Meta is rolling out an update that will disable the camera on its smart glasses if the device detects that someone has tampered with or destroyed the privacy LED. "The update is meant to address modders who have taken actions such as physically drilling into the LED light," reports The Verge.

"Meta has previously tried to discourage tampering with the LED light. For example, starting with its second generation glasses, blocking the light with tape or other objects will trigger a prompt asking users to uncover the recording light. However, many modders have found various workarounds for that particular measure."

Apple says it will spend $30 billion to design US-made Broadcom wireless connectivity chips, part of its broader push to diversify its supply chain and support domestic chip production. CNN reports: The agreement with Broadcom will lead to the production of 15 million chips in United States and allow Broadcom to invest $1.5 billion to expand and modernize its manufacturing facilities in Fort Collins, Colorado. It is part of Apple's commitment in August to invest $600 billion as part of its "American Manufacturing Program" which it said is dedicated to bringing even more of the company's supply chain and advanced manufacturing back to the US.

StatCounter's June 2026 data shows Windows made up 56.55% of global desktop OS usage, dropping Microsoft's share below 60% for the first time in years. Linux, meanwhile, reached 4.39%, "one of its strongest recent showings in the company's desktop OS statistics," reports Linuxiac. From the report: Apple's desktop platforms also remain a major part of the picture. StatCounter lists OS X at 11.89% and macOS at 4.48% for June 2026, meaning Apple's combined desktop presence remains comfortably ahead of Linux in the global chart. Chrome OS follows with 1.21%.

Of course, StatCounter's numbers should be read for what they are: web usage statistics, not a direct count of installed operating systems. The company calculates its Global Stats from page views across websites using its tracking code, analyzing details such as browser, operating system, and screen resolution. In other words, the figures reflect measured web activity rather than the number of machines actually installed worldwide.

alternative_right shares a report from 404 Media: A software developer made a Chrome and Firefox extension called Knockoff that automatically hides, grays out, or filters products from sketchy brands on Amazon, which highlights just how many shady brands are on the platform and how commonly they show up on searches for basic items. In just a few minutes of using the extension, Knockoff dimmed product listings for screwdrivers made by "SUNHZMCKP," spoons made by "SACATR," and a lamp made by "ROTTOGOON."

In a tweet announcing the extension, developer Josh Pigford wrote "Sorry to brands like WNPETHOME, EHEYCIGA, YXYL, LU&MN, JOYIN, TOMY, GODONLIF, YOOJEE, LINGTENG, LANEIGE, VISCOO, BIODANCE, COOFANDY, BALENNZ, TOSY, and LUENX." The extension can also hide all sponsored product listings. The extension quickly went viral as a much-needed filter for people who still use Amazon and, for those who don't use Amazon because of its horrendous labor practices and other concerns, it is evidence of what an incredible wasteland the platform has become.

Europe's General Court dismissed Apple's challenge to the EU's designation of its App Stores and iOS as "gatekeepers" under the Digital Markets Act. The ruling means Apple remains subject to DMA obligations requiring it to allow alternative app stores, support interoperability with rival services, and avoid favoring its own services over competitors. MacRumors reports: Apple took its case to Luxembourg's General Court in 2024 after the European Commission designated its five App Stores -- on the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, and Apple Watch -- as a single core platform service under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a label that brings with it a set of strict obligations. Designated "gatekeepers" are prohibited from favoring their own services over those of rivals, and are prevented from combining personal data across different services. They also have to give users the option to use alternative app stores.

Apple also challenged the EU's designation of iOS as a gateway platform, a status that requires the operating system allows rival services to interoperate with it. The company also disputed the classification of iMessage as a number-independent interpersonal communications service, or NIICS, which would subject the app to EU telecoms rules. But the General Court said Apple's actions regarding the iMessage service are inadmissible.

