Maker Hyperspace Pirate has created a dive helmet using a 3D printer, tons of fiberglass, and a lot of ingenuity. They transformed an old diving concept into something that works, at least for shallow pool diving. This helmet is modeled like old surface-supplied diving gear. Air rushes in from above and exhaust leaves from below, keeping the diver’s head dry inside a little upside-down plastic bubble.

This project demands precise measurements, so Hyperspace Pirate originally sketched up the dimensions of the helmet on cardboard: 7.5 inches wide, 9.75 inches deep, and 11.25 inches high. Then Onshape software was used to generate a digital model of the object. It was divided into four separate components to accommodate the maker’s 3D printer, a Prusa MK3S, and manufactured with varying layer thicknesses to balance speed and strength. The printer used ABS filament, and after printing, the components were bonded together and encased in fiberglass soaked in epoxy for added strength. He had to be cautious about the sort of resin used because the other type tends to attack the ABS pieces.

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Three large transparent acrylic panes, one in the front and one on each side, provide visibility and are press-fitted into position and sealed with silicone caulk. The weight of the water at deep forces the windows in and closes them securely. A carry handle on top allows you to move the item about, and there are some useful small fittings for installing lighting or a camera.

Air enters through a small SAE fitting on the top of the helmet, which has a check valve to prevent air from flowing back in if the supply fails. Any extra air leaves at the back through a long, hollow PVC pipe, resulting in constant bubbles. The air supply is handled by a quiet oilless compressor, the MAC100Q type, which produces a consistent 40 liters per minute at up to 2 bar of pressure. This allows us to dive down to approximately 10 meters (33 feet) without running out of air. The rig is powered by a 12-volt, 35 amp-hour lead-acid battery connected to a 2 kilowatt pure sine wave inverter. It’s all mounted on a pool inner tube float, with a flat piece of plywood for stability and a handy diver-down flag.

Ballast weights, which are positioned on either side and held in place by a pair of large steel plates, work to keep the helmet underwater. We began with 30 pounds of weights, but after a few initial tests, we added an additional 10 pounds to achieve neutral buoyancy. A neoprene pad protects the neck against pressure points.

The helmet got a good workout in the pool, with dry runs ensuring proper fit and airflow, and underwater sessions allowing the builder to move around. We’ve had to be careful not to go too deep, partly because the bottom of the pool is a little uneven, but the airflow keeps it nice and cool and dry inside, preventing the windows from fogging or overheating. The compressor ran smoothly, and we were relieved that the helmet did not overheat. There was one peculiarity, however: the exhaust pipe would occasionally give out a small gurgling. It was a little unpleasant at the time, but it turned out to be harmless.

Safety has always been a key priority here, which is why the oilless compressor is a must-have. It means there is no risk of oil vapor or exhaust fumes entering the helmet. And just in case something goes wrong, we have a check valve to prevent the air pressure from decreasing quickly. Despite the fact that the helmet works extremely well for shallow water tasks, Hyperspace Pirate is quick to point out that this is still very much an experimental project, and it is not safe to use in open water or much deeper water without some serious modifications to make it waterproof, as well as a bit of backup air to be safe.
[Source]

US self-driving startup Nuro, which is backed by the likes of NVIDIA, Toyota and Uber, has started testing its autonomous vehicles on Tokyo’s challenging streets, Bloomberg reported. The company, which plans to launch a robotaxi service with Uber and Lucid in San Francisco this year, will be testing a “handful” of vehicles in the city. Human safety drivers will be at the wheel, as is required by Japanese law.

Tokyo presents a challenge for autonomous vehicles, given its narrow, crowded streets and left side of the road driving. “Testing the capability of the autonomy system in such an interesting market with some international complexity really is a good pressure test of what the system is capable of,” said CEO Andrew Chapin. The company’s ultimate goal is to achieve Level 4 autonomy, which allows full self-driving under limited conditions.

Waymo is the other major robotaxi operator testing vehicles in Tokyo in collaboration with Japanese taxi operators Nihon Kotsu and the country’s leading taxi app, Go. It has been operating in the nation since April 2025 in collaboration with Toyota.

