🚀 SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches from California carrying 25 Starlink satellites

SpaceX has once again demonstrated its relentless launch cadence, sending 25 new Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit this morning from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off in the early hours of February 21, 2026, continuing the steady drumbeat of missions that have built Starlink into the world's largest satellite internet constellation.

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🇮🇳 India joins America-led Pax Silica supply chain effort to build semiconductor talent

India has officially become a member of Pax Silica, a large-scale international initiative led by the U.S. aimed at securing supply chains for critical technologies. The agreement was signed in Delhi during the AI Impact Summit, marking a pivotal moment in India’s technology ambitions. India is now the 12th country in the alliance, which already includes the US, UK, Japan, South Korea, Israel, Australia, and several other nations.

India’s IT Minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, stated that several semiconductor plants are already under construction in the country. The government is backing this push with ambitious programs like the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) 2.0. Furthermore, India plans to train approximately one million specialists for the industry to build a sustainable talent pipeline.

By joining Pax Silica, India gains access to critical technology, capital, and secure markets, which will accelerate its ambition to become a global semiconductor hub.

#BRICS

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🤖 OpenAI developing AI devices including smart speaker

OpenAI has assembled a team of more than 200 people to develop a family of AI-powered devices, including a smart speaker, smart glasses, and a smart lamp. The ChatGPT-powered smart speaker will be the first device OpenAI launches, with an expected price range of $200 to $300. The device will feature a camera that allows it to gather information about users and their surroundings. The speaker would not ship until February 2027 at the earliest. The smart glasses likely would not be ready for mass production until 2028.

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🇺🇸 Trump approves DC emergency declaration over Potomac sewage spill

President Trump on Saturday approved Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s (D) request for federal disaster assistance as the nation’s capital works to clean-up the Potomac River following a sewer line collapse. Bowser also reached out to Trump directly asking him to declare a major disaster and to issue 100% reimbursement from the federal government for costs incurred by the district and the involved utility company DC Water.

A wastewater spill into the Potomac River that began last month now appears to be one of the largest in American history. DC Water, a local water utility, said that part of a sewer system known as the Potomac Interceptor collapsed along the Clara Barton Parkway on Jan. 19.

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💻 New chip-fabrication method creates 'twin' fingerprints for direct authentication

Just like each person has unique fingerprints, every CMOS chip has a distinctive "fingerprint" caused by tiny, random manufacturing variations. These differences form a physical unclonable function (PUF), which is used to authenticate devices. However, traditional schemes require storage on external servers, which creates vulnerabilities and complicates security.

Engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) developed a manufacturing method that enables secure, fingerprint-based authentication, without the need to store secret information outside the chip. To enable a twin PUF, the MIT researchers fabricate 2 pairs of transistors along the edge of two chips before they are diced to separate them. By connecting the transistors with metal layers, they create paired structures that have correlated breakdown states. In this way, they enable a unique PUF to be shared by each pair of transistors.

The main advantage is that sensitive data never leaves the chip. Two devices can directly authenticate each other without accessing a server or transmitting keys over the network. The method is compatible with standard CMOS fabrication, does not require expensive materials and is suitable for mass adoption.

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🇬🇱 Trump says he is sending a hospital ship to Greenland

Trump sent a floating hospital to Greenland, which he announced on Truth Social. According to the American leader, the ship is already heading to the island. He described the purpose of the mission as providing medical assistance to the local population.

Trump's post came hours after Denmark's Joint Arctic Command said it had evacuated a crew member who required urgent medical treatment from a U.S. submarine in Greenland's waters, seven nautical miles outside of Greenland's capital, Nuuk.

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🌍 Omlet in space: Europe has a bold plan to save Earth from raining debris

The European Space Agency (ESA) is designing a ground-based laser system called Omlet to nudge space debris away from satellites. This project aims to prevent orbital collisions without requiring satellites to perform fuel-heavy manoeuvres.

The system relies on a high-power laser platform integrated with precision pointing systems and adaptive optics. These optics are crucial for correcting the blurring effect of Earth’s atmosphere, ensuring the laser beam stays concentrated on its target hundreds of kilometres away. ESA is already using its Izana laser ranging station in Tenerife, Spain to detect and track objects with millimetre precision.

