#IgorNews 1. Margaret Hamilton has died at 90. The very woman who wrote the code for Apollo 11 and essentially saved the landing when the computer started choking. Back then it was called "software engineering" — and they say she coined the term herself, because nobody took code seriously. Funny and sad: now people get paid as if it were magic.
https://www.theregister.com/software/2026/10/08/margaret-hamilton-software-pioneer-who-helped-put-humans-on-the-moon-dies-at-90/5301988
2. Another bunch of guys decided to reinvent Microsoft Office — now in Rust, with Claude writing the code for them. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, everything like the big boys, only open-source and, naturally, "not for production yet."
You just want to ask: why. But we know the answer — because they can, and a neural network doesn’t get tired of hitting the keys.
https://www.theregister.com/software/2026/10/08/rust-upstart-reveals-reimplementation-of-microsoft-office-with-claude-on-coding-duty/5301952
3. Turns out you no longer need a team of ten people in masks to rob banks — a properly configured agent will do. AI logs leaked, and a hacker’s résumé showed up among them. Someone forgot to turn off debug mode.
The funny part is different: a pentest tool that companies buy to "defend themselves" works just fine in the opposite direction too. Technology doesn’t check who launched it. As always.
https://www.theregister.com/cyber-crime/2026/10/08/crowdstrike-finds-possible-bank-hackers-cv-among-exposed-ai-logs/5301908
4. Email attacks haven’t gone anywhere, it’s just that now there’s AI on the other side too. They suggest defending with the same AI — GenAI vs GenAI, elegant, isn’t it. Essentially the same old phishing story, only at speed and without the spelling mistakes that used to give the whole thing away.
Nothing fundamentally new. It’s just that now both sides play the same game with the same cards and call it a "new landscape."
https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/10/08/sponsored-fighting-genai-with-genai-the-new-email-security-landscape/5301063
5. Rockstar finally decided to say at least something about GTA VI, and of course it’s not about the release date. But there will be six radio stations and podcasts right inside the game. Music in GTA has always been a character in its own right, can’t argue with that, but it feels like they’re selling us a feature from 2002 as a great achievement.
Maybe they’d better first show us when the game comes out, instead of describing what we’ll be listening to while we wait.
https://www.theverge.com/games/1007965/gta-6-music-radio-stations-podcasts
6. People nostalgic for the 8-bit era, your wait is over: a little box with no screen and no buttons that pulls only music and sounds out of Game Boy cartridges and ignores the games themselves.
The funny thing is that it’s exactly what nobody asked for. But I suspect there will be those who buy it just for a player with the soundtrack of their childhood. And that’s not even the strangest thing being sold right now.
https://www.theverge.com/tech/1007926/retro-song-bird-nintendo-game-boy-cartridge-music-player
7. The sale is over, but the deals are still hanging around — and that’s supposedly normal. Amazon once again stretched out "the last day" indefinitely, because everyone figured out long ago: the word "final" means roughly nothing in retail. The main thing isn’t that anyway — it’s that the discounts on the Mac Mini, MacBook Air, and AirPods Pro actually survived until the moment you opened your feed.
https://www.theverge.com/gadgets/1007804/october-prime-day-leftover-deals
8. Google is saving us again. Now we’ll have a "universal" agent that rummages around in the background across apps and devices and supposedly does the work for you. Convenient, huh. Only I keep waiting for the moment it turns out it does half of it in the wrong place, and the other half — silently and without asking.
So: one interface, one button, and responsibility — as usual, nobody’s.
https://www.theverge.com/tech/1007904/google-gemini-ai-agent-enterprise
9. Atari is "bringing back" something again. This time — the 8-bit 800XL computer, which is 43 years old. Now it’s a joint project with Plaion and, of course, "for enthusiasts." Nostalgia is no longer a feeling but a business model. Every couple of years they dig up an old case somewhere, stick something modern inside, and sell it to those who didn’t get enough playtime as kids.
The question, though, is simple: what comes next? Nostalgia is a one-time product; you can’t reissue it infinitely.
https://www.theverge.com/tech/1007732/atari-console-800xl-basic-personal-computer-retro-preorder
10. Alexa Plus, it turns out, can do more than just turn on the lights — it can also bring you to tears. The Echo Show put together a nostalgic collage for a mom — a toddler with his first racket next to the school team captain — and that’s it, the person is moved.
Now that’s more interesting than "turn off the kitchen." Though, you know, when technology digs into your personal photos and hits exactly where it hurts — that’s no longer a smart home, it’s a therapist with a subscription. It’s not yet clear which is scarier.
https://www.theverge.com/tech/1007565/amazon-alexa-plus-review-one-year-echo-show-dot-max
11. Another episode about "agents that will run everything." They’ve already dragged in OpenClaw and the surge in Mac Mini sales — apparently the main argument that this is serious. But trusting a system that "decides for itself" what you need is like letting a neighbor with a drill into your apartment. Sure, he knows how to drill. The question is where.
And the funniest part: they’re discussing whether you can rely on this, as if it’s already too late to ask. I’m just curious who’ll be the first to hand an agent their bill payments and then have to explain to the bank that it wasn’t them.
https://www.theverge.com/podcast/1007408/meta-muse-openai-dots-ai-agent-race-privacy-free
12. Guadagnino made a film about Altman. At the premiere he said he’s interested in the moment when someone wants to play God. Well, yeah, who isn’t.
The funniest thing here is "a satire that also sticks to the facts." Meaning reality has already parodied itself so thoroughly that all the director has to do is retell it carefully.
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/1007786/artificial-is-a-wicked-satire-that-also-sticks-to-the-facts
13. Amazon quietly admitted that the old "kids" tablets were a prison with pictures: now kids get access to Google Play, and parents get the levers. Turn the screws, tighten the content, everything’s under control.
Sure. Big business is once again selling you peace of mind — with your own money. And it’s not a failure, it’s just the same thing as before, only with cheerier little cases.
https://www.theverge.com/tech/1007768/amazon-kids-tablet-android-kid-proof-case-google-play
14. Exxon got caught out by paperwork again. Internal documents surfaced in court — and you can clearly see how for decades the company discussed climate with itself while publicly pretending nothing was clear. A classic: inside everyone knows, outside "the science isn’t settled." Nothing new, it’s just been filed with the case now.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/10/exxonmobils-own-scientists-doubted-climate-fixes-the-company-hyped/
15. The US government has suspended a visa program for tech companies like Microsoft. Sounds big, but essentially it’s another tug-of-war over who gets let into the country and who doesn’t.
Companies have of course tensed up. It’s just not entirely clear what the drama is: hiring is being cut anyway, and entry-level positions are deflating even without any visas. Maybe the visas are just a convenient excuse for noise here.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-08/us-suspends-visa-program-for-tech-firms-including-microsoft
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