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Likening Sony's impending deathblow to physical PlayStation games to Apple removing disc drives from its laptops, reputable games analyst Daniel Ahmad of Niko Partners argues that the shift to digital "would inevitably happen" on consoles and current conversations around consumer rights are better served targeting digital rights and "what a license should enable."

In a lengthy post on Twitter , Ahmad fields another user's question: "Is the PlayStation disc situation reminding anyone else of Apple deciding to get rid of the headphone jack?"

Ahmad reckons, "It's more like Apple removing the CD Drive from its laptops starting in 2008. There were definitely a high number of complaints at the time , but not a single person is complaining about it today. You couldn't find many people complaining in the early 2010s either."

He lays out some of the data driving Sony's decision to end disc support. Full game sales are "around 80%" digital on PlayStation and "over 90%" digital on Xbox, Ahmad begins.

Heading off one counterpoint regarding digital dominance, he adds, "Yes, these numbers include digital only games, reflecting the current market environment, but they don't include DLC, microtransactions or subscriptions / free games."

He also downplays some Insomniac Games sales figures which have been presented as evidence that physical still represents a healthy chunk of PS5 sales, saying they are "out of date" and only show sell in, rather than sell through, which is inflated "because Sony counts bundles as retail sales, even if it's a digital code with the console."

Ahmad reasons that "the console ecosystem is nearly entirely digital at this point," with many of the most-played games on PS5 skipping discs entirely (and GTA 6 notably joining this camp ), and digital-only PS5s seeing a "current sell through rate" above 50% (even if 70% of PS5s sold do have a disc drive, by his figures).

The simple explanation for Sony's decision here is about what you'd expect: money and control. It and publishers would "prefer to sell all games digitally if they could for the higher margins," Ahmad says, and that includes effectively shutting out the secondhand market to ensure "a closed ecosystem." (As a quick aside, this is also why consumers stand strictly to lose options and versatility in this proposed digital future .)

He echoes a point recently made by Circana's Mat Piscatella: the next console generation is staring down a pricing hurdle which will lead to a smaller install base and/or much slower adoption, meaning platform holders like Sony will focus on increased profitability for the base they do capture. Sony described an increased focus on "monetizing our user base" in a recent report to shareholders, in fact. Shifting to higher-margin digital sales is part of this strategy, Ahmad agrees.

(Image credit: PlayStation / Sucker Punch) Ahmad puts it this way: "Sony knows the PS6 is entering a market where consoles will cost over $1,000 and the average console player will think twice about upgrading on day one. While part of it is cutting costs, it's also a realization that consoles are no longer going to be $199 mass market devices and they will need to focus on hardcore gamers who are willing to spend more than ever." In some ways, this puts the PS6 in a similar position to the PS5 Pro as a much more enthusiast-first product that is not expected to have a whole generation-sized footprint.

In essence, he adds, Sony is paraphrasing notorious former Xbox exec Don Mattrick and saying, "We already have a device that can play discs, and it's called the PS5."

Ahmad criticizes Sony's handling of the no-physical news. He, like others, doubts the company will reverse its decision, but expects it to "end up clarifying certain aspects" that should have been laid out to begin with. "Had they talked about a disc to digital program, or confirmed a disc add-on for the PS6, the backlash wouldn't have been as strong," he says. Xbox is reportedly testing its own method of digitizing physical game collections, as it happens.

Additionally, Ahmad says he does believe that "used physical games helps increase overall affordability," and that Sony "could support physical games for a few more years" if it wanted to, "especially through a limited run style model or at a more expensive price point compared to the digital version."

It's no coincidence that Nintendo is supporting physical games on Switch 2, even if some are just game-key cards, partly by selling digital versions $10 cheaper .

As we face a digital future, Ahmad advocates that, "Regardless of whether we're talking about bringing physical back, or embracing digital, the conversation needs to shift to consumer rights and what a license should enable. Stop Killing Games was one part of it, but gifting, family sharing, refunds, and other aspects are just as important."

