us-technology

Nonprofits are striving to preserve a US effort to modernize greenhouse-gas measurements, amid growing fears that the Trump administration’s dismantling of federal programs will obscure the nation’s contributions to climate change. The Data Foundation, a Washington, DC, nonprofit that advocates for open data, is fundraising for an initiative that will coordinate efforts among nonprofits, technical experts, and companies to improve the accuracy and accessibility of climate emissions information. It will build on an effort to improve the collection of emissions data that former president Joe Biden launched in 2023—and which President Trump nullified on his first day in office.  The initiative will help prioritize responses to changes in federal greenhouse-gas monitoring and measurement programs, but the Data Foundation stresses that it will primarily serve a “long-standing need for coordination” of such efforts outside of government agencies. The new greenhouse-gas coalition is one of a growing number of nonprofit and academic groups that have spun up or shifted focus to keep essential climate monitoring and research efforts going amid the Trump administration’s assault on environmental funding, staffing, and regulations. Those include efforts to ensure that US scientists can continue to contribute to the UN’s major climate report and publish assessments of the rising domestic risks of climate change. Otherwise, the loss of these programs will make it increasingly difficult for communities to understand how more frequent or severe wildfires, droughts, heat waves, and floods will harm them—and how dire the dangers could become.  Few believe that nonprofits or private industry can come close to filling the funding holes that the Trump administration is digging. But observers say it’s essential to try to sustain efforts to understand the risks of climate change that the federal government has historically overseen, even if the attempts are merely stopgap measures.  If we give up these sources of emissions data, “we’re flying blind,” says Rachel Cleetus, senior policy director with the climate and energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “We’re deliberating taking away the very information that would help us understand the problem and how to address it best.” Improving emissions estimates The Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the US Forest Service, and other agencies have long collected information about greenhouse gases in a variety of ways. These include self-reporting by industry; shipboard, balloon, and aircraft readings of gas concentrations in the atmosphere; satellite measurements of the carbon dioxide and methane released by wildfires; and on-the-ground measurements of trees. The EPA, in turn, collects and publishes the data from these disparate sources as the Inventory of US Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks. But that report comes out on a two-year lag, and studies show that some of the estimates it relies on could be way off—particularly the self-reported ones. A recent analysis using satellites to measure methane pollution from four large landfills found they produce, on average, six times more emissions than the facilities had reported to the EPA. Likewise, a 2018 study in Science found that the actual methane leaks from oil and gas infrastructure were about 60% higher than the self-reported estimates in the agency’s inventory. The Biden administration’s initiative—the National Strategy to Advance an Integrated US Greenhouse Gas Measurement, Monitoring, and Information System—aimed to adopt state-of-the-art tools and methods to improve the accuracy of these estimates, including satellites and other monitoring technologies that can replace or check self-reported information. The administration specifically sought to achieve these improvements through partnerships between government, industry, and nonprofits. The initiative called for the data collected across groups to be published to an online portal in formats that would be accessible to policymakers and the public. Moving toward a system that produces more current and reliable data is essential for understanding the rising risks of climate change and tracking whether industries are abiding by government regulations and voluntary climate commitments, says Ben Poulter, a former NASA scientist who coordinated the Biden administration effort as a deputy director in the Office of Science and Technology Policy. “Once you have this operational system, you can provide near-real-time information that can help drive climate action,” Poulter says. He is now a senior scientist at Spark Climate Solutions, a nonprofit focused on accelerating emerging methods of combating climate change, and he is advising the Data Foundation’s Climate Data Collaborative, which is overseeing the new greenhouse-gas initiative.  Slashed staffing and funding   But the momentum behind the federal strategy deflated when Trump returned to office. On his first day, he signed an executive order that effectively halted it. The White House has since slashed staffing across the agencies at the heart of the effort, sought to shut down specific programs that generate emissions data, and raised uncertainties about the fate of numerous other program components.  