This is the easiest way to give your Nintendo Switch the big-screen experience it deserves without losing portability.
The post This 15″ Portable Monitor Turns Your Nintendo Switch Into a Big-Screen Console for Pocket Change appeared first on Kotaku.
The difference in emissions between plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and gas cars is merely 19 percent and not 75 percent as lab tests show, according to a report by a group of European transport and environment NGOs. They analyzed data transmitted by the onboard fuel consumption meters of 800,000 plug-in hybrids registered in the continent between 2021 and 2023. What they found was that the real-world carbon dioxide emissions of PHEVs were 4.9 times higher than what they’re supposed to emit on paper, mostly because of manufacturers’ and testers’ flawed assumption on the share of the vehicles’ electric driving mode.
Specifically, the official estimates for the share of electric driving mode are 84 percent, but the share is only as little as 27 percent in the real world. That means most of the driving done on PHEVs uses gas. In addition, even when PHEVs are in electric driving mode, they’re still emitting considerable pollution. Apparently, their electric motors don’t have sufficient power to operate on their own, and their combustion engines have to supply power for almost a third of the distance driven. The lack of fast charging in PHEVs also makes it less convenient to charge, leading people to just fill their tanks with gas. All these factors don’t only translate to pollution, but also to additional gas expenses. The report says drivers end up paying $582 more than official estimates for fuel costs.
As The Guardian notes, carmakers have been pushing for the adoption of PHEVs in Europe as a low-emissions alternative that won’t give owners range anxiety, with Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW accounting for most of the sales over the past years. The researchers have noted that four major carmaker groups have avoided over $5.8 billion in fines between 2021 and 2023 due to the underestimation of PHEV emissions in the lab. These official emission numbers allowed companies to comply with the required carbon dioxide emission targets for their fleets. Based on real-world data, however, the vehicles they sold emitted 52 million tons more carbon dioxide than they were supposed to.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/plug-in-hybrids-emit-almost-as-much-pollution-as-gas-cars-report-finds-120032534.html?src=rss
Silca has launched a range of three TPU inner tubes. That’s despite Josh Poertner, Silca’s boss, previously having had bad experiences with the ultra-light tubes.
Poertner says he put his whole family’s bikes on orange TPU tubes from an unnamed brand a few years ago, but because the valve stems are narrower than standard ones, and unthreaded they’re difficult to engage with a pump.
Within six months, all the tubes failed at the junction between the valve and the tube, he explained.
We’ve also had bad experiences with TPU tubes, with Jack Luke rating them his worst upgrade.
Poertner delved further and found that dyes in the TPU could reduce their strength. “The dyes can reduce the peak elongation, they can reduce the ultimate tensile strength and the yield strength of the material,” he says. They can also increase rolling resistance, Poertner claims.
Therefore, the Silca Ultimate TPU inner tubes are made in Germany using undyed thermoplastic polyurethane. Silca is not the only brand to make undyed TPU tubes: Continental, Schwalbe and Vittoria, for example, all sell undyed TPU tubes.
TPU inner tubes offer lower weight and a more compact size than a traditional butyl inner tube, plus they’re more air-tight than latex tubes, so you don’t need to pump them up before every ride.
Rolling resistance is usually lower than butyl tubes, too, although bicyclerollingresistance.com, testing a range of brands of inner tubes, has found them in general to be slightly less free-rolling than latex tubes.
Nevertheless, Silca claims a rolling resistance reduction of between 2 and 4 watts versus a butyl tube and that its tubes are only 0.2 watts slower than latex.
TPU tubes tend to have two weak points, depending on how they’re made: the valve stem can break if it’s made of plastic rather than metal, and the tube can fail at the junction between the valve and the tube.
Silca has a patented bonding system between its aluminium valve and the tube, which uses two aluminium flanges to sandwich the TPU, with a rubber gasket on top to protect the tube around the valve drilling in the rim. Poertner claims many brands use a plastic one-sided flange, even with a metal valve.
It also uses a threaded valve with a locking nut to avoid tube failure due to movement and friction when pumping by hand. The valve has a removable core, making it compatible with valve extenders.
