Colby Williams, 25, was arrested in Georgia on multiple felony charges including arson and criminal damage to property after police say he set fire to three Flock automated license plate readers, melting at least one down to slag. A nearby fourth camera was found riddled with bullet holes, and one melted pole bore a 'DeFlock' sticker. Investigators identified Williams partly through footage from the very cameras he allegedly destroyed.
A comparison of the Pixel 11 series against five rival flagship phones shows Google's new Tensor G6 chip trailing significantly in CPU and GPU benchmarks, most notably against Apple's A19 and A19 Pro chips inside the iPhone 17 lineup. The Tensor G6 also falls short on battery efficiency and thermal performance compared to competitors that in some cases cost less than the $1,000-plus Pixel 11.
A new analysis argues that digital infrastructure—search engines, cloud platforms, and networks people rely on daily—should be designed, built, and maintained with the same rigor applied to physical infrastructure like water systems and power grids. It draws comparisons to failures such as Flint's water crisis and Puerto Rico's electrical grid collapse to illustrate what happens when essential systems are neglected.
A designer has created the CinderClock, a 3D-printed alarm clock featuring a large arcade-style button for snoozing. The device is built to make hitting snooze once simple and satisfying, but deliberately harder to repeat, discouraging users from lingering in bed and reaching for their phones.
A new report from the Plastic Pollution Coalition finds plastics industry groups, including the Society of Plastics Engineers, have been supplying free or low-cost teaching materials to K-12 schools nationwide. These include lesson plans, worksheets, science activities and traveling programs like PlastiVan that emphasize plastics' benefits to society while minimizing their environmental and health harms. The coalition is urging schools to adopt stricter policies limiting industry-funded curricula.
Japan's space agency JAXA plans to launch its Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) spacecraft on October 20, 2026, aiming to collect at least 10 grams of material from Phobos, one of Mars' two moons. The mission, built by Mitsubishi Electric, would take about a year to reach Mars, spend three years studying the planet and its moons, then return samples to Earth by 2031.
A commentary piece argues that common sense functions like a muscle that weakens from disuse, and asks why practical judgment is so rare in modern workplaces. The piece suggests organizational structures and processes may be crowding out employees' basic instincts and reasoning.
Trezor has revised the scope of its August data breach, now saying 81,000 customers were affected instead of the roughly 14,000 first reported. The increase stems from logistics partner ShipMonk failing to delete older records as its contract required, exposing details of 67,000 additional U.S. customers who ordered between November 2019 and August 2021.
A software developer recounts how a fascination with building things from scratch drew them into programming, initially learning PHP, HTML and CSS to create back-end systems and websites. Over time, the writer says the appeal shifted from the act of coding itself toward creating products people actually use, pushing them toward startups and leadership roles rather than large companies or pure engineering work.
A viral video shows a large data center in Denver's Elyria-Swansea neighborhood running sprinklers heavily on its grounds while residents face stage-one drought restrictions limiting lawn watering to two days a week. The facility is believed to be an 18-megawatt, 170,000-square-foot site owned by cloud provider CoreSite, though the tenants using the space haven't been confirmed.
Disney has agreed to pay $50 million to settle Biddle v. The Walt Disney Company, a lawsuit accusing it of using ESPN's leverage to force streaming services into pricier bundled channel packages. The settlement covers anyone who subscribed to YouTube TV or DirecTV Stream (including DirecTV Now or AT&T TV Now) between April 1, 2019 and March 31, 2026, and claims must be filed by Sept. 8. Disney denies wrongdoing, and payout amounts will vary based on subscription length and total number of claims submitted.
Apple's upcoming iPhone launch is expected to carry higher prices, driven by a persistent global shortage of memory chips. Industry data shows hundreds of companies flagging memory costs and shortages last quarter, reversing decades of falling memory prices that once let devices grow more powerful without becoming pricier.
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