This is very handy when you want to share an excerpt of writing in context, a concept that is totally lost if you just take a screenshot with a highlight.
How This Works
This feature is made possible by a web standard called Text fragments. It’s been built into browsers for years now; it’s just not the kind of feature that made a lot of headlines at the time.
The feature basically creates a URL that includes enough information for your browser to find the highlighted text portion. If you copy a URL made this way and paste it into a document so you can study the link’s structure, you can see how this works.
In the simplest cases, the URL will include the entire highlighted portion. That works fine for short fragments, but for long passages, the URL gets ungainly pretty fast. When you’re linking to longer text fragments, the URL includes a reference to the beginning and end of the excerpt. Either way, the URL tells your browser not only which page to load, but what part of the text should be highlighted. Your browser finds the text, highlights it, and jumps directly to it.
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There are subtle differences in how browsers handle this. Safari highlights text in yellow, for example, whereas in my tests Chrome seemed to prefer purple. But since this URL structure is standardized across browsers, a link created in one browser works in every browser.
It’s worth noting this feature doesn’t work in all contexts. If the website you’re reading is behind a paywall, and the person you’re sharing with doesn’t have access, they probably won’t be able to see the excerpt you’re trying to share. The feature also doesn’t work inside PDF files, even when you open them in your browser.
But sharing a text fragment, in most cases, is a lot more useful than sharing a screenshot. Give it a try the next time you’re trying to win an argument online.
So you happen to have a gramaphone– maybe a big old Victrola/HMV, perhaps a Columbia– regardless of brand, it’s a big, beautiful conversation peice for your living room. It might not be the most practical listening device, since isnomuch as there is a vinyl renessance, it’s restricted to vinyl, not the old shellac 78s the these all-mechanical beasts were born for. [JGJMatt] decided to bring his gramophone into the 21st century, turning it into a bluetooth speaker without altering any of its original internals.
What’s really interesting is that this hack was once a commercial product– sort of. Back in the 1920s when everyone was listening to Jazz, the problem of ‘ what do I do with this massive gramophone cabinet when I’m not cutting a rug?’ was equally valid, and a solution was found: the Dulce-Tone Radio Speaker. A very weak speaker sits under the needle, turning the gramaphone mechanism into an amplifier for the radio. The very same concept, [JGJMatt] would work equally well in the 2020s with a bluetooth signal as in the 1920s with an AM one. There’s no demo video for this project, but you can hear how its 1920s inspiration sounded in the video below.
The driver for this device is made using a neodymium magnet and the voice coil from a 3W speaker. A 3D-printed needle-holder captures the gramophone’s needle– a much thicker and sturdier thing than the tiny diamond-tip you’d find on a modern turntable, we should note– and holds the magnet to it. The voice coil gets driven via a MH-M38 bluetooth module, and everything is held in a nice 3D-printed case along with the battery.
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The hack is, of course, totally reversible: at any moment, you can remove the needle from this device and drop it on a 78 for some Jazz-era fun, or swap back for 21st century brainrot. If you happen to have some of those old shellac records and a modern turntable, note it takes more than the right RPM to get good sound.
T-CREATE EXPERT P35SG enables remote SSD destruction via cellular control
Hardware level wipe prevents recovery even after advanced forensic attempts
Physical button allows instant local activation of secure data wipe
A storage device capable of destroying its own contents remotely has emerged as one of the more unusual technologies unveiled at Computex 2026.
Teamgroup unveiled the T-CREATE EXPERT P35SG, an external SSD that combines portable storage with an integrated cellular communications system.
The device incorporates an independent 4G LTE modem, allowing it to receive commands without depending on a connected computer or host network.
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How the wireless destruction actually works without a host computer
The built-in cellular network bypasses limitations that the host machine might impose on the drive, so a user can trigger confidential data destruction remotely, even when far away from the physical device.
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For on-site use, the SSD also includes a physical button that enables instant one-touch data wiping when needed.
