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Product Reviews

Today’s Wordle clues, hints and answer for September 9 #1543

by admin September 9, 2025

Tear through your daily Wordle without any trouble at all with our help. Today’s clue can get your guesses off on the right foot, and our hints are there if you need something a little extra without instantly giving the game away. Still not enough? Some days are just like that. Which is why the September 9 (1543) Wordle answer is waiting at the bottom of the page.

A clue for today’s Wordle

Stuck on today’s Wordle? Here’s a clue that pertains to the meaning of the word.

If you’re still just as stuck after our clue, scroll down for further hints.

Hints for the September 9 (#1543) Wordle

Our Wordle hints will start vague so as to just give you a bit of a nudge in the right direction at first.

As you scroll down, they’ll offer more and more help towards figuring out today’s word without fully giving it away.

Are there any repeated letters in today’s Wordle?

There’s not a single reused letter today.

How many vowels are in today’s Wordle?

You only need to uncover a single vowel to win.

What letter does today’s Wordle begin with?

Make sure you open with a “T” this time.

Finding five letters is easy. Finding five green ones though…

The September 9 (#1543) Wordle answer is…

(Image credit: Future)

This is it. No turning back now!

The solution to today’s Wordle puzzle is…

The meaning behind today’s Wordle answer

Deception or misdirection is the key to a trick. Sometimes mean, hopefully magical. 🪄

Previous Wordle answers

Past Wordle answers can give you some excellent ideas for fun starting words that keep your daily puzzle-solving fresh. They are also a good way to eliminate guesses for today’s Wordle, as the answer is unlikely to be repeated.

Here are the last 10 Wordle answers:

August 30: ELATE
August 31: PETAL
September 1: LEAST
September 2: MIGHT
September 3: FETCH
September 4: BLEND
September 5: DRIFT
September 6: BULGE
September 7: TENOR
September 8: CHIRP

Learn more about Wordle

(Image credit: Future)

How to play Wordle

Wordle’s a daily guessing game, where the goal is to correctly uncover today’s five letter word in six goes or less. An incorrect letter shows up as a grey box. A correct letter in the wrong space turns up yellow. And the correct letter in the right place shows up as green. There’s no time limit to worry about, and don’t forget that some letters might be used more than once.

Get better at Wordle!

What’s the best Wordle starting word?

Generally you want to pick something with a good mix of common consonants and vowels in it as your Wordle opener, as this is most likely to return some early green and yellow letters. Words like SLATE, CHIME, and REACT all work, but feel free to find your own favourite.

Is Wordle getting harder?

(Image credit: Valve)

Wordle is not getting harder!

There will always be the occasional day where the answer is the name of a body part, has a sneaky double vowel, or a word obscure enough to send everyone rushing off to a dictionary. But the daily answers, edited by Tracy Bennett, are still a good mix of common terms and tougher challenges.

Remember that if you’re craving more of a challenge, you can enable Hard Mode under the ⚙️ options menu. This option doesn’t make the words themselves harder, but it requires that “any revealed hints must be used in subsequent guesses.”

How did Wordle begin?

Wordle is the creation of Josh Wardle, and began life as a small personal project before its public release in 2021. From there it’s gone on to become a global phenomenon, attracting a dedicated daily audience, billions of plays, a whole host of competitors, and even a seven-figure sale to the New York Times where it’s become a mainstay of daily games alongside the crosswords and Connections.

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September 9, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

Intel could sell up to 49% of its foundry business to external investors, but a full IPO or spin-off is unlikely

by admin September 9, 2025

In recent months, we heard numerous rumors about Intel’s alleged plans to spin off its Intel Foundry manufacturing arm and then sell a significant stake to potential customers, or the U.S. government’s supposed intention to force Intel to spin off Intel Foundry and then make TSMC buy a 49% stake in Intel’s U.S. manufacturing operations. None of this has materialized, and it’s possible that it never will. However, at a recent industry event, Intel’s Chief Financial Officer said that the company could theoretically sell up to a 49% stake in Intel Foundry without running into issues with the U.S. government. However, given that Intel does not own 100% of Intel Foundry’s assets, would it make financial sense to spin off or IPO Intel Foundry?

