From discovering new books and organizing your reading list to tracking your reading goal and sharing recommendations, book apps make it easier to maintain reading as a hobby. There are numerous apps on the market that promise to do just that, so we’ve compiled a list of some of the best ones to help you pick the right one for you. Whether you’re an occasional reader or a dedicated bookworm, these apps can help you make the most of your reading journey.

Some of the apps on this list are somewhat new, while others have been around for a few years. Amazon-owned Goodreads, which is arguably the most popular book-related app, isn’t included in this list because we’re focusing on newer, lesser-known platforms. 

Fable

Fable is a reading app that combines book tracking with a social platform. It lets you organize reading lists, set reading goals, track streaks, write reviews, and join virtual book clubs. You also get personalized book recommendations and the chance to discuss what you’re reading with other readers. 

The app differs from others on this list because it puts reading and community at the forefront of the platform, which makes it a great option for people who like staying motivated to read by being part of a community and discussing their reads. 

Fable is free to download on iOS and Android, but also offers a Fable Plus subscription tier that unlocks additional features like custom goals and advanced analytics for a monthly fee of $5.99.

Bookshelf

Bookshelf is a reading app designed to help people organize their libraries, discover new books, and remember more of what they read. The app positions itself as an alternative to Goodreads, and combines traditional reading logs with AI-powered recommendations and tools.

You can create custom shelves, set reading goals, receive reminders, save favorite quotes, and access AI-generated book summaries, key insights, and thematic analyses to recall the books you’ve read and get a deeper understanding of them. 

Bookshelf is free to download on iOS, but offers a $6.99 monthly fee to unlock premium features like unlimited collections and enhanced analytics. 

Pagebound

Pagebound is a book app that lets readers track their books, create lists, set goals, and discuss individual titles in dedicated forums. Instead of having to join an actual book club group, users can post reactions and thoughts to connect with others reading the same title.

You don’t have to worry about spoilers for the end of the book, as conversations are organized based on reading progress, allowing readers to share theories and thoughts as they read. The app is a great option for people who want to discuss their reads with others without having to commit to a scheduled book club.

Pagebound is free to download on iOS and Android and offers a $9.99 monthly subscription for added features like profile customization.

StoryGraph

StoryGraph is a reading app that lets users track their reading, discover new books, and access detailed reading statistics and personalized recommendations. Users can set reading goals, join reading challenges, and find new titles based on their preferred moods, themes, genres, and pacing.

The app is ideal for readers who want to better understand their reading habits and discover books that match their current interests. Its recommendation system doesn’t solely rely on what’s popular or trending, and instead caters to exactly what readers are looking for. 

StoryGraph is free to use on iOS and Android, but also offers a paid subscription called StoryGraph Plus that costs $4.99 per month and unlocks custom charts, additional statistics, and more. 

Margins

Margins is a great option for mood readers, as it offers mood-based discovery alongside a more focused reading experience. It helps users find their next read based on how they feel in the moment by searching for specific vibes, such as “books like 1920s Paris.” Users can also track their reading goals.

The app also lets users customize their virtual library by choosing book covers that match their aesthetic and organizing their shelves in different ways, including by color. For users who enjoy a more immersive experience, Margins offers a built-in “Reading Time” meditation timer that blocks social media apps.

Margins is free to download on iOS and Android.

Unknown hackers hijacked more than 300 Tor exit nodes and reconfigured them to favor unencrypted email traffic and redirect SSH connections through servers they controlled, a researcher reported Tuesday.

The hijacking began in late August, when, according to Tor volunteers, the attacker used a valid password that had been reused to gain access to a Tor management server. The attacker then installed Ebury, a backdoor written for Linux that was discovered 12 years ago.

Mysteries remain

Then the attacker connected from the management server to a second Tor server, called Switzerland2, through SSH, using an RSA key that, for unknown reasons, investigators couldn’t find among Switzerland2’s authorized keys. With administrative control of Switzerland2, the attackers installed Ebury there as well. Finally, the attacker reconfigured settings on two exit nodes that Switzerland2 hosted.

Ultimately, 333 exit relays were involved in the SSH and email interception campaign, although investigators haven’t established how the attackers gained control of all the underlying servers. The attackers then reconfigured the servers. One set of changes redirected SSH traffic traversing Tor to one of 12 attacker-controlled interceptor servers. Tor users who ignored warnings that the SSH host key had changed would then enter their SSH passwords.

