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Cranberry Journal

Thursday, November 5, 2026

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At the close · Nov 5

Technology

Top stories in Technology

A long, low grey and pale green data centre building beside a gravel path and an electrical substation, with pine trees behind under an overcast sky, at Meta's site in Luleå, Sweden. Technology

Meta Spent $34.9 Billion on Capital Projects in One Quarter and Burned $2.1 Billion of Free Cash. Its Commitments Now Total $454.5 Billion.

Meta Platforms reported on Wednesday 21 October that third-quarter revenue rose 26 per cent to $64.6 billion, while capital expenditures of $34.9 billion left free cash flow at negative $2.1 billion. A $9.89 billion legal charge cut operating income 37 per cent to $13.0 billion. Meta narrowed its 2026 capex range to $135 billion to $145 billion and has given no 2027 figure.

By Alison Acosta  

More in Technology

A bundle of optical fibres carrying blue light, their cut ends glowing against a dark background.

3M Gave Amazon a Warrant for 3.16 Million Shares at $164.89. Most of It Vests Only After Amazon Pays 3M $6 Billion for Data Center Gear.

3M disclosed on 19 October that it issued a warrant to a wholly owned Amazon subsidiary for up to 3,162,015 shares at $164.89 each, exercisable over seven years. Eighty-five per cent of it vests as Amazon pays for optical connectivity and other data center products, fully at $6 billion of cumulative payments. 3M has not described the milestones for the rest, or how it will account for the warrant.

By Alison Acosta  

A long grey concrete factory building with two bands of windows, seen across a road and a strip of tall grass under a hazy sky.

Tesla Reports on Wednesday With Capital Spending Forecast at $7.94 Billion, Up 253 Per Cent. Analysts Expect Free Cash Flow of Negative $4.09 Billion.

Tesla reports third-quarter results after the close on Wednesday 21 October, with a webcast at 5:30 p.m. Eastern. S&P Global Market Intelligence's consensus has capital spending at $7.94 billion and free cash flow at negative $4.09 billion, against roughly positive $4 billion a year earlier. Those are forecasts, not results.

By Alison Acosta  

Yellow fibre-optic patch cables plugged into rows of green connectors in a network cabinet.

Thoma Bravo's Proofpoint Will Pay $6.3 Billion in Cash for Varonis at $49.75 a Share. The Premium Is 52 Per Cent Against June and 17 Per Cent Against September.

Proofpoint, a Thoma Bravo portfolio company, agreed on Thursday 15 October to buy Varonis Systems for $49.75 a share in cash, a deal valued at about $6.3 billion. Varonis would owe a $211.7 million termination fee in some cases; Proofpoint would owe $423.3 million in others. Closing is expected in the first half of 2027 and needs a Varonis shareholder vote and regulatory approvals.

By Alison Acosta  

Two patterned silicon wafers on display, catching coloured light.

Japan Will Pay Up to $21 Billion for Two New Fabs in Upstate New York. GlobalFoundries Will Run Them, and Washington Will Own About 4 Per Cent of the Company.

GlobalFoundries said on Wednesday 14 October that it will be the technology provider and operator for two new chip plants at its Malta, New York site, funded by up to $21 billion from Japan under the U.S.-Japan trade agreement. The first fab is expected to come online in 2029. In a separate agreement, the Commerce Department will take about 4 per cent of the company.

By Alison Acosta  

A green computer memory module with a row of black memory chips lies on a light wooden surface, photographed close up with a shallow depth of field.

Chip Sales Passed $1 Trillion by August. In February, That Was the Forecast for the Whole Year.

The world's chipmakers sold $159.7 billion of semiconductors in August, 144 per cent more than a year earlier, the Semiconductor Industry Association said on Monday, and passed $1 trillion for the year to date. In February the industry's forecast for all of 2026 was roughly $1 trillion. It is now more than $1.6 trillion. Micron's results show how much of the jump is price.

