Jamie wanted a machine that would make her write. Not a laptop full of open tabs and alerts. Not a phone that vibrates every few minutes. She wanted something that felt like it belonged on a desk from another decade, yet still saved every word without paper or ink ribbons. So she spent weeks designing and building one herself. The result sits somewhere between a classic typewriter and a modern writing deck, finished in green paint with rounded keys and a screen that rises on command.
She began with a keyboard, which was a small mechanical board sporting a built-in circuit and switches. The original square keycaps were removed and replaced with ones she produced herself; however, these ones had a rounded top and looked more like the keys on an old typewriter. Labeling them was simple; simply color the tops with some paint markers, then run them through a laser engraver while the paint is still wet, and the laser will burn the ink into the plastic, ensuring it lasts. Any extra paint easily wipes away, leaving some lovely sharp letters.
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The body of the machine took a little longer to complete, as Jamie created a true full typewriter shell in CAD and began working on the shape and dimensions until it felt just perfect. Then she printed it in sections. Once they were out of the printer, she connected them all together with ABS and acetone, a unique compound that chemically welds the plastic together. Then she slathered on a second coat of the mix to fill in the lines left by the printer, followed by some sanding, priming, and one coat of green paint, and it began to resemble a true typewriter rather than a kitbash of printed pieces.
The Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is powered by a rechargeable lithium battery, while the display is an e-paper screen from Waveshare, which is quite sleek to. say the least. The software is simply a customized version of the open Zerowriter project, which is used by the majority of other distraction-free writing machines. Jamie poked at the code to get the cursor moving with the arrow keys and copy and paste working, which just transforms it from a pure draftsman’s tool to something you can use for actual writing on the fly.
The two mechanical bits give this machine its typewriter feel. One side has a handwheel that can be turned to raise and lower the e-ink screen, similar to how a sheet of paper would pop up from a real typewriter. It’s quite pleasant to use. On the other side, there is a rotary encoder wheel, which you may use to open the menu and scroll through your content. Right next to that is a small seven-segment display that shows how many words you’ve written thus far. When you press a key, the word count refreshes.
The machine does exactly what she intended to build. It sits on a desk, accepts keystrokes, displays clear text on a paper-like surface, maintains a running word count, and asks for almost nothing else. For those who prefer the ritual of a typewriter without the ribbons, carbon paper, or permanent commitment of ink on a page, the green writing deck provides that experience while still saving every document. [Source]
The world knows that Formula One is the pinnacle. It is the crown jewel of motorsport, where every facet is taken to its most extreme form. At any given moment, only 20 people in the world can brag that they compete in it, and only 10 of the wealthiest and most influential corporate teams can land a spot on the grid. The drivers themselves are almost superhuman. They rely on reflexes to make split-second maneuvers that can spell greatness or disaster. They know a track’s route, surface materials, elevation changes, and weather patterns as if it were their childhood home, and they train like fighter pilots to withstand the immense G-forces their cars dole out.
But the other component behind what makes the sport so exciting is the engineering. With their gargantuan budgets, Formula One teams have the freedom to experiment with esoteric and experimental automotive technologies consumer brands wouldn’t dream of touching. This freedom and creativity birth new racing innovations, but it also makes the Formula One track a proving ground. Many of the technologies discovered start with racing applications but are found to be beneficial in consumer cars as well, leading to a trickle-down effect. Many of the features we take for granted, or don’t even notice, in our cars have roots in this motorsport proving ground, and their prevalence becomes more apparent the more you look. Here are five Formula One innovations that shaped the cars we drive today.
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Paddle Shifters
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The most important aspect of a combustion-powered car behind the engine is its gear system. Transmissions help distribute power effectively, and while many of our gearboxes today are obscenely complicated, they used to be quite simple. As it was with consumer cars for much of their history, Formula One cars relied on manual transmissions for quite a while. The simplicity and communicative nature of a manual was good for both consumers and racing drivers. However, in 1989 the status quo was shaken. John Barnard, who we will revisit quite soon, was with Ferrari at the time, and for the 1989 Ferrari 640 F1 car, he introduced a new gearing system.