“The structure of the government financing is that they also got warrants associated with Intel stock, it triggers off [if we sell] below or selling more than 50% of the business,” said David Zinsner, the CFO of Intel, at Citi’s 2025 Global TMT Conference. “I think, as long as we hold 51% essentially it does not trigger, and it is a five-year warrant. […] Our motivation will probably be not to sell below 51% because that would dilute investors significantly. Unless it made economic sense for investors for us to do that. So, the likelihood is, if we are selling stakes in Foundry, it would be something less than 49% that would be sold off.”

Keeping Intel Foundry an American foundry

According to Intel’s contract agreement with the U.S. government, under which Intel converted its grants into cash in exchange for equity, the company must control at least 51% of Intel Foundry over the next five years or risk triggering punitive clauses (a 5% warrant at $20/share). The same terms applied to Intel’s grants under the CHIPS and Science Act, so the company was obliged to maintain a majority ownership stake in its Intel Foundry for some time.

Semiconductor Co-Investment Program (SCIP)

While for now Intel controls and operates all of its semiconductor production capacities in the U.S., Ireland, and Israel, as well as packaging facilities in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Malaysia, and China, it should be noted that Intel does not completely own all of its fabs.

Back in 2022, Intel kicked off its Semiconductor Co-Investment Program (SCIP) arrangement, under which it attracted investors (and essentially raised $26 billion) without violating the CHIPS Act requirement or the U.S. government’s 51% ownership clause tied to a potential Intel Foundry spin-off.

However, this means that Intel lost 100% control of its advanced fabs. As a result, Intel’s leading-edge Fab 52 and Fab 62, located in the Ocotillo campus in Arizona, are co-owned by Intel (51%) and Brookfield Infrastructure (49%). The company’s Fab 34 in Ireland is also owned by Intel (51%) and Apollo Global Management (49%).

These arrangements under the SCIP program are not a spin-off, but asset-level co-financing structures, so the foundry unit stays inside Intel. Intel still owns and operates the fabs, but splits the capital investment with partners like Brookfield Infrastructure and Apollo Global Management. In each case, Intel retains exactly 51% equity and operational control, meaning it does not breach the U.S. government’s ownership clause for CHIPS funding or equity conversion.

In theory, if Intel decides to start building out its Silicon Heartland site in Ohio in the coming years (not sometime in the 2030s), then it can use the same SCIP program to raise the necessary capital and build new capacity without requiring a spin-off or IPO and without violating the contract with the U.S. government.

IPO is still a possibility

Potentially, Intel’s SCIP initiative does not stop a hypothetical IPO as there is a difference between corporate equity of Intel Foundry and project-level asset ownership (e.g., Fab 52, Fab 62, Fab 34). From an IPO perspective, selling 49% of Intel Foundry means selling a stake in the overall earnings and cash flow of the foundry business, not in each fab’s underlying real estate or assets.

The Intel Foundry division includes the full foundry business — such as process technologies that cost billions, design services, customer contracts, and global capacity — even if some fabs (like Fab 52/62 in Arizona and Fab 34 in Ireland) are only 51%-owned via joint ventures with Brookfield and Apollo. Intel still retains operational control of these fabs and consolidates their revenue, so they remain part of the foundry offering.

However, the partial fab ownership introduces minority interest adjustments in financial reporting, so investors would still value Intel Foundry based on its total capacity, customer pipeline, and roadmap, with appropriate discounts or disclosures for asset-level co-investments.

As a consequence, partial ownership of key fabs by third parties means Intel would likely raise less money in an Intel Foundry IPO, as investors will discount the valuation to reflect the fact that Intel does not retain 100% of the cash flow from those facilities. While Intel still controls Intel Foundry as a corporate entity and consolidates fab revenues, its share of profits from co-owned fabs is limited to 51%. Investors will factor in these minority interests and payout obligations when pricing shares. The added complexity also introduces risk, which may further reduce the valuation, which means that it may make no financial sense for Intel to IPO or spin off Intel Foundry.

