Not just Proton: Getting to know Valve's new SteamOS compatibility layers

Not just Proton: Getting to know Valve's new SteamOS compatibility layers

fivenewscrypto    septembre 17, 2026   

Since the release of the Steam Deck, Valve fans have gotten very familiar with the idea of the Proton compatibility layer that allows games written for Windows to run capably on the Linux-based SteamOS (though Valve's efforts in this realm date back further than that). To get more games running on the SteamOS-powered Steam Frame, though, Valve is relying on two additional compatibility layers that are new to the Steam architecture.

The first, FEX, is Valve's port of fex-emu, an open source project that emulates x86 processor instructions on an Arm chipset. Since 2018, what started as a small cross-platform emulation project has grown to include "an advanced binary recompiler that supports all modern extensions of the x86(-64) instruction set," according to the Fex website. The emulator can also make calls to graphics libraries like OpenGL and Vulkan to reduce overhead and uses "code caching to minimize stuttering as much as possible," according to Steam's own developer documentation.

While Proton was based on the pre-existing Wine conversion tool, Valve engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais told The Verge last year that the company has been funding Fex lead developer Ryan Houdek since the project was just a prototype. Back then, Valve was already anticipating that "close to a decade of work [would be] needed before [Fex-emu] would be robust enough people could rely on it for their libraries."

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California may gut state net neutrality law to comply with Trump admin demand

California may gut state net neutrality law to comply with Trump admin demand

fivenewscrypto    septembre 17, 2026   

California is on the verge of accepting $1.86 billion in federal broadband grant funds, despite the Trump administration telling states they cannot enforce net neutrality rules on any Internet service provider that gets a piece of the grant money.

When the Trump administration overhauled the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program last year, it ruled that states must agree not to enforce any rate regulation or net neutrality rule on ISPs that receive funding. This is particularly problematic for California, which previously won a yearslong court battle to defend its state net neutrality law.

Similar to federal net neutrality rules repealed during the first Trump administration, California's law prohibits ISPs from blocking or throttling lawful traffic and says ISPs may not require fees from websites or online services to deliver or prioritize their traffic to Internet users. While the first Trump administration lost its attempt to preempt state net neutrality laws, the second Trump administration is trying to achieve a similar result by making federal broadband money conditional on whether states agree not to enforce net neutrality.

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Researchers swap in human brain cells for a mouse's cortex

Researchers swap in human brain cells for a mouse's cortex

fivenewscrypto    septembre 17, 2026   

In recent years, there has been a lot of excitement about the potential for studying human diseases in what are called "organoids." These small patches of tissue, formed using stem cells, appear to produce many of the same cell types and at least some of the structures normally formed in actual organs, and thus can provide a better model for diseases that rely on the sometimes complex interactions among multiple specialized cell types that are a feature of the human body.

But even the most sophisticated organoids lack a lot of the features of a real human body. This is especially true for brain organoids, which don't form any of the connections with specialized brain structures needed to behave "normally." On Wednesday, a research group at Stanford University described a possible way to study brain organoids in a somewhat more natural context: They genetically wiped out a large portion of the mouse brain and replaced it with human brain organoid cells.

The replacements

Organoids, because they adopt a three-dimensional tissue structure and consist of various specialized cells, provide a much better model for an intact tissue than simply having a bunch of disassociated cells lying flat on a culture dish. But they still have a lot of limitations—they're not hooked up to a circulatory system that allows the liver to process chemicals the organoid produces and don't have immune cells moving through them, to give just a couple of examples.

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The Specialized Diverge 4 Pro makes rough gravel your playground

The Specialized Diverge 4 Pro makes rough gravel your playground

fivenewscrypto    septembre 17, 2026   

When I make my yearly trip to Denver, I always bring my road bike. It's my annual chance to suffer on the kinds of gradients unavailable in the glacier-scoured lands of northeastern Illinois. In advance of this year's trip, Specialized hooked me up with its new gravel bike, the Diverge 4 Pro, so I brought it with me to challenge it in ways not possible on the fastidiously groomed gravel trails of suburban Chicago.

In contrast to the Specialized Turbo Creo 2 we reviewed a couple of years ago, the Diverge 4 Pro is strictly human-powered. Specialized calls it "the ultimate getaway vehicle," designed with input from off-road adventure riders, scientists, and racers. It's marketed as the only gravel bike you need for racing, adventure, and distance rides. While I can't speak to its racing performance, I can say the Diverge 4 Pro is a blast on any kind of gravel and does well enough on the road.

