US Supreme Court Allows Trump's Mail Ballot Restrictions to Proceed

The US Supreme Court has backed President Donald Trump's effort to curb mail-in voting in the United States. Trump had signed an executive order in March aimed at restricting the use of mail ballots in elections. The order faced immediate legal challenges from multiple parties upon its signing. The Supreme Court's decision allows the administration's push against mail-in voting to move forward despite the earlier opposition.

Solid-State Transformers Find Early Market in Data Center Power Demand

Solid-state transformers, a next-generation power conversion technology, are gaining traction as data centers emerge as their primary early adopters. Unlike traditional transformers, solid-state versions use semiconductor components to manage electrical power more efficiently and flexibly. The surge in data center construction, driven by cloud computing and AI workloads, has created strong demand for advanced power infrastructure. Beyond data centers, the technology is also seen as promising for electric vehicle charging networks. Researchers and industry players believe solid-state transformers could eventually find their way into household power systems as well.

SC to consider Tarun Tejpal's plea for exemption from surrender

Trump Bought SpaceX Shares at ~$155 Shortly After Its IPO Debut

President Trump purchased SpaceX shares approximately two weeks after the company's initial public offering. He bought the stock when it was trading in the mid-$150 range, above the IPO price. SpaceX shares subsequently declined, closing on Monday back at their IPO price of $135. The purchase drew attention given the timing, coming shortly after the company's high-profile market debut.

SEMAPRAX Tool Links Semantic Code Patches to Verifiable WebAssembly Artifacts

Wavect GmbH is developing SEMAPRAX, an experimental open-source agent-native systems programming language currently at v0.2 pre-alpha stage, designed to bring verifiability to code changes made by AI coding agents. A read-only command called 'semaprax target-evidence' rebuilds both original and patched versions of a program and generates deterministic compiler outputs, including a semantic graph, capability manifest, C11 source, and a validated WebAssembly module. Each output artifact receives a domain-separated cryptographic digest, allowing independent verifiers to confirm exactly which projections a given source edit actually affects. The tool uses wasmparser 0.256.0 to structurally validate emitted WebAssembly modules, though the developers stress this confirms only structural validity and not runtime correctness, ABI compatibility, or cross-runtime conformance. SEMAPRAX's current WebAssembly support is intentionally limited to bounded scalar exports and JS/TS bindings, and the project explicitly cautions against treating static evidence reports as stronger runtime guarantees.

3 Bambiha members deported from Malaysia

Cricket Analogy Breaks Down How Hubs, Switches, and Routers Actually Work

A developer-focused explainer published on DEV Community uses cricket player roles to demystify common networking devices and concepts. A hub is compared to a player with no situational awareness — it blindly broadcasts incoming data to every connected device rather than targeting a specific recipient. A switch improves on this by maintaining a MAC address table, allowing it to send data directly to the correct device on the same network. Routers serve a distinct function by connecting separate networks, such as linking a home network to the broader internet. The article also covers supporting concepts including IP addresses, subnet masks, NICs, and the RJ45 connector to give beginners a fuller picture of how networks are structured.

Tellie Prompter 1.5

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RFK Jr. Eyes Overhaul of Vaccine Recommendation Categories

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is reportedly considering changes to the existing system used to categorize vaccine recommendations in the United States. The current framework consists of three distinct categories that guide public health guidance on vaccines. No clear rationale or justification has been provided for the proposed changes. The potential overhaul could have significant implications for how vaccine guidance is communicated and followed nationwide.

Developer Publishes 59 AI Predictions Across 17 Categories Through 2031

A practitioner who spent roughly two months building AI tools, testing workflows, and advising clients has published a detailed set of 59 predictions about how artificial intelligence will reshape software development and broader industries. The predictions are organised into 17 categories and four time horizons ranging from within 12 months to three-to-five years out, each carrying a stated confidence level and a falsification criterion. Among the near-term forecasts is a shift from agile teams of six-to-eight developers toward AI-powered pods of just two-to-three people, though the author acknowledges this transition is more plausible for greenfield projects than for regulated enterprises. A second prediction holds that smaller pods will accelerate the clearance of long-standing technical debt and open defect backlogs within the next year. The author invites community feedback and plans to expand on individual predictions in subsequent writing.

One corner of China’s internet is insisting that the Tang Dynasty never existed

Article URL: https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/19/style/china-tang-dynasty-never-existed-hoax-intl-hnk Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49425819 Points: 29 # Comments: 12

In a first, Census 2027 will not record data on begging

Internet Archive Explores Early AI History Before Modern Controversies

The Internet Archive published a blog post on August 16, 2026, examining the history of artificial intelligence from its earlier, less contentious era. The piece reflects on how AI research and public perception have shifted significantly over time. The article appears to contrast vintage AI developments with the more complex and debated landscape of contemporary AI. The post garnered modest engagement on Hacker News, receiving 10 points and one comment.

