Category: 4. Technology

  • iFixit gives Fairphone 6 top marks for repairability • The Register

    iFixit gives Fairphone 6 top marks for repairability • The Register

    The sixth generation of the Fairphone repairable mobile was launched at the end of June. Now spunger-flingers iFixit have got their hands on it, and liked the result.

    The pleasure of an easy charge port swap (click to enlarge) – image courtesy iFixit

    The iFixit site is a top resource for most of us trying to repair or upgrade a computer – especially if it’s a Mac. Fewer dare to try to fix their own phones, but iFixit reckons you’ll be able to if you spring for a Fairphone, and the newest model gets a perfect 10.

    Remove two screws to slide the back off. You will need a screwdriver to swap the battery, though — no more tool-free battery swaps. It’s now held in by four screws and a cable. (It is, however, glued onto a metal backing strip, replaced with it.). Eight more screws hold the screen in place. In part because it’s not glued together, it only has an IP55 rating for dust and water resistance, not the IP68 some devices boast, but that’s still not bad. A nifty touch is a modular USB-C connector, which you can replace on its own if damaged. In total, 12 components are replaceable.

    Away from the tech specs, iFixit gives it still more credit: the warranty is an impressive five years, with updates and spares available until 2033, including a promised seven Android version upgrades. That’s hard to beat. The theory is that your new Fairphone should last much longer than most other phones. If you keep using it for five years, that should lower its carbon footprint by nearly a third.

    Fairphone’s Generation 6 handset launched on 25 June. GSMArena has full specs. We don’t have one to play with, but it looks like a decent enough mobe: 6.31 inch screen, 8 GB of RAM and 256 MB of storage plus a microSD slot, and a 50 MP rear camera. It’s €599, which translates to $870 or £535.

    screen repair. Image courtesy iFixit

    Headache-free screen swap (image courtesy iFixit)

    The manufacturer says it’s Fairphone’s most sustainable ever. Half of it is made from recycled or ethically-sourced materials, which genuinely does matter. As The Register pointed out way back in 2001, many of the important materials in phones come from ecologically disastrous sources. In 2010, El Reg looked at the problems of “coltan” and the “3Ts plus gold” from the Eastern Congo region. Avoiding that, recycling the substances wherever and whenever possible, is seriously important, both to people and to mountain gorillas, as well as less charismatic wildlife.

    All that means that it costs more, though. It’s a perfectly capable phone, but you don’t get an amazing spec for the money. It has a slightly smaller screen than its predecessor, the Fairphone 5, which incidentally also got a perfect 10 score a couple of years ago. There’s no headphone socket, and only one physical SIM slot, although it can support an eSIM as well. The battery is slightly more capacious at 4415 mAh, and with a 30 W charger it can get to half full in half an hour. As with most phones now, this happens through a USB-C port – but if you hook it up to your PC, this only operates at USB 2 speeds.

    There is a big lime-green colored switch on the side that enables what the company calls Fairphone Moments mode which strips the UI down to five apps, reduces digital distractions, mutes the on-screen colors and so on. There is a built-in Google Gemini LLM-bot “assistant”, but you can turn it off.

    If you, like the Reg FOSS desk, are powerfully averse to such gimmicks, the same phone is also available with Murena /e/ OS instead. We looked at version 3 last month, and it does allay a lot of Google-related privacy concerns, at the price of some features and convenience. With the Fairphone, there’s a less metaphorical price, too: it costs €150 more than the base model. ®

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  • Everything You Can Do in the Photoshop Mobile App

    Everything You Can Do in the Photoshop Mobile App

    You know your software is a success when its name becomes a verb: You’ll now commonly hear about images being photoshopped, even if the editing wasn’t done with the Adobe image editor. Adobe might not like it, but the usage shows how dominant its flagship product has become.

    On mobile though, Photoshop hasn’t achieved the same kind of ubiquity or brand recognition. We’ve had official Photoshop apps of various types down the years, but none of them have really translated the power and feature set of the desktop application over to smaller devices in a way that fully works.

