Color gradient filament is fun stuff to play with. It lets you make 3D prints that slowly fade from one color to another along the Z-axis. [David Gozzard] wanted to do some printing with this effect, and learned how to make his own filament to do the job. 

[David] intended to 3D print a spectrogram of a gravity wave, and wanted the graph to go from blue to yellow. Only having a single-color printer, he needed color shift filament, but couldn’t find any blue-to-yellow filament online.

The resulting color-shifting print looks great, demonstrating the value of the technique.

Thus, he elected to create it himself. He started by creating a spiral model in Fusion 360, with a hexagonal cross-section and slowly tapering off to a point. Slicing and printing this in blue results in a filament that slowly fades down to a point. The opposite shape can then be printed in yellow, tapering from a point up to a full-sized filament. The trick is to print one shape, then the other, by mashing the G-code together and changing the filament from blue to yellow along the way. The result is the blue and yellow plastic gets printed together into a single filament that gradually changes from one to the other.

Notably, the filament is smaller than the original filaments used to create it, so it’s necessary to run slightly different settings when using it. [David] has shared the models on Thingiverse for those eager to recreate the technique at home. His resulting gravity wave print is impressive, demonstrating that this technique works well!

We’ve seen similar different techniques used for creating multi-color filaments before, too. Video after the break.

Tesla’s Optimus robot has been revealed on stage at AI day. | Image: Tesla

Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed a prototype of a humanoid robot that he said utilizes the company’s AI software, as well as the sensors that power its advanced driver assist features. At the start of Tesla’s 2022 AI Day presentation, Musk acknowledged that last year they had “a guy in a suit” but promised something much more impressive today.

According to Musk, it can do more than what has been shown, but “the first time it walked without a tether was tonight on stage.” Musk said they’re targeting a price of “probably less than $20,000.”

Image: Tesla
Tesla “Optimus” robot at AI Day 2022

The back doors of the stage opened to reveal a deconstructed Optimus that walked forward and did a “raise the roof” dance move….

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The Verge:
At Tesla AI Day, Musk reveals a protoype of Optimus, a humanoid robot that uses Tesla’ AI and advanced driver assist features, expects to cost less than $20K  —  Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed a prototype of a humanoid robot that he said utilizes the company’s AI software …

Billie Eilish’s live concert from London will be streamed on Apple Music on September 30th at 7 p.m. PT. Here’s how to watch.

Jessica Hagen / MobiHealthNews:
NYC-based Grow Therapy, which offers tools for mental health providers to set up virtual practices, raised a $75M Series B, bringing its total funding to $90M  —  The new allocation will help the company expand its insurance coverage, including Medicare and Medicaid, across the U.S.

Reuters:
SEC filing: Intel’s self-driving car unit Mobileye files for an IPO and reports a H1 2022 revenue of $854M, up 21% from H1 2021  —  Mobileye, Intel Corp’s (INTC.O) self-driving unit, on Friday filed for an initial public offering in the United States, revealing a 21% jump in revenue for the first half of the year.

Mari Yamaguchi / Associated Press:
Japan says it will provide Micron a subsidy of up to ~$322M to help the company produce advanced memory chips at a Hiroshima factory  —  Japan is providing a major U.S. chipmaker a subsidy of up to 46.6 billion yen ($322 million) to support its plan to produce advanced memory chips at a Hiroshima factory …

Reflow hotplates are a wonderful tool for PCB assembly if you can keep your designs single-sided. The 946C hotplate in particular has been on hackers’ radar for a while – a 200x200cm working surface hotplate available for under $100 is a decent investment. As with other reflow tools, it was a matter of time until someone made a replacement controller for it. This one, you’ll want to keep in mind – it’s a replacement controller project by [Arnaud Durand] and [Elias Rodriguez Martin], called Reflow946.

Keeping to best practices, the board is a drop-in replacement for the stock controller – swap cables over and go. The host processor is an ESP32, and it lets you can program reflow profiles in using BLE, with a Python application to help. The whole design is open-source and on GitHub, of course – keeping with best 3D printing traditions, you can already order the parts and PCBs, and then assemble them using the hotplate you’re about to upgrade. As far as aftermarket controllers go, here’s no doubt this board gives you way more control in reflow and lets you compensate for any possible subpar calibration while at it.

