Remember that rush rescue mission for NASA’s $500M space telescope? It failed, reports CNN, and the LINK satellite won’t be able to boost the telescope’s orbit. NASA says its decades-old Swift telescope will now continue losing altitude, until it reaches Earth’s atmosphere later this year and burns up.
CNN reports:
Just weeks after LINK lifted off on July 3, it started to spin out of control. [Satellite designer] Katalyst was able to regain control of the satellite, but the company acknowledged that the issue cost it time, which would delay LINK’s rendezvous with Swift by about a month. However, that postponement — at least initially — did not seem to be a deterrent to the mission. Now, NASA and Katalyst have announced that LINK’s mission will not capture and boost Swift to a higher orbit “due to ongoing attitude control issues,” according to statements Wednesday.
“NASA should be willing to move quickly and take smart risks when the potential return is worth it, and that is exactly what we did with this mission,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said in a statement. “This is not the outcome we were working toward, but it does not change why this mission was worth attempting. The team moved with extraordinary speed to give Swift a chance to carry out more science while advancing capabilities America will need for satellite servicing in the future….”
The mission team is forging ahead with its plan for LINK to rendezvous with Swift — but as a demonstration rather than a rescue. “We are going to learn everything we can from LINK’s rendezvous attempt and put those lessons to work on the missions that follow,” Isaacman said… Swift wasn’t designed to be serviced in space, which means that insights from the demonstration could be used for future missions… “We have already learned a tremendous amount,” [said Ghonhee Lee, CEO of Katalyst Space Technologies], “and now our job is to turn those lessons into something durable — building a repeatable playbook to inform future rendezvous and proximity operations and satellite servicing.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
It’s less about an autonomous vehicle’s capabilities and more about what conditions it can operate in.
Seeing a car move through city traffic with no one in the driver’s seat can make it feel like Waymo has already reached the highest possible level of automation. From a passenger’s perspective, there’s no steering, no monitoring and no need for a human to intervene. The vehicle handles the entire trip on its own.
But under SAE’s (Society of Automotive Engineers) driving automation framework, that capability is still Level 4 rather than the highest: Level 5. The key distinction isn’t how “independent” the driving looks in practice, but where that independence is allowed to exist. At Level 4, the system can fully handle the driving task without human input — within a defined set of conditions and locations. Level 5 removes those boundaries entirely.
Strictly speaking, it’s the Waymo Driver, the company’s automated driving system, that’s classified as Level 4. Waymo’s published safety research describes it as an SAE Level 4 automated driving system, and that classification explains why an empty driver’s seat doesn’t automatically make a Waymo Level 5.
There are a total of six SAE automation levels, numbered 0 through 5. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) starts its breakdown at Level 0, where the human does all the driving even if safety systems can briefly intervene. Level 1 can continuously assist with steering or acceleration and braking, while Level 2 can handle both at the same time. In each case, the driver remains responsible for the car.
Level 3 changes who’s doing the driving. The system can handle the entire driving task under certain conditions, but the human must be available to take over when requested. At Level 4, that requirement disappears. Once the automated system is operating within its intended conditions, the occupants are passengers rather than backup drivers.
This is also why Waymo can describe its service as fully autonomous without claiming SAE Level 5. Its cars can complete rides without anyone sitting behind the wheel, but that ability still has defined operating limits.
Those limits are usually described as an operational design domain, or ODD. In simple terms, the ODD defines where and under what conditions a self-driving system is designed to operate. That can include geography, the types of roads it’s designed for and the weather conditions it can handle. SAE defines it as the set of conditions an automated driving system is designed for, and Level 4 systems are expected to handle driving on their own within those boundaries.
At Level 4, the system handles the entire driving task within its ODD. Level 5 removes that limitation: NHTSA describes it as operating universally rather than within limited service areas. So Level 5 isn’t about a car being “more autonomous” during a particular maneuver. A Level 4 Waymo already handles steering, braking and decision-making on its own when operating within its domain. The difference is scope, not who is responsible for driving.
That’s why Waymo can keep improving its system and still remain Level 4. For example, Waymo says its sixth-generation Driver has expanded capabilities for more diverse environments, including extreme winter weather. Expanding into new cities or weather types makes the system more capable, but as long as it still operates within defined boundaries, it remains Level 4 rather than Level 5.
Expanding a Level 4 system gives developers boundaries around the problem. They can define where the system should operate, identify the conditions it needs to handle and test its behavior against scenarios relevant to that domain. Removing those boundaries dramatically increases what has to be accounted for.
That’s already difficult at Level 4. In its 2026 research on collision-avoidance testing, Waymo noted that evaluating a Level 4 system is complicated by the potentially enormous number of operational scenarios in which a hazardous situation might develop. Its methodology identifies potentially hazardous scenarios using human driving data, data from Waymo’s automated-driving tests and expert knowledge.
Weather offers a concrete example of those limits. In May 2026, Waymos encountered flooded roads in Atlanta and San Antonio, leading the company to suspend or restrict some operations while it worked on improvements.
There isn’t a reliable countdown to when Level 5 will arrive. NHTSA currently says Level 5 technology isn’t available in vehicles for consumer purchase, and the SAE levels describe capabilities rather than a development roadmap.
