• Report finds 57% of UK organizations opted to extend legacy system use rather than replace the tech
• This is despite almost half of UK businesses are scaling AI
• Meanwhile, over three quarters of UK businesses have gone over budget on modernization, with over two thirds have paused or abandoned the process

Does technological progress necessarily mean replacing old gear? New research from Ensono claims businesses are keeping hold of legacy tech, with older systems extended and upgraded to support modern applications.

This is happening while businesses scale their AI use, focusing budgets on affordable upgrades for existing PCs, laptops, and servers on one hand, and embracing AI on the other. It’s a balancing act, one that is being managed by around 52% of businesses – 57% in the UK, and 48% in the US.

However, the driving factor for this reliance on older tech may not be smart budgeting and foresight. Across the US and UK, 61% of businesses have been forced to pause, scale back, delay, or even completely abandon IT modernization in the past two years.

IT modernization?

Ensono’s second annual State of IT Modernization Report seems to point to a change in how IT modernization is achieved: rather than replacing old tech, businesses are upgrading. The takeaway is that IT budgets are dictating a focus on AI spending, so where possible PCs, laptops, and some lower-end servers are increasingly being upgraded with faster, higher capacity storage and RAM.

Other key statistics in the report include the news that 71% of IT modernization projects have exceeded budgets, with workflow challenges (33%) and limitations with existing infrastructure (28%) among the roadblocks to an ROI on AI spending.

Underpinning all of this is the growth in decision makers declaring that AI is accelerating modernization, up from 39% last year to 54%.

Rediscovering legacy systems

Budget demands seem to be driving the reliance on older tech within organizations striving to keep up with AI modernization.

“AI is expanding the possibilities for modernization, enterprises are discovering that legacy systems, like the mainframe, are intensely powerful, reliable and efficient sources of computing that can now be augmented and made more agile thanks to AI," noted Brian Klingbeil, Chief Strategy Officer at Ensono.

This means that IT leaders are being forced to decide what needs to be preserved, and where to use AI investment wisely.

“These systems contain decades of data and business logic that drive many businesses,” says Klingbeil. “The advantage will go to organizations that understand their environments well enough to distinguish what should be replaced vs. what should be augmented, and embrace new modernization methods that simply were not available even 18 months ago."

• The Nyrius Phoenix Home is a new wireless HDMI adapter with 500ft line-of-sight range, 75ft through walls or floors
• Delivers 4K resolution with Dolby Atmos, DTS and 7.1-channel surround support
• Launches for $199.99 for the basic transmitter and receiver

The Nyrius Phoenix Home is a true 4K wireless streamer that takes an HDMI source such as your games console, Apple TV 4K or Blu-ray player (or any combination through an AV receiver) and sends it to your TV, projector or desktop monitor.

It's designed to be simple, so there's one HDMI input on the transmitter and one HDMI output on the receiver — and it promises a 500-foot range in plain air, or 75 feet through walls and floors.

This means it could be used as part of a home theater setup, beaming video from your source to your projector or TV across the room without cables, or it could be used as an alternative to running and HDMI cable through your walls so you can send video to other parts of the house.

This isn't the first such streamer by any means, but it's very aggressively priced for a 4K wireless HDMI adapter and delivers an impressive specification for its relatively low price.

Nyrius Phoenix Home: key features and specifications

With the Phoenix Home's 500-foot line-of-sight range, I'm thinking it could be good for movies or sporting events with friends outdoors with a projector or outdoor TV.

Transmitting up to 75 feet through walls and floors means you can use it to stream from a computer in one room to a TV in another, provided the computer has an HDMI output or an HDMI adapter: the Phoenix Home only supports HDMI input.

The Phoenix Home also features USB-C that you can use to remotely control a computer by connecting it to the transmitter and using a keyboard and mouse with the receiver. There's also an IR extender for remote controllers.

The Phoenix Home transmits up to 4K resolution at up to 60fps, and it supports DTS, Dolby Atmos and 7.1-channel surround.

I think there are multiple applications for this kind of device at home as well as in business or educational spaces: it's a good solution for renters who can't start drilling cable runs everywhere, and for rooms that weren't made with AV systems in mind.

A few TV companies have been thinking about rooms where you want to mount the TV above the fireplace or another feature and have your AV receiver, consoles or other home theater gear somewhere else. If you saw Samsung's Wireless One Connect Box or LG's Zero Connect and wished you too could have a wire-free TV, you don't need to splash your cash on one of this year's best TVs to cut the cables: this will provide a similar option for $199.

Our one worry would be what the latency is like for gaming, which we'd have to test to be sure about. But if you're looking to cut the cables for making it easy to move movies around the home, this looks like a very affordable and effective way to do it, and is available now.

Thinking of buying a new TV?

Try our TV size and model finder! You tell it how far you sit from your TV, we'll tell you what size to buy based on viewing angle advice from image quality experts, and we'll recommend our three top TVs at that size for different prices.

• The US Treasury's FinCEN arm asks financial institutions to file scam center suspicious activity reports under a new keyword
• FinCEN says that it flagged financial moves across 33,904 different filings, but actual losses might differ significantly, as the approach is prone to double-counting transactions
• Only 1,300 institutions filed reports, with 10,082 (29.7%) of them centering around exploitation of the elderly by scammers

The US Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has issuespublished an alert and a companion data analysis telling banks, credit unions, digital asset exchanges, and securities firms that it needs sharper reporting on the overseas scam centers that it says target Americans at an industrial scale.

FinCEN puts total damages, per its reporting mechanism, at roughly $12.7 billion linked to suspected digital asset investment scams between September 2023 and the end of 2025.

The number comes from adding up the dollar values of 33,904 Bank Secrecy Act filings that referenced the keyword from its 2023 "pig butchering" alert, which may be overstated, as it includes both attempted and successful transactions as well as both inbound and outbound reports, often of the same transactions, causing significant overlap.

FinCEN's new requirement is a keyword

While the $12.7 billion is a measure of what institutions have flagged and is prone to double-counting and errors, victim losses, a significant chunk of which go unreported, may be considerably higher.

This has prompted Gene Lange, who effectively works as the Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, to call these scams "one of the most significant fraud threats facing Americans today."

It has also prompted a new suspicious activity report keyword: "FIN-2026-SCAMCENTERS," which institutions are expected to use to indicate that a scam center is potentially involved.

FinCEN also wants chat logs, scammer phone numbers, social media handles, wallet addresses, transaction hashes, and the URLs victims were told to deposit into, filed in the structured cyber indicator fields rather than left out.

Institutions to volunteer more information to stop scams

The move is part of its push to have institutions volunteer more information under the US Patriot Act, as it aims to confront what is a growing intelligence problem: scammers tend to route victims through several institutions in sequence; most filers see only one slice of a scam's lifecycle and often have difficulty tracing it all the way.

For example, a crypto exchange might see a customer buying USDT and sending it off-platform, a bank might see a wire to that exchange, and a brokerage might see a retirement account liquidated. None of them would have the bigger picture of what essentially happened or what triggered the transaction.

Combined, with properly linked information, it makes it much easier to identify a potential scam; separately, these incidents can inflate the number of reports, which often aren't linked, and investigations can lack insight into the origin or final destination of the funds.

FinCEN's Rapid Response Program has interdicted $1.8 billion and recovered just over $1 billion for 5,790 US victims since 2015, which, against the flagged totals, is a very limited recovery at best compared with the actual funds at stake. This highlights a larger fundamental problem: institutions mostly detect these schemes after the money is gone, and reporting them correctly and thoroughly may yield limited dividends at best against an industry that has morphed, relatively unchecked, into a multi-billion-dollar juggernaut.

• Scientists have developed solar panels that can work up to 10 meters underwater
• The panels can capture up to 324 mWh of energy at that depth
• Each device is expected to last up to five and a half years at a time

A lot of devices are deployed underwater for research and exploration purposes, but powering them all can prove to be difficult, especially if they’re under the waves for a considerable period of time. A new scientific paper, however, has shown that solar panels can be successfully used at depths of up to 10 meters, potentially presenting a new way to keep underwater tech powered up and ready for action.

The paper was published in the Joule periodical and accompanied by a press release explaining its advances. The research was conducted by a team of scientists from Yunnan University in China, who said that a series of solar cells placed 32 feet (10 meters) below the water’s surface in the South China Sea were able to collect enough energy to power up a set of lithium-ion batteries in two hours.

The cells were made from lead halide perovskite with a polymer called polyhexamethylene guanidine hydrochloride added into the mix. This additive helped to enhance the effectiveness of the panels.

According to Wen-Hua Zhang of Yunnan University, “Very few studies have been reported on underwater solar cells, and all of them are focused on very shallow water depths of only two meters or less, a scenario far from catering for requirements of practical application.”

“This work presents the first functional validation of submerged solar cells practically operating at a water depth of up to about 10 meters, greatly broadening their application scope,” Zhang added. The researchers stated that each cell could be deployed for around five and a half years at a time.

The panels captured 1,416 milliwatt-hours (mWh) of electricity at a depth of two meters. This decreased to 752 mWh at six meters and 324 mWh at ten meters. During separate lab testing, the solar panels had a power conversion efficiency of just under 35%.

Paving the way

The idea behind this research is that underwater solar panels could be used to power devices such as sensors, cameras, communications systems, and more.

Many of these objects are stationary for much of the time, so nearby solar cells could help keep them topped up and working without necessarily requiring extensive human intervention.

One question that remains unanswered is how exactly solar panels like this would interact with their environment. For example, it’s likely that they would accumulate biomatter that could hinder their operation, potentially requiring regular cleaning in order to remain fully functional. After all, the sunlight that will power these cells could also promote the growth of plants and animals — a process known as biofouling.

Still, the research seems to have potential. As the authors noted, “This work paves the way for the practical deployment of perovskite photovoltaics in underwater environments, offering a promising route toward self-sustained marine energy systems and autonomous underwater devices.”

• A pseudonymous GitHub account has published what it calls a reconstruction of Stuxnet malware that purportedly took out a fifth of Iran's centrifuges before being discovered
• The original source has never surfaced, and the 'Stuxnet' moniker that the account uses comes from Symantec's coining of the name weeks after it was discovered
• The code remains unverified and untested, with some users indicating that it is likely an AI-generated replication of the original binaries' behavior, which has been widely documented

A GitHub account has published what it describes as a faithful reconstruction of Stuxnet, the worm that sabotaged Iranian uranium-enrichment centrifuges.

It also became the first piece of software widely accepted as having caused physical destruction in the real world, highlighting how malicious software can often do much more harm to people and hardware than just stealing or manipulating data.

The repository surfaced via a Show HN submission, which mainstream media outlets then picked up, highlighting the as-yet-unknown researcher's reverse-engineered code.

Not the first or last Stuxnet repository

The original Stuxnet source, written by whoever built it, has never been leaked and did not leak last week. The repository's README explicitly states that it is a reconstruction assembled from decompiled binaries, and those binaries have been in public circulation since Belarusian firm VirusBlokAda pulled samples from an Iranian customer's machines in June 2010.

Everything that followed, including Symantec's W32.Stuxnet Dossier and Ralph Langner's To Kill a Centrifuge, was built on those samples and how they reacted in test environments.

This is also not the first time readable C-language code aiming to replicate Stuxnet has been published online. Malware researcher Amr Thabet published a decompilation of the MRxNet rootkit carrying a 2010 to 2011 copyright notice. Christian Roggia followed with a dropper decompilation called open-myrtus, copyrighted 2012 to 2014, which has since been forked into a long chain of repositories.

The irony is that if such code were a faithful replication of the infamous malware, it would not have mentioned "Stuxnet" in multiple places, including registry keys. This is because the moniker is not one the developers likely used, but one Symantec switched to from its original 'W32.Temphid' identifier.

The thread where it was first brought to attention by a user called Sadpainy also has mixed views from developers, many of whom have branded it 'AI slop' or a 'fake' that relies on a mixture of already existing repositories, even as the about page on its GitHub repo states that it was reproduced by the researcher for educational purposes and is designed to only work on Windows XP and Windows 7.

For those looking to test it, a virtual machine might be their best bet, especially given Stuxnet's ability to physically damage hardware, but it is also a stark reminder of what a rogue AI agent could do if left unchecked without specific instructions or safeguards.

Quordle was one of the original Wordle alternatives and is still going strong now more than 1,500 games later. It offers a genuine challenge, though, so read on if you need some Quordle hints today — or scroll down further for the answers.

Enjoy playing word games? You can also check out my NYT Connections today and NYT Strands today pages for hints and answers for those puzzles, while Marc's Wordle today column covers the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about Quordle today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

Quordle today (game #1697) — hint #1 — Vowels

* Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too).

Quordle today (game #1697) — hint #2 — repeated letters

Quordle today (game #1697) — hint #3 — uncommon letters

Quordle today (game #1697) — hint #4 — starting letters (1)

If you just want to know the answers at this stage, simply scroll down. If you're not ready yet then here's one more clue to make things a lot easier:

Quordle today (game #1697) — hint #5 — starting letters (2)

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

Quordle today (game #1697) — the answers

The answers to today's Quordle, game #1697, are…

• CRIER
• CHIRP
• NEIGH
• FREER

A very taxing game despite its heavy use of the letter R and lack of vowels.

NEIGH was the hardest to get to, but once I entered N-E-I onto the tiles I realized there was no other possibility.

