Programmers have managed to cram the original Mac OS X onto a Nintendo Wii from 2006, a piece of hardware that is nearly 20 years old. Bryan Keller, the brains behind this, spent a year and a half developing tools to make it happen through a project called wiiMac. The result lets the Wii boot into Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah and handle basic tasks even if the experience moves slowly on such limited hardware.

To begin, owners must ensure that their Wii is functioning properly. The SD card slot is required, and the Wii must be running a soft mod with BootMii installed as the second thing to boot, or via an IOS. Unfortunately, the Wii Mini is out of the running because it lacks the essential slot. To get everything up and running, two SD cards are required: one for the BootMii files and the wiiMac bootloader, and the second for the Mac OS X system, which has to be at least 4GB in size.

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To configure the cards, you will need a spare computer running macOS or Linux. The first card receives a copy of the most recent wiiMac files directly to the root folder, along with the BootMii files, which are almost certainly already present, and there must be a text file inside the wiiMac folder that allows you to select the appropriate video mode for your region, such as NTSC or PAL.

The second card must be partitioned into three smaller and smaller sections: a 64MB FAT32 section labeled Support, a 1GB HFS+ section labeled Install, and a larger HFS+ section labeled Macintosh HD that takes up the remainder of the space, as the commands for doing so will differ slightly depending on the computer you’re using, but the goal is the same. The Install partition is then loaded with a full copy of the Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah installer, as you’ll need an original disk image to transfer it from, which you can achieve via a block level transfer. Meanwhile, the Support partition receives a folder named wiiMac, which contains a specially patched kernel file as well as a slew of unique drivers designed specifically for Wii hardware.

Once the cards are ready, you can transfer them to the Wii. Insert the BootMii card and restart the Wii, which should bring you to the BootMii interface. From there, simply load the wiiMac bootloader and quickly switch the first card for the second, which contains all of the Mac OS X partitions. The bootloader takes over and launches the installer; at this point, you’ll need a simple USB keyboard and mouse plugged directly into the Wii ports, as connecting them via a hub is likely to cause issues. The installer next walks you through selecting the Macintosh HD partition as the location for the system files, and that’s all.

Once the installation is complete, the new operating system will boot. To get the newly loaded Mac OS X up and running, you must perform the same old card switch and bootloader dance. At this point, you’ll probably notice that the screen resolution is looking a little stretched out, so you’ll need to head directly to System Preferences and adjust it to a more reasonable 640×480 for readability. The next thing you do is run a few terminal commands to adjust the swap file size and compress the Dock down to size in order to squeeze out some more speed from the Wii’s not-so-modern 78 MB of useable RAM and 729 MHz processor. If you plug in a USB storage drive before starting the machine, it should connect OK, but don’t expect it to be reliable.

Performance is about what you’d expect: not exactly blistering speeds. The system handles the Finder and the fundamentals well, but Wi Fi, Bluetooth, the DVD drive, and any type of graphics or audio acceleration are all unsupported. The Classic environment is useful for running older Mac OS 9 software, but expect a slight lag. There is one small bright side, however: when you start the DOOM port, it runs nicely and even outperforms certain older Mac installations in certain scenarios.

The ASX-listed data centre operator is raising A$1.5 billion in a fully underwritten equity offering and expanding its hybrid securities programme by A$700 million, with La Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec now committed to a total of A$1.7 billion.

The raise will fund accelerated development of the S4 Western Sydney campus, where contracted utilisation jumped 250 megawatts in a single quarter.

NEXTDC (ASX: NXT), Australia’s largest independent data centre operator, has halted trading to launch a A$2.2 billion capital plan anchored by a fully underwritten A$1.5 billion equity entitlement offer, the company announced on Monday.

The raise is a direct response to a step-change in demand: between December 2025 and 31 March 2026, NEXTDC’s pro forma contracted utilisation jumped 250 megawatts, a 60% increase in a single quarter, to reach 667MW.

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Its forward order book grew 83% over the same period to 544MW, driven by hyperscale cloud providers and AI infrastructure customers.

The equity component is structured as a 1-for-5.4 pro-rata accelerated non-renounceable entitlement offer, priced at A$12.70 per share, an 8.6% discount to the theoretical ex-rights price of A$13.90.

New shares are expected to be issued to retail shareholders by 18 May, with the institutional bookbuild already underway at the time of the halt. Prior to the suspension, NEXTDC shares had risen approximately 25% through April, reflecting mounting investor enthusiasm for data centre infrastructure plays across Asia-Pacific.

