0:12
Nvidia's five-year-old RTX 3060 is reportedly back, and it costs almost exactly what it did in 2021
It turns out Nvidia’s old 3060 isn’t a nostalgic re‑release so much as a continuation of the same silicon they’ve been churning out for a few years now. The fab has already moved the chip onto a mature 8nm process, so the cost of making more units barely budges, which is why the price tag still mirrors what you paid back in 2021.
What’s interesting is the timing. While the AI boom is flooding the market with pricey RTX 50‑series cards, Nvidia’s inventory of the 3060 is finally surfacing, giving gamers a fallback that doesn’t force them into the premium tier. It’s not a new architecture, just the same GA106 GPU, but the supply chain has finally caught up after the pandemic crunch.
Because the part is already in production, retailers can list it at the original MSRP without the markup you’d expect from a “new” launch. That means you can snag a decent 12 GB of VRAM for the same cash you’d have spent two years ago, which is a rare steadiness in today’s volatile GPU market.
So, if you’ve been eyeing a solid mid‑range card without the hype‑price of the latest models, the revived 3060 is essentially a back‑door into decent performance at a familiar price point. It’s a quiet move, but for anyone still hunting a good deal, it lands just where you’d hope.
1:46
Ford Rehires 'Gray Beard' Engineers After AI Falls Short
Ford found its AI‑driven quality checks weren’t catching the kind of problems that slip onto the line, so they pulled the plug on a lot of the automation and brought back a group of seasoned engineers. About 350 of those “gray‑beard” specialists, many of whom had left before, are now back in the shop hunting for failure points before any part even reaches the plant floor.
The idea is to let those veterans lean on their intuition and experience to spot the subtle flaws that the algorithms missed. They’re also tasked with teaching the newer staff how to think like a mechanic rather than just trusting a model, and they’re re‑working the AI tools so the software learns from real‑world defects instead of just the design specs.
In short, Ford is mixing old‑school hands‑on expertise with a refreshed AI that’s been retrained on the insights those engineers provide. It’s a reminder that even the slickest tech still needs a human eye to keep the quality bar high.
2:57
India’s central bank mandated use of .bank domains to enhance trust – but its registry leaked sensitive info
In 2025, the Reserve Bank of India created the .bank.in subdomain and required all local banks to start using it for their online presences. Indian is home to thousands of banks and the new rule meant all needed to register for and use a bankname.bank.in domain, a move designed to make life harder for phishers and fraudsters. Now a security researcher has alleged that the entity chosen as the sole registrar of the subdomains – the Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT) – botched the job and leaked sensitive data. The allegation came in a report [PDF] and post published yesterday by CashlessConsumer, a group that advocates for India to become a cashless society and which aims to represent citizens to digital payments players. “The IDRBT Domain Registration Portal (registrar.idrbt.ac.in) – the exclusive registrar for India’s .bank.in namespace – exposed its entire REST API via 33+ unauthenticated endpoints,” the post alleges. “Anyone with curl could retrieve the bcrypt password hashes, mobile numbers, email addresses, login IPs, and device fingerprints of all 5,576 bank employees trusted with managing India’s banking domains.” The researcher behind the exposé, “Srikanth L”, says he accessed info through the portal and found evidence that some India banks host websites on shared servers in the United States, Singapore, and Lithuania. He also found 80 percent of registered .bank.in domains don’t use DNSSEC, 40 percent don’t employ the DMARC email security protocol that verifies senders’ identity, and many domains are secured with free Let’s Encrypt certificates. The researcher’s post also alleges that the portal went live without a proper security audit and ran without secure APIs for 13 months. Srikanth L disclosed his findings in early June and says IDRBT has since fixed the gaping security flaws. The researcher also appears to have used a GitHub repo to list info found by accessing the portal’s APIs – so some of the info available over the previously-open API is now public – and claimed doing so will help security researchers by letting them understand the extent of Indian banking infrastructure. That knowledge may come in handy given the open API means attackers may have been able to access and use credentials of senior bank staff, information that can enable many forms of attack - even the DNS spoofing and phishing attacks the requirement to use .bank.in was designed to prevent. At the time of writing, the IDRBT, Reserve Bank, and India’s government appear not to have made a public comment on the matter. ®
5:59
South Korea’s hot new sensation is 3S+1F – a quadrillion-Won AI plan, not a band
