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COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- The 2026 NFL Draft is now in the history books and after 257 picks were announced in Pittsburgh, all fans can think about is seeing these new rookies take the field. And for a second straight year, over 10 Buckeyes players will enter the NFL as rookies with a handful having [...]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Central Ohio Crime Stoppers is putting out a renewed call for answers in the homicide of 21-year-old Candice Taylor, whose legs were found in a Columbus trash facility in 2017.  On March 28, 2017, Columbus police were dispatched to 1300 S. Columbus Airport Road after sanitation workers uncovered two human legs [...]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Woodhouse Vegan Cafe announced it will close its Short North location, marking the end of its current chapter after roughly a decade in business. The plant-based restaurant at 19 W. Russell St., owned by siblings Cara and Nicole Woodhouse, shared the news in a social media post on April 14. "Over [...]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Ohio is among the states that experience the most transport-related releases of hazardous materials, according to a recent analysis. Trace One, a global software company, studied data from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. Researchers with the company ranked states by hazmat transit incidents per 100,000 [...]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- An Ohio Supreme Court ruling could lead to some relief for Ohioans' electric bill. The court ruled that submetering companies must be regulated like all traditional utilities. Advocates say the move is a victory for customers who may have been stuck with high bills and few protections.  Columbus renter Mitchell Bienvenue [...]

AMSAT News Service ANS-116
April 26, 2026

In this edition:

* AMSAT Update from 2026 CubeSat Developers Workshop Available Online
* AMSAT-HB Announces Results of 2026 HB9RG Trophy Distance Competition
* Rocket Lab Launches Eight JAXA Satellites on Kakushin Rising Mission
* KrakenRF Discovery Drive Rotator Campaign Exceeds $314k Funding Goal
* Changes to AMSAT TLE Distribution for April 24, 2026
* ARISS News
* AMSAT Ambassador Activities
* Satellite Shorts From All Over

The AMSAT® News Service bulletins are a free, weekly news and information service of AMSAT, The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation. ANS publishes news related to Amateur Radio in Space including reports on the activities of a worldwide group of Amateur Radio operators who share an active interest in designing, building, launching and communicating through analog and digital Amateur Radio satellites.

The news feed on https://www.amsat.org publishes news of Amateur Radio in Space as soon as our volunteers can post it.

Please send any amateur satellite news or reports to: ans-editor [at] amsat.org

You can sign up for free e-mail delivery of the AMSAT News Service Bulletins via the ANS List; to join this list see: https://mailman.amsat.org/postorius/lists/ans.amsat.org/

AMSAT Update Presented at 2026 CubeSat Developers Workshop Available Online

An update presented by AMSAT President Drew Glasbrenner, KO4MA, at the 2026 CubeSat Developers Workshop is now available for viewing on YouTube. The presentation provides an overview of AMSAT’s current satellite development programs and future mission plans, along with its ongoing efforts to support amateur radio in space. The recorded session offers those unable to attend the workshop an opportunity to review AMSAT’s activities within the broader small satellite community.

The CubeSat Developers Workshop, held April 14–16, 2026, at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California, is an annual three-day conference focused on small satellite development. Now in its 23rd year, the workshop brings together participants from academia, industry, and government to share knowledge, research, and practical experience in CubeSat missions, with an emphasis on hands-on learning and collaboration.

Drew Glasbrenner, KO4MA, answers questions during an AMSAT update at CubeSat Developers Workshop 2026. [Credit: CubeSat Developers Workshop]During his presentation, Glasbrenner provided an overview of AMSAT’s mission as a volunteer, educational organization dedicated to building and operating amateur radio satellites. He noted the organization’s long history dating back to 1969 and highlighted the continued operation of early satellites such as AO-7, which remains functional more than five decades after launch when illuminated by the sun.

Glasbrenner then outlined AMSAT’s current satellite development efforts, focusing on the GOLF-TEE mission, a 3U CubeSat expected to be completed later this year or early next year. The satellite is designed to carry a 30 kHz linear transponder for amateur communications, along with a 10 GHz high-speed experimental downlink and improved three-axis attitude control. He also described the follow-on Fox-Plus series of CubeSats, which incorporate a mix of commercial hardware and AMSAT-developed radio payloads.

Additional work includes AMSAT’s development of linear transponder modules and other payloads designed for integration into university CubeSat missions. These systems allow partner institutions to use the hardware for mission communications while also providing access to amateur radio operators when not in use. Glasbrenner also highlighted educational initiatives such as the CubeSat Simulator and youth outreach programs aimed at expanding student participation in amateur satellite operations.

