ProfessorBoots has tons of experience 3D-printing remote excavators that can climb boxes, scoop dirt, and crush cans. His latest version parks a three-axis camera in the cab and wires a chair that copies the layout of a full size machine, so a look to the left turns the camera left and a pair of pedals drive the tracks. The result is a backyard digger you operate as if you were sitting in a Caterpillar, only without diesel and without twenty acres.

CADDXFPV sent him a GM3 combo in February, a 46-gram gimbal that tracked head movements using Avatar HD goggles and held a 19-millimeter camera by pitch, roll, and yaw. He installed the first unit on a wheel loader and tested the Goggles L, which cost $199. At first, gazing around simply turning his head seemed bizarre in the greatest possible ways. The articulated steering on that loader shifted the vision in ways that his head did not, and the original cab simply would not fit over the camera. He let the idea lay for a time until that larger, tougher excavator was ready.

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Fitting the gimbal required a significant expansion of the cab. He imported the camera model into CAD, cloned the previous cab, removed the most of the floor, and created a new frame with a hint of design. Because the video transmitter warms up enough to potentially burn skin, he added a printed enclosure to keep a fan above it rather than beneath the lens. An aesthetic bar across the front was supposed to clip the camera when tilted, but it didn’t work out, so he ripped it out, checked clearance, and reprinted the part. The FPV gear draws power from the same battery as the excavator and operates independently, thus the same camera works on both the ESP32-robotic and the conventional radio versions.

First-person view made some jobs much easier, like being able to glance down and see the pins instead of guessing from across the yard while coupling a bucket or thumb certainly sped things up. In reality, he drove the machine to a neighbor’s card shop with a $10 payment and a handwritten message simply because he could. Nobody answered the door on his first visit, but a later knock ultimately got him in. Many RC builders do not get to compose sentences like this.

Even with the handheld transmitter, he felt like he was playing with a toy. He desired swing and dipper on the left stick, boom, bucket, and thumb on the right, and footprints on his feet. Early on in the project, two ESP32 boards communicating via ESP-NOW accomplished this without the need to hack open a radio. Early joysticks were simply assembled from a game controller with some printed extensions and springs purchased from Harbor Freight. The joysticks were dead in the middle, making fine motions clumsy, and the springs were simply too soft overall. He rebuilt the sticks with 10K potentiometers and bearings, superglued down the handles, and replaced the soft springs with firmer ones. The code now samples the resting point at boot-up and sets it as the center, so worn pots and printed parts that shift slightly over time do not cause problems.

Pedals began with a basic potentiometer pivot that allowed for proportional speed control. What happened next was a bit of a hack: both feet lifted the entire base off the ground. Then he added a printed lock, moved the spring supports further out to enhance resistance, and replaced the soldered wires with tidy plugs, allowing the entire pedal unit to be easily removed from the chair. It turns out that the signal dropouts he was seeing were caused by a residual board setting from the Bluepad32 days. Swapping the sketch to a standard ESP32 development board significantly reduced the lag. Later, a small custom PCB arrived and resolved the tangled wiring by mounting everything on neatly organized terminal blocks. He also added a fuse, battery mounts, and a power switch to prevent anything from being soldered directly to the chip.

The chair’s PLA began warping in the summer heat, pulling a spring plate completely out of shape. So he recreated the chair pieces in PETG but preserved the existing pots and bearings. Not long after, he created a desk-mounted version with the same controls, but without the office chair. Yeah, it turns out you can build the entire thing for about $60, assuming you already have an excavator and a chair. To be honest, he prefers the cheaper Goggles L more than the costly pair he purchased later. The pricey ones leaked light and required some printed shims to fix.