The Silca TPU tubes are also claimed to be heat resistant, so they’re suitable to use with an electric pump, although Silca recommends inflating in 15psi steps to avoid overheating. Some TPU tubes are not recommended for use in rim-brake wheels, but Silca’s tubes are rated for both disc-brake and rim-brake wheels.
Most TPU tubes are glued together along their length, which can also cause failure. Poertner says Silca’s tubes are friction-welded with a turned-back overlap between the two sides, while many tubes are only glued with a flat overlap.
“The joint is guaranteed air-tight and the tubes are 100% tested at the factory,” Poertner says. “It’s significantly stronger and has significantly higher elongation before failure. That’s what allows us to have two sizes of tube in a space where others might have three or four sizes of tube.”
Silca packages its TPU tubes with an alcohol wipe and an adhesive repair patch, so if you are unlucky enough to puncture twice on a ride, you’ve still got the means to repair the tube.
The Silca Ultimate TPU inner tube is available in two widths, covering a wide range of tyre sizes: 24-43mm and 44-64mm. The narrower tube is sold with either a 50mm valve, with a 44g claimed weight, or a 70mm valve with a 45g claimed weight.
The wider tube comes with a 50mm valve only and weighing a claimed 64g. All are priced at £39 / $39 each.
See zwiftinsider.com/tiny for current Tiny Race details.
Shiftall unveiled its next PC VR headset, the MeganeX “8K” Mark II, which is slated to ship in December for $1,900.
Japan-based Shiftall announced MeganeX “8K” Mark II, the follow-up to its thin and light PC VR headset originally launched late last year, the MeganeX superlight “8K”.
The new version is essentially a hardware refresh with only a few notable changes, which mostly aim to improve comfort, durability, and system internals.
The headset contains the same 3,552 × 3,840 per-eye micro-OLEDs, supporting up to 90 Hz refresh, and the same SteamVR tracking standard, which requires the user to buy SteamVR 1.0/2.0 base stations separately.
Here’s a breakdown of all of the changes announced by Shiftall:
Estimated to start shipping in late December, MeganeX Mark II is now available for pre-order.
The headset (SteamVR base stations not included) is priced at $1,900 in the US (excluding import duty), €1,900 in Europe (VAT included), £1,600 in the UK (VAT included), and ₩2,499,000 in South Korea (VAT included).
| Feature | MeganeX Superlight “8K” | MeganeX “8K” Mark II |
|---|---|---|
| Display | 3,552 × 3,840 (micro-OLED, 10-bit HDR) | 3,552 × 3,840 (micro-OLED, 10-bit HDR) |
| Refresh rates | 90 Hz (support for 75 Hz / 72 Hz) | 90 Hz (support for 75 Hz / 72 Hz) |
| Lens type | Pancake lenses (Panasonic group) | Pancake lenses (newly designed from Panasonic) |
| Weight (main body) | < 185 g | 179 g |
| IPD & focus adjustment | Electric IPD 58–72 mm; diopter adjust 0D to –7D | Electric IPD 58–72 mm; diopter adjust 0D to –7D |
| Connectivity / tracking ecosystem | DisplayPort + USB 2.0, SteamVR tracking (base stations required) | DisplayPort + USB 2.0, SteamVR tracking (base stations required) |
You may have noticed I’ve put “8K” in quotes throughout this announcement. That’s to indicate that headset doesn’t actually provide 8K per-eye displays.
While companies like Shiftall and Pimax typically err on the side of the biggest number, I see this as more of a marketing device than a true reflection of what the end user actually sees. Because it’s using dual 3,552 × 3,840 micro-OLEDs, the user doesn’t actually perceive an 8K image. By that maxim, Quest 3 could be labeled with “4K”, owing to its dual 2,064 × 2,208 displays, and Oculus Rift CV1 could be labeled “2K” according to its dual 1,080 × 1,200 displays. Impressive sounding, but a bit misleading.
That said, Shiftall thinks resolution is a better catch-all for VR headsets, which I disagree with since its target audience will probably understand the nuances of displays and optics anyway.
“We have decided against publishing official FOV and PPD numbers,” Shiftall says, referring to the original MeganeX superlight “8K”. “If an industry-standard measurement method were established, such as the method used to calculate fuel consumption for automobiles, we would disclose our figures, but this is not the case in the current VR industry.”
