As good as a desktop OS may be, at some point it has to feature accelerated 3D graphics. This has been a bit of a sticking point for Haiku OS, as none of the big names in GPU cards are likely to start putting out drivers for this OS any time soon. Fortunately there is the Linux open source driver code from Nvidia that can be used as a jumping-off point for a port, which is what [X512] and the community did over at the Haiku forums did over the course of more than a year.
In a recent video [Action Retro] takes a poke at the fruits of these efforts, trying out the driver with an RTX2070 Super GPU. Of note is that this driver requires the GSP (GPU System Processor) controller that got added by Nvidia with the Turing series of GPUs, meaning that you need at least a GTX16 or RTX20 series card.
You can get an installation package from the GitHub repository, such as for the v0.0.2 pre-release that was created in January of 2026. In this pre-release state quite a few things are working, with the ability to play 3D games at a reasonable FPS being the biggest improvement over plain VESA mode. Features like CUDA are not available as they’re not in the open sourced section, of course.
In the [Action Retro] video the whole installation process is demonstrated, starting with a fresh nightly Haiku build. First the gaming performance in software-rendered VESA mode is demonstrated before the GPU driver is installed. This shows a marked improvement in performance, although Minecraft needs to be updated for the newest Mesa library that omits OSMesa, so that couldn’t be tested. Overall it shows that Haiku has made another massive leap forward in becoming a viable daily driver OS.
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Meanwhile, over on the ReactOS side of things we just saw a Half-Life 2 playthrough by [Aotori Hibiki], on an Intel Sandy Bridge PC with GeForce 8400GS graphics. Here ReactOS has the advantage of being Windows NT-compatible, including WDDM-style GPU drivers, allowing it to use the same drivers as Windows. Simultaneously, ReactOS is now implementing its first NT6 kernel API calls to make it compatible with modern (Vista+) Windows.
The upshot here is that for people who want to daily drive an open source OS with all the creature comforts imaginable, things have never seemed more promising. Especially for people who don’t want Yet Another Linux Distro but just an utterly boring desktop-centric, single-user focused OS that Just Works™ these are great tidings.
The EPA-rated range on your electric vehicle will likely differ from the real-world range you get — and by that, it means real-world range is usually a lot lower, but that’s because people are using their vehicles a lot differently in the real world than the automaker usually expects. For example, a Cybertruck owner recently owed a 6,500 lb boat for 350 miles, giving car enthusiasts a closer look at how heavy towing impacts an EV’s range.
Ahead of the Cybertruck’s launch, Tesla claimed it would have a 500-mile range. Once it was released and tested, the controversial EV was confirmed to have 325 miles of range. In Inside EVs‘ real-world testing, it only made it to 252 miles. While towing a 6,500-pound boat, the owner reported the Cybertruck made it 170 miles — driving 145 miles and leaving 25 miles of reserve in case of wind, traffic, or simply going the wrong way. Why did towing a boat make the Cybertruck lose so much range?
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Why did the Cybertruck lose range while towing a heavy boat?
Around the World Photos/Shutterstock
Contrary to what some may believe, the lost range wasn’t due solely to the boat being heavy. At 6,500 pounds, the boat is below the Cybertruck’s 11,000-pound tow rating (also much lower than the claim before its launch). There are a few other factors at play. “Overall this trip went way better than planned,” the Cybertruck owner wrote on Facebook. “Going faster killed range and meant more charging stops. So paradoxically, driving slower (55mph) made us reach our destination quicker.”
Going faster will use up more battery in all EVs, and that’s especially true with a boat behind you, since you’ll need to accelerate faster to reach higher speeds and brake harder to stop in time at those speeds — not to mention the added drag. Towing will lead to more charging stops, and some of those charging stops may not have room for a 6,500 lb boat. You’ll definitely want to plan your trip with these charging stops in mind, since the trip will be a lot slower with the boat in tow – each charging stop may take 45 minutes to get back up to 80%, depending on the charger you have stopped at.
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If you want to make less frequent stops in an EV while towing a boat, you’d maybe want to consider the Chevrolet Silverado EV, which has an EPA-rated 492 miles of range and a 12,500 lb towing capacity. However, the Cybertruck really isn’t that far behind the competition, and while the strange-looking vehicle has other shortcomings, leading to frequent Cybertruck sales drops, this experiment actually proved the Cybertruck quite capable when it comes to heavy towing in an EV.
