Porsche made an announcement Friday. In Europe they sold more electrified Porsches last year than pure combustion-engined models, reports Electrek: in Europe, a majority (57.9%) of Porsche's deliveries were plug-ins, with 1/3 of its European sales being fully electric. For models that have no fully electric version but do have a PHEV (Cayenne and Panamera), the plug-in hybrid version dominated sales.

Of particular note, the Macan sold better with an electric powertrain than it did with a gas one, and was the company's strongest-selling model line and the line with the largest sales growth. The Macan sold 84,328 units globally (up 2% from last year), with 45,367 (53.8%) of those being electric. That 53.8% may seem like a slim majority, but when compared to EV sales globally, it's incredibly high. About a quarter of new cars sold globally were electric in 2025, so Porsche is beating that number with the one model where direct comparisons are available.

And even in the US, about a third of Macans sold were electric. That's notable given the tough year EVs had in the US, with it being the only major car-buying region that experienced a tick down in EV sales... And again, while 1/3 is a minority of Macan sales in the US, it's also well over the US' average ~10% EV sales. So it's clear the EV Macan isn't just performing like an average EV, but well beyond it.
The article adds that "we're quite excited about the Cayenne EV, which will be the most powerful Porsche ever."

The senior editor at the blog Windows Central decries two serious Windows issues "that were not spotted by Microsoft during testing, and are so severe that the company has now issued an emergency fix to address the problems." Microsoft's first update for Windows 11 in 2026 has already caused two major issues that saw users unable to fully shutdown their PCs or sign-in into a device when using Remote Desktop... Being unable to shut down your PC due to a recent OS update is a huge oversight on Microsoft's part, but this is the latest in a long list of updates over the last year to cause a major issue like this... Other issues that have cropped up in Windows 11 in the last year include a bug that caused Task Manager to fail to close when the user exited the application, causing system resources to lock up after a prolonged period of time if the user had opened and closed Task Manager multiple times in a session. Another update caused saw File Explorer flashbang users with a white screen when opening it in dark mode, which appeared in an update that was supposed to improve dark mode on Windows 11...

For whatever reason, the Windows Insider Program doesn't appear to be working anymore, as severe bugs are somehow making it into shipping versions of the OS.
"The out of band updates, KB5077744 and KB5077797, are available now via Windows Update and is rolling out to everybody," they write. "Once installed, your PC should go back to being able to shut down successfully, and signing-in via Remote Desktop should work again."

Microsoft has also officially acknowledged a third bug which crashes Outlook Classic when using POP accounts, according to the blog Windows Latest, which adds that that bug has not yet been fixed.

They've also identified other minor bugs, including "a black screen problem in Windows 11 KB5074109... either due to the update itself or some compatibility issues with GPU drivers." After you install the January 2026 Update, Windows triggers random black screens where the desktop freezes for a second or two, the display goes black, then everything comes back. I can't pinpoint any specific configuration, but I can confirm the black screen issue has been observed on a small subset of PCs with both Nvidia and AMD GPUs. After you install the January 2026 Update, Windows triggers random black screens where the desktop freezes for a second or two, the display goes black, then everything comes back.

Slashdot reader BrianFagioli writes: Acer has filed three separate patent infringement lawsuits against AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, taking the unusual step of hauling the nation's largest wireless carriers into federal court. The suits, filed in the Eastern District of Texas, claim the companies are using Acer-developed cellular networking technology without paying for the privilege. Acer says it tried to negotiate licenses for years but reached a dead end, arguing it was left with no option except litigation. The case centers on six U.S. patents Acer asserts are core to modern wireless networks, rather than anything tied to PCs or laptops.