The 640’s cockpit traded one pedal and one lever for a pair of paddles designed by ergonomic experts from the University of Delft. The function was stupidly simple: press one paddle to upshift and the other to downshift. This allowed Ferrari drivers to retain the control of a manual without its setbacks. They could keep both hands on the wheel at all times; the shifts were light-years quicker, and these benefits were apparent when the 640 won its first race. Ferrari quickly pulled this tech into their road cars, starting with the F355 in 1997, and other automakers would soon follow suit. The feature started with performance cars, but with the introduction of dual-clutch transmissions in the 2010s, they’ve made their way onto the wheels of cars of all levels.
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Carbon Fiber
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Nowadays, it seems you can’t talk to an engineer, read a spec sheet, or look at aftermarket parts without seeing the words “carbon fiber.” It’s hard to believe now, but in the not-so-distant past, carbon fiber was seen as a fascinating but impractical material whose potential usage did not stretch far beyond some niche aerospace parts and the pages of a science fiction novel. Remember John Barnard? Before he made Ferrari’s special gearbox, he was one of the few people pushing for the use of carbon fiber in Formula One. Working for McLaren at the time, Barnard had to hunt down a firm willing to manufacture a carbon fiber monocoque.
Barnard landed on American firm Hercules Aerospace, and the MP4/1 was born. Skeptics thought the material would be too brittle, but a crash at the 1981 Monza GP where the chassis saved driver John Watson quickly proved this angle wrong. Lightweight, twice as rigid, and five times stronger than steel, carbon fiber’s value was undeniable, and McLaren soon used it in the F1 road car. For a while, exotics were the only options for consumer cars that utilized the material to its full potential. You could find it on sports cars, but it was often used sparingly—due to cost—and as a cosmetic wrapping for components made of another material. As production methods improved, though, the material became cheaper, and today, just about any sport-related car has some somewhere.
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Active Suspension
Sometimes in Formula One, a technology is so good it gets banned. When the Williams team was in its prime, it was the maker of one such technology. The FW14B, designed by the legendary Adrian Newey, had a host of amazing features. For one, it was one of the first times a Formula One team realized the potential of modern computing. The FW14B was fitted with a central control unit that featured a Controller Area Network bus system. We could write multiple articles explaining what this means, but the important part is that it meant any electronically connected component could communicate with any other component through a shared central nervous system rather than on delegated individual pathways.
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The aero elements of an F1 car have very small fields of effectiveness, and as a car rises and falls and yaws, it can reduce the efficiency of these aero parts, as well as disperse grip force across the tires in an unpredictable manner. Engineers knew an active suspension system could fix this, but the level of communication and data processing to make it work was out of the realm of possibility, except for Williams and their CAN bus control unit. The technology was so effective that Williams cars were finishing almost half a minute before competitors, leading to its banning. That ban is only valid on the track, though, and today, many of us enjoy the smooth rides active suspension brings us.
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KERS
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Hybrid powertrain technology has become the baseline in modern-day Formula One, but back in 2009, the sport was just reaching the tip of the iceberg. The FIA wanted more exciting racing, and that usually translates to more overtaking. To achieve this, the 2009 regulations invited teams to build kinetic energy recovery systems to give drivers extra juice for temporary power boosts. These systems do exactly what the name suggests, but there are some variations in how it’s done.
Some KERS systems work by harvesting the rotational force under braking with a motor-generator unit, or MGU, mounted to the crankshaft. The MGU converts that kinetic energy to electrical energy, which is then stored in a battery. Mechanical KERS systems use a flywheel that spins a carbon fiber rotor under braking and stores the flywheel’s tensile potential energy, which can be reconnected to the wheels for that power boost at the driver’s whim.
KERS technology is very performance-oriented, but its concepts were quickly recognized for their application in electric and hybrid cars. Most cars with any amount of electric power already have MGUs connected to the wheels to spin them via electric power. However, they can also be used to provide resistance and harvest the kinetic energy under braking. The main difference is that, rather than storing the harvested energy in a separate battery for on-tap power boosts, the energy joins the main supply to increase range in what we now call regenerative braking.
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Hot V Engine Configuration
To be transparent, while the other entries on this list are technologies you can find in many modern, entry-level consumer cars, the hot V engine configuration is still relegated to high-end sports cars and supercars like the Ferrari 296. However, its genius still makes it worth mentioning, as it solves a problem that is often thought of as an unfortunate but unavoidable law of turbocharging a car. The issue in question is turbo lag. A turbocharger works by spooling up a turbine with exhaust gases to pressurize the air, then injecting that pressurized air into the engine for more power. The issue is that when you first start on the gas, the turbine takes a moment to spin up to the appropriate RPM, leading to an uncomfortable gap in power delivery.