OpenAI’s first hardware device is a limited-edition desktop keypad called the Codex Micro that lets users monitor and control AI coding agents. Axios reports: Codex Micro is a collaboration with Work Louder, a boutique hardware company known for customizable mechanical keyboards and shortcut controllers for developers and designers. The small, square macro pad — with backlit keys, a rotary knob and a tiny joystick — sits beside your regular keyboard as a physical shortcut box for common Codex actions and shows the status of your agents. The keys are customizable and include a push-to-talk option as well as a dial to adjust your reasoning setting. Codex Micro is a niche device for Codex power users and will only be available until it sells out. It’s priced at $230.
FreeBSD 16 has removed the last GPL-licensed code from its base system, retiring the old GNU ‘dialog’ implementation after the installer moved to ‘bsddialog’ and the final dependency was disabled. Phoronix reports: This ticket to retire dialog was opened back in February while is now merged to the FreeBSD source tree for what will become FreeBSD 16.0. With dialog removed, the latest FreeBSD code now retires the GNU sub-tree of the FreeBSD base system now that no more GNU code remains. FreeBSD 16.0 is working its way toward release that is expected to happen in December 2027.
Emergent’s vibe coding platform hit a $1.5bn valuation a year after launch. Its founder says most businesses do not need software, they need a way to turn how they work into it.
“Most businesses don’t need any software. They need a way to turn how they actually work into software.” That is how Mukund Jha pitched his startup as he announced it had become a $1.5bn unicorn.
Emergent, the vibe coding platform Jha runs with his twin brother Madhav, has raised a $130m Series C. The round values it at $1.5bn, about five times its valuation in January. That makes Emergent a unicorn roughly a year after its 2025 launch.
Creaegis, a private equity firm, led the round. Claypond Capital and Sentinel Global co-led. Earlier backers Khosla Ventures, SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, Lightspeed, and Y Combinator returned. Total funding now reaches $230m.
Emergent lets people build full software by typing plain-language prompts. Autonomous AI agents write the code, then handle hosting, testing, and deployment. Jha says 70% of its users have never coded.
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“You’re basically getting an engineering team in a box,” he told TechCrunch. The company says more than 12 million apps have been built on the platform in a year. Jha puts annual revenue at a $120m run-rate, with 200,000 paying customers.
These are not just websites. Users build CRMs, inventory systems, and marketplaces. Jha points to an Ohio roofer who replaced five tools with one system, and a Florida car detailer who rebuilt his site in four days. Software that once cost six figures, he says, now costs a few thousand dollars.
A crowded, expensive race
Emergent is chasing the same wave as some of the most richly valued startups in tech. Lovable is reportedly seeking a $13.2bn valuation. Anysphere’s Cursor was bought by SpaceX for $60bn in June. That boom has also flooded app stores with a surge of AI-built apps.
Against those numbers, $1.5bn looks modest. Emergent’s bet is a different customer. It targets small businesses and solo founders, not the professional developers who lean on Replit and Cursor. Jha calls Replit his closest rival.
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He is candid about the limits. He admits design is a weakness, noting that many AI-built sites look alike. Success rates, he says, are still lower than he wants them to be.
What Emergent does with the money
Most of the cash will go to hiring and research. Emergent wants to lift its success rates and support more complex apps, including ones that run on open-source models. It is weighing a European office and expanding in San Francisco.
Jha’s ambition is bigger than an app builder. He wants Emergent to become “the operating system for businesses,” and is putting $200,000 into two builder contests to draw more people in. If software itself gets solved, he told Business Insider, builders will simply move on to harder problems, from quantum computing to drug discovery.
Microsoft just released the third edition of its AI in Education Report, surveying more than 3,000 students, educators and leaders across six countries. Ira Apfel sat down with Pat Yongpradit, general manager of global education and workforce policy at Microsoft, which sells AI tools including Copilot to schools, at ISTELive 26 in Orlando, to talk through what the data reveals about daily use, trust, training gaps, and where the policy backlash against AI in schools may be headed next.
