Brits dislike social media but use it more than ever, survey finds
A new UK poll reveals a stark contradiction: most Britons see social media as harmful, yet usage keeps climbing.
Compute & Hardware
Chips, datacenters, interconnect, and the power they draw.
RTX 5090 Laptop Deal Undercuts Desktop GPU Pricing
A $520 discount on MSI's RTX 5090 laptop highlights how mobile flagship gaming systems now cost far less than the desktop GPU alone.
Exchange Web Services Starts Disappearing from Tenants Today
Microsoft has begun retiring the legacy Exchange Web Services API, with all access to end by April.
Army Unit Deploys Drone Built Entirely In-House with 3D-Printed Munitions
A Bavaria-based cavalry regiment carried out a live drone strike using a commercial quadcopter it assembled, fitted with unit-made 3D-printed bomblets.
AI Torture Chamber Draws Backlash Over Simulated Pain in LLMs
A pain-simulation experiment on local chatbots triggered online outrage and death threats, spotlighting public misconceptions about how language models work.
GPT-6 Astra cracks 217-year-old Napoleonic cipher in six hours
An AI engineer used OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra to solve a long-unsolved Napoleonic-era cipher from a single image, revealing lost troop orders.
Open-source LDraw Nova lets AI agents design LEGO builds in CAD
A new open-source toolkit uses frontier AI models to generate detailed LEGO CAD files from a single prompt, though the designs remain untested in physical bricks.
Microsoft camouflages data centers with wetlands and native gardens
The company says the landscaping program is now standard for new U.S. projects, but critics see it as greenwashing amid a gas-power deal.
Germany's 'Gaming Electricity' Plan Is Just a High-Usage Tariff
A German utility is marketing a high-consumption electricity tariff to gamers, but the savings only kick in above 2,500 kWh per year.
Intel Xeon 6+ Clearwater Forest: 4 SKUs, 144-288 Cores
ServeTheHome breaks down Intel's four Xeon 6+ SKUs, showing how core count, TDP, and per-core performance trade off across the Clearwater Forest lineup.
California Orders Robotics Startup to Stop Human-Robot Fights
State regulators moved to shut down REK's unsanctioned cage match between a YouTuber and three humanoid robots.
Modded Driver Brings Pascal GPU Support to Windows XP 32-bit
A community modder has backported Nvidia Pascal-era GPU support to Windows XP 32-bit, adding modern DisplayPort and HDMI features for retro systems.
Custom power distributor keeps RTX 5090 connector at 40°C under 550W load
A modder's custom power distributor that splits current across more wires kept an RTX 5090's 12VHPWR connector below 40°C during a 48-hour 550W stress test.
Fulcrum Echo Mimics Any Writer's Style, Test Shows Flaws
Fulcrum's Echo LLM can imitate any writer's style, but a Register test found the results passable yet flawed.
BBC Domesday Project at 40: The LaserDisc archive's legacy
A 40th-anniversary event recalls the BBC Domesday Project's ambitious but fragile LaserDisc-based archive of UK life.
Raskin's first law of UI: don't let software destroy a decade of work
A Vim user's lost undo history shows why Jef Raskin's rules for humane software design still matter.
AI-Coded Browser Game 'Taipei GTA' Hits 1.2 Million Players
A free browser game reportedly built with $10,000 in AI coding tokens drew 1.2 million concurrent players within three days, showcasing the platform's capabilities.
US Navy Deploys Xbox-Style Controllers for Anti-Drone Lasers
The U.S. Navy is using familiar Xbox-style controllers to operate shipboard laser weapons against drones, highlighting a shift toward low-cost directed-energy systems.