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The Future of ‘Star Wars’ May Not Be as Connected as We Expect

One of the best, and worst, things about Star Wars in recent years is just how connected everything has been. It meant characters who may have at first seemed tangential, like Cassian Andor in Rogue One, could be greatly expanded in something like Andor. It also meant audiences who had never watched an animated show like Clone Wars or Rebels might be left confused with the stories in something like Ahsoka. In those cases and others, there always seemed to be some kind of guardrails on what was p

Microsoft Accidentally Replaces Windows 11 Startup Sound With Vista Chime

Microsoft has temporarily transported users back to 2007 this week when the company mistakenly swapped Windows 11's familiar startup chime with the iconic Windows Vista boot sound. The mix-up appeared in a recent Windows 11 Insider Preview build in the Dev Channel. Users who rebooted their systems noticed that instead of the modern Windows 11 tone, they were greeted by Vista's distinct (and now nostalgic) startup sound. Microsoft has since acknowledged the issue, calling it an unintentional ch

Scientists genetically engineer a lethal mosquito STD to combat malaria

Mosquitoes have long been among humanity’s most formidable adversaries, plaguing us for thousands of years and causing more deaths than any other animal. With traditional control methods facing mounting resistance, researchers are seeking innovative ways to combat mosquito-borne disease. Now, entomologists at the University of Maryland have bioengineered a deadly fungus that spreads sexually in Anopheles (malaria-spreading) mosquitoes. The naturally occurring fungus called Metarhizium produces

Microsoft Accidentally Replaces Windows 11 Startup Sound with Vista Chime

Microsoft briefly transported users back to 2007 this week when the company mistakenly swapped Windows 11's familiar startup chime with the iconic Windows Vista boot sound. The mix-up appeared in a recent Windows 11 Insider Preview build in the Dev Channel. Users who rebooted their systems noticed that instead of the modern Windows 11 tone, they were greeted by Vista's distinct (and now nostalgic) startup sound. Microsoft has since acknowledged the issue, calling it an unintentional change and

Deadline day: Startup Battlefield 200 applications close at midnight

These are your final hours to apply to the most iconic pitch competition in tech — Startup Battlefield 200. Battle it out in front of 10,000+ startup leaders, investors, and media at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025. It’s your moment to be seen, funded, and remembered — and maybe even walk away with $100,000 in equity-free funding. This isn’t your average pitch. It’s where the bold go to break out. If your startup has traction, vision, and grit, you’ve got until 11:59 p.m. PT tonight to enter. Submit

A comprehensive list of 2025 tech layoffs

The tech layoff wave is still kicking in 2025. Last year saw more than 150,000 job cuts across 549 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. So far this year, more than 22,000 workers have been the victim of reductions across the tech industry, with a staggering 16,084 cuts taking place in February alone. We’re tracking layoffs in the tech industry in 2025 so you can see the trajectory of the cutbacks and understand the impact on innovation across all types of companies.

Starlink vs. T-Mobile 5G Home Internet: Battle of the Broadband Disruptors

So, what makes Starlink and T-Mobile 5G Home Internet the biggest names in rural broadband? One word: Availability. Both providers offer solid options for rural communities. While Starlink has effectively revolutionized satellite internet with its fleet of low Earth orbit satellites and has reportedly doubled its speeds compared to two years ago. We would still recommend T-Mobile 5G Home Internet. Not only is it a crowd-pleaser, but it's also often favored in customer satisfaction surveys. Acco

Starlink vs. T-Mobile 5G Home Internet: Which Provider Delivers the Best Service?

T-Mobile made headlines by partnering with Starlink for a direct-to-cell mobile service -- effectively broadening T-Mobile's reliability and availability as a cellphone carrier. But in terms of broadband, how do these providers compare? T-Mobile and Starlink are some of the biggest names in rural broadband. T-Mobile's 5G Home Internet is a crowd-pleaser, and is often favored in customer satisfaction surveys, and Starlink has effectively revolutionized satellite internet with its fleet of low Ea

Trump Touts China Trade Deal: Tariffs Back to Square One, Still Historically High

Greg Baker/Getty Images President Donald Trump last week took to Truth Social to tout a new tentative trade agreement with China, albeit one that only really takes things back to square one and leaves the tariff rate against Beijing at historically high levels. "WE ARE GETTING A TOTAL OF 55% TARIFFS, CHINA IS GETTING 10%," Trump's post to Truth Social read, with a later post adding, "President Xi [Jinping] and I are going to work closely together to open up China to American Trade. This would

Show HN: Seastar – Build and dependency manager for C/C++ with Cargo's features

Seastar Seastar is a fast, extensible build system for C, C++, and maybe soon, Rust and Zig as well. I believe that it should be easy to make, prototype, and iterate upon designs. While C is still one of our most widely used languages, it makes it hard to create programs easily, especially for beginners. Instead, Seastar aims to be more like Rust's tooling with cargo , but supporting seamless compilation across more languages. Running Seastar is very simple to build and run. Assuming you have

