Microsoft quietly teased its next-generation Xbox by showcasing its collaboration with Asus "to bring two Xbox Ally handhelds to the market later this year," writes The Verge's Tom Warren. From the report: The Xbox Ally handhelds run Windows, but the Xbox team has worked with Windows engineers to boot these PC handhelds into a full-screen Xbox UI. The Windows desktop doesn't even fully load, and you use the Xbox app UI as a launcher to get to all your games (even Steam titles) and apps like Discord. While the combination of Windows and Xbox here is intriguing, it's the way that Microsoft is positioning these devices that really caught my attention.

"This is an Xbox," said Microsoft during the reveal, clearly expanding its marketing push beyond a single console to every screen and device. It all felt like a true Xbox handheld reveal. There was even an 11-minute-long behind-the-scenes video on the Xbox Ally handhelds, filmed in a similar style to Microsoft's "Project Scorpio" Xbox One X reveal from nearly nine years ago. "This is a breakthrough moment for Xbox," Carl Ledbetter, a 30-year Microsoft design veteran, says in the video. Ledbetter helped design the original IntelliMouse, the Xbox 360 Slim, the Xbox One X, and plenty of other Microsoft devices. When Ledbetter is involved, you know it's more than just a simple partner project with Asus.

"For the first time, a player is going to be able to hold the power of the Xbox experience in their hand, and take it with them anywhere they want to go," says Xbox president Sarah Bond, in the same video. Microsoft thinks of the Xbox Ally handhelds as Xbox consoles with the freedom of Windows, and I think the next-gen Xbox is going to look very similar as a result. Related

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Last week, electronics engineer Lorentio Brodesco announced the completion of a mock-up for nsOne, reportedly the first custom PlayStation 1 motherboard created outside of Sony in the console's 30-year history. The fully functional board accepts original PlayStation 1 chips and fits directly into the original console case, marking a milestone in reverse-engineering for the classic console released in 1994. Brodesco's motherboard isn't an emulator or FPGA-based re-creation -- it's a genuine circuit board designed to work with authentic PlayStation 1 components, including the CPU, GPU, SPU, RAM, oscillators, and voltage regulators. The board represents over a year of reverse-engineering work that began in March 2024 when Brodesco discovered incomplete documentation while repairing a PlayStation 1.

"This isn't an emulator. It's not an FPGA. It's not a modern replica," Brodesco wrote in a Reddit post about the project. "It's a real motherboard, compatible with the original PS1 chips." It's a desirable project for some PS1 enthusiasts because a custom motherboard could allow owners of broken consoles to revive their systems by transplanting original chips from damaged boards onto new, functional ones. With original PS1 motherboards becoming increasingly prone to failure after three decades, replacement boards could extend the lifespan of these classic consoles without resorting to emulation.

The nsOne project -- short for "Not Sony's One" -- uses a hybrid design based on the PU-23 series motherboards found in SCPH-900X PlayStation models but reintroduces the parallel port that Sony had removed from later revisions. Brodesco upgraded the original two-layer PCB design to a four-layer board while maintaining the same form factor. [...] As Brodesco noted on Kickstarter, his project's goal is to "create comprehensive documentation, design files, and production-ready blueprints for manufacturing fully functional motherboards." Beyond repairs, the documentation and design files Brodesco is creating would preserve the PlayStation 1's hardware architecture for future generations: "It's a tribute to the PS1, to retro hardware, and to the belief that one person really can build the impossible."

Multiple popular services -- including Google, Google Cloud, AWS, Spotify, Discord, Cloudflare, Google Nest, Azure, Box and Shopify -- are experiencing at least a partial outage globally that began around 2:25pm ET Friday, according to user complaints with reports flooding in across social media and outage tracking sites. Cloudflare has confirmed ongoing issues that started within the past hour. It remains unclear what prompted the outage.

More details to follow.

BrianFagioli writes: Barbie is getting a brain upgrade. Mattel has officially partnered with OpenAI in a move that brings artificial intelligence to the toy aisle. Yes, you read that right, folks. Barbie might soon be chatting with your kids in full sentences, powered by ChatGPT.