In April, the administration missed a deadline to share the updated greenhouse-gas inventory with the United Nations, for the first time in three decades, as E&E News reported. It eventually did release the report in May, but only after the Environmental Defense Fund filed a Freedom of Information Act request. There are also indications that the collection of emissions data might be in jeopardy. In March, the EPA said it would “reconsider” the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, which requires thousands of power plants, refineries, and other industrial facilities to report emissions each year. In addition, the tax and spending bill that Trump signed into law earlier this month rescinds provisions in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act that provided incentives or funding for corporate greenhouse-gas reporting and methane monitoring.  Meanwhile, the White House has also proposed slashing funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and shuttering a number of its labs. Those include the facility that supports the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, the world’s longest-running carbon dioxide measuring program, as well as the Global Monitoring Laboratory, which operates a global network of collection flasks that capture air samples used to measure concentrations of nitrous oxide, chlorofluorocarbons, and other greenhouse gases. Under the latest appropriations negotiations, Congress seems set to spare NOAA and

It has been a grim few months for the Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) community. There had been some excitement when, a couple of years ago, a gene therapy for the disorder was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for the first time. That drug, Elevidys, has now been implicated in the deaths of two teenage boys. The drug’s approval was always controversial—there was a lack of evidence that it actually worked, for starters. But the agency that once rubber-stamped the drug has now turned on its manufacturer, Sarepta Therapeutics. In a remarkable chain of events, the FDA asked the company to stop shipping the drug on July 18. Sarepta refused to comply. In the days since, the company has acquiesced. But its reputation has already been hit. And the events have dealt a devastating blow to people desperate for treatments that might help them, their children, or other family members with DMD. DMD is a rare genetic disorder that causes muscles to degenerate over time. It’s caused by a mutation in a gene that codes for a protein called dystrophin. That protein is essential for muscles—without it, muscles weaken and waste away. The disease mostly affects boys, and symptoms usually start in early childhood. At first, affected children usually start to find it hard to jump or climb stairs. But as the disease progresses, other movements become difficult too. Eventually, the condition might affect the heart and lungs. The life expectancy of a person with DMD has recently improved, but it is still only around 30 or 40 years. There is no cure. It’s a devastating diagnosis. Elevidys was designed to replace missing dystrophin with a shortened, engineered version of the protein. In June 2023, the FDA approved the therapy for eligible four- and five-year-olds. It came with a $3.2 million price tag. The approval was celebrated by people affected by DMD, says Debra Miller, founder of CureDuchenne, an organization that funds research into the condition and offers support to those affected by it. “We’ve not had much in the way of meaningful therapies,” she says. “The excitement was great.” But the approval was controversial. It came under an “accelerated approval” program that essentially lowers the bar of evidence for drugs designed to treat “serious or life-threatening diseases where there is an unmet medical need.” Elevidys was approved because it appeared to increase levels of the engineered protein in patients’ muscles. But it had not been shown to improve patient outcomes: It had failed a randomized clinical trial. The FDA approval was granted on the condition that Sarepta complete another clinical trial. The topline results of that trial were described in October 2023 and were published in detail a year later. Again, the drug failed to meet its “primary endpoint”—in other words, it didn’t work as well as hoped. In June 2024, the FDA expanded the approval of Elevidys. It granted traditional approval for the drug to treat people with DMD who are over the age of four and can walk independently, and another accelerated approval for those who can’t. Some experts were appalled at the FDA’s decision—even some within the FDA disagreed with it. But things weren’t so simple for people living with DMD. I spoke to some parents of such children a couple of years ago. They pointed out that drug approvals can help bring interest and investment to DMD research. And, above all, they were desperate for any drug that might help their children. They were desperate for hope. Unfortunately, the treatment does not appear to be delivering on that hope. There have always been questions over whether it works. But now there are serious questions over how safe it is.  