Need a new iPhone but aren’t sure whether to opt for the latest iPhone 17, or to save a bit of money and get 2024’s iPhone 16? You’ve come to the right place.
While not all of us necessarily need the latest flagship smartphone, and opting for an older one is a great way to save money, many worry that there could be too much of a sacrifice. After all, smartphones are ingrained in our everyday lives so they need to be reliable.
With this in mind, we’ve compared our reviews of the iPhone 17 to the iPhone 16 so you can decide which handset to go for.
Otherwise, make sure you visit our list of the best smartphones and, if you aren’t yet sold on an iPhone, our best Android phones will offer our favourite alternatives.
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Price and Availability
The iPhone 17 has a starting RRP of £799/$799, which is unsurprisingly more expensive than its younger sibling. However, it’s worth noting that this price is for the 256GB-sized handset.
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In comparison, while the iPhone 16 starts at a cheaper £699/$699, this is for a much smaller 128GB-sized handset. In fact, if you want to upgrade to 256GB, then its RRP rises to more than the iPhone 17, at £899/$899.
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Design
Both the iPhone 17 and iPhone 16 share the same design
iPhone 17 is fitted with Ceramic Shield 2
Both include the Action and Camera Control buttons
Other than their colour selection, and the iPhone 17 being slightly bigger, there isn’t much difference between the two iPhone’s designs. Both sport the same flat edged, rounded corner design that was first introduced with the iPhone 12 – and this certainly isn’t a bad thing. Even so, there are a few tweaks with the iPhone 17 that although might not be visible, help make the handset feel more premium.
Firstly, the iPhone 17 sports Apple’s Ceramic Shield 2 protection on both the front and back, whereas the iPhone 16 is fitted with the older Ceramic Shield. Apple claims that Ceramic Shield 2 is more durable than its predecessor and should prevent micro-scratches from forming. Admittedly, we didn’t put the iPhone 17 through particularly wild tests to determine whether this is true, we still found that the panels remained scratch-free after prolonged use.
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Otherwise, both the iPhone 17 and 16 have an IP68-rating and include the reprogrammable Action and Camera Control button.
Winner: iPhone 17
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Screen
iPhone 17 benefits from a 120Hz refresh rate while the iPhone 16 maxes out at 60Hz
The iPhone 17’s screen is slightly bigger at 6.3-inches
Both are OLED displays
Apple has finally taken the lead from the best Android phones (and even the majority of the best mid-range phones too) and introduced a 120Hz refresh rate to the iPhone 17. Coined ProMotion, the LTPO-enabled technology was previously reserved for its Pro models which was a huge bugbear for many. Instead, the iPhone 16 sports just a 60Hz refresh rate.
iPhone 17. Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
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As expected, the inclusion of ProMotion makes the iPhone 17 feel impressively smooth in both everyday use and when gaming too, especially in comparison to the iPhone 16. In fact, we hailed the iPhone 17 as having “the best screen yet on an entry-level iPhone”.
Otherwise, the iPhone 17 is actually slightly bigger than the iPhone 16, at 6.3-inches compared to 6.1-inches. Even so, both panels are OLED and support HDR10 and Dolby Vision content.
Winner: iPhone 17
Camera
Neither handset has a dedicated zoom lens but include a 2x in-sensor zoom instead
Both have main and ultrawide rear lenses, but the iPhone 17’s are both 48MP
The iPhone 17 has an upgraded 18MP square selfie camera
Apple made many thoughtful improvements with the iPhone 17’s camera hardware. While we’d still recommend opting for the iPhone 17 Pro if you’re serious about photography, the iPhone 17 is a brilliant choice for most casual snappers.
While both the iPhone 16 and iPhone 17 are equipped with a 48MP main lens which deliver consistently sharp and detailed shots, the iPhone 17 benefits from a 48MP ultrawide whereas the iPhone 16’s is just 12MP. The difference, perhaps unsurprisingly, is enormous as we found the iPhone 17 delivers a big jump in overall resolution and better low-light shots too.
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Captured on iPhone 17. Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
One area which lets both the iPhone 17 and iPhone 16 down is the lack of dedicated zoom lens, like their Pro alternatives. Even so, both handsets are fitted with an in-sensor 2x zoom instead, which allows you to get closer without sacrificing quality and detail too.
