The Whoop Meridian takes a screenless fitness tracker that usually looks sporty and turns it into a luxury accessory. Rather than a silicone band, you’re looking at a tapered metal mesh band, magnetic clasp, and four finishes designed to look more at home alongside jewelry than running shoes. Whoop is selling Meridian in Gold, Rose Gold, Alloy, and Black for $149 starting today.

There’s just one small problem. One of Whoop’s biggest ideas is that you’re supposed to wear its tracker continuously, and higher-tier Whoop 5.0 memberships even include a wireless power pack that can charge the tracker while it remains on your wrist. But unfortunately, Meridian can’t do that.

Looking better means taking it off

Whoop’s wireless charger cannot send power through Meridian’s metal band, so the tracker has to come off before it can be charged. So you’re not getting that convenient feature on Whoop’s existing design, particularly for users obsessive enough about continuous health data to dislike gaps in their tracking.

The company addressed the new design in its official announcement, talking about how it now matches the occasions where people might normally remove a fitness tracker — dinners, events, travel, or simply situations where a fabric sports band doesn’t complement what they’re wearing.

The Milanese-style mesh, tapered silhouette, and continuously adjustable magnetic clasp are supposed to turn the Whoop into something closer to jewelry. I can see the appeal. During our review of the Whoop 5.0, we found the standard model comfortable and unobtrusive. Though its chunky fabric-band appearance was one of the hardware’s weaker points. Meridian addresses that complaint rather directly.

Google’s Fitbit Air makes this look expensive

Meridian costs $149 for the band alone. You still need compatible Whoop hardware and an active membership, with Whoop’s subscriptions starting at $199 per year. Meanwhile, Google will sell you an entire Fitbit Air for $99.99. That’s a complete screenless health tracker with 24/7 heart-rate monitoring, sleep tracking, workout detection, up to seven days of battery life, and compatibility with Android and iOS. More importantly, its fundamental health-tracking features continue working without paying for Google Health Premium.

The two products are targeting slightly different customers. Whoop leans much harder into detailed recovery, strain, and performance data, while Fitbit Air is deliberately aimed at making passive health tracking simpler and cheaper. For $50 less than Whoop’s new strap, Google gives you the tracker too. So it mostly makes sense for users already in Whoop’s ecosystem.

Apple has confirmed that its autumn event will take place on 9 September at 10am Pacific time at Apple Park, under the tagline “Surprise and shine” and an invitation showing a sun rising behind the company logo.

The expectation is that it will finally show a foldable iPhone, a device IDC thinks could ship 10 million units in its first year at around $2,500.

The more consequential detail is what is not on the list. The standard iPhone 18 is expected to slip to a spring launch, which means Apple has quietly split the annual iPhone cycle into two events for the first time.

That is a bigger change than a new hinge. The September keynote has been the fixed point of the consumer technology calendar for well over a decade, and moving the volume model out of it changes what the event is for.

The foldable itself, reported variously as the iPhone Fold or iPhone Ultra, is expected in a book-style design with an outer display of around 5.3 in and an inner display near 7.8 in.

Reports describe a titanium frame and a display Apple has worked hard to make close to crease-free, which has been the visible weakness of every rival for seven years.

One design decision stands out from the rest. Face ID is expected to be replaced by Touch ID in the power button, presumably because there is nowhere sensible to put the sensor array on a device that folds.

Pricing expectations run from about $2,000 to $2,500, which would make it the most expensive iPhone Apple has sold by a considerable margin. Samsung has had this category largely to itself since 2019 and has never made it a volume business, so Apple arriving late and expensive is not the disadvantage it sounds.

Apple’s stated position on foldables has always been that the category was not yet good enough, which is roughly the argument it made about large screens and about styluses before adopting both. The test will be whether the hinge and the crease hold up over a couple of years rather than whether they impress in a demo.

The Pro models are the more conventional part of the event. The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max are expected to keep their current designs while gaining an A20 Pro chip built on a 2nm process, Apple’s own C2 modem, a variable-aperture main camera, and a smaller Dynamic Island.

A 2nm part would put Apple a full node ahead of most of the Android field, where Xiaomi’s in-house silicon is still on 3nm. Whether buyers notice is a separate question from whether it matters competitively.

