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Tech News
Apple has set a launch event for Sept. 9 at its Cupertino campus, inviting media with the tagline 'Surprise and shine.' The event is expected to unveil new iPhones and Apple Watches, including Apple's first foldable phone, alongside a fresh version of Siri built on large language model technology.
Risklytics, a member of YC's Summer 2026 batch, has launched as an insurance brokerage focused on companies deploying AI agents and robots in operational roles. The startup works with carriers willing to underwrite these emerging risks and manually reviews policy language before coverage is finalized, aiming to catch exclusions that standard commercial forms weren't written to address.
Apple and the state of Virginia have launched digital driver's license support in Apple Wallet, letting residents add their license to iPhone and Apple Watch. Users can add it by scanning both sides of their physical license and completing an identity verification process in the Wallet app. Virginia joins 14 other states already offering the feature since Apple first introduced it in 2021.
ATV Launcher Pro's version 0.1.40 update introduces a new layout editor that lets Android TV users add, move, hide, and restyle home screen sections directly on the screen with live previews. The update also brings 12 row styles, seven tile layouts, screen breaks, icon packs, video wallpapers, new widgets, focus effects, and support for Android 16.
Apple has scheduled its next hardware event for September 9th at 1PM ET, held at the Steve Jobs Theater with a livestream option, under the tagline 'Surprise and shine.' The showcase is expected to feature updated Pro and Pro Max iPhones along with a possible first look at a long-rumored foldable iPhone, though the standard iPhone 18 won't debut until next year.
NASA hired startup Katalyst Space Technologies to launch an autonomous spacecraft called LINK to dock with the 21-year-old Swift observatory and push it into a stable orbit, mirroring Jared Isaacman's earlier scrapped plan to save the Hubble. The rushed, high-risk mission, assembled in record time after Isaacman became NASA administrator, ultimately fell apart before achieving its goal.
SpaceX intends to build a new 125,000-acre spaceport called Starbase Louisiana at Pecan Island, featuring five launch complexes, propellant production, power generation, deep-water shipping and an airport. Construction is slated to begin in 2027 with a first launch targeted for 2029, and the site could eventually support thousands of missions annually.
SpaceX and Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry announced plans for a 125,000-acre spaceport called Starbase, Louisiana, located at Pecan Island on the state's southern coast. The site will feature five launch complexes with two pads each, plus propellant production, power generation, vehicle processing facilities, and housing for workers, giving SpaceX a third launch location alongside its Texas and Florida sites.
Perplexity has released Portable Computer, an agentic AI tool that runs entirely on local hardware instead of the cloud, built in partnership with NVIDIA. It relies on compact models like Qwen 3.8 and NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning to handle complex tasks on-device, and only reaches out to cloud-based models when needed, with user permission. The feature is currently available to Perplexity Pro and Max subscribers running NVIDIA's DGX Spark hardware, with RTX GPU support planned.
SpaceX announced plans to construct a 125,000-acre launch facility in Louisiana, its largest to date, with construction starting next year. Named Starbase Louisiana, the site aims to support thousands of annual Starship missions to orbit, the Moon and Mars, with the first launch targeted for 2029. The project is expected to directly create over 3,000 jobs and generate more than 8,100 additional indirect jobs in the region.
Alabama has launched a state investigation examining how OpenAI obtained or used data connected to Hugging Face's model repository. Details of the alleged breach or improper access remain limited, but the inquiry signals regulatory scrutiny of how leading AI firms acquire training resources.
Laurie Stach, a 2006 MIT graduate, recalled harboring an early drive to tackle big problems and discovered at MIT that many of her peers shared that same ambition. She argues that while adults praise talented young people in math and science, conventional schooling fails to equip them to act on their ideas now rather than in some distant future.