Lead times for high-capacity hard drives have exceeded 52 weeks as AI workloads drive unprecedented demand for warm storage that sits between fast SSDs and offline tape archives, according to TrendForce. Western Digital notified customers of price increases across its entire hard drive portfolio citing demand for “every capacity” in its product line.

The shortage stems from AI infrastructure requirements including training datasets, model checkpoints and inference logs that consume petabytes of storage space. These files are too large for primary SSD storage but must remain accessible for quick retrieval. Hard drive manufacturers have not significantly expanded production capacity in approximately a decade. Cloud service providers are evaluating QLC SSDs for cold data storage despite costs remaining four to five times higher per gigabyte than mechanical drives. Memory suppliers are developing SSD products specifically for this intermediate storage tier.

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Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding my work at Lifehacker as a preferred source.

Spotify is finally giving its free-tier customers a feature that’s been requested since the music streaming platform launched nearly 20 years ago: the ability to listen to any song they choose. That’s right: The days of searching for a song, then hitting “skip” until it rolls around on a Spotify-generated playlist are over.

Free-tier users can choose songs in three ways: through the search function, by clicking on any song from the Spotify interface, or by clicking on a link shared by other users. Free-tier users can also listen to podcasts through Spotify, and create and listen to playlists too. Spotify’s previous “six skips per hour” rule also appears to be no more.

There are still limitations to Spotify’s free accounts, of course. The most obvious is that you still have to listen to ads. Free users will also face a cap on how many minutes of music they can listen to on demand, won’t be able to queue tracks, and won’t be able to access Spotify’s “AI DJ” feature. (No great loss; trust me.)

They also won’t have access to another new Spotify feature exclusive to paid accounts: lossless audio.

Premium Spotify customers to get lossless audio

“Premium” Spotify perks are improving too. The first, most important upgrade in the long-awaited launch of lossless audio on the service. Lossless audio (streaming files that are bit-for-bit copies of the source material) is rolling out to over 50 Spotify markets from now through October.

Premium users will also be able to send private messaging, to make music-sharing easier, and add and customize transitions between songs within a playlist.

The changes make Spotify more competitive

The upgrades to both levels of Spotify’s service aren’t really about making life better for users; they’re about staying relevant and profitable in a crowded and ever-changing marketplace. The hope from Spotify is to increase ad revenue by increasing the number of ears listening to ads, entice more free users to upgrade to pay services, and shed fewer customers who leave for other services.

Until the change, Spotify’s free tier was close to a radio service—you could listen to music that you kind of wanted to hear, maybe, if you also put up with frequent ads. This model may have made sense when streaming was newer, but more and more younger users are turning to YouTube, where you can listen to whatever song you want (and see a video for it) on demand, and for free. And young people are discovering music on TikTok, not on Spotify.

Changes to Spotify’s premium service are aimed at the more “mature” listener. Lossless audio doesn’t make a ton of difference without decent headphones or speakers. But “our music is lossless” has long been a selling point for Apple Music and Tidal, but it won’t be anymore. 

Last year, New York joined the wave of states passing legislation aimed at protecting minors using the Internet, particularly social media. Governor Kathy Hochul signed the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act and the New York Child Data Protection Act in June 2024. Today, the state’s Attorney General Letitia James released more specifics about what the SAFE for Kids Act will entail in practice. Public comment is open until December 1 and the rules must be finalized within a year from that date.

In particular, the rule will require online platforms to confirm the ages of users before showing them algorithmically-curated feeds or sending them notifications at night. The Attorney General’s approach allows sites to choose their method of age verification, as long as the approach “are shown to be effective and protect users’ data.” New York will also require an age confirmation method that does not rely on having a government-issued ID.

There is also a component of parental consent in the SAFE for Kids Act. Minors must request a social media network to seek parental permission for accessing algorithmic feeds or receiving nighttime notifications. If parental consent is not granted, the platforms may not block minors from generally accessing their service or content. Both the minor and their parent may revoke their consent at any time.

