Tech

Ploopy just announced the A Plus trackball, the successor to the open-source, 3D-printed Adept. It has six buttons, two dials, a wrist rest, and RGB LEDs. It goes on sale on August 19th starting at $99 CAD (about $71 USD). Ploopy.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has approved the $34.5 billion deal with some conditions, as reported by Fierce Network. However, the approval comes with some conditions, including that the combined company must have affordable broadband offerings “for low-income Californians” for five years and invest “at least $275 million to upgrade the company’s California network.”

People have opinions about the new Instagram logo. Zion Wuxinyi posted a simple fix on Threads which is the best I’ve seen so far. There’s no question in this edit that the “r” is real and not a sneaky “z”. If Instagram is reading this, please take notes.

Snoo is putting on adult pants. The change is set to kick in on Tuesday.

Verge staff in the UK received the alerts warning of a “high risk of wildfires” nationally — the first actual mass notice aside from tests. PM Andy Burnham confirmed the alert, advising people to “take extra care” and not to light fires in open spaces. My friend, who is currently on a train from Amsterdam to England, notes that the train has been lit up with the alerts as they roll in for people separately.

The newly-announced Gemini 3.7 Flash is rolling out today as an option for AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers. The updated model is better at following instructions and “understanding your intent, so you get even more helpful responses,” says Search VP of product Robby Stein.

Now you can upload attachments up to 20MB, twice the previous 10MB cap. But Discord also says its mobile apps will now check file sizes before compressing attachments, just like the desktop app already does.

You can already get multi-port desktop USB-C chargers with a status screen from companies like Satechi, Baseus, and Anker. What sets Ugreen’s new $199.99 Nexode Pro 300W apart is that in addition to six USB-C charging ports and a USB-A port, it includes a barrel-style port that can deliver 240W to a beefy laptop.

A new “take notes” button is rolling out now for paid Workspace accounts that records audio from your mic so Gemini can generate notes for in-person meetings. Just like the virtual version of the feature, it also generates a transcript and “action items” and saves them to a Google Doc in your Drive account.

A staff member in the official Epic Games Store community Discord confirmed a Linux app is in the works, but won’t be in the next preview release, VideoCardz reports. Linux users currently have to use third-party tools like the Heroic Games Launcher to run games from the Epic Games Store.

Qualcomm has now shared that its Snapdragon C laptop platform is built on a 6nm process, with an 8-core CPU and support for up to 16GB of LPDDR5X memory. The budget laptops are obviously not powerhouses, especially with Qualcomm positioning them against Intel N250 devices instead of Intel’s Core lineup or the MacBook Neo’s A18 Pro chip.

You’re not alone — Apple told TechCrunch that it sent the notifications on Thursday to users in 110 countries who it suspects have been targeted by mercenary spyware. Apple has a new support page with guidance on how targets can best protect their devices against such attacks, which have “historically been associated with state actors.”

A preliminary injunction issued Wednesday finds the prediction market has likely broken state laws against running an illegal gambling operation.

While recent stats from Similarweb showed a decline in Bluesky’s active users, the app is continuing to build that big tent Toni Schneider talked about and is now testing support for videos that are up to 10 minutes long. It’s also announced Bluesky Protocol Services, which is supposed to make it easier to build apps that connect to its AT Protocol infrastructure.

Is it time to fire the neighbor kid and hire a robot lawnmower instead? Last year I wrote that “in all but a few scenarios, robot lawnmowers still aren’t worth your money,” but there’s a new class of Roombas with razor blades ready to tackle bumpy terrain and dodge crazy chickens. Realtor and smart home reviewer Brandon Doyle joins me to talk about our reviews of the newest robotic mowers and to let you know if they’re finally worth all that money. Read my review for more and check out Brandon’s video review.

There were so many other options.

The new Gemini 3.7 Flash makes the Spark AI agent “more efficient for knowledge work with improved tool use for Google Workspace apps, delivering improved accuracy and output quality for complex, multi-skill workflows,” Google says. The AI model itself also offers “substantial” improvements in software engineering and web development workflows, according to the company.

From a new “Under the Hood” page in settings that X is piloting, you will be able to download aggregate stats for the past month on “labels that can affect post visibility in the X algorithm” that are applied to your posts and account, according to a screenshot published by TechCrunch.

The end of USAID, which Elon Musk fed “into the wood chipper”, will cause an extra 14 million deaths through 2030, including 4.5 million in children under the age of 5. SpaceX shares are $141.10 as of this writing, above their IPO price of $135.