Makers will always be chasing a dream, a wild concept, and few of those ideas come close to producing results as this one. The YapStopper 3000 is a device that can detect what someone is saying from across the room, add a tiny bit of delay, then fire that precise audio back at them, to the point that their brain can’t seem to put two meaningful sentences together.

Delayed auditory feedback results in a slight mismatch between what a person says and what they hear a split second later. The brain expects instant input from its own speech, so when there is a delay, the timing is completely thrown off. People stumble over their words, resulting in protracted pauses and fractured thoughts. Typically, getting that effect to work requires some sort of special setup, such as wearing headphones or being in a carefully controlled environment, but our small construct skips all of that and beams the delayed voice directly at the individual who refuses to quiet speaking.

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You can thank the high-frequency sound for the accurate targeting. The YapStopper emits sound waves at 40 kilohertz, which are far beyond what human ears can detect, but those waves transmit the delayed speech as a type of ‘hidden message’, similar to how a radio station wraps music inside the carrier frequency. Since the wavelength is so short, the sound beam simply zooms in on its target rather of spreading out all over the place, which is made feasible by an array of ultrasonic transducers that basically work together to enhance the beam, resulting in an acoustic spotlight effect. You simply point the built-in laser, turn the switch, and the delayed audio is precisely on target while everyone else hears nothing.

To collect the original audio on the other end, a shotgun mic works well because it listens in from a distance, picks up the speaker’s words clearly, and sends them to the delay circuit. After it has been modified and delayed, the signal is sent out through the transducer array via the ultrasonic carrier. This is powered by a cordless drill battery, which is charged to 24 volts using a boost converter. All of the driver chips, MOSFETs, oscillators, and tuning bits and bobs are housed on a single custom circuit board that fits snugly inside this handy small box. You can adjust the delay and volume on the fly using simple knobs, or flip a switch to turn it on/off.

Months of careful assembly went into every detail. The maker spent five full months debugging, soldering, and replacing parts. Short circuits would sometimes emerge out of nowhere at the worst possible time. Despite all of these obstacles, the underlying principle continued to work. With a simple test using a phone app and some standard headphones, they demonstrated that only the delay may throw speech off track. But what they did with this hardware version was to make it function without the requirement for headphones on the target, which is a real-world feat. More distance testing is still needed, but the prototype demonstrates that directed delivery works in practice once all of the electronics are in sync.
[Source]

B&H is blowing out M4 MacBook Air inventory with prices as low as $829. But supply is limited for this flash deal.

The $829 blowout special applies to the closeout M4 13-inch MacBook Air with an 8-core GPU, 16GB of unified memory, and 256GB of storage when ordered in the Sky Blue finish.

Buy M4 MacBook Air for $829

According to B&H, the deal is scheduled to end on May 15 at 5:05 p.m. Pacific Time, but supply is limited at the reduced price, so the deal may sell out before then.

With other retailers sold out, B&H’s flash deal delivers the lowest price available on the closeout model. And if you’re looking for the lowest price on the M5 Air that was released in March 2026, it can be found for as low as $998, although you do get 512GB of storage with the entry model.

B&H is also running a sale on MacBook Pros and upgraded M5 MacBook Airs, which you can jump to via our deal coverage below.

Elon Musk’s xAI is running nearly 50 natural gas turbines at its Mississippi data center, power plants that the state is currently not regulating thanks to a loophole.

The power plants are considered “mobile” by the state of Mississippi because they are sitting on flatbed trailers, thus allowing them to dodge to air pollution regulations for one year. The NAACP, which has filed a lawsuit on behalf of residents in the area, says the unchecked emissions from the turbines is worsening air quality in an already polluted region. This week, it asked the court for an injunction against xAI.

At issue is the “mobile” nature of the turbines. The Southern Environmental Law Center, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the NAACP, says the turbines are being operated in violation of federal law, which says that power plants mounted on a trailer can still be considered stationary and subject to air pollution regulations.

XAI has been granted permits for 15 of its turbines. A Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce press release previously said that “about half” of the 35 turbines in operation in May 2025 would remain on site. However, xAI has continued to install more. Currently, it’s operating 46, according to a local news report.