In March 2025, a 16-year-old boy died after being treated with Elevidys. He had developed acute liver failure (ALF) after having the treatment, Sarepta said in a statement. On June 15, the company announced a second death—a 15-year-old who also developed ALF following Elevidys treatment. The company said it would pause shipments of the drug, but only for patients who are not able to walk. The following day, Sarepta held an online presentation in which CEO Doug Ingram said that the company was exploring ways to make the treatment safer, perhaps by treating recipients with another drug that dampens their immune systems. But that same day, the company announced that it was laying off 500 employees—36% of its workforce. Sarepta did not respond to a request for comment. On June 24, the FDA announced that it was investigating the risks of serious outcomes “including hospitalization and death” associated with Elevidys, and “evaluating the need for further regulatory action.” There was more tragic news on July 18, when there were reports that a third patient had died following a Sarepta treatment. This patient, a 51-year-old, hadn’t been taking Elevidys but was enrolled in a clinical trial for a different Sarepta gene therapy designed to treat limb-girdle muscular dystrophy. The same day, the FDA asked Sarepta to voluntarily pause all shipments of Elevidys. Sarepta refused to do so. The refusal was surprising, says Michael Kelly, chief scientific officer at CureDuchenne: “It was an unusual step to take.” After significant media coverage, including reporting that the FDA was “deeply troubled” by the decision and would use its “full regulatory authority,” Sarepta backed down a few days later. On July 21, the company announced its decision to “voluntarily and temporarily” pause all shipments of Elevidys in the US. Sarepta says it will now work with the FDA to address safety and labeling concerns. But in the meantime, the saga has left the DMD community grappling with “a mix of disappointment and concern,” says Kelly. Many are worried about the risks of taking the treatment. Others are devastated that they are no longer able to access it. Miller says she knows of families who have been working with their insurance providers to get authorization for the drug. “It’s like the rug has been pulled out from under them,” she says. Many families have no other treatment options. “And we know what happens when you do nothing

On Wednesday, President Trump issued three executive orders, delivered a speech, and released an action plan, all on the topic of continuing American leadership in AI.  The plan contains dozens of proposed actions, grouped into three “pillars”: accelerating innovation, building infrastructure, and leading international diplomacy and security. Some of its recommendations are thoughtful even if incremental, some clearly serve ideological ends, and many enrich big tech companies, but the plan is just a set of recommended actions.  The three executive orders, on the other hand, actually operationalize one subset of actions from each pillar:  One aims to prevent “woke AI” by mandating that the federal government procure only large language models deemed “truth-seeking” and “ideologically neutral” rather than ones allegedly favoring DEI. This action purportedly accelerates AI innovation. A second aims to accelerate construction of AI data centers. A much more industry-friendly version of an order issued under President Biden, it makes available rather extreme policy levers, like effectively waiving a broad swath of environmental protections, providing government grants to the wealthiest companies in the world, and even offering federal land for private data centers. A third promotes and finances the export of US AI technologies and infrastructure, aiming to secure American diplomatic leadership and reduce international dependence on AI systems from adversarial countries. This flurry of actions made for glitzy press moments, including an hour-long speech from the president and onstage signings. But while the tech industry cheered these announcements (which will swell their coffers), they obscured the fact that the administration is currently decimating the very policies that enabled America to become the world leader in AI in the first place. To maintain America’s leadership in AI, you have to understand what produced it. Here are four specific long-standing public policies that helped the US achieve this leadership—advantages that the administration is undermining.  Investing federal funding in R&D  Generative AI products released recently by American companies, like ChatGPT, were developed with industry-funded research and development. But the R&D that enables today’s AI was actually funded in large part by federal government agencies—like the Defense Department, the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the National Institutes of Health—starting in the 1950s. This includes the first successful AI program in 1956, the first chatbot in 1961, and the first expert systems for doctors in the 1970s, along with breakthroughs in machine learning, neural networks, backpropagation, computer vision, and natural-language processing. American tax dollars also funded advances in hardware, communications networks, and other technologies underlying AI systems. Public research funding undergirded the development of lithium-ion batteries, micro hard drives, LCD screens, GPS, radio-frequency signal compression, and more in today’s smartphones, along with the chips used in AI data centers, and even the internet itself. Instead of building on this world-class research history, the Trump administration is slashing R&D funding, firing federal scientists, and squeezing leading research universities. This week’s action plan recommends investing in R&D, but the administration’s actual budget proposes cutting nondefense R&D by 36%. It also proposed actions to better coordinate and guide federal R&D, but coordination won’t yield more funding. Some say that companies’ R&D investments will make up the difference. However, companies conduct research that benefits their bottom line, not necessarily the national interest. Public investment allows broad scientific inquiry, including basic research that lacks immediate commercial applications but sometimes ends up opening massive markets years or decades later. That’s what happened with today’s AI industry. Supporting immigration and immigrants Beyond public R&D investment, America has long attracted the world’s best researchers and innovators. Today’s generative AI is based on the transformer model (the T in ChatGPT), first described by a team at Google in 2017. Six of the eight researchers on that team were born outside the US, and the other two are children of immigrants.  