Tech Briefs
There is always lots of tech news breaking every day. I grabbed some stories that I thought were interesting and added my thoughts.
Bose launched the second-generation QuietComfort Headphones this week, bringing several features previously exclusive to the pricier QuietComfort Ultra to a more accessible price point. At $359, the 2nd Gen is $90 cheaper than the Ultra. Key upgrades include improved active noise cancellation, lossless wired audio support up to 24-bit/48kHz, and a foldable design built for all-day wear.
Read moreOpenAI announced that it is removing the text message limit for free ChatGPT accounts, and the rollout is underway this week. The old 10-messages-per-5-hours cap is gone, replaced with unlimited text conversations. Free and Go-tier users now get GPT-5.6 Luna as the default model, with a new “Think” button for higher reasoning on complex questions. Limits on file uploads, image generation via DALL-E 3, and voice remain in place. ChatGPT now has 1 billion weekly users.
Read moreGoogle has expanded its Ask Maps feature inside Google Maps with a set of agentic capabilities that go well beyond navigation. Users can now ask Maps to find nearby restaurants matching specific criteria, then place a food order directly through the app via Square, Toast, or Uber Eats. Ask Maps can also search hotels by price, location, and amenities, check availability, and surface booking options. Event tickets for concerts and shows are also now accessible through the same conversational interface. On top of that, Google is rolling out Personal Intelligence, an opt-in feature that lets Ask Maps pull in context from a user’s Gmail and Google Calendar to personalize recommendations around upcoming trips, reservations, and schedules.
Read moreA comprehensive leak of the Google Pixel Watch 5 has landed ahead of the Made by Google event on August 12. The 41mm version carries a 332 mAh battery rated for 30 hours of use, while the 45mm pushes to a 465 mAh cell good for 40 hours. Storage doubles to 64GB on both sizes compared to the Pixel Watch 4. Google is using a new in-house “Accelerated” chip, and both sizes ship with Wear OS 7. The round design and rotating crown from the Pixel Watch 4 carry over largely unchanged. Full pricing and availability are expected at Tuesday’s event, which streams live at 6 pm ET.
Read moreOpenAI’s first consumer hardware product will be a screenless, battery-powered AI speaker designed in collaboration with Jony Ive’s studio LoveFrom. Reports from Bloomberg and TechCrunch describe it as donut-shaped and roughly hockey-puck-sized, with built-in microphones, a camera system, and moving parts that signal when the device is listening or responding. The product is expected to launch in 2027, priced between $300 and $400. OpenAI’s stated goal is a device that feels more alive than today’s stationary smart speakers, functioning as a personal AI computer that learns and adapts over time.
Read moreCiting Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, MacRumors reports Apple is planning to launch three products carrying the “Ultra” name between this fall and early 2027. The iPhone Ultra is the long-rumored foldable, expected this September alongside the iPhone 18 Pro lineup, featuring a 7.7-inch inner display, 5.3-inch outer display, and Touch ID in place of Face ID. Pricing is estimated at $1,999 to $2,499. AirPods Ultra, likely also announced in September, will reportedly include infrared cameras to support Siri’s Visual Intelligence feature. The MacBook Ultra is slated for early 2027 with an OLED touchscreen, Dynamic Island, M5-series chips, and possibly built-in 5G, and is positioned above the MacBook Pro in Apple’s lineup at a significantly higher price.
Read moreGoogle confirmed on August 6 that comedian Trevor Noah will host the Made by Google 2026 event on August 12 in New York City, with a live stream on YouTube at 6:00 PM ET. Stephen Curry, podcaster Alex Cooper, and a roster of international guests round out the lineup. Google is widely expected to unveil the Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, Pixel 11 Pro XL, Pixel Watch 5, and the Pixel Tag, a new Bluetooth tracker. Leaked pricing puts the Pixel Tag at around $29 in the US, undercutting the Apple AirTag and positioning it directly against Samsung’s SmartTag.
Read moreApple updated its trade-in value estimates on August 6, boosting offers across most iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch models, with some devices jumping nearly 30% since the last update in May. The iPhone 16 Pro Max now tops the list at up to $720, up from $695. Apple also added the Google Pixel 9 series, Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, and OnePlus 13 and 13R to the trade-in program for the first time. All estimates are maximums subject to device inspection and condition.
Read moreGoogle’s two most prominent AI leaders departed simultaneously. Demis Hassabis stepped back from the DeepMind CEO role to become chairman of Google DeepMind and chief scientist of Alphabet, with day-to-day operations passing to Koray Kavukcuoglu, the unit’s current CTO, reporting to Sundar Pichai. Jeff Dean, a 27-year Google veteran who co-developed TensorFlow and helped define the modern AI era, left entirely to co-found Discovery Loop, an independent AI research company. Joining him: Sanjay Ghemawat, DeepMind VP Oriol Vinyals, and Google Brain co-founder Quoc Le. Google will invest in Discovery Loop and serve as its cloud provider. Alphabet shares fell roughly 4%.
Read moreA security researcher publicly disclosed a pre-authentication vulnerability in macOS Screen Sharing this week that allows an attacker on the same network to gain complete root access to a Mac without a password and with no user interaction required. The flaw sits in the screensharingd background daemon, which mishandles oversized data frames by returning a stale success code instead of an error. Apple fixed the vulnerability in macOS 26.6, which was released on July 27. Any Mac running macOS 26.5 or earlier with Screen Sharing enabled is exposed.
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