Microsoft is testing Cloud-Initiated Driver Recovery, a Windows Update feature designed to roll back bad drivers with less manual IT work.

The post New Windows Update May Undo Bad Driver Updates on Its Own appeared first on TechRepublic.

Le Fisher Price Pixter, ce jouet éducatif à écran tactile que Mattel vendait entre 2000 et 2002, vient de se faire passer au scanner par Dmitry Grinberg .

Alors ce truc n'est pas le truc le plus répandu qui soit, surtout par chez nous, mais on en a trouvé quand même quelques uns à l'époque, et si ça se trouve vous en avez eu un.

C'est un appareil cartouches que les gosses utilisaient pour dessiner et écouter de la musique. Personne ne l'avait jamais documenté correctement. Aucune doc officielle, des cartouches un peu obscures, et un écosystème abandonné depuis 2007.

Et le plus drôle, c'est ce qu'il a trouvé dedans. La version Pixter Color, deuxième génération, embarque un SoC ARM Sharp LH75411. Pour un jouet destiné à un gamin de cinq ans, c'est franchement impressionnant. La version Classic, plus ancienne, tourne sur un 6502, le même processeur que le Commodore 64 ou la NES.

Sauf que par-dessus ce hardware, les ingénieurs avaient ajouté une couche logicielle qui faisait croire au programme qu'il tournait sur une machine totalement différente, en pratique une sorte de processeur virtuel 16 bits pour la Color, 8 bits pour la Classic. Probablement parce qu'à la base ils visaient une autre puce et qu'ils ont dû pivoter en cours de route.

Dmitry a tout passé au crible. Hardware, implémentation audio (qu'il qualifie lui-même de "sauvage"), dump des cartouches une par une, écriture d'émulateurs pour préserver le truc. Il a même rajouté le support du LH75411 dans uARM, son émulateur ARM maison. En quelques semaines. Et au passage, il a porté PalmOS 5 sur le Pixter Color, ce qui n'a strictement aucune utilité mais c'est quand même drôle.

Le pourquoi de tout ça, c'est de la conservation. Ces appareils disparaissent, leurs cartouches se fissurent, leurs piles fuient, et dans dix ans il ne restera plus rien à étudier. Sans des bricoleurs comme Dmitry, des pans entiers de la culture jouet électronique des années 2000 s'effacent doucement.

Source : Hackaday

Je viens de pousser en prod une fonctionnalité sur laquelle je bosse depuis quelques temps et comme je suis content du résultat, c'est le moment de partager ça avec vous.

En haut à gauche du site, juste à côté de l'icône qui change le thème, vous trouverez un petit bouton "abc" qui jusqu'à présent ne servait qu'à appliquer une police spéciale dyslexique à mon contenu. Mais j'ai amélioré un peu tout ça pour que maintenant niveau "Confort de lecture" vous soyez refait !

En cliquant donc sur cette icône, s'ouvre un petit panneau de config avec dedans de quoi configurer votre expérience de lecture aux petits oignons. Police adaptée pour la dyslexie, espacement variable, fond couleur crème, mode audio TTS, lignes colorées pour guider l'œil...etc tout ça sans dépendre d'un service tiers.

Ensuite, vos réglages sont conservés dans le localStorage de votre navigateur pour les retrouver à chaque visite et il y a un petit lien en bas de la fenêtre pour réinitialiser tout ça.

Maintenant, l'histoire derrière cette feature, parce qu'elle est intéressante. À la base j'étais parti pour recoder un équivalent du " Bionic Reading ", vous savez ce truc à la mode qui met en gras le début de chaque mot pour soi-disant accélérer la lecture. J'avais déjà bien avancé quand je suis tombé sur une étude scientifique de 2024 qui démontait complètement le concept. En gros, les chercheurs ont mesuré que cela ne produisait aucun effet positif sur la vitesse de lecture ni sur la compréhension. Que dalle...

Du coup, pivot complet... J'ai tout repris pour bâtir un système basé sur ce qui marche vraiment, avec un principe simple : Chaque option du panneau affiche un badge "Sci ✓" si elle est soutenue par la recherche, ou "Pref" si c'est une préférence subjective documentée. Comme ça vous savez sur quoi vous cliquez et on évite le marketing déguisé en science.

