On Aug. 2, 2027, a total solar eclipse will cast its shadow from the Strait of Gibraltar through North Africa and into the heart of the Arabian Peninsula. During the eclipse, the sun’s disk will be completely covered from our perspective on Earth for a maximum of 6 minutes,22 seconds — the longest totality on land in 36 years, and the longest totality until June 3, 2114. No wonder…
New research suggests that dark matter could gather over vast periods of time at the heart of Jupiter-sized planets, creating black holes that eat these worlds from within. This striking concept may mean extrasolar planets, or “exoplanets,” could be used to study…
MCP-Universe benchmark shows GPT-5 fails more than half of real-world orchestration tasks
August 26, 2025
The adoption of interoperability standards, such as the Model Context Protocol (MCP), can provide enterprises with insights into how agents and models function outside their walled confines. However, many benchmarks fail to capture real-life interactions with…
A new study from Arizona State University researchers suggests that the celebrated “Chain-of-Thought” (CoT) reasoning in Large Language Models (LLMs) may be more of a “brittle mirage” than genuine intelligence. The research builds on a growing body of work questioning the depth of LLM reasoning, but it takes a unique “data distribution” lens to test where and why CoT breaks down…
When OpenAI launched GPT-5 about two weeks ago, CEO Sam Altman promised it would be the company’s “smartest, fastest, most useful model yet.” Instead, the launch triggered one of the most contentious user revolts in the brief history of consumer AI.
Now, a simple blind…
Retro cameras are making a comeback. Bad photography is trending right alongside them
August 26, 2025
Blurry photos. Wild colors. Grainy images. The harshness of direct flash. Digital cameras have been slowly evolving to correct some of the most common mistakes in photography, fixing blur with stabilization, lowering grain with better processors and larger sensors, and…
Among this year’s 2025 World Press Photo winners is Carlos Barrera, a documentary photographer and photojournalist. His photo story, titled ‘Life and Death a Country without Constitutional Rights’, won the North America and Central America Long-Term Projects category, and hits particularly hard as a Salvadoran and journalist.
El Salvador has long been synonymous with violence. The…
Shadowplay! Craft three unique portrait looks at home with our easy one-light camera setups
August 26, 2025
Portraiture can at times feel like a bit of a dark art. There’s so much jargon and little pieces of equipment to get up to speed on, from flashes to guide numbers, and lighting modifiers to triggers. It can be difficult to know where to start!
That’s why we’re…
China debuts new warship, boosts South Pacific presence
August 26, 2025
China has debuted yet another new warship built to launch amphibious landings in military exercises held this month.
China’s naval branch, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, announced it launched its fourth Type 075 Amphibious Assault Ship, CNS Hubei, during…
Vulcan Elements, a 2-year-old startup manufacturing rare earth magnets in North Carolina, has quietly landed more than $10 million in Defense Department contracts across every branch of the U.S. military.
The deals underscore how urgent the Pentagon’s need has become to build a domestic supply chain for one of the most critical components in modern technology. China currently produces 94% of the…
