Tech

It’s going to be a fantastic summer for foldable smartphones

Published

23 hours ago

12 July 2026

If you’re a foldable fan, this summer’s set to be a memorable one.

Not only is Samsung said to be releasing an entirely new foldable form factor, but Google’s Pixel foldable is rumoured to slim down and get serious about camera hardware – and we’ll even see Apple’s long-awaited foldable if the stars align.

Could this be the summer that foldables finally jump from niche prospect to mainstream option? It’s quite possible – as long as we ignore the insane price tags that are likely to come alongside them, anyway.

A very exciting Samsung foldable release

Things are set to kick off in a few weeks’ time at Samsung’s annual summer edition of Galaxy Unpacked where it’s all but confirmed to be releasing its next-gen foldables. Teasers suggest as much, even if Samsung hasn’t explicitly confirmed it just yet.

What’s more, Samsung is actively teasing a new foldable form factor for this year’s lineup. Now if you’ve been following rumours, this won’t be much of a surprise – the rumoured ‘wide’ foldable has been consistently leaking over the past few months – but it’s great to see some kind of confirmation from Samsung that we’ll actually be seeing it this month.

As for what to expect, all the leaks point towards a shorter, squatter foldable more akin to the original Pixel Fold than last year’s Galaxy Z Fold 7. The specifics are yet to be confirmed, but it’s alleged to sport a 7.5-inch screen with a 4:3 aspect ratio on its inner panel that’d arguably be better suited to big-screen gaming and movie watching than the Fold 7’s near 1:1 alternative.

Galaxy Z8 series render leak — Image Credit (Android Headlines)

It won’t be quite as capable as the Fold 8 Ultra – essentially the successor to the Fold 7 from last year with the same design – with a rumoured dual-camera setup compared to the Ultra’s trio of lenses, but it’s said to sport the same Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy chipset.

Though not as exciting as the wider Fold 8, the 8 Ultra is also tipped to get a few key upgrades. Recent rumblings suggest a slightly slimmer (4.1mm) phone with a massively reduced crease alongside a bigger 5000mAh battery, faster 45W charging and that same 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy chipset. With such a big redesign last year, it’s more about refinement this year.

Last, but by no means least, the Galaxy Z Flip 8 is said to offer a slimmed-down profile, down 0.5mm to 13.2mm when folded, along with an official dust rating to go alongside its water resistance, allegedly IP48. And, like the other foldables, the crease on the inner screen is said to be massively reduced compared to last year’s Z Flip 7.

But that’s only the start of the summer of foldables.

Google’s foldable is getting a much-needed glow-up

Google has confirmed that we’ll be seeing the Pixel 11 collection on 12 August, and unless something has gone horribly wrong behind closed doors, that should include the successor to last year’s Pixel 10 Pro Fold.

The 10 Pro Fold was an excellent foldable in some ways – it had a big 5015mAh battery and it was the first foldable to offer full IP68 dust and water resistance – but let’s be honest, compared to the 4.2mm Z Fold 7, it was a bit chunky.

Pixel 10 Pro Fold - top down tent mode — Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)

That’s all said to change this year, however. Recent CAD leaks reveal a drastically slimmer body, down to just 4.8mm unfolded and 10.1mm folded, and while that’s still slightly off the slimmest foldables around, it’s a big improvement on the 10 Pro Fold’s 5.2mm and 10.8mm.

It’s also said to get a complete camera overhaul to better match the high-end price tag, with the most recent whispers pointing towards an all-new 50MP main camera, a massively boosted 48MP ultrawide and a matching 48MP periscope lens. Google has always had a great reputation for its camera performance, so it’s great to hear that could finally be making its way to its foldable.

Pair all that with Android 17’s genuinely helpful-looking Gemini upgrades and Google’s first 2nm chipset in the Tensor G6, and the next Pixel foldable could finally be easy to recommend. We’ll see.

The fabled foldable iPhone is almost here

Things are set to culminate in early September with the long-awaited reveal of Apple’s first foldable iPhone. Yep, it’s finally happening – well, as sure as we can be right now anyway.

The iPhone Ultra is said to sport a similar passport-style design to Samsung’s upcoming Z Fold 8, with a squarer 5.5-inch cover screen that opens up to something similar to an iPad mini. It’s not quite as large as Apple’s smallest tablet, with a 7.8-inch screen, but it’s not far off either.

According to rumours, Apple is working hard to make the crease as minimal as possible – though it’ll be interesting to see how it compares to Samsung’s efforts, as well as those of Oppo and its Find N6. The N6 currently holds the title for the least-visible crease, in my eyes at least.

Oppo Find N6 screen crease — Oppo Find N6. Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)

It’s also said to be a relatively slim foldable, measuring somewhere between 4.5mm and 4.8mm when unfolded, though that puts it closer to the Pixel 11 Pro Fold than the Z Fold 8 Ultra if rumours are to be believed.

That’s said to be paired with A20 power, a dual 48MP camera setup, a relatively large battery in the 5400-5800mAh range, and, of course, an iOS experience tailored to foldables.

It’s the latter that I’m arguably most excited about; sure, Android foldable makers might have the edge on hardware, but seeing iOS on a foldable is something I’ve been waiting for, for years. And we’ve only got a couple of months left to wait.

It’s just a shame that with a rumoured price tag of up to $2500, I’ll probably have to sell a kidney to buy one.

Regardless of whether you’re a long-time foldable fan or a curious consumer waiting for the right time to invest, this summer’s foldable launches are set to be massive.

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Tech

Elon Musk’s Mars illusion

Published

6 minutes ago

13 July 2026

NewsAdmin

Elon Musk takes a bow at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in May 2020 after the launch of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission, which carried two astronauts to the International Space Station, about 250 miles up, and a world away from Mars. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota)

Ever since its founding, SpaceX has fixed upon a single idea: Elon Musk’s vision of colonizing Mars. Everything the company does is geared to that foundational goal.

Two years ago, Musk posted on X that there could be a city on Mars within 20 years, “but for sure in 30.”

“Civilization secured,” he added, implying that even if our troubled lives here on Earth come to some catastrophic end in the coming decades, don’t worry, humans will endure on Mars.

Musk’s initial steps toward this ambition have produced awesome engineering successes. People have never seen the likes of the light displays that shower across night skies from SpaceX’s rockets and satellites. They watched astounded in late 2024 when the gigantic Starship’s booster rocket first descended gently to nestle into enclosing mechanical arms at the launch site in Texas.

Yet the work of scientists studying Mars suggests that it’s far-fetched, perhaps delusional, to think a human colony could be established there. You don’t need to be a billionaire or a rocket scientist to realize Musk’s timeframe is certainly a fantasy; there won’t be a city on Mars in his lifetime or that of his children or his grandchildren. Think many, many decades at best. But more likely, never.

Retail investors rushed to buy SpaceX stock after the IPO in June. Though the share price has already fallen back below where it was that day, many see it as a long-term investment. The reality is that the improbability of the Mars project shadows SpaceX’s long-term future.

SpaceX’s Starship, the rocket Musk is counting on to reach Mars, lifts off in a test flight in Texas in 2024. (Steve Jurvetson / CC BY 2.0)

While humans will at some point likely overcome the massively daunting engineering and logistics challenges of getting to Mars and even staying for some time, there’s no technology available to form a permanent settlement there.

Musk may be excused as being playful with his time scale.

“Oh, Elon is famously bad at giving time estimates,” said Erika DeBenedictis, a biological engineer and Mars scientist, founder of Pioneer Labs, which is researching how to grow plants on Mars. “Things always take longer than he says, but they do tend to happen.”

Musk has been quite specific. Last year, he said SpaceX had a 50:50 chance of sending its first uncrewed Starships toward Mars in 2026, with crewed landings to follow “as soon as 2029, although 2031 is more likely,” he posted on X.

Then, this February, he said SpaceX would build a city on the moon first and start building a Mars city “in about 5 to 7 years.”

While his targets and timing keep moving, the problems go deeper than that. The question is not when humanity will expand beyond Earth, but whether it ever will.

Establishing a city on Mars depends crucially on a concept called “terraforming,” which means physically transforming the planet’s surface environment into something resembling that of Earth, at least partially hospitable for humans.

To DeBenedictis, the sterile science fiction notion of people confined inside glass domes, looking out upon a forbiddingly bleak landscape and living off protein shakes and dried food, is deeply unappealing. “I wouldn’t want it and I wouldn’t want it for my daughter,” she said. “It just seems terrible.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” she adds. “I want the planet to be green.”

DeBenedictis concedes at the outset of an interview that this is “probably impossible,” though in the tone of someone who lives to chase the impossible.

In contrast, Musk glibly mentions terraforming as if it were within reach. In truth, science has only highly conjectural ideas about how it might be done. The hypothetical options scientists are researching now, if they work at all, will take many decades if not centuries to make Mars habitable. And they may never work.

A titanic ambition

Despite this, investment bankers and those with pre-IPO access were primed to ride the coattails of Musk’s colossal wealth for a big payout on SpaceX’s Wall Street launch day. Musk supercharged the June IPO by absorbing his xAI project into SpaceX. The IPO filing positioned xAI as a $26.5 trillion market opportunity, dwarfing all the other business segments of SpaceX, which the filing pegged at a mere $2 trillion. What’s an IPO without a transcendent AI promise these days?

The controversies around Musk’s politics and conduct — his embrace of President Trump and other authoritarian leaders, his incendiary rhetoric, his reposting on his X platform of right-wing influencers agitating around immigration and race, his eager wielding of a chainsaw to U.S. government services — were set aside by investors as they scrambled to buy in.

