Rely

The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) has decided to stop adding leap seconds to Coordinated Universal Time, ending a decades-long practice of occasionally inserting an extra second to keep atomic clocks in line with Earth's rotation. The change, set out in a resolution from the 2026 General Conference, will be welcomed by technology companies and standards bodies who have long argued that unpredictable leap seconds pose risks to computer systems and network infrastructure.

Reports say Ukrainian soldiers' access to Starlink satellite internet has been suddenly restricted, raising concerns on the battlefield, where the service is used for communications, drones and coordination. Ukraine's military relies heavily on SpaceX's network, and any disruption could affect front-line operations. Observers are questioning whether the change is technical, contractual or political.

Reports are examining how interruptions to SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service have affected Ukrainian military operations on the battlefield. Ukraine relies heavily on Starlink for communications, drone coordination and battlefield connectivity, so disruptions raise concerns about the reliability of a service controlled by a private company and its implications for the war with Russia.

A new Pew Research Center study finds that online communities rarely center on politics, and many of their members say they prefer it that way. The findings suggest that despite the political noise often associated with social media, most online groups form around hobbies, interests, and everyday topics, with users actively valuing spaces kept free of political argument.

Real Madrid and RB Leipzig are among the most searched football topics as Champions League attention builds. Related coverage includes Jose Mourinho naming the players he expects to rely on in the competition. Fans in Spain and Russia are following the matchup and wider European fixtures.

Real Madrid's Champions League group with RB Leipzig is drawing searches, with fans checking standings after their meetings. Portuguese coach Jose Mourinho's comments about which players he would rely on in the Champions League have also circulated alongside the fixture coverage, keeping the tournament's group tables and team prospects in focus for football followers.

Pele is a new tool that converts Mermaid diagrams into themeable SVG output, giving developers more control over styling than the default renderer offers. It is drawing attention among programmers who use Mermaid for documentation and want diagrams that match their project's design system without hand-editing generated markup.

Ukraine's war effort relies heavily on Elon Musk's Starlink satellite network, which provides battlefield communications, drone coordination and connectivity in areas with destroyed infrastructure. French broadcaster France Culture has examined how the system has become a de facto military asset, reigniting debate over Kyiv's dependence on a single private company and its owner's political influence.

Indian certificate authority eMudhra is being discussed over claims that its certificate signing keys have been compromised. If accurate, such a breach could allow attackers to forge trusted certificates, undermining HTTPS security for sites relying on its certificates. Cybersecurity observers are weighing the severity of the claim and whether eMudhra or browser and operating system vendors have issued any confirmation, revocations, or trust restrictions.

Apple has added the 2017 12-inch MacBook to its obsolete products list, meaning the laptop no longer qualifies for hardware service or parts from Apple and its authorized providers. The machine, the last of Apple's ultra-portable MacBook line, was discontinued in 2019. Owners will now need to rely on third-party repair shops for future fixes.

The Go team has announced that Go 1.27 brings better HTTP/1 connection reuse, a change detailed in an official Go blog post. Improved reuse means fewer new TCP connections and better performance for clients making many requests. Developers are discussing what the change means for applications relying on Go's net/http package.

The PHP Foundation has published a post-mortem explaining a set of critical errors and how they were discovered, warning anyone running PHP to update immediately. Developers are sharing the advisory widely, treating it as a patch-now situation for servers and applications relying on the language.

Security firm Trail of Bits has published a new article asking whether AI coding agents that fix a bug also introduce unnoticed changes elsewhere in the codebase. The piece examines the risks of unreviewed side effects when automated agents edit code, prompting discussion among developers about how to audit and verify AI-made modifications.

Commentary circulating in India explains that the padlock symbol next to a website address no longer guarantees a site is trustworthy. The explanation notes the padlock only confirms the connection to the site is encrypted, not that the site itself is legitimate, meaning fraudsters can obtain the same certificate for fake pages. Readers are urged to verify web addresses carefully rather than rely on the padlock, especially when entering banking details.

French telecom operator Orange plans to reallocate its 2G frequencies to 4G or 5G networks. The move would phase out legacy mobile coverage in favour of modern services, and industry commentators are discussing what it means for users of older devices and connected objects that still rely on the ageing 2G standard.

A Google outage is causing problems for a range of websites and apps, with some bank customers reporting issues accessing their services. The disruption suggests services relying on Google's infrastructure have been affected, and users are sharing their experiences as companies await restoration of normal service.

