Apple’s Chinese manufacturing partner Luxshare halted production of the Vision Pro headset at the start of 2025, according to market research firm IDC, after the device shipped 390,000 units during its 2024 launch year. The $3,499 headset has also seen its digital advertising budget cut by more than 95% year to date in the US and UK, according to market intelligence group Sensor Tower.
IDC expects Apple to ship just 45,000 new units in the fourth quarter of 2025. Apple launched an upgraded M5 version in October featuring a more powerful chip, extended battery life, and a redesigned headband. The company sells the device directly in 13 countries and did not expand availability in 2025.
Every human body contains a small population of cells that are not genetically its own — cells that crossed the placenta during pregnancy and that persist for decades after birth. These “microchimeric” cells, named after the lion-goat-serpent hybrid of Greek mythology, have been found in every organ studied so far, though they are exceedingly rare: one such cell exists for every 10,000 to 1 million of a person’s own cells.
The cells were first noticed in the late 1800s when pathologist Georg Schmorl described placenta-like “giant cells” in the lungs of people who had died from eclampsia. In 1969, researchers detected Y-chromosome-containing white blood cells in people who would later give birth to boys. For more than two decades, scientists presumed these cells were temporary. That changed in 1993 when geneticist Diana Bianchi found Y-chromosome cells in women who had given birth to sons up to 27 years earlier.
The cells appear to have regenerative properties, transforming into blood vessels or skin cells to promote wound healing. They also challenge a central assumption of immunology — that the immune system classifies cells as either “self” or “non-self” and rejects foreign material. Microchimeric cells should trigger rejection but do not. Higher-than-typical concentrations have been found in people with autoimmune conditions including diabetes, lupus, and scleroderma.
IceWM 4.0 lightweight window manager has been released today as a major update that introduces exciting new features, new options, new commands, as well as many improvements and bug fixes.
Costco’s consistency — from its $1.50 hot dog and drink combo to its functional shopping carts and satisfied employees — has produced what The Atlantic calls a “cultlike loyalty” among members at more than 600 locations across the U.S.
Its annual membership costs $65. The model traces back to Fedco, a nonprofit wholesale collective for federal employees founded in Los Angeles in the 1940s. Costco’s private label Kirkland Signature has become one of the world’s largest consumer packaged goods brands while maintaining deliberately understated branding. The company relies on word-of-mouth marketing from satisfied members rather than traditional advertising.
Atlantic staff writer Jake Lundberg, who shops at the Granger, Indiana location, describes the stores as spaces of “cooperation, courtesy, and grown-ups mostly acting like grown-ups.” Shoppers follow unwritten rules: move along, don’t block the way, step aside to check your phone. Checkout lines form orderly queues. The exceptions come near sample stations and before major holidays, when spatial awareness and common courtesy break down.
Marvel Studios decided to ring in the new year with a fresh trailer for Wonder Man, its eight-episode miniseries premiering later this month on Disney+. Part of the MCU’s Phase Six, the miniseries was created by Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi and the Legend of Five Rings) and Andrew Guest (Hawkeye), with Guest serving as showrunner.
As previously reported, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II stars as Simon Williams, aka Wonder Man, an actor and stunt person with actual superpowers who decides to audition for the lead role in a superhero TV series—a reboot of an earlier Wonder Man incarnation. Demetrius Grosse plays Simon’s brother, Eric, aka Grim Reaper; Ed Harris plays Simon’s agent, Neal Saroyan; and Arian Moayed plays P. Clearly, an agent with the Department of Damage Control. Lauren Glazier, Josh Gad, Byron Bowers, Bechir Sylvain, and Manny McCord will also appear in as-yet-undisclosed roles
Rounding out the cast is Ben Kingsley, reprising his MCU role as failed actor Trevor Slattery. You may recall Slattery from 2013’s Iron Man 3, hired by the villain of that film to pretend to be the leader of an international terrorist organization called the Ten Rings.Slattery showed up again in 2021’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,rehabilitated after a stint in prison; he helped the titular Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) on his journey to the mythical village of Ta Lo.