Threat actors are abusing FTP banners to hide commands that deliver two previously undocumented remote access trojans named E4del and PINHOLE.
MalwareHunterTeam observed this unusual technique in July in an attack that used shortcut files (.LNK) and FTP server banners as dead-drop resolvers (DDR) to retrieve commands.
FTP banners are text strings the server uses as a greeting message for connecting hosts before they log in.
By embedding commands in the initial response sent when a compromised system connects to an FTP server, a malware stager can receive instructions from a remote server.
After discovering FTP banners being used to deliver malicious commands during an investigation, researchers at threat intelligence platform SOCRadar expanded their hunt and found that the technique remains in use.
“By utilizing FOFA searches, we determined that this technique has been weaponized since early July 2026 and remains operational, with new infrastructure observed as recently as August 2026.”
In a report shared with BleepingComputer, SOCRadar says that the observed attacks start with a ZIP archive that triggers an LNK-based infection chain. The researchers note that the initial compromise likely occurs through phishing.
The infection chain delivers two remote access trojans (RATs) named E4del and PINHOLE via two distinct infection routes, both retrieving a PowerShell script from FTP banners.
E4del is a Node.js-based RAT packaged inside a digitally signed Electron application that masquerades as Discord.
The RAT supports running commands through persistent or temporary shells, capturing screenshots, streaming the desktop over WebSockets, and downloading and executing additional payloads.
SOCRadar also mentions a Node.js module named crypto32.node that attempts privilege escalation, but the researchers could not retrieve it for analysis.
PINHOLE retrieves its C2 configuration from Pinterest pins and SurveyMonkey survey questions, a tactic that offers versatility and resilience to take-downs.
The malware leaves a minimal footprint on the host, using shellcode fluctuation to keep only one 4KB section of the payload in memory at a time, and injecting the final assembly into a suspended ApplicationFrameHost.exe process via Early Bird APC injection.
PINHOLE supports 14 commands, including file enumeration, uploading and downloading files, command execution, process management, capturing screenshots, and deploying a module for stealing credentials stored in browsers.
At the time of analysis, the PINHOLE script counted only 11 execution events, suggesting that the campaign was in an early stage.
While abusing FTP banners to deliver commands is a novel alternative, SOCRadar says that the approach is less stealthy than traditional web-based DDRs (e.g., X, GitHub, YouTube) because FTP connections to unknown servers are more likely to stand out.
“While threat actors typically utilize legitimate web services, such as X, GitHub, or YouTube, to provide cover through high-volume, expected network traffic, FTP banners represent a novel alternative.”
The researchers note that the technique is very versatile and could “easily” be adapted for ClickFix social engineering campaigns.
SOCRadar’s report provides indicators of compromise that could help defenders identify the malicious infrastructure as well as infected machines on the network.
Overall prevention scores can hide what happens after initial access. Once attackers are using valid credentials, prevention drops sharply.
The Blue Report 2026 measures defenses technique by technique across 338 million simulations run in customer production environments.
On Hackaday last week, and on the podcast, we were talking about one of the educational toys of yesteryear that launched a thousand careers, at least if the comment section is to be believed: the Radio Shack 200-in-1 electronics kit. The “toy” itself was basically a bunch of components with spring terminals, but the secret sauce was in in the instruction book, and maybe the marketing.
Tom had one of these when he was a kid, and told a great story about wanting it desperately based on the ads he had seen with kids Morse coding to each other. When he got the kit, and found out that “it was just a bunch of wires” he was fully pissed off. But he worked through the examples, learned some basic electronics, and the rest is history.
What I really love about this story is the siren’s call of a good project. Tom was pulled in, and maybe even fooled, by the advertising, but it probably changed his life. It’s funny how many of our folks can remember the first project that got them hooked as well. With me it was some simple audio effects pedals and then maybe later some simple BEAM robots, and for younger hackers maybe it was a 3D printer or Arduino project.
Digital or analog, the common ground here is that we all thought that some project was cool enough to warrant the sweat of learning enough to do it. Good instructions are helpful of course, and having the parts on hand never hurts. But it’s the promise of making something that you really want that I think underlies all good first projects. (And heck, every subsequent project as well.)
So while Tom, and a bunch of our readers, were looking back with nostalgia at the 200-in-1, I’m thinking about how many more than 200 projects I’ve seen made by our community, and even featured here on Hackaday, that are out there to provide the motivation to get someone started. Keep on hacking!
The projector industry has a rather large problem in 2026: 98-inch televisions are getting cheaper, brighter and increasingly difficult to ignore. Simply telling consumers that a projector can make a bigger image is no longer enough when enormous Mini-LED televisions are becoming attainable without requiring a dedicated projection room.
That has forced projector manufacturers to become considerably more ambitious. We recently looked at the XGIMI MIRA, which attacks the more affordable end of the ultra-short-throw market, along with newer lifestyle projectors such as the XGIMI HORIZON 20 Series and Hisense XR10, which combine easier placement with increasingly sophisticated optics, HDR processing and gaming features.
