Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr today faced blistering criticism in a Senate hearing for his September threats to revoke ABC station licenses over comments made by Jimmy Kimmel. While Democrats provided nearly all the criticism, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said that Congress should act to restrict the FCC’s power to intimidate news broadcasters.
As an immediate result of today’s hearing, the FCC removed a statement from its website that said it is an independent agency. Carr, who has embraced President Trump’s declaration that independent agencies may no longer operate independently from the White House, apparently didn’t realize that the website still called the FCC an independent agency.
“Yes or no, Is the FCC an independent agency?” Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) asked. Carr answered that the FCC is not independent, prompting Luján to point to a statement on the FCC website calling the FCC “an independent US government agency overseen by Congress.”
In this article, you will learn what the hash list is, the differences between it and the history list, and how to use its command-line tool to manage records in the hash list in Linux.
The security research team at iVerify Threat Intelligence have discovered a new Remote Access Trojan (RAT) that has been dubbed Cellik, and which is targeting Android users. It includes features typically seen on advanced spyware and delivers functionality that allows threat actors to spread their wares in a more stealthy fashion.
Red Hat has quietly bought Chatterbox Labs, a boutique firm that stress‑tests AI models for trouble. Is this a signal that AI safety is moving from marketing slop to production requirement?
Intel’s foundry arm says it has crossed a major lithography milestone: it has announced successful acceptance testing of ASML’s TWINSCAN EXE:5200B High Numerical Aperture (High-NA) EUV scanner, one of the most advanced chipmaking tools currently in existence anywhere. It’s the first time the higher-throughput version of ASML’s High-NA platform
Bethesda is hard at work on The Elder Scrolls VI, per a recent interview with Game Informer. The hotly-anticipated game, already in playtesting, is currently “progressing really well” according to Todd Howard, with “The majority of the studio” working on it. Game Informer didn’t just speak to Todd Howard, though—they also collected statements
After three years of development, Linux hardware provider System76
has declared
the COSMIC desktop
environment stable. It shipped COSMIC Epoch 1 as part of the
long-awaited Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS
release on December 11, just in time for Linux enthusiasts to
have something to tinker with over the end-of-year holidays. With the
stable release out the door, it seemed like a good time to check back
in on COSMIC and see how it has evolved since the first alpha. For a first
stable release of a new desktop environment, COSMIC shows a lot of
promise and room to grow.
One of the big stories of last year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was the debut of Donut Lab’s diminutive but powerful electric motors. When I spoke with Donut earlier this year, the company told me that it was looking at applications ranging from drones to large automotive motors, but also things like wind turbines and even washing machines. Now, almost a year later, we have our first look at an electric vehicle that uses the technology, thanks to a new collaboration between Donut Lab and WATT Electric Vehicle Company.
WATT had previously developed the Passenger and Commercial EV Skateboard (PACES), a lightweight aluminum platform for low-volume EVs. Now, it’s integrating Donut’s motors, first with one for each rear wheel, although there will eventually be an all-wheel-drive variant, too.
The small EV chassis is rather intriguing—with the motors in the rear wheel hubs, the layout is even more space-efficient than a more conventional EV, which still needs to find a few cubic feet to package its drive unit(s). The two companies see plenty of potential for the platform, which they say could give rise to “multiple vehicle configurations from beach buggies to high-performance sports cars to commercial delivery vehicles.”
Yesterday’s Zwift update included the release of a long-awaited feature: a draft indicator! It’s a very simple yet useful addition to the game UI: a horizontal blue line that expands and contracts at the bottom of the center HUD element. This animation shows how it basically works:
Want to see it in action? Here’s a quick recording I made while spinning around Watopia yesterday:
Into the Weeds
The new draft indicator, in typical Zwift fashion, is a very simple UI element. But there are lots of details worth discussing, so let’s dig deeper…
What are we measuring?
This is a tricky question to answer, actually.
The blue bar isn’t showing exactly how much power you’re saving. If that were the case, it would be wider when drafting two riders at ~60kph on flat ground, vs drafting the same two riders at a lower speed. But that’s not the case. The bar is full even at 34kph, as shown here:
And here you can see it’s filled to the same level drafting off of one rider, whether I’m saving a lot of power at 48kph, or less power at 34kph:
The blue bar is also not indicating how much of the potential draft you are experiencing. If that were the case, the bar would be full when you’re on a climb in the middle of a pack, receiving as much draft as possible in your current location. But that’s not the case. On steep climbs, the bar only fills partway:
Draft Indicator partially filled while sitting mid-pack on a climb
So what is it displaying? I think it’s best to think of the Draft Indicator as showing what percentage of your power is being saved in the draft. This isn’t a perfect description of what it’s showing (especially since the blue bar fills up even when you’re coasting), but I think it’s as close as we’re going to get.
