The removable battery represents the biggest functional upgrade over the original Starlink Mini. Previously, users needed an external power source to operate the satellite terminal. That meant carrying additional equipment for camping trips, remote work, or extended journeys. Mini 2 addresses that limitation with a detachable 71 Wh battery pack. It weighs approximately 1.08 pounds (490 grams) and delivers up to 4.5 hours of connectivity. Owners can replace it with another charged battery when necessary.

The battery also features LED indicators and its own USB-C charging port. SpaceX supports 60-watt USB-C Power Delivery charging for the pack. The retail kit includes a compatible 60-watt wall adapter and a three-meter USB-C cable. Users can also power the terminal through USB-C without relying on its battery. A physical power button replaces the original model’s simpler plug-and-play arrangement.

[…] SpaceX has also upgraded the wireless hardware from Wi-Fi 5 to Wi-Fi 6. The integrated router supports coverage across approximately 1,800 square feet (167 square meters). An IP67 rating provides additional protection against dust and water. Other hardware details include a foldable kickstand and a standard 1/4-inch-20 tripod mounting thread. The terminal also offers a 55-degree field of view for satellite acquisition.

In the past, Nintendo has drawn criticism from the preservation community. In 2022, the Video Game History Foundation publicly criticized the company for announcing it would be closing the Wii U and 3DS eShops. The foundation released a statement saying that Nintendo’s decision was “actively destructive to video game history.” The statement also pointed out that Nintendo is part of the Entertainment Software Association, which funds lobbying that prevents a number of preservation efforts.

Blender now allows importing Gaussian Splats from PLY, SPZ, and glTF files. Also new to Blender 5.3 is NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction support as a new denoiser. Blender 5.3 also brings support for NVIDIA RTX Spark devices.

For the Cycles code in Blender 5.3 the Principled BSDF for shader nodes now supports dispersion. Another notable change with Blender 5.3 is the Vulkan back-end now being the default on Windows (except for Windows on ARM) and Linux systems. Vulkan 1.1 or newer is required and should deliver better performance than OpenGL.

Reddit’s announcement points to its rules and its latest measures to combat automated abuse and spam, as well as its practice involving community moderators, as tools it will use to keep the reviews on the site legit. The Reddit Reviews feature itself taps into AI to organize the conversations people are having where they describe their product experiences. These posts will often see users discussing how a product works for them, or why it fails, or what the trade-offs are that someone should consider before buying.

The company has been testing the product reviews feature since February, initially with U.S. users in areas like Electronics, Video Games, and Health & Beauty products. In September, Reddit expanded the test to include the Home & Garden and Fashion & Apparel categories as well. Now, the company says Reddit Reviews is rolling out to all U.S. users on iOS, Android, and web, with an initial selection focused on around 10,000 products. Over time, it will roll out to more categories and expand beyond the U.S.

To use the feature, Reddit users can search for a product or category in the app’s search bar or click on a highlighted product name they see in someone’s comment. From there, the user is taken to a screen where important conversations are summarized under a “what people are saying” heading. This will also include a visual breakdown that shows how many of those comments are positive, negative, or mixed, and what sort of things people said they liked or disliked about the item.

The European Union must rethink security to take into account challenges and risks posed by the growing power of major technology companies that go beyond traditional competition concerns, European Commission Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera said on Monday. “We need to review and to deepen our concept of security, including cybersecurity,” Ribera told reporters in Lisbon, arguing that testing and monitoring devices connected to critical infrastructure was no longer sufficient and that security means also ensuring that the Big Tech companies are “governed by democratic and transparent patterns.” “We need to be quite quick in the deployment of these new approaches … This is one of the most critical topics for security, for democracy, and for (our) values,” she said.

To book a spot, you’ll need to provide the make and model of your car and a license plate number. Depending on your lot, Uber will then provide a QR code or you’ll be able to enter the garage through license plate recognition. If you need to cancel, the company says the majority of parking options can be canceled for free up to the start time. Parking reservations can also be extended through the app. Uber One subscribers get 10 percent back in Uber credits on eligible reservations.

When it announced its acquisition, Uber said SpotHero offered garages and lots across more than 400 cities in the US and Canada, but the company isn’t offering all of them at launch. For now, Uber says Uber Parking will be available in Chicago, Nashville, San Francisco, Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, Philadelphia, San Diego, Seattle and Washington DC. The company also plans to experiment with using lots as a staging area for the autonomous vehicle fleets offered byÂUber’s self-driving partners.

In addition to learning how to move with wheels for feet, Atlas also performs pirouettes and various aggressive actuation maneuvers. This demonstrates that Atlas can smoothly switch between fast rolling on flat terrain and articulated legged motion over obstacles or irregular surfaces.