The A$2.2 billion total capital plan combines the A$1.5 billion equity offer with a A$700 million expansion of the company’s hybrid securities programme.

NEXTDC’s hybrid securities, which are deeply subordinated instruments ranking junior to all existing debt, had previously been backed by a A$1 billion binding commitment from La Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), Canada’s second-largest pension fund with approximately C$517 billion in assets.

The expanded commitment brings La Caisse’s total backing to A$1.7 billion, cementing what the Canadian investor described as a “promising first step toward a long-term partnership” with NEXTDC.

The primary use of proceeds is the accelerated development of S4, NEXTDC’s data centre campus in Western Sydney, where the company intends to invest approximately A$1.5 billion through the end of financial year 2027.

A record 250MW customer commitment at S4 during the quarter is what triggered the announcement: CEO Craig Scroggie described the capital raise as a way to “materially expand NEXTDC’s contracted capacity and de-risk the company’s Western Sydney developments ahead of potential strategic partnership transactions with private capital partners from 2027.”

That last phrase signals intent to bring in joint venture partners or asset-level investors once the facility is contracted and de-risked, a common monetisation mechanism for large-scale data centre infrastructure.

The financial guidance accompanying the announcement is striking. NEXTDC raised its FY26 capital expenditure guidance by A$300 million to a range of A$2.7 billion to A$3.0 billion.

For FY27, capex is forecast at approximately A$5.0 billion. The company is simultaneously maintaining its existing FY26 revenue and EBITDA guidance while projecting that contracted EBITDA from existing customer agreements alone will exceed A$1 billion over time, roughly four times the midpoint of current FY26 guidance of A$235 million.

Following the raise and recent funding activity, NEXTDC expects pro forma liquidity of approximately A$5.9 billion.

NEXTDC operates or is developing 20 data centres across Australia, in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Port Hedland, Canberra, Adelaide, the Sunshine Coast, and Darwin, and is evaluating sites in Tokyo, Bangkok, Johor and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, and Singapore.

Australia’s deployable data centre capacity stands at approximately 1,350 megawatts today, with consensus forecasts projecting 3,100 MW by 2030–31 and potentially up to 7.4 gigawatts by 2035 under AI-driven scenarios.

NSW has endorsed A$51.9 billion worth of data centre projects through its Investment Delivery Authority, effectively concentrating approvals,  and the grid connections and planning support that come with them, in a small number of qualified operators.

Surveillance and analytics company Palantir recently posted what it called a “brief” 22-point summary of CEO Alex Karp’s book “The Technological Republic.”

Written by Karp and Palantir’s head of corporate affairs, Nicholas Zamiska, “The Technological Republic” was published last year and described by its authors as “the beginnings of the articulation of the theory” behind Palantir’s work. (One critic said it was “not a book at all, but a piece of corporate sales material.”)

The company’s ideological bent has come under more scrutiny since then, as tech industry figures have debated Palantir’s work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and as the company has positioned itself as an organization working for the defense of “the West.”

In fact, congressional Democrats recently sent a letter to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security demanding more information about how tools built by Palantir and “a range of surveillance companies” are being used in the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation strategy.

Palantir’s post doesn’t reference much of that context directly, simply saying that it’s providing the summary “because we get asked a lot.” It then suggests that “Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible” and declares that “free email is not enough.”

“The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public,” the company says.

The post is wide-ranging, at one point criticizing a culture that “almost snickers at [Elon] Musk’s interest in grand narrative” and at another point touching on recent debates about the use of artificial intelligence by the military.

“The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose,” Palantir says. “Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed.”

Similarly, the company suggests that “the atomic age is ending,” while “a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin.”

The post also takes a moment to denounce the “postwar neutering of Germany and Japan,” adding that the “defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price” and that “a similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism” could “threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia.” 

The post ends by criticizing “the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism.” In Palantir’s argument, a blind devotion to pluralism and inclusivity “glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful.”

After Palantir posted this on Saturday, Eliot Higgins, the CEO of the investigative website Bellingcat, dryly remarked that it was “extremely normal and fine for a company to put this in a public statement.”

Higgins also argued that there’s more to the post than a simple “defense of the West” — in his view, it’s an attack on what he said are key pillars of democracy that need rebuilding: verification, deliberation, and accountability.

“It’s also worth being clear about who’s doing the arguing,” Higgins wrote. “Palantir sells operational software to defense, intelligence, immigration & police agencies. These 22 points aren’t philosophy floating in space, they’re the public ideology of a company whose revenue depends on the politics it’s advocating.”

