Toxic fumes from jet engines are leaking into aircraft cabins at an accelerating rate, reaching 108 incidents per million departures in 2024 compared to 12 in 2014, a Wall Street Journal investigation found. The fumes contain neurotoxins and carbon monoxide that have caused brain injuries in crew members. JetBlue flight attendant Florence Chesson suffered permanent neurological damage after inhaling engine oil vapors in 2018, diagnosed by neurologists as equivalent to an NFL linebacker’s concussion.
The surge is driven by Airbus A320 aircraft, particularly the A320neo model introduced in 2016. WSJ reports Airbus loosened maintenance requirements under airline pressure despite knowing the changes would increase incidents. The FAA received over 700 fume event reports from major U.S. airlines in 2024. Most commercial jets except Boeing’s 787 use a “bleed air” system that pulls cabin air through engines.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
LG just announced two new earbuds in its xboom line of audio products, following the launch of the xboom Buds in January. The xboom Buds Plus and Buds Lite (which seems like a relatively confusing name to beer drinkers) both hit store shelves sometime this month.
The Buds Plus earbuds are filled with high-tech bells and whistles. These premium headphones boast adaptive EQ that continuously adjusts the sound profile in real time. This should ensure “optimal audio quality regardless of how the earbuds are worn.” The company says the design compensates for changes that would lead to signal degradation with other earbuds.
They include ANC and a trio of microphones for making phone calls and the like. The charging case sanitizes the earbuds after each use with UV rays, with the company claiming that the process eliminates 99.9 percent of bacteria from the surface. This case also doubles as a Bluetooth transmitter, which is useful when enjoying some in-flight entertainment. It supports wireless charging, which is nice, with up to ten hours of playback per charge on the buds and 30 hours with the case.
The Buds Lite earbuds have one advantage over the standard Buds and the Buds Plus. The battery lasts up to 11.5 hours per charge, with the case bringing that up to 35 hours. Otherwise, these are standard earbuds that offer “clear, balanced audio for music, calls and more.”
They offer ANC, though a more streamlined version than with the Plus, and four customizable EQ modes. This allows users to “fine-tune their sound profile to match their preferences.” The Buds Lite ship with several different ear tips to accommodate multiple ear canal sizes.
LG hasn’t revealed any pricing info on these products, but the original xboom Buds cost $109. It’s a safe bet the Buds Plus will cost more than that. Hopefully, the Buds Lite will cost a bit less.
These are just the latest xboom-branded audio products. The company announced a trio of speakers at CES this year.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/lg-expands-its-line-of-xboom-earbuds-with-two-new-models-182220615.html?src=rss
A third of UK employers are using “bossware” technology to track workers’ activity with the most common methods including monitoring emails and web browsing. From a report: Private companies are most likely to deploy in-work surveillance and one in seven employers are recording or reviewing screen activity, according to a UK-wide survey that estimates the extent of office snooping.
The findings, shared with the Guardian by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), are based on responses from hundreds of UK managers and suggest there has been a recent growth in computerised work surveillance. In 2023, less than a fifth of people thought they were being monitored by an employer, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) found. The finding that about a third of managers report their organisations are monitoring workers’ online activities on employer-owned devices is probably an underestimate, as roughly the same proportion said they don’t know what tracking their organisations do.
Many monitoring systems are aimed at preventing insider threats and safeguarding sensitive information as well as detecting productivity dips. But the trend appears to be causing unease. A large minority of managers are opposed to the practice, saying it undermines trust with staff and invades their personal privacy, the CMI found.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Today, Ubuntu maker Canonical announced that it will package and distribute the NVIDIA CUDA toolkit within Ubuntu’s repositories.
Virtual shifting is arguably the biggest innovation Zwift has brought to the indoor cycling scene in recent years.
