Daily Tech News 8 October 2026

• I wondered recently when Saleforce blamed their failure to increase profits on their AI spending habits what the hell they were doing with it, because while they didn't put a number on it the figures they did mention implied it is in the hundreds of millions of dollars a year, enough to build twenty production-grade compilers or one public toilet in San Francisco.
  
  Well, it's not Salesforce, but I have found someone doing something useful with AI coding tools: ArtCraft. (Get ArtCraft)
  
  ArtCraft itself is an AI-assisted art program. That's not the neat part, though.
  
  The neat part is the smaller associated apps.
  
  PhotoCraft is a photo editing program. VectorCraft is a vector graphics program. FilmCraft and EffectCraft are for video editing and effects. DesignCraft is for document layout.
  
  If this sounds like the offerings of a certain major software company to you, you are not alone.
  
  And it's all free as in beer and as in speech. Download the binaries, download the source code, and do whatever you want with them. All the programs run on Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD, and on web browsers.
  
  Early days yet; two programs are in alpha and the others haven't even got that far, but this is what we'll be seeing a lot more of in the future.

• Microsoft has reduced monthly AI spending caps from $100,000 per employee to $10,000. (RS Websols)
  
  That sort of expense could easily mount into the hundreds of millions of dollars a year for a large company with a lot of developers, but as I said of Salesforce, there is little sign the money was well-spent.
  
  
  
• Microsoft has announced the Surface Laptop Ultra, with Nvidia's RTX Spark CPU and up to 128GB of RAM starting at $2599. (Notebook Check)
  
  You do not get 128GB of RAM in the $2599 model. You get the slower version of the CPU and 24GB of RAM. But the top of the line model is less horrifyingly expensive than I was expecting at $5899.
  
  Lacks the Four Essential Keys, though, so that's a no from me.
  
  
  
• Shiny Hunters, the hacking group who recently broke into an FBI employee database and promptly got to encounter FBI employees up close and personal, we up to other shady and stupid stuff. (Krebs on Security)
  
  And the hackers already arrested are singing like canaries.
  
  
  
• Minisforum's new expansion card brings four M.2 slots, a USB-C port, and for some reason, OCuLink to a single PCIe x4 slot using AMD's B850 motherboard chip for around $135. (WCCFTech)
  
  Fine, but also, why?
  
  
  
• JGINYUE (who?) also delivers four M.2 slots, two 10Gb USB-A ports, a 10Gb USB-C port, and a 2.5Gb Ethernet adaptor to a PCIe x4 slot using AMD's older B650 motherboard chip for around $58. (WCCFTech)
  
  A year or so ago when storage was still cheap this would have been great. Now it's... Fine.

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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