Google has introduced the $179 Fitbit Edge, a new fitness tracker with a 1.34-inch OLED display, built-in GPS, ECG support, week-long battery life, and Fitbit's first user-replaceable battery. "And unlike the Pixel Watch, it's compatible with Android and iPhones via the Google Health app," reports Wired. From the report: The Edge has a user-replaceable battery, a Fitbit first, aligning with Google

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: When Russia began attacking Ukrainian data centers and telecommunication infrastructure, it apparently failed to prepare for possible retaliation. Now Russia's digital services are facing widespread outages after Ukrainian drone strikes knocked out three of the largest data centers owned by Russian tech giant Yandex within several days. Pro-Kr

Hackers remotely manipulated connected refrigeration systems at hundreds of French supermarkets, reportedly pushing some fridges and freezers to 50C (122F), spoiling food and even sparking fires. According to Reuters, French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu ordered a cybersecurity investigation into the hacks, with similar incidents reported in Spain, Portugal, Poland, Germany, and Belgium. In Fra

A study of more than 700 software firms found that AI coding agents significantly increase the amount of code developers produce, but not the amount of software companies actually ship. Ars Technica reports: A recent study (PDF) of actual coding practices across hundreds of firms finds that human code review forms a significant "bottleneck" for the overall efficiency of AI coding tools, resulting

Amazon is reportedly in talks to acquire AI startup Decart in a deal that could value the company at up to $7 billion. Decart's DOS software helps developers optimize AI models for different processors in weeks rather than months, a capability that could be particularly useful to AWS as it pushes its own Trainium chips. SiliconANGLE reports: The company has developed software called DOS, which can

PC shipments fell 20.1% year over year to 62.7 million units in the third quarter of 2026, the worst Q3 decline IDC has recorded. "The top three PC makers -- Lenovo, Dell, and HP -- also saw their shipments fall by over 20% year over year," reports PCMag. From the report: "If looking at all quarters, then we have seen other quarters in recent years with larger declines, such as 2022Q4, which was -

NPR reports: Police officers in cities across the U.S. are quick to extol the virtues of real-time crime centers as a game changer that helps them find missing children, monitor large events from the skies and scope out dangerous scenes before putting an officer in harm's way. Hundreds of police departments have one of these central hubs, which have existed for years. But many are now being powere

"This year, nearly the entire fleet of 94 U.S. nuclear reactors has been offered the chance to integrate AI into its operations, and most have taken it," reports IEEE Spectrum: In August, California-based Atomic Canyon launched NIVA, the Nuclear Industry Virtual Assistant, which was developed in cooperation with nuclear-industry groups. The assistant was pilot-tested in nuclear plants run by Const

Let's Encrypt "will shorten the default validity period of its TLS certificates from 90 days to 64 days, starting February 10, 2027," reports the blog Linuxiac: All certificates issued or renewed from that date will have a 64-day lifespan unless users explicitly select one of the shorter options already available: 45 or six days. Existing certificates will remain valid until their expiration dates

"Video game console sales in the U.S. have cratered," reports Tom's Hardware, with sales through August far below where they'd been in 2025: Mat Piscatella, the video game industry advisor at research firm Circana, shared the numbers on his Bluesky account — PlayStation 5 sales have dropped by 25%, putting it at its lowest point since 2013, when gamers held off buying PlayStation consoles in antic

CNBC reports: As Anthropic barrels toward a potential $2 trillion market cap on the Nasdaq, one research firm is valuing the artificial intelligence company at a mere $150 billion and says Wall Street is about to face an "unprecedented test of investor gullibility." In a report on Tuesday, independent financial research provider New Constructs called Anthropic's upcoming offering the "most ridicul

"Gas cars are now a minority of the world's new car sales," reports Electrek. Gasoline-only vehicles made up 49% of global new-vehicle sales in the first half of 2026, down from 73% in 2021, according to Mobility Global data first reported by Nikkei. It's the first time on record that they've been under half. But there's a catch: most of the cars taking their place still have a gas tank... [The sh

Why didn't The Social Reckoning enjoy the box office success of 2010's The Social Network, asks IndieWire/A>: [T]here wasn't the same urgency in the story being told. The Social Reckoning focuses less on Zuckerberg, and more on data engineer Frances Haugen's decision to blow the whistle on how Facebook's algorithms were promoting political content that radicalized users, as well as the company's a

There was some Blade Runner news at New York Comic-Con this weekend — and also some news about Godzilla. Ars Technica reports: We got our first look at Prime Video's new sci-fi series Blade Runner 2099 in July at San Diego Comic-Con. With the show's premiere roughly six weeks away, the streamer unveiled the full trailer this weekend at New York Comic-Con... Prime Video will drop all eight episodes

The Chicago Sun-Times reports: When Elgin Community College hired Flock Safety to install six surveillance cameras in April 2025, President Peggy Heinrich thought they would "enhance the safety and security of students...." They were supposed to help locate stolen cars and missing people. But Heinrich started to wonder if the cameras were actually making students less safe after seeing news report