Work & Business

Meta releases Muse Spark Open weights and serving guides

Meta released Muse Spark Open weights on October 15. Its BF16 and NVFP4 checkpoints, hosted APIs and Muse Model License give developers several routes with distinct limits.

Google's Universal Cart rolls out in the U.S. across Search and Gemini

Google's shared cart now rolls out in U.S. Search and Gemini. It can track products from several retailers, while checkout follows Google Pay or each merchant's own cart and the merchant remains the seller.

Agility names Nyobolt as Digit 5 battery partner

Agility named Nyobolt for Digit 5's planned fast-charge battery system. Its run, charge and 20-hour daily-work figures are preliminary company claims, with early access expected in 2027.

ASML expects 2027–28 equipment demand to exceed planned supply

ASML reported €11.7 billion in third-quarter sales and said customers' AI investment plans are lifting equipment forecasts. Its projected supply gap for 2027 and 2028 remains a management assessment, while interest in 2029–30 orders has yet to become orders.

ARENA funds Australian manufacturing for two solar construction robots

ARENA awarded up to A$31.1 million for local production and deployment of panel-placement and piling robots. Earlier trials show field use, while the new factories, fleets and proposed night work remain plans.

Square launches voice ordering kiosk built around restaurant menu data

Square's new standalone kiosk lets diners order by voice or touch. Its answers depend on restaurant menu data, while setup requires a Plus or Premium plan and live connection.

States seek data and safety safeguards in any Character.AI sale

State attorneys general want data access, deletion and safety protections in any Character.AI sale. Their October 14 bankruptcy notice is a request, not an order.

Continues Character.AI enters Chapter 11 as Disney offers $20 million for a limited license

Honeywell Forge Cognition brings AI agents to facility operations

Honeywell says Forge Cognition can triage building alarms, predict HVAC issues and simulate energy changes. Its Voyager pilot reports early results with important measurement limits.

ASE expands PowerSiP for power delivery beneath AI processors

ASE says its PowerSiP expansion lets designers place voltage-regulator modules beneath AI processors. Its claimed 50% or greater reduction concerns parasitic routing losses; the public pages give no test method or system-level measurement.

UK student employers report more misconduct concerns as AI hiring rules take shape

In ISE's 2026 survey, 92% of UK student employers suspected or confirmed misconduct. The public findings show where AI use is usually permitted and what the figure cannot prove.

How to connect a shopping agent to Shopify’s Shop MCP

Shopify's new Shop MCP connects catalog search, merchant carts and checkout. This documentation-based guide shows the setup, shopper approval step and order verification boundary.

Anchor Browser and AgentCore payments: how an agent crosses an x402 paywall

Anchor Browser can retry an x402-paid page or API call through AgentCore payments when a developer enables the session and configures an authorized, budgeted payment instrument.

Inspect an Electron app's behavior with REA

REA maps modules and Electron boundaries in a local app. This guide shows how to trace one feature through its evidence and check the behavior separately.

How to check a Spark UDF rewrite for GPU execution

A practical sequence for testing one Spark UDF, choosing SQL, cuDF or CUDA, checking for CPU fallback, and measuring the result on a GPU-capable pipeline.

Character.AI enters Chapter 11 as Disney offers $20 million for a limited license

Character.AI says its service and subscriptions remain active during a Chapter 11 sale. Disney's $20 million opening bid covers a limited license, while the platform's future remains unresolved.

Z.ai opens GLM-Legal beta applications for legal teams

Z.ai is inviting legal teams to apply for GLM-Legal API access. Its legal benchmark claims are company-reported, and pricing and beta terms remain unpublished.

A staged AI pipeline extracts hardware specifications from datasheets

A two-author preprint reports that staged AI extraction produced more source-supported hardware specifications than a one-shot baseline across 20 datasheets. Figures and real design decisions remain untested.

Yaskawa's orders rise while robotics profit falls

Yaskawa reports record quarterly orders tied mainly to data-center and chip investment, while robotics profit fell. Its AI-robot examples have limited public performance data.