The Fedora Council has approved a new policy allowing AI-assisted code contributions, provided contributors fully disclose and take responsibility for any AI-generated work. Phoronix reports: AI-assisted code contributions can be used but the contributor must take responsibility for that contribution, it must be transparent in disclosing the use of AI such as with the “Assisted-by” tag, and that AI can help in assisting human reviewers/evaluation but must not be the sole or final arbiter. This AI policy also doesn’t cover large-scale initiatives which will need to be handled individually with the Fedora Council. […] The Fedora Council does expect that this policy will need to be updated over time for staying current with AI technologies.
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Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 FE has dropped to $331.50 at Walmart, which is a pretty sharp price considering the same model is listed at $429.99 on Amazon.
It’s the newest entry in Samsung’s midrange tablet lineup, following last year’s S9 FE, and while not a massive upgrade, it’s still one of the few Android tablets that feel genuinely premium for the price. The 10.9-inch display and metal body give it a sturdy, high-end feel, and the IP68 rating means it can handle splashes—something even pricier iPads skip. Samsung includes its signature S Pen in the box, perfect for jotting notes, sketching, or navigating the screen—and its stylus software remains best in class. That alone makes this tablet worth considering if you like to jot things down or doodle on the go.
Under the hood, the Tab S10 FE runs on the Exynos 1580 chip, paired with 8GB RAM and 128GB of storage. It’s not a powerhouse, but it gets through everyday tasks like web browsing, note-taking, and streaming without fuss. The battery is the same 8,000mAh as last year, but thanks to efficiency gains, it lasts longer (over 13 hours in mixed-use tests). Charging is quick too, with 45W fast charging support, though you’ll need your own adapter since Samsung doesn’t include one in the box. The 10.9-inch LCD screen is bright and crisp with a 90Hz refresh rate, though it lacks the Dolby Vision and HDR10+ support found on some rivals like the OnePlus Pad 2. The stereo speakers sound clean, if a bit restrained, and the 16:10 aspect ratio makes movies look natural in landscape mode. That said, cameras (13MP rear and 12MP front) are serviceable for video calls but nothing more.
On the software side, Samsung’s One UI 7, running on top of Android 15, makes multitasking easy. You can open multiple apps, split the screen, or switch to DeX mode for a desktop-style layout with keyboard and mouse support. The software experience is mature, flexible, and backed by six years of updates, which is rare at this price. On the downside, the interface can feel cluttered with Samsung’s extra apps, and performance won’t impress gamers or power users. Still, the Galaxy Tab S10 FE delivers a solid mix of design, display, and software longevity.
In recent weeks, OpenAI has signed blockbuster deals with AMD and Broadcom to build vast numbers of AI chips. Much of the focus has been on the financial implications, since OpenAI will need hundreds of billions of dollars to make good on its promises. As important as it is to look at the quite implausible financials, we also need to look at the broader implications for the industry. Like, the chips themselves, what that spells for the AI industry as a whole, and the added pressure on TSMC, the only chip company that can actually build this stuff.
OpenAI’s deal with AMD will see the chip giant build out 6 gigawatts’ (GW) worth of GPUs in the next few years. The first 1 GW deployment of AMD’s Instinct MI450 silicon will start in the back end of 2026, with more to come. AMD’s CFO Jean Hu believes that the partnership will deliver “tens of billions of dollars in revenue” in future, justifying the complicated way the deal is funded.
Meanwhile, Broadcom’s deal with OpenAI will see the pair collaborate on building 10 gigawatts’ worth of AI accelerators and ethernet systems that it has designed. The latter will be crucial to speed up connections between each individual system in OpenAI’s planned data centers. Like the deal with AMD, the first deployments of these systems will begin in the back half of 2026 and is set to run through 2029.
Phil Burr is head of product at Lumai, a British company looking to replace traditional GPUs with optical processors. He’s got 30 years experience in the chip world, including a stint as a senior director at ARM. Burr explained the nitty-gritty of OpenAI’s deals with both Broadcom and AMD, and what both mean for the wider world.
Burr first poured water on OpenAI’s claim that it would be “designing” the gear produced by Broadcom. “Broadcom has a wide portfolio of IP blocks and pre-designed parts of a chip,” he said, “it will put those together according to the specification of the customer.” He went on to say that Broadcom will essentially put together a series of blocks it has already designed to suit the specification laid down by a customer, in this case OpenAI.
