According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple is preparing to unveil the AirPods 5 as soon as its expected September 9 event, alongside a foldable iPhone, iPhone 18 Pro models, and updated Apple Watches. The new earbuds will reportedly come in two versions—a standard model and one with active noise cancellation—replacing the entry-level AirPods last updated in 2024.
Pangram, a commercial AI-text detector built by New York start-up Pangram Labs, is being adopted by scientific publishers, computer-science conferences and universities to flag undisclosed AI-generated content. The American Association for Cancer Research uses it to catch peer reviewers who submit AI-written reports without disclosure, while NeurIPS rejected 18% of paper submissions after running them through the tool, and arXiv preprints can now be checked via a mirror site called alphaXiv.
As sleep monitoring devices become more widespread and sleep-enhancement technology moves from treating disorders to optimizing rest, employers and institutions are gaining new tools to measure and potentially demand better sleep from workers. A 2016 Dutch Data Protection Authority ruling already found that companies tracking employees' sleep via wearable devices violated privacy law, since such data counts as sensitive health information and consent from employees can't be truly voluntary given workplace power imbalances.
A researcher has assembled historical footage and photographs, including a BBC film of scientist Susan James testing helicopter noise levels at the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough, to document the scale of the UK's former scientific civil service. In the early 1980s that service employed tens of thousands of scientists and engineers across more than 70 research centres, including the RAE and the Building Research Establishment in Watford, running national programmes in aerodynamics, weaponry, acoustics and building science.
Researchers running UCL's chemistry department fellowship support scheme have published guidance drawn from helping more than 40 early-career researchers win independent fellowships. The advice covers assessing whether a candidate's track record fits a target fellowship, shaping a competitive research proposal, and choosing the right host institution. The authors stress that early planning during a PhD and postdoc, including mapping publication milestones, is critical to building a strong application.
Researchers analyzed nearly half a million brain cells from tissue of 30 deceased individuals, creating a detailed cellular map of the adult hippocampus. The study, published in Nature Medicine, found that people who had depression showed disrupted production of new neurons compared with those without the disorder.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has publicly criticized Amazon, focusing on the employment status of its delivery drivers, the sale of illegal e-bikes on its platform, and fines related to idling delivery vehicles. The socialist mayor is positioning these issues as part of a broader push to hold major corporations accountable for labor and safety practices in the city.
At Disney's D23 convention, the cast of Percy Jackson and the Olympians debuted a new trailer for the show's third season, which adapts Rick Riordan's book The Titan's Curse for the first time. Walker Scobell, Tamara Smart, Dafne Keen and Saara Chaudry discussed the upcoming season, which follows Percy and friends rescuing the goddess Artemis while introducing new huntress characters.
The Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has issued a Request for Information exploring changes to how vaccines are classified as routine, risk-based, or subject to shared clinical decision-making. No formal rule changes have been made yet, but the 10-page document invites public comment through September 20 on potential new labels that could sound more conditional than current designations.
A free iPhone app called Zuckoff scans Bluetooth signals to alert users when Ray-Ban Meta glasses, Snap Spectacles, or similar wearable cameras are nearby, estimating their distance. It's part of a growing set of privacy tools, including Antizuck and Nearby Glasses, built in response to concerns that smart glasses can record video without visible warning.
It has been two decades since the International Astronomical Union voted in August 2006 to strip Pluto of its planetary status, reclassifying it as a dwarf planet after astronomers discovered a similarly sized object, later named Eris, in 2005. The decision remains contentious, with figures like NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and actor William Shatner recently arguing Pluto deserves to be called a planet again.
Lenovo confirmed that some Legion Go handhelds are going blank when installing BIOS version V42. The update wasn't pushed through Windows Update or Legion Space, and Lenovo has since removed it from its support site while it investigates.