The company describes itself as reluctant to pursue courtroom battles, but it has been quietly building a large global patent portfolio after pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into R&D. Acer also notes that some of its patents count as standard-essential, hinting the carriers may be required to license them. All three companies are expected to push back, and the dispute could become another long-running telecom patent saga. Consumers will not notice any immediate changes, but if Acer wins or settles, it may find a new revenue stream far beyond its traditional hardware business.
Further coverage from Hot Hardware

European satellite operator Eutelsat "plans to launch 440 Airbus-built LEO satellites in the coming years to replenish and expand its constellation," Reuters reported Friday. And last week America's Federal Communications Commission approved SpaceX's request to deploy another 7,500 Starlink satellites, while Starlink "projects it will eventually have a constellation of 34,000 satellites," writes Fast Company, and Amazon's Project Leo "plans to launch more than 3,200 satellites."

Meanwhile "Beijing and some Chinese companies are planning two separate mega-constellations, Guowang and G60 Starlink, totaling nearly 26,000 satellites," and this week the Chinese government "applied for launch permits for 200,000 satellites."

But a small Texas-based company called AST SpaceMobile "believes it can provide better service with fewer than 100 gigantic satellites in space." AST SpaceMobile has developed a direct-to-cell technology that utilizes large satellites called BlueBirds. These machines use thousands of antennas to deliver broadband coverage directly to standard mobile phones, says the company's president, Scott Wisniewski. "This approach is remarkably efficient: We can achieve global coverage with approximately 90 satellites, not thousands or even tens of thousands required by other systems," Wisniewski writes in an email...

The key is its satellites' size and sophistication. AST's first generation of commercial satellite, the BlueBird 1-5, unfolds into a massive 693-square-foot array in space. Today, the company has five operational BlueBird 1-5 satellites in orbit, but its ambitions are much bigger. On December 24, 2025, AST launched the first of its next-generation satellites from India — called Block 2 — and this one broke records. The BlueBird 6 has a surface of almost 2,400 square feet, making it the largest single satellite in low Earth orbit. The company plans to launch up to 60 more by the end of 2026. "This large surface area is essential for gathering faint signals from standard, unmodified mobile phones on the ground," Wisniewski explains. It is essentially a single, extremely powerful and sensitive cell tower in the sky, capable of serving a huge geographical area...

To be clear, AST SpaceMobile's approach is not without its own controversies. The sheer size of the company's satellites makes them incredibly bright in the night sky, a significant source of frustration for ground-based astronomers. McDowell confirms that when it launched in 2022, AST's prototype satellite, BlueWalker 3, became "one of the top 10 brightest objects in the night sky for a while."

"It's a serious issue, and we are working directly with the astronomy community to mitigate our impact," Wisniewski says. The company is exploring solutions like anti-reflective coatings and operational adjustments to minimize the time its satellites are at maximum brightness...
AST SpaceMobile has already proven its technology works, the article points out, with six working satellites now transmitting at typical 5G speeds directly to regular phones.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post: The U.S. Department of Transportation brought an automated bus to D.C. this week to showcase its work on self-driving vehicles, taking officials from around the country on a ride between agency headquarters at Navy Yard and Union Station. One of those trips was interrupted Sunday when the bus got rear-ended.

The bus, produced by the company Beep, was following its fixed route when it was struck by a Tesla with Maryland plates whose driver was trying to change lanes, officials said. The bus had a human driver behind the wheel for backup as required by the city. The Tesla driver stayed on the scene on H Street for about 10 minutes. No police were called.

"The service was temporarily paused after another vehicle made an illegal lane change and contacted the rear of the autonomous bus, which resulted in minor cosmetic damage to both vehicles," a spokesman for Beep said in a statement. "The autonomous bus operated appropriately in the moment and, after review, it was determined the autonomous bus was safe to resume service."

Beep is working with the [U.S.] Transportation Department and Carnegie Mellon University on a pilot program of automated public buses. The vehicle was brought to D.C. for an annual conference that brings together transportation researchers and policymakers...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Nearly five million social media accounts belonging to Australian teenagers have been deactivated or removed, a month after a landmark law barring those younger than 16 from using the services took effect, the government said on Thursday. The announcement was the first reported metric reflecting the rollout of the law, which is being closely watched by several other countries weighing whether the regulation can be a blueprint for protecting children from the harms of social media, or a cautionary tale highlighting the challenges of such attempts.

