0:08
Archinstall 4.4's new color-coded install preview makes installing Arch easier than ever before
Archinstall 4.4 swaps the old plain list for a color‑coded preview, so each step of the setup lights up in green, yellow or red depending on what’s been chosen, what’s optional, and what still needs attention. The preview updates in real time as you toggle partitions, filesystems and desktop environments, giving you a quick visual map of the whole install without having to scroll through endless text.
Behind the scenes the tool now parses the config file into a structured tree, then feeds that into a simple UI renderer that assigns colors based on node status. That means the installer can flag missing dependencies or conflicting packages before they ever hit the disk, cutting down on trial‑and‑error.
The net effect is a smoother flow: you still have the same granular control Arch is known for, but the visual cues keep the process from feeling like you’re flying blind. It’s a small tweak that makes the whole experience feel a lot more approachable.
0:59
Drauger OS 7.8 aims to turn Ubuntu into a gaming Linux distro with KDE Plasma
Drauger OS 7.8 is basically Ubuntu under the hood, but the team has swapped the default GNOME stack for KDE Plasma and layered a suite of gaming‑focused tweaks. The most noticeable shift is the kernel: they’ve baked in a low‑latency patch set and newer NVIDIA/AMD drivers, which means games launch a touch faster and you get smoother frame‑rates without the usual Ubuntu lag. On top of that, the distro ships with a pre‑configured Steam client, Lutris, and Wine, all wired into the new “Game Mode” service that throttles background tasks when a fullscreen title is detected.
What’s clever is how they’ve re‑engineered the desktop experience. KDE’s widget system now includes a compact launcher that pulls up your library, recent play sessions, and even controller profiles in a single pane. The team also trimmed a lot of the default Ubuntu services, freeing up RAM for games that tend to hog memory. They’ve added a custom repository that auto‑updates graphics stacks, so you don’t have to chase driver releases manually.
Another under‑the‑hood change is the way they handle audio. The distro ships with PipeWire configured for low‑latency gaming, which cuts down the echo you sometimes hear when voice chat and game sound compete. They’ve also baked in a small script that tweaks the CPU governor on the fly, nudging it toward performance mode when you start a game and easing back when you’re done.
Overall, Drauger OS 7.8 feels like a Ubuntu base that’s been stripped down, re‑wired, and dressed in KDE’s polish, all to make the whole gaming workflow feel a little less like a patchwork of separate tools and more like a single, cohesive experience.
2:21
Custom Hybrid Drivetrain Powers Boat
Offloading acceleration and braking to an electric motor in a hybrid configuration allows the less efficient combustion engine run in a more narrow set of RPM and torque ranges. In some cases the motor is decoupled from the mechanical drivetrain entirely and used simply as a generator, where it can run at a single speed all the time. And this concept isn’t limited to passenger vehicles, either. [rctestflight] put this premise to the test using a small knockoff Honda motor as a generator for an electric boat.
This project builds on a previous version where he used a much smaller hobby motor to see if it could generate usable power, and that system powered a small autonomous boat as a proof-of-concept. Those motors aren’t really designed to be used in this sort of application though, so this build upgrades the internal combustion engine and pairs it with an electric skateboard motor that’s configured to run as a generator. The setup is capable of producing almost 800 watts for as long as the gasoline lasts, provided that the 3D printed parts all hold together and the other parts don’t vibrate off of the assembly.
Out on the lake at full throttle, the small generator can get the boat up to seven knots (13 kph) but at this speed [rctestflight] reports that the generator is “quite unpleasant” due to the noise and vibration. Instead, he ran it on a test bench at several RPM and torque points and documented the efficiency of the motor at each one, and then operated the boat mostly at the point he found it to be most efficient. For a hybrid drivetrain, that not only decreases noise and vibration, but also maintenance and fuel efficiency.
Although the energy density of fossil fuels is much better than batteries, a fuel-free long-distance option is still available if you’d rather equip your boat with solar panels instead.
