Garmin unveiled its Fenix 9 rugged smartwatch series, led by a base model with an OLED display reaching 3,000 nits brightness, double that of its predecessor, plus more RAM and a faster map engine for smoother panning. The pricier Fenix 9 Pro, starting at $1,099.99, adds a titanium case, optional satellite/LTE connectivity, a larger 1.5-inch display on its biggest size, and solar charging that can extend battery life up to 57 days under ideal outdoor conditions.
Apple has introduced a new Mac Mini and Mac Studio lineup featuring the M6, M5 Max, and M5 Ultra chips, with the M5 Ultra standing as the company's most powerful processor to date. The chip offers an 80-core GPU, up to a 36-core CPU, up to 512GB of unified memory, and quadruple the LLM prompt performance of the previous M3 Ultra, built using a quad-die design that fuses two M5 Max chips. Prices have risen across the board, with the Mac Mini M6 now starting at $899 and the top Mac Studio configuration with M5 Ultra starting at $5,499.
Sony has released the Xperia 10 VIII, a midrange Android phone that keeps most hardware from last year's Xperia 10 VII, including its 6.1-inch OLED display, Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 chip, 8GB RAM, 5,000mAh battery and dual-camera setup. The main changes are a brighter screen, louder speakers, a translucent back panel and a quick-payment shortcut, yet UK pricing jumps to £549, about £150 more than the previous model. The phone launches in September in three colors, though it remains unavailable in the US.
Thunderbolt 5 upgrades on Thunderbolt 4 by offering up to 120Gbps in one direction and 40Gbps in the other, compared to Thunderbolt 4's symmetric bandwidth, while also supporting 240 watts of power delivery. Both standards share USB-C connectors and support data, video and power over the same cables, and Thunderbolt 5 remains backwards compatible with Thunderbolt 4, 3 and USB4 devices.
Apple has quietly reissued its polishing cloth accessory, keeping the same nonabrasive material and compatibility with a long list of Apple displays dating back to the iPhone 5. The only real change is price, which drops from $19 to $9, while the product description otherwise matches the previous listing.
A bug disrupted voice-activated alarm setting on Google Home devices, including Nest speakers, displays, and third-party hardware like Lenovo smart displays, for several days in August. Users found that commands like asking for an alarm at a specific time were ignored unless they used odd workarounds, such as saying an exact hour or prefacing the request with an unrelated phrase. Google has now confirmed the issue is resolved across both Google Assistant and Gemini for Home.
Sony has officially unveiled the Xperia 10 VIII, a phone that shares almost all its hardware with the Xperia 10 VII, including the Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 chip, 8GB RAM, 128GB storage, and the same dual-camera setup. The main changes are a 50% brighter OLED display, 30% louder speakers, and new color options, while microSD expansion up to 2TB remains a standout feature. The device is priced at €599 (about $698) and is set to launch in mid-to-late this year.
Asus has launched the ZenScreen OLED MQ16FC, a 16.1-inch portable monitor with a 1920x1200 resolution OLED panel, an aluminum body weighing 1.5 pounds, and a built-in kickstand that also supports portrait orientation. The device includes dual USB-C ports, a micro-HDMI port, a headphone jack, and a tripod mount, and is priced under $300.
A reviewer tested Xreal smart glasses that tether to a laptop via USB-C and project a virtual screen equivalent to a 170-inch TV directly into the wearer's field of view. Unlike Meta's Ray-Ban glasses, these devices from makers like Xreal, Viture and Rokid contain no cameras or recording features, instead mirroring displays from laptops, phones, tablets or handheld consoles for a personal, portable viewing experience.
Android Auto mirrors a driver's phone onto a compatible car display for navigation, music, messaging, and apps, working over USB or wirelessly. Android Automotive OS, in contrast, runs natively on the vehicle's own hardware without requiring a connected phone at all.
Mark Gurman reports that Apple insiders who've handled the upcoming foldable iPhone Ultra praise its pocketability, hinge durability, iPad-style app layouts on its roughly 7.8-inch inner screen, and its usefulness as a camera viewfinder. The device, expected to launch soon with a 5.5-inch outer display, is rumored to cost over $2,000 and use Touch ID rather than Face ID, with only a main and ultra-wide camera.
A web developer describes replacing pixel-based CSS measurements with the ch unit (roughly a character's width) and the ex unit (the height of a lowercase letter) on a text-heavy blog. The goal is to size content width, padding, and margins in proportion to the text itself, using an approach like max-width: min(75ch, 100%) for readable line lengths.
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