Tech News Roundup: Apple Passes Nvidia on iPhone Duo Day, OpenAI's $1.25T Raise, Google's AI-Data Ads & More (Oct 23, 2026)

Apple (image via 9to5Mac)

The iPhone Duo is finally in stores, and Apple is back on top as the world's most valuable company. OpenAI is reportedly raising up to $30 billion at a $1.25 trillion valuation, and Google now says data you connect to its AI tools can shape your ads. Also today: SK hynix drops Solidigm's IPO but keeps its US fab plans, Amazon scraps four Northern Virginia data centers, PHP gets a third RCE bug, researchers defuse millions of abandoned Popcorn Time updaters, Block shows off its Dessa voice AI, Micron's next NAND tops 400 layers, Daytona hits $1 billion, Oura sues Ultrahuman again, Tesla cancels the Cybertruck down under, and Bambu Lab dates its tool changer. Here's the Lanbrew tech roundup for October 23, 2026.

Apple (image via 9to5Mac)

Apple passes Nvidia as the world's most valuable company on iPhone Duo launch day

Apple's foldable is finally in stores, and Wall Street liked what it saw. On Friday, the iPhone Duo's launch day, Apple stock hit a record intraday high above $351 a share, 9to5Mac reports. That pushed its market value to about $5.12 trillion and put it back ahead of Nvidia as the world's most valuable company, with Google in third.

The iPhone Duo is Apple's first folding iPhone and costs about $2,000. 9to5Mac's launch-day coverage describes lines at Apple Stores and limited walk-in stock.

Source: 9to5Mac

OpenAI (image via CNBC / Getty Images)

OpenAI is reportedly raising up to $30 billion at a $1.25 trillion valuation

OpenAI is close to a new funding round of up to $30 billion that would value it at $1.25 trillion before the new money, CNBC reports, citing people familiar with the deal. Investors from the United Arab Emirates are said to be leading alongside Coatue. The round is framed as an "opportunistic" bridge before a possible IPO, and OpenAI wants signatures by the end of next week.

OpenAI is also reportedly working on a deal for more computing capacity from the UAE. CFO Sarah Friar told staff in August that OpenAI "will be a public company in 2027." Rival Anthropic confidentially filed for its own IPO in June.

Source: CNBC

Google (image via The Verge)

Google says data you connect to its AI tools can now shape your ads

Google's updated privacy policy makes it clear that if you've linked Gmail, Google Photos or Drive to AI Mode and other Search tools through its Personal Intelligence feature, ads can be personalized using that content, The Verge reports. Advertisers don't get your data or your name and email, and Google says it won't target ads on sensitive categories like health or religion.

Google told Ars Technica that connecting apps is opt-in and that ads won't be "based directly" on your inbox or photo library, and says this is a clarification, not a change. Ars points out that Google's prompts nudge people to turn the feature on, so you may have it enabled without realizing. You can disconnect apps or turn off personalized recommendations in Search's personalization settings.

Source: The Verge; Ars Technica

Solidigm (image via Tom's Hardware)

SK hynix drops Solidigm's IPO but still plans a US fab

SK hynix has dropped plans to take its US enterprise SSD business, Solidigm, public, citing poor market conditions and weak chip stock prices, Tom's Hardware reports. At the same time, it confirmed it still plans to build a new US fab for Solidigm to keep up with demand for data center SSDs.

An IPO could have helped pay for that fab. Tom's Hardware suggests strong enterprise SSD margins may let SK hynix fund the expansion on its own.

Source: Tom's Hardware

Data center (image via Tom's Hardware)

Amazon scraps four planned data centers in Northern Virginia

After pushback from residents, Amazon won't build four new data centers on the former George Washington University campus site in Loudoun County, Virginia, Tom's Hardware reports, citing The Washington Post. Most of the 122-acre site will go to mixed-use and residential development instead.

Amazon will also give 25 acres to the county for a community arts center and recreation facility, plus $5 million for the county's housing fund. Loudoun County is one of the world's densest data center hubs.

Source: Tom's Hardware

PHP (image via The Register)

Update: PHP has a third RCE bug, but no emergency patch this time

What's new: the PHP Foundation has reserved CVE-2026-115560 for a third remote code execution flaw alongside the two PHP2Shell bugs, The Register reports. This one only works with an unusual mix of session settings and app code, so the fix will ship in the next regular PHP release instead of an emergency patch. Until then, the advisory suggests setting session.upload_progress.enabled=0.

