Tesla's investment bill ballooned in calendar Q2 as Elon Musk's biz entered what it calls its "largest and most exciting period of investment. The company has poured resources into AI silicon and robotics, with capex [PDF] more than doubling from $2.5 billion in the previous quarter to $5.8 billion. That left Tesla with negative free cash flow of $1.1 billion, down 848 percent year-on-year. It expects spending to keep rising and exceed $25 billion for the year. During the earnings call, Musk talked up Tesla's Terafab ambitions but gave little detail other than calling it an "amazing initiative" and confirming that equipment orders had been placed for the development fab in Austin. "It's intended to have lithography mask production, and then logic, memory and packaging, and chip testing all under one roof," he said. "So you can have a very fast iterative cycle." Musk acknowledged it was a "high-risk, high-payoff bet on AI chips." Musk said Terafab was essential to scaling Optimus because Tesla would otherwise be unable to secure enough AI chips, hence the prodigious expenditure. As for Tesla's automaker business, vehicle deliveries were up 25 percent year-on-year in Q2 to 480,126, and total automotive revenues surpassed $20 billion. However, operating margin fell to 1.4 percent from 4.1 percent a year ago. According to Tesla, it is "in its largest and most exciting period of investment" as it builds out the infrastructure needed to make good on Musk's many promises. "I think Optimus [Tesla's humanoid robot] will be the biggest product," Musk reiterated during the earnings call, before cautioning that "it is a very complex problem to solve." Tesla is also facing stiff competition from China, which is also talking up its humanoid robots. Musk claimed Optimus will be the first "able to do generalized tasks." Then there is the Robotaxi project, where the billionaire noted intense scrutiny from regulators "We're going as fast as humanly possible in scaling Robotaxi… while trying to ensure that we do not harm anyone at all and ideally do not even run over a pet," he said. In answer to a question regarding combining Tesla and another of Musk's companies, SpaceX, he acknowledged overlap between the two but said it wasn't possible to talk about a combination on the Tesla results call. He left it to Brandon Ehrhart, Tesla's general counsel, to say: "We continue to benefit from our relationship with SpaceX… They've been a great partner, and we have numerous beneficial transactions with them." Investors were not impressed. Shares in the company fell in after-hours trading, while another of Musk's companies, SpaceX, continued its downward trajectory, standing at just over $115 by yesterday's close, well below its $135 IPO price and a huge drop from its $225 high. ®

Britain has found £708 million ($946m) to fund the development of advanced technologies for the Royal Air Force’s next-gen fighter, codenamed Tempest. Announced to coincide with the Farnborough International Airshow in Hampshire, southwest of London, the news was accompanied by a £20 million ($27m) contract for a hypersonic target used to test air defenses and a “loyal wingman” drone prototype from BAE Systems. The £708m extends an existing contract with BAE Systems to develop the UK’s Future Combat Air System (FCAS), part of the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) - a tri-partite effort between the UK, Italy and Japan. Britain’s codename for the resulting aircraft is Tempest, as previously disclosed. According to the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the technologies covered by the latest contract include digital engineering capabilities, artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing support, the latter involving augmented reality, additive manufacturing, and use of robotics. The award follows the recently published Defence Investment Plan, in which the government promised to invest £8.6 billion ($11.5bn) into GCAP over the next four years, on top of more than £5 billion ($6.7bn) already spent on the program. “This investment in advanced combat air technology for the UK Armed Forces will strengthen our defence and deterrence and shows our clear commitment to backing British workers with our defence investment, creating jobs and supporting communities across the UK,” said newly appointed Defence Secretary, Wes Streeting. The aircraft is expected to enter service in 2035, with a flying demonstrator scheduled to take to the air next year. Canada this week announced it will join the GCAP program as an Observer, giving it in-depth information of the aircraft and its capabilities, perhaps hinting that the Canucks are weighing a future purchase. At Farnborough, BAE also showed off its prototype for an uncrewed Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), otherwise known as a “loyal wingman” drone, to accompany crewed fighter jets. Named Brontanax - said to be ancient Greek for “Thunder King” - the drone is described as similar in size to one of the RAF’s Hawk trainer jets (or the T-45 Goshawk for US readers). It's intended to provide electronic warfare and precision strike capability against airborne and ground targets, and BAE expects it to enter service before the end of the decade. That doesn’t necessarily mean the RAF will buy it. Streeting said the UK is separately investing £300 million ($402m) in a “Storm Fighter” program to develop an autonomous combat aircraft, adding that Brontanax “shows the depth of industrial capability we have here in Britain to help deliver our ambition to become Europe’s first sixth generation air force.” The MoD has also awarded a £20 million ($27m) contract to Lockheed Martin UK for Project Bowline, a hypersonic target intended to support development and testing of missile defence systems against such threats. Hypersonic weapons can fly at more than five times the speed of sound, making them difficult for current missile defenses to intercept. A live flight demonstration is planned for 2027 at the MoD’s Hebrides test firing range. The government claims that more than 15 smaller UK firms will benefit from the program by joining the supply chain for the project. Project Bowline is part of the AUKUS defense partnership between the UK, US and Australia. The three are working together to accelerate hypersonic and counter‑hypersonic technologies, the MoD says.®

