When we think of extraterrestrials, our minds generally go from the latex-suited bipedal aliens seen in Star Trek and Star Wars to more exotic critters in sci-fi movies. Scientists think in terms of carbon-based microbial life and other lower life forms. But some researchers, such as Mikhail Tikhonov from Washington University, suggest that life can take more unusual forms, ones we might not even recognize. He further suggests a new definition of life: something that takes in and transforms energy and replicates. His ideas radically expand our notions of alien life and how it might be recognized.

Headlines:

• Space Shuttle Endeavour's New Launch Configuration Exhibit Debuts
• SpaceX Prepares for Starship Flight 15's First Attempted Double Landing
• Risks and Stakes for SpaceX's Reusable Starship Program

Main Topic: Searching for Alien Life—Redefining the Approach

• Origins and motivations for thinking differently about our definition of life
• Traditional "follow the water" strategy versus seeking energy as life's marker
• Challenges in recognizing non-Earth-like life forms
• Signature of life through energy use and ecological patterns
• Implications for planetary exploration and sampling, including Mars, Europa, and Venus
• Theoretical examples and sci-fi inspirations for nontraditional life
• Current research intersections between physics and microbial ecology
• Limits, opportunities, and philosophical implications of agnostic biosignature searches

Hosts: Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik

Guest: Mikhail Tikhonov

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Jacob Ward shows the show this week! Jensen Huang was first reported as a target in a Chinese spy plot and has since resigned from Nvidia following numerous reported extramarital affairs! Hands-on with Apple's new touchscreen MacBook Pro. And are wearable devices using your data to train AI models?

• Jacob talks about Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang admitting to an affair with Alice Huang, a Megaspeed executive whose company bought nearly $5 billion in Nvidia chips and who was reportedly flagged in a US intelligence memo as a suspected Chinese asset.
• Nvidia also announced that Huang is stepping down, with CFO Colette Kress taking over as interim CEO, amid a missing succession plan, a Bernstein downgrade, and reports of a second affair. Jacob and Mikah discuss the board's reported concern over Huang's alleged dishonesty and the regulatory scrutiny awaiting his successor.
• ZDNet's Kyle Kucharski joins the show to share his review of Apple's touchscreen MacBook Pro, calling it still very much a MacBook, with a stunning OLED display, great battery life, and excellent speakers.
• And Mikah looks at a year-long Science investigation of 57 consumer EEG companies that found several are training AI "brain foundation models" on customers' brainwave data, often without clear disclosure.

Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Jacob Ward

Guest: Kyle Kucharski

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NVIDIA's RTX Spark ushers in a new era for Windows PCs with massive unified memory and a game-changing GPU—if you can figure out how to tap into its raw power. This episode breaks down what makes Spark intriguing and why its target audience is anyone but casual users.

Host: Paul Thurrott

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Which AI model should you use, and how much effort should it put in? Using Claude as the example, Mikah Sargent explains its four model families, Haiku, Sonnet, Opus, and Fable, and its five effort levels, and shows that ChatGPT and Gemini have the same two dials. He explains what an AI model's "thinking" actually is and what changes when you switch models or turn up the effort. He compares an easy job on a light setup and a heavy one, tests a logic puzzle with one right answer at two effort levels, and explains why the top setting isn't automatically the best one. Then he shares a way to choose that works in any chatbot.

Send your AI questions to [email protected]

Host: Mikah Sargent

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As iOS Today wraps its remarkable 828-episode run, the hosts reveal the essential apps and smart home tweaks that have powered their digital lives and productivity. Discover the personal tech picks that shaped the show's legacy.

• Celebrating iOS Today's legacy and its final palindrome episode
• Drafts and OmniFocus: deep dive into top productivity winners
• Fantastical and Due: calendar and reminder essentials for daily organization
• CARROT and Crouton: the ultimate weather and recipe app picks
• Fastmail and Home Assistant: privacy-focused email, next-level smart home automation
• PCalc, Dice, and Dark Noise: utility favorites for calculation and focus
• News: iOS 27.3 beta highlights redesigned Health app and new features
• Feedback: Focus modes and app management tips using iOS and iMazing
• Shortcuts Corner: automating masked Fastmail emails and health data charting
• App Caps: Elgato Stream Deck XL and Pedal supercharge Mac productivity

Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Rosemary Orchard

Contact iOS Today at [email protected].

