October 2018. Lady Gaga, Calvin Harris and Nicki Minaj were in the charts, Theresa May was prime minister, and Apple’s iPhone XR was about to debut.

It doesn’t feel that long ago, but prepare for time to hit like a rogue wave… that iPhone will become nearly obsolete this week.

You may have sent all your millennial gifs in capital letters on it, swiped your way through Tinder with it, or perhaps you still use it today.

But it can’t download the latest software update now Apple has released iOS 26, just before the newly released iPhone 17 and iPhone Air hit shelves.

That means that, while you can still use it and get critical security patches (for now), it won’t get the latest features, and app developers will gradually stop catering to it.

So it will slowly phase out of your life, until you trade it in for, I don’t know, a brick, or a different model that folds up like a creaseless piece of paper.

To put it in perspective, the iPhone XR was the bestselling phone of 2019. That’s only six years ago, so there are no doubt lots of them in our pockets still.

A dangerous amount of waste

This is why there are now warnings about mounds of e-waste that could be generated as people feel pressured to upgrade.

Over 150 million units of the XR series had been sold by 2020, and a waste company has now estimated that there could still be over 75 million of them still active, given that roughly 50% of iPhones survive to six years.

Business Waste, a broker firm for disposing of commercial waste, has estimated the value of e-waste that could be generated if everyone who still has an XR decides to get rid.

They estimated that the materials in them, such as copper, silver, gold, and palladium, could be worth £271,425,584 in total.

In total, the weight of these metals alone would be 1,238,944 kg, roughly the same as 103 double-decker buses. 

Apple offers a trade-in service, and there are also specialist recycling services for electronics, but as a species, we still dump a lot of e-waste in the bin.

This is bad, not only because valuable metals are lost to recycling (so more have to be dug up), but because the phones contain materials that can be harmful, such as heavy metals, which can leach into soil and groundwater, contaminating them.

Meanwhile, their lithium-ion batteries can catch fire or explode.

So if you are saying goodbye to a phone in the coming months, do it properly. You might even get some money for it.

A version of this article was first published on September 2, 2025.

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Drops, Clozemaster, Busuu, Rosetta Stone… I’ve tried dozens of language apps, and spent hundreds of pounds trying to learn another language.

I’ve got lifetime access to Babbel, and climbed the Duolingo leagues obsessively, ping-ponging between first and second on Diamond with my scoreboard nemesis (you’ll never take the top spot, SaltedFish!)

But now it could be time to delete my folder of apps and just stick to good old Google Translate. 

At the end of August, Google released a beta feature called Practice, allowing users to have realtime conversations and practice their listening skills.

When I heard about it, I had the kind of excitement you more commonly see for new trainers launches, or Oasis tickets. 

Although artificial intelligence has promised to redefine language learning for years, it’s never yet hooked me.

Yes, you can just chat in another language with ChatGPT. And if you just want to have a natural conversation, it’s probably your best bet.

Its advanced voice mode lets you just open a conversation and chat back and forth, without constantly pressing play and record. And it understands my broken attempts at speaking very well, even if my pronounciation is off, something Google’s Gemini chatbot failed at when I tried the same (it constantly thought I was talking about nonsense such as ‘October slow urine’).

But this is very freeform; I like that Google Translate’s gamified offering teaches words on a theme first, giving simple tasks to complete, and collating all the words I learn.

Duolingo has also invested heavily in AI, with a roleplay option for premium users, but I said goodbye to that guilt-tripping owl after ‘completing’ my chosen language, and am not ready to have him resurrected. I get why some prefer its cutesy lessons-style format, but why would I pay, if I can access similar features for free on apps I already use all the time?

I’m sure there will soon be an explosion of opportunities for AI in language learning, to the point we just download Japanese to our brain chip or whatever. You can already get live translation in your headphones, for example.

But so far, Google’s new feature is what I’ve been waiting for as a language learner. 

You can create your own scenarios or pick one from a list, setting your own difficulty level, earning three hearts a day for doing enough exercises.

A language app if you’re not richer than the King

Most enticingly, it is free, at least for now.