Home Depot has a launched a massive spring sale, appropriately named ‘Spring Black Friday‘, with up to 40% in savings on patio furniture, appliances, grills, lawn mowers, tools and more.

• Shop Home Depot’s full spring sale

As TechRadar’s deals editor and a huge fan of Home Depot, I’ve gone through Home Depot’s sale and hand-picked the best deals. While Home Depot’s Black Friday sale is always a popular event, with impressive savings, Home Depot’s spring sale is even better, because you get to save on seasonal items.

The retailer has record-low prices on outdoor essentials like patio furniture, gardening tools and grills, as well Black Friday-like discounts on major appliances, including refrigerators, washing machines and dishwashers from brands like LG, Samsung and Whirlpool.

You’ll find links to Home Depot’s most popular sale categories below, followed by my pick of the top deals. Keep in mind that Home Depot’s sale ends on April 29, so time is running out to score spring savings.

Home Depot’s Spring Sale – quick links

Home Depot’s top 6 Spring deals

Summary: Threads head Connor Hayes previewed a redesigned web interface that adds direct messages, a navigation sidebar with shortcuts to saved posts and insights, and a cleaner single-feed layout replacing the current multi-column design. DMs, which launched on mobile in June 2025, will roll out on web “over the coming weeks,” bringing one-on-one chats, group conversations of up to 50, and media sharing to the platform’s most engaged desktop users as Threads surpasses 450 million monthly active users and begins scaling its global advertising business.

Threads is getting a redesigned web interface that adds direct messages, a navigation sidebar, and quicker access to features that were previously buried in the mobile-first layout. Connor Hayes, who took over as head of Threads in September 2025, previewed the changes in a post on the platform this week, writing that “web is an important part of how our most engaged users interact with Threads, and we’ll be investing more here going forward.” Messages on the web version are not yet publicly testing, Hayes said, but users should “start to see them appear over the coming weeks.”

The redesign replaces the current multi-column layout with a cleaner single-feed view anchored by a left-side navigation rail. The sidebar includes shortcuts to saved posts, performance insights, activity, notifications, and the ability to switch between feeds, all features that exist on the mobile app but required multiple taps or profile navigation to find on the web. The result looks significantly more like X’s desktop layout, which is either a pragmatic design choice or an admission that the format Threads was trying to replace turned out to be the right one.

DMs finally reach the desktop

Direct messages launched on the Threads mobile app in June 2025, nearly two years after the platform itself launched. The web version has operated without them since, meaning that the users Hayes describes as “most engaged,” those who use Threads on a computer, have been unable to access one of the platform’s core communication features. The web rollout will bring one-on-one chats, group conversations of up to 50 people, emoji reactions, and the ability to send photos, GIFs, and stickers.

Threads has been building out its messaging infrastructure steadily. In January, it launched a basketball mini-game within DMs. In February, it began testing a shortcut that converts the phrase “DM me” in a post into a clickable link that opens a direct message. The messaging system is built on Instagram’s infrastructure, which gives it reliability but also ties it to a platform with different privacy expectations and content norms.

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The redesign preview came one day after Hayes showed changes to how replies look on mobile. Replies under a post will now be indented to make conversation threads easier to follow, a feature rolling out on iOS and currently testing on Android.

The competitive context

Threads has grown faster than any social platform in history and now has more than 450 million monthly active users, with daily active users estimated at roughly 137 to 141 million. In January, Similarweb data showed Threads had surpassed X in daily mobile users, 141.5 million to 125 million, a milestone that would have seemed improbable when the app launched as a text-based companion to Instagram in July 2023.

The growth has come alongside a broader decline of X under Elon Musk’s ownership, which has pushed users, advertisers, and publishers toward alternatives. Bluesky, which raised $100 million in its Series B and has grown to 43 million users under new CEO Toni Schneider, has captured a vocal segment of the market. But Threads’ integration with Instagram’s 2 billion-plus user base gives it a distribution advantage that no standalone competitor can match.

The web redesign is part of a shift from growth to retention. Threads has the users. What it has lacked is the feature depth that makes a platform indispensable for the power users who drive conversation and content creation. DMs, a proper desktop experience, and improved reply threading address the specific complaints that have kept some users treating Threads as a secondary platform rather than a primary one.