A Note About Bar Width
No, I’m not talking about the UCI’s controversial recent stance on handlebar widths. I’m referring to how the draft indicator’s design could stand to be polished a bit. Currently, the draft indicator bar only fills ~80% of the HUD’s width, but it’s so low-contrast that you can’t really tell how wide the bar should be, if there’s a dark background behind the center HUD:
Because of this, when the bar is fully filled, it can look like it’s only partially-filled, since it doesn’t go to the edges of the HUD.
The bar only expands to the edges of the HUD box when using a Draft Boost powerup (see below). But perhaps the bar should be the full width at all times, then a Draft Boost powerup changes the color of the indicator, or the bar expands to be a bit wider than the main HUD element?
Draft Boost Powerups
What happens when you activate a Draft Boost? I’m glad you asked. Here’s a demo:
How many riders for max draft?
How many riders have to be ahead of you for you to fill the Draft Indicator to max? The answer appears to be two, at least on flat ground at a descent speed.
If you’re well-positioned behind a single rider, the bar fills to this level (around 75% of max):
But get behind two riders, and it fills completely:
This doesn’t quite line up with my Pack Dynamics tests from past years (see Test 2 in this post, for example), which seemed to show that a 4th rider got a bit more benefit than the 3rd rider in a TTT. But my guess is the discrepancy can be explained by Zwift’s new draft indicator having a cap on the power savings it displays, as explained in “What are we measuring?” above.
Goodbye, “Close the Gap”
Zwift says the “Close the Gap” text will be retired with the rollout of the Draft Indicator. I don’t think anyone will complain about that, as long as the Draft Indicator is always visible in its place! (“Close the Gap” was a handy tool in TTT’s… IYKYN.)
How Far Back?
One thing the Draft Indicator will teach Zwifters is that you receive a draft benefit from riders quite far up the road. How far back can you be, and still receive some benefit? I don’t have precise measurements, but here’s a visual showing where the Draft Indicator begins to show a benefit on flat ground at 33kph:
Zwift vs Sauce for Zwift
Until this week’s release, the only draft gauge Zwifters could access was the one provided for Sauce for Zwift. Here’s a quick demo video where I compare Sauce’s drafting gauge and Zwift’s new Draft Indicator:
Sauce’s gauge is titled “W Savings” to indicate that it is showing how much power you’re saving in the draft. This isn’t perfectly accurate, though, as it’s actually showing you how much more power you’d need to be doing to hold your current speed on flat ground without a draft.
Some Zwifters prefer having an actual number displayed. But I think Zwift’s choice to keep it a simple bar is probably the right call, in the interest of keeping the HUD clean and simple.
Drafting Ghosts
With the Draft Indicator now being used by hundreds of thousands of riders, people are going to start discovering new things.
For example, on Zwifter wrote in yesterday to tell me they discovered in a Ladder Race that you can draft off of someone who is invisible due to the ghost powerup. I’d already written about this a few years back (see the post), and of course it makes sense: everyone knows ghosts still have bodies, even if they’re invisible. Right?
TTT Drafting
While Zwift’s Draft Indicator announcement in the forum says, “this indicator will not appear when riding a TT bike…” sources in Zwift tell me that’s not actually true. If you’re in an event where TT bikes can draft (like a TTT), Zwift says the Draft Indicator will be visible. I guess racers will find out tomorrow if that’s true!
Questions or Comments?
What do you think of the new draft indicator? Comment below, and you can also chat on this Zwift forum topic.
It’s the 2025 Holiday Season, and you know what that means—snowy-white motherboards, meant for PCs with cool temperatures and high performance. To encourage this, a number of reputable motherboard manufacturers have put their white motherboards on sale on Amazon, and we’ll be highlighting the 7 most compelling options below, sorted by price.
The entertainment industry’s most well-known awards show is heading to streaming. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) has announced that the Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, will exclusively air on YouTube starting in 2029. The new deal means the awards show is abandoning its long-time partnership with ABC (owned by frequent Oscars heavyweight, The Walt Disney Company), though the Oscars will continue to air on the network through its 100th anniversary in 2028.