Still, I suspect potential enterprise and prosumers looking to shell out $1,900 for a single headset—no controllers or base stations included—are already familiar with pixels per degree (PPD) and binocular overlap, which are more useful, albeit less flashy metrics. On that front, MeganeX “8K” Mark II is impressive. Its pancake lenses provide a reported ~100-degree horizontal FOV, which seems to deliver a near 100 percent binocular overlap.
Using the formula to get PPD (Horizontal Pixel Count ÷ Horizontal Field of View), it also tops the competition, coming out to around 35.5 PPD: larger than Pimax Dream Air ($2,000) at 35 PPD, and Bigscreen Beyond 2 ($1,020) at 32 PPD.
Whatever the case, I think its time to retire these sorts of resolution claims championed outside of the spec sheet, if only to lend more credibility to the company in question. And the same goes for the questionable Photoshop jobs too.
The post Shiftall Announces Next Thin & Light ‘MeganeX’ PC VR Headset, Shipping in December for $1,900 appeared first on Road to VR.
It is now the perfect time to stop losing your keys, wallet, and everything else that mysteriously vanishes when you need it most.
The post AirTags Are Selling for Pennies, and Amazon Gives You 2 Free with the 4-Pack appeared first on Kotaku.
Smash Drums is adding limited-edition items in a Halloween event that starts today on Quest.
Smash Drums‘ Halloween Update introduces a slew of seasonal goodies to the percussion-centric rhythm game by way of spooky drumsticks, a skull avatar whose jaw wobbles along with you as you talk, and a new song called ‘Dawg.’ You unlock the limited-run items permanently by achieving specific score requirements during the event, which starts today and ends on November 30.
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This update also sees Smash Drums add a selfie camera and microphone, letting you capture yourself while jamming out by holding the B or Y button on the controller. A slew of quality-of-life improvements have arrived in tow, too, including enhancements to the social camera and a refreshed avatar menu.
That’s not all, though. Developer PotamWorks confirmed that a Campaign mode would be arriving mid-November, though not much else is currently known. More updates on this will come closer to launch.
Smash Drums joins a long list of VR games honoring the spooky season through content updates, with Phasmophobia kicking off its annual horror event and Trombone Champ: Unflattened adding both a supernatural update and paid DLC. With Halloween just around the corner, we’ll be rounding up all the seasonally appropriate games, updates, and DLC packs soon.
Smash Drums’ Halloween Update is available now for Quest. The base game is also on Pico and PlayStation VR2.
It could be a consequential act of quiet regulation. Cloudflare, a web infrastructure company, has updated millions of websites’ robots.txt files in an effort to force Google to change how it crawls them to fuel its AI products and initiatives.
We spoke with Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince about what exactly is going on here, why it matters, and what the web might soon look like. But to get into that, we need to cover a little background first.
The new change, which Cloudflare calls its Content Signals Policy, happened after publishers and other companies that depend on web traffic have cried foul over Google’s AI Overviews and similar AI answer engines, saying they are sharply cutting those companies’ path to revenue because they don’t send traffic back to the source of the information.
Discover the latest NVIDIA Linux Driver 580.95, featuring essential bug fixes and performance enhancements. Upgrade your system for optimal graphics today!
The post Latest NVIDIA Linux Driver 580.95 Released with Bug Fixes appeared first on Linux Today.
Discover Kali Linux 2025.3, featuring enhanced virtual machine tooling and 10 new tools to elevate your cybersecurity experience. Explore the updates now!
The post Kali Linux 2025.3 Brings Improved Virtual Machine Tooling, 10 New Tools appeared first on Linux Today.
In this Help Net Security interview, Daniel Stenberg, lead developer od cURL, discusses how the widely used tool remains secure across billions of devices, from cloud services to IoT. He shares insights into cURL’s decades-long journey of testing, reviewing, and refining its code to minimize risks.
The post Behind The Scenes of cURL with its Founder: Releases, Updates, and Security appeared first on Linux Today.
Posted to the Linux networking mailing list on Wednesday were the latest patches for enabling the Homa transport protocol. Homa is the clean-sheet design aiming to become an alternative to TCP within data centers and capable of offering 10~100x reductions in tail latency for short messages…
Open-source software is everywhere. It runs the browsers we use, the apps we rely on, and the infrastructure that keeps businesses connected. For many security leaders, it is simply part of the environment, not something they think about every day. That is where trouble can start.