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Can one developer's breakthrough double or even quadruple local AI performance on your own hardware? Explore how TensorFold could make cloud-based models look slow and why giants like Apple and Nvidia are taking notice.

• Nvidia is Preparing to Oust CEO Jensen Huang
• The Nvidia capital atlas: really good graphics
• (12) Fireside Alpha on X: "Dario Amodei says cancer, Alzheimer's, heart disease, and mental illness will be relics of the past in less than a decade, and that "we can create an age of miracles" "You know, if today we look at things like cancer, Alzheimer's, heart disease, mental illness, these will be https://t.co/quRQbixDSu" / X
• AMD Zen 6 EPYC 'Venice' deep dive and benchmarking – 9686F outclasses Nvidia's Vera, dual EPYC 9996 with 1,024 threads delivers up to 93% performance gain gen-on-gen
• Anthropic to Seek $1.3 Trillion Valuation in IPO
• Anthropic to Proceed With IPO Roadshow Next Week
• 3 takeaways from the big AI report on Anthropic everyone is talking about
• Anthropic lets Claude read your bank accounts, but not move money
• OpenAI Completes $11 Billion Portion of Funding at $1.25 Trillion Value
• Gemini 4 Carbon is now available
• DeepMind reveals Gemini Robotics 2.5 and open safety benchmark "ASIMOV-jailbreak"
• Google touts AI breakthrough, path to "unhackable" software
• Google: Schools can keep search while skipping Gemini, but AI search is non-negotiable
• Google Won't Give Schools the One Thing They Want
• AI teddy for three-year-olds gave unprompted self-harm reply, BBC finds
• United Airlines Is Banning AI Bots From Booking Flights
• Alex Karp says he's a lifelong Democrat — and Palantir's products are 'essentially progressive'
• I Used NYT Cooking's New AI-Powered Recipe Modifier, and It's Actually Pretty Good
• Spelunkr - cable TV but weirder
• danah boyd: No one paid me to disagree with Jonathan Haidt. It was teenagers who taught me that he was wrong.
• remember the world bollard association
• Munich's Alguth Stone

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau

Guest: Ash Hart

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Leo is back! From Patch Tuesday's 1000+ vulnerabilities to the relentless updates and evolving Windows features, the conversation lays bare how quickly the desktop is being reinvented, with hybrid AI and hardware hiccups included! Local AI does not rise to the challenge, hampering RTX Spark. Plus, Paul has finally started incorporating AI into his work.

Windows

• Patch Tuesday: Minor improvements across 25H2/26H2 and 26H1
• Five new builds on Friday, just one notable feature change
• Clipchamp is still the reigning king of easy-to-use but powerful video editors
• Microsoft Edge and Widgets in Windows 11 get a new Discover feed
• Opera now has over 100 million users on desktop
• Vivaldi completely rewrites its tracker and ad blockers on desktop and mobile
• Qualcomm earnings: Waiting on the datacenter to save the company
• HP OmniBook Ultra 16 review - RTX Spark is here

AI and dev

• No one expected Jensen Huang to be the problem with Big AI
• After a powerful set of updates, now you can use Google Antigravity for productivity, too
• Adobe opens up to third-party AI assistants, expands partnerships with Microsoft and Google
• New Linux distribution promises to out-AI Windows 11 - a few thoughts about how AI will benefit Linux
• .NET 11 arrives at .NET Conf 2026
• Discord is rewriting its app in Rust and you're not going to believe what happens next

XBOX and gaming

• The new XBOX Nano Controller comes with an awesome surprise
• The new XBOX app is here on Windows 11, mobile, and cloud, and it's much faster
• AutoSR comes to AMD-based Copilot+ PCs, ROG XBOX Ally gaming handhelds
• You can preload GTA VI now
• EA remasters classic games in Ultima and Wing Commander series, more
• Nintendo: 6.49 million Switch units
• Sony: 2.6 million PS5 units - now over 100 million units cumulatively

Tips and picks

• Tip of the week: Do it for free
• App pick of the week: AI

Hosts: Leo Laporte and Paul Thurrott

Download or subscribe to Windows Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly

Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com

The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin.