Iran is offering to sell advanced weapons systems including ballistic missiles, drones and warships to foreign governments for cryptocurrency, in a bid to use digital assets to bypass western financial controls. From a report: Iran’s Ministry of Defence Export Center, known as Mindex, says it is prepared to negotiate military contracts that allow payment in digital currencies, as well as through barter arrangements and Iranian rials, according to promotional documents and payment terms analysed by the Financial Times.
The offer, introduced during the past year, appears to mark one of the first known instances in which a nation state has publicly indicated its willingness to accept cryptocurrency as payment for the export of strategic military hardware. Mindex, a state-run body responsible for Iran’s overseas defence sales, says it has client relationships with 35 countries and advertises a catalogue of weapons that includes Emad ballistic missiles, Shahed drones, Shahid Soleimani-class warships and short-range air defence systems.
The weakest part of the Quest 3 reveals itself the moment you put it on. The stock cloth head strap is barely adequate and uncomfortable for a lot of people. Meta shipped variations of this strap for years, and each time the same thing happens. The result is a thriving aftermarket built almost entirely around fixing a problem the headset ships with.
My own reference point for comfort comes from an unexpected place. My first experience with any headset was an Apple Vision Pro demo. What struck me, in addition to the visuals and the floating screens, was the Solo Knit Band. The fabric cupped the back of my head evenly, gathering just enough to distribute pressure instead of concentrating it in one spot. The headset eventually pressed down on my face due to the lack of a top strap to counteract the heavy weight of the Vision Pro, but the strap itself felt high-quality and secure in a way that made a strong impression on me at the time. I bought the Quest 3 a short time later and my experience with Meta headsets and the default strap starts there.
When Apple launched Vision Pro it came with two straps. The Solo Knit Band that appeared in nearly every promotional image as well as a second, bulkier, strap with a cross strap over the top of the head that actually supported the headset’s weight. Apple rarely showed that second strap in marketing.
Apple course corrected with the later introduction of the Dual Knit Band alongside the second-generation M5-powered Vision Pro. Each M5 headset now ships just with the Dual Knit Band.
Apple initially prioritized appearance and ended up with a headset sitting too heavily on the user’s face. Adding proper top support was a necessary fix.
So when I started hearing stories of people adapting Apple’s Solo and Dual Knit Bands for use on the Quest 3, I paid attention. The idea of pairing Apple’s strap comfort with the Quest headset made sense immediately. I wanted to see whether I could recreate what I remembered from that first demo using hardware I already owned.
The solution turned out to be relatively straightforward. A well-regarded Etsy seller offers 3D-printed side plates designed specifically to mount Apple’s knit bands onto the Quest 3. After a short exchange to confirm fit and compatibility, I placed the order, which arrived in days. Apple took longer. The Dual Knit Band was backordered for nearly a month.
Once everything arrived, I assembled what looked like a mismatched experiment. (Editor’s Note: From FrankenQuest to Dual Knit Quest) The effect was obvious right away. Even before putting the headset on, you can feel the tungsten weights built into the rear of the Dual Knit Band doing real work as a counterbalance. The balance of the headset becomes evident the moment you pick it up.
Wearing it confirmed what I was hoping for. This is easily the most comfortable strap setup I have used on the Quest 3. The same fabric gathering and cupping I remembered from Vision Pro is there, but now the top strap keeps the headset locked in place. It does not slide forward. It does not sag. It stays where you set it.
The adjustment system is also very Apple. A single rear dial, reminiscent of the Digital Crown on the Apple Watch, controls both straps. Pull it out and twist to adjust the top strap. Push it in and twist to tighten the rear. You do not think about it after the first use. It works the way it should. The result is a Quest 3 that finally feels as comfortable as it should have been from the start.
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This setup vastly improves how I use the Quest 3 day to day. I often use it lying down for meditation, watching videos, or for reading on the web. In other straps, pressure points show up quickly and in some an added rear hard band makes it uncomfortable to lay your head down. The Dual Knit Band avoids that entirely. The weight stays evenly distributed, and the headset remains comfortable even during longer sessions. This article was written entirely on my Quest 3 using the Dual Knit Band reclining on my bed.
