The TanStack team has added yet another piece to its stack: This time, it’s the alpha release of a new framework-agnostic AI toolkit for developers called — guess what? — TanStack AI.

“Let’s be honest. The current AI landscape has a problem,” wrote TanStack’s Jack Herrington, Alem Tuzlak and Tanner Linsley. “You pick a framework, you pick a cloud provider, and suddenly you’re locked into an ecosystem that dictates how you build. We think that’s backwards.”

Their goal is to create the “Switzerland of AI tools.” It will be a set of libraries to work with your existing stack, they added.

The alpha supports JavaScript/TypeScript, PHP and Python out of the box. All three support full agentic flows with tools, the team stated, although Python and PHP have not yet been released to the appropriate package systems. The alpha also includes TypeScript adapters for OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini and Ollama, with the TypeScript server library also handling summarizations and embeddings.

TanStack AI uses an open, published protocol that has been documented by Tanstack.

“Use whatever language you want. Use whatever transport layer you want. HTTP, websockets, smoke signals,” the team wrote. “As long as you speak the protocol through a connection adapter, our client will work with your backend.”

TanStack AI also has support for isomorphic tools and a full AI devtools panel that gives developers “unparalleled insight into what the LLM is doing on both sides of the connection.” It allows you to debug AI workflows the way everything else is debugged.

Client libraries include Vanilla JS, React and Solid, with Svelte and others on the way. There are real examples given with working code, instead just documentation, the team noted.

You’ll find more details about what’s included in the full post. TanStack also gives us a preview of what it plans for TanStack AI, including a headless chatbot component, and fully functional and unstyled components for React and Solid that developers can skin to match their application.

Bun Acquired by Anthropic

The JavaScript runtime and toolkit Bun, known for its speed, is now owned by Anthropic, creator Jarred Sumner announced earlier this month.

”Anthropic is betting on Bun as the infrastructure powering Claude Code, Claude Agent SDK, and future AI coding products and tools,” Sumner wrote. “Claude Code ships as a Bun executable to millions of users. If Bun breaks, Claude Code breaks. Anthropic has direct incentive to keep Bun excellent.”

The runtime will remain available on GitHub, under the open source MIT license, supported by the same team, Sumner added.

It makes sense for both financial reasons and for philosophical reasons, which Sumner reviews in his blog post. But bottom line, being part of Anthropic gives Bun:

• Long-term stability.
• A front-row seat to where AI coding tools are headed, so the team can shape Bun around that future instead of guessing.
• The team is able to add engineers.

Rolldown-Powered Vite 8 Beta Available

The first beta of Vite 8, powered by Rolldown, is now available, the Vite team announced earlier this month.

“Vite 8 ships significantly faster production builds and unlocks future improvement possibilities,” the team wrote of the release. “This release unifies the underlying toolchain and brings better consistent behaviors, alongside significant build performance improvements.”

Rolldown is the creation of Void(0) and is a modern, high-performance JavaScript bundler written in Rust. In Vite, it replaces the previous combination of esbuild and Rollup. Because it’s written in Rust, it matches esbuild’s performance level and is 10-30x faster than Rollup. It supports the same plugin API as Rollup and Vite. Rolldown also helps unify the toolchain, the Vite team wrote.

“The impact of Vite’s bundler swap goes beyond performance,” the blog post states. “Bundlers leverage parsers, resolvers, transformers, and minifiers. Rolldown uses Oxc, another project led by VoidZero, for these purposes.”

This makes Vite the “entry point to an end-to-end toolchain maintained by the same team: The build tool (Vite), the bundler (Rolldown) and the compiler (Oxc),” they wrote.

If you’re interested in the implementation details, the post explains how Vite migrated to Rolldown in a way that ensures a smooth migration for developers.

Infragistics Open Sources Ignite UI

You may or may not have heard of software company Infragistics, but the company has just open sourced its UI library, called Ignite UI, for Angular, Blazor, React and Web Components. The library includes data charts, grids and user interface components.

The move makes more than 50 open source UI components available under an MIT license, plus a free open source data grid.

“Infragistics has spent 35+ years building enterprise-ready UX and UI solutions that 100% of the S&P 500, including Intuit, Exxon and Morgan Stanley, rely on to build interactive web applications,” the company stated in a press release. “Now, developers will have access to 50+ free, open source Ignite UI controls built on decades of experience creating solutions for some of the world’s largest companies.”

