A tech how-to explains that plugging an external USB drive into a router's USB port and enabling file sharing in the router settings can turn that drive into a makeshift Network Attached Storage (NAS) device accessible to every device on the home network. The guide notes this approach lets users share photos, documents, movies and other files locally without needing a computer to stay powered on, unlike some streaming setups such as Sonos' current folder-sharing method.
engadget.com
· 2026-10-17
A new guide highlights that many iPhone users skip regular backups, often because their data exceeds free iCloud storage limits or because they assume their data rarely changes. It argues that daily backups are important given how often phones are lost, stolen, or damaged, and outlines ways to do this without necessarily paying for more iCloud storage.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-10-17
Firma Power is offering data center operators a way to source power from new wind, solar and battery storage projects rather than defaulting to gas plants. The startup's pitch comes as the U.S. is set to add a record 86 gigawatts of clean energy capacity this year, with many more low-cost projects awaiting connection to the grid.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-10-16
Infino describes how it built a retrieval engine whose full-text, vector and SQL search index lives on S3, GCS or Azure Blob Storage rather than local disk. The company organizes data into Parquet-based 'superfiles' grouped into 'supertables,' each with a manifest and term index, to reduce the number of random reads needed when querying object storage.
infino.ai
· 2026-10-15
When an EV battery is taken out of a car — due to reduced range, a fault, or crash damage — technicians inspect and test it to decide its next stage of life rather than discarding it. Depending on its condition, individual modules may be repaired and the pack reused in another compatible vehicle, or the battery may be repurposed for stationary energy storage or sent for recycling. Severely damaged packs, such as those from total-loss crashes, are harder to salvage.
engadget.com
· 2026-10-13
A tech advisory recommends that buyers of budget Android phones prioritize certain baseline specs: at least a 5.6-inch AMOLED display with 1,000 nits peak brightness, a minimum of 6GB RAM (8GB for gamers), and 128GB storage with 256GB preferred if expandable storage isn't available. It also advises checking processor age and performance reviews before purchasing to avoid sluggish performance.
engadget.com
· 2026-10-13
Data centers generate heat continuously, and researchers are examining ways to capture that excess warmth and store it underground using the earth's stable temperature, so it can later be drawn out to heat buildings during colder months. The approach relies on the fact that ground temperature a few hundred feet down stays near the local yearly average, roughly 50°F, regardless of surface conditions.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-10-12
Research by ecologist Daisy Dent, drawing on long-term forest plots at Barro Colorado and sites in Panama and Brazil, found that naturally regenerating secondary forests can capture up to 11 times more carbon annually than old-growth forest. A 2022 Royal Society study she co-authored found that areas surrounded by rich wildlife can regain old-growth levels of species abundance within decades without any planting, and a 2024 follow-up showed plots with as little as 35% remaining tree cover can regenerate into forest.
technologyreview.com
· 2026-10-12
At POSETTE 2026, Sai Srirampur presented a benchmark comparing a 3.3-billion-row PostgreSQL workload running on baseline gp3 EBS storage versus local NVMe storage. The talk argued that common scaling symptoms—slow ingestion, inconsistent read latency, autovacuum falling behind, and slower checkpoints—often trace back to storage performance rather than Postgres itself, and proposed architecture patterns for running Postgres on local NVMe in production.
clickhouse.com
· 2026-10-12
Flash drives face multiple risks including physical loss, a finite number of write cycles before failure, and 'bit rot,' where stored electrical charges degrade over time and corrupt data. Unlike SSDs, thumb drives can't use TRIM commands to recover worn storage space, and their connectors or controller chips can fail due to impacts, corrosion, or humidity.
engadget.com
· 2026-10-11
A new Wood Mackenzie report finds that four-hour battery storage systems cost less than open-cycle natural gas turbines in all 43 markets surveyed across every continent. The firm projects battery costs will keep falling while gas turbine electricity costs rise, partly due to AI data center developers buying up available turbines and driving procurement waits to two-to-four years, with closed-cycle models backlogged into the early 2030s. Separately, solar was found to be the cheapest new power source in every surveyed market, though tariffs and import restrictions are pressuring prices in North America.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-10-09
Microsoft is changing cloud storage rules for Microsoft 365 Family, Premium, and Pro subscribers, replacing the current 1TB-per-user allotment with a single shared 2TB pool for all users on a plan. The change applies at subscription renewal after May 2, 2027, and some users may receive bonus storage when switched, though Microsoft hasn't detailed eligibility. For a six-person family plan, this cuts total available storage by roughly two-thirds.
tomshardware.com
· 2026-10-09
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