While the iPhone 16’s 12MP front lens is undoubtedly decent, the iPhone 17 boasts a welcome upgrade. Not only is the front camera 18MP but it’s now a square sensor which allows you to shoot portrait and landscape shots without actually having to rotate your phone. It may sound small, but it’s a seriously brilliant tweak.
The iPhone 17’s 120Hz refresh rate makes gaming and scrolling feel smoother
Apple has ditched the original 128GB storage option for 256GB with the iPhone 17
Although neither the iPhone 17 nor iPhone 16 are quite as powerful as their respective Pro siblings, both offer brilliant performance that’s enough for most users. In fact, unless you’re playing high-res AAA titles or editing multiple 4K video streams in LumaFusion, you’re unlikely to notice a difference.
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Powering the iPhone 17 is Apple’s A19 chip which, when paired with the 120Hz refresh, ensures apps open instantly, scrolling feels smooth and you can comfortably achieve high frame rates in games too.
iPhone 16. Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
Instead, the iPhone 16 runs on Apple’s A18 chip and remains a capable smartphone – even over a year on. In fact, we found in our benchmarking tests that it doesn’t come that far behind the iPhone 16 Pro Max. The biggest nuisance with the iPhone 16 is that it caps out at a 60Hz refresh rate. Even so, if you’re coming from an even older phone, you’re unlikely to notice this too much.
Winner: iPhone 17
Software
Both support iOS 26
New Liquid Glass interface is easy to use and, we think, looks great
Apple Intelligence remains an afterthought
When the iPhone 16 launched back in 2024, arguably one of the reasons to buy the phone was the promise of the vast Apple Intelligence toolkit. Unfortunately, nearly two years on, Apple Intelligence still hasn’t quite come into its own.
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iPhone 17 Siri. Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
Sure, Writing Tools is somewhat useful and Image Playground is fun for a while, but generally the AI toolkit fails to impress – especially when Gemini really does help to enhance the best Android phones. Essentially, with both the iPhone 17 and iPhone 16, we wouldn’t recommend buying either purely for Apple Intelligence.
Otherwise, both the iPhones support iOS 26. Overall we don’t have many qualms with iOS 26 and find the software is polished, easy-to-use and feels familiar, even with the new Liquid Glass design.
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Winner: Tie
Battery
Both offer all-day battery life
iPhone 17 benefits from faster 40W wired charging
Both support a max 25W wireless charging
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Apple has never boasted a strong reputation for battery life, especially when compared to many of the best Android phones which sport seriously mighty cells. Even so, we found that both the iPhone 17 and iPhone 16 are solid all-day handsets, as we easily ended days with some charge remaining.
Plus, if you want to top up during the day then it’s good to know both support wireless charging too.
However, the iPhone 17 benefits from faster 40W wired charging, which we found took around 85 minutes to reach 100%. In comparison, the iPhone 16 supports slightly slower speeds of 30W which took around 100 minutes to fully recharge.
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Winner: iPhone 17
Verdict
With a 120Hz refresh rate, powerful processor and improved camera camera hardware, the iPhone 17 is an easy recommendation for many – especially if you’re coming from an older iPhone.
Having said that, if you aren’t too fussed about having the absolute latest technologies and want to get a new-ish iPhone but without the high price tag, then the iPhone 16 remains a solid choice.
The Veehop 4WD Scooter is worth a look for anyone who wants to take a scooter somewhere a standard two wheeler simply could not handle. Four wheels, each with its own electric motor and independent suspension, give it the kind of all terrain capability that the name suggests, and with the stem folded down it is compact and light enough to fit in most car trunks.
Each of the four hub motors produces 750 watts nominally and up to 1,500 watts at peak, combining for a total output of 6 kilowatts and 177 pound feet of torque. Top speed on flat ground sits at 31 mph, and a 50 percent incline is handled without complaint. With power going to each wheel independently, mud, rocks, gravel, and shallow water are all manageable terrain rather than reasons to turn back.
Powerful Performance: Our 500W motor adult electric scooter reaches exhilarating speeds up to 19 MPH, which ideal for both adults and teens…
Extended Range: The high-capacity battery powers this adult scooter for up to 23 miles on a single 4-5 hours charge. Cruise control maintains your…
Comfortable Ride: The electric scooter is equipped with a dual suspension system and 10-inch solid tires to ensure that bumps are reduced and grip is…
Independent suspension keeps the deck level even when one side drops into a rut, and sturdy plating protects the frame and battery bay from scrapes across rough ground. At 154 pounds it is heavier than a standard scooter, but that weight starts to justify itself the moment the terrain gets interesting. Total load capacity sits at 441 pounds, and an optional saddle lets you ride seated while still controlling the throttle and steering through weight shifts.
