Today, for something completely different:

s.x = (s16) ((s32) (temp_v0 << 0x10) >> 0x11);

MIPS has 16-bit loads and stores, but not 16-bit (signed) arithmetic, so if it wants to do that, it needs to sign-extend to 32-bit first. And it does that by first shifting up by 16 so that the 16-bit sign bit is at the 32-bit sign bit, and then it can do an arithmetic shift afterwards. So what you want is:

s16 temp_v0;

s.x = temp_v0 >> 1;

Sometimes, it can be pretty stubborn, and you'll need to go through memory or similar before GCC really inserts the shift patterns you want.

Apple's "Welcome Home" product launch is happening tomorrow. As the name suggests, Apple is going to debut new home accessories, including the long-rumored home hub.


Below, we've listed all the rumors we know about the three devices Apple is set to introduce.

HomeView

Apple's home hub, which will be called HomeView, is a multi-function device designed for all of a home's occupants. It's built around Siri AI, and will have an A18 chip and 8GB of RAM.


Here's what rumors suggest it'll be able to do:

• Answer questions with ‌Siri‌ AI


• Control smart home devices


• Display the time and weather


• Display widgets, including widgets from a connected iPhone


• Show each user their calendar events and reminders


• Play music, podcasts, and audiobooks


• Play videos, TV shows, and movies


• Show photos, slideshows, and home movies


• Support video calls


• Show the news


• Show messages and emails


• Display recipes and instructions when completing tasks

The hub will be able to do anything you might want a home assistant device to do, from giving the next steps of a recipe to suggesting dinner ideas and creating a shopping list. It will rely heavily on ‌Siri‌ AI for voice-based input, but it will also have a 6-inch touch display.

The display is square with bezels around the edges, and there are two models. One version can be mounted on the wall, and the other is attached to a half-dome speaker base with a flexible arm for adjusting tilt. The hub isn't expected to have its own App Store, but it will support Apple apps such as Safari, News, Music, Reminders, Calendar, Weather, Messages, FaceTime, Photos, and Mail.

There will be a presence sensor and a camera in the hub, and it will use a variation of Face ID to determine who is nearby to show customized content. It will display information from a linked iPhone, like email messages, but only after authenticating. The sensors in the hub will be usable in HomeKit scenes and automations, so you can use it to trigger lights and other devices when a person walks into the room.

The interface will be heavily widget-based so you can see information at a glance, and it's likely going to look similar to StandBy mode on the iPhone. You will be able to choose your preferred clock face or idle state, along with a home screen of widget options that you can tap to open a full app. If you have multiple hubs, they'll link together for features like multi-room music and intercom functionality. Rumors suggest that it will have better sound quality than the HomePod mini.

There isn't going to be a built-in battery, and the hub will need to be connected to power via an included USB-C port. The speaker-equipped version is expected in multiple colors, including gray, silver, starlight, and rose. The wall-mounted version will be available in silver and gray.

Rumors suggest the hub could be priced somewhere around $350.

Apple TV 4K

Apple isn't updating the design of the Apple TV, so expect the new model to be the same boring black box. What's changing is entirely inside.


The ‌Apple TV‌ 4K is going to get a lot more powerful so it can support ‌Siri‌ AI, offering many of the same ‌Siri‌ features that are available on iPhone and iPad in iOS and iPadOS 27.

We're expecting an A19 with 8GB of RAM, along with Apple's N1 networking chip for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread. The A19 will bring a major upgrade in performance, both for ‌Siri‌ and for gaming. It has ray tracing, mesh shading, and other features that will improve gameplay graphics.

There will be a new ‌Siri‌ Remote with an included speaker to make it easier to find, and we've seen some signs that Apple is working on its own gaming controller under the Beats brand, but there's no word on whether it's ready to launch.

Apple will likely emphasize ‌Siri‌ AI and gaming capabilities when introducing the ‌Apple TV‌. Apple raised the price of the current ‌Apple TV‌ to $199 in June, and the new model will be at least that expensive with the processor and RAM upgrades.

HomePod mini

Like the ‌Apple TV‌ 4K, the ‌HomePod mini‌ isn't going to get a new design, but it will have internal upgrades that make it more capable. It's going to get an upgraded S10 chip, second-generation UWB for features like Handoff, and the N1 networking chip with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.


You'll need a nearby AI-capable device for ‌Siri‌ AI processing because the HomePod probably won't be able to handle much on-device, but smarter ‌Siri‌ should make for a better experience. ‌Siri‌ AI on ‌HomePod mini‌ will have the context of ‌Siri‌ interactions on other devices, and it's likely conversations will be saved to a connected iPhone's ‌Siri‌ app.

‌Siri‌ AI can answer follow-up questions, handle multi-request queries, and access information from your apps. It'll be similar to having ChatGPT or Claude on a speaker. Though design updates aren't expected, the ‌HomePod mini‌ will get new colors. We're expecting white, blue, black, sage, and pink.

‌HomePod mini‌ pricing went up from $99 to $129 in June 2026, and the new model will likely be priced at $129 too.

LG Accessories

Apple worked with LG to make an LG-branded wired video doorbell, thermostat, smart deadbolt lock, temperature sensor, indoor security camera, outdoor security camera, and floodlight camera that will work with the home hub and the ‌HomeKit‌ platform.

The accessories are part of an "Apple Home Collection" that will be marketed alongside the HomeView. They won't be ready until later this year at the earliest, but Apple could show them off during the announcement.

Announcement Timing

There's no keynote event for the "Welcome Home" product debut, so Apple is probably going to release a video and an accompanying set of press releases. There's an NYC media event that's going to take place at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, October 13, and that could be when all of the announcements happen.

The NYC event will let members of the media get some hands-on time with the new devices to share first impressions.

Pre-Orders and Launch Date

Apple could begin accepting pre-orders just after the new devices launch. The ‌HomePod mini‌ and the ‌Apple TV‌ 4K are going to launch on Friday, October 30.

The HomeView won't be available right away and is expected to ship to customers in mid-November.
This article, "Apple 'Welcome Home' Launch: Everything to Expect Tomorrow" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple is planning to invite content creators to a two-day product showcase in Los Angeles on October 27 and October 28, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.


Do not expect a traditional Apple Event with a live-streamed video on either of those days, as Gurman said that these will be "experiences" for content creators, similar to one that Apple is holding in New York this Tuesday, October 13.

