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.

Apple’s “Awe Dropping” event kicks off tomorrow, Sept. 9, and all of the tech world is focused on the iPhone 17. But new iPhones aren’t the only upgrades Apple is set to unveil tomorrow. If rumors are to be believed, we’ll also get a look at the company’s upcoming Apple Watches, including the Apple Watch Ultra 3.

This device would mark the first new “Ultra” since 2023’s Ultra 2. The Ultras are Apple’s “pro” watch line, focused on durability and lengthy battery life. They tend to be pricier than other Apple Watches, but they also come with unique features, including Apple’s largest and brightest watch display. Based on what we know, the Ultra 3 won’t be a reinvention, but it should offer some interesting upgrades that might entice customers (provided they are OK with spending $800 on an Apple Watch).

Here’s what the rumors suggest we’ll see tomorrow.

An upgraded processor

Apple frequently introduces a new processor, or chip, with new Apple Watches. The Ultra 2 uses the S9, while the Series 10 uses the S10. As such, the rumor mill has been back and forth on whether the Ultra 3 will adopt the Series 10’s S10 chip, or ship with a brand new one.

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, signs point to the latter. Gurman believes Apple’s newest Ultra watch will introduce the S11 chip. Not only that, but it seems possible Apple’s other new smartwatches, the Series 11 and the new SE, will also feature the S11.

That doesn’t mean these watches will wildly outperform the company’s previous chips. MacRumors analyzed the S11’s leaked architecture, and found the S9 and S10 chips have the same underlying tech as the new S11. That’s still a high-performing chip: The S9, S10, and, presumably, S11, are all 64-bit dual-core processors with a quad-core Neural Engine, with second-gen Ultra Wideband and 64GB of internal storage. However, this does suggest that speed upgrades might not be the reason to pick up any of Apple’s newest watches this year. We’ll have to see what the company announces tomorrow.

A bigger, better display

The Ultra series has the largest display you can get on an Apple Watch, and according to rumors, the Ultra 3 could have an even larger screen. MacRumors says the new watch could bump up the display resolution from 410 x 502 to 422 x 514. That wouldn’t be a dramatic increase, but it would make it the largest watch screen Apple has ever made.

The Ultra 3 will likely also borrow from the Series 10’s display technology: The latter’s LPTO3 OLED display allows the watch to refresh its display faster than the Ultra 2, which would enable Always-On watch faces with a moving second hand. The Series 10 also comes with a wide-angle OLED display, which increases the brightness of the display when viewed at an angle. The Ultra 3 could follow suit.

Satellite connectivity

Ever since the Series 3, Apple has offered customers the option to buy a watch that supports cellular connectivity, but the Ultra 3 could be Apple’s first smartwatch to support satellite connectivity. What this means is, whenever your watch is out of range of a cellular signal, it would be able to connect to a satellite instead. This type of connection is usually much slower than a traditional cellular connection, but it does work, and would allow you to contact friends, family, or emergency services when you have no service. Suddenly, there are no more “dead zones.”

This isn’t coming out of the blue. Satellite connectivity is all the rage: Apple has offered it on the iPhone for years now, first for simple messages to emergency services, then later expanding support to include standard text messages. In addition, T-Mobile officially rolled out its satellite service for customers this year, so it’d be fitting to have a cellular Apple Watch offer similar satellite capabilities.

Faster cellular connections

But the connectivity improvements aren’t limited to areas without cell service. The Ultra 3 may also be the first Apple Watch to support 5G, as Apple may tap MediaTek for the device’s embedded modem. Cellular-enabled Apple Watches only support 4G LTE, so users upgrading to a theoretical 5G Ultra 3 would improve speeds in areas with 5G connections.

Quick charging

MacRumors believes the Ultra 3 could introduce a faster charging experience, following in the footsteps of the Series 10. That watch can charge to 80% in 30 minutes, while the Ultra 2 needs 60 minutes to charge to 80%. MacRumors highlights that the difference comes down to the material the watches are made out of: The Series 10 has a metal casing with a larger charging coil, while the Ultra 2 uses the usual crystal casing most all other Apple Watches have used.

