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Valve's Steam Deck Sells Out Again, Even After 40% Price Increase
Valve’s handheld PC, the Steam Deck, sold out again within 24 hours despite a 40%‑plus price increase. The 1TB OLED model now costs $949, up $300 from its original price, while the 512GB OLED version rose to $789, a 43% jump. Valve attributes the hikes to rising memory and storage component costs and broader logistical challenges. Restocks appear to be arriving from China, but the device remains scarce.
Last.fm Goes Independent After Breaking Up With Paramount Skydance
Last.fm announced it is once again an independent company after separating from Paramount Skydance, the entity that inherited the service when CBS Interactive bought it for $280 million in 2007. The music‑tracking platform says user accounts, scrobbles, privacy settings, Pro subscriptions and...
YouTube To Automatically Detect, Label AI-Generated Videos
YouTube announced it will automatically label videos that its systems detect as containing significant photorealistic AI-generated content. The AI label will be displayed directly below the player for long-form videos and as an overlay on Shorts, while creators must still...
Roku Updates Its UI For the First Time In a Decade
Roku is deploying its first major homescreen redesign in a decade, adding personalization features such as frequently used apps, "top picks," and household‑specific layouts. The update also introduces a prominent marquee ad space, reflecting Roku’s reliance on advertising revenue rather...
Tech CEOs Are Apparently Suffering From AI Psychosis
Tech executives, especially CEOs, are being accused of an "AI psychosis," a collective over‑confidence that artificial intelligence can automate complex, high‑value work. Box founder Aaron Levie highlighted the gap between executive hype and the gritty reality of model training, code...
A Fundamental Principle of Aeronautical Engineering Has Been Overturned
Researchers at Tohoku University have demonstrated that applying distributed micro‑roughness (DMR) to a surface can reduce aerodynamic drag by up to 43.6%, overturning the century‑old belief that smoother surfaces always yield lower drag. The DMR technique uses ultra‑fine, random irregularities...
Mythos Detected 23,000 Vulnerabilities Across 1,000 OSS Projects
Anthropic’s Claude Mythos model has scanned more than 1,000 open‑source projects and flagged over 23,000 potential vulnerabilities. Of those, 1,726 have been confirmed, with more than 1,000 classified as high or critical severity. The company estimates the final count of...
SpaceX Launches 29 Starlink Satellites on Memorial Day
SpaceX launched 29 additional Starlink satellites on Memorial Day from Cape Canaveral, bringing the constellation to more than 10,000 units in low‑Earth orbit. The mission marked SpaceX’s 60th orbital flight of 2024, comprising 59 Falcon 9 and one Falcon Heavy launches. The...
AI 'Crashes the Party' At This Year's Cannes Film Festival - Including Multi-Year Meta Partnership
AI made a conspicuous debut at Cannes, highlighted by a humanoid robot on the Croisette and a multiyear partnership with Meta that supplied generative tools for festival projects. While the competition lineup bans pure‑AI films, the market and summit discussions...
Mozilla Brings Web Serial Workflows to Firefox, Collaborates With Adafruit
Mozilla released Firefox 151 with native support for the Web Serial API, enabling JavaScript‑driven communication with USB and Bluetooth serial devices. The addition targets developers, hobbyists, and the maker community, allowing hardware control directly from the browser without extra drivers....
Disney's 'Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu' Opens to 'Mixed' Box Office Results
Disney’s new theatrical entry, *Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu*, opened to a mixed box‑office performance, pulling in roughly $102 million through its first weekend. It marks the first original Star Wars film on the big screen in seven years and the weakest...
More Videogames Developers Consider Unionization - Some Spurred By Changes to Remote Work Policies
Video game developers across major franchises—including Call of Duty, Fallout, Overwatch, Diablo, World of Warcraft and Magic: The Gathering Arena—have joined the Communication Workers of America. The push follows a shift in remote‑work policies that forced some staff to relocate,...
