Talking to ChatGPT just got a lot less awkward.

Starting a conversation with GPT-Live

Adnan Ahmed for Engadget

What GPT-Live excels at

Adnan Ahmed for Engadget

I’ve been using the Google Pixel 10 Pro for almost a year now, which means I’ve had plenty of time to figure out what I love about it and, more importantly, what still gets on my nerves. And with the Pixel 11 Pro launching on August 12, just three days from now, my wishlist for Google has gotten pretty long. There’s a lot the Pixel already gets right. The software is still one of my favorite Android experiences, performance is generally solid, and Google’s Gemini features have become genuinely useful in ways I didn’t expect. Those are all big reasons I’ve stuck with Pixel phones for as long as I have.

But spend enough time with any phone and the little annoyances stop feeling so little. Over the past year, I’ve run into a handful of recurring Pixel problems that I really don’t want to carry over to another generation. Some have frustrated me for months, while others have made me question whether I can completely rely on my Pixel when I need it most. So, with the Pixel 11 Pro almost here, I have a few things I desperately want Google to get right this time.

Please, Google, just last the day

Battery life has easily been one of my biggest frustrations with the Pixel 10 Pro, and judging by the complaints I’ve come across on Reddit and Google’s own forums, I’m definitely not alone here. My problem is pretty simple: I can’t trust the phone to make it through an entire day comfortably. That uncertainty is exactly why my Pixel 10 Pro rarely gets to travel alone. On days when I know I’ll be away from a charger for hours, my iPhone comes with me too, purely as a safety net in case the Pixel gives up before I do.

You’d think plugging it in would quickly solve that problem, but charging is another headache altogether. It feels painfully slow, and in 2026, I genuinely can’t understand why I should have to wait close to two hours for a flagship phone to charge fully. Even worse, heat often tags along like an unwanted plus-one. The phone gets noticeably warm while charging, turning something I have to do every single day into something I’d rather not deal with at all. That’s exactly what I want Google to fix with the Pixel 11 Pro. Give me a battery that comfortably lasts through the day and pair it with meaningfully faster charging. None of this feels like an unreasonable ask anymore. Especially not when Samsung has finally embraced silicon-carbon battery technology with its latest foldables. The rest of the industry is moving forward, and I really want Google to move with it. For the Pixel 11 Pro, better battery life and charging aren’t nice little upgrades on my wishlist. They’re non-negotiable.

My taps deserve a response

Another Pixel 10 Pro problem that has been driving me up the wall is the display randomly deciding it no longer wants to respond. And this isn’t something that happens once every few days. On a bad day, I can run into it 10 to 15 times. What makes it even more confusing is that I’m not exactly pushing the phone to its limits. I’m not spending hours gaming, editing videos, or standing outside recording 4K footage under the afternoon sun. Most of my day is pretty ordinary: scrolling through social media, jumping between work apps, browsing Reddit, replying to messages, and doing all the usual things you’d expect a flagship phone to handle.

Yet every so often, the screen stops responding properly. I’ll tap something, and nothing happens; swipe again, and still get nowhere. The only workaround I’ve found is opening the recent apps menu, clearing everything out, and essentially giving the phone a fresh start. Doing that once is fine. But doing it more than ten times over the course of a day gets old incredibly quickly. It interrupts whatever I’m doing and makes an otherwise smooth phone feel strangely unreliable. This is exactly the kind of everyday annoyance I don’t want following me to the Pixel 11 Pro. I don’t need Google to reinvent the display here. I want to tap the screen and have it respond every single time. That really shouldn’t be too much to ask from a flagship phone.

My Pixel needs to phone better

Then there are the network problems. This might be one of the most frustrating Pixel issues I’ve dealt with because there’s no easy way to work around it. Whenever I’m on a regular phone call or even a WhatsApp call, I somehow end up walking around looking for that one magical spot where the connection suddenly decides to behave. I’ll move from one side of the room to another, stand closer to the window, switch between Wi-Fi and mobile data, and hope something works. I’m always repeating, “Can you hear me now?” five minutes into the conversation. And considering making phone calls is one of the most basic things a smartphone is supposed to do, that gets really annoying. I’ve spent plenty of time digging through the Pixel’s network settings as well, changing whatever I thought might help. Nothing has made enough of a difference. Eventually, I did what I usually do when technology stops making sense and went straight to Reddit.

