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Articles by Qaiser Sultan
Windows 11 tests phone controls and privacy updates in separate builds
Editorial illustration using the official Microsoft logo. Used with permission from Microsoft. In this article Microsoft began rolling out phone controls and internet speed tests inside Windows 11’s Quick Settings on October 23, as part of five new Insider builds. The company’s announcement assigns those features to Experimental build 26340.9767. Its broader batch of previews divides other interface changes and fixes among different Windows development branches.
Ethereum Postpones Oct. 26 Hoodi Test as EIP-8037 Gas Repricing Hits a Snag
Ethereum logo. Creator: Ethereum Foundation, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0). Ethereum core developers have postponed Glamsterdam's activation on the Hoodi testnet, scrapping the October 26, 17:42:48 UTC switch-over — and the planned jump to a 200 million gas limit with it. Thursday's ACDE #248 call took the decision so developers can investigate how EIP-8037's state-creation gas repricing interacts with mainnet smart contracts. The test was four days away.
Pearl's PRL search surge puts its AI-mining claim to the test
Illustrative server-room photograph at NOIRLab headquarters in Tucson, Arizona; it does not show Pearl equipment. Photo: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/T. Slovinský, CC BY 4.0. Cropped and marked by TECHi. Source: https://noirlab.edu/public/images/6V6A0375-CC/ Pearl’s PRL token was among the most searched coins on CoinGecko during the three hours leading into early Sunday, October 18, in Pakistan.
NEAR's Brave AI rollout raises a hard question for the token
NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin in a promotional portrait. Photo: Alex Hofman / Flickr, CC0 1.0; cropped and resized with a TECHi mark. Brave has given NEAR AI something most crypto-linked AI projects struggle to show: a product in a widely used browser. On October 15, Brave said its Leo assistant began offering encrypted conversations with the GLM 5.3 Flash model running in NEAR AI's confidential-computing environment.
Ethereum sets Hoodi test for Oct. 26, but mainnet remains open
Ethereum now has a date for the next public rehearsal of its Glamsterdam upgrade. In an October 16 protocol announcement, the Ethereum Foundation said Hoodi will switch to the new rules on October 26 at 17:42:48 UTC. The testnet’s gas limit is scheduled to rise to 200 million at the same epoch. No date has been set for Ethereum mainnet. The date is useful, but it is not the whole story.
Bitcoin Rejected at $87K Again: Three Scenarios for the Next Few Days
Bitcoin is being rejected at the same ceiling again. The latest attempt above the high-$86,000s failed, and the retreat has pushed BTC back toward the lower half of its recent range. A market snapshot available to TECHi at 10:03 UTC on Oct. 7 showed Bitcoin at $83,771, down $2,208, or 2.57%, from the prior reference. The session high was $86,634 and the low was $83,643. Those are dated observations, not a live guarantee or a recommendation.
PTC stock: Schneider's $205 deal rests on an €800M sales bet
Conceptual illustration of industrial product design linked to plant operations. The pictured facility and turbine are not Schneider Electric or PTC assets. Original artwork generated for TECHi on October 5, 2026. Schneider Electric's proposed purchase gives PTC shareholders a cash price. For Schneider shareholders, the harder question is how much new industrial-software business the combination can win.
Bitcoin at $83K Puts Strategy and Strive’s $237M Buy Underwater
Bitcoin is holding near $84,000, but the more revealing number is $85,582. That is the weighted average price Strategy and Strive paid for 2,772 bitcoin in purchases disclosed on September 28. At a CoinGecko price of $83,836 at 18:39 UTC, the two newest corporate treasury lots were already worth about $4.8 million less than their combined cost. That small paper loss does not make the purchases bad trades.
The Future of AI and Humanity: What Happens Next—and What Could Go Wrong
Article Brief What the next 15 years could bring 5 Points30s Read 01Near term-AI agents will reorganize office work, education, healthcare and software before they become consistently reliable. 02By 2030-AI is likely to function as cognitive infrastructure, with growing links to robotics, laboratories, energy systems and public services.
Grok 4.7 Is Cheap. Its Real Cost Depends on How Many Steps It Takes
SpaceXAI has launched Grok 4.7 with a pitch designed for teams that run AI agents all day: better coding and knowledge-work performance at the same $2 per million input tokens and $6 per million output tokens as Grok 4.6. The headline sounds simple. The economics are not. A model can have a low sticker price and still produce an expensive result if it needs more tokens, more tool calls or more retries to finish the work.