Wall Street weighed only Musk’s entrepreneurial success and his ability to conjure the future and spin financial dreams. The Economist in May called Musk’s risk-taking and mobilizing of resources “capitalism at its most remarkable.”

For Wall Street, that made the SpaceX IPO a surefire winner. The share price duly rocketed up and made Musk briefly a trillionaire. Though he lost that status when the share price subsequently slid, he’s still by far the richest man in the world with a net worth into the $900 billions.

That fortune is built upon the market perception that Musk can turn dreams into reality. Mass-producing all-electric, virtually self-driving cars was once a pipedream. Rockets landing on their tails graced the covers of 1950s science fiction novels. By force of will, Musk made both a reality. Whatever pipe he’s smoking now, shouldn’t we give his Mars dream some healthy respect?

That dream is specified precisely on the SpaceX website: “A permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million inhabitants.”

A SpaceX facility in Redmond, Wash., where the company designs and builds its Starlink internet satellites. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

Musk designed the huge Starship rocket to go to Mars. And when Musk first unveiled his plan for the internet satellite venture that became Starlink in Seattle more than a decade ago — the satellites are made in Redmond — he told Bloomberg Businessweek he saw it as “a long-term revenue source for SpaceX to be able to fund a city on Mars.”

Nearer term, SpaceX is to provide the lunar lander for NASA’s Artemis project that should return humans to the moon within a few years and lay the groundwork for a permanent moonbase; Musk sees it as a stepping stone to the true goal.

The problem is, Mars is not even remotely habitable. It’s deathly cold. There’s nothing on the surface but dust and rocks, in places some deeply frozen CO₂. Regular dust storms whip the surface. The planet has zero vegetation; not a tree, not a leaf, not a blade of grass. The oxygen-free Martian air is unbreathable.

Venture outside without a space suit and you’ll die within a minute in the poisonous, low-pressure atmosphere. During unpredictable solar flares, cosmic radiation is a separate threat to life.

Martian gravity, one-third of Earth’s, may deform the human body over time. Astronauts on the zero-gravity International Space Station must work out constantly to retain muscle strength. Even then, if they spend too long in space they must be carried from the space capsule after splashdown.

“I don’t see any prospect for there to be permanent settlements,” said senior NASA astrogeophysicist Chris McKay, who for more than 40 years has studied the possibility of supporting human life beyond Earth, and on Mars specifically. “Why would anybody want to live there?”

Bruce Jakosky, professor emeritus at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who has studied Mars his entire career since he worked on the Mars rover Viking mission in the mid-1970s, says he thinks it will happen someday, but adds, “I have no idea when or how.”

“It’s far enough into the future that, once you get beyond, say, 30 years, you can’t tell the difference between that and infinity into the future,” Jakosky said.

That’s scientific realism. Buzz Lightyear talks about getting to infinity and beyond, but he’s a toy.

What’s really achievable on Mars

Despite the cold facts, Musk has so successfully sold the notion that if he put out a call for volunteers for the first Starship mission to Mars, hundreds of space scientists, enthusiasts, adventurers and Musk fanbros would eagerly sign up.

Indeed, he already has a Mars mission volunteer. On the launch webcast of SpaceX’s latest and largest Starship rocket in late May, a presenter introduced cryptocurrency billionaire and civilian astronaut Chun Wang, revealing that he’s been tapped to lead the first crewed flyby mission to Mars at some unspecified future date — a round trip of about two years, going there and back without landing on the surface.

And yes, it’s inevitable humans will get to Mars one day. Crewed spacecraft may land on Mars within a couple of decades.

The first astronauts to land will plan to explore the surface and hopefully return in triumph two years later, the next occasion when the Mars solar orbit again aligns with Earth. DeBenedictis dismissively describes this as the “expensive camping trip” phase of exploration, “mostly for the photo opp.”

Decades from now, humans may take a much harder, more substantive step: establishing a scientific base on Mars; we have such bases in Antarctica today. Researchers could rotate in and out every couple of years.

Creating a permanent colony on Mars is something far different. It implies lifetime commitments and subsequent generations growing up and building their lives there. As Elton John sang, “Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids. In fact, it’s cold as hell. And there’s no one there to raise them if you did.”

A child born on Mars — a Martian! — would likely adapt to the low gravity as it developed. We have zero data on the physical consequences. Such a child could grow up so different in muscular and skeletal strength that he or she would be unable to walk on Earth.

“The first mothers that give birth will be guinea pigs,” said NASA’s McKay.

And yet, Musk has laid out a plan he insists can establish a human colony on Mars within his lifetime. After Optimus humanoid robots designed by Tesla do some advance exploring on the Martian surface, eventually “a few thousand” Starship rockets will head off together from Earth orbit to Mars, loaded with people and more than a million tons of equipment, dried food and supplies.

The SpaceX website offers a few images envisioning life in the early days of a Mars colony. A mom and two kids look out from inside a glass dome as a Starship lands nearby. The accompanying text on the website glances over some of the most glaring problems.

The extreme temperature fluctuations, from 70°F to -225°F, with an average of about -85°F? “It is a little cold, but we can warm it up.”

The atmosphere of mostly unbreathable CO₂? That’s good for plants; those don’t need oxygen. “We can grow plants on Mars just by compressing the atmosphere.”

That one-third gravity compared to Earth? “You would be able to lift heavy things and bound around.”

In a speech a year ago to employees at the Texas rocket site — the video is on the SpaceX website — Musk conceded that Mars is inhospitable but said terraforming will provide the solution.

“You can’t really walk around on the surface of Mars, at least as yet until Mars is terraformed to be like Earth,” Musk told the employees. “You need to walk around with a Mars suit and be initially in kind of like glass domes.”

“But it would work,” he added. “And eventually we can make Mars into an Earthlike planet.”

Yes. Terraforming. How exactly could that be achieved? And how long would it take?

The science on terraforming

SpaceX did not respond to requests to grant an interview or to offer comment on the feasibility of Musk’s vision. But Mars scientists have studied the question. Edwin Kite, associate professor of planetary science at the University of Chicago, resident at the Berkeley-Calif.-based Astera Institute that funds futuristic science, is a leading researcher on terraforming Mars. In a paper published in April in collaboration with two dozen other Mars scientists, including DeBenedictis, he assessed the feasibility of the potential pathways currently being studied.

His paper begins with a bracing caveat: “It is unknown whether human civilization can thrive off-Earth.”

But if we want to try living on Mars, the paper says, the first requirement will be to warm the freezing planet or at least regions of the planet. It lays out three possible ways to do so.

Some local regions on Mars could hypothetically be warmed by spreading a translucent, high-tech blanket that would block harmful UV radiation but otherwise allow sunlight through to warm the Martian soil. The solar warmth trapped beneath the blanket, made from a plastic-like biomaterial, would melt ice under the ground. The heat and water would then potentially support primitive life forms, starting with microbes, bacteria and algae and, in time, plants.

However, even warmed, wet Martian soil is salty and laden with bleach-like chemicals hostile to life. No known micro-organism on Earth can survive in such conditions.

That’s where DeBenedictis’s research comes in. Her team — funded in large part by crypto billionaire and space entrepreneur Jed McCaleb, who founded the Astera Institute — is trying through selective breeding and genome modification to engineer new, hardier biological organisms that could get life started in the Martian soil. She is looking to microbes that could digest the bleach and others that could produce more of the bioplastic, allowing extension of the soil-heating blanket to a larger area.

The idea: as the soil improves with this microbial organic matter, more complex organisms could take hold. Eventually, she says, “you could actually do things like grow potatoes in the dirt.”

DeBenedictis is super optimistic about biology turning Mars green. It could have a cover of basic plants “in my lifetime,” she says.

Pioneer Labs has been going for just two years. Its early-stage research is developing lab-grown microbes inside enclosed, stirred, heated, radiation-shielded vessels, like high-tech Instant Pots. It’s a long way from growing potatoes.

DeBenedictis notes that although the lack of oxygen means humans still couldn’t breathe outside, plants grown under these bioplastic blankets would produce oxygen through photosynthesis. That might eventually build up a breathable atmosphere on Mars at some point in the far future. Kite said the timeframe for that would be centuries, at least — “much longer than your civilization-relevant time scales.”

The second warming method outlined in Kite’s paper: large reflecting mirrors in orbit around Mars, beaming down sunlight to warm a contained scientific base and the region immediately around it. The first reflectors would launch from Earth as solar sails, unfurling in space and flying themselves to Mars, propelled by sunlight.

Kite projects that doubling the sunlight reaching an area of less than half a square mile on Mars would require a large constellation of reflectors in sun-synchronous orbit, with a combined surface of nearly 300 square miles.

That’s a huge armada of solar sails heading off to Mars, all of which would have to be managed and maintained from Earth.

The third and most extravagant pathway being studied: warm the entire planet by forcing artificial global warming.

At one time, it was hoped that local warming on Mars would release frozen CO₂ in the ground as a greenhouse gas that would thicken the atmosphere and gradually warm the whole planet, the same process now warming Earth. But a 2018 paper by Jakosky dashed that plan. Analysis of sensor data and imagery from the latest satellites orbiting Mars showed there’s not enough frozen CO₂ on the surface to provide significant greenhouse warming.

That paper concluded that “terraforming Mars is not possible using present-day technology.”

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To overcome that setback, scientists developed a new idea: pumping a few million tons of aerosol particles into the atmosphere, artificial dust manufactured on Mars from material in the soil. These clouds of dust, which would very slowly settle and have to be continuously spewed out, would warm Mars by trapping the solar heat.

But the time scale for this is the longest under consideration. NASA’s McKay, in a 1991 paper, analyzed the timeframe for a greenhouse effect on Mars, based on how much of the solar energy reaching its surface might be realistically trapped. He calculated that it would take 100 years to warm the surface to an Earth-like temperature, and “perhaps 100,000 years” to eventually produce an oxygen-rich atmosphere from plant photosynthesis.