Given that most language apps want you to pay £8 a month, £60 a year, or even more, this is a big draw.

A year or so ago I downloaded AI language app Jumpspeak that lets users have real-time conversations, but found it really disappointing.

Not only was it extortionately priced (it’s still £79.99 per year), but the chats were so stilted, I felt the app was trying to subtly tell me to go away. I didn’t keep using it after my free trial ended.

The app does seem to have improved since then, but it still mishears many words I’m pretty sure I pronounced coherently.

Google’s beta Practice feature, currently available on its iOS and Android apps, feels like something I’ll use without getting constantly frustrated. Presumably, Gemini (which powers it) can comprehend things better in these limited scenarios, though it does still mishear things. I would like the option to see my words appear as I speak them, so I can flag if it has heard incorrectly.

At the moment, Practice only supports French and Spanish for English speakers, but with the app allowing translation for 243 languages, there’s massive scope for it to expand.

There’s another new feature too

As well as the speaking opportunity, Google now makes it easier to translate a conversation in real time, without constantly having to change the language settings.

Good for me, given that with relatives who don’t speak English, I use the app almost every day.

While it’s exciting for a language learner, people teaching languages may be more apprehensive about where this is all going. 

Despite being a dedicated app user, none of them beat in person interactions with a human teacher, where you can talk about culture and build a relationship, as well as just learn a load of words.

That’s a very different type of experience to a language app, which can be used in a more bitesize way, on your commute or while waiting for pasta to cook.

There are obvious limitations to Google’s new language learning feature: it’s designed for speaking and listening practice, rather than teaching you the basics in the first place. In its current form, it might get repetitive after a while.

For an overall course teaching grammar too with traditional modules, my favourite app is still Babbel, although I’ve run out of road there with the language I most want to learn, as it only goes to A2 level. 

While how much artificial intelligence is really going to take over our lives is debateable, with language learning it’s a no brainer.

You have a conversation partner who is always in the same time zone, and doesn’t charge you £25 an hour.

Just don’t give up on people completely. They’re why you want to learn the language in the first place, after all. 

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Spotify has announced it will be rolling out CD-quality audio for all Premium users who switch it on.

‘Hallelujah!’ you might say, if you have good enough speakers or WiFi headphones.

Even the company itself admits this has been a long time coming, describing lossless audio as ‘one of the most anticipated features’ – which is another way of saying they first claimed it was coming ‘later this year’ in 2021.

It means that if you’ve stayed loyal to Spotify all that time since music streamers first hit the mainstream, you’ll finally be rewarded, and won’t need to migrate all your playlists.

The feature is rolling out now and next month, and users in the UK, US and Australia are already starting to get access.

It’s still in process though, so don’t worry if you can’t see it yet (we couldn’t).

Although Spotify, which launched in 2008, pioneered music streaming, in later years some users have become frustrated with a lack of good sound quality.

Apple Music, Tidal, Deezer, Amazon Music, and Qobuz all offer lossless audio (actually, Apple has done for four years), so some Spotify users had been questioning if they should jump ship.

The addition of direct messaging in the app last month had even annoyed some as an unwanted distraction when lossless still wasn’t available.

Gustav Gyllenhammar, VP of Subscriptions, said: ‘The wait is finally over; we’re so excited lossless sound is rolling out to Premium subscribers.

‘We’ve taken time to build this feature in a way that prioritizes quality, ease of use, and clarity at every step, so you always know what’s happening under the hood. With Lossless, our premium users will now have an even better listening experience.’

If you have a maestro’s ears and top-of-the-range speakers to stream your AI playlists, you might still be disappointed, however.

Spotify will let users stream ‘almost every’ track in up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz FLAC, which is slightly better than that offered by CDs, but it’s still not as high as Apple Music, Tidal, and Qobuz, which support up to 24-bit / 192 kHz. 

How to enable lossless audio on Spotify?

You should get a notification when the new feature is available to you. Make sure you keep the app updated.

