For the first time, astronomers captured the shockwave of a supernova bursting through the surface of a dying red supergiant star, revealing a surprisingly symmetrical, grape-shaped explosion. Space.com reports: Seeing this moment in detail has previously been elusive because it’s rare for a supernova to be spotted early enough and for telescopes to be trained on it — and when they have been, the exploding star has been too far away. So, when supernova 2024ggi went boom on April 10, 2024 in the relatively nearby spiral galaxy NGC 3621, which is 22 million light-years away in the constellation of Hydra, the Water Snake, astronomer Yi Yang of Tsinghua University in Beijing knew he had to act.
Although the supernova itself couldn’t be resolved as anything put a point of light, the polarization of that light held the clues as to the geometry of the breakout. “The geometry of a supernova explosion provides fundamental information on stellar evolution and the physical processes leading to these cosmic fireworks,” said Yang. “Spectropolarimetry delivers information about the geometry of the explosion that other types of observation cannot provide because the angular scales are too tiny,” said another team-member, Lifan Wang of Texas A&M University.
The measurement showed that the shape of the breakout explosion was flattened, like an olive or grape. Crucially, though, the explosion propagated symmetrically, and continued to do so even when it collided with a ring of circumstellar material. “These findings suggest a common physical mechanism that drives the explosion of many massive stars, which manifests a well-defined axial symmetry and acts on large scales,” said Yang. The findings will allow astronomers to rule out some models and strengthen others that describe what drives the shockwave in a supernova explosion. The findings have been described in a paper on the ESO website.
J.Laverack, the British bespoke titanium bike builder, has launched its new Speedform road bike. The Speedform is the result of 20 months of R&D and a collaboration with Loughborough University.
We’ve seen plenty of 3D-printed titanium in recent years, from Ribble’s keenly priced Allroad Ti through to premium offerings from Bastion and, indeed, J.Laverack.
With the Speedform, however, J.Laverack is offering the same bespoke service as its current range, but with a unique fully aero-optimised frameset.
The Speedform is the result of a 20-month research project. J.Laverack
Usually, with 3D-printed titanium frames, it’s a case of 3D printing the junctions, lugs and dropouts, and using traditional tubing to complete the frame.
Where the Speedform differs is that it’s created from three 3D-printed sections welded together. It’s a new approach that couldn’t be achieved with traditional metal tube manipulation.
The Speedform frame is made from three 3D additive-printed sections welded together. J.Laverack
The three-piece construction is something we first saw on Pilot’s €17,000 Seiren. However, here, the design is able to be custom-sized rather than the Pilot Seiren’s set sizing.
Aero-optimised design
The junction of head tube and down tube has a ridge designed to condition the airflow. J.Laverack
From the onset of the Speedform project, Laverack knew it wanted to break away from the constraints of traditional tube shapes. By using the three-piece construction, it has been able to create an aerodynamic form only previously achievable with carbon fibre moulding.
J.Laverack commissioned a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis study in collaboration with Loughborough University. The brand says this resulted in a substantial aerodynamic improvement over traditional-tubed bikes.
Compared to the brand’s highly regarded R J.Ack Disc, the new Speedform tested with a 20-26% reduction in aerodynamic drag (CdA) at between 30 and 48 km/h. In terms of effort, that’s a 17-watt saving.
The dropped stays integrate seamlessly with the seat tube. J.Laverack
The details
The Speedform is claimed to bring a 20-26% drag reduction over the R.Jack Disc. J.Laverack
The Speedform’s frame uses dropped seatstays to improve both aerodynamics and stiffness. There’s full internal cable routing, a T47 threaded bottom bracket shell, and the design was optimised for 30mm tyres, although it has clearance for 32mm and beyond.
The seatpost is the 3D-printed KT1, and there’s an optional 3D-printed integrated stem up front.
Each frame will be custom built to order with tailored geometry and will be available in limited numbers from the middle of 2026. No pricing details have been given as of yet, but don’t expect it to be cheap.