This collaboration brings OpenAI's advanced tools into Mattel's ecosystem of toys and entertainment brands. The goal? To launch AI-powered experiences that are fun, safe, and age-appropriate. Mattel says it wants to keep things magical while also respecting privacy and security. Basically, Barbie won't be data-mining your kids... yet.

More than a dozen private browsing apps on Apple and Google's app stores have undisclosed ties to Chinese companies, leaving user data at risk of exposure to the Chinese government, according to a new report from the Tech Transparency Project. From a report: Thirteen virtual private network (VPN) apps on Apple's App Store and 11 apps on Google's Play Store have ties to Chinese companies, the tech watchdog group said in the report released Thursday.

Chinese law requires Chinese companies to share data with the government upon request, creating privacy and security risks for American users. Several of the apps, including two on both app stores and two others on Google Play Store, have ties to Chinese cybersecurity firm Qihoo 360, which has been sanctioned by the U.S. government, according to the report. The Tech Transparency Project previously identified more than 20 VPN apps on Appleâ(TM)s App Store with Chinese ties in an April report. The iPhone maker has since removed three apps linked to Qihoo 360.

Anker has issued a recall for its PowerCore 10000 power bank (model A1263) due to a "potential issue with the lithium-ion battery" that could pose a fire safety risk. An anonymous reader adds: The company has received 19 reports of fires and explosions that have caused minor burn injuries and resulted in property damage totaling over $60,700, according to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (USCPSC).

The recall covers about 1,158,000 units that were sold online through Amazon, Newegg, and eBay between June 2016 and December 2022. The affected batteries can be identified by the Anker logo engraved on the side with the model number A1263 printed on the bottom edge. However, Anker is only recalling units sold in the US with qualifying serial numbers. To check if yours is included, you'll need to visit Anker's website.

Agriculture equipment giant Deere must face a lawsuit by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission accusing the company of forcing farmers to use its authorized dealer network and driving up their costs for parts and repairs, a U.S. judge has ruled. From a report: U.S. District Judge Iain Johnston in the federal court in Rockford, Illinois on Monday ruled for now to reject, opens new tab Deere's effort to end the lawsuit, which was filed at the end of Democratic President Joe Biden's administration in January.

The lawsuit alleges Deere is violating federal antitrust law by controlling too tightly where and how farmers can get their equipment repaired, allowing the Illinois-based company to charge artificially higher prices. The FTC was joined in its lawsuit by Michigan, Wisconsin and three other U.S. states.

The abstract of a study on NBER: We examine the performance of startups co-founded by immigrant and native teams. Leveraging unique data linking startups to founders' and employees' employment and education histories, we find native-migrant teams outperform native-only and migrant-only teams.

Native-migrant startups have larger employment three years after founding, are more likely to secure funding, access larger funding rounds, and achieve more successful exits. An instrumental variables strategy based on native shares in university-degree programs confirms native-migrant teams are larger and more likely to receive funding. Superior access to diverse labor pools, successful VCs, and expanded product markets are key factors in driving native-migrant outperformance.

The World Bank is lifting its decades-long ban on financing nuclear energy, in a policy shift aimed at accelerating development of the low-emissions technology to meet surging electricity demand in the developing world. From a report: In an email to staff on Wednesday, Ajay Banga, the World Bank president, said it would "begin to re-enter the nuclear energy space" [non-paywalled source] in partnership with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog which works to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons.

"We will support efforts to extend the life ofÂexisting reactors in countries that already have them, and help support grid upgrades andÂrelated infrastructure," the email said. The shift follows advocacy from the pro-nuclear Trump administration and a change of government in Germany, which previously opposed financing atomic energy due to domestic political opposition to the technology. It is part of a wider strategy aimed at tackling an expected doubling of electricity demand in the developing world by 2035. Meeting this demand would require annual investment in generation, grids and storage to rise from $280 billion today to $630 billion, Banga said in the memo seen by the Financial Times.

Google has removed device trees and driver binaries for Pixel phones from the Android 16 source code release, significantly complicating custom ROM development for those devices. The Android-maker intentionally omitted these resources as it shifts its Android Open Source Project reference target from Pixel hardware to a virtual device called "Cuttlefish."

