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The iPhone Air’s battery pack is slim, but not as slim as the iPhone Air

Apple’s chunky old MagSafe Battery Pack was beloved by a subset of iPhone owners, and now the company is bringing it back and slimming it down for the iPhone Air. I took a first look at the battery pack this afternoon, and it has a significantly slimmer design than the old version. This version of the battery pack is thinner and longer, stretching as far across the back of the phone as it can before bumping into the camera bar. Slimming it down reduces the potential battery size, but it makes t

SpaceX’s lesson from last Starship flight? “We need to seal the tiles.”

It has been two weeks since SpaceX's last Starship test flight, and engineers have diagnosed issues with its heat shield, identified improvements, and developed a preliminary plan for the next time the ship heads into space. Bill Gerstenmaier, a SpaceX executive in charge of build and flight reliability, presented the findings Monday at the American Astronautical Society's Glenn Space Technology Symposium in Cleveland. The rocket lifted off on August 26 from SpaceX's launch pad in Starbase, Te

Tesla revamps the Megapack in attempt to reverse its declining storage business

Tesla is updating its utility-scale Megapack batteries as it seeks to stem the decline of its lucrative energy storage business. The new battery product known as Megapack 3, which Tesla revealed late Monday, are a bid to lure utilities and data center developers that are desperate for power. Megapack 3 stores around 1 megawatt-hour more electricity than Tesla’s largest existing offering and promises a longer lifespan. Tesla also introduced Megablock, a grouping of four Megapack 3 units that ca

Tesla says its new Megablock can cut costs for renewable energy storage.

is a senior science reporter covering energy and the environment with more than a decade of experience. She is also the host of Hell or High Water: When Disaster Hits Home , a podcast from Vox Media and Audible Originals. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. At an event in Las Vegas yesterday, Tesla revealed a new utility-scale battery configuration that it claims can significantly lower construction costs for utilities, along with faster inst

This 2FA phishing scam pwned a developer - and endangered billions of npm downloads

Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways A phishing email was at the heart of the attack. NPM team quickly removed backdoored versions. 18 packages hit, with 2B+ downloads every week. A new digital supply chain attack has targeted popular open-source npm packages with at least two billion downloads per week. 'I've been pwned' On Sept. 8, Josh Junon, a package maintainer whose account was at the center of the attack, revealed

Massive Supply Chain Attack Targets Cryptocurrencies Through NPM

A phishing attack aimed at a particular software maintainer’s account has managed to compromise software packages that have over 2.6 billion weekly downloads. BleepingComputer, noting that the infection is being called the “largest supply chain attack in history.” The developer behind the software packages, identified as Josh Junon, was compromised via a phishing scheme targeting several blockchains, including Ethereum, Bitcoin, Solana, and Tron, The Register reports. Junon has been posting abo

CPR in space could be made easier by chest compression machines

Performing CPR on a space station in microgravity involves doing a handstand on a person's chest and pushing against the walls with your legs – but now researchers say there is a better way Researchers test a chest compression machine on a dummy in an aeroplane CNES Microgravity makes it tricky to do simple tasks like eating, using the toilet and showering, so it is no wonder that performing CPR on someone whose heart stops beating in space is an extremely demanding procedure. But a mechanical

ReOrbit lands record funding to take on Musk’s Starlink from Europe

ReOrbit, a Finnish startup focused on helping nations control their own sovereign satellites, has raised a record €45 million (about US $53 million) Series A round of funding for a European space tech company. The funding round signals that Europe’s new space market is heating up, fueled by a geopolitical environment in which countries increasingly worry about relying on foreign technology for critical infrastructure. Founded in 2019 and based in Helsinki, ReOrbit provides both the hardware and

Software packages with more than 2 billion weekly downloads hit in supply-chain attack

Hackers planted malicious code in open source software packages with more than 2 billion weekly updates in what is likely to be the world’s biggest supply-chain attack ever. The attack, which compromised nearly two dozen packages hosted on the npm repository, came to public notice on Monday in social media posts. Around the same time, Josh Junon, a maintainer or co-maintainer of the affected packages, said he had been “pwned” after falling for an email that claimed his account on the platform w

SpaceX Strikes Wireless Gold With EchoStar Sale. Expect Better Coverage With These Carriers

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has acquired $17 billion worth of EchoStar’s wireless spectrum, the two companies announced on Monday. The coveted chunk of spectrum, which is used to transmit cellular data through the air, exists in the 1.9 and lower 2GHz spectrum bands. The news comes six weeks after SpaceX launched its satellite texting partnership T-Mobile, called T-Satellite. SpaceX’s Starlink internet service is now poised to dramatically increase its direct-to-cell coverage, which allows users to text

