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An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://github.com/Rompass/openc6-bios

OpenC6 BIOS is a fully open-source, high-performance modular platform (BIOS) for the ESP32-C6 (RISC-V) microcontroller. It completely changes the traditional embedded development paradigm by decoupling hardware initialization from application logic—bringing a PC/Server-like architecture to a $2 microcontroller.

Instead of monolithic firmwares, OpenC6 acts as a host platform. It initializes the hardware, provides out-of-band management via an independent LP-Core coprocessor, and exposes a standardized System Call Interface (ABI). This allows you to hot-swap, download, and execute tiny, lightning-fast bare-metal Payloads directly into RAM or Execute-In-Place (XIP) Flash.

Original Submission

jelizondo writes:

I found a very interesting article published by The Guardian about the physical characteristics of the new FIFA ball and how it is surprising goalkeepers:

Poor old Luca Zidane. The Algeria goalkeeper has had a turbulent time. In two matches he has conceded five goals, and a pair of them – first from Lionel Messi, then, more embarrassing, from Jordan's Nizar al-Rashdan – have gone through his fingers.

But Zidane is not alone. Senegal's Édouard Mendy and Iraq's Ahmed Basil have got their hands to shots, but been unable to stop them. Is something going on?

Certainly Joe Hart seems to think so. He has frequently been pointing out on BBC that goalkeepers are having trouble reading the speed of the World Cup ball, the Adidas Trionda. "The ball is coming into the keepers a lot faster than it feels when it comes off the foot," he said. "Zidane is more than capable of saving that ball [from Messi]. When goalkeepers get up to speed with these World Cup balls we're going to see these shots saved."

Hart issued his assessment before Zidane had played his second match, when the 28-year-old's inability to stop al-Rashdan's outside-of-the-boot effort suggest the problem may continue for a while yet. But there is help at hand and it comes in the form of an 18-page paper produced by South Korean and Japanese academics.

It has the title Orientation-Dependent Drag Crisis and Flight Response of the Fifa World Cup Match Ball Trionda and its contents do not deviate from the outline. Researchers took the ball and fired it through a wind tunnel to measure the effect of aerodynamic forces upon it. They did so from six angles and found a consistent outcome.

Regardless of where the ball was struck, if the ball reached a certain velocity it would fly faster. This, the researchers from Seoul Women's University and the University of Tsukuba found, was down to an effect called "drag crisis". This occurs when an object flying through the air reaches the point where the air flow around it shifts from a smooth state (known as a laminal flow) to a turbulent one. When the flow is turbulent, it disrupts the drag behind a moving object, allowing it to move faster.

Researchers noted that the "upstream seam and groove arrangements" in the Trionda's design made drag crisis possible at lower speeds.

If a ball does not slow down as expected, because of the drag crisis effect, you can understand how goalkeepers may be caught unawares. The researchers found further complicating factors. They observed that while there was a drag-crisis effect regardless of where the ball was hit, the level of the crisis would shift depending on whether the ball was struck on a seam or on a panel (hitting on the seam seemed to create the lower drag). Drag crisis was also variable according to altitude, with the higher the game, the less likely the occurrence.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

https://www.theregister.com/personal-tech/2026/06/22/the-memory-crisis-is-getting-so-bad-that-even-retro-ram-prices-are-going-to-the-moon/5259627

The global memory crisis has developed a new twist as buyers turn to "legacy" products such as DDR2 and DDR3 to meet demand, according to market watcher TrendForce.

The Taiwanese firm says DRAM buyers are turning to older products to secure larger supply allocations, driving up prices for components including DDR2 and DDR3.

As Reg readers will be well aware by now, the AI craze has led to memory chipmakers prioritizing production of more profitable HBM and server DRAM silicon to power AI infrastructure, leaving a shortage of the mainstream memory types needed for PCs, smartphones, and other devices.

As a result, prices have risen for DDR4 and DDR5 modules – if you can even find them – resulting in hikes in the cost of kit such as PCs, which are up by double figures, according to some estimates.