Monetisation and Meta’s broader bet

Meta began rolling out ads on Threads globally in late January 2026, after testing in the US and Japan throughout 2025. The rollout uses Meta’s existing Ads Manager and supports image, video, and carousel formats through both Advantage+ and manual campaigns. Early pricing has been lower than Facebook and Instagram, with CPMs estimated at $3 to $8 and cost per click at $0.30 to $1.50, reflecting the early stage of advertiser competition on the platform. Evercore ISI analysts have projected Threads advertising revenue of $8 billion by the end of 2025 and $11.3 billion by 2026.

The advertising rollout gives the web redesign commercial significance beyond user experience. Desktop users tend to have higher engagement times and are more valuable to advertisers. A web interface that keeps users on the platform longer and adds messaging, which increases session frequency, directly supports the revenue trajectory that analysts are projecting.

Hayes was appointed to lead Threads in July 2025, taking over from Adam Mosseri, who had been running the platform directly alongside Instagram. Hayes previously served as Meta’s VP of product for generative AI and spent 14 years at the company in various product roles, including a stint growing Instagram Reels. Mosseri said at the time that “given Threads’ maturity, we think we need a dedicated app lead who can focus all of their time on helping Threads move forward.” The web redesign and DM rollout are the most visible results of that dedicated focus.

Threads is also the largest platform running on the ActivityPub protocol, allowing users to share posts to Mastodon, WordPress, and other fediverse-compatible services. Meta says it has interacted with over 75% of all fediverse servers, though full account portability is not yet available.

The redesign is incremental rather than transformative. It brings the web version closer to feature parity with the mobile app, which is itself still catching up to the feature set that X has built over 17 years. But for a platform that has Meta’s resources behind it, 450 million monthly users in front of it, and a growing creator economy to support, the gap between what Threads offers and what its most engaged users expect is closing faster than most new platforms manage. Hayes is signalling that the web is where the next phase of that closure will happen.

Filling a gap that fans of its retro-inspired speaker range have long identified, Wharfedale has introduced the Heritage Centre.

This new speaker is a dedicated centre channel speaker that’s been built to integrate with Wharfedale’s Linton, Super Linton, Denton, and Dovedale models that have made the Heritage Series one of its most successful lines in recent memory.

The absence of a centre speaker has been a barrier for Heritage owners wanting to build a multichannel home cinema system as the range has until now been limited to stereo pairs.

That’s left buyers to either mix in a mismatched centre channel or go without one entirely when configuring a 3.1 or 5.1 channel setup. Now that’s no longer an issue.

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Wharfedale’s solution draws directly from the Super Denton’s driver architecture, adopting the same three-way configuration used across the broader Heritage range to keep the technical foundation consistent across the full speaker family.

That configuration pairs twin 165mm woven Kevlar bass drivers with a 50mm fabric dome midrange and a 25mm fabric dome treble unit, with all three driver types adapted directly from those developed for the Super Denton.

The midrange driver covers the 900Hz to 2.7kHz frequency band, the range most responsible for vocal clarity and dialogue intelligibility in film and television. The treble unit uses a damped rear chamber to push its resonant frequency well below the crossover point to keep high-frequency reproduction clean across a wide listening area.

Cabinet construction uses layered particle board and MDF bonded with a resonance-damping adhesive. It’s a build approach designed to distribute panel resonances across multiple frequencies rather than concentrating them at a single audible point. The internal bracing adds further control over cabinet colouration.

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Peter Comeau, Wharfedale’s Director of Acoustic Design said: ““The Heritage Series was originally conceived purely for the enjoyment of stereo music, but the speakers’ richly expressive sonic qualities lend themselves perfectly to other forms of AV entertainment. When the demand for a dedicated centre speaker for people building multichannel systems with Linton and Denton speakers became clear, we embarked on the project with the rigorous attention to engineering detail applied to every Heritage model.”

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Real-wood veneers in walnut, mahogany, or black oak finish the cabinet to a hand-polished satin lacquer, maintaining visual consistency with the full Heritage range across all three finish options.

The Wharfedale Heritage Centre arrives in late May, priced at £649, available in walnut, mahogany, or black oak to match whichever Heritage speaker system it sits in.

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Simple and iconic, IKEA’s Billy bookcase has been around since the 1970s, and over 140 million have bene sold worldwide. The classic wood and white finishes are timeless, but now it’s got a new look for 2026 with a limited-edition blue version.

A bold piece of furniture like this needs the right styling, and as TechRadar’s Homes Editor, I like making it pop by teaming it with black and white for a striking effect. This compelling cobalt bookcase would look particularly good in a home office, with an IKEA Kallax desk in black/brown, and white accessories.