A blood pressure monitor

The Ultra 3 could also introduce a blood pressure monitor for the first time in an Apple Watch. This is something Apple has reportedly been working on for some time, and the Ultra 3 could be its debut. That said, Gurman suggests that Apple has run into “regulatory and engineering” issues with the feature, so it’s possible we won’t see it until the launch of the Ultra 4 or Series 12.

It’s interesting timing, as Apple just got the all-clear to bring back the Apple Watch’s blood oxygen sensor. The company was forced to disable the feature for Series 9 and Ultra 2 devices following a lawsuit, though a subsequent case allowed the company to reinstate the feature. (Older watches with the blood oxygen sensor never saw it disabled.)

Vodafone made a commercial starring an AI avatar posing as a real lady. This is interesting because Vodafone is a major global brand and not a fly-by-night TikTok company using a ridiculous deepfake of Jackson Galaxy to sell cat toys.

The tells in the commercial are obvious and what one would expect. The AI avatar’s hair is a bit off, which ruins the charade that this is a real person. The physical mannerisms and speaking tone are also wonky. A facial mole moves around at one point. It’s AI. You know the drill.

The company responded to a question on a message board as to why it couldn’t put “a real person in front of the camera” by saying this is simply an experiment. It said it was “testing different styles of advertising — this time with AI,” and that “AI is so much a part of everyday life these days that we also try it out in advertising.”

This isn’t the first Vodafone ad to feature generative AI. It released a fully AI-generated commercial last year that spurred a bit of controversy, despite looking absolutely awful. Social media platforms are also becoming increasingly littered with AI-generated virtual influencers. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/vodafone-is-testing-an-ai-actor-to-sell-its-products-instead-of-paying-a-human-to-do-it-185301360.html?src=rss

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday authorizing the Department of Defense to refer to itself as the Department of War, reverting to a more bellicose title used until a 1940s-era military shakeup in the aftermath of World War II.

The order approves the Pentagon’s use of the Department of War name as an “additional secondary title” for the Department of Defense while the Trump administration seeks congressional approval to officially change the name. Until Congress votes on the issue, the name change is effectively a rebrand of the DoD that could be reversed with the signature of a future president.

But there was another potential name change revealed by the Pentagon on Friday, just hours before Trump signed the War Department order. This one may have more staying power.

Read full article

Comments

Signal has begun rolling out end-to-end encrypted cloud backups in its latest Android beta release. The opt-in feature allows users to restore message history if their phone is lost or damaged. Free backups include all text messages and 45 days of media attachments. A $1.99 monthly subscription extends media storage to 100GB.

Users generate a 64-character recovery key on their device that Signal’s servers never access. Backups refresh daily, excluding view-once messages and those set to disappear within 24 hours. The nonprofit cited storage costs as the reason for its first paid tier. iOS and Desktop support will follow the Android rollout. Signal said it stores backup archives without linking them to specific user accounts or payment information.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SpaceX’s complaints to the Federal Communications Commission have helped the satellite company land a $17 billion deal to buy spectrum licenses from EchoStar.

The deal consists of up to $8.5 billion in cash and up to $8.5 billion in SpaceX stock, EchoStar said. SpaceX also agreed to pay $2 billion worth of interest payments on EchoStar debt through November 2027.

After SpaceX alleged that EchoStar subsidiary Dish Network “barely uses” its spectrum and urged the FCC to make the spectrum available to other carriers, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced an investigation into EchoStar and threatened to revoke its spectrum licenses. EchoStar countered that it had met the network construction deadlines associated with its spectrum licenses, but decided to start selling off the licenses instead of fighting the FCC.

Read full article

Comments

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.

Apple Calendar spam isn’t new: iCloud users began reporting an influx of junk invites nearly a decade ago, and scammers have returned to this tactic over the years to proliferate malicious links to phishing sites. The folks over at 9to5Mac recently reported receiving a recent rash of spam invites containing malicious links that lead to cryptocurrency scams.

Bad actors are also abusing Calendar invites to send phishing emails that look like PayPal purchase notifications—and because the messages come from Apple’s mail server, they can slip past security measures and find their way into your inbox.