Daily Sequence today (game #1697) — the answers

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1697, are…

• SOBER
• STONY
• IDYLL
• QUARK

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #1696, Wednesday, 16 September: SPEAR, PRICE, BLUNT, FISHY
• Quordle #1695, Tuesday, 15 September: SHUSH, LITHE, DELTA, BUGLE
• Quordle #1694, Monday, 14 September: ZEBRA, LEGAL, RATIO, TROLL
• Quordle #1693, Sunday, 13 September: LUCID, SPRAY, MANGE, EMAIL
• Quordle #1692, Saturday, 12 September: SUPER, BRUSH, RESET, SOWER
• Quordle #1691, Friday, 11 September: PLUSH, PAINT, RIVAL, AFOUL
• Quordle #1690, Thursday, 10 September: AGENT, EXILE, TITAN, PUREE
• Quordle #1689, Wednesday, 9 September: HAPPY, GONER, SMACK, MOTIF
• Quordle #1688, Tuesday, 8 September: FLUNG, DIARY, HALVE, BERTH
• Quordle #1687, Monday, 7 September: VISIT, CLANK, FEVER, OCEAN
• Quordle #1686, Sunday, 6 September: PILOT, HONOR, BOWEL, TAUNT
• Quordle #1685, Saturday, 5 September: GNASH, GEEKY, WHELP, PUTTY
• Quordle #1684, Friday, 4 September: QUICK, BEEFY, TRUCK, SNAIL
• Quordle #1683, Thursday, 3 September: SIGMA, ESSAY, MERRY, LLAMA
• Quordle #1682, Wednesday, 2 September: INCUR, FELLA, TITAN, FROZE
• Quordle #1681, Tuesday, 1 September: NASAL, ROUTE, ANKLE, MIGHT
• Quordle #1680, Monday, 31 August: ALIVE, LOUSE, ABOVE, MOSSY
• Quordle #1679, Sunday, 30 August: USING, SORRY, FILET, PIPER
• Quordle #1678, Saturday, 29 August: OVINE, ALLOY, VOICE, CARVE
• Quordle #1677, Friday, 28 August: WAIST, EDICT, BONUS, DEUCE

Strands is the NYT's latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it's great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints.

Want more word-based fun? Then check out my NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games, and Marc's Wordle today page for the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

NYT Strands today (game #928) - hint #1 - today's theme

NYT Strands today (game #928) - hint #2 - clue words

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• MUST
• TUNE
• NECK
• STICK
• PUPPY
• BLOCK

NYT Strands today (game #928) - hint #3 - spangram letters

NYT Strands today (game #928) - hint #4 - spangram position

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #928) - the answers

The answers to today's Strands, game #928, are…

• PEANUTS
• ZIPPY
• MUTTS
• PICKLES
• ZITS
• BLONDIE
• SPANGRAM: THEFUNNYPAGES

• My rating: Hard
• My score: 3 hints

After missing out on getting an easy Spangram-first yesterday I was on a mission to spot it today and it ended up being far easier than I thought.

I was unsure exactly what the theme meant, but seeing the word 'funny' in the middle of the board and then the word 'the' in the top-left-hand corner helped me connect THEFUNNYPAGES.

This, though, was where my good fortune ended, as I needed three hints to find all of the comic strip names, being familiar with only Peanuts.

Comic strips were less of a big deal in the UK, where I grew up, although the cartoon strips on the back page along with the TV listings section were the only parts of the newspaper I read as a kid. Ours, though, were the adventures of a world-weary viking called Hägar.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Wednesday, September 16, game #927)

• JAZZY
• VIVID
• BRIGHT
• FLASHY
• STRIKING
• VIBRANT
• SPANGRAM: EYECATCHING

Good morning! Let's play Connections, the NYT's clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need Connections hints.

What should you do once you've finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I've also got daily Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too, while Marc's Wordle today page covers the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Connections today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

NYT Connections today (game #1194) - today's words

Today's NYT Connections words are…

• SPRING
• SUBWAY STATION
• PRESTIGE
• TRIANGLE
• TAP
• GIVE
• LANGUAGE
• FOUNTAIN
• WELL
• BOUNCE
• SEWER LINE
• HANDLES
• SHEEP
• DETECTIVES
• MINE SHAFT
• FLEXIBILITY
• WOLVERINE

NYT Connections today (game #1194) - hint #1 - group hints

What are some clues for today's NYT Connections groups?

• YELLOW: Stretchy
• GREEN: Found down below
• BLUE: Films starring a well jacked man
• PURPLE: Compound words with added romance

Need more clues?

We're firmly in spoiler territory now, but read on if you want to know what the four theme answers are for today's NYT Connections puzzles…

NYT Connections today (game #1194) - hint #2 - group answers

What are the answers for today's NYT Connections groups?

• YELLOW: ELASTICITY
• GREEN: THINGS THAT ARE UNDERGROUND
• BLUE: HUGH JACKMAN MOVIES, WITH "THE"
• PURPLE: LOVE ____

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Connections today (game #1194) - the answers

The answers to today's Connections, game #1194, are…

• YELLOW: ELASTICITY: BOUNCE, FLEXIBILITY, GIVE, SPRING
• GREEN: THINGS THAT ARE UNDERGROUND: MINE SHAFT, SEWER LINE, SUBWAY STATION, WELL
• BLUE: HUGH JACKMAN MOVIES, WITH "THE": FOUNTAIN, PRESTIGE, SHEEP DETECTIVES, WOLVERINE
• PURPLE: LOVE ____: HANDLES, LANGUAGE, TAP, TRIANGLE

• My rating: Hard
• My score: 2 mistakes

My first mistake could have been a group of ways to access water — SPRING, TAP, WELL and FOUNTAIN — but drew a complete blank.

Thinking of a different meaning for SPRING helped me find the other words describing ELASTICITY, but I flopped again, adding TAP instead of WELL to the group that became THINGS THAT ARE UNDERGROUND.

Finally, I did not know that I was collecting HUGH JACKMAN MOVIES, WITH “THE” but I knew that PRESTIGE, SHEEP DETECTIVES and WOLVERINE were all films and took a gamble that FOUNTAIN was too.

Yesterday's NYT Connections answers (Wednesday, September 16, 2026, game #1193)

• YELLOW: ENDING IN METAL ELEMENTS: LATIN, LONG JOHN SILVER, MARIGOLD, STEAM IRON
• GREEN: STARTING WITH U.S. COINS: DIMENSION, NICKELODEON, PENNYWISE, QUARTERBACK
• BLUE: POETS' MIDDLE NAMES: BARRETT, CARLOS, ST. VINCENT, WADSWORTH
• PURPLE: SAUSAGES PLUS A LETTER: BORAT, CLINK, FRANK-N-FURTER, WIDENER

• Panasonic launches new DMR-4X1010 4K Blu-ray player in Japan
• Also includes 4K tuners, 10TB of local storage for recordings, Blu-ray recording, and support for cloud storage
• About $2,800 / £2,080 / AU$3,930

Blu-ray fans should be feeling blessed this month: with new players decidedly thin on the ground, September has brought us news of not one but two 4K Blu-ray players — though neither is really aimed at the average movie enthusiast.

The new Panasonic DMR-4X1010 is a flagship 4K player with a bunch of other neat tricks up its sleeve, and while it's likely to stay as a Japan-only release, we're still happy to see new players being made.

A 434,500 yen, which works out at about $2,800 / £2,080 / AU$3,930, it's a fair bit cheaper than this month's other new Blu-ray player, the Magnetar Ultima: that costs a cool $12,000 (about £8,895 / AU$16,687).

Panasonic DMR-4X1010: key features

The Panasonic DMR-4X1010 not plays 4K Blu-rays, regular Blu-rays and DVDs, it also features 4K broadcast tuners and includes a giant 10TB hard drive for recording shows and movies. There's also the option of cloud recording of up to 10TB via Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive, so you can access recordings on your phone or store Blu-ray disc images in the cloud.

It even records to BD-R/RE discs of up to 100GB, if you prefer. Recording from live broadcast isn't that popular worldwide, but evidently it's popular enough in Japan to make this the ultimate 'own your copies' machine.

The player uses an AVC encoder for high-definition recording, and Panasonic says the encoder can compress 24Mbps signals to around 1.6Mbps to maximize recording space… though, again, it does come with 10 terabytes.

The DMR-4X1010 also works with Panasonic's AI Viera system, which can automatically adjust the picture quality to fit the scene — so bright and vivid if you're watching sports, and richer contrast if you're watching a noir movie. AI can also adjust the audio to make it more immersive.

The new player launches through authorized dealers on October 22, 2026, and exclusively to the Japanese market.

There have been worries about the future of 4K Blu-ray, and whether the companies are still interested in producing them — the current models have been around for a long time, and Panasonic just increased the price of its options.

But the release of this model and the Magnetar show that companies aren't blind to the desire for new options — I just hope we might get something more affordable and mainstream than these at some point.

• Future memory could be more durable thanks to developments with wurtzite ferroelectrics materials
• A new structural design has enabled a demonstration of 10 billion writing cycles, around 100 times the previous limit
• The breakthrough was made by scientists from the Xidian University working with the City University of Hong Kong and Fudan University.

Next generation memory for future AI systems will need far faster and more durable performance, and scientific researchers in China seem to have made a breakthrough, demonstrating a new design which can complete some 10 billion writing cycles, 100 times more than the previous limit.

This development – by teams at the Xidian University working with the City University of Hong Kong and Fudan University – is one of the most significant breakthroughs in memory development, and relies on the discovery of a quirk in the behavior of Nitrogen atoms.

Dense, low-power memory chips now seem to be a realistic possibility for a future demanding ever-scaling AI processing.

Wurtzite ferroelectrics

Creating faster memory and storage with greater capacity while keeping the energy requirements low is the holy grail of computing.

Over the past few years, research has increasingly focused on wurtzite ferroelectrics (polar crystal materials) such as aluminium scandium nitride (AlScN), which has the advantage of being compatible with semiconductor manufacturing processes currently in use.

It also offers that low energy target, along with the superior switching speed required by fast storage. Until now, the main challenge had been reliability. Testing of repeated switching in previously developed AlScN chips had resulted in failure after around 100 million writing cycles, but the researchers have found a solution.

Nitrogen cornfields

So, why has this breakthrough been made now? The previous failed attempts led researchers into deeper investigation as to why the AlScN chips would top out at 100 million cycles, which is where they found the problem: missing nitrogen atoms.

Wang Ruiqing, is a doctoral researcher at Xidian University and one of the authors of the research paper on the study, recently published in journal Science.

“Think of ferroelectric material as a neatly planted cornfield,” Wang said, “with nitrogen vacancies representing spots where seedlings are missing.” The defects were not the problem itself, however, but rather their behavior during switching. Rather than remain stationary, the nitrogen vacancies would move, and even group together. The consequence of this was the creation of “pathways” that allowed electricity to leak.

Upon discovering this, the team designed a structure to minimise the nitrogen vacancies, slowing the deterioration of the material.

“In the past, researchers knew that the devices failed and could observe some of the symptoms, but no one had been able to explain at the atomic scale what was moving, how they were moving and how that movement ultimately caused failure.” Wang added.

If successful, AlScN-based RAM and storage could form the backbone of future server farms and provide the framework for greater LLM and artificial intelligence adoption.

• Fable will have a 60fps performance mode on Xbox Series X
• Playground Games associate game director Craig Littler says it didn't want to compare the PC and Xbox versions
• However, he adds that "It will look great wherever you go"

Playground Games is being a bit cagey about Fable's graphics settings across PC and console, but has confirmed the Xbox Series X version will have a 60fps performance mode.

Fable has been in development for a very long time, but fans can finally expect the fantasy role-playing game (RPG) to launch on February 23, 2027, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Series S, and PC.

While there have been plenty of trailers and, most recently, new gameplay footage showcasing the game, Playground has yet to share the PC specs and how Fable will run on console.

However, during a Q&A session at Gamescom attended by TechRadar Gaming, associate game directors Will Kennedy and Craig Littler did reveal that the game will look "great" on all platforms.

"What we will say is that our approach to all platforms is really the same, in that we want the game to look great wherever you're playing it, and for it to be appropriate for the platform later on," Littler replied when asked to elaborate about the console edition graphics settings.

Without giving away too much, the developer then confirmed that the Xbox Series X version will offer a 60fps performance mode, but said, "I don't really want to get into the like in terms of what PC versus Xbox will be like."

"It will look great wherever you go," he added.

In the same interview, Playground also confirmed that Fable will take up to 20 hours to beat, but promises the game's life systems offer "limitless" replayability.

• Diablo 5 will tell stories of the past, present, and future, the latter of which Blizzard calls "terror forming"
• Players can visit biomes that are taken over by Diablo's Dread Commanders
• Narrative director Jennifer Hepler says these biomes can change depending on who's in charge, and "it's a whole new experience" every time you revisit them

Blizzard has confirmed that Diablo 5 will tell stories involving the past, present, and future of Diablo's takeover of Sanctuary, which will visually affect explorable biomes.

The next installment in the isometric dungeon crawler series has been announced and will find players back in the mortal realm of Sanctuary. However, humanity has fallen into an apocalypse and the land has been conquered and reshaped by Diablo and his army.

Speaking to TechRadar Gaming at BlizzCon after the game's reveal, senior game director Joe Shely shared how different Sanctuary will look to players and said they will travel across the Western continent, seeing all different biomes that have been overrun.

Shely said Diablo 5 has "three stories that we're telling" within this changed world: the stories of the past, the time when Diablo took over and when he and his Dread Commanders emerged into Sanctuary, and the "desolation" of the present.

"There are no people around," he said. "There are very few survivors. Occasionally, you may find a human to add to your caravan, and they can bring something to support you."

There's also the future, which is being actively turned into an outpost of hell by Dread Commanders, something that the team has dubbed "terror forming."

"We call it terror forming because these Dread Commanders will actually transform the environment, transform the biome into a version of hell that relates to personal powers and powers at station," Shely explained.

Players will be able to revisit these occupied areas, and if a different Dread Commander is stationed there, "it's going to look totally different."

"The procedural world gives us a lot of levers to pull for that," added narrative director Jennifer Hepler. "You can go to a place, and it is under the control of the Dread Commander of Undeath, and it's going to be full of zombies and things like that. And then later in the game, you could return there, and it's either been reclaimed by humanity or taken over by a different Dread Commander, and the environment will be totally different as a result of that.

"So each time you go somewhere, it's a whole new experience and just constant new discoveries."

Diablo 5 is in development and is slated to launch in Spring 2029.

• Ukraine says its Sargan-3000 drone boat destroyed a Russian counterpart using machine gun fire
• The reported clash involved two unmanned boats fighting directly at sea
• No video has emerged showing the reported destruction of the Russian craft

Ukraine's Navy has announced that a Sargan-3000 drone boat destroyed an armed Russian counterpart somewhere in the waters of the Black Sea.

Kyiv describes the encounter as the first occasion on which two robotic warships have fought each other directly at sea.

That assertion rests entirely on the Ukrainian account, since no independent party has so far confirmed the situation.

Machine gun fire instead of a warhead

According to the announcement, operatives from Kyiv's military intelligence agency, HUR, located the Russian craft before naval crews steered their vessel toward it.