Continued shortages of everyday DRAM components and rapidly rising contract prices have prompted some hardware makers to downgrade memory specifications to control system costs, TrendForce claims. In some cases, DDR4 designs are being replaced with DDR3 solutions, while certain DDR3-based products are being redesigned to use DDR2. 

We find it hard to believe that PC makers would ship systems with memory types so old or that modern processors would support them, so it is likely this applies to other kinds of device.

Now the market intelligence operation estimates that DDR2 contract prices will rise by approximately 55 to 60 percent for the second quarter of 2026, followed by a further 35 to 40 percent increase in the third quarter.

This is happening because customers are desperate to secure more reliable supplies, adopting lower capacity configurations or turning to older memory generations. Consequently, the supply shortages are now rippling through the memory market and starting to affect even legacy DRAM products.

Key suppliers of DDR2 components include Winbond and Elite Semiconductor Microelectronics Technology (ESMT), based in TrendForce's home turf of Taiwan. However, Winbond is gradually winding down DDR2 production and reallocating capacity toward more high-margin products such as DDR3, DDR4, and LPDDR4, it says.

But ESMT plans to maximize DDR2 production within its existing allocation at wafer maker PSMC. The firm is understood to be concentrating resources on this segment to enhance profitability and help offset the supply gap created by Winbond's withdrawal from the DDR2 market.

Some of the big memory makers are planning to increase capacity, but only slowly. Korean giant SK hynix aims to double silicon wafer output capacity over the next five years, while US biz Micron expects "meaningful new capacity" at its new Virginia fabrication plant in 2027 and 2028.

Original Submission

AnonTechie writes:

So to summarize:

Larry Sanger resuggested "WikiProject Intellectual Diversity", a group with the goal to make "Wikipedia more intellectually diverse" and "ensure fair and open decision-making and governance, broaden the range of permissible sources, reinforce genuine neutrality, rein in over-aggressive blocking while holding the powerful to higher standards of accountability", etc, with the implied undertone of preventing Wikipedia from drifting too far to the political left.

This is unpopular because people oppose this on various grounds (mostly that it might be vote brigading and tiling decisions in their favor just by showing up in an organised way around wikipedia). Also the same project was apparently suggested before and rejected in early stages

But then he made a tweet that basically just says "I suggested this, some people like it, some hate it". That's super against the rules, because it attracts people to the proposal who otherwise wouldn't have seen it. Probably in an attempt to sway discussion, because his tweets are obviously seen primarily by people who like his ideas

Which then lead to the vote to ban him from editing Wikipedia. With a total ban getting more votes than a more limited ban, like banning him from participating in articles namespaced for internal matters.

There are lots of comments about this news ... Some of them are quite entertaining !!

[Source]: YCombinator

[Ref.]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Larry_Sanger

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/23/destroy-the-village/

The literature on harms to kids from online platforms is complex and nuanced, rife with people citing small, ambiguous studies as iron-clad evidence that kids are being destroyed by the internet.

It's a weird coalition of anti-Big Tech campaigners (who are rightly angry at the platforms' callous disregard for user welfare) and Heritage Foundation-backed culture warriors (who think that if their kids aren't exposed to LGBTQ content they won't come out as queer). While there's plenty these groups disagree about, they share one consensus: there should be a "minimum age" for certain kinds of internet use.

The problem is, there's no such thing as "age verification" for the internet. What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance, so invasive and pervasive that it makes the ad-tech industry's commercial surveillance look like some kind of cypherpunk darknet pirate utopia.

"Age verification" means that everyone who does anything online will have to submit to fine-grained tracking and recording of all their online activities. This nightmare is the surveillance advertising industry's fondest dream, a world where it's literally illegal to avoid their tracking, all in the name of saving kids...from them!

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

The Hidden Cost of Cyber Risk report found that businesses are most impacted by everyday cyber disruption, rather than large-scale one-off breaches:

The Eir Business Hidden Cost of Cyber Risk report, which is supported by Microsoft, has found that on average cyberattacks are costing Irish small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) up to €3.4bn annually. 

However, the greatest impact is not from large-scale, one-off breaches, but frequent day-to-day cybersecurity-related disruptions that are driving losses for many Irish companies. 