There is also a reported price rise of roughly $300 on the Pro line, which would be unusually steep for Apple and is worth treating as a rumour rather than a plan. Component costs have moved sharply this year, particularly memory, so the direction is at least plausible.

Around the phones sits the usual supporting cast. An Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 are expected with new sensors rather than redesigns, alongside the AirPods, OLED iPad mini, and Mac mini refreshes already in the pipeline.

Durability is where foldables have historically disappointed buyers, and it is also the hardest thing to judge from a keynote. A $2,000 phone with a moving part is a warranty proposition as much as a product one.

The home products may be the quiet story. Updated HomePod mini and Apple TV hardware with Siri’s newer AI stack are expected, along with a home hub carrying a seven-inch screen and a FaceTime camera, which would be Apple’s first real attempt at a category Amazon and Google have occupied for years.

None of this is confirmed beyond the date, the venue, and the tagline, and Apple’s invitations have never been dependable guides to their contents.

What the schedule does confirm is that the company is willing to hold a September keynote without its highest-volume product on the stage, which is not a decision it has taken before.

We’re expecting to see the Galaxy S26 FE.

How much do you hate typing? The advent of large language models has rapidly advanced voice-to-text technology. Whether it’s Wispr Flow joining your meetings to summarize discussions or Google debuting smarter on-device dictation in its latest Pixel smartphone, these tools do far more than transcribe: They intelligently strip filler words, clean up unscripted thoughts on the fly, and seamlessly mediate multilingual conversations.

Now, a new startup is entering the fray. Unlike its software-focused peers, Relay is building a dedicated, portable microphone for high-fidelity voice-to-text anywhere. Based in London, Relay was founded by two former Nothing employees: Cookie Xu, who was Nothing’s head of AI and services, and Raymond Zhu, a hardware product manager. While the company is debuting its software today, the hardware—what it calls the Relay Q—won’t be available until early 2027.

Zhu says when he and Xu worked at Nothing, they used Wispr Flow’s transcription software to “type” most of their messages at work. He says it greatly helped with thinking out ideas, but they kept running into an issue: talking loudly in an office.

“In the office, we never really could get the right volume for input,” Zhu tells WIRED. “If I whisper too quietly, the Mac wouldn’t be able to pick it up; too loud and my coworker next to me can hear. Sometimes I would actually pull out my earbud and go like this,” he says over a video call, holding an earbud in front of his mouth to demonstrate. “It calls for dedicated hardware.”

Courtesy of Relay

Relay is exclusive to macOS at launch, though the company has plans to bring it to Windows, iOS, and Android. It’s starting with the desktop because Zhu believes conversations are most complex there. Chats with friends and family are simple on phones, but at work in front of a computer, you’re sharing ideas, brainstorming, and using varied tone and formality.

Though the microphone is still months away from being ready, I’ve been using a beta version of Relay’s macOS app, which works with or without the dedicated mic.

During setup, you’ll need to choose a hotkey that will trigger Relay in any text field—the default is Fn. Press and hold the key while your cursor is in any text field, and Relay activates and handles the voice dictation. The voice-to-text engine is powered by Google’s Gemini models.

If you’re in the market for a new high-performance GPU, GIGABYTE has expanded its premium graphics card lineup with the launch of the AORUS GeForce RTX 5090, RTX 5080, RTX 5070 Ti, and RTX 5070 INFINITY series. The new GPUs focus on high-end performance while introducing a cleaner PC-building approach with hidden rear-facing power connectors, an upgraded Windforce cooling system, and customizable RGB Halo lighting. Here’s everything you need to know about them.

Windforce Hyperburst Cooling System

The headline feature across the INFINITY lineup is GIGABYTE’s new WINDFORCE HYPERBURST cooling system. It combines a double flow-through heatsink design with the company’s patented Hawk fans to improve airflow and thermal performance during demanding gaming and creative workloads.

According to GIGABYTE, the Hawk fans deliver up to 53.6% higher air pressure and 12.5% more airflow compared to previous designs. An intelligent Overdrive Fan, positioned at the center of the card, automatically activates under heavy loads to provide additional cooling while keeping noise levels in check.

