Latest Tech News

Voice Controlled Swarms

Inspired by Command School from Enders Game, let’s make swarms that we can control with our voice! We will do this by having a voice-to-text program feed our voice commands into an LLM, and then that LLM can run a bunch of commands to control the swarm. Below is the final result. Your browser does not support the video tag. And we will make this in two parts: First we will create a general voice-controller that can plug into any application that supports the Model Context Protocol (MCP). As

Inside Dylan Field’s Big IPO—and His Even Bigger Plans for Figma

When Dylan Field pops up on my Zoom screen, his face is a mixture of giddiness and fatigue. He’s back at work, after a whirlwind trip to New York City where he launched his company Figma on the New York Stock Exchange, bucking the trend of multi-billion-dollar startups staying private. Even before it became clear that this might be the wildest public launch in years, the Figma world—fans of the app, employees (known as Figmates), and investors—had already turned Wall Street into a block party, h

The arcane alphabets of Black Sabbath

Source: fontsinuse.com Nick Sherman . License: All Rights Reserved . Black Sabbath’s first four studio albums – Black Sabbath , Paranoid , Master of Reality , and Vol 4 , released in rapid succession between 1970 and 1972 – laid much of the groundwork for the heavy metal movement. While there were other bands playing heavy blues-inspired hard rock at the time, the gloomy, doom-laden stylings of Black Sabbath helped fuel their early success as one of the first – and most influential – heavy meta

Apple’s F1 movie gets IMAX re-release, with tickets now on sale

F1 The Movie has shown strong legs at the box office, but Apple’s summer hit is about to get another financial boost: F1 is being re-released in IMAX theaters starting this Friday, with tickets on sale now. Here are the details. F1 returns to IMAX this Friday, with wider expansion next week Last month, IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond shared some surprise Apple-related news: the company’s F1 movie would be getting a rare IMAX re-release. Now, Apple has officially confirmed the news and shared new detail

I switched to the Dell 14 Premium for two weeks, and it made my XPS laptop look bad

Dell 14 Premium ZDNET's key takeaways Dell's latest high-performance laptop is currently on sale starting at $1,500. It's superbly designed, with a sleek, modern build and powerful, but accessible, hardware. It runs warm, and requires power management from the user to get the most out of the battery. View now at Dell Dell's laptop rebrand may have resulted in some shuffling around of naming conventions, but the new Dell 14 Premium -- Dell's refreshed high-performance line of laptops -- looks

The 1090 Megahertz Riddle: A Guide to Decoding Mode S and ADS-B Signals

In the last twenty years, aircraft surveillance has moved from controller-based interrogation to automatic broadcast. The Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) is one of the most common methods for aircraft to report their state information like identity, position, and speed. Like other Mode S communications, ADS-B makes use of the 1090 megahertz transponder to transmit data. The protocol for ADS-B is open, and low-cost receivers can easily be used to intercept its signals. Many rec

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Here’s an early look at Gboard’s Material 3 Expressive refresh (APK teardown)

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority TL;DR Google is working on a Material 3 Expressive redesign for the Gboard app settings. The redesign features a card-style user interface and a rearranged settings menu with new descriptions. Gboard is one of those apps I cannot live without, so much so that I even install it on my iPhones (which sounds blasphemous, but it works great). On Android phones, Google is working to bring a Material 3 Expressive redesign for Gboard settings, so you can enjoy a co

I tested Dell's XPS successor, and it made my $3,000 Windows laptop look bad

Dell Premium 16 ZDNET's key takeaways The Dell Premium 16 starts at $1,800. This is a premium laptop capable of handling heavy workloads, especially graphic design, thanks to its top-notch hardware. However, it does share some of the same issues as its predecessor, like its tendency to run warm and power-hungry battery. View now at Dell I've been dying to get my hands on the new Dell Premium 16, mainly because it is a follow-up to the Dell XPS 16, a laptop that I reviewed back in early 2024 a

GitHub pull requests are down

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‘Gags the Clown’ Leans Into an Urban Legend That Maybe Wasn’t a Legend

It’s been nearly a decade since an outbreak of clown sightings frightened people, first in the U.S. and then later across the globe. A clown in the right context isn’t necessarily scary, but a random clown just appearing with no obvious purpose is horror movie material. And, in fact, some of the creepy clown epidemic of 2016 can be traced back to Gags the Clown, a found-footage indie that turned some clever grassroots marketing into a stunt that went viral. Gags the Clown came out in 2018, whic

Why I recommend this $2,000 mirrorless camera to both beginners and professionals

Sigma BF ZDNET's key takeaways Sigma's BF is a $2,200, 35mm full-frame, mirrorless digital camera that radically changes the mode of operation by replacing the gaggle of buttons with an elegant click-wheel. It's a great first camera but also has tons of pro features A future upgrade to a higher-resolution 60-megapixel sensor would be a welcome enhancement. View now at Adorama View now at B&H more buying choices Taking pictures with a digital camera hasn't changed much in thirty years. The ele

A top designer was banned from Dribbble. Now he’s building his own competitor.