Kite, in an interview, said it would take “decades, at least” just to build the robotically-operated factories on the Martian surface that would manufacture and disperse the aerosols across the planet. His paper projects the cost of the aerosol project at $1 trillion.

DeBenedictis said this enormous investment and the extended time scale of planetwide warming make the more local methods the only practical options.

Yet even if any of these planet-warming methods work, that still leaves the other major problems. While machines can extract oxygen from the CO₂ in the atmosphere and pump it into sealed indoor living spaces, the air remains unbreathable outside. The extremely low pressure and potentially deadly cosmic rays remain unaddressed. Inside and out, the low gravity will still, over time, exert its unpredictable physical impact on human bodies.

In short, even if these wildly speculative, generations-long projects succeed somewhat in warming Mars, the result will fall disappointingly short of Earth-like. Dreams of colonizing Mars could still reach a dead end.

Concluding his summary of the various possible paths toward terraforming Mars, Kite notes that “no approach has been shown to be simultaneously affordable, safe, scalable, and to enable extending life beyond Earth.”

As one might expect from a group of Mars researchers, Kite’s paper urges that terraforming research continue, arguing that “a finding that no approach is viable” would at least curtail the vast expense and bring more realism to plans for large numbers of people to self-sustain anywhere beyond Earth.

SpaceX woos investors

SpaceX’s IPO prospectus relegated such downer conclusions to the “risk factors” section that offers legal cover in any such financial filing. The Mars mission and similar space endeavors, the filing said, “involve significant technical complexity, unproven technologies, or technologies that do not exist or may require significant advancement.”

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Outside that CYA boilerplate, the prospectus offered investors a Musk-style sprinkling of high-flown stardust. The SpaceX “mission is to build the systems and technologies necessary to make life multiplanetary, to understand the true nature of the universe, and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars.”

In case that was insufficiently inspiring, the prospectus added a dash of fear, stating that humanity needs to spread beyond Earth to survive a potential planetary catastrophe. “We do not want humans to have the same fate as dinosaurs,” it stated.

When Musk addressed employees in Texas as the IPO opened trading on June 12, he gushed enthusiasm for his vision: “There have to be things that make you excited about the future, that make you glad to wake up in the morning because you can’t wait to see what happens next.”

The risk to future funding

For Musk, maintaining such enthusiasm will be essential. For beyond the scientific and engineering challenges of the Mars enterprise, politics and economics could be showstoppers.

After the inspiration of the first human moon landing in 1969, the public quickly lost interest in subsequent Apollo missions. However scientifically interesting, the moon seemed to offer little but dust and rocks.

SpaceX’s stunning rocket launches and the recent Artemis mission that swung astronauts around the moon have reignited space travel enthusiasm in a new generation.

But interest could collapse again.

Kite’s paper notes that “If in the future crew were lost and there were no obvious short-term financial benefits to exploration, society might cease to pay the high costs of sending people to space.”

Orbiting space satellites — chiefly communications, navigation, imagery, surveillance, and missile detection — will continue to rake in cash for SpaceX, much of it from the government. And Musk is well-placed to grab lucrative Pentagon contracts to deploy weapons to kill enemy satellites and defenses to protect ours.

And leveraging the hot-buzz AI trend, SpaceX now plans to build satellites that will act as solar-powered AI data centers in space. The value of this is uncertain; why pay the enormous costs to put data computers into orbit when you can run them on Earth? Still, it seems less of a pipedream than a city on Mars.

But crewed space missions beyond Earth orbit produce no immediate applications. An investment sinkhole, they demand clear-eyed purpose, not delusion.

In an interview, Jakosky — who like McKay, Kite and DeBenedictis fervently wants humans to be interplanetary one day — said he doesn’t buy Musk’s idea that if, say, climate change makes Earth less habitable, Mars can be a “back-up planet.”

Terraforming Mars is just too far out, he believes.

“It’s an incredible amount of money and resources that would be better spent understanding our own climate here,” Jakosky said. “It’s always going to be easier to terraform the Earth, bring it back to the current conditions, than it is going to be to terraform Mars.”

The realistic future

If the Mars project fades in the years ahead, Musk may try pivoting entirely to AI as the new vision — and investment draw — for SpaceX.

In the meantime, the next big technical milestone, one needed just to reach the moon, never mind Mars, will be refueling rockets in space. If this and other hard-to-pull-off engineering challenges can be met, what’s realistically ahead for Mars exploration?

It would be much easier to build a city in Antarctica than on Mars but we haven’t done so. (Why? Oh yes, no one wants to live there.) Instead, we have scientific bases there, where researchers rotate in and out after a few months. Tourists visit Antarctica in the summer to see the penguins. At the largest U.S. base, McMurdo Station, there’s even a bar and a chapel.

NASA’s McKay foresees such a base as the future human footprint on Mars — at least for a century. Beyond that, who knows?

The low sun over the ice near McMurdo Station, Antarctica, in September 2020. Scientists see a research outpost like it — not a colony — as the realistic model for any human foothold on Mars. (Neil Crawn / U.S. Antarctic Program / NSF)

He has traveled to Antarctica for nearly 40 years, typically staying no more than two months, specifically to study the effects of the cold, dry environment for his Mars research.

But in the long, dark Antarctic winter, those scientific and military research bases largely empty out. There are no nurseries, no elementary schools, and no full-time residents.

“I go there for a season and contribute to the research and then come home,” McKay said. “I don’t want to take my family there.”

McKay, who grew up watching Star Trek, still hopes that the “long, long, long-term vision” of humans on other planets will one day materialize.

“The problem with some of the current thinking is that it jumps from zero, right now, from one or two robotic missions to, OK, let’s set up a million people on Mars, with nurseries and kids and everything,” he said. “That’s crazy.”

“Humans moving into space, I think that is inevitable,” McKay said. “But it might be that it takes thousands of years.”

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Tech

What to know about Vinod Khosla, the Silicon Valley legend whose family is buying the Seahawks

Published

20 minutes ago

13 July 2026

NewsAdmin

Vinod Khosla speaks at a fireside chat at AI House in Seattle in March 2025. (GeekWire File Photo)

Vinod Khosla has spent four decades building and funding companies around a single idea: hire the right people and get out of their way. He’s one of the most respected and influential investors in Silicon Valley, with a track record of big bets and a habit of not backing down.

On Saturday, a group led by the billionaire venture capitalist and his family agreed to buy the Seattle Seahawks from the estate of the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen for a reported $9.6 billion, which would be the highest price ever paid for an NFL team.

Khosla, 71, was born in Pune, India. He earned degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi and Carnegie Mellon before getting his MBA at Stanford, where he landed in Silicon Valley for good. After co-founding Sun in 1982, he spent nearly two decades as a partner at the legendary venture firm Kleiner Perkins before launching Khosla Ventures in 2004.

His firm now manages roughly $15 billion and has backed companies including DoorDash, Affirm, and Opendoor. Khosla was the first VC to invest in OpenAI, putting in $50 million in 2019. Forbes ranked him No. 1 on its Midas List of top tech investors this year and estimates his net worth at $15.6 billion.

But the Seahawks deal isn’t just about Vinod. The Allen estate’s public statement confirming the formal sale agreement described the buyer as “an ownership group led by the Khosla family,” and Vinod’s own quote in the statement was delivered “on behalf of the Khosla family.”

Estate of Paul G. Allen Reaches Agreement to Sell Seattle Seahawks pic.twitter.com/Pmv8i6FEp8
— Seattle Seahawks (@Seahawks) July 11, 2026

An NFL memo sent to all 32 teams Saturday, reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter and others, identified his wife, Neeru Khosla, as the controlling owner, and said their son, Neal Khosla, “would be expected to have a significant leadership role in the ownership group.”

Neal may be the one to watch. He has described himself on his personal website as “an obsessive sports fan” who likes “bringing a quantitative and analytical lens to understanding the game within the game,” the Seattle Times reports.

He and his father have been San Francisco 49ers season ticket holders for 30 years, and Neal has consulted for both the 49ers and the Miami Heat. The Khosla family last year bought a 3.1% stake in the 49ers — the Seahawks’ NFC West division rivals — which they’ll now have to sell.

But Vinod Khosla’s track record is the clearest window into how the family will approach its Seahawks ownership. Here’s what we know about him based on his long career in tech.

He focuses on people and talent above all else. “A company becomes the people it hires, not the plan it makes,” Khosla said in a 2016 Startup Grind interview.

“Experience doesn’t matter. The rate of learning matters,” he told Sam Altman in a Y Combinator interview the same year, using a football analogy (fittingly as it now turns out): “Pick for the best athlete, not the person who’s the most established wide receiver who knows how to run one pattern.”

At Sun, Khosla spent an inordinate amount of his time on recruiting. He personally reconstructed the org chart of competitor DEC to identify talent that the company could poach.

Speaking at Seattle’s AI House in March 2025, Khosla’s main advice for startup founders was that their success will be driven by the people they hire and the questions they ask.

“The single most important decision by far you will make is the team you build,” he said at the time. “The more questions that get asked around your conference table, the better it will go, the faster you will learn, and the faster you will accumulate advantages.”

Vinod Khosla speaks at the Bloomberg Green conference in Seattle in July 2025. (GeekWire Photo / Lisa Stiffler)

“Talent drives everything,” he said at another event in Seattle last summer, the Bloomberg Green Seattle conference on climate change.

For the record, the Seahawks’ current leadership is ostensibly locked in: general manager John Schneider is under contract through 2031, and head coach Mike Macdonald, who led the team to its Super Bowl win in February, is signed through 2029, according to The Seattle Times.

