MacworldTwo days after the release of iOS 18.4, Apple has begun the iOS 18.5 beta testing cycle. The first developer release landed on April 2, and we expect a wide release in May (or possibly late April).The last few iOS versions had their x.5 releases in May, with only minor features and changes, and we expect the same this year, especially now that the anticipated new Siri has been delayed.iOS 18.5: New featuresWe havent yet discovered any new features in the iOS 18.5 beta, but well update this section as we and the testing community uncover them. However, with the big Siri enhancements pushed back out of the iOS 18 update cycle and the iOS 19 beta starting at WWDC in June, we dont expect much in the way of significant new featuresjust a few touch-ups, bug fixes, and security enhancements.iOS 18.5: How to install the public betaIf you want to be among the first to test iOS 18.5, you can sign up for the public beta test. The process for installing a beta has changed in iOS 16.4. Heres how the new process works now:Click Sign Up on the Apple Beta page and register with your Apple ID.Log in to the Beta Software Program.Click Enroll your iOS device.Open the Settings app, tap General, then Software Update.In the Beta Updates section, select the iOS Public Beta.It may take a few moments after registering for the beta option to appear in Software Update.iOS 18.5: How to install the developer betaYoull need to be registered as an Apple developer. Beginning with iOS 18.5, you dont need to be in the $99 per year developer program to access the developer beta. A free developer account will do. You can get one via Xcode or the Apple Developer app in iOS. Heres how to do it via the Apple Developer app:Download the Apple Developer App from the App Store.Open the app.Tap on Account.Sign in using your usual Apple ID.Registered developers can choose to get the Public Beta instead by selecting iOS Public Beta in the Software Update screen. It may take a little time after registering as a developer for the option to appear in Software Updates.Find out everything you need to know about iOS 18 in our iOS 18 superguide.

US President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order this week creating the US Investment Accelerator office to oversee the CHIPS Act, a Biden-era program to re-shore semiconductor production.According to a White House statement, the new entitys mission will be to speed up corporate investments domestically by reducing government regulations and coordinating with federal agencies.Trump has criticized the bipartisan CHIPS Act, signed by President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2022, and said he wants to negotiate better deals. The office will also work to make it easier for companies to invest in US semiconductor manufacturing. In a speech before Congress last month, Trump called the CHIPS Act horrible and said he wanted to defund it: We dont have to give them money; we just want to protect our businesses and our people, and they will come because they wont have to pay tariffs if they build in America.The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the status of CHIPS Act funding.In February, reports emergedthat the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) planned to cut 497 jobs as part of Trumps federal government downsizing. NIST, a non-regulatory agency within the US Department of Commerce (DoC), helps drive innovation and industrial competitiveness and oversees the CHIPS for America program. The personnel cuts were widely criticized as damaging to the rollout of the CHIPS Act.In 2021, the years-long decline in domestic chip production was exposed bya worldwide supply-chain crisisthat led to calls for re-shoring manufacturing to the US. After more than a year of work from the Biden Administration to respond to acute semiconductor shortages, Congress in August 2022passed the measure.The Commerce Department, which is administering the CHIPS Act, spent months negotiating with semiconductor designers and fabricators to gain commitments from them and to achieve specific milestones in their projects before getting government payouts.With the CHIPS Act spurring them on, semiconductor makers including Intel,Samsung,Micron,TSMC, andTexas Instrumentsunveiled plans for a number of new plants on US soil. (Qualcomm, in partnership with GlobalFoundries,also said it would invest$4.2 billionto double chip production in its Malta, NY facility.)The Department of Commerce has beendivvying up $52 billionin the hopes of spurring on-shore chip manufacturing. While about $32 billion of CHIPS Act money has been allocated, the funds have not yet been dispersed. It was not immediately clear whether Trumps action this week could delay disbursement of the monies.