One suggestion I kept coming across was a factory reset. And sure, maybe that would fix everything. But it also means backing up my data, wiping the entire phone, setting everything up again, signing back into my apps, and then spending the next few days discovering the one thing I forgot to save. I’d rather not turn fixing my phone’s network connection into a weekend project. And that’s really my problem with the whole situation. A factory reset might be a solution, but it shouldn’t feel like a requirement for getting reliable connectivity from a flagship phone. I shouldn’t have to rearrange settings, wipe my device, or wander around the house looking for signal just to have a normal conversation. With the Pixel 11 Pro, I want Google to fix the fundamentals. Give me a connection I can actually rely on, because no amount of clever software or Gemini magic can make up for a phone that struggles with the “phone” part.

I’m ready to fall for Pixel again

More than anything, I really want the Pixel 11 Pro to be the phone I can confidently buy and stick with. My relationship with Google phones has always been a little toxic. They frustrate me, I complain about them, I occasionally think about walking away, and then Google shows me something genuinely clever and somehow pulls me right back in. Because for all the problems I’ve talked about, there’s still so much I love about Pixels. The software is fantastic, the cameras rarely disappoint me, and Gemini has become such a useful part of the experience that moving to another phone always feels like I’m giving something up. That’s probably why these problems bother me as much as they do. The Pixel gets so much right that the things it gets wrong become even harder to ignore.

I don’t need Google to reinvent the Pixel with the 11 Pro completely. I just want it to fix the things that have made living with my Pixel 10 Pro harder than it should be. Give me dependable battery life, charging that doesn’t require half my afternoon, a screen that responds every time I touch it, and network connectivity I don’t have to think about. If Google can do that, the Pixel 11 Pro doesn’t need some wild new spec to win me over. It just needs to become the Pixel I’ve finally been waiting for all along.

The iPhone Fold has yet to ship, but Apple’s already working on a third-generation foldable it could release in 2028. It’s something it’s compelled to do.

Apple is expected to launch the much-rumored iPhone Fold this fall, as part of its usual September iPhone launches. But, despite not having sold a single unit for the foldable, Apple is already planning for multiple follow-ups.

According to Mark Gurman in his “Power On” newsletter for Bloomberg, Apple is not just planning its second-generation release for 2027. It’s also working on a third-gen model, which could arrive as soon as 2028.

When it comes to what Apple could change for the model, Gurman proposes that it will have slightly larger displays. This would be both for the inside foldable screen and the smaller external version.

Gurman’s claim follows one from June, when he said a second-generation folding iPhone was being prepared for a late 2027 launch. Few details are known about that particular variant, aside from it being released as part of the iPhone’s 20th anniversary festivities.

Long-term planning

The discussion about a possible third-gen iPhone Fold when the first-gen model hasn’t even been announced is par for the course for a company like Apple. It seems like Apple is being presumptuous about the iPhone Fold’s success, when really it’s business as usual.

A company the size of Apple equipped with a sophisticated and sprawling supply chain has no choice but to plan its products and manufacturing goals far in advance.

While the public is aware of an annual cycle for the iPhone, it’s really the product of a much longer development timeline. Major overhauls can take multiple years to get going, while iterative updates can still take about 18 months.

These long lede times result in a situation where Apple can have two to three future generations of devices being worked on simultaneously.

That third-gen iPhone Fold is also far away in the future that not much will have been invested into its development. If the iPhone Fold somehow flops spectacularly badly with no hope of rescue, it’s a small enough cost that Apple could consider culling it without feeling that much of a financial penalty.

Ultimately, Apple is compelled to work on generations-away revisions for its products. Even if they don’t see the light of day.

X is shutting down its revenue-sharing programme on September 7 and replacing it with a new system called the Original Content Rewards Programme. The change is designed to reward creators who post original work, not people who repost other users’ content with a caption slapped on top. Under the new rules, creators earn money based on “qualified impressions” their original content receives from verified users. X defines original content as a user’s own writing, reporting, photos, videos, memes, or illustrations.

