Passwords are losing ground to passkeys, but new authentication studies show that their disappearance by 2027 remains far from certain despite accelerating adoption and growing concern over cyberattacks. The FIDO Alliance said this month that an estimated seven billion passkeys are now in use worldwide, up from five billion in May. Its 2026 Passkey Index found that passkeys accounted for 36% of successful sign-ins across participating services, […]
Apple has unveiled its first touchscreen MacBook Pro laptops, reversing a longstanding design position associated with co-founder Steve Jobs and bringing direct finger controls to its premium notebook range. The 14-inch and 16-inch models, announced on Wednesday, 28 October, combine touch-enabled OLED displays with M5 Pro and M5 Max processors. Pre-orders opened immediately, with availability scheduled for 6 November. The 14-inch touchscreen model starts at $2,899 in […]
GitHub has made Copilot Fusion generally available, introducing an artificial intelligence orchestration system that automatically selects and coordinates multiple AI models to complete software development tasks without requiring programmers to manage individual model choices. The Microsoft-owned platform announced the launch on 28 October, making the technology available across all GitHub Copilot subscription plans. Fusion evaluates coding requirements, selects appropriate models and determines whether tasks should be handled […]
Cybercriminals have distributed malicious software disguised as ChatGPT and Claude desktop applications, exploiting legitimate digitally signed installers to execute malware on Windows computers, cybersecurity company Check Point Research has disclosed. The operation, identified as Yoba, uses fraudulent GitHub repositories and accompanying websites advertising supposed applications named GPT-5.6 Sol, GPT-6 Astra and Claude Opus. Researchers disclosed the campaign on 27 October after tracking its activity for approximately two […]
Swedish technology startup Strawberry has released version 1.0 of its artificial intelligence browser, moving beyond beta testing with a product designed to help employees automate work without writing code. The Stockholm company announced the launch on 26 October, positioning its browser as an alternative to established American AI platforms, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s Gemini. Its software places AI assistants directly alongside websites and business […]
Intel, Oracle, IBM and quantum computing company IonQ have objected to plans to trade blockchain-based versions of their shares through a venture backed by cryptocurrency exchange OKX and Intercontinental Exchange, raising the number of opposing companies to 26. The four names appeared in an updated public notice dated 26 October from OKXICE, the proposed trading venue jointly owned by Intercontinental Exchange, which operates the New York Stock […]
Microsoft has opened a voluntary departure programme to approximately 60,000 employees across four countries, offering severance support as the technology group adjusts staffing across several major businesses. The initiative, announced on Monday, covers eligible workers in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and India. It encompasses more than a quarter of Microsoft’s global workforce, although the company has not specified how many departures it expects. Amy Coleman, […]
Veeam Software is holding its VeeamON Tour Dubai conference on Tuesday, bringing together more than 400 technology executives, cybersecurity specialists and partners to examine the protection of corporate data used by artificial intelligence systems. The event, scheduled at Address Sky View, focuses on data security, recovery and governance as businesses increasingly deploy autonomous AI agents capable of accessing sensitive information and performing tasks across enterprise systems. Organisers […]
Artificial intelligence has yet to produce measurable gains in profitability or revenue per employee across most major US companies, according to Apollo Global Management chief economist Torsten Slok, challenging expectations that heavy investment in the technology would rapidly improve business performance. Slok’s analysis, published on October 24, compares the seven largest technology-oriented stocks with the remaining 493 companies in the S&P 500. He found that revenue per […]
Microsoft, Alphabet and McDonald’s are among 22 publicly traded companies objecting to plans to offer blockchain-based versions of their shares on a proposed US trading platform, complicating a venture backed by cryptocurrency exchange OKX and New York Stock Exchange owner Intercontinental Exchange. The opposition widened on Friday when six more companies, including Wells Fargo, Arm Holdings and Intuit, joined the list of issuers resisting the proposed OKXICE […]
Attackers infiltrated LiteLLM’s GitHub organisation eleven days before distributing malware through its software releases, with newly recovered records showing credential-stealing workflows operating on October 10 and 12. Security company Socket identified two malicious workflow commits in the BerriAI/litellm repository, while LiteLLM’s investigation confirmed that stolen credentials from the earlier intrusion helped attackers manipulate its October 21 release process. The findings establish a longer period of unauthorised access […]
Cybercriminals penetrated Microsoft 365 accounts at 79 organisations during a coordinated campaign involving stolen authentication tokens, phishing and attempts to conceal fraudulent email activity, cybersecurity company Huntress has disclosed. The investigation, published on October 22, identified at least 497 successful sign-ins and more than 200,000 failed login attempts between July 14 and September 22. Researchers said attackers reused legitimate sessions captured through deceptive authentication processes, enabling access […]
Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a campaign targeting diplomatic organisations in three Central Asian countries with BlackX, a bootkit capable of circumventing Windows Secure Boot protections even on updated computers. Kaspersky disclosed the operation on Thursday, identifying diplomatic agencies in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan as targets. Its Global Research and Analysis Team linked the activity to APT41, a hacking group associated with China, but assigned only medium confidence […]
Solcis extends open security guardrails such as NVIDIA OpenShell and Microsoft’s AGT with the controls compliance professionals need, in a platform built to be self-hosted.