The Ferrari 126CK Formula One car solved this, though, with what we now call the hot V, where the turbochargers are placed inside the valley of the engine. This does a few things. It allows for a more compact engine profile, but more importantly, it shortens the travel distance the exhaust gases have to go before they reach the turbos. It also keeps the turbos in a warmer part of the engine bay, and the intake manifolds in a cooler part, both of which increase each component’s efficiency. The result is boost on tap and the effective elimination of turbo lag.
Apple TV paid a visit to San Diego Comic-Con, hosting a two-hour panel and revealing new trailers for “Dark Matter,” “Neuromancer,” and the loosely toy-based “Matchbox The Movie.”
Just like any major media company that streams movies and TV shows, Apple held a lengthy two-hour panel at San Diego Comic-Con. The panels are usually an opportunity for fans to see stars talk about past and upcoming projects, as well as the reveal of new trailers for inbound releases.
As part of Saturday’s panel, Apple introduced a trio of new trailers for two shows and a movie.
Matchbox The Movie
Hall H was given the first look at a new Apple Original Film based on a Mattel toy franchise. Coming from Skydance Media and Mattel Studios, “Matchbox The Movie” stars John Cena, Sam Richardson, and Jessica Biel, and takes an unusual direction.
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While the usual expectation would be a very toy-focused approach, the film instead seems more like an homage to “The Fast and The Furious.” The toys do still appear in the film, though.
Cena stars as an undercover CIA agent who returns to a small town and teams up with a group of his childhood friends. Cue an international pursuit to save the world with lots of vehicular stunts.
“Matchbox The Movie” will air on Apple TV on October 9.
Neuromancer
AppleInsider first heard about “Neuromancer,” based on the William Gibson novels, in February 2024. More than two years later, there’s a trailer for the show.
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A ten-episode series, it stars Callum Turner, who made a surprise virtual appearance for the panel. It also counts Briana Middleton, Mark Strong, Joseph Lee, Peter Sarsgaard and Clemence Poesy in its cast.
The show follows top-tier hacker Case, who lands in trouble involving high-stakes crime and espionage with assassin partner Molly, and a heist on a corporate dynasty.
Produced by Paramount Television and Anonymous Content, “Neuromancer” will premiere on Apple TV with two episodes on July 22, 2027, followed by one episode a week until March 19.
Dark Matter Season 2
Apple offered a sneak peek of the second season of “Dark Matter” in April, and continued the charge with a full trailer at Comic-Con.
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Based on the novel by Black Crouch, the first season had physicist-professor Jason Dessen be abducted and taken to an alternate version of his life, and followed his attempts to return back home. The second season has Dessen getting used to a quiet life in a seemingly safe world, until they are forced to run once again.
Starring Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Connelly, the cast also includes Alice Braga, Jimmi Simpson, Oakes Fedley, Amanda Brugel, and Dayo Okeniyi.
This time, there will also be “Dark Matter: The Official Podcast” accompanying the show. Author Crouch and executive producer Jacquelyn Ben-Zekry will discuss the show’s biggest moments, the creative process, and the science behind the multiverse.
Produced by Sony Pictures Television, “Dark Matter” will premiere on Apple TV from August 28, 2026, with one episode a week released until October 30.
I’ve had very few problems with any inflatable sleeping pad I’ve tested. Some have lost air, but I’ve never had one deflate completely (knock on wood). That said, there are some tricks to getting the best night’s sleep and having a pleasant trip.
Don’t inflate your pad with your mouth: For one thing, some of these pads are huge, and it’s just a pain, but also your breath is warm and moist and you’re injecting into nylon, which is a recipe for mildew and mold. This worry may be somewhat overblown—a few people have cut open pads they’ve inflated by mouth for years and found no sign of mold—but considering what a pain it is to do anyway, it seems easier to just avoid it. Most manufacturers include some kind of pump sack these days, which makes quick work of inflating your pad. There are also motorized pumps that only weigh an ounce or two, like the Flextail pump.
