Gestalt It Rundown

On this week’s Tech Field Day News Rundown, Tom Hollingsworth and Alastair Cooke unpack a pivotal moment for artificial intelligence. Privacy regulators coordinated through the Global Privacy Assembly warned about AI-generated images and videos created without consent, raising alarms over dignity, safety, and basic rights. In U.S. politics, governors like JB Pritzker, Josh Shapiro, and Wes Moore are cooling on AI incentives as voters push back on energy costs and job disruption. On the engineering side, Microsoft shares lessons on designing MCP servers that align with how AI agents actually work, while Lasso Security introduces real-time behavioral monitoring to keep agentic AI in bounds. Meanwhile, Amazon disputes claims—reported by the Financial Times—that AI coding tools caused recent AWS outages. Add in a real-world quantum teleportation milestone by Deutsche Telekom and Qunnect, plus growing scrutiny of behind-the-meter data centers from firms like Meta and Oracle, and it’s clear: AI’s next chapter will

The open-source ClawBands project aims to restore human oversight to OpenClaw, a wildly popular autonomous AI assistant capable of executing shell commands, modifying files, and accessing APIs. Created by software engineer Sandro Munda, ClawBands intercepts every tool call and enforces “human-in-the-loop” approval before actions are executed, creating an auditable decision trail. The project emerges amid growing concern from security researchers and CISOs, who warn that OpenClaw’s rapid adoption, deep system access, and messaging app integrations create serious attack surfaces. As agentic AI accelerates—and with OpenClaw’s creator Peter Steinberger now joining OpenAI—ClawBands represents an early attempt to balance innovation with pragmatic risk management. This and more on the Tech Field Day News Rundown with ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tom Hollingsworth and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Alastair Cooke. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Cold Open0:26 - Welcome to the Tech Field Day News Rundown 1:10 - Dell Adds

European regulators are taking action against Meta over concerns that it is restricting competition by blocking third-party AI assistants on WhatsApp. The European Commission says Meta’s recent policy changes may violate EU antitrust rules and is considering interim measures to restore access for rival AI developers while the investigation continues. This and more on the Tech Field Day News Rundown with Tom Hollingsworth and Alastair Cooke. Time Stamps:0:00 - Cold Open0:26 - Welcome to the Tech Field Day News Rundown1:18 - Amazon Plans to Spend Another $200B on AI Infrastructure in 20264:17 - Versa SASE Platform Blocks Sensitive Data From Being Shared With AI8:38 - AI Data Center Pushback Grows as States Consider Building Pauses11:28 - Zscaler Strengthens Zero Trust with SquareX Browser Security Acquisition14:42 - Google Launches API to Give AI Assistants Access to Current Documentation18:28 - AI-Powered Attack Breached an AWS Environment in Just 8 Minutes23:47 - EU Moves to Block Meta From Limiting AI Assist

This week’s Tech Field Day News Rundown dives into the biggest AI, security, and enterprise shakeups. Tom Hollingsworth and Alastair Cooke deliver this week’s Tech Field Day News Rundown, starting with a global push by actors and musicians calling for a “permission-first” approach to AI training, as unions accuse AI companies of using copyrighted works without consent. They also cover growing security concerns around agentic AI after researchers discovered serious vulnerabilities in MCP servers from Anthropic and Microsoft. Snowflake and OpenAI’s $200 million partnership to bring governed, production-ready AI into the enterprise data cloud, mounting financial pressure on Oracle with potential mass layoffs and a possible sale of Cerner, high-severity vulnerabilities in the n8n AI automation platform that allow remote code execution. They also discuss a critical Broadcom Wi-Fi chipset flaw capable of taking entire 5 GHz networks offline and new warnings from researcher Jason Meller about AI agent “skills” being

