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YouTuber bitluni has unveiled a RISC-V DIY Graphics Processing Unit

Builder has a library of insane DIY projects on his YouTube channel

RISC-V microcontrollers were sourced from AliExpress

YouTuber bitluni has unveiled his latest project, which might put any concerns you have over GPU pricing into context. The German DIYer, who has built up a strong following with his selection of intriguing and off-the-wall projects, has assembled a GPU using a large collection of affordable RISC-V microcontrollers (MCUs).

While the results are impressive for a DIY build, the GPU is unfortunately quite modest, and would probably have been abandoned long before now had a PCB design firm not got in touch to explore a partnership over the build.

Demonstrating the project on his channel, bitluni – real name Matthias Balwierz – expressed how difficult the build was, and how it almost drove him mad.

8000+ RISC-V MCUs output at 320x200 resolution

In his latest video, bitluni recalls a previous attempt at building a GPU in late 2025 which lead to PCB designers Altium getting involved, explaining, “The clusters I made before were already challenging my sanity. I thought I was done with the topic, but the budget and these tools would allow for a cluster of a different magnitude, and the magnitude I had in mind was just insane.”

Pushing things to the next level is a hallmark of bitluni’s videos, and the finished build has an incredible 8,192 RISC-V CH570 microcontrollers, each running at 100 MHz, with 12KB of SRAM. These are mounted on blades, which went through several revisions as the PCB company declared them “too complicated.”

Each CH570 has an array of LEDs mounted, and these correspond to each MCU, and the equivalent QVGA pixel. With 8,192 MCUs, the resulting 320x200 might seem modest, but bitluni already has plans for a more power version with 32,000 MCUs.

Graphics or hashing?

The spike in GPU prices before the AI boom was thanks to industrial-scale cryptocurrency hashing, which graphics cards a particularly suited to. It is this relationship between hashing and graphics that gives bitluni’s project some hope beyond displaying images and video.

Identifying the serial port as the bottleneck to the project’s success as a working (if unwieldy) GPU, bitluni has appealed for help from his community of viewers to find a workaround, but that didn’t bring the project to a close.

Changing tack, he used the microcontrollers for hashing and found it outperformed his PC’s 8 core CPU, with a low 4 watt power draw, so perhaps there is a use for this approach after all.

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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch for a record-breaking 36th time early Thursday morning (July 9), and you can watch the action live.

The Falcon 9 is scheduled to lift off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday at 5:25 a.m. EDT (0925 GMT), carrying 29 of the company's Starlink broadband satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO).

You can watch it live via SpaceX beginning about 10 minutes before launch.

This particular booster, known as 1067, has already completed 35 orbital missions, more than any other SpaceX rocket in history. The overall record is held by NASA's space shuttle Discovery , which flew to orbit and back 39 times.

Thursday's flight will extend Booster 1067's company record. If all goes to plan, the rocket will come back to Earth about 8.5 minutes after liftoff, landing on the SpaceX drone ship "A Shortfall of Gravitas" stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Falcon 9's upper stage, meanwhile, will haul the 29 Starlink satellites to LEO, deploying them there 63.5 minutes after launch.

Previous Booster 1067 missions

CRS-22 | Crew-3 | Turksat 5B | Crew-4 | CRS-25 | Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13G | O3B mPOWER | PSN SATRIA | Telkomsat Marah Putih 2 | Galileo L13 | Koreasat-6A | 24 Starlink missions

Thursday's launch will be the 80th Falcon 9 mission of the year already. About 80% of the rocket's 2026 flights have been devoted to building out Starlink, by far the largest satellite network ever assembled.

The megaconstellation currently consists of more than 10,700 active satellites, according to tracker Jonathan McDowell . And, as the upcoming launch shows, that number is growing all the time.

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Around 100,000 years ago, an early Homo sapiens man was probably stabbed in the face with a sharp stone tool and later buried in a cave in what is now Israel, archaeologists have determined. The Stone Age cold case appears to be the earliest evidence of this kind of interpersonal violence, according to the research team.

In a study published June 30 in the journal Scientific Reports , the international team of researchers closely examined the skull and lower jaw of a person who was deliberately buried in Qafzeh cave in Israel during the Middle Paleolithic period.

At least 27 people were buried in Qafzeh cave between about 145,000 and 92,000 years ago, making them some of the earliest members of our species to be found outside Africa. Previous analysis of the skeletons, which were excavated between the 1930s and 1970s, revealed that two people had head injuries resulting from blunt trauma.