The full presentation can be viewed on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/live/p5GHRMOr8tk

[ANS thanks Drew Glasbrenner, KO4MA, AMSAT President, and the CubeSat Developers Workshop for the above information]

AMSAT-HB Announces Results of 2026 HB9RG Trophy Distance Competition

AMSAT-HB has released the results of the 2026 HB9RG Trophy Distance competition, held during the first two weeks of March to honor the legacy of Hans Rudolf Lauber, HB9RG, a pioneer in VHF and UHF communications and early satellite experimentation. The event challenges operators to achieve the greatest possible distances using amateur satellites in Earth orbit. Unlike traditional contests, scoring is based on the sum of each participant’s ten longest satellite QSOs rather than the total number of contacts. This format emphasizes technical skill, station optimization, and operating strategy. The results shown in the table reflect the combined distance of those ten longest contacts for each operator. The 2026 competition drew participants from multiple countries across three operating categories.

Category 1, designed for portable handheld stations using whip or telescopic antennas, had a single participant, DF2ET, who achieved a total distance of 8,920.65 kilometers (5,542.43 miles). The operator recorded a maximum single contact of 1,843.41 kilometers (1,145.19 miles) between grid JO31 and KN56. In Category 2, which includes portable and more capable stations, KE9AJ placed first with a total distance of 71,581.90 kilometers (44,472.62 miles), followed by VU3YFD and VA3VGR. The longest single contact in this category measured 7,480.98 kilometers (4,648.52 miles) between KE9AJ in EL99 and F4AZF in JN39 via AO-7. KE9AJ also recorded the highest average distance at 7,158 kilometers (4,447.30 miles). Category 2 drew ten participants from seven countries.

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Category Rank Call Distance (kilometers) Distance (miles) Portable Whip/Telescope 1 DF2ET 8920.65 5542.43 Portable Stations 1 KE9AJ 71581.90 44472.62 2 VU3YFD 42783.01 26584.98 3 VA3VGR 39565.91 24584.35 4 M5JFS 33729.30 20957.59 5 ER1KW 24384.47 15152.51 6 YC8RPK 20475.35 12722.06 7 YD9IPB 17098.10 10624.07 8 DG7RO 13330.27 8282.03 9 DF2ET 11818.67 7343.52 10 R2SCN 3562.93 2213.98 Fixed Stations 1 PA3GAN 66405.74 41262.68 2 DL4KCA 38062.50 23650.48 3 F0GOW 35609.15 22126.03 4 F6KRK 28737.33 17856.45 5 F1EFW 28356.55 17619.88

In Category 3 for fixed stations, PA3GAN placed first with a total distance of 66,405.74 kilometers (41,262.68 miles), followed by DL4KCA and F0GOW. The longest single contact reached 7,177.64 kilometers (4,459.41 miles) between PA3GAN in JO21 and KE9AJ in EL99 via AO-7. Five participants from three countries competed in this category. Results demonstrate the performance advantage of fixed stations while still requiring strong operating skill. The category showed consistent long-distance capability across multiple operators. Results highlight that both portable and fixed stations can achieve strong performance when combined with effective operating strategy.

Across all categories, the results highlight the continued importance of linear transponder satellites such as AO-7, FO-29, and RS-44 for long-distance QSOs. These platforms enabled many of the longest contacts recorded during the event. Operators demonstrated strong understanding of satellite passes, polarization effects, and station configuration. The competition also reinforced the value of portable operation in achieving unique grid combinations. Overall participation reflects a technically engaged satellite community. The HB9RG Trophy remains a meaningful tribute to early satellite communication achievements while encouraging continued innovation and participation in amateur satellite operations.

Official 2026 HB9RG Trophy Results: https://www.amsat-hb.org/hb9rg_trophy/hb9rg_trophy_2026/result_2026

[ANS thanks AMSAT-HB for the above information]

Written by experienced AMSAT satellite operators, Getting Started With Amateur Satellites is a complete guide to working amateur satellites, covering tracking, antennas, radio selection, and step-by-step operation for FM, SSB, and digital modes.

Join or renew your AMSAT membership and download a free PDF copy for a limited time
https://www.amsat.org/membership-specials/ Or purchase the digital download or printed copy from the AMSAT Store
https://www.amsat.org/product-category/amsat-books-and-dvds/ Rocket Lab Launches Eight JAXA Satellites on Kakushin Rising Mission

Rocket Lab successfully launched eight satellites for Japan late Wednesday night as part of its Kakushin Rising mission, supporting the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Innovative Satellite Technology Demonstration Program. Liftoff occurred at 11:09 PM EDT Wednesday, April 22 (0309 UTC Thursday, April 23) from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand. The mission carried a diverse set of small satellites designed to test new technologies and expand capabilities in low Earth orbit. The launch continues Rocket Lab’s steady cadence of dedicated smallsat missions.

