Microsoft is overhauling Windows 11 search to prioritize local apps, files, and settings over web results while removing ads, promotions, MSN/Bing clutter, and other distractions. "You've have been asking for search that is faster, more relevant, and easier to use -- whether you're opening an app, finding a file, or changing a setting," Microsoft says in a new blog post. "Because the Windows Search Box is where many people start, we focused first on making results more dependable, easier to scan, and clearer before you click." Windows Central reports: The company is highlighting several key improvements, including clearer results that does a better job at showing why a search result is appearing when a query has been typed, alongside prioritizing local results before reaching out to the web.

Search is also getting better at handling things like typos, which should help surface the right results even when the user misspells an app or file. The search home pane will no longer show MSN or Bing content, and promotional content and ads will no longer appear in search results.

These upgrades are now rolling out to Windows Insiders in the Experimental Channel, and are expected to roll out to all Windows 11 users later this year. Insiders may not see the changes right away as they are rolling out in waves. The full list of changes can be found here.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Humanoid robots have surgically removed the gallbladders from living animals in an unprecedented medical experiment -- but not as autonomous machines capable of replacing human doctors. Instead, skilled human surgeons remotely controlled the robots' movements in a new example of human-robot teamups. The teleoperated humanoid robots completed two minimally invasive surgeries by removing gallbladders from live pigs during a preclinical trial that was published in the journal Nature. If this approach eventually proves clinically ready for human patients, surgeons could use such humanoid robots to remotely perform robotic-assisted surgical care in smaller hospitals and clinics that lack the resources to install specialized but expensive surgical robots.

The experiment used a Unitree G1 humanoid robot made by leading Chinese robotics company Unitree. The cheapest baseline G1 model with effectively non-functional hands has a starting price of $13,500 and shipping costs ranging between $300 and $1,200, whereas adding crucial upgrades such as dexterous robotic hands can easily push the cost beyond $67,000. But such humanoid robots made in China are still significantly cheaper than specialized surgical robots like Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci Surgical System, which can cost anywhere between half a million dollars and several million dollars. The specialized surgical robots can also weigh about 1,800 pounds and take up considerably more space in operating rooms. By comparison, the Unitree humanoid robots, standing at 5 feet tall and weighing just 60 pounds, may be more suitable for smaller clinical settings in remote areas.

Microsoft has quietly extended free Windows 10 security updates for consumers by another year, pushing the Extended Security Updates (ESU) program's end date from October 12, 2026, to October 12, 2027. "The ESU support page was updated with that date, and Microsoft's blog post on the program has a new editor's note confirming the change," reports Ars Technica. From the report: The prevalence of Windows across so many devices and form factors has given Microsoft a massive customer base for decades, but it has also stymied the company's efforts to roll out new operating systems. Microsoft famously extended the support window for Windows XP numerous times throughout the 2010s as it became apparent that millions of PCs would never be updated. Windows 10 isn't quite as entrenched as XP was, but it has still been a slog getting people to upgrade to Windows 11 even nearly five years after release.

Unlike many past Windows updates, Windows 11 required some users to buy new PCs with specific CPU technologies and a Trusted Platform Module (TPM). Microsoft was widely criticized for excluding perfectly serviceable PCs, and that's turning into a problem in 2026. The AI-driven shortage of storage and memory has made system upgrades vastly more expensive, potentially slowing upgrades. Some have also avoided Windows 11 due to Microsoft's intense focus on AI features.

The result is that Windows 10 remains stubbornly popular. According to StatCounter data, Windows 10 is still running on about 26 percent of PCs, while Windows 11 sits at 72 percent. That means there are still hundreds of millions of active Windows 10 installs, but those machines will be up to date for at least an additional year.

