Technology

• Hebrew University physicists estimate a single superconducting vortex can act as a memory bit at about five times Landauer's limit, at 4.2 kelvin
• The fivefold figure is a simulation-based estimate anchored to continuous-drive measurements, not a measured erasure, however
• The release's million-fold edge over conventional computers disregards refrigeration costs

Every time a computer erases a bit, it pays an energy toll that physics will not waive; IBM physicist Rolf Landauer pinned down the minimum in 1961: kT ln 2, a figure that scales with temperature and works out to about 2.9 zeptojoules at room temperature.

No real chip comes close, making that gap a favorite target as computing's electricity bill keeps climbing.

Physicists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem now say they have come within about five times of that floor using a single superconducting vortex, a nanoscale whirlpool of electrical current.

Storing a bit in a whirlpool might be a slightly controversial play

The work, published in Nature Communications on September 24 and publicized in a university release on October 11, is a clever measurement, but it has limitations: the device works only at liquid-helium temperatures, and one of the paper's three peer reviewers has opposed the final version.

In a thin superconducting film, a magnetic field can punch through in tiny tubes, each ringed by circulating current and carrying one quantum of flux, and these vortices snag on defects.

The team, led by Yonathan Anahory, used a 55-nanometer niobium film patterned into a strip 10 micrometers wide and cooled to 4.2 kelvin. Sweeping a steady current through the strip nudged individual vortices into spots where the film's natural disorder offers two neighboring resting places only a few nanometers apart. The positioning matters here, acting effectively as a store of value: left or right becomes zero or one.

They then rocked each vortex with an alternating current and tracked it with a SQUID-on-tip microscope, a magnetic sensor built onto a tapered glass probe. The part of the motion that lags behind the push reveals how much energy is lost each cycle.

Anahory said the result puts the bit at roughly five times Landauer's limit, “bringing it remarkably close to the minimum permitted by physics.” The release covers the energy as measured for the actual test, not the cooling aspect, which could significantly reduce the efficiency story here.

The paper adds another caveat here: Its abstract concedes that “our experimental method requires a steady sinusoidal drive incompatible with Landauer’s erasure protocol” and attributes the near-limit figure to numerical analysis.

The lab measured dissipation while vortices were wiggled back and forth continuously; the cost of a true erasure, forcing a bit of unknown value into a known state, was estimated with simulations anchored to that data. The fivefold number is the authors' estimate for a working bit driven at 150 kHz, spelled out in their replies to reviewers.

This has, however, spurred a peer review fight, also published by Nature Communications, which lists the unusually blunt referee reports alongside the paper.

Reviewer #2 rejected the first draft, said the second could run only with extra experiments, and recommended against the final version, opening with “Authors write that they measure work. It is not true.” The reviewer argued that force, displacement, and work were estimated or inferred rather than observed, and asked for two sanity checks: show the vortex being pushed into one well and staying there, and show its spontaneous hopping changing with temperature, as thermal activation predicts.

The authors declined both, citing scanning drift that limits static imaging to about 20 nanometers and noting that changing temperature also reshapes the pinning landscape.

Reviewer #3 backed publication, calling the work original and sound and warning that the extra experiments could delay it indefinitely. Reviewer #1 judged the technique ill-suited to erasure at useful speeds and encouraged a more modest title.

Speed is the tradeoff

Not only is the cost of cooling unaccounted for, with real-world refrigeration costs not being factored in, but the bigger problem is also speed. Landauer's limit is only reachable if you take your time, and work by Proesmans, Ehrich, and Bechhoefer shows that the extra cost of erasure rises as operations speed up.

The Hebrew University estimate applies at 150 kHz, or essentially one operation every 6.7 microseconds, while superconducting logic chips were clocked at 6 GHz more than a decade ago.

Going slower does not help either. By the authors' own noise data, the two wells central to the near-limit result let the vortex hop on its own roughly 3,000 to 7,000 times a second at 4.2 K.

The authors argue that this is fine as long as operations run much faster than the hopping. But it means the most efficient wells hold information for well under a millisecond, and the paper does not show a single well that is both near the limit and able to keep data for long.

The tradeoff, therefore, is one between speed, cost, and durability, and given that the use case is data storage, it is a tough call to make. Vortex memory is not entirely new; the Hebrew University contribution is energy accounting, and its claim to a first is narrow, though it uses a single vortex.

The Hebrew University team has produced a careful, somewhat contested estimate of how cheaply a single vortex can be shuffled between two spots, and a reminder that sitting close to the physical limit and being efficient at the wall socket are very different things.

