Tech, in brief

Andy Jassy, the boss of Amazon, said on Friday that its cloud business has sold most of its computing power through 2027. [1]

'A good chunk of 2028 is sold out,' he said, on a podcast with Ben Horowitz and Erik Torenberg of Andreessen Horowitz, a big US venture firm. [1]

The cloud business, Amazon Web Services or AWS, rents out computers over the internet, and Jassy said it is struggling to keep up with AI labs and businesses. [1]

Its computing for 2026 was already sold out, he said. [1]

AWS still holds some back for customers who pay as they go, and for EC2, which rents out servers, and Bedrock, which offers AI models. [1]

Amazon said earlier this year it would spend about $220 billion in 2026 on buildings and equipment, and Jassy said it 'could invest a lot more'. [1]

In July Jassy said most of Amazon's AI computing is now rented on contracts of at least five years, while its servers last five to six years. [2]

Money is not the only limit: Business Insider reported this week that even Amazon is struggling to get enough electricity for its AI equipment. [4]

This week Amazon also dropped plans for four data centres on a 122-acre site in Loudoun County, Virginia, after local objections, and will use most of the land for homes and other buildings. [5]

A Columbia Business School economist estimates US data centres will reach 183 gigawatts by 2032, almost five times the level before 2025, at a cost of more than $10 trillion. [3]

Investors are now doubting smaller firms that build and rent out AI computers, as higher borrowing costs eat into what they earn, Reuters Breakingviews wrote. [3]

Amazon reports its results for July to September on 29 October. [1][2]

Why it matters. Amazon's results on 29 October are the next test: whether AWS sales and Amazon's spending plans match a cloud its boss calls sold out into 2028. [1]

Researchers at Convovo, a studio led by Cornell professor Tapan Parikh, asked two AI models whom to vote for in nearly 500 races in the US midterm elections on 3 November. [6] Grok 4.7, from Elon Musk's SpaceXAI, picked the Republican in 92% of its answers, and OpenAI's GPT-6.1 Sol picked the Democrat in 97%. [6] They asked through the route developers use, called an API, because the ChatGPT and Grok apps refused to answer. [6] With web search switched off, Grok refused to pick in 27 of 30 races, while GPT still picked the Democrat in 24. [6]

Why it matters. Apps that other companies build on these models through the API can pass the same lean on to their users. [6] OpenAI says the test does not reflect how people use ChatGPT, and SpaceXAI did not reply in time. [6]

Authentic Brands Group, which owns the rights to Elvis Presley, sued Anthropic on Friday with other owners of his songs. [7] Anthropic makes Claude, an AI chatbot. [7] The suit says Anthropic used 274 of Presley's songs to train its AI without permission, including 'Can't Help Falling in Love'. [7] It says Claude still writes songs very close to the originals, and it seeks $150,000 for each song, Rolling Stone reported. [7] Anthropic did not reply to The Hollywood Reporter. [7]

Why it matters. At $150,000 a song, the claim comes to about $41 million. [7] Anthropic was already sued by Universal Music Publishing and others over song lyrics, and by Round Hill, a music publisher, in August. [7]

Some buyers of the iPhone Duo, Apple's first folding phone, say its inner screen broke along the hinge within hours. [8][9] One owner in Australia said the screen cracked after six hours and fewer than 20 openings, and an Apple Store replaced it. [8] Others report bright lines and dead pixels, and Apple is reportedly planning to send broken phones to its engineers in California. [9] A YouTube tester found that dust in the hinge stopped one from closing. [10] Another folded one 11,500 times: the hinge held, but the crease grew much easier to see. [11]

Why it matters. Apple has not said how many phones are affected. [9] Its first stock sold out fast, and one US buyer said T-Mobile cannot replace Duo parts until January. [9]

Spotify now asks some Family plan members to prove they live with the plan's owner, by scanning a QR code on the owner's phone within seven days. [12][15] Anyone who misses it drops to the free tier and cannot join another Family or Duo plan for 12 months. [13] A family plan covers up to six accounts for $22 a month, against $13 for one person on their own. [15] Co-chief executive Alex Norstrom called it 'a routine improvement', not a crackdown. [12][14]

