In the 1960s NASA began developing a system of reusable space shuttles to make its work more efficient and to reduce costs. The shuttles could launch like rockets, maneuver in Earth’s orbit, and land like airplanes. They also could carry large satellites to and from orbit.

Like other types of transportation, machinery eventually breaks down, and parts need to be replaced or fixed. And the cargo being carried to and from Earth has to be moved to its final destination. To complete such tasks, Spar Aerospace (now part of MDA Space) of Brampton, Ont., Canada, and the National Research Council in Ottawa developed a robotic arm, the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System. The project was a joint venture between the U.S. and Canadian governments.

Known as Canadarms, the robotic tools attached to shuttles’ exteriors. They allowed astronauts to handle and transfer tools, satellites, and other payloads. Inspections of the shuttle and repairs could be completed using the robots.

The system was first deployed in 1981 aboard Columbia’s second flight. Canadarm was used for 30 years on five shuttles and on the International Space Station.

The robotic arm was dedicated on 19 June as the 300th IEEE Milestone. The ceremony was held at MDA Space headquarters. The IEEE Toronto Section sponsored the nomination.

“It is appropriate that the 300th Milestone is the Canadarm,” says Michael Geselowitz, senior director of the IEEE History and Heritage group. “The technology spans aerospace, robotics, and computing fields of interest. It involves international cooperation between the United States and Canada, and it shows how IEEE and its members are at the cutting edge of many frontiers of science and technology.”

Seeking to collaborate with other countries on the reusable spacecraft, NASA invited Canada to participate in 1969. It took some time for the country’s officials to determine what technology it could contribute. They learned of a robot that loaded and replaced spent fuel bundles in Canada’s deuterium uranium nuclear reactors, according to the Milestone webpage. That robot, developed by DSMA-Atcon (also now part of MDA Space), inspired what would become the Canadarm.

A proposal was submitted in 1974 to design and build the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System. The robotic arm would unload the contents of the space shuttle’s payload bay. NASA approved the project, and development began in 1975.

Canada had no space agency at the time, so the country’s National Research Council coordinated the organizations that collaborated on the project. Spar Aerospace led the subcontractor team, which included DMSA-Atcon, CAE, and the Canadian subsidiary of RCA Corp. Engineers from the University of Toronto’s Institute for Aerospace Studies contributed to the project.

Building an arm for zero gravity

NASA had strict requirements for the robot: The arm had to be lightweight and small enough to fit on the shuttle, as detailed in an article published by the University of Toronto. It also had to move forward and backward, up and down, left and right, and rotate along three perpendicular axes (known as six degrees of freedom).

To achieve all that, engineer Peter Carlisle Hughes designed the robot with two shoulder joints, one elbow, and three rotating wrists.

“Each joint had six degrees of freedom, and the arm had six links so that it could grab anything from any angle and move it anywhere,” Hughes said in the article. The IEEE life member worked at the Institute for Aerospace Studies.

“This milestone is a reminder of the privilege we all have at MDA Space—as engineers, designers, builders, operators—to build technology that shapes history.” —Holly Johnson, MDA Space vice president

The arm was 50 meters long and weighed 400 kilograms. It was made of materials that could withstand outer space’s harsh environment: titanium, stainless steel, and graphite epoxy. The arm was so lightweight that it couldn’t support itself under Earth’s gravity, so it lay on air bearings on the lab floor at Spar’s Brampton headquarters.

CAE engineers, including IEEE Life Member David A. Weston, designed the display and control panel as well as the hand controllers astronauts would use to monitor and operate the robot.

Because the robotic arm was meant to work in zero gravity, a room that simulated a weightless environment was built to test it. A computer-based simulation facility was constructed in Spar’s headquarters to evaluate its controllability using two simulation models, according to the University of Toronto. RIGID, an early computer simulation model, tested every part of the arm except for its flexible properties. ASAD, which stood for “all singing, all dancing,” examined the arm’s movements, ensuring the joints operated correctly. Both were created by Hughes and Spar engineer Andrew A. Goldenberg, who is now a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto.

The facility was also used to train astronauts on how to use Canadarm.

It took five years for the first Canadarm to be completed. In February 1981, it was presented to NASA at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., and deployed that November.

