An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Indonesia has suspended TikTok’s registration to provide electronic systems after it failed to hand over all data relating to the use of its live stream feature, a government official said on Friday. The suspension could in theory prevent access to TikTok, which has more than 100 million accounts based in Indonesia.

Alexander Sabar, an official at Indonesia’s communications and digital ministry, said in a statement some accounts with ties to online gambling activities used TikTok’s live stream feature during national protests. […] Sabar said the government had asked the company for its traffic, streaming and monetization data. The company, owned by China’s ByteDance, did not provide complete data, citing its internal procedures, Sabar said without giving further detail.

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This is a timelapse video of a 1,200 pound pumpkin being grown by northeastgiantpumpkin over the course of two months. It starts so little! Then it’s briefly the size of one of the pumpkins I’ll butcher trying to carve for Halloween before topping out at over a half ton and change. Damn that’s a big pumpkin! But is it good for making pies? I wonder how many pies you could make with it. Trick question — just one big one.

Bonus video of getting the pumpkin in a truck:

Google will discontinue Gmailify and POP email support in January 2026, forcing users who rely on these features to switch to IMAP. PCWorld reports: These changes only affect future emails. Emails that have already been synchronized in the Gmail account will remain the same. External accounts can still be used in the Gmail app, but only via IMAP. Google also recommends that users with work or education accounts contact their administrators if a Google Workspace migration is needed.

For many Gmail users, these changes will likely mean getting used to the new system. Anyone who previously upgraded their external email accounts with Gmailify or integrated them via POP will have to switch to IMAP by January 2026 at the latest and do without some convenient functions, like spam filters and automatic sorting.

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The University of San Francisco issued a campuswide alert after reports of a man using Meta Ray-Ban AI glasses to film students while making “unwanted comments and inappropriate dating questions.” Although no violence has been reported, officials said he may be uploading footage to TikTok and Instagram. SFGate reports: University officials said “no threats or acts of violence” have been reported, but they have been unable to identify all students who appear in the videos. They urged any school members affected to alert the app platform and the USF Department of Public Safety. “As a community, we share the responsibility of caring for ourselves, each other, and this place,” school officials said in the alert. “By looking out for one another and promptly reporting concerns, we help ensure a safe and supportive environment for all.”

The glasses feature a small camera that can be used for recording by pressing a button or using voice controls. Meta advises users to act “responsibly” when using the glasses. “Not everyone loves being photographed. Stop recording if anyone expresses that they would rather opt out, and be particularly mindful of others before going live,” the company said.

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The SEC has approved the Texas Stock Exchange (TXSE), the first new fully integrated U.S. stock exchange in decades and the only one based in Texas. TXSE is set to launch trading services, as well as exchange-traded products, known as ETPs, and corporate listings, in 2026. CBS News reports: Exchange-traded products are financial instruments that follow the performance of underlying assets such as stocks, indexes or other financial benchmarks. Like stocks, ETPs are traded on public exchanges, allowing investors to buy and sell them throughout the trading day at market prices that fluctuate in real time.

TXSE was backed by wealth management giant BlackRock and market maker Citadel Securities, among other firms. The Texas company said in June 2024 that it raised a total of $120 million from more than two dozen investors. TXSE’s headquarters in Dallas opened this spring, the group said.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Google is bringing its AI coding agent Jules deeper into developer workflows with a new command-line interface and public API, allowing it to plug into terminals, CI/CD systems, and tools like Slack — as competition intensifies among tech companies to own the future of software development and make coding more of an AI-assisted task.

Until now, Jules — Google’s asynchronous coding agent — was only accessible via its website and GitHub. On Thursday, the company introduced Jules Tools, a command-line interface that brings Jules directly into the developer’s terminal. The CLI lets developers interact with the agent using commands, streamlining workflows by eliminating the need to switch between the web interface and GitHub. It allows them to stay within their environment while delegating coding tasks and validating results. “We want to reduce context switching for developers as much as possible,” Kathy Korevec, director of product at Google Labs, told TechCrunch.