SINGAPORE – Media OutReach Newswire – 21 October 2026 – Solcis, a spin-out of 6clicks, today released Solcis Compliance Studio and the Solcis Policy Engine. Together they let organisations turn their policies and compliance obligations into enforceable rules for AI, check each action an AI agent takes against those rules as it happens, and keep a tamper-evident record for auditors and regulators. Solcis integrates with open runtime enforcement engines such as NVIDIA OpenShell and Microsoft’s Agent Governance Toolkit (AGT).
As organisations put AI agents to work, they must show that every automated action meets the same obligations as the rest of the business. Today, that is hard to prove. Solcis closes that gap across cybersecurity, privacy, financial crime, conduct and prudential regulation.
Solcis Compliance Studio Solcis Compliance Studio is where compliance teams define, run and prove compliance for their AI agents. Studio has six core capabilities:
Policy lifecycle and authoring: turns obligations into enforcement policies and manages them through deployment and updates.
Universal evidence ledger: brings results from every enforcement point into one tamper-evident record.
Compliance model management: recommends the best small language model (SLM) for each policy, benchmarked for compliance.
Learning and drift detection: improves policies over time from observed decisions and human judgement, and detects control and agent drift.
Compliance coverage and analytics: audit-ready reporting on compliance posture, including agent discovery.
Integrations: connects to GRC, SIEM and ticketing systems, including 6clicks, ServiceNow IRM and Archer.
Solcis Policy Engine Organisations can enforce Studio policies through NVIDIA OpenShell, Microsoft’s AGT, or the Solcis Policy Engine, Solcis’s own open enforcement engine for general compliance and business rules. The Policy Engine reaches decisions in under 200 milliseconds by combining two types of check:
Deterministic checks apply fixed rules that return the same result for the same input every time, giving regulators and auditors repeatable, evidence-backed answers.
Inference-based checks use AI to judge context and ambiguous cases that fixed rules cannot capture. Checks are routed to the best-suited AI small language model (SLM).
Every agent action in its path receives an Allow, Deny or Escalate decision with a severity rating, inline and without slowing it down. Decisions are enforced through the Solcis SDK in an AI system’s action path, or the Solcis Gateway on model, tool and MCP endpoints.
“Most organisations know what the regulation says and what their systems do, but not how the two connect,” said Anthony Stevens, CEO and co-founder of Solcis. “The Solcis platform joins them up, from obligation to policy to enforcement to evidence. And for the organisations that need it most, keeping that chain on their own infrastructure isn’t a preference, it’s non-negotiable.”
Sovereign by design, available now Solcis is built only to be self-hosted, so organisations keep full control of their AI compliance workloads, models and data: nothing Solcis processes, from policies to decision logs, ever leaves their environment.
Both products are available now, directly from Solcis and through partners, and from November 2026 on the Microsoft, AWS, Google Cloud, Oracle, NVIDIA and Red Hat marketplaces.
Compliance Studio is sold on a subscription or perpetual licence, with no usage metering. The Policy Engine is released under the Functional Source License, so its code is open to audit.
Solcis, Solcis Compliance Studio and Solcis Policy Engine are trademarks of Solcis Pty Ltd.