This isn’t an exception. Immigrants have been central to American leadership in AI. Of the 42 American companies included in the 2025 Forbes ranking of the 50 top AI startups, 60% have at least one immigrant cofounder, according to an analysis by the Institute for Progress. Immigrants also cofounded or head the companies at the center of the AI ecosystem: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, Intel, and AMD. “Brain drain” is a term that was first coined to describe scientists’ leaving other countries for the US after World War II—to the Americans’ benefit. Sadly, the trend has begun reversing this year. Recent studies suggest that the US is already losing its AI talent edge through the administration’s anti-immigration actions (including actions taken against AI researchers) and cuts to R&D funding. Banning noncompetes Attracting talented minds is only half the equation; giving them freedom to innovate is just as crucial. Silicon Valley got its name because of mid-20th–century companies that made semiconductors from silicon, starting with the founding of Shockley Semiconductor in 1955. Two years later, a group of employees, the “Traitorous Eight,” quit to launch a competitor, Fairchild Semiconductor. By the end of the 1960s, successive groups of former Fairchild employees had left to start Intel, AMD, and others collectively dubbed the “Fairchildren.”  Software and internet companies eventually followed, again founded by people who had worked for their predecessors. In the 1990s, former Yahoo employees founded WhatsApp, Slack, and Cloudera; the “PayPal Mafia” created LinkedIn, YouTube, and fintech firms like Affirm. Former Google employees have launched more than 1,200 companies, including Instagram and Foursquare. AI is no different. OpenAI has founders that worked at other tech companies and alumni who have gone on to launch over a dozen AI startups, including notable ones like Anthropic and Perplexity. This labor fluidity and the innovation it has created were possible in large part, according to many historians, because California’s 1872 constitution has been interpreted to prohibit noncompete agreements in employment contracts—a statewide protection the state originally shared only with North Dakota and Oklahoma. These agreements bind one in five American workers. Last year, the Federal Trade Commission under President Biden moved to ban noncompetes nationwide, but a Trump-appointed federal judge has halted

Most Americans encounter the Federal Trade Commission only if they’ve been scammed: It handles identity theft, fraud, and stolen data. During the Biden administration, the agency went after AI companies for scamming customers with deceptive advertising or harming people by selling irresponsible technologies. With yesterday’s announcement of President Trump’s AI Action Plan, that era may now be over.  In the final months of the Biden administration under chair Lina Khan, the FTC levied a series of high-profile fines and actions against AI companies for overhyping their technology and bending the truth—or in some cases making claims that were entirely false. It found that the security giant Evolv lied about the accuracy of its AI-powered security checkpoints, which are used in stadiums and schools but failed to catch a seven-inch knife that was ultimately used to stab a student. It went after the facial recognition company Intellivision, saying the company made unfounded claims that its tools operated without gender or racial bias. It fined startups promising bogus “AI lawyer” services and one that sold fake product reviews generated with AI. These actions did not result in fines that crippled the companies, but they did stop them from making false statements and offered customers ways to recover their money or get out of contracts. In each case, the FTC found, everyday people had been harmed by AI companies that let their technologies run amok. The plan released by the Trump administration yesterday suggests it believes these actions went too far. In a section about removing “red tape and onerous regulation,” the White House says it will review all FTC actions taken under the Biden administration “to ensure that they do not advance theories of liability that unduly burden AI innovation.” In the same section, the White House says it will withhold AI-related federal funding from states with “burdensome” regulations. This move by the Trump administration is the latest in its evolving attack on the agency, which provides a significant route of redress for people harmed by AI in the US. It’s likely to result in faster deployment of AI with fewer checks on accuracy, fairness, or consumer harm. Under Khan, a Biden appointee, the FTC found fans in unexpected places. Progressives called for it to break up monopolistic behavior in Big Tech, but some in Trump’s orbit, including Vice President JD Vance, also supported Khan in her fights against tech elites, albeit for the different goal of ending their supposed censorship of conservative speech.  