A second set of changes caused the exit nodes to block ports 25, 465, 587, 993, and 995—used to accept various forms of encrypted email—while continuing to allow ports for receiving unencrypted email. If email services downgraded the connections, the attackers used their access to the exit nodes to obtain unencrypted messages. It’s unclear whether any such downgrade attempts succeeded. The hijacking occurred from October 2 to October 5.

Tor volunteers partially outlined the initial compromise of the management server and Switzerland2 and the attempt to intercept unencrypted email. Tuesday’s report revealed many new details, including how many exit nodes were compromised and how the attackers used them to redirect SSH traffic.

“If you happen to get a circuit that exits over one of those 333 infected exit nodes, you won’t notice anything at first,” Kaba, the name of the Tor volunteer who authored the post, wrote. “Encrypted web traffic is forwarded as usual, but if you attempt an SSH connection over Port 22, you’re unknowingly redirected to one of 12 SSH interception servers. That’s exactly what happened to me on Friday morning.” Kaba then received the following warning:

• The kit adapts Apple’s 2019 Mac Pro case for standard PC parts
• Buyers must source the motherboard, processor, graphics card, memory, and power supply
• The original fans and front controls can remain in service

An enthusiast is seeking crowdfunding support for a conversion system that would let owners reuse Apple‘s 2019 Mac Pro enclosure with conventional desktop PC components.

The proposed kit accommodates standard motherboards, power supplies and graphics cards while retaining the aluminium chassis, original cooling fans and front controls.

Apple has found an unusual way to celebrate the iPod’s 25th anniversary: make people visit a broken webpage. Steve Jobs introduced the original $399, 5GB player on October 23, 2001, promising 1,000 songs in your pocket. Twenty-five years later, Cupertino’s tribute to one of its most influential products is a virtual iPod tucked inside an Apple Music “Page Not Found” screen. Do the folks at Apple have nothing better to do? Perhaps, but I hate to admit that this is rather clever.

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A Working iPod, Hidden Where Nothing Should Work

Visit music.apple.com/404 in a web browser and a first-generation iPod appears with the invitation, “Give this a spin instead.” The monochrome display, menus, separate playback buttons, and scroll wheel have been recreated, right down to the familiar scrolling behavior. To be precise, the 2001 original had a physically rotating scroll wheel; the integrated Click Wheel didn’t arrive until the fourth generation in 2004.

There are 1,029 songs to explore, with selections from the iPod era, including Daft Punk, Coldplay, and U2. You can navigate playlists, adjust shuffle and repeat settings, and listen to previews lasting roughly 30 or 90 seconds, but you cannot play complete albums or load your own music. No Apple Music subscription is required. The other surprise is Brick, the classic Breakout-style game, hidden under Settings → About. Then hold the center button to unlock it. Somebody in Cupertino clearly had fun building this.

Cute Easter Egg. But Why Not Build a Real Music Player?

What makes this special isn’t sound quality or functionality; it’s the obsessive recreation of an interface that made a massive digital music library feel manageable. The iPod didn’t invent portable audio, but its combination of storage, navigation, and music management helped transform listening habits. This little browser toy recalls a period when choosing an album felt more deliberate than surrendering to whatever an algorithm decided you’d tolerate during lunch.

Apple retired the iPod line in 2022, but the dedicated digital audio player certainly didn’t die with it. Astell&Kern, FiiO, Sony, Cayin, iBasso, and HiBy sell actual portable music players with modern DACs, headphone amplification, local-file playback, and, on many models, hi-res streaming support. Some cost a small fortune; others don’t. We’ve even covered the Fosi Audio DAP Neo, an $80 player that embraces the original iPod’s simplicity while letting you listen to entire songs. Imagine that.

Bring Back the iMod Instead

My nostalgia runs a little deeper. About twenty years ago, I reviewed Vinnie Rossi’s Red Wine Audio iMod, a $200 modification that bypassed parts of the iPod’s analog output circuitry so it could serve as a more serious source for a headphone amplifier or hi-fi system. Rossi understood something Apple never made a priority: the iPod was a terrific interface attached to a music player whose analog output could be improved.

I’d rather see Vinnie bring back the iMod than watch Apple congratulate itself for turning a dead link into a museum exhibit. Still, credit where it’s due: the virtual iPod is free, charming, and worth five minutes of your Sunday. Just don’t call it a comeback. The real music players are being made by everyone else.

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New research discovered that just more than one in four girls surveyed attending single-sex schools have access to computer science at a Leaving Cert level.

New research from the 2026 I Wish Survey of Female Students’ Attitudes to STEM has shed light on how young girls risk being forgotten on the march towards Ireland’s AI future, if barriers to subject access continue. 