Tom Hollingsworth and guest host Jay Cuthrell bring the latest tech news straight to you in this week’s Tech Field Day News Rundown!They kick things off with Obsidian Security’s new SaaS updates, giving tighter control over third-party integrations and reducing breach risks. Fidelity’s legal settlement with Broadcom over VMware software gets discussed, showing why vendor changes can ripple through enterprises.Next up, NVIDIA invests $2B in CoreWeave, boosting AI infrastructure, while Microsoft’s Quantum Development Kit updates make quantum coding more practical today. AI-powered coding tools like Anthropic’s Claude Code are breaking barriers, and Anthropic’s new AI constitution emphasizes ethics, safety, and transparency.Tom and Jay also cover Meta’s $6B fiber deal with Corning to fuel AI data centers and Blue Origin’s TeraWave satellite network for enterprise connectivity. From SaaS security to AI, quantum computing, and next-gen networking, they break down the tech moves that are shaping the future of enter

A critical ServiceNow vulnerability shows how quickly deployed AI features can turn into major security risks. By rushing agentic AI into production without proper authentication, authorization, and safeguards, organizations are creating new attack paths that bypass traditional defenses. Experts warn that AI agents need zero-trust controls, least-privilege access, and lifecycle management—or enterprises risk turning productivity tools into security liabilities. This and more on the Tech Field Day News Rundown with Tom Hollingsworth and Alastair Cooke. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Cold Open0:25 - Welcome to the Tech Field Day News Rundown1:07 - Snowflake to Acquire Observe to Strengthen AI Observability4:25 - Firewall Prices May Rise as Memory Shortages Hit Cybersecurity Hardware8:17 - IBM Introduces Sovereign Core Platform Built on Red Hat OpenShift11:48 - Delinea Acquires StrongDM to Strengthen Infrastructure Access Security15:04 - Cloudflare Buys Human Native to Reinvent How Creators Get Paid in the AI Era18:31 - FC

For 2026, AI is no longer a trend—it’s becoming foundational infrastructure, transforming how software is built, how cloud and data centers operate, how security is enforced, and how businesses compete. Predict 2026, hosted by Futurum, explores these shifts with sessions on agentic AI, accelerated development, trust and security, data infrastructure, and the physical limits of AI. Leaders will gain insights into how AI will reshape SaaS pricing, DevOps cycles, cybersecurity strategies, and operational models, helping them prepare for rapid, unavoidable changes. The event emphasizes actionable understanding over hype, making it essential for organizations that want to lead rather than react in the AI era.Time Stamps: 0:00 - Cold Open0:23 - Welcome to the Tech Field Day News Rundown1:17 - Apple Teams Up with Google to Power AI-Powered Siri4:30 - Veeam Expands Into Appliances with Object First Acquisition8:11 - OpenAI and SoftBank Invest $1 Billion to Build AI Data Center Infrastructure11:51 - Palo Alto Networks

At CES 2026, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang unveiled a sweeping vision for the future of AI, led by the Rubin platform—the company’s first extreme-codesigned, six-chip AI architecture designed to dramatically reduce AI computing costs while scaling performance across data centers, enterprises, and devices. NVIDIA also introduced a broad portfolio of open models spanning healthcare, robotics, climate science, and autonomous driving, highlighted by the Alpamayo platform powering AI-defined driving in the upcoming Mercedes-Benz CLA. From supercomputers to personal AI agents and physical AI systems, NVIDIA positioned itself as a full-stack AI company driving intelligence into every domain, device, and industry. This and more on the Tech Field Day News Rundown featuring Tom Hollingsworth⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Alastair Cooke. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Cold Open0:27 - Welcome to the Tech Field Day News Rundown1:28 - Marvell to Acquire XConn, Boosting AI Data Center Connectivity4:38 - Orb