• Withings users must now pay a hefty premium to sync data to Apple Health
• The change requires a $100 annual subscription to Withings+
• Customers are incredibly unhappy with the move

The whole point of using a health and fitness tracker, one would think, is to be able to analyze your data in order to understand your own well-being. New users of Withings’ smart scales, however, have just been stung with an extortionate annual subscription if they want to enjoy that privilege.

As noted on the Withings forum, the company has decided to lock the ability to sync your wellness metrics to the Apple Health app behind a paywall. And this isn’t just some token fee either — you’ll be charged a whopping $99.99 a year. All to do what has always been free (and what many rivals still offer at no cost).

Withings apparently justified the move to the forum poster by citing unspecified “privacy measures” and an “AI connector.” Yet syncing data to Apple Health using the HealthKit framework doesn’t require any server-side processing or hefty AI lifting that might justify such an expensive fee. Instead, the paywall simply gives the impression of being an opportunistic revenue booster.

The post on the Withings forum described the move as a “silent and incredibly anti-consumer change” and pointed out that anyone who signed up on or after October 13, 2026, would be subject to it. Existing users won’t be forced to pay, but that’ll come as little consolation to everyone else.

A controversial move

(Image credit: Getty Images)

It’s safe to say that the optics don’t look good for Withings, and users have been understandably upset at the move. The original poster on the Withings forum labeled the change “an obvious cash grab” that “ruins the hardware experience and destroys the trust in the brand,” adding that “We shouldn't have to pay a subscription to access our own health data.”

On Reddit, users echoed that dissatisfaction, saying “$99 a year is a real joke” and, about Withings’ decision-makers, “They are digging their own grave.” Another Redditor asked, “Why would I ever buy another Withings product, let alone recommend the products to other people, if you have to pay a subscription to access your own data?”

A Withings representative tried to explain that the $99.99 Withings+ subscription includes other features — including “An improved Health Assistant” and “Better-priced access to medical services” — but no user seems to care about any of that. The main concern is the decision to lock a fundamental feature behind a paywall when said feature appears to require no additional costs on Withings’ part.

Given the strength of the customer reaction already, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Withings backtrack and unlock Apple Health syncing in the near future. With many users already saying they’ll either ditch their Withings devices or abstain from buying one in the first place, the ball is firmly in Withings’ court.

AI has changed many aspects of the professional world, especially the practice of software development and engineering. A swathe of tools and platforms now enable programmers to use AI assistants and copilots – as well as swarms of agents – to work on building systems autonomously, based on instructions. And for one key figure in the AI space, this was something of an inevitability.

Going viral

In a viral post on the social media platform X, one of the key figures behind the conception of OpenAI, Andrej Karpathy, remarked on the future of programming, provoking a reaction from many in the industry at the time.

Quote of the day

This article is part of TechRadar Pro's QOTD project to provide an insight into the minds of the brightest and most recognized figures in the technology industry today and in years gone by. Read the full series here.

ChatGPT had launched a few months prior to that, and developers were already familiar with the basic level of coding that the chatbot could perform, especially in popular languages such as Python and HTML. Much of this was also based on simple text-based instructions – meaning that the AI models could understand and process natural language and churn out complex programming in a way that hadn't been seen before.

Karpathy, who in 2024 co-founded Eureka Labs, an AI education platform, perfectly encapsulated the feeling, with the tech industry in the process of understanding the full implications of this technology.

Good vibes only

Karpathy added in a follow-up post that many examples out there in scientific literature showed that natural language was capable of wielding AI to engage in complex programming. These findings served as a collective precursor to many enterprise features that we see in widespread use today, such as GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, and others.

However, the rise of vibe coding and instructions-based programming also means that the nature of the work is changing for many software developers. Many now simply review code instead of writing it themselves, engaging in validation and bug-squashing.

Thus, the role of software development is becoming something that requires fewer and fewer juniors. This, however, may lead to other unintended consequences – including the fact that the traditional career pipeline is permanently changed.

L-shaped standing desks remain quite a niche pursuit, in my experience. They're ideal if you need additional desktop space. They're more than capable of lifting more than your standard desk, which is ideal for multi-monitor setups. But they also need a lot of room.

Still, for me, the Uplift V3 L-shaped standing desk is one of the best models around. It remained rock-solid in my real-world tests, with a massive 535lb lifting capacity thanks to the surprisingly quiet triple motors.

Given the absolute size of this unit, it's unlikely to be the best standing desk I've tested for most office professionals. But for those that need a stable desk with plenty of space to work on, there's a lot on offer here that I like.

