After falling far behind the rest of industry, Blue Origin creates new stock option plan

“It’s a big fat middle finger for those that thought they had something.”

Quad Cortex mini amp modeler: All the power, half the size

A warehouse of guitar gear in the palm of your hand.

Testing Apple’s 2026 16-inch MacBook Pro, M5 Max, and its new “performance” cores

M5 Pro Max’s “performance” CPU cores definitely aren’t just rebranded E-cores.

US blindsides states with surprise settlement in Live Nation/Ticketmaster trial

States seek mistrial, saying “sudden disappearance” of US will influence jury.

An unlikely set of clues helps reconstruct ancient Chinese disasters

Shang Dynasty oracle bones and modern weather models feature in the same study.

Nintendo sues to prevent Trump from dodging full tariff refunds

Nintendo may face pressure to share refunds with gamers who helped pay tariffs.

Flexible feline spines shed light on “falling cat” problem

Falling cats in the study also seemed to show a marked preference for turning to the right.

Don’t worry, Valve still plans to launch the Steam Machine “this year”

What part of “this year,” exactly, is still anyone’s guess.

2026 Australian Grand Prix: Formula 1 debuts a new style of racing

The key is understanding how to conserve energy across a lap. Oh, and be reliable.

Chevrolet killed it then brought it back, now we drive it: The 2027 Bolt

Faster charging, more modern infotainment, and a new LFP battery are highlights.

“It doesn’t feel safe”—Many international game developers plan to skip GDC in US

Stories of border issues lead to pervasive travel fears across the worldwide industry.

Jessica Jones joins the fray in Daredevil: Born Again trailer

“I’m gonna take this city back.”

Tiny, long-armed dinosaur leads to rethink of dinosaur miniaturization

Small size seems to have come before a change in diet for a tiny dinosaur lineage.

Hunting for elusive “ghost elephants”

Werner Herzog directed this evocative NatGeo documentary of an ornithologist’s quest to find a new species.

A unicorn-like Spinosaurus found in the Sahara

A unique head spike and fish-eating jaws help make sense of these dinosaurs.

“It doesn’t feel safe”—Many international game developers plan to skip GDC in US

Stories of border issues lead to pervasive travel fears across the worldwide industry.

Which of these two arcades is the “world largest”—and does it matter?

While semantics count for some, gamers win either way.

Google Pixel 10a review: The sidegrade

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

With developer verification, Google’s Apple envy threatens to dismantle Android’s open legacy

Questions remain as Google prepares to lock down Android app distribution in the name of security.

Trump FCC’s equal-time crackdown doesn’t apply equally—or at all—to talk radio

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s unequal enforcement of the equal-time rule.

New AirSnitch attack bypasses Wi-Fi encryption in homes, offices, and enterprises

That guest network you set up for your neighbors may not be as secure as you think.

Inside the quixotic team trying to build an entire world in a 20-year-old game

Stories and lessons learned from an impossibly large community modding project.

The first cars bold enough to drive themselves

Quevedo’s telekino of 1904 was the first step on the road to autonomous Waymos.

Wikipedia blacklists Archive.today, starts removing 695,000 archive links

If DDoSing a blog wasn’t bad enough, archive site also tampered with web snapshots.

Zero grip, maximum fun: A practical guide to getting into amateur ice racing

Where we’re racing, we don’t need roads.

Password managers’ promise that they can’t see your vaults isn’t always true

Contrary to what password managers say, a server compromise can mean game over.

Sideways on the ice, in a supercar: Stability control is getting very good

To test stability control, it helps to have a wide-open space with very low grip.

Platforms bend over backward to help DHS censor ICE critics, advocates say

Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem sued for coercing platforms into censoring ICE posts.

We let Chrome’s Auto Browse agent surf the web for us—here’s what happened

Auto Browse is capable of some impressive things, but it can also crash and burn spectacularly.

America, it’s time to think beyond leather for luxury car seats

Some brands are already ahead of the curve, while others leave the US in the cold.

Feds take notice of iOS vulnerabilities exploited under mysterious circumstances

The long, strange trip of a large assembly of advanced iOS exploits.

Amazon appears to be down, with over 20,000 reported problems

Problems viewing products and checking out.

Trump gets data center companies to pledge to pay for power generation

With no enforcement and questionable economics, it may not make a difference.

Downdetector, Speedtest sold to IT service-provider Accenture in $1.2B deal

Accenture plans to buy Ookla, which also includes RootMetrics and Ekahau.

LLMs can unmask pseudonymous users at scale with surprising accuracy

Pseudonymity has never been perfect for preserving privacy. Soon it may be pointless.

Google quantum-proofs HTTPS by squeezing 15kB of data into 700-byte space

Merkle Tree Certificate support is already in Chrome. Soon, it will be everywhere.

New AirSnitch attack bypasses Wi-Fi encryption in homes, offices, and enterprises

That guest network you set up for your neighbors may not be as secure as you think.

Password managers’ promise that they can’t see your vaults isn’t always true

Contrary to what password managers say, a server compromise can mean game over.

