Cards Against Humanity (CAH) this week announced its newest stunt: a “Cards Against Humanity Explains the Joke” edition that ditches the game’s rules and adds explanatory notes to each card in the box. This makes the project “informational material” rather than a “game,” and therefore CAH can avoid import tariffs. All profits from the one-off project will be donated to the American Library Association to fight censorship.

While a clever way to stick it to Trump, this week’s news did raise a question I’ve heard from several readers: If CAH is this upset about the whiplash-inducing tariff rates, which are added and then removed with almost no warning, why doesn’t it print the game in the US? I mean, it’s just a box of cards! How hard can it be?

In the board game space, designers have wrestled with this question for years. While many US-based designers would like to work with local manufacturers, in reality, it’s often not possible. Complex board games today may feature cardboard creations like constructible dice towers, custom-shaped and painted wooden markers, multicolored jewel pieces, plastic bits of nearly every possible variety, custom-printed component bags, molded miniatures, cards in multiple sizes, metallic coins, dry-erase boards, fancy box inserts, massive dual-sided playing boards, and long manuals. The only manufacturers capable of doing all this work are generally in China or central Europe (Germany still has good manufacturing, and there are also sites in Poland and the Czech Republic).

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Since launching its bug bounty program nearly a decade ago, Apple has always touted notable maximum payouts—$200,000 in 2016 and $1 million in 2019. Now the company is upping the stakes again. At the Hexacon offensive security conference in Paris on Friday, Apple vice president of security engineering and architecture Ivan Krstić announced a new maximum payout of $2 million for a chain of software exploits that could be abused for spyware.

The move reflects how valuable exploitable vulnerabilities can be within Apple’s highly protected mobile environment—and the lengths the company will go to to keep such discoveries from falling into the wrong hands. In addition to individual payouts, the company’s bug bounty also includes a bonus structure, adding additional awards for exploits that can bypass its extra secure Lockdown Mode as well as those discovered while Apple software is still in its beta testing phase. Taken together, the maximum award for what would otherwise be a potentially catastrophic exploit chain will now be $5 million. The changes take effect next month.

“We are lining up to pay many millions of dollars here, and there’s a reason,” Krstić tells WIRED. “We want to make sure that for the hardest categories, the hardest problems, the things that most closely mirror the kinds of attacks that we see with mercenary spyware—that the researchers who have those skills and abilities and put in that effort and time can get a tremendous reward.”

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Welcome to our latest roundup of what’s going on in the indie game space. Some gorgeous new games arrived this week, and we’ve got some demos and reveals from upcoming projects to take a look at. 

Later this month, Lorelai and the Laser Eyes studio Simogo is going to celebrate its 15th anniversary with some news and surprises. Perhaps the developer is porting some of its earlier games to more platforms. I’m hoping that we’ll learn about Simogo’s next game as well.

I’m not holding out hope for a sequel to Sayonara Wild Hearts, which is my favorite game of all time depending on the day you ask me (on other days, it’s The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, FYI). However, if Simogo announces a live concert of music from the game, I’m going to do my damndest to be there. I’ll be tuning in on October 28 to learn what the studio has for me us in any case.

Speaking of showcases, Entalto Publishing and developer GGTech ran one of their own this week. The Out of Bounds event shone a spotlight on a dozen indie games, spanning a breadth of genres. 

Also, a quick reminder that the latest Steam Next Fest starts at 1PM ET on Monday, October 13. As always, the week-long event will have tons of demos for you to check out. It’s always worth trying a bunch of them. You never know, you might end up being one of the first few folks to play the next Balatro, Manor Lords or Deep Rock Galactic Survivor.

New releases

Absolum is a beat-’em-up from the folks behind Streets of Rage 4. It’s the first original IP from Dotemu, which has found success with the likes of the terrific Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge. It co-developed this game with Guard Crush Games and Supamonks. The art and animation from the latter looks absolutely divine.

