Tech

Apple says the “restricted mode” that 9to5Mac uncovered in iOS 27 beta code won’t be used for missed lease payments in the new Apple Upgrade scheme. That does leave some pretty big questions about why Apple reportedly coded it in the first place though.

Katalyst says the Link spacecraft it launched on July 3rd to push the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory back up to a higher orbit has been in a “multi-axis spin” over the last 72 hours, resulting in sporadic communications. Having identified the cause, Katalyst is working to recover the mission and believes Link still has “a viable path to rendezvous with Swift.”

XAI has filed a lawsuit in response to a law taking effect on Saturday that bans apps and websites from generating non-consensual sexualized imagery. The Musk-led company responsible for the Grok chatbot said the law will impact free speech and visual expression “in a clumsy attempt to prohibit ‘nudification.’”

“We don’t have the same problems,” Logitech’s new gaming boss Robin Piispanen tells me during our wide-ranging chat, when I ask if PC builders are delaying peripheral purchases like other parts of their build due to RAM prices. In fact, Logitech’s gaming sales are up 12 percent YoY and 21 percent sequentially in today’s Q1 earnings.

Developer Nik Samokhvalov created a SimCity-inspired model that demonstrates how the database system PostgreSQL works, as reported earlier by Gizmodo. You can click around “PGSimCity” to learn more about each component, all while watching streams of data zip across your screen.

Arizona State has a degree for that. According to the description of the “Content Creation” program:

The team at Light has been working on minimalist phones for more than a decade. Its last device had a lot in common with a smartphone, but the newest model, the Light Flip, is something very different. Light CEO Kaiwei Tang explains why Light made a flip phone, how the world’s opinion of smartphones is changing, and whether you can cure your tech problems with more tech.

Zuckerberg argues that bringing “superintelligence” to more people is better than centralizing who controls AI:

The $169 Smart LED Monitor Stand includes a white front LED light strip with adjustable color temperature and an addressable RGB rear light strip. It’s also Matter-compatible and has 23 built-in mounting points for attaching a mic, a ring light, or other accessories.

The campus will be located in El Paso, Texas and is already under construction. It will have “1 gigawatt of compute capacity” and “will play an essential role in bringing Meta’s AI technologies to life.” BlackRock will own an 80 percent interest, while Meta will own a 20 percent interest.

The outage, which started on Monday, seemed to affect people all over the US and even some customers on MVNOs. In a 12:10PM ET post on Tuesday, the company finally said that it had “fully restored service for all customers.”

As we trudge through RAMageddon, Samsung is allegedly rushing to create new production lines, at least in part, to keep Apple from pursuing other vendors. Just yesterday, Chinese memory company CXMT became the most valuable company on Shanghai’s STAR market, and Tim Cook has reportedly been asking for permission to buy memory from the company amid the shortage.

You can now make and receive calls — including audio, video, one-on-one, and group calls — on your browser without downloading the WhatsApp app. This is launching alongside waiting room and noise suppression features, and the ability to transfer between devices during calls without hanging up.

Motorola started supporting a number of endangered languages on its phones in 2021, and now it’s launching a full-blown app to dive into indigenous languages and their communities. Motorola says its new “Indigenous Collections” app is the result of a year-long collaboration with the Rainy Lake Ojibwe community, and contains “key vocabulary and cultural context” from the Anishinaabemowin language.

While season 3 sure seemed like a finale, Ted Lasso is nonetheless back on Apple TV next week. The upcoming season sees Ted taking charge of a new women’s football team, and it’s coming just in time for those of us suffering through post-World Cup withdrawal.

Instead, Apple says users can either finish making payments on their device or switch to its new Apple Upgrade program, which will allow them to lease an iPhone, Mac, iPad, or Apple Watch. The company notes that customers can also finance a new device with monthly installments on the Apple Card.

The company has signed a voluntary code to comply with obligations under the EU’s AI Act to mark and label AI-generated content that takes effect on August 2nd. Meta unironically said it wants to help prevent “a growing array of different labels and disclosures” from confusing people and regulators, after launching its own bespoke system this month.

World Cup cameo aside, we haven’t heard much since MWC, but Honor is gearing up to release the gimbal-equipped phone in China soon. It’s teasing the camera’s capabilities, including a 200-megapixel, f/1.6, 1/1.2.8-inch-type gimbal camera, and a separate 200-megapixel, f/2.6, 1/1.4-inch-type periscope. The gimbal itself will support automatic subject tracking and six different shooting modes.