The Excellent HP OmniBook 5 Is $550 Off Its Retail Price Today
My favorite budget laptop, the HP OmniBook 5, has an OLED screen and gets great battery life, despite being just $750 right now.
The first self-driving vehicle on Mars has proven to be a smashing success
About 90 percent of the distance driven by Perseverance has been autonomous.
Big Walk, retro electronic repairs and other new indie games worth checking out
We're looking forward to Big Walk, ReStory: Chill Electronics Repairs, Pigeon: A Love Story and several others this week.
Hardware researcher spins up 'CPU deoptimization' project to find the slowest single x86 instruction, creates hall of shame — worst offender takes 198 billion cycles spanning 62 seconds to execute
One hardware researcher, Christopher Domas (@xoreaxeaxeax on GitHub), is taking a different approach with the CPU Deoptimization leaderboard, which looks not to make Assembly instructions run as fast as possible, but as slow as possible to find the single instruction with the highest latency.
DeepMind’s hurricane breakthrough has surprised weather scientists
Open source WeatherNext model can make accurate predictions with lower-resolution weather data.
Best Gaming Laptops (2026): Razer, Asus, Dell, and More
You don’t want any old gaming laptop. Here’s my take on which to get, based on hundreds of hours of testing.
AI creates 16 new viruses that never existed in nature after learning DNA’s pattern from 9 trillion nucleotides — experts warn such applications are way ahead of necessary guardrails
Researchers used Evo AI models trained on trillions of DNA building blocks to design entirely new viral genomes, 16 of which became viable bacteriophages capable of infecting and reproducing inside E. coli.
Now we have a timeline of the OpenAI accidental attack against Hugging Face
Article URL: https://simonwillison.net/2026/Aug/7/openai-timeline/ Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49220609 Points: 4 # Comments: 0
Xteink X4 Pro Pocket E-Reader Review (2026): Fun but Limited
Xteink’s new X4 Pro e-reader is its best yet, but the lack of an ebook store can be limiting.
X is replacing revenue sharing with a new original content rewards program
X is retiring its old rewards-sharing program after September 7.
NASA modded space station's laptops so everyone could use the same charger — standardizing ISS chargers eliminated useless weight and reduced failure points
NASA ensured that all laptops destined for use in the International Space Station had the same 'cannon' power connector by implementing a modification.
Flock’s Plans for Rideshare Dashcams and Coaching Police, Revealed
Plus: A judge rules cell tower dumps unconstitutional, water utility hacks spread to a dozen states, a phishing email opens a missile-parts supplier’s inbox, and a ransomware boss gets 16 years.
Apple Introduces Leasing Program for iPhones and Other Devices
Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/28/technology/apple-leasing-program.html Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49220390 Points: 11 # Comments: 15
New Amazon Data Center Is Set to Have the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S.
Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/08/climate/amazon-data-center-texas-pollution.html Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49220350 Points: 82 # Comments: 55
US Military's Cyber Command Unit Grapples with Cluster of Deaths by Suicide
Article URL: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-06/us-military-s-cyber-command-unit-grapples-with-cluster-of-deaths-by-suicide Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49220339 Points: 22 # Comments: 14
Modder turns Steam Controller trackpad haptics into stereo speakers with custom HID tool — Wired connection transmits 16-bit audio that sounds surprisingly full
A modder has figured out how to send an audio stream to the Steam Controller's haptic motors in order to make them play pretty much anything. While the wireless connection over the puck is limited, audio quality over a USB cable is genuinely impressive for a device with no speakers.
Sensitive Info Goes Into ‘No Reply’ Emails Constantly. This Guy Sees It All
Two security researchers bought cheap domains—including noreply.net and deleteduser.com—and set up email listening services. Hundreds of companies are sending them corporate secrets.
How to Disable Gemini in Gmail and Google Docs
New AI toolbars and prompts are showing up in Google Docs and Gmail. If you don’t want Gemini’s help in writing documents and emails, here’s how to turn that stuff off.
South Korean satellite spots SpaceX lunar impact
Before and after shots of Elon's ejecta snapped by Danuri
Hairmax LaserBand 82 ComfortFlex Review: Putting Down New Roots
Hairmax’s LaserBand 82 ComfortFlex took only 90 seconds per treatment, and it produced visible results along my widening part.