• Ukraine’s CCD says suspected Russian bot posts in its sample fell 83.6% on October 8 after a strike shut Yandex’s Sasovo data center
• The same data shows volume back above pre-strike levels by October 10, with a smaller 42.6% dip after the Vladimir shutdown
• Cloudflare and Graphika found no comparable drop in Western political communities, though Russian-language Telegram output fell 5% to 15%

Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) says suspected Russian bot accounts went almost silent after drones knocked out Yandex data centers earlier this month, with message volume across a monitored network falling 83.6% in a single day.

The findings come from an analytical report the CCD dated October 15 2026. Using Osavul monitoring software, analysts tracked 22,664 messages from 5,201 accounts showing signs of inauthentic behavior across 26 topics in Ukraine’s Facebook and Telegram space between October 6 and 12.

If you want to improve your skills, why not consider taking part in an online quantum or deep-tech course?

Online STEM courses are not just for students or recent graduates. They are an ideal way for professionals of all abilities and backgrounds to immerse themselves in education and build upon their skills. 

As a rapidly evolving space, jobs in quantum and deep tech are an ideal area of focus for novices, students and professionals looking for an exciting and innovative career, but how can you access the necessary skills and knowledge?

As part of SiliconRepublic.com’s quantum and deep-tech coverage, for the month of October, we have compiled a list of some of the most interesting free and inexpensive courses, so you know exactly what your options and opportunities are.

Alison

For those starting right at the beginning of their quantum upskilling journey, career development platform Alison has plenty of opportunities. Students can avail of the free Introduction to Quantum Computing course, which takes around three to four hours to complete, is CPD-accredited and comes with a certificate of achievement at the end. 

Course participants will learn more about quantum computing through key concepts such as qubits, superposition and entanglement. They will explore practical applications in cryptography, optimisation and machine learning, and get hands-on experience with quantum simulators. The course is designed for students, tech enthusiasts and professionals curious about the future of computing and its challenges.

For those looking for a broad deep-tech focused course via Alison, there is also YouAccel Training’s Machine and Deep Learning in Cybersecurity course. 

Coursera

Online learning platform Coursera has several quantum and deep-tech programmes with free trials so prospective students can explore if a course is right for them.

Currently open courses include Packt’s The Complete Quantum Computing Course for Beginners and Mathematical Foundations and Quantum Mechanics Essentials, along with University of Colorado Boulder’s Quantum Mechanics for Engineers and Advanced Data Structures, RSA and Quantum Algorithms.

Each course has a separate list of requirements, so do your homework and pick one that suits your schedule, budget and long-term goals. 

Exponential Science

Online learning resource Exponential Science Academy has several courses open to professionals and students looking to advance their deep-tech knowledge. Registration to the platform is free and once you have signed up you will have access to the platform’s educational materials.

Relevant courses include a DLT Tokenisation course, Introduction to AI, Quantum Computing, Foundations of Neural Networks and Deep Learning, and Quantum Control to Quantum Intelligence: Error Correction, Computation and AI Synergy.

The courses are relatively short, with each lasting under an hour. Upon completion, participants will have earned a certificate in recognition of their efforts. 

Great Learning

For those looking to upskill in a quantum or deep-tech field Great Learning is running a Modern Cryptography and Applications course.

The programme is free, takes around two and a half hours to complete and is aimed at beginners. The course claims to give students a strong foundation in web analytics as it teaches learners how to track, measure and understand data that empowers decision-making. Participants can test their skills with quizzes, utilise in-demand tools and will receive a certificate upon completion of the module. 

IBM Quantum Platform

The IBM Quantum Platform has a broad range of free and inexpensive courses designed for people who want to improve their skills in quantum. Available programmes include Basics of Quantum Information, Fundamentals of Quantum Algorithms, General Formulation of Quantum Information and Foundations of Quantum Error Correction, among others. 

Courses range in length from a couple of hours to roughly 15 hours and can be engaged with at a pace that is convenient for the student. Because the courses are different, they range in terms of complexity, so read up on the recommended background for each before you make your decision. It is also worth noting that IBM Quantum Platform has a significant library of resources to help develop skills while engaging with the various learning routes. 

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.

Let’s get one thing out of the way: the Logitech G Pro X2 Rapid commands a premium price tag. At $229.99 / £209.99 / AU$399.95, it sits near the top of the gaming keyboard market — costing more than similarly high-end alternatives like the Razer Huntsman V3 HE or Corsair K70 Max. It’s currently the most expensive gaming keyboard that Logitech sells, reflecting its positioning as the very best of the best.

