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There's one more stop on the Marvel Cinematic Universe journey to Doomsday , as Tom Holland will reprise his role as Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Brand New Day . Projected to gross between $180 million and $190 million in its three-day domestic debut, Brand New Day will be hoping to follow in the footsteps of its Spidey predecessors and hit the billion-dollar mark at the global box office. Holland is joined in the film by a host of eye-catching names, including Zendaya as MJ, Jacob Batalon as Ned, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/The Hulk, Michael Mando as Scorpion, Marvin Jones III as Tombstone, and more.

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The European Union will not yet introduce a ban on products from territories illegally occupied by Israel after less than half of the bloc’s foreign ministers voted for action on the issue during a tense meeting Monday.

A group of EU countries has been haranguing the executive to ban trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, in what has become a battle between the EU’s institutions as well as between capitals with differing stances on Israel’s actions in the occupied Palestinian territories.

After Monday’s meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said that a proposal to ban trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank had “got the most support” from members. However, it fell short of the simple majority needed to compel the European Commission to present specific sanctions for member countries to vote on.

“All the 27 member states agree that Israeli settlements are illegal under international law,” Kallas said, adding that the EU’s existing policies have “not done much to limit trade with the settlements” because of inconsistent implementation.

The Commission, led by Ursula von der Leyen, has resisted efforts to impose new trade barriers on Israel and did not present EU countries with formal measures for them to vote on at Monday’s meeting. It did provide an options paper for possible measures, including the trade ban, an import licensing system, and targeted tariffs.

A group of EU countries, including Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain and backed by Kallas, came into Monday’s meeting looking to force the Commission to bring specific measures for them to vote on. But only 11 actually called for concrete measures from the European Commission at the meeting, according to an EU diplomat directly aware of the exchanges — short of the simple majority needed to force the EU executive to propose such measures.

“The situation is starting to be irritating,” said a different diplomat, who hails from a country strongly supportive of further measures against imports from the settlements. “We want to be able to vote on measures and see whether they are supported or rejected. This constant in-between state is worse.”

Kallas also lamented that no immediate decision could be taken because of the Commission’s stance, but said she hoped that, since “there is a will [from member countries] … we can move forward.”

She said ambassadors have been tasked with working on the issue, and an extraordinary meeting on it is likely. She emphasized the measures are not against Israel, but against the illegal settlements which she says undermine the two-state solution.

Inside the Foreign Affairs Council meeting room, the tone of talks among foreign ministers on Israel sanctions was “tense” and “frank” between those who support further measures and those who oppose them, according to two EU diplomats aware of the talks.

The Commission also maintains that imposing any sanctions would require a unanimous vote by member countries, rather than the qualified majority Kallas believes is necessary. The distinction at issue is whether the measures are trade measures or sanctions. The difference is that the former requires only a qualified majority of states to pass, while the latter requires unanimity.

Writing on X, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideo Sa’ar, who has sparred with Kallas , said the point is moot, given there was no majority at all.

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Is your sex life as private and personal as you think it is? Or is it shaped by – and constantly shaping, in turn – the society and systems you exist in?

This week we’re joined by Dr. Angela Jones, who asks these questions and much more in their new book, Sex in Public . Angela is a professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Stony Brook University. In addition to scholarly works published in many distinguished journals including Porn Studies and The Black Scholar, they’re the author, co-author and/or editor of several books, including Black Lives Matter: A Reference Handbook and Camming: Money, Power, and Pleasure in the Sex Industry which came out in 2020 and advanced and informed a lot of my own understanding of the online adult industry especially.

Their latest book, Sex in Public: The Transformative Social Power of Our Erotic Lives , just launched. As Angela writes: “Revolutionizing how we talk about sex means thinking not just about what a single solitary person should or shouldn't do in bed.”

We get into the history of sexology, how sex toys complicate our understanding of what counts as sex, whether sex needs a definition at all, what happened when they bought and used a sex doll, and why the most vulnerable moments in their book are also the ones everyone wants to discuss.

Listen to the weekly podcast on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or YouTube .

Become a paid subscriber for early access to these interview episodes and to power our journalism. If you become a paid subscriber, check your inbox for an email from our podcast host Transistor for a link to the subscribers-only version! You can also add that subscribers feed to your podcast app of choice and never miss an episode that way. The email should also contain the subscribers-only unlisted YouTube link for the extended video version too. It will also be in the show notes in your podcast player.

Sex in Public: The Transformative Social Power of Our Erotic Lives

Cash/Consent by Lorelei Lee

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Credit: Shimul Sood / Android Authority

TL;DR

A new report claims that OnePlus will leave the US and European markets.

OnePlus and its parent company will reportedly announce “fundamental changes” to their strategy in the coming days.

It’s said the remaining stock will be sold off in these regions and not replenished.

OnePlus has recently been making headlines over criticism of its promotional materials , which are being described as misleading. Hot on the heels of that controversy, the company is once again finding itself in the news. This time, it’s a new report that appears to further confirm the lingering rumors of the manufacturer’s departure from the US and Europe.