Whether the trademark Khosla obsession with talent will translate into getting involved with draft picks and player personnel will be an interesting question to watch.

He’s a Bay Area guy, not a Seattle guy. Khosla has lived and worked in Silicon Valley since earning his MBA at Stanford in 1980. Khosla Ventures is based in Menlo Park. The family’s 49ers ties underscore that this is not a homegrown owner.

Khosla has made a handful of appearances in the Seattle area over the years. His firm led a $11 million round for Seattle-based AI legal startup Lexion in 2021, and a $15 million round in Viome, the wellness startup co-founded by Seattle-area entrepreneur Naveen Jain, in 2017.

But he has no deep roots in the Pacific Northwest, which is a major difference from Seattle native Paul Allen and his family. How quickly the Khosla family builds a connection to the city and Seahawks fans may matter as much as anything they do on the football side.

He supports the people he picks, but tells it like it is. In more than 30 years on startup boards, Khosla says he has never once voted against a management team, even when he strongly disagrees.

“I’ll argue with them, I’ll debate with them, I’ll push them, but I will not vote against them,” he said in the Startup Grind interview. The Khosla Ventures website puts it more plainly: “Once we pick a management team, we back it and don’t second-guess it.”

For a Seahawks fan base that watched Paul Allen’s sister Jody Allen take a largely hands-off approach as chair of the Allen estate, the philosophy may sound familiar, although Khosla’s version would also come with a willingness to challenge leaders behind closed doors.

For example, Khosla has said he deliberately takes positions he doesn’t believe in when coaching founders — not to mislead them, but to force them to think through risks they haven’t considered.

The Khosla Ventures approach, as explained on its site, is “brutal honesty over hypocritical politeness.”

He’s not without controversy. In 2008, Khosla bought a 53-acre property south of Half Moon Bay, Calif., that included the only access road to Martins Beach, a stretch of coastline that surfers and families had used for decades. He locked the gate and blocked public access, setting off a legal battle that has lasted more than a decade and drawn widespread criticism.

The case has gone to the California Supreme Court and back.

“Every Generation Gets the Beach Villain It Deserves,” the New York Times headlined a 2018 story about the dispute. Khosla has argued it’s a private property rights issue. Critics see it as a billionaire putting his own interests above the public.

The takeaway: he doesn’t back down, even when public opinion is against him.

He’s persistent in business, as well. That habit of not backing down has been consistent throughout his tech and investing career.

When Sun was told it had lost a critical early deal to a rival, Khosla flew from San Francisco to Boston and camped out in the prospective customer’s office until the CEO agreed to see him. By the end of the day, the company had signed with Sun, according to The Generalist.

When defective Philips monitors nearly bankrupted Sun, Khosla went home at 3 a.m. and was back by 7 a.m. for months until the crisis passed, he said in the Y Combinator interview.

“Survive long enough in your field to have time to get lucky,” he told founders at one meetup.

During a 2011 appearance in Seattle, Khosla offered this take on betting big: “I don’t mind the low probability of success, but I better be impactful if we do succeed.” He was talking about startups, but the same idea no doubt applies to chasing another Lombardi Trophy.

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This MIT robot flies through the air then dives underwater using the same wings

Published

29 minutes ago

13 July 2026

NewsAdmin

First look: MIT researchers have built a small robot that can move through both air and water using the same wings – and switch between the two without any extra hardware. The work comes out of mechanical engineer Raphael Zufferey’s lab, where the team has been trying to replicate something that already exists in nature.

Diving seabirds like puffins use their wings to both fly and swim, even though air and water behave very differently. “Thinking of a wing that could operate in both [air and water] somewhat efficiently seems implausible,” Zufferey tells NPR.

The robot, described in a paper published in Science, weighs about half a pound and has a wingspan just shy of three feet. It’s built to function in both environments without adding unnecessary complexity, which shaped several key design decisions.

One of those decisions was to leave out legs entirely. In nature, many birds rely on their legs to help them take off from the water. But in a robot, that would add mechanical challenges the team wanted to avoid. “Instead, we thought, ‘can we go from the water straight to the air simply with the wings themselves?’” Zufferey says.

The robot’s wings also differ from those of real diving birds. Many diving birds fold their wings underwater, but adding that feature would have meant more joints and motors. “You need to add joints, you need to add motors. So instead we rely on wing flexibility,” he says.

The wings are made from translucent nylon fabric reinforced with carbon fiber struts, giving them enough flexibility to work in both air and water. They flap continuously – about five to six times per second in the air. To break out of the water, the robot ramps that up to about ten flaps per second to generate enough force.

The body design is just as unusual. The central structure is open, with its internal components exposed. Instead of sealing the entire system, each part is waterproofed individually. “So water floods the whole system here,” Zufferey explains. That approach keeps the robot light enough to fly and also neutrally buoyant underwater, so it doesn’t drift up or down.

In testing, the robot can move from water to air in less than a second. Video shot at Lake Geneva shows a slight ripple on the surface before it bursts through and into flight.

Glenna Clifton, an animal movement biologist at the University of Portland who was not involved in the project, says the robot stands out both as an engineering achievement and as a research tool. “This is a beautiful robot,” she says. She adds that projects like this help researchers better understand how animals move. “The biology inspires the robotics, but then also the robotics are used to understand the biology.”

The team sees practical uses for the technology as well. A robot that can fly to a remote location, land in the water, and collect data could be useful for monitoring coastal environments. That could include tracking algal blooms, observing marine life, or studying shoreline changes.

On a single charge, the robot is estimated to fly for not quite four miles or swim for a bit more than a mile. Clifton says that level of performance across both environments is significant. “It is light and powerful and a monumental step in the performance at both swimming, flying, and transitioning between the two,” she says.

The project took about two years to develop, and the team is already working on improvements. Future versions are expected to carry sensors for data collection and continue refining how the robot moves.

For Zufferey, the starting point remains the natural world. “You see that it has already been done in biology,” he says. “So that gives you hope as a robotics researcher. It tells you that it should be possible.”

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Before you drop AU$999 on the new Dyson Airwrap Co-anda 2x, I’d strongly suggest checking out this Prime Day deal on the original

Published

45 minutes ago

13 July 2026

NewsAdmin

Dyson’s Airwrap line of hair multi-stylers and dryers revolutionised the hair care market by showing that you don’t need to curl hair with direct extreme heat, and instead use high-speed airflow to achieve a similar result.

Of course, innovative tech rarely comes cheap, especially from a prestige brand like Dyson. The most recent Airwrap Co-anda 2x sells for a whopping AU$999, and the Airwrap i.d. isn’t far off at AU$849.

If you’re in the market for one but would love to avoid shelling out that much cash, Amazon has the Airwrap Origin discounted by 39% off for Prime Day to just AU$388. The best part is, the discount isn’t exclusive to Amazon Prime members!

Other than the lower price, there are yet more advantages to getting the Airwrap Origin over its more expensive siblings.

The Origin uses purely manual tactile buttons to operate and you don’t have to worry about the device’s Bluetooth connection to your phone accidentally dropping out while styling (the newer ones have a companion app that can automatically set the ideal wrapping, styling and cold shot timings specific to your hair). You also have complete control, where you can manually override the speed and temperature as needed, instead of the automatic programming in the newer Airwraps.

The Airwrap Origin also now has the longer 40mm barrel attachment that measures 18.5cm to accommodate medium-to-long hair better, compared to the shorter 13cm barrel from its initial release.

While it’s tempting to go all-out on the Airwrap ID or even the Co-anda 2x, it’s hard to overlook the Airwrap Origin at this price, especially when you don’t need all the attachments bundled with the newer models.

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America May Soon Be Facing It’s Largest Labor Shortage in Its History

Published

1 hour ago

13 July 2026

NewsAdmin

America “is facing what’s projected to become the largest labor shortage in its history,” according to experts interviewed by the Washington Post:

Economists warn that the worsening labor problem, due in part to a skills shortage and population shifts, will be vast and reach beyond tech. It “could hobble the American economy for years to come,” predicts the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Lightcast, a labor market data company, calls it “the largest labor shortage the country has ever seen.” JPMorgan Chase warns of a national security risk from “a pervasive talent deficit that constrains the nation’s capacity to build, compete, and protect its interests.” There will be shortages in the tens or even hundreds of thousands of nurses, physicians, teachers, engineers, pharmacists, mental health counselors, construction worker and airplane mechanics — jobs AI generally can’t do…

Among the trends that have been leading to this moment: a mismatch between the careers college graduates are pursuing and the jobs employers are struggling to fill. Far fewer students are majoring in health care fields than are needed to meet demand, for instance. “We have pumped so many young people into business and finance” when what’s really in demand are graduates in other fields, [said Ron Hetrick, Lightcast’s principal economist]. “It’s like a factory producing these workers like widgets, even though society is saying, ‘We really don’t need them.’ And the factory just keeps pumping them out.” But the principal reason for the looming workforce shortages is much more basic. A protracted decline in birth rates is coinciding with a record wave of retirements, data shows.

From 2024 to 2032, when the last baby boomers sign up for Social Security payments, more than 18 million college-educated workers will leave the labor force while fewer than 14 million enter it, according to the Georgetown center. Meanwhile, even as the number of people with associate and bachelor’s degrees falls, the number of jobs requiring them will grow, the center forecasts. That will leave a gap of 4.6 million workers. Lightcast puts the deficit at an even higher 6 million… The effect of population shifts on the supply of talent, with or without degrees, has been compounded by a drop in the proportion of high school graduates choosing to go to college, a sharply reduced rate of immigration, and a growing number of Americans leaving the workforce altogether because of such issues as lack of child care, early retirement, incarceration and substance addiction, according to the Chamber of Commerce.