Similarly, the AI accelerators Broadcom will build are geared toward more efficient running of models OpenAI has already trained and built — a process called inference in AI circles. “It can tailor the workload and reduce power, or increase performance,” said Burr, but these benefits would only work in OpenAI’s favor, rather than for the wider AI industry.
I asked Burr why every company in the AI space talks about gigawatts worth of chips rather than in more simple numbers. He explained that, often, it’s because both parties don’t yet know how many chips would be required to meet those lofty goals. But you could make a reasonable guess if you knew the power draw of a specific chip divided by the overall goal, then cut that number in half, then remove an extra 10 percent. “For every watt of power you burn in the chip, you need about a watt of power to cool it as well.”
In terms of what OpenAI gets from these deals, Burr believes that the startup will save money on chips, since there’s “less margin” from making your own versus buying gear from NVIDIA. Plus, being able to produce custom silicon to tailor the work to their needs should see significant speed and performance gains on rival systems. Of course, the next biggest benefit is that OpenAI now has “diversity in supply,” rather than being reliant on one provider for all its needs. “Nobody wants a single supplier,” said Burr.
Except, of course, OpenAI may be sourcing chips from a variety of its partners, but no matter what’s stamped on the silicon, it all comes from the same place. “I’d be very surprised if it wasn’t TSMC,” said Burr, “I’m pretty sure all of the AI chips out there use TSMC.” TSMC is short for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company which, over the last decade, has blown past its major rivals to become the biggest (and in many cases only) source of bleeding-edge chips for the whole technology industry. Unlike historic rivals, which designed and manufactured their own hardware, TSMC is a pure play foundry, only building chips designed by others.
Gil Luria is Managing Director at head of technology research at investment firm DA Davidson. He said that TSMC isn’t just a bottleneck for the western technology industry, but in fact is the “greatest single point of failure for the entire global economy.” Luria credits the company with an impressive expansion “considering it has had to ramp the production of GPUs tenfold over the last three years.” But said that, “in a catastrophic scenario where TSMC is not able to produce in Taiwan, the disruption would be significant.” And that won’t just affect the AI world, but “mobile handset sales as well as global car sales.”
TSMC supplanted Intel for a number of well-documented reasons, but the most relevant here is its embrace of Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography (EUV). It’s a technology that Intel had initially backed, but struggled to fully adopt, allowing TSMC to pick it up and run straight to the top. EUV produces the headline-grabbing chips used by pretty much everyone in the consumer electronics world. Apple, Qualcomm, NVIDIA, AMD (including the SOCs inside the PS5 and Xbox) all use TSMC chips. Even Intel has been using TSMC foundries for some consumer CPUs as it races to bridge to gulf in manufacturing between the two companies.
“TSMC is the current leader in advanced 3 nanometer (nm) process technologies,” said University of Pennsylvania Professor Benjamin C. Lee. The company’s only meaningful competitors are Intel and Samsung, neither of which pose a threat to its dominance at present. “Intel has been working for a very long time to build a foundry business,” he explained, “but has yet to perfect its interface.” Samsung is in a similar situation, but Professor Lee explained it “has been unable to attract enough customers to generate a profitable manufacturing business.”
Professor Lee said that TSMC, by comparison, has become so successful because of how good its chips are, and how easy it is for clients to build chips with its tools. “TSMC fabricates chips with high yield, which is to say more of its chips emerge from the fabrication process at expected performance and reliability.” Consequently, it should be no surprise that TSMC is a money making machine. In the second quarter of 2025 alone it reported a net profit of $12.8 billion USD. And in the following three months, TSMC posted net profits of $14.76 billion.
“TSMC’s secret sauce is its mastery of yield,” explained ARPU Intelligence, an analyst group that prefers to use the group name over individual attribution. “This expertise is the result of decades of accumulated process refinement [and] a deep institutional knowledge that cannot be replicated.” This deep institutional knowledge and ability to deliver high quality product creates a “powerful technical lock-in, since companies like Apple and NVIDIA design their chips specifically for TSMC’s unique manufacturing process … It’s not as simple as sending the [chip] design to another factory,” it added.