Uplift V3 L-Shaped Standing Desk: Price and Availability

The Uplift V3 L-shaped desk is available direct from the manufacturer's website.

Prices start at $1,000, it comes in a range of styles, and you can expand it to make it a little fancier if you like and still get exactly what you want for a little cheaper.

What you choose, whether that's the barreled-shaped frame that goes all the way down to $1,719 if you just want the frame, or if you do end up choosing a desktop to go with it, you can absolutely make sure that you check Uplift's website to make sure you're getting the best deals.

All Uplift desks come with a standard 15-year warranty, which shows just how much they believe in the product. They also sell pretty much everything you need accessory-wise, and I've had great experiences with these, too.

(Image credit: Collin Probst // Future )Uplift V3 L-Shaped Standing Desk: Unboxing and First Impressions

Let this be a warning to you - learn from my mistakes. I should have followed the instructions I sent, built a standard desk, built the accessories piece, sanded it, and then attached the waterslide.

However, I got slightly distracted and rushed, so I ended up building the entire thing on the floor. I then had to flip it very, very, very carefully and nearly broke my foot, broke my toe, and ended up cutting off the top of the desk pretty significantly (if you look at the pictures) due to messing up a screw because I was once again rushing and trying to solve my issues.

I can't blame Uplift for this. The instructions were clear. I just did not listen. Thankfully, we also got a spectacular desktop on Uplift, so I can use it to cover the gouge from the screw I misplaced during assembly.

Once assembled, I was thrilled with how clean and sharp the desk looked. The power bar attached just as easily as the others. The little desk shelf added a nice elevation change for gear, and the desktop material itself was just as good as I hoped.

(Image credit: Collin Probst // Future )Uplift V3 L-Shaped Standing Desk: Design and Build Quality

L-shaped standing desks have been hit or miss for me. I have used some that were super sturdy and strong, and others that feel like they're not even worth it.

Uplift, on the other hand, does it right, and they make sure the added leg and extension actually add stability, not just complexity. At max height, which I seem to be putting it at often since I'm fairly tall and like to adjust cables a lot, this desk is still just as stable as when it's at its lowest.

I haven't had any issues adjusting the height over these 90+ days, and there have been zero responsiveness issues. The desk responds quickly when I press the buttons to move it, and it jumps directly to the designated preset height, just as I would expect.

Over the last several months, my only qualm has been the gash in the desktop that I made myself. Once again, once we moved the desk mat over it, we now barely notice that, and actually don't notice it at all.

(Image credit: Collin Probst // Future )Uplift V3 L-Shaped Standing Desk: In use

I've already gone into this a bit, but over the last 3 months or so, this desk has done excellently across my team.

We've changed the setup a few times, but the guy on my team who normally uses this desk prefers to keep it pretty simple. He uses a laptop, lots of physical books for research, and some photos. It never missed a beat.

(Image credit: Collin Probst // Future )

(Image credit: Collin Probst // Future )Uplift V3 L-Shaped Standing Desk: Final verdict

If you're looking for an L-shaped standing desk and you're willing to spend a little extra to get something quality, long-lasting, and customizable, then the Uplift V3 L-shaped standing desk is definitely one you should consider.

It's got a ton of options on both desktop and materials. It's got great accessories. It's easy to build if you follow the instructions, unlike me. Now, nearly 100 days in, I can confidently say it doesn't just look good at first; it actually runs well after I've pushed it hard for several months.

I have no doubt this desk will last for years with basic care and maintenance, and it will keep serving well for a long time.

Collin Probst // Future Collin Probst // Future Collin Probst // Future Collin Probst // Future Collin Probst // Future Collin Probst // Future Collin Probst // Future Collin Probst // Future Collin Probst // Future Collin Probst // Future Collin Probst // Future Collin Probst // Future Collin Probst // Future Collin Probst // Future

Turn on the Surveillance option and you’ll see tiny eyeballs on the map marking the cameras’ locations.

• LG's FLiPP tech could deliver Tandem OLED performance for much less
• Will arrive on smaller displays first, don't expect it on TVs for several years
• Production for laptop and monitor screens could start in 2027

If you're a fan of OLED, there's an exciting new acronym you need to know: FLiPP. It stands for FMM-Less innovative Pixel Patterning, and the FMM bit refers to fine metal masks. Those are normally used in OLED manufacturing to precisely place the organic emissive materials.

With FLiPP, there's no mask. Instead, the materials are deposited across the glass, given a protective layer and then refined using photolithography and etching to get rid of the unwanted sections.

