Researchers led by Luiz Rocha deployed standardized collection devices called ARMS (Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures) at various depths—around 10, 50, and 100 meters—at sites including Palau, Guam, the Marshall Islands, and French Polynesia between 2016 and 2018. The stacked-plate structures act as artificial mini-reefs, becoming colonized by larvae of sponges, corals, shrimp, mollusks, and other organisms, which scientists later retrieve and study to compare biodiversity across depths and locations.
A developer has released Offrun, a tool that consolidates management of multiple AI coding agents into a single workspace. The Show HN post includes an example debugging scenario: an upload test that intermittently failed because it checked a file before the upload had finished, fixed by waiting on the upload process itself rather than a fixed timer.
Industry sources describe software engineers increasingly unable to interpret code produced by large language models, with their jobs shifting from writing software to overseeing AI output. Infinity founder Jeremy Nixon and SemiAnalysis' Jordan Nanos cited examples, including OpenAI engineers reportedly unable to explain a GPU kernel generated for DeepSeek, despite the AI's code passing tests and performing correctly.
A Verge editor reports that glasses like Xreal One Pro, along with VR headsets such as Meta Quest, Steam Frame, and Apple Vision Pro, can now display side-by-side 3D content at full 1080p resolution per eye. This addresses a longstanding flaw in older 3D technologies, which split resolution or brightness between the two eyes using polarized or active shutter glasses.
Many states have passed laws requiring disclosure or banning deceptive AI-generated political content, especially close to elections. However, these measures vary widely and often rely on after-the-fact remedies like labeling or litigation rather than preventing fabricated videos from spreading in the first place.
Tim Conners, NASA's former lead propulsion engineer on the Blackbird program in the 1990s, spoke with The War Zone about NASA's apparent work to return SR-71 Tail 844 to flight. The interview follows reporting that satellite imagery showed Tail 844 missing from Armstrong Flight Research Center since at least May, and that NASA has contacted former SR-71 personnel about rejoining the effort. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman had earlier teased a new high-speed, high-altitude X-plane using a silhouette resembling the Blackbird.
A new release of Thoreau BASIC, a modernized dialect of the language, introduces built-in commands for file browsing (GETFILES) and interactive list selection (SELECTBOX) with mouse and keyboard support. It also adds STATEWRITE/STATELOAD for checksummed variable checkpointing, CRC32 and TEXTSTATS utilities, and a SYSTEMINFO$ function reporting CPU, AVX2/SSE2 support and build details. The update also includes JIT improvements for floating-point and complex/quaternion/octonion math, plus a RUN fix to avoid stack growth on restart.
According to the New York Times, Meta has been classifying its massive data center construction projects as experimental 'pilot models' under a decades-old R&D tax credit, allowing it to claim billions in federal tax savings. The company reportedly saved $2 billion in 2024 and nearly $4 billion in its 2025 fiscal year, making it the largest known beneficiary of the credit among public companies, per securities filings cited by the Times.
Google is testing a prototype data center positioned in space to explore running AI workloads beyond Earth's surface. The initiative examines whether solar power and the vacuum of space can support computing infrastructure typically housed in terrestrial facilities.
A 2024 essay explores how different plastics—polyethylene, polypropylene, nylon, glass-fiber-reinforced nylon, and polycarbonate—have distinct physical and chemical personalities, comparing each to human archetypes like Snow White or Arnold Schwarzenegger. It explains their composition, uses (from chemistry beakers to bulletproof windows), and trade-offs such as UV degradation or structural weaknesses, while debunking the marketing term 'polymer' as a euphemism for premium plastic.
Developers have released wpd, an open-source WebP image decoder written in Rust with handwritten assembly for performance-critical routines. The project aims to avoid the memory-safety bugs common in C-based decoders like libwebp, while matching or exceeding its decoding speed. Source code is available on GitHub under halidecx/wpd.
A philosophy-focused essay argues that mainstream tech culture favors a narrow strain of utilitarian thinking associated with Bay Area rationalists, while sidelining broader philosophical inquiry. The author instead explores classic questions about free will and existence, noting that strict scientific determinism—if true—would undercut the basis for morality and personal responsibility.
GoKawiil