Tech News Roundup: Anthropic's Public Benefit Fund, Microsoft Exits a UK AI Data Center, Samsung Taps TSMC for Nvidia HBM & More (Oct 18, 2026)

Anthropic Public Benefit Fund (image via Anthropic)

A little later than usual today. Anthropic leads: it's putting 5% of its shares into a new Public Benefit Fund that can grow as the company does, and it has embedded outside safety evaluators from METR inside its offices. Also on Sunday: Microsoft walked away from Nscale's UK AI data center over power delays, Samsung will reportedly use TSMC's 3nm process for Nvidia's custom HBM, Disney is hiring most of Character.AI's staff, and new Macs and the OLED iPad mini could arrive November 6. Plus: AI wearables run into wiretap laws, the data center industry courts kids, an arrest over a delivery robot, the Slate truck's phone-powered updates, $470K of missing RTX 5090s, DJI's battery-swapping dock, and Cyrillic lookalike domains. Here's the Lanbrew tech roundup for October 18, 2026.

Anthropic puts 5% of its shares into a new Public Benefit Fund

Anthropic is committing 5% of its shares, subject to stockholder approval, to the new Anthropic Public Benefit Fund. The board can add another 2% for every 50% rise in the company's value above a baseline it hasn't disclosed yet. The fund is a wholly owned LLC rather than a 501(c)(3), so it can make large donations to nonprofits or distribute money directly to specific groups. Anthropic names AI's impact on jobs as one example, building on the $200 million it has already pledged to that issue. The company says none of the fund's equity will go to lobbying or political giving.

Counting the co-founders' pledge to donate 80% of their equity and an employee equity-match program, Anthropic says about 20% of its shares are now committed to the public good. Bloomberg notes the announcement comes as the company prepares for an IPO.

Source: Anthropic; Reuters; Bloomberg

Claude by Anthropic (image via Ars Technica)

Anthropic embeds outside AI watchdog METR with "employee-like" access

Six staff from the nonprofit evaluator METR now work inside Anthropic's offices with company hardware and access to internal tools and systems. They can publish their findings without Anthropic's approval. It's the first real step on Dario Amodei's proposal, which Sam Altman and Elon Musk backed in September, to put outside auditors inside the leading labs. Anthropic compares it to bank examiners stationed inside big banks. Critics warn about conflicts of interest and say regulation is still needed. OpenAI hasn't announced its own plan yet.

Source: Ars Technica

Nscale (image via BBC News)

Microsoft pulls out of Nscale's UK AI data center after power delays

Microsoft has ended its deal to be the anchor tenant at Nscale's planned data center in Loughton, Essex, where it was going to rent 23,000 Nvidia AI chips. Grid operators told Nscale that power won't arrive until the 2030s. The Telegraph says the move could complicate Nscale's planned Wall Street listing, valued at up to $35 billion, coming in the middle of a sell-off in AI infrastructure stocks. Nscale says it is still committed to the site, is looking at alternative power, and that its other Microsoft projects in Norway, Portugal and the US aren't affected. Microsoft declined to comment.

Source: The Telegraph; BBC News; Bloomberg

TSMC (image via Reuters / CNA)

Samsung will reportedly use TSMC's 3nm process for Nvidia's custom HBM

The Seoul Economic Daily reports that Samsung will use TSMC's 3-nanometer process to make the base dies for Nvidia's next-generation custom HBM, called NVHBM. It would be the first time Samsung has worked with TSMC at the HBM manufacturing stage. Nvidia reportedly asked Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron to all use TSMC for NVHBM base dies and sixth-generation DRAM for the core dies. Samsung will keep its in-house approach for standard HBM and is checking whether its own foundry could act as a backup.

Source: Reuters (via CNA)

Character.AI (image via TechCrunch)

Update: Disney will hire most of bankrupt Character.AI's staff

New details have come out since Character.AI's bankruptcy filing earlier this week. A court filing spotted by Bloomberg shows that Disney agreed to offer jobs to at least 60 Character.AI employees, the majority of its workforce, worth about $60 million a year in total pay. The "vast majority" of those offered jobs accepted. Disney had already agreed to buy some assets for $20 million, and former Character.AI CEO Karandeep Anand is now Disney's first CTO. Because it's a stalking-horse bid, another buyer could still top it.

