Wednesday, 05 August 2026
74 stories filed.
Stephen Wolfram's Wife Has Died
Article URL: https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2026/08/in-memory-of-my-wife-elise-cawley-1961-2026-with-thanks-for-36-wonderful-years/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49173165 Points: 188 # Comments: 13
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
Web security is too hard
Article URL: https://textslashplain.com/2026/08/04/security-is-hard-yall/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49172834 Points: 124 # Comments: 51
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
China is Tesla's cash cow, but for how much longer?
Tesla's Shanghai factory is busier than ever but might be cut loose.
Bypassing AI guardrails is so easy a script kiddie can do it
Claiming 'it's my server' was often enough to persuade models to help
This one time, at Hacker Summer Camp …
What to expect as BSides, Black Hat, and DEF CON descend on Las Vegas
Mistral's Shieldstral: 3B open-weights model for multimodal moderation
Article URL: https://mistral.ai/news/shieldstral/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49171268 Points: 103 # Comments: 31
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
The Pixel 11's "glow" feature is actually called HiLight—here's what it does
The camera flash will evolve into a multicolor LED that illuminates when your phone is face down.
Tom DeLay helped create TV ownership cap—he says Trump FCC has no authority to repeal it
Congress set ownership limit at 39%, but FCC claims authority to kill the rule.
Feds get 3 days to patch N-able God mode flaw under active exploit
Experts warn hotfix not optional. MSPs warned attacker gains 'full administrative access to an N-central console'
Apple says more ex-employees may have taken confidential data to OpenAI
Article URL: https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/04/apple-says-more-ex-employees-may-have-taken-confidential-data-to-openai/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49170479 Points: 242 # Comments: 180
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
Show HN: Simple algorithm and color space to generate diverse skin tones
Hello HN! I found that picking out plausible but diverse skin tones for my digital art and game development projects was kind of difficult, and I got curious about if there was a way to define a color space that made it easy. I've built a color picker and procedural generation algorithm based on the space as well as a bunch of other fun js features and demos throughout the page that use the…
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
Trump admin "aware" of deaths in explosive diarrhea outbreak, delays reporting
Federal officials will update the outbreak sometime "this week," a spokesperson said.
Online ad giant Adform was hacked, proving once again why ad blockers are needed
Article URL: https://this.weekinsecurity.com/online-advertising-giant-adform-was-hacked-proving-once-again-why-ad-blockers-are-necessary/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49170001 Points: 184 # Comments: 62
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
NVMe polishes its specs, brings virtualization to locally attached SSDs
Exposing virtualization built into the SSD will make VM migration simpler, consortium says
2027 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport X proves code is as important as hardware
Chevy's 721-hp hybrid ups the ante with few compromises, but at a steep cost.
AI helps Microsoft bug hunters chase a record $20M payday
Broader bounty rules added to a swelling volume of machine-assisted vulnerability reports
AMD openSIL & Coreboot Pull Requests For Phoenix AM5 Support
Last week the 3mdeb firmware consulting firm released the first open-source firmware for a modern AMD Ryzen AM5 platform with their work to port AMD openSIL and Coreboot in their downstream Dasharo flavor to an MSI desktop ATX motherboard. Now that it's working out well, 3mdeb is working to upstream their AM5 platform support and Phoenix SoC support into upstream AMD openSIL as well as Coreboot...
NVIDIA Becomes A Premier Sponsor Of LVFS / Fwupd
Now this is a pleasant and very unexpected surprise... NVIDIA has become the latest premier sponsor of the Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS)...
OpenAI says Apple's trade secrets lawsuit is "aggressive and oddly personal"
“We do not have, nor want, any of their trade secrets,” the ChatGPT maker says.
Cloud giants pour nearly $600B into capex as AI demand surges
Revenue is soaring, yet hyperscalers say they still cannot build capacity fast enough
Linux Foundation Announces Tokenomics Foundation For "Economics & ROI Of AI Value"
Last month the Linux Foundation launched the x402 Foundation to standardize Internet-native payments for AI agents as their latest AI play. That followed other "AI" initiatives from dealing with AI exploits to AI asset and data exchange. Today they have another AI foray being announced with the creation of the Tokenomics Foundation...