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The 60 volt battery pulls out in seconds for quick swaps, with a capacity of up to 40 amp hours giving you around 37 miles of range at a steady pace or closer to 25 miles if you are pushing hard. A full charge takes four to five hours with the standard charger, and anyone planning longer sessions can simply carry a spare battery and swap it out as needed.
The folding stem keeps storage straightforward, sliding into most car trunks without much fuss, though hauling it up a flight of stairs is a workout given the weight. A small handlebar display shows speed, battery level, and a basic ride overview, with a thumb throttle and a few simple buttons handling all the controls. The Veehop 4WD starts at 3,750 dollars for the full four-wheel-drive option, the two-wheel drive model comes in at 3,350 dollars. Both are shipping right now and the company is inviting customers to schedule a test ride. They’ve also got extra batteries and a few other smaller accessories up for sale as well. [Source]
The basic principle of radar systems is simple enough: send a radio signal out, and measure the time it takes for a reflection to return. Given the abundant sources of RF signals – television signals, radio stations, cellular carriers, even Wi-Fi – that surround most of us, it’s not even necessary to transmit your own signal. This is the premise of passive radar, which uses passive RF illumination to form an image. The RF signal doesn’t even need to come from a terrestrial source, as [Jean Michel Friedt] demonstrated with a passive radar illuminated by the NISAR radar-imaging satellite (pre-print paper).
NISAR is a synthetic-aperture radar satellite jointly built by NASA and ISRO, and it completes a pass over the world every twelve days. It uses an L-band chirp radar signal, which can be picked up with GNSS antennas. One antenna points up towards the satellite, and has a ground plane blocking the signal from directly reaching the second antenna, which picks up reflections from the landscape under observation. Since the satellite would illuminate the scene for less than a minute, [Jean-Michel] had to predict the moment of peak intensity, and achieved an accuracy of about three seconds.
The signals themselves were recorded with an SDR and a Raspberry Pi. High-end, high-resolution SDRs such as the Ettus B210 gave the best results, but an inexpensive homebuilt MAX2771-based SDR also produced recognizable images. This setup won’t be providing any particularly detailed images, but it did accurately show the contours of the local geography – quite a good result for such a simple setup.
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If you’re more interested in tracking aircraft than surveying landscapes, check out this ADS-B-synchronized passive radar system. Although passive radar doesn’t require a transmitter license, that doesn’t mean it’s free from legal issues, as the KrakenSDR team can testify.
Tuesday March 31, is World Backup Day. It’s that necessary annual reminder to back up all our important data and documents. And with so many different ways to back up your files, once you’ve set it up, you can leave it unattended, safe in the knowledge that if the worst happens, you’re protected.
Below you’ll find a comprehensive collection of our favorite backup products and methods, including HDDs and SSDs — both internal and external — portable flash drives, SD cards, NAS systems, and software and cloud backup solutions.
Where possible, I’ve tried to hunt down the lowest prices available for each item, focusing on deals and limited-time discounts. Over the course of the week, I’ll be checking regularly to make sure prices stay accurate and all the products are still in stock.
The ongoing memory crunch does mean prices for some items remain higher than usual, particularly SSDs and other flash-based storage, and demand for high-capacity memory and storage continues to grow. Although deals still appear regularly, they don’t usually last long.
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We’re also running our World Backup Day 2026 live blog with news, updates, and expert advice.
Internal SSDs
Internal SSDs are standard in modern PCs, with SATA and NVMe types delivering fast storage in sizes up to 8TB, although 2TB currently offers the best balance of cost and capacity.
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Internal HDDs
Internal HDDs remain a popular choice for large-capacity storage, with desktop and NAS models offering dependable performance in sizes up to 24TB, making them ideal for backups, media libraries, and long-term data storage at a lower cost per terabyte.
Portable SSDs
Portable SSDs offer fast, compact storage for backups and travel, with capacities reaching up to 8TB, although 1TB to 4TB models remain the most common choices for everyday use.
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External HDDs
External HDDs offer convenient, plug-and-play storage for backups and large files, with portable and desktop models available in sizes up to 24TB, making them a practical choice for expanding storage without opening your PC or upgrading internal hardware.