Côté polices donc, vous avez 4 choix. La police par défaut du site, Lexend qui est une "variable font" développée par la Dr. Bonnie Shaver-Troup avec des résultats publiés montrant une amélioration significative de la fluidité de lecture, Atkinson Hyperlegible créée par le Braille Institute spécifiquement pour les personnes malvoyantes, et enfin OpenDyslexic que j'avais déjà. Pour cette dernière, je l'ai mise avec un badge "Pref" parce que la communauté dyslexique l'apprécie mais les études sont moins solides scientifiquement.

Les sliders d'espacement permettent également de jouer sur trois axes : espace entre les lettres, hauteur de ligne, largeur de la colonne de texte. Tout est calibré pour être utile sans casser le rendu. Vous pouvez aussi activer un fond crème qui utilise la couleur Solarized base3 (c'est #FDF6E3, reconnue dans la communauté des dev pour son confort de lecture sur une longue durée), et le texte non-justifié qui évite les "rivières" blanches entre mots qui posent problème notamment aux dyslexiques.

Pour le guide visuel, je vous ai mis 2 options. "Lignes colorées" qui applique un gradient cosinus caractère par caractère sur chaque ligne, avec une palette noir-bleu-noir-rouge qui alterne et permet à l'œil de suivre naturellement la progression du texte.

Et ce que j'ai appelé Saccade que j'ai gardé en option, marqué d'un badge orange "Pref ⚠" parce que la science dit que ça sert pas à grand chose, mais que si vous aimez visuellement, bah au moins c'est dispo !

Et puis il y a le mode audio (TTS) qui dépend de la qualité des voix installées sur votre système. Y'a pas d'IA là dedans, donc ça peut donner une lecture robotique sur certains OS. Une fois activé, ça apparaît en haut des articles avec une estimation de durée. Ça utilise la Web Speech API native de votre navigateur, donc zéro service externe une fois encore et ça respecte la voix système que vous avez configurée.

À ma connaissance, je suis le seul à proposer ce niveau de personnalisation pour l'accessibilité. N'oubliez pas qu'au delà de la démarche, l'accessibilité numérique est devenu une obligation légale en Europe avec l' European Accessibility Act qui s'applique depuis juin 2025 (Qui en a entendu parlé ? Pas grand monde je pense).

En tout cas, si je peux me permettre ce luxe de bosser sur des trucs qui ne rapportent pas un kopeck mais qui rendent le site plus agréable et plus accessible, c'est uniquement grâce à mes Patreons .

Alors un énorme merci à eux.

Tabletop roleplaying games have an accessory problem. The dice alone can take over a corner of any gaming table, each one representing a different die type that the rules will inevitably call for at the least convenient moment. Tracking down the right d10 mid-session, or explaining to a new player why there are two different ten-sided dice in the bag, is just one of those small but reliable annoyances that experienced players have long since stopped questioning.

The Console’88 from d64Computing is a compact digital dice roller that handles the entire set from d4 through d100 in a single device, the size of a pocket calculator. What makes it genuinely interesting, though, isn’t just the function; it’s that the designer chose to dress it up as a miniature 1980s computer, complete with a CGA color display, vector graphics, boot-screen text, and the kind of visual language that looks like it was pulled straight out of a 1984 computer catalog.

Designer: d64Computing

Selecting a die type is done through a rotary dial and a button underneath the faux keyboard, which fits the era aesthetically and keeps the interaction simple. Spin it to the die you want, and get your result. The randomness runs at microsecond precision, so the results are genuinely unpredictable rather than cycling through a predictable sequence. For anyone who’s ever side-eyed an app-based roller and wondered about its actual randomness, that’s a meaningful detail.

The sounds are what push it over from clever gadget into something with real personality. The Console’88 plays 1980s video game audio when you roll, and it apparently has dedicated sound effects for critical successes and critical failures, which is the kind of contextually appropriate design decision that’s easy to appreciate at an actual gaming table. A crit that’s announced by a triumphant eight-bit jingle lands differently than a number quietly appearing on a phone screen.

There’s an argument to be made for physical dice that has nothing to do with practicality. Rolling actual dice is tactile, dramatic, and central to the experience for a lot of players. But for anyone who travels frequently to gaming sessions, runs games for beginners without their own dice, or simply wants something that takes up less space on an already crowded table, a single device covering every die type is a reasonable swap to make.

The design commitment here is what separates the Console’88 from a generic electronic dice app. This thing looks like it belongs on a desk next to a Commodore 64, and reviews consistently call out the visual quality of the vector graphics and the charm of the retro computer case. It’s a product that clearly started from an aesthetic vision rather than pure function, and the function turned out to be genuinely good on top of it.

