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The Jurassic Park islands and dinos are coming to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024

is a senior reporter who’s been covering and reviewing the latest gadgets and tech since 2006, but has loved all things electronic since he was a kid. Jurassic World: Archipelago is a new expansion pack for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 that lets aspiring pilots explore the five islands of the fictional Cinco Muertes Archipelago featured in the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies. Created by Australian developer Orbx that’s known for its flight sim add-ons, the expansion lets you visit ma

9 Best Hotel Rewards Programs for Elevating Your Next Stay

Joining a hotel’s rewards program can feel like being admitted to an exclusive club. By frequently staying at a particular brand’s hotels, you can accrue points that are redeemable for all kinds of perks, including free or low-cost room upgrades, a meal on the house, and even a free night's stay. Choosing the best hotel rewards program for you depends on a variety of factors, most importantly, where and how often you travel. But just as crucial is your travel style: Are you content with small c

The Best TVs We’ve Reviewed from Sony, Samsung, LG, and More

Honorable Mentions There are so many good TVs available, we can't add them all to our top list. Here are some great options that either missed the cut or got knocked off our top list by their replacements. Hisense U8QG: The U8QG (7/10, WIRED Recommends) is a great buy at its lowest price (around $1,000 for a 65-inch model) and a solid pick above that price, especially if you want eye-searing brightness above all else. I noticed some SDR color accuracy issues (some images looked way too red) an

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Los Alamos is capturing images of explosions at 7 millionths of a second

Download a print-friendly version of this article. Los Alamos scientists are good at doing things that seem impossible, like taking a picture of something that happens in less than seven-millionths of a second—such as an explosion. And not just one picture, but a series of images that reveal pivotal data about the material that exploded and the physics of the explosion. This so-called dynamic imaging is essential to the Lab’s stockpile stewardship mission because it helps scientists test and un

Deepest-Ever Field Image of Giant Galaxy Cluster Is a Brutal Reminder of Your Cosmic Insignificance

When it comes to deep space observations, our cosmological insignificance seems to grow with the resolution of our telescopes’ cameras. In the latest advance, astronomers constructed the deepest-ever images of Abell 3667, a massive galaxy cluster located 700 million light-years from Earth—and most of the tiny dots you see represent entire galaxies. But the latest images of Abell 3667 also offer “whispering evidence of past galactic interactions,” which astronomers document in detail in a paper

OpenAI's New Models Aren't Really Open: What to Know About Open-Weights AI

Despite the company's name, OpenAI hasn't dropped an open version of its AI models since GPT-2 in 2019. That changed on Tuesday, as CEO Sam Altman shared two new open-weights, reasoning AI models, named gpt-oss-120b (120 billion parameters) and gpt-oss-20b (20 billion parameters). If open-weights is a new piece of AI jargon to you, don't worry. In the simplest possible terms, open-weights is a category of AI models that power products like chatbots, image and video generators. But they are phil

Ray-Ban Meta stealth stickers go viral but fail to beat safeguards

C. Scott Brown / Android Authority TL;DR A TikTok seller is promoting vinyl “Ghost Dots” that claim to block the recording light on Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. Meta’s glasses disable photo and video recording when the light is blocked, and comments suggest the stickers don’t work. TikTok briefly removed the product, but it’s already back on sale. Anyone talking to a Ray-Ban Meta wearer probably wants to know if they’re being recorded, which is why the tech giant added a recording light to it

OpenAI releases two open-weight AI models, including one that runs well on Apple Silicon Macs

Living up to its name, OpenAI has released not one but two new open-weight AI models after promising to deliver a new open-weight model earlier this year. The two models, gpt-oss-20b and gpt-oss-120b, are available to download for free now. What makes open-weight models special? Specifically, these are AI models that can be downloaded and run on computers with adequate resources for powering local AI models. No internet connection is required because access to the model provider’s server isn’t

Consider using Zstandard and/or LZ4 instead of Deflate

One of the issues we have with .PNG is slow read/write times. There are now new lossless open source codecs without patent concerns, such as Zstandard (maintained by Facebook) or LZ4: https://facebook.github.io/zstd/ https://github.com/lz4/lz4 Zstandard is used by the new Khronos KTX2 GPU texture format specification. I propose that it be added as an option to a future version of .PNG. The possible speedups are quite significant, and for users that read and write a lot of .PNG's as part of th

