According to a Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture (NAL), the three individuals operated two RF jamming devices during the jewelry store burglary, which took place in September 2025. The individuals were apprehended at the scene by Irving Police, who found them in possession of two battery-powered RF jammers operating in the 700‑MHz band. They were later charged with burglary and interference with police communications.
The Federal Communications Act prohibits the operation of RF jammers in the U.S. The FCC’s NAL proposes a penalty of $25,000 for the three individuals found at the scene in possession of the jammers.
In a Public Notice, the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) announced the formation of a new Innovation Zone for Program Experimental Licenses in and near the campus of Iowa State University. According to the Notice, experimentation within the zone will “study new use cases for precision agriculture in both crop and livestock farms.”
The creation and design of the new Innovation Zone is based on a proposal from the Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR), a project under the National Science Foundation, which is launching a new research project that will focus on rural wireless systems and applications.
Concurrent with the launch of the Innovation Zone at Iowa State, the OET has also expanded spectrum bands available for use at the Innovation Zone at Northeastern University in Boston, as well as the geographic boundaries of Innovation Zones at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC and in Salt Lake City, UT.
According to a recent report issued by the non-profit environmental group Basel Action Network (BAN), the exponential growth of data centers to support AI will also lead to a “tsunami” of electronic waste (e-waste). The report estimates that e-waste directly connected with AI‑supporting data centers will more than triple the annual rate of e-waste generation over the next 25 years.
Data centers of all types include warehouse-size collections of computers and data servers that support the global infrastructure, including the growth and deployment of AI-related technologies. These computers and servers typically have a useful life of 2-5 years and will then need to be replaced with new equipment. In addition, the BAN Report says that existing systems may need to be replaced more frequently to support the capacity required for AI applications.
Unless data center equipment is specifically designed for repair, reuse, or recycling, BAN projects that e-waste will result in 13 million metric tons annually by the year 2030.
The draft guidance, titled “Robotically‑Assisted Surgical Devices – Premarket Submissions,” offers device manufacturers recommendations on non‑clinical testing, clinical data, and labeling associated with certain robotically‑assisted surgical devices (RASDs).
Specific devices included under the scope of the guidance include “teleoperated, software-controlled systems that integrate robotic technologies and subassemblies,” that are “designed to assist qualified practitioners in precisely positioning and controlling one or more surgical instruments…”
A reminder that guidance documents issued by the FDA solely reflect the FDA’s current thinking and are intended to promote consistency in premarket submissions filed by device manufacturers.
Comments can be submitted through November 24, 2026 at Regulations.gov (reference FDA Docket ID FDA‑2026-N-9505-0001).
The discussion paper, titled “Considerations for the Regulation of Generative AI-Enabled Medical Devices,” addresses several topics, including:
- Considerations for the assessment of risk for generative AI-enabled medical devices;
- Considerations for premarket evaluation of such devices;
- Postmarket monitoring considerations of such devices.
The discussion paper also includes questions for those stakeholders who would like to share their perspective on the issues raised in the paper.
The paper was prepared by the FDA’s Digital Health Center of Excellence (DHCoE), which operates under the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH).
The FDA’s draft Guidance, titled “Electronic Submission Template for Premarket Approval Applications (PMA),” provides an overview of the currently available content and resources to assist device manufacturers with their submissions. According to the FDA, the draft Guidance is intended to provide “guided submission preparation tools for industry to improve submission consistency and enhance consistency in the review process.”
The draft Guidance is available on the FDA website. Comments can be filed through Regulations.gov under docket number FDA‑2026-D-9429. The comment period ends November 17, 2026.
This year’s awards ceremony was held in Zurich, Switzerland, the first time that the awards ceremony was held in a location other than the United States.
This year’s new Ig Nobel Prize award winners include:
- For biomechanics, a team of researchers from the UK and the U.S. for “devising a more precise definition of kissing… in ants, birds, polar bears, and humans;”
- For medicine, the work of the late Tokuji Unno, a researcher in Japan, as presented in his paper “How to Blow the Nose – An Aerodynamic Study of Nose Blowing;”
- For biology, researchers from Brazil and Australia whose research “tried to learn what does and does not induce a venomous snake to bite a human;”
- For physics, a consortium of researchers from Canada, the U.S., China, and Saudi Arabia for their “theoretical and experimental attempts to design a splash-free urinal;”
- For technology, a team of researchers from China, Canada, the U.S., and Egypt for “pioneering the use of mosquito proboscises as high-resolution 3D printing nozzles, a process called ‘Necroprinting’;”
- And, finally, for the Ig Nobel Peace Prize, researchers from the U.S., Argentina, and Australia for “documenting that we value friends who are vicious to people we dislike.”
If you’ve never heard of the Ig Nobel Prizes, they are not to be confused with the annual Nobel Prizes, typically announced in early October. Instead, the Ig Nobel Prizes “honor achievements that first make people laugh and then make them think.”