Google has begun rolling out Android 17, the June Pixel Feature Drop, and Wear OS 7 simultaneously across supported Pixel phones and watches. Highlights include floating app bubbles, improved foldable multitasking and gaming, tighter location and contact permissions, stronger lost-device protections, new Pixel AI tools, and up to 10% better Pixel Watch battery life. PhoneArena reports: Pixel owners are the clear winners, since everything here reaches Pixel first and a lot of it goes back to the Pixel 6. Fold owners get the most toys, with the Bubble Bar and foldable gaming mode built for the big screen. Watch wearers get the quietly important upgrade. Better battery and Live Updates make an everyday wearable easier to rely on, especially if you keep it on overnight. Google's latest Pixel Drop combines several AI-powered tools with a broader slate of Android 17 upgrades. Pixel owners gain Lyria 3 for generating music from text or images, Gemini Omni for creating custom video clips, enhanced call translation and screening, AirDrop-compatible Quick Share, expanded Magic Cue support, and conversational photo editing.

Android 17 builds on those additions with floating app Bubbles, selfie-camera Screen Reactions, and a split-screen gaming mode for foldables, while also strengthening privacy and security with more granular location and contact permissions, improved lost-device protection, tighter PIN-guessing limits, and enhanced threat detection.

Other additions include expanded parental controls, separate assistant volume and app memory settings, and an option to hide app names for greater privacy.

You can read more about everything new in Android 17 in Google's blog post.

Simon Ritter joined Sun Microsystems in 1996 and spent time working in both Java development and consultancy. He's now written an opinion piece for InfoWorld warning that "Between 2029 and 2032, every currently supported long-term support (LTS) version of Java will reach end-of-support within a single three-year window."

That's Java 17 in 2029, Java 8 in 2030, Java 21 in 2031, and Java 11 in 2032... On paper, this looks like a manageable upgrade cycle. In practice, it creates a collision of timelines that most enterprises have failed to forecast. Organizations attempting to modernize incrementally — moving application by application, version by version — are operating on a model that the calendar has already rendered obsolete... [W]hen every major Java version expires in the same compressed window, sequential planning collapses. By the time this becomes obvious, organizations will be forced into reactive mode, making rushed decisions under extreme pressure.

For organizations planning traditional stepwise upgrades — Java 8 to Java 11 to Java 17 to Java 21 — this convergence elevates a routine maintenance task into a structural crisis. Enterprises with large Java estates will be forced to upgrade multiple applications across multiple versions simultaneously to maintain security compliance and business continuity.
"Parallel modernization requires parallel capacity — something most organizations haven't budgeted for," he points out. "This explains why traditional approaches struggle to scale."

A leaker with a strong Apple rumor track record says a touchscreen MacBook is "100% confirmed. If true, it would mark a major reversal for Apple, which has long argued that the Mac is built for indirect input rather than reaching up to touch a vertical screen. MacRumors reports: Instant Digital has a good track record for Apple rumors and has provided some strikingly accurate information in the past, so it's always worth noting what they have to say about Apple's plans. The claim is also backed by several recent reports. [...] Touchscreen support is expected to be one of several major upgrades coming to Apple's next-generation high-end MacBook Pro models. Other rumored features include M6 Pro and M6 Max chips, an OLED display, a Dynamic Island (i.e., no notch), and a thinner design. The new laptops could also adopt MacBook Ultra branding.

Notably, macOS 27 Golden Gate also introduces a more touch-friendly interface, since Apple's Sidecar feature now allows users to tap and interact with macOS interface elements using a finger on their iPad. Apple apparently is not going to advertise the new MacBook Pro/Ultra as a touch-first device like the iPad -- it will be "touch-friendly, not touch-first," according to [Bloomberg's Mark Gurman]. In that sense, Apple will let customers use touch and mouse gestures interchangeably for all functions. Further reading: Steve Jobs Was Wrong About Touchscreen Laptops (2012)

