A laptop that can run serious AI on its own, robotaxis preparing for a Canadian winter, and a clearer picture of the inventions shaping 2026. Here is what we are watching this morning.
NVIDIA puts a supercomputer in a laptop. RTX Spark laptops launched worldwide on October 16 from ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft and MSI, starting at $2,599, with up to 128GB of unified memory and up to 1 petaflop of AI performance for running large models and personal agents locally. Why it matters: powerful AI work is starting to move from the cloud onto the desk, which changes who controls the data, the speed and the cost.
Waymo is coming to Toronto. Alphabet’s self driving unit said on October 16 that it has joined Ontario’s Automated Vehicle Pilot Program and has begun manually driven mapping and testing on Toronto streets, partnering with Toronto based Element Fleet Management and expecting hundreds of local jobs, with first public riders targeted for 2028. Why it matters: Toronto, with its winter weather, streetcars and dense streets, is the toughest and most useful test Waymo has taken on in Canada.
ChatGPT learns to split the work. In release notes published October 16, OpenAI updated GPT-6 Pro in ChatGPT so a task can be split among multiple agents working in parallel, with per agent progress visible in the Chat tab, alongside the new ChatGPT Slides for building presentations inside a conversation. Why it matters: delegation only works when you can see the work happening, and visible progress turns an opaque answer into something a team can actually review and trust.
Mercedes-Benz and Volvo bet the next decade of driving on NVIDIA. Both carmakers expanded their NVIDIA partnerships on October 16, building future automated driving on the Hyperion computing platform, the Alpamayo driving software and the Halos safety system, with future Level 4 applications in view. Why it matters: Europe’s legacy carmakers are converging on one AI driving stack, so the contest is shifting from who builds the best car alone to who builds the safest software defined car.
TIME names the inventions defining 2026. TIME’s annual Best Inventions list honors 300 ideas this year, including Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra with a built in Privacy Display that limits side angle viewing, its Bespoke AI Family Hub refrigerator that tracks food and expiry dates, and the Odyssey G8, the first gaming monitor to support 6K resolution. Why it matters: the through line this year is practical intelligence, technology that protects privacy, wastes less food and simply works harder in daily life.
That is the morning edit. We will be back tomorrow with the stories shaping tech and culture.