Google Cloud's Europe-West2 region, located in London, is experiencing an outage, drawing attention from engineers and businesses relying on the platform. Users report services hosted in that region are unavailable, prompting discussion about cloud resilience and multi-region failover strategies for European workloads.

A developer is arguing that anyone building on large language models should route their API traffic through a self-hosted proxy, claiming that without one you have no real insight into what is being sent, received, logged or spent. The piece has struck a chord with engineers who say third-party tools obscure prompts, token costs and model behaviour, and debate has broken out over how much visibility is actually necessary.

James Calabro has published a write-up on 'One Hash Bloom Filters', an approach to the classic Bloom filter data structure that relies on a single hash function. The piece is drawing attention among software engineers interested in efficient data structures and probabilistic membership testing, with discussion centered on how reducing the hash count affects memory use and accuracy.

GitHub is reporting degraded availability for GitHub Actions, GitHub Pages and Webhooks, meaning automated workflows, hosted sites and webhook deliveries may be slow or failing for some users. Developers are monitoring the company's status page for updates as builds and deployments are disrupted during the incident.

XScreenSaver, the long-running open-source screen saver collection for Unix systems, has no officially sanctioned GitHub repository. The well-known repository circulating on GitHub under an 'official' name is not maintained by the project's author, raising concerns that users may be downloading or contributing to code that isn't authoritative. Developers are reminded to rely on the project's own distribution channels for the genuine source.

A growing number of websites are shutting out AI agents, blocking automated systems that browse the web to scrape content or complete tasks on behalf of users. Publishers and site owners are tightening access controls, citing concerns over unpaid content use, server load, and security. The debate raises questions about whether the open web can coexist with AI tools that rely on broad access to function.

A widely shared commentary argues that people's physical and social surroundings — their homes, habits, spaces and the people around them — quietly shape their wellbeing, productivity and life outcomes without them noticing. The piece urges viewers to audit and redesign their environment rather than relying on willpower alone. It has drawn strong engagement, with many readers agreeing that surroundings influence behaviour more than personal discipline does.

A long-time Ruby contributor has archived all of their gem repositories, saying they no longer care to maintain them. The move leaves downstream users without updates and renews familiar concerns about the sustainability of unpaid open-source maintenance and the shrinking pool of volunteers keeping niche Ruby libraries alive. Discussion has focused on burnout and how projects should handle abandoned dependencies.

A Dutch Mastodon user is arguing that governments and companies rely far too heavily on open source software and volunteer maintainers without giving enough back. The post, tagged with PHP and open source, says half the internet is built on free, volunteer-driven work that deserves far more institutional funding and support.

GLOBSEC has published a report, 'Roads to Readiness', examining military mobility infrastructure on NATO's eastern flank. The analysis focuses on the roads, bridges, rail links and logistics networks allies would rely on to move troops and equipment quickly toward the alliance's eastern members. It highlights gaps in infrastructure readiness and the investments needed to strengthen deterrence and rapid response along the border with Russia and Belarus.

Reports from Mexico indicate another threat to Modalidad 40, the IMSS scheme that lets workers pay higher contributions in their final years to boost pension amounts. Commentators are covering renewed warnings that the program could be restricted or eliminated, a recurring concern among workers planning higher pensions through the system.

A Canadian observer is urging American voters to disregard pre-election polling and turn out to vote regardless of what the numbers suggest. The message, addressed to 'American internet strangers', has drawn broad agreement and engagement online, reflecting nervousness among outside observers about the close race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris and memories of polls underestimating outcomes in past US elections.

The OpenRewrite project is shifting how it distributes its automated refactoring recipes: instead of publishing recipe modules to Maven Central, they are moving to the Code Genome Project. This changes how Java developers resolve and run rewrite recipes, with the latest module versions documented in the OpenRewrite reference docs. Developer reaction is mixed, with discussion focusing on dependency management and access implications.

Devin Booker is trending in the US, with sports talk questioning why the Phoenix Suns star is not a better 3-point shooter given his reputation as an elite scorer. Analysts and fans are debating his shot selection and efficiency from deep, as the Suns rely heavily on his offense.

Discussion is growing around a reported Supreme Court ruling concerning the 27% reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBC), with commentators framing it as a cancellation of the quota. The issue touches on one of India's most sensitive policy areas, and legal educators and analysts are breaking down what the judgment means for students and job seekers relying on OBC quotas. Viewers are closely following explanations of the court's reasoning and its likely impact.