Tech & AI News Roundup — September 16, 2026, 1:03 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.

Clean tech startup Fluxnium found a way to tap 50,000 years worth of nuclear fuel

Fluxnium's fibers can extract uranium directly from seawater, which has enough of the nuclear fuel to power thousands of generations. — TechCrunch

Forget Terminator. This Nigerian philosopher is worried about the AI we already use

From building robots in his head as a child to studying philosophy, researching AI safety, advising the UN, and building industrial AI, Samuel Segun’s career has followed one question: how should AI work in the real world? — TechCabal

Botswana shows why financial inclusion no longer has to start with a bank account

Traditional banking works best when the customer fits a relatively predictable profile. A salaried worker receives a regular income, has proof of address, can maintain an account and can absorb transaction or monthly fees. That model becomes less useful when income is irregular, employment is informal, or a customer lives far from a branch. — TechCabal

The Download: AI’s trillion-dollar gamble and OpenAI’s biology data bid

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. What’s at stake in AI’s trillion-dollar gamble When Jessica Wachter, a finance professor at the University of Pennsylvania, wanted to assess AI’s impact on the economy over the next few years,… — MIT Technology Review

I’ve used both iPhone 18 Pro models – here’s how my buying advice is changing in 2026

Can’t decide between the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max? Absolute feature parity makes this year’s decision a little easier for me. — ZDNet

Apple iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max Review: For Camera Fiends

Fun camera features help make these candy bar iPhones stand out from the dazzle of the folding iPhone Duo. — Wired

The iPhone 18 Pro’s big camera update is all about the small gains

Ice cold. | Photo: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Last week, Apple announced an iPhone unlike any it has made in the past. An iPhone that has seemingly already led several other phone manufacturers to pursue entirely different designs for their flagship products. A remarkably distinct device with the kind of "I can't believe they did that" software touches that Apple sometimes pulls off when i — The Verge

Nintendo opens up Fire Emblem with the gigantic Fortune’s Weave

Nintendo has gotten quite good at making open-ended games. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild upended the idea of what a Zelda game could be by giving the player free rein to tackle any part of the map, a philosophy iterated upon with Tears of the Kingdom. On the Switch 2 this idea expanded to Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza. Now, Nintendo has brought this philosophy to Fire Emblem w — The Verge