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New funding round by Meta strengthens local STEAM education

Meta is inviting applications for its 2026 Data Centre Community Action Grants, which support schools, nonprofits and local groups in regions that host the company’s data centres.

The programme has been a core part of Meta’s community investment strategy since 2011, and the latest round expands support to seven additional areas linked to new facilities. The company views the grants as a means of strengthening long-term community vitality, rather than focusing solely on infrastructure growth.

Funding is aimed at projects that use technology for public benefit and improve opportunities in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics. More than $ 74 million has been awarded to communities worldwide, with $ 24 million distributed through the grant programme alone.

Recipients can reapply each year, which enables organisations to sustain programmes and increase their impact over time.

Several regions have already demonstrated how the funding can reshape local learning opportunities. Northern Illinois University used grants to expand engineering camps for younger students and to open a STEAM studio that supports after-school programmes and workforce development.

In New Mexico, a middle school used funding to build a STEM centre with advanced tools such as drones, coding kits and 3D printing equipment. In Texas, an enrichment organisation created a digital media and STEM camp for at-risk youth, offering skills that can encourage empowerment instead of disengagement.

Meta presents the programme as part of a broader pledge to deepen education and community involvement around emerging technologies.

The company argues that long-term support for digital learning will strengthen local resilience and create opportunities for young people who want to pursue future careers in technology.

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Digital records gain official status in Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan has granted full legal validity to online personal data stored on the my.gov.uz Unified Interactive Public Services Portal, placing it on equal footing with traditional documents.

The measure, in force from 1 November, supports the country’s digital transformation by simplifying how citizens interact with state bodies.

Personal information can now be accessed, shared and managed entirely through the portal instead of relying on printed certificates.

State institutions are no longer permitted to request paper versions of records that are already available online, which is expected to reduce queues and alleviate the administrative burden faced by the public.

Officials in Uzbekistan anticipate that centralising personal data on one platform will save time and resources for both citizens and government agencies. The reform aims to streamline public services, remove redundant steps and improve overall efficiency across state procedures.

Government bodies have encouraged citizens to use the portal’s functions more actively and follow official channels for updates on new features and improvements.

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Salesforce unveils eVerse for dependable enterprise AI

The US cloud-based software company, Salesforce and its Research AI department, have unveiled eVerse, a new environment designed to train voice and text agents through synthetic data generation, stress testing and reinforcement learning.

In an aim to resolve a growing reliability problem known as jagged intelligence, where systems excel at complex reasoning yet falter during simple interactions.

The company views eVerse as a key requirement for creating an Agentic Enterprise, where human staff and digital agents work together smoothly and dependably.

eVerse supports continuous improvement by generating large volumes of simulated interactions, measuring performance and adjusting behaviour over time, rather than waiting for real-world failures.

A platform that played a significant role in the development of Agentforce Voice, giving AI agents the capacity to cope with unpredictable calls involving noise, varied accents and weak connections.

Thousands of simulated conversations enabled teams to identify problems early and deliver stronger performance.

The technology is also being tested with UCSF Health, where clinical experts are working with Salesforce to refine agents that support billing services. Only a portion of healthcare queries can typically be handled automatically, as much of the knowledge remains undocumented.

eVerse enhances coverage by enabling agents to adapt to complex cases through reinforcement learning, thereby improving performance across both routine and sophisticated tasks.

Salesforce describes eVerse as a milestone in a broader effort to achieve Enterprise General Intelligence. The goal is a form of AI designed for dependable business use, instead of the more creative outputs that dominate consumer systems.

It also argues that trust and consistency will shape the next stage of enterprise adoption and that real-world complexity must be mirrored during development to guarantee reliable deployment.

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NotebookLM gains automated Deep Research tool and wider file support

Google is expanding NotebookLM with Deep Research, a tool designed to handle complex online inquiries and produce structured, source-grounded reports. The feature acts like a dedicated researcher, planning its own process and gathering material across the web.