You can play Absolum solo or with a friend. Since it’s a roguelite, you’ll gain upgrades to bolster your character on each run while earning experience that goes toward permanent progression. There are multiple paths to explore, so the replayability factor seems strong here. Engadget senior reporter Igor Bonifacic spent some time with Absolum this summer and was impressed by it. The game received strong reviews this week too.

Absolum is out now on Steam, Nintendo Switch, PS4 and PS5. Dotemu also has another beat-’em-up, Marvel Cosmic Invasion, coming soon.

A few reviews I’ve read for Bye Sweet Carole (which are fairly mixed) dinged it for having clunky controls and some other quality-of-life problems, such as getting softlocked while trying to complete puzzles. I hope Little Sewing Machine can iron out those issues since the presentation of this game is quite something. It looks like an early-’90s animated movie, with hand-drawn animations and, seemingly, a soundtrack to match. 

Bye Sweet Carole is a 2D horror-platformer from publisher Maximum Entertainment in which you play as a young girl trying to find her best friend, who disappeared from an orphanage. It’s out now on PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch and Xbox Series X/S.

Want to see another new game with a unique look that makes it stand out from the crowd? Of course you do. 

Exploration action game Dreams of Another — which landed on PS5, PS VR2 and Steam this week — sees you creating the environment in a dream-like world by shooting at it. Director Baiyon (PixelJunk Eden) and the team at Q-Games used point cloud rendering technology to create the unusual, but captivating visuals. Dunno why they felt the need to put a clown in this game though. Clowns are rotten things.

Dreams of Another arrived on the same day that Q-Games’ PixelJunk Eden 2 hit PS4, PS5 and Steam (it’s coming to Epic Games Store as well). That game debuted on Nintendo Switch in 2020.

Here’s yet another lovely-looking project, and this time it’s a pixel-art game from Teenage Astronauts and publisher No More Robots. In Little Rocket Lab, you play as aspiring engineer Morgan, who sets out to build factories with the aim of achieving her family’s dream of making a rocket ship. It’s more build a rocket, girl, than Build A Rocket Boy.

This is a blend of a factory builder and life sim, and it looks rather charming. Little Rocket Lab has touched down on Steam and Xbox. It’s on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass.

On the subject of pixel-art games, I couldn’t not include one that came out this week from a developer based in my hometown. Cairn: Mathair’s Curse is a turn-based RPG. It’s set in the early 2000s in the Scottish Highlands and it sees a young lad and his mates dealing with the aftermath of a cult casting an ancient curse on their home. 

Solo developer Ross McRitchie spent five years making Cairn: Mathair’s Curse and his partner, Christine, composed the Celtic soundtrack. It’s said to have plenty of Scottish humor, which speaks to me. The game, which Steam reviews have likened to EarthBound, is out on Steam now.

Upcoming 

I’m looking forward to checking out Blackwood, which is slated to hit Steam in the second half of 2026. It has a pretty great pitch:

By day, you run a DVD store in 2012 New York. By night, you’re a ruthless assassin. Blackwood is a cinematic third-person shooter with grounded melee combat, brutal takedowns, responsive gunplay and a double life to manage.

The facial animations look a little rough in the reveal trailer, but it’s alpha footage and there’s plenty of time to polish it. I’m hoping the team at Bangladesh-based AttritoM7 Productions manages to do that, because otherwise this game is looking quite nifty with its John Wick-style combat.

I do love a game with a great name, and I’ve got a couple to tell you about. Action RPG Bittersweet Birthday has hand-drawn pixel art and nothing but boss battles when it comes to combat. 

Bittersweet Birthday — from World Eater Games and publisher Dangen Entertainment — is set to land on Steam, GOG, Humble and Itch on November 11. It’s coming to consoles later.

Here’s a pinball-themed precision platformer in the mold of games like Baby Steps and Getting Over It. Fittingly, it’s called A Pinball Game That Makes You Mad and you can control it with a single button.

