Also, Andy Beach tells us about an IETF effort to make standards for AI bot scraping.
Starring Tom Merritt, Jenn Cutter, and Andy Beach.
TOM: This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday, October 9, 2025. We tell you what you need to know, follow up on the context of those stories and help each other understand.
JENN: Today Intel has new chips. Will this put the company on the road to recovery? And Andy Beach tells us about the fight to keep the Web working amidst increased AI bots.
I’m Tom Merritt
I’m Jenn Cutter
TOM: Let’s start with what you need to know with the big story.
[[BIG STORY]]
[[SOLO story of the day. Basic details, monitor commentary and sound when possible.]]
Intel unveils Core Ultra series 3 chip in major test for ailing chipmaker
Intel’s next-generation Panther Lake laptop chips could be a return to form - Ars Technica
Intel takes the wraps off Panther Lake — first 18A client processor brings the best of Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake together in one package | Tom’s Hardware
Intel Says Panther Lake is in Production on 18A Process Node - Thurrott.com
TOM: Intel announced details for its Core Ultra series 3 processors, aka Panther Lake. It will be the first chip manufactured on Intel’s 18A process (comparable but not identical to 2nm) at the Fab 52 plant in Arizona.
Panther Lake chips all get the same package design, something that caused confusion with Meteor, Arrow, and Lunar Lake. Since Panther Lake SoCs are built from the same Performance core (Cougar Cove), Efficiency Core (Darkmont), and GPU cores (Xe3), you get the power efficiency that came with Lunar Lake AND the performance scalability that came with Arrow Lake. Panther Lake comes in three variants. An 8-core version with 4 Xe GPU cores seems meant for workhorse ultraportable laptops. A 16-core version with 4 Xe GPU cores and extra PCI Express lanes seems right for bulkier workstations and gaming laptops with external GPUs. And the 16-core version with 12 Xe GPU cores seems a fit for high-end thin-and-lights without dedicated GPUs.
Intel is making the CPU and GPU tiles in the package, while TSMC is making the platform controller tile that handles I/O.
Intel promises 10 percent improvement on single-core performance over Lunar Lake and 50% improvement on multicore over Lunar and Arrow Lake. Intel says the chip consumes 10 percent less power than Lunar Lake and 40 percent less power than Arrow Lake.
Panther Lake can support up to 96GB of memory and up to 180 TOPS, which is important for AI use.
Expect to see these in laptops and possibly get a desktop version of Panther Lake, aka Intel Core Series 3, after the first of the year.
Warning: the next little bit is an oversimplification for people who are into chip architecture, but enough for people who are curious to get the gist of what’s going on:
Intel has delayed using its 18A process as it worked out issues with the RibbonFET gate-all-around transistors. That literally means it wraps all the way around the channel, unlike FinFET, which reduces power leakage when the chip is off, and less wasted energy when it’s on. If that means nothing to you, it improves performance and energy efficiency. And the PowerVia system delivers reliable backside power delivery, which also reduces power loss over putting the wires above the transistor.
Intel will also make its Xeon 6+ data center processor on the 18A process.
Core Ultra series 3 chips will go into high-volume production and ship before the end of the year. Intel says “broad market availability” will start in January 2026.
[[DISCUSS]]
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[[BREAK]]
[[PAUSE]]
TOM: There’s more we need to know today, let’s get to the briefs.
[[BRIEFS]]
[[3-9 more solo reads with sound to complete the day in tech news. These are informational with minor commentary.]]
Dia is now generally available on macOS - 9to5Mac
JENN: The Browser Company, makers of the Arc browser, announced that its more AI-focused Dia browser is now available to all users on macOS for free. We knew this was coming, but here are the details. You need macOS 14 or later and an M1 chip or later and you get chat on any tab, custom skills, mentioning tabs in any query, adding attachments to queries, and personalizing with memory, all for free. But there’s a rate limit. You can pay $20 a month to lift the limit.
Hackers claim Discord breach exposed data of 5.5 million users
TOM: Discord said it will not pay the malicious actors who claim to have accessed customer support information from Discord’s Zendesk support system. Discord also disclosed that the government ID image of 70,000 users was accessed in the attack. The attackers had claimed a higher number. Those images were used for age verification. The attackers told Bleeping Computer they accessed the data through a compromised account of a support agent employed from another outsourced company. The attackers also accessed email addresses, Discord usernames and IDs, phone numbers, partial payment information, date of birth, multi-factor authentication related information, suspicious activity levels, and other internal information.
