Apple has officially set a date for its iPhone September event, which is due to take place on September 9. This year’s launch will be held at the Steve Jobs Theater on Apple’s campus in Cupertino, California. The company is expected to unveil the iPhone 17 range, which for the first time will include the iPhone 17 Air—though that name could change—Apple’s thinnest and lightest iPhone to date. We’re also expecting the Apple Watch Series 11, Apple Watch Ultra 3, and the AirPods Pro 3.

The invitations included the tagline “Awe dropping,” along with the Apple logo in shades of blue and green. These are rumored to be color choices for the iPhone 17 Pro devices. The logo also moves like a heat map on Apple’s website, which could allude to potential thermal improvements in the upcoming devices, or the rumored switch back to aluminum instead of titanium on the iPhone Pro models (which would also improve thermals, anyway).

WIRED will be on the ground live-blogging the latest from Apple’s presentation. In the meantime, you can brush up on all the features coming to your iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Watch, as Apple usually drops the next operating system version right after the event.

Oura Is Building a Manufacturing Facility in Texas

Oura, the leading global manufacturer of smart rings, announced this week that it has plans to build a manufacturing facility in Fort Worth, Texas. Oura’s largest enterprise customer is the Department of Defense, and US-based manufacturing operations will support its needs. Oura has sent tens of thousands of rings to optimize performance across all branches of the US armed services. It notes that its rings are being used in four key research areas: stress management and resilience, fitness optimization, fatigue risk management, and early illness detection.

This announcement comes at a time when the smart ring industry is going through lots of shake-ups. The US International Trade Commission recently ruled in favor of Oura in a patent infringement case against competitors Ultrahuman and Ringconn, which have had to pull their respective rings from the US market. This is particularly bad news for Ultrahuman, which has a facility in Plano, Texas, where the company was planning to manufacture rings in the US to get around tariffs. Ultrahuman is also countersuing. (It’s all very messy.)

We’ll keep an eye on the situation as it evolves, but for now, US customers might only be able to buy an Oura ring. It’s a good thing it’s our favorite smart ring. —Adrienne So

Courtesy of Plaud

Plaud Has a New Note Pin

Plaud makes a credit card-sized AI note-taking device that listens to the world around you and then transcribes conversations, summarizing them into meeting notes with actionable insights. It began with the Plaud Note, then the Plaud NotePin, a wearable device, and this week the company unveiled the Plaud Note Pro ($179).

It shares a similar card-shaped design with the original, but now it features two extra microphones to pick up audio at a wider range. There’s also now a 0.95-inch AMOLED screen that displays battery life, the current recording status, and the mode. Unlike the original, you don’t need to flip a switch to swap from recording calls to in-person meetings—the Pro will do it for you. Just long-press the button once to start recording. You can highlight key information during a meeting with a short press, and you can type in the phone app simultaneously to add your thoughts; they’ll be contextualized to the recording instantly. Plaud also lets you snap a photo with your phone to add additional context.

Plaud’s Note Pro can identify and label individual speakers in its transcriptions, and it can transcribe 112 languages. You can also ask Plaud (via the app) a specific question from your notes, so there’s no need to hunt for key details. It employs large language models from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. The Note Pro is up for preorder now and ships in October. You get 300 transcription minutes per month, but you’ll have to cough up $100 per year to quadruple that and get access to new features faster. (There’s a plan that offers unlimited transcription minutes for $240 annually.)

On Friday, the Social Security Administration’s chief data officer, Chuck Borges, sent an email to agency staff claiming that he had been forcibly removed from his position after filing a whistleblower complaint this week accusing the agency of mishandling sensitive agency data. Minutes after the email went out, it disappeared from employee inboxes, two SSA sources tell WIRED.

“I am regretfully and involuntarily leaving my position at the Social Security Administration (SSA),” Borges wrote in the resignation letter to staff obtained by WIRED. “This involuntary resignation is the result of SSA’s actions against me, which make my duties impossible to perform legally and ethically, have caused me serious attendant mental, physical, and emotional distress, and constitute a constructive discharge.”

Less than 30 minutes after staffers received the email, it mysteriously disappeared from employee inboxes, the SSA sources tell WIRED. It is not clear whether the email had been restored after it was made unavailable, nor was the reason for the email’s disappearance immediately clear. One SSA staffer speculates that it was removed because it was critical of the agency.

“It certainly didn’t paint CIO leadership in a favorable light,” one SSA source says, referring to the SSA’s chief information officer.

Under the Federal Records Act of 1950, US agencies are typically required by law to maintain internal records, including emails.

Independent journalist Marisa Kabas was first to report on Borges’ resignation and his email’s disappearance in posts on Bluesky.

Neither Borges nor SSA immediately responded to requests for comment.

The “involuntary resignation” comes days after Borges filed a formal whistleblower complaint to the US Office of Special Counsel accusing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) of wrongfully uploading SSA data, which included highly sensitive information on millions of people with Social Security numbers, to an unsecure cloud server. Borges alleges that uploading “live” SSA data to a cloud server outside of agency protocols is illegal and could put the data at risk of being hacked or leaked.