Los Alamos is capturing real-time images of explosions at 7mths of a second

Download a print-friendly version of this article. Los Alamos scientists are good at doing things that seem impossible, like taking a picture of something that happens in less than seven-millionths of a second—such as an explosion. And not just one picture, but a series of images that reveal pivotal data about the material that exploded and the physics of the explosion. This so-called dynamic imaging is essential to the Lab’s stockpile stewardship mission because it helps scientists test and un

Los Alamos Is Capturing Real-Time Images of Explosions at 7Mths of a Second

Download a print-friendly version of this article. Los Alamos scientists are good at doing things that seem impossible, like taking a picture of something that happens in less than seven-millionths of a second—such as an explosion. And not just one picture, but a series of images that reveal pivotal data about the material that exploded and the physics of the explosion. This so-called dynamic imaging is essential to the Lab’s stockpile stewardship mission because it helps scientists test and un

‘Gags the Clown’ Leans Into an Urban Legend That Maybe Wasn’t a Legend

It’s been nearly a decade since an outbreak of clown sightings frightened people, first in the U.S. and then later across the globe. A clown in the right context isn’t necessarily scary, but a random clown just appearing with no obvious purpose is horror movie material. And, in fact, some of the creepy clown epidemic of 2016 can be traced back to Gags the Clown, a found-footage indie that turned some clever grassroots marketing into a stunt that went viral. Gags the Clown came out in 2018, whic

Weather satellites detect 515-mile-long lightning flash

Some areas are more prone to lightning storms than others. It's 2017, and a thunderstorm shoots off a lightning bolt. What's so special about that, you ask? Well, the bolt is an astonishing 515 miles (829 kilometers) long. Using archival satellite data, researchers just officially confirmed the length of this enormous bolt of lightning that stretched from Texas to Missouri. It sets a new world record, besting the previous title holder — a 477-mile (768-km) bolt from 2020 — by 38 miles (61 km).

New world record Weather satellites detect 515-mile-long lightning flash

Some areas are more prone to lightning storms than others. It's 2017, and a thunderstorm shoots off a lightning bolt. What's so special about that, you ask? Well, the bolt is an astonishing 515 miles (829 kilometers) long. Using archival satellite data, researchers just officially confirmed the length of this enormous bolt of lightning that stretched from Texas to Missouri. It sets a new world record, besting the previous title holder — a 477-mile (768-km) bolt from 2020 — by 38 miles (61 km).

Valve founder Gabe Newell just purchased a superyacht company

is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Valve founder Gabe Newell is setting out on a new adventure — and it doesn’t involve Half-Life 3. Instead, Newell is acquiring Oceanco, the yacht-building company that’s creating his $400 million super ship, as reported earlier by Boat International. In a post

Is the Dream Chaser space plane ever going to launch into orbit?

When will Sierra Space's winged vehicle, Dream Chaser, finally take flight? Unfortunately, it's still not clear. Almost certainly, however, it won't be this year. The Dream Chaser space plane has now been under development for more than two decades, and it has a huge cult following because its winged shape mimics the iconic Space Shuttle. However, during a recent news briefing, a senior NASA official would only say this about a launch date: "We will be ready for them when they're ready to fly."

ScreenCoder: An intelligent UI-to-code generation system

ScreenCoder: Advancing Visual-to-Code Generation for Front-End Automation via Modular Multimodal Agents Yilei Jiang1*, Yaozhi Zheng1*, Yuxuan Wan2*, Jiaming Han1, Qunzhong Wang1, Michael R. Lyu2, Xiangyu Yue1✉ 1CUHK MMLab, 2CUHK ARISE Lab *Equal contribution ✉Corresponding author Introduction ScreenCoder is an intelligent UI-to-code generation system that transforms any screenshot or design mockup into clean, production-ready HTML/CSS code. Built with a modular multi-agent architecture

Scientists shine a laser through a human head

For the most part, anyone who wants to see what’s going on inside someone else’s brain has to make a tradeoff when it comes to which tools to use. The electroencephalograph (EEG) is cheap and portable, but can’t read much past the outer layers of the brain, while the alternative, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), is expensive and the size of a room, but can go deeper. Now, a research group in Glasgow has come up with a mechanism that could one day provide the depth of fMRI using equi

Scientists Shine a Laser Through a Human Head

For the most part, anyone who wants to see what’s going on inside someone else’s brain has to make a tradeoff when it comes to which tools to use. The electroencephalograph (EEG) is cheap and portable, but can’t read much past the outer layers of the brain, while the alternative, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), is expensive and the size of a room, but can go deeper. Now, a research group in Glasgow has come up with a mechanism that could one day provide the depth of fMRI using equi

Survival at High Altitudes: Wheel-Well Passengers (1996)