The kill was reportedly achieved with a Protector RWS, a remotely operated turret armed with a 12.7mm weapon rather than explosives.

Until now, most sea drone attacks have relied on ramming an enemy hull with a warhead aboard, thereby destroying the attacking platform.

Small calibre armament suggests an attempt to preserve the attacking platform for further missions instead of expending it in a single strike.

The Protector RWS is a Kongsberg-designed system already used by several NATO militaries, mounted on ground vehicles as well as small craft.

The Ukrainian Navy did not reveal the date, precise location, or any identification of the Russian vessel involved in the incident.

Neither side has published video of the moment of destruction, which is unusual given how heavily both armies publicise drone footage.

A record built on Ukrainian accounts

Sargan-3000 boats already carry a reputation in this war, having sunk Izumrud, a Russian patrol ship operated by border guards, near Gelendzhik.

That attack took place in July 2026 and joined a list of fleet units hit since the war in Ukraine started in 2022.

Earlier operations of the same style destroyed Ivanovets, a missile corvette, and Caesar Kunikov, which served as a landing ship.

Those losses contributed to a redeployment that moved naval assets from Crimea eastward to Novorossiysk, a change Moscow has never publicly explained.

In May 2025, Kyiv also reported that a sea drone destroyed a Su-30, a Russian fighter jet, using a missile built for air combat.

That claim, like the current one, arrived without imagery detailed enough for external analysts to verify the sequence of events independently.

Moscow has been developing comparable technology, including a KAMA-type uncrewed boat built by ZALA, a manufacturer based in Izhevsk.

Ukrainian forces destroyed one such craft close to Snake Island on September 8, 2026, using an explosive released from a drone flying overhead.

The difference between those two episodes is what allows Kyiv to describe the latest clash as something genuinely without precedent.

At the moment, verification remains weak because a gun engagement between small boats produces little wreckage and almost no witnesses on open water.

Until footage or a Russian acknowledgement appears online, the historic label attached to this fight should be treated as a claim rather than settled fact.

Via Defence Blog

• Boston officials released a report explaining why they won't use Flock cameras
• It reveals that Flock shared camera data despite saying it wouldn't
• Hackers also discovered that Flock cameras track more than just license plates

The Flock backlash might have taken a backseat to more recent tech news — namely, whether AI development needs to slow down before superintelligence wipes us out, or, on a lighter note, Apple’s first foldable iPhone — but the anti-surveillance crusade is continuing, with Boston officials and its police department announcing the city will not be relying on the service any longer.

This follows the publishing of a 2025 report which included details on a Flock pilot the city ran in 2025. According to the report, the city discovered Flock was sharing data with external law enforcement agencies — despite Flock’s agreement with Boston saying data sharing was to be turned off, and the company confirming this was the case.

In response, city officials and Boston's police department have committed to no longer using Flock cameras going forward. However, it’s worth noting this is not an absolute win for privacy advocates. Boston police department has already begun pilots with two of Flock's rivals: a Motorola trial began back in February, while an Axon pilot began in June, suggesting it might merely move to a different Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) service.

This also comes as hackers have discovered precisely what Flock cameras track, and it’s not just license plates. Analyzing encrypted data, hackers found the cameras also detect people and bicycles — and they can also pick up and isolate specific bumper stickers.

The fact that the cameras are able to pick up and monitor so much more than some may have realized is worrying enough, but what’s extra concerning is that this data was recovered from a physical camera.

Hopefully Flock will solve this soon, but currently it means anyone with the right hacking skills could tear down a camera and access a chunk of the data stored inside the device — meaning you might not just need to worry about what officials can do with your data

Is there a right way to use ALPR?

For many, the answer to the question of if there’s a right way to use Flock or similar cameras is an emphatic no, but for advocates of the tech, there are sensible measures police departments could be using to minimize abuse.

Limiting automatic sharing of data to other agencies and restricting the police officers with access are a good starting point. They also argue that all Flock data requests should require case numbers to be attached, and for officers to provide a reason for each request.

Advocates argue this limits the likelihood that bad actors will be able to sneak a peek at Flock data, ensures that accessing ALPR information has a purpose, and creates checks and balances to prevent overreach from law enforcement agencies. As such, many agencies now deploy these methods.

However, some of these practices have been undermined by recent reports. Records obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation show that many officers’ reasons for accessing the data include excuses like “LMAO,” “idk lol,” “TBD,” “Sexy,” and similar phrases. Others took to simply smashing their keyboards to fill the form with random letters.

What’s more, in an attempt to make it easier to fill in records but still keep data transparent, Flock introduced prepared options like “Traffic infraction,” though some argue this is a step backwards, as it means officers have even less need to articulate their reasoning for accessing ALPR data — and it really doesn’t help when one option is a generic “Other.”

The EFF reached out to several police departments, and it seems that some have been reprimanded, while others claim department policy has changed since the nonsense reasons were given.

However, even if these forms were filled in correctly, or seemingly correctly, they wouldn’t prevent privacy violations. They’d merely allow someone to possibly audit the data after the fact to spot misuse if the forms were investigated.

That’s why many are saying the best protection — besides pulling down ALPR cameras entirely — is to require a warrant for each search.

Though tearing the cameras down might simply be the best approach, especially after that example above, where it shows ALPR cams see a lot more than we might credit them for, and that some of a camera’s data can be accessed by hackers who know what they’re after.

We’ll need to wait and see how things develop, but Flock’s troubles don’t seem to be ending soon.

• Advanced AI should be paused as regulators assess the potential damage
• Trump urged to discuss international agreement with Chinese President
• Current US government criticized for taking a light-touch approach

Bernie Sanders is working together with former White House strategist Steve Bannon in a bid to urge the governments to take more oversight over AI.

Job losses, a loss of control over advanced AI, biological warfare, rising energy prices and concentrated power among a few AI giants as just some of the arguments the two political figures are using in their broad argument for greater AI regulation, per Reuters reporting.

In particular, Sanders claims that tens of millions of jobs could be removed by AI, making it increasingly difficult for younger generations to get a job at all.

US government gets another nudge to regulate AI

Consequently, Trump is being urged to use an upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping to establish an international agreement to pause the development of advanced AI.

This aligns with separate legislation Sanders is pursuing, which calls for the permanent ban of artificial super intelligence, temporary pauses on other advanced AI, and the establishment of both a new federal AI regulator and further international agreements.

Bannon criticized the Trump administration for taking a light-touch approach to AI regulation, blaming it on close ties with (and the influence of) American tech giants. His approach also slightly differs from Sanders' in that Bannon is more vocal about blocking Chinese access to advanced American chips and other relevant hardware.

While attitudes are split virtually on a person-by-person basis, rather than a per-party basis, the current administration is generally seen as more pro-American innovation than anti-AI. House Speaker Mike Johnson warned that slowing down US development would ultimately cause it to lose its competitive advantage over China.

However, while opinions are split, it's clear that artificial intelligence has become a major political discussion, and with US midterm elections just weeks away, all could be about to change.

• AMD is rumored to be working on its own version of DLSS 5
• A leaker says that the neural rendering tech will be launched with next-gen RDNA 5 GPUs
• That means we could be waiting until late 2027 or 2028 to see this debut, which might leave AMD lagging behind Nvidia considerably

AMD could be working on its own take on Nvidia's DLSS 5, and apparently this alternative attempt at neural rendering will be for its next-gen RDNA 5 graphics cards.

VideoCardz spotted that a known leaker in the GPU field, Kepler L2, posted on the Anandtech forum in a discussion around RDNA 5 speculation to say that: "AMD will have their own version of 'Neural Lighting' like DLSS5 next-gen."

Kepler then clarified that he didn't mean a version of Ray Reconstruction, but a take on DLSS 5 (neural rendering), and that next-gen RDNA 5 GPUs would be required because "this stuff is pretty heavy" (as in resource-intensive).

In a further post, Kepler elaborated: "There's a lot of issues with Nvidia's approach [with DLSS 5], but it's possible to have a version of this with minimal hallucinations and 'AI slop' look."

He then suggests a way that AMD could work its version to improve on DLSS 5, including giving the AI "direct access to 3D game data such as geometry, ray data, depth buffers, materials, etc so it doesn't have to guess and can accurately know how each object in a scene should interact with light."

Kepler's outline of a proposed alternative for AMD would have a separate model (AI) for lighting improvements, and another different model solely for the shading of complex surfaces. DLSS 5 bundles these together with its neural rendering system, and adds color-grading on top — to adopt what the AI judges as more natural colors — which Kepler advises that AMD should dispense with entirely.

Analysis: a race against time – or a chance to get it right?

I won't pretend to be able to critique what Kepler is suggesting as an alternative for AMD and the technical nuances therein, except to say that the idea is clearly to achieve a result that looks less like it's been 'messed' about with by AI and minimizes any 'slopification' therein — preserving more of the original artistic intent.

And that seems a laudable goal, of course, and it also brings up how AMD is in an interesting position here in lagging behind Nvidia with its graphics tech (which has, of course, been the case from the start, with FSR following DLSS — version 2.0 of Nvidia's upscaling tech was already in play, in fact, when FSR 1.0 arrived). Team Red can sit back for now and see how DLSS 5 plays out, as more games emerge that use it, and gauge the reaction of gamers, and forge its own neural rendering tech to tackle any perceived weaknesses.

The performance hit will be an obvious area to target, and if AMD can bring that down — it's substantial with DLSS 5 as it is now — that will obviously be a big win. That said, I'd expect Nvidia will be working with some haste to make DLSS 5 more performant, and as with DLSS 1, the tech will be improved considerably by the time Team Red has its own version out.

This is the other side of the equation here, where Nvidia could win out. With RDNA 5 GPUs not expected to arrive for at least a year, and quite possibly longer (the RAM crisis isn't helping), there's quite a lengthy timeframe on any AMD rival to DLSS 5. By the time it arrives, DLSS 5.5 may be in town with considerable improvements in tow. There's already been a notable turnaround in the perception of DLSS 5 with its official launch (compared to Nvidia's sneak preview earlier this year).

This is, of course, assuming AMD is indeed working on its own neural rendering technology, but I'd be surprised if this wasn't the case. For now, though, the word of a single leaker needs to be thoroughly seasoned, as ever, even though it's believable enough that Team Red would be aiming to use this on RDNA 5 graphics cards.

• UK NCSC, FBI, and Dutch AIVD warn Iran is using Chosen Brick malware against dissidents and journalists
• Malware steals files, captures audio, grabs WhatsApp/Telegram data, and can wipe systems entirely
• Operatives rely on social engineering; agencies urge awareness, MFA, updates, and endpoint monitoring

Iranian hackers are targeting “enemies of the state”, both local and foreign, with advanced malware capable of spying on the victims and stealing their sensitive files, experts have warned.

This is according to a new security advisory, published jointly by the UK National Cyber Security Centre, the FBI, and the Netherlands’ General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD), which noted how Iranian operatives would first do extensive research into their victims - dissidents, activists, and journalists - deemed a risk to the regime.

After learning as much about their targets as possible, they reach out via social media, either as someone the victims know, or as technical support for the platform they’re currently using, engaging in extended conversation until the victim lowers their guard. At one point, the attackers will try to share a piece of malware with the victims, tracked as Chosen Brick.

A thousand victims

This malware, designed primarily for the Windows platform, has a long list of capabilities, including enumerating running processes and system information, capturing screen content, enabling the microphone to capture audio content, capturing a copy of Telegram and WhatsApp data from web browsers, downloading additional files and malware, deleting files, stealing email content, and ultimately - wiping the entire computer system. The operatives communicate with the malware using Telegram, it was said.

“Iran almost certainly uses cyber activity to support the repression of individuals who are seen as a threat to the regime, such as dissidents, activists and journalists,” the three agencies said in the report. “In some cases, the Iranian intelligence services have plotted to kidnap or conduct lethal operations against individuals internationally, who they perceive as enemies of the regime.”

In the advisory, the three agencies said the best defense is to simply be more aware of social engineering. However, there are also a few technical mitigations that can help, including following NCSC advice on staying safe online, keeping all devices up-to-date (ideally through automatic updates), using antivirus software, and not disabling smart screen warnings on file downloads.

Finally, it would be wise to enable phishing-resistant MFA, make sure devices are managed with appropriate controls, turn on email scanning, deploy endpoint and network monitoring, and conduct a search for the IoCs.

Via The Register

• Salesforce expands Missionforce defense AI agent program
• Missionforce will now add in models from OpenAI and Nvidia
• Missionforce is now one year old, with big plans going forward

Salesforce is expanding its defense AI model program to help bring extra intelligent to critical government missions.

The company revealed its Missionforce program will now be partnering with OpenAI and Nvidia to bring in the former's frontier models, and also adding the latter's models and accelerated computing capabilities.

Salesforce says this expansion will allow Missionforce to deliver "new, specialized AI capabilities and agents designed for the government’s toughest challenges."

Missionforce gets smarter

“Government agencies want tailored AI that runs everywhere they operate while staying within the secure environments their missions demand.” said Kendall Collins, CEO of Missionforce & Government Cloud.

“Missionforce enables this at scale, with purpose-built AI that executes the mission and enables agencies to solve their hardest problems while maintaining operational control.”

This includes Operations capabilities such as turning manual, paper-bound processes such as procurement, supplier management, and invoice audits into digital workflows in just a few minutes, with specialized AI agents automatically running tasks, track status, and flagging exceptions in real time, all running entirely within private cloud or air-gapped environments.

Elsewhere, the company's Missionforce Field Operations & Asset Management tool means government agencies can now use AI agents to automate scheduling, work orders, and asset maintenance — all supported by native offline mobile capabilities for remote environments.

The news comes as Salesforce marked one year of Missionforce, with the company noting that the public sector has become its fastest-growing industry business at scale, and that its defense sector business has grown 80% year over year as demand accelerates.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff harked to the partnership in his opening keynote at Dreamforce 2026, noting that the company was "deeply committed to America".

Having already worked with government customers for more than two decades, the expansion means Salesforce now supports some of the US government’s "most complex and consequential missions" across more than 30 countries, working with 60 federal agencies, all 15 US Cabinet departments, all 50 states, and all six branches of the US military.

“One year in, the momentum behind Missionforce shows how quickly government agencies are moving from AI ambition to operational deployment,” Collins said.

