Author: Geek Planet

This republished article first appeared in The National Review Readers may recall the Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans cases in the U.K., in which National Health Service hospitals took the parents of terminally ill children to court after they refused to acquiesce in doctors’ recommendations that life support be ended. In both cases, the court ruled in the hospital’s favor in determining both that life support could be ended and preventing the parents from transferring care of their children to medical facilities willing to provide last-ditch treatments that the families wanted. Now, a Trust hospital hasn’t even bothered going to court. Instead, doctors have unilaterally withdrawn kidney dialysis…

Perplexity just launched a feature that lets different AI models collaborate on the same task. Called Perplexity Computer, it taps Gemini, Grok, and ChatGPT 5.2 depending on what you need. But Computer does more than answer questions. It completes tasks. The tool is live today for Perplexity Max subscribers on desktop web and will reach Enterprise Max users soon. The system runs Opus 4.6 as its core reasoning engine. But for specific jobs, it hands off to specialist models. Gemini handles deep research by creating sub-agents. Grok jumps in for speed on lightweight tasks. ChatGPT 5.2 manages long-context recall and…

We’ve already heard from multiple sources about the possibility of a variable-aperture camera on the iPhone 18 Pro series. The latest rumor not only corroborates those, but also sheds some light on the camera upgrades that might arrive in future iPhone models.  Renowned Chinese tipster Digital Chat Station (via Weibo) has recently posted a detailed breakdown of the four camera upgrades that the Cupertino giant is working on, and one of them could arrive as soon as the iPhone 18 Pro series this fall.  Variable aperture camera on the iPhone 18 Pro Variable aperture is the headline upgrade, and it’s…

If you’ve ever signed up for an app and then spent the next five minutes hunting for a six-digit code buried in your inbox, you know how painful the process is. I especially despise the magic sign-up link that websites send, as they sometimes fail to work if my default browser isn’t Google Chrome. Thankfully, Google is fixing that with a new verified email credential for Android, and it’s a genuinely smart solution.  So what’s actually broken with OTPs? The humble OTP has been the backbone of email verification forever, but it comes with real problems. You leave the app,…

Samsung Research, along with South Korea’s POSTECH, has published a paper in the journal Nature about a breakthrough in display technology. The company is working on a switchable 2D/3D system that works without glasses and eye-tracking hardware.  The system doesn’t even add meaningful bulk to a display. It is built around what is called a Metasurface Lenticular Lens, an ultra-thin optical layer that’s just 1.2mm thick, made up of nanoscale structures that control how light behaves, and, in the process, how we perceive the light being emitted by the display.  How does the technology actually work? Using voltage control, the…

A new leak from Weibo suggests Apple‘s upcoming budget laptop could arrive without several expected features. The rumored sub-$1,000 machine might ditch True Tone display support, fast charging, and a backlit keyboard according to the post and other online sources. The 12.9-inch model would target the price range Apple hasn’t seriously addressed since the M1 MacBook Air. But buyers could face real tradeoffs to hit that lower price. The information also points to missing high-impedance headphone support and slower SSD storage than the MacBook Air and Pro. Display and charging get downgraded The screen and power setup might take the…

Apple‘s next CEO, Jorn Ternus, is already talking a lot more confidently about AI, but he does not sound interested in turning the company into a copy of its rivals. According to Bloomberg, John told employees at an all-hands meeting that artificial intelligence will create “almost unlimited potential” for Apple and open up entirely new possibilities across products and services. At the same time, he also stressed that Apple will keep the design at the center of what it does, and stick to Apple’s core identity. To recall, Apple just announced that Ternus will take over as CEO on September…

Deleting a message should mean it’s gone, right? Apparently, nobody told the iPhone’s notification database about that.  On April 22, 2026, Apple released a security update for iPhones and iPads, quietly patching a bug that allowed law enforcement, including the FBI, to recover messages that users thought they had deleted.  How did deleted messages end up being recoverable? The reason: how iOS handled notification caching. When a message arrived, iOS triggered a notification, logging the content of the message into a database that was stored locally on the device (and stayed there for up to a month).  Even if the…

The OnePlus 16 could end up being one of the more ridiculous display upgrades in the next flagship cycle. A fresh leak has revealed some impressive display specs of the brand’s next top model. But the number that really jumps off the page is the refresh rate. Chinese tipster DigitalChatStation claims 185Hz is the minimum target, though OnePlus is reportedly testing support up to 240Hz. Why OnePlus 16’s display could be its main attraction The upcoming OnePlus flagship smartphone will apparently sport a tall 6.78-inch flat BOE OLED display with a 1.5K resolution and LTPO tech, which brings variable refresh…

As AI systems become embedded in society, a new question is emerging: can they improve our lives beyond technical and creative tasks? Can they help humans as a race to make better decisions, make us less selfish, and foster better cooperation?  A recent study by researchers Arend Hintze and Christoph Adami explores exactly this question in their paper, “Promoting Cooperation in the Public Goods Game Using Artificial Intelligence Agents,” published in npj Complexity. The tragedy of the commons The tragedy of the commons is an economic theory where individuals, in a shared and limited resource environment, overuse and deplete the…