Comment on China Cancels 103 Coal Plants, Mindful of Smog and Wasted Capacity

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Aurich Lawson) Internet service providers are again urging the Federal Communications Commission to impose new fees on Big Tech firms and use the money to subsidize broadband network deployment and affordability programs. If approved, the request would force Big Tech firms to pay into the FCC's Universal Service Fund (USF), which in turn distributes money to broadband providers. The request was made on June 6 by USTelecom, a lobby group for AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink/Lumen, and smaller telcos.

The Calculator app is finally coming to iPad. [credit: Samuel Axon ] CUPERTINO, Calif.—After going into detail about iOS 18, Apple took a few moments in its WWDC 2024 keynote to walk through some changes. There are a few minor UI changes and new features across Apple's first party apps. That includes a new floating tab bar.

Enlarge / Using macOS S15 Sequoia to stream an iPhone's screen to a Mac while the iPhone stays locked. (credit: Apple) Apple has formally announced macOS 15 at its Worldwide Developers Conference. Codenamed Sequoia, the new release brings a combination of iOS 18 features and a few Mac-specific things to the devices it supports. Users who split their time between Windows and macOS will be the most excited to see that Apple has finally implemented a form of automated window tiling in macOS.

Enlarge (credit: Apple) The biggest feature in iOS 18, the one that affects the most people, was a single item in a comma-stuffed sentence by Apple software boss Craig Federighi: "Support for RCS." As we noted when Apple announced its support for "RCS Universal Profile," a kind of minimum viable cross-device rich messaging, iPhone users getting RCS means SMS chains with Android users "will be slightly less awful." SMS messages will soon have read receipts, higher-quality media sending, and typing indicators, along with better security.

Enlarge / A Mac virtual monitor in visionOS 2. (credit: Samuel Axon) CUPERTINO, Calif.—Apple kicked off the keynote for its annual developer conference by announcing a new version of visionOS, the operating system that runs on the company's pricey but impressive Vision Pro mixed reality headset. The updates in visionOS 2 are modest, not revolutionary—mostly iterative changes, quality-of-life improvements, and some features that were originally expected in the first version of visionOS.

Enlarge (credit: Getty | Yui Mok) The strain of H5N1 bird flu isolated from a dairy worker in Texas was 100 percent fatal in ferrets used to model influenza illnesses in humans. However, the virus appeared inefficient at spreading via respiratory droplets, according to newly released study results from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The data confirms that H5N1 infections are significantly different from seasonal influenza viruses that circulate in humans.