Users can enter a question, choose a research style, and let Deep Research browse relevant sites before generating a detailed briefing. The tool runs in the background, allowing additional sources to be added without disrupting the workflow or leaving the notebook.

NotebookLM now supports more file types, including Google Sheets, Drive URLs, PDFs stored in Drive, and Microsoft Word documents. Google says this enables tasks such as summarising spreadsheets and quickly importing multiple Drive files for analysis.

The update continues the service’s gradual expansion since its late-2023 launch, which has brought features such as Video Overviews for turning dense materials into visual explainers. These follow earlier additions, such as Audio Overviews, which create podcast-style summaries of shared documents.

Google also released NotebookLM apps for Android and iOS earlier this year, extending access beyond desktop. The company says the latest enhancements should reach all users within a week.

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New guidelines by Apple curb how apps send user data to external AI systems

Apple has updated its App Review Guidelines to require developers to disclose and obtain permission before sharing personal data with third-party AI systems. The company says the change enhances user control as AI features become more prevalent across apps.

The revision arrives ahead of Apple’s planned 2026 release of an AI-enhanced Siri, expected to take actions across apps and rely partly on Google’s Gemini technology. Apple is also moving to ensure external developers do not pass personal data to AI providers without explicit consent.

Previously, rule 5.1.2(i) already limited the sharing of personal information without permission. The update adds explicit language naming third-party AI as a category that requires disclosure, reflecting growing scrutiny of how apps use machine learning and generative models.

The shift could affect developers who use external AI systems for features such as personalisation or content generation. Enforcement details remain unclear, as the term ‘AI’ encompasses a broad range of technologies beyond large language models.

Apple released several other guideline updates alongside the AI change, including support for its new Mini Apps Programme and amendments involving creator tools, loan products, and regulated services such as crypto exchanges.

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Embodied AI steps forward with DeepMind’s SIMA 2 research preview

Google DeepMind has released a research preview of SIMA 2, an upgraded generalist agent that draws on Gemini’s language and reasoning strengths. The system moves beyond simple instruction following, aiming to understand user intent and interact more effectively with its environment.

SIMA 1 relied on game data to learn basic tasks across diverse 3D worlds but struggled with complex actions. DeepMind says SIMA 2 represents a step change, completing harder objectives in unfamiliar settings and adapting its behaviour through experience without heavy human supervision.

The agent is powered by the Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite model and built around the idea of embodied intelligence, where an AI acts through a body and responds to its surroundings. Researchers say this approach supports a deeper understanding of context, goals, and the consequences of actions.

Demos show SIMA 2 describing landscapes, identifying objects, and choosing relevant tasks in titles such as No Man’s Sky. It also reveals its reasoning, interprets clues, uses emojis as instructions, and navigates photorealistic worlds generated by Genie, DeepMind’s own environment model.

Self-improvement comes from Gemini models that create new tasks and score attempts, enabling SIMA 2 to refine its abilities through trial and error. DeepMind sees these advances as groundwork for future general-purpose robots, though the team has not shared timelines for wider deployment.

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Firefox expands AI features with full user choice

Mozilla has outlined its vision for integrating AI into Firefox in a way that protects user choice instead of limiting it. The company argues that AI should be built like the open web, allowing people and developers to use tools on their own terms rather than being pushed into a single ecosystem.

Recent features such as the AI sidebar chatbot and Shake to Summarise on iOS reflect that approach.

The next step is an ‘AI Window’, a controlled space inside Firefox that lets users chat with an AI assistant while browsing. The feature is entirely optional, offers full control, and can be switched off at any time. Mozilla has opened a waitlist so users can test the feature early and help shape its development.

Mozilla believes browsers must adapt as AI becomes a more common interface to the web. The company argues that remaining independent allows it to prioritise transparency, accountability and user agency instead of the closed models promoted by competitors.

The goal is an assistant that enhances browsing and guides users outward to the wider internet rather than trapping them in isolated conversations.

Community involvement remains central to Mozilla’s work. The organisation is encouraging developers and users to contribute ideas and support open-source projects as it works to ensure Firefox stays fast, secure and private while embracing helpful forms of AI.