What’s so great about it, how does it work, and what hardware is required? Let’s dive in…
Unless you ride a single-speed bike, you’re using physical gears to make your riding more enjoyable. You’ll typically shift to an easier (lower) gear when riding uphill so you aren’t grinding away, and you may shift to a higher gear on a descent so you don’t spin out.
With virtual shifting, your chain doesn’t move between different front chainrings or rear cassette cogs when you shift. Instead, when you make a virtual shift, the resistance of your smart trainer changes so it feels like you’ve changed gears.
Why do Zwifters like virtual shifting? Because it beats mechanical shifting in many ways:
Watch a quick video showing how Zwift’s virtual shifting works in game using the Play or Click controllers:
This video is a bit outdated here in 2025, but it gives you a basic idea of how virtual shifting works in game, so we’ve included it here…
Thanks to the popularity of Zwift’s virtual shifting, basically all new trainer models since 2024 have supported it, and some companies have updated firmware for older trainers to roll out virtual shifting support.
Currently, the following smart trainer models support virtual shifting:
Note: you must connect your trainer via Bluetooth, WiFi, or a direct ethernet connection in order to use Zwift’s virtual shifting. It is not supported over ANT+.
Interested in getting virtual shifting, but aren’t sure if you should buy the affordable Click v2, get a whole Zwift Ride Smart Bike, or something else? Here’s a rundown of features and specs for all the virtual shifting hardware Zwift has ever made:
| Play | Ride | Click | Click v2 | |
| Virtual Shifting |  | | | |
| Steering + Braking | | |  | |
| Powerup Trigger | | | | |
| Ride On Bomb button | | | | |
| Game Navigation buttons | | | | |
| Drop bar compatible | | | | |
| Flat bar compatible | | n/a | | |
| TT bar compatible | | n/a | | |
| Sequential Shifting | | | | |
| SRAM-Style Shifting | | | | |
| Shimano-Style Shifting | | | | |
| Cog Included | | | | |
| Power Source | USB Rechargeable | USB Rechargeable | Coin cell (CR2032) | Coin cell (CR2032) |
| Battery Life | ~20 hours | ~20 hours | >100 hours | >100 hours |
| BLE Connections* | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Price | Discontinued | $1300 (frame + trainer) or $800 (frame only) | Discontinued | $50US |
*If you’re an Apple TV user, it’s worth noting that the Click and Ride controllers use just one Bluetooth connection, while Play requires two. Apple TV limits users to two Bluetooth connections, which means Play users on Apple TV must pair all devices through the Companion app (since you must also connect your smart trainer, which would make three connections if you add Play into the mix). The only way around this is via a smart trainer that can connect using WiFi (read more).
But if you use Click or Ride, you may still be able to pair directly through Apple TV, as long as you aren’t pairing a heart rate monitor as a separate device.
First released in October 2023, the Zwift Cog is a single-cog replacement for a standard rear cassette. It was initially sold with the Zwift Hub One smart trainer, and the latest version is now sold with various trainers, the Zwift Ride, and as a package with the Click v2.
While you’ll need virtual shifting to use the Cog, you definitely do not need to have the Cog in order to use virtual shifting! Virtual shifting works just fine on a standard bike drivetrain with multiple front chainrings and a standard rear cassette.
The Cog was created by Zwift to simplify setups, as it eliminates the need to adjust your trainer’s cassette or fine-tune your bike’s shifting when placing your bike on the trainer. Just shift to a gear where your chain is lined up nicely on the Cog, and you’re ready to go!
If you have a trainer that supports virtual shifting, you can buy the Zwift Cog + Click Upgrade Kit ($49.99 US) and get the easy compatibility of the Cog with the simple shifting of the Click.