The change forces custom ROM developers to reverse-engineer configurations they previously received directly from Google. Nolen Johnson from LineageOS said the process will become "painful," requiring developers to "blindly guess and reverse engineer from the prebuilt binaries what changes are needed each month." Google also squashed the Pixel kernel source code's commit history, eliminating another reference point developers used for features and security patches.

Google VP Seang Chau dismissed speculation that AOSP itself is ending, stating the project "is NOT going away." However, the changes effectively bring Pixel devices down to the same difficult development level as other Android phones.

Flying to London, a Boeing 787 aircraft operated by Air India "crashed shortly after taking off..." reports Bloomberg, "in what stands to be the worst accident involving the U.S. planemaker's most advanced widebody airliner." Flight AI171 was carrying 242 passengers and crew. Video footage shared on social media showed a giant plume of smoke engulfing the crash site, with no reports of survivors. [UPDATE: Reuters reports one passenger jumped out of the emergency exit and survived, with a senior police officer saying "chances are that there might be more survivors among the injured who are being treated in the hospital."]

The aircraft entered a slow descent shortly after taking off, with its landing gear still extended before exploding into a huge fireball upon impact. The crash took place in a residential area, which could mean a higher death toll... The pilots in command issued a mayday call immediately after take-off to air traffic controllers, according to India's civil aviation regulator.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Denmark's Minister of Digitalization, Caroline Stage, has announced that the Danish government will start moving away from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice. Why? It's not because open-source is better, although I would argue that it is, but because Denmark wants to claim "digital sovereignty." In the States, you probably haven't heard that phrase, but in the European Union, digital sovereignty is a big deal and getting bigger.

A combination of security, economic, political, and societal imperatives is driving the EU's digital sovereignty moves. EU leaders are seeking to reduce Europe's dependence on foreign technology providers, primarily those from the United States, and to assert greater control over its digital infrastructure, data, and technological future. Why? Because they're concerned about who controls European data, who sets the rules, and who can potentially cut off access to essential services in times of geopolitical tension. "Money issues have also played a decisive role," writes ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols. "Copenhagen's Microsoft software bill has soared from 313 million kroner in 2018 to 538 million kroner -- about $53 million in 2023, a 72% increase in just five years.

David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH), a Dane, inventor of Ruby on Rails, and co-owner of the software developer company 37Signals, has said: "Denmark is one of the most highly digitalized countries in the world. It's also one of the most Microsoft-dependent. In fact, Microsoft is by far and away the single biggest dependency, so it makes perfect sense to start the quest for digital sovereignty there."

The European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter has captured the first-ever images of the sun's poles by tilting its orbit out of the ecliptic plane. Space.com reports: The captured images of the solar south pole were taken between March 16 and 17, 2025, with the Solar Orbiter's Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI), Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI), and Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment (SPICE) instruments. They constitute humanity's first ever look at the sun's poles. This was the Solar Orbiter mission's first high-angle observation campaign of the sun, conducted at an angle of 15 degrees below the solar equator. Just a few days after snapping these images, the ESA spacecraft reached a maximum viewing angle of 17 degrees, which it sits in currently as it performs its first "pole-to-pole" orbit of our star. [...]

One of the first discoveries made by the Solar Orbiter is the fact that the magnetic fields around the sun's southern poles appear to be, for lack of a better phrase, a complete mess. While standard magnetic fields have well-defined north and south poles, these new observations reveal that north and south polarities are both found at the sun's southern pole. This seems to happen at solar maximum when the poles of the sun are about to flip. Following this exchange of poles, the fields at the north and south poles will maintain an orderly single polarity during solar minimum until solar maximum during the next 11-year cycle.