The Electron rocket deployed all eight spacecraft into low Earth orbit at an altitude of approximately 336 miles (540 kilometers). Deployment occurred less than one hour after liftoff, in line with mission expectations. Rocket Lab confirmed successful separation of all payloads shortly after the event. The mission marked the 79th launch of the Electron launch vehicle.

Kakushin Rising represents the second of two contracted launches for JAXA’s technology demonstration program. The first mission, RAISE and Shine, launched in December 2025 and carried the RAISE-4 satellite to orbit. Together, the missions highlight Japan’s continued investment in rapid, cost-effective access to space for experimental payloads. These efforts support the development of new satellite technologies and operational concepts.

Electron rocket undergoes propellant loading ahead of the Kakushin Rising mission for JAXA in New Zealand. [Credit: Rocket Lab]The eight satellites on this mission include MAGNARO-II, KOSEN-2R, WASEDA-SAT-ZERO-II, FSI-SAT2, OrigamiSat-2, ARICA-2, Mono-Nikko, and PRELUDE. The payloads range from educational CubeSats to advanced technology demonstrators, including systems for remote sensing, communications, and deployable structures. One satellite features an antenna that can expand to many times its stowed size using origami-inspired techniques. These missions provide valuable on-orbit validation for emerging technologies.

Several of the satellites are IARU-coordinated, including MAGNARO-II, KOSEN-2R, WASEDA-SAT-ZERO-II, and ARICA-2, with amateur radio downlinks in the VHF and UHF bands. Early reports from the SatNOGS network indicate that multiple satellites are already transmitting, with CW beacon signals received from MAGNARO-II, ARICA-2, WASEDA-SAT-ZERO-II, FSI-SAT2, and OrigamiSat-2 within hours of launch. These initial receptions confirm successful early operations and provide immediate opportunities for amateur radio operators to monitor and decode signals.

Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket, a 59 foot tall (18 meters) launch vehicle, is designed to provide responsive and dedicated access to space for small payloads. The company continues to support commercial, government, and research missions with frequent launches. Rocket Lab also operates a suborbital variant known as HASTE for hypersonic testing applications. The Kakushin Rising mission further demonstrates the growing role of small launch providers in enabling international space missions.

Read the full Space.com article at: https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/rocket-lab-launch-eight-japanese-satellites-kakushin-rising-mission

Follow satellite observations and tracking reports for the Kakushin Rising mission on the Libre Space Community: https://community.libre.space/t/kakushin-rising-mission-jaxa-rideshare-electron-2026-04-23-03-09-utc/14593

[ANS thanks Mike Wall, Space.com and the IARU for the above information]

KrakenRF Discovery Drive Rotator Campaign Exceeds $314k Funding Goal

KrakenRF’s Discovery Drive motorized azimuth/elevation antenna rotator crowdfunding campaign has concluded successfully on Crowd Supply. The project raised $334,282, exceeding its $314,550 goal and reaching 106 percent funding with support from 254 backers.

Discovery Drive is designed as a turnkey solution for satellite tracking using directional antennas such as dishes and Yagis. The unit arrives fully assembled and weatherproof, eliminating the need for mechanical assembly or custom controller integration. Setup consists of mounting the rotator to a mast or tripod, applying 12 V power, connecting via Wi-Fi or USB, and aligning the system to true north.

The rotator supports a range of satellite operations, including polar-orbiting weather satellites such as METEOR-M2, MetOp, and FengYun, as well as CubeSat and amateur radio satellite tracking. KrakenRF also highlighted additional experimental applications, including hydrogen line radio astronomy using compatible dish systems and software such as Stellarium.

KrakenRF Discovery Drive azimuth/elevation rotator shown with Discovery Dish for automated tracking. [Credit: KrakenRF]During the campaign, KrakenRF shared multiple updates detailing development progress, software compatibility, and community testing, including video demonstrations of the system tracking weather satellites and operating with directional antennas such as handheld Yagis.

Discovery Drive integrates with commonly used satellite tracking software through a rotctl-compatible network interface, allowing automatic control from applications such as SatDump, GPredict, and Look4Sat. It also supports USB serial control using the EasyComm II protocol via Hamlib, while a browser-based web interface provides direct manual control and system configuration.

Following the conclusion of the campaign, Discovery Drive is available for pre-order through Crowd Supply at a post-campaign price of $799. KrakenRF has indicated a manufacturing timeline of approximately two months, followed by an additional one to two months for fulfillment and delivery.

Additional information is available at https://www.crowdsupply.com/krakenrf/discovery-drive.

