Our smartphones have transformed the way we take photos and videos and our relationship to these digital memories. Most of us will snap at least some pictures and clips every day with the gadget that’s always close at hand.

If you want to get more creative with photos on your phone, you can. Sometimes you’re going to want to take a picture remotely, without your phone in your hand and your finger over the shutter button—maybe you’re taking a wide shot of a large group, or you want to capture a lot of your surroundings.

Not only is this possible, there are multiple ways to go about it, no matter which flavor of phone you own. You can pick the one that you find the easiest to use, or switch between them as you need.

If you’ve got a smartwatch to match your smartphone, you can use it to take photos remotely, as long as you’re within about 33 feet (10 meters) of the phone. Get your handset in position first, then load up the relevant app on your watch—though you can then go back and readjust the phone if needed.

With the Apple Watch and an iPhone, the app you want on your wrist is the Camera Remote app, which comes preinstalled. A viewfinder screen from your iPhone will appear: Use the digital crown to zoom, and the shutter button (in the middle) to take a shot. By default, a three-second timer is used, but you can change this by tapping the button with the three dots (lower right).

For those of you with an Android phone and a Wear OS smartwatch, you can use Google’s default Camera app, which you should find preinstalled on your watch. Launch it from your wrist, and the Camera app should open on your connected phone: You can zoom using the slider on the right, and take a photo (with a three-second delay) by tapping the shutter button with a 3 on it. To change this delay, tap the three lines at the top.

No matter what phone you have, it’ll come with support for voice commands—and one of those commands will let you take photos. This will only work where your phone is close enough to hear you, and where you’re happy to talk to it, but it can be useful in certain situations for remote controlling the camera app.

On the iPhone, Siri can open the Camera app but won’t actually take a photo. To enable voice controlled capture, open Settings and choose Accessibility > Voice Control, then turn the feature on. The same page has a Commands menu where you can set up your custom voice command for taking photos, which will work from the viewfinder screen.

On Android, it’s even easier: Just say “hey Google, take a photo”—you can even add a number of seconds for a timer countdown. Gemini is now the default assistant for this task: To make sure it responds to voice commands, open the app, tap your profile picture (top right), then choose Settings > “Hey Google ” & Voice Match.

This is a really straightforward one, and you don’t need any extra apps or devices to get it set up. Your phone’s camera app comes with a timer control, so you can position the shot, set the timer, and then get in the frame. There’s a bit of guesswork involved, especially if you’re using your phone’s rear camera (as you won’t be able to see yourself), but it’s a simple option.

On the iPhone, you can tap the arrow near the top of the Camera app screen to reveal extra camera options at the bottom. Scroll through the icons until you reach the one that looks like a stopwatch. Tap this, and you can choose between a 3-second, 5-second, and 10-second delay when you press the shutter button.

On Pixel phones, tap the gear icon (lower left in portrait mode) to find the timer control: As on the iPhone, the delay options are 3 seconds, 5 seconds, or 10 seconds. If you’re using the Camera app on a Galaxy phone, tap the four dots (to the right in portrait mode), then the timer icon (which looks like a stopwatch), and you get the same delay options.

You’ve got yet more options for this if you need them. One is to use a simple Bluetooth clicker as a remote control: There are a whole host to choose from, such as this CamKix model that will cost you a mere $5.49. They work across iOS and Android and are easy to connect to your camera app.

If you have two Pixel 9 phones, you can also use a special feature called Connected Cameras. You can find it from Settings by tapping Connected devices > Connection preferences > Connected Cameras: You get a brief explanation of what the feature does, and you can turn it on via the Use Connected Cameras toggle switch.
This is a niche use case, as it only works with two handsets from the Pixel 9 series (at least for now). But if those are the phones you and your family have, you can use one to take photos through the camera of the other; head to the official guide from Google for more details on how it works.

The post How to take photos on your phone via remote control appeared first on Popular Science.

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You probably won’t find a shipwreck—but it’s possible. A fisherman recently found a one-hundred-year-old tugboat near Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and in 2023, an 8 year old with a metal detector found a 19th-century schooner off the coast of Lake Huron in Ontario, Canada. And there are more like it out there to be found—there could be up to 10,000 shipwrecks scattered among the waters of North America, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 

You might be wondering: What should you do if you find a shipwreck? I was also curious, so I did some digging on the legality, safety, and ethics of discovering a historic shipwreck. In short, don’t touch anything and report the wreck to your state or local government. Note that this article focuses on the US—the specific regulations will differ in other countries. 