HANDS ON If you've got a drawer full of old phones, unloved tablets, or even an ancient monitor, you can now give those devices new life in your home by turning them into wall-mounted status boards, clocks, weather stations, or photo frames. ScreenWall is a web platform developed by German software engineer Tuan Anh Bui that’ll turn any compatible device with an internet connection into a widget display without the need to install anything. If you can scan a QR code, you can have that old device displaying any number of things in no time. “Use it to build clocks, status boards, ambient screens, signage, and shared walls from the hardware you already have, without asking people to install anything first,” Bui says on the app’s website. Currently in beta and free for users (with some restrictions on the number of widgets one can deploy), ScreenWall comes with a number of demo widgets, like a clock, weather display, and a split-flap screen able to display various types of information. You can customize pre-existing widgets with some JavaScript tweaks, which is how new ones are written as well, and you can connect data sources via JSON files. Placing a widget, whether preconfigured or homemade, is simple: Add it to a workspace (called a “wall”), and it’ll sit waiting for a display to be paired with ScreenWall, which is done by either scanning a QR code from a device with a camera, or clicking on a link and inputting a six-digit code for devices that lack one (like an old monitor paired to a thin client, no matter how ancient). Once paired, ScreenWall detects the device’s resolution and shows it on the wall as a blue square. Drag it over the widget you want it to display, and that’s that. The screen won’t go to sleep or shut down as long as the ScreenWall widget is present, as it uses the standard Screen Wake Lock API baked into modern browsers. Just connect it, get the widget fitting properly on the screen, and set the device up wherever you want - preferably somewhere with access to a power outlet. What it offers in simplicity and device reusability, ScreenWall also lacks in terms of seamlessness that might make it a tough sell to replace that ticket status board that might be getting long in the tooth. Devices connect via a web link and are presumably running a full-fledged OS, so any reboot of a system means the device has to be re-paired in order to function. When testing at home, closing the ScreenWall tab on my iPad showed the device as offline on my wall, and the only way I could figure out to reconnect it was to scan the QR code again. Because the code is randomized each time you open the screen, reconnecting my iPad meant adding a third display to my wall, creating a bit of chaos as it re-created the clock widget I had displayed on my iPhone, dropping it on top of the picture of my chipmunk friend and necessitating some manual adjustment. When I put my iPhone to sleep without closing the ScreenWall tab, it similarly said that the display was disconnected. Unlocking my phone and navigating to the ScreenWall Safari tab brought the clock widget back up. So, as long as that tab stays open, reloading the widget should work more easily. Bui confirmed to The Register that devices maintain their unique identifier as long as the tab isn't closed, so be sure you don't get rid of that if you intend to deploy a ScreenWall widget for long-term use. It’s also important to note that, if using an old smartphone, tablet, or some other smart device set up to receive notifications, those still pop up. ScreenWall doesn’t put a device into do-not-disturb mode by default - don’t forget to set that if you’re going to try this out. As Bui noted, it's on the user to ensure "do not disturb mode" is set properly. A simple web app like this one simply doesn't have that level of device control. As Bui notes on the ScreenWall website, the platform “is still in beta, which means the core experience is usable, but we are still improving stability, compatibility, and polish.” Feel free to tinker with it, in other words, but don’t go tossing those old devices on every wall you can find just yet unless you’re ready to do some legwork to keep ‘em running. Bui told us that he still hasn't come up with a monetization plan, but that he does plan to address concerns that people may have about running a hosted service. "I want to prevent people from throwing old tech away, and the tinkerer community are kinda privacy focused and want to use their beloved devices offline," Bui said in an email. "That’s why I am currently thinking of to publish a self-hosted version that users can run locally." Beyond that, he told us, he's not sure where to take the tool next. "This project was built out of curiosity and scratching an itch I had really long time ago after seeing all old phones going to waste," Bui explained. "I still don’t know who actually wants this except me." As for what might get added once stability, compatibility, and polish are addressed, that might be up to the community. "I hope to see people to do very cool things with it, while I try to extend the platform with new features." ®