According to a report from WinFuture , the final blow to OnePlus’ future in the US and Europe is coming this week. It’s said that OnePlus and its parent company, OPPO, will announce “fundamental changes” to their strategy in the coming days. This announcement is expected to touch on the company’s withdrawal from Western markets.

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Bitcoin Magazine

Bitwise Sees a Bottom in Bitcoin’s Worst Vibes Yet: ‘Darkest Before the Dawn’

Bitcoin closed the second quarter of 2026 mired in its deepest and longest downturn since the last bear market, according to Bitwise Asset Management’s newly released Q3 2026 Crypto Market Review.

Yet the $9 billion crypto asset manager frames the pain as a setup rather than a collapse, arguing the industry has never been sturdier beneath the surface.

Bitcoin fell 13.4% in Q2 and is down 32.9% for the year, dropping below $60,000 in June for the first time since 2024 and landing roughly 52% under its October peak of $126,080. That extends what Bitwise calls “crypto winter” to nine months and marks the third straight quarter of negative returns for the broader Bitwise 10 Large Cap Crypto Index, its longest losing streak since 2022.

Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan does not sugarcoat it, writing that “the vibes in crypto are among the worst I’ve seen in my eight years in this industry.”

Even so, bitcoin held up far better than most of its peers. Its 32.9% year-to-date decline was the shallowest drawdown among major large-cap tokens, easily beating Ethereum’s 46.9% slide, Solana’s 40.6% and Cardano’s 56.5%.

Bitcoin now commands a 64.2% share of the roughly $1.88 trillion total crypto market and carries a 77.4% weight inside the Bitwise 10 index, cementing its status as the sector’s relative safe haven even in a broad selloff.

Bitcoin ETF outflows hit a record

The quarter’s most jarring statistic came from the exchange-traded product complex that has anchored bitcoin’s institutional era. U.S. spot bitcoin ETPs bled $4.9 billion in Q2, their worst quarter since launching in January 2024, according to Bitwise.

Assets under management still stand at $72.4 billion, with $53.4 billion in cumulative net flows since inception, but the reversal underscored how quickly professional sentiment can sour.

Filings show investment advisors hold about 43% of professionally owned ETP shares and hedge fund managers another 28%, with Jane Street ($1.8 billion) and Millennium ($1.0 billion) the largest reported holders.

Structural demand nonetheless continued to outstrip new issuance. Bitwise noted in their report that spot ETPs and public companies have together bought roughly 3.6 times the bitcoin mined since the ETFs debuted — about 1.55 million BTC of demand against just 455,416 BTC of new supply.

Treasury companies keep buying, but Strategy blinks

Public-company bitcoin treasuries grew to 1.28 million BTC, up 11.3% quarter over quarter and equal to 6.11% of the 21 million cap, even as the number of firms holding bitcoin slipped by three to 184. Companies added 130,467 BTC in Q2. Strategy remains the runaway leader at 846,842 BTC, trailed by XXI (43,514), Metaplanet (40,177), MARA Holdings (35,303) and Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company (30,021).

The most symbolically loaded move belonged to Strategy, which sold bitcoin for the first time since 2022 — offloading $218 million late in the quarter to fund dividend obligations while keeping holdings valued at $52.3 billion and a $2.55 billion cash reserve. Falling prices punished the equity harshly: Strategy’s stock (MSTR) dropped 30.3% in Q2 and 42.8% year to date, making it one of the worst performers among crypto equities.

The report also touched on several developments that are reshaping bitcoin’s market plumbing. The CFTC approved the first bitcoin perpetual futures at a U.S.-regulated exchange, Kalshi, pulling crypto’s dominant derivative onshore.

Charles Schwab launched retail spot BTC trading, and E*Trade extended access to its 8.6 million users. On the regulatory front, the market-structure CLARITY Act stalled in the Senate over ethics provisions, with prediction markets pricing its 2026 passage odds at just around 20%, down from 75% in May.

Bitwise argues that if CLARITY passes it would likely mark the bottom, and if it fails the industry keeps building under friendly regulators.

Hougan’s core argument is one of cycle-over-cycle progress. Bitcoin’s seasonality data offers modest near-term hope, with July historically averaging a 10.7% gain.

And the firm’s portfolio work still shows a 5% bitcoin allocation adding to a traditional 60/40 mix in 100% of three-year rolling windows since 2014.

“The market is quoting bear-market prices on an industry that is twice the size it was at the last cycle’s bottom,” Hougan writes — a foundation, he says, that “determines what grows in the spring.”

Bitcoin is trading below $62,000 today.

This post Bitwise Sees a Bottom in Bitcoin’s Worst Vibes Yet: ‘Darkest Before the Dawn’ first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman .

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Engineers at the German Aerospace Center are developing a morphing wing currently intended to reduce drag and replace functions of other parts of the plane’s design

A drone equipped with a morphing wing has been used in testing

The Morphing Technologies and Artificial Intelligence Research (morphAIR) project has a one million Euro budget

A wing that changes shape is in development at the German Aerospace Center, as part of a one million Euro project that could redefine the traditional view of an aircraft.