“The proposed rules released by my office today will help us tackle the youth mental health crisis and make social media safer for kids and families,” James said in the announcement. “This is an issue that affects all of us, and I encourage parents, educators, young people, industry groups, and others to review the proposed rules and submit a comment during the public comment period.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/new-york-details-its-plans-for-online-age-verification-rules-195223379.html?src=rss

Meta’s smart glasses plans were already one of the worst kept secrets, as there have been more than a year of leaks and reports about its work to add a heads-up display to the product. Now, just days before their unveiling at Connect, a promotional video of the new frames seems to have leaked.

The video, reported and reposted by UploadVR, shows the new “Meta Ray-Ban Display” frames as well as a new model of camera-enabled Oakley sunglasses. The clip mainly features the new Ray-Ban glasses, and shows a pair of black frames with clear lenses that look similar to the company’s previous Wayfarer frames. 

Screenshot

The glasses also include a small display that’s able to show info like a map preview, chats with friends and information related to what you’re looking at. As reported, it also shows a dedicated wristband for the device. The video briefly shows someone swiping with their fingers in order to type out a reply to a message in a chat app. 

The clip also shows a new pair of Oakley frames that don’t have a display. The sunglasses seem to be based on the company’s wraparound Sphaera frames and show a camera in the center directly over the nosepiece. That would line up with prior reporting about the glasses that suggested Meta planned to market the glasses to cyclists and other athletes.

UploadVR reports that the video briefly appeared on Meta’s official YouTube channel as an unlisted clip but was quickly removed. We’ve reached out to the company for comment.In the meantime, you can read more about the company’s new smart glasses lineup and what to expect at Connect here. Engadget will be reporting live from the event beginning September 17.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/video-of-meta-ray-ban-display-glasses-surfaces-ahead-of-connect-194713365.html?src=rss

Earlier this month, Ars sat down with the Consumer Technology Association’s vice president of international trade, Ed Brzytwa, to check in and see how tech firms have navigated Donald Trump’s unpredictable tariff regimes so far.

Brzytwa has led CTA’s research helping tech firms prepare for Trump’s trade war, but during our talk, he confirmed that “the reality has been a lot more difficult and far worse, because of not just the height of the tariffs, but the variability, the tariffs on, tariffs off.”

Currently, every tech company is in a “slightly different position,” depending on their specific supply chains, he explained. However, until semiconductor tariffs are announced, “it’s impossible” for any tech company to make the kind of long-term plans that could help keep consumer prices low as Trump’s negotiations with foreign partners and investigations into various products drag on, Brzytwa said.

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Apple’s iOS 26 drops today, and with it comes a bunch of small tweaks and improvements to how your iPhone works. The catch? A lot of them are opt-in, so you need to turn them on before you can reap their benefits. Here are the settings you should turn on after updating your iPhone to Apple’s latest operating system, although note that some of them require an iPhone 15 Pro or later, as they rely on Apple Intelligence.

Adaptive battery mode

If you’re like me, you can never decide whether it’s worth it to swap your phone over to Battery Saver mode. Now, if you have an iPhone 15 Pro or above, your iPhone can make the decision for you.

Apple’s new Adaptive Power mode uses Apple Intelligence to intelligently determine when your battery usage is running higher than usual, and makes small tweaks to bring it back under control. These might include slightly dimming your display or slowing down less important tasks, like those that are running in the background or are particularly intensive. Then, once your phone’s been on an even keel for a while, it’ll start turning things back to normal. Think of it as a less aggressive “low power” mode that only affects certain processes, and can make adjustments based on more than your phone’s remaining charge. To try it out, simply navigate to Settings > Battery > Power Mode. Just don’t forget to turn it back off if you find its compromises aren’t worth the extra battery life.

Turn on call screening

Credit: Apple

I’ll be honest—I barely pick up phone calls anymore. Instead, I usually prefer to wait until after the call, and then call back if the caller was someone I knew or if it was important enough to leave a message. This usually works out for me, but I’ll admit, sometimes I do feel a bit bad for leaving people who call me in the lurch, especially if it turns out they had a good reason to dial me up. That’s where Apple’s new Call Screening feature comes in.

