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Richard Lawler

Richard Lawler

Senior News Editor

Senior News Editor

    More From Richard Lawler

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    DOJ prepares a plea deal for Boeing.

    Days before Boeing’s deferred prosecution agreement over 737 Max crashes would’ve expired, a door plug blew out during an Alaska Airlines flight, and the case was reopened. Now, attorneys for family members of the crash victims have been told federal prosecutors will seek a guilty plea from Boeing to resolve a criminal fraud charge, which one lawyer called “another sweetheart deal.”

    The plea deal would include a $244 million fine, a three-year probation and an independent monitor appointed to oversee the company’s progress on safety and quality improvements.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Android tablets and foldables get a new Google Keep trick.

    Google Keep is one of a long list of note-taking apps we like, and if you’re using it on a “large screen Android device,” it has a new feature for you.

    Expanding on the ability to open two instances of the app at once, now the platform will let you sign into separate accounts at the same time — no hacks required.

    Animated image showing two Google Keep windows being used on a single Android device.
    Image: Google
    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Apple Silicon exec joins Rain AI to develop new hardware.

    Bloomberg reports that Rain AI, which has OpenAI CEO Sam Altman as one of its backers, has hired Apple chip exec Jean-Didier Allegrucci to oversee the development of new AI processors that are supposed to reduce power consumption with “in-memory compute.”

    [Allegrucci] has worked and led silicon teams across a broad range of applications, including CPUs, GPUs, NPUs, ISPs, SoCs, and many others....At Apple, he oversaw the development of more than 30 SoCs used for flagship products, including iPhones, Macs, iPads, Apple Watch, and many more.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Apple might try “electrically induced adhesive debonding” on iPhone batteries.

    The Information reports the reversible adhesive could be tried on one iPhone 16 and potentially every iPhone 17, replacing the stretchy pull tabs seen in every teardown.

    iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens called it a “cool idea,” even if we’ll need to see how it works in practice. Here’s a demo from adhesives giant Tesa, which is also developing approaches using lasers, heat, solvents, and magnets.

    Tesa demo of electical “debonding on demand” adhesive that unsticks with no residue after an electrical charge is applied for 60 seconds.
    “Debonding on Demand”
    Image: tesa
    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Julian Assange’s ‘criminal matter’ concludes.

    The Department of Justice announced that, as expected, the WikiLeaks founder entered a guilty plea today in the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.

    At today’s proceeding, Assange admitted to his role in the conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act and received a court-imposed 62-month time-served sentence, reflecting the time he served in U.K. prison as a result of the U.S. charges. Following the imposition of sentence, he will depart the United States for his native Australia. Pursuant to the plea agreement, Assange is prohibited from returning to the United States without permission.

    US-COURT-ASSANGE
    Photo by YUICHI YAMAZAKI/AFP via Getty Images
    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    The launch window for NASA’s GOES-U weather spacecraft opens at 5:16PM ET.

    Closing a loop that began with this 2016 launch, NASA is about to send the fourth and final satellite in the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) – R Series into space as part of a system for much better real-time weather forecasting.