TECH

Pentagon seeks an affordable drone capable of replacing many MQ-9 Reaper missions Reaper drones hit hard in Iran, and losses force demand for lower-cost unmanned combat aircraft New aircraft must combine long range with substantial payload capacity The United States Air Force is examining a lower-cost unmanned aircraft concept after losing “dozens” of MQ-9 Reaper…

The Pinwheel Home is aimed at kids aged 5-10 years It only makes phone calls to approved contacts There’s an optional subscription for calling real numbers The question of how much time young people should spend on their smartphones and social media has dominated the headlines in recent months, and a new retro-styled phone from…

Skullcandy launches Crusher 1080 ANC, new premium over-ears They mark the debut of three Bose-made features in a non-Bose product Just launched and available right now, for $280 / AU$399.99 (about £210) It is as I foretold: after we saw Skullcandy teases about new headphones, the brand has unveiled exactly the pair of cans I…

(All times BST, which is -5 hours from ET) 6:35 a.m. Matthew Baldwin, Thomas Detry, James Nicholas 6:46 a.m. Michael Kim, David Hillier, Andy Sullivan 6:57 a.m. Ryan Fox, Andrew Novak, Matthew Jordan 7:08 a.m. Henrik Stenson, Max Homa, Joe Dean 7:19 a.m. Robert MacIntyre, Rickie Fowler, Alex Fitzpatrick 7:30 a.m. David Duval, Martin Couvra, Matthew Southgate 7:41 a.m. Sungjae Im, Daniel…

The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) has bricked thousands of routers Flashing alternative firmware like OpenWRT is an option that the ACCC has ignored Disposed SamKnows SK-WB8 routers can pose a security risk if they’re not first wiped with a factory reset The Australian government’s competition regulator, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC),…

OpenAI’s debut of the new GPT-5.6 model prompted the usual ritual of benchmark charts and arguments over whether it is really smarter than the last version, but CEO Sam Altman asked for a little more this time. He publicly asked to see what people actually built with it. i’d love to see interesting things people…

ETH Zurich quantum chip sees superconducting qubit act as CPU and the vibrational modes of a fingernail-width acoustic resonator serve as quantum RAM The approach borrows from classical computer architecture as it completely flips the script on how modern quantum computing might store short-term data The team demonstrated a universal gate set and ran small…

Looking for a different day? A new Quordle puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing ‘today’s game’ while others are playing ‘yesterday’s’. If you’re looking for Wednesday’s puzzle instead then click here: Quordle hints and answers for Wednesday, July 15 (game #1633). Quordle…

The AI buildout is well and truly underway with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman leading the charge, having made various deals with companies including Oracle and Nvidia to guarantee the infrastructure needed to train future AI models is installed. But as this ensues, the spotlight has been thrown on how much energy these models will need….

OpenAI is building an AI-powered smart speaker nobody wants. That is, if you believe the Bloomberg report from Mark Gurman and you’ve read his description of said rumored device. According to the report: “OpenAI believes the product’s defining feature will be its personality and ability to connect on a humanlike level with users. The speaker…