Pat Yongpradit on Adoption, Trust and Cheating
Yongpradit walks through why daily AI use in schools still lags far behind overall adoption, even though nine in 10 educators, students and leaders report having tried the tools at least once. He addresses the recent drop in student optimism, framing it as a predictable dip on a familiar technology adoption curve rather than a warning sign.
The conversation also covers the wide gap between how much training school leaders believe their staff have received and what teachers and students say they have actually experienced. Yongpradit also shares his candid take on academic integrity, arguing that the panic around cheating has more to do with long-standing temptation than with any single tool.
The Nothing Phone 4(b) is a capable budget Android handset with a clean OS, avant-garde looks and excellent battery life. Its internal power is fine for the price, although lacking against some of the competition, and the dual camera array is mostly fine for the price.
Classic Nothing design
Solid internal grunt
Excellent battery life
Screen is dimmer than some rivals
A fair bit dearer than the last CMF phone
Performance isn’t as strong as rival devices
Key Features
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Review Price:
£299
Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 SoC
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The Phone 4(b) has a decent mid-range Qualcomm chip inside to offer solid day-to-day performance.
50MP + 8MP camera system
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It features a dual camera setup with a 50MP main sensor and 8MP ultrawide, meaning no dedicated telephoto lens is present.
Signature Nothing design
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In spite of being a more affordable option, this handset retains Nothing’s signature industrial design and unique elements.
Introduction
The Nothing Phone 4(b) is the first of a new kind of phone for the London-based brand.
The budget phones sector was rocked by the decision from Nothing that it wasn’t going to release a sequel to the excellent CMF Phone 2 Pro this year, and instead chose to launch a spiritual successor under its own Nothing branding.
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To this end, the Phone 4(b) is in essence a cut-down and more affordable version of the Nothing Phone 4(a), featuring a Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 SoC with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, plus a 6.77-inch Super AMOLED screen and a 5200mAh battery inside.
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Priced at £299/$399, it’s more expensive than the older CMF Phone 2 Pro, although it makes a few key upgrades and positions this new Nothing handset against the likes of the Motorola Moto G86 5G and the Poco X8 Pro.
To see if the Phone 4(b) can come out on top as one of the best cheap phones we’ve tested, I’ve been putting it through its paces for the last week or so.
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Design
Solid polycarbonate chassis
Typically Nothing design
IP64 water and dust resistance
Nothing’s phones have always had a certain look to them, and the Phone 4(b) sticks with its tried-and-tested formula of being funkier and more interesting than a lot of its contemporaries. You either like it, or you don’t, and admittedly, I’m quite a fan of it.
It is made of polycarbonate (plastic), as you’d perhaps expect for a more affordable handset, but I won’t hold that against Nothing with this phone. It’s comfortable to hold and feels quite durable compared to other cheaper phones out there. There isn’t any creaking or twisting at the corners, either.
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Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
As for colour options, the Phone 4(b) is available in black, white, or blue. My sample is the latter, adding a pleasant pop of colour against the other options, and certainly helping it to stand out.
The rear portion features a rectangular camera bump that doesn’t protrude too far from the main chassis, keeping the phone stable when you set it down. It comes with Nothing’s typical retro-futuristic touches, alongside a downsized Glyph Bar borrowed from the Phone 4(a).
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
The Glyph Bar has long been Nothing’s calling card when it comes to its phone design, and it achieves much of the same use cases as with the brand’s other phones. It can do everything from lighting up for notifications from specific people to letting you check charging progress, counting down shutter timers for the camera, or even pulsing red for severe weather alerts.
Ports are standard fare for a modern phone, with a USB-C port for charging and a SIM slot off to the left. There aren’t any other frills, either, such as a headphone jack or a microSD card slot for expandable storage.
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Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
We’ve got IP64 water and dust resistance for the Phone 4(b), which should protect it well against water and dust. This is ahead of the IP54 rating on Nothing’s own CMF Phone 2 Pro, although behind the IP68/IP69 rating of the Motorola Moto G86 5G.
This handset doesn’t ship with a charger in the box, although you at least get a USB-C to USB-C cable and a clear silicone case to help protect the phone.
Screen
6.77-inch 120Hz 1080×2344 AMOLED
2000 nits peak HDR brightness
Optical fingerprint sensor
Nothing has kitted the Phone 4(b) out with a large 6.77-inch Super AMOLED screen with a 1080×2344 resolution. This makes it one of the larger screens kitted out to a phone at this price.