Claude Leads 26% of Anthropic’s AI R&D. Is Recursive AI Starting?
Anthropic has put a number on a transition that AI labs usually describe only in broad terms: Claude now leads 26% of the company's AI research and development work. More than 90% of measured work has reached at least the "AI collaborates" level, while roughly 30,000 internal agents are running research and engineering tasks at any given moment.
Why Bitcoin Is Pumping Toward $87,000 — Is It a Bull Trap?
Bitcoin has gone from a shaky recovery to a full-blown momentum trade. At 8:14 p.m. UTC on September 21, CoinGecko showed BTC at $86,776, up 6.9% in 24 hours, with roughly $57.8 billion changing hands. Binance's BTC-USDT market had traded as high as $86,896. Minutes later, the price was pressing even closer to $87,000. The speed matters as much as the level. Bitcoin spent last week fighting to reclaim $80,000, then cleared $82,000, $84,000 and $86,000 in quick succession.
Intel Stock Forecast After INTC’s 12% Rally Clears $120
Intel shares did something on Monday that changes the near-term forecast more than another upbeat semiconductor headline: they jumped through $120. INTC traded at $121.21 at 2:35 p.m. EDT on September 21, up $12.61, or 11.61%, from Friday’s $108.60 close. The stock had ranged from $113.95 to $124.72 on volume of 139.9 million shares. The move matters because Intel is no longer merely recovering from a weak base.
Tesla Stock Forecast After Powerwall’s 580 MW Grid Test
The TECHi TSLA quote page showed Tesla shares trading at $375.68 at 11:09 a.m. EDT on September 21, up 3.12% from Friday’s close and just below an intraday high of $378.27. The move arrived on a broad risk-on morning, so it would be careless to credit one headline for the entire gain. Still, a fresh Powerwall announcement gives investors a better reason to look beyond Tesla’s car deliveries and robotaxi promises.
Amazon Blocks Meta’s Muse AI Agent From Shopping on Its Store
Article Brief What changed 3 Points18s Read 01The block-Amazon stopped Meta’s Muse from shopping on Amazon.com and cited unauthorized agent access under its conditions of use. 02The dispute-Meta says Muse protects credentials and requires user approval; Amazon says a user’s consent does not replace merchant permission or agent identification.
Bitcoin Price Briefly Tops $84,000 as Short Squeeze Accelerates
Bitcoin briefly pushed above $84,000 on Monday, September 21, turning a well-advertised resistance zone into a forced-buying trap for traders positioned against the rally. The important question is no longer whether BTC could touch $84,000. It is whether spot demand can hold the breakout after the liquidations finish. A fresh market report published at 8:45 UTC said Bitcoin gained about 3% in an hour, briefly crossed $84,000 and liquidated an estimated $252 million of short positions.
Trump-Xi AI Alert Plan Lands as Asian Chip Stocks Rally
A proposed U.S.–China alert channel for serious artificial-intelligence incidents is arriving at a convenient moment for chip investors: Asian technology shares opened higher on Monday, September 21, just days before Donald Trump and Xi Jinping are expected to meet in Washington. The two developments should not be confused. The Associated Press reported that South Korea’s Kospi rose 1.8%, Samsung Electronics jumped 5%, SK Hynix added 1%, Taiwan’s Taiex gained 1.1% and TSMC advanced 0.6%.
Jensen Huang Says AI Doomsday Warnings Are Wrong. Nvidia’s Incentive Matters
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has drawn a hard boundary in the argument over artificial intelligence risk. In a CBS News interview aired Sunday, he rejected predictions that AI could end humanity within the next few years as unsupported “doomsday narratives.” At the same time, he said developers must invest more research and computing power in safety as AI moves from laboratories into products. That combination is sharper than a simple pro-AI slogan.
Trump Says His D.C. Arch Will House Drones. The Security Case Is Still Unclear
President Donald Trump said Sunday that his proposed 250-foot triumphal arch near the Arlington Memorial Bridge would be converted into what he called a “top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch,” with capacity for drones, snipers and stored ammunition. The statement instantly turns a civic-architecture dispute into a question about security technology, operational control and public accountability. The key word is proposed.
Amazon Prime Refunds Rise to $200: Who Qualifies and When
Millions of Amazon Prime customers are newly eligible for automatic settlement refunds, and the maximum total payment has increased from $51 to $200. The two numbers do not describe the same payment round. The Federal Trade Commission says Amazon will begin sending refunds to an expanded group on October 1, 2026. Eligible people do not need to submit a claim, complete a form or pay anyone. Payments will arrive through PayPal, Venmo or a mailed check.
