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Latest iPhone 18 Pro Max Dummies Suggest Thicker Camera Plateau, More Protruding Lenses
Apple is expected to bring several camera enhancements to the iPhone 18 Pro models this year, but there have been no fixed rumors suggesting these upgrades will require measurable, visible changes to the device's rear camera plateau. And yet a new series of dummies suggests exactly that. iPhone 17 Pro dummy (left) vs.
Regions Bank + Dash Solutions Collaborate on New Treasury Management Solution to Modernize Client Payment Operations
Regions ReimbursePro delivers fast, flexible and convenient options to help clients initiate real-time money movement. Regions Bank on Thursday announced the launch of Regions ReimbursePro , the bank’s latest Treasury Management innovation designed to help business clients modernize their payment processes and expedite real-time money movement. Regions ReimbursePro is a new, forward-thinking Treasury Management solution designed to help business clients accelerate refunds, modernize their payment processes and fuel growth. Regions ReimbursePro is powered by Dash Solutions , a leading payments enablement company also headquartered in Birmingham. The solution provides Regions’ Treasury Management clients access to a modern, secure digital platform that helps transform refund operations away from older, manual, time-consuming processes that include paper documents and physical checks. Key upgrades include: Once a reimbursement is initiated through this new solution, recipients can choose
Next-gen OnePlus 16 leak reveals key display upgrades
The next-generation OnePlus 16 has surfaced in a new leak. The upcoming flagship may see major display upgrades, including a refresh rate of up to 240Hz.
Base Mac Mini Sold Out From Apple Online Store
Apple appears to be sold out of the base Mac mini, and the machine is listed as “Currently Unavailable” from the Apple Online Store. The base Mac mini is the model with an M4 chip, 256GB of storage, and 16GB RAM. M4 Mac mini models with upgraded storage are still in stock, as are Mac mini models that are equipped with the M4 Pro chip. Configurations with 24GB RAM are also still available, but some models that use 32GB RAM or higher are out of stock.
Google teases Gemini-powered Siri upgrade during Cloud Next keynote
Apple’s upcoming Siri overhaul got a moment of stage time during Google’s Cloud Next ’26 opening keynote today. Google highlights...
Leaker shares iPhone 18 Pro’s new camera feature, plus future upgrades
Four new camera upgrades are reportedly in development at Apple, at least one of which is coming with iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max.
Midco announces $43M investment to finish Fiber Forward in South Dakota
Midco is making a big investment to finish its future-focused fiber upgrade -- including $20 million in Sioux Falls over the next few years.
8 Cool New Audio Gadgets To Upgrade Your Music Setup
From sleek DACs to clever wireless add-ons, these audio gadgets bring sharper detail and richer sound to your setup without major replacements.
iPhone 18 Pro to Kick Off Apple's Four-Part Camera Upgrade Plan
Apple is evaluating four camera upgrades for future iPhone models, with the first new feature scheduled for this year's iPhone 18 Pro models, according to a reputable Chinese leaker.
OnePlus Watch 4 makes a surprise debut with a major software upgrade
OnePlus has soft-launched the OnePlus Watch 4, revealing a titanium design, 3,000 nit display, and a surprising jump to Wear OS 6.
A Look At Sphere Entertainment (SPHR) Valuation As Upgraded Earnings Outlook Lifts Momentum
Momentum shift puts Sphere Entertainment in focus Recent favorable revisions to earnings estimates and a strong momentum score have pushed Sphere Entertainment (SPHR) onto more investors’ radars, as the stock’s performance has differed from both the broader market and its media peers. See our latest analysis for Sphere Entertainment. Despite a 2.8% decline in the latest session and a 4.4% 7 day share price pullback, Sphere Entertainment’s 30 day share price return of 18.8% and very large 1...
Google Wallet just got a big upgrade ahead of the busy travel season
It makes flying less of a hassle
Vampire Crawlers: 12 Things I Wish I Knew Before Playing
How to manage your chicken, what stats to upgrade first, and some other general tips to help you survive the dungeons in this rogue-like card game
iOS 26.5 Release Date: When To Expect Your iPhone Messaging Upgrade
Apple is working update iPhone messaging with some of the most drastic changes in years.
