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Engadget's review of Valve's Steam Frame VR headset finds it capably runs a standalone version of Half-Life: Alyx along with older VR titles like Beat Saber and Superhot, loading faster than Meta's Quest 3. The headset also supports newer SteamVR games, 2D Steam titles, and wireless PC streaming, positioning it as a broader 'Steam Machine' for the face rather than a pure standalone device.
Researchers analyzing data from NASA's Messenger spacecraft now estimate Mercury has contracted up to 14 miles in diameter as its interior cooled over billions of years, roughly 30% more shrinkage than previously calculated. The findings, published in Geophysical Research Letters, suggest the planet's cratered, debris-strewn surface had obscured the true scale of this shrinkage.
At IFA 2026, laptop makers showed a market polarizing into cheap machines under $800 with 8GB of RAM and premium AI-oriented systems costing thousands with up to 192GB of memory, leaving little in the middle tier. Companies including Lenovo, Dell and Acer unveiled colorful budget models like the IdeaPad Vibe, Dell 14S and a 16-inch Swift Air, directly responding to Apple's MacBook Neo with varied chip choices from Qualcomm, AMD and Intel.
Apple has launched the iPhone Duo, its first foldable phone, arriving years after Samsung pioneered the category. The device features a near-invisible crease, a durable hinge, an under-screen front camera, and software tailored to multiple folding positions. It also introduces interaction ideas like dragging subjects directly between apps and an automatic self-timer that waits for stillness before shooting.
Hugo Vergnes built a config-driven training framework called little-lm and used it to train a 3.8-billion-parameter language model from scratch on 65 billion tokens, taking 43 hours on eight rented B200 GPUs at a total cost of $998. The model scored 0.384 on the CORE benchmark, outperforming Andrej Karpathy's nanochat d32 model, which cost about the same to train but scored 0.310.
Apple unveiled the iPhone Duo, its first foldable iPhone, featuring two displays, strong cameras and battery life, with orders opening next month. Details emerging from the announcement and Apple's website show an under-display camera on the inner screen, exclusive software features like Smart Take and Kid Cue, a Camera Control button but no Action button, a nano-texture finish limited to the folding display, and Apple Pencil support.
A newly launched web page and RSS feed compiles a running list of prominent figures in the free and open source software world who hold publicly divisive political views, drawing inspiration from Molly Conger's podcast of the same name. Entries so far include nostr developer Alex Gleason, tied to Truth Social's software and backed financially by Jack Dorsey, and SerenityOS/Ladybird founder Andreas Kling, cited for comments supportive of Charlie Kirk and opposition to gender-neutral language. The maintainer accepts community-submitted edits via email but explicitly discourages readers from harassing or contacting the listed individuals.
After a low-key private event with no livestream and only a brief keynote, Tesla released fine print showing its Cybercab autonomous vehicle will not accept riders under 13 years old. The Cybercab also lacks standard LATCH anchors for child car seats, requiring seat belts instead, while Tesla's separate Model Y robotaxi service allows children as young as 8 with an adult present.
Cory Edwards, a Starbucks manager who coaches Little League in Henderson, Nevada, gave his team an unscripted pep talk while trailing 11-2 in the World Series final, telling them to hold their heads high and get tougher under pressure. ESPN's clip of the moment spread widely online, and Edwards later told The New York Times the message was really about character, not the scoreboard.
NVIDIA is launching DLSS 5, its latest AI upscaling technology, alongside NBA 2K27 on September 3. Early demos from Resident Evil: Requiem and Starfield drew heavy criticism for producing unnatural, over-processed character models, though NBA 2K27's implementation reportedly applies the effect more subtly with improved shadows and texture depth. The feature is exclusive to NVIDIA's RTX 50-series graphics cards.
CERN researchers and international collaborators generated quark-gluon plasma—the hot, dense matter thought to have existed microseconds after the Big Bang—by colliding oxygen-16 and neon-20 nuclei, elements far lighter than the lead atoms typically used for such experiments. The findings, published in Physical Review Letters, show this exotic state of matter can form in much smaller collisions than previously assumed.
Android Authority's reviewer spent weeks testing the Huawei Pura 90s Pro Max, a €1,149 flagship phone with an aluminum frame, Kunlun Glass, and a notably large camera module. Despite Huawei's US ban and shrinking global market share since losing Google services seven years ago, the reviewer found the build quality and craftsmanship rival any top-tier device on the market.