Today: 7 February 2026
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Meteor Showers, Northern Lights & a Planet Parade – Aug 7–8 Night Sky Spectacle

Meteor Showers, Northern Lights & a Planet Parade – Aug 7–8 Night Sky Spectacle

The Perseids, active in early August and building toward their mid-August peak, can reach about 100 meteors per hour at maximum under dark skies, with bright blue fireballs from debris of Comet Swift–Tuttle. The 2025 Perseids peak will be hampered by moonlight: the Sturgeon Moon will be full on Aug 9, and the Moon will be 84–90% illuminated around Aug 11–13, washing out dim meteors and reducing the typical 50–75 meteors per hour to mostly bright fireballs. Eta Eridanids peak on the night of Aug 7–8, contributing about 3 meteors per hour at best. On Aug 7–8, Venus (mag −4.0)
7 August 2025
Space Race Heats Up: Satellite Launch Blitz, Bold Missions, and a Shuttle’s Surprise Move (Aug 6–7, 2025)

Space Race Heats Up: Satellite Launch Blitz, Bold Missions, and a Shuttle’s Surprise Move (Aug 6–7, 2025)

On Aug 7, SpaceX launched 24 Amazon Kuiper satellites on a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral at 10:01 a.m. EDT, increasing the operational Kuiper fleet from 78 to 102 and with the first-stage booster landing on the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas. Rocket Lab’s Aug 5 Electron launch deployed the QPS-SAR-12 “Kushinada-I” SAR satellite into a 575 km orbit from Launch Complex 1, marking Rocket Lab’s 69th Electron flight and the fifth dedicated iQPS mission. China’s Long March 12 from Wenchang on Aug 4 launched 18 low-orbit internet satellites for GalaxySpace, the seventh batch in eight days, bringing GalaxySpace
7 August 2025
Apple’s $100B Surprise, Space Startup Soars, and Tech Glitches Galore – Tech News Roundup (Aug 6–7, 2025)

Apple’s $100B Surprise, Space Startup Soars, and Tech Glitches Galore – Tech News Roundup (Aug 6–7, 2025)

Apple commits $100 billion to US manufacturing as part of the American Manufacturing Program, expands Corning to 100 percent of iPhone and Apple Watch cover glass in Kentucky, and partners with Samsung at its Texas chip fab on a “never-before-used” chipmaking technology. Sony raises its annual profit forecast to ¥1.33 trillion (about $9 billion) and reduces expected tariff impact to ¥70 billion from ¥100 billion, with PlayStation network services driving growth; shares jump 5%. At Black Hat, Cyata reveals 14 critical CVEs in CyberArk Conjur and HashiCorp Vault that could enable complete compromise of vaults, including Vault’s first remote code
7 August 2025
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AI’s Big Bang: Breakthroughs, Billion‑Dollar Bets & Backlash (AI News Roundup Aug 6–7, 2025)

AI’s Big Bang: Breakthroughs, Billion‑Dollar Bets & Backlash (AI News Roundup Aug 6–7, 2025)

MIT and Duke researchers used AI to design polymers with iron-based ferrocenes that absorb stress, dramatically speeding up additive discovery from weeks per candidate, with findings published in ACS Central Science. Profluent Bio used a protein language model trained on 500 million sequences to invent OpenCRISPR-1, the first CRISPR enzyme designed entirely by AI, which edited human genome cells with high precision and was published in Nature, with OpenCRISPR-1 open-sourced. OpenAI released two open-weight large language models with 120 billion and 20 billion parameters, optimized to run on a single GPU or a laptop, with the weights openly accessible for
7 August 2025
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Drone Laws in Budapest: What You MUST Know Before You Fly

Drone Laws in Budapest: What You MUST Know Before You Fly

Hungary follows EU Regulations 2019/945 and 2019/947, applying the Open, Specific, and Certified categories, with Open flights limited to 120 m altitude, Visual Line of Sight, and no flights over large assemblies. Hungary requires national registration for virtually all drones above toy criteria, insurance is mandatory, and any flight within Budapest’s built-up area requires a special permit obtained well in advance. As of January 1, 2024, Remote ID is mandatory for most drones, with Specific-category drones and class-marked Open-category drones broadcasting the operator’s registration number. Drone registration is required for drones heavier than 120 g or with cameras or capable
7 August 2025
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DNA Drives, Glass Discs & 5D Crystals: The Race to Store Data Forever

DNA Drives, Glass Discs & 5D Crystals: The Race to Store Data Forever

DNA data storage can reach about 215 petabytes per gram, with estimates of nearly 1 zettabyte per gram under optimal conditions, and a grain of salt could hold 10 full-length movies. DNA storage could last millennia if properly stored, and dried DNA encapsulated in glass survived neutron radiation without data loss. Writing DNA is slow and expensive today, taking hours or days to write even a few MB, but in 2025 an AI-driven decoder called DNAformer cut retrieval time for 100 MB from days to about 10 minutes. In March 2024 the DNA Data Storage Alliance published the Sector 0/1
7 August 2025
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Google Gemini Live vs Amazon Alexa+ vs Siri’s Apple Intelligence: The Ultimate AI Assistant Showdown 2025