The government of South Korea and local tech giants yesterday announced over ₩1 quadrillion of investment related to AI – or about $900 billion – that it says will see the country emerge a “K-Semiconductor powerhouse” and a global leader in robotics and AI. The plan is called “3S+1F”, shorthand for Speedily building fabs in regional hubs called “Strongholds”, while aiming to Spearhead innovation in new forms of semiconductors that are needed by growing markets – and getting it done with Full support from government and industry. The nation also plans to grow a robotics industry ASAP, to give itself the chance of rivalling China as the world’s unchallenged centre for clankers. Planned investments to make that happen include building Physical AI models – to do for movement what LLMs do for text. Underpinning it all will be datacenters with combined capacity of 18.4GW, all to be built by 2035 and made possible by massive investments in clean energy generation and a grid that moves electrons so efficiently it will literally and metaphorically electrify the South Korean economy. President Lee Jae-myung said the plan will see South Korea build the industrial base needed for AI faster than any other country and spread wealth beyond Seoul. He therefore pitched the plan as both social and economic policy. Local tech giants SK Hynix and Samsung are part of the plan, as both committed to spending vast sums on new fabs. LG and Hyundai will also invest. South Korea’s announcement of the plan uses the rather Chinese phrase “great leap forward” several times. That’s ironic given the Korean scheme is partly intended to ensure the country can compete with China – and to do so with local factories instead of the nation’s tech giants investing in the Middle Kingdom. K-Chip Import Slayers, anyone? ®
8:08
HamsterOS lets you run a full GUI OS off a 1.44MB floppy disk
The idea of an OS running off a floppy disk isn't particularly new; in fact, I gave one a try a year and a half ago . However, not all of them are as cool or as cute as HamsterOS, a full-blown GUI-based operating system designed to run off the 1.44MB storage medium. For an operating system that runs off a long-dead data drive, HamsterOS certainly looks the part, and if you have a floppy disk lying around collecting dust, you can give it a spin in November.
8:46
Making a Magnetic Core Memory USB Drive
Some of us have felt somewhat nervous about the collapse of DRAM and NAND Flash memory supply in the consumer market, while others seem to have fully embraced it. Someone like [polymatt] for example, whose recent project entails a USB drive that skips back quite a few decades and opts to use a glorious 64-bit core memory device for storage.
To really embrace the DIY spirit here, the PCBs were milled using a small CNC router before the core memory was assembled alongside the other components, including apparently L293 H-bridge ICs as the drivers, along with an ESP32 module for the brains and USB interface.
Much like NAND Flash, core memory relies on sensing the state of a cell through a destructive read action, which thus requires a fair bit of surrounding logic to set up read and writes, parse sense line values and restore any read value after said destructive read. Determining the right voltage to use during read and write actions is essential, and here determined experimentally.
The final build contains two PCBs inside an enclosure that’s filled with silicone oil. Other than looking cool through the acrylic window, it also helps to keep the individual cores at a fairly consistent temperature, which is helpful with reliable bit flipping, even if it’s probably overkill here.
Ignoring for a moment that just the memory required for the USB stack in the ESP32 module is many times the size of this core memory device, it’s still a very cool project whose appeal goes far beyond mere practicality.
10:32
U.S. Open powers up AI-ready network in challenging environment
Cisco’s work with the USGA at the 2026 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club was a live testbed for what AI-ready networking and security look like in the wild — not in a lab, not in a climate-controlled data center, but across 18 holes of constantly changing terrain, crowds, and threats. It’s also a blueprint that network engineers in other industries can borrow as they grapple with the convergence of connectivity, security, and AI apps.
From a distance, it’s tempting to lump golf in with stadium or arena networking. The reality on the ground is very different. Stadiums offer a fixed concrete bowl and predictable RF patterns. A U.S. Open venue is effectively rebuilt every year: temporary structures, new hospitality layouts, shifting fiber routes, and a crowd that never sits still.
Christian Rodriguez, senior manager, IT operations, from the USGA’s technology team, captured that reality when he explained why they tear down and rebuild from scratch: No two championships share the same layout, ISP entry points, or even the placement of critical compounds. They don’t simply clone last year’s configs; they design for the specific course, topology, and constraints of that site. That level of contextual design is expensive, but it’s also the only way to avoid brittle architectures that fall apart as soon as the environment changes.
Environmental conditions add another layer of complexity. Anthony Santora, managing director of IT for the USGA, describes the championship network as a data center without the usual comforts. There’s dust, rain, wind, and wide temperature swings instead of clean, controlled air. Hardware resides in trailers and weatherproof enclosures, not in racks behind raised floor tiles. For network engineers who spend most of their time on office campuses and in colos, that’s an important reminder: Critical infrastructure increasingly sits in places that look nothing like a traditional wiring closet.