Tesla's latest vehicle has two wheels, no motor, and a target market still mastering walking: the $225 Balance Bike for Kids. The contraption, designed for children aged two to five, "features a lightweight magnesium frame, adjustable seat and futuristic design," and can handle up to 35 kg. The price tag puts it at the higher end of such devices. Cycling Weekly recommends the Hornit Airo at £139, although there are plenty of alternatives aimed at introducing children to two wheels. Although a manually powered bicycle might be a surprising choice for Tesla, a company that made its name selling electric cars, there is some historical precedent – Morris and Triumph, for example, both began in the bicycle trade. Still, a Tesla fan and their money are soon parted. The company says preorders open on July 31, although only existing Tesla vehicle owners are eligible to buy one. The determined can already find units on auction sites. We spotted one on eBay that would set a buyer back a cool $1,200 plus shipping from the US – quite a premium for a toddler to learn how to use a bike. Then again, another Musk venture persuaded fans to queue up for a $500 "flamethrower" that was really a glorified blowtorch, so perhaps a four-figure toddler bike isn't such a hard sell. In this case, lessons learned about balance might prove useful when it comes to landing a Starship on the lunar surface or training the Tesla Optimus robot, which took an embarrassing tumble at a Miami event last year. It is also worth wondering just how old those kiddies, about to receive their Tesla Balance Bikes, will be when SpaceX finally manages to land a crew in a Starship on the Moon. ®

The US military is adding autonomous gun-based counter-drone systems intended to reduce its reliance on expensive interceptor missiles. Defense robotics firm Allen Control Systems (ACS) announced a deal with the US Marine Corps on Monday to get its Bullfrog autonomous weapon system attached to the Light Marine Air Defense Integrated System (L-MADIS) expeditionary counter-drone platform. L-MADIS consists of pairs of off-road vehicles, one carrying a suite of sensors and the other slated to be outfitted with a Bullfrog autonomous weapon station. Bullfrog systems are a little different from your typical AI-controlled counter-drone systems in that they’re not built with an attached weapon, but are designed to slot in “any legacy or modern firearm” in order to turn them into systems able to “detect, track, and defeat incoming threats at a fraction of the cost of even the least expensive kinetic interceptors.” In other words, ACS claims it's cheaper to build a system that can adapt existing military firearms than to invest in a purpose-built counter-drone weapon system. Bullfrog units provide the AI, computer vision, and precision aiming robotics to take out drones, while the military only has to plug in its own hardware. There are several variants of the Bullfrog available from ACS, with units designed for everything from the M240 machine gun to the M2 50-caliber machine gun. The company is currently working on M230 chain gun and M134 minigun variants as well. In the case of the Marine Corps contract, it appears the service is taking on some M240 variants based on a link in ACS’s press release to the M240-variant’s page. The M240, the smallest of the weapons designed for the Bullfrog, fires up to 850 7.62×51 mm NATO rounds per minute and is effective up to 800 meters in the Bullfrog. The Bullfrog M240 is capable of taking down drones up to DoD Group 3, meaning anything with a max gross takeoff weight less than 1,320 lbs, able to operate as high as 18,000 feet above sea level, and with an airspeed of less than 250 knots. The DoD grouping goes up to Group 5, which includes some of the military's largest drones, such as the RQ-4 Global Hawk. The US Army and US Navy are both already fielding Bullfrog units, making the Marines the third branch to get their hands on the system. ACS cited the proliferation of cheap drones in the Russia/Ukraine conflict and in the Middle East as a need for comparable cheap counter drone tech. Videos on ACS’ YouTube page demonstrate the Bullfrog in action, taking down a number of small drones in demonstrations over the past couple of years. A short video on the company's channel also shows a Bullfrog unit switching from targeting aerial drones to ground targets with ease. This suggests that Bullfrog systems aren't just capable of knocking drones out of the sky. After we published this article, ACS has been in touch to explain that, despite what the video showing Bullfrog switching from aerial to ground targets on demand, it's not correct to say it autonomously targets humans. "Bullfrog has robust software protections against the fully autonomous engagement of designated targets, including human combatants," an ACS representative told us. The company went on to explain that, while Bullfrog can target humans, it doesn't do so without human operator oversight. "Bullfrog is designed to operate under accepted rules of engagement and laws of war. The computer doesn’t decide what to do — humans do," the spokesperson told us.® Updated on July 22 with comment from ACS about autonomous targeting.