The eligibility bar is high. Creators must be 18 or older, pay for a Premium, Premium+, or Premium Business subscription, have at least 500 verified followers, and have earned at least 500,000 home timeline views from verified users in the past 90 days. Those requirements must be maintained after acceptance, not just met once. If a creator’s numbers drop, payouts stop. Impressions only count if they come from other Premium users, which narrows the audience that matters for monetisation to X’s paying base.

The definition of “original” is specific. Adding a caption or text overlay to someone else’s video that simply describes what is happening does not count. Creative editing, meaningful commentary, or original analysis of another person’s post does count. The distinction is X’s attempt to separate creators from aggregators, a problem that has plagued every platform that pays for engagement. Snapchat made a similar move last week, banning AI-generated videos from Spotlight recommendations to protect human creators from being drowned out by machine-made content.

People currently enrolled in revenue sharing must reapply for the new programme when it opens on September 8. Those not in the old programme can apply now. In March, X updated its revenue-sharing rules to weight engagement from a user’s home region more heavily, a change widely seen as a response to reports that dozens of popular pro-Trump accounts were run from outside the United States. YouTube has been fighting the same battle from the opposite direction, cutting payouts for AI-generated content while its algorithm punishes legitimate creators who do not show their faces. X’s bet is that requiring originality and a paying audience will produce a different outcome.

My wife and I have been working on sleep training our baby, and my iPhone has been very helpful in our pursuit thanks to its Background Sounds features. This feature transforms your iPhone into a white noise machine. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, playing sounds from a white noise machine can help soothe your baby and get them to settle down, giving you a moment of respite.

When Apple released iOS 15 in 2021, the operating system brought a hidden feature called Background Sounds. You can play these sounds by themselves or under a podcast, music or video streaming app.

When Apple introduced Background Sounds, there were six ambient sounds to play on a loop: rain, stream and ocean waves, which are natural sounds, and bright, balanced and dark noise, which are different pitches of white noise. But if you have iOS 26 on your device, you have over a dozen sounds to choose from now, including rain on roof and babble, which sounds like a busy cafe. 

If you want to use these sounds to lull a baby back to sleep, or for any other reason, here’s how to enable Background Sounds on your iPhone.

How to access Background Sounds from your Control Center

Instead of searching through Settings each time you want to turn Background Sounds on, here’s how you can set up a toggle in the Control Center to turn the feature on to use on your iPhone.

1. Open Control Center.
2. Tap the plus (+) sign in the top left of your screen.
3. Tap Add a Control near the bottom of your screen.
4. Tap the Background Sounds control under Hearing Accessibility to add to Control Center.

Once the Background Sounds control icon is in Control Center, tap it to start playing a background sound. Press and hold the icon to open a menu showing you the volume as well as what sound is playing. Tap Sounds to open the full list of sound options, like Ocean and Rain. Tap any of these to choose them.

Use Accessibility Shortcuts for Background Sounds

You can also set up an accessibility shortcut to turn Background Sounds on or off from your home screen or within an app. Here’s how to set it up.

1. Tap Settings.
2. Tap Accessibility.
3. Tap Accessibility Shortcut.
4. Tap Background Sounds.

Now, when you press the side button on your iPhone three times, Background Sounds will turn on. You can tap the button three times again to turn it back off.

More Background Sound options

If you want more control over Background Sounds, here’s where to go.

1. Tap Settings.
2. Tap Accessibility.
3. Tap Audio & Visual.
4. Tap Background Sounds.

Here you can turn Background Sounds on by tapping the Background Sounds toggle near the top of the menu, and you can change the Background Sound by tapping Sound and choosing a new sound. 

There are also two other toggles in this menu: Use When Media Is Playing and Stop Sounds When Locked. Tapping the toggle next to Use When Media Is Playing allows Background Sounds to keep playing while you watch a video or listen to music. And tapping the toggle next to Stop Sounds When Locked ensures Background Sounds will turn off when your device locks. If you don’t have this enabled, the sounds will continue to play when your device locks.

There are also two new menus in iOS 26: Equalizer and Stop Sounds with a Timer. Equalizer lets you adjust the tone and contour of Background Sounds, as well as balance more toward the right or left speaker or headphone. Stop Sounds with a Timer allows you to turn Background Sounds off at a specific time that you can choose or after a certain amount of time has passed. 