BrianFagioli writes: Valve has released Proton 11.0-1, a major update to its Windows compatibility layer for Linux that makes more games playable while fixing a long list of bugs affecting existing titles. The release restores compatibility for many EA games after a recent EA App update, moves classics like Resident Evil (1996), Resident Evil 2 (1998), Dino Crisis, and SHOGUN: Total War from Proton Experimental into the stable release, and adds support for games including Gothic 1 Classic, X-Plane 12, Breath of Fire IV, and Deadly Premonition. Valve also fixed crashes in HELLDIVERS 2, restored No Man's Sky VR support, improved Steam Overlay compatibility with EA games, addressed KDE and GNOME desktop issues, and rebased Proton on Wine 11.0 with updated graphics components. The full list of changes can be found here.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: An Australian beach community was confused -- and later delighted -- by the discovery of six metallic-looking spheres that washed ashore last week. The mystery, and the ensuing attention, prompted a bunch of alien jokes from local residents and businesses. But Australia's space agency put the speculation to rest on Monday, saying that the spheres appeared to be rocket debris that had recently re-entered the atmosphere from orbit.

The objects were found on Forrest Beach in the northeastern state of Queensland over the weekend, the state's fire department said. Residents described them as being about twice the size of a basketball. "The recovered objects appear to be pressure vessels from a space launch vehicle," the Australian Space Agency said in a statement, adding that they were "consistent with debris from a foreign rocket body." The agency said that it had identified the likely source of the objects, without providing further details, and was working with international authorities to confirm the vehicle from which the debris originated.

New Zealand startup Zenno Astronautics has completed the first orbital test of its "Supertorquer," a shoebox-sized superconducting magnet system that uses solar power and Earth's magnetic field to help control a satellite without fuel. The company says the technology could eventually support fuel-free satellite maneuvers, docking, deep-space trajectory changes, and even magnetic radiation shielding for astronauts. Space Magazine reports: The tests began shortly after Mira's launch in November last year aboard the SpaceX Transporter 12 mission and saw the shoebox-size device perform with flying colors, Zenno Astronautics CEO and founder Max Arshavsky, told Space.com. "It's a technology that allows a spacecraft to not tumble violently in space and point in the right direction," Arshavsky said. "The unit has multiple super-conducting magnets that are positioned in different axes. When we power up the magnets, they generate a magnetic field, which interacts with Earth's magnetic field, and because we can control the magnetic field on the satellite, we can control the way in which it turns with respect to Earth."

Superconducting magnets are made of coils of superconducting wire that have zero electrical resistance and can therefore conduct much larger currents than normal wires. That larger current translates into a greater magnetic force. There is, however, a catch: Superconducting materials need to be cooled to extremely low temperatures to gain their wonder properties. [...] The unit housing the superconducting magnets is wrapped in layers of insulation and fitted with a heat pump that removes all the excess heat from the system. Every time the satellite needs a push, the superconducting coils power up, drawing energy from a battery charged by the satellite's solar panels.

"It's converting solar energy straight into useful work," Arshavsky said. "Energy is the one thing that is abundant in space, and you can use it to energize the magnet to create a magnetic acceleration device. It gives you acceleration without fuel." In the future, Zenno Astronautics plans to launch larger systems that could enable spacecraft to dock in space or conduct close proximity operations using just the power of their solar-powered superconducting magnets. Arshavsky envisions powerful magnets that could, in the future, propel spacecraft on missions to the moon and Mars using only solar power.

Japan's Hayabusa2 probe captured rare close-up images of near-Earth asteroid Torifune, revealing a snowman-like shape made of two joined lobes. Phys.org reports: The fridge-sized Hayabusa2 skimmed asteroid Torifune on Sunday in a mission that demonstrated the ability to deflect a potentially dangerous space rock away from Earth. A new image released by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) on Monday could aid such efforts, as researchers say near-Earth asteroids vary in their size, shape and surface characteristics.

"The moment I actually saw this image and the scientific data -- it really gave me goosebumps," JAXA scientist Yuya Mimasu told reporters, adding the asteroid "personally looked like a snowman." The black-and-white image, captured by a telescopic camera, showed what appeared to be two round objects joined together. "You can actually see the rocks... I really hadn't expected to be able to take a photo like this, so I'm absolutely over the moon," he said.