Shaky political science: using "simulated" elections over real-world elections
[Dear DSOS readers – this article is the latest in our “Shaky Political Science” series. In our 38 page report, “Shaky political ‘science’ misses mark on ranked choice voting,” released in early December, we examined over 40 studies focused on ranked choice voting. We found that many of these studies suffered from puzzling research methodologies, poorly constructed surveys, unrealistic simulated elections, cherry picked data, and faulty analyses that often were contradicted by results from real-world elections (a link to our full paper is here). Here are links to the first three articles in our series: the first one summarizing the overall results of our report, the second one analyzing a study co-authored by University of Minnesota academic Larry Jacobs, which was one of the most error-prone of all the research we reviewed in our report, and a third article showing an admirable example of two political scientists holding two other political scientists accountable for their flawed, sloppy research]. In this fourth article in our “Shaky Political Science” series, we shine a spotlight on seven studies that were web-hosted and funded by New America’s Political Reform Program and its Electoral Reform Research Group (the ERRG is an ad hoc committee headed by New America’s Political Reform Program and joined by the American Enterprise Institute, the Unite America Institute and Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law). This research consortium has been led by Lee Drutman, senior fellow with New America’s Political Reform Program. These seven studies are simply not credible from any objective standard about how political “science” is supposed to illuminate our understanding of either ranked choice voting or politics in general. The feature that six of these seven studies have in common is that they all used surveys – artificial, simulated elections -- to attempt to say something cogent or interesting about ranked choice voting (RCV) elections. None of them used real world data from actual RCV elections – either the 1000+ elections in the US or the many thousands of elections from places like Australia, Ireland and elsewhere where RCV has been used for 100 years. While a few of these studies conclude with some mixed positives about RCV, our analysis here is content neutral. The idea that, with a political reform like RCV, you can ask respondents in a mock, artificial election to vote with that method, with only the barest of explanation about how RCV works or its likely impacts (i.e. no spoiler candidates, majority winners, voters liberated to pick their favorite candidates, coalition-building), and then ask them their thoughts/reactions about voting in that system, with fake candidates and no real campaigning, no real exposure to an actual election or actual candidates, rests on some very puzzling assumptions. The findings of these seven studies actually are contradicted by the findings from many other studies based on real-world RCV elections. These New America studies also failed to list the real-world RCV studies in their own citations, instead including those studies that reinforced their conclusions. The seven studies featured in this article were chosen because they form a cohesive cohort which precisely illustrates one of the main points of our research paper, namely that using surveys, i.e. artificial elections, or mathematical/theoretical models, instead of real-world data, is in fact “shaky political science.” Below are summaries of our analysis of five of the seven New America studies. You can read our complete analysis of all seven studies at our paper, “Shaky political ‘science’ misses mark on ranked choice voting.” Choosing to “Vote As Usual” by Andre Blais, Carolina Plescia, and Semra Sevi. New America. (Blais et al., 2021). This study, web-hosted and funded by New America’s Political Reform Program and its Electoral Reform Research Group, used two surveys in which respondents completed ballots for simulated elections using plurality, approval, RCV and point (Score) voting. In both cases the authors provided the respondents with only minimal explanation of each method. For example, the entire explanation for RCV was “For this vote, rank the candidates from your first to your last choice (you do not need to rank them all). This is called the ranked vote.” That’s it. The study did not provide any context or explanation to survey respondents about why she/he might want to rank multiple candidates. Participants were not even told that ballots would be tabulated using an “instant” runoff, not to mention any description of RCVs ability to eliminate the spoiler effect or liberate voters to rank their favorite candidates without fear of helping the “greater evil” candidate to win. That’s like taking an iPhone back in time to 1970 and asking someone if they like it better than their rotary phone without explaining how it works. Their first survey targeted states that held 2020 Super Tuesday Democratic primaries and used the real candidates’ names in the survey; the second survey used fictitious candidates. In other words, they surveyed respondents who had only ever participated in plurality elections, had no history or background with using RCV or any of the other methods, had no clue about its likely impacts, and did not communicate how the alternative methods would be counted, and then asked them: “How satisfied are you with using each system?” Predictably, the winner was plurality elections, the system used for