The new XGIMI AURA 3 Max pushes that trend into the premium UST category with an RGB triple-laser light engine rated at 5,700 ISO lumens, a dual-iris optical system, claimed 8,000:1 native contrast, 110% BT.2020 color coverage, Dolby Vision, HDR10+, Google TV and support for 4K/120Hz gaming over HDMI 2.1.
This is not simply an AURA 2 with more light coming out of it.
Related Reviews: Hisense XR10 Triple Laser 4K Lifestyle Projector Review
Ultra-short-throw projectors have always made a compelling lifestyle argument. Instead of hanging a projector from the ceiling and running cables through the room, a UST can sit on a cabinet beneath the screen and create a very large image from only a short distance away.
The AURA 3 Max has a 0.163:1 throw ratio and can produce a 120-inch image with roughly eight inches between the projector and screen. XGIMI also includes automated screen alignment, autofocus, keystone correction, wall-flatness compensation, wall-color adaptation and eye protection to make installation less intimidating for consumers who do not want to turn their living room into a weekend calibration project.
Those conveniences are increasingly common, however. What separates the AURA 3 Max from less expensive UST models is the amount of attention XGIMI has paid to contrast, optics and gaming performance, areas where lifestyle projectors have historically made compromises.
The AURA 3 Max uses an RGB triple-laser light source with a claimed maximum output of 5,700 ISO lumens and coverage of 110% of the BT.2020 color space.
That level of brightness is clearly intended for multipurpose living spaces where total light control may not always be practical, although manufacturer brightness specifications should never be confused with independently measured output in an accurate picture mode. That will require an actual review.
A proper ambient-light-rejecting UST screen will also remain important for anyone planning to use the projector during the day. The screen is sold separately, so buyers need to factor that expense into any comparison with a 98-inch or larger television.
The AURA 3 Max’s dual-iris optical system may ultimately prove more important than the lumen number.
Very bright DLP projectors can struggle with black levels and shadow depth, especially when they are designed to produce enough light for daytime viewing. XGIMI says its two-stage iris system combines optical light control with dynamic adjustment based on the content and can deliver up to 8,000:1 native contrast.
The company also uses Dynamic Black Enhancement to further increase perceived contrast while attempting to preserve detail in darker scenes.
Those figures need independent verification, but the direction is important. Premium UST manufacturers are no longer competing solely on brightness. Contrast control is becoming one of the key battlegrounds, with competitors such as Hisense and AWOL Vision also introducing increasingly sophisticated optical systems to improve black levels.
The AURA 3 Max introduces XGIMI’s X Vision AI image processor, which performs real-time analysis for detail reconstruction, HDR optimization and other picture adjustments.
HDR support includes Dolby Vision, HDR10, HDR10+, HLG and dynamic HDR tone mapping, along with IMAX Enhanced and Filmmaker Mode. Native 24fps playback is supported for film material.
XGIMI has also addressed two artifacts commonly associated with RGB laser DLP projection: laser speckle and rainbow effects. The company says its optical system and processing reduce both, although sensitivity varies considerably from viewer to viewer and remains something we would want to evaluate in person.
The optical assembly uses 19 elements, including ED-grade optical glass and multi-layer coatings designed to maintain focus and color consistency from the center of the image to the edges. That emphasis on better lenses reflects a broader shift in the lifestyle-projector category, where convenient placement is no longer considered an excuse for mediocre optics.
Gaming is one of the AURA 3 Max’s more unusual strengths.
XGIMI uses two DLPC 8545 display controllers operating in parallel to process 4K UHD signals at 120Hz. The projector also supports VRR, ALLM, AMD FreeSync Premium and Dolby Vision Gaming, along with claimed input latency as low as 1ms depending on resolution and operating mode.
XGIMI describes the AURA 3 Max as the world’s first UST projector to support 4K/120Hz playback. We would leave that phrased as XGIMI’s claim rather than treating it as an independently verified industry first, particularly given the number of regional and differently specified projector models now entering the market.
What matters more is the practical application. Owners of a PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X or gaming PC can potentially use a very large projected image without being limited to the 4K/60Hz ceiling still found on many UST projectors.
That makes the AURA 3 Max considerably more interesting for gamers than most previous premium UST designs.
The projector runs Google TV, providing native access to Netflix, YouTube, Prime Video and other major streaming services, along with Google Cast and Google Home integration.
Audio comes from an integrated 80-watt Harman Kardon system with support for Dolby Atmos and DTS Virtual.
Anyone spending serious money on a premium projector should still consider a proper soundbar or surround system, but integrated audio matters in this category. UST projectors are increasingly marketed as television replacements, and many buyers expect them to function as complete entertainment systems without requiring an AVR and five loudspeakers on day one.
Connectivity includes three HDMI inputs, including an eARC connection, plus USB 3.0, USB 2.0, Gigabit Ethernet, optical digital audio and analog audio connectivity. XGIMI also includes two pairs of 3D glasses, because projection remains one of the few corners of the display industry where 3D has somehow avoided being buried completely.
The Hisense PX4 Pro is one of the most obvious rivals. Hisense currently lists it at $3,999.99 and equips it with an RGB triple-laser light engine, 3,500 ANSI lumens, a claimed 6,500:1 contrast ratio, Dolby Vision, IMAX Enhanced and gaming-focused features.