The downside, at least for the wider technology industry, is that TSMC is now a bottleneck that the whole industry has come to rely upon. In the company’s most recent financials, it said more than three quarters of its business comes from North American customers. And in a call with investors, Chairman and CEO C.C. Wei talked about the efforts the company has made to narrow the gap between the enormous demand and its constrained supply. While he was reticent to be specific, he did say that the company’s capacity is “very tight,” and would likely remain that way for the foreseeable future.
In fact, TSMC’s capacity is so tight that it’s already caused at least one major name a significant headache. Earlier this year, Reuters reported that NVIDIA canceled an order of its H20 AI chips after being informed the US would not permit them to be exported to China. Once the ban was lifted, however, NVIDIA was unable to find space in TSMC’s schedule, with the next available slot at least nine months later.
“TSMC has no room for error,” said ARPU Intelligence, “any minor disruption can halt production with no spare capacity to absorb the shock.” It cited the Hualien earthquake which struck Taiwan on April 3, 2024, and how it negatively impacted the number of wafers in production.
Naturally, TSMC is spending big to increase its production capacity for its customers, both in Taiwan and the US. Close to its home, construction on its A14 fab is expected to begin in the very near future, with the first chips due to be produced in 2028. That facility will harness TSMC’s A14 process node, producing 1.4 nm chips, which offer a speed boost over the 2nm silicon that’s expected to arrive in consumer devices next year.
Meanwhile, work continues apace on building out TSMC’s sprawling facility in Arizona, which broke ground in April 2021. As Reuters reported at the time, the first facility started operating in early 2025, producing 4 nm chips. Last week, NVIDIA and TSMC showed off the first Blackwell wafer produced at the Arizona plant ahead of domestic volume production.
Plans for the operation have grown over time, expanding from three facilities up to six to be built over the next decade. And while the initial outline called for the US facilities to remain several process generations behind Taiwan, that is also changing. In his recent investors call, Chairman and CEO C.C. Wei pledged to invest more in the US facility to bring it only one generation behind the Taiwanese facility.
No amount of investment from TSMC or catch-up from rivals like Samsung and Intel will solve the current bottleneck swiftly. It will take many years, if not decades, for the world to reduce its reliance on Taiwan for bleeding-edge manufacturing. TSMC’s island remains the industry’s weak point, and should something go wrong, the consequences could be dire indeed.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/openais-recent-chip-deals-heap-more-pressure-on-tsmc-130000194.html?src=rss
The Xbox veteran said there are no ‘top-down mandates’
The post Microsoft Gaming Boss Phil Spencer Reveals His Thoughts On Xbox Using AI appeared first on Kotaku.
Bethesda has announced that it’s releasing a 10th anniversary version of Fallout 4 on November 10, similar to what it did for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Fallout 4: Anniversary Edition bundles the base game with Automatron, Far Harbor, Nuka-World and the Workshop expansions. The original open world game was released in 2015 and takes place in the year 2287, 210 years after the Great War. Like the other games in the franchise, it’s set in a post-apocalyptic world with the aesthetics of 1940s and 1950s USA.
This particular entry in the franchise revolves around the Sole Survivor of Vault 111 who was frozen in a cryogenic pod and woke up 210 years since the nuclear attack. The protagonist’s constant companion in the game is a dog named Dogmeat, but they have six other possible companions: their old robot butler Codsworth, Deacon the railroad agent, the mayor of the Goodneighbor settlement named John Hancock, an artificial synth or humanoid robot named Nick Valentine, Piper Wright the reporter, and Preston Garvey, who’s a member of the paramilitary force Minutemen.
In addition to the base game and the expansions, the anniversary release comes with 150 pieces of content from the Creation Club, an in-game marketplace where developers can sell weapons, skins and other DLCs. The free content includes different Dogmeat breeds, like a Husky and a Dalmatian. The anniversary edition even contains an in-game Creations menu that players can use to browse downloadable content. Fallout 4: Anniversary Edition will be available digitally on the Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC, PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/fallout-4-anniversary-edition-comes-out-on-november-10-123033135.html?src=rss
The European Commission has found that Meta and TikTok had violated rules under the Digital Services Act (DSA) and is now giving them the chance to comply if they don’t want to be fined up to 6 percent of their total worldwide annual turnover. According to the Commission, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok have “put in place burdensome procedures and tools” for researchers who want to request access to public data. This means they’re stuck with incomplete or unreliable information if they want to do research on topics like how minors are exposed to illegal or harmful content online. “Allowing researchers access to platforms’ data is an essential transparency obligation under the DSA,” the Commission wrote.