The 11th annual report gathered data from 662 primary school students and 1,660 female secondary school students, aiming to create a broader picture of how girls engage with and perceive the STEM space – as well as how they fit into it, both currently and with reference to the future. 

The research discovered that, in a landscape where the demand for digital specialists in Ireland is expected to increase by around 27pc in four years, just more than one in four girls surveyed attending single-sex schools have access to computer science at a Leaving Cert level. 

While a lack of subject availability creates a significant barrier to continuing education in STEM, it can also prevent girls from envisioning themselves in STEM roles in the future, blocking them from industries such as AI, cybersecurity, data analytics and cloud technologies. 

60pc of contributors said a lack of confidence in STEM subject ability is a barrier to pursuing STEM careers; this figure has risen annually, from 55pc in 2025 and 50pc the year prior to that. 

Commenting on the report, the co-founder of I Wish, Caroline O’Driscoll, said, “We ask girls to be ambitious, but ambition needs assistance. A girl may discover an interest in technology, engineering or construction, only to find her school does not offer the technical and applied STEM subjects that would help her explore it.

“Even when her school does offer these subjects, she may struggle to see a future for herself without encouragement, clear career information or women she can relate to in those roles. The growing confidence barrier we are seeing in our surveys is worrying and raises questions about whether girls are getting the support they need.”

Greater visibility

More than 60pc of contributors said that a lack of school visits by accomplished women in STEM roles can have a harmful impact. Two-thirds of contributors said the same of gender inequality and of insufficient career information. 

Taoiseach Micheál Martin, TD, who was present at the launch of the survey, said, “Ireland’s future competitiveness depends on developing the skills our economy needs. Strong growth in demand is projected over the coming four years for digital specialist jobs, yet women make up only one-fifth of this workforce. Addressing that imbalance is essential to building the talent our economy needs.”

“I commend I Wish for giving girls a voice through its annual surveys and using those insights to shape its year-round programmes and inform the work of Government, schools and industry.

“By identifying barriers and helping girls see what is possible, I Wish is creating opportunities for the next generation. We must work together to ensure girls have the access, encouragement and support to fulfil their potential.”

I Wish is calling on those in the education space to make access to STEM subjects, strong career guidance and exposure to relatable role models more equitable. 

The organisation also highlighted the advantages of engaging in activities outside of STEM that can improve soft skills, such as sports, which often build confidence, teamwork and resilience. Social media was identified as a vehicle through which STEM careers can be made more visible. 

I Wish co-founder Gillian Keating said, “We cannot afford to carry today’s gender inequalities into tomorrow’s technologies. Girls must have the opportunity to shape STEM, not simply use it. Starting early, with practical experiences and female role models, helps girls discover their abilities and imagine where they could take them.”

In February of next year, 4,000 secondary school girls from across Ireland will attend the 13th annual I Wish Festival at the RDS in Dublin to meet women working in STEM and explore potential career pathways.

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Amid this AI RAM price-increase debacle, it’s hard for any mid-range phone to stand out. Everyone is cutting corners to survive. Some focus on cameras, others on performance, and then there are phones like the Oppo K14 Plus that put a massive battery at the center of the experience. If you’re in the market for a phone with battery life to spare even after two days, then the OPPO K14 Plus could be worth a look. It packs an 8,000mAh battery, a sharp 1.5K AMOLED display with a 144Hz refresh rate, and a design that looks more expensive than it actually is.

But should you spend ₹32,999 of your hard-earned money? Well, I’ve been using the K14 Plus for more than a month now and have taken it on a few work trips. Here’s how it stacked up.

Design & Hardware

Oppo has done a good job with the K14 Plus’ design. The marble-like finish on the back adds character without looking too flashy. The rest of the rear panel has a smooth finish that complements the design nicely. Everyone I’ve shown the phone to has liked the look. The texture also helps with grip. Despite weighing 207 grams, the phone feels comfortable to hold for extended periods. You can tell there’s some heft to it, but I never found it particularly uncomfortable to carry around or use with one hand.

The buttons feel tactile, and the overall construction feels sturdy. Oppo has used a plastic frame and back panel, but the phone doesn’t feel cheap in the hand. That matters because a fancy-looking back means little if the rest of the device feels poorly built. The camera island on the back is fairly standard, with two lenses inside. It doesn’t get in the way, and looks pretty sophisticated.