The Academy Awards will be joined by other Academy events and programming on the Oscars YouTube channel, including “the Governors Awards, the Oscars Nominations Announcement, the Oscars Nominees Luncheon, the Student Academy Awards, the Scientific and Technical Awards, Academy member and filmmaker interviews, film education programs, podcasts, and more,” AMPAS says. The Google Arts & Culture initiative will also digitize artifacts in the Academy collection and help provide digital access online as part of the new partnership.
“We are thrilled to enter into a multifaceted global partnership with YouTube to be the future home of the Oscars and our year-round Academy programming,” Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy President Lynette Howell Taylor said in the announcement of the new YouTube deal. “The Academy is an international organization, and this partnership will allow us to expand access to the work of the Academy to the largest worldwide audience possible — which will be beneficial for our Academy members and the film community.”
Awards shows have struggled to find their footing in the streaming era, particularly because they already served a niche audience even when broadcast TV was the norm. Prior to the Oscars heading to YouTube, Netflix snagged the rights to stream the SAG Awards in 2023, an acting-focused award show that’s often seen as a precursor to the Oscars.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/the-oscars-will-exclusively-air-on-youtube-starting-in-2029-181545531.html?src=rss
The US threatened to restrict some of the largest service providers in the European Union as retaliation for EU tech regulations and investigations are increasingly drawing Donald Trump’s ire.
On Tuesday, the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) issued a warning on X, naming Spotify, Accenture, Amadeus, Mistral, Publicis, and DHL among nine firms suddenly yanked into the middle of the US-EU tech fight.
“The European Union and certain EU Member States have persisted in a continuing course of discriminatory and harassing lawsuits, taxes, fines, and directives against US service providers,” USTR’s post said.
Intel XPU Manager 1.3.5 released today as the newest version of this open-source software for monitoring and managing Intel GPU hardware with a focus on their data center products. Notable with this revision is adding BMG-G31 GPU support…
The problem with a memory shortage is that virtually every single part of a computer uses memory in some way. That, obviously, includes graphics cards, and despite the author’s earlier optimism that GDDR might be one of the less-affected memory types, it turns out that NVIDIA may be cutting GPU production next year because it’s concerned about
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in his Wednesday Senate testimony that the agency he governs “is not an independent agency, formally speaking.” Axios: During his testimony, the word “independent” was removed from the FCC’s mission statement on its website. The extraordinary statement speaks to a broader trend of regulatory agencies losing power to the executive branch during the Trump era. Last week, the Supreme Court appeared poised to allow President Trump to fire members of the Federal Trade Commission during oral arguments over the issue.
Sen. Ben Ray LujÃn (D-N.M.) began the line of questioning, citing the FCC’s website, which said the agency was independent as of Wednesday morning. By Wednesday afternoon, the FCC’s mission statement no longer said it was independent. Chairman Carr would not respond directly to questions about whether he believed the president was his boss. He would not answer whether it’s appropriate if the president were to pressure him to go after media companies. He suggested the president has the power to fire him and other FCC commissioners.
The creators of the Hitman series have honed their style of- open-ended and spectacle-driven sandboxes across several games, and now they’re taking their signature immersive gameplay to the world of James Bond. With 007 First Light, developer IO Interactive is crafting an origin story for the globetrotting British spy, showing how he undertook daring missions at the start of his career to eventually become the world’s most infamous agent.
Before the reveal at The Game Awards of 007 First Light‘s newest villain, played by Lenny Kravitz, we had an early look at the latest bits of plot for James Bond’s origin story as a superspy. We also spoke with cinematic and narrative director Martin Emborg about the main inspirations for the game, how Bond’s origin taps into decades of lore, and why a good spy story is timeless.
“What I think is kind of baked into doing an origin story for a character like James Bond, is that everyone knows the character and who he’s going to become,” Emborg said. “But how does he become this character? I think that’s an exciting challenge from a storytelling perspective.”
IO Interactive’s James Bond is young and inexperienced.
IO Interactive
While some Bond films and novels have touched upon the early years of the iconic character, 007 First Light will be the first attempt at an actual, modernized origin story. As a twenty-something new MI6 recruit, this James Bond, portrayed by Patrick Gibson, is inexperienced and brash, which can result in some operations going off the rails. He still possesses a certain cunning, and near-supernatural levels of charisma and resourcefulness. This presents a solid archetype for the game’s open-ended missions where players will explore tightly designed worlds with a multitude of tasks and objectives to handle – however the players see fit.