Lift off into space

Astronaut Stephen Robinson is anchored to a foot restraint on the extended Canadarm2 attached to the International Space Station during an extravehicular activity he conducted in 2005.NASA

The Canadarm was attached to the outside of the shuttle. Astronauts were able to monitor the arm’s movements through a live video feed provided by cameras installed on the wrist and elbow joints, according to the Milestone webpage. Using a hand controller and monitors located in the shuttle’s flight deck, astronauts handled and transferred tools, satellites, and other payloads weighing up 266,000 kilograms using minimal electricity.

NASA ordered four more systems. In 2001, Canadarm2 was attached to the International Space Station and used to help build the orbiting laboratory. It is a permanent part of the station, still completing maintenance tasks and moving supplies.

During the course of the 30-year shuttle program, the arms performed successfully and achieved the flight’s mission.

The original Canadarm took its final flight in July 2011 aboard the Atlantis shuttle.

Celebrating IEEE’s 300th Milestone

The IEEE Milestone dedication ceremony was held at MDA Space’s headquarters in Toronto, where the division that developed the Canadarm was located. The event brought together IEEE leaders and many of the engineers who helped develop the robotic system. Jill Gostin, the 2026 IEEE president‑elect, gave the opening remarks at the ceremony. She emphasized that the Milestone was not only celebrating the technology but also “the engineers, builders, programmers, and visionaries who believed technology could expand human possibility and who dared to push the boundaries of what humanity could achieve beyond Earth.”

To commemorate the achievement, Holly Johnson, vice president of MDA Robotics and Space Operations, and IEEE Life Senior Member David Michelson, chair of the IEEE Communications Society’s Communications History Committee, unveiled a bronze plaque that honored the technology. Michelson was the Milestone’s proposer.

“This milestone is a reminder of the privilege we all have at MDA Space—as engineers, designers, builders, operators—to build technology that shapes history,” Johnson said. “That same pioneering spirit that drove our team in those early days of space exploration now propels us into a new era as we work to build the infrastructure for the moon and beyond.”

The plaque, which was placed at MDA Space headquarters, reads:

In 1981 NASA first deployed a Shuttle Remote Manipulator System aboard the Space Shuttle. Developed by Spar Aerospace (now MDA Space) and the National Research Council of Canada, the Canadarm allowed astronauts to safely and reliably manipulate and transfer heavy payloads outside of the Shuttle, and to conduct inspections and repairs. This robotic system played a key role in the Shuttle and International Space Station programs, and revolutionized human spaceflight.

Reviewed by the IEEE History Committee and approved by the IEEE Board of Directors, IEEE Milestones recognize outstanding technical developments around the world that are at least 25 years old. The Milestone program is administered by the IEEE History and Heritage group.

To learn more about historical figures in engineering, IEEE Milestones, and IEEE History Center programs and events, check out The Institute’s IEEE Tech History collection. IEEE Spectrum also covers aspects of tech history.

The big picture: Microsoft will soon enable a security feature designed to take advantage of virtualization capabilities available in modern x86 processors. However, the company doesn’t clearly explain that this represents a significant change to how Windows runs, with potentially substantial performance implications for some types of applications.

Microsoft recently confirmed that memory integrity protection will soon be enabled by default on some Windows 11 devices. The change will arrive in October 2026 for eligible Windows PCs and will provide stronger kernel-level protection against malicious software and other threats. However, it could also have a detrimental effect on game performance, which is likely a significant concern for consumers who aren’t part of a security-focused enterprise organization.

Memory integrity protection is built upon Virtualization-based Security (VBS), a technology designed to leverage hardware-level virtualization capabilities in Intel (VT-x) and AMD (AMD-V) CPUs to isolate sensitive data and processes within Windows. VBS protects crucial Windows components from external tampering, Microsoft explains.

However, VBS requires Windows to become a “guest” operating system running under Hyper-V, Microsoft’s native hypervisor. Once enabled, Hyper-V treats the Windows installation as an isolated virtual machine. Microsoft previously warned that VBS could hinder performance, recommending that PC gamers disable the feature (along with Hyper-V’s Type-1 virtualization) to significantly improve frame rates.

VBS and Hyper-V are still based on the same operating principles. However, Microsoft has now decided that security comes first and that VBS-based memory integrity protection should be enabled by default. Quality updates coming to Windows 11 next month will establish a new, stronger security baseline, but organizations will be able to change the default configuration by disabling VBS and memory integrity protection.

Furthermore, memory integrity will not be forced on systems where the option has already been disabled. Microsoft provides a complete guide to virtualization-based protections in modern Windows editions, warning that “some” applications and device drivers might be incompatible with this technology.

