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Paramount reportedly enlisted a nonprofit called Neighbors for Strong Communities to send Californians mass text messages urging them to pressure state Attorney General Rob Bonta to drop his antitrust suit against the $111 billion Paramount-Warner Bros deal. The messages warned that blocking the merger could cost thousands of jobs, citing owner Larry Ellison's reported threat to relocate Paramount to Texas.
Sony Japan published a policy on September 1 defining customer harassment and warning it will restrict or suspend support for customers who cross the line, including abusive language, excessive demands, or intimidating behavior toward staff. The move comes after intense customer anger over Sony's plan to stop producing physical PlayStation discs by January 2028, a decision already facing several lawsuits.
xTool introduced the X1, a new laser cutter that lets users swap in CO2, Diode, UV, Fiber, or MOPA laser modules on one machine. It's the company's first flying-galvo design, pairing gantry-style size with galvo speed, and it runs a dual-head setup with a CO2 laser alongside a swappable galvo backpack. The default configuration pairs a 55w CO2 laser with a 20w diode galvo head, with launch expected in October and pricing still unannounced.
GrapheneOS is rebuilding its Messaging app with a new Android Compose interface, along with numerous fixes and improvements. The project also confirmed plans to implement RCS messaging natively, eventually letting users message over RCS without depending on Google Messages, and it's developing a secure paste feature to stop apps from reading clipboard data left by other apps.
The NetBSD Project has released NetBSD 9.5, the last update in the NetBSD 9 stable series, bundling security and stability fixes accumulated since NetBSD 9.4 shipped in April 2024. It remains compatible with NetBSD 9.0, but its release also formally ends support for the entire netbsd-9 branch.
Asahi Linux developers have officially declared support for Apple's M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max Macs, bringing them close to parity with earlier M1/M2 support—except for the Mac Studio M3 Ultra, which remains unsupported. Key limitations remain, including weak GPU acceleration, no sleep mode, and non-functional HDMI ports on M3 MacBooks due to missing DCP support.
Kaleidescape has announced the Compact Terra Prime, a 246TB SSD-based media server aimed at ultra-luxury home theaters, likely priced above $150,000. Built with two 123TB enterprise SSDs in the same chassis as its Strato V player, it can store thousands of movies and stream up to 25 simultaneous 4K feeds. The system pairs with Kaleidescape's proprietary movie store, which sells uncompressed master-quality film transfers exceeding typical 4K Blu-ray quality.
Mimic Systems advertised its Spartan peripheral for the Commodore 64 for nearly two years, using recurring magazine ads featuring a mime, before actually releasing the product in 1986. By the time it arrived, reviewers found its specs outdated and users reported persistent bugs and poor support.
MapQuest is rolling out an experimental version of its navigation app for Android Auto, letting drivers view its maps on car dashboard screens instead of Google Maps or Waze. The move follows a surge in downloads after the company declined to rename Lake Ontario as 'Lake America' following a Trump administration directive. MapQuest also confirmed CarPlay support is coming soon for iOS users, and the app is testing crowdsourced reporting of accidents and police activity.
Google is broadening its cross-platform file-sharing feature that lets Quick Share work with Apple's AirDrop, with reports now surfacing from Pixel 7 and Pixel 8 owners seeing enabling notifications. This follows an earlier sighting of the feature reaching the Pixel Tablet, suggesting Google is rolling the capability out beyond the Pixel 8a-and-newer devices that first got it last fall.
A screenshot spotted by Joe Lenington on X shows the Google Pixel Tablet running Android 17 now displays Quick Share's Apple-device file-sharing interface, previously limited to select smartphones. Google's official FAQ page hasn't been updated to list the tablet, but fine print confirms the feature covers tablets as well as phones.
Nvidia pushed an update through its App that appeared aimed at disabling unofficial mods enabling DLSS Multi-Frame Generation on RTX 40-series GPUs, a feature officially reserved for the newer RTX 50 Blackwell cards. Modders quickly found workarounds, restoring the feature across several games including Resident Evil 9 and Forza Horizon 6 within hours of the update landing.