One of the problems with being a graffiti artist is that you have to carry around a different spray can for each color you intend to use. [Sandesh Manik] decided to solve this problem by building a rig that can produce a wider range of colors by mixing the paint from several cans at once. Check it out in the video below.
The project is called Spectrum. It uses four off-the-shelf spray paint cans—colored red, blue, yellow, and white—and mixes them to create a wider range of colors. All four cans are hooked up to a single output nozzle via a nest of tubing and a four-to-one tube manifold. Key to controlling the flow of paint is a custom device which [Sandesh] calls the “rotary pinch valve,” with one fitted to the feed line coming from each spray can. These valves use a motor-driven lever to pinch a plastic tube shut, allowing them to control the paint flow. This design keeps the mechanism and paint completely separate, which was important to stop paint from fouling the valves in short order. It also prevents backflow, which keeps the paint going towards the outlet and prevents ugly messes. By quickly actuating the valve, the paint flow from each can is modulated to mix various colors as desired.
The mixing valves are under the command of an Arduino Nano. The microcontroller reads a series of knobs to select the amount of each component color to mix, and displays relevant information on a screen. Then, when a pushbutton is pressed, the valves are actuated to spit out the right amount of each paint from the atomizer nozzle. [Sandesh] went so far as to include an advanced “gradient” mode, where a force-sensitive button allows the device to transition smoothly from one color to another depending on how hard the button is pushed.
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It’s a neat concept which we’d love to see explored further, perhaps with a more traditional selection of CMYK paints rather than the more unusual red, yellow, blue, and white. We’ve also seen some fun spray paint projects before, like this neat wall-mount plotter. Video after the break.
The Bugatti W16 Mistral ‘La Perle Rare’, the last of a vanishing breed, marks the end of an era defined by raw mechanical power and an obsessive quest of perfection. There are only 99 of these Mistrals in total, and each starts at over €5 million. ‘La Perle Rare’, on the other hand, is a handmade unique that will cost a little more than $8-9 million.
It all began at the 2023 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, when a client commissioned Bugatti to produce something absolutely special. Over time, the client and Jascha Straub, the guy in charge of Bugatti’s bespoke business, came up with proposals ranging from a silver tint to numerous shades of white before settling on something that seemed to capture the essence of light. The project began in August 2023, and we can safely assume that the designers in Berlin and engineers in Molsheim worked long hours on it.
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The exterior of ‘La Perle Rare’ is a true show-stopper, with a two-tone color scheme that separates the vehicle into two distinct areas. The top area is a warm color tinged with gold and iridescence, as well as a sprinkle of metallic particles that sparkle beautifully. The second part is a sophisticated, warm white color. Getting the separating lines between the colors just right required a lot of precision. Even the wheels received special treatment, resulting in stunning diamond-cut rims painted in the interior color of the vehicle, which is an understatement given that the wheels are coated in a custom paint combination that matches the exact colors of gold and white. The end result is a car that shines like a rare gem while maintaining the original Mistral design.
Rembrandt Bugatti’s famed Dancing Elephant sculpture is featured in a few of the car’s more subtle details, like the gear selector, body panels behind the front wheels, and even the headrests. To add a personal touch, the name ‘La Perle Rare’ is stitched in the center tunnel, stamped on the engine cover, and painted on the active rear wing. These little details return the automobile to Bugatti’s artistic roots.
Inside ‘La Perle Rare,’ the cabin takes on an entirely new level of brightness, a luminous continuation of the outer motif that is difficult to describe. Every visible piece of carbon fibre has been coated white to give it a jewel-like appearance. Door panels feature alternating white and warm gold lines that look lovely on their sculpted, concave surfaces. The ambient lighting has just the right amount of warmth to it, highlighting the interplay between light and material. The steering wheel, center console clocks, and door handles are all machined and polished aluminum, with each meant to catch reflections in a particularly stunning way.
