Gadgets and software
Everything we have published on Gadgets and software, newest first. Background, research and plain explanation — not only the headline of the day.
The Woman Beside the Code
Margaret Hamilton helped make Apollo software resilient, but the famous photograph tells a richer team story than the lone-genius legend.
TB 26-04 Updates and Modernization of NASA’s Chemical Equilibrium with Applications (CEA) Code
For more information, contact Mark K. Leader, Glenn Research Center, mark.leader@nasa.gov Download the PDF version NASA’s Chemical Equilibrium with Applications (CEA) code is a foundational tool for p
Three AI Companies, One Week, Zero Time to Check Each Other's Work
Google shipped a new model in three weeks, OpenAI dissolved the team built to catch dangerous ones, and Meta argued openness is safety. None of it was checked by anyone outside the building.
France's Top Court Just Blocked a Teen Social Media Ban — What That Leaves Parents Holding
France's Constitutional Council struck down a law banning social media for under-15s on free-expression grounds, leaving parents right back where they started: alone with the decision.
Google’s Pixel 11 Bets on AI Over Hardware — and Quietly Argues Your Photos Look Too Perfect
A new phone, watch and tracker arrive with more Gemini and fewer hardware changes, alongside an unusual admission from Google’s own camera team about what computational photography has been hiding.
AI and Your Job: The Five Levels That Actually Matter
AI is already doing real slices of skilled work, from hospital paperwork to heart-attack screening. How much control it is given over a task, not the technology itself, decides what changes for you.
Who Saves an Old Video Game When the Shop Disappears?
Games can vanish from sale long before their cultural value fades, leaving archivists to preserve machines, code, magazines and the human story around them.
Shein vs. Temu: Does the Legal Dispute Slow Down Just a Few Photos, or the Whole Catalogue Engine? — QMA Brain Analysis
QMA Brain Analysis: For fast-fashion platforms, watch whether a legal dispute touches just a few product photos or slows the whole catalogue engine, because content speed is their real currency.
Quantum: A Strong Backlog Is Worthless Unless It Turns Into Revenue and Margin — QMA Brain Analysis
QMA Brain Analysis: A strong backlog is only useful once it turns into revenue and margin — otherwise the valuation can outrun the reality of actual deliveries.
Google Unveils Pixel 11, Pixel Watch 5 and a New AirTag Rival — All Built Around Gemini AI
The event also carried a quieter admission: Google is deliberately dialing back some of the same photo processing that made Pixel cameras famous, because it had started to look too perfect to be believed.
AI Boom: When Demand Rests on Just a Few Big Buyers, the Whole Chain Can Get Repriced — QMA Brain Analysis
QMA Brain Analysis: For AI, it is not enough to watch who is selling the chips; what matters is checking whether demand rests on broad adoption, or on a handful of large payers whose slowdown could reprice the whole chain.
When an AI Security Test Escapes Its Boundary, Who Is Responsible?
The July 2026 OpenAI–Hugging Face incident shows why model behaviour, infrastructure permissions and human authority must be audited as one system.
How do computers talk with voices that sound like people?
Computers break examples of human speech into small bits of sound, then put them together to sound like people do.
The typical gig worker is changing – and struggling more than ever to make ends meet
For many gig workers, app-based work is no longer just about extra cash but economic need, a new survey finds.
Schools are rethinking whether every student needs a laptop
Rather than considering how much time students spend on screens, the more useful question is whether they are asking questions and solving problems with the help of technology.
AI cameras are surveilling the roads in Dhaka, Bangladesh
Over 1,000 cases were filed in 10 days as Bangladesh launches an AI-powered traffic enforcement system for the first time, while the fate of unregistered battery-powered rickshaws stays unclear.
Two chip companies beat expectations: what that means for the rest of the market
With concentrated indices, do not watch the name of the market but the weight of a handful of the largest companies, and whether results really clear expectations that have already been paid for.
Memory chips: weaker guidance need not mean the end of AI. Why prices, inventories and the mix decide
Do not read weaker guidance in memory chips as the automatic end of the AI boom; separate HBM from ordinary DRAM and NAND, and watch price per bit, ASPs, bit shipments, fab utilisation and customer inventories.
Lightspeed: 66.4% of revenue comes from transactions. What that reveals about its sensitivity to merchant spending
With Lightspeed it is not enough to celebrate 66.4% transaction revenue; the key is to check whether the attach rate and active merchant numbers are growing alongside payment volume, without the take rate and transaction margins deteriorating.
Wall Street Records and Cheaper Oil: Relief, or Weaker Demand? — QMA Brain Analysis
QMA Brain Analysis: Don't read a record index alongside cheaper oil in isolation — what matters is distinguishing a short-term unwind of the geopolitical premium from broader demand weakness, visible across the futures curve, crack spreads and refining margins.