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UC Davis researchers say an implanted brain-computer interface has allowed Casey Harrell, an ALS patient who cannot speak, to synthesize sentences from brain activity with 99% accuracy in controlled tests and about 92% accuracy in everyday use. The Register reports that the system has remained usable at home since 2023, helping Harrell communicate naturally, control a computer, and return to full-time work without researchers needing to supervise each session. The Register reports: A team of scientists from the University of California, Davis, published a paper Monday detailing a years-long study of a brain computer interface (BCI) system implanted in a patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease), which destroys motor neurons and causes loss of motor control and eventual paralysis. According to the team, their patient, Casey Harrell, has been living with BCI implants since 2023 that are still working today, giving him the ability not only to control a computer cursor with his thoughts, but also to speak. [...] Davis neurosurgeon David Brandman, co-principal investigator and co-senior author of the paper published Monday, as well as the surgeon who placed Harrell's implant, described the results his team published as the crossing of a threshold in BCI technology: Not only has Harrell's implant been working well with daily use since 2023, but it's also incredibly accurate. In controlled tests, the system managed to synthesize sentences from Harrell's brain activity with 99 percent accuracy; outside of the lab in daily use, Harrell still assessed it as being accurate 92 percent of the time. "The key thing to me is that it's enabling everyday communication for a guy who wants to talk but can't," Brandman told The Register in an interview. "Despite being paralyzed [Harrell] has gone back to work full time and has meaningful conversations with his daughter who's never heard the sound of his voice." Prior work in the BCI space, Brandman told us, has either required researchers to be in a patient's home whenever they're using the tech, or for the patient to come to the researchers. That's not the case here, with the system allowing Harrell's home care team to hook him up to the system themselves, enabling him to use the device for more than 3,800 hours in the past few years. Based on the time the study was filed (It published Monday but went into peer review in July 2025) that would mean Harrell was using the device for more than five hours a day, on average. "It is a life that is more full of dynamic action and with friends and family, with colleagues, and it is something that allows me to communicate more in my natural way of communicating than any other technology that I have experienced," Harrell told UC Davis via his BCI system.

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17 Jun 2026 7:00am GMT

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17 Jun 2026 4:30am GMT

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Hewlett Packard Enterprise's (HPE) new virtualization software promotion will likely pique the interest of end users and resellers who are unhappy with Broadcom's pricing of VMware. During its HPE Discover event in Las Vegas this week, HPE announced that customers could use its "HPE Morpheus Software -- VM Essentials" offering for free for "up to one year," per a press release. HPE's website describes its virtualization platform as a "VMware alternative." It includes a hardware virtual machine (HVM) hypervisor and unified management and lets users "manage VMware ESXi and HVM clusters from one console and migrate when you're ready," HPE's website says. "New VM Essentials customers can receive up to one free year of licenses for VM Essentials, a year of HPE Zerto for $1 to support non-disruptive migration to HPE virtual machines, and 0 percent interest on software through HPE Financial Services," HPE's announcement reads, referring to HPE's group for helping IT teams manage funding. Free for a year is cheaper than what Broadcom has charged for VMware vSphere since taking over. VMware prices have skyrocketed due to VMware's parent company eliminating perpetual licenses and bundling products into expensive packages. Notably, per its website, HPE recommends charging $600 per CPU socket per year for VM Essentials; Broadcom has controversially shifted vSphere licensing pricing to a per-core basis. "Customers are feeling quite a bit of pain in the change that some of the virtualization companies have put there, specifically Broadcom," Jeremiah Jenson, VP of HPE's North American channel and partner ecosystem, told CRN. The executive claimed that VM Essentials could bring up to 90 percent cost savings compared to VMware while also helping to "eliminate vendor lock-in and simplify hybrid IT." From March 1 to June 30, HPE has also been offering a free year of VM Essentials via rebate to customers who buy an AMD server and a one-year VM Essentials license. VM Essentials is only available through channel partners, a stark contrast from Broadcom's VMware approach, where the chip giant has drastically reduced the number of resellers that can sell VMware products. HPE's new promotion aims to entice customers to more deeply consider migrating off VMware. [...] HPE also announced that it would give 600 reseller partners who earn the HPE partner program's Private Cloud with Virtualization competency by the end of the year free VM Essentials software licenses for three years. Partners still have to pay support costs, though. The benefit is "a step in the correct direction," said Dean Colpitts, CTO of Canadian managed services provider (MSP) Members IT Group (MITG), which VMware cut from its reseller program after 19 years of partnership a year ago. However, limiting the promotion to 600 partners is "very shortsighted." He believes that HPE should give all of its partners VM Essentials "to facilitate getting [VM Essentials] into customer sites and displacing the competitors." "They need to fling [VM Essentials] as far and as fast as they possibly [can] to immediately gain traction and draw ISVs to them, which will increase adoption even more," he said.

