1. What’s the catch with the Apple Upgrade program?  The Verge
2. Apple to lease iPhones, other products to users through Klarna partnership  Fox Business
3. Apple Upgrade launches in the United States  Apple
4. Apple will now let you lease your next iPhone or Mac instead of buying it  CNN
5. Can’t Afford an Apple Product Outright? Now You Can Lease One.  U.S. News & World Report

1. Gemini for macOS rolling out voice control and Gboard Rambler-level transcription  9to5Google
2. Gemini for macOS adds new natural language capabilities  blog.google
3. Google Will Let Mac Users Talk To Gemini Simply By Pressing The 'Fn' Key  Engadget
4. Google Challenges Apple Intelligence With New Mac Gemini Upgrade  Forbes
5. Gemini for MacOS Gets New Voice and ‘Screen Awareness’ Features  CNET

1. AMD reveals the Radeon RX 9050—and 4GB graphics cards are back  PCWorld
2. Leaks Point to Return of 4GB GPUs as AI Flash Memory Crisis Worsens  Digital Foundry
3. ASRock officially announces Radeon RX 9050 with 8GB VRAM — RDNA 4 card offers boost clock of up to 2600MHz (updated)  Tom's Hardware
4. AMD Software Adrenalin 26.7.1 WHQL Drivers Released  TechPowerUp
5. 4GB graphics cards are back  The Verge

1. You don’t need to splurge on an expensive handheld fan to beat the heat  The Verge
2. I’ve Been Testing Handheld Fans All Summer. This Is the $50 One I Throw in My Bag  CNET
3. The Best USB Fans for Camping, Beach Days, and Backyard Heat Are Surprisingly Affordable  popularmechanics.com
4. Struggling to Keep Cool During the Dog Days of Summer? Amazon’s ‘Must-Have’ Misting Fan Is on Sale for $30  Autoblog
5. 'Brilliant fan' commuter used in heat as 'people on Tube asked where it's from'  AOL.co.uk

1. OpenAI's First Devices: Speaker, Smartphone, and More  macrumors.com
2. OpenAI president says it’s ‘building a family of devices’ for its AI chatbots  The Verge
3. Inside Sam Altman and Jony Ive's AI hardware dream team and the battle for OpenAI’s future  Fortune
4. OpenAI Is ‘Very Interested’ in Building Out ChatGPT Integrations for Wearables  CNET
5. OpenAI plans to test first hardware device in South Korea  digitimes

On Wednesday, Aug. 12, a total solar eclipse will be visible in parts of Greenland, Iceland, northern Russia, the Atlantic Ocean, Spain, and a small corner of Portugal. NASA will stream the eclipse live with views across the path and interviews with subject matter experts through a variety of platforms.

Learn where to watch online:

https://www.nasa.gov/live

Viewers in other places in the Northern Hemisphere also will have the chance to experience a partial solar eclipse, including parts of the U.S. (from Alaska to North Carolina), most of Canada, much of Europe, and northwestern Africa.

During the eclipse, NASA will conduct experiments in the path of totality. To investigate the dynamics of the Sun’s corona, a NASA-funded science team will chase the Moon’s shadow with a WB-57 high-altitude research aircraft. The NASA-supported Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project is sending students from several U.S. universities to Iceland and Spain to launch scientific balloons before, during, and after the eclipse to research how the temporary darkening of our skies during the eclipse affects Earth’s atmosphere.

NASA’s eclipse coverage is as follows (all times Eastern):

Wednesday, Aug. 12

• 1:15 p.m.: Eclipse broadcast begins
• 1:45 p.m.: Totality begins in Iceland
• 2:28 p.m.: Totality begins in Spain

NASA photography coverage
Photos of the eclipse, dependent on visibility, will be available shortly after the eclipse. View images on the agency’s Flickr account.

Watch, engage on social media
During the broadcast, NASA experts will answer questions submitted on social media. Send in your questions and let people know you’re watching the eclipse on X, Facebook, and Instagram by following and tagging these accounts:
 
X: @NASA, @NASASolarSystem, @NASAScience_

Facebook: NASA, NASASolarSystem, @NASAScience

Instagram: @NASA, @NASASolarSystem, @NASAScience_

Learn more about the eclipse at:

https://science.nasa.gov/eclipses

-end-

Abbey Interrante / Karen Fox
Headquarters, Washington
301-201-0124 / 202-358-1600
abbey.a.interrante@nasa.gov / karen.c.fox@nasa.gov

1 Min Read

NASA’s Curiosity Views a Sand-Capped Butte

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NASA’s Curiosity Views a Sand-Capped Butte

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NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this sand-capped butte, nicknamed “Miraflores,” estimated to be about 20 feet (6 meters) tall, with its Mast Camera, or Mastcam, on June 11, 2026, the 4,923rd Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The butte was left behind as surrounding rock eroded away over time, deepening the broad valley Curiosity is climbing through. 