Microsoft has open-sourced Comic Chat, its short-lived 1990s experiment in turning Internet Relay Chat (IRC) conversations into comic strips – and, for many users, their first encounter with Comic Sans. Microsoft Comic Chat was released in 1996 with Internet Explorer 3. It was conceived by David "DJ" Kurlander of the Microsoft Research Virtual Worlds Group as a new visual representation of conversation histories. Rather than displaying the scrolling sequence of text messages still familiar today, a chat was depicted across several cartoon panels, replete with characters, backgrounds, and speech bubbles. According to Microsoft, "the visual world of Comic Chat was the work of Jim Woodring, a highly regarded independent comic artist whose characters gave the software its distinctive look." This was long before generative AI, and the software generated its scenes using rules. "If someone wrote 'I like that,'" explained Microsoft, "the character might point to itself. If the text suggested anger, the character might frown or cross its arms." "Comic Chat was more than a clever skin for IRC. It was able to interpret conversational cues in the text and choose appropriate poses, facial expressions, gestures, and panel layouts. "That meant Comic Chat was not simply displaying messages but also making real-time editorial decisions about how a conversation should look and feel as a comic." It could be entertaining, even if the novelty wore off quickly for many users – something Microsoft tacitly acknowledged when it pulled the plug on the project in the early 2000s. That said, Comic Chat is a reminder of when the World Wide Web was a more optimistic place, full of experimentation. While the concept didn't really go anywhere (although its spirit lives on in emojis and gifs), it was innovative. Microsoft localized Comic Chat into 24 languages and bundled it with Windows 98. Comic Chat was also a natural home for Comic Sans, unlike an HR handout promoting the latest company event. In its post announcing the code's release under the MIT license, Microsoft stated: "Comic Chat was created during a period when software teams were willing to color outside the lines, literally and figuratively." ®

BORK!BORK!BORK! Paris might sometimes be called "The City of Light" or perhaps "The City of Love" by the romantically inclined. Judging by this hotel's elevators, "The City of Bork" is more appropriate. Spotted by eagle-eyed Register reader Nathaniel in a Paris hotel, what we assume to be digital signage is instead stalled on the all too familiar American Megatrends BIOS configuration screen. The computer behind the scenes also seems a bit overpowered to serve information for hotel services. Instead of enticing elevator riders into the undoubtedly delightful bars and restaurants of the establishment (apparently a Novotel not far from the Eiffel Tower) or whatever it should be doing, this screen has temptations of an altogether more technical nature. A CometLake CPU? An i5 no less? Sort of up-to-date. And that 8 GB of RAM? The way memory prices are going, that might be enough to buy you a nice hotel room in some cities, and at least a decent coffee and a croque monsieur in Paris. It all seems a bit excessive for something that an elevator user might glance at impatiently, while cursing silently at whoever jabbed the call button on the floor that wasn't theirs. The 10210U CPU, launched at the end of 2019, is one of Intel's 10th-generation Core i5 processors (and so acceptable to Windows 11, although we're not sure we'd want Microsoft's flagship operating system anywhere near a metal box held aloft by steel cables). Aimed at the mobile segment – in this case, mobile in the vertical sense of the word – it wasn't a bad bit of silicon. It supported DDR4-2666 memory, which appears to be what is fitted here, and there was Intel UHD graphics as an option. Less than ideal for the latest polygon-heavy first-person shooter, but more than adequate for entertaining elevator riders for a few minutes. Or a sideways BIOS setup screen in text mode. ®

"Can it run Linux?" has joined "Can it run Doom?" as the benchmark for coaxing unlikely hardware into doing complicated things. One enterprising engineer has now brought penguins to the Sega 32X. Fresh from wrangling Linux into life on the ill-fated Atari Jagua games console, a Spanish engineer calling himself cakehonolulu has performed the same trick with Sega's equally unsuccessful 32X and managed to run the operating system on hardware designed for gaming in the 1990s. The Sega 32X was an add-on for the Sega Genesis (also known in some regions as the Sega Mega Drive). Released in 1994, it arrived just in time to be steamrolled by Sony's PlayStation, who were also grappling with the launch of the Genesis's true successor, the