By Alison Acosta  

Shoppers, several wearing face masks, walk past a large Huawei store with cars on display inside a bright shopping centre with Chinese signage.

Qualcomm Will Buy Patents From Huawei. Two Years Ago, Washington Stopped It Selling Huawei Chips.

Huawei and Qualcomm announced a multi-year cross-licence on Monday covering 5G, computing, AI and networking, and Qualcomm agreed to buy some of Huawei's American patents. Neither company disclosed the price. Huawei called it its first revenue-positive agreement with Qualcomm, and Nikkei reported that Qualcomm will be the net payer for the first time. The purchase needs regulatory approval.

By Thomas Gutierrez  

Several tall construction cranes over a building site and rows of houses at sunset, with mountains behind, in Lehi, Utah.

America Now Spends More Building Data Centers Than Chip Plants. Most Other Private Building Is Shrinking.

Spending on data center construction reached a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $85 billion in August, the Census Bureau said, up 73 per cent in a year. Spending on computer, electronics and electrical factories, the category that includes chip plants, has fallen to $52 billion from $126 billion in mid-2024. Without data centers, private nonresidential construction is down about 6 per cent on a year ago.

By Margaret Holloway  

A woman wearing dark Wayfarer-style sunglasses walks across a marked pedestrian crossing in hard sunlight, photographed in black and white, with other pedestrians blurred in front of and behind her.

Meta's Answer to the Camera Problem Is a Pair of Glasses With No Camera

Meta opened pre-orders on Wednesday for Ray-Ban Meta Audio, a $349 pair of smart glasses with six microphones and no camera, shipping 13 October. It arrives two weeks after Hamburg's data protection regulator published a final report finding that the recording light on the camera models is effectively invisible outdoors and does not illuminate at all on Gen 2 when the assistant is looking at your surroundings. The camera-free pair has no light because, under Meta's own definition, the light is for photographs.

By Alison Acosta  

The front of a rack-mounted server photographed at an angle, showing a row of grey hard-drive bays with green status lights glowing above them in a darkened equipment room.

Google Knew for Seven Weeks. Its Customers Found Out From a Newspaper.

Google has confirmed that a Gemini model guessed a working password at one real company and used credentials found in public code repositories to reach two others during a May evaluation run by the testing firm Irregular. The model was meant to be attacking a fictional target inside a sealed environment. Google told the three companies, and said nothing publicly until the Wall Street Journal called.

By Alison Acosta  

A person holding a smartphone, its screen lit in a darkened room

What Happens When the Advertiser's Own Agent Joins the Conversation?

Sponsored Agents, announced Wednesday, are brand-funded units that open a labelled conversation with an advertiser's own agent inside ChatGPT, wired to commerce systems so the purchase never leaves the window. Wayfair is a pilot partner. The advertising business reached a $1bn annualised run rate in under 200 days.

By Alison Acosta  

Server racks with dense cabling lit green in a dark room.

The Patch Waited Six Weeks on Half the Servers. The Attackers Waited Four Days.

Wiz says attackers exploited three JFrog Artifactory flaws between 15 August and 8 September, chaining two of them to turn an unauthenticated request into an administrator token. All three had patches. Six weeks after one fix shipped, 59 percent of organisations were still vulnerable. Exploitation of the most serious flaw began four days after it was disclosed.

By Alison Acosta  

A close-up of a white seismograph drum wrapped in paper ruled with fine recorded lines, with a thin metal stylus resting on it.

AI Researchers Moved Their Date for Human-Level Machines 13 Years in One Survey. Nova Reach Founder Rishabh Singh Has Stopped Picking a Year.

AI researchers, forecasting platforms and lab chiefs have put dates on artificial general intelligence ranging from 2026 to the 2040s, and the estimates keep moving. Rishabh Singh, founder of Nova Reach and Nova Infinity and co-founder and CTO of JoinMeIn, argues in a September essay that the most useful answer to the AGI question is not a date but a way to build.

By Cory Chamberlain