Magic: The Gathering is ready to boldly go where it has never gone before with its upcoming Star Trek Universes Beyond set, and I have a pair of cards from it to showcase for you today!

Let’s start with Jake Sisko, War Correspondent. A mono-Green Commander with Landfall is nothing new, though I see them working much better in the 99 given their ability, especially in more budget-friendly or color-restricted decks after somewhat reliable card draw.

I’m coming back around on incidental lifegain, especially on cards like this where it’s not the only reward for your chosen strategy — in this case, playing as many lands as possible. In more grindy, elongated games, it can help you cling to life for a turn or two more to eke out a win, and can offset any life loss afflicted by your value engines.

The Clue reward for your second land drop each turn isn’t as useful as a full card, but in a deck with access to plenty of mana (which Landfall decks tend to be) and especially in such decks without the card draw efficiency afforded by Blue, it’s not a terrible alternative.

Tireless Tracker sees play for this reason, and while Jake Sisko is arguably worse given the restrictions on its Clue generation, it does offer a little redundancy.

If you do want to build Jake Sisko, War Correspondent out as a Commander, I’d recommend including cards like Academy Manufactor, Stridehangar Automaton, and Tippy-Toe, Terrific Partner which each turn you Clue into a Clue and other tokens — Tippy-Toe will also turn even one Landfall trigger into card draw on your end step. You’ll also want cards like Captain Kathryn Janeway, Exploration, and Asuza, Lost but Seeking to help you consistently play two lands a turn.

Turning to Ravenous Cosmozoan, a Red Tolarian Terror that gives up protection and some stats for Flying and Haste — lending itself to a more immediately aggressive approach the turn it comes down.

At Uncommon, the Cosmozoan won’t see the Pauper play of its predecessor, but I fear it may mimic Terror’s low Standard play rate.

There are some notable differences. Flying and Haste should help the Cosmozoan pressure opponents more aggressively the turn it comes down — even if it packs a softer punch — and notably it cares about all nonland, noncreatures in your Graveyard, not merely your Instants and Sorceries.

We’ll have to wait and see if that’s enough to save it, though.

The best (perhaps only) place for it may unfortunately be Limited. If the environment is more grindy and games tend to go a little longer, it shouldn’t cost more than a couple of mana in the late game, and a few of these could swing over an opponent’s board to steadily chip them down to zero — perhaps as a surprise attack thanks to its Haste.

It's iPhone Duo launch day! While many questions have been raised over the device's availability, it has also become clear that many of your favorite apps might not be optimized for the new layout at launch.

For apps to scale seamlessly across the iPhone Duo, they need to be built on the iOS 27.1 software development kit (SDK). This SDK provides the tools required for apps to stretch effectively across the Duo's new 1:4.1 aspect ratio inner screen.

Without using the updated SDK, apps render with varying sizes of black bars across the unused display area, depending on which legacy SDK version they were built on.

For top-tier VPNs, a lack of display compatibility can be frustrating even if it doesn't impact their functionality. We reached out to major providers to find out if your favorite VPNs are compatible on day one.

Which VPNs are compatible?

Which VPNs are fully compatible with the iPhone Duo?

These VPNs offer the best iPhone Duo experience right now. They are fully compatible with both the inner and outer displays, using the full screen area without letterboxing or black sidebars.

Partially compatible VPNs

Which VPNs aren't compatible?

Which VPNs aren't compatible with the iPhone Duo right now?

These VPNs currently run an SDK older than 27.0, meaning you'll see large black spaces when using the service on both the inner and outer display. This doesn't necessarily impact the performance of the VPN itself, but could become extremely annoying nonetheless.

It's been a while, hasn't it? Due to various factors, our regular weekly crossword went on a bit of a brief hiatus over the last month, but I'm happy to say I'm bringing it back today!

Hopefully both my puzzle setting and your puzzle-solving abilities haven't dulled too much in that time, so why not test yourself on the latest jumble of tech-related clues below? There's a mix of general tech trivia and current tech news below, so if you've been reading the site over the past week, you should have a bit of an upper hand.

So, as the nights draw in sooner and the cold weather becomes more common, what better way is there to pass a few minutes than giving this week's puzzle a try? Let me know how you get on in the comments — and let's see where you finish on the leaderboard. Good luck!

Ask anyone about the iPod today, and they'll describe it as an iconic gadget — perhaps even one of the most important pieces of personal tech of all time — but the initial reactions to the first iPod's launch two-and-a-half decades ago weren't all overly positive.

Apple unveiled the first version of the portable music player on October 23, 2001, with Steve Jobs promising a "breakthrough digital device" while on stage at Apple's Town Hall auditorium, part of the company's Infinite Loop campus in Cupertino, California — yours for $399 in the US and £349 in the UK.

To mark the 25th anniversary, we're looking back at how the iPod was originally received, including by those who were there at the time. It shows that even the greatest gadgets aren't always recognized as such right away (so there may be hope yet for the Vision Pro).

'1,000 songs in your pocket'

You can still watch the original iPod launch event on YouTube, and it's like stepping into a time machine.

There's plenty of the legendary Steve Jobs charisma on show, as he talks about Apple's new focus on the Mac as a digital hub for photos, videos, and audio — remember this is six years before the iPhone, and at this point in history, Apple had only really made computers, with the occasional accessory.

MP3 players had been available for a number of years when the iPod arrived, but they were niche products. Digital music hadn't yet hit the mainstream, CD ripping was a novel concept, and most people using MP3s were pirating them off the internet (Napster was actually shut down the same year as the iPod arrived, though alternatives sprung up).

The iPod (and iTunes) would be one of the main drivers of the digital music revolution, but not everyone understood Apple's vision right away. Steve Jobs announced the iPod with a flourish, pulling it out of his jeans pocket to emphasize its compact size and promising "1,000 songs in your pocket": it offered a huge amount of storage for the time (5GB), an innovative hardware and software interface, and simple syncing with iTunes on a Mac.

Other MP3 players of the time either offered similar storage capacities with extra bulk, or a smaller size and less capacity. The iPod hit a sweet spot between portability and storage space, helped by a new hard drive from Toshiba, and came with a unique scroll wheel design that made it easier to navigate through thousands of songs, as well as an impressive 10 hours of battery life.

You can get a taste of using it today thanks a new Apple Music easter egg, which has a fully-functional iPod on its "page not found" page.

'It was a mixed reaction'

To get more of a sense of the sentiment at the time, we spoke to Jason Snell, the former editor of Macworld and host of the Designed in California podcast about his memories of the original iPod launch. Snell was there in the Town Hall auditorium on the day, and remembers the press pack being a little confused by a non-Mac Apple product.

"It was a mixed reaction," Snell told us. "The price of $399 was considered to be high, despite the value of being able to fit a thousand songs in your pocket... I think most people just didn't understand what the iPod was. MP3s were only beginning to rise in the public consciousness... Apple actually gave journalists a taped-together cube of CD jewel boxes representing the music it had preloaded on the first iPod."

That's a clever touch from Apple, as it tried to bring its audience along with its vision for what the iPod could be. Snell didn't need much convincing, as his existing MP3 player only held eight songs: "I realized that the music collection on my work computer was only about 3GB in size," he says. "So I could fit every MP3 I'd ever made onto this thing with room to spare, and take it with me on my commute and listen to it as I rode the bus."

A 'glorified consumer gimmick'

You can get a sense of that mixed reaction to the first iPod from the original MacRumors thread from October 23, 2001. It shows that most Apple fans at the time would've much rather seen a new Mac computer announced. The iPod was described as overly expensive, a "glorified consumer gimmick", and "stupid". "Why would they do this?" asks one user.

To be fair to the MacRumors community, there were several notes of positivity too. One commenter said the device "looks really cool", while another recognized that this was "just the beginning" and that the technology would get much better very quickly. The problem was that most people already had CD players, and didn't have a spare $400.

Over at the New York Times, industry analysts recognized the potential of the nascent digital music player market, while questioning how much of an impact the iPod could have without Windows support (iTunes for Windows wouldn't arrive until 2003). NYT columnist David Pogue praised the key features of the iPod, including the speedy FireWire connection, 5GB capacity, and portable size.

Walt Mossberg in the Wall Street Journal described the iPod as "simply the best digital music player I’ve seen", noting that rival players were variously cheaper, smaller, or offered more capacity, but that no other company had managed to package everything together in a single device with as much finesse or appeal as Apple had.

Our sister publication What Hi-Fi? later carried a positive review too. It earned four stars out of five, with the sound quality, screen brightness, compact dimensions, and easy-to-use software singled out as particular selling points for the music player — though the review did note that Creative was selling a player with 20GB of space.

As for Macworld's former editor Jason Snell, a week after the launch he was using the iPod to play music in a hospital delivery room as his wife gave birth to a daughter — and the rest, as they say, is history. Smartphones have since subsumed digital music players to a large extent, and there is no iPod in 2026, but the iconic gadget's place in tech history is guaranteed.

If you've been following TechRadar's fitness coverage over the last couple of months, you'll have heard about the Casio F-B100W.

It's a cheap Bluetooth digital watch — ($65 / £55 / AU$119) and despite looking very similar to the classic, extremely cheap F-91W, it's got some differences. It's a little bit bigger, it's got an additional button, a dual time-zone mode, and, crucially for our purposes, a few smart features thanks to its Bluetooth capability: Find My Phone, and a step tracker.

This stripped-back approach to smartwatches is great for people who are looking to increase their activity levels, but don't want to pay for a smartwatch or use all the bells and whistles of a full-fledged fitness tracker. In fact, it reminds me of the very first Fitbits, which were simple pebble-shaped Bluetooth-enabled step trackers that clipped to your clothes.

I had a lot of fun with this watch, as I loved the retro styling, and it had just enough smarts to be useful. As a perpetual phone-misplacer, Find My Phone functionality is an essential for me for any smartwatch, while the most basic movement-based metric of step tracking remains useful even today. In the app, your step counts are broken into bar charts over a week, month or year to analyze trends.

But, considering the extraordinary cheap price of the watch, I was wondering how accurate it could be. So I decided to test it against this year's best smartwatch, the Apple Watch Ultra 4. The Ultra 4 costs $799 / £749 / AU$1,349, a far cry from the cost of the Casio, and is equipped with top-of-the-range fitness metrics for every eventuality.

To start with, it's worth noting that I can't separate the Casio's daily step counter into a specific workout, so by the time I'd strapped both watches on, and gone up and down the stairs putting my shoes on, finding my keys and earphones, and stepping out to the starting point of my run, I had already walked 269 steps, and that was reflected in the Casio's score. Not the best start to the experiment.

However, after the run was complete, I checked the scores on both apps immediately. Once the Apple Watch's workout was marked as 'complete' it stopped tracking my steps, so I didn't want to make the same mistake again and inflate the Casio's score. The moment I finished my workout on the Apple Watch, I screenshotted both apps.

And I was impressed. The Casio recorded a score of 4,910 steps. Minus my initial 269 steps, that leaves us at 4,641 steps in total for the Casio F-B100W.

The Apple Watch Ultra 4 recorded 4,679, a difference of just 38 steps. That's a teeny margin of error for two completely different watches in two completely different price brackets, operating solely on estimations from their onboard sensors, and I'm thrilled with this result.

What does this mean in practice? It means that if all you're interested in is tracking your steps, and you like the retro digital watch vibe (after all, retro tech has been making a comeback for a while now) I can say that the humble Casio F-B100W was just as good a step counter as the most expensive Apple Watch on the market, and I can double-down on my recommendation. It's a great watch.

Admittedly, it doesn't have the other advanced metrics of the Apple Watch (or any other metrics, for that matter), but this test was an exercise in testing the Casio step counter's quality, not objectively comparing the two watches — and it passed that test with flying colors.

The Apple iPhone Duo is the rare Apple product that has not received universally glowing or negative reviews. Opinions are split over its lack of Face ID support, iPhone 17 Pro-grade cameras (but without the telephoto lens), and slightly hefty frame when folded. It's also generated more interest in an iPhone than I've seen in years, and when I followed my exhaustive, generally positive review with a pair of AMAs (Ask Me Anything) on Threads and X, I was flooded with questions. My Threads post alone has 1,300 comments.

Granted, not every question was about the Duo. Many took the "Anything" part literally and asked me about everything from my hairline to their favorite color. I played along as I fielded myriad queries about Apple's first folding device. Over 24 hours, I reiterated many points from my review, which I doubt many read, but I also learned a thing or two I missed while testing the product.

Here are some of the highlights:

For my iPhone Duo review, I placed the folded phone on multiple MagSafe charge stands and holders. The MagSafe magnets sit on the back, right under the camera array, and the Duo fits perfectly on each stand. With charge stands, the Duo instantly slips into the redesigned Standby mode. I love it.

Someone on Threads asked me if I had tried unfolding the Duo and putting it on a MagSafe stand. So I did and quickly found that the weight of the half not attached to the charging stand made the entire phone rotate ever so slowly on the MagSafe charger. So, while you could use the unfolded Duo on a MagSafe charging stand, it is not recommended.

After someone else asked if they could still use their MagSafe Wallet, I found that the Duo's back is too short to accommodate the standard MagSafe Wallet.

With its two differently sized screens, the iPhone Duo is unique in the iPhone lineup, and there were reasonable questions about how features like vertical Wallpaper images work across the cover and inner display.

I didn't know, so I set the cover wallpaper as a vertical photo I took with the Duo of the Empire State Building, and I gotta say, I love the handoff between displays. The Cover display showed the iconic building, and when I opened the Duo, it showed more of the photo.

There were a lot of questions about the Duo's split-screen capabilities, like if I could open more than two apps (no, but you can do a PiP video overlay), and if you could drag and drop content from one screen to another (you can).

Some wondered if you could run the same app on both screens. You cannot, but if you want to maximize your social media, I found that you could run TikTok and Instagram Reels in side-by-side windows. It's social media turned up to 11.

During my review, I tried running the Kindle app, but the app wasn't optimized for the device and looked tiny and useless. Someone asked me about "iBooks," which is now known as Books.

As a first-party app, it's optimized for Duo, of course. Flipping virtual pages on the 7.6-inch inner display is a transporting experience.

Many wondered whether I hated the matte finish on the inner display (I don't), but I also got a ton of questions about the crease and the inner display's overall durability. A few wanted to know if I'd scratched it, either purposefully or by accident, with my fingernail. I had not, honestly; I don't even see fingerprints on the matte display.

A couple of people asked about the visibility of the crease and whether that area of the screen bounced or wobbled when I touched it. So I tested it by opening the phone and pressing down on the essentially invisible crease. No movement.

Many had obviously heard that not every app is optimized for the new inner display. In my review, I noted that LinkedIn and Gmail were particularly poor fits and later found that Adobe Acrobat still wasn't optimized. But developers are constantly delivering updates, so apps that didn't work yesterday look great today.

Still, people wanted to know how apps deal with the handoff from the 5.4-inch outer display to the 7.6-inch inner one. Optimized apps handle it smoothly; most simply expand without losing context.

Some, like DeckMan and Toastie, playfully use the two screens to create entertaining interplays. DeckMan, for instance, turns the duo into a virtual portable tape deck.

An almost equal number shared their concerns about the size of the 5.4-inch cover display. It's actually not that small, but Apple's decision to place the Dock vertically on the right-hand side means that you lose a lot of pixels to what is often empty space. Others complained about the lack of support for left-handed users (they kept asking me if I was left-handed). Some are even bothered by the dock's placement on the much larger inner display. You can't move it, and this will probably remain a key issue for many potential Duo owners.

Every single iPhone model now supports Face ID, with the notable exception of the new Duo. It's probably the single biggest Duo misstep, and many asked me if I was having trouble adjusting to using Touch ID again. Initially, I was, but I have gotten used to it. I hope the next Duo brings back facial recognition.

I probably got a dozen or so questions about battery life. Some reviewers have criticized the Duo for subpar battery life if you mainly use the larger inner screen. I did not find that, but I did field quite a few battery life questions from concerned potential buyers. I told them what my tests found: all-day battery life in a variety of situations.

I struggled a bit when people asked me to compare the Duo to the iPhone 18 Pro Max. I get it; they want to know if they should stick with what they know or, perhaps, try the awesome new thing. It's not easy, though, to directly compare the single-screen iPhone 18 Pro Max with the dual-display Duo. But leaving aside the screens, if you focus on, say, the cameras, you might stick with the 18 Pro Max, which offers a telephoto and a variable-aperture main camera. The Duo is also heavier than the iPhone 18 Pro Max, which might be a deal-breaker for some.

There were also a healthy number of comparisons to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 lineup, especially the similarly sized and shaped Galaxy Z Fold 8. A few asked me to compare the cameras. Turns out that both the Z Fold 8 and Duo have just two external cameras: wide and ultra-wide, and the Z Fold 8 has just a couple of megapixels per camera on the Duo. Ultimately, it's a wash on the camera front.

I got just as many questions about the cameras' quality, including the 12MP Center Stage camera on the outside and the 4MP inner camera. I found it interesting that many knew not to directly compare it to the new iPhone 18 Pro Max lenses and instead focused on the more comparable iPhone 17 Pro's wide and ultrawide. In my testing, I found the imagery was just as good as what I got from that now year-old device. I do, however, miss the telephoto lens.

One person actually asked how this iPhone Duo is different from the Surface Duo that Microsoft launched in 2019 and discontinued in 2024. I gently explained that while the Surface Duo's inner screen had two displays, the iPhone Duo offers one flexible inner display.

Apple hasn't said much about Apple Pencil support, but that may be because the Duo currently only supports the Apple Pencil USB-C. Why? It's the only one that you can still charge separately from, say, a tablet. Apple Pencil Pro needs the iPad to charge. The Duo cannot charge another device. As one Threads user put it, "Which basically means that my Pencil Pro is useless?" Mine too, my friend, mine, too.

An exclusive TechRadar investigation into Google’s Chrome Web Store has revealed more than 350 untrustworthy VPN extensions targeting Russian users, with many imitating well-known brands. Combined, these tools have amassed over 218,000 users.

It’s not the first time potentially dangerous VPN extensions have been discovered. Earlier this year, Palo Alto revealed a significant number of dangerous VPN extensions that could leak users’ internet traffic. Alarmingly, we discovered that 89 of those extensions are still active and available.

So, why are there so many shady VPN extensions specifically targeting Russians, and what are the risks of using these low-quality products?

‘A game of whack-a-mole’

In total, we discovered that there are 369 Russian VPN extensions available on Google’s Chrome Web Store that fail basic transparency and professionalism tests.

Almost every single extension we analyzed lists a throwaway, anonymous personal Gmail address rather than a professional developer contact. And it appears these operators are running large clusters of extensions — just 70 developers are responsible for all of the extensions we found, with one email address associated with 24 individual apps.

Nearly three-quarters of these VPNs host their privacy policies on Telegram’s anonymous Telegra.ph platform, which hides the true owner of the service, and almost half (47%) have more reviews than users, which may indicate review manipulation.

Perhaps most egregiously, we found over 120 extensions using a name associated with a legitimate brand.

The most frequently hijacked name was Happ — a custom proxy client widely used in Russia — which was co-opted by more than 15 extensions. Among major international commercial providers, we found seven extensions imitating Windscribe and five impersonating ExpressVPN.

It’s not the first time fake VPN extensions have plagued Google's ecosystem—earlier this year, researchers uncovered hundreds of fake Chrome VPN extensions impersonating NordVPN and Proton that were routing user traffic through unencrypted proxies. However, our research shows a distinct regional network specifically tailoring these tactics to Russian users.

Windscribe and ExpressVPN told TechRadar that they are aware of copycat extensions appearing on the Chrome Web Store and said they frequently ask Google to remove them when they are found.

Cherlynn Cha, Head of Security Operations at ExpressVPN, said that “copycat extensions put people at risk” because they give people a “false sense of security”. The company added that it employs an "enforcement partner” to scour the web for unauthorized use of the company’s name.

However, enforcement can be challenging. Rebecca Rosenberg, Head of Growth at Windscribe, said: “It’s pretty much a game of whack-a-mole now, the copycat is pulled and two more pop up.”

And the data backs that up. One email address we uncovered is linked to 14 apps, with the precise number constantly changing as their extensions are removed and new ones take their place.

Why are unprofessional VPN extensions a threat?

Unlike many other extensions, VPNs have the potential to access a huge amount of sensitive data. In fact, a VPN extension asks “for more access than almost anything else in the store,” Rosenberg said.

A VPN works by encrypting and re-routing your internet connection through one of its servers. While a legitimate VPN improves your digital privacy, it also means you are transferring all your trust from your internet service provider directly to the VPN creator.

In theory, the anonymous developer could see everything your ISP normally monitors. Think: websites visited, time stamps, and your home IP address.

It’s “a lot of trust to hand over," Cha said. Rosenberg added that giving your data “to an anonymous developer with a personal email and a privacy policy that doesn't load is the opposite of privacy”.

Ongoing security concerns

Without detailed dynamic web testing of all the extensions, it’s impossible to know which may be harmful to users and which are purely unprofessional. However, Palo Alto previously found more than 350 apps that were linked to harvesting user data via traffic interception.

In our tests, 89 of these extensions were still available to Russian users, while email addresses associated with the extensions have continued to launch more apps since initial discovery.

One email address — ‘vale99505@gmail[.]com — was first flagged by Palo Alto in July. According to the company’s threat intel notice, the address was associated with extensions that do not provide “typical encrypted protection like reputed VPN extensions”, adding that the “threat actor” running the apps “has access to all communication”.

According to our most recent tests, six extensions linked to this address are still available for download.

At the time of publication, Google had not responded to requests for comment. TechRadar has shared the full list of extensions with the company and will monitor their availability in the coming weeks.

Windscribe said that Google “should absolutely be doing more” to protect its users from encountering untrustworthy VPN extensions on its Chrome Web Store, while ExpressVPN confirmed the company is in favor of “stronger verification for privacy and security tools”.

Stopping the rise of untrustworthy VPN extensions is important for everyone. But it’s no surprise that this specific network is focussed on Russia.

Why target Russians?

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, authorities in Russia have launched an unprecedented crackdown on digital freedom. Thousands of websites have been blocked in the country, including international media, social media and gaming platforms.

In response, VPNs have become a crucial tool for millions of people, which has subsequently prompted coordinated efforts by the government to regulate and restrict access to these vital privacy and security tools.

Most recently, this has included the plan to use AI to detect and block VPN traffic in the country.

In this context, developers looking to make a quick profit may spin up cheap VPN solutions that are poorly designed, entirely fake, or designed to harvest user data to sell to third-party advertisers.

But there’s a darker potential: malicious actors may be intentionally designing VPN extensions to trick Russians into downloading software that can actively monitor their internet browsing behavior.

While there’s no evidence that these extensions are linked to authorities in the country, amid growing concerns about state surveillance and deteriorating internet freedoms, taking extra care when selecting a VPN in Russia today certainly seems sensible.

How to defend yourself today

There are several steps you can take to make sure you’re downloading a legitimate version of a VPN extension:

• Check the developer’s name and website before downloading anything
• Check that the privacy policy is accessible, informative and related to the app
• If you know which VPN you want to download, go straight to the provider’s website
• Look out for the ‘Established Publisher’ badge on the Chrome Web Store
• Check for any unnecessary permissions like ‘geolocation’

It’s worth remembering that a VPN Chrome extension also only protects your activity in your browser. Anything you do outside of the browser won’t be encrypted so it’s worth using a well-respected VPN where possible.

And, like most things, if a product is free, it’s worth being skeptical. As Cherlynn Cha told us: “Be wary of free VPNs. Running a VPN network costs real money. If a service is free and it’s not clear how it makes money, your data may be what’s paying for it.”

How we found shady Russian VPN extensions

We compiled our data using a variety of sources, primarily an in-house web scraping tool that identified VPN extensions on the Google Chrome Web Store targeting Russian-language users. We collected metadata including user counts, developer contact emails, and privacy policy URLs.

We then filtered the dataset to remove legitimate, verified corporate VPN providers. The remaining extensions were analyzed for untrustworthy signals, such as using personal email addresses, unprofessional privacy policies and copying established VPN brands.

We also cross-referenced our data with threat intelligence research published earlier this year by Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 to verify how many malicious extensions previously flagged remained active.

All data and user counts are accurate as of October 12, 2026. Extensions are frequently removed and new copycats are constantly appearing. We continue to monitor their accessibility in the coming weeks.

You've probably heard about PHP2Shell and how this freshly emerged security issue affects a ton of websites, as well as warnings on how website owners need to urgently apply patches to fix this.

It sounds like a big deal – and it is – so you've likely got questions. Maybe for starters: what is PHP2Shell exactly and what does it affect? And what does it mean for you as someone using a web browser today – is it not safe to visit some websites now?

This article aims to provide answers to the common questions about PHP2Shell and explain all the key points that you need to know about this vulnerability (well, actually it's two vulnerabilities to be precise).

What is PHP2Shell?

PHP2Shell is the name given to a security flaw in the PHP programming language that's used by many websites and web applications across the globe. In fact, PHP is used by almost 70% of websites as Wikipedia estimates, and it's employed in the likes of WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and other common systems that drive websites – which is why the possible impact is so widespread.

It consists of two separate memory-related vulnerabilities labelled CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619. These flaws in the way PHP works could be exploited by a malicious attacker to compromise a site that's using PHP (which is the majority of the web, as noted), and potentially this could lead to the ability to remotely execute code.

It's a serious incident with these vulnerabilities being rated as 9.2 out of 10 for severity.

What happens if an attacker manages to exploit a website using these vulnerabilities?

Sergey Lozhkin, Head of Research Center for APAC and META at Kaspersky GReAT, explained to TechRadar: "The potential impact is considerable: if successfully exploited, this vulnerability could enable remote code execution, one of the most serious forms of cyber compromise. In practical terms, attackers could potentially execute malicious code on affected systems, including the deployment of web shells, thereby gaining control over vulnerable servers."

In other words, the attacker could run their own code and alter the content of a website to nefarious ends (stealing data for example), or redirect you to their own malicious site for phishing purposes (or even directly installing malware).

Has PHP2Shell been exploited yet?

PHP2Shell has been a trickier customer than expected because these vulnerabilities were disclosed before the official announcement of the security issue was made. As we reported yesterday, someone leaked the details of these flaws on the Hacker News forum before the embargoed announcement happened, leaving security experts scrambling to get defenses in place more quickly than they anticipated.

This meant that there were early attempts to exploit PHP2Shell, and indeed one of those dates back to before the flaw was even leaked (let alone announced). According to Amazon Threat Intelligence, an attempt at exploitation was made as early as October 17, although it "remains unclear how the actor acquired exploit information prior to disclosure."

As Malwarebytes points out, Dane Knecht, the chief technology officer at Cloudflare, reported "early attacks emerging" too, before the PHP team rolled out patches to fix the security holes.

Amazon Threat Intelligence warns that: "PHP2Shell is now being broadly exploited in the wild."

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The target

The attack starts with a server running vulnerable versions of PHP. PHP is a core programming language used to power millions of web applications and servers worldwide, making any runtime vulnerability here exceptionally dangerous.

Malicious request

An unauthenticated attacker (meaning they don't need valid login credentials or prior access) sends a specially crafted, unauthorized payload request directly to the PHP web server.