president, Congress, gubernatorial and state legislative elections – in other words, the method they have been using, year after year, all their voting lives. With so little explanation of RCV and its impacts, this study is simply not credible in discovering anything useful about real-world RCV elections. It merely shows that a basic voter education campaign is needed when adopting a new election system. Additionally, the result contradicts many other post-election surveys following real RCV elections, asking opinions from voters who had just participated in a RCV election, that showed a great deal of satisfaction with RCV (see details on that in Studies 22-25 in our paper, as well as the four studies cited in the review for Study 28). Share Other studies on “satisfaction” and “understanding” make similar mistakes, in terms of basing their surveys on inadequate explanation to respondents and lack of education about context. How could any survey ever hope to measure accurately, in essence simulate a real-world election, without actual campaigning candidates, the media writing about those candidates, organizations endorsing candidates and voters being inundated with crucial information? More than anything, what these “studies” based on surveys show is that if you ask voters about something they don’t know very much about, and fail to adequately educate them, their responses will unsurprisingly reflect their confusion. Equally puzzling is that New America’s Electoral Reform Research Group, headed by political scientist Lee Drutman, found this to be a credible enough study that they not only published it but highlighted it in Drutman’s own discussion of research related to ranked choice voting. This pattern was repeated in study after study featured by New America’s Electoral Reform Research Group. For example in Ranked-Choice Voting and Political Expression: Voter Guides Narrow the Gap between Informed and Uninformed Citizens by Cheryl Boudreau, Jonathan Colner, and Scott MacKenzie, the researchers based their analysis on a survey which found that respondents who were asked to vote in a simulated RCV election, with minimal explanation of RCV or how it works, displayed less evidence of being informed about how to use RCV effectively, with the least informed voters ranking fewer candidates. As pointed out under the study above, in a real election voters are informed by a wide variety of methods, including public education by the election administration, by interested political groups, the media, and the candidates themselves who benefit from voters being aware of how to vote in the new system. In Support for Ranked-Choice Voting across Race and Partisanship by Joseph Anthony, David C. Kimball, Jack Santucci and Jamil Scott, the researchers used respondents from different parties and races voting in simulated plurality and RCV elections, who indicated their satisfaction with each voting method. Instead of using real world election results, the authors fell back on the easy, armchair and less reliable academic research methodology of making up mock elections. As with the other studies, little explanation was given of how RCV works or what its implications might be (electing majority winners or eliminating spoilers, for example). Unsurprisingly, this study found that respondents were not very satisfied with RCV. However, when the authors added an explanation that RCV has a tendency to elect more women and people of color, they found that this greater explanation increased the preference for RCV. The more voters were familiar with it, and the more they understood potential positive impacts – surprise! -- the more they were open to switching away from the status quo. Of note, the results from this study are thoroughly contradicted by a number of other studies whose data was obtained from real RCV elections with real voters. Those studies show a great deal of satisfaction with RCV. More “fake election” research An interesting wrinkle on this “research by fake elections” approach, which only served to illustrate how unreliable such “research” can become, was taken in Ranked-Choice Voting, Runoff, and Democracy: Insights from Maine and Other U.S. States by Joseph Cerrone and Cynthia McClintock_,_ also web-hosted and funded by New America’s ERRG. It gets high marks for creativity, but an eye-roll for thinking this could possibly add anything meaningful to our understanding of real world RCV elections. This study tried to determine whether RCV, plurality or two-round runoff elections provided greater voter satisfaction and acceptance of election results. To determine that, the authors conducted a survey asking if voters were satisfied with a fictional newspaper report of an election, with three different versions given to respondents – plurality, runoff and RCV, with variations of Republican/Democrat winners and variations of “come-from-behind” winners,” i.e. candidates not initially in first place but who win the “runoff.” Again, a minimal explanation of RCV or how it works was given, and the survey showed that respondents had the greatest unfamiliarity with RCV than the other methods. The unsurprising result? Respondents were much more satisfied with “come-from-behind” victories in a traditional two-round runoff election than in RCV, even though RCV is also a runoff system but with a single round of counting. Interestingly, the dissatisfaction with RCV disappeared for those who were more familiar with RCV. In fact, among those respondents who were “very familiar” with RCV, they were equally satisfied with RCV, runoff and plurality. Surprise, surprise. Again, what