Instagram has never been shy about borrowing ideas, and its latest move makes that clearer than ever. The platform just globally launched Instants, a new feature that lets you share disappearing, unedited photos with your Close Friends or mutual followers.

The standalone Instants app is now available on iOS and Android, which opens directly to the camera when you log in with your Instagram account.

How does Instants actually work?

You can also access this tool directly from the Instagram inbox. Just tap the mini photo stack in the bottom right corner of your DM inbox to open the Instants camera.

Either way, you snap something in real time and send it instantly. No uploads from your photo gallery are allowed, and you cannot edit the image before sending. Recipients can react with emoji, reply, or fire back their own Instants.

No one can take screenshots on Instants, and photos vanish after being viewed once, and anything unopened disappears after 24 hours. In fact, anything unopened disappears after 24 hours.

If you accidentally send something, there is an undo button to take it back before anyone sees it. Your sent photos are saved in a private archive that only you can access for up to a year. You can also compile them into a recap to post to Stories later.

So which app did Instagram copy this time?

Honestly, take your pick. The disappearing photos and one-time viewing are straight out of Snapchat‘s playbook, which has offered ephemeral photo sharing since 2011. The no-edit, share-as-it-happens format is pure BeReal, an app that briefly took the world by storm by pushing users to post unfiltered photos at random times of the day.

Instants also draws comparisons to Locket, a widget-based app focused on sharing candid photos directly with close friends. But this isn’t new for Instagram because Stories was a direct lift from Snapchat, and Reels borrowed heavily from TikTok. Instants continues that tradition without much apology.

But here’s the thing – it might actually be useful

For all the eye-rolling the clone label deserves, Instants taps into something real. Instagram has spent years drifting toward influencer content, brand deals, and algorithmically pushed posts from strangers.

Instants pulls the app back toward what it was originally built for, sharing genuine moments with people you actually know. In a feed full of perfectly lit brand content, a little unfiltered reality is hard to argue with. Whether anyone actually needs it is another question, especially when BeReal never quite held on and Instagram Stories already does the job for most people.

Mary M Hausfeld of the University of Limerick explores how the process by which researchers receive credit for their work can be more complicated for women.

Scientific discoveries rarely happen alone. Modern research often involves teams spanning institutions and even countries. Yet when research is published in academic journals, credit is reduced to a list of names – a list that can shape careers.

Authorship is a key signal of expertise. It influences hiring, promotion and funding decisions. Despite this importance, the process for determining authorship is often far from transparent.

In principle, authorship should reflect intellectual contributions. In practice, decisions about who becomes an author and whose name appears in the most prized position – often first or last – are negotiated within research teams. My research with colleagues has found that women report more negative experiences around authorship decisions.

Norms vary widely across disciplines, and unclear standards combined with power dynamics can create problems, especially for women researchers.

One of these is ghost authorship: when researchers who meaningfully contribute do not receive authorship. Another is gift authorship: when individuals who do not meaningfully contribute are included as authors.

Deciding who gets credit for a research project is complicated, even when everyone has positive intentions. These collaborations can span years, and individual roles often shift over time. Students graduate, researchers move institutions and projects evolve. As a result, authorship decisions are often shaped not just by contributions, but by a set of informal or ‘hidden’ rules that are rarely made explicit.

These hidden rules can include power dynamics between senior and junior researchers. Junior researchers, such as PhD students and postdocs, often depend on supervisors for funding and future opportunities. This can make it difficult to raise concerns about authorship.

The standards for determining contributions may be ambiguous. While there’s recently been more discussion about the different ways someone can contribute to a project, authors may disagree about which contributions matter most. For example, how should writing the paper be weighed against collecting or analysing the data?

Fear of reputational harm could also discourage open discussion about credit. Because researchers are concerned about being labelled ‘difficult to work with’ they may avoid raising concerns about authorship, even when the stakes are high.

Gifts and ghosts

To see how these decisions play out in practice, my collaborators and I surveyed more than 3,500 researchers across 12 countries – one of the largest studies of its kind. We asked researchers about their experiences with disagreement about authorship, comfort discussing authorship in their teams and experiences with problematic authorship practices.

We found that questionable authorship practices are remarkably common. In our study, 68pc of researchers observed gift authorship, and 55pc of researchers observed ghost authorship.