Dell has introduced a redesigned $699 XPS 13 aimed squarely at Apple's budget MacBook Neo, offering a premium aluminum design, touch display, backlit keyboard, Wi-Fi 7, 512GB of base storage, and various other configuration options. Dell's machine costs more than Apple's entry model but tries to justify the difference with lighter weight, better display specs, and upgrade paths Apple doesn't offer. "The XPS 13 begins at $699 -- students can purchase it for $599 -- while the MacBook Neo costs $599 and drops to $499 for education buyers," notes Bloomberg. From the report: Dell's product allows for more configuration, with up to 32GB of memory compared with the Neo's nonupgradeable 8GB of unified memory. Its display can also produce a wider spectrum of colors and supports refresh rates up to 120 hertz, while Apple reserves its best screens for the pricier MacBook Pro line.

The inclusion of a backlit keyboard should allow for easier typing in dark conditions. Dell has also tossed in other nice-to-have upgrades over the Neo like more robust Wi-Fi 7 wireless networking. As for battery life, Dell is touting "up to 17 hours of streaming" versus a comparable 16 hours on the Neo.

Still, the XPS comes with compromises of its own: Unlike the Neo, there's no built-in headphone jack, which means owners will need to rely on its quad-speaker audio system, use Bluetooth earbuds or plug a headphone adapter into one of the two USB-C ports. You can learn more via Dell.com.

Apple just registered a new subdomain record: genai.apple.com.

The domain was spotted by a MacRumors contributing researcher, and though it doesn't yet lead to a live web page, they believe it's tied to Apple's annual developers conference WWDC which starts June 8, "where the company has promised to announce 'AI advancements' across its software platforms."

The blog 9to5Mac speculates that "All signs point to WWDC 2026 being Apple's major AI renaissance, where the company will live up to the promises it made back at WWDC 2024, as well as a few additional new announcements." [I]it goes without saying that this is probably related to Apple's upcoming generative AI announcements at WWDC... Siri should finally be able to understand more personal context, have on screen awareness, and be able to take action in apps for you. This'll finally be made possible thanks to Apple's new partnership with Google, where Apple will be using Gemini-diffused models hosted on Private Cloud Compute to power Siri... Apple will also reportedly be introducing a new Siri app. This'll allow you to access your previous Siri conversations, as well as have text-based conversations with Siri.

Other Apple Intelligence upgrades coming at WWDC 2026 include the ability to generate wallet passes from physical tickets, new editing features in the Photos app, and additional functionality for Visual Intelligence...

Microsoft is launching three new Intel-powered Surface devices for businesses: the Surface Pro 12, Surface Laptop 8, and a smaller 13-inch Surface Laptop model. These new machines come equipped with newer Intel chips, a few business-focused upgrades, and notably higher starting prices. "The high pricing of these three new Surface devices is a sign of things to come for whatever consumer models Microsoft is planning this year," notes The Verge. From the report: This time around Microsoft is refreshing its Surface Pro and Surface Laptop models with Intel's latest Core Ultra Series 3 processors first, ahead of similar models with Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X2 processors later this year. The new Surface Pro 12, or as Microsoft calls it the Surface Pro for Business 13-inch (12th Edition), will be available for businesses today, starting at an eye-watering $1,949.99. The base model will include an Intel Core Ultra 5 processor, 16GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and the regular 13-inch PixelSense LCD display.

Businesses will have to pay extra for models with Intel's Core Ultra 7 processor, up to 64GB of RAM, and up to 1TB of storage. The top spec Surface Pro 12 with a Core Ultra 7, 64GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage will be priced at $4,399.99, and there are also OLED screen options and models with 5G connectivity. The Surface Pro 12 5G starts at $2,249.99, with a Core Ultra 5, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. [...] Microsoft is also launching two new versions of the Surface Laptop for businesses today. The Surface Laptop 8, or Surface Laptop for Business 13.8 or 15-inch (8th Edition) as Microsoft calls it, will also be available with a range of Intel's Core Ultra Series 3 chips. It launches alongside a smaller 13-inch model, which is confusingly labeled the Surface Laptop for Business 13-inch (1st Edition).