2025 was a year of seismic shifts in tech, as AI surged into a critical growth phase with massive investments, partnerships, and global trade battles over chips. Intel and HPE restructured for the AI era, quantum computing made strides with Microsoft, Google, and Cisco advancing real-world applications, and cloud giants struck multibillion-dollar deals. Meanwhile, strategic acquisitions reshaped the landscape—Lenovo, SoftBank, Google, Qualcomm, Anthropic, and more strengthened AI, cloud, cybersecurity, and quantum capabilities—highlighting a year defined by scale, innovation, and high-stakes competition across the technology ecosystem.Time Stamps0:00 - Cold Open0:17 - Welcome to the Tech Field Day News Rundown 1:09 - AI is at an Inflection Point, Who Really Controls its Future?4:58 - Intel at a Crossroads: Layoffs, Leadership Change, and the Fight to Stay Relevant in AI9:31 - The Internet Is More Fragile Than You Think14:33 - HPE Under Pressure and on the Move20:39 - The Global AI Trade War Heats Up27:10 - Qu

Micron is leaving the consumer memory market, including its Crucial brand, to focus on high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for AI data centers. The company will continue selling consumer products until February 2026. The move comes amid a global chip shortage, and HBM sales are growing fast, making AI-focused memory more profitable than consumer products. This and more on the Tech Field Day News Rundown with Tom Hollingsworth and Alastair Cooke. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Cold Open0:27 - Welcome to the Tech Field Day News Rundown1:22 - Trump Administration Lets Nvidia Sell H200 AI Chips to China4:17 - React Server Flaw Lets Hackers Run Code7:34 - IBM Strikes $11 Billion Deal to Acquire Confluent11:17 - Intel Reverses Plan to Sell Networking Unit, Keeps NEX In-House14:59 - IBM CEO Says Today’s AI Datacenter Boom Isn’t Financially Sustainable19:42 - Cloudflare Forces Outage to Stop Critical React2Shell Exploit22:53 - Micron Exits Consumer Memory to Focus on AI Chips30:53 - The Weeks Ahead31:58 - Thanks for Watching Follow our

Apple’s AI chief, John Giannandrea, is stepping down after delays and criticism around Apple Intelligence, including the postponed Siri overhaul. Amar Subramanya — a former Google and Microsoft AI leader — will take over and report to Craig Federighi as Apple reorganizes its AI teams. Giannandrea will stay on as an advisor until spring 2026. The shake-up shows Apple is still trying to catch up in AI, mirroring similar leadership exits at other tech companies. This and more on the Tech Field Day News Rundown with Tom Hollingsworth and Alastair Cooke.Time Stamps:0:00 - Cold Open0:33 - Welcome to the Tech Field Day News Rundown1:26 - Sumo Logic Resets AI Strategy with New Agents and Open Framework4:46 - OpenAI Reports Limited Data Exposure from Mixpanel Breach8:50 - HPE Wins $931M Pentagon Deal to Build Secure Private Cloud12:12 - FBI Warns Account Takeover Scams Stole $262M in 202516:59 - AWS and Google Cloud Team Up to Make Multicloud Networking Easier20:13 - LogicMonitor Buys Catchpoint to Launch Predictive A

Nokia is investing $4 billion to expand U.S. AI-ready network infrastructure, focusing primarily on Bell Labs and additional facilities in New Jersey, Texas, and Pennsylvania to strengthen connectivity, national security, and its NVIDIA partnership. At the same time, AWS is committing $50 billion to grow AI and supercomputing capacity for U.S. government agencies, adding 1.3 gigawatts of secure cloud infrastructure across classified regions to accelerate missions like cybersecurity, drug discovery, and federal data processing—making it one of the largest government cloud investments to date. This and more on the Tech Field Day News Rundown with Tom Hollingsworth and Alastair Cooke. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Cold Open0:34 - Welcome to the Tech Field Day News Rundown1:15 - NVIDIA Commits $26B to Cloud as AI Competition Heats Up5:17 - Qualcomm Sparks Outrage by Locking Down Arduino9:42 - NATO Chooses Google for Secure, Air-Gapped Cloud12:47 - Amazon Leo Unveils Gigabit ‘Ultra’ Antenna and Starts Enterprise Preview17:1

