Looking ahead: Sunlight has been used to generate entangled photon pairs, offering an early look at how quantum technology could reduce its reliance on power-intensive lasers. Researchers at the University of Ottawa and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Erlangen, Germany, used focused sunlight to produce entangled photons, which are essential to many photonic quantum computing and quantum communications systems.

The research, which was published in Optica, does not suggest that sunlight can replace laser-based quantum sources. Those systems remain more precise and produce stronger results. But the study shows that the light used to create entangled photons does not necessarily have to come from a laser, challenging the long-standing assumption that it does.

Entangled photons are pairs of light particles with linked quantum properties. Measuring one particle can reveal information about the corresponding measurement of the other, even when the two are separated. That behavior makes entangled photons useful for quantum encryption and other forms of quantum information processing.

Most systems generate these pairs through spontaneous parametric down-conversion. In that process, a laser shines through a special crystal, producing photons with correlated quantum properties. Researchers have favored lasers because they generate coherent light, meaning the waves maintain a consistent phase and typically operate within a narrow range of wavelengths.

Sunlight is not coherent. It contains many wavelengths and reaches Earth from different directions, making it seem like an unlikely candidate for generating entangled photons.

The Ottawa and Max Planck researchers had previously explored the question through theoretical work and experiments using light-emitting diodes. Their work suggested that incoherent light could generate entanglement if the relevant quantum property did not depend on the light’s wavelength or direction.

Experimental setup for generating polarization-entangled photon pairs with sunlight. The solar concentrator is at right; the photon source and electronics are housed in a light-blocking tent at left. Inset: The source’s optical components and avalanche photodiodes.

For the solar test, the researchers needed to concentrate sunlight tightly enough to direct it into a small crystal. Hanieh Fattahi’s team at the Max Planck Institute built a glass, cone-shaped concentrator that collected light from a window-sized Fresnel lens and funneled it into a thin optical fiber.

The team tested the system outdoors at the institute over three days. The resulting photon pairs achieved about 94% fidelity with a perfectly entangled state. The experiment also violated Bell’s inequality, a test that helps establish whether correlations between particles are genuinely quantum rather than explainable by classical physics.

The Bell violation was limited, which the researchers partly attributed to weak seasonal sunlight and passing clouds. The entanglement quality also did not match the best results from laser-driven systems. Cheng Li, who co-led the research as a graduate student at the University of Ottawa and is now at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said the shortfall was likely caused by distortions in the optical components rather than the nature of sunlight itself.

He called it a proof of principle.

The researchers are now working to improve the brightness of the source and the quality of the entanglement. A more capable system could eventually be used outside the laboratory, including in remote locations or on satellites.

That prospect is part of the technology’s appeal. Laser-based systems require electricity, stabilization, and cooling, while much of their energy is lost as heat. A source powered directly by sunlight could eliminate the electrical-to-optical conversion step.

Li said satellite systems could one day use the sunlight already available in orbit to produce quantum encryption keys. The idea remains far from deployment, but the experiment points to a different approach to building quantum infrastructure.

Thinking of a new role in finance? Then check out SiliconRepublic.com’s list of companies looking to add to their teams.

If you are seeking a new professional adventure, then take a look at nine diverse and innovative organisations that are offering roles to skilled and qualified finance experts. Your next big break may well be a couple of paragraphs away. 

Accenture

Irish-American tech consulting and professional services provider Accenture is looking for an accounting statutory and tax specialist to join its Dublin-based team. For German-speaking early-career applicants, there is a finance process and ops associate position available; for senior-level jobseekers, there are tax manager and financial service manager roles on offer. 

BMS

Pharmaceutical company Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) has several open positions for professionals with finance skills and based around Dublin. Current vacancies include roles as director for a global costing centre of excellence, senior manager for EMEA in-market distribution, and manager in supply chain customer operations. 

Fenergo

Fintech company Fenergo has one role open to jobseekers. The procurement category manager position is a hybrid role based out of the Dublin facility. The successful applicant will join the strategic procurement and value management team.

Fiserv

US fintech Fiserv has multiple vacancies open to professionals with skills in finance. Dublin-based roles include quality architect for omnipay modernisation, lead treasury analyst, and omnipay DevOps engineer. 

MSD

Global biopharmaceutical company MSD has one opportunity for jobseekers looking to begin a new job requiring finance skills – an indirect tax specialist position on the Dublin-based team. 

PwC

Professional services company PwC has several opportunities available to professionals with fintech qualifications. In Dublin and Cork, PwC is looking to recruit a finance consultant in a managerial position who will also cover technology consulting and advisory tasks. In Dublin, there is an open finance business partner role, subject to a fixed-term contract. Also in Dublin, an assurance financial risk position is open in FS risk and regulation. 