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September 9, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

Stephen King Reveals His Top 10 Favorite Movies

by admin September 9, 2025

There’s something about a favorite author or figure sharing their simple lists of favorite things. On a random Monday in September, legendary scribe Stephen King decided to hop on his keyboard and grace fans with his list of personal favorite movies. And yes, King, truly, we’ll take these crumbs.

In a post on X, the author provided insight into the kind of films he enjoys. Fans will no doubt find gems in the genre-spanning set of curated works, which include Hollywood classics, noir standards, comedies, and early blockbusters. He excludes adaptations of his own work, though he does name some favorites as a result of that.

The post reads:

My 10 favorite movies (excluding MISERY, SHAWSHANK, GREEN MILE, STAND BY ME). In no particular order:
SORCERER
GODFATHER 2
THE GETAWAY
GROUNDHOG DAY
CASABLANCA
TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE
JAWS
MEAN STREETS
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE 3rd KIND
DOUBLE INDEMNITY

It’s really film curriculum to study in order to get insight on what makes a popcorn flick for King. Two Roy Scheider performances stand out: the heart of darkness explored in William Friedkin’s bleak Sorcerer and, of course, Spielberg’s shark-induced mass hysteria he fights in Jaws. And it’s awesome to see the other Steven in this list multiple times, as the cinematic contemporary to King’s own genre-spanning works inspires the inclusion of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Makes us wonder if King’s books might feature in Spielberg’s favorite written works at all. And it’s worth noting how great it is to see that the horror maestro’s sense of humor skewers in the vein of Groundhog Day, which in its own way is a nightmare scenario to live in.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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September 9, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

I Hate My AI Friend

by admin September 9, 2025

Schiffmann seems to be doing well, compared to the last times either of us spoke to him. When he first announced the Friend, he talked about how he had come up with the idea for an AI buddy while traveling alone and yearning for companionship. Schiffmann posits himself as older now, wiser, more experienced than he was when he first debuted the Friend necklace. (He is 22.) He has grown out his hair and cultivated a beard, and he seems to have more real-life personal connections than when he first created the idea for Friend. In our meeting, he asked us not to unbox the devices in front of him because he is in love with someone and wants the first time he witnesses a Friend unboxing to be with her.

Schiffmann says the Friend’s personality reflects a worldview close to his own; that of a man in his early twenties. But Schiffmann can be brash, snarky, and vocally unconcerned about critical feedback, and it seems like that attitude has carried over to the device he has infused with his essence. In this era of cloyingly obsequious chatbots, it could seem refreshing to interact with an AI companion that isn’t unfailingly sycophantic. But the Friend often goes hard in the other direction. Its tone comes off as opinionated, judgy, and downright condescending at times.

We tested our two Friend pendants over the course of a couple of weeks, carrying them along with us as we went about our days separately, talking to them and getting to know how they work. While we had very different experiences, we both came away with the gut feeling that our new Friends were real bummers.

Kylie’s Experience

As I opened the Friend’s box, it brought me back to the time I cracked open my first iPod. That was by design, according to Schiffmann, who patterned the packaging after Apple’s audio player and Microsoft’s Zune, with liner notes inspired by the Radiohead album Pablo Honey. Within its white box, the Friend pendant glowed under a piece of parchment paper. It was nearly dead on arrival, and I had to charge it before I could use it. Our first interaction was a chime alerting me to its low battery.

I couldn’t find satisfactory environments to test the always-listening Friend; the concerns about digital eavesdropping made it too much of a gamble. I couldn’t take it to meetings with my editors, and it felt uncomfortable to ask comms folks if I could bring it to a coffee chat. God forbid I use it in a call with a source.

According to Friend’s privacy disclosure, the startup “does not sell data to third parties to perform marketing or profiling.” It may however use that data for research, personalization, or “to comply with legal obligations, including those under the GDPR, CCPA, and any other relevant privacy laws.” In other words, there’s a whole litany of ways the private conversations I have with people could make their way out into the ether.