At $99 plus the pieces from Etsy, the Dual Knit Band for Quest 3 is pricey compared with many other solutions, but the quality of the materials and added comfort feels like value for the money. I highly recommend this solution to add a little Apple design magic to your Meta Quest 3 and gain some serious comfort.
It’s a regrettable reality that there is never enough time to cover all the interesting scientific stories we come across each month. In the past, we’ve featured year-end roundups of cool science stories we (almost) missed. This year, we’ve experimented with a monthly collection. December’s list includes a fossilized bird that choked to death on rocks; a double-detonating “superkilonova”; recovering an ancient seafarer’s fingerprint; the biomechanics of kangaroo movement; and cracking a dark matter puzzle that stumped fictional physicists on The Big Bang Theory, among other tantalizing tidbits
Kangaroos and wallabies belong to a class of animals called macropods, with unique form and style of movement. Their four limbs and tail all contact the ground at slow speeds, while they use a hopping gait at higher speeds. Typically, high-speed movements are more energy-intensive than slow-speed motion, but the opposite is true for macropods like kangaroos; somehow the hopping speed and energy cost become uncoupled. According to a paper published in the journal eLife, this may be due to changes in a kangaroo’s posture at higher hopping speeds.
The security researchers at Koi have uncovered a bombshell—a coordinated spyware campaign across 100+ Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Mozilla FireFox extensions, which function legitimately but (eventually) exhibit malicious behavior tied to a threat actor called DarkSpectre. This behavior includes stripping security protections, installing
A look at Hyundai’s Holographic Windshield Display. (Hyundai)
While it often feels like a full-on auto show, the car vibes feel somewhat lessened at CES 2026. Yes, the Afeela electric vehicle from the Sony-Honda joint venture will be back on the floor, but with the Trump administration yanking most EV incentives from the market, the industry isn’t offering a full-court press of new vehicles in Las Vegas this year. That said, there’s still plenty of in-cabin car tech on display, including Hyundai’s Holographic Windshield Display.
Indeed, the company’s Mobis subsidiary will present “more than 30 mobility convergence technologies” during CES. And we’ll also get to see Hyundai’s AI Robotics Strategy, which will showcase its new Atlas robot fresh out of the lab.
How to watch Hyundai’s presentation at CES 2026
Hyundai’s presentation takes place on January 5 at 4PM ET, and you can livestream it on either its HyundaiUSA YouTube channel or its global YouTube channel. We’ll embed the stream here once it’s available.
What to expect
As mentioned above, Hyundai will have its Holographic Windshield Display for viewing. It’s essentially a next-gen heads-up display that projects key data from the vehicle’s dash on the windshield for less distraction, and without obstructing the driver’s view. It’s a vertically expandable 18.1-inch large display, and passengers can even watch videos without being visible to the driver.
Hyundai Mobis collaborated with German optics specialist Zeiss to develop the “world’s first system to utilize holographic film to transform the entire front windshield into an ultra-large display surface.” It says it will begin mass production in 2029, so don’t expect to see this on the market anytime soon.
Beyond automotive, though, we’ll also get a first-ever look at the company’s new Atlas robot. In the teaser image shown in the press release, Atlas looks rather dog-like, which makes sense when you remember that Boston Dynamics was purchased by the Korean multinational back in 2020.
“This next-generation Atlas represents a tangible step toward the commercialization of AI Robotics, highlighting the Group’s commitment to building safe and adaptable robotic co-workers,” the company said in the same press release.
Hyundai said it will also discuss its other tech areas, including electronics and chassis system safety, as well as an AR head-up display, low-power display solutions and EV drive systems.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/how-to-watch-hyundais-ces-2026-presentation-live-190051181.html?src=rss
More people than ever before chose VRChat to ring in the New Year.
VRChat broke its concurrently connected user record as the year flipped from 2025 to 2026 in various time zones, according to figures posted on social media by the head of community.
