The VIEWS research network's summer Visiting Fellow, Roland Buckingham Hsiao, led a hands-on Chinese calligraphy workshop for the group, combining teaching with practical writing exercises. The session covered traditional calligraphy styles and the adoption of Chinese writing elements by other languages and traditions, including a discussion of Wang Xi-zhi's 4th-century Lanting Xu, a work known only through later copies.
Amazon is selling the TCL NXTPAPER 70 Pro for $279.99, a $50 cut from its $329.99 list price and a match of its lowest price so far this year. The US model includes a 6.9-inch 120Hz NXTPAPER 4.0 display with reading-focused modes, 8GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and a large battery, and it holds a 4.5-star rating.
Amazon has brought back clearance pricing on Apple Watch Ultra 3 Milanese Loop models, offering both Black and Natural Titanium versions at $699.97, down $199 from their $899 list price. The same roundup also lists a $150 discount on Apple's 24GB 13-inch M5 MacBook Air, renewed launch pricing on the 24GB M6 Mac mini, nearly 20% off the Magic Keyboard, and a $7.50 Beats USB-C cable, alongside a $50 discount on AirPods Pro 3.
Paramount's Star Trek: Strange New Worlds wrapped up its fourth season with an episode centered on a time-related twist, offering glimpses of the show's future direction. The finale caps a season for the prequel series set aboard the USS Enterprise before the original Star Trek timeline.
A 9to5Mac writer who switched from an iPhone Air to the iPhone 18 Pro reports that the newer Pro model offers superior cameras, longer battery life, and faster performance powered by the A20 Pro chip. The reviewer also notes the vapor chamber prevents overheating issues previously experienced with the Air, and cites more responsive Siri AI performance.
F-Droid has launched version 2.0 of its official app after more than a year of development and 14 test releases. The update rebuilds the interface using Kotlin Compose and Material Design, reorganizing navigation into three sections—Discover, Search, and My Apps—to improve app browsing, search, and update management. The rollout to users will happen gradually over the coming weeks.
A reviewer compared Apple's revamped Clean Up tool and new Extend feature in iOS 27, running on an iPhone 18 Pro Max, against Adobe Photoshop's Firefly-powered Generative Fill and Expand tools. The test used six travel photos shot on an iPhone 17 Pro Max, split evenly between object removal and image extension tasks, with settings kept as consistent as possible across both platforms.
In an interview with The New York Times' Ezra Klein, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that if AI labs cannot contain their experiments and those experiments risk harming the world, the labs should be shut down. He argued the potential civil and criminal liabilities from uncontained AI testing would be too great for society to bear.
Xiaomi unveiled its 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max phones in China, among the first devices to run Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 chipset, with the Pro Max using the higher-end variant. Both phones feature privacy screens that limit off-angle viewing, LTPO AMOLED displays up to 6.9 inches with 4,000 nits peak brightness, the same triple rear camera setup as before, and larger batteries of 7,000mAh and 8,500mAh respectively.
Commentary on tech industry layoffs points to a broader trend: the US labor participation rate has dropped to levels last seen in the 1970s. Observers argue that the focus on layoff headlines obscures this larger shift, which they link partly to the growing use of AI in workplaces.
A new Urban Institute report finds that nearly 22% of middle-income renters missed a full, on-time rent payment at least once in 2025, up from about 14% in 2024. Middle-income was defined as $31,300-$62,600 for single renters and $53,300-$106,600 for a family of three, income levels that should theoretically cover the average U.S. rent of $1,771. The report notes middle-income households saw the sharpest increase in rent-related financial hardship of any income group.
Dymocks Tutoring and Talent 100 is closing its five Sydney tutoring centres by the end of the week, telling parents that AI tools like Gemini and ChatGPT can now provide the study help it once charged for. The company said students increasingly rely on such tools for exam prep and instant feedback, making its human tutoring service redundant.
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