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September 9, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

Bluesky finally has a private bookmarking feature

by admin September 9, 2025

Bluesky has added a built-in bookmarking feature so users finally have a way to privately save posts on the platform. The update is out now on Bluesky’s website and app.

Bookmarks on Bluesky work pretty much like they do on any other service. Save a post and you can revisit it later from the “saved posts” section of the app and website. It’s overall a basic feature — there’s currently no way to organize your saves into folders, for example — but it’s a very long overdue addition to the platform.

Up to now, Bluesky users have technically been able to save posts via a workaround. Bluesky developer Jaz created a custom “pinned” feed that allowed subscribers to save posts by replying with a 📌 emoji. But while this provided a handy way to save posts in the absence of an official bookmarking feature, it wasn’t private since it created a public reply for every save. Now, though, there’s a handy tool to convert your previously “pinned” posts into private bookmarks. You can also opt to delete your public “pins” or leave them as is.

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September 9, 2025 0 comments

Dyson V16 Piston Animal cordless stick vacuum

Product Reviews

Dyson V16 Piston Animal hands-on review: a powerful new flagship, but not quite a slam-dunk

by admin September 9, 2025

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Dyson V16 Piston Animal: two-minute review

The V16 Piston Animal is Dyson’s brand-new flagship stick vacuum, and it boasts a number of upgrades over its predecessors. Based on specs, this is the best Dyson vacuum on the market – and it should be one of the best cordless vacuums from any brand. I’ve been testing it out for a couple of days now, and I have lots of thoughts.

Based on my first impressions – I’ll be writing a full review when I’ve had more time with it – the V16 Piston Animal an incredibly good vacuum, but with one particular issue that could be a deal breaker for some potential buyers.

Let’s start with the good bits. The dust compactor works extremely well and is a logical, solidly useful addition. It gives you more cleaning time without having to empty the bin so often, and when you do come to empty the bin, the same mechanism expels the contents easily, with no need for fingers to get involved.

Dyson has redesigned the attachment mechanism so that you can connect and release attachments on the end of the wand without having to bend down. This seems like an effort-saver, and should also help those with mobility issues.

It almost goes without saying that the suction is excellent, and the battery gives you ample cleaning time without having to stop to recharge. Like its predecessors, the Gen5detect and V15 Detect, there’s an Auto mode that offers intelligent adjustment based on floor type and dirt levels. On the V16, though, it’ll adjust not just suction but also roller speed, for the most effective, battery-efficient clean.

Dyson has also given the floorhead an entirely different design – and this is where my main issue lies. The conical rollers do work well to prevent hair tangles, but the tapered shape means the floorhead comes to a slight point on the front side, which is a pain when you’re trying to clean along the straight edge of a room.

Read on for more information about the new Dyson flagship and my experiences with it so far, and check back in a week or two for my full and in-depth verdict.

(Image credit: Future)

Dyson V16 Piston Animal review: price & availability

List price: £749.99 / AU$1,349 (US TBC)
Launched: September 2025
Available: UK and AU now, US sometime in 2026

The V16 Piston Animal was unveiled at the start of September, and is on sale now in territories including the UK and Australia. It will be available in the US, but not until sometime in 2026.

The regular version has a list price of £749.99 / AU$1,349 (the US list price will be released closer to the launch date). A Submarine version is also available, with an extra mopping floorhead, at a list price of £899.99 / AU$1,599.

For comparison, this model’s predecessor, the Gen5detect, is £769.99 / AU$1,549. The model down from that, the V15 Detect, is £649.99 / AU$1,449.

Those prices position the the V16 firmly in the premium price bracket, and make it one of the most expensive vacuums on the market. It’s interesting to note that it’s actually slightly cheaper than the Gen5detect in the UK (although that older model will attract more discounts).

I’ll make a final call on value for money once I’ve had more time to test the V16 out, but on first impressions, it looks and feels premium. It has been meticulously designed and is packed with features – including some you can’t find anywhere else on the market. I’m not going to pretend it’s not an awful lot to spend on a vacuum, though.