The power comes from the same quad-turbocharged 8.0-litre W16 engine found in all Mistrals. It’s not exactly small in any way, with 1,579 horsepower and 1,600 Nm of torque, it can go from 0 to 62 in 2.4 seconds, 0 to 124 in 5.6 seconds, and 0 to 186 in 12.1 seconds, and all of that power is sent to all four wheels via a seven-speed dual clutch transmission. Top speed? The record for the fastest open-top production car is already in the records, 282 mph and all, thanks to this car, but, for obvious reasons, you won’t be able to get it up to that sort of speed on the road, closer to 236 mph if you want to play it safe. [Source]
In the time it takes you to read this sentence, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will have smashed billions of particles together. In all likelihood, it will have found exactly what it found yesterday: more evidence to support the Standard Model of particle physics.
For the engineers who built this 27-kilometer-long ring, this consistency is a triumph. But for theoretical physicists, it has been rather frustrating. As Matthew Hutson reports in “AI Hunts for the Next Big Thing in Physics,” the field is currently gripped by a quiet crisis. In an email discussing his reporting, Hutson explains that the Standard Model, which describes the known elementary particles and forces, is not a complete picture. “So theorists have proposed new ideas, and experimentalists have built giant facilities to test them, but despite the gobs of data, there have been no big breakthroughs,” Hutson says. “There are key components of reality we’re completely missing.”
That’s why researchers are turning artificial intelligence loose on particle physics. They aren’t simply asking AI to comb through accelerator data to confirm existing theories, Hutson explains. They’re asking AI to point the way toward theories that they’ve never imagined. “Instead of looking to support theories that humans have generated,” he says, “unsupervised AI can highlight anything out of the ordinary, expanding our reach into unknown unknowns.” By asking AI to flag anomalies in the data, researchers hope to find their way to “new physics” that extends the Standard Model.
On the surface, this article might sound like another “AI for X” story. As IEEESpectrum’s AI editor, I get a steady stream of pitches for such stories: AI for drug discovery, AI for farming, AI for wildlife tracking. Often what that really means is faster data processing or automation around the edges. Useful, sure, but incremental.
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What struck me in Hutson’s reporting is that this effort feels different. Instead of analyzing experimental data after the fact, the AI essentially becomes part of the instrument, scanning for subtle patterns and deciding in real time what’s interesting. At the LHC, detectors record 40 million collisions per second. There’s simply no way to preserve all that data, so engineers have always had to build filters to decide which events get saved for analysis and which are discarded; nearly everything is thrown away.
Now those split-second decisions are increasingly handed to machine learning systems running on field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) connected to the detectors. The code must run on the chip’s limited logic and memory, and compressing a neural network into that hardware isn’t easy. Hutson describes one theorist pleading with an engineer, “Which of my algorithms fits on your bloody FPGA?”
This moment is part of a much older pattern. As Hutson writes in the article, new instruments have opened doors to the unexpected throughout the history of science. Galileo’s telescoperevealed moons circling Jupiter. Early microscopes exposed entire worlds of “animalcules” swimming around. These better tools didn’t just answer existing questions; they made it possible to ask new ones.
If there’s a crisis in particle physics, in other words, it may not just be about missing particles. It’s about how to look beyond the limits of the human imagination. Hutson’s story suggests that AI might not solve the mysteries of the universe outright, but it could change how we search for answers.
For a late-1990s engineer with good soldering skills, many a free pint of beer could be earned by installing modchips on the game consoles of the day. Modchips were usually a small microcontroller connected with a few wires to selected pins on the chips or pads on the board that masked or overrode the copy protection and region locking. This scene was brought back for us by a recent [Modern vintage gamer] video looking at the history of console hardware mods, and it’s worth a watch (see the video, below).
The story starts in 1996 with the original PlayStation, largely the source of those free pints for a nascent Hackaday scribe back in the day. Along the way, as he expands the story, we find other memories, for example, the LPC bus-based hijacks of the first XBox console, and the huge modding scenes on both that machine and Sony’s PS2. The conclusion is that this community left its mark on today’s consoles even though the easy hardware hacks may be a thing of the past on the latest hardware, and as past Hackaday articles can attest, jailbreaking older consoles still has a way to go.