“Our defense business is a critically important part of that progress, with trusted data and actionable intelligence essential to readiness and mission success. With new capabilities and partnerships, we’re helping agencies equip their people and put AI to work — with the security, accountability, and control their most critical missions demand.”

• M365 E5 plans tend to include more than their Google Workspace counterparts
• Google can sometimes work out cheaper for Mac and Chromebook users
• Software is undergoing an AI change, so is it best to just wait?

New research from Senior Gartner principal analyst Domenico Scriva has deemed that switching from Microsoft 365 to Google Workspace doesn't actually deliver any meaningful savings (via The Register).

This is despite Google Workspace licenses generally coming in cheaper than their Microsoft 365 counterpart, M365 E5.

Instead, Scriva claims that many companies are only switching to Google out of pure spite or dissatisfaction with M365, without assessing the ROI.

Why are businesses switching from M365 to Google Workspace?

Scriva argued that being unhappy with Microsoft isn't itself a business case for switching, while also noting that the E5 subscription adds additional things like telephony, security and even OS licences, which customers wouldn't otherwise get with a Google Workspace subscription.

All of this considered, plus the fact that Gemini is included in Google plans while Copilot is a paid extra, still leaves Google coming out at $2 per month more expensive, the analyst revealed.

However, migrations could be spelling out much more than a preference of software, because Scriva admitted that Google Workspace plans can actually be most cost-effective for Macs, which tend to have longer service lives, and Chromebooks, which are usually cheaper to acquire in the first place.

With this in mind, it's possible that we're also seeing a shift in hardware tendencies, be it a reduction in refresh cycle frequency or a total migration to a new type of hardware.

Still, whether it's a software migration, a hardware switch, or both, Scriva warns that retraining costs can instantly wipe any ROI that a company could have otherwise achieved.

At the end of the day, Gartner warns that enterprises should consider specific business outcomes rather than acting on instinct, and with AI likely to change software as a whole, many may be better off riding out their lesser-preferred software option to see where things are heading.

• The PC Gaming Show Tokyo Direct airs this Sunday, September 20, at 9am PT / 12 noon ET / 5pm BST
• You can catch the show live on PC Gamer, YouTube, Twitch, Steam, and many more places
• It's going to be a 90-minute show with more than 10 world premieres and will feature more than 35 games

The PC Gaming show Tokyo Direct returns later this week and will feature a whole host of gaming announcements, reveals, and developer interviews.

Airing on Sunday, September 20, at 9am PT / 12 noon ET / 5pm BST / 1am JST (Monday), it will be presented by Frankie Ward.

There's a plethora of different places that you can watch the show online, with all of PC Gamer YouTube, Twitch, X, GamesRadar+, Steam, Bilibili, eCLUTCH, Ginx, ESR Network, Kuaishou, plus many more streaming the Tokyo Direct show.

You can use the YouTube link below to set a reminder — as well as bookmark it for later, of course.

In terms of what we can expect to see in the show, we already know that we'll see more than 35 games from the likes of Devolver Digital, Firefly Studios, The Game Bakers, Total Mayhem Games, Veewo Games, and WuselFaktory, and many more.

There's also going to be more than 10 world premieres, a new trailer for Firefly Studios' real-time strategy game Stronghold 4, a release date reveal of Virtue and a Sledgehammer from Devolver Digital, and a deep dive into New Blood Interactive's retro survival horror game Tenebris Somnia.

You can watch the trailer below if you want a visual teaser for the show, too!

• Setting up a WhatsApp Business account is unnecessarily convoluted, Meta admits
• New MCP server gives third-party agents access to set up accounts for you
• Meta is asking for feedback during this initial testing release

In an effort to make running small businesses even easier – and also to gain new WhatsApp customers, it's likely – Meta has launched a new WhatsApp Business Tools MCP to give AI agents access to interact directly with the platform.

Through this connection, users will be able to set up and configure Business messaging agentically, rather than having to manually trawl through dashboards and other pages.

While the company would obviously like you to use Meta AI to handle this, offering a new MCP server means Claude, ChatGPT and there AI agents can also do the heavy lifting for you.

An AI agent can now set up your business' WhatsApp

The company has admitted that onboarding to WhatsApp Business has become unnecessarily fragmented, with the Meta Developer Console, Business Manager and other dashboards all playing a role in setup.

Under the new agentic way of signing up, AI can create accounts, add and verify phone numbers, create and edit message templates and more. "You describe what you want; your agent handles the accounts, numbers, templates, and API calls," Product Marketing Manager Zoë Lieberman wrote.

"Before any tool runs, the server confirms you're an admin of the app, resolves the attached business, and verifies your Terms of Service are signed," Lieberman stressed.

Meta Business Messaging MCP is currently rolling out gradually, and it's only discoverable on Claude, Codex and ChatGPT, but with such clear intent to make communication admin easier for business owners, Meta may soon continue to add new features, MCP options and supported agents.

For now, though, the company stressed that this current release is "built for development and testing workflows," thus it's asking for feedback to monitor how effective it is.

• Yamaha unveils a new compact budget soundbar: the B200A
• It's a 2.1-channel soundbar, but with virtualized Dolby Atmos support
• Available for just $250 in the US in November 2026, with international availability looking likely to follow

Yamaha is on a tech announcement roll (which would be a great pun if we were talking about its motorbikes, but alas). Just two weeks after unveiling new compact streamers for the home, and a few months after its cool new active speakers, it has another audio release: a new Dolby Atmos-enabled soundbar that's relatively affordable.

This is the Yahama B200A, which gives you a much more affordable alternative to the likes of the Yamaha True X Surround 90A it released earlier this year.

The soundbar is set to go on sale for $249.99 in November (that's about £200, AU$400, but we're waiting for international availability. Yamaha's international sites have landing pages for the soundbar, so global releases seem likely, but we don't know when).

Most of the best Dolby Atmos soundbars sell for a lot more than that. In fact our favorite 'cheap' pick, the Sony HT-S2000, is about twice the price in the US (though is cheaper internationally, and is discounted regularly in the US).

What do you want from the 'bar?

Yamaha is positioning the B200A as a compact soundbar — in fact, it's the only product labelled as such on the brand's website. It weighs 1.8kg and measures 23-5/8 x 2-1/2 x 3-3/4 inches (60 x 10.2 x 6.4cm), and promo images show people using it connected to computers as well as TVs.

Specs-wise, you're looking at dual 1.8-inch 20W cones for left and right sound, and a built-in three-inch 30W subwoofer, making it a clean 2.1-channel system.

What draws me to the soundbar is its connection options. You've got eARC, of course, and also optical and 3.5mm ports, plus Bluetooth 5.3. Yamaha's Sound Bar Remote app is used for wireless control.

But it's not just about specs and ports; Yahama wants you to know about its features (and not just Dolby Atmos). The soundbar has a Clear Voice feature which makes voices easier to hear, and a Game Sound Mode which emphasizes often-quiet audio cues like footsteps, incoming attacks or power-up sounds. There are also four EQ modes: Standard, Movie, Stereo and Game.

It's a fun range of features for a soundbar which won't cost that much; I see this thing doing gangbusters for people who want great specs without a high price, especially during sales seasons, given Yamaha's usual audio quality.

• Man Utd vs Brighton Kick-off: Wed, Sep 16 — 3pm ET / 8pm GMT
• Stream Man Utd vs Brighton FREE on ITVX (UK)
• Unlock your free stream with NordVPN (75% off today)

Watch Man Utd vs Brighton live streams as the struggling Red Devils face a huge challenge in the third round of the Carabao Cup against a side that has scored 13 goals in just four league games and currently sits fifth in the Premier League table.

United entered the season full of confidence after an extremely strong end to the last campaign under Michael Carrick. However, it’s been a tough start for the now-permanent manager who has seen his side win just one of four league games while conceding seven times. They can count themselves unfortunate after a controversial VAR call resulted in a 1-0 to Man City at the weekend but, despite playing against 10 men for 70 minutes, they struggled to create clear-cut chances.

Brighton may have lost last season's top scorer Danny Welbeck to Chelsea, plus Kaoru Mitoma and Yankuba Minteh to injury, but the Seagulls have had no problems creating and converting opportunities in front of goal. Instead, goals have been shared around, with Malick Yalcouye, Pascal Gross and Jack Hinshelwood all scoring twice this season, while center-back Lewis Dunk scored an absolute rocket in Sunday's 5-0 victory over Coventry. Fabian Hurzeler will have full belief that his side can replicate the 2-1 win they produced at Old Trafford last season to knock out United at the same stage of the FA Cup.

Here's where to watch Man Utd vs Brighton live streams online from anywhere and possibly for FREE.

Man Utd vs Brighton team news

Man Utd XI: Darlow, Mazraoui, Heaven, Yoro, Dalot, Tielemans, Santos, Rashford, Mount, Lacey, Sesko.

Subs: Lammens, Amass, Maguire, Fernandes, Mainoo, T Fletcher, Cunha, Mbeumo, Zirkzee.

Brighton XI: Steele; Costinha, Hadjam, Struijk, Vuskovic, Boscagli; Gross, Chema, Yalcouye; O'Riley, Kostoulas

Subs: Verbruggen, Dunk, Rutter, Promise, Osman, Kadioglu, Gomez, Ayari, De Cuyper 

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How to watch Man Utd vs Brighton live streams in the US

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How to watch Man Utd vs Brighton in the UK

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How to watch Man Utd vs Brighton in Australia

Football fans in Australia can watch Man Utd vs Brighton on beIN Sports.

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• CenterPoint Energy confirmed a cyberattack via exposed API, with customer data stolen
• Threat actor claims 7.49M files including IDs, SSNs, billing data, and transaction records
• Operations unaffected; investigation ongoing, regulators notified, customers to be informed

CenterPoint Energy has confirmed suffering a cyberattack and data theft, days after a criminal advertised the stolen files on an underground hacking forum.

CenterPoint Energy is a large US energy utility company that delivers electricity and natural gas to homes and businesses. It employs roughly 8,800 people and operates around $48.3 billion in assets, as of June 2026.

Recently, a threat actor posted a new thread on a dark web forum, saying they stole 7.49 million CenterPoint files from a poorly secured API, The Register reports. They said that the data included customer names and contact details, billing data, move-in dates, driver’s license information, and the last four digits of Social Security numbers (SSN).

Incurring expenses

No independent investigators have confirmed these claims just yet, and the company said it was investigating the matter. In a new 8-K document filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on September 14, the company said that it “became aware of an online post by a third party claiming to have obtained a data set containing certain of the company’s customer information.”

It activated its incident response protocols and kicked off an investigation with the help of third-party cybersecurity experts.

“While the investigation remains ongoing, the company has determined that an unauthorized third party obtained personal information relating to a portion of the company’s customers through one of the company’s external facing systems,” the filing reads. “The company is continuing to work with third-party experts to determine the scope of customers and personal information affected by the incident and intends to notify affected customers and regulatory authorities as required by applicable law.” The police and regulatory agencies have been notified.

While the attack did not impact CenterPoint’s operations, which continue as usual, it did incur certain expenses, the company concluded. It stressed that it will likely incur even more expenses as the investigation continues.

Via The Register

• US data center energy consumption could top 426 TWh by 2030
• Grid expansions are delayed while new data center projects keep getting approved
• New report reveals how energy transmission could be just as important as new generation

New Moody's data (via The Register) has revealed that US data center construction is ramping up so quickly, the country's grid isn't able to keep up.

With power availability quickly becoming one of the biggest constraints on future projects, the report claims that roughly $110 billion of new electricity generation capacity could be required.

By the end of the decade, the electricity consumption for America's data centers alone could top 426 TWh.

Power supply is one of the biggest data center constraints

The data shows that new campuses can be developed much more quickly than new grid infrastructure, with power projects facing lengthy planning phases, long lead times on equipment and supply chain issues. According to the report, some projects face delays of up to seven years.

Canada's Saskatchewan is one example of how a region can tackle power issues, because the province requires large new facilities to supply their own power.

Moody's says the US grid system should also consider transmission infrastructure to move electricity to data center clusters – not just building capacity for additional generation. That additional transmission infrastructure could also provide rural communities with access to cheaper energy that's been generated further afield, making it a win-win.

Some US states and regions have even been forced to put a temporary ban on certain new projects as they take a step back to reassess legislation.

While President Trump's Ratepayer Protection Pledge does aim to shift the responsibility onto utility companies in order to protect citizens from bearing the brunt of rising costs, Moody's ultimate conclusion is that data center projects are coming in at an accelerated rate, and it's clear that the grid needs additional support from the likes of those operators in order to deliver campuses on time.

• Surfshark’s System Engineer dismisses recent AI extinction warnings as a recurring marketing tactic
• The real threats are already here, including deepfake fraud and the massive environmental toll of data centers
• Current LLMs might have reached their limit, making the "Skynet" narrative a distraction from serious user privacy risks

Over the past week, the internet has been flooded with renewed warnings about the catastrophic dangers of artificial intelligence. From tech giants calling for pacing the frontier of AI development to researchers expressing fears of AI-driven human extinction, the doomsday narrative is back in full force.

But not everyone is buying into the panic. According to Karolis Kaciulis, Lead System Engineer at Surfshark, one of the market's best VPN and consumer cybersecurity providers, these dystopian warnings are little more than a calculated distraction.

"The latest debate around AI threatening humanity is clearly a marketing move," Kaciulis told TechRadar. "AI companies use the same rogue-AI rhetoric every few months, and it is almost identical each time."

While Silicon Valley executives and pundits continue to debate whether AI could really kill off humanity, Kaciulis argues that hyper-focusing on a sci-fi future blinds us to the very real, immediate problems that generative AI is already creating for everyday consumers.

Real-world risks over sci-fi scenarios

For Kaciulis, the focus of the current AI safety debate is entirely misplaced. "The threat itself is fictional, closer to a Skynet-style sci-fi scenario than the problems generative AI is already causing today, from automated scams to intimidation," he explained.

Rather than plotting to take over the world, generative AI is currently busy giving bad actors an incredibly effective toolkit. Kaciulis notes that while AI models aren't necessarily becoming independently dangerous, they are giving scammers much easier access to sophisticated methods of attack.

The financial toll is already staggering. According to Surfshark's data, deepfake fraud has resulted in $2.19bn in losses globally, including $149m in the UK alone.

There is also a mounting, hidden cost to the AI boom that rarely makes it into apocalypse narratives: the environment.