The law required 10 social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Reddit, to prevent users under 16 from accessing their services. Under the law, which came into force in December, failure by the companies to take "reasonable steps" to remove underage users could lead to fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars, about $33 million. [...] The number of removed accounts offered only a limited picture of the ban's impact. Many teenagers have said in the weeks since the law took effect that they were able to get around the ban by lying about their age, or that they could easily bypass verification systems.

The regulator tasked with enforcing and tracking the law, the eSafety Commissioner, did not release a detailed breakdown beyond announcing that the companies had "removed access" to about 4.7 million accounts belonging to children under 16. Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, said this week that it had removed almost 550,000 accounts of users younger than 16 before the ban came into effect. "Change doesn't happen overnight," said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. "But these early signs show it's important we've acted to make this change."

A recent Microsoft Patch Tuesday update has introduced a bug in Windows 11 23H2 that causes some PCs to refuse to shut down or hibernate, "no matter how many times you try," reports The Register. From the report: In a notice on its Windows release health dashboard, Microsoft confirmed that some PCs running Windows 11 23H2 might fail to power down properly after installing the latest security updates. Instead of slipping into shutdown or hibernation, affected machines stay stubbornly awake, draining batteries and ignoring shutdown like they have a mind of their own and don't want to experience temporary non-existence.

The bug appears to be tied to Secure Launch, a security feature that uses virtualization-based protections to ensure only trusted components load during boot. On systems with Secure Launch enabled, attempts to shut down, restart, or hibernate after applying the January patches may fail to complete. From the user's perspective, everything looks normal -- until the PC keeps running anyway, refusing to be denied life.

Microsoft says that entering the command "shutdown /s /t 0" at the command prompt will, in fact, force your PC to turn off, whether it wants to or not. "Until this issue is resolved, please ensure you save all your work, and shut down when you are done working on your device to avoid the device running out of power instead of hibernating," Microsoft said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Last week, Nicholas Moore, 24, a resident of Springfield, Tennessee, pleaded guilty to repeatedly hacking into the U.S. Supreme Court's electronic document filing system. At the time, there were no details about the specifics of the hacking crimes Moore was admitting to. On Friday, a newly filled document -- first spotted by Court Watch's Seamus Hughes -- revealed more details about Moore's hacks. Per the filing, Moore hacked not only into the Supreme Court systems, but also the network of AmeriCorps, a government agency that runs stipend volunteer programs, and the systems of the Department of Veterans Affairs, which provides healthcare and welfare to military veterans.

Moore accessed those systems using stolen credentials of users who were authorized to access them. Once he gained access to those victims' accounts, Moore accessed and stole their personal data and posted some online to his Instagram account: @ihackthegovernment. In the case of the Supreme Court victim, identified as GS, Moore posted their name and "current and past electronic filing records." [...] According to the court document, Moore faces a maximum sentence of one year in prison and a maximum fine of $100,000.

Cloudflare has acquired the core team behind the open source JavaScript framework Astro, bringing its creators in-house while pledging to keep Astro fully open source. The New Stack reports: Astro is used by major brands like IKEA, Unilever, Visa and OpenAI to build fast, content-driven websites. Search engines prioritize fast-loading and clean pages, the Cloudflare statement noted. Websites that rely heavily on JavaScript for initial rendering often struggle to deliver the required speed, which hinders search rankings and customer conversions.

Pages on Astro serve up only the code needed to display a page in a browser. That's in part because of its Island architecture, which it introduced in 2021. Astro's Islands allow developers to create "islands" of interactive client-side components, while most of the page is generated statically in HTML. Server Islands extend the same architecture to the server.

