September 2026
All columns and Brief analyses.
10 results
Gemini Live Avatar adds a lip-sync face for enterprise customers
Google's Gemini 3.8 Live update adds Live Avatar, an animated face that lip-syncs during a conversation. It is open only to Gemini Enterprise customers. Customers can pick a preset face or build their own. Google says the output carries an invisible SynthID watermark and that the face can switch among 97 languages without losing video fidelity.
Google puts four TPUs on a Falcon 9 prototype
Google is sending Tensor Processing Units to orbit on a SpaceX Falcon 9, La DH reported from the company's blog, and Space.com says the Project Suncatcher prototype on Transporter-18 carries four TPUs built into a Planet satellite. The stated test measures launch stress, radiation and heat. La DH says Google treats cooling and satellite-to-satellite links as later obstacles, and that low orbit receives up to 8 times the solar energy available on Earth.
Gulistan border fire kills several Taliban fighters
Pakistani security sources said forces thwarted an attempt to enter territory at Gulistan on Friday and that several Afghan Taliban fighters were killed in intermittent fire that was still under way. Al Jazeera wrote that several Afghan Taliban fighters were killed the same Friday in an intermittent exchange in the Gulistan area and that fighting was ongoing. The Afghan Taliban did not immediately comment. The fire follows Pakistani airstrikes a day earlier.
High energy prices are pressing Bailey's Bank Rate hold
Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said on 25 September that keeping Bank Rate on hold gets harder the longer energy prices stay high. Investors priced about an 80 percent chance of a November increase, and a little over four quarter-point increases on the curve. A day earlier, two deputy governors had moved closer to an increase.
India set October-to-March bond sales at 7.86 trillion rupees
New Delhi set October-to-March bond sales at 7.86 trillion rupees. Full-year gross borrowing is 15.995 trillion rupees, under the 16.09 trillion indicated with the first-half calendar and the 17.20 trillion rupee budget. Mint reports that the borrowing estimate for the fiscal year was cut by 1.2 trillion rupees.
Intense tropical storms lose force sooner after they leave the water
Across 885 tropical cyclones from 1979 to 2024, winds of at least 29 metres per second lost intensity 18.6 percent faster once the storm was ashore. Weaker storms in that storm set stayed inland 14.5 percent longer. Warmer seas, added moisture and a longer ocean influence sit with the weaker group. Faster travel, steadier air and drier ground sit with the stronger group.
Italy's cabinet caps some foreign pupils at 30 percent and bans school face veils
Italy's cabinet approved a school decree on Thursday that sets a 30 percent cap for specified foreign pupils and bans the burqa and niqab at school. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had said on Sunday that pupils must come to school with their faces uncovered. The cap in primary schools covers children who were not born in Italy or who lack two years of nursery. Parliament has 60 days to ratify the decree. Fines run from 200 to 1,000 euros.
Kotek orders a third-party safety check before Oregon uses frontier AI
Governor Tina Kotek ordered Oregon's chief information officer to define who may review the safety of certain AI tools before the state uses them, and to define what counts as a frontier model. The order also asks whether a kill switch for systems judged unsafe is even viable. It does not say that switch exists. A proposal is due in 90 days. Kotek said federal guardrails are missing, so the state has to set its own.
Kryvyi Rih stays shut after four missile strikes on the ArcelorMittal plant
ArcelorMittal told Ukraine on 25 September that ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, the country's largest steel plant, cannot restart safely after four missile strikes in five weeks. The company said the strikes killed five employees and injured 17, with one worker still in critical condition, and that it expects a non-cash charge of about 1 billion dollars. It plans to keep the site so a later restart remains possible.
Kyoto isolates the costliest step in a molybdenum ammonia cycle
The Kyoto's technology institute, together with Tokyo's university map the path to ammonia using samarium diiodide plus water on a pincer-shaped molybdenum complex. Experiments and theory are used together. Molybdenum-imide formation is the step that asks for the most energy. Methylimide and methylamide complexes are the holdable stand-ins for the intermediates. No plant-scale process is described.