Logitech will brick its $100 Pop smart home buttons on October 15 - Ars Technica
JENN: Logitech Pop Switches, which went on sale in August 2016, let you program up to three actions to happen when you press the button. Logitech says it will stop supporting Pop Switches, making them inoperable starting October 15th. Logitech is giving affected customers a 15% off coupon good until March 31st in the US.
Apple prepares to comply with Texas age assurance law, but warns of privacy risks | TechCrunch
TOM: Thursday, Apple announced changes it will make to comply with a Texas law on age verification. That law goes into effect January 1st, and requires the OS makers to confirm if a user is 18 or older and requires those younger than 18 to join a Family Sharing group, managed by a parent or guardian. Apple already operates a Declared Age Range API to help developers target their apps appropriately by content. Apple will update that API to include the Texas-mandated age ranges. This means a developer won’t have to know how old anyone is, beyond whether they are younger or older than 18. Apple will also add new APIs later this year that let developers get parental consent if changes to their app change the age rating.
Netflix is bringing party games to TVs
Netflix Brings Video Games to Its TV Service for First Time - Bloomberg
JENN: At the Bloomberg Screentime conference in Los Angeles, Netflix announced party games you can play on your TV, coming to Netflix before the holidays. Existing Netflix subscribers can play Lego: Party, Boggle Party, Pictionary: Game Night, Tetris Time Warp, and Party Crashers: Fool Your Friends. Participants scan a QR code from the TV screen with their phone, which becomes a controller for the game. The games will launch on select platforms, like Roku, in certain countries, which were not announced.
China tightens export controls on rare earth minerals once again | TechCrunch
TOM: China’s Commerce Ministry said on Thursday that it has added five rare earth elements to its export control list in order to “safeguard national security.” The list now controls 12 rare earth elements for export. Organizations must apply for a license to export the minerals. Licenses will not be granted for defense uses, and semiconductor uses will depend on the circumstances. Humanitarian aid, public health emergencies, and disaster relief are exempt from the license requirement.
OneDrive is Getting New Copilot Features, Photos Agent, More
JENN: At an event on Wednesday, Microsoft announced new features coming to OneDrive. A Copilot icon will appear in the right corner of the page on the OneDrive Web app. A link to a shared file can have different permissions for different users without changing the link. A photos tab includes a gallery view and editing features. You can also find photos, build albums, and share them both through natural language prompts. Other new features include a custom agent for folders, smarter search, and more. A new OneDrive app with these features is coming next year.
California just passed three bills to boost internet privacy
TOM: The Governor of California signed a bill into law that requires browsers to let users opt out of all third-party tracking with a single setting. All major browsers offer one-click opt-out for third-party data sharing, but it’s unclear if that is actually universal across all sites.
Google won’t fix new ASCII smuggling attack in Gemini
JENN: Security researcher Viktor Markopoulos from FireTail tested several LLM services for vulnerability to ASCII smuggling. This is when a malicious message contains special characters from the Tags Unicode block that can’t be seen by the user but are read by the LLM. It can be used to prompt the LLM to deliver false information, like directing the user to a malicious website. ChatGPT, Copilot, and Claude are not vulnerable to such attacks. Grok, DeepSeek, and Gemini are. The researcher contacted Google on September 18th about the vulnerability, but Google does not consider it a security bug, but a social engineering attack.
TOM: Those are the essentials for today. Let’s dive a little deeper.
[[SEGMENT A - FROM SCHEDULE]]
JENN: There’s a battle inside the Internet Engineering Task Force that could reshape how the web works in the age of AI. Andy Beach explains.
[[PROMO]]
TOM: If you have feedback about anything that gets brought up on the show… Get in touch with us on the socials. @DTNSshow on X, Instagram, Threads!, Blue Sky, and Mastodon. For TikTok and YouTube, you can find us at Daily Tech News Show.
[[BREAK]]
[[PAUSE]]
[[HELPING EACH OTHER UNDERSTAND]]
[[Short missives from people with experience. Could be written email or pre-recorded from the person.]]
JENN: We end every episode of DTNS with some shared wisdom. Today Scott has some perspective on ads on your fridge.
TOM: Scott writes:
I heard you discussing the ads on Samsung appliances. Robb compared it to Minority Report. I recommend checking out the first episode of the Max Headroom TV show (1987). I am reminded of that episode, “Blipverts,” every single day with all the advertising that we are subjected to.
Love the show,
Scott
[[DISCUSS]]
JENN: What are you thinking about? Got some insight into a story? Share it with us feedback@dailytechnewsshow.com
TOM: Thanks to Andy Beach and Scott for contributing to today’s show. And thank YOU for being along for Daily Tech News Show. You can keep us in business by becoming a patron, atPatreon.com/dtns.