By default, Zwift gives you 24 virtual gears ranging from a gear ratio of 0.75 to 5.49:
| Gear | Ratio |
| 1 | 0.75 |
| 2 | 0.87 |
| 3 | 0.99 |
| 4 | 1.11 |
| 5 | 1.23 |
| 6 | 1.38 |
| 7 | 1.53 |
| 8 | 1.68 |
| 9 | 1.86 |
| 10 | 2.04 |
| 11 | 2.22 |
| 12 | 2.40 |
| Gear | Ratio |
| 13 | 2.61 |
| 14 | 2.82 |
| 15 | 3.03 |
| 16 | 3.24 |
| 17 | 3.49 |
| 18 | 3.74 |
| 19 | 3.99 |
| 20 | 4.24 |
| 21 | 4.54 |
| 22 | 4.84 |
| 23 | 5.14 |
| 24 | 5.49 |
This is more than enough gears for any rider. By comparison, typical mid-compact road bike gearing with an 11-28 cassette offers a much narrower range of gear ratios (1.29 to 4.73), and some of those gears will overlap. In fact, using bike gear calculators, we can see that you’d have to run 30t and 60t chainrings paired with an 11-40 cassette to match the gear ratio range of Zwift’s virtual shifting!
Because Zwift’s virtual gears don’t overlap, they’re able to space the gear ratios so the resistance change between each gear isn’t too large or too small. For us, it feels just right.
If you’d like your shifting to better mimic mechanical shifting on your IRL bike, there are shift style options if you’re using Zwift Ride or Play:
Under Settings>Hardware, there are two settings to modify your virtual shifting experience:
You can also completely disable virtual shifting from this same settings screen.
One of the beautiful things about virtual shifting is that it works with whatever physical gearing your bike has. Are you on a road bike with a wide range of gears? A mountain bike with a lower gear range? A city bike with a limited gear range? No matter. If you have virtual shifting enabled, Zwift automatically detects your physical gearing in the first few seconds of pedaling after you enter the game. It then sets up your virtual gearing to match the table above, using whatever physical gear you are currently in.
Because of this, you’ll want to be in the right physical gear before you start riding in game. Which gear should you be in? Zwift recommends the small ring in front, and a lower gear on your cassette (perhaps 3rd or 4th) which gives you a decently straight chain line.
(Of course, if you have the single-cog Zwift Cog, you don’t need to worry about which gear you’re in on the back.)
Personally, we prefer the inertial feel of the big ring in front, and 4th gear or thereabouts on the cassette. This feels more like riding on flat ground – where you don’t have to push across the top and bottom of the pedal stroke – vs climbing in the small ring. And it puts less of a strain on your trainer.
Try different physical gears and see which feels best to you. If you want to force Zwift to re-detect your physical gearing and thus recompute the feel of virtual shifting, you’ll need to do one of the following:
Are you using Zwift’s virtual shifting? What do you think of it? Got questions? Share below!
The Federal Aviation Administration on Friday proposed fines of $3.1 million against Boeing for various safety violations related to the January 2024 door plug blowout and what the FAA called “interference with safety officials’ independence.”
An FAA statement said the proposed fine covers “safety violations that occurred from September 2023 through February 2024,” and is the “maximum statutory civil penalty authority consistent with law.” Boeing, which reported $22.7 billion in revenue and a net loss of $612 million last quarter, has 30 days to file a response with the agency.
“The FAA identified hundreds of quality system violations at Boeing’s 737 factory in Renton, Washington, and Boeing subcontractor Spirit AeroSystems’ 737 factory in Wichita, Kansas. Additionally, Boeing presented two unairworthy aircraft to the FAA for airworthiness certificates and failed to follow its quality system,” the FAA said.
The move also comes with a name change due to legal difficulties in
securing the Varnish Cache name:
The new association and the new project will be named “The Vinyl
Cache Project”, and this release 8.0.0, will be the last under the
“Varnish Cache” name. The next release, in March will be under the new
name, and will include compatility scripts, to make the transition as
smooth as possible for everybody.I want to make it absolutely clear that this is 100% a mess of my
making: I should have insisted on a firm written agreement about the
name sharing, but I did not.I will also state for the record, that there are no hard feelings
between Varnish Software and the FOSS project.Varnish Software has always been, and still is, an important and
valued contributor to the FOSS project, but sometimes even friends can
make a mess of a situation.