Google Gemini Live vs Amazon Alexa+ vs Siri’s Apple Intelligence: The Ultimate AI Assistant Showdown 2025

Gemini Live debuted in late 2024 as Google’s replacement for Google Assistant and is built on the Gemini LLM, enabling real-time screen and camera analysis. Alexa+ was announced in early 2025 and rolled out as a free Prime upgrade (or $19.99/month) with a model-agnostic mix (Nova and Anthropic Claude 2) to handle calendars, reservations, rides, and multi-step actions across apps. Siri with Apple Intelligence runs on-device in iOS 18, supports Type to Siri and follow-ups without repeating “Hey Siri,” and can tap into OpenAI’s ChatGPT for complex queries with user permission. Gemini Live’s Project Astra enables multi-modal vision, letting it
7 August 2025
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Self-Driving Supercomputer Showdown: NVIDIA Drive Thor vs Tesla FSD Hardware 4 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon Ride Flex

Self-Driving Supercomputer Showdown: NVIDIA Drive Thor vs Tesla FSD Hardware 4 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon Ride Flex

NVIDIA Drive Thor delivers up to 1,000 TOPS (INT8 sparse) on a single chip and can be paired via NVLink-C2C to about 2,000 TOPS for high-end Level 4–5 autonomy. Thor combines a Blackwell GPU with 2560 CUDA cores and 96 Tensor Cores, a 14-core Arm Neoverse V3 CPU complex, on a 4nm TSMC process, and supports up to 128 GB LPDDR5X memory. Thor is designed as a centralized automotive computer unifying autonomous driving, ADAS, digital cockpit and infotainment on one platform. Production of Drive Thor is slated to begin in 2025, with design wins at Li Auto, ZEEKR, BYD, Hyper
7 August 2025
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Presence Tech Showdown: Wi‑Fi Sensing vs. UWB vs. Soli Radar – Who Will Own the Future?

Presence Tech Showdown: Wi‑Fi Sensing vs. UWB vs. Soli Radar – Who Will Own the Future?

Wi‑Fi Sensing (IEEE 802.11bf) repurposes 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz Wi‑Fi signals to detect movement across a typical home, offering tens of meters of range, millisecond‑level latency, and energy‑efficient operation by piggybacking on existing routers. Ultra‑Wideband (UWB; IEEE 802.15.4z) uses ultra‑wide pulses around 6–8 GHz to measure time‑of‑flight with centimeter‑level accuracy, typically 10–15 meters of range, and newer Apple U2 chips extend reliable range toward 60 meters. 60 GHz mmWave radar like Google Soli provides high spatial resolution, detects sub‑millimeter motions within about 5–10 meters, and can distinguish fine gestures with a 120° field of view. IEEE 802.11bf
7 August 2025
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Inside Rwanda’s Internet Revolution: How the Nation Is Connecting Remote Villages and Launching Satellites

Inside Rwanda’s Internet Revolution: How the Nation Is Connecting Remote Villages and Launching Satellites

Rwanda’s first internet access occurred around 1996, and by 2000 there were about 5,000 users (less than 0.1% of the population). In 2004 Rwanda privatized Rwandatel and sold it to Terracom, opening the ISP market to competition. Between 2008 and 2010, Rwanda laid over 3,000 km of national fiber backbone across all 30 districts, linking to SEACOM, EASSy and TEAMS in 2009, driving international bandwidth costs from about $3,000 per Mbps in 2006 to roughly $25 per Mbps. In 2013, Korea Telecom Rwanda Networks (KTRN) built a nationwide 4G network on a wholesale-only basis, achieving over 95% population coverage by
6 August 2025
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Lenovo Yoga 9i vs HP Spectre x360 vs Surface Laptop 7 – 2025’s Ultimate Laptop Showdown

Lenovo Yoga 9i vs HP Spectre x360 vs Surface Laptop 7 – 2025’s Ultimate Laptop Showdown

Lenovo Yoga 9i Aura Edition (14″, 2025) uses Intel Core Ultra 7 258V (Lunar Lake) up to ~3.7 GHz with 16 cores/20 threads, 32 GB RAM, 1 TB PCIe 4.0 SSD, and a 14″ OLED 2880×1800 touchscreen at 120 Hz. HP Spectre x360 14 (2025) runs Intel Core Ultra 7 155H (Meteor Lake) up to 4.8 GHz with 16 cores/22 threads, 16 GB RAM (upgradable to 32), 1 TB SSD, and a 14″ OLED 2880×1800 120 Hz display with integrated Intel Arc graphics. HP Spectre x360 16 (2025) also uses the Core Ultra 7 155H, but pairs a larger 16″
6 August 2025
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Watch Earth Live from Space – Your Ultimate Guide to Real-Time Satellite Imagery