Oppo has also equipped the K14 Plus with IP66, IP68, IP69, and IP69K ratings. That’s an extensive list of dust and water resistance certifications, though you should generally avoid dipping your phone in water, since water damage isn’t covered under warranty. The front houses an optical fingerprint sensor. It isn’t the fastest, but it did the job well with my greasy fingers.

Display

The OPPO K14 Plus houses a 6.78-inch AMOLED panel with a 1.5K resolution and a 144Hz refresh rate. Those are flagship-grade numbers, and in my testing, it felt that way too. The AMOLED panel delivers deep blacks and punchy colors, making darker scenes look especially good. I spent my testing watching Shrinking on Apple TV, and it was a great experience. Colors were super vibrant without that oversaturated look.

Outdoor visibility is decent, too. I could use the phone under direct sunlight without constantly shielding the display with my hand. Oppo claims a peak brightness of 3,600 nits, but that’s a peak figure, not a guarantee that the entire display will reach that level in normal use. As for durability, the K14 Plus’ display is protected by the AGC DT-Star D. While I didn’t intentionally throw the phone, it slipped out of my pocket once and fell from hip height. Despite it landing face-first, there was no major damage, and OPPO pre-applies a screen protector.

Performance

Inside, the OPPO K14 Plus uses MediaTek’s Dimensity 7360 Max processor. Alongside, there’s 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. ColorOS is my favorite Android skin, and using it on the Oppo K14 Plus reminds me why. Both lightweight apps and heavier ones, such as the camera, open quickly. Switching between tasks is smooth, and the available RAM is enough to keep multiple apps running in the background without aggressively closing them. The animations aren’t quite as pretty as they are on my Find X8, but they’re still fluid enough to make the K14 Plus feel more premium than its price might suggest. You also get some of my favorite AI features, including AI Portrait Retouching, Recompose, and Perfect Shot.

Unfortunately, Oppo still hasn’t figured out how to keep bloatware under control. The phone comes with plenty of pre-installed apps, including the annoying Hot Apps folder, which you’ll need to remove manually. It’s frustrating because the software itself is one of the phone’s strengths, yet you still have to spend time cleaning things up before settling in. Oppo promises three years of software updates and four years of security patches, which is reasonable.

Since this is a review, I also ran benchmarks to test the performance ceiling. In Geekbench, the K14 Plus scored 880 in single-core and 2980 in multi-core. In AnTuTu, the phone scored 970,821 points, which is respectable. For gaming, I played BGMI on Smooth graphics, and the phone maintained 60 FPS without major drops. That’s good enough for most casual players. Call of Duty: Mobile was less consistent, though. While the game can run at up to 90 FPS on Low graphics, it throttled performance a lot during battle scenes.

Battery Life & Charging

The biggest reason to buy the K14 Plus is the 8,000mAh battery. It will easily last you multiple days. For some context, I used the phone for gaming, watching videos, scrolling through Instagram, and occasionally using it as a Wi-Fi hotspot. And I still made it to the end of the day with 30% remaining. That’s the sort of battery life that makes a difference in everyday use. I didn’t have to keep checking the battery percentage or worry as much about finding a charger before heading out

The charging situation, however, is less impressive. The included 45W SuperVOOC charger took the battery from empty to full in more than 1.5 hours. That’s not terrible for an 8,000mAh battery, but it isn’t especially fast, either.

Cameras

The Oppo K14 Plus has a 50MP main camera with optical image stabilization, and that’s it. The other lens is a useless 2MP monochrome sensor, and an ultrawide sensor would have been much better. Regardless, the primary camera does a solid job. In daylight, the photos look sharp, and the highlights are generally well controlled. Shadows struggled in the harshest situations, but nothing major. Night shots are usable, with OIS helping keep things steady, although there’s some noise in darker areas and fine details aren’t as sharp as they are during the day.

Portraits use the same sensor and retain plenty of detail, with accurate skin tones and a nice shallow depth of field, at least in daylight. The selfie camera is decent enough for social media and video calls. Skin tones look natural, facial details are reasonably sharp, and the default skin-smoothing effect is subtle. Unlike the S2 FE, the K14 Plus can record video at up to 4K at 30 FPS. The results are actually usable.

Verdict

The Oppo K14 Plus gets the basics right. The battery life is excellent, the 1.5K AMOLED display is great for watching videos, and the design feels better than you’d expect from a phone with a plastic frame and back. ColorOS is still my favorite Android skin. But a few things hold it back. Gaming performance is merely adequate, the camera setup lacks an ultrawide lens, and the pre-installed apps are frustrating. None of these issues are a deal-breaker if your main priority is battery life and watching content.

