Tech News Roundup: Nvidia and AMD Put $4B Into Meta, Apple Adds AI to Pages and Keynote, DoorDash Nears $17B Instacart Deal & More (Oct 27, 2026)
Meta (image via CNBC)
Nvidia and AMD put a combined $4 billion into Meta's giant AI stock sale, Apple builds an AI assistant into Pages, Keynote and Numbers, and DoorDash closes in on a roughly $17 billion deal for Instacart. Plus Intel's $2.3 billion quantum buy, Anduril and Qualcomm's US-assembled laptops, OpenAI's cheaper GPT-6.1 Terra, a possible TSMC packaging price hike, Ford's home-powering Fathom pickup, Apple's iPhone Duo screen fix, Instagram's 90-minute videos, local AI in Opera, a Roblox-linked scraping complaint, NASA's three-rocket Artemis 3 plan and Fujifilm's new Instax. Here's the Lanbrew tech roundup for October 27, 2026.
Update: Nvidia and AMD commit $4 billion to Meta's AI stock sale
Yesterday Meta said Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom were interested in buying up to $5 billion of its new shares. Now two of them have put real numbers on it. Nvidia says it will invest $3 billion in Meta's equity offering and AMD is putting in $1 billion, CNBC reports, as part of Meta's plan to raise $95 billion for its AI build-out.
The money comes with deeper partnerships attached. Nvidia says Meta will expand its use of Vera Rubin systems and Vera CPUs, and the two will work more closely on Muse, Meta's AI agent that launched last month. AMD says its Helios racks are already running at Meta and its EPYC chips are powering Muse. AMD shares rose about 3% on the news, while Nvidia was flat and Meta slipped around 1%.
Source: CNBC
Apple's new assistant in Keynote (image via The Verge)
Apple brings an AI assistant to Pages, Keynote and Numbers
Apple's office apps are getting a built-in AI helper. The new assistant, built on models from both Apple and OpenAI, reads the context of whatever you're working on, The Verge reports. In Keynote it can design, animate and polish slides, in Pages it can draft and rework writing, and in Numbers it can crunch, chart and organize data and even suggest which chart type to use.
All three apps also now support the Model Context Protocol on macOS 27, so third-party AI agents can plug right in. The assistant is rolling out in beta on Apple Intelligence devices running iOS 27, iPadOS 27 or macOS 27. It's part of a bigger Creator Studio update that adds Generate Fill to Pixelmator Pro, an AI assistant and better Stem Splitter in Logic Pro, and built-in MotionVFX effects in Final Cut Pro, free for subscribers in November, according to 9to5Mac.
Instacart (image via Quartz)
Update: DoorDash is in advanced talks to buy Instacart for about $17 billion
Instacart's sale talks have a frontrunner. DoorDash is in advanced talks to acquire the grocery delivery company in a deal that could value it at roughly $17 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal and Reuters, as summed up by Quartz. Last week the reports only said Instacart was weighing its options and had held early talks with several buyers.
A deal could be finalized as soon as Wednesday, Reuters' source said, though nothing is guaranteed, and Instacart's talks with Uber are no longer active. Investors liked it for Instacart, whose stock jumped about 8% on Monday from a roughly $13 billion market value, while DoorDash fell about 6%. Instacart's grocery marketplace and retailer relationships would plug into DoorDash's huge courier network.
Source: Quartz
Classiq (image via Ctech)
Intel is buying quantum software startup Classiq for about $2.3 billion
Intel is making a big bet on quantum computing. The chipmaker has agreed to acquire Classiq, a six-year-old Tel Aviv startup whose platform automatically turns high-level code into quantum circuits, for about $2.3 billion in cash and stock, Ctech reports. Intel's announcement didn't name a price, but Bloomberg's sources put it at the same figure.
Intel says pairing Classiq's software with its own silicon spin-qubit hardware will make it a full-stack quantum provider, adding quantum processors alongside its CPUs, GPUs and custom chips. It's the priciest quantum acquisition yet by a wide margin, well above IonQ's $1 billion Oxford Ionics deal. The deal still needs regulatory approval and is expected to close in the first half of 2027.
