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• BetaNews2026-10-15✓ Read

  Tiny11 now has an app with a graphical interface for easier debloating of Windows 11

  Tiny11 is a fantastic free utility for creating custom, debloated builds of Windows 11. While it has proved very popular since it was released, it has also been difficult to use – now this is changing thanks to a new version that has a graphical user interface. Fast facts: Described by the developer as aiming to be the “de facto standard for creating lightweight, safe and efficient Windows images”, Tiny11 has been off-putting to many potential users because of its reliance on PowerShell scripts.

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• BetaNews2026-10-15✓ Read

  Publishers seek $19.5M default judgment against WeLib

  Thirteen publishers asked a New York judge for $19.5 million from shadow library WeLib, plus orders to disable its three domains after it ignored the suit.

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• BetaNews2026-10-15✓ Read

  Ubuntu 26.10 arrives with GNOME 51 and Rust coreutils

  Ubuntu 26.10 Stonking Stingray lands October 15 with GNOME 51, all-Rust coreutils, Sequoia PGP, a certified-hardware check in Settings and the Linux 7.3 kernel.

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• BetaNews2026-10-15✓ Read

  Exploited Cisco email gateway bug grants root access

  Cisco says attackers are exploiting CVE-2026-76519, a 9.8 Secure Email Gateway flaw that grants root via a crafted attachment. Check File Reputation and patch now.

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• BetaNews2026-10-15✓ Read

  Microsoft October 2026 Patch Tuesday fixes 1,413 flaws

  Microsoft’s October 2026 Patch Tuesday patched 1,413 flaws, with an exploited Windows Shell bug that bypasses Mark of the Web and two disclosed zero-days.

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• BetaNews2026-10-15✓ Read

  Character.AI enters Chapter 11 with Disney’s $20M bid

  Character.AI filed for Chapter 11 in Delaware as Disney placed a $20 million stalking horse bid for an IP license. The chatbot stays online during the sale.

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• BetaNews2026-10-15✓ Read

  Meta’s Muse Wonder frontier model opens to developers

  Muse Wonder is live on the Meta Model API and Muse Code at $4 input and $20 output per million tokens. Muse Wonder Full requires a higher-tier Muse Code plan.

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• BetaNews2026-10-14✓ Read

  Meta launches new Your Algorithm options so you can control your Facebook algorithm

  Meta is introducing new controls to help Facebook users customize the algorithm used to deliver content to them. Powered by AI, the new Your Algorithm tools allow for natural language prompts and make it possible to fine-tune what appears in Feed and Reels on the social network. Fast Facts Meta says that the recommendations it makes on Facebook will immediately take into account the customizations that users put in place so changes will be noticeably straight away.

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• BetaNews2026-10-13✓ Read

  Kodi 22 Piers RC 1 adds game cheats, deep links and FFmpeg 9

  Kodi 22 Piers RC 1 is out with FFmpeg 9.0.2, HDR PGS subtitle upgrades, a RetroPlayer cheat engine, Android deep links and smarter Blu-ray playlist detection.

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• BetaNews2026-10-13✓ Read

  French supermarket fridge attack hit outdated Danfoss units

  Danfoss says many fridge controllers hijacked at 350+ French supermarkets were end-of-life or on outdated firmware as investigators hunt the unknown attackers.

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• BetaNews2026-10-13✓ Read

  Windows App adds remote PC connections, no work account

  Microsoft made remote PC connections generally available in Windows App on Windows, and no work or school account is needed to reach a physical or virtual PC.

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• BetaNews2026-10-13✓ Read

  Google teams up with Flo Health to bring info women’s wearable to Google Health

  Google Health has made a “strategic investment” in Flo Health, the firm most well-known for its period-tracking app. As part of the investment, data collected by women’s health wearable will be synchronized into Google Health. With half a billion users around the world, the Flo platform is a large market. The partnership is said to “create a more personal, precise health experience for women at every stage of life — from a first period to pregnancy to perimenopause”.

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• BetaNews2026-10-13✓ Read

  Mozilla announces security-focused Firefox Enterprise

  Mozilla has launched a new version of its Firefox web browser aimed specifically at “organizations with strict security, governance, and compliance requirements”. Firefox Enterprise includes additional controls to limit AI and to configure the flow of data through the browser. The organization says that the release comes as the debate around data sovereignty escalates, particularly in Europe.

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• BetaNews2026-10-12✓ Read

  Windows 11 23H2 Enterprise final patch arrives Nov. 10

  Microsoft’s final Windows 11 23H2 update for Enterprise, Education and IoT Enterprise ships Nov. 10, 2026. Review upgrade steps and other end-of-support dates.

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• BetaNews2026-10-12✓ Read

  Python 3.15 released with lazy imports and UTF-8 default

  Python 3.15 is out with explicit lazy imports, UTF-8 as the default encoding, frozendict and sentinel types, the Tachyon profiler and a faster experimental JIT.