Artificial intelligence (AI) can’t do everything (or at least it can’t do everything well), but one thing generative AI tools using large language models are very good at is creating text. If you bombed the verbal part of the SAT test and writing anything longer than a text is terrifying, the whole experience can seem pretty magical; being able to generate an email, essay, or cover letter without having to stare at a blank page for hours and fret over every vocabulary choice is a powerful tool. That’s why it’s estimated that nearly 20% of adults in the U.S. have used AI to write emails or essays.
Once that email or essay is polished up (and fact checked, right?), however, there’s a looming hurdle: AI detectors, ranging from humans being aware of the “tells” behind AI-generated writing to online tools that purport to scan text and identify whether it was written by human beings or AI. The accuracy of those detectors is questionable, but people use them, so you have to worry about that if you’re going to pass off an AI-generated cover letter or other piece of writing as something not written by AI.
Enter the AI “humanizer,” a tool designed to take your AI copy and turn it into something, well, more human by removing and rewording common AI tics and phrasing. It’s an appealing idea: You get AI to generate your essay, you run it through the humanizer, and the end result seems like it was written from scratch by a human (presumably, you). But do they work?
To find out, I conducted a little experiment. While this isn’t exactly an exhaustive investigation, it definitely gave me a solid sense of whether any of these tools are worth using if you insist on having AI secretly write all of your correspondence, school assignments, or heartfelt emails to old friends.
First, I had ChatGPT generate an essay on … how to make AI writing more humanized. It spun up an essay in a few seconds, and the result was perfectly coherent. I didn’t fact-check it or massage the text in any way; its sole purpose is to be tested in humanizing tools.
Next, I ran the essay through a few AI detectors to make sure it was a fine example of mediocre AI writing. The results were as expected: QuillBot scored it as 94% AI, ZeroGPT scored it at 97%, and Copyleaks scored it a robust 100% AI-generated. The world of AI detectors agreed: This essay from ChatGPT reads like it was written by ChatGPT.
Now, could AI humanizer tools fix that? There are a lot of humanizers out there—the explosion of AI chatbots has inspired a war between the detectors and the tools designed to fool them. So I chose a few popular ones to test out.
First, though, I wanted a bit more calibration, so I did something obvious: I fed ChatGPT’s text back into it and asked it to humanize the text. All of these tools are AI-based, after all, so maybe the easiest thing in the world is to just ask ChatGPT to be less like itself.
Then I took the original ChatGPT-generated text and fed it through four other humanizer tools: Paraphraser.io, StealthWriter, Grammarly, and GPTHuman.
Now I had five “humanized” versions of an essay that three AI detectors had scored as pretty obviously AI. Would their scores improve? The answer is pretty much no, though one tool showed what you might generously call “promise”:
Paraphraser.io: Got murdered. Quillbot scored its version at 83% AI-generated, Copyleaks at a pretty firm 100%, and ZeroGPT at a suspiciously specific 99.94%.
ChatGPT: Bombed, although to be fair, it’s not specifically a humanizer, and perhaps a more thorough prompt would have yielded better results. Both QuillBot and Copyleaks scored it at 100% AI-gen, while ZeroGPT gave it 87.77%.
Grammarly: Also bombed pretty thoroughly, with QuillBot, Copyleaks, and ZeroGPT scoring its version 99%, 97.1%, and 99.97% respectively.
GPTHuman: This one had mixed results. QuillBot was totally fooled, scoring it 0% AI-gen, and ZeroGPT wasn’t sure of itself, scoring it just 60.96%. But Copyleaks had no doubt, slapping it with a 100% score.
StealthWriter: The most effective one tested here. While ZeroGPT was suspicious, scoring it as (again, curiously specific) 64.89% AI-gen, Copyleaks scored it at just 3%, and QuillBot was totally fooled with a 0% score.