Scammers are using Calendar to send callback phishing emails

This latest scam, detailed by BleepingComputer, is a form of callback phishing, which aims to get targets on the phone in order to collect sensitive information or connect to users’ devices.

The scheme begins with a calendar invite to an event titled “Purchase Invoice.” The notes for the event state that the recipient’s PayPal account has been billed for a large sum of money and directs the user to call a support number to discuss, make changes to, or cancel the payment. The hope is that you will be scared into believing your PayPal account has been compromised. If you call, the scammer on the other end will likely try to extract sensitive information or direct you to download and install malware to your device under the guise of issuing a refund.

On closer inspection, you’ll find that the message originated from noreply@email.apple.com, a legitimate Apple mail server, which allowed it to get through security checks and spam filters. As BleepingComputer describes, anyone can create an iCloud Calendar event and add others to initiate email invitations from Apple’s servers.

In this case, scammers also appear to be using a Microsoft 365 email address that is actually a mailing list, which forwards messages to recipients added to the group—the targets for this scam. Threat actors used a similar tactic earlier this year to send emails that appeared to be from service@paypal.com.

How to combat fake calendar invites

Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do to prevent fraudulent iCloud Calendar invites from ever reaching your inbox, and declining them may actually make the problem worse. You can transfer spam events to a separate calendar and delete calendars entirely, but when it comes to the notification emails and any directions listed within, the best thing to do is not engage.

Always proceed with an abundance of caution with calendar invites you weren’t expecting, and watch out for scam hallmarks like a sense of urgency related to payment or account security issues. Never call phone numbers listed in these messages—if you’re concerned about your account, log in via the legitimate website or app to check activity and reach out to the company using contact information found there.

Google has stated in a court filing that “the open web is already in rapid decline,” contradicting recent public statements from executives including its CEO Sundar Pichai and Search VP Nick Fox, who maintained in May that web publishing and the web were thriving.

The admission appeared in Google’s response to a divestiture proposal, arguing that breaking up the company would accelerate the decline and harm publishers dependent on open-web display advertising revenue. Google’s VP of Global Ads Dan Taylor has since clarified the company was referring specifically to open-web display advertising, not the entire open web.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Today, Polestar debuted its newest model. Just as three is followed by four, next in the series comes five—in this case the Polestar 5. And the new EV is a little departure from the products we’ve seen so far from this Swedish/Chinese startup. It’s a handsome if angular sedan that, like the Polestar 4 SUV, eschews a rear window in favor of more headroom for passengers and a rear-view camera.

“Polestar 5 is bringing the future to our present. Our vision for Polestar’s design, technology, and sustainability direction is no longer a dream but a reality our customers can buy,” said Polestar CEO Michael Lohscheller. “With its pure Scandinavian design inside and out, unique platform, powerful motors, sophisticated chassis, cutting-edge technology, and consciously sustainable materials, the Polestar 5 is a guiding star for the industry and the perfect Polestar flagship.”

As we found out when we met the car early during its development, the Polestar 5 uses a bonded aluminum chassis, similar to various Lotuses and most current Aston Martins. Indeed, plenty of the development engineers working at Polestar’s UK R&D center in Coventry can count those brands on their CVs. The bonded aluminum approach results in a very stiff but quite light chassis, making it a good starting point for a performance car.

Read full article

Comments

Amazon Music has just launched new AI-powered weekly playlists based on the “preferences and mood” of listeners. This just means it scrapes what you’ve already been listening to and extrapolates further. It doesn’t apply modern technology to gauge the actual mood of users.

The company says the playlists include “a curated mix of familiar favorites from their most listened-to artists and latest favorites to new discoveries.” I’m not exactly sure how this is different from what music streaming platforms have always done to create personalized playlists, other than these are made using Amazon’s Bedrock generative AI platform.

Amazon

They do arrive with snappy names to suggest the type of songs included, like “Empowerment Anthems” and “Melodic Flex.” This seems similar to Spotify’s Daylists, which also use cute little names. The Amazon playlists can be saved to the library or shared with friends via text or social media.

