Saturday, 03 October 2026
66 stories filed.
Google hearts Apple's Swift so much it's pumping out server-side support
After a decade of false starts, Swift is showing backend appeal
Shut up and take our money: Amazon plows $1B into quashing datacenter dissent
Thou shalt love the datacenter! Verily, thou shalt rejoice in the house of the datacenter!
Apple Pass Designer
Article URL: https://developer.apple.com/pass-designer/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49937276 Points: 131 # Comments: 70
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
Intel Ready With A Big Improvement For Battlemage With Linux 7.4
Sent out on Thursday was the last round of planned Intel Xe kernel driver improvements targeting the upcoming Linux 7.4 cycle. There is one big improvement that is set to benefit Intel discrete GPUs with at least Battlemage benefiting nicely...
Research roundup: 6 cool science stories we almost missed
Also: Spooky action at the LHC, Ice Age psychoactive use, yeast for building homes on Mars, and more.
Ubuntu Working On SHA3 For Debian's APT For If/When SHA2 Is Broken
Ubuntu developer Gianpiero Carpinelli at Canonical has been working on introducing SHA3-256 and SHA3-384 support for Debian's APT packaging tool in preparing for if/when that SHA2 is broken...
arXiv imposes rate limit on paper submissions to stem the AI slop tide
Two a month per submitter, starting now, and you can thank science slop for the change
OpenAI alerts 100+ orgs that its 'misaligned models' attempted to break in - or worse
Mostly 'routine research tasks,' and 'some involved government websites, which our models often use,' AI giant tells The Reg
US military ends long-running program to spot nuclear missile launches
A newer program has been operational since 2011, and the next generation could launch within 12 months.
How I kept cool with NYC's free battery program for window AC units
Bonus: Every Electric’s batteries are beloved by household cats.
Cybertruck sales in free fall as Tesla reports mediocre sales for Q3
Tesla met analysts expectations as it sold fewer cars in Q3 2026 than Q3 2025.
Californian accused of shipping $300M worth of Nvidia chips to China without Uncle Sam’s approval
Prosecutors claim Greg Lui helped China procure advanced hardware to develop, ahem, 'super intelligence’
The 7-year-old Nvidia Shield TV is now $100 more expensive due to AI
Initially launched in 2019, the Nvidia Shield TV Pro now retails for $299.99.
The VMware exit is a protection upgrade
PARTNER CONTENT: VergeIO says an exit is also an opportunity
OpenAI's wandering AI agents earn it a California subpoena
Plus: Attorneys-general say investigators should have direct access to AI companies' records when things go wrong
AMD Ryzen AI Developer Platform OS Updated With ROCm 10.0, Linux 7.2
With the AMD Ryzen AI Halo mini PC that launched this summer that focused on local AI, one of the biggest surprises for me when reviewing the unit was finding that the Linux preload wasn't just a stock Ubuntu/Debian OS but rather a customized AMD Linux distribution known as AMD Ryzen AI Developer Platform. Yesterday the newest version of AMD Ryzen AI Developer Platform was released with some…
Rocket Report: SpaceX completes launch triple-header; Rocket Lab nets big contract
Blue Origin seeks FAA approval for up to 50 New Glenn launches and 50 booster landings per year.
Power approval set to delay Oracle's Wisconsin AI datacenter
Grid connection awaits regulatory approval, putting planned 2027 customer delivery at risk
systemd-appd Out For Review To Centralize Tracking Of User's Apps
The newest systemd component being worked on and drafted for an initial pull request is systemd-appd as a new mechanism to centralizing the tracking of user's apps...
The Legend of von Neumann (1973) [pdf]
Article URL: https://gwern.net/doc/math/1973-halmos.pdf Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49933235 Points: 212 # Comments: 123
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
OpenAI shows three staff the door over alleged information misuse
Two safety researchers and a program manager dismissed, company denies retaliation for raising concerns
Imagination Talks Up Their Open-Source Vulkan Driver, Volcanic Architecture Plans
Imagination Tech was at XDC 2026 Toronto this week to talk up their ongoing work around their PowerVR Mesa Vulkan driver (and PVR upstream DRM kernel driver) with this driver continuing to improve, plans for supporting their new Volcanic GPU architecture, and other improvements...