One aspect of Stealthwriter that may have helped its effectiveness was the ability to keep running the humanizer over the text over and over again. The first run-through, StealthWriter claimed it would score as 65% human, so I ran it a second time, and the score jumped into the 80s, so I ran it again, and it hit 95%. After that, the score didn’t budge when I ran the humanizer tool over the text.
All of these tools state pretty plainly that you should review the results and make your own adjustments, and I didn’t review the humanized text for quality of writing or accuracy. I just wanted to see if they would fool AI detectors, and the answer is: Probably not, but StealthWriter might help.
Finally, consider that there are a lot of AI detector tools out there, which means the variability of scores (even with StealthWriter) is a concern: You can’t always know which detector tool someone is using. If they’re using a detector I didn’t use here and it’s better at detecting what StealthWriter is doing, for example, you’ll still get nailed. If you’re worried about your AI-generated text being detected as such, your best bet remains doing the writing yourself, or at least revising AI-generated text very, very thoroughly.
Apple released iOS 26, iPadOS 26 and macOS Tahoe 26 today, introducing Liquid Glass, a translucent design language that represents the biggest visual redesign since iOS 7 in 2013. The new interface elements dynamically refract and reflect background content across all three platforms. iOS 26 requires iPhone 11 or later and second-generation iPhone SE or newer. iPadOS 26 runs on the same hardware as iPadOS 18 except the 7th-generation iPad. macOS Tahoe 26 supports all Apple silicon Macs, the 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro, 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro, 2020 and later iMac, and 2019 and later Mac Pro. The transparent menu bar on macOS increases perceived display size.
iOS 26’s adaptive Lock Screen time display resizes around notifications and Live Activities. Desktop icons, folders, app icons and widgets support light, dark, tinted, and clear appearances across all systems. iOS 26 adds Visual Intelligence for on-screen content analysis through screenshot button combinations. Live Translation operates across Messages, FaceTime and Phone on all platforms, translating text and audio in real-time on-device. The Camera app received streamlined navigation and lens cleaning hints for iPhone 15 and later models.
iPadOS 26 brings Mac-style windowing and multitasking. Apps support free-form placement and menu bars. The Phone app and new Apple Games app arrived on iPad. macOS gained the Phone app through Continuity, including Call Screening and Hold Assist features. Spotlight executes hundreds of actions without opening applications and automatically assigns quick keys to frequent actions. Apple Intelligence expands across all systems. The Shortcuts app gained intelligent actions for text summarization and image generation. The Wallet app tracks orders across platforms, while Apple Music introduced AutoMix for song transitions.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
After a summer of beta updates, iOS 26 is here. As long as you have a compatible iPhone, you can install the new software right now. Head to Settings > General > Software Update, and get ready for a Liquid Glass makeover.
iOS 26 offers Apple’s biggest visual change to its software since iOS 7. (That was when Jony Ive’s flat design replaced Scott Forstall’s skeuomorphic one.) This time around, the software adopts a translucent material theme: Liquid Glass. Although it isn’t a return to skeuomorphism, it does reincorporate a sense of depth, simulating a pleasantly refractive glass. Expect colors and visual effects that respond to their onscreen surroundings.
Apple has taken flak from industry pundits for not rushing headfirst into AI. (Or, at least it hasn’t with the same manic frenzy as its competitors.) The company is taking a more measured approach, gradually incorporating it into its software. This year’s Apple Intelligence additions include live translation in messages, FaceTime and Phone. Visual Intelligence also expands beyond the camera and into screenshots. And your Genmoji and Image Playground creations might look less… strange than last year’s versions.
Even Apple Music gets a new AI feature. Its new automix generates transitions between songs, aiming for DJ-like progressions. I find that it works best with danceable genres like EDM or hip-hop. It usually won’t bother trying to mix less beat-driven singer-songwriter-type stuff.