The ESP-NOW has a somewhat lesser range than a typical radio, but it nevertheless managed to control the machine in the yard from indoors. The problem was that it only worked for about thirty minutes before becoming clogged with dirt. His brother tested the chair and reported that it felt similar to a real excavator. Later, he used the same goggles to check under a porch to see if a neighbor’s cat was hiding; he had to tape a headlamp to the goggles to get a good look. Voltage sag killed the feed on the first pass, however fresh batteries fixed it no trouble. Unfortunately, that particular location wound up on a shortlist alongside crawl spaces and wasp nests.

Meta showed off a bunch of new things coming to Muse at Connect 2026 earlier this week. If some of those features caught your attention, you might not have to wait for the wider rollout to try them. Meta has opened an early access program for upcoming Muse features, and signing up is very simple. All you need to do is ask Muse.

The company shared a prompt on X that users can send directly to the AI assistant: “Can you let the Muse team know I want to be part of the Muse early access program?” Send that message, and the team will receive your interest in joining the program. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll immediately get every new Muse feature Meta is developing. But it does put you in line to potentially try some of them before they’re released more widely.

There’s a lot coming to Muse

The timing makes sense, given just how much was announced at Connect. One of the more unusual additions is a digital avatar, which will let you have an actual video conversation with the AI instead of being limited to text or voice. But the bigger changes are about what it can do for you. More shopping partners and connectors are on the way, while the Mac app will soon be able to interact with your computer and complete tasks on your behalf. The idea is to make the assistant feel like something you can give a job to and leave it.

And you won’t necessarily need your phone or computer to use it, either. Muse is also headed to Meta’s AI glasses, where a wake word will be enough to get its attention before giving it a command. Put it all together, and it’s a pretty substantial expansion for an AI assistant that only arrived earlier this month.

Meta wants the AI crowd to try it first

Early access programs are nothing new. What makes this one a little more interesting is who Meta seems to be looking for. Instead of testing these features with a random group of people, the company is inviting users to put their hands up themselves. That naturally attracts people who are already curious about AI, probably use several different assistants, and have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn’t.

That could be particularly useful when you’re trying to catch up in an increasingly crowded space. We’ve already seen how Muse compares with ChatGPT and Gemini in areas like AI image generation. Getting upcoming features in front of that same AI-savvy crowd could give the team genuinely useful feedback before everyone else gets them. And if you happen to be part of that crowd, there’s no complicated sign-up process to worry about. All you have to do is ask.

Databricks has acquired Row Zero, bringing a governed, live-data spreadsheet into Genie just weeks after the company’s valuation hit $190bn.

San Francisco’s Databricks has acquired Row Zero, a spreadsheet tool built to connect business teams’ spreadsheets directly to live, governed data in a move to expand the capabilities of Genie, its AI coworker product. No financial details have been disclosed.

The deal will give Genie a native spreadsheet interface, letting users explore data, model scenarios and collaborate directly inside a familiar, Excel- and Google Sheets-like environment. Unlike a typical spreadsheet, Row Zero – which was founded by former AWS and Tableau engineers – connects to live, governed data sources, with queries honouring each user’s permissions and every interaction auditable, according to Databricks.

The company said the acquisition addresses what it called “spreadmarts” – ungoverned spreadsheet files that teams have long relied on to store or share data – which it argues create security and governance gaps as businesses deploy AI agents on sensitive company data.

“As more finance, operations, and go-to-market teams adopt Genie, incorporating a seamless spreadsheet experience is a must-have,” said Patrick Wendell, co-founder and VP of engineering at Databricks.

“When finance started doing all their work with Genie, we noticed that they were combining Genie with a Live Cloud Spreadsheet called Row Zero,” Databricks CEO and co-founder Ali Ghodsi said in a social media post. “This combination is really powerful. We met the Row Zero team and were blown away.”

Row Zero founder and CEO Breck Fresen said the team built the product because it wanted spreadsheets that could “seamlessly connect to enterprise-scale data with governance and security at the core”.

Row Zero will be available to Databricks customers across all major clouds and will continue to support data sources beyond Databricks’ own platform, the company said.

