Some Apple rumors just don't go away, hanging around in perpetuity either because they reflect things that Apple is actually testing in its labs or because hope springs eternal. A HomePod-like device with a screen? A replacement for the dear, departed 27-inch iMac? Touchscreen MacBooks? The return of TouchID fingerprint scanning via a sensor located beneath a screen? Maybe these things are coming, but they ain't here yet.

However, few rumors have had the longevity or staying power of "Apple is planning a low-cost MacBook," versions of which have been circulating since at least the late-2000s netbook craze . And yet, despite seismic shifts in just about everything—three distinct processor instruction sets, two CEOs, innumerable design changes, and global trade upheaval—Apple's cheapest modern laptops have started around $1,000 for more than two decades .

Last week, supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo (whose Apple predictions aren't always correct, but whose track record is better than your garden variety broken-clock prognosticators) kicked up another round of these rumors, claiming that Apple was preparing to manufacture a new low-cost MacBook based on the iPhone’s A18 Pro chip. Kuo claims it will come in multiple colors, similar to Apple's lower-cost A16 iPad , and will use a 13-inch screen.

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Epic Games, buoyed by the massive success of Fortnite, has spent the last few years throwing elbows in the mobile industry to get its app store on more phones. It scored an antitrust win against Google in late 2023, and the following year it went after Samsung for deploying "Auto Blocker" on its Android phones, which would make it harder for users to install the Epic Games Store. Now, the parties have settled the case just days before Samsung will unveil its latest phones.

The Epic Store drama began several years ago when the company defied Google and Apple rules about accepting outside payments in the mega-popular Fortnite . Both stores pulled the app, and Epic sued. Apple emerged victorious, with Fortnite only returning to the iPhone recently. Google, however, lost the case after Epic showed it worked behind the scenes to stymie the development of app stores like Epic's.

Google is still working to avoid penalties in that long-running case, but Epic thought it smelled a conspiracy last year. It filed a similar lawsuit against Samsung, accusing it of implementing a feature to block third-party app stores. The issue comes down to the addition of a feature to Samsung phones called Auto Blocker, which is similar to Google's new Advanced Protection in Android 16 . It protects against attacks over USB, disables link previews, and scans apps more often for malicious activity. Most importantly, it blocks app sideloading. Without sideloading, there's no way to install the Epic Games Store or any of the content inside it.

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Back in 1929, archaeologists unearthed several human skeletons (seven adults and three children) while excavating Skuhl Cave just south of Haifa, Israel. Dating back 140,000 years to the end of the Middle Pleistocene, most were classified as early Homo sapiens . But one skeleton was that of a child, between the age of 3 and 5 years old whose features seemed to show a mix of early human and Neanderthal characteristics. A new analysis involving CT scanning may resolve the long-standing debate, according to a new paper published in the journal L’Anthropologie.

Neanderthals and Homo sapiens traded genes frequently during the period when their populations overlapped. "The two came in contact as modern humans began their major expansion out of Africa, which occurred roughly 60,000 years ago," Ars Science Editor John Timmer previously reported . "Humans picked up some Neanderthal DNA through interbreeding, while the Neanderthal population, always fairly small, was swept away by the waves of new arrivals."

Nor is this the first case of a possible hybrid hominid species. In 2018 , scientists analyzed a sliver of bone excavated from a cave site in Russia. The findings made global headlines when the team concluded that the individual to whom it belonged—a young girl of about 13, dubbed "Denny"—was the offspring of a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father. This suggested that rather than dying out, Neanderthals may have been absorbed by other species; such inbreeding may have been more common than previously thought.

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Over the weekend, the tally of measles cases reached 1,281, setting a new case record since the highly contagious viral disease was declared eliminated from the country in 2000. The previous record was set in 2019, when there were 1,274 cases and officials warned that the US had narrowly avoided losing the elimination status.

Overall, the current case tally is a 33-year high for the preventable infection, and the outlook for the country is bleak. Vaccination rates have only fallen since the pandemic , and the top health official in the country—Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—is an unswerving anti-vaccine activist who has spent his short time in the position so far spreading dangerous misinformation about the measles vaccine —as well as peddling unproven treatments and downplaying the infection .