The first developer beta of iOS 18.5 introduces a new option for the Mail app, along with a few other quality-of-life improvements.iOS 18.5 features changes to the Mail app.On Tuesday, following the public release of iOS 18.4, Apple rolled out the first developer beta of iOS 18.5, with the build number 22F5042g. The software update is compatible with devices as old as the iPhone XR and iPhone XS, all the way up to the iPhone 16 range.While the iOS 18.4 update delivered an all-new Apple Vision Pro app, along with some Apple Intelligence improvements, it appears as though iOS 18.5 only features minor changes and enhancements. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

Donald Trump's so-called "Liberation Day" has become a potentially expensive event for Apple, as tariffs are applied against imports from every foreign country in the Apple supply chain.Tim Cook [left] with President Donald Trump at a Mac Pro facility during Trump's first presidencyPresident Donald Trump said that tariffs would be a major part of his administration long before his reelection. On Wednesday, his campaign promise became a reality.As part of what Trump refers to as "Liberation Day," the U.S. is applying "reciprocal" tariffs on imports from around the world. The levies, which will come into force immediately and will impact practically all imported goods entering the United States. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

As we say goodbye to the winter and settle into spring, let's take a look at the recent highlights on Archinect's Instagram feed!Whether you're already one of @archinect's 100K followers or not (yet) check out the most popular posts of the past three months, showcasing stand-out projects from various firm profiles on Archinect as well as from here, our news and features editorial sections.Also, if you want to stay up-to-date on the latest architecture firms hiring right now, make sure to follow our dedicated @archinectjobs account as well.9. Portlantis in Rotterdam, Netherlands, by MVRDV / @mvrdv; Photos: Ossip van Duivenbode @ossipvanduivenbode View this post on Instagram A post shared by Archinect (@archinect)8. The Mori House in Portland, OR. Original Architect: Saul Zaik. Remodel Architect: SHED Architecture & Design / @shedarchitecture; Photos: Rafael Soldi @rafaelsoldiphotography View this post on Instagram A post shared by Archinect ...

The longlist for this years Davidson Prize has been announced for the competitions fifth edition, which is organized around the theme of 'Streets Ahead.'This years brief asked designers to consider issues latent within the UK governments five-year, 1.5 million new homes target. A mix of sites in different settingsfrom post-industrial Tyneside to the barren Isle of Wightwere considered by the select group of 16 multidisciplinary teams. In the end, their concepts preferred solutions that ranged from adding density to pursuing brownfield regeneration to high street infills and other "radical ideas" and "pattern-book approaches."Akil Scafe-Smith, Director of Resolve Collective said: "This year's submissions creatively addressed a variety of contexts in response to The Davidson Prize's challenge. It was particularly moving to see the vision and feel the energy of the non-London and Northern England-based proposals and I'm excited to get into choosing the three finalists!"At the nex...

Since Nintendos recent Direct regarding the Switch 2 and its games, the company has updated its website with details about some of the announced games. While not updated all over the world, the website has given us an idea about how much games for the Switch 2 will end up costing.Spotted by social media platform X user Elesnicho, launch title for the Switch 2, Mario Kart World, is priced at 89.99 for the physical edition. The digital release is priced at 79.99. This is quite a bit of a step up for Nintendos games, which have traditionally stuck to the 60 and 70 price segments.Noticeable on the Spanish Switch 2 website, Donkey Kong Bananza has its pricing resemble some of the later games from the Switchs library. The digital release of Donkey Kong Bananza is priced at 69.99, while a physical copy is priced at 79.99.Considering the differences in pricing for both titles, it looks like Nintendo will be considering the prices for its titles on a game-by-game basis. This also allows the company to have greater flexibility, with being able to make and release smaller scale games without having to match the same 79.99 price tag that a major release would likely entail.Interestingly, for both games, there is a 10 difference in price between the physical and digital versions. This might end up being a trend we see carried forward in other games for the Switch 2 as well.Check out our coverage for more details about Mario Kart World, Donkey Kong Bananza, and the Switch 2 leading up to its June 5 launch.Mario Kart World a 89,99 en fsico.Opiniones? pic.twitter.com/CWzi7iSh4V Elesnicho (@elesnicho) April 2, 2025