Dyson V16 Piston Animal specs

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Weight:

7.5 lbs / 3.4kg

Bin size:

1.3L

Max runtime:

70 mins

Charge time:

3hrs 30

Dimensions (H x L x W):

10.2 x 51.1 x 9.8 inches / 25.9 x 129.8 x 25cm

Filter:

99.9% to 0.1 microns

Max suction:

315 AW

Dyson V16 Piston Animal review: design

Redesigned anti-tangle floorhead with conical rollers
Manual compression lever on bin
Automatic power and roller speed adjustment based on floor type

The V16 Piston is a premium cordless stick vacuum with a number of useful features, many of which are brand new to this machine.

Key amongst these – and the reason for the ‘Piston’ of the name, is a compression lever on the dust cup. This can be pushed down to squish dust and hair and increase dustbin capacity, and is also designed to wipe fine debris off the inside of the cup, and to be helpful in efficient emptying.

(Image credit: Future)

A second addition is the red cuff at the top of the vacuum’s wand. This can be pushed down to release the floorhead without having to bend down. The docking section of the floorhead is designed to sit upright at an angle, so you can also snap it on the wand from a standing position.

(Image credit: Future)

Speaking of the floorhead: this looks very different to anything I’ve seen before. Rather than being tube-shaped, the rollers here are conical. The idea is that the tapering shape shifts long hair down to the narrow end where it can be sucked up, rather than leaving it to tangle. This floorhead is designed for both hard floors and carpet, and is kitted out with a laser to illuminate dirt that might otherwise be missed.

(Image credit: Future)

The main body of the vacuum has a matte finish, and Dyson has added a padded section above the hand grip for added comfort. It switches on with a button rather than a trigger, and the battery is removable and swappable.

This is the first Dyson vacuum to be properly ‘connected’, with the companion app providing cleaning summaries and offering advanced setting options. There’s a screen on the machine itself to deliver information, including how long you have left on the battery.

The screen will also provide you with real-time reports on the size and number of particles you’re sucking up, as you clean. This works with the V16’s ‘Auto’ mode, where the vacuum will automatically adjust suction and (newly) brushroll speed based on the kind of floor it’s on and how dirty it is.

(Image credit: Future)

Detail tools will vary slightly depending on which model you opt for, but there are a couple of notable upgrades. The Hair screw tool now has a rubberized band across the front to help loosen hair that’s ‘stuck’ to upholstery fabric. Hidden inside the wand are two stubby Crevice tools – one at the top, attached to the main part of the vacuum, and the other at the bottom of the wand, revealed if you remove the floorhead. Because of the redesigned docking mechanism, none of the tools are compatible with other Dyson stick vacuums.

Dyson V16 Piston Animal review: performance

Dust compaction is great, and design makes emptying super-easy
Suction excellent, but not notably different to previous models in practice
Angled floorhead is a pain for vacuuming the edges of rooms

After one whole-house clean with the V16, I’m impressed in some ways but less so in others. I’ll start with the general suction performance. As I expected, this is excellent. I tested the vacuum in a four-floor house with hard floor, plenty of carpets, and a black Spaniel, and it had no trouble sucking up impressive volumes of dust, dirt and hair.

In Auto mode, I could hear the power and brushroll ramping up and down as I moved into different areas and onto different floor types. I found the on-screen dust reports as mesmerizing as ever, although I’m still not sure they’re that useful.

Officially, the V16 has the most suction of any Dyson stick vacuum, but on first impressions, I didn’t really notice a difference in cleaning power compared to cleaning using the V15 (this house’s usual vacuum, and two models down from the V16 – despite what the number might suggest, the Gen5detect sits in the middle). I’ll run some side-by-side suction tests with all three to see if there is a difference I’m not seeing.

(Image credit: Future)

The V16 feels a little weighty in the hand, but the padded section above the hand-hold is a welcome addition and does help boost comfort. I’m in two minds about the button operation. For longer cleaning sessions, it’s nice not to have to continually compress the trigger, but for quick cleanups, it’s a bit cumbersome to have to keep a hand free to turn the machine on and off (you can’t reach the button with your gripping hand).