For more iOS news, here’s what you should know about iOS 27 and our iOS 26 cheat sheet.

Zachary McAuliffe

Senior writer

Zach began writing for CNET in November, 2021 after writing for a broadcast news station in his hometown, Cincinnati, for five years. You can usually find him hanging out with his wife, son and dog in their home.

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As awesome as trebuchets are, the fact that medieval engineers didn’t create versions capable of launching supersonic projectiles is a bit of a bummer. Fortunately it’s possible to correct this oversight with modern insights and technologies, as [Tom Stanton] demonstrates in a recent video.

While a traditional trebuchet is fairly straightforward, using a heavy weight moving an arm around a pivot that has the projectile attached to the other side, a few tweaks can make it much more lethal. One change is to have the projectile’s rope wound around the arm, forcing an additional pass around the arm to gain velocity. The other is to use a gearing system which uses the dropping weight’s energy more efficiently.

One complication here is that the arm now takes a few rotations to come up to speed, meaning that the release of the payload has to be controlled exactly, with only about an 0.0025 second release window. The solution was both low-tech and effective: since the arm is attached to a drum that the rope is wound onto, the moment enough rope is unwound from the dropping weight, a latch inside the drum is released to launch the projectile.

In a first test with a 10 kg weight, the projectile reached a velocity of around 528 km/h, which definitely was a good start, but also showed just how not aerodynamic the arm was. Some redesigns later of the entire trebuchet, the entire system was tested again with 10 kg and achieved a projectile velocity of 634 km/h. From there it was time to ramp up the weight to the full 40 kg, which theoretically should hit supersonic speeds.

Unfortunately the first attempt hit a mere 1,152 km/h (716 mph), which is just shy of the sound barrier at 1,235 km/h at 39% system efficiency and some components clearly breaking apart. Some more redesigns later and with a lighter projectile at 4 grams, a 40 kg weight achieved an arm speed of 2,342 rpm. The projectile now left the sling with 346.4 m/s, or 1,249 km/h, with an audible snap as the sound barrier got broken.

Even if the era of trebuchets in warfare is well and truly past, they remain fascinating physics demonstrations, with this case in point.

The European Space Agency is trying to understand why astronauts lose their eyesight in space, in the hope they can figure out how to treat—or even prevent—the condition as looming longer spaceflights heighten the risk of permanent vision damage.

The agency has commissioned British eye-scanning startup Siloton to develop a solution ahead of the international Artemis flights to the moon and other deep space missions. The health tech uses quantum technology to shrink core components used in eye-testing equipment found at optometrists to fit on a photonic chip smaller than a coin.

Founded by physicists in 2020, Siloton is currently working with the UK’s National Health Service to enable patients with retinal conditions to self-scan at home. “The ESA pretty much has the same requirements,” says cofounder and chief technology officer Euan Allen. “It’s just in a totally different environment.”

Spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS) is a collection of eye and brain changes caused by spending prolonged periods in a low-gravity environment, and it impacts around 70 percent of astronauts on the International Space Station, according to NASA. One of the starkest cases is that of NASA astronaut John Phillips, who launched to the ISS in 2005 with 20/20 vision, and splashed down six months later with his vision at 20/100—what’s considered a moderate visual impairment. While he was in space, bodily fluid, uninhibited by gravity, built up in his head, squashing his eyeballs, swelling his optic nerve, and pushing his retina forward.

Courtesy of Siloton

While returning to Earth can reverse some of the damage, space agencies are concerned by both the operational risk of astronauts losing their vision mid-mission, as well as the longer-term health impacts. “The eye condition SANS is a serious health risk facing astronauts on long missions,” says Rebecca Evernden, director of the UK Space Agency. Medical engineers want to develop their understanding of the condition and the factors causing it so that they can manage any ocular damage, and eventually treat it or even stop it from becoming a problem.

Scientists are already monitoring how spaceflight impacts the human eye on the ISS using a modified version of the device found in optometry offices that measures the thickness of layers at the back of the eye. However, the device is bulky and requires real-time remote guidance from experts on the ground. As astronauts journey further into deep space, lengthening communication delays with Earth will mean this is no longer feasible.

Siloton’s device would allow astronauts to scan their retinas more frequently by automating some of the process so that examinations do not need ground support. The ESA hopes that will generate more data on any ocular degeneration, and possibly provide early warning signs that changes in the eye may be occurring—even before they result in vision change.

