⚡️🇺🇸 KFC Ditches Pepsi for Coca-Cola Across Its US Restaurants

Fried-chicken chain KFC reached an agreement to serve Coca-Cola Co. beverages in the US, dislodging PepsiCo Inc. from a longtime restaurant partner.

KFC’s roughly 4,000 US locations will transition to Coca-Cola beverages starting in January, according to a statement. All US restaurants are expected to serve Coca-Cola by spring. International KFC locations will continue to serve PepsiCo drinks.

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⚡️🔮 Bringing the magic: Google breaks open a bottleneck in quantum computing

Google Quantum AI has demonstrated a major breakthrough in quantum computing by showing that “magic state cultivation” works in practice on its Willow processor.

Combining this breakthrough with further algorithmic innovations and engineering solutions, Google Quantum AI has established a new state of the art in quantum metrology. The protocol achieved an extraordinary 40-fold reduction in errors on Google’s Willow processor and produced T-states with a record logical fidelity of 99.99%.

Now published in Science, this research marks the first demonstration of a practical solution to one of quantum computing’s most significant resource bottlenecks. The results show that Google Quantum AI can efficiently generate these essential magic states on real quantum hardware.

📱 Watch the video on YouTube

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🤑 High-yield corporate bonds are now live on Stellar

👉 HYB brings New York Life Investment Management actively managed U.S. high-yield corporate bond strategy onchain as a tokenized fund.

👉 deHYB opens new ways to use that exposure across DeFi. As a freely transferable token, the strategy can become a building block across lending, collateral, fixed-rate markets and many other DeFi use cases.

A new category of institutional credit is now available to build with on Stellar. Another step forward for RWAs on Stellar. 👏

More assets. More utility. More possibilities. 🚀

#Stellar

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🤑 Ripple Prime adds RWA swaps referencing perpetual futures listed on Hyperliquid

Ripple Prime, the prime brokerage unit of Ripple, has added RWA perpetual swaps for institutional clients, with the products referencing perpetual futures listed by Trade.xyz on Hyperliquid.

❗️The swaps cover more than 100 reference markets across equities, equity indices, exchange-traded funds, metals, energy and foreign exchange, adding that trading and settlement are available around the clock, including weekends.

RWA perpetual swaps are crypto derivative contracts that let users trade traditional financial assets using leverage without an expiration date. Market maker Virtu is among the institutional clients already trading the products, Ripple said.

"Virtu is ramping up across emerging liquidity pools, and Ripple Prime's 24/7 cross-margining across asset classes helps us expand our presence more efficiently as markets move toward round-the-clock access,” — said Scotte Moegling, head of business development for digital assets at Virtu.

Ripple Prime acts as the principal in the trades, while the value of the swaps is linked to the Trade.xyz perpetual futures listed on Hyperliquid. 🚀

#Stellar

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📱 X purges 13,000 accounts linked to suspected meddling ahead of US midterms

X says it has nuked more than 13,000 accounts involved in three suspected foreign influence operations targeting US political debate.

The platform linked the operations to Iran, Russia, and China. It said the networks used inauthentic accounts to post and amplify political content targeting candidates and public figures across the political spectrum.

"People come to X to talk about what's happening in the world, including the upcoming 2026 US midterms," — the platform said.

"Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and we are proud that X is the global town square where these debates happen. Our job is to keep that conversation authentic, open, and safe."

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🤑 Cross River Embeds Ripple USD Stablecoin on the XRP Ledger into its Core Banking Infrastructure, Expanding Faster Payment Capabilities for Businesses

Cross River Bank, a leading technology infrastructure platform powering embedded financial solutions serving as the trust anchor for global banking and money movement, announced it is partnering with Ripple to integrate RLUSD into Cross River’s proprietary Core Operating System (COS), with support for transactions on the XRP Ledger (XRPL), a public blockchain.

❗️The integration marks another step toward converging traditional banking and blockchain-based payments within the regulated U.S. financial system.

🟠Customers can now access RLUSD through a single API connection without the complexity of deploying blockchain infrastructure.

🟠The integration brings stablecoins’ programmability and near-instant settlement further into the same environment as traditional rails, creating a unified payments experience where businesses can leverage the strengths of both.

“Stablecoins won’t transform payments through parallel financial systems. They’ll do it by becoming part of the banking infrastructure businesses already use,” — said Markus Infanger, SVP, RippleX at Ripple.

Services are currently only available in limited states.

#Stellar

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🤖 Researchers tracked down a rogue fleet of Chinese AI agents in the wild and actually talked to it

"We discovered and communicated with a Chinese AI agent fleet. We believe this is the first time that researchers have ever made contact with a rogue agent fleet in the wild," — researcher, Ethan Elasky, said.

Between September 28 and October 8, 2026, AI agents running on Tencent Cloud launched more than 2,600 attempts to scrape data from Alibaba's mapping service Amap, according to Elasky. The fleet came from research tests by an evaluation team checking how well third-party models could browse the web and answer questions.

In total, 33 messages came in from agents. The researchers sent 20 replies, the agents read 12 of them and responded to 7. One agent thanked the researchers, confirmed its task was done, and voluntarily answered questions about its runtime environment before signing off with "Thanks again for your help!"

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🇩🇪 Deutsche Bank prepares crypto custody launch, targets Asia growth

Deutsche Bank is weeks away from launching its first digital asset service, marking a ​push into crypto custody. After the launch in Germany, the bank plans to ​expand the custody platform into Asian financial centres ​next year, according to Gerald Podobnik, co-head of the corporate ⁠bank.