TCS

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is looking to boost its teams. Currently vacant slots include a head of finance position and a graduate role in accounting and reconciliations finance, both in Letterkenny, Co Donegal. 

Viatris

Global healthcare company Viatris has one vacancy for a professional with skills suited to a job in finance or fintech. The Inverin, Co Galway location is looking to recruit a finance operations manager. The right candidate will serve as the key onsite financial partner to the site leadership team, among other responsibilities. 

Vertiv

US tech company Vertiv, which specialises in data centre and IT services, recently submitted an application to Donegal County Council requesting permission to add 7,000 sq m of space to its Letterkenny facility, which will generate up to 300 new jobs. The company currently has an opening for a payroll administrator at its Burnfoot facility on a temporary contract, and there is also a similar payroll manager position available. 

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

from the the-ducks-are-in-a-biting-mood dept

For all the talk of “reforming” or “repealing” Section 230 in Congress, the fact is that the courts over the past three or four years have effectively chipped away so steadily at the law that it’s lost a significant chunk of its usefulness. The latest comes from the Ninth Circuit, which ruled earlier this week that Section 230 is not, in fact, an immunity from lawsuit, but merely a defense against liability. This may sound like a procedural technicality — and, indeed, the coverage of this case from the likes of Reuters covers it as a boring procedural story — but it’s a huge deal.

To get there, the panel had to rewrite the history of Section 230 and wave off a whole stack of its own prior rulings as either sloppy word choice or mere dicta.

To understand why this ruling is such a big deal, you first have to understand Section 230’s true benefit: it would get bogus cases tossed at the earliest moment. This is the entire key to why Section 230 is important. The point of Section 230 is to put the liability on the party actually violating the law — which would be the creator of the content, and not the intermediary tool they use to host/distribute that content. But the mechanism used to protect speech is that it gets the cases against intermediaries dismissed very early (aggrieved parties can still sue the actual speakers).

If it didn’t do this, the vast majority of the benefits of Section 230 would be lost. Indeed, in one of the many early Section 230 cases, the Ninth Circuit’s Alex Kozinski colorfully described why Section 230 immunity was so important in the famous Roommates case:

Websites are complicated enterprises, and there will always be close cases where a clever lawyer could argue that something the website operator did encouraged the illegality. Such close cases, we believe, must be resolved in favor of immunity, lest we cut the heart out of section 230 by forcing websites to face death by ten thousand duck-bites, fighting off claims that they promoted or encouraged—or at least tacitly assented to—the illegality of third parties…

Every bit of that bolded section is important — and it’s what the court is now ignoring. First, it’s Kozinski not just calling out that Section 230 provides “immunity” but that without it, we would “cut the heart out of Section 230” by “forcing websites to face death by ten thousand duck-bites.” Kozinski was exactly correct, and Section 230’s authors, Ron Wyden and Chris Cox, have said he got it right (I was at a conference years ago where both Cox and Kozinski were present, and when Cox said this interpretation was correct, Kozinski made a joke to the effect that it wasn’t often that a priest got word directly from God that his interpretation of the scriptures was correct).

The operative aspect of 230 is that it’s an immunity that gets rid of those cases early. Because without that, the mere threat of litigation would force many websites to simply remove content to avoid the cost of going through litigation. That’s the duck bites part of this.

And part of what’s important about it being an immunity is that if the district court refuses to dismiss the case on Section 230 grounds, you can immediately appeal that (“an interlocutory appeal”) to the appeals court to say that the district court got this wrong… rather than having to go through the entire litigation process (the thing you’re supposed to be immune from) and then telling an appeals court about the error. By not allowing an interlocutory appeal, it would do away with the element of Section 230 that makes it so effective.

Yet, on Monday, the same Ninth Circuit basically said “eh… nope.” Yes, the ruling was specifically procedural, but it was procedural on that point. Meta and TikTok — and, by extension, every other company facing these suits — have to get pecked to death by ducks first, and only afterwards can they tell an appeals court they never should have been pecked at all. The “procedural” rejection by the Ninth Circuit means that more than 3,000 lawsuits filed against these companies can move forward. It’s not (yet) the full ten thousand duck bites Kozinski warned about, but it’s in the ballpark. And we’re already seeing those duck bites in action.

What’s incredible, though, is just how confused the panel is about all of this. Judge Jacqueline Nguyen, writing for the court, starts by getting the history of Section 230 wrong:

The drafting history adds weight to the view that Congress employed a belt and suspenders approach. In the House bill, where section 230 originated, subsection (e)(3) contained only the first sentence. See H.R. 1555, amend. 744, 104th Cong. (1995), 141 Cong. Rec. H8469 (daily ed. Aug. 4, 1995). In reconciling a competing bill, the Senate adopted the House proposal “with minor modifications,” including what is now the second sentence. S. Rep. No. 104-230, at 194 (1996) (Conf. Rep.). It would be surprising if these “minor modifications” included the addition of immunity from suit.