While IO Interactive’s Hitman series taps into the spy experience, what really separates James Bond from Agent 47 is that he’s a far more social character. The social element will play a big part in how players can find ways to distract, or even outright bluff through charisma to sneak into areas.. Emborg explained that James Bond’s resourcefulness also makes him a compelling character for a video game, especially one that is all about player agency.
007 First Light will take players to several locations, including Slovakia and what appears to be Vietnam.
IO Interactive
“Bond is a competent character,” Emborg said. “We want to give the player the opportunities to have that agency to say, ‘Oh, I’m gonna talk to that guy,’ or, ‘I’m gonna go and punch that guy,’ or, ‘I can probably crawl up into a tight space to sneak in.’ Having that sense of agency is pivotal if you want to deliver a full Bond experience. Obviously, the social aspect of that is important; to embed yourself and infiltrate socially is a big part of that Bond experience.”
Emborg said the rhythm of a James Bond game is different from a Hitman title, even though espionage, infiltration and subterfuge are at the core of both.
“We have a lot of experience with that from obviously making Hitman, but there are just many more gears to Bond,” he said. “Of course, the shape of this game is different. We have sandbox locations where you make the open-ended decisions, but we also have other levels where it is a chase or a set-piece encounter, and then it opens up again. So we kind of coined the term, having a game that breathes. It’s a very different way of playing this type of game that we usually do, so we’ve definitely bolstered our toolbox for this game.”
In many ways, 007 First Light is a story that can only be told in an interactive format. The new game will pull from numerous novels and films for its plot, and it also features a large cast of familiar characters seen throughout the franchise – such as MI6 assistant Moneypenny (performed by Kiera Lester), gadget guru and quartermaster Q (played by Alastair Mackenzie), and team leader M (Priyanga Burford).
But like any singular Bond story, First Light features its own set of original characters. In addition to James Bond’s MI6 mentor John Greenway (portrayed by Lennie James), a new core villain, black-market smuggler and warlord Bawma, will be played by Lenny Kravitz. It’s a familiar setup for a Bond experience for sure, but within the context of a video game – one made by IO Interactive – it really taps looks to tap into the Bond fantasy more than other games have.
From the gameplay demos and trailers we’ve seen, IO Interactive looks to be channeling the style and lore from decades of Bond with its modernized reboot of the character. From deep cuts to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service – one of the great and underrated Bond movies – and You Only Live Twice, 007 First Light is keeping a keen eye on paying tribute to what came before.
“At the very beginning, it was very much like a maelstrom of [ideas], then suddenly something emerges, and you build up a story around it,” Emborg said. He continued, “I love doing this stuff and with great reverence for the material. It’s a privilege to work in this universe. James Bond is one of the few IPs that still hasn’t been overdone, in my view. We have a space to come in with a fresh take, and he’s a character who’s seen a lot of versions over the years.”
Confirmed MI6 gadgets include the “Q-Watch.”
IO Interactive
So far, 007 First Light has the makings of not only the biggest Bond game but also the most true-to-life simulation of being a superspy. While previous Bond games like Goldeneye and Everything or Nothing are well-loved classics, they embody traditional video game shooting spectacle. 007 First Light is looking to lean into the immersive element of the Hitman games in its adaptation of James Bond, finally giving players the opportunities to explore the social aspects of spy work on a grand scale.
007 First Light will arrive on March 27, 2026, for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/io-interactives-007-first-light-reimagines-james-bond-as-a-young-and-reckless-spy-180000758.html?src=rss
A comprehensive database built by scientists in Switzerland and Norway has catalogued 16,000 chemicals linked to plastic materials, and the findings paint a troubling picture of what Americans are actually eating when they prepare food in their kitchens. Of those 16,000 chemicals, more than 5,400 are considered hazardous to human health by government and industry standards, while just 161 are classified as not hazardous. The remaining 10,700-plus chemicals simply don’t have enough data to determine their safety.
The chemicals enter food through multiple pathways. Black plastic utensils and trays often contain brominated flame retardants because they’re made from recycled electronic waste. Nonstick pans and compostable plates frequently contain PFAS. One California study found phthalates in three-quarters of tested foods, and a Consumer Reports analysis last year detected BPA or similar chemicals in 79% of foods tested. According to CDC data, more than 90% of Americans have measurable levels of these chemicals in their bodies. A 10-fold increase in maternal levels of brominated flame retardants is associated with a 3.7-point IQ drop in children.
