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NASA plans to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Aug. 30, a $4.3 billion observatory built from a spare satellite donated by the National Reconnaissance Office roughly 15 years ago. The telescope will search for Type 1A supernovas and study dark energy, the mysterious force driving the universe's expansion, while also hunting for exoplanets.
The European Space Agency signed contracts totaling hundreds of millions of euros with three European launch startups—Rocket Factory Augsburg, PLD Space and Isar Aerospace—to fund continued development of their small launch vehicles. RFA received 186.9 million euros, PLD Space 158.9 million euros, and Isar Aerospace 197.8 million euros, mostly financed by their home nations with contributions from partner countries. A separate deal with MaiaSpace is reportedly close to finalization.
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled to launch Sunday from Kennedy Space Center aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The $4.3 billion observatory began as a surveillance satellite platform built by the National Reconnaissance Office for post-9/11 intelligence gathering, which was donated to NASA after the spy program was scrapped before launch.
Apple is reportedly preparing a new Apple TV 4K that could debut at its September 9 event, after being delayed from last fall. Leaked code and reports point to an updated Siri Remote, a faster A-series chip, the new N1 wireless chip for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, and integration of Siri AI alongside broader Apple Intelligence features.
LinkedIn introduced a feature letting users flag posts they suspect are low-quality AI-generated content, and more than a million people used it within the first two weeks. Chief product officer Hari Srinivasan said member views of flagged AI content have dropped 40% since the tool launched, though he acknowledged more work remains.
Following Apple's announcement of refreshed Mac Studio and Mac mini lineups with M6 and M5 Pro/Max/Ultra chips, retailers Amazon and Best Buy began accepting pre-orders the same day. Pricing starts at $899 for the base Mac mini and $2,499 for the Mac Studio, alongside an updated Magic Keyboard and a cheaper $9 Polishing Cloth.
M5Stack has launched PaperMono, a compact development device combining a 3.97-inch grayscale E-Ink touchscreen with NFC, LoRa, microSD, RTC and a 1150mAh battery, all powered by an ESP32-S3R8 chip. The product ships in two versions: a full model with NFC and LoRa, and a Lite variant that drops those connectivity options for makers focused purely on E-Ink development. It's available now through the M5Stack Store.
Speedo has introduced SpeedoIQ, a removable sensor module that fits into its Vanquisher swim goggles to track pace, distance, breathing, head position and turns. Unlike rival Form's in-goggle display, SpeedoIQ stores data for review after a swim via a companion app, and World Aquatics has cleared it for competitive use. Speedo says it works across all stroke types without requiring a subscription, though pricing and release timing remain unannounced.
Salem Robotics, founded by veterans of UT Austin robotics research and Los Alamos National Laboratory, is building software that lets existing mobile robots perform hazardous industrial inspections such as radioactive contamination smears and leak detection checks. The system focuses on precise, constrained manipulation—keeping a probe normal to a surface or within a tight offset from a pipe—while accounting for kinematics, joint limits, and collisions. The company demonstrated its software running on real robot hardware in a launch video.
X has rolled out a new feed called NFL Gametime, sitting alongside the For You and Following tabs, offering real-time scores, play-by-play data, league news and creator commentary. The feed is live now and will run through the 2027 Super Bowl, built around a static GameTime hub for tracking games.
Following the M6 Mac mini launch, Apple is reportedly planning to bring the M6 chip to the base 14-inch MacBook Pro and iMac this fall, with the M6 iPad Pro and MacBook Air expected in spring 2027. Pro and Max chip variants will skip M6 entirely, jumping straight to M7 Pro and M7 Max in 2027, while a rumored MacBook Ultra will instead use M5 Pro and M5 Max silicon.
AWS introduced Route 53 Files, a feature that exposes hosted zones as a standard file system so DNS records can be edited with ordinary UNIX tools like a text editor. Changes made through the file system, the AWS console, the API, or CLI all sync automatically, and the file system can be mounted on EC2 instances, ECS or EKS containers, and Lambda functions.