This cutaway view shows the interior of the Starlab space station’s laboratory. (Starlab Illustration)
How do you design a living space where there’s no up or down? That’s one of the challenges facing Teague, a Seattle-based design and innovation firm that advises space companies such as Blue Origin, Axiom Space and Voyager Technologies on how to lay out their orbital outposts.
Mike Mahoney, Teague’s senior director of space and defense programs, says the zero-gravity environment is the most interesting element to consider in space station design.
“You can’t put things on surfaces, right? You’re not going to have tables, necessarily, unless you can attach things to them, and they could be on any surface,” he told GeekWire. “So, directionality is a big factor. And knowing that opens up new opportunities. … You could have, let’s say, two scientists working in different orientations in the same area.”
Mike Mahoney is senior director of space and defense programs at Teague. (Photo via LinkedIn)
Over the next few years, NASA and its partners are expected to make the transition from the aging International Space Station to an array of commercial space stations — and Teague is helping space station builders get ready for the shift.
In the 1980s, Teague helped Boeing and NASA with their plans for Space Station Freedom, an orbital project that never got off the ground but eventually evolved into the International Space Station. Teague also partnered with NASA on a 3D-printed mockup for a Mars habitat, known as the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog.
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Nowadays, Teague is focusing on interior designs for commercial spacecraft, a business opportunity that capitalizes on the company’s traditional expertise in airplane design.
Mahoney said Teague has been working with Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture on a variety of projects for more than a decade. The first project was the New Shepard suborbital rocket ship, which made its debut in 2015.
“We partnered with their engineering team to design for the astronaut experience within the New Shepard space capsule,” Mahoney said. “It’s all the interior components that you see that come together, from the linings to the lighting. We created a user experience vision for the displays as well.”
GeekWire’s Alan Boyle sits in one of the padded seats inside a mockup of the crew capsule for Blue Origin’s suborbital spaceship, on display at a space conference in 2017. The door of the capsule’s hatch is just to the right of Boyle’s head. (GeekWire File Photo / Kevin Lisota)
Teague also worked with Blue Origin on design elements for the Orbital Reef space station and the Blue Moon lunar lander. “We were involved in initial concepting for the look and feel of the vehicles,” Mahoney said. “In other cases, we designed and built mockups that were used for astronaut operations and testing. How do we navigate around the lunar lander legs? How do we optimize toolboxes on the surface of the moon?”
Other space station ventures that have benefited from Teague’s input include Axiom Space (which also brought in Philippe Starck as a big-name designer) and Starlab Space, a joint venture founded by Voyager Technologies and Airbus.
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Starlab recently unveiled a three-story mockup of its space station at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas. The mockup is built so that it can be reconfigured to reflect tweaks that designers want to make in the space station’s layout, before launch or even years after launch.
“One of the things that’s been very helpful along this development path has been working with Teague, because you have to have a really good idea on how you lay out this very large volume so that you can optimize the efficiency of the crew,” said Tim Kopra, a former NASA astronaut who now serves as chief human exploration officer at Voyager Technologies.
Kopra compared the Starlab station to a three-story condo. “The first floor is essentially like the basement of a large building that has the infrastructure,” he said, “It has our life support systems, avionics and software, the toilets, the hygiene station — which encompasses both the toilet and a cleaning station — and the workout equipment.”
The second floor serves as a laboratory and workspace, with a glovebox, freezer, centrifuge, microscope and plenty of racks and lockers for storage. “We are very focused on four different industries: semiconductors, life sciences, pharmaceuticals and materials science,” Kopra said.
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He said the third floor will be a “place that people will enjoy … because Deck 3 has our crew quarters, our galley table, our windows and a little bit more experiment capacity.”
First ever look inside Voyager Space's Starlab Space Station mockup. The space station is 17m tall & 7.7m wide, essentially a 3-story tall building, and can host 4 astronauts continuously & 8 astronauts briefly. The company hopes to launch Starlab by 2029, to replace the ISS. pic.twitter.com/BzwfjUwkmZ
The galley table is a prime example of how zero-gravity interior design differs from the earthly variety. “No chairs,” Kopra said. “Just like on the ISS, all you need is a place to hook your feet. There are little design features, like where do you put a handrail, and how tall is the table?” (He said the designers haven’t yet decided whether the table should be round or square.)
Kopra said one of his top design priorities is to use the station’s volume, and the astronauts’ time, as efficiently as possible. “Time is extremely valuable on the ISS. They calculate that crew time is worth about $135,000 per hour,” he said. “Ours will be a fraction of that, but it really illustrates how important it is to be efficient with the time on board.”
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Starlab is laid out to maximize efficiency. “We have a really cool design where the middle has a hatchway that goes all the way through the three stories,” he said. “So, imagine if it were a fire station, you’d have a pole that went from floor to floor. We don’t need a fire pole. We can just translate through that area.”
Mahoney said human-centered design will be more important for commercial space stations than it was for the ISS.
“In the past, space stations have been primarily designed for professionally trained, military background astronauts,” he said. “Now we’ll have different folks in there. … How do we think about how researchers and scientists will be using these spaces? How do we think about non-professional private astronauts? As the International Space Station gets retired, how do these companies step in to fill the void, serving NASA but also a lot of these new customers?”