I’m also not entirely sold on the new floorhead. While it does work well to siphon off hair, the new design requires the front long side of the floorhead to come to a slight point rather than being in a straight line. This means you can’t approach the edges of rooms front-on – instead, you have to go in from the side. That quickly becomes very annoying.

Otherwise, it pivots well but feels a little harder to push than previous Dysons (and other vacuums I’ve tested). I did find the laser useful for highlighting dust in dingy corners, though.

(Image credit: Future)

The quick-release works well and is an effort-saver, but the joints in general are a little stiffer than on other Dyson stick vacuums I’ve used. It’s also a shame that existing attachments won’t work with the V16.

More of a success is the dust compactor. This is a solid win; the mechanism works a treat, and means you can fit in more cleaning without having to make so many trips to the trash. It also makes it far easier to empty than most cordless vacuums I’ve used.

Those are my thoughts so far – check back for the full review, including the results of TechRadar’s official suction tests, when I’ve had more time to put the V16 Piston Animal through its paces.

Dyson V16 Piston Animal: Price Comparison

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September 9, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

Former Xbox VP says Game Pass creates ‘weird inner tensions’ because a game’s popularity can actually damage sales: ‘The majority of game adoption on GP comes at the expense of retail revenue’

by admin September 8, 2025

Pete Hines, the former vice president of communications and marketing at Bethesda, recently opined on what he described as “short-sighted thinking” driving subscription-based game services like Game Pass: “If you don’t figure out how to balance the needs of the service and the people running the service with the people who are providing the content—without which your subscription is worth jack shit—then you have a real problem.”

“You need to properly acknowledge, compensate, and recognize what it takes to create that content and not just make a game, but make a product,” Hines said in a recent interview with Dbltap. “That tension is hurting a lot of people, including the content creators themselves, because they’re fitting into an ecosystem that is not properly valuing and rewarding what they’re making.”

Tango Gameworks’ Hi-Fi Rush is cited as an example of this tension: The game was by all reports a big success, attracting three million players and being celebrated by Microsoft as a “breakout hit.” But three million players, many of which presumably arrived through Game Pass, isn’t the same as three million sales, and in June 2024 Microsoft closed the studio. An explanation for the closure was never really provided—words were spoken, but little was said—but the obvious bottom line was that creating a popular game wasn’t enough to ensure continued employment.

In a subsequent message posted to LinkedIn, former World’s Edge studio head and Xbox Games Studios vice president Shannon Loftis acknowledged the issue, writing, “As a longtime first party Xbox developer, I can attest that Pete is correct.”

“While GP can claim a few victories with games that otherwise would have sunk beneath the waves (Human Fall Flat, e.g.), the majority of game adoption on GP comes at the expense of retail revenue, unless the game is engineered from the ground up for post-release monetization,” Loftis wrote. “I could (and may someday) write pages on the weird inner tensions this creates.”

Games on Game Pass don’t make as much as they potentially could if they were not available on the service because people can play them without actually buying them: They get full access for their flat, unchanging monthly subscription fee. The counter-argument is that not everyone playing on Game Pass would pay for all the games they play—would Hi-Fi Rush have managed more than three million copies sold if it wasn’t available on Game Pass?—but the counter-argument to that is that the presence of those games is what makes the services so appealing: That is, the creative work of studios whose games might not be big hits in the conventional retail market is what makes Game Pass work, and they should be paid for it.

Whether Game Pass ‘works,’ and whether it’s viable in the long term, remains a matter of some debate. It’s popular, and seems central to Microsoft’s gaming ambitions, but Arkane founder Raphael Colaontonio said earlier this year that it’s “an unsustainable model that has been increasingly damaging the industry for a decade.”

Former Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shawn Layden expressed reservations of his own in August, saying that subscription services encourage a “wage slave” approach to game development: “They’re not creating value, putting it in the marketplace, hoping it explodes, and profit sharing, and overages, and all that nice stuff. It’s just, ‘You pay me X dollars an hour, I built you a game, here, go put it on your servers’.”