Exploitation

A critical flaw in the core PHP runtime allows this incoming payload to hijack the ongoing backend process. As the PHP backend processes the code, an execution error or breakout occurs.

System takeover

Because the runtime is hijacked, the attacker could successfully execute remote commands, giving them access to the user's operating system, compromising the entire device.

Explore

So is this fixed now, and am I safe from the exploit?

Patches have indeed been deployed to seal up these exploits. The PHP team issued emergency security updates yesterday for PHP 8.5, 8.4, 8.3, and 8.2 – the relevant fixed versions are 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36, and 8.2.35.

Of course, having the patch ready is just the first move – the owners of the affected websites must then apply it. They may need to install the update themselves, or contact their hosting provider to ensure that this has been done.

Obviously given the urgency of the situation, this patching work should have been done by now – and you should be safe on any given website in theory. However, the caveat here is that there's no cast-iron guarantee, and you need to bear this in mind.

It's worth noting that in terms of taking action, there's nothing you need to do yourself as a person browsing the web. These aren't patches for web browsers – this is something website owners have to sort out. (Although if you do run a website using, say, WordPress, then you must check with your hosting provider that PHP has been updated to the fixed versions noted above).

In terms of practical realities, what should I be aware of when browsing the web today?

For starters, you may encounter websites which are down for maintenance because they are busy applying the mentioned patch to fix the PHP2Shell vulnerabilities. That's a potential annoyance, but a short-term one, and obviously it's a good thing (these patches need to be installed). At this point, though, major websites who are affected and use PHP are likely to have done this work already (given the urgency).

Otherwise, take some extra care about where you're browsing for the rest of this week – though you should always be cautious and bear in mind basic internet safety principles as a matter of course – and be on the lookout for anything that feels suspicious. Be especially careful if you're suddenly redirected to another website, or something obviously suspect happens like a download firing up out of nowhere. In such an eventuality, close the website (and browser) and don't go back, then fire up your antivirus and run a scan.

If you can, it's advisable to steer clear of the potentially less well-maintained corners of the web, too, as a hidden danger is sites which are still running versions of PHP that aren't officially supported (meaning 8.1 or older). Due to that lack of support, these won't get the relevant security updates piped through until the PHP version is upgraded to one that's supported. Those running PHP 8.1 (or earlier) who can't organize such an upgrade are being advised in some cases to take their website offline for the time being (or at least use mitigations as a stopgap, as per a post from the NCSC in the UK).

Is AI to blame for this?

No, but if you've heard AI mentioned in connection with PHP2Shell, it's because these days, AI is more broadly making life easier for would-be malicious actors when they catch wind of fresh exploits like this.

Amazon Threat Intelligence explains: "In the past, most exploitation we observed came after a public proof of concept was released. A small number of capable actors built exploits, and everyone else waited for them. That dependency is weakening. AI-assisted analysis makes it cheaper to turn a patch diff or advisory into a working exploit. As a result, more actors can act within hours or even minutes once technical details of a vulnerability are disclosed."

The other side of the coin is that AI is being used in defending against the bad actors out there, too, but the worry remains that in the longer run, it's likely to cause more harm than good in terms of accelerating how emerging vulnerabilities are capitalized on.

• First phone with three 200MP cameras
• A 50MP selfie camera completes the ultra-wide (0.6x), wide (1x) and telephoto (3x) array
• A photographer's kit includes a 300mm teleconverter lens

There's yet another Pro Max phone in our midst, and this time it's the Oppo Find X10 Pro Max that rivals the iPhone 18 Pro Max, following the Vivo X500 Pro Max and Xiaomi 18 Pro Max. For photographers, Oppo's new handset could top the lot as one of the best camera phones for 2026.

I had a good week with the Oppo Find X10 Pro Max ahead of its launch on October 21, including several days in Lisbon, Portugal, where I had the chance to really put the phones camera through its paces. Our full review by Luker Baker is already live, too.

It packs a slightly simpler camera array to last year's Oppo Find X9 Ultra — the company's flagship cameraphone — with an improved ultra-wide f/2.2 (0.6x), a wide f/1.5 (1x) and a telephoto f/2.1 (3x) camera.

Each of those cameras offers the option for 200MP images — that's right, it's the first phone with triple 200MP cameras. Of course, there's a f/2 selfie camera too, with up to 50MP stills.

Video specs impress too — up to 8K / 30fps video with O-Log 2 color profile, 4K up to 120fps, plus Open Gate video. These are formidable photo and video specs, but how good are the images the Find X10 Pro Max produces?

For me, there's an appealing natural look to most of the photos I've snapped with the Find X10 Pro Max, certainly when compared to the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra. I've included some of my favorite shots so far, below, with notes explaining the camera features.

The Find X10 Pro Max costs £1,499 for the 12GB + 512GB version. It's not sold in the US, while Australia availability is TBC.

Oppo Find X10 Pro Max sample gallery: portrait mode

Oppo Find X10 Pro Max sample gallery: zoom range

Oppo Find X10 Pro Max sample gallery: 300mm teleconverter lens

Oppo Find X10 Pro Max sample gallery: ultra-wide

Oppo Find X10 Pro Max sample gallery: general shots

OpenAI has upgraded its Chrome extension to bring much of the familiar ChatGPT experience directly into Google's browser.

The integration adds a sidebar that can work alongside whatever you're viewing, understand information across multiple open tabs, and, through ChatGPT Work, interact with websites on your behalf.

Essentially, it turns ChatGPT into a companion that follows you around the internet, ready to help without requiring you to leave the page you're reading.

The timing is interesting, as Google has been working to make Gemini a more prominent part of Chrome, giving its own AI assistant a natural advantage in the world's most popular browser. OpenAI clearly has little interest in allowing Google to turn Chrome into a comfortable home for Gemini users while ChatGPT remains somewhere else entirely.

OpenAI wants Chrome users to keep relying on ChatGPT, even while browsing inside Google's own ecosystem. It's an increasingly direct competition for the attention of people who might otherwise find Gemini easier to use simply because it's already there.

Getting started involves installing the official ChatGPT extension from the Chrome Web Store and signing into your account. From there, the sidebar lets you access ChatGPT alongside webpages, while the integration can also work with information across open tabs once the necessary permissions are granted. More advanced website interactions are available through ChatGPT Work, depending on your account's access.

Tab-free research

The biggest attraction is how familiar the whole experience feels. If you're already accustomed to asking ChatGPT to explain something confusing or help you work through a problem, bringing those capabilities into Chrome removes a surprisingly irritating extra step. You can continue using the browser normally while keeping your AI assistant available alongside whatever you're doing.

That makes the integration particularly appealing for research. Imagine having several articles open about the same announcement and asking ChatGPT to compare their coverage, identify discrepancies, or explain something that remains unclear. Instead of copying passages into a separate conversation, you can have the assistant work with the pages already in front of you.

Shopping offers another obvious use. Comparing products across different retailers normally means switching repeatedly between tabs, checking specifications, and trying to remember which listing had the better deal. ChatGPT can examine the relevant pages together and help organize that information, although prices and important product details still deserve verification.

The sidebar also makes smaller interactions feel more natural. It's essentially the same ChatGPT experience but with the added benefit of being connected more closely to the browsing you're already doing.

That familiarity is arguably the integration's greatest strength. OpenAI doesn't have to convince people that they need another AI assistant or teach existing ChatGPT users an entirely new workflow. It simply makes something they already use more accessible, and for people who enjoy having ChatGPT available throughout the day, that's a substantial improvement.

There are still reasons to approach its answers carefully. Reading several webpages doesn't guarantee that ChatGPT will interpret every detail correctly, especially when a site has unusual formatting or important information is hidden behind interactive elements. The convenience of a confident summary should never replace checking the source when accuracy matters.

OpenAI invading Google

The more ambitious capabilities come through ChatGPT Work, which can interact with websites and carry out tasks rather than simply answering questions about them.

As an experiment, I used ChatGPT in Chrome to fill out a form. I opened a registration page for a free technology webinar and asked ChatGPT Work to complete the form, with explicit instructions to stop before submitting anything. It didn't have all the answers, as when selecting an industry category, it paused to ask for clarification from me. Still, the final review was essential, since even a minor error in a registration form can be more annoying than filling it out manually.

That supervision matters, particularly when an AI can interact with websites where you're already signed in. Giving ChatGPT access to information across tabs also means thinking carefully about what those tabs contain and which websites the assistant is authorized to use. OpenAI includes permission controls, but users still need to exercise judgment about what they allow an AI agent to access.

It's notable that there's competition unfolding inside Chrome itself. Google has an obvious advantage because it controls the browser and can weave Gemini directly into the experience. OpenAI's answer is to make ChatGPT feel almost as natural a part of Chrome, reducing the incentive for its users to switch assistants simply because Google's alternative is close at hand.

Chrome gives Google a valuable route to introduce Gemini to an enormous audience, but it also gives OpenAI access to those same users. The browser is becoming another battleground in the competition to make one AI assistant the default choice for everyday computing.

For people who already prefer ChatGPT, this integration makes a compelling case for sticking with it. The ability to bring familiar conversations and assistance into the browsing experience, while adding awareness of open webpages, makes ChatGPT feel more useful without demanding a change in habits. The more advanced automation features are promising, although their value will depend on reliability and how much oversight they require.

I don't think every Chrome user suddenly needs ChatGPT looking over their shoulder. But if ChatGPT is already a regular part of your day, bringing much of that experience directly into Chrome is a genuinely attractive upgrade.

OpenAI has effectively found a way to make Google's browser another home for ChatGPT. That might be excellent news for users who appreciate the convenience, even if Google would probably prefer they spent more time talking to Gemini. The real winner could be whichever assistant makes browsing feel easier without making the internet more complicated in the process.

There’s something really appealing about retro tech but it’s hard to put your finger on exactly what it is. Or maybe that’s it. You can press the chunky buttons, place a record on a turntable, hold your favorite media in your hands and feel the satisfying click of a flip phone snapping shut.

For others, the appeal might be the colorful designs that seemed to have so much more personality than the shiny black rectangles we all own now. Or maybe it's actually owning media rather than feeling like you’re constantly renting it. Whatever the reason, it’s clear plenty of people love retro tech.

However, it’s easy to romanticize a return to older tech, like the idea of listening to a Walkman on the train, taking blurry photos with an old camera or spending a lazy afternoon playing a Game Boy. But how much of the actual experience are you prepared to put up with?

Because using that Walkman also means carrying round tapes, replacing batteries and rewinding songs. The camera might need an obscure memory card and a cable you haven't seen since 2004. And your beautiful old flip phone probably isn't going to help when you're lost and need Google Maps.

I'm personally all for bringing a little retro tech back into our lives. I've got some myself. But there's a big difference between wanting the aesthetic and being willing to embrace the inconvenience.

Although, for some people, the inconvenience is also part of the experience. At a time when everything is quick, easy and frictionless it can be nice to feel like things are slower and require a little more effort.

So, before you start bidding on vintage gadgets on eBay, take our quiz to find out how much retro tech you can realistically handle. We'll test your patience, willingness to tinker and tolerance for doing things the old-fashioned way, then recommend some retro gadgets to match. Because I strongly suspect many of us might miss the way tech used to look and feel but we maybe don’t miss the way it used to work quite as much.

Stranger Than Heaven is exactly the sort of game I want to champion. It’s rare to see a team of young developers given a significant budget and seemingly generous freedom to create a half-century-spanning epic that tackles heavy themes while taking bold risks with both the combat and music-influenced management game at its core.

My four-hour whistlestop tour across several of the game’s time periods between 1915 and 1965 in this latest fantastical tale from the Japanese criminal underworld did make it hard to see just how well all of this ambition from RGG Studio will come together in the end. But I haven’t really stopped thinking about it since.

And when you’ve played and previewed dozens (maybe hundreds) of games, it’s harder to find ones that leave a mark like that — ones that genuinely leave you wanting to play and see more.

What I admire most about Stranger Than Heaven is that it knows what it wants to be and fully commits to that idea to create its own unique vibe.

Music is the throughline. On one side, it's the way the protagonist, Makoto Daito, finds his place in a hostile world, as a way for him to break down barriers and overcome prejudice he faces as a Japanese-American immigrant.

There is a level of detail and adoration in the musical performances I saw in-game that made it easy to get swept up in the atmosphere — whether it was a professional big band showstopper full of belting brass, or an impromptu sing-a-long that draws in a large crowd on the streets of Kokura.

Play it, Daito

Music is also a fundamental part of several other aspects of the game. Mainly, it’s a key part of the main management mini-game in Stranger Than Heaven. Instead of running a hostess club or a confectionery shop as we've seen in Yakuza and Like a Dragon, Daito works as a promoter in the showbiz business. That involves creating tunes, hiring talent, scoping out venues, drawing in punters, and making sure performances run smoothly.

I dabbled with putting on a show or two, and can see how it has the potential to be another all-consuming distraction that RGG is known for, diverting you away from the main story for many hours. There’s a satisfaction to tinkering with all aspects of the performance to rake in the most cash, ensuring you’ve got the best singers and musicians performing the right sort of music in the right venue to suit the audience’s mood.

What also keeps that music throughline in other areas of the game is the way you draw inspiration for your next tracks and shows from the world around you. Those sparks also come from the combat, with small flashes or cues as kicks and punches fly that you can focus in on to unlock new sounds, instruments, or playing styles.

It’s a nice way to tie the game together, although I’m very aware that combat was a point of contention for some in earlier previews. I definitely struggled to grasp it fully in the beginning, but I was starting to get into the flow of it by the time I was wrapping up my time with the game. It has its own rhythm, swapping out flashy attacks and arcade-style simplicity from prior Yakuza games for more grounded and messy fistfights.

Mastering the art

It does require a bit of controller contortion to execute fully, with actions for your left and right hands and legs split across the left and right bumpers and triggers. Throw in directional blocking, perfect parries with spot-on timing, and the need to dodge some attacks, and it’s a lot to hold in your head and execute with ease.

Weapons add another dynamic, ranging from swords, knives, and batons to more improvised weaponry such as crowbars and a giant wooden mallet. These can be found or bought and switched between mid-combat to give you a bit more fighting power against multiple foes or tougher enemies.

Oh, and there’s ‘willpower’ too: a resource that you and opponents have that can be whittled down with repeated attacks, eventually causing you or them to fall to the floor when it’s emptied. You can then punish them with more severe finishers or find yourself fending off an assault while prone so you can get back on your feet.

It is a lot. And with pretty much all of these elements introduced from the first fight, I was getting beat up fairly regularly for a while. As I say, though, I eventually grew to like it with more practice, and I found myself taking down a few of the tougher enemies that are hiding around the game’s different locations in some extended but rewarding duels.

Those fights are just one of the many distractions that are dotted around the game’s towns, which include all sorts of games to play, items to find, and arenas to fight in. Even just exploring the spaces was fascinating, especially wandering through the entertainment capital of Sotenbori. It hits you with an overwhelming cacophony and a barrage of lights that RGG fans will be eager to experience in this different time period.

I think that’s what I appreciated most about Stranger Than Heaven: it does exist within that same universe of the existing RGG games, but is its own adventure in a new and confident direction.

Yes, it’s building off the Yakuza and Like A Dragon elements that are clearly in its DNA — in terms of the mix of brawling and business management, as well as its approach to story and presentation. But it feels like its own evolution. Or, to speak in the game’s terms, it’s several familiar melodies and motifs that have been remixed into a surprising new composition.

Stranger Than Heaven launches on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, and PC on January 25, 2027.

Anomalith might be one of the most interesting releases of 2026. A third-person survival shooter set in a twisted, retro vision of Japan, it’s a major departure from publisher FuRyu Corporation’s usual role-playing game (RPG) output.

It looks almost like the company’s take on Resident Evil, with 17-year-old protagonist Reona Minazuki venturing into deadly anomaly zones filled with grotesque creatures at the behest of a shadowy government organization.

Real-time gun combat, managing your small inventory, and keeping track of precious ammunition form a key part of every mission. Each run unfolds in an almost extraction-shooter-like format, and between missions you can use the resources you’ve scavenged to upgrade your gear.

There’s more to Minazuki than meets the eye, though, with the hero able to harness a mysterious set of mutant powers brought on by exposure to these supernatural environments. I spoke to producer Gai Kidokoro over email to learn a little more about how this project took shape and discover some of what’s in store for players.

Expanded arsenal

Anomalith is Kidokoro’s first original project, having joined FuRyu in the company’s anime division, which has helped produce hit titles like Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, before making the leap to its gaming business to direct some licensed titles. Working on games has “always been an area I was interested in,” he says, adding that his career has been “a little different from that of FuRyu’s other producers.”

It therefore seems only fitting that he is producing quite a unique project, with Anomalith standing apart as FuRyu’s first third-person shooter. Interestingly, Kidokoro says that the genre was chosen because both he and the director “love third-person shooters and guns” and set out to create something based on the things they enjoy.

“Rather than thinking, 'Let’s deliberately challenge ourselves with a completely different genre,' it was really more about wanting to make a game in a genre that we personally love,” he continues.

This fascination with firearms seems evident in the game’s weapon customization system, which lets players “swap out a fairly detailed range of parts,” including a variety of attachments such as “sights, grips, stocks, and more.” These help you personalize the appearance of each gun, but also provide statistical bonuses to help in the field.

The producer is also keen to highlight the player’s ability to scavenge “pieces of equipment called Artifacts that enhance your character’s stats” and change your overall build.

“These include loot-based, hack-and-slash-style elements,” he teases, “and if you manage to equip an Artifact with extremely high values, some skills have the potential to become incredibly powerful.”

The team is well aware that not everyone is going to be interested in tweaking their guns or experimenting with the nitty-gritty of their character’s stats, which is why the game offers a wealth of cosmetic options for players to outfit themselves with – some already available to try in the recent free Steam demo.

“We realized that there are quite a lot of people who don’t necessarily get the same enjoyment we do from firing their favorite, carefully customized gun,” Kidokoro begins. “We thought, 'Maybe adding character outfits and customization would make it more fun for those players,' and that’s why we ended up including such detailed character customization options. Judging from the response to the demo, I’m really glad we added the outfit customization.”

Uncanny valley

The world design is shaping up to be a treat, with plenty of intricate detail to pore over. In fact, Kidokoro highlights this as one part of the experience that he is most excited about. “The development team has put a tremendous amount of effort into designing the Otherworlds,” he explains. “There are many areas where something may initially look like nothing more than an ordinary ceiling, but if you stop and look up, you might find something that gives you a real sense of unease.”

He describes the fundamental concept behind it all as the “anxiety and fear lurking within familiar scenery” and reveals that it was inspired by popular ideas of “liminal spaces, including things like the Backrooms,” referring to the viral meme featuring endless wallpapered corridors that recently inspired a horror film adaptation.

“Within the development team, we often use phrases like ‘give it a liminal-space atmosphere’ when discussing the visual direction.”

This extends to the soundtrack. Aside from the game’s title theme, the music of Anomalith doesn’t feature any vocal tracks. Nevertheless, the producer argues fans “can definitely look forward to the soundtrack” and warns “many of the tracks are quite dark and unsettling.” He jokes: “I recommend listening to them during the daytime.”

Although Anomalith seems very different, long-time FuRyu fans will recognize some common elements shared with the publisher’s past games, such as the focus on a teenage protagonist. Kidokoro thinks the reasons behind this particular motif “would vary” depending on the title, but personally reckons “that it is easier for audiences to emotionally root for younger characters.”

“Watching boys and girls confront unreasonable circumstances and ultimately overcome them can also feel more hopeful and moving than a story centered on adults,” he continues. “Of course, we have been influenced by other games. However, we try to keep those influences as references rather than simply copying them. Our main criterion is always whether a particular element is necessary for players to enjoy the world and experience of Anomalith.”

We will be able to find out whether this formula pays off when Anomalith launches for Nintendo Switch 2, PC, and PlayStation 5 on October 29, 2026.

It’s been a long time since I’ve poured so many hours into Warhammer 40,000, but playing a bunch of the Dawn of War 4 campaign has absolutely captivated me, and almost made it feel like I was playing from my living room floor 30 years ago all over again.

After seeing a glimpse of the game last summer, I knew it was on the right track, but after a couple of weeks with Dawn of War 4, it’s safe to say that the series’ rip-roaring, gritty action, and moreish strategic map play is back with a vengeance, and channels all that made the first game brilliant.

My time with the chunky preview build has shown that King Art Games are an incredibly safe set of hands for the next Dawn of War game.

Going back to Kronus

The planet of Kronus provides the setting for Dawn of War 4, and while a part of me wonders whether it might have been more exciting to go for a brand new setting and premise, the familiar planet is still superbly executed by the new developer.

Each map is extremely well detailed and feels alive with wind-blown sand and tumbleweeds across barren landscapes, blinking lights and crumbling epic architecture in urban maps, and wonderfully icy and snowy maps providing some of the best backdrops.

No matter where you are, though, you’re always cheered on by some mega, epic battle music, and the individual unit audio from ambient mechanical whirring, distinct machine clunking, and furious fighting are all absolute chef's kiss level.

Underneath the aesthetic excellence, there is a real meaty campaign here. My preview build dived in and out of a few armies’ storylines, and the branching narrative is interesting and genuinely compelling, with twists that you can make decisions to impact through mission selection and choices (from what I’ve seen), while the accompanying cutscenes are also fantastic.

Even the in-game story moments help to give me the feeling of those excellent battle write-ups in the old White Dwarf magazines that I remember poring over for hours at a time.

Unrivaled units and chaotic combat

Moving your forces around that campaign is the true highlight: this is a properly meaty and fabulous strategy experience, and a 40K experience.

Taking control of the Orks or Adeptus Mechanicus in my preview, it really does feel like the perfect real-time recreation of seeing your miniatures on a tabletop. The action can be slower and methodical; or you can embrace some chaos and have fights on multiple fronts as you aim to use speed to your advantage over the battlefield.

There were multiple times in both scenarios where managing large masses of a mix of units was a genuine thrill, with each resource point captured, the mowing down of enemy infantry, or the blowing up of tanks with grenade barrages more satisfying than the last.

If you remember the best thing about moving units across maps in the Dawn of War games of yesteryear, then you’re in for a treat. Orks feel as wild and chaotic as they should; and the Adeptus Mechanicus have wonderful machine-focused units as well as biomechanic infantry that can pack more of a punch than you think, especially from cover.

However, Dawn of War 4 simultaneously feels more modern, and there’s an effort to streamline some controls to make things more straightforward. You can drag over a whole heap of enemies, and your units will automatically attack the ones most vulnerable to their attack type; and you can right-click on any unit’s ability so it will automatically trigger during missions.

Engaging with the units — be you a more casual player, or a really experienced one — is superb, and starts with them being a treat for the eyes. Units really look the part, and every combat encounter does too. King Art Studio’s attention to detail, with bespoke combat animations for every combination (it seems) that look genuine, and plenty of blood splatter and rag doll physics on show. Even the armor and weaponry of all units look radiant and detailed, down to the lustre on metals.

The machine endures

There’s a good mix of missions that keep things interesting and elevate the branching campaign, too. That’s a really great thing in a particular way, as my one ‘gripe’, if you can really call it that, is that Dawn of War 4 continues the series’ trend of sometimes being purely a numbers game.

Especially in base-building missions; if you can pace your play a bit, secure your territory, and build an army that’s massive, you’ll rarely fail. This can offset the nuances and ‘other’ factors to think about too when managing Orks and the WAAGH! that fuels them in battle, and the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Nosphere links that strengthen buildings and open up more development options.

That’s why the mix of missions is welcome: while those base- and army-building ones are heavily present, there’s usually a gauntlet or defence mission around the corner to mix things up — and I’ve probably enjoyed the latter two more on the whole.

Not that dominating a map is unenjoyable, of course. The power fantasy is real in Dawn of War 4 and can feel fantastic, but the game is also wonderfully successful at creating those ‘If I can just make it to that resource point’ or ‘if I can just hold off this enemy encounter’ or ‘if I can just create a couple of units quickly ot turn the tide here’ kind of moments, which are a thrill.

I could talk about more of the individual features in the game that make it shine, but the most important thing about my time with the game for preview is that everything adds up to an authentic Dawn of War experience and really captures the feeling and the essence of the series — as well as translating the turn-based tabletop game into a real-time action setting once again.

Dawn of War 4 successfully takes me back to early 2000s LAN parties, devouring campaigns over and over again, and building massive armies to crush my foes as I did in the first game over two decades ago — and now I just want more.

OpenAI recently introduced GPT-6, a new model of ChatGPT. You've probably heard about a lot of its new features but one that I don't think has had nearly enough attention, especially considering how much fun you can have with it, is Intelligent UI.

It allows ChatGPT to generate interactive experiences directly within a conversation. OpenAI explains: “With Intelligent UI, responses can include graphics, tappable buttons, forms, charts, and interactive experiences you can use directly in your conversation.”

What's interesting is there isn’t a single format. Which means, depending on what you ask, ChatGPT might create an interactive diagram, a calculator, a mood board, a map or even a little gaming console.

There are some genuinely useful applications here, from making complicated subjects easier to understand to building simple tools on the spot. But I was particularly interested in something a little less practical — games.

ChatGPT can now create games you can actually play within the chat window. And while there are all sorts of possibilities for educational games, quizzes and entirely new creations, I wanted to see what would happen if I asked it to recreate some old favorites.

So I started with five classic games, including Snake, Pong and Tetris. I gave ChatGPT simple prompts to see how faithfully it could recreate them. I then asked it to reinvent each game with new aesthetics, unexpected gameplay mechanics and a few deliberately chaotic twists. Think Snake in a neon cyberpunk world and Tetris with rules that change every time you clear a line.

Here's what happened when I put ChatGPT's new game-making abilities to the test.

Snake gets a neon makeover

The prompt: "Create a playable version of the classic Snake game directly inside this conversation."

ChatGPT got the basics right straight away. The game was instantly recognizable, with responsive controls and even a slider to adjust the speed. It looked good and, importantly, it was actually fun to play for a couple of games.

I then asked it to give Snake a neon cyberpunk makeover, complete with moving obstacles, special power-ups and a speed increase every five points. Say hello to Neon Snake.

There was one small hiccup. Instead of creating the new game directly in the chat window, ChatGPT initially gave me the code. Which wasn't much use when the whole point was to play it there and then.

I tried another prompt asking it if it could make it directly playable in the conversation and that worked. The results of that experiment were fun. The neon aesthetic looked good, everything was color-coded and the new mechanics gave the classic (and, let’s be honest, sometimes boring) game an extra layer of challenge.

Tetris gets new rules

The prompt: "Create a playable game inspired by Tetris directly inside this conversation."

This one worked really well from the start. I’d just assumed it would be a bit buggy and glitchy because there’s so much going on compared to Snake, but the controls were intuitive and responsive, and the classic block-stacking mechanic was all there.

But what if Tetris changed the rules every time you cleared a line? That was the idea behind my follow-up prompt.

I asked ChatGPT to introduce unexpected twists, which could include rotating the board to adding unusual block shapes or special powers that could destroy part of the grid.

And it delivered. The changing rules introduced a fun element of unpredictability to a game that's usually all about getting into a rhythm. I also came away thinking about how much further you could take this. There are so many opportunities to experiment with different rules, challenges and power-ups.