This one doesn’t require Apple Intelligence, so it’ll work on any iPhone running iOS 26. Simply open your Settings, then under Apps, tap Phone and look for the Screen Unknown Callers option.

You’ll have three choices. Never will work just like before, with calls ringing for a bit before they go to your Recents list. But now, you’ve got two additional options you can choose instead.

First is Silence, which will turn off your ringer for calls from unsaved numbers, then send them to Voicemail and display them in the Recents list. Essentially, it just cuts out the middle-man of having to wait for the caller to give up before you move on with figuring out what they wanted.

But the more exciting addition is Ask Reason for Calling. Choose this, and your iPhone will pick up calls from unsaved numbers for you, then ask the caller a few questions about their reason for calling. You’ll see a transcript of their answers on screen, and then you’ll be able to choose whether you want to pick up.

It’s a clever trick, and should make me feel a little less bad for anyone who tries to chat with me over the phone. I do wish it worked for Contacts as well, to be honest, but I can understand why my family might not be enthused to call me and get a robot secretary instead.

Try out the new ringtones

With iOS 26, Apple’s added a few new default ringtones to pick from. Six are variations of the classic “Reflection” ringtone, but there’s also a new one called “Little Bird.” You can find them all under Settings > Sound & Haptics > Ringtone, or check out the embeds below to hear them for yourself.

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Personally, “Bouyant” is probably my favorite, although my colleague Jake Peterson likes “Dreamer” the most. I’ll probably still stick with my custom ringtone, but if you’d rather not bother downloading a ringtone manually, you now have more choice than ever.

Fix Liquid Glass

This next one is technically about turning a feature off instead of turning it on, but I couldn’t ignore it. With iOS 26, Apple’s redesigned its design language to focus on transparency, and not everyone’s a fan. If you remember the transparent bezels Microsoft added to app windows in Windows Vista, it’s a lot like that, but more aggressive. Essentially, instead of showing a solid background, many buttons and overlays will now appear clear, allowing a blurred version of whatever is underneath them to bleed through.

Luckily, there’s a pre-existing accessibility control that essentially sets your iPhone back to how it was before. Simply navigate to Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size, then toggle on Reduce Transparency. This will bring back solid background across your entire iPhone, which you can see in effect here. Notice how the play button no longer allows blurred album artwork to bleed into it? If you prefer that flatter, more contrast-y look, this could be for you.

Custom backgrounds in iMessage

This one’s just fun. Now, in iMessage, you set custom backgrounds for your conversations and group chats on a per-chat basis. These include presets, like Water and Sky, but you can also pick solid colors, choose a photo from your library, or if you have an iPhone 15 Pro or above, generate a background using Apple Intelligence.

To get started, open a chat, click its title towards the top of the page, then choose Backgrounds.

Note that your chosen background will appear for everyone in the chat, but if you don’t like a background someone else set, you don’t have to live with it. Go to Settings > Apps > Messages and disable Conversation Backgrounds to turn the feature off.

Notification summaries for news

If you have an iPhone 15 Pro or above, Apple is actually bringing back a previously deleted feature with iOS 26: Notification summaries for news and entertainment apps.

These initially launched in the iOS 18.3 beta, but were quickly pulled after Apple’s AI had misrepresented some major BBC headlines, including one about United Healthcare shooting suspect Luigi Mangione. 

Now, Apple is confident enough to bring these notification summaries back, although with a new warning that says “Summarization may change the meaning of the original headlines. Verify information.”

If you’re comfortable with that, according to my colleagues over at CNET, you don’t have to do much to turn them on. Apple will actually greet you with a splash screen once you download the iOS 26 update, which will ask your preferences for which apps will get notification summaries. You’ll have three options, and you can select as many as you wish. All other apps will summarize notifications from non-social apps, like Maps, while Communication & Social will throw in notification summaries for apps like TikTok and Mail. These were available already. What’s new (again) is the News & Entertainment option, which will add notification summaries for apps including BBC or Netflix.

Simply make your choices, and you’re good to go. If you change your mind later, you can adjust your summaries under Settings > Notifications > Summarize Notifications. You can also adjust notification summaries on a per-app basis here, which isn’t available in the splash screen you get after installing iOS 26.

