The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has finished dismantling the SM-1 nuclear power plant at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, the Army’s first nuclear reactor and the first facility in the country to send nuclear-generated electricity into the commercial power grid. The Corps’ Baltimore District completed the last field work this year, closing out a project that […]

The U.S. Army has selected Fort Benning, Georgia, as one of five military bases that will host nuclear microreactors under a new Pentagon energy resilience initiative called the Janus Program, Army officials announced August 26, 2026. Fort Benning will pair with California-based Radiant Industries to install three of the company’s one-megawatt Kaleidos microreactors, adding a […]

When you see a listing for an Ethernet switch whose specification list is in effect ‘yes’, with a four-digit price tag when new, and with the seller asking for less than 10% of said $3,000 asking price in an ‘untested’ condition, the only rational thing to do is of course to mash that ‘buy’ button. This is what [This Does Not Compute] did, and created a video about to show what a great investment decision this was.

Naturally this Juniper EX4100-F-12P switch came without power supply brick for its 48VDC input. Figuring out its pin-out and probing said input showed that the voltage rails had been shorted, giving a first clue as to why this switch had been on sale for so very cheap. Bravely hoping that it would be a straightforward fix, the unit was disassembled.

With a 280 Watt power brick, it’s little wonder that the top of the unit is a one massive aluminium heatsink, including a large heatpipe. Also visible on the lid near the power input was a very-bad-news black skid mark.

From that first discovery the news just got worse and worse, with clear signs of water ingression, rust and corrosion, along with the aftermath of a powered circuit meeting such bad corrosion. After some clean-up it’s clear that some components had violently exploded, ripping apart layers of the PCB and likely parts of traces in those inner sections too.

With no schematics available and no other good repair options via Juniper or anywhere else, it seems that unfortunately this gamble turned out to be merely a pile of e-waste and a few bucks worth of scrap metal. Caveat emptor, once more.

For federal civilian agencies, the post-quantum cryptography migration clock is now ticking toward a major accountability deadline.

© Federal News Network

Tan wants smaller, American open-weight AI labs to use the same kind of training techniques on American frontier AI labs, giving the U.S. a more robust set of open-weight options that aren’t Chinese.

For a little while vacuum tubes and semiconductors were fighting a heated battle for dominance, with bipolar junction transistors and 1959’s RCA Nuvistor both allowing you to build a compact circuit with relatively low power usage and no high voltages. Although we now know that semiconductor technology won out overwhelmingly, that doesn’t mean that you cannot build a brand new Nuvistor board in 2026, as [Eric Schlaepfer] AKA [TubeTimeUS] recently did.

Nuvistors saw their most use in small-signal radio frequency applications, like VHF and UHF, with excellent low-noise characteristics that saw them used until the early 1970s in television sets, radios and oscilloscopes, as well as in space probes like the 1960s US Ranger Moon missions, so by that metric they had a good run.

Nothing so exciting is built in this video, sadly, but alongside a breakdown on how nuvistors work, we do see a discrete 555-style timer built using a gaggle of tetrode nuvistors, giving a pretty good idea of what using them in a project is like. Being a vacuum tube at its core, nuvistors still have the heater element, which is what gives vacuum tubes their reputation for being slow to start working and large current draw.

Despite their drawbacks, nuvistors still have a range of benefits compared to modern-day transistors, including being practically immune to electrostatic discharge (ESD) and electromagnetic interference (EMI) all the way up an EMP that will destroy most semiconductor electronics.

That said, the somewhat limited 8-nuvistor implementation of the 555 had to get a few extra pins for the heater supply, which burns up about 7.5 Watt just to allow the circuit to function. Terming it the ‘hollow-state 555 timer’, it works effectively just like any semiconductor 555, just with that extra power cost and of course no significant prospect of making it smaller, barring a semiconductor evolution as with the pixels-sized CRTs in the SED and FED type displays.

We covered the nuvistor before, including a great reference on this device, and its history that was much longer than people often assume today, as well as the vacuum tubes we use every day in for example our microwaves.

The revival in film photography has brought a range of specialist films to tempt the experimenter, as well as increased the popularity of loading your own cartridges. But perforating the film from blank stock has always been beyond the reach of home gamers. Now [Jon Schiereck] has done it, but not quite with film. He’s made a perforator for photographic paper, producing a strip which can be shot in a camera. It’s film, but it’s not exactly film.

The machine takes the form of a 3D printed mechanism which feeds a strip of photographic paper through a pair of punches to make the sprocket holes. In this case those holes are circular, being made by a pair of drill bits ground for the purpose, and they’re moved up and down by a crank driven by a set of gears from a hand crank or even a cordless drill. A rubber roller pulls the film forward.

It seems to be a well-thought-out machine, and you can try it yourself for free via a slightly unusual distribution medium, his Ko-Fi page. In case you’re worried about finding a slitter to make those 35mm paper strips, it seems he’s also working on a 3D printable one of those. So you can shoot on paper, and develop it just as you would a print.

If you’re further into extending what you can film through the use of a 3D printer, how about 8 mm movie film?