[...] Moving at a speed of more than 18,000 kilometers (11,185 miles) per hour, the probe was due to fly within 800 meters (2,625 feet) of the asteroid, but JAXA said it would analyze the distance later. If confirmed, the mission would be one of the closest flybys of a near-Earth asteroid ever. JAXA also said Monday it succeeded in acquiring data from three other devices that can measure the distance from the asteroid and examine the existence of water.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Meta launched its inaugural AI image model from the Meta Superintelligence Labs on Tuesday, its effort to compete with the likes of OpenAI's GPT Images 2.0 and Google's Nano Banana 2 in the AI image generation race. The new model, called Muse Image, rolled out with deep integrations woven into the Instagram app. As part of this update, public Instagram profiles are now automatically opted into being fodder for generative AI remixes. All someone has to do is tag your account's profile in a prompt -- if it's public -- and they can use Meta AI to generate an image using your likeness.

Meta positions this feature as a cheeky way to personalize generations with images of real people. "Whether you want to design a custom event invitation, mock up a collaborative creative concept, or generate a personalized graphic, tagging a username lets Meta AI use public photos to build a visual that's ready to post," reads one of Meta's announcement blogs about the new AI tool. [...] Instagram's help center site includes more details about how this feature will impact users, saying that "people may be able to create content with your Instagram content using AI features at Meta" if you leave your account public and on the default settings. (A previously archived version of this page from 2025 does not include similar, AI-focused language.) Instagram users who want to stop others from using their public posts for AI images (without switching your account to private) must manually disable the options under the app's "Sharing and reuse" settings. However, turning off the setting only blocks future AI generations; any AI images already created from their content will remain.

Meta also says users will not be notified when others create AI-generated content using their posts.

Doom developer id Software is reportedly laying off about half its staff as part of Microsoft's broader Xbox cuts. The reported layoffs potentially affects around 90 employees. Engadget reports: While neither Microsoft nor id Software have formally acknowledged the layoffs, one former member of the studio's staff, Michael Maynard, has echoed the 50 percent figure on LinkedIn. According to at least one of Game Developer's sources, that could translate to around 90 job cuts, though it's so far unclear what departments at id Software have been hit hardest.

[...] Bloomberg reported yesterday that as part of the "reset" at Xbox, ZeniMax Media, the parent company of id Software, will be focusing on its biggest franchises -- like The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Wolfenstein and Doom -- going forward. It's possible that motivated the cuts to id Software, but the developer at least outwardly appears to be already heavily focused on Doom. The studio launched Doom: The Dark Ages in 2025 and an expansion to the game on July 7, 2026. Whatever the reason, the cuts at Xbox aren't over: While Microsoft eliminated 1,600 roles alongside the announcement that Xbox is restructuring, it still plans to lay off another 1,600 employees over the coming months.

Microsoft will turn on Windows settings backup and restore by default for eligible Windows 11 business devices outside the EU, starting with Windows 11 26H2. The Register reports: Now dubbed "Windows settings backup and restore," the service backs up a device's settings and a list of installed Microsoft Store apps, which can then be restored to a new device. Microsoft gave a use case for the technology: "Imagine a lost laptop, a hardware refresh, or an unexpected reset. These are some of the moments when your users need backup most. And that's rarely when anyone wants to discover that backup was never turned on."

However, some organizations might not want it on. Perhaps those with strict privacy or data sovereignty requirements, or those regulated by the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA), for whom the default-on behavior won't apply. Windows 11 25H2 and earlier are also excluded, as is any device with a backup policy that explicitly disables the setting. Everything else running Windows 11 26H1 will get switched on after a feature update, and the same applies to 26H2, currently with Windows Insiders in the Experimental channel.

Administrators might reasonably be wary of this being opt-out rather than opt-in. Backups are useful, but Microsoft is clear that this is not a comprehensive backup solution, calling it only "one step in a broader Windows resiliency effort." The implications still need consideration. An opt-out setting that quietly ships settings data off-device is exactly the sort of thing that adds to administrators' workloads rather than lightening them.