Three interesting statistics from the article:

U.S. college/university enrollment in 2023 was down by nearly 2 million students since its peak in 2010, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Education Department.

America’s low birth rate since 2010 “means the number of college-age Americans is forecast to decline by another 13 percent through 2041.”

South Dakota has just 41 workers for every 100 open jobs… while California and nine other states have more workers than jobs, the Chamber of Commerce found.

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AI’s gas-plant boom, and the fight to stop it

Published

1 hour ago

13 July 2026

NewsAdmin

The AI build-out has done something the fossil-fuel industry could not do for itself. It has set off the largest-ever construction boom in natural gas-fired power plants, the Associated Press reports.

Aging coal plants are being kept alive past their retirement dates too. Utilities, plant owners, and the federal government have all pushed to postpone the shutdowns.

The reason is unglamorous arithmetic. Some data centres consume more electricity than a mid-size city, and wind and solar cannot be built at that speed.

The states drawing lines

Several states are trying to force the issue through law. A bill on New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s desk would make large data centres hit renewable benchmarks from 2030, reaching at least 90% renewable energy by 2040.

Its author, state Senator Kristen Gonzalez, thinks the targets are achievable. These are the wealthiest companies on earth, she argued, and firms able to spend billions on data centres can afford to build the power to run them.

The 💜 of EU tech

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Michigan, Oregon, and Minnesota moved first. All three passed laws in the last 18 months to defend existing commitments to emissions-free electricity by 2040.

Michigan tied it to money, requiring hyperscale data centres to reach 90% clean energy within six years to keep a lucrative sales tax exemption. Similar bills have appeared in California, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

An honest admission from the other side

The most useful quote in the story is not a triumphant one. Bob Jenks of the Oregon Citizens’ Utility Board conceded the 2040 target was hard to meet with data centres, and hard to meet without them.

That is the shape of the problem. The clean-energy goal was already stretching, and AI has arrived and pulled it further out of reach.

Households are feeling it first. Electricity bills are climbing across many utility territories, and AI data centres are driving up power costs at Rust Belt factories.

The regulatory back door

Unable to outbuild the boom, advocates have gone after the rules instead. The tactic is to get regulators to let large power users build their own clean generation and plug it into the grid.

Colorado ordered Xcel Energy to create such a programme. In an April filing Xcel accepted it could benefit customers, citing Google projects connecting 115 megawatts of geothermal in Nevada and 1,900 megawatts of wind, solar, and storage in Minnesota.

Google’s deal with NV Energy is seen as the first of its kind, and the company says similar arrangements are approved or pending in eight more states. The Corporate Energy Buyers Association struck a comparable deal with Georgia Power and is now working on North Carolina.

The pitch to utilities is commercial, not moral. They gain a huge long-term customer who pays to expand the grid, rather than watching that customer build standalone generation and leave.

Why this is the real fight

Grid access is where the outcome gets decided, not the legislature. Regulators have been fast-tracking data-centre grid connections, and whoever controls that queue controls what gets built.

Money is chasing the same bottleneck, with Nvidia-backed startups raising to solve data-centre power. Energy, not silicon, is now the binding constraint on AI.

Communities are pushing back independently, having blocked 75 data-centre projects worth $130bn in a single quarter. Congress is circling too, with the House voting on a bill to push data-centre energy costs back onto the companies creating them.

CEBA’s policy chief reckons the decisions being taken now will set energy policy for two or three decades. That is probably right, and it is why a technical argument about grid interconnection is worth more attention than it gets.

The gas plants are being poured in concrete while the rules are still being written. Concrete tends to win those races.

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WhatsApp for Windows & Mac Download Free – 2.2625.101.0

Published

1 hour ago

13 July 2026

NewsAdmin

WhatsApp for Windows and Mac lets you access your WhatsApp account from your desktop, with chats synced across your phone and linked devices. You can send messages, share files, make voice and video calls, use Status, and screen share from a larger display.

Download and install WhatsApp on your computer and you’ll also be able to make voice and video calls, and share files with your contacts from your PC and Mac.

Can I use WhatsApp on my computer and phone at the same time?

Yes, WhatsApp Desktop and the web version work as linked devices for your WhatsApp account. You can link up to four devices to your primary phone, including computers, tablets, and companion phones. Messages stay synced across your linked devices, while your primary phone is still used to register your account and add new devices.

What happens if my phone is offline?

You only need your phone to be online when you register WhatsApp for the first time or pair new devices. After signing up, your phone doesn’t need to stay online to use WhatsApp on linked devices, but your linked devices will go offline if you don’t use your phone for more than 14 days.

Can I use WhatsApp without sharing my phone number?

WhatsApp is rolling out usernames, which will eventually let people contact you without seeing your phone number. This feature is still rolling out. WhatsApp says there will be no public username directory, and people will need to know your exact username to contact you.

Why use WhatsApp on Windows/Mac?

Using WhatsApp on a computer is very useful if you prefer to have a larger screen for messaging, the ability to multitask while still being able to message on WhatsApp, and the ability to send and receive messages even when your phone is not nearby are some of the key benefits. Additionally, it can be more convenient to type on a physical keyboard rather than a small touch screen.

Can I make video calls using WhatsApp Desktop?

Yes. The desktop app supports voice and video calls, including group calls. Calls are end-to-end encrypted, and you can use your computer’s webcam and microphone, speakers, or headset. WhatsApp has supported group video calls with up to 8 people and audio calls with up to 32 people on desktop.

Is WhatsApp secure?

WhatsApp offers end-to-end encryption as a default for all private communication, this includes messages and calls, group and one-on-one chats as well as any photos or files you send. However, WhatsApp is owned by Meta which makes many wonder about privacy. More security-conscious users often prefer to use Signal or Telegram for sharing personal or sensitive information.

You can use up to four linked devices and one phone at a time. Each linked device connects to WhatsApp independently while maintaining the same level of privacy and security through end-to-end encryption.

Your phone doesn’t need to stay online to use WhatsApp on linked devices, but your linked devices will be logged out if you don’t use your phone for over 14 days.

WhatsApp is available for Android and iPhone / iOS.

Features

Keep the Conversation Going

With WhatsApp Desktop, you can seamlessly sync all of your chats to your computer so that you can chat on whatever device is most convenient for you.

Security by Default

Some of your most personal moments are shared on WhatsApp, which is why we built end-to-end encryption into the latest versions of our app. When end-to-end encrypted, your messages and calls are secured so only you and the person you’re communicating with can read or listen to them, and nobody in between, not even WhatsApp.

Desktop calling

You can make free voice and video calls to your contacts on WhatsApp Desktop if you have the app installed on your computer.

What’s New

It’s time to reserve your WhatsApp username

When someone new walks into your life – a classmate, a neighbor, someone you meet at an event – sharing a phone number can feel like a big step. That’s because a phone number is personal and it’s tied to so many parts of your life. Sometimes you just want to chat without handing over your digits.

This is also true for group conversations. You want to join the parent chat for the soccer team but you’re not ready to give your phone number to people you’ve never met.

That’s why we’re introducing usernames for WhatsApp. Starting this week, you can reserve a username to use later this year when we launch this feature. With over three billion people on WhatsApp a lot of names overlap, which is why we’re opening reservations early so everyone has the opportunity to select the username that matters to them.

For most people, choosing a WhatsApp username should be something unique that only people you want to contact you will know. If you need help picking one, we have a username generator to make one work just for you.

We also know that some people like creators, small businesses, and organizations may want to maintain a consistent presence online. For them, we reserved an option to claim their existing Instagram or Facebook username on WhatsApp.

Usernames are our latest step to make WhatsApp even more private. There’s no directory to browse and no suggestions – people will need to know your exact username to contact you for the first time. To help control who can reach you on WhatsApp with your username, we’ve built an optional username key that others will need to know to message you.

Once we launch usernames, when you message a person or business for the first time they will no longer see your phone number, if you enabled your username.

Reserving your optional username takes just a few seconds on the latest version of WhatsApp – go to Settings > Account > Username.

We’ll be rolling out usernames gradually over the coming months and will notify you in WhatsApp when they’re available in your country.

Introducing Incognito Chat with Meta AI: A completely private way to chat with AI

Chatting with AI has quickly become a critical part of how people get information and ask important questions. And many of these questions can be deeply sensitive, or include situations where people are including private financial, personal, health or work data with their questions.

Ten years ago we brought the world end-to-end encryption and now we are extending this privacy to chats with Meta AI.

Today we’re launching Incognito Chat with Meta AI, a new way to have completely private conversations with AI. Built on top of our Private Processing technology, Incognito Chat lets you talk to Meta AI in a way that is invisible to anyone else.

Other apps have introduced incognito-style modes, but they can still see the questions coming in and the answers going out. Incognito Chat with Meta AI is truly private – no one can read your conversation, not even us.

Since we started exploring bringing AI to WhatsApp, we’ve been focused on how to deliver this power privately, at a global scale.

When you start an Incognito Chat with Meta AI, you’re creating a private, temporary conversation that only you can see. Your messages are processed in a secure environment that even Meta cannot access. Your conversations are not saved and by default, your messages disappear – giving you a space to think and explore ideas without anyone watching.

We believe this private way of chatting has potential to be part of several ways people chat with AI on WhatsApp. In the coming months, we’ll also introduce Side Chat protected by Private Processing. Side Chat with Meta AI will give you private help with any chat, with context of what’s being discussed, without disrupting the main conversation.

We remain committed to delivering privacy for the world. Incognito Chat with Meta AI is rolling out on WhatsApp and the Meta AI app over the coming months. You can learn more about how Incognito Chat with Meta AI works here.