Get clear icons in iOS 26

Credit: Apple

Let’s say you actually like Liquid Glass, but think it doesn’t go far enough. In that case, you might want to turn your icons clear too, so you can see your background through them. I promise I won’t judge.

To turn your app icons clear in iOS 26, simply long press on your home screen’s background until your apps start jiggling. Then, tap Edit in the top-left corner, followed by Customize. Then, choose Clear. You can also choose between Clear Light or Clear Dark, with the dark mode opting for a more subdued tint.

This will make your app icons look like frosted glass, similar to iOS 26’s new lock screen clock. You do you.

(If you’re like me, you might prefer the new Tinted Light Mode option instead, which finally allows you to set a custom color for your app icons’ graphical elements alongside a bright background. You can find it in the Tinted option next to Clear while selecting your app icon appearance).

New ways to customize your lock screen

iOS 26 gives you more control over how your phone looks while locked than ever before. To get started, lock your phone, then press the power button, tap and hold on the lock screen, and tap Customize.

First off, you can now adjust the size of your clock by grabbing one of its corners and dragging it down, although this will only work with certain fonts. 

Second, you can now justify your widgets box to the bottom of the lock screen, as well as add an Apple Music search widget to it, if you like. If you actually start playing something, you’ll notice it’ll enable a large Now Playing interface that shows album art.

Finally, there’s support for Spatial Scenes. When selecting a Photo wallpaper, you can now tap on a small icon of a mountain and a sun to separate the photo’s subject from the background. Now, when moving your iPhone, the subject will move with it, to help them pop. Your clock might also move to fill up space in the photo, including slightly behind the subject, to help give an illusion of depth. Or, your widgets might automatically shift to the bottom of the screen if placed elsewhere, to better frame the photo subject.

Other settings you can enable

There’s plenty more you can do to make iOS 26 truly yours. If the above changes aren’t enough for you, here are 36 other tweaks you can make to get the most out of your iPhone’s new operating system.

President Donald Trump called Monday for companies to report earnings every six months instead of quarterly. Trump posted on social media that semi-annual reporting would save money and let managers focus on running companies. The SEC mandated quarterly reports in 1970. Trump made similar comments in 2018 that prompted SEC public comment but no regulatory changes.

Critics argue quarterly reporting increases costs and encourages short-term thinking. Supporters say frequent disclosures maintain investor trust and reduce market manipulation risks.

Further reading: The Renewed Bid To End Quarterly Earnings Reports.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Valve has apparently updated its Steam Early Access policy to no longer accept games with what the company deems to be “mature themes.” As first reported by Gamesmarkt earlier this month, gaming studio Dammitbird, which develops the adult adventure game Heavy Hearts, was not allowed to put the title on Steam Early Access because of its content.

Payment processors like Mastercard and Visa have been mounting a pressure campaign on video game marketplaces Steam and Itch.io to remove certain adults-only content since early summer. After taking down a game called No Mercy in April at the behest of payment processors and an Australian anti-porn organization, there has been a steady expansion in the application of these new policies.

Steam, for its part, made some incredibly vague policy changes to appease the payment giants, adding a sweeping clause that promises to ban certain kinds of adults-only content before proceeding to remove hundreds of games. Itch.io made similar changes before removing more than 20,000 titles from its marketplace. Steam has removed hundreds of titles that we know of. 

The apparent scope creep is of particular concern to small independent developers whose fairly innocuous games like VILE: Exhumed were banned from Steam and delisted from Itch.io. Exhumed is a mostly text-based game whose limited imagery and innuendo is worlds away from the sort of adult games that were first banned when this whole saga kicked off.

Part of the problem is how card payments are policed. Stores like Steam and Itch.io don’t contract with Visa or Mastercard directly but with acquiring banks and processors that must enforce the card networks’ brand-safety and anti-trafficking rules. This can end up influencing how companies like PayPal work with Steam across different regions, depending on how banks in those areas are responding to the pressure exerted by Visa and Mastercard.

The confusion will continue to cause consternation among developers and consumers alike until policies on these platforms are made clearer, or payment processors relieve some of the pressure by clarifying their own standards.