How to modify Starlink Mini to run without the built-in WiFi router

The Starlink Mini terminal is designed as a compact, all-in-one solution with an integrated Wi-Fi router. While this design is ideal for typical consumer use, certain applications—such as custom networking setups, embedded installations, or power-constrained environments—may benefit from removing the internal router entirely. In this article, I’ll detail the process of physically removing the built-in Wi-Fi router board from the Starlink Mini, allowing the terminal to operate solely via Ethernet

Tanks, guns and face-painting

Of all the jarring things I’ve witnessed on the National Mall, nothing will beat the image of the first thing I saw after I cleared security at the Army festival: a child, sitting at the controls of an M119A3 Howitzer, being instructed by a soldier on how to aim it, as his red-hatted parents took a photo with the Washington Monument in the background. The primary stated reason for the Grand Military Parade is to celebrate the US Army’s 250th birthday. The second stated reason is to use the even

Starlink Speeds Are Improving, But Only 17% of Customers Get the FCC’s Minimum

Starlink speeds have doubled in the past two years, according to a new report from the speed test site Ookla. (Disclosure: Ookla is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.) Median download speeds from the satellite internet provider have steadily ticked up over the past few years, going from 53.95 megabits per second in 2022 to 104.71Mbps today. That’s an impressive feat considering Starlink added about 5 million customers over the same period and recently passed the 6 million mar

Astronomers Just Took the First-Ever Picture of the Bottom of the Sun

Astronomers have gotten an unprecedented view of the bottom of the Sun. On Wednesday, the European Space Agency shared images that show, in all its tumultuous glory, our star's secretive south pole. Captured by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft, the stunning achievement has paved the way towards solving some of the Sun's most abiding mysteries, and could even provide us the insight needed to predict some of the star's volatile behavior that can disrupt our modern infrastructure on Earth. "Today we

College Dropout Entrepreneur Boasts That Peter Thiel's Book Is "Probably the Best Book I've Read, and I've Only Read a Few Pages"

Ever since college dropouts Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak began pedaling the romantic tale of founding Apple in Jobs' parents' Los Altos garage, college-age tech bros have longed to follow in their footsteps. But there's just one tiny thorn: the "founder's story" of late-night struggles and coffee-fueled breadboarding is mostly a capitalist fairy tale. Still, it's a mythos tech billionaire overlord Peter Thiel is all too eager to stoke. His empire is built on image — even the stereotypical "evil

AI agent startups at Y Combinator’s Spring ’25 Demo Day

Priyanka Shrestha of Galen AI, Xavier (Tianhao) Chi of Mbodi AI, and Vaibhav Dubey of Plexe. Priyanka Shrestha of Galen AI, Xavier (Tianhao) Chi of Mbodi AI, and Vaibhav Dubey of Plexe. Galen AI, Mbodi AI, Plexe lighning bolt icon An icon in the shape of a lightning bolt. lighning bolt icon An icon in the shape of a lightning bolt. Impact Link Have an account? Log in . This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Christmas ca

Mel Brooks returns from the retirement home to save a galaxy 'very, very, very, very, far away'

Editor's take: If you're around my age, chances are you grew up loving at least one Mel Brooks classic. Young Frankenstein was my personal favorite, and Spaceballs cracked me up with its irreverent jabs at Star Wars and other sci-fi hits of the era. Now, nearly four decades later, Brooks is back with a sequel. After nearly 40 years, Mel Brooks is finally making a follow-up to his classic Star Wars spoof, Spaceballs. The nonagenarian announced the project with a hilarious clip parodying the open

You Can Tell When War Is Breaking Out Because the Pentagon's Pizza Orders Spike Drastically

You Can Tell When War Is Breaking Out Because the Pentagon's Pizza Orders Spike Drastically "Who says pie charts aren't useful?" Pizza Premonition A flurry of activity at pizza delivery outlets near the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, is a surprisingly accurate predictor of war, as hungry military leadership hunkers down to monitor unfolding military activities. As painstakingly documented by X account Pentagon Pizza Report, a "busier than usual" indicator on the Google Maps profile of the

Hasbro’s ‘Star Wars’ SDCC Exclusive Is the Ultimate ‘Revenge of the Sith’ Set

Dark side, light side, it doesn’t matter. This year’s Hasbro Star Wars exclusive at San Diego Comic-Con is certainly the chosen one, and we’re going to take the high ground to acquire it. Celebrating 20 years of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Hasbro just revealed a six-inch Black Series set, exclusively for release at San Diego Comic-Con, of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi and their epic lightsaber duel over the lava on Mustafar. Retailing for $110, the set will first be availa

Startups Weekly: No sign of pause

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. You’d think WWDC would cause a lull in startup news. But not in June, when everyone is eager to announce their latest deals — or even to go public. Most interesting startup stories from the week Image Credits:Nasdaq This week brought us many reminders that no startup journey is linear — but the next billion-dollar idea may only be one click