AM64 Carbon: 3D printing and carbon combined
The J.Laverack AM64 Carbon has a carbon seat tube/mast and can be had with custom/bespoke geometry. J.Laverack
Alongside the Speedform, J.Laverack has been busy evolving its AM64 frame-construction standard. The AM64 design is based on 3D additive-printed junctions, combined with custom-drawn and shaped double-butted titanium tubing. It’s available with custom geometry.
The AM64 Carbon evolves the design, introducing a full-length custom woven carbon seat tube/mast. J.Laverack tells us the new tube reduces weight and enhances compliance. It’s topped with a new 3D-printed seat mast topper.
The 3D-printed bottom bracket shell at the centre of the AM64 Carbon. J.Laverack
AM64 Carbon availability
As with the standard AM64, the AM64 Carbon will be available on the R J.ACK, J.ACK, Grit, Pilot and Contour models.
The AM64 Carbon complete bikes are available from £9,745 / $12,838 / €11,085.
The builds include:
AM64 Carbon frame with integrated carbon seat tube and AM64 seat topper
ENVE carbon fork, stem, bar, headset
ÆRA carbon wheels & ÆRA No.1 BSA bottom bracket
Shimano 12-speed Ultegra or GRX Di2
The first 50 feature a commemorative number
The AM64 Carbon is also available in this raw ‘Pavé’ finish. J.Laverack
The AM64 framesets are available from £6,995 / $9,215 / €7,957, including:
AM64 Carbon frame with integrated carbon seat tube and AM64 seat topper
The groups command is used to list all the groups to which the specified user belongs. This will make it easier for you to manage users and groups in your system.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: Production is now underway at Toyota’s new $13.9 billion battery plant in North Carolina, the company’s first outside Japan. After the first batteries rolled off the production line at its new facility in Liberty, North Carolina, on Wednesday, Toyota said today marks a “pivotal moment” in the company’s history. The facility is Toyota’s 11th plant in the US and its first battery plant outside of Japan.
Toyota first announced plans to build EV batteries in the US almost four years ago. The nearly $14 billion facility will create up to 5,100 jobs in the area. In addition, the Japanese auto giant announced plans to invest an additional $10 billion in its US operations over the next five years. Since it first arrived in the US nearly 70 years ago, Toyota has invested close to $60 billion.
The mega site spans 1,850 acres, or about the size of 121 football fields, and can produce up to 30 GWh annually. Toyota will use the hub to develop and build lithium-ion batteries for its growing lineup of “electrified” vehicles, including battery electric (EV), plug-in hybrid (PHEV), and hybrid (HEV) models. Batteries from the plant will power the new Camry HEV, Corolla Cross HEV, RAV4 HEV, and Toyota’s yet-to-be-announced three-row electric SUV.
Valve today announced three new products, the highly anticipated and rumored Steam Machines powered by the Arch Linux-based SteamOS, the Steam Frame VR headset, and a new Steam Controller.
Russia’s first AI humanoid robot, Aldol, fell just seconds after its debut at a technology event in Moscow on Tuesday. “The robot was being led on stage to the soundtrack from the film ‘Rocky,’ before it suddenly lost its balance and fell,” reports the BBC. “Assistants could then be seen scrambling to cover it with a cloth — which ended up tangling in the process.” Developers of Aldol blamed poor lighting and calibration issues for the collapse, saying the robot’s stereo cameras are sensitive to light and the hall was dark.
In this tutorial, we are going to show you how to install CloudPanel on Ubuntu 24.04 OS. CloudPanel is a free and open-source server control panel designed for servers and cloud environments.
Back in April PostgreSQL added AVX-512 support for CRC32 computations. At the time the gains for CRC32 computations with this popular open-source database server were reported to be 50% to 3x faster for x86_64 CPUs able to leverage AVX-512. That AVX-512 support is found with PostgreSQL 18.0 that released in September and now Intel is praising this addition to PostgreSQL for which their developers also had a part in along with AWS and others…
Slashdot readers Tablizer and fjo3 share news that an AI-generated country song has topped the U.S. sales chart for the first time this week. ABC News reports: The new country tune, “Walk my Walk” by Breaking Rust, recently hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart, reaching over 3 million streams on Spotify in less than a month. That success has garnered mixed reactions from music fans and artists alike, particularly on TikTok, where hundreds of users have posted videos addressing the tune and others discussing the music in the comments.
