A year after Elon Musk unveiled Tesla's fourth 'Master Plan' promising an era of 'amazing abundance' through robots, robotaxis and AI, the company still hasn't offered concrete details on what that abundance actually entails. Musk has made sweeping statements—everyone getting a penthouse, robots performing surgery, people having 'anything they can think of'—but has not addressed practical questions like housing supply or implementation. Tesla and Musk did not respond to requests for comment.
Google has rolled out Guided Vision, a feature in Gemini Live that uses AI to give real-time audio descriptions of whatever a user points their phone camera at, including reading small text and identifying objects. It's available through the Gemini app, Google TalkBack, or as an accessibility shortcut on devices running Android 9 and above, and supports follow-up questions about what's being viewed.
Amazon has cut the price of the Toshiba 65-inch G700 Series ArtVision 4K UHD Smart Fire TV to $1,097.99, down from its $1,297.99 list price. That marks a 15% discount and the lowest price the set has reached since it launched. The TV features a QLED panel, an art-frame design with Art Gallery Mode, a 165Hz refresh rate, built-in Fire TV, and DTS Virtual:X audio support.
Users on Reddit report that Google Messages fails to send GIFs, photos, photomoji, and stickers over RCS when messaging other Android devices, though switching to SMS/MMS reportedly resolves the issue. Oddly, affected users say RCS media transfers to iPhones work fine, with the problem isolated to Android-to-Android exchanges. Standard fixes like restarting the phone, clearing cache, or resetting network settings have not resolved it for most, though one user says clearing storage helped at the cost of losing their Photomoji tab.
HP has unveiled the OmniBook 5 14, a thin 2.56-pound laptop with a 14-inch OLED display, starting at $699. The company says it will support up to an Intel Core 7 processor and claims up to 42 hours of battery life for local video playback, but has not disclosed storage, memory, or the processor used in the base $699 configuration.
Reports indicate Red Hat employees' internal badges and identifiers are being switched to IBM branding, with one employee, Thomas Wilson, publicly noting the change. Separately, departures are being reported at Red Hat and IBM subsidiary Nordcloud, some described as voluntary exits with severance, alongside commentary that IBM's quantum computing teams may be restructured similarly to how Kyndryl was spun off.
Microsoft's 2026 Digital Defense Report states that threat actors are currently using AI to discover and exploit vulnerabilities faster than defenders can patch them. The company says AI has cut the typical gap between vulnerability discovery and weaponization to under 24 hours, while remediation remains slow due to weak testing infrastructure in many systems. Microsoft expects this imbalance to persist for several years before defenders catch up.
9to5Toys' latest deals roundup highlights Apple refurb Studio Displays discounted up to $300, an M5 Pro MacBook Pro at $500 off, and a single AirTag 2 unit matching its all-time low of $24 on Amazon. The roundup also notes new low pricing on Belkin 25W MagSafe chargers from $13, Eve Matter/HomeKit smart home gear up to 38% off from $30, and an extra 10% off Apple USB-C, Thunderbolt, and MagSafe cables starting at $7.50.
Canada Rocket Company, one of three firms awarded government funding under the Launch the North program, says it will bypass building a small rocket and move directly to developing a medium-lift launch vehicle. CEO Hugh Kolias said the decision followed consultations with about 150 engineers, including senior Starship staff, who argued a small rocket wouldn't meaningfully reduce development risk. The initial government awards to NordSpace, Reaction Dynamics, and Canada Rocket Company totaled CAD 8.33 million, with larger funding signaled for the future.
Apple has added 13 classic movies to Apple TV's free-with-subscription library as part of a recurring monthly update. These join earlier additions like The Sixth Sense, Master and Commander, and The Rookie, which remain available. Apple TV costs $14.99 per month or can be accessed via the Apple One bundle.
Aaeon has released the Up Xtreme PTL Edge Air, an industrial mini PC powered by up to an Intel Core Ultra X7 358H processor and cooled by Frore's solid-state AirJet technology instead of a fan. The company says the system runs under 21 dBA and is 35% thinner and 43% lighter than a heatsink-and-fan version, while supporting up to 128GB DDR5 RAM, two M.2 SSDs, and four simultaneous displays.
Researchers at the University of California, Irvine analyzed a decade of usage data from McGraw Hill's Aleks math platform, comparing student performance before and after ChatGPT's 2022 launch. They found students completed word problems faster and with higher accuracy after ChatGPT arrived, but scored 25% worse on those same problem types during proctored exams without AI access, while graphing-task performance stayed the same. A separate July study from Middlebury College suggested students can still use AI productively as a tutor without losing critical thinking skills.
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