Desktop NAS
Desktop NAS systems provide centralized storage for homes and small offices, with multi-bay designs supporting large-capacity drives and RAID options, making them ideal for backups, media streaming, and secure file sharing across multiple devices on the same network.
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USB drives & memory cards
Flash drives and memory cards provide compact, portable storage for photos, videos, and everyday files, with capacities ranging from a few gigabytes to several terabytes, making them a convenient choice for cameras, laptops, and quick file transfers between compatible devices.
Software & cloud
Software and cloud backup solutions protect important files by creating secure copies on local drives or remote servers, helping guard against hardware failure, accidental deletion, or cyber threats while making it easy to restore data when problems occur.
You don’t hear much about blockchain these days. Back in the late 2010s, when everyone was talking about NFTs and cryptocurrency, companies were keen to put “blockchain” front and center on their press releases. “Look at us,” they were saying, “we’re embracing modern technology.” But after the sad evolution of cryptocurrency, brands seemed to decide they didn’t need the baggage that came with the word “blockchain.” But that doesn’t mean it’s gone away — just that companies are likely to call it something different now. You’re just more likely to hear things being referred to as distributed ledgers or “on-chain” tech.
According to the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, 60% of Fortune 500 companies are working on blockchain initiatives. The sectors that use blockchain the most are banking and finance, which account for around 20% of its use, but it’s used across all types of business, including the automotive industry.
Before we look at how carmakers use blockchain, it’s useful to understand what exactly blockchain is. At its most basic, blockchain is a shared digital record that isn’t controlled by any single company or authority. Instead, identical copies are stored across a network of computers, and new information is added in secure, time-stamped “blocks” that are linked together. Because each new entry is verified by the network and connected to what came before it, the record is very difficult to alter or tamper with. This immutability makes it useful for automakers who are looking to provide things like digital battery passports and vehicle provenance. However, some car manufacturers are planning to take the tech even further.
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Blockchain is used to store records about supply chains and provenance
IM Imagery/Shutterstock
Blockchain is useful when it comes to storing digital battery passports. These are electronic records tracking the lifecycle of an EV battery and are going to be required in all countries in the European Union by 2027. This regulation affects all automakers who are selling into Europe — including those headquartered in the United States. Automakers need traceability data, and supply chains are international. A modern electric vehicle battery isn’t a single bill of materials so much as a web of upstream mining, refining, processing, cell manufacturing, pack assembly, recycling, and logistics. A blockchain-powered distributed ledger can serve as one definitive record of permissions and provenance that can be shared by different companies.
In June 2024, Volvo Cars launched what it claimed to be the world’s first EV battery passport for its EX90 SUV. The passport uses blockchain to record information such as the origins of raw materials, recycled content, and carbon footprint. Volvo plans to expand the scheme to more of its cars. Meanwhile, Tesla has implemented blockchain solutions to trace the provenance of cobalt in its supply chains. Hyundai and Kia developed an Integrated Greenhouse Gas Information System (IGIS), using blockchain to record emissions across the whole lifecycle of a vehicle.
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Another use for blockchain is providing proof of provenance for collectible cars. Porsche is utilizing its unalterable nature to launch a blockchain-based digital passport pilot for classic cars, as well as other collectibles like watches or paintings. Automakers aren’t the only ones using blockchain for car records. In July 2024, Reuters reported that the California Department of Motor Vehicles had digitized 42 million car titles using blockchain technology to detect fraud and streamline title transfers.
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Other uses for blockchain in the automotive industry
One of the main uses of blockchain in the automotive industry is handling companies’ finances. For example, BMW uses a blockchain system from JPMorgan to handle international financial transactions automatically. However, some pilots and plans suggest that there may be more innovative uses in the future. The much-hyped — but still not yet available — Sony/Honda Afeela EV sedan promises an “on-chain mobility service platform leveraging a token-based incentive model.” Details are still pretty fuzzy, but it does indicate another use for blockchain in the automotive industry, even if it is just persuading people to share their data by giving them cryptocurrency. Nissan is proposing something similar with its Nissan Passport, which it describes as a “digital certificate that expands the range of experiences you can access based on your actions.”