While experiences of authorship were similar across researchers in the natural sciences and social sciences, another pattern emerged. Women researchers reported experiencing more problematic authorship practices in collaborations. They encountered more disagreements over authorship decisions and felt less comfortable raising authorship concerns.

This is especially concerning given what researchers call the “leaky pipeline” in academia – where women are more likely to leave the field or are less likely to progress to senior positions over time. These patterns suggest that the hidden rules of authorship affect women and men differently.

Why it matters

These numbers aren’t just statistics. They represent missed opportunities, strained collaborations and careers quietly knocked off course. Authorship plays a central role in research careers, and even small differences in recognition can accumulate over time. When credit is uneven, opportunities become uneven. This shapes who stays in academia and whose ideas define a field. Over time, this may also push talented researchers away from academic careers or worsen existing inequalities like the leaky pipeline.

Universities rely on collaborative environments that are not only productive, but also fair. Addressing issues with authorship and its hidden rules is essential to continue moving toward better science.

In a separate study of US PhD-granting universities, my colleagues and I found that fewer than 25pc had publicly available authorship policies. Even when policies did exist, they rarely offered guidance on how to handle concerns or resolve conflicts. Clearer institutional guidance and accessible dispute resolution procedures would provide researchers with a framework to more effectively navigate authorship.

In addition, authorship training can encourage earlier and more open conversations about authorship within research teams, particularly for junior researchers who may feel less comfortable raising these issues. Promoting more transparent documentation of individual contributions can help ensure that authorship reflects the work that was actually done, even as roles evolve over the course of a project. Training would clearly benefit early-career scholars, but would also be important for more senior academics who supervise doctoral students and help shape research norms.

When authorship is transparent and openly discussed, it can empower stronger research teams, more equitable career progression and greater trust in the scientific process. Science is a team effort, and our systems for giving credit should reflect that reality.

By Mary M Hausfeld

Mary M Hausfeld is an assistant professor in management, at the University of Limerick. Her research focuses on leadership, diversity at work and research methods. Hausfeld is especially interested in the conceptual and methodological gap between what leaders do and how they are evaluated. Her work has been published in outlets including Journal of Management and others. Before joining UL, Hausfeld served as a post-doctoral research associate and head of education at the Center for Leadership in the Future of Work at the University of Zurich. Hausfeld earned her PhD in organisational science from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

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Xbox’s next-gen console might be going fully digital. And if the latest leaks are accurate, Microsoft could finally be preparing the move it almost made more than a decade ago… before the internet collectively lost its mind.

Could Xbox Project Helix completely ditch physical discs?

According to a new report from Windows Central, Xbox is reportedly working on something called “Project Saluki,” which appears to be a new Game Pass initiative designed specifically for the Chinese market. While details remain limited, the report suggests it could involve multiple regional Game Pass tiers and reward systems tailored around China’s unique gaming regulations, spending habits, and player preferences. Considering how important cloud gaming and subscription-based access have become in China, this could be part of a much bigger push for Xbox in the region.

That said, the more interesting part of the report revolves around references discovered inside the Xbox PC app pointing toward a mysterious “Positron” initiative tied to a possible Disc-to-Digital system. Naturally, this has sparked speculation that Microsoft’s upcoming next-gen console, currently known as Project Helix, could launch without a built-in disc drive altogether.

The leaked references suggest Microsoft may be exploring a way for physical game discs to be converted into digital licenses tied to a user’s Xbox account. If true, the idea seems aimed at easing players into an all-digital future without completely abandoning existing physical libraries overnight. Interestingly, Microsoft explored similar concepts during the Xbox One era, but backlash around digital ownership and always-online systems forced the company to back away at the time. The difference now is that the market has changed dramatically, with digital purchases and subscription gaming becoming the norm for a huge portion of console players.

And honestly, Microsoft has been building toward this for years anyway. The Xbox Series S launched as a fully digital console back in 2020, followed by the all-digital white Xbox Series X refresh in 2024. At this point, a disc-less Project Helix would feel less like a surprise and more like the next logical step in Xbox’s long-term Game Pass-focused strategy.