A three-story mockup of the Starlab space station has been installed inside a building at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas. (Starlab Photo)
An interior view of the Starlab mockup highlights the large observation windows and emergency equipment. (Starlab Photo)
The Internal Payload Laboratory inside the Starlab mockup features a glovebox, cold stowage, an optical bench and a workbench. (Starlab Photo)
Level 3 of the Starlab mockup includes the crew quarters, galley and Earth viewing areas. Starlab Space’s partners include Hilton and Journey, the team behind the Sphere in Las Vegas. (Starlab Photo)
When will commercial space stations step in? The answer to that question is up in the air.
But NASA has been slow to follow through on the revised plan, sparking concern in Congress. Late last month, the space agency said it was still working to “align acquisition timelines with national space policy and broader operational objectives.” Now some lawmakers are calling on NASA to reconsider its plan to deorbit the ISS in the 2030-2031 time frame.
The timetable for the space station transition may be in flux, but Mahoney and other space station designers are staying the course — and taking the long view.
“We may not know right now how the space station is going to be used 20 years from now,” Mahoney said. “How do we start to future-proof and create a system within that’s modular and flexible, so that we can add technologies and add systems, or we can configure in different ways? … Those are the kinds of things that we’re thinking about designing for.”
Elon Musk in Seattle in 2015. (GeekWire File Photo / Taylor Soper)
Elon Musk’s xAI is establishing its Seattle-area engineering center in a former Epic Games space in downtown Bellevue, Wash., following through on Musk’s announcement in September that the company planned to open an outpost in the region.
The location was first reported Monday by the Puget Sound Business Journal, and confirmed by GeekWire based on references to xAI in online permit logs. The nearly 25,000-square-foot space is on the 8th floor of the Lincoln Square South building at 10400 NE 4th St.
The lease makes xAI the latest AI company to set up shop in Bellevue, following the news last week that OpenAI is expanding to nearly 300,000 square feet at nearby City Center Plaza.
In fact, the xAI and OpenAI offices in downtown Bellevue will be about a 10-minute walk from each other, should Musk and Sam Altman ever find themselves in their respective Seattle-area hubs at the same time and decide to patch things up.
Founded in 2023, xAI is best known for Grok, its AI chatbot, which is integrated into Musk’s social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
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News of the company’s Seattle-area location comes days after SpaceX announced its acquisition of xAI in a deal valuing the AI company at $250 billion, further consolidating Musk’s businesses. The key tenant-improvement filing for the Bellevue space was in late December, indicating that the lease was in the works before the acquisition closed.
Job listings show xAI is hiring for a range of engineering roles in the Seattle area, with salaries from $180,000 to $440,000. The positions go beyond networking and infrastructure to include core AI research roles, such as members of the technical staff focused on CUDA/GPU kernel development, image generation, video generation, and world models. This signals that the Bellevue office will serve as a hub for AI model development, not just operations support.
SpaceX already has a large presence in the Seattle region, focused on the development of Starlink satellite internet service out of the company’s Redmond engineering offices.
We’ve contacted xAI for more information about its plans for the office.
A dedicated Apple Watch application from automaker Rivian is set to enable vehicle locking, unlocking, window adjustment, and much more, even on cars from 2021.
Rivian is set to launch a dedicated Apple Watch app.
Apple’s Car Key feature has let iPhone and Apple Watch owners unlock and start their cars using mobile devices since 2020. The capability is built into iOS and is supported by more than 30 car companies, including Cadillac and other GM brands. However, certain car manufacturers, like Tesla, offer proprietary mobile apps that facilitate the same vehicle locking and unlocking functionality. Now, Rivian is set to be the next brand to introduce a vehicle-related application for the Apple Watch, with added functionality. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
Trump and his supporters clearly believe migrants have no constitutional rights. But that’s simply not true. They have the same rights as citizens for one truly obvious reason: a government could choose to declare certain people non-citizens in order to strip them of their rights. That would be highly problematic in a nation that’s almost entirely the result of immigration, which is why courts have routinely held that non-citizens have the same rights as citizens while on US soil.
That’s still the case, for the most part. The Fifth Circuit — fulfilling its role as the preferred US Supreme Court understudy — has chosen to ignore literally hundreds of rulings in favor of due process rights for immigrants to decide those no longer exist in the states most migrants detained by the government get sent to before being removed from the country.
Last November, the Trump administration’s efforts to eliminate due process rights had been rejected by more than 100 judges in more than 200 cases. A few months later — and with a full-press surge happening in Minneapolis, Minnesota — the number of rejections has spiked:
A POLITICO review of thousands of ICE detention cases found that at least 360 judges rejected the expanded detention strategy — in more than 3,000 cases — while just 27 backed it in about 130 cases.
While most of the mass deportation action is currently happening far north of the Fifth Circuit (which covers Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas), arrested immigrants are often sent almost immediately to detention facilities closer to the southern US border. Texas is, by far, the most popular destination for ICE detainee flights.