“The feature represents another way we’re harnessing AI to help fans connect with more music that resonates with them,” said Ryan Redington, General Manager of Amazon Music. He also said this brings a “new dimension” to the service by “creating personalized playlists celebrating their favorite artists while introducing new music that matches their unique tastes.” Again, personalized playlists are nothing new.

Download the latest update to the app to get started. These weekly playlists are currently only available to US listeners and drop on Mondays.

This is just the latest AI-forward move by a music-streaming platform. Spotify recently introduced prompt-driven playlists and an AI DJ that takes requests. This isn’t even Amazon Music’s first dip into AI-infested waters. The platform already uses AI-enhanced search results that can be used to create playlists.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/music/amazon-music-launches-ai-powered-weekly-playlists-based-on-preferences-and-mood-174239246.html?src=rss

Private detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) might just turn out to be Rian Johnson’s greatest creation. Introduced in 2019’s Knives Out, Blanc’s syrupy Southern drawl and idiosyncratic approach to solving a mysterious New England death charmed audiences worldwide and launched a modern whodunnit franchise.

The third installment in the series, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, has already garnered early rave reviews after screening at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) over the weekend. And now Netflix has released the official trailer, showcasing Blanc tackling the inexplicable death of a parish priest in a spookily Gothic small-town setting.

(Very minor spoilers for Knives Out and Glass Onion below.)

Read full article

Comments

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.

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.

Samsung’s new budget earbuds, the Galaxy Buds 3 FE, are the latest model in the Galaxy Buds 3 earbuds series, and they’re already seeing a great deal despite being released this month. You can get them with a free SmartTag2 tracker for $149.99 (originally $179.98). At its latest Galaxy Event, the company unveiled three other devices along with the Buds 3 FE: the Galaxy Tab S11, the Galaxy Tab S10 Lite, and the Galaxy S25 FE phone, all of which are seeing similar deals.

Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 FE + Galaxy SmartTag 2

$149.99
at Amazon

$179.98
Save $29.99

$149.99
at Amazon

$179.98
Save $29.99

Samsung’s FE series stands for “Fan Edition,” and it’s the budget version of its devices, similar to Pixel’s A-series. The design is sleek and stays on brand compared to previous models. You can pinch and swipe the earbuds to control media. You can take them on a run outside without worrying about sweat and some rain since it’s rated IP54 (water and dust resistance).

In the audio department, it’s nice to see Samsung not skimp out just because they’re “budget” earbuds, offering support for 24-bit audio that lets you play hi-fi sound. It also features ANC, which Samsung claims to have improved upon compared to the previous generation. Something new is Samsung’s Crystal Clear Call, which uses AI to help isolate your voice when you’re on a call. The mics are now also facing your mouth so it should result in better overall call quality.

If you have a Pixel, Samsung, or compatible phone, you’ll be able to take advantage of the Gemini or the Galaxy AI support, which can do real-time translation, where someone speaks to you in another language and you hear the translation on your earbuds in real time. You also get auto-switching and can track your earbuds, among other features. The battery is great, at eight hours with ANC off (six hours with ANC on), the highest run time in the Galaxy Buds series.

A 67-year-old US man is still alive more than six months after receiving a kidney from a genetically modified pig. This is the longest a pig organ has survived in a living person. From a report: Researchers say the outcome is a landmark case of successful xenotransplantation — the process of transplanting organs from animals to humans. The recipient, Tim Andrews, had end-stage kidney disease and had been receiving dialysis for more than two years before he underwent the surgery in January. He has been dialysis-free since receiving the kidney. Andrews was one of three patients to receive genetically modified pig kidneys supplied by the biotechnology company eGenesis in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on compassionate grounds.

Reaching six months’ survival is an amazing feat, says Wayne Hawthorne, a transplant surgeon at the University of Sydney in Australia. The first six months is the period of “highest risk for the patient and also the transplant,” he adds. Possible complications include anaemia and graft rejection, when the immune system attacks the new organ. “The six-month time point marks that things have gone extremely well,” Hawthorne says. Reaching 12 months would be another milestone and a “fantastic long-term outcome,” he adds. Previously, the recipient with longest-surviving genetically modified pig organ was a 53-year-old US woman, Towana Looney, who had a functioning pig kidney for four months and nine days. However, the organ was removed earlier this year because her immune system began to reject it.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In five years, you won’t be able to spell IT without AI, Gartner predicted today.

