Researchers continue to push toward superconductors that operate without extreme cooling, a goal that has driven physics research for decades. Despite incremental progress in materials science, truly practical, room-temperature superconductors that could be deployed at scale have not yet been achieved.
The long-awaited sequel to the 1998 witch comedy 'Practical Magic' has opened in theaters, pulling in a modest but respectable audience turnout. Early reception suggests the film is being embraced mainly by fans nostalgic for the original rather than winning over new viewers.
According to a Diamond Online report, NEC quietly halted development of physical quantum computing machines at the end of March 2026, decades after pioneering superconducting qubit research in 1999. Several researchers from the program, including a key leader, have reportedly since joined Fujitsu, which continues investing heavily in the technology. NEC has not confirmed a full exit, stating it still evaluates practical applications and industrialization of quantum technologies with customers.
TechCrunch has announced the Builders Stage will return to Disrupt 2026, held October 13-15 at San Francisco's Moscone Center. The track will feature founders and investors including Gamma CEO Grant Lee, Precedent.vc's Leah Solivan, and Google's Robby Stein discussing fundraising, hiring, go-to-market strategy, and AI as one of six industry-focused stages at the event.
A security-conscious writer outlines a personal 'threat modeling' approach to web browsing, contrasting unmodified browsers like Chrome and Edge—which allow ads, trackers, and GenAI features by default—with a hardened Firefox configuration used as their daily driver. The setup blocks intrusive scripts, cookies, and third-party content on most sites while carving out exceptions for work tools like Google Workspace.
A Nature opinion piece argues that European doctoral programs should learn from China's emphasis on practical, industry-relevant PhD training without directly copying its system. The author contends Europe needs to adapt such approaches to fit its own academic and economic context rather than importing them wholesale.
Jerry James benchmarked an 8-GPU NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell system paired with an AMD EPYC 9555 CPU, offering 768GB of combined GDDR7 memory. Rather than splitting huge models like Llama-3.1 405B or DeepSeek-R1 671B across all eight PCIe cards, which introduces heavy latency, the team found the setup performs best running independent single-GPU model instances in parallel.
Scientists have outlined a new enzymatic approach that reuses byproducts to synthesize thiophosphate molecules, compounds valued for their applications in chemistry and biology. The method relies on biological catalysts rather than traditional chemical synthesis routes, offering a more sustainable pathway to these materials.
Quantinuum has unveiled Helios, a trapped-ion quantum computer using 98 qubits, the largest such system built to date. The machine relies on a new four-way X junction hardware design paired with Helios runtime software, allowing it to move and process data across multiple paths simultaneously rather than in a single line, as earlier machines required.