1. Tap your profile icon in the top left.
2. Go to Settings & Privacy → Media Quality.
3. Select where you want to enable lossless audio: Wi-Fi, cellular, downloads.

You’ll know it’s on because the Lossless indicator will appear in the Now Playing view or bar.

It’s best to stream on Wi-FI, as Bluetooth does not currently provide enough bandwidth to transmit lossless audio, so the signal has to be compressed.

Lossless should be rolling out to all Premium subscribers, without the need for them to pay extra.

Bear in mind that it will use significantly more data, so if you don’t have an unlimited plan, you may want to be careful with it.

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If you’re in the mood for a road trip and have a few hundred million years to kill, we have the destination for you.

About 40 light-years away, orbiting a dim, cool red star called Trappist-1 are seven planets.

One of them, scientists have revealed in two papers published Monday, may be habitable to life as we know it.

Trappist-1e is a rocky exoplanet – a name for planets outside our solar system – that would take you 453million years by car to travel to.

While most of the other six exoplanets in the star system have proved to be barren rocks, Trappist-1e may have an atmosphere not too far off Earth’s, according to the findings in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Dr Ryan MacDonald, a lecturer in extrasolar planets at the University of St Andrews and one of the paper’s lead authors, said the roughly Earth-sized planet might not look like much at first glance.

But just like in the Goldilocks fairy tale, Dr MacDonald says, the planet is just the right distance from its star where ‘the temperature is not too hot and not too cold for liquid water to exist on the surface’.

‘Without an atmosphere, a planet cannot support liquid water on the surface,’ Dr MacDonald adds.

‘Earth would be a frozen ball of ice without the greenhouse effect provided by carbon dioxide, and the same is true for Trappist-1e.’

Trappist-1’s habitable zone is relatively snug, given it’s a dim red dwarf star and its planets closely orbit it. You’ll be a fair bit older if you lived on Trappist-1e – a single year on the planet is 6.1 Earth days, Nasa says.

Scientists haven’t confirmed Trappist-1e has an atmosphere, but they believe it has a nitrogen-gas-rich atmosphere.

‘We are in the early stages of assessing whether Trappist-1e could support life,’ says Dr MacDonald.

‘Right now, we are trying to answer whether the conditions on the surface of Trappist-1e are hospitable to life (as-we-know-it) by measuring if the planet has an atmosphere and, if so, what gases make up the atmosphere.’

Dr Sarah Casewell, an exoplanet researcher at the University of Leicester, who was not involved in the study, said the findings suggest Trappist-1e’s skies aren’t full of carbon dioxide, meaning it’s not like the frigid desert of Mars or the toxic wasteland of Venus.

‘The new results are consistent with nitrogen-rich atmospheres like we have on Earth,’ she said, ‘but the authors caution that the planet may equally likely be a bare rock.’

How did scientists figure this out?

Dr MacDonald and his team examined observations of the exoplanet made by Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope in 2023.

The Webb telescope has spent years pointed at the system’s four innermost planets, which all fell into the habitable zone.

But the results haven’t been great so far – Trappist-1b and 1c have no atmosphere, and there doesn’t seem to be any Earth-like molecules in 1d’s.

The reason was rather simple, says Dr Beth Biller, of the University of Edinburgh’s Institute for Astronomy, who was not involved in the studies.

Trappist-1 is hyperactive and prone to throwing fiery temper tantrums that can strip planetary atmospheres, leaving behind ‘bare rocks’.

‘Really small stars like TRAPPIST-1 actually produce per capita a lot more X-ray and gamma ray emission than a more massive star like our Sun,’ she says.

Next on the list was 1e, but observing it is easier said than done. Researchers had to wait for the planet to pass between its star and the telescope, which ever so slightly dims the star’s light, called transiting.

This data is beamed back to the telescope as a wavelength chart.

This might not sound like much, but scientists can understand a great deal about a planet this way, explains David Brown, a senior research fellow at the University of Warwick’s Centre for Exoplanets and Hospitality.

‘If the exoplanet has an atmosphere, then some of the light from the star that reaches us during transit has passed through that atmosphere,’ he tells Metro.

