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Rumor Replay: iPhone Fold, AirPods Pro 3 features, and more

This is Rumor Replay, a weekly column at 9to5Mac offering a quick rundown of the most recent Apple product rumors, with analysis and commentary. Today: iPhone Fold rumors, iPhone 17 Pro thermals and case curiosity, AirPods Pro 3 features, and more. Here are this week’s Apple rumors. iPhone Fold could boast all-screen display, Apple raises expectations This week brought a trio of updates for next fall’s highly anticipated iPhone Fold. Ming-Chi Kuo addressed speculation that the device would fe

Apple TV+ releases season 3 trailer for Eugene Levy’s ‘The Reluctant Traveler’

Since 2023, Eugene Levy’s ‘The Reluctant Traveler’ has taken Apple TV+ subscribers through journeys across the globe. Now, for season 3, he’s bringing a few famous friends along as he crosses a few destinations and experiences off his bucket list. Watch the trailer below. Season 3 premieres September 19 Apple TV+’s “The Reluctant Traveler with Eugene Levy” premiered in 2023 with little fanfare, but it turned out to be one of the most interesting travel shows, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Researchers find alarming overlaps among 18 popular VPNs

A new peer-reviewed study alleges that 18 of the 100 most-downloaded virtual private network (VPN) apps on the Google Play Store are secretly connected in three large families, despite claiming to be independent providers. The paper doesn't indict any of our picks for the best VPN , but the services it investigates are popular, with 700 million collective downloads on Android alone. The study, published in the journal of the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS), doesn't just find tha

Apple's iPhone 17 is expected to debut next week: Rumors, prices, new features and everything else you need to know

It's true: In just five days, we'll finally get to see the all-new iPhone 17 lineup during Apple's 2025 "Awe dropping" iPhone event. The hardware announcement will take place on Tuesday, September 9 at 1PM ET. The newest phones will come equipped with the latest iOS 26 features preinstalled, along with any new features Apple reveals that day. But until the iPhone event actually happens, we can only speculate what the new devices will look like. As with most unreleased iPhones, rumors and leaks h

Topics: 17 apple iphone new pro

Netflix's animated Tomb Raider series is ending with its second season

Netflix has shared a pair of updates about its animated Tomb Raider show. The second season of Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft will air on the streaming service on December 11. However, that second season will also be the final one for the project. Legendary Television is behind the show, which premiered in October 2024 on Netflix and stars Hayley Atwell of MCU fame as the titular Tomb Raider. If you simply can't get enough of Lara and her adventures in archeology, you have other options

Use free ChatGPT? You just got a powerful projects upgrade once exclusive to paid users

OpenAI Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways ChatGPT Free can now access Projects. Allows users to stay more organized, serving as a hub for content. Updates also include larger file uploads, memory controls, more. Since its popularity exploded, ChatGPT has undergone many upgrades, including a sleek UI redesign. However, one terribly pesky thing that has remained the same for free users is how chats are organized, automatically populating the left-ha

The fastest growing AI chatbot lately? It's not ChatGPT or Gemini

Matthias Balk/picture alliance via Getty Images Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways Copilot has been the fastest-growing AI chatbot in recent months. Use of Google Gemini is also surging. ChatGPT still enjoys the greatest number of users. Do you use Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, or ChatGPT on your PC or mobile device? If so, you're in good company. The number of people who turn to these three AI-powered chatbots grew from March to June this year,

Is this the most promising Chromebook yet? This Acer has specs that almost rival my MacBook

'ZDNET Recommends': What exactly does it mean? ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing. When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or

Google's new Androidify app turns you into an adorable Android bot - try it for free

Androidify / ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways The Androidify app lets you customize your own Android bot. You can use a photo or enter a text prompt. There's an app and a browser version of the tool. If you're an Android die-hard, Google is giving you a fun new way to express your fandom. For more than 15 years, a small green robot (a.k.a. Bugdroid) has been the official mascot of the Android operating system. Several versions of the mascot

Roborock's new weed-killing robot mowers will save your back (and time)

Maria Diaz/ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's takeaways Roborock has introduced its first robot lawnmowers. Three models will be available, each with a different purpose. The company hasn't revealed pricing or release date yet. Roborock is headed outdoors. The company best known for its robot vacuum cleaners (including the recent viral one with a mechanical arm that picks up small objects) has unveiled its first robot lawnmower. In an announcement today

Berg's Card Sorting Task

Berg's Card Sorting Task A lot of research on human problem solving focuses on how we develop strategies to solve fixed problems. But problems often are not static; the problem changes, old strategies no longer work, and new strategies must be adopted. How do we adapt to changing problems? Grant and Berg (1948) developed a sorting task (now often called the Wisconsin Card Sort Test or WCST; Grant & Berg, 1948), used to investigate different response strategies and how they are developed (Eling,

This Electric Shaver Is Made From Aircraft-Grade Aluminium, Because Why Not?