The 13.8-inch model starts at $1,949.99, and includes Intel's Core Ultra 5 processor, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. While Surface devices for businesses have typically had higher pricing than consumer models, the $1,949.99 starting price for a Surface Laptop 8 is almost double the original price of the Surface Laptop 7. RAMageddon really has come for Microsoft's Surface Pro and Surface Laptop devices, after recent price increases meant the existing consumer models are now $500 more expensive than their original starting price. The max configuration for the 13.8-inch Surface Pro 8 will include a Core Ultra 7, 64GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage for $4,299.99. A similar version of the 15-inch model (with an x7 processor) will be priced at $4,499.99.

SpaceX has detailed major Starship V3 upgrades ahead of a launch targeted as early as May 19. The changes are meant to move Starship closer to its core goals: rapid reuse, Starlink deployment, orbital refueling, and eventually Moon and Mars missions. Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Teslarati: Here is an explicit, broken-down list of the key changes, first starting with the changes to Super Heavy V3:

- Grid Fin Redesign: Reduced from four fins to three. Each fin is now 50% larger and stronger, repositioned for better catching and lifting performance. Fins are lowered on the booster to reduce heat exposure during hot staging, with hardware moved inside the fuel tank for protection.
- Integrated Hot Staging: Eliminates the old disposable interstage shield. The booster dome is now directly exposed to upper-stage engine ignition, protected by tank pressure and steel shielding. Interstage actuators retract after separation.
- New Fuel Transfer System: Massive redesign of the fuel transfer tube -- roughly the size of a Falcon 9 first stage -- enables simultaneous startup of all 33 Raptors for faster, more reliable flip maneuvers.
- Engine Bay/Thermal Protection: Engine shrouds removed entirely; new shielding added between engines. Propulsion and avionics are more tightly integrated. CO? fire suppression system deleted for a simpler, lighter aft section.
- Propellant Loading Improvements: Switched from one quick disconnect to two separate systems for added redundancy and reduced pad complexity.

Next, we have the changes to Starship V3:

- Completely Redesigned Propulsion System: Clean-sheet redesign supports new Raptor startup, larger propellant volume, and an improved reaction control system while reducing trapped or leaked propellant risk.
- Aft Section Simplification: Fluid and electrical systems rerouted; engine shrouds and large aft cavity deleted.
- Flap Actuation Upgrade: Changed from two actuators per flap to one actuator with three motors for better redundancy, mass efficiency, and lower cost.
- Faster Starlink Deployment: Upgraded PEZ dispenser enables quicker satellite release.
- Long-Duration Spaceflight Capability: New systems for long orbital coasts, orbital refueling, cryogenic fluid management, vacuum-insulated header tanks, and high-voltage cryogenic recirculation.
- Ship-to-Ship Docking + Refueling: Four docking drogues and dedicated propellant transfer connections added to support in-space refueling architecture.
- Avionics Upgrades: 60 custom avionics units with integrated batteries, inverters, and high-voltage systems (9 MW peak power). New multi-sensor navigation for precision autonomous flight. RF sensors measure propellant in microgravity. ~50 onboard camera views and 480 Mbps Starlink connectivity for low-latency communications. "Believe it or not, there's more," writes schwit1. "Two years ago, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever flown was Starship V1. Last year, it was Starship V2. V3 is about to become the biggest and most powerful rocket ever flown -- but don't worry, the company already has plans for V4."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Skyrocketing hard drive and storage costs caused by the AI data center boom are making it more expensive and more difficult for digital archivists, academics, Wikipedia, and hobby data hoarders to save data and archive the internet. Specific drives favored by some high profile organizations like the Internet Archive have become far more expensive or are difficult to find at all, archivists said. Over the last several months, prices for both consumer level and enterprise solid state drives, hard drives, and other types of storage have skyrocketed. As an example, a 2TB external Samsung SSD I purchased last fall for $159 now costs $575. PC Part Picker, a website that tracks the average price of different types of drives, shows a universal increase in storage prices starting in about October of last year. Prices of many of the drives it tracks have doubled or increased by more than 150 percent, and at some stores SSDs and hard drives are simply sold out. There is now even a secondary market for some SSDs, with people scalping them on eBay and elsewhere.

Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive and the Wayback Machine, the most important archiving projects in the history of the internet, told 404 Media that the skyrocketing costs of storage is "a very real issue costing us time and money." "We have found that the preferred 28-30TB drives are just not available or at very high price," Kahle said. "We gather over 100 terabytes of new materials each day, and we have over 210 Petabytes of materials already archived on machines that need continuous upgrades and maintenance, so we need to constantly get new hard drives." "We are fortunate to have an active community that donates to the Archive, and we are also looking for help from hard drive manufacturers in these difficult times. We are always looking for more help," he added. "So far we have ways to work around these shortages, but it is a very real issue causing us time and money."

The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia and various other projects, including Wikimedia Commons, an open repository of royalty free media, told 404 Media that the cost of storage has become a concern for the foundation's projects as well. "With over 65 million articles on Wikipedia alone, access to server and storage capacity is vital to us. We've certainly seen price increases since the end of 2025. These price increases are of concern to us, as with every other player in the industry. We see the primary impact in the purchase of memory and hard drives but also in terms of lead times on server deliveries and our capacity to place future orders," a Wikimedia Foundation spokesperson told us. "The Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit, and as such how we allocate budget is very carefully considered. We maintain our own data centers to serve our users from all over the world. We're putting workarounds in place where we can, mainly involving being smart with how we prioritize investment in hardware, building in flexibility as well as extending the life of existing hardware where possible."

Western Digital, one of the largest manufacturers of hard drives and other storage systems, said that it has essentially sold out of its 2026 inventory to enterprise clients, many of which run data centers. Micron, which made RAM and SSDs under the brand name Crucial, has exited the consumer market altogether because "AI-driven growth in the data center has led to a surge in demand for memory and storage. Micron has made the difficult decision to exit the Crucial consumer business in order to improve supply and support for our larger, strategic customers in faster-growing segments."

Google's Pixel 11 lineup could see RAM cuts or lower starting configurations because of the global memory shortage, with leaks suggesting the base model may drop from 12GB to 8GB while Pro models could add 12GB versions below the current 16GB tier. The Verge reports: There will be 16GB configurations available for each, but adding a lower-spec model could mean the 16GB version is getting a price hike. However, the silver lining is that the specs from MysticLeaks also include camera upgrades and brighter displays for the Pro models. The RAM shortage is pushing other phone makers, including Samsung, to raise prices, too.

SpaceNews reports: Blue Origin's New Glenn suffered a malfunction of its second stage on the rocket's third flight April 19, stranding its payload in an unrecoverable "off-nominal" orbit and dealing the company a setback as it seeks to increase its flight rate... AST SpaceMobile had planned to launch 45 to 60 satellites this year for its D2D constellation, but BlueBird 7 is the first to launch since BlueBird 6 launched on an Indian LVM3 rocket in December.
AST SpaceMobile still expects to have 45 satellites in orbit by the end of the year, the article notes. (In an earnings call in March, AST SpaceMobile's CEO had promised they'd soon start "stacking" satellites, "batched in groups of either three, four, six or eight in a single launch.") He'd added that "To support our launch cadence during 2026, we expect the New Glenn booster to be reused every 30 days or less..."