The Hisense L9Q moves further upmarket with up to 5,000 ANSI lumens, Google TV and a considerably more elaborate built-in Devialet audio system. It is particularly relevant because Hisense has spent years establishing itself as one of the dominant brands in the UST category.
The AWOL Vision Aetherion Max is another direct competitor, with RGB triple-laser projection, wide-gamut color, Dolby Vision, VRR and aggressive gaming specifications.
Consumers spending less should also consider models such as the NexiGo Aurora Pro MKII ($2,999), which has earned a strong reputation for delivering excellent UST performance without moving into the highest price tier.
That competitive field makes the AURA 3 Max’s eventual U.S. price extremely important. Its specification sheet is impressive, but premium UST buyers have more credible alternatives than ever before.
The most obvious customer is someone who wants a 100 to 120-inch or larger image in a multipurpose living roombut has no interest in ceiling mounting a traditional projector or designing a dedicated theater around one.
Movie and sports fans should appreciate the high light output and extensive HDR support, while gamers have an unusually strong reason to look at this model because of its HDMI 2.1 feature set and high-refresh-rate capabilities.
The AURA 3 Max could also appeal to consumers considering one of the increasingly affordable 98-inch televisions but who still want something significantly larger. A 120-inch 16:9 image provides roughly 50% more screen area than a 98-inch display, which is a substantial difference once both are viewed at normal seating distances.
There are still tradeoffs. The ALR screen adds cost, even a very good UST projector will not automatically match the black levels of the best OLED or high-end Mini-LED televisions, and consumers sensitive to DLP rainbow artifacts or laser speckle should see one in person before purchasing.
XGIMI has opened registration around the AURA 3 Series launch, but it has not yet announced final U.S. pricing or a confirmed U.S. retail shipping date for the AURA 3 Max.
The projector was originally unveiled in China in May 2026, so we would not describe it as a CEDIA Expo 2026 launch. XGIMI is exhibiting at CEDIA this year, however, which makes it entirely possible that U.S. pricing or additional availability information could emerge around the show.
Until XGIMI confirms that, we would rather leave the calendar alone than promote a coincidence into a launch strategy.
The XGIMI AURA 3 Max is interesting because it attacks several of the remaining weaknesses of premium UST projection rather than simply adding more brightness.
The dual-iris optical system is aimed at improving contrast, while the elaborate RGB laser engine, improved optics and broad HDR support address picture quality. HDMI 2.1, 4K/120Hz, VRR and ALLM give gamers features that remain unusual in this category, and Google TV plus substantial built-in audio preserve the convenience that makes UST projectors attractive in the first place.
The two numbers we still want independently verified are the claimed 8,000:1 native contrast ratio and ultra-low gaming latency, and the biggest unanswered question remains the U.S. price.
If XGIMI gets that part right, the AURA 3 Max could become one of the more compelling premium UST options of 2026. Giant televisions are no longer giving projector manufacturers much room for complacency, and this looks like XGIMI’s response.
Chinese chip companies are running unusually broad equity schemes to keep engineers, with Cambricon covering 85.3% of its workforce and AMEC more than 97%. Europe’s semiconductor sector has a talent gap estimated at 65,000 workers.
Chinese chip companies are giving away equity at a scale that looks less like a bonus scheme and more like a defensive measure. Cambricon has unlocked around 600,000 shares for 124 core staff, worth an average of 5.57mn yuan each, or about $828,000.
The breadth is the more striking number. The same company has granted 5mn shares to 944 employees, which is 85.3% of its workforce, in a plan running to 2028.
It is not alone in that approach. Zhongji InnoLight, which makes optical transceivers for AI data centres, allocated 2.48mn shares to 99 key personnel with average yields above 26mn yuan, and the chip equipment maker AMEC has a restricted stock plan covering more than 97% of its staff.
Cash is moving in the same direction. ByteDance and Tencent have reportedly offered pay increases of up to 150% and bonuses of around 35% to secure AI talent.
The pressure behind it is domestic as much as geopolitical. Chinese firms are poaching from one another while export controls have made domestic chip design a national priority, which concentrates demand on a small pool of engineers.
The awards are not unconditional. Cambricon has tied an incentive plan to a revenue target of roughly $14.8bn, which turns retention into a performance instrument rather than a gift.
Europe’s problem is described in the opposite terms. The European Chips Skills Academy has put the continent’s semiconductor talent gap at 65,000 workers, in a region that has more AI talent than the United States by headcount.
What Europe lacks is the instrument rather than the people. Many of its relevant employers are listed incumbents, research institutes or university spinouts, and employee share schemes differ so much between member states that equity is a harder tool to reach for.
Its answer has largely been training. Skills academies, apprenticeships and Chips Act programmes address supply, on a timescale measured in graduate cohorts rather than quarters.
The American answer is simply money. TNW has reported that Anthropic pays the highest salaries in AI research, to the point that its chief executive has worried aloud about people joining for the pay.
So three regions are answering the same shortage differently. China is offering ownership, America is offering cash, and Europe is offering courses, which is the only one of the three that cannot be accepted immediately.