“One of the most immediate risks from AI is its environmental cost: the wildlife and land lost to data centres, the huge amounts of energy they use and, by extension, the water needed to cool them," Kaciulis said.

Surfshark's own research highlights this burden, estimating that a single ChatGPT query uses around 2Wh of energy on average, enough to run a 40W desk fan for three minutes. Multiplied across hundreds of millions of daily queries, the environmental impact mounts rapidly.

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Have large language models peaked?

Beyond fraud and energy consumption, Kaciulis suggests that the AI industry might be projecting future dangers to mask a more mundane reality: the technology might be plateauing.

"The bigger danger for AI companies may be that no valuable scaling is possible anymore with the current state of LLMs. This may be as efficient as they ever get," he argued.

According to Kaciulis, it remains entirely unclear whether newer models are actually better at performing requested tasks, or if they are simply getting better at imitating the responses we expect to see.

This illusion of intelligence presents a massive privacy risk for users who mistakenly trust these tools with sensitive information. Because chatbots confidently ask follow-up questions while helping with research or tasks, users often forget they are interacting with a corporate data-gathering machine.

“People do not really understand how chatbots work, or that what they pass to one may be accessible to the company behind it," Kaciulis warned.

For now, it seems the best way to stay safe from AI isn't to prep for the apocalypse, but to protect your wallet and your personal data.

• Opswat found two flaws in TP‑Link Tapo C200 cameras: auth bypass (CVE‑2026‑15315) and DoS (CVE‑2026‑15316)
• Bugs let attackers hijack admin sessions or crash devices; millions of users potentially exposed
• TP‑Link patched with firmware V5_1.4.6 on Aug 18, 2026; users urged to update immediately

Security researchers found a pair of vulnerabilities in popular smart cameras, which could allow threat actors to peep into people’s homes and businesses.

Earlier this week, Opswat disclosed finding two bugs in the TP-Link Tapo C200 smart security camera - an authentication bypass flaw, and a denial-of-service vulnerability. The former is tracked as CVE-2026-15315 and was given a severity score of 8.7/10 (high). Opswat says the bug allows unauthenticated attackers to obtain valid admin sessions without having a password, which would allow them to manage the device and even watch the stream.

The latter is tracked as CVE-2026-15316. With a severity score of 7.1/10 (high), this bug allows threat actors to send oversized crypted ciphertext values that may trigger exception handling failures and cause the affected device to crash or restart. “Successful exploitation may temporarily disrupt HTTPS management and monitoring functionality, resulting in a denial-of-service (DoS) condition until the service recovers,” according to the NVD.

Patching the bugs

The C200 is a mass-market product, advertised as a security camera, a baby monitor, or a pet camera, with motion detection, 1080p video, 2-way audio, night vision, cloud & SD card storage, and integrations with both Alexa and Google Home.

Opswat disclosed their findings to TP-Link in mid-April this year, which started working on a fix in early July this year. On August 18, 2026, TP-Link released firmware version V5_1.4.6, which addressed both flaws. Users are advised to install the fix as soon as possible.

The researchers did not discuss if the flaws were being abused in the wild, or to what extent. We do know that TP-Link Tapo cameras are rather popular, with the C200 model being relatively widely sold. According to TP-Link, the Tapo app has more than 13 million users, while the Google Play Store shows 10+ million downloads.

On Amazon, the C200 specifically is listed as the #1 top rated product in its category, with more than 3,000 purchases this month alone.

"Camera bugs always get attention because of the "spy factor," but they usually sound cooler and scarier than they actually are," said Dahvid Schloss, OSCP, Chief Operating Officer at Suzu Labs. "The main reason not to "worry" about this one is that running this exploit requires local network access, so a threat actor has to be on your Wi-Fi or already own a device that is.

"If someone's made it that far into your network, they're not after the baby monitor. Now, if the camera was port-forwarded to the internet, that's a bigger design issue and probably should be a concern, but not a common setup for the everyday home user. Either way, I'd still patch the camera, but it's pretty low on the totem pole of what a cybercriminal wants."

"I'm quite curious about the undisclosed vulnerability that reportedly allows full compromise and a foothold to pivot from," Schloss added. "Based on what was reported, I would guess the exploit would be a command injection or a memory-safety bug in the same management service, chained behind that auth bypass to get code execution as root, where they then dropped a static binary to return a shell on the device whose firmware ships with almost no tooling. That attack chain isn't uncommon on cheap, older consumer IoT devices where security wasn't top of mind, but if that's the case here, seeing it hold up on a modern TP-Link device would be a bit of a blast from the past.

• Max vs 100: Today (Wed, Sep. 16) at 6pm BST / 1pm ET / 3am AEST (Thu)
• Streams: Disney+ (worldwide) / ESPN (US)
• Unlock your stream with NordVPN (try 100% risk free)

Max Verstappen has achieved some pretty extraordinary things on a racetrack, but the challenge facing him at Silverstone is unlike any he has encountered before. Just 72 hours after lining up on the grid at the Spanish Grand Prix, the four-time F1 world champion takes on 100 celebrities, content creators, athletes and entertainers in the world's biggest go-kart race — and he has 30 laps to pass them all. This is Max vs 100.

The format is simple: Verstappen and his 100 opponents will race in identical go-karts, with the Red Bull star lining up 101st on the grid and everyone else getting a single qualifying lap to decide their starting position. Every driver that the Dutchman overtakes during the race will be eliminated, reducing the number of karts on the circuit.

But that's not all. Verstappen and his fellow drivers will all be mic'd up, allowing fans watching at home to hear the on-track conversations throughout the 30 laps. Each driver will also get the chance to use a shortcut on one of their laps, although the 28-year-old has to wait until the second half of the race, while his opponents must use theirs before the midway point.

The action takes place on a purpose-built circuit at Silverstone, designed by race director and French racing driver David Terrien. British comedian Mo Gilligan will host the show, while the eclectic list of opponents aiming to beat Verstappen include freestyle mountain biker Matt Jones, gamer and YouTuber TheDonato and 2019 Love Island UK winner Amber Gill.

Read on as we explain how to watch Max vs 100 online, on TV, and from anywhere in the world.

How to watch Max vs 100 for FREE

ESPN is showing Max vs 100 in the US, which means you can watch the action for free via various cord-cutting free trials.

YouTube TV (10-days), Fubo (5-days) and DirecTV Stream (5-days) all come with free trials and access to ESPN Unlimited.

Abroad? NordVPN can unlock these cord-cutters from anywhere in the world.

Use a VPN to watch Max vs 100 from anywhere

A VPN is a handy piece of software that can make your device appear as if it's back in your home country, thereby letting you unlock your usual streaming service. The best VPN right now? We recommend NordVPN – it does everything and comes with a 75% discount.

It's really straightforward to use a VPN to watch Max vs 100.

1. Install the VPN of your choice. As we've said, NordVPN is our favorite.

2. Choose the location you wish to connect to in the VPN app. For example, if you want to watch the ESPN stream, select 'United States' from the listed countries.

3. Sit back and enjoy the action. Head to ESPN and tune into Max vs 100.

How to watch Max vs 100 live streams in the UK and worldwide

Viewers in the UK can watch Max vs 100 live on Disney+, which will be streaming the action across the world, including in Canada and Australia.

Coverage starts at 5pm BST, with the race scheduled to begin at 6pm.

Disney+ plans start from just £4.99 per month for UK customers, rising to £5.99 after the six-month minimum term has been completed.

How to watch Max vs 100 live streams in the USA

ESPN will broadcast Max vs 100 in the US, as detailed above.

The ESPN app will have live coverage for ESPN Unlimited subscribers, with coverage beginning at 12pm ET and the race at 1pm.

ESPN2 is also due to show the action on tape delay later in the day.

Outside the US? Use NordVPN to unlock your Max vs 100 stream.

We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example:1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service).2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad.We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

• We've put the batteries in Apple's newest iPhones to the test
• There are upgrades here, but not huge ones
• Apple has been touting major boosts in battery life on these handsets

Sift through the press releases that Apple pushed out while announcing the new iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, and you'll see some big battery life increases touted — including "the largest increase in battery life ever" on an iPhone with the Pro Max model (compared to the iPhone 17 Pro Max).

We know that the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max come with 4,056 mAh and 5,391 mAh capacity batteries respectively (at least in Europe), but does that translate into much better battery life? We put both of these new handsets through their paces in the TechRadar labs (as part of our full iPhone 18 Pro review) to see if Apple's claims held up under some real-world testing.

Our standard test involves having the iPhone automatically cycle through a series of websites over a cellular connection, until the battery dies. Features like location services, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth are all turned off while the test is being run, and the battery management features in iOS are disabled too.

The iPhone 18 Pro managed 16 hours and 17 minutes in the test, compared to 15 hours and 21 minutes on the iPhone 17 Pro, a boost of around 6% overall. The iPhone 18 Pro Max managed 18 hours and 27 minutes compared to 17 hours and 54 minutes on the iPhone 17 Pro Max, an increase of roughly 3% in total.

Those increases are of course welcome, but perhaps aren't quite as impressive as Apple is making out, though there are a lot of different variables (like screen brightness) involved. Apple's own figures usually make use of video playback time — as in how long a single battery charge lasts when you've watching a video.

For the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max, Apple quotes 33 hours and 39 hours respectively, while for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max those numbers go up to 36 hours (a 9% increase) and 45 hours (a 15% increase). That last jump is indeed significant, but may only apply in quite a narrow set of scenarios.

"All battery claims depend on network configuration and many other factors," explains Apple in the small print on its comparison page. "Actual results will vary. Batteries have limited recharge cycles and may eventually need to be replaced. Battery life and charge cycles vary by use and settings."

We can safely say that you should see better battery life on the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max compared to the models that preceded them, but based on our own testing, don't expect the kind of improvements Apple is promising unless you're doing nothing but watching videos in long stretches between recharges.

• Canon announced its 3D image generation 'Dual Pixel 3D' tech
• It uses depth data from a single shot via Dual Pixel CMOS AF, through a free Windows-only app coming in October
• The EOS R10 and most models up to the EOS R5 series are compatible

Canon introduced a new Dual Pixel CMOS-type sensor and autofocus system in the EOS R5 back in 2020, and a string of cameras have since inherited this tech, most recently the EOS R8 Mark II announced today. And it's these cameras that just got a free upgrade that can add another dimension to photos: Dual Pixel 3D.

The new software leverages "depth and phase-detection data captured in a single shot via Dual Pixel CMOS AF", says Canon, using "an exclusive algorithm to convert your photos into highly realistic 3D imagery", plus 3D models in OBJ or GLB formats, or as an MP4 video, "complete with rich photographic textures."

This depth-adding tech will come in the (free) Dual Pixel 3D Converter software, which will be available for Windows only (Windows 11 64-bit 24H2 or later), from October 3.

So what exactly can users expect from the software, and which cameras are compatible? Let's take a look.

An extra dimension

Billed as 'simple 3D image generation technology', Dual Pixel 3D enables users to create immersive three-dimensional images and models from a single RAW photo, without needing specialized equipment or viewing devices. Canon also says the technology works with JPEGs captured by the new EOS R8 Mark II.

These files contain depth information from slightly different views, captured by each pixel's two photodiodes, which are then converted into 3D shape data.

Users will be able to fine-tune the degree of depth in the new software, for a more pronounced 3D effect or a subtler appearance. The depth information in Dual Pixel CMOS-captured photos also simplifies background removal, should users want to output a subject onto a plain background as a 3D model, or as a stereographic photo.

Can has shared tips for how to take photos designed to be converted for 3D on its YouTube channel (see below).

Photographers working in product and still life photography stand to benefit from the creative possibilities in particular. We'll be sure to try out the new software when it's released on October 3, and share our experience of making 3D imagery with it.

Compatible Canon cameras and lenses

Here's every Canon mirrorless camera that features Dual Pixel CMOS AF and can, therefore, enjoy the new Dual Pixel 3D feature, provided images are captured with a compatible lens:

• EOS R5 Mark II
• EOS R5
• EOS R6 Mark III
• EOS R6 Mark II
• EOS R7
• EOS R8 Mark II
• EOS R8
• EOS R10

And you'll need to be using one of these lenses;

RF24-70mm F2.8 L IS USM

RF24-50mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM

RF24-105mm F4 L IS USM

RF24-105mm F4-7.1 IS STM

RF35mm F1.8 MACRO IS STM

RF50mm F1.8 STM

RF70-200mm F2.8 L IS USM

RF70-200mm F4 L IS USM

RF85mm F2 MACRO IS STM

RF100mm F2.8 L MACRO IS USM

RF-S18-45mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM

RF-S18-150mm F3.5-6.3 IS STM

• DDR5 RAM has hit a new pricing high in the German market
• It's now 544% up on the price it was before the RAM crisis began
• This inflation backs up predictions of the memory shortage worsening, and Dell has just hiked the price of one of its popular laptops, too

If you wanted a telling example of how bad the cost of RAM is getting, the latest report on DDR5 pricing makes it crystal clear – and it reaches us as Dell moves to hike the price of its affordable XPS 13 laptop (in a roundabout way).

I'll come back to the ins-and-outs of what's happening with Dell, but first the DDR5 price jump, which has happened over in Germany.

3D Center keeps tabs on the monthly pricing of DDR5 memory in the German retail market – some 20 products are covered in this largest market in Europe – and as Wccftech flagged, the report for September shows this RAM is now 544% up on the price it was in July 2025 (the baseline level before the crisis began).

This is a big leap from 486% where the DDR5 price index sat in August, and since June, when it was at 419% having remained flat for much of the year. This obviously represents a depressingly hefty additional toll on the wallets of PC buyers or those upgrading their memory.

Meanwhile, as Mashable noticed, Dell has effectively upped the price of its XPS 13 laptop in the US, without actually increasing the baseline cost – instead of doing that, the laptop maker has introduced a new entry-level model with less storage.

So, previously the XPS 13 started from $699 in the US for the model with 8GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. What Dell has done is brought in a new model with 256GB of storage at that $699 level, so while technically the cheapest XPS 13 is still at that price, you're getting a lower spec for the money.

The old baseline model with 8GB RAM and a 512GB SSD is now $799, so it's been hiked by $100 – a pretty nasty bump in cost that moves this notebook into a distinctly less affordable price bracket.