OPINION "Where do we put digital government? You know, all those billions we spend on consultants and legacy systems?" "Oh, that! Put it with sports and tourism. And something we're calling 'place'." It might be a fictional conversation between a SpAd* and a mandarin**, but in reality, the outcome is more or less the same. With the arrival of Andy Burnham as UK prime minister came a shake-up of responsibilities in Whitehall, leaving responsibility for science, technology, and government tech scattered across several departments and eliminating the dedicated technology ministerial role. Shortly after the changes were announced in July, Dame Chi Onwurah, chair of the House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, wrote to the government asking for an explanation. The government had yet to confirm what the new roles and responsibilities meant in practice, and there was no news on ministerial portfolios, she said. Now a joint letter from the ministers leading three departments attempts to answer Onwurah's questions. It brings clarity only by laying bare the government's confused thinking and lack of credibility. Take space, for example. The letter says BIST aims to "support companies from breakthrough ideas and research excellence through to commercialization, scaling and exporting, and to fortify the UK's global leadership in this space." When it comes to literal space, however, responsibility falls to Baroness Lloyd of Effra. A law and history graduate, Lloyd worked in Tony Blair's policy unit before becoming his deputy chief of staff. She will fit responsibility for the UK's public and private space sectors between her cyber, regulatory reform, corporate governance, and Insolvency Service duties. She will work across two departments: the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (BIST) and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). We're sure the role will afford plenty of time to help oversee the £7.8 billion of cross-government spending brought together under the new space strategy intended to cover orbital collision warnings, low Earth orbit communications, military intelligence, launch capabilities, and space science. The question is, where did technology go? Isn't space related to technology? Technology was in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. But that T is now Trade. The D that stood for Department in DSIT is gone; in DCMS, it stands for Digital. (The DWP and DHSC still keep their D for Department, for those wishing to understand that no rules apply here.) But what is digital? It underpins everything. "The technologies shaping our economy are also transforming how people create, communicate, learn, participate and access public services. By expanding DCMS's remit to include responsibility for tech sector oversight and digital, including: digital skills, digital infrastructure and connectivity, cyber security, and the delivery of a modern digital government, we are enabling DCMS to lead the transformation of public services while strengthening and growing the digital, cyber and information foundations on which our economy and society depend." OK, but why is the technology sector separated from science? If digital underpins everything, then it is also worryingly vague. Is it really closer to culture and media? A photographer might want to use Photoshop, but they don't need to know how the software works. The development of computer hardware and software has gone hand in hand with wider research. The World Wide Web and DeepMind both came out of university projects, not to mention one of the early modern computers, the Manchester Mark 1, developed at the University of Manchester with input from WWII code breaker Alan Turing. To further muddy the waters, Kanishka Narayan was appointed Minister of State for AI, a joint Cabinet Office and BIST role that comes with Cabinet attendance. Responsibility for science and technology is now spread across four departments. Chris McDonald, Minister of State for Science, Innovation and Investment, works jointly across BIST and the Department of Health and Social Care. Science sits with business and trade, but digital sits with "creative industries" and sport. Digital government – which has been in three departments over two years – gets a junior minister in the DCMS. Stephanie Peacock is expected to perform that role along with responsibility for sport, tourism, and place (which is not defined in the letter or elsewhere). It is questionable whether she will get the backing needed to confront big tech suppliers repeatedly feasting on government spending while other ministers court those same companies for investment. Her public announcements so far have focused more on Blackpool staycations and the Commonwealth Games than digital government. In their letter, the three ministers said the changes were necessary because "the UK stands at a critical juncture where unprecedented global changes demand that we secure our position as a world leader in AI, science and technology. In this context, we cannot see science and technology as an isolated issue, limited to one department. Instead it is a major priority that cuts across the whole of government and is vital to the UK's future economic prosperity." But the government's answer has been to break up the former technology department and scatter its responsibilities among portfolios where they will struggle for attention. As for tech in the public sector, we might hope the government will stop getting beaten up by suppliers, but we will be waiting a long time. ® * Special Advisor in the British civil service ** slang term for a senior UK civil servant