In the early days, our recollection is that the PlayStation modchips were driven by the region locking rather than piracy, for the simple reason that Sony used 80-minute ISOs which wouldn’t fit on the then-available consumer 74-minute CD-R. We also remember them being used by people who couldn’t afford a blue debuugging PlayStation,. or the rare black developer model.
Consumers can expect a long wait for the next version of the iPad Pro, but the 2027 refresh will get vapor chamber cooling, not a major revamp in design.
iPad Pro
While Apple is set to make a number of product announcements within days, the iPad Pro won’t be among them. Instead, you’re going to be waiting until early 2027 for the next iteration. Writing in Bloomberg’s “Power On” newsletter on Sunday, Mark Gurman answers a query about the next iPad Pro and when it will launch. In his response, he tempers expectations of an imminent update, providing a more realistic outlook for the tablet line. Rumor Score: 🤔 Possible Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
Samsung and the State of Texas have reached a settlement agreement over the alleged unlawful collection of content-viewing information through its smart TVs
As part of the agreement, the TV manufacturer will revise its privacy disclosures to clearly explain its data collection and processing practices to consumers.
Last December, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against several TV manufacturers, including Samsung, alleging that they use Automated Content Recognition (ACR) technology to collect and process viewing data without first obtaining their express, informed consent.
In January, Texas obtained a short-lived temporary restraining order (TRO) against Samsung to stop the unlawful collection of consumer data in the state, confirming a violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA).
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Although the order was vacated on the following day, the lawsuit remained active.
The allegations against Samsung were that it uses ACR technology to capture screenshots of consumers’ TVs to determine what they’re watching. The South Korean tech giant would use this information for targeted advertising.
In support of the TRO, the Court found that there was “good cause to believe” that Samsung automatically enrolled customers in this system using “dark patterns” that included “over 200 clicks spread across four or more menus for a consumer to read the privacy statements and disclosures.”
In a statement to BleepingComputer, Samsung stated that, while it does not agree that its Viewing Information Services (VIS) system violated any regulations, it has agreed to “make enhancements to further strengthen our privacy disclosures.”
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“While we maintain our original television privacy policy and notices followed existing Texas state regulations, as a trusted brand, Samsung is proud to be at the forefront of protecting consumer privacy and security,” stated a spokesperson of Samsung Electronics America.
“The settlement affirms what Samsung has said since this lawsuit was filed – Samsung TVs do not spy on consumers. In fact, Samsung allows you to control your privacy – and change your privacy settings at any time.”
“As part of the agreement, Samsung must halt any collection or processing of ACR viewing data without obtaining Texas consumers’ express consent,” announced Texas AG Ken Paxton.
“Additionally, it compels Samsung to promptly update its smart TVs and implement disclosures and consent screens that are clear and conspicuous to ensure that Texans can make an informed decision regarding whether their data is collected and how it’s used.”
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Paxton commended Samsung for agreeing to implement consumer safeguards, while he underlined that others haven’t moved with a similar fervor as of yet.
Smart TV manufacturers, including Sony, LG, Hisense, and TCL Technologies, have not made any changes in response to the lawsuits yet.
Malware is getting smarter. The Red Report 2026 reveals how new threats use math to detect sandboxes and hide in plain sight.
Download our analysis of 1.1 million malicious samples to uncover the top 10 techniques and see if your security stack is blinded.
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has released new details about RESURGE, a malicious implant used in zero-day attacks exploiting CVE-2025-0282 to breach Ivanti Connect Secure devices.
The update focuses on the implant’s undetected latency on the appliances and its “sophisticated network-level evasion and authentication techniques” that enable covert communication with the attacker.
CISA originally documented the malware on March 28 last year, saying that it can survive reboots, create webshells for stealing credentials, create accounts, reset passwords, and escalate privileges.
