Tech News

Josh Bowman-Matthews, a Servo maintainer, completed a year of part-time work funded by the project’s donations on OpenCollective and GitHub. During that period he reviewed 1,150 pull requests, nominated 8 new maintainers, and helped stabilize the Rust-based browser engine. Here’s a look at what he achieved and how the funding model that made it possible works.

Git pickaxe (git log -S) is one of Git’s lesser-known commands: it finds the exact commit where a string of text was added or removed. We cover how it works, how it differs from git log -G, and the other terminal, SQL, and Node.js tricks from the post that brought it back into the spotlight.

Will Keleher compiled twelve programming tricks he uses daily: terminal shortcuts, git commands, SQL quirks, and native JavaScript functions. None requires learning a new language, but together they change the pace of everyday work.

Daniel Gultsch, creator of the XMPP client Conversations, questioned Google Play’s review process on Mastodon. The case shows how the closed testing policy and reliance on Firebase Cloud Messaging affect free software apps on Android.

Fugleramme is an open source project that detects birds by audio using local AI and draws them with real 19th-century illustrations on an e-ink panel. It runs on a Raspberry Pi 5 and already has 1,500 stars on GitHub.

Autonomous laboratories combine robotic arms and language models to design, run, and analyze experiments without a human intervening at every step. A-Lab, from Berkeley Lab, and Coscientist, from Carnegie Mellon, have already shown concrete results in materials science and chemistry.

Apple released iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27 with a complete redesign of parental controls. Ask to Browse requires parents to approve every new site before their children can visit it, and Communication Safety now detects violent content in conversations. The change arrives alongside Siri AI, the new generative AI version of Siri.

Apple has launched Siri AI, a completely redesigned version of its assistant powered by the new generation of Apple Intelligence. The update arrives alongside iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27, and includes new parental controls plus improvements to Photos, Safari, and the Camera app.

Valve unveiled Steam Frame, its first standalone virtual reality headset, alongside the return of the Steam Machine and a new Steam Controller. The device runs SteamOS on its own or streams games from a PC over a dedicated wireless connection, without relying on home wifi.

EuroBirdPortal aggregates citizen observer data from across European countries to generate weekly bird distribution maps. Its interface is available in 38 languages, and the project remains active in 2026 under the European Union’s LIFE program.