John Ternus, Apple's 25-year veteran and head of hardware since 2021, officially takes over as CEO from Tim Cook on Tuesday, making him only the second chief executive since Steve Jobs. Cook, 65, will remain with the company as executive chairman, engaging with global policymakers, while the 51-year-old Ternus inherits full responsibility for software, devices, finance and legal operations. The handoff comes as Apple faces pressure to prove its AI strategy and navigate rising memory component costs.
CNET's People's Picks community survey asked readers to rate their internet service providers on cost, speed, reliability and customer support. GFiber, formerly Google Fiber, emerged as the overall favorite with a 4.72 out of 5 satisfaction score, beating close competitors Verizon Fios and AT&T Fiber, while T-Mobile Home Internet topped the 5G category with a 4.20 satisfaction rating.
Sonos held an event in New York to launch the Beam Ultra soundbar and Ace Ultra headphones alongside a major software update called Sonos 27, marking its largest product reveal since the troubled 2024 app relaunch. The update introduces an in-house voice assistant, Sonos 27voice, plus Sonos 27mcp, which lets users link outside AI models like ChatGPT or Gemini to control their systems, though Google Assistant remains unsupported. A future feature will let users build up to 10 custom AI agents with distinct voices and personalities to handle tasks like news updates or motivational prompts.
Starcloud founders Philip Johnston, Adi Oltean, and Ezra Feilden, along with program manager Garret Jameson, have unveiled Fermi Explorer, a nonprofit aiming to send a 1-kilogram spacecraft toward Alpha Centauri using existing space technology. The mission, budgeted at roughly $15 million and targeting a 2029 launch, would take about 80,000 years to reach the star and would be the sixth object to leave our solar system after Voyager and its peers.
Roland has launched the FP-40 digital piano, notable for including built-in Wi-Fi rather than the more common Bluetooth connection found on rival instruments. The piano pairs with a new companion app called Piano Sphere, which delivers real-time feedback, song libraries, and courses, while the piano itself logs practice history and flags when a player is struggling. Roland also equipped the instrument with its Piano Reality Sound Engine and weighted, triple-sensor hammer-action keys aimed at mimicking acoustic piano feel.
A Glassdoor review analysis found 98% of claims-adjuster reviews mentioning AI were negative, the highest criticism rate among occupations studied. Adjusters like Ahmad Jackson describe AI misclassifying claims during initial loss reporting, forcing workers to correct faulty summaries and reroute files manually. Insurers continue expanding AI into chatbots, damage assessment, and medical record summarization despite these frontline complaints.
Samsung has introduced a cheaper variant of its Galaxy Book 6 laptop lineup, starting at $799, positioned as a lower-cost alternative to earlier models that began at $1,050. The new laptop runs on Intel Core 3 or Core 5 processors, with configurable storage up to 1TB and RAM up to 16GB, and features a 14-inch display with up to 25 hours of battery life. It comes in Gray and a new Violet Silver color and includes AI tools like AI Select and Note Assist.
Canadian auto parts maker Magna International is investing an additional $35 million into Yuma Energy, a Bengaluru-based battery-swapping startup spun out of Yulu in 2023. The new funding raises Magna's stake beyond the 51% it held since the joint venture began, diluting Yulu's share, though the exact new split wasn't disclosed. Yuma has completed over 60 million swaps and has roughly 100,000 batteries deployed for electric two- and three-wheelers.
JBL unveiled three new Wi-Fi speakers under the Cove name: the $230 Cove M1, the $400 portable Cove P1, and the $450 Dolby Atmos-equipped Cove X1. All three connect via the JBL One app for synced multiroom playback and can double as rear speakers for JBL's Bar Series MK2 soundbars, with availability starting September 13 in black and white.
Google has introduced a new slash command, /boost, in Antigravity 2.0 and the Antigravity CLI that triggers a multi-agent reasoning pipeline for difficult coding problems like race conditions, complex refactors, and subtle bugs. The feature works through a three-phase process where an orchestrator agent breaks down the problem and dispatches specialized subagents to isolated workstreams, then verifies results across multiple rounds. The command is restricted to paid plan subscribers.
A technical retrospective examines a decompiled 2004 RuneScape 2 client to explain how Jagex packed a 3D game world with up to a couple thousand concurrent players onto connections as slow as 5 KB/s. The analysis traces a single player movement command byte-by-byte from click to server to another player's screen, revealing the extreme data-efficiency techniques used. These core network principles reportedly persisted from RuneScape Classic through to Old School RuneScape and RuneScape 3 today.
A gene-editing therapy designed to permanently lower cholesterol has shown sustained reductions in patients for at least 12 months after a single treatment. The therapy uses CRISPR technology to edit genes tied to cholesterol regulation, aiming for a one-time fix rather than daily medication.
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