this study revealed, more than anything, is not only the inadequacy of the explanation for RCV given by the authors of this study, but the failure of the research format itself, thinking that such an artificial mock election could somehow simulate what actually happens in the real world in a real RCV election. Those four studies reviewed above are fitting examples of inadequate and shaky political “science.” Other studies reviewed in our paper from the New America/Electoral Reform Research Group cohort which also used mock elections included: Ranked-Choice Voting is an Acquired Taste by Joseph Anthony and David C. Kimball. New America. (Anthony et al., 2021). Ranked-Choice Voting is No Refuge for Extreme Candidates by Melissa Baker. New America. (Baker, 2021). Also included in this New America cohort is Does Ranked-Choice Voting Reduce Racial Polarization? by Yuki Atsusaka and Theodore Landsman, which actually did use real-world election results data but applied an odd and unconventional methodology to the data which relied on shaky assumptions and non-real-world scenarios that were too divorced from reality. To determine levels of “racially polarized voting,” the researchers imagined “ethnic parties,” by which they mean political parties for each ethnic group, which was especially odd since the election data they were using came from nonpartisan RCV races. But then they made an even odder assumption, namely that since race and ethnic characteristics of studied voters were not available, the authors tried to infer that information based on who voters selected and the racial make-up of voters in each district. This amounted to little more than vague and ambiguous guesswork dressed up with a bunch of mathematical equations used to give it a veneer of scientific appearance. Indeed, it seemed to assume racial polarization in order to prove racial polarization. Based on this questionable methodology, the authors concluded that RCV doesn’t reduce racial polarization. But the premise of this study missed an obvious reality: since RCV incentivizes more candidates to run and can result in more diverse fields of candidates, one would expect more racially-polarized voting in voters’ top rankings, not less, because more voters would have someone on that ballot who represents their racial or ethnic identity and more freedom to vote for their real first choice. By encouraging more diverse candidates and eliminating the spoiler effect, RCV facilitates voting for a favorite candidate of your own race and then selecting a second choice with the best likelihood of winning. The real measure is what voters do with their additional rankings – do they consider other candidates and vote “for the best of the rest”? This study didn’t tell us anything useful about that. But readily available data shows this is common in real RCV elections, and candidates act on this knowledge by engaging with voters outside their racial group. So the authors of this study failed to consider or account for what actually happens in real-world elections, and their conclusions are tainted by this failure. New America has contributed a great deal over the past 2.5 decades to our understanding of many policy areas, including politics and political reform (full disclosure: Steven Hill, one of the authors of this article and of the “Shaky Political Science” research paper and series, is a former senior fellow and former director of New America’s political reform program, 2005-2010). So it was especially disappointing that New America funded and published such a large batch of dubious studies about ranked choice voting. The stated praiseworthy goal of its Electoral Reform Research Group was to inspire new academic research about ranked choice voting that would shed light and help the public better understand the impacts of RCV. Instead, the ERRG research did just the opposite. It produced dubious research that created more confusion and misinformation. In so doing, New America’s political reform program contributed to “shaky political science.” Steven Hill and Paul Haughey Share Upgrade to $5 subscription Thanks for reading DemocracySOS, a reader-supported digital portal for the pro-democracy movement. Subscribe for only $5 per month to receive full benefits and to support our work. Subscribe
Samsung To Release New Free Upgrade To Millions Of Galaxy Phones
Samsung is bringing a major free Galaxy S26 upgrade to millions of Galaxy phones via the One UI 8.5 release.
Apple Is Working On A High-Resolution Camera Upgrade That Its Chinese Competitors Have Been Investing Millions To Implement
A rumor claims that Apple is working to bring a high-resolution camera upgrade to its iPhones, but Chinese manufacturers are investing millions to bring it
12 Milwaukee Tools Under $75 Worth Adding To Your Collection
Upgrade your toolbox without overspending with Milwaukee tools that deliver power, durability, and value to DIYers and professionals alike.
Your Samsung phone just got a big upgrade for editing photos, videos, and documents
Samsung's latest Galaxy Enhance-X update brings a completely redesigned interface and new features for editing photos, videos, and documents.
Xiaomi 18 Pro Max leak reveals Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro and more details
Details have leaked about an upcoming Xiaomi phone, which is expected to be the Xiaomi 18 Pro Max. The device is said to bring notable upgrades, including the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro chipset.
Is Six Flags (FUN) Turning Ride Upgrades Into a Test of Its Per-Guest Value Strategy?