Memory integrity should theoretically prevent unauthorized code from running amok in a virtualized Windows environment, allowing only trusted kernel-mode code and drivers to run. Microsoft said the new option will provide greater protection while reducing complexity, establishing a new “foundation” for upcoming changes to the Windows security model.

Palo Alto Networks paid $500 million in cash and stock to acquire Console, a two-year-old startup that uses AI agents to automate routine IT help desk tasks, according to two people with knowledge of the deal.

The companies officially announced the acquisition on Tuesday but didn’t reveal terms of the deal. Since its founding in 2024, Console has raised $29 million across two rounds: a $6.2 million seed led by Thrive Capital and a $23 million Series A co-led by DST Global and Thrive.

Before the sale, Console was valued at $157 million, according to PitchBook, delivering a rapid return for investors including SV Angel, Abstract Ventures, and notably Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora, who participated as an angel investor. Palo Alto Networks declined to comment.

The cybersecurity giant said that it will integrate Console into Cortex, its platform that uses AI to automatically detect and neutralize threats. Console’s agentic functionality will allow security teams to investigate and resolve alerts using natural language, giving Cortex “the arms and legs to deliver autonomous security outcomes across the entire enterprise,” as Arora described in a statement.

Console was founded by Andrei Serban, coming shortly after his previous startup — code-security platform Fuzzbuzz — was acquired by Rippling. The startup, whose customers included Ramp, Flock Safety, and Scale AI, automated tasks like password resets, granted access to apps like Figma and Miro, and performed routine troubleshooting without direct human involvement.

As a startup, Console competed primarily with Serval, another ServiceNow challenger that hit a $1 billion valuation after raising a $75 million Series B round led by Sequoia last December. Serval started as an AI tech support tool and quickly expanded to provide AI assistance for human resources, legal, and finance departments. Console’s acquisition leaves Serval as the category-leader-to-watch among startups automating IT service management, one investor, who is not a backer of Serval, told TechCrunch.

Console is Palo Alto Networks’ seventh acquisition in 2026, according to PitchBook. Other VC-backed companies scooped up by the cybersecurity behemoth this year include Greylock and Lux Capital-backed observability platform Chronosphere, at a valuation of $3.35 billion, and Koi, a cyber startup backed by Battery and Team8, for $400 million.

virtualization

Found the time to focus and ‘corrected’ incentives that saw sales drive users to full private clouds

EXCLUSIVE What’s old is new again as VMware will soon release an updated version of vSphere Standard, the low-end server virtualization bundle that it hasn’t significantly changed for years and has scarcely promoted since its 2023 acquisition by Broadcom.

VMware’s hero product for the last three years has been the Cloud Foundation (VCF) private cloud bundle.

vSphere Standard and another low-end suite called vSphere Enterprise Plus remained on VMware’s list of products, but the website mentioning the products devotes a handful of words to each.

The Register has often heard VMware, and its partners, would not issue subscription renewal quotes for the low-end products or only offer quotes that suggested adopting VCF instead. VCF is more powerful than standalone vSphere but more complex and costly – and also overkill for basic server virtualization.

We’ve also heard that Broadcom sold another smaller bundle – vSphere Foundation – almost exclusively to customers that also acquired VCF but needed something smaller than VCF for some sites.

Speaking to The Register at the VMware Explore conference on Wednesday, Paul Turner, chief product officer for VMware’s Cloud Foundation Division, said that the Broadcom business unit has changed the incentives that saw salespeople steer customers toward VCF.

“We corrected this,” Turner said, adding that VMware has sometimes had “too big a focus on VCF.”

VMware’s last major release of vSphere Standard came in 2022 with version 8. In 2025, VMware delivered version 9 of vSphere along with VCF 9 – but didn’t release a new cut of vSphere Standard.

Turner said that decision was taken because VMware chose to focus on improving the security of VCF.

Ram Velaga, president of Broadcom’s Infrastructure Software Group, told The Register VMware decided to focus on VCF because it wanted to shift the prevailing narrative that public clouds are the natural home for workloads, and instead argue that private clouds are more cost effective and easier to operate.

Bringing a new low-end server virtualization offering to market at that time may have confused customers, he told The Register. “People could get distracted,” he said, suggesting that VMware could have prompted questions about the extent of its commitment to private clouds.

Velaga said vSphere Standard is suited to users who operate around 128 cores. Turner mentioned memory tiering as a possible feature of the product.