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The Fifth Circuit waited around until late Friday night to release this decision [PDF], presumably in hopes of seeing the backlash subside a bit before the judges were due back at the office. Steve Vladeck covers all the angles in his post on this abhorrent ruling, starting with how this is an insane conclusion to reach given that 3,000 cases around the country have upheld the same rights the Fifth Circuit has chosen to deny to any migrant with the misfortune of finding themselves in its jurisdiction.
Well, late Friday night, in a ruling handed down just two days after oral argument, a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit adopted the extreme minority view—holding that, yes, the government can indefinitely detain without bond millions of non-citizens who have been here for generations; who have never committed a crime; and who pose neither a risk of flight nor any threat to public safety. The Fifth Circuit’s opinion was written by Judge Edith Jones and joined in full by Judge Kyle Duncan—two of the most reactionary, right-wing federal appellate judges in the country…
The obvious upshot of this decision is that ICE et al will be rushing detainees to Texas ASAFP to take advantage of this ruling.
As Aaron Reichlin-Melnick from the American Immigration Council noted last night, the Fifth Circuit’s decision will “fuel ICE’s push to transfer people to Texas immediately,” and it will put “even more pressure on plaintiffs and district courts outside the 5th Circuit. Unless the habeas is filed before a person is transferred to the 5th Circuit, a person may remain locked in appalling conditions, never even allowed to ask for bond.” All of that can be traced to another procedural technicality—the principle that a district court gains jurisdiction over a habeas petition if, but only if, it is filed while the petitioner is physically in that court’s jurisdiction. In other words, to avoid being subject to the Fifth Circuit’s decision (while it remains on the books), detainees arrested elsewhere would have to have someone file on their behalf before they’re physically transferred into the Fifth Circuit.
There’s still a chance that people arrested in, say, Minneapolis, Minnesota might be able to avoid the Fifth Circuit’s refusal to recognize their due process rights. But the denial of due process rights begins immediately in most cases, with ICE officers refusing to allow detainees to contact family members, much less seek legal representation. If ICE can get them on a plane headed south before anything is filed in local courts, the Fifth Circuit’s ruling will override whatever rights migrants might have still had access to in the states they were removed from.
An appeal of this decision is already in process. And while it’s concerning that this particular iteration of the Supreme Court will be handling it, it’s not a foregone conclusion that it will convert the Fifth’s ruling into nationwide precedent. Even at its worst, the Supreme Court has rejected a handful of Fifth Circuit rulings that cross the line into an open embrace of violent fascism. On the other hand, this version of the Supreme Court is far more prone to deliver wordless rubber stamps of appellate decisions it likes, so some caution is warranted.
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This decision requires the most MAGA-coded judges in the Fifth to buy everything the Trump administration is selling. And what it’s selling is a brand new interpretation of the phrase “seeking admission.” Rather than limiting it to people crossing the border illegally, it applies this definition to any migrant who doesn’t have the proper paperwork, even if they arrived in this country decades ago.
The dissent, written by Judge Dana Douglas, makes it clear that this administration will do anything and everything that serves its racist desire to eject non-whites from the United States.
The Congress that passed IIRIRA (Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act [1996]) would be surprised to learn it had also required the detention without bond of two million people. For almost thirty years there was no sign anyone thought it had done so, and nothing in the congressional record or the history of the statute’s enforcement suggests that it did. Nonetheless, the government today asserts the authority and mandate to detain millions of noncitizens in the interior, some of them present here for decades, on the same terms as if they were apprehended at the border.
Do you want to be this shitty, Judge Douglas asks the judges who pretended this sort of thing is OK as long as it’s Trump doing it.
The majority stakes the largest detention initiative in American history on the possibility that “seeking admission” is like being an “applicant for admission,” in a statute that has never been applied in this way, based on little more than an apparent conviction that Congress must have wanted these noncitizens detained—some of them the spouses, mothers, fathers, and grandparents of American citizens. Straining at a gnat, the majority swallows a camel. I dissent.
Hopefully this ruling will be reset by the Supreme Court or an en banc rehearing. But for now, the law of the land in three states that are willing to house ICE detainees says due process rights are only available in the 47 states the Fifth Circuit doesn’t control.
It’s a big move for Discord, which has more than 200 million monthly active users. Discord will begin rolling out the changes in early March. The Teen age setting will not only affect access to some servers but will also route direct message requests to a new inbox, add warnings to friend alerts and blur content that has been filtered as sensitive.
A Discord representative said the company believes most adult users won’t have to manually verify their age, noting that the company’s age-inference model uses information such as account tenure, device and activity data to eliminate the manual verification. The representative said Discord does not use private messages or any message content in this process.
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Discord is just the latest company to add age verification to its platform. Over the last year, YouTube, Roblox, ChatGPT and others have added technology to verify or estimate a person’s age to protect younger users from adult content or unwanted contact. Online platforms have come under fire for their effects on children, with some countries banning young people from social media platforms entirely.
In the case of Discord, the company said it will offer more than one option for age verification: either submitting ID to a verification partner or using a facial age-estimation tool. For some, that may not be explicitly required.
“Discord will implement its age inference model, a new system that runs in the background to help determine whether an account belongs to an adult, without always requiring users to verify their age,” the company said. “Some users may be asked to use multiple methods if more information is needed to assign an age group.”