The resolution is more akin to HD, which provides reasonable detail at the price, plus as an AMOLED choice, there are deep blacks and good contrast to my eye.
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If there’s one area where the Phone 4(b)’s screen isn’t quite as strong as its rivals, it’s brightness. A typical peak brightness of 1200 nits gives images some pop and means this phone is fine for brighter conditions, although the 2000-nit peak for HDR content isn’t as vivid as on other budget phones.
It’s up to 120Hz of refresh rate here, which gives an added slickness against the 60Hz we were stuck at for a long time, although the screen here lacks the more advanced LTPO tech we see in costlier phones, meaning the variable refresh rate works in a blockier manner. For the most part, the Phone 4(b)’s panel sticks at 120Hz in my experience, which isn’t much of a hardship.
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
Nothing has also included an optical under-display fingerprint sensor for this phone, mounted quite low down on the panel. It’s fine to use, although not quite as good as the ultrasonic ones seen on higher-end devices.
Cameras
Main rear camera is reasonable
Lack of a telephoto leaves long-range photography fuzzy
Decent selfie camera and okay video options
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In terms of cameras, the Phone 4(b) slices off the telephoto shooter found on the Phone 4(a) and opts for a dual-camera arrangement. The main camera is a 50MP 1/2.76-inch sensor optically stabilised snapper with an f/1.8 aperture, which is joined by an 8MP 1/4-inch ultrawide sensor with an f/2.2 aperture.
By default, the main sensor chucks out 12MP images, although you can switch to the camera’s 50MP mode to make full use of the resolution on offer for more detail, dynamic range and inherently larger file size.
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
Out-of-the-box images with the main snapper are perfectly pleasant, with natural colours and solid detail resolution. In general, the 12MP mode offers richer colours, while using the full 50MP resolution will give you stronger detail.
By comparison, the 8MP ultrawide is lacking in overall detail and only provides images I’d describe as serviceable at best. Finer portions are fuzzier if you pixel-peep.
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Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
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The lack of a telephoto lens is the downfall of the Phone 4(b)’s camera setup, as it means anything beyond a simple 2x or 3x zoom can cause detail to fall off dramatically. For instance, the images taken of Spinnaker Tower beyond the advised 2x on the phone’s camera leave a lot to be desired, with a digital crop nowhere near as effective as proper optical zoom. A dedicated telephoto would have resolved the fuzziness and given a lot more to work with.
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
For selfies, the 16MP snapper on the front is okay, with good richness of colour and a pleasant, vibrant tone. Video capabilities in any guise are locked to a max of 1080p/60fps or 4K/30fps, which is fine, if unremarkable.
Performance
Reasonable mid-tier Qualcomm SoC inside
Solid speed for more basic tasks
More advanced 3D loads can lead to stutters
Inside, the Phone 4(b) is brought down a peg or two against its dearer brother by coming with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 SoC, paired with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage as its only configuration.
With this in mind, performance is stronger against the likes of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 15 4G model, with a much stronger CPU and GPU in the customary Geekbench 6 test. From Nothing’s own canon, the cheaper CMF Phone 2 Pro is rather similar in its performance, while last year’s Phone 3(a) is also faster than the 4(b) in this regard.
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Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
For general use, things are better than the benchmark numbers would suggest, with zippy performance navigating the operating system, streaming music or video or dealing with social media in my usual workflow.
In terms of 3D performance, more casual titles such as COD Mobile or PUBG fare absolutely fine, just as long as you’re happy to turn down some graphics settings for a smoother feel. With this in mind, don’t expect to be playing heavier and more intensive titles, as the 3DMark Wild Life Extreme test posted single-digit frame rates for one of the lower scores I’ve seen.
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For more prolonged intensive loads, expect this Nothing phone to get a little on the warm side, although it wasn’t uncomfortable to the point I had to put it down. The Phone 4(b)’s vapour chamber cooling apparatus seems to do its job decently well.