    Now, Adobe is trying again: The all-new Photoshop app (available now for iOS, and just released in beta for Android), is Photoshop “reimagined” for a smartphone. The app attempts to bring over as many of the tools and features of the full software as it can, while optimizing them for use on a mobile touchscreen.

    While it’s impossible to port everything over—in the same way macOS wouldn’t work on an iPhone—there’s a lot to explore in the new Photoshop app. You can download it for free on iOS, though some features require a premium subscription (either $7 a month for the new Mobile and Web plan, or an existing Photoshop plan). Android users can download the beta version and use it entirely for free for a limited time. Regular pricing will kick in when the app becomes generally available worldwide.

    Quick Actions

    By default, when you open up a new image in the iOS version, you’ll be invited to apply a “quick action” to it. (Android users, this is coming soon.) If you’d rather just go straight to the full editing interface every time, check the Don’t show this again box, and tap Go to editor. However, if you are wanting to apply a basic effect in as little time as possible, these quick actions can be helpful.

    You’ll see they all involve backgrounds. Tap Hide background, and Photoshop tries to identify the main subject of the image, and cut out the rest—you can then drop in any kind of replacement background you like. Alternatively, there’s Solid color background, which drops in a color you can edit, or Black & white background, which keeps the subject in color but turns everything else grayscale.

    Whichever one you pick, Photoshop will take care of creating a new layer for you, so you can work on the foreground and background independently. You’ll see the layers are available via the thumbnail down in the lower right corner of the image. With the solid color background, for example, tap the layer thumbnail, then the left arrow, then Edit color to switch to a different shade.

    Layers and Masks

    Choosing an adjustment layer.

    Courtesy of Michael Calore / WIRED

    Layers and masks are essentially what separates basic image editors from advanced ones, letting you stack different elements in an image on top of each other (layers) and make edits to them (masks). If you’ve used a quick action you’ll already have a layer created for you, but you can create new ones by tapping the + (plus) button just above the bottom toolbar on the right.

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  • ‘It is an ideal tool’

    ‘It is an ideal tool’

    In a huge move for the industrial and construction industries, Spanish equipment manufacturer AUSA has introduced its first-ever electric rough-terrain forklift, per Electrek. Unveiled at the recent Bauma construction fair in Germany, the C151E is designed to bring the well-known benefits of electric vehicles into demanding job sites and represents a significant innovation in heavy‑duty material handling.

    AUSA shared in a video all the specs of the C151E, including a 3,000-pound loading capacity, battery with up to 18.6 kilowatt-hours, digital display with diagnostics, all-in-one joystick, zero carbon pollution, and it’s nearly silent. AUSA said in a press release that the forklift is designed specifically for worksites with low pollution, like greenhouses and enclosed spaces.

    Electrek reported that the forklift also charges incredibly quickly: “Even if you drive the battery to nearly nothing, the AUSA can be charged up during a lunch break or shift change and ready to work again as soon as you reach for it.”

    There is a growing trend of electrifying necessary equipment in manufacturing industries. Another European Union company announced an all-new electric line of construction equipment in 2024. Australia and China are also seeing similar innovations.

    Forklifts are indispensable across countless sectors, from agriculture and recycling to logistics and construction. Introducing electric models such as the C151E means smoother, more efficient operations and a great way to cut costs.

    “It is an ideal tool for working in emission-free spaces such as greenhouses, municipal night works, enclosed spaces, etc.,” AUSA said, according to Electrek. Companies can expand their use, because electric assets are allowed where internal combustion isn’t.

    Watch now: Does clean energy really cause blackouts?

    “You can earn more work, get a higher utilization rate, and maximize not only your fuel savings, but generate income you couldn’t generate without it,” Electrek explained.

    Beyond financial savings, without tailpipe pollution, the forklift is also beneficial to the environment as well as the health of those operating it. Traditional diesel and gas-powered forklifts can negatively impact air quality and worker health, especially in enclosed spaces like warehouses, because of the release of carbon monoxide as well as known carcinogens.