Most VMware users still “actively reducing their VMware footprint,” survey finds

Broadcom’s “strategy was never to keep every customer,” CloudBolt report says.

Retraction: After a routine code rejection, an AI agent published a hit piece on someone by name

This story has been retracted

OpenAI sidesteps Nvidia with unusually fast coding model on plate-sized chips

OpenAI’s new GPT‑5.3‑Codex‑Spark is 15 times faster at coding than its predecessor.

Attackers prompted Gemini over 100,000 times while trying to clone it, Google says

Distillation technique lets copycats mimic Gemini at a fraction of the development cost.

Once-hobbled Lumma Stealer is back with lures that are hard to resist

ClickFix bait, combined with advanced Castleloader malware, is installing Lumma “at scale.”

OpenAI researcher quits over ChatGPT ads, warns of “Facebook” path

Zoë Hitzig resigned on the same day OpenAI began testing ads in its chatbot.

Sixteen Claude AI agents working together created a new C compiler

The $20,000 experiment compiled a Linux kernel but needed deep human management.

Testing Apple’s 2026 16-inch MacBook Pro, M5 Max, and its new “performance” cores

M5 Pro Max’s “performance” CPU cores definitely aren’t just rebranded E-cores.

Apple’s 512GB Mac Studio vanishes, a quiet acknowledgment of the RAM shortage

Announcements this week were mostly business as usual, but Apple isn’t immune.

Workers report watching Ray-Ban Meta-shot footage of people using the bathroom

Meta accused of “concealing the facts” about smart glass users’ privacy.

Amazon appears to be down, with over 20,000 reported problems

Problems viewing products and checking out.

macOS Tahoe 26.3.1 update will “upgrade” your M5’s CPU to new “super” cores

In otherwise minor software update, macOS now uses M5’s new nomenclature.

Google and Epic announce settlement to end app store antitrust case

The era of the 30 percent app store cut has ended.

MacBook Neo hands-on: Apple build quality at a substantially lower price

The Neo won’t be for everyone, but Apple has managed to preserve a premium feel.

Google Pixel 10a review: The sidegrade

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

The $599 MacBook Neo is Apple’s long-awaited colorful, lower-cost MacBook

Cute, colorful laptop takes the place of the old $599 M1 MacBook Air.

M5 Pro and M5 Max are surprisingly big departures from older Apple Silicon

Apple is using more chiplets and three types of CPU cores to make the M5 family.

New MacBook Airs come with M5, double the storage, and higher starting prices

New Airs leave more room underneath for the rumored low-cost MacBook.

Apple intros M5 Pro and Max MacBook Pros and its first new monitors in years

New laptops come with more storage but also higher starting prices.

With developer verification, Google’s Apple envy threatens to dismantle Android’s open legacy

Questions remain as Google prepares to lock down Android app distribution in the name of security.

$599 M4 iPad Air is a lot like the old one, but with a substantial RAM boost

Unexpected RAM upgrade is the highlight of an otherwise straightforward refresh.

Apple’s new iPhone 17e has an A19 chip, MagSafe, and 256GB of storage for $599

New just-the-basics phone replaces the year-old iPhone 16e at the same price.

Don’t worry, Valve still plans to launch the Steam Machine “this year”

What part of “this year,” exactly, is still anyone’s guess.

“It doesn’t feel safe”—Many international game developers plan to skip GDC in US

Stories of border issues lead to pervasive travel fears across the worldwide industry.

Which of these two arcades is the “world largest”—and does it matter?

While semantics count for some, gamers win either way.

MS exec: Microsoft’s next console will play “Xbox and PC games”

Project Helix is set to open the closed-console ecosystem, but the details will matter.

After a rocky six years, Sony cancels future single-player PC game releases

Titles like Ghost of Yotei will remain exclusive to Sony’s hardware.

How strong is New York’s “illegal gambling” case against Valve’s loot boxes?

Lawyers tell Ars the state has a tough road ahead, even as Valve is uniquely vulnerable.

New York sues Valve for enabling “illegal gambling” with loot boxes

The ability to resell Steam items for real value is key to the state’s case.

Inside the quixotic team trying to build an entire world in a 20-year-old game

Stories and lessons learned from an impossibly large community modding project.

New Microsoft gaming chief has “no tolerance for bad AI”

But Asha Sharma faces scrutiny for lack of gaming experience.

Microsoft gaming chief Phil Spencer steps down after 38 years with company

Microsoft CoreAI exec Asha Sharma will take over in surprise executive shake-up.

Meta’s flagship metaverse service leaves VR behind

The company asserts it will continue to make VR headsets, though.

Why Final Fantasy is now targeting PC as its “lead platform”

Director says PC is the “foundation” when targeting “high-end environments first.”

Nintendo brings GBA-era Pokémon to the Switch, but not Switch Online subscribers

Games appear to be mostly unmodified ports of the well-regarded remakes.

Diablo II’s new Warlock is a great excuse to revisit a classic game

New skill tree paths offer a fun twist on some generally familiar mechanics.

GameHub will give Mac owners another imperfect way to play Windows games

GameHub’s existing Windows emulator on Android has its fair share of issues.