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From hacked French refrigerators igniting fires to a massive OpenSSH authentication bug hiding in plain sight for a decade, this week's stories expose how lapses in basic security ripple into chaos—and why AI is now both a weapon and shield.

• TA surprising announcement regarding SpinRite.
• What is being "AI-pilled" and how does it happen.
• OpenAI just released GPT-6 Cyber. What does that mean.
• An irresponsible hacker published 30+ N-Able 0-days.
• 700 French refrigerators hacked. What's next.
• Lots of listener feedback about the Cloudflare tunneling solution, Voyager 1, true hardware drive encryption, the random number 4 and the amount of debris in orbit
• Then we look at a 10-year old serious SSH authentication bug (that's kinda wonderful)

Show Notes - https://www.grc.com/sn/SN-1104-Notes.pdf

Hosts: Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte

Download or subscribe to Security Now at https://twit.tv/shows/security-now.

You can submit a question to Security Now at the GRC Feedback Page.

For 16kbps versions, transcripts, and notes (including fixes), visit Steve's site: grc.com, also the home of the best disk maintenance and recovery utility ever written Spinrite 6.

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Siri AI is now accessible for developers. The quality issues with the iPhone Duo may actually come down to bad parts. And the original iPod went on sale 25 years ago today.

• Apple begins opening Siri AI to developers.
• Apple CEO presses software chief to pursue more ambitious AI strategy.
• iPhone Duo hinge issue down to bad parts, not bad design.
• iPhone 18 Pro review: Camera quality and other upgrades mean I can't go back to the cheaper iPhones after this.
• 2026 iPad mini review: Maximizing the mini.
• The original iPod went on sale 25 years ago today.
• About the illuminated Apple logo on MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR display.
• Fake Homebrew installer linked to record-breaking $6.3 billion Binance heist.
• Christopher Nolan's Interstellar is getting a LEGO set.

Picks of the Week

• Andy's Pick: Patrick Stewart's "A Christmas Carol"
• Doc's Pick: RigMap
• Matthew's Picks: Xbox Nano Controller, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for Switch 2, and the ESP32 powered Mac 128k

Hosts: Leo Laporte and Andy Ihnatko

Guests: Doc Rock and Matthew Cassinelli

Download or subscribe to MacBreak Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/macbreak-weekly.

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NVIDIA's CEO is caught in a honeypot scandal with global AI power plays hanging in the balance, just as data centers come under fire from both voters and lawmakers across the US. From the abrupt end of the Tesla Cybertruck to hackers weaponizing smart fridges, this week's episode dives into the messy, hilarious, and sometimes alarming ways future tech is colliding with real-world consequences.

• Tesla Cybertruck canned after recalls, plunging sales, and controversy
• Remembering Aaron Swartz and the ethics of open access
• Academic journals, research paywalls, and access challenges
• Voters across US reject data centers in local elections
• Apple debuts pricey OLED touchscreen MacBook Pros
• BYD, Chinese cars, and the end of US auto dominance
• France's top literary prize rocked by AI-assisted novel controversy
• NVIDIA CEO ensnared in alleged Chinese intelligence honeypot probe
• Data center power demands spark silent vs noisy turbine debate
• Global refrigerator hacks spoil food, expose IoT vulnerabilities
• FAA finally ditches floppy disks for national air traffic control
• Allyn's rig and Padre's Fanttik Cafein 11 Portable Coffee Maker! https://link.amazon/B0gOz4i8Z (affiliate link)

Host: Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ

Guests: Allyn Malventano, Iain Thomson, and David Hewlett

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