Nuro has yet to announce which operators or vehicle manufacturers it will be partnering with, but Chapin said it may not limit itself to autonomous rides. “A universal autonomy platform that can be extended to a lot of different applications and form factors is a bit different than the approach Waymo is taking,” he told Bloomberg. The company previously teamed with 7-Eleven on autonomous deliveries in Mountain View, California.

Uber plans to have up to 100,000 autonomous vehicles including 20,000 robotaxis powered by Lucid and Nuro, with a rollout starting in 2027. It introduced its new vehicle design recently at CES 2026. Uber is also collaborating with Nissan and Wayve with the aim to introduce pilot cars in Tokyo by late 2026.

Update: Story updated with a statement from Stryker confirming they suffered a disruptive cyberattack.

Leading medical technology company Stryker has been hit by a wiper malware attack claimed by Handala, an Iranian-linked and pro-Palestinian hacktivist group.

The medtech giant manufactures a range of products, including surgical and neurotechnology equipment. With over 53,000 employees, Stryker is a Fortune 500 company that reported global sales of $22.6 billion in 2024.

Handala says they stole 50 terabytes of data before wiping tens of thousands of systems and servers across the company’s network, forcing Stryker to shut down in “an unprecedented blow.”

“In this operation, over 200,000 systems, servers, and mobile devices have been wiped and 50 terabytes of critical data have been extracted,” the attackers said. “Stryker’s offices in 79 countries have been forced to shut down.”

This aligns with reports from people claiming to be Stryker employees from the United States, Ireland, Costa Rica, and Australia, who said their managed Windows and mobile devices were remotely wiped in the middle of the night. The attackers have also defaced the company’s Entra login page to display a Handala logo.

A Stryker employee told BleepingComputer the incident began early Wednesday morning, when devices enrolled in the company’s mobile device management system were remotely wiped. The employee said colleagues who had personal phones enrolled for work access also lost data after their devices were reset.

Staff were instructed to remove corporate management and applications from their personal devices, including the Intune Company Portal, Teams, and VPN clients.

Numerous employees also report that the attack disrupted access to internal services and applications, forcing some locations to revert to “pen and paper” workflows after systems became unavailable.

As a result of the attack, Stryker is now working to restore their systems amid a global outage, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

“We are experiencing a severe, global disruption impacting all Stryker laptops and systems that connect to our network,” Stryker told employees in Cork, Ireland, according to local media.

“At this time, the root cause has not yet been identified. We are actively engaged with Microsoft and treating this a critical, enterprise-wide incident,” the company added in a message sent to employees in Asia.

Handala (also known as Handala Hack Team, Hatef, Hamsa) first surfaced in December 2023 as a hacktivist operation linked to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) that targets Israeli organizations with destructive malware designed to wipe Windows and Linux devices.

They are also known for stealing sensitive data from victims’ compromised systems and publishing it on the group’s data leak portals.

Stryker confirms cyberattack

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from the oh-buc-off dept

Alright, I think it might be time for a wellness check on the people running Buc-ee’s.

I realize that these chain of gas and convenience stores has a strange cult following in the south. I won’t pretend to understand why that is, but whatever. Unfortunately, the company also appears to be run by a bunch of trademark bullying jackwagons. I’ve referred to Buc-ee’s as the Monster Energy of gas stations, because the company appears to think that trademark law allows it to own the concept of a cartoon animal mascot in any tangential industry. They have bullied and/or sued many, many companies under this premise. Because most of its victims are smaller companies, they have gotten a lot of settlements out of these bullying efforts.

But those settlements don’t make the bullying legitimate. Buc-ee’s views on what trademark law allows it to own and control are fantasy. They’re still out here doing their bullying thing, though, with the latest example being its decision to sue a company that runs a gas station called “Mickey’s”. I’ve embedded the suit below, but here is a sample of the claims in the filing made against the gas station chain.

Like the Buc-ee’s Marks, Defendant’s Logos incorporate a cartoon animal facing right with wide eyes and a smile, overlaying a round background…also uses red as a predominant color in its interior and exterior signage, as well as employee uniforms and anthropomorphic representations of its cartoon moose mascot…also uses red as a predominant color in its interior and exterior signage, as well as employee uniforms and anthropomorphic representations of its cartoon moose mascot.