You might be tempted, after finding a shipwreck, to claim it—or even just grab something from it. Don’t. 

First, it’s almost certainly not legal to take items from a shipwreck. In the United States, the Abandoned Shipwreck act of 1987 states that all shipwrecks legally belong to the state in which they’re found. The only major exceptions are sunken U.S. military vessels, which belong to the military; wrecks found on federal land, which belong to the federal government; and wrecks found on Native American reservations, which belong to the specific tribe. This is true for wrecks found on land, on beaches, and in the water. 

Put simply, discovering a shipwreck in the United States doesn’t give you any kind of legal right to salvage the wreck. Attempting to disturb a shipwreck could result in stiff penalties, including jail time and fines. 

But that’s not the only reason to stay away. Shipwrecks are also dangerous. Any ship powered by fossil fuels probably had many gallons of fuel on board at the time of its wreck, according to NOAA. Tampering with the wreck could start a leak (if it’s not leaking already), which would be dangerous for both you and the body of water it’s immersed in, as well as its inhabitants. The natural corrosion of the ship itself releases pollutants into the water that you’d rather not encounter.  The ship may also have been stowing dangerous materials, which in some cases could damage scuba gear or otherwise create dangerous conditions for you and your community. Military wrecks have their own obvious dangers, such as ammunition or explosives. Put simply, shipwrecks are best left to the professionals, who have training in dealing with these and other potential dangers. 

Shipwrecks are also the final resting places of the people who were on board during the wreck. In most cultures on Earth, including the United States, it’s considered distasteful to disturb the deceased. This means shipwrecks need to be treated with respect, the same way that a graveyard or a tomb should be. 

So, if you find a shipwreck that you think hasn’t been discovered, don’t touch anything. Don’t try to take anything. Leave the wreck alone and contact the proper authorities. 

Having said that, who are the proper authorities to get in touch with? As previously mentioned, state governments are responsible for wrecks within their borders under U.S. law. Your first point of contact should be  the historic preservation office in the state where you found the shipwreck. 

The National Park Service has a list of State Historic Preservation Offices, complete with links to department websites. Some states have dedicated forms for reporting shipwrecks; all have email addresses and phone numbers you can use to get in touch. It’s a good idea to record the GPS coordinates where you found the wreck and to provide photos if you can—this should help the agency find the wreck and determine whether it’s been previously documented. 

The state agency will, generally, take it from there, combining historic research with on-site investigations to determine the ship’s origins and ultimately work out a plan to preserve the site. The specifics vary, but generally there’s a collaboration with local archaeologists, universities, and other appropriate agencies. 

So, if you happen to find a shipwreck, do not disturb it or attempt to salvage anything from it—it’s illegal, unsafe, and potentially disrespectful to the deceased. Instead, you should contact the historic preservation office in your state. 

The post What to do if you find a shipwreck appeared first on Popular Science.

• iOS 19 -> ‌iOS 26‌


• iPadOS 19 -> iPadOS 26


• macOS 16 -> macOS 26


• tvOS 19 -> tvOS 26


• watchOS 12 -> watchOS 26


• visionOS 3 -> visionOS 26

• Personal Context - ‌Siri‌ will be able to keep track of everything on your device, like emails, messages, files, and more, helping you complete tasks and find things.


• Onscreen awareness - ‌Siri‌ will know what's on your screen and will be able to complete actions involving whatever you're looking at.


• Deeper App Integration - ‌Siri‌ will be able to do more in and across apps, performing actions and tasks that are not possible with the personal assistant right now. This will be a feature available for Apple's apps and third-party apps.

• New head gestures - Apple could add new head gestures, such as a gesture for adjusting the volume of Conversation Awareness. Last year, Apple added a nod and a head shake to answer or decline calls.


• Auto-pause for sleep - The AirPods could pause audio when the wearer falls asleep, presumably using sleep data gleaned from the Apple Watch, as the AirPods have no sleep detection functionality.