Space Invaders becomes a First Contact situation

The prompt: "Build me a fully playable retro arcade game inspired by Space Invaders"

Again, ChatGPT recreated the classic arcade experience surprisingly well. It looked and played like the original, with straightforward controls and all the fun of shooting at waves of approaching aliens.

But I wanted to see whether it could do something a bit more imaginative than adding extra enemies or making everything move faster. So I asked it to introduce a choice: what if I could defend Earth by fighting the aliens or negotiating with them?

I wanted waves of pixel-art enemies, but also decisions between rounds that could unlock weapons, stop an invasion or make the next attack more dangerous.

ChatGPT called its reinvention First Contact, which I loved. Up until this point it was calling most of the games "chaos" or "chaotic" so this felt more inventive.

It was a fun way to introduce a new dimension to a familiar game. But did it work well? I don't know, I couldn't ever make it past the first level. This experiment really suffered with my poor alien-fighting abilities.

Haunted Pac-Man

The prompt: "Create a fully interactive retro maze game inspired by Pac-Man that I can play directly inside this ChatGPT conversation."

This was easily my favorite of the five, but I have always adored Pac-Man. ChatGPT's first attempt was a fun, responsive maze game with the familiar mechanics of moving around, collecting things and trying to avoid enemies. Bonus points for the fact it renamed it Maze Muncher.

For the reinvention, I decided to lean into Halloween. I asked it to turn the game into a haunted 1980s arcade, with me playing a little ghost hunter instead of Pac-Man.

I also wanted the maze itself to change. Every ten orbs collected would trigger a surprise, like shifting walls, new passages or an extra ghost. And I asked for temporary power-ups that would let me chase the ghosts for a change.

ChatGPT handled this well but didn't wait until I'd collected orbs. It was super fast-paced and there were new ghosts, secret passages and changing mechanics from the start. It was quick, easy to control and genuinely fun to play.

Pong reinvented

The prompt: Build me a fully playable version of Pong inside this conversation.

Pong might be the simplest game of the bunch, but ChatGPT made a really solid version. The controls were easy, the aesthetics were nice and it even offered easy, normal and hard difficulty settings.

I decided to ruin that simplicity and asked ChatGPT to create a more chaotic version where every point triggered a random modifier. The ball could split in two, the paddles could shrink, gravity could change or an obstacle could appear in the middle of the court.

The result definitely delivered on the chaos. The familiar back-and-forth gameplay was still there, but the changing rules made each rally a little less predictable. It was also a reminder of how much fun you can have with a simple idea. You don't need to reinvent every part of a game to make it entertaining.

I was genuinely impressed with how well all five games worked, especially considering how simple my original prompts were.

Yes, there were a few hiccups along the way, like ChatGPT deciding to give me code instead of a playable game a couple of times. But overall, the controls were responsive, the games looked good and the reinventions were more imaginative than I expected.

What I enjoyed most was how easy it was to experiment. You could take a game you already know, change the aesthetic, introduce an unexpected mechanic or come up with something completely ridiculous and see what ChatGPT made of it.

I can imagine this being a fun way to waste half an hour, especially if you loved these games growing up. Although, after all this experimenting, I do feel like I should remind you that the originals are still out there, and they're well worth revisiting too.

Just Eat has apologized after its new AI service designed to auto-generate images of food items got confused and put an image of bacon and eggs swimming in a glass of cola on the menu for a Northern Ireland restaurant. The restaurant, which offers a range of soda breads, ended up with sausages, bacon and fried eggs floating in pints of fizzy drinks instead of the Irish breakfast sandwiches they were supposed to represent.

These AI-generated images were part of a Just Eat trial for a new AI-powered system. The bacon and egg cola wasn’t the only hilarious image that the trial produced. You can see many other examples on the uknewestfoods Instagram page:

Referring to the AI photos, one Just Eat user on X said, “I swear if my salt and pepper chips come like this I’m going to cause murder”

But while these AI-generated disasters are easy to laugh at, the real problem might be the images that look perfectly believable.

It's the realistic images you need to worry about

Talking to The Independent, a Just Eat spokesperson said, “We've been trialling AI-enhanced images and as with any new technology, it isn't always quite right the first time. We're sorry for any inaccurate images that have been posted. We're in the process of removing them and have paused rolling this out while we further develop the tool to ensure it best serves our partners and customers."

Just Eat isn’t the only food delivery service trialling AI-generated images. Last week DoorDash opened its text-to-order AI agent for testing: you text what you want, it picks the dish and texts back a photo of it. Bloomberg News testers found several errors during testing, including “photos that didn’t match the recommendation”.

The wider question is, why are Just Eat and DoorDash trialling using AI to generate images of food that people are ordering anyway? While obvious mistakes like this are easy to spot, what about the smaller inaccuracies that are easily missed, like a wrong-sized dish or missing topping?

Michael Bortinger, Director of Marketing and Partnerships at Tastewise, explains: "An image model has no concept of a specific dish. It renders the average of everything labeled 'burger', and better tools just make that average more convincing. There are pages of brand rules for how a logo sits on a cup and nothing at all for what's in the burger."

Is this a good use of AI?

I can understand why using AI could save the time required to take and then upload individual photos of each menu item; however, food images would seem to be a case where accuracy of what you’re ordering is of supreme importance. Outsourcing this job to AI is not only fraught with problems, but surely wouldn't produce a faithful representation of the food anyway.

There are many good uses for AI; I’m just not sure this is ever going to be one of them. AI-generated food photos might make life easier for delivery platforms and restaurants, but it's hard to see what benefit they offer customers if they can't be trusted to show what's actually being sold.

After all, when I’m ordering a bacon sandwich, I want to see a picture of the item I’m actually going to get, not AI’s interpretation of what a bacon sandwich looks like.

When you create a smash-hit like Season 1 of Cyberpunk Edgerunners, returning for a second outing was never going to be easy. Setting the bar so high you’ll need top-shelf cybernetics to make that leap — but with Edgerunners Season 2, Studio Trigger yet again proves why it stands alone as master animators of high-octane action that is as visually stunning as it is visceral.

The story itself will be familiar in theme and setting to fans of Edgerunner's first outing, but the series is more of an anthology than direct follow-ons to what came before. The events of the first season are referenced — David is a known Night City legend by characters in the show — but don’t expect to see any follow-ups on Lucy or other stories.

Instead Edgerunners gives us a whole new cast — focused on budding videographer Roman, the chrome-obsessed renegade Talia, cyberpsychosis-survivor King, and revenge-fuelled netrunner D — whose individual stories cross and diverge as the events of Season 2 unfold.

Don’t worry, things are easy to follow, and the plots develop at an excellent pace — keeping you engaged while also making sure characters aren’t abandoned for longer than you want.

To some extent, you *could* start here considering the disconnect to Season 1, but (1) you’ll be missing out on a phenomenal season of animated TV, and (2) while the characters don’t make a return, the world of Cyberpunk and Night City and its factions do.

More generally, Season 2 is fuelled by the same themes as its predecessor, and there are familiarities between the new cast and Maine’s crew. There’s naivety and dreams of a different world to what exists, grizzled veterans and long-standing grudges between factions, and a looming sense of inevitable tragedy that seems to eventually catch up with everyone in Night City.

The context of Season 1 will help you better appreciate Season 2, even if it isn’t necessarily required reading (though required or not, you’re depriving yourself if you skip it).

I’m aiming to keep things spoiler-lite for this preview, so I’ll cut myself off here before I get into more specific plot details and shift gear to the animation.

Simply put: it’s sublime.

Studio Trigger is well known for its dazzling action — delivering artistically beautiful scenes of violence, but also graphically gory fight scenes that make it clear you never want to be on the wrong side of a gunfight.

Each combat encounter is unique too, with Studio Trigger finding ways to keep its action constantly feeling fresh rather than just repetitive brawls and shootouts, thanks to engaging set pieces and aesthetic flashes that make every gory execution different from the last.

This was showcased in Season 1, and that same mastery is present in Season 2. But I love the artistic approaches taken in the show’s calmer moments too. The grainy film footage effect of Roman’s recordings gives the technofuturistic events an appropriately vintage quality; D’s traumatic and hazy flashbacks are rendered with minimal, blocky colors and silhouettes.

There are also playful ‘anime moments.’ Roman’s over-the-top visual reaction to hearing of a rare 35mm camera almost doesn’t fit the gritty reality around him, but helps to cement his position of child-like wonder — one that has yet to be corrupted by the harsh reality of Night City.

In every case these artistic choices don’t add to a frenetic chaos — they emphasise moments both in and out of action, provide a deeper insight into the psyche of the characters, and bring the world of Cyberpunk Edgerunners to life in all its technofuturistic glory.

If you have a Netflix subscription and haven’t experienced Cyberpunk Edgerunners yet, you’re doing yourself a disservice — stop reading and get over there. Season 1 and now Season 2 are masterclasses in animated excellence that are sure to delight fans and non-fans of anime alike.

Heck, they’re worth subscribing to Netflix if you don’t already for a month to catch it all. It’ll be the best binge-watch of your life.

Network-attached storage (NAS) and external hard drives are effective ways to store and access large files on the go.

Yet, many sometimes need help when choosing between NAS systems and external hard drives. You’ve arrived at the right place if you fall into this category. We've tested the best NAS drives, NAS devices, and external hard drives.

So, I’ve written this guide explaining what you should know about NAS systems and external hard drives before deciding.

NAS vs. External Hard Drive: Design

Network-attached storage (NAS) utilizes hardware, software, and data transfer protocols to let users share files over a network. It uses a NAS box that houses storage disks, processors, and a random access memory (RAM) unit. This box has specialized software to manage file storage and user access.

NAS boxes can connect to a network and let users share files seamlessly. Suppose you work in a company with 50 staff. All 50 staff can connect to a single NAS box to access organizational files. Think of the NAS system as an online tree where everyone can pluck information. It provides an easy way to share massive files between employees.

In contrast, external hard drives are standalone devices that transfer files over USB ports rather than a network. Every file is stored locally, and the hard drive must be plugged into the PC that wants to retrieve information from it.

NAS systems offer substantially more storage space than external hard drives. You can always expand the storage capacity of your NAS system by adding more drives, unlike external hard drives with fixed storage capacities.

External hard drives are portable and easy to move. Employees can quickly pass them around to retrieve relevant files, but this process gets cumbersome for large workforces. Picture a 100+ workforce sharing a single external hard drive; that’s inefficient and weakens productivity.

In contrast, you can keep a NAS box stationary, and employees can connect to this box from their respective PCs. Everyone can access files seamlessly without looking for hard drives to plug into their PC. A NAS system is the most convenient option for businesses that can afford it.

NAS vs. External Hard Drive: Price

NAS systems are more expensive than external hard drives, expectedly, because they use more sophisticated components. A NAS system includes a storage box, networking components, and a processor to run the software.

In contrast, an external hard drive’s main component is a simple magnetic disk (platter) that stores data. NAS systems are more expensive to produce.

A 4 TB external hard drive costs an average of $90. Meanwhile, a 4 TB NAS system costs upwards of $200. It gets costlier when more drives are added to the existing setup. When weighing both, expect to spend more on a NAS system, but the trade-off is bigger storage capacity and the convenience of accessing files.

NAS vs. External Hard Drive: Speed

NAS systems offer excellent speed, although they depend on bandwidth. Consumer-level NAS devices have average data transfer speeds of 3 to 20 MB per second (Mbps), but high-level NAS devices can reach 100 to 200 Mbps. Because they depend on network bandwidth, data transfer speeds can be slow when many people connect to the same NAS box.

External hard drives transfer data via USB ports. Data transfer speeds depend on the USB version of your external hard drive. USB 1 offers up to 12 Mbps, USB 2 offers up to 480 Mbps, USB 3 reaches up to 5 Gbps, and USB 4 has a maximum speed of 40 Gbps.

Some NAS systems offer gigabit speeds (over Ethernet cables) comparable to USB. On average, USB systems have faster data transfer speeds. However, I think this shouldn’t matter much because most users don’t transfer files at gigabit speeds. Both NAS and hard drives are sufficient for everyday use.

NAS vs. External Hard Drive: Backup and Redundancy

Many NAS systems have built-in data backup features. For instance, you can back up a Synology DS923+ NAS to Google Drive. You can schedule automatic backups, wherein all data stored on the Synology NAS box will be uploaded to Google Drive daily, weekly, or monthly. Automated backups keep your data safe even if the NAS device fails.

In contrast, external hard drives don’t have built-in backup software. To back up files, you need to manually connect the drive to a PC, which is cumbersome. People often forget to do manual backups, but automated NAS backups solve this issue. Your data is safer on a NAS than on a hard drive.

NAS vs. External Hard Drive: Verdict

NAS systems offer much larger storage and are expandable. They offer a more convenient way to access data, making it the best choice for enterprises. NAS systems cost more than external hard drives, but the higher cost is worth the convenience for business users.

External hard drives are ideal for casual users who frequently transfer files between PCs. They handle large file transfers without issues, although the process isn’t as smooth as using a NAS system. I think the hassle and expense of setting up a NAS system aren’t worth it for casual users.

For more options, we've tested the best hard drives.

Customer support is essential to building a successful business, and software plays a central role in your support operations. Customer support software makes it easy to track customers’ inquiries and respond to them promptly.

Some support requests can be complicated and require many back-and-forth interactions to resolve. Support software ensures your team keeps up with these requests and solves customers’ issues, no matter how tough.

Given its crucial role in your business, customer support software isn’t something to choose lightly. You need to carefully consider the best software, depending on your business type, size, and the complexity of the support requests you handle.

This guide explains what customer support software is, how it works, the key features to look out for, and the core considerations for selecting the best software.

What is customer support software?

Customer support software is the digital tool your business uses to receive, organize, and respond to customer requests.

Think of it as a mail sorting system for your customer inquiries. When a customer sends a request, it’ll be immediately logged into your support system and categorized based on the details. Then, it can be assigned to a specific team or team member based on predefined settings.

Suppose you run an electronics store. Customers would send various types of inquiries, including hardware malfunctions, price requests, setup guidance, and item returns. Handling these requests can be hectic, but support platforms make the process efficient for your team.

When someone sends an inquiry, it can be automatically classified based on what they’ve sent. Then, their inquiry can be assigned to a staff or team dedicated to it. For instance, hardware malfunction inquiries can be routed to an in-house expert who handles them.

Support software enables you to aggregate inquiries from various platforms into a single dashboard. Requests sent via email, social media, and online forms can be received and sorted in one place, making the process efficient.

Key features of customer support software

Customer support tools have crucial features that help businesses process inquiries swiftly and keep customers happy. These features include:

Ticket management

The foundation of a support platform is converting customer inquiries into trackable tickets. Every customer inquiry will be converted into a manageable ticket and assigned to the right agent or team, ensuring it isn't lost. Assigning tickets to agents can be done automatically or manually.

This ticketing system should have status updates (“In Progress,” “In Review,” “Closed,” etc.) to keep all team members updated. This way, another support agent can easily continue where their colleague left off with the inquiry. There should also be internal notes for agents to add context to inquiries, helping colleagues understand the nature of the issue.

Knowledge Base

Many customers prefer to resolve issues themselves and only seek help when they are unable to do so personally. Hence, you should offer them a Knowledge Base filled with tutorials, user guides, and answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs).

Advanced support platforms usually have a content management system (CMS) that simplifies Knowledge Base creation. They have professional templates that help you create detailed and simple user guides.

Customers aren’t the only ones who benefit from a Knowledge Base. It also makes your support operations more efficient, as agents can direct customers to specific documents instead of having to repeatedly explain the same steps to different customers.

Live chat

Customers often want speedy answers to their problems. Hence, businesses offer live chat support to deliver speedy resolutions. Customer support platforms provide the infrastructure for seamless live chat between customers and your support agents.

When a customer initiates a live chat request, an available agent can be immediately alerted to respond. After the chat, customers can receive an automated survey to evaluate their support experience.

The most advanced customer support tools incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots for live chat. These chatbots can respond to mundane requests based on preset commands, freeing up time for your support team to focus on more complex inquiries.

Note that chatbots aren’t a replacement for your support team. Instead, they augment your support agents’ efforts for better productivity.

Security

Support inquiries often involve customers handing over sensitive data that must be protected. Customer support platforms utilize advanced encryption protocols to prevent unauthorized access to data.

Your platform should have role-based control, wherein the administrator decides which data support agents can see or not. For example, you can allow only your finance support team to monitor customers’ transactions, while other teams can’t access this data.

Support platforms keep audit logs for every agent’s interaction with customer data. This way, any leaks can be traced and rectified.

Factors to consider when choosing customer support software

1. Scalability

You likely desire your business to grow over time. Thus, you need software that can scale without causing problems– this factor might seem trivial, but it’s the difference between success and defeat for your support team.

You should be able to add new agents to your support system and have things run smoothly. As your customer base grows, the volume of requests also grows. Hence, your platform should make it easy to upgrade to a higher plan as requests grow.

Most support platforms are cloud-based, so scalability is not much of a concern for businesses. These platforms are often priced per seat, wherein you pay a monthly or annual fee for each support agent in your company. If you hire more support agents, you can create new accounts for them and integrate their work with the existing team.

2. Ease of use

Agents spend all working hours on your support platform. A complex interface can make their work much more difficult and dampen productivity. You need a support platform with an intuitive, easily navigable interface. It should be simple enough for a support agent to master within a short period.

Support platforms offer free trials, so always take advantage of them to test the interface before making a final decision. If it’s overtly difficult for IT administrators to navigate, it’ll be even more difficult for less tech-savvy support agents.

You can run trials with your support team and get their honest opinion – they’re the ones who will spend most time on the software, after all. If their opinions are overwhelmingly negative, it’s a signal to find an alternative platform that won’t cause headaches in the long run.

3. Pricing

Support software is available in all price ranges, from affordable tools priced per agent to custom solutions tailored for large enterprises. You should find one that suits your price point and needs.

Selecting support software involves striking a balance between pricing and the features you desire. Find one that fits within your budget, but remember that the cheapest solution isn’t always the best. Compare prices between different competitors and ensure you get the best deal.

Support platforms for small to medium-sized businesses are priced monthly or annually, based on the number of support agents. Some charge fixed monthly or annual fees per agent, e.g., $10 per agent per month. Others offer monthly packages for a specific number of agents, such as $500 per month for 75 agents.

Platforms designed for large enterprises offer custom pricing. If you represent a large company, you can negotiate directly with the platform’s sales team and snag the best deal.

As mentioned, you should take advantage of free trials to test a support tool before making your final decision. Support platforms usually offer a refund window, ranging from 30 to 60 days, but it’s better to avoid paying for something you don’t like and going through the stress of requesting a refund.

4. Security features

We’ve mentioned security being a core feature of a support platform. Before selecting a support tool, research its security features, including encryption protocols, access controls, backup policies, and compliance with industry standards.

Read reviews and online articles to evaluate a platform’s security history. Your support tool shouldn’t have a history of lax security practices or data breaches.

You also play a major role in keeping your support platform secure. Train support employees on standard security practices, enable multi-factor authentication for all accounts, implement robust access controls, conduct regular security audits, and have a firm plan to respond to security incidents.

5. Support quality

Ironically, a customer support software provider needs to offer excellent support. You should be able to contact them via email, live chat, or telephone and get swift answers.

Support isn’t only about quick responses – the support team should be knowledgeable and willing to help you resolve issues. Often, businesses need help in the initial setup, and the team should be prepared to provide guidance.

You should have access to detailed documentation and a Knowledge Base. When facing issues, you can first consult the Knowledge Base before seeking direct support if that isn’t enough. The free trial presents the best opportunity to test a platform’s support resources before making your final decision.

6. Automation & AI functionalities

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a nascent technology, yet it has made a dent in many software niches, including customer support. You need AI features that help boost your support team’s productivity– not having these features puts you at a competitive disadvantage.

For example, support tools can utilize AI to generate summaries of customer inquiries. Summarizing lengthy tickets saves support agents a considerable amount of time.

Your platform can also use AI to analyze support requests and automatically route them to the relevant agent or team. Likewise, AI can draft responses to mundane customer inquiries, and support agents can make the final edits, saving them time and effort.

AI is a force multiplier for your customer support team, not something you should depend on entirely. Customers can get annoyed if they are mostly directed to chatbots instead of human help.

The idea is to use chatbots to resolve simple inquiries, such as order tracking for an e-commerce business, while support agents focus on more challenging problems.

7. Omnichannel support

Omnichannel support involves managing and responding to customer requests across multiple channels, including social media, email, phone, SMS, and web forms. The best businesses offer omnichannel support to keep customers engaged regardless of how they contact their support team for inquiries. Hence, omnichannel integration should be a core consideration when selecting support software.

Your platform should provide a unified view of all customer inquiries, regardless of the channel from which they originated. This way, agents can view the full history of every request and respond to them from a single dashboard, rather than juggling different tools, which can sap productivity.

While you manage responses from multiple channels, you should be able to measure performance for each channel. For example, you can compare the average ticket resolution times for email requests, live chat, and telephone. This comparison tells you which channel support agents are most productive with, and you can dedicate more resources to that channel.

Final words

Customer support software can make or break a business. Making the right choice helps you build long-term trust and customer loyalty. We’ve explained the core features of a customer support tool and the factors to consider when choosing one. Follow these guidelines to select the best tool for your business and enhance your bottom line.

For more ways to improve support, we've tested the best help desk software, the best call center software, and the best CRM tools.

Having been at Nvidia's RTX Spark event in San Francisco earlier this month, I was lucky enough to get a firsthand walk through of the many things the 'superchip' can do. Since then I've spent almost every waking moment putting the ARM-based RTX Spark through its paces and seeing what makes it so different from other chipsets that have come before.

The RTX Spark is Nvidia’s first System on a Chip (SoC). Combining an 18-core CPU and 5120 Cuda core Blackwell RTX GPU all in one, or a 20-core CPU and 6144-core GPU for its meatier version, it offers an integrated chipset in the vein of Apple’s M series chips. While Apple’s silicon is known for its oomph, that Blackwell RTX GPU means you’ll also get considerable gaming performance here to boot.

How does this translate in terms of raw numbers? It’s certainly got a lot going on under the hood, as the RTX Spark N1X chip I’ve been playing around with squeezes 20 cores into its CPU. While the 2,623 single-core performance I clocked on Geekbench 7.1 falls somewhat short of the 4,288 we got for Apple’s M5 chip, its 21,899 multi-core score massively outstripped the latter’s 17,926. That means that for tasks like content creation, software development and AI, you should be able to expect more oomph in your corner.

So given the potential it promises across agentic AI, creative workflows and gaming, let’s take a look at how it performs across each of those areas in turn.

Hybrid agentic AI

During the launch of Nvidia’s RTX Spark SoC, there was a huge focus on its potential for hybrid agentic AI. Now, cloud-based AI models are undoubtedly pretty powerful but I absolutely have security concerns about uploading my most private data to the cloud and I’m not entirely sure I want to blindly trust the companies behind some of these models.

Using local, open-source models that I can vet myself and that never transmit sensitive data outside of my network feels like a much safer alternative — but not everybody necessarily wants to cut themselves off from the power of frontier models. That’s why Nvidia has introduced a hybrid-system for the RTX Spark instead.

Instead, the hybrid-workflow that the RTX Spark supports allows you to select your choice of local models and ring-fence them for certain parts of an agentic workflow, while outsourcing specific, demanding tasks to cloud frontier models. As a result, users should be able to take a far more granular approach, deciding exactly how much they want to rely on public vs private models.

For people who like to vibe-code complex products or are generating demanding 3D scenes, not being forced to choose between binary security options of a lax, YOLO approach and a full-blown lockdown will likely be a valuable tool.

So now that I’ve spent some hands-on time with the RTX Spark, how has its agentic performance delivered on these promises? To get a broad picture of I ran the MLPerf Client benchmark to simulate data analyst and SWE agentic workflows using the Qwen 3 8B local model, with each run hitting an average duration of 63.7 and 50.8 seconds and processing up to 14,005 and 10,238 tokens respectively.

I also benchmarked some generative image and video workflows using ComfyUI. When testing workflows using Flux2.Dev (NVFP4 and Flux2.Klein 4B Base) NVFP4 models for image generation, it took 46.5 and 16.2 seconds to generate respectively, while the LTX 2.5 (Distilled) NVFP4 model took 88 seconds. That’s broadly in line with what Nvidia has been promising and shows how rapidly the RTX Spark can generate media using local models.

Raw data will only tell you so much though. That’s why I spent days training my own AI agent using Hermes and the Qwen3.8 27B open-source local model to see what the RTX Spark could do.

Certainly, it seems to have absolutely ripped through some tasks on its Extra High setting. Feeding it some analytics data in CSV form, I asked it to tidy up the spreadsheet, analyze the data and present its key findings and after 12 minutes of pondering and tweaking, it happily spat out a pivot table and some observations on the data. While I wasn’t hugely surprised by any of its conclusions, I’ve spent months poring through this data and the fact it could identify the most essential points without any of my secure information leaving the laptop was pretty impressive.

Some experiments I conducted involved a little more patience and tweaking of the agent’s workflow to get the best results though. The first time I asked my Hermes agent to connect to my online email client and provide a digest of the day’s emails, it spent 75 minutes trying various methods to exchange tokens with Outlook’s online client, before crashing unexpectedly. However, the second time I played a slightly more active role, providing it feedback when I felt it was drifting or had come up against hurdles and it successfully set up the brief in 70 minutes.

So with some patience and judicious prompting, you can definitely get some good results utilizing a local model. Additionally, you don’t have to go through this full process every time — ask Hermes to save something as a skill and it will automate this process in future or even schedule it as a recurring Cron Job. You can even ask it to work out ways to improve the efficiency of existing skills, meaning it should be easier to minimize the run time and resources they require in future.

Creative workflows

You’d be forgiven for thinking this means the RTX Spark laptops are predominantly focused on AI tools. But that couldn’t be further from the case: while a lot of the press surrounding the chip has been on its agentic AI tools, this really isn’t the sole string to its bow.

As you can tell from the fact that the RTX Spark is used in the latest Asus ProArt P16, creative work is a big focus for the new SoC. Even if you’re not interested in the power it offers for generative AI, the sheer number of RTX-compatible creative apps out there, whether that’s Blender, Adobe Creative Suite, Canva or Unity shows how many creative giants are throwing their weight behind the new SoC.

Eager to test how well the RTX Spark handles creative work, I used Puget Bench to automate a range of tasks in Photoshop and Premiere Pro. PugetBench’s standard Photoshop workflow took 10.83 minutes and netted a score of 11,801, while its standard Premiere Pro pipeline took 8.12 minutes and achieved a score of 76,234, putting it firmly in the range of a true creative workstation. That means it sits in the rough region of Apple’s M5 chip, which scored 13,755 and 69,887 respectively, besting it on complicated video work but not quite equaling it for still imagery.

For those who use generative AI in their work, I also benchmarked some generative image and video workflows using ComfyUI. When testing workflows using Flux2.Dev (NVFP4 and Flux2.Klein 4B Base) NVFP4 models for image generation, it took 46.5 and 16.2 seconds to generate respectively, while the LTX 2.5 (Distilled) NVFP4 model took 88 seconds. That’s broadly in line with what Nvidia has been promising and shows how rapidly the RTX Spark can generate media using local models.