Toyota, the world’s largest automaker, is betting big on blockchain tech and has its own “Blockchain Lab” exploring how blockchain could be used to give vehicles a secure digital identity, bundle fleets into investable portfolios, and make it easier to attract funding for things like electric vehicle fleets and new mobility services. It is proposing a new blockchain-based protocol called the Mobility Orchestration Network (MON), which would link vehicles with other agencies, like regulators, on one all-encompassing digital platform. Toyota’s interest in blockchain goes beyond car manufacturing. It created Woven City, a blockchain-integrated smart city, in September 2025. The goal here is to use blockchain as a trusted digital system that lets people safely share vehicles, electricity, and city services without needing middlemen or paperwork.
Cybersecurity firm F5 Networks has reclassified a BIG-IP APM denial-of-service (DoS) vulnerability as a critical-severity remote code execution (RCE) flaw, warning that attackers are exploiting it to deploy webshells on unpatched devices.
BIG-IP APM (short for Access Policy Manager) is a centralized access management proxy solution that enables admins to secure and manage user access to their organizations’ networks, cloud, applications, and application programming interfaces (APIs).
Tracked CVE-2025-53521, this security flaw can be exploited by attackers without privileges to perform remote code execution when targeting BIG-IP APM systems with access policies configured on a virtual server.
In addition to flagging the vulnerability as being exploited in the wild, F5 published indicators of compromise (IOCs) and advised defenders to check their BIG-IP systems’ disks, logs, and terminal history for signs of malicious activity.
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“This known vulnerability was previously categorized and remediated as a Denial-of-Service (DoS) vulnerability. Due to new information obtained in March 2026, the original vulnerability is being re-categorized to an RCE. The original CVE remediation has been validated to address the RCE in the fixed versions. We have learned that this vulnerability has been exploited in the vulnerable BIG-IP versions,” F5 warned in an advisory update published this Sunday.
“F5 strongly recommends that you consult your corporate security policy for guidelines about incident handling procedures including but not limited to forensic best practices, that are specific to your organization. More specifically, review the policies to ensure that they comply with evidence collection and forensics procedures for a security incident before you attempt to recover the system,” the company added.
Internet threat-monitoring non-profit organization Shadowserver now tracks over 240,000 BIG-IP instances exposed online; however, there is no information on how many have a vulnerable configuration or have already been secured against CVE-2025-53521 attacks.
F5 BIG-IP systems exposed online (BleepingComputer)
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) also added the vulnerability to its list of actively exploited flaws on Friday and ordered federal agencies to secure their BIG-IP APM systems by midnight on Monday, March 30.
“This type of vulnerability is a frequent attack vector for malicious cyber actors and poses significant risks to the federal enterprise,” it warned.
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“Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable.”
F5 is a Fortune 500 technology giant that provides cybersecurity, application delivery networking (ADN), and various other services to more than 23,000 customers worldwide, including 48 of the Fortune 50 companies.
Automated pentesting proves the path exists. BAS proves whether your controls stop it. Most teams run one without the other.
This whitepaper maps six validation surfaces, shows where coverage ends, and provides practitioners with three diagnostic questions for any tool evaluation.
Starcloud’s latest funding round values the space compute company at $1.1 billion, making it one of the fastest startups to reach unicorn status after graduating from Y Combinator.
The company’s Series A, which closed 17 months after its demo day presentation, was led by Benchmark and EQT Ventures. It’s another sign of the interest in outsourcing data centers to orbit as resource and political obstacles slow their development on Earth, but the business model depends on unproven technology and significant capital expenditure.
Starcloud has now raised a total of $200 million, and launched its first satellite with an Nvidia H100 GPU in November 2025. The company will launch a more powerful version, Starcloud 2, later this year with multiple GPUs, including an Nvidia Blackwell chip and an AWS server blade, as well as a bitcoin mining computer.
The company will also begin developing a data center spacecraft designed to launch from Starship, the reusable heavy lift rocket being built by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Starcloud 3, as the spacecraft is named, will be a 200 kilowatts, three-ton spacecraft that fits the “pez dispenser” system SpaceX designed to deploy its Starlink satellites from Starship.
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CEO and founder Philip Johnston said he expects that will be the first orbital data center that is cost-competitive with terrestrial data centers, with costs on the order of $.05 per kw/hour of power — if commercial launch costs land around $500 per kilogram.
The challenge is that Starship isn’t flying yet; Johnston says he expects commercial access to open up in 2028 and 2029. That’s the reality facing all the big space data center projects: powerful space computers will be cost-prohibitive until a new generation of rockets starts launching at a high operational cadence, something that might not happen until the 2030s.
