Tech Express | October 31, 2026: Intel Plunges 29% in Its Worst Day Since the 1970s

1. Intel Plunges 29% in Its Worst Day Since the 1970s

Source: CNBC

Intel shares plummeted 29% on Friday, their worst day since the 1970s, after the chipmaker issued weaker-than-expected guidance, citing a plant shutdown in Israel and continuing softness in the PC market. It is a major setback for CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who was hired in March 2025 and has been campaigning to revive the company.

The U.S. government took a 10% stake in Intel over a year ago. The investment is still profitable, but the value of those holdings dropped by about $12 billion on Friday, while Nvidia's large stake lost about $6 billion in value. Intel shares had been up about 150% this year heading into Thursday's earnings report. D.A. Davidson downgraded the stock to neutral from buy on Friday in a report titled "Not fixed yet."

Intel expects adjusted earnings per share of 25 cents this quarter on revenue of $15 billion to $16 billion; analysts surveyed by LSEG had expected $17.1 billion in revenue and 43 cents per share. CFO David Zinsner said the PC slowdown will continue at least through the first half of next year, and the guidance accounts for an explosion at a fab in Israel that killed two workers and seriously injured a third, costing about $600 million in lost revenue over two quarters. The Nasdaq Composite slid 2.9%, Nvidia fell 4%, Broadcom dropped more than 5% and Qualcomm tumbled 11%.

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2. Google's Cheapest AI Plan Loses Pro Model Access on November 13

Source: Android Police

Google says that starting November 13, subscribers to Google AI Plus at $5 a month will no longer be able to select Pro models in the Gemini app or in AI Mode in Google Search. To keep using those models they will have to upgrade to AI Pro, which costs four times as much at $20 a month.

Writer Parth Shah argues AI Plus was the middle ground for people who wanted more than the free tier without paying premium prices. The 400GB of cloud storage, extra Gemini Notebook features and image and video generation tools remain, but the flexibility of occasionally switching to a Pro model is being taken away.

There are layers inside the Flash family too: AI Plus subscribers currently get Gemini 3.6 Flash in the Gemini app, while the newer 3.8 Flash is reserved for the Pro and Ultra plans. Shah expects the impact to grow once Google ships a more capable next-generation Pro model.

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3. Anthropic Tells Claude to Stop Recreating Other People's Games

Source: Game Developer

Anthropic has confirmed it released an update to Opus 5.5 that adds two sentences to Claude Code's prompt, steering the tool away from recreating someone else's specific game. Addy Osmani, a member of Anthropic's technical staff, said on X that using Claude to infringe intellectual property violates the company's usage policy, and that original games, genre games and games built from a user's own designs and assets are meant to keep working.

The change was first spotted by X user Chasm, who found a rule pushed on October 27 under the name "tengu_heron_brook." It tells the model to build original games, games in a genre, and games from the user's own designs and assets, but not to recreate a specific existing game "even if it is renamed or called original." There is no way to disable the rule.

The move follows weeks of anxiety among independent developers over fast AI clones. Studios including Digital Sun Games cancelled a public playtest for their upcoming game ReVamp for fear the demo would be fed into an AI tool, and developers have pressed Valve to explain how it will stop shady clones from supplanting their games on Steam.

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4. Chinese AI Comic Dramas Take Off Overseas With 150 Million Users

Source: Mydrivers

Chinese-made AI comic dramas are booming overseas, according to a report published October 31. Chinese companies hold nine of the top ten paid short-drama apps abroad, and their active users have passed 150 million.

Production costs have collapsed. A minute of AI comic drama can cost as little as 350 yuan to make, and the production cycle for a title has shrunk from 90 days to about 10. AI translation has cut dubbing costs for a single title to 300 to 500 yuan, more than 80% below manual translation, allowing companies to push out hundreds of titles a day in a dozen languages.

The payout gap is driving the overseas push: domestic short dramas earn roughly 1 yuan to a few dozen yuan per 10,000 views, while overseas platforms pay $1 to $10. Institutions forecast the overseas micro-drama market will reach $6 billion in 2026, with AI comic dramas topping $4 billion, up nearly 390% year on year, and Chinese companies holding more than 90% of the segment.

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5. Report: Nvidia May Bring a 24GB RTX 5080 as Early as December

Source: Digital Foundry

Chinese tech platform Channel Gate reports that Nvidia is preparing to move the RTX 5080 from 16GB to a 24GB memory variant, which could arrive in some markets as early as December this year.

According to the report, the RTX 5080 16GB and the RTX 5090 D V2 will no longer be supplied to Chinese retailers. China currently has about two months of RTX 5080 16GB stock, which should be essentially exhausted by December, neatly bookending the arrival of the new cards. The 24GB model uses the new 3GB GDDR7 memory modules previously expected to form the basis of an RTX 50-Series Super lineup.