Saturn. The 32X added 256 KB of SDRAM to the Genesis's 64 KB, 256 KB of video RAM, and a pair of Hitachi SH-2 CPUs running at 23 MHz. The Genesis made do with a Motorola 68000 running at 7.6 MHz. Linux supports the 68000 architecture, but "getting Linux to run on the SH-2s (running as in having it print anything meaningful over UART) required some brainstorm," the engineer noted in his post. Cakehonolulu told The Register that the challenges were "mostly a combination of things, but the major pushback is always how little memory you have to even begin to work with" – and even that is halved, as each framebuffer needs its own share, leaving little to work with. "In practice, this means that you can cram very little stuff (In terms of Linux kernel features and/or Busybox; which serves as the init process for the system once Linux has finished the boot process)." Eventually, Linux booted. But then there was symmetric multiprocessing (SMP). After all, the 32X has two SH-2s. Cakehonolulu told us: "I also wanted to investigate how feasible it would be to run SMP on the configuration of the 32X since it doesn't really have some of the hardware primitives we're used up to using for multi-processor synchronization and akin. Turns out it was something that could be done; but again, performance is abysmal." In his post, he added: "But it does work – and that's fine by me." Cakehonolulu then wrote a simple console display driver, completing the port (after a fashion). We wondered if a keyboard had been considered. "I actually tried to track down any commercially-available keyboard for the Mega Drive/Genesis but all I could find were some early-prototypes. I'm not really sure if something did ever come out officially but I chose not to go down that rabbit hole," he said. "You could technically try to come up with some sort of Pi Pico/ATMega/Arduino/FPGA board that enabled a PS/2 or USB keyboard to transmit data to the console but I felt like it was a bit beyond what I was really willing to do to get any form of interaction w/it)." So interaction is limited to the TTL UART pins, which, considering the feat of getting Linux booting at all, is fair enough. And then there's what to do with the system once booted. Can it do much? "Honestly, not much, not with the limitations it has at least. We're lucky we can even add a few more kilobytes worth of data... But it serves as a good example (Linux and Busybox) that you can indirectly let people tinker and bringup a piece of software if it's well-written … it enables stuff like this to happen. "Not that I envision anyone using it but I just enjoy the process of tinkering." What's next? "Sega Saturn : )" Hurrah for tinkerers everywhere, motivated by that age-old justification: "because it's there". ®

The Excel games have gone extreme, tossing four top competitors into urban wilds around the world in a one-off battle, which reigning champion Diarmuid Early won at the last minute. Irish phenom Early captured the win in the Microsoft Excel World Championship’s (MEWC) inaugural Landmark Battle over the weekend after a last-minute comeback that saw him take down Andrew Ngai by a mere 40 points (1060 to 1020) in the 30-minute contest. Jaq Kennedy and Nicolas Micot made up the back half of the chart. The conceit of the whole one-off contest, which was co-sponsored by hardware manufacturer Asus, was to stick the four contestants in the wild around four landmarks, forcing them to deal with weather, potentially flaky internet, and - shudder - the public who might wander over and question what exactly they were doing. Early, who now resides in New York, competed overlooking the Statue of Liberty; Kennedy near Big Ben; Micot at the Eiffel Tower; and Ngai overlooking Sydney Harbour. Hardware for the contest was provided by Asus, which doled out ExpertBook Ultras and wireless portable second screens to each contestant. MEWC said the contest was inspired by the remote work undertaken by many modern professionals, who increasingly work “across client sites, airports, cafés, co-working spaces, and remote locations, instead of behind a desk in an office.” The competition goes back to 2021. It was a 2022 broadcast on ESPN, however, that made competitive Excel a … um … popular thing to watch. MEWC competitions pit Excel experts against each other to solve complex problems designed ahead of time by other Excel experts. In the 2025 World Championship in Las Vegas, where Early beat Ngai to win the trophy, puzzles included doing things like solving a jigsaw puzzle using Excel. The 2022 competition broadcast on ESPN included the spreadsheet platformer Modelario, as well as tasks involving a yacht regatta and slot machine-style games. The one-off Landmark Battle took its inspiration from Jules Verne’s novel Around the