Across the world, rising costs and an uncertain economy mean that smartphone sales are falling, yet Apple’s iPhone has still seen a 5% growth in the latest quarter.
The latest figures from Europe recently showed that as the smartphone market continues to contract, the iPhone continues to grow. Now figures for Latin America are saying a similar, but not identical thing.
According to Counterpoint Research, smartphone sales in Latin America for Q2 2026 saw their largest decline in three years. Compared to the same period in 2025, the market shrunk by 10%.
In Europe, Apple still saw its market share rise during that period, but for Latin America, the result is less clear cut. Apple remains behind Samsung, Xiaomi, and Motorola for market share, but it still grew its shipments by 5%.
Only Samsung did better at with a 6% increase. All others saw sales decline, with Xiaomi the worst affected with a 27% drop year over year.
LATAM Smartphone Shipments by OEM, Q2 2025 vs Q2 2026 YoY – image credit: Counterpoint Research.
The price rises from the global chip shortage contributed to the overall drop, with the greatest declines seen by the entry-level and mid-tier brands. Those account for three quarters of all the smartphones sold in the region.
Researchers credit Apple’s growth in the premium market in part to the company absorbing price rises, at least for the time being. They also report that there is consistent demand for the iPhone 17 Pro Max.
There was also steady demand for older iPhones, while the quarter benefited from the then still quite new iPhone 17e. That had launched midway through March, the last month of the previous quarter.
Apple’s fiscal Q2 runs from April to June, and there were no new iPhone launches in that time. The third quarter runs from July to September, so there will be a launch of the iPhone 18 Pro range toward the end of that quarter.
That will probably benefit Apple, but overall the research expects that Latin America smartphone sales will not improve until at least 2028.
Making a film camera is a project within the reach of almost anyone, from the experimenter with cardboard and sticky tape, to the machinist with an aluminium billet. But 3D printing has opened up the world of cameras to whole new set of experimenters, and we’ve seen some very impressive builds here as a result. For all that, there’s always been a particularly tricky aspect to a home made camera: the shutter. In particular, making one with variable speed has proved almost impossible. Now [Camera Things] has given it a very good shot, with a sliding 3D printed design.
To cock it, both the strips are pulled across, before the blind strip is pushed back, and the shutter operates by sliding back under the influence of a rubber band. The clever part in this case is that the blind strip can be partially pushed back to affect the size of the shutter opening. The effect is then of a variable width strip of light passing over the film, which is equivalent to varying the speed of a conventional shutter.
Due to space constraints he’s only able to make it a half frame shutter, so he’s abandoning this design in favour of a more complicated set of vertical leaves. Sadly he’s not made the files available, but we thing proficient CAD users should be able to make their own version. The video is below the break.
It’s not the first printable shutter we’ve seen, but it remains the first variable one.
The universe is full of cool and interesting things, like black hole stars and nightmare planets that get scorched by their host star. Now researchers have found a star that moves ridiculously fast, and it’s right in our celestial backyard, whipping around the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole.
Say hello to S301, a star near the center of our galaxy that was discovered by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany. It joins the massive catalog of more than 1.8 billion stars, but it has some properties that researchers believe make it special. The first, and most obvious, thing about S301 is that it’s the fastest-moving celestial object ever observed by science.
This superswift star hits a peak speed of around 15,500 miles per second, or about 55.8 million miles per hour. That happens, researchers say, after S301 accelerates as it nears Sagittarius A*, the black hole in the middle of the Milky Way, hitting that 15,500 mps mark as it makes a sharp turn to go around. It then slows as it takes a much wider loop back around to repeat its orbit.
To give you an idea of how fast that is, the prior candidate for the fastest-moving celestial object ever recorded was a low-mass star and its accompanying super Neptune planet that zip at approximately 1.2 million mph, which translates to about 333 mps.
Our solar system moves through space at about 500,000 mph, or approximately 140 mps, and the fastest human-made object ever created, the Parker Solar Probe, is cruising along at 430,000 mph. It still pales in comparison to the speed of light (186,282 mps), and the host of things that are almost that fast, like gravitational waves and black hole jets, but S301 beats out all other planets and stars observed by humans.
S301’s other notable quirk is its proximity to Sagittarius A* — 10 times closer to the black hole than the previous closest star, S2 — and according to the study, this is the speedy star’s true value. It’s so close that it can feel the effects from the black hole much more acutely than anything else humans know about. Researchers aim to study those effects to learn more about how black holes work.
This is important because looking at black holes is exceptionally difficult. Black holes have so much gravity that nothing can escape, not even light, so scientists have to measure the effects a black hole has on objects around it. A perfect example of this is the first picture of a black hole. You can’t actually see the black hole itself, but you can see the accretion disc that formed around it.
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute have already found and measured some of these effects on S301 and are hoping that observing and studying the star over the next decade can give them some insights about how black holes work. Since S301 is so close, researchers can test various theories that they were unable to before because no other known objects were close enough to feel these effects.
One such example is the frame-dragging, or Lense-Thirring, effect, which was predicted by Albert Einstein in his general relativity theory. It states that massive rotating objects (like supermassive black holes) drag spacetime around with them, creating a rotating wave of spacetime that can alter and interact with nearby objects.
