0:08
C64 Finally Gets the SRAM Corporate Wouldn’t Pay For
You know how the Commodore 64 used cheap dynamic RAM back in the day because static RAM was too pricey? Well, that's a problem now because you can't even find new DRAM chips that fit the old machines. So, this guy Fabio Battaglia built an adapter board to use SRAM chips instead, which are way more reliable and longer-lasting. The catch is, it only works with the 250407 motherboard, but it's open-source so you can modify it if you need to. The Retro Shack made a video showing off the adapter in action, and it's pretty cool – the C64's performance gets a big boost from the SRAM upgrade. It's a great solution for retrocomputer enthusiasts who want to keep their old machines running smoothly.
0:45
Microsoft shifts to annual exchange rate price revision for cloudy products
Hey, I just read this thing about Microsoft and their cloud services. So, they used to change prices for their commercial cloud services twice a year, but now they're going to do it just once a year, on January 1st. They're still going to keep prices pegged to US dollars, but they're giving themselves a bit more flexibility to adjust for exchange rate changes. They claim this will give customers more predictability, but honestly, it seems like it could also mean higher bills if the exchange rate isn't in their favor. They're going to offer advance guidance on price changes in November, but it's still a bit of a gamble.
1:21
nubia Neo 5 GT Special Edition debuts with the first and only Liquid and Air Dual Active Cooling System in its class
What’s actually different under the hood is the way the phone moves heat. Nubia has taken a tiny piezoelectric pump, a three‑layer cooling film and a non‑conductive AI‑grade coolant and built a closed loop that circulates liquid clockwise across the chipset. At the same time a dedicated fan, routed through a “through‑flow” duct, pushes air over the same hot spots. The two loops work together, expanding the heat‑dissipation area to over thirty‑three thousand square millimetres, so the device stays cool even when you’re grinding for hours.
That thermal architecture lets the rest of the hardware push harder. The Dimensity 7400 chip sits with up to 24 GB of dynamic RAM, and the Neo Turbo engine keeps frame rates steady. On the surface you’ll feel the 550 Hz trigger response and a 3049 Hz touch rate that together shave the latency down to under five and a half milliseconds. The battery is a 6 210 mAh dual‑cell pack, charging at 80 W and offering an “Extreme Mode” that adds half an hour of gaming time when you need it most.
The screen and sound side of things are just as tuned for long sessions. A 6.8‑inch AMOLED panel runs at 144 Hz with peak brightness that can hit 4 500 nits, while stereo speakers paired with a linear motor give a more immersive audio cue. Nubia also layers an AI Copilot that offers a gaming coach, a chatbot and auto‑chat features, so you can stay focused without having to look away.
It rolls out this July in Southeast Asia, in two colourways and two storage options, and comes with a five‑year software update promise. If you’re into mobile gaming and want a phone that actually manages heat the way a desktop does, this is the model that finally brings that kind of cooling to a handheld.
2:51
Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek thinks AI has a future
Temasek’s board just slipped the numbers into the meeting minutes: they’re nudging the slice of their $400 billion portfolio that sits in AI from about six percent today up to fifteen percent by 2031. It’s not a vague pledge; they’ve mapped five buckets—energy and data‑centre hardware, chips, cloud providers, the big foundation models, and the software that strings them together.
At the same time they’re widening the whole infrastructure corner of the book, from a single percent of assets to five, because they see AI‑driven demand for newer grids, storage and decarbonisation tech.
Inside the firm they’re already “eating their own dog food,” wiring AI into the investment workflow, decision‑making and daily ops to sharpen productivity.
All told they’re penciling in at least $36 billion of fresh AI money over the next five years—big enough to matter, but still a piece of a much larger, trillion‑dollar hyperscale rush.
3:40
PitchBook: US venture funding hits $412.7B in first half as AI deals dominate
U.S. venture capital deal value hit $412.7 billion in the first half of 2026, nearly 30% more than investors put to work in all of last year — and a small cluster of giant artificial intelligence rounds accounted for almost the entire jump. That’s according to the second-quarter PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor report released Wednesday night. Artificial […]
The post PitchBook: US venture funding hits $412.7B in first half as AI deals dominate appeared first on SiliconANGLE.
4:09
Google Home gets a surprisingly useful automation upgrade
I was digging into the latest Google Home update and found this one thing that really caught my attention - they're rolling out AI-powered automation suggestions in the Google Home app. Essentially, the system will analyze your habits and routines, then offer personalized suggestions for automating tasks and routines. It's not just a list of pre-programmed options, but actually uses machine learning to understand your behavior and make recommendations. I'm curious to see how well it works in practice, but on paper, it sounds like a huge step forward for smart home automation.