In addition to the service changes, Discord said it’s launching a Teen Council, which will consist of about a dozen teenagers who will help advise the company on “what teens need, how they build meaningful connections, and what makes them feel safe and supported online.” Teens aged 13 to 17 can apply for the Teen Council until May 1.
While Discord is the latest tech platform to take definitive action on addressing how it handles having users under the age of 18, it’s unlikely to be the last. Fewer than a dozen states have laws on the books requiring social media companies to age-verify minors, but that number could increase with many state governments considering similar legislation.
The pressure to verify doesn’t just come from local and federal rules; it’s also in response to lawsuits related to harm done to children via online platforms and through tools such as chatbots.
You can expect age verification to spread, and for companies that own these platforms to try to weigh how they’re going to implement guessing the ages of users or verifying them, as Discord is doing.
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“Discord’s “teenager by default” approach is an interesting one,” said Rivka Gewirtz Little, chief growth officer at Socure, which helps companies deal with online identity verification and fraud prevention. “Essentially if you can’t prove you’re adult, be prepared to be safeguarded as a child.”
Companies, Little said, will have to navigate how to safeguard children without blocking off access to adults unnecessarily, could could get tougher are more laws are passed around the issue. Little said it “reflects how important it is for solutions to be nimble enough to address a wide range of state-level and international restrictions, which vary in requirements for how to technically assess age.”
While testing printers usually isn’t that exciting, sometimes I find an offering that’s almost too good to be true. You can scoop up our favorite printer, the Epson ET-2980, from Best Buy for just $220, a $100 markdown from the usual price tag. You’ll get thousands of pages of excellent printing, and it could be years before you have to buy a refill.
One of the most appealing features for any ink tank printer is the low cost to print. As I discussed in my review of the Epson, classic ink cartridges are generally expensive to replace, and manufacturers are increasingly looking for ways to keep you from using less expensive, and often less reliable, third-party cartridges. Ink in bottles is far harder to restrict, which means ink costs are often much lower per page.
To that end, the Epson claims that the bottles included with the ET-2980 should last around 5,000 pages, and replacements are only about $50. Compare that with upwards of $100 for a set of cartridges that only print 1,000 pages or so, and it won’t take long for the ink tank to pay for itself, particularly with the discount. That alone makes this an extremely appealing purchase, and one that you won’t need to maintain or refill for months or years, depending on how often you print.
The Epson was also less of a headache than a lot of the other printers I’ve worked with. While it sometimes has to think a little before it starts printing, it runs nice and quiet, and both regular black and white pages and color photos came out nice and crisp. It doesn’t have the biggest paper tray, but it’s easily accessible in case you need to switch paper types on a whim. It also has a flatbed scanner for occasional photos and documents, but I’d suggest checking out our other printer options if you often scan large stacks.
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For everyone else, this $100 discount on the Epson ET-2980 is a deal you can’t afford to miss, particularly if you’re in a home that prints on a regular basis.
Whether you’re just getting started with your first DIY project or you’re a veteran DIY’er who’s been tackling ambitious projects for years, you’re probably familiar with Harbor Freight. Found in most states across the U.S., Harbor Freight is a DIY dream place to find discount tools, equipment, and auto supplies. There’s even a page on the retailer’s website dedicated to DIY project ideas if you’re running low on inspiration.
Although Harbor Freight has a ton of budget-friendly gems, there are a few pieces of coal in the mix as well. It’s important to read through multiple user reviews, find any applicable coupons before you check out, and generally avoid making the most common mistakes people make when shopping at Harbor Freight.
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If you don’t have the time or energy to thoroughly research tools, supplies, and other products before you spend your hard-earned cash on them, we’ve got you covered. We’ve rounded up 15 Harbor Freight products every DIYer will wish they’d had sooner, each with a high average rating and an impressive recommendation score from Harbor Freight customers.
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Pittsburgh 15-Inch Adjustable Wrench
Adjustable wrenches from well-known brands can be expensive, and a regular set of wrenches in various sizes takes up a lot of space. Enter: the Pittsburgh 15-Inch Adjustable Wrench at Harbor Freight. This adjustable wrench is budget-friendly, space-conscious, and of great quality, everything a DIY’er could hope for.
It’s constructed with durable carbon steel and a triple chrome plating that resists corrosion and looks nice. With this adjustable wrench’s comfortable handle and 15 inches in total length, you’ll have plenty of leverage for loosening fasteners during your next DIY project. Customers say it’s easy to adjust, though some people note it may need frequent adjustment; it is solidly built and works just as well as higher-priced options from more recognizable name brands. At the time of writing, 97% of customers, who have left nearly 750 reviews in total, would recommend Pittsburgh’s 15-Inch Adjustable Wrench and have awarded it an average rating of 4.6 stars.
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Fasten-Pro Hammer Tacker
DIY’ers may overlook hammer tackers, but they can greatly speed up certain jobs around the home, like installing insulation, siding, house wrap, carpet padding, roof felt, and any other material you’ll cover in the end. A hammer tacker, which can also be referred to as a hammer stapler or a slap stapler, works similarly to a staple gun, but staple guns require squeezing the handle to trigger the spring inside, and hammer tackers only need to be whacked against the surface you want stapled.