Experts expect that the US will lose its elimination status, which will occur if the virus spreads uninterrupted for 12 months. To block transmission, experts say populations must maintain vaccination rates of 95 percent or higher. But, nationally, the vaccination rate among kindergartners has fallen to 92.7 percent in the latest data , with some communities having vaccination rates far lower, leaving them vulnerable to widespread outbreaks.

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The Federal Communications Commission has regained its authority to hold spectrum auctions and could use that power to take spectrum away from Wi-Fi networks and license it to mobile carriers AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.

As we previously wrote , the Senate budget bill pitched by Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called for at least 800 MHz to be auctioned and allowed part of it to be taken from the 6 GHz band that's being used to boost speeds in the new generation of Wi-Fi networks. The House previously voted to exclude the entire 6 GHz band from spectrum auctions but ultimately adopted the Senate's language in a 218-214 vote when it approved the final budget bill on July 3. It was signed into law by President Trump on July 4.

The new law also allows spectrum to be taken from the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) , which goes from 3.55 to 3.7 GHz. While other spectrum bands could be targeted too, advocates say it would be hard for the FCC to fulfill the congressional mandate without taking spectrum from Wi-Fi, CBRS, or both.

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Fubo has agreed to pay $3.4 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that accused the sports-streaming service provider of unlawfully distributing customers' personally identifiable information (PII) without their consent.

In December 2023, Ne’Tosha Burdette filed a complaint [ PDF ] against Fubo with the stated goal of stopping Fubo’s "unlawful disclosure of its customers'" PII. The complaint argued that Fubo violated the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), “which prohibits the disclosure of consumers’ video viewing history without their informed, written consent." The filing added:

Critically, Defendant utilizes sophisticated tracking technology that collects its subscribers’ personally identifiable information… including information which identifies a person as having viewed specific videos on Defendant’s streaming service. Defendant knowingly discloses this information to third party advertisers so that they can target specific users with specifically tailored advertisements based on their viewing history.

Fubo’s privacy policy at the time stated that Fubo collected various data from its users, such as location information—including “precise or near-precise geolocation” and the use of “GPS coordinates”—as well as device and usage information (including “pages and content viewed and order of those pages" and "content recorded on FuboTV,”) per the complaint.

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The ransomware group linked to the recent cyberattacks on UK retailers Marks and Spencer, Harrods, and the Co-Op has begun a turf war with its rivals, triggering a battle within the industry that could bring more hacks and further fallout for corporate victims.

DragonForce, a group of largely Russian-speaking cyber criminals behind a spate of high-profile attacks this year, has clashed with one of its biggest competitors RansomHub, according to cybersecurity experts tracking the battle to dominate the booming criminal ransomware sector.

They warn that the conflict between the two groups, which operate in the ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) market, could increase risks for companies, including the potential of being extorted twice.

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Could Donald Trump possibly follow through on his campaign promise to save TikTok by finally making a deal that keeps the app operating in the US without compromising America's national security?

Outlook not so good.

Despite The Information reporting that a new version of TikTok is being prepped to launch in the US market this September, even Trump can't be sure the deal is imminent.

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Someone made very sophisticated wooden tools in China 300,000 years ago, and it might have been Denisovans or even Homo erectus .

The digging sticks, curved root-slicers, and a handful of somewhat puzzling implements were all found at a lakeshore site called Gantangqing. They are the oldest wooden tools from East Asia so far. All the previous Pleistocene tools found in the area were made from harder material like stone, bone, or antler. But logic suggests that hominins must have prepared and used softer materials as well. That thought led archaeologists to what’s called the Bamboo Hypothesis: the idea that during the Pleistocene, hominins (including our own species) might have used bamboo the way wood gets used elsewhere.

The jury’s still out on bamboo, because there’s no actual evidence of bamboo tools yet. What we now have, it turns out, are nearly three dozen tools made of wood.

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