The following four products are expected to be announced on or around Tuesday, October 27:

• 14" and 16" MacBook Pro models with OLED displays: A major MacBook Pro redesign with an OLED display, touchscreen support, M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, a Dynamic Island, a "significantly lighter" design, and potentially Apple's C1X or C2 modem for built-in cellular connectivity.


• 24" iMac: M6 chip and new color options.


• 14" MacBook Pro: M6 chip.
• iPad mini 8: OLED display, A20 Pro chip, landscape front camera, redesigned speaker system, and water-resistant design.

Apple previously announced that it will be releasing a Mac Studio with 512GB of RAM in "late October," so expect that around the same time.

This will likely be Apple's final major launch in 2026, according to Gurman.

In the meantime, Apple is expected to unveil an all-new HomeView smart home hub, a HomePod mini 2, and an updated Apple TV 4K on Tuesday, October 13.
This article, "Apple Plans Two-Day Event to Showcase Trio of New Macs and iPad Mini" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Beats today shared a short video teasing a new collaboration with Pokémon, and it appears this will be for a Pikachu-themed Beats Pill speaker.


"Time to catch something new," the video title says. The short clip shows a Beats Pill speaker and Beats and Poké Ball icons side by side.

Earlier this month, Pokémon content creator BritBratTV shared two photos of an alleged Pikachu-themed Beats Pill speaker box at U.S. retailer Target, so that is likely what this teaser video is for. A release date has yet to be disclosed.


Apple re-released the Beats Pill in 2024, after discontinuing the previous version in 2022. In the U.S., the Bluetooth speaker is regularly priced at $149.99.

Pikachu visited Apple Park in August.
This article, "Apple and Pokémon Tease Special Pikachu-Themed Beats Pill Speaker" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple has opened its "Get Ready" service for iPhone Duo pre-orders, allowing customers to pre-select a variety of options to streamline the process of ordering and have a better chance of grabbing one on launch day.


The iPhone Duo launches on October 23, while pre-orders go live on October 16 at 5 a.m. Pacific Time or 8 a.m. Eastern Time. Rather than turn up on the day, however, Apple encourages customers to take action before then and increase the chances of securing their preferred model on day one of sales.

Get Ready is an option available on Apple's online store and in its Apple Store app, and it lets you select a preferred color and capacity ahead of time. It also lets you confirm your carrier status, choose your accessories, pick an AppleCare+ plan, select a trade-in, add a payment method, and set a shipping and billing address.

Get Ready is really helpful because when pre-orders go live, it allows you to essentially perform a one-tap order. That's a real advantage when it comes to iPhone Duo, given that supplies are expected to be limited.

It's been said before about other iPhones, but pre-orders of the iPhone Duo really could sell out within minutes – there have been multiple reports of production issues leading to supply constraints, and users who have completed Get Ready will be able to submit orders faster.

So if you're set on being one of the first to get hold of Apple's debut foldable, make sure to visit Apple's website or Apple Store app and complete the Get Ready process now.
This article, "You Can Now Set Up Your iPhone Duo Pre-Order - Do It Before Friday" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple today announced it is Indie Games Week on the App Store, in celebration of the "incredible catalog of imaginative games made by independent teams with big dreams."

Apple said seven acclaimed indie games are debuting on the App Store. No Man's Sky will be making its mobile debut on iPhone and iPad on October 28, and the six other games are Sifu, Vampire Crawlers, Little Kitty, Big City, 9 Kings, Dome Keeper, and Yes, Your Grace 2: Snowfall.
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Today we're tracking a pair of massive discounts on Apple's newest MacBook Pro models, including $500 off a 16-inch model and $600 off a 14-inch model on Amazon.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

The 15-Core M5 Pro 14-inch MacBook Pro with 24GB RAM and 2TB SSD has hit $2,399.00 on Amazon, down from $2,999.00. This one is only available in Space Black, and it's a new record low price on the 14-inch MacBook Pro, now priced just $100 more than the 1TB model on Amazon.



Apple's entry-level 16-inch MacBook Pro has also received a massive discount today on Amazon, coming in at $500 off its new price. This is the 18-Core M5 Pro 16-inch MacBook Pro with 24GB RAM and 1TB SSD, available for $2,499.00, down from $2,999.00.



If you're on the hunt for more discounts, be sure to visit our Apple Deals roundup where we recap the best Apple-related bargains of the past week.

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This article, "Amazon Discounting 2026 MacBook Pro by as Much as $600 This Week" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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The Apple Watch Ultra 4 arrives four years after the original model. Across three subsequent generations, Apple added a brighter and larger display, satellite connectivity, new health sensors, more capable chips, and longer battery life. For owners of the original Ultra, are those cumulative improvements enough to justify upgrading now, or can their existing watch last another year?



Both watches retain a 49mm titanium case, an Action button, a siren, dual-frequency GPS, and support for recreational diving to 40 meters. The Apple Watch Ultra 4 starts at $799 in the U.S. Apple discontinued the original Ultra in 2023, and it no longer supports the latest major watchOS release. Here are the key differences between the two models:

Apple Watch Ultra (first-generation)	‌Apple Watch Ultra 4‌
Natural titanium finish	Natural and black titanium finishes
LTPO2 OLED display with always-on updates once per minute	Wide-angle LTPO3 ‌OLED‌ display with 1Hz always-on updates, allowing supported faces to show ticking seconds
Up to 2,000 nits of brightness	Up to 3,000 nits of brightness; 1-nit minimum brightness
410 by 502 pixels; 1,185 sq mm display area	422 by 514 pixels; 1,245 sq mm display area (5% larger), with thinner display borders
Flashlight	Flashlight boost via Digital Crown
S8 chip	S11 chip
1GB RAM	4GB RAM
Neural Engine	4-core Neural Engine
	Secure Exclave for isolated audio processing
32GB storage	64GB storage
	Single tap, Double Tap, and wrist flick gestures
Siri processed in the cloud via an internet connection	On-device ‌Siri‌ for supported requests, including access to and logging of health and fitness data
Dictation	Improved on-device dictation
	‌Siri‌ AI support
First-generation Ultra Wideband chip	Second-generation Ultra Wideband chip
Play a sound to locate an iPhone; locate accessories using Find Devices and Find Items	Precision Finding for compatible iPhone models, AirTag 2, and the AirPods Pro 3 charging case, with distance and direction guidance
	Automatic Now Playing controls and Smart Stack media suggestions when near a HomePod
Electrical heart sensor and third-generation optical heart sensor	Health Sensing System with new electrical and always-on optical heart sensors
Background heart-rate measurements	Background heart-rate measurements every five seconds
Heart-rate variability (HRV) measurements	More frequent measurements of overall HRV and Recovery HRV
Overnight Vitals view	Overnight and daytime Vitals views
	Readiness app
	Sleep apnea notifications
	Hypertension notifications
Blood Oxygen readings viewable on the watch	On affected U.S. models, Blood Oxygen readings are analyzed on the paired iPhone and viewed in its Health app
Step tracking and estimated indoor workout distance	More accurate all-day step tracking and indoor workout distance measurements, plus a Steps watch-face complication
Workout Buddy requires a nearby Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone	Enhanced Workout Buddy with additional insights and Spanish support
	Live Translation in Messages when paired with a compatible Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone
LTE and UMTS cellular connectivity	LTE and 5G cellular connectivity, with improved weak-signal reception through simultaneous use of both antennas
	Emergency SOS, Messages, and Find My via satellite
	Audio Intelligence: Sound Recognition, automatic music identification, Live Rewind, and ‌Siri‌ Recap
Built-in speakers for calls, alerts, and ‌Siri‌	Built-in speakers for calls, alerts, ‌Siri‌, and media playback
Up to 36 hours of normal use	Up to 50 hours of normal use
Up to 72 hours in Low Power Mode, according to Apple's current comparison page	Up to 84 hours in Low Power Mode
Up to 12 hours of standard outdoor workout tracking	Up to 18 hours of standard outdoor workout tracking
Low Power Mode during workouts, with an optional setting for fewer GPS and heart-rate readings	Extended Workout mode: up to 25 hours with full GPS and heart-rate readings; Max Extended Workout mode: up to 45 hours with GPS readings every second
Charges from 0 to 80% in about one hour	Charges from 0 to 80% in about 45 minutes; 15 minutes of charging for up to 18 hours of normal use; five minutes for up to 10 hours of sleep tracking
61.3 grams	Natural titanium: 63.0 grams; black titanium: 63.1 grams
Dual-frequency GPS supporting GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS, and BeiDou	Dual-frequency GPS supporting GPS, Galileo, QZSS, and BeiDou
Supports watchOS 26	Supports watchOS 27, including the ‌Siri‌ app, dynamic app grid, new Smart Stack suggestions, Call Context, and consolidated ‌Find My‌ app
Now discontinued	Starts at $799

Existing first-generation Apple Watch Ultra owners can reasonably keep their watch for another year if its battery still covers their usual days and workouts. Losing support for ‌watchOS 27‌ is significant, but it does not prevent the original Ultra from continuing to handle notifications, activity tracking, navigation, and its other existing features. Owners satisfied with those capabilities may prefer to eke out another year of use and wait to see whether next year's model offers a more substantial upgrade.

However, the Ultra 4 is a worthwhile upgrade for anyone already running into the original model's limitations. The new Health Sensing System provides more detailed heart-rate and recovery insights, while sleep apnea and hypertension notifications expand its health capabilities. These changes are most compelling if you will use the additional information to follow changes in your daily condition or adjust your training.

Longer battery life and satellite connectivity strengthen the case for owners who record extended workouts or regularly travel beyond cellular coverage. If your original Apple Watch Ultra now struggles to finish an outing without charging, the improved battery life is a practical reason to replace it. The larger, brighter display, newer gestures, Audio Intelligence, and expanded Precision Finding support also make the cumulative upgrade more noticeable in everyday use.

Software support is a major reason to move on. The original Apple Watch Ultra cannot run watchOS 27, so it misses ‌Siri‌ AI and the latest operating system's other additions. If those features would materially improve how you use your watch, waiting another year means accepting those limitations in the meantime.
This article, "Apple Watch Ultra 1 vs. Ultra 4 Buyer's Guide: Is It Worth Upgrading?" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Amazon is discounting a few models of the Apple Watch SE 3 today, with prices on two models that match the Prime Day lows we saw last week. Prices start at $199.99 for the 40mm GPS model and increase to $229.99 for the 44mm GPS model.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

Both of these are $49 discounts and matches for the record low prices on each device. Only the Starlight Aluminum Case with Sand Sport Band is on sale at these all-time low prices, and Amazon provides a delivery date by October 18 for free shipping options.




If you're on the hunt for more discounts, be sure to visit our Apple Deals roundup where we recap the best Apple-related bargains of the past week.

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This article, "Apple Watch SE 3 Available From Just $199.99 on Amazon" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Today, Indie Games Week lights up the App Store with a celebration of the catalog of imaginative games made by independent teams with big dreams.

Tim Cook is visiting China for the third time this year, with talks in Guangdong focused on expanding Apple's manufacturing and sales operations, the South China Morning Post reports.



This is Cook's first China trip in his capacity as Apple's executive chairman. He moved into the position on September 1 when John Ternus took over as CEO. Apple has said part of Cook's work involves relationships with government policymakers.

On October 11, Cook reportedly held talks with Guangdong governor Meng Fanli. Suppliers and partners located in Guangdong play a major role in Apple's business in China, and Cook is said to have expressed interest in doing more locally through smart manufacturing and additional sales channels. Meng said the province would support further expansion, including research and development.

In Guangzhou, a creator used an iPhone 18 Pro to capture martial arts footage while Cook watched. Cook posted "Great to be back in China!" on Weibo on Saturday. Customers also reported a visit to one of Guangzhou's Apple Stores on Sunday.

Cook traveled to Chengdu and Beijing in March as Apple celebrated its 50th anniversary, and addressed the China Development Forum. In May, he was among the business leaders who accompanied President Donald Trump for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The trip comes several weeks after sales of the ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ and ‌iPhone 18 Pro‌ Max started. Counterpoint Research put Apple first in China's smartphone sales ranking for September 14 to 20. During their first three days on sale in China, the new Pro phones sold 12% more units than their predecessors had managed over the full first week of availability last year.
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Azure Maia 200 now in production; Azure Maia 300 coming in 2027

As we move into the era of Super Intelligence, Microsoft is entering a new phase of infrastructure. We will scale our Azure Maia family to multi-gigawatt deployments starting in 2027, making Maia the primary inference system for Microsoft products and services.