Tennessee congressional hopeful accused of shooting license plate cameras
Cops arrest budding politician for allegedly dealing with Flock's expansion the American way
Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc
Article URL: https://birchtree.me/blog/xbox-goes-down-you-cant-play-games-you-own-on-disc/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49167448 Points: 488 # Comments: 531
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
Everything I Know (1975)
Article URL: https://www.bfi.org/about-fuller/everything-i-know/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49167147 Points: 111 # Comments: 31
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
CAF Bank reopens online service but warns of further outages
Customers told traffic may be limited at certain times following more than ten days offline
Keyv and friends compromised in active Shai-Hulud supply chain attack
Article URL: https://www.aikido.dev/blog/keyv-and-friends-compromised-in-npm-supply-chain-attack Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49166874 Points: 200 # Comments: 104
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war
Article URL: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/04/us-has-used-virtually-all-of-its-long-range-precision-missiles-report.html Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49166860 Points: 280 # Comments: 404
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
Linux's Staging Area To Now Reject LLM-Generated Patches, Except For Real Security Fixes
While Linux's second-in-command Greg Kroah-Hartman does use AI / LLMs himself to success in the Linux kernel, given the "onslaught" of kernel patches produced by large language models and the intent on the Linux kernel's staging area being an area for newcomers to get involved, moving forward he's now rejecting AI/LLM-generated staging patches. But there is one exception and that is for…
Wild Linker 0.10 Released With GDB Index Support, Mitigation For Btrfs Performance
Wild 0.10 released overnight as this very fast linker for Linux that is written in the Rust programming language and focused on iterative development...
DeepSeek V4 Flash on a Single AMD MI300X
Article URL: https://github.com/ryanzhou/deepseek-v4-flash-mi300x Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49166386 Points: 327 # Comments: 84
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
Linux 7.3 To Fix MSI Claw M-Center Keys For Ryzen Z2 Extreme Powered Handheld
For those with a MSI Claw A8 BZ2EM handheld gaming system, the model powered by the latest AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme SoC, an important addition is coming to the Linux 7.3 kernel so that the M-Center keys will be properly supported...
"Clean" Code, Horrible Performance (2023)
Article URL: https://www.computerenhance.com/p/clean-code-horrible-performance Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49166331 Points: 100 # Comments: 84
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
UK mulls making employers ask before installing bossware
Proposals span AI productivity scores, keystroke logging, biometrics, and other ways to watch workers
NASA puts astronauts’ lives in the hands of Tesla’s flaky Cybertruck
Muskmobiles subject to 11 recalls get the launchpad rescue mission currently handled by vehicles that can survive land mine blasts
Harness engineering for self-improvement
Article URL: https://lilianweng.github.io/posts/2026-07-04-harness/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49164896 Points: 268 # Comments: 58
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
Cloudflare has mostly ditched third party security tools, suggests not trying that at home
Automates bug bounty triage with Sonnet for $58 a month, CSO says Mythos would cost $200k
China claims global chip leadership thanks to new legal definition of 'integrated circuits'
Beijing's new rules also protect against copying local chip designs
FFmpeg 9.0 Released With More Vulkan Acceleration, Animated WebP & More AMD AMF
FFmpeg 9.0 is now available as the latest feature release for this widely used, open-source multimedia library...
Improved GPU Reset Recovery For AMD Kaveri, Hawaii & Other GFX7 GPUs With Linux 7.3
In addition to the AMDGPU feature pull request to DRM-Next last week that landed DRM format modifiers for old AMD GPUs and a variety of other improvements, a secondary set of AMDGPU feature work followed that last week in preparation for the upcoming Linux 7.3 merge window...
There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]
Article URL: https://users.wpi.edu/~zrbutzke/Docs/BradburyStories(1).pdf Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49162653 Points: 313 # Comments: 343
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
China turns up the heat with open model blitz as US model makers panic
For the first time, Alibaba's Qwen team is letting its 'Max' model out of the API pen; meanwhile, DeepSeek V4-Flash gives new meaning to cheap and cheerful competition
US company’s AI lets Ukraine’s cheap kamikaze drones track targets on their own
$100 million deal gives 50,000 Ukrainian drones US-developed AI capabilities.
Google dev kit spurs first-ever agent-on-agent violence
Poisoned pull requests contain prompt injection that allows one to control another
Research roundup: 6 cool science stories we almost missed
Also: Cyborg diving suits for cockroaches, why sleepy sperm whales blow bubbles, Betelgeuse's companion star.
Lego deploys Hubble Space Telescope as detailed desktop model
The orbiting observatory in minifigure scale.
An AI-supervised remote exam went so badly that 58,000 students must retake it
Top scores increased by 5x.
Linux 7.3 Looks Like It Will Upstream FailFS
Merged back in Linux 7.3 was NULLFS as a "completely catatonic minimal pseudo filesystem". Now expected for Linux 7.3 is its sibling: FailFS...
AI slop pollutes the CVE pipeline with fake vulns
With NIST still buried under its backlog, expect AI-generated bogus reports to continue
2026 Volkswagen Jetta Sport: The cheap car isn't completely extinct yet
At $25,305, you won't find many new cars for less. But you get what you pay for.
