Hackaday Links: July 5, 2026
Happy belated July 4th to all the readers from the United States — hopefully you aren’t reading this from a hospital bed after losing a hand or burning off your eyebrows. While we suspect amateur firework shows and their related injuries will be around for many years to come, we did note that many major cities switched over to drone shows this year.
At least on paper, the appeal is obvious. Beyond the fact that drones are safer and quieter than pyrotechnics, they’re also capable of far more complex displays. Good luck trying to draw George Washington’s face in the sky with exploding rockets. But even if it’s a little more than nostalgia, there’s still something about the sights and sounds of fireworks that enthrall audiences. For many, the whole “rockets’ red glare” thing is a bit more meaningful than the “drones’ red LEDs.”
Earlier this week, we brought you news that Sony would stop producing physical PlayStation discs in January 2028. Many gamers are understandably concerned about the long-term implications such a move will have for software ownership, and while the negative reactions online haven’t bothered Sony enough to get them to amend their plans, they have clarified the situation with developers by explaining that games published before the cutoff date aren’t impacted. So if a developer has a hit title that drops in the summer of 2027 and they want to keep cranking out discs, additional orders can still be placed. Not much of a reprieve, but it will give the community a little more time to figure out what comes next.
While plenty would argue that the death of physical media has been exaggerated, the same can’t be said about 3D TV. Engadget has a piece that goes over what went wrong with 3D home media, and not all of it is on the technical side. Of course, a big part of the problem was the glasses — they were goofy and added per-viewer expenses that consumers weren’t thrilled with. But some of the blame also has to be put on Hollywood and the content they were producing. There were a few big-name movies like Avatar that were filmed in 3D, and computer-generated films could be rendered to take advantage of the third dimension, but the rest were lazy at best. Getting folks to spend thousands on a 3D-capable home theater was tricky enough, but asking them to do it if there were only a handful of movies worth watching on the thing was simply asking too much.
Speaking of tech heading off into the sunset, it looks like the end may be near for Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service, as they’ve announced they’ll no longer be taking new customers after this month. For those unaware, Mechanical Turk connected bored humans with customers that had repetitive tasks they needed completed. Think of somebody spending an afternoon sorting images and making a few cents a pop.
When the service launched 20 years ago, tasks like this were difficult to automate, and it made sense to pay humans to do it. But in the age of AI, it comes as no surprise to hear Amazon is looking to wind things down. Existing Mechanical Turk users will be able to continue using the service after July, but with no new jobs coming in, the writing is clearly on the wall.
Finally, things seem to be going well so far for the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory rescue mission. On July 3rd, the robotic LINK spacecraft that will eventually link up with the Observatory and push it into a higher orbit was successfully air-launched aboard a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket. Teams on the ground have already made contact with the rescue vehicle and are performing health checks on it before committing to a rendezvous with the ailing Swift.
Once it has attached itself to Swift, LINK will push it up to an altitude of around 640 km (400 miles), which should keep it from burning up in the Earth’s atmosphere for another decade or so. We’ve had our eye on this ambitious mission for some time now, and will keep you updated as it progresses.
See something interesting that you think would be a good fit for our weekly Links column? Drop us a line; we’d love to hear about it.