> Dr Xu, an optical engineering researcher at the National University of Singapore, reportedly responded to the LinkedIn post. According to Nature, Dr Xu accepted that he had used an AI model to assist with post-processing but denied breaking the rules of the competition, which clearly state that “AI-generated videos are not permitted.”

> “It was applied afterwards to the reconstructed grayscale data to distinguish and color structures with similar morphology,” he wrote.

> However, Dr Xu’s messages on the LinkedIn post can’t be found as of today (October 1), and his LinkedIn profile now appears to have been deleted entirely.

> Scientists have repeatedly said that the issue could be resolved if Dr Xu shares his RAW grayscale video.

Fascinating images. The article linked by the parent has some info https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/10/meet-the-2026-winner...

His website is https://www.macrofying.com/ which is mostly links to the usual image/video sharing sites.

I initiated some small talk with a guy at a security conference once. Turned out he was an ink DRM expert at one of the big companies.

Interesting convo but I didn’t invite him to drinks later that evening.

> Does it still clog up?

Yes, even very high end printers like an Epson p5370 - https://luminous-landscape.com/the-epson-sc-p5370-printer/ "The printhead is the same relatively maintenance-light device that P900 owners (and predecessor P3880/3800 owners) really appreciate. These heads don’t clog much unless you leave the printer idle over long intervals and/or sit the printer in a very dry environment."

> Has printing quality improved?

Depends on the printer? A professional inkjet is extremely high quality these days.

>Or are they still a bag of hurt we should all just hope for better and cheaper colour laser / LED printer.

In a distant past I was tech support help desk person, which included poking the many color laser printers we had. They also actually broke all the time :(

I have the Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550 printer and have found it to be excellent for printing photos. It prints up to A3+ size (13" x 19") and ink costs are low since it uses tanks, which can be refilled using ink bottles, vs cartridges. The main caveat is that it uses dye inks which theoretically don't have the longevity of pigment inks, but for my purposes (family photos and photo club competitions) it doesn't matter.

Keith Cooper on YouTube has lots of informative videos about the ET-8550: https://www.youtube.com/@KeithCooper/search?query=8550

The key is using it, but…not too much…. I bought a inkjet printer and run maybe 10k pages through it, after i let it sit for 3 weeks it was basically unusable: clogged nozzles, misalignment. After working with riso printers for 10 years, I didnt feel the urge to fix it or have it repaired.

There's been controllers for all sorts of common cartridges for a long time, a lot of low end UV printers all use a specific Epson cartridge that they run their own plumbing and electronics for. The end result of the device looks almost hand made a lot of the time, it's an XY plotter with a gigantic expensive print head on the end. https://www.amazon.com/mew/dp/B0FF93HB2W https://www.ebay.com/itm/397039456738

The printer is subsidized by the price of the cartridge. If you want to pay the hardware subsidy without getting any hardware, they're fine with that.

You can hear sight?

No, that is "bubble jet". Inkjets are proper resonant squirts, usually piezo driven.

And, for that reason, inkjets work with a much wider variety of liquids. Taken to the extreme, you have full color 3d prints with incredible precision: https://youtu.be/4IkvzMJihuY

If you scroll down a bit, you can see more realistic looking videos.