Nvidia debuts $4,999 DGX Spark with half the RAM and storage, amid memory crunch
Meanwhile 128 GB version jumps to $6,950, nearly 75% above its launch price
Excel Canvas offers to turn your workbook into the boss's next report
Copilot builds charts and metrics from spreadsheet data, with automatic refreshes when the numbers change
Intel Iris Open-Source Driver Now Supports Efficient 64-bit Addressing Mode
As a follow-up to the news one month ago of Intel Nova Lake P's graphics introducing a new 64-bit GPU mode, the latest driver-side enablement has now landed for Intel's Iris Gallium3D OpenGL driver for supporting efficient 64-bit addressing...
Teen suspected of running KillSec ransomware group as cops seize servers, arrest three
Operation KillSwitch takes over leak site holding at least 110 TB of stolen data
Once a $35 computer, the 2 GB Raspberry Pi 4 now costs $67.50
Pi 5 also gets a $12.50 bump as customers urged to consider older models or less RAM
Fortinet sounds the alarm over actively exploited FortiMail zero-day
No login required, exploitation underway, and some admins are still waiting for patches
TCL is right to question Samsung’s use of the term “Mini LED”
Can it be Mini LED without a FALD backlight?
Ubuntu's Next Rust Effort May See OpenPGP Replaced By Sequoia PGP
Canonical engineer Richard Scott McNew published a status update surrounding the Rust programming language efforts in the upcoming Ubuntu 26.10 release. Sequoia PGP is being rolled out to Ubuntu Linux and in a future release may end up replacing OpenPGP...
Apex Compute Developing Open-Source Mesa Vulkan Driver For Their Hardware
Apex Compute is the company started in California in 2024 that aims to produce high-efficiency AI accelerators for real-time edge AI inferencing. So far they have an FPGA prototype for licensing and deployment and carries the bold claim of being "20x faster than the NVIDIA Jetson" and at under 10W and one fifth the cost. Making Apex Compute much more interesting to us now is that they are…
Coreboot 26.09 Released With Framework Laptop 12 Support, AI Review Comment Policy
Coreboot 26.09 released yesterday as the latest quarterly feature release to this open-source software for replacing proprietary BIOS and system firmware on a growing selection of devices...
UK spending watchdog opens investigation into Capita's pension fiasco
Outsourcer admits service remains below expectations after missed recovery deadline
KDE Nearing Decision Point On BuildStream-Based KDE Linux
KDE Linux developers have been experimenting with a build of their Linux distribution based on BuildStream to ship as an OS image rather than a set of Arch Linux packages. They are nearing a point soon where they will decide if they will officially ship this BuildStream-based KDE Linux image...
Met Police suspends use of phone-hacking software over Russian links
Scotland Yard hits pause after US prosecutors trace supposedly American tech back to Moscow
Flight delayed? So are these codec updates
A slice of Bolivian bork at Alcantarí International Airport
Techie was stung by a wasp, held overnight by Chinese police, then trapped in a 13-hour meeting
Sales calls can be even nastier than support calls
Pi coding agent pulls a 180 and adds MCP support
To maintain minimalism, a new harness layer has been folded into a separate component
AWS turns its best practice framework into an agent that recommends cloudy reconfigs
Possesses powers equivalent to an 'experienced architect' and will happily make cost-saving suggestions
Siemens Slams The Door Shut On Promising Open-Source Radioss Project
As a major disappointment to the open-source community, Siemens has decided to end -- and close-up access -- to the OpenRadioss project as the open-source version opened up by Altair Engineering under the GNU AGPL License back in 2022. This was an open-source version of the industry-leading finite element solver that Altair developed. Siemens acquired Altair Engineering last year and have now…
Show HN: Giving Opus 5.5 a simulated paint canvas
Article URL: https://stillwet.art/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49928566 Points: 144 # Comments: 48
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
Steam On Linux Dives Down To 3.05% For September
Steam on Linux use in March hit an all-time high of around 5.33% marketshare. Since then it pulled back to around 4% while for September 2026 the Steam Survey results are now in and it's clocking in just above 3%...
Venus' mysterious haze is actually cosmic dust
A physical model show that iron dust and sulfuric acid create the right properties.
Court agrees with EFF: Utah's VPN law demands a technical impossibility
Article URL: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/10/court-agrees-eff-utahs-vpn-law-demands-technical-impossibility Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49927754 Points: 327 # Comments: 141
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
Sites in ChatGPT
Article URL: https://chatgpt.com/features/sites/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49927747 Points: 128 # Comments: 146
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
SpaceX describes surgical intervention before launch of latest crew mission
With Crew-13, Jessica Watkins became the first Black woman to lead a mission into space.