Think of yourself standing in a swimming pool with one arm out, palm open, just below the water surface, and then spin. You’ll notice a wave form in front of your arm as your rotation pushes your arm through the water. Einstein’s theory states that rotating black holes have this same effect on the fabric of spacetime.
S301 is close enough to feel this effect, and researchers have already measured the Lense-Thirring effect on it.
“S301 is the first star to orbit directly in the region around Sagittarius A* where the frame-dragging effect is extreme,” Felix Mang, Ph.D. student and corresponding author of the study, said in a statement. “We’re not just measuring spacetime curvature; we are measuring how it gets distorted by the rotation of the black hole itself. That is unique.”
The biggest challenge to studying S301 is that it’s extremely dim, about two billion times dimmer than Betelgeuse, which is the 10th brightest star in the sky. The crew at the Max Planck Institute employed a small army of instruments and methods to detect it in the first place, including the Gravity instrument on the Very Large Telescope and the Micado instrument on the Extremely Large Telescope, both located in Chile and part of the European Southern Observatory.
Fractile was founded in 2022 and operates from two primary locations in London and Bristol.
UK AI hardware start-up Fractile is in talks to raise funding of around $600m at a pre-money valuation of $6.5bn, according to Bloomberg.
The new valuation is estimated at more than six times that of the company’s last funding round in May, when it raised $220m.
The new funding is set to be co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Redpoint Ventures, with the possible involvement of Thrive Capital and Founders Fund, according to Bloomberg’s sources.
Fractile aims to enable the scaling of cheaper AI token processing for faster model reasoning by building hardware that offers “low latency and high throughput”, with its operations spanning “transistor-level circuit design up to cloud inference server logic”, according to the company.
The start-up has also reached an initial deal to sell around $250m of its chips to Anthropic for deployment in 2027, with an intention to expand the contract in the future, according to Bloomberg.
Proceeds of the May funding round – which was led by Accel, Factorial Funds and Founders Fund, with participation from Conviction, Gigascale, 01A, Felicis, Buckley Ventures and 8VC, alongside existing backers – were to be used by Fractile “to accelerate the path to getting our first chips and systems into customers’ hands”, it said at the time.
Fractile was founded in 2022 by CEO Walter Goodwin, who has a University of Oxford PhD in AI. It operates from two primary locations in London and Bristol but has previously also hired in Taiwan and San Francisco.
Global demand for AI chips of higher speeds and in greater quantities is ever-growing, with chipmakers surging in value, while shortages sparked by unprecedented demand continue to threaten supply chains across the tech world.
This week, AI inference start-up Etched raised $700m in a new funding round led by US trading firm Jane Street, which the company said boosted its valuation to $21bn.
ChangXin Memory Technologies, a Chinese manufacturer of dynamic random-access memory chips, recently replaced Tencent as the world’s most valuable Chinese company.
Earlier this month, AI giant Anthropic confirmed previously rumoured plans to design its own chips in response to a worldwide shortage and increased pressure to develop faster, more advanced AI systems.
Meanwhile, in Ireland, tech giant Intel recently announced a major €5bn investment in its Kildare facility, which the company said will strengthen Ireland’s semiconductor ecosystem.
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On the tenth anniversary of UHD Blu-ray Disc, we sat down with three A/V industry experts to discuss the future of physical media and digital downloads, and whether 8K resolution will play any role in either.
Our panel included a Sony executive, who also serves as a committee chair at the Blu-ray Disc Association, the North American president of Magnetar, maker of high performance UHD Blu-ray Disc players, and the CEO of digital download platform Kaleidescape.
Their answers reveal something rather interesting: none of them appears to be waiting around for an 8K revolution.
Without further ado, here is how each of these experts views the role of 8K resolution in the broader consumer video landscape, along with what the future may hold for physical media and digital downloads.
eCoustics: Is any working group at the BDA currently studying a commercial 8K movie-disc format or enhancement to the UHD Blu-ray standard to support 8K resolution?
Victor Matsuda: The BDA is not currently working on any commercial 8K disc format, and I don’t see us doing so in the near future. This has been our position for a while, and it hasn’t changed because we don’t see anything from content creators or consumers that indicates a need. Both are extremely satisfied with what Ultra HD Blu-ray delivers, so there isn’t a driving reason to stand up new work around an 8K disc format at this time.
eCoustics: Does the existing recordable 8K broadcast specification have any relevance to prerecorded entertainment?
Victor Matsuda: A recordable broadcast spec and a prerecorded, mastered entertainment format are built for different jobs. The broadcast spec is optimized to capture a live transmission in real time at a sustained bitrate. Prerecorded entertainment is mastered and authored for the best possible picture and sound, using tools like object-based audio that go beyond what a recordable spec needs to support.
With regard to Japan, the BDA already has a specification that touches this directly. Since 2018 we’ve licensed a 4K/8K broadcast-recordable format that lets Japanese consumers record satellite 8K broadcasts, NHK’s BS8K channel being the main example, onto BD-R and BD-RE discs, using the HEVC codec up to 8K/60p, with HDR support via Hybrid Log-Gamma, and capacities up to 128GB across four layers.
eCoustics: What technical limitation of UHD Blu-ray is most likely to matter over the next decade?