VP analysts Alicia Mullery and Daryl Plummer delivered the sentiment at their keynote address at Gartner’s IT Symposium in Gold Coast, Australia, as reported by The Register. Gartner believes that by 2030, all work performed by an IT department will involve the use of AI. That’s a progression from the 81 percent of IT work that’s done today without any use of AI, per Mullery.

By 2030, not only will all IT work rely on AI, but much of it will be performed by bots without the help of humans, Gartner’s analysts said. They predicted that in five years, 25 percent of IT work will be totally performed by bots, while 75 percent of IT workloads will be performed by humans with the help of AI.

Read full article

Comments

Apple’s “Awe Dropping” event is nearly here. Every September, like clockwork, Apple hosts a virtual hardware event to showcase its latest products. For many, this is simply an iPhone event, and I can’t blame them: The iPhone 17 series will likely steal the show this year, as Apple prepares to announce the first radical design change for its smartphone line in years.

In particular, the iPhone 17 Air should get people talking, making its debut as the thinnest iPhone Apple has ever made. Then there are the 17 Pros, which will likely introduce a brand new camera “bar” housing the Pros’ signature tri-lens setup. The iPhone 17, on the other hand, will probably seem pretty similar to the iPhone 16 before it, and is positioned as the iPhone for people looking for a new device without needing to spend $1,000 or more for the privilege.

But it’s not all about the iPhone. This year, Apple will likely unveil a number of other products, including the Apple Watch Ultra 3, Apple Watch Series 11, Apple Watch SE 3, and the AirPods Pro 3. If you’re due for an upgrade in any of these categories, Apple has options for you—though don’t expect any revolutionary changes here, as these are mostly minor updates. I also would expect Apple to officially announce the release dates for its slate of upcoming software updates, such as iOS 26.

The show kicks off at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET) from both Apple’s website as well as its official YouTube channel. I’ll be covering the event live as it airs, posting each new update to the blog below. If you want the latest on all of Apple’s biggest announcements, stay tuned to this page.

President Trump’s attempt to fire a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission was given a boost today, as Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts granted a stay that temporarily blocks a lower-court ruling against Trump.

The Supreme Court hasn’t ruled on the merits of the case. Today’s order from Roberts stayed the lower-court ruling “pending further order of The Chief Justice or of the Court.” Roberts set a September 15 deadline for Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, the Democrat who was fired from the FTC, to file a response to the government’s motion for a longer-term stay.

Slaughter beat Trump last week in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which affirmed a District Court ruling that Trump violated US law and Supreme Court precedent with her firing. Slaughter was back in her office temporarily. Her name was re-added to the FTC website’s list of commissioners after last week’s ruling, but was off the list again as of today.

Read full article

Comments

The former head of security for WhatsApp filed a lawsuit on Monday accusing Meta of ignoring major security and privacy flaws that put billions of the messaging app’s users at risk, the latest in a string of whistle-blower allegations against the social media giant. The New York Times: In the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of the District of Northern California, Attaullah Baig claimed that thousands of WhatsApp and Meta employees could gain access to sensitive user data including profile pictures, location, group memberships and contact lists. Meta, which owns WhatsApp, also failed to adequately address the hacking of more than 100,000 accounts each day and rejected his proposals for security fixes, according to the lawsuit.

Mr. Baig tried to warn Meta’s top leaders, including its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, that users were being harmed by the security weaknesses, according to the lawsuit. In response, his managers retaliated and fired him in February, he claims. Mr. Baig, who is represented by the whistle-blower organization Psst.org and the law firm Schonbrun, Seplow, Harris, Hoffman & Zeldes, argued in the suit that the actions violated a privacy settlement Meta reached with the Federal Trade Commission in 2019, as well as securities laws that require companies to disclose risks to shareholders.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.