One of the more interesting design changes is the relocation of the GPU’s power connector to the rear of the graphics card. Instead of cables protruding from the side, users can route them behind the motherboard tray for a much cleaner-looking build. GIGABYTE also includes a magnetic cover that fully hides the connector, giving the cards a minimalist appearance once installed. The design is compatible with STEALTH-style PC builds that prioritize hidden cable routing.

Alongside the standard models, GIGABYTE has unveiled the AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 INFINITY WOOD, which pairs wood-grain accents with premium materials to match the company’s WOOD-themed motherboards.

The new jobs, spanning engineering, operations, finance, consulting and technology, will be created over coming years.

US professional services firm Highspring is creating 50 new jobs in its recently established Irish presence.

The new jobs, spanning engineering, operations, finance, consulting and technology, will be created over the course of the coming years, the company said in a statement today (27 August). Highspring did not provide a timeline.

The Tennessee-headquartered company said the fresh investment will support its managed services, consulting and talent solutions businesses and reinforce its ability to service its European clients. Ireland is expected to play a key role in supporting the company’s multinational client base, it said.

Highspring, formerly branded under Vaco Holdings, has a presence across more than 45 countries with more than 10,000 employees. Vaco continues as the talent solutions division of the business, providing services across accounting and finance, business and digital transformation, risk and compliance and IT.

Highspring officially launched its Dublin office last year as part of a major international push. The Irish launch was followed by an office is Lisbon this February.

“The new roles across engineering, operations, finance, consulting and technology will provide excellent opportunities for highly skilled professionals and further strengthen Ireland’s position as a hub for innovation, talent and business excellence,” said Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, Peter Burke TD.

Brian Waller, the CEO of Highspring said: “Our talented team in Ireland has become a critical part of how we deliver for clients around the world and has enabled Highspring’s accelerated growth.  These new roles build on the success we’ve already experienced here and reinforce our commitment to Ireland as an important part of our global strategy.”

This month alone, US tech company Vertiv announced plans to create 300 new jobs amid a planned expansion of its Letterkenny facility.

Meanwhile, Australian substitute teacher booking platform ClassCover is expanding into Ireland with a €3m investment that will create 20 jobs over three years.

And late last month, OpenAI announced plans to hire 250 workers at its new EU headquarters in Dublin’s Docklands to meet the growing demand for its services in Europe.

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AROS is an all-FOSS re-implementation of AmigaOS, and after years of effort, it now supports Arm kit – both 32-bit and 64-bit Raspberry Pi hardware, especially the Pi 3.

The AROS project’s nightly builds page has some interesting new offerings. Notably, there’s raspi-aarch64-system for 64-bit capable Raspberry Pi hardware, including the Pi 3 and Pi Zero, and raspi-armhf-system for older ARMv6 based devices.

We first mentioned AROS 13 years ago, and last took a proper look in May 2025. Building a version of AROS that runs natively on Arm processors has been a long term goal, as the AROS Arm support page details. It has made good progress, though, and now the nightly images include a version which runs well on the Raspberry Pi 3. (Unfortunately, the Reg FOSS desk’s Pi 3 is currently running PiHole full-time, and Pi 4 support is slightly lagging, with no sound or networking.)

There’s no specific mention of what has changed on the project’s Github repo, but we suspect that some judicious use of LLM has enabled this sudden burst of progress. Since May 2026, there have been 13 commits by Claude Code.

Even so, it works. This is an existing, human-written OS which can now boot and run on a Raspberry Pi 3. The install images are small – only slightly over 100 MB in size – but if you want to give them a try, you should also copy the contents of the additional raspi-aarch64-contrib or raspi-armhf-contrib files, which contain an additional gigabyte of compressed files with apps, demos, accessories, and supplementary tools.

Whether or not it has been made with LLM bot assistance, we think this is an impressive step forwards. AROS has been able to run on Arm CPUs for years, but until this, it ran hosted on top of another Arm OS – usually Linux. Now it can boot and run on bare metal.

We feel this is a good step for several reasons. Although the native platform for AROS was for many years x86-32, on that platform, AROS is a small fish in a big pond: there’s a vast array of off-the-shelf hardware for x86 PCs, and it’s impossible for a tiny experimental OS to support more than a fraction of it. We have tried and failed to get AROS running on bare metal more than once. For many years, the best way to try it was to run it under VMware thanks to a specialized distro called Icaros Desktop.