These digital features and the discussions around them tend to be a bit more advanced on PC, where games have effectively been digital-only for a while. On general-purpose PCs, games are also more readily archivable and, often, available through multiple stores (which aren't tied to generational blackouts like the PS3 and Vita ), which is partly why digital-only games on PC and console can't be directly equated.

Returning to the Apple analogy, Ahmad concludes, "This time a new laptop will cost $5k and my old one with a disc drive works just fine."

Does anyone actually want new consoles?

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I have used plenty of docking stations over the years, and it seems the desktop dock market is as crowded as ever. I have tested smaller portable docks, to larger stationary docks that give you all the ports you would ever need. But the new iVANKY FusionDock takes a different approach. Instead of just adding more ports, this Thunderbolt 5 dock is built around sustained reliability even while under heavy professional workloads. It can support multiple high-resolution displays, fast SSDs, NAS transfers, and full MacBook Pro performance all running simultaneously. If you are a power user and you need a powerful dock to match your workflow, the FusionDock Ultra is worth considering. Here’s why.

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Bridgestone spent 18 years getting its airless tire from prototype to street.

The debut tires run on self-driving golf carts for older residents in Higashiomi.

Cost and speed limits keep it far from ordinary passenger cars for now.

For almost two decades, Bridgestone has been chasing the formula for a workable airless tire , and after eighteen years of prototypes the company says it finally has one ready for the road. The catch is that you won’t be buying a set for your own car anytime soon, because the first commercial application is about as far from a performance application as it gets.

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The tire manufacturing juggernaut has launched its new AirFree tires on a fleet of self-driving vehicles operating in the Japanese city of Higashiomi, which look like stretched golf carts. These shuttles will ferry older residents around town, so the tires won’t exactly have a hard life. Even so, this marks the first time AirFree tires have entered regular commercial service rather than a limited-duration trial.

Read: Bridgestone Launches New Dedicated EV Tires For Teslas And Mustang Mach-E

Bridgestone built its first airless tire back in 2008 and unveiled the current third-generation version in 2023, so the technology on those go-karts represents eighteen years of steady refinement. Rather than lean on a hard material that might fail or ruin ride quality, the AirFree tires use a recyclable compound strong enough to handle daily use without turning every bump into a complaint.

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The construction relies on thermoplastic resin spokes wrapped in a thin rubber tread that meets the road. Bridgestone engineer Masaki Ota said the breakthrough arrived when the team stopped trying to make the material harder and turned instead to a flexible resin and a structure that spreads loads more evenly across the tire.

Not For Road Cars, For Now

Bridgestone

The tires were shown being put through their paces on the driverless go-karts to select members of the press earlier this week. These machines were limited to just 12 mph (20 km/h). It’s unclear whether they were capped at this speed for the comfort of attending journalists, or if that’s simply the maximum safe pace at which they were built to operate. Either way, Nikkei Asia reports that for now they suit only “relatively slow vehicles.”

As a result, these AirFree tires are nowhere near ready to replace the conventional rubber that current production cars rely on. Until the technology takes a meaningful step forward, expect to find tires like these only on small mobility fleets doing low-speed work in controlled settings.

As for the color, Bridgestone calls it ‘Empowering Blue,’ and says the vibrant shade was chosen to boost visibility during the day and at dusk.

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Bridgestone has not committed to a timeline for mass production and is currently weighing a business model that bundles the tires with services such as recycling. The company is also developing lunar rover tires built around a metal structure derived from the same AirFree design, which suggests it sees a future for the idea well beyond a Japanese retirement shuttle

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NASA astronaut Anil Menon and Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina, Soyuz MS-29 prime crew members, pose for a portrait at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Russia.

Credit: GCTC

NASA astronaut Anil Menon will launch aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft to the International Space Station on Tuesday, July 14, accompanied by cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina, where they will join the Expedition 74 crew advancing scientific research.