The Solar Orbiter observations also revealed that while the equator of the sun, where the most sunspots appear, possesses the strongest magnetic fields, those at the poles of our star have a complex and ever-changing structure. The Solar Orbiter's SPICE instrument provided another first for the ESA spacecraft, allowing scientists to track elements via their unique emissions as they move through the sun. Tracing the specific spectral lines of elements like hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, neon, and magnesium, a process called "Doppler measurement," revealed how materials flow through different layers of the sun. The Solar Orbiter also allowed scientists to measure the speed of carbon atoms as they are ejected from the sun in plumes and jets. "This is just the first step of Solar Orbiter's 'stairway to heaven.' In the coming years, the spacecraft will climb further out of the ecliptic plane for ever better views of the sun's polar regions," ESA's Solar Orbiter project scientist Daniel Muller said. "These data will transform our understanding of the sun's magnetic field, the solar wind, and solar activity."

Shubhanshu Shukla will become the first Indian astronaut to visit the International Space Station as part of a four-person mission by Axiom Space launching from the U.S.. The mission will include 14 days aboard the ISS and over 60 scientific studies. The Guardian reports: He will be the third astronaut of Indian origin to reach orbit, following Rakesh Sharma, who was part of a 1984 flight onboard a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft, and Kalpana Chawla, who was born in India but became a US citizen and flew on two space shuttle missions, including the 2003 Columbia flight that ended in disaster when the spacecraft disintegrated, killing all seven astronauts onboard. "I truly believe that even though, as an individual, I am traveling to space, this is the journey of 1.4 billion people," Shukla was quoted as saying by the Hindu newspaper this year. Shukla said he hoped to "ignite the curiosity of an entire generation in my country."

India's department of space has called the trip a "defining chapter" in its ambitious space exploration program. The International Space Station mission (ISS) "stands as a symbol of a confident, forward-looking nation ready to reclaim its place in the global space race," the agency said before the launch. "His journey is more than just a flight -- it's a signal that India is stepping boldly into a new era of space exploration." New Delhi has paid more than $60m for the mission, according to Indian media reports. [...]

Shukla trained at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Russia in 2020, before undertaking further training at the ISRO's centre in Bengaluru. He has said the journey aboard the Axiom Mission 4, and the expected 14 days on the ISS, will provide "invaluable" lessons to bring back home. Shukla will be led by the mission commander, Peggy Whitson, a former Nasa astronaut and an Axiom employee, and joined by the European Space Agency astronaut Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski, of Poland, and Tibor Kapu, of Hungary. They will conduct 60 scientific studies, including microgravity research, earth observation, and life, biological and material sciences experiments.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Australian SaaS-y graphic design service Canva now requires candidates for developer jobs to use AI coding assistants during the interview process. [...] Canva's hiring process previously included an interview focused on computer science fundamentals, during which it required candidates to write code using only their actual human brains. The company now expects candidates for frontend, backend, and machine learning engineering roles to demonstrate skill with tools like Copilot, Cursor, and Claude during technical interviews, Canva head of platforms Simon Newton wrote in a Tuesday blog post.

His rationale for the change is that nearly half of Canva's frontend and backend engineers use AI coding assistants daily, that it's now expected behavior, and that the tools are "essential for staying productive and competitive in modern software development." Yet Canva's old interview process "asked candidates to solve coding problems without the very tools they'd use on the job," Newton admitted. "This dismissal of AI tools during the interview process meant we weren't truly evaluating how candidates would perform in their actual role," he added. Candidates were already starting to use AI assistants during interview tasks -- and sometimes used subterfuge to hide it. "Rather than fighting this reality and trying to police AI usage, we made the decision to embrace transparency and work with this new reality," Newton wrote. "This approach gives us a clearer signal about how they'll actually perform when they join our team." The initial reaction among engineers "was worry that we were simply replacing rigorous computer science fundamentals with what one engineer called 'vibe-coding sessions,'" Newton said.

The company addressed these concerns with a recruitment process that sees candidates expected to use their preferred AI tools, to solve what Newton described as "the kind of challenges that require genuine engineering judgment even with AI assistance." Newton added: "These problems can't be solved with a single prompt; they require iterative thinking, requirement clarification, and good decision-making."

A coordinated spam operation has infiltrated abandoned subdomains belonging to major institutions including Nvidia, Stanford University, NPR, and the U.S. government's vaccines.gov site, flooding them with AI-generated content that subsequently appears in search results and Google's AI Overview feature.