Project Helix may finally push Xbox into its all-digital era

Reports around Project Helix already suggest Microsoft is positioning the next Xbox more like a hybrid gaming platform, blending console simplicity with PC-style flexibility through support for Xbox libraries, Windows features, Steam, and cloud gaming. In that kind of ecosystem, physical discs start feeling increasingly outdated. Even PlayStation reportedly now sees most game sales happening digitally, while Xbox has spent years pushing Game Pass, Cloud Gaming, and Play Anywhere.

Ironically, Microsoft almost tried this exact shift back during the Xbox One era, when digital licenses and always-online requirements triggered massive backlash. But the market has changed dramatically since then. Today, most players already buy their games digitally, which makes a disc-less future feel far more realistic. It would not be surprising if both Xbox and Sony eventually ship fully digital next-gen consoles, potentially with optional external disc drives similar to the PS5 setup. The difference is that Sony benefits from Blu-ray ownership, while Xbox would still have to deal with licensing costs.

Of course, players are not exactly going to celebrate the death of physical games overnight. Going digital is easy for Microsoft. Convincing gamers that they are not losing ownership, flexibility, or preservation in the process is the harder part, especially at a time when Xbox is already trying to rebuild momentum against Sony. That said, these leaks are still very early, and even the original report suggests details are still being pieced together, so for now, this entire situation should be taken with a healthy amount of caution.

from the unkicked-puppies dept

John Roberts has a point: the Supreme Court—even this Supreme Court—sometimes gets things right. Maybe one could even fairly say it often gets things right. After all, just recently it produced good decisions in Case v. Montana, Cox v. Sony, and First Women’s Choice Centers v. Davenport, and arguably even Chiles v. Salazar, along with plenty more that have quietly taken their place in the annals of American jurisprudence with little fanfare but the staying power we look to the Court’s opinions for, to continue to speak well into the future about the contours of our law. These were decisions where there was significant accord among all the justices because the legal questions before them were just not that hard to resolve. Either statutory language, constitutional text, or previous precedent required certain results, and Roberts is correct: this Court is fully capable of producing them.

The issue, however, is that it doesn’t always. And when it doesn’t it is not because it’s getting tripped up by close calls where either the precedent or guiding text isn’t clear, or the facts are so unfortunate that they obscure what the law requires. The issue is that the law is as equally clear in cases where the Court produces deviant results as in the cases where the Court gets things right; it just doesn’t care to follow it consistently. If it wants a different result than what the law directs then that is the result it will find the votes for.

Roberts is of course also right that non-lawyers often can’t tell what the law indeed requires; the general public is much more likely to judge a decision based on how it affects the interests they favor. Which is why Roberts has a fair point to think the Court may be unfairly criticized in decisions like Chiles, First Women’s Choice Centers, or even 303 Creative, cases where interests many understand to be harmful to others nevertheless apparently prevailed. It is difficult, for instance, for non-lawyers to see how a win for those who discriminate is nevertheless a win for those who are discriminated against, because while a win for the former may seem like a loss for the latter in the short term, it’s the rationale being upheld by the decision that will ultimately amount to a more important gain for the vulnerable in the long term.

But one reason people are struggling to see these controversial but correct decisions as fortifications of their own future freedom is because they don’t believe that when their interests are at stake the Supreme Court will still apply the same principles this time in their favor. They fear that the Court will instead find a way to advance the interests it prefers, and it’s a fear that is eminently reasonable. The hypocrisy the justices regularly display in their jurisprudence when one of their favored interests is at stake forecloses any rational person having any faith in them as neutral jurists ably applying the law, even if it’s true that sometimes they are.

Roberts only has himself and his Court to blame for so many having that view. They have made it impossible for anyone to believe the Court will uphold principle and precedent because of how often it has not. It is happy to change the rules that we must all play by whenever it suits it, redrawing the rights we depend on as well as the ability to use the courts to shape them. And it’s not just laypeople who’ve noticed the problem but legal professionals. It’s lawyers, including members of the Supreme Court Bar who practice before them. It’s law professors, including those who have been teaching new generations of law students what were supposed to be timeless principles of American jurisprudence, which the Court so regularly and casually upends. It’s legal commentators, including those who specialize in watching this court. It is people who are experienced, if not expert—and if not at least as expert as anyone on the Court—in the American legal tradition who are calling foul. They are noticing how the Court keeps inventing arbitrary and imaginary rules, if not also facts, in order to arrive not where the law points but where the conservative justices steering the Court’s majority instead prefer to go.