The multigenerational Azure Maia program has become a foundational element of Microsoft’s AI infrastructure strategy. Maia 200 is now serving Microsoft production workloads, including Microsoft Copilot, and supporting the MAI team as they develop next-generation models, with GitHub Copilot and Microsoft Foundry to follow by end of year. Across these workloads, Maia 200 runs OpenAI models, Microsoft’s own MAI models and leading open-source model families. Insights from the scale of Microsoft’s AI services allow for unique co-design between hardware systems and software applications to optimize real-world use cases across enterprise applications and industry scenarios.

Maia 300 is a complete intelligent system designed for the new types of AI workloads emerging today: Long-context reasoning, latency-sensitive conversational experiences and sustained, multi-step agentic tasks. By improving efficiency across the system, we expect Maia 300 to deliver 40% more tokens per megawatt compared to leading GPU-based systems. And in a full 96-accelerator configuration, it delivers up to 7x the rack-scale token throughput of Maia 200.

Maia 200: Driving the workloads that Microsoft runs at scale

The Azure Maia system is designed around the real-world workloads Microsoft runs at scale and the models we expect to build in the years ahead. Because silicon development takes years, our software and hardware teams collaborate early to anticipate architectures, scale and capabilities, translating those requirements into greater memory capacity, higher bandwidth and more accelerators operating as a single system.

That co-engineering is already delivering measurable efficiency gains. Maia 200 is deploying across the United States, Europe and Australia and delivering up to 1.7x more tokens per watt for built-in AI capabilities in Microsoft Teams, Copilot and Cowork experiences compared with leading GPU infrastructure.

Experience running our AI models and services on Maia 200 directly informed the design of Maia 300. Together, the two generations are designed to support a broad set of additional Microsoft’s AI services: multi-step agentic work that will help GitHub deliver coding experiences more efficiently; cloud-scale model serving that will help Microsoft Foundry support diverse architectures and deployment environments; inference and data generation for the MAI team; and latency-sensitive interactions that will help Dragon Copilot scale workflows and reduce clinicians’ administrative burden.

Maia 300: Scaling more useful AI within every megawatt

AI is becoming a foundational layer of every application, workflow and business process. As enterprises move beyond chat experiences to systems of agents that can reason, act and collaborate, AI infrastructure must deliver intelligence securely and efficiently at scale while continuously adapting as models and workloads evolve.

As the third generation of our Azure Maia program, Maia 300 is designed with an inference-first architecture optimized for long-context, memory-intensive and decode-heavy AI workloads. This involves balancing compute, memory bandwidth, networking and power efficiency at cloud scale.

Key capabilities of the Maia 300 system include:

Less data movement, more useful compute: Moving data efficiently, rather than raw compute power, is increasingly the bottleneck in large inference systems. Maia 300’s software-defined dataflow architecture and AI-assisted kernel optimization work together to maximize locality, reduce data movement and improve utilization across compute, memory and networking resources. By treating dataflow as a first-class design principle, Maia 300 delivers a significant performance-per-watt advantage over traditional GPU architectures.

Higher memory bandwidth within every watt: As AI workloads become increasingly context and memory-bound, Maia 300 delivers industry-leading HBM bandwidth per watt. Eight HBM4 stacks provide 18.0 TB/s of peak memory bandwidth within a 950-watt TDP, enabling efficient execution of large models and long-context workloads. Specialized kernel support uses on-die SRAM as a software-managed scratchpad, reducing pressure on HBM.

Chiplet architecture for enhanced efficiency: A new multi-chiplet architecture separates compute, memory-controller and I/O functions, improving efficiency, scalability and cost structure. Compute chiplets are built on TSMC’s N2P process node to maximize performance-per-watt.

Larger context, richer intelligence: By designing for advanced low-precision formats, including enhanced MXFP4, Maia 300 reduces memory and bandwidth requirements for both computation and KV-cache storage. The result is larger context windows, higher throughput and improved model efficiency within the same power envelope.

Scale-up networking at datacenter scale: Maia 300 treats networking as a seamless extension of the software-defined dataflow architecture. Rather than moving data through separate communication layers, dataflow operations span compute, memory and network resources as a single system. High-bandwidth interconnects between Maia accelerators are optimized for tensor parallelism, while a custom AI transport delivers performant and reliable scale-up communication across accelerators and racks. The AI-optimized transport leverages Ethernet-based networking infrastructure to enable a unified topology that scales efficiently from a single rack to datacenter-scale deployments.

Higher AI throughput from every rack: Maia 300 rack systems bring together 96 accelerators within a 167-kilowatt power envelope, delivering 27.6 TB of HBM capacity and 1.7 PB/s of aggregate HBM bandwidth across a high-speed scale-up domain. That density allows Microsoft to serve more simultaneous AI interactions and larger workloads from each rack, improving datacenter capacity and the economics of expanding AI services.

Maia 300 will begin production deployments in 2027. For more information on Maia 300 architectural details, read our technical paper.

Azure Maia is at the heart of our Frontier Transformation

The future will not be defined by a single model or a single piece of silicon or a single innovation. Model and silicon choice are inherent in our vision for Frontier Transformation. Our focus is on developing responsible, affordable and scalable platforms that will help everyone amplify their intelligence to drive breakthrough outcomes that matter for them.

Microsoft is unique because we are able to optimize from silicon to systems to agent on an open, heterogenous and model diverse platform our customers can count on for their AI transformation, today and in the years ahead. This platform is at the heart of Frontier Transformation, and Azure Maia is a foundational component of our approach to expand access, accelerate innovation and help customers capture more value from AI.

Next month at Microsoft Ignite 2026 in San Francisco and online we’re looking forward to sharing more information on our strategy, technology adoption trends and success in Frontier Transformation.

For more details, photos and videos, visit our Maia 300 site.

Scott Guthrie is responsible for a set of hyperscale cloud computing solutions and services including Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, generative AI solutions, data platforms and information and cybersecurity. These platforms and services help organizations across the globe solve urgent challenges — and transform for the future.

The post Microsoft to expand Azure Maia system to multi-gigawatt deployments appeared first on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Apple's upcoming OLED iPad mini will be "considerably more expensive" than the current $599 model, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Writing in his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman referenced his own sources indicating a price hike, while saying his guess is that the new device will cost "something closer to $799."