The post The Hidden Risks Inside Open-source Code appeared first on Linux Today.
Announced nearly one year ago was the OpenWrt One as a router/AP that is “hacker-friendly” and open-source. The OpenWrt One is powered by a Filogic 820 SoC and features WiFi 6. This official OpenWrt device is manufactured by Banana Pi. While there is downstream open-source code available for customizing the OpenWrt One to your heart’s content, the upstream Linux kernel support to date hasn’t been full-featured…
SYCLBIN has been proposed by a longtime Intel compiler expert as a new way for storing SYCL device code for use as part of their GPU/XPU programming ambitions…
GrapheneOS, the privacy-focused Android fork once exclusive to Google Pixels, is partnering with a major Android OEM to bring its hardened, de-Googled OS to Snapdragon-powered flagship phones. Android Authority reports: Until now, GrapheneOS has been available only on Pixel phones, making Google’s flagships popular among privacy enthusiasts, journalists, and, as a Spanish police report suggested earlier this year, even organized crime groups in Catalonia. But that Pixel exclusivity may end by 2026 or 2027. GrapheneOS revealed in a Reddit thread that it has been working with a “major Android OEM” since June 2025 to enable official support for “future versions of their existing models.” These devices will reportedly use flagship Snapdragon chips, a notable shift from Google’s in-house Tensor processors.
The project explained that only Pixels have met its strict security and update requirements so far. However, the new partnership suggests that another OEM is finally matching those standards. GrapheneOS also hinted that the mysterious partner’s devices will be “priced similarly to Pixels” and available globally as part of the brand’s standard lineup.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The last few weeks have been full of surprises from the world’s biggest training app, Strava.
On October 2, we reported that Strava was suing Garmin over patent infringement, related to Segments and heatmaps. Strava claims in its lawsuit that it has suffered damages, including lost revenue and business opportunities, due to the alleged infringements.
Yet, news of the lawsuit was followed quickly by a Reddit post from Strava’s chief product officer Matt Salazar, putting a new spin on why the company was suing its long-time collaborator.
Salazar said the primary reason behind the litigation was in fact a set of “new developer guidelines for all of its API partners”. According to Salazar, these guidelines would require Strava and other platforms using its API (Application Programming Interface) – which offers developers a data connection between services – to integrate Garmin’s logo “on every single activity post, screen, graph, image, sharing card, etc”.
The guidelines will take effect from 1 November. Meanwhile, Salazar’s post has had 1,500 comments and zero upvotes.
When contacted by BikeRadar, Garmin declined to comment on Salazar’s post – and the noise has continued to come from Strava’s side.
An email sent to Strava developers on Friday, 11 October, provided an update to Strava’s own API that says Garmin attribution will be required.
“Activity data obtained through the Strava API may include data that requires attribution to Garmin. Therefore, if your application displays information derived from Garmin-sourced data, you must display attribution to Garmin in the form and manner required by Garmin’s brand guidelines,” the guidelines reportedly state.
On the one hand, this could be read as Strava capitulating to Garmin, despite Salazar’s strong words. But it’s more a case of Strava ensuring that however many of its 150 million athletes that use Garmin smartwatches or bike computers don’t run into issues next month. Losing Garmin’s data would be a big blow.
When asked about the updates to its own API, Strava told BikeRadar that it’s unable to comment on ongoing disputes. But a spokesperson said: “While we don’t agree with the extensive branding Garmin is forcing, uninterrupted connectivity for the subset of our community that uses Garmin remains our top priority, and we have also decided that we will give similar attribution to all of our device partners going forward to be fair.
“Our aim is to make branding as unintrusive as possible and we believe it is the right thing to do in light of the mandatory changes that Garmin is asking all developers to implement by November 1st.”
From Strava’s statement, it seems that come next month you won’t only see attribution to Garmin but also other platforms and devices “to be fair”.
The further context to Strava’s decision is its bid to go public in the US. The San Francisco-based company was valued at $2.2 billion last May following a funding round.
Rumours began to circulate last month after Reuters reported that Strava was in discussions with banks about an initial public offering. This made sense considering the value of the company, but also one big hire. In August, Strava announced Matt Anderson as its new chief financial officer, joining from Nextdoor, a social network for neighbourhood communities, which he helped guide through its public listing.
