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Apple releases public beta 3 for watchOS 26, tvOS 26, and more

Apple has just released public beta 3 for watchOS 26, tvOS 26, and HomePod 26. Here are the details. Earlier this week Apple shipped developer beta 6 for its forthcoming major software updates like iOS 26, watchOS 26, and more. Today, those new updates have been released to public testers as public beta 3. For the most part, this latest wave of betas prioritizes bug fixes and stability. watchOS 26, tvOS 26, and HomePod 26 so far have revealed no noticeable feature updates in the new betas.

Topics: 26 apple beta new public

Funding Open Source like public infrastructure

To protect the digital foundation of essential government services, governments should invest in Open Source as public infrastructure and shift from consumption to contribution. Fifteen years ago, I laid out a theory about the future of Open Source. In The Commercialization of a Volunteer-Driven Open Source Project, I argued that if Open Source was going to thrive, people had to get paid to work on it. At the time, the idea was controversial. Many feared money would corrupt the spirit of volunt

Circle shares fall after stablecoin issuer says it will offer 10 million shares

Circle Internet Group Initial Public Offering at the New York Stock Exchange in New York City, U.S., June 5, 2025. Circle Internet Group stock tumbled more than 5% in extended trading Tuesday after it said it would offer 10 million Class A shares to the public. Of the total stock being offered, 2 million shares will be offered by Circle. The remaining 8 million shares will be sold by stockholders. The stablecoin issuer's shares have soared more than 450% since it went public on June 5. As pa

PHP compile time generics: yay or nay?

One of the most sought-after features for PHP is Generics: The ability to have a type that takes another type as a parameter. It's a feature found in most compiled languages by now, but implementing generics in an interpreted language like PHP, where all the type checking would have to be done at runtime, has always proven Really Really Hard(tm), Really Really Slow(tm), or both. But, experimentation by the PHP Foundation's dev team suggests we may be able to get 80% of the benefit for 20% of th

macOS Tahoe 26 public beta 2 rolling out, here’s how to install it

Following a distribution hiccup, Apple is now rolling out macOS Tahoe 26 public beta 2. Here’s how to install it, and what to expect. First things first: should you install the beta? You probably know the drill: Betas can be unpredictably buggy. Even if something works on one release, it is not guaranteed to work on the next. Just this week, developer beta 5 broke compatibility with the timer app I use on the menu bar, while it had been working just fine in previous betas. I’ve also been facin

iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 public beta 2 now available

Apple kicked off the iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 public beta just in the nick of time last month. The company met its self-imposed July deadline after shipping four developer betas instead of the usual three. With Apple’s redesign direction back on track, we’re now seeing the second iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 public beta release become available. iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 public beta 2 For iPhone and iPad users on the public beta train, simply go to the Settings app > General section > Software Update to look f

Topics: 26 beta ios ipados public

Apple releases public beta 2 for tvOS 26, watchOS 26, more

Earlier this week Apple released a new wave of developer betas, including tvOS 26, watchOS 26, and HomePod 26. Now the company has shipped public beta versions too. Here’s what to expect. tvOS 26, watchOS 26, HomePod 26, more get new public betas If you’re a member of Apple’s public beta program, your devices have new software updates available to install. Today the company released public beta 2 for its full lineup of compatible platforms—minus visionOS, which doesn’t offer a public beta. A

Topics: 26 apple beta new public

Firefly Aerospace prices shares at $45, above the expected range

The Blue Ghost Mission Operations Engineer, Jaxon Liebeck, showcases the Blue Ghost moon lander at Firefly Aerospace headquarters on Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024 in Cedar Park. Firefly Aerospace priced shares in its IPO at $45 on Wednesday, above its expected range. The Texas-based rocket maker will debut on the Nasdaq Thursday under the ticker symbol "FLY." The offering raised $868 million and values the company at about $6.3 billion. Firefly filed its initial prospectus in July and upped its IPO r

A new database on police use of force and misconduct in California

For Immediate Release August 4, 2025 Contact: [email protected] A new database on police use of force and misconduct in California makes public 1.5 million pages of once-secret police records Public records about use of force and misconduct by California law enforcement officers — some 1.5 million pages obtained from nearly 500 law enforcement agencies — will now be searchable by the public for the first time thanks to a new database built by UC Berkeley and Stanford University and pub

iPadOS 26 beta 5 is available now, here’s what to expect

iPadOS 26 developer beta 5 is rolling out now, bringing the latest changes ahead of the software’s public launch next month. Here’s what to expect. Beta 5 could bring shift to new iPadOS 26 betas every week Apple has a new wave of beta software releases ready. About two weeks after developer beta 4 and the first public beta debuted, today iPadOS 26 beta 5 is available to install. There are a couple especially noteworthy things related to this latest update: Historically, August is when Apple

