authority reports: Until now, GrapheneOS has been available only on Pixel phones, making Google's flagships popular among privacy enthusiasts, journalists, and, as a Spanish police report suggested earlier this year, even organized crime groups in Catalonia. But that Pixel exclusivity may end by 2026 or 2027. GrapheneOS revealed in a Reddit thread that it has been working with a "major Android OEM" since June 2025 to enable official support for "future versions of their existing models." These devices will reportedly use flagship Snapdragon chips, a notable shift from Google's in-house Tensor processors. The project explained that only Pixels have met its strict security and update requirements so far. However, the new partnership suggests that another OEM is finally matching those standards. GrapheneOS also hinted that the mysterious partner's devices will be "priced similarly to Pixels" and available globally as part of the brand's standard lineup.

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The AI gold rush is so large that even third place is lucrative

Feature The generative AI revolution has exposed a brutal truth: raw computing power means nothing if you can't feed the beast. In sprawling AI datacenters housing thousands of GPUs, the real chokepoint isn't processing speed – it's memory bandwidth.…

Musk's moonshot still missing orbit, refueling, landing

Comment SpaceX is celebrating two consecutive Starship launches without unplanned explosions, yet the business faces a daunting path forward before the spacecraft can deliver astronauts to the lunar surface.…

Oracle slurps your data whether you like it or not... for the good and bad of the planet

Comment If you're an Oracle customer – throw a pebble into a crowd of 100 CIOs and you're bound to hit one – then Big Red has vectorized you. Or, more accurately, it has vectorized your data, according to Larry Ellison, co-founder and CTO, who lobbed about the terminology in this week's conference keynote as if it conferred some sort of mystical technological incantation.…