Samsung's chip division is projected to earn more in 2026 than it made across its previous 40 years in semiconductors, driven by soaring AI-fueled demand for memory and storage. The company's latest quarterly operating profit reportedly topped Nvidia's, making Samsung the world's most profitable tech company for the period. Tom's Hardware reports: Brokerage consensus puts Samsung's full-year 2026 operating profit near 300 trillion won ($196 billion), and its second-quarter figure at about 84.6 trillion won ($55.1 billion). Samsung easily beat the consensus with $58.5 billion when it posted preliminary results on July 7, overtaking Nvidia's most recent quarterly operating profit of $53.54 billion and becoming the most profitable technology company in the world for the period, on the back of AI-driven memory demand.

Samsung's DS division booked 53.7 trillion won ($35.1 billion) of the company's 57.2 trillion won in total operating profit during the first quarter of 2026, roughly 94% of the total, which is why the division's projection sits so close to Samsung's full-year consensus. "This year's profit will exceed the cumulative profit generated over the past 40 years since we entered the semiconductor business," Kim Yong-Kwan told staff, scoping the claim to the chip business rather than the wider conglomerate. Further reading: Samsung Chip Workers To Get $340,000 Average Bonus In AI Boom

The FCC plans to roll back broadband label rules that require ISPs to itemize all passthrough fees. Under the proposal, providers could instead list a single "up to" amount for location-based charges. It would also allow ISPs to link to pricing labels rather than display them prominently, while eliminating machine-readable pricing files. Ars Technica reports: ISPs routinely advertise prices much lower than those actually charged to consumers on their monthly bills. One method of raising monthly bill prices above advertised rates is to tack on fees that, ISPs claim, are used to offset charges imposed by local governments. ISPs would be well within their rights to advertise accurate monthly prices and charge those exact prices on monthly bills. But because ISPs rarely do that, the FCC has required them to make specific price disclosures to consumers for the past decade. The Biden-era FCC updated the broadband-label rules to require that ISPs "itemize on the label (PDF) all discretionary monthly fees that the provider passes through to the consumer." The change drew protest from Comcast and other ISPs that complained bitterly about the complexity of listing all the hidden fees they had chosen to charge.

Under Chairman Brendan Carr, the Trump FCC has steadily whittled away at requirements imposed under Democrats. An order (PDF) released in draft form last week would eliminate the requirement to itemize passthrough fees and let ISPs list them in a single "up to" amount. The "up to" amount can include both government fees and fees charged by non-government entities such as owners of utility poles. "Rather than continuing to require providers to itemize 'passthrough fees' that can vary by location, we allow providers to display such fees in the aggregate, either as a maximum or 'up to' amount for the total fees applicable in any location where the service plan is offered, or as the exact total of such fees assessed in a particular location," the FCC draft order said.

The order to be voted on later this month includes a few other changes that will please ISPs and their lobby groups. ISPs will be allowed to provide links to price labels instead of displaying the full labels prominently on ordering pages and account portals, and will be allowed to stop making the price-label information available in machine-readable spreadsheets. The FCC is also relaxing the requirement that price information be available over the phone. The FCC said the change will "allow phone sales representatives to present label information conversationally, as a summary of key label fields, rather than require verbatim recitation."

The changes have been in the works since October 2025, when the FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to let the public submit comments on the proposals. The outcome of that process is the draft order, which will be voted on at the FCC's July 22 meeting and take effect 30 days after it is published in the Federal Register. There are many types of passthrough fees that ISPs will be able to stop listing individually and roll into the "up to" amount. The FCC defined the fees as follows, saying they include just about anything that isn't a tax [...]. Another planned change will eliminate a requirement that providers archive all labels for at least two years after a service plan is no longer available. The Utility Reform Network, an advocacy group, told the FCC that the archived labels provide crucial data about how prices and services change over time, and that machine-readable labels are important for affordability research and information accessibility.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Chinese startup DeepSeek is developing its own AI chip, according to three people familiar with the matter, a push that could reduce its reliance on Nvidia and Huawei chips, which it has depended on to train and run its globally popular models. The chip is designed for inference -- the stage of AI computing in which a trained model generates responses for users -- rather than for training new models, the sources said. If successful, DeepSeek's expansion into semiconductor development would mark a major strategic shift for a company widely hailed in China as the country's AI champion, potentially adding to challenges faced by Chinese tech giant Huawei.