There’s no release date as yet for this project from Azimuth Studios. However, a demo is available on Steam now. Like a good teenage cousin, it’s fun and annoying in equal measure.

Another pre-Next Fest demo I’ve had a chance to check out is for Don’t Stop, Girlypop!, a fast-paced arena shooter with an anti-capitalist bent. I’ve been looking forward to this one since I found out about it late last year. The demo, with its Y2K girly-pop aesthetics and Doom Eternal/Ultrakill-style gameplay, does not disappoint. 

I’m glad the team trimmed the first word from the original name — Incolatus: Don’t Stop, Girlypop! — since the shorter version is much punchier and more memorable. Funny Fintan Softworks and publisher Kwalee haven’t revealed a release date as yet, but I’ll be checking my T9 flip phone impatiently in the meantime.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/stylish-beat-em-ups-platformers-and-rpgs-and-other-new-indie-games-worth-checking-out-110000184.html?src=rss

Every few weeks, it seems, yet another lab proclaims yet another breakthrough in the race to perfect solid-state batteries: next-generation power packs that promise to give us electric vehicles (EVs) so problem-free that we’ll have no reason left to buy gas-guzzlers.

These new solid-state cells are designed to be lighter and more compact than the lithium-ion batteries used in today’s EVs. They should also be much safer, with nothing inside that can burn like those rare but hard-to-extinguish lithium-ion fires. They should hold a lot more energy, turning range anxiety into a distant memory with consumer EVs able to go four, five, six hundred miles on a single charge.

And forget about those “fast” recharges lasting half an hour or more: Solid-state batteries promise EV fill-ups in minutes—almost as fast as any standard car gets with gasoline.

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theodp writes: GeekWire reports that Microsoft is bringing artificial intelligence to every public classroom in its home state — and sparking new questions about its role in education. The Redmond tech giant on Thursday unveiled Microsoft Elevate Washington, a sweeping new initiative that will provide free access to AI-powered software and training for all 295 public school districts and 34 community and technical colleges across Washington state. The program is part of Microsoft Elevate, the company’s broader $4 billion, five-year commitment to support schools and nonprofits with AI tools and training that was announced in July.

“This is our home,” Microsoft President Brad Smith said at a launch event on the company’s headquarters campus. “A big part of what we’re doing today is investing in our home.” Smith said Microsoft understands the unease around AI in classrooms but argued that waiting isn’t an option. “I don’t know that it will be possible to slow down the use of AI, even if someone wanted to,” he said. In an interview with KING-TV Seattle, Smith added, “We’re making a bigger commitment to this state than we are to any state in the country. […] Above all else, we want to ensure that people can learn how to use the technology of tomorrow. That’s the only way for our kids to succeed in the future.”

The event on Thursday also included comedian Trevor Noah, the company’s “chief questions officer,” as well as Code.org CEO Hadi Partovi. Noah and Partovi both also appeared with Smith at the Microsoft Elevate launch event in July, where Smith told Partovi it was time to “switch hats” from coding to AI, adding that “the last 12 years have been about the Hour of Code [Code.org’s flagship event, credited with pushing CS into K-12 classrooms], but the future involves the Hour of AI.” Code.org last month committed to “engage 25M learners in an Hour of AI in school year ’25/’26” at a meeting of the White House Task Force on AI Education that preceded a White House dinner for top execs from the nation’s leading AI companies.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sony and AMD are collaborating on new GPU technologies for the next-generation PlayStation (likely the PS6), introducing innovations like Radiance Cores for advanced ray tracing and “Universal Compression” for improved performance and efficiency. The Verge reports: Sony’s next console (presumably the PS6) is coming in “a few years time,” according to someone who I’d believe to make that claim. Mark Cerny, lead architect on the PS5 and PS5 Pro, joined Jack Huynh, SVP and GM of AMD’s computing and graphics group, in a YouTube video wherein the pair spend nine minutes going through some very specific, co-developed advancements in graphics technology that will come to the next console. But the pair cautioned that the technologies are still in “every early days” and “only exist in simulation right now.”