Victor Matsuda: I don’t see a particular technical limitation on UHD Blu-ray over the next decade, at least not with the content offerings and options that exist today. It’s always possible that some new type of content or feature could push the limits of the format’s capacity or bitrate, but we certainly haven’t seen that to date.
eCoustics: Could a future specification improve HDR, color depth, frame rates or audio without moving to 8K?
Victor Matsuda: Yes, and that’s where I think the more interesting work is happening. The developments that deepen a viewing experience — advances in HDR, color depth, immersive object-based audio — aren’t tied to resolution at all. Those are the gains that genuinely change how a movie feels, independent of whether you’re at 4K or a theoretical 8K. I’d expect any future refinement of the spec to keep leaning into that territory before anything to do with raw pixel count.
eCoustics: Does the BDA consider Ultra HD Blu-ray the final mass-market optical movie format?
Victor Matsuda: I wouldn’t call anything “final” in an absolute sense; formats evolve when there’s a real reason to. But right now, we don’t see anything from content creators or consumers to indicate a need for a new format. Both are extremely satisfied with what Ultra HD Blu-ray delivers, and for the reasons I’ve touched on already, that’s unlikely to change without some external driver.
eCoustics: What would have to happen commercially before the Association considered a successor?
Victor Matsuda: My experience as a product planner has taught me that new products generally grow from what I call needs or seeds. A need is an identified consumer or industry gap that a new technology can fill. A seed is an idea or technology that companies plant in hopes it opens up a possibility for consumers and industry that eventually grows into a need.
Commercially, the trigger would have to come from the content side. If a driving factor ever prompts a new physical format, it will most likely be the emergence of content the internet infrastructure simply can’t deliver at scale without compromising quality, something so demanding that streaming becomes the bottleneck again and physical media is the only way to carry that experience intact. Until that kind of content actually exists and needs a home, I don’t see a commercial case for moving toward a successor format.
eCoustics: Are buyers asking for 8K playback, or are they more concerned with HDR, audio and build quality?
Rob Jones: Overwhelmingly the latter. We speak with our customers, dealers and installers regularly, and 8K rarely comes up. What buyers do ask about is picture fidelity, especially when it comes to 4K content. We field questions about HDR handling, Dolby Vision, color accuracy, tone mapping, and how well the player performs with the display or external processor they already own. On the audio side, our customers care deeply about lossless audio, high-quality DACs, dedicated outputs, and the questions can get even more complex.
Build quality and reference-level playback are consistent themes in the conversations we have with our buyers. Enthusiasts at this level have been burned before by hardware that was discontinued, or by exits in the category that have left cherished devices unsupported. They’re seeking a player that is built to last, backed by a company committed to the category. That is exactly where Magnetar has positioned itself. 8K is a spec-sheet conversation, not a customer conversation. Until the entire home entertainment chain and content ecosystem support it, resolution beyond 4K is not driving purchases from what we’re seeing.
eCoustics: Is there enough demand to justify developing another generation of optical players?
Rob Jones: Not yet, and for a very simple reason: the content needs to drive the format. We occasionally get asked about 8K, but until the studios move forward with 8K production and distribution, there is no need for an 8K disc format. Furthermore, there is nothing really on the horizon suggesting that transition is coming anytime soon. While, yes, some major productions are captured on 6K or 8K, very few are actually produced and finished through a true end-to-end 8K workflow. Capture resolution is only one part of the entire production pipeline.
What often gets lost in this conversation is just how exceptionally capable 4K UHD already is. With a great master, disc bitrates, encoding profiles and proper playback hardware, there’s still tremendous performance available at the 4K level. From our end, we’re most interested in extracting every level of detail available to us on a disc rather than chasing a resolution number the content itself does not support. That’s where our engineering investment goes and where we believe our customers see real returns.
eCoustics: Which parts required for player manufacturing are becoming difficult to source?
Rob Jones: At present, Magnetar is well positioned with our vendors, and we maintain a strong inventory position on the key components required to build our players. From this position, we foresee many years of continued manufacturing without concerns.
Of course, in any hardware category, individual components evolve or eventually reach end-of-life. When that happens, we plan for those transitions well in advance to ensure continuity of production from our end. Customers investing at this level deserve the confidence that the company behind their player is built for the long haul, and that is how we intend to operate.
eCoustics: Could existing UHD Blu-ray players remain viable for another decade?
Rob Jones: Absolutely, and we would argue that is one of the format’s greatest strengths. 4K UHD Blu-ray has been delivering reference-quality video and audio for a decade already, and for the vast majority of viewers, it sits at or beyond the threshold of what the human eye can even perceive. A disc purchased today will play the same in ten years as it does now, and it does not depend on a license agreement, a server or an active subscription. The format is stable, the library is already enormous, and the studios are actively supporting and adding to it.
The real variable here is hardware, which is why build quality and industry commitment are paramount. As we know, a well-engineered player, properly supported, should serve its owner for a long time. Because we’ve engineered our players to be universal media players rather than strictly Blu-ray players, they support all discs and file-based content alike, giving owners a platform that remains flexible and useful to them, regardless of how the landscape evolves around them.
eCoustics: Are customers buying players primarily for movies, music discs or both?