Dell’s Mark Hopkins explores why Ireland should stop focusing on every ‘layer of the AI stack’ and instead work towards becoming Europe’s home for sovereign AI inferencing.

Despite a somewhat complex sounding name, sovereign AI inferencing is simply the process of running AI models on infrastructure that stays within a particular country or region and where it is subject to the places’ rules and regulations. 

It enables organisations, governments and countries to manage their own AI activity and to ensure that it meets certain standards, often in areas such as security, compliance, risk management and even sustainability. It can also give a business or country a competitive edge in a landscape that is increasingly AI-driven. 

With that in mind, many companies worldwide and indeed countries are putting more effort into developing their own technologies and infrastructure, both as a means of reducing external dependencies and maximising homegrown capabilities. 

For Mark Hopkins, a managing director at Dell Technologies Ireland, now is the time for Ireland to take a closer look at how it wants to compete both at home and abroad. He is of the opinion that, rather than focusing on every layer of the AI stack, the country’s real focus should be on becoming Europe’s home for sovereign AI inferencing. 

Hopkins said: “As Ireland holds the Presidency of the Council of the EU, it does so at a defining moment for Europe’s AI ambitions. The question facing Europe is no longer whether AI will transform economies and public services. It already is. 

“The challenge now is more practical; where AI will run, who will control it and whether organisations can deploy it at scale while maintaining trust, security and sovereignty. I believe that challenge presents Ireland with a significant opportunity.”

Friendly neighbours

He explained that many of Ireland’s geographical neighbours are striving to emerge as leaders in AI development, semiconductor manufacturing and research excellence, and that amid some of the noise, the country has the potential to find opportunities elsewhere. 

He said: “As we move from experimenting with AI to deploying it more broadly, inference, the process of putting AI models to work in the real world, could become Ireland’s defining contribution to Europe’s AI ecosystem. Ireland does not need to win the race to build every AI model. But it can become one of the places Europe trusts to run them.”

Hopkins added: “Training models may capture headlines, but inference powers the everyday applications we all depend upon. It enables government departments to improve citizen services, hospitals to support clinical workflows, tax authorities to analyse compliance risks and businesses to make faster decisions.

“Many European organisations will not build their own foundation models. Almost all, however, will need to deploy AI. The strategic question for Europe is not simply who trains AI, but who provides the trusted infrastructure that allows it to operate securely, responsibly and at scale.”

This, he said, is where Ireland can lead. He explained that Europe’s ambitions are suitably aligned with Ireland’s strengths, which include world-class digital infrastructure, data expertise, skilled talent, public and private sectors working closely together and decades of experience in digital technology.

Perhaps most importantly, he is of the opinion that AI sovereignty can address one of Europe’s most pressing challenges, the protection of highly sensitive materials. 

He said: “For years, digital sovereignty was largely a policy discussion. Today, it is an operational requirement. Public bodies and highly regulated industries increasingly need assurance that sensitive data remains protected, AI systems are transparent and workloads operate within trusted regulatory frameworks.

“Inference is therefore becoming a strategic capability. It is where sovereignty moves from aspiration to execution. Organisations need confidence not only in AI models, but in the infrastructure, governance and safeguards surrounding them.”

Taking the lead

Hopkins said that as the holder of the EU Presidency, Ireland has a chance to drive the conversation on topics that affect both the country and the continent. 

He said: “The National Digital and AI Strategy provides a clear direction, while Ireland’s growing ecosystem of AI innovators is helping turn ambition into practical capability. Combined with the country’s international technology relationships and enterprise base, these foundations give Ireland a credible route to AI leadership.”

But leadership will require focus and while “Ireland cannot be everything to everyone in the AI economy”, he explained, there is opportunity in playing to your strengths and owning a “critical part of the value chain”. 

“Inference may not attract the same attention as the race to build ever-larger models. Yet it is where AI becomes trusted, operational and economically valuable. It is where public services improve, businesses become more competitive and Europe’s sovereignty ambitions become real.”

He added: “While Ireland holds the EU Presidency, it should champion the next phase of Europe’s AI agenda; turning ambition into trusted deployment at scale. Now Ireland must seize the opportunity. As Europe enters the deployment era of AI, inference can become Ireland’s national advantage within the European AI ecosystem.”

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AI hasn’t benefited the bottom line of any big corporations outside the tech industry, according to a note recently published by the chief economist at Apollo Global Management (the private equity giant that used to own TechCrunch).