What does that price get you, though? The big draw here is the custom KS-20 POM switches. They’re manufactured by Gateron, one of the most popular keyboard switch brands, with contactless Hall effect operation. They feature a customizable actuation point, allowing you to select actuation depth all the way from 4mm to a very shallow 0.1mm in 0.05mm increments.

Raising the actuation point reduces the time taken for each keystroke to be registered, facilitating lightning-fast responses in intense competitive titles like Counter-Strike 2 or Valorant. You can customize the actuation point on a per-button basis as well, meaning you can make your movement inputs as sensitive as possible while leaving the button to switch weapons, for example, a more deliberate press to prevent misclicks in key moments.

This works in tandem with the rapid trigger setting, which sets the point at which a key needs to be lifted in order to reset. You can practically remove the delay between rapid inputs, meaning much more responsive movement. Getting used to the snappy responses certainly took some adjustment in my testing, but I found strafing felt much more precise, and this could make a big difference in a competitive setting where speed can make the difference between a win and defeat.

You can also set up key priority, which determines how the keyboard interprets almost simultaneous inputs via metrics like key travel or a chosen override. This sounds great on paper, as it should allow for much easier counter-strafing or ‘jiggle peeking’ (emerging from cover for a split second to try and bait an opponent into taking a shot), but there’s a big catch. This feature is banned in some competitive titles (including Counter-Strike 2) and will result in automated server kicks, so it should be treated with some degree of caution.

Nokia announced the 8110 on 9 September 1996 as the first handset in its high-end 8000 series, a business-oriented model that measured 141 by 48 by 25 millimetres and weighed around 152 grams. Sliding covers defined its form from the start, protecting the keypad in a pocket and extending downward so the microphone sat closer to the mouth while the same motion answered an incoming call.

The curvature of the shell, particularly with the cover flung open, earned this phone the nickname ‘banana phone,’ and the monochrome graphic LCD made it the first Nokia model to use such a display. Battery options began with an extremely compact 400 milliampere-hour lithium-ion pack that provided 1 to 2 hours of talk time. There was also an extended 900 milliampere-hour unit, which increased standby time to 150 hours. That was a significant upgrade from the older 2110 phone.

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Janus Cycle acquired a few original handsets and discovered that there were almost no publicly available manuals on how to disassemble them. They had to rely on a service manual to repair the worn-out lithium-ion cells and get them to work again. Some early variants featured a white Nokia logo on the front, while later 8110i devices reverted to a black one.

Then, in 1999, there was a cinematic version that returned to the white logo design. Inside, there is a flat main board and a flexible user interface that has been curled to match the shell. There is just enough room for the spring-loaded mechanism to allow the production teams to include a quick-open function. On a real retail unit, you’d have to purposefully slide it open. That was the same constraint that forced Nokia to include a spring in the 7110 phone.

The firmware on the repaired phones indicates version 4.08, dated June 1996, and the service software confirms that certain units left the factory in August of the same year. Only a couple more weeks until the actual announcement. The phonebook may carry 125 entries, and call records maintain note of the last ten numbers you dialed, received, and missed.

Menus were plain back then, with no clock or fancy graphics, but the phone powered up neatly after you inserted a good battery and SIM card. It would detect the network and display the classic interface without any current overlays. The next year, Smart SMS appeared on the 8110i, allowing users to receive menu updates and ringtones over the air; this was also the first time ringtones could be obtained over text message. The 8110 and 8110i were subsequently succeeded by the 8810 in 1998.

The 8110 appeared multiple times in The Matrix as the everyday phone of both the blue pills and the red pills because its curved slider stood out in 1999. Furthermore, it was already rather popular among early GSM users. The production team adjusted the camera’s cover, giving it the fast open action that audiences recalled.

Janus Cycle’s repaired examples retain the original slide mechanism, the external antenna that protrudes from the top, and the very modest monochrome screen that displays only four lines of text. Those mechanical characteristics, restored 30 years later by meticulous cell switching and the use of diagnostic software, make the phone easily identifiable as the one Morpheus used to contact Neo. It was essentially a small business tool that became an enduring cinema icon due to its curved design and sliding cover.

Elon Musk claims he will give one of his SpaceX shares to “every kid in America” in 2027, which would result in a gift worth more than $10 billion based on the current $146 share price of his combination spaceflight and AI company. That’s roughly 1% of his $1 trillion net worth.

It’s not clear how Musk plans to do this, though he said in a separate post that he wants to give the shares “directly to the public,” and that this will be the “first of many” shares he’ll donate.