3:50
Trump-Shuttered Climate Change Site Now Back Online In Nonprofit Hands
Donald Trump shuttered the web site Climate.gov in 2025, cutting off public access to climate information from America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
But "former members of the site's team have brought much of it back at a new domain," reports The Register:
"Trusted climate information should not disappear when politics change," Climate.us managing director Rebecca Lindsey said of the new platform in a press release. Lindsey, who previously served as the Climate.gov program manager and lead editor, told The Register in an email that she and one of the web developers responsible for the site were the first to be caught up in government purges when DOGE swept through the department in late February 2025... Created in cooperation with sustainability nonprofit accelerator Multiplier, Climate.us aims to be an independent alternative to its old .gov, and many of the former NOAA crew behind the previous website have teamed up for the new initiative to "keep climate information accurate, accessible, scientifically rigorous, and useful for the people who rely on it."
Climate.gov, which now redirects to a NOAA page about climate but which hosts none of the data the shuttered site used to contain, was taken offline in July 2025 following a Trump executive order prioritizing "gold standard science...." arguing that prior climate science models relied on worst-case scenarios, which somehow meant the public availability of 15 years of climate data and reporting ought to change...
All of the content that was purged from the .gov is now back, along with blogs from experts, climate status reports, maps and data pathways, and national assessments of climate change as well.
Lindsey told us that rapidly changing political winds have led her to believe that the government isn't the right place for that mission to continue, and that she would have concerns about returning the site to federal management if a future administration changed its position on climate change... Lindsey said that the Climate.us team will continue with the same mission it had before the Trump administration attempted to quash it: Getting climate science in front of the public in a manner that's understandable so they can make their own decisions about how to respond.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
5:42
You, too, can build this open-source smart home keyboard that works with Home Assistant
So I was reading about this really cool project where you can build your own smart home keyboard that integrates with Home Assistant. What's interesting is that it's open-source, so you have complete control over how it works and what it can do. The idea is that by building your own device, you're not limited by what's available on the market or tied to any specific company's ecosystem. You can customize it to fit your needs and make changes as you see fit, without having to worry about things like subscription fees or replacing the whole thing if it breaks.
It's pretty empowering to think about having that kind of control over your smart home devices. Instead of being at the mercy of a company's updates or support, you can just make the changes yourself. And because it's open-source, there's a community of people working on it and sharing their own modifications, so you can learn from others and contribute your own ideas.
The project itself is designed to be pretty accessible, even if you don't have a lot of experience with DIY electronics. The goal is to make it easy for people to get started with building their own smart devices, and to show that it's not as complicated as it might seem. By building something like this keyboard, you can get a feel for how these devices work and how you can customize them to fit your needs.
I think what's really cool about this is that it's not just about building a single device, but about the possibilities it opens up. Once you have a device like this up and running, you can start to think about all the other ways you could use it, or how you could integrate it with other devices in your home. It's a pretty interesting way to think about smart home technology, and it's definitely something I've been thinking about a lot lately.
7:12
Malaysia ponders regulating management of IP addresses
Wants to revive the lost art of the National Internet Registry, which APNIC has deprecated and isn’t keen to bring back The government of Malaysia has commenced a consultation on whether it should regulate management of IP addresses and autonomous systems numbers, over objections from regional internet registry the Asian Pacific Network Information Center (APNIC). Malaysia announced its consultation in June, when the nation’s Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) posted a paper [PDF] in which it explains that a lot has happened since passage of the 1998 Act that governs its activities – so it probably needs an update. One of the proposed changes would see Malaysia create a statutory authority with the power to manage electronic addressing “including the management of IP addresses, AS numbers and associated fees.” “This is to support the development of a National Internet Registry model and to ensure a transparent and sustainable administration of electronic addressing resources in Malaysia which will be overseen by the Commission,” the consultation paper states. “This will contribute to a more robust and well-governed digital infrastructure environment in Malaysia.” APNIC says its talks with the MCMC saw the Malaysian entity express a desire for “full operational and technical autonomy over resource assignments” – powers that existing NIRs don’t have. National Internet Registries (NIRs) are a relic of the time before regional internet registries came into being. Only APNIC and LACNIC, the Latin American and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry, allowed NIRs – and only nine exist, covering China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Mexico, and Brazil. APNIC stopped accepting applications for new NIRs in 2012, and in 2024 made the moratorium on new applications permanent. In 2024, APNIC’s executive chair Kenny Huang explained: “NIRs are a historical feature of the APNIC membership structure, recognizing that some IP address registries were already operating at a national or economy level when APNIC started, and some were in formation.” “In the past, particularly while IPv4 address space was being rapidly allocated and needed careful management, NIRs provided important support to a fast-growing Internet with high demand for number resources and registry services.” The internet