Marvell to Buy Lumentum In $115 Billion Bet On AI Connectivity

Marvell has agreed to acquire optical components maker Lumentum in an all-stock deal with an implied enterprise value of $115 billion. “AI infrastructure is undergoing a fundamental architectural shift toward optical connectivity, creating an opportunity that comes along once in a generation,” said Marvell Chairman and CEO Matt Murphy. “The companies that move first and help define this transition will set the standard for decades to come.” CNBC reports: Through the acquisition, Marvell said it can combine electrical and optical technologies to meet accelerating and shifting AI connectivity demands across regions and systems. Companies are increasingly relying on optical connections to piece together chips used to run and train large language models. Lumentum shareholders will receive 4.5 Marvell shares for each Lumentum share under the agreement. The deal is expected to close during the first half of 2028. Marvell’s takeover marks one of the most significant bets on AI in 2026 and comes despite recent concerns over the long-term sustainability of infrastructure spending.


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This New Chrome AI Feature Reads Your Gmail to Make Filling Out Web Forms Easier

Google Chrome is making it easier to autofill online forms with more than just contact information and credit card numbers. For users with Personal Intelligence enabled, Gemini will now suggest items like order numbers, tracking information, membership IDs, and booking confirmations from Gmail messages when completing forms in Chrome.

Chrome expands autofill suggestions based on information from Gmail

Chrome’s expanded autofill capabilities use Gemini to read your emails and surface suggestions, meaning you don’t have to click back and forth between tabs or manually search for codes or confirmations in your inbox. When you click a form field that has a corresponding piece of data, a pop-up menu appears and indicates that an item is “Suggested by Gemini.” You can click this to autofill the suggestion as well as open an additional menu to see the specific source (the original email) or remove the suggestion. The latter doesn’t delete anything from Gmail; it simply dismisses the suggestion in Chrome.

As Android Police reports, Google started testing enhanced autofill in Chrome this summer using data from other connected apps like Google Photos. The feature currently rolling out is specific to Gmail and is coming first to U.S. users who have Personal Intelligence enabled on desktop as well as in the Android and iOS apps when using Gemini in Chrome.

Personal Intelligence may expose your Gmail data for targeted ads

When using enhanced autofill, remember that, thanks to a recent privacy policy update, connecting Gmail and other Google apps to Personal Intelligence may expose more of your data to ad personalization. Personal Intelligence likely hasn’t changed what Google itself can access all that much, but now Google can use data from Gmail, Photos, and Drive to deliver targeted ads. That includes data you don’t explicitly share in search or with Google’s AI. Google says it does not send personally identifiable information to advertisers or scan Gmail for this data—however, linking Personal Intelligence to Google apps does potentially leave you more exposed.

In the blog post announcing the enhanced autofill feature, Google states that “sensitive data is encrypted” and that users can manage autofill, including enabling or disabling enhanced suggestions, via Chrome’s settings.

Supermarket Freezers Across Europe Hit By Second Suspected Cyberattack

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Supermarket chains in Sweden, Belgium and Luxembourg have said the temperatures of their refrigerators and freezers in dozens of stores rose overnight, prompting fears of a cyber-attack similar to one that caused millions of euros of food losses in France. Sweden’s Coop chain told the daily Aftonbladet on Monday that six of its stores had been affected, while ICA said it was “aware that a limited number of stores were affected by an incident overnight which impacted their refrigeration and freezer systems”.

The Dutch retailer Ahold Delhaize, which last month reported a cybersecurity incident to police in the Netherlands, said an “IT incident” had hit fridges and freezers in dozens of its supermarkets in Belgium and Luxembourg. A company spokesperson, Sarah De Meester, said the supermarket chain had established that temperatures in the cooling systems had increased, adding that the incident was being investigated. Belgium’s Le Soir newspaper reported that dozens of stores and supermarkets were affected, including five Spar outlets, multiple Shop & Go convenience stores attached to Q8 service stations, and a number of smaller Proxy Delhaize minimarkets. “We started mobilizing technicians at 1am,” Stephan Moelans, the chief executive of Sabcobel, which specialises in refrigeration system installations, told the paper. “We spent all night and morning disconnecting the affected installations from the grid.”


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The world has a new plan to save nature, but it still needs the money

The world is set to miss its 2030 conservation goals as finance and action have fallen short, leaders recognized at a UN biodiversity summit in Armenia’s capital, where they agreed to step up efforts after a final overnight session.

Representatives from almost 200 countries gathered in Yerevan over the past two weeks to review progress on a landmark agreement set four years ago to protect about a third of the world’s land and seas by 2030.

The COP17 talks on biodiversity concluded on Saturday with a recognition that conservation efforts were so far too slow to realistically achieve the goals of the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

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Comments

[$] The second part of the 7.4 merge window

The 7.4 merge window, which
closed on November 1,
included a record-breaking 18,591 non-merge changesets.
That is almost as many as the entire 7.3 development cycle, which had 18,765, itself a record breaker. Of
those, 11,838 landed after the article covering the
first part of the merge window
. Most of those were bug fixes of
various forms; it seems as though bug fixes may be crowding out feature
additions across the open-source ecosystem to
some extent. Still, a good number of new features were included, and a handful
removed, in the tail end of the merge window.

This iPad Mini 7 Is on Sale for Under $500 Right Now

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StackSocial has a refurbished 2024 iPad Mini 7 in Space Gray on sale for $469.99 right now, down from its regular $599 price. The listing carries a “Grade B” rating, which means light scuffing on the bezel or case and possibly light scratches or dents on the body, so expect a device that looks used without being beaten up. The tablet comes with 128GB of storage, a charging cable, and a 60-day third-party parts-and-labor warranty. If you want longer coverage, StackSocial offers a two-year protection plan for an extra $35.99.

If you’re okay with that cosmetic wear, the appeal here is getting the Mini’s more capable hardware at a lower price—its A17 Pro chip handles demanding games, photo editing, and Apple Intelligence features that the standard iPad’s older silicon can’t run as comfortably, which means this small tablet won’t feel dated in a couple of years. Its 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display is also sharp for reading, and at just 10.3 ounces with a slim build, it’s comfortable to hold one-handed, so a long session through a flight or reading in bed doesn’t get tiring the way a full-size iPad does.

It also works with the Apple Pencil Pro for notes and sketches, and you get Wi-Fi 6E, USB-C, Touch ID in the power button, and 12MP cameras on both sides to round out the basics. That said, an 8.3-inch screen can feel cramped for split-screen work or long typing sessions, and there’s no Magic Keyboard support, so this doesn’t replace a laptop the way a larger iPad can. Also, this particular unit is wifi-only, meaning no cellular option for reading on a train without tethering, and 128GB can fill up quickly if you download a lot of movies or games. But for under $500, it’s a solid deal.

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