*🔌 Tech Daily — Saturday, 7 November 2026* • OpenAI has hit a staggering $1.25 trillion valuation as rival Anthropic accelerates toward its IPO, cementing the AI industry's dominance over global markets. • China's top spy agency reportedly recruited an AI executive to surveil Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, in one of the most audacious corporate espionage operations targeting Silicon Valley in years. • Six pallets of Nvidia GPUs worth $11.4 million were stolen in a California cargo heist, as the company simultaneously tightens tracking of its AI chips across Southeast Asia amid Chinese smuggling concerns. • Hackers behind a $6.3 billion crypto theft — now linked to Binance — spent months meticulously planning the breach, with Chainalysis separately confirming its own credentials and customer tokens were also compromised in a related attack. • Cybersecurity researchers have revealed a Linux vulnerability cheekily dubbed "*sshole" that allows attackers to remotely SSH into devices, while separate flaws in iOS and Android were also actively exploited to infect handsets. • GlobalFoundries detailed its FDX Fusion technology promising 7nm-class performance without expensive EUV tools, with high-volume manufacturing targeted for 2030 — a potential game-changer for chipmakers outside the leading-edge race. • Google's smart glasses plans are leaking despite its hardware partners' best efforts, adding fuel to XR market speculation as Android XR continues to flex its ambitions and venture funding in the space surges. • Meta's Quest 2 is officially entering its sunset phase as support winds down next year, while Sony quietly pulls PSVR 2 from its web store amid dwindling stock — signaling a generational shift in consumer VR hardware. • The EU has formally accused TikTok's recommendation algorithm of breaching its Digital Services Act by funneling users into harmful content "rabbit holes," marking one of the bloc's most significant enforcement actions against a major platform. • The US Department of Justice has launched a new unit called the Super Intelligence Task Force, a move that signals Washington is treating advanced AI as a matter of national security rather than just innovation policy. 🏆 *Editor's Pick:* The China spy-agency operation targeting Jensen Huang is today's must-read — a thriller-worthy collision of AI, geopolitics, and corporate espionage that underscores just how high the stakes around semiconductor dominance have become. ───── 📲 Follow @gadgets for daily tech news

🔌 Tech Daily — Friday, 6 November 2026 • OpenAI is walking back its use of NDAs in data center deals, a notable transparency shift for a company that has long faced scrutiny over its closed-door business practices. • Airbnb is building an AI travel agent, signalling the company's ambition to move beyond accommodation listings and into full end-to-end trip planning powered by AI. • The New York Times is reportedly in talks to acquire film-logging social network Letterboxd for around $330 million, a bold bet on community-driven entertainment media. • Perplexity has launched its own AI agent platform aimed at workplace tasks, entering a fiercely competitive space already crowded with offerings from OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft. • A combined flaw in OpenSSH and musl-libc allows anyone to log into Alpine Linux and similar distros by simply typing a password longer than 256 characters — no credentials required. • India has set a two-year target to develop homegrown GPUs and plans to commercialise its indigenous SHAKTI and VEGA processors, pushing hard for semiconductor self-sufficiency. • Chinese AI lab Moonshot reportedly explored European data centers as a workaround to access Nvidia chips, highlighting the ongoing creative lengths firms take to dodge export controls. • SpaceX is partnering with Qualcomm to bring Starlink connectivity to ground-level devices, potentially making satellite internet a seamless part of everyday mobile hardware. • Bluetooth's newly adopted High Data Throughput standard promises significantly faster speeds and improved energy efficiency, a meaningful upgrade for the wireless protocol powering billions of devices. • Veteran VR studio Schell Games has laid off 40% of its staff as it fights for survival, a stark reminder of how brutal the extended XR market downturn has become for independent developers. --- ✨ Editor's Pick: The Alpine Linux authentication bypass is today's most alarming story — a vulnerability this simple, requiring nothing more than a long string of characters to gain full SSH access to production systems, is exactly the kind of flaw that keeps security teams up at night. ───── 📲 Follow @gadgets for daily tech news

🔌 Tech Daily — Thursday, 5 November 2026 • A UEFI bootkit has been found infecting fully patched Windows machines, raising uncomfortable questions about whether Microsoft bears responsibility for the vulnerability. • The Anthropic VS Code extension on Cursor was backdoored for nearly 12 hours, exposing developers to a supply chain attack on one of AI coding's most popular tools. • Hackers exploited simultaneous iOS and Android flaws to infect phones in a campaign that underscores how coordinated cross-platform attacks are becoming the new normal. • Binance has revealed that the hackers behind a multi-billion dollar crypto heist spent months meticulously planning the operation before striking — a chilling reminder of how patient and sophisticated crypto criminals have become. • Nothing's CEO has confirmed the company's mysterious AI-first device is dropping next month, teasing what could be the most intriguing hardware launch of the year from the cult British brand. • Apple is reportedly cutting its internal AI usage budgets, a surprising signal from the company that has been under pressure to prove it can compete in the AI race. • Meta's Quest 2 is officially approaching end-of-life as support winds down next year, while Sony has quietly pulled PSVR 2 from its web store — a rough week for the VR headset market overall. • Veteran VR studio Schell Games has laid off 40% of its staff in a fight for survival, highlighting the brutal economic conditions still gripping the extended reality industry. • Mountain rescue teams are deploying automated DJI drones to cut response times in life-or-death situations, while the US Air Force has separately selected Dedrone to track and neutralise small UAS threats — drones are increasingly central to both saving lives and securing skies. • After the midterms, a potential regulatory clash over data centers is brewing in Washington, with AI PACs having already spent millions trying to shape the new Congress — with mixed results. ✨ Editor's Pick: The Cursor/Anthropic backdoor story is today's must-read — a compromised AI coding extension sitting undetected for 12 hours in a tool used by millions of developers is exactly the kind of quiet, devastating supply chain attack that should have the whole industry on high alert. ───── 📲 Follow @gadgets for daily tech news