As it happened, Turner and Velaga’s remarks came on the same day that Proxmox, the provider of an open-source virtualization and containerization platform, announced it had opened a North American office and started to offer 24×7 support for the first time. The Austria-based company previously only supported its wares during local business hours.

The Register often hears vSphere users mention Proxmox as an ideal replacement for low-end server virtualization.

Turner said the new vSphere Standard will be a better and more resilient offering than Proxmox and pointed to the introduction of 24×7 support as a sign of Proxmox’s maturity being well behind that of VMware and its partners.

He also said that more details about the new vSphere Standard will likely emerge as VMware takes its Explore conference to Germany, in mid-October. Among the facts he said will emerge soon are how VMware will bring vSphere Standard to market, an item of interest as the Broadcom business unit dropped the majority of its channel partners.

Earlier this week, The Register predicted VMware would not make a pitch to its many low-end users at the Explore conference. The imminent release of a vSphere Standard upgrade was not made on stage at the event, but during one-to-one interviews – so perhaps we were technically correct! Turner thinks another of our assertions, that VMware was not interested in lower-end users, was incorrect.

We leave it to readers to make their own judgment about the level of interest in small customers VMware displayed by spending three years focusing on VCF.

Low-end VMware users will likely be relieved and intrigued by news of a vSphere Standard revival. Few VMware users wanted to quit the product, which has a deserved reputation for working brilliantly. Yet many felt the need to acquire VCF, and the cost of that package, meant it was necessary to consider VMware alternatives.

VMware’s competitors saw that thinking as an opportunity: HPE, for example, even made its low-end virtualization bundle free for a year.

Such offers will soon be less potent, because an upgrade is always easier than a migration. ®

Opera had argued that the European Commission had erred ‘by failing to designate Microsoft as a gatekeeper in relation to its web browser core platform service Edge’.

Norwegian web browser provider Opera has lost a legal challenge at the EU Court of Justice against the European Commission’s 2024 decision that Microsoft and its Edge browser should not be subject to the ‘gatekeeper’ designation and restrictions under the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

Opera had argued that the Commission had erred “by failing to designate Microsoft as a gatekeeper in relation to its web browser core platform service Edge, based on the finding that Edge is not an important gateway for business users to reach end users”.

In its judgement today (2 September), the EU’s General Court, based in Luxembourg, agreed with the Commission’s original decision that Edge does not “constitute an important gateway within the meaning” of the DMA and therefore Microsoft should not be deemed a gatekeeper in this context.

The court ruled that the Commission “did not err in considering that, although Microsoft had met the quantitative thresholds laid down in the DMA, it had put forward sufficiently substantiated arguments to demonstrate that Edge did not constitute an important gateway”.

It said that “the Commission was entitled, in particular, to rely on the low scale of usage of that browser and to compare it with that of other browsers, as those elements are relevant for assessing the actual importance of Edge as a gateway for business users to reach their end users”.

The judgement added: “The General Court also finds that the Commission was entitled to take into account the fact that Edge relies on the browser engine Blink, which reduces Microsoft’s ability to exercise autonomous control over certain key aspects of the service.

“Furthermore, it considers that the Commission was entitled to find that the integration of Edge into the Microsoft ecosystem, including its pre-installation on Windows and the other mechanisms to promote its use from which it benefits, did not contribute sufficiently to making Edge an important gateway.”

The DMA, as the EU court puts it, targets large digital platforms that occupy a central position in the digital economy and can be applied to services that constitute an essential gateway for businesses to reach end users, such as search engines, operating systems, social media platforms or web browsers.

The ‘gatekeeper’ designation imposes specific obligations, in aid of fairness and competitiveness, on qualifying services that meet certain criteria regarding size and market influence.

The Commission has previously applied or considered ‘gatekeeper’ designations through the DMA in various contexts to Big Tech giants such as Apple, over its various digital storefronts; Amazon and Microsoft, over their cloud services; and Google, which was recently fined €890m for DMA breaches.

Opera was founded more than 30 years ago in Oslo – where it maintains its headquarters – and has key hubs in Sweden and Poland.

A 2007 action from Opera against Microsoft eventually led to a €561m EU antitrust fine for the US giant in 2013 over failing ⁠to ​offer users a choice of ​web browser.

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

The Builders Stage is returning to TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, bringing together founders, startup operators, and investors for practical conversations on what it takes to build and scale successful companies.