Aside from a new OLED display, the new iPad mini is expected to feature an A20 Pro chip, a landscape FaceTime camera, a redesigned speaker setup, and a water-resistant design. Apple will likely unveil the device alongside new OLED touchscreen MacBook Pro models "on or around" Tuesday, October 27, Gurman previously reported. See our rumor roundup for all the details.
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Apple is marking India's festive diwali season with a limited edition of the AirPods 5, featuring a rangoli-inspired engraving.


The case's design draws on the traditional Indian art form, arranging a decorative pattern around a heart-eyes emoji. The earbuds cost ₹17,900 (approximately $187), matching the Indian price of the regular AirPods 5 with Wireless Charging Case.

The celebrations also include free rangoli workshops created with artist Arushi Kathuria. Participants will use Procreate on the iPad with an Apple Pencil, including a custom brush that recreates the appearance of powder. Sessions run from October 14 through November 9 in India and at selected locations in the United States, Canada, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Sales of the limited edition AirPods began on October 11 and will continue through to November 11, 2026, subject to stock. Customers can order through Apple's online store and Apple Store app, or purchase at its six retail locations in India.

Apple limits purchases to two pairs per customer and excludes the edition from other AirPods promotions and Business, Education, and Corporate Employee Purchase Plan pricing. Its purchase terms also caution that repairs or replacements may involve standard-edition ‌AirPods 5‌ with Wireless Charging Case, depending on supply.

(Thanks, svish!)
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Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today reported that new Apple TV 4K and HomePod mini models will be unveiled on Tuesday, October 13 and launch on Friday, October 30.

In a follow-up video, Gurman said he was told that both devices should be available to pre-order starting this week.
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The DistroWatch news feed is brought to you by TUXEDO COMPUTERS. This week in DistroWatch Weekly:
Review: Abora OS 4.0 and Butterbian 0.5.0
News: Rocky launches OpenCourant, NetBSD surpasses funding goals, behind the curtain at Chimera Linux
Questions and answers: What causes an operating system to break?
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Just two days before Apple's "Welcome home" experience in New York, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has leaked several details about the new products set to be unveiled, including an all-new smart home hub, a HomePod mini 2, and a new Apple TV 4K.


Here is an all-in-one summary of the details shared by Gurman:

• Apple's home hub with a touch-enabled display will be named HomeView, seemingly confirming a trademark filing discovered by MacRumors.


• HomeView is equipped with an A18 chip, which has 8GB of RAM in iPhones.


• HomeView will support Siri AI for voice control.


• HomeView will be available in a tabletop version with a speaker base made of metal, as well as a wall-mounted version with a flat, square wall plate.


• The tabletop HomeView will offer "better sound quality" than the HomePod mini.


• The tabletop HomeView will be available in four finishes: Gray, Silver, Starlight, and Rose. The wall-mounted version will be limited to Gray and Silver.


• HomeView will be unveiled this Tuesday, October 13, but the device is apparently not launching until "around mid-November."


• HomeView will have a selection of Apple apps, but no App Store for third-party apps.


• HomeView will be accompanied by an "Apple Home Collection" of accessories that brands such as LG and Schneider Electric developed in partnership with Apple. This will include a smart doorbell, deadbolt lock, thermostat, temperature sensor, indoor and outdoor security cameras, and a floodlight camera.


• LG's accessories for the HomeView will not ship "until later this year at the earliest."


• The new HomePod mini will be equipped with the Apple Watch Series 10's S10 chip, up from the S5 chip in the current model.


• The new HomePod mini will be available in green, pink, blue, white, and midnight.


• The new Apple TV 4K will be equipped with an A19 chip, which has 8GB of RAM.


• The new Apple TV 4K may have built-in microphones for Siri AI.


• The new Apple TV 4K may have an updated Siri Remote with a built-in speaker that makes it easier to find.


• The new HomePod mini and Apple TV 4K models will be unveiled on October 13 and launch on Friday, October 30.

This article, "New Apple TV 4K, HomeView, and HomePod Mini: 16 Details Just Leaked" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Apple's next entry-level iPad models, codenamed J581 and J582, will not arrive until early 2027, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.

He added that Apple plans a major iPad Air refresh to add an OLED display and a new iPad Pro in 2027. The latter could gain a vapor chamber to improve thermals and performance. A new iPad mini is still expected to arrive at the end of October this year.
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Apple is preparing new displays and large numbers of demo units for the iPhone Duo's October 23 launch, but supply will be limited, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.


Ahead of the October 23 launch, Apple plans to set aside a section of its Fifth Avenue flagship store for the ‌iPhone Duo‌. Most locations will add an extra spotlight table for the device, using Apple's white display tables with central posts. Gurman said a new fixture will show how the phone folds and unfolds.

The number of demonstration devices will vary considerably between locations. Fifth Avenue in New York is expected to receive more than 150 units for customers to try and for other displays, compared with nearly 100 at the Apple Park Visitor Center. Non-flagship stores will receive approximately 20 units each on average.

Three other prominent stores will fall between those allocations: Chicago's Michigan Avenue, The Grove in Los Angeles, and Manhattan's Upper West Side. Each is expected to have approximately 30 to 40 devices.

Visitors will be able to explore StandBy on untethered phones in the Avenue display areas along the sides of stores. For comparisons on store tables, Apple has designed a MagSafe stand that accommodates an open ‌iPhone Duo‌ and two conventional iPhones.

The retail preparations come as Apple faces tighter supply than it had anticipated. According to Gurman, around two months ago the company believed production constraints could prevent sales from starting until later in November. It has since assembled sufficient inventory to proceed with this month's release, although stock is expected to remain limited.

Apple is also equipping stores with "Presto" machines adapted for the ‌iPhone Duo‌. Apple's wireless system can install software updates without opening an iPhone's packaging, and will also add the buyer's name to the greeting displayed during the device's first startup. Gurman previously said the personalized greeting will be offered in U.S. Apple Stores in English and Spanish.

‌iPhone Duo‌ pre-orders open October 16 at 5 a.m. Pacific Time, with sales starting on October 23. The 256GB model starts at $1,999 in the United States.
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Apple's new Apple TV 4K will be powered by a standard A19 chip, up from the A15 in the current 2022 model, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Writing in his Power On newsletter, Gurman also said Apple has tested a refreshed Siri Remote with a speaker to make it easier to find between couch cushions.

