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Tech News
SpaceX plans to launch its 14th Starship test flight as early as September 22 from Texas, pending regulatory approval, marking the first attempt to send the vehicle into orbit. The mission will carry 26 large V3 Starlink satellites to a 275 km orbit, with the upper stage aiming to complete six orbits over roughly 10 hours.
Analyst Jeff Pu has lowered his 2026 shipment estimate for Apple's foldable iPhone Duo from 7 million to 6 million units, citing hinge-related production constraints rather than weak demand. Pre-orders for the device, which starts at $1,999, open October 16 with deliveries beginning October 23. By comparison, Pu expects roughly 72 million iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max units to ship this year.
AppZapper, the veteran Mac utility for thoroughly removing apps and their leftover files, has relaunched as AppZapper 3000 after a long absence. The new version keeps its signature zap sound effects but adds a playful blaster-style cursor animation for deleting app remnants. It's free to try with three zaps included, after which a license costs $18.
US Air Force Secretary Troy Meink stated in a speech that the military has already placed space control weapons in orbit capable of defending US forces against hostile action. He gave no details on what the weapons are, how they work, or how many exist, and the Air Force declined to comment further when asked.
An Entrepreneur contributor describes a COO who resolved a six-week product launch delay caused by slow procurement approval on packaging spec changes by setting a spending cap for same-day approval of urgent vendor fees. The next launch hit its date, proving the fix worked for that specific request, but the piece argues this success can mask a deeper, recurring tension between speed and financial oversight that will resurface elsewhere.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman outlines Apple's near-term product roadmap, saying six devices should ship before year's end, including touchscreen MacBook Pro models, an updated non-touch 14-inch MacBook Pro, a refreshed iMac with an M6 chip, a HomePod mini 2 and Apple TV 4K with Siri AI, and an OLED iPad mini. The long-rumored HomePad smart display remains unconfirmed for this window, with Gurman calling its timing still fluid. He also previews a first-half-2027 wave covering an iPhone Air 2, an OLED iPad Air, and mostly iterative chip upgrades across iPhone, MacBook Air, MacBook Neo and iPad Pro lines.
AMD's Gigabyte Gaming Radeon RX 9070 GRE, a 12GB RDNA 4 graphics card, has dropped to $499 at Newegg through a promotional email code, matching its lowest price ever recorded and undercutting its $569.99 list price by $70. The card uses a cut-down Navi 48 chip with 48 compute units and 220W power draw, delivering strong 1080p and solid 1440p gaming performance in prior benchmarks.
Valve has opened reservations for its standalone Steam Frame VR headset, priced at $1,059 for 256GB storage or $1,299 for 1TB, with sign-ups closing September 17 and invitations sent starting September 18. Every unit includes two controllers, a 6GHz wireless adapter, and a native Arm64 rebuild of Half-Life: Alyx that runs directly on the device.
Google has cut prices across its Pixel 11 lineup just before Apple's iPhone 18 Pro debuts on September 18th. The Pixel 11 Pro is now around $1,007 at Amazon, the standard Pixel 11 has dropped to about $840, and the budget Pixel 10A has fallen to $424.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports Apple has spent over a year building its own gamepads for iPhone, following code found in a macOS 26.7 release candidate. Two versions are in development, differing in motion sensors and haptics, both featuring a standard layout with D-pad, dual sticks, shoulder buttons and triggers. Beats executives are reportedly leading the project, hinting the controllers may launch as Beats accessories rather than Apple-branded products.
Blizzard unveiled World of Warcraft: Forever at BlizzCon 2026, a permanent Classic+ style version of the original 2004 game launching November 4. The expansion adds over 1,000 quests, nine dungeons, two raids, four new zones, and a new Skyborne elf race, all while keeping the level cap frozen at 60. It joins Modern (Retail) and Classic as a third permanent version of WoW.
Newegg is selling AMD's Ryzen 7 9850X3D, currently the top gaming CPU on the market, for $484, roughly $15 under its original launch price. The deal throws in a 240mm Cooler Master AIO liquid cooler worth $79.99 and a copy of Onimusha: Way of the Sword worth $69.99 at no extra cost. The chip, an upgraded version of the 9800X3D announced at CES 2026, keeps the same 8-core/16-thread design and 3D V-Cache but adds a higher boost clock for a modest gaming performance gain.