Hear from startup and venture leaders shaping the tech ecosystem, including Grant Lee, CEO and co-founder of Gamma; Leah Solivan, founder and general partner at Precedent.vc; Robby Stein, VP of Product at Google; and more. Through candid conversations and real-world case studies, speakers will share actionable insights on fundraising, hiring, go-to-market strategy, AI, and the operational decisions that fuel startup growth.

Join more than 10,000 founders, investors, startup operators, and technology leaders at Moscone Center in San Francisco on October 13-15. Register today and save before our next ticket price increase.

Built for founders who are ready to scale

Building a startup is one thing. Building a company that can scale is another challenge entirely. The Builders Stage is one of six industry-focused stages at Disrupt 2026, dedicated to helping founders navigate the challenges of growth, from raising capital and hiring top talent to building go-to-market engines and preparing for the jump from seed to Series A.

Every session delivers practical strategies you can put to work immediately, plus opportunities to engage directly with speakers during live Q&A. Secure your pass to Disrupt 2026 today and save up to $330 before rates increase.

Without further ado, here’s your first look at the Builders Stage agenda, with more speakers and sessions to be announced as we get closer to the event.

Builders Stage agenda

How to Win When You’re Not Building AI

With Shan Shan, Investment Manager, Baillie Gifford; and Yuri Sagalov, Managing Director at General Catalyst

AI may dominate the world of venture, but many enduring companies won’t be those that sell AI models or agents. This session is for founders competing for attention in an AI-obsessed market. Panelists break down what actually matters now: efficient growth, retention, revenue quality, and disciplined execution, and why fundamentals, not hype, still build breakout businesses.

What Happens When OpenAI Ships Your Roadmap

With Michel Tricot, CEO and Co-founder, Airbyte; Rob Toews, Partner, Radical Ventures; and Linda Tong, CEO, Webflow

Nearly all AI founders have the same worry these days: What if OpenAI or Anthropic launches a product that competes with mine? Even strong products are at risk of becoming features of the larger players. This session explores where defensibility exists and what founders can do if they do face competition from rapidly evolving AI giants.

Building the Next Generation of AI Giants

With Jas Khaira, Global Head, Blackstone N1

AI startups are scaling faster, and demanding more capital, than any generation before them. Jas Khaira, Global Head of Blackstone N1, shares what separates enduring companies from early momentum, how founders should think about capital as they scale, and what Blackstone looks for when backing the next generation of category-defining businesses.

Competing for AI Talent: Pay, Equity, and Retention

With Matt Birnbaum, Founder, Wylder.co, Ioana Hreninciuc, Runware, Atli Thorkelsson, VP, Talent Network, Redpoint Ventures

The growth of AI startups has made hiring and retention more difficult for every tech company. From competing for AI talent to navigating secondary sales, founders are rethinking the human infrastructure of their startups. As incentives and employee expectations rapidly evolve, this session explores how companies are adapting compensation, culture, and team-building strategies to attract and retain top talent in a fundamentally changed market.

Winning Pre-Seed Without a Product

With Puneet Agarwal, Managing Partner, True Ventures; Austin Clements, Managing Partner, Slauson and Co; and Sandhya Venkatachalam, Founder and Managing Partner, Axiom Partners

Founders are increasingly expected to compete for capital before they even have a product. At the pre-seed stage, investors are betting on story, conviction, and founder-market fit. This session breaks down how to build credibility before revenue exists so investors will cut that first check.

From MVP to Billions of Users: How Product Decisions Must Change at Scale

With Robby Stein, VP, Product, Google

The instincts that win when building your first minimum viable product can break you at a billion-user scale. In this fireside, Robby Stein shares how product decision-making changes when every update impacts billions of users. Hear how teams balance speed with trust and innovation with reliability at one of the world’s largest product organizations.

Hiring When AI Is a Co-Founder

With Josh Reeves, CEO and Co-founder, Gusto; more speakers to be announced

Early-stage companies are no longer just building with AI; they’re hiring it. As AI agents take on engineering, support, and operations, the definition of an early team is being rewritten. This session explores how founders decide what humans should own versus what gets delegated to AI, and how high-growth startups are building hybrid teams without losing speed, accountability, or culture.

Rebuilding Consumer Products for the AI Era

With Maria Angelidou-Smith, CPO, Reddit

AI isn’t just adding features, it’s forcing product teams to rethink how people search, discover, communicate, travel, and make decisions. Leaders from Reddit, Square and Uber discuss how they’re redesigning products used by millions, what users actually want from AI, and where product leaders should resist the temptation to automate everything.