As the New Year rolled across the United States from December 31 at 11:59 pm to January 1 at 12:00 am, from Eastern Time to Pacific Time, VRChat’s servers supported nearly 150,000 staying online in various spaces together concurrently.
VRChat’s long-time head of community Tupper posted on Bluesky that Japan saw a surprisingly high peak figure over the holiday, with no specific number provided, as well as specific peak numbers across the four time zones dividing up the United States for concurrently connected users:
Eastern: 147226
Central: 148886
Mountain: 141184
Pacific: 127708
While VRChat doesn’t always detail how many users access the service in headset versus traditional flat interfaces, the figures help ground the narrative around VR headset use. Tupper noted that “normal weekend” use of VRChat in recent times has seen around “120-125K CCU at peaks.”
As Bigscreen Beyond 2 continues scaling production of its ultralight headset design in 2026 and Valve prepares to sell the lightweight modular Steam Frame as well, we’ll be curious to see where VRChat’s peak figures land on January 1, 2027.
If you were in VRChat for New Year’s Eve, please share in the comments below the name of the space you chose to be in to celebrate the new year. And for those outside VR who still might not see the overall trend here, did the people who stood freezing under the lights of Times Square in New York for most of New Year’s Eve spend their time any better than the people cozy at home wearing Bigscreen Beyond 2 to visit VRChat?
2025 was a busy year for Zwift, which means it was a busy year for us at Zwift Insider. We published over 650 posts last year covering important Zwifty news and tips, but we only scratched the surface. There are always more stories to tell!
Zwift turned 11 this year, and inside sources tell me subscriber numbers and corporate financials are strong as we head into 2026. Streamlined onboarding, purpose-built hardware, and training platform partnerships have helped Zwift become even more accessible and useful in recent years, and the end result is lots of new riders in Watopia.
This is my look back at all things Zwift for 2025. Enjoy the ride!
29 routes were released using these new roads, but Zwift added a total of 60 new routes to the game in 2025. That’s a lot – way more than past years, in fact. Zwift seems to have decided since they can’t build new roads fast enough, they’ll make more routes on existing roads to satisfy all the badge chasers.
This year, Zwift replayed some popular events, while totally revamping/rebranding others. Without going into too much detail, here are the big new events I think were most worth mentioning:
Tour de Zwift: the biggest annual tour on the platform, because it happens at the Peak Zwift! 2025’s Tour included the first-ever Ultimate Challenge: riding all three routes for all six stages to earn additional unlocks.
Zwift Games: The second edition of the Games brought out lots of racers, and elite riders battled for the largest total prize pot ever on Zwift.
Zwift Big Spin: This fun ride series saw the return of the prize wheel and the introduction of the first-ever BMX bike to the game.
Tour Fever: As the Official Training Software Provider of the Tour de France, Zwift has held Tour Fever events in past years. This year was no different, with a Climb Portal Challenge and other special events surrounding Le Tour.
Zwift Unlocked Tour: This tour was sort of a replacement for the Tour of Watopia, awarding double XP and a cool new urban kit as riders took on new routes across several maps, including New York’s expansion.
Zwift Camps: Zwift organized a three-camp series this year in leiu of the Zwift Academy. Zwift Camp: Baseline and Zwift Camp: Build are already completed, with Zwift Camp: Breakthrough coming in February.
Zwift brought back the zFondo Series this year, but using the same routes and kits as past years, making it fall a bit flat for Zwifters who have been around a while.
The Zwift Camps initiative shows potential and indicates that Zwift rightly understands that a Zwift Academy-style talent search can’t have the same structure as a community-friendly training camp. (Zwift didn’t hold a Zwift Academy this year, but said it will return in 2026 better than ever.) The concept of a community-friendly training series holds much potential, but Zwift has yet to support it with the necessary planning and front-end tools.
On the racing side, Zwift Racing League continues to be the biggest racing series on the platform, while Zwift’s ZRacing series (see the current series here) is the most popular scratch race series on the platform. Shameless plug: Zwift Insider’s Tiny Races are still the most popular race each Saturday!