Tesla's Electric Cybercab Is Certified as the Most Efficient EV Ever
Tesla’s upcoming Cybercab has been officially certified at 165 Wh per mile, making it the most efficient electric vehicle on record. The figure is a certified rating, not a marketing claim, and it outperforms the next‑best Lucid Air Pure by roughly...
AMD (Xilinx) Is Excluding Linux From the Free Tier For Its FPGA Dev Tool
AMD announced that beginning with the Vivado 2026.1 release, the free Vivado ML Standard Edition will no longer be offered on Linux. The change is paired with support for additional FPGA devices in the free tier, but key debug features...
SpaceX's Upgraded Starship V3 Launches For First Time
SpaceX successfully launched the upgraded Starship V3 from a brand‑new pad at Starbase, Texas, deploying 22 dummy Starlink satellites and two instrumented payloads. The 40‑story vehicle completed a sub‑orbital cruise, survived the loss of one upper‑stage Raptor engine, and performed...
Spotify, UMG To Let Fans Make Their Own Music With AI
Spotify and Universal Music Group have struck a licensing agreement that will let Spotify develop generative‑AI music models. The partnership will enable premium users to create AI‑generated covers and remixes of songs from UMG’s catalog, subject to artist opt‑in. Spotify...
Venmo Redesign Makes New Users' Posts Friends-Only by Default
Venmo is piloting a redesign that changes the default visibility of payment posts for new users from public to friends‑only. The change is built into the onboarding flow, letting users choose public, private, or friends‑only settings before the first transaction....
Thousands of Zillow Listings In Chicago Have Vanished
Zillow’s Chicago inventory plummeted from roughly 5,000 homes to about 1,700 after Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) cut off the MLS feed, a loss of roughly 66 percent. The cut follows a legal clash over MRED’s private listing network and...
US To Award $2 Billion To Quantum Companies, Take Equity Stakes
The U.S. Department of Commerce is set to award roughly $2 billion in grants to nine quantum‑computing firms, with the federal government taking equity stakes in each recipient. IBM will receive the largest portion—about $1 billion—and will pair it with an equal...
SpaceX Reveals Its Finances For the First Time
SpaceX disclosed its 2025 financials ahead of a potential IPO, reporting $18.7 billion in revenue—a 33% increase from the prior year. Despite the top‑line growth, the company posted a $4.9 billion loss in 2025, up from a $791 million profit in 2024. Capital...
Anna's Archive Hit With Global Domain Takedown Order
A coalition of 13 major publishers secured a $19.5 million default judgment against the shadow library Anna’s Archive. U.S. District Judge Sidney Rakoff issued a sweeping permanent injunction ordering more than twenty global domain registrars, hosting providers, and related services to disable...
Seagate Sparks Memory Sell-Off As CEO Says It Would 'Take Too Long' To Build New Factories
Seagate CEO Dave Mosley told investors that building new memory‑chip factories would take too long to satisfy the rapid surge in AI‑driven storage demand. He said the company will instead focus on maintaining four to five quarters of supply visibility...
Yearslong Fight Over Users' Right To Tweak Smart TV Software Heads To Trial
The Software Freedom Conservancy has taken Vizio to court, alleging the TV maker violated GPLv2 and LGPLv2.1 by withholding the full source code of its Linux‑based smart‑TV operating system. The case, filed in Orange County Superior Court, is scheduled for...
Google's AI Studio Now Lets Anyone Build Android Apps In Minutes
At Google I/O 2026, Google unveiled AI Studio’s new capability to generate native Android apps in minutes, cutting weeks of development down to a few clicks. The tool leverages Gemini‑powered AI to write Kotlin code using Jetpack Compose and automatically...
Google Accused of Pushing 'Free For Life' G Suite Users Onto Paid Plans
Google is again forcing long‑standing G Suite Legacy users to upgrade to paid Workspace plans, labeling many accounts as "commercial use" despite owners claiming personal or family use. A 45‑day appeal period is offered, after which Gmail, Drive, Calendar and other...
Webb Discovers One of the Universe's First Galaxies
Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have detected an ultra‑faint galaxy, LAP1‑B, that existed just 800 million years after the Big Bang. The galaxy was magnified 100‑fold by gravitational lensing from a foreground cluster, allowing JWST to capture its spectrum....