According to researchers at incident response company Mandiant, the critical CVE-2025-0282 vulnerability was exploited as a zero-day since mid-December 2024 by a threat actor linked to China, tracked internally as UNC5221.
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Network-level evasion
CISA’s updated bulletin provides additional technical information on RESURGE, a malicious 32-bit Linux Shared Object file named libdsupgrade.so that was extracted from a compromised device.
The implant is described as a passive command-and-control (C2) implant with rootkit, bootkit, backdoor, dropper, proxying, and tunneling capabilities.
Instead of beaconing to the C2, it waits indefinitely for a particular inbound TLS connection, evading network monitoring, CISA says in the updated document.
When loaded under the ‘web’ process, it hooks the ‘accept()’ function to inspect incoming TLS packets before they reach the web server, looking for specific connection attempts from a remote attacker that are identified using the CRC32 TLS fingerprint hashing scheme.
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If the fingerprint does not match, traffic is directed to the legitimate Ivanti server. CISA further details Rusrge’s authentication mechanism saying that the threat actor also uses a fake Ivanti certificate to ensure that they are interacting with the implant and not the Ivanti web server.
The agency highlights that the certificate’s purpose is just to for authentication and verification purposes, as it is not used to encrypt communication. Furthermore, the fake certificate also helps the actor evade detection by impersonating the legitimate server.
Because the forged certificate is sent unencrypted over the internet, CISA says that defenders could use it as a network signature to detect an active compromise.
After fingerprint validation and authentication with the malware, the threat actor establishes secure remote access to the implant using a Mutual TLS session encrypted with the Elliptic Curve protocol.
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“Static analysis indicates the RESURGE implant will request the remote actors’ EC key to utilize for encryption, and will also verify it with a hard-coded EC Certificate Authority (CA) key,” CISA says.
By mimicking legitimate TLS/SSH traffic, the implant achieves stealth and persistence, the American cybersecurity agency says.
Another file analyzed is a variant of the SpawnSloth malware using the name liblogblock.so and contained by the RESURGE implant. Its main purpose is log tampering to hide malicious activity on compromised devices.
A third file that CISA analyzed is dsmain, a kernel extraction script that embeds the open-source script ‘extract_vmlinux.sh’ and the BusyBox collection of Unix/Linux utilities.
It allows RESURGE to decrypt, modify, and re-encrypt coreboot firmware images and manipulate filesystem contents for boot-level persistence.
“CISA’s updated analysis shows that RESURGE can remain latent on systems until a remote actor attempts to connect to the compromised device,” the agency notes. Because of this, the malicious implant “may be dormant and undetected on Ivanti Connect Secure devices and remains an active threat.”
CISA suggests that system administrators use the updated indicators of compromise (IoCs) to discover dormant RESURGE infections and remove them from Ivanti devices.
Malware is getting smarter. The Red Report 2026 reveals how new threats use math to detect sandboxes and hide in plain sight.
Download our analysis of 1.1 million malicious samples to uncover the top 10 techniques and see if your security stack is blinded.
Anthropic’s chatbot Claude seems to have benefited from the attention around the company’s fraught negotiations with the Pentagon.
As first reported by CNBC, Claude has been rising to the top of the free app rankings in Apple’s US App Store. On Saturday evening, it overtook OpenAI’s ChatGPT to claim the number one spot, a position that it still held on Sunday morning.
According to data from SensorTower, Claude was just outside the top 100 at the end of January, and has spent most of February somewhere in the top 20. It’s climbed rapidly in the past few days, from sixth on Wednesday, then fourth on Thursday, then first on Saturday.
A company spokesperson said that daily signups have broken the all-time record every day this week, free users have increased more than 60% since January, and paid subscribers have more than doubled this year.
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After Anthropic attempted to negotiate for safeguards preventing the Department of Defense from using its AI models for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons, President Donald Trump directed federal agencies to stop using all Anthropic products and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said he’s designating the company a supply-chain threat.