This marks the first time Infragistics has made any of its Ignite UI components available to the wider developer community. Ignite UI controls include Data Grid, Combo Box, Tile Manager, Tree and Stepper. This gives developers access to:

• ApexCharts: One of the web’s most popular charting libraries, with over 1.5 million weekly NPM installs. ApexCharts allows developers to add interactive charts to their apps, combining high-performance data visualization with modern .NET–JavaScript interoperability.
• App Builder: A WYSIWYG drag and drop app builder that allows developers to visually build apps and then generate production-ready code. It incudes a complete toolbox of 65+ UI components.
• Reveal: Reveal allows end users to analyze data, extract actionable insights and make data-driven decisions without ever leaving their application. Developers can embed these interactive dashboards and analytics directly within their applications for insights.

Chrome Unveils “CSS Wrapped 2025”

The Chrome DevRel team has published a guide to the 22 CSS and UI features that landed on the Web Platform in 2025. It looks at the customizable components introduced over the past year, noting that the Chrome team delivered new core blocks like native anchor positioning and carousel scroll APIs.

Among the new CSS features it covers, along with demos and full explanations, are:

• Invoker Commands, which allow buttons to perform actions on other elements declaratively, without the need for any JavaScript.
• Customizable select, which allows developers to style HTML select elements with CSS.
• Dialog Light Dismiss, which brings a Popover API feature to <dialog>.
• popover=hint are ”a new type of HTML popover designed for ephemeral layered UI patterns, such as tooltips or link previews,” the document explains.
• ::scroll-marker/button(). These features let developers create native, accessible, and performant carousels with just a few CSS lines and without JavaScript.
• scroll-target-group can turn a list of anchor links into connected scroll-markers.
• Anchored container queries allows developers to style elements based on their anchor position.
• Interest invokers, which provide a native, declarative way to style an element when users “show interest” in it without fully activating it, the team explained.

The wrap also looks at a next-generation interaction toolkit that lets developers animate between pages “with view transitions and sculpt gorgeous, scroll-based experiences.”

Finally, there are optimized ergonomics modules that enable users to redefine their interface, functionality, and aesthetic “down to the atomic level,” the team stated.

Check out the full CSS wrapped up, which is a beautifully crafted resource for learning the latest CSS and UI features.

Svelte Updates, Launches New Society Website

Svelte has launched a new Svelte Society Website that’s features a dynamic feed of all the latest Svelte content, including videos, libraries and events.

“Instead of opening PRs to add libraries and packages you can now just submit them on the website,” wrote Dani Sandoval, a designer who works with Svelte and runs a Svelte substack. “If you find an interesting package, head on over and submit it. Logged in users also have the ability to like and save content.”

Svelte and SvelteKit, the web application framework for Svelte, also had a number of updates this month, including a hydratable API that is a low-level API used to coordinate hydration between the server and client in Svelte.

Also, file uploads can now be streamed inside form remote functions, allowing form data to be accessed before large files finish uploading in SvelteKit.

There were also upgrades the Svelte CLI, such as:

• Links are now wrapped with resolve() to follow best practices;
• npx sv create now supports a new argument –add to add add-ons to the project in the same command; and
• The new –no-dir-check option in sv create will, even if the folder is not empty, suppress all directory check prompts;

A full list of changes, including bug fixes, can be found in the Svelte compiler’s CHANGELOG and the Svelte Kit/Adapter CHANGELOGs.

The post TanStack Adds Framework-Agnostic AI Toolkit appeared first on The New Stack.

JavaScript was created thirty years ago for simple web interactions. While it still basically runs the web, applications are far more complex today than they were back then. This means there’s a lot of functionality needed in the browser that JavaScript can handle, but often at a performance cost. As someone who refreshes every few seconds while waiting for a slow app to load (yes, I know it doesn’t help, but I do it anyway), speed matters.

As a solution to this, WebAssembly (Wasm) was introduced in 2017.

Understanding Wasm and How it Works with JavaScript

Among other things, WebAssembly helps developers move computationally expensive or complex logic out of JavaScript without giving up the JavaScript ecosystem. By using WebAssembly, you can write performance-heavy code in languages like Rust, C++, or AssemblyScript that still runs efficiently in the browser or on the server. Since WebAssembly compiles closer to machine code, it makes applications faster and more efficient.

Of course, Wasm wasn’t built as a replacement for JavaScript. It can’t manipulate the DOM, handle events, or work with existing frameworks. Instead, it was designed to work alongside JavaScript. Think of Wasm as a way to handle the heavy lifting, while JavaScript provides an ecosystem and convenience.

In the early days of WebAssembly, building and integrating Wasm components was tricky — especially for developers with a JavaScript background. It often required complex setup and unclear debugging workflows, making it far from beginner-friendly.

AssemblyScript lowers the barrier to entry by letting JavaScript developers write Wasm using familiar, TypeScript-like syntax.