President Donald Trump, who Musk spent around $300 million to help elect, has set up bank accounts for children through the Treasury, called Trump Accounts, that can accept stock donations from wealthy donors.

Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Musk’s post came just a few hours after Anthropic promised to put 5% of its shares into a new “public benefit fund,” which it intends to use to make “large donations to traditional nonprofits or direct distributions to specific populations” after its upcoming IPO.

On Sunday afternoon, Musk replied directly to Anthropic’s post on X about its new fund, suggesting the company should give “directly to the public” instead.

“This is what I will be doing,” he wrote in another reply four hours later. Then, overnight, he announced his plans to donate SpaceX stock.

There are currently more than 70 million children under the age of 18 in the United States, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Musk owns around 849 million Class A common shares of SpaceX, and more than 5.5 billion Class B supervoting shares. He stands to earn many more.

Musk’s philanthropic giving to date has been almost exclusively done through his own Musk Foundation. Despite his negative opinions about philanthropy, it’s the fifth-largest private charitable foundation in the U.S. A recent review by The Economist showed that a majority of the total money laid out by the Musk Foundation over the years has gone to entities tied to Musk in some way. Nearly 60% has gone to another charity, called The Foundation, run by his money manager, Jared Birchall.

Apple tightened its developer guidelines over the weekend to ban apps that use AI to create offensive content, as well as those that masquerade as regular apps to pass the App Store review process and then turn into nudify apps, or surface those features prominently.

The company updated its guidelines with strong language around AI and user-generated content, and how app developers should include enough preventative measures to moderate objectionable or offensive content.

“Apps that host user-generated content are required to filter objectionable material, give users a way to report offensive content, and let users block abusive accounts. Apps containing hidden or undocumented features are also prohibited on the App Store, including apps that misrepresent their purpose during review and only reveal harmful capabilities — such as “nudification” — after approval, a tactic commonly known as bait-and-switch,” the company said in a blog post.

Apple said that it will remove apps that add features not present in the version submitted for App Store review.

The iPhone maker has also updated the language in its legal section to reinforce that it will bar apps promoting human trafficking and exploitation of children.

Apple said last year its review process blocked over 150,000 apps from reaching users, and removed 193,000 developer accounts on account of fraud and abuse.

In July, San Francisco ordered both Apple and Google to clean up and delete nudification apps from their app stores. City Attorney David Chiu accused the companies of profiting from these apps through store fees. And in April, a Tech Transparency Project report indicated that both tech giants’ stores hosted multiple nudify apps, some of which were rated as suitable for minors.

My air fryer and slow cooker are two of my most prized kitchen tools. I recently downsized to a machine that does both. It’s the most complete multipurpose small cooking appliance I own, and I can’t stop talking about it.

At first glance, the Magnifique looks a lot like Ninja’s Crispi air fryer — another favorite of ours — with a 4.5-quart glass bowl cooking chamber and similar clamp-on air fryer hood. What sets this model apart is the optional cooking base below, which turns the appliance into a slow cooker, rice cooker and braising pot, among other functions.

Magnifique Glass Air Fryer and Slow Cooker

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Pros & Cons

• 
  
  
  Combines air fryer and slow cooker in one
• 
  
  
  Breaks down easily for storage
• 
  
  
  Glass bowl is nontoxic, oven-safe and easy to clean
• 
  
  
  4.5 quart capacity is enough for a family of 4 or 5
• 
  
  
  Good value at $250

• 
  
  
  Can’t air fryer and slow cook at the same time
• 
  
  
  More expensive than most standalone air fryers

The glass bowl offers several advantages over nonstick or ceramic air fryer baskets, and the entire unit breaks apart when not in use, meaning you can store it in a cupboard, pantry or large drawer.

Here’s everything you need to know about the single best small kitchen appliance I’ve tested all year. 

The Magnifique’s Combo Glass Air Fryer + Multi-Cooker launched earlier this year. If you’ve never heard of Magnifique, neither had I just a year ago, but the brand has quietly unleashed a small but impressive line of premium countertop kitchen appliances. The lineup includes a claypot multicooker, rice cooker, glass air fryer, and a handheld ice cream maker. 

I’ve tested a few, and none impressed me more than the air fryer-slow cooker combo. 

A 2-in-1 space saver

I simply couldn’t go without a slow cooker and air fryer. I use both weekly, and no other cooking tools save me as much time, energy and cleanup when I plan meals. Having one machine that does both means one less bulky appliance to accommodate.