It uses a patented two-stage safety push-button system paired with Teamgroup’s dedicated destruction circuit, both protected by utility patents in multiple regions.
The company has also integrated a proprietary destruction trigger notification system, which sends real-time updates so users can confirm when the wipe process has completed successfully.
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The drive performs its wipe sequence at the hardware level rather than through any operating system, a bare metal execution which makes it resistant to software-based interruption once the process begins.
On-board power reserves ensure the wipe completes even if the device is suddenly disconnected, and a combined high-voltage physical breakdown and logical data wipe further strengthens the destruction process.
The company claims this method meets strict standards designed to prevent forensic recovery.
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A fail-safe locking mechanism helps reduce the risk of accidental activation and unintended data loss.
A business traveller carrying sensitive client information may find value in this level of remote destruction control.
The drive essentially acts as a data “dead man’s switch,” ensuring information cannot be recovered if the device is compromised.
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Previous self-destruct storage technologies and early concepts
Self-destructing storage technology has evolved through several experimental stages over the years, ranging from military-style designs to more practical consumer approaches.
In 2021, Technodynamika, a subsidiary of Rostec, reportedly prototyped a USB drive with a built-in detonator designed to physically destroy NAND chips when triggered.
The mechanism was intended to make recovered data completely unrecoverable once activated.
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More recent consumer-oriented concepts, such as the Ovrdrive USB, took less extreme approaches.
These included heat-based data destruction and secure multi-step unlock processes designed to prevent unauthorized access.
TEAMGROUP has also entered this field with devices like the P250Q Self-Destruct SSD and the P35S SSD, which can permanently erase data with user-initiated commands.
They combine hardware-level data erasure, AES-256 encryption, and power-loss resilience to ensure sensitive information cannot be recovered even after interruption.
Yamaha has entered the premium wireless hi-fi speaker category with the NX-70A, a new active stereo speaker system aimed at listeners who want proper stereo performance without a rack full of separates, speaker cables, and the 7 a.m. Dunkin’ drive-thru conversation where you try to explain why the “simple wireless speakers” cost more than the family vacation.
The NX-70A is not another lifestyle speaker pretending to be serious because someone gave it a fabric grille and a fancy app. Yamaha is bringing real hi-fi engineering to the category, including Harmonious Diaphragm drivers, Synergistic Drive amplifier integration, YPAO room calibration, HDMI eARC, MusicCast, AirPlay, Google Cast, Spotify Connect, TIDAL Connect, and Roon Ready support.
Yamaha has clearly noticed that KEF, Klipsch, Cambridge Audio, DALI, Fyne Audio, Sonus faber, and others are doing well with active and wireless hi-fi speakers. The NX-70A is Yamaha’s attempt to bring its loudspeaker, amplifier, DSP, home theater, and musical instrument experience into a modern wireless stereo system.
Yamaha Returns to Wireless Stereo with Real Hi-Fi Intent
The NX-70A is Yamaha’s first wireless stereo speaker system in roughly a decade, and it arrives with a feature set aimed at modern living rooms, smaller listening spaces, and TV-based systems where a soundbar may not be the ideal answer.
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Each speaker uses Yamaha’s Harmonious Diaphragm technology across its driver array. Yamaha says the diaphragm material is made from a carefully balanced blend of PBO fiber ZYLON and spruce wood. ZYLON is used in Yamaha’s flagship loudspeakers, while spruce wood is used in the soundboards of Yamaha grand pianos.
The NX-70A also uses Yamaha’s Synergistic Drive, which integrates the amplifier circuit and speaker unit as a dedicated system. Yamaha says this direct amplifier-to-driver approach helps manage current flow more precisely and reduce distortion caused by conventional amplifier/speaker interactions.
Yamaha rates the system at 100 watts for each woofer and 60 watts for each tweeter, confirming that the NX-70A is a fully active design with dedicated amplification for each driver rather than a passive speaker with wireless convenience bolted on.
