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You Are Here

https://brooker.co.za/blog/2026/02/07/you-are-here.html
1•mltvc•41s ago•0 comments

Why social apps need to become proactive, not reactive

https://www.heyflare.app/blog/from-reactive-to-proactive-how-ai-agents-will-reshape-social-apps
1•JoanMDuarte•1m ago•0 comments

How patient are AI scrapers, anyway? – Random Thoughts

https://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/2026/02/07/how-patient-are-ai-scrapers-anyway/
1•samtrack2019•1m ago•0 comments

Vouch: A contributor trust management system

https://github.com/mitchellh/vouch
1•SchwKatze•1m ago•0 comments

I built a terminal monitoring app and custom firmware for a clock with Claude

https://duggan.ie/posts/i-built-a-terminal-monitoring-app-and-custom-firmware-for-a-desktop-clock...
1•duggan•2m ago•0 comments

Tiny C Compiler

https://bellard.org/tcc/
1•guerrilla•4m ago•0 comments

Y Combinator Founder Organizes 'March for Billionaires'

https://mlq.ai/news/ai-startup-founder-organizes-march-for-billionaires-protest-against-californi...
1•hidden80•4m ago•1 comments

Ask HN: Need feedback on the idea I'm working on

1•Yogender78•5m ago•0 comments

OpenClaw Addresses Security Risks

https://thebiggish.com/news/openclaw-s-security-flaws-expose-enterprise-risk-22-of-deployments-un...
1•vedantnair•5m ago•0 comments

Apple finalizes Gemini / Siri deal

https://www.engadget.com/ai/apple-reportedly-plans-to-reveal-its-gemini-powered-siri-in-february-...
1•vedantnair•6m ago•0 comments

Italy Railways Sabotaged

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czr4rx04xjpo
2•vedantnair•6m ago•0 comments

Emacs-tramp-RPC: high-performance TRAMP back end using MsgPack-RPC

https://github.com/ArthurHeymans/emacs-tramp-rpc
1•fanf2•8m ago•0 comments

Nintendo Wii Themed Portfolio

https://akiraux.vercel.app/
1•s4074433•12m ago•1 comments

"There must be something like the opposite of suicide "

https://post.substack.com/p/there-must-be-something-like-the
1•rbanffy•14m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Why doesn't Netflix add a “Theater Mode” that recreates the worst parts?

2•amichail•15m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Engineering Perception with Combinatorial Memetics

1•alan_sass•21m ago•2 comments

Show HN: Steam Daily – A Wordle-like daily puzzle game for Steam fans

https://steamdaily.xyz
1•itshellboy•23m ago•0 comments

The Anthropic Hive Mind

https://steve-yegge.medium.com/the-anthropic-hive-mind-d01f768f3d7b
1•spenvo•23m ago•0 comments

Just Started Using AmpCode

https://intelligenttools.co/blog/ampcode-multi-agent-production
1•BojanTomic•24m ago•0 comments

LLM as an Engineer vs. a Founder?

1•dm03514•25m ago•0 comments

Crosstalk inside cells helps pathogens evade drugs, study finds

https://phys.org/news/2026-01-crosstalk-cells-pathogens-evade-drugs.html
2•PaulHoule•26m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Design system generator (mood to CSS in <1 second)

https://huesly.app
1•egeuysall•26m ago•1 comments

Show HN: 26/02/26 – 5 songs in a day

https://playingwith.variousbits.net/saturday
1•dmje•27m ago•0 comments

Toroidal Logit Bias – Reduce LLM hallucinations 40% with no fine-tuning

https://github.com/Paraxiom/topological-coherence
1•slye514•29m ago•1 comments

Top AI models fail at >96% of tasks

https://www.zdnet.com/article/ai-failed-test-on-remote-freelance-jobs/
5•codexon•30m ago•2 comments

The Science of the Perfect Second (2023)

https://harpers.org/archive/2023/04/the-science-of-the-perfect-second/
1•NaOH•31m ago•0 comments

Bob Beck (OpenBSD) on why vi should stay vi (2006)

https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=115820462402673&w=2
2•birdculture•34m ago•0 comments

Show HN: a glimpse into the future of eye tracking for multi-agent use

https://github.com/dchrty/glimpsh
1•dochrty•35m ago•0 comments

The Optima-l Situation: A deep dive into the classic humanist sans-serif

https://micahblachman.beehiiv.com/p/the-optima-l-situation
2•subdomain•35m ago•1 comments

Barn Owls Know When to Wait

https://blog.typeobject.com/posts/2026-barn-owls-know-when-to-wait/
1•fintler•36m ago•0 comments
Open in hackernews

A Common Semiconductor Just Became a Superconductor

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/10/251030075105.htm
81•tsenturk•3mo ago

Comments

tsenturk•3mo ago
Researchers have for the first time turned germanium—a widely used semiconductor—into a superconducting material by embedding gallium atoms in its crystal structure. This breakthrough could usher in a new era of quantum devices and ultra-efficient electronics.
algesten•2mo ago
> ...allows it to carry current with zero resistance at 3.5 Kelvin (about -453 degrees Fahrenheit)

Seems to me this is a problem.

fnands•2mo ago
It's an interesting result, but yeah, not a room temperature superconductor.
zahlman•2mo ago
For that matter, we've had superconductors for decades that work at much higher temperatures than this one.
rwmj•2mo ago
It seems the breakthrough is that you could use familiar semiconductor manufacturing processes. However the temperature is still going to be a major issue. I don't want a computer that requires liquid helium cooling.
zahlman•2mo ago
> you could use familiar semiconductor manufacturing processes.

