Monthly Archives: April 2025

Five unmissable deals from Halfords’ biggest ever Easter sale

Posted on by

Halfords is currently running its biggest ever Easter sale, with a whole host of deals to be had.

This includes discounts on a huge range of cycling gear, helping you get back in the saddle for summer.

From turbo trainers to bike racks, kids’ kneepads and bottle cages – here’s our pick of the best Easter deals from the retailer. And there’s plenty more if you head to the Easter sale hub.

Elite Direto-X OTS Turbo Trainer – save 50% (was £499, now £249)

Elite Direto-X OTS turbo trainer.
The Elite Direto-X OTS turbo trainer can handle a maximum of 2,100 watts. Halfords

Elite makes some of the best smart trainers. Its Direto-X OTS model is a fully smart turbo trainer, which means you can connect it wirelessly to training apps such as Zwift, TrainerRoad and Rouvy, and your smartphone.

Elite says the trainer has high data accuracy thanks to its Optical Torque Sensor, which should give you confidence when assessing your ride data and fitness. 

The Direto-X can handle a maximum power of 2,100 watts and it promises a smooth, realistic ride feel.

The stable base and extra-wide feet ensure rock-solid performance on uneven surfaces, but the trainer is still compact and easy to carry when packed down. 

Halfords Knee/Elbow Pads – save 50% (was £12, now £6)

Halfords kids knee and elbow pads.
These elbow and knee pads combine a tough outer shell and a soft fabric backing. Halfords

Knee and elbow pads are ideal for kids when learning to ride a bike, where falls are all par for the course. 

These pads from Halfords are suitable for kids aged 3 to 7 years old.

They have a tough outer shell but a soft backing fabric that’s comfy against the skin. 

The pads have elasticated straps for adjustable fitting. 

Saris Bones EX3 Bike Rack – save 30% (was £224.99, now £157.49)

Saris Bones EX3 Bike Rack.
The Saris Bones EX3 Bike Rack can fit most cars with a spoiler. Halfords

This Saris bike rack has a unique, long leg design which avoids contact with most plastic spoilers found on sedans, hatchbacks and SUVs. 

Saris says the rack has the largest vehicle compatibility of any trunk rack on the market. 

With room for three bikes, Saris says the rack is easy to use and quick to unload. 

The integrated ‘flap management system’ provides clean looks and eliminates any annoying flapping from the straps. 

Made from 100 per cent recyclable materials, the rack uses rust-free injection molded plastic and articulated rubber feet to protect your car’s paintwork. 

Halfords Double Child Bike Trailer – save 21% (was £150, now £119)

Halfords Double Child Bike Trailer.
This trailer can be assembled in ten minutes. Halfords

Halfords says its Double Child Bike Trailer is a great way for kids to join in with family bike rides.

It can be assembled in 10 minutes and has a universal coupler that will attach to most bike frames with a bolted or quick-release axle.

There’s also a high-visibility flag and harness for safety, as well as a bug screen and rain shield. 

Zefal Cage and Bottle Bundle – save 50% (was £16, now £7.99)

Zefal water bottle and bottle cage.
The bottle has a 650ml capacity. Halfords

A bottle cage and bottle are two essential items if you’re heading out on longer rides – and this bundle will have you covered. 

The Zefal bottle is made from an odourless material to keep water clean and pure. It has a soft cap and nozzle, and a 650ml capacity. 

The accompanying bottle cage is light, strong and impact resistant, with a design that makes it easy to grab the bottle.

More deals from Halfords

If you’re looking for your next bike, check out our guide to Halfords’ second-hand bike marketplace, with deals on bikes from Boardman, Carrera and Apollo.

LVFS/Fwupd Is Hoping To Encourage More Hardware Vendors To Provide Financial Backing

Posted on by

The Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS) with the Fwupd client makes it wonderfully easy to enjoy seamless system UEFI and device/peripheral firmware updates under Linux. LVFS is backed by a growing number of major OEMs/ODMs and serves up millions of firmware files. But they are in need of more financial resources from the biggest hardware vendors…

ESA Video Game Trains AI To Recognize Craters On the Moon

Posted on by

Longtime Slashdot reader Qbertino writes: German public news outlet Tagesschau reports (source: YouTube) on an ESA video game that helps train a future moon lander’s guidance AI to spot craters. Games have already helped collect visual data on millions of craters. The University Darmstadt developed the game, called IMPACT, to support ESA’s efforts to establish a base on the moon. An older article from August 2024 provides further details on the project.


Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New in Fedora: Running x86 programs on ARM systems

Posted on by

The newly released Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop 42 introduces out-of-box support for running x86 and x86-64 programs on ARM systems. This is accomplished by leveraging the emulation stack originally developed for Fedora Asahi Remix. This work is now integrated into Fedora Linux proper. This makes it available for all ARM systems running Fedora Linux, not […]

Police Using AI Personas to Infiltrate Online Activist Spaces, Records Reveal

Posted on by

samleecole shares a report from 404 Media: American police departments near the United States-Mexico border are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for an unproven and secretive technology that uses AI-generated online personas designed to interact with and collect intelligence on “college protesters,” “radicalized” political activists, and suspected drug and human traffickers, according to internal documents, contracts, and communications 404 Media obtained via public records requests. Massive Blue, the New York-based company that is selling police departments this technology, calls its product Overwatch, which it markets as an “AI-powered force multiplier for public safety” that “deploys lifelike virtual agents, which infiltrate and engage criminal networks across various channels.” According to a presentation obtained by 404 Media, Massive Blue is offering cops these virtual personas that can be deployed across the internet with the express purpose of interacting with suspects over text messages and social media. […]

While the documents don’t describe every technical aspect of how Overwatch works, they do give a high-level overview of what it is. The company describes a tool that uses AI-generated images and text to create social media profiles that can interact with suspected drug traffickers, human traffickers, and gun traffickers. After Overwatch scans open social media channels for potential suspects, these AI personas can also communicate with suspects over text, Discord, and other messaging services. The documents we obtained don’t explain how Massive Blue determines who is a potential suspect based on their social media activity. Salzwedel, of Pinal County, said “Massive Blue’s solutions crawl multiple areas of the Internet, and social media outlets are just one component. We cannot disclose any further information to preserve the integrity of our investigations.” […] Besides scanning social media and engaging suspects with AI personas, the presentation says that Overwatch can use generative AI to create “proof of life” images of a person holding a sign with a username and date written on it in pen.


Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The answer is 42! Fedora Linux 42, that is.

Posted on by

Seventy-five thousand generations ago, our ancestors set a vast computer in motion, asking it to produce the ultimate Linux distribution… No, wait. It wasn’t quite that long ago. That was a different thing. But in both, the answer to life, the universe, and everything turns out to be: forty-two. In our case, Fedora Linux 42, […]

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Linux GPU Compute Benchmarks

Posted on by

Yesterday NVIDIA announced the GeForce RTX 5060 “Blackwell” graphics cards as their new, most affordable offering of the RTX 50 series. While the $299 GeForce RTX 5060 isn’t shipping until next month, today the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8GB goes on sale for $379 USD and the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB is also hitting Internet retailers today and starting out at $429 USD. I’ve been testing out the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB the past several days under Linux and have initial GPU compute benchmarks to share today.

Amazon To Launch First Vega OS-powered TV Streaming Device This Year

Posted on by

Amazon plans to release its first TV streaming device powered by Vega OS later this year while courting major publishers to bring their apps to the platform, according to Lowpass, which cites sources familiar with the company’s plans and multiple leaks.

Vega, a Linux-based operating system, may eventually replace Amazon’s Android-based Fire OS across its device ecosystem. The company has already implemented Vega in three products: the Echo Show 5 and Echo Hub smart displays, as well as the Echo Spot smart clock/speaker. The tech giant has moved more cautiously in transitioning its TV hardware to Vega, having previously delayed a Vega-powered streaming stick originally slated for release in late 2024.


Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google Showed Off Sleek Smart Glasses With A HUD At TED2025

Posted on by

At TED2025 Google showed off sleek smart glasses with a HUD, though the company described them as “ conceptual hardware”.

Shahram Izadi, Google’s Android XR lead, took to the TED stage earlier this month to show off both the HUD glasses and Samsung’s upcoming XR headset, and the 15-minute talk is now publicly available to watch.

0:00

/2:18

A supercut of the TED2025 demo.

The glasses feature a camera, microphones, and speakers, like the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, but also have a “tiny high resolution in lens display that’s full color”. The display appears to be monocular, refracting light in the right lens when seen from certain camera angles during the demo, and has a relatively small field of view.

The demo focuses on Google’s Gemini conversational AI system, including the Project Astra capability which lets it remember what it sees via “continuously encoding video frames, combining the video and speech input into a timeline of events, and caching this information for efficient recall”.

Here’s everything Izadi and his colleague Nishtha Bhatia show off in the demo:

  • Basic Multimodal: Bhatia asks Gemini to write a haiku based on what she’s seeing, while looking at the audience, and it responds “Faces all aglow. Eager minds await the words. Sparks of thought ignite”
  • Rolling Contextual Memory: after looking away from a shelf, which contains objects including a book, Bhatia asks Gemini what the title is of “the white book that was on the shelf behind me”, and it answers correctly. She then tries a harder question, asking simply where her “hotel keycard” is, without giving the clue about the shelf. Gemini correctly answers that it’s to the right of the music record.
  • Complex Multimodal: holding open a book, Bhatia asks Gemini what a diagram means, and it answers correctly.
  • Translation: Bhatia looks at a Spanish sign, and without telling Gemini what language it is, asks Gemini to translate it to English. It succeeds. To prove that the demo is live, Izadi then asks the audience to pick another language, someone picks Farsi, and Gemini successfully translates the sign to Farsi too.
  • Multi-Language Support: Bhatia speaks to Gemini in Hindi, without needing to change any language “mode” or “setting”, and it responds instantly in Hindi.
  • Taking Action (Music): as an example of how Gemini on the glasses can trigger actions on your phone, Bhatia looks at a physical album she’s holding and tells Gemini to play a track from it. It starts the song on her phone, streaming it to the glasses via Bluetooth.
  • Navigation: Bhatia asks Gemini to “navigate me to a park nearby with views of the ocean”. When she’s looking directly forwards, she sees a 2D turn-by-turn instruction, while when looking downwards she sees a 3D (though fixed) minimap showing the journey route.