PlayStation Exclusives Aren't Coming To PC Anymore
Sony announced it will stop bringing its flagship single‑player PlayStation exclusives to PC, a policy shift disclosed by studio head Hermen Hulst at a recent town‑hall. The change follows earlier reports that plans for PC ports of titles such as...
Elon Musk Loses Lawsuit Against OpenAI
A U.S. jury ruled against Elon Musk in his lawsuit against OpenAI, finding that his claims were barred by the statute of limitations. Musk alleged the company betrayed its nonprofit roots, misused his $38 million contribution, and turned into a for‑profit...
The US Is Betting On AI To Catch Insider Trading In Prediction Markets
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is expanding its enforcement toolkit to target insider trading and manipulation in prediction markets. Leveraging artificial intelligence, blockchain tracing tools such as Chainalysis, and market‑abuse software like Nasdaq Smarts, the agency can flag suspicious...
Linus Torvalds: AI-Detected Bug Reports Make Kernel Security List 'Almost Entirely Unmanageable'
Linus Torvalds announced a new Linux release candidate and warned that AI‑generated bug reports are overwhelming the kernel security mailing list. He said the flood creates massive duplication because many researchers submit the same findings on the same day. New...
Small Town Fights Over Flock's AI-Enhanced Network of License Plate-Reading Cameras
In Troy, New York, the mayor invoked an emergency order to keep 26 AI‑enhanced license‑plate readers from vendor Flock operational, despite the city council’s decision to pause payments and demand stricter data rules. The dispute escalated into a lawsuit as...
'We Still Can't See Dark Matter. But What If We Can Hear It?'
Researchers analyzing data from LIGO, Virgo and KAGRA identified a possible dark‑matter imprint in one gravitational‑wave event, GW190728, recorded in 2019. The signal originated from a binary black‑hole merger with a combined mass of about 20 solar masses, roughly 8 billion...
How Owners of EVs From Bankrupt Fisker Saved Their Cars With an Open Source Nonprofit
When Fisker Inc. entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2024, about 11,000 Ocean SUV owners were left with $40,000‑$70,000 vehicles that suddenly lost over‑the‑air updates, connected services and warranty coverage. Within weeks, those owners created the Fisker Owners Association, a nonprofit...
Sysadmin Creates 'ModuleJail' To Automatically Blacklist Unused Kernel Modules
Belgian sysadmin Jasper Nuyens released ModuleJail, a GPL‑v3 shell script that scans Linux hosts and automatically blacklists kernel modules that are not in use. The tool creates a single modprobe blacklist file, preserving essential modules while disabling obscure ones that...
Amazon Stops Supporting Pre-2013 Kindles Today. Some Owners Turn to Jailbreaking
Amazon announced today that it will discontinue Kindle Store access for all first‑ and second‑generation Kindles, Kindle Touch, Kindle DX and other devices released in 2012 or earlier. Existing owners can still read previously downloaded books and sideload DRM‑free titles...
Some Datacenters Divert Power From Homes. Will It Drive Homeowners to Solar and Batteries?
NV Energy told 49,000 Lake Tahoe residents they will lose 75% of their electricity as the utility redirects supply to new AI‑driven data centers built by Google, Apple and Microsoft. The shift reflects a broader trend where data centers drove...
The Search for the Next 'James Bond' Actor Has Begun
Amazon MGM Studios has started auditioning actors for the next James Bond, marking the first casting round since the studio took control of the franchise fifteen months ago. The upcoming film will be directed by Denis Villeneuve, known for Dune,...
Fedora's AI Developer Desktop Initiative Blocked by Community Backlash
Fedora’s community council has withdrawn its earlier approval of the AI Developer Desktop initiative, a project championed by Red Hat engineer Gordon Messmer to deliver an atomic desktop optimized for machine‑learning workloads. The proposal, initially ratified unanimously on May 6, faced...