There's some good news there, SpaceNews points out, since today saw the first successful reflight of a New Glenn first stage rocket: The booster, called "Never Tell Me The Odds" by Blue Origin, touched down on the company's landing platform, Jacklyn, in the Atlantic Ocean nearly nine and a half minutes after liftoff. The booster launched NASA's ESCAPADE Mars mission on the NG-2 flight in November. However, the booster reuse on NG-3 was only partial since the stage's biggest component, its BE-4 engines, was new. "With our first refurbished booster we elected to replace all seven engines and test out a few upgrades including a thermal protection system on one of the engine nozzles," Dave Limp, chief executive of Blue Origin, said in an April 13 social media post. "We plan to use the engines we flew for NG-2 on future flights."
The satellite will now be "de-orbited", AST SpaceMobile said in a statement. (They added that "The cost of the satellite is expected to be recovered under the company's insurance policy.")

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.

Cloudflare is accelerating its post-quantum security plans and now aims to make its entire platform fully post-quantum secure by 2029. "The updated timeline follows new developments in quantum computing research that suggest current cryptographic standards could be broken sooner than previously expected," reports SiliconANGLE. From the report: The decision by Cloudflare to move its post-quantum security roadmap forward comes after Google LLC and research from Oratomic demonstrated significant advances in algorithms and hardware capable of breaking widely used encryption methods such as RSA-2048 and elliptic curve cryptography. [...] The company said progress across three key areas -- quantum hardware, error correction and quantum algorithms -- is advancing in parallel and compounding overall capability. Improvements in areas such as neutral atom architectures and more efficient error correction are reducing the resources required to break encryption, while algorithmic advances are lowering computational complexity. [...]

Cloudflare has already deployed post-quantum encryption across a large portion of its network and reports that more than half of human traffic it processes now uses post-quantum key agreement. The company plans to expand support for post-quantum authentication in 2026, followed by broader deployment across its network and products through 2028. By 2029, Cloudflare said, it expects all of its services to be fully post-quantum secure, with those services being available by default across its platform, without requiring customer action or additional cost as part of the company's commitment to security upgrades. Google said it plans to accelerate its post-quantum encryption migration target to 2029.

Nine days ago Microsoft released a non-security "preview" update for Windows 11 — not mandatory for the average Windows user, notes ZDNet, "but rather as optional, more for IT admins and power users who want to test them."

TechRepublic adds that the update "was to bring 'production-ready improvements' and generally ensure system stability by optimizing different Windows services." So it's ironic that some (but not all) users reported instead that the update "blocks users at the door, refusing to install or crashing midway through the process."

"It apparently impacted enough people to force Microsoft to take action," writes ZDNet. "Microsoft paused and then pulled the update," and then Tuesday released a new update "designed to replace the glitchy one. This one includes all the new features and improvements from the previous preview update, but also fixes the installation issues that clobbered that update."

Meanwhile, as Windows 11 version 24H2 approaches its end of life this October, Microsoft is now force-updating users to the latest version, reports BleepingComputer: "The machine learning-based intelligent rollout has expanded to all devices running Home and Pro editions of Windows 11, version 24H2 that are not managed by IT departments," Microsoft said in a Monday update to the Windows release health dashboard... "No action is required, and you can choose when to restart your device or postpone the update."
Neowin reports: The good news is that the update from version 24H2 to 25H2 is a minor enablement package, as the two operating systems share the same codebase. As such, the update won't take long, and you should not encounter any disruptions, compatibility issues, or previously unseen bugs... Microsoft recently promised to implement big changes in how Windows Update works, including the ability to postpone updates for as long as you want. However, Microsoft has yet to clarify if that includes staying on a release beyond its support period.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader Ol Olsoc for sharing the news.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Today at a hearing of the Colorado Senate Business, Labor, and Technology committee, lawmakers voted unanimously to move Colorado state bill SB26-090 -- titled Exempt Critical Infrastructure from Right to Repair -- out of committee and into the state senate and house for a vote. The bill modifies Colorado's Consumer Right to Repair Digital Electronic Equipment act, which was passed in 2024 and went into effect in January 2026. While the protections secured by that act are wide, the new SB26-090 bill aims to "exempt information technology equipment that is intended for use in critical infrastructure from Colorado's consumer right to repair laws."