Microsoft says Game Pass is profitable, even though it doesn’t include lost first-party game sales when making that determination, but that didn’t prevent it from laying off 9,000 people, cancelling multiple games, and closing Perfect Dark developer The Initiative in July—despite making $27.2 billion in net income in the fourth quarter of its 2025 fiscal year. Weird inner tensions, indeed.

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September 8, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

Early Windows 11 25H2 benchmarks confirm the update provides no performance improvements over 24H2

by admin September 8, 2025

Windows 11 25H2 is not out yet, but that hasn’t stopped media outlets from benchmarking the upcoming Windows 11 version. Phoronix tested Windows 11 25H2 against Canonical’s upcoming Ubuntu 25.10, Ubuntu 24.0.3 LTS, and Windows 11 24H2 in a head-to-head benchmarking battle to see if 25H2 delivers any new performance improvements. Sadly, though, Phoronix’s testing revealed that 25H2 was unable to outperform 24H2, even technically losing to its predecessor in many tests.

The four operating systems were tested using a Ryzen 9 9950X paired with 32GB of DDR5 memory. Phoronix benchmarked a variety of applications (41 benchmarks in total), including LuxCoreRender, Embree, Intel Open Image Denoise, OSPRay, and IndigoBench.

(Image credit: Phoronix)

If you are familiar with previous Phoronix Windows vs Linux testing, it should come as no surprise that Ubuntu came out on top. Across Phoronix’s 41 benchmark geomean, both versions of Ubuntu managed to outperform Windows 11 25H2 by around 15% respectively. Looking at the Windows operating systems exclusively, 25H2 provided precisely 0% more performance compared to 24H2 across Phoronix’s entire benchmarking suite, on average.

Dynamic Duo Zuckerberg and Palmer Luckey Reunite for Army Combat Goggles Contract

by admin September 8, 2025

Despite spending billions of dollars to make it happen, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Oculus founder Palmer Luckey were never able to make virtual reality a profitable consumer product. Teamed up again, the pair have found an audience that is more comfortable with spending lots of money for slow development timelines and little return: the US Army. According to a report from Bloomberg, Luckey’s Anduril Industries and Zuck’s Meta Platforms were among three companies tapped to produce prototypes for mixed-reality style combat goggles.

The project—which also invited a company called Rivet Industries that is headed up by the former Head of Mixed Reality at Palantir to participate, in case you were worried they couldn’t assemble the full Axis of Evil for this thing—will seek to build upon the Army’s massive, multi-billion dollar Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) project that it launched with Microsoft. The goal is to ultimately create “new helmet-mounted mixed reality systems.”

The IVAS project will certainly be familiar to Luckey’s crew at Anduril, which took over the project after Microsoft effectively abandoned its VR/AR ambitions entirely—but not before handing over a demo product that an Army participant said “would have gotten us killed.” Just what they have done with it since taking over isn’t clear, though the project did get re-named to “Soldier Borne Mission Command” (SBMC), so that’s something.

There does seem to be quite a bit of information that will help inform the new goggles project. Anduril claimed that it will be guided by “over 260,000 hours of soldier feedback from the IVAS program,” which comes after the Army poured $1.36 billion into research, development, prototypes, according to Bloomberg. Seems like a lot of that information will be on what *not* to do, but that’s a start.

The project also appears as though it’ll make good on Zuckerberg and Luckey’s promised return to collaboration after a nasty falling out in 2017. Earlier this year, the two Trumped-up tech bros promised to make “the world’s best” AR and VR technology for the U.S. military under what they called “Project EagleEye.” The expectation was that the pair would make a joint bid for an Army contract that would be worth about $100 million. While the details on this latest deal weren’t made public by Anduril, the company did announce that Meta was a part of its bid and would be involved in the development of the goggles. Rival Rivet Industries said its contract was valued at around $195 million, per Bloomberg. So, it seems we may have a match.

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September 8, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

Why Former NFL All-Pros Are Turning to Psychedelics

by admin September 8, 2025

Roam the wide-open halls and cavernous showrooms of the Colorado Convention Center during Psychedelic Science, the world’s largest psychedelics conference, and you’ll see exhibitors hawking everything from mushroom jewelry, to chewable gummies containing extracts of the psychoactive succulent plant kanna, to broad flat-brim baseball caps emblazoned with “MDMA” and “IBOGA.” Booths publicize organizations such as the Ketamine Taskforce and the Psychedelic Parenthood Community, and even The Faerie Rings, a live-action feature film looking to attract investors.