Idaho has become the wild frontier of vaccination policy and public health

Some 280,000 people live in the five northernmost counties of Idaho. One of the key public officials responsible for their health is Thomas Fletcher, a retired radiologist who lives on a 160-acre farm near Sandpoint. Fletcher grew up in Texas and moved to Idaho in 2016, looking for a place where he could live a rural life alongside likeminded conservatives. In 2022, he joined the seven-member board of health of the Panhandle Health District, the regional public health authority, and he was appo

Instagram public accounts with less than 1,000 followers can no longer go live

Instagram is no longer allowing public accounts to go live if they have less than 1,000 followers. Users have been reporting over the past few days that their accounts aren't eligible for Live broadcast on the app anymore. "We changed the requirements to use this feature," reads the notice that pops up when people try to host a livestream broadcast to their followers. "Only public accounts with 1,000 followers or more will be able to create live videos." Now Meta has confirmed the new eligibilit

RIP Corporation for Public Broadcasting: 1967–2026

Despite the protests of millions of Americans, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced it will be winding down its operations after the White House deemed NPR and PBS a "grift" and pushed for a Senate vote that eliminated its entire budget. The vote rescinded $1.1 billion that Congress had allocated to CPB to fund public broadcasting for fiscal years 2026 and 2027. In a press release, CPB explained that the cuts "excluded funding for CPB for the first time in more than five deca

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting Is Shutting Down

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting will start winding down operations, purging most of its staff by Sept. 30, according to a press release, after nearly 60 years in operation delivering public media in the United States. The news comes after Republicans, led by President Donald Trump, stripped the non-profit company of its funding over claims of bias against conservatives. CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison says that a small transition team will be in place through Jan. 2026 to make s

Figma stock pops 5% in second day of trading after colossal debut

Figma celebrates its initial public offering at the New York Stock Exchange on July 31, 2025. Shares of design software vendor Figma popped more than 5% on Friday, a day after the stock more than tripled in its New York Stock Exchange debut. Figma opened at $85 on Thursday under the ticker FIG, and shares closed at $115.50 for a 250% gain. On Friday, the stock traded above $120. Figma is the latest tech company to hit the public markets after an extended IPO drought. Artificial intelligence i

OpenAI is removing ChatGPT conversations from Google

OpenAI has removed a feature that made shared ChatGPT conversations appear in search results. The "short-lived experiment" was based on the chatbot's link creation option. After complaints, OpenAI's chief information security officer, Dane Stuckey, said the company is working to remove the chats from search engines. The public outrage stems from a Fast Company article from earlier this week (via Ars Technica). Fast Company said it found thousands of ChatGPT conversations in Google search result

Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceasing operations

WASHINGTON, D.C. (August 1, 2025) – The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced today that it will begin an orderly wind-down of its operations following the passage of a federal rescissions package and the release of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s FY 2026 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-H) appropriations bill, which excludes funding for CPB for the first time in more than five decades. For nearly 60 years, CPB has carried out its Cong

Figma stock pops in second day of trading after colossal debut

Figma celebrates its initial public offering at the New York Stock Exchange on July 31, 2025. Shares of design software vendor Figma popped 6% on Friday, a day after the stock more than tripled in its New York Stock Exchange debut. Figma opened at $85 on Thursday under the ticker FIG, and shares closed at $115.50 for a 250% gain. On Friday, the stock traded above $120. Figma is the latest tech company to hit the public markets after an extended IPO drought. Artificial intelligence infrastruct

Instagram now requires users to have at least 1,000 followers to go live

Instagram users now need a public account with a minimum of 1,000 followers to go live on the platform, the social network confirmed to TechCrunch. Until now, Instagram has allowed anyone to go live, regardless of their follower count or whether their account is public or private. The move will be a blow to smaller creators on the platform who fall under the 1,000 followers requirement, as well as regular users who just liked to go live with their friends for fun. Users who don’t have public a

GCP CloudQuarry: Searching for Secrets in Public GCP Images

This guest post by Eduard Agavriloae and Matei Josephs, two expert cloud security researchers, was developed through Truffle Security’s Research CFP program . We first connected with Eduard and Matei after their well-received DEF CON 32 talk, AWS CloudQuarry: Digging for secrets in public AMIs , where they used TruffleHog to identify hundreds of live secrets in public AWS Images. In this follow-up, they expand their research to Google Cloud Platform (GCP). TL;DR We scanned 8,400+ public GCP ima