Fedora 45 Beta Performance: The Satisfyingly Boring Benchmarks
While there have been a number of Ubuntu 26.10 development benchmarks in recent weeks and more on the way, some Phoronix readers have asked about the lack of any early Fedora 45 tests given its recent beta. For good reason, it's largely boring but here are some to illustrate.
Hacks of 2 federal agencies in a month have spilled a bonanza of sensitive data
It has been a bad month for federal government cybersecurity.
Judge dismisses Chegg and Penske antitrust lawsuits targeting Google AI search
The court acknowledges AI search comes with consequences, but it's not an antitrust issue.
Mesa Drops Its Poorly Maintained & Rarely Used Direct3D 10 User-Mode Driver
Back in 2021 the Direct3D 10 User-Mode Driver "d3d10umd" was introduced as a new Gallium3D state tracker to work as a Windows WDDM UMD driver similar to Windows WARP while leveraging LLVMpipe for better performance. Now five years later the poorly maintained code is removed from the Mesa codebase...
Ubuntu 26.10 Beta Released With Linux 7.3 Kernel, GNOME 51 Desktop
Ubuntu 26.10 beta is now available for the official Ubuntu editions as well as the various community flavors...
FLUX 3 Image
Article URL: https://bfl.ai/models/flux-3-image Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49925974 Points: 207 # Comments: 50
Discussion: Hacker News thread →
Can good design stop content creators from having sex in robotaxis?
Autonomous vehicle designers have to worry about riders getting frisky in public.
Marvel releases one last VisionQuest trailer
"This is a fight I likely won't win. We have said goodbye before. But remember, family is forever."
Memory executives expect RAM shortage to continue through 2028
Prices for memory sold for 2027 "are much higher than 2026 prices."
Nearing A 10 Second Kernel Build, Xeon 600 & Other September Excitement On Phoronix
During the past month on Phoronix were 284 original news articles and another 19 featured Linux hardware reviews/multi-page benchmark articles. A lot of exciting happenings both on the hardware and software fronts while October is sure to be another interesting month with the releases of Ubuntu 26.10, Fedora 45, and some more hardware fun...
Florida cops say they don't know who owns 11 unpermitted Flock cameras
Floridians alarmed by 14 mysterious Flock cameras; 11 have no clear owner.
With most information hidden, the game Stratego had stumped AI—until now
Adding in a second neural network that guesses the identity of hidden pieces was key.
Some Networking Fixes Being Diverted To Linux 7.4, AI/LLM Activity Still Increasing
With the vast array of wired and wireless networking drivers within the Linux kernel and range of protocols and other networking features, it's a big expanse of code for AI/LLM agents to analyze and critique. The Linux networking developers have acknowledged being "complete overwhelmed" by the AI/LLM-driven patch activity and bug reports as well as battling against AI slop patches. Even though…
As US relations fray, Canada gets serious about its own launch industry
The Canada Rocket Company gets serious about medium-lift launch.
Qt Creator 21 IDE Beta Enables More AI Functionality By Default
Following yesterday's release of the Qt 6.12 LTS toolkit, The Qt Group today released Qt Creator 21 in beta form as the latest version of their integrated development environment focused on C/C++ as well as Python, JavaScript, and other programming languages...
AMD RMPOPT Optimization Queued Ahead Of Linux 7.4
In addition to the very nice AMDGPU IOMMU optimization for iGPUs set to debut in the Linux 7.4 kernel, over on the AMD EPYC server side for servers running SEV-SNP virtual machines is a separate, nice optimization also expected for this next kernel version...
Clearing Out Linux's Old 32-bit ARM Platform Code Is Itself A Challenge
Longtime ARM Linux maintainer Arnd Bergmann over the past year has been working to clear out a number of old ARM platforms from the mainline kernel tree. With Linux 7.3 many older 32-bit ARM platforms were deprecated and in turn hundreds of kernel drivers orphaned. Now it's on to removing that actual code, which given the amount of entangled code, is itself a challenge...
PS5 emulation is suddenly making big strides on PC
Games like Astro Bot and Demon’s Souls are running ably without a console.
NASA squeezed Treasury, vibe coded, and broke the mold in bid to save Swift
"We did some really, really cool stuff. I'm absolutely gutted we weren't able to get further."
Dinosaur-killing impact crater might have been teeming with life
Hot, nutrient water might have lasted for over 5 million years after the impact.