Arguably handier than new AI features is Apple’s revamp of its communication apps. Call screening lets you gather info from callers before deciding whether to pick up. Hold Assist saves you from having to listen to the Muzak. And the Messages app adds new screening options and filters. You can also add custom backgrounds and even conduct polls in your messaging threads. Finally, the Phone app cleans up its interface, unifying its tabs into a single list.
There’s much more on tap, of course. For that, you can check out Engadget’s iOS 26 preview.
It isn’t all about the iPhone. Apple’s other software updates are here today, too. iPadOS 26 gives the tablet its most Mac-like productivity boost to date. watchOS 26 adds sleep scores and an AI coach. And macOS 26 Tahoe adds a Phone app and souped-up Spotlight search. All of those (along with visionOS 26 and tvOS 26, which still exist) adopt the new Liquid Glass aesthetic. You can download each via Settings > General > Software Update.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/ios-26-is-now-available-heres-how-to-install-it-on-your-iphone-171233434.html?src=rss
The last time Apple gave macOS a fresh design was in 2020’s macOS 11 Big Sur.
That release was relatively light on new features and heavy on symbolism. Big Sur is also when Apple finally jettisoned the “10” in Mac OS X after two decades. More importantly, it was the first release installed on then-new Apple Silicon Macs, the culmination of a decade-plus of in-house chip design that began with single-core, low-power iPhone and iPad chips and culminated in something powerful enough for the Mac Pro.
Today’s macOS 26 Tahoe release holds up a translucent, glassy mirror to the Big Sur update. It comes with an all-new look, one that further unifies Apple’s design language across all its operating systems. And it even throws out the old version numbering system and introduces a new one.
AI is transforming corporate America, yet the boom remains understated in government growth statistics, according to Goldman Sachs. From a report: Analysts at Goldman pointed to the scale of the boom in a Saturday note: “Revenue at US companies providing AI infrastructure has risen by $400 billion since 2022, which at first glance seems to suggest that AI has been a meaningful driver of economic growth recently.” But official numbers tell a different story.
AI technology has lifted real US economic activity by about $160 billion since 2022, or 0.7% of GDP, the analysts calculated. Yet only around $45 billion, or 0.2% of GDP, of AI-spurred growth has been recorded in official statistics. That leaves roughly $115 billion uncounted, according to the analysts. That gap highlights the difference between what companies report and what the government measures due to the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis method for calculating growth.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
AeroCoach has announced the Thunderbolt tri-spoke, which is the “fastest non-disc” road bike wheel available, according to its wind tunnel data.
The result of almost two years of development, AeroCoach’s Dr Xavier Disley said the British brand set out to “push the boat out in terms of time trial performance, without having to resort to a front disc wheel”.
Featuring a 90mm-deep rim and three aero-profiled composite spokes, the Thunderbolt is said to be optimised around “modern wider tyres”, so that there’s “no compromise between rolling resistance and aerodynamics”.
The AeroCoach Thunderbolt launches alongside the Bolt tri-spoke, which features a similar tri-spoke design paired to a shallower rim, for improved handling in windy conditions.
Most commonly seen on time trial and triathlon bikes, tri-spoke wheels have waxed and waned in popularity over the years.
Scotland’s Graeme Obree used a set for his iconic UCI Hour Record aboard ‘Old Faithful’, while HED’s H3 had a resurgence during the Team Sky era when the likes of Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome dominated Grand Tour time trials.
According to Disley, AeroCoach has received “a lot of questions from riders” about whether tri-spokes perform better than traditionally spoked wheels, either in terms of aerodynamic efficiency or handling.
The answer, Disley says, is to “ignore what the wheel looks like and go on each wheel’s individual performance.”
There are “tri-spokes that handle terribly in the wind and have bad aero performance, same with some deep-sections, and there are also tri-spokes that handle amazingly in the wind and have equally exceptional performance.”