But in January, with Khan out and Trump back in the White House, this dynamic all but collapsed. Trump released an executive order in February promising to “rein in” independent agencies like the FTC that wage influence without consulting the president. The next month, he started taking that vow to—and past—its legal limits. In March, he fired the only two Democratic commissioners at the FTC. On July 17 a federal court ruled that one of those firings, of commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, was illegal given the independence of the agency, which restored Slaughter to her position (the other fired commissioner, Alvaro Bedoya, opted to resign rather than battle the dismissal in court, so his case was dismissed). Slaughter now serves as the sole Democrat. In naming the FTC in its action plan, the White House now goes a step further, painting the agency’s actions as a major obstacle to US victory in the “arms race” to develop better AI more quickly than China. It promises not just to change the agency’s tack moving forward, but to review and perhaps even repeal AI-related sanctions it has imposed in the past four years. How might this play out? Leah Frazier, who worked at the FTC for 17 years before leaving in May and served as an advisor to Khan, says it’s helpful to think about the agency’s actions against AI companies as falling into two areas, each with very different levels of support across political lines.  The first is about cases of deception, where AI companies mislead consumers. Consider the case of Evolv, or a recent case announced in April where the FTC alleges that a company called Workado, which offers a tool to detect whether something was written with AI, doesn’t have the evidence to back up its claims. Deception cases enjoyed fairly bipartisan support during her tenure, Frazier says. “Then there are cases about responsible use of AI, and those did not seem to enjoy too much popular support,” adds Frazier, who now directs the Digital Justice Initiative at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. These cases don’t allege deception; rather, they charge that companies have deployed AI in a way that harms people. The most serious of these, which resulted in perhaps the most significant AI-related action ever taken by the FTC and was investigated by Frazier, was announced in 2023. The FTC banned Rite Aid from using AI facial recognition in its stores after it found the technology falsely flagged people, particularly women and people of color, as shoplifters. “Acting on false positive alerts,” the FTC wrote, Rite Aid’s employees “followed consumers around its stores, searched them, ordered them to leave, [and] called the police to confront or remove consumers.” The FTC found that Rite Aid failed to protect people from these mistakes, did not monitor or test the technology, and did not properly train employees on how to use it. The company was banned from using facial recognition for five years.  This was a big deal. This action went beyond fact-checking the deceptive promises made by AI companies to make Rite Aid liable for how its AI technology harmed consumers. These types of responsible-AI cases are the ones Frazier imagines might disappear in the new FTC, particularly if they involve testing AI models for bias. “There will be fewer, if any, enforcement actions about how companies are deploying AI,” she says. The White House’s broader philosophy toward AI, referred to in the plan, is a “try first” approach that attempts to propel faster

Some might never have purchased Echelon equipment if they knew the machines might one day fail to work without a web connection or Echelon account. Third-party app connections severed For some owners of Echelon equipment, QZ, which is currently rated as the No. 9 sports app on Apple’s App Store, has been central to their workouts. QZ connects the equipment to platforms like Zwift, which shows people virtual, scenic worlds while they’re exercising. It has also enabled new features for some machines, like automatic resistance adjustments. Because of this, Viola argued in his blog that QZ has “helped companies grow.” “A large reason I got the [E]chelon was because of your app and I have put thousands of miles on the bike since 2021,” a Reddit user told the developer on the social media platform on Wednesday. However, Echelon’s firmware update likely seeks to regain some of the revenue opportunities that overlap with the capabilities that apps like QZ enable. Echelon’s subscription-based app, which starts at $40 per month, also offers “guided scenic rides,” for example. QZ can allow people to watch Peloton classes from their Echelon device, but Echelon sells its own fitness classes. The Tennessee-headquartered company has been investing in ways to get customers more engaged with its personalized workout platform, too, which requires the machines to be online. There’s also value in customer data. Getting more customers to exercise with its app means Echelon may gather more data for things like feature development and marketing. Echelon is a private company, and we don’t know how much money it is making, but it’s likely that its financial goals hinge on subscription sales, which can bring more revenue than expensive equipment purchases, which most households rarely make. Meanwhile, Echelon is competing with other tech-centric companies offering gym equipment and classes, like the trendy Peloton. Viola runs QZ, which costs $7 to $8 to download, alone, offering users a lot of support via online communities. He told Ars that revenue from app purchases cover his costs “more or less.” “It was never my intention to damage anyone’s business. This is just competition. The best product should prevail,” Viola said. “I never created QZ to get rich; I just wanted users to have a great hour of fitness when they choose, without connection issues, subscriptions, or [other limitations].” In terms of QZ, the user community is “working on a fully open-source Echelon controller to unlock bikes that have already received this update,” per Viola. It’s in the very early stages, he said. Read More