While not a group event, Zwift’s Weekly Challenges are worth a mention here. Rolled out this year, the Route of the Week, Climb of the Week, and Workout of the Week featured routes, climbs, and workouts that awarded an XP bonus when finished. These have seen a lot of participation from Zwifters looking for a weekly challenge or a bit of direction on a free ride. And while Zwift has done away with the Workout of the Week due to low engagement, Routes and Climbs are still going strong (see calendar).
Lastly, Zwift Community Live deserves a mention. This was Zwift’s first-ever large-scale real-world meetup, a sort of “ZwiftCon” in Mallorca. It was an incredible experience for me and (I believe) just about everyone who attended (read my day 3 post). Unfortunately, I think ZCL may have been a victim of its own success. While it seemed like everyone who attended in 2025 thought the event was amazing and should be held again in 2026 on an even larger scale, what I’m hearing internally at Zwift is that it’s being scaled back to more of an “industry event” this year with mostly partners and influencer athletes attending. Folks at Zwift HQ who I spoke with agreed that the 2025 event was amazing, but expressed that it’s challenging, expensive, and frankly, too big of a distraction from their business goals to organize an even larger event for the general Zwifter population.
I won’t list all of Zwift’s major events for 2025 here, but you can certainly browse the events archive to see what was highlighted throughout the year, including many community-organized events.
Racing Changes
As I see it, there were four key developments in the world of Zwift racing for 2025.
First, Zwift Racing Score was released in earnest in October 2024, and really became the standard categorization scheme for Zwift racing in 2025. This includes Zwift’s use of multiple category ranges in their monthly ZRacing series, allowing riders to choose between categories where they rank near the top or the bottom.
Next, web-based standings were rolled out for the ZRacing series this year (see zwift.com/racing/zracing), giving riders access to a GC leaderboard at zwift.com for the first time ever. Is this Zwift moving away from ZwiftPower for race results? Absolutely. They want to simplify access to results and have the tech stack and branding all live within Zwift’s ecosystem. But will Zwift’s new web leaderboards ever have what it takes to host results for community races? That remains to be seen.
Next, Zwift rolled out Bike Upgrades in March, a feature that allows Zwifters to purchase a bike upgrade for a particular frame after putting in the time/elevation/distance to unlock that upgrade. This feature had the effect of driving riders to push hard to upgrade bikes for maximum performance, while also changing the way we thought about bike choice in each and every activity. Which bike do I choose for this free ride? This workout? This event? Bike upgrades changed everything.
Lastly, in July, Zwift announced they would not be hosting an Elite World Series in the fall. It wasn’t entirely surprising, given the challenges they faced in the previous year’s World Series as inaccurate data from approved trainers came to light, calling into question race results tied to real cash prizes. MyWhoosh has certainly stepped in to fill the gap for prize-driven elite racing, but without a significant viewing audience, Zwift’s concentration on the much larger community-racing market may turn out to be the smarter move.
Fitness and Training
Zwift began partnering with third-party workout and training plan providers near the end of 2024 via their new Training API, and finished that year with six partners. Now as 2025 draws to a close, that list of partners has more than doubled and includes TrainerRoad, the largest player in this space:
Seamless integration with a broad list of providers is a win for everyone, since Zwifters now have access to virtually unlimited workouts and training plans within Zwift.
Zwift has also turned their sights outdoors this year, which is a very interesting move. In April, Zwift announced that outdoor rides recorded with Garmin or Wahoo (and eventually Hammerhead) could be brought into your Zwift history to support Zwift’s new Fitness Metrics.
This is an important development, but there’s more to come. As I explain in this week’s post, Fitness Metrics is a part of something bigger:
Lastly, it’s worth mentioning that these metrics are just one part of the more robust training platform Zwift is building. You can see the pieces coming together: first, third-party workout syncing brought all the big training plan providers to the table. Then revamped automatic FTP detection made it easier to set your power zones. Next, Zwift started bringing in outdoor rides and computing training metrics.