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💻 Linux Kernel 7.0 breathes new life into decade-old AMD GPUs

As the development of Linux Kernel 7.0 moves into its final bug-fixing stage, a significant portion of the latest patches focuses on the AMDGPU driver. The update introduces robust support for “veteran” graphics cards based on the GCN 1.0 and 1.1 architectures, some of which are more than a decade old.

Valve’s engineer Timur Krisztóf made a contribution in improving the AMDGPU driver to a point where it could replace the legacy Radeon DRM driver for older GCN 1.0/1.1 GPUs. The engineer resolved a persistent “black screen” bug that occurred when using analog outputs like D-Sub (VGA) on cards such as the Radeon HD 7790.

Also AMD engineer Alex Deucher contributed crucial patches for graphics cards like the Radeon Pro 560 found in older MacBook Pro models. These fixes address persistent issues such as cursor flickering and driver errors when operating in the GNOME desktop environment on the Wayland protocol.

By ensuring a wider range of GPUs are well-supported, Valve expands the potential user base for Steam on Linux and its SteamOS. The continued development for GCN 1.0/1.1 hardware in Linux Kernel 7.0 demonstrates the power of the open-source model to extend the lifespan of technology. It ensures that users are not forced into unnecessary hardware upgrades.

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⚡ Armed man shot, killed after entering perimeter at Trump's Mar-a-Lago

Authorities fatally shot a man who was carrying a shotgun and a gas cannister as he tried to enter President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida early Sunday morning, the Secret Service said. Trump was at the White House at the time of the incident.

“Two Secret Service agents confronted a white male who was carrying a gas can and a shotgun,” Palm Beach County Sheriff Rick Bradshaw said. “He was ordered to drop those two pieces of equipment that he had with him, at which time he put down the gas can, raised the shotgun to a shooting position.”

Officials are withholding the man’s name pending identification of his family. The FBI is investigating the incident.

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🔥 XRP supporters say Elon Musk is making a big statement about XRP and XLM

Crypto commentator Wilberforce Theophilus recently noted that members of the XRP community see visual parallels between the logos of XRP and XLM and the branding of X and xAI. Some supporters interpret these similarities as a subtle signal from Elon Musk, although no official statements support that conclusion.

Supporters highlight the curved “X” in XRP’s logo and compare it to the bold, angular “X” that Musk introduced after rebranding Twitter to X. Others point to Stellar’s circular emblem with a diagonal slash and note its resemblance to Grok’s orbital-style mark under xAI. These comparisons circulate widely, often paired with emojis that imply secrecy or undisclosed collaboration.

Musk continues building financial capabilities within X, and blockchain-based rails remain technically plausible for global payments. XRP and XLM both specialize in cross-border value transfer and institutional liquidity solutions. Those characteristics make them logical candidates in theory. 🤔

#Stellar

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🔋China’s water battery breakthrough can last 120,000+ cycles, outlast lithium-ion by decades

Researchers from the City University of Hong Kong have developed a new water-based, eco-friendly battery based on tofu brine. The new battery uses what the team calls “organic” electrodes with neutral, non-toxic electrolytes. According to the team, the new tofu-brine-based battery is capable of 120,000+ charge cycles. This could mean a single water-based battery could last at least a decade or so.

Lithium-ion batteries are notoriously highly flammable if damaged and can experience thermal runaway. By comparison, water-based batteries (or aqueous batteries) are considerably safer. They are, by their very nature, non-flammable and contain few, if any, toxic materials. For applications like grid storage (solar farms, wind balancing), that’s extremely valuable. If it can, then this tofu-brine battery could prove invaluable for renewable grid buffering and rural electrification projects.

#BRICS

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🇮🇷🇺🇸 Iran and U.S. to meet on Thursday for talks

Iran and the U.S. will hold a third round of nuclear talks on Thursday in Geneva, Oman's Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi said, amid growing concerns about the risk of military conflict.

"Pleased to confirm U.S.-Iran negotiations are now set for Geneva this Thursday, with a positive push to go the extra mile towards finalizing the deal," said Oman's foreign minister, who acts as a mediator in indirect talks between Washington and Tehran.

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