However, as Jeff Kosseff — literally the guy who wrote the very comprehensive book on the history of Section 230 — notes, Judge Nguyen is exactly wrong.

Kosseff notes that his book goes through this, though so does the law review article he published a few years ago, which details how Section 230 changed during the conference committee and how it was, deliberately, about making internet intermediaries immune from lawsuits. He points out that while the initial draft of the law was supposed to prohibit the FCC from regulating the internet, during the reconciliation process, they deliberately “clarified the intention to preempt litigation” by adding in that “No cause of action may be brought and no liability may be imposed under any State or local law that is inconsistent with this section.”

If it was just about being a defense against liability, they would not have included “no cause of action may be brought.” But the ruling this week claims that Congress was just being superfluous there:

Meta argues that the phrase “[n]o cause of action may be brought” implies immunity from suit because reading it to provide immunity from liability would render the phrase “no liability may be imposed” superfluous. Id. § 230(e)(3). Not necessarily. Congress may have included “cause of action” to encompass suits for injunctive and declaratory relief, since “liability” could be read to encompass only damages. At the same time, Congress may have prohibited the imposition of “liability” to encompass orders by state administrative agencies, which may not involve causes of action. Whatever Congress’s reason for including both phrases, “sometimes the better overall reading of the statute contains some redundancy”

The ruling this week then dismisses all of the many other times that the Ninth Circuit (and other courts) said that 230 was an immunity from suit by basically saying “eh, previous courts were sloppy with language” along with “and when we said that it was never that important.”

It is true that we have used the phrase “immunity” somewhat loosely in our section 230 jurisprudence; although we generally describe it as “immunity from liability,” we sometimes describe it as “immunity from suit.” But none of this usage is binding, because we have never addressed whether the denial of a section 230 defense is a collateral order…

In a footnote, the ruling lists off many (though not all) of the times the same Ninth Circuit has said “immunity from suit.”

See, e.g., Lemmon v. Snap, Inc., 995 F.3d 1085, 1087, 1090 (9th Cir. 2021) (describing section 230(c)(1) as immunity “from . . . suit” and “from liability”); Barnes, 570 F.3d at 1099–1100 (stating that section 230 “protects certain internetbased actors from certain kinds of lawsuits” and that it “protects from liability”); Zango, Inc. v. Kaspersky Lab, Inc., 568 F.3d 1169, 1173, 1175 (9th Cir. 2009) (describing the statute as “plainly immuniz[ing] from suit” and providing “protection . . . for civil liability”); Carafano, 339 F.3d at 1122, 1125 (referring to “immunity from liability” and “immunity from suit”).

So, in order to reach this result, the Ninth Circuit needed to reinterpret and dismiss both many prior Ninth Circuit cases, claiming they were just sloppy with their language and the literal text of Section 230, again insisting that the “no cause of action may be brought” was just the drafters being redundant, rather than the much more likely (and as Kosseff’s history has shown, accurate) interpretation that the law was literally written to prevent intermediaries from having to face these kinds of lawsuits entirely.

It is true that the Tenth Circuit (and only the Tenth Circuit) has also ruled this way, but the Ninth Circuit has way more impact because a huge number of internet companies are based in California, which is covered by the Ninth Circuit. And many other circuits have ruled the other way. In Nemet v. ConsumerAffairs, the Fourth Circuit talked about “a sphere of immunity” created by 230 and points out that:

Section 230 immunity, like other forms of immunity, is generally accorded effect at the first logical point in the litigation process. As we have often explained in the qualified immunity context, “immunity is an immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability” and “it is effectively lost if a case is erroneously permitted to go to trial.” Brown v. Gilmore, 278 F.3d 362, 366 n.2 (4th Cir. 2002) (quotations omitted) (emphasis in original). We thus aim to resolve the question of § 230 immunity at the earliest possible stage of the case because that immunity protects websites not only from “ultimate liability,” but also from “having to fight costly and protracted legal battles.”

In the Sixth Circuit, in the Dirty World case, the court quotes the Eleventh Circuit’s Almeida v. Amazon ruling to note:

The majority of federal circuits have interpreted the CDA to establish broad “federal immunity to any cause of action that would make service providers liable for information originating with a third-party user of the service.”

So while the Ninth Circuit argues that this is some sort of novel issue… it’s simply not. Other than the Tenth Circuit in that one case, almost every other court (including the Ninth Circuit itself) has always held that Section 230 provides for immunity from suit, which as the record and the authors make clear, was exactly the point.