Much of it boils down to how the companies are working to make it easier for future GPUs to handle graphics upscaling, ray tracing, and the super-intensive path tracing techniques used to make game worlds look more realistic. Cerny says “the current approach has reached its limit,” so Sony is working with AMD to integrate components of its next-gen RDNA architecture in future consoles. AMD’s Huynh introduced Radiance Cores (similar in theory to Nvidia’s RT Cores) that are dedicated to handling ray tracing and path tracing. In addition to Sony’s new consoles having the new cores, they will almost certainly be built into AMD’s future desktop GPUs, too, and likely within whatever it’s assisting with in its Xbox partnership.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Bose will brick key features of its SoundTouch Wi-Fi speakers and soundbars soon. On Thursday, Bose informed customers that as of February 18, 2026, it will stop supporting the devices, and the devices’ cloud-based features, including the companion app, will stop working. The SoundTouch app enabled numerous capabilities, including integrating music services, like Spotify and TuneIn, and the ability to program multiple speakers in different rooms to play the same audio simultaneously.

Bose has also said that some saved presets won’t work and that users won’t be able to change saved presets once the app is gone. Additionally, Bose will stop providing security updates for SoundTouch devices. The Framingham, Massachusetts-headquartered company noted to customers that the speakers will continue being able to play audio from a device connected via AUX or HDMI. Wireless playback will still work over Bluetooth; however, Bluetooth is known to introduce more latency than Wi-Fi connections. Affected customers can trade in their SoundTouch product for a credit worth up to $200.

In its notice sent to customers this week, Bose provided minimal explanation for end-of-life-ing its pricey SoundTouch speakers, saying: “Bose SoundTouch systems were introduced into the market in 2013. Technology has evolved since then, and we’re no longer able to sustain the development and support of the cloud infrastructure that powers this older generation of products. We remain committed to creating new listening experiences for our customers built on modern technologies.”

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Apple is finalizing a deal to acquire the team and computer vision technology of Prompt AI. CNBC reports: Leadership at Prompt told employees of the pending transaction at an all-hands meeting on Thursday and said that those who don’t end up joining Apple will be paid a reduced salary, and encouraged to apply for open roles at the company, according to audio that was accessed by CNBC.

Prompt was founded in 2023 and raised a $5 million seed round that year led by AIX and Abstract Ventures. Co-founders include CEO Tete Xiao, a notable AI researcher with a Phd in computer science from UC Berkeley, and President Trevor Darrell who was a founder of the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research (BAIR) lab. Investors will get paid some money in the deal but “won’t be made whole,” executives said in the meeting. Prompt employees were asked to refrain from mentioning Apple until further notice while searching for other jobs or updating friends and family on their situation.

Prompt’s flagship app, Seemour, connects to home security cameras, adding sophisticated capabilities. The technology helps cameras detect specific people, pets and other animals or objects around a household, and to send alerts and text-based descriptions of unusual activity or answer questions about what’s been happening in front of the camera. Xiao told employees at the meeting that while Prompt AI’s technology and the Seemour app were working well, the business model wasn’t. The company is retiring the Seemour app, and plans to inform users their data will be deleted and privacy protected, executives said.

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A new HSBC survey shows that over half of wealthy entrepreneurs are considering moving abroad, not for tax reasons but for business expansion, investment access, and lifestyle improvements. Singapore tops the list of preferred destinations, followed by the UK, Japan, and Switzerland — while the U.S. has slipped to fifth place. CNBC reports: The bank polled 2,939 business owners with at least $2 million in investible assets or a total net worth of $20 million during April and May of this year. A whopping 57% reported they were considering adding a new residence over the next 12 months, up from 55% in last year’s survey. Wanderlust is greater among Gen Z entrepreneurs, with just over three-quarters in that cohort reporting they were considering a move.