Engadget has reached out to Valve for comment and will update if we hear back. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/early-access-is-the-latest-place-where-steam-is-restricting-games-with-mature-themes-190806818.html?src=rss

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With the launch of iOS 26, Apple has added a bunch of new features to the Fitness app—features that it has been sorely missing. Finally, you can track a workout from your phone without an Apple Watch, and you can pair a bluetooth heart rate monitor to your phone to get heart rate data. And though it seems like a small change, Apple Watch users will love the fact that you can now create and edit custom workouts on your phone.

How to get the new Fitness updates

The new features in the Fitness app are part of iOS 26, which comes out today. (That’s the version with the controversial “liquid glass” look, but you can turn it off if you hate it.) To install it, go to Settings, General, and then tap Software Update. 

Once you’ve, you’ll find that the Fitness app has a new tab at the bottom, labeled Workout. This is where you’ll find the fun stuff. 

How to track a workout from the Apple Fitness app (with or without a watch)

Credit: Beth Skwarecki

In the Workout tab, you’ll see a variety of workout types that you can start just by tapping the play button. Outdoor Run, Outdoor Walk, Outdoor Cycle, and Hiking are available for everyone. To access the other workout types, like Indoor Run, Indoor Cycle, Yoga, High Intensity Interval Training, and Traditional Strength Training, you’ll need to pair a heart rate monitor. 

(The idea seems to be that the app needs some kind of data to track. If you run outdoors, GPS data tells the app how far and how fast you’re running. If you’re on a treadmill, it’s got nothing to go on—unless it has a device telling it your heart rate.) 

So what counts as a heart rate data source? I had success with: 

• An Apple Watch (of course)

• Powerbeats Pro 2 (with the heart rate feature enabled—check your Powerbeats settings if yours isn’t showing up)

• A third-party Bluetooth heart rate monitor (specifically my trusty Coospo)

I did four short runs today: three testing each of the above, plus one with just the phone by itself and no heart rate monitor. Each of the four tracked my speed and distance, made a map of where I’d been, and (if there was a heart rate monitor paired) recorded my heart rate data. I was able to view these workouts afterward from the Sessions card on the Summary tab, where Apple Watch-only workouts would normally be found.

To be clear, the three workouts I did without the Apple Watch did not require the watch at all. I left it behind in my car, and was able to track these workouts just fine. 

How to mirror your workouts from Apple Watch on your phone

Apple Watch screenshot on left, iPhone screenshot on right. (I did my best to take these at the same time…I was close, OK?)
Credit: Beth Skwarecki

The new mirrored workouts just work. You can start a workout from the Fitness app, or from your phone, and either way you get a Live Activity on your phone’s lock screen. Tap that, and you’ll see a screen in the Fitness app that shows the same data you see on your watch.

This can be handy for cardio machines especially—set your phone in front of you, and look at that instead of having to take your hand off the handlebars and turn your wrist to see how many seconds you have left in your interval.

If you don’t see the workout view on your phone, swipe right from the workout screen on your watch and select View to enable it. 

How to create custom Apple Watch workouts on your phone

Credit: Beth Skwarecki

The Apple Watch already had a feature where you could create custom workouts, or set yourself a goal for a workout (like running for a certain amount of time, or racing your past self on a favorite route). Now, that’s all available in the fitness app. 

To find it, go to the Workout tab of the Fitness app. instead of hitting the triangle play button on your phone to start a workout, tap the timer icon. This takes you to the screen with routes, goals, and custom workouts. 

I had never before bothered with the custom workouts since they were so annoying to access on the watch, but today I created a short interval workout and ran it as part of my testing. (One thing to know: You need to create a work interval and a rest interval before creating a repeat loop—some apps have you do this in the opposite order, which tripped me up.) 

In total, these new features make the Apple Fitness app a lot more useful. You no longer need a third-party app to use a Bluetooth heart rate monitor or to track a simple run around the neighborhood. It’s now a real workout app, rather than just something you open to check how many times you’ve closed your rings.

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.

LG

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

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.

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.

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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?

The test

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.

The results

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

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.

Apple

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.

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