Priced at $8,249, the Diverge 4 Pro is designed for rough trails and technical descents, both of which unfolded below me at the summit of an is-it-gravel-or-is-it-single-track climb in Douglas County, Colorado. I took a deep breath, and down I went. The descent was rutted and slightly more technical than anything I'll ever run into around Chicago, but I had enough time on the bike to realize that if I had trouble on the descent, it wouldn't be the bike's fault.

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The world’s best racing driver is about to race 100 karts at once

The world’s best racing driver is about to race 100 karts at once

fivenewscrypto    septembre 17, 2026   

Later today, Max Verstappen will strap on his helmet and take to the track at the Silverstone circuit in England for a rather unusual race. The four-time Formula 1 world champion is recognized as the leading talent of his generation, but unlike some of the legends that have preceded him, Verstappen’s passion for motorsport extends beyond just the rarified world of F1. With apologies to Midweek Motorsport, but if it has wheels and they keep score, odds are good Verstappen's down to race it. So at noon Eastern Time (5 pm BST) today, September 16, Verstappen will slip into something a little more basic: a kart.

It’s one of 101 identical karts that have been sourced from Eastern Europe for the event—the other 100 will be driven by a mix of content creators and Red Bull athletes, all of whom fancy their chances at beating one of the world’s greatest drivers at his own game. They get a bit of an advantage, all starting ahead of Verstappen. Once he passes another karter, they’re out of the race, and Verstappen has 30 laps of a purpose-designed layout at Silverstone to get through them all and win.

Other F1 drivers have attempted slightly similar challenges in the past—Alex Albon raced 25 kids last year, and last month Oliver Bearman raced 50 amateurs. But neither is as high-profile as Verstappen, and neither is facing as much competition.

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Lawmakers target Flock cameras with a threat to highway funding

Lawmakers target Flock cameras with a threat to highway funding

fivenewscrypto    septembre 17, 2026   

A bipartisan pair of US lawmakers tell WIRED they plan to introduce legislation today that would strip federal funding from states that fail to restrict the use of Flock cameras and other automated license plate readers. The devices, which help police track the location of vehicles tied to crimes, have become the subject of nationwide backlash in recent months over more nefarious uses by officers.

The No FLOCK Act—for Federal License-Plate Observation and Camera Keeping—directs the US secretary of transportation to withhold 10 percent of annual financial support due to states for highways, roads, and bridges if it fails to ban Flock and similar devices for all but five use cases. Congressmen Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat representing Chicago suburbs, and Michael Cloud, a Republican whose Texas district includes Corpus Christi, are cosponsoring the bill.

The legislation says that Flock cameras could be used only for “enforcing toll systems, identifying stolen vehicles, missing or endangered persons, vehicles registered to persons with a warrant for a felony offense, or investigating a vehicle involved in a felony offense.” Notably absent are uses like conducting traffic studies, investigating minor drug crimes, and enforcing parking and speeding rules.

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How chimps teach their kids tool tricks

How chimps teach their kids tool tricks

fivenewscrypto    septembre 17, 2026   

Chimpanzees are known to use rudimentary tools when foraging for food. According to a new paper in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, this learned behavior is passed down from adults to offspring through social learning. Specifically, adult chimps deliberately model the behavior, then turn their tools over to the youngsters so they can mimic the same motions.

"Receiving food and tools from experienced individuals, which we call food or tool transfer, may help chimpanzees learn to use technology to extract foods that are difficult to access,” said co-author Andreu Sánchez-Megías, a graduate student at the University of Barcelona and the Jane Goodall Institute Spain in Senegal. “Tool transfers thus appear to be a form of teaching, together with observation and supervised practice. It appears that mothers are the main models and teachers for young chimpanzees in this manner.”

As we have previously reported, tool use was once thought to be one of the defining features of humans, although Charles Darwin observed chimpanzees using stones to crack nuts in 1871. In 1960, the late primatologist Jane Goodall observed a chimp named David Greybeard bend a twig, strip off the leaves, and use it to spoon termites out of a nest and into his mouth. When he learned of the behavior, Goodall's mentor, Louis Leakey, famously observed, “Now we must redefine ‘tool,’ redefine ‘man,’ or accept chimpanzees as humans.” Since then, chimps have been observed making sponges out of leaves to soak up liquids, shaping sticks to collect algae, and sharpening rudimentary spears for hunting.

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