You can tap the hamburger menu in the upper-right corner for a quick menu that includes books and pictures like you’d find in the All menu. There’s also Cloud Sync, which lets you see what’s being uploaded or was uploaded over Wi-Fi from the app; USB Drive, which turns on USB Drive mode to upload files instead of Wi-Fi; and Settings. The app is very straightforward, but you’ll need to create an account and pair your device by scanning the QR code displayed on the Xteink.

The X4 Pro still tells me I need to pair it to an app (there’s a floating box whenever I’m in the Settings menu, even though I’ve already paired it), but the app remembered which devices I had, and has no issues sending material to the device.

Because most ebooks from major stores are Digital Rights Management (DRM)-protected and can’t simply be copied over, you’ll need DRM-free EPUB files if you want to upload books to an Xteink device. These are versions of books you can legally upload, whether it’s through Cloud Sync or USB upload. You’ll also likely want software designed for e-book management, like Calibre, to organize these files on your computer.

The Xteink devices are unlocked, so you can also upload your own software or even games to use on them. Popular options are CrossPoint and Crossink, open-source reading software you can install on the Xteink for a different experience. However, regardless of what software you’re using, there’s still a roadblock you’re going to hit: where the books come from.

Content Gap

Photograph: Nena Farrell

There’s no built-in bookstore for the Xteink as you’d find on a Kindle or Kobo. Xteink devices also aren’t directly compatible with the Libby app, a popular way to get e-books from your local library. You need to obtain those DRM-free e-books and prepare them for uploading yourself. There are a few popular sites for this: Standard Ebooks offers entirely free, public-domain books, while eBooks.com has a DRM-free section you can shop from.

Beyond handhelds, there are other interesting gaming laptops that play with form factors. My favorite is the Asus ROG Flow Z13 (7/10, WIRED Recommends). This is a 2-in-1 gaming laptop, meaning it’s essentially a Windows tablet with a detachable keyboard cover. All the guts of the device are behind the screen, which, in the case of the 2025 model, includes the AMD Ryzen Max+ chip. In other words, it’s a Surface Pro designed for playing games.

Nearly every gaming laptop I’ve ever used gets warm on the palm rests and keyboard while gaming, leaving you with sweaty hands after a few missions of Arc Raiders. But not so with the Flow Z13; because it’s a tablet, your hands are never near vents and warm surfaces. It’s also one of the smallest and most compact gaming devices you can buy. Asus has also been experimenting with dual-screen gaming laptops for years, with the most interesting edition out later this year: the ROG Zephyrus Duo. I saw it at CES a few months ago, and it was one of the most exciting new gaming devices I’ve seen in a while.

Many laptops that aren’t necessarily marketed as gaming products can play games. Some laptops with discrete GPUs are oriented toward content creators, like the Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i (7/10, WIRED Recommends) or the Asus ProArt P16 (9/10, WIRED Recommends). I like both of these options, particularly given the new version of the Yoga Pro 9i with an RTX 5050 for $2,400. Not bad.

For something a bit more grounded, I’d consider the Dell XPS 14 (8/10, WIRED Recommends). While it doesn’t have a discrete graphics card, you can configure it with Intel’s latest X7 integrated graphics, which are surprisingly powerful. While I wouldn’t buy the XPS 14 mainly as a gaming device, like a 16-inch MacBook Pro (8/10, WIRED Recommends), it’s absolutely capable of running AAA games on the side. I was able to average 56 frames per second in Cyberpunk 2077 with the settings at medium. For a laptop without a discrete graphics card, that’s kind of mind-blowing. When you need it, Intel offers both a low-latency mode and XeSS upscaling. When used together, you get faster frame rates without too much visual distortion or input lag. Your battery will also benefit if you go with a non-gaming laptop. Unlike many of the gaming laptops on this list, it actually gets fantastic battery life, competitive with the 14-inch MacBook Pro (8/10, WIRED Recommends).