New Feature Roundup: Free up space, multiple accounts, cross-platform transfer and more

Over time, our chats become a record of the moments that matter: conversations with family, laughs with friends, the photos and videos we couldn’t stop sharing. To help you make the most of all of it, we’re rolling out new ways to make WhatsApp even easier to use – whether you’re staying organized, juggling work and personal, or getting more out of every chat.

Free up space, keep what matters: As your chats fill up, so can the clutter. Now you can find and delete large files directly within any chat, so you can clear what you don’t need without wiping your entire conversation. Simply tap the chat name and select Manage Storage. You can also choose to clear just media files when clearing a chat – keeping your chat history intact.

Cross-platform chat transfer made easy: Our chat transfer feature now supports moving your chat history from iOS to Android, in addition to within the same platform. Changing phones shouldn’t be complicated. Now, with just a couple taps, your conversations, photos, and videos easily come with you.

Two accounts, one phone – now on iOS: You can now have two WhatsApp accounts logged in at the same time on iOS – just like on Android. No more carrying two phones to keep work and personal separate. You’ll always know which account you’re in because your profile picture will now be visible in the bottom tab.

Stickers that match your mood: Stickers can bring bigger, bolder expressions to your chats – and now WhatsApp will make it easier to use them by suggesting them as you type emojis. With just a tap, you can swap an emoji for a sticker that captures exactly how you’re feeling.

Photo touch-ups with Meta AI: You can now use Meta AI to touch up photos directly in your chat before sending, making it easy to remove something distracting, swap in a new background, or apply a fun style. Meta AI features may not be available to all users.

AI Writing Help is even more useful: Writing Help can now draft a suggested response based on your conversation, so you can get your message just right – all while keeping your chats completely private.

Introducing parent-managed accounts on WhatsApp

WhatsApp is the trusted way families communicate because it’s simple, private, and reliable. With input from families and experts, we’re rolling out new parent-managed accounts that allow parents or guardians to set up WhatsApp for pre-teens, with new controls to limit their WhatsApp experience to messaging and calling.

To begin, parents will need the phone they have bought for their family member and their own device, side by side to link their accounts. Once set up, these accounts are controlled by the parent or guardian who will be able to decide who can contact the account and which groups they can join. In addition, parents can review message requests from unknown contacts and manage the account’s privacy settings.

The new parental controls and settings are gated by a parent PIN on the managed device. Only parents can access and change privacy settings, ensuring they are empowered to tailor their family’s experience.

All personal conversations remain private and protected with end-to-end encryption, meaning no one – not even WhatsApp – can see or hear them. We’re providing more tools and insights for parents, particularly around groups, which you can learn more about here.

WhatsApp is already an important part of family life – whether updating extended family on big milestones, keeping up with after school plans or just letting loved ones know you’re home safe. As we gradually roll out parent-managed accounts over the coming months, we look forward to getting your feedback so we can continue building WhatsApp to provide the safest and most private way for families to connect.

WhatsApp’s Latest Privacy Protection: Strict Account Settings

At WhatsApp, we think you should be able to have a private conversation online, just like you would in-person. We will always defend that right to privacy for everyone, starting with default end-to-end encryption. But we also know that a few of our users – like journalists or public-facing figures – may need extreme safeguards against rare and highly-sophisticated cyber attacks.

That’s why today we’re announcing a new, lockdown-style feature called Strict Account Settings.

If you turn this on, certain account settings will lock to the most restrictive settings, and it will limit how your WhatsApp works in some ways, like blocking attachments and media from people not in your contacts. You can enable Strict Account Settings – which is rolling out gradually over the coming weeks – by going to Settings > Privacy > Advanced.

Strict Account Settings is one of many ways we’re working to protect you from the most sophisticated of cyber threats. We’ve also rolled out a programming language called Rust behind the scenes to help keep your photos, videos, and messages safe from things like spyware, so you can share and chat with confidence. To go deeper in the tech, click here.

Level Up Your WhatsApp Group Chats With New Member Tags, Text Stickers, and More

It’s a new year and a great time for some upgrades to your group chats. Group chats on WhatsApp make it easier to stay connected with the people in your life no matter what device they own – whether it’s sharing New Year’s resolutions, preparing for that special celebration you have coming up, or planning to win your football league.

Today, we’re introducing new features that make staying connected and expressing yourself in group chats even better.

Member tags: We all wear different hats and sometimes you want to give that more context in a group chat. Now you can give yourself a tag that tells the group what your role is, and can be customized for each group you’re in. So you can be “Anna’s Dad” in one group, and “Goalkeeper” in another.

Text stickers: For the messages you want to really stand out, you can now turn any word into a sticker by typing your text into Sticker Search. You can also add newly created stickers directly to your sticker packs instead of having to send them in a chat first.

Event reminders: Now when you create and send an event in your group chat you can set custom early reminders for your invitees. This helps everyone remember to commute to the party you’re hosting or hop on the call at the right time, depending on the event type.

These new updates join a bunch of great features we’ve launched over the years to bring groups closer together – like sharing large files up to 2GB, HD media, screen sharing, voice chats, and more. We believe WhatsApp offers the best group chat experience, and we’re committed to making it even better.

Get the Tone of Your Message Right with Private Writing Help

Sometimes you know what you want to say, but just need a little help with how to say it.

That’s why today we’re introducing Writing Help. It’s our latest AI feature powered by Private Processing that keeps your messages completely private. You can review the suggestions from AI in various styles such as professional, funny, or supportive that you can select or continue editing to deliver that perfect message.

To use Writing Help, just start drafting your message in a 1:1 or group chat, and tap the new pencil icon.

Is this really private?

Yes. Writing Help is built on top of Private Processing technology, which allows you to leverage Meta AI to generate a response without Meta or WhatsApp ever reading your message or the suggested re-writes.

For those interested in learning more about the technical details behind Private Processing, we invite you to read our engineering blog and technical white paper that explains how this and other features we’re building work. From the start, we worked with our peers in the security community to stress-test and validate the architecture of Private Processing to help us continue to harden it. Today, independent researchers at NCC Group and Trail of Bits published their audit reports on the steps we’ve taken to evolve this privacy-preserving technology.

As always, we believe that you should be in control of your experience on WhatsApp. That’s why using Private Processing features like Writing Help and Message Summaries are optional and are off by default.

Writing Help is rolling out in the English language, starting with the United States and several other countries. We hope to bring it to other languages and countries later this year.

New Feature Roundup: Missed call messages, new Status stickers and more

We’re introducing another bundle of features just in time for the holidays. This edition is packed with exciting new updates including missed call messages, fun Status stickers, improved Meta AI image generation, and more – making it easier than ever to connect with those who matter most.

Calls

Missed call messages: The holidays are a busy time packed with catching up with loved ones and sometimes you may not catch someone right away. If they don’t answer, you can now record a voice or video note, depending on the call type, in one tap for them to listen to later. This new approach will make voicemails a thing of the past.

Reactions in voice chats: Voice chats help you quickly shift between messaging and talking live without ringing the whole group. Now you can react during a voice chat, so you can share a quick ‘cheers!’ without interrupting the conversation.

Group call speaker spotlight: On video calls, the speaker is automatically prioritized to help you easily follow along.

Chats

Meta AI image creation improvements: Meta AI has delivered new image generation model capabilities from Midjourney and Flux on WhatsApp so you’ll notice huge improvements when creating annual holiday greetings to share in your chats or status.

Animate your images with Meta AI: You can now animate any photo into a short video to add more fun and festivity in chats or to your status.

New media tab on desktop: Search for your documents, links, and media across chats all in one organized place – so it’s easier to find files and get more done faster on Mac, Windows and Web.

Cleaner link previews: We’ve improved the look of link previews, streamlining long URL links to avoid disrupting the chat and keep the conversation flowing.

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Advance Paris A10 Classic Review: A French Hybrid Amplifier With More Bordeaux Than Bubbles

Published

2 hours ago

13 July 2026

NewsAdmin

The French have never suffered from a shortage of self-confidence. Their cars, cinema, food, and hi-fi tend to arrive with a point of view, and the Advance Paris A10 Classic is no exception. With illuminated VU meters, two ECC81/12AT7 tubes glowing behind its front panel, and a Class AB output stage rated at 130 watts per channel into 8 ohms and 190 watts into 4 ohms, it looks less like another anonymous black box and more like something intended to command the room. This is not amplification for the light and fluffy croissant crowd.

The A10 Classic is not a new integrated amplifier. It has been part of the Advance Paris lineup for several years, preceding both the company’s anniversary APEX models and the flagship NOVA electronics that we experienced at AXPONA 2026. That does not make it irrelevant. If anything, the A10 Classic helps explain how Advance Paris arrived at its current formula: bold industrial design, tubes where they can influence the character of the presentation, solid-state output stages where current and control matter, and enough connectivity to anchor an entire two-channel system.

Advance Paris Nova Integrated Amplifier at AXPONA 2026 — Advance Paris NOVA A-i190 at AXPONA 2026

At AXPONA, Advance Paris placed the spotlight on the NOVA A-i130 and A-i190 integrated amplifiers, which push that concept further with DSP, more sophisticated subwoofer management, modular streaming, and optional bi-directional Bluetooth. The A-i190 was one of our Best in Show selections because it balanced vintage-inspired styling with genuinely useful system flexibility and a surprising amount of power driving a pair of Vienna Acoustics floor standing loudspeakers. The A10 Classic is a simpler and older interpretation of that philosophy, but the family resemblance is unmistakable.