When asked about their reasons for moving to a new country, only a third of all respondents cited tax efficiency as a motivator. Tax savings ranked eighth overall behind other factors such as improved security and safety (47%) and better education opportunities (52%). Respondents to the survey could select multiple options. The most popular motives at 67% each were to expand their business to new markets or to gain access to new investment opportunities. The desire for a better quality of life came in a close third at 63%. Taxes, the report said, “create acres of news coverage, but among the majority of our entrepreneurs, this does not appear to be the deciding factor about where to live.”

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Toyota is fast-tracking its long-promised all-solid-state EV batteries through a new partnership with Sumitomo Metal Mining, aiming to debut its first production vehicle using the technology by 2027 or 2028. Electrek reports: Toyota said that its new batteries could significantly enhance driving range, charging times, and output, potentially transforming the future of automobiles. Compared to current liquid-based batteries, which use electrolyte solutions, Toyota’s all-solid-state batteries utilize a cathode, an anode, and a solid electrolyte. According to Toyota, the next-gen battery tech “offers the potential for smaller size, higher output, and longer life.”

The two companies have been developing cathode materials for all-solid-state EV batteries since 2021, focusing on some of the biggest challenges in producing them at a mass scale. Using Sumitomo Metal Mining’s proprietary powder synthesis technology, Toyota claimed to have developed a “highly durable cathode material” for all-solid-state batteries. Sumitomo has been supplying cathode materials for electric vehicles for years, but it’s now working to introduce the newly developed tech, moving it toward mass production.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: The world’s largest and most disruptive botnet is now drawing a majority of its firepower from compromised Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices hosted on U.S. Internet providers like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, new evidence suggests. Experts say the heavy concentration of infected devices at U.S. providers is complicating efforts to limit collateral damage from the botnet’s attacks, which shattered previous records this week with a brief traffic flood that clocked in at nearly 30 trillion bits of data per second.

Since its debut more than a year ago, the Aisuru botnet has steadily outcompeted virtually all other IoT-based botnets in the wild, with recent attacks siphoning Internet bandwidth from an estimated 300,000 compromised hosts worldwide. The hacked systems that get subsumed into the botnet are mostly consumer-grade routers, security cameras, digital video recorders and other devices operating with insecure and outdated firmware, and/or factory-default settings. Aisuru’s owners are continuously scanning the Internet for these vulnerable devices and enslaving them for use in distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that can overwhelm targeted servers with crippling amounts of junk traffic.

As Aisuru’s size has mushroomed, so has its punch. In May 2025, KrebsOnSecurity was hit with a near-record 6.35 terabits per second (Tbps) attack from Aisuru, which was then the largest assault that Google’s DDoS protection service Project Shield had ever mitigated. Days later, Aisuru shattered that record with a data blast in excess of 11 Tbps. By late September, Aisuru was publicly flexing DDoS capabilities topping 22 Tbps. Then on October 6, its operators heaved a whopping 29.6 terabits of junk data packets each second at a targeted host. Hardly anyone noticed because it appears to have been a brief test or demonstration of Aisuru’s capabilities: The traffic flood lasted less only a few seconds and was pointed at an Internet server that was specifically designed to measure large-scale DDoS attacks.

Aisuru’s overlords aren’t just showing off. Their botnet is being blamed for a series of increasingly massive and disruptive attacks. Although recent assaults from Aisuru have targeted mostly ISPs that serve online gaming communities like Minecraft, those digital sieges often result in widespread collateral Internet disruption. For the past several weeks, ISPs hosting some of the Internet’s top gaming destinations have been hit with a relentless volley of gargantuan attacks that experts say are well beyond the DDoS mitigation capabilities of most organizations connected to the Internet today.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OpenAI and Sur Energy have signed a letter of intent to build a $25 billion, 500-megawatt data center in Argentina, marking OpenAI’s first major infrastructure project in Latin America. The “Stargate Argentina” initiative is backed by Argentina’s RIGI tax incentives and positioned as “one of the largest technology and energy infrastructure initiatives” in the nation’s history.

