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Tech News
NASA and Caltech researchers are developing a large, flower-shaped spacecraft called a starshade that would fly in formation with a space telescope to block a star's glare. By blotting out starlight, the device would let astronomers directly observe faint, Earth-sized planets orbiting that star.
San Francisco 49ers owner Jed York was arrested Sunday in East Palestine, Ohio, on misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and possessing criminal tools, and was released the same day on his own recognizance. He pleaded no contest to both charges Monday, receiving a $150 fine and a two-day jail sentence, with court records showing the disorderly conduct charge was originally filed as engaging in prostitution before being amended.
Instagram has introduced First Draft, a new editing feature on iPhone that automatically trims multiple video clips to cut pauses and highlight key moments before stitching them into a shareable Reel. The company says the tool works with multi-clip montages, talking-head videos, and day-in-the-life content, and serves as an editable starting point rather than a finished product. Instagram confirmed the feature does not rely on AI, distinguishing it from similar tools like Adobe's Quick Cut.
A Congressional Research Service report cited by the Library of Congress estimates US data centers consumed 17 billion gallons of water in 2023, about triple the 2014 level. Over 80% of that footprint comes indirectly from electricity generation needed to power the facilities, rather than from onsite cooling systems.
CCP Games has started transitioning EVE Online's server codebase from Python 2.7, unchanged since 2010, to Python 3. Initial changes were already tested on the Singularity test server and have now been deployed to the live game as the first phase of a longer migration.
Apple has launched M6, its first chip built on a 2-nanometer process, inside a refreshed Mac mini, featuring a 12-core CPU, 12-core GPU and a Dual 16-core Neural Engine. Alongside it, the new Mac Studio gets M5 Ultra, Apple's first quad-die SoC, offering up to 36 CPU cores, 80 GPU cores and 1.2TB/s of memory bandwidth.
Apple has updated the Mac mini and Mac Studio with two new chips: the M6, its first 2nm chip, and the M5 Ultra, now the most powerful chip in its lineup for AI tasks. The hardware itself sees no major feature additions beyond the spec bump, but Apple's messaging emphasizes their suitability for local AI inference and development.
Qualcomm has revealed that its upcoming flagship Snapdragon processor will be the first smartphone chip to run at 5GHz. Alongside this, the company introduced Oryon FlexCache, an architecture that lets Prime cores dynamically access a shared pool of cache memory rather than being limited to a fixed allocation.
IBM built a top-secret cryptographic computer called Harvest for the National Security Agency, which operated from the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 until the mid-1970s. The machine processed data up to 200 times faster than other computers of its era and included the first automated tape library, robotically retrieving magnetic tape cassettes on demand. IBM also created a custom programming language, Alpha, so analysts could describe cryptographic problems the way Fortran was used for scientific computation.
Universal Studios Hollywood spent three years and heavy engineering—pea gravel track fill, glass 'scream screens,' and a 940-foot sound wall—to minimize noise from a new 72-mph looping coaster near a residential area. The measures worked during rider-free tests, but once real passengers boarded, nearby residents reported constant, piercing screams every 30 seconds throughout operating hours. Universal is now adding more sound barriers and adjusting hours to address the ongoing complaints.
A contributor to Entrepreneur argues that growth-stage CEOs who attribute weak Q3 numbers to a seasonal 'summer slump' are masking deeper flaws in their scaling systems. The piece calls on leaders to use the quieter summer months to audit sales funnels, delivery processes and leadership workflows rather than waiting passively for business to pick up in Q4. It also cites Alex Hormozi's '$100M Leads' as a reference point for building predictable lead-generation systems.
Apple has refreshed its Mac Mini and Mac Studio lineups, but industry-wide memory chip shortages combined with surging demand for AI computing hardware are expected to limit availability. Buyers hoping for quick access to these updated compact desktops may face delays or stock shortages in the near term.