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iOS code could reportedly let Apple cut off apps when users miss iPhone payments

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Code found in an iOS 27 beta would allow Apple to put a financed iPhone in "Restricted Mode" if it detects any missed payments, 9to5Mac reports . The finding follows a story from Bloomberg earlier this week claiming Apple is preparing to launch a new "Apple Upgrade" financing program for leasing new devices. iPhones in "Restricted Mode" would reportedly lose access to nearly all apps, except for basics like the Phone app, Settings, and the App Store. It uses a new "App Managed Features" system that allows financing or partner apps to continually check if a financed device is in good standing. According to 9to5Mac , the code also includes a … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/RGoZqWg

Samsung Galaxy Unpacked July 2026: How to watch

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Samsung's next Galaxy Unpacked event is just around the corner, and the company is expected to take the wraps off a bunch of new devices. Based on the rumors and leaks we've seen so far, Samsung's next generation of foldables will likely be the stars of the show. Samsung is expected to show off a big redesign for the Galaxy Z Fold 8, though we can't rule out a few other surprises. Here's what you need to know about watching Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked and what to expect. When is Samsung Galaxy Unpacked? This year's Galaxy Unpacked takes place on July 22nd at 9AM ET / 6AM PT. Samsung is holding the event in London on an invite-only basis. W … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/txvMeua

Neill Blomkamp’s new zombie AI ‘film’ is just slop warmed over

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On Monday, District 9 and Gran Turismo director Neill Blomkamp unveiled his latest project: a 13-minute sci-fi short titled Nightborne that's loosely based on Peter Watts' 2014 novel Echopraxia . The short comes from Blomkamp's new AI startup / production company, Barley Studios, and features characters whose voices and faces are modeled after human actors. But every single one of Nightborne 's shots was made with ByteDance's Seedance 2.0 text-to-video generator . In an X post about the short , Blomkamp described it as a "test start" meant to demonstrate what generative AI is capable of, and he said that he wants "to tackle a full feature in th … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/acIHKCb

OpenAI says it accidentally hacked Hugging Face with a new AI system

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. | Bloomberg via Getty Images OpenAI says its AI models mistakenly breached open-source AI platform Hugging Face during internal testing. In a blog post on Tuesday , OpenAI writes that GPT-5.6 Sol and "an even more capable pre-release model" discovered vulnerabilities within their sandboxed testing environment, allowing them to gain access to the internet and target Hugging Face. On July 16th, Hugging Face disclosed a security incident that it says was driven by "an autonomous AI agent system." Hugging Face's AI agents detected and stopped the breach, which OpenAI has now admitted occurred during an evaluation of its models' cybersecurity capabilities. OpenAI says "all e … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/fjw4XcV

Substack adds an AI detector to help spot blogs written by no one

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Substack will now help users determine whether what they're reading may have been written by AI. A new tool coming to the platform can scan posts, notes, replies, and comments to provide an estimate of how much text could be AI-generated or written with AI assistance, according to a blog post published on Tuesday . The tool is powered by an AI detection company called Pangram and is rolling out across the web and the iOS app, with an Android launch coming "soon." Readers can analyze content longer than 100 words by choosing the "Scan for AI text" option from the three-dot menu in the top-right corner of a post. Substack co-founder and CEO C … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/AhyaFNi

SpaceX in your index fund, explained

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AUUUUUGH | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images Index funds are touted as one of the safest ways to invest. Rather than picking and choosing individual stocks, index funds let you bet on the market as a whole. So what happens when a company like SpaceX - a giant gamble , and, in my opinion, terribly overpriced - is fast-tracked into the Nasdaq-100? Does it suddenly threaten the stability of index funds based on the Nasdaq-100? Can a $1.77 trillion IPO crater the retirement funds of regular people who would ordinarily have no interest in investing in Elon Musk's meme stock? The answer has less to do with SpaceX and more to do with index funds - how they work, their history, and why they've … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/pUePqOW

Ford’s $30,000 electric truck: all the news about the company’s big EV re-do

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The end of the Ford F-150 Lightning was also the start of a new era for the automaker. After failing to capture the market with the electric version of its popular F-Series truck, Ford is going back to the drawing board with its Universal Electric Vehicle Platform. The first offering will be a $30,000 electric truck, engineered for efficiency and also — perhaps most importantly — profitability. The truck will be revealed in 2027, but Ford plans on building a whole family of low-cost electric vehicles at its Kentucky assembly plant. The heavily camouflaged truck has already been spotted out in the wild, with observers noting that it seems even smaller than the Maverick. Success isn’t guaranteed. Ford has struggled to make profitable EVs, forcing the company to take  a staggering $19.5 billion hit on its EV investments  in 2025. But Ford still sees EVs as the future — just not oversize ones with “no path to profitability,” as executives say. ...