Watch Earth Live from Space – Your Ultimate Guide to Real-Time Satellite Imagery

Near-real-time satellite imagery is common: Landsat 8 images can appear within seconds of downlink, NASA Worldview layers update within about 3 hours, and geostationary weather satellites refresh every 5–15 minutes. The ISS HD Earth Viewing Experiment streams live video of Earth from about 400 km up with roughly 1-second latency, and the view shifts as the station orbits about 16 times per day. NOAA’s Earth in Real-Time weather map updates GOES-East and GOES-West every 5 minutes for cloud imagery, with full-hemisphere views about every 15 minutes and resolutions around 0.5–2 km. NASA Worldview offers more than 1,000 imagery layers updated
6 August 2025
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Drone Laws in Prague 2025: The Ultimate Guide to Safe & Legal Flying

Drone Laws in Prague 2025: The Ultimate Guide to Safe & Legal Flying

The EU drone rules classify operations into Open, Specific, and Certified, with Open further divided into A1, A2, and A3 subcategories. In Prague, almost all areas lie within restricted airspace LKR9, requiring Specific category authorization for most flights. Prague Castle, Charles Bridge, and the downtown area fall under the no-fly LKP1 zone, with no drones allowed there unless extreme government clearance. Prague Airport’s CTR prohibits flights within 5.5 km of LKPR without ATC coordination and constrains flights inside CTR to 100 m AGL or below. The standard maximum altitude is 120 m AGL in the Czech Republic, with lower limits
6 August 2025
Cosmic Triple-Feature: Meteor Shower, Double Planet Show & Aurora Hopes on Aug 6–7, 2025

Cosmic Triple-Feature: Meteor Shower, Double Planet Show & Aurora Hopes on Aug 6–7, 2025

The Perseid meteor shower ramps up on August 6–7, 2025, with about 10–20 meteors per hour after local midnight under dark skies despite a bright Moon at roughly 95–99% full. The August full Moon on August 9, 2025 is called the Sturgeon Moon, and its brightness washes out faint meteors during early Perseid activity. The Eta Eridanids are expected to peak on the night of August 7–8, 2025, adding about 3 meteors per hour at best. Venus and Jupiter dominate the dawn sky on August 6–7, 2025, with Venus at magnitude −4.0 and Jupiter at −1.9, about 6° apart. Around
6 August 2025
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Space Race Heats Up: Satellite Launch Blitz, Lunar Power Plays & Billion-Dollar Space Deals (Aug 5–6, 2025 Roundup)

Space Race Heats Up: Satellite Launch Blitz, Lunar Power Plays & Billion-Dollar Space Deals (Aug 5–6, 2025 Roundup)

SpaceX Sets Launch Records, Amazon’s Kuiper Mission Up Next Rocket Lab Delivers Japanese Radar Satellite China Launches Internet Satellites, Sparks Debris Concerns NASA Mission Updates: Small-Sat Setbacks & Mars Rover Milestone ISS Crew Rotation and U.S.-Russia Cooperation Europe Preps Ariane 6 Debut and Future Missions Big Commercial Deals: Smartphone Constellations & Moon Ventures Space Policy Highlights: Nuclear Power in the Moon Race Sources: Space.com; SpaceNews; NASA Press Releases and Blogs; Reuters; Associated Press; ESA; TS2 Space Roundup; SatNews; Advanced Television; Qazinform space.com news.satnews.com ts2.tech abcnews.go.com ts2.tech nasa.gov science.nasa.gov ts2.tech cfpublic.org ts2.tech esa.int electronicspecifier.com ts2.tech advanced-television.com ts2.tech spacepolicyonline.com spacepolicyonline.com.
6 August 2025
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Musk’s $29 B Windfall, Satellite Wars & a Mind-Controlled iPad – Tech News Roundup (Aug 5–6, 2025)

Musk’s $29 B Windfall, Satellite Wars & a Mind-Controlled iPad – Tech News Roundup (Aug 5–6, 2025)

From streaming shake-ups to space races and breakthrough gadgets, here are the biggest tech stories and expert insights from August 5–6, 2025 (excluding AI). Consumer Tech & Media: Price Hikes and Podcast Pivots Gaming & Entertainment: Nintendo’s Next-Gen Moves Big Tech & Market Moves: IPO Surges and Stock Milestones Electric Vehicles & Transportation: Bumpy Roads and Big Bets Semiconductors & Hardware: Bright Spots and Red Flags Telecom & Space: Satellite Internet Shakeups and Record Launches Cybersecurity: Ransomware, Backdoors and Breaches Biotech & Health Tech: Cyber Sins and Mind-Controlled Gadgets Sources: Key information in this report is drawn from reputable outlets
6 August 2025
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AI’s Frenzy: Billion-Dollar Bets, Breakthroughs & Backlash – Global AI News Roundup (Aug 5–6, 2025)