Yamaha also lists frequency response at 50 Hz to 35 kHz when the speakers are connected by wire, and 50 Hz to 21 kHz when used wirelessly, both measured at -10 dB. That distinction matters because the NX-70A is being marketed as a wireless system, but Yamaha is clearly giving users a wired option for maximum performance and stability.
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The primary speaker includes HDMI eARC/ARC, optical digital, 3.5mm analog input, Ethernet, USB-A for music playback and firmware updates, a YPAO microphone input, and an RCA subwoofer output. The secondary speaker can connect wirelessly or via Ethernet/LAN, and Yamaha includes a 3-meter LAN cable in the box for that purpose.
Physically, the NX-70A is compact but not featherweight. Each speaker measures 189 x 234 x 333mm, or roughly 7.5 x 9.25 x 13.125 inches. The primary speaker weighs 5.7 kg / 12.6 pounds, while the secondary speaker weighs 5.4 kg / 11.9 pounds. That puts the NX-70A firmly in the serious desktop, den, or living-room category rather than the “cute wireless speaker for the kitchen counter” pile.
YPAO Room Calibration and Wireless Left/Right Placement
One of the NX-70A’s most useful features is YPAO room calibration. Yamaha’s system uses a dedicated microphone to measure the listening environment and adjust playback for the room. In the NX-70A, YPAO R.S.C. addresses early reflections, while EQ is used to fine-tune tonal balance.
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That matters because active wireless speakers are often used in real rooms, not review spaces with perfect symmetry, acoustic treatment, and no furniture that anyone actually owns. Walls, windows, bookshelves, coffee tables, and questionable placement all have a say in the final sound. Yamaha is at least giving users a tool to manage some of that.
The left and right speakers can also connect wirelessly, so users do not need to run a cable between them. That should make placement easier, especially in living rooms where “just run a cable across the floor” is how arguments start.
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HDMI eARC, MusicCast, and Roon Ready Support
Yamaha has given the NX-70A the kind of connectivity that makes sense in 2026. HDMI eARC/ARC with CEC allows the speakers to connect directly to a TV and be controlled with a TV remote. That immediately makes the NX-70A a serious alternative to a soundbar for listeners who care more about stereo imaging than simulated surround fireworks.
Streaming support includes Spotify Connect, TIDAL Connect, Google Cast, AirPlay, MusicCast multiroom playback, and Roon Ready compatibility, which should cover most potential buyers. Qobuz Connect does not appear to be supported at this stage.
Designed for Sound, Not Just the Showroom
The NX-70A cabinet uses rounded surfaces intended to avoid parallel internal walls and reduce standing waves. Yamaha also uses a 5mm aluminum top plate secured to the cabinet to increase rigidity and help control unwanted vibration.
The system will be available in black and white finishes, with a matching SPS-70A stand also listed by Yamaha.
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The Bottom Line
The Yamaha NX-70A matters because it is not just another wireless speaker system with a premium badge and a tidy app. Yamaha is bringing a properly active 2-way design to the category, with dedicated amplification for each driver, YPAO room calibration, HDMI eARC, subwoofer output, wired or wireless speaker linking, and broad streaming support that includes MusicCast, AirPlay, Google Cast, TIDAL Connect, Spotify Connect, and Roon Ready compatibility.
At a reported £2,587, or roughly $3,500, the NX-70A is not inexpensive, and it will have to compete with strong active and wireless systems from KEF, DALI, Fyne Audio, Sonus faber, Klipsch, and others. What makes Yamaha’s entry different is the combination of hi-fi, DSP, home theater, and musical instrument engineering behind it. That does not guarantee victory, but it does make the NX-70A one of the more credible new wireless stereo systems to watch in 2026.
The real test will be whether Yamaha can turn that spec sheet into a system that sounds balanced, images properly, integrates well with TVs and subs, and makes traditional separates feel less necessary. On paper, the NX-70A has the right pieces. Now it has to prove they belong together.