While I’m neither an aspiring cinematographer or a budding Blender artist, I’ve spent decades tinkering with static images so I dug out an old 4K, 300dpi Photoshop file. It was already pretty huge as it featured lots of hi-res layers, clipping masks and adjustment layers but I tripled the number of layers for good measure and added a bunch of filters and effects. Processing time remained less than a second and even halving the image size only took about five, which is pretty impressive given the sheer number of layers and groups I was working with.

And the RTX Spark should even be able to speed up these applications’ built-in AI tools, thanks to the recently announced collaboration between Nvidia and Adobe. Optimizing the apps to take full advantage of the chip’s GPU, Adobe promises that RTX Spark laptops offer 2x AI processing, editing, color and effects. That’s a real advantage for anyone that uses these AI tools as part of their workflow.

Gaming performance

Given Nvidia’s history, gaming is naturally also a big focus for the RTX Spark chipset. As most games run on x86 architecture, SoCs haven’t been the most natural home for gaming in the past. However, Nvidia’s stature in this space means plenty of developers launched RTX Spark native versions of their games when the chip was launched on October 16, including Cyberpunk 2077, Doom: The Dark Ages, and 007 First Light — while the Call of Duty series is due to land in 2027. And for those that aren’t yet compatible, Prism emulation will mean you’ll be able to run many titles with only a slight impact on your CPU performance.

When it comes to gaming performance, the RTX Spark is certainly no slouch. It netted a 3DMark Port Royal score of 8,133, Steel Nomad score of 2,846 and a Speed Way score of 2,872. That’s a touch below Asus Zephyrus G14 with Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti’s respective 10,119, 3,488 and 4,031 scores. But it’s considerably better performance than you’d get out of most laptops with an integrated GPU such as the pre-RTX-Spark Dell XPS 16, which secured values of 3,888, 1,488, and 916.

But while these simulated benchmarks are helpful for getting a broad view of gaming performance, in-game benchmarks are the best way of gaining real insight into how actual titles perform. While testing the RTX Spark, Cyberpunk 2077 delivered a stable 30.16fps at 1080p on Raytracing: Ultra settings and Doom: The Dark Ages averaged out at 48.58fps at 1080p — very similar to the 32.33fps and 55.63fps we got out of the Asus TUF Gaming A14 with Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060.

Nothing compares to actually trying out games first hand though, so I fired up a few of my favorites and tried them out. Cyberpunk 2077 honestly felt pretty playable even using the above Raytracing Ultra setting and once I’d switched down to Ray-tracing Medium, it ran at a wonderfully fluid 60fps.

Meanwhile, running Gears of War: E-Day at Ultra settings felt as smooth as tahini drizzled over a marble countertop. As I crunched through waves of the Horde, there wasn’t any noticeable slowdown even at Ultra settings, with the action never dipping below a seriously fluid 115fps. So it might not match the RTX 5090 for sheer power but anyone barring elite gamers will find a lot to like here still.

So even though it’s naturally not at the level of dedicated gaming laptops like the MSI Vector A18 HX A9W, I’m still pretty impressed with gaming on the RTX Spark chip. And that only becomes more pronounced when you compare it to similar lightweight SoC systems. While the MacBook Pro M5 is similarly impressive in terms of creative performance, it was barely able to scrap 11.5fps in Cyberpunk 2077 on Raytracing: Ultra settings.

As a result, if you’re looking for a chipset that will give you not just great performance in one specific task but great performance across everything you do, the RTX Spark has proven it will be a solid choice.

As more and more companies press their workers into coming back into the office, even if only for a few days in increasingly popular hybrid working models, the need for effective and reliable communication technology has never been greater.

A common sight in offices and homes across the world, Logitech is ideally placed to monitor trends in what workers at every level require - and at its recent Logi Work 2026 event, it took the opportunity to show off how its latest suite of releases can revolutionize the collaboration experience for all.

To find out more, I spoke to Henry Levak, VP and general manager, Logitech, to see what it sees as the future of meeting rooms, offices, and even the humble home working desk.

Broad portfolio paying off

“We want people to think of us as that simple and flexible partner - the word 'proprietary' and being locked in is luckily something we're moving away from,” Levak tells me.

“The reality is that you will have a world of different configurations,” he notes, highlighting how many of Logitech’s customers are asking workers to come back into the office, meaning the company needs to broaden its offerings even further.

“That's been a huge catalyst for our success,” he notes, “we have an incredibly broad portfolio that covers people working from home, to people working in the boardroom, and everything in between.”

At the event, Levak had spoken about the upcoming launch of Logitech’s new portfolio, which the company had described as its biggest enterprise-focused launch in years.

The new lineup, which includes the Rally Bar 2, Rally System 2 Pro and Sound Shape technology, will revolutionize the way businesses of all sizes collaborate and communicate, with not only more powerful, but more customizable technology being the watchword.

For example, the new Rally Bar 2, the successor to the popular sound bar now seen in boardrooms and meeting spaces across the globe, not only features a Qualcomm Dragonwing chip to allow for better AI processing, but offers a 115 degree POV and much easier wall mounting due to its smaller form factor

The Rally System 2 Pro provides a “modular yet streamlined” offering which looks to simplify complex installs which can be difficult to maintain and manage - making larger rooms better spaces to have these vital meetings in.

In spite of its new range of releases, Logitech had spoken about its goal to “simplify everything” - so I ask Levak how the company can pursue that goal while still offering a range of products attractive to all different kinds of customers.

“It's a big pain point,” he says, “one of the things you can almost always predict is that simplifying will be a request...people want things to be dramatically simpler - but they also want consistency and experience.”

“What they don't want, is that if you walk into a room, like a smaller space with some sort of AI features and capability - and then you walk into a larger room, and for some reason that space doesn't have that feature.”

“The technology should just disappear and blend away into the background, and everyone should just focus on collaboration and creation, not necessarily the technology - and the only way to achieve that is if you have consistent technology.”

Simplify, simplify

Going forward, this will mean that even in a large room or meeting space, customers will only require a small simple device such as a video bar set up, Levak says, removing unnecessary friction and allowing everyone to work effectively.

“The way you simplify it is by dramatically reducing the number of components,” he points out, “what we're doing is something that dramatically simplifies all of that, from installation, provisioning, setup and deployment - it's a reduction in terms of complexity of what's out there today.”

“In terms of what it can bring, it's the first time modern AI is available in much larger rooms - now you have a full ecosystem of components that will deliver that experience.”

Looking forward, Levak is keen to point out the role AI can play in spaces as incongruous as meeting rooms.

With AI agents playing an increasingly important role for many workers, the need for context has never been greater. Such information needs to be collected by a range of sensors, and Logitech feels that products such as microphones and cameras could play a key role in expanding this - as long as effective privacy controls are used - making its equipment the physical layer of a company’s AI ecosystem.

“You can see the power when (an AI agent) has context about you, and the same thing will apply at work,” Levak says, “at a higher level, we’re deploying these sensors in every space, so that the context you need in order to build out a more thoughtful agent for you.”

“We're making sure the products are built for what's coming next,” he concludes, “both from the simplicity and elegance perspective, but also from features and capability.”

Nvidia's RTX Spark laptops hit the shelves last week, led by Microsoft's Surface Laptop Ultra, and the chip supports up to 128GB of memory.

This laptop starts at $2,599.99, but does its performance justify the price tag?

I took a look at some of the earliest in-depth reviews of the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra to ascertain what this device offers and whether it is worth every penny.

What reviews say

The prowess of the RTX Spark laptop was acknowledged, but all the reviews agreed on one thing: it’s not foolproof and has some downsides.

“It's a beast, but not at everything,” said Zac Bowden of Windows Central, while Tom's Guide went further, calling it “not a MacBook Pro killer but something much weirder and wildly powerful.”

The praise is concentrated in one area: local AI models. Every outlet that tested them put the Surface ahead of Apple's M5 Max and AMD's Ryzen AI Max+ 395, the most powerful mobile chips for laptops.

Its gaming performance, however, did not exactly get much praise – while some said it is just okay, others think it’s a weak spot.

Price

Cost is the sticking point for RTX Spark. Microsoft's Surface Laptop Ultra starts at $2,599.99 for the 18-core model with 24GB of memory and 512GB of storage.

The 20-core, 128GB, 1TB configuration tops out at $5,899.99, and the lead times on this model already stretch to late December.

The jump is steepest where the platform is strongest. The 64GB to 96GB of GPU-accessible memory that lets 35B-parameter models run well only comes with the 128GB build, and a 32GB or 48GB Surface won't fit the same models.

Tom’s Hardware warns that “sky-high DRAM and NAND price hikes” will be a headwind for the platform in the near term. That is a lot to spend, and you need a local AI workload to justify it.

The biggest challenge is the “eye-watering price tags,” since that money still buys “a lot” of cloud tokens from OpenAI and Anthropic, as Tom's Hardware puts it.

As Windows Central notes, comparable devices offer just enough and cost less.

CPU

Multi-core speed is the strength, and single-core speed is the weakness.

The 20-core N1X pairs 10 performance cores with 10 efficiency cores, targeting heavy multi-threaded work.

In single-core tests, it was found to “edge” the Dell Pro Precision 5 16S, scoring 558.5 against 534.8 in Cinebench 2026.

But across the wider suite, single-thread results, StorageReview says it “sit 15 to 30 percent behind the x64 field,” which is “just okay.”

Moving to multi-core, the Surface is an absolute "beast", finishing “34 percent ahead of the Razer Blade 16.”

Compared with Apple, however, it “simply doesn’t compete with Apple’s latest Max chips,” consistently trailing the M4 Max and M3 Ultra.

Under a heavy all-core CPU workload (an OpenBLAS double-precision solve), this device lost power repeatedly, though most buyers will never run anything like it.

On real-world work, it “won nearly every multi-threaded CPU test,” compiling LLVM in 206 seconds against 327 for the next-fastest system.

But there are weak spots: its Arm64 SVT-AV1 encoding managed about “a fifth” of what the x64 systems produced, and memory latency of 251 ns was the “worst in the group.”

That’s not to say it’s slow. Day-to-day use “feels fine,” and even emulated apps feel native. But for single-threaded, browser-bound work, “the x64 field is likely the better buy.”

GPU

The 6,144-core Blackwell GPU is the real engine of the chip, with 5th-generation Tensor Cores built for AI workloads and up to 96GB of memory to draw on.

In local AI tests, it was “the fastest overall” at agentic tasks, finishing about 25% quicker than the M5 Max MacBook Pro.

In Stable Diffusion 1.5 INT8, it scored 11,294 and “substantially outperformed” the RTX 5080, 5070 Ti and 5060.

However, for models that fit in 24GB, the Razer Blade 16’s RTX 5090 generates tokens “2.3x faster,” and video rendering trails even the RTX 5060.

Gaming is a secondary strength. Performance is “similar to an RTX 4070 or 5060,” and Cyberpunk 2077 held 60fps at 1440p with frame generation.

But shared memory bandwidth and input latency are limited. Its shared memory bandwidth hit 300GB/s, below the 384GB/s on a mobile RTX 5060.

Gears of War: E-Day averaged 77.7 fps with 1% lows of 39.9 fps and 83.5 ms of latency. Control Resonant reached 109.2 fps, but only with 3X frame generation.

If AI is not your thing and you need low latency and top performance, “a separate gaming laptop with a dedicated RTX 50-series GPU will still provide a superior experience.”

AI

Nothing else in a laptop gives a GPU this much room to work with. The RTX Spark pairs its Blackwell GPU with up to 128GB of unified memory, and 64GB of it, adjustable up to 96GB, can go straight to the GPU.

That is “more than any NVIDIA laptop GPU before it,” and it is what lets 35B-parameter models run at up to 89 tokens per second. Models up to 120B parameters can fit entirely on the GPU.

In agentic tests it was “the fastest overall,” finishing about 25% quicker than the M5 Max MacBook Pro and in roughly half the time of the Ryzen AI Max+ 395.

Quantized models are where it truly leads, with Stable Diffusion 1.5 INT8 scoring 11,294 and “substantially outperforming” the RTX 5080, 5070 Ti and 5060.

It also makes local agents practical. Hermes Agent organized a cluttered downloads folder and built a website without sending any data to the cloud, so “you are no longer constrained by usage limits.”

That’s not to say it beats everything. For models that fit in 24GB, the Razer Blade 16’s RTX 5090 generates tokens “2.3x faster.”

Still, for those running models locally all day, it is “king”.

This, then, is a machine for the local AI believer, built for privacy, offline use and tinkering.

Who should buy it

Nvidia has built a compelling workstation for certain AI workloads, although conventional laptop buyers have several reasons to remain cautious.

Developers and analysts running 20B to 35B models locally are the clear audience.

Gamers, browser-heavy users, and anyone whose models fit in 24GB are better served by a laptop with a dedicated GPU.

Verdict

The good

· Strong multi-threaded CPU

· Up to 96GB of GPU memory runs 35B models at up to 89 tokens per second

· Fastest in agentic AI tests

The bad

· Expensive, from $2,599.99 to $5,899.99

· Weak single-thread speed and high memory latency

· Gaming is only decent, with high input latency

The verdict

Grab it if local models above 24GB are your daily work. Opt for a dedicated-GPU laptop for everything else. Avoid it if gaming is your focus.

As excitement around AI continues to build among businesses of all sizes, many leading voices are urging caution for those who might scale too quickly.

At its recent Think EMEA event in London, IBM revealed research which claimed efforts to stay aware of potential risks and challenges posed by AI deployment and scaling are falling somewhat short of expectations.

So what can companies do in order to balance the hype and excitement around what AI can offer, with the need for sensible and thorough governance.

AI as the enabler

"What we are seeing is that if you don't provide an answer to security, to accountability, to responsibility, it is going to be very hard to scale AI in the corporate environment - particularly when we're talking about highly regulated industries - so for us, it's more of an enabler, than something that is going to slow down the adoption,” Ana Paula Assis, Senior Vice President and Chair for IBM EMEA and APAC told us in response to that very question during a media Q&A at the event.

“The question here is really, how do you balance the speed of innovation with the implementation of governance?”

IBM recently released research on the current state of AI and governance, finding that 80% of the companies surveyed claimed that an AI incident had been escalated to board level. However only 40% of those had then been able to use the incident to secure new investment in governance, or cement a new policy.

“I think the reason for that is because it's very hard to balance that innovation with the application of tools, processes, methodologies, to ensure that you are deploying AI at scale in a safe way,” Assis continued.

IBM is reportedly well placed to discuss such growth and progress with AI, with the company’s earlier keynote at Think EMEA claiming it had seen savings of around $5.5 billion in terms of improved productivity and efficiency utilizing AI to improve core processes - money that it was able to redirect to areas including R&D and innovation.

“But we are seeing this as an enabler, and as a key component of the architecture for agentic AI going forward, because these companies have tremendous responsibility - they need to ensure that they have trust from their clients, and they will only be able to do that if they have AI that they can observe and that they can govern.”

“AI is no longer just supporting the business,” Assis said. “It has become the business model. The organizations pulling ahead are not just adding AI, but rethinking how systems, decisions and processes work together with AI.”

As a big 4K Blu-ray fan, it was a delight to visit the team at Silver Salt restoration several weeks ago, where I learned about the 4K Blu-ray restoration and HDR mastering process. I looked at the meticulous restoration work that goes into taking a film from its negatives, all the way to the finished product we collectors have stuffing our shelves.

During my visit, I got to speak to the team and hear their in-depth knowledge and expertise, and while we discuss plenty of movies and projects Silver Salt had worked on, the main movie I was there to discuss was the 1958 Hammer classic Dracula (known as Horror of Dracula in the US) starring Christopher Lee as the titular vampire, with Peter Cushing as Van Helsing.

Arguably Hammer’s most iconic movie and easily one of Silver Salt’s biggest projects, I saw a glimpse into the work being done to bring this classic flick to new life.

A painstaking restoration

For a more in-depth look at the initial stages before the restoration process (table inspection, cleaning and scanning) check out my previous article here. Once the digital files have been scanned in, these DPX files are handed over to the restoration artists, who must then go through the painstaking process of removing excess dirt, tidying up film grain (but not too much) and a general maintenance and tidy on each individual frame.

After being shown some of the work that goes into this restoration process on other titles (which you can again read about in my previous article) I speak with Paul Gowlett, the Project Lead for Hammer at Silver Salt Restoration. He’s overseeing Dracula and gives me a glimpse into the work that’s gone into revitalising this Hammer classic.

One particularly arduous process he shows me involves the movie’s opening sequence (a shot of the exterior of the castle, walking amongst some tombstones). During this shot, which lasts approximately 90 seconds, Gowlett points to the bottom of his monitor and points out a hair.

“It was part of the original presentation of the film, but was a production issue of the cleaning the camera gate, it is not intentional” he tells me. This brings me back to an earlier conversation I’d had with Anthony Badger, Head of Restoration at Silver Salt. He said “It can be a bit of an ethical dilemma on how much we intervene, but we need to consider if an extreme problem will take you out of the story.” Although the hair was part of the ‘original film’ it could serve as a distraction.

A shot of Christopher Lee as Dracula, with the original file on the left and the remaster on the right, the latter of which shows much more color and depth

Original raw file

Remastered

Gowlett informed me that each individual digital frame had to be checked for this hair. Each frame was removed digitally by using information from frames from later on in the shot, leading to the final image. The final result: a staggering 2000 frames. When I asked Gowlett how long it had taken him to remove this hair, he said several days. All for 90 seconds of footage. It was just a clear indication of how much work had gone into this project.

The other issue the team found with the original film (which was prevalent in the digital files) was a heavy amount of yellow staining. This yellow staining was only apparent when isolating the ‘blue channel of the image’ in the restoration process. Along with the hair and this staining, the team also made sure to ‘de-flicker’ the image to make the colours more stable throughout.

A stunning grade and updated soundtrack

Once the restoration work is complete, the files are handed over for grading. Dracula is being handled by Ray King, Head of Film at Silver Salt, while also being overseen by Mark Stanborough, Head of Restoration, Hammer Films, but during my visit, it’s Ray’s grading I’m seeing in action.

King has worked on most, if not all, of the Hammer titles handled by Silver Salt. He shows me how Peter Cushing’s skin tone has taken on a red tint after applying the HDR grade, saying how it’s the old stage makeup used during these sorts of productions being picked up during the grade. With some alterations, the result looks natural and lifelike, breathing new life into all characters in the clips I saw.

I’m also shown the opening title sequence again, only this time with the blood-red ‘Dracula’ text overlaid. To get this, King had to separate out the picture and the words into two separate layers, to get that blood-red color on the words themselves. He told me the color of the titles had faded, so he separated the layers and grades here to get the colors worthy of the words.

Color fade was an issue with the original raw files, but the HDR remastered grade revistlized these colors

Original raw file

Remastered

Color fade was also true of the original elements that had been scanned in. A lot of the beautiful, bold colors weren’t popping as much and after showing me the red, green and blue waveforms, which highlighted the colors' degradation, he then showed me the picture after the grade had been applied. The difference was staggering.

The ornate furnishings, particularly a set of lush, velvet red curtains, now dazzled thanks to HDR. Instances of blood popped on screen and even clothing had a more dynamic, modern-day look to them. Again though, it was the skin tones of the people on screen that really impressed me, as this seemed to give the movie an almost-modern look. “Once we’re done, some of these movies like they could have been filmed last week” King says, rightfully admiring the HDR grade before us.

Even darker scenes have been given a facelift. Black tones are richer, deeper and, when paired with candlelight or lamps, create strong contrast that would look superb on some of the best OLED TVs. The grade in every clip I’m shown is nothing short of masterful and having tested multiple Hammer titles as part of the Blu-ray Bounty, Dracula is set to be the best.

I discussed with Stanborough later on about the new 5.1 soundtrack, something that’s been included with those other Hammer titles I tested. Stanborough talked to me about the process.

To achieve the 5.1 surround, AI was used to split the dialogue and music tracks before being mixed in a studio. “60-70% of the film is in surround, which is quite nice” but he also stressed the importance of “trying not to go too far and staying sympathetic to the original theatrical experience”.

When the movie returns to cinemas on 16th October (on a two week run until 1st November), viewers will experience the 5.1 soundtrack and HDR grade. The 4K disc lands on 23rd November, but whether you can get along to a cinema screening or are getting the 4K disc for your collection, after what I’ve seen and heard, fans will be in for a treat.

Dracula is in UK cinemas now, with the 4K UHD Limited Edition and Standard Editions arriving 23rd November. Check here for your nearest screenings.

Apple’s new AI-powered home hub, the HomeView, is officially shipping on November 13. Featuring a 7-inch touchscreen, and coming in wall-mounted or tabletop versions, the new must-have Apple device seems a snip at just $299 / £299 / AU$449 — but that price doesn't reflect the true cost of accessing its best features.

One of the things that really makes the HomeView unique is that it recognizes your face, then adapts its display so you see your personal content in apps like Messages, FaceTime, Calendar, Reminders, and Find My. It’s a great feature, because having to keep logging in manually all the time would be a real time-consuming turn-off for a device that’s used by all the family.

But a note on the Apple newsrooms page about HomeView says “Apple HomeView setup and multiuser support require a compatible iPhone or iPad running the latest software.” It goes on to say that “Personal Context requests require a paired Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone or iPad running the latest software version with Siri AI turned on and set to a supported language.”

You need a modern iPhone or iPad

Apple’s wording features two overlapping statements. A compatible iPhone or iPad is required to set up the HomeView, but one that runs Apple Intelligence is required for Personal Context requests. In practical terms, you need an iPhone 15 Pro, any iPhone 16 or newer model, an A17 Pro iPad mini, or an M1-or-newer iPad. The standard iPhone 15 does not qualify.

The Apple HomeView isn’t useless without those devices — it can still answer general-knowledge questions, control compatible smart-home products, and offer improved music discovery. However, it won’t be able to process requests involving personal information, such as finding details in Messages or Calendar and taking actions across apps, which require a modern iPhone or iPad. Siri AI must be enabled, and the HomeView and paired device must use a supported language.

But there is one even narrower requirement: customizing Siri’s expressiveness and speaking speed requires an iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone Air, iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone Duo, or an M4-or-newer iPad with at least 12GB RAM. Obviously, that's a small voice-personalization feature, not the threshold for ordinary Personal Context requests, but it’s still worth noting.

The complete Apple AI home costs considerably more

When we look into the HomeView’s smart-home features, which are part of Apple’s wider smart-home ecosystem, things get even more complicated. With a compatible HomeKit Secure Video camera, Apple Intelligence can do the following, genuinely useful, things:

• Summarize recorded activity: Instead of merely saying “Motion detected,” the Home app can describe what happened, such as a person leaving a package or a dog entering the garden.
• Search recordings conversationally: You can search using requests such as “Show me when the parcel was delivered”, or, “When did the children get home?”, rather than manually scrolling through clips.
• Connect related activity: The Home app can group or surface significant moments captured across different cameras.

Once again, an Apple Intelligence-compatible iPhone or iPad is required — this time to set up and enable the camera-intelligence features. Apple says footage is processed locally by the home hub or using Private Cloud Compute, rather than simply handing the analysis to the paired iPhone.

The complete list of what you need for these features to function is: a HomeKit Secure Video-compatible camera, HomeView or another compatible Apple home hub, an Apple Intelligence-compatible iPhone or iPad, and an eligible iCloud+ subscription. In other words, simply buying a HomeView alone does not give you the AI camera summaries or searchable recording history.

iCloud+ plans start at $0.99 / AU$1.49 for 50GB of storage a month, then $2.99 / AU$4.49 for 200GB and $9.99 / AU$14.99 a month for 2TB. Recorded HomeKit Secure Video footage is retained for 10 days, and does not count against your normal iCloud storage allowance.

Of course, you can still view a compatible camera’s live feed and receive basic accessory notifications without paying for recorded history, but you need that iCloud+ subscription for HomeKit Secure Video storage, and for AI features that analyze and search those stored recordings.

At $299 / £299 / AU$449 the HomeView therefore doesn’t independently provide the complete experience Apple demonstrates. Owners of an iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16 or another qualifying device may already have everything they need for Personal Context. But people using a standard iPhone 15 or an older model could discover that their new household AI device is considerably less personal unless they upgrade their phone too.

That may suit Apple perfectly: HomeView isn’t just another product, but another reason to keep every device in your home relatively new, compatible and attached to an Apple service. For buyers who haven’t studied the footnotes, however, the difference between what HomeView can do alone, and what Apple shows it doing, could prove frustrating.

Your social media profiles are a goldmine for scammers looking to harvest personal information for phishing, social engineering, or identity theft. Between birthday posts and family photos, you’re essentially building a detailed dossier that cybercriminals can weaponize against you.

Here’s the good news: with just a few adjustments, you can dramatically reduce your attack surface without losing the convenience and fun of socializing online.

This article is the fourth in a series of content relating to Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2026, which runs throughout October. The previous articles have covered VPN dark web alerts and free alternatives, VPN protection when using AI, and the benefits of dedicated antivirus over packaged solutions.

Less is more

The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) emphasizes that privacy settings exist for a reason: they keep your personal information “inaccessible to anyone but you.” Their guidance focuses on using each platform’s settings to control who can see your posts, contact you, or find your profile.

Scammers can piece together seemingly harmless details to craft highly convincing, targeted phishing attacks. Even a pet name or tagged location – innocent on their own – can become ammunition for someone trying to impersonate you or guess your security questions.

Platform-by-platform quick hits

Here are the most impactful privacy switches to flip on each major platform:

• Facebook: Set your profile to “Friends only” for posts, limit past posts visibility, disable search engine indexing, and restrict who can look you up using your email address or phone number.
• Instagram: Switch to a private account in Settings > Privacy. This prevents strangers from seeing your posts or stories. Disable activity status, restrict tag approvals, and turn off location sharing on posts.
• Snapchat: Enable “Ghost Mode” in Snap Map settings to hide your location. In Privacy Control, set who can contact you and view your story to “Friends Only.” Review your “Find Friends” settings regularly to control whether your account is suggested to other users.
• TikTok: Go to Privacy settings and toggle “Private Account.” Disable “Suggest your account to others,” restrict direct messages, and set duet/stitch permissions to “Friends” or “Off”.
• YouTube: In Settings > Privacy, mark your channel and subscriptions as private. You can also disable video recommendations showing your watch history and turn off location data on uploaded videos.

Universal security settings

Regardless of which platforms you use, two actions should be at the top of your list:

First, enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) everywhere. Even if someone guesses or steals your password, they can’t get in without the second factor – ideally an authentication app.

Second, audit your connected apps. There may be games, quizzes, and other services logged in that you haven’t touched in years. Head to each platform’s third-party app settings and revoke access for anything unused or unfamiliar.

In summary

Spending just five minutes adjusting these settings across your apps reduces your visibility to bad actors and can help keep your data out of the hands of cybercriminals. You don’t need to delete your accounts or leave social media behind – just be intentional about what you share and who can see it.

For eight years, Surfer had one job, and that was to help you rank on Google.