The bill is supported by tech manufacturers like Cisco and IBM, according to lobbying disclosures. These are companies that have vested interests in manufacturing things like routers, server equipment, and computers and stand to profit if they can control who fixes their products and the tools, components, and software used to make those upgrades and repairs. They also cite cybersecurity concerns, saying that giving people access to the tools and systems they would need to repair a device could also enable bad actors to use those methods for nefarious means. (This is a common argument manufacturers make when opposing right-to-repair laws.)

[...] During the hearing, more than a dozen repair advocates spoke from organizations like Pirg, the Repair Association, and iFixit opposing the bill. YouTuber and repair advocate Louis Rossmann was there. The main problem, repair advocates say, is that the bill deliberately uses vague language to make the case for controlling who can fix their products. [...] The Colorado Labor and Technology committee advanced the bill, but it still needs to go through votes on the Colorado Senate and House floors before going into effect. Those votes may take place as early as next week. Regardless of how the bill goes in the state, it's likely that manufacturers will continue their push to alter or undo repair legislation in other states across the country. "The 'information technology' and 'critical infrastructure' thing is as cynical as you can possibly be about it," says Nathan Proctor, the leader of Pirg's US right-to-repair campaign. "It sounds scary to lawmakers, but it just means the internet."

The current wording of the bill "leaves it up to the manufacturers to determine which items they will need to provide repair tools and parts to owners and independent repairers and which ones they don't," says Danny Katz, executive director CoPIRG, the Colorado branch of the consumer advocate group Pirg. "This is a bad policy and would be a big step back for Coloradans' repair rights."

iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens said in the hearing: "There's a general principle in cybersecurity that obscurity is not security," iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens said in the hearing. "The money that's behind the scenes, that's what's driving the bill."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Last year, just before the Fourth of July holiday, the US Space Force officially took ownership of a new operating system for the GPS navigation network, raising hopes that one of the military's most troubled space programs might finally bear fruit. The GPS Next-Generation Operational Control System, or OCX, is designed for command and control of the military's constellation of more than 30 GPS satellites. It consists of software to handle new signals and jam-resistant capabilities of the latest generation of GPS satellites, GPS III, which started launching in 2018. The ground segment also includes two master control stations and upgrades to ground monitoring stations around the world, among other hardware elements.

RTX Corporation, formerly known as Raytheon, won a Pentagon contract in 2010 to develop and deliver the control system. The program was supposed to be complete in 2016 at a cost of $3.7 billion. Today, the official cost for the ground system for the GPS III satellites stands at $7.6 billion. RTX is developing an OCX augmentation projected to cost more than $400 million to support a new series of GPS IIIF satellites set to begin launching next year, bringing the total effort to $8 billion.

Although RTX delivered OCX to the Space Force last July, the ground segment remains nonoperational. Nine months later, the Pentagon may soon call it quits on the program. Thomas Ainsworth, assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration, told Congress last week that OCX is still struggling. The GAO found the OCX program was undermined by "poor acquisition decisions and a slow recognition of development problems." By 2016, it had blown past cost and schedule targets badly enough to trigger a Pentagon review for possible cancellation.

Officials also pointed to cybersecurity software issues, a "persistently high software development defect rate," the government's lack of software expertise, and Raytheon's "poor systems engineering" practices. Even after the military restructured the program, it kept running into delays and overruns, with Ainsworth telling lawmakers, "It's a very stressing program" and adding, "We are still considering how to ensure we move forward."