Google Teases AI Smart Glasses With A HUD At I/O 2024
Google teased multimodal AI smart glasses with a HUD at I/O 2024.
UploadVRDavid Heaney

This isn’t the first time Google has shown off smart glasses with a HUD, and it’s not even the first time said demo has focused on Gemini’s Project Astra capabilities. At Google I/O 2024, almost one year ago, the company showed a short prerecorded demo of the technology.

Last year’s glasses were notably bulkier than what was shown at TED2025, however, suggesting the company is actively working on miniaturization with the goal of delivering a product.

However, Izadi still describes what Google is showing as “ conceptual hardware”, and the company hasn’t announced any specific product, nor a product timeline.

In October The Information’s Sylvia Varnham O’Regan reported that Samsung is working on a Ray-Ban Meta glasses competitor with Google Gemini AI, though it’s unclear whether this product will have a HUD.

Meta HUD Glasses Price, Features & Input Device Reportedly Revealed
A new Bloomberg report details the price and features of Meta’s upcoming HUD glasses, and claims that Meta’s neural wristband will be in the box.
UploadVRDavid Heaney

If it does have a HUD, it won’t be alone on the market. In addition to the dozen or so startups which showed off prototypes at CES, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta reportedly plans to launch its own smart glasses with a HUD later this year.

Like the glasses Google showed at TED2025, Meta’s glasses reportedly have a small display in the right eye, and a strong focus on multimodal AI (in Meta’s case, the Llama-powered Meta AI).

Unlike Google’s glasses though, which appeared to be primarily controlled by voice, Meta’s HUD glasses will reportedly also be controllable via finger gestures, sensed by an included sEMG neural wristband.

Apple too is reportedly working on smart glasses, with apparent plans to release a product in 2027.

Apple Exploring Releasing Smart Glasses In 2027
Apple seems to be exploring making smart glasses, and reportedly could ship a product in 2027.
UploadVRDavid Heaney

All three companies are likely hoping to build on the initial success of the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, which recently passed 2 million units sold, and will see their production vastly increased.

Expect competition in smart glasses to be fierce in coming years, as the tech giants battle for control of the AI that sees what you see and hears what you hear, and the ability to project images into your view at any time.

Open-Source RADV Driver Begins Working To Improve AMD RDNA4 Ray-Tracing Performance

Posted on by

While the Radeon RX 9070 series as the first of the AMD RDNA4 graphics cards do perform well on Linux, the one area the performance has been less enticing remains with Vulkan ray-tracing while using the Mesa RADV driver. For example, AMDVLK vs. RADV on the RX 9070 series shows the Mesa driver struggling with ray-tracing compared to the official AMD driver. But the good news is there’s a concerted effort now to improve the AMD RDNA4 ray-tracing performance with RADV…

There’s a secret reason the Space Force is delaying the next Atlas V launch

Posted on by

Pushed by trackmobile railcar movers, the Atlas V rocket rolled to the launch pad last week with a full load of 27 satellites for Amazon’s Kuiper internet megaconstellation.
Credit:
United Launch Alliance

Last week, the first operational satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband network were minutes from launch at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.

These spacecraft, buttoned up on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, are the first of more than 3,200 mass-produced satellites Amazon plans to launch over the rest of the decade to deploy the first direct US competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink internet network.

However, as is often the case on Florida’s Space Coast, bad weather prevented the satellites from launching April 9. No big deal, right? Anyone who pays close attention to the launch industry knows delays are part of the business. A broken component on the rocket, a summertime thunderstorm, or high winds can thwart a launch attempt. Launch companies know this, and the answer is usually to try again the next day.

Read full article

Comments

Liz Truss Announces ‘Uncensorable’ Social Media Venture

Posted on by

databasecowgirl writes: [Liz Truss will launch an “uncensorable” social media platform this summer.] The shortest-serving prime minister, who was quickly shown the door after crashing the UK economy, claims the platform is needed to take on the Deep State. Truss has worked diligently to earn comparisons to Trump with appearances at American political rallies sporting a red MAGA cap. The effort has paid off with Trump’s recent tariff announcement and resulting market meltdown, resulting in the two brands combined in the neologism Liz Trump to mark the unprecedented economic policy disasters of the two politicians.

Truss’ continuing in Trump’s footsteps is creating her own uncensored social media platform for the UK to talk about important matters, which apparently is unable to be achieved without censorship on Musk’s X or Trump’s Truth Social. While a name has yet to be announced, Lettuce Talk has been suggested as appropriate for a platform run by a prime minister whose term was famously outlasted by a head of lettuce.


Read more of this story at Slashdot.