“Recently, I have been made aware of several projects and incidents which may constitute violations of federal statutes or regulations, involve the potential safety and security of high value data assets in the cloud, possibly provided unauthorized or inappropriate access to agency enterprise data storage solutions, and may involve unauthorized data exchange with other agencies,” Borges wrote in his Friday letter.

In a statement to The New York Times on Tuesday, SSA spokesperson Nick Perrine defended the agency’s data-security practices and claimed that the data Borges’ complaint references is “walled off from the internet.”

“SSA stores all personal data in secure environments that have robust safeguards in place to protect vital information,” Perrine said. “The data referenced in the complaint is stored in a long-standing environment used by SSA and walled off from the internet. High-level career SSA officials have administrative access to this system with oversight by SSA’s information security team.”

Borges’ whistleblower complaint included documents showing that DOGE affiliate John Solly, working under the SSA, asked a career agency employee to copy data from Numident, a master SSA database including a lifelong record of all SSN holders, to a “virtual private cloud,” identified in the complaint as an Amazon Web Services server controlled by SSA. Edward “Big Balls” Coristine was also involved with the project, according to the complaint.

“Mr. Borges’ disclosures involve wrongdoing including apparent systemic data security violations, uninhibited administrative access to highly sensitive production environments, and potential violations of internal SSA security protocols and federal privacy laws by DOGE personnel Edward Coristine, Aram Moghaddassi, John Solly, and Michael Russo,” the complaint reads. “These actions constitute violations of laws, rules, and regulations, abuse of authority, gross mismanagement, and creation of a substantial and specific threat to public health and safety.”

Neither Coristine, Moghaddassi, Solly, nor Russo immediately responded to WIRED’s request for comment.

Tactile sensors are widely used in robotics, prosthetics, wearable devices, and health care monitoring. These devices detect and convert external stimuli such as pressure and force into electrical signals, facilitating effective environmental detection.

Scientists have made extensive efforts to improve the performance of tactile sensors in terms of sensing range and sensitivity.

In this context, mechanical metamaterials are highly promising. Specifically, auxetic mechanical metamaterials (AMMs)—possessing a negative Poisson’s ratio—enable inward contraction and localized strain concentration upon compression. These counterintuitive behaviors render them lucrative options for designing sensors and actuators with excellent properties.

However, existing AMM technology suffers from fabrication and integration challenges.

Addressing this knowledge gap, a team of researchers from the Seoul National University of Science and Technology, led by Mr. Mingyu Kang, the first author of the study and a Master’s course student in the Department of Mechanical Design and Robot Engineering, and including Dr. Soonjae Pyo, an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical System Design Engineering, have proposed a novel 3D AMM-based tactile sensing platform based on a cubic lattice with spherical voids and fabricated using digital light processing-based 3D printing.

Their findings are published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

The researchers explored the tactile sensing platform, utilizing 3D-printed auxetic metamaterials in both capacitive and piezoresistive sensing modes. While the sensor responds to pressure via electrode spacing and dielectric distribution modulation in the first mode, the latter mode leverages a conformally coated network of carbon nanotubes that alters resistance under load.

“The unique negative Poisson’s ratio behavior utilized by our technology induces inward contraction under compression, concentrating strain in the sensing region and enhancing sensitivity,” said Mr. Kang.

“Beyond this fundamental mechanism, our auxetic design further strengthens sensor performance in three critical aspects: sensitivity enhancement through localized strain concentration, exceptional performance stability when embedded within confined structures, and crosstalk minimization between adjacent sensing units.

“Unlike conventional porous structures, this design minimizes lateral expansion, improving wearability and reducing interference when integrated into devices such as smart insoles or robotic grippers.

“Furthermore, the use of digital light processing-based 3D printing enables precise structural programming of sensor performance, allowing geometry-based customization without changing the base material.”

The team showcased two proof-of-concept scenarios highlighting the novelty of their work: a tactile array for spatial pressure mapping and object classification, as well as a wearable insole system with gait pattern monitoring and pronation type detection capabilities.

According to Dr. Pyo, “The proposed sensor platform can be integrated into smart insoles for gait monitoring and pronation analysis, robotic hands for precise object manipulation, and wearable health monitoring systems that require comfortable sensing without disrupting daily life.

“Importantly, the auxetic structure preserves its sensitivity and stability even when confined within rigid housings, such as insole layers, where conventional porous lattices typically lose performance.

“Its scalability and compatibility with various transduction modes also make it suitable for pressure mapping surfaces, rehabilitation devices, and human-robot interaction interfaces that require high sensitivity and mechanical robustness.”

In the next decade, auxetic-structured 3D-printed tactile sensors could form the backbone of next-generation wearable electronics, enabling continuous, high-fidelity monitoring of human movement, posture, and health metrics.

Their structural adaptability and material independence could drive the creation of custom-fit, application-specific sensors for personalized medicine, advanced prosthetics, and immersive haptic feedback systems.

As additive manufacturing becomes more accessible, mass-customized tactile interfaces with programmable performance may become standard in consumer products, health care, and robotics.