Rather than a tube with fixed wings and tailplane, future aircraft based on this technology could change shape to cope with changes in flight conditions, reduce drag, and even morph a portion of the wings to handle pitch control and other tailplane functions.

Engineers have tested the technology – part of the Morphing Technologies and Artificial Intelligence Research (morphAIR) project – with a 70 kilo drone, equipped with a 3-meter wide morphing wing.

How does the AI morphing wing work?

The morphing wing relies on a smooth surface with motorized components inside that can alter its shape. Success so far has led to the introduction of a follow-up program, UAdapt (Unmanned Aircraft Wing Adaption) to focus on reducing fuel consumption, by making the plane’s surface less prone to drag, and potentially removing the tail completely.

On the team is Martin Radestock, senior adaptive systems engineer, who told Aerospace America that current wings are essentially inefficient: “Aircraft are flying with turbulent flow over their wings, because they have steps and gaps [e.g. ailerons and flaps] between their control surfaces.”

Smooth wings have no gaps, no screws and rivets, and are assembled in a completely different way to standard aircraft. The wing is described as a “morphable trailing edge” and appears to be a series of motorized, actuator-controlled arms that move left, right, up, and down.

Morphing aircraft is nothing new

While morphAIR’s approach takes full advantage of modern technology, the concept of employing multiple profiles for aircraft to suit different flight conditions and deployment purposes is an old concept given a new life.

The most famous implementation of this is the “swing wing” technology, first tested in 1951 (the Bell X-5 experimental craft) and later a key element of 1967’s F-111 Aardvark. 13 production craft used the tech in total, although the most famous is probably the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, which co-starred with Tom Cruise in the movie Top Gun. These craft were able to sweep the wings backward, sharpening their angle (to 68 degrees from perpendicular to the fuselage) for stable high-speed flight, while the "straight" wings (22 degrees) generated lift for short takeoffs, such as on an aircraft carrier, where the runway is short.

Interestingly, a Grumman Gulfstream II was fitted with morphing flaps as part of testing by FlexSys in partnership with NASA and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, so morphAIR is not the only group researching the next stage of flight.

Developments in aerodynamic flight technology and flight control made the swing wing generation obsolete, but morphAIR’s intriguing re-visitation of the concept of a craft that changes shape in midair could take it in a whole new direction.

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The iX4 will be equipped with the same batteries and motors as the iX3.

A recent leak indicated 40 xDrive and 50 xDrive will be among the first available.,

BMW’s Debrecen plant in Hungary will handle production of the iX4.

With the second-generation iX3, BMW has proven it can build an EV that rivals new competitors from China. Sales have been strong, so it comes as no surprise to see the German brand wasting no time in launching a slightly more streamlined iX4 version.

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Tipped to hit most markets next year, the iX4 was first snapped during winter testing earlier this year. Now, our photographers have scooped it on the move at the Nurburgring, looking a lot more aerodynamic than the iX3. Thanks to the skin-tight camouflage, we’re provided with an almost unimpeded view of the vehicle’s overall shape.

Read: New BMW iX4 Gets The Coupe Cut, But You’ll Feel The Trim

Up front, expect a close copy of the iX3 , with the Neue Klasse era headlights and kidney grilles carried straight over. The differences live above and behind, where the roofline drops well below the iX3’s and slopes into a steeply raked rear window above a stubby decklid. A small lip sits at the tail, which will hand the car a minor aerodynamic gain, while the prototype appears to ride on a fresh set of five-spoke 22-inch wheels styled differently from what we’ve seen so far.

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Same Same, But Different

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Inside tells much the same story as outside. Just as today’s combustion X4 mirrors the X3, the iX4 will share its cabin with the iX3, parting ways only on minor details. BMW’s Panoramic iDrive display arrives here, close on the heels of the latest X5 that introduced it, bringing a 17.9-inch infotainment touchscreen mounted below a thin driver information display that stretches the full width of the windscreen.

The new BMW iX4 will shared the same interior with the iX3 (pictured).

Powertrains And Charging

The iX3 runs an 800V electrical architecture that accepts charging rates as high as 400kW, and the iX4 will almost certainly land on the same number. On a compatible high-power charger, that translates to meaningfully shorter time spent standing around while the battery fills.

Several versions of the iX4 will be offered, with the range expected to mimic the iX3. Recently leaked specifications from BMW’s American website suggest the lineup will launch with the 40 xDrive and 50 xDrive before other variants arrive later. The more powerful of the two, the 50 xDrive, should use the same 108.7 kWh battery pack as its iX3 sibling, running two electric motors with 463 hp and 476 lb-ft (645 Nm) of torque. That should enable the coupe SUV to complete the 0-62mph (100km/h) dash in the same 4.9 seconds the iX3 does.

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A hotter quad-motor iX4 M is also expected to join the range later, bringing more power along with dedicated chassis upgrades.

BMW should pull the covers off the iX4 sometime this fall, with production expected to start before the end of the year. It won’t be built in Germany, with assembly instead handled at BMW’s Debrecen plant in Hungary. When it reaches showrooms, the iX4 will square off against the Audi Q6 Sportback e-tron and Tesla Model Y.

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