The biggest single advantage to FLiPP is efficiency. According to trade site The Elec, LG Display found that the tech increased the utilization rate – the efficiency of the production – from 75% in a conventional FMM process to over 93% in a FLiPP process.

That's good news for us, because more efficient production means lower production costs. And that ultimately means we could see much better OLEDs without higher prices.

FLiPP also improved utilization of the organic emissive materials from 40% to 74%, boosted the pixel aperture ratio (how much of the pixel area emits light) to 65%, and enabled the light-emitting area to boost luminance by 1.6x, longevity by 2.4x or reduce power consumption by 13%.

So that means these OLED screens can brighter, or they can be more reliable, or they can use less power, depending on the preference of the device. But in the near future, those devices will almost certainly be laptops and monitors, and not TVs — sadly for those desperate for the price of the best OLED TVs to drop.

LG Display announced the technology at the International Meeting on Information Display (IMID) 2026 (Image credit: LG Display)What the FLiPP?

LG Display's Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Choi Young-seok says that the technology is still in the first development stage. The next stage would be developing actual products, and the third stage is mass production.

That third stage will initially concentrate on the monitor market where displays are smaller — the improved efficiency figures mentioned above were for 23.5-inch panels — but laptops are apparently on the cards as well. LG Display has said it expects to reach this point by late 2027 — so the first products might appear at CES 2028.

According to Cho Heung-ryeol, who is the head of the Next-Generation Display Division, LG Display is currently evaluating its existing LCD and WOLED production lines to see if they can be reused without major modifications, or if new plant would need to be purchased. The former option is of course the preferred one. Either way, LG Display still plans for production to start in around a year.

If you'd like to know more about the technical side of FLiPP and how it compares to other OLED manufacturing processes, The Elec has published a transcript of LG Display's online seminar and you can read it here.

• AMD's proposed rack combines 32,768 CPU cores with 16 AI accelerators
• Traditional data centers may need new power and cooling infrastructure
• AMD divides agent workloads into personal, enterprise, and technical computing categories

AMD is developing a rack-scale computing system for artificial intelligence agents, with configurations designed for personal, enterprise, and technical workloads.

Dubbed Helion Agentic AI Rack, it supports up to 32,768 Zen 6 x86 CPU cores, 16 Instinct MI350P accelerators, and 74 petaflops of FP4 computing performance.

The proposed platform also supports 102 Tbps of networking bandwidth and uses modular hardware designed for different agent computing requirements.

A rack built around three kinds of AI agents

AMD groups agent workloads into three categories: personal assistants, enterprise applications, and technical computing, each with different processing requirements.

Personal agents need dense, energy-efficient servers; enterprise applications require a balance between agent capacity and performance; while technical workloads prioritize processing speed.

AMD allows operators to customize CPU core density, processing performance, and power consumption according to their workloads.

The hyperscale configuration uses CPU-only infrastructure, while the enterprise version combines processors and graphics accelerators within an integrated rack.

For personal agents, the system uses 256-core Venice processors operating at 400W, prioritizing processing density and power efficiency.

Enterprise workloads use the 256-core Venice processors rated at 600W, while technical computing uses 96-core, high-frequency Venice processors.

The enterprise configuration separates agent execution, inference, and general-purpose computing into distinct server nodes.

CPU sandbox nodes handle agent execution, Instinct MI350P accelerators support inference, and general-purpose servers accommodate databases, storage, and technical computing.

AMD also includes an integrated token router for directing agent model requests across frontier and open-source models.

The rack supports programmable networking, an open-source software ecosystem, and ORv3 44OU hardware compliant with Open Compute Project specifications.

Why traditional data centers may need substantial changes

Traditional data centers are built for standard cloud or legacy enterprise computing, not racks packing up to 32,768 Zen 6 CPU cores alongside heavy GPU configurations.

Therefore, facilities built around existing server arrangements may lack the appropriate combination of power delivery, cooling capacity and network infrastructure for these configurations.

Workload diversity creates another challenge because personal agents, enterprise applications and technical computing require different processing characteristics.

AMD's proposed rack mixes dense 256-core processors with 96-core high-frequency systems, requiring infrastructure that can accommodate different server types and operating requirements.

This creates a planning challenge for data centers, which must allocate rack space, power, and cooling to different server configurations instead of deploying identical systems.

Operators may need to modify existing infrastructure if it cannot support the selected combination of high-core-count and high-frequency servers.

Networking introduces an additional consideration because the rack supports up to 102 Tbps of bandwidth and integrates a programmable token router.

Existing facilities may need compatible networking equipment and software to support this throughput and route model requests across different AI systems.