Microsoft released a new pre-recorded Xbox Showcase on Sunday morning as part of this year’s Summer Game Fest event, which also marked new CEO Asha Sharma’s first big public event since taking over the company’s gaming division.
Back in February when Sharma took over Xbox, some analysts, including me, openly wondered if she was there to shut down the department. Instead, Sharma appears determined to give Xbox a shot in the arm, telling Bloomberg News earlier this week that she aims to make Xbox “the number one gaming and entertainment company” by 2030.
For a product that seems to be permanently stuck in third place behind Sony and Nintendo, and which is facing at least one significant consumer boycott, that’s a frankly awe-inspiring level of ambition. That set up high expectations for this year’s Showcase.
Instead, Sharma and Xbox chief content officer Matt Booty seemed content to let their games do the talking. The focus of this year’s hour-long Showcase was firmly on new and upcoming releases from the Xbox studio network and its partners, as part of a low-key celebration of the Xbox project’s 25th anniversary.
The Showcase began with a new look at gameplay for the forthcoming Gears of War: E-Day (Oct. 6). The Gears of War series has, since the beginning, been focused on the conflict between humanity and a subterranean species called the Locust Horde.
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E-Day is a prequel set on the first day of that conflict (“Emergence Day”), 14 years before the original Gears of War. It once again puts the player in the role of the series’ traditional protagonists Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago.
We’ve known that E-Day was coming for a couple of years, and Gears has traditionally been one of the bigger franchises in Xbox’s network. The big surprise here isn’t the game itself, but rather the quiet announcement that E-Day is an Xbox console exclusive.
This is a big reversal of policy from Microsoft, which made headlines over the last couple of years by deliberately publishing several of its first-party games on competitive platforms such as the PlayStation 5. While this appeared to be financially successful for the company, it’s also traditionally been the kind of move that video game companies (i.e. Sega) do right before they leave the hardware market.
Now Xbox is at least attempting to chart a new course. Both E-Day and the forthcoming steampunk action-RPG Clockwork Revolution (2027) were specifically identified as Xbox console exclusives. While several other first-party Xbox titles weren’t, including the Fable reboot and Halo:Campaign Evolved, any move towards console exclusivity is a big departure for modern Xbox.
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The company later specifically confirmed via Xbox Wire that E-Day and Clockwork are not timed exclusives. For the foreseeable future, if you want to play either of these games on a console, you’ll have to own Xbox hardware to do so.
This suggests that Sharma’s Xbox may be moving back towards more proven market strategies for the platform, as opposed to the Spencer/Bond tactic of attempting to redefine the terms of success or the product itself.
Fable may be the next biggest news out of this year’s Showcase, as it’s been suspected of being vaporware for several years now. The original games were some of the biggest Xbox exclusives, as famously open-ended fantasy RPGs that allowed you to play as a hero, a villain, or something in between.
The series has been on hiatus since Fable III in 2010, so Microsoft got fans’ attention back in 2020 when it announced plans for a reboot. Then, nothing happened for quite some time. Every major press event at Xbox would feature some small piece of information about Fable, just as proof of life, before the project vanished again.
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Now we actually have a release date for the new Fable: Feb. 23, 2027. In addition, the Showcase trailer marks the debut of Fable’s villain, Isabel, who’s played by British actress Hayley Atwell (Captain America).
Speaking of projects that seemed like they’d never come out: this year’s Showcase featured a new trailer for Seattle-based Undead Labs’ State of Decay 3.
This co-op zombie survival game, set in the post-apocalyptic Pacific Northwest, has been in development for years, but a 2022 scandal about its toxic work culture nearly sank Undead Labs before it could be released. It’s frankly shocking that Microsoft never pulled the plug. Instead, State of Decay 3 is coming in 2027.
