The Desk — Edition 76
Welcome to the 76th issue of the Desk. The Desk is my weekly newsletter covering newly published content and project updates.
Welcome to the 76th issue of The Desk — my weekly roundup of newly published content, project updates, and recommendations. Whether you’re following along for tutorials, blog posts, GitHub projects, or curated reads, there’s something for everyone building or exploring in tech, content, and open-source spaces.
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New Blog Posts
This week’s posts content focused on travel blogging and digital marketing:
How to Craft Travel Blog Posts That Brands Love to Sponsor
Learn how to write sponsored travel blog posts that brands want to collaborate on. Align goals, add value, and measure success step-by-step.
Brandon Himpfen
Google Expands AI Travel Planning and Booking Features in Search
Google is expanding AI-powered travel tools in Search with Canvas itinerary planning, global Flight Deals, and broader agentic booking. The updates deepen Google’s move toward end-to-end trip planning and reservations inside AI Mode.
Brandon Himpfen
Google Announces Major Improvements to Ads Account Suspension Accuracy and Appeal Speed
Google has introduced major improvements to its Ads enforcement system, reducing incorrect suspensions by over 80% and speeding up appeal reviews. Advertisers can now expect faster resolutions, clearer guidance, and greater stability across campaigns.
Brandon Himpfen
Google Clarifies Review Snippet Guidance: Use a Single Review Target
Google updated its review snippet documentation to clarify that each review or rating must link to one clear target. The change highlights common schema errors that create ambiguous relationships and offers guidance for improving structured data accuracy.
Brandon Himpfen
Meta Projects ~$16 B in Revenue from Scam and Illicit Ads, Internal Documents Show
Internal Meta documents reviewed by Reuters reveal up to 10% of Meta’s 2024 ad revenue — about $16 billion — may come from scam and banned-goods ads. The report raises questions about Meta’s enforcement limits, advertiser risk, and regulatory scrutiny.
Brandon Himpfen
OpenAI’s Sam Altman Warns That Personalized AI Raises Major Security Risks
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says AI security will define the next phase of AI development, warning that personalization introduces new risks as models learn from user data. He urges researchers to focus on protecting systems from manipulation and data exfiltration.
Brandon Himpfen
Robots.txt Deep Dive: Advanced Configurations for Complex Websites
Gain full control of your site’s crawl behavior with this in-depth technical guide to advanced robots.txt configurations. Learn how to optimize crawl budgets, manage complex architectures, and orchestrate search and AI crawler access at scale.
Brandon Himpfen
YouTube Clarifies: No Benefit to Waiting 24–48 Hours Before Publishing Videos
YouTube clarified there’s no algorithmic advantage to waiting 24–48 hours before publishing. The platform’s recommendation system learns only from audience behavior once videos are public, not from upload timing.
Brandon Himpfen
Stay tuned as I continue publishing more posts each week across Bold Outlook, Solo Traveler and Travel Bloggers Network.
New Newsletter Issues
Published several new newsletter issues as part of This Week In:
Golang Weekly Issue 160
Welcome to the 160th issue of Golang Weekly, a weekly newsletter about the Go programming language.
This Week In I/O
Python Weekly Issue 147
Welcome to the 147th issue of Python Weekly, a weekly newsletter about the Python programming language.
This Week In I/O
Node Weekly Issue 150
Node Weekly Issue 150th issue of Node Weekly, a free weekly e-mail round-up of Node.js news and articles.
This Week In I/O
Ruby Weekly Issue 155
Welcome to the 155th issue of Ruby Weekly, a free weekly e-mail round-up of Ruby news and articles.
This Week In I/O
JavaScript Weekly Issue 153
Welcome to the 153rd issue of JavaScript Weekly, a weekly newsletter of JavaScript articles, news and cool projects.
This Week In I/O
React Weekly Issue 152
Welcome to the 152nd issue of React Weekly, weekly roundup of the latest React and React Native links and tutorials.
This Week In I/O
New GitHub Orgs
I launched a new GitHub organization to focus on my AI research and resources:
Canada AI
An open research initiative advancing responsible and independent AI in Canada. - Canada AI
These are all part of my broader GitHub ecosystem (e.g., BrandonTravel, Bold Outlook, AwesomeListsIO). Contributions welcome!
New GitHub Repos
Here are a collection of brand new GitHub repos:
GitHub - travelbloggersnetwork/static
Contribute to travelbloggersnetwork/static development by creating an account on GitHub.
travelbloggersnetwork
GitHub - solotravelerorg/static
Contribute to solotravelerorg/static development by creating an account on GitHub.
solotravelerorg
I regularly publish new GitHub repos, so please ensure to follow my GitHub and or my GitHub orgs for the latest.
Updated GitHub Repos
Here are notable updates to existing GitHub repositories:
GitHub - awesomelistsio/awesome-computer-vision: A curated list of awesome libraries, frameworks, tools, datasets, and research papers in computer vision, covering topics such as object detection, image segmentation, 3D vision, and more.
A curated list of awesome libraries, frameworks, tools, datasets, and research papers in computer vision, covering topics such as object detection, image segmentation, 3D vision, and more. - awesom…
awesomelistsio
GitHub - boldoutlook/static
Contribute to boldoutlook/static development by creating an account on GitHub.
boldoutlook
Brandon Travel datasets is now live on Zenodo and has a DOI:
GitHub - brandontravel/datasets: A collection of travel-related datasets for a variety of topics from accommodations to finance to logistics.
A collection of travel-related datasets for a variety of topics from accommodations to finance to logistics. - brandontravel/datasets
brandontravel
I’m constantly improving my GitHub repositories to make them more useful for both contributors and end users.