It’s a motley, multifarious symposium where indigenous-plant-medicine healers mingle with lanyard-clad pharma-bros, legendary underground LSD chemists, and workaday stoners tottering around in massive red and white toadstool hats that make them look like that cute little mushroom guy from Mario. And yet, oddest among such oddities may be the sight of enormously burly NFL tough guys talking candidly about their feelings.

Among Psychedelic Science 2025’s keynote talks was “Healing Behind the Highlights.” Hosted by the podcaster and nutritional supplement salesman Aubrey Marcus, the panel gathered three NFL stars—Buffalo Bills safety Jordan Poyer, retired Raiders guard Robert Gallery, and San Francisco 49ers guard Jon Feliciano—to discuss how psychedelic drugs have benefited their lives off the turf. They talked about their journeys to retreat centers where they imbibed the heady hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca, and how these drug experiences allowed them to reconcile their gladiatorial ideals of on-field toughness with the fact that they are, at the end of the day, mere mortals.

The effects of psychedelics like ayahuasca (and its primary psychoactive chemical, N,N-Dimethyltryptamine, or DMT) are fairly well documented. It’s believed that such powerful hallucinogens can bring significant shifts in self-understanding, via a psychological mechanism sometimes labeled by researchers as the “mystical experience.” But Poyer and other athletes are pushing this idea even further. It’s not only that psychedelics can stimulate a psychological—or mystical, or spiritual, or otherwise metaphysical—change in a person’s mind, but that these drugs can offer physical, neurological benefits to a damaged brain. It’s an idea that is especially appealing to athletes competing in high-contact arenas, like professional football, hockey, and combat sports, where players are routinely exposed to concussions.

Poyer says he “absolutely” buys into the idea that psychedelics can help heal the effects of repeated head trauma. “I’ve had many concussions,” he admits, with a shrug, speaking with WIRED after the panel. “But I’d like to think I overcame some of those brain injuries.”

Poyer, second from the right, on stage at Psychedelic Science 2025.

Courtesy of MAPS

On January 22, 2023, the Buffalo Bills squared off against the rival Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC Divisional matchup of the NFL playoffs. With about 12:54 remaining in the fourth quarter, and the Bills lagging by two scores, Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow dropped back and fired a deep pass to wide receiver Tee Higgins. Attempting to stop Higgins, Poyer and Buffalo cornerback Tre’Davious White collided on the edge of the end zone. It was a case of “friendly fire” that produced the loud crack of head-to-head, helmet-to-helmet contact familiar to any football fan. “You could hear that hit up here,” play-by-play announcer Tony Romo said from the broadcast booth, as Buffalo’s medical staff shuffled onto the snow-covered field. “That was as wicked a sound as I’ve heard.”

Poyer was knocked to the ground, rising to his knees before sinking back down into the turf, and after a head injury evaluation, he was forced to exit the game. But his issues with concussion predate that especially brutal hit. Before that game, he recalls bouts of extreme anger and irritability, and cluster headaches: all symptoms of repeated trauma to the head. While improved safety equipment and key rule changes have decreased the incidence of concussion in the NFL, neurotrauma remains an unavoidable fact—or, for fans, players, owners, and league executives, more of an inconvenient truth—of such a fast, crunchy, extremely physical sport. NFL injury records reported some 692 concussions over a five-season period between 2019 and 2023.

Concussions are a form of traumatic brain injury—the broad medical term for damage caused to the brain by an external force—that can result in the loss of neurons in the brain as well as other neurological disorders and cognitive deficits. Concussions have been linked to both short- and long-term impairment, the most severe of which is chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a neurodegenerative disease believed to be caused by repeated head trauma. CTE affects memory, judgment, and executive function, and it occurs at an alarmingly high rate among former NFL players.

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September 8, 2025 0 comments