7 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Tech Archive

Archives for August 2026

The second-generation Bose QuietComfort Headphones are good, but don’t stand out

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Verge Score

There’s nothing really wrong with the QuietComfort Headphones 2nd Gen, but there’s nothing exciting about them, either.

John Higgins
Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
Samsung launches speedy P9 portable SSD.

It uses a USB4 interface to reach speeds up to 4,000MB/s. Hitting those peak speeds requires a native USB4 or Thunderbolt 4/5 port, and dedicated Thunderbolt 5 SSDs can hit an even faster 6,000MB/s if you’re willing to pay. The P9 starts at $339.99 for 1TB, or $2,699.99 for a whopping 8TB. Sales start August 31st.

Samsung’s Portable P9-Series come in 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB capacities.
Samsung’s Portable P9-Series come in 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB capacities.
Image: Samsung
Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
The most powerful Arduino yet is a $299 board for autonomous robots.

Arduino and Qualcomm have opened preorders for the Ventuno Q, an edge AI board designed to run agentic AI locally. Powered by a Qualcomm Dragonwing IQ8 processor offering up to 40 TOPS alongside a dedicated real-time microcontroller, it allows smart devices and robots to process vision, speech, and sensor data completely offline.

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Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
Fitbit founders launch $250 wearable that looks like a pair of AAA batteries.

Available now for preorder and shipping in “early 2027,” Luffu Link is a screenless, LTE-connected health and safety band for families. Featuring built-in GPS, continuous biometric tracking, and AI-powered voice logging, it lets wearers send their location and emergency alerts to contacts without a phone, and lasts for up to five days before needing a charge.

Meant to be worn by families, with a design only a robot could love.
Meant to be worn by families, with a design only a robot could love.
Image: Luffu
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Meet the new RoboCop: Dan Stevens.

A new RoboCop show was recently greenlit for Amazon’s Prime Video, and Deadline reports that Stevens will play the lead role. A release date hasn’t been announced, but it’s apparently set to be an eight-episode series.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Nitter, which let you read X posts without using X, is offline.

The GitHub page for the open source project says that, on Monday, “cease and desist letters were sent by X Corp. demanding a permanent takedown of Nitter instances and the project’s repository.” X claims Nitter unlawfully used X’s API, TechCrunch reports.

Nitter was used by the service XCancel, which has also posted a message about receiving a cease and desist letter from X.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Bluesky now supports videos that are up to 10 minutes long.

In contrast to Threads, Bluesky’s active user growth has trailed off lately, and as it looks to expand its big tent, it’s making one part of the experience better: video.

The maximum length of videos has gone from two minutes to 10 minutes, uploads should be 2-3x faster, and file sizes can be up to 300MB. To kick things off, the official account is featuring a few longer videos like this one.

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Google’s adding controls for its AI meeting notes on Google Meet hardware.

Starting on August 31st, you’ll be able to start, stop, and pause Gemini’s “take notes for me” feature directly from Google’s meeting room touch controllers. Currently, you have to join the Google Meet from another device in Companion Mode to control the AI notetaking feature.

A screenshot of a Google Meet hardware device showing Gemini meeting notes options
Image: Google
Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Nokia’s new dumbphone doubles as a smartphone charger.

As spotted earlier by GSMArena, the Nokia 300 Charge offers up to 40 days of standby power but can also serve as a power bank for your smartphone or other devices. There’s a built-in flashlight on the top of the phone, too.

1/3Image: Nokia