1. Altermagnets: The first new type of magnet in nearly a century
Total comment counts : 22
Summary
Researchers have discovered a new type of magnet called “altermagnets,” marking the first novel magnetism in nearly a century. Inspired by M.C. Escher’s artwork, Libor Šmejkal predicted their existence in 2022. Unlike traditional ferromagnets and antiferromagnets, altermagnets could enable faster, more energy-efficient computing. They possess unique properties derived from the behavior of electron spins, challenging established magnetism models. This breakthrough could lead to practical applications in technology, potentially revolutionizing modern computing.
Top 1 Comment Summary
Researchers have identified a new type of magnetism that could lead to advances in technology. This novel magnetic behavior, distinct from traditional forms, opens up possibilities for innovations in data storage, energy efficiency, and computer hardware. The discovery offers a deeper understanding of magnetic properties and potential applications in various fields, promising to enhance how devices operate and integrate new capabilities in the future.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses the advantages of solid-state magnetic storage, highlighting that it does not generate a magnetic field while still being responsive to external magnetic fields. This allows for close packing without interference between units. Data can be read or written using light electric pulses, leading to potentially long shelf lives and nearly infinite read/write cycles due to minimal structural disruption. The technology can likely be integrated with existing silicon manufacturing, though the challenge lies in optimizing the packing density without interference from reading mechanisms.
2. Ex-Waymo engineers launch Bedrock Robotics to automate construction
Total comment counts : 51
Summary
Bedrock Robotics, founded by former Waymo veterans, has secured $80 million in funding from Eclipse and 8VC to develop a self-driving kit for construction and worksite vehicles. Co-founder and CEO Boris Sofman, known for his role at Waymo and Anki Robotics, aims to enhance existing fleets with advanced sensors and AI. The company is testing its technology in Arkansas, Arizona, Texas, and California with several construction firms. Bedrock Robotics joins a growing number of startups focusing on off-road autonomy, targeting sectors like construction, mining, and defense.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article argues that political factors, rather than physics, hinder large project development in the US. The author highlights issues such as excessive red tape, political patronage, and restrictive regulations that inflate costs. Additionally, they express concern that if robots are successfully implemented, they could face legal challenges.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The CTO and co-founder of Bedrock expressed excitement about the positive response from the audience and welcomed questions. They are actively seeking talented machine learning engineers and software engineers, encouraging interested candidates to visit their careers page for opportunities.
3. Pgactive: Postgres active-active replication extension
Total comment counts : 11
Summary
Pgactive is a PostgreSQL replication extension for active-active databases, enabling multiple instances to write and replicate changes simultaneously. This contrasts with the traditional active-standby model, which allows only one writable instance. Active-active setups benefit high availability across regions and reduce latency but require applications to manage complexities like conflicting changes and replication lag. Logical replication, introduced in PostgreSQL 10, supports these functionalities, though further development is needed for complete active-active support. Pgactive aims to enhance PostgreSQL’s capabilities through extensions while the community continues to improve the core system.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The history of BDR and pglogical involves several versions and shifts between open and closed source. BDR1, the initial open-source version, led to BDR2, which was abandoned. pglogical versions 1 and 2 were open-source, with PGL1 merging into Postgres 10. Based on this, pglogical v2 was developed, followed by pglogical v3 and BDR v3, which were merged into BDR v4 and renamed Postgres Distributed (PGD). EDB acquired 2ndQuadrant and recently released PGD v6.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article describes the use of Postgres Logical replication to synchronize changes between PostgreSQL instances. It employs a last-write-wins conflict resolution strategy based on timestamps. Conflicts are recorded in the ‘pgactive_conflict_history’ table, allowing for history tracking and resolution. Further documentation is available on GitHub.