Since the casing of the hotplate is metal, [Arnaud] recommends an ESP32 module which has an external antenna connector. You also need to watch out for compatibility – turns out, only some hotplates sold as 946C will fit this board, so talk to your seller if you’re about to buy a hotplate capable of this upgrade. Almost makes us wish that these ovens had revision numbers, maybe a letter at the end of the model number or something!

Hotplate reflow has been one of our favourite PCB assembly methods for a while, and hacker ingenuity has given us different ways to do it – frying pans full of sand, PTC heaters with flat surfaces, and even PCBs designed to reflow PCBs. Not yet familiar with what reflow means? Let’s get you up to speed!

We thank [Abe Connelly] for sharing this with us!

Open-source #Bluetooth reflow controller for the 946C hot plate using #ESP32. This controller replaces the original board. https://t.co/zbGDrLhWYW pic.twitter.com/iHjVU38IiW

— Arnaud Durand (@DurandA23) September 20, 2022

Apple has officially added the iPhone 6 to its list of vintage devices.

Google announced the shutdown of Stadia with little warning. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

News that Google would be closing down Stadia was a big surprise for everyone, including the developers making games for the platform

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People around the world are rallying to subvert Iran’s internet shutdown, but actually pulling it off is proving difficult and risky.

Nick Barclay / The Verge

Twitch will begin testing a way for its users to boost their chat messages on the platform. Called “Elevated Chat,” the “experiment” is meant to let users elevate their chat messages for a specific time using a one-time fee. The fees are presented in five different tiers ranging from 30 seconds to two and a half minutes, with fees ranging from $5 to $100.

The feature is currently available for a “limited number of channels” on the platform. The option to elevate chats may appear at either the top of the chat or at the bottom of a video, and a user can purchase an Elevated Chat depending on how long they want to keep their message up.

According to Game Developer, multiple people can elevate their chat message at once, but it is on a…

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Apple has announced that season two of The Mosquito Coast will premiere on Apple TV+ on Friday, November 4.

Apple has announced that season two of Slow Horses will premiere on Apple TV+ on Friday, December 2.

My “We Are Not For Sale” shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Warner Bros. Discovery’s CEO David Zaslav seems to be trying to squash rumors that he wants to sell the company to the likes of Comcast. According to a report from Deadline, he told employees that “we are not for sale, absolutely, not for sale,” during a Zoom call on Wednesday attended by staff from all over the company.

While he reportedly didn’t address any specific rumors, a recent report from The Hollywood Reporter seems to be the likely target of his comments. Earlier this month, the outlet suggested that “top industry execs” were “convinced” that Warner Bros. was on the brink of merging with Comcast, owners of NBCUniversal and the Peacock streaming service (and, disclosure, an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company). One…

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When [Jak_o_Shadows] Siglent Oscilloscope died, he didn’t just mourn the loss, he saw an opportunity. See, he had a Raspberry Pi 400 already set aside for a cyberdeck build, and he just scored a novel case. Most of the insides of the old scope came out, but the screen and control knobs live on in the new build. An HDMI-to-LVDS adapter brought the screen back to life, and the control knobs are a work-in-progress. Added to the case are some fun goodies, like a LimeSDR, connected to the old scope inputs. A PL2303 is wired to the serial port, making that functional, too. It’s a very nice touch that the build retains the original scope’s functions this way.

There’s plenty of 3d-printed goodness, like some internal brackets to hold things in place. The real star of the show is a 3d-printed hinge, holding the scope and Pi 400 together and making the whole package portable. There’s a neat tip, too, in that the Pi 400 has a huge integrated heat sync under the keyboard. It’s just a sheet of metal, so you can drill and tap it as mounting points. Cool!

This is a nifty build, and certainly a worthy deck for jacking-in to whatever you’re working on. And re-purposing an oscilloscope is a nice aesthetic. If [Jak_o_Shadows] can just get the front array of buttons and knobs working with his STM32, this will be a killer deck, the envy of console cowboys everywhere.

Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25211 went live on September 29th. | Image: Microsoft

In 2019, Microsoft finally introduced support for Win32 games on the Microsoft Store for Windows. But if you downloaded the games, you might want to hold off on the latest Windows Insider build. The most recent Dev Channel update prevents users from uninstalling Win32 apps, which means many of the games found on the Microsoft Store and Steam will be stuck on your computer for the time being.

Microsoft’s Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25211 was recently released to subscribers of the Windows updates Dev Channel. The new build comes with a host of new features, bug fixes, and one big catch. This particular update has only rolled out in the Dev Channel and shouldn’t affect Windows Insider subscribers who use the Beta Channel or Release…

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Once you uncover the Temple of Shrooms in the Scorching Sandpaper Desert, you’re going to be tasked with locating all of the faceless Toads. Here’s where they all are.

The answers you give in the game’s opening quiz will determine which of the 16 starter Pokémon align with your personality. Here are all the questions and answers for the personality quiz along with which Pokémon you can be.

Benj Edwards / Ars Technica:
Report: Bruce Willis sold his “digital twin” likeness rights to Deepcake, for use in ads and possibly even movies; a Russian ad already used a Willis deepfake  —  Tech will allow Willis’ doppelgänger to continue working despite language disorder diagnosis.

Adorable and ethically questionable. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Earlier this year, Bandai America announced that the TinyTan Tamagotchi, a new handheld game featuring the members of BTS, was on its way. The $19.99 gadget is up for preorder now, and it ships on October 3rd. As a fan of all things BTS and K-pop who also happens to review things for a living, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to test it out.

The conceit of a Tamagotchi is innocuous enough. It’s a teensy egg-shaped device with a screen in the middle and three buttons across the bottom. Traditionally, that screen is occupied by a virtual pet — you feed this pet, play games with it, and such by pressing various combinations of said buttons. The TinyTan Tamagotchi is like that, except the pet under your care happens to be a member of the…

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In this Handout Photo provided by Swedish Coast Guard, the release of gas emanating from a leak on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea on September 28th, 2022, in At Sea. | Photo by Swedish Coast Guard via Getty Images

This week, the world watched what’s likely to be the fossil fuel industry’s single largest methane release ever. An astonishing amount of methane is floating up from the now-notorious Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines and rising above the surface of the Baltic Sea. It’s a pollution nightmare. It also pales in comparison to the vast amount of methane that oil and gas operations constantly release.

Up to 778 million standard cubic meters of methane gas could spew from the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in a worst-case scenario, according to the Danish Energy Agency. That’s equivalent to nearly a third of Denmark’s greenhouse gas emissions for the entire year of 2020.

The Nord Stream disaster “is an extraordinarily huge one-time event,” says…

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Whether you’re into digital drawing, graphic design, or other artistic endeavors, you’re going to want a tablet of some sort. Both drawing tablets and iPads can fulfill this purpose, though some work better for specific projects.

Anker’s Soundcore VR P10 earbuds are designed to provide lag-free audio for gaming. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Anker announced its latest wave of wireless earbuds yesterday, and the products indicate that Anker is expanding its focus beyond the usual sound quality upgrades. The company announced three pairs in all: the Soundcore Liberty 4, Soundcore Sleep A10, and Soundcore VR P10 earbuds.

The new Liberty 4 earbuds do offer better sound; they’re Anker’s first “stick”-style buds to include dual drivers in each earbud. But they can also read your heart rate for fitness and wellness purposes. This functionality has been rumored for Apple’s AirPods lineup but has yet to materialize.

Things didn’t end there. Anker also introduced its first-ever set of sleep earbuds, which are clearly meant to challenge Bose’s $249 Sleepbuds II and other products in…

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Image: Google

Google is shutting down Stadia, its polarizing cloud gaming service, only four weeks after the company’s target audience of me, Makena Kelly, actually started using it.

When Stadia was announced in 2019, Google pitched it as the future of gaming, providing a more accessible alternative to expensive PC rigs or whatever $500 next-gen console iteration was on the horizon. And when Stadia finally launched, it worked. Sure, features were missing, and connections were shaky, but suddenly I had access to a handful of games that would have previously cost me hundreds of dollars in hardware and controllers to play — a steep investment I wasn’t willing to make for games I may have only thrown on for a few hours.

Despite Stadia’s obvious benefits,…

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