    Thanks to innovations like the C151E, it’s now easier than ever for companies to cut costs, protect worker health, and get the job done — without all the noise and fumes. It’s a win for business and a win for the environment.

    If you’re thinking about switching to electric yard tools, which of these factors would be most persuasive for you?

    Better for the environment

    Cheaper to fuel and maintain

    More enjoyable to use

    Produce better results

    Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.

    Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the latest innovations improving our lives and shaping our future, and don’t miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.

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  • Chatbots gloss over critical details in summaries of scientific studies, say scientists

    Chatbots gloss over critical details in summaries of scientific studies, say scientists

    Large language models (LLMs) are becoming less “intelligent” in each new version as they oversimplify and, in some cases, misrepresent important scientific and medical findings, a new study has found.

    Scientists discovered that versions of ChatGPT, Llama and DeepSeek were five times more likely to oversimplify scientific findings than human experts in an analysis of 4,900 summaries of research papers.

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  • The curious rise of giant tablets on wheels

    The curious rise of giant tablets on wheels

    “KTC defines the MegPad A32Q7Pro as a portable, smart, touchscreen monitor,” KTC’s spokesperson told me. “It combines key traits of a smart display and a large-screen tablet. While it shares some features with smart TVs, tablets, and monitors, it doesn’t fully belong to any single traditional category. It’s a hybrid device designed to bridge those use cases.”

    Android tablets on wheels

    Many devices like the MegPad represent a push for more Android-powered, non-Google devices that has been buoyed by a program that Google launched in 2022, the Enterprise Devices Licensing Agreement (EDLA).

    As explained by partners like BenQ, EDLA is a way for third parties to incorporate Google Mobile Services (GMS), which are Google’s most commonly used apps and APIs bundled for use across different types of devices. GMS apps include popular software like Google Drive, Gmail, the Google Play Store, and YouTube.

    “Previously, GMS was only officially available for smartphones, tablets, TVs, and wearables. Under the new EDLA, the list of devices eligible for GMS certification has now been expanded to include enterprise solutions such as smart boards,” a blog from BenQ, which has EDLA-certified smart displays, reads.

    Since 2022, (the year LG’s StanbyME launched), there has been an uptick in non-Google devices with this EDLA certification. One of the categories taking advantage of the newer program is tablets on wheels, like the MegPad and similar options from Kefeya, Apolosign, Innocn, and DuraPro.

    Demonstrating the marketing value of EDLA certification, the MegPad’s product page reads: “Google EDLA certification provides secure, direct access to Google services and the Google Play Store with regular updates, offering greater stability and data protection than open app ecosystems with unverified apps.”

    Most EDLA-certified devices seem to be interactive displays used for education. With EDLA certification, devices like the MegPad may also draw the attention of educators or even businesses. Meanwhile, Google is happy to hand out EDLA certifications, as they can drive Android adoption, giving Google more data and access to customers outside of the typical Android devices, such as phones. Products like the MegPad can also be easier to shop with (Google loves when people use its offerings to shop) than Android devices with smaller screens.

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  • Gym Showdown Simulator Codes (July 2025)

    Gym Showdown Simulator Codes (July 2025)

    Update: added new Gym Showdown Simulator codes on July 5, 2025

    Gym Showdown Simulator is a virtual training-based auto-clicker game, and I’m having a lot of fun with it. Click your way into a stronger body with big muscles, take part in different competitions, and defeat other players to win them. Only the player with the best body will win in the Gym Showdown Simulator, so you should take every advantage you can get. The best way to get an advantage over other players is to use Gym Showdown Simulator codes, which give you free eggs, gems, and rare weapons. These freebies will make winning competitions easier.

    All New Gym Showdown Simulator Codes

    • EASTER: 50 Easter Eggs, 1 Rare Weapon (NEW)
    • 100LIKES: 10 Gems, 1 Rare Weapon
    • WELCOME: 50 Gems, 1 Rare Weapon

    Expired Gym Showdown Simulator Codes

    Currently, there are expired codes for this Roblox Experience. Once a code expires, we will move them to this section.