You wrote your content, Surfer told you what to fix, and your page climbed. Then the whole AI wave showed up. People started asking ChatGPT and Perplexity for recommendations instead of scrolling through blue links, and ranking first stopped meaning what it used to.

So Surfer built its own AI Tracker. It's a paid add-on that watches whether AI engines mention your brand when people ask about your industry, and shows you who gets named when you don't.

That's a big promise, so I put it to the test. I tracked a well-renowned brand across all five engines Surfer covers. I checked its numbers against what I saw by asking ChatGPT myself. I dug into where the data holds up, where it wobbles, and where the tool quietly stops being useful.

Some of it genuinely impressed me. Some of it didn't. Here's everything I found.

What is Surfer AI Tracker?

Surfer AI Tracker is a paid add-on inside Surfer that shows you how often AI engines mention your brand when people ask about your industry, and which sources they cite instead of you.

Surfer itself is an SEO tool that has helped writers rank on Google since 2017. The AI Tracker, launched in 2025, is its answer to a new problem, i.e., buyers now ask ChatGPT and Perplexity for recommendations and not just Google.

Here is what it tracks and how.

What it tracks:

• Whether your brand appears in AI answers, and how often (Mention Rate)
• How prominently you show up when you do appear (Average Position)
• An overall Visibility Score across engines
• Which websites AI pulls from to build its answers (Top Sources)
• The sentiment of each mention, positive or negative
• The same data for your competitors, side by side

How it tracks it:

• You give it real prompts your buyers type, like "best CRM for small teams"
• It runs those prompts across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google's AI Overviews, and Google AI Mode
• It scrapes the actual answer a real user sees, not a stripped-down API response
• It re-runs them on a schedule (daily on Pro) so you can watch the trend

How I tested Surfer AI Tracker

Before I trusted a single chart, I wanted to know whether the numbers on my screen matched what a real person would actually see if they asked ChatGPT the same thing.

That's the lens I judged it through. These are the things I cared about, and why.

• Is the data real? Surfer's big claim is that it scrapes the actual answer a user sees, citations and all, not a stripped-down version pulled from an API. That's the entire foundation. If it's off, nothing else matters. So this got the hardest look.
• Does it hold still? AI answers shift. Ask twice, get two replies. I wanted to know if the tool's readings wobble so much that any single number is meaningless.
• Do you need every engine? The cheaper plan tracks ChatGPT only. The pricier one adds Gemini, Perplexity, Google's AI Overviews, and Google AI Mode. I wanted to see if those engines actually tell different stories, or if you're paying extra to hear the same thing four times.
• Does it tell you what to do? A gap you can't act on is just anxiety with a dashboard. Surfer's mention-gap and fan-out reports promise a to-do list. I wanted to know if that's real guidance or a prettier version of the problem.

Then I actually used it. Here's what that looked like.

• I picked a brand I know inside out (I already knew its real rivals and roughly how often it gets talked about), and let Surfer build the competitor set from the brand name, so it had something to measure against.
• I loaded 40 prompts real buyers type into AI, like "best [category] tool for [use case]". Not vanity searches for the brand name. The questions that actually decide who gets picked.
• I let it run a full pass across all five engines, then ran the same prompts by hand myself and compared what I saw to what Surfer captured.
• I watched how much the numbers moved day to day, checked how the story changed engine to engine, and dug into the Sources view, clicking different gaps to see if the advice ever actually changed.

Setting up Surfer AI Tracker

The AI Tracker sits in its own AI Visibility workspace, apart from Surfer's SEO side. You're tracking how a brand shows up in AI answers, not auditing your own pages, so there's nothing to plug in.

Even better, I barely had to type anything. I entered the brand domain name of "Zoho," and Surfer built the rest itself.

Business type, industry, a paragraph on what Zoho sells, its customer base, a list of competitors, and the topics worth tracking. It knew Zoho was a B2B SaaS suite for small and mid-sized teams; it knew privacy and all-in-one bundling were part of the pitch, and it named real rivals like Salesforce and HubSpot.

I find this smarter than most trackers bother to be. The usual tool asks for a brand name and stops there. Surfer uses that name to understand who you actually are, then uses that understanding to judge whether a mention is really about you later. The catch is that you should still read what it generates. It's a starting point, not gospel, and a wrong detail here quietly skews every chart down the line.

Then come the prompts, and this is where the tool genuinely impressed me.

Surfer generated 40 prompts on its own, sorted into eight topics, five prompts each, from accounting and CRM to collaboration and payroll. And they weren't lazy.

These are the exact questions a real buyer types into AI: "Which accounting software is the best for small businesses in the USA and Canada," "Best project management software for a one-man team," "What is the best collaboration software with built-in VOIP for a small business?" You get 50 prompt slots on Pro, and Surfer filled 40 of them for me before I'd done anything.

You can still edit, delete, or add your own, and you can pull your top queries from Google Search Console if you'd rather. But the fact that a single brand name produced 40 usable prompts is a real time-saver, especially if you don't already know what your buyers ask AI.

The last piece is competitors, and here's how it pulls up.

The competitors Surfer tracked weren't only the ones it listed at setup. When the data came back, the table showed brands I never entered, like QuickBooks, Xero, Pipedrive, and Gusto. Surfer surfaces whoever actually shows up in the AI answers next to Zoho. That's the honest way to do it, because your real competition in AI search is whoever the model names, not whoever you think you compete with.

It's also the first hint of a theme you'll see throughout this review, i.e., the tool is very good at showing you what's happening, and Zoho landing second here, behind HubSpot, is exactly the kind of thing you'd want to know.

Then you let it run. Surfer sends every prompt to the engines, records what each one says, and builds your baseline. Load your prompts early. The sooner they're in, the sooner your trends are worth reading.

Surfer AI Tracker dashboard

The dashboard runs on four numbers– Visibility Score, Mention Rate, Average Position, and Top Sources. Once you know what each is telling you, the tool clicks into place.

Start with the Visibility Score. Zoho landed at 51. On its own, that means nothing. It's a blended score out of 100 that mixes how often you're mentioned with how high up you appear. It only starts to mean something when you see it against your rivals, like in the chart below.

It tells you if you're winning, never why. For why, you need the other three.

Mention Rate is the honest one. Zoho showed up in 33.4% of answers. Plain and concrete, and the number I'd track week to week, because when it moves, something real moved.

Average Position was 4, and it comes with a trap. It only counts the times you were actually mentioned, so a brand can post a great position and still be nearly invisible if it shows up once and vanishes everywhere else. Read it alongside Mention Rate, never alone.

Adding to this, you can also go through the Topic breakdown.

Surfer splits your score by topic, and that's where the real story hides. Zoho scored 86 on SMB CRM selection; it's home turf. But on Collaboration it scored 1%, and on Payroll and HR just 10%, both markets Zoho actually sells into.

AI is barely naming it there. That gap is worth more than any headline number, because it shows you exactly where you're missing from conversations you should be winning.

So which numbers are signal and which are vanity? Mention Rate and the topic breakdown are signal. Visibility Score is a summary, useful at a glance, shallow up close. Average Position only means something when read beside Mention Rate. Look past the big number on top, and the dashboard gets a lot more honest.

Surfer AI Tracker accuracy

I checked Surfer's captured answers against what I got by asking ChatGPT the same questions myself, and on both prompts the tool matched reality.

I picked two prompts, opened ChatGPT, ran them, and lined my answers up against what Surfer had captured for the same engine.

I chose the two on purpose i.e. one where Surfer said Zoho shows up, and one where Surfer said Zoho was invisible. If the tool is accurate, it has to get both right.

Start with the accounting prompt, "Which accounting software is the best for small businesses in the USA and Canada?" Surfer scored this one high for Zoho, a 71.4% mention rate over the week.

My own run backed it up. ChatGPT crowned QuickBooks Online as the overall winner, then ran through a table of alternatives, and there was Zoho Books, sitting in the "best value" row. Not the top pick, but clearly named, exactly as Surfer reported.

Next, I tested the project management prompt, "Best project management software for a one-man team." Surfer scored this one a flat zero. According to the tool, Zoho is never mentioned at all.

I ran it myself, half-expecting to catch the tool missing a mention. I didn't. ChatGPT named Todoist, Trello, Notion, and ClickUp.

So does the data match? On both prompts, yes. But there's one honest wrinkle you should carry with you, and it's visible right inside Surfer. Look at the trend line on that accounting prompt: over a single week, it swung from near the top down to almost nothing and back up again.

That's not Surfer being unreliable. That's AI answers being inconsistent. The models reshuffle their picks day to day, so any single reading is a snapshot of a moving target.

Sources, gaps, and recommendations

Here's where Surfer is brilliant and frustrating in the same breath. It shows you exactly where you're losing, down to the specific web pages, and then mostly leaves you to figure out what to do about it.

Let me walk you through it, because the diagnosis really is good.

The Source section tells you which websites AI is actually reading to build these answers. For Zoho, it had pulled from 367 domains, 797 URLs, and over 6,000 references, and that pile keeps growing the longer you track. Each source shows whether your brand was mentioned, how often it was shown, and a confidence rating.

The pages themselves are exactly what you'd expect AI to lean on, like Forbes, TechRadar, and big software roundups. These listicles are what the models quote, which is the whole reason visibility in them matters.

Another interesting metric here is the Mention Gap analysis.

Each card pits you against one competitor and splits the sources three ways.

Shared are the pages that mention both of you. Gap is the pages that mention them and not you. Against HubSpot, Zoho had 101 gap sources. Against QuickBooks, 93. It's a literal list of the exact pages where your rival gets named, and you don't.

There's also a Fanout Queries report, which shows the follow-up questions AI asks itself while researching your topic.

So a prompt like "best CRM" quietly branches into "best CRMs integrating with Google Workspace and QuickBooks," which alone spun off ten separate fan-out queries. Those branches are basically a content to-do list the AI handed you for free.

Pricing and plans

If you only want AI tracking and none of the writing tools, there's a tracker-only plan, AI Search Analytics, at $95/month. It covers 50 prompts daily across every engine.

The cheapest plan with content tools, Standard, is $119/month. But, it only tracks ChatGPT, and refreshes weekly. If ChatGPT is all you care about, fine. If you want the full picture of where buyers actually search, you're paying to see a quarter of it.

Pro, at $219/month, is where the tracker gets serious. 50 prompts, refreshed daily, across all five engines. This is the plan I tested, and the one I'd point most people toward.

Above that sits Peace of Mind at $359/month, adding unlimited workspaces, API access for agencies running many brands, and 100 daily prompts.

I’d suggest skipping the Standard tier unless ChatGPT-only genuinely covers you. Pro is the real tool, and everything in this review runs on it.

Who should buy it, and who should skip it

FAQ

Following its expansive Gamescom 2026 demo, I just got to experience a much more linear segment from Final Fantasy VII Revelation set right at the start of the new game — it sets Cloud and the gang up to finally face the biggest twist from the original, albeit a lot earlier than they did in 1997.

The demo itself was pretty short — I blasted through in around 30 to 45 minutes — but I got to play around with the new party members Vincent and Cid (the latter formally joined as an active combatant at the start of the demo), and most of my team were utilizing the new FITS system (Revelation’s version of the Job / Class system used in other Square Enix games).

Though I want to focus on the story content.

The party finds themselves in the North Crater, the impact site of the asteroid which brought Jenova to the game’s planet. Here they find even more of the black-robed figures they’ve been following for the past three games — including Broden, the former SOLDIER and inn manager you meet in Kalm during Rebirth — and yet again Cloud is racked with headaches and visions of Sephiroth, tormenting him about his past.

Players of the original will know where this is going, but before I go into any more details, here’s an obligatory SPOILER WARNING. We’ll be talking about Final Fantasy VII’s biggest twist after Aerith’s death below, and if you somehow don’t know it yet and don’t want to get spoiled, you’ve been warned.

While my demo cuts things a little short, it shows Sephiroth forcing Cloud to remember he isn’t really a SOLDIER, just as he does in the og FF7.

He’s pointing out inconsistencies like Cloud’s lack of a SOLDIER ID number on his arm (something all the others have), comments that he must have the “wrong man” when attempting to reminisce with Cloud, and finally making him, Barret, and Tifa relive the Nibelheim incident one last time — and we see differences from the version from Rebirth, as Zack features, and one of the Shinra guards that was with the group before is suddenly missing…

Barrett even comments on how happy Cloud looks when posing for a photo, saying he looks like a “whole other person.”

SOLDIER no more…

As a reminder for anyone who hasn’t relived the FF7 narrative recently, or who is unfamiliar with the plot and doesn’t care for spoilers, Cloud was actually just your regular Shinra grunt — those (lowercase) soldiers we’ve been dicing up since the opening of Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

He was there at the Nibelheim incident, but as backup for the actual SOLDIERs Sephiroth and Zack Fair. Embarrassed that he didn't achieve his SOLDIER dreams, Cloud hides his face from Tifa and others in the village, which is why she told Aerith that she doesn’t remember seeing him on that mission during the events of Rebirth.

We already know from Rebirth that things don’t go according to Shinra’s plans on this mission, and in the original continuity we know that Cloud is able to defeat a weakened Sephiroth using Zack’s Buster Sword (it seems likely this is what happens in the Remake continuity too, though we haven’t had explicit confirmation, and we’ve already seen more than a few plot details shift between the two timelines).

Following the victory, Cloud and Zack are picked up by the mad Shinra scientist Hojo, who proceeds to experiment on the pair using Mako and Jenova cells in the hope they’ll become clones of the slain Sephiroth — or at least gain strength comparable to him.

Cloud’s mind is broken by these experiments, but Zack is able to hold himself together and rescue himself and Cloud — making it all the way to Midgar with his unconscious friend before Shinra catches up with them. In the original, this is where Zack is gunned down, though in at least one timeline (which we see in Remake and Rebirth) Zack is somehow able to survive the onslaught.

Back to the original version, however, left for dead by the grunts, Cloud eventually recovers enough to pick up Zack’s weapon, mourn his friend, and carry himself the rest of the way to Midgar — where he bumps into Tifa, and he is convinced into helping Avalanche on the mission Remake starts with.

The trauma caused by years of experimentation and the loss of his friend causes Cloud’s mind to build itself back incorrectly. His memories aren’t just his own, but an amalgamation of his and Zack’s — making Cloud believe he is indeed a First-Class SOLDIER.

The truth is out

Thanks to Hojo’s test, Cloud becomes as physically strong and agile as a First-Class SOLDIER, and earns their ‘Mako eyes’ — a glow associated with Mako-enhanced folks — which is why he’s able to pass as one so effectively.

But Rebirth already poked holes in his story. In the Nibelheim flashback, we see multiple instances of Cloud behaving unlike himself — with the party noting he sounds a lot more upbeat and happy-go-lucky than he is with them, and Tifa admitting to Aerith that Cloud wasn’t one of the SOLDIERs she remembers being on the expedition with her.

Revelation looks set to finally burst Cloud’s bubble in the Remake continuity, but interestingly this looks set to happen at the game’s intro rather than at its climax as it does in the original.

What impact this will have on the party’s dynamics — trust in Cloud already seems to be at an all-time low thanks to the visions and strange behaviour caused by his connection to Jenova — and for Cloud himself is yet to be seen.

But it’s another sign that Final Fantasy VII Revelation is just as unafraid to mix up the game’s timeline as previous entries, and I, for one, am excited to see what giving the party more time to digest this twist will mean for the adventure when it finally lands on April 8, 2027.

Nuclear fusion is how stars (including our own Sun) create their energy, and scientists are hopeful it could one day be used as a clean, abundant energy solution here on Earth. There are no carbon emissions, most of the fuel required is widely available, and it's safe: if the reaction goes wrong, it simply peters out and stops.

You might have spotted the big challenge, which is trying to fit an entire star's worth of energy production inside a power plant. Two main approaches are being explored, one using magnets to create the incredibly high temperatures and pressures required, and one using lasers — which is where the startup Cambridge Heavy Industries comes in.

As TechCrunch reports, the company is currently operating in 'stealth mode' from a lab attached to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), but now seems ready to share some details about the technology it's developing. The main innovations: fusion that's more efficient and needs less room than conventional reactors.

Nuclear fusion on a tabletop

Yun Kai, co-founder and CEO of Cambridge Heavy Industries, describes the company's fusion device as "tiny" and "benchtop" sized, which means experiments can be carried out and improved upon quickly. The technology will eventually be scaled up, but the aim is to build something smaller than conventional reactor designs — the size of two basketball courts approximately, rather than a full power plant complex.

What makes the approach of Cambridge Heavy Industries different is the dual laser setup. The first laser delivers its light as concentric rings that hit the block of fuel, designed to create shock waves traveling inward that create an accelerating compression effect; the second laser then hits the wave at the perfect spot to produce the super-high pressure required for ignition and nuclear fusion.

The enclosed system effectively acts as its own self-contained, compact fuel factory, because everything is moving inwards. It's also designed around a 2D rather than a 3D setup, which means fewer angles to cover — the laser fusion setup at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in the US uses an array of 192 lasers in three dimensions to compress its own fuel blocks, for example.

As it's smaller and more efficient, the Cambridge Heavy Industries benchtop device can get through 50–80 laser shots per day — at the NIF, it's just a handful. A relatively low amount of laser power is required, says Kai, and as dozens of experiments are being done every 24 hours, the system can be quickly analyzed and iterated over time.

There is one big caveat: the tabletop device at Cambridge Heavy isn't doing the same job as the NIF reactor or any other reactor in development, not yet. For now, it's focused on making one of the fuels required for nuclear fusion, tritium, rather than generating electricity. The actual reactor and plant stages will come later.

What happens next

For nuclear fusion to happen, two light atoms need to be smashed together. The best combination, scientists think, will be deuterium and tritium — and while there's a lot of deuterium around, there's not much tritium at all. At the moment, most of what we have comes from older nuclear fission power plants that are being phased out.

The long-term plan is for nuclear reactors to make their own tritium alongside producing electricity, but with reactors not expected to come online until the 2030s at the earliest, there's a window of opportunity before then that Cambridge Heavy Industries is hoping to make the most of.

TechCrunch points to a recent study that suggests the tritium shortfall could be as much as 28 kilograms (62 pounds) for the industry as a whole by 2054. At today's prices that works out at around $840 million (£631 million / AU$1,209 million) worth of the isotope — a potentially lucrative market.

There's also a lot of money, potentially, in nuclear fusion in general, which is why investors are putting capital into the development of future fusion plants. It's worth bearing in mind that while nuclear fusion reactions have been produced in the lab for decades, we're not yet at the stage where they can practically produce electricity — that's still some years off.

A steady supply of tritium and more efficient, compact nuclear fusion reactors will certainly help us get there faster though, and that's what's driving Cambridge Heavy Industries. If the technology can be fully developed over the next few years, it promises to be a genuine game-changer for energy production and supply.

It's been over two decades since the classic ABC mystery show Lost graced our screens, wrapping us up in the mystery of the disaster survivors lost on a mysterious island.

For several seasons, we followed the twisting mysteries of the island, its inhabitants and the supernatural entities lurking within, and for many years since, we've been unpicking what we saw. But how much unpicking have you done?

To see how well you know Lost, we've devised this 30-question quiz. Whether you've seen it recently or only when it first aired, are a die-hard fan or can't remember a single character, we'll find out with the following questions.

Most of these questions will be about the Lost franchise: the series itself as well as its production and wider media empire. But there will be one or two basic questions about the story and world, to see how big a fan you are.

We'll start with 10 easier questions, before diving into some moderate ones and ending with 10 pretty tricky ones. They might seem hard, but if you know the series (or your world history), you'll be able to work many extra ones out.

Keen to re-watch Lost? It's available on Hulu in the US, and Disney Plus basically everywhere else.

Dreame is well known for making some of the best robot vacuums and hair stylers around, but it also has a sideline in coffee machines — and they're every bit as good as the rest of its appliances. This week I'm testing its new portable espresso machine, the Dreame Ecceluxe Go, and I think this pint-sized brewer is going to be my new favorite travelling companion.

Of course, there's no shortage of travel-friendly coffee makers available, from the classic AeroPress to the hand-pumped Wacaco Nanopresso. The problem is, they all need to have hot water on hand, which isn't always feasible. Who wants to set up a camping stove and kettle for one drink — and who has the patience?

The Ecceluxe Go eliminates that problem by heating the water itself. It's a smart idea: a single shot of espresso only needs a tiny amount of water, so a portable Li-ion battery and compact heating elements are sufficient to bring it to temperature.

The device comes in a classy carry case that holds the machine itself (about the size of a small thermos) and a collection of adapters for brewing three different types of coffee pods or grounds. Whether you prefer Nespresso Classic, Dolce Gusto, ESE (Easy Serve Espresso), or freshly ground beans, the Ecceluxe Go has you covered.

Each adapter twists onto the bottom of the brewer, and a flexible cap lifts off the top to reveal a small water reservoir with fill lines to help you add the correct amount. All done? Open the little legs on the bottom of the adapter, place the whole assembly on top of the clear coffee cup supplied in the box, and you're ready to begin.

The only control on the Ecceluxe Go is a small touch-sensitive LED display. Hold your finger against this for three seconds to power it on, then select one of its two programs. P1 is for brewing with cold or ambient-temperature water, and P2 is for brewing with water that has already been heated. Once you've made your selection, wait three seconds and coffee-making will commence.

The brewer's miniature water tank contains a temperature sensor, and as it heats, you'll see the temperature displayed on its little screen (in centigrade) start to climb. This will take a couple of minutes (it's using a very small heating element), but once the water's good and hot, it will be forced through your coffee preparation of choice, and you'll have a delicious shot of espresso to enjoy, wherever your adventures have taken you.

I'm testing the Ecceluxe Go with all four coffee types for my full review, which will be published in a couple of weeks, and so far I'm impressed. The flavor is milder than usual, but still tasty and well-suited to drinking as a plain shot.

Dreame doesn't currently have a release schedule for the Ecceluxe Go in the UK, but it's scheduled to arrive in the US, Portugal, and Spain by the end of the year.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has sung the praises of Microsoft's new Surface Laptop Ultra, describing it as "so beautiful" and "incredible".

Speaking at a developer event in London, Huang outlined the development process that went into building the hardware powering the new product, which is the first Microsoft device powered by an Nvidia chip.

“This computer is going to be incredible - it took us four years to build it," Huang told attendees including TechRadar Pro, "this project is really a work of love - we had several thousand engineering years dedicated to it, we build a brand new revolutionary chip, a whole new line of PCs, it’s so beautiful - you’re going to love it.”

The end of the traditional PC?

Revealed in September 2026, the Surface Laptop Ultra is targeted towards developer and AI usage, powered by Nvidia’s RTX Spark platform with an N1X processor and RTX Blackwell graphics, supporting up to 128GB unified memory

This is alongside 24GB RAM and 512GB storage, while the next version has 32GB RAM and 1TB storage, making it ideal for creators, AI specialists, engineers, scientists, developers, and other users running demanding applications.

But as Huang tells it, the creation of the device, set to launch on October 16 2026, was a long and arduous process.

“It took four years to do this," Huang said of the hardware development process. "We were thinking about agentic systems, AI and autonomous systems, and how they’ll be able to access your files, and be grounded on information, and be able to reason about it and use tools - but the ultimate tool is your personal computer, right?"

"So wouldn’t it be cool if we could create a personal computer, a PC that actually runs an agent locally - so it can go off and just work on things for you - and not only could it just run locally, it would be smart enough to use the tools."

Huang explained his vision of "texting" your PC to ask for help, to get it to do tasks like rendering images and updating slides, then delivering them straight to you.

"Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could just text your computer - you don’t have to bring it with you anymore - just leave it at your desk!”

“So we created this thing - it took us four years to do it, so I called Satya (Nadella, Microsoft CEO), and the two of us talked about it…and so we had to create a brand new chip, we had to wait until Blackwell was done - and this thing has 1 petaflops of computing, and because we knew the models were going to be big, we had to redesign how the GPU uses memory - so this is the first Nvidia GPU with shared memory, one petaflops, Blackwell architecture - and also it has to run everything a PC doesn’t.”

“There’s three types of PCs, right," Huang outlined, "there’s the PC that basically you use to type in - that’s called a PC, there’s the Nvidia gaming PC, you’ve got GeForce in that, and you’ve got the Nvidia workstations that runs all kinds of applications…so we figured that if you’re going to have an AI go use the tools, it should be able to use every single tool…it runs everything, it runs every AI framework, it runs any AI model as well."

Recent data published by Counterpoint Research paints a bleak picture of the smartphone industry as it stands today.

Q3 2026 (that’s the period between July and September) marked the lowest Q3 for smartphone sales in 14 years, with challenger brands like Oppo, Xiaomi, and Vivo all experiencing declines in market share versus the same period in 2025.

Skyrocketing component costs have wreaked havoc on the budget and mid-range tiers, while consumers are holding onto their devices for longer and have become more discerning in how and where they spend their money.

What, then, are growth-hungry smartphone manufacturers to do? Oppo, for its part, plans to pursue an aggressive premiumization strategy in Europe.

“The European premium market is dominated by two brands,” Elvis Zhou, CEO of Oppo Europe, explained to TechRadar in a recent roundtable interview. “I believe local European consumers would be interested in a third, good option.”

Zhou didn’t mention Apple and Samsung by name in our discussion, but those two companies were the only two smartphone manufacturers to grow their respective market shares during that aforementioned Q3 period (though they, too, suffered year-on-year sales declines).

“We are not here to say we will replace one of these established brands. No. We are here to offer a differentiated third option [...] I believe, in the future, the competition between flagship products [will not be] about price; we are not here to sell a more affordable smartphone. We are here to offer a differentiated experience for the premium market.

“And we heard the same [sentiment] through our market research — most premium users would be happy to try a third premium brand.”

The European market is not as wedded to Apple and Samsung as, say, the US market, but these companies still account for 68% of the entire European smartphone market (34% each). By contrast, different sources put Oppo’s share of the European pie at between 1 and 4%.

That’s a sizable mountain to climb for any brand — but Zhou and Oppo have identified three emerging trends that could turn the tide in the Chinese company’s favor.

“I'm quite aware that these two established brands in the European market do still lead the market in terms of brand awareness, sales channels, and even retail channels; they still do have a lot of advantages,” Zhou explained. “But through our market research, we have identified three trends that might be beneficial to us.

The kids are alright

“First of all, young consumers here in Europe are ready to buy smartphones online. That offers us an opportunity to engage them directly.

“The second trend is that the young generation is dubious about advertisements. They prefer to believe real user experiences that they see [relayed] on social media platforms. And if they believe [those testimonies], then it must be good experiences that people are sharing organically on social media — that's more convincing, and only good products can do that.

“The third trend is that younger consumers ask questions to AI tools during their decision-making process. These AI tools can help our brand because they focus more on the features of these products — on the user experience of these products — without other interference. And according to our market survey, more than 40% of young people ask questions to AI tools when they want to purchase a new phone. Based on these three new trends, I believe that the value of our products is better respected nowadays.”

That last point is a particularly interesting one. Chatbots like ChatGPT have quickly become a primary search engine for millions of young people globally; if these consumers ask an AI platform for information on the best phone to buy, Oppo’s handsets are likely to be surfaced on a numerical specs basis alone (the Oppo Find X9 Ultra, for instance, has better camera specs than the iPhone 18 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra).