I love how it breaks down

Even though I use my air fryer and slow cooker often, I still don’t need them on my countertop all the time. Avoiding kitchen clutter is one reason, but aesthetics matter, too. Even the best-looking air fryers don’t have quite the visual flair of a stand mixer or espresso machine. The Magnifique admittedly looks better than the pod-style air fryers we’re used to, but I still prefer to store it away.

After use, the glass casserole bowl and matching lid go in the dishwasher and are stored with the rest of my pots, while the cooker and air fryer units tuck neatly away in a drawer. Fully assembled, it measures 12 by 13.5 by 13 inches.

Slow cooker function 

Slow cookers aren’t complicated machines, and Magnifique’s is as good as any I’ve used. It has simple function controls with low and high heat and four- or six-hour cook times. Cheap cuts of beef turn fork-tender after an afternoon of low-and-slow cooking.

The bottom cooker has eight cooking modes in all: slow cook, steam, braise, rice, proof, pasta, oatmeal and warm. I use the slow cooker function most often and rely on braise mode for a quicker cook, like meatballs.

The bottom cooker maxes out at 214°F.

Air fryer function 

The air fryer is equally impressive. Even with the larger cooking chamber, the top-down cooker sizzles chicken thighs, wings, French fries and hash browns in minutes. The air fryer has four settings: warm, bake, air fry and max air fry. The latter two turn on the convection fan, a signature air-frying feature, while the warm and bake settings offer gentler cooking.

The air fryer hood turns off when you remove it from the bowl, so the risk of burns or fire is low. You can’t set precise temperatures for air frying, but the machine maxes out at 450°F, which is standard for air fryers. 

The glass cooking bowl doubles as a serving dish

Another benefit of the glass-bowl design is that it doubles as a storage and serving vessel. You can bring a pot of slow-cooked stew or braised meatballs straight to the table, without finding and dirtying a new dish. Same goes for a batch of air-fried chicken wings or salmon fillets. 

It’s a reliable rice cooker but takes longer than most

I’ve used the rice cooker too, but because it’s so large, I usually pull out my Tiger stand-alone rice cooker, which makes a few cups of rice faster and with better results. Also, I use the Magnifique so often for the main course that I rarely have it available for a rice side dish.

Magnifique vs. the competition: Someone finally beat Ninja to the punch

Other multicookers offer slow-cook and air-fry functions. Most notably, Ninja’s now-discontinued Foodi also features a pressure cooker. Instant Pot similarly makes a pressure cooker, slow cooker and air fryer.

These machines performed well in our testing, but they’re bulky, they don’t break down for easy storage and their cooking chambers aren’t as multipurpose as Magnifique’s. You also can’t see the food while it’s cooking — another bonus of the glass-bowl design — so you have to stop cooking and release the heat to check progress.

The $180 Ninja Crispi is the closest comp in the glass-bowl air fryer category. To be clear, I love the Crispi, and it’s still my favorite standalone air fryer. The Magnifique stands out for its ability to transform into a slow cooker, rice cooker and braising pot.

Another notable difference is that the Magnifique’s bowl is completely glass. Ninja’s has food-safe plastic handles and feet, meaning it can’t be used in an oven. Both are dishwasher-safe.

Included accessories

• Removable 4.5-quart glass pot
• Glass lid (dishwasher- and microwave-safe)
• Air Crisper hood
• Multicooker base
• Crisper disk
• Steam rack/tray

One notable drawback 

The biggest drawback of having your air fryer and slow cooker in one gadget is that you can’t use both at the same time. That is, unless you were to corral a second glass bowl, since the air fryer hood doesn’t require the slow cooker base to function. 

Magnifique doesn’t currently sell the bowl separately, but the clamp-on air fryer works with other similarly sized vessels, including the one that comes with the Ninja Crispi system.

The 6 Best Air Fryers, Out of Dozens Tested

Still, the $250 multipurpose kitchen appliance offers solid value and less clutter than buying a separate glass-bowl air fryer ($180) and a slow cooker ($80 to $120) of this size and quality.

David Watsky

Managing Editor / Home and Kitchen

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David lives in Brooklyn where he’s spent more than a decade covering all things edible, including meal kit services, food subscriptions, kitchen tools and cooking tips.

David earned his BA from Northeastern and has toiled in nearly every aspect of the food business, including as a line cook in Rhode Island where he once made a steak sandwich for Lamar Odom.

Right now he’s likely somewhere stress-testing a blender or tinkering with a toaster. Anything with sesame is his all-time favorite food this week.

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