World in Eighty Days, and saw the quartet of competitors racing through a seven-part puzzle to decipher the fastest travel route for a group of spreadsheet-bound characters intent on duplicating Phileas Fogg’s feat. According to MEWC, Early came from behind to win the contest using his signature strategy of “core-first, bonus-later,” which involves solving all the core challenges of a puzzle before returning after completion to see how many bonus questions he can pull off. Having been deployed to the field with nothing but a cameraman and the laptop they were working on, none of the competitors were aware of their opponents' live scores, meaning that Early won without knowing how close the contest had become. Qualifiers for the 2026 world championship are ongoing, and Early is an early favorite so far. Six of nine Road to Las Vegas qualifier matches have taken place so far, and Early has won three of them. ®

UPDATED: SpaceX is scheduling another test flight of its monster Starship rocket later this week. Flight test 13 will carry 20 Starlink satellites and, hopefully, will not repeat the anomalies seen during the previous test. The mission is set to launch on Thursday, July 16, with a 90-minute launch window opening at 2245 UTC. It will carry next-generation Starlink V3 satellites for the first time, deploying them during the vehicle's sub-orbital lob. The plan is for the 20 satellites to extend their solar arrays and antennas, and connect with Starlink's constellation via high-capacity lasers. Six of the satellites will have a suite of cameras to take a look at Starship's heat shield and, according to SpaceX, some of the tiles on the vehicle have been painted white to simulate missing tiles and serve as targets during the test. Since the satellites will be on the same sub-orbital trajectory as Starship, they will burn up in the atmosphere approximately 20 minutes after deployment. The previous flight test in May was mostly a success. However, there were problems, notably with the Super Heavy Booster, which failed to perform a "soft" touchdown in the Gulf of Mexico. SpaceX provided more details on what happened to the booster. "Slight differences in engine startup on the ship caused the directional flip of the booster to be off by approximately 90 degrees," it stated. Then, after the flip, five of the 33 booster engines failed to relight, and the boostback burn ended early. The result was a mishap, which prompted the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to require an investigation before the Starship-Super Heavy could launch again. Starship also lost one of its three Raptor engines following stage separation, but still managed to reach its planned suborbital trajectory. SpaceX opted to not relight one of the Raptor engines during the suborbital flight, which is essential for showing that the vehicle can be trusted to enter orbit. The company intends to try again on Flight 13. "Several hardware and operational modifications have been made to address the interconnected causes with additional reliability improvements planned in upcoming versions of the Raptor engine," said SpaceX. It did not, however, elaborate on those "interconnected causes" nor what it had done to avoid a repeat of the booster flip incident. It only added: "The startup sequence has been modified to be more robust to timing variability and more reliably flip in the desired direction," and noted hardware modifications "to improve re-light reliability." Neither the booster nor Starship will be recovered on this flight. The booster is expected to make a controlled descent in the Gulf of Mexico, while Starship will again attempt a controlled re-entry and splashdown in the Indian Ocean, as on previous flights. An in-space reignition of one of Starship's Raptors is essential before SpaceX can send Starship to orbit, deploy Starlink satellites using the vehicle, or meet NASA's requirements for the Artemis III and IV lunar landers. ® Updated to at 1531 UTC, July 13: The FAA got back to The Reg to explain that the "investigation of the SpaceX Starship Flight 12 launch mishap is closed. There are no reports of public injury or damage to public property." The administration added that it had overseen and "accepted the findings and corrective actions of the SpaceX-led investigation." "The final mishap report cites two most probable root causes for the loss of the Super Heavy booster as heat effects on propulsion system components during the ascent and erroneous engine alarm system settings. SpaceX identified four corrective actions, including vehicle hardware and software configuration updates to prevent a reoccurrence of the event. "SpaceX can proceed with Starship Flight 13 launch operations provided all safety and other licensing requirements are met."