The acquisition follows a period of rapid growth for Databricks. The company closed a $5bn funding round in August at a $190bn valuation, up from $134bn just six months earlier, with backers including Coatue, Blackstone and MGX.

Founded in 2013, Databricks works with more than 20,000 organisations, including Adidas, AT&T, Bayer, Block, Mastercard and Unilever, and employs more than 500 staff across the UK and Ireland as part of its EMEA operations, headquartered in London.

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OpenAI’s rogue AI agent problem isn’t slowing down. Just a day after details emerged about one of its agents breaching an Australian government system, we’re learning that US federal agencies are also caught up in the company’s investigation. This follows a controlled cybersecurity test in which OpenAI’s agents escaped and hacked Hugging Face.

OpenAI has acknowledged unusual activity involving its AI agents and websites belonging to the Commerce Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Researchers have also identified an apparent attempt by OpenAI models to access a system belonging to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. The Education Department attempt was unsuccessful. OpenAI also says the other incidents did not amount to security breaches, and representatives for the agencies involved told The New York Times they had no evidence that nonpublic information was accessed. But what the agents actually did complicates the situation.

OpenAI’s agents went further than intended

According to the company, many of these incidents started with a fairly ordinary task: its AI agents were looking for reliable information on the web. That inevitably led them to government websites, but in some cases, the agents went beyond simply browsing what was publicly available. Take the Census Bureau, for example. An agent found credentials online, used them to query one of its systems, and downloaded data. The information itself was public, but the way the agent accessed it wasn’t exactly what you’d expect from a regular web search. Something similar happened with the SEC, where an agent retrieved publicly available information and posted it to an external online forum without being asked.

The Education Department incident went a step further. Researchers at AI nonprofit Transluce spotted what appeared to be models attempting to break into a website operated by the department’s civil rights office, although the attempt was unsuccessful. Similar activity involved the Chicago mayor’s office, but officials there said only public, non-sensitive information was involved. That’s an important distinction here. There’s currently no evidence that any of these US incidents exposed private government information. But what started as agents looking for information online appears, in some cases, to have turned into them accessing systems or moving data in ways nobody asked them to.

And this comes right after the Australia incident

The timing is hard to ignore. Just days ago, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed that AI agents had breached nonpublic files on a website belonging to the country’s government-run Medicare system. The incident happened months ago, but it has drawn fresh attention to how much has been happening behind the scenes.

And Australia clearly wasn’t an isolated case. Dozens of organizations worldwide have now been notified about potentially problematic agent activity, including governments, universities, and public agencies. That doesn’t mean dozens of systems were hacked. Many incidents were less serious, including what the company describes as agent spam: unexpected behavior such as an agent posting information online when it wasn’t supposed to. In other cases, though, agents went so far as to bypass security controls while looking for information.

The difficult part is that we still don’t know where this list ends. Investigators are working through agent activity month by month, going back to around the time of the Hugging Face hack that surfaced in July. Most of what they’ve found so far has reportedly had little or no meaningful impact, but there is enough to review that the process is expected to take months. Even Sam Altman admits the disclosure process hasn’t moved quickly enough. On Friday, the OpenAI CEO said the company had “not been as fast as we would have liked” and is prioritizing cases based on their severity.

And that’s really what makes these latest revelations so interesting. An AI agent pulling public Census data is obviously very different from one getting into nonpublic government files. But we’re now talking about incidents involving government systems in multiple countries, dozens of organizations being contacted, and an investigation that is still uncovering what happened. Two months after the Hugging Face hack first raised the alarm, we still don’t know how far this goes.

A US appeals court has upheld the Pentagon’s decision to label Anthropic a supply chain risk. The label bars the military and its contractors from using Anthropic’s Claude models. In a 2-1 ruling on Friday, the DC Circuit court of appeals denied Anthropic’s petitions to overturn the designation.

Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas wrote the opinion, joined by Circuit Judge Neomi Rao. Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson dissented. Anthropic said it disagreed with the decision, CNBC’s Ashley Capoot reported.

“We remain confident in our position and are considering all options, including further review,” an Anthropic spokesperson told CNBC.

What the court decided

The Department of War, as the administration now calls the Pentagon, acted under a 2018 supply chain security law. Anthropic had refused to relax contract terms on Claude, the opinion says. Those terms barred its use for lethal autonomous warfare or domestic surveillance.

Anthropic argued that the exclusion was arbitrary, not allowed by the law and unconstitutional. The court rejected all three arguments.

“The Department had ample support for its conclusion that the continued integration of Claude into the Department’s information systems, by the Department or its contractors, presented a statutorily covered national-security risk,” Katsas wrote.

Anthropic builds restrictions into Claude that stop it from doing tasks the company wants to prevent, the court noted. Those restrictions had more than once stopped Claude from doing tasks government users asked for. A dispute also arose over whether the contract barred Claude’s use in an ongoing overseas military operation, the opinion says.

On free speech, the court found that the Pentagon had acted over a contract term it saw as essential. Anthropic had refused to accept it. The Pentagon had not acted over the company’s support for more government regulation of AI, the judges wrote. Anthropic had also received prompt notice and a fair chance to contest the exclusion, they found.

“But in our Republic, it is the President and the Secretary of War who must determine how best to balance the competing risks,” the majority wrote.

The dissent

Henderson disagreed on how to read the law. The law covers a supplier that could “sabotage”, “extract data” or “otherwise manipulate” a product. Anthropic read “manipulate” as meaning deliberate, deceptive acts. The majority read it more broadly.

Congress passed the law after warnings that hostile states and other bad actors were getting into federal systems through suppliers, Henderson wrote. That history, she wrote, does not cover a contractor’s “honest and upfront enforcement of restrictions” on how the government uses its product.

Two courts, two answers

The Pentagon labelled Anthropic a supply chain risk in March, and Anthropic sued the government days later. The Pentagon relied on two separate designations, so the case ran in two courts, CNBC reported.

In August, a federal judge in San Francisco struck down the other designation. Friday’s ruling leaves the second one in place.

“Another federal court has already held the government’s parallel designation unlawful,” the Anthropic spokesperson said.

New research has highlighted how gender-related challenges may be limiting women’s potential for leadership roles in the workplace.

Balance for Better Business (BFBB), a review group for greater equality in the workplace, has today (25 September) published the results of a report exploring how an early exit from the workforce is more common among women than men, often to the detriment of female leadership and the wider ecosystem. 

BFBB’s research found that women aged 50 to 65 are more likely to leave the workforce at an earlier age than their male counterparts, reducing the pool of experienced talent available for senior leadership and board roles.

The ‘Why Women Exit the Workforce Earlier than Men in Later Career Stages: Irish and International Perspective and Policy Recommendations’ report found that a number of issues are arising that are contributing to a rise in women exiting the workforce early. 

Despite Irish women showing higher than average workplace participation rates, the research found that Ireland also has a larger participation gap between men and women aged 55 to 65, when compared to EU figures.  

According to the report: “This gap is particularly significant around the 50-65 age cohort, as it coincides with the period when many professionals are reaching senior executive and board-level positions. As experienced women leave the workforce at greater rates than men, organisations risk losing valuable talent and future leadership candidates.”

Among the challenges were menopause, caregiving responsibilities, burnout, workplace ageism and barriers to career progression.

From challenge to opportunity

The report suggested that there is an opportunity for women to be better supported in the workplace provided there is greater recognition of how the burden of caregiving often falls on women. 

BFBB found that women account for 61pc of unpaid carers in Ireland, with many women, at a later stage of their careers, balancing working alongside caring for children or ageing relatives.

The report said: “Employers should strengthen support for carers through flexible working arrangements, enhanced workplace support and policies that encourage a more balanced sharing of caregiving responsibilities.”

