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Signal now allows Android users to register without a phone number
Signal is stepping up its privacy game, with a new feature. Up until now, you had to use your phone number to sign up for a Signal account. Now, Android users can register without handing over their contact number.
There is one caveat, this isn’t a free feature. Per the announcement, users who opt-in to sign up without providing a phone number will have to pay a one-time fee to register their username. It’s a small fee at $3, and is not tied to the account. Instead, Signal will hand you an account id and a key, like a username and password, which is then used for accessing the account. Users can add an optional username, to connect with other Signal users.
Signal is currently testing the new sign up method in its latest beta version for Android.
Valve launches the Steam Frame, but it’s one expensive VR headset
Valve has officially launched the Steam Frame, ten months after unveiling the virtual reality headset. The gaming giant had to delay the launch of the hardware due to the ongoing memory chip shortage crisis. Now, it has finally hit the market.
The Steam Frame runs on SteamOS, and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, with 16GB of LPDDR5x RAM, 256GB of storage, and a microSD card slot. It has LCD displays at 2160 x 2160 pixels, and supports 72-144Hz refresh rate, and comes with Steam Frame Controllers.
Valve’s gaming headset is not exclusive to VR games, it can be used to stream any game from your PC’s Steam library. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 chip on the device can even emulate some Windows games, and games that were designed exclusively for it, as well as some mixed reality titles. Buyers will also get Half-Life:Alyx as part of the experience.
While it does seem to be an impressive device, the Steam Frame has one problem, its price. The VR headset costs $1,059 for the 256GB model, while the 1TB version costs $1,299. The price tag effectively puts the Steam Frame out of reach of the majority of players, especially considering that similar gaming headsets are available for less than half the price.
Apple releases the iOS 27 update
Apple has released the iOS 27 update, a week after launching the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max. The highlight of the update is the new Siri.
Users can type or talk using natural language to interact with the AI assistant. Siri is deeply integrated into the OS, to search for and provide the user the information or results that they requested. For instance, you can ask it to look into your messages to pull up an appointment that you had set. Siri is also more context-aware, so you can share the screen with the AI to ask it about the contents on the screen. It’s now possible to interact with Siri directly in the Camera app and initiate a visual search. Siri can also edit images using Spatial reframing, and an upgraded version of Clean Up. Siri has also been used to expand child safety features.
Apple says that iOS 27 delivers better performance, and that apps can launch up to 30% faster, AirDrop transfers are up to 80% faster, and new images load in Photos up to 70% faster on some iPhone models.
You can now adjust the Liquid Glass’ tint effect from the Settings. Handoff supports switching between two iPhones that are using the same phone number.
iOS 27 comes with various other improvements across the OS. When you enable a Timer from the Control Center, the timer appears directly in the Dynamic Island. Users can reduce the size of the clock on the lockscreen, adjust the font and color, and also choose whether they would like a glass or solid version of the widget. The lockscreen’s wallpaper has an extend option, which is powered by Apple Intelligence, and allows zooming in or out on the image.
iOS 27 is available for the following iPhone models:
- iPhone Duo
- iPhone 18 Pro Max
- iPhone 18 Pro
- iPhone 17 Pro Max
- iPhone 17 Pro
- iPhone Air
- iPhone 17
- iPhone 17e
- iPhone 16 Pro Max
- iPhone 16 Pro
- iPhone 16 Plus
- iPhone 16
- iPhone 16e
- iPhone 15 Pro Max
- iPhone 15 Pro
- iPhone 15 Plus
- iPhone 15
- iPhone 14 Pro Max
- iPhone 14 Pro
- iPhone 14 Plus
- iPhone 14
- iPhone 13 Pro Max
- iPhone 13 Pro
- iPhone 13
- iPhone 13 mini
- iPhone 12 Pro Max
- iPhone 12 Pro
- iPhone 12
- iPhone 12 mini
- iPhone 11 Pro Max
- iPhone 11 Pro
- iPhone 11
- iPhone SE (2nd generation and later)
Grand Theft Auto VI: The Album announced
Rockstar Games has announced Grand Theft Auto VI: The Album, the official soundtrack for the upcoming game. It will come with 34 original tracks from various genres. Rockstar has already listed the first six singles from the album, here are the names of the artists and their songs.
- Yung Lean – That’s It (feat. Future & Metro Boomin)
- Travis Scott – RHYNO (prod. by Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo)
- CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso, PinkPantheress, Fred again.. & Etienne de Crécy – Sexy Magic
- Morgan Wallen – Last Thing You Need
- Rauw Alejandro – Macacoa 2000
- Keith Richards – Bright Lights, Big City
The album was created in partnership with Atlantic Records, you can listen to the singles on major music streaming platforms including YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music. Rockstar’s announcement also confirmed that the full GTA VI: The Album will be available on all major music streaming services, as well as limited-edition vinyl and CD sets. Fans were quick to criticize the fact that the album is getting a physical release, but that the game will not.
The album will be released alongside GTA VI. In case you missed it Grand Theft Auto 6 launches on November 19th for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
Microsoft issues emergency update to fix Windows 11 issues
On September 8th, Microsoft released the biggest ever Patch Tuesday update for Windows, which fixed around 1000 issues. More than 650 of these were security fixes. Prior to this, the Redmond company used to patch around 100 issues every month. So, what changed? Isn’t it obvious? The security engineers and Windows developers began using AI models, to find security vulnerabilities in Windows 11. In April, Anthropic’s Mythos model and OpenAI’s GPT-5.5-Cyber both identified several issues, so Microsoft used both models in order to assist them in patching the flaws. That’s what saw a record number of fixes arrive in this month’s Patch Tuesday.
However, the September 8 Windows Update shipped with some flaws of its own. And Microsoft is addressing this by releasing an emergency out-of-band update to patch some of the problems. This happens to be the 8th out-of-band update that Microsoft has had to release this year.
According to the release notes, the latest update, KB5129194, includes patches for folder sharing on Hyper-V based Linux virtual machines, Remote Desktop Services sessions, USB audio devices, and more on Windows 11 26H1, 25H2, and 24H2.