❗️Podobnik cited the rapid growth of the digital economy, ​including hundreds of billions of dollars held in stablecoins, as evidence ‌that ⁠new pools of value have emerged over the past two decades.

"I believe that, as the financial system, we will need to offer tokenised or blockchain solutions to our clients ​as additional ​services alongside ⁠our traditional ones ... but not necessarily to replace what we are doing today," — Podobnik said.

🟠The ​phased rollout will initially support custody of ​major ⁠cryptocurrencies such as BTC and ETH before expanding to services that help clients move money into and out of mainstream ⁠stablecoins.

🟠Deutsche ​Bank also plans to offer tokenised ​deposits and help clients issue blockchain-based securities such as digital bonds.

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🧑‍⚖️ Eight US states sue OpenAI, claiming ChatGPT harms young users

A bipartisan group of eight states had ​sued OpenAI in courts across the country over harms they ‌say ChatGPT has caused to their residents, alleging the chatbot has coached its users — including teenagers — to harm themselves or others.

Attorneys general from the states, which include Iowa, ​Kansas and Arizona, filed the lawsuits independently in state courts. The states, which also include Arkansas, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska ​and West ⁠Virginia, are also seeking civil monetary penalties for OpenAI's violations of state law as well as damages.

The lawsuits seek orders forcing OpenAI to make changes to how ChatGPT works. Among other things, ​the states want ​the company barred ⁠from developing AI models that can improve themselves unless it can ensure those models are aligned with human ​values.

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💰 Visa Direct Launches Stablecoin-Powered Money Movement as Pilots Move to Production

Visa announced the next phase of its stablecoin strategy as Visa Direct stablecoin capabilities advance from pilot stage to commercial deployment. The milestone marks an important step in bringing stablecoin-enabled money movement into real-world commercial operations.

👉 As part of this next phase, Visa is working with Inyo Global, a payments infrastructure provider serving money transmitters, fintechs, banks and payment businesses, to bring Visa Direct's stablecoin-enabled prefunding to market.

👉 Inyo has integrated the capability into its platform, giving the businesses it serves the option to prefund cross-border payouts through Visa Direct with USDC in near real time, rather than relying solely on traditional funding windows.

Through a single connection, Inyo's platform lets businesses onboard users, manage fraud and compliance, accept payments and send domestic and international payouts across more than 180 countries, powered by Visa Direct.

"The next chapter for stablecoins is adoption," — said Vira Platonova, Global Head of Visa Direct. 🚀

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🤖 Introducing Hugo: the first human companion robot

What if robots could connect with people? 🤔 Dynamic Creatures, a robotics company that designs and builds interactive character robots for entertainment and hospitality brands, is unveiling its first living character robot, intended to create a new interactive experience for theme parks, resorts, casinos, and retailers.

Unlike conventional animatronics, Hugo is built to move freely among guests. Hugo runs on the first Vision-Language-Expression (VLE) model. He links what he sees and hears to movement, expression, and gesture. He notices you, reads the room, and reacts in real time.

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💸 Stablecoin issuer Circle to push into 40 new markets, CEO says

Stablecoin issuer Circle is making a major push to enter about 40 emerging and developing countries around the world as blockchain adoption is expected to scale up significantly, the company's CEO and ​chairman Jeremy Allaire said.

"We're kind of going through an inflection point...a transition right now, ‌and that transition is essentially moving from the early adopter phase of blockchain technology into the mainstream scaling phase," — said Allaire.

Markers in regions like Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East are seeing rising ​organic demand for stablecoins and digital utility from individual and businesses wanting to part ⁠of an internet-based economic system, Allaire said.

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🤖 Linus Torvalds posts his first AI-assisted patch to the Linux kernel, synthetic test clocks 23x performance leap

After a few revisions of his position on AI-assisted contributions to the Linux kernel, Linus Torvalds has posted his own first LLM-assisted patch. The development branch purports to fix an old issue with massive cache contention when many CPUs are reading the same file — a scenario potentially encountered when using shared libraries, databases, and web servers.

Several developers had already made attempts over the years at fixing the issue, all with varied results, none quite ideal as an all-encompassing solution. Torvalds posted his own draft for solving the problem in early 2024, and has used it on his own laptop since that time. However, he recently took the plunge and decided to "try to actually solve this thing using an LLM."

He's now posted his solution in a development branch, and claims that he's seen a 23x performance improvement in a dedicated synthetic benchmark, though he notes that actual real-world impact will be far less significant, as "no real load" will witness those figures. If we had to guess, this improvement would benefit server workloads far more than desktop machines.

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💊 USC scientists discover how to create a never-ending supply of cancer-fighting cells

Scientists at the University of Southern California (USC) have discovered a way to produce a potentially renewable supply of cancer-fighting immune cells, opening a promising new direction for cancer treatment.

By working with immature cells that can develop into powerful immune defenders, the researchers have created a system capable of generating large numbers of genetically engineered cells that recognize tumors and help activate the body's natural defenses.

🐁 In experiments involving mice, the engineered cells established themselves in bone marrow, produced new immune cells, and slowed the progression of both blood cancers and solid tumors.

The breakthrough, described in a study published in Cell, could help overcome some of the biggest obstacles facing cancer immunotherapy, including the difficulty of manufacturing enough immune cells and keeping them active in the body.

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