data engineers

A technologist has written about building a worm detector, an instrument designed to map how individual worms move on their own and as a group. The write-up walks through the project and what the tracking data reveals about collective behaviour. Readers are sharing it and debating the science and engineering behind small-scale organism tracking.

A 1963 internal memo from IBM chief executive Thomas Watson Jr. about Control Data Corporation's CDC 6600, then the world's fastest computer, is drawing renewed attention. In it Watson famously directed IBM engineers to study how Seymour Cray's small team outperformed IBM's far larger resources. Readers are revisiting the memo as a classic document in supercomputing history and competitive engineering culture.

A new examination by Chemical & Engineering News reports that AI agents perform poorly when interpreting scientific literature, misreading studies and drawing unreliable conclusions from technical data. The piece asks what can be done to improve their performance, prompting discussion among researchers about better evaluation methods, domain-specific training and safeguards before such agents are trusted with scientific analysis.

Meta is developing a new compressed RAM feature called Cram for the Linux kernel, which its engineers say performs better than the existing ZRAM and Zswap compression solutions. The project was reported by Phoronix, which covers Linux and open-source kernel development. Cram aims to make more efficient use of system memory by compressing data in RAM, a technique that matters for servers, data centers, and memory-constrained devices.

Google's first Suncatcher satellite carries four TPUs, testing whether AI chips can operate in space. The chips survived radiation exposure, but engineers say cooling is the real constraint, since vacuum prevents the convection used to manage heat on Earth. The demonstration points toward scaling data-center compute beyond the planet.

Cisco has issued a security hardening release for its NX-OS networking software following an internal engineering review, addressing a newly disclosed vulnerability tracked as CVE-2026-76455. The flaw carries a critical severity score of 9.8 out of 10, making it one of the most serious ratings possible, and security teams are urged to update affected devices promptly.

Databricks has announced the general availability of on-behalf-of-user authorization for Databricks Apps. The feature lets developers build and deploy data and AI applications directly on the Databricks platform while enforcing permission-aware access, so apps act with the end user's credentials rather than broad service permissions. It is aimed at teams needing tighter governance and compliance in enterprise data applications.

Cisco has disclosed CVE-2026-76499, a critical vulnerability rated 9.8 out of 10, in its Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC). The company says the flaw was found through a comprehensive internal security review by the APIC engineering team as part of its proactive security efforts. Details on exploitation status and patching guidance remain limited in the initial announcement.

Cisco has disclosed CVE-2026-76498, a critical vulnerability rated 9.8 out of 10 in its Application Policy Infrastructure Controller. The company says the flaw surfaced during an internal security review by the APIC engineering team. With a maximum severity score, administrators who deploy APIC in data centre environments are expected to move quickly to patch, and security watchers are flagging the advisory widely.

TDWI has published an analysis arguing that business intelligence observability — monitoring the health, accuracy and reliability of BI pipelines and dashboards — is the missing layer in modern analytics stacks. The piece suggests many organizations trust dashboards without validating the data behind them, and calls for observability practices to extend beyond data engineering into business intelligence.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are increasingly shaping performance in motorsport, with teams applying the technology to areas like car setup, strategy and data analysis. The development points to a broader shift in racing, where computational tools are joining traditional engineering and driver skill as competitive differentiators, raising questions about how far AI will influence the sport.