Consumers are likely to perceive a connection or association as to the source, sponsorship, or affiliation of the parties’ products and services, when in fact none exists, given the similarity of the parties’ logos, trade channels, and consumer bases.

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And here, dear readers, is the very similar branding that the lawsuit references.

Once again, as with past Buc-ee’s trademark suits, the claims simply fall apart on inspection of the evidence. These logos are not similar. They don’t use the same overall color schemes. They feature easily distinguishable cartoon animals as mascot. A beaver is not a moose, which is a sentence I never thought I’ve have to type out on a keyboard. Likewise, a hexagon is not round, another thing I’d never thought I’d have to write. This is all very, very stupid, and not at all concerning from a customer confusion standpoint.

Despite that, the suit alleges that Mickey’s has “used” the Buc-ee’s logos to enrich themselves. It’s bonkers. In addition, Buc-ee’s has petitioned the USPTO to cancel the trademark registrations Mickey’s has for its branding.

Why is this company so beloved? They truly seem like craven bullies above all else. None of this is trademark infringement and I certainly hope the owners of Mickey’s are prepared to fight this fight. Because Buc-ee’s doesn’t somehow have a monopoly on cartoon character mascots. Not for its industry, never mind others.

Filed Under: beaver, moose, trademark

Companies: buc-ee’s, mickey’s

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How to Keep Your Engineering Skills Sharp in an AI World

Engineers today are caught in a strange new reality. We’re expected to move faster than ever using AI tools for coding, analysis, documentation, and design. At the same time, there’s a growing worry in the background: If the AI is doing the work, what happens to my skills?

That concern isn’t just philosophical. Research from Anthropic, the company behind Claude, has suggested that heavy AI assistance can interfere with human learning—especially for more junior software engineers. When a tool fills in the gaps too quickly, you may deliver working output without ever building a strong mental model of what’s happening underneath.

More experienced engineers often feel a different version of this anxiety: a fear that they might slowly lose the hard-earned intuition that made them effective in the first place.

In some ways, this isn’t new. We’ve always borrowed solutions from textbooks, colleagues, forums, and code snippets from strangers on the internet. The difference now is speed and scale. AI can generate pages of plausible solutions in seconds. It’s never been easier to produce work you don’t fully understand.

I recently felt this firsthand when I joined a new team and had to work in a codebase and language I’d never used before. With AI tools, I was able to become productive almost immediately. I could describe a small change I wanted, get back something that matched the existing patterns, and ship improvements within days. That kind of ramp-up speed is incredible and, increasingly, expected.

But I also noticed how easy it would have been to stop at “it works.”

Instead, I made a conscious decision to use AI not just to generate solutions, but to deepen my understanding. After getting a working change, I’d ask the AI to walk me through the code step by step. Why was this pattern used? What would break if I removed this abstraction? Is this idiomatic for this language, or just one possible approach?

The shift from generation to interrogation made a massive difference.

One of the most powerful techniques I used was explaining things back in my own words. I’d summarize how I thought a part of the system worked or how this language handled certain concepts, then ask the AI to point out gaps or mistakes. That process forced me to form my own mental models rather than just recognizing patterns. Over time, I started to build intuition for the language’s quirks, common pitfalls, and design style. This kind of understanding helps you debug and design, not just copy and paste.

This is the core mindset shift engineers need in the AI era: Use AI to accelerate learning, not to replace thinking.

The worst way to use these tools is also the easiest: prompt, accept, ship, repeat. That path leads to shallow knowledge and growing dependence. The better path is slightly slower but more durable. Let AI help you move quickly, but always come back and ask, Do I understand what I just built? If not, use the same tool to help you understand it.

AI can absolutely make us faster. Used well, it can also make us better at our jobs. The engineers who stay sharp won’t be the ones who avoid AI, they’ll be the ones who turn it into a collaborator in their own learning.

