Tech News Roundup: October 16, 2026
Today’s roundup: SpaceX’s classified USSF-481 launch and Q3 earnings date, plus Tesla’s new Roadster reveal and FSD approval in Slovakia.
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Slovakia Clears Tesla FSD (Supervised) for Its Roads
Slovakia recognized the Dutch type approval for Tesla FSD (Supervised) on Oct. 16, 2026, joining a growing list of EU countries allowing the system.
Tesla Unveils Next-Generation Roadster With SpaceX Thrusters
Tesla revealed its next Roadster at SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas site: fan suction, cold-gas thrusters, a claimed 0.8-second 0-60 run, and 2028 production.
SpaceX Will Report Q3 2026 Results on October 20
SpaceX will post Q3 2026 results after the market close on Oct. 20 and host an audio webcast at 3:30 p.m. CT, its second report as a public company.
SpaceX Launches Classified USSF-481 Mission on Falcon 9 From Vandenberg
SpaceX flew the classified USSF-481 (TH-2) Space Force mission from Vandenberg on Oct. 15, 2026, landing booster B1081 on its 28th flight.
Switzerland’s Federal Government Pilots Replacing Microsoft 365 on 3,000 Computers
Switzerland’s federal government is investing CHF 9 million in a pilot that moves 3,000 workstations from Microsoft 365 to the open source openDesk suite.
CERN Moves Accelerator-Control Computers to Debian After Years on RHEL
CERN is moving more than 2,200 industrial accelerator-control computers to Debian 13, after decades of RHEL-based distributions. Its data centres stay on RHEL and AlmaLinux.
India and Africa Phasing Windows Out? What the GNU/Linux Usage Numbers Show
Tux Machines says GNU/Linux briefly made up about 16% of web requests in India in August 2026, in line with StatCounter, and sees a similar trend in Africa.
Firefox 154.0 Released: WebSocket Local Network Prompts, Cookie Exceptions and Faster Seeking
Mozilla released Firefox 154.0 on August 18, 2026, with local network access prompts for WebSockets, more flexible cookie-clearing exceptions, faster video seeking and new CSS features.
GIMP Is Building a New Project File Format After Nearly 30 Years of XCF
GIMP developers are designing a zipped-XML project format to succeed XCF, which GIMP has used since 1997. XCF files will keep opening in future versions.