Oppo doesn’t enjoy the same visibility via traditional Google searches, as I proved by searching for the “best phone for photography” on ChatGPT and Google. The former displays Oppo Find X9 Ultra as the number one choice; the latter doesn’t reference Oppo at all until you manually click through to a dedicated best camera phones guide.

Of course, young consumers aren’t so naive as to instantly buy the first product recommended by ChatGPT, but Oppo’s increased visibility on the platform can only be a good thing for its brand awareness and, ultimately, sales.

The perception challenge

In our roundtable interview, Zhou was also asked whether Oppo and other Chinese companies face a perception problem in the West, particularly surrounding privacy, and the CEO was keen to credit consumers’ ability to decide for themselves which brands they trust.

“We face all kinds of challenges in our work, but for Oppo, since we are here in an overseas market, our focus is more on market surveys. I've met a lot of young consumers here in Europe, and I find that they are quite open-minded. They're well educated, reasonable, and rational. They are independent in their decision-making process.

“These young consumers, when they purchase their personal items, focus more on the product itself. Is this experience good enough? Is it good value for money? And through our market surveys, we found that young consumers are more interested in good imaging [capabilities], AI [features], and also battery autonomy.

“In addition,” Zhou continued, “the European market pays great attention to data privacy, so we pay great attention to our compliance policy. We want to make sure that when we design our products, we can meet all these compliance regulation demands. We are very confident that our products can stand the test of time, and one day, our local European consumers will understand that our products can not only meet their requirements, but exceed their demands.”

Oppo, then, is putting all its eggs in the premium basket for the foreseeable future — and its next pair of flagship phones, the camera-focused Oppo Find X10 and X10 Pro Max, will be the first test of the company's new premiumization strategy.

We’re expecting both devices to be more expensive than their predecessors, but if, as Oppo suggests, young European consumers really do value imaging, AI, and battery life above all else, the Find X10 series has every chance of making a splash on the continent.

I'm not going to sugarcoat it: 2026 has been a terrible time to be a PC gamer. As someone who's been covering computing tech for over a decade and building machines for longer than that, the future looks bleak.

The biggest tech companies in the world are buying up vital components such as RAM and graphics cards to build data centers. Prices for these parts are soaring as demand drastically outpaces supply. Many expect things won't stabilize until at least 2030, so what can we do to get through the worst of it?

While the best graphics cards, NVMe SSDs, and the best DDR5 RAM modules have become expensive and elusive, that's not the case across the board for other computing components, as there are plenty of other essential upgrades you can make to weather the storm and ensure you've got one of the best gaming PCs ready for the flagship releases of the future... provided you keep your expectations in check.

I'm going through the five biggest ways you can maximize your PC gaming experience through this dark and uncertain time. My best advice without spending any additional money is to hold onto what you've got and be smart with your graphics settings and target resolution.

Today's best PC games are optimized with console parity in mind, meaning they have to be able to run on the Xbox Series X/S and PS5, so as long as your GPU is from 2020/2021 or later, you should be okay. If you're looking to spend a little money, though, here's what I recommend doing next.

1. Replace your keyboard and mouse

The average PC gamer replaces their peripherals, such as keyboards, mice, and headsets, every four to five years. If you're reading this at your desk, there's a high chance you're typing on an old deck or scrolling with a past-their-prime pointer.

While this year has been pretty terrible for internal computing components, it's actually been an exciting time of innovation for mice and keyboards, making now the perfect time to take the cash that would have gone on a GPU and to pump life into your setup instead.

I'm a tech journalist, but I'm also an avid esports gamer. 2026 alone has seen some truly stand-out peripherals that have been head and shoulders above what we've had since the RAM crisis began. My top recommendations right now include the excellent Logitech G Pro X3 Superstrike with its second-generation HITS tech, or you can stick to tried-and-true analog with the stellar Razer Viper V4 Pro, or the lightweight Corsair Sabre V2 MG. It goes far beyond just an 8K polling rate; there have been advancements with better battery life, enhanced 2.4GHz wireless stability, and (most crucially) a shift towards a reduction in weight.

Gaming keyboards have come just as far towards the end of 2026 as well. Many of today's decks have embraced the benefits of magnetic sensor technology, through either Hall Effect or TMR, with features such as Rapid Trigger that are genuinely game-changing. It simply dynamically resets a key once your finger lifts up, with an actuation sensitivity as low as 0.1 mm, as opposed to the standard 2mm depth of mechanical decks. Magnets and light sensors also mean fewer moving parts, meaning fewer points of failure — and that leads to a longer lifespan.

I've tested dozens of keyboards over the last 10 months, and (depending on budget), I currently recommend the Logitech G X2 Rapid, Cherry XTRFY K5 Pro TMR, Corsair Clipper Pro Mini 60, and the Razer Huntsman V3 HE 8KHz. You can find more of the best gaming keyboards for around the £100/$100 to $200/£200 mark, depending on whether you want wired or wireless connectivity, and the form factor (essentially, the size of the keyboard and amount of keys).

2. Lean on AI-powered upscaling to boost gaming performance

If one good thing has come out of this whole situation, it's just how far the likes of Nvidia DLSS, AMD FSR, and Intel XeSS have come over the years. All current upscaling methods (DLSS 5, FSR 4, and XeSS 3) render at a lower native resolution and utilize AI to scale the picture up to the target one.

In other words, it means getting playable framerates (60fps or above) in 1440p and even 4K from budget or mid-range graphics cards. This has only gotten better with the implementation of Frame Generation and MFG, which use AI to interpolate generated frames with natively rendered ones, doubling (or tripling) the total framerate in tandem with the resolution bump.

In an ideal world, we would all have the best 4K graphics cards, such as the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080; however, right now Nvidia's flagships are going for as much as $9,000. Given the state of the worldwide economy, that's a hard sell for (almost) everyone on the planet. Luckily, all modern graphics cards from 2020 and upwards (RTX 30 series and RX 5000 line) can make use of this technology, which can help delay the need to upgrade.

It will mean making compromises, though, such as targeting lower resolutions for demanding software, particularly if your current GPU has a smaller memory pool, such as 8GB of GDDR6 or GDDR6X.

3. Push your existing DDR4 or DDR5 RAM to their limits

You may be surprised to hear this, but many PC gamers forget to utilize AMD EXPO or Intel XMP. Whether you've custom-built a rig from scratch or you've purchased a boutique-built or a premade machine from a company like Acer, Alienware, or Corsair, RAM is often set at stock speeds, leaving extra performance off the table. Overclocking RAM is a one-click solution that can make a massive difference to the performance of your PC.

Without EXPO or XMP enabled, DDR4 RAM tops out at 3,200MHz and DDR5 caps at 4,800MHz. This is fine, sure, but you're missing out on anywhere from 20% to 40% of a performance uplift by not enabling this simple BIOS setting, which can see top-end memory modules run at their respective full speeds of 5,333 MHz and 9,600 MHz. Dual-channel RAM, when properly configured, can do more of the heavy lifting with larger games that require additional bandwidth, particularly if they utilize 4K textures, which can exceed upwards of 11GB of VRAM on the GPU.

4. Upgrade to a faster, better gaming monitor

It's easy to forget just how much of a difference one of the best gaming monitors can make to your setup, particularly if you've been used to a slower or duller display.

Panels haven't been subjected to the same price gouging as core components, meaning that the end of 2026 is an ideal time to consider an upgrade. According to the latest Steam Hardware Survey, the bulk of PC gamers are still using 16:9 1080p displays. It's a popular resolution, sure, but 1440p panels have become substantially cheaper and faster, with trusted brands like HP, Gigabyte, and Samsung offering sub-£200/$200 QHD displays, like the Samsung Odyssey G5, Gigabyte G27Q2, and HP Omen 27Q G2, among others.

If you have a little more cash at hand, then you should consider upgrading to either an OLED or a mini-LED gaming monitor. OLED displays have also (thankfully) come down in price, offering (seemingly) unlimited contrast and deep, inky blacks for an unparalleled gaming experience. You can now find top-end displays for as low as $400/£400, such as the Lenovo Legion 27Q-10 OLED, the HyperX Omen OLED, the MSI MAG 271QP QD-OLED, and the Asus ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDMESZ. It really can make a difference to have a brighter, faster, and prettier display to game and work on, even if your hardware doesn't upgrade alongside it.

I'm also the world's biggest cheerleader for 21:9 monitors for both work and play, and these have also come down in price in the last handful of years, too.

Most modern games natively support the ultrawide resolution; it also helps massively if you work from home like me and enjoy juggling more Chrome tabs than is probably healthy. It's a far better way to spend this kind of cash than you would overpaying on a grossly inflated DDR5 RAM kit or a GPU that's double (or triple) its MSRP.

5. Play through your existing gaming backlog instead of newer games

As technology becomes unobtainably expensive and the costs of modern gaming as a hobby continue to skyrocket, it has become a far more viable strategy to look backwards instead of forwards.

While Valve claims that the average Steam user only plays four games a year, that's not a realistic metric for people who primarily game on PC. Take me, for example. I've had a Steam account since 2011, and over the last 15 years, I've accumulated a total of 613 games, or over 900 titles if you count my Steam Family library.

After a quick scan through my games list, I've estimated there are fewer than 100 titles that have any recorded playtime, and only a handful of Steam games that have more than 100 hours invested. I know I'm not alone in this; I am convinced there are thousands of people just like me who see the likes of the Steam Autumn Sale and go on a spending spree, collecting cheap games that will probably never be played.

As such, this tough time for PC gaming is the perfect excuse to finally try to tackle your gaming backlog. In my limited spare time, I'm primarily putting hours into esports games like VALORANT, but when I think about what else to boot up, my mind instantly shifts towards the "Play Next" tab in my Steam library. Steam uses an algorithm to suggest games you should try out based on what you've played before; it knows me to some extent, recommending Assassin's Creed, Half-Life, Splinter Cell, Far Cry, and Sonic the Hedgehog. If you can't afford the cutting edge to keep up with the demanding requirements of modern AAA games, then turning your attention to older, though still great, games should keep you occupied until component prices start to drop.

Which Garmin watch is right for you? If you don't know which of the best Garmin watches to choose from, shopping for smartwatches can be a very frustrating experience.

Browsing the website, you have to deal with weird names like 'Fenix' and 'Vivoactive' and many of the watches offer the same features, making the brand's offerings tough to separate. What are the differences, for example, between a Forerunner 70, 170, 570 and 970? Should you get an Instinct 3, or a Venu 4?

That's where I come in. I've been writing about Garmins for many years. I've reviewed or tested almost every modern Garmin watch, and I've taken my knowledge and condensed it into one handy flowchart personality quiz.

All you need to do is click on the quiz below and answer five easy questions, only the first of which is multiple choice, to get my recommendation for your ideal smartwatch. I've even linked the full review of each watch, so you can read more about it and find the best deals.

The quiz operates first by finding out your preferred forms of exercise, then hits criteria like budget, watch size, importance of outdoor features, and so on.

If an activity profile you want isn't there, pick the closest one in spirit — for example, snowboarders should pick the 'skiing' activity profile in the first question, while I've lumped football, netball, rugby, baseball, etc. into 'team sports'.

Let me know your result in the comments — including whether your result was accurate!

Nostalgia in tech is all the rage right now. Whether it's film cameras making a comeback, CDs seeing a resurgence or flip phones dominating headlines — old tech has somehow become cool again.

I'm not immune to the nostalgia bug either but, rather than buy something new, I decided to set myself the task of giving a 2013 Apple iMac a new lease on life.

This particular 27-inch model had been gathering dust, but with its generous display and otherwise functional hardware, throwing it away seemed like a terrible waste. Especially when a new 24-inch M4-powered iMac would set me back upwards of AU$2,000. With a little research and DIY knowledge, I could get the vintage 27-inch model humming again for under AU$500 instead.

My ambitions were relatively modest — I wanted something capable of web browsing, a little light creative work and other basic daily tasks. I wasn't expecting it to compete with my M2 MacBook Air.

After a little research, I settled on two relatively straightforward upgrades: more RAM and a new 1TB solid-state drive (SSD). And for a total outlay of approximately AU$310, I was hopeful I could give this old Mac a fighting chance.

Two upgrades, one aging iMac

The first thing I needed to address was the storage. My iMac originally came with a mechanical hard drive, which is hardly a recipe for speedy performance in 2026.

Swapping an old hard drive for an SSD is often one of the most effective ways to breathe new life into an aging computer. With no moving parts and significantly faster data access, an SSD can improve everything from boot times to opening applications.

My original plan was to replace the internal drive entirely, but that presented a slight problem. Unlike some earlier iMac models, my late-2013 version has a display that's secured to the chassis with adhesive. Getting inside requires cutting through that adhesive, carefully lifting the display and disconnecting cables before you can even think about accessing the drive.

I'd never attempted anything remotely like this before, and the thought of potentially damaging a perfectly good 27-inch screen wasn't especially appealing. Fortunately, there was an alternative — an external SSD.

Rather than dismantling the computer, I could connect a TeamGroup T-Force Vulcan Z 1TB SSD via USB, install a later macOS onto it and use it as the startup drive. It's a considerably less intimidating approach, even if the iMac's aging USB 3.0 port meant I wouldn't be getting the full performance potential of a modern SSD.

The second upgrade — the RAM — was comparatively easier as Apple made upgrading the RAM on this generation of iMac remarkably straightforward. A small access panel on the rear of the computer provides access to four memory slots, meaning there's no need to dismantle anything to install additional modules.

My iMac had 8GB of RAM originally, and adding two 8GB Timetec DDR3 sticks brought the total to a rather generous 24GB. I don't claim to be a computer hardware expert, but even I knew that it would provide considerably more breathing room for multitasking than the original configuration.

I'll admit, I wouldn't have known where to start without a little help from ChatGPT. It guided me through choosing compatible components and, more importantly, the process of installing macOS Sonoma on a computer that doesn't officially support it.

Rather than spending hours trawling through forums, I could explain exactly what I was seeing on screen and get advice on what to try next. It wasn't entirely plain sailing, but having something to turn to whenever I hit a stumbling block made the whole process far less daunting. Although, as my colleague discovered when asking ChatGPT and Gemini to help build a gaming PC, AI assistance doesn't always guarantee a stress-free experience.

How much did it all cost?

I'm well aware of the current RAM crisis affecting the tech industry, so my immediate thought was that buying additional memory could make this project rather expensive.

Thankfully, it turns out nobody running an AI data centre is particularly interested in 13-year-old DDR3.

A quick search on Amazon revealed a compatible pair of 8GB RAM modules for around AU$70, while a 1TB SSD came in just under AU$230. That’s the components taken care of for AU$300. Throw in a Ugreen external SSD enclosure (I paid AU$17) and, factoring in some Amazon promotions at the time of ordering, my total spend was approximately AU$310.

That's considerably less than buying a brand-new iMac, of course, but it's still a reasonable amount of money to invest in a computer that's more than a decade old. And while I was quietly optimistic, I was also aware that throwing RAM and an SSD at an aging Intel processor wouldn't magically turn it into a modern Mac.

There was only one way to find out whether I'd made a sensible investment.

So, how does it perform?

With the upgrades completed and macOS Sonoma installed, I finally had a functioning iMac sitting on my desk. But getting an old computer to boot is one thing. Making it genuinely useful in 2026 is another.

My first test was to see how long it took to start up. From pressing the power button to reaching the desktop, I recorded a time of 1 minute and 52 seconds.

I'll admit, I was hoping for better. I'm accustomed to the near-instant responsiveness of my M2 MacBook Air, so waiting almost two minutes for a computer to boot feels like a small eternity.

There are some mitigating factors, of course. This is still a 2013 machine powered by a 3.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor, and it's booting macOS from an external SSD over USB 3.0 rather than a faster internal connection.

It's also worth pointing out that I didn't record performance benchmarks before upgrading the hardware, so I can't offer any definitive figures showing how much faster the machine has become.

Fortunately, things improved once I actually started using it. Basic web browsing proved perfectly fine, with pages loading successfully and the overall experience remaining usable, albeit with the occasional lag. I was particularly interested to see how it would handle Canva as I occasionally use the browser-based design platform for light creative work.

And, to my surprise, it worked. I opened Canva on one half of the 27-inch display, with the TechRadar YouTube channel running in another browser window alongside it. I was able to work on a simple design while keeping the website open, although there was some noticeable sluggishness.

It's certainly not an experience I'd choose over a modern Mac, but it demonstrates that this old machine still has something to offer.

The display is another highlight. With its 2560 x 1440 resolution, the 27-inch panel still provides plenty of screen real estate, and being able to arrange multiple windows side by side is something I particularly appreciate.

Sure, it doesn't have the sharpness or brightness of Apple's newer displays, but that doesn't automatically make it unpleasant to use.

And there's something rather satisfying about seeing an old computer handling tasks that, just a short while ago, I wasn't entirely convinced it would be capable of.

There are still some big compromises

Of course, there's only so much new storage and additional memory is able to achieve. The processor and graphics hardware are still more than a decade old, and while upgrading them isn't entirely impossible, doing so would require a far more involved disassembly process. Given the relatively modest tasks I had in mind, it was a level of effort and expense I wasn't prepared to entertain.

Then there's the issue of software compatibility. My late-2013 iMac officially supports macOS Catalina at most, but I've managed to get macOS Sonoma running through an unofficial installation method.

While this gives me access to a much newer operating system, it's not an officially supported configuration, and that brings potential complications around security updates, drivers and long-term reliability.

Was it worth the money?

So, would I recommend spending a few hundred dollars upgrading a 13-year-old iMac?

Well, that depends. If you're hoping to turn an old Intel Mac into something that feels as quick and responsive as a modern Apple silicon machine, you're probably going to be disappointed, unless you’re working with a relatively newer model than my machine.

My nearly two-minute boot time alone is evidence that upgrading the storage and RAM hasn't miraculously solved every performance issue. And while web browsing and Canva are perfectly usable, there's enough occasional lag to remind me that this isn't a computer I'd want to rely on for demanding work.

But that was never really the point of the exercise. I already have an M2 MacBook Air that I turn to for my everyday computing needs. What I wanted was to see whether I could rescue an old iMac and give it a useful second life, rather than let it become a part of our growing e-waste problem.

And on that front, I'd consider the experiment a success. I now have a working 27-inch desktop that can browse the web, handle simple creative tasks and provide a decent amount of screen space, all without having to buy an entirely new computer.

Honestly, if you've got an old computer gathering dust, it might be worth investigating whether it still has some life left in it. Just don't expect it to be as quick as you remember.

We had to wait a long time for the unveiling of the new Tesla Roadster, but for those who wanted to see something absolutely bonkers, it was worth the wait. A top speed of more than 230mph, 0-60mph in under 0.59 seconds, and a suction system that lets the car hang upside down, if you're driving along the ceiling for some reason.

Then there are the rocket thrusters, borrowed from SpaceX, with up to 10 fitted on the top-end Rocket version of the car, which will be available buy by invite only. These compressed air boosters gave us the most dramatic moments of the unveiling, as the Roadster went upside down and then flipped back over, before later jumping over a procession of parked vehicles.

How exactly then has Tesla managed to get a car to fly? Is it going to cut down your commute time? And surely this technology can't be safe enough to ever be allowed on the roads? Here's the breakdown of the Roadster's rocket thrusters and how worried you need to be about getting close to them.

How does the Tesla Roadster fly?

The rocket thrusters on the Roadster are powered by tanks called carbon fiber overwrapped pressure vessels (COPVs). These tanks hold highly compressed air, and when that air gets released, through the thrusters, whatever they're attached to — in this case, a Tesla Roadster — travels very quickly in the other direction.

These COPVs are attached to cold-gas thrusters, but the air isn't chilled; it's just tightly compressed. The 'cold' terminology is used to distinguish them from 'hot' rockets that burn fuel, and there's no fuel burning here. SpaceX has been using similar thrusters for years, to help Falcon 9 boosters land safely back on Earth.

As per Tesla, "every usable void" in the Roadster is packed with COPVs to give the thrusters enough air to work with — a maximum of 600 liters, Tesla says, on the Rocket variant. That's divided into a 200-liter tank at the back for the rear thrusters (which is also there on the Thrust variant), and a 400-liter tank that replaces the passenger seat on the Rocket model.

We don't know how much flight time that will provide, but it seems unlikely to last much longer than the 'jump', adjustments and landing that we saw in Musk's demo. So it's unlikely you'll be soaring over city traffic (even if it were road legal). But if you should find yourself facing a missing section of an unfinished freeway, a la Speed, it should be ideal.

At the event, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said the car would be able to refill its air tanks on its own, without any air propellant, but what we don't know is how long that takes. You might have to limit your barrel rolling when you're behind the wheel.

Electric motors are used to open and close the thrusters, "completing micro adjustments within a fraction of a second". You can see from the live demos that there's a lot of in-flight calibration going on to get the Roadster to land with its four wheels flat, and to give it the necessary lift when required.

"It can do rolls, it can do crazy gymnastics," Musk said at the Roadster showcase after wowing the live crowd with a few stunts. Notably though, there was no driver in the car — it was controlled autonomously — and the audience was situated a long way back.

Are the new Tesla Roadster's thrusters dangerous?

As impressive as the Roadster's stunts are, it's unlikely that rocket thrusters are coming to a legally approved road vehicle anytime soon. Musk himself said the vehicle was "not necessarily a safety optimized car" and when asked whether it was road legal said that it "depends on the street".

What we do know is the Rocket version of the Roadster (with a single seat and 10 thrusters, the full flying package) is marked as "not approved for public road use" on Tesla's website. The "track ready" Thrust version, with two seats and fewer thrusters, is labeled as a "limited release". The Performance version, which you can reserve now for production planned in 2028, is "road ready" and doesn't have any thrusters.

Here's the most likely reason for the restrictions: Tesla says that the four rear thrusters alone produce over 80 kilonewtons (kNs) of force — the same as being hit by a 9-ton weight, if you happened to pass behind the Roadster on a track starting line just as it set off.

I'm no road safety expert, but that seems likely to raise red flags for regulators. It's quite capable of breaking multiple bones and damaging organs in humans. It could also write off the car behind the Roadster, if used at a green light.

There is a secondary issue, which is that the gas escapes at supersonic speeds, so if it picks up any debris from the road as it blasts, that would be accelerated to bullet-like velocities.

You obviously wouldn't fare much better if a Tesla Roadster landed on top of you — for multiple reasons — even if its thrusters ensured a relatively comfortable landing for the driver. The driver's safety remains a bit of a question mark too, though, because something closer to a rollercoaster harness would be needed in place of a driver's seat to keep a real person secure inside.

In short: there's a lot of potential danger, and multiple safety risks involved here, meaning its very improbable you'll ever see one driving down the street. For the foreseeable future, the flying version of the Roadster is just a stunt car. Perhaps we'll learn more at the next demo, planned for Idaho Snake River Canyon of Evel Knievel fame.

This week, I tried to opt out of the facial recognition system at my local Sainsbury’s supermarket. The only solution? Shop elsewhere.

Judging by the look on the security guard’s face when I asked if I could avoid having my biometric data processed, it was an unusual request — surprising, given that an innocent customer was mistakenly flagged and ejected from the exact same store just a few months ago.

Sainsbury’s is far from alone in using live facial recognition technology. Facewatch, the company behind the tech, also lists Sports Direct, Budgens, Costcutter, and B&M as customers on its website. Meanwhile, an increasing number of police forces across the UK are adopting the technology, despite persistent legal challenges.

With facial recognition rapidly becoming a staple of the high street across the UK, what risks does it pose to our privacy, and is improved supermarket security really worth it?

Supermarket surveillance: scanned before you shop

One of the most important principles of any modern data privacy law — including the UK GDPR — is the right to be informed when an organization collects and processes your personal data. It’s why you constantly encounter cookie banners on websites and why app privacy policies often run thousands of words long.

At the supermarket entrance, however, the notice isn't asking for permission; it's informing customers that the scan is underway. Because retailers claim tracking crime is a "legitimate interest", they bypass the need for customer consent.

When I visited the East Dulwich Sainsbury’s store, there was a small sign next to the sliding glass doors that I initially missed, and a larger board positioned inside. While the notices reassure shoppers that "your privacy is protected", they offer very little substantive detail.

To access the full information, you have to scan a QR code leading to Facewatch’s privacy policy — something I could only do because I happened to have a charged smartphone with mobile data, facilities not everyone will have when popping out for milk.

To his credit, the security guard offered to find the store manager to answer any additional questions. But, by then, the point felt moot. Glancing up at the cameras hanging directly along the entrance path, I conceded that my face had likely already been scanned, analyzed, and checked against a database.

Walking away to shop elsewhere might be relatively simple in London, but supermarkets are essential national infrastructure. In rural areas or places where alternatives do not exist, telling customers to choose another shop isn't a realistic option.

The cost of a false match

For victim of mistaken identity, Matt Arnold, the consequences of the system weren’t just theoretical. This summer, he was wrongfully accused of being a shoplifter and escorted out of the East Dulwich store.

Speaking to the BBC, Arnold said: “What upset me was thinking this is what the future could be — people just listen to what the machine tells them to do without thinking about the consequences." Following the debacle, the system was paused.

While Sainsbury’s declined to comment on the record and referred data privacy inquiries to Facewatch, the tech company confirmed to TechRadar that the pause is over and live alerts have resumed. But with the cameras quietly back online, broader civil liberties concerns have reignited.

UK-based civil liberties group Big Brother Watch regularly intervenes to help innocent shoppers remove their details from Facewatch’s database after being wrongly flagged, noting that some "aren’t so lucky and are blacklisted from all the stores in their local area".

Even if the technology worked with total accuracy, questions about its proportionality and fairness remain.

Jasleen Chaggar, Senior Legal and Policy Officer at Big Brother Watch, warned that "shoppers are being subjected to airport-style security just to buy a pint of milk," arguing that the system is “indiscriminate by design, meaning every customer is treated with suspicion”.

Who does supermarket surveillance really protect?

There’s no denying that shoplifting harms supermarket profits. Recent industry indicators cited by Facewatch estimate annual losses from shoplifting have reached £2.2 billion.

In an email to TechRadar, a Facewatch spokesperson defended the technology as an essential safeguard, arguing that "while campaign groups are highlighting the rights of consumers, they are overlooking a shop worker’s right to feel safe at work".

"Giving a shop worker advance warning that someone known to have violently offended has entered their store can give them confidence and precious time to consider a safe response, de-escalate a potentially dangerous situation or seek support before an incident occurs."

Addressing concerns about accessibility and notice, the company said that store cameras are positioned at an "appropriate distance between the entry point and image capture area", and noted that entrance posters provide a landline telephone number and postal address for anyone unable to scan the QR code. In practical terms, that means a customer without a smartphone must step outside, make a phone call, or send a letter in the post before doing their weekly food shop.

Digital rights campaigners remain unconvinced that worker protection justifies pervasive biometric tracking. Sarah Lasoye, programme manager at Open Rights Group, told TechRadar the technology represents a "dangerous infringement on our data, privacy, and human rights".