4. Shipping WebGPU on Windows in Firefox 141
Total comment counts : 22
Summary
Mozilla’s Gfx Team announced the release of WebGPU in Firefox 141 for Windows, providing a modern interface for high-performance graphics rendering and computation on the web. This significant development, which Mozilla has been involved in since 2017, aims to enhance gaming and visualization online. Although currently only available on Windows, plans are in place to introduce WebGPU to Mac, Linux, and Android in the coming months. Users are encouraged to test WebGPU and report any issues. The implementation is built upon the WGPU Rust crate and supports various graphics APIs.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author argues that modern graphics APIs are less user-friendly and less portable than OpenGL. They criticize the need to create custom wrappers for Vulkan, Metal, and DirectX12, viewing it as a waste of time. The shift back to raw char arrays for performance reasons in contemporary programming languages is seen as a regression.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author hopes WebGPU will gain traction beyond web applications, serving as an official cross-platform API to replace OpenGL. However, there appears to be limited interest in using WebGPU for native code outside of the Rust community, with few major projects adopting it, like Dawn. This lack of interest may be due to WebGPU’s delayed introduction, as developers had already established custom abstractions over existing graphics APIs like DirectX, Vulkan, and Metal.
5. Ukrainian hackers destroyed the IT infrastructure of Russian drone manufacturer
Total comment counts : 36
Summary
Ukrainian hacktivists, in collaboration with military intelligence, successfully disrupted operations at Gaskar Integration, a major Russian drone manufacturer. This cyberattack destroyed over 47 terabytes of critical data, incapacitated systems, and halted production, with hackers accessing sensitive information including technical documentation and employee records. The operation, carried out by the BO Team and Ukrainian Cyber Alliance, also revealed close ties between Gaskar and China. As a result, the plant’s operations were severely affected, and employees had to exit through fire escapes. This follows previous attacks by Ukrainian cyber specialists targeting Russian infrastructure.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author recounts their experience of rebuilding a small home lab from scratch after replacing the main disk. What initially took an hour to set up turned into a week of troubleshooting and recalling configurations. They emphasize the challenges of recovering a complex infrastructure, drawing parallels to their volunteer work assisting a local hospital and a large company that suffered ransomware attacks. Despite documentation and prior testing, the reality of recovery proved to be daunting and labor-intensive for the IT staff involved.
Top 2 Comment Summary
A company in Germany is struggling with its production planning, relying on printed Excel sheets due to a failed ERP system migration. Management is concealing the issue and avoiding communication with the engineering department. This situation may persist for years, allowing consultants to profit from a non-functional system, while highlighting that IT infrastructure is seen as a non-essential asset for manufacturing.
6. GPUHammer: Rowhammer attacks on GPU memories are practical
Total comment counts : 6
Summary
GPUHammer, developed by researchers at the University of Toronto, is the first attack demonstrating Rowhammer bit flips on GPU memory, specifically GDDR6 in NVIDIA A6000 GPUs. It induces bit flips across DRAM banks using user-level CUDA code, compromising data integrity in shared environments. Although enabling Error Correction Codes (ECC) can mitigate risks, it may slow down machine learning workloads by 10%. The research illustrates a novel technique to bypass in-DRAM defenses and shows that even a single bit flip can degrade model accuracy from 80% to 0.1%. The findings highlight critical vulnerabilities in GPU memory regarding Rowhammer attacks.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses the satisfaction of “hammering attacks” in virtual universes, where one escapes not by traditional means but by manipulating the underlying physics of the universe through patterns within the virtual space. It suggests that as long as the underlying analog substrate can be influenced, this method of escape could be viable across various digital layers. The author speculates on the possibility of a similar concept for our own universe.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses issues with bit flips in VRAM, which were previously overlooked when GPUs were solely for graphics. It notes that enabling Error Correction Code (ECC) can reduce performance, particularly during error correction. A proof-of-concept demonstrates that a single bit flip can significantly degrade a victim’s deep neural network (DNN) model accuracy from 80% to 0.1%. The irony lies in targeting probabilistic models, which are built to account for error and imprecision in reality.
7. Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share in USA
Total comment counts : 90
Summary
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Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses the perception of increasing Linux desktop usage, questioning whether it’s due to more people adopting Linux or a decline in traditional computer ownership. The author notes that many individuals, outside of gamers, now rely primarily on phones and tablets, which isn’t reflected in desktop statistics. They suggest that the uptick may not be significant if it’s merely due to fewer desktops overall, rather than an increase in Linux adoption. While recognizing the impact of devices like the Steam Deck, the author is cautious about labeling this trend as a true gain for Linux desktops.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author works in the refurb division of an e-waste recycling company, where they cannot sell devices with Windows due to licensing and certification issues. Instead, they and their coworkers install Linux Mint and Ubuntu. Although they are unsure if users continue with Linux or switch to Windows, they take pride in contributing to the growing Linux community. The article also includes a link to their merchandise on eBay.
8. Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 Incident on July 14, 2025
Total comment counts : 39
Summary
On July 14, 2025, Cloudflare experienced a 62-minute outage of its 1.1.1.1 public DNS Resolver due to a misconfiguration linked to legacy systems. The outage, which affected users globally, occurred because the service’s IP prefixes were improperly included during a configuration change for an unrelated Data Localization Suite service. Although the issue was identified and a fix implemented shortly after, it rendered many internet services inaccessible for users. Cloudflare confirmed that the outage was not caused by an attack and expressed regret over the incident.
Top 1 Comment Summary
Many users experienced inability to access Internet services due to issues with the 1.1.1.1 DNS Resolver. The article raises a question about the typical configuration of having two DNS servers on devices, inquiring whether the second server was also down and why users didn’t switch to it.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article expresses surprise at the delayed detection of a significant drop in protocol traffic, noting it took over five minutes for the internal health service to identify the issue. The author expected immediate alarms for such an extreme change and seeks insight on the reasons behind this delay and whether it is typical or unexpected among industry professionals.
9. Tilck: A tiny Linux-compatible kernel
Total comment counts : 13
Summary
Tilck is an educational monolithic kernel designed for binary compatibility with Linux, currently running on i686 and RISCV64 architectures. Its simplicity allows easy experimentation in kernel mode while enabling the use of mainstream Linux applications like BusyBox. Tilck aims to serve embedded systems needing low-latency and minimal RAM usage, with plans for networking and storage support. While it partially replicates Linux to validate correctness, its long-term goal includes developing unique features and extending compatibility to ARM architectures. The project is not intended for desktop environments, focusing instead on educational and embedded applications.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article highlights an intriguing project that serves as a bridge between the xv6 operating system and the full Linux kernel. It successfully runs on the LicheeRV Nano, a $9 RISC-V board featuring a 1.0 GHz CPU, making it comparable to older Pentium III or PowerPC G4 systems. Ports to similar boards like the Milk-V Duo are expected to be straightforward. However, the system currently lacks network and block device support, and does not support multi-core processing.
Top 2 Comment Summary
Tilck is a unique operating system that distinguishes itself by running on real hardware, unlike many recent kernel developments that only operate within virtual machines and lack hardware abstraction. It fills a niche that has been largely unaddressed, offering a genuine alternative in a market crowded with less functional options.
10. Show HN: Improving search ranking with chess Elo scores
Total comment counts : 20
Summary
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Top 1 Comment Summary
The article questions the choice of using the ELO rating system instead of its variants, which do not assume a specific result distribution. It suggests exploring alternatives like the Whole History Rating, linked in the text.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses the differences between the Bradley-Terry and Elo rating systems, clarifying that they are distinct methods for ranking based on pairwise comparisons. While Bradley-Terry uses a ratio-based approach, Elo employs a logistic function, leading to different score scales and sensitivities. The authors may prefer Bradley-Terry for its simpler likelihood evaluation. Various Elo variants exist to address its limitations, but many forget its original use in chess tournaments. The article also highlights issues with minimizing biases in rankings, especially when one document is consistently favored across evaluations.