Astro is also UI-agnostic, meaning that while it has its own independent engine, it allows developers to bring in components from React, Svelte, Vue and other frameworks. This makes Astro a preferred choice for building high-performance, content-driven websites optimized for speed, according to Cloudflare. "Over the past few years, we've seen an incredibly diverse range of developers and companies use Astro to build for the web," said Astro's former CTO, Fred Schott, in a post with Cloudflare senior product manager Brendan Irvine-Broque. "At Cloudflare, we use Astro, too -- for our developer docs, website, landing pages and more." They said that the acquisition will allow them to "double down" on making Astro the best framework for content-driven websites.

Longtime Slashdot reader hackingbear shares a report from the Washington Times: Breaking with the United States, Canada has agreed to cut its 100% tariff [back to 6.1%] on Chinese electric cars in return for lower tariffs on Canadian farm products, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Friday after meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. He said there would be an initial annual cap of 49,000 vehicles on Chinese EV exports to Canada, growing to about 70,000 over five years. Prior to the 100% tariff, China exported about 41,000 vehicles to Canada in 2023. In exchange, China will reduce its total tariff on canola seeds, a major Canadian export, from 84% to about 15%, he told reporters. Carney said China has become a more predictable partner to deal with than the U.S, the country's neighbor and longtime ally.

[hackingbear writes: "After helping the U.S. arrest Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, who was later released without admitting guilty by the Biden administration after bickering with China, Canada had followed the U.S. in putting tariffs of 100% on EVs from China and 25% on steel and aluminum under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Carney's predecessor."] China responded by imposing duties of 100% on Canadian canola oil and meal and 25% on pork and seafood. It added a 75.8% tariff on canola seeds last August. Collectively, the import taxes effectively closed the Chinese market to Canadian canola, an industry group has said.

Seattle was late to the light rail party -- the city rejected transit ballot measures in 1968 and 1971, missing out on federal funding that built Atlanta's MARTA, and didn't approve a plan including rail until 1996 -- but the Pacific Northwest city is now in the middle of a multibillion-dollar building boom that has produced the highest post-pandemic ridership recovery of any US light rail system.

The Link system opened its first line in 2009, funded largely by voter-approved tax measures from 2008 and 2016. The north-south 1 Line now stretches 41 miles after a $3 billion extension to Lynnwood opened in June 2025 and a $2.5 billion leg to Federal Way debuted in December. Ridership is up 24% since 2019, and 3.4 million people rode Link trains in October 2025.

Test trains have been running since September across the I-90 floating bridge over Lake Washington -- what Sound Transit claims is the world's first light rail on a floating structure -- preparing for a May 31 opening. The Crosslake Connection is part of the 2 Line, a 14-mile, $3.7 billion extension voters approved in 2008 that was originally slated to open in 2020. The expansion hasn't come without problems. Sound Transit faces a roughly $30 billion budget shortfall, and a planned Ballard extension has ballooned to $22 billion, double original estimates.

Verizon is offering affected customers a $20 account credit following a nationwide network outage on Wednesday that left users across the US unable to connect, forcing phones into SOS mode for roughly ten hours before the carrier restored service around 10:15PM ET.

Customers will receive a text message when the credit becomes available and can redeem it through the myVerizon app by clicking "Take action."

An anonymous reader shares a report: China is pulling the plug on a key advantage held by high-frequency traders, removing servers dedicated to those firms out of local exchanges' data centers, according to people familiar with the matter.

Commodities futures exchanges in Shanghai and Guangzhou are among those that have ordered local brokers to shift servers for their clients out of data centers run by the bourses, according to the people, who said the move was led by regulators. The change doesn't only affect high-frequency firms but they are likely to feel the biggest impact. The Shanghai Futures Exchange has told brokers they need to get equipment for high-speed clients out by the end of next month, while other clients need to do so by April 30, the people said.

The clampdown will hit China's army of domestic high-frequency firms but will also impact a swathe of global firms that are active in the country. Citadel Securities, Jane Street Group and Jump Trading are among the foreign firms whose access to servers is being affected, the people said, asking not to be named as the matter is private.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Screen time spent gaming or on social media does not cause mental health problems in teenagers, according to a large-scale study. [...] Researchers at the University of Manchester followed 25,000 11- to 14-year-olds over three school years, tracking their self-reported social media habits, gaming frequency and emotional difficulties to find out whether technology use genuinely predicted later mental health difficulties. Participants were asked how much time on a normal weekday in term time they spent on TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and other social media, or gaming. They were also asked questions about their feelings, mood and wider mental health.

