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Soundcore's new Liberty 5 Pro earbuds carry a Guinness World Records certification for the highest speech quality score among wireless earbuds. A WIRED reviewer testing dozens of earbud models found the Liberty 5 Pro noticeably improved phone call clarity, particularly for conversations with elderly relatives, while also featuring a redesigned, larger pill-shaped body with multiple ear tip and wing options for comfort.
A journalist filed over 100 California Consumer Privacy Act data-access requests to major companies, including McDonald's, which returned a 515-page report detailing app behavior and predictive profiling. Many companies mishandled the process—some deleted data instead of disclosing it despite explicit instructions otherwise, while others ignored the contact methods listed in their own privacy policies.
ZDNET tested the Comulytic Note Pro, a compact AI-powered voice recorder shaped like a stack of credit cards that pairs with an app to transcribe and organize meetings, memos, and dictation. The reviewer praised its microphone quality, battery life, and unobtrusive design, giving it 4 out of 5 stars overall.
The person behind nine days of leaked Grand Theft Auto VI gameplay clips cashed out of the Solana-based $CYBERLEEK token just hours before Rockstar's official Extended Look premiered on Netflix. On-chain data shows the wallet withdrew about $146,000 in wrapped SOL plus millions of accumulated tokens, then sold everything for roughly $125,000, with total proceeds across four wallets estimated near $250,000. The token has since collapsed from a peak of about $0.0344 to roughly $0.002725.
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, ahead of its upcoming launch, carries a hand-sized experimental coronagraph designed to directly capture starlight reflected off a planet's surface for the first time from space. The instrument uses deformable mirrors and adaptive optics to block a star's glare while revealing much fainter orbiting planets, a technique already used on ground telescopes but never before flown at this level of sophistication in orbit.
Business Insider reports that former Uber and Lyft drivers are now working at Waymo's robotaxi depots, handling tasks like cleaning, charging, and inspecting the self-driving vehicles. At Waymo's Lyft-run Nashville depot, workers such as Chauncy Thompson and Jonathan Baines say they prefer the steady hours and hands-on maintenance work to gig driving. Lyft plans to open another Nashville depot in October, staffing half its roles with former rideshare drivers.
Google Messages has begun rolling out a long-requested feature that lets users apply custom themes to individual chat conversations. The update, spotted on version 20260824_01_RC00, works on both stable and beta builds but requires RCS chats to be enabled. Users need to update the app via the Play Store and confirm RCS is turned on in settings to access the new option.
Artist Simon Weckert has designed a garment called Digital Camouflage featuring an abstract pattern of green, pink, and orange shapes. While the pattern looks like ordinary decorative art to people, it is engineered to confuse computer vision systems so they fail to recognize the wearer as a human.
A new guide explains how everyday users can download and run large language models like those from Meta and Google directly on their own Windows, macOS, or Linux machines instead of relying on cloud-based apps like ChatGPT. Running LLMs locally offers offline access and greater privacy since no data is sent to outside servers, and it avoids subscription fees, though these free models are generally less powerful and slower than paid cloud versions. The guide notes that macOS is often preferred due to Apple Silicon's unified memory architecture, and that at least 16GB of RAM is recommended for smooth performance.
OPPO has introduced a small magnetic rear-display accessory called the Bubble for its Reno 16 Pro smartphone, designed to let users preview shots using the phone's rear cameras rather than the front-facing camera. The accessory attaches to a special magnetic case, is roughly the size of a small cookie, and includes a single button and a USB-C port for control and charging.
A columnist who uses Google Maps daily outlines four persistent gaps in the app, starting with offline maps that still require manually drawing rectangles instead of downloading whole regions or countries at once. The piece contrasts this with rivals like Maps.me and Organic Maps, which allow single-tap downloads of entire areas.
Schools nationwide are increasingly restricting student phone access during the day, often using lockable pouches or storage systems. Early research on these policies shows students report better mood and social interaction, but academic performance and classroom attention have not meaningfully improved.