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Tech News
Amazon has reduced the price of the Apple Watch Ultra 3 in its black titanium case with Milanese Loop band from $899 to $699.97, a 22% cut. The device carries a 4.7-star rating on the retailer's site. The listing is reported to mark the lowest price seen for the watch, undercutting even its Prime Day pricing.
A benchmark description surfaced detailing how an AI system referred to as GPT-6 Astra was evaluated on a driving course, measuring progress along a centerline, GPS-based distance, finish time, and accepted motion commands. The metrics track whether the run stayed within 4 meters of the course, whether it finished or collided, and how commands like set_motion and stop_now were executed during the attempt.
The Una Watch, previously offered for $350 during its Kickstarter campaign, is now priced at $199. It features a 1.2-inch MIP LCD display, up to 10 days of battery life, and an open-source design covering its SDK, housing, and circuit boards, allowing users to repair or modify it themselves.
A new essay argues that the fastest near-term impact of AI on the physical world won't come from robots, but from AI systems directing human workers step-by-step, similar to how GPS navigation already tells drivers what to do. The author calls this 'teleoperation,' where AI handles strategy and broad awareness while humans execute the physical actions AI can't yet perform itself. The piece uses driving and GPS as an early, already-normalized example of this pattern.
Telstra's mobile network suffered widespread disruption on 8 July 2026 after a single GPS receiver in a Melbourne chassis, restarting from maintenance, reverted to believing the year was 2006 and spread that false timestamp across the network. The failure knocked out voice calls, texts, and even emergency number access, while also disrupting trains, payment terminals, ticketing systems, and EV chargers. An independent review by Technology Audit Partners found no cyberattack, cut cable, or power failure was involved—just a corrupted time reference.
A former embedded systems contractor recounts building a real-time GPS moving-map display in the 1990s for hardware with a 25MHz 486-SX processor lacking a math co-processor, 32MB RAM, and ROM-based software. He used the Hipparchus library from Geodesy, which relied on Voronoi cells and integer math instead of costly floating-point trigonometry, achieving surprisingly high accuracy. The client later ran into financial trouble and the developer, as a contractor without IP rights, lost access to the finished prototype.
Researchers are developing AI-powered radio systems that can flexibly share spectrum frequencies in real time rather than relying on fixed allocations. This dynamic sharing approach would let devices like phones, satellites, and radar systems use the same frequency bands without interfering with one another, easing pressure on an increasingly crowded resource.
During Norway's annual Jammertest exercise in 2024, engineers fed false satellite-navigation signals to a rescue helicopter and a small plane flying over Andøya, causing tracking screens to show erratic loops and jagged paths that didn't match the aircraft's real routes. The test, which examines how equipment reacts to jammed or spoofed GNSS signals, is scheduled again for mid-September this year amid rising real-world interference linked to Russia's war in Ukraine.
Austin startup Tern has secured an $11.26 million U.S. Army contract to install its GPS-alternative navigation system in military vehicles. The technology uses a device connected to a vehicle's diagnostics board, paired with a tablet, to calculate location and routing by passively analyzing data the vehicle already generates, rather than relying on satellite signals.
Apple Watch's GPS + Cellular variant, first introduced with Series 3, connects to your carrier's SIM automatically and lets the watch send texts, take calls, get notifications, and stream music independently of a paired iPhone. The standard GPS model still needs a nearby iPhone for most of these functions, while the cellular version works over 4G or 5G on its own.
A maker restored a vintage 1995 TrueTime XL-AK GPS time server by gutting it and installing a Raspberry Pi 5 paired with Jimmy Paputto's L1 GNSS HAT, turning the old hardware into a working stratum 1 NTP time server. The project reuses the unit's original LCD screen and bicolor LED for status display, and the builder intends to add it to the public NTP Pool and use it for time services at the VCF Midwest event.
Amazon has discounted the 70mai A810 Lite 4K Dash Cam Front and Rear by 40%, bringing its price down from $149.99 to $89.97. The device offers 4K front and 1080p rear recording, built-in GPS, Wi-Fi 6 connectivity, and ADAS driver alerts, plus optional parking surveillance features when paired with a hardwire kit.