Monthly Archives: April 2026

Apple gives up on Vision Pro, disbands Vision Pro team

Source: OSNews

Article note: Looks like the VR hype cycle is reaching its expected conclusion. A couple interesting curiosities (Betsaber, HL:Alyx), and a ton of burnt capital. See y'all in a couple decades for the next round.

When Apple unveiled the Vision Pro, almost three (!) years ago, I concluded:

If there’s one company that can convince people to spend $3500 to strap an isolating dystopian glowing robot mask onto their faces it’s Apple, but I still have a hard time believing this is what people want.

↫ Thom Holwerda at OSNews (quoting myself is weird)

MacRumors’ Juli Clover, today:

Apple has all but given up on the Vision Pro after the M5 model failed to revitalize interest in the device, MacRumors has learned. Apple updated the Vision Pro with a faster M5 chip and a more comfortable band in October 2025, but there were no other hardware changes, and consumers still weren’t interested.

[…]

Apple has apparently stopped work on the Vision Pro and the Vision Pro team has been redistributed to other teams within Apple. Some former Vision Pro team members are working on Siri, which is not a surprise as Vision Pro chief Mike Rockwell has been leading the Siri team since March 2025.

↫ Juli Clover at MacRumors

VR – what the Vision Pro is, whether Apple’s marketing likes to say it or not – has proven to be good for exactly two things: games and porn. The Vision Pro has neither. It was destined to be a flop from the start, as nobody wants to strap an uncomfortable computer to their face that does less than all of the other computers they already have, and what it does do, it does worse.

I do wonder if this makes the Vision Pro the most expensive flop in human history. Has any company ever spent more on a product that failed this spectacularly?

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National Science Board eviscerated; Trump admin fires all 22 members

Source: Ars Technica

Article note: The people in charge of managing the science that all the broligarchs made their fortunes by taking from were going to publish a report that - as anyone paying any attention to the current state of essentially any field of research has already noted - the US is rapidly ceding its scientific leadership to China and Europe, so they're being fired for... doing their job. Now we see what kind of kleptocratic anti-science swamp monsters the administration tries to install to replace them.

All 22 members of the National Science Board were terminated by the Trump administration via a terse email Friday.

The administration has provided no explanation for purging the board, which helps steer the National Science Foundation and acts as an independent advisory body for the President and Congress on scientific and engineering issues, providing reports throughout the year. The ousters represent another severe blow to the NSF and the overall scientific enterprise in America.

On Friday, members received a two-sentence email saying that, "On behalf of President Donald J. Trump," their positions were "terminated, effective immediately."

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Windows 9x Subsystem for Linux

Source: Hacker News

Article note: This is _majestic_ bullshit. Windows 95 and a fairly modern Linux kernel cooperatively running in Ring 0.
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The Mystery in the Medicine Cabinet: Acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and what to know

Source: Hacker News

Article note: Huh, I also was under the impression that Ibuprofen was generally safer for frequent low-level use, but that's pretty convincing that Acetaminophen is generally safer except at overdose levels or with certain specific counter-indications. I'd like to see parallel information for some of the other pain relievers like Naproxen (which has generally been my preference for low-level joint pain).
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Got an Old Kindle? It Might Not Work Anymore

Source: Hacker News

Article note: It sounds like you can still load content over USB. Which is frankly the primary way I've used my (not so old that it's affected) Kindle, getting books from DRM-free stores or "otherwise" and shoving them on with calibre. With the crippling, it might be an opportunity to pick up some very old ones for cheap to torture with custom firmware or the like.
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It Is Time to Ban the Sale of Precise Geolocation

Source: Hacker News

Article note: Yes. The details of _how_ we make it untenable to gather, retain, sell, or give access to that kind of data are legitimately complicated, but making it, at very least, such a liability risk no one is willing to do it would be a great move.
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Academic fraud may be the symptom of a more systemic problem

Source: Hacker News

Article note: This. I'm instructional faculty not research faculty in large part because the incentives around research careers are so gross.
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Why Aren’t the Kids Out Protesting Against Trump?

Source: NYT > Education

Article note: Looking at the current college cohort: Brainrot is Real. We're seeing a lot of formerly-unusual problems that look like executive function disorders. Students who don't know how to focus for long enough to do deep work - even college sophmore focus on a bench for a couple hours "deep." Occasionally even "sit and read this 3 page assignment" deep. Students who turn in lab reports with fever-dream mashups of labs from multiple weeks because they barely know what happened or when. It's visible as a third peak on some exams that are usually bimodal. It's justifiably freaking a bunch of my colleagues out. I'm not sure what exactly it is about the tasp of continuous dopamine hits from short-form content that leads to it, but something always makes me uncomfortable about even hearing that shit. I think there might be some conflating factors on the political apathy front, this generation grew up learning that a staggering fraction of supposed public servants are monsters who almost flauntingly won't be held accountable for anything, ever, and watching mass movements have essentially no effect (Remember OWS? Remember how absolutely nothing came of it?).

The lack of a thriving youth movement in opposition to Trump is a canary-in-the-coal-mine warning of the deterioration of American exceptionalism.

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I Ported Mac OS X to the Nintendo Wii

Source: Hacker News

Article note: Well, this is absurd and delightful.
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