Americans Would Rather Have a Nuclear Plant In Their Backyard Than a Datacenter
A Gallup poll reveals that 71% of Americans oppose having an AI data center built near them, a higher resistance than the 53% who oppose nearby nuclear plants. The primary worries center on excess water consumption, power‑grid strain, traffic congestion...
SpaceX Unveils Sweeping Starship V3 Upgrades
SpaceX announced a suite of Starship V3 upgrades aimed at accelerating rapid reuse, Starlink deployment, orbital refueling, and deep‑space missions. The Super Heavy booster now features a three‑fin configuration, integrated hot staging, and a massive new fuel‑transfer tube that can...
Writers Are Fleeing the Substack Tax
Writers are abandoning Substack for lower‑cost platforms such as Ghost, Beehiiv, Patreon and Passport. Substack’s 10% revenue share and emphasis on its own social features are seen as a financial chokehold, especially as newsletters scale. Creator Sean Highkin switched to...
US Clears H200 Chip Sales To 10 China Firms
U.S. Commerce Department has granted export licenses to roughly ten Chinese companies—including Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance and JD.com—to purchase Nvidia's H200 AI chip, the company's second‑most powerful accelerator. Each approved buyer may acquire up to 75,000 units, but no shipments have...
Anthropic Forms $200 Million Partnership With the Gates Foundation
Anthropic announced a $200 million partnership with the Gates Foundation to fund AI‑driven public‑goods initiatives over the next four years. The grant includes Claude usage credits and technical support for projects in global health, life sciences, education, and economic mobility. A...
Instructure Pays Canvas Hackers To Delete Students' Stolen Data
Education‑technology provider Instructure announced it reached an agreement with the hackers who exfiltrated 3.5 TB of student and university data from its Canvas platform. The company says it paid the criminals and received digital confirmation that the data was destroyed and...
Microsoft's $1 Billion AI Data Center Will 'Switch Off Half of Kenya'
Microsoft and UAE‑based G42 announced a $1 billion AI‑focused data center in Kenya’s Olkaria geothermal zone, but negotiations have stalled over electricity commitments. The first phase would draw 100 MW, roughly 3% of Kenya’s 3,000 MW installed capacity, while a full‑scale gigawatt build...
EBay Rejects GameStop's $56 Billion Takeover As 'Neither Credible Nor Attractive'
eBay rejected GameStop’s $56 billion takeover bid, calling it neither credible nor attractive. The board highlighted financing doubts, potential disruption to eBay’s long‑term growth and leadership concerns. eBay’s market value is roughly four times GameStop’s, and its stock has risen 201%...
IPhone-Android RCS Conversations Are End-To-End Encrypted In iOS 26.5
Apple announced that iOS 26.5 now supports end‑to‑end encryption for RCS messages exchanged with Android devices, bringing cross‑platform chats to the same security level as iMessage. The feature is released as a beta and requires carrier support on both the iPhone...
Ford's Electrified Vehicle Sales Dropped 31% in April From One Year Ago
Ford’s electrified‑vehicle sales slumped 31% in April 2026, with EV deliveries falling to 3,655 units and hybrids to 15,758. The F‑150 Lightning saw a 49% year‑over‑year drop, selling only 884 trucks, while Mustang Mach‑E sales slipped 9% to 2,670. Across...
Open Source Project Shuts Down Over Legal Threats From 3D Printer Company Bambu Lab
Independent developer Pawel Jarczak closed the open‑source OrcaSlicer project after receiving a cease‑and‑desist letter from 3D‑printer maker Bambu Lab. Bambu Lab argued the fork’s code injected falsified identity metadata to impersonate its Bambu Studio client and could overload its private cloud infrastructure. Jarczak disputed...
Amazon Relents, Lets Its Programmers Use OpenAI's Codex and Anthropic's Claude
Amazon has reversed its November memo that barred third‑party AI code generators, now permitting engineers to use OpenAI’s Codex and Anthropic’s Claude alongside its own Kiro tool. The change comes after internal pressure and follows Amazon’s multi‑billion‑dollar investments in the...