[ANS thanks KrakenRF for the above information]

The 2026 Coins Are Here! Help Support GOLF-TEE and Fox-Plus.
Annual memberships start at only $120.

Join the AMSAT President’s Club today and help Keep Amateur Radio in Space!
https://www.amsat.org/join-the-amsat-presidents-club/
Changes to AMSAT TLE Distribution for April 24, 2026

Two Line Elements or TLEs, often referred to as Keplerian elements or keps in the amateur community, are the inputs to the SGP4 standard mathematical model of spacecraft orbits used by most amateur tracking programs. Weekly updates are completely adequate for most amateur satellites. TLE bulletin files are updated daily in the first hour of the UTC day. New bulletin files will be posted immediately after reliable elements become available for new amateur satellites. More information may be found at https://www.amsat.org/keplerian-elements-resources/.

+ This week there are no additions or deletions to the AMSAT TLE distribution.

[ANS thanks Joe Fitzgerald, KM1P, AMSAT Orbital Elements Manager, for the above information]

ARISS News

Amateurs and others around the world may listen in on contacts between amateurs operating in schools and allowing students to interact with astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station. The downlink frequency on which to listen is 145.800 MHz worldwide.

Scheduled Contacts

+ Recently Completed

University of Bordeaux (IUT de Bordeaux), GEII department, Gradignan, France, direct via F5KBW
The ISS callsign was scheduled to be OR4ISS
The scheduled crewmember was Sophie Adenot KJ5LTN
The ARISS mentor was F6ICS
Contact was successful: Mon 2026-04-20 08:12:45 UTC
Congratulations to the University of Bordeaux students, Sophie, mentor F6ICS, and ground station F5KBW!
Watch HamTV and Livestream at http://live.ariss.org/hamtv http://live.ariss.org

Diamond Harbour School, Christchurch, New Zealand, telebridge via IK1SLD
The ISS callsign was scheduled to be OR4ISS
The scheduled crewmember was Jack Hathaway KJ5NIV
The ARISS mentor was VK4KHZ
Contact was successful: Mon 2026-04-20 09:51:10 UTC
Congratulations to the Diamond Harbour School students, Jack, mentor VK4KHZ, and telebridge IK1SLD!

ASU Preparatory STEM Academy, Mesa, AZ, direct via WB7TJD
The ISS callsign was scheduled to be NA1ISS
The scheduled crewmember was Chris Williams KJ5GE
The ARISS mentor was K4RGK and KM4YHZ
Contact was successful: Thu 2026-04-23 16:52:04 UTC
Congratulations to the ASU Preparatory STEM Academy students, Chris, and mentors K4RGK and KM4YHZ!
Watch the Livestream at https://live.ariss.org/

+ Upcoming Contacts

None currently scheduled.

Many times, a school makes a last-minute decision to do a Livestream or runs into a last-minute glitch requiring a change of the URL, but we at ARISS may not get the URL in time for publication. You can always check https://live.ariss.org/ to see if a school is Livestreaming.

As always, if there is an EVA, a docking, or an undocking; the ARISS radios are turned off as part of the safety protocol.

The crossband repeater remains configured in the Columbus Module (145.990 MHz up {PL 67} & 437.800 MHz down). If a crewmember decides to pick up the microphone and turn up the volume, you may hear them on the air—so keep listening, as you never know when activity might occur.

​Kenwood D710GA in the Zvezda Service Module – Call sign RS0ISS. Please note we’re still in the process of troubleshooting and testing this radio. HamTV in the Columbus Module is configured for scheduled digital amateur television operations on 2395.00 MHz.

Note, all times are approximate. It is recommended that you do your own orbital prediction or start listening about 10 minutes before the listed time.

The latest information on the operation mode can be found at https://www.ariss.org/current-status-of-iss-stations.html

The latest list of frequencies in use can be found at https://www.ariss.org/contact-the-iss.html

[ANS thanks Charlie Sufana, AJ9N, one of the ARISS operation team mentors for the above information]

AMSAT Ambassador Activities

AMSAT Ambassadors provide presentations, demonstrate communicating through amateur satellites, and host information tables at club meetings, hamfests, conventions, maker faires, and other events.

AMSAT Ambassador Clint Bradford, K6LCS, says,

“Think a 75-minute presentation on “working the easy satellites” would be appropriate for your club or event? Let me know by emailing me at k6lcsclint [at] gmail [dot] com or calling me at 909-999-SATS (7287)!”

Clint has NEVER given the exact same show twice: EACH of the 150+ presentations so far has been customized/tailored to their audiences.