Source: TechCrunch

Update: New Macs and the OLED iPad mini could go on sale November 6, and HomeView may get a robotic arm

Mark Gurman reports that Apple Stores are planning a "reset" on the night of November 5. That usually means new products, possibly the M6 iMac, the touchscreen MacBook Pro and the OLED iPad mini that are expected to be announced later this month. That's a firmer date than earlier reports. Gurman also says a larger follow-up to the new HomeView will have a motorized arm that turns the screen toward whoever is speaking, but it isn't expected until 2027 or later.

Source: The Verge; Bloomberg

AI wearables (image via CNBC / Getty Images)

Always-listening AI wearables are testing wiretap laws

Amazon's new Bee Frontier and Bee Eclipse, Meta's camera glasses, the Apple Watch's Siri Recap, and note-taking pendants from Plaud, Pocket and Friend can all capture conversations around the wearer. CNBC reports that because some of them interpret speech continuously without keeping the audio, they raise a largely untested legal question: whether that processing alone could count as unlawful interception under laws that require everyone's consent to record.

Source: CNBC

Data centers (image via Wired)

The data center industry is courting kids

Wired looks at how data center groups are reaching into schools. One trade group recommends a children's book about a honey badger touring a data center. An industry chapter in Loudoun County, Virginia, known as "Data Center Alley," sent flag-making kits and cards about the industry's economic benefits to 3,100 first graders. There's also an "International Data Center Day." One education researcher compares it to how fast food, tobacco and oil companies have used schools in the past.

Source: Wired

Uber delivery robot (image via The Verge)

A Philadelphia woman was arrested for blocking an Uber delivery robot

Carolyn Marvin was charged with disorderly conduct after she stood in front of a sidewalk delivery robot and wouldn't move when police asked. She told ABC13 she has been protesting the robots because "they're taking the jobs of human delivery workers." The video has spread widely, and the robots have become a common and sometimes unpopular sight in downtown Philadelphia.

Source: The Verge

Slate truck (image via Engadget / Slate Auto)

Slate's bare-bones EV truck gets software updates through your phone

Slate's sub-$25,000 pickup has no infotainment and no built-in cellular, but it can still get over-the-air updates. The Slate app downloads the update, you plug your phone into the dash USB port for about a minute, and the truck spends around 45 minutes installing it on its own. Slate says updates will be limited to bug fixes and small improvements, and that it won't sell app data.

Source: Engadget

RTX 5090 (image via Tom's Hardware)

$470,000 worth of RTX 5090s vanished at a Brazilian airport

Brazilian distributor Oderço says two pallets of Zotac RTX 5090s, worth about R$2.5 million, reached São Paulo's Guarulhos International Airport and then disappeared. It has posted on Instagram asking for answers after getting no official response. With the 5090 already in short supply, Tom's Hardware notes it could be the company's last shipment for a while.

Source: Tom's Hardware

DJI Dock 4 (image via Tom's Hardware / DJI)

DJI's Dock 4 swaps drone batteries in 25 seconds, but it isn't cleared for the US

DJI's first battery-swapping dock replaces a drone's battery automatically in about 25 seconds and gets it back in the air within 45 seconds of landing, compared with roughly 30 minutes to recharge. DJI is pitching it as a "dock-as-a-first-responder" for emergency work. It charges two 260Wh packs at a time, but it has no FCC authorization and isn't for sale in the US.

Source: Tom's Hardware

Typo-squatting (image via Tom's Hardware)

Cyrillic lookalike domains can still slip past browser protections

Researchers at Have I Been Squatted showed that some combinations of Cyrillic lookalike characters, as in their "аррӏө.com" example, can still get past multiple layers of Chromium's protections against fake domains. Chromium has the most advanced rules of any browser for catching them, so the takeaway is to check unfamiliar links carefully.

Source: Tom's Hardware