The study found no evidence for boys or girls that heavier social media use or more frequent gaming increased teenagers' symptoms of anxiety or depression over the following year. Increases in girls' and boys' social media use from year 8 to year 9 and from year 9 to year 10 had zero detrimental impact on their mental health the following year, the authors found. More time spent gaming also had a zero negative effect on pupils' mental health. "We know families are worried, but our results do not support the idea that simply spending time on social media or gaming leads to mental health problems -- the story is far more complex than that," said the lead author Dr Qiqi Cheng.

The research, published in the Journal of Public Health, also examined whether how pupils use social media makes a difference, with participants asked how much time spent chatting with others, posting stories, pictures and videos, browsing feeds, profiles or scrolling through photos and stories. The scientists found that actively chatting on social media or passive scrolling feeds did not appear to drive mental health difficulties. The authors stressed that the findings did not mean online experiences were harmless. Hurtful messages, online pressures and extreme content could have detrimental effects on wellbeing, but focusing on screen time alone was not helpful, they said.

Iran has imposed one of the longest nationwide internet shutdowns in its history, cutting more than 92 million people off from connectivity for over a week as mass anti-government protests continue. TechCrunch reports: As of this writing, Iranians have not been able to access the internet for more than 170 hours. The previous longest shutdowns in the country lasted around 163 hours in 2019, and 160 hours in 2025, according to Isik Mater, the director of research at NetBlocks, a web monitoring company that tracks internet disruptions.

Mater said that the current shutdown in Iran is the third longest on record, after the internet shutdown in Sudan in mid-2021 that lasted around 35 days, followed by the outage in Mauritania in July 2024, which lasted 22 days. "Iran's shutdowns remain among the most comprehensive and tightly enforced nationwide blackouts we've observed, particularly in terms of population affected," Mater told TechCrunch.

The exact ranking depends on how each organization measures a shutdown. Zach Rosson, a researcher who studies internet disruptions at the digital rights nonprofit Access Now, told TechCrunch that according to its data, the ongoing shutdown in Iran is on a path to crack the top 10 longest shutdowns in history. Further reading: Iran Shuts Down Musk's Starlink For First Time

Reports suggest ASUS has effectively ended production of NVIDIA's RTX 5070 Ti and 5060 Ti 16GB GPUs due to a severe memory crunch driven by AI infrastructure demand, even as NVIDIA insists it's still shipping all GeForce SKUs. YouTube channel Hardware Unboxed broke the news in its most recent video where it states ASUS "explicitly" told them the RTX 5070 Ti is "currently facing a supply shortage" and has "placed the model into end of life status." The shift leaves PC gamers facing fewer high-VRAM options just as modern games increasingly demand more than 8GB. Engadget reports: Hardware Unboxed also spoke to retailers in Australia, who told the channel the 5070 Ti is "no longer available to purchase from partners and distributors," adding they expect that to be the case throughout at least the first quarter of the year. The 5060 Ti 16GB "is almost done as well," with ASUS stating it no longer plans to produce that model going forward either. Both GPUs are 16GB models, making them more expensive to produce in the current economic climate. And while there might be some hope of the 5070 Ti and 5060 Ti 16GB returning later this year, the channel suggests both are unlikely to make a comeback. NVIDIA will reportedly focus on 8GB models like the RTX 5050, 5060, and 5060 Ti 8GB, with the 12GB 5070 set to stick around for now. The 5080 and 5090 are seemingly safe as well, as more expensive, higher margin models, they offer more space for manufacturers to absorb component price increases.

