Uber engineers describe a new mechanism built into shared infrastructure that makes retries 'context-aware,' allowing services to distinguish between errors originating locally versus those merely passed through from downstream dependencies. The system aims to replace uniform, blanket retry policies with conditional logic that adapts based on the severity of degradation across Uber's deep, fan-out-heavy microservice call chains.
SpaceX has redesigned its Starship engine, the Raptor, from a version covered in exposed pipes and wires into the compact Raptor 3 that first flew in May. Despite looking simpler, the newer engine produces roughly 35% more thrust than the original Raptor 1, prompting some observers to initially doubt images of the stripped-down design were genuine.
A new ternary-quantized model, Ternary Bonsai 2 27B, has been released, built on Qwen3.8 27B and using {-1,0,+1} weights with FP16 group scaling to shrink the model to about 1.76 effective bits per weight and a 5.9GB footprint. Despite being over 9x smaller than its full-precision counterpart, it retains 98.2% of aggregate benchmark performance across reasoning, coding, vision and agentic tasks, and supports a 262K-token context window under an Apache 2.0 license.
Roku introduced more than 30 channel bundles combining services like Starz, HBO Max, AMC Plus and its own Howdy platform, offering discounts of up to 33% off monthly rates compared to subscribing separately. The bundles are permanent offerings, not limited-time promotions, and are purchasable through Roku devices, the mobile app or the Roku Channel website.
In a Fast Company discussion featuring Chief CEO Alison Moore, Moms First's Reshma Saujani, and Mama Glow's Latham Thomas, panelists described how leadership roles and parenting demands have both intensified, pushing accomplished working mothers toward burnout. The conversation, moderated by Shalene Gupta, questioned whether corporate structures were ever built to let women hold both senior positions and caregiving responsibilities without sacrifice.
A retrospective look at Nobuhiko Obayashi's 1977 film 'House' highlights its surreal blend of horror and comedy, following schoolgirls terrorized by a haunted, living home. The piece praises the film's boundary-pushing, low-budget special effects and its enduring cult status among genre fans.
A product commentary argues that consumer financial apps repeatedly default to building generic 'document hub' and 'notifications centre' features to satisfy internal stakeholders and legacy compliance needs. The author says these features start simple but balloon into complex, Google Drive- or Gmail-like systems requiring ongoing maintenance and security work. The piece frames refusing to build such features as one of the most important product decisions a team can make.
The upcoming C++26 standard, via proposal P2809R3, changes the language so that trivial infinite loops like 'while(true);' are no longer undefined behavior. Previously, compilers such as Clang could legally assume such loops terminate and optimize them away entirely, sometimes causing code after the loop to execute unexpectedly. Because the fix was also accepted as a defect report, compiler vendors may backport it to earlier C++ standard modes too.
A newly published Nix flake automates installing Microsoft 365 (click-to-run Office) on Linux without a virtual machine, using the umu-launcher tool alongside GE-Proton, the gaming-focused Wine build from Valve and GloriousEggroll, with Bottles' ProtoSoda Wine core offered as an alternative runner. The project doesn't bundle any Microsoft software itself; instead its ms365 script fetches the Office Deployment Tool and Office files at install time, requiring users to supply their own Microsoft 365 license and sign in. The approach builds on prior community work, including Bottles' reports of Office 365 running on Wine and older ruados/eylenburg registry and DLL tweaks.
Researchers monitoring the area around North Korea's underground nuclear testing site have logged 1,399 local earthquakes since the country began detonating nuclear devices there. Scientists say this rate of seismic activity is unprecedented for the region compared to historical records.
Computer Reset, a used-computer store and warehouse founded by Richard Byron in the mid-1980s in northeast Dallas, was a major source for vintage IBM hardware including PCjr units and PS/2 systems. The business shut down in 2019, and its reputation grew afterward when several well-known YouTubers filmed videos exploring its overstuffed inventory.
At a Fast Company-moderated discussion, executives from cannabis brand Cann, telehealth provider Folx Health, and biotech firm Daré Bioscience described how they built profitable companies in sectors long considered taboo—cannabis, gender-affirming care, and sexual wellness. The panelists, including Cann cofounder Jake Bullock, Folx CEO Liana Guzmán, and Daré CEO Sabrina Martucci Johnson, discussed operating amid funding gaps, regulatory hurdles, and public backlash.