Six Flags New England recently held an exclusive press preview for Quantum Accelerator, New England’s first dual-launch straddle coaster, alongside broader upgrades to Crackaxle Canyon and park-wide dining and retail offerings. The combination of a headline coaster and enhanced food, beverage, and pass benefits highlights Six Flags’ focus on deepening guest engagement and extracting more value per visit. We’ll now look at how Quantum Accelerator’s debut and related guest-experience...
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From beauty upgrades and cooling essentials to grooming must-haves, here are our favorite personal hygiene products we rely on to stay refreshed in the spring.
Apple Changes iPhone After 15 Years—Do You Stop Texting Now?
Do you really stop sending texts as Apple upgrades iPhone following FBI warning?
Why The Tencent Music Entertainment Group (TME) Story Is Shifting As Valuation And Views Reset
Tencent Music Entertainment Group has seen its fair value estimate reset from about US$26.92 to about US$17.98, a sizable shift that points to a more restrained view of potential upside at current levels. This change lines up with mixed analyst commentary, where a cluster of downgrades focused on competition and earnings visibility sits alongside at least one upgrade highlighting possible upside if current headwinds ease. Read on to see what is driving this evolving narrative and how you can...
Samsung To Release New Free Upgrade To Millions Of Galaxy Phones
Samsung is bringing a major free Galaxy S26 upgrade to millions of Galaxy phones via the One UI 8.5 release.
This traveler has flown business class 521 times and counting. Here’s when he thinks it’s worth it — and when it’s not
Since 2010, frequent flyer Richard Robinson has logged 945 flights — 521 of those in business class. Here’s what he says travelers should consider before using their hard-earned cash or points to upgrade.
N.Y. program to use to $125M to upgrade upstate multifamily housing
It will offer building owners incentives for energy efficient upgrades, electrification projects and climate resiliency improvements.
Apple to Upgrade These Two Devices With OLED Displays Later This Year
Apple plans to release iPad mini and MacBook Pro models with OLED displays this year, according to industry sources who spoke to South Korea's ETNews. The current iPad mini and MacBook Pro models have LCD displays with either LED or mini-LED backlighting. The move to OLED technology would result in improved image quality, thanks to richer colors and higher contrast ratio with true blacks. Samsung will supply the OLED displays for both devices, the report said.
NFL re-draft lands Falcons Steelers superstar T.J. Watt
Atlanta gets a massive upgrade over one of their biggest blunders on the edge in this re-draft.
Microsoft Finally Ups FAT32 Size Limit
You probably don’t spend a lot of time using the FAT32 file system anymore, since it’s thoroughly been superseded many times over. Even so, Microsoft has seen fit to deliver an upgrade …
26 Cheap And Easy Home Upgrades And Projects To Do
"It was supposed to be a temporary solution until I saved some money — but I like it so much I still haven't changed it three years later."
iPhone Loyalty Hits 96.4% as Android Users Four Times More Likely to Switch
Customers are more loyal to Apple than ever, according to a smartphone loyalty survey conducted by phone trade-in site SellCell. 96.4% of customers surveyed said they planned to stick with an iPhone for their next upgrade, and 3.6% said they would choose a different brand. That's up from 91.9% in SellCell's 2021 survey and 90.5% in 2019. Android users were less loyal to their brand, and are almost 4x more likely to switch than iPhone users.
Kettering Health Sees Increased Credit Rating from Moody’s Reports
Moody’s Ratings has upgraded Kettering Health’s credit rating to “A1,” placing the system in the upper tier of Moody's rating scale.
Apple leaks four iOS 27 features, including overdue Wallet upgrade
As we approach WWDC kicking off in June, we’re learning more about what to expect from iOS 27. A new...
Galaxy S27 To Become Much Snappier Next Year, And It Won’t Be Because Of The Industry’s First 2nm Chipsets
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Microsoft prepares display upgrades and two stage launch for new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop with Intel and Snapdragon chips this year
New Surface PCs from Microsoft will consist of new chips, display upgrades, and higher starting prices this spring and summer.
AirPods Max 2 Review: A Bigger Upgrade Than You Think
You might not be able to tell the difference between the AirPods Max 2 and the originals at a glance, but the internal upgrades are a big deal.
The Vivo X300 FE is official with a first-ever telephoto upgrade
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Walmart is updating its 4K streaming box with Gemini and Matter support
The new Onn 4K Pro could make it easier to search for something to watch using Google’s upgraded assistant.