Theres no shortage of third-party publishers and developers releasing their titles on the Nintendo Switch 2. IO Interactive is throwing its hat in the ring by confirming Hitman World of Assassination for the platform, which will launch on June 5th alongside the console.Hitman World of Assassination Signature Edition will feature all three Hitman titles and their assorted missions in one compelling stealth package. Its unknown whether the rogue-like Freelancer mode or all of the other content (like Seven Deadly Sins and Deluxe Escalations) are also included in the package.But wait, theres more, as Project 007 is also coming to the Nintendo Switch 2. Further details, including the official name, have yet to be confirmed, but we know that its an origin story for James Bond and promises the ultimate spycraft fantasy.Development was last touted as proceeding amazingly well, so maybe well learn more in the coming months. Stay tuned for more details and updates in the meantime.

Enhanced Brain Implant Translates Stroke Survivors Thoughts Into Nearly Instant Speech Using Artificial IntelligenceThe system harnesses technology similar to that of devices like Alexa and Siri, according to the researchers, and improves on a previous model Researchers connect stroke survivor Ann Johnson's brain implant to the experimental computer, which will allow her to speak by thinking words. Noah BergerA brain implant that converts neuron activity into audible words has given a stroke survivor with severe paralysis almost instantaneous speech.Ann Johnson became paralyzed and lost the ability to speak after suffering a stroke in 2005, when she was 30 years old. Eighteen years later, she consented to being surgically fitted with an experimental, thin, brain-reading implant that connects to a computer, officially called a brain-computer interface (BCI). Researchers placed the implant on her motor cortex, the part of the brain that controls physical movement, and it tracked her brain waves as she thought the words she wanted to say.As detailed in a study published Monday in the journal Nature Neuroscience, researchers used advances in artificial intelligence (A.I.) to improve the devices ability to quickly translate that brain activity into synthetic speechnow, its almost instantaneous.The technology brings the same rapid speech decoding capacity of devices like Alexa and Siri to neuroprostheses, study co-author Gopala Anumanchipalli, a computer scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, says in a statement. Neuroprostheses are devices that can aid or replace lost bodily functions by connecting to the nervous system.Using a similar type of algorithm, we found that we could decode neural data and, for the first time, enable near-synchronous voice streaming, he adds. The result is more naturalistic, fluent speech synthesis.Chang et al. - Supplementary Video 2Watch on Previously, the research team had worked with Johnson to generate speech using an automated voice and digital avatar. That system, which had a delay of about eight seconds to decode her brain patterns, would speak full sentences at once.Older BCIs like that, which generate speech only after processing an entire sentence, are similar to a conversation via text, says Christian Herff, a computational neuroscientist at Maastricht University in the Netherlands who wasnt involved in the study, toNature News Miryam Naddaf. I write a sentence, you write a sentence, and you need some time to write a sentence again, he says. It just doesnt flow like a normal conversation.Now, the enhanced experimental device can continuously identify words from brain activity and translate them into speech within about three seconds, per Nature News.Its not waiting for a sentence to finish, Anumanchipalli says to the Associated Press Laura Ungar. Its processing it on the fly.Chang et al. - Supplementary Video 1Watch on To train the artificial intelligence, researchers asked Johnson to mouth phrases that appeared on a screen from a list of 1,024 words, such as, hey, how are you? The system learned to interpret the resulting brain activity in continuous, 80-millisecond increments, which Anumanchipalli calls a streaming approach, per the AP. It converts her intent to speak into fluent sentences, he adds. The A.I. was also trained on recordings of Johnsons voice before her stroke to make its speech sound more like her.The system performed well when the team tested it with words outside of the training data, demonstrating that it is indeed learning the building blocks of sound or voice, study co-author Kaylo Littlejohn, a researcher at UC Berkeleys Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, says in the statement.Despite clear improvements from previous trialsand a huge jump in efficiency over Johnsons current communication systemthe enhanced BCI was still not quite as natural as regular human speech. It produced between 47 and 90 words per minute, while humans usually speak around 160 words per minute, according to Nature News.This is where we are right now, Edward Chang, a study co-author and neurosurgeon at UC San Francisco, says to the publication. But you can imagine, with more sensors, with more precision and with enhanced signal processing, those things are only going to change and get better.