The Real-World Places Behind ‘Andor’ Season 2’s Architectural Marvels

Andor, the live-action Star Wars prequel series created by Tony Gilroy and starring Diego Luna, concluded its second and final season last month. Spanning the years prior to the events of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the series has garnered massive praise from Star Wars fans and critics alike for its deft storytelling, stirring lead performances, and majestic setpieces. This is especially true in the show’s second season, which sees the former thief-turned-rebel-fighter on the run for his life

CBP's Predator Drone Flights Over LA Are a Dangerous Escalation

On Wednesday, United States Customs and Border Protection confirmed to 404 Media that it has been flying Predator drones over Los Angeles amid the LA protests. The military drones, a CBP statement said, “are supporting our federal law enforcement partners in the Greater Los Angeles area, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with aerial support of their operations.” State-level law enforcement agencies across the US use various types of drones and other vehicles, like helicopters, to c

I found a Linux distro that combines the best parts of other operating systems (and it works)

Jack Wallen/ZDNET There are so many Linux distributions on the market, and they range from the command line only all the way to functioning works of art. The majority of distros fall somewhere in the middle, of course, and that's perfectly fine because most users prefer a blend of aesthetics and functionality. That's why the likes of Linux Mint, ZorinOS, elementaryOS, and Ubuntu are so popular. But every once in a while, a team releases an update to its distribution that reminds you that Linux

How Much Will the iPhone 17 Cost? Is a $2,400 Tariff-Fueled Price Tag Realistic?

There isn't just one thing deciding how much you'll pay for the new iPhone when it's released this fall. No, there are many, many reasons you'll likely pay a higher price for the rumored iPhone 17. After a long, dizzying past few months of President Donald Trump raising, lowering and pausing tariffs on various countries, he announced this week that he'd made a deal with China, setting the effective tariff rate to 55%. He also mentioned Wednesday that he'd be open to extending the July 8 deadlin

There's a Giant Problem With SpaceX's Starlink Satellites

Astronomers' attempts to peer into the earliest reaches of the universe could be threatened by thousands of SpaceX Starlink satellites leaking radio emissions that ruin observations made with highly sensitive telescopes. As New Scientist reports, a team of researchers led by Curtin University radio astronomy professor Steven Tingay tracked the signals of almost 2,000 Starlink satellites, with the help of a prototype telescope from the Square Kilometre Array, which is currently under constructio

Spaceballs 2 Will See Rick Moranis Return as Dark Helmet

Moviemaking icon Mel Brooks and Amazon MGM Studios have published a teaser trailer to announce that Spaceballs 2 is moving full steam ahead with plans to premiere in 2027 – and it sounds like Rick Moranis is coming back as Dark Helmet, too. A trailer for the sequel to the classic '80s sci-fi Star Wars parody arrived today. Although it mostly comes with a special message from Brooks himself and a familiar text crawl that pokes fun at the long, long list of sequels that have come to theaters in t

The First ‘Spaceballs 2’ Teaser Confirms a Crucial Returning Star

Mel Brooks is really taking this Spaceballs thing seriously. In the original film, one of his characters, Yogurt, was a parody of Yoda, the Star Wars Jedi Master who lived to be almost 1,000. Well, now we know Brooks has been going all in on character preparation and, at the age of 99, will officially reprise Yogurt for the long-awaited sequel, set for release 40 years after the original. Here’s a hilarious teaser making it all official. I told you we’d be back pic.twitter.com/RnoklPqBX6 — Mel

‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Will End With a Fifth and Final Season

The adventures of the Enterprise are coming to an end once more. With just over a month to go to the broadcast of its third season, Paramount has confirmed that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will end with its fifth season. The newly-confirmed fifth season will run for six episodes, down from Strange New Worlds‘ typical 10-episode seasons. No expected release window for the final season was confirmed, however the show’s fourth season, already announced back in April 2024, is currently in product

Kickstarter-funded films are coming to Tubi

is a reporter focusing on film, TV, and pop culture. Before The Verge, he wrote about comic books, labor, race, and more at io9 and Gizmodo for almost five years. Tubi’s next move to expand its streaming catalog sounds like a win for the indie movie set. Today, Tubi (which is owned by Fox) announced that it is partnering with Kickstarter to distribute a number of films funded on the crowdfunding platform. Beginning this fall, more than 20 movies “that uniquely resonate with Tubi fandoms” will

How AI sales startup Landbase nabbed Ashton Kutcher’s Sound Ventures to lead its $30M Series A

When Daniel Saks was working as a co-CEO of the previous startup he co-founded, AppDirect, billionaire Michael Dell sent him a LinkedIn message asking for a meeting. Dell famously likes to cold-contact founders of startups he finds interesting. “I thought it was fake,” Saks tells TechCrunch. But he replied anyway. “So I’m getting ready for this call, thinking there’s no way it’s Michael Dell. And I’m almost kind of laughing about it. It actually was Michael.” That interaction taught him a less