Amazon’s new Fire TV Stick HD is its ‘slimmest ever’
Amazon just gave its most affordable streaming stick an upgrade.
Prince Harry says children should be an 'upgrade' of their parents as he talks mental health in Melbourne
The Duke of Sussex combines two of his passions, mental health campaigning and sport, on the second day of an Australia visit.
SB 1397: Better Science = Better Policy
Managing California’s majestic mountain lion population, particularly in areas of conflict with areas where humans...
Cinergy Entertainment Group Partners with Unique X for Full-Circuit Technology Upgrade
Unique X has confirmed a new collaboration with Cinergy Entertainment Group to deploy its cinema software solutions across Cinergy’s entire estate. Through this agreement, Cinergy will roll out RosettaBridge TMS to every site, complemented by the implementation of RosettaNet CMS and BaseKey KDM. Together, these solutions will form a cohesive, circuit-wide platform designed to unify […]
Motorola Razr 70 Ultra specs leak
If you were expecting huge upgrades compared to the Razr 60 Ultra, you'll be disappointed. Last week we saw the upcoming Motorola Razr 70 Ultra in some...
Gemini for Google Home Keeps Getting Huge Upgrades
We can't seem to go a week at this point without Google pushing out several upgrades and changes to its Google Home products. From Gemini for Home to bug and reliability fixes, we're really...
Dallas ISD voters to decide largest school bond in state history
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The next MacBook Neo already sounds like a big upgrade for one reason
Last week a new report on the MacBook Neo’s success contained details on Apple’s plan for the next-gen Neo, which could be a big upgrade.
Delta Rolls Out New Business Class Suites in Premium Push
Delta Air Lines Inc. will introduce an upgraded version of its Delta One business-class suite, continuing the arms race by US carriers to offer plusher and plusher accommodations to win over high-spending passengers.
Samsung Confirms Upgrade Offer—Galaxy Owners Must Now Decide
Millions of Samsung phones are vulnerable to attack — you must act now.
Finally, a Foldable That Fits: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Wide Leaks a Massive 4:3 Screen Upgrade
Samsung Galaxy Z Wide Fold rumor points to a 4:3 inner display; One UI animations may target tablet-like multitasking in 2026.
Here's why AirPods Pro 3 are more upgrade worthy than you may think
When AirPods Pro 3 initially debuted, I was a little bit hesitant about upgrading. I felt that AirPods Pro 2...
Samsung Confirms Upgrade Offer—Galaxy Users Must Now Decide
Millions of Samsung phones are vulnerable to attack — you must act now.
Google’s Gmail Upgrade Decision—2 Billion Users Must Act Now
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Gadsden to invest $2.7 million in sports complex upgrades along Coosa River
Gadsden city leaders are investing millions of dollars into the city’s sports complex, with new construction aimed at expanding playing space and drawing larger
ASUS introduces ROG Equalizer 12V-2x6 cable, ASUS to offer discounted upgrade for existing ROG PSU users
Update: ASUS has clarified that the upgrade program will not include a free cable. Eligible users will instead receive a discount on the ROG Equalizer
Google Offers Free PC Upgrade For 500 Million Windows Users
All change for Windows — it's now decision time for 30% of all PC owners.
49ers land Steelers’ 16-sack edge rusher in trade proposal
The 49ers could use their draft capital to upgrade positions of need with veterans instead of rookies.
Pixel 11 Series to See Big Display Upgrade
Industry sources have confirmed that Google’s upcoming Pixel 11 series will utilize Samsung’s new M16 OLED panels. These are the same panels expected to be used by Apple for its... #Google #Pixel11
Apple’s AirPods Max 2 Aren’t a Worthy Sequel to the Original
Apple Inc.’s AirPods Max 2 — the first substantial update to the company’s $549 headphones — don’t represent an upgrade-worthy sequel but should intrigue customers looking to buy the brand’s over-ear offering for the first time.
Google Offers Free PC Upgrade For 500 Million Windows Users
All change for Windows — it's now decision time for 30% of all PC owners.
