Author: News Room
The Mac lock screen has always felt a little underused. You see the time, your wallpaper, and not much else. macOS already supports desktop widgets, but once your Mac is locked, that extra information disappears. WidgetScreen is trying to fix that in a pretty simple way. The free Mac app, made by UK computer science student Sam Cook, adds glassy widgets to the lock screen so you can quickly check things like the weather, clock, calendar, battery, music playback, countdowns, and system information. The app is intentionally limited to the lock screen. The widgets appear when the Mac is locked…
For years, battery innovation has largely focused on chemistry. Companies have chased longer-lasting lithium-ion cells, safer solid-state batteries, and cheaper materials. But a quieter revolution is now gaining momentum, and it could fundamentally change how batteries are designed, manufactured, and integrated into devices. Instead of improving what goes inside a battery, a growing number of startups and researchers are trying to change the battery itself through 3D printing. The idea is simple yet ambitious: create batteries that can fit into virtually any shape or structure rather than being limited to traditional cylindrical or pouch designs. 3D-printed batteries could unlock new…
AI has made online scams harder to spot by making deepfakes, voice cloning, and fake messages more realistic. Even so, the old tech support scam is still catching victims. For years, fraudsters often posed as Microsoft support workers. Now, reports suggest many are shifting their attention to Apple users. Consumers are reporting a rise in fake “Apple High Alert” messages that claim an iPhone, iCloud account, or Apple ID has been compromised. These messages are designed to make people panic and react quickly before they can stop to check whether the warning is real. The alerts can appear as browser…
Robots can pick up boxes, sort packages, and screw in bolts without breaking a sweat. Some of them can even walk and run like humans. Hand one a floppy, slippery piece of raw salmon, though, and everything starts falling apart. A team at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology set out to solve that problem. The result is the Sashimi-Bot, a three-armed robot that can prepare sashimi from a raw salmon loin without a chef in sight. So how does the Sashimi-Bot actually work? It divides the job neatly between its three arms. The first arm stabilizes and positions…
If you have an iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, or iPhone Air running iOS 27 beta, you have a meaningfully better dictation system on your device right now. However, Apple did not turn it on by default, and most users have no idea it is there. So what exactly is Advanced Dictation Preview? iOS 27 ships with two separate dictation systems. The one you get depends on your hardware. Even though every iPhone gets some improvements (compared to the standard edition), owners of the iPhone 17 Pro, 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air have access to something different.…
While the tech world was busy obsessing over Liquid Glass, smarter Apple Intelligence features, and all the shiny new additions arriving with macOS 27 Golden Gate, Apple quietly slipped in another announcement at WWDC 2026 that didn’t get nearly as much attention. Buried in the compatibility list was a simple but significant detail: Intel Macs are no longer supported. For millions of users, that’s just another software update requirement. For a passionate corner of the internet that has spent nearly two decades bending technology to its will, it’s something far bigger. It’s the end of the traditional Hackintosh era. If…
Getting AI to write emails or debug code is one thing. Getting it to convince people to part with their money is another matter entirely. According to a new report by The Washington Post, a new study from researchers at the University of Oxford and other institutions found that Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 outperformed professional human fundraisers when it came to persuading people to donate, raising fresh questions about the growing influence of AI. Claude beat human fundraisers, but there is an important catch The researchers pitted commercial AI models against experienced fundraisers working on behalf of the charity Save…
It’s been a little over a week since Apple’s WWDC keynote, and the iOS 27 beta is already out in the wild. While Apple spent plenty of time talking about its Gemini-powered Siri, the thing I was most excited about was getting the update onto my iPhone 16e and seeing what it was actually like to live with. I’ve been using the beta every day since then, and one thing has become pretty clear: not every new feature lived up to the hype for me. Some felt more interesting during the announcement than they do in everyday use, while others…
Apple buried dozens of small features in iOS 27, ones that didn’t get any mentions at WWDC 2026, but this one might be the most delightful discovery so far. If you call someone on their birthday with iOS 27 installed on your iPhone, it quietly displays a fireworks animation on the call screen. I tested this feature by setting my sister’s birthday to today, June 20, 2026, in a beta build of iOS 27, and it worked just fine. So how does the iOS 27 birthday call feature actually work? When you dial a saved contact on their birthday, a…
Instacart’s AI shopping carts are moving into select Weis Markets stores in Pennsylvania, with more locations planned this year. On the surface, the Caper Cart upgrade sounds useful, since shoppers can see a running total, clip digital coupons, use loyalty rewards, weigh items, and pay from the cart. The privacy tension comes from the hardware needed to make that work. The carts include basket-facing cameras, outward-facing cameras, location-tracking systems, scales, touchscreens, and payment terminals, turning an ordinary grocery basket into a rolling sensor platform. Instacart frames Caper as a way to personalize the store, reduce out-of-stocks, lift sales, and add…