The Helion Agentic AI Rack is scheduled for availability in November 2026, but AMD has not disclosed complete facility upgrade costs or cooling requirements.

Apple reportedly plans an Oct. 28 hardware event, with touchscreen MacBook Pros, M6 Macs, and an OLED iPad mini expected. See what buyers should know.

The post Apple Reportedly Plans Oct. 28 Event for Touchscreen MacBooks and More appeared first on TechRepublic.

• Oxylabs, Decodo, Webshare, ScrapingBee, and Honeygain now formally sit under one Vilnius-based umbrella called Source
• Source claims AI agents drove a fourfold increase in demand for services across its organizations
• The brands, previously reviewed as rivals, including three of TechRadar's nine best-proxy picks, now officially share common oversight

Oxylabs, Decodo, Webshare, ScrapingBee, and Honeygain have formally come together under a single name, Source, and the Lithuanian group behind them says AI agents are why it needed one.

The Vilnius-based ecosystem claims demand across its companies has risen fourfold in a year as AI agents, next-generation search tools, and frontier AI products pull live data from the web.

Its systems now process 1.5 million requests per second, and that it is expanding into web search APIs built specifically for AI agents.

One umbrella with five different, competing shopfronts?

Source presents itself as a backbone rather than a business. Its launch post says it has no customers or products of its own; instead, it handles patents, procurement, hiring, and compliance, while each brand keeps its own team, product strategy, and customer base.

The brands are split by customer type. Oxylabs serves enterprises and AI labs; Decodo (formerly Smartproxy) targets the mid-market; ScrapingBee sells developer APIs; Webshare serves professional consumers and solo builders; and Honeygain pays ordinary people for their spare bandwidth.

For anyone shopping for a proxy service, this is the most practical takeaway. Oxylabs bought Webshare in 2022 and ScrapingBee in 2025, and Honeygain became its main residential proxy sourcing partner in 2021.

Decodo's ties were less clear-cut until now, and trade site Proxyway notes that the launch officially links Oxylabs and Decodo under one organization. Source CEO Vytautas Savickas ran Decodo until March 2026, when he moved across to lead the Oxylabs group and founder Julius Černiauskas became chairman.

All of this points to a marriage of convenience rather than a merger by organizations that are already very closely interlinked. This is interesting because some of these brands have been sold and reviewed as alternatives to one another.

The best example of this is that three of the nine picks in TechRadar's own best proxy sites guide now belong to Source: Decodo as best overall, Oxylabs as best for business, and Webshare as best for privacy.

For context on the overlap, our residential proxy roundup described Oxylabs as one of Decodo's toughest competitors. Source says the companies remain fully independent in strategy, customers, and market presence, and that may well hold commercially, but common oversight is now a matter of record.

The release provided to TechRadar says Source gives the group "a unified voice in defending responsible access to public web data," and its legal history explains the appetite.

Reddit sued Oxylabs alongside Perplexity, SerpApi and AWMProxy in October 2025, alleging they evaded its anti-scraping measures by lifting Reddit content from Google search results. Oxylabs said it was "shocked and disappointed" and would defend itself.

It was still listed as a defendant in filings this spring, and in late July a federal judge allowed Reddit's core claims against SerpApi and Perplexity to proceed. Further back, a Texas jury awarded rival Bright Data nearly $7.5 million against Oxylabs in a 2021 patent case.

Source's own essay on AI agents and the open web argues that if access is negotiated one licensing deal at a time, only the biggest companies will be able to afford it. This makes a convenient argument for a large web scraping group, but the gatekeeping fears are real.

The most concrete product promised here is AI search, and it is older than the umbrella itself: Oxylabs already offers a Web API that pairs a search endpoint with a scraping endpoint for agents, so the "dedicated AI Search APIs" promised look more like an expansion of existing work than a new product line.

For customers, the questions to watch are whether the brands keep competing on price, how clearly each one discloses their newfound relationship, and how the Reddit case plays out for Oxylabs.

For everyone else, Source is a bet that AI agents will keep needing the live web, and that the companies supplying the pipes deserve a seat at the table when the rules for that access get written, aiming to negotiate from a clustered position of strength.

Training of the Waymo robotaxis will begin in the coming days, but you won’t be able to book a ride till 2028.

• Brad Smith hits back at Trump administration's decision to target Microsoft
• Five out of six tech/science medal holders were born outside of the US
• "We should all be worried," Smith says

Microsoft President Brad Smith has warned that new restrictions under the Trump administration could severely damage America's technology industry by limiting its access to skilled migrants.

Speaking with Politico, Smith criticized the administration's decision to restrict Microsoft's ability to sponsor skilled foreign employees for permanent US residency under the green card scheme.