The surrounding area includes an expanse of terrain covered in surface features called polygons.

The panorama is made up of 11 individual images that were sent to Earth and stitched together. The color has been adjusted to match lighting conditions as the human eye would see them on Earth.

Curiosity was built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington as part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio. Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego built and operates Mastcam.

To learn more about Curiosity, visit:

science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-curiosity

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2 Min Read

NASA’s Curiosity Discovers a Field of Martian Polygons

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NASA’s Curiosity Discovers a Field of Martian Polygons

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PIA26729 Figure A

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NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this 360-degree view of an expanse of terrain covered in surface features called polygons on June 19 and 20, 2026, the 4,930th and 4,931st Martian days, or sols, of the mission. The rover has found polygons several times in the past, but never so many in one place. Across the center of this image, the surface is covered by shapes ranging in size from roughly 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 centimeters) in diameter. The features also surround and wrap around a sand-capped butte nicknamed “Miraflores,” seen at far right in the image.

Figure A is a crop from the bottom-center of the panorama highlighting the polygons and their honeycomb-like textures.

Polygonal textures can form from a variety of conditions, including drying out of the surface (like in mud cracks), temperature cycles, compaction after being buried, or shrinkage of the sediment from loss of water or mineral changes. Scientists are measuring characteristics of these polygons to home in on which process formed them.

This panorama was captured by Curiosity’s Mast Camera, or Mastcam, as the rover continued its ascent of the foothills of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain that it’s been climbing since 2014. 

The panorama is made up of 340 individual images that were sent to Earth and stitched together. The color has been adjusted to match lighting conditions as the human eye would see them on Earth.

Curiosity was built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington as part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio. Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego built and operates Mastcam.

To learn more about Curiosity, visit:

science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-curiosity

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As NASA’s Curiosity rover recently began climbing up a Martian valley nicknamed “Valle Grande,” it sent back images that were a familiar sight to mission scientists: honeycomb-like textures called polygonal fractures, each one about 1.5 to 3 inches (4 to 8 centimeters) across. The mission has spotted small patches of these geometric shapes several times before, but nothing at the scale discovered in Valle Grande.

In a 360-degree panorama that the rover captured on June 19 and 20, the 4,930th and 4,931st Martian days, or sols, of the mission, the polygonal shapes spread in all directions for as far as the rover can see. They even wrap around the sides of a nearby butte nicknamed “Miraflores,” which stands 20 feet (6 meters) tall and is topped with a thick cap of sand.

“We’ve seen a lot of fascinating landscapes through Curiosity’s eyes, but this sea of polygons took our breath away,” said the mission’s project scientist, Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “We measured their shapes and chemistry carefully and are hopeful there are clues in the data as to how these features formed.”

Some of the polygons that the mission has spotted in the past clearly formed as mud cracks, though a variety of processes can contribute to their honeycomb textures, including cycles of warm and cold temperatures or compression that squeezed water out of the sediment when the surface was buried.

These newly discovered polygons are among the many surprises Curiosity has trundled across since landing on Mars 14 years ago, on Aug. 5, 2012. Besides sulfur crystals, shiny meteorites, and other interesting geologic features, the rover has made major discoveries about the ancient Martian environment — most importantly, that it had the water, chemistry, and nutrients to support microbial life.

Billions of years ago, lakes and streams dappled the lower foothills of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain that Curiosity has been ascending since 2014. The rover has previously uncovered chemistry left over from Mars’ watery history, including carbon-based molecules believed to be precursors to RNA and DNA, two nucleic acids that carry genetic information. Scientists have no way of knowing whether these organic molecules were created by biologic or geologic processes — either path is possible — but their discovery reconfirmed that ancient Mars had the right chemistry to support life.

Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, JPL built Curiosity and leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington as part of the agency’s Mars Exploration Program portfolio.

To learn more about Curiosity, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-curiosity

News Media Contacts

Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov

Karen Fox / Alana Johnson
NASA Headquarters, Washington
240-285-5155 / 202-672-4780
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov

2026-051

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