—Brian

When war strikes, critical power infrastructure is often hit. Engineers in Ukraine have risked their lives to keep electricity flowing, and some have been hurt or killed in the dangerous wartime conditions. One such engineer, Oleksiy Brecht, died on the job in January. “Brecht’s life and death are a window into the realities of thousands of Ukrainian engineers who face conditions beyond what most engineers could imagine,” writes IEEE Spectrum contributing editor Peter Fairley.

Read more here.

The semiconductor industry needs more engineers to build the chips that power our daily lives. To help expand the talent pool, the industry is testing new approaches, including training software engineers to design hardware with the help of AI tools. All engineers will still need to have an understanding of the fundamentals—but could computer science students soon apply their coding skills to help design hardware?

Read more here.

Effective writing and communication are among the most important skills for engineers looking to advance their careers. Though often labeled a “soft skill,” clear communication is essential in both academia and industry. IEEE is now offering a course covering key writing skills, ethical use of generative AI, publishing strategies, and more.

Read more here.

TL;DR

Moz Pro now includes AI-powered keyword suggestions, an AI Visibility feature in open beta, and the industry-standard Domain Authority metric, all starting at $39/month on annual billing. A 7-day free trial is available on Standard and Medium plans, and a free Moz Community account gives permanent access to limited versions of Keyword Explorer and Link Explorer at no cost. In a market where most SEO platforms charge $100+/month before you see any data, Moz Pro is the most affordable way to bring AI into your SEO workflow.

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, we may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. This helps support our content. All opinions expressed are our own.

Something fundamental changed in SEO this year, and most businesses haven’t caught up yet. Google’s AI Mode is now generating answers from sources that don’t even appear in the traditional top 10 results. Moz’s own research across nearly 40,000 queries found that 88% of AI Mode citations come from URLs that aren’t ranking in the organic SERP for the same query. The old playbook of ranking for a head term and collecting the traffic is no longer the whole game. Topic authority, content structure, off-site visibility, and brand presence across the web now determine whether your business shows up when AI assembles its answers.

For anyone trying to navigate this shift, the tooling question gets uncomfortable fast. The major SEO platforms run between $100 and $250 a month, and most of them lock their newest AI features behind mid-tier plans that cost even more. Ahrefs Lite starts at $99/month. Semrush Pro starts at $139.95/month. If you’re a freelancer, a small team, or a business that knows it needs professional SEO data but can’t justify enterprise pricing, those numbers create a gap between free tools that lack depth and paid platforms that assume a corporate budget.

Moz Pro fills that gap, and in 2026, it’s doing it with AI. Starting at $39 per month on annual billing, it’s the lowest entry price among the three major platforms, and it now includes AI-powered keyword suggestions on every plan, an AI Visibility feature currently in open beta, and the same Domain Authority metric that the entire marketing industry already speaks fluently. Start your free trial at moz.com

What Moz’s AI features actually do (and why they matter right now)

Moz has been in the SEO business since 2004, longer than Ahrefs (2011) and Semrush (2008). That longevity produced Domain Authority, the 1-100 score predicting how likely a domain is to rank in Google results. DA is used in agency reports, PR tools like Cision, journalist outreach platforms, and client pitches across the industry. When someone says “our DA is 52,” everyone in marketing knows exactly what that means. And Moz Pro is the only platform that calculates it natively.

But the more interesting story in 2026 is what Moz is building on top of that foundation. Keyword Explorer, the platform’s centerpiece tool, now includes AI-powered keyword suggestions that go beyond simple stem matching. Instead of generating variations of the word you typed in, the AI pulls from semantic relationships and actual search behavior patterns to surface keyword ideas you wouldn’t find through traditional methods. It also includes a Priority score that combines search volume, keyword difficulty, and organic click-through rate into a single number, so instead of toggling between three data columns and doing mental math, you get a clear recommendation of which keywords are worth targeting right now.

Then there’s the AI Visibility feature, currently in open beta. This is Moz’s response to the measurement problem that the entire industry is grappling with: if AI-generated answers are pulling citations from sources beyond the traditional top 10, how do you know whether your brand is being mentioned? The setup is simple. Enter your brand name, add related terms, input competitors, and Moz AI generates prompts based on queries users are actually asking about your brand. You get a dashboard showing citation frequency, competitive positioning, and visibility trends across generative search results.