Test Data
Nothing Phone 4(b)
Xiaomi Redmi Note 15 4G
CMF Phone 2 Pro
Nothing Phone 3a
Geekbench 6 single core
1090
738
1003
1164
Geekbench 6 multi core
3177
1990
2910
3273
Geekbench 6 GPU
2912
1307
–
–
3D Mark – Wild Life
965
350
852
1057
3D Mark – Wild Life Stress Test
99.2 %
99.1 %
–
–
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Software & AI
Monochromatic Nothing OS or stock Android looks available
Very basic AI features against rivals
Reasonable OS and security update commitments
The Phone 4(b) comes with Nothing’s own Nothing OS 4.1 Android skin out of the box that’s based on Android 16. When you first set the phone up, you get a choice between a stock Android lock or the monochromatic, retro-future aesthetic Nothing offers.
I went full Nothing, and opted for its own skin, which is an interesting look against other budget Android phones out there. App icons appear in white on black circles, and it can be a little difficult to distinguish one app icon from another at first. If you’d prefer, going back to the more colourful traditional Android aesthetic is a few taps away in the settings menu.
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
With this in mind, I didn’t find any bloat or unwanted crud here, and the OS is remarkably clean for such an affordable phone. The OS itself has some useful features, such as a hidden vault called Private Space to store sensitive documents and photos, as well as its clever freeform window sizing where you can make any app any size, which is neat.
Pressing the Essential key on the phone’s left side opens up the Essential Space, where the Phone 4(b) uses AI to organise screenshots, recordings and notes, auto-generating summaries, reminders and any to-do lists from the information you saved.
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Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
That’s as far as AI seemingly goes on this Nothing phone, though. There doesn’t seem to be any more AI gubbins here, such as for photo editing as we see on lots of other phones up and down the price ladder.
For the Phone 4(b), Nothing is committing to six years of security updates and three years of Android updates, giving some peace of mind for long-term use.
Battery Life
5200 mAh battery
33W wired charging
No wireless charging support
The Phone 4(b) features a 5200mAh battery inside, which is ironically the largest battery Nothing has ever fitted to one of its phones, in spite of it being the most affordable Nothing-branded handset. For reference, the Phone 4(a) comes with a 5080mAh cell.
The brand says that works out to enough for 22 hours of video streaming. In my experience, I managed around eight hours of screen-on time of use when it came to an intensive day of multitasking and using my phone as normal at more middling brightness levels.
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Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
For reference, that’s scrolling my social media, streaming music through Tidal or Plexamp, taking the odd photo when out and about, and dealing with a small amount of work in a pinch in Google Docs.
For a more scientific test, a cursory run of the PCMark Work V3.0 battery test at 50% brightness worked out to nearly 17 and a half hours of use – a fantastic result.
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The Phone 4(b) supports up to 33W wired charging with no wireless charging support, which lags behind a lot of its key rivals. In using my 66W 6A charger to put some go-juice back into the handset, it also proves to be quite slow, taking 57 minutes to get back to 50%, while a full charge took 100 minutes.
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Should you buy it?
You want an affordable Nothing phone
The Phone 4(b) is the cheapest Nothing-branded phone out there, and if you want the brand’s unique features and design, it’s the most affordable way to do it.
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You want a brighter screen
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Against some rivals, this Nothing handset lacks some vividness with its screen and has less in the way of overall detail, too.
Final Thoughts
The Nothing Phone 4(b) is a capable budget Android handset with a clean OS, avant-garde looks and excellent battery life. Its internal power is fine for the price, although lacking against some of the competition, and the dual camera array is mostly fine for the price.
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It makes several key upgrades to the CMF Phone 2 Pro, such as with battery life, dust and water resistance, and by sticking with Nothing’s own design philosophy, although it feels a little baffling considering the Phone 4(b)’s screen is dimmer, and it isn’t much more powerful. Bear in mind the CMF option is also nearly £100 cheaper, too.
Elsewhere, the Motorola Moto G86 5G has a slightly higher-res screen, similar performance from its MediaTek Dimensity 7300 SoC and a similar camera array to the Phone 4(b) while costing £20 less. Its OS is much more chock-full of bloatware than Nothing’s, though, so it’s swings and roundabouts.
With this in mind, the Phone 4(b) is an interesting choice if you want an affordable handset with Nothing’s typical flair and interesting design, and seems like it’s going to be the way the brand does things going forward. For more choices, check out our list of the best cheap phones we’ve tested.