Its continued relevance also says something about why integrated amplifiers have become so popular. Listeners increasingly want fewer boxes, but they are not necessarily willing to surrender vinyl playback, digital inputs, television connectivity, subwoofer support, or enough power to drive demanding loudspeakers.

On paper, that promises some of the tonal body associated with tubes, the control and current delivery of transistors, and enough flexibility to replace several separate components. The newer NOVA models may represent where Advance Paris is going, but the A10 Classic reveals a great deal about how the company got there. The question is whether all that established French muscle still delivers sufficient finesse or merely a very convincing accent.

From Jadis Romance to Advance Paris Muscle

There was a time when French hi-fi had a fairly recognizable personality. The better examples from Jadis and YBA could sound delicate, spacious, and beautifully saturated through the midrange, with a sweet top end that made strings and vocals especially inviting. The trade-off was sometimes a slight softening of low-level detail and bass that emphasized warmth and texture over speed or absolute control. Think red Burgundy rather than a chilled Sancerre: richer, rounder, and not especially interested in showing you every sharp edge.

It also reminded me of driving around Paris in an old Citroën with my cousin, who worked as a researcher at the Institut Pasteur. The car’s famously compliant suspension floated over damaged pavement and insulated us from nearly everything happening beneath the tires. It was wonderfully comfortable, but you did not always receive a detailed report from the road. Some older French amplifiers could behave the same way, smoothing over rough recordings and delivering a more romantic presentation while sacrificing a little grip, transparency, and bottom-end precision.

The newer French approach is rather different, although Devialet and Advance Paris do not arrive there by the same technical route. Devialet’s patented ADH architecture operates its Class A analog and Class D switching amplifiers simultaneously in parallel. The Class A section determines the output voltage but is relieved of supplying the corresponding current; the Class D stage provides that current and performs most of the heavy lifting. The objective is to preserve the linearity of Class A while gaining the power density, efficiency, and loudspeaker control of Class D. It is considerably more sophisticated than placing two different amplification technologies in consecutive stages.

advance-paris-a10-classic-front-on — Advance Paris A10 Classic

The A10 Classic follows a more conventional, and arguably more serviceable, division of labor. Its ECC81/12AT7 tubes operate in the preamplifier stage, where they handle the low-level signal before passing it to a Class AB push-pull transistor output section. The tubes are therefore not driving the loudspeakers or sharing output duties with the transistors; they are used upstream, where they can influence gain structure and tonal character, while the solid-state section supplies the current, control, and 130 watts per channel into 8 ohms. It is hybrid amplification in series rather than Devialet’s parallel ADH topology, and the distinction matters.

Which approach is superior? That depends on whether you prioritize tonal beauty and forgiveness or speed, resolution, control, and system flexibility. Having owned both Jadis and YBA components, I understand the attraction of the older school. I also experienced enough operational eccentricity to distinguish charmingly French from utterly weird. There is quirky, and then there is wondering whether your amplifier has decided that electrical consistency is merely an Anglo-Saxon suggestion. I have been there. I will not be going back.

As this is being written, France are two victories away from winning the 2026 World Cup and will face Spain in the semifinal on July 14. Their attacking group of Kylian Mbappé, Ousmane Dembélé, Michael Olise, and Bradley Barcola has been dangerous not simply because of its pace, but because it understands when to press, when to create space, and when to strike. France reached the semifinal after beating Morocco 2–0, with Mbappé and Dembélé supplying the goals.

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The A10 Classic leans much closer to that newer French philosophy. It is forceful, quick, and capable of delivering genuine low-frequency authority, but its tube preamplifier stage keeps it from becoming sterile or relentlessly clinical. It retains some of the tonal color associated with the older French school while providing the control, power, build quality, and day-to-day reliability that I would now demand from an integrated amplifier. The older approach could be seductive. The A10 Classic is more interested in winning the match.

The A10 Classic is less Cyrano and more Nikita: unmistakably French, outwardly stylish, and capable of delivering considerably more force than its polished appearance suggests.

Technology and Specifications

The A10 Classic is designed as the center of a serious two-channel system rather than another amplifier pretending to be a tablet. It delivers 130 watts per channel into 8 ohms and 190 watts into 4 ohms, with a High Bias setting that increases the standing bias of the output stage for the first few watts. Advance Paris does not publish the precise Class A operating range, but it definitely results in a warmer top panel.

The amplifier also requires approximately 30 seconds to warm its two ECC81/12AT7 tubes after startup, with a countdown displayed on the front panel before operation begins. High Bias mode produces additional heat, so placement matters: Advance Paris recommends at least 50 mm, or 2 inches, of clearance on each side and 100 mm, or 3.9 inches, above the chassis. This is not an amplifier to bury inside a tightly packed cabinet beneath a cable box and three years of unopened mail.

Its analog connectivity is unusually comprehensive. Five line-level RCA inputs are joined by a balanced XLR input and an MM phono stage with selectable capacitance settings of 100, 200, or 320 pF. The phono input does not support moving-coil cartridges, but the adjustable capacitance makes it more useful than the fixed MM stages fitted to many integrated amplifiers.

Pre-out and amp-in connections allow the two sections to be separated, while a fixed record output, two mono subwoofer outputs, two switchable speaker zones, a trigger connection, and a front-panel headphone jack cover most conventional system requirements.

The digital section is built around an ESS9018 DAC and includes three optical inputs, one coaxial input, USB-B for computer audio, USB-A for MP3 playback, HDMI ARC for a television, and a second HDMI audio input for a compatible source. USB-B supports PCM up to 32-bit/384 kHz and DSD256 through DoP; coaxial reaches 24-bit/192 kHz and optical is limited to 24-bit/96 kHz. Bluetooth is optional through Advance Paris’s X-FTB01 aptX or X-FTB02 aptX HD module rather than being built into the amplifier.

There is no Wi-Fi, Ethernet, native streaming platform, app control, room correction, moving-coil phono stage, or HDMI eARC. The subwoofer outputs also lack adjustable crossover, high-pass filtering, and time alignment, so bass management remains the responsibility of the subwoofer. The HDMI inputs provide a convenient route for stereo television and source audio, but the A10 Classic is not an AV receiver and Advance Paris does not document Dolby or DTS decoding. Its appeal is hardware longevity: add the streamer of your choice today and replace that source when the software industry moves the goalposts again.

Advance Paris A10 Classic Specifications

Type: Hybrid stereo integrated amplifier
Tubes: 2 x ECC81/12AT7 in the preamplifier stage
Power output:
- 130 watts per channel into 8 ohms
- 190 watts per channel into 4 ohms
Amplification: Class AB with switchable High Bias mode
DAC: ESS9018
Analog inputs: 5 x stereo RCA, 1 x balanced XLR
Phono: MM; 47 kΩ; 100, 200, or 320 pF capacitance
Digital inputs: 3 x optical, 1 x coaxial, USB-B, USB-A, HDMI ARC, HDMI Audio In
Maximum digital resolution: PCM 32-bit/384 kHz and DSD256 via USB-B
Bluetooth: Optional aptX or aptX HD module
Outputs: Pre-out, amp-in, fixed record out, 2 x mono subwoofer, Speaker A/B, headphone, trigger
Frequency response: 20 Hz to 80 kHz, ±3 dB
Dimensions (W x H x D): 430 x 175 x 385 mm (16.9 x 6.9 x 15.2 inches)
Weight: 14.5 kg / 32 pounds

Listening

I have lived with the Cambridge Audio Edge A integrated amplifier for close to five years, and at no point have I felt any desire to replace it. It has been consistently reliable, is built to an exceptionally high standard, remains relatively cool even when driven hard, looks appropriately substantial, and can power a wide range of loudspeakers without sounding strained. More importantly, it continues to sound excellent.

In several respects, the Advance Paris A10 Classic feels like a distinctly French interpretation of the same basic idea: a powerful, full-featured integrated amplifier designed to serve as the foundation of a serious two-channel system. For this review, I used it with the Q Acoustics 5040, Magnepan LRS, Acoustic Energy AE100 MK2, Wharfedale Diamond 12.3, and Wharfedale Super Denton loudspeakers.

The analog front end included Thorens turntables fitted with cartridges from Ortofon, Goldring, and Sumiko, while network playback was handled by components from Bluesound, WiiM, and Cambridge Audio. System cabling came from Advance Paris, QED, Analysis Plus, and Clarus Audio.

Anyone expecting the A10 Classic’s tubes to produce a soft, velvety, or overtly romantic tonal balance should think again. The amplifier sounds comparatively linear, with good control, clarity, and extension at both ends of the frequency range. The tubes contribute additional texture, prevent the presentation from becoming sterile, and give instruments greater body and dimensionality, but they do not dominate the amplifier’s overall character.

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Think of it as a very French friends-with-benefits arrangement with Léa Seydoux: sophisticated, textured, and never overplayed, provided you remember the galette, carrot salad, and a bottle of wine good enough to avoid ending the relationship.

As much as I love the Magnepan LRS, they need an amplifier with more than an impressive power rating on paper. Their 4-ohm impedance and relatively low 86 dB sensitivity place greater demands on current delivery as playback levels increase, even though their largely resistive load is easier to manage than the severe impedance swings presented by some conventional loudspeakers.

It has always seemed slightly unusual that my Schiit Ragnarok 2 drives them as well as it does. Its 100-watt-per-channel rating into 4 ohms is hardly excessive by modern standards, but it remains composed and sounds convincing as long as I am prepared to push the volume control farther than usual. The Cambridge Audio Edge A drives the LRS with considerably less apparent effort, and the A10 Classic proved similarly comfortable with them.

advance-paris-a10-classic-top-front — Advance Paris A10 Classic (off)

The Advance Paris added greater texture, firmer control through the upper bass, and more tonal color than I generally hear from the LRS with the Ragnarok 2. Nobody buys these loudspeakers for subterranean bass; their specified response begins at 50 Hz (which I think I think is being overly generous) but the A10 Classic gave what was available more shape, weight, and definition. I like color in my food, music, movies, and, yes, in the women who have tolerated me. The A10 Classic understood the assignment.