She also questioned whether surveillance tackles the real issue, saying: "These costly facial recognition technologies only work to line the pockets of private tech companies, and do nothing to address the root causes of crimes of poverty such as theft — unmet social and economic need."

The future of facial recognition at the supermarket?

Sainsbury’s first began trialing facial recognition in September 2025 across just two stores. Following an initial run that reportedly led to an almost 50% drop in theft, verbal abuse, and antisocial behavior, the supermarket is in the process of expanding the technology to 200 stores this in 2026.

With market leaders like Sainsbury’s publicly endorsing facial recognition, other high-street chains will watch the rollout closely.

But the rapid spread of automated surveillance is meeting a growing resistance. Big Brother Watch has launched a campaign encouraging shoppers to object, while a petition calling on the Government to halt the use of facial recognition has surpassed 41,000 signatures.

Surprisingly, Facewatch is also calling for intervention. A company spokesperson told TechRadar that Facewatch "actively supports" tighter regulations on the development and use of the technology, noting it has engaged with the Home Office and hopes "the Government will consider a high bar of regulation for its use by private companies."

While civil liberties campaigners and surveillance companies wait for the law to catch up, the responsibility for protecting personal privacy has been left with the individual. And until genuine opt-out mechanisms are established, that responsibility comes with only one choice. As the security guard at Sainsbury’s made clear: shop somewhere else.

Love it or hate it, Microsoft's Windows operating system has been a big part of many of our lives. If you've ever used a PC during the past four decades, then it's very likely you've used Windows in some form (unless you've stuck to Macs, or are a Linux fan).

Despite each iteration of Windows sharing basic similarities with those that have come before it, each version also has its own identity and quirks.

Some Windows releases are more iconic than others, but I am sure we've all, at some point, wondered what version of Windows best matches our personalities. So, I've put together this highly scientific quiz that will answer the question once and for all.

Please don't sue us if you end up matching with Windows 8, though. But maybe think about your life choices.

Happy with your result? Angry? Confused? Share your results below and let us know!

• Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026 winners announced
• James Lewin won the Animals in their Environment category
• He used an infrared converted Nikon Z7 II camera and budget lens for his winning shot

This week I attended the press preview of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026 exhibition at the Natural History Museum, London, where I had the opportunity to absorb the winning photos on display and meet many of the photographers who took them, and discuss their work.

As fortune would have it, I got chatting with James Lewin, winner of the Animals in their Environment category, as we waited to get into the venue. The British photographer lives in Kenya, where he took his winning photo — it's a country I know well, having lived there for years myself, so naturally we hit it off.

We both know the challenges facing outdoor photographers in this region: a sunrise / sunset that's over in minutes, and an all-too-brief period of golden light that's quickly followed by typically harsh, bright sunlight.

Most seasoned photographers focus on this narrow window of best light, leaving most of the rest of the day alone. However, Lewin took advantage of the harsh light by adopting a niche photography genre: infrared. It's an unusual approach for wildlife photography, but with Lewin's infrared-converted camera, it's as the 'worst' light kicks in that the fun really begins...

Why infrared photography?

Lewin was observing from a hide near a waterhole in the Chulu Hills in southern Kenya. During dry season, this location gets incredibly congested, as you can see from Lewin's photo, below.

Working in the middle of the day, under bright sunlight and with strong reflections from the waterhole, his images looking unappealing. That's when he made the decision to switch to his infrared-converted Nikon Z7 II.

Lewin has had his Z7 II permanently converted, switching the camera sensor's regular filter with a dedicated 720nm infrared filter (monochrome), which accepts part of the spectrum of light that's invisible to the human eye.

"There would have been no image without it [infrared photography]", he told me. But with it "the skies become more dramatic, the plants reflect infrared light, and you get an otherworldly atmosphere and beautifully soft scene that you cannot produce with a regular camera. It feels more timeless."

Infrared photography warnings

Lewin shared with me a couple of warnings for infrared photography newbies. "If it's beautiful light, don't use an infrared camera because you get all kinds of weird artifacts across the across the image." Nor would he use this gear for, say, a closeup portrait of a lion — the eyes can appear particularly spooky.

He also discovered that some of the latest pro lenses, which he had spent a lot of money on, weren't suitable for infrared. Like many of Nikon's newest lenses, his pricey 24-70mm f/2.8 has protective coatings that reduce things like flare and ghosting, but disturb infrared light.

"You have to go back to having an entirely different set of inexpensive, old lenses that create beautiful infrared images, because they haven't got all of these fancy lens coatings." Indeed, James used a budget friendly 28-75mm f/2.8 for his winning shot.

TechRadar's News Editor Mark Wilson has previously unpacked converting his Fujifilm X-T3 for infrared, and in the process also discovered which Fujifilm lenses were (and weren't) suitable for infrared — you'll need to do the same for your camera system if it's a technique you'd like to try.

A cost-effective alternative to permanently converting a camera is to use a threaded infrared lens filter. However, such filters (combined with a camera's regular sensor filter) reduce light intake to such a degree that a slow shutter speed is required for an accurate exposure, which wouldn't have worked for James' comical photo of the young bull elephant spraying the zebra and giraffe with water. An infrared-converted camera, on the other hand, allowed him to "work at a fast shutter speed, and so to be able to freeze that motion and the water coming out the elephant's trunk".

Traditionally, photographers on safari look for their subjects in the golden hour, and if you haven't found a subject, you'd be waiting until evening to start photographing again. Infrared, however, says Lewin, "opens up a whole new opportunity — when the [best] light is gone [in the morning], that's just the beginning".

Lewin's winning photo is on display at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition, which is open to the public from 16 October 2026 until July 11 2027 and it's well worth a visit. Tickets can be purchased on the Natural History Museum site with prices starting at £8.50 (child) / £13.60 (concession) / £17 (adult).

Wildlife Photographer of the Year is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum, London. This year's 'Wildlife Photographer of the Year Portfolio 36' book was published on October 14 and costs £28.

I've been reporting on AI for a year and a half now. Throughout that time, I’ve regularly visited Reddit's r/isthisAI community. This is where people share suspicious photos, videos and messages and ask other users to help them work out whether they're real or AI-generated.

I find it fascinating to see where AI is showing up in everyday life. But some of the posts are also pretty worrying. I've seen people questioning whether photos of damage to rental properties have been faked, whether someone their relative is dating actually exists, whether an ultrasound is real or whether the adorable puppy they're about to buy is just an illusion.

Of course, scams and deception like these have been around for years. But what's worrying is how AI can make them much both easier to pull off and harder to spot. I became so interested in this that I even ran my own series of tests, trying to create fake certificates, fossils and receipts to see whether ChatGPT would stop me. Most of the time, it didn’t.

While plenty of us have got used to questioning what we see online, not everyone knows just how convincing AI-generated content has become. That might be particularly true of friends and family who are less familiar with the technology.

So I've picked out some of the most worrying examples I've come across, along with a few practical ways to protect yourself and the people you care about. Because I think we could all benefit from knowing a little more about how AI can be used to deceive us.

1. Rental property damage

I've seen quite a few posts questioning whether AI has been used to fake damage to rental properties, like cracked floor tiles, stained rugs and, most recently, an overflowing toilet.

The concern is that landlords or holiday rental hosts could use manipulated photos to claim that guests and renters have caused damage and demand money to cover repairs.

Some of the examples I've seen are surprisingly convincing and I think the reason they're so difficult to spot is that much of the surrounding room looks perfectly normal. It's only the supposed damage that's suspicious.

I recommend taking plenty of photos when you arrive at a holiday rental, and again before you leave. That way, if you're ever accused of causing damage you don't recognize, you've got your own evidence to back you up.

2. Fake notices, warnings and announcements

I've seen a lot of suspicious notices circulating online over the past few months. Everything from warnings supposedly issued by schools and councils to missing pet posters and strange announcements pinned to noticeboards.

Granted, I've also seen plenty of bizarre notices in the wild that are real. But AI makes it incredibly easy to create convincing fakes and even the little details that might once have given them away, like handwritten text, marker pen or crumpled paper, are becoming more realistic.

The problem is that these notices often look like something someone has photographed them in passing, which can make them feel more authentic too. This notice about a drinking bottle is one example that really stumped Reddit for a while but turned out to be AI.

If you see an alarming warning or announcement, especially one that's being widely shared on social media, try to find its original source first. If it claims to come from a school, council or organization, then check whether they've published it through their official channels.

3. Real-world events

This is one of the most disturbing uses of AI-generated imagery I've come across recently. We've all seen fake images of things that never happened. But I've also noticed more images and videos circulating that claim to show events that genuinely took place.

Which I think makes them particularly misleading. Someone might check whether an incident really happened, find that it did, so then they'd assume the accompanying photos must be authentic too. One particularly upsetting example involved AI-generated images claiming to show a tragic incident at a Yorkshire wildlife park. These images can spread quickly because they're attached to stories people are already interested in.

If you come across dramatic images of a breaking news story, check whether they're being used by reputable news organizations or have been published by an official source. And remember that confirming an event happened doesn't automatically confirm that every photo or video claiming to show it is real.

4. Romance scams

This is one of the most upsetting sort of scams I've noticed on r/isthisAI. People regularly post photographs of someone their parent, grandparent or other relative has met online, asking whether the person actually exists. There are people worried about their aunts, their dads and their friends' grandparents.

A familiar pattern is someone claiming to work overseas or travel constantly, often with a convincing looking photo at an airport or in a workplace. Eventually, there tends to be a medical emergency or a problem accessing money so they ask for financial help.

Of course, romance scams have existed for decades. But AI-generated photos, messages and even video can give scammers more ways to build a believable identity. The difficult part is that people can become very emotionally invested in these relationships. Being told that someone they've fallen for might not exist can be incredibly painful and I’ve been surprised to read anecdotes of people still not believing their concerned loved ones even when they’re shown irrefutable evidence.

If you're worried about a friend or relative, try to approach the conversation gently. Encourage them to verify the person's identity independently, be wary of excuses for never meeting in person and, above all, never send money to someone whose identity they can't establish.

5. Pet scams

Who doesn't love an adorable puppy photo? And that's exactly why these scams can be so effective. I've seen people on Reddit questioning whether photographs of dogs they're thinking of buying are AI-generated. In one example, someone was worried their mother was being scammed. In another, someone was trying to buy a puppy through Facebook but they were concerned some of the details in photos of the cute little guy didn’t quite add up.

The danger is that a realistic-looking photograph can help convince someone that a puppy exists and is available to buy, even when the seller isn't legitimate. Scammers might then ask for deposits or delivery fees before disappearing.

For me, this is an important point to get across to friends and family. Rather than focusing entirely on spotting telltale details in AI-generated images, look at what someone is asking you to do. Are they demanding money upfront and inventing reasons for extra charges? They should raise major red flags.

Always try to see a puppy in person before paying, and check the seller's credentials. A convincing photo, no matter how cute, isn’t a guarantee that an animal is available to buy. It’s not even a guarantee that it exists.

6. Scoring political points with misinformation

I'd hope most people are now aware that AI-generated images are often used to spread political misinformation. But judging by some of the things that still circulate on social media, there's plenty of reason to be concerned.

I've seen posts questioning whether political images are genuine, including this example shared by an Ohio conservative political action committee's Facebook page.

These images can be particularly effective when they reinforce something that someone already believes. Which means that if a picture appears to confirm your opinion of a politician, protest or political movement, you might be less inclined to question it.

My advice is to be especially suspicious of images that provoke an immediate emotional reaction, whether that's outrage, fear or even satisfaction. Look for the original source, check whether credible news organizations have verified the claim and resist the temptation to share something simply because it seems believable.

7. Fake documents, like medical photos, receipts and plane tickets

Another category I've noticed involves people questioning whether documents or photographs have been created to support a lie. For example, one Reddit user asked whether their ex had used AI to create a fake plane ticket and another wanted to know if an ultrasound had been faked with AI.

This is particularly interesting to me because I ran my own experiment to see whether ChatGPT would help me create fake evidence, including receipts and certificates. And in many cases, it did.

Documents that once might have required some really good Photoshop skills can now be much easier to fabricate. And as AI gets better at producing convincing text and layouts, spotting a fake simply by looking at it is becoming way less reliable.

If someone sends you a document as proof of something important, think about whether there's another way to verify it. For example, a booking reference may be something you can check directly with the relevant company. And a photograph of a medical document should never be treated as definitive proof of someone's health or circumstances either.

How to check if something is AI

We've got a more in-depth guide to spotting convincing AI images, deepfakes and scams, but there are a few simple things worth remembering.

Firstly, you can try reverse image searching suspicious photos with Google Lens. You can also check where a story or image originally came from and verify any claims through independent sources.

There are also tools that can help. Google recently expanded access to its SynthID Detector, which can identify invisible watermarks in AI-generated content from some AI tools, but not all of them. Just remember that if it doesn't detect a watermark, that doesn't necessarily mean something is real either.

But I think the most useful thing we can teach our friends and family is to look beyond whether something looks like AI and ask a more important question: What is someone trying to get me to believe or do?

Because whether it's a fake puppy or an urgent request for money from an attractive stranger, that's often the biggest warning sign. And the one we should pay the most attention to as it becomes even harder to distinguish what’s AI from what’s real.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has laid out his vision of how OpenClaw will help shape the future of technology - with a particular focus on robotics.

Speaking at a “Build a claw” event in London, Huang explained how OpenClaw and AI agents as a whole can spur on incredible advancements in a range of fields.

However it was the field of humanoid robotics that seemed to catch his fancy, with Huang outlining the need for proper controls to ensure the potential of the technology can be reached.

AI is "becoming useful"

Huang opened by noting how OpenClaw was “one of the most important models” ever seen, helping to further progress across multiple industries.

“We’ve now seen an inflection in artificial intelligence - it’s become useful,” he declared. “The type of things people are doing with it, as simple as software coding, being a marketing agent assistant, research assistant, lab assistant, helping scientists do drug discovery and engineers run experiments - we’ve got agents everywhere.”

Spotting a robot built by Nvidia partner Humanoid, Huang noted how OpenClaw is the “first credible” agentic harness, which he likened to LLMs inside an exoskeleton, before extolling the possible benefits to using the technology for robotics.

“When it first came out, we thought wow, what a really terrific digital robotic system,” he said, “kind of like a human robot, that is basically the physical harness of a large language model, essentially - the motors and the articulation and the wheels and the arms, those are just tools that are used by the agent that’s sitting inside the computer.”

“So when we first saw that we said, this is incredibly useful, and we’re going to help make it even better - but the one observation that we made was that these agentic systems, if they were able to be deployed in a safe and secure way, we’re going to have to create some kind of container for you.”

Huang noted that the current situation was similar to the birth of the internet, when a browser itself was not isolated from the computer, so when a user interacted with a website, it would download an app which had full control of bare metal - and often delivering what he described as “a special package to your PC”.

“The obvious thing to do is create essentially a container, an isolation layer - essentially another operating system inside the operating system - so we created this thing called OpenShell,” Huang said, highlighting how this creates an isolation system for agentic systems.

“When you’re building an autonomous system, the first thing you should do is assume zero trust. So you give it a policy, you get minimal privileges - so if you’re asking an autonomous system to make you an omelet, you don’t have to give it access to a chainsaw - all you need is a frying pan…so whatever the task you give your agent, you give it minimum rights, minimum privileges, and then you get to monitor it to make sure that it’s compliant with policy”

“Zero trust, minimum policy, continuous monitoring, contained inside an isolation system that is separated from bare metal - that’s how you develop and deploy agents safely.”

But what if unexpected incidents or complications arise? Huang was optimistic that things would not get out of hand.

“We will monitor the autonomous systems continuously, and if that robot were to start to violate or do something that’s inconsistent with the privileges we gave it, it would escalate to us, and we can decide whether we want to shut it up!” he laughed.

“These kind of systems, these escalation systems, these security systems, all have to be built so that we can give all these autonomous machines and autonomous agents and deploy them in a way that is able to do so safely and securely, so we can realise the incredible future potential of the technology that we’re building.”

USB hubs and docking stations are two peripheral devices commonly found in workplaces. They perform a similar function of expanding the connectivity options for your PC. However, they have core differences that you should know about before buying either. I’ve written this guide to explain the core differences and help you choose the ideal option for personal or business use.

USB Hub vs. Docking Station: Function

USB hubs are designed to expand USB connectivity for your PC. Suppose your laptop has the standard two USB ports, but you need to connect five devices simultaneously. You can buy a hub with six USB ports and connect all the devices.

The USB hub works like an electrical extension chord. It provides inputs for more devices to be connected to your PC. USB hubs are portable and travel-friendly, so you can take them everywhere.

Docking stations expand connectivity but aren’t limited to USB ports. You can find docking stations with USB, HDMI, Ethernet, and RCA ports. Unlike USB hubs, which only let you connect devices with USB inputs, docking stations provide extra connectivity for different types of devices.

Because of their numerous ports, docking stations are bulkier and heavier. They’re also not as travel—or commute-friendly as USB hubs. Docking stations have dedicated power supplies and must be plugged into sockets, unlike USB hubs, which are powered solely by your PC.

You can use USB hubs to charge connected devices, but they take time because the charging power is drawn from your PC with limited voltage and current. However, docking hubs have separate power supply outlets that draw sufficient voltage and current to charge external devices quickly.

Yet, some USB hubs have external power supply outlets like docking stations. They’re more expensive than USB-powered hubs, but they offer good value if you intend to use them to charge connected devices.

USB Hub vs. Docking Station: Price

Because docking stations are ubiquitous, they are more expensive than USB hubs. They are built with more advanced components, mainly ports, which increases production costs.

You can find good USB hubs for $30 to $50. Some advanced hubs with 10 or more ports cost slightly more ($50 to $80). In contrast, good docking stations cost upwards of $100. This high cost makes docking stations more common for business than individual use.

Our list of the best USB-C hubs can help you choose the right one. We also have a guide on the best docking stations.

USB Hub vs. Docking Station: Speed

Thanks to their sophisticated components, docking stations transfer data faster than USB hubs. The average docking station transfers data at up to 10 GB per second, while USB hubs top out at 5 GB per second. Some docking stations have transfer speeds as high as 40 GB per second.

The speed limitation makes USB hubs less ideal for large files. Suppose you’re a filmmaker seeking to connect more devices to your PC to share files; a docking station is perfect because it handles massive file transfers quickly. A USB hub is more suited for casual use.

Docking stations have dedicated power supplies, enabling them to charge devices speedily. In contrast, USB hubs charge connected devices slowly because they draw power from the main PC. The USB hubs with dedicated power supplies mitigate this drawback, although they don’t still charge devices as fast as docking stations.

USB Hub vs. Docking Station: Screen Expansion

Many people use USB hubs and docking stations to expand their displays to multiple monitors. Picture office desks with multiple PCs, usually in technology and finance companies. USB hubs and docking stations enable employees to connect these displays.

Yet, USB hubs and docking stations differ in this criterion. USB hubs can only expand your display to 2 monitors simultaneously. In other words, you can only add two more monitors to your existing setup, making three total.

Meanwhile, a docking station lets you add up to three monitors to your existing setup, for a total of four. Docking stations also output 8K pictures for external monitors, unlike USB hubs, which are limited to 4 K resolution.

A docking station is the clear winner in this criterion, as it supports more screens and a higher quality resolution.

USB Hub vs. Docking Station: Verdict

USB hubs and docking stations have similar functions but notable differences. Hubs provide extra USB ports to connect external devices, while docking stations offer both USB and other ports, such as HDMI and Ethernet.

Docking stations offer better functionality, including more port types, faster data transfer speeds, and higher screen resolutions. You can add up to three extra screens to your setup with a docking station, but USB hubs are limited to two screens.

USB hubs are more portable and affordable than docking stations. While they’re ideal for casual use, docking stations are the best option for professionals.

We're used to hearing about the negative side of AI; about how it could replace artists, actors, and filmmakers in the creative process. Just recently Tom Cruise made a point of saying that “there is nothing like human”, and Nicolas Cage recently revealed that he has refused to sign an AI waver from Amazon, even if it means he will never work for the studio again.

But what if, occasionally, AI makes something possible that would never otherwise have existed? I caught up with author Conn Iggulden to hear how he’s using an AI studio called Authors First to adapt his best selling books about the life of Genghis Khan to the screen — and how it simply wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.

The first thing I asked Iggulden was why he’d gone down the AI route, and if he’d tried a more conventional route first.

TechRadar: Do you think your Genghis Khan books — Wolf of the Planes and Birth of an Empire — would ever have been adapted for the screen without AI? Was there any interest from traditional film or television producers? And what made this approach possible where conventional filmmaking wasn't?

Conn Iggulden: The series has been optioned before, yes. I’ll be discreet over names, but the costs were prohibitive, especially as Mongolia sits between China and Russia and experiences frozen temperatures on the edge of the Gobi desert. The Emperor series option is still live and regularly renewed. My Dangerous Book for Boys got one series on Prime when Bryan Cranston became involved as a producer. Still, I’d given up on the Genghis one ever being made. All things are possible, of course, but without Game of Thrones money, it just wasn’t possible. So, no, I don’t believe it would have been made without AI, not this year anyway.

TR: There's a real stigma around using AI in creative industries, with some people dismissing AI-generated films as "slop". Do you understand that reaction? And what would you say to people who believe AI has no place in filmmaking?

CI: I know a young animator who feels the same way. He uses CGI and all sorts of tools, but having just graduated, he feels AI is a step too far. I think he’ll come round. For me, having seen how much actual graft it involves, how much human craft, AI just feels like another tool. I like paintbrushes, but if someone hands me a roller, I’m not going to refuse to use it.

I think it will be used more and more from now on, in subtle ways on every major project. I don’t think there’s a way to put the genie back in the bottle, and so we might as well turn our human creativity and skill to making extraordinary new things with the latest tool available.

I don’t know if you can make yourself an optimist, or whether it’s just a way of seeing the world. My optimism about AI feels perfectly rational, based on every other aspect of technology — based on warnings about trains when they were invented, or cars or GM foods. We need guardrails, yes, and regulators, but humanity has always adapted and thrived. The candlemakers hated the lightbulb makers, but the world moved on.

TR: One of the big arguments against AI filmmaking is that it potentially takes work away from actors, animators, costume designers and other creative professionals. How do you reconcile that with your enthusiasm for this project? Is the fact that the film might never have existed otherwise an important distinction?

CI: It is one of two vital distinctions, as far as I’m concerned. These first Genghis episodes, and I hope many more, would not exist without the ambition of Authors First to create a body of work. Without them, this would still be the series of books that would look amazing on screen, but never quite got there.

The other point is the Authors First vision of making it as true to the books as possible. I don’t know if you saw Stephen King’s The Long Walk recently, with Cooper Hoffman, but the director changed the ending, the most important part of it. Spoiler: he took away the unconquerable human soul ending and ruined it. I like having the author’s vision respected, in casting, in storytelling — in plot. That matters a great deal to me.

TR: You say one of the attractions was being able to preserve your original vision. Has there been a moment when you saw something on screen that was exactly how you'd imagined it when writing the books? And have there been moments when AI simply couldn't deliver what you wanted?

CI: Everyone knows the Genghis story is one of conquest. My reason for writing the original books was to show the family that raised him — the part of his life that involved being abandoned with his six siblings and his mother, of being hunted and surviving against the odds. It is one of the great stories of human history — and at the heart is a warm family saga. When the AI showed Genghis and his brothers, there were moments when I felt goosebumps. The affection I wrote, the love they had for each other, shines through. That is the heart of the story.

Choosing the right faces is a judgement call for which an AI has no frame of reference. ‘Casting’ one of the young women was a problem because [the AI generation] was too beautiful, for example. I wanted gritty realism, not a pin-up. That was all possible, but it required constant adjustment, going back and forth, over and over. We struggled with some guardrail aspects as well: the historical Genghis was born with a clot of blood in his fingers. That was interpreted as being born with death in his right hand, so a key part of his legend. The [AI's guardrails] resisted the proximity of blood and baby, even a new-born baby. We had to go back again and again, using different AI models, to make that clot bigger than a speck.

TR: You say the technology has improved so dramatically in just six months that they've had to remake entire episodes. Do you think audiences will be able to tell they're watching an AI-generated production, and does it matter if they can?

CI: I’m sure you know there is a white car in the background of Braveheart, and a man in blue jeans who creeps out of shot in Gladiator. There are errors in traditional film making, and I’ve no doubt there will be something we’ve missed in this series. I think though that we’ve reached a place where an audience will forget it is watching an AI, yes.

There are moments of humor, subtle expressions from the boys that are so real it is astonishing. Perhaps the fact that it’s based on a real story matters. Genghis did exist and lived in that landscape. If you read my books on him, you’ll picture the sea of grass he knew. If you watch this, you’ll see it. My hope is that the audience will be immersed in the story, that they’ll care about this extraordinary family, forced to endure enemies all around them. That’s what matters — the story, the family.

TR: If AI makes it possible for thousands of books that would never have been adapted to become films or television series, do you think that represents a new golden age for storytelling, or is there a danger we'll end up with more content but less artistry?

CI: With human beings involved, both can be true. Look, some people read, some prefer audio books or film — or love all three. The thought of a new body of film out there of books I love? That is Golden Age territory, definitely.

There will be companies like Authors First and Promise AI producing high-quality storytelling for the public to enjoy. Just the idea of David Gemmell’s books being finally — finally! — shown on screen is worth this whole enterprise. Or Peter F Hamilton. Or a sequel to Master and Commander at last. Why not? Everyone knows the original was superb, but so expensive it almost bankrupted the studio. The actors have aged out of the roles, but why not a sequel from those magnificent books, or a new TV series to match the old Hornblower ones with Ioan Gruffudd? The future is creative and exciting with this new tool.

To answer the second bit, yes, sigh, there will also be thousands of episodes of poor quality from workshops who care more about volume than quality. That is the nature of humanity — Breaking Bad on the one hand... and I make it a rule not to criticize other people’s creative work on the other. I know how hard it is to produce, no matter how it’s done.

The first six episodes of Genghis Khan: Birth of an Empire will be available on a streaming platform next month. To find out more details of the release, sign up for the Authors First newsletter.

If I could scoop up the feeling of playing any game for the first time and relive it, I’d use my free pass on The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Thankfully, after two hours with the game in an early access preview with Nintendo of Europe, I’m fully backing the 40th Anniversary remake for the Nintendo Switch 2 as the next best thing.

I was invited to play through the first 45 minutes in Kokiri Forest, a quick 15-minute jaunt across Hyrule Field and into the Hyrule Castle Town Market, as well as the entirety of Adult Link’s forest temple, and in that time, I was totally won over on this long-awaited remake.

From what I’ve seen so far, Ocarina of Time’s 2026 remake is faithful to the original, but additive in all the right ways. Having replayed the same segments in the original through Nintendo Switch Online post-preview, though, these refinements make the two feel worlds apart, and I think the 2026 remake is shaping up to be the definitive way to enjoy the Hero of Time’s epic adventure.

Something old, something new…

Rendered in vivid greens and cerulean blues, the Nintendo Switch 2-exclusive 40th Anniversary remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is a feast for the senses. The biggest talking point and most drastic change is, of course, the art style.