The Raspberry Pi represents a much narrower platform: there are only a handful of models of Pi, and as a result, a very small number of GPUs and network interfaces that AROS needs to support. That makes it much easier to offer complete coverage. The Pi is also a fairly severely constrained platform: except for the most recent – and most expensive – models, most of the older and cheaper Pi kit only has either 512 MB or 1 GB of RAM. That isn’t enough to do full justice to Linux, Windows, or any BSD with a graphical desktop – but it’s plenty for AROS. This initial build boots to the Workbench desktop in about five seconds.

And, of course, those lower-end Pis are still cheap, which is always welcome. For now, the Pi version of AROS is a prototype: it’s incomplete, may not be very stable, and lots of things don’t work yet. An important missing part is that it doesn’t have any 680×0 emulation yet, so it can’t run any classic Amiga apps. Even so, we suspect that quite a few old Amiga fans might enjoy playing with a brand-new £30 ($40) Amiga.

If you just want to play your old games, there are much easier ways to do that on a PC. Last year, we also looked at Commodore OS 3 – and in there, we gave PiMiga a mention as well. Both products are free Linux distros bundled with emulators and tons of Amiga apps, games, and demos. Easier still, if you’re a Windows user, just buy a copy of Amiga Forever. Either way, knock yourself out.

AROS is re-invigorating other bits of the Amiga world, as well. Later in 2025, we also reported on a new Amiga web browser, which runs on the A600 GS and A1200 NG computers. These are Arm-based machines which run Amiga software via emulation on an OS called AmiBench – which uses parts of AROS.

TheA1200 is now officially an Amiga

Alongside the A600 GS and A1200 NG Arm-based machines, last year we also mentioned THEA1200 from Retro Games Ltd. This is another Arm-based machine, based around a tweaked emulator, like RGL’s existing Sinclair reproduction The Spectrum.

However, THEA1200 just recently moved one step closer to Amiga legitimacy. On its Facebook page, RGL announced that THEA1200 is officially an Amiga product:

“The Amiga name has a new chapter. With the recent announcement from Mike Battilana and the Amiga Corporate [sic], we’re delighted to see the Amiga brand move forward with a clear and unified future. We’re proud to be part of that future with THEA1200, bringing the Amiga experience to a new generation while celebrating everything that made the original so special.”

As we said last year, THEA1200 is an Arm computer running Linux, which runs a bundled emulator derived from Amiberry. The same is true of the AmigaKit machines we mentioned earlier, the A600 GS and A1200 NG: they too run an emulator based on Amiberry on top of Linux, and inside that, they run AmigaKit’s AmiBench OS.

When RGL says it has come to an agreement with Mike Battilana and Amiga Corp, that means Cloanto. Cloanto is the company that sells AmigaForever, and it owns the Amiga trademarks, the Kickstart ROM, and the rights to the original 680×0 AmigaOS. Inside AmigaForever, along with various retro models for games compatibility, there’s even a higher-spec VM running Cloanto’s updated version of classic AmigaOS, which it calls 3.X – it also has a page about the improvements 3.X contains.

A deal with Cloanto means RGL can bundle the genuine original AmigaOS with TheA1200. This could give TheA1200 an edge over the AmigaKit models in terms of its compatibility with older games and original Amiga apps.

(As one sign of the complexity of Amiga ownership, German developer Hyperion also has an AmigaOS license, for the purposes of developing a PowerPC version. The Register covered this back in 2004, and Hyperion used it to develop AmigaOS 4 – used in, among other things, the Amiga X1000 which The Reg covered in 2010. Controversially, Hyperion is using this license to flog updates to classic AmigaOS: in 2022, we reported on AmigaOS 3.2.2 and in 2025 on AmigaOS 3.2.3.)

Christian Simpson – known on YouTube as Peri Fractic – recently revived Commodore International, and following its FPGA-powered Commodore 64 Ultimate computer, the company also launched a Sailfish-powered smart flip-phone, as The Register covered back in June. The Commodore brand is back, and it’s in the news. However, the revived Commodore doesn’t own the Amiga name, or IP, or code.