Dribbble has permanently banned dozens of designers from its platform following a new effort to pivot to a marketplace and chase monetization. This includes one of the platform’s most well known designers, Gleb Kuznetsov, founder of the San Francisco-based design studio Milkinside. Dribbble deleted his account with its over 210 million followers because he shared his contact information with prospective clients through the platform in violation of its new rules. Remarked Kuznetsov in a post on

Indian Sign Painting: A typeface designer's take on the craft

Work by an unknown sign painter for ArtLife in Kolkata, captured by Pooja Saxena for her India Street Lettering initiative. Since 2013, Pooja Saxena has been documenting Indian street lettering in all its forms. As this culimates in a new book from Blaft Publications, which can be pre-ordered on the dedicated Kickstarter, I invited her to share her insights into the sign painting themes within her work. India Street Lettering is a 200-page book presenting the documentary photography and detail

Indian Sign Painting: A Typeface Designer's Take on the Craft

Work by an unknown sign painter for ArtLife in Kolkata, captured by Pooja Saxena for her India Street Lettering initiative. Since 2013, Pooja Saxena has been documenting Indian street lettering in all its forms. As this culimates in a new book from Blaft Publications, which can be pre-ordered on the dedicated Kickstarter, I invited her to share her insights into the sign painting themes within her work. India Street Lettering is a 200-page book presenting the documentary photography and detail

Figma CEO's path from college dropout and Thiel fellow to tech billionaire

In this article FIG Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT Dylan Field, co-founder and CEO of Figma, signs the guestbook on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York on July 31, 2025. Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images Mark Zuckerberg may be the most famous college-dropout-turned-tech-billionaire. Dylan Field is the latest, after his design startup Figma soared in its stock market debut this week. The two entrepreneurs have something else in common: close ties to Pete

New IVF Startup Claims It Can Predict an Embryo's IQ

The 21st century has seen startups rise from a relatively niche business approach to a multi-trillion-dollar phenomenon. Between 2021 and 2023, startups generated an estimated $7.6 trillion in global value. From 2019 to 2023 — a rocky period for the economy overall — the number of startups in the US still increased by 16 percent. But with all that success comes a whole lotta risk. It's estimated that over two-thirds of startups fail to deliver a positive return to investors. Many fail before th

I tested the viral Sigma BF camera, and its radical redesign has me hooked

Sigma BF ZDNET's key takeaways Sigma's BF is a $2,200, 35mm full-frame, mirrorless digital camera that radically changes the mode of operation by replacing the gaggle of buttons with an elegant click-wheel. It's a great first camera but also has tons of pro features A future upgrade to a higher-resolution 60-megapixel sensor would be a welcome enhancement. View now at Adorama View now at B&H more buying choices Taking pictures with a digital camera hasn't changed much in thirty years. The ele

Design and development shop the Iconfactory is selling some apps — and AI is partially to blame

At one point, an app called Twitterrific was one of the most popular iPhone apps for browsing Twitter. These days, the company behind that app, and the many apps that followed, is struggling. And AI may partially be to blame. On Wednesday, the company known as the Iconfactory admitted it was at a crossroads and was putting up several of its apps for sale due to a lack of resources. While the announcement positioned the matter as a situation where the Iconfactory’s app catalog had simply grown t

Skechers unveils kids' sneakers with hidden Apple AirTag compartment

In brief: Parents who worry about where their kids are might be interested in a new line of children's sneakers from Skechers. Each pair of these shoes has a hidden compartment on the inside designed to fit an Apple AirTag, allowing the wearer to be tracked. The sneakers in the new Find My Skechers line have a cutout inside the heel of the shoe. Lift up the insert to reveal a small compartment containing the AirTag holder, where the tracker can be securely placed. The compartment has a screw-i