• Camera trigger - Apple is planning to add trigger functionality to the AirPods, capturing an image on a linked ‌iPhone‌ with a press on the AirPods stem. It's possible this might work with a timer so the ‌iPhone‌ user isn't touching an ear when the photo is taken.


• Microphone enhancement - AirPods could get a "studio quality" microphone mode that's similar to the Audio Mix feature on ‌iPhone‌ that lets users choose from sound recording options like studio and cinematic.


• Better pairing - Apple is apparently working on a feature that would improve how AirPods pair with shared iPads for use in the classroom.

• Music Haptics - Music Haptics will get customization options so haptics can be enabled for an entire song or just vocals, plus there will be options to adjust the intensity of taps, textures, and vibrations.


• App Store Labels - ‌App Store‌ product pages will get Accessibility Nutrition Labels that highlight accessibility features in apps.


• Accessibility Reader - Accessibility Reader is a systemwide reading mode that will make text easier to read thanks to customization features for adjusting font, color, spacing, and more.


• CarPlay - ‌CarPlay‌ is getting support for Large Text and Sound Recognition that will alert drivers to the sound of a crying baby, horns, and sirens.


• Background Sounds - Background Sounds will be customizable with new EQ settings, timers, and automation actions in Shortcuts.


• Personal Voice - Personal Voice will let users preserve their voice faster and more easily. It will use on-device machine learning to create a smoother, more natural-sounding voice in under a minute.


• Tracking - Head tracking and eye tracking are getting updates, plus Apple is adding support for Brain Computer Interface devices.

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• ‌Apple TV‌ 4K (3rd generation, 2022)

An international team of physicists has developed a new methodology to aid NASA and other government agencies in their ongoing investigations into unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs). The result is a novel strategy integrating a specially designed artificial intelligence program that was partially inspired by the physicists’ own hunt for elusive dark matter.

More popularly known as unidentified flying objects or UFOs, UAPs aren’t necessarily considered as outlandish as they were decades ago. Setting aside the various theories that point to mysterious visitors from another planet, analysis increasingly centers on determining more worldly explanations. UAPs are often explained by classified experimental aircraft, astronomical events, or simply a case of mistaken drone identity. Meanwhile, a small percentage of sightings continue to baffle experts.

Over the last few years, the US government has attempted to present a more transparent approach to its UAP research, while the military continues a campaign to destigmatize reporting sightings among its ranks. In November 2024, Congress held a publicly televised joint subcommittee hearing about UAPs featuring a former US Navy rear admiral and NASA administrator. While not without its fair share of criticism, these and similar events are shifting the overarching narrative around unidentified aerial phenomenon.

Researchers like Matthew Syzdagis at the University of Albany have followed this evolving discourse for years. An associate professor of physics focused on dark matter, Syzdagis recently began collaborating with over 30 colleagues around the world to determine if this approach to hunting dark matter could be adapted to the search for UAPs. Their results, published this month in the journal Progress in Aerospace Studies, offer a new interdisciplinary methodology to review the past and future UAP sightings.

“As this process moves forward, it’s critical that future study of UAPs follows a rigorous, repeatable method that can be tested and confirmed by other researchers,” Syzdagis said in a statement. “We aim to establish a roadmap for these efforts with this paper.”

The team relied on an array of datasets and tools to build their framework, including publicly available Doppler weather information from the National Weather Service (NWS). The NWS data was used to corroborate observations from additional equipment and determine if any of them simultaneously recorded a given anomaly. They then utilized Cosmic Watch, a radiation-detection system, to assess if a target UAP observed by infrared cameras was accompanied by ionizing radiation.

To help analyze the infrared data, Szydagis created a new software program called Custom Target Analysis Protocol (C-TAP) that utilizes machine learning alongside human verification to review individual camera frames on a pixel-by-pixel basis. Inspired by similar strategies used to scan for direct evidence of dark matter, C-TAP then flags and separates actual UAP observations from any digital noise. Finally, these results were overlaid with trigonometric calculations to exclude any known objects in the sky like satellites or the International Space Station.

To test it all out, Szydagis and colleagues used their new methodology to review observable light and infrared images collected on a 2021 field expedition around Laguna Beach, California, amid a period of heightened UAP reports. In total, the team reviewed about one hour of triggered visible and night-vision video footage along with over 600 hours of infrared data and 55 hours of background radiation measurements. Of the multiple anomalies initially flagged, researchers were able to offer plausible and likely explanations for all sightings except for one—a collection of bright white dots inside a dark spot recorded across multiple videos. And even then, it seems unlikely that the UAP event was unique.

