Tech & AI News Roundup — October 16, 2026, 7:04 PM UTC

Quick links to what's actually happening in AI, tech, and IT right now — curated from real reporting, not rewritten, so you can go read the full story wherever it's genuinely worth your time.

Why Apple is finally making its own smart home devices

Apple’s Home Collection is part of the company’s first major push into the smart home category. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge For more than a decade, Apple has told other companies to build smart home devices for its platform. This week, Apple launched its own. The Apple Home Collection is a lineup of cameras, thermostats, sensors, a smart door lock, and a video doorbell, all code — The Verge

Chicago-Area Cops Helped HSI Spy on Minnesota Anti-ICE Activists

Despite Illinois’ sanctuary laws, local police in and around Chicago helped ICE investigative agents track activists engaged in First Amendment–protected activities. — Wired

Toxic algorithms wouldn't let them go - now Australia wants an off switch

Australia has proposed a switch to force social media platforms to let users turn off recommended content. — BBC Technology

India becomes the latest country to report rogue AI agent activity

The agents got in through credentials and connection settings left exposed in app configurations, public code repositories, and overly permissive cloud roles. — TechCrunch

Researchers Demonstrate OpenBSD Root Exploit Chaining 37-Year-Old Shared-Memory Bug

A local privilege escalation exploit published today gains root on OpenBSD 7.9 by chaining a roughly 37-year-old integer overflow with a separate kernel flaw, bypassing OpenBSD's KARL kernel-address randomization and its SMAP and SMEP hardware protections. Security firm Calif, which found and reported the flaws, published a detailed writeup and full proof-of-concept code after OpenBSD shipped — The Hacker News

Munich dumps proprietary for open source (again) – but no Linux desktop

Open source in the public sector doesn’t fail because of technical issues. It fails because it’s not aligned with the political agenda — ZDNet

Anthropic gives third-party auditors ’employee-like access’ in AI industry first

As AI labs continue to self-regulate, external evaluators play a crucial role in spotting risks. — ZDNet

RFK Jr. proposes FDA look the other way on unproven peptides, report says

FDA scientists said none of the popular drugs have been proven safe or effective. — Ars Technica