Zwift released the Zwift Ride smart bike in June 2024, and it was an immediate success. In April 2025, Zwift released an adjustable crank arm option for the Ride, then in September, the Ride package got an upgrade as its bundled trainer (the Wahoo KICKR CORE) was replaced by the new KICKR CORE 2 with WiFi capabilities, race mode, Bluetooth bridging, and more.
Heading into 2026, I wouldn’t want to be a smart bike manufacturer. Zwift’s goal is to keep the setup experience simple and price low. Because in the end, they’re looking for subscribers, not hardware sales. So Zwift built the Ride as a budget-friendly solution for people looking to get into indoor cycling, and they’re able to sustain a profitable business while offering the Ride at a very low price.
Zwift released the new Click v2 controllers in September, effectively replacing the original Click and the Play controllers. The affordability of the new Click controllers and the long list of trainers supporting virtual shifting means we’re seeing a huge number of Zwifters shifting virtually nowadays.
New Features
Along with everything listed above, Zwift released or improved many game features in 2025. While most of these changes are small on their own, their combined weight helps drive the platform’s continued adoption. Here’s a complete list in chronological order:
There are still just three companies in the indoor cycling app market that Zwift is competing against: TrainingPeaks Virtual, MyWhoosh, and Rouvy. Each is chasing market share in unique ways:
TrainingPeaks Virtual quickly built a reputation as a rapidly evolving, feature-rich, race-centric platform. This year they added the GPXplore feature so more iconic routes can be added to the platform, including a “My Routes” option of riding any GPX file. (And while Zwift chose to end their Free Monthly 25 km program this year, TPV has “Free Tuesdays” on the first Tuesday of each month, and offers other free riding opportunities. Seems like a smart way to entice people to try the platform who may have signed up months or years before…)
MyWhoosh hosted the UCI Esports Worlds for the second time this year and will be hosting it next year as well. They’ve added some new roads and features also, but in talking to other riders, clearly the main reasons people are on MyWhoosh are because it’s free, and you can win cash in races.
Rouvy has been advertising heavily this year, and features real-world footage that the other platforms lack.
While Zwift is still the massive leader in terms of user base, these other platforms keep Zwift on their toes by releasing new features and hosting events Zwift would like to see on their own platform. The good news is, we all benefit from this competition.
What’s next?
What’s coming soon to Zwift in 2026? Here are a few things I know about:
Personalized Recommendations: This feature tries to easily answer the question, “What should I do today to get stronger?” It’s already released (in beta) to a small cohort of Zwifters, and lots more will probably see it in the next month (read more here).
More Levels: Eric Min has said they’re coming soon, and internal sources tell me the same. I would expect to see level 150 or even 200 within the next month or two, although Zwift hasn’t promised any delivery date.
Refreshed Zwift Academy: Zwift said in their forum, “Zwift Academy returns in 2026, with work already underway to make the 10th edition our best yet.”
There’s definitely more to come in addition to what’s listed above, though. Zwift keeps me in the dark on some of their future plans, while others (including map expansions!) I get to peek at, under embargo.
Regardless, I’m looking forward to 2025 and all the Zwifty upgrades it will bring. Hopefully you are, too.
Your Comments
What are your thoughts on Zwift’s 2025? Favorite new features, things you wish Zwift had released but didn’t? And what would you most like to see in 2026? Share below!
Three decades after RFC 1883 promised to future-proof the internet by expanding the available pool of IP addresses from around 4.3 billion to over 340 undecillion, IPv6 has yet to achieve the dominance its creators envisioned. Data from Google, APNIC and Cloudflare analyzed by The Register shows less than half of all internet users rely on IPv6 today.
“IPv6 was an extremely conservative protocol that changed as little as possible,” APNIC chief scientist Geoff Huston told The Register. “It was a classic case of mis-design by committee.” The protocol’s lack of backward compatibility with IPv4 meant users had to choose one or run both in parallel. Network address translation, which allows thousands of devices to share a single public IPv4 address, gave operators an easier path forward. Huston adds: “These days the Domain Name Service (DNS) is the service selector, not the IP address,” Huston told The Register. “The entire security framework of today’s Internet is name based and the world of authentication and channel encryption is based on service names, not IP addresses.”
