This is the news from Wednesday 28 October. Read the latest news
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Apple’s M6 MacBook Pro and iMac, GPT-6.1 Terra and Firefox 159
Today in 30 seconds
- Apple launches the M6 MacBook Pro and a new M6 iMac
- OpenAI’s GPT-6.1 Terra costs half as much and runs three times faster
- Apple adds an AI assistant and MCP support to Pages, Keynote and Numbers
- OpenAI says its AI proved a famous computer science belief false
- Firefox 159 turns on scroll-driven animations for everyone
- Opera proposes WebAI to run AI models inside the browser
- Google wants link-shared pages kept out of its index
- Shopify moves its AI agent knowledge base into the admin
- iOS 27.2 brings 160 security fixes and patches an exploited bug
- Google Docs now opens and edits Markdown files
- CSS-Tricks has a new owner, and the newsletter is coming back
Good morning. Apple’s big week rolled on with new M6 Macs. OpenAI shipped a cheaper model and made a bold maths claim. And Firefox got a CSS feature I’ve wanted for years. Let’s go.
Apple launches the M6 MacBook Pro and a new M6 iMac
Apple announced a 14-inch MacBook Pro and a 24-inch iMac with the new M6 chip on 27 October. Pre-orders open on 28 October, and both ship on 6 November. In the US, the MacBook Pro starts at US$1,999 and the iMac at US$1,499.
The MacBook Pro gets up to 24 hours of battery, Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6. Apple says the GPU is up to 30% faster than the M5 model. The iMac comes in seven colours, and 12-core models add 2.5Gb Ethernet. Neither machine has a touchscreen.
That comes next. MacRumors expects touchscreen 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with OLED screens on Wednesday 28 October, US time.
Why it matters If you need a new Mac for work, wait one more day. Tomorrow’s touch models may suit you better, or push today’s prices down. Either way, more people will soon tap your site on a laptop.
I wrote a guide on making your site easy to tap for exactly this moment.
OpenAI’s GPT-6.1 Terra costs half as much and runs three times faster
OpenAI released GPT-6.1 Terra on 26 October. It is the mid-range model, between Luna and Sol. It costs US$1 per million input tokens and US$5 per million output tokens, half the price of GPT-5.6 Terra.
OpenAI says it finishes tasks more than three times faster than GPT-6 Astra and GPT-6.1 Sol. It is built for computer use, reading screens and clear writing. Plus, Pro, Enterprise and Edu users get it in ChatGPT Work and Codex. Developers can call it as gpt-6.1-terra in the API. Vercel’s AI Gateway added it the same day.
Why it matters If you run an AI feature on your site, this could halve your bill. OpenAI still suggests Sol or Astra for the hardest coding work.
Try it on your real prompts before you switch. Cheap is only good if the answers stay right.
Apple adds an AI assistant and MCP support to Pages, Keynote and Numbers
Apple announced a beta AI assistant for Keynote, Pages and Numbers on 27 October. It is part of Apple Creator Studio and runs on Apple models and OpenAI. The update reaches the App Store in November and is free for existing subscribers.
In Keynote it helps design and animate slides. In Pages it drafts and reorganises text. In Numbers it analyses data and suggests charts. It needs a device with Apple Intelligence and works in US English only for now. New subscribers pay US$12.99 a month.
The bigger news for builders is MCP support on macOS 27. Outside AI agents and tools can read, edit and automate your Keynote, Pages and Numbers files.
Why it matters Your own AI agent can soon turn a Numbers sheet into a report or a deck. No copy and paste needed.
OpenAI says its AI proved a famous computer science belief false
OpenAI shared three results made by its AI models on 27 October. The headline claim is a proof that the Exponential Time Hypothesis is false. Most experts believe this hypothesis is true, and hundreds of papers rely on it.
The other two results are a maths proof about waves and proofs about quantum field theory. Expert groups set up by OpenAI are checking the work. OpenAI itself says the claims need months of independent review.
Why it matters If the proof holds, faster ways to solve some very hard problems might exist. If it fails, it is a lesson in AI hype. Either way, nothing changes for your site today.
I’ll believe it when outside mathematicians do. It’s still a fun one to watch.
Firefox 159 turns on scroll-driven animations for everyone
Firefox 159 came out on 27 October. Scroll-driven animations are now on by default. You can tie a CSS animation to scroll position instead of time, with no JavaScript.
A fade-in as an element enters the screen is now a few lines: animation-timeline: view(); on the element and a normal @keyframes rule. Firefox 159 also adds scoped custom element registries, so two web components with the same name no longer clash. The old masonry syntax is gone. Use display: grid-lanes instead.
Why it matters Scroll effects no longer need a JavaScript library in Firefox. Less JavaScript means a faster page.
Keep motion gentle, and respect prefers-reduced-motion. Some people feel sick from moving pages.