How We Test
We test every mobile phone we review thoroughly. We use industry-standard tests to compare features properly and we use the phone as our main device over the review period. We’ll always tell you what we find and we never, ever, accept money to review a product.
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Used as a main phone for a week
Thorough camera testing in a variety of conditions
Tested and benchmarked using respected industry tests and real-world data
FAQs
How big is the Nothing Phone 4(b)’s battery?
The Nothing Phone 4(b) has a 5200mAh battery inside, which is the biggest Nothing has ever fitted to one of its devices.
One of the things we love about the M7 Pro 5G is the 50MP Sony camera that comes with optical image stabilisation built in, which keeps handheld shots sharp in situations where a shakier phone would blur, from a moving bus to a poorly lit restaurant table at night.
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Above that sits a 120Hz FHD+ AMOLED display designed with eye care in mind, delivering the kind of smooth scrolling and crisp colour that makes browsing or gaming feel noticeably sharper than a standard 60Hz panel.
Powering all of that is a Dimensity 7025-Ultra processor, a 6nm 5G chip with an octa-core CPU clocked up to 2.5GHz, built to handle multitasking and heavier games without slowing down or overheating during longer sessions.
Memory Extension technology adds up to 12GB of virtual RAM on top of the phone’s physical memory, taking the total as high as 24GB and letting more than 42 apps stay open in the background at once.
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None of that performance drains the battery quickly either, since the 5110mAh cell paired with 45W turbo charging is built to get through a full day of heavy use and top back up fast when it does run low.
The handset also carries IP64 dust and water resistance, a flagship-level touch that protects against light rain, spilled drinks, or dusty environments without needing a separate case bought just for peace of mind, which is rare to find at this price point.
Worth noting is that the enhanced 5G experience POCO promises depends on regional network coverage and local operator support, meaning actual speeds will vary depending on where the M7 Pro is used day to day.
If you’re after a 5G phone that covers photography, display quality, and everyday battery life without the flagship price tag, the POCO M7 Pro 5G is a no brainer choice right now, especially when you’ll save £80 before this deal disappears.
Recent photos from NASA / ESA’s Hubble Space Telescope show magnificent crimson plasma and dazzling blue stars in all their glory. The image in question is from LH 95, a star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy that orbits the Milky Way.
The light from hundreds of young stars is burning the surrounding hydrogen, creating a bright red glow across the entire image. This type of emission, known as H-alpha, is a good indicator that star formation is actually taking place, and it’s similar to a flashing neon sign that draws your attention. You can also detect darker wisps of dust breaking through the light gas, indicating that denser material has withstood the relentless battering of star winds and radiation.
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Blue and white stars sparkle vividly against the blazing red backdrop. Many of these are extremely hot, massive objects that have only been around for a few million years, and if you look closely, there’s one that really stands out, located just above the middle and to the left, as this bloke has a mass between 60 and 70 times that of the sun, and he’s probably a million years younger than the ones around him, the majority of which are around 4 million years old.
So far, astronomers have identified nearly 2,500 stars in LH 95, which have all of the mass they’ll ever need. They are still in the pre-main-sequence phase, essentially hanging out in their disks while nuclear fusion takes place and transforms them into stable, hydrogen-burning stars. However, the results reveal that this growth stage can last several million years, which is longer than some researchers had previously anticipated. However, accretion rates do slow down over time, but material continues to pour in for quite some time.
Hubble has given us a magnificent view of the hottest gas and brightest stars in all of their glory. The hues in this photo are fairly typical, with shorter wavelengths displaying blue and longer visible light, as well as that magnificent red hydrogen emission glowing brightly red. It all helps to accentuate the dynamic dance between stars and their surroundings, and the dark dust lanes stand out since they are the only areas that conceal some of the backdrop glow, adding depth to the entire impression.
Launched in 2014, Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft completed its primary asteroid sample return mission all the way back in 2020. But with the main spacecraft still healthy, the intrepid little probe was assigned new missions — such as its future investigation of asteroid 1998 KY26, a rather unassuming 11 meter diameter rock.
Artist impression of Hayabusa2 firing its ion thrusters. (Credit: DLR, Wikimedia)
Earlier this month Hayabusa2 flew by the 450 meter 98943 Torifune at a distance of 800 meters, close enough to get an up-close look of its surface of mostly silicate minerals. With the spacecraft flying past at around 5 km/s, this posed some challenges with tracking, especially since its systems and instruments were not designed for high-speed tracking.