Microsoft and backup are two words often uttered together, usually in the form of "Microsoft Windows has crashed again, where's my backup?" The question is: what would a backup look like for a digital sign in Derby? Spotted by eagle-eyed Register reader "nategee" on a stroll in Derby, this sign appears to have spent much of the day pleading to be backed up. This poses an interesting question. What, exactly, would constitute a backup for a sign? Microsoft would obviously like somebody to log in with a Microsoft account so the data on the computer behind the scenes can be squirted into its cloud. However, we'd contend that a more appropriate backup for a digital sign would involve glue, paper, and a person on a ladder, wielding a brush. Although the words "if anything gets my back up" is often muttered by Windows users faced with yet another surprise update or unexpected screen of blue, the backup suggestion usually pops up when Windows restarts after an update. Microsoft has examined the user's device and tightly clutched its pearls upon realizing that the PC isn't backed up. And now would be the perfect time to back it up by signing in with a Microsoft account, at least as far as the tech giant is concerned. The owners of the billboard might disagree. Sadly, there is nowhere obvious for a technically minded passer-by to attach a keyboard and mouse to let the sign continue the startup process, and the hard-pressed techie responsible, doubtless sitting behind a desk at the mothership, has yet to give a remote command to unbork the signage. Digital signage might be flexible, but we doubt Microsoft is advertising backups here - or reminding everyone that Windows has a habit of nagging users into doing what Redmond thinks is best for them. Perhaps it's best to back up to something that doesn't involve Microsoft's OS, or maybe even save the power, dust off the poster poster and glue pot. No tech required. ®

It is just over a year since a pilot project to install photovoltaics on a railway line kicked off. According to the CEO of Sun-Ways, the company behind the scheme, the challenge was not so much technical as regulatory. The project, a 100-meter photovoltaic installation on a railway line open to traffic, was inaugurated on April 24, 2025 in Buttes, Switzerland. It's fair to say it went well; the 48 solar panels wedged between the tracks have generated more than 19 MWh to date. According to the company's CEO, Joseph Scuderi, more than 11,000 trains have passed over the solar power plant without incident. There has been no impact on railway operations or solar generation. It's a novel idea – use the space between rails for solar power generation. While the angle of the panels might not be ideal, the losses would be relatively minor compared to the potential gains. In Switzerland alone, Sun-Ways reckons there is a potential 1 TWh available, enough to meet 30 percent of the country's public transport needs. The panels themselves use anti-reflection material to avoid distracting train drivers with glare, and are resistant to micro-cracks, which could lead to a higher risk of fires. And then there is the installation itself, which required coming up with a rail-mounted machine to deploy the panels. According to Scuderi, the company now has a machine capable of installing up to 300 solar panels per hour, over hundreds of kilometers, rather than the 100 meters of the pilot. However, as Scuderi told The Register, "Technology wasn't the problem. "After all, we're capable of sending people to the Moon… "The real challenge is regulation. The strictest safety requirements apply in the rail sector. It took us years to obtain authorization to test our Sun-Ways solar power plant on a line open to passenger trains." According to a report published in April by the European Environment Agency, renewables (including solar) accounted for 25.2 percent of final energy consumption in the European Union. In the past year, renewables have accounted for 43.3 percent of generation in the UK, according to the National Grid (the UK's power transmission network), with 6.9 percent coming from solar. The EU's minimum target is 42.5 percent from renewables by 2030, so sticking solar panels on the space between the rails carries a certain appeal. Scuderi told us that agreements had been made with Italy and France's SNCF, and that talks were underway with South Korea, Spain, and Portugal. He said, "I envisage a market launch as early as 2028, with the deployment of small Sun-Ways power plants of 10 km (10,000 m2), then an increase in capacity to reach 1,000 km installed by 2035 and 10,000 km in 2040." It's an ambitious plan, and might have seemed the stuff of fiction when Sun-Ways was founded in the early 2020s. Maintaining the panels, track (and track bed), and keeping the units clean enough to generate a worthwhile amount of power were obvious concerns, but the project has shown that these technical challenges can be overcome. Indeed, equipment capable of installing 300 panels per hour beats the rate at which canopies and station buildings could be plastered with photovoltaics. That said, panels away from the line don't share the same concerns about impacts from rail traffic or the inconvenience of track maintenance. Scuderi told The Register, "The financial projection we have made show a LCOE [Levelized Cost of Energy] from 0.05 €/kWh to 0.09 €/kWh, depending on the amount of sunlight (southern or northern Europe)." "And for a customer such as a railroad company," he added, "the LCOE corresponds to the final cost of electricity, since it is not subject to taxes or fees on the public grid, as solar energy is fed directly into the traction grid." It is hard not to remember the initial excitement that surrounded solar roadways a decade ago, which unraveled as realities such as the weight of traffic and maintenance requirements struck home. Solar railways, however, appear to be a success thus far, with the panels requiring little maintenance and producing the expected power. The next challenge is scaling it up. ®