References to “gpt-5-reasoning-alpha-2025-07-13” have already been spotted on X, with code showing “reasoning_effort: high” in the model configuration. These sightings suggest the model has entered final testing phases, with testers getting their hands on the code and security experts doing red teaming on the model to test vulnerabilities. Unifying OpenAI’s model lineup The new model represents OpenAI’s attempt to simplify its increasingly complex product lineup. As Altman explained in February, GPT-5 may integrate features from both the company’s conventional GPT models and its reasoning-focused o-series models into a single system. “We’re truly excited to not just make a net new great frontier model, we’re also going to unify our two series,” OpenAI’s Head of Developer Experience Romain Huet said at a recent event. “The breakthrough of reasoning in the O-series and the breakthroughs in multi-modality in the GPT-series will be unified, and that will be GPT-5.” According to The Information, GPT-5 is expected to be better at coding and more powerful overall, combining attributes of both traditional models and SR models such as o3. Before GPT-5 arrives, OpenAI still plans to release its first open-weights model since GPT-2 in 2019, which means others with the proper hardware will be able to download and run the AI model on their own machines. The Verge describes this model as “similar to o3 mini” with reasoning capabilities. However, Altman announced on July 11 that the open model needs additional safety testing, saying, “We are not yet sure how long it will take us.” Read More

Descent is a big part of gaming history, but not many people talk about it. The sound these enemies make is an instant hit of menacing nostalgia. Credit: GOG I maintain a to-do list of story ideas to write at Ars, and for about a year “monthly column on DOS games I love” has been near the top of the list. When we spoke with the team at GOG, it felt less like an obligation and more like a way to add another cool angle to what I was already planning to do. I’m going to start with the PC game I played most in high school and the one that introduced me to the very idea of online play. That game is Descent. As far as I can recall, Descent was the first shooter to be fully 3D with six degrees of freedom. It’s not often in today’s gaming world that you get something completely and totally new, but that’s exactly what Descent was 30 years ago in 1995. Developed by Parallax Studios and published by Interplay, the game was a huge success at the time, moving millions of copies in a market where only an elite few had ever achieved that. It was distributed in part via shareware and played a role in keeping that model alive and bringing it from the just-retail-and-friends-sharing-floppies era to the Internet-download era. And fittingly for this list, Descent is also a part of GOG history. For one thing, it was one of the launch titles for GOG’s open beta in 2008. Later, it and its sequels mysteriously disappeared from the platform in 2015. It came out that the game’s publisher had not been paying royalties as owed to the developer, leading to a breakdown in the relationship that resulted in the game being pulled from all storefronts. In 2017, the Descent titles returned to GOG and other digital sales platforms. Unfortunately, the story of the studio that evolved from the one that originally made Descent ended sadly, as is so often the case for classic studios these days. Parallax morphed into Volition, the company that most recently made the Saints Row games, among others. Volition was acquired by Embracer Group, a holding company that has made a reputation for itself by gutting storied studios and laying off industry luminaries. Volition was among the ones it shuttered completely. So, let’s pour one out for Parallax->Volition and take a flight through the memory of Descent‘s evil-robot-infested mines. Single player I played Descent when I was a teenager. Obviously, some of you were older, playing it in college or well into adulthood. Others reading this probably weren’t even born when it came out. But for me, this was a defining game of my teenage years, alongside Mechwarrior 2, Command & Conquer, Meridian 59, Civilization II, and The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall. I remember my friend giving me the shareware demo, telling me that it was the most technically impressive and visceral thing he’d ever played. I installed it and launched it, and the whole vibe immediately resonated with me: It was just the kind of gritty, corpo-sci-fi I loved then and still do today. It took some getting used to, though. The default keyboard controls were not great, and it was a lot to learn trying to operate in so many axes of movement and rotation. I’ll admit I had trouble making it stick at first. That changed a few months later; the same