The Master Chief, now in Unreal Engine 5. (Microsoft press image)
This summer, we’ll finally see the next project from the rebranded Halo Studios, as the Unreal Engine remake of the original Halo is coming on July 28. In addition to the remake ofHalo’s story,Campaign Evolved will feature three new missions set one year before the game’s events, which team the Master Chief with fan-favorite character Sergeant Major Avery Johnson.
Other first-party news out of the Xbox Showcase includes:
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To celebrate the Xbox’s 25th anniversary, Microsoft plans to release a new edition of the Xbox Series X in November which features a translucent green shell and a matching controller. This is meant to recall the limited-edition Halo Xbox that released in 2004.
This year’s Call of Duty is a fourth entry in its Modern Warfare subseries. It features a new mode, DMZ, set in the fictional Hajin Exclusion Zone in Korea, which is the setting for a high-stakes extraction shooter.
Mojang Studios’ Minecraft Dungeons II is coming out on Sept. 29.
Activision plans to revive the Spyro series, featuring one of the most recognizable mascots of the 2000s, with A Realm Beyond, coming in the spring of 2027.
Ninja Theory’s award-winning Hellblade series is getting a third entry next year, simply titled Senua.
Last year’s Doom: The Dark Ages will receive a DLC expansion, Revelations, on July 7.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 has a new “world update” planned for July 4, which is meant to “celebrate the beauty of the United States” by adding multiple national parks to the game’s environments. Now you can fly through an ultra-realistic Grand Canyon or over the Dry Tortugas.
(Xbox press image)
Announcements from Xbox partners included:
Atlus debuted a remake of its popular Japanese urban-fantasy RPG Persona 4 and, after a long period of silence on the topic, has confirmed it’s making Persona 6. While nothing is known about P6 aside from its existence, that’s still new information.
As a celebration of the Castlevania series’ 40th anniversary, Konami plans to publish Belmont’s Curse, the first new entry in the core series since 2008’s Order of Ecclesia. It follows Rose Belmont as she and her father Trevor investigate a monster attack on the streets of Paris in 1499. It’s due out on Oct. 15.
The French developer Asobo Studio revealed another trailer for its forthcoming prequel Resonance, which is a new entry in the Plague Tale series. These action-horror games, set in 14th-century France, deal with a supernatural take on the Black Plague and its protagonists’ attempts to survive it.
Sega plans to revive its Crazy Taxi racing series with a new entry, World Tour, coming next year. Within minutes of the reveal, fans noticed that World Tour‘s Steam page features an AI-usage disclaimer, which has already begun a mild furor on Western social media.
Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja revealed Wo Long 2, a sequel to its fantasy action-game, set during China’s Three Kingdoms period.
Serenity Forge, an indie studio that specializes in both weird horror and “cozy” games, seems to be splitting the difference with its newest project. Vivarium is an anime-inspired, hand-animated game about life inside a small town… which is contained in a glass jar in what appears to be an abandoned house. It’s due out next year.
Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.
Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.
If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.
Following an early teaser in May, Citizen Sleeper creator Gareth Damian Martin has revealed Signet City. Martin describes their new game as a “fungalpunk” RPG. In an all too brief trailer, we’re introduced to the game’s stark monochrome visuals and mushroom-infested City 17-esque setting as the post-punk drone of the band SPRINTS plays in the background. “You are a parasite, in a city where strange technologies and radical ideas are taking root,” says the game’s YouTube description. “Grow into and through its inhabitants, uncover and change their stories, and witness the terminal season of the Signet City.”
“Unlike traditional RPG protagonists, players in Signet City exist as a parasite moving through the city’s social body, shaping conversations, influencing inhabitants, and navigating the games beautifully crafted locations,” publisher Fellow Traveller Witness writes in its press release for the game. “This allows the game to dig deep into the interior lives of the parasite’s hosts, in powerful, affecting prose that has become the signature of Jump Over the Age’s games.” A fact sheet adds that Signet City is partly informed by the turbulent decade the United Kingdom experienced during the 1980s, with its northern industrial cities serving as inspiration for the setting.
