While you might be pondering whether to replace a smartphone with one that has a slightly better camera or a second screen, the Federal Aviation Administration is planning a much bigger leap in technology for the country's air traffic control system.

The FAA said yesterday that it will stop using floppy disks as part of a long-awaited upgrade that will give air traffic controllers faster access to data needed for crucial safety alerts. The new Enterprise Information Display System (E-IDS) will be installed in 435 facilities, replacing several information display systems dating to the 1980s.

The FAA "is continuing its historic modernization of America’s air traffic control system by replacing outdated floppy disks that contain vital weather and other critical information with a streamlined, 21st-century system," the agency said. E-IDS will be "deployed to operational control positions at more than 400 facilities across all air traffic control domains," and "provide operationally essential information for controlling aircraft," the FAA said.

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Kalshi is having a bad week in the federal court system. Two circuit appeals courts rejected the prediction market's latest attempts to block state gambling laws in Connecticut, New York, and Nevada. Kalshi is separately facing a new lawsuit filed by the Arkansas attorney general.

In all cases involving Kalshi and state governments around the US, the main issue is whether state gambling laws apply to prediction markets despite Kalshi's claim that its platform offers "swaps" that can only be regulated by the US Commodity Futures Exchange (CFTC). The Trump administration is on Kalshi's side, with Donald Trump Jr. serving as an advisor to Kalshi in exchange for a generous equity deal.

"Kalshi insists that its products are not gambling," but "Arkansas law is concerned with substance, not semantics," Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin said yesterday when announcing his lawsuit against Kalshi. Kalshi's prediction market lets customers "wager money on the outcome of just about anything" despite the fact that "gambling on an unregulated platform is squarely prohibited by Arkansas law," he said.

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Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is aiming to widen the Republican majority on the Federal Communications Commission before Democrats take over control of the Senate in January 2027.

Just before the Republicans' midterm loss, Cruz yesterday announced a November 10 nomination hearing for Trump's FCC nominee, Danielle Thumann Severs. In his final two months as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, Cruz seems set on moving the Thumann Severs nomination to a full vote of the Senate.

Confirming Thumann Severs would give Republicans an unusual 3-1 advantage on the FCC. That could become a 3-0 advantage at the end of 2027 because FCC Democrat Anna Gomez would have to leave the commission at that time if Trump does not agree to renominate her.

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California is accepting $1.42 billion in broadband grant funding from the Trump administration, but the state is not accepting the Trump administration's demand that it stop enforcing a net neutrality law and other telecom regulations.

California's stand against the Trump administration could result in multiple legal battles involving the state, federal government, and Internet providers seeking government funds. Although California told the federal government it would accept the money, it is reserving the right to challenge the condition imposed by the US. The state could delay or cancel plans to distribute broadband grants depending on how the process unfolds.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) decided last year that states must agree not to enforce any rate regulation or net neutrality rule on ISPs that receive money from the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. California had to decide whether to accept its share of the fund despite that restriction. California is slated to spend $1.42 billion to deploy broadband to 270,571 locations and may ultimately receive up to $1.86 billion from BEAD for a mix of deployment and non-deployment projects.

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The New York Times and other newspaper companies sued Brave Software yesterday, alleging that the browser maker illegally bypasses paywalls and sells stolen news content to AI companies.

"Brave is the supplier, dealer, and distributor of stolen copyrighted content for its own users and many of the most prominent GenAI companies, including Anthropic, Perplexity, Mistral, xAI, and Cohere," the NYT alleged in a lawsuit filed in US District Court for the Southern District of New York. Citing third-party revenue estimates, the suit claimed that "Brave has made more than $100 million by copying and reselling publishers’ work without consent or permission," while "publishers have received nothing."

The lawsuit said, "AI companies pay Brave to provide them with real-time online content from the Brave search index," and use content from the Brave index "to train their own AI models" and "to respond to specific user queries." The NYT lawsuit points to Brave's website, which says the Brave Search API is "used by some of the biggest names in AI, including Cohere, Mistral, Perplexity, and You.com."

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The Pentagon inspector general's office declined a request from US senators to investigate restrictions recently imposed on the Ukraine military's use of SpaceX's satellite network.

Ukraine, which uses SpaceX's Starlink service and the military version known as Starshield, said earlier this month that military drones lost satellite connectivity when traveling above 161 kilometers per hour (100 miles per hour). The limit was removed after about 10 days.

Five Democratic and four Republican senators sent an October 15 letter to Department of Defense Inspector General Platte Moring, asking for a probe into the reported disruptions of Starlink and Starshield. The letter asked, among other things, "whether any restrictions on Starlink or Starshield services were directed, authorized, or implemented by SpaceX, the Department of Defense, or other US government entities; whether such restrictions were consistent with applicable US government contracts, and what actions, if any, the Department of Defense took in response."

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The Trump administration is trying to stop Utah from enforcing its gambling ban against Kalshi, making Utah the 10th state sued by the US government agency that regulates prediction markets.

Meanwhile, Utah Attorney General Derek Brown filed criminal charges in a state court against Kalshi and its founders on Wednesday. The attorney general's office provided us with court filings listing charges against KalshiEX, LLC, Kalshi co-founder and CEO Tarek Mansour, and Kalshi co-founder and COO Luana Lopes Lara.

The company and two co-founders each face 13 felony charges and one misdemeanor for violating gambling laws. The charges are based on sports bets offered on Kalshi between September 13 and September 24. "The state did not issue arrest warrants for Monsour and Lopes Lara. Instead, they have been issued summons to respond to the charges in Third District Court in Salt Lake County," The Salt Lake Tribune wrote.