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Agentic AI drives a new identity security crisis

New research from Rubrik Zero Labs warns that agentic AI is reshaping the identity landscape faster than organisations can secure it.

The study reveals a surge in non-human identities created through automation and API driven workflows, with numbers now exceeding human users by a striking margin.

Most firms have already introduced AI agents into their identity systems or plan to do so, yet many struggle to govern the growing volume of machine credentials.

Experts argue that identity has become the primary attack surface as remote work, cloud adoption and AI expansion remove traditional boundaries. Threat actors increasingly rely on valid credentials instead of technical exploits, which makes weaknesses in identity governance far more damaging.

Rubrik’s researchers and external analysts agree that a single compromised key or forgotten agent account can provide broad access to sensitive environments.

Industry specialists highlight that agentic AI disrupts established IAM practices by blurring distinctions between human and machine activity.

Organisations often cannot determine whether a human or an automated agent performed a critical action, which undermines incident investigations and weakens zero-trust strategies. Poor logging, weak lifecycle controls and abandoned machine identities further expand the attack surface.

Rubrik argues that identity resilience is becoming essential, since IAM tools alone cannot restore trust after a breach. Many firms have already switched IAM providers, reflecting widespread dissatisfaction with current safeguards.

Analysts recommend tighter control of agent creation, stronger credential governance and a clearer understanding of how AI-driven identities reshape operational and security risks.

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Anthropic uncovers a major AI-led cyberattack

The US R&D firm, Anthropic, has revealed details of the first known cyber espionage operation largely executed by an autonomous AI system.

Suspicious activity detected in September 2025 led to an investigation that uncovered an attack framework, which used Claude Code as an automated agent to infiltrate about thirty high-value organisations across technology, finance, chemicals and government.

The attackers relied on recent advances in model intelligence, agency and tool access.

By breaking tasks into small prompts and presenting Claude as a defensive security assistant instead of an offensive tool, they bypassed safeguards and pushed the model to analyse systems, identify weaknesses, write exploit code and harvest credentials.

The AI completed most of the work with only a few moments of human direction, operating at a scale and speed that human hackers would struggle to match.

Anthropic responded by banning accounts, informing affected entities and working with authorities as evidence was gathered. The company argues that the case shows how easily sophisticated operations can now be carried out by less-resourced actors who use agentic AI instead of traditional human teams.

Errors such as hallucinated credentials remain a limitation, yet the attack marks a clear escalation in capability and ambition.

The firm maintains that the same model abilities exploited by the attackers are needed for cyber defence. Greater automation in threat detection, vulnerability analysis and incident response is seen as vital.

Safeguards, stronger monitoring and wider information sharing are presented as essential steps for an environment where adversaries are increasingly empowered by autonomous AI.

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Digital ID arrives for Apple users

Apple has introduced Digital ID, a new feature that lets users create an identification card in Apple Wallet using information from a US passport.

The feature launches in beta at Transportation Security Administration checkpoints across more than two hundred and fifty airports for domestic travel, instead of relying solely on physical documentation.

It offers an alternative for users who lack a Real ID-compliant card while not replacing a physical passport for international journeys.

Users set up a Digital ID by scanning the passport’s photo page, reading the chip on the back of the document, and completing facial movements for verification.

Once added, the ID can be presented with an iPhone or Apple Watch by holding the device near an identity reader and confirming the request with Face ID or Touch ID. New verification options for in-person checks at selected businesses, apps and online platforms are planned.

The company highlights privacy protection by storing passport data only on the user’s device, instead of Apple’s servers. Digital ID information is encrypted and cannot be viewed by Apple, and biometric authentication ensures that only the owner can present the identity.

Only the required information is shared during each transaction, and the user must approve it before it is released.

The launch expands Apple Wallet’s existing support for driver’s licences and state IDs, which are already available in twelve states and Puerto Rico. Recent months have added Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia, and Japan adopted the feature with the My Number Card.

Apple expects Digital ID to broaden secure personal identification across more services over time.

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