Source: Calcalist (Ctech)
BlueChip's rugged prototype (image via The Verge)
Anduril and Qualcomm team up on BlueChip, a US-assembled laptop line
Defense company Anduril is getting into PCs. It's partnering with Qualcomm on BlueChip, a line of laptops launching in early 2027, The Verge reports. The first model is a rugged, Snapdragon X-powered prototype aimed at the US military, complete with a carry handle, and it'll be assembled at Anduril's Arsenal-1 plant in Ohio.
The long-term goal is a laptop made entirely in the US, but that's a ways off. Asked how much of the first model will actually be built domestically, Anduril founder Palmer Luckey said it's still to be determined and that the first shipping version likely won't be 100% American. Qualcomm says it plans to make the chips for it at TSMC's Arizona fab.
Source: The Verge
OpenAI (image via The Register)
OpenAI launches GPT-6.1 Terra, a cheaper mid-tier model
OpenAI has a new middle child. GPT-6.1 Terra fills the mid-range slot in the GPT-6.1 family, and its API costs $1 per million input tokens and $5 per million output tokens, The Register reports. That's half the price of GPT-6.1 Sol and a tenth of the top-end GPT-6 Astra, with only the budget Luna tier coming in cheaper.
OpenAI is pitching it for high-volume work like reading invoices and typing the details into accounting software. Benchmark tracker Artificial Analysis says Terra is smarter than the last Terra-class model at under a third of the cost. One OpenAI staffer said it's probably better than Astra and Sol at technical communication, about even on vision and computer use while being much faster, and a bit weaker at most other things. 9to5Mac notes it's also rolling into ChatGPT and Codex.
Sources: The Register, 9to5Mac
TSMC (image via Tom's Hardware)
TSMC reportedly weighs a 20% price hike for the packaging behind AI chips
The AI boom's tightest bottleneck may be getting pricier. TSMC is considering raising prices for its CoWoS advanced packaging by as much as 20%, according to TrendForce, as reported by Tom's Hardware. CoWoS is how chips like Nvidia's Blackwell squeeze GPU dies and stacks of high-bandwidth memory into one package, and demand is outrunning capacity. TSMC hasn't confirmed it.
Testing is becoming its own choke point, too. Blackwell reportedly takes three to four times longer to test than Hopper, and Rubin could take up to seven times longer. Tool lead times have stretched to as long as eight months, so TSMC has reportedly placed this year's equipment orders at existing prices instead of haggling, choosing speed over savings.
Source: Tom's Hardware
The Ford Fathom (image via The Verge)
Ford's $28,000 Fathom EV pickup can power your house with a built-in inverter
Ford's upcoming cheap electric pickup is going to double as a home battery. The Fathom, a roughly $28,000 truck and the first on Ford's new Universal EV Platform, has its inverter built into the vehicle, so it can put out more than 10kW of household AC power on its own, The Verge reports. The old F-150 Lightning needed a big, pricey external inverter on the wall for that.
You'll still need some gear at home. Ford is aiming to price its Home Power Station at about half the cost of today's $1,310 Charge Station Pro, and a whole-home backup setup at around $3,123 instead of about $5,205, though final prices aren't set. Ford also teamed up with five big utilities, including PG&E and Exelon, to work out common rules for sending power back to the grid.
Source: The Verge
The iPhone Duo (image via CNBC)
Update: Apple says it will replace iPhone Duos with broken inner screens
Apple has finally addressed the iPhone Duo's cracking screens. After a weekend of owners reporting bright horizontal lines spreading from the hinge, Apple told CNBC it's aware of an issue affecting the inner display on "a small number" of units, and that affected owners should contact AppleCare for a replacement.