Scheduled Events

Dayton Hamvention – May 15 thru May 17, 2026
Greene County Fair and Expo Center
120 Fairground Road
Xenia, OH 45385
https://hamvention.org/

44th AMSAT Space Symposium and Annual Membership Meeting – October 8 thru 11, 2026
Crowne Plaza JAX Airport
14670 Duval Road
Jacksonville, FL 32218

For more information go to: https://www.amsat.org/ambassador/

[ANS thanks Bo Lowrey, W4FCL, Director – AMSAT Ambassador Program, for the above information]

Satellite Shorts from All Over

+ CelesTrak has reminded users that it transitioned to a nonprofit organization five years ago and moved its services to the celestrak.org domain at that time. While requests to the legacy .com domain have been redirected since then, the SSL certificate for the .com site expired on April 12, 2026. As a result, software or scripts still pointing to the .com domain may now fail or produce security warnings. Users are advised to update their configurations to use the .org domain to ensure continued access to CelesTrak data services. CelesTrak remains focused on providing free orbital data and tools to the space and satellite community. The organization also encourages users to support its mission through voluntary contributions. (ANS thanks CelesTrak for the above information)

+ The Federal Aviation Administration has grounded Blue Origin’s New Glenn following a launch incident on Sunday from Cape Canaveral. The rocket performed nominally during ascent but failed to place its payload, AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird 7 satellite, into the intended orbit. The spacecraft had been scheduled to deploy about 75 minutes after liftoff into a 286 miles (460 kilometers) circular orbit at a 49.4 degree inclination following a second upper stage burn. The FAA classified the event as a “mishap” and has opened an investigation to determine the root cause and ensure public safety before allowing a return to flight. According to available telemetry, the payload reached only about a 95 miles (153 kilometers) orbit instead of the planned altitude, rendering it unsustainable. Despite the anomaly, Blue Origin successfully landed and recovered the booster for the first time, supporting future reusability and higher launch cadence. (ANS thanks Engadget.com for the above information)

+ NASA engineers at Jet Propulsion Laboratory commanded Voyager 1 to shut down its Low-Energy Charged Particles experiment on April 17 in an effort to conserve dwindling power and extend the spacecraft’s mission. The instrument had operated nearly continuously since launch in 1977, providing valuable measurements of ions, electrons, and cosmic rays in interstellar space beyond the heliosphere. Powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator that loses about 4 watts per year, Voyager 1 now faces critically low power margins after nearly five decades in operation. A recent drop in power during a routine maneuver raised concern that the spacecraft’s fault protection system could automatically shut down additional systems, prompting the team to act preemptively. Two science instruments remain active, continuing to return unique data from a region of space no other spacecraft has reached. Engineers expect the shutdown to provide about a year of additional operation as they prepare further power-saving measures, including a planned system reconfiguration later this year. (ANS thanks NASA for the above information)

+ SpaceX has completed a full-duration static fire test of its next-generation Starship Version 3 upper stage ahead of the vehicle’s first flight. The test, conducted on April 14, involved firing the engines while the rocket remained secured to the launch pad, demonstrating readiness for upcoming operations. Starship Flight 12, targeted for early to mid-May, will be the first launch of the larger and more powerful Version 3 configuration. When fully stacked, the vehicle stands about 408 feet (124.4 meters) tall and features upgraded Raptor engines capable of delivering significantly greater performance. The new variant is designed to carry more than 100 tons to low Earth orbit, a substantial increase over the approximately 35-ton capacity of the previous Version 2. NASA is now preparing for its Artemis 3 mission, which will test docking operations in Earth orbit between the Orion spacecraft and one or both contracted lunar landers, including Starship and Blue Origin’s Blue Moon. (ANS thanks Space.com for the above information)

Join AMSAT today at https://launch.amsat.org/

In addition to regular membership, AMSAT offers membership to:

• Societies (a recognized group, clubs or organization).
• Students enrolled in at least half-time status are eligible for free membership to age 25.
• Memberships are available for annual and lifetime terms.

Contact info [at] amsat.org for additional membership information.

73 and remember to help Keep Amateur Radio in Space!

This week’s ANS Editor,

Mitch Ahrenstorff, ADØHJ
mahrenstorff [at] amsat.org

ANS is a service of AMSAT, the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation, 712 H Street NE, Suite 1653, Washington, DC 20002
AMSAT is a registered trademark of the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- One person is dead after a stabbing in the Franklin Park section of Columbus on Saturday afternoon. Columbus police said the stabbing happened near the intersection of Kelton Avenue and Bryden Road at approximately 1:18 p.m. A woman was found at the scene suffering from multiple stab wounds, police said. She [...]