Nick Cave’s “Avalanche” and “Comancheria,” the latter from his and Warren Ellis’s superb score for Hell or High Water, require an amplifier capable of reproducing tonal weight without sacrificing speed or clarity. “Avalanche,” in particular, depends heavily on the physical presence of Cave’s piano. If the notes lack body, resonance, and convincing decay, the performance loses much of its impact, darkness, and emotional weight.

The A10 Classic got all of this right. Piano notes arrived with the necessary mass and initial attack, followed by a natural sense of resonance and decay rather than disappearing abruptly or lingering without definition. “Comancheria” was equally convincing, with the amplifier preserving the score’s tension, space, and low-level texture without making it sound overly polished.

Cave’s voice on “Avalanche” is an equally important test. Some amplifiers smooth over its rough edges and diminish the authority of the performance. That is simply wrong. His delivery needs to sound gravelly, bold, and unsettling, or much of the song’s character disappears. The A10 Classic retained that texture while keeping the vocal clear and intelligible, demonstrating that its strong tonal density does not come at the expense of transparency.

Three very different tracks highlighted two of the A10 Classic’s strongest qualities: its ability to give voices convincing body and texture, and its refusal to sound slow when the music becomes more rhythmically or dynamically demanding.

Jonatan Alvarado’s “Amargura (El Floridense)” has a more ethereal presentation, with his voice floating within a spacious and carefully recorded acoustic. Through both the Magnepan LRS and Q Acoustics 5040, the A10 Classic gave his vocal greater fullness and dimensionality without making it sound heavy or overly forward. The soundstage extended almost wall to wall, which was impressive for me and considerably less appreciated by the rest of the house.

Kefaya and Elaha Soroor’s “Gole Be Khar” and “Jama Narenji,” from Songs of Our Mothers, were a completely different proposition. Soroor’s voice comes at you with far more weight and authority, and the arrangements are packed with percussion, strings, and shifting textures that can turn into a traffic jam through a slower amplifier.

advance-paris-a10-classic-angle-plugged-in

The A10 Classic never lost its footing. It kept Soroor firmly in the center, let the instruments breathe around her, and gave the music the pace and muscle it needed without blurring everything together. This is not an amplifier that moves through dense material in soft shoes. It can get up and go.

Electronic music has become more of a thing for me with age. I know. Act my age. Kraftwerk, Daft Punk, Boards of Canada, deadmau5, and Aphex Twin all need an amplifier with a firm bottom end, but also enough definition to make the bass lines easy to follow. Synths need pace, space, and real energy through the midrange and top end. Nothing kills this kind of music faster than flat, lifeless synthesizers.

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The A10 Classic handled all of this rather well. Bass had grip and definition, the soundstage remained open as the mixes became denser, and it never sounded slow or congested. It did not have quite the same low-end impact or midrange punch as the Cambridge Audio Edge A, but we are also talking about an amplifier that costs roughly twice as much. Getting about 90 percent of the way there for a lot less money is nothing to sneeze at.

I have heard amplifiers deliver more decay and considerably more top-end sizzle. The latter is often passed off as “more detail,” which can sound impressive for the first 15 minutes and increasingly unbearable after that, especially with speakers that already lean bright. The A10 Classic does not make that mistake. It has enough energy and clarity to keep electronic music lively, but it knows when to stop thinking you are at some rave in a dingy warehouse in Porte de la Villette.

Restraint is probably the wrong word. Control feels more accurate. My French teacher once suggested that restraints might be required when I was a child, but that is an entirely different conversation. The A10 Classic sounds confident with almost every genre of music without trying to dominate the recording.

The MM Phono Stage Is No Afterthought

It would have been useful for the A10 Classic to include moving-coil support, but its MM phono stage is no slouch. It was quiet with the Ortofon, Goldring, and Sumiko cartridges used during the review, and offered good clarity, tonal weight, and texture without sounding overly warm or soft.

Advance Paris specifies a 47-kilohm input impedance, 2.5 mV sensitivity, and selectable capacitance of 100, 200, or 320 pF. The company does not publish a gain figure, RIAA accuracy, overload margin, or phono-specific signal-to-noise ratio.

A better external phono stage will deliver more space, detail, and dynamic contrast, but most MM users will not feel pressured to upgrade immediately.

The Bottom Line

The Advance Paris A10 Classic stands out because it combines real power, extensive analog and digital connectivity, and a tube preamplifier stage without turning into either a soft-sounding nostalgia piece or a software-dependent lifestyle product. It sounds linear, confident, and controlled, but the tubes add enough texture, body, and tonal color to keep instruments and voices from becoming sterile. It can also drive a wide range of loudspeakers, including the current-hungry Magnepan LRS, without losing its composure.

It is not fully equipped for every modern system. The phono stage supports moving-magnet cartridges but not moving-coil designs. Bluetooth requires an optional module, and there is no built-in Wi-Fi, Ethernet, or native streaming platform. The two subwoofer outputs are useful, but there is no adjustable crossover, high-pass filtering, room correction, or more advanced bass management. Buyers looking for an all-in-one streaming amplifier may find those omissions significant.

The A10 Classic is for listeners who want one substantial integrated amplifier to handle vinyl, digital sources, television audio, external streamers, headphones, and demanding loudspeakers without becoming obsolete when the next streaming platform changes direction. It offers much of the authority and refinement of more expensive integrated amplifiers while retaining a distinct tonal personality of its own.

An Editor’s Choice recommendation? Mais oui—and bring the good Bordeaux, not the bottle you use for cooking.

Pros:

Powerful, stable Class AB amplification
Tube preamplifier stage adds texture and body without excessive warmth
Strong bass control and consistently clear midrange
Drives a wide range of loudspeakers with confidence
Excellent analog and digital connectivity
Adjustable MM phono stage is quiet and genuinely useful
HDMI ARC and separate pre-out/amp-in connections
Substantial build quality and distinctive industrial design
Strong value compared with more expensive integrated amplifiers

Cons:

No moving-coil phono support
No built-in network streaming, Wi-Fi, or Ethernet
Bluetooth requires an optional module
HDMI ARC rather than eARC
Limited subwoofer management with no adjustable crossover or high-pass filtering
High Bias mode requires generous ventilation

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Our Ratings

★★★★★★★★★★ Sound Quality

★★★★★★★★★★ Build Quality

★★★★★★★★★★ Connectivity

★★★★★★★★★★ Value

Where to Buy

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Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers for July 13 #1128

Published

2 hours ago

13 July 2026

NewsAdmin

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Cat-lovers, today’s NYT Connections puzzle is purr-fect for us. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Answer the questions!

Green group hint: How you hold on to something.

Blue group hint: Garfield and Heathcliff, too.

Purple group hint: Pucker up.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Interrogate.

Green group: Things with handles.

Blue group: Fictional cats.

Purple group: Starting with smooches.

What are today’s Connections answers?

The completed NYT Connections puzzle for July 13, 2026.
NYT/Screenshot by CNET

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is interrogate. The four answers are examine, grill, pump and question.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is things with handles. The four answers are bucket, drawer, mug and umbrella.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is fictional cats. The four answers are Figaro, Puss, Salem and Tom.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is starting with smooches. The four answers are bussin, kisser, peckish and smackdown.

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Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of July 5, 2026

Published

2 hours ago

13 July 2026

NewsAdmin

Get caught up on the latest technology and startup news from the past week. Here are the most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of July 5, 2026.

Most popular stories on GeekWire

Opinion: The WALL-E Economy

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Supply chain startup Auger, led by ex-Amazon operations chief, raises $50M and lands big customers

Former Amazon executive Dave Clark’s supply chain startup has raised $50 million in new funding, bringing its total to $150 million, as it builds a customer base that includes Meta, Fanatics, and Kimberly-Clark. … Read More

Microsoft cuts 4,800 jobs, about 2% globally, revamps salesforce and launches massive Xbox overhaul

Microsoft is cutting 4,800 jobs and overhauling its Xbox gaming business in what its new gaming CEO calls the biggest restructuring in Xbox history, while reshaping its sales and consulting division amid record AI spending and a 30% stock slide. … Read More

Former GitHub CEO’s startup Entire unveils its answer to the crush of AI coding agents

Former GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke’s startup Entire is rolling out a distributed network for mirroring code repositories, making the case that centralized platforms like he once ran as part of Microsoft can’t handle the demands of AI coding agents on their own. … Read More

Tech Moves: Seattle tech exec named Dropbox CPO; Xbox VP among layoffs; C-suite changes at T-Mobile

Past exec at Amazon, Microsoft and Google is now Dropbox’s first CPO; T-Mobile appoints a new C-suite leader and promotes another; and Xbox VP Kevin LaChapelle is laid off in Microsoft’s big round of layoffs. … Read More

Etzioni on AI: Elon Musk promised humanoid robots, but China delivered

While American tech giants are valued for the anticipation of perfect prototypes, Chinese manufacturers are winning the robotics race by getting paid for delivery. … Read More

Chicago software company plants flag in Seattle area as new leadership team seeks AI talent

Governance, risk and compliance software company LogicGate recently signed a lease in Bellevue with space for up to 25 employees and expects to have about 20 people working there by the end of the year. … Read More

Elon Musk’s Mars illusion

A look at the science behind Elon Musk’s goal of a million-person city on Mars, and why planetary scientists say terraforming the planet to make it habitable would take centuries, if it’s possible at all. … Read More