As for the original PHP2Shell bugs, patched Wednesday, the foundation says there are still no publicly confirmed successful break-ins, and no sign of exploitation on patched versions.

Source: The Register

Popcorn Time (image via The Verge)

Researchers shut down abandoned Popcorn Time updaters before they became a botnet

Popcorn Time, the old torrent-streaming app, has been dead for years, but an updater for the "Time4Popcorn" fork was still running on huge numbers of Windows, macOS and Android devices, The Verge reports. Researchers at Eye Security found it checking in with abandoned domains over plain HTTP and running an outdated, insecure Chrome. Anyone who grabbed one of those domains could have pushed any software to those machines with full privileges.

So Eye Security registered one of the domains and sent an update telling the updater to switch itself off, without deleting anything. They admit the fix raises ethical questions, but say the only alternative was doing nothing. Android devices weren't covered, since installing there needs the user to tap through. Eye Security says it sent more than 2 million update responses.

Source: The Verge

AI (image via The Verge)

Block shows off Dessa, a voice AI trained only on human conversation

Jack Dorsey's Block has announced Dessa, a speech-to-speech AI model trained "from scratch on nothing but human conversation," The Verge reports. The sample chats Block shared are mostly natural, with a few awkward moments, like the model calling the speaker "Ronaldo" for no clear reason.

The team says Dessa can run locally on a MacBook Pro M4 Max or better. They pitch it as a safety project as much as anything, since today's voice AI can miss the emotion in someone's voice. A small group of AI safety researchers will get early access.

Source: The Verge

Micron (image via Tom's Hardware)

Micron's next 3D NAND tops 400 layers and doubles density

Micron's next-generation G11 3D NAND will go past 400 layers, double storage density and boost I/O speed by 50% while using less power, Tom's Hardware reports. Micron says it delivers 42 Gb per square millimeter and a 5,400 MT/s interface.

To get there, Micron is adopting wafer-on-wafer bonding, a technique China's YMTC already uses. Mass production is planned for the second half of 2027.

Source: Tom's Hardware

Daytona's founders (image via TechCrunch)

Agent cloud startup Daytona hits a $1 billion valuation

Daytona, which builds cloud infrastructure for long-running AI agents, has raised a $60 million Series B at a $1 billion valuation led by FirstMark Growth, TechCrunch reports. The three-year-old New York company has now raised $91 million.

The round also includes angels like Stripe's Patrick Collison, Shopify's Tobi Lütke, Perplexity's Aravind Srinivas and Zoom's Eric Yuan. Founder Ivan Burazin says agents spin up thousands of short, stateful jobs, so Daytona gives each one its own sandboxed computer with Linux, Windows, macOS and GPUs.

Source: TechCrunch

Ultrahuman Ring Pro (image via Engadget)

Oura sues Ultrahuman again, this time over the Ring Pro

Oura has filed a new lawsuit in Texas federal court claiming Ultrahuman's redesigned Ring Pro infringes two of its patents, one of which was granted just two days before the filing, Engadget reports. Oura wants damages and to block the ring from being sold in the US. It already got Ultrahuman's Ring Air banned there last year.

Ultrahuman says the Ring Pro remains on sale and points out that US Customs already found it didn't infringe the patent from the earlier case. It says it will "defend our position vigorously."

Source: Engadget

Tesla Cybertruck (image via Engadget)

Tesla cancels the Cybertruck for Australia and New Zealand

Tesla is emailing customers who reserved a Cybertruck in Australia and New Zealand, some as long as seven years ago, to say its plans to build the truck for those markets "have been discontinued," Engadget reports. Deposits will be refunded within 30 days, and Tesla is offering a free year of Full Self-Driving (Supervised) to anyone who orders a Model 3 or Model Y instead.

The likely problem is that there's no right-hand-drive Cybertruck, which rules it out of those countries as well as the UK, Japan and Ireland.

Source: Engadget

Bambu Lab H3C (image via Tom's Hardware / Bambu Lab)

Bambu Lab's H3C tool-changer 3D printer launches November 3

Bambu Lab's long-awaited tool changer, the H3C, launches November 3, Tom's Hardware reports. It holds nine tools in a drop-down rack on the front of the chamber.

Tool changers can switch colors faster and waste less filament than Bambu's current AMS system. Most other details, including the price, are still under wraps.

Source: Tom's Hardware