    Roblox has plenty of really good auto clickers that you should try out. Games like Anime Storm Simulator and Anime Eternal are good examples. But if you are bored of the genre, take a look at our Roblox game codes list and try out other amazing games like Blue Lock Rivals and Grow a Garden.

    How to Redeem Gym Showdown Simulator Codes

    Redeeming the codes for Gym Showdown Simulator is a lot simpler than building muscles. Here is how you can do it:

    • Launch Gym Showdown Simulator in the Roblox Launcher.
    • Click on the Settings icon in the bottom left corner.
    • Select the Codes option from the Settings menu.
    • Type the active code in the ‘Enter Code’ section.
    • Click Claim to obtain the rewards.

    How to Get More Gym Showdown Simulator Codes

    If you are looking for more codes for Gym Showdown Simulator, then you don’t need to go anywhere else. Our list above already contains all the currently active codes, and we update it regularly. So, you will always find only the active codes on this list, whenever you decide to pay us a visit. I would recommend to bookmark this post and visit us when you want to check for new codes.

    But if you would rather check for codes yourself, then you must follow the official socials for the game. The best place is to join the Habit Games Discord server or follow @plaincamron on X. The developers have multiple games, so tracking one game can become a hassle. Keep an eye on the ‘game-news’ channel for any updates or codes.

    So, enjoying Gym Showdown Simulator? Tell us about your experience so far in the comment section.

    Sanmay Chakrabarti

    An old soul who loves CRPGs and Souls-Like to death. Takes pleasure in simplifying “Complex and Hard” games for casual players with tailored guides and videos. He loves to explore new places, read fantasy fiction, watch anime, and create wacky character builds in his off time.


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  • Android May Soon Warn You About Fake Cell Towers

    Android May Soon Warn You About Fake Cell Towers

    In recent years, North Korea has deployed thousands of so-called IT workers to infiltrate Western businesses, get paid salaries, and send money back to support the regime. As the schemes have become more successful, they have grown increasingly elaborate and employed new tactics to evade detection.

    But this week, the United States Justice Department revealed one of its biggest operations to tackle IT workers to date. The DOJ says it has identified six Americans who allegedly helped enable the schemes and has arrested one of them. Law enforcement officials searched 29 “laptop farms” in 16 states and seized more than 200 computers, as well as web domains and financial accounts.

    Meanwhile, a group of young cybercriminals has been causing chaos around the world, leaving grocery stores empty and temporarily grounding some flights in the wake of their crippling cyberattacks. After a quiet period in 2024, the Scattered Spider hackers have returned this year and are ruthlessly targeting retailers, insurers, and airlines.

    Also this week, we’ve detailed how LGBTIQ+ organizations in El Salvador are helping activists chronicle attacks against their community and better protect themselves against state surveillance.

    And there’s more. Each week, we round up the security and privacy news we didn’t cover in depth ourselves. Click the headlines to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.

    Cell-site simulators, often known as stingrays or IMSI catchers, are some of the most stealthy and powerful surveillance tools in operation today. The devices, which impersonate cell towers and intercept communications, can collect call metadata, location information, and other traffic about what you do on your devices. They’ve increasingly been used by law enforcement and immigration officials.

    However, according to reporting from Android Authority and Ars Technica, upcoming hardware advances has led to Google upping its efforts to combat the potential snooping. Starting in Android 16, compatible devices will be able to identify when networks request device identifiers, such as device or SIM IDs, and issue alerts when you are connecting to a non-encrypted cell network. Examples of alerts show warnings that “calls, messages, and data are vulnerable to interception” when connected to insecure networks. There will also be notifications when you move back to an encrypted network. An option to turn on these notifications appears on a mobile network security settings page alongside the option to avoid 2G networks, which could help block some IMSI catchers from connecting to your device. However, while the settings will reportedly be available in Android 16, it may take some time for Android devices to widely use the required hardware.