“At this point, none can be classified as true anomalies, although further study of remaining ambiguities may alter this conclusion,” the study’s authors wrote in their conclusion.

Moving forward, the team hopes their methodology will help more researchers around the world continue to vet UAP sightings on a scientific, unbiased basis. 

“Given the longstanding, global nature of the UAP/UFO question, [and] the air safety and security implications of their presence… studying and understanding these phenomena is of great and urgent importance,” added University of Albany physics professor and study lead author Kevin Knuth.

The post Physicists use AI to hunt for UAPs and UFOs appeared first on Popular Science.

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A Spanish startup called Voltrac says it is building a new breed of smart tractor—one that could sow fields by day and run weapons to soldiers by night. And while the Hot Wheels-looking, fully electric tractor is currently remote-controlled, Voltrac is working to make its next version fully autonomous.

This “dual-use” tractor, first spotted by The Next Web, reportedly weighs 3.5 tons—roughly the size of a young African elephant—and has a carrying capacity of nearly 8,900 pounds. It can reach a top speed of around 24 miles per hour and operate for anywhere between 8 to 20 hours, thanks to two large 200kW batteries. The Voltrac comes equipped with a suite of sensors and onboard cameras that can be used to monitor a crop field—or a mine-filled battlefield.

Currently, the Voltrac is remotely controlled by a human operator who steers the machine through a first-person point of view. The company told TNW it’s currently awaiting EU regulatory approval to allow the machine to operate fully autonomously. In theory, they say, one remote operator, be it a farmer or a military commander, could oversee multiple shiny steel tractors working simultaneously. Voltrac says its low-profile tractor uses distributed electric propulsion via per-wheel motors, which it claims helps eliminate around 70 percent of traditional tractor components. That increased efficiency, they say, should reduce annual maintenance and operating costs for the owner by roughly 30 percent.

Voltrac did not immediately respond to Popular Science’s request for comment. 

As a farming tool, the Voltrac features a hitch that can be used to attach common tools of the trade like plows, mowers, or cutters. It also supports a large, attachable flatbed add-on for transporting containers full of tools and gear. The machine’s cameras can be used to conduct what the company calls “live experiments” on crops. The tractor could, for example, treat different parts of a field in slightly different ways to observe how plants respond to various treatments.

For military applications, the tractor could be used to remotely inspect areas for signs of mines, improvised explosive devices, or other unexploded ordnance. Its hefty carrying capacity means it could also be deployed to troops in difficult or dangerous-to-reach areas. Voltrac told TNW it is in early talks with several NATO departments regarding the tractor’s potential use in military scenarios.

“It’s built for tough terrain, and it doesn’t risk human life. It can do the same job whether it’s hauling crops or carrying ammo,” Voltrac’s co-founder and CTO Francisco Infante Aguirre said in a recent interview with TNW.

Using farming equipment for war might sound odd, but it’s not a totally novel idea. In Ukraine, farmers are already using basic tractors retrofitted with abandoned Russian tank parts to scour crop fields for unexploded mines. Others have reportedly built DIY radio-controlled tractors to clear mines and debris from contested farmland. Major militaries around the world—such as those of the US and France,—have already demonstrated the use of remote-controlled robots, similar in shape and size to the Voltrac, to aid in resupply efforts.

Voltrac likely still has hurdles to clear before reaching that stage. The company is still raising money and says it plans to start shipping its first tractors in early 2026.

The post This ‘dual-use’ electric tractor can sow fields and run guns  appeared first on Popular Science.

• There will be more use of light and transparency.


• There will be redesigned app icons, but he does not expect them to be round.


• Toolbars and tabs will be redesigned, with a focus on pop-out menus.


• Home Screen widgets have been redesigned to match the new "digital glass" look.


• Safari will feature a more transparent, glassy address bar.


• The glass-like design changes should extend to the Camera app, which will be revamped with a focus on simplicity.

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1. Open the TV app on your chosen device.


2. Scroll down the Watch Now category and select WWDC 2025. Alternatively, type "WWDC" into the Search field and select WWDC 2025 from the results.


3. Click Play.