The day in tech.

Hackers remotely manipulated connected refrigeration systems at hundreds of French supermarkets, pushing fridges to 50C and sparking fires. Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu ordered a cybersecurity investigation. Carrefour reported 80 affected stores, while roughly 150 Intermarche stores were heated for six hours. The attack exploited a vulnerability in software supplied by Danish company Danfoss. Outdated firmware allowed the coordinated cyberattack.

Google launches the Fitbit Edge smartwatch on October 27 for $180 in the US and $229 in Canada. The device features a replaceable 65mAh battery with seven-day life and supports over 50 exercise modes using Gemini Intelligence. Pre-orders start October 12, while a Stephen Curry Special Edition costs $219.99 and includes three months of Google Health Premium.

Meta launches paid Muse Wonder AI models on Sept. 8 for subscribers, claiming parity with ChatGPT and Claude. The paid tier costs $20 or $100 monthly for personal users and $50 or $200 for developers. Amazon blocks the app, while Amazon and Walmart partner with the launch. Meta paid $14B for a Scale AI stake, pushing shares up 4.7%.

Nvidia's share of China's data-centre AI chip market fell to 34% in the first half of 2026, down from 50%. Nvidia shipped 678,000 AI accelerators, a 44% drop, while Huawei gained a 28% market share with 572,000 units.

Japan declares a cyber emergency after regulators warn banks against accepting driver's licenses following a Times Car hack. At least 53 companies, including hospitals and schools, were hit by ransomware, with Bookoff Group and East Japan Railway Company confirming over 6 million customer records may be compromised. New access neutralization powers came into force on 1 October.

Quantum computing firm IonQ announced Monday it will acquire cybersecurity company Elisity in an all-stock deal worth up to $1.3 billion. The transaction includes $150 million in performance-based earnouts and is expected to close in the fourth quarter subject to regulatory approval.

On October 12, 2026, Meta launches frontier AI models named Muse Wonder and Muse Wonder Full. Priced at $4.00 and $20.00 per million tokens, they outperform Fable 5.1 and GPT-6 Astra. The gigawatt-scale Prometheus data center trains them, following August restructuring. Meta spent tens of billions rebuilding AI efforts. The $14 billion acquisition of Scale AI enabled this launch.

Microsoft unveils the Maia 300 AI chip targeting a 2027 rollout. Built on TSMC's N2P node, it delivers 40 percent more tokens per megawatt and up to 7x rack-scale throughput versus Maia 200, aiming to become the primary inference system for Microsoft products by 2027. Rack contains 96 accelerators within 167kW power envelope.

Ukraine launched drone strikes on October 8 and October 10, 2026, against three Yandex data centers in Central Russia. The attacks disrupted 100,000 households in Kyiv and impacted 70 percent of Russia's search market share, knocking out Yandex Pay and affecting large grocery and fast-food chains.

Once-largest Ethereum NFT marketplace Blur closes its website on Nov. 12 after monthly trading volumes collapsed 99.5% from a March 2023 peak of $1.43 billion to under $7 million. The shutdown follows the Oct. 2 closure of sister project Blast, which once held over $2 billion in assets.