    Ahead of the presidential election last November, Iran-linked hackers attacked Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and stole scores of emails in an apparent bid to influence the election results. Some of the emails were distributed to journalists and the Biden campaign. This week, following the Israel-Iran conflict and US intervention with “bunker-buster” bombs, the hackers behind the email compromise reemerged, telling Reuters that they may disclose or sell more of the stolen emails.

    The cybercriminals claimed they had stolen 100 GB of emails, including some from Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff. The cache of emails also allegedly includes those from Lindsey Halligan, a Trump lawyer, adviser Roger Stone, and adult film star Stormy Daniels. The hackers, who have used the name Robert, told Reuters they wanted to “broadcast this matter.” It is unclear whether they will act upon the threats.

    In response, US officials claimed that the threat from the hackers was a “calculated smear campaign” by a foreign power. “A hostile foreign adversary is threatening to illegally exploit purportedly stolen and unverified material in an effort to distract, discredit, and divide,” Marci McCarthy, a spokesperson for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said in a statement.

    Over the past few years, Chinese hacker group Salt Typhoon has been on a hacking rampage against US telecoms networks, successfully breaking into at least nine firms and gaining access to Americans’ texts and calls. Brett Leatherman, the recently appointed leader of the FBI’s cyber division, tells Cyberscoop that the Chinese hackers are now “largely contained” and lying “dormant” in the networks. The groups have not been kicked out of networks, Leatherman said, since the longer they are in the systems there are more ways they can find to “create points of persistence.” “Right now, we’re very focused on resilience and deterrence and providing significant support to victims,” Leatherman said.

    Deepfake platforms that allow people to create nonconsensual, often illegal, harmful images of women without clothes on have boomed in recent years. Now a former whistleblower and leaked documents from one of the largest so-called “nudify” apps, Clothoff, claims the service has a multimillion-euro budget and is planning an aggressive expansion where it will create nonconsensual explicit images of celebrities and influencers, according to reporting by German publication Der Spiegel. The alleged expansion has a marketing budget of €150,000 (around $176,000) per country to promote the images of celebrities and influencers, according to the report. It says more than “three dozen people” work for Clothoff, and the publication identified some of the potential key operators of the platform. Documents exposed online also revealed customer email addresses. A spokesperson who claimed to represent Clothoff denied there were more than 30 people as part of the central team and told Der Spiegel it does not have a multimillion-euro budget.

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  • Exposure to pesticides and increased risk of AMD

    Exposure to pesticides and increased risk of AMD

    (Image Credit: AdobeStock/New Africa)

    The risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) was found to increase as a result of exposure to the urinary dialkyl phosphate (DAP) metabolites in organophosphorus pesticides (OPPs), according to a new Chinese study.1 The authors, led by first author Yu-Xin Jiang, MD, are from the Department of Ophthalmology, Shanghai General Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine; the National Clinical Research Center for Eye Diseases; the Shanghai Key Laboratory of Fundus Diseases; and the Engineering Center for Visual Science and Photomedicine, all in Shanghai, China.

    The investigators pointed out that AMD is a multifactorial disease resulting from aging, genetic susceptibility, lifestyle habits, and environmental exposures, which make the pathogenesis of AMD highly intractable to prediction and interpretation. Considering that patient responses to current intravitreal treatments vary and complications are associated with treatment,2 early prevention of AMD from exposure to numerous risk factors is the most effective and feasible measure.

    “Among all factors, the adverse effects from environmental chemical exposures on AMD have been heatedly discussed in population-based epidemiologic studies. For example, several researchers have emphasized the impacts of heavy metals,3 air pollutants,4 and radiation5 exposure on the development of AMD. OPPs, a group of organophosphate or phosphate sulfide esters, are prevalent insecticides commonly applied worldwide in agricultural, residential, and commercial settings with the advantages of cost-effectiveness and high efficacy in controlling pests and preventing insect-borne diseases.6 Nevertheless, the persistent non-biodegradable nature and propensity of residue accumulation in soil and water bodies, in conjunction with multiple routes of human exposure to OPPs, for instance, ingestion, inhalation, and skin contact, have raised public attention to concern about their toxic effects on human health and ecosystems,7” they said.