Brand Authority rounds out the AI-adjacent features. It’s a metric that scores your brand’s overall search presence, not just backlinks, but how often your brand appears in search results relative to competitors. For businesses that care about visibility beyond traditional keyword rankings, this adds a dimension that rank tracking alone can’t capture.

These aren’t cosmetic additions. When Google’s AI Mode is assembling answers from YouTube, Reddit, LinkedIn, and niche authority sites (and Moz’s own research confirms that it is), the tools that help you understand and optimize for that broader landscape are the ones worth paying for.

The full toolkit and what it costs

AI features aside, Moz Pro earns its subscription through how it connects its tools into a workflow that makes sense for people managing SEO alongside other marketing responsibilities. Site Crawl runs automated weekly audits, flagging broken links, duplicate content, missing meta tags, and crawlability issues, all severity-ranked so you fix the high-impact problems first instead of drowning in a list of 400 warnings. Link Explorer provides backlink analysis using an index of approximately 45 trillion links, and every link gets a Spam Score to help you identify toxic backlinks. The Link Intersect tool shows which domains link to your competitors but not to you, giving you a ready-made prospecting list. Rank tracking updates weekly with mobile and desktop segmentation and local search tracking.

Moz Pro keeps its pricing transparent across four plans, all with a 20% discount on annual billing. The Starter plan at $49/month ($39/month annually) covers 1 campaign, 50 tracked keywords, and 20,000 pages crawled. For a single website that needs professional keyword research and basic rank tracking, this is the most affordable entry point in the all-in-one SEO market. The Standard plan at $99/month ($79/month annually) jumps to 3 campaigns, 300 tracked keywords, and 400,000 pages crawled. This is where most users land, and it’s also one of two plans eligible for the 7-day free trial. The Medium plan at $179/month ($143/month annually) scales to 10 campaigns and 1,500 tracked keywords, and is the second plan eligible for the free trial. The Large plan at $299/month ($239/month annually) maxes out at 25 campaigns and 3,000 tracked keywords for agencies and large in-house teams.

For comparison, Ahrefs Lite starts at $99/month with no free trial at all. Semrush Pro starts at $139.95/month with a 7-day trial on that single plan. Moz undercuts both on price and offers a more flexible entry path. For a full breakdown of how these platforms compare, Tekpon’s Moz Pro review and Moz Pro pricing comparison cover the details.

How to get the best deal right now

Moz gives you two free entry points, which is more than most competitors offer. The 7-day free trial provides full access to either the Standard or Medium plan. Credit card required to start, but you can cancel at any time during the trial and keep access for the remaining days. Seven days is enough to run a full site audit, pull keyword research for a content plan, test the AI-powered keyword suggestions, check your AI Visibility dashboard, analyze your backlink profile, and set up rank tracking. You can build an entire SEO action plan before paying a dollar.

The free Moz Community account is permanent, no trial period, no credit card. It gives limited access to MozBar (the Chrome extension that overlays DA and PA on any webpage), Keyword Explorer (10 queries per month), and Link Explorer (10 queries per month). For someone who only needs occasional DA checks or quick keyword lookups, this may be all you need.

The optimal strategy is to start the 7-day free trial on the Standard plan ($79/month annual). Test the AI features, run your audits, pull your keyword research. If the data proves useful (and for most sites doing any meaningful SEO work, it will), lock in the annual rate for a 20% savings. Standard drops to $79/month, saving $240 over the year. Medium drops to $143/month, saving $432. No promo codes needed. Registered 501(c)(3) nonprofits can access a dedicated discount page directly from Moz. See all plans at moz.com

Moz Pro Standard at $79/month (annual) includes 3 campaigns, 300 tracked keywords, AI-powered keyword suggestions, AI Visibility in beta, and a full site audit engine, at less than half the price of comparable Ahrefs and Semrush plans. Start your free trial at moz.com

The search landscape in 2026 rewards brands that show up across the entire ecosystem, not just in the ten blue links. Moz Pro is one of the few platforms that’s building tools for that reality while keeping the price accessible enough that you don’t need an enterprise budget to use them. The AI features are already live. The free trial is already available. The only cost of waiting is the visibility you’re not tracking yet.