By discouraging workers from moving to America, Smith worries that they could be incentivized to move to other countries, both losing America access to skilled professionals while simultaneously boosting other countries' access.

Smith hits back at Trump administration to limit green card

Microsoft's President's comments come in a response to US Vice President JD Vance's October 8 2026 memo declaring that Microsoft and seven other companies would be suspended from sponsoring foreign workers for permanent residency.

"Our message to Microsoft is, you’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers," Vance said (via The Guardian). "You cannot lay off American workers and then replace them with foreign indentured servants."

Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Capgemini, Tata, Wipro and HCL are also impacted by the changes.

"I think we should all be worried about sending – intentionally or inadvertently or otherwise – signals that send the most talented next wave of AI [or] SI software engineers to other countries, rather than the United States," Smith said.

Smith also criticized the Trump administration for failing to get the numbers right about its green card applications, calling Vance's comments "completely off base" and slating the government because "the green card backlog is so long."

"We should consider the fact that when the president honored six Americans with these technology and science medals, five of the six had come to the United States as immigrants," he added.

The next steps continue to play out, but legal challenges and international worker uncertainty could both be on the cards.

• AI giants are investing billions to train engineers in a bid to help their customers
• US FDE engineer jobs rose 6x year-over-year, two years in a row
• Consultancies are advertising the most FDE jobs, it seems

US tech giants are now spending billions of dollars deploying specialist engineers to help their customers realize the benefits of AI, with AWS, Anthropic, OpenAI and Google all recently announcing expansions to their forward-deployed engineer (FDE) programs.

We've already surpassed the point that model capabilities were the limit – now, companies are struggling with legacy infrastructure and identifying real-world use cases, so AI developers are getting involved to help them out.

As part of the ongoing shift in how AI is being sold, those developers are no longer just selling their AI to customers – they're also taking responsibility over its deployment.

FDEs are the future of enterprise AI adoption

Already, we've seen OpenAI backing its FDE business with a massive $4 billion investment and AWS footing a $1 billion bill for FDEs, while Anthropic shared plans to train 10,000 specialist engineers by the end of 2027.

Lightcast research even highlights the extensive growth in FDE job roles, with around 200 FDE job ads shared in the US in 2023 and a similar number in 2024. By 2025, this had increased 6x to around 1,200 advertised positions, yet in the first nine months of 2026 the report found 7,300 roles, another 6x increase year-over-year.

"As businesses move from developing AI technology to applying it, they need professionals who can bridge the gap between technical products and operational problems," the report explains.

Interestingly, three of the four top companies advertising roles were consultancies (Deloitte, Accenture and KPMG), with just one of them being a tech firm (Google). Consultancies are positioning themselves as a key part of the chain, and Anthropic's recent announcement to support engineer roles within third-party consultancies aligns with this emerging trend.

Lightcast Head of Global Research Elena Magrini explained in an interview with CNBC that a sharp growth in wages also implies that these companies are fighting over a limited pool of talent.

Looking ahead, the most successful AI companies may no longer be the ones with the most advanced models – rather, they could be the ones using human engineers in the best way to gain more customers.

The Corsair Vengeance line of RAM remains one of the best desktop memory kits we've ever tested. Amid sky-high RAM prices, we've been tracking discounts on the range built for both performance and eye-catching aesthetics.

If you're building or upgrading a modern Intel or AMD rig with a generous pool of fast, reliable memory, Corsair's Vengeance RGB 32GB DDR5-6000 CL36 kit has dropped to $510 (was $546) at Best Buy. In contrast, both Newegg and Corsair have the Intel-only model at this price.

32GB is a comfortable amount of headroom for gaming, multitasking, and most content creation work, and the CL36 timings at 6000MT/s strike a reasonable balance between speed and price for DDR5.

Vengence 32GB DDR5-6000 RAM kit: was $545.99 now $509.99
Two 16GB DDR5 modules running at up to 6000MT/s with CL36-44-44-96 timings and AMD Expo and Intel XMP 3.0 support for one-click overclocking. Each module features ten individually addressable RGB LEDs across a panoramic light bar, controllable through Corsair's iCUE software, along with onboard voltage regulation for more stable overclocking.View Deal

Why we recommend it

Vengeance RGB is one of Corsair's most established DDR5 lines, and this kit hits a sensible middle ground: fast enough to make a real difference in gaming and multitasking, priced well below Corsair's flagship overclocked kits, and backed by a limited lifetime warranty.