Recommended Reading
Here are a few standout articles and blog posts I recommend checking out this week:
Google to release Nano Banana Pro next week
Google is set to launch Gemini 3 and Nano Banana Pro next week, with new image generation capabilities hinted at in the recent announcements.
Alexey Shabanov
Kosmos: An AI Scientist for Autonomous Discovery
Today, we are announcing Kosmos, our next-generation AI Scientist. Kosmos is a major upgrade on Robin, our previous AI Scientist. You can read about it in our technical report, here. Kosmos is available to use from day one on our platform, here.
Chinese State Hackers Jailbroke Claude AI Code for Automated Breaches
Follow us on Bluesky, Twitter (X), Mastodon and Facebook at @Hackread
Deeba Ahmed
DoorDash hit by new data breach in October exposing user information
DoorDash has disclosed a data breach that hit the food delivery platform this October. Beginning yesterday evening, DoorDash, which serves millions of customers across the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, started emailing those impacted by the newly discovered security incident.
Ax Sharma
Logitech confirms data breach after Clop extortion attack
Hardware accessory giant Logitech has confirmed it suffered a data breach in a cyberattack claimed by the Clop extortion gang, which conducted Oracle E-Business Suite data theft attacks in July.
Lawrence Abrams
Pine Labs gets warm market welcome on $440M India IPO despite a valuation trim | TechCrunch
Pine Labs, backed by PayPal and Mastercard, gained 14% on its market debut.
Jagmeet Singh
PayPal relaunches in the UK with debit and credit cards plus rewards
PayPal, one of most widely-used digital wallets in the UK1, is relaunching as a unified payment experience for customers to shop online and now in-stores.
Editorial Team
Why Is Crypto Down Today: Market Slips Into ‘Extreme Fear’ After BTC Fails to Hold $100,000
The sell-off is attributed to a combination of factors, including profit-taking, institutional outflows, macro uncertainty, and low liquidity.
Francisco Rodrigues
Tim Cook could step down as Apple CEO ‘as soon as next year’ - 9to5Mac
The Financial Times reports that Apple has stepped up its preparations for the handover of the CEO role from Tim Cook. Here are the details.
Marcus Mendes
Over 67,000 Fake npm Packages Flood Registry in Worm-Like Spam Attack
A mysterious npm worm published 46K fake packages in a two-year spam campaign, exposing major security gaps.
The Hacker News
Cl0p Ransomware Lists NHS UK as Victim, Days After Washington Post Breach
Follow us on Bluesky, Twitter (X), Mastodon and Facebook at @Hackread
Waqas
Anthropic invests $50 billion in American AI infrastructure
Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that’s working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.
Amazon discovers APT exploiting Cisco and Citrix zero-days | Amazon Web Services
The Amazon threat intelligence teams have identified an advanced threat actor exploiting previously undisclosed zero-day vulnerabilities in Cisco Identity Service Engine (ISE) and Citrix systems. The campaign used custom malware and demonstrated access to multiple undisclosed vulnerabilities. This discovery highlights the trend of threat actors focusing on critical identity and network access control infrastructure—the systems […]
SAP fixed a maximum severity flaw in SQL Anywhere Monitor
SAP fixed 19 flaws, including a critical issue in SQL Anywhere Monitor with hardcoded credentials that could enable remote code execution.
Pierluigi Paganini
OpenAI releases GPT-5.1 to all ChatGPT users
Polaris Alpha model from OpenRouter is GPT-5.1; GPT-5.1 excels at Creative Writing; GPT‑5.1 Thinking varies its thinking time more dynamically than GPT‑5 Thinking.
Alexey Shabanov
OpenAI readies ChatGPT Group Chats with custom controls
OpenAI plans Group Chats for ChatGPT, letting teams now coordinate shared exchanges with custom prompts, potentially set for a December launch.
Alexey Shabanov
ByteDance unveils China’s most affordable AI coding agent at just US$1.30 a month
The TikTok owner’s cloud unit has launched a new AI coding assistant, stoking China’s AI coding price war.
Danielle Popov
Hitachi-owned GlobalLogic admits data stolen by Clop
: Clop’s Oracle EBS exploit spree shows no sign of slowing, claims nearly 30 more casualties in media, finance, and tech.
Carly Page
Quantum Route Redirect PhaaS targets Microsoft 365 users worldwide
A new phishing automation platform named Quantum Route Redirect is using around 1,000 domains to steal Microsoft 365 users’ credentials.
Bill Toulas
Bank of England Confirms Plans for ‘Temporary’ Stablecoin Holding Limits
The U.K.’s central bank said on Monday it is proposing “temporary” limits of 20,000 pounds ($26,300) per coin for individuals and 10 million pounds for businesses.
Jamie Crawley
Senate Committee Drafts Crypto Bill to Define CFTC Role in Overseeing Markets
The bill brings Congress a step closer to firmly defining how the CFTC and SEC can oversee crypto.
Nikhilesh De
Google says new cloud-based “Private AI Compute” is just as secure as local processing
New system allows devices to connect directly to secure space in Google’s AI servers.
Ryan Whitwam
Hackers Exploit Triofox 0-Day to Deploy Malicious Payloads Using Anti-Virus Feature
Researchers have uncovered a critical zero-day vulnerability in Gladinet’s Triofox file-sharing platform that allowed attackers to bypass authentication.
Divya
These are curated for developers, creators, travelers, and digital professionals — with an eye on quality and depth.
Thanks for reading The Desk — Edition 76! If you found something valuable, feel free to share it or subscribe to keep up with future updates.