Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Apple announced the upcoming iOS 26 software for iPhone back on June 9, 2025, with a revamped Liquid Glass look and a host of new features. Those additions include live translations, AI-powered visual search, a new Games app, and better security, and you can read about those new features here. Almost straight after the update was announced, Apple started a beta program for developers and early adopters. Since then, we've seen even more upgrades added to the iOS 26 that weren't mentioned during the announcement.

Mercedes-Benz vehicles are known for their quiet cabins, but things are going to get a little louder in them soon. The luxury automaker has announced that it is launching a software update that will bring ChatGPT into its vehicles through a collaboration with the Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service., starting on June 16. The feature will be integrated into the MBUX infotainment system, which already offers a wide array of voice commands through the "Hey, Mercedes" voice assistant feature. ChatGPT will allow occupants to have "conversations with natural dialogues and follow-up questions" with the generative artificial intelligence platform. A beta version of Mercedes-Benz's ChatGPT voice assistant is launching on June 16.

Mercedes-Benz is putting ChatGPT on the road. The automaker is using Microsoft's Azure OpenAI Service to bring the viral natural-language model to its in-car voice assistant. It will initially be available in a three-month beta program for US customers in select vehicles, but Mercedes says it will consider a broader and more permanent rollout in the future. ChatGPT integration could put the automaker's "Hey Mercedes" voice assistant on steroids. Rather than merely answering simple and pre-programmed commands like "Turn up the heat" or "What's the forecast," it can carry natural conversations about virtually any topic, including contextual follow-up questions.

Recognizing the pervasive talent gap that exists between data scientists and data workers in the line of business, Assisted Modeling helps teach data science with a guided walk-through and aims to help all data workers, regardless of technical acumen, advance their skill sets in the process of building machine learning models. "As we continue to deliver innovations for a smarter platform, it is critical to address the human at the center of analytic intelligence. Our approach in building Assisted Modeling is to advance the skills of the data worker, creating next-level citizen data scientists capable of building the machine learning models required to tackle the advanced analytic challenges of the future," said Kramer. "Assisted Modeling provides users the transparency and control needed to build trustworthy machine learning models that drive business outcomes without writing a line of code. I am thrilled to deliver the newest version of our platform today and to invite our customers and partners to be the first to experience Assisted Modeling." As an output of the application, users can access code-free machine learning tools directly within the Alteryx Designer interface. Assisted Modeling allows any data worker to construct machine learning models, understand how and why their models work, and capture modeling decisions, turning raw data into informed business decisions with unprecedented speed and confidence. Alteryx also announced the general availability of the newest version of the Alteryx Platform (2019.2),

Robots like the 900 series Roomba, which have the ability to make detailed maps of your home while they do chores, are poised to become much more useful than they've ever been. These maps are in the process of enabling all kinds of new features, most of which we can only guess at, but iRobot will be giving us a peek at what they're working on with a late Christmas present: a new beta program for Roombas. In a next step to make the smart home smarter, iRobot today announced a new Beta feature that allows customers to view a Wi-Fi Coverage Map created by Roomba. The Wi-Fi Coverage Map feature is the first to be available as part of iRobot Beta, a program that enables a limited number of iRobot customers to trial unreleased product features for the company's consumer robots. Wi-Fi Coverage Mapping is a Beta feature that enables Roomba 900 Series vacuums to detect WiFi signal strength throughout a user's home to highlight areas that may have poor connectivity.

Video game console company Atari has released a'Speakerhat' baseball cap with stereo speakers embedded inside. Atari, best known for its 1977 Atari 2600 home game console, says that the hat has high-fidelity stereo speakers and a microphone that can connect instantly to any Bluetooth-enabled device. The Speakerhat also has a multiplayer mode that will allow multiple Speakerhat users to pair up with one another and listen to the the same audio stream in sync. According to Atari, the wearable can connect to any smartphone, tablet or personal computer to play any music or other media content. The feature also allows for making and accepting phone calls and receiving voice commands.

Microsoft is gearing up to launch a new Cortana beta program for iPhone users. This new program shall enable users to have early access to a few of the new enhancements and features. Cortana which is akin to Siri and Google Now is Microsoft's own voice-activated digital assistant that was a part of the Windows 8.1 update. The company has now come up with an enhanced Cortana for iPhone users, albeit in the beta stage. For the unfamiliar, Cortana has a beta program for Android users.

Lily has regrettably announced its decision to terminate its business amid funding issues. This is sad news to the 60,000 customers who were hoping to receive their camera drones from the company that could have been a competitor to GoPro and other action camera makers. According to VentureBeat, Lily is shutting down after it failed to secure enough funds for the manufacture and shipping of its drone cameras. After careful thought, the company decided to send out emails to its clients on Wednesday, informing them that it is folding its business. Lily received numerous preorders amounting to $34 million after leaving a great impression to consumers during its beta program.

IBM has launched the Watson for Cyber Security beta program to encourage companies to include Watson in their current security environments. Starting off with such organizations as California Polytechnic State University, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and University of Rochester Medical Center, the program will grow over the next few weeks to encompass 40 companies spanning industries like banking, travel, energy, automotive, health care, insurance, and education. For the past few months, IBM Security has been working with eight universities -- California State Polytechnic University at Pomona, Penn State, MIT, New York University, University of Maryland at Baltimore County, and Canada's universities of New Brunswick, Ottawa, and Waterloo -- to help teach Watson the "language of cybersecurity." The research project involved feeding Watson's AI brain thousands of documents annotated to help the system understand what a threat is, what it does, and what indicators are related. Watson for Cyber Security combines machine learning and natural language processing to make associations in unstructured data like blogs, research reports, and documentation that security analysts can then use to make better, faster decisions.

Just two months after announcing the arrival of iOS 10 this fall at the 2016 Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple is now rolling out the sixth beta of its upcoming mobile operating system. Just last week, the Cupertino-headquartered tech company distributed the iOS 10 beta 5 to developers and beta testers for evaluation, so releasing the sixth beta today comes as a surprise. The iOS 10 beta 6, which is actually iOS beta 5 for public non-developer users that are part of the Apple Software Beta Program, gives developers access to a more stable operating system, since this one comes with fixes for a number of bugs present in the previous releases. For example, the bug that was causing the sticker pack apps to be blank has been repaired, so developers can now load and view the sticker packs. In addition, MacRumors has learned that the bug affecting iPad docks has been remedied as well. The newly released iOS 10 dev beta also brings an improvement to Siri.