User behavior is just as hostile. The U.S. Open has its own term — the “Tiger effect” (though one could argue it’s now the Scottie effect) — for what happens when tens of thousands of fans follow a single golfer. The hot spot moves with the group, and the RF design must cope with a dense, moving cluster of devices. That pattern should sound familiar to anyone who supports large conferences or festivals; it’s the same phenomenon, just under a different name.
Cisco’s answer to this environment is a fully redundant, mobile core design. Instead of a single large core in a building, the network collapses into dual trailers that serve as cores on the go, typically anchored at the NBC broadcast compound and another central location. Each core hosts Cisco Secure Firewall appliances, FMCs, core Catalyst switches, DHCP, UPS, and generators, all in pairs. Rodriguez was matter-of-fact about the philosophy: “We do everything in pairs as much as we can.” If one fails, its twin picks up the load.
16:12
Someone made an e-Ink ESP32 Game Boy, and it runs at a very playable 60Hz refresh rate
If you've ever read one of my ESP32 pieces, you'll know I'm a huge sucker for e-Ink devices. They look incredible, to the point where you can just hang one up on your wall and it'd fit right in with the rest of your art. However, they do have low refresh rates, which means they're often delegated to showing photos and smart home dashboards. Which isn't a bad thing; it's just a limitation.
16:47
New Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Z Flip 8 renders just dropped, instantly turning heads
So Samsung's getting ready to unveil its new Galaxy Z foldables, which is pretty standard for this time of year. What's interesting is that we're already seeing some renders of the new devices, specifically the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Z Flip 8. These are essentially detailed drawings of what the phones will look like, and they're giving us a glimpse into some of the design changes we can expect.
One thing that stands out is how Samsung is tweaking the hinge mechanism on these devices. It's not a huge overhaul, but it's a key part of what makes these phones unique, so any changes are worth paying attention to. The new hinge is supposed to be more durable and allow for a smoother folding experience.
It's also worth noting that these renders are showing off some updated camera systems and possibly some new color options. The camera systems are getting a bit of an upgrade, which is no surprise given how much phone cameras have improved in recent years.
Overall, it seems like Samsung is focusing on refining the design and functionality of its foldables rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. We'll have to wait and see how these changes play out in real life, but for now, it's looking like Samsung is on the right track.
18:17
The Terrifying 2011-Era Case of Max Planck’s Retracted Papers
In the world of scientific publishing there are many reasons why a paper can be retracted, but generally there is an obvious and clearly communicated reason for doing so. Thus when [Yves Gingras] – a historian of physics – and [Mahdi Khelfaoui] – a colleague – noticed recently that two 1940s papers by [Max Planck] had been quite recently retracted, this resulted in an eyebrow-raising double-take, before naturally publishing their investigation’s findings on arXiv.
They first became aware of this courtesy of the site Retraction Watch and their list of ‘Retractions by Nobel Prize winners‘, which had the authors do a spit-take when they saw [Max Planck] listed. This page led them to a total of two database entries, as listed above. One is for a 1940 paper, the other for a 1942 paper, only five years before [Planck]’s death.
As for the provided reasons, both articles were struck with a generic ‘copyright violation’, which at the very least seems somewhat puzzling, and started both authors of this recent investigation on their journey. What they found was less of a nefarious plot and more of an accidental black hole that had formed when scientific journals began to digitize papers.
The original journal that [Planck]’s papers were published in was absorbed like so many into Springer Nature, where an automated system then tried to sort through all the papers, including the usual detecting of copyright issues. With these papers predating the era of convenient DOIs and the more standard forms of citing related works, said automated system appears to have become rather confused and hurt these papers in its confusion.
From the side of Springer Nature there has so far been no commentary on this, and as of writing the original papers are still listed as withdrawn. Although one can still read the original scanned papers via the Internet Archive, such as here the 1940 paper, it’s disturbing to see that automated systems have apparently been let loose on these veritable archives of scientific and academic history, heedless of the damage inflicted along the way.
Although after fifteen years these two retractions were finally noticed, the more harrowing question is probably just how many papers from potentially less well-known authors were quietly scuttled. If this can happen to [Planck]’s works, it would appear that nobody is safe, including legends like [Bohr], [Einstein] and so many others.