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• BetaNews2026-10-12✓ Read

  Microsoft leaders call for emergency brakes on rogue AI

  Microsoft’s Brad Smith wants firms to alert victims of rogue AI breaches. Satya Nadella says to assume models are compromised and build in an emergency brake.

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• BetaNews2026-10-12✓ Read

  Microsoft is restoring the Send Availability feature of Outlook for iOS and Android

  Finding a good time to schedule a meeting with someone can be difficult, and Microsoft Outlook used to have a feature that helped to make things easier. The Send Availability made it possible to easily let someone else know when you have free slots in your schedule, but it was removed from the software a little while back. Now, Microsoft has announced that it is back. This means that users of Outlook for iOS and Android have access to the Send Availability feature once again, simplifying the process of meeting scheduling.

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• BetaNews2026-10-12✓ Read

  How to schedule sending messages in WhatsApp

  While a lot of communication happens in the here and now, there are times when you may want to delay the sending of a message rather than having it delivered immediately. To help with this, Meta is giving Android users the ability to schedule the sending of messages in WhatsApp For now, the feature is rolling out to Android users who are signed up to the WhatsApp beta program, but it will not be long before it is made available on other platforms and to users who are not part of the beta program. Here is what you need to… [Continue Reading]

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• BetaNews2026-10-11✓ Read

  Microsoft is retiring Themes by Copilot in Microsoft Outlook

  Having gone all-in with Copilot, Microsoft has started the process of reeling things back in a little. As part of this, the company has quietly announced that it is killing off a Copilot-powered feature of Outlook. The announcement reveals that Microsoft is retiring Themes by Copilot in Microsoft Outlook – possibly because of a lack of interest from users, although no reason is given.

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• BetaNews2026-10-11✓ Read

  WhatsApp starts blocking logins from outdated operating systems

  In a bid to boost security for users, WhatsApp is using a server-side update to block iOS and Android users from logging into their accounts with out-of-date software. This is not just about ensuring that everyone is using an up-to-date version of the WhatsApp app, but also that their operating systems are current. The thinking behind this is that any device, and the accounts accessed from it, are only as secure as the software running on them.

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• BetaNews2026-10-11✓ Read

  Tesla forced to rename its Full Self-Driving system in Europe

  Following intervention from the German Transport Ministry, Tesla is renaming its Full Self-Driving system across Europe. There was concern about the name giving drivers false confidence in the capabilities of their vehicles, so the system is now refered to as Tesla Assisted Driving across Europe. The German Transport Ministry says that it has to be made clear that drivers remain entirely responsible for the safe driving of their vehicles, and it hopes that the change in name will help to drive this point home.

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• BetaNews2026-10-10✓ Read

  Let’s Encrypt is slashing certificate lifetimes to just 64 days

  In just four months’ time, Let’s Encrypt will be cutting the free SSL/TLS certificate lifetimes from 90 days to 64 days. It is a move that is designed to help improve security, and avoid abuse. The shorter lifetime will be the default, but it will be possible to opt for something even shorter if desired – as short as 6 days. The default of 64 days does not come into force until early next year, but it will be possible to opt to use it starting next week for those who are interested.

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• BetaNews2026-10-10✓ Read

  Cloudflare has acquired Deno and will use it to boost Workers

  Cloudflare has announced that it is acquiring Deno, the outfit behind the Deno programming runtime. The acquisition will be used to improve Cloudflare’s Workers programming model. Workers can be used to build software to run on Cloudflare’s network, and Deno only recently developed its own open-source version of the celld platform. Interestingly, Cloudflare did not – and does not – see this as a threat. Ryan Dahl from Deno says that: “We’re joining Cloudflare to make the Workers programming model a mainstream way to build servers.

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• BetaNews2026-10-10✓ Read

  Google wants more people to move away from passwords to passkeys

  The password has had its day, and passkeys are taking over. However, the switch is not happening quite as quickly as Google would like. As such, the company is trying to encourage more people to embrace passkeys and the added security benefits they offer. The drive is part of October being Cybersecurity Awareness Month in which various big names from the world of technology are taking steps to help people take their security more seriously.

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• BetaNews2026-10-10✓ Read

  Microsoft is slashing free OneDrive storage for Microsoft 365 subscribers

  Microsoft 365 subscribers are set to lose terabytes of free online storage space. Microsoft has quietly announced a reduction in the amount of OneDrive storage included with various subscriptions, and users are not happy about it. While subscribers to Microsoft 365 Family or Premium plans were eligible for 1TB of storage for up to six users, the new arrangement only provides 2TB of storage to share between all plan members. There is also a hefty reduction in free storage space for Pro plan subscribers.

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• BetaNews2026-10-09✓ Read

  Microsoft sets 2027 Windows Update certificate deadlines for outdated PCs

  Microsoft says PCs on unsupported versions, or supported ones missing patches, will lose Windows Update access when certificates expire in May and June 2027.