Nothing says “premium” like aerospace-grade aluminum alloy, am I right? I guess. I don’t know, it sounds fancy and it looks fancy, too, which makes Laifen’s new electric shaver, the T1 Pro, the swankiest electric shaver I’ve seen all day. The T1 Pro, which was announced at IFA 2025, is apparently crafted with “a single block of aerospace-grade aluminum alloy,” which makes this over-engineered shaver both light and very durable, according to Laifen. Powering this thing is what Laifen describes a

Southwest Airlines Announces Free Wi-Fi for Everyone, Months After Taking Away Free Checked Bags

Southwest Airlines announced Thursday that it will start offering free wifi on all flights through a partnership with T-Mobile starting Oct. 24. The service will be available to all Southwest Rapid Rewards members, the airline’s free loyalty program. The announcement comes just a few months after Southwest ended its free checked bags policy. The airline previously allowed bags to “fly free” until it announced at the end of May that first checked bags would cost $35 and a second would be $45. S

The New ‘Street Fighter’ Movie Has a Release Date and Perfect Casting Announcment

Let out the biggest “Hadouken!” you’ve got because Street Fighter is coming. Thanks to a new deal between Legendary and Paramount, the studio just announced it will release the latest adaptation of the iconic Capcom fighting game on October 16, 2026. Plus, it made all the previously rumored casting official in an incredible way. According to the press release, this Street Fighter is set in 1993 and follows Ryu (Andrew Koji) and Ken (Noah Centineo), who are “thrown back into combat when the myst

Going to Space Could Make Your Cells Age Faster

Spaceflight pushes the human body to its limits, exposing astronauts to microgravity, high levels of radiation, and extended periods of isolation. These stressors affect their health in various ways, many of which scientists are still working to fully understand. But if we are ever to boldly go where no human has gone before, we need to know all the risks before we take the leap. And now new research published Thursday, September 4 in the journal Cell Stem Cell offers clues to another facet of

DeepSeek Is Working on an AI Agent. Will It Be Better Than ChatGPT?

China-based DeepSeek is working on developing a new agentic generative AI model, Bloomberg reports, citing anonymous sources. Agentic AI is the latest wave of AI technology. AI agents are a kind of digital assistant; they can complete tasks without a lot of human oversight. AI agents can do anything from coding to ordering you a pizza, as my colleague Imad Khan recently tested. Details about the specifics of the DeepSeek agent model are still fuzzy. An August update to DeepSeek's V3 model was

Playing Silksong on the ROG Xbox Ally X: I'm Ready for More

The biggest game of the next week, or weeks, is a long-awaited indie sequel you may have heard of: Hollow Knight Silksong. The game, after being expected for years, just suddenly dropped like a magic back-to-school gift. While it's available for a number of platforms including Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PlayStation and PC, I got a chance to play a Silksong for about an hour on the upcoming Asus ROG Xbox Ally X handheld, a Windows-based game handheld that promises better support of Microsoft's game

Lego's $1,000 Death Star Is No Moon. It's Not Even a Sphere

Lego has unveiled the UCS (Ultimate Collector Series) Death Star, a $1,000 model and the most expensive Lego set of all time. With a whopping 9,023 pieces, it measures 27.5 inches (70 cm) tall, 31 inches (79 cm) wide and 10.5 inches (27 cm) deep. Yes, it's big. Yes, it's round. No, it's not a sphere. But this model of the Death Star does capture the spirit of the iconic Star Wars space station. The set is divided into smaller dioramas of scenes from both the original Death Star and the Death S

Topics: death lego model set star

Sting operation kills “copycat” sports piracy site with 1.6B visits last year

On Wednesday, a global antipiracy group, which included Apple TV+, Netflix, The Walt Disney Studios, and Warner Bros. Discovery, announced that it had assisted in a sting operation that took down Streameast, described as the “largest illicit live sports streaming operation in the world.” Now, accessing websites from the thwarted Streameast brings up a link from the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) that explains how to watch sports games legally. However, people have reported that

COVID vaccine locations vanish from Google Maps due to alleged “technical issue”

The start of the COVID-19 pandemic is now five years in the rearview mirror, but its effects continue to reverberate. While those leading the US healthcare system have embraced conspiracy theories and junk science to justify a reduced focus on vaccines (particularly the COVID jab) many people are still seeking out immunization. Google Maps isn't a good way to find it, though. In recent days, almost all search results for COVID vaccines have vanished from Google Maps. In both the mobile app and

Should AI Get Legal Rights?

