September 19, 2023

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IN THIS ISSUE

💵 X, formerly Twitter, looks set to go behind a paywall

📱 Apple just released its biggest annual iPhone update

🛰️ NASA to make history with its first return of asteroid material

UP FIRST

Elon Musk suggests X, formerly Twitter, will go behind a paywall

It's not yet clear when it might launch or how much users will be asked to pay

Anyone currently using the free tier of X, formerly Twitter, may soon be asked to hand over a “small” monthly fee to access the service, X owner Elon Musk said on Monday.

Musk described the “vast armies of bots” on the social media site as a “super tough problem” and said that as a result the platform is “moving to having a small monthly payment" to use X.

Automated accounts can fill up people’s DM inboxes and replies with spam, spread hateful material, or attempt to influence elections.

Musk explained that the hassle of setting up multiple paid accounts that each require a new payment method should make the process of setting up bots more challenging.

But rather than seeing off bots, charging a subscription could prompt casual users to leave the platform, too.

Currently, X has only one subscription tier, called Premium, which offers extra features starting at $84 per year.

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iPHONE

Apple just released its big annual iPhone update

iOS 17 brings lots of new features to the popular handset

Hot on the heels of the iPhone 15 launch, Apple has just released the latest version of the iPhone’s operating system.

iOS 17 offers a bunch of new features, including Live Voicemail, Contact Posters, autofill improvements, StandBy mode, offline Apple Maps, and interactive widgets.

Before you prepare to update your iPhone to iOS 17, take a moment to check if it’s actually compatible. Newer phones will be fine, but older devices such as the iPhone X and iPhone 8 will have to stick with iOS 16. This article reveals which iPhones can and can't get iOS 17.

iOS 17 has been available via developer and public betas for some time, but it’s only now that most iPhone owners will be installing it on their handset. To do so, go to Settings > General > Software Update, and then follow the instructions.

COMING SOON

NASA about to make history with its first return of asteroid material

The complex seven-year mission will end on Sunday

NASA will make history on Sunday when it completes its first-ever mission involving the return of rock samples taken from an asteroid in deep space.

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is currently hurtling toward Earth carrying a small capsule containing the material that it collected from the Bennu asteroid in 2020.

When the spacecraft comes within 63,000 miles of our planet, the capsule will be released and descend toward a landing zone in the Utah desert before being recovered by a waiting team.

The asteroid material “will offer generations of scientists a window into the time when the sun and planets were forming about 4.5 billion years ago,” according to NASA, and could even shed light on how life on Earth began.

NASA will live-stream the capsule’s homecoming on Sunday, September 24, starting at 10 a.m. ET.

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