In addition, the Commission is charging Meta over the lack of a user-friendly mechanism that would allow users to easily report posts with illegal content, such as child sexual abuse materials. The Commission explained that Facebook and Instagram use mechanisms that require several steps to be able to flag posts, and they use dark interface designs that make reporting confusing and dissuading. All those factors are in breach of DSA rules that require online platforms to give EU users easy-to-use mechanisms to be able to report illegal content.
Under the DSA, users must also be able to challenge social networks’ decisions to remove their posts or suspend their accounts. The Commission found that neither Facebook nor Instagram allow users to explain their sides or provide evidence to substantiate their appeals, which limits the effectiveness of the appeal process.
Meta and TikTok will be able to examine the Commission’s investigation files and to reply in writing about its findings. They’ll also have the opportunity to implement changes to comply with DSA rules, and it’s only if the Commission decides they’re non-compliant that they can be fined up to 6 percent of their global annual turnover. Meta disagreed that it had breached DSA rules, according to Financial Times. “In the European Union, we have introduced changes to our content reporting options, appeals process, and data access tools since the DSA came into force and are confident that these solutions match what is required under the law in the EU,” it said in a statement. Meanwhile, TikTok said it was reviewing the Commission’s findings but that “requirements to ease data safeguards place the DSA and GDPR in direct tension.” It’s asking regulators for guidance on “how these obligations should be reconciled.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/eu-charges-meta-and-tiktok-over-failures-to-tackle-illegal-content-121533180.html?src=rss
For a limited time, you can secure yourself the Xbox Elite Series 2 for 23% off.
The post Xbox Elite Series 2 Core Controller Is Selling Fast as Amazon Clears Out Stock at an All-Time Low appeared first on Kotaku.
The era of AI video is upon us, and honestly it’s kind of terrifying. Between OpenAI’s Sora and official communications from the Trump White House, it’s clear that we’re not ready for an unending onslaught of AI video. In this episode, Devindra and producer Ben chat with the Washington Post’s technology reporter Drew Harwell and Jeremy Carrasco (AKA “ShowtoolsAI”), a former livestream and media producer turned AI video literacy creator. Also, we chat about our final thoughts on Apple’s M5 MacBook Pro and iPad Pro, with a few quick notes about the new Vision Pro.
Google and Open AI’s video generation models have upended our sense of reality online, what comes next? – 1:10
Apple’s M5 chip is a significant boost in graphics power on the Macbook Pro – 34:11
The iPad Pro M5 is a solid speed boost for whoever wants it – 39:36
Preview of the Vision Pro M5 review – 44:00
Working on – 50:23
Pop culture Picks – 51:45
Host: Devindra Hardawar
Guests: Drew Harwell and Jeremy “ShowtoolsAI” Carrasco
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O’Brien
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/engadget-podcast-how-to-survive-our-ai-video-hellscape-120432652.html?src=rss
GTK has long supported Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) for icons but with up until recently relying on the external librsvg library, the integration hasn’t been perfect. But Red Hat engineer Matthias Clasen has been working on having the GTK toolkit natively support SVG…
A federal court ruled that Facebook parent Meta can’t use attorney-client privilege to block internal documents and research related to teen harm, Bloomberg Law reported. The decision is a setback to Meta in its lawsuits against multiple states that accused the company of making its platforms addictive despite knowing they were harmful to teenagers.
Judge Yvonne Williams of the Washington, DC Superior Court found that Meta’s lawyers advised employees to “remove,” “block,” “button up” or “limit” portions of internal studies on the harm of social media to teens’ mental health, in order to limit the company’s legal liability. The court said that this advice appeared to be an attempt to cover up or alter information, meaning it falls under the crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege. Meta now has seven days to turn over four documents created between November 2022 and July 2023.
Meta disagreed with the ruling, a spokesperson told Bloomberg in a statement. “These were routine, appropriate lawyer-client discussions and contrary to the District’s misleading claim, no research findings were deleted or destroyed.”
