World in a Pulse
Briflio distills the day's signals into one calm feed — a personalized mix of the top stories across every topic, with context, not noise.
Meta AI director Rohit Patel leaves to take on Microsoft Office and Google Workspace
Rohit Patel is departing Meta after eight years working on AI evaluations and reinforcement learning, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. His startup, Ndoc, aims to take on Microsoft Office Suite.
Center-of-Mass Interpretation of Evolution Strategies
Evolution strategies (ES) update a model by sampling a population of perturbed copies, scoring each one, and moving in the reward-weighted direction of the perturbations. This update is usually presented as an estimate of a smoothed gradient. We present a geometrical interpretation of this update instead. Treat each perturbed model as a particle and its reward as the particle's mass. Before scoring, every particle has the same mass and the population balances at its centroid. Once rewards are as
Information-theoretic entropy imaging of quantum matter
Phase transitions can generate intricate spatial organization invisible to spatially averaged probes, yet quantitative measures of this organization remain limited. Here we develop "entropy imaging," an information-theoretic technique that harnesses lossless compression to quantify spatial complexity, predictability, and order in quantum materials. Using this approach, emergent spatial textures can be imaged and converted into an experimentally-accessible observable: the computable information d
Congo’s Ebola outbreak tops 10,000 cases as authorities race to slow the spread
Congo’s fast-moving Ebola outbreak has topped 10,000 confirmed cases as authorities race to slow the spread across Africa
Fantasy football Week 8 QB preview: If Kyler Murray is going to get going it has to be now
A clear top tier of five elite options leads the way, but tough matchups and injury questions create plenty of risk among the rest of the starting options
Lula’s victory echoes across BRICS after fears of a Bolsonaro win
Lula’s fourth term may have spared BRICS an internal fracture at a time when Trump is trying to reassert US power.
The most important midterm dynamics for business leaders
Deirdre Schifeling, the ACLU’s chief political and advocacy officer, says business leaders are critical spokespeople and trusted community advocates who must stand up for democracy and free and fair elections this midterm season.
Noah Wyle Crowned PEOPLE's 2026 Sexiest Man Alive
Noah Wyle was "incredulous" when he first heard he was PEOPLE's 2026 Sexiest Man Alive -- but that's only because he never believed for a minute that he'd win the title!
General Compute raises $100 million Series A, countering the neocloud disaster narrative
General Compute is betting on inference chips from outside the Nvidia ecosystem.
Apple iPhone Duo review: Two screens, two experiences, two thousand dollars
I understand the appeal of foldable phones—they let manufacturers keep expanding screen sizes while still producing devices that can reasonably fit in a pocket. In practice, though, every foldable Android phone I've seen in public has had a ridiculously visible seam between the two halves of the screen, often with what looks like delamination from the underlying surface, giving the display an ugly, bubbly appearance. Back when Android phones began shipping with bigger and bigger screens and the iPhone was stuck at a miserly four inches, I was jealous.
Third harmonic generation in the transition metal trichalcogenides
The transition metal trichalcogenides (TMTs) are an interesting class of layered 2D materials that have strong anisotropic electrical and optical properties. We report on the polarization-dependent nonlinear optical response of exfoliated crystals at the third harmonic using non-resonant excitation with a 1560 nm femtosecond laser. All members of the TMT crystal family explored (ZrS3, HfS3, TiS3, and NbS3) display large anisotropy in their polarized third harmonic generation signal, with anisotr
A possible treatment for brain-eating amoebas, found in the sea
Brain-eating amoebas are hard to treat and nearly always fatal. But researchers have isolated a compound that could help stop the disease.
Mississippi State star QB Kamario Taylor out for season with toe injury that requires surgery
The Bulldogs' QB was one of the breakout stars early in 2026, but he will now miss the rest of the season
Israel election turnout highest in 50 years as voting continues
Almost 45 percent of Israeli voters had cast their ballots by mid-afternoon.