friend who was obsessed with Descent often played the tabletop game BattleTech with his brother and me, and so we were all eyeing Mechwarrior 2—which launched not long after Descent—with great interest. I had never purchased a flight stick before, but that seemed important for Mechwarrior 2, so I did, and that was the secret to unlocking Descent‘s charms for me. (Of course, the GOG version of Descent and various community patches offer mouse support, so it’s far easier to get into without extra hardware now than it was back then.) Once my flying went from chaos to control, I became completely hooked. I beat the game more than a dozen times, though I’ll admit in the later playthroughs I made liberal use of cheats (gabbagabbahey!). I loved the loop of destroying the reactor then escaping through the labyrinthine tunnels—something I don’t think many other games have truly copied since then. I loved the music (though Descent 2‘s astoundingly good soundtrack by Skinny Puppy far surpassed it) and the process of getting better at the movement through practice. The story is minimal, but something about the vibes just work for me in that ’80s anti-corporate sci-fi sort of way. Credit: GOG I played so much that as I improved, I found even the harder difficulty levels were not enough to challenge me. That’s when the world of online deathmatches (or Anarchy, as Descent called the mode) opened to me for the first time. Multiplayer To be clear, I had played some multiplayer games online before, but up to that point, that only included text MUDs. I loved MUDs and still do, but there’s nothing like a fast-paced, action-packed online deathmatch. It started with playing with my friends via direct dial-up; I have distinct memories of Descent Anarchy matches that were interrupted at pivotal moments by parents picking up the phone to make a call and inadvertently killing the connection. As a side note, it turns out that my colleague Lee Hutchinson was also heavily into Descent matches with his friends, and he was so kind as to provide a short clip of one of those original matches from 30 years ago to include here, which you can watch below. (Unfortunately, I was not so forward thinking as Lee, and I did not preserve my replays for posterity.) Lee Hutchinson attempting to defeat his friend with flares Lee Hutchinson attempting to defeat his friend with flares I was the first of my friends to put in the effort to test my

A concept of how the Xiaomi 16 Ultra could look. (Image source: SmartPrix) According to new reports, Xiaomi will be dropping one rear-facing camera as part of a full redesign for its next-generation Ultra-branded flagship. Seemingly targeting the Vivo X200 Ultra, the Xiaomi 16 Ultra is rumoured to feature at least two new camera sensors, including an upgraded 200 MP periscope zoom lens. The launch of Xiaomi’s next Ultra-branded smartphone is likely still around seven or eight months away. Nonetheless, early information continues to emerge online about Xiaomi’s hopes to distinguish the Xiaomi 16 Ultra from its predecessors. For instance, detailed specifications appeared online via separate sources earlier this week. Now, Kartikey Singh and SmartPrix have teamed up to provide a first look at how the Xiaomi 16 Ultra could look. According to the pair, Xiaomi will be moving away from the quad rear-facing camera set-up that it has used across its Ultra-branded flagships since the Xiaomi 13 Ultra in 2023. Apparently, the company intends to revert to three rear-facing cameras with a new telephoto sensor doing the work of the 3x and 4.3 optical zoom cameras found in the Xiaomi 15 Ultra. In that sense, it appears that Xiaomi is following Vivo and the X200 Ultra rather than the quad-camera path also trodden by Samsung and its Ultra-branded flagships (curr. $1,106 on Amazon). Supposedly, the 1-inch type main camera will return for the Xiaomi 16 Ultra. By contrast, a Sony LYT-600 is rumoured to underpin the device’s 50 MP ultra-wide-angle camera. Potentially, a new S5KHHE telephoto sensor could replace the ISOCELL HP9 used in the X200 Ultra and Xiaomi 15 Ultra too, at least according to Digital Chat Station. (Image source: SmartPrix) Related Articles Alex Alderson – Senior Tech Writer – 12829 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2018 Prior to writing and translating for Notebookcheck, I worked for various companies including Apple and Neowin. I have a BA in International History and Politics from the University of Leeds, which I have since converted to a Law Degree. Happy to chat on Twitter or Notebookchat. Alex Alderson, 2025-07-25 (Update: 2025-07-25) Read More

An image showing a flat-shaped alien vessel. (Image source: tugkiara, Adobe Stock) Following its discovery on July 1, the interstellar object known as 3I/ATLAS has a number of characteristics that are not yet fully understood. And in view of this, Avi Loeb, a professor at Harvard University, has no hesitation in suggesting an extraterrestrial origin. Since the beginning of July, a new interstellar object has appeared in our solar system. But while many scientists agree that it originates from a distant region, a Harvard physicist puts forward an entirely different hypothesis. Discovered on July 1 by the ATLAS telescope in Chile, 3I/ATLAS is an interstellar object that defies scientific knowledge. It has no known cometary characteristics, and no gas has been detected since observations began using spectroscopic analysis. But that’s not all, as its trajectory also intrigues scientists. It follows a retrograde orbit around the