Apple has also tested built-in microphones for the Apple TV 4K to let users query Siri without the remote or a paired HomePod, though whether this feature and the new Siri Remote will come with the shipping device appears unconfirmed. The new Apple TV 4K arrives in stores on October 30 alongside the new HomePod mini. Apple is expected to unveil both at Tuesday's "Welcome home" event.
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Amazon has Apple's brand new Mac mini for up to $149 off this weekend, with both the M6 and M5 Pro Mac mini available on sale. You'll also find $200 off the M5 Max Mac Studio below.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

One of the best deals is on the M5 Max Mac Studio with 36GB RAM and a 512GB SSD, on sale for $2,299.00, down from $2,499.00. Regarding the Mac mini, you can get the 16GB RAM/256GB SSD Mac mini for $779.99 ($119 off), the 16GB RAM/512GB SSD model for $949.99 ($149 off), and similar savings on the M5 Pro model.






If you're on the hunt for more discounts, be sure to visit our Apple Deals roundup where we recap the best Apple-related bargains of the past week.

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Apple's all-new smart home hub, the HomeView, will ship around mid-November, roughly a month after its unveiling at Apple's "Welcome home" October 13 event, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.


Writing in the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Gurman said the HomeView, "at least as of now," will follow the launch of the new Apple TV 4K and new HomePod mini models, which will arrive to customers and in stores on October 30.

The HomeView will be positioned as the Siri command center of an Apple-powered home, pairing a display with an A18 chip. It will come in two versions, including a countertop model with a metal speaker base, offered in space gray, silver, starlight and pink, and a wall-mounted version with a flat, square base, limited to space gray and silver. The HomeView will offer better sound quality than the new HomePod mini, according to Gurman.

The device is controlled primarily by voice, though its screen supports touch input. It supports a limited selection of Apple applications, and there will be no dedicated App Store for it.

The HomeView name first appeared in a trademark filing by a shell company, a discovery reported on Friday by MacRumors and credited by Gurman. The "view" part of the name is said to reflect how the device is meant to be used, in the sense that it's a display that people look at and control mainly with their voice.
This article, "Apple HomeView Smart Hub to Ship in Mid-November in Four Colors" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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The new upcoming Apple TV 4K with A19 chip and new HomePod mini with S10 chip will launch on Friday, October 30, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Writing in his Power On newsletter, Gurman said the devices will ship to customers and arrive in stores on that day.

Apple is expected to announce the new devices at its October 13 "Welcome home" event, which will also debut "HomeView" – the company's new smart home hub, whose name was first spotted by MacRumors in a trademark filing. The HomeView will ship – "at least as of now" – around mid-November, according to Gurman's sources.
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Today, for a slightly more complicated snippet, but still in the same general area; say you have code like this:

x = (0x1000 - y) / 24;
z = var_s5 < 5;
if (x >= 0x81) {
    x = 0x80;
    z = var_s5 < 5;
}
var_s4 = 0;
if (z == 0) {

In particular, note the z = var_s5 < 5; repeated. Most likely, this is the compiler sticking stuff into branch delay slots, or else re-checking the condition if var_s5 changed in the branches (it does not here). You almost certainly want to undo this into:

x = (0x1000 - y) / 24;
if (x >= 0x81) {
    x = 0x80;
}
var_s4 = 0;
if ((var_s5 < 5) == 0) {

and the if, as we already know, should probably rather then be:

if (var_s5 >= 5) {

For a small bonus (since I'm not going to have a separate post about it), you can choose to change the upper if to:

if (x > 0x80) {
    x = 0x80;
}

which generates exactly the same code (on MIPS), but may in many cases be easier to understand.

Amazon has Apple's AirPods Max 2 on sale for $429.00 this weekend, down from $549.00. This is a Prime Day sale that has stuck around all these days later, and it's available in all five colors of the AirPods Max 2: Blue, Midnight, Orange, Purple, and Starlight.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Amazon. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

Stock has begun to dwindle on select colors, so it might be time to make your purchase on this deal if you've been holding off since Prime Day. Apple launched the AirPods Max 2 in March 2026 with the H2 chip, bringing improved ANC, better audio, Live Translation, and more.



If you're on the hunt for more discounts, be sure to visit our Apple Deals roundup where we recap the best Apple-related bargains of the past week.

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Review: Daggerbound, by T. Kingfisher

Series:	Swordheart #2
Publisher:	Bramble
Copyright:	2026
ISBN:	1-250-40009-0
Format:	Kindle
Pages:	436

Daggerbound is a secondary-world fantasy and a sequel to Swordheart, although it follows different protagonists for most of the book. It's also a sort of sequel to the Clocktaur War duology in that one of the protagonists was a protagonist of those books. T. Kingfisher is the pen name Ursula Vernon uses for her adult fiction.

Learned Edmond was once a devout acolyte of the Order of the Many-Armed God and a true believer in its teachings, including the ones about the evils of women. Then he went on an adventure with, among other people, a forger named Mistress Slate, during which he learned a great deal of things about the world that his order did not teach him. He has spent the subsequent years trying to bring this important new information to his order and encourage them to adjust their view of the world accordingly.

The order has not changed, and Edmond is very tired.

Someone needs to carry a number of books and a magical sword to the city of Archon's Glory. Edmond has volunteered and intends to perform the task exactly as expected, and then never return. He is unsure what he will do then, but at least it will be different.

Edmond did not expect to be waylaid by bandits or to accidentally draw the magical sword. He certainly did not expect the man who appeared in a flash of light and violently saved him from the bandits.

It would have been very convenient for the Dervish if Edmond died of his injuries after drawing the sword. That would leave the sword without a wielder and therefore the Dervish without someone he had to protect. All he would have to do was sit and watch while the fever and cold and lack of water did the work, and then he would be free. Given his past experience with wielders, no one could even blame him. Except maybe his own conscience.

I did not realize I wanted to read a novel about a traumatized Mercedes Lackey sword waking up in a T. Kingfisher universe, but apparently I did.

The Dervish is not a sword, precisely, at least not in the way that Need has become by the time we meet her in Lackey's novels. He's a man trapped in a sword, he doesn't like it, and he would very much like it to stop. But at the start of the book, he has the rest of the vibe of a Mercedes Lackey protagonist: vast past trauma, poor emotional regulation skills, and a prickly cynicism that only runs skin deep. Pairing him with an Edmund who is far more mature than in the earlier duology but still rather innocent and delightfully neurodivergent is a great touch.