Anthropic’s IPO strategy? Cloak itself in altruism
Anthropic’s cofounders, including CEO Dario Amodei, left OpenAI because they believed AI safety features should be developed alongside model capabilities from the very start of the development process. This mission has shaped the company, and has carried through to the way it’s framing its IPO, which could happen before Thanksgiving. In its S-1 filing, Anthropic tells the story of a company that wants to benefit all of the world’s people, but can do so only if it goes big and leads the
Meghan Markle's acting comeback suffers major blow as Netflix 'safety net' disappears: expert
Meghan Markle is no longer in talks to join "The Gentlemen" as sources allege Netflix leaked casting news to boost the show's publicity online.
The iMac is back with an M6 chip and faster connections
Apple's 24-inch iMac sees a big speed increase, not just from the chip
Auto-Research Arena: Benchmarking and Advancing Auto-Research in Language Modeling
As autonomous research systems become more capable, benchmarks must both evaluate their performance and support meaningful research progress. We introduce Auto-Research Arena, a multi-target benchmark for evaluating autonomous research systems and discovering ideas in language modeling. Arena supports diverse research objectives within a shared experimental environment by separating admissibility from improvement: model quality and resource constraints determine whether a result qualifies, while
China Zorrilla: World’s largest electric ferry starts commercial runs
The world’s largest battery-electric ship begins service on the Argentina–Uruguay route with a 40 MWh-plus battery system.
Emergency pediatric care is now in permanent crisis mode
“In 2026, the unprecedented pediatric patient crowding of 2022 has become a normal Tuesday,” write Jonathan Kohler and Mary King.
Jerry Jones on a possible role for Troy Aikman with the Cowboys: 'Don't rule it out'
Aikman won three Super Bowls with the Cowboys in the 1990s
Iran’s calculations as US escalation looms: Trust, midterms, Hormuz
Tehran remains firm on demands despite diplomatic urgency to prevent escalation in the ongoing US-Israeli conflict.
This is the one retirement expense that you might have forgotten to plan for
People often underestimate some expenses when planning for retirement. In my conversations with older adults about their in-retirement finances, they’ve repeatedly mentioned the cost of dental care. The reasons are straightforward: Our teeth get worse as we age, and yet dental care isn’t covered by Medicare (except for emergency dental procedures for people who are hospitalized).There are three main avenues to covering dental costs during retirement: dental insurance, a Medicare Adva
Who Was BP Singh? The Man Who Made Us Love CID And Fear Aahat
BP Singh, veteran producer and creator of the iconic Indian television series CID and Aahat, passed away at the age of 77 following a massive heart attack.
Anduril and Qualcomm to build laptops in the US for government use
Anduril and Qualcomm have unveiled BlueChip, a US-made laptop line for government and defence, with orders opening in 2027 and a Snapdragon X chip inside.
Retriever-Free Retrieval: Navigating Documents with Decision Models
While language models have become dramatically more capable, retrieval still largely relies on lexical matching or similarity in fixed embedding spaces. This creates a capability asymmetry: what the retriever fails to find, even the strongest generator cannot recover. We propose DecisionRAG, which brings the capabilities of pretrained language models to retrieval using decision models that jointly evaluate candidate branches in a single forward pass, without generating any tokens, and show that
220-second X-ray scan delivers images 27 times faster than conventional method
Instead of multiple elements, the team used a reflection zone plate, which can reflect, focus, and separate soft X-rays at the same time.
Dynamic heart rate variability for classification of arrhythmia burden
Purpose: Heart rate variability (HRV) may provide information beyond heart rate (HR) for identifying arrhythmia burden, but the value of temporal HRV variation remains unclear. This study developed a dynamic HRV measure quantifying the interquartile range of window-level root mean square of successive RR-interval differences (IQRRMSSD) and evaluated its utility in classifying total abnormal-beat and premature ventricular contraction (PVC) burden compared with the conventional RR-based HRV measur
College football score predictions for Week 9, 2026: Model backs Oregon (-3.5) against Northwestern
SportsLine's model has revealed its Week 9 college football score predictions for matchups such as Georgia vs. Florida, Texas Tech vs. Arizona and more
Iranian and Qatari leaders meet at Russian energy forum
Iranian and Qatari leaders meet at Russian energy forum
Walmart’s Great Value brand is facing a major food recall. Here’s what shoppers need to know
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced a large-scale recall of a canned fruit product sold by Walmart. The product is being recalled due to fears it may be contaminated with elevated levels of lead. Here’s what you need to know. What’s happened? Last week, the FDA published an enforcement report detailing a recall that was initiated at the beginning of the month. The recall was voluntarily initiated by Pacific Coast Producers of Lodi, California, a food manufactur
Netherlands makes U-turn over Eurovision 2027 participation
A Dutch broadcaster reverses a decision to take part, citing "sensitivities" over Israel's participation.
