geek

24 Apr 2026

OSnews

If 64bit Windows 11 contains a copy of 32bit explorer.exe, could you run it as its shell?

Raymond Chen published a blog post about how a crappy uninstaller on Windows caused a mysterious spike in the number of Explorer (Windows' graphical shell) crashes. It turns out the buggy uninstaller caused repeated crashes in the 32bit version of Explorer on 64bit systems, and - hold on a minute. The how many bits on the what now? The 32-bit version of Explorer exists for backward compatibility with 32-bit programs. This is not the copy of Explorer that is handling your taskbar or desktop or File Explorer windows. So if the 32-bit Explorer is running on a 64-bit system, it's because some other program is using it to do some dirty work. ↫ Raymond Chen at The Old New Thing So I had no idea that 64bit Windows included a copy of the 32bit Explorer for backwards compatibility. It obviously makes sense, but I just never stopped to think about it. This made me wonder though if you could go nuts and do something really dumb: could you somehow trick 64bit Windows into running this 32bit copy of Explorer as its shell? You'd be running 32bit Explorer on 64bit Windows using the 32bit WoW64 binaries where you just pulled the 32bit Explorer binary from, which seems like a really nonsensical thing to do. Since there's no longer any 32bit builds of Windows 11, you also can't just copy over the 32bit Explorer from a 32bit Windows 11 build and achieve the same goal that way, so you'd really have to go digging around in WoW64 to get 32bit versions. I guess the answer to this question depends on just how complete this copy of 32bit Explorer really is, and if Windows has any defenses or triggers in place to prevent someone from doing something this uselessly stupid. Of course, there's no practical reason to do any of this and it makes very little sense, but it might be a fun hacking project. Most likely the Windows experts among you are wondering what kind of utterly deranged new designer drug I'm on, but I was always told that sometimes, the dumbest questions can lead to the most interesting answers, so here we are.

24 Apr 2026 11:07pm GMT

Slashdot

BMW Is One Step Closer To Selling You a Color-Changing Car

BMW's latest concept car moves the color-changing tech it debuted back at CES 2022 closer to reality by embedding an E Ink panel directly into the hood. The Verge reports: BMW's previous concepts wrapped the entire vehicle in a patchwork of E Ink panels that were all custom-sized and shaped to match its contours. It was an approach that wasn't practical for mass production, and one that wasn't very durable. The new BMW iX3 Flow Edition is potentially the most exciting of all of BMW's concepts as it embeds the E Ink Prism technology directly into the structure of the vehicle's hood panel, instead of just slapping it on top. The new approach has "undergone BMW's stringent quality testing" so that it meets the "requirements of automotive engineering and everyday use," according to a release from E Ink. The BMW iX3 Flow Edition's color-changing capabilities are limited to its hood with eight different animations (which appear restricted to a grayscale palette) that can be changed by the driver at the push of a button. It's not exactly the color-changing car that BMW has been teasing for years and you still can't buy one, but by focusing on making this technology more practical and functional these vehicles are one step closer to moving past the concept phase.

OSnews

8087 emulation on 8086 systems

Not too long ago I had a need and an opportunity to re-acquaint myself with the mechanism used for software emulation of the 8087 FPU on 8086/8088 machines. ↫ Michal Necasek Look, when a Michal Necasek article starts out like this, you know you're in for a learnin' ol' time. The 8087 was a floating-point coprocessor for the 8086 and 8088 processors, since back in those early days, processors did not include an integrated floating-point unit. It wouldn't be until the release of the 486DX, in 1989, that Intel would integrate an FPU inside the processor itself, negating the need for a separate chip and socket. Interestingly enough, Intel also released a cut-down version of the 486 with the FPU removed, the 486SX, for which an optional external FPU did exist.

24 Apr 2026 10:42pm GMT

Ars Technica

Google will invest as much as $40 billion in Anthropic

This follows a similar, but smaller, investment by Amazon just days ago.

24 Apr 2026 10:05pm GMT

Slashdot

Samsung Could Lose Money On Smartphones For the First Time

A report says Samsung's mobile division could post its first-ever annual loss in 2026, as rising memory costs, tougher competition, and pressure across products like foldables and smartwatches weigh on the business. SammyGuru reports: Samsung boss TM Roh reportedly told company leaders that the mobile (MX) business could lose money this year. That warning has clearly rattled management. The MX unit has long been a key pillar for Samsung. That's why the idea of it slipping into the red is a serious concern for the company's overall performance. If this prediction holds, it would mark the first time the MX business reports a yearly loss since its inception. That's a sharp turn from its track record so far. It also raises bigger questions about future growth, rising competition, and how Samsung plans to steady the ship in its mobile division. And it's not like the challenges are easing up. Samsung's foldable market share in the US, where it currently enjoys a dominant position, doesn't look as solid as before, and Apple could shake things up if it enters the segment. On top of that, market reports suggest Samsung's overall smartwatch share could dip in 2026. The Galaxy S26 series seems to be selling well for now, but whether that's enough to move the needle is still up in the air.

Ars Technica

Europe—not US—first to authorize Moderna's combo mRNA flu-COVID vaccine

Amid RFK Jr.'s anti-vaccine agenda, Moderna withdrew its FDA application last year.

24 Apr 2026 9:11pm GMT

Slashdot

Bitwarden CLI Is the Next Compromise In Checkmarx Supply Chain Campaign

Longtime Slashdot reader Himmy32 writes: Socket Security published an article on the compromise of the Bitwarden CLI client, which was pushed from Bitwarden's client repository. This breach was the next in a chain of supply-chain attacks that have affected Checkmarx KICS and Aqua Security's Trivy scanners. The breach was quickly detected and reported by JFrog on the GitHub repository; JFrog also provided a technical write-up. The Bitwarden team has released statements on a blog post indicating that the compromise did not affect vault or customer data. Only 334 downloads of the affected CLI client were downloaded before removal and remediation.

OSnews

How hard is it to open a file?

Sebastian Wick has a great explanation of why opening files - programmatically - is a lot more complex and fraught with dangers than you might think it is. This issue was relevant for Wick as he is one of the lead developers of Flatpak, for which a number of security issues have recently been discovered, and it just so happens that many of these issues dealt with this very topic. The biggest security issue found was a complete sandbox escape, originating from the fact that flatpak run, the command-line tool to start a Flatpak application, accepted path strings, since flatpak run is assumed to be run by a trusted user. The problem lay in a D-Bus service sandboxed applications could use to create subsandboxes, and this service was built around, you guessed it, flatpak run. The issues in question, including this complete sandbox escape, have been addressed and fixed, but they highlight exactly the dangers that can come from opening files. This subsandboxing approach in Flatpak is built on assumptions from fifteen years ago, and times have changed since then. If you're a programmer who deals with opening files, you might want to take a look at your own code to see if similar issues exist.

24 Apr 2026 8:24pm GMT