The rest of the plot was fine but not that memorable. Like the Clocktaur series, there is a strong feeling of episodic D&D adventure as the characters stumble across disconnected problems and hostilities while collecting party members. Like Ursula Vernon's occasional D&D recaps, this party has a tendency to adopt everyone they come in contact with, which includes a gnole (as always one of the best parts of the book) and a sentient giant pill bug. The pill bug, who has a complex appendage-operated mechanical talk box and a banner that says "I DO NOT EAT HUMAN MEAT," is the most Ursula Vernon character that has ever existed in fiction.

There is a romance because there is always a romance in the novels set in this universe. I didn't mind this one. Like every Kingfisher romance, it involves a lot of irritating refusal to communicate and endless angst about how the other person couldn't possibly be in love with them, but the characters have rather more justification than usual and at least I didn't spend most of the book thinking one half of the romantic pairing was an idiot. Apparently it helps if no paladins are involved.

The strongest parts of this book are the beginning, before the Lackey vibes unfortunately drain out of the story, and the end, when all of the best characters from Swordheart show up again. The Temple of the White Rat continues to be the best feature of this fictional universe, and I could read endless books about how they solve problems.

The Dervish gazed at her with admiration. "And here I thought you'd be on the side of law and order..."

"No, young man," said Beartongue, despite being several centuries his junior. "I am on the side of justice. If we're lucky, the two run in parallel. If they don't, we bend the law to attain justice, not the other way around."

The ending also featured some exploration of the edge cases of the rules for the sentient swords that reminded me a bit of Fred Saberhagen with better characterization.

Daggerbound was not as charming as Swordheart, mostly because Halla appeared only at the end. I wish Kingfisher had leaned more into the Mercedes Lackey vibes rather than taking her normal D&D-flavored romance approach. But this was enjoyable, charming at times, had great supporting characters like all Kingfisher novels, and was a satisfying continuation of the series. I am looking forward to the third (and I believe final) book, which is supposed to be out next year.

Recommended if you liked Swordheart.

Followed by the not-yet-published Shieldborn.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Apple may be planning to announce a new partnership with home security company ADT, alongside the introduction of its all-new smart home hub, according to several clues.


First and foremost, ADT has been posting "Low Voltage Technician" job listings in various U.S. cities since around July, but those hired for the position so far have been provided with very few details about their specific responsibilities. Some of the new hires said they have primarily been shadowing other ADT technicians while they await further information. In addition, some of the employees and their managers said they signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) related to the role. This level of secrecy is typical for something involving Apple.

Second, ADT has provided these new hires with an iPhone 17 Pro for work, whereas it typically provides other technicians with Android devices.

Third, some of the new hires said ADT finally plans to share more details about the role later this month, so the company may be waiting for Apple to announce its smart home hub on Tuesday. Apple is also expected to unveil an ecosystem of third-party smart home accessories it developed in partnership with brands such as LG.

One of the new hires said ADT initially planned to provide details about the role in September, but later delayed this timeframe until October. This would be consistent with reports that Apple has postponed the announcement of its home hub multiple times, as Siri AI was not ready. The revamped version of Siri finally launched last month.

In addition to Siri AI, the home hub will reportedly offer smart home accessory management, home security monitoring, photo faces and galleries, an overview of calendar appointments, music playback, FaceTime video calling, and more. The hub will reportedly be available in a tabletop version with a speaker base and a wall-mounted version.

Some of the new hires who asked their managers about the secretive role were told that it will apparently relate to home automation and in-home installation services, so perhaps Apple will announce an option for customers to have an ADT technician professionally install the wall-mounted home hub or the related accessories from LG.

It is unclear if Apple's partnership with ADT would extend to home security monitoring.

ADT already reached a home security partnership with Google in 2023, but it reportedly dropped some features that it offered on Google Nest devices earlier this year. A person familiar with the matter told us that ADT's exclusivity agreement with Google recently expired and is not set to be renewed, with Google now turning to AT&T. If so, then it would pave the way for ADT to reach a partnership with another tech giant: Apple.

Apple is expected to unveil its smart home hub on Tuesday, October 13, so it might announce details about a partnership with ADT then, if there is going to be one. However, keep in mind that a potential partnership between Apple and ADT is still just a rumor for now, and all of these clues could prove to be one big coincidence.
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Here’s my monthly but brief update about the activities I’ve done in the FOSS world.

Debian

Whilst I didn’t have much time, here are still a few things that I worked on:

• Sponsored ubuntu-dev-tools/0.214 for Florent ‘Skia’ Jacquet, which updates seeded-in-ubuntu to use the new per-series indexer (LP: #2160240).
• Assisted a few folks in getting their patches submitted via Salsa.
• Mentoring for newcomers.
• Moderation of -project mailing list.

---

Ubuntu

I joined Canonical to work on Ubuntu full-time back in February 2021.

• With 26.10 in Feature Freeze, wore my Release team hat to:
  • Review and approve a bunch of Feature Freeze Exceptions, including the Go 1.27 transition, Qt 6.11.2, rust-coreutils 0.12.0, devscripts 2.6.12, kdump-tools moving to dracut, and a few GCE packages.
  • Point linux-entra-sso to the SRU team, as it didn’t need an FFe at all, and milestone a couple of bugs for 26.10.
• Continued to push for infrastructure improvements:
  • Made ubuntu-cdimage more resilient to Launchpad hiccups (MP).
  • Taught generate-freeze-block in ubuntu-archive-tools a couple of new options (--skip-update and --series) and better error handling (MP).
  • Bumped the arm64 generic non-cloud image to 4.5G in livecd-rootfs and uploaded it as 26.10.16; also sponsored the follow-up 26.10.17 for Chloé.
• Sponsored aevol/9.4.0-2ubuntu1 for Matthieu, fixing an FTBFS with GCC 15’s LTO (LP: #2167811).
• Reviewed quite a lot of MPs - britney hints, meta-release, ubuntu-release-tools, ubuntu-archive-tools, ubuntu-cdimage, livecd-rootfs, ubuntu-seeds, and so on.
• Enabled upgrades to 26.04 LTS.
• Released 26.10 Beta and announced it on Discourse.
• Did Archive Admin, DMB, and Release team duties as usual.

---

Debian (E)LTS

This month I have worked 33.5 hours on Debian Long Term Support (LTS) and on its sister Extended LTS project and did the following things:

(A quick note that I did quite a lot of the work during my work as Frontdesk that went on till 4th Oct, so 33.50 hours include the work I did till 4th October 2026.)