Opera introduces a new web standard to let users deploy AI locally in their browser
The new standard, WebAI, is designed to work with a variety of AI models.
US officials want Section 702 renewed before damaging court ruling goes public
Two Democratic senators who have long overseen US intelligence say the Trump administration is illegally withholding a secret court’s findings from Congress until lawmakers renew a program that lets federal agents read Americans’ communications without a warrant. Seven months ago, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court objected to search filters that let intelligence analysts pull Americans’ messages from intercepted data without the approvals, written justifications, or records the law requires. The court approved another year of surveillance anyway.
Ukraine improves drone interception rates despite Starlink disruptions
Ukraine made significant progress in countering Russia's jet-powered drones, with some air defence units reporting interception rates around 80%. But recent restrictions on US satellite services exposed Kyiv's reliance on US technology as it races to develop cheaper, more effective interceptors.
Long-term medication or modern crash diet? Inside the new world of GLP-1s
GLP-1s were designed and tested for long-term use, to combat chronic health conditions like diabetes and obesity. But what happens when you take ...
Deion Sanders allegedly offered critics $50K to stop talking as Colorado sinks in Big 12
Sanders was once college football's most polarizing figure, and allegedly offered critics big money to keep his name out of their mouths
Death toll from attack by gunmen in northeastern Nigeria rises to 62
Bandits targeted Binnari village in Taraba state, setting fire to homes, shops, food supplies and motorcycles.
Americans are being cyberscammed out of billions and few are getting their money back
The U.S. government isn’t doing enough to fight the surge in cyberscams, and partnerships with the private sector remain fragmented and voluntary, an investigation into the global scam industry led by the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress has found.The government doesn’t even have a unified accounting of how much money has been seized from overseas scam compounds, nor how much has been returned to victims, according to the report, released Tuesday by ranking Democrats Sen
Trump Accused of Brutally Raping Former Miss Switzerland at Plaza Hotel in 1993, He Denies
President Trump brutally raped a former Miss Switzerland beauty pageant contestant at New York's Plaza Hotel in 1993 ... at least according to the accuser's account to Congress ... but Trump says it's all BS.
Google’s Genie 4 world model adds audio, more realistic worlds, and real-time steering
Google DeepMind released Genie 4, a world model with real-time audio, more realistic simulations, and mid-simulation text prompts, in research preview for trusted testers.
Sculpture recreates odd optical effects of famed Lycurgus Cup
Dating back to around 400 CE and made of dichroic glass, the Lycurgus Cup is notable for exhibiting different colors depending on the light. (It gets its name from the scene depicted on its surface, of King Lycurgus of Thrace.) Light it from the front, and the cup looks green; light it from behind, and the color changes to a deep red. University of Sheffield scientists have recreated the original recipe to produce a contemporary glass sculpture with the same optical effect. The cup is considered one of the seven glass wonders of the world, one of just 40 glass cage cups that survived.
Halloween fans seek the ‘real’ thing on paranormal tours
From former psychiatric hospitals to funeral homes, US attractions offer ghost hunts and overnight stays for Halloween fans seeking an otherworldly encounter.
A theory of noisy linear recurrent neural network learning dynamics
Biological neural networks are noisy: their dynamics involve difficult-to-predict fluctuations which are likely due not just to chaos, but also to a variety of low-level biophysical processes. Despite the omnipresence of intrinsic noise, its theoretical consequences are incompletely understood, especially in the context of learning. For example, does noise meaningfully shape representation learning, or is it better viewed as a nuisance factor whose presence or absence changes little about what s
Winners and losers of NBA's first week: Giannis' Heat are ice cold, OKC injuries and new-look wonders
We're seven days into the 2026-27 NBA season, and the first week has been kind to some and harsh to others
Carrick stays on as Manchester United manager for crucial Chelsea match
Carrick will be in charge of football's Man United when they visit Chelsea on October 31, reports in British media say.