The ruling is related to lawsuits filed in a California court involving dozens of US state attorneys general. Also involved are hundreds of private civil lawsuits filed by parents, teens and school boards against Meta and other platforms around social media addiction and harms. The first trials are scheduled to start in 2026.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-lawyers-tried-to-block-internal-research-showing-teen-harm-judge-rules-120015673.html?src=rss
This weekend’s notable events are headlined by Zwift’s Fondo Series, but we’ve also got a popular community race series kicking off, a unique women’s team chase event, a massive charity ride, and more. See details below!
Note: European clocks change on Sunday, so some of the times for Sunday events below may shift by an hour depending on where you’re located!
zFondo Series on Medio Fondo
Bonus XP Popular Endurance Challenge Jersey Unlock
This is the second weekend of Zwift’s popular monthly Fondo Series, and we’re already seeing lots of riders signing up for these long “fun races.”
Read all about the Zwift Fondo Series >
We’ll be on the Medio Fondo route (73km, 1005m).
Multiple timeslots this weekend
Sign up at zwift.com/events/tag/zfondos
BMTR Cares Rides 500 KM – Pedaling for a Purpose!
Good Cause Endurance Challenge
On the heels of last week‘s 24-hour charity ride, BMTR is holding their annual Breast Cancer Awareness 500km event! There are four events set up which you can choose from if you aren’t able to ride the full 500km, or join all four and stick around afterward to finish the full 500km.
In all four events, the yellow beacon will ride at a C category pace, averaging 2.4-2.8 w/kg. However, BMTR encourages riders to form groups that work for your pace.
This event benefits Metavivor, whose mission to offer hope for those with metastatic breast cancer. Donate here >
First ride is Saturday, October 25 at 6:10am UTC/2:10am ET/Friday 11:10pm PT
Sign up at zwift.com/events/tag/bmtrcares
LEVEL Racing – Ladies Chase Race – Muckle Yin
Ladies Only Popular Unique Event
This interesting women-only event is a chase race… with a twist! This is truly a team chase race designed to encourage all riders in each category to work together to the end, because the final time for each rider is taken from the 4th rider in your category who crosses the line. (So your solo breakaway off the front isn’t going to help… you’ve got to work together!)
The race is on Scotland’s The Muckle Yin (23.7km, 282m) and groups are based on Zwift Racing Score.
Saturday, October 25 @ 3pm UTC/11am ET/8am PT
Sign up at zwift.com/events/view/5110250
HERD Winter Racing Series Begins
Popular Series Mass Start Long-Running Event
The popular HERD Winter Racing Series kicks off this weekend! This is a 20-week series of weekend mass-start races. The series has a mix of flat, rolling, short climb, and even some long climb courses, so there’s something for everyone. It also visits all Zwift worlds.
A GC on ZwiftPower tracks series results, with your best 16 finishes counting (so you can miss a race or four if needed). This week’s race is on France’s Gentil 8 (25.8km, 258m).
7 timeslots each weekend
See upcoming events at zwift.com/events/tag/herdhwr
MGCC Bagel
Endurance Challenge
This popular group ride from Morning Glory Cycling Club returns this weekend after a summer break. The club describes this as “not an easy ride, but a friendly don’t get dropped type of ride.” A Discord channel for voice chat is available, which always helps pass the time on longer group rides.
Pacing notes: warm up ~2.0 for 7 minutes. The rest of the ride will be at around 2.3-2.5w/kg, and the hills will be max at 3.2w/kg. There’s also a finishing sprint!
This week’s event is held on Watopia’s Big Foot Hills (69.9km, 714m).
Saturday, October 25 @ 10:50am UTC/6:50am ET/3:50am PT
Sign up at zwift.com/events/view/5156745
We choose each weekend’s Notable Events based on a variety of factors including:
In the end, we want to call attention to events that are extra-special and therefore extra-appealing to Zwifters. If you think your event qualifies, comment below with a link/details and we may just include it in an upcoming post!
Open-source foundations and projects that have charity status in
the US may want to see if GoFundMe has created a profile
for them without permission. The company has operated since 2010 as a
self-service fundraising platform; individuals or groups could create
pages to raise money for all manner of causes. In June, the company announced
that it would expand its offerings to “manage all aspects of
” for users through its platform. That seems to
charitable giving
include creating profiles for nonprofit organizations without their
involvement. After pushback, the company said
on October 23 that it would be removing the pages. It has not
answered more fundamental questions about how it planned to disburse
funds to nonprofits that had no awareness of the GoFundMe pages in the
first place.