Feel free to call us excessively cynical, but we suspect that this could be a motivation behind licensing some Amiga rights to another vendor in 2026. This exposure will increase the value of Cloanto’s IP. Hypothetically, if Cloanto were to sell its rights to the revived Commodore, that could mean it could ask for more money. ®

The IEEE–Eta Kappa Nu (IEEE-HKN) honor society is preparing to host the Innovating the Future event on 6 November.

The inaugural one-day, in-person event is designed to provide a forum for IEEE and IEEE-HKN undergraduate and graduate student authors to present their original research papers. A keynote address and thematic presentation sessions are planned as well. Student attendees can network with their peers and gain firsthand experience with the academic publishing process.

To present at the conference, students had to submit an abstract of their research before 1 May. Students whose work was accepted were assigned a volunteer IEEE member to mentor them and guide them through the research writing process, including presenting and publishing their original work.

Those whose paper was accepted by 1 August were invited to present at the conference. The conference proceedings will be submitted for publication in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library.

Upholding research integrity in a changing landscape

IEEE Life Fellow Manuel Castro, the conference’s technical program chair, oversees IEEE-HKN’s Innovating the Future program committee. It manages the review process, organizes logistics, and handles the mentoring component.

“This new conference is important to IEEE, as well as to IEEE-HKN,” Castro says, “because it allows student authors to grow in their skills and competencies, and be supported while turning their technical activities into publications.”

“The conference offers me a chance to learn how to communicate my research to a broader audience, gain feedback from other student researchers beyond my institution, and see how my work can be made more accessible.” —David Kwabi-Addo

IEEE Life Fellow Sorel Reisman, a California State University professor emeritus and an IEEE-HKN governor-at-large, says that because the academic research landscape is rapidly shifting, the conference is timely.

“As AI increasingly threatens the integrity of research papers being published in leading journals and conference proceedings, it is essential that future scholars—many of them current IEEE-HKN students—grasp the established standards of legitimate, peer-reviewed research publishing,” Reisman says.

Perspectives from mentors and students

A cornerstone of the conference is its rigorous mentorship initiative, which pairs each author of an accepted abstract with an experienced IEEE volunteer. The mentors provide personalized guidance on organizing the students’ technical content into the correct format for publishing. They also discuss navigating the peer review process, structuring presentations, and preparing the final manuscript for publication.

The impact of the guided process can be valuable for both the mentors and their mentees. IEEE Member Wafa Elmannai, associate professor and chair of the electrical and computer engineering department at Manhattan University, in Riverdale, N.Y., and faculty advisor to the IEEE-HKN Gamma Alpha chapter, serves as a mentor.

“Research is essential to advancing technology and driving innovation,” Elmannai says.

She volunteered to be a mentor, she says, because she has seen how conducting research can transform a student’s future by building their confidence, curiosity, and critical thinking skills.

“Mentoring encourages students to step outside their comfort zones and develop innovative solutions that contribute to society,” she says.

For the students, the conference can be a critical stepping stone. David Kwabi-Addo, an IEEE graduate student member who is researching computational biology at MIT, is president of the IEEE-HKN Beta Theta chapter. He says he views the program as an opportunity to gain experience in producing academic scholarship.

“I submitted an abstract of my research paper because I see the conference as a chance to produce what could become my first conference publication,” Kwabi-Addo says. “The conference offers me a chance to learn how to communicate my research to a broader audience, gain feedback from other student researchers beyond my institution, and see how my work can be made more accessible.”

He says he hopes his participation will highlight the diverse breadth of research that future conferences can showcase.

Workshops on the publishing process

Conference organizers are holding a series of workshops to guide students through every step of the academic publishing process. The workshops are open to anyone and available on the IEEE-HKN YouTube channel.

Topics previously covered are:

Registration is open to all for this upcoming workshop:

A launchpad for the next generation

The Innovating the Future program is designed not only to improve the quality of submissions but also to foster long-term professional development and research communication skills to develop the next generation of IEEE authors. The conference is more than a venue for presenting research; it is a launchpad for innovators committed to advancing technology for humanity.