Other Good Gaming Laptops I’ve Tested

Photograph: Luke Larsen

Alienware 15 for $1,160: For the price, the Lenovo LOQ 15 is a better buy, given it offers both more power and a better display. It’s the screen, in particular, though, that keeps the Alienware 15 (7/10, WIRED Recommends) from being a full recommendation, as the colors look desaturated. However, the RTX 5050 configuration of the Alienware 15 that I tested performs well for what it is and is solidly built.

Lenovo LOQ 15 Essential Gen 11 for $1,850: Not to be confused with the LOQ 15 I mentioned as my top recommendation, this newer model intends to be an entry-level option (despite its current price tag being higher). The LOQ 15 Essential is, however, a step up from the Alienware 15 in terms of the quality of the display. The configuration I tested comes with an RTX 5060, which offers better gaming performance over the Alienware. Its crucial flaw is that its included power adapter is only 135 watts, meaning it’ll actually drain the battery, even while plugged in when playing games in Performance mode.

Spectre has been haunting CPU security since 2018, and MIT researchers have now found another way to make it misbehave. The new TONTOU attack can bypass some of the defenses Intel and AMD have added over the years by exploiting a tiny gap in how those protections work. The research comes from Daniël Trujillo and Mengjia Yan at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). Their findings show that even after a processor wipes or isolates information used by its branch predictor, there can be a brief window before that information is actually used. TONTOU, short for Time-of-Neutralization to Time-of-Use, attacks precisely that gap.

The tiny gap that TONTOU exploits

To understand TONTOU, it helps to understand what makes Spectre attacks possible in the first place. Modern CPUs use speculative execution to predict what software will do next and start working ahead of time. When that prediction turns out to be wrong, the processor discards the result, but traces of that activity can remain inside the CPU and potentially leak information through side channels.

After Spectre emerged, chipmakers introduced defenses designed to clean or isolate the processor’s branch predictor, which helps the CPU guess where code will execute next. The idea is straightforward: remove anything an attacker may have planted before sensitive code runs. The problem, according to MIT’s researchers, is that the cleanup and the moment the prediction machinery is actually used cannot happen at exactly the same time, leaving a tiny “post-neutralization window.” TONTOU targets that gap by injecting a carefully timed interrupt and poisoning the predictor again.

The researchers tested TONTOU on Intel Cascade Lake Refresh and Arrow Lake, as well as AMD Zen 2 and Zen 4 processors, and were able to trigger the necessary branch mispredictions on both platforms. AMD’s Safe RET defense leaves a particularly tiny window, just two instructions wide and typically lasting tens of nanoseconds, but the researchers were still able to hit it by manipulating processor timing. Their technique, called interrupt injection, essentially schedules high-frequency timer interrupts and attempts to land one inside that window, allowing the attacker to poison structures such as the return stack buffer (RSB) or branch history buffer (BHB).

And yes, it can leak protected data

This isn’t purely theoretical. On an AMD Zen 2 system running a stock Linux kernel, the researchers built a complete end-to-end exploit that broke Linux’s kernel address space layout randomization (KASLR) in all 10 attempts. They were also able to locate and leak /etc/shadow, which contains root password hashes, in five of those runs. However, the attack isn’t exactly a speed demon: MIT measured the protected-memory read rate at roughly five bytes per second, while The Register reports that each complete exploit attempt took around 18 minutes and required specific software conditions on Intel.

In other words, TONTOU is a sophisticated attack that demonstrates a real weakness, but it isn’t something ordinary malware can casually throw at a random PC.

The good news is that this isn’t an unpatched zero-day waiting to eat your PC. Trujillo and Yan notified AMD and Intel in February, and Linux kernel maintainers in March. AMD subsequently released a kernel patch that mitigates the attack, so keeping Linux updated is particularly important. Intel, meanwhile, told the researchers it doesn’t plan additional mitigations, arguing that real-world exploitation depends on too many factors, including the availability of suitable disclosure gadgets. Intel did, however, award the researchers a bug-bounty payment.

The bigger takeaway is less “your Intel or AMD PC is about to be hacked” and more that Spectre-style attacks remain a stubborn problem at the hardware level. TONTOU shows that even carefully designed defenses can leave tiny windows that researchers may eventually find a way to exploit. For most desktop users, this is not an immediate reason to panic. But for shared systems, cloud infrastructure, and multi-tenant environments where untrusted code runs alongside other workloads, the research is a useful reminder that the Spectre saga is far from over.