M&A Is Now an Early-Stage Strategy

With Karl Alomar, Managing Partner, M13 and Lindsey Mignano, Founder, Mignano Law Group

The smartest founders today aren’t just building for IPOs; they’re also building with possible acquisitions in mind from day one. As exits shift and capital tightens, understanding M&A early has become a competitive advantage. This session breaks down how founders can create the possibility of such an option through product strategy and partnerships. It delves into how big-dollar startup outcomes actually happen, even for small companies.

The Series A in 2027

Jahanvi Sardana, Partner, Index Ventures; Shailendra Singh, Managing Director, Peak XV; and Janelle Teng Wade, Partner, Bessemer Venture Partners

Series A is getting harder, with VCs growing more demanding. For founders planning to raise in the next one to two years, this session breaks down what “fundable” will actually mean in 2027. Hear how top investors are redefining the metrics, teams, and traction that matter now, what outdated fundraising playbooks no longer work, and how companies can separate from the pack in the next funding cycle.

The 90-Day GTM: Why $0–$10M ARR Is the New Baseline (and How to Actually Get There)

With Ryan Meadows, Chief Revenue Officer, Lovable; and Tomasz Tunguz, General Partner and Founder, Theory Ventures; Ben Broca, Founder, Polsia

The definition of traction has changed. What once took years is now expected in months, and $0 to $10 million ARR is increasingly becoming the new early-stage baseline. This session breaks down how AI-enabled execution, faster distribution, and shifting investor expectations are compressing GTM timelines, and the tactical levers founders need in the first 90 days to accelerate revenue and stand out fast.

The Real Tokenmaxxing: How the Best AI Companies Navigate a Multi-Model World

With Mo Jomaa, Partner, Capital G; and Zuzanna Stamirowska, CEO and Co-founder, Pathway; more speakers to be announced

The frontier is moving faster than any single model can keep up with, and the teams building the most successful AI products are increasingly orchestrating across many models rather than betting on just one. This panel brings together founders and operators at the center of that shift to discuss how they evaluate new models, manage cost and reliability at scale, and architect products that can evolve as quickly as the underlying technology.

Revealing AI Disruptors 60: What Can AI Do Next?

With Shay Grinfield, Greenfield Partners

The AI conversation is shifting from what models can say to what they can actually do. Agents are navigating the open web and completing work, AI systems are taking on increasingly ambitious research, intelligent machines are beginning to operate beyond the screen, and a new infrastructure layer is emerging to make all of this possible at scale.

Greenfield Partners’ Shay Grinfeld sits down with founders building across these emerging areas to separate what’s real today from what’s coming next, and explore where the biggest new opportunities are taking shape. The conversation will culminate in the reveal of Greenfield Partners’ 2026 AI Disruptors 60, spotlighting the companies Greenfield and TechCrunch believe are pushing AI into new territory.

PMF Red Flags: How to Tell If You Really Have It

With Rajeev Dham, Managing Director, Sapphire Ventures; and Rahul Vohra, Founder and Head of Superhuman Mail; more speakers to be announced

In an AI hype cycle, product-market fit signals are easier to fake and harder to trust. Founders are mistaking early excitement, usage spikes, and pilot wins for durable traction. This session breaks down what false PMF actually looks like, how investors and operators separate real retention from hype-driven adoption, and the signals that indicate whether a company has true pull or just temporary momentum.

The Zero-to-1K Playbook: How to Get Your First 1,000 Customers Without a Marketing Budget

With Grant Lee, CEO and Co-founder, Gamma; Leah Solivan, Founder and General Partner, Precedent.vc; and Elia Wallen, Founder and CEO, Engine

Early customer acquisition is not about marketing spend; it’s about founder-led distribution and relentless execution. Most startups at zero to one do not have budget, brand, or scale, only urgency and creativity. This session breaks down how founders are landing their first customers through community building, product-led growth, founder-led sales, strategic outbound, and word-of-mouth momentum.

Yes, It’s Hard to Be a Founder: An Honest Conversation

With Nell Daly, Co-founder and Managing Partner, Revenge Capital; David H. Rosmarin, Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School; and Jack Withinshaw, Co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer, Airspeeder

Company building is as psychologically demanding as it is strategic, and most founder narratives understate that reality. In this candid conversation, founders and mental performance experts unpack the hidden costs of high-growth environments, from burnout and decision fatigue to the identity strain of sustained pressure, and share the systems, habits, and mental frameworks that help leaders endure and perform at a high level.

So You’ve Got a Hit Product. How Does Your Company Do It Again?