Britain's biggest trade union body wants workers to have the right to negotiate over AI before employers decide which parts of their jobs to hand over to machines. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has called on the government to give workers more say over how AI is introduced in the workplace, warning that its enthusiasm for the technology has yet to be matched by a practical plan for the people expected to work alongside it. In a letter to the new AI and Future of Work ministers, Kanishka Narayan and Kate Dearden, TUC general secretary Paul Nowak and assistant general secretary Kate Bell said the government's approach should be built around three principles: giving working people "a voice, rights, and a fair share." "The government is actively pursuing an AI strategy based on the assumption that these are transformative technologies," the pair wrote. "And you have acknowledged that AI technologies are changing the world of work, and that workers and their unions are key to shaping that change. "But we have not yet seen a practical plan that gives force to your acknowledgement that working people need to determine and benefit from AI-related change." Among the union body's demands is the right for workers to negotiate over the introduction of AI, including algorithmic and surveillance technologies that could affect their jobs or working conditions. TUC isn't arguing that employers should keep AI out of the workplace altogether. Its beef is with companies making those decisions while giving the people affected little or no say. "A comprehensive plan must include reforming corporate practices so that workers are stakeholders in firms, not merely inputs to be minimised using AI in the pursuit of short-term profits," Nowak and Bell wrote. "It means a right to negotiate on AI, empowering workers' expertise and interests as a prerequisite for any fair and effective AI adoption." TUC said the government's work on algorithmic and surveillance technologies will provide an early test of whether its stated commitment to workers amounts to much, arguing that workers need "a clear right to negotiate on technologies that risk undermining their dignity and conditions at work." It also had some words for employers who like the productivity part of the AI pitch rather more than the worker rights part. "For employers keen on AI but allergic to workers' rights, we would say it's notable that the Nordic countries have among the highest levels of AI adoption," the letter said. "A key factor is that these workers have more structural power to shape technology and are therefore more open to its effective use." Across the Atlantic, meanwhile, the TUC sees an example of what not to do. It pointed to the booming fortunes of tech billionaires and the declining share of wealth going to workers in the US, describing the result as a "chaotic billionaire-driven AI agenda." The union body also warned of political consequences if workers come to see AI primarily as a means of cutting jobs, wages, or bargaining power. "Working people winning a stake in the benefits of new technology can be a vital plank in this government's plan to deliver growth in every postcode," Nowak and Bell wrote. "Without this, AI disruption – real and perceived – will become ripe for exploitation by the far-right." For a government betting heavily on AI as an engine for economic growth, the TUC's message is fairly simple: if machines are going to transform work, perhaps the humans doing it should get a say too. ®

Expressif might not have intended the ESP32-S3 to become an emulation powerhouse, but that’s certainly what has happened. The little microcontroller seems perfect for recreating the Game Boys or Game Gears of years past, and there are a lot of software options to that end. Having grabbed firmware off a github repo, you still need a physical build to hold, and that’s where this one by [HVT Lab and Huy Vector] stands out.

As you can see, they’re letting everything hang out — not even in a 90s-inspired clear case, but with an open frame of soldered brass, with just a small strip of 2 mm clear acrylic to help stabilize the buttons. That appears to be held with cyanoacrylate glue, but it’s brass and solder doing the majority of the structural work here. We might be a little more confident tossing this lovely device in a bag or pocket if the whole device was boxed in with that acrylic — shorting the exposed power bus on your keys sounds like a bummer — but we can’t argue with the aesthetic vision here. It’s a lovely build on the physical end.

From the video it looks like the software is based on Retro-Go, which we’ve seen in use before. In any case, there are plenty of open source projects you could load onto the ESP32-S3 powering this circuit sculpture, though, from NES to IBM PC.

The Big F Awards Celebrates Culinary and Hospitality Excellence at its 13th Edition

A rigorous, independent evaluation process continues to define the credibility of The Big F Awards

New Delhi, 10th September: The 13th edition of The Big F Awards concluded at The Westin, Gurgaon, bringing together accomplished professionals, emerging talent and enterprising brands from across India’s culinary and hospitality landscape. More than a celebration of achievement, this year’s edition reaffirmed the platform’s core principle: recognition must be earned through a credible and rigorous evaluation process.

At the heart of The Big F Awards is a jury-led approach designed to place merit ahead of visibility, reputation or commercial scale. The awards follow a structured and independent evaluation process, with entries assessed through successive rounds of screening and scoring against defined parameters including originality, execution, consistency, quality and sectoral relevance. The framework is designed to ensure that every participant is assessed on the strength of their work, rather than their profile, popularity or market presence.

The jury for the 13th edition comprised Chef Nita Mehta, Chef Kunal Kapur, Chef Ashish Bhasin, Chef Sabyasachi Gorai, Pawan Soni, Diwan Gautam Anand, Sameer Bawa, Khurafati Nitin, Rocky Singh and Anirudh Singhal. Bringing together experience across cuisine, hospitality, media and business, the panel applied a common evaluation framework to assess the nominees and arrive at the final results.

Importantly, the process is built to create a level playing field. Commercial size, public visibility and geographical location do not determine recognition. The platform actively seeks to bring deserving work into consideration, including independent ventures, emerging professionals, newer businesses and establishments that may not always receive the same visibility as larger or more established names.

The awards also maintain a clear separation between participation and recognition. There are no nomination fees and no pay-to-participate mechanisms, reinforcing the principle that an award should be a result of merit rather than commercial participation. Winners are not disclosed in advance, with the final results remaining confidential until they are announced at the awards ceremony.

Speaking after the ceremony, Pawan Soni, Host & Jury member, The Big F Awards, said, “Thirteen editions have reinforced our belief that credibility cannot be created through a trophy or an announcement; it comes from the process behind it. This year, in the 6-month long process the jury evaluated nominations with the same discipline across categories, looking closely at the work, its consistency, execution and relevance. What stood out was the diversity of talent—from established names to smaller ventures and professionals receiving national recognition for the first time. That is precisely what we want The Big F Awards to stand for: a platform where deserving work has an opportunity to be recognised on merit, irrespective of visibility or scale.”

The 13th edition saw participation from independent ventures, established organisations, chefs, restaurateurs and emerging businesses across multiple regions and formats. The broad participation model reflects the awards’ continued effort to identify and recognise excellence beyond conventional industry circles.