Martin’s previous games, In Other Waters, and the Citizen Sleeper series, were all set in the distant future, so for them to explore what could be an alternate reality for their latest project is something new. As for the art style, screentoned manga, pen and ink drawings and black and white photography are cited as touchpoints. Signet City also sees Martin working with a new set of collaborators, with Eli Rainsberry taking over for Amos Roddy to produce the game’s soundtrack and audio, and Tom Kitchen assisting with its environmental art.
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Jump Over The Age
I imagine a lot of people will compare Signet City to The Last of Us, but I would argue the game sees Martin exploring ideas that have interested them for years. In interviews following the release of Citizen Sleeper, they cited Anna Tsing’s The Mushroom at the End of the World as one of the game’s primary influences. Tsing’s book critiques capitalism, and our current era of precarity and ecological devastation, through the lens of matsutake, one of the more expensive varieties of mushroom. Matsutake, as well as girolle and other species of fungi, feature prominently throughout Citizen Sleeper, its sequel and In Other Waters, wherein the player guides a xenobiologist through an alien landscape teeming with life.
Signet City will arrive on PC through Steam later this year. No word yet on other platforms.
Notion’s integration with Anthropic apparently had a hiccup this weekend.
Early Sunday morning, the company posted, “Anthropic’s Opus 4.7 and 4.8 models are experiencing degraded performance, which is causing a higher rate of failures for users selecting these models in Notion AI.”
As a result, Notion said it was disabling use of “all Anthropic models” in its automated productivity tool.
Twelve hours later, Notion’s head of product Max Schoening wrote that he was “astonished” at “the amount of people RT-ing this because they want a story around model quality to be the reason.” (According to the public stats on X, Notion’s post has been reposted around 1,200 times.)
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“The degraded performance was a temporary service disruption,” Schoening said. “This happens. It happens to Notion, GitHub, AWS, your OpenClaw, and everything in between.”
He added that Notion has restored access to Anthropic’s models.
Meanwhile, an Anthropic spokesperson said in a statement, “A brief infrastructure issue caused elevated errors on multiple Claude models for a short period of time. The issue has since been resolved. We’re grateful to our users for their patience while we worked to restore service.”
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey isn’t hitting theaters for another month or so, but if you’re already planning your trip to the cineplex, you may want to check out this page on the movie’s website which lets you view the trailer in the six (!) different formats it’s being released in.
We don’t really have an opinion on the big-screen adaptation of the epic tale as a piece of media, but from a technical standpoint, it’s interesting to see how the viewing experience changes between the 70mm IMAX version with an aspect ratio of 1.43:1 and the 35mm cut at 2.39:1. Unfortunately, the website offers no way to approximate what the movie will look like once compressed, streamed over the Internet, and displayed on a cheap TCL TV, to say nothing of how the viewing experience will be impacted should you watch the movie on your phone by way of a series of short YouTube clips while going to the bathroom. Maybe Nolan is saving that for his next film.
If you head over to the movies in one of Waymo’s vehicles, you can feel a little better about the long-term ecological impact of your trip thanks to a recently announced partnership between the autonomous car maker and B2U Storage Solutions. Under the agreement, old batteries pulled from Waymo’s fleet of self-driving electric cars will get a second life as localized grid storage.
The idea is that batteries which no longer hold enough charge to power a robo-taxi should still have enough capacity to store the energy produced by renewable sources so it can be doled out later when the demand goes up. By installing these batteries in the cities that Waymo actually operates their vehicles in, they don’t have to worry about shipping them around either — they can just yank them out of the car, and wire them right into the grid. Of course, eventually the batteries will be too cooked to adequately perform in this role as well, but this should give them a few more productive years before they get torn down and scrapped.
