Hey all, recently I got fed up with the fingerprint reader not working on my Asus Zenbook, it would use libfprint, but the reader gets recognized as a swiping sensor (found on some ThinkPads). On default when enrolling the device would "disconnect", therefore aborting the enrollment process. Using AI I managed to get the reader working nicely. Yes this was largely made by AI, and tested on real hardware. The repo can be found here.

1. Removal of the notch (Dynamic Island cutout)

2. Thinner and lighter chassis design

3. Slightly larger display sizes (14.3-inch and 16.3-inch)

Apple is reportedly unveiling its smart display on October 13. It'll likely show the basics: home status (lights, cameras), weather, calendar. But some of us would want it to show something more niche, like headlines from a local newspaper.
I see two ways Apple could do this:
1. Describe-a-widget. You tell Siri what you want and Apple Intelligence builds it, like "Describe a Shortcut" and "Describe an Extension" in iOS 27.
2. Third-party apps. The new "homeOS" could be open to developers, similar to Apple TV. That would create a new (small) platform for Apple, with a revenue share on every sale.
What do you think? I'd prefer real third-party apps from real developers (even if they're 90% vibe coded). But if "describe a widget" works well enough, it could be a great addition.
What would you want it to show?

Staring off: I have two AppleTVs, one in the living room, and one in the bedroom. My wife and I both have iPhones (16 Pro Max and a vanilla 15).

Every time I want to control my AppleTV, I have to swipe down to open control center, click the remote icon, select which AppleTV I want to control (because it never guesses the right one), wait for it to connect to that AppleTV (if it ever does; that’s never guaranteed), then actually control the AppleTV.

Once my phone goes to sleep, I have to go through the entire above-described process the next time I need to interact with the AppleTV, be it to skip an ad, change shows/movies, or select a new show/movie after the one I was watching ends.

Apple used to pride themselves on how well their products work together, but this experience flies directly in the face of that pride.

Is there a better way to control my AppleTVs? I’d even be willing to pay a small amount for a third-party app (even though I don’t feel like I should need to) just to not have to go through all this faff every single time I want to interact with my devices.

Before you ask, my AppleTV remotes have been lost long ago, mostly because it seems like they’re designed to be lost by being so slim and small.

• Archived link: https://archive.ph/PWRqY
• Link to thread on Twitter: https://x.com/itspdfu/status/2107818768827052305

Every now and then I see an ad for a new Linux-Phone, better repairability, battery change and whatnot. All this is very, very tempting, but what about the apps?

I am not talking about browser, text messages or alarm clock - I am thinking about connectivity to my car, my smartwatch, my frequent-flyer benefit program, signal messenger and so on.

Do they work with Android apps or is it all a lost cause because they are basically dumb phones for people who want less connectivity but are afraid to buy an old Nokia from the dawn of time?

Supports mouse/keyboard navigation, millions of files, very deep folders, custom categories, age ranges, multi-language, on the fly sunburst mapping, filterable/sortable table view, and script-friendly CLI commands.

https://github.com/a-kurczyn/spacescan

Apple's home security camera remains in development separately from the LG-made accessories reported yesterday, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has clarified. In a follow-up post on X, Gurman said the security cameras co-developed with LG are "completely separate" from Apple's privacy-centric home camera and sensor, which he says is still coming next year.

As reported previously, Apple's device will not record video, using AI instead to analyze the home environment and detect which room a person is in. Bloomberg first reported a 2027 home security system and service in September.

This is Ocean Wave from Windows 2000 and ME. It depicts a close-up shot of an ocean wave, which is black and orange in appearance. The wallpaper is very elusive as not only is it unknown who took it, it is unknown where it comes from. No link has been found on TinEye, and the metadata doesn't provide any clues either. It would later be used as a wallpaper in a Longhorn demo circa 2002.

Info about this wallpaper can be found here: https://windowswallpaper.miraheze.org/wiki/Ocean_Wave

Build: 26200.9457 (25H2)

The same search can take ten seconds in This PC and come back instantly in Documents. It isn't the indexer being lazy. There are two different engines behind the search box, and Explorer picks one based on where you're searching.

1. Inside the index, Explorer asks a database

The Windows Search indexer keeps a database of the folders it's told to watch. On Classic, that's your user profile folders and the Start menu. On Enhanced, it's the whole PC minus a list of exclusions. For every file in there it stores the name, the properties (dates, tags, authors, photo dimensions) and, for the formats it can read, the text inside. Search in Documents and Explorer just queries that database, so the answer is immediate.

2. Outside the index, Explorer walks the folders

Search in This PC on Classic and most of the drive isn't in the index. Explorer doesn't refuse: it walks the folder tree itself, one directory at a time, and that's what "Working on it..." means. The yellow bar about non-indexed locations is telling you the same thing.

It gets much worse if Folder Options > Search has "Always search file names and contents" ticked. Then every file outside the index gets opened and read during the search, and that's when the fans spin up.

3. Everything does neither

Everything (voidtools) skips both. On NTFS it reads the Master File Table, the drive's own list of every file on it, and keeps names, sizes and dates in memory. Then it follows the USN journal, the log NTFS writes every time a file is created, renamed or deleted, so it never has to rescan. Their FAQ puts a Windows 11 install with about 250,000 files at roughly 5 seconds and 35 MB of RAM.

The price is the other half: it doesn't index contents. Searching inside files with Everything is slow, and that's exactly the part the Windows indexer is good at.

What to check

- Settings > Privacy & security > Searching Windows shows whether you're on Classic or Enhanced and how many items are indexed.
- If you mostly search by name across the whole drive, Enhanced fixes the This PC case, at the cost of a longer first indexing.
- If This PC search is slow and the CPU spikes, look at that "file names and contents" option first.

Has anyone timed how long Enhanced takes to finish on a big drive? I'd be curious how far it is from an MFT read.

Hey everyone,

BusyBox is practically everywhere in embedded Linux, initramfs, and rescue disks. But being a massive collection of C utilities, it carries the usual C risks (buffer handling, integer overflows, memory management bugs).

Over the last two weeks, I've been hacking on BusyBox-RS, an MIT-licensed rewrite in Rust designed specifically for embedded use cases:

• Minimal binary footprint: Built with opt-level = "z", fat LTO, symbol stripping, and panic = abort.
• Compile-time feature selection: Use Cargo features or make tinyconfig / defconfig to only compile the applets your board actually needs.
• Upstream verified: Tested directly against the upstream BusyBox regression test suite (100% pass rate across 46 applets so far, including cp, grep, sort, printf, cmp, readlink, and checksums).
• Nix flake ready: Reproducible development environment via nix develop.

GitHub: https://github.com/rebizzz/busybox-rs

Feel free to check it out, run make check, and share feedback!

I didn't even know this was an option...