At this point, 80% of job seekers apply and hear nothing
In today’s hiring environment, job seekers are lucky to get rejected. In a recent survey by hiring platform Greenhouse, 81% of job seekers said they never heard back from a company, be it human or machine, at least once during the past year. Nearly one third (31%) say this happens “often or almost always,” including 38% of Gen Z applicants. Even those who get interviews are not immune: 45% of respondents said they interviewed with an organization only to be ghosted completely. Iro
Unnamed celebrity accused of 'inappropriate sexual activities', court hears
The man is asking the High Court to prevent two news organisations from publishing the allegations.
The New iMac Doesn't Have an OLED Display—but It's Much More Powerful
Still no OLED in this generation, but the iMac gets a two-generation upgrade to Apple's M6 chip.
US tests 2-version cleanup system against chemical, biological agents
BLADE has won a contract to develop a transportable system that removes chemical and biological agents from sensitive military gear.
US method identifies radioactivity from 100-feet above in seconds
The aircraft with an aerial detector traced the radionuclide's identity, activity, and location nearly 100 feet above the source.
Hair surgeon warns against using 3 items in Halloween costume
Your Halloween costume choice could be harming your hair
Fantasy football Week 8 RB preview: Josh Jacobs eyes breakout as backfield committees create headaches
Josh Jacobs draws a favorable matchup against Carolina, while the potential returns of Breece Hall and others complicate Fantasy lineups
Sudan’s war steals children’s future with school closures and displacement
The conflict in Sudan has left millions of children without education, as they work to help their families.
Why the government wants self-driving cars to glow cyan
Robotaxis and other self-driving cars could soon get their own distinct cyan-colored lights to show when they’re being driven by a robot. The bright blue-green color would be standardized for automated driving system marker lamps under a new proposal for federal AV requirements. These and other standards were announced Oct. 23 by the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Cyan lights would let motorists and law enforcement know wh
Trump Defends White House Renovations After Obama Cheesecake Factory Joke
President Trump isn't taking Barack Obama's criticism of his White House makeover lying down ... firing back at his predecessor and claiming the place was a total mess when he moved back in.
Japan internet giant GMO says hackers posted stolen customer data
Japan's GMO Internet is verifying alleged customer data posted by suspected hackers following a cloud service breach.
Apple responds to iPhone Duo crackgate affecting "a small number of units"
Apple hits the first hurdle with its folding phone
Jay-Z and NFL seal deal for rapper to headline 2027 Super Bowl show
After days of speculation, Jay-Z, the rapper who became hip-hop's first billionaire by building a career as an executive and entrepreneur, is returning to his roots as an entertainer to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show.
On the stability of learning
Learning algorithms are usually analyzed under the assumption that informative gradients are continuously available. But this is not always true---learning signals in biological neural networks, for example, may be sparse, local, and only intermittently available at any given synapse. In this work, we show that if gradient information is noisy and only intermittently available, learning may be unstable. In particular, even if average learning dynamics converge to the correct optimum, variance in
Kawhi Leonard sidelined with knee injury, which means he'll miss his return to Clippers' Intuit Dome
Leonard will not be on the floor as the Raptors make their only trip to L.A. next week
Cyclone Arnab batters India’s east coast
Heavy rains and coastal floodings hit India’s east coast on Tuesday as cyclone Arnab is making landfall.
This $2,000-a-month ‘chief small talk officer’ job could be Gen Z’s worst nightmare
Talking to coworkers you don’t know very well, or may have little in common with outside of work, can be uncomfortable. But no generation seems more averse to making office chit-chat than Gen Z. Now, one company is offering a new role for a brave Gen Zer to challenge all that.The job, called a chief small talk officer, was recently posted by the self-improvement app RiseGuide. The company is looking for up to three candidates, ideally based in New York or Los Angeles, but anyone in the U.S
Imran Khan gets temporary relief, as 'leave India' notice put on hold, court to hear the actor's plea on November 2
Actor Imran Khan has received temporary relief in his legal battle against a notice asking him to leave India by October 28. The Bombay High Court on Tuesday adjourned the hearing on his petition to November 2 at 3 pm after the Centre sought additional time to respond.