Spotify's lax privacy means anyone can see the Vice President's song choices

A new cybersecurity "breach" has revealed the personal information of various celebrities, and while it won't let you steal their identities, it will allow you to... judge them. The "Panama Playlists" details the Spotify song choices of notable people ranging from Vice President JD Vance to talk show host Seth Meyers to tech bros like Palmer Luckey. And technically, it wasn't a breach at all, but a possible lack of understanding around Spotify's privacy settings. Spotify has always allowed user

Senate confirms CDC director as top FDA official resigns under political pressure

As of yesterday, Susan Monarez is in and Vinay Prasad is out among top federal health officials. In a 51–47 vote along party lines, the Senate confirmed Monarez as the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She is the first nominee for CDC director to be required to get Senate confirmation, following a 2022 law requiring it. She is also the first person to serve in the role without a medical degree since 1953. Monarez has a PhD in microbiology and immunology and previously

Warning: Protect your phone from choicejacking before it's too late - here's how

Elyse Betters Picaro (with graphic elements from Ameythyststudio, Aleriimingirov, and Romansa design art via Canva) / ZDNET Giving your phone some extra juice via a public charging station is always a handy option, but it may not be a safe one. As described in a new report from NordVPN, cybercriminals can now turn to a trick called choicejacking, in which they're able to transfer data from your phone to a device disguised as a charger. What is choicejacking? With this new method, a malicious

First look at iPhone 17 Pro? Public images seemingly confirm big design and camera changes

Kerry Wan/ZDNET In a series of rare events, the iPhone 17 Pro has seemingly appeared in public ahead of its expected September launch. Late Monday, X user @Skyfops shared two images of what can be assumed to be an Apple employee handling a test-development iPhone. Also: You can download iOS 26 public beta right now - how to install (and which iPhones support it) While the iPhone is encased in a security cover, typically used to hide the device's final design, there's a dead giveaway that the

AirPods are getting five new features — here’s how to try them now

Last week, Apple released its first-ever public beta for AirPods alongside the first public beta of iOS 26. If you want to try out Apple’s new AirPods features, here’s how to install the beta. How to install the AirPods public beta First, you’ll need to make sure your iPhone is running the iOS 26 beta. This takes just a few taps, and you can find those full instructions in our dedicated guide on installing the iOS 26 beta. The AirPods public beta is available for AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4.

Firefly Aerospace sets IPO range that would value rocket maker at $5.5 billion

Firefly Aerospace CEO Jason Kim sits for an interview at the Firefly Aerospace mission operations center in Leander, Texas, on July 9, 2025. Firefly Aerospace will price shares at $35 to $39 each in its upcoming initial public offering, a deal that would value the rocket maker at about $5.5 billion. The Texas-based space company said in an updated prospectus Monday that it's planning to sell about 16.2 million shares. The offering could raise up to $631.8 million. Earlier this month, Firefly

How to install the AirPods public beta with five new features

Last week, Apple released its first-ever public beta for AirPods alongside the first public beta of iOS 26. If you want to try out Apple’s new AirPods features, here’s how to install the beta. How to install the AirPods public beta First, you’ll need to make sure your iPhone is running the iOS 26 beta. This takes just a few taps, and you can find those full instructions in our dedicated guide on installing the iOS 26 beta. The AirPods public beta is available for AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4.

Tesla plans 'friends and family' car service in California, regulator says

A vehicle Tesla is using for robotaxi testing purposes on Oltorf Street in Austin, Texas, US, on Sunday, June 22, 2025. In an earnings call this week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk teased an expansion of his company's fledgling robotaxi service to the San Francisco Bay Area and other U.S. markets. But California regulators are making clear that Tesla is not authorized to carry passengers on public roads in autonomous vehicles and would require a human driver in control at all times. "Tesla is not allow

Traveling this summer? Consider this before using airport Wi-Fi and charging ports

Carles Navarro Parcerisas/Getty Images The next time you travel through an airport, you should probably be a little leery of using the public Wi-Fi or USB charging ports, according to the TSA. In a reminder posted on Facebook, the TSA warns that while these freebies are designed to be useful, they can actually be dangerous if a fellow traveler has bad intentions. Also: How to use public Wi-Fi safely: 5 things to know before you connect Using a process called juice jacking, someone can instal

Topics: fi phone public use wi

You Can Download the iOS 26 Public Beta Now

Apple released the first public beta of iOS 26 on July 24, more than a month after the company announced the upcoming software at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June. Apple said in June the new iOS version would be available to the general public this fall, but developers and beta testers can try an early version of iOS 26 now on their iPhones. If you're a public beta tester or developer, you can download the first public beta of iOS 26 by going to Settings > General > Software Update.