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Daily digest

2026-09-15

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2026-09-15 10:08:57 +0000

2026-09-15

100 items
OpenAI News Sep 14 Score 0.9180939328703704

Perplexity trusts GPT-6 Astra with end-to-end systems

Perplexity uses Astra to write communications, change software, and monitor production systems, and checks in much less frequently than with earlier models.

AI aiopenaimodels
Simon Willison's Weblog Sep 14 Score 0.8785998370370369

The contagion of fear

The contagion of fear Bryan Cantrill responds to the tweet by former Anthropic employee Jacob Coxon confirming that many Anthropic researchers believe AI "could kill us all by the end of the decade". Bryan shares a story of his own youthful mistakes causing un

AI aillmsengineeringanalysis
Simon Willison's Weblog Sep 14 Score 0.8770327074074074

What blog posts influenced your thinking the most?

My comment on What blog posts influenced your thinking the most? — Lobste.rs. An early Joel Spolsky one for me was The Law of Leaky Abstractions . I read that near the start of my career and it's encouraged me to always be looking for improved understand

AI aillmsengineeringanalysis
Foreign Policy Sep 14 Score 0.8750679504629628

Why My Kyiv Visit Worried Me So Much

FP’s editor in chief on the mood in Ukraine—and what it means for the future of war.

Geopolitics geopoliticsforeign-policyanalysis
Schneier on Security Sep 14 Score 0.8748370444444443

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I’m speaking online (via Zoom) at a League of Women Voters event on Tuesday, September 22, 2026 at 5 PM ET. I’m speaking at CanSecWest 2026 in Vancouver, Canada. The conference runs September 30

Security securitycryptographypolicy
Schneier on Security Sep 14 Score 0.8699763962962962

Using AI for Weapons Development

Last week, Anthropic released a long and detailed document describing current misuses of their Claude models. I'm still reading it, but I wanted to flag this: We identified a cell of threat actors based in northern Yemen running three weapons development progr

Security securitycryptographypolicy
Simon Willison's Weblog Sep 14 Score 0.8673850222222221

Quoting Laurie Voss

The cost of writing code collapsed, and the cost of reviewing, fixing and operating it is following, and I'm assuming it gets there. What's left of making software is finding out what people actually want, defining it precisely, and making it pleasant to use.

AI aillmsengineeringanalysis
Schneier on Security Sep 14 Score 0.8615226925925925

Microsoft’s Patching

Once a month, Microsoft pushes a security update to all Windows users. Tomorrow's is a new record : Microsoft's patch for September is a doozy, with a record number of roughly 972 vulnerabilities fixed and 112 of them meeting the high critical-severity thresho

Security securitycryptographypolicy
Wired Sep 15 Score 0.8247605106481483

If the US Collapses Soon, Don’t Blame Emily St. John Mandel

Emily St. John Mandel’s 2014 novel, Station Eleven, turned her into something of a pandemic prophet. Her new novel, Exit Party, imagines two possible American futures—totalitarian state and post-civil-war chaos.

Technology technologyculturesociety
BleepingComputer Sep 15 Score 0.8244944351851853

Suspected Black Axe gang leaders face cybercrime charges in the US

Five alleged leaders of the Black Axe cybercrime syndicate, known for its involvement in global-scale cyber-enabled financial fraud, have been extradited to the United States to face wire fraud and money laundering charges. [...]

Security securitymalwarevulnerabilities
BBC News — World Sep 15 Score 0.8233049564814815

Nato jets down drone that entered Lithuanian airspace

The origin of the drone is currently unknown, but authorities say it likely entered Lithuania from neighbouring Belarus, an ally of Russia.