    The OPPs can be swiftly absorbed, metabolized, and eliminated as urinary DAP metabolites from the body, commonly used as biomarkers in cohort studies.8

    Previous research has identified that OPPs are relevant to diverse diseases, including cancer,9 central nervous system disorders (Parkinson’s disease 10and depression),11 sleep problems,12 diabetes,13 hypertension,14 sex hormone function,15 and atopic diseases.16

    The investigators identified patients from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey17 between 2005 and 2008. Urinary DAP metabolites were used to construct a machine learning (ML) model for AMD prediction, they explained.

    They used interpretability pipelines, ie, permutation feature importance (PFI), partial dependence plot (PDP), and SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP), to analyze the effects of exposure features to prediction outcomes.

    Exposure effects

    The authors reported that of the 1,845 patients in the study, 137 had been diagnosed with AMD. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis evaluated Random Forests as the best ML model with its optimal predictive performance among 11 models. PFI and SHAP analyses indicated that DAP metabolites were of significant contribution weights in AMD risk prediction, higher than most of the sociodemographic covariates. Shapley values and waterfall plots of randomly selected AMD individuals emphasized the predictive capacity of ML with high accuracy and sensitivity in each case. The relationships and interactions visualized by graphical plots and supported by statistical measures showed the indispensable effects of six DAP metabolites to the prediction of AMD risk, the investigators reported.

    The authors believe this study yields a novel insight into the link between environmental factors and health outcomes.

    The study concluded, “Urinary DAP metabolites of OPPs exposure are associated with AMD risk, and ML algorithms show excellent generalizability and differentiability in the course of AMD risk prediction.”

    References
    1. Jiang Y-X, Gui S-y, Sun X-D. Associations between organophosphorus pesticides exposure and age-related macular degeneration risk in U.S. adults: analysis from interpretable machine learning approaches. Int J Ophthalmol. 2025;18:1214-1230. DOI:10.18240/ijo.2025.07.04
    2. Rakoczy EP. The promise of long-term treatment for neovascular age related macular degeneration. Lancet. 2024;403(10436):1517-1519.
    3. Park SJ, Lee JH, Woo SJ, et al. Five heavy metallic elements and age related macular degeneration: Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2008-2011. Ophthalmology. 2015;122:129-137.
    4. Liu L, Li C, Yu HH, et al. A critical review on air pollutant exposure and age-related macular degeneration. Sci Total Environ. 2022;840:156717.
    5. Brodzka S, Baszyński J, Rektor K, et al. Immunogenetic and environmental factors in age-related macular disease. Int J Mol Sci. 2024;25:6567.
    6. Costa LG. Organophosphorus compounds at 80: some old and new issues. Toxicol Sci. 2018;162:24-35.
    7. Nandi NK, Vyas A, Akhtar MJ, et al. The growing concern of chlorpyrifos exposures on human and environmental health. Pestic Biochem Physiol. 2022;185:105138.
    8. Li AJ, Kannan K. Profiles of urinary neonicotinoids and dialkylphosphates in populations in nine countries. Environ Int. 2020;145:106120.
    9. Sun HB, Sun ML, Barr DB. Exposure to organophosphorus insecticides and increased risks of health and cancer in US women. Environ Toxicol Pharmacol. 2020;80:103474.
    10. Narayan S, Liew Z, Bronstein JM, et al. Occupational pesticide use and Parkinson’s disease in the Parkinson Environment Gene (PEG) study. Environ Int. 2017;107:266-273.
    11. Wu YD, Song J, Zhang Q, et al. Association between organophosphorus pesticide exposure and depression risk in adults: a cross-sectional study with NHANES data. Environ Pollut. 2023;316(Pt 1):120445.
    12. Han L, Wang Q. Association between organophosphorus insecticides exposure and the prevalence of sleep problems in the US adults: an analysis based on the NHANES 2007-2018. Ecotoxicol Environ Saf. 2023;255:114803. 14
    13. Guo XW, Wang H, Song QX, et al. Association between exposure to organophosphorus pesticides and the risk of diabetes among US Adults: Cross-sectional findings from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Chemosphere. 2022;301:134471.
    14. Dong YQ, Xu W, Liu SP, et al. Serum albumin and liver dysfunction mediate the mediate the associations between organophosphorus pesticide exposure and hypertension among US adults. Sci Total Environ. 2024;948:174748.
    15. Zhang YQ, Wu WK, Zhu XD, et al. Organophosphorus insecticides exposure and sex hormones in general U.S. population: a crosssectional study. Environ Res 2022;215(Pt 2):114384.
    16. Dantzer J, Wood R, Buckley JP. Organophosphate pesticide exposure and atopic disease in NHANES 2005-2006. J Allergy Clin Immunol Pract. 2021;9:1719-1722.e3.
    17. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/ index.htm.