Billboard has acknowledged Breaking Rust is an AI act and said it is one of at least six to chart in the past few months alone. “Ultimately, this feels like an experiment to see just how far something like this can go and what happens in the future and in other disciplines of art as well,” senior entertainment reporter Kelley L. Carter told ABC News. “AI artists won’t require things that a real human artist will require, and once companies start considering it and looking at bottom lines, I think that’s when artists should rightly be concerned about it,” she added.
Waymo is rolling out robotaxi rides that use freeways across Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix for the first time — “a critical expansion for the company that it says will reduce ride times by up to 50%,” reports TechCrunch. From the report: That stat could help attract a whole new group of users who need to travel between the many towns and suburbs within the greater San Francisco Bay Area or quicken commutes across the sprawling Los Angeles and Phoenix metro areas. Using freeways is also essential for Waymo to offer rides to and from the San Francisco Airport, a location the company is currently testing in.
The service won’t be offered to all Waymo riders at first, the company said. Waymo riders who want to experience freeway rides can note their preference in the Waymo app. Once the rider hails a ride, they may be matched with a freeway trip, according to the company.
The company’s robotaxi routes will now stretch to San Jose, an expansion that will create a unified 260-mile service area across the Peninsula, according to Waymo. The company said it will also begin curbside drop off and pick up service at the San Jose Mineta International Airport. It already offers curbside service to the Sky Harbor Phoenix International Airport.
FTP’s simplicity came with security risks; SSH Pilot offers a familiar workflow for secure shell management and encrypted file transfers — without sacrificing security.
I still haven’t gotten around to watching the first Super Mario movie because my movie queue is already like 600 movies long. I really have to start returning these Netflix DVDs. This is the trailer for the upcoming The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. It looks very promising. You know, the Super Mario Galaxy video game holds a special place in my heart because I played it at a time in my life when things weren’t going so hot, and it helped. I mean not that they’ve gotten any better since, but hey, now I’m playing Borderlands 4.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Anthropic announced plans Wednesday to spend $50 billion on a U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure build-out, starting with custom data centers in Texas and New York. The facilities, which will be designed to support the company’s rapid enterprise growth and its long-term research agenda, will be developed in partnership with Fluidstack.
Fluidstack is an AI cloud platform that supplies large-scale graphics processing unit, or GPU, clusters to clients like Meta, Midjourney and Mistral. Additional sites are expected to follow, with the first locations going live in 2026. The project is expected to create 800 permanent jobs and more than 2,000 construction roles. The investment positions Anthropic as a major domestic player in physical AI infrastructure at a moment when policymakers are increasingly focused on U.S.-based compute capacity and technological sovereignty. “We’re getting closer to AI that can accelerate scientific discovery and help solve complex problems in ways that weren’t possible before. Realizing that potential requires infrastructure that can support continued development at the frontier,” said CEO Dario Amodei. “These sites will help us build more capable AI systems that can drive those breakthroughs, while creating American jobs.”
Preliminary data on this year’s carbon emissions reinforces the fact that we need to act as fast as possible to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
Sometimes, the best features in a new operating system aren’t the flashy ones that get broadcast during a keynote. They’re subtle improvements that naturally fit into how you use your device and just make the experience better. One of those appears to be coming in the next macOS update. The dev beta of Tahoe 26.2 includes a feature that essentially lets your computer screen function as a ring light during a video call.
It’s called Edge Light and it illuminates a rectangular band around the edge of the screen. Apple’s Neural Engine will also position the light based on where it detects your face in the video frame. There are some controls for making the light warmer or cooler, and it can be set to turn on automatically once the brightness in your environment dims. Edge Light doesn’t cover the top menu bar, and it will also move out of the way if the cursor hovers over it so that you can still use your laptop normally while on a call.