“We are proud to announce plans to launch Stargate Argentina, an exciting new infrastructure project in partnership with one of the country’s leading energy companies, Sur Energy,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on social media. Altman added that the region was “full of talent, creativity and ambition.”

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Lyft is teaming up with Tensor Auto to launch hundreds of AI-powered “Robocars” across Europe and North America starting in 2027. Bloomberg reports: Tensor Robocars, the first deliveries of which are planned in late 2026, have more than 100 sensors including cameras, lidars and radars, and processes sensor data with artificial intelligence technology powered by Nvidia Corp. chips on board. The vehicles will come from the manufacturer with Lyft’s platform installed, which will allow owners to make money on the rideshare network in markets where level 4 autonomous technology is available, according to the joint statement. Lyft has reserved hundreds of Robocars via its affiliates for its own fleet operations, subject to regulatory approvals.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from CSO Online: On Sept. 17, security vendor SonicWall announced that cybercriminals had stolen backup files configured for cloud backup. At the time, the company claimed the incident was limited to “less than five percent” of its customers. Now, the firewall provider has admitted that “all customers” using the MySonicWall cloud backup feature were affected. According to the company, the stolen files contain encrypted credentials and configuration data. “[W]hile encryption remains in place, possession of these files could increase the risk of targeted attacks,” SonicWall warns in its press release.

Security specialist Arctic Wolf also warns of the consequences of the incident. “Firewall configuration files store sensitive information that can be leveraged by threat actors to exploit and gain access to an organization’s network,” explains Stefan Hostetler, threat intelligence researcher at Arctic Wolf. “These files can provide threat actors with critical information such as user, group, and domain settings, DNS and log settings, and certificates,” he adds. Arctic Wolf has previously observed threat actors, including nation-state and ransomware groups, exfiltrating firewall configuration files to use for future attacks. SonicWall urges all customers and partners to regularly check their devices for updates. Admins can find additional information here.

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Instagram head Adam Mosseri has announced that as part of a test, some Instagram users will be able to try a new menu bar in the app with a different arrangement of tabs. Notably, the new menu bar has dedicated tabs for both Reels and DMs, two of the app’s most popular features.

If you opt-in to the test, Instagram’s current tabs for your feed, search, creating a new post, Reels and your profile page will be replaced by a new layout that swaps search and Reels, and switches the dedicated tab for creating a post with a new one for DMs. Meta’s test also makes it possible to swipe between tabs.

Mosseri’s post announcing the test acknowledges that these kinds of changes “can take time to get used to,” which is why the new layout is optional for now. Based on recent announcements though, it’s clear Meta has wanted to move in this direction for a bit. Setting aside the long-awaited iPad version of Instagram defaulting to Reels, the company has also said publicly it plans to prioritize messaging and short-form videos moving forward. It even tested a similar Instagram tab redesign with Indian users in early October, where the default tab was Reels and the second tab was DMs.

“Reels and DMs have driven most all our growth at Instagram over the last few years, so we are exploring making them the first two tabs,” Mosseri said at the time. Users who joined Instagram when it was an app for sharing photos might be uncomfortable with its slow drift away from photography, but the shift is reflective of Meta’s decision to chase larger social media trends.

As posting has become more professionalized, chatting and sharing privately has become more popular. If you take Meta at its word, Instagram is increasingly an app for consuming content made by people you don’t know, and then talking about it in private group chats with friends. This test just reflects that reality more accurately.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/instagram-tests-new-layout-that-puts-the-spotlight-on-reels-and-dms-215407062.html?src=rss

An unknown number of federal health employees received termination notifications Friday afternoon as part of a mass reduction in force by the Trump administration that senior officials and federal employment lawyers say is almost certainly illegal.