The recipients included Megu, who won League of Legends Awards, followed by Nisaba in the Noteworthy Newcomer category. Inja received the Restaurant of the Year distinction, while Best Cocktail Bar, Cocktail Menu of the year and Best Debut Bar were presented to AaBbCc.concept. Further honours went to Porus Arora for Restaurateur of the Year and Sahil Sambhi for Nightlife Entrepreneur of the Year.

Highlights from the evening included Chef Manish Mehrotra, Chef Harpal Singh Sokhi, Rocky Singh, Rocky Mohan, Chef Manisha Bhasin, Zorawar Kalra, Sid Jalan amongst other dignitaries attending the presentation ceremony.

As The Big F Awards closes its 13th edition, its focus remains unchanged: to build recognition around work that stands up to scrutiny. The platform will continue to expand its outreach for the next edition, bringing a wider pool of professionals, establishments and businesses into a process where credibility, consistency and merit remain at the centre of recognition.

About The Big F Awards

The Big F Awards is a Delhi NCR-based platform recognising excellence across the food and hospitality industry through a rigorous and independent evaluation process. Founded on the belief that credible recognition must be rooted in process rather than perception, the awards follow a structured jury-led evaluation framework, with entries assessed against defined parameters. The platform maintains a zero nomination fee and no pay-to-participate policy, ensuring that recognition remains independent of commercial participation. Over 13 editions, The Big F Awards has sought to create a credible platform that recognises established as well as emerging talent based on the merit of their work.

Given below is the complete list of winners:

Given below is the complete list of winners:

The Big F Awards 2026 – Winners

• The League of Legend Award was presented to Megu at The Leela Palace Delhi.
• Habeeb ur Rehman Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Sourish Bhattacharya.
• The Arvind Saraswat Young Chef Award was presented to Chef Priyansh Sakariya.

Indian Cuisines

• In the Coastal category, the Jury Award went to sana-di-ge, while the Popular Award went to The Malabar Coast.
• In the North Indian category, the Jury Award went to Gulati Restaurant, while the Popular Award went to Karigari by Chef Harpal Singh Sokhi.
• In the Modern Indian category, the Jury Award went to Avartana (ITC Maurya), while the Popular Award went to Anardana.
• In the South Indian category, the Jury Award went to HOSA, while the Popular Award went to Dakshin (Sheraton Delhi).
• In the Other Indian Regional Cuisines category, the Jury Award went to Royal Afghan (ITC Grand Bharat), while the Popular Award went to Yeti – The Himalayan Kitchen.

World Cuisine

• The All-Day Dining in a 5-Star Hotel Jury Award went to Tamra (Shangri-La Eros New Delhi), while the Popular Award went to Seasonal Tastes (The Westin).
• The BBQ & Grills Jury Award went to The Pit Smoked & Grilled, while the Popular Award went to TGIFRIDAYS.
• The Café (With Alcohol) Jury Award went to OLLY – Olive’s All Day Café & Bar, while the Popular Award went to Cafe Delhi Heights.
• The Café (Without Alcohol) Jury Award went to Theos, while the Popular Award went to DIGGIN.
• The Chinese Jury Award went to Shang Palace (Shangri-La Eros New Delhi), while the Popular Award went to China Garden.
• The European Cuisine Jury Award went to Latango, while the Popular Award went to United Coffee House.
• The Japanese/Korean Jury Award went to Hahn’s Kitchen, while the Popular Award went to Kofuku.
• The Pan Asian Jury Award went to Yum Yum Cha, while the Popular Award went to YouMee.
• The Thai/Vietnamese and Other World Cuisine Jury Award went to Soy Neung Roi (Radisson Delhi Airport), while the Popular Award went to Mamagoto.

The Big F Awards Special

• The Bakery/Patisserie Jury Award went to L’Opera, while the Popular Award went to The Big Chill Cakery. 
• The Best Butter Chicken Jury Award went to Kalanji, while the Popular Award went to Havemore Restaurant.
• The Home Baker Jury Award went to Dessert Art (Deepali Mahajan), while the Popular Award went to Glaze N Gourmet (Deeksha Ahuja).
• The Home Chef Jury Award went to A Southside Story (Rekha Rigo) and Aman-E-Mithaas (Puplee Bedi), while the Popular Award went to Saffron by Archie (Archana Dhawan).
• The Delivery Only Outlets Jury Award went to Noshi – Yum Asian Delivery, while the Popular Award went to Louis Burger.
• The Pizzeria Jury Award went to Pizzeria Da Susy, while the Popular Award went to Tossin Pizza.
• The Terrace/Outdoor Dining Jury Award went to AARAMgarh, while the Popular Award went to Swan.
• The Best In-House PR/Agency Jury Award went to Pawan Hora (Wishbox Studio), while the Popular Award went to Vibhuti Sood.
• The Bar Team of the Year Jury Award went to Prateek Gusain (Kimikrai: Umami House), while the Popular Award went to Sandesh Tamang (Sidecar).
• The Noteworthy Newcomer of the Year Jury Award went to Nisaba, while the Popular Award went to Tan Yan.
• The Restaurant of the Year Jury Award went to INJA, while the Popular Award went to Japonico.
• The Restaurateur of the Year Jury Award went to Porus Arora, while the Popular Award went to Vikrant Batra.
• The Nightlife Entrepreneur of the Year Jury Award went to Sahil Sambhi, while the Popular Award went to Dinesh Arora.