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17 Jun 2026 3:30am GMT

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17 Jun 2026 3:25am GMT

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17 Jun 2026 1:40am GMT

Commodore has unveiled the Callback 8020, a $499 Sailfish OS flip phone that runs most Android apps but deliberately blocks social media, browsers, email, and workplace apps to discourage doomscrolling. The "not dumb dumbphone" still supports messaging, music, maps, ridesharing, hotspots, a removable battery, and plenty of Commodore nostalgia. "The phone uses T9-style texting with predictive input, includes Commodore SID ringtones, ships with a selection of Commodore and Sailfish games, and even includes Snake," reports TechSpot. From the report: Commodore says it has developed patent-pending technology that prevents browsers and social media apps from being sideloaded, while DNS-level blocking should stop them from working even if someone finds a way to install them. Users can still sideload nearly anything else if it's not available on the Commostore, but apps designed for doomscrolling remain off limits. That means useful services such as WhatsApp, SMS, Signal, Telegram, WeChat, Spotify, Uber, Lyft, maps, podcasts, QR scanning, voice notes, and hotspot support work, but the likes of Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Gmail, and browsers do not. The Callback 8020 has a 3.25-inch 480 x 640 internal display, a MediaTek Helio G81 chip, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, a 48MP Sony rear camera, an autofocus front camera, dual SIM support, USB-C, a headphone jack, FM radio, and something many of us miss from flagships: a removable battery. There's no 5G as Commodore argues that 4G VoLTE and Wi-Fi better fit a device meant to discourage constant streaming and scrolling. [...] The main screen is touch-capable but disabled by default, while the outer display keeps things deliberately sparse, showing basics such as time, battery, signal, and notifications via dome LEDs. The 8020 name is a nod to Commodore's 8010 modem from 1980. The phone comes in ProtoPET White, SX Silver, BASIC Beige, a translucent Starlight Edition, and a gold Founders Edition with a 24-karat gold-plated Commodore button. Standard models start at $499, the Starlight version is $549.99, and the Founders Edition costs $640. Preorders open June 30, with shipping targeted for winter. You can watch the launch ad on YouTube.

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16 Jun 2026 11:00pm GMT

NAACP lawsuit says xAI uses gas turbines without permits for Grok data center.

16 Jun 2026 10:22pm GMT

Partner tells Ars that HPE should be giving out more free VM Essentials licenses.

16 Jun 2026 10:11pm GMT

Transferring genes across species doesn't just happen in microbes.

16 Jun 2026 9:54pm GMT

Agama 22 improves the installer's web interface with a redesigned header, better tools, VLAN setup, and filesystem controls.

16 Jun 2026 5:10pm GMT

Mozilla Thunderbird 152 introduces one-click setup for Thundermail accounts, enterprise policy updates, Gmail OAuth changes, and security fixes.

16 Jun 2026 3:26pm GMT

VirtualBox 7.2.10 ships with initial Linux kernel 7.1 support, Linux host fixes, and improvements for CentOS 10 guests.

16 Jun 2026 3:07pm GMT