Web infrastructure provider Cloudflare experienced a global disruption that caused widespread “Error 500” messages and took down major platforms including X and ChatGPT. The outage, triggered by a sudden spike in unusual network traffic, impacted thousands of websites early Tuesday and highlighted the fragility of internet architecture—over 20 percent of global web traffic flows through Cloudflare. The firm is actively investigating the root cause and working to restore full service while underscoring the need for greater resilience in digital infrastructure. This and more on the Tech Field Day News Rundown featuring Tom Hollingsworth and Alastair Cooke.Time Stamps: 0:00 - Welcome to the Tech Field Day News Rundown0:26 - Welcome to the Tech Field Day News Rundown1:28 - AWS Unveils AI Agents to Speed Up Cloud Migrations4:23 - Commvault Launches AI-Powered Cloud Unity Platform8:16 - AWS Expands Kiro AI to Deliver Higher-Quality, Verifiable Code11:43 - Arista and Palo Alto Strengthen AI-Era Data Center Security1

At KubeCon 2025, the CNCF launched the Certified Kubernetes AI Conformance Program to standardize AI and ML workloads on Kubernetes, ensuring portability across hybrid and sovereign clouds and preventing platform lock-in. Supported by companies like Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Broadcom, and Red Hat, the initiative promotes interoperability, scalability, and efficient production deployment. Arm showcased its Neoverse platform alongside Google Cloud’s Axion N4A VMs, enabling energy-efficient, scalable AI workloads, while partnerships with CNCF projects like Harbor, OPA, Kedify, and AuthZed help developers build secure, portable, and cost-effective cloud-native systems from edge to cloud. This and more on the Tech Field Day News Rundown recorded live at Commvault Shift with Tom Hollingsworth and Stephen Foskett. Time Stamps:0:00 - Welcome to the Tech Field Day News Rundown1:17 - VAST Data makes $1.17B Deal with CoreWeave4:42 - Spektrum Labs Uses Cryptography to Prove Cyber Resilience7:37 - HPE Drops Qumulo, Scali

Commvault’s Data Rooms let data science teams quickly access and prepare backup data, while a new AI-powered interface simplifies querying and managing it. Using data already classified during backup, teams can reduce manual prep, apply role-based access and sensitivity tags, and share data securely. The tools aim to speed up AI model training by letting IT handle data management tasks, freeing data scientists to focus on analysis. This and more on the Tech Field Day News Rundown with Alastair Cooke and guest host Jim Czuprynski. Time Stamps:0:00 - Cold Open0:26 - Welcome to the Tech Field Day News Rundown1:15 - Ransomware Payments Hit Record Low as Victims Resist Hackers3:25 - NPM Hit by PhantomRaven Attack with 100+ Malicious Packages Downloaded 86,000 Times7:08 - Cloud Adoption Surges as Security Concerns Ease, Amazon Survey Shows9:38 - CoreWeave Acquires Marimo to Boost AI Development Platform12:48 - Intel Opens AI Experience Stores to Highlight Next-Gen PCs16:16 - Platform9 Celebrates One Year of Private

AWS is restoring operations after a massive outage disrupted internet access worldwide, affecting major platforms like Snapchat, Facebook, Fortnite, Delta, Coinbase, and several banks. The issue stemmed from a DNS failure that temporarily prevented access to data stored in AWS systems, causing widespread service interruptions and “Error 404” messages. Experts say the outage, which exposed how heavily global internet infrastructure depends on AWS, may have cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Amazon says it has “fully mitigated” the issue and continues investigating the root cause. This and more on the Tech Field Day News Rundown with Tom Hollingsworth and guest host Kate Scarcella. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Cold Open0:27 - Welcome to the Tech Field Day News Rundown1:21 - MLCommons Unveils New Standard for AI Security3:47 - Nation-State Hackers Breach F5, Endangering Thousands of Networks6:49 - Hackers Breach U.S. Nuclear Weapons Plant via SharePoint Flaws11:20 - Broadcom Unveils Thor Ultra: 800G Open Ethernet NIC

