TechCapsules

Apple Arcade released Football Manager 27 Touch, the latest entry in the long‑running football simulation series, today. The update introduces an enhanced Match Engine, new Recruitment and Match Preparation tools, and a redesigned iPhone interface for easier navigation. Apple also announced several additional titles for December 3, including franchise‑based games and a roguelike solitaire variant from Playstack. The subscription service remains $6.99/month, granting ad‑free access to over 200 games.

PlayStation users have intensified calls for a gifting feature after Nintendo announced eShop gifting for family groups starting November 17. Nintendo’s limited but first‑in‑class capability contrasts with Xbox and Steam, leaving the PS Store as the sole major platform lacking game gifting. Fans argue that Sony’s omission undermines its market position and consumer experience. The demand highlights a growing expectation for digital marketplaces to support peer gifting, a standard now common elsewhere.

A leaked draft of the European Digital Fairness Act proposes stringent rules on loot boxes and in‑game monetisation, including default disabling for minors and mandatory opt‑out options for all players. The draft demands price transparency for virtual purchases, bans pay‑to‑progress and pay‑to‑win mechanics for under‑18s, and requires age‑appropriate ratings. It also targets influencer marketing, opaque pricing, and dark‑pattern design. The legislation could reshape the EU gaming market, potentially curbing the profitability of systems like EA’s Ultimate Team. [...]

Google announced a partnership with Adobe to streamline PDF handling in Google Drive and Gmail. Users will be prompted to open PDFs in Adobe Acrobat, creating a direct transfer path that bypasses Drive’s limited editing tools. The deal also grants Gemini, Google’s AI model, access to Adobe’s creative suite, potentially enabling near‑real‑time editing of PDFs and images within Google’s AI interfaces. The Drive and Gmail integration is slated for immediate rollout, with Gemini features to follow. [...]

Axon Enterprise Inc. announced a $1.2 billion investment in Skydio Inc., acquiring a 20% stake that values Skydio at $5.2 billion. The deal grants Axon exclusive U.S. and Canadian distribution rights for Skydio’s public‑safety drones, including the X10 model equipped with high‑resolution visual and radiometric cameras. Skydio, serving over 1,500 public‑safety agencies, reports up to 65% faster response times and 80% of calls arriving with a drone first. Axon plans to close the transaction by Q4 2026, using the capital [...]

Blind Eagle, a Spanish‑speaking threat actor active since 2018, launched a new phishing campaign targeting Latin American judicial, fiscal, and educational institutions. Emails in Portuguese and Spanish mimic court and administrative notices, delivering a malicious XHTML file that uses HTML smuggling to build a ZIP payload in the browser. The ZIP contains a JavaScript dropper masquerading as a network audit tool, which bypasses AMSI and ETW, establishes persistence, and ultimately deploys an AsyncRAT fork for remote access. [...]

Xanadu Quantum Technologies and HyperLight Corporation announced a breakthrough in photonic quantum hardware, reducing optical switch insertion loss to 7 millidecibels (mdB) on HyperLight’s thin‑film lithium niobate (TFLN) Chiplet platform. The achievement, nearly three times better than the 20‑mdB benchmark set in 2025, was demonstrated on a high‑volume wafer line, indicating strong yield and repeatability. Lower loss preserves quantum state fidelity, enabling larger, more efficient photonic quantum systems and potentially benefiting data‑center infrastructure.

Google has introduced Memory summary for Gemini, a feature that displays the personal data the chatbot has collected from users’ chats. The summary is organized into distinct sections—Essentials, career, interests, etc.—and users can edit or delete entries that are incorrect. Currently, the tool is available only to U.S. users over 18 with an active Google AI plan and in English, though the web version appears to work outside the U.S. and for some free users. The feature [...]