Geopolitics geopoliticsbbcworld-news
The Verge Sep 15 Score 0.8229493629629631

Microsoft issues emergency Windows 11 update to fix its record-breaking patch

Microsoft has started rolling out an emergency out-of-band update to fix problems with its record-breaking September patch Tuesday update. The software giant patched nearly 1,000 flaws in its biggest update ever this month, but it also introduced some bugs tha

Technology technologygadgetsconsumer
War on the Rocks Sep 15 Score 0.8206003537037038

Three Patrons, Three Clients: The Mecca Alliance No One Owns

Every alliance contains a struggle over who gets to decide what the alliance is for. The unusual thing about the Mecca Alliance, formally known as the "Mecca Joint Defence Agreement," is that all three of its members appear to believe they possess something th

Geopolitics geopoliticsmilitarystrategy
The Verge Sep 15 Score 0.8197604740740742

Volvo’s plug-in hybrid XC60 and XC90 can really go the distance

Most plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) today get an average of around 30-50 miles of battery-only range: decent, but not mind-blowing. With hybrid sales dominating the market today, Volvo is out to prove that its PHEVs can push the limits of what's possi

Technology technologygadgetsconsumer
The Guardian — World Sep 15 Score 0.8147734490740741

‘I believed the hype’: the white South Africans denied refugee status in the US

Drive to save thousands of Afrikaners from false claims of ‘white genocide’ appears to show signs of slowing When Donald Trump announced in February 2025 that the US would accept Afrikaners from South Africa as refugees, many white South Africans who believed

Geopolitics geopoliticsworld-newsinvestigative
The Guardian — World Sep 15 Score 0.8147729861111112

Ebola outbreak in DRC has peaked, say authorities, as infection rates slow

Almost 3,500 people have died in outbreak and experts say more must be done to ensure Bundibugyo is under control Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have announced that the Ebola outbreak ravaging parts of the country has reached its peak. For

Geopolitics geopoliticsworld-newsinvestigative
The Verge Sep 15 Score 0.8084766777777779

Valve is still figuring out ‘how and when’ to do Steam Deck 2

Now that Valve has finally launched its entire 2026 hardware lineup - the Steam Controller, the Steam Machine, and today's Steam Frame - are we any closer to a next-gen Steam Deck handheld? Valve isn't saying so yet. The company is figuring out "how and when w

Technology technologygadgetsconsumer
The Verge Sep 14 Score 0.8064183444444445

Is Big Tech’s AI slowdown a safety pact or a cartel?

When OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Google DeepMind cofounder Demis Hassabis, and SpaceX head Elon Musk loosely agreed over the weekend to slow down AI development, skeptics spotted an ulterior motive immediately. The AI titans had declared

Technology technologygadgetsconsumer
The Verge Sep 14 Score 0.805562325925926

Apple Home’s new security camera features cost as much as $60 a month

With the public release of iOS 27 and tvOS 27, Apple Home is getting an injection of Apple Intelligence - but you'll have to pay more for it. Apple Intelligence for Home brings AI-powered video summaries to HomeKit Secure Video, so you can get short text descr

Technology technologygadgetsconsumer
BleepingComputer Sep 14 Score 0.8028800833333334

Microsoft releases emergency Windows updates to fix RDS failures

Microsoft has released emergency out-of-band Windows updates to fix Remote Desktop Services failures caused by this month's security updates, along with Hyper-V and USB audio problems on some Windows versions. [...]

Security securitymalwarevulnerabilities
SANS Internet Storm Center Sep 14 Score 0.7990309680555556

Apple Updates Everything, (Mon, Sep 14th)

Today, Apple released its annual update across all its operating systems. With that, Apple not only released new features but also patched 261 different vulnerabilities. This is the most vulnerabilities Apple has ever patched, but the increase is not as signif

Security securitythreatsiocs
MIT Technology Review Sep 14 Score 0.7979373291666667

The AI industry has taken a doomer turn. What now?