NVIDIA and NVIDIA OpenShell are trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Microsoft is a trademark of the Microsoft group of companies. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
Solcis
Solcis builds sovereign AI compliance software that organisations self-host and control, with a mission to serve the auditors and regulators who hold them to account. Spun out of 6clicks, Solcis offers two products: Solcis Compliance Studio, which integrates with publicly available AI runtimes such as NVIDIA OpenShell and Microsoft’s Agent Governance Toolkit; and the Solcis Policy Engine, its own engine for general compliance and business rules.
Initiative offers 1,000 free paediatric eye examinations, 1,000 free adult myopia screenings and a planned three-year myopia-control trial
HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 20 October 2026 – As part of its mission to eliminate avoidable vision loss, Orbis and the LKS Faculty of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong (HKUMed), partnered to tackle the growing, lifelong burden of short-sightedness (myopia) across Hong Kong. The joint initiative highlights how myopia takes root early in primary school and, if left unmanaged, poses a severe, sight-threatening risk in later life.
Rather than a minor inconvenience corrected by stronger glasses, unmanaged high myopia physically alters the structure of the eye, drastically increasing the lifetime risk of irreversible blindness. Drawing on insights from HKUMed’s academic research and data from the joint Orbis x HKUMed Vision Matters community screening project, this partnership provides a crucial wake-up call on how lifelong visual health is determined during childhood.
In direct response to this public health challenge, Orbis and the Department of Ophthalmology, School of Clinical Medicine, HKUMed, are taking immediate action by offering 1,000 free comprehensive eye examinations for local children. This initiative gives families immediate access to expert care, early detection, and evidence-based guidance to safeguard their children’s sight before permanent damage occurs. In parallel, free eye screening will be provided to 1,000 adults aged over 50 years with known myopia. The 1,000 paediatric eye examinations and 1,000 adult eye screenings are all part of the HKUMed 140 for the Community Campaign.
A Lifelong Threat: From Classroom to Later Life
The joint effort establishes a clear, connected narrative across two generations:
Myopia Starts Early: A 2025 HKUMed study conducted at the HKU Eye Centre examined 501 children aged 5–12 and found that nearly 40% suffered from myopia. These findings reinforce the urgent need for regular professional eye examinations, even when a child has not reported any vision problems.
Consequences Last a Lifetime: To evaluate the long-term impact, HKUMed researchers analysed 4,217 adults aged 50 and older through the Orbis x HKUMed Vision Matters: Glaucoma AI-ROTA Screening Project. The analysis revealed that 44.5% of older adults suffer from myopia, with 6.7% suffering from high myopia. Given the historical lack of recent large-scale Hong Kong data based on objective eye measurements in this demographic, these findings represent an important public health update.
Clear Vision Does Not Remove Risk: Myopia develops when the eye grows excessively long, causing distant objects to appear blurred. While glasses can correct distance vision, they do not shorten an elongated eye or eliminate the long-term risks associated with high myopia, including retinal disease, glaucoma, cataracts, and permanent sight loss.
In the adult analysis, visual impairment or blindness was roughly twice as common among individuals with myopia and more than four times (6.3% vs. 1.5%) as common among those with high myopia, compared to those without myopia. Glaucoma—the leading cause of irreversible blindness—was also nearly twice as prevalent among people with high myopia compared to those without (13.1% vs. 6.8%). Together, these findings highlight the critical importance of identifying and managing myopia early, before it progresses into high myopia.
Practical Action: Free Screenings and Clinical Solutions
To bridge medical evidence with practical community action, Orbis and the Department of Ophthalmology, School of Clinical Medicine, HKUMed are rolling out complementary initiatives. The 1,000 paediatric examinations and 1,000 adult screenings are all part of the HKUMed 140 for the Community Campaign:
1,000 Free Paediatric Examinations: Providing local families with comprehensive eye checks to help identify eye problems early and obtain professional advice on appropriate follow-up care and myopia management.
Free Eye Screening for 1,000 Adults with Myopia: Providing free eye screening to 1,000 adults aged over 50 years with known myopia.
Landmark “2027 Children Myopia Control Study”: Supporting a three-year HKUMed clinical trial to evaluate three advanced intervention strategies among children aged 5–12: 0.05% atropine eye drops, optical defocus spectacle lenses, and a combination of both therapies.
