Latest Technology News Today: 5 November 2026

Claude adds a Personal Finance tool that connects to bank and credit card accounts through Plaid, letting US Pro, Max and Ultra subscribers ask questions about spending in beta. Anthropic says access is read-only, so Claude cannot move, manage or invest money, and it will not use hub conversations for model training. The feature follows a similar ChatGPT tool and can flag duplicate charges, unexpected fees and rising bills.

Microsoft is rolling out a redesigned Xbox PC app that it says launches up to 60 percent faster, with simplified navigation and faster Home, Store and Game Pass pages. The update is available to Xbox Insiders now, and a matching Xbox Cloud Gaming web interface will roll out over the coming weeks. The changes aim to make the app feel more like an Xbox console experience on Windows and smart TVs.

Google said it will build its first data center in Wyoming with a $17 billion investment, partnering with Tallgrass Energy, Black Hills Energy, American Electric Power and Related Digital. The project includes a 702 MW fuel cell development with carbon capture and storage, described as the largest planned development of its kind to date. Google says it will pay for 100 percent of the power it uses and cover infrastructure needs from its growth.

Zipline raised $1.5 billion in new funding, valuing the autonomous drone delivery startup at $21.5 billion. The company also signed a multi-year agreement with Walmart to add 300 drone delivery sites across the United States, a significant increase from the 21 active sites they currently share. Zipline plans to use the funds to expand U.S. manufacturing facilities and build out a nationwide drone delivery network.

TikTok quietly launched a standalone TikTok Shop app in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines. The app offers personalized product recommendations, livestream shopping, and in-app checkout, allowing TikTok to compete more directly with established e-commerce platforms like Amazon and Temu.

The move suggests TikTok is prepared to invest more heavily in social commerce by giving Shop its own dedicated destination rather than keeping it within the main app.

Dropbox announced the acquisition of cloud technology company Tigris Data for $350 million, its largest deal to date. The purchase aims to support the development of DBX Agent Cloud, a new storage platform for businesses building AI models and agents. Tigris Data, founded by former Uber engineers, provides cloud storage technology that positions data closer to users to reduce access times.

The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026.

Instagram's Edits app is now available on macOS, adding a multi-track timeline, 4K watermark-free exports, and support for horizontal and vertical videos. It includes an MCP that lets users connect AI agents, including Meta's Muse, to edit videos. The desktop version competes with CapCut and can publish directly to Instagram.

SoundCloud added an integration with ElevenLabs that allows users to publish AI-generated music directly from the ElevenMusic platform. SoundCloud Artist Pro subscribers will receive three months of ElevenMusic Pro for free as part of the partnership. Songs published through this integration will be labeled to indicate their AI origins, continuing SoundCloud's approach of embracing generative AI tools while maintaining transparency for listeners.

WhatsApp is adding an Events hub that lets users create plans, manage RSVPs and send custom reminders, with a link that lets people without the app view details and respond. The company says it will not show a host's phone number to guests they do not know, and non-WhatsApp invitees will see the event address only after RSVPing. The feature is rolling out to all users in the coming weeks, making it a broader event-planning option.

Apple's 14-inch MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display starts at $2,899 and adds a touchscreen, slimmer design and M5 Pro or M5 Max chips. The 16-inch starts at $3,399. The new iMac M6 starts at $1,499, $200 more than before, with an M6 chip, faster memory bandwidth and Wi-Fi 7, but keeps its 24-inch design.

Motorola announced the Signature 27, its first non-folding ultra-premium phone for the US, with a 7,000mAh silicon-carbon battery, 90W wired and 50W wireless charging, and a 6.8-inch tandem OLED display with 12,000-nit peak brightness. It uses the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, a triple rear camera with a 200MP 3x zoom, and supports GrapheneOS. US pricing is listed as $1,599, $1,600 or about $1,750; the UK price is £1,299.99.

United Airlines will add a native Spotify app to seatback displays on planes equipped with Starlink satellite Wi-Fi, letting passengers log in and stream music, podcasts and video podcasts. Spotify streaming does not require an inflight internet pass, and the setup replaces older stored in-flight entertainment. United says nearly half of its daily departures now offer Starlink internet.

An explosion and fire at a Panasonic Industrial Devices Materials facility in Hsinchu, Taiwan, left two people dead and five injured. The fire broke out at 2 am local time on Wednesday, with initial reports suggesting flammable chemical solvents as a probable cause. The facility conducts research and development for printed circuit boards and semiconductor packaging materials.

Marvell Technology has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Lumentum for an enterprise value of $115 billion, combining two major players in data center optics. Lumentum shareholders will receive 4.5 Marvell shares per share, a 23.9 percent premium over the last unaffected closing price. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2028 and positions Marvell as a major supplier of optical interconnect technologies for AI infrastructure.

Discord is moving its desktop app from the Electron framework to Rust to reduce system resource consumption. The company's new Windows client uses just 290MB of RAM, a significant improvement over the current app which can exceed 1GB. Discord has been using Rust since 2018 and hopes to get the full client into testing with users soon.

Amazon said Uber Eats is now the official restaurant delivery partner for US Prime members, ending its Grubhub deal. Prime users can order through Amazon.com or the Amazon Shopping app without an Uber account and pay no delivery fee on orders of $25 or more. The partnership lets Amazon return to restaurant delivery without building its own service, while Uber gains access to Prime shoppers as DoorDash and Instacart merge.

Nintendo sold 6.49 million Switch 2 consoles in the first two quarters of its fiscal year ending September 30, down 37.4 percent from 10.36 million a year earlier. The decline followed a $50 US price increase to $500 announced in early May, which Nintendo attributed to higher memory costs and US tariffs. Net profit rose 11 percent on strong software sales and the latest Super Mario movie, and Nintendo kept its 16.5 million unit forecast.