This story appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. This weekend, Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, posted an essay calling for a brake on the pace of development of LLMs. Amodei cit

Technology technologyresearchsociety
MIT Technology Review Sep 14 Score 0.7950854773148148

Donated livers can be made biologically younger

Once an organ is removed from a donor’s body, the clock starts ticking. Surgeons usually flush the organ with a preservative solution, bag it, and put it on ice—where it immediately starts to degrade. The team has a matter of hours to get it into a recipient’s

Technology technologyresearchsociety
MIT Technology Review Sep 14 Score 0.7947604773148149

AI agents blew the whistle on their cheating colleagues

A group of AI agents asked to solve a series of math problems split into rival factions—when some cheated, others tried to stop them. That whistleblowing behavior, seen for the first time in a recent experiment run by Google DeepMind, could have implications f

Technology technologyresearchsociety
Google AI Blog Sep 14 Score 0.7947604555555556

DevFest is back

DevFest 2026 is back and here’s how you can connect with one of the more than 800 global events to build, secure, and scale in the agentic AI era.

AI aigoogleresearch
CISA Cybersecurity Advisories Sep 14 Score 0.7880938907407408

CISA Adds One Known Exploited Vulnerability to Catalog

CISA has added one new vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog , based on evidence of active exploitation. CVE-2026-76461 Cisco Secure Email Gateway SQL Injection Vulnerability This type of vulnerability is a frequent attack vector f

Security securitycisaadvisoriesvulnerabilities
GamesIndustry.biz Sep 14 Score 0.7642227509259261

Level-5 CEO admits using generative AI in recent showcase

Level-5 president and CEO Akihiro Hino has apologized after confirming that generative AI was used in the studio's recent digital showcase. Read more

Gaming gamingindustrybusinessdevelopment
Schneier on Security Sep 11 Score 0.7581898222222221

Friday Squid Blogging: Rotting Squid on a Beached California Boat

Smells awful : But an estimated 30 to 50 tons of dead squid remain inside the boat's catch tank, where they have been decomposing for days. "That is nasty. I wouldn't want to do that," said commercial fisherman Dick Ogg of the Bodega Bay Fishermen's Marketing

Security securitycryptographypolicy
Schneier on Security Sep 11 Score 0.7532717666666666

My Talk at DEF CON

Last month, I gave a talk at DEF CON on AI hacking: what happens when AIs become hackers. It's a combination of the potentialities I raised in my 2022 book A Hacker's Mind and the lessons we're learning from current AI models engaging in hacking behavior. I'm

Security securitycryptographypolicy
Game Developer Sep 14 Score 0.7526730523148148

Moss developer Polyarc has shut down

The Seattle-based VR specialist has closed its doors after over a decade.

Gaming gamingdevelopmentdesignindustry
InfoQ Sep 15 Score 0.748371787037037

Presentation: Lead Without a Ladder: How I Climbed Into Engineering Leadership

Pauline Jepp explains how systems thinking, rock climbing, and flocking behaviors apply to engineering leadership. She shares strategies for balancing team autonomy with alignment, supporting invisible work like mentorship, and navigating transitions from hand

IT itengineeringarchitecture
InfoQ Sep 15 Score 0.7480940092592593

Grab's Agent Framework LLM-Kit Accelerates AI Agent Production Deployment

Grab has implemented LLM-Kit, a framework that standardizes over 500 internal agent services. This system enhances service integration, evaluation, and secret handling, reducing the time to deploy new AI agents from two weeks to one hour. It centralizes infras

IT itengineeringarchitecture
Quanta Magazine Sep 11 Score 0.7468350208333332

Why Do These Fossil Shells Flip Their Spirals Every Few Millennia?

The mystery of the flipping foraminifera may conceal a rarely observed evolutionary process playing out across the planet. The post Why Do These Fossil Shells Flip Their Spirals Every Few Millennia? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Science sciencemathematicsphysicsbiology
New Scientist Sep 15 Score 0.7464273342592592

How I made a slime mould the protagonist of my new sci-fi novel

How do you get the science right in a sci-fi book? Columnist Annalee Newitz started by asking many kinds of researchers lots of very strange questions – and ended up in love with slime moulds

Science scienceresearchsociety
NASA News Sep 15 Score 0.7398999388888889

APOD: 2026 September 15 – A Daytime Eclipse: Moon Occults Venus

APOD Science APOD APOD: 2026 September 15 – A… Today’s APOD Archive Submissions Index Search Calendar RSS Education About Discuss APOD Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is fea