Nightlife

• The Cocktail Bar Jury Award went to Aabbcc.concept, while the Popular Award went to Vietnam.
• The Cocktail Menu of the Year Jury Award went to Aabbcc.concept, while the Popular Award went to Farzi Café.
• The Debut Bar Jury Award went to Aabbcc.concept, while the Popular Award went to She’s Here.
• The Micro Brewery Jury Award went to Fort City Brewing, while the Popular Award went to Beerlin.
• The Place for Gigs Jury Award went to Diablo, while the Popular Award went to Chica.
• The Pub/Bar Jury Award went to Rick’s (Taj Mahal, New Delhi), while the Popular Award went to Japonico.
• The Rooftop Bar Jury Award went to HauzKhas Social, while the Popular Award went to Molecule.
• The Theme Restaurant/Bar/Pub Jury Award went to Nadoo, while the Popular Award went to Sly Granny.
• The Night Clubs Jury Award went to Thanks & Beyond, while the Popular Award went to Story Club & Lounge (The Westin)

Four defense-tech companies integrated an AI-enabled sensor, an unmanned helicopter, Ukrainian-made interceptor drones and tactical radios into a single counter-drone system, then tested it at U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, during a Pentagon exercise called Falcon Peak 26.2. DataShapes AI, Evolved Aerospace, General Cherry and Persistent Systems built the combined system in about three […]

The UK government opposed a proposal to make air traffic control provider NATS reimburse airlines for passenger compensation arising from its failures, weeks before a massive tech glitch led to 2,000 flight cancellations. During a House of Commons debate, Liberal Democrat MP Luke Taylor pointed out that the government had opposed the amendment in the months before this week's computer outage, which disrupted travel for around 330,000 passengers. The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) told affected passengers: "We consider that disruption caused by the NATS outage is likely to be considered the result of 'extraordinary circumstances' under passenger rights rules. "This means that although passengers should be looked after by airlines, they are unlikely to be entitled to compensation for delays or cancellations that were directly caused by the incident." NATS is a public-private partnership in which the government owns 49 percent and a consortium of airlines holds 42 percent. Computer outages have hit the organization three times in three years, beginning with an August 2023 failure that disrupted hundreds of thousands of passengers. NATS said it had fixed the latest technical problem, but warned that the resulting disruption could continue for several days. Taylor told MPs that after earlier NATS computer problems, the government said it had been assured that "NATS took the necessary steps to prevent a recurrence of those particular circumstances." He explained that while the Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill was passing through the House of Lords, Lord Young of Cookham had proposed an amendment that would require NATS to reimburse airlines for compensation paid to passengers following cancellations caused by its failures. The government opposed the amendment, which Lord Young subsequently withdrew. Taylor quoted the government's earlier response that it had been "able to place considerable pressure on" NATS. Taylor told MPs: "Following the third major failure of our airspace management in the past three years, it is imperative that this Bill is amended to include measures to stop that happening again. NATS is quite clearly not fit for purpose. We cannot suffer a major air traffic outage once a year." Also speaking in the debate, transport secretary Heidi Alexander said she had asked the CAA to conduct an independent review into the cause of the failure and report within six months. NATS was also ordered to give the CAA an initial account of the failure within a week. The minister told MPs that she did "not believe this issue was unavoidable." In a statement yesterday, NATS said: "Our operations are stable and we continue to work closely with airlines and airports to support their recovery from the ongoing disruption to their operations. We would also like to reiterate our apology to all those affected – passengers, airlines and airports – by our system issue. While our immediate focus is on safely managing today's flights, a full investigation will be conducted to establish what happened and identify any further action needed." Ryanair, meanwhile, called for NATS CEO Martin Rolfe to resign after "yet another UK ATC system failure caused widespread delays and cancellations across UK airspace… disrupting over 65,000 Ryanair passengers and cancelling over 50 scheduled flights." Wizz Air said in a statement that it was "extremely disappointed that another NATS technical failure has caused widespread disruption across the UK aviation network. Passengers are once again facing delays and cancellations because of a failure entirely outside airlines' control." It added: "This is not the first time NATS has failed during a peak summer period, and here we go again. A critical national infrastructure provider should not repeatedly bring the aviation system to a standstill." ®

The Philips PM5139 is not famous. It won no great victories on the battlefield, nor was instrumental in changing the political landscape. It was just a useful function generator that you might find on a workbench somewhere, doing its job quietly and relatively accurately. [doctormord] has been doing the work to reverse engineer this humble piece of hardware.

The PM5139 is poorly documented; the only existing service manual out there is for the PM5138A, a less-capable sister model. Hence, there was some value in reverse engineering the device to understand it better. Work started with two EPROM dumps capturing what Philips put in the box all the way back in the early 1990s. From there, the code was examined and tinkered with until [doctormord] felt confident to modify it and improve upon what was already there. This was achieved with the aid of an 8051 emulator that could run the code to make it obvious what was going on. The result was a custom “V2.0” firmware that adds six arbitrary waveforms to the function generator and the ability to play simple music, amongst other tweaks.