Abstract: Ten specific "wheel-well" passenger stowaway flights (the wheel-well area was entered just before takeoff) are documented in the N.Y. Times, covering the period 1947 to 1993. Five stowaways survived flights encompassing altitudes as high as 39,000 feet, with six dying in the process (one flight had two stowaways: one fatal, one surviving). Three Douglas DC-8 and four Boeing 707 aircraft, plus a Caravelle, an unknown jet, and a piston airliner were utilized. Several of the wheel well f

Lightning on Earth is sparked by a powerful chain reaction from outer space

The energy needed for thunderstorms could come from an avalanche of electrons seeded by extraterrestrial cosmic rays , a new study claims. Scientists already knew that lightning is an electrical discharge between thunderclouds and Earth's surface, but exactly how storm clouds obtain an electric field powerful enough to hurl a bolt has remained a mystery for centuries. Now, a new study has used computer models to reveal that lightning strikes as the result of a powerful chain reaction that begi

The Fulbright Program: Chock Full of Bright Ideas

One of the most memorable events in my career so far was being selected as a host for the Fulbright Program. When Emily (Simons) approached me with her idea of applying for this type of scholarship, I was already blown away by her enthusiasm—but little did I imagine how immensely enriching her visit to the lab would turn out to be! We initially discussed a project aligned with our shared interest in healthcare topics; specifically, I proposed making Emily part of a planned project with cardiolo

‘Starfinder: Afterlight’ Brings Paizo’s TTRPG to Video Games

Tabletop RPG developer Paizo is taking is first steps into video games through its sci-fi title, Starfinder. Developer Epictellers Entertainment is adapting the Pathfinder offshoot for mouse and keyboard with the single-player RPG Afterlight. In it, players will assemble of crew with their own personal stories and baggage for you to help deal with while embarking on a quest to save the galaxy. Like the recently announced RPG for The Expanse, players can play as different classes and make choice

People still use our old-fashioned Unix login servers

You're using a tool with a too-generic User-Agent You're probably reading this page because you've attempted to access some part of my blog (Wandering Thoughts) or CSpace, the wiki thing it's part of. Unfortunately whatever you're using to do so has a HTTP User-Agent header value that is too generic or otherwise excessively suspicious. Unfortunately, as of early 2025 there's a plague of high volume crawlers (apparently in part to gather data for LLM training) that behave like this. To reduce th

Double-slit experiment holds up when stripped to its quantum essentials

MIT physicists have performed an idealized version of one of the most famous experiments in quantum physics. Their findings demonstrate, with atomic-level precision, the dual yet evasive nature of light. They also happen to confirm that Albert Einstein was wrong about this particular quantum scenario. The experiment in question is the double-slit experiment, which was first performed in 1801 by the British scholar Thomas Young to show how light behaves as a wave. Today, with the formulation of

New IVF Startup Claims It Can Predict an Embryo's IQ

The 21st century has seen startups rise from a relatively niche business approach to a multi-trillion-dollar phenomenon. Between 2021 and 2023, startups generated an estimated $7.6 trillion in global value. From 2019 to 2023 — a rocky period for the economy overall — the number of startups in the US still increased by 16 percent. But with all that success comes a whole lotta risk. It's estimated that over two-thirds of startups fail to deliver a positive return to investors. Many fail before th

Hiding secret codes in light protects against fake videos

Fact-checkers may have a new tool in the fight against misinformation. A team of Cornell researchers has developed a way to “watermark” light in videos, which they can use to detect if video is fake or has been manipulated. The idea is to hide information in nearly-invisible fluctuations of lighting at important events and locations, such as interviews and press conferences or even entire buildings, like the United Nations Headquarters. These fluctuations are designed to go unnoticed by humans

OpenAI prepares new open weight models along with GPT-5

OpenAI isn't just working on GPT-5. It looks like OpenAI is also preparing to release new open-source weights, living up to its name, "OpenAI." As spotted on X, two new open-source weights, "gpt-oss-20b" and "gpt-oss-120b," have been spotted on HuggingFace, which is an AI platform to host models. The models are on HuggingFace ahead of the public release. Typically, companies like OpenAI need to share the model weights with partner companies. This is done in preparation for the release. OpenA

Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2025)

Please state the location and include REMOTE for remote work, REMOTE (US) or similar if the country is restricted, and ONSITE when remote work isan option. Please only post if you personally are part of the hiring company—no recruiting firms or job boards. One post per company. If it isn't a household name, explain what your company does. Please only post if you are actively filling a position and are committed to responding to applicants. Commenters: please don't reply to job posts to compla