Satlyt tests task sharing in orbit. Startup Satlyt, working with the University of Houston on a NASA funded project, ran a successful test this month of software that assigns computing tasks across machines in orbit based on available compute and communications. One physical computer aboard a spacecraft ran a simulated network of four hosts, four users and eight services and returned the results to Earth; the company’s software is already on three satellites. It is a planning component, not yet shared execution across separate spacecraft, and NASA has not selected it for a mission (TechCrunch, October 30).
Voyager 1 checks back in. NASA’s Deep Space Network lost Voyager 1’s signal on October 18 and again on October 19 before contact resumed on October 20, apparently after a group of thrusters went offline and backups engaged, possibly a safe mode event. Mission manager Kareem Badaruddin called it the first time the spacecraft has done this. In a few weeks the probe, launched in 1977, reaches the one light day milestone, when commands take a full 24 hours to arrive (The Register, October 30).
NHS vendor collapse strands GP websites. Silicon Practice Digital Health Solutions, owned by Schappit Ltd, has gone into administration, taking some GP practice websites offline and leaving potentially hundreds of practices exposed. NHS England’s chief technology officer Kevin Humphries wrote to practices urging them to preserve historical patient information not yet in clinical systems, manage online consultation backlogs, and consider whether the data protection regulator must be notified if the availability, integrity, confidentiality or recoverability of personal data is affected (The Register, October 30).
T-Mobile claims the 6G race. On the carrier’s third quarter call, chief technology officer John Saw said T-Mobile will be the first with 6G in the United States, with networks built from 2030 and traffic increasingly uplink heavy from AI wearables, agents and physical AI devices. He gave no launch date. Service revenue grew 6 percent year on year to 19.4 billion dollars, with postpaid service revenue up 9 percent to 16.3 billion (Datacenter Dynamics, October 30).
Data centers as a ballot issue. At a Newsreel midterm event in Brooklyn on Thursday, data centers dominated discussion across panels five days before the November 3 midterms, with attendees booing a show of hands for pro data center sentiment. TechCrunch cited a Data Center Watch report finding almost 200 billion dollars of data center projects delayed, stalled or blocked in the first half of 2026 by political and community opposition, with states including Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas, New York and Virginia weighing guardrails (TechCrunch, November 1).
Amazon’s AI memo, read coldly. The Register’s Corey Quinn dissected Amazon’s newly public internal treatise on developers and AI, written by a vice president and distinguished engineer in September, praising its line that work not benefiting from AI tooling is a finding, not a failing, while noting the same document calls input metrics deeply flawed and then advises using them anyway. Amazon shut its token usage leaderboard, KiroRank, in May after engineers spun up junk tasks to climb it (The Register, October 31).
Dixon looks up the value chain. India’s Dixon Technologies told its second quarter fiscal 2027 earnings call it is evaluating silicon photonics and advanced semiconductor packaging for AI data centers, targeting optical transceivers at 800G and above, with a joint venture with Taiwan’s Gemtek (Dixon 60 percent) and initial development investment discussed at 50 to 60 crore rupees. No customer orders or production timetable are confirmed (ad-hoc-news, reporting News18, November 1).