Apollo’s Torsten Slok focuses on what he calls the S&P 493 — the S&P 500, minus Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla — finding that profit margins and revenue per worker appear to be flat, with no evidence that AI is improving productivity.

“Despite massive investments and widespread hype around artificial intelligence, the technology has delivered zero financial payoff to corporate America outside of tech,” Slok said.

Is this simply a matter of non-tech companies lagging behind the tech giants? Slok sounded skeptical, arguing that it will be tough for corporate America to “turn increasingly cheap intelligence into higher revenue growth and higher profit margins.”

“AI may be a great calculator, but in business, intelligence is mostly judgment,” he wrote, later adding, “AI does not understand accountability, trust, culture, unwritten rules, ethical trade-offs or fairness, all of which shape reputational risk and ultimately drive revenue growth and profit margins.”

Recent studies have also found that AI has yet to deliver significant productivity gains.

Marine invertebrates called feather stars drift and turn by coordinating clusters of flexible arms, rising, sinking, or hovering with almost no visible effort. Researchers at North Carolina State University copied that coordination in a soft underwater robot that manages the same range of motion with only two actuators.

A core disk about 2.2 inches across has two separate air routes going through it. Four little arms made of thin plastic ribbon emerge from the center, curving into a bouncy triangle that snaps back into shape once bent. When both channels fill with air at the same time, all four arms snap down and drive the robot upward in around 26 milliseconds. Let the air go, and the arms will spring back on their own, allowing the machine to sink or stay steady depending on how quickly you repeat the pulses.

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Sending air into only one channel causes one arm to wobble like a tail fin, propelling the robot forward or back across the tank; however, alternating the two channels quickly enough causes the robot to spin around on its axis at up to 90 degrees per second. Being able to switch between these three modes, such as having all of the arms flap together for vertical travel, one arm wobbling for straight-line movement, and the two channels pulsing for turning, allows the robot to climb, change direction, and take off in an entirely different direction.

Machines attempting to achieve full 3D movement typically require at least a half-dozen additional actuators, but with this design, the body itself transforms two simple air inputs into numerous distinct swimming modes, a brilliant feat the team refers to as “mechanical intelligence.” It can move at 1.64 body lengths per second, which is significantly quicker than the 0.1 to 0.4 lengths per second achieved by other soft robots such as jellyfish. The entire item weights approximately half an ounce.

In lab tests, one robot carried a camera smaller than a pencil eraser into a clear tube, another used a magnet pad to pick up screws from the bottom of a tank, and pairs of robots lifted a crumpled bottle or a plastic bag using small hooks. An earlier robot from the same group, which resembled a manta ray, could swim quickly but was primarily limited to horizontal movement. However, this feather star design allows for vertical movement and 360-degree rotation without the use of additional motors.

The robot is still linked to its air supply, which generates some drag and can get stuck in tight spots. Currently, it only follows pre-programmed commands and lacks built-in sensors to adjust for currents or impediments, but the researchers are preparing a fully wireless version and hope to collaborate with experts who can identify methods to use this platform for specific underwater jobs.

Jie Yin, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State, and lead author Haitao Qing, who began this work as a doctorate student at the university, recently published an article presenting their findings in Science Advances. The National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research provided funding for this research. This method aims to simplify other soft machines that need to move through fluid by including useful motion into their design.
[Source]

Apple may be about to give the MacBook Pro one of its biggest upgrades in years, but the MacBook Air apparently has to wait a little longer for its turn.

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is planning to refresh the MacBook Air in early 2027. The upcoming model is expected to stick with a non-OLED display, even as Apple prepares to move its higher-end MacBook Pro lineup to OLED and touch support.

The current MacBook Air is still pretty fresh

Apple last updated the MacBook Air in March, moving the lineup to its M5 chip. The refresh also doubled the starting storage to 512GB and added Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 via Apple’s N1 wireless chip. The design itself stayed largely unchanged. It is still fanless, thin, and lightweight, with a Liquid Retina display and up to 18 hours of battery life.

An early 2027 refresh would therefore put the next MacBook Air roughly a year after the M5 model, which lines up fairly neatly with Apple’s recent update cycle.

The next model could arrive with a simple chip upgrade

The 2027 model of MacBook Air is expected to move to an Apple M6 chip, which has debuted in the Mac mini. Apple’s first 2-nanometer chip uses a new 12-core CPU and 12-core GPU and is designed to improve both performance and power efficiency. We can expect this chip to also power the entry-level MacBook Pro and the refreshed 24-inch iMac, expected to arrive on October 28.

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