Technically, the panel isn’t wrong that none of those other cases squarely held that a 230 denial is immediately appealable. Courts aren’t bound by things they assumed rather than decided. But there’s a difference between “no court has ruled on this” and “every court to touch this for thirty years, plus both authors of the statute, absolutely understood it the same way to the point that they never needed to directly say so.” The panel treats three decades of consistent understanding as if it were a typo.

And while this latest ruling notes that this is fine because the court can always “revisit the issue of section 230 immunity at a later stage of the proceedings,” once again that destroys the very point of 230. This new ruling even points out that the district court is skeptical the plaintiffs even have a case here:

The court expressed its “skepticism” about plaintiffs’ ability to proceed on their “novel” failure-to-warn theories in light of section 230 but allowed the claims to proceed “for now” given that the litigation was at an “early juncture” and the law regarding section 230 immunity was “in some flux.”

But, once again, that’s the entire point of Section 230! To end these weak cases early!

Indeed, going all the way back to the Roommates case that we mentioned up top, where Kozinski coined his duck bites line, what was most memorable about that case is that the ruling denied Section 230’s protections to Roommates.com over one feature (though dismissed other claims because of it). And Roommates then had to spend four more years litigating the case… only to still win many years, and many millions of dollars later.

That, on its own, shows how important 230 is in getting rid of cases early. The whole point is that most of these kinds of cases are losers for their plaintiffs in the long run on First Amendment or other grounds. The benefit of Section 230 is that the companies don’t have to waste many years and many millions of dollars to get to that final conclusion. But the Ninth Circuit, apparently no longer caring about death by ten thousand duck bites, now says that such cases are free to proceed without interlocutory review at the very point it matters most.

Now the internet companies have a choice: they can ask the entire Ninth Circuit to review en banc, even as that’s a crapshoot with its current roster. They can ask the Supreme Court to weigh in, when we already know a few of the Justices hate Section 230. Or, they can submit to the first 3,000 duck bites, and see if they survive.

Which is the real irony here: for all the years of congressional threats to gut Section 230, it turns out the courts are the ducks, and there’s less of the law left after every bite.

Filed Under: 9th circuit, alex kozinski, content moderation, duck bites, immunity, intermediary liability, section 230

Companies: meta

Google’s new Pixel 11 series devices bring more than just hardware upgrades. One of the lineup’s most interesting new features is designed to break down the communication barrier between deaf and hard-of-hearing users and those who don’t know sign language.

Pixel Camera can now turn sign language into text

Google has introduced a new sign-to-text accessibility feature that uses the Pixel Camera to recognize sign language and automatically convert it into text, so users can sign as they normally would instead of stopping to type a response. Google says the goal is to turn the phone from a one-way listening tool into one that supports natural, two-way conversation during spontaneous, face-to-face interactions.

The feature runs on a new AI model called sign-language-to-text (SL2T), built by Google DeepMind, which the company says marks a breakthrough in translating sign language at scale. Once the Pixel Camera captures a user signing, the model translates it, and Gboard converts it into text anywhere someone would normally type, including web searches, messages, documents, and Gemini queries.

At launch, the feature supports American Sign Language to English translations on the Pixel 11 series, with Google saying more languages and support for additional devices will follow.

Built with privacy and real-world signing in mind

To protect privacy, the system tracks the location points on a signer’s body on-device instead of analyzing raw video, sending only those coordinates to Google’s servers for translation before discarding the original camera feed. Google DeepMind says the model was trained on more than 100,000 hours of data across more than 50 sign languages, and that it specifically tested performance for left-handed signers, who make up about 10 percent of users, and for one-handed signing, common when someone is holding the phone in their other hand.

The company says the model scored higher on a standard sign language translation benchmark than any previous system, though it hasn’t published data on how it performs in less controlled settings, poor lighting, or fast, casual conversation.

Translating sign language is a fundamentally different problem than translating speech, since sign languages have their own independent grammar and vocabulary instead of word-for-word mapping. An estimated 70 million deaf and hard-of-hearing people worldwide use sign language, and Google DeepMind says this marks the first time sign language AI at this scale has reached a consumer product. Whether SL2T holds up in fast, everyday signing, rather than the benchmark conditions Google has published so far, will determine if it becomes a genuine communication tool or another AI feature that undersells its own demo.

When we last left off, I had just set up a new SLA resin printer and was on the verge of doing the initial round of printing to see just how resin printing in 2026 compares to way back in 2020. Surely SLA printing had to be easier and less fussy than it was in 2020?

During these weeks of printing, setting up printers and taking a gander at the various workflows that certain printers and their manufacturers try to push you into I have both produced a series of not too shabby prints and some delightful spaghetti. I also flipped a few proverbial tables and formed some strong opinions on 3D printing workflows, of which some can considered to be family-friendly.

Without further ado, let’s get into some updates, a bit of ranting, and even some printing results.