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• BetaNews2026-10-09✓ Read

  OpenAI defends firing three researchers as trio disputes the reason

  OpenAI says three safety researchers it fired last week broke rules on sensitive information. The trio says they lost their jobs for putting AI safety first.

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• BetaNews2026-10-09✓ Read

  Anthropic’s OSS Scanner sends free Mythos reports with no human review

  Anthropic’s opt-in OSS Scanner gives eligible open-source projects free, recurring Claude Mythos vulnerability scans, with reports emailed without human review.

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• BetaNews2026-10-09✓ Read

  Google Chrome now supports JPEG XL images and animations for improved efficiency

  Google has announced that as of version 155, its Chrome web browser now officially supports the JPEG XL format. The key benefit of this newly added support is that the JPEG XL image format can provide up to 50 percent better compressions than the JPEG format. On top of this, JPEG XL can be used for animations, and there is lossless JPEG transcoding to allow for the easy reuse of existing images.

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• BetaNews2026-10-08✓ Read

  Mistral opens trillion-parameter Large 4 preview, weights due in October

  Mistral AI launched a public preview of Large 4, a 1-trillion-parameter multimodal model, with open weights due by the end of October and API pricing posted.

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• BetaNews2026-10-08✓ Read

  Microsoft Teams will soon support third-party deepfake protection

  Microsoft will soon boost the security of Teams meetings by introducing support for third-party deepfake protections. The move is part of a drive to help to keep users safe from the problem of AI-generated audio and video in meetings. By allowing the use of third-party solutions, Microsoft is helping to widen the choices available to users and reducing pressure on its own development teams. Microsoft’s plans for Teams have been revealed in an entry on the Microsoft 365 roadmap.

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• BetaNews2026-10-08✓ Read

  Steam beta now runs non-Steam Windows games on Linux through Proton

  Valve's Oct. 7 Steam client beta runs Windows programs added as non-Steam games on Linux through Proton by default and fixes two Browse and Stop button bugs.

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• BetaNews2026-10-08✓ Read

  Chrome cuts off unauthorized Google certificates after registry hijacks

  Hackers hijacked the .gh, .sl and .as registries to obtain HTTPS certificates for Google domains. Chrome blocked them, and Google urged owners to watch CT logs.

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• BetaNews2026-10-08✓ Read

  Microsoft brings local AI agents to Windows and a $2,599 Surface laptop

  Microsoft showed Copilot working on local files and models at its Oct. 7 Windows event and priced the new Surface Laptop Ultra from $2,599, shipping Oct. 16.

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• BetaNews2026-10-08✓ Read

  Canal+ and MPA urge EU to list MovieBox as downloads hit 307.6 million

  MovieBox has 307.6 million Palm Store downloads as the MPA and Canal+ flag the pirate app to the EU. Canal+ also links it to Chinese phone maker Transsion.

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• BetaNews2026-10-08✓ Read

  GPT-6 brings interactive Intelligent UI answers to free ChatGPT users

  OpenAI's GPT-6 rollout adds Intelligent UI, so ChatGPT can answer with charts, interactive diagrams and small tools. Free and Go users get access from Oct. 8.

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• BetaNews2026-10-08✓ Read

  10 Best Linux Distros in 2026, Ranked for Every User

  Compare the best Linux distros in 2026 for beginners, developers, and power users: real rankings on speed, support, and ease of use.

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• BetaNews2026-10-08✓ Read

  Microsoft is working to make it easier for developers to publish XBOX games

  Publishing games to the XBOX platform has been a source of frustration for developers for quite some time, and Microsoft is finally listening to feedback and is ready to do something about it. The company says that it will be taking steps to help reduce “unnecessary friction” and simplifying the overall publishing process. While details remain thin on the ground at the moment, Microsoft’s public acknowledgement that more needs to be done – and the promise that something will be done – will come as good news for game developers and gamers alike.

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• BetaNews2026-10-07✓ Read

  Microsoft is introducing a new Windows Search experience with Copilot built in

  At its Surface announcement event today, Microsoft not only revealed the latest addition to its range of Surface devices, but also gave a preview of a revamped Windows Search experience. The new approach sees Microsoft essentially transforming Windows Search into a chatbot, so users can type natural language prompts to perform searches and jump to Windows settings. With Copilot built in, it is also possible to access Microsoft’s AI tools without having to launch the dedicated Copilot app separately.

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• BetaNews2026-10-07✓ Read

  Google launches Playground as an experimental AI-driven game creation platform

  Google has launched a new Labs experiment called Playground which gives you the chance to create your own games using AI prompts. The no-code game creation platform will ultimately integrate with Unity Spark to make it possible to take things even further. For now, if you are 18 or over and living in the US, Google Playground lets you use conversational descriptions to create fun games that can be shared with others. Or, as Google puts it: “If you can think it, you can play it”.

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