A developer spent money on Google Ads and got a bot farm
If you pay Google for app installs, more than half of those paid downloads might be coming from robots.
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How Windows XP randomly picked your default profile photo
Windows XP didn't just roll a simple die to pick your account picture—it used a clever computer science shortcut.
Most people build a home theater. This engineer built a 20-node LAN party house.
Most homeowners debate kitchen tile. Cloudflare engineer Kenton Varda built a custom house designed specifically for 20-person LAN parties.
Watch Los Angeles grow building by building since 1880
You can now watch 146 years of Los Angeles architectural history unfold in your browser.
Turning a $70 Rejected PS5 Board Into a Budget Gaming PC
Hardware tinkerers are turning $70 cryptomining boards built from rejected PlayStation 5 chips into ultra-budget Linux gaming rigs.
Europe’s $2B Mercury probe just dumped its engines for the final stretch
Getting a spacecraft into orbit around Mercury takes more energy than sending one past Pluto.
ICANN and Verisign are deleting 22,000 '.name' domains
If you’ve owned a .name domain for the past two decades, it's about to vanish from the internet.
Microsoft puts Xbox Cloud Gaming on a 15-hour monthly meter
Microsoft is putting a hard cap on Xbox Cloud Gaming, turning unlimited streaming into a monthly allowance.
Handing your driver's license to a car rental desk could put it on the dark web hours later
Handing your driver's license to a car rental agent might put a full scan of it up for sale online before you even return the keys.
OpenAI Silently Ships LibreOffice Inside Its Desktop App
If your disk space suddenly shrank by 1.7GB, blame ChatGPT's desktop app.
A VoIP-powered phone booth on the desert floor
You can dial a random phone booth in the Nevada desert right now and talk to a stranger.
Inside the 128KB magnetic core memory from a 1980 Space Shuttle lab
Before silicon took over spaceflight, 128 kilobytes of memory meant magnetic rings and conduction-cooled circuit boards.