Big Mess o' Wires, maker of the Floppy Emu disk emulator, conducted a months-long audit of accumulated hardware failures from quality-assurance rejects and customer returns. Of 68 defective boards examined, 42 traced back to problems with the clock crystal component: 26 boards had no functioning clock at all, and 16 showed erratic behavior at higher speeds. The maker linked this to a supplier substitution made by the contract manufacturer when the usual clock crystal part was out of stock.
American start-ups including Unigrid are developing sodium-ion batteries aiming for fully US-sourced supply chains, unlike lithium-ion batteries where China dominates materials and manufacturing. Unigrid's founder Tan says the company currently sources its sodium-ion cells from China but could shift to US suppliers later. Scientists have raised concerns that chromium-3 used in Unigrid's cathode could form toxic chromium-6 under certain conditions, though Tan and one outside researcher say the risk is manageable and the battery has passed safety certification.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued the Tennessee Valley Authority a construction permit for a BWRX-300 small modular reactor at the Clinch River site in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. It is the first such permit granted for this reactor design in the United States, following an extensive NRC review of TVA's application.
A personal tech history post describes growing up with a Packard Bell 386 SX running MS-DOS, playing games like SimCity 2000, Scorched Earth and Oregon Trail. The author recalls that tinkering with SimCity 2000's saved game files became the moment they first learned about bytes and hexadecimal data on disk.
JLR has revealed the Range Rover Sport Electric, sharing its dual 260-kW motor powertrain with the Range Rover Electric but tuned for sportier performance, including a 4.3-second 0-60 mph time in Dynamic Launch Mode. The SUV uses a 118.5-kWh battery for a claimed WLTP range of up to 374 miles, with 800-volt architecture enabling 136 miles of added range in 10 minutes under ideal conditions; UK pricing starts at £109,810, with US pricing not yet announced.
Mozilla is releasing Firefox 157 with a redesigned interface featuring rounded 'bubble' tabs, a curved address bar, updated icons and colors, and a more unified look across desktop and mobile. The update also adds new themes and wallpapers and revives Compact Mode, which shrinks tabs and toolbars to free up screen space, with an auto-compact option for smaller displays. Mozilla says these visual changes carry no cost to browser performance.
A router will continue to function normally after a manufacturer stops issuing firmware updates, as there is no mechanism that disables the device once support ends. However, without updates, any newly discovered security flaws in the router go unpatched indefinitely, leaving it exposed to potential exploitation.
An open-source project called livenerf has begun a 30-day daily benchmark of Claude Opus 5.5, which launched September 22, 2026, to test long-standing claims that Anthropic quietly degrades models after release. As of September 29, the project has collected 6 of 10 baseline days using a fixed harness, pinned CLI version, and a panel of 2,336 GPQA Diamond and MMLU-Pro questions, with no missed days so far. The first statistical comparison window won't be possible until around October 24, 2026.
Late-stage clinical trial results published in the New England Journal of Medicine show patients on the highest dose of retatrutide lost an average of 25% of body weight after 80 weeks, rising to 30% after 104 weeks. More than a third of participants lost 30% or more of their weight, and the drug also improved knee osteoarthritis pain, sleep apnea symptoms, and cardiometabolic markers including blood pressure and cholesterol.
Samsung has started rolling out its One UI 9 software update, currently reaching the Galaxy S23 series and Z Flip/Z Fold 5 and newer models, with wider availability expected to follow. Users can check for the update via Settings > Software Update, and can schedule automatic downloads for times like charging.
A new peer-reviewed analysis in The BMJ examines digital cycle-tracking apps used by an estimated 50 million people worldwide to monitor menstruation, fertility and 'cycle syncing' habits. The authors, including Tulane's Katharine Lee, say these apps' predictions rely on self-reported bleeding dates rather than actual hormone measurements, making them unreliable for forecasting ovulation or fertile windows, and that they cannot diagnose menstrual disorders or the causes of painful periods.
Jim Cramer argued that investors are too pessimistic about an AI-driven selloff dubbed 'consumer inertia,' triggered by fears that Meta's Muse AI agent could help consumers cancel subscriptions and shop around instead of staying passively loyal. Since Muse launched September 8, stocks including Planet Fitness, Airbnb, Booking Holdings, SiriusXM and Charles Schwab have all fallen sharply. Cramer compared the panic to the earlier 'SaaSpocalypse' selloff in enterprise software stocks, which later recovered as fears of AI disruption proved overstated.
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