AMD Expo and Intel XMP 3.0 support means getting to the rated 6000MT/s speed is a one-click process in most BIOS menus rather than manual tuning, and the onboard voltage regulation Corsair includes is aimed at making that overclock more stable out of the box.

At 45mm, the heat spreaders should clear most tower air coolers without issues, which isn't always guaranteed with RGB memory.

Should you buy it?

✅ Buy the Corsair Vengeance RGB 32GB kit if...

You're building or upgrading an AMD or Intel DDR5 rig and want 32GB as a comfortable baseline.

❌ Skip the Corsair Vengeance RGB 32GB kit if...

You don't want to install iCUE software to control the lighting, or you're chasing the tightest possible latency at this speed.

Price Context & Historical Value

This is the best price I can find on Corsair's CMH32GX5M2E6000Z36 SKU - this is the one that supports both Intel XMP 3.0 and AMD Expo. For comparison, the Intel-only model is also available for $510 from Newegg and direct from Corsair.

What to know before you buy

CL36 timings are respectable but not the tightest available at DDR5-6000; kits with CL30 timings offer lower latency at a similar or sometimes higher price if that matters more to you than budget. As with any high-speed memory kit, it's worth checking your motherboard's QVL list to confirm compatibility before buying, since not every board handles 6000MT/s DDR5 equally well.

There’s a phrase I often used to use when referring to Elon Musk: Don’t bet against Elon.

This stemmed from long before he became a supervillain, and was instead no more than an oddball tech-sector genius primed to become a real-life Tony Stark. It was at the tail-end of this honeymoon, in 2017, that Musk unveiled the Tesla Roadster 2020, a luxury model EV that promised insane specs and performance (0-to-60 mph in 1.9 seconds) and maybe even something we’d only dreamed of: rockets that might let it fly.

Now, for chronology sticklers, Musk did not promise rockets during Tesla's November 2017 event; it was primarily devoted to the Tesla Semi. That tease came months later on his favorite platform, Twitter, where Musk wrote:

“SpaceX option package for new Tesla Roadster will include ~10 small rocket thrusters arranged seamlessly around car. These rocket engines dramatically improve acceleration, top speed, braking & cornering. Maybe they will even allow a Tesla to fly …”

I posted my skepticism with a Tom Hanks GIF of him saying “Really?”

@LanceUlanoff @elonmusk Yes, really. https://t.co/SMt0yydSA6October 16, 2026

This morning, my X feed has been filled with people replying to that old post with “Yes, really” and wild videos of the fully redesigned Tesla Roadster flying with the aid of what appears to be 10 thrusters (SpaceX rocket engines).

In the videos shared from Musk’s launch event, the Roadster inexplicably rides up a vertical incline and then flies off it, flips over, and lands on its wheels.

Yes, a car can fly. We may not have affordable healthcare or housing, world peace, safe social media, or know if AI will save us or kill us, but we have a car that can fly.

Do a kickflip! https://t.co/DJ1Bq1yu8mOctober 16, 2026

I’m not discounting the impressive engineering or sheer audacity of the flying Tesla Roadster, but it’s been a long time since Musk crashed his own launch event with a “one-more-thing” Roadster update, and I feel different about, well, just about everything.

Back then, it had been five years since I had interviewed Musk and gotten him to playfully whistle Fly Me to the Moon. The busy entrepreneur’s personality had been shifting slowly to a more petulant and unpredictable place. I’d recently sat through a Tesla Model 3 launch where he abruptly ended a press conference without taking any real questions from journalists, and at the Semi event, he showed up incredibly late, though he did deliver the goods in the end.

I see things differently now

Now, when I look at this more geometric and rocket-filled Tesla Roadster (it looks nothing like the one I saw in 2017), it’s through the prism of everything else Musk has done in the last five or so years.

He purchased Twitter, smothered the brand, and rebooted it as the darker and often angrier X. To be fair, some now report that X has started to rekindle some of its older, kinder, and more inclusive community (I’ve experienced a bit of this myself), but it’s still a far cry from the place Musk so enjoyed when he touted all his latest Tesla and SpaceX advancements back in 2017.

Musk became not just the face of government cost-cutting; he became President Donald Trump’s weapon of choice, with the Musk-led Doge taking an axe to life-saving programs around the world.

It’s hard to reconcile the excitement of a flying car with the man who now guides it.

Or is it?

(Image credit: Getty Images)

The fact is that no one needs this car, and anyone who understands even the tiniest bit of physics (and rocket technology) knows that the power and effort to lift and fly a one-ton car is extraordinary.