In this episode, Ray Cochrane unpacks Anthropic’s Mythos model and the Treasury’s emergency meetings with Wall Street, then digs into Apple’s vibe-coding crackdown and a gaming-anxiety study that hit way too close to home. Also covered: Verge’s solid-state motorcycle, UBTech humanoid robot sales jumping 23-fold, Japan’s first osmotic power plant, Finland’s permanent nuclear waste vault, Ghostty landing in Ubuntu, Cloudflare’s EmDash CMS, and a Claude Code skill that talks like a caveman.

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Full Summary

Cochrane opens the show by framing Anthropic’s new Mythos model as the AlphaGo moment for cybersecurity. From there, the episode moves through Apple’s pushback against AI-generated apps, a gaming anxiety study with a deeply personal hook, a series of “first to ship” energy and robotics wins out of Finland, China, and Japan, and several developer-tool stories that show how quickly the economics of software are shifting.

Mythos, the Detection Ceiling, and Wall Street’s Emergency Response

Anthropic’s Mythos model has Wall Street rattled. Operating autonomously, Mythos found and demonstrated the exploitation of a 27-year-old TCP SACK bug in OpenBSD, an operating system famous for being one of the most security-focused on the planet. Per Anthropic’s red team, over 99% of the vulnerabilities Mythos has identified remain unpatched. The researchers’ conclusion is blunt: “the moat in AI cybersecurity is the system, not the model.”

The policy response moved fast. On April 7th, Treasury Secretary Bessent and Fed Chair Jerome Powell pulled the CEOs of Goldman Sachs, Citi, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley into Treasury headquarters on short notice. All four banks are now testing Mythos internally. Treasury CIO Sam Corcos is also seeking direct access. Anthropic is gating distribution through Project Glasswing, a limited-access program with JPMorgan, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Nvidia.

Cochrane comes down firmly behind Anthropic’s gated approach. Because a 5.1-billion-parameter open model can apparently recover the core analysis chain for the OpenBSD flaw, this capability is not locked behind Frontier Compute. He wants the critical infrastructure hardened before the public gets keys. However, he also notes the bigger lesson is about human wisdom: people offloading all their thinking to AI lose out on the wisdom that makes any of these tools genuinely useful.

Apple Bans Vibe Coding Apps from the App Store

Apple has been quietly pushing back against what people are calling “vibe coding” apps. Replit, Vibecode, and an app called Anything all run AI models on the phone and produce working software that runs inside the host app. Apple cites Guideline 2.5.2, in effect since 2017, which requires apps to be self-contained. Replit and Vibecode had their App Store updates blocked. Anything was pulled in late March, briefly restored on April 3rd, and then pulled the same day again.

The forcing function is volume. App Store submissions jumped 84% in a single quarter as vibe coding tools flooded Apple’s review queue with AI-generated apps. Cochrane thinks Apple is justified, given the security issues swirling around the Vibe coding ecosystem. Even a beautiful diamond gets lost in a sea of sand, and that flood is exactly what Apple is trying to manage. The company behind Anything is now pivoting to iMessage, desktop, and Android.

Playing Video Games to Win Is Linked to Higher Anxiety

Cochrane gets personal on this one. Through high school and his early 20s, he was deeply addicted to League of Legends. His dad teased him about it constantly. In the last few years of that addiction, his body would go ice cold and shake every ranked match before. His partner identified it as a panic attack. The moment that happened, he quit. Today, he no longer shakes.

The new study lines up with his experience. Researchers Kayleigh Watters and Mikael Rubin at Palo Alto University analyzed a publicly available database of 13,464 adult gamers, most of whom primarily played League of Legends. Players who game to win show higher generalized anxiety but actually play fewer hours, since performance pressure pushes them out. Players who game to relax show strong links between social anxiety avoidance and more hours played. The study appeared in the Journal of Affective Disorders.

The headline framing of “playing to win makes you anxious” misses the point. The real finding is more interesting: gaming for avoidance and gaming for competition are both warning signs, for different reasons. Cochrane notes that the League of Legends community’s toxicity has been a running joke for years, and this study suggests the game’s structure may have been manufacturing the anxiety that fueled it.

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Verge Motorcycle: World’s First Production All-Solid-State Battery

Cochrane filled his tank for $60 today, which made this story land especially hard. His mom has driven electric for years and patiently manages a 90-mile real-world range. The next-generation answer is already shipping. Verge Motorcycles, a Finnish company, is the first production vehicle of any kind with an all-solid-state battery. Their 2026 bikes ship in Q1 with a pack from Donut Lab, another Finnish outfit spun out of Verge.

The numbers are bonkers. The pack delivers an energy density of 400 Wh/kg, roughly double that of current Tesla cells. It sustains 100kW charging, hits full charge in about 5 minutes in the lab and 12 minutes on the actual bike, and the long-range version covers 600 kilometers (about 370 miles) per charge. Toyota, QuantumScape, and Samsung SDI have all been telling us that solid-state is coming in 2027 to 2030. A Finnish motorcycle company shipping in Q1 2026 just embarrassed them all.

