Month: June 2025

One weakness of Valve's Steam Deck gaming handheld and SteamOS is that, by default, they will only run Windows games from Steam that are supported by the platform's Proton compatibility layer (plus the subset of games that run natively on Linux). It's possible to install alternative game stores, and Proton's compatibility is generally impressive, but SteamOS still isn't a true drop-in replacement for Windows.

Microsoft and Asus' co-developed ROG Xbox Ally is trying to offer PC gamers a more comprehensive compatibility solution that also preserves a SteamOS-like handheld UI by putting a new Xbox-branded user interface on top of traditional Windows. And while this interface will roll out to the ROG Xbox Ally first, Microsoft told The Verge that the interface would come to other Ally handhelds next and that something "similar" would be "rolling out to other Windows handhelds starting next year."

Bringing a Steam Deck-style handheld-optimized user interface to Windows is something Microsoft has been experimenting with internally since at least 2022, when employees at an internal hackathon identified most of Windows' handheld deficiencies in a slide deck about a proposed "Windows Handheld Mode."

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Over 300 researchers from the National Institutes of Health have published a letter rebuking its director and the Trump administration for deep, politically motivated cuts to research funding, as well as disrupting global collaboration, undermining scientific review processes, and laying off critical NIH staff.

"We are compelled to speak up when our leadership prioritizes political momentum over human safety and faithful stewardship of public resources," the letter states, linking to independent news reports on the harms of NIH trials being halted and that the administration's cuts to the agency have cost, rather than saved, taxpayer money. Since January, the Trump administration has terminated 2,100 NIH research grants totaling around $9.5 billion and $2.6 billion in contracts, the letter notes. The researchers also accuse the administration of creating "a culture of fear and suppression" among federal researchers.

The letter describes the researchers' action as "dissent" from the administration's policies, quoting NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya in his congressional confirmation hearing as saying, "Dissent is the very essence of science."

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Six years after releasing the original GPD MicroPC as a palm-sized computer aimed at IT professionals, GPD is bringing back the form factor with a new model sporting a bigger screen, faster processor, and more storage. After unveiling the new GPD MicroPC 2 in June, GPD has now posted a preview for an upcoming Indiegogo crowdfunding […]

The post GPD MicroPC 2 is portable computer with a 7 inch display, Intel N250 processor and a thumb keyboard appeared first on Liliputing.

The robotaxi company Waymo has suspended service in some parts of Los Angeles after some of its vehicles were summoned and then vandalized by protesters angry with ongoing raids by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Five of Waymo's autonomous Jaguar I-Pace electric vehicles were summoned downtown to the site of anti-ICE protests, at which point they were vandalized with slashed tires and spray-painted messages. Three were set on fire.

The Los Angeles Police Department warned people to avoid the area due to risks from toxic gases given off by burning EVs. And Waymo told Ars that it is "in touch with law enforcement" regarding the matter.

The protesters in Los Angeles were outraged after ICE, using brutal tactics, began detaining people in raids across the city. Thousands of Angelenos took to the streets over the weekend to confront the masked federal enforcers and, in some cases, forced them away.

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Warner Bros. Discovery will split its business into two publicly traded companies, with one focused on its streaming and studios business and the other on its television network businesses, including CNN and Discovery.

The US media giant said the move would unlock value for shareholders as well as create opportunities for both businesses, breaking up a group created just three years ago from the merger of Warner Media and Discovery.

Warner Bros. Discovery last year revealed its intent to split its business in two, a plan first reported by the Financial Times in July last year. The company intends to complete the split by the middle of next year.

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Look, no one said building a large harvester to roam around the Moon and sift through hundreds of tons of regolith to retrieve small amounts of helium-3 would be easy. And that's to say nothing of the enormous challenge of processing and then launching any of this material from the lunar surface before finally landing it safely on Earth.

If we're being completely honest, doing all of this commercially is a pretty darn difficult row to hoe. Many commercial space experts dismiss it out of hand. So that's why it's gratifying to see that a company that is proposing to do this, Interlune, is taking some modest steps toward this goal.

Moreover, recent changes in the tides of space policy may also put some wind in the sails of Interlune and its considerable ambitions.

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On Thursday, pioneering computer engineer and Apple veteran William "Bill" Atkinson died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Portola Valley, California, surrounded by family. He was 74. "We regret to write that our beloved husband, father, and stepfather Bill Atkinson passed away," his family wrote on Facebook. "He was a remarkable person, and the world will be forever different because he lived in it."

As Apple employee number 51, Atkinson transformed abstract computer science into intuitive visual experiences that millions would use daily: His QuickDraw graphics engine made the Macintosh interface possible; he introduced the wider world to bitmap editing with MacPaint; and HyperCard presaged hyperlinked elements of the World Wide Web by years.

A screenshot of Bill Atkinson's MacPaint, released with the Macintosh in January 1984. Credit: Benj Edwards / Apple

"I say this with no hyperbole: Bill Atkinson may well have been the best computer programmer who ever lived," wrote veteran Apple analyst John Gruber on Daring Fireball in a tribute. "Without question, he's on the short list. What a man, what a mind, what gifts to the world he left us."

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Imagine that you have a song file—drums, guitar, bass, vocals, piano—and you want to rebalance it, bringing the voice down just a touch in the mix.

Or you want to turn a Lyle Lovett country-rock jam into a slamming club banger, and all that's standing between you and the booty-shaking masses is a clean copy of Lovett's voice without all those instruments mucking things up.

Or you recorded a once-in-a-lifetime, Stevie Nicks-meets-Ann Wilson vocal performance into your voice notes app... but your dog was baying in the background, and your guitar was out of tune. Can you extract the magic and discard the rest?

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Laut internen Quellen soll sich Meta in Gesprächen mit Scale AI befinden, das Datensätze für KI-Training bereitstellt. (Meta, KI)

Laut Elon Musk soll Tesla noch in diesem Jahr Tausende Roboter bauen. Der für dieses Projekt verantwortliche Milan Kovac verlässt nun das Unternehmen. (Tesla Optimus, Roboter)