OpenAI is in talks at a $1.2 trillion valuation, days after calling for an AI slowdown
OpenAI is in early talks with investors about a funding round that would value it at more than $1.2 trillion, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday evening, three days after Sam Altman said the company would not go public this year because of the safety work in front of it. Investors started the discussions, the FT said. The valuation would be about 41% above the $852 billion OpenAI carried after closing a $122 billion round on March 31, and 64% above the $730 billion it was worth in February.
Social Security COLA 2027 forecast: September's gas spike tilts it toward 3.6%
The 2027 Social Security cost-of-living adjustment is two-thirds decided, and the last third is being set at the gas pump. Official consumer price data for July and August put the raise at 3.3% so far. September's reading, due Oct. 14, will round it up to 3.5% if the price index Social Security uses rises at least 0.17% from August, and to 3.6% if it rises at least 0.46%.
CrowdStrike, Zscaler jump 15% as cybersecurity becomes the AI-risk trade
Cybersecurity stocks are having their best day in years on the same call that is sinking the chipmakers. CrowdStrike rose 14.9% to $237.57, a record, Zscaler 15.2%, SentinelOne 15% and Palo Alto Networks 12.8% by 11:35 a.m. ET, according to Nasdaq.com quotes, while the iShares Semiconductor ETF fell 5% and Nvidia 2.9%. The weekend essay from Anthropic's chief executive warning that autonomous AI agents could take over the internet within a year was written to slow the labs down.
Oracle falls 5%: $700 million more in layoff costs, and Ellison's $7.5 billion sale is off
Oracle is cutting staff to pay for the data centers it is building, and its founder has decided not to sell the stock he is asking shareholders to hold. Shares fell about 5% to around $143 on Monday morning after its quarterly filing disclosed that management had added roughly $700 million to a restructuring plan already estimated at up to $2.1 billion, to cover additional actions taken after the quarter closed, in what amounts to a new round of layoffs.
AI slowdown has no enforcer: Trump, China's Global Times and Michael Burry all said no
Dario Amodei's plan to slow the AI race is two days old, and every part of it that needed someone else's consent is already gone. The Anthropic chief executive's essay asks for three things: outside evaluators inside every frontier lab, a common speed limit agreed among labs in democratic countries, and eventually a deal with China. By Monday morning the only part still standing was the one Anthropic can do on its own.
Reading the Ether Price After a Brutal First Half of 2026
Ether finally stopped falling in June, and hardly anyone noticed. The slide that had run for most of the year ended with a $1,505 print on June 6, the weakest the ether price had been since the April 2025 crash, and then, almost apologetically, buyers showed up. Ten weeks later the coin trades near $1,911. That's a 27 percent recovery nobody seems willing to call a bottom out loud, mostly because this year has punished everyone who tried. Here's the snapshot as of August 19, 2026.
Anthropic’s Model 2 Is Stronger. That Isn’t Why the Risk Label Changed
Anthropic’s August 2026 Risk Report moves its qualitative assessment of catastrophic harm from misalignment in high-stakes settings from “very low” to “low.” The company also says the arguments in the report probably still support the lower label. Recent cybersecurity-evaluation incident disclosures increased overall uncertainty and prompted the label change—not a reported finding that a new model failed a safety test.
AI CEOs Agree on Frontier Rules. Enforcement Is the Test.
Axios is right about the direction of travel. Demis Hassabis, Sam Altman and Dario Amodei now agree that the most capable AI models need independent evaluation, a narrow frontier scope and some form of public authority. That is more alignment than the industry showed a year ago. It is not yet a regulatory settlement. Hassabis proposes a U.S.-initiated, industry-funded standards body that could begin with voluntary prerelease reviews and later make market access conditional on passing them.
Claude’s Workspace Is an Audit Surface, Not a Witness
Anthropic has found a privileged set of internal representations that appears to help Claude report, combine and reason with selected information. Its July 6 paper calls this a workspace-like structure. The result deserves attention. It does not deserve a shortcut from information processing to felt experience. Anil Seth is right about that gap. He is less precise when he frames Anthropic as having claimed signs of consciousness.