Sun. What’s more, its dimensions are also astonishing, as it is estimated to be over 20 km in diameter. So, taking these anomalies into consideration, physicist Avi Loeb, who is also Professor of Theoretical Physics at Harvard University, has no hesitation in putting forward an astonishing hypothesis. According to him, 3I/ATLAS possesses characteristics that would make one think of an extraterrestrial bolide, rather than a natural object. To support his point of view, he refers to the trajectory of this star. If it passes close to Venus, Mars and Jupiter next autumn, as seems likely, this could be a deliberate targeting of our inner solar system, as this scenario has a probability of only 0.005%. Another argument is that this interstellar object will be at its closest to the Sun on October 29, and according to Loeb, this could correspond to an occultation strategy to prevent our instruments from studying it any longer.  However, while these statements are making a big splash, not everyone agrees. Indeed, Richard Moissl, head of planetary defense at the European Space Agency, believes that the object’s characteristics correspond to those expected of a natural object.  Finally, this stance recalls the many debates that concerned 1I/ʻOumuamua in 2017 when this astonishing star was discovered. And it’s worth noting that Loeb had also made statements on the subject, sometimes sparking controversy Related Articles Alexis Stegmann – Tech Writer – 108 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2025 I’ve been working in the field of web writing for several years, and I’m passionate about keeping readers up to date with the latest news on astronomy, technology, the world of video games and other exciting subjects. In particular, I’ve had the opportunity to work on a number of websites, which has enabled me to cover a wide range of subjects. In my personal life, I’m passionate about a wide range of subjects, including astronomy, video games, history and science. I’m also drawn to psychology, which is a subject that deserves greater documentation and recognition. Alexis Stegmann, 2025-07-25 (Update: 2025-07-25) Read More

The Xbox Series X features an AMD APU with an 8-core Zen 2 CPU and a RDNA 2 iGPU with 52 CUs/(AMD Dragon Range APU pictured here). (Image source: AMD, Xbox, edited) More information related to the recently leaked AMD Magnus APU has now surfaced thanks to Moore’s Law Is Dead. The leaker has now published updated specs of the APU, including Compute Unit count, bus width, and the graphics architecture that the graphics die is expected to be based on. Prolific leaker Moore’s Law Is Dead leaked the AMD “Magnus” APU a few days ago. The APU reportedly carries a Zen 6/Zen 6c CPU with a novel CPU core count and a huge graphics die. At the time, MLID alleged that the Magnus Zen 6 APU could show up in next-gen consoles like the PS6, while leaker Kepler_L2 countered that the AMD Magnus APU makes more sense for the next-gen Xbox. MLID has now revealed updated specs for the Magnus APU, including the possible GPU Compute Unit count. AMD Magnus APU to combine a Zen 6 CPU and an RDNA 5 iGPU MLID now alleges that the graphics die of the Magnus APU is based on the next-gen RDNA 5 graphics architecture and features up 70 Compute Units (68 usable). Contrary to the last leak, the latest claim from MLID is that AMD Magnus will have a 192-bit wide memory bus rather than an 384-bit bus previously rumored. This is now even lower than the AMD Strix Halo APUs that have a 256-bit memory bus. But, AMD could be banking on much faster memory to offset the negative impact of a narrower bus on the total memory bandwidth, as the Magnus APU reportedly utilizes GDDR7 memory. So, how fast is the AMD Magnus APU than the Strix Halo APUs or the PS5 Pro? MLID speculates that the AMD Magnus, with its 68 RDNA 5 CUs, could be twice as fast as the 60 CU APU inside the PS5 Pro if AMD clocks the iGPU quite high. Otherwise, MLID thinks that the Magnus APU might only bring a 40-50% raster performance increase over the PS5 Pro (Available on Amazon). AMD Magnus APU could power next Xbox or a Valve console The rumored platforms powered by the AMD Magnus APU could include the next-gen Xbox and, possibly, the next console from Valve. MLID contends that, although one of his AMD sources maintains that Magnus could power the Sony PlayStation 6, it makes more sense for the APU to show up in the next-gen Xbox or the next system from Valve. The reason for this assertion has to do with Sony’s timeline for the PS6 and the improbability that Sony will agree to share a GPU tile with the discrete RDNA 5 cards. MLID claims that AMD plans to combine the graphics die of the Magnus APU with a media tile and use it inside the RDNA 5 dGPUs. While this might make sense for AMD, as it will streamline supply lines and production, we think Sony might not agree to this due to possible supply issues that could arise. Whatever the case ends up being, we are excited to see if the Magnus APU is actually real and, if it is, which machine has the APU under the hood. Fawad Murtaza – Senior Tech Writer – 1288 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2021 I am Fawad, a fellow tech nerd. As a tech junkie, my relationship with technology goes back to my childhood years. Getting my first Intel Pentium 4 PC was the start of journey that would eventually bring me to Notebookcheck. Finally, I have been writing for tech media since 2018. From small no-name projects to industry leaders, I have worked with a number of tech publications. Read More