AI’s Frenzy: Billion-Dollar Bets, Breakthroughs & Backlash – Global AI News Roundup (Aug 5–6, 2025)

MIT and Duke University researchers used AI to design tougher plastics, identifying iron-based ferrocene additives and mechanophores that make polymer networks absorb stress, with results published in ACS Central Science. Profluent Bio used generative AI to create OpenCRISPR-1, the first AI-designed CRISPR enzyme, which edited human genome cells and was trained on 500 million sequences, with the work published in Nature and open-sourced. OpenAI unveiled two open-weight LLMs with 120 billion and 20 billion parameters that can run on a single GPU or a laptop, with open weights for fine-tuning and availability on AWS Bedrock. Thomson Reuters launched CoCounsel Legal,
6 August 2025
Apple visionOS 2 vs Meta Horizon OS vs Windows MR Link: The Ultimate XR Showdown

Apple visionOS 2 vs Meta Horizon OS vs Windows MR Link: The Ultimate XR Showdown

Apple Vision Pro debuted in 2024 at $3,499 and runs visionOS 2 on an M2 processor with a dedicated R1 sensor chip. VisionOS 2 introduces a 3D Home View, an infinite canvas with resizable windows, and eye-hand-voice input for navigation. Vision Pro uses 5,000+ nits micro-OLED displays and remains exclusive to Apple’s Vision Pro hardware. Meta Horizon OS opened to third-party manufacturers in April 2024, powering Quest 3 and offering backward compatibility with Quest 2 and Quest Pro, marketed as the “Android of VR.” Horizon OS is expanding hardware with Asus ROG high-end headset and Lenovo enterprise MR headset, while
6 August 2025
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Battle of the Buds: Sennheiser Momentum TW4 vs Pixel Buds Pro 2 vs Technics AZ100 – 2025 Flagship Earbuds Showdown

Battle of the Buds: Sennheiser Momentum TW4 vs Pixel Buds Pro 2 vs Technics AZ100 – 2025 Flagship Earbuds Showdown

Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4 delivers up to 8 hours on a single charge with ANC off and about 28 hours total with the charging case, with around 7 hours of use when ANC is on. Pixel Buds Pro 2 provide roughly 8 hours of listening with ANC on (about 7 hours with ANC off) and over 30 hours in total with the case, plus a 5‑minute quick charge for about an hour of use. Technics EAH‑AZ100 offers up to 10 hours of playback with ANC on and roughly 28 hours with the case, with LDAC mode reducing to about
6 August 2025
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RISC-V vs ARM vs x86: The 2025 Silicon Architecture Showdown

RISC-V vs ARM vs x86: The 2025 Silicon Architecture Showdown

In mid-2025, x86 remains the top performer for legacy software and high-end workloads, with 64-core or 96-core Xeon/EPYC-class servers still setting the benchmark. Apple’s M-series SoCs, built on 8–10 core ARM64 designs and led by the M1 (2020) and M2 generations, demonstrate high performance-per-watt that rivals many x86 laptops. RISC-V’s open, modular ISA uses a small base with optional extensions (M, A, F/D, V) and allows custom instructions, with Ventana’s Veyron V2 offering up to 192 cores and RVA23 profiles improving cross-implementation compatibility. RISC-V is royalty-free and open by design, ARM licenses involve upfront fees and per-chip royalties (Qualcomm reportedly
5 August 2025
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Stock Market Today

Energy stocks set for a geopolitical week after Iran warning and oil rebound

Energy stocks set for a geopolitical week after Iran warning and oil rebound

7 February 2026
U.S. energy stocks rose Friday, with the S&P 500 energy sector up 1.88% and Exxon Mobil gaining 2.03%. Brent crude settled at $68.05 a barrel after Iran threatened U.S. bases if attacked. Saudi Aramco cut March Arab Light crude prices to a five-year low for Asia. Kazakhstan’s CPC Blend exports may drop 35% this month due to Tengiz oilfield disruptions.
Financial services stocks rally as XLF jumps, Dow hits 50,000 — what to watch next week

Financial services stocks rally as XLF jumps, Dow hits 50,000 — what to watch next week

7 February 2026
U.S. financial stocks rose Friday, with the XLF fund up 1.8% and the Dow closing above 50,000 for the first time, gaining 2.47%. Goldman Sachs jumped 4.3%, JPMorgan 3.9%, and Citigroup 6.0%. The Federal Reserve held rates steady, and San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly signaled possible cuts this year. Investors await January jobs and inflation data next week.
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