September 26, 2025

Tech

HSBC claims a quantum‑computing platform can analyze market data in milliseconds, finding arbitrage faster than classical systems. It is already deployed in proprietary trading desks to boost execution speed and risk‑management, marking a rare commercial quantum finance test.

Amazon agreed to a $2.5 billion FTC settlement over covert Prime enrollments, issuing $1.5 billion refunds to 35 million customers, paying $1 billion in fines and revamping its subscription interface for clear cancellation, amid push for easier “click‑to‑cancel” rules.

Proposed agreement to create a U.S. version of the ByteDance‑controlled short‑form video app shifts ownership for domestic users, raising data‑privacy and national‑security concerns. Critics fear foreign influence; supporters claim regulatory simplification and a controlled environment.

Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi’s MGX will own about 45 % of TikTok’s U.S. business; ByteDance retains 19.9 %, with the rest split among investors. A federal law enforcing divestiture was delayed by President Trump, while a majority‑American board under Oracle oversees security.

Elon Musk’s legal filing signals a new phase in his battle with ChatGPT developers, heightening tensions as he confronts the AI giant. This could shape future AI competition and regulatory landscapes.

OpenAI expands ChatGPT Business with shared project management, smarter connectors, and tighter compliance tooling—audit logs, data policies, user permissions—empowering teams to collaborate securely across departments while integrating diverse external tools more easily.

Java 25 LTS, released September 2025, introduces pattern matching for primitives, concise instance‑main methods, new module‑import syntax, Structured Concurrency, Scoped and Stable Values, improved cryptography, Vector API enhancements, compact headers, Shenandoah generational support, and refined Flight Recorder.

Future and Stream primitives handle async work, letting you consume results with “await for” or “listen()”, delivering data or errors. Streams come in single‑subscription broadcast forms, offer helpers, map/expand transformations and handleError. Streams are defined by extending Stream and listen().

GE Aerospace’s ATLAS project demonstrated a solid‑fuel ramjet achieving ~1000‑second specific impulse without liquid lines; tested on an F‑104 Starfighter up to Mach‑2.2, ignition pending. Spokesman Mark Rettig highlighted its promise for disposable missiles exceeding Mach‑5, potentially redefining long‑haul travel.

Senators Grassley and Durbin urged Amazon, Meta, Google and Microsoft to disclose hiring and pay data on H‑1B workers versus U.S. employees amid layoffs, Grassley demanded DHS suspend student‑work visas, a $100,000 H‑1B fee, and a lottery favoring higher wages.

Machine‑translated Wikipedia content floods under‑resourced editions, spamming pages with errors that feed AI training data and perpetuate inaccuracies. African and Inuit articles show 40‑60 % and two‑thirds uncorrected, risking eroded languages without sustained native‑speaker editing.

Spotify tightens AI‑track policies—partnering with DDEX to flag AI involvement and gaining pledges from 15 labels—while its spam filter has removed 75 million exploitative uploads. Spotify says it does not promote AI songs in playlists; engagement remains minimal.

U.S. cybersecurity officials ordered federal agencies to inspect compromised Cisco gear, as attackers exploit its vulnerabilities to breach critical infrastructure, sparking a nationwide audit of affected hardware and software across departments.

Kagi traces algebraic data types from McCarthy’s 1961 computation theory through Hoare and Burstall’s tagged variants to the functional‑programming boom, where modern languages formalized product, sum, pattern matching, and compile‑time safety, explaining why imperative traditions did not adopt them.

PostgreSQL 18 lets RETURNING return both OLD and NEW rows for INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, and MERGE, making it easy to distinguish changes and flag inserts versus updates without relying on fragile xmax checks. Includes a simple UPDATE…RETURNING demo.