In the often strange world of AI research, some people are exploring whether the machines should be able to unionize. I’m joking, sort of. In Silicon Valley, there’s a small but growing field called model welfare, which is working to figure out whether AI models are conscious and deserving of moral considerations, such as legal rights. Within the past year, two research organizations studying model welfare have popped up: Conscium and Eleos AI Research. Anthropic also hired its first AI welfare

Samsung’s ultra-thin Galaxy S25 Edge is $400 off right now

Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. If you’ve ever wished your phone didn’t protrude so much while in your pocket, then the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge might be made for you. Samsung’s ultra-slim Android phone features the same 6.7-inch OLED display as the Galaxy S25 Plus, but the device’s 5.8mm thick design makes it feel completely different. Right now, you can grab the S25 Edge with 256GB of storage in black, silver, or blue for an all-time low

Topics: amazon edge ports s25 usb

AI logistics startup Augment, from Deliverr’s founder, raises massive $85M Series A

Having built and sold e-commerce shipping startup Deliverr to Shopify for $2.1 billion in 2022, co-founder and CEO Harish Abbott knows the logistics industry well. Abbott felt that many manual tasks in logistics could be automated using AI. That’s why last year he launched Augment which offers an AI assistant called ‘Augie’ that can take over tedious and repetitive work performed by freight shippers, carriers and brokers. On Thursday, Augment announced that it raised an $85 million Series A le

Nepal blocks Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X over rule breach, amid censorship concerns

Nepal has ordered internet service providers to block access to major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X, after the companies failed to comply with local registration rules — drawing criticism from media rights groups and raising concerns over censorship and free expression. On Thursday, Nepal’s Ministry of Communication and Information Technology directed the Nepal Telecommunications Authority to instruct internet service providers to restrict access to 26 so

OpenAI announces AI-powered hiring platform to take on LinkedIn

OpenAI says it’s developing an AI-powered hiring platform to connect businesses and employees, a service that would put the outfit in close competition with LinkedIn. The product is called the OpenAI Jobs Platform, and the company expects to launch the service by mid-2026, an OpenAI spokesperson told TechCrunch. OpenAI CEO of Applications Fidji Simo announced the new endeavor in a blog post Thursday, saying the company will “use AI to help find the perfect matches between what companies need an

X’s encrypted DM feature, XChat, is rolling out more broadly

X’s long-awaited encrypted DMs feature, XChat, is becoming more widely available. Though the feature shipped in beta in May, XChat is now accessible for more users, including those who do not subscribe to X Premium. Separate from the existing DM inbox, XChat is end-to-end encrypted. The chat system supports media uploads, group chats, pinned messages, and the ability to mark messages as read or unread. Vanishing mode has been rumored to be in the works as well. Right now, users can only acces

Fashion retailers partner to offer personalized AI styling tool ‘Ella’

The luxury membership platform Vivrelle, which allows customers to rent high-end goods, announced Thursday the launch of an AI personal styling tool called Ella as part of its partnership with fashion retailers Revolve and FWRD. The launch is an example of how the fashion industry is leveraging AI technology to enhance customer experiences and is one of the first partnerships to see three retailers come together to offer a personalized AI experience. Revolve and FWRD let users shop designer clo

Salesforce slump deepens as stock drops more than 5% on weak guidance

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff attends the 55th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 23, 2025. A bad year just got worse for Salesforce . Following a disappointing revenue forecast in its quarterly earnings report late Wednesday, Salesforce's stock slumped more than 5%, bringing its decline for 2025 to 27%. That's the worst performance in large-cap tech. Revenue increased 10% in the fiscal second quarter from a year earlier, cracking double-digit growth for t

Ex-Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor's Sierra is the latest $10 billion AI startup

Bret Taylor, chairman of the board of directors of OpenAI, attends the annual Allen and Co. Sun Valley Media and Technology Conference at the Sun Valley Resort in Sun Valley, Idaho, on July 8, 2025. Bret Taylor's artificial intelligence startup Sierra has just joined an exclusive club: The company sports a new $10 billion valuation after raising $350 million in fresh capital. Sierra is one of just a handful of AI startups, including OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Safe Superintelligence and Thinking M

AI Startup Says It Will End Crime by Blanketing the Entire United States in Ever-Watching Spy Cameras

Crime rates in the United States, as a matter of statistical fact, have fallen drastically over the past 30 years — but at the same time, due to a mix of sensational news reporting and irresponsible political rhetoric, the average American mistakenly believes they're increasing. And now, barreling into that reality is a 38-year-old tech bro who says his spying startup can solve it all for good. Garrett Langley is the CEO and cofounder of a surveillance startup called Flock Safety. Valued at $7