Jules differs from Gemini CLI in that it focuses on “scoped,” independent tasks rather than requiring iterative collaboration. Once a user approves a plan, Jules executes it autonomously, while the CLI needs more step-by-step guidance. Jules also has a public API for workflow and IDE integration, plus features like memory, a stacked diff viewer, PR comment handling, and image uploads — capabilities not present in the CLI. Gemini CLI is limited to terminals and CI/CD pipelines and is better suited for exploratory, highly interactive use.

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Last month, federal investigators said they dismantled a China-linked plot that aimed to cripple New York City’s telecommunications system by overloading cell towers, jamming 911 calls, and disrupting communications. According to law enforcement sources, the plot was even bigger than first thought. “Agents from Homeland Security Investigations found an additional 200,000 SIM cards at a location in New Jersey,” according to ABC News. “That’s double the 100,000 SIM cards, along with hundreds of servers, that were recently seized at five other vacant offices and apartments in and around the city.” From the report: Investigators secured each of those locations, seized the electronics, and are now trying to track down who rented the spaces and filled them with shelves full of gear capable of sending 30 million anonymous text messages every minute, overloading communications and blacking out cellular service in a city that relies on it for emergency response and counterterrorism.

According to sources, the investigation began after several high-level people, including at least one with direct access to President Donald Trump, were targeted not only by swatters but also with actual threats received on their private phones. “The potential threat these data centers pose to the public could include shutting down critical resources that the public needs, like the 911 system, or potentially impacting the public’s ability to communicate everything, including business transactions,” said Don Mihalek, an ABC News contributor who was formerly with the Secret Service.

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OpenAI’s valuation has surged to $500 billion after a $6.6 billion secondary stock sale, briefly making it the world’s most valuable startup ahead of SpaceX and ByteDance. The Associated Press reports: Current and former OpenAI employees sold $6.6 billion in shares to a group of investors, pushing the privately held artificial intelligence company’s valuation to $500 billion, according to a source with knowledge of the deal who was not authorized to discuss it publicly. The investors buying the shares included Thrive Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group and T. Rowe Price, along with Japanese tech giant SoftBank and the United Arab Emirates’ MGX, the source said Thursday.

The valuation reflects high expectations for the future of AI technology and continues OpenAI’s remarkable trajectory from its start as a nonprofit research lab in 2015. But with the San Francisco-based company not yet turning a profit, it could also amplify concerns about an AI bubble if the generative AI products made by OpenAI and its competitors don’t meet the expectations of investors pouring billions of dollars into research and development.

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According to new polling data, nearly 80 percent of Americans support extending Affordable Care Act (ACA) enhanced premium tax credits, which are set to expire at the end of this year—and are at the center of a funding dispute that led to a shutdown of the federal government this week.

The poll, conducted by KFF and released Friday, found that 78 percent of Americans want the tax credits extended, including 92 percent of Democrats, 59 percent of Republicans—and even a majority (57 percent) of Republicans who identify as Donald Trump-aligned MAGA (Make America Great Again) supporters.

A separate analysis published by KFF earlier this week found that if the credits are not extended, monthly premiums for ACA Marketplace plans would more than double on average. Specifically, the current average premium of $888 would jump to $1,904 in 2026, a 114 percent increase.

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Because if there’s one thing LEGO is good at, it’s printing money, the interlocking plastic giant has just announced a 697-piece Star Wars Gingerbread AT-AT build set. The $70 kit includes all the pieces you need to construct an approximately 8″ tall gingerbread AT-AT decorated with Christmas lights, candy canes, icing, bows, and a gingerbread Darth Vader. Honestly, I’d buy it just for ginger Vade alone. I’m a sucker like that. And in every other way. Still, I can’t help but feel LEGO missed the mark not including a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Tauntaun minifig.

Dozens of countries have yet to secure accommodation at next month’s COP30 climate summit in Brazil and some delegates are considering staying away as a shortage of hotels has driven prices to hundreds of dollars per night. Reuters: Small island states on the frontline of rising sea levels are confronted with having to consider reducing the size of delegations they send to Belem, while two European nations said they were considering not attending at all.

COP30 organisers are racing to convert love motels, cruise ships and churches into lodgings for an anticipated 45,000 delegates. Brazil chose to hold the climate talks at Belem, which typically has 18,000 hotel beds available, in the hope its location on the edge of the Amazon rainforest would focus attention on the threat climate change poses to this ecosystem, and its role in absorbing climate-warming emissions.

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