Diablo Valley Employers Should Pay Students to Check AI’s Work
As artificial intelligence changes the workplace, local businesses could help students develop a valuable new skill: verifying what AI…
6 min read
Business
Local reporting. The people, places and decisions behind the headlines.
Business
Walnut Creek’s AVELAR names Dave Brehmer director of operations
Walnut Creek-based AVELAR has appointed Dave Brehmer director of operations as the engineering and consulting firm celebrates 50 years…
2 min read
Putter’s Mini Golf in Walnut Creek to Close Nov. 29 for Housing
Putter’s Mini Golf at 1275 S.
2 min read
F5 Issues Emergency Out-of-Band Patches for Critical NGINX Vulnerabilities Enabling Remote Code Execution
Security teams worldwide scramble to patch web application proxies and reverse gateways as proof-of-concept exploits circulate online.
2 min read
Department of Homeland Security Prohibits DeepSeek AI Models on Federal Civilian Agency Networks Under Urgent Directive
Federal cyber authorities cite unverified model weights, undisclosed data routing, and foreign supply-chain risks in mandatory…
2 min read
Cybersecurity Researchers Reveal Hackers Deployed Autonomous AI Agents in Breaches of John Deere, SharkNinja, and Cummins
Novel threat vectors demonstrate multi-step agentic lateral movement through enterprise identity systems, prompting urgent CISA…
2 min read
Google DeepMind Forms Five-Firm Global Consulting Alliance and Signs Seoul AI Campus Pact With South Korea
Accenture, Bain, BCG, Deloitte, and McKinsey gain early Gemini access to bridge the 25% enterprise production gap while DeepMind…
3 min read
Alicia Owens Appointed First Female President of Silicon Valley Black Chamber of Commerce in San Jose
Veteran operations leader takes the helm in Santa Clara County with plans for small-business AI training, youth STEM workshops, and…
3 min read
Hackers Exploit Critical SiteGuard WAF Flaw CVE-2026-106931 to Execute Commands With Root Privileges
JPCERT/CC and cybersecurity researchers warn of active in-the-wild exploitation targeting SiteGuard Server Edition web application…
2 min read
Anthropic Policy Chief Jack Clark Briefs Lawmakers on AI GDP Growth as Retailers Face Dynamic Pricing Scrutiny
Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark highlights AI-driven GDP growth and a drop in junior tech hiring from 27% to 9% while California…
2 min read
OpenAI Commits $1 Billion to Daybreak for Frontline Defenders Cybersecurity Initiative and MS-ISAC Pilot
San Francisco-based OpenAI launches its $1 billion Daybreak for Frontline Defenders program to equip water agencies, electric grid…
2 min read
Researchers Deploy GPT-5.6 Sol and Codex to Automate Quantum Circuit Calibration and Physics Experiments
East Bay and national quantum laboratories integrate frontier scientific reasoning models to synthesize microwave control pulses and…
3 min read
OpenAI Launches Full-Duplex GPT-Live-1 Voice Model in Developer API at Five Cents Per Minute
Real-time acoustic neural architecture enables simultaneous listening and speaking, natural interruption handling, and seamless…
2 min read
OpenAI and U.S. General Services Administration Announce $0 ChatGPT Access for Public-Sector Employees
Landmark 27-month federal procurement agreement covers federal, state, local, and tribal agencies through December 2028.
3 min read
Palo Alto Startup Elorian Releases Glimpse Model Featuring Active Visual Scratch Space
Backed by $55 million in seed funding, new multimodal architecture crops image regions and extracts video frames mid-inference to…
2 min read
Electronic Frontier Foundation Launches Privacy’s Defenders Podcast Featuring Cindy Cohn and John Gilmore
Inaugural episode chronicles EFF’s 1990 founding in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district amid the Secret Service’s Operation…
3 min read
California Secretary of State Coordinates Federal Postal Investigation Following Daly City Ballot Theft
County election officials deploy replacement ballots and enhance barcode tracking security ahead of November general election.
2 min read
Archer Aviation Executes Landmark Electric Air Taxi Transition Flight Trials Over Oakland Estuary
Midnight aircraft completes full vertical-to-horizontal aerodynamic transition ahead of commercial Federal Aviation Administration…
2 min read
OpenAI Releases GPT-6.1 Sol Model Slashing Inference Latencies and Costs for Enterprise Scale
New foundation model delivers superior benchmark scores on coding and mathematical reasoning while reducing token operating expenses…
2 min read
UC Berkeley CLTC Releases Formal Quantitative Risk Modeling Framework for Autonomous Frontier AI
Academic researchers and industry safety teams establish mathematical benchmarks to evaluate model containment, tool escape, and…
2 min read
Science Corporation Implants Wireless Retinal Prosthesis in First Stargardt Patient During Clinical Trial
Surgical breakthrough at Sydney Eye Hospital validates modular neural interface capable of restoring central visual acuity in patients…
2 min read
Concord rethinks Treat Boulevard retail after dining anchor closes
City officials and commercial brokers evaluate adaptive reuse opportunities following closure of prominent dining anchor near Clayton…
2 min read
Pleasant Hill chamber members get free entry to a January employment-law day
A full day of California employment-law training comes to National University on Jan. 27, and Pleasant Hill Chamber of Commerce…
3 min read
Sky Zone trampoline park is coming to the old Stein Mart at the Orchards
The vacant Stein Mart space at the Orchards is set to become a 27,451-square-foot Sky Zone, with dodgeball courts, a zip line and a…
3 min read