Unsurprisingly, Disley says the Thunderbolt and Bolt are the latter.
According to the brand’s wind tunnel data, both wheels beat a number of competitor options used in the WorldTour, including Princeton CarbonWorks, Reserve, Zipp, Vision, DT Swiss and Cadex.
Disley notes “the margins are quite tight, as you’d expect”, but every watt counts to those competing at the pointy end of the sport.
The only wheel amongst the cohort to beat the Thunderbolt is AeroCoach’s AEOX front disc wheel.
Despite incoming changes to the UCI’s technical regulations limiting rim depth in mass start road races to 65mm, front disc wheels remain a UCI-legal option for time trials.
Beyond Wout Van Aert using front and rear disc wheels at the Paris Olympics, however, front discs have seen scant use at the highest level of the sport in recent years (presumably due to concerns about handling).
The Bolt tri-spoke trails just behind the Thunderbolt in the wind tunnel data, but only by an average of 0.5 watts at 45kph.
Thanks to its shallower rim, though, AeroCoach says the Bolt is a “versatile option for challenging wind conditions.”
Notably, Disley says AeroCoach tested versions of the Thunderbolt wheel with both hooked and hookless rims during development.
As their wind tunnel testing showed no significant difference in performance between the two rim styles, Disley says the brand opted for hooked rims to allow greater tyre compatibility and a wider range of safe tyre pressures.
This was important, Disley says, because tyre choice is critical when it comes to wheel performance.
“Some wheels change handling characteristics depending on the tyres you put on them, and some are extremely sensitive to tyre changes for aero too.”
Both wheels are optimised around 25 and 28mm-wide tyres – specifically Vittoria’s Corsa Pro Speed and Continental’s GP5000 TT TR – although the brand says both can “accommodate tyres from different manufacturers without large changes in aero drag”.
The AeroCoach Thunderbolt and Bolt tri-spoke wheels cost £1,195 and £995 respectively. Both are available as front or rear wheels, with rear wheels costing an additional £100.
The maintainer of the libxml2 project announced he is stepping down from this widely-used open-source library without any replacement maintainer yet determined…
The Apple Mac mini M4 desktop computer is on sale via Amazon right now. This brings the price of the entry-level version, with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, down to $499. The model with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage is down to $689, which is a discount of $110. You can also pick up one with 24GB of RAM for $904.
This is the model that came out at the tail-end of 2024 and represented the first major redesign of the product in ten years. We reviewed a version of this computer and called it “shockingly small” and “incredibly powerful.” It truly is teensy, resembling an Apple TV streaming box more than a desktop computer. All told, it’s five-inches by five-inches across and two inches tall.
There are two front-facing USB-C ports, which is extremely handy. The back of the computer boasts even more ports, including Thunderbolt, HDMI and Ethernet. As indicated by the name, this thing features the speedy M4 chip. The processor can easily handle garden variety computing tasks, like watching content, but also excels with creative pursuits like making music and editing videos.
This desktop doesn’t include an SD card reader, which could be a dealbreaker for those looking for an easy way to add more storage. We also found that the fan got loud every once in a while when dealing with heavy workloads. Otherwise, this is a near-perfect (and adorable) computer.
Check out our coverage of the best Apple deals for more discounts, and follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/apples-mac-mini-m4-is-up-to-110-off-right-now-163438417.html?src=rss
Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news.
Apple’s iOS 26 comes out today, and with it, a new design language called Liquid Glass. While the iPhone home screen has looked more or less the same ever since Apple ditched skeuomorphism in 2013, when you open up your phone today, after downloading the company’s latest update, you might be in for a surprise. Apple’s new look for the iPhone prioritizes transparency, and not everyone’s a fan.
Luckily, if you don’t like Liquid Glass, there’s something you can do about it. You can’t get rid of it entirely, but here’s how to make your iPhone look as close as possible to how it used to look before, across both the homescreen and apps like Safari.