Going With The Flow

Although workflows are a fairly personal thing in terms of preferences, we’re all creatures of habit with a strong tendency towards laziness. We also tend to prefer workflows that are easier for that reason. This is where after the very manual approach of the Ender v2 I really liked much about the Neptune 4, ranging from its much faster and open source Klipper firmware to a semi-automatic bed-levelling procedure, and of course the Fluidd web interface.

With this I can just pop open an interface in a browser tab and manage the printer, watch the webcam view, etc. from there. Somehow there’s now a third option that seems to be taking over, however. Although a web interface seems straightforward and easy for the average user, there’s been this move towards requiring the use of the slicer via a special API or such that leads to fun access situations as we have recently seen with Bambu Lab printers.

Out of a sense of morbid curiosity I decided to look at what I’d be dealing with if I were to upgrade to the latest & greatest Elegoo (CoreXY) printer if I ever grew tired of my Neptune 4, and noticed that they seem to have gone more in the direction of Bambu Lab. The firmware is Klipper-like but closed, with the most recent FDM printers like the Centauri Carbon series also requiring access via a slicer and/or a special mobile app with a lot of Cloud things mixed in.

To me this seems hugely cumbersome, since one of the things I like with the Neptune 4 is that I can access it from anywhere on a system with a slightly modern browser and print models that are stored on the internal memory. This is where the the GK3 Ultra scores pretty well in my book, too.

Certainly, this resin printer doesn’t do fancy web UIs or APIs, or much in terms of remote-anything. You do get Ethernet, a Wi-Fi USB dongle and the rather nifty ability to set up an SMB file share that you can dump sliced models onto before waddling over to the SLA printer. It’s low-tech yet also universally supported and open, while more convenient than plain Sneakernet, though that’s also an option using the front-mounted USB-A port.

Can I just briefly say how much I love having a USB-A port for Sneakernet purposes, rather than a tiny USB-C port or microSD slot? The Ender 3v2 offered either microUSB or microSD for inputs, none of which really made me like that printer more.

Finally Some Printing

For this first printing round, I printed the same parts on the Neptune 4 in white PLA and black PLA. For the GK3 Ultra I just used the ABS-like (AL) clear-blue resin, to not have to switch resins just yet. The prints include a range of items like bottles, some figurines and a bunch of LEGO Technic-compatible parts. The latter two serve to give dimensional accuracy a good workout, along with basic durability testing.

Starting with FDM printing, this was largely uneventful, though I upped the difficulty challenge with the N4 by using a spool of extra-brittle white PLA. Somehow even that came out fine, aside from an unfortunate spaghetti incident that required some PVA glue to be slathered onto the PEI build plate.

On the resin side of things, it was pretty much as I remembered it from my LD-002R days, just with an absolutely massive build plate, the auto-feeding of resin and of course the use of this rather nice transparent blue ABS-like (AL) resin.

On the slicer side of things I kept things as boring as possible, with OrcaSlicer for FDM, and ChituBox’s free version for SLA. I did look at Lychee as well, but they require registration for even the ‘free’ version, so that one was out for now. I’ll also say that ChituBox got a bit heavier resource-wise than since I used it six years ago, and somehow its UI still feels rather unintuitive, though that’s a bit of a central issue with slicers.

To be fair to Uniformation, they also provide their own slicer on the USB stick and as a download, but since the latter involves a random Google Drive, it triggered my system security-related anxiety. It’s probably a perfectly cromulent slicer, but using ChituBox was the less exciting option for me here as a first try.

Comparing Parts

Since both Elegoo FDM printers come with an example model in the form of this happy Buddha figurine, I figured that I’d also print it with the GK3 Ultra. Here you can see how these compare in a sloppy smartphone photo for which I apologize:

The model was clearly intended to be printed on FDM printers, so the SLA version doesn’t really add a lot, other than a lot of weight. Unlike FDM prints where you have aspects like ‘infill’, an SLA printer can print everything 100% solid with zero time penalty. In fact you want to do this so that you don’t need to drill a hole in it for liquid resin to leak out.

Of course, you can totally hollow out models to save resin and weight, but in that case you do need to add those drain holes lest you end up with liquid resin sloshing inside forever.

Moving on, I also printed a miniature knight figurine on the N4 and GK3 Ultra, which was a bold decision for the former:

Removing supports on this approximately 32 mm tall model was a bit of a nightmare with the SLA version, and I still need to clean it up better, while also rethinking ChitBox’s insistence on angling it upside-down for some reason.

I didn’t even bother with removing supports on the FDM version, although I was somewhat surprised at how much detail it still had when pushing layer height to its ‘super fine’ 0.12 mm setting, though the SLA printer with the ‘sloppy’ 0.1 mm layer height preset is simply in another universe when it comes to preserving fine details.