With Filip Kaliszan, CEO and Co-founder, Verkada; and Aaron Jacobson, Partner, New Enterprise Associates; Maddi Holman, General Partner, Daring Ventures 

Most startups stall out because they build a single great product instead of a repeatable multi-product engine. Join a venture capitalist and two founders as they reveal the precise operational playbook for capital allocation, systemizing internal innovation, and engineering a compounding “Second Act” before the core product’s growth curve flattens.

Hiring, Compensation and Culture in the Most Competitive Market Ever

With Matt Birnbaum, Founder, Wylder.co; and Atli Thorkelsson, VP, Talent Network, Redpoint Ventures; more speakers to be announced

No question about it, the growth of AI startups has made hiring and retention for all tech companies more difficult. From competing for AI talent to secondary sales, founders are rethinking the human infrastructure of their startups. As hiring, incentives, and employee expectations rapidly evolve, this session explores how companies are adapting compensation, culture, and team-building strategies to attract and retain top talent in a fundamentally changed startup environment.

How to Create Viral Growth and Capitalize on It

With Zach Yadegari, Founder, Cal AI

Startups can go from zero to viral overnight, but sustaining that momentum is a completely different challenge. In this fireside, Zach Yadegari shares how Cal AI navigated rapid growth, product pressure, and the realities of building in a distribution-driven market. Hear the lessons behind turning breakout attention into durable retention and long-term company building.

The High-Conviction Filter: What We Learned From the Battlefield

With Alexa von Tobel, Inspired Capital; and Chi-Hua Chien, Co-founder and Managing Partner, Goodwater Capital; more speakers to be announced

What separates the breakout companies from the rest at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026? In this candid debrief, Startup Battlefield judges unpack the trends and founder qualities that stood out in real time, from shifting investor expectations to the narratives that resonated most this year. The conversation will also explore how startup storytelling is evolving and what happens after the spotlight, including the realities of maintaining momentum and surviving the critical 12 months after a major launch, funding round, or Startup Battlefield appearance.

Ask the Investors

With Stacy Brown-Philpot, Founder & Managing Partner at Cherryrock Capital; Chi-Hua Chien, Co-founder & Managing Partner, Goodwater Capital; Dayna Grayson, Construct Capital; Carter Reum, Co-founder and Managing Partner, M13; Alexa Von Tobel, Inspired Capital

What makes an investor say yes? In this audience-led Q&A, the Startup Battlefield finals judges take your toughest questions on what separates a fundable startup from the rest: team, traction, market opportunity, pitch delivery, red flags, and more. Come ready to ask and get candid answers straight from the investors making the decisions.

Join the conversations and make the connections at Disrupt

If you’re ready to build smarter, scale faster, and learn from the leaders shaping the future of startups, secure your pass to TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 today.

Google keeps cranking out Flash models: the company on Wednesday announced two versions of a new 3.8 Flash. 

The variants include a standard Flash, a “workhorse” model for agentic tasks, software development, and multi-step reasoning, and Flash Cyber optimized for vulnerability detection and mitigation.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in an X post that 3.8 Flash delivers “significant leaps” from 3.7 Flash across software engineering, agentic tasks, and multi-step reasoning. For instance, it outperformed many large frontier models on the DeepSWE coding benchmark, at far lower cost. 

Meanwhile, Flash Cyber is the company’s “most capable” cybersecurity model, Pichai said; it also matches frontier-level performance when it comes to discovering vulnerabilities and patching them at scale. The model achieved 86.2% on the CyberGym cybersecurity benchmark and 47.2% on CWE-Bench, which evaluates AI patching abilities. In an internal Google benchmark, the model achieved a more than 70% success rate discovering vulnerabilities across 20 programming languages, Pichai said. 

3.8 is Google’s third Flash release in six weeks and comes quickly on the heels of version 3.7. 

3.8 working “harder” with “greater diligence”

3.8 Flash is available now in Gemini Enterprise; devs can try it out in the Gemini API via Google AI Studio, Google Antigravity, Android Studio, or generate UIs in Stitch. It is priced at $0.75 per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output tokens — the same introductory pricing as Gemini 3.7 Flash — and users can customize and adjust model effort levels based on their needs around quality, cost, and latency.

For instance, when compute efficiency is a priority, they can adjust to lower token overhead, or simply continue working with 3.7 Flash, which is “fully supported for efficiency-first workloads,” Google senior product director Tulsee Doshi and Gemini security lead Raluca Ada Popa wrote in a blog post. 

