Tech 24 - September 30, 2026
OpenAI's $500 plan, a $3,555 home robot you train with your phone, and Google taking the EU to court.
Good morning. Here's what happened in tech over the last 24 hours.
OpenAI's new top plan costs $500 a month
OpenAI launched Pro 500 at DevDay on Tuesday. It costs $500 a month. It gets 25 times the Plus usage limit.
The hook is Ultrafast. It's exclusive to Pro 500 and pushes Codex to about 300 tokens per second. OpenAI also launched Dots, always-on agents that chase your goals in the background. Pro and Business Premium users get them now. Pro users in the UK, EEA and Switzerland have to wait.
The $200 Pro plan is shrinking. Its Codex usage drops from 20 times Plus to 10 times on October 30. GPT-6 Pro messages fall from 200 to 100 a week. If you pay $200 today, you'll get half as much next month.
Source: Engadget
A $3,555 home robot you train with your phone
Flourish Robots opened pre-orders for Flourish 1 on Tuesday. It costs $3,555. Only the first 50 units are on sale, and deliveries start in December.
You teach it a chore by demonstrating with your phone. The company says a new task takes about 30 minutes. It can load a dishwasher, water plants, pick up toys and clear a litter box.
It runs on a Raspberry Pi and rolls on wheels. The specs are modest. The price is the point: a chore-learning robot for high-end laptop money.
Source: The Robot Report
Still on iOS 26? Update today
Apple patched an actively exploited bug in CoreGraphics on Tuesday. It's tracked as CVE-2026-86950. A booby-trapped file could run code on your device.
Apple says attackers used it against specific people on versions before iOS 27. The fix is in iOS 26.7.1, macOS Tahoe 26.7.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.8.1. CISA added it to its exploited-bugs list the same day.
If you haven't moved to iOS 27, install 26.7.1 now. Federal agencies have until Friday.
Source: Help Net Security
This tiny piece of glass could be bigger than GPUs
Billionaire investors are already moving money to prepare for what's coming…
Take a look at this…
It's smaller than a fingertip…
It's made of glass…
And it's about to unlock the next wave of AI growth.
Jensen Huang, Nvidia's CEO, says this "light-speed" device is shattering the limitations of AI… and without it, AI can't scale.
Google Ventures says it's the future of AI compute...
And Sequoia Capital — the firm that backed Anthropic and OpenAI — calls it a "holy grail."
Already, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Cathie Wood, and Bill Gates are moving money to prepare for what's coming…
Yet most Americans have never heard of it.
Wall Street insider Jason Bodner — the same man who called Nvidia at $4.50 — says this device is about to launch a whole new wave of AI winners…
And to prove it, he's giving away his #1 stock involved with it — for free.
Click here to learn more. (No purchase necessary.)
P.S. Stocks tied to this "light-speed" device already surged 133%, 217%, and even 320% — in a few short months. But it's just getting started.
Click here before the mainstream catches on.
A Texas startup wants to make magnet iron at home
Hertha Metals raised $133.65 million on Tuesday. It's building Chalyx, a plant for 10,000 tonnes of high-purity iron a year. The output is steel-grade and magnet-grade iron for US makers.
Its process swaps the blast furnace for a single reactor. Hertha claims 25% lower costs, and up to 98% lower emissions on hydrogen. The US government put in $65 million.
Rare-earth magnets go into EVs, drones and radar. Most of their iron comes from China. This plant is a bet that it won't have to.
Source: Business Wire
Google takes the EU to court over search data
Google appealed two Digital Markets Act orders in EU court. One makes it share anonymized search data with rival engines, AI chatbots included, from January. The other opens Android to rival assistants by August 2027.
Google says the search order would expose people's private search history. The EU says its safeguards strip identifying details.
The appeal doesn't pause anything. Unless a judge steps in, AI rivals get Google search data in about three months.
Source: Android Headlines
AI bosses sign a pledge Trump calls "morally binding"
Tech leaders signed a White House accord on superintelligence at a lunch on Tuesday. Signers included Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai and OpenAI's Greg Brockman.
The roughly 300-word text lists four layers of checks. There are internal controls on cyber, bio and chemical risks, plus a team to test them. Then come an outside auditor and an independent board committee.
Trump conceded it isn't legally binding. It's voluntary self-policing with a nod to future laws. The rules bite only if companies follow them.
Source: Forbes
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Watch four astronauts launch for the ISS
NASA's SpaceX Crew-13 is set to lift off Thursday from Cape Canaveral. NASA's stream starts at 9:20 a.m. EDT. On board are Jessica Watkins, Luke Delaney, Joshua Kutryk and Sergey Teteryatnikov.
Weather odds sit at 60%, so check first. Watch the NASA livestream.
Source: NASA
Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.
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