This post was first published on February 28, 2026. It has been updated to reflect Anthropic reaching No. 1, and to include growth numbers from the company.
In the not-so-distant past, cars weren’t as commonplace as they are today. Naturally, this also means that the now-essential elements of widespread car travel, like highways and mechanics, weren’t around yet. The gas station, which is a building on just about every corner in the modern era, was no exception. Way back in the late 1800s, early drivers had to pay a visit to their local pharmacy to purchase cans of fuel. One had to pour the fuel from the cans into their vehicle to get it running.
The most famous instance of filling up a vehicle using pharmacy supplies was in 1888, when Bertha Benz, the wife of automobile pioneer Carl Benz, drove from Mannheim to Pforzheim, Germany, in the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, the first car ever invented. Early on in her trip, she made her first benzene refueling stop at the Stadt-Apotheke pharmacy in Wiesloch, giving it the historical distinction of being the world’s first filling station. So began the trend of pharmacies providing drivers with their much-needed vehicle fuel.
Of course, in the over a century since Bertha’s historic trip, car refueling has changed. In fact, it didn’t take long after her landmark drive for the first thing we recognize as a gas station to be established, making pharmacy refueling nothing more than a historical footnote.
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It didn’t take long for true gas stations to appear
Ej_rodriquez/Getty Images
In the years following Bertha Benz’s drive, cars became more and more popular. Thus, a better way to fuel up was needed, and in the United States, the answer came in the year 1905. That year saw the establishment of the world’s first designated filling station, which opened for business in St. Louis, Missouri, and allowed folks to drive up and purchase fuel without having to get it by the canister. At the same time, it has also been claimed by Standard Oil that the real first gas station was opened two years later in 1907. This station pumped gasoline directly into cars from a massive tank.
These systems worked well enough, but there was still some evolution to be done to get use to the gas stations we know today. Less than a decade later, in 1913, Gulf Refining Company opened the doors to its first drive-up gas station. Located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on the corner of Baum Boulevard and St. Clair Street, this station also offered free air, water, crankcase service, and tire and tube installation. This extensive service is just one of the many reasons why the gas stations of yesteryear are considered better than those in operation today.
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Over the past century-plus, gas stations have come a long way. Even with their flaws, and the comparatively high price of modern gas, the current setup is certainly a far and away improvement on the old pharmacies that early drivers had to work with.
Hot off the heels of Samsung’s S26 launch, Xiaomi has just unveiled its own flagship smartphone series outside of China.
The series includes the Xiaomi 17 and Xiaomi 17 Ultra, but what really separates the handsets? Is it a given that the premium Ultra model will offer more features than its cheaper alternative?
Ahead of our review, we’ve assessed the specs of the Xiaomi 17 and Xiaomi 17 Ultra and noted the key differences between the Android smartphones below. Keep reading to see whether you think either the Xiaomi 17 or Xiaomi 17 Ultra looks set to make it into our best smartphones or best Android phones guide.
At 6.9-inches, the Xiaomi 17 Ultra’s display is the same size as the Galaxy S26 Ultra and considerably larger than the 6.3-inch Xiaomi 17. As we always say, whether you prefer a larger screen or not comes down to personal preference and how you plan on using your phone. For example, if you’ll spend time streaming or gaming, then you might prefer a larger display.
The Xiaomi 17 Ultra’s display also benefits from the new Xiaomi Shield Glass 3.0, which supposedly offers 30% more drop resistance than the Xiaomi 15 Ultra’s Shield Glass 2.0. In comparison, the Xiaomi 17 sports the same Xiaomi Shield glass as the Xiaomi 15.
Otherwise, both phones are fitted with a 1-120Hz LTPO refresh rate and offer up to 3500 nits peak brightness too.