The post d64 Just Packed an Entire Dice Collection Into a Tiny 1980s Computer first appeared on Yanko Design.

Looking for nanny payroll services? I reviewed top providers for pay runs, nanny tax filing, setup support, and household employer compliance.

The post 5 Best Nanny Payroll Services in 2026 appeared first on TechRepublic.

TikTok is rolling out a £3.99 ad-free subscription in the UK, giving adults a paid option while keeping its free ad-supported feed in place.

The post TikTok Launches £3.99 Ad-Free Plan for UK Users appeared first on TechRepublic.

I tested top nonprofit payroll platforms and found Gusto best overall, Paychex strongest for tax compliance, and Rippling the most flexible.

The post The Best Payroll Software for Nonprofits in 2026 appeared first on TechRepublic.

You know what’s ‘vertical integration’? Starbucks building its own cooler box for its own beverages. Meet the Yeti-alternative that’s designed not for your Budweisers, but for your venti iced lattes. It’s called the Starbucks Ice Box, and while it looks perfect from top to bottom, it has one problem: it’s only available in South Korea.

The design is deceptively simple but gets every detail right. Four individual cup slots keep drinks stable and separated, eliminating the float-and-tip chaos that happens when you throw tall cups into a standard cooler. A dedicated ice compartment sits at the bottom, isolated from the drinks themselves so you’re not fishing cups out of melted ice water an hour later. The domed lid has ventilation slots that allow air circulation without sacrificing insulation, and those side latches look substantial enough to actually keep everything secure when you hit a pothole. It’s wrapped in Starbucks’ forest green colorway, compact enough to fit behind a car seat or in a trunk corner, and clearly designed by people who have done the group coffee run enough times to know exactly where the pain points are. The proportions feel right in a way that general-purpose coolers never quite nail when you’re dealing with tall, narrow vessels.

Design: Starbucks Korea

This isn’t Starbucks’ first merch attempt. They’ve consistently pushed out loads of accessories over the years, mostly in eastern markets (like these TWS earbuds in collaboration with Samsung, and these $28 retro cameras that they debuted in China) although this one feels way more purposeful than any of their other launches. It’s something people will buy and use for years, rather than becoming just another collectible, and you know that if someone’s buying a Starbucks cooler, they’re a customer for life. Vertical integration for the win!

The design is as simple as it gets. The insulated walls keep the insides whatever temperature you want. Although built for iced drinks, you can put your hot beverages in too and have them piping even after hours. For iced drinks, you can also add ice packs into the cooler to chill them down further – just be careful they don’t drip or the cups could get soggy. A lift-out tray holds four venti drinks, because if you’re the kind to drink regulars, you probably wouldn’t be keeping them for hours. The clamp-lid ensures everything is locked in tight, and a Starbucks-branded handle sits flush against the top, giving the entire thing a gorgeously monolithic design.

The only place you can grab this right now is on obscure sites online. A Japanese website has it listed for ¥26,530 or $169 USD, not including shipping. If anyone in Starbucks’ global team is reading this, consider it your sign to manufacture this for the American and European audiences too, trust me, your annual turnover will thank you!

The post Starbucks built a Yeti cooler for your Venti Iced Lattes, but you can’t buy one yet first appeared on Yanko Design.

Microsoft flagged 8.3 billion phishing emails as attackers turned to QR codes, fake CAPTCHAs, PhaaS kits, and file-based payloads.

The post Microsoft Flagged 8.3B Phishing Emails in Q1 as QR Codes, CAPTCHAs Rise appeared first on TechRepublic.

Amazon layoffs are hitting workers across several states as Fresh closures, AI investments, and post-pandemic restructuring reshape its workforce.

The post Amazon Layoffs Hit Thousands Across Multiple States as Fresh Stores Close appeared first on TechRepublic.

Hello les amis, voici ma petite trouvaille du jour, idéale pour ceux qui jouent en ce moment avec des adresses IP : ip66.dev . C'est une base de géolocalisation IP et entièrement libre, livrée au format MMDB (le même que celui de MaxMind) qui permet de remplacer direct un fichier GeoLite2 dans vos libs existantes (Python, Go, Node.js), sans toucher au code.