Clearly layer heights between SLA and FDM are at best the fuzziest of all overlaps, with even the knight’s cape in the SLA version capturing the flow of the fabric and details in the helmet that the FDM version had obliterated.

Finally there are the LEGO Technic-compatible shenanigans:

There is obviously a lot of variability and improvement possible simply by the orientation you print things in, the type and placement of supports. SLA has the massive advantage here that support points on models can be made absolutely tiny and correspondingly leave almost no mark. This made e.g. printing LEGO-compatible parts a snap on SLA, but a nightmare on FDM where I struggled to find an orientation and support/brim configuration that didn’t lead to misprints and/or interfered with the part’s functionality.

The thing where ChituBox really did me dirty, however, was that it went crazy on supports, even adding lots of supports inside these latter parts that still have to be painstakingly poked out if I want to actually properly use them. This is however a slicer issue and potentially a skill issue on the side of yours truly.

Flipping Of Tables

Even after just this first round of printing there’s quite a bit to unpack. On the FDM side of things the workflow is definitely the easiest, especially in terms of post-processing. I did have some bed-adhesion issues, however, which is where SLA tends to be significantly less fussy with just the long-exposure first layer. For the FDM side of things I had a few misprints as a result, which was annoying.

On the SLA side of things there wasn’t too much to upset me, other than some table-flipping at the automatic resin feeding system which I mentioned in the first article. After starting the print, the system seemed to work and began filling the vat with resin, albeit very slowly. At some point I got a ‘material in/out time-out’ error, following which I retried printing, with the resin system again trying to fill the vat for a long period of time.

Ultimately I decided that since I only needed just over 60 mL for the print, and it had already poured in about half the resin bottle, I’d just cancel it. It’s likely that I missed a step here, such as I’m not sure whether you need to pop open the bottle for this to work, but the manual did not mention such details.

Popping over into settings I disabled this auto-feed system and tried to printing again, which worked without issues, other than the backstabbing by ChituBox and a persistent resin smell. This latter issue I tracked down to the slot for the resin bottle, which may or may not be related to the auto-feed issues. After sealing up the gaps the resin smell faded quickly, making it seem at least plausible that the active-carbon system of the machine does something.

After printing I did the usual post-processing, just with a scraper to knock the supports loose instead of something more gentle with a flex plate. The parts were tossed into IPA for a quick clean, including a trip through the ultrasonic cleaner. This was followed by another quick IPA rinse and finally some tanning with a UV lamp in a water bath. This latter step is to keep oxygen away from the curing process and thus speed up the curing, which is one of those details that have worked well for me in the past.

First Conclusions

Despite some flipping of tables, it’s been a fairly positive experience that at least has allowed me to set a bit of a baseline. My overarching feeling at this point in time is that FDM is rather okay for large parts with little detail, such as a CD rack that I already printed in PLA. Not having to deal with smelly resin and involved post-processing is also generally nice.

That said, the sheer quality and level of detail you get with SLA is just a whole other ballgame than FDM. Although it’s been a few years since I previously printed with resin, I still have quite a few prints from that time, including an absolutely miniscule fox figurine that I scaled down on the LD-002R for fun and which still is very much recognizable. The SBC cases and such printed in resin from back then have this level of smoothness and solid feeling to them that you just don’t get with FDM.

An elephant in the room remains that of ABS and ABS-like printing. Such engineering-grade materials are essential for anything in production, and I definitely have to give this Uniformation ABS-like material a good workout. That said, I’m still very hesitant about printing ABS and ASA filaments with FDM, due to the health hazards this poses, mostly caused by the release of styrene.

Although I already wear a respirator with A1 filters backed up by P2 prefilters against VOCs and kin while processing SLA prints, styrene pushes the hazard levels a few notches higher, since unlike most organic vapors it’s not just an irritant, but a known mutagenic toxin. Here an active carbon filter in a closed-chamber FDM printer would seem to be at best optimistic.

To me this aspect alone makes the idea very appealing to use SLA to print high detail models and production parts, while using FDM for sloppy prototyping in PLA, PETG and of course TPU, but this is something that I’ll have to poke some more at. Any input here would be most welcome so that I can do even better with the next article.

In brief: The Steam Machine’s software is fully customizable, allowing users to install non-Steam apps and even different operating systems. However, the living-room PC’s locked-down hardware is far from high-end, an issue some users have addressed with ambitious modifications.

Two recent modding projects aim to substantially boost the Steam Machine’s performance. One modder discovered a roundabout method of adding external graphics, while another built a water block from scratch to achieve dramatically lower temperatures.

Valve’s Linux PC offers a comfortable living-room experience with a controller-friendly interface and a tiny form factor, but its 8GB RDNA 3-based graphics card struggles with high-end games, especially on 4K TVs. Most other desktop PCs would allow users to resolve the issue via upgrades, but the Steam Machine’s unique chassis makes this significantly more complicated.

