realme has announced new milestones for its P Series in India. The company said the lineup continues to see strong demand on Flipkart. According to realme, the P Series became Flipkart’s best-selling smartphone series by sales volume from July 1, 2026. The achievement adds to the lineup’s strong performance during the first half of the year. It also comes at a time when India’s smartphone market is facing slower growth.

In the first half of 2026, Realme managed to occupy the second position in terms of its market share on the platform. However, the good performance was noted across various price ranges. Realme managed to lead in the ₹10,000 to ₹15,000 price range while securing top-three positions in the ₹15,000 to ₹20,000 and ₹20,000 to ₹25,000 price ranges. These achievements, according to the company, highlight the increasing popularity of the P Series.

Market Growth and Company Strategy

As reported by Counterpoint Research, the Indian market for smartphones experienced a 10% drop in the second quarter of 2026. However, despite the slowdown in the market, Realme still succeeded in becoming a stronger player. The company’s market share grew from 9.6% in Q2 2025 to 10% in Q2 2026.

The company is also preparing for the second half of 2026 by investing more than ₹10 crore in co-created marketing campaigns. Through these efforts, realme hopes to connect with more consumers, strengthen its position before Diwali, and continue growing its share in the Indian smartphone market.

Chinese tech giant Baidu has started testing autonomous vehicles in London as part of its partnership with Lyft and Freenow, the German taxi and multi-mobility app that Lyft now owns. Baidu is the latest in a string of companies to test self-driving technology in the UK ahead of commercial robotaxi deployments.

The testing, which began Tuesday with human safety operators, comes nearly a year after the two companies struck a strategic partnership to deploy Baidu’s purpose-built Apollo Go RT6 robotaxi across key European markets through the Lyft platform. The vehicles will eventually be available through Freenow, which Lyft acquired in 2025 for about $197 million.

That deal gave Lyft a foothold in Europe’s ride-hailing market, where a handful of well-funded companies are now jockeying to be first to market with robotaxis.

London is particular is shaping up to be a key battleground in the region. In April, Waymo began testing its autonomous vehicles with human safety operators in the city. Uber and its self-driving tech partner, Wayve, also announced plans to launch a robotaxi service in London this year. That initial service — which customers can now sign up for on an interest list — will have human safety operators behind the wheel before fully driverless operations begin later.

Baidu and Freenow by Lyft (as the latter service is now called) said they expect to invite the public to hail their robotaxis in 2027. The companies, which didn’t provide a more detailed timeline, noted that the launch will depend on regulatory approval.

For now, dozens of test vehicles will operate within London’s borough of Brent. Lyft and Freenow said they continue discussions with safety and city officials, including Transport for London (TfL) and the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV). The UK government is in the process of creating autonomous vehicle regulations and opened applications in May for companies interested in an AV pilot program that lets companies test self-driving vehicles under government oversight.

When the service does launch, Freenow by Lyft said it will operate a hybrid network — employing the same language rival Uber has used — meaning human drivers operating taxis and private-hire vehicles will work alongside the robotaxis.

“As a platform with deep roots in the taxi industry, our priority is ensuring that autonomous technology supports the professional drivers who keep London moving,” Thomas Zimmermann, CEO of Freenow by Lyft, said in a statement.

Baidu’s Apollo Go RT6 will start appearing in the UK capital, with test drivers aboard to start with.

It’s time to update your Apple Watch, but don’t get too excited; watchOS 26.6 doesn’t appear to have any significant new features.

Apple has just released watchos 26.6, a relatively minor update. This time, watchOS 26.6 is build number 23U67.

Because there’s nothing mentioned within the software notes, it’s a safe bet that any updates are focused on stability improvements and bug fixes. This isn’t surprising, as Apple Watch receives relatively few updates between major cycle upgrades.

Even barring any exciting updates, it’s still a good idea to go ahead and update your Apple Watch. These minor updates are critical for keeping your Apple Watch running smoothly.

The Apple Watch will update on its own over the air. However, if you want to force the update, you can do so by following the steps below.

How to update to watchOS 26.6

1. Ensure the Apple Watch is charged to at least 50% and connected to Wi-Fi
2. On your Apple Watch, open the Settings app
3. Tap General
4. Tap Software Update
5. Tap Install if a software update is available
6. Follow the on-screen instructions

How to update to watchOS 26.6 via iPhone

1. Ensure your watch is charged to 50% and connected to Wi-Fi
2. On your iPhone, open the Apple Watch app
3. Tap General
4. Tap Software Update
5. Download the update if it is available
6. Follow the on-screen instructions

The Hugging Face breach made clear the dangers associated with losing control of autonomous AI technology.

Chipmaker Nvidia has formed an alliance with other companies in the technology space, in order to develop and share tools designed for enhanced AI safety and cybersecurity. 