ICEBlock handled my vulnerability report in the worst possible way

Last week, I wrote about how Joshua Aaron's ICEBlock app, which allows people to anonymously report ICE sightings within a 5-mile radius, is – unfortunately, and despite apparent good intentions – activism theater. This was based on Joshua's talk at HOPE where he made it clear that he isn't taking the advice of local community groups, that ICE sightings aren't verified in any way, and that he doesn't know what he's doing when it comes to security and privacy. In that post, in the section about

A critique of package managers

Package Managers are Evil n.b. This is a written version of a dialogue from a YouTube video: 2 Language Creators vs 2 Idiots | The Standup Package managers (for programming languages) are evil. To start, I need to make a few distinctions between concepts a lot of programmers mix up: A package Package Repositories Build Systems Package Managers These are all separate and can have no relation to one another. I have nothing wrong with packages, in fact Odin has packages built into the langu

Space DOTS raises $1.5M seed round to provide insights on orbital threats

The corporate space world tired Bianca Cefalo to the point that she found it easier to literally start her own space company and launch objects into orbit. Cefalo is the founder of Space DOTs, which launched in 2022 to detect space threats. She and her team have created a software platform called SKY-I for space tech manufacturers and operators to help them detect, interpret, and attribute natural and human-originated threats in orbit. She’s spent decades in the industry, working on projects t

EchoStar to sell spectrum to SpaceX after FCC threatened to revoke licenses

SpaceX's complaints to the Federal Communications Commission have helped the satellite company land a $17 billion deal to buy spectrum licenses from EchoStar. The deal consists of up to $8.5 billion in cash and up to $8.5 billion in SpaceX stock, EchoStar said. SpaceX also agreed to pay $2 billion worth of interest payments on EchoStar debt through November 2027. After SpaceX alleged that EchoStar subsidiary Dish Network "barely uses" its spectrum and urged the FCC to make the spectrum availab

On a day of rebranding at the Pentagon, this name change slipped under the radar

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday authorizing the Department of Defense to refer to itself as the Department of War, reverting to a more bellicose title used until a 1940s-era military shakeup in the aftermath of World War II. The order approves the Pentagon's use of the Department of War name as an "additional secondary title" for the Department of Defense while the Trump administration seeks congressional approval to officially change the name. Until Congress votes on th

EchoStar offloads satellite spectrum to SpaceX for $17 billion

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. Dish parent company EchoStar is selling wireless spectrum licenses to SpaceX for around $17 billion, the companies announced on Monday. SpaceX says it will use the spectrum to create the “next generation” of Starlink’s cellular satellite service, which customers

Starlink direct-to-cell satellite connectivity expanding beyond T-Mobile

SpaceX and the company behind Boost Mobile have struck a deal that will bolster Starlink’s direct-to-cell satellite mobile service. EchoStar has agreed to license AWS-4 and H-block spectrum to SpaceX. The agreement is worth up to $17 billion with half in cash and half in SpaceX stock. For iPhone users, the deal will also expand Starlink’s satellite mobile service beyond T-Mobile, which is currently the exclusive U.S. mobile service provider with Starlink service. In connection with the transa

SpaceX strikes $17B deal to buy EchoStar’s spectrum for Starlink’s direct-to-phone service

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has agreed to acquire 50MHz of wireless spectrum and Mobile Satellite Service spectrum licenses from EchoStar, for use in the Starlink satellite network. EchoStar will sell its AWS-4 and H-block spectrum licenses in exchange for $8.5 billion in cash and $8.5 billion SpaceX stock. SpaceX said the deal would let it develop and deploy its “Direct to Cell” constellation, which it claims can provide broadband-speed internet access to mobile phones across the world. Of the cash, $2

Should you buy rechargeable batteries in 2025? These USB-C ones say yes

Paleblue rechargable lithium ion batteries ZDNET's key takeaways These batteries are a perfect replacement for alkaline batteries in pretty much every situation I like that can be recharged from a USB port and don't need a specific charger The USB-A connector in the end of the 4-way charge cable does feel a bit dated View now at Amazon Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. It's almost 2026, and yes, we still need batteries. But it no longer makes financial or ecological sense

Human stem cells age more rapidly in space, study finds

While scientists are still working to understand the effects an extended trip to space can have on the human body, research in recent years has suggested that astronauts may experience some pretty dramatic changes on both the physiological and psychological levels. In the latest study led by a team at University of California San Diego, researchers found signs of accelerated aging in human stem cells that spent roughly a month in space. The research focused on hematopoietic stem and progenitor

