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Today β€” 29 October 2026Tech

Reddit is moving to β€œa logged-in-only experience,” CEO says

29 October 2026 at 17:47

In the future, you won’t be able to use Reddit without logging in.

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman confirmed the impending change in a letter (PDF) to shareholders today about Q3 performance. He said that Reddit is shifting β€œto a logged-in-only experience," adding:

Moving to primarily logged-in will ensure our users have the best Reddit experience possible, and can find the content and communities most relevant to them. It is better for our business because we will have more signals for ads targeting, and being logged-in leads to higher engagement generally. It also allows us to protect access to Reddit’s extremely valuable corpus of data, and helps us better adapt to emerging regulations around the world.

Huffman also said that the login requirement will help Reddit better retain new users.

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Microsoft Offers Buyouts to 60,000 Staff in Windows, Copilot

29 October 2026 at 12:28

Microsoft offers voluntary buyouts to 60,000 employees, including Copilot and Windows staff. Here's what the workforce changes could mean for enterprise IT teams.

The post Microsoft Offers Buyouts to 60,000 Staff in Windows, Copilot appeared first on TechRepublic.

Yesterday β€” 28 October 2026Tech

Hacking the Modern Tamagotchi With UART

28 October 2026 at 19:00

Although not technically the first virtual pet, the Tamagotchi handhelds certainly popularized the idea and made it a worldwide phenomenon. In the late 90s it was hard to go out in public and not see them dangling from backpacks and belt loops. They turned out to be more than a passing fad, too. There have been Tamagotchis in various forms since then, and one of the latest, the Tamagotchi Paradise, is uniquely hackable thanks to this custom UART interface.

The build starts with a simple and inexpensive CH340G UART adapter with a built-in USB interface. A custom 3D printed enclosure is used to house the adapter and also help to expose the interface to the Tamagotchi. This is done by wiring three pins to nickel strips, which are threaded through slits in the case and looped back around to create a pogo-style adapter for the Tamagotchi’s custom dock. Normally this would be used to link to other Tamagotchis, but in this case the USB-to-UART adapter mimics it, allowing for all kinds of in-game shenanigans. The project’s creator [Squalius] shows it off by connecting it directly to a browser tool in Google Chrome.

Not only that, but this can also be used to modify the software running on the handheld entirely, with the video showing demos playing not onlyΒ Super Mario but alsoΒ DOOMΒ (of course). This isn’t too surprising given that these games are built with modern 32-bit ARM microcontrollers. For the 90s purists, though, it probably won’t surprise anyone to know that these devices have been the subject of various hacks almost since they came out.

Netherlands Plans 25,000 Job Cuts as Government Turns to AI

28 October 2026 at 14:28

The Netherlands plans 25,000 government job cuts as it explores AI savings. See the 2027 timeline and steps for Dutch and EMEA public-sector IT teams.

The post Netherlands Plans 25,000 Job Cuts as Government Turns to AI appeared first on TechRepublic.

Before yesterdayTech

Code-execution flaw in UEFI firmware affects most servers on planet Earth

27 October 2026 at 16:25

Defenders across the world face the burden of responding to yet another botched code-execution vulnerability, this time in boot-time firmware used by most of the world’s server vendors and data centers.

The vulnerability, with a severity rating of 9.5 out of 10, resides in the TianoCore EDK II, an open source codebase that hardware makers and cloud providers use to create the UEFI firmware that runs during the boot-up sequence. Last year, a representative of the UEFI Forum called EDK2 the "preeminent solution / implementation of the UEFI specifications." Virtually all UEFI suppliers (sometimes still called IBVs or independent BIOS vendors), including AMI, Insyde, and Phoenix, use the reference code extensively. Project Mu, Microsoft's hardened EDK2 fork, used the code containing the vulnerable component as well.

The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-97631, is a memory-corruption flaw in an ICMP component that attackers can exploit to execute malicious code that runs before the operating system and firmware can implement defenses like Secure Boot, which establishes a chain of trust for all code, including the Trusted Platform Module (TPM), loaded during boot. While final payloads delivered by CVE-2026-97631 have no persistenceβ€”meaning they run only onceβ€”they can give attackers a wide opening to install other payloads that also run each time early in the boot process.

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iPhone Duo Gets 5/10 for Repairability as iFixit Probes Screen Failures

26 October 2026 at 12:04

iFixit gives the iPhone Duo a provisional 5/10 repair score while investigating screen failures. See hinge concerns, $999 repairs, and tips for owners.

The post iPhone Duo Gets 5/10 for Repairability as iFixit Probes Screen Failures appeared first on TechRepublic.

CIOs Admit They Are Being Forced To Upgrade Enterprise IT

25 October 2026 at 03:36
Computer Weekly reports: A Censuswide survey of 2,018 CIOs and senior IT decision-makers at large organisations in the US and UK for independent software maintenance provider Origina has found that organisations spend almost $13m on upgrades pushed by IT providers. On average, 28% of enterprise software budgets go on upgrades, migrations and licensing changes driven by their IT suppliers. IT leaders who took part in the study reported that their organisation would not have actively chosen to upgrade... The research published in Origina's The Software Tax report, in partnership with Thinkers50, suggests these costs have shifted the balance of power between buyers and sellers. Customers exercise choice once, at the point of purchase. After that, control over the timing and terms of change passes largely to the IT supplier. Out of those surveyed, 78% agree their primary provider of enterprise software, rather than their own organisation, sets the timing and terms of change. A similar proportion said they would have no meaningful choice but to accept if a major enterprise IT provider changed its commercial terms. Some 76% said their organisation has very little real leverage in negotiations, and 80% said moving away from major IT suppliers would cause significant disruption... Marshall Van Alstyne, professor at Boston University and co-author of The Software Tax, said: "Economists have studied this problem for decades: once a customer makes relationship-specific investments, the vendor gains leverage that no contract can fully anticipate. For CIOs, the lesson is simple: negotiate the exit before the entry. You don't have to leave a vendor to benefit from being able to." The problem can be summarized succinctly, says TomΓ‘s O'Leary, CEO/founder of Origina and co-author of The Software Tax. "The market has left some of the most experienced technology leaders in the world with little room to refuse, and that cost shows up in budgets, in engineering time and in innovation that never gets funded. We want to make that cost visible so customers can start to take back control of it."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 roundtables: Go deeper on the challenges founders are solving right nowΒ 

23 October 2026 at 16:03
TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 is coming to SoWa Power Station in Boston on November 4, bringing founders, investors, and operators together for a full day of candid conversations, practical sessions, live pitching, networking, and smaller roundtables built for deeper discussion.Β 

From Toast to Bessemer: Who founders will hear from at TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026Β 

23 October 2026 at 15:06
Hosted by TechCrunch in partnership with Fidelity Private Shares, the full-day event goes beyond fundraising and AI to explore the realities of finding customers, building teams, sharpening a pitch, developing founder leadership, and scaling companies both inside and outside traditional startup hubs.
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