Russian spies turn public Wi-Fi into malware delivery systems
Keyloggers, audio-visual surveillance, and token theft on CaptivePortal's agenda as hospitality sector put on alert
Benchmarking Six Linux Distributions On The Framework Laptop 13 Pro
With the new Framework Laptop 13 Pro now shipping powered by Intel Core Ultra Series 3 (Panther Lake) and a brand new hardware design, I have spent the past week testing out various Linux distributions on this very nice high-end laptop. All of the modern Linux distributions tested have been playing nicely with this new Panther Lake laptop. Of course, beyond testing for compatibility I also took…
SpaceX is set to acquire 130,000 acres of marshland in southern Louisiana
A Louisiana launch site would offer several significant advantages.
MediaTek lines up $5B war chest for AI datacenter push
Taiwanese silicon biz believes it can take up to 20% of $80B market with upcoming ASIC chips, but analysts are sceptical
Police National Legal Database confirms data theft after dark web leak
ExfilSquad claims 135,000 contact records weeks after hitting the Department for Education
NASA boss balks at billion-dollar estimate for recycled Moon rover
Turning two Mars testbeds into one lunar explorer may prove anything but cheap
Trump wants the power to stop the public from suing polluters
Trump's DOJ says citizens should no longer be able to enforce environmental laws.
Water system cyberattacks spread to Georgia, Michigan amid US-Iran conflict
Trump rejects Tehran theory, blames 'grossly incompetent' governor of Minnesota instead
zlib-rs 0.6.7 Released With LoongArch LSX Optimizations, Use-After-Free Fix
zlib-rs 0.6.7 is out today as the newest version of this "safer zlib" implementation making use of the Rust programming language and aiming to deliver performance on-par with zlib-ng...
GNOME Boxes Preparing To Deliver Much Improved Virtualization Experience
GNOME Boxes as a front-end to libvirt and QEMU is preparing to deliver a much improved virtualization experience for those wanting to enjoy desktop VMs from the GNOME desktop...
NVIDIA 610.57.04 Linux Driver Delivers Many Fixes
NVIDIA is kicking off the new month by releasing an updated R610 Linux driver build with quite a number of bug fixes...
Linux 7.3 Expected To Drop The FreeVxFS File-System Driver
It looks like Linux 7.3 will end up dropping FreeVxFS as the read-only Linux kernel driver for the Veritas VxFS file-ssytem used formerly by HP-UX and SCO UnixWare...
How headlights got brighter, whiter, and more blinding after dark
Automotive lights are better than they've ever been, but there's a trade-off.
KGamma2 Makes For Easy Gamma Adjustments On KDE Plasma With Wayland
KDE developer David Edmundson announced today his KGamma2 tool in aiming to address a pain point for KDE Plasma desktop users on Wayland...
GNOME Mutter 51 Beta Released With Wayland Background Blur, Improved Frame Scheduling
Released overnight on Sunday were the beta versions of Mutter 51 and GNOME Shell 51. This follows GNOME 51 embarking on itsAPI/ABI freeze, feature freeze, and UI freeze a day earlier...
KDE Linux Making For Easier First-Run Experience Of Java & DOS Apps
With July all wrapped up, the monthly status report is now published for KDE Linux as the in-house Linux distribution featuring all of the latest KDE wares and other open-source innovations...
Linux 7.3 Adding Support For MCTP-Over-USB v1.1
Within the Linux networking subsystem's "net-next" Git branch there is now queued up support for MCTP-over-USB v1.1. This is the newest version of the standard for sending Management Component Transport Protocol (MCTP) packets over USB for tasks like crash dumps, logging, and firmware updates...
Linux 7.3 To Support Realtek RTL8261C & RTL8261D
Queued into net-next ahead of the Linux 7.3 merge window is adding support for the Realtek RTL8261C and RTL8261D 10 Gigabit PHYs that launched last year...
AerynOS Issues First Development Update & New ISOs In Three Months
It's been just over three months since the last AerynOS development update and new ISO spin but fortunately that's been succeeded today by a new development update and ISO images. AerynOS development remains strong and ongoing with many changes to be found in this latest from-scratch Linux distribution release...
Here's how engineers plan to save the satellite sent to save NASA's Swift mission
"We believe that a capture of Swift, an attempted capture of Swift, is very much in the cards."
Review: Yes, we're still arguing about Nolan's The Odyssey
Christopher Nolan's impressionistic remix of Homer's epic poem finds the man behind the myth.
As Reddit stock falls, CEO questions value of Google's AI Overviews
Reddit may still be considering ending its licensing deal with Google.
After noise complaints, judge orders Waymo to stop overnight charging in Santa Monica
Autonomous vehicle giant disturbs residents' sleep.
Defcon's new badge is a security key you can see inside
A removable chip lets hackers inspect their badge—and keep using it after Defcon.
How fruit flies chase invisible ribbons of smell to get to their source
Tracking smells in turbulent air takes a keen sense of direction and sharp memory.