ChatGPT and Gemini Agree on Top Local Business in Only 4.2% of Searches

A study by Steady Demand analyzed 1,487 local-service queries across 50 U.S. cities and 10 service categories, finding that ChatGPT and Gemini recommended the same top business in just 4.2% of identical searches. The two AI assistants also drew on different source ecosystems, with Gemini leaning more on business websites while ChatGPT relied more heavily on Reddit and traditional directories. Repeated queries revealed further instability, with cited sources aligning only about 40% of the time — a pattern the researchers call 'grounding drift.' By contrast, Google's local-pack top results reappeared roughly 90% of the time, highlighting how much more variable AI-generated recommendations can be. The findings suggest that checking a brand's visibility on one AI assistant offers little insight into how it appears on others, complicating local marketing strategies.

Business Student Ships SaaS Product in 10 Days Using Claude Code AI, Spends Under £20

A business management student with no coding background built and launched a working SaaS product called quidkit in ten days using Anthropic's Claude Code AI assistant. The product is a subscription app starter kit built on Next.js, React, Supabase, and Tailwind, priced at £29 to undercut established alternatives costing £200–£300. The student spent roughly 35–45 hours over evenings, with total costs of around £17, covering only a domain and miscellaneous expenses. Rather than relying on a single AI prompt, the workflow involved writing detailed specs and using a second AI conversation to stress-test decisions, while manual testing caught critical bugs around authentication emails, webhooks, and spam filtering. The project highlights that non-developers can now ship real, revenue-ready products with AI tools, though configuration, DNS, and thorough deployment testing remain the most time-intensive challenges.

GitHub launches plugin to evaluate alt text quality beyond basic automated checks

GitHub has developed a new plugin for its Accessibility Scanner tool aimed at improving the quality of image alt text in code repositories. The plugin goes beyond standard automated checks, which typically only verify whether alt text exists rather than whether it is meaningful. Many alt text descriptions pass basic validation yet fail to convey useful information to users relying on screen readers. The new tool is designed to assess whether alt text is genuinely accessible and descriptive. GitHub shared details of how the plugin works in a post on its official blog.

Having SPF, DKIM, and DMARC Records Does Not Mean Your Domain Is Protected

Most email authentication checkers only confirm whether SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records exist, not whether they are configured to actually block spoofing. An SPF record ending in '~all' instead of '-all' still allows forged emails to be delivered, as does a DMARC policy set to 'p=none', which monitors but does not block fraudulent messages. A hidden SPF risk involves exceeding the RFC 7208 ten-lookup limit, which silently breaks enforcement when too many email vendors are added over time. DMARC only provides real protection when its policy is set to 'p=quarantine' or 'p=reject', yet many domains remain permanently in monitor mode after initial setup. Security experts warn that publishing these records in permissive rollout modes and never tightening them leaves domains fully spoofable despite appearing compliant to standard tools.

Hits on government sites during Operation Sindoor: NIA begins probe

Why Price-Per-Token Is the Wrong Way to Pick an AI Model Endpoint

As AI agents move from demos to production, choosing the right model endpoint based solely on cost-per-token pricing is proving inadequate for real workloads. Agent traffic differs fundamentally from chat traffic, often arriving in bursts of parallel tool calls rather than steady streams, which can overwhelm endpoints optimised for throughput. Three key factors should guide the decision: traffic shape, data sensitivity, and the team's capacity to manage infrastructure. Free hosted tiers suit steady, non-sensitive, low-maintenance use cases, while self-hosting better serves spiky, latency-sensitive, or privacy-critical workloads. A practical stress-test script that measures success rate, rate-limit events, and latency percentiles at varying concurrency levels is recommended to evaluate any endpoint before committing to production.

How Node.js Should Handle SMS OTP Cooldowns and Attempt Limits Securely

A technical guide published on DEV Community outlines best practices for building passwordless phone login systems using Node.js and Express, specifically for gaming storefronts. The core argument is that the backend must own all SMS OTP resend cooldowns, attempt caps, and anti-abuse counters, never trusting the browser or game client to enforce these rules. The recommended design models authentication as a state machine with distinct states — ready, code_sent, verified, expired, and locked — with a database serving as the authoritative source for expiry and counters. Atomic database transactions are emphasized to prevent race conditions where multiple server workers could simultaneously approve a resend and waste SMS send capacity. The guide also warns that client-visible countdowns are purely UX elements, while stored server-side deadlines constitute actual security policy.