Morning Brief

1. Mistral releases the Voxtral Transcribe 2 series of speech-to-text models
2. Canon launches a limited edition PowerShot G7 X Mark III camera
3. The maintainer of the sudo project publicly seeks sponsorship
4. Microsoft deprecates the “3D Viewer” app
5. Rumors You Can Just Glance At

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Mistral releases the Voxtral Transcribe 2 series of speech-to-text models

Mistral AI announced on February 4 the release of two models in the Voxtral Transcribe 2 series: Voxtral Mini Transcribe V2, designed for batch processing, and Voxtral Realtime, built for real-time transcription. Among them, Voxtral Realtime has been open-sourced under the Apache 2.0 license.

Voxtral Realtime features a 4B parameter scale and is designed for low-latency use cases. It adopts a new streaming architecture that enables live transcription while reducing end-to-end latency to under 200 ms. Voxtral Mini Transcribe V2 focuses on delivering a high cost-performance transcription API, with accuracy outperforming GPT-4o mini Transcribe and Gemini 2.5 Flash, and supports processing up to three hours of audio per request.

Both models support 13 languages, including Chinese. In terms of pricing, the Voxtral Mini Transcribe V2 API is priced at USD 0.003 per minute, while Voxtral Realtime costs USD 0.006 per minute. Source

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Canon launches a limited edition PowerShot G7 X Mark III camera

Canon announced on February 5 a limited edition PowerShot G7 X Mark III camera to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the PowerShot series. Priced at USD 1,299, the bundle includes a limited-edition Peak Design wrist strap and a 32GB SD card, with shipments scheduled to begin in April 2026.

This limited edition retains the same core specifications as the PowerShot G7 X Mark III originally released nearly seven years ago, with the primary differences focusing on appearance and design details. The camera comes in a graphite gray finish, adds a knurled control ring on the front, and features a 30th-anniversary emblem. In terms of hardware, it is equipped with a 20.1-megapixel sensor, a 3-inch flip-up touchscreen, and a 24–100mm equivalent ƒ/1.8–2.8 lens, along with a dedicated microphone input. For video, it supports uncropped 4K at 30fps and 1080p slow motion at 120fps, and also allows direct live streaming to YouTube via Wi-Fi. Source

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The maintainer of the sudo project publicly seeks sponsorship

On February 4, Todd C. Miller, the maintainer of the sudo project, announced that he is publicly seeking sponsorship for sudo. Miller has been solely responsible for maintaining the project since 1993. Previously, Quest Software had sponsored sudo starting in 2010, but that partnership ended in February 2024, roughly coinciding with Miller’s departure from its subsidiary One Identity.

After losing corporate sponsorship, sudo has continued to receive updates and has patched several high-severity vulnerabilities, including issues that allowed local users to bypass privilege controls and directly obtain root access. Miller stated that he currently has no plans to hand the project over to others, but warned that a prolonged lack of stable funding would inevitably affect development progress. He also noted that much of the critical open-source infrastructure relies too heavily on a small number of maintainers—a structural problem that is increasingly threatening the broader computing ecosystem, and one that has been widely discussed in recent years across communities and public forums such as GitHub. Source

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Microsoft deprecates the “3D Viewer” app

Microsoft announced on February 5 that the “3D Viewer” app has been added to its deprecation list. The app was previously preinstalled with Windows 10 and was designed for lightweight viewing and rendering of 3D models. It was originally positioned to support mixed reality scenarios and underwent several name changes over the years. Microsoft has confirmed that the app will be removed from the Microsoft Store starting July 1, 2026. Existing users will still be able to run it, but it will no longer receive feature updates or security maintenance.

Microsoft recommends alternatives such as Babylon.js Sandbox, while the open-source community tends to favor local applications like F3D and MeshLab. Source

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Rumors You Can Just Glance At

• Reports indicate that macOS 26.3 RC has added two new SoC identifiers, T6051 and T6052, associated with platform codes H17C and H17D, respectively. Based on Apple’s historical numbering conventions for its M-series chips, these identifiers are widely speculated to correspond to the upcoming M5 Max and M5 Ultra. Notably, however, no identifiers believed to belong to the M5 Pro have appeared so far. Source
• Google officially announced the Pixel 10a smartphone on February 5. Positioned for budget-conscious users, the device is scheduled to launch on February 18. Google has not yet disclosed detailed hardware specifications. In terms of design, the Pixel 10a closely resembles the Pixel 9a, with the most notable change being a rear camera module that sits flush with the back panel rather than protruding. According to previously leaked information, the phone may feature a 6.3-inch 120Hz display, a dual rear camera setup consisting of a 48MP main camera and a 13MP ultra-wide lens, and an “enhanced” Tensor G4 chip paired with 8GB of RAM. Storage options are expected to include 128GB and 256GB variants. The battery capacity is rumored to be around 5,100mAh, with support for 23W wired charging. Source
• According to The Information, rising memory prices across the industry have led to tighter supply, while NVIDIA has been prioritizing manufacturing capacity for AI chips. As a result, the launch of the RTX 50 series SUPER graphics cards is expected to be delayed. Under these circumstances, the next-generation RTX 60 series aimed at gamers is also likely to see its mass production timeline pushed back, with large-scale manufacturing now projected to begin toward the end of 2027. This suggests that the RTX 60 series may not reach the market until 2028 or even later. Source