Rob Jones: From what we’ve observed here at Magnetar, both. Movies are certainly a primary driver for many of our customers, and it is this side of the business where we see adoption growing aggressively. The clearest evidence of this is coming directly from the studios themselves. When platform-defining streaming exclusives such as Stranger Things are released as deluxe physical media editions alongside The Sopranos, Dexter, Game of Thrones and others, that signals that consumers are actively buying film and television on disc in numbers that justify those releases. Each and every collector, deluxe or limited edition that is released is a signal that the customer base for physical media playback is expanding, and we see that reflected in our player sales as well.
At the same time, a significant and passionate segment of our base buys with music in mind as well, favoring CD, SACD and high-resolution audio files for playback. There is strong overlap between the two groups, as customers at this level are seeking out a singular reference-grade machine to serve both passions. That expectation has shaped how we build. Our players are universal media players by design, with serious attention paid to the audio and video side of the coin. Whether the content is on a physical disc or a file, the player should do that content justice. Our consumers are buying one platform for their entire collection.
eCoustics: What would persuade Magnetar to support a successor format?
Rob Jones: Three major stars would need to align for this to happen: genuine consumer demand, studio commitment and perceptible benefit to the viewer. Any successor format would require consumers to reinvest across their entire entertainment chain, so the improvement would absolutely have to be one the eye and ear could register, not just a marginal gain.
On the technical side of things, we are seeing some signals worth watching. 2026 marks the first implementation of physical discs with up to a terabyte of storage, for example. The real question here is whether or not the studios will adopt those capabilities, because a format only succeeds when there is content to feed it.
eCoustics: Does Kaleidescape see itself as the eventual successor to physical media?
Tayloe Stansbury: Consumers ultimately want the best way to enjoy and build a movie collection. Physical media has served enthusiasts incredibly well for decades. Kaleidescape preserves the collecting experience while combining it with the convenience and reliability of digital. Kaleidescape’s 4K Cinematic delivers a visual presentation beyond today’s 4K. With that, streaming, discs and downloads all have their individual benefits and have their place in the foreseeable future.
eCoustics: What happens to purchased movies if a studio agreement expires?
Tayloe Stansbury: When customers purchase a title, it remains part of their collection. Our studio relationships are built around supporting collectors by enabling customers to build lasting personal collections they access under license.
eCoustics: Can a customer continue playing downloaded titles indefinitely without internet access?
Tayloe Stansbury: Yes. Once a movie is downloaded to a Kaleidescape system, it plays directly from local storage without requiring an internet connection. Internet access is only needed to browse, purchase or download new content.
eCoustics: Could customers ever export or independently back up purchased files?
Tayloe Stansbury: No. Kaleidescape is a secure, studio-approved platform designed to protect copyrighted content while providing the highest-quality viewing experience. That security is a fundamental part of our agreements with content owners.
eCoustics: How does Kaleidescape define ownership?
Tayloe Stansbury: Regardless of disc, download, theatrical or streaming, movies are owned by studios and played back under license.
eCoustics: Could a lower-priced system bring premium downloads beyond luxury home theaters?
Tayloe Stansbury: While Kaleidescape has long been associated with dedicated home theaters, products like Strato E and Strato M have made the platform accessible to a much broader audience. Our goal is to bring the highest-quality movie experience to anyone who values great storytelling and wants to build a premium digital collection.
If these industry insiders are telling us anything, it’s this: don’t hold your breath for 8K. There is no commercial 8K format in development, no meaningful consumer demand, and little incentive for studios to absorb the higher production, mastering, replication, and hardware costs involved in launching not just a new format, but an entirely revised content creation, production, and distribution pipeline.
More importantly, 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray and 4K digital downloads already deliver enough resolution, HDR capability, color depth, bitrate, and lossless audio performance that the visible benefit of moving to 8K would be modest at best for most viewers at normal screen sizes and seating distances.
That does not mean physical media is finished. 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray and 4K digital downloads have settled into a smaller but committed enthusiast and collector market, supported by major studios, boutique labels, select hardware manufacturers, and a 4K movie and TV catalog that continues to grow.
The BDA representative confirmed that the current UHD Blu-ray Disc specification itself continues to evolve in ways that are far more meaningful than simply adding a few million more pixels.
For movie fans who care about consistent playback quality, immersive audio, bonus content, and owning a physical copy that does not depend on a subscription, changing licensing agreement, or disappearing streaming catalog, UHD Blu-ray still solves problems that streaming does not.
For those who want the convenience of instant digital downloads without the significant quality tradeoffs of streaming, services such as Kaleidescape can deliver all of the quality of physical media, and in some cases more, without the need for storage shelves or closets full of discs.
There is still some uncertainty, however, because a studio could potentially revoke access to a title stored in the cloud through a third party service. It is considerably harder to do that with a physical disc sitting on your shelf.
If you love your movies, we’d suggest buying the 4K UHD Blu-ray Discs you actually want to keep, maintain a capable player, and stop worrying about an 8K Blu-ray format that the industry itself does not appear to need.
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