If you want the XPS 13 with 16GB of system memory (and 512GB of storage), that's also gone up $100 so it's now at $999. Do note that these are student-targeted laptops, and students get a $100 discount on the XPS 13, so you will pay less in that case. However, while $599 (with $100 off) remains a tempting price in this climate, 256GB storage is cutting it thin.

Analysis: as predicted, 2026 is turning much nastier with RAM

The DDR5 price spike is truly worrying in my opinion, simply because it's an acceleration of an already worsening picture. Yes, it's only one retail market and a snapshot of the overall landscape as such, but the same pattern is seen elsewhere. Just look at Tom's Hardware's price tracker, which shows 32GB of DDR5-5600 RAM in the US is now $409 (at the time of writing) compared to $72, which was the lowest price seen before the memory crisis.

That's over a 5.5x price increase in the US market (mirroring the German level of RAM inflation in this particular case). The end result is that what used to be a no-brainer of future-proofing any desktop PC – particularly a gaming rig – with 32GB of RAM is now a difficult choice to make, as sticking with 16GB is saving you $200 (or the regional equivalent). Bearing in mind that you're battling all sorts of other component inflation if you're building a new PC, too (most notably with the likes of SSDs and increasingly GPUs).

We were told that the second half of 2026 would see more RAM price misery, and these German market figures illustrate exactly that. Since June, buyers in the country have witnessed an effective 30% increase in the cost of DDR5 (when it was already hugely overinflated). It's worse than I imagined it could get, frankly, and I fear that the most pessimistic predictions – which also forecast a very rough 2027 – are very much on the money.

All these RAM price hikes are eventually reflected in the cost of laptops, of course, and the Dell XPS 13 provides an apt illustration here. Interestingly enough, I recently wrote about Dell's revelation of its new 14S laptop – which was shown off at IFA, but without any price tag being attached – saying that this made me nervous about how much the notebook might cost.

Given this XPS 13 hike, it's easy to see why Dell was hesitant, and to be fair to the company, it isn't the only manufacturer that's reticent to pin launch prices on incoming devices. This is becoming a trend because the memory shortage, and its knock-on effects, are making life difficult for all device makers.

Dyson is known for doing the unexpected, and nothing in the brand's history has been quite as unexpected as its recent toothbrush launch. Well... perhaps the air-purifying headphones were more of a surprise. But still, this shift into oral care certainly wasn't on my 2026 bingo card.

The Dyson CameraJet launched earlier this month. A toothbrush like no other, this chunky device made headlines with its integrated camera and gap-targeting mouthwash squirter. However, the launch has been dogged somewhat by multiple reports of new gadget breaking almost immediately. The toothbrush is also showing as out of stock in multiple territories, including the US, UK and Australia.

Dyson has issued a response, which reads:

"We have had a very positive reaction to the new Dyson CameraJet and are experiencing strong demand globally. We are seeing some shortages of supply as we are in the process of scaling up production.

Additionally, we are aware that a small number of early batches of Dyson CameraJet products may have experienced a component issue. We are isolating those batches and are taking all the necessary steps to support our customers."

Rocky start aside, it's an impressive piece of engineering, and assuming Dyson gets those problems fixed it has plenty going for it (our tester was impressed enough to award it four stars in our Dyson CameraJet review). I got a demo at the Dyson Unveiled event, where I also had a chance to chat to Jake Dyson — Chief Engineer at the brand, and son of founder James — about the new product's development process. Here are eight interesting things I learned about the new CameraJet...

For avoidance of confusion, I'll use 'Jake' to mean the person, and 'Dyson' when I'm referring to the brand.

1. It took six years to develop

Oral care is a new category for Dyson, and getting the the CameraJet market-ready was a lengthy process. That's partly because it needed to, in Jake's words, "work perfectly" before it could be launched. The core feature — a 100k pixel macro lens camera that identifies gaps in your teeth, and delivers a targeted jet of mouthwash directly at them — was particularly tricky to get right.

"We probably could have launched [the CameraJet] two years ago, but it wouldn't have hit every gap perfectly, and that's not acceptable," says Jake. "You know, if you bought it, and it missed the gaps, and didn't do its job, you'd be really disappointed. So, it's got to work properly."

Getting the design just right (in theory, at least...) was a complicated process. "It genuinely took six years to train that camera, because of the variations in people's mouths. It's highly complex," says Jake. "You've got saliva, you've got things moving in front of the camera, you've got dark, shade, light. It's so many things the machine learning has to account for."

He adds: "It's a bit like a driverless car when it snows. If it completely loses its environment, how do you control it?"

2. ...but it's a good job it did

"Six years ago, the camera, the chips that process within the machine, the compute power, probably would have been too expensive," says Jake. Luckily, within that lengthy development process, the cost of all those components dropped enough to make it feasible as a consumer product.

Relatively speaking, of course — it has a list price of $499.99 / £419.99 / AU$799, so its definitely more of an investment than your average toothbrush. Still, Jake is keen to impress that it's very much not your average toothbrush: "What you have there is essentially a $70,000 piece of lab equipment in a handheld consumer product."

3. The colors come from Dyson's beauty lineup

While it's a new product category, it's still very recognizably 'Dyson'. The brand Dyson has pulled its color combinations from its haircare gadget lineup. "The colors have come from our beauty products — so the hair dryers, the Airwraps. Because we think it's a beauty product too," says Jake.

At launch, there are two color combos to choose between. On the 'Ceramic Ultra Blue' version, the toothbrush is an electric blue inspired by Yves Klein — an artist brand founder James Dyson is a fan of. ("He wasn't allowed to use the same blue, but we created our own," reveals Jake.) There's also a 'Ceramic Pink' colorway, with a blush pink toothbrush.

Both have detailing in rose gold, and a heather purple dock. As well as being familiar to anyone who has seen Dyson's recent haircare launches, the colorways benefit from being different to what you'll generally see in the oral care aisle. "Other toothbrushes are white, or black, or a nasty pink," comments Jake. "So it's quite nice to do something different, and… you know you look at it and recognize it as Dyson because of the colors."

4. There are already follow-ups in the works

"If we're going to go into a new area, then we'll do that knowing that we've got more products behind it," says Jake. He confirms that they'll start with a roadmap of multiple products and plan for "expansion in that category, quite quickly".

When pushed on if there's another toothbrush in the works, he responds, "We'd be crazy not to." If I had to make a prediction, I'd bet that — assuming the current component issue is sorted speedily — a second-gen version will be announced and unveiled this time next year, at an IFA-adjacent Unveiled event at the start of September 2027.

5. It's trained on pictures of real mouths

The CameraJet needed to be able to recognize the inside of any mouth. "It's taken two years to train it through imagery and mouths from around the world," says Jake. Said photos came from "images and libraries and probably some dental records too", if you're interested.

While AI was — and continues to be — involved, it's not the same AI you're using when you fire up, say, ChatGPT. "When you go on ChatGPT on your mobile phone, you're using AI live. When you use a toothbrush, you're not," clarifies Jake. "It's in-built machine learning. We used AI to reference all of the images of mouths to train the machine."

The learning will continue as you use the toothbrush, too. "We [continue to] improve it. It trains itself to be even better the more you use it, so it understands your mouth," says Jake.

6. It'll know if you try and use a fake brush head

Dyson is — probably justifiably — concerned about copycats. "We obviously patent areas of the product, if we can patent them, to prevent [dupes]," Jake says. "But we do that in every product, and they always find a way. They find a way, but the product isn't as good."

He continues: "You may well see a toothbrush six months to a year with a camera in it that fires a jet. But does it hit the right bit? The gap between your teeth?"

Dyson is also guarding against third-party brushheads. "There is a chip [in the brushhead]," says Jake. "If there are fake brush heads, it will detect it. In the same way, if you put a fake battery in the vacuum cleaners, and put a fake attachment on our hair dryers, it will detect it."

That's a cost worth factoring in if you're thinking of investing. Replacement heads don't come cheap: a pair will set you back $29.99 / £25 / AU$49.

7. It is suitable for travel… honest

On the suggestion that the Dyson CameraJet might be considered too chunky to travel with, Jake is adamant it's completely fine. "It's definitely to be travelled with. There's a travel case that just slips over."

He also points out that if you're traveling with a tube of toothpaste and a bottle of mouthwash as well as your toothbrush, that's going to take up a fair amount of space. The CameraJet can be filled up with those things before packing. It's a fair point, though I'm still not entirely convinced.

8. Jake Dyson has personally road-tested it

Wondering if your teeth will work with the CameraJet? Jake says it can deal with all kinds of troublesome teeth... including his own. "I've been cleaning my teeth on a number of devices intermittently for about three months. I have very tight teeth in the back. So raspberry seeds, or Parma ham… They get stuck right there. And [the CameraJet] just blasts it out. It's really good."

In fact, his only real word of warning is the surprise you might get from seeing your molars captured on camera for the first time. "It is quite shocking seeing inside your mouth," he smiles.

• New camera-free smart glasses from Meta are rumored
• The wearable could be unveiled as early as next week
• A new glasses-detecting app is proving popular with users

It's fair to say that the various iterations of Meta's smart glasses had been quite well received by users — as you'll see from our own reviews — but over time, the general public has become less and less comfortable with the idea of being secretly spied on through the cameras embedded in these wearables.

That might explain Meta's plans to release some spectacles with cameras on board, as reported by The Information. According to the outlet's sources, the glasses have the codename Luna, and will be available in two styles called Clubmaster and Burbank.

With no camera, the focus will be on the audio capabilities of the glasses, which will let you have conversations with Meta's own AI chatbot. The report says we could get a grand unveiling at the Meta Connect event next week, on September 23 and 24.

While Meta's smart specs have always been fitted with LED lights that show when they're recording, modders were finding ways around this, enabling more covert video and photo capture. While those mods have since been disabled and prevented by software updates, it's still left people with a general sense of unease.

The backlash continues

As Meta apparently preps its next pair of smart glasses, Wired reports on the ZuckOff app that takes a swing at the Meta CEO in its name, and alerts users when they might be in the presence of someone wearing Meta glasses. The app uses Bluetooth to scan the surrounding area for these wearables.

With several thousand downloads on both Android and iOS, the app is clearly proving popular. It's free to download and use in its basic form, with a pro version available for $9.99 / £9.99 / AU$14.99 a year that scans continuously and gives you scan histories.

It's not your only option either: if you're on Android, Nearby Glasses is open source and free to use, and does a similar sort of job as ZuckOff without the provocative name. That app has now racked up more than 100,000 downloads.

There's definitely been a shift in perception when it comes to glasses that can record, warning light or no warning light — even though these specs have been around for years. There's even talk of bans and government regulation coming in at some point, which Meta might be trying to get ahead of with its next pair of glasses.

• Sony has revealed two new PlayStation headsets
• They're intended to supersede the previous PlayStation Pulse models
• There's no word on pricing yet

Sony has just unveiled the "next line of PS5 audio products" with two new PlayStation Pulse wireless gaming headsets.

Both models are intended to supersede the old PlayStation Pulse Elite, which was released in 2024. The new PlayStation Pulse Edge boasts custom planar magnetic drivers that deliver "studio-inspired" sound and has eight magnets under the hood.

It comes with a detachable boom mic offering AI noise rejection alongside a USB Type-C adapter and premium carrying case.

Major features include built-in volume controls that integrate with the console's operating system, a game audio and chat balance slider, and active noise cancellation.

The upcoming PlayStation Pulse, in contrast, is positioned as a more entry-level model. It cuts the number of driver magnets down to four, which likely means less bass and reduced clarity. There's no boom mic either, so you need to rely on an integrated microphone instead.

It also loses the game audio and chat balance feature, lacks active noise cancellation, and isn't bundled with any kind of case.

Sony has been quite cagey about pricing, with no word on how much either model will cost on the official PlayStation Blog. This makes it hard to determine whether this refreshed line will offer good value, especially given the abundance of excellent headsets currently offered by third-party brands like SteelSeries and Corsair.

We do know that both models will be available in both white and black, however, and will hit shelves early next year.

They will also connect to the PlayStation Portal out of the box, thanks to their native PlayStation Link compatibility.

• ExpressVPN has replaced its Aircove router with Fortify, a faster Wi-Fi 6 model built on GL.iNet's Flint 2 platform
• For $199.99, you get the Fortify router and 12 months of ExpressVPN's Advanced plan
• Aircove and Aircove Go are retiring from sale, but existing owners keep support and qualify for a Fortify discount

ExpressVPN, regularly ranked among the best VPN providers, has announced Fortify, a new Wi-Fi 6 VPN router that takes over from its Aircove line and shifts the company's router-level protection onto hardware built by networking specialist GL.iNet.

The idea is a familiar division of labour: GL.iNet supplies the hardware, firmware, and router interface, while ExpressVPN brings the VPN service and privacy technology as part of what both companies describe as a longer-term partnership.

Zac Eller, GM of Global Partnerships at ExpressVPN, says that "together we can do more for customers than either of us would alone."

The launch also draws a line under Aircove. ExpressVPN is retiring both Aircove and the portable Aircove Go from sale, positioning Fortify as the upgrade path for anyone who wants router-level ExpressVPN on more capable hardware.

ExpressVPN Fortify: a big step up from Aircove

Fortify is a dual-band Wi-Fi 6 AX6000 router, a clear jump from Aircove's AX1800 rating. It uses a 4x4 MU-MIMO layout, up from 2x2, and tops out at 1148 Mbps on the 2.4GHz band and 4804 Mbps on 5GHz.

Inside sits a quad-core 2.0GHz processor with 1GB of DDR4 memory and 8GB of eMMC storage, alongside two 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet ports and four Gigabit LAN ports for multi-gig home setups.

For VPN users, speed is the real draw. ExpressVPN says Fortify handles VPN throughput of up to 900 Mbps on WireGuard, compared with up to 330 Mbps on Aircove, and supports as many as 86 devices at once.

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How Fortify works, and what's included

As with Aircove, Fortify runs the VPN at the router level, so every supported device on the network can be routed through ExpressVPN, including smart TVs, game consoles, security cameras, and other gadgets that cannot install a VPN app of their own.

The connection uses the WireGuard protocol at launch and is configured through GL.iNet's router interface, which retains the platform's networking tools such as Multi-WAN failover, Smart Queue Management, and AdGuard Home for network-wide ad and tracker blocking.

