512 Pixels

Zac Hall at 9to5Mac:

Google Health initially included one-way Apple Health integration. The app could read and import health data recorded by an iPhone, Apple Watch, and other HealthKit-connected apps, but it couldn’t write Fitbit data back to Apple Health.

Today’s Google Health iOS app update adds the missing half of that connection.

Data concerning sleep, steps, workouts, and vitals captured by Google Health can now be sent to Apple Health. For someone who likes the Fitbit Air but really dislikes its app, this is good news.

SuperDuper has been an incredible tool for backing up your Mac for a long time, but like most apps that last 22 years, things change. Developer David Nanian has launched a new version that is ready for the next 22 years. He writes:

Back in 2007, I designed what was intended to be SuperDuper v3.0. It was a rewrite that greatly expanded its capabilities while retaining its essence.

But, in those days, it just wasn’t possible for us to implement those grand plans. The new UI was much more complex, the logic more elaborate, and the systems we had then didn’t support the things needed to make it a reality without a lot of complex coding we didn’t have time for.

On top of that, macOS itself was a moving target (and still is!): adding and deprecating features; completely changing the file system; locking down the OS; supporting not just one change in CPU, but three.

With a tool so tied to how the system operated at a low level, it was a lot of work just keeping up with what Apple was doing.

So, I put the notebook with that design in it on a shelf.

For nearly 20 years.

Today, I’m happy to say that I’ve finally been able to carve out enough time to grab that “old” redesign, flesh it out further, modernize it, and make that dream a reality.

The new version of SuperDuper is a ground-up rewrite, a tip-to-tail reinvention of what SuperDuper looks like, how it works, what it can do, and where I can take it in the future.

It’s really great to see SuperDuper getting this sort of love.

I just added several new dates to my Apple History Calendar, including these:

• July 23, 2026: Apple and Ford announced MapKit for Automotive to power navigation in future EVs
• July 28, 2026: iPhone Upgrade Program replaced with broader Apple Upgrade Program
• July 30, 2026: Tim Cook hosted his last quarterly earnings call

This revision also includes a handful of Apple TV-related dates that were previously missing, such as the announcement of the “Take 2” software update in 2008.

I also just updated my Now page, where I keep a running log of things I have going on, at work and beyond.

Right across the state line from the ever-expanding Colossus II site is 2875 Stanton Road, home to a fleet of gas-burning turbines that generate electricity to keep SpaceXAI (and its customers) online.

The pushback in Southaven, Mississippi over the Stanton Road site has been growing. Just this weekend, there was a public event addressing the issue, hosted by the NAACP and State Rep. Justin J. Pearson.

Tonight, the company announced (in a statement that was also emailed to members of the press, including yours truly) that it will be removing its temporary turbines over the next year:

SpaceXAI is building the world’s largest integrated supercomputer at the Tennessee-Mississippi state line. We build our facilities rapidly while upholding the highest standards of operational responsibility, environmental stewardship, and community partnership. SpaceXAI is committed to powering its supercomputers in ways that both reduce costs of energy for the American people and minimize the impact on surrounding communities. Today, we take the next step in that journey.

We have entered into an agreed order with the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) establishing a fixed removal timeline for all 69 of the temporary, mobile turbines that currently power our facility in Southaven, Mississippi. We are rapidly removing these mobile turbines as we bring online permanent power from a 1.2 GW power plant we are constructing under our Clean Air Act permit. We will begin removing temporary turbines from the site as early as August 2026. All temporary turbines will be removed by July 2027. Today’s agreed order codifies our commitment to achieve this timeline.

This comes six months after the EPA ruled against xAI, stating that even turbines used in a “temporary” manner were subject to environmental regulation.

More importantly, this news comes one year after MDEQ said xAI could turn the turbines on a temporary basis for 12 months.

The update continues:

The 1.2 GW permanent power plant currently under construction will consist of 41 permanent turbines authorized under a Clean Air Act permit, granted to SpaceXAI in March 2026. The application for this permit, completed more than seven months of detailed regulatory review. SpaceXAI is also investing millions of dollars in sound walls, silencers, and next-generation turbines with advanced quieting technologies through partnerships with the surrounding community. We care deeply about being good neighbors and we regularly reconfigure power operations to reduce noise from the facility and minimize our impact on the local Southaven community.

Samuel Hardiman at The Daily Memphian has some background on the site:

The company started operating its first three turbines (about 39 megawatts of power capacity) on August 1, 2025. It added another 15 later that month, and then seven more between November and December 2025. The company then added a single turbine in January, four more over four days in March, and then the remainder came in April, May and June.

Of the 60 turbines the company released data for, about 15 ran more than 20 hours a day in June, according to data the company supplied to MDEQ. One, a 35-megawatt turbine made by GE Vernova, ran 24 hours a day.

The amount of time the turbines have run raises the question of whether the machines’ emissions are great enough to require an air emissions permit even with the one-year exemption.

I am all for having fewer turbines spinning in and around Memphis, and I hope the company is true to its word when it comes to decreasing the noise and air pollution caused by these machines.

I also hope that MDEQ and SpaceXAI will continue to update the public on this process and the changes that will come from it.

This week on the podcast:

Future Fords are getting Apple Maps, future iPhones are getting leased, and future foldables may be less weird than expected.