“3.8 Flash works harder,” exhibiting “greater diligence” with complex tasks like executing extra reasoning steps, although at times it may use more tokens to maximize performance, Doshi and Popa note. The model has a 1M-token input window and a 64K-token output limit, and can ingest text as well as images, audio, video, and PDF files. 

3.8 Flash was evaluated across numerous benchmarks testing coding, multimodal capabilities, computer use, long-context and knowledge work, and scientific reasoning. Google says it also does well in specialized knowledge domains requiring more in-depth analysis and reporting. For instance, the model outperformed its predecessor and other frontier models on benchmarks like Vals Finance Agent V2 for finance, and Harvey’s Legal Agent Benchmark for law; it also scored 54.9% on Humanity’s Last Exam (HLE)-Verified, reflecting its ability to take on multi-step reasoning tasks across subjects like math, science, and humanities. 

In one example shared by Google, Gemini 3.8 Flash built a game with a simple prompt using looping techniques in Google’s Antigravity platform. The game uses puzzles, storytelling that changes based on the environment, and images and textures from Nano Banana to create a 3D experience (in this case a wizard navigating a castle). 

In other instances, the model created a fully-functional DOS version of Google Maps featuring interactive locations, directions, and street views; a 3D visualizer that automatically decomposed devices into layers for inspection with a slider capability; and a topographic map of famous geographical sites based on real datasets from the U.S. Geological Survey, complete with real-time cross-sections, 2D projections, and scientific explanations. 

According to Arena.ai, 3.8 Flash landed at No. 14 in Agent Arena, ranking above DeepSeek-V4-Pro, and showed a significant jump over Gemini 3.7 Flash (which sits all the way down at No. 32). It debuted at No. 7 in Text Arena, ahead of Claude Opus 5 and Gemini 3.7 Flash. It improved over 3.7 Flash in several areas: multi-turn requests, writing, literature, and language, longer queries, hard prompts, coding, instruction following, software and IT services, and business, management and financial ops. 

Flash Cyber is already securing Google’s code

Flash Cyber is initially being rolled out to “trusted defenders” through Google’s Fairwind Program, which prioritizes government authorities, critical-infrastructure operators, and other partners looking for advanced cyber defense capabilities. Organizations can apply for access. 

Google says the model version has undergone “rigorous training” in the cybersecurity domain and represents a “significant leap in prompt injection robustness.” It is particularly adept at autonomous vulnerability discovery — at least, based on internal Gemini benchmarks — and automated patching. It is also very good at coding, Popa said in a video. 

The goal was to equip defenders with expert-level capabilities to give them a leg up over threat actors (whether malicious, fellow AI agents, or human hackers). “We have invested in vulnerability fixing from the start, and prioritized it over offensive capabilities like exploitation,” Doshi and Popa explain. 

The model ships a more permissive set of mitigations for cybersecurity safeguards — which is why, for now, it is only being shared with limited partners — and safeguards against misuse in cyber offense and areas like chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN).

Google is already using 3.8 Flash Cyber to secure its own code; it produced 2.6 times more correct patches in Chrome vulnerabilities versus much larger commercial models. 

Wiz — which Google acquired earlier this year at a historic $32 billion — reported that 3.8 Flash Cyber had 7.5% to 9.7% higher recall of real-world vulnerabilities on an internal penetration testing benchmark at 2.3 to 5.2 times lower cost than leading frontier models. Similarly, Google’s Cloud Vulnerability Research found a critical foundational vulnerability in less than 2 hours with 3.8 Flash Cyber. Typically, that research and discovery would take months, Google claims. 

AI agents are “incredibly skilled” at finding and exploiting vulnerabilities, Popa said. Scanning large codebases with big AI models is expensive, and defenders are overwhelmed. “In cybersecurity, attackers need only find one significant flaw over millions of lines of code. Defenders have to remove every one of those flaws to be able to defend against attackers.” 

Doug Turner, engineering director for Chrome, described a “vulnerability apocalypse” in recent months due to generative AI. “Simply overnight, we saw a hockey stick increase in the number of software vulnerabilities reported through our vulnerability research program,” he said in a video. 

One interesting vulnerability 3.8 Flash Cyber discovered had been in Chromium and Chrome for 13 years, he explained. It was a “very subtle bug” that dozens, if not hundreds, of engineers looked at but never flagged. “Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber is going to allow us to create better suggested fixes so that developers’ lives can get a lot easier.”