Harbor Freight customers love the Fasten-Pro Hammer Tacker for its comfortable one-handed use, durable quality, and overall value. Some people have even said this affordable Fasten-Pro option outperforms more expensive hammer tackers from top industry brands. This all-steel hammer tacker currently has a 4.4-star average rating and an 89% customer recommendation rate, compiled from just over 500 total customer reviews.
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Pittsburgh 15-Inch Flat Pry Bar
One of the simplest, yet potentially most useful products for DIYers is a pry bar. The Pittsburgh 15-Inch Flat Pry Bar from Harbor Freight is incredibly cheap, but most customers rave about how sturdy and high-quality its construction is. It’s made of heavy-duty steel with a powder-coated finish to keep rust at bay, measures 15 inches in length to provide plenty of leverage, and both ends of the bar have nail slots, though the ends differ in shape to help with various prying jobs.
Whether you’re frequently demoing rooms and furniture, building a budget-friendly mechanic’s tool kit, or pulling nails out of old wood you’d like to repurpose, this pry bar is an excellent pick. Happy customers rave about this pry bar’s overall value, excellent leverage, and well-placed nail slots. At the time of writing, Pittsburgh’s Flat Pry Bar has gathered almost 2,800 total reviews, an average rating of 4.7 stars, and a near-perfect customer recommendation rate of 98%.
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Doyle Professional Retractable Utility Knife
Even for non-crafty homeowners and renters, a simple utility knife would likely get a ton of use, through opening boxes and breaking large cardboard pieces down to more manageable sizes for recycling. If you dabble in DIY, it’s a good idea to upgrade from a simple utility knife to a more feature-rich option like the Doyle Professional Retractable Utility Knife.
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The knife body is constructed from zinc alloy with nickel plating to extend its life, and it features built-in blade storage for five replacement blades, which are included with your purchase. After you’ve used the utility knife’s blade to cut or score the material you’re working with, all you have to do to put the blade away is press a single button to trigger the retraction mechanism and lock the blade in this ‘closed’ position.
Many utility knives will have a feature on the blade for cutting strings or wires, but with this Doyle Utility Knife, you don’t even have to get the blade out; there’s an integrated string and wire cutter that you can use while the blade is locked away. With all these features for less than $10, it’s no surprise this utility knife boasts an average 4.8-star rating and a 96% customer recommendation rate with nearly 1,100 total reviews.
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Avanti 2.5-Inch Angled Paint Brush
For anyone with a ton of painting in store during their next DIY project, consider treating yourself to an Avanti 2.5-Inch Angled Paint Brush from Harbor Freight. Its tapered bristles are made with a polyester/nylon blend and are epoxy-bonded, which simply means they can hold more paint and you don’t need to go back to your paint tray as often. As its name implies, the brush is angled, making it the perfect option for precise cutting-in work, whether you’re using it with latex or oil-based paints, stains, and sheens.
For durability and a secure grip, this Avanti brush has a nailed, high-strength stainless steel ferrule and a sanded hardwood handle. With around 1,000 customer reviews currently, this angled paint brush has a 4.7-star average rating and a 98% customer recommendation rate. If you have even more paint-forward DIY projects lined up, Harbor Freight has quite a few useful paint-spraying accessories in addition to Avanti brushes.
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Harbor Freight Tools Fluorescent Magnifying Lamp
If your DIY projects tend to involve a lot of small pieces or intricate work that requires a steady hand and a watchful eye, you might fall in love with this Harbor Freight Tools Fluorescent Magnifying Lamp. It’s equipped with a 22-watt, circular lamp surrounding a 1.75x magnifying lens with a five-inch diameter and a dust cover you can close when you’re not actively using the lens. With this magnifying lamp, using a precision toolkit to repair electronics or a router to create delicate details in wood won’t feel nearly as tedious as it used to.
You can clamp this lamp to the side of a table or workbench and easily move it where you need it, thanks to its flexible swing-arm design. Most customers find the lamp’s brightness and magnification levels excellent, and it’s easy to assemble and set up. With nearly 1,200 reviews at the time of writing, the Fluorescent Magnifying Lamp has an average rating of 4.6 stars and a 96% recommendation rate.
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Pittsburgh 4-in-1 Aluminum Rafter Angle Square
One of the most essential tools for welders and woodworkers is an angle square, and the Pittsburgh 4-in-1 Aluminum Angle Square is one of the most affordable options you’ll find that doesn’t sacrifice quality. In addition to working as an angle square, this nifty DIY tool also serves as a ruler, protractor, rafter square, and combination square. It has a solid base that lets the square stand in place while measuring depth adjustments, and the measurements are cast into the tool in both inches and centimeters to make them easier to see.
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Plenty of customer reviews rave about this angle square’s price (it’s only $3), how great the quality is despite that low price, and how lightweight and easily portable it is. This Harbor Freight product currently has around 2,850 reviews contributing to its impressive 4.7-star average rating and 97% customer recommendation rate.