UBTech Humanoid Robot Sales Jump 23-Fold

UBTech dropped its 2025 annual earnings on April 1st. Humanoid robot revenue hit 820 million yuan, roughly $119 million USD, up 2,203% from 35.6 million yuan the year before. Unit sales went from 3 robots in 2024 to 1,079 in 2025. Shares jumped 14% on the announcement. The customer list is a real industrial deployment: BYD, Foxconn, Geely, FAW-Volkswagen, and Audi. The flagship is the Walker S2, with UBTech targeting 5,000 units in 2026 and 10,000 in 2027.

Cochrane is honest about what this means. He does not think we are heading for an extinction event, but worker displacement is a real concern. The US has no universal income or universal healthcare. The people affected are not white-collar managers. They are everyday line workers who already make the least on the ladder. Work efficiency reportedly doubles when these robots arrive, which is a company-side win, but the humans they replace are not getting half a year of gardening leave to retrain. He invites the listener to take on this one directly.

Japan Switches On Asia’s First Osmotic Power Plant

In August 2025, Fukuoka’s Seawater Desalination Center quietly opened Asia’s first osmotic power facility. It generates about 880,000 kilowatt-hours per year, enough for roughly 220 homes. It is only the second operational osmotic plant in the world, after Mariager, Denmark, in 2023. Osmotic generation uses a salinity gradient: fresh water on one side of a membrane, salt water on the other, and the pressure difference spins a turbine.

The clever part is what Fukuoka does with desalination brine. Instead of regular seawater, the plant uses concentrated brine left over from the desalination process. This amplifies the salt gradient and squeezes more energy out of the same membrane. The result is a closed-loop partnership: the desalination facility produces drinking water and leaves brine behind, the osmotic plant turns the brine into electricity, and that electricity runs the desalination facility. Every desalination plant on Earth produces brine, so if Fukuoka’s co-located model works, the same pattern could be replicated across hundreds of plants worldwide.

Japan’s Luna Ring Solar Moon Proposal Goes Viral Again

Shimizu Corporation’s Luna Ring concept is making the rounds again. The pitch: a 6,800-mile belt of solar panels around the Moon’s equator, beaming microwave power back to Earth. Project lead Tetsuji Yoshida has long argued that a full ring could eliminate fossil fuel dependence entirely. The proposal first surfaced in 2013, has no funding, no government endorsement, and no concrete cost estimate. Shimizu has not put any active development behind it.

Cochrane finds the concept fun every time it resurfaces. However, this would have to be a worldwide effort in the truest sense, with treaties, a new generation of launch economics, and microwave power transmission at a scale nobody has demonstrated. Beaming the power back to Earth has always been one of the biggest practical holdbacks. The Luna Ring is inspirational, but not shipping.

Finland’s Onkalo Nuclear Waste Vault Opens

Finland’s Onkalo facility is the world’s first permanent deep geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel. Operated by Posiva, the facility is buried about 430 meters down in 1.9-billion-year-old bedrock. It is designed to hold up to 6,500 tons of spent fuel and operate until the 2120s. The construction costs about €1 billion, with operating and closure adding roughly €4 billion more before the program is done.

The catch is that radioactivity remains dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years. Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, warned that the copper canisters will eventually corrode, with different scientific opinions on how fast. Geologic disposal remains “fraught with uncertainties,” and we have never validated an engineered system across a 100,000-year time frame. The bet is that the rock and copper outlast the radioactivity.

Cochrane sees Onkalo as time-buying rather than a final answer. It is more of a bank holding spent fuel while science catches up. He prefers it to Japan’s ongoing approach of releasing tritium-treated water from Fukushima Daiichi into the Pacific, even though the dilution is well below WHO drinking water guidelines. Burying the waste in an insurmountable containment strikes him as the more honest answer to a problem nobody knows how to truly solve.

Ghostty Terminal Lands in the Ubuntu Repos

Ghostty 1.3.0 is now available in Ubuntu 26.04 LTS’s universe repository. The install is simply `sudo apt install ghostty`, no PPAs, no Snap, no Nix, no building from source. Ghostty was created by Mitchell Hashimoto, co-founder of HashiCorp. It is GPU-accelerated, uses native Swift on macOS and native GTK4 with libadwaita on Linux, and supports tabs, splits, profiles, ligatures, and the Kitty graphics protocol.

