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Tech News
The Atlantic hurricane season has passed its usual mid-September peak without producing a single hurricane, an unusual lull caused by Saharan dust and strong wind shear suppressing storm development. Records dating to 1851 show only one prior year, 1941, without a hurricane by mid-September, and the National Hurricane Center says essentially no chance of one forming before Thursday.
A technical write-up walks through why physical phenomena like light and sound intensity fall off with the square of distance, rather than linearly or cubically. The explanation builds from the classical formula for a sphere's surface area, using a paper-cylinder analogy to show how wrapping a sphere in a fitted cylinder reveals the 4πr² relationship at the heart of the law.
Laptops with trackpads that bulge or pop out are often showing a symptom of a swollen lithium-ion battery, which sits directly beneath the trackpad in most designs including MacBooks and Surface devices. Battery swelling happens when overcharging or physical damage triggers chemical reactions that release gas, pushing outward against internal components. Apple has previously run replacement programs for MacBooks affected by this exact issue.
Ukraine's Navy says its Sargan 3000 unmanned surface vessel destroyed a Russian MBeK drone boat in the Black Sea, using a 12.7mm remote-controlled turret to sink the enemy craft after it was spotted by military intelligence. Footage released on the Navy's Telegram channel shows the exchange of fire and the Russian vessel sinking nose-first.
A 2009 demo video of Microsoft's abandoned Courier prototype is drawing renewed attention for its resemblance to Apple's rumored iPhone Duo foldable design. The Courier featured dual screens with an integrated interface allowing users to drag content like photos between panels, a concept Microsoft shelved less than a year after unveiling it.
The piece revisits CSS tools built for foldable devices, prompted by Google's Pixel Fold launch. It details media queries like horizontal-viewport-segments and vertical-viewport-segments, plus environment variables that report each screen segment's width, height and position so layouts can adapt automatically to different hinge geometries.
A new comparison lays out how modern iPads, especially M-series Pro and Air models, rival MacBooks in raw processing power and offer added flexibility through the Magic Keyboard, Apple Pencil, and optional cellular connectivity. The tablets excel at media consumption, portability, and creative apps like Procreate and Lightroom, though they still lag behind traditional laptops in certain workflow areas.
Researchers at the University of Michigan reconstructed ocean surface temperatures over the past millennium using fossilized corals from the Galápagos Islands, concluding that the current El Niño event is the most intense on record for that timeframe. The findings suggest the phenomenon could drive more extreme weather across the U.S., particularly during hurricane season.
Microsoft says its August 11, 2026 security update (KB5121003) is causing Teams and New Outlook to fail to launch or crash unexpectedly on ARM-based Windows 11 24H2 devices like the Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7. The problem mostly hits new or freshly imaged machines that haven't yet grabbed Microsoft Store updates, while Classic Outlook, Word and Excel remain unaffected.
Scientists studying hurricanes have identified a pattern in ocean surface temperature gradients that appears tied to episodes of rapid storm intensification, a phenomenon that has long confounded forecasters. By tracking how sharply temperatures shift across ocean regions a storm passes over, researchers believe they can better anticipate when a hurricane is about to strengthen abruptly.
CNET is inviting readers to complete a short survey rating their laptops on battery life, performance, software and value. The results, collected through September, will be used to compile a roundup of top reader-recommended laptops.
The U.S. Navy tested a wind-powered Saildrone Surveyor SD-3001 unmanned surface vessel armed with Lockheed Martin's JAGM missiles during RIMPAC 2026 exercises. Controlled via the Navy's ARES system, the drone fired two JAGMs while operating alongside the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group, and also demonstrated electronic warfare capabilities by working with an MH-60S helicopter to identify a mock threat.