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Xiaomi 17 Xiaomi 17 Ultra
Xiaomi 17 has a bigger battery
Somewhat surprisingly, the Xiaomi 17 not only boasts a larger-sized battery compared to the Ultra, but it also supports faster charging too. While the Xiaomi 17 Ultra is fitted with a 6000mAh cell and supports 90W HyperCharge wired speeds, the Xiaomi 17 benefits from a 6330mAh battery with a whopping 100W HyperCharge. Both phones support 50W wireless HyperCharge too.
As we’re yet to review either handset, we can’t comment on their battery life or charging ability. Having said that, considering that the Xiaomi 15 and Xiaomi 15 Ultra sport smaller batteries, both handsets still provide a comfortable all-day battery life. With that in mind, we can expect both the Xiaomi 17 and 17 Ultra to offer a similar performance.
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Xiaomi 17. Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
Both run on Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, but the Ultra is fitted with more RAM
As to be expected from many of the best Android phones, both the Xiaomi 17 and Xiaomi 17 Ultra run on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. We’ve reviewed a few phones sporting the chip, including the OnePlus 15 and Redmagic 11 Pro, and have been blown away by its speed and ability to run intensive tasks with ease.
With this in mind, we expect the same performance with both the Xiaomi 17 and Xiaomi 17 Ultra.
Although both handsets sport the same chip, it’s worth noting that the Xiaomi 17 Ultra comes equipped with 16GB RAM as standard whereas the Xiaomi 17 includes 12GB. The difference here is significant, not only because the limited supply and rising RAM prices are still dominating headlines, but it also means the 17 Ultra should run that bit faster compared to the Xiaomi 17.
Xiaomi 17 Ultra. Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
Xiaomi 17 Ultra has a 200MP telephoto lens
Judging by its specs, it seems that the reason to choose the Xiaomi 17 Ultra is for its photography skill. Although both the Xiaomi 17 and 17 Ultra were co-engineered with Leica and are each fitted with three rear lenses and a 50MP selfie camera, the 17 Ultra has a few tricks up its sleeve.
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Firstly, the 17 Ultra benefits from a 200MP telephoto lens which features a 75-100mm mechanical optical zoom and is the first Leica APO optical lens in its flagship line-up too. According to Xiaomi, this lens should achieve up to 17.2x of optical-level zoom without in-sensor cropping.
The Ultra’s mighty telephoto supports the camera’s 50MP main and 50MP ultrawide lenses , all of which are built around Leica’s UltraPure optical design for better focus and less interference. Finally, the Xiaomi 17 Ultra allows you to film 4K@120fps, which was first introduced to Androids with the OnePlus 15.
In comparison, all three of Xiaomi 17’s rear lenses are 50MP. While its telephoto lens doesn’t quite offer the same prowess as the Ultra, and instead offers 5x optical-level and 20x AI Ultra zoom, its main and ultrawide lenses promise to capture bright and detailed images across most light conditions.
Otherwise, unlike the Ultra, the Xiaomi 17 supports 4K@60fps video recording.
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Xiaomi 17 Ultra supports two photography add-ons
Following on from the above, the Xiaomi 17 Ultra also supports two Leica photography add-ons which should see the handset reach our best camera phones guide. Firstly, there’s the Photography Kit which weighs just 48g and includes a wrist strap, a customisable two-stage shutter button and a video recording button for precise control.
Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
Or you can opt for the Photography Kit Pro, which is designed for more dedicated photographers. According to Xiaomi, the kit combines a slip-resistant texture with a PU leather surface for a more secure grip, and boasts an integrated 2000mAh battery which doubles as a power bank too.
Early Verdict
At this early stage, it’s fair to say that if photography is the most important aspect of a phone, then the Xiaomi 17 Ultra is an easy recommendation, thanks to its mighty 200MP telephoto and the additional photography kits too.
On the other hand, if you’re looking for more of an all-rounder then the Xiaomi 17 is still a brilliant alternative, thanks to its Leica lenses, flagship chip and even bigger battery than the Ultra.
We’ll update this versus once we’ve reviewed the Xiaomi 17 and Xiaomi 17 Ultra.