Don’t over-inflate: Insulated sleeping pads work by putting air and material between you and the cold ground, but that doesn’t mean you need to inflate it until it’s taut. It varies by pad. I generally find that the best method is to inflate it taut, and then start to let out air, lying down to test it until you get to where it feels comfortable. The downside to this method is that your pad isn’t that thick and you’re more likely to bottom out if you let out too much air. I find this isn’t much of an issue for stomach or back sleepers, but if you’re a side sleeper it might take some time to find the sweet spot between comfort and warmth.
Carry a patch kit: Most sleeping pads these days include a patch kit. I rarely bring these kits and instead carry a small roll of Tenacious Tape ($6), which will solve rips and tears in everything from sleeping pads to tents. Make sure to test a small piece of tape on your pad beforehand to make sure the tape sticks, and bring an alcohol wipe to clean the affected area.
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Women need higher R-value pads: Women generally have lower body mass than men, which means women should add roughly 1 R-value to get the same amount of insulation in the same situation. (I also recommend upping the R-value if you’re a cold sleeper in general.)
Sleeping bag ratings assume R5 pads: Most temp ratings you see on sleeping bags are true only if you’re using a sleeping pad with an R-value of 5 or higher (they also assume you’re wearing a base layer). If your pad is less, you will need to adjust your sleeping bag temp rating accordingly. For example, using your 30 degree quilt with a R4 pad will likely leave you cold if you encounter freezing temps. In that situation you’d want to either up the R-value of the pad, or bring a warmer sleeping bag.
Humans discovered the first exoplanet in 1992 and have since found approximately 6,000 other planets from outside our solar system. Not once have those researchers found a moon orbiting any of those planets, however. That may have changed with the recent discovery of the first moon-like object in another solar system.
The findings were published in a recent study. Kevin Hoy, lead author of the study and PhD student at the Instituto de Estudios Astrofísicos, says that this potential moon, known as CD-35 2722 B, orbits a brown dwarf instead of a traditional planet. It’s also approximately 90% the size of Jupiter and bigger than Saturn. This moon-like object takes 170 days to fully orbit its host.
Hoy and other researchers used a fairly old trick to discover this moon: radial velocity analysis, which is used to detect wobbles in stars and is an indication that an exoplanet is nearby. Planets get dimmer as they move away from their host star, and exoplanets are found by viewing the changes in spectral shift.
This is the same method scientists used to detect the first exoplanet, and it was used to detect this exosatellite, which is the name granted to objects that have not yet been defined as an exoplanet or an exomoon.
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“This is the first time, to our knowledge, this technique has produced evidence of satellites around a companion brown dwarf,” Hoy said in the study.
Most people understand that a moon is an object that orbits another object that isn’t a star, like Earth’s moon or the various other moons in the solar system.
NASA
Schrödinger’s Moon?
The study’s findings aren’t without their controversy. Arguably, the biggest question is whether this is actually a moon. Brown dwarves, often referred to as failed stars, are far larger than a standard planet but did not have the chemical reactions in their core necessary to become a star. The exosatellite orbiting this brown dwarf is also bigger than all but one planet in our solar system and larger than most of the exoplanets discovered by researchers so far.
Complicating matters is the fact that no one actually knows what a moon is. There is no standard definition from the International Astronomical Union, the authority that usually comes up with such definitions. Most people understand a moon to be a naturally occurring object that orbits a larger object, like our moon orbits Earth.
There are some rules to this. The host object can’t be a star because then the orbiting object would be a planet. It also can’t be made by humans, or it’s deemed a satellite. The definition has expanded as astronomers find additional, unique types of moons. One example is Zoozve, a quasi-moon that would look like a moon from the surface of Venus but is actually an asteroid that orbits the sun and is close enough to look like a moon.
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For CD-35 2722 B, Hoy told me that one problem is the special nature of brown dwarfs. Brown dwarfs are considered substellar objects because they’re too big and dense to be a planet but lack the hydrogen fusion needed to be a star. They exist in a middle ground between the two, so it’s unclear whether something orbiting a brown dwarf would be considered a planet or a moon.
That isn’t the only roadblock. “The object itself is at least the mass of Jupiter, which is far larger than the rocky and icy moons in the solar system,” Hoy said. “It’s not clear that anything that big should be considered a moon.”