“If it ends up being delayed, we’ll just carry on launching the smaller versions on Falcon 9,” Johnston said. “We’re not going to be competitive on energy costs until Starship is flying frequently.”
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“There’s kind of two business models,” Johnston explains: One is selling processing power to other spacecraft on orbit; the company’s first satellite, for example, analyzes data collected by Capella Space’s radar spacecraft. Then, in the future when launch costs go down, more powerful distributed data centers could potentially pull work from their terrestrial counterparts.
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That gets at how new this industry really is. When Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unveiled the company’s Vera Rubin Space-1 chip modules at his company’s annual GPU Technology Conference last week, he didn’t note that none had been produced or shared with the company’s development partners.
In fact, the number of advanced GPUs on orbit is numbered in the dozens, while Nvidia is estimated to have sold nearly 4 million to terrestrial hyperscalers in 2025.
Or consider that SpaceX’s Starlink communications network, the largest satellite network in orbit with 10,000 spacecraft, produces something around 200 megawatts of energy, while data centers with more than 25 gigawatts of power are currently under construction in the U..S, according to Cushman and Wakefield.
Johnston argues that his company is well ahead of the competition, with the first terrestrial GPU deployed in orbit. It was used to train an AI model in orbit, a first, according to Starcloud, and run a version of Gemini. Beyond the performance, Johnston says Starcloud now has valuable data about what it takes to run a powerful chip in space.
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“An H100 is probably not the best chip for space, to be honest, but the reason we did it is we wanted to prove that we could run state of the art terrestrial chips in space,” he told TechCrunch. That hard-won knowledge —another GPU, an Nvidia A6000, failed during launch — will influence future designs.
There is a laundry list of technical challenges to be solved, including efficient power generation and cooling the hot-running chips. Starcloud-2 will have the largest deployable radiator flown on a private satellite; he expects at least two additional versions of that spacecraft will head to orbit, Johnston said.
Then there is the challenge of synchronization. The largest datacenter workloads, often for training, require hundreds or thousands of GPUs to work in tandem. Doing that in space will either require fantastically large spacecraft, or powerful and reliable laser links between spacecraft flying in formation. Most companies working on this technology expect those workloads to come long after simpler inference tasks take place on orbit.
Besides Starcloud, Aetherflux, Google’s Project Suncatcher, and Aethero — which launched Nvidia’s first space-based Jetson GPU in 2025 — are all developing space data center businesses.
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The elephant in the room is SpaceX itself, which has asked the U.S. government for permission to build and operate a million satellites for distributed compute in space.
Going head-to-head with SpaceX is a daunting task for any entrepreneur, but Johnston sees room for coexistence.
“They are building for a slightly different use case than us,” he told TechCrunch. “They’re mainly planning on serving Grok and Tesla workloads. It may be at some point that they offer a third party cloud service, but what I think they are unlikely to do is what we’re doing [as] an energy and infrastructure player.”
Can you charge those Li-ion based cells with USB-C charging ports without taking them out of the device? While this would seem to be answered with an unequivocal ‘yes’, recently [Colin] found out that this could easily have destroyed the device they were to be installed in.
After being tasked with finding a better way to keep the electronics of some exercise bikes powered than simply swapping the C cells all the time, [Colin] was led to consider using these Li-ion cells in such a manner. Fortunately, rather than just sticking the whole thing together and calling it a day, he decided to take some measurements to satisfy some burning safety questions.
As it turns out, at least the cells that he tested – with a twin USB-C connector on a single USB-A – have all the negative terminals and USB-C grounds connected. Since the cells are installed in a typical series configuration in the device, this would have made for an interesting outcome. Although you can of course use separate USB-C leads and chargers per cell, it’s still somewhat disconcerting to run it without any kind of electrical isolation.
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In this regard the suggestion by some commentators to use NiMHs and trickle-charge these in-situ similar to those garden PV lights might be one of the least crazy solutions.
Reportedly, the crime group accessed more than 350GB of stolen data related to data dumps of mail servers, databases, confidential documents, contracts and other sensitive material.
The extortion group ShinyHunters has been linked to the recent (24 March) breach of the European Commission’s Europa.eu platform, in which a reported 350GB of data, across multiple databases, was accessed and stolen.