AT A GLANCE
Children: 39.7% of 501 children aged 5–12 screened had myopia.
Adults: 44.5% of 4,217 participants aged 50+ had myopia; 6.7% had high myopia.
Impact: Visual impairment or blindness affected 6.3% of adults with high myopia, versus 1.5% without myopia.
Action: 1,000 child exams; 1,000 screenings for myopic adults over 50. All are free under the HKUMed 140 for the Community Campaign.
Next step: Three-year trial of 0.05% atropine, defocus spectacle lenses, and combined therapy.
Leadership Quotes:
Professor Chak-sing Lau, Vice-President and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Health) and Deanof Medicine, HKU:
“Myopia is an increasingly important public health challenge that places a substantial lifelong burden on individuals and society. Through the HKUMed 140 for the Community Campaign, these initiatives reflect our longstanding commitment to translating academic excellence into meaningful benefits for the community. HKUMed is dedicated to transforming pioneering research into real-world health benefits. Through our partnership with Orbis, we seek to integrate clinical excellence, technological innovation, and population health research to lessen the impact of myopia and its complications in Hong Kong, while providing robust scientific evidence to guide eye health policy and clinical practice in the region. Together, we are working to safeguard the long-term visual health of schoolchildren and the wider population.”
Kathleen Sherwin, President and CEO of Orbis International:
“This partnership connects community service directly with research. The adult screening programme gives us a clearer view of the long-term burden of myopia, while the children’s examinations and planned trial focus on acting earlier. Together, Orbis and HKUMed are turning evidence into practical steps to protect sight.”
Mary Lau, Director of Orbis Hong Kong:
“Parents should see myopia as a condition that needs active management, not simply stronger glasses. By offering 1,000 child exams; 1,000 screenings for myopic adults over 50, we want to help more families identify problems early, obtain professional advice and take action to protect their different generation’s sight.”
Professor Christopher Leung Kai-shun, Albert Bing-Ching Young Professor in Ophthalmology, Chairperson and Clinical Professor, Department of Ophthalmology, School of Clinical Medicine, HKUMed:
“Vision Matters is showing us that myopia is an important part of the eye-health burden among Hong Kong’s over-50s. Glasses can correct blurred vision, but they cannot reverse the excessive growth of the eye or eliminate the risk of permanent sight loss associated with high myopia. The earlier we act, the greater the opportunity to protect sight over a lifetime.”
Dr Helen Zhang, Principal Investigator of the 2027 Children Myopia Control Study; and Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Ophthalmology, School of Clinical Medicine, HKUMed
“This trial will compare eye drops, myopia-control lenses and both treatments combined. We aim to provide clearer evidence to help families choose the right approach for their children.”
Dr Kendrick Shih, Investigator of the 2027 Children Myopia Control Study; and Clinical Associate Professor of Practice,Department of Ophthalmology, School of Clinical Medicine, HKUMed:
“Myopia can worsen without obvious warning signs. Regular monitoring and timely treatment can help protect a child’s vision for the future.”
What Parents Can Do
Prioritize Annual Checks: Arrange regular professional eye examinations rather than waiting for visual symptoms to appear.
Explore Clinical Control Options: Seek advice from a qualified eye-care professional if myopia is detected.
Look Beyond Standard Glasses: Discuss evidence-based myopia-control options instead of relying only on stronger prescriptions.
Encourage Healthy Visual Habits: Encourage outdoor time, regular breaks from close work, and maintain a comfortable reading distance.
Public Registration & Participation
Registration will open in phases: Phase 1 (Now Open): Free eye screenings for children aged 5–12 (limited quotas, first-come, first-served). Online Registration: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/CzitVUBgJQ
Phase 2 (Coming Soon): Free eye screenings for myopic adults aged 50 or above. Details will be announced on the HKU portal and official Orbis channels.
Hashtag: #Orbis #HKUMed #Myopia
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
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Meta has released Muse Spark Open, an artificial intelligence model designed to operate on Apple’s Mac Studio computers following a collaboration between the two technology companies. The open-weight system, unveiled on Thursday, contains 816 billion parameters and can run locally across two Mac Studios equipped with Apple’s M5 Ultra processors. Its release allows developers to download the model’s underlying weights rather than depend exclusively on remotely hosted […]
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