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Hercules 9- by 11-Inch 100-Grit Sandpaper
One product DIYers never seem to have enough of is sandpaper. Whether you’re using it with a power sander or hand sanding, high-quality sandpaper is a must for a ton of at-home projects. It can be helpful to have a variety of sandpaper grits on hand, but this dry 100-Grit Hercules Sandpaper is quite versatile, as it works well on paint, wood, metal, plastic, and drywall. This pack comes with five 9 x 11-inch sandpaper sheets, each with a tear-resistant backing and an anti-clog coating designed to extend its life.
According to multiple customer reviews, these sandpaper sheets with ceramic alumina grain do indeed last much longer than regular sandpaper, at a lower price, too. At the time of writing, this pack of five sandpaper sheets has earned an impressive customer recommendation rate of 96% and an average rating of 4.7 stars, with just over 750 reviews.
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Quinn 14-in-1 Painters Tool
If your DIY projects typically involve painting, you’ll love having this Quinn 14-in-1 Painters Tool in your toolbox. It’s super cheap, and yet, it can do so much. With this single tool, you gain a paint can opener, a spreader, a convex and concave scraper, a crack opener, and a chisel. To remove hardware before painting, this tool can serve as a Phillips and flat-head screwdriver, a nail puller, a ¼-inch and ⅜-inch nut wrench, and a chisel. Then, there’s a convenient cutout that works as a roller cleaner, letting you quickly squeeze excess paint from a roller back into the can.
Most customers find this painter’s tool comfortable to hold, thanks to its nonslip, ergonomic grip, and its stainless steel construction is durable enough for most projects. At the time of writing, about 850 customers have left reviews for the Quinn Painters Tool, resulting in a 96% customer recommendation rate and a 4.8-star average rating.
This bar clamp features a carbon-steel bar with a powder-coated finish to prevent rust, a comfortable handle for a secure grip, and a quick-release lever to speed up the project. Most customers really enjoy the quick-release feature and find it incredibly handy, but some have said it isn’t easy to use or requires too much strength. That said, Pittsburgh’s Quick-Release Bar Clamp has maintained an impressive 98% customer recommendation rate and a 4.7-star average rating.
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Chicago Electric Variable-Speed Rotary Tool 31-Piece Kit
It can be difficult to find a budget-friendly rotary tool kit that’s also durable and powerful, but the Chicago Variable Speed Rotary Tool Kit proves itself as a worthy contender. Compared to some of Harbor Freight’s other highly rated tools for DIYers, this 31-piece kit’s average 4.2-star rating and 87% recommendation rate (with about 3,000 reviews) are simply good, not great, but at such an affordable price, we’re certainly not complaining.
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Recent customer reviews report that the tool delivers a lot of power, works smoothly, and fits easily into tight spaces. The kit comes with everything you’d need for DIY projects involving shaping, sanding, deburring, grinding, and polishing, as well as a blow-molded case to store everything. With variable-speed control from 8000 to 35,000 RPM, you can use this tool to remove rust and cut through metal, plastic, and wood.
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Pittsburgh 6-Inch Digital Caliper with SAE and Metric Fractional Readings
This 6-Inch Digital Caliper from Harbor Freight’s in-house brand Pittsburgh is constructed with a combination of durable stainless steel and ABS plastic and it can be used for inside, outside, step, and depth measurements up to six inches. Its digital LCD display can show you fractional and decimal readings of both SAE and Metric measurements and, according to its product listing, it will measure precisely to within 0.001 inch or 0.03 millimeter.
This digital caliper comes with a storage case that protects the tool when not in use and makes it easy to travel with between projects. It has a built-in auto shut-off feature to help preserve battery life. Some customers say the battery dies quickly, while others say they’re still using the included battery at purchase a year later. Ultimately, roughly 2,400 customers contributed to this digital caliper’s solid average 4.4-star rating, and 90% say they’d recommend it.
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Gordon 20-in-1 Multi-Tool
If you love taking on DIY projects, you need a good multi-tool on hand. The Gordon Multi-Tool at Harbor Freight is an excellent option with 20 different tools packed into compact dimensions of 4-by-0.9-by-1.5 inches. DIY’ers will most appreciate this multi-tool’s built-in pliers, needle-nose pliers, wire cutter, wire stripper, eight-inch ruler, bit driver, screwdriver, wood file, metal file, knife, saw, crimper, and scissors.
If you get in the habit of keeping the multi-tool on you at all times, you can also use it as a can opener, bottle opener, diamond-coated file, gut hook, serrated knife, or window breaker. With just over 550 reviews at the time of writing, Gordon’s Multi-Tool has earned itself a respectable 4.5-star average rating and a 90% customer recommendation rate. If you want to see what other options are out there, check out these multi-tools under $50 that are worth buying at Amazon.
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Hercules 16-Inch Tool Bag with 6 Pockets
The Hercules 16-Inch Tool Bag is one of the best tool bags you can pick up at Harbor Freight. It’s a beautifully bright shade of blue and has six pockets inside to keep all your tools, batteries, bit kits, and other DIY gear organized well. The bottom is padded to protect tools inside from damage, and the 16-inch-wide mouth opening is reinforced with steel to help it stay open while you load in or take out tools.
It comes with a convenient shoulder strap to leave your hands free, and on the outside, it’s made with tear-resistant fabric and heavy-duty stitching to help it last through tons of DIY projects. Just over 2,500 customers have left a review for this Hercules tool bag, and 99% would recommend it. The average rating for this medium-sized tool bag is 4.8 stars, and customers praise its overall durability, affordable price, and interior organization.