We love to see old hardware given new functionality, even decades down the line, and we love some good reverse engineering, too. Video after the break.

The UK government has told MPs that Fujitsu has promised not to pursue contracts with new public sector customers through frameworks potentially worth billions of pounds while its voluntary bidding moratorium remains in place. In July, The Register revealed that the Japanese supplier had won a place on a UK government framework worth up to £14.9 billion despite its role in the Post Office Horizon scandal, one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in modern times. The supplier's place on the Digital Outcomes and Specialists 7 (DOS7) framework came after it won spots on two other frameworks, including Technology Services 4, worth up to £19.08 billion, and Transport Technology worth around £2.3 billion. In January 2024, Fujitsu voluntarily committed to stop bidding for contracts with new government customers until the public inquiry into the Horizon scandal had concluded. After Fujitsu secured places on the three government frameworks, House of Commons Business and Trade Committee chair Liam Byrne wrote to the government seeking assurance that the company would not use them to pursue work from new public sector customers. He also asked what discussions the government had held with Fujitsu about its participation and compliance with the moratorium. Horizon is an EPOS and back-end finance system that was first implemented in the 1990s by ICL, a UK tech firm majority-owned by Fujitsu at the time and fully acquired in 1998. It has since undergone two upgrades. Between 1999 and 2015, the Post Office prosecuted 700 subpostmasters in cases in which Horizon evidence may have featured, while almost 300 more cases were brought by other bodies. Hundreds were wrongfully convicted, devastating lives in the process. A statutory inquiry into the scandal was launched in 2021 and remains ongoing. The inquiry's first report said the families of at least 13 people believed their deaths by suicide were linked to their experiences with Horizon and the Post Office. Fujitsu has apologized for its role in the scandal. Frameworks are procurement vehicles that let public bodies buy from pre-approved suppliers under agreed terms, although a place on one does not guarantee any work. The Government Commercial Agency (GCA) – which replaced the Crown Commercial Service – is the Cabinet Office agency that manages the framework and receives a 1 percent levy on sales made through it. In a letter published this week, Cabinet Office Parliamentary Secretary Mark Ferguson said: "While appointment to a GCA framework, such as DOS7, places a supplier on a list of approved providers, Fujitsu has assured the GCA that its voluntary moratorium fully applies to call-off contract opportunities that arise via its participation on GCA frameworks. Consequently, inclusion on a framework does not override Fujitsu's commitment not to seek work with new public sector customers." He added that the GCA monitors Fujitsu's compliance with its self-imposed bidding restrictions and that agency officials were in regular contact with the company to oversee its framework activity. "To date, GCA can confirm that Fujitsu have kept to these self-imposed restrictions," Ferguson wrote. In April 2025, The Register revealed that Fujitsu had won a £125 million contract to build Northern Ireland's new land registry system for the Department of Finance, a new government customer, more than a year after its voluntary moratorium came into effect. At the time, a spokesperson for Fujitsu told The Register: "Fujitsu was named preferred bidder for this contract in 2023, before the voluntary restrictions came into place." Fujitsu's 2024 letter said the company would assess its continued involvement in procurements that were already underway when the moratorium began. However, it also said Fujitsu would bid for work with a new government customer only if asked to do so. Fujitsu said it had been named preferred bidder for the Northern Ireland contract before introducing the restrictions. The Northern Ireland government subsequently confirmed to The Register that it had not asked the company to continue bidding. Ferguson's letter does not explain how that award was reconciled with Fujitsu's undertaking. The Register has asked the Cabinet Office for clarification. ®

U.S. soldiers trained on a counter-drone defense system during a course at the Combined Arms Training Center in Grafenwoehr, Germany, the U.S. Mission to NATO said in a social media post. The training center, known as CATC, is run by the 7th Army Training Command and offers close to 60 courses for U.S. troops, ranging […]