Lora Kolodny, CNBC:

Elon Musk’s xAI, now owned by SpaceX, sued Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to challenge a law that would ban so-called nudify apps in the state.

In their complaint, filed in a federal court in Minnesota on Monday, attorneys for xAI wrote that the statute “imposes an overbroad, content-based ban on free speech and the tools of visual expression in a clumsy attempt to prohibit ‘nudification.’”

The Minnesota law, which goes into effect on Saturday, targets apps and websites that give people the ability to generate non-consensual sexualized imagery, levying $500,000 fines each time a user creates explicit deepfakes.

Last year, Elon Musk promised that xAI would donate a large sum to the Memphis-Shelby County school system to help rehabilitate four schools near its data centers. Laura Testino reported on the commitment at the time:

In its proposal to the district, xAI offered support for four different schools in areas of Whitehaven and Westwood near its data centers:

• John P. Freeman Optional School
• Fairley High School
• Mitchell High School
• Westwood High School

At each school, the company has proposed upgrades to the HVAC units that heat and cool the schools, plus improvements to plumbing, lighting and windows. XAI has also offered to paint at the schools.

This map shows the location of the schools in green, with xAI’s sites in red and its power plant in Southaven, MS in yellow.

(For a sense of scale, it’s about nine miles across.)

xAI said work could start as early as the morning after the school board voted to accept the gift. Of course, that is not how anything works in the real world, and it took the school board and company until September of last year to finalize a plan to account for the fact that these schools couldn’t be torn apart during the school year.

To the company’s credit, some work has been completed; however, it is far from what was originally promised, and now SpaceXAI seems to want to rework the deal. Testino writes:

So far, donations have improved two campuses rather than four, according to MSCS. Those projects — campus beautification efforts at John P. Freeman School and a major locker room renovation at Fairley High — have made a small dent in the large list of SpaceXAI’s offerings.

They also came with a $5 million donation cap that wasn’t part of the initial proposal.

That $5 million cap can not fund the initial list of projects, even if they had been started. Neither Mitchell High nor Westwood High have seen any of the promised improvements.

More importantly, the agreement expired June 30 and has not been renewed. SpaceXAI says it is still “committed to completing critical upgrades to schools in the Memphis region,” but that doesn’t seem to be the case at this point.

I am not surprised that the company would back away from previously made promises,¹ nor am I surprised that my local leaders would be naive enough not to see this coming.

This CNBC video provides a look at what happens when a massive AI data center is built in your neighborhood.

OpenAI, in an unsigned announcement:

Health in ChatGPT is launching to U.S. users. You can choose to securely connect Apple Health and supported medical records so ChatGPT can help you understand your information in context, keep track of what has changed, and have more informed, personalized conversations. The experience builds on feedback from early testers and gives you control over what you connect and when ChatGPT can use it.

Every week, more than 300 million people turn to ChatGPT with health-related questions—from understanding a lab result and preparing for an appointment to making sense of what a doctor said and building a healthier routine. But the context behind those questions is often scattered across patient portals, medical records, apps, and wearables, making it difficult to see and act on the complete picture.

Teddy Rosenbluth for The New York Times:

A Florida pastor sued OpenAI on Wednesday, claiming that its chatbot, ChatGPT, had offered him “extremely dangerous medical recommendations” that led to delayed care for a life-threatening pulmonary embolism last year.

The lawsuit claims that ChatGPT had assured Scott Winters that the early warning signs of his health crisis were “not something dangerous,” and had dissuaded him from seeking medical advice, instead telling him to trust that “God did not design your body to endlessly fail.”

The suit, filed in the Superior Court of California in San Francisco, accuses OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman, of negligence and the “unauthorized practice of medicine,” pointing to moments when the chatbot offered Mr. Winters diagnoses and treatment plans and encouraged him to ignore pleas from friends and family to seek medical care.

She continues:

Drew Pusateri, a spokesman for OpenAI, said that ChatGPT’s terms of service make clear that it is not intended to be used for medical diagnosis or treatment. But he added that the company takes seriously the need to make answers to health questions as safe as possible, given that people use the chatbot for that reason.

“Treating chatbots as the whole story behind people’s medical decisions or outcomes oversimplifies a much bigger challenge, and risks getting in the way of people accessing powerful new tools that can aid them in their health journey,” he said. Mr. Pusateri added that newer models are better than the model Mr. Winters used at asking for missing context, communicating uncertainty and recognizing when professional care may be needed.

Garmin has joined the likes of Fitbit and Whoop, and is now offering a screen-free fitness tracker, named the Cirqa.

Andrew Liszewski at The Verge:

The smart band can track more than 80 different activities such as running or yoga that are selectable through the accompanying Garmin Connect app or using its single side button as a shortcut to your favorite. Through the app, you can monitor your training progress including the effectiveness of a workout and whether your body is ready for your next training session or would benefit more from a rest day.

In addition to workouts, the $199 band can track heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, sleep, and menstrual cycles via skin temperature. Notably, the Garmin Cirqa doesn’t require a subscription. Orders open on July 24.

If you use Grok to make CSAM,
xAI will sue you.

(There are no good guys in this story.)

This week on the show:

Myke has a new laptop, Federico has thoughts on Siri AI, and Stephen has been graded. Also: Apple vs. OpenAI and a big day for Mario fans with feet.