Reportedly, SMEs lose more than 7.2m working days every year due to cyber incidents, with affected businesses experiencing multiple incidents annually. For individual firms, this equates to nearly three working weeks lost annually. 

Susan Brady, the managing director at Eir Business, said: “This report shows that cyber risk is not just about rare, large-scale attacks. 

"For most SMEs, it is the cumulative impact of everyday incidents, from phishing emails and ransomware attempts to service disruptions, that drives significant loss of time and productivity. These risks affect not just individual businesses, but supply chains, customers and the wider business ecosystem.”

[...] The report stated that the companies with more cyber preparedness tend to experience fewer incidents, lower overall losses and significantly less disruption. Moreover, the organisations with higher levels of preparedness can reduce annual downtime from more than 30 days to around five days, while structured data management significantly lowers the likelihood of experiencing an attack.

[...] “This research highlights the real and growing impact that cyber risk is having on businesses across the country, not just in financial terms, but in disrupted operations and lost productivity. However, with the right support, guidance and focus on practical measures, businesses can strengthen their resilience and reduce their exposure.”

Original Submission

"Fnord666" writes:

Automakers Could Stop Selling Cars In California Rather Than Comply With Tracking Laws:

1st Gear: Automakers would rather lose California sales than give drivers more control over their location data

Back in 2024, California made a new law about drivers' location data. Specifically, the law states that people with a restraining order shouldn't have to share data with folks they have those restraining orders against, including removing the latter from car data sharing. Automakers, despite having nearly two years to comply with this, have yet to actually do so. Now, they might just abandon California. From Reuters :

A group representing major automakers warned on Tuesday that car companies may be forced to halt sales of both ​new and used vehicles in California on July 1 unless the state ‌delays vehicle technology rules that aim to prevent perpetrators of domestic violence from tracking survivors.

The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents General Motors, Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai and most other automakers, said unless ​a legislative proposal is signed into law by July 1 "there is substantial ​risk that auto sales in California will be suspended."

The group said ⁠automakers are implementing the domestic violence victim protections required under the 2024 law "but ​compliance with some elements of the law is impossible this year."

California is the single ​largest U.S. auto market, accounting for about 10% of sales.

The 2024 California law requires automakers to set up a clear process for drivers to submit a copy of a restraining order or ​other documentation and request termination of another driver's remote access within two business days. ​It also mandated that carmakers enable drivers to easily turn off location access from inside the ‌vehicle.

This sounds like the automakers playing hardball, trying to get California to back down on the law. Hopefully the state doesn't, and the automakers have to face the potential of actually losing all that profit.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

From academic toss-aside to cloud substrate:

Today Postgres is one of the most widely used database systems, but its launch and subsequent development were inauspicious to say the least.

If it weren't for a league of exceptionally devoted open source contributors, it probably would be another forgotten also-ran just like Ingres, the database system on which it was based ("Postgres" was shorthand for "Post-Ingres").

The creator of both systems, Michael Stonebraker, is perhaps the preeminent database pioneer in the field. Earlier this month, he spoke at PGDay, a conference in Boston hosted by the U.S. PostgreSQL Association, where he detailed the complicated history of the open source database system, which actually existed long before the term "open source" was even uttered.  

In a sense, "Postgres is the epitome of open source software, because it doesn't belong to anybody. It was picked up by this team of programmers without any specific affiliation," Stonebraker said.   

Stonebraker essentially abandoned Postgres in the mid-1990s. But instead of fading into obscurity, the codebase was salvaged by a fiercely-dedicated volunteer community that bolted on standard SQL while preserving Stonebraker's revolutionary extensible architecture. 

Three decades later, this stubbornly-independent database has become the bedrock of modern cloud infrastructure.

When it comes to relational database systems, British computer scientist and then-IBM employee Ted Codd got the ball rolling in 1970. A database is where you store your data so it can be queried in a predictable way. A database system is the software that manages the database (don't confuse the two). 

That year, Codd decreed that all data should be stored in tables and accessed using a high-level query language. IBM implemented Codd's idea in System R, and created SQL as the query language. The results were eventually rolled into IBM's DB2. 

