The Download: the agentic web arrives and the drive for safer roads

The shift carries an unresolved question the piece flags directly: whether the human web survives the transition, and what users lose along the way. The full treatment sits in a linked feature on how agents are reshaping the internet.

The second lead story is the finale of "Are we there yet?", a series scoring six long-promised technologies in the publication's Impossible issue, by Sara Kiley Watson. Traffic crashes kill more than 1 million people worldwide each year and rank as the leading cause of death for children and young adults. Proven, inexpensive countermeasures exist — tighter intersections with planters, lower speed limits — but government logjams and red tape stall rollout. Some cities still move, investing in public transit, extending curbs, and deploying cameras to spot danger zones needing redesign.

The must-reads section splits between markets and security. A $1 trillion tech selloff deepened AI bubble fears as big AI bills and weak earnings spooked investors; the Nasdaq 100 posted its worst day since June, and OpenAI cut its funding target by $10 billion. Hackers struck Ukraine's and Russia's emergency alert apps, warning Kyiv residents of "nuclear danger" while a Russian app claimed nuclear warheads had been launched; Ukraine blamed Russia, which has not accused anyone.

Crypto and lab automation drew attention too. Binance users pulled $3.6 billion when the exchange reopened Sunday after its largest-ever hack; the company says it has covered $6 billion of the $6.3 billion stolen, though the response undercuts the industry's decentralized image. An AI agent injected drugs into a live mouse's brain, selecting the gene therapy and operating the needle itself — reviving calls for real-time agent tracking.

Rounding out the list: data centres have made utilities a flashpoint in the midterms as Americans fume over electricity bills, with virtual power plants floated as a remedy; and Apple overtook Nvidia as the world's most valuable company as investors rewarded its AI spending restraint, even as critics call it a "slop era." What to watch: whether agent-driven browsing degrades the human web, whether bubble fears and OpenAI's lowered target ripple into startup funding, and whether critical-alert infrastructure gets hardened against the kind of hack seen in Kyiv and Moscow.