Cochrane recently caught Hashimoto on a podcast, where he walked through his agentic coding workflow. Ghostty is being actively built using AI harnesses like Claude Code and Codex. Hashimoto told a story in which Codex fixed a six-month-old bug in 45 minutes, for a total API cost of $4.14. Personally, Cochrane uses WezTerm, but he is excited to see Ghostty become more widely available with a native UI rather than Electron.

Borgo: Rethinking Go Using Rust

Analytics India Magazine profiled Borgo, a programming language by developer Marco Sampellegrini (GitHub: alpacaaa). Borgo is statically typed with Rust-like syntax, but it compiles to Go and uses the Go runtime and garbage collector. It includes sum types (Option and Result), pattern matching, and full compatibility with existing Go packages. Notably, it removes Rust’s borrow checker and lifetimes entirely.

Borgo is not new. It first appeared on Hacker News in 2023, with a RustLab talk in 2024. The 2026 angle is a renewed look at it through the lens of AI coding agents, since type-rich languages like Rust have been showing outsized productivity gains. Cochrane is a fan of Rust and stands by the borrow checker, but he enjoys these exploratory languages for what they reveal about what developers actually want.

Caveman: A Claude Code Skill That Cuts 65% of Tokens

Developer Julius Brussee built a Claude Code skill called Caveman that forces Claude to respond in stripped-down fragments. No articles, no “just,” no “really,” no pleasantries, no hedging. The tagline is “why use many token when few token do trick.” Across 10 real dev tasks, Caveman mode averaged 294 tokens per response, compared to 1,214 in normal mode. That is a 65% drop in output tokens. The project is MIT licensed with three intensity levels: lite, full, and ultra.

Cochrane stumbled across the project online and shared it with a classmate who had been complaining about token costs. The classmate now insists that “the caveman is the only way to live.” Cochrane has not made the switch, but the bigger point lands. If a community plugin can cut 65% of tokens without correctness regressions, the labs are shipping verbose-by-default and charging users for the privilege. He suspects verbose output makes models feel more trustworthy, even when the token math says otherwise.

Cloudflare Launches EmDash as a WordPress Successor

Cloudflare released EmDash on April 9th, an open-source, MIT-licensed, TypeScript-based CMS pitched as the spiritual successor to WordPress. The big flex is that it was built in 60 days using AI coding agents. EmDash runs on Astro 6.0, either on Cloudflare’s edge platform or on a standard Node.js server. The plugin security model uses sandboxed Dynamic Workers with explicit permissions, addressing the architecture flaw that Cloudflare says causes 96% of WordPress vulnerabilities.

Cochrane could not resist pointing out the irony of the name. The em dash has become the trademark giveaway that an AI was involved in writing. He has reservations about whether EmDash will succeed. WordPress is extremely hard to unseat, plenty of “WordPress killers” have come and gone, and the ecosystem is twenty-plus years deep. He is curious to see what comes next but not optimistic.

Google Open-Sources the DESIGN.md Format

Google Labs open-sourced the DESIGN.md format used by Stitch, their AI UI design tool. DESIGN.md is a declarative file capturing a project’s design system, colors, typography, and spacing in a way AI agents can read and apply. Cochrane has tried Stitch personally and finds it impressive at producing web designs. He has also seen DESIGN.md-style files already start appearing in repositories.

He sees this kind of file becoming a new paradigm for agentic design, alongside robots.txt and llms.txt. However, he worries about a side effect. If everyone uses the same standardized format and the same AI tools, the web could become a homogeneous set of sites that all look the same. He is enthusiastic about the standardization but hopes designers continue to push for genuinely unique work.

A 13-Liter PC With a Water Loop Built Into the Case

Geeky Gadgets covered a build by “Visual Thinker”, a 13-liter mini-ITX case with custom SLA-printed water distribution plates built directly into the chassis. Instead of traditional soft tubing, plates channel coolant between the CPU and GPU blocks and are sealed with TPU and silicone molds. The case supports a full-size GPU and an SFX power supply. No thermal benchmarks, parts list, or pricing have been published. It is a one-off you cannot buy.

Cochrane sees this as a sign of where PC building has gone in 2026. Modern mid-grade GPUs run nearly every recent game, so raw performance is no longer the differentiator. He likes seeing builders lean into design and craft rather than just stuffing the most powerful parts into a box. He admits he is the traditional type and built his own machine to maximize parts, but the design-first direction is a healthy evolution for the hobby.

To close out the show, Cochrane recommends Pocket Casts as a podcast app. He finds it picks up new episodes very quickly. Big thanks to GoDaddy for over twenty years of keeping this show on the air, and a reminder that every promo code use is like writing a check to the show.

The post Mythos: Cybersecurity’s AlphaGo Moment #1862 appeared first on Geek News Central.

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