Meta’s 5-GW Louisiana Data Center Outruns Its Power Plan
Meta's latest Louisiana pitch is easy to summarize: more than $50 billion, as much as 5 gigawatts of computing capacity, and enough local spending to turn a rural parish into an artificial-intelligence hub. The harder part is separating what Meta announced on Monday from what Louisiana regulators have actually approved. That gap is the story. Meta's July 13 announcement says the Richland Parish expansion will be one of the world's largest AI-infrastructure investments.
What Actually Makes a Good Crypto Trading Platform in 2026
Image: TECHi hero — What makes a good crypto trading platform: judging a crypto venue on regulation, custody, fees, execution and security rather than sign-up bonuses. Most people choosing where to trade crypto get the order of operations backwards. They obsess over which coin to buy, then sign up for the first venue with a slick app and a welcome bonus.
Inside the Roblox Limiteds Economy: How Virtual Collectibles Became Real Money
Article Brief Key Takeaways 5 Points30s Read 01The platform-Roblox is one of the largest virtual economies on earth - more than 130 million people log in on an average day, and a slice of them trade rather than just play. 02The asset-Limiteds are scarce, resellable catalog items. Once official stock runs out they only trade on the secondary market, which turns a cosmetic into an asset.
AppLovin Stock Forecast: Why APP Could Break Higher Tomorrow
AppLovin is not moving like a normal software stock anymore. At 12:31 p.m. ET on Thursday, May 28, 2026, APP was trading at $599.24, up +5.5% on the day, after already adding roughly 25% in a week. That is the sort of tape that makes traders ask the wrong question first: "Can it explode tomorrow?" The better question is whether Friday, May 29, has enough fresh fuel to keep buyers pressing a stock that is already back above $600.
Nvidia Shifts AI Chip Manufacturing to Arizona Under Trump Pressure
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang discusses the commencement of AI chip production in Arizona, with imagery of Nvidia branding and chip technology. Nvidia has announced its plans to make the new Blackwall Chip in Arizona. This sounds like a win for American manufacturing. But in reality, it's just politics dressed up as strategy. Nvidia didn't make this decision of bringing manufacturing back to a state of the USA on their own. It took a little arm twisting from President Trump.
What It Means for Workers
Amazon's bold move to cut 30,000 corporate jobs highlights the shifting landscape of modern employment. Are tech giants prioritizing efficiency at the cost of job security? Amazon has expressed plans to layoff 30,000 of its permanent employees, while hinting at hiring seasonal workers for the forthcoming holiday season. That means no benefits that come with full time employment but with the same amount of labour and responsibility.
Alphabet X CEO Defends Moonshot Failures, But Is It Just a Mirage?
Astro Teller, CEO of Alphabet X, discusses the company's moonshot approach to innovation, focusing on how bold failures lead to breakthrough successes. Alphabet's X loves to brag about experimentation, but it's less about success and more about hype. X's CEO, Astro Teller framed 98% of moonshot failure as "Part of the process" making it sound strategic, but it's really a way to excuse endless spendings without results. This approach has become more performance than progress.
Amazon Takes on Last-Mile Costs With Smart Delivery Glasses
Amazon announced on Wednesday that it's developing AI-powered smart glasses for its delivery drivers. The wearable technology aims to provide a hands-free experience that reduces the need to constantly shift attention between phones, packages, and surroundings while navigating delivery routes. The e-commerce giant says that the glasses will help the delivery drivers to scan packages, follow turn-by-turn walking directions, and capture proof of delivery without even touching their phones.
Load Balancing Remote Desktops and Apps on a Budget
Visual representation of app and network components used in load balancing for remote desktops and applications. Remote work rises and falls on session reliability. If a single gateway or host fails, productivity stalls and helpdesk queues explode. High availability doesn't need enterprise bloat: with a lean architecture and disciplined testing, small teams can achieve resilient remote desktops and published apps without breaking the bank.
Regulation, Hype, and Mutual Speculation Drives XRP Price Hikes
XRP's price rises to $2.43, driven by a surge in trading volume, as market speculation and anticipation continue to fuel the cryptocurrency's momentum. XRP's price jumped to $2.43 and anyone who has bought this cryptocurrency is jubilant. The price hike is not organic and doesn't prove that people are actually using the coin. The price hike occurred due to investors' expectations for the Securities and Exchange Commission to approve an Exchange Trade Fund.
Meta's $27 Billion deal with Blue Owl Builds Data Center Outsourcing the Burden to Rural Communities
Meta has gone into a $27 billion deal with Blue Owl, where both companies would build a Hyperion data center in rural Louisiana. This, like any such tech wed-lock, sounds like progress, but not for the locals. The facility would consume as much electricity as two cities the size of New Orleans on peak days, putting more pressure on an already fragile grid.