Science sciencenasaspace
InfoQ Sep 15 Score 0.7392051199074074

Amazon Linux 2027 Enters Public Preview with SELinux Enforcing by Default

AWS has released Amazon Linux 2027 in public preview, built on the AL2023 baseline with kernel 7.1 and SELinux in enforcing mode by default. Applications that pass on AL2023's permissive mode may fail under enforcing. The announcement gives no AL2023 end-of-su

IT itengineeringarchitecture
ScienceDaily — Top Science Sep 15 Score 0.737948412037037

Plague was killing entire families thousands of years before the Black Death

Ancient DNA reveals that plague was already killing hunter-gatherers in Siberia 5,500 years ago, long before cities and flea-driven epidemics. The prehistoric strains may have been especially dangerous because they carried a genetic factor capable of provoking

Science scienceresearchdiscoveries
NASA News Sep 14 Score 0.7282073462962962

Webinar 9/23: NASA CSDA Program Update 2026

This webinar will provide an overview of the CSDA program’s goals and activities, including the new Cal/Val initiative, and more.

Science sciencenasaspace
NASA News Sep 14 Score 0.72476105

New Crops, Health Research Proposals to Help NASA Advance Exploration

NASA has selected 12 new investigations to help support human explorers in space. Six will help advance the ability to produce food off-planet, while another six advance the understanding of how unique conditions associated with space exploration can impact th

Science sciencenasaspace
Kubernetes Blog Sep 14 Score 0.7239274958333334

Kubernetes v1.37: Memory QoS Graduates to Beta

Memory QoS has graduated to Beta in Kubernetes v1.37 and is now enabled by default. On Linux nodes running cgroup v2, the feature uses the memory controller to give the kernel better guidance on how to treat container memory. It was first introduced as Alpha i

IT itkubernetescontainers
Kubernetes Blog Sep 14 Score 0.7239274958333334

Kubernetes Changed Block Tracking API - Beta Differences

Changed Block Tracking (CBT) support for CSI drivers shipped as Alpha in September 2025. With the March 2026 v1.0.0 release of the external-snapshot-metadata project, the feature moved to Beta . If you aren't yet familiar with changed block tracking for storag

IT itkubernetescontainers
NASA News Sep 14 Score 0.7210420685185185

NASA Welcomes Djibouti as Newest Artemis Accords Signatory

The Republic of Djibouti became the 72nd nation and eighth African country to sign the Artemis Accords during a ceremony Monday at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The Artemis Accords are the first set of practical principles aimed at enhancing transparency, s

Science sciencenasaspace
FRED Blog Sep 14 Score 0.7147602393518518

Measuring money with M2

The takeaway The Fed's monetary aggregates measure the amount of money in the economy. One such measure is M2, which includes liquid assets such as checking accounts but excludes non-liquid assets such as individual retirement accounts. What is M2? M2 …

Economy economydataindicatorsfederal-reserve
Marginal Revolution Sep 15 Score 0.7081996555555554

Those new service sector jobs

Horwitz is in the business of playing a version of mom for local college students. Concierge companies offering student support have existed for decades. But in recent years, a new crop of upstarts — such as Horwitz’s company, MindyKnows; the Bama Mama in Alab

Economy economyeconomicscommentaryblog
Marginal Revolution Sep 15 Score 0.7030982666666665

Did the ACA reduce mortality?

Many of us brought up related points at the time, but basically we were booed off the reservation: While recent research has provided evidence that the Medicaid expansions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) reduced mortality, there is no evidence on the effect o

Economy economyeconomicscommentaryblog
Marginal Revolution Sep 14 Score 0.6837325259259258

Monday assorted links

1. Will driverless cars increase or reduce urban density? 2. One decomposition approach to why interest rates have been going up. 3. New Guinness record holders. 4. Is there any chance of finding Rembrandt DNA? 5. "Abundance Corps is hosting Making Progress, a

Economy economyeconomicscommentaryblog