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Pittsburgh Pneumatic Roller Seat
Despite holding over 9,000 customer reviews, this Pittsburgh Pneumatic Roller Seat maintains an impressive average rating of 4.6 stars and a 96% customer recommendation rate. It’s made up of a thick cushion on top, 2.5-inch diameter nylon casters on the bottom, and a 360-degree swivel seat mechanism in between. Then, there’s a powder-coated finish to prevent rust, a lift range between 15.25 and 19.75 inches that can be adjusted with one hand, and a built-in tool tray right above the wheels so you can conveniently bring along the tools you need for the job at hand and not lose track of screws and other small pieces while you work.
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People love most how easy this rolling stool is to assemble, how smoothly it operates on solid ground, and how affordable it is for the value it provides. Older adults and those with physical disabilities particularly appreciate how comfortable this stool is and how it makes working for long periods much more manageable, unlike the Pittsburgh Automotive Mechanics Roller Seat, a tool you should think twice about buying from Harbor Freight
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Methodology
To find the 15 DIY products users would recommend at Harbor Freight, we started with our own collective experience here at SlashGear with DIY projects to identify potential tools that would come in handy for any DIYer. From there, we looked up specific products on Harbor Freight’s website and found in-house brands that were well-reviewed. Then, we found some items simply by perusing highly rated tools and other products at Harbor Freight.
For an item to be considered worth recommending, it needed to have at least 500 reviews and an average 4-star rating. That said, many of the items we picked have over 1,000 reviews, an average rating of 4.5 stars or higher, or both. Next to an item’s overall rating, there’s an average percentage of customers who’d recommend the product. With the exception of a few items, most products we selected have a customer recommendation percentage of over 95%.
Everything was at least good, and many treats were downright spectacular—the toffee with rose petals, for instance, and the strawberry cheesecake bark with striations of “crust.” The 10 different-flavored macarons were all fresh, and I appreciated the breadth of truffle varieties, which included key lime, piña colada, and carrot spice, among the traditional chocolate. The sea salt caramel popcorn was not as crispy as if it were stored by itself, but it still had some crunch. That’s the only nit I have after trying at least one bite of all 47 items.
In all, this is a very well-curated board with high-end sourcing (the caramels, for instance, are from Portland, Oregon-based confectioner Wildwood) that I wouldn’t hesitate to send as a gift, especially given Boarderie’s reliable overnight shipping. (Though my box arrived within 24 hours, it’s still safest to order a day or two ahead if possible, to account for any unforeseen delays.) Just be sure to know your valentine’s diet status before sending it, and ensure they have plenty of friends or family to share it with.
Over the past half-decade, I’ve reviewed countless pieces of gaming hardware from consoles and gaming headsets, to must-have accessories. My bread and butter, though, is controllers.
Based in China, GameSir releases multiple controllers each year that are broadly compatible with Switch, Switch 2, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. The brand typically offers its controllers within an affordable price bracket, though in recent time, some of its products have reached that mid-range tier.
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However, it doesn’t typically price anything as highly as, say, the DualSense Edge or Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2. As such, even its more expensive offerings are competitively-priced at their full retail rates.
I’ve reviewed seven of the 12 GameSir controllers we’ve tested here at TechRadar Gaming, and I’ve only scored one of them below four stars – and even then, that was a three-and-a-half. GameSir just rarely misses, and its controllers typically offer features that punch well above what their price points would suggest.
Out of those seven I’ve tested personally, my top three would include the GameSir G7 Pro (a review of which will be going live in the coming weeks). This is one of GameSir’s more premium products, sporting drift-resisting Hall effect sticks, sublime build quality, and included charging dock, and swappable faceplates for a high degree of aesthetic customization.
Then there’s the GameSir Tarantula Pro, a PC and Switch-compatible controller that adopts a symmetrical stick layout (similar to PlayStation’s DualSense). Build quality is seriously premium here, and one handy feature lets you swap the face buttons between the standard ‘ABXY’ and Nintendo’s inverted layout based on your preference and/or platform of choice.
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Finally, the GameSir Nova Lite is without a doubt the best controller you can buy for less than $25 / £20. While certainly lighter on features, GameSir has not skimped on build quality and this is still a fully wireless option that packs Hall effect sticks, too.
Chosen by
Chosen by
Rhys Wood
As TechRadar Gaming’s Hardware Editor, I’m on the frontlines of informing you about the very latest (and hopefully greatest) in gaming tech. That includes controllers, headsets, must-have accessories, and of course the consoles themselves.
And of course, you can also follow TechRadar on YouTube and TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp too.
The National Challenge Fund-supported project StopFlood4.ie is developing a smart flood forecasting system.
January hit Ireland hard and strong this year as Storm Chandra swept the country towards the end of the month, causing heavy flooding, damaging dozens of homes and disrupting lives – all in a matter of a few days.
While the total cost of damages and repairs hasn’t been made public yet, Fianna Fail MEP Barry Andrews expects it to be “significant”. Following the storm, the Department of Social Protection announced emergency response payments for those affected.