Anaconda Raises $150M Series C

With Insight Partners-led Round, Anaconda Establishes Role as the Standardized Python Distribution for Mission-Critical AI Systems AUSTIN, TX – [July 31, 2025] – Anaconda, Inc., the company committed to advancing AI with open source at scale, today announced that it raised over $150M in a Series C funding round led by Insight Partners, with participation from Mubadala Capital. The company operates profitably with over $150M in annual recurring revenue (ARR) as of July 2025. This news comes on

Open source BOM management (for me)

Since graduating from university I’ve gotten more and more into embedded software development. This has even spilled over into designing PCBs (printed circuit boards) for my embedded devices to sit on. Initially I had assumed that the leap from software to hardware design would be insurmountable without any formal education but it turned out to be quite enjoyable. It turned out that the problem I’d be facing wasn’t a technical one, but of an organisational nature. Designing circuits Designing

Show HN: Open-source physical rack-mounted GUI for home lab

The enclosure mounts as a 2U unit. 1U form factor was a bit challenging to pull off but I can try again. I have realized that a lot of people nowadays self-host services and set up home labs with mini racks. A significant challenge I've personally encountered is quickly obtaining health status from self-hosted services and machines, along with having the capability to control my Raspberry Pi headlessly within a mini rack. So, it got me thinking about creating a built-in GUI that users

Signing up for T Satellite without T-Mobile service isn’t as simple as it might sound

Joe Maring / Android Authority TL;DR T Satellite is now officially available nationwide, even for those without T-Mobile service, but signing up requires a phone call or an in-person visit. I decided to try signing up, and my experience was overall smooth and professional, though others have reported long waits or uninformed reps. I waited around an hour or so, though half this time was due to my own error. Recently, T Satellite officially exited beta and launched nationwide for both existin

Trouble Reading With Liquid Glass in the iOS 26 Beta? Here's How to Make it More Legible

Apple released the first public beta of iOS 26 on July 24, and the beta brings a Liquid Glass design to the iPhones of developers and beta testers, alongside other updates like a new Games app. But if you're not a fan of the Liquid Glass design, I found a way to reduce its effects so background images aren't bleeding through menus and making things hard to read. When Apple released the developer beta of iOS 26, people were torn about the design. Some were excited about it, while others -- mysel

M5 MacBook Pro could pose a big dilemma for upgrade decisions

If you’re interested in a new MacBook Pro, the current M4 model is an excellent option. But the M5 MacBook Pro will launch in the coming year too, and decisions about whether to upgrade could be a lot more complicated than usual. M5 vs M6 MacBook Pro: Two very different options For anyone expecting to upgrade their MacBook Pro in the coming year or so, Apple may have two very different options for you. The M5 MacBook Pro, which will launch either later this year or in early 2026, isn’t expect

Big Tech split? Google to sign EU’s AI guidelines despite Meta snub

Google on Wednesday said it will sign the European Union's guidelines on artificial intelligence, which Meta previously rebuffed due to concerns they could stifle innovation. In a blog post, Google said it planned to sign the code in the hope that it would promote European citizens' access to advanced new AI tools, as they become available. Google's endorsement comes after Meta recently said it would refuse to sign the code over concerns that it could constrain European AI innovation. "Prompt

Trouble Reading with Liquid Glass in the iOS 26 Beta? Here's How to Make it More Legible

Apple released the first public beta of iOS 26 on July 24, and the beta brings a Liquid Glass design to the iPhones of developers and beta testers, alongside other updates like a new Games app. But if you're not a fan of the Liquid Glass design, I found a way to reduce its effects so background images aren't bleeding through menus and making things hard to read. When Apple released the developer beta of iOS 26, people were torn about the design. Some were excited about it, while others -- mysel

Two Birds with One Tone: I/Q Signals and Fourier Transform

When a new member arrives at the Signal Processing Club, this is what they find at the club gate: I/Q signals. Perhaps a secret plot to keep most people out of the party? Some return from here to try another area (e.g., machine learning, which pays more and is easier to understand but less interesting than signal processing). Others persist enough to push the gate open for implementation purposes (even a little understanding is sufficient for this task) but never fully grasp the main idea. So w

Elements of System Design

Elements of System Design System design is often taught through domain-specific solutions specific to particular domains, such as databases, operating systems, or computer architecture, each with its own methods and vocabulary. While this diversity is a strength, it can obscure cross-cutting principles that recur across domains. This paper proposes a preliminary taxonomy of system design principles distilled from several domains in computer systems. The goal is a shared, concise vocabulary that