But the new analysis, which employed microscopic and micro-CT scanning techniques, revealed that Qafzeh 25, an adult male, had a cut mark across his lower left jaw that affected one of his bicuspids and part of his upper jaw. The jawbone showed signs of healing, suggesting that the man lived for a significant amount of time after being injured, the researchers wrote in the study.

Archaeologists had previously identified only a few cases of trauma caused by sharp weapons or projectiles in Middle Paleolithic skeletons. Although these injuries could have resulted from hunting accidents, the researchers wrote, they have generally been interpreted as evidence of interpersonal violence.

The cut mark on the jaw of Qafzeh 25 was found on the left side of his face, lending further support to the idea that the injury was not an accident.

A close-up of the left side of the lower jaw, showing a cut mark near a bicuspid. (Image credit: Ana Pantoja et al.) It's not clear what kind of tool made the cut mark, but stone tools found at Qafzeh included flint scrapers and sharp points that could have been fashioned into spear tips.

"Forensic studies of modern human populations have reported that craniofacial injuries resulting from blows are more frequently observed on the left side of the skull, a distribution commonly attributed to the predominance of right-handed assailants in face-to-face confrontations," the researchers wrote.

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If the researchers' interpretation of the cut mark is correct, it "would represent the earliest documented case of sharp force trauma in the archaeological record," they wrote.

Qafzeh cave is already well known within archaeology for its clear evidence that early humans buried their dead. The new discovery confirms that the earliest human groups left Africa with a complex culture.

"These results provide new data to the debate on the origin of complex behaviors such as interpersonal violence, the care of injured or sick individuals and funeral practices," study first author Ana Pantoja Pérez , a paleoanthropologist at Spain's National Research Center for Human Evolution, said in a statement .

See how much you know about early humans with our human evolution quiz!

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Genesis is working on a new GV70 Hybrid.

It will feature a new grille and other updates.

Could have a 2.5-liter turbo with 329+ hp.

Genesis recently introduced the 2027 GV70 with minor updates , but bigger changes are in store for next year. That’s pretty clear from the latest batch of spy photos, which show a performance-focused hybrid being tested on the Nürburgring.

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Looking notably more aggressive, the prototype has been equipped with a new grille that echoes the one from the facelifted G80 and GV80. As a result, it has a thicker and more pronounced diamond mesh pattern.

More: After EV Flop, Genesis G80 Goes Hybrid

The front bumper appears to carryover from existing Sport variants, but the extensive camouflage suggests some changes could be hiding underneath. Regardless, we can see a familiar mesh pattern as well as split lighting units up top.

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The performance theme is echoed further back as there are lightweight wheels and a braking system with red calipers. A closer inspection also reveals a ‘hidden’ dual exhaust system as well as what appears to be a familiar bumper. However, the latter will presumably be changed for production.

Baldauf

While the prototype features Recaro seats and a roll cage, the road-going model will focus on luxury. The interior is camouflaged, so the extent of the changes remains unclear. However, the current 27-inch display could give way to a Genesis-ified version of Hyundai’s new Pleos Connect infotainment system .

Powertrain details remain limited, but the Hyundai Motor Group recently introduced a hybrid powertrain on the Palisade and Telluride. In those models, it combines a turbocharged 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine with a 1.65 kWh battery and a six-speed automatic transmission with integrated electric motors. This gives the crossovers 329 hp (245 kW / 334 PS) and 339 lb-ft (459 Nm) of torque.

A version of that powertrain will likely be found in the GV70 , but it could have more oomph. While that remains to be seen, the current model offers a turbocharged 2.5-liter four-cylinder with 300 hp (224 kW / 304 PS) as well as a twin-turbo 3.5-liter V6 developing 375 hp (280 kW / 380 PS).

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Baldauf

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Britain’s Paralympic dame is quitting after a stellar career that began in the swimming pool as a 14-year-old before five Games hoovering up cycling gold medals

“This is the first time that I will speak about the next chapter,” Dame Sarah Storey says in a quiet corner of a busy cafe in Macclesfield as, after a remarkable career in which she won 74 world and Paralympic medals as the most successful British athlete , she prepares to announce her retirement from elite competition. It’s a seismic moment for Storey and for Paralympic sport but the 48-year-old is in a relaxed and cheerful mood.

“I’ve always shied away from the word ‘retirement’ because as an athlete you have to plan for the next chapter,” she says. “It certainly isn’t doing nothing and sitting with your feet up. I started planning for what life might look like as soon as I became an international athlete.

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