Peter's Quasi-Daily Blah-g

An aerospace worker and programmer created a GitHub-hosted program that lets your Steam Controller automatically walk back towards its charging puck as soon as you place it down on your desk. The web app, called the Auto-Charge Vision Tracker, uses a camera and computer vision to determine where your controller is, then it uses its powerful built-in motors to make it creep towards its docking station to top itself up when you’re not using it. The great thing about this web app is that you don’t need to install anything on your PC to use it. Just go to the website, connect your Steam Controller, ensure your camera is directly overhead your desk, click the puck, the front, and the back of your controller, and you should be good to go.

This is an interesting use case for the Steam Controller’s haptic motors, which are primarily designed to give feedback to gamers. Although this app, which you can run in the background on your browser, is designed to make recharging your controller more comfortable, you do need a flat surface without any obstructions to ensure that the Steam Controller can reach the charging puck. Aside from that, the vibration and movement on the desk tends to cause abrasion on the controller’s surface, meaning you’ll soon find flat spots appearing on the surface that contact your desk. Ray Foss, the maker of the GitHub repo, said that adding rubber feet should help prevent this and might also give the controller better acceleration and handling.

Another programmer has created something similar before — a web app that uses the controller’s rumble motor to let it slip and slide on your desk. But what makes this project different is that instead of manually “driving” your Steam Controller, it uses computer vision to automatically guide the controller back towards the charging puck, making it look like a robot vacuum.

These apps have limited usability — after all, the Steam Controller would still be unable to hop from the coffee desk in your living room to the TV console where your charging puck and Steam Machine are likely sitting. Nevertheless, it shows Valve’s commitment to making it easy for gamers to use their devices the way they want to. The company even released the CAD files for the Steam Controller and Puck back in May 2026, just a few days after the controller became widely available. But if you want to give this curiosity a try, you can easily do so by going to the Auto-Charge Vision Tracker website. The program’s files are also readily available on GitHub if you want to play around with the program and make your own version.

Elon Musk’s Neuralink, along with several other startups, have been experimenting with brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) for years now, allowing patients who have lost mobility to control computers using their minds alone. However, most of these require invasive surgery to install the sensor needed to detect brain signals. Meta is working to change this with its Brain2Qwerty non-invasive BCI. Instead of relying on implants, this system uses a non-invasive magnetoencephalography (MEG) scanner to read the faint changes in a brain’s magnetic fields due to brain activity and then correlate this to keypresses on a virtual keyboard.

The latest release is actually the second version of the non-invasive BCI, with the first one released last year as proof of concept. This second version has significantly increased accuracy after it was trained on ten times more data for each test subject. The company says that its average accuracy now hits 61%, with the best participant capable of hitting as much as 78% word accuracy. By comparison, the previous version only had an average of 40% accuracy, while the best user only achieved 48%.

While this sounds like a big improvement, Meta concedes that this is still not good enough for clinical testing. The 61% average accuracy still feels hit-and-miss and would be difficult to use in everyday conversation. Nevertheless, the company says that it plans to use more data for training the system, and that it’s continuously getting better results from it so far. Another issue it’s facing is the size of MEG sensors. Current MEG technology requires massive hardware — even larger than the user and the chair they’re sitting in. There are promising advancements in MEG sensors, though, which could result in smaller devices that are more manageable to use in clinical settings.

Meta’s non-invasive BCI alternative to Neuralink and other solutions that require brain surgery is still a long way off from allowing patients to control a webcam and play World of Warcraft. But it is still an important development in neuroprosthetics, and it could eventually result in medical devices that patients could use to restore or improve their quality of life. Meta isn’t the only one working on BCIs that don’t require major surgery — a team from Georgia Tech has also developed a tiny BCI that could be easily slid under the scalp, while Valve founder and superyacht enthusiast Gabe Newell also built a startup intent on creating a BCI that doesn’t require a battery.

Rocket Lab has successfully launched the second spacecraft for the U.S. Space Force’s Victus Haze Tactically Responsive Space (TacRS) mission, setting a new readiness record in the process.

Only 16 hours and 42 minutes passed between Rocket Lab receiving the Notice To Launch from the Space Force’s Space Safari Program Office and liftoff of the company’s Electron launch vehicle, beating the previous TacRS record set by Firefly Aerospace on the September 2023 Victus Nox mission by more than 10 hours.

Liftoff occurred on Friday (June 19) at 6:19 a.m. EDT (1019 GMT, 10:19 p.m., local time), from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex-1, in New Zealand, beginning a rapid-response demonstration designed to simulate a real-world orbital threat scenario.

Electron delivered a Rocket Lab-built Pioneer spacecraft to low Earth orbit (LEO), where it has begun pursuit of another Victus Haze spacecraft that was launched by SpaceX in May and serves as the target vehicle for the demonstration — True Anomaly’s Jackal satellite. According to a June 22 Rocket Lab statement, "[Pioneer] is now fully commissioned and conducting complex orbital maneuvers to chase down another spacecraft on orbit and conduct Rendezvous and Proximity Operations (RPO)."

Victus Haze is a TacRS mission managed by Space Systems Command’s Space Safari Program Office, with the objective of demonstrating the rapid acquisition, launch and operation of spacecraft in response to orbital threats and "non-compliant satellites," the Rocket Lab release said.

"Rendezvous and Proximity Operations on such short timelines are certainly not trivial, especially in a crisis or conflict scenario, but this demonstration of our ability to commission a complex and capable space vehicle within less than 72 hours, and immediately begin an RPO scenario thereafter, shows that we can field capability to deny adversaries first-mover advantage into novel orbits,” said Lt. Col. Lincoln Miller, Space Safari system program manager, in the statement.

Rocket Lab and True Anomaly teams are now managing their respective spacecraft in orbit. They will soon enter the RPO phase of Victus Haze, conducting space domain awareness (SDA) threat-response scenarios and "dynamic engagements with the other," according to a separate statement from the U.S. Space Force (USSF).

Space Force officials have increasingly looked to commercial providers to develop new capabilities and technologies to address potential conflicts in space. “Victus Haze is primed to further demonstrate our readiness to lean on our commercial partners to deny, disrupt, and counter any adversarial advantage — no matter where they try to operate in space,” acting Space Force portfolio acquisition executive Col. Bryon McClain said in the USSF statement.

With its Electron rocket and Pioneer spacecraft both vertically integrated into Rocket Lab’s manufacturing processes, this Victus Haze launch marks the first TacRS mission to be carried out by a single prime contractor, providing the spacecraft, launch vehicle and on-orbit operations.

"This is what modern space power looks like: the ability to reinforce and reimagine national security space architecture at will," said Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck. "We’re proud to be providing the nation with those next-generation space capabilities, today.”