UK startup Pulsar Fusion says it has achieved the first plasma ignition inside a nuclear fusion rocket engine prototype -- a huge step for space travel that could cut missions to Mars "from months-long journeys to just a few weeks," reports Euronews. From the report: Pulsar Fusion revealed the milestone during a live stream at Amazon's MARS Conference, hosted by Jeff Bezos in California this week, with CEO Richard Dinan calling it an "exceptional moment" for the company. The team successfully created plasma - an intensely hot, electrically charged state of matter, often described as the fourth state of matter - using electric and magnetic fields inside its experimental and early prototype "Sunbird fusion exhaust system." [...] The company now plans further testing of its Sunbird system to improve performance. Upcoming upgrades include more powerful superconducting magnets designed to better contain and control plasma.

Linux gamers are seeing massive performance gains with Wine's new NTSYNC support, "which is a feature that has been years in the making and rewrites how Wine handles one of the most performance-sensitive operations in modern gaming," reports XDA Developers. Not every game will see a night-and-day difference, but for the games that do benefit from these changes, "the improvements range from noticeable to absurd." Combined with improvements to Wayland, graphics, and compatibility, as well as a major WoW64 architecture overhaul, the release looks less like an incremental update and more like one of Wine's most important upgrades in years. From the report: The numbers are wild. In developer benchmarks, Dirt 3 went from 110.6 FPS to 860.7 FPS, which is an impressive 678% improvement. Resident Evil 2 jumped from 26 FPS to 77 FPS. Call of Juarez went from 99.8 FPS to 224.1 FPS. Tiny Tina's Wonderlands saw gains from 130 FPS to 360 FPS. As well, Call of Duty: Black Ops I is now actually playable on Linux, too. Those benchmarks compare Wine NTSYNC against upstream vanilla Wine, which means there's no fsync or esync either. Gamers who use fsync are not going to see such a leap in performance in most games.

The games that benefit most from NTSYNC are the ones that were struggling before, such as titles with heavy multi-threaded workloads where the synchronization overhead was a genuine bottleneck. For those games, the difference is night and day. And unlike fsync, NTSYNC is in the mainline kernel, meaning you don't need any custom patches or out-of-tree modules for it work. Any distro shipping kernel 6.14 or later, which at this point includes Fedora 42, Ubuntu 25.04, and more recent releases, will support it. Valve has already added the NTSYNC kernel driver to SteamOS 3.7.20 beta, loading the module by default, and an unofficial Proton fork, Proton GE, already has it enabled. When Valve's official Proton rebases on Wine 11, every Steam Deck owner gets this for free.

All of this is what makes NTSYNC such a big deal, as it's not simply a run-of-the-mill performance patch. Instead, it's something much bigger: this is the first time Wine's synchronization has been correct at the kernel level, implemented in the mainline Linux kernel, and available to everyone without jumping through hoops.

"There are countless upgrades you could make to your gaming setup," writes PC Gamer's Jacob Ridley. "A wireless this, a bigger that, a faster thing. But how do you know what's going to be a genuine upgrade worth investing in? Personally, I think it might be split spacebars." His argument centers on the fact that spacebars take up a "greedy" amount of keyboard space -- space that could instead be divided into multiple keys for different actions, such as voice chat or melee attacks. From the report: While it's often very easy to reprogram your spacebar to do a different action via your keyboard's software, it's a lot harder to reprogram your brain to hit any other key when you try to jump in game. Spacebar makes you jump. Everyone knows that; it's practically etched onto your brain if you're a long-time mouse and keyboard player. So, why does a split spacebar help with that? It comes down to this: once you know which side of a spacebar you tend to thwack with your thumb, you can program the other side to do whatever you want. I hit the right-side of my spacebar every time when I'm typing. Therefore, when I started using a Wooting 60HE v2 with a split spacebar, I set the left-side to be the delete key; the keyboard lacking a dedicated delete key for its 60% size.

Though for gaming, the split spacebar offers much more varied purpose. People do strange things with the WASD keys that I won't litigate here, but I'm pretty sure most gamers use their left thumb to strike the spacebar for gaming. Right? Right. If you fall into this category, you have the option of using the right-side spacebar for things like a chunky melee key, or, my personal favorite, an in-game voice chat key.