In a statement issued after the incident (27 March), the European Commission stated that their early findings suggest that private data has been accessed and Union entities affected by the attack will be contacted. The Commission’s internal systems are not believed to have been affected.
The Commission explained it will continue to monitor the situation, taking the necessary precautions to ensure the security of its systems and data, as well as work to analyse what happened so it can use the results to improve its cybersecurity capabilities.
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While the Commission has not shared further details on the incident, alleged data dumps uploaded to ShinyHunters’ Tor data leak site are said to include content from mail servers, internal communications systems, databases, confidential documents, contracts and additional sensitive material. 90GB of information allegedly stolen from the European Commission’s compromised cloud network has already been shared.
ShinyHunters are an extortion group established around 2020, who have carried out a number of high-profile, financially-motivated attacks on groups such as Salesforce, Allianz Life, SoundCloud and Ticketmaster. The criminal organisation also claimed responsibility for an attack on Match Group, which owns Tinder, Hinge, Meetic, Match.com and OkCupid.
In July 2024, AT&T paid a member of the ShinyHunters hacking group $370,000 to delete the data of millions of customers following a massive data breach of its systems. Reportedly, the stolen data exposed the calls and texts of nearly all of the platform’s 110m cellular customers after ShinyHunters stole the information from the cloud data giant Snowflake.
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The White House did not respond to a request for comment about the meetings, but an official who was not authorized to speak on the record, told WIRED at the time: “The White House does not comment on mysterious meetings with unnamed staffers.”
Simultaneously, Trump has also sought to absolve officials of any wrongdoing in the wake of the 2020 election. Last year, Trump gave “full, complete and unconditional” pardons to a slate of people who had tried, and failed, to help him overturn the 2020 election results. In recent months, Trump has pressured Colorado governor Jared Polis to release Tina Peters, the former county clerk in Mesa County, Colorado, who became a hero for the right’s election deniers when she facilitated a security breach during a software update of her county’s election management system.
Peters was found guilty of four felonies, but Trump has been mounting a campaign in recent months to get her released, even going so far as to say he “pardoned” her, even though he has no power to do so given she was convicted on state charges.
Election Day Interference
While Trump has not announced specific plans to deploy troops to polling locations or seize voting machines, he and his administration have certainly been suggesting that such action is not off the table.
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In January, Trump lamented not having the National Guard seize certain voting machines after the 2020 election. In early February, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that while she hasn’t specifically heard Trump discussing the possibility, she couldn’t “guarantee that an ICE agent won’t be around a polling location in November.” (The question was in response to former White House adviser Steve Bannon stating: “We’re going to have ICE surround the polls come November. We’re not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again … We will never again allow an election to be stolen.”)
Earlier this month, during his confirmation hearing to head up the Department of Homeland Security, Senator Markwayne Mullin said he would be willing to deploy ICE to polling locations to address “a specific threat.”
The result of the Trump administration’s drip feed of threats and dog whistles is that those who are running elections in states across the country are already war-gaming what happens if ICE or the National Guard show up at their voting locations.
Michael McNulty, the policy director at Issue One, a nonprofit that tracks the impact of money in politics, also points to the fact that the Department of Justice sent monitors to oversee elections in November in New Jersey and California, despite no federal elections being held. “The concern is that this could become a massive deployment of, quote unquote, observers by the DOJ in 2026 who might do something more, whether it’s intimidation, whether it’s interfering with local election officials, to get data to confirm conspiracy theories,” McNulty tells WIRED.
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FBI Raids
On January 28, the FBI raided the election office in Fulton County, Georgia, executing a search warrant that allowed it to seize ballots, ballot images, tabulator tapes, and the voter rolls related to the 2020 election. The search warrant affidavit, unsealed a few weeks ago, shows that the FBI relied on the work of Kurt Olsen, a lawyer who was appointed by the administration to investigate election security in October and who has a long history of working with some of the country’s biggest election deniers, including Patrick Byrne, Mike Lindell, and Kari Lake. Olsen’s claims are based on debunked and previously investigated conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.
The raid was also notable for the presence of Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, who is, according to The Guardian, running a parallel investigation into the 2020 election with the apparent tacit approval of Trump.
The product is an active optical cable (AOC) for HDMI. Instead of relying solely on copper, it carries most of its signal over fiber-optic strands. Inside the cable, HDMI electrical signals are converted into optical signals for the journey between the two ends, then converted back to electrical signals at… Read Entire Article Source link
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