Unclear to me why that's helpful. Materials that superconduct at a higher temperature than this one aren't hard to come by, or obscure:

> In 1913, lead was found to superconduct at 7 K,

lazide•2mo ago
Probably because they don’t behave well for normal lithography techniques? The high temp superconductors I know of are weird meta materials, and good luck getting them to exist in chip form at all.
pwg•2mo ago
> I don't want a computer that requires liquid helium cooling.

True, but I /can/ see someone, such as Sandia National Labs, very much willing to install a liquid helium cooled computer if it provides a significant performance increase above their existing supercomputer installations.

throwaway173738•2mo ago
Isn’t that very close to the practical limit for cooling in a lab?
analog31•2mo ago
Not that hard. A dilution fridge, used for instance for cooling quantum computers, can go much lower:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilution_refrigerator

wizardforhire•2mo ago
Thanks!

Was gonna be lazy and say… temp or is doesn't matter.

wasabi991011•2mo ago
Quantum devices are already cooled to that temperature (at least for some technologies), so it's not a problem in that use case.
jeffwass•2mo ago
Title is a bit misleading - it's not pure germanium that superconducts here, it's germanium doped w/ Gallium atoms.

Superconducting germanium alloys have been known for decades, I used a Molybdenum/Germanium superconducting alloy in my PhD research 20 years ago, with much higher Tc.

The interesting aspect of this current experiment is the precise alignment of the Ga atoms into specific points of the Ge lattice, so preserving the crystalline structure order which leads to some interesting effects.

zahlman•2mo ago
> which leads to some interesting effects.

Such as?

cbondurant•2mo ago
Leaves me wondering if this will allow for superconducting cryogenic transistors? If my hobby level understanding of how silicon doping works, this new superconducting germanium would be a p-type? I could imagine something like ion implantation could be able to establish n-type regions within the germanium while allowing bulk regions of the lattice to maintain superconducting properties.

Though admittedly, I'm not actually aware what parts of a semiconductor circuit are the biggest power dissipation sources, so I guess its entirely possible that most of the power is dissipated across the p-n junctions themselves.

sevensor•2mo ago
Yes, this would be P type. Boron is usually the P type dopant of choice. I’m not sure what role they have in mind for this, but probably to replace polysilicon and metals as conductors. What you have to watch out for is that this will make diodes wherever it bumps up against n-type material. This is a problem for metals as well, because you can get accidental schottky junctions, and we usually solve it with degenerate doping under the contract. I’m not sure what a junction with this material would do though.
pfdietz•2mo ago
> Boron is usually the P type dopant of choice.

I want to note that in what has become the largest (by mass) application of semiconductors, silicon PV cells, boron has been replaced by gallium as the P type dopant of choice. Boron suffers from an annoying form of light-induced efficiency degradation that gallium avoids.

sevensor•2mo ago
Fair enough, my ion implant experience was DRAM / flash. I never worked on PV.
metalman•2mo ago
whole article is suspect in that it mentions cryogenic consumer products or maybe this is a slip and next gen refrigerator advertising will be run by a self hosting AI
wasabi991011•2mo ago
I don't know if they updated the article, but I don't see any reference to cryogenic consumer products.

They mention cryogenic electronics, which are used for high-sensitivity electronics in research labs and in medical tests (eg SQUIDs for magnetoencephalography).

zahlman•2mo ago
> For decades, researchers have tried to create semiconductor materials that can also act as superconductors -- materials capable of carrying electric current without resistance. Semiconductors, which form the foundation of modern computer chips and solar cells, could operate far faster and more efficiently if they also possessed superconducting abilities.

Really? First I've heard of it. And it also doesn't make any sense, since defintionally a material can't be superconducting and semiconducting at the same time, any more than it could be conducting and insulating at the same time. Are they imagining some new kind of thermal-switching circuitry?

This reads to me like the researchers came up with an irrelevant novelty (which is, to be fair, a valid and important part of scientific progress; it still expands our understanding of the universe) and Science Daily asked an LLM to rationalize it as useful.

mschuster91•2mo ago
> And it also doesn't make any sense, since defintionally a material can't be superconducting and semiconducting at the same time

I'd say it gets interesting if one can get at least part of a die made out of superconductors. Getting power in into the die is a huge damn challenge, we're talking about hundreds of amps for modern CPUs and GPUs - if even a part of that could be shrunk that would be a huge gain.

HelloNurse•2mo ago
Not if you spend that energy, or more, to cool the device hundreds of degrees below room temperature using liquid helium.
dotnet00•2mo ago
The image on the article talks about making Josephson junctions with it, and the abstract talks about epitaxial superconductor-semiconductor devices.

It feels like the researchers were mainly interested in applicability to Josephson junctions, and the article mixed them up with semiconductor junctions.

yxhuvud•2mo ago
.. at a temperature of 3.5K. So perhaps not super practical.
s1mon•2mo ago
It's not practical for your desktop computer, but a tank of nitrogen and some refrigeration hardware which fits in a single rack and you can run at 3.5K in a data center.
AnimalMuppet•2mo ago
Nitrogen freezes at 63K. That makes it a bad coolant for a continuously-running process at 3.5K.
jandrewrogers•2mo ago
3.5K is well below the point where nitrogen is liquid. The only option would be helium.
marcosdumay•2mo ago
Just to point, but it would require actively cooled helium. You can't just drop it in liquid helium and expect boiling to cool your device.
Pet_Ant•2mo ago
Can you make a closed loop helium cooler? Also, that level of coldness seems like it would have negative interactions with other components.
quickthrowman•2mo ago
> Can you make a closed loop helium cooler?

An MRI machine is a giant magnet with a closed loop helium cooler to keep the superconducting coils cold. A chiller is used to reject the heat outside.