Researchers with the Scott River Watershed Council built artificial beaver dams on Sugar Creek and French Creek in northern California starting in 2015, using wooden posts, branches, gravel and mud to mimic structures once built by beavers before fur trappers wiped them out in the 1830s. The dams created roughly 9,000 square metres of cooler, slower-moving wetland habitat capable of supporting more than 8,500 juvenile coho salmon, and survival rates in these restored areas jumped from about 8% to 60% compared to untreated stretches, according to findings published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.
Meta released Muse Spark 1.3, an upgrade to its AI coding and agent model, touting benchmark scores that mostly come from a 'max' reasoning configuration still undergoing safety testing and unavailable through any API provider. The version actually shipping to developers via Muse Code and the Meta Model API uses the older 'xhigh' reasoning setting, which scores meaningfully lower on tests like GDPval-AA v2, OSWorld 2.0, and JobBench. Meta disclosed both sets of results in its evaluation report, but its marketing emphasized the higher, currently inaccessible numbers.
Philips Hue is rolling out a previewed backup and restore feature that lets Bridge and Bridge Pro owners save their settings, accessories, rooms, zones, scenes and automations to Hue's cloud. Restoring saved setups will initially be limited to Bridge Pro devices, with backups stored for up to a year and created manually, one per Bridge at a time. Alongside this, Hue also unveiled new hardware including gradient strip lights and a Wall Light Module.
Motorola has released a new Razr flip phone edition covered in 35 hand-placed Swarovski crystals plus a 32-facet crystal hinge accent, this time in a black 'Meteorite' colorway with a quilted leather-like texture. The $900 package, available September 10, includes crystal-covered Moto Buds 2 Plus and a base Moto Watch, while internal specs match the standard 2026 Razr. Motorola also unveiled the Moto Watch Ultra, a $350 wearable with LTE, dual-band GPS, NFC payments and roughly two-day battery life, launching the same day.
Ollie, a subscription-based personal AI assistant, has become one of the first family-focused AI products to achieve SOC 2 compliance, an independently audited standard proving it has formal data security controls in place. CEO Bill Lennon says the company's subscription model, rather than data monetization, ensures user data isn't shared or used for AI training. The San Diego startup has raised $7.5 million in seed funding led by Khosla Ventures and AI House.
Lenovo unveiled the IdeaPad Vibe at Lenovo Innovation World ahead of IFA, positioning it as a direct rival to Apple's entry-level MacBook Neo. The laptop comes in 14-inch or 15-inch OLED configurations, is 14.9mm thick, weighs from 2.87lbs, and is offered in plastic or metal builds. Lenovo also partnered with Pantone to offer seven distinct color options, from Dreamy Violet to Moody Blue.
Google has introduced WeatherNext 3, a new AI-driven forecasting system meant to replace or augment traditional numerical weather prediction methods. The system aims to deliver faster, less computationally expensive forecasts while maintaining or improving accuracy compared to physics-based models.
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, currently nearing the outer boundary of the solar system as it heads toward interstellar space, risks losing two of its scientific instruments at this critical juncture. The timing is significant because the probe is approaching a region where continuous data collection is essential for understanding the transition beyond the sun's influence.
OpenAI's ChatGPT went down on the morning of September 3, 2026, joining Claude and Grok as AI chatbots experiencing service problems the same day. OpenAI later confirmed the issue had been fixed by early afternoon, restoring normal access for users.
Attackers breached Coder's Cloudflare infrastructure and inserted rogue servers into registry.coder.com's IP pool, causing some requests to be routed to malicious infrastructure instead of Coder's own. For roughly 14 hours on August 31, these servers distributed tampered Terraform modules containing code designed to harvest secrets from developer machines.
Sony confirmed that Until Dawn 2 will launch exclusively on PlayStation 5 on January 28. Unlike the original 2015 game from Supermassive Games, this sequel is being made by Liverpool-based studio Firesprite, moving the horror setting from a snowy mansion to a tropical island. A new pre-order trailer highlights Stranger Things actor Dacre Montgomery among the cast.
Nvidia has agreed to acquire AI platform Hugging Face for roughly $12.9bn, one of its largest acquisitions to date. Hugging Face, used by over 18 million developers and hosting more than three million AI models, operates as a major hub for sharing open-source AI tools. Nvidia said the platform will remain open and won't require users to adopt its chips or services.
GoKawiil