It might be one thing if it were the rare case here and there in its busy docket where the Court has simply been sloppy in its jurisprudence. But the cases where the conservative majority has refused to produce jurisprudentially conservative results, instead elevating preferred outcomes over precedential reasoning, are hardly the exception; at this point it has become the apparently deliberate rule that when certain issues are on the table—partisan politics, reproductive freedom, LGBTQ+ rights, race relations, to name just a few areas where the conservative justices have particularly strong views—the Roberts Court will eagerly jump in to advance them, regardless of whether either substance or procedure—or consistency—even invites such an intervention, let alone their favored result. In fact it is fairly shocking to encounter the rare occasion where the Court has instead restrained itself—although it is certainly glad to when other interests the conservative majority is less dogmatically interested in advancing are instead on the table.

Furthermore, that its docket is so busy is entirely because the Court has abdicated any pretense of restraint, greedily helping itself to matters that historically would have been regarded as unripe for its consideration. In fact, it is a bit rich for Roberts to complain how the Supreme Court is being unfairly disrespected given the extent to which its new practice of aggressively insinuating itself in substantive adjudication of matters before there even is a lower court ruling or record ready for review has itself undercut the respect due the lower courts. What the Court has been doing, particularly with its Shadow Docket, goes far beyond the appellate review it is normally entitled to do. Not only does the Supreme Court’s incessant snatching of matters away from the lower courts prematurely arbitrarily diminish the lower courts’ power to render considered opinions on the questions before them, but it has also been having the practical effect of undermining their ability to speak with any authority on the law at all, let alone enforce it. Would only Roberts shed the same tears for the insult the lower courts have actually suffered as he does for himself as the cause of it.

Instead, and apparently without any capacity for introspection or self-reflection, he protests that the criticism increasingly directed at the Court is not also increasingly deserved. We should, he insists, be judging his Court based on what it gets right. But we do not celebrate a reckless driver for all the people he didn’t run over, or careless chef for all the diners he didn’t poison, or distracted doctor for all the patients he didn’t kill. In the American legal tradition we judge harshly those who cause injury to the public well-being, especially with behavior beyond the bounds of what law allows.

And with the Roberts Court there is so much to judge.

Filed Under: consistency, john roberts, partisanship, supreme court

Morgan Wandell, who has been with Apple TV since before its launch, is now departing the streaming service in favor of launching his own production company.

In 2017, Apple poached Wandell from Amazon Studios to join its team at Apple Worldwide Video. When Apple TV launched in 2019, his title became Head of International Content Development.

While at Apple, Wandell developed and oversaw production of “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters,” “Tehran,” “Disclaimer,” “Masters of the Air,” and “The New Look.”

Now, it seems as though he’s got other plans. Wandell plans on leaving Apple TV to found his own production company, Kismet.

Kismet will develop and produce premium scripted series for the global marketplace. Its offerings will focus on high-end culturally rooted storytelling.

While he is technically leaving his executive role behind, it seems that he may not be leaving Apple TV entirely. He’s currently in talks with Apple to stay on as a producer on some of his existing projects.

“Helping to build Apple TV’s international slate has been the privilege of my career,” Wandell told Deadline.

“I’m deeply grateful to Jamie [Erlicht], Zack [Van Amburg], and all my colleagues at Apple, and to the extraordinary creators we’ve partnered with around the world. It was a hard personal decision to make this leap from a company as terrific as Apple, but I have always wanted to build a company of my own.”

Matt Cherniss, Apple TV’s Head of Programming and Domestic Development, will take over the Monarch franchise and other series that were under Wandell’s purview. Cherniss currently oversees other hit series, such as “Ted Lasso,” “Severance,” “The Studio,” and “Pluribus.”

Jay Hunt, Apple TV’s creative director, Europe, will see her role expand to oversee international and local-language originals. She is in charge of British staples “Slow Horses” and “Hijack”, among others.

Before his tenure at Apple, Wandell worked as Head of International Series and Head of Drama Series at Amazon Studios for four years. Before that, he acted as Senior Vice President of Drama at ABC studios, overseeing series including “Lost,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Brothers and Sisters,” “Ugly Betty,” and “Criminal Minds.”