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Cool FindsArchaeologists Uncover Two Nearly Life-Size Statues Carved Into the Wall of a Tomb in Ancient PompeiiThe figures appear to represent a married couple. Experts think the woman, who is holding laurel leaves, may have been a priestess The figures adorn the wall of a tomb found in a necropolis near one of Pompeiis city gates. Pompeii Archaeological ParkTwo nearly life-size statues have been discovered inside a cemetery in Pompeii, the ancient Roman city destroyed by Mount Vesuvius eruption in 79 C.E. Experts think the figures are a funerary relief depicting a couple once buried at the site.The statues adorn the wall of a tomb found in a necropolis near Porta Sarno, one of Pompeiis city gates, according to a statement from Pompeii Archaeological Park. The cemetery is filled with cremation burials. Carved into the tombs wall are several niches that once held funerary urns, as well as a carved relief depicting a woman and man standing side by side.As researchers write in the parks digital magazine, the sculptures were likely carved during Romes Late Republican period (between the second and first century B.C.E.). Tombs of this kind are rare in southern Italy.The researchers theorize that the funerary sculptures represent a married couple, though they say they cant be certain. This could be her husband, but it could also be her son, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the archaeological park, tells theGuardians Angela Giuffrida. There was no inscription, so we dont know. The man and woman may represent a married couple, but researchers say they can't be sure. Pompeii Archaeological ParkThe male figure wears a simple toga, while the woman wears a large cloak over a tunic and many accessories. Her carved jewelry includesamphora-shaped earrings, a wedding ring, bracelets and a necklace with a lunula pendant (a crescent moon). As the researchers write, Roman girls wore lunula amulets until marriage to protect themselves from evil.In her right hand, the female figure holdslaurel leaves, which Roman priestesses and priests once used to purify spaces. In her left hand, she holds a cylindrical container that may represent a scroll.She really looks like a very important woman in the local elite, Zuchtriegel tells the Guardian. There is also this idea that she could have been a priestess of Ceres, holding these plants and what appears to be a papyrus roll.Ceres is the Roman goddess of agriculture, fertility and motherhood. In Roman religion, she was symbolically connected to the moon, as its phases were thought to correspond with harvests, which could explain the female statues lunula pendant, per the journal. The female figure holds laurel leaves, which Roman priestesses and priests used to purify spaces. Pompeii Archaeological ParkSince women in Roman society were commonly relegated to the domestic sphere and to the tasks of the Roman matron, being a priestess was the highest social rank to which a woman could aspire, write the researchers.As leaders of religious cults, priestesses would have overseen rituals in temples and taken part in processions dedicated to Ceres, Sophie Hay, a British archaeologist working at Pompeii, tells theTelegraphs Nick Squires. She was the goddess of agriculture and cereals but she was also associated with fertility and new life. She was widely revered.The funerary reliefs age and quality alone make them rare finds. However, the fact that the female figure may represent a priestess holding religious objects makes the discovery exceptional, as the researchers write. The statue also offers valuable insight into the religious practices of Pompeiis ancient residents, providing new evidence that Ceres has a clear place in the officially sanctioned religion in Pompeii, with a dedicated priestess.Later this month, the funerary reliefs will be displayed in an exhibition at the archaeological park called Being a Woman in Ancient Pompeii. Visitors will be able to observe as experts clean and conserve the sculpted figures.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.