Edge Light will only be available on MacBooks from after 2024 that are running on Apple’s Silicon. It may not be a true replacement for a ring light, but it’s probably a step up from opening a bunch of blank Google Docs to try and illuminate yourself for a last-minute meeting.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/the-next-macos-update-can-turn-your-screen-into-a-ring-light-234410504.html?src=rss
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Summer might have passed, but if you’re looking for a year-round portable speaker that’s durable and rugged enough to survive the outdoors (and multiple drops), the JBL Charge 6 is down to $129.95 (originally $199.95) on Amazon, marking its lowest price. If you don’t need one for yourself, this speaker would also make a great gift.
While the price bump from the Charge 5 is modest, the number of upgrades is impressive. This model is fully waterproof, has an extended battery life, and an even bigger woofer. While the Charge 6 is slightly larger than its predecessor, it comes with a new ergonomic carry handle that keeps it ultra-portable.
It can survive drops up to three feet and has an IP68 rating (an upgrade from its previous IP67 rating), which means it can be submerged under five feet of water for up to 30 minutes. Its single USB-C connection on the back handles charging, lossless wired audio connections, and power output to charge other devices. The 34-watt-hour battery runs up to 24 hours and doubles as a power bank for devices like phones or tablets in need of charging. It can charge up in just three hours, but it’s worth noting that you’ll need your own charging brick and USB cable as they’re not included in the package.
App customization is limited to simple controls, but it does feature a customizable seven-band EQ, and this PCMag review calls the sound “surprisingly punchy” with a more robust audio response than similarly compact speakers. It provides loud, clear, and balanced sound (even outdoors). While the PlayTime Boost setting increases volume while conserving battery, it comes at the cost of bass, meaning it may be worthwhile for podcasts or audiobooks, but it could impact how your music sounds.
Ultimately, if you’re looking for a small but powerful speaker that performs well and is built to last, the JBL Charge 6 is a great, feature-packed choice, and at $129.95, it’s an absolute steal for a new model. However, if you’re an audiophile looking for stereo speaker quality or bass on par with a subwoofer, this might not be the right fit.
Longtime Slashdot reader hadleyburg writes: For a user with an Android phone and who’s happy to stick within the Google ecosystem, an Android tablet might seem like the more obvious choice over an iPad. Of course, iPads are a lot more popular, and asking about Android tablets is likely to invite advice about sticking with what everyone else has.
The Slashdot community on the other hand — being a discerning and thoughtful crowd — might have some experience in this area and be willing to share the pros and cons they have found.
The use case is someone not requiring any heavy usage — no video editing or gaming — just email, browsing, YouTube, video calls, and that sort of thing.
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If you’re looking for a new QD-OLED TV with fantastic picture quality from a reputable brand, the Sony QD-OLED 77″ Bravia XR A95L Series is currently $3,798 (originally 4,999.99), bringing this popular TV down to its lowest price ever, according to price-trackers.
This TV offers a wide color gamut and exceptional, lifelike color thanks to the QD-OLED panel, which also delivers perfect OLED blacks without any blooming. For shoppers with a large room or those who view the TV off-center, the ultra-wide viewing angle is a major plus.
A step up from the A95L (reviewed in PCMag), the Dolby Vision HDR on this smart TV performs well and handles reflections and glare with ease. Compared to the A95L, it manages bright scenes better, offers more refined visuals, and delivers a better gaming experience, supporting 4K at 120Hz, VRR, Auto Low Latency Mode, and HDMI 2.1 bandwidth. It also includes a Game Menu that keeps your gaming picture settings and assist settings in an easily accessible interface. For PlayStation 5 owners, it unlocks Auto HDR Tone Mapping and Auto Genre Picture Mode for optimized picture quality.
That said, the A95L only has two HDMI ports, so if you need to connect multiple high-bandwidth devices, it may not be ideal. However, reviewers note that compared to similar televisions, its out-of-the-box calibration accuracy is impressive.
If you’re looking for one of the most immersive TV picture experiences on the market with premium image fidelity, depth, and color richness (and don’t mind limited HDMI 2.1 ports), the Sony QD-OLED 77″ Bravia XR A95L Series is a solid large-screen option with standout value, especially at a $1,200 discount.