For example, many likely wish that Valve had included external graphics support out of the box. Handheld PCs from other manufacturers can be docked into high-end desktop graphics cards via USB4, OCuLink, or Thunderbolt 5 ports, none of which the Steam Machine includes.

However, Redditor “Large_Customer_3840” successfully connected an AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT to the device by running its M.2 drive through an OCuLink adapter. Since the Steam Machine’s sole M.2 drive manages the system’s boot storage, he had to reroute the NVMe SSD through a USB-C adapter.

While the process introduces some quirks, Large_Customer claims that the PC booted up immediately. The new GPU ran Crimson Desert at between 40 and 100fps on high settings at 1440p, though there were audio glitches, likely related to SSD bandwidth. The modder recommends that anyone else interested in repeating the process seek an NVMe enclosure with active cooling and at least 40Gbps of bandwidth.

Meanwhile, a recent video (above) from German YouTuber Techmagnet outlines how to completely disassemble the Steam Machine and insert a custom-built water block. A subsequent video on Reddit shows the construction of the water block using 3D-printed components.

While the process leaves large tubes protruding from the Steam Machine, Techmagnet claims it lowers temperatures by 20 to 30 degrees Celsius. However, using the extra headroom for overclocking would require a custom BIOS. With additional work, water cooling the SSD might also be possible.

Ultimately, the Steam Machine’s biggest weakness is its price, which starts at $1,049 due to soaring memory costs. While the RAM crisis has affected virtually every hardware manufacturer, Valve was particularly vulnerable due to its relatively small presence in the hardware market. Still, the company is selling as many Steam Machines as it can build, and new orders are currently waitlisted.

For many security teams, the expected route into the corporate network begins with a phishing email or exploited vulnerability. Certain techniques differ, exploiting the hiring process to gain legitimate access.

In July, the US Department of State released an alert warning of North Korean IT workers impersonating nationals of other countries for the purpose of obtaining work. Once employed, those workers then send their salaries back to parent agencies in North Korea.

The FBI has also warned that fraudulent workers may use their access to copy source-code repositories, exfiltrate proprietary information and support other cybercriminal activity. After being discovered or dismissed, some have attempted to extort their employers by threatening to publish stolen code and data.

These operations expose a gap between checking an identity and proving who is using an account. For instance, a résumé may appear credible, and a laptop may arrive at a domestic address. But, neither of those controls, on its own, proves that the person interviewed is the person who receives the device, or the person who ultimately signs in.

The challenge for service desk agents is how they can confirm the person requesting access is both real and a legitimate new hire.

How Fake Remote Workers Defeat Recruiting Controls

Changing their nationality or identity: This is a key tactic of North Korean IT workers, who will falsify information when registering for online platforms. This might include forging identification documents, impersonating another person, or using a proxy to register an account.

Create fake profiles using AI: To add legitimacy to their identities, fake workers may also create professional profiles and social media accounts. They use AI to support these efforts, matching tone and language to real IT professionals.

Unorthodox payment methods: Fake workers may attempt to avoid being paid by direct deposit, instead favoring money transfers or cryptocurrency. North Korean workers have been observed using a third party for salary deposits, paying the third party for use of the account.

Disguising their location: Tools such as VPNs and remote desktop software may be used to hide the fact that a person is working from abroad.

Using overseas facilitators: Some fake workers will use proxies for device delivery and use. Employer-issued computers are delivered to an address in the country where the worker claims to live. The facilitator keeps the devices powered on and connected, allowing workers overseas to control them remotely.

Why Employment Checks do not Prove Who is Using the Laptop

Background checks, right-to-work checks and identity screening are built to confirm that the details supplied by a candidate are credible. However, fake remote-worker operations exploit the gaps between several different forms of verification.

An organization may confirm that an identity exists, that the named person is eligible to work and that a laptop was delivered to an approved address. It can still issue credentials to an account that is ultimately controlled by someone else.

The tactics employed in operations like the North Korean IT workers are designed to satisfy specific controls:

• The stolen or proxy-supplied document satisfies the identity request.
• The fabricated résumé satisfies the recruiter’s initial review.
• The proxy or skilled worker satisfies the interview panel.
• The facilitator’s address satisfies the equipment-delivery process.
• The laptop farm satisfies location and device expectations.
• The third-party account satisfies the payroll process.

Warning Signs of a Fake Remote Worker

No single indicator proves that an applicant is part of a fake worker operation. However, there are several warning signs to watch out for, as outlined by the US Department of State:

• Frequent changes to registered information.
• A mismatch between the account holder’s name and the name on the registered payment account.
• Multiple accounts created using the same ID.
• Multiple accounts accessed from the same IP address, or a single account accessed from multiple IP addresses in a short period.
• Unusually high hours logged in.