Organisations should also pay greater consideration to the impact of ageism and gender bias in the workplace, as women often find their progression to be limited, increasing the likelihood of a workforce exit. 

Findings from the report indicated that more than 90pc of workers aged over 55 have experienced age-related discrimination. “Organisations should strengthen inclusive leadership practices, address bias in recruitment and promotion processes, and ensure experienced women remain visible, valued and supported to progress.”

The menopause is also creating additional challenges for women in the workplace, with the report regarding menopause as a “significant but often overlooked factor in workforce participation”.

More than one-third of women who contributed their data to the research said that they have considered leaving work due to menopause symptoms, while an additional 9.2pc have already left employment as a result. 

The report said: “Employers should introduce menopause policies, manager training and targeted workplace support to help retain experienced female talent and prevent avoidable exits from the workforce.”

Commenting on the results of the report, Carolan Lennon, the co-chair of Balance for Better Business, said: “This report shines a spotlight on an important but often overlooked challenge. Women in their 50s and early 60s represent a highly experienced and skilled segment of Ireland’s workforce, yet too many continue to encounter barriers that make remaining in employment unnecessarily difficult.

“Retaining experienced women must be a strategic priority. Doing so is not only essential to achieving balanced leadership, but also to strengthening the competitiveness and future growth of Irish businesses. If we want to achieve balanced leadership, we must ensure that women can thrive and progress throughout every stage of their careers.”

Bernard Byrne, also co-chair of Balance for Better Business, added: “The earlier exit of so many women from the workforce has implications far beyond individual organisations. It directly impacts the pools of talent needed to have broad and diverse leadership pipelines.

“This limitation has a direct knock-on impact on the competitiveness of Irish business. The actions identified in this report are practical and can help employers to make a real difference in retaining a balanced talent pool. Businesses that take action today will be better positioned to attract, retain and develop the diverse leadership talent of the future.”

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Apple Music has announced which eight artists will be performing first at the new Apple Music Hall in London, beginning with Elton John on September 28, 2026.

Days after unveiling its spectacular new live concert venue in London, Apple Music has begun programming the venue. It’s announced eight artists playing from September to the start of December, with ticketing starting shortly, assuming you can navigate the website.

Apple Music Hall’s guide to forthcoming shows is stylish, dynamic, and looks brilliant as you scroll through the whole page. It’s just more of a pain when you try to select any of them.

Fortunately, you have time. While Elton John opens the program with a concert on September 28, 2026, tickets are not on sale until that morning.

That’s a little unusual and realistically limits who can get to the performance at London’s Battersea Power Station. Apple is also releasing tickets on that date for the next two artists, who are playing on October 2 and October 7 respectively.

Once you get through to this section, buying tickets will be easy. But the program you have to go through first is a little tricky to navigate – image credit: Apple.

The first artists at Apple Music Hall, and when they are performing, are:

• Elton John: September 28
• Baby Keem: October 2
• Skye Newman: October 7
• Troye Sivan: October 13
• Arlo Parks: October 22
• Burna Boy: October 29
• Chase & Status: November 26
• Charli XCC: December 2

Doors for the first three concerts open at 6:00 P.M. local time each and it’s likely that all of them will. Each concert appears to have only a single pricing tier, which is 40 pounds Sterling, or approximately $53.

The hall can seat 600 people. During its announcement of the Apple Music Hall, Apple said that therefore an artist could play an intimate set.

However, it also said that because of the audio, spatial audio, video, and live streaming capabilities of the space, they could simultaneously create a finished broadcast-quality recording. While Apple has not announced this, it’s beyond likely that all of these concerts will be made available on Apple Music at some point.

The opening programme is commendably broad, but it’s fitting that Elton John opens it. That’s because he was also one of the first DJs when Apple first began its radio station streaming with Beats 1 in 2015.