Released Security Updates

• node-lodash: Prototype pollution in _.unset and _.omit (plus a bypass of the initial fix for it), and code injection via the imports option of _.template.

  • [LTS]: Fixed CVE-2025-13465, CVE-2026-2950, and CVE-2026-4800 via 4.17.21+dfsg+~cs8.31.198.20210220-9+deb12u1 for bookworm. This has been released as DLA 4820-1.
  • This is the bookworm follow-up to DLA 4663-1 that I carried over from July. The update had been sitting prepared and tested on debusine, so once the upstream discussion wrapped up, it went straight out. It also carries an extra patch to the lodash-cli dependency map - without it, the regenerated lodash.template module throws “assignWith is not defined” at runtime, which node-gulp-util’s autopkgtest caught.

• libpng1.6: Use-after-free of zlib input in png_read_end() after incomplete zTXt, iTXt, or iCCP decompression, which could result in denial of service.

  • [LTS]: Fixed CVE-2026-46675 via 1.6.39-2+deb12u6 for bookworm. This has been released as DLA 4824-1.
  • I picked this one up whilst on front desk; the upstream fix that went into trixie via DSA 6537-1 applied to 1.6.39 as-is.

Work in Progress

• libpng1.6: The same CVE-2026-46675.
  • [ELTS]: Claimed in ela-needed; the same upstream fix applies to all three ELTS suites, so this should go out shortly.

Other Activities

• [E/LTS] Did my front-desk week from 28-09 to 04-10.

  • Over the week I did roughly:
    • Triage of 524 unique CVEs across 192 source packages and all four suites. And 1 automated ELTS end-of-life sweep.
    • Additional data is now part of the front-desk job too, so 75 commits record it for 179 CVEs across 71 packages.
  • Newly queued 22 source packages - 13 in dla-needed (apache2, chromium, firefox-esr, libnet-idn-encode-perl, libpng1.6, node-shell-quote, nvidia-graphics-drivers, openssl, pcre2, php-mongodb, php8.2, social-auth-core, and wpa) and 16 in ela-needed (apache2, firefox-esr, gegl, lemonldap-ng, libnet-idn-encode-perl, libpng1.6, libwebsockets, nsd, nvidia-graphics-drivers, pcre2, php7.0, php7.3, php7.4, rar, unrar-nonfree, and wpa), 7 of them in both. Also widened 3 ELTS entries to bullseye - antiword, ocaml, and openvswitch.
  • Most of the interesting work was again in the <not-affected> verdicts: 217 of 263 (83%, across 57 packages) rest on showing that the vulnerable code or feature isn’t in the source we ship. Another 17 cover incomplete upstream fixes that we either never shipped or shipped with the follow-up already in (expat, libxml2, node-tar, and pyjwt). 15 come from bundled components we don’t ship - node-ajv again, which uses uri-js and not fast-uri, and nvidia-open, which doesn’t ship the NGX updater. And 13 are vendor- or platform-specific - openssh’s CVE-2026-55654 lives only in a Red Hat GSSAPI patch, and the netdata and PHP ones only affect Windows.
  • Did 4 rounds of newly supported bullseye packages (33 packages overall), plus libmail-mboxparser-perl for buster - 34 in all. The existing CVE data mostly held up; the real finds were discovery gaps. One interesting gotcha: sid renamed stunnel4 to stunnel, and two new CVEs were associated only with the new name, so they never showed up for trixie, bookworm, or any ELTS suite. I also sorted the 180 “Triage needed” entries (57 packages) from elts-eol by where each was already handled, and triaged for ELTS the 100 that trixie or bookworm had already decided; the rest come next. And I imported 79 package-level lines for the older source names ELTS still ships (tomcat8, php7.0/7.3/7.4, netty-3.9, openssl1.0, python2.7/3.5/3.7, and pypy).
  • Caught some inconsistencies in released advisories: DLA 4801-1 (swift) was missing a CVE, ELA 1831-1 (redis) listed the wrong one, and DLA 4808-1 (network-manager-l2tp) listed CVE-2026-75883 - an ID that was renamed and then reassigned to an unrelated ppp issue. I fixed all three in the tracker’s advisory lists.
  • Made the Security team and the uploaders aware of regressions from our own updates:
    • libde265: the CVE-2026-49337 fix in DLA 4789-1/ELA 1828-1 (and DSA 6413-1) misses upstream’s follow-up commit.
    • libxml2 CVE-2026-76781 and policykit-1 CVE-2026-85498 were introduced by our own back-ports; the policykit-1 one is harmless.
    • expat: the CVE-2025-59375 backport in DLA 4807-1 is compiled out, because XML_GE is never defined.
    • xen: DLA 4818-1’s XSA-491 fix makes XSA-510 reachable.
    • gegl: the CVE-2026-2049/2050 back-port in ELA 1650-1 rejects valid RLE .hdr files.
    • log4cxx: DLA 4322-1 broke UTF-8 in JSONLayout output. That one is functional, not security.
  • Helped correct a set of triages and let the Debian Security team know:
    • ruby-json CVE-2026-71847: the vulnerable code was never in a released Debian version.
    • openssh CVE-2026-55654: only affects a Red Hat-specific GSSAPI patch.
    • three libxml2 issues that don’t affect trixie either.
    • the stunnel4 rename above.
    • trixie <no-dsa> lines on jsch, node-qs, and ruby-loofah, where trixie’s version doesn’t have the vulnerable feature at all.
  • Independently found a security issue in rclone and reported it privately upstream through a GitHub security advisory. Upstream already had a report for the same issue, so they folded mine into the existing advisory and credited me as a co-reporter.
    • https://github.com/rclone/rclone/security/advisories/GHSA-66qv-66mg-9h74
  • Also found some bugs in the additional-data tooling, e.g. cve-ad --package P --severity tbd wipes the CVE-level severity, and the schema doesn’t validate package-level entries at all.

• [E/LTS] Monitored discussions on mailing lists, IRC, and all the documentation updates.

• [E/LTS] Attended the monthly LTS meeting on IRC. Meeting notes here.

---

Until next time.
:wq for today.

A variation of the pattern from yesterday; say you have:

if (x == 3) {
    y = 0;
} else {
    y = 1;
}

When these are zero and one, sometimes this will give a better match, since booleans are evaluated as such:

y = (x != 3);

It's rare to have something else than zero or one work for this pattern (e.g. you would rarely write y = (x != 3) * 2 + 1).