Hoy says that the currently accepted IAU definitions group brown dwarfs in with stars, in that an object orbiting a brown dwarf of sufficient size would be considered a planet. However, this brown dwarf orbits its host star like a planet and CD-35 2722 B orbits the brown dwarf like a moon; therefore, it fulfills both the behavior of a moon and the definition of a planet.
“Maybe when a definition for exomoons is written, objects like this will meet both the definitions of planet and moon, but we’ll have to see,” Hoy said. “Those terms are mutually exclusive in the solar system, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they wrote the definition in such a way as to preserve that.”
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Until that day comes, no one is quite sure what to make of CD-35 2722 B, and until the IAU opens up the metaphorical box and comes up with an official definition for what a moon is, CD-35 2722 B could realistically be considered both a moon and a planet.
To get the best viewing experience when using a projector, you’ll want to follow the 4/6/8 rule. It’s a widely used guideline in the audio-visual industry for a reason: It’s a quick and easy way to find the optimal viewing distance for a screen based on its size and type of content being displayed.
Not all content one might view on a projector will benefit from the same viewing distance. The 4/6/8 rule knows this. It factors how much detail viewers need to see into account, then measures viewing distance as a multiple of the screen’s vertical display height. Ignore the rule, and you might end up putting your projector in a bad spot.
Each number in the 4/6/8 rule represents one of three viewing types: analytical, basic, and passive. Analytical viewing (like small text, numbers, charts, and detailed images) gets the shortest recommended distance. It should be limited to a maximum distance of four times the screen’s vertical height. Sitting any farther away than that could make those finer details too difficult to read. The less detailed the content, the greater the viewing distance can be.
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How the 4/6/8 Rule changes with distance
Anton Gvozdikov/Shutterstock
Basic viewing, where viewers still need to see the information but don’t need to see details, allows for viewing distances of six times the screen’s vertical height. Passive viewing — movies, videos, games, photo slideshows, and anything else in that vein — increases to a maximum distance of eight times the screen’s vertical height.
But how does that factor into something like classroom design, where students might need to do analytical viewing one day but passive viewing the next? In this case, the 4/6/8 rule recommends designing spaces with a maximum viewing distance of six times the screen height whenever possible. That way, the room can comfortably do both analytical and basic viewing (and won’t be hurt by sitting closer than eight times the screen height for passive viewing, either).
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If you’re trying to set up a movie room, you can also use the rule in reverse: determine the viewing distance you want (or can afford), then go with a screen that fits the 4/6/8 rule. Either way, remember that no matter how bright and sharp the projected image is, it can’t overcome distance.
Sources told the TWSJ that a deal could be announced soon. SiliconRepublic.com has reached out to Stripe to confirm the validity of the report.
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Founded in 2023, OpenRouter is a new type of marketplace that offers users access to more than 400 large language models (LLMs) from around 70 providers. It routes requests to the best available provider, letting users shop around based on price and other factors.
It is claimed to be the first marketplace set up for LLMs, reflecting a growing appetite for AI models and a fast diversifying market. The company more than doubled its valuation in a year, after reaching the $500m milestone last June.
A number of other companies have also considered buying OpenRouter, sources further told TWSJ. The Information also reported on the buzz around the start-up.
OpenRouter co-founder and CEO Alex Atallah has described his company as an AI equivalent of Stripe, a payments processing platform with an array of different tools for businesses. Prior to his current venture, Atallah founded OpenSea, a similar type of marketplace for non-fungible tokens.
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OpenRouter already uses Stripe’s services for billing, payment collection and tax, among other needs, under a partnership announced early this year.
Stripe, meanwhile, is also reportedly considering a joint acquisition of PayPal along with US private equity firm Advent International. Sources told TWSJ that PayPal is unhappy with the low-ball reported offer of $53bn. Stripe and Advent are considering their next move.
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A Canadian lab has run a chemical process on real spent nuclear fuel “and pulled out 90% of the long-lived danger in 24 hours, the part that forces a burial site to last 100,000 years,” notes the blog Autonocio, “with the leftovers meant to fuel a reactor.”
The standard plan for spent nuclear fuel is to wait it out. You pull the used bundles from a reactor, sit them in a pool of water for seven to ten years while the heat and radiation come down, seal them in concrete casks, and look for somewhere deep and geologically dull to leave them for the next hundred thousand years. Canada has been hunting for that burial site since the 1980s and still doesn’t have one in the ground.