Opera proposes WebAI to run AI models inside the browser
Opera announced WebAI on 27 October. It is a proposed web standard that lets websites run AI models on the visitor’s own device. It works with open-weight models like Google’s Gemma, and with Apple’s on-device model on Macs.
A site can generate text, sort content and find links between pieces of information, all in the browser. It is an opt-in early preview in Opera One. Opera GX and Opera Neon get it later. Speed depends on the visitor’s hardware.
Why it matters Opera says developers can add AI features “without running AI infrastructure or paying for every request”. That only matters if other browsers agree, so watch, don’t build on it yet.
Google wants link-shared pages kept out of its index
Google updated its help page on user-generated spam on 26 October. It now covers tools that let users publish shared pages, generated content or web apps. A new section is called “Only index content meant for Search”.
Google suggests a noindex tag by default for pages made only for sharing by link. You can also block them in robots.txt. It also asks platforms to verify their site in Search Console and watch for sudden jumps in indexed pages.
Why it matters If your site lets users share quotes, carts, reports or AI outputs, those pages can flood Google. Spammers love them. A noindex rule now protects your whole domain later.
My guide to how search and AI crawlers find your site covers robots.txt and noindex.
Shopify moves its AI agent knowledge base into the admin
Shopify built a Knowledge base into the admin on 26 October. You find it under Sales channels, then Agentic. It is one page where you check, edit and publish the facts AI agents use about your store, like contact details or gift wrapping.
Shopify drafts facts from your published pages, and each fact links to its source. Nothing reaches AI agents until you publish it. The old Knowledge Base app closes on 15 January 2027. Stores with more than 1,000 facts must move them by hand before then.
Also new: the checkout footer now shows one “Terms and policies” link instead of one link per policy.
Why it matters AI shopping agents answer questions about your store. Spend ten minutes checking the drafted facts, because a wrong return policy can cost you a sale.
iOS 27.2 brings 160 security fixes and patches an exploited bug
Apple released iOS 27.2 and macOS 27.2 on 26 October. TechCrunch counts over 160 security fixes in iOS 27.2. Apple also fixed a CoreGraphics bug, CVE-2026-86950, on older iPhones and iPads.
Apple says that bug “may have been exploited in an extremely sophisticated attack” on versions before iOS 27. A bad file could run code on the device. The fix now reaches the iPhone XS, XS Max and XR, plus older iPad, iPad Air and iPad mini models.
The update also adds Siri AI in French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish, in beta.
Why it matters update today. Go to Settings, General, Software Update. On an older device, install whatever update it offers. That goes for the old iPad you use as a shop till, too.
Google Docs now opens and edits Markdown files
Google announced on 26 October that Docs can open, edit and share Markdown (.md) files directly. No conversion needed. A .md badge shows in the header. Drive also shows a rendered preview, with a switch to the raw text.
You get live co-editing, comments on lines, suggestions and version history. Anyone with a Google or Workspace account can use it now.
Why it matters READMEs, docs and AI prompt files are all Markdown. Now your client can comment on them without learning GitHub.
CSS-Tricks has a new owner, and the newsletter is coming back
Geoff Graham now owns CSS-Tricks, he announced on 26 October. DigitalOcean bought the site from founder Chris Coyier in 2022. Geoff takes it independent with a small team.
Ads and sponsors return, and there is a paid membership with a private Discord. A beginner HTML and CSS course is on the way. The newsletter comes back on 10 November. Expect one or two articles most weeks.
Why it matters CSS-Tricks taught a generation of us how to build for the web. An owner who loves it is good news for everyone who writes CSS.
If you write CSS, add the newsletter to your inbox. It’s worth the space.
Quick hits
- Google rankings swung again on 27 October, the fourth unconfirmed spike this month. Search Engine Roundtable
- Vercel CLI 64.1.0 lets you search over 1,000 Vercel Connect services with
vercel connect discover. Vercel - Gemini Live on Android gets a plus button to add photos, files and Drive items mid-chat. 9to5Google
- macOS 27.2 stops the macOS 27 upgrade from removing Rosetta, so Intel apps keep working. MacRumors
- Meta pushed its new business terms, including the web crawling clause, back to 20 November. Search Engine Journal
- ChatGPT rarely names brands it doesn’t already know, even when cited pages mention them, a Graphite study finds. Search Engine Journal
- “Websites Should Be Printable” is a short, handy post on print CSS that hit the Hacker News front page. Brennen Puth
- Cloudflare says its GLM-5.3 Workers AI model leaked other customers’ data in 155 responses, now fixed. Cloudflare
You're all caught up
That's today's web, tech and SEO news. The next edition lands tomorrow morning, around 3 am Melbourne time.That was the news from Wednesday 28 October. A newer edition is waiting for you.
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