After years of updates, WebAssembly is now more accessible to developers of all levels, which has led to increased adoption.

Today, WebAssembly tooling is mature. Modern workflows make it easier to compile Wasm modules, organize projects and load WebAssembly in both Node.js and the browser. AssemblyScript lowers the barrier to entry by letting JavaScript developers write Wasm using familiar, TypeScript-like syntax; while tools like asinit, asc and official loaders handle much of the boilerplate.

Ideal Use Cases for WebAssembly in JS Applications

Here are some examples of applications that benefit from pairing WebAssembly with JavaScript.

CPU-Intensive Computations

Heavy calculations — such as data processing, simulations, image manipulation, or complex math — often run acceptably at small scales in JavaScript, but can become bottlenecks as workloads grow. In these cases, using WebAssembly alongside JavaScript can significantly outperform equivalent JavaScript implementations by executing closer to native speed.

Using Existing Non-JavaScript Code

With WebAssembly, you can bring libraries written in languages like C++, Rust, or AssemblyScript into the browser. This lets you integrate battle-tested, high-performance code without rewriting it in JavaScript, which is especially helpful when solutions already exist outside the JavaScript ecosystem.

Performance-Critical Features

This category includes workloads that require high-speed execution with low overhead, such as real-time data transformations, image processing, or video processing.

WebAssembly is not a good fit for tasks like DOM manipulation, simple application logic, or I/O-heavy workflows. Save WebAssembly for the heavy work.

A Step-by-Step WebAssembly Tutorial With AssemblyScript

The following tutorial shows how to bring Wasm-based math functionality written in AssemblyScript into the browser. While the example is simple, mathematically intensive computations are a great use case for WebAssembly.

Let’s build.

Prerequisites

• Basic understanding of JavaScript
• npm
• Homebrew (macOS only)
• An IDE (VS Code is used in this tutorial)
• Node.js version 22 or higher

The first step is to install wash. It’s a command-line tool, and while it doesn’t need to be installed system-wide, doing so can make things easier. Below is an example of installing it system-wide on macOS.

View the code on Gist.

Open a new project in your IDE and make sure all prerequisites are installed.

View the code on Gist.

Now, create the project folder:

View the code on Gist.

Initialize AssemblyScript

Run npm install --save-dev assemblyscript to install AssemblyScript locally. Then run npx asinit . to initialize the project with the recommended structure, including assembly/, build/, asconfig.json, and example files.

View the code on Gist.

This creates the recommended AssemblyScript project structure:

View the code on Gist.

Write the AssemblyScript function

The add function contains the application logic that will run in WebAssembly. When compiled, this AssemblyScript code becomes a .wasm module.

View the code on Gist.

i32 is a numeric type provided by AssemblyScript.

Compile to WebAssembly

The code is compiled to the build/ folder, producing release.wasm and release.wat. The .wasm file is the binary executed by Node.js or the browser, while the .wat file is a human-readable format useful for debugging.

View the code on Gist.

Conclusion

And there you have it: a working WebAssembly example. With this foundation, you can offload complex or performance-critical computations to WebAssembly while keeping JavaScript focused on orchestration and user experience.

The post When Should JavaScript Devs Use the Power of WebAssembly? appeared first on The New Stack.

Even at $1,000, the Xbox Ally X handheld didn't ship with magnetic drift-resistant joysticks, and neither did the $600 model. But for an extra $20 at Amazon, you can change that today - with officially Asus-approved and sanctioned TMR joysticks from Gulikit, the company that's made a name for itself by supplying aftermarket drift-resistant sticks.

The company says it worked with Xbox Ally manufacturer Asus to create these sticks, that they'll be "automatically recognized" when you swap them in, and that you can use the handheld's built-in Armoury Crate app to calibrate them afterwards.

And while I haven't tried these ones (I do have a pa …

Read the full story at The Verge.

We are excited to announce that rustup 1.29.0 beta is now available for testing and we are currently looking for testers.

What's new

Following the footsteps of many package managers in the pursuit of better toolchain installation performance, the headline of this release is that rustup has been enabled to download components concurrently and unpack during downloads in operations such as rustup update or rustup toolchain and to concurrently check for updates in rustup check, thanks to a GSoC 2025 project. This is by no means a trivial change so a long tail of issues might occur, please report them if you have found any! pr#4388 pr#4426 pr#4436 pr#4455 pr#4471 pr#4605

As usual, we would be happy to receive regression/breakage reports of any kind, especially regarding the installation and/or usage on the following environments:

• New host platforms:

  • sparcv9-sun-solaris pr#4380
  • x86_64-pc-solaris pr#4380

• New shells:

  • tcsh pr#4459
  • xonsh pr#4626

• Environments where you would like to bring your own rust-analyzer binary (such as r-a developers and certain Neovim/Helix users): rustup will now consider the rust-analyzer binary from PATH when the rustup-managed one is not found. pr#4324

• Environments where you would like to override an environment variable back to the default: rustup now treats empty values as unset. pr#4422

How to test

To begin testing this new version, all you need to do is simply switching to the dev environment by setting the following environment variable when updating or installing rustup:

RUSTUP_UPDATE_ROOT=https://dev-static.rust-lang.org/rustup

To switch out of the dev environment, just remove that environment variable and do a rustup self update.