governance community long ago decided that internet resource distribution and management works best when handled by sizable organizations which operate at regional scale, and that if every country had an NIR it would create unhelpful risks and overlapping authorities. If Malaysia presses ahead with its desire to create its own National Internet Registry (NIR) and have it assume some of APNIC’s functions, it will therefore challenge the status quo. If it actually gets an NIR into operation, that would likely revive debate about whether national governments should have a role in allocating internet resources given the potential for such power to be used for political purposes such as denying resources to groups that a government opposes. The United Nations last year had its say on that idea by re-affirming its support for multi-stakeholder governance under which governments are one of many voices that participate in debate about the future of the internet. Kenny Huang has written [PDF] to the Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), pointing out that it’s currently not possible to create a new NIR and that APNIC won’t revisit its policy on the matter – but he also notes that it’s always possible to commence a consultation and policy process that would see APNIC debate a new position. But that process could only start after the conclusion of work on ICP-2, the major revision of the rules that govern the operation of RIRs. The current ICP-2 timeline calls for a revised document to be in place by the end of 2026. If MCMC decides to pursue creation of an NIR, it will be in conflict on a collision course with APNIC. In the past, most collisions in the world of internet governance occurred at low speed and involved mostly civil debate that plays out over years. ®
10:27
Australia investigating five social media giants for not enforcing ban on kids
Australia’s government has decided to double the fines it can levy companies that don’t take appropriate steps to enforce the country’s ban on children under 16 accessing social media – and said Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube are under investigation for possible non-compliance. The decision to increase fines came after publication of a study that found around 80 percent of kids in Australia continue to use social media despite the ban, mostly because age verification tech hasn’t blocked their accounts. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Sunday announced the increased fines, saying that while social media companies have deactivated or restricted access to five million accounts since the ban came into force last December. The PM thinks that’s a decent start but feels Australia’s cyber-regulator, eSafety, “needs more tools in their belt to take on these billion-dollar social media companies and hold them to account.” Those tools include the ability to demand information about a platform’s attempts to enforce the ban, including third-party information from age assurance or app-store providers. “Social media companies have a social responsibility, and they must uphold their legal responsibility in Australia to keep under 16s off social media,” Albanese said. The new fines can reach AU$99 million ($68.25 million) for systemic failures – back of the sofa money for the social media giants. Qualcomm builds throttled-for-China datacenter chips Qualcomm last week launched a new range of datacenter chips, and CEO Cristiano Amon later told Japanese outlet Nikkei the company has already created versions of them compliant with US export rules. “There are very clear guidelines about how you can ship products to China, and we have versions of all of our products that comply with those guidelines, " he said. "We are engaged in conversations and are positively optimistic about the reaction we're getting." Rumors suggest Chinese social media giant ByteDance might be one source of those positive reactions. Chinese chip champ delivers another modest machine Chinese chip designer Loongson has delivered another server CPU that won’t scare AMD or Intel. The 16-core Loongson 3C3000 hums along at 1.5 to 1.8GHz while consuming 40 watts. It uses Loongson’s proprietary instruction set architecture that draws on MIPS and RISC technology. Chinese media report that each core packs 64KB of private L1 instruction cache and 64KB of private L1 data cache, and that the chip shares 16MB of L2 cache among all cores. The memory controller is 2×72-bit DDR4-2400, supporting ECC verification. The company says it’s a low-cost CPU suited to everyday workloads such as file servers, database servers or web servers. Intel and AMD continue to make 16-core server CPUs, but with faster clock speeds and superior specs compared to the latest Loongson offering. The one thing those American CPUs lack is Beijing’s blessing: China’s government encourages local organizations to buy Chinese hardware whenever possible. Japan extends Air Force’s mission into space Japan’s government last week ordered a name change and re-org for its Air Self-Defense Force, which as of next year will be renamed the "Aerospace Self-Defense Force." Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said the changes are needed because reliance on space-based services like GPS navigation mean Japan needs to defend its orbital interests. The re-org means Japan’s government will upgrade its Space Operations Squadron into a full Space Operations Command, staffed by 880 personnel. Japan is one of just ten nations – plus the European Union – that has the capability to launch payloads into orbit. Iran’s internet ends in tiers Internet Governance Researcher Imad Payande has published updated research on the state of Iran’s internet, which he says now offers tiers of access to different users. “In the first one to two weeks of the conflict, relatively unrestricted connectivity appeared limited to specific groups – primarily journalists and individuals with institutional affiliations. For the broader population, access to the global Internet was largely unavailable,” he wrote. In the second week of the war he saw “configurations” go on sale – “custom connection profiles enabling access to the open Internet.” Payande said those connections “relied on alternative protocols and tools rather than standard VPNs, suggesting a different underlying infrastructure and possibly a limited number of controlled gateways.” “Alongside these informal markets, more institutionalized models of access emerged. Telecom operators introduced restricted SIM cards under frameworks often described as ‘Pro Internet.’ These were made available to selected users – such as companies and researchers – through screening processes.