Emergency teams were “caught by surprise”, according to Keith Leonard, the national director of the National Directorate for Fire and Emergency Management, who spoke to RTÉ’s Morning Ireland. He said that they “just weren’t expecting those levels of rainfall”.
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And sure enough, a study released following the events found that rainfall accumulation over the week preceding Storm Chandra caused the flooding to be this devastating.
The rapid study, conducted by climate scientists at the ICARUS Climate Research Centre in Maynooth University, and at Met Éireann, also found that the likelihood of Ireland experiencing a similar amount of rainfall in a week is a staggering three times more likely as a result of the climate crisis. Human-induced weather warming is a major factor in the problem.
Of course, there’s lessons to be learnt, whether it’s from the Government’s supposed dependency on external consultants to assist with storm planning, or, according to University of Galway scientists Dr Indiana Olbert and Dr Thomas McDermott, a need to for better support and data at a local level.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Drivetime show, Maynooth University climatologist Prof John Sweeney seconded the Galway scientists’ recommendation. He said: “What we need to do is change the way in which the public are alerted at a smaller scale, to what might be happening in their own catchment area.”
StopFloods4.ie is developing an AI-powered flood forecasting and decision-support system which integrates meteorological, tidal and river flow data.
By transforming fragmented data into actionable insights, the collaborative project – supported by the flood forecasting centre at Met Éireann, Cork City Council and local authorities – aims to equip emergency managers and communities with the means to anticipate, prepare for and respond to flood threats more effectively.
“What’s needed for better preparedness and response to flooding is primarily time,” say Olbert and McDermott, in a joint response to SiliconRepublic.com.
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“That means people at a local level need to know in good time what the risk of flooding is and where is most likely to be affected. Currently that information is not available at the local scale.
“Warnings or alerts are issued at the county scale – meaning that many people who receive them are unlikely to be affected. While for those at risk, there is still a doubt about whether their location is at risk,” they added.
StopFloods4.ie’s technology predicts flooding on a street-by-street basis, providing timely, consistent and local information to decision makers, they explained.
The project’s pilot test site is currently situated in Cork city, given its historic vulnerability to flooding and population concentration. According to the project leads, they plan to fully roll out their system for use by Cork authorities in two years’ time.
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They have also begun to pilot their technology in other areas, starting with other major urban areas with high flood exposure such as Galway, and eventually plan to expand it to the rest of the country.
Last week, Met Éireann reported that this past January was the wettest one in Ireland since 2018 – seeing, overall, 123pc of the long-term average rainfall.
Climate models show a “strong trend towards wetter winters, and more extreme [and] intense downpours”, StopFloods4.ie leads say.
“These extremes are becoming more frequent and as a result we can expect more frequent and more extensive flooding.”
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They add: “Places that are currently at risk will see more frequent [and] intense floods, while new risks will also be created.”
The team hopes that their AI-powered solution will help by providing timely information to allow those at risk to prepare, which would ultimately reduce the costs and impacts of flooding for affected communities.
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The Google Pixel 10A is set to make its debut on Feb. 18.
Google/CNET
Google’s Pixel 10A will make its debut next week, on Feb. 18, and while a recent YouTube teaser video (below) provided the first official look at the new Android phone, there are a lot of details that have been revealed via various leaks and rumors from around the internet.
We’re rounding up the top highlights here in this live blog, and will be on the lookout for when Google official reveals the Pixel 9A’s successor later this month.
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Pixel 10A release date
Google’s Pixel 10A will get its official reveal next Wednesday, Feb. 18, as confirmed by a Feb. 4 Google teaser video on its Made by Google YouTube channel. This date will mark one of the earliest debuts for a Pixel A series phone, as prior affordable Google phones have typically been released in the spring or summer.
This earlier release date likely means the phone will arrive just ahead of Samsung’s Galaxy S26 line, and just as Apple’s rumored to be debuting its own lower-cost iPhone 17E that could replace last year’s iPhone 16E.
Pixel 10A price
While there aren’t many rumors about the price of the Pixel 10A, the phone does appear to be very similar in appearance to last year’s Pixel 9A. Rumors point to the Pixel 10A offering 128GB and 256GB storage options, the same as the 9A, with a $499 starting price. However, that price is far from certain. The ongoing global RAM shortage is expected to eventually lead to phone-makers raising the prices of their devices to offset the higher cost of memory. It’s entirely possible that this could be the case with the Pixel line.
Pixel 10A specs
The Pixel 10A is expected to have similar specs to last year’s Pixel 9A. While we know from Google’s teaser that the Pixel 10A will have a flat camera bump, presumably with a wide and ultrawide camera inside, we’re waiting for Feb. 18 to get an official look at what’s inside. The specs that are presumed by multiple rumors include:
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6.3-inch display
A “boosted” edition of the Tensor G4 processor rather than the Tensor G5 seen in the rest of the Pixel 10 line
Four colors: obsidian, berry, fog and lavender. The latter model seems to be what’s on display in Google’s teaser video.
48-megapixel main camera and a 13-megapixel ultrawide camera
5,100mAh battery
13-megapixel selfie camera
We’re rounding up the rumors as they come. We’ll continue to update this live blog as we learn more about the device.