Meta President Dina Powell McCormick said the midterm results make it harder to build data centers in the United States, after Democrats won key legislative and governor races. She said every hyperscaler is now considering whether to build outside the US, and that starting new US build-outs today will be very challenging. Meta has data centers in 23 states and plans five projects of one gigawatt or more, including one in Texas.

Bristol City Council said data from a cyberattack on its Trading with Schools service has been published online, with more than 320,000 files stolen from 39 schools. The council first suspected the attack on September 21, shut down the service on September 25, and later found malware. It is still determining what was taken, and has warned students, parents and staff to watch for phishing and other scams.

Royal London plans to cut hundreds of IT jobs and shift work to India under an IBM outsourcing deal, sources said. Its chief technology officer told staff in September that IBM would become its strategic technology infrastructure partner, with redundancies expected by the end of December. The exact number of UK roles at risk is unclear, but a Glassdoor review claimed hundreds of technology operations positions are being eliminated.

Sony sold 2.6 million PS5 consoles in Q2 2026, down from 4 million a year earlier, but revenue rose 9 percent and profits rose 83 percent. Game sales rose by 9.8 million units, digital downloads accounted for 78 percent of full game software sales, and network services grew 19.5 percent.

Sony has reportedly told distribution partners that temporary market supply constraints and high demand would continue to limit retailers' console stock until next year.

Google Cloud said a misconfiguration stopped backup generators from starting during an October 20 outage in its London europe-west-2-b zone. A broken cable left feeder A carrying the full load while feeder B was open for repairs, and UPSes worked, but a voltage-sensing design flaw and PLC misconfiguration prevented the generators from receiving an automatic start signal. The outage interrupted services at Lloyds, HSBC, Royal Mail and Revolut.

Samsung said its Hearing Test and Hearing Aid features have received medical device approval in South Korea, with rollout to Galaxy Buds4 Pro and Galaxy Buds3 Pro starting in early 2027. The test uses pure-tone air conduction audiometry to produce an audiogram, and the aid amplifies sounds users struggle to hear using the NAL-NL2 formula.

The aid is aimed at adults with suspected mild to moderate hearing loss, and results appear in Samsung Health.

VMware has quietly extended sales and support for its low-end vSphere Standard and Enterprise Plus products for customers in the European Economic Area. The extension allows these versions to remain available for sale until October 2027, with extended support until October 2028. Analysts suggest the move is a concession to European regulators following the Broadcom acquisition.

Microsoft introduced Pro Badges, credentials that work alongside its certifications and are earned through everyday product use rather than a separate exam. The first badge is for GitHub Copilot, with a proficiency engine analyzing usage signals and updating levels from beginner to expert. Users must reach the proficient level, which requires consistent hands-on use across multiple repositories over extended periods.

Bluesky says it is seeing a wave of new users and returning users after the midterms, with posts and likes doubling. CEO Toni Schneider said the platform is seeing new people join and old friends return, and the company has shipped a pronouns-in-bios feature. Bluesky has been described as a decentralized, Musk-free alternative to X, with a calmer feed and less spam.

Have I Been Pwned says the November 2025 ShinyHunters breach at Harvard exposed 851,000 unique email addresses and extensive profile information. The data included names, dates of birth, phone numbers, postal addresses and social media profiles, but not passwords, payment cards or financial information. Harvard said the systems were hit by voice phishing, and ShinyHunters leaked more than 1.1GB of documents after talks broke down.

Huawei's upcoming sub-brand will be called Osta, two leakers said, and it will debut with the Osta O1 and Osta O1 Pro. The O1 is described as having a screen curved on all four sides and a circular camera island, while the O1 Pro is a wide-screen phone with a 6.39-inch 1.5K flat display. The first models are positioned as flagship-level, with the O1 Pro offered in memory configurations up to 16GB/1TB.

Elon Musk spent at least $446m on Republican aligned Super Pacs and groups in the US midterms, exceeding his 2024 total of nearly $290m. Democrats won every Senate race where his America Pac spent the most, including Texas, where Republicans lost the governor's race and are expected to lose the state house. Musk will soon face a House, Senate and Texas government filled with Democrats who have vowed to scrutinize his companies.

Waymo said it will stop letting Uber users book its robotaxis, hours before Uber argued its platform is the natural home for autonomous fleet operators. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said its app delivers about 30 percent more trips per vehicle per day than apps run by autonomous cab companies. Uber plans about 2,000 robotaxis on the road in 2027, with a larger ramp beginning in 2028.

Apple is cutting the daily amount its engineering teams can spend on AI, Bloomberg reported. The company lowered the cap from $300 to $200 in October, and some engineering allowances may fall to $100 a day, with limits outside engineering possibly as low as $25. The move follows a wave of AI usage as companies weigh token costs against productivity gains.

US voters approved nearly every data center moratorium placed on the ballot in Tuesday's midterms, with measures in at least 40 jurisdictions across 10 states. In Ohio, at least 14 municipalities passed bans or restrictions, while Maine had eight municipalities pass temporary moratoriums. Elected officials in Texas, Georgia and Ohio also pledged moratoria or greater community input, as Democrats took control of Congress.

X is rolling out an updated web app it says is much faster, to signed-in users one country at a time. Principal engineer Yagiz Nizipli said a profile that took more than 22 seconds to load on a slow connection now appears in 2.7 seconds. The update replaces three servers for people, search crawlers and link previews with one, and is already available for logged-out X.com pages and search-crawler pages.