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A Delaware proposal to let companies be operated by AI agents would help the firms' human owners evade legal responsibility for reckless and harmful actions taken by the AI, US Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) told Delaware Governor Matt Meyer in a letter yesterday.

Comer, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told Meyer that the committee "seeks assistance obtaining documents related to your state administration’s efforts to establish a new form of corporate entity to be known as an Artificial Intelligence Company (AIC)."

Comer said the proposal is ripe for abuse. "We are concerned that Delaware’s AIC proposal could be used to protect powerful AI companies and their investors from responsibility for reckless harmful actions, while also protecting non-transparent forces seeking anticompetitive regulatory capture behind state AI initiatives," Comer's letter said.

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Elon Musk accused Ukraine of violating Starlink terms of service by using it for lethal drone strikes.

Musk said Ukraine used the Starlink commercial service for offensive drone strikes. Musk's comment on Saturday came after SpaceX imposed a restriction preventing Ukraine from using the satellite technology on drones flying above certain speeds.

One current and one former Ukraine official denied Musk's accusation and said previous limits imposed by SpaceX already prevented Ukraine's military from using Starlink in the way Musk described. Ukraine officials have accused Musk of throttling their use of Starshield, the military variant of Starlink that Ukraine has access to through a deal with the US government.

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a memo warning military personnel against using nonpublic information to make bets on prediction markets, saying the wagers could give important clues to enemy countries.

"Do Not Compromise Military Operations for Personal Financial Gain," said the subject line of an October 20 memo published yesterday by CBS News. Hegseth's memo was sent to senior Pentagon leadership, Combatant Command leaders, and Defense Department field activity directors.

Hegseth wrote:

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The New York Knicks organization sent employees a phishing email promising free championship rings in a test of its staff's ability to detect scams, The New York Times reported yesterday. “Congratulations, your Employee Championship Ring is here,” the email sent in late September said, instructing employees to click a link to make a selection from two ring designs.

Madison Square Garden employees who clicked that link "were forced to attend a mandatory cybersecurity class to help satisfy some of [owner James] Dolan’s growing cybersecurity concerns," the report said, citing team sources. Dolan is the owner of the Knicks, the New York Rangers, and Madison Square Garden.

It's common for corporations to send phishing emails to find out which employees don't pay attention to clues that an email is a scam. A cybersecurity-test email often appears to be from the company itself but includes telltale signs of phishing. For example, Ars Technica owner Condé Nast sends phishing-test messages from email addresses with a misspelled domain, "condenest.com."

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Comcast reportedly plans significant job cuts in its cable division as the firm continues to lose residential broadband and TV customers. Comcast lost 144,000 residential broadband customers in Q3 2026, up from a 91,000-customer loss in the same quarter a year ago, the company said in its earnings report today.

Comcast historically capitalized on a lack of competition for high-speed wired broadband. But now it faces stronger competition from fixed wireless providers and from fiber providers in parts of its cable territory.

"Fixed wireless remains aggressive and continues to take share, while fiber construction remains elevated, with pockets of irrational pricing and promotional activity," Comcast co-CEO Mike Cavanagh said today in an earnings call.

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Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr today warned broadcasters about airing "fake polls," amplifying one of the many complaints that President Trump has regularly made about the news media.

Carr's post on X said, "Many journalists and broadcasters have been amplifying or airing these Polls without regard to basic journalistic ethics and without informing the public that those Polls lack a scientific, accurate, or even real basis... Broadcasters are advised to avoid engaging in News Distortions or running Broadcast Hoaxes by airing Polls that would violate their regulatory obligations."

Carr urged broadcasters to "provide their viewers with additional context and information about Polls they have covered." In fact, one small polling outfit was exposed as a hoax this week, and a similar incident occurred in August. News outlets have reported on these hoaxes, providing the very "context" that Carr said is needed.

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A Wall Street Journal report said SpaceX CEO Elon Musk ordered the Starlink throttling that blindsided Ukraine's air assault forces last week, despite Musk's claim that all decisions on the military version of Starlink are made by the US military and President Trump.

Trump denied ordering the restrictions. While Musk may have spoken to Trump and administration officials before the decision, The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Musk made the final call. The decision came after both Musk and Trump criticized Ukraine for attacking Russian diesel refineries.

"Elon Musk ordered the slowdown of a military-grade version of Starlink relied on by Ukraine, a decision that sparked panic in Kyiv and confusion inside the Trump administration," the WSJ wrote, citing unnamed US officials and people familiar with the matter. The report said that "Musk capped the speeds at which Ukrainian hardware could stay connected to the satellite-based network... rendering some offensive drones and interceptor drones virtually useless."

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TP-Link yesterday announced plans to assemble Wi-Fi routers in the US, as the company attempts to get the Trump administration's approval to sell its newest routers to American consumers.

The timing is uncertain, as TP-Link's press release said it expects US-based assembly to begin "as early as" 2027. TP-Link's application to sell new routers in the US could be rejected by the Trump administration or remain pending long enough to push the US-based assembly to 2028.

"Pending US regulatory approval, TP-Link expects domestic assembly of its groundbreaking Wi-Fi 8 home networking product line to begin as early as next year," the company said. TP-Link said it signed a Letter of Intent with US company Keytronic, which agreed "to become a primary domestic manufacturing partner for TP-Link, supporting assembly of the company’s advanced networking portfolio in Corinth, Mississippi."

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