Securing the Onboarding Process Against Fake Hires

Organizations need robust vetting processes for freelance and remote hire to mitigate the risk of fake workers. Solutions like Specops Secure Onboarding allow organizations to confirm identity at a crucial point, by adding government-issued identity-document scanning and biometric liveness detection to the onboarding process.

The document check helps confirm that the identity document is genuine, while the biometric check compares the person completing onboarding with the photograph on that document.

Liveness detection then establishes that a real person is physically present, rather than a photograph, recording or manipulated video being presented to the camera.

A valid identity document may still have been stolen or supplied by a third party. Similarly, a face that appears to match an uploaded image may be presented through a replay or deepfake. Document validation and biometric liveness work together to provide stronger evidence than either control can offer alone.

With support for more than 16,000 document types, Specops Secure Onboarding can apply this process across a wide range of remote and international hiring scenarios.

Turn Identity Proofing into an Access Control

The central lesson from fake remote worker operations is that identity should not be treated as a one-off hiring record.

Organizations need to confirm that the approved identity belongs to the live person receiving access, and they need a reliable way to repeat that check when access is recovered or changed.

By combining government-issued document validation with biometric liveness on day one, then requiring identity confirmation before service-desk agents act, Specops Secure Onboarding provides trusted identity-proofing checkpoints at the moments most likely to be targeted.

Contact us today to see how Specops solutions can secure your service desk against increasingly sophisticated identity attacks.

Sponsored and written by Specops Software.

• NordVPN is now Aston Villa’s Official Digital Security Partner
• The deal aims to protect fans using public Wi-Fi on matchdays at Villa Park
• It echoes a broader trend of top VPNs securing major sports partnerships

Aston Villa has officially named NordVPN as its new Official Digital Security Partner. The deal is designed to enhance data security for supporters attending matches at Villa Park, ensuring fans have access to safer internet browsing when connecting to crowded, public networks.

If you have ever tried to check live football scores, stream highlights, or message friends from a packed stadium, you know that public Wi-Fi can be incredibly vulnerable to snooping. By teaming up with the best VPN provider on the market, Aston Villa hopes to mitigate these everyday cybersecurity risks. A virtual private network (VPN) encrypts your internet traffic, actively keeping your personal data safe from prying eyes when connected to unsecured stadium networks.

A proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit for a critical Microsoft SharePoint vulnerability, published by cybersecurity company Rapid7 on Tuesday, is already being used in attacks.

Tracked as CVE-2026-55040, this authentication bypass security flaw in the JWT token validation pipeline can be exploited by attackers without privileges to perform operations as a SharePoint site user or administrator.

Microsoft patched the vulnerability as part of the July 2026 Patch Tuesday updates, when it warned customers to patch systems running SharePoint Enterprise Server 2016 and SharePoint Server 2019.

“The authentication feature could be bypassed as this vulnerability allows impersonation,” it said. “Exploiting this vulnerability could allow an attacker to disclose files and modify data, but the attacker cannot impact the availability of the system.”

A detailed technical write-up on CVE-2026-55040 was published by Rapid7 security researcher Stephen Fewer on Tuesday, together with a PoC exploit.

Earlier today, threat intelligence company Defused reported that Rapid7’s exploit code has already been weaponized in attacks targeting its honeypots.

“Attackers are now using the @rapid7 POC for CVE-2026-55040 against our SharePoint honeypots,” Defused warned. “The vulnerability is a Microsoft SharePoint JWT auth bypass for which Rapid7 published a technical writeup and proof-of-concept code yesterday.”

Internet threat watchdog Shadowserver currently tracks over 8,500 Microsoft SharePoint servers exposed online. However, there is no information on how many of them are honeypots or have already been patched against this security flaw.

While Microsoft has labeled this security flaw as an attractive target for attackers, it has yet flag it as successfully exploited in the wild.

Likely based on Microsoft’s exploitability assessment, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) warned network defenders on July 15 to secure their SharePoint servers against potential CVE-2026-55040 attacks.

CISA urged security teams to avoid directly exposing SharePoint servers on the Internet unless necessary and to review Microsoft’s official SharePoint Server security-hardening guidance.

It also recommended blocking external access to SharePoint Central Administration and restricting farm and database communication to the required systems. Where Internet exposure is required, CISA recommends placing servers behind a Layer 7 reverse proxy or similar application-layer security control.

Since November 2021, the cybersecurity agency has flagged 14 actively exploited Microsoft SharePoint vulnerabilities, with eight of them also exploited in ransomware attacks.

On Tuesday, CISA also confirmed that a high-severity Microsoft SharePoint remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2026-45659), flagged as actively exploited since early July, is now also being exploited by ransomware gangs.

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.

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