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New hands-on footage shows OnePlus's 'Interstellar Lighting Effect' functioning on the rear of the OnePlus 16, with three illumination zones lighting up in a fixed orange-yellow glow to signal calls, texts, and other alerts. The feature appears limited to the Tomorrow's Starlight color option and pairs with a topographic-style pattern on the back panel that doesn't itself light up.
A new essay argues that platforms like YouTube, Spotify, LinkedIn and Reddit increasingly control what users see rather than letting them choose, citing doomscrolling recommendations, AI-generated filler music, sponsored opinions on LinkedIn, and bot-driven discussions on Reddit. The piece uses the 'Tetris effect' to illustrate how sustained, algorithm-driven focus reshapes thought patterns without users' explicit consent.
An AI researcher argues that the perceived intelligence of chat-based language models isn't a property of the models themselves but an illusion created in users' minds, similar to how psychics use cold reading techniques. The author, who wrote a book called 'The Intelligence Illusion,' contends that LLMs are purely statistical text-prediction systems with no reasoning capability, and that user belief in their intelligence stems from the same psychological mechanisms exploited by cold readers.
Ivy Coach, a college admissions consultancy, reports that many prospective clients fail to notice or retain crucial information like pricing, even when it's clearly stated in emails and consultations. The company outlines strategies such as repeating key facts, using visual emphasis, short paragraphs, and verbal reinforcement to ensure important details actually register with recipients.
A retrospective look at Nobuhiko Obayashi's 1977 film 'House' highlights its surreal blend of horror and comedy, following schoolgirls terrorized by a haunted, living home. The piece praises the film's boundary-pushing, low-budget special effects and its enduring cult status among genre fans.
Wax motors use a sealed volume of wax—ranging from refined hydrocarbons to plant-derived waxes like paraffin—that expands when heated and contracts when cooled to push and retract a plunger. Heat can come from electric thermistors, solar radiation, combustion byproducts, or ambient sources, while a spring or weight provides the biasing force needed to retract the plunger against seal friction.
Researchers studying the heavy-fermion superconductor UTe2 examined whether a newly observed memory effect—where past current pulses alter later superconducting behavior—could simply be an artifact of Joule heating from the applied current pulses. By analyzing temperature during pulse protocols and testing how the effect scales with current amplitude, duration, and especially the speed at which current is switched off, they found the memory effect strengthens with faster relaxation rates, which actually reduces total energy deposited, undermining a simple heating explanation.
A developer who has written design documents at Google, Microsoft and his own startups has published a full example design doc for a real web application he is building, explaining that he could not find any public high-quality examples elsewhere. He created the document before writing any code and is following it during implementation, using it to demonstrate the principles behind effective design documentation.
A growing community of hobbyists is using AI chatbots and open-source language models to co-create sprawling fantasy stories and role-plays, often through tools like SillyTavern that run models locally. Users like Brazilian software engineer Petra Ferraz de Novaes describe building elaborate, ever-evolving narratives across fandoms such as Star Wars and Pokémon, valuing the AI's unpredictable, sometimes bizarre outputs. Researchers at the University of Washington found that many participants know the content is AI-generated and see that as part of the appeal, not a drawback.
iOS 27 introduces a slider in Settings under Appearance that replaces the old on/off toggles for the Liquid Glass interface, letting users choose between a more transparent or more opaque look, with a live preview shown on screen. The Lock Screen's glass intensity setting remains a separate control. iOS 27 is compatible with iPhone 11 and later models.
A new essay outlines a startup evaluation heuristic focused on power rather than incremental revenue growth: asking how a company can own the customer relationship, control money flow, become a platform others build on, or create network effects. The piece argues these structural shifts can multiply a company's value far more than simple revenue optimization.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania used AI to analyze over 400,000 Reddit posts from nearly 70,000 users discussing GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound. The analysis, published in Nature Health, surfaced patient-reported symptoms—particularly menstrual changes and temperature issues like chills and hot flashes—that appear underrepresented in clinical trials and regulatory data. The team stresses this doesn't prove the drugs cause these effects, but flags them as signals worth further study.