Stonebraker, then an assistant professor at UC Berkeley, also implemented Codd's ideas. Stonebraker and his team of grad students created not only a working prototype, but a full-scale implementation – he later cofounded a startup, Relational Technology, to sell Ingres commercially. Ingres did not use SQL, but instead employed another query language, QUEL (Query Language), although the fundamentals were similar.  

A relatively primitive version of Ingres was even released gratis for academic research. But by the early 1980s, Stonebraker had "pushed the code off a cliff" and started building something new. 

Thus, Postgres was born. 

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Taiwan's drone spending plans for defense could also boost business overseas:

Taiwan's existence as a self-governing democracy may depend heavily on having enough military drones to discourage any attempted invasion by China's military. As the Taiwanese government aims to boost domestic production of military drones and Taiwanese citizens sign up for drone flight training, Taiwanese companies are forming international partnerships to sell more drones to the US military and other overseas buyers.

Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense proposed a special budget that would spend $6.6 billion over six years on buying drones made in Taiwan, according to the Central News Agency that represents the national news service of Taiwan. Presented on June 18, the budget proposal would allow the government to buy more than 208,000 coastal attack drones, along with more than 1,400 coastal reconnaissance drones and 1,320 uncrewed surface vessels, between 2026 and 2031.

That would be a significant boost to the Taiwanese military arsenal that currently includes just 5,000 US-made attack drones and domestically produced drones, according to Resilience Media. During military exercises in early June, Taiwanese soldiers fired Altius-600 loitering munition drones—made by a subsidiary of the US military technology company Anduril Industries—from towed flatbed launchers to strike offshore targets, according to USNI News. In another exercise earlier this year, Taiwanese Marines used Taiwan-made drones to similarly strike targets at sea.

Beyond bolstering Taiwan's national defense, Taiwanese government spending on domestically produced drones could provide a critical boost to Taiwanese drone manufacturers. Some Taiwanese companies, notably Thunder Tiger, have pitched their drone technology and components to the US military and European buyers as alternatives to drones made in China, while also establishing international technology and manufacturing partnerships to pave the way for more exports.

Taiwan has already exported $115 million of fully assembled drones between January and March 2026, exceeding the $93 million in total drone exports for the entire year of 2025, according to Taiwan Premier Cho Jung-tai in an announcement on April 30. The premier is an appointed principal advisor to Taiwan's president and leads the executive branch of the Taiwanese government.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Apple has released a security update to patch a Beats Studio Buds flaw that let nearby hackers listen to conversations through the microphone

Apple has fixed a flaw in its Beats Studio Buds wireless headphones that allowed hackers to use the built-in microphone to listen to your private conversations without your knowledge.

According to Apple's official advisory, the issue is tracked as CVE-2025-20701, and was identified by researchers Dennis Heinze and Frieder Steinmetz from ERNW GmbH security firm.

Heinze and Steinmetz discovered that the bug exists in the open-source code of a system called the Airoha Bluetooth audio SDK. For your information, this system helps run the earbuds, and the issue happens when the headphones are turned on but aren't connected to a phone or computer.

What happens in this scenario is that the earbuds look for a new connection. That's when any hacker in proximity can strike. All they have to do is link to the device, and this doesn't even need the user's permission. The software cannot check or verify who is connecting, so the hacker can easily eavesdrop on your conversations.

However, this trick requires some prerequisites, such as the hacker must be within a standard Bluetooth range of about 10 metres. During the testing phase, researchers chained this bug with two other flaws.

The first issue, CVE-2025-20700, allows an unauthenticated attacker to connect to the earbuds using Bluetooth Low Energy, whereas the second issue, CVE-2025-20702, helps them evade security and access internal management settings.

Combining them allowed researchers to use the Bluetooth Hands-Free Profile feature and look at call histories or contact lists, and dial numbers. However, real attacks are very hard to carry out, research reveals, because they require expert skills and physical closeness to the person.

Apple fixed the bug on 16 June by releasing Beats Firmware Update 1B211. You don't need to click anything to install this fix as the earbuds update by themselves when they are in their charging case, plugged into power, and placed near an iPhone, iPad, or Mac with Bluetooth turned on. Android users need to get the patch through the official Beats app.