A company in Saint John, New Brunswick thinks most of what makes that waste dangerous never needed to go in the ground at all. Moltex Energy Canada says a chemical process it calls WATSS can strip 90% of the long-lived material out of used Canada Deuterium Uranium [CANDU] fuel in 24 hours, and that the concentrated leftovers become fuel for a reactor it wants to build on the same site. The recovery step isn’t a slide in a pitch deck anymore. In 2025, World Nuclear News reported that Canadian Nuclear Laboratories ran the process on real used fuel from a commercial Canadian reactor and confirmed the 90% figure.
None of it is generating power yet. What exists is a validated chemical step and a reactor design waiting in line at a regulator. The rest is a 2030s problem. “The chemistry has a lab result behind it. The reactor does not exist…” the article points out. “Moltex is aiming to have its first WATSS and SSR-W units running at Point Lepreau by the early-to-mid 2030s… Not everyone buys the pitch. Critics have argued the reprocessing creates its own stream of byproducts, that the economics are unproven, and that a single site’s stockpile is finite.”
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But Moltex “isn’t alone in trying to burn nuclear waste instead of bury it,” the article notes, with Switzerland and Denmark “chasing the same goal a different way.”
Switzerland’s Transmutex drives a subcritical reactor with a particle accelerator, feeding it spent fuel alongside thorium… Denmark’s Copenhagen Atomics is building a thorium molten-salt reactor that fits inside a shipping container and runs on the leftovers from conventional plants.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader kwelch007 for sharing the article.
Elon Musk’s tunneling startup The Boring Company is in talks to raise a $4 billion funding round at a valuation of $20 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The Boring Company has announced plans to build tunnel networks under Nashville and Dubai. The WSJ says the startup has also pitched projects in Baltimore, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
Oppo’s next flagship phones may have made an early appearance ahead of their expected launch.
Newly surfaced live images appear to show the Find X10, Find X10 Pro and Find X10 Pro Max undergoing testing alongside Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro. This hints that Oppo is already benchmarking its next premium phones against one of its biggest rivals.
A tipster on X shared images showing several unreleased Oppo devices mounted in a testing rig beside what looks very much like Apple’s latest flagship. Although protective cases conceal the phones’ final design, the images still reveal a few notable details.
Most obviously, all of the devices appear to feature a large camera module stretching across the full width of the rear panel. Although the cases obscure much of the design, the visible layout resembles the two-tone rear styling seen on recent iPhone models. In particular, there is a prominent rectangular camera island occupying the top section of the phone.
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Oppo Find X10, X10 Pro, and X10 Pro Max are reportedly being tested alongside the iPhone 17 Pro.
So, there’s no circular camera module on any of these models.
Also, all three models appear to adopt the iPhone 17 Pro-like two-part rear panel design, with the cameras positioned… pic.twitter.com/jRBfjsosJ7
It’s difficult to say with certainty whether the photos show three different Find X10 models or multiple versions of the same handset. The devices sit at slightly different heights within the testing rig. Therefore, this suggests Oppo could be evaluating the standard Find X10 alongside the Pro and Pro Max variants. However, that remains speculation at this stage.
If the leak is accurate, it also suggests Oppo is paying close attention to camera performance. Testing prototypes directly against the iPhone 17 Pro would be a logical step for a company looking to compete with Apple’s photography credentials. In particular, this matters as smartphone makers continue to prioritise computational imaging and video quality.
Beyond the design, however, the leaked images reveal very little. There are no clues about the camera specifications, chipset or display technology.
Oppo is widely expected to unveil the Find X10 series in China in September. This means more substantial leaks are likely to surface over the coming weeks as the launch draws closer.
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While the final design remains under wraps, the company’s decision to test the phones alongside the iPhone 17 Pro suggests it’s once again aiming squarely at the premium end of the smartphone market.
Over the last few decades, several mysterious hackers have captured the public’s imagination, but none quite like Phineas Fisher. A decade after their most famous hack, Phineas remains, by most accounts, the most prolific and public hacker never to have been caught.
As part of our series on the biggest cybersecurity mysteries of all time, we’re delving into the enigma of Phineas, the hacktivist who hacked controversial spyware makers FinFisher and Hacking Team. The latter, an Italian startup, was among the first to turn government spyware into a viable global business, paving the way for spyware makers such as the Israeli NSO Group. Phineas’ hack against Hacking Team eventually led to the startup’s demise years later.