4:41
US Food and Drug Administration Rejects Petition To Set PFAS Limits In Food
The FDA just told the petitioners it isn’t moving forward with any hard limits on PFAS in food. What’s odd is the agency’s own data: recent testing shows about 70 % of seafood samples and a noticeable slice of milk already contain those “forever chemicals,” yet the response leans toward non‑binding action levels rather than enforceable thresholds.
The original petition asked the FDA to check up to thirty PFAS compounds across produce, fish, eggs, milk and bread. After the agency missed the legal deadline, the group trimmed the request in 2025 to focus on advisory limits for PFOA and PFOS in seafood and milk. The FDA still says the evidence isn’t strong enough to justify those limits.
Instead, the FDA says it will set “action levels” that don’t force producers to pull contaminated items off shelves. In practice, that means the chemicals can stay in the food supply as long as they stay below a vague benchmark, not an illegal limit.
So, for now, the public health push hits another wall, even though the EPA has already flagged food as the biggest PFAS exposure source. The conversation about stricter standards is likely to keep looping back to the data versus the policy gap.
5:43
Meta reportedly testing prototype AI specs that record everything the user sees and hears
Meta’s internal labs are tinkering with a next‑gen version of its AI glasses that goes beyond the current “snap‑to‑text” mode. Instead of just pulling up info when you point at something, the prototype streams both video and audio from everything you encounter, feeding it into a local AI chip that can tag, summarize, and even suggest actions in real time.
What’s different under the hood is the way the data pipeline is built. The device now runs a lightweight transformer on the frame itself, so raw footage never leaves the hardware unless you explicitly hit a “share” button. That’s a shift from the earlier cloud‑first model, where every glance was uploaded for processing. The on‑device model reduces latency but also means the glass can keep a running log of everything you hear and see, raising new privacy flags.
Meta’s public blog tries to calm concerns by pointing to “opt‑in” controls and encrypted storage, but the internal memo suggests engineers are still wrestling with how to balance continuous capture with user consent. They’re experimenting with visual “privacy zones” that automatically blur faces or mute ambient sound when you’re in a crowded space.
If the prototype rolls out, users will get a truly hands‑free assistant that can recall a conversation from a week ago or pull up a recipe while you’re cooking, all without you having to say a word. The trade‑off is a device that knows a lot more about your day‑to‑day life than any phone does today.
7:00
Apple stops signing iOS versions for several older iPhones and iPads [U]
So, Apple's made a change to how they handle iOS version signing, which affects older iPhones and iPads. Essentially, they've stopped signing additional devices since this update, and now you can only see the list of devices that are no longer supported.
What's interesting is that this change impacts users who rely on older iOS versions for specific features or apps that aren't compatible with newer versions. If you're running an older version, you won't be able to restore or downgrade to a previous version anymore.
The list of affected devices includes the iPhone 6s, iPhone SE, and several iPad models. This means that if you're still using one of these devices, you'll need to stay on the current iOS version or upgrade to a newer device.
It's worth noting that this change isn't necessarily a security update, but rather a way for Apple to streamline their support for older devices. This decision likely reflects the company's focus on supporting newer devices and maintaining a consistent user experience across their ecosystem.
For users who are still holding on to their older devices, this change might be a wake-up call to consider upgrading to a newer device or exploring alternative options for accessing older iOS features.
8:05
IBM Home Director: Home Automation in 1996
Back in the 1990s IBM had a pretty sizeable presence in the PC market, including its rather spiffy Aptiva series of PCs. Naturally their PCs had to feature heavily in another consumer-related thing that was popular in the 1990s, being smart home automation in the form of IBM Home Director. Recently [Ionic1k] took a look at this blast from the past, starting with one of the original IBM commercials.
At its core it used the same X10 protocol that similar solutions from RadioShack and others used, with many modules and packages you could get to use with it. You could also get a more bespoke installation performed at your home to move beyond mere X10, which some people are still finding when they’re buying a house.
Since this uses powerline communication, it required no wires to be run, just the requisite modules to be plugged into a power outlet, with the video demonstrating the basic setup and installation. The PC itself is plugged into the control module via the serial port, from which the Home Director control software can be used to create a configuration and control the state of connected modules.
Although X10 has the same issues as any kind of powerline communication, overall it seems like a very nice system, with a wide range of modules and absolutely easy to set up even for a casual Windows user.
