Sony has begun pushing Android 17 to the Xperia 1 VIII, with the update also arriving for the Xperia 1 VII and Xperia 1 VI. The release adds a Desktop mode for connecting phones to external displays like a PC, along with new wallpaper and icon customization, a redesigned Quick settings panel, and upgraded screen recording that captures full-screen or single-app video with audio. The Xperia 1 VIII also gains the ability to save and name up to three custom looks in its AI Camera Assistant.
At the IFA trade show in Berlin, multiple humanoid robots, including the EngineAI T800 and the PrimeBOT Q1, were shown performing punches, kicks and mock boxing matches, some unrestrained and untethered on the show floor. A reporter had a close encounter with one robot's simulated strikes and witnessed another accidentally march into a bystander's knee.
Amazon has cut the price of Samsung's newly released Galaxy Z Fold 8 by $250, bringing it down from $1,899.99 to $1,649.99, a 13% reduction. It's the first time the retailer has discounted the foldable since launch.
Huawei has officially released the Pura X View, a candybar smartphone with an unusually wide 16:9.5 aspect ratio 6.39-inch OLED screen reaching 6,500 nits peak brightness. Despite a slim 6.68mm body, it packs a 7,000mAh silicon-anode battery, Kirin 9030S chipset, HarmonyOS 7, a 200MP camera, stylus support, and IP68/IP69 durability. The device is currently available only in China with no confirmed global release plans.
The national average price for regular gasoline reached its highest point ever recorded for a Labor Day weekend, driven by ongoing refinery disruptions and continued instability tied to the Iran conflict. Despite the record for this specific holiday period, prices remain below the all-time high of $5.02 per gallon reached in June 2022.
Android Auto, used by roughly 250 million people worldwide, sometimes drops apps from its launcher without explanation. This typically happens because a phone's battery optimization feature deactivates the app in the background rather than removing it entirely. Users can restore hidden apps or manually hide unwanted ones through their device settings in just a few steps.
Contrary to a recent report claiming new hardware chief John Ternus scrapped Apple's foldable Mac/iPad hybrid project, the device concept appears to still be in development, though likely years from release. The analysis suggests Apple's software convergence—like iPhone mirroring and cross-platform apps—has already addressed much of the original rationale for such a device.
Tesla is circulating an interest form asking businesses whether they want to purchase and operate their own Cybercab fleets on its robotaxi network, splitting revenue with the company. This mirrors a promise Elon Musk made back in 2019, when he claimed owners could earn up to $30,000 a year in gross profit by putting their cars on the 'Tesla Network,' a plan that never materialized for any owner.
After moving his daily workflow from a MacBook to a Framework 16 running CachyOS Linux, a developer found no adequate replacement for Apple Keynote's Magic Move feature when animating code snippets in presentations. He describes building his own tool from first principles to handle smooth, token-aware transitions between code blocks, something Keynote fumbles because it treats code as plain glyphs rather than structured syntax.
Hohem showed an early prototype of the Eyepic at IFA Berlin, a compact device that combines a mechanically stabilized gimbal camera with a detachable, waterproof wearable camera. It shoots 4K video at 60fps in both horizontal and vertical orientation by physically rotating the gimbal head rather than cropping the sensor, and its 2.5-inch touchscreen pivots to match. The camera body snaps onto the gimbal magnetically and mechanically, and Hohem plans a range of magnetic mounts for hats, bikes and backpacks ahead of a Q1 next year release.
A developer documented how to revive phpBB 1.4.4, the last pre-fame version of the classic forum software from 2001, so it runs on modern PHP5 and MySQL 4 inside Docker containers. The project required patching a handful of bugs, including a rejected database seeding command, a broken login cookie function, and a crash on empty post timestamps, plus old-school php.ini settings like register_globals. A ready-made docker-compose file and install instructions let anyone spin up the 25-year-old board software locally in minutes.
After his daughter Lucy suffered a brain hemorrhage that left her blind, billionaire Bill Ackman used his connections to secure her advanced care at Mount Sinai and pursue an experimental treatment. In May, the FDA granted her medical team first-time emergency authorization to transplant mitochondria from her leg muscle into her eyes in an attempt to repair her optic nerves. Ackman has since pledged over $400 million to establish an institute focused on longevity and brain health research.
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