Fortify ships with 12 months of ExpressVPN's Advanced plan (a value of $119.95) for both new and returning users. That covers the VPN through the router as well as ExpressVPN's apps on personal devices. It also bundles extras including the ExpressKeys password manager, ad and tracker blocking, ExpressMailGuard, and more.

On trust, ExpressVPN points to its no-logs policy and RAM-only TrustedServer infrastructure, independently audited by firms including PwC, Cure53 and KPMG. Aircove also passed a Cure53 security audit at launch.

Fortify goes on sale from GL.iNet's website on September 16 at an MSRP of $199.99.

What Aircove owners need to know

ExpressVPN's router journey began in 2016 with dedicated router firmware, followed by the first Aircove in 2022 and the portable Aircove Go in 2024. Both are now being retired, and ExpressVPN will not produce any more units.

If you already own one, there's nothing to do right now. Existing routers keep working, and ExpressVPN says critical security updates and customer support will continue through 2027 for Aircove and through 2028 for Aircove Go.

There's also an incentive to upgrade: existing Aircove and Aircove Go owners qualify for 20% off Fortify. To claim it, contact ExpressVPN Customer Support to confirm ownership and receive a discount code.

• Defiant warned of active exploitation of WooCommerce Wholesale Lead Capture Plugin flaw (CVE‑2026‑27540)
• Critical unauthenticated file‑upload bug lets attackers deploy PHP webshells for site takeover
• Patch released in Feb 2026 (v2.0.3.2); Wordfence blocked 100,000+ attacks, users urged to update and check uploads

A critical vulnerability in a popular WooCommerce plugin is being actively exploited to upload malware and possibly take over entire websites, security experts have warned.

The plugin in question is called Wholesale Lead Capture Plugin for WooCommerce. It adds a dedicated registration and onboarding system for wholesale and B2B customers, letting businesses collect company and other custom information, review applications, assign wholesale user roles, and automate registration and onboarding emails.

It is a premium plugin that costs between $99 and $600 and which, according to the Wordpress store page, has more than 20,000 active installations.

A thousand victims

The plugin was vulnerable to an unauthenticated arbitrary file-upload flaw which, as the name suggests, allows unauthenticated parties to upload arbitrary files, including PHP webshells and executable code that can result in full site takeover. It is tracked as CVE-2026-27540 and carries a severity score of 9.0/10 (critical).

Versions 2.0.3.1 and older were said to be affected. Version 2.0.3.2, released on February 20, was said to have addressed the bug, meaning the patch has been available for almost half a year. However, WordPress security outfit Defiant said its Wordfence web application firewall blocked more than 100,000 attacks, and Wordfence added that it observed two attack spikes - one between June 4 and 17, and another one between July 1 and August 30.

In these incidents, the attackers were mostly uploading reconnaissance webshells, possibly mapping out the landscape before deploying more serious malware.

“The uploaded shell.php is a PHP webshell that reports host details and provides a browser-based upload form for writing additional malicious files to the site,” the researchers said.

If you are running the plugin, it is advised you update it to the newest version as soon as possible, and check upload directories for unexpected, or recently created, PHP files.

Via BleepingComputer

• Streaming guide JustWatch is launching its own streaming service
• It will have both free and paid tiers, including an option to rent titles
• Paramount and New Regency are just two of the partners supporting its content launch

Entertainment guide JustWatch is every movie buff’s best friend, telling you where you can find movies, TV shows, and other content on the best streaming services — and now it’s launching a platform of its own.

Announced at the Toronto International Film Festival on Tuesday (September 15), JustWatch TV will land in October (an exact date hasn’t been revealed yet) on the JustWatch app and website. It’s launching in the U.S., Canada, the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, Australia, and New Zealand first, with plans to expand to other regions in the future.

Unlike a standard subscription-based platform, JustWatch TV will offer both free and paid options for streaming titles, including a free ad-supported tier, a paid subscription tier, and the option to rent titles similar to Prime Video. While prices for its paid plan haven’t been revealed, I imagine this tier will give you additional perks such as the removal of ads, and possibly upgraded streaming quality.

Since it was founded in 2014, JustWatch has helped countless viewers find their favorite movies and shows when they don’t know where to start. When there’s a sea of hundreds, maybe thousands of streaming platforms globally, JustWatch is a godsend for narrowing it down. But don’t worry, this tool isn’t going anywhere.

If you find that a title isn’t available to stream on the new JustWatch TV service, it will still guide you to other platforms where it's available. So, even though JustWatch TV will house its own catalog of content, its ethos of helping you locate the titles you want to stream isn’t going anywhere.

A new free streamer on the block

Speaking as a movie buff, I use JustWatch just as much as I use my favorite streaming platforms (right now, I’m addicted to HBO Max), and it spares me a lot of disappointment when I head to a platform with the intention of watching a particular movie, and find out it’s no longer available.

The shift to launching its own service is a natural move for JustWatch, and having both free and paid options will not only set it apart from its rivals, but give users more streaming choices. As for its free version, I think it’s already matching Tubi and other best free streaming services for one particular reason, and that’s distribution partners.

As it stands, there are six partners backing JustWatch TV’s content launch, and they’re quite notable. Firstly, you have Paramount and New Regency joining the mix, the latter boasting Oscar-winning blockbusters such as 12 Years a Slave (2013) and Birdman (2014), not to mention iconic TV shows like Malcolm in the Middle. Additionally, you can expect to see titles from Fremantle, Bleecker Street, and Vortex Media coming to JustWatch TV.

Sure, Tubi is by far the most established free streaming service. It has a solid repertoire of programming partners (Paramount being one of them) and major-league distributors like Lionsgate — it’s also a Fox acquisition, so that’s one of the reasons why it can house an extensive library of movies, shows, sports, and current affairs programming.

But as far as JustWatch TV goes, it’s kick-starting with the support of some pretty impressive distributors already, which will serve the platform well for enticing more partners to join in the future. It’s a solid start to what could become the next best free streaming service.

At last, Joe (Zoe Saldaña) has been rescued in Lioness season 3. Frankly, that's an episode earlier than expected.

Still, it seems as though there's more to be solved. The timing of her rescue suggests there's more to the CIA's strategy than we've been able to give proper attention to (at least, I really hope that's the case), with Joe saying she can potentially "never" return home.

But does anybody really know what they're talking about? And when does Lioness season 3 episode 8 arrive on Paramount+?

What time can I watch Lioness season 3 episode 8 on Paramount+?

Lioness season 3 episode 8 will drop on one of the world's best streaming services in the US and Canada on Sunday, September 20 at 12am PT / 3am ET.

Here's when it will be released in other nations:

• US – 12am PT / 3am ET
• Canada – 12am PT / 3am ET
• UK – 8am BST
• India – 12:30pm IST
• Singapore – 3pm SGT
• Australia – 5pm AEST
• New Zealand – 7pm NZST

When do new episodes of Lioness season 3 come out?

Lioness season 3 will have a total of eight episodes, with new entries airing weekly. That gives us the following schedule:

• Episode 1: out now
• Episode 2: out now
• Episode 3: out now
• Episode 4: out now
• Episode 5: out now
• Episode 6: out now
• Episode 7: out now
• Episode 8: September 20

• Elastic Security Labs uncovered REF9334, a Brazilian banking malware campaign active since May 2025
• Malware “Kremlin” deploys fake docs and malicious Chrome/Edge extensions to steal banking data
• 1,515 infections found, 98% in Brazil

Security researchers from Elastic Security Labs have discovered a new Brazilian banking malware campaign that uses browser extensions to compromise users and steal sensitive information.

In an in-depth report published earlier this week, the researchers said the campaign has been active since at least May 2025. Dubbed REF9334, the campaign uses fake banking, invoice, and business documents, to trick victims into installing malware which, in turn, deploys a malicious extension in Chrome and Edge browsers.

The researchers named the malware “Kremlin”, and say it can steal browser credentials, cookies, session information, monitor browser activity, grab screenshots, and steal information from websites that the victims visit. But the goal of the campaign is primarily to target Brazilian bank users.

A thousand victims

The malware really makes an effort to hide and persist in the target environment. For example, it first checks to see if it’s in a sandbox and if so - it simply won’t run. If instead it determines that it’s running on a real user’s computer, it will deploy an extension with the name “AVSync System Inc.” in an attempt to trick the victim into thinking they have an antivirus addon running in the browser.

It also doesn’t use a fixed C2 server, but rather stores the information on the Ethereum blockchain, since it’s a lot harder to disrupt the communication between the operators and the infected machines that way.

During their investigation, Elastic researchers were able to take control of a domain that the malware used and discovered that it had infected 1,515 systems. Almost all of them (98%) were located in Brazil. They were also able to register the network canary domain and point it to their webhost, which resulted in the loader assuming it was in a sandbox. This also meant “the infections have not moved past the initial access”, Elastic explained.

The full list of indicators of compromise can be found on this link.

Via The Hacker News

• StarCraft general manager and creative director Dan Hay says the series' stories and characters are "remarkably topical" today
• Hay says StarCraft and the real world are both like a "frontier"
• He adds that while StarCraft is science fiction, its "themes and characters" are very similar to "the headlines in our world"

StarCraft general manager and creative director Dan Hay has compared real-world events to the series' stories and characters, calling them "remarkably topical."

In a sit-down interview with TechRadar Gaming following the reveal of StarCraft, a first-person, open-world shooter slated to arrive in 2030, Hay discussed the CGI trailer that debuted at BlizzCon and explained that the team wanted to portray the "tension" that will come with this new story-driven adventure.

The developer also said that building the "stakes" was just as important; he couldn't dive too much into the narrative details, but Hay touched on the series as a whole and its storylines that explore "imperfect" characters, suggesting the new StarCraft will examine similar topics.

"The way in which you are a hero is that you are going to learn how to become one," Hay said. "The way in which you are a hero is that you are going to learn how to become one. So it's not perfect, right? And that's the thing about StarCraft: a lot of the characters are not perfect; they're imperfect, and even the villains are.

"They have an idea of what you think they are at the beginning of the game, and then by the end of the game, you realize, oh, they were something completely different. And I think what's powerful about StarCraft."

Hay continued, saying that when you look at StarCraft's stories and the characters you meet, they're "remarkably topical" to the events unfolding in the real world.

"When you think about our world today, and you think about what is StarCraft? It's a bit of a frontier," he said. "It's obviously a frontier. There's asymmetry in terms of factions that don't agree with each other. There's brinkmanship going on where one faction is being used against another. [In] a lot of cases, it's just over resources.

"A lot of the cases there's politics, and there's intrigue, and there are people being left behind and betrayed, and when you look at that, and then you look at the headlines in our world, it's not super far [apart] in terms of how it feels sometimes. So you feel that tension, and you felt that tension in the teaser [trailer]."

Hay concluded: "I think what's remarkable about StarCraft is that it feels real, and it feels like it translates quite easily into today. And even though it's science fiction, and even though it has this sense of being in this other universe, it feels very close in terms of themes and characters and moments that you could experience today."

• The People v Gorilla Grodd is the only DCU TV show in active development
• HBO's boss recently confirmed as much at the 2026 Emmys
• His comments have got me fearing for Lanterns' future

The boss of HBO has revealed that only one DC Universe (DCU) TV show is officially in the works — and now I'm afraid for the future of Lanterns.

Speaking to Deadline, Casey Bloys confirmed that The People v Gorilla Grodd (TPvGG), aka the recently announced Superman TV spin-off, is the only TV series in active development at DC Studios.

Asked for a status update on DC's myriad television productions, Bloys replied: "People read about development, and they assume that those are greenlit shows and they're [already in] development. And everybody knows that development is just that — you're trying things, you take big swings, [and] not everything comes through.

"I would say our track record in DC, from Watchmen to Peacemaker to Penguin and now Lanterns, is pretty good. We're very selective. We're careful about what we do, nothing has changed. You'll read about development, but focus on what we're greenlighting."

Pressed on whether any other show was in active development, Bloys added: "No, not right now, obviously you've got [The People v] Gorilla Grodd, which I'm very happy about, [they're] doing something different, and I think it's a really fun idea. They just started shooting."

Why I'm fearing the worst for the fate of HBO's Green Lantern TV show

For fans who've immersed themselves in the DCU since day one, Bloys' comments will be of concern.

Indeed, when DC Studios co-head James Gunn revealed the official lineup for DCU Chapter One in January 2023, six small-screen projects were unveiled as part of the rebooted cinematic franchise's initial slate.

Since then, four more series have been added to the list of potential TV candidates, but only one — The People v Gorilla Grodd — has been greenlit. Meanwhile, some shows that were named as part of Gunn's initial announcement, including Waller and Paradise Lost, have reportedly been shelved. Others, such as Booster Gold, have been trapped in development hell.

With Bloys outright confirming TPvGG is all that DC Studios' TV division is actively working on, it's not surprising that fans — myself included — are fearing for Lanterns' future.

The Aaron Pierre and Kyle Chandler-led sci-fi crime drama, which has seen its audience share seemingly grow week-on-week amid positive word of mouth, is one of the most popular shows on television right now. With three more episodes of its debut season yet to air (at the time of publication, anyway), I'm convinced that its viewership will increase in the weeks to come, too.

Considering that HBO's Green Lantern TV show has been such a hit, it's inevitable that a second season will be made, right? Not if we believe Bloys. After all, there are numerous examples of hugely successful shows — on HBO, HBO Max, and otherwise — that haven't returned for another round. There's no guarantee, then, that Lanterns season 2 will be a thing.

That said, DC Studios has assembled a writers room for Lanterns season 2 to kick around potential story ideas. That doesn't mean DC and HBO have pledged to make another season of the DCU Chapter One program, but it does offer hope that, if the right story angle can be found, another eight-part installment might be *ahem* constructed.

As I said at the start of this article, though, I am worried for Lanterns' fate. Bloys is likely playing it coy, but I'm of the opinion that he would've had something positive to say about Lanterns' future if a sophomore season was more likely to happen than not. Right now, then, I'm reluctantly confident that it'll be a one and done scenario.

Mind you, that doesn't mean we won't see Pierre's John Stewart — and, potentially, Chandler's Hal Jordan — again in the DCU. Pierre's Stewart is already set to play a role in Man of Tomorrow, aka next July's follow-up to Gunn's Superman sequel. Meanwhile, there are unsubstantiated rumors floating around that a DCU Green Lantern movie might be fast-tracked because of how popular Lanterns has proven to be.