L'équipe de Cloud 66 maintient cette liste à jour sous licence CC BY 4.0 et tout est utilisable simplement en récupérant le fichier mmdb.

Pour le télécharger :

curl -LO https://downloads.ip66.dev/db/ip66.mmdb

go install github.com/maxmind/mmdbinspect/cmd/mmdbinspect@latest
mmdbinspect -db ip66.mmdb 8.8.8.8

A UK tribunal has allowed a £2.1 billion lawsuit over Microsoft’s cloud licensing to move forward, adding new pressure to how Windows Server is priced outside Azure.

The post Microsoft Must Face £2.1B UK Cloud Licensing Lawsuit appeared first on TechRepublic.

This is a comprehensive list of the top Disaster Recovery as a Service providers. Use this guide to compare and choose the best solution for you.

The post Top 5 Disaster Recovery Companies in 2026 appeared first on TechRepublic.

The EU unveils a privacy-first age verification app to protect minors online, pressuring platforms to comply with stricter digital safety rules.

The post EU Declares New Digital Age Verification App Ready for Deployment appeared first on TechRepublic.

We’ve been designing office desks essentially the same way for decades. Four legs, a flat surface, maybe a drawer if you’re lucky, and an ergonomic chair that costs more than your first car. So when Vitra and German industrial designer Konstantin Grcic quietly dropped the Scout Work Mobile just last month, I paid close attention.

The Scout Work Mobile is part of a larger family of workstation and meeting tables simply called Scout, launched on March 19 of this year. The collection comprises five pieces ranging from stationary desks to mobile variants, and it’s Grcic’s response to how offices actually function today versus how they were designed to function twenty years ago. The Scout Work Mobile is the one that caught my eye: a compact, trapezoidal desk on wheels with a tubular steel frame that rises up and encircles the work surface.

Designer: Konstantin Grcic

That frame is the whole story, really. It’s not decorative. It’s not there to look good in a mood board (though it absolutely does). The frame acts as a grab handle when you’re rolling the thing across a room, a mounting point for privacy screens, and a place to hang accessories. Without any attachments, it still creates what Vitra describes as a “room-within-a-room” effect, a bit of visual and psychological separation from whatever chaos is happening around you. For those of us who’ve had to MacGyver focus time in open-plan offices using noise-cancelling headphones and pure denial, that feels like a genuine design insight rather than a marketing afterthought.

Grcic is known for what Vitra calls a “severely simple” aesthetic. He doesn’t add things for the sake of adding them, and the Scout Work Mobile reflects that clearly: the height adjustment and tilting function work entirely without electricity. No motors, no app, no firmware updates required. It adjusts by hand. That might sound unremarkable, but compared to the increasingly tech-dependent office furniture being released right now, it reads almost like a radical statement.

The mobile aspect of Scout is where the design really earns its name. Return-to-office mandates are reshaping how companies think about their physical spaces, and the rigid assigned-desk model is quietly becoming a liability. Hot-desking, collaborative hubs, project clusters, training rooms that double as focus spaces. Modern offices are being asked to do a lot more with the same square footage. Scout was built for exactly that kind of environment. You grab it, roll it where you need it, work, and move on. No teardown required. No reconfiguration meeting on the calendar.

Grcic put it plainly in an interview with Vitra Magazine: “The aim is not to replace what already exists. Rather, the system is an extension or complementary offering that responds to different levels and styles of work.” That kind of restraint is rare in product design, where the temptation is always to pitch your thing as the only thing. Scout doesn’t ask to own your whole office. It just wants to be useful wherever you put it.

Aesthetically, it sits in that satisfying middle ground between industrial and refined. The tubular steel frame reads as utilitarian at first glance, but the trapezoidal silhouette and deliberate proportions make it feel considered rather than clinical. It’s the kind of furniture that would look at home in a forward-thinking tech company, a design school studio, or a well-curated co-working space. It isn’t trying to disappear into the background, and it certainly doesn’t need to.

What makes Scout genuinely interesting is that it treats mobility as a first principle rather than a feature tacked on after the fact. Desks on wheels have existed forever, but most of them feel like an afterthought, as if someone just bolted casters onto a standard table and called it agile. Grcic designed the Scout Work Mobile from the ground up with movement in mind, and the difference is visible in every element. Office furniture rarely makes me stop and think twice. The Scout Work Mobile managed to.

The post Konstantin Grcic Finally Designed the Office Desk We Needed first appeared on Yanko Design.