Apart from Anonymous, an amorphous amalgam of hacktivists with a mixed track record of mostly stunt hacks designed to gather publicity rather than have real impact, Phineas is perhaps the most well-known hacktivist in history. Their story is made of impressive hacks and endless unanswered questions.
Who is Phineas Fisher?
Variously called an anarchist, a cybercriminal, a hacktivist, and a vigilante, the hacker has said they “use a lot of different names” for different hacking escapades.
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The hacks we know about were big enough to turn Phineas into a legend among hackers. “I would like to meet Phineas Fisher so that I could buy them a seven-course, three-Michelin-star dinner somewhere and listen to them explain how they turned Hacking Team inside out like a gym sock,” a well-known security researcher once wrote on Twitter. There’s even a song about them.
Phineas first emerged in August 2014, when they announced they had hacked Gamma Group, the makers of the FinFisher spyware — which is where the nickname comes from. They publicized the hack via a Twitter account cheekily called @GammaGroupPR, leaking stolen data including mobile spyware, product manuals, and a price list. The damage was limited, and FinFisher carried on. Phineas published a post-mortem that doubled as a leftist manifesto, then vanished.
A year later, they came back with a bang, hacking Hacking Team, another spyware maker. They took practically everything: more than 400 gigabytes including source code, tens of thousands of internal emails, confidential contracts, and customer lists. The leak allowed journalists to reveal scandals in Ecuador, Mexico, and Panama. Years later, Hacking Team’s CEO David Vincenzetti was forced to sell his company for one euro. For some former employees, Phineas’ hack was the beginning of the end.
Phineas went on to hack the union of the Mossos d’Esquadra, which is the police force of Catalonia, publishing a post-mortem and a 39-minute tutorial video — consistent with their stated anti-police ideals. Their next victim was the ruling party of Turkey’s authoritarian president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a hack motivated by solidarity with Rojava, a leftist autonomous region in northern and eastern Syria that Turkey was fighting against.
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Phineas’ last known victim was Cayman National Bank’s branch in the Isle of Man, a self-governing island between England and Ireland. The hack hinted at a different side of Phineas. “I look for illegal ways to make money in order to free my time so I can do something useful with it. Once I had that figured out, I started scaling it up and making more money than I need and giving the extra away,” Phineas said in an interview with activist Freddy Martinez. (Phineas donated at least $10,000 in Bitcoin to Rojava.)
Phineas kept the hack — which happened in 2016 — quiet for three years later before announcing the “Hacktivist Bug Bounty Program,” an initiative to reward hacktivists who expose companies’ illegal and unethical activities. When Cayman National Bank confirmed the hack, it claimed it “was amongst a number of banks targeted.” Phineas confirmed they had been hacking several banks for years.
That was their last public appearance. Their Twitter and Reddit accounts have long since been deleted, leaving no online trail. FinFisher never contacted law enforcement, according to a former company employee. The Italian authorities’ investigation into the Hacking Team hack ended without finding any evidence pointing to Phineas’ real identity. What I can say, from my own reporting, is that Phineas is alive and well — they have been in contact with me within the last couple of years.
So who is Phineas Fisher? Taking their claims at face value, they’re a hacktivist with anarchist ideals, but also a cybercriminal. Could they instead be a fabricated persona controlled by a spy agency — Russia, say, which has a history of inventing hacktivists to muddy the waters after its own hacks? Phineas has denied being a Russian spy, and it’s unclear why Moscow would go after all of Phineas’ chosen targets.
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Their origins are equally murky. Phineas has name-dropped Spanish-speaking anarchists, wrote the Hacking Team post-mortem in Spanish, and followed numerous Latin American leftist accounts on Twitter. They told me their first language is neither English nor Spanish, though they have acknowledged living in a Spanish-speaking country. It’s all worth taking with a grain of salt. “Everything I say that contains clues about my identity is half trolling,” Phineas once told me. “I’m in the habit of saying misinformation.”
It’s also possible that the Phineas persona was passed around between 2014 and 2019 and used by different individuals. But there is no evidence of that, and after 10 years of conversations, my gut says Phineas truly is the hacktivist they claim to be.
ASCII art from Phineas’ Hacking Team breach post-mortem. (Image: TechCrunch)Image Credits:TechCrunch /
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