[Andy Wu, controls engineer for Atlas at Boston Dynamics] trained the system in sim. The system learned all of the behaviors in sim and executed them in real life, with surprising accuracy, according to Wu. Wu said converting Atlas’ locomotion style was “wonderfully simple.” A single custom adapter mounts an off-the-shelf scooter rim onto Atlas’ existing ankle actuator, and that’s the only new part in the whole build. Because Atlas was designed from the start to be produced at high volume and to be easy to service, Wu said the retrofit was about as involved as swapping a wheel on a bicycle. The software side was just as straightforward, he said. Each wheel is modeled as an “ankle” that can spin continuously, so all Wu had to do was take the baseline robot model and swap the feet out for wheels.

The next question that Wu intends to answer is the policy response to failed actuators. This is key to safety and to understanding how the system will respond to a system failure. The primary takeaway for Wu and the controls engineering team at Boston Dynamics is to understand control synergy. The video demonstrates that merging classical motor controls (for baseline stability) with whole-body RL (for reactive adaptation) yields superior real-world agility compared to using either method alone.

The Food and Drug Administration said Monday that GLP-1 drugmakers must add a warning label about a rare eye condition that can cause sudden blindness. The condition, called nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, or NAION, affects the optic nerve, which carries signals from the eye to the brain. When blood flow to the nerve is reduced or blocked, it can cause sudden vision loss. The condition is permanent with no known treatment. The FDA said “there is a potential increased risk of rare NAION” in people taking GLP-1 drugs. The agency’s requirement applies to all GLP-1s, including Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro and Zepbound, as well as several older GLP-1 diabetes medications. […] Previous research has found that GLP-1 use may increase the risk of NAION, and Lilly has said it was aware of studies on the potential link.

The FDA said it began looking into a possible link after a 2024 study published in JAMA Ophthalmology that found diabetes patients prescribed semaglutide were four times as likely to develop NAION as those not prescribed the drug. The agency said it reviewed reports of side effects submitted to its adverse event monitoring system and analyzed data from multiple clinical trials. Cases of NAION have been reported for all currently marketed GLP-1 drugs, the FDA found. However, FDA scientists were not able to identify a mechanism for how the drugs could increase the risk of the eye condition. Risk factors for NAION can overlap with conditions seen in people taking GLP-1 drugs, including Type 2 diabetes, obesity, sleep apnea and hypertension.

Sadly, the dialog is still the same aging Win32 window, but we spotted Microsoft’s design boss replying under an X post reply about this, saying he is working on modernizing legacy dialogs. The popup might be annoying, but did you know that it exists because of a pinball game from 1995? […] The change is in Build 26340.9882 (Experimental) and Build 26320.9876 (Beta), both released on November 6 and based on Windows 11 version 26H2. Microsoft says you can “choose not to be asked again” from the Sticky Keys and Filter Keys dialogs, but it’s a Controlled Feature Rollout in Experimental, so you may not see it yet.

Trump suggested the extraordinary step of directly involving himself in a counterintelligence investigation, a sign of his friendly relationship with Huang and the possible geopolitical stakes. “I did speak to him today just to see if he’s feeling all right, how you’re doing,” Trump said. “He said he had absolutely no idea that the person in question was a spy.”

Trump is slated to meet next week with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Shenzhen, China, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, but he was noncommittal about bringing up the situation with Xi. “No, I don’t think so,” Trump said. “I mean, maybe. I’m sure President XI will ask me about it. I just know Jensen very well. I just think he’s a very honorable man.”

Speaking to Jake Jones, Communications Director at Epic Games, they said: “Hey Liam! The new Epic Games Launcher is still in Preview and we plan to support as many Linux distributions as possible, including Fedora, SteamOS, Cachy, Omarchy, and more. We’re testing and evaluating packaging formats for distribution, and we’ll restore AppImage this month.”

With that in mind, until things settle down, you might see different packaging types appear or disappear until they decide firmly how they plan to support different distributions each with their own different packaging formats. Or, perhaps they might see the Flatpak light and just put it up officially on Flathub. Would make it even easier for SteamOS then too with Flathub, since it would just be a quick pop to Desktop Mode to install it directly in the Discover app.

The cyber-attack last month saw fridges and freezers in hundreds of supermarkets across France heated up, which spoilt fresh and frozen food estimated to be worth millions of euros. Then last week, dozens of supermarkets across several other European countries were also impacted by a cyber-attack that targeted fridges and freezers. It is not known if the instances are linked.

Barrot said the attack on France’s supermarkets “marks the first large-scale cyber-attack aimed at sabotage on our national territory, and it constitutes a major attack on the nation’s interests and the security of the French people.” He said the government had summoned the Iranian ambassador to Paris to “lodge a very strong protest against this extremely grave act.” France will take “any other necessary and proportionate measures” to respond to the incident and “deter anyone who might seek to repeat it,” Barrot added.