Menon, Dubrov, and Kikina will lift off at 10:47 a.m. EDT (7:47 p.m. Baikonur time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Live launch and docking coverage is available on NASA+ , Amazon Prime , and the agency’s YouTube channel. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of online platforms, including social media.

After a two-orbit, three-hour trip to the station, the spacecraft will automatically dock at 1:56 p.m. to the Prichal module. Shortly afterward, hatches will open between the Soyuz and the orbiting laboratory.

Once aboard, the trio will join NASA astronauts Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway, and Chris Williams, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, Sergei Mikaev, and Andrey Fedyaev.

NASA’s coverage schedule is as follows (all times Eastern and subject to change based on real-time operations):

Tuesday, July 14

9:45 a.m. – Launch coverage begins on NASA+ , Amazon Prime , and YouTube .

10:47 a.m. – Launch

1:10 p.m. – Rendezvous and docking coverage begins on NASA+ , Amazon Prime , and YouTube .

1:56 p.m. – Docking

3:30 p.m. – Hatch opening and welcome coverage begins on NASA+ , Amazon Prime , and YouTube .

3:55 p.m. – Hatch opening

Menon, Dubrov, and Kikina will spend about eight months aboard the orbital complex as International Space Station Expedition 74/75 crew members before returning to Earth in April 2027. This will be Menon’s first spaceflight and the second for both Dubrov and Kikina.

During his stay on the station, Menon will conduct scientific research and technology demonstrations aimed at advancing human space exploration and benefiting life on Earth. He will continue research to refine in-space production of semiconductor crystals to enable the large-scale manufacturing of components needed for high-performance computers, artificial intelligence, and improved medical devices. Menon also will perform ultrasound using augmented reality and artificial intelligence methods that could eliminate the need for medical support from Earth on future space missions. He will be a test subject helping researchers understand how blood flow is affected in space to protect future astronauts. He also will test bioprinting vascular constructs in microgravity to improve understanding of the aging process to advance therapeutic developments.

For more than 25 years, people have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and making research breakthroughs not possible on Earth. The space station helps NASA understand and overcome the challenges of human spaceflight, expand commercial opportunities in low Earth orbit, and build on the foundation for long-duration missions to the Moon, as part of the Artemis program, and to Mars.

To learn more about International Space Station research, operations, and its crews, visit:

www.nasa.gov/station

-end-

Joshua Finch / Jimi Russell

Headquarters, Washington

202-358-1100

joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / james.j.russell@nasa.gov

Sandra Jones

Johnson Space Center, Houston

281-483-5111

sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov

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Jul 09, 2026

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Jessica Taveau

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A years-long malaria control campaign in the Brazilian Amazon nearly eliminated the disease from a city — but then cases rebounded. Now, scientists think they've uncovered why.

The campaign took place in northern Brazil during the construction of the Belo Monte Dam in the Xingu River, one of the largest hydroelectric dams in the world. From 2013 to 2017, the initiative slashed annual malaria rates from more than 1,200 cases to fewer than 60. But the program ended, and within a few years, infections had rebounded to more than 700 cases a year. This time, they were concentrated in the rural communities surrounding the river in the city of Altamira.

In a study published Thursday (July 9) in the journal GeoHealth , scientists analyzed 15 years of malaria surveillance records alongside satellite images of forests around Altamira. Earlier studies have pointed to deforestation and dam construction as a driver of malaria because they can provide habitats for mosquito larvae, which inhabit the forest edge. In Altamira, large stretches of rainforest have been cleared for cattle ranching, logging and settlement along the Xingu River in the decades since the region was first opened up by road-building, leaving a patchwork of cleared land pressed up against the remaining forest.

However, the study found that the malaria resurgence wasn't simply a result of how much forest had been cut down. Instead, cases tracked most closely with the forest edge , the boundary where intact forest meets cleared or open land. There, mosquitoes get everything they need to thrive: shade from the tree line, sunlit pools of standing water for their larvae, and people living or working close by.