Speaking of scrapping, the Ladybird project has announced a pretty radical change for an open source project: as of Friday no public pull requests to the codebase will be accepted, and the only people who can make changes to the code will be the official maintainers. The license for the project isn’t changing, so folks are still free to create forks and modify the code of the scratch-built browser however they wish, but they’ll have to do so with the understanding that their changes will likely never get merged back upstream.
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So why the change? You probably guessed it already: they are sick of people sending in patches developed with AI. We’ve talked about this issue previously, and the Ladybird devs are hardly the only ones struggling to separate the wheat from the vibecoded chaff. For what it’s worth, the announcement makes it clear that the team isn’t necessarily against the responsible use of AI in software development. Their concern stems more from the fact that AI lets anybody and everybody produce code that at least looks valid, and it makes it harder to figure out what’s good and worthy of inclusion and what should probably stay in somebody’s personal repo.
On the subject of software development, health-conscious free software aficionados will be excited to hear that the GNUtrition project hit version 0.33 on Friday. For those keeping track, the free-as-in-speech tool for *nix nerds looking to keep track of their caloric intake hasn’t seen a major release since 2012. The update takes into account the latest US Department of Agriculture (USDA) dietary data, and somewhat surprisingly, switches the whole codebase from Python 2 to pure C. Patches which would have allowed the new build of GNUtrition to calculate the nutritional value of substances eaten off of one’s shoe were mysteriously vetoed from the highest levels of the Free Software Foundation.
One more software link for the road: assuming it hasn’t been taken down by Nintendo’s rabid lawyers by the time this hits the front page, check out this WebASM port of Pokemon Emerald that you can play right in the browser.
The game came out more than 20 years ago for the Game Boy Advance, so the fact that it can run in a modern browser isn’t exactly shocking given how much of today’s software lives on the web. But we still love seeing these decompilation efforts and all the hacks that are made possible once you’ve got the code to work from rather than having to emulate the original system.
Finally, the good folks at iFixit have released a video wherein they take apart fake Apple products that were purchased in the electronics wonderland of Shenzhen. As you might expect, the gadgets they picked up all look fairly convincing at arm’s length, but many of their features don’t actually work and their internals are cobbled together with random ill-fitting bits and bobs.
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At the end of the video they do note that the knock-offs are in general easier to take apart than their Cupertino counterparts, but that this doesn’t really help with their repairability or long-term viability as you’ll likely have a hell of a time tracking down replacement parts for the Number 1 Best AirPoods Max.
See something interesting that you think would be a good fit for our weekly Links column? Drop us a line, we’d love to hear about it.
Nightdive Studios, based in Vancouver, Wash., has made its reputation from remasters and re-releases of dozens of out-of-print PC gaming classics. On Sunday, it announced its next project is the 1998 cult classic Thief: The Dark Project.
The news came as part of PC Gamer’s PC Gaming Show for 2026, which was part of this year’s Summer Game Fest in Los Angeles. The Fest, meant to replace the now-shuttered E3, is a loosely organized series of livestreams, presentations, and broadcasts that sets the schedule for the rest of the year in the video game industry.
Thief, from the legendary Looking Glass Studios, is one of the most influential PC games of the 1990s. Even if you’ve never played it or one of its sequels, such as 2004’s Deadly Shadows, you’ve likely played one of its spiritual descendants.
Thief is one of the first games that didn’t rely on scripts to move its levels forward. There’s nothing that you’re “meant” to do to progress; you’re simply dropped into an elaborate environment and left to figure the rest out for yourself.
That open-ended approach made Thief one of the seminal titles in a sub-genre that’s become known as the “immersive sim,” such as BioShock, Deathloop, and 2017’s Prey, where the challenge and attraction is in coming up with your own solutions on the fly.
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Thief puts the player in the role of Garrett, a professional burglar in a fantasy metropolis known only as the City, who takes a job to steal a magical gem. This places Garrett, against his will, in the center of a conflict between two warring factions of zealots, which will determine the fate of the City.