First, know thine enemy. If you ever used Windows Vista back in the day, you have an idea of what you’re facing here. That operating system was famous for adding transparency effects to Windows that drastically affected performance, and while the iPhone seems to have saved itself from any performance issues with its own update, the goal seems to be the same: let you see what’s below your buttons and overlays by blurring and obscuring your background before letting it bleed through.
In theory, this adds a bit of depth to your display, and might make it easier to understand how your various screen elements exist in relation to each other. But in practice, some have complained about it being distracting, flooding your screen with irrelevant information you can’t do anything with.
Apple’s actually addressed these complaints a bit throughout the iOS 26 beta, specifically making the Control Center look less busy. But it’s still moving forward with the design changes overall.
If you’d rather Apple leave your iPhone’s design alone, though, you have options. During the beta, users discovered a pre-existing accessibility control within iOS that also, seemingly, neuters most of Liquid Glass’ changes. It won’t get rid of all of the updates—the new, wider toggle button is unaffected, for instance—but it goes a long way towards restoring your phone to how it looked before.
Called Reduce Transparency, this control has been around for years, and was originally intended as a way to add a solid background to any pre-Liquid Glass elements that already had transparent or blurred backgrounds, like the Passcode entry screen. Now, though, it turns out it also affects Liquid Glass as a whole.
You can see the changes here. Notice how the play button on Apple Music no longer lets blurred album artwork bleed into it, allowing you to more clearly read the artist’s name?
While I haven’t gotten my hands on Liquid Glass yet, I think I’ll be turning this on right away. I like big, chunky buttons, and Reduce Transparency seems like the way to get just that, even as Apple insists transparency is the future. If that sounds like you, here’s where you can turn it on:
Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size.
And while it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with Liquid Glass, while you’re in your accessibility controls, you might also want to turn on the Increase Contrast option, which will make your apps’ foreground elements pop from the background a bit more. After turning this on, you’ll see it right away on the Settings page’s toggles, which will take on a darker shade of gray when disabled. This is optional, but helps add to the chunky buttons look, and brings back a little bit of the depth Liquid Glass is going for, without making your screen busier.
For the most part, once you’ve enabled “Reduce Transparency,” you’ve gotten rid of Liquid Glass’ most extreme design decisions. Technically, the update does also allow you to make your icons clear or adjust your lock screen widgets, but those changes have to be opted into. However, one important app will look pretty drastically different by default: Safari.
When you open Safari after installing iOS 26, you’ll notice that the URL bar is now just a small pill at the bottom of the screen, next to a tiny back button and an even smaller refresh button. All your other old navigation features are instead hidden away in either the three-dots menu, or behind various swipes and long presses.
Personally, some of us at Lifehacker think the smaller address bar is worth it, but if you want to go back to the old URL bar, you can do that. Simply navigate to Settings > Apps > Safari. Under the Tabs section, you’ll see three layout options. Compact is the new default, but Bottom will bring back the old look, with full controls for back, forward, sharing, bookmarks, and tabs all laid out below the address. There’s also a new Top option, if you’d like, that moves the website address to the top of the screen but leaves navigation at the bottom.
Businesses are overwhelmingly relying on Anthropic’s AI software to automate rather than collaborate on work, according to a new report from the OpenAI rival, adding to the risk that AI will upend livelihoods. From a report: More than three quarters (77%) of companies’ usage of Anthropic’s Claude AI software involved automation patterns, often including “full task delegation,” according to a research report the startup released on Monday. The finding was based on an analysis of traffic from Anthropic’s application programming interface, which is used by developers and businesses.
[…] On the whole, Anthropic found businesses primarily use Claude for administrative tasks and coding, the latter of which has been a key focus for the company and much of the AI industry. Anthropic, OpenAI and other AI developers have released more sophisticated AI tools that can write and debug code on a user’s behalf.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.