The Open Secure AI Alliance’s founding members include Adobe, CrowdStrike, Hugging Face and Dell Technologies and follows a ​public letter, signed by a wide range of companies ​including OpenAI, advocating for open-weight AI models.

The creation of the coalition comes after AI and ML platform Hugging Face recently found itself the subject of a major cyber breach, in which the company was unable to defend itself with US-led models. 

Because guardrails were unable to distinguish between aggressor and defender, the platform turned instead to a self-hosted Chinese model, which was not subject to the same restrictions.

Commenting on the alliance, Gene Moody, the field CTO at Action1 said, “The formation of industry alliances focused on AI safety is a good step towards accountability. Likewise it reflects an important recognition that the technology is advancing faster than many organisations can responsibly govern it. 

“It would be a mistake however to believe those efforts meaningfully limit what determined threat actors can ultimately do, or what could one day be a simple mistake such as the crowd strike code update ‘accident’.”

He added, “The reality of the matter is that malicious actors have never depended on permission from anyone. Open source models already exist by the thousands, many capable of running entirely on local hardware, disconnected from any cloud service or vendor oversight. 

“Once a model is operating in isolation, safety controls become just another layer of software. They can be modified, removed, retrained, or replaced altogether. You cannot program a conscience into an artificial intelligence. You can only program behaviours, and behaviours are subject to manipulation by anyone with sufficient technical skill.”

Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei aimed to dispel accusations that his organisation is making a move to ban Chinese open-weights models in the US, as a means of protecting his own business. 

In a post on the Anthropic website yesterday (27 July), Amodei claimed that Anthropic does not advocate for a ban on open-weights models. He said they serve a public good when they lack dangerous capabilities, cost nothing beyond the computing power needed to run them and provide value to businesses, developers and researchers. 

He explained that his concerns lie in the use of more advanced AI by authoritarian governments and the wider risk that powerful AI models may be misused to carry out cyber or biological attacks.

Moody said, “We should be far more deliberate about the information we feed into all systems, not just AI. We should reconsider the authority we grant them, and the degree to which we depend on them. We simply do not possess the ability to secure these systems to the level that many people already trust them and that gap is growing.

“We have chosen convenience and novelty over safety. As AI capabilities accelerate, that choice carries unacceptable consequences. As long as valuable data, critical infrastructure and financial assets remain behind digital locks, someone will always be working to pick those locks. 

“AI does not eliminate that; it instills a false sense of trust that the tech will one day solve this problem, when in fact, we are the problem.”

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A new analysis of 89 major geological events over the past 260 million years found evidence that mass extinctions, volcanic eruptions, ocean crises, and other upheavals may cluster around a roughly 27.5-million-year cycle. The cause remains unknown, with possibilities ranging from mantle activity and orbital changes to speculative galactic influences. Slashdot reader alternative_right shares a report from ScienceAlert: One possibility lies deep within Earth itself. The planet’s mantle is constantly circulating through convection, albeit at an almost unimaginably slow pace. Periodic changes in mantle convection, or the initiation of mantle plumes, could influence volcanism, plate tectonics, mountain building, and other large-scale geological processes. Because these systems are closely interconnected, disturbances originating deep within Earth could eventually ripple through the planet’s surface, oceans, climate, and biosphere.

Another hypothesis focuses on interactions between Earth’s surface and interior. Long-term orbital variations influence climate and sea level, periodically redistributing enormous amounts of water, ice, and sediment across the planet. [New York University geologist Michael Rampino] discusses the possibility that these changing surface loads subtly modify stresses within Earth’s crust and upper mantle, potentially influencing tectonic and volcanic activity over geological timescales.

Rampino also considers possible influences beyond Earth, an idea he has been weighing up since the 1980s. As the Solar System orbits the center of the Milky Way, it oscillates above and below the galaxy’s mid-plane, with the timing of these passages aligning with that of Earth’s major upheavals. These crossings, other researchers have suggested, could also gravitationally perturb comets in the distant Oort Cloud, increasing the likelihood of large asteroid impacts.

Another, even more speculative, hypothesis suggests that if dark matter is concentrated near the galactic plane, a fraction of it could occasionally be captured by Earth. Over millions of years, this process could generate small amounts of internal heat, potentially influencing geological activity. At present, however, there is no direct evidence supporting either mechanism, so they remain very controversial.

Large asteroid impacts are discussed separately in the paper. Although they were not included in the statistical analysis of the 89 geological events, the timing of several of Earth’s largest known impact craters appears broadly consistent with the proposed 27.5-million-year rhythm, as Rampino has discussed in earlier papers. Rampino suggests this correspondence may warrant further investigation, but stops short of claiming a causal relationship.

