Sonos has released the Beam Ultra, a wider version of its compact soundbar that now supports genuine Dolby Atmos rather than simulated surround sound. The device packs five tweeters, four woofers and nine amplifiers, compared to the simpler single-tweeter setup in the previous Beam generation, and is best suited for TVs 55 inches or larger.
Adobe released its Premiere mobile video editing app on the Google Play Store, extending a tool that debuted on iOS last year. The free app supports a range of Android phones, including foldables like the Pixel 11 Pro Fold and Galaxy Z Fold 8, allowing editing in both open and closed configurations.
Amazon Web Services is giving select customers early access to a video-generation AI model built by The Biological Computing Company, which derives its algorithms from patterns observed in rat brain cells. The startup records how biological neural tissue processes visual information and then designs software that mimics those processes, aiming to make existing generative video models more efficient. Both companies expect a broader rollout to AWS enterprise customers to follow this limited preview.
Adobe has launched its redesigned Premiere app for Android, nearly a year after debuting it on iPhone, ending its beta phase and officially replacing Premiere Rush, which loses support on September 30. The app requires Android 13 or later and at least 5 GB of RAM, and is built to adapt its layout for foldables and other device types rather than simply porting the iOS version.
Viture, the San Francisco and Beijing-based maker of display-equipped smart glasses like the Viture One and Beast, announced a new product called Vonder that ditches the virtual screen and built-in cameras. Instead, the glasses use an AI assistant to observe user behavior and habits, organizing memories, ideas and goals into a digital vision board, and can proactively message users with behavioral feedback.
A Data & Society report, based on 18 months of ethnographic interviews with 44 Pennsylvanians, examines why communities are resisting new data center construction despite state officials touting billions in AI infrastructure investment. The researchers found residents grappling with contradictions between promises of economic growth and concerns over energy, land use, and broader AI risks, rather than being swayed by disinformation campaigns.
Breakthrough Energy Ventures has unveiled its sixth annual Fellows program, backing 21 early-stage companies working across agriculture, nuclear fusion, robotics and data center power efficiency. The lineup includes Borealis Fusion, which is developing fusion reactors fueled by proton-boron rather than conventional deuterium-tritium mixtures. Managing partner Eric Toone said the selections are made with an eye toward a looming tripling of global electricity demand as economies electrify, not just today's AI-driven power crunch.
Nvidia-backed space data center startup Starcloud says it will include Bitcoin mining ASICs on its Starcloud-2 satellite, set to launch later this year, according to CEO Philip Johnston. The company was originally founded to move AI data centers into orbit, leveraging constant solar power and space-based cooling, but is now adding crypto mining as a secondary use of that energy.
A new open-source project called npunlock reconstructs a path for writing custom C kernels that run directly on the programmable SHAVE cores inside Intel's NPUs, bypassing Intel's official stack which only exposes graph-level programming. The project has been verified on Windows x64 with Meteor Lake and the NPU3720 chip, and its latest update adds support for combining independent FP32 and FP16 custom code branches within a single execution graph.
Several states have agreed to settle an antitrust lawsuit that sought to block the combination of Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery, removing the last major legal obstacle to the deal. Shares of both companies rose sharply following news of the settlement, as investors now expect the merger to move forward quickly.
Leaker Ice Universe reports that Samsung's Galaxy S26 Ultra uses four-way baffles to block screen visibility from top, bottom and both sides, while Huawei's Mate XT 2 and Xiaomi's 18 Pro series only block side views. This makes Samsung's privacy screen more thorough, but the tighter light control brings side effects like dimmer off-axis brightness, blurrier images, and reported eye strain or nausea for some users.
Teardown analysis from Expand Mac mini shows the new M6 and M5 Pro Mac mini models have their NAND storage soldered directly to the logic board, reversing the removable SSD design found in the previous M4 Mac mini. Expand Mac mini, which sells cheaper aftermarket storage modules for the M4 lineup, says supporting the newer chips now looks unlikely.