"Demand for GeForce RTX GPUs is strong, and memory supply is constrained. We continue to ship all GeForce SKUs and are working closely with our suppliers to maximize memory availability," a NVIDIA spokesperson told Engadget. The company did not say 5070 Ti and 5060 Ti 16GB are going out of production. However, it also didn't confirm they're sticking around either. ASUS did not immediately respond to Engadget's comment request.

The National Transportation Safety Board said in a report this week that a UPS cargo plane that crashed in Louisville, Ky., last year, killing 15, had a structural flaw that the manufacturer Boeing had previously concluded would not affect flight safety. The New York Times: The N.T.S.B. has said that cracks in the assembly holding the left-side engine in place may have contributed to the November crash, though it has not officially cited a cause. The part had fractured in similar fashion on at least four other occasions, on three different airplanes, according to the report, which cited a service letter that Boeing issued in 2011 regarding the apparent flaw.

In the service letter, which manufacturers issue to flag safety concerns or other problems to aircraft owners, Boeing said that fractures "would not result in a safety of flight condition," N.T.S.B. investigators wrote. The plane that crashed was an MD-11F jet, made by McDonnell Douglas, a company that Boeing acquired in the 1990s. It was taking off from Louisville and bound for Hawaii on Nov. 4 when a fire ignited on its left engine shortly after takeoff.

The plane crashed into several buildings, including a petroleum recycling facility, on the outskirts of the Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport. The three crew members on board and 11 people on the ground were killed in the crash; a 12th person on the ground died of injuries sustained during the episode.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Raspberry Pi is launching a new add-on board capable of running generative AI models locally on the Raspberry Pi 5. Announced on Thursday, the $130 AI HAT+ 2 is an upgraded -- and more expensive -- version of the module launched last year, now offering 8GB of RAM and a Hailo 10H chip with 40 TOPS of AI performance.

Once connected, the Raspberry Pi 5 will use the AI HAT+ 2 to handle AI-related workloads while leaving the main board's Arm CPU available to complete other tasks. Unlike the previous AI HAT+, which is focused on image-based AI processing, the AI HAT+ 2 comes with onboard RAM and can run small gen AI models like Llama 3.2 and DeepSeek-R1-Distill, along with a series of Qwen models. You can train and fine-tune AI models using the device as well.

American buses in cities like New York and San Francisco crawl along at about eight miles per hour -- barely faster than a brisk walk -- and one surprisingly simple fix could make them faster without requiring new infrastructure or controversial policy changes. The issue, according to a Works in Progress analysis, is that US bus stops sit far too close together.

Mean spacing in American cities is roughly 313 meters, about five stops per mile, while older cities like Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco pack stops even tighter at 214, 223 and 248 meters respectively. European cities typically space stops at 300 to 450 meters.

Each stop costs time: passengers boarding and exiting, acceleration and deceleration, buses kneeling for wheelchairs, missed traffic light cycles. Buses spend about 20% of their operating time just stopping and starting, and since labor accounts for the majority of transit operating costs, slower buses translate directly to higher expenses.

Cities that have tried spacing stops further apart have seen results. San Francisco recorded a 4.4 to 14% increase in travel speeds by reducing from six stops per mile to two and a half. Vancouver's pilot removed a quarter of stops and cut average trip times by five minutes while saving about $500,000 annually on a single route. A McGill study found that even substantial stop consolidation reduced overall system coverage by just 1%.

Apple, which spent years as TSMC's undisputed top customer and helped the Taiwanese foundry become the semiconductor industry's most important manufacturer, is now fighting for production capacity as Nvidia's AI chip orders consume an ever-larger share of the company's leading-edge wafer supply.

TSMC CEO CC Wei visited Cupertino last August to deliver unwelcome news: Apple would face the largest price increase in years and the iPhone maker would no longer have guaranteed access to production capacity across TSMC's nearly two dozen fabs.

According to Culpium analysis and its supply chain sources, Nvidia likely overtook Apple as TSMC's largest customer in at least one or two quarters of 2025. TSMC's revenue climbed 36% last year to $122 billion, the company reported Thursday.