The timing is still in flux: December is described as the earliest possible debut, while a more conservative timeframe would put the card in January 2027. The Chinese market normally precedes the global GPU market by a matter of weeks, so a broadly similar worldwide launch is expected. Nvidia has firmly denied earlier reports that the RTX 5090 was effectively discontinued, and Digital Foundry notes the report offers no hard evidence.

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6. Apple Tells Stores How to Handle iPhone Duo Display Cracking

Source: MacRumors

A memo obtained by MacRumors shows Apple briefed Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers this week on how to diagnose and address the iPhone Duo's inner display cracking issue, telling technicians to inspect the device and repair or replace it in accordance with standard procedures.

Apple said in a statement that the issue affects a small number of iPhone Duo units, that most units are not susceptible, and that impacted units appear to exhibit the defects rather quickly after use. There is no recall, and Apple has not launched a public-facing repair program for the issue on its website.

The iPhone Duo began reaching customers about a week ago, and early adopters quickly reported that the inner display had cracked, leaving lines down the middle and towards the right side of the screen. Repair site iFixit completed a teardown and said the problem is likely related to a defective hinge on affected units. Apple has not commented on the underlying cause.

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7. Samsung Mocks iPhone Duo 'Crackgate' in Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ads

Source: 9to5Google

Samsung is not holding back on the iPhone Duo's messy start. In new Instagram ads, the company mocks the iPhone Duo's "crackgate" and pushes customers toward the Galaxy Z Fold 8, with no attempt at subtlety.

Samsung Canada's account says "folding is nothing new to us" and "we know a thing or eight," then cuts to the chase with "Switch to Galaxy Z Fold8," paired with imagery of the iPhone Duo's now-familiar screen crack. Samsung Malaysia, Samsung Australia and Samsung Saudi Arabia posted similar jabs; the Saudi post puts the crack on a Galaxy Z Fold 8 before revealing it is just a wallpaper.

Apple is replacing affected devices, but as the original report notes, the episode is a reminder that this is the company's first attempt at this kind of hardware, and Samsung is happy to point that out.

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8. NASA Asks Again for Ideas to Rescue Hubble From a Slow Death

Source: Ars Technica

NASA released a Request for Information on Thursday asking commercial companies for ideas on how to reboost, service or dispose of the Hubble Space Telescope in a controlled way. Responses are due November 30.

The agency wants information on current and near-term capabilities for capturing Hubble and boosting it to an altitude of at least 373 miles (600 km), enhancing the telescope's performance, or guiding it to a controlled reentry. The mission must not harm Hubble, is expected to occur by 2032, and the contractor would provide the launch vehicle, servicing spacecraft, mission operations and crew if applicable.

Hubble was last reboosted in 2002, when Space Shuttle Columbia visited and raised it to 362 miles (583 km). The final shuttle servicing flight in 2009 did not reboost the orbit, and with the fleet's retirement in 2011 the telescope has steadily lost altitude, now sitting about 292 miles (470 km) above Earth. Orbital dynamicists expect it to reenter in 2033 or 2034 without intervention; a boost to 600 km would likely keep it in orbit for at least 25 more years.

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9. Apple Intelligence in China: Beta on November 4, Launch in December

Source: Mydrivers

Apple announced on October 31 that Apple Intelligence for mainland China will enter testing on November 4 with the latest iOS developer beta, with the official release expected in December alongside iOS 27.3. The company's Chinese website has already published a dedicated page with the full list of compatible devices.

The hardware bar is unchanged: only the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, the entire iPhone 16 lineup and later models can enable the features, while standard models with the A17 chip or older cannot run them. Apple attributes the cutoff to heavy reliance on on-device inference, which places high demands on neural engine performance and memory.

The features cover a revamped Siri, system-wide writing tools, intelligent understanding of photos and videos, and notification summaries. Apple is also integrating Alibaba's Qwen model to bolster localized capabilities, and says user request data will not be used to train models.

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10. Tencent Maps Opens Its Agent Stack to Yuanbao, WeChat and Rokid

Source: Mydrivers

Tencent Maps unveiled its Agent capability map at the Tencent Global Digital Ecosystem Summit's map industry session on October 30, alongside LBSwork, a desktop AI map workstation built on the same Harness framework as WorkBuddy.

Zhong Xiangping, Tencent group vice president and president of Tencent Smart Mobility, said the way maps deliver services is changing in the agent era and that "the way people connect with the world is being rewritten." Yuanbao, WeChat's Xiaowei assistant, OPPO's Breeno, Rokid AI glasses and Guangfan AI wearables have already connected to the Agent capabilities.

Tencent Maps also released Gaia 2.0, which combines LBSwork with a spatiotemporal Harness layer and opens access to developers through MCP Server, Agent Skills and connectors. The company says its "1+N" agent collaboration model with OPPO ColorOS, launched in September, cut a nine-step task down to one spoken request and doubled click-through rates in the relevant scenarios.

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