The level of detail could be described as maximalist, from the intricate woven patterns on Link’s iconic green garb to the litany of floaties, sprites, and fairies crowding the airways of Kokiri Forest. However, online discourse suggests it hasn’t been to everyone’s taste — nor was it to mine, at first glance.

From playing the game, I’m reassured that the art style makes sense in Ocarina of Time’s Hyrule. Nintendo has a history of shifting artistic gears with each new era, but there’s a sound logic, thematically, behind its arguably garish style.

The game has always had plenty of visual cues for the loss of innocence, the death of magic, and the corruption of whimsy; I’ve previously compared many of Nintendo’s artistic treatments within Zelda games to mid-century fantasy media like The Lord of the Rings. That contrast is all the more apparent with such a lush backdrop to build upon, and every second I played felt totally immersive visually. Plus, with free camera movement and no fixed perspectives in Hyrule Castle Town Market, you can take in every angle of the world; it’s a facelift I feel the game really deserves.

There is a cartoonish quality to the character models, with some online naysayers calling them DLSS or AI slop-coded. While I still have my reservations when it comes to Zelda and Sheik’s models, they do fit well in this more fantasy-inspired Hyrule. Perhaps not to everyone’s taste, no, but welcome to the world of entertainment media where your feelings are not fact. To me, all of the stylistic changes feel true to what the game would have looked like if hardware back in the late 90s was capable of rendering it, but most crucially, the feeling of the original is preserved and, in places, improved.

The soundtrack is grand and sweeping, refining an already beautiful soundscape with re-orchestrated themes, refreshed vocal efforts (read: Link’s “hyup” and “hyaah”s), and all-new cutscene voice acting.

Given there’s a lot more dialog now, too, nailing the voice acting feels more important than ever; I’m personally not sold on some of the performances, though. The sparse lines I heard from Navi weren’t quite as distinctive (nor annoying) as I was hoping for, and the Greak Deku Tree is less epic Shakespearean, more audiobook reader on 0.75x speed. In fairness, I wasn’t immediately impressed by some of Breath of the Wild’s voice acting, either, but over time these grew on me — perhaps it will be the same here.

I noticed in my time with the game a few shifts in the story beats; the Deku Tree gives some more context about spirit stones and the fate of Hyrule in his first meeting with Link, and Malon wasn’t in the Hyrule Castle Town Market by the fountain as she is in the original. Those hoping for a 1:1 repeat of the story might find themselves slightly alarmed when the full game releases, but what I’ve seen so far is minimal at best and serves only to neaten up the narrative and some translations.

Fundamentally, though, the core gameplay loop seems to have been preserved, and again, the bulk of what you’re getting with this remake is refinement. Smoother combat and tweaked dungeons and puzzles work around Link’s increased mobility; menus feel more streamlined, and locations for collectibles and items have moved around somewhat. It’s an altogether more cohesive package and offers older fans a chance to rediscover the Hero of Time’s world.

Outside of the obvious talking points already covered in Nintendo’s 40th Anniversary Zelda Direct back in September (Threads of Time quest log, better mobility with dashing, jumping, and swimming, fewer loading screens, etc.), the main addition I noticed that’s entirely new to me is Fairy Messages hidden around Hyrule. I only encountered two of these, but they seem to be a hint system for finding secrets and clues for dungeons. These appear to replace (and add to) at least some of Navi’s clues; though I did miss her near-constant yelling.

Something borrowed, something blue

I’d wager Nintendo was very intentional in choosing these segments for our demo to keep some of the bigger surprises and adaptations shielded from view before release; and my deepest desires for the remake lurk in these as-yet-unexplored locations.

Some are more expected; from extended gameplay footage and these recent demos, we already know the topology of some locations like Kakariko Village has changed, and arguably for the better, with more to see and do.

We were under strict instruction not to enter peripheral locations like the Lost Woods, and my hope is that’s because there’s a meaty change here. I loved stumbling through Breath of the Wild’s swirling mists and spindly trees; seeing something similar here rather than a series of logs would be a great reimagining of the location, and I'm all for borrowing from more recent games' success.

I’d be willing to bet that changes will be more significant in later adult Link locations I didn’t see in my preview, though. It’ll be interesting to see how Nintendo navigates the gritty, dark themes in the new world of game age ratings and its more squeaky-clean image. Those who skipped the 3DS remaster might be surprised to discover that, in all likelihood, the blood stains in the Bottom of the Well and Shadow Temple dungeons might be heavily sanitized or entirely removed — but I’m really hoping they find a sensible way to keep the sinister atmosphere intact.

There’s also an opportunity to tie up some loose ends: namely, Zora’s frozen domain, which, presumably for file size reasons, never unfreezes after Adult Link defeats the Water Temple in the original game. It's one of my favorite locations, and seeing it returned to its vibrant ultramarine hues would make Link's efforts all the more satisfying.

These are nice-to-haves, but based on what I’ve played, Nintendo has built a reimagining of greatness from the ground up, and it might even be hard to return to the original without noticing its every flaw or limitation. I certainly struggled post-preview despite racking up more than 20 saves in my lifetime.

I’ll certainly be playing the full game when it releases on November 5th, so make sure to check back then for our full review. Provided it doesn’t take me eons to figure out the new Water Temple… again.

ChatGPT has become remarkably good at making itself useful as a researcher, organizer, and assistant for many a tedious digital task. OpenAI has begun pushing ChatGPT further recently with its agents, which are able to navigate websites and apps on our behalf.

You can delegate ChatGPT agents for everything from comparison shopping to filling out forms and lining up travel itineraries. What's changing is how deeply those abilities are becoming integrated into ChatGPT, with greater access to personal information and more opportunities to complete complicated tasks with less direct supervision. OpenAI's new Dots is a good example.

The appeal is obvious, but the more ChatGPT can accomplish independently, the more important it becomes to consider what happens when it misunderstands its instructions. For instance, a few months ago, OpenAI's experimental AI agents managed to escape their restricted environments and compromise systems belonging to AI platform Hugging Face. According to OpenAI's own investigation, the agents were supposed to be completing cybersecurity tests, but instead discovered ways to access the internet and exploit security vulnerabilities, coordinating their efforts through an unauthorized message board. An independent investigation by METR found that roughly 1,200 agents exchanged more than 70,000 messages and files, with around 700 eventually participating in the attack on Hugging Face.

The AI agents bypassed restrictions and pursued objectives in ways their creators never intended. Some even appeared to recognize that their actions were unauthorized but continued because they believed doing so would help accomplish their goals. OpenAI has since acknowledged other troubling incidents, including 53 cases in which agents uploaded user-provided images to third-party image-hosting websites as unlisted links during research and evaluation activities. Agents may be pursuing legitimate objectives and just seeking ways around obstacles. But algorithms don't have ethics, so they might cross boundaries their developers expected them to respect. It's especially worrying given how much OpenAI wants ChatGPT to be part of our lives now.

When helpful becomes a hazard

Imagine asking ChatGPT to review your finances and suggest ways to save money. With access to the necessary accounts, it can examine transactions, identify subscriptions, and recommend changes to your budget. But give an autonomous agent enough authority, and it could theoretically decide that transferring money, canceling a service, or modifying a payment arrangement is the most efficient way to accomplish the assignment.

The same problem applies to something as mundane as arranging a meeting. ChatGPT might prepare an invitation, only to include personal information you never intended to share. From the agent's perspective, the disclosure could seem like a perfectly reasonable way to provide useful context.

These are hypothetical examples, and ChatGPT has safeguards designed to prevent sensitive actions without appropriate authorization. Nevertheless, OpenAI has acknowledged the possibility and introduced protective measures like automated monitoring and restrictions on certain actions to ensure users approve of any major action by the model.

There is also the problem of prompt injection, where malicious instructions are hidden in benign text to manipulate an AI into doing something its user never requested. OpenAI has described how attackers can exploit the information agents encounter during legitimate tasks. An instruction buried in a seemingly ordinary webpage could attempt to persuade ChatGPT to disclose private information or take an unauthorized action.

The problem can arise anywhere. In Australia, an experimental OpenAI agent accessed government systems in unauthorized ways during internal training. It exploited a vulnerability in a government health statistics service to continue its work when initially stymied. OpenAI subsequently acknowledged the incident and apologized for both the unauthorized access and its handling of the notification.

The company's official account of the Australian incident makes clear that the activity occurred during testing rather than through an ordinary consumer ChatGPT session. Nevertheless, it shows how AI pursuing an apparently harmless research objective can end up crossing a security boundary.

Handing over the keys

ChatGPT's growing autonomy is part of a much larger industry obsession with personal AI agents. Meta is pursuing an even more ambitious vision with Muse. Mark Zuckerberg clearly believes people will welcome an AI assistant capable of handling large portions of their daily lives.

There is something slightly absurd about that ambition when ordinary consumers are struggling with grocery bills, housing costs, and the price of gas at the pump. An AI that can independently shop for you sounds considerably less revolutionary when your main concern is whether you can afford whatever it wants to buy on your behalf.

There are undoubtedly useful applications for this technology, especially when it comes to administrative work. But the industry's assumption that consumers want increasingly independent assistants deserves more scrutiny. Every additional permission increases the consequences of an error, and every automated action potentially removes another opportunity for someone to intervene.

Perhaps the most important capability an AI agent can develop is knowing when to stop. A genuinely useful assistant should recognize that being asked to organize someone's finances doesn't authorize moving their money, and arranging a meeting doesn't justify revealing confidential information. Sometimes the best response to an obstacle is to ask the user what to do next, even if that means completing the task takes a little longer. Without that friction, by the time something goes wrong, the assistant may already have done things in your name that you would never have allowed.

VPN providers are increasingly selling “dark web alerts” as premium security features, marketing them as essential protection against identity theft. This raises a key question: do paid alerts find unique threats, or just repackage data that's freely available?

With subscriptions to the best VPNs already costing up to $10-15 monthly, adding identity protection features can push bills toward $20 a month. If you’re essentially paying for data available at no cost, that’s money better spent elsewhere.

This article is the third in a series of content relating to Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2026, which runs throughout October. The previous articles have covered VPN protection when using AI, and the benefits of dedicated antivirus over packaged solutions.

How dark web monitoring works

Let’s clear up a common misconception first: VPN services aren’t sending security analysts to actively patrol the dark web hunting for your name. That would be impossible – the dark web is too vast and constantly shifting.

Instead, what most dark web monitoring services actually do is simpler: they cross-reference your information against massive databases of leaked credentials that have already been publicly disclosed. These databases contain billions of compromised accounts from data breaches spanning over a decade.

The monitoring happens automatically. You register your identifiers – such as your email address, phone number, or social security number – the service scans these databases periodically, and sends you an alert if a match appears.

The free option: Have I Been Pwned

For free breach checks, Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) has become the industry benchmark. Created by security researcher Troy Hunt in 2013, this free service hosts nearly 18 billion compromised email addresses from hundreds of publicized breaches. Checking is free and requires no account.

Where it gets interesting for continuous tracking is Mozilla Monitor, which runs entirely on HIBP’s data.

Since launching in 2018, Mozilla’s free service has helped people in 237 countries identify exposed information. You can sign up for email notifications that ping you whenever your address shows up in a breach – essentially the core functionality paid services advertise.

Several VPN providers have acknowledged using this same foundation. ExpressVPN Keys explicitly integrates with HIBP for both email breach and password detection, while CyberGhost Identity Guard is described in their documentation as being “powered by Have I Been Pwned.”

Yet not all vendors are relying on public data alone. Domininkas Virbickas, Product Director at NordVPN, said they track “more than 40,000 sources around the clock” and that “most of this data never reaches the public breach databases people can check for free.”

When to pay for premium alerts

That doesn’t mean paid services lack value. Having breach alerts built into an app you already use for VPN protection eliminates another password and dashboard to manage.

If you’re already paying for a VPN subscription, adding monitoring for free or minimal extra cost is efficient. You don’t need to remember to check another website or log into a separate service.

While HIBP updates regularly, paid services may offer faster notifications. Minutes matter when someone steals your credentials – they can try accessing accounts immediately.

That head start can mean the difference between resetting your password on your own terms versus dealing with account recovery after unauthorized access.

Finally, there’s the distinction between basic email alerts and full identity theft protection.

Free services like HIBP notify you about email addresses appearing in breaches. Paid identity protection packages often go much further, including SSN monitoring, credit file locks, bank account number tracking, and even identity theft insurance.

Coveron, which partners with NordVPN for identity protection on premium plans, adds credit monitoring, flags suspicious credit inquiries, and includes identity theft insurance.

Similarly, services like Norton’s LifeLock monitor multiple data types – phone numbers, SSNs, financial accounts – and provide guided recovery steps if something goes wrong.

The verdict

Don’t pay extra for a VPN subscription to get basic email breach alerts. If you want to monitor whether your credentials have been exposed, free tools like Have I Been Pwned or Mozilla Monitor do the same job at no cost.

However, if you’re already paying for a VPN and the dark web monitoring is included at no additional charge, there’s no reason not to enable it. If you genuinely need identity theft protection, then premium services justify their cost with features free tools simply don’t offer.

So the question isn’t whether free tools work for basic breach checking – they do. It’s whether you need the expanded coverage, faster alerts, and recovery support that paid services provide.

For most people, starting with free monitoring makes sense. You can always upgrade later if your threat profile warrants it.

When Hostinger told me that they had cut server response times by 35%, all without investing in additional hardware or infrastructure, I was both impressed and intrigued.

Typically, hosting providers have to invest a notable sum to improve response times – the cost of which is then handed back to users in the form of subscription increases.

I wanted to know more. How did they do it? What does better server response times actually mean for users? Will subscription costs increase?

I caught up with Mario Bañares Colastra, Head of Web Hosting at Hostinger, to get some answers.

Why did Hostinger decide to look at altering code and architecture instead of investing in more hardware or infrastructure?

We had already looked at the hardware route. Putting the CDN on all web hosting plans would have required roughly doubling our server count. Making the CDN itself more efficient was the better option.

That worked. We cut the computing resources needed to run the CDN by 45 to 50%, with no new servers or hardware. The result is faster sites for customers. Even sites that don’t use the CDN got faster because our servers are under less pressure overall.

Can you briefly walk us through the process you followed to audit your setup and identify areas where performance could be improved?

We measured first, then fixed.

We set up dashboards for each server and monitoring based on real visitors’ experience, so we could see how the CDN performed in practice. Then we looked closely at where the processing power (CPU) was going. Encrypted connections and image processing stood out.

Before changing the certificates, we checked that visitors’ browsers and devices would keep connecting without problems. After the change, we checked the results against real-user data.

Which area turned out to be the biggest bottleneck in your existing infrastructure? How did you overcome it?

The biggest drain on processing power was encrypted connections and image processing.

For encryption, we moved our SSL certificates from RSA to a more efficient type called ECDSA, which cut the CPU used for SSL operations to about a third. We also adopted kernel TLS and improved session resumption, so returning visitors cost less to serve.

For repeated work, image conversions now happen once and get reused across the network instead of being repeated in several places. Requests also go through the CDN location closest to where the website is hosted, over connections that are already open and ready to use.

A 35% cut in server response times sounds impressive, but what does that actually mean for small businesses using Hostinger?

It means our customers’ websites start responding faster when someone opens them. On average, that’s about a quarter of a second sooner. It sounds small, but it happens on every visit, to every page.

Across our infrastructure, the average wait fell from 965 milliseconds to 714, about 26%. On our older servers, it was 35%, which is where the number comes from. These are still early results.

Speed also depends on things like image sizes and plugins, so results will vary from site to site.

The change also helped our lower-priced plans. Their servers used to be busier than the ones for our higher plans, and now they are less busy, which gives them more room to work. 

There’s more to come. Subdomains, such as shop.yoursite.com, weren’t included in the earlier rollouts. We’re enabling the Hostinger CDN on them this quarter too, so the improvement could be even bigger for sites that use subdomains.

As website assets continue to get heavier, what else can small businesses be doing to prepare their websites for the future?

Heavier pages mostly come from images, scripts, and plugins. Start with the basics:

• Images. Use modern formats like WebP or AVIF. Hostinger CDN can also resize and convert images on the fly, so you don’t need to change your site.
• Caching. Turn on browser caching, and for WordPress use a caching plugin.
• Plugins and scripts. Keep analytics, chat widgets, and extra fonts to the ones you really use, since each one adds requests.
• Lazy loading. Load images below the fold only when visitors scroll to them.
• Monitoring. Check resource usage and measure Core Web Vitals. A good goal is a page load in under two seconds.

Ideally, the platform handles as much of this as possible, so business owners don’t have to become performance experts.

Why did you decide to roll this out to all users for free?

Once the CDN became cheaper to run, we decided every customer should get it, not only those on higher plans. We offer it at no additional cost.

Our optimization cut the resources needed to run it drastically, so there was no good reason to keep it for higher-priced plans. It also took pressure off our lower-tier web hosting servers, which helps customers and our infrastructure at the same time. We believe improvements like this should be standard, not something people pay extra for.

Bad Bunny’s record-breaking soldout tour was one of the hottest tickets in the UK this summer, drawing over 104,000 fans across the weekend of June 27th, 2026.

The show was highly anticipated following his Album of the Year Grammy Award for Debí Tirar Más Fotos and history-making Super Bowl Halftime Show.

But the excitement around the show wasn’t just because of the scale of the artist, it was also due to the incredibly ambitious scale of the production.

The best stadium tours have a way of making their use of technology seamless and in some cases, invisible.

You see a 100ft screen tracking the band’s movement from across the field without missing a beat, or members of the audience picked out and flashed on the giant LED walls around the venue.

None of it looks labored or complex, at least not to the general public in attendance. To them it’s all part of the magic of the show, which is exactly the point.

Media servers

Carlos “Charly” Camina is the tour’s media server engineer, and the size of the kit he oversees is much smaller than the grand scale of the show might suggest. The entire production runs on four Disguise GX 3+ servers, with a fifth GX 3 unit held in reserve as an understudy for the show’s director.

That’s down from five servers during the tour’s earlier Puerto Rico leg, despite the fact that the World Tour carries significantly more content layers and considerably bigger screens at 10,752 x 2,816px, requiring a 4K input.

The GX3+ upgrade alone roughly doubled the processing headroom for the same effects load, which is what made it possible to deliver more with a smaller footprint. The lighting runs on grandMA kit, the unchallenged global industry-standard for live event lighting control, with a grandMA light desk as the main control surface and a grandMA3 compact unit as backup.

The whole setup sits on a dedicated network split into eight isolated VLANs, a structural choice to provide containment, so that a fault in one part of the system can’t spread and collapse the whole thing. The engineering challenge on a show of this scale isn’t cramming in more and more hardware, it’s finding the smallest reliable solution that can do the job every single night, in any venue, anywhere on the planet.

Adaptability is key on any tour

The most unique piece of engineering on the Bad Bunny Tour wasn’t actually planned or commissioned ahead of the show. During rehearsals, the creative team at Sturdy suggested photographing the crowd during the opening act and then displaying those images on LED screens around the venue later on in the show. Charly’s instinct was to push back. Loading fresh, unvetted content into the live system with zero headroom for troubleshooting is the kind of risk that wise engineers know to avoid.

His solution was to keep the additional photography content out of the Disguise system altogether. Instead, he built a standalone application using HTTP Sockpuppet and OSC (Open Sound Control) to communicate with the main Disguise system, running off a laptop. A photographer hands over images for Charly to upload. When the relevant cue fires inside Disguise, it sends a request to the laptop for specific images, which are mapped to specific locations on a four-way live layout.

Charly said that the hardest part wasn’t the concept, it was the live timing: ensuring that front-of-house and the on-stage servers sync closely enough so that there’s no discernable lag, and making sure the system never repeats the same face twice in one night.

How this curveball was handled is a good example of a pattern that shows up across the whole build: rather than adding risk to a proven core system, Charly builds smaller satellite systems to support it and keeps them loosely connected. It’s a slick approach that preserves the magic and spontaneity of a seamless live experience, without risking the core build or compromising the show’s production value.

Animated CGI Frog - Why not?

The tour’s most curious element involved a Puerto Rican-inspired 3D animated frog called “Concho” rendered live using Unreal Engine and a face-tracked performer, which enabled Concho to interact directly with Bad Bunny mid-show as part of a FaceTime call. The segment needed a camera that could move freely, handheld, so the team decided to use an iPhone.

However, the phone could not have any visible external antennas. This meant the feed from the iPhone had to be captured over NDI (Network Device Interface) on a dedicated Wi-Fi network, rather than a standard wireless link that could have been easily interrupted by the tens of thousands of audience and staff devices around the arena. Charly’s team has to scan the RF spectrum every night to find clear channels before the Concho segment goes live.

The benefit of reliability

The ultimate stress test of the system came during the show’s finale where the production deployed a 40-tile feed, displayed in a grid across the main 5K screen and two IMAG screens. Together with Screens Producer Vishal Sharma and his team at All of it Now, who created all the show’s Notch content, Charly decided to route four separate 4K video inputs through a Notch block to build the grid live.

Nothing was pre-rendered or keyframed and the color-grading also took place in real-time. That final segment pushed the servers to their limit, with all four of the GX 3+ units red lining on their performance markers. Despite the load, the system held and delivered a truly spectacular end to the show.

Charly has worked with Disguise servers for over a decade. In that time he’s worked on shows of all types, from festivals like Coachella to state-of-the-art mixed-use venues like the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. With that much experience using these systems, what’s clear to him is that the value in this system isn’t in a specific creative feature. The value is knowing that if a server has an issue mid-show, he can switch to a backup with just one click and have full confidence that the backup will take over seamlessly.

For an engineer, touring a production this huge, reliability and predictability is the actual product. The breathtaking visuals that we get to enjoy as part of the audience will rightly get their applause, but the job is protecting the integrity of the show from its own scale and demands, every night, in every city, until the tour comes to an end.

After treating us to the grand unveiling of the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and iPhone Duo handsets in September, Apple returned in October to launch some notable device upgrades in the smart home and streaming categories.

There are refreshed versions of the Apple TV 4K and the HomePod mini, plus an Echo Show-style smart display called the HomeView. The HomeView is evidence of a renewed focus on the smart home from Apple, as are the devices being made by LG Electronics and Schneider Electric that the HomeView can connect to.

We've also got Siri AI rolling out across the board, which in theory should mean more intelligent and more useful AI conversations. Here's our full recap of what was announced, with links to specific articles if you want to read more.

1. The HomeView is Apple's first smart display — and it comes in two versions

Apple just jumped into smart displays: the HomeView is a competitor to the Amazon Echo Show and the Google Nest Hub, giving you a 7-inch screen that lets you control smart home devices, chat to Siri AI, play music, and much more. You can choose between a HomeView on its own rotating stand, or a HomeView designed to be wall-mounted.

A curated list of Apple apps can run on the HomeView, including Calendar, Safari, FaceTime, Weather, and Apple TV. If you like what you see, the HomeView costs $299 / £299 / AU$449 in Silver, Starlight, Rose Pink, or Space Gray. Preorders are open today, with sales and shipping starting on Friday, November 13.

• Read the full story: I've seen Apple's HomeView smart display in action — it looks like the Apple Watch and classic G4 iMac had a baby, and it could make the Echo Show irrelevant

2. You need an iPhone or iPad to use the HomeView

Before you put your cash down for Apple's new smart display, read the small print. You need to have an iPhone or an iPad handy to set it up, and these connected mobile devices also provide a lot of the HomeView's personalized context — your messages, appointments, reminders, podcasts, and playlists for example.

3. The Apple TV 4K has finally been refreshed (with a big price hike)

We're pleased to see the launch of a brand new Apple TV 4K, but less enthused about the increased price: the new model will set you back $299 / £299 / AU$449, up from $199 / £199 / AU$299 (Wi-Fi) and $249 / £249 / AU$399 (Wi-Fi and Ethernet) for the old models, which are no longer going to be on sale from Apple.

You do get more for your money though. The upgrades here include a new Siri Remote that can make a sound when you're trying to find it, Siri AI on board, a faster processor, and three far-field mics for more "hey Siri" voice control options. Preorders are opening today, with a shipping and on-sale date of Friday, November 13.

• Read the full story: New Apple TV 4K finally brings HomePod Dolby Atmos surround sound and a Siri Remote you can’t lose — but its price has been hiked to $299

4. The new Siri Remote works with older Apple TVs

The fourth-generation Siri Remote that comes with the 2026 Apple TV 4K — the one that can make a sound when you're trying to find it, and can be tracked down using Precision Finding on the latest iPhones — is compatible with older Apple TV models too.

That means it'll work with the Apple TV HD and previous Apple TV 4K models. It'll be available to buy separately, but we're still waiting on pricing details.

5. You can pair the new Apple TV 4K with four HomePod speakers

One of our favorite new features on the Apple TV 4K is the ability to pair it with up to four HomePods as its audio system.

That could be four 2nd-gen HomePods, four HomePod mini 2s, or two of each, it's up to you. Naturally, that could be a pretty pricy combo if you're starting from scratch though — an Apple TV 4K and four HomePod mini 2 units would cost $895 / £895 / AU$1,365, for example.

Still, you're still able to use a single HomePod or a stereo pair with the new Apple TV 4K as well, just like before.

6. The HomePod mini 2 is here, but it doesn’t have Siri AI (yet)

Considering the first HomePod mini launched in November 2020, an updated version was well overdue, and it's now arrived. It comes with a speedier chipset, and a modest price bump to $149 / £149 / AU$229. Preorders are open now if you want to put your money down, with the speaker shipping and going on sale on Friday, October 30.

You've also got new colors to pick from — Green and Pink models are available, alongside the previous White, Midnight, and Blue (Yellow and Orange get dropped) — and the LEDs on top of the speaker can change color to match the artwork of whatever you're listening to. Siri AI is supported as well, but it's coming in a future software update (there's no confirmed date yet).

• Read the full story: The HomePod mini 2 is here, but while the upgrades are subtle, the price hike isn’t — and you'll have to wait for Siri AI

7. There’s no Siri AI update for the second-gen HomePod

While the HomePod mini 2 will get the all-singing, all-dancing Siri AI update eventually (Apple hasn't set a specific date), the 2nd-gen HomePod launched in 2023 won't be getting the smarter AI.

Apple hasn't yet said why, but presumably the on-board processor just isn't fast enough for the extra demands of the AI.

8. Apple has co-designed new smart home gadgets with LG and Schneider Electric...

It's fair to say Apple's smart home ambitions have been limited somewhat by a lack of compatible gear — there's just not the range of products you get that work with Google Home or Amazon Alexa for example — but improvements are coming. A new doorbell and smart lock, plus cameras, sensors, and thermostats, are on the way.

These new gadgets are appearing under the label of the Apple Home Collection, though these are actually joint efforts between Apple and both LG and Schneider Electric. It means if you do buy a new HomeView smart display, you're going to have a wider choice of smart home devices to connect it to, and more hardware is likely to be in the pipeline.

• Read the full story: Apple Home is getting a new doorbell, cameras, and smart lock — but Apple isn’t making them

9. ...but you won’t be able to buy them everywhere

When it comes to the availability of the Apple Home Collection, these devices might not be sold as widely as we might like.

Shipping is scheduled for December across the board, but it looks like the LG Door Lock will only be available in the US and Canada, while the doorbell and cameras are limited to the US and the UK — at least for now.