And this week, Strava’s CEO Michael Martin confirmed the app has an “intention to go public at some point” because the move “provides easy access to capital in case we wanted to do more and bigger acquisitions”.
There’s no indication yet of when Strava will join Wall Street, but smoothing things over with Garmin may be a way to stay in the good books of any potential investors.
Whether the lawsuit will continue to go ahead is yet to be seen, but it’s unlikely Salazar will take to Reddit again any time soon.
In August, young tech creators from across Sri Lanka gathered for the country’s second-ever in-person Coolest Projects event, hosted by our partner STEMUP Educational Foundation. The showcase was a chance for young people to share and celebrate their ideas and inventions with families, friends, mentors, and the wider digital making community, while having lots of fun trying out projects and meeting fellow creators.
With 150 projects showcased by 200 young people, the event highlighted the incredible creativity and problem-solving skills that come into play when young people have an opportunity to get hands-on with technology and explore their curiosity. It was great to be there on the day and hear from the creators themselves. From a cake chase game (that was really about the importance of friendship) to an AI-powered classifier that could identify organic and non-organic material, there was no shortage of imagination on display.
Here are just a few of the standout projects I saw at the event.
Inspired by young people carrying heavy backpacks full of textbooks, Udula created ‘Robot Bag’ to help people of all ages carry their bags. You simply place your bag on the robot, and it will start following you around! One challenge Udula faced was trying to figure out how far the robot was from people. With just one camera, the robot could not really determine depth, so it could not detect how far away a walking person was. To solve this, he added two more cameras at an angle. This allowed him to calculate a more accurate average distance using input from all three cameras.
Yahya built an astronaut reaction time game that followed Ripley, an astronaut in training. In order to pass his training, he had to hit as many moving targets as possible in one minute. Thankfully, Yahya had built an adjustable difficulty level, so I could complete the challenge in spite of my slow reaction times!
Khadeejah is passionate about the environment and learned that ocean clean-up technology tools often incorrectly identify jellyfish and plastic bags. Underwater, they have a lot of the same characteristics and movements: they are translucent, flexible, and amorphous. She started creating her own dataset and training her own AI model to distinguish between the two. In doing so, she learned a lot about AI bias and how creating a balanced dataset is really important to prevent bias and improve accuracy.
From beginners to experienced programmers, every young creator at the event had the chance to celebrate their work, talk about their ideas, and see what others were building.
Having so many young creators in one space highlighted the importance of providing opportunities where they can share ideas, learn from one another, and build a sense of community. We would like to say a huge thank you to STEMUP Educational Foundation for organising such an inspiring day, and to the volunteers and mentors who made the event possible. Most importantly, thank you to the young digital makers of Sri Lanka for sharing your creativity with us. We can’t wait to see what you will make next!
Want to know more about how you can get involved with Coolest Projects? Sign up to receive the newsletter and be the first to hear announcements and updates.
The post Celebrating creativity at Coolest Projects Sri Lanka 2025 appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.
Scientists from Spain and China have successfully repaired the blood-brain barrier in Alzheimer’s-model mice, enabling the brain to naturally clear amyloid-beta plaques and reverse cognitive decline. “After just three drug injections, mice with certain genes that mimic Alzheimer’s showed a reversal of several key pathological features,” adds ScienceAlert. From the report: Within hours of the first injection, the animal brains showed a nearly 45 percent reduction in clumps of amyloid-beta plaques, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease. The mice had previously shown signs of cognitive decline, but after all three doses, the animals performed on par with their healthy peers in spatial learning and memory tasks. The benefits lasted at least six months.
These preclinical results don’t guarantee success in humans, but they’re an encouraging start, which the authors say “heralds a new era” in drug research. “The therapeutic implications are profound,” claim the international team of researchers, co-led by scientists at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) and the West China Hospital Sichuan University (WCHSU). The findings have been published in Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
New clusters to feature 800,000 Nvidia Blackwell and 50,000 AMD Instinct MI450X GPUsOracle on Tuesday revealed it would field more than 18 zettaFLOPS worth of AI infrastructure from Nvidia and AMD by the second half of next year.…