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  • Positive Grid Launches Spark NEO Wireless Guitar Rig Built Into A Pair Of Headphones

    Positive Grid Launches Spark NEO Wireless Guitar Rig Built Into A Pair Of Headphones

    Positive Grid has announced the launch of Spark NEO, a wireless guitar rig that’s built directly into a pair of over-ear headphones. Designed to deliver a personal audio experience, Spark NEO includes Positive Grid’s award-winning guitar amp technology with a pair of true wireless Bluetooth headphones so you can practise in private.

    Spark NEO headphones have all the usual audio capabilities as well as AI-powered guitar tone customization. The headphones provide a private and convenient way to stream audio over Bluetooth while playing guitar.

    Using custom-designed 40mm drivers and an ultra-lightweight bio-fiber diaphragm, the Spark NEO delivers a balanced sound to suit most styles of music. For guitarists, it offers advanced tone-shaping tools, giving the freedom to play anywhere without disturbing others.

    The included wireless transmitter instantly pairs any guitar with the Spark NEO headphones, while a built-in 1/4″ input can also support traditional guitar cables for those who don’t want to go wireless.

    There are four onboard and customizable guitar presets. Spark NEO makes it possible to play anywhere and be free from space limitations or noise constraints. When connecting to the free Spark app, users can unlock additional presets, amplifiers, effects, as well as advanced tone controls.

    To ensure the headphones are easy to wear, ultra-soft and durable ear cups, along with advanced damping materials, tuned venting and precise port adjustments, provide a high level of passive noise isolation. This makes it easier to hear the music without being disturbed by unwanted sounds. Users can jam along to backing tracks or a favorite song without disturbing others.

    Spark NEO creates a bridge between a traditional guitar and modern wireless technology. Unlike using generic headphones with a guitar amp, Spark NEO has extras available via the Spark App. This app extends the capabilities of Spark NEO by providing access to 33 amplifiers and 43 effects. Users can also access more than 100,000 tones on Positive Grid’s online ToneCloud.

    Auto Chords helps players learn and jam to any song by displaying the chords in real time as the song plays. Customizable presets provide more creative possibilities when playing along with backing tracks or favorite songs.

    Pricing and Availability:

    Positive Grid’s Spark NEO will be available soon from Positive Grid’s website, Amazon and select retailers. The price will be $199 / £189 / €239 and includes headphones, wireless transmitter and full access to the Spark app.

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  • Everything You Should Know About iOS 18 Before Apple Releases iOS 26

    Everything You Should Know About iOS 18 Before Apple Releases iOS 26

    Here’s what you need to know about the software, as well as hidden tips and tricks.

    Headshot of Zachary McAuliffe

    Zachary McAuliffe Staff writer

    Zach began writing for CNET in November, 2021 after writing for a broadcast news station in his hometown, Cincinnati, for five years. You can usually find him reading and drinking coffee or watching a TV series with his wife and their dog.

    Expertise Web hosting | Operating systems | Applications | Software Credentials

    • Apple software beta tester, “Helps make our computers and phones work!” – Zach’s grandparents


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