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Apple unveiled its first foldable device, the iPhone Duo, at its 'Surprise and shine' event, catching many off guard since analysts had expected the name iPhone Ultra. The Duolingo owl mascot mocked Apple online over the shared 'Duo' branding, even calling out new CEO John Ternus directly, while Samsung poked fun at Apple for entering the foldable market years after its own Galaxy Fold line.
Blizzard Entertainment employees represented by the Communications Workers of America have voted to approve their first union contract, ending roughly two years of negotiations. The agreement covers about 1,900 workers and includes wage increases, hybrid work terms, disability and remote-work accommodations, expanded severance, and a requirement that Blizzard bargain over AI use in the workplace.
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.
Mike Flanagan, known for directing 'Carrie' and 'The Exorcist: Martyrs,' is producing a new horror film titled 'Rot,' directed by Alexandra Magistro. The cast includes Amber Midthunder and Matthew Lillard, with the story centered on hoarding as its horror premise.
Apple has entered the foldable phone market with its iPhone Duo, adopting the same short, wide 'passport-style' form factor that Samsung recently introduced with the Galaxy Z Fold 8. Samsung, which also supplies Apple's folding display components, reported that the Z Fold 8 and its larger Z Fold 8 Ultra variant are selling 30 percent better than last year's Fold 7 in their first month on the market.
At its 'Surprise and Shine' event, Apple confirmed that the new LLM-based Siri AI, built with Google, will launch in English alongside iOS 27 on September 14. French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish support will follow in October, executive Lilian Rincon said. The announcement came alongside new hardware including the foldable iPhone Duo, iPhone 18 Pro models, Apple Watch Series 12 Ultra 4 and AirPods 5.
Apple has released AirPods 5, its new entry-level earbuds starting at $129, replacing the AirPods 4 lineup. Unlike before, Active Noise Cancellation now comes standard on all models rather than costing an extra $50, and Apple says the noise cancellation itself is up to 50 percent stronger than on AirPods 4. The buds also get a more natural-sounding Transparency mode and improved audio quality drawn from AirPods Pro 3 engineering.
A researcher at a major AI lab has publicly resigned over safety concerns, becoming the latest in a growing string of AI professionals this year who have left their positions and spoken out about risks tied to rapid AI development. Experts say these public departures are drawing more attention to warnings that were previously dismissed or ignored.
The Exploration Company, led by CEO Hèlene Huby, closed a $450 million Series C funding round, the largest such raise by any European space firm and reportedly the biggest ever for a female-led company in Europe. Huby was also named an envoy at France's International Space Summit, appearing alongside astronaut Thomas Pesquet as a prominent voice in European space policy.
At its latest hardware event, Apple unveiled new Apple Watch capabilities including Audio Intelligence, Live Rewind, and Siri Recap, which use on-device AI to detect ambient sounds and transcribe spoken conversations. The features combine accessibility benefits, like alerting deaf or hard-of-hearing users to sirens or crying babies, with more invasive capabilities like live transcription of nearby speech.
Apple's 'Surprise and Shine' event introduced the company's first foldable phone, the iPhone Duo, marking a major shift in its product lineup. The event also featured the Apple Watch Series 12, Apple Watch Ultra 4 with unchanged pricing, AirPods 5 with upgraded noise-canceling, and iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max models in four colors. The 81-minute presentation is available for replay on Apple's website and YouTube, and marked new CEO John Ternus's first major public event.
Researcher Eric Lu and Cognition's Devin AI coding agents built a new GPU-based lattice sieving tool and used it to factor RSA-260, a 260-digit number, beating the previous RSA Factoring Challenge record of RSA-250 set in 2020. The team says the approach runs factoring workloads at roughly 10 times lower cost than prior public methods.