You can also confirm if your earbuds are updated. Just open the Bluetooth settings and check the version number. Consider the patch as active if the version is 1B211. However, it is still a good idea to turn off Bluetooth when not in use to keep your devices safe.

Original Submission

JoeMerchant writes:

NASA's Perseverance rover has made its most robust discovery yet by detecting complex macromolecular organic carbon sitting directly on the natural rock surfaces of Mars. According to a newly published study in Science Advances, the rover's SHERLOC ultraviolet laser spectrometer mapped hundreds of organic signatures within 3.5-billion-year-old mudstones at the "Bright Angel" outcrop inside Jezero crater.

Reporters at Space.com note that this marks the first time intact macromolecular carbon has been found completely exposed on an unprepared martian rock surface, suggesting these compounds are either surprisingly resistant to radiation or were very recently uncovered by wind erosion. While scientists emphasize that these organic molecules can form through both biological and geological processes, Science News reports that the find significantly expands our understanding of martian habitability.

Crucially, as highlighted by The Guardian, this discovery means rovers have now found organic-bearing mudstones more than 2,000 miles apart on the planet, adding to the Curiosity rover's earlier findings at Gale crater. Experts writing for Eos.org state that the widespread nature of these ingredients indicates ancient Mars may have routinely possessed the conditions necessary for microbial life.

As covered by Interesting Engineering, the discovery includes data from the infamous "Cheyava Falls" rock, which previously made headlines for its intriguing "leopard spots." Ultimately, confirming whether these structures are biological or purely geochemical will require analyzing the cached samples in highly sensitive laboratories back on Earth, making a compelling case for a future Mars Sample Return mission.

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

Jacobin has an interview with Cory Doctorow about the pending implosion of the AI bubble:

Worrying about whether AI can do your job is a blind alley, Cory Doctorow argues. The real danger is AI's bubble: a speculative fantasy built on convincing bosses to replace workers with systems that can't actually do what their salesmen promise.

As artificial intelligence continues its inexorable march through human institutions, its popularity appears to be reaching an early nadir. So far, the sector's behavior almost seems tailor-made to provoke a negative response. In San Francisco, billboards and bus stop ads exhort employers to STOP HIRING HUMANS. Workers across the country brace for layoffs blamed on AI, and AI companies spend hundreds of billions of dollars on environmentally destructive data centers. You can't talk to a customer service rep anymore, only a chatbot that tells you lies. AI slop is filling up social media feeds, Spotify playlists, and even academic journals and newspapers.

One additional factor is that tech workers failed to unionize while they had the upper hand in the early decades of the WWW. Now those chickens are coming home to roost.

Previously:
(2026) Anthropic Eyes an IPO as Big Tech's AI Cash Crunch Comes for Wall Street
(2026) OpenAI Secures Record $110 Billion Funding Round Backed By Amazon, Nvidia, and SoftBank
(2025) AI Coding is Massively Overhyped, Report Finds
(2024) US Stock Plunge: Could The AI Bubble Burst?
... and many more.

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://www.righto.com/2020/05/die-analysis-of-8087-math-coprocessors.html

Floating-point numbers are very useful for scientific programming, but early microprocessors only supported integers directly.1 Although floating-point was common in mainframes back in the 1950s and 1960s, it wasn't until 1980 that Intel introduced the 8087 floating-point coprocessor for microcomputers.2 Adding this chip to a microcomputer such as the IBM PC made floating-point operations up to 100 times faster. This was a huge benefit for applications such as AutoCAD, spreadsheets, or flight simulators.3 The downside was the 8087 chip cost hundreds of dollars.4

It's hard to implement floating-point operations so they are computed quickly and accurately. Problems can arise from overflow, rounding, transcendental operations, and numerous edge cases. Prior to the 8087, each manufacturer had their own incompatible ad hoc implementation of floating point. Intel, however, enlisted numerical analysis expert William Kahan to design accurate floating point based on rigorous principles.5 The result was the floating-point architecture of the 8087. This became the IEEE 754 standard used in almost all modern computers, so I consider the 8087 one of the most influential chips ever designed.