Algebraic Effects in Practice with Flix

Algebraic effects are not just a research concept anymore. You can use them in real software, today. Here’s why you’d want to do that, in order of importance: Effects make your code testable One of the central goals of enterprise software development. Dependency injection, mocking, architecture patterns like clean, hexagonal, DDD are all meant to tackle this. Effects solve this elegantly by separating the “what” from the “how”. Effects give immediate visibility into what your own and 3rd-party

Are rechargeable batteries still worth buying in 2025? These USB-C ones say yes

Paleblue rechargable lithium ion batteries ZDNET's key takeaways These batteries are a perfect replacement for alkaline batteries in pretty much every situation I like that can be recharged from a USB port and don't need a specific charger The USB-A connector in the end of the 4-way charge cable does feel a bit dated View now at Amazon Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. It's almost 2026, and yes, we still need batteries. But it no longer makes financial or ecological sense

The maths you need to start understanding LLMs

The maths you need to start understanding LLMs Actually coming up with ideas like GPT-based LLMs and doing serious AI research requires serious maths. But the good news is that if you just want to understand how they work, while it does require some maths, if you studied it at high-school at any time since the 1960s, you did all of the groundwork then: vectors, matrices, and so on. One thing to note -- what I'm covering here is what you need to know to understand inference -- that is, using an

Tesla's board to Elon Musk: Hit these milestones, and we'll make you a trillionaire

It's September 2025, and things are looking peachy keen. Sure, the US job market has taken a nosedive. And yeah, only one in four Americans believes they have a good chance of improving their standard of living. But hey, Tesla's board has proposed a pay package that could make Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire. What really matters is that someone is having a good time, right? Tesla's board laid out what's by far the biggest CEO compensation package in history on Friday. It reads like the

These are the only USB-C rechargeable batteries you should consider buying

Paleblue rechargable lithium ion batteries ZDNET's key takeaways These batteries are a perfect replacement for alkaline batteries in pretty much every situation I like that can be recharged from a USB port and don't need a specific charger The USB-A connector in the end of the 4-way charge cable does feel a bit dated View now at Amazon Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. It's almost 2026, and yes, we still need batteries. But it no longer makes financial or ecological sense

The Anatomy of a Mach-O: Structure, Code Signing, and Pac

Table of Contents The Mach Object (Mach-O) is the binary format used on Apple’s operating systems for executables, libraries, and object code. It was created for the Mach kernel (hence the name) and introduced in NeXTSTEP, the predecessor to macOS, as a replacement for the a.out format. Mach-O’s design supports multiple architectures (via universal binaries), and contains metadata via load commands. In this post, we’ll explore Mach-O’s layout and history. Then, we will examine how macs use Ma

Going to Space Could Make Your Cells Age Faster

Spaceflight pushes the human body to its limits, exposing astronauts to microgravity, high levels of radiation, and extended periods of isolation. These stressors affect their health in various ways, many of which scientists are still working to fully understand. But if we are ever to boldly go where no human has gone before, we need to know all the risks before we take the leap. And now new research published Thursday, September 4 in the journal Cell Stem Cell offers clues to another facet of

Lawmakers Panic As They Realize China May Beat the US to the Moon

During a Senate Commerce Committee hearing this week, experts warned that the United States is at risk of China beating it to the Moon as NASA's Artemis program continues to lag behind. Earlier this month, China's lunar exploration program tested its "Lanyue" lunar lander at a facility outside of Beijing, declaring that it's hoping to land the first Chinese astronauts on the Moon before the end of the decade. That's well within the margin of error of NASA's first crewed landing attempt, Artemis

U.S. Risks Losing the Moon to China if NASA’s Artemis Program Falters, Experts Tell Senate

The U.S. is at risk of ceding its lead in the new space race to China, experts told a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Wednesday, September 3, raising serious doubts about NASA’s ability to return American astronauts to the Moon before China. The hearing, titled “There’s a Bad Moon on the Rise,” examined legislative priorities for NASA’s upcoming reauthorization to ensure that the U.S. maintains its leadership in space. The nation’s position is increasingly challenged by China, which has ad

Lull in Falcon Heavy missions opens window for SpaceX to build new landing pads

Remember the first time you saw a SpaceX rocket nail a bullseye landing after hurtling back from space? How about the first time two boosters landed side-by-side, punctuating the inaugural launch of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket with thrilling synchrony? Some of SpaceX's most defining moments happened on a piece of beachfront property at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. This is where SpaceX first landed a reusable Falcon 9 booster coming back from space and, a few years later, land