One of the few proven use cases for generative AI is automating customer service inquiries to reduce costs even further than it’s been possible to achieve by offshoring jobs to low-wage companies like the Philippines – which yesterday bet that its outsourcing industry will thrive even as it plans a massive investment in AI. The nation’s government yesterday delivered the PAIIM – aka the Philippines AI+ Infrastructure Masterplan [PDF], a policy that calls for $34.4 billion of investment in infrastructure, connectivity, and datacenters. Current government programs and private investments dedicated to funding network and energy spending already cover $18.2 billion of the planned spend. The government hopes the remainder “will be mobilized through targeted public investment and private sector participation, particularly for hyperscale AI datacenter infrastructure.” The plan assumes private enterprise will invest $21 billion of the total spend. The likes of Amazon, Google and Microsoft currently spend roughly $20 billion on AI infrastructure each quarter. Chinese clouds also expect to spend tens of billions each year. The Philippines is bidding for less than a month of their combined spending to fuel its national plan. The Philippines’ government nonetheless thinks this plan will turn the nation into a regional AI hub and see the national datacenter fleet surge from today’s 50MW to 1.5 GW by 2033, and for the new bit barns to house around 152,000 GPUs. Again, these are small numbers: American and Chinese AI players have committed to acquire and operate millions of GPUs that require multiple gigawatts of energy. Government officials said the plan means the Philippines can compete with regional competitors Singapore and Thailand. They didn’t mention nearby Malaysia, where the Johor datacenter province already has almost 4GW of datacenter projects in place, with similar capacity in the planning and construction pipeline. Citizens have been told that the plan will see over 1.3 million professionals receive training on how to use AI, and will generate half a million AI-related jobs – 175,000 of them working on AI infrastructure projects. “These investments will further produce spillover benefits such as improved public service delivery, greater international connectivity for all businesses, and enhanced cybersecurity and data governance frameworks in line with global best practices,” the plan promises. Those outcomes are made possible, the plan suggests, by the fact that the nation already has a million-strong tech workforce – including its outsourcing industry that will apparently both make the AI plan possible and benefit from it. “PAIIM does not position AI as a replacement for the Philippine IT-BPM industry;” the policy document states. “Rather, it enables the sector to move up the value chain by using AI for first-level, repetitive, and data-intensive interactions while empowering Filipino workers to handle complex, empathy-driven, and higher-value customer experience functions.” That’s a very old assumption about the impact of automation on customer service. Yet the Philippines owes the existence of its business process outsourcing industry to the fact that automation alone didn’t drive down the cost of customer service to levels that some businesses were willing to pay. And AI will likely enable even more automation at even lower costs. ®

— Telecom giant T-Mobile announced that Jessica Uhl will join as chief financial officer-designate later this month, and succeed Peter Osvaldik as CFO in February. Uhl served as CFO of Shell and worked for the global oil and energy giant for more than 17 years. She joins T-Mobile from GE Vernova, where she was president.

“I am thrilled to welcome Jessica to T-Mobile,” Srini Gopalan, president and CEO of T-Mobile said in a statement. “She brings deep financial and strategic acumen, capital allocation expertise and an innovative growth mindset that is a perfect fit for T-Mobile’s next era.”

Osvaldik will transition to strategic advisor and retire from T-Mobile in July. He joined the company in 2016 and became chief financial officer in 2020. Osvaldik’s tenure “has been defined by disciplined financial stewardship, consistent financial outperformance, and an unwavering commitment to T-Mobile’s mission,” the company said.

The move marks the latest leadership shakeup at the Bellevue, Wash.-based company. Mike Katz, T-Mobile’s chief business and product officer, announced his departure in July, and Chris Sambar was named chief enterprise officer. T-Mobile has cut 470 jobs in its home state this year and closed numerous retail locations.

— Brent Colburn, Microsoft‘s vice president of global public affairs, is resigning after three years, effective mid-October.

“Stepping away from Microsoft is not a decision that I made lightly, but ultimately it is the right one for me and my family,” said Colburn, who has been commuting weekly between his home in Oakland, Calif., and Microsoft’s Redmond, Wash., headquarters.

Colburn’s career has spanned leadership roles in government, academia and philanthropy. That includes serving as principal advisor to the secretary of defense for communications and chief of staff to then-Secretary Shaun Donovan. More recent roles include communications vice president for the University of California in Oakland, Princeton University and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

— After nearly 13 years, Audrey Powers has left Blue Origin, the aerospace company founded by Jeff Bezos that develops reusable rockets, spacecraft and rocket engines. She was on Blue Origin’s October 2021 spaceflight that also carried “Star Trek” star William Shatner and two others.

“Hopefully, I’ve helped change peoples’ impressions of rockets (they land, too), astronauts (they are everyone), and our Earth,” Powers said, adding that she was sad to leave, but grateful that she took a chance on “a little startup no one had heard of.”

Powers held the title of deputy and vice president of the New Shepard Business Unit, which is the program that carries people and research payloads into suborbital space. She is an attorney who has previously worked at NASA as a flight controller and as a senior systems engineer at Lockheed Martin.

— Michael Levi has joined AZX as chief commercial officer of the Bellevue-based startup, which works with utilities and other industries to build in-house AI technologies supporting their missions.

Levi is based in San Francisco and was previously vice president of marketing and growth for KloudGin, where he helped reposition the company’s field service software into an AI-native platform for utilities and the public sector. He earlier founded L1CG, a go-to-market advisory, and has held leadership roles in energy, renewables, supply chain and fintech.

— Jason Alafgani was named head of marketing for Caddi, a Seattle startup that launched out of AI2 Incubator and is automating basic business operations with generative AI. Alafgani is the co-founder of startups including the podcast company Jellypod and worked as marketing leader for Appwrite, Dodgeball, Mode and others.

— Dr. Amir Iravani has joined Los Angeles-based UCLA Health as director of the theranostics program, which focuses on treating cancer using targeted radiation therapy. Iravani previously served as theranostics clinical director at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle and was an associate professor of radiology at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

— Portland Metro Region Innovation Hub has hired Kelly Lyons as director of the organization, which provides networking, coaching, funding and other support to entrepreneurs. Lyons is the founder of two startups and has served in leadership at Core Education, Umpqua Bank and Development House, a social services nonprofit.