Separately on Monday, the Paris prosecutor said an investigation had been opened into the head of an offensive cyber unit associated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as well as his two deputies. Laure Beccuau named the unit as Shahid Kaveh, which she said had an affiliation with the electronic and cyber centre of the IRGC. Shahid Kaveh is the name given to a cluster of hackers thought to be directly employed by the Iranian regime. […] The French government has not said how it reached the conclusion that Iran was responsible, and attribution of cyber attacks is extremely hard as hackers are able to hide their locations.

It’s Anthropic’s first model release since the arrival of a third-party report from the assessment group METR, which suggested the lab might be approaching recursive self-improvement (RSI) — or the ability for AI models to carry on model training independently. The METR report found internal models were speeding up Anthropic’s AI progress by roughly 2x, although many uncertainties remain. Still, Anthropic’s release notes significant ongoing challenges in accurately testing model capabilities. “Claude Mythos 5.2 and Fable 5.2 each voice suspicion that they are being evaluated more often than any of our recent models, which challenges our ability to assess how they will act in real-world settings. As these settings expand and capabilities increase with future models, we expect this challenge to grow.”

Anthropic maintains that the new version of Mythos does not have the ability to act covertly against its user, a verdict that’s detailed further in Mythos 5.2’s system card. “Claude Mythos 5.2 shows stronger covert capabilities than prior Claude models on several of our evaluations, particularly when its reasoning is hidden from the monitor,” the system card reads. “That said, we believe that low levels of absolute performance on our new covert evaluations support claims that rely on detection of harmful actions in high-stakes situations.” Fable 5.2 has been available to select parties in pre-release for some time, and Anthropic says the model has already “solved two open problems in theoretical physics, formalized Fermat’s Last Theorem, and supported numerous other research projects.”

Investigators at the Commerce Department were deep into a monthslong investigation of a Singaporean company that they suspected of smuggling Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips into China when their work came to a sudden halt late last year. The investigation centered on Megaspeed, a data center company led by an executive who U.S. officials now believe to be a Chinese spy who had a relationship with Nvidia’s chief executive, Jensen Huang. But the case was abruptly transferred to the Justice Department last year. The shift came after Commerce Department investigators working on the case received an email from Nvidia’s general counsel seeking information about the inquiry into Megaspeed.

It is not necessarily unusual for Commerce Department agents working on a case to speak with a company’s representatives about issues involving their firm. But what was unusual was the content of the message. Tim Teter, Nvidia’s general counsel, said that Jeff Kessler, a top official at the department, had given Nvidia permission to reach out about the case. The agents were alarmed that Nvidia had invoked the name of Mr. Kessler, their superior, who was nominated to his role by President Trump. Some viewed Mr. Kessler’s interaction with Nvidia as violating government procedure and potentially tainting the case, according to current and former government officials and others familiar with the incident.

It is not clear what led to Mr. Teter’s outreach to the department, but the recent revelations about Mr. Huang’s acknowledged affair with a Megaspeed executive have only intensified scrutiny of Nvidia’s role in influencing policy on chip sales to China. […] The incident raised questions about what Mr. Kessler, who reports directly to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, had discussed with Nvidia. It also raised the possibility that those discussions could become their own subject of inquiry. Perhaps inadvertently, some officials said, Mr. Kessler had opened himself to accusations of undue influence and potentially jeopardized his department’s work on Megaspeed. The case was quickly transferred to the Justice Department in an effort to avoid any potential compromise of the government’s investigation of Megaspeed, these people said. The Justice Department is conducting a criminal inquiry into Megaspeed, according to people familiar with the matter.

The 8tx is designed for sensitive, privacy-focused jobs run by clients including public-sector bodies and businesses in heavily regulated sectors, according to Bloomberg. It pairs with a central processing unit from Advanced Micro Devices and encrypts data at the chip level. Normally, data must be decrypted in memory as the machine works on it, [said Amin Vahdat, Chief Technologist for AI & Infrastructure at Google].

The 8i Max is meant for AI applications that need long context windows, meaning the volume of information a model can take into account within one request. Vahdat said that matters for drug discovery, math and coding. The chip packs two TPU chips together, giving it extra processing muscle and memory.

Both variations are reconfigured versions of existing silicon rather than new designs, Vahdat said. Google changed them to handle tasks customers have requested. They follow two TPU models Google released this year, according to Bloomberg, which said the chip unit used to release one new processor every two years. “We could build a single chip that tries to address the whole market, or by building specialized versions of the chips, we actually can deliver much more value,” Vahdat said, according to Bloomberg.