“So folk use IPv6 these days based on cost: If the cost of obtaining more IPv4 addresses to fuel bigger NATs is too high, then they deploy IPv6. Not because it’s better, but if they are confident that they can work around IPv6’s weaknesses then in a largely name based world there is no real issue in using one addressing protocol or another as the transport underlay.” But calling IPv6 a failure misses the point. “IPv4’s continued viability is largely because IPv6 absorbed that growth pressure elsewhere — particularly in mobile, broadband, and cloud environments,” said John Curran, president and CEO of the American Registry for Internet Numbers. “In that sense, IPv6 succeeded where it was needed most.” Huawei has sought 2.56 decillion IPv6 addresses and Starlink appears to have acquired 150 sextillion.
An anonymous reader shares a report: Only the government could spend 20 years creating a national ID that no one wanted and that apparently doesn’t even work as a national ID. But that’s what the federal government has accomplished with the REAL ID, which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) now considers unreliable, even though getting one requires providing proof of citizenship or lawful status in the country.
In a December 11 court filing [PDF], Philip Lavoie, the acting assistant special agent in charge of DHS’ Mobile, Alabama, office, stated that, “REAL ID can be unreliable to confirm U.S. citizenship.” Lavoie’s declaration was in response to a federal civil rights lawsuit filed in October by the Institute for Justice, a public-interest law firm, on behalf of Leo Garcia Venegas, an Alabama construction worker. Venegas was detained twice in May and June during immigration raids on private construction sites, despite being a U.S. citizen. In both instances, Venegas’ lawsuit says, masked federal immigration officers entered the private sites without a warrant and began detaining workers based solely on their apparent ethnicity.
And in both instances officers allegedly retrieved Venegas’ Alabama-issued REAL ID from his pocket but claimed it could be fake. Venegas was kept handcuffed and detained for an hour the first time and “between 20 and 30 minutes” the second time before officers ran his information and released him.
The PlayStation 5 has essentially been cracked, just in time for 2026, and it would appear that short of releasing a new hardware revision, there’s not much Sony can do about it. This is because PlayStation 5 hackers have found the BootROM (Level 0) keys for the PlayStation 5, which enables decryption of the bootloader and, from there, allows
After looking yesterday at the most viewed Linux hardware reviews and benchmarks of 2025, today’s look is at the most popular open-source/Linux news of the past year. There were 3,286 original news articles on Phoronix during 2025 written by your’s truly, here’s a look back at what excited readers the most over these past twelve months…
As the calendar flips to January 1, 2026, thousands of copyrighted works from 1930 are entering the US public domain alongside sound recordings from 1925, making them free to copy, share, remix and build upon without permission or licensing fees. The literary haul includes William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, Dashiell Hammett’s full novel The Maltese Falcon, Agatha Christie’s first Miss Marple mystery The Murder at the Vicarage, and the first four Nancy Drew books. The popular illustrated version of The Little Engine That Could also joins the commons. Betty Boop makes her public domain debut through her first appearance in the Fleischer Studios cartoon Dizzy Dishes.
The original iteration of Disney’s Pluto — then named Rover — enters as well. Nine additional Mickey Mouse cartoons and ten Silly Symphonies from 1930 are now available for reuse. Films entering the public domain include the Academy Award-winning All Quiet on the Western Front, the Marx Brothers’ Animal Crackers, and John Wayne’s first leading role in The Big Trail. Musical compositions going public include George and Ira Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm,” Hoagy Carmichael’s “Georgia on My Mind,” and “Dream a Little Dream of Me.”
Sound recordings from 1925 now available include Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong’s “The St. Louis Blues” and Marian Anderson’s “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.” Piet Mondrian’s Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow rounds out the artistic entries.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri dropped a telling Threads post suggesting that we’re approaching a tipping point where AI will be so deeply integrated into media creation that distinguishing fake content from the real thing will be impossibly difficult. Instead of chasing the infinite tide of AI-generated pixels, the future of digital trust may