Is the UN Cyber Security Pact Legitimizing Surveillance?
The UN's Cybercrime Pact in Hanoi raises concerns about internet freedom and state control. The United Nations has signed a new Cyber Crime Pact in Hanoi. The pact sounds like a landmark step towards a safer internet. But haven't we seen too many of these pacts signed under the UN's leadership with no results? One reckons that the same is the case with this cybersecurity pact.
Iphone 17 Iteration Justifies Apple's trillion Dollar Gains
Apple's stock hits a record high as iPhone 17 sales outperform expectations, pushing the company closer to a $4 trillion valuation. Apple's shares surged to an all-time high on October 20, 2025, bringing the company close to a historic $4 trillion market valuation. But, don't make the mistake of attributing this valuation to the company's actual performance or innovation. The real hero is the iPhone 17, which brought about this historic feat. iPhone 17 sold 14% better than last year.
"Software updates" Does Not Fix Systemic Risks
The US has launched a probe into Waymo's robotaxis after an incident where one of its self-driving cars violated school bus safety rules. The investigation focuses on safety validation. Self driving cars are not as trust worthy as many may think and here's another incident of that. Waymo, a company known for its massive fleet of robotaxis, one of their self-driving cars went around a stopped school bus with its red light flashing and kids stepping off. This is a clear traffic rules violation.
Ninja Gaiden 4's Combat Excellence Compensates for Narrative failure
Ninja Gaiden 4 showcases exceptional combat mechanics, but its story and levels fall flat, exemplifying the industry's shift toward gameplay over narrative. Ninja Gaiden 4 has great fighting mechanics but a boring story and uninspiring levels. The game may feature one of the best combats in video games, but along with a predictable storyline. It means, in action games, smooth and fun gameplay matters more than the plot or environment.
Inside the Platform's Entrepreneurial Transformation
MrBeast and other YouTubers are shifting their focus from ad revenue to consumer products and businesses, illustrating the growing trend of creator entrepreneurship. YouTube has evolved into an economic juggernaut that dominates the digital landscape. With 2.7 billion monthly active users as of 2025, nearly half of all internet users globally, the platform commands 122 million daily active users who collectively watch over 1 billion hours of video daily.
PlayStation's October Lineup is a Tale of Quantity over Curation
Upcoming PlayStation releases from October 20 to October 26, featuring both PS4 and PS5 consoles. PlaySation dropped 25 games in one week in their latest October 25' lineup, but most were forgettable names. Celebrity titles like Ninja Gaiden 4 and Jurassic World Evolution 3, got buried under a flood of low-quality games. Instead of feeling like a celebration of gaming, the release list looked like a digital dump.
Salesforce's National Guard Gambit Costs a 25-Year Friendship
Marc Benioff, co-founder of Salesforce, under fire after calling for National Guard deployment in San Francisco, sparking outrage and a major fallout. A billionaire tech CEO endorses militarizing his city's streets. A 25-year friendship collapses. Internal documents reveal AI-powered deportation pitches.
Comcast's Silence on Outage Exposes the Cost of Connectivity Without Competition
Comcast Xfinity faces a significant outage affecting internet and TV services during peak hours, disrupting services for thousands of customers. Comcast Xinfinity ran into a massive outage on October 19th, knocking out internet and TV services for thousands of people right in the middle of .
Death Stranding 2, Spider-Man 2, and More PS5 Games Get Massive Discounts Before Black Friday 2025
Death Stranding 2 joins a wave of PS5 exclusives receiving major discounts in the lead-up to Black Friday 2025 When it comes to video game deals, Amazon is showing no signs of slowing down after its October Prime Day sale and before Black Friday deals kick off in late November. PS5 users, in particular, have plenty of different game deals to check out right now at the retailer, including some excellent discounts on Death Stranding 2, Silent Hill 2, and quite a few more PlayStation exclusives.
Wikipedia Loses 8% of Human Visitors as AI Summaries Replace Click-Throughs
Wikipedia traffic declines as AI search summaries and social video content draw users away, raising concerns about the future of open knowledge platforms. As the Wikimedia Foundation announced thathuman pageviews to Wikipedia had fallen 8% year-over-year, Marshall Miller, senior director of product, exposed a troubling reality: the world's largest free encyclopedia is becoming a victim of the very AI systems it helped create.
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