‘As it does so, specific wavelengths of light will be absorbed by chemical elements in the exoplanet’s atmosphere, so that at those wavelengths the exoplanet looks larger (the size of its radius plus the height of the atmosphere), while at other wavelengths the light is unaffected, so the planet looks smaller (just its radius).

‘So, if you can observe at specific wavelengths and measure the radius of the planet at that wavelength, then you can see at which wavelengths the planet looks larger, which gives you an idea of the elements in the atmosphere.’

Astronomers have only observed Trappist-1e transiting a handful of times, so, as every expert Metro spoke with said, it’s far too early to say that Trappist-1e has an atmosphere, let alone aliens strolling around on it.

The Webb telescope is still taking snapshots of Trappist-1e, with the experts also saying that we’ll have an answer to this question one day.

Any answer we get, however, will be an interesting one. Given that the dwarf stars are so common in the cosmos, knowing that the rocky planets that tend to orbit them can cling to an atmosphere would be a big deal in the search for extraterrestrial life.

Avi Loeb, a Harvard astrophysicist, told Metro that this would raise questions about how life emerged on our pale blue dot, too.

‘If life can be supported near dwarf stars,’ he says, ‘the question arises as to why we reside near the Sun and not near a more typical dwarf star?’

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The ‘clearest sign of life on Mars’ yet has been discovered, Nasa revealed today.

The US space agency has spent three decades combing the rust-red desert of our cosmic neighbour for signs of life, only to find red herrings.

Many of these could be explained away, such as dusty rocks that look like faces or soil that has strange chemistry.

But Nasa’s Perseverance robotic rover has discovered minerals on rocks on the red planet that one of the ‘only explanations’ for them is aliens.

Not quite little green men, but microbial life.

A Nasa spokesperson said today at a press conference: ‘This could very well be the clearest sign of life we’ve ever found on Mars, which is certainly exciting.’

Microbes, as they wriggle around on rocks, can create minerals as they gobble up chemicals, leaving behind minerals.

Perseverance discovered the groovy rock on an outcrop of dried mud along the Neretva Vallis last July. The quarter-mile-long river once flowed into the Jezero Crater.

The rover drilled into this outcrop of clay rock, known as the Bright Angel formation, to collect samples.

According to a paper published today in the journal Nature, the sample has features reminiscent of what microbes would have left behind when the region was warm and wet billions of years ago.

The 350billion-year-old mudstone, named Cheyava Falls, is covered in specks a few thousandths of an inch wide that contain two minerals.

One is vivianite, an iron phosphate often found in lakes and marshlands as a byproduct of microbes eating organic matter.

They also unearthed greigite, an iron sulphide, which some microbial life on Earth produces, according to the mineral catalogue, Mindat.

Both could be ‘biosignatures’ – something that might have a biological origin.

But researchers stressed that this is a very early result and that more research is needed to say that the rock is evidence of Martians.

For one, the specimen is still on Mars – Nasa needs to bring the samples back to Earth.

The ingredients in this mud could also have made the minerals through chemical reactions, they admit.

Matthew Cook, the head of space exploration at the UK Space Agency, told Metro: ‘This exciting discovery represents a significant step forward in our understanding of Mars and the potential for ancient life beyond Earth.

‘The chemical signatures identified in these Martian rocks are the first of their kind to potentially reflect biological processes that we see on Earth and provide more compelling evidence that Mars may have once harboured the conditions necessary for microbial life.’

Cook cautioned that the specimen isn’t proof of extraterrestrial life but said the findings are ‘promising’.

‘The upcoming Rosalind Franklin Mars rover mission, built here in the UK, will be crucial in helping us answer whether samples similar to those observed in this study represent genuine biological processes, bringing us closer to answering: are we alone in the universe?’ he added.

For people like Mark Christopher Lee, a film-maker and UFO investigator, today’s announcement was exciting, to say the least.

‘Proof of microbial life is Nasa’s first release of the truth about UFOs and the existence of alien life in the universe, in my opinion.’ he told Metro.

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