The Department of Health and Human Services has taken heavy hits since Trump came to office. Early in the year, the Trump administration pushed out 10,000 employees through early retirements, deferred resignations, and other efforts while laying off 10,000 more, slashing the HHS workforce from 82,000 to 62,000 in all. In the current government shutdown—which hinges on a dispute over Affordable Care Act tax credits that 80 percent of Americans support—more than 32,000 HHS employees are furloughed.

In an emailed statement to Ars Technica, HHS Communications Director Andrew Nixon said that HHS employees “across multiple divisions” have received termination notices.

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This is a video of Tom BetGeorge’s full 2025 Halloween Light Show (previous Halloween and Christmas shows HERE). This year’s show features Alien Ant Farm’s “Smooth Criminal”, The Cranberries’ “Zombie” remix by Zombic & Felix Schorn, “The Kill” by Thirty Seconds to Mars, a KPop Demon Hunters compilation, and “Defying Gravity” from Wicked. Now, have we confirmed whether Tom hands out full-size candy bars or not? Because if you spends thousands of dollars in light show and are handing out loose Twizzlers clearly something ain’t right. I know a house like that in my neighborhood. Now I’m not saying I’m going to egg or toilet paper that house, but only because eggs are expensive and I need all my toilet paper.

smooth wombat writes: At one point in technology history, floppy disks reigned supreme. Files, pictures, games, everything was put on a floppy disk. But technology doesn’t stand still and as time went on disks were replaced by CDs, DVDs, thumb drives, and now cloud storage. Despite these changes, floppy disks are still found in long forgotten corners of businesses or stuffed in boxs in the attic. What is on these disks is anyone’s guess, but Cambridge University Library is racing against time to preserve the data. However, lack of hardware and software to read the disks, if they’re readable at all, poses unique challenges.

Some of the world’s most treasured documents can be found deep in the archives of Cambridge University Library. There are letters from Sir Isaac Newton, notebooks belonging to Charles Darwin, rare Islamic texts and the Nash Papyrus — fragments of a sheet from 200BC containing the Ten Commandments written in Hebrew.

These rare, and often unique, manuscripts are safely stored in climate-controlled environments while staff tenderly care for them to prevent the delicate pages from crumbling and ink from flaking away.

But when the library received 113 boxes of papers and mementoes from the office of physicist Stephen Hawking, it found itself with an unusual challenge. Tucked alongside the letters, photographs and thousands of pages relating to Hawking’s work on theoretical physics, were items now not commonly seen in modern offices — floppy disks.

They were the result of Hawking’s early adoption of the personal computer, which he was able to use despite having a form of motor neurone disease known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, thanks to modifications and software. Locked inside these disks could be all kinds of forgotten information or previously unknown insights into the scientists’ life. The archivists’ minds boggled.

These disks are now part of a project at Cambridge University Library to rescue hidden knowledge trapped on floppy disks. The Future Nostalgia project reflects a larger trend in the information flooding into archives and libraries around the world.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

These are tough times for Russia’s civilian space program. In the last few years, Russia has cut back on the number of Soyuz crew missions it is sending to the International Space Station, and a replacement for the nearly 60-year-old Soyuz spacecraft remains elusive.

While the United States and China are launching more space missions than ever before, Russia’s once-dominant launch cadence is on a downhill slide.

Russia’s access to global markets dried up after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the country’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The fallout from the invasion killed several key space partnership between Russia and Europe. Russia’s capacity to do new things in space seems to be focused on military programs like anti-satellite weapons.

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Amazon Echo Show owners are reporting an uptick in advertisements on their smart displays.

The company’s Echo Show smart displays have previously shown ads through the company’s Shopping Lists feature, as well as advertising for Alexa skills. Additionally, Echo Shows may play audio ads when users listen to Amazon Music on Alexa.

However, reports on Reddit (examples here, here, and here) and from The Verge’s Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, who owns more than one Echo Show, suggest that Amazon has increased the amount of ads it shows on its smart displays’ home screens. The Echo Show’s apparent increase in ads is pushing people to stop using or even return their Echo Shows.

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