Its thrusters have nothing to do with the EV motors or batteries — they’re cold-gas thrusters, which use massively compressed gas stored in a 200-liter tank and a 400-liter tank. Musk was clear that this car is not expected to be road legal, which is good, because I’m frankly terrified of the idea of something crashing into it and rupturing those tanks.

But even if he delivers multiple of these cars for the invite-only crowd it’s aimed at, and it doesn’t turn out to be a one-off (which, let’s face it, is likely), why bother? If it’s so impractical that it can never make it to American roads, or any others, what was the point outside of a fun few seconds to watch?

Musk has his devotees, and I can see them tripping over themselves to applaud the unveiling (finally, after almost a decade) of this promised Tesla Roadster update, but for many others Musk is just another inscrutable tech bro who does what he does for his own reasons with very little, if any, of them having to do with the betterment of humankind.

So, thanks for the tech showcase, Elon. You have anything for what’s really ailing the world?

• Attackers exploited vulnerable devices to install legitimate bandwidth-sharing software and hijack internet connections
• Compromised systems were covertly added to proxy networks, enabling anonymous criminal activity
• Campaign affected at least 143 devices across 34 countries, highlighting patching and access-control failures

When threat actors break into a system, they don’t need to install malware to make use of the compromised endpoint - they can install perfectly legal, normal software, and still walk away with a paycheck they didn’t earn.

A recent proxyjacking campaign spotted by security researchers GreyNoise impacted hundreds of devices in dozens of countries.

Proxyjacking

Proxyjacking is a type of attack in which a device is hijacked and assimilated into a proxy network. Usually, cybercriminals would break into a computer, install malware and create a proxy network of their own, which they can later rent or use themselves. Threat actors are always in need of “clean” and unflagged devices and IP addresses behind which they can hide, making residential proxies - both malicious and legal - highly wanted services.

Some of the biggest malicious residential proxies out there include IPIDEA, NetNut, and Cloudrouter. All of them are now either entirely dismantled, or severely disrupted, but while they were operational, they offered hundreds of thousands (sometimes millions) of IP addresses associated with an internet connection used in a household (hence the name “residential IP address”).

But malicious proxies are difficult to pull off. To assimilate a device into the network, the threat actor needs to deploy malware which, as soon as it’s spotted, will be flagged by antivirus products and quarantined. In the newest attacks, spotted by GreyNoise, someone went for a legitimate app with similar functionality, instead.

The researchers found someone installing Pawns.app, primarily a rewards platform that lets users earn money by completing online surveys and playing games. However, it used to offer a bandwidth-sharing feature that let users earn money by allowing business clients to route their internet traffic through the user’s residential IP address. At the start of the year, the app discontinued the feature, but it seems it still works for older versions.

“As of 2026, Pawns.app does not offer internet bandwidth sharing,” a notification on the app’s website reads. “This feature was discontinued and is not associated with Pawns.app anymore.” But the app’s Terms of use still describe traffic sharing as available in some versions of the application, and its business website still promotes an SDK for bandwidth monetization.

Targeting D-Link

Apparently, someone picked up on this and went to work. According to GreyNoise, they targeted D-Link ShareCenter NAS devices, Ubiquiti UniFi Video NVRs, as well as SAP NetWeaver Visual Composers. These contained different vulnerabilities: CVE-2024-3272 and CVE-2024-3273 for D-Link, CVE-2021-44228 for Ubiquiti, and

CVE-2025-31324 for SAP, which the threat actor leveraged to deploy Pawns.app. GreyNoise also said that the attackers targeted Hikvision and Dahua DVR/NVR devices, but did not say which vulnerabilities they leveraged against these devices.

At the moment of publication, the researchers identified at least 143 compromised devices worldwide, located in 34 different countries. While they all had legitimate software installed, it was deployed without their knowledge or consent, making the entire ordeal illegal.

“While “earn on your internet” is voluntary, proxyjacking is a crime. Proxyjacking is when an MCA (malicious cyber actor) forces victim devices into proxy networks in order to monetize their bandwidth,” GreyNoise warned.

If you’re worried someone might have done something similar to a device under your control, GreyNoise created a free service that lets you check if your IP interacted with its Global Observation Grid. The researchers said it can serve as a potential indicator of proxyjacking.

Apart from scanning IP addresses, businesses should educate employees about the risks associated with installing free apps, as well as about the importance of keeping devices patched. They should also detect residential proxy IP addresses in authentication logs, as well as deviations in user authentication behavior and characteristics beyond geolocation, such as mismatches in device identifiers, or session identifiers.

Via BleepingComputer

I’m no rocket scientist, but I’m not sure the vehicle on display was a fully functional car that a human can drive.

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