Why it matters. Students away at college and spouses who travel for work can be caught along with friends splitting a bill. [13] Goldman Sachs analysts expect tighter checks to earn Spotify more, and Netflix had added 9.3 million subscribers by April 2024, within a year of starting its own checks. [13]

Malaysia's prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, said on Friday the country could extend its ban on Waze, a maps app, from civil servants to the whole public. [16] A full ban would come only after officials study other apps and check whether local firms could build one. [16] Malaysia's government barred civil servants from using Waze on 21 October, saying Israel could misuse state data and Malaysians' personal data. [16] Waze is run by an Israeli company under Israeli law, but Google has owned it since 2013. [16]

Why it matters. Anwar apologised for the trouble caused, but said national security came first. [16] Waze rejected Malaysia's security concerns. [16]

In Newport, in south Wales, a 23-metre data centre now looms over a small group of 27 houses, the Guardian reported. [18] Residents fear the hum of its 36 coolers and fumes from its 60 backup diesel generators. [18] In Cardiff, a developer, Curtis Hall, wants to build one on a hospital park-and-ride, with seven gas turbines planned to power it around the clock for five years. [18] More than 1,200 people objected, and the Welsh government told the council to put the plan on hold. [18]

Why it matters. Britain has 315 very large data centres waiting for grid connections, which together would need 73 gigawatts, against peak winter demand of about 45. [18] The Cardiff site would employ up to 125 people. [18]

A leaked video shows Chinese workshops taking apart new Nvidia RTX 5090 graphics cards, made for gaming, and moving their chips onto boards built for AI servers, Tom's Hardware reported. [19] The RTX 5090 is not officially sold in China. [19] Workers fit the rebuilt cards with slimmer coolers so more fit in one server, then ship them, most likely to data centres or AI labs. [19] The site estimates that thousands are converted each day. [19]

Why it matters. The cards have almost vanished from US shops, and custom versions now start at $8,500. [19] Nvidia has reportedly stopped making the card, to put its chips into dearer professional models. [19]

Ukraine's military intelligence agency, the GUR, released details of the Filin, a new Russian cruise missile with some 3D-printed parts, first used in September and October. [20] It says the Filin flies at about 500 miles an hour and can travel 745 miles. [20] The GUR counted 35 of its parts from the US, 22 from China and 13 from Japan, Switzerland, Taiwan and the Netherlands. [20] Parts such as its flight controller and navigation come from Western countries and their allies, it said. [20]

Why it matters. Russia kept the cost down by using parts anyone can buy, the GUR said. [20] The older Kh-101 missile costs over $2 million a launch, so some fear Russia will fire the cheaper Filin in large numbers to swamp Ukraine's air defences. [20]

Block, Jack Dorsey's payments company that owns Square, released Dessa, a voice model that can talk and listen at the same time. [21] Block says it was trained only on human speech, using one rack of Nvidia chips, and its examples show it laughing, pausing and sounding tired. [21] Most voice AI turns speech into text first, which Block says throws away how a person sounds. [21] Dessa can run on a strong laptop, but nobody outside Block can use it yet. [21]

Why it matters. Block has asked safety researchers to test it, likely because a voice this human could fool people on a call, TechCrunch wrote. [21] Square already uses voice AI to take orders. [21]

Proton, a Swiss company known for private email, now hosts a map of the US licence-plate cameras run by Flock. [22] Flock's cameras read car number plates, and police use them. [22] Joshua Michael, a security researcher, built the map from leaked Flock data, and Flock sent him a letter demanding he stop. [22] His own site works only inside the US, while Proton's copy, on Swiss servers, works worldwide. [22]

Why it matters. Proton's Swiss base makes it harder for Flock to sue. [22] The map shows Flock's network as it was in November 2025, not as it is today. [22]

The Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence in Abu Dhabi and Inception42, an Abu Dhabi AI company, released Jais 3. [23] Its speech part transcribes formal Arabic and the dialects of 19 Arab countries, and follows speakers who switch into English or French mid-sentence. [23] The team said open models tended to slip back into formal Arabic, so it built extra dialect data, especially for the Gulf and Morocco. [23] Two of its models scored the highest average Arabic results among open models of their size. [23]

Why it matters. More than 400 million people speak Arabic. [23] The models are open, so firms can pick a size that fits the computers they can afford. [23]

The BBC's Blue Planet III, narrated by David Attenborough, deliberately keeps cloudier, less polished shots so viewers can tell it is real, its producers said. [24][25] In the past, plankton in the water or a boat in the frame could have cost a shot its place. [24] The BBC's head of specialist factual commissioning, Jack Bootle, said no generative AI was used, 'not a single frame'. [24] The series was filmed over four years in five oceans and starts on 1 November. [24]

Why it matters. Footage that looks too smooth has become a sign of AI, The Verge noted, so a nature series now shows its rough edges as proof. [25]

Snap, the company behind Snapchat, has opened orders for Specs, augmented reality glasses that lay digital images over what the wearer sees. [26] They cost $2,195 and reach shops more widely later this quarter. [26][28] The computer sits inside the frame, with no cable or pocket unit, and they are 40% lighter than Snap's developer version. [26] Snap made the actor Robert Downey Jr. an honorary 'chief customer experience officer' to promote them. [27][28]

Why it matters. A ZDNet reviewer called them a product for early adopters and said he could not recommend them for $2,195. [26] Snap is also pitching them to businesses. [26]

NHTSA, the US road-safety regulator, proposed on Friday a new colour of car light, cyan, to show when a vehicle is driving itself. [29] Police and rescue crews would then know that an empty driver's seat does not mean a missing driver. [29] Mercedes first proposed the idea with Drive Pilot, a system that lets drivers hand over control in some conditions, and has tested it in California for two years. [29] The draft makes the lights optional, not required. [29]

Why it matters. Driverless cars are spreading on US roads, and there is still no standard sign that one is driving itself. [29] Electrek says carmakers may well leave the optional lights off, since each one adds a little to the price of a car. [29]

ORQA, a Croatian drone maker, and General Cherry, one of Ukraine's largest drone makers, are building an underground factory in Ukraine to make drone parts, Business Insider reported. [30] In Croatia, the pair are setting up a joint factory for interceptor drones, which hunt other drones, for NATO countries. [30] ORQA's boss, Srdan Kovacevic, said Ukrainian firms spread their work across many sites and go underground to survive Russian attacks. [30] ORQA supplies 24 NATO countries. [30]

Why it matters. Spreading a factory out costs more, but one strike cannot stop it, Kovacevic said. [30] Latvia's defence minister said NATO firms still work in a far more concentrated way than Ukraine's. [30]

Customer-service workers told CNBC that AI now takes routine jobs such as notes and bookings, and one said the hard cases were left to people. [31] ArvatoConnect, a British customer-service company, aims for 70% of contacts to be handled by technology and 30% by people. [31] In a survey of British contact centres, more than half of managers said agents' workloads had risen, up from about 40% in 2024. [31] One worker in Cardiff said AI-written notes are so often wrong that she writes her own. [31]

Why it matters. Amanda Jones, who studies work at King's College London, said easy calls give workers a break between hard ones, and losing them can make a day more intense. [31] The survey does not say what is driving the rise. [31]

Cristian Volpato, a 22-year-old Australia international who plays for Sassuolo in Italy, has licensed his AI likeness to Callandor, a California company, the Guardian reported. [32] The deal, struck in September, gives Callandor sole rights to his digital image, voice and performance data, to sell to brands for a cut. [32] Callandor also works with the Brazilian footballer Jorginho. [32] This month the AFL, which runs Australian rules football, told its betting partner Sportsbet to stop using AI images of players without consent. [32]

Why it matters. Players are trying to set the terms before brands and bookmakers make AI copies without asking. [32] Player contracts in Australia's big leagues do not yet mention AI. [32]