Before you start mopping, you’ll need to roll the Submarine head back and forth for 10 to 20 seconds to make sure it’s damp enough to work. You’ll know it’s ready when you see consistent water trails. Before mopping, I also recommend using the Fluffy Optic head to pick up dust in the area, because the wet head’s debris tray looks smaller than those on the dedicated wet cleaners. You’ll thank yourself for pre-vacuuming when the mop cleanup is less disgusting. Though the debris tray is small, I do like that it is fully plastic, since the mesh on my old Dyson WashG1 grew mold. To avoid a mess after you’re done, make sure to keep the Submarine head flat until you separate the trays, lift off the debris part, and then dump out the gray water that’s beneath it into a sink or toilet.

Is It Upgrade-Worthy?

Photograph: Nena Farrell

If you’re looking for the best overall Dyson vacuum, know that this model scored high in my comparison testing, but you’ll get a slightly better experience with the Gen5Detect while saving yourself some cash. Neither the Gen5Detect nor the V16 Piston Animal outperformed a much cheaper Shark vacuum in side-by-side tests, though, so it’s hard for me to say you should definitely splurge on either Dyson model.

If you’re willing to invest in the add-on mop head and docking station (once it’s available), the V16 might be worth buying. But that’ll be a big bill; the V16 Submarine will run $1,100, and at that point, you could invest in one of my favorite robot vacuums to do the same job without actually doing it yourself. (You can even get Dyson’s Spot+Scrub Ai robot vacuum for just $100 more if you’re set on a Dyson.)

Even so, it’s nice to meet a Dyson stick vacuum that can do it all. It’s notably powerful, and not just because of its suction capabilities, but because of its range of abilities, little improvements to make using it easier, and the option to double as a wet floor cleaner. The strong HEPA filtration on the V16 is also a strong point of consideration if you have allergies and want to capture every micron possible, or get every inch of pet hair out of your carpet. But I won’t lie to you: If I’m buying a new technology-powered mop, I’d rather get a robot vacuum.

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Whether they’re dead or alive.

This past weekend, a post reading “Someone uploaded ‘The Odyssey’ full movie on X. Can you believe it?” amplified an upload from an account that’s since been suspended. Variety confirmed it was a genuine, high-quality copy of Christopher Nolan’s film, and it pulled in over 2.1 million views in roughly two and a half hours before X swapped the video for a takedown notice. Universal said afterward that it caught the post and started takedown protocols right away, adding that it takes copyright infringement seriously and plans to pursue every remedy available to it.

That enforcement had gaps. By July 26, the surviving clones on X were mostly buried under mislabeled uploads that rickrolled anyone who clicked, and a second, lower-quality copy went up the following day, pulling in almost 50,000 views before it too came down.

– Dan Marcus (@Danimalish) July 21, 2026

The moderation lag is a little pointed given who owns the platform: X’s Elon Musk has been publicly critical of the film’s casting, and has said his Grok Imagine tool would produce its own “historically accurate” version later this year. That claim had already become its own joke, with commenters warning each other they might download the bootleg and end up with Musk’s AI cut by mistake.

– camol (@camolNFT) July 25, 2026

None of it touched box office results however. “The Odyssey” has crossed $652 million worldwide in 10 days, including a $90 million second weekend domestically, a small 27% drop from its $123 million opening and one of the smallest second-weekend declines of any major release this year. It’s the same pattern that’s played out with recent leaks of Barbie, Avatar 3, and the Super Mario Galaxy movie: piracy generates a spike of screenshots and outrage, and the numbers barely move.

The “as Nolan intended” meme roundup

– sharoncoming to venice (@iamsharonle) July 22, 2026

– Bruce (@_Bruce__007) July 23, 2026

– Sathvik Panchumarthy (@isathvikhere) July 23, 2026

“The Odyssey” is the first narrative feature shot entirely on IMAX cameras, and the format Nolan actually built the movie for, 70 mm IMAX film, exists in exactly 41 theaters worldwide. Even the people who paid extra for “IMAX” are overwhelmingly not watching the film in the format Nolan shot it in.

That gap is what the internet has been mining for weeks, leak or no leak. “The full odyssey movie in a tweet, as nolan intended,” one person joked while the bootleg was still up, riffing on the press tour’s insistence that 70 mm is the only real way to see it. The bootleg just handed the bit a bigger stage and a new set of degraded screens to point at.

– alan b. (@inceptstellar) July 22, 2026

– Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) July 18, 2026

– Fahhh (@yowtfahhh) July 22, 2026

– adam (@rupertpubkin) July 15, 2026

Nolan reportedly spent years getting IMAX to rebuild its cameras so he could shoot an entire movie in the best format cinema has. The internet’s response was to see how bad a screen it could still be watched on, and to point out that most people buying “IMAX” tickets aren’t getting the real thing either. The bootleg didn’t dent the box office. It just gave everyone one more punchline to hang on a 47 GB file, or, alternately, a calculator.

– Fletcher Williams “I Suck At Games” Channel (@Fletche64618733) July 18, 2026

– Simpsons Daily Glavins ‍ (@simpsons_DG) July 26, 2026