If, and it's a big if, we get a big-screen Lanterns follow-up to the hit comic book-inspired show, you certainly won't hear me complaining about the decision not to make a second season.

For now, find out everything we know so far about Man of Tomorrow, get the full lowdown on The People v Gorilla Grodd, and learn all there is to know about Clayface.

• The Boox Palma 3 has been announced
• This is a phone-sized ereader with a 6.13-inch screen
• Key upgrades include Android 16, stylus support, and a more premium build

If you’re in the market for a phone-sized ereader, you now have another option to consider, as the Boox Palma 3 has just been unveiled — and this successor to the Onyx Boox Palma 2 has some of the key features found on the rival ViWoods AiPaper Reader.

For one thing, just like the ViWoods device, the Boox Palma 3 now has a premium build, with an anodized aluminum frame and a textured fiberglass backplate in place of its plasticky predecessor.

And it’s also had an Android upgrade, launching with a ViWoods AiPaper Reader-matching Android 16, which is up from Android 13 on the Boox Palma 2 and Android 15 on the Onyx Boox Palma 2 Pro.

For me, that’s particularly important, as Android versions don’t tend to get updated on these sorts of devices, so you’re typically stuck with whatever software they launch with; old versions of software can mean security issues, and app incompatibility problems can crop up sooner.

Beyond that, the Boox Palma 3 also benefits from active stylus support, so you can use it with the Boox InkSense Plus stylus. The AiPaper Reader doesn’t have stylus support, nor does it come with a camera, whereas here you get a 16MP one, so those are two potential advantages of the Boox Palma 3.

Personally, I’m not sure I’d want to use a stylus on a device this small, nor do I have much use for a camera on an ereader — but it could be handy for scanning documents, if you’re so inclined.

Similar specs and a heavier build

That camera and the rest of the specs, though, are largely in line with those of the Boox Palma 2, including a 6.13-inch 824 x 1648 e-paper touchscreen with 300 pixels per inch, 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, a microSD card slot, a front light (supporting both warm and cold color tones), a 3,950mAh battery, a USB-C port, a fingerprint sensor, a speaker, and microphones.

But despite being marginally smaller than the Boox Palma 2 at 159 x 78 x 7.8mm, the Palma 3 is actually 25g heavier at 195g.

That also makes it heavier than the 138g ViWoods AiPaper Reader and the 170g Boox Palma 2 Pro — the latter of which additionally gives you a color screen and an extra 2GB of RAM.

So, this may not be a complete home run — or a total upgrade for anyone who owns the Palma 2 Pro.

Indeed, the Palma 3 is actually priced lower than the Palma 2 Pro, coming in at $339.99 (around £250 / AU$475), though a launch discount softens that price to an even lower $319.99 (roughly £235 / AU$450).

There’s no confirmed pricing for other regions yet, but for reference, while the Palma 2 has been discontinued, the Palma 2 Pro sells for $399.99 / $379.99 / AU$679, and its rival, the ViWoods AiPaper Reader, retails for $279 / £254.99 / AU$399.12.

You also can’t actually buy the Boox Palma 3 yet, but the company lists it as coming soon.

• StarCraft's first-person perspective will offer a new sort of "tension"
• General manager and creative director Dan Hay says the tension is "subtly different" from the original RTS game
• Since the game is in first-person, "You have to protect yourself"

StarCraft general manager and creative director Dan Hay has explained the process of designing a new game in first-person, revealing that "tension" was crucial.

Blizzard's next StarCraft game won't be a real-time strategy (RTS) title, but a story-driven, open-world first-person shooter, which will be a fresh direction for the beloved series.

Hay, who discussed the game's inspirations with TechRadar Gaming at BlizzCon, explained that because of the new perspective, this meant the team had to think carefully about how to manage a combat system, the world, and enemies of StarCraft in a new way, while still being faithful and familiar to the original RTS game.

"The combat has to feel very, very clean and dangerous and mean and dark," Hay said. "I think StarCraft does that well. The mood is dark, but also, in a strange way, hopeful."

Without giving away too many details, the developer said that the team has to make the enemies the player is fighting "feel real" while also balancing the challenge of what it's like being inside 10-foot armour that weighs 1000 pounds.

"It's because the thing that's out there is going to try and shuck me like an oyster," he continued. "The thing that's out there is going to try and just flay me open, and eat my insides. And so we have to build it in such a way that it all makes sense, which means when you move, when you attack, when you shoot, it has to feel real, and then whatever it is that's attacking you — which we all know what's probably going to be attacking you — it has to feel like it's an onslaught where you have to stem the tide, you have to figure out a way to stop that biomass from attacking you, and it has to feel real."

Hay said the "key" to designing this experience was "tension," which players got a glimpse of in the CGI trailer, adding that it's the same tension from the RTS "but it's subtly different."

In the RTS game, players would be confronted with a wall of Zerg enemies, and that would be the tension, but in StarCraft, a first-person experience, the top-down perspective is gone.

"Now your boots on the ground," Hay said. "We have to give you the tension of deployment, and you saw us actually do that in the teaser, and then we have to give you the tension of there not being a whole bunch of marines around that you can just go through. It's you. You have to protect yourself. You have to figure out how to fix your armor. You have to figure out how to push back against it.

"Every shot matters. Everything you do matters. So the tension feels even greater."

StarCraft is currently in development and is set to arrive in 2030.

• Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff calls the SaaSpocalypse "crazy nonsense"
• Instead, he predicts a new kind of software interface will make all the difference
• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang agrees, saying the end of software isn't nigh

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has hit out at reports AI technology will lead to a "SaaSpocalypse", saying traditional software still has life in it yet.

Speaking at the opening keynote of Dreamforce 2026, Benioff said the talk of a SaaSpocalypse over the last six months was "crazy nonsense".

Instead, Benioff said the market trends would actually bring in a new age of software - one where AI would be playing a key role.

A new kind of interface

"Hasn't it been wild?" Benioff asked the Dreamforce crowd.

"But I think we realized that SaaSpocalypse - it's not about the end of software, but it may be about the end of software that makes humans do all the work."

Namely, this refers to AIforce, the company's new realization of the software interface, to reflect the needs of the AI age.

Benioff noted that over the past few decades, users have gone from Command Line interfaces to GUI, from web to mobile - and now, with AI assuming a much greater role in the world of work, there's a need for a new kind of interface.

AIforce looks to address this by enabling agents anywhere to reason and take action across all the data, workflows, and logic inside Salesforce, hopefully unlocking whole new ways of working for customers everywhere.

Benioff wasn't alone in his belief that this isn't the end of software - later in his keynote, he welcomed Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on stage.

This was primarily to discuss Salesforce's new Koa CRM, developed alongside Nvidia, but the talk took a bit of a manic turn, as the two billionaires instead decided to pace about the theatre and have a discussion about the wider technology industry.

"Don't give up on the technology," Huang said, "You've heard me say it - I was the first CEO to come out not in the software industry to say the end of software is nonsense."

"(Instead) This is going to be a layer on top of sotware, this new layer is gojng to be agentic, and it's going to make the software so much better."

• Canon EOS R8 Mark II upgrades the original R8 with image stabilization
• It also features a new design 'inspired by Canon's heritage'
• Prices start at $1,899 / £1,729 / AU$2,529, on-sale date mid-October

The Canon EOS R8 Mark II is here, and it isn’t the digital remake of the 50-year-old AE-1 analog SLR camera that rumors had been suggesting — but it is a new design direction for the world’s leading camera manufacturer nonetheless.

Canon has historically stuck with a consistent design approach for its DSLR and mirrorless cameras, with sweeping curves and familiar controls. The EOS R8 Mark II, however, is "inspired by Canon’s heritage" with a "modern twist", so a Canon spokesperson told me, and it's unlike any other model before it — check out my first impressions.

I like the new angular look, but I think the company has unintentionally made a camera that looks just like those from its chief rivals Sony and Nikon, and I don't think we can call it retro.

Canon fans hoping for an old school EOS R mount model to rival the Nikon Zf will surely be disappointed. Could Canon's design department have pushed the boat out more? Perhaps, but there’s nothing to say it won’t go full retro-style in the future with another model.

Design is the major talking point, but there are plenty of other features worth highlighting in what is a solid upgrade of the original EOS R8.

Beyond the looks

Like the EOS R8 — which Canon told me will remain on the market — we also get a 24.2MP full-frame sensor, but this time it features in-body image stabilization that’s rated up to 7.5EV.

Continuous shooting is again up to 40fps using the electronic shutter — in fact, like the EOS R8 there’s no mechanical shutter at all — but pre-capture has been added for up to half a second before you fully press the shutter, which is handy for when your reactions aren’t up to speed, and a first for a Canon camera at this price point.

And — praise be — an AF joystick has been added (Canon calls it a multi-controller), and it's positioned next to an autofocus button, both of which are conveniently placed right next to where your thumb rests. I was easily able to use the camera and its autofocus one-handed with a 24-105mm F4-7.1 IS STM kit lens attached.

Canon’s Dual Pixel CMOS AF II features, as does subject detection of people, animals and vehicles, plus Canon’s ‘Register People’ mode with the option to store up to 10 people for the camera to prioritize — handy for weddings, sporting events, and so on.

Video is still 4K, but now up to 60fps and oversampled from 6K, plus there's 180fps slow-motion recording in 1080p. There's a tally light to indicate when the camera is recording, while the SD memory card slot is now accessed through a side door, rather than underneath in the battery compartment.

Those are some of the major upgrades, but there's also plenty that's familiar. For example, the 3-inch 1.62m-dot vari-angle touchscreen and 2.36m-dot EVF are unchanged, and there’s the same battery too. In fact, with the power-hungry image stabilization feature in play, shot life is actually slightly lower than before — battery life is a major weak point of the EOS R8 Mark II.

The camera weighs 19.3oz / 546g with card and battery included, and the quality of the plastic body is decidedly entry-level once more — this isn’t a weather-sealed camera you’d thrash around like the tougher EOS R6 Mark III is, which is the near-perfect Canon camera that the EOS R8 Mark II sits below.

Overall, I think Canon has addressed the key areas for improvement from the EOS R8, adding in-body image stabilization into a body that feels better in the hand, even if the build quality and battery life position it well below the EOS R6 Mark III.

I must also mention the Nikon Z5 II from 2025, which is the obvious entry-level full-frame rival to the EOS R8 Mark II, and which is available for a slightly lower price. Nikon's camera has many similarities, but with a magnesium alloy chassis and weather-resistance it's clearly the tougher camera of the two, plus it has a superior LCD and EVF. If you're not already committed to Canon, the Z5 II looks to be the better of the two cameras.

The EOS R8 Mark II costs from $1,899 / £1,729 / AU$2,529 for the body only, or £2,119.99 / AU$2,859 with the 24-105mm F4-7.1 IS STM (don't confuse this lens with the pricier 24-105mm F4 L), or $2099 with the 24-50mm f/4.5-6.3 IS STM lens in the US, and it feels like the sweet spot for users who want powerful features but are less concerned about build quality and shot life.

What do you make of the new EOS R8 Mark II, especially its new design? You can vote in the poll above, and leave your comments below.

• Salesforce has revealed Ace, a new AI agent for the TSA
• Ace should take the pressure of answering basic questions off human agents
• Ace has already resolved 96% of basic inquiries so far

Salesforce has built the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) a new AI agent to try and help streamline travel for passengers everywhere.

Ace, a new AI agent built with Salesforce's Public Sector Solutions platform, has been live for several months now, helping the TSA deal with traveller requests and inquiries.

So far, Salesforce says Ace has already handled approximately 100,000 routine traveler conversations per month and resolved 96% of routine inquiries, such as how to pack liquids or enter a checkpoint with a medical device — without the need for human escalation.

TSA and AI

“Nearly three million people travel through US airports every day, and a simple question shouldn’t stand between them and a smooth trip,” said Kendall Collins, CEO of Missionforce and Government Cloud.

“TSA’s new Ace AI agent gives travelers fast, accurate answers before they reach the checkpoint—from what they can pack to how they can prepare—while helping TSA officers stay focused on their essential security mission.”

The launch of Ace forms part of a broader modernization initiative, led by the TSA’s Customer Experience Branch to improve traveler service using Salesforce.

The amount of questions from travellers can ramp up hugely during peak travel periods and disruptions, so the TSA needed a flexible way to scale support, deliver consistent guidance, and reduce pressure on its contact center teams.

Deploying a secure, autonomous AI agent like Ace, which can answer routine questions and direct more complex needs to staff, means the TSA can improve services, control costs, and support its missions at scale, even at the busiest times of the year.

“The TSA is leading with trusted AI to meet the mission,” said Paul Tatum, EVP of Global Public Sector Solutions at Salesforce. “They are delivering a secure, data-driven, and AI-first foundation that scales operations, lowers costs, and protects public trust, even during the most stressful travel times.”

• Nvidia's RTX 5090 is now over $9,000 in the US
• A new rumor suggests that RTX 6000 gaming GPUs are coming in 2027, maybe in the first half of the year
• If true, the price tag that's attached to the RTX 6090 will likely be colossal, and lower-tier GPUs could be pricey too

Nvidia's RTX 5090 flagship has hit new heights in terms of ridiculous asking prices, just as a new rumor suggests that RTX 6000 (Rubin) GPUs are coming in 2027 — earlier than anticipated, and to say the price of those next-gen offerings is a worry given the current climate is a huge understatement.

A Redditor pointed out the current state of RTX 5090 prices, which are close to commanding $10,000 in the US for some models. Notably, the Asus ROG Astral RTX 5090 will set you back a princely $9,659 on Newegg US, although that's not sold directly by the retailer.

Indeed, none of the big retailers have any stock of the RTX 5090 anymore, and the only graphics cards you can buy are from third-party marketplace sellers, often shipping from Asia (that ROG Astral GPU comes from Hong Kong).

You can find more expensive RTX 5090s than that if you want to get the gold-plated version (Dhahab Edition) of the ROG Astral, which is now $11,999. The very cheapest RTX 5090 that I could find at the time of writing is an MSI Ventus model that's priced at $6,549 on Newegg.

What about outside of the US? Price inflation is rampant in other countries too. If we take the UK as an example, you can pick up an RTX 5090 for around £4,500 on Overclockers UK, which is still