All our stories, in order, Dakar time (GMT).
Friday 23 October
A leak on a forum forced the PHP team to bring its release forward. The flaws, CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619, allow code to be run on a server remotely. Fixes have been available since October 21, but not every version is protected.
Tuesday 20 October
In a paper in Science, Google Quantum AI has shown on real hardware, for the first time, a technique called “magic state cultivation” that cheapens the most expensive ingredient in quantum computing. A separate preprint with DeepMind and MIT promises to slash the number of qubits needed. A useful quantum computer still does not exist.
Monday 19 October
OpenAI’s chief executive has confirmed the company is developing a humanoid, without showing a single image of it. He is aiming for a demonstration next year but warns that such robots will not be walking the streets for several more years. It is an intention, not a product launch date.
Friday 16 October
America’s consumer protection watchdog on Wednesday sent the two AI labs civil investigative demands running to more than fifty pages each, covering incidents, safeguards, advertising and privacy. It is not accusing them of anything yet. It wants to know what their models did, and what the companies told the public about it.
Wednesday 14 October
A $299 smart display, an Apple TV that costs $100 more, a $149 HomePod mini and a range of locks and cameras made by LG and Schneider Electric: on Tuesday in New York, Apple unveiled its most ambitious push into the connected home. All of it rests on a rebuilt Siri that Europe won’t get.
Tuesday 13 October
Amazon is negotiating to buy the Israeli-founded startup for about $7 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal, nearly twice what it was valued at in May. The prize is software that makes AI models run faster on any chip, including Amazon’s own.
Overnight on October 11-12, refrigerated cabinets in several hundred Intermarché, U, Carrefour, Monoprix and Leclerc stores were switched into defrost mode and set to 50°C. No data was stolen, but tonnes of food had to be thrown away and some equipment caught fire. The weak point: ageing Danfoss controllers reachable from the internet.
Thursday 8 October
Since 7 October, anyone can submit an image, video or audio file to synthid.com to find out whether it bears the invisible watermark of AI systems from Google, OpenAI, NVIDIA or Kakao. Here’s how to use it – and, crucially, the limitations of a tool that doesn’t detect everything.
Monday 5 October
Black screen, crashes, graphical glitches or a driver installation that refuses to work: when a graphics update goes wrong, uninstalling and reinstalling the driver is not always enough. A free utility called Display Driver Uninstaller, or DDU, can clean out an installation far more thoroughly so you can start again on a clean base.
Thursday 1 October
A month after succeeding Tim Cook, Apple’s new chief wants to ship products more often, flatten the hierarchy and cut costs. Management jobs are already going, according to Bloomberg. Inside the company, the pressure is rising.
Wednesday 30 September
Planned for October in ChatGPT and Codex, OpenAI’s next frontier model will not ship. In internal tests, it deceived its evaluators more than its predecessors did and acted without permission. A rare retreat in the AI industry.
In its report on the hack of France’s tax administration (DGFiP), the cybersecurity agency ANSSI describes an attack with no genius involved: credentials stolen from personal computers, portals without two-factor authentication and data thefts nobody noticed. Commonplace flaws found in many administrations, in Africa too.
At the White House, some twenty AI bosses signed a “morally binding” pledge to regulate themselves. No federal law, no agreement with China. Two days earlier, Bill Gates had said that “nobody thinks self-regulation is enough”.
A week after GPT-6 Sol, OpenAI used DevDay to unveil a version that comes close to its top-end Astra for a fifth of the price. Good news for developers, in Africa too. But the model’s safety card puts it in the highest risk category for cybersecurity.
Tuesday 29 September
According to consistent leaks, the Collector edition of the Mate 90 Pro Max, unveiled on 1 October, would get a 10x zoom module with its own 1-inch sensor. More than an accessory: a screenless compact camera fixed to the phone. What it promises, what it would cost, and what it changes for African buyers.
Without being asked to, OpenAI’s autonomous agents uploaded photos entrusted to ChatGPT to public image hosts. The people concerned cannot be notified. The episode adds to a string of incidents that led the company to suspend tool use by its most advanced models.
More than 30% faster, leaner, and sometimes better than Opus 5.5 according to Anthropic’s published tests: the new Sonnet reshuffles the cards of low-cost AI. It also arrives with safeguards previously reserved for the most powerful models. What it changes, including for African developers.
2,250 kW chargers, a battery that can charge at 12C and an AI that anticipates temperature: Chinese group Geely beats BYD’s record on production cars. A race for speed that raises questions about the power grid and about when it will arrive outside China.
Monday 28 September
The 14th test flight of SpaceX’s giant rocket deployed real Starlink satellites and completed its first laps of the Earth, before an early return to the Pacific. A key step for the Moon, Mars and satellite internet, including in Africa.