Lost Archives, Risky BMCs, and Solar Quantum Leaps | Tech News of the Week

Welcome to Tech News of the Week for 08/17/2026. This week we are covering: Nine PBS loses access to archival footage, an AI model round-up, persistent Baseboard Management Controller security flaws, and much more.

St. Louis PBS Station (At Least Temporarily) Loses Access to 50TB of Archival Footage

Nine PBS is currently suing Iron Mountain to regain access to 50 terabytes of archival data that was stranded after cloud vendor Open Source Storage collapsed.

https://current.org/2026/08/nine-pbs-sues-iron-mountain-over-blocked-access-to-archival-data/

AI Model Round-Up

Recent artificial intelligence developments include xAI launching Grok 4.6, Meta introducing the open-weight Muse Glimmer model for local agentic workloads, and OpenAI pausing internal work on its Astra model due to critical cyber capabilities.

https://research.meta.ai/blog/introducing-muse-glimmer-open-agentic-model

The Original Never-Updated Security Nightmare, On-Motherboard Components, Continue To Wreak Havoc

New research presented at Black Hat reveals that baseboard management controllers across major vendors remain plagued by decade-old vulnerabilities and numerous internet-exposed deployments.

https://www.runzero.com/blog/bmc-research/

Transcript: Click here to view the episode transcript.

Cisco Scaring Customers Into Upgrades

Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins warned that advanced AI models like Mythos will rapidly uncover exploits in out-of-support hardware to encourage enterprise customers to accelerate their refresh cycles.

https://www.theregister.com/networks/2026/08/13/cisco-thinks-mythos-means-instant-death-for-unsupported-networking-kit/5287204

Scientists Create Entangled Photon Pairs Using Sunlight Instead Of Lasers

Researchers in Germany and Canada successfully demonstrated proof-of-principle quantum entanglement by focusing natural sunlight into optical fibers with a 94 percent state fidelity.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/physicists-harness-sunlight-for-quantum-entanglement/

Voyager 2 Software Upgrades Are Successful

NASA engineers installed the Big Bang software patch on Voyager 2 from over 13 billion miles away to optimize heat generation, conserve remaining electrical power, and keep the probe functional through its 50th anniversary.

https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/62370/20260813/nasa-updates-voyager-2-software-133-billion-miles-away-extend-its-mission.htm

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