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A player analyzed Factorio's Space-Age DLC quality system, which uses a pseudo-random number generator rather than true randomness to determine item and building quality upgrades. The write-up documents an in-game implementation that exploited this predictable RNG, though it notes the technique breaks under Factorio version 2.1 due to changes in how the RNG is invoked, while the underlying algorithm remains the same.
Copernicus reported that August 2023 statistically tied July 2023 as the hottest month ever measured, with global average temperatures reaching 16.96 degrees Celsius. Scientists attribute the extreme heat to a combination of long-term human-caused climate change and a strong El Nino weather pattern, noting the reading was 1.65 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Researcher Eric Lu and Cognition's Devin AI coding agents built a new GPU-based lattice sieving tool and used it to factor RSA-260, a 260-digit number, beating the previous RSA Factoring Challenge record of RSA-250 set in 2020. The team says the approach runs factoring workloads at roughly 10 times lower cost than prior public methods.
b.next, originally an academic effort focused on synthetic cell interoperability through its Nucleus platform, took on a 2023 contract to build an open, fully specified synthetic cell sensor. That project, intended to take months, evolved into years of work solving supply chain gaps for PURE system components, ultimately leading the team to build a manufacturing plant producing 'Cytosol,' a core substrate for synthetic cells, and recently shipping its 100th kit.
Startup Besxar, founded by former OpenAI staffer Ashley Pilipiszyn, has arranged with SpaceX to fly small canisters called 'fabships' aboard Falcon 9 boosters to test manufacturing semiconductor precursor materials in the vacuum of space. The company's first two units flew on a July Starlink mission, surviving launch and exposing wafer samples to space despite a data system glitch in one canister. Besxar has raised roughly $14 million, including a $9 million seed round led by Dauntless Ventures and Overture VC, to pursue a dozen planned test flights.
Defense startup Covenant announced it has emerged from stealth mode with $250 million raised across three funding rounds, backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, Lux, 8VC, Aleph and Lightspeed. The company opened a 105,000-square-foot factory in Dallas to build its Anthem long-range cruise missiles, aiming to produce 1,000 units in the first year starting in early 2027 and scaling to 5,000 annually.
Ivo Stivoric, who holds the title 'Lt. Trouble + Maker' at Alphabet's X, the Moonshot Factory, has been named 2026 Innovative Leader of the Year. Over more than a dozen years at X, he has led varied projects including Taara's light-based wireless communication, Tapestry's electric grid mapping, Chorus's AI supply chain tracking, and Materra's AI-driven waste sorting, and holds over 90 patents.
A security researcher extracted decades-old root certificates bundled with early Netscape and Internet Explorer browser installers from archive.org, using an LLM to catalog them. Among the finds was a 512-bit RSA certificate authority key shipped in Netscape 4.51 in 1999, trusted for both SSL and S/MIME, which the researcher then successfully factored using modern computing power.
Major technology companies are adjusting how they plan and build data centers as opposition grows in communities affected by noise, power demand, and land use concerns tied to the AI boom. The shift reflects an effort to address local pushback that has slowed or stalled some previous projects.
Volkswagen's Executive Board has formally approved a restructuring program dubbed Future Plan 2030, confirming it will eliminate 50,000 jobs, including management positions, to hit a nine percent operating margin target by 2030. The plan also involves halving its model lineup, cutting product complexity by 75 percent, and reportedly retiring the Seat brand while keeping Cupra. Volkswagen says European factories are running over 500,000 units above demand, and it will decide the fate of plants in Emden, Zwickau, Hanover and Neckarsulm by mid-2027.
Fusion startup Realta Fusion signed a deal with utility Madison Gas and Electric to explore building a 200-megawatt fusion power plant in Wisconsin by the mid-2030s. The utility also made an undisclosed equity investment in Realta, which is converting a former Oscar Mayer factory in Madison into its research facility.
A detailed community guide explains how Xiaomi 15 Ultra owners can strip down HyperOS without rooting their device, disabling telemetry, diagnostics, and bundled extension services during setup. The author recommends locking the phone on the final Android 16 build and deliberately skipping the upcoming Android 17 update, citing concerns over added tracking and AI features.