That's the first official word from Apple after iFixit's teardown pointed at a differently shaped part of the hinge. Owners who are out of warranty face a steep bill, though: Apple lists an inner-screen repair at $999. The $1,999-and-up foldable only hit stores on Friday.
Source: CNBC
Instagram head Adam Mosseri (image via TechCrunch)
Instagram tests 90-minute "Features" to take on YouTube
Instagram is going long. The app is testing a new upload type called Features that lets creators post videos up to 90 minutes long, TechCrunch reports, a big shift for a platform that spent years chasing short vertical clips. 9to5Mac notes the new format is horizontal, YouTube-style video.
The catch is money. Instagram head Adam Mosseri admitted that creators there mostly get paid by brands, not the platform, and that Instagram's small performance-based payout program loses money. YouTube, by contrast, shares 55% of ad revenue with Partner Program creators, which is a big reason it's still the place creators want to grow.
Sources: TechCrunch, 9to5Mac
Opera's WebAI preview (image via 9to5Mac)
Opera One can now run local AI models right in the browser
Opera wants your browser to be your AI host. Opera One now has a preview feature that lets websites and extensions tap AI models running on your own device through WebAI, a proposed web standard that 9to5Mac says has backing from Google and Microsoft. At launch it supports Google's Gemma and, on Macs, Apple's on-device foundation model.
It's opt-in, needs no subscription, and you decide which sites can use it. Because the model runs locally, your data stays on your machine and developers can add AI features without paying for every request. Opera's examples include an extension that sorts your tabs or flags clickbait. Opera GX and Opera Neon are getting it next.
Source: 9to5Mac
Roblox (image via Tom's Hardware)
3D model site Open3DLab says a Roblox-linked crawler grabbed 145GB of its files
Independent 3D modeling community Open3DLab says a web crawler tied to Roblox scraped nearly its whole catalog, Tom's Hardware reports. Starting Oct. 18, the bot mapped about 18,926 projects in 34 hours across Open3DLab and its sister sites, then downloaded complete copies of 1,027 files from 712 projects, about 145.5GB in all, which the site believes were meant for AI training.
The crawler's user agent described itself as 3D foundation model research and listed a Roblox email address, according to the post. Open3DLab says it ignored the site's robots.txt, its terms against scraping and creators' licenses, and kept trying after being blocked. A large share of what it took came from the group's adult-content sites.
Source: Tom's Hardware
NASA's Artemis program (image via Engadget)
NASA's Artemis 3 plan calls for three heavy-lift launches in two weeks
NASA has laid out how Artemis 3 will work now that it's a test mission rather than a moon landing, Engadget reports. Three spacecraft will launch on three different heavy-lift rockets from Florida within about two weeks. First up is Blue Origin's New Glenn carrying a test Blue Moon Mark 2 lander, followed by SLS and Orion with astronauts Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio, Andre Douglas and ESA's Luca Parmitano.
The crew will dock with Blue Origin's lander and spend time checking its atmosphere, software, flight controls and life support before undocking. The final leg brings in SpaceX's Starship version 3. Under NASA's overhauled plan, the next crewed moon landing has slipped to 2028.
Source: Engadget
Fujifilm Instax Mini Evo 2 (image via The Verge)
Fujifilm's Instax Mini Evo 2 adds a touchscreen and video
Fujifilm's hybrid instant camera is getting closer to a real digital camera. The Instax Mini Evo 2 has a bigger 1/2.77-inch sensor, a 4.5-inch touchscreen that fills the whole back, and, for the first time, short video clips, The Verge reports. It's the first Instax with an LCD touchscreen, though it keeps the two dials and film-style print lever.
The video is pretty limited: just the few seconds before you snap a photo, no audio, 560 x 992 resolution at 24fps, saved to microSD, per DPReview. It still prints 2 x 3-inch Instax Mini photos and charges over USB-C. It'll cost $290 in black when it goes on sale at the end of November.
Source: The Verge
Lanbrew rounds up the day's biggest tech stories. Every story above links to the original reporting, so click through to support the outlets doing the work.
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