With that mission now complete, 1998 KY26 – first discovered in 1998 – is next on the menu, though this will have to wait a while. Currently it’s estimated that the two will not meet until July 2031.
Once they do meet up, after Hayabusa2 zips twice more past Earth, it’ll be another major challenge for the by now rather degraded spacecraft. Its sensors have suffer radiation and other types of damage, while its ion engines are quite depleted. The goal at this target asteroid is to enter orbit, deploy its last target marker and projectile, before attempting a landing, probably at one of its poles.
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As likely the final mission for this spacecraft it’ll be very educational in many ways, not the least of which is that of planetary defense, but also that of deepening our understanding of these asteroids and the many varieties that we share space with.
Ford’s F-150 Lightning was a good truck, but not necessarily a successful one. Launched in 2022 and discontinued in late 2025, the truck fell short of expectations and eventually proved financially disastrous, triggering a massive $19.5 billion shift in Ford’s EV strategy. In the wake of the F-150 Lightning, Ford announced a fresh EV project called the Ford Universal EV Platform in late 2025, investing $5 billion in the project to launch a new, $30,000 all-electric mid-size pickup truck for 2027.
Over a year since that announcement, Ford’s new affordable electric pickup truck looks like it’ll become a reality. Multiple reports have emerged of people encountering the new EV in camouflage, possibly while undergoing real-world testing. But the camouflage isn’t just to hide the truck’s final shape. Observers were quick to notice something quirky with the wrap, which, upon close inspection, doesn’t just include heart emojis, dogs, soccer balls, and sailboats, but also a scannable QR code.
Scanning the QR code, as it turns out, takes users to a new Ford website for the upcoming EV. The website welcomes users with a message stating that they have spotted a Unicorn. The page features several videos discussing Ford’s vision for this project, with one of the newest videos featuring Ford’s vice president of advanced development projects, Alan Clarke. In the video, Clarke clarifies that this website will be regularly updated as the project moves forward.
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What we know about Ford’s new mid-size pickup truck
Aside from the $30,000 starting price, Ford’s initial announcement outlined its intention for the new truck to perform similarly to a Ford Mustang EcoBoost while offering more passenger space than a Toyota Rav4. While Ford hasn’t officially revealed a name for the new vehicle, reports indicate that the company could be reviving the Ranchero nameplate, which it last used for a ute sold between 1958 and 1979. Ford regained the rights to the Ranchero name in April 2026.
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Ford also appears to be trying every possible trick in its book to keep production costs low. Its new platform allegedly uses 20% fewer parts and fasteners and also has a smaller and lighter wiring harness than those used on previous EVs. Another major change is the switch to a 400-volt architecture (as opposed to an 800-volt architecture), trading charging speed for price.
Ford intends to equip the upcoming EV with advanced prismatic lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries, which cost less than typical EV batteries. What remains under wraps includes specific data about range, charging speeds, and overall performance (although we do have the EcoBoost Mustang reference). The electric motors that Ford intends to use on this machine also remain a mystery.
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Intense competition awaits Ford’s 2027 launch
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No matter when it launches, Ford’s new EV will likely end up competing in a vastly different automotive landscape from the one that existed when development first started. Aside from locking horns with established players like Tesla, Rivian, General Motors, and Stellantis, Ford will also need to address newfound competition from companies like the Jeff Bezos-backed EV startup Slate and possible challenges from newer players like Telo and Scout Motors.
Slate, perhaps, poses the greatest challenge to Ford, with the $25,000 Slate pickup truck likely launching before the end of 2026. As for Telo, the company is developing a small pickup truck called the MT1, which is expected to be priced around the $41,000 mark. This vehicle is also likely to reach the production stage before the end of 2026. While not a direct competitor to Ford’s upcoming truck, another company that Ford could be looking at closely is Scout. The company is on track to launch a new pickup truck in 2027, which will be a larger machine with body-on-frame construction and premium pricing.
Can Ford deliver on its promise of bringing the new mid-size EV pickup truck to American consumers by 2027? Even if it does, will the truck be able to compete? Only time will tell.
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