— DigiStor, a Vancouver, Wash.-based provider of secure data-at-rest protection solutions, appointed Michael Callahan to its board of directors. Callahan co-founded Awake Security and PolyServe, which was acquired by HP.

Britain's publicly owned energy system operator has awarded Palantir a £21.2 million contract without competition, extending a relationship that began under private ownership three years earlier. The National Energy System Operator (NESO) handed the US spy-tech firm the £17.7 million contract – £21.2 million including VAT – to continue licensing and supporting two "critical business processes," Connections and Skip Rates, running on its Foundry platform. NESO said it was preparing a competitive procurement for a replacement platform but needed to continue working with Palantir in the meantime to avoid disruption to customer-facing services and regulatory obligations. "A contract will be put in place to enable continuity of the existing critical platform services whilst a competitive procurement is undertaken," a tender notice said. The organization has already begun sounding out potential suppliers. "Palantir possesses the specialist knowledge, technical expertise and the system knowledge required to maintain and support the solution effectively," the notice said. The Financial Times reported that the original contract began in March 2023 but was not publicly disclosed. NESO said it was part of National Grid at the time and therefore did not publish the contract award notice. A NESO spokesperson told us: "Palantir has supported both connections and skip rates since the original contract was put in place by National Grid ESO in March 2023 and transferred to NESO at separation from National Grid and, while this extension provides continuity of these services as NESO develops procures any long-term solution through a competitive procurement process, it does not determine the future supplier of these services." Palantir told The Reg: “We’re proud to be supporting Neso’s efforts to improve energy efficiency, drive down costs and transition to net zero.” The new contract is due to run from September 8, 2026, until July 31, 2027, with six-month extensions available until July 31, 2028. "Due to the complexity of legacy data structures and potential security, data quality, or regulatory compliance issues, the data modelling process may encounter unforeseen challenges. Should these risks materialize and impact data integrity, security, regulatory compliance and/or the successful transition of services, the contract may be modified, including to extend the transition timeline," the notice said. NESO was established under the Energy Act 2023 as an operationally independent public corporation responsible for coordinating and planning Great Britain's electricity and gas systems. It is wholly owned by the government but funded through regulated industry charges. According to a "preliminary market engagement notice," it has begun discussions with suppliers about a new Strategic Enterprise Modelling Capability. The proposed platform would provide enterprise-wide modeling, decision support, audit trails showing how source data informed decisions, and tools for comparing scenarios. The notice, published last month, also mentions "AI-enabled innovation." The resulting contract is expected to begin on July 31, 2027, and run until July 2032, with a possible two-year extension. The procurement path has echoes of Palantir's route to the NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP). Following a competitive process, the company won the principal contract, worth up to £330 million ($412 million), while several consultancies secured related awards. That award followed £60 million in contracts handed to the US company during and after the pandemic, some without competition. Critics argued that Palantir's incumbency allowed it to influence the later procurement and gave it an unfair advantage. The NHS maintained that the FDP competition was fair and open. ®

The UK government has considered the evidence and concluded that it spends far too much time considering the evidence. In a letter sent to all ministers on Monday, Chancellor John Healey, First Secretary of State Louise Haigh, and Attorney General Ellie Reeves said "consultation culture" had become an "industry of dither and delay" and told departments that the default should be to make a decision and get on with it. The ministers argued that formal consultations too often fail to reach those with the most relevant perspectives and can drag policies towards a "lowest common denominator outcome." The proposed cure is fewer formal consultations. These should generally take place only when legally required, when not holding one would be "conspicuously unfair," or when ministers decide there is a good reason to seek outside input that way. Previous promises to consult aren't necessarily safe either. Departments have been told to consider each case afresh rather than assume that past consultations or commitments require another. The government also wants to start removing what it says are thousands of unnecessary consultation and reporting requirements from the statute book. Its starting position is that these requirements should be repealed and retained "only by exception," with departments asked to look for opportunities to bin them through legislation already in the works. This is separate from Whitehall's other effort to wean itself off consultants, although the timing invites comparison. The government promised in 2024 to tighten controls on consultancy spending and deliver annual savings of £1.2 billion by 2026. As The Register reported in July, that didn't stop the Home Office from awarding Deloitte and PA Consulting contracts worth up to £200 million and £150 million respectively for data and analytics services. The National Audit Office also warned last year that the Treasury lacked comprehensive data on consultancy spending, while Parliament's Public Accounts Committee said in March that departments weren't complying with Cabinet Office controls designed to rein it in. Consultations aren't consultancies, of course. One involves asking interested parties what they think before making policy; the other can involve paying them rather a lot of money for their advice. Whitehall appears keen to cut down on both. The new drive doesn't stop at consultation. Ministers are also being encouraged to accept a higher risk of legal challenge when pushing ahead with policy. The letter says that where there is a "tenable legal argument," ministers can choose to proceed even when government lawyers assess the legal risk as high. Guidance for government lawyers is due to be updated this week to make that explicit. Judicial review is getting attention too. The government wants to extend reforms limiting challenges to nationally significant infrastructure projects beyond energy schemes to transport, water, and other major developments. Having identified consultation, legal caution, and judicial review as obstacles, Whitehall will now begin the traditionally straightforward business of changing Whitehall. ®