Finally, please don't forget to check out the corresponding section in our CHANGELOG.md for the complete list of changes included in this version.

Acknowledgements

A big thank you to:

• @djc for continuously polishing the codebase to get rid of a whole lot of historical burden and carefully shaping the final form of preliminary concurrency support we have today;
• @ChrisDenton for the careful handling of IO and Windows-related complexities;
• @FranciscoTGouveia for joining me in the GSoC event to investigate the possibilities and lay the foundation of concurrency in rustup;
• @Kobzol for enabling and organizing rustup's participation in GSoC 2025 and improving our CLI's cold start performance;
• ... and many other contributors who have made this new release possible!

Many thanks for everyone's continued support! Wishing you a magical holiday season surrounded by love, peace, and laughter 🍀

Microsoft has finally confirmed what Windows Latest reported several weeks ago: Windows 11’s Phone Link’s Photos section will stop working in the coming days if it hasn’t already, and you’ll need to use File Explorer to view pictures and other media stored on your Android phone. Sadly, you still cannot connect an iPhone to view its Gallery.

File Explorer’s Android integration is not exactly new because Windows Latest spotted it almost a year ago, but it has barely improved over the past several months. In fact, you might still run into frequent sync problems, where File Explorer is always stuck at “syncing,” and if it does sync, your photos will not be arranged in the same way as the Phone Link app.

If you don’t see your mobile device in the left sidebar of File Explorer, make sure it’s toggled on in Settings > Bluetooth & Devices > Mobile devices > Manage mobile devices.

However, the poor File Explorer and Android connection wasn’t exactly an issue because you had the Phone Link app, which gives near-instant access to the Photos app on your Android. At the same time, you could still use File Explorer for advanced stuff, such as accessing a particular media folder for viewing photos or even videos.

Sadly, Microsoft no longer wants to maintain ‘syncing’ of media across two places – Phone Link and File Explorer. Windows Latest recently found that the “Photos” section in the Phone Link app is being shut down, and Microsoft wants you to use File Explorer instead.

In an update to its support document spotted by Windows Latest, Microsoft has now confirmed “Photos feature moved from Phone Link to File Explorer.”

While it says the Photos feature has already been moved from Phone Link to File Explorer, I still have it in the Phone Link app. Given the past trends, I would not be surprised if the Phone Link’s photos feature disappears out of the blue moon on a random day, so you should get used to File Explorer integration if you have not already.

With this change, Microsoft says it’s improving “consistency,” which was a “long-requested feature.”

Why is Microsoft moving the Photos section in the Phone Link app to File Explorer?

Microsoft says it’s moving the Photos feature from the Phone Link app to File Explorer as part of its efforts to “provide a better and more consistent experience” and unlock support for all users, which is probably the only interesting support coming from Microsoft.

Unlike the Phone Link app, which is not supposed to work with all Android phones, File Explorer’s integration does not have a specific requirement. Microsoft also says it’ll offer “improved capabilities,” but I beg to differ. Phone Link app’s Photos section has a couple of advantages that I prefer over File Explorer.

Microsoft Phone Link’s Photos section does two things better. First, it is more reliable, as images show up almost instantly. If they do not sync, you can tap the Refresh button. The sync usually completes in less than a minute, unlike File Explorer, which can take several minutes.

Second, Phone Link’s Photos section shows all your photos in one place. This includes screenshots, camera roll, WhatsApp, and even Telegram images. More importantly, your new photos automatically appear at the top of the list, and you don’t have to hunt for them.

File Explorer also has access to these folders and even to most other folders on your phone that the Phone Link app does not. However, images are inside individual folders, and the experience feels similar to connecting a phone to a PC using a USB cable. That means you cannot instantly find recent photos saved on your mobile unless you know the folder name.

While the Phone Link app keeps all photos in one simple view, File Explorer makes things more complicated and breaks the simplicity of the older integration.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments below.

The post Microsoft wants you to use Windows 11 File Explorer for viewing Android phone’s photos, not Phone Link app. No iPhone support for now appeared first on Windows Latest