14:15
Your Mac and iPad prices just went up, here’s why AI data centers are to blame
Apple just announced unprecedented price increases for the majority of its product lineup, with only iPhone and Apple Watch not yet seeing a price hike. This is because of the AI-driven memory crisis, caused by AI data centers buying up loads of memory supply, putting tons of pressure on the market.
Apple tried to hold out for quite a while, but the situation got out of hand. It’s worth noting that these memory pressures have existed for the entirety of the year, and it’s only now getting to the point where it’s unsustainable. Nonetheless, we’ll be diving into the why of it all, and when you should expect things to get better.
14:50
Phone Stand Aims To Fight Addiction
Sometimes, it’s hard to stop picking up your phone every few minutes to check on notifications and scroll endlessly through the slop of the day. [PushpendraC2] has been working on a solution to this problem that would ideally discourage such behavior — a nifty little smartphone stand!
The concept is straightforward enough—the smartphone stand uses a simple tactile button to determine if your smartphone is sitting on the little 3D printed shelf, or not. However, the smarts inside do a bit more than that, too. An ESP32-S3 is charged with monitoring whether the smartphone is sitting in place, and starts counting “focus time” while it’s there. If the phone is picked up, the OLED display on the shelf starts ticking down a 5-second timer to encourage you to put it back. If you don’t, the focus time is reset and you lose your streak.
It’s also possible to tap a touch sensor on the device which sets a reminder timer, prompting you to put your phone back after a set period of time, between 2 to 30 minutes. A buzzer will then start going off to prompt you to put the phone down. If you want to track the devices impact, you merely need to log in to the web server hosted by the ESP32, which shows your current focus session time, along with a heatmap of your daily productivity.
It’s a simple idea, but one that uses a few neat psychological hooks to encourage compliance and behavioral change. We’ve featured similar projects in this vein before, No surprise, as phone addiction is a problem experienced by many.
16:04
Daniel Agee: ‘Remembering Om’
Daniel writes about Om with a mix of admiration and quiet awe, pointing out how the photographer’s stark, Arctic‑inspired images contrasted sharply with his warm, magnetic personality. Om’s pictures strip everything down to simple shapes and shadows, forcing you to ask what really matters in a frame, and that same minimalism guided how he lived and talked.
He was one of the early internet publishing folks who drifted into venture capital, and when the Glass team floated the idea of a modest funding round, Om was the first person they called. He told them straight up that he’d back them financially if they wanted, but warned them not to chase money, because what they had was already special and could be ruined by chasing growth.
That blunt honesty, the kind that feels like a courtesy rather than a rudeness, is what Daniel highlights as Om’s core. It wasn’t just about being direct; it was about respecting the space you’re in enough to keep it pure, whether that’s a photo composition or a fledgling startup.
In the end, the piece is as much a tribute to Om’s aesthetic choices as it is to his philosophy: cut away the excess, focus on what you truly see, and speak the truth without the noise. It’s a reminder that simplicity can be both powerful and deeply satisfying.
