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The Black Hole was a surplus store in New Mexico that resold decommissioned equipment from Los Alamos National Laboratories, ranging from vintage oscilloscopes and liquid nitrogen dewars to old dials, calculators, and even A-bomb detonator cables. It functioned as both a working retail operation and an informal museum of Cold War-era nuclear research hardware. A 2017 update confirms the business has since shut down.
Google has launched Gemini 3.8 Flash, its third Flash-tier model release in just six weeks, alongside a specialized variant called Gemini 3.8 Flash Cyber aimed at vulnerability detection and mitigation. The company touts it as its strongest reasoning and coding model to date, with introductory API pricing of $0.75 per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output tokens through year-end before doubling.
Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan nonprofit, has filed a lawsuit against four federal agencies demanding disclosure of the confidential process the Trump administration uses to vet frontier AI models before release. The group says virtually no details have been shared publicly or with Congress about which companies participate, how they are chosen, or what legal authority underpins the reviews, and alleges OpenAI has struck a private deal limiting access to its top models to government-approved partners. The lawsuit seeks a court order compelling release of unclassified records by September 30 and an injunction against further withholding.
An early build of Google's Device Intelligence app, discovered ahead of the Googlebook laptop launch, reveals an opt-in feature that automatically groups related local files into topic-based collections, such as trip planning documents. These collections can be viewed through desktop widgets, and Google states the sorting happens on-device without files leaving the machine or being used for AI training.
A small group of theoretical physicists is reviving the decades-old idea that universes might evolve much like living organisms, selecting for traits that allow them to reproduce through black holes. The concept gained fresh attention after a 2022 James Webb Space Telescope discovery and a widely shared Substack essay reignited debate over whether Darwinian logic can apply beyond biology. Supporters argue that just as natural selection explains complexity in life, a similar process could explain the physical constants and structure of our cosmos.
A retrospective on OpenBSD's history blog describes SMD (Storage Module Device) disks, a storage interface standardized in 1982 and revised in 1987, which powered high-capacity systems throughout the 1970s and 1980s. The piece details how Sun Microsystems used SMD disks paired with Xylogics controllers in its early high-end servers and workstations, noting the drives' massive size, weight, and power draw compared to later interfaces like ESDI and SCSI.
Pangram co-founder and CEO Max Spero appeared on TechCrunch's Equity podcast to discuss the complexities of detecting AI-generated content. The startup recently raised $9 million, partnered with Substack to flag AI-written newsletters, and launched a new tool for detecting AI-generated images.
Security firm Horizon3 says hackers are exploiting CVE-2026-9586, an unauthenticated SQL injection bug in Sangoma Switchvox's /pa endpoint that allows remote code execution. Honeypot data shows a single source IP rapidly hitting multiple exposed systems, deploying reverse shells and exfiltrating process data. Sangoma patched the flaw, one of 12 reported by Horizon3, in version 8.4.0.2 released July 14.
An entrepreneur used AI extensively to make pricing, hiring and marketing decisions while scaling a services business, reaching her $50,000 monthly revenue goal within six months. However, her underpriced premium offerings meant that payroll, rent and overhead grew alongside revenue, leaving no profit to reinvest or pay herself. The strain eventually caused missed deadlines, declining quality and staff departures.
A hardware outlet used a Lumafield Neptune CT scanner to image a delidded Intel Core i9-14900KS chip over a 12-hour scan with a 2.5mm copper filter, following a similar scan of the i9-13900K two years earlier. The interactive scan reveals internal silicon core structure, PCB layers, vias, and the rear-mounted capacitors supporting the chip's power delivery.
A new Practical Engineering video explains why railroad crossings need extensive automated warning systems: trains can take up to a mile to stop, far exceeding an engineer's sight distance, so safety depends entirely on detection equipment rather than driver reaction. The video, part of a broader series on railroads, walks through how these systems sense an approaching train and alert motorists in time to clear the tracks.
Amazon is selling Samsung's newly launched Galaxy Z Flip 8 for $1,049.99, a $150 cut from its $1,199.99 list price. The clamshell foldable features a slimmer build, a 6.7-inch inner screen, a larger 4.1-inch FlexWindow with added AI capabilities, Samsung DeX support, and a 4,300mAh battery.