Talk Fuse

    Topic: Technology

    Technology covers the tools, companies and systems shaping how people work, communicate, create and access information. It includes artificial intelligence, software, consumer devices, space and digital infrastructure, as well as the policy, security and social questions that follow them.

    The topic matters because technological change increasingly affects everyday life and public decision-making. Coverage helps readers follow new developments, assess their practical impact and understand the debates around innovation, privacy, reliability and accountability.

    • Google reveals Gemini Robotics 2.0, promising improved dexterity and safety

      Google has unveiled Gemini Robotics 2.0, a suite of AI models intended to make robots more capable of handling complex, changing real-world tasks. The company says the system improves dexterity, whole-body control, real-time reasoning and cooperation between robots, advancing its longer-term aim of creating general-purpose “physical AGI”. The central model, Gemini Robotics ER 2, interprets…

    • Nvidia’s Open Source Alliance Snubs OpenAI and Anthropic

      Nvidia has joined more than 40 companies, including Microsoft, SpaceX, Palantir and IBM, to create the Open Secure AI Alliance, which will develop and share open-source tools for AI-powered cyber defence. The absence of major AI developers such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google highlights a growing division between advocates of open and closed AI systems,…

    • Synthetic-user startup Simile raises $200M at $2B valuation 5 months after $100M Series A

      Simile, a startup that creates AI-simulated users for marketing and product research, has raised $200 million in a Series B funding round at a $2 billion valuation. The rapid fundraising, only five months after its $100 million Series A, highlights investors’ strong interest in AI tools intended to model consumer behaviour, although the company’s ambition…

    • Back to School Office Chair Deals 2026: $200 and Less

      WIRED recommends three tested office chairs priced at $200 or less for students seeking more ergonomic alternatives to typical dorm furniture. – ProtoArc Flexer Pro: $176, with multiple adjustments and a five-year warranty; not ideal for people over 6 feet tall. – Staples Dexley: about $169–$170, a mesh chair with good airflow, adjustability and a…

    • Global smartphone sales fall by six percent amid memory cost crisis

      Global smartphone sales fell six per cent year on year to 272 million units in the second quarter of 2026, according to Omdia, as rising memory prices and supply-chain disruption worsen an already weak market. The decline particularly affects lower-cost manufacturers and could lead to sharper price rises for budget handsets, while better-resourced firms appear…

    • Space Force-backed mission does its best impression of Top Gun in orbit

      A US Space Force-backed exercise has publicly demonstrated satellites pursuing, inspecting and evading each other in orbit, a capability with potential military uses in monitoring suspicious spacecraft near critical satellites. The Victus Haze mission involved True Anomaly’s Jackal satellite and Rocket Lab’s Puma satellite carrying out close approaches and mutual imaging before beginning repeated pursuit-and-evasion…

    • NASA’s Curiosity rover found a ‘sea of polygons’ on Mars

      NASA’s Curiosity rover has discovered its largest yet expanse of honeycomb-like polygonal fractures in Valle Grande on Mars. The finding matters because such patterns may preserve evidence about ancient environmental conditions, including whether water once existed in the valley. Curiosity photographed the “sea of polygons” in a 360-degree panorama on 19 and 20 June, during…

    • Open source project fools AI scrapers with poisoned font

      An open-source project called ShieldFont aims to deter AI web scrapers by making a webpage appear normal to human readers while presenting altered, plausible-looking text in its raw HTML. It matters because it offers website owners a client-side alternative to server blocks and robots.txt rules, which scrapers may ignore, potentially preventing their writing being used…

    • DeepMind expands Gemini Robotics to whole-body humanoid control

      Google DeepMind has expanded Gemini Robotics 2 from upper-body control to whole-body humanoid movement, enabling robots to walk, crouch, stretch and manipulate objects from “feet to fingertips”. The advance matters because coordinated movement and handling are needed for robots to carry out more complex real-world tasks, although DeepMind acknowledges that their movement speed still requires…

    • ABC demands FCC drop its ‘punitive’ early license renewal of its stations

      ABC has asked the Federal Communications Commission to abandon its order requiring early renewal applications for eight of its broadcast-station licences, describing the move as unprecedented and punitive. The broadcaster argues that the FCC is retaliating against ABC and Disney over programme content and viewpoints the Trump administration dislikes, raising concerns about political pressure on…