Desk gadgets, 3D printers, piracy apps, split cells, Anthropic models, Wildcat Lake, SpaceX phone, frankenjet and hunting fireflies. Email has become such an important part of our day-to-day lives. I’ve been fighting a variety of email issues over the past few months. In some cases it was my own email and in other cases it was someone else’s email. In the last week, many of my own issues have been resolved and that’s a huge relief. Of course they could all break again when I least expect it. While the email is working, make sure to catch up on this week’s news in the stories included below.

• 5 gadgets that helped declutter my desk (and why they’re worth every penny)
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• HP EliteBoard G1a Review: It’s a Desktop, It’s a Keyboard, It’s a Work PC to Go
• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D vs Intel Core i7-14700K faceoff — A new battle for DDR4 supremacy in 2026
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• Bambu Lab X2D Review: For Consumers, Multi-Material Printing Has a New Benchmark
• Elegoo Centauri Carbon 2 Combo Review: Four Colors at One Compelling Price
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• I Tried Sony’s $260 Wearable AC. Here’s Why I Turned Around Before Leaving the Block

• Anthropic says Alibaba must be punished for largest Claude cloning attack
• OpenAI’s ChatGPT-5.6 gets the same banhammer treatment as Anthropic’s Mythos from the federal government — source says that Washington cautioned OpenAI against releasing the model without receiving approval
• Amazon blames piracy apps with malware for killing new Fire Stick sideloading
• Congressman Admits He Got Hacked, Warns That Signal ‘Is Not Secure’

• Doctors suspected man had brain cancer. He actually had worms.
• The first early human eggs from stem cells
• For the First Time, a Cell Built From Scratch Grows and Divides

• Chrome’s next update will kill your adblocker – and make the web less safe
• This free Windows tool shows exactly why my PC is slowing down (and it beats Task Manager)
• Google Wallet Adds a New Feature to Get You Through Airport Security Faster
• Microsoft Is Giving Windows 10 Users Another Year of Security Updates
• How to get free Windows 10 security patches until October 2027 – and avoid the $30 fee
• The Best Gmail Alternatives for Every Type of User
• Anthropic’s Mythos 5 Is Available Again, No Timeline for Fable 5
• Chrome vs. Edge vs. Firefox: I tested each browser’s AI, but I’m only sticking with one
• Anthropic launches Claude Sonnet 5 at a steep discount to its top model as the company races toward a blockbuster IPO
• Anthropic Reaches Deal With Trump Administration to Restore Access to Fable AI Model
• Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 Is Back With New Usage Limits And Safeguards

• The 10 Most Frustrating Things About Amazon’s Alexa and the Fixes That Work
• Meta considered buying Kalshi before developing its own prediction market app
• New PC purchases see sharpest drop in nearly three years as memory and storage prices bite — shipments fall by 7%, analysts forecast 14% contraction that will hit budget laptops hard
• I Tested ‘Wildcat Lake,’ Intel’s New CPUs for Budget Laptops. Here’s the Early Verdict
• Amazon: Our Starlink Rival Has Enough Satellites to Kick Off Service

• SpaceX plans to launch Starlink mobile service in the US
• A20 Pro leak shows how iPhone 18 Pro will run faster and cooler
• Nothing Phone (4a) Pro Review: An Affordable Phone With Something to Say
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• The iPhone 18 Pro just leaked, and it might be the single biggest Apple leak since the iPhone 4
• Samsung’s New Foldable Campaign Is a Cryptic, ASMR-Filled Puzzle
• This new Android security setting spots bad networks and fake cell towers – enable it ASAP
• SpaceX Showed Investors Prototype of Elon Musk’s New AI Device
• I Test Phones for a Living, and 2026’s Newest Models Are Actively Moving Backward

• Underpromise, overdeliver? Hands-on with the $24,950 Slate auto.
• Feds Poleaxe Polestar, Banning Future US Sales of Its EVs
• Say ‘Hi!’ to Waymo’s Newest Robotaxi. Here’s How It Compares to Amazon’s Zoox
• NASA’s X-59 “frankenjet” tests supersonic flight without the sonic boom

• The Story Behind the World’s Most Terrifying Haunted Doll
• 5 Isolated Islands That Are Strictly Forbidden (And Why)
• 4 Songs You May Not Know The Who’s Pete Townshend Wrote
• 7 Hit Songs You Didn’t Know Were Written By Prince
• For Decades, the Ultimate Midwestern Summer Job Was Headhunting Fireflies
• Why Do We Say “Straight From the Horse’s Mouth”?

If you see some important tech news that you feel we should share with our readers, please let us know and we’ll consider including it in our next post.