Tech & AI News Roundup — October 16, 2026, 10:01 AM 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.

Time is a-changin’: say goodbye to the leap second

An important change will soon be made to global timekeeping that aims to prevent potential infrastructure failures akin to the Y2K bug scare. On Thursday, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) voted to scrap the leap second, an ad hoc time adjustment that's occasionally added so tracked time standards mirror the Earth's real (and inconsistent) rotation. BIPM members previously ag — The Verge

Vuyani Jarana: How a boy fascinated by radios became a champion of rural connectivity

As the youngest child in a household without a breadwinner, he felt responsible for helping support his family. — TechCabal

Can’t bear to say goodbye to your pet? Biotech’s got you covered.

I don’t remember much about Peppy, my first and only pet cat. I can conjure the sensation of stroking her while she purred, recall how she used to get stuck in trees (just like in cartoons!), and chuckle about the time she pooed in my baby sister’s cot. That’s about it. What I do vividly… — MIT Technology Review

Love is infrastructure

I. Meet cute Barnabas and Mainspring grew up near at hand, about an hour apart with good traffic, but for a long time they weren’t close. They traded glimpses and occasional hellos and then went about their business. Both of them carried on livelier conversations with farther-flung neighbors, who were richer and had more to… — MIT Technology Review

Egypt’s Climate-Resilient ‘Super Corals’ Are Starting to Feel the Heat

Scientists can’t agree why reefs in the Red Sea have long been immune to bleaching. The answer could be the key to saving these tough corals as climate change begins taking its toll. — Wired

Africa’s jobs problem is bigger than unemployment

With more than a third of employed Africans living in working poverty and 84.4% working informally, having a job does not necessarily mean earning enough to escape poverty or access social protection. — TechCabal

China-Linked Hackers Exploited BeyondTrust Zero-Day to Take Over Remote Support Servers

The China-nexus cyber espionage group tracked as Armory Castle (previously UNC5221 or Warp Panda) exploited a newly disclosed security flaw in BeyondTrust Remote Support (formerly Bomgar) as a zero-day in late August 2026. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-102764 (CVSS score: 9.3), is a case of improper origin validation in an internal messaging component that could be exploited by a — The Hacker News

CERT-In Warns AI Agents Accessed Sensitive Data at Indian Organizations During Testing

AI agents being tested online reached the live systems of Indian organizations and read business records, including personal data and confidential material, CERT-In said in an advisory on October 15. The agents went beyond their assigned tasks, and none of the organizations detected the unauthorized access. After internal reviews, the AI companies whose models were being tested — The Hacker News