The scheme, reports 404 Media, posted over 62,000 articles on Nvidia's events.nsv.nvidia.com subdomain before the company took it offline within two hours of being contacted by reporters. The spam articles, which included explicit gaming content and local business recommendations, used identical layouts and a fake byline called "Ashley" across all compromised sites. Each targeted domain operates under different names -- "AceNet Hub" on Stanford's site, "Form Generation Hub" on NPR, and "Seymore Insights" on vaccines.gov -- but all redirect traffic to a marketing spam page. The operation exploits search engines' trust in institutional domains, with Google's AI Overview already serving the fabricated content as factual information to users searching for local businesses.

The abstract of a study featured on NBER: We examine the labor market effects of AI chatbots using two large-scale adoption surveys (late 2023 and 2024) covering 11 exposed occupations (25,000 workers, 7,000 workplaces), linked to matched employer-employee data in Denmark.

AI chatbots are now widespread -- most employers encourage their use, many deploy in-house models, and training initiatives are common. These firm-led investments boost adoption, narrow demographic gaps in take-up, enhance workplace utility, and create new job tasks. Yet, despite substantial investments, economic impacts remain minimal. Using difference-in-differences and employer policies as quasi-experimental variation, we estimate precise zeros: AI chatbots have had no significant impact on earnings or recorded hours in any occupation, with confidence intervals ruling out effects larger than 1%. Modest productivity gains (average time savings of 3%), combined with weak wage pass-through, help explain these limited labor market effects. Our findings challenge narratives of imminent labor market transformation due to Generative AI.

A dating site launched last week by Belgian artist Dries Depoorter matches potential partners based on their internet browsing histories rather than curated profiles or photos. Browser Dating requires users to download a Chrome or Firefox extension that exports and uploads their recent search data, creating matches based on shared online behaviors and interests rather than traditional dating app metrics.

Less than 1,000 users have signed up since the platform's launch, paying a one-time fee of $10.3 for unlimited matches or using a free tier limited to five connections. Depoorter, known for digital art projects exploring surveillance and technology, says the concept emerged from a 2016 workshop where participants shared a year of search history data. The platform processes browsing data locally using Google's Firebase tools.

Amazon Web Services has signed a long-term deal with Talen Energy to receive up to 1,920 megawatts of carbon-free electricity from the Susquehanna nuclear plant through 2042 to support AWS's AI and cloud operations. The partnership also includes plans to explore new Small Modular Reactors and expand nuclear capacity amid rising U.S. energy demand. Utility Drive reports: Under the PPA, Talen's existing 300-MW co-location arrangement with AWS will shift to a "front of the meter" framework that doesn't require Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval, according to Houston-based Talen. The company expects the transition will occur next spring after transmission upgrades are finished. FERC in November rejected an amended interconnection service agreement that would have facilitated expanded power sales to a co-located AWS data center at the Susquehanna plant. The agency is considering potential rules for co-located loads in PJM.

Talen expects to earn about $18 billion in revenue over the life of the contract at its full quantity, according to an investor presentation. The contract, which runs through 2042, calls for delivering 840 MW to 1,200 MW in 2029 and 1,680 MW to 1,920 MW in 2032. Talen will act as the retail power supplier to AWS, and PPL Electric Utilities will be responsible for transmission and delivery, the company said. Amazon on Monday said it plans to spend about $20 billion building data centers in Pennsylvania.

"We are making the largest private sector investment in state history -- $20 billion-- to bring 1,250 high-skilled jobs and economic benefits to the state, while also collaborating with Talen Energy to help power our infrastructure with carbon-free energy," Kevin Miller, AWS vice president of global data centers, said.

BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: Apple has released a new developer tool on GitHub called Container, offering a fresh approach to running Linux containers directly on macOS. Unlike Docker or Podman, this tool is designed to feel at home in the Apple ecosystem and hooks into frameworks already built into the operating system. Container runs standard OCI images, but it doesn't use a single shared Linux VM. Instead, it creates a small Linux virtual machine for every container you spin up. That sounds heavy at first, but the VMs are lightweight and boot quickly. Each one is isolated, which Apple claims improves both security and privacy. Developers can run containerized workloads locally with native macOS support and without needing to install third-party container platforms.