The findings highlight how the environment contributes to malaria risk, suggesting that maintaining surveillance in these high-risk landscapes could be just as important as driving cases down in the first place.

"What made Altamira compelling was that the timing gave us something rare, close to a natural experiment," study co-author Eloise Skinner, an epidemiologist and postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Queensland in Australia, told Live Science in an email. The results of that natural experiment could help Brazil in its efforts to eliminate malaria from the country in the next decade, she said.

A program tied to temporary funding

The researchers tracked malaria trends before, during and after the construction of the Belo Monte Dam. Before construction began, malaria was already a persistent problem in the region; Altamira city alone reported more than 1,200 cases a year.

As thousands of workers moved in, local health authorities and the dam's developers rolled out an intensive control program that involved spraying insecticides indoors, using mosquito nets, and deploying rapid diagnosis and treatment when cases did emerge. The goal was to head off outbreaks spread by Nyssorhynchus darlingi , the mosquito that carries the malaria-causing parasite in the Brazilian Amazon.

Mosquitoes pick up the parasite that causes malaria by feeding on the blood of infected people, and they can then spread that parasite to others they bite. Treating infected people quickly can help break that chain of transmission.

Cases plummeted despite the influx of workers, but once construction wrapped up and the program lost its funding, malaria came back.

Nyssorhynchus darlingi , the mosquito that spreads malaria in the Amazon, breeds in partially shaded bodies of water. (Image credit: Sabrina Simon) To understand what drove the resurgence, the researchers combined three streams of data. Case records came from Brazil's national malaria surveillance system and covered 150 health centers in Altamira over 15 years. The team layered on temperature, forest cover and rainfall data, since both shape how favorable an area is for mosquito breeding and how efficiently the malaria parasite develops inside mosquitos. Plus, they added an estimate of travel time between each cluster of cases and the nearest town, as a proxy for how easily people and the diseases they carry might move around.

From the observations, the forest edge consistently emerged as the strongest predictor of increased malaria cases. For every 1% increase in the perimeter of the forest edge, malaria cases rose by roughly 0.7%; for every 1% increase in Altamira's population, who are located at the forest edge, cases rose by about 1.4%.

The rebound wasn't evenly distributed. Before the dam was built, most of Altamira's malaria cases came from clusters inside the city itself. Afterward, that pattern flipped: by 2020, the roughly 700 annual cases were concentrated almost entirely in remote, rural clusters near forest edges. Meanwhile, Altamira's urban center stayed comparatively protected, much as it had during construction.

"When the funded program wound down, malaria came back to the communities that are hardest for the health system to reach," Skinner said. "The city stayed protected, most likely because fast diagnosis and treatment are easier to deliver and keep going in a town."

That leaves the same communities exposed twice over, Skinner said. The places that are already the hardest to reach with health services also sit where the ecological risk is the highest.

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But this pattern could point to solutions. The resurgence didn't scatter unpredictably. It came back to the same kind of place — rural communities at the forest edge — each time. That's the kind of risk that can be anticipated in the future.

Brazil aims to eliminate locally acquired malaria by 2035 . Skinner said Altamira's near elimination of the disease, and its rebound within a few years of the control program ending, is a warning for that effort. When a community contains a strong environmental driver for malaria, like forest-edge ecosystems, stopping a control program short is sure to let the disease climb back.

"Because the resurgence wasn't diffuse, we can predict where malaria is likely to return first," Skinner said. "The message for a 2035 goal isn't only that elimination needs sustained investment. It is that where the environment drives risk, that risk is predictable, and planning for it from the start is what lets the money go where it matters most."

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One Nation leader welcomed by far-right figures including Tommy Robinson and Rupert Lowe.

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Qantas is the world’s most punctual major airline, according to the latest data.

Each month OAG compiles global on-time performance for airlines, based on actual gate arrival times. Flights that arrive within 15 minutes of the schedule are considered on-time.

No thanks. That’s not what I want for Australia. Each day I’ll bring you a sneak peak of my visit before putting out a long format video once I’m home.

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