This week, Samsung showed off Galaxy XR, its Vision Pro-troubling headset, and you can bet we’ve done a deep dive. Sam Rutherford got one of these strapped to his head and has plenty of feelings about the new hardware.
The headset is lighter, more comfortable and easier to live with than Apple’s Vision Pro, even if it lacks many of its headline features. The software ecosystem is already pretty broad, thanks to Google making a real effort with Android XR, but dedicated apps are still a bit rare.
Samsung’s entry into the market might provide some much-needed impetus for this type of augmented reality headset. That it’s half the price of Apple’s Vision Pro may also loosen some wallets eager to get into this world.
But it’s hard not to see this as Samsung running down the same cul-de-sac Apple is now lurking at the end of. It has allowed other companies, like Meta, to waltz in and grab an early lead in the much more useful smart glasses market.
— Dan Cooper
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The first e-bike from Rivian spinoff Also has a virtual drivetrain
I’m more interested in its Bakfiets-esque quad bike for driving kids around.
Amazon’s smart glasses with AI will help its drivers deliver packages faster
It’s just like RoboCop, only with more peeing in bottles.
ChatGPT in WhatsApp will stop working in January
Meta is kicking its AI rival off its platform.
Apple’s online-only announcement of the new vanilla M5 MacBooks might have been a sign the new models were no big deal. But Devindra Hardawar found these were, in fact, quite a big deal, and the M5’s faster GPU has the chops to go toe-to-toe with a gaming PC.
Toyota isn’t happy folks just default to CarPlay or Android Auto for their in-car infotainment. That’s why it’s chosen to radically redesign its OS for the 2026 RAV4 to include voice and touch control. Tim Stevens has ridden the new whip and has plenty of opinions on whether it’s worth your time or, you know… you’ll just default to CarPlay or Android Auto.
As much as I may want an iPad Pro, it wouldn’t play a role in my life that would get anywhere near to justifying its extortionate price. Consequently, I shall just live vicariously through Nathan Ingraham, who reviewed the M5 edition and found it to be a work of art. But, you know, it has a price so eye-watering that nobody who’s on the fence about owning one should bother. Then, Nate pivoted to writing about how the iPad Pro has, at least, carved out its own identity.
Amazon may be planning to use automation to eliminate more than half a million jobs in the next few years. The New York Times claims to have seen internal documents outlining the plans and the PR operation that’ll get underway ahead of time to quell public anger.
Maybe there’s nothing interesting about the fact Changpeng Zhao was just pardoned by President Trump despite pleading guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act. I mean, yes, Zhao has ties to World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency venture linked to the Trump family. But that’s not uncommon, is it? Surely everyone would use the privilege of high office to exonerate people with whom they potentially have fruitful relationships. Right?
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-111555814.html?src=rss
Save 25% on the Seagate external HDD with 4TB of storage capacity over at Amazon for a limited time.
The post Seagate 4TB Portable Hard Drive Hits $0.02 per GB, the Cheapest Way to Expand Xbox or PlayStation Storage Yet appeared first on Kotaku.
Welcome to Edition 8.16 of the Rocket Report! The 10th anniversary of SpaceX’s first Falcon 9 rocket landing is coming up at the end of this year. We’re still waiting for a second company to bring back an orbital-class booster from space for a propulsive landing. Two companies, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and China’s LandSpace, could join SpaceX’s exclusive club as soon as next month. (Bezos might claim he’s already part of the club, but there’s a distinction to be made.) Each company is in the final stages of launch preparations—Blue Origin for its second New Glenn rocket, and LandSpace for the debut flight of its Zhuque-3 rocket. Blue Origin and LandSpace will both attempt to land their first stage boosters downrange from their launch sites. They’re not exactly in a race with one another, but it will be fascinating to see how New Glenn and Zhuque-3 perform during the uphill and downhill phases of flight, and whether one or both of the new rockets stick the landing.