While Garrett can fight if he has to, he’ll usually lose. Instead, you’re meant to use stealth, wits, and evasion to accomplish his goals, with tools such as rope arrows, flash bombs, noisemakers, and a blackjack for stealthy knockouts.
“Thief didn’t just introduce stealth mechanics, it defined them,” Stephen Kick, CEO at Nightdive Studios, wrote in a press release. “With this remaster, we’ve preserved the tension and intelligence of the original while enhancing it for modern players, ensuring that its legacy continues to influence how stealth games are played today.”
The Nightdive remaster of Thief is planned to include everything from all versions of the game, including the extra missions from 1999’s Thief Gold re-release. It will also include a few quality-of-life bonuses such as a mission select, improved graphics, a weapon/item wheel to make it easier to use items in-game, and support for custom campaigns.
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Kick co-founded Nightdive in 2012 when he discovered that he couldn’t play his own legal copy of System Shock 2 anymore. Since then, Nightdive has rescued and re-released dozens of out-of-print PC games, such as System Shock 2, Killing Time, Star Wars: Dark Forces, and Rise of the Triad, in addition to both publishing and developing a full remake of the original System Shock.
Nightdive’s Thief: The Dark Project remaster is planned for launch this winter on PlayStation 4 and 5, Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam, GOG, and the Epic Games Store.
Paramount is clearly getting nervous about the growing opposition to its $111 billion merger with Warner Brothers, which is being intensely criticized for dodgy overseas funding, its dire impact on journalism, and the inevitable mass layoffs, consumer price hikes, and shittier overall product that always results from debt-fueled mega-media consolidation.
There’s a certain desperation creeping into their arguments as state regulators send signals that they’re considering filing an antitrust lawsuit. Top Paramount lawyer Makan Delrahim recently sat down for an interview with the billionaire-owned LA Times (non-paywalled alternative), and insisted that opposition to the company’s terrible merger spree is somehow antisemitic:
“Let’s be honest,” he told the Times. “There’s a lot of fear-mongering, particularly from people in Washington, D.C. They are running a political campaign. Some of these people are trying to inflict harm on this transaction, really because of their own antisemitic views. Regulators and law enforcement officials will see right through that.”
That is, of course, a whole lot of bullshit. Delrahim is trying to pretend that opposition to the deal stems from the fact that billionaire Trump-donor Larry Ellison, who has retooled CBS News to be more friendly to Benjamin Netanyahu, is Jewish. But if there’s any personal ire directed at Ellison as it pertains to the deal, it’s that he has a generational track record of being a foundationally terrible person.
The real-world concerns about the deal have focused on things like the fact it’s heavily financed by Saudi Arabia and China. And there’s fifty years of history showing that deals like this (especially deals involving Warner Brothers) routinely result in mass layoffs, higher prices, and both a shittier company and a less healthy film and television production market.
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This sort of mindless consolidation is generally just a shell game performed by the extraction class and the kind of people obsessed with scale that have no genuine, original ideas. It’s utterly senseless, extractive, and destructive, as we all saw with the disastrous AT&T–>Discovery–>Warner Brothers mess (and the AOL Warner Brothers mess decades earlier).
Quick refresher: Delrahim was Trump’s DOJ “antitrust enforcer” during his first term. Delrahim “enforced antitrust” by doing things like rubber stamping Sprint’s merger with T-Mobile, which immediately resulted in more than 8,000 layoffs and an abrupt end to what passed as price competition in U.S. wireless.
These are, you’ll be surprised to learn, bad faith actors who aren’t actually interested in the public interest, product quality, happy workers, healthy markets, healthy companies, or much of anything else beyond short-term financial gains, tax breaks, control, and outsized higher-level executive compensation.
Ellison and Delrahim don’t have to worry about the Trump DOJ or FCC interfering in the deal. But their desperation suggests they are definitely nervous about negative public perception, European regulatory approval, and the hints being sent by state attorneys general that they’re cooking up a collaborative antitrust lawsuit that could either block or dramatically extend the project timeline.
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