To explore how the 8087 works, I opened up an 8087 chip and took photos of the silicon die with a microscope. Containing 40,000 transistors, the 8087 pushed chip manufacturing to the limit; in comparison, the companion 8086 microprocessor only had 29,000 transistors. To make the chip possible, Intel developed new techniques. In this article, I focus on the high-speed binary shifter. The shifter takes up a large fraction of the chip's area, so minimizing its area was vital to making the 8087 possible.

Original Submission

AnonTechie writes:

Nvidia's New AI Racks Run on 45°C Liquid Cooling Without Traditional Chillers. Nvidia has unveiled a liquid-cooled AI data centre design that it says can bring water use close to zero. The company says higher operating temperatures and closed-loop cooling could cut power demand, even as Amazon's figures show how water-intensive current data centres remain. Amazon recently reported that its global data centres used about 2.5 billion gallons , or about 9.46 billion litres, of water in a single year.

Nvidia announced at CES 2026 that its next-generation Rubin AI GPU racks can operate using 45°C liquid cooling without requiring conventional water chillers, sparking significant stock declines among major data-center cooling equipment manufacturers.

At CES 2026, Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang revealed that the company's new Rubin-generation Vera Rubin NVL72 GPU platform operates on 45-degree-Celsius liquid-loop cooling, eliminating the need for large-scale water chillers. Huang described this innovation as "basically cooling this supercomputer with hot water," positioning Rubin as the successor to Blackwell architecture.

[Source]: Aigazine

[Covered By]: INDIA TODAY

[Chip Details]: nVIDIA

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Brave Origin is a minimalist Brave edition that costs $59.99 on other platforms but is free for Linux users.

Recently, Brave introduced Brave Origin, a minimalist version of its browser whose main appeal lies in what it removes rather than what it adds. The new edition strips out many optional Brave services, including AI, crypto, VPN, Rewards, Tor, and several telemetry mechanisms, while remaining free for Linux users.

According to Brave, Origin is designed for users who want the browser's core privacy and security protections without the wider set of features included in the standard Brave browser. It keeps Brave Shields, ad and tracker blocking, frequent software updates, Chromium security patches, and ongoing security and privacy improvements.

The difference is that Brave Origin removes or disables a long list of extras. These include Leo AI, Brave News, Playlist, Rewards and browser-based Brave Ads, Speedreader, Talk, Tor, VPN, Wallet and Web3 domains, Wayback Machine, Web Discovery Project, email aliases, daily usage ping, crash logs, and privacy-preserving product analytics, known as P3A.

That makes Origin an unusual browser release. Brave frames it as a premium experience, but its main value is a smaller feature set. But what's even more interesting is that on Windows and macOS, Brave Origin is a one-time purchase priced at $59.99. On Linux, users can access Origin for free.

The browser is available in two forms. The first is a standalone desktop browser, available through a separate download. The second is an upgrade mode for the existing Brave browser on desktop and mobile devices.

There is an important technical distinction between the two. In the standalone Brave Origin app, the affected features are compiled out of the build. In upgrade mode, the features appear in a new Settings panel and are off by default.

According to Brave, future features outside the core Brave Shields experience will also be disabled by default in Origin.

For Linux users, Origin can be used as a standalone browser or as an upgrade to an existing Brave installation. The upgrade option requires Brave 1.91 or later. Linux users installing the standalone version can skip the purchase process during setup, while those upgrading an existing installation can proceed from the Brave Origin section in the browser's settings.

The regular Brave browser remains unchanged. Brave says the existing browser will continue to be free and fully supported for users who want the full feature set or do not want to use Origin. The company also notes that users can already hide or disable many Brave features manually, although doing so does not remove those components from the browser executable.

And finally, the idea behind all of this. Brave says Origin was created in response to users who wanted a more minimal browser while still supporting Brave's privacy and ad-blocking work. The company also says Origin uses a blind token protocol based on Privacy Pass to verify purchases without linking payment identity to browser use.

You can find instructions here on how Linux users can install it for free, depending on their distribution.

Original Submission