As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
The race for space-based interceptors. The Trump administration’s announcement of the Golden Dome missile defense shield has set off a race among US companies to develop and test space weapons, some of them on their own dime, Ars reports. One of these companies is a 3-year-old startup named Apex, which announced plans to test a space-based interceptor as soon as next year. Apex’s concept will utilize one of the company’s low-cost satellite platforms outfitted with an “Orbital Magazine” containing multiple interceptors, which will be supplied by an undisclosed third-party partner. The demonstration in low-Earth orbit could launch as soon as June 2026 and will test-fire two interceptors from Apex’s Project Shadow spacecraft. The prototype interceptors could pave the way for operational space-based interceptors to shoot down ballistic missiles. (submitted by biokleen)
Sesame, an AI and smart glasses startup founded by former Oculus execs, raised $250 million in Series B funding, which the company hopes will accelerate its voice-based AI.
As first reported by Tech Crunch, lead investors in Sesame’s Series B include Spark Capital and Sequoia Capital, bringing the company’s overall funding to $307.6 million, according to Crunchbase data.
Exiting stealth earlier this year, Sesame was founded by Oculus co-founder and former CEO Brendan Iribe, former Oculus hardware architect Ryan Brown, and Ankit Kumar, former CTO of AR startup Ubiquity6. Additionally, Oculus co-founder Nate Mitchell announced in June he was joining Sesame as Chief Product Officer, which he noted was to “help bring computers to life.”
Sesame is currently working on an AI assistant along with a pair of lightweight smart glasses. Its AI assistant aims to be “the perfect AI conversational partner,” Sequoia Capital says in a recent post.
“Sesame’s vision is to build an ambient interface that is always available and has contextual awareness of the world around you,” Sequoia says. “To achieve that, Sesame is creating their own lightweight, fashion-forward AI-enabled glasses designed to be worn all day. They’re intentionally crafted—fit for everyday life.”
Sesame is currently taking signups for beta access to its AI assistants Miles and Maya in an iOS app, and also has a public preview showcasing a ‘call’ function that allows you to speak with the chatbots.
Love it or hate it, AI is going to be baked into everything in the future, as contextually aware systems hope to bridge the gap between user input and the expectation of timely and intelligent output. That’s increasingly important when the hardware doesn’t include a display, requiring the user to interface almost entirely by voice.
Some things to watch out for: if the company does commercialize a pair of smart glasses to champion its AI assistant, it will be competing for some pretty exclusive real estate that companies like Meta, Google, Samsung, and Apple (still unconfirmed) are currently gunning for. That puts Sesame at somewhat of a disadvantage if it hopes to go it alone, but not if it’s hoping for a timely exit into the coming wave of smart glasses by being acquired by any of the above.
There’s also some pretty worrying precedent in the rear view mirror too: e.g. Humane’s AI Pin or AI Friend necklace, both of which were publicly lambasted for essentially releasing hardware that could just as easily have been apps on your smartphone.
Granted, Sesame hasn’t shown off its smart glasses hardware yet, so there’s no telling what the company hopes to bring to the table outside of the having an easy-to-wear pair of off-ear headphones for all-day AI stuff—that, to me, would be the worst case scenario, as Meta refines its own smart glasses in partnership with EssilorLuxottica, Google releases Android XR frames with Gentle Monster and Warby Parker, Samsung releases its own Android XR glasses, and Apple does… something. We don’t know yet.
Whatever the case, I’m looking forward to it, if only based on the company’s combined experience in XR, which I’d argue any startup would envy as the race to build the next big computing platform truly takes off.
The post Former Oculus Execs’ AI Smart Glasses Startup ‘Sesame’ Raises $250M Series B Funding appeared first on Road to VR.
The Asahi Linux developers involved with working on Linux support for Apple Silicon M-Series devices have put out a new progress report on their development efforts…
Modern computing systems rely heavily on operating-system schedulers to allocate CPU time fairly and efficiently. Yet many of these schedulers operate blindly with respect to the meaning of workloads: they cannot distinguish, for example, whether a task is latency-sensitive or batch-oriented. This mismatch, between application semantics and scheduler heuristics, is often referred to as the semantic gap. A recent research framework called SchedCP aims to close that gap.
Valve contractor Timur Kristóf for their Linux graphics driver team has been working on improving Linux driver support for old AMD Radeon GCN 1.0 and GCN 1.1 generation GPUs. This has been about improving the AMDGPU driver to fill remaining gaps in GCN 1.0/1.1 support with those graphics cards by default relying on the older “Radeon” DRM kernel graphics driver compared to the AMDGPU driver used by default with GCN 1.2 and later. Another feature gap for AMDGPU is now being addressed with Video Coding Engine 1.0 support…