AWS is restoring operations after a massive outage disrupted internet access worldwide, affecting major platforms like Snapchat, Facebook, Fortnite, Delta, Coinbase, and several banks. The issue stemmed from a DNS failure that temporarily prevented access to data stored in AWS systems, causing widespread service interruptions and “Error 404” messages. Experts say the outage, which exposed how heavily global internet infrastructure depends on AWS, may have cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Amazon says it has “fully mitigated” the issue and continues investigating the root cause. This and more on the Tech Field Day News Rundown with Tom Hollingsworth and guest host Kate Scarcella. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Cold Open0:27 - Welcome to the Tech Field Day News Rundown1:21 - MLCommons Unveils New Standard for AI Security3:47 - Nation-State Hackers Breach F5, Endangering Thousands of Networks6:49 - Hackers Breach U.S. Nuclear Weapons Plant via SharePoint Flaws11:20 - Broadcom Unveils Thor Ultra: 800G Open Ethernet NIC

At NetApp INSIGHT 2025, the company announced several major innovations, including the new AI Data Engine, which pre-processes ONTAP data for use with LLMs and AI agents. This platform features advanced metadata management, data synchronization, data governance, and data curation, along with a built-in vector database to streamline AI workloads. NetApp also introduced AFX, a new architecture that allows independent scaling of storage and compute, built around the AFX 1K storage controller, optional DX50 data compute node, and NX224 NVMe enclosure, with support for a wide range of storage protocols. This and more on the Tech Field Day News Rundown with Tom Hollingsworth and Alastair Cooke. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Cold Open0:25 - Welcome to the Tech Field Day News Rundown1:15 - SAP Connects to Google BigQuery4:14 - Meta and Oracle Tap NVIDIA Spectrum-X for AI Supercomputers7:51 - Ubuntu 25.10 “Questing Quokka” Launches with Major Updates and New Apps11:21 - Xsight Labs, Interface Masters Launch Tahoe 3828 EXA Switc

Security researchers have figured out how to break enclaves. Sort of. In papers published this week, two independent groups have revealed their latest exploits, Battering RAM and Wiretap. They both work by attacking memory where encrypted data is stored. Both Intel SGX and AMD SEV-SNP use deterministic encryption to store data in RAM for performance reasons. These attacks can replay the data in plain text form. The catch? You need to have a hardware device, called an interposer, between the CPU and the RAM banks. You also need to watch the RAM in a very specific spot to collect the data. This and more on the Tech Field Day News Rundown with Tom Hollingsworth and Alastair Cooke. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Cold Open1:18 - AMD GPU contract for OpenAI5:40 - ARM case against Qualcomm dismissed10:12 - Future Amazon datacenters in orbit13:59 - Arduino Acquired by Qualcomm18:48 - Walking robots repel iRobot Founder23:04 - Veeam to Buy Securiti?27:27 - Wiretapping Trusted Enclaves35:40 - The Weeks Ahead37:40 - Thanks for Wat

Microsoft stopped a phishing attack that used AI-generated code to hide its malicious payload and trick victims. Hackers sent fake file-sharing emails from a compromised account, with an SVG file disguised as a PDF that contained hidden JavaScript. Microsoft’s Security Copilot flagged the code as AI-made because it was overly complex and unnatural, while Defender for Office 365 blocked the campaign by spotting suspicious behavior and infrastructure signals. Researchers noted that while AI makes attacks look more convincing, it also creates telltale signs that defenders can detect. The case shows how both attackers and defenders are using AI, making it crucial to prepare for more AI-driven threats. This and more on the Tech Field Day News Rundown with Tom Hollingsworth and Alastair Cooke. Time Stamps: 0:00 - Cold Open0:28 - Welcome to the Tech Field Day News Rundown1:33 - OpenAI Launches Instant Checkout for ChatGPT5:35 - Cisco Zero-Day Puts 2M Devices at Risk9:02 - Amazon to Pay $2.5 Billion Over Misleading P