18 new features coming to Windows 11 in 2026, confirmed by Microsoft
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Jabra Evolve3 85 Headset Review: Top Voice-Calling Performance and a Game-Changing Design
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Cyberpunk 2077 gets a free PS5 Pro upgrade today that brings PSSR and better ray tracing options
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$9M 24-acre Jay park renovation will include sports complex, disaster hub
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Power outages disrupt North Texas businesses, raise concerns in Celina
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Review: Cyberpunk 2077's PS5 Pro Patch Goes Heavy On RT And Performance Upgrades
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Satechi’s 3-in-1 travel stand now wirelessly charges your phone at 25W
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Google Offers Free PC Upgrade For 500 Million Windows Users
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One Of Raleigh's Most Iconic Entertainment Venues Is Getting A Huge Upgrade In 2026
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Pocket-Sized E-Ink Gets A Firmware Upgrade
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A Look At BrightSpring Health Services (BTSG) Valuation After Strong Revenue Growth And Upgraded EBITDA Guidance
BrightSpring Health Services (BTSG) is drawing attention after reporting a quarter with 16.3% year on year revenue growth and full year EBITDA guidance that exceeded analyst expectations. See our latest analysis for BrightSpring Health Services. The latest $43.10 share price comes after a 2.6% 1 day share price return and a 9.8% 90 day share price return. The 1 year total shareholder return of about 1.5x reflects how investors have reacted to the strong results and recent leadership...
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This $199 Microsoft upgrade is just $13 for a limited time
Don't replace your PC — refresh it.
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Google's upgrade means 2 billion Gmail users must now decide what to do next.
Google Changes Gmail After 22 Years—Why You Need A New Email Address
Google's upgrade means 2 billion Gmail users must now decide what to do next.
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Gemma 4 and what makes an open model succeed
Having written a lot of model release blog posts, there’s something much harder about reviewing open models when they drop relative to closed models, especially in 2026. In recent years, there were so few open models, so when Llama 3 was released most people were still doing research on Llama 2 and super happy to get an update. When Qwen 3 was released, the Llama 4 fiasco had just gone down, and a whole research community was emerging to study RL on Qwen 2.5 — it was a no brainer to upgrade. Today, when an open model releases, it’s competing with Qwen 3.5, Kimi K2.5, GLM 5, MiniMax M2.5, GPT-OSS, Arcee Large, Nemotron 3, Olmo 3, and others. The space is populated, but still feels full of hidden opportunity. The potential of open models feels like a dark matter, a potential we know is huge, but few clear recipes and examples for how to unlock it are out there. Agentic AI, OpenClaw, and everything brewing in that space is going to spur mass experimentation in open models to complement the likes of Claude and Codex, not replace them. Especially with open models, the benchmarks at release are an extremely incomplete story. In some ways this is exciting, as new open models have a much higher variance and ability to surprise, but it also points at some structural reasons that make building businesses and great AI experiences around open models harder than the closed alternatives. When a new Claude Opus or GPT drops, spending a few hours with them in my agentic workflows is genuinely a good vibe test. For open models, putting them through this test is a category error. Something else to be said about open models in the era of agents is that they get out of the debate of integration, harnesses, and tools and let us see close to the ground on what exactly is the ability of just a model. Of course, we can’t test some things like search abilities without some tool, but being able to measure exactly the pace of progress of the model alone is a welcome simplification to a systematically opaque AI space. Share The list of factors I’d use to assess a new open-weight model I’m considering investing in includes: Model performance (and size) — how this model performs on benchmarks I care about and how it compares to other models of a similar size. Country of origin — some businesses care deeply about provenance, and if a model was built in China or not. Model license — if a model needs legal approval for use, uptake will be slower at mid-sized and large companies. Tooling at release — many models release with half-broken, or at least substantially slower, implementations in popular software like vLLM, Transformers, SGLANG, etc due to pushing the envelope of architectures or tools. Model fine-tunability — how easy or hard it is to modify the given model to your use-case when you actually try and use it. The core problem is that some of these are immediately available at release, e.g. general performance, license, origin, etc. but others such as tooling take day(s) to week(s) to stabilize, and others are open research questions — with no group systematically monitoring fine-tunability. In the early era of open models, the days of Llama 2 or 3 and Qwen pre v3.5, the architectures were fairly simple and the models tended to work out of the box. Some of this was due to the extremely hard work of the Llama, Qwen, Mistral, etc. developer teams. Some is due to the new models being genuinely harder to work with. When it comes to something like Qwen 3.5 or Nemotron 3, with hybrid models (either gated delta net or mamba layers), the tooling is very rough at release. Things you would expect to “just work” often don’t. I’ve been following this area closely since we released Olmo Hybrid with a similar architecture, and Qwen 3.5 is just starting to work well in the various open-source tools that need to all play nice together for RL research. That’s 1.5 months after the release date! This is just to start really investing more into understanding the behavior of the models. Of course, others started working on these models sooner by investing more engineering resources or relying on partially closed software. The fully open and distributed ecosystem takes a long time to get going on some new models. All of this is lead-in for the most important question for open models — how easy is it to adapt to specific use-cases? This is a different problem for different model sizes. Large MoE open-weight models may be used by entities like Cursor who need complex capabilities in their domain, e.g. Composer 2 trained on Kimi K2.5. Other applications can be built on much smaller models, such as Chroma’s Context-1 model for agentic search, built on GPT-OSS 20B. The question of “which models are fine-tunable” is largely background knowledge known by engineers across the industry. There should be a thriving research area here to support the open ecosystem model. The first step is to understand characteristics of different base and post-trained models to understand what they look like. The second step is to tune pretraining recipes for open models so they’re more flexible. Interconnects AI is a reader-supported publication. Consider becoming a subscriber. Subscribe For The ATOM Project and other Interconnects endeavors, we’ve put in substantial effort to measuring adoption trends in the open ecosystem. Everything takes a long time to unfold after a model is first publicly available — and adaptability is why. What we know for sure now, when Qwen has been going from strength to strength with its releases, is that technical staff across the industry has gotten comfortable working with Qwen models. Countless research methods and datasets were made to work with Qwen. It’ll take patience for any other model family to get to this point — a patience I’m not sure many open model builders have. This takes us to Gemma 4, Google’s latest open models. Gemma 3 was released more than a year ago, in March of 2025, and is a bit underrated. Gemma 4 comes in 4 sizes for now, with a bigger, MoE model of over 100B total parameters rumored but not released yet. The models we have today come in sizes of ~5B dense, 8B dense, 26B total 4B active MoE, and 31B dense. I’m most excited that they’re finally adopting a standard Apache 2.0 open source license. This’ll massively boost adoption. The standard of better licenses for strong open-weight LLMs was set by mostly Chinese open model labs in the last 1-2 years, and now U.S. companies are following suit. I will personally be so happy if the horrible Llama licenses and Gemma terms of service were an ~18-month transient dynamic of the industry being nervous about releasing strong open models. The Gemma 4 scores look very solid, the small models have incredible benchmark scores (especially in general domains like LMArena) and the 31B model rivals the recent Qwen 3.5 27B, which is the leading member of that class. The ~30B size range is an important one, as it’s accessible both to researchers and to enterprises looking to deploy the model in real use-cases. Where the 7B model scale is the default for tinkering and research, a 30B model is the default for seeing if an open model can unlock substantial value in your specific workflow — a good mix of intelligence, low price, tractability for downstream training, etc. This takes us back to the above adoption criteria I mentioned for open models and the bigger question — do I think Gemma 4 will be an overwhelming success? Previous Gemma models have been plagued by tooling issues and poorer performance when being finetuned. Gemma 4’s success is going to be entirely determined by ease of use, to a point where a 5-10% swing on benchmarks wouldn’t matter at all. It’s strong enough, small enough, with the right license, and from the U.S., so many companies are going to slot it in. I’m cautiously optimistic that Gemma 4 is going to work better here. Winds are shifting for open models built in America. We saw GPT-OSS go through a bumpy launch to become an overwhelming success. There’s a collective energy around the likes of Reflection, Arcee, Nemotron, Gemma, Olmo, and peers that show substantial demand for building new stacks around open models. There’s capital to be spent on AI stacks across the economy by those who want more ownership of everything, including the model. After launching The ATOM Project 240 days ago, the conversation is shifting into the next stage. Summer of 2025 was a crisis moment where the U.S. AI scene realized it can’t wait and figure out open models after building AGI. The two markets will capture different areas and proceed in parallel. Now that more companies in the U.S. are releasing strong models, we need to improve the ecosystem so that these models are easy to use, understand, and build value around. It’s the hard work to build another inflection point in these adoption plots I’ve been updating consistently, but that’s the work to be done. Join me in it. More data coming soon! Here’s a sneak peek:
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