Samsung’s Good Lock brings further functionality to Galaxy devices through optional UI functions. The Good Lock app itself is getting an update, and so are the modules within.
more…Following last week’s homescreen redesign, the Google Gemini app on iPhone has been updated with lockscreen widgets and direct access in Control Center.
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Today’s best Apple gear deals are now ready to go, headlined by some of the latest-gen miniatures – a new all-time low on the M4 Mac mini with 24GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD at $100 off and just about every iPad mini 7 configuration at $100 off to match the best prices we have tracked to date. We are also seeing the most affordable 5K Apple Studio Display at $300 off the going rate joined by some notable deals official Apple Watch bands that likely won’t last for long – the black titanium finish Milanese Loop and a new all-time low on the Apple Ocean Band in Ice Blue. All of that and more awaits down below in today’s 9to5Toys Lunch Break.
more…Following last week’s homescreen redesign, the Google Gemini app on iPhone has been updated with lockscreen widgets and direct access in Control Center.
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It may be a few years old at this point, but the Google Pixel 7 Pro is still a good investment given it currently costs less than some of the best budget phones on the market. Right now, you can pick up an unlocked 7 Pro for $199.99 with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage at Best Buy. That’s the lowest price we’ve seen on the last-gen smartphone, which initially launched at $999.
The Pixel 9 Pro is a better phone, but Best Buy’s latest Google promo is still an excellent deal on a smartphone with flagship specs that typically costs considerably more. For just $200, you get a 6.7-inch screen with a speedy 120Hz refresh rate and an impressive triple camera array, one that includes a 48-megapixel telephoto lens. The last-gen smartphone also offers all-day battery life and a robust IP68 rating for water and dust resistance, along with a handful of Pixel-exclusive features, including spam call blocking and the transcribing Recorder app.
There are some caveats to bear in mind, though. The Pixel 7 Pro doesn’t offer some of the AI camera tricks found on Google’s newer phones, and it runs on Google’s slower (yet still snappy enough) Tensor G2 chipset. The Pixel 7 Pro isn’t guaranteed to receive OS and security updates after October 2027, either, whereas buying a newer phone will get you a few years more. If extended peace of mind isn’t all that important to you, though, you’ll likely be happy with the Pixel 7 Pro at this price.
EV maker BYD unveiled “Lingyuan,” a vehicle-mounted drone launching system developed in collaboration with DJI that is available for all of the company’s vehicles, reports Chinese state media outlet Xinhua. The system is only available in China, like BYD’s vehicles, and costs 16,000 yuan (or about $2,197).
BYD’s video below, reposted by YouTube channel ShanghaiEye, has some real science fiction vibes: the driver taps a button on their vehicle’s touch screen, and doors slide open on the top of the car, revealing a rising landing platform with a drone on it. The drone is shown lifting off while the EV is in motion in some shots, then following the car down the road.
A CnEVPost story says the drones can take off and land “at speeds up to 25 km/h” and that they can return automatically as long as they’re within two kilometers of the vehicle. The story also says the drone can follow at up to 54 kilometers per hour. The hangar charges the drone when it’s docked.
The Lingyuan purchase price includes a DJI drone — reports don’t seem to say which, but the video shows a DJI Air 3S — as well as the roof-mounted drone hangar, and apps that work with the system, according to South China Morning Post. The apps include one for video editing (possibly one of DJI’s existing apps) as well as one for “AI recognition,” whose function isn’t specified by SCMP. Google-translated text from BYD’s demo video revealing the system mentions “AI Posture recognition, Lingyuan takes photos around the car.” It’s not clear whether BYD owners can install the system on a vehicle themselves.
BYD and DJI collaborated in “developing a fully integrated system from the ground up,” BYD chairman Wang Chuanfu said at a launch event in Chinese tech hub Shenzhen on Sunday, writes SCMP. The automaker also reportedly introduced a version of its Bao 8 SUV that comes “pre-equipped with the Lingyuan system.”
It’s not BYD’s first venture into drone launchers. Its luxury brand, Yangwang, launched an off-road variant of its U8 SUV with one attached to its roof rails, but that looks much larger than the Lingyuan featured in BYD’s video.
Lingyuan sounds a lot like DJI’s Dock 3 drone-in-a-box solution meant for use in tasks like power line inspections or emergency response. The Dock 3 was the first verson of the DJI Dock to let you launch the drones from a moving vehicle, but it costs quite a bit more than the Lingyuan system: it starts at $21,059, a price that doesn’t include installation, for a bundle with a DJI Matrice 4D drone.
Droplets bouncing off surfaces are an everyday phenomenon, like raindrops bouncing off lotus leaves or water drops sizzling in a hot pan, levitating and sliding around—aka the Leidenfrost effect. There is also an inverse Leidenfrost effect, first described in 1969, that involves a hot object such as a droplet levitating above a cold surface. Understanding the mechanisms behind these phenomena is crucial to a broad range of practical applications, such as self-cleaning, anti-icing, anti-fogging, surface charge printing, or droplet-based logic systems.
Droplets usually only bounce if the surface is superheated or engineered in some way to reduce stickiness. Physicists from the City University of Hong Kong have figured out how to achieve this bouncing behavior of hot oil droplets off almost any surface, according to a new paper published in the journal Newton.
As we've reported previously, in 1756, a German scientist named Johann Gottlob Leidenfrost reported his observation of the unusual phenomenon. Normally, he noted, water splashed onto a very hot pan sizzles and evaporates very quickly. But if the pan's temperature is well above water's boiling point, "gleaming drops resembling quicksilver" will form and skitter across the surface. It's called the "Leidenfrost effect" in his honor.
© Zulu et al., 2025
Microsoft is giving its healthcare AI tools a major update. The Redmond-based company on Monday unveiled Dragon Copilot, a voice-activated assistant that combines features from Dragon Medical One and DAX Copilot into a single tool. The assistant is built to […]
The post Microsoft launches Dragon Copilot, a new voice-activated AI assistant for doctors first appeared on Tech Startups.
Security is a top priority for password apps and one way to ensure that is to allow users to wipe their own password databases if needed. Google Password Manager for Android may add a “Delete all data” option so users can purge sensitive data in certain situations.
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The Nothing Phone (3a) and Phone (3a) Pro are on display at MWC in Barcelona, offering a detailed look at the mid-range devices. This comes a day before the company actually plans to announce the phones to the public.
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Apple CEO Tim Cook just teased the launch of a new device coming to its Air lineup this week. In a post on X, Cook posted a short video with the text, “There’s something in the air” alongside a caption saying “this week.”
Though Cook doesn’t specify which device Apple plans to launch, it’s likely a new MacBook Air. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that the company is getting ready to reveal 13- and 15-inch MacBook Air models with an upgraded M4 chip sometime this month. Apple also revealed its M3 MacBook Air around the same time last year.
This week. pic.twitter.com/uXqQaGNkSk
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) March 3, 2025
But there are other Air-branded devices that Apple is rumored to be working on, too. Gurman previously said that Apple planned to release iPad Air models and keyboards close to the reveal of the iPhone 16E, which just launched last month. Over the weekend, Gurman noted that Apple is “beginning to wind down” iPad Air inventory, suggesting a new product launch is coming soon.
There have been rumors about a new iPhone “Air” model as well, although it’s probably a little early for that to get announced.
A little doom and dread always helps Doctor Who hit that much harder, and the show’s new season 2 trailer makes it seem like it’s going to come out swinging when it returns to Disney Plus in a few weeks.
Though many of the Doctor’s (Ncuti Gatwa) companions have been amazed by their adventures to alien planets, newcomer Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu) seems none too pleased in the new trailer as she finds herself whisked off into space. As a nurse, Belinda seems used to dealing with headstrong doctors who don’t always take kindly to having their decisions questioned. But she has no frame of reference for the cosmic danger that the Doctor is dead set on protecting their reality from.
Like Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) (who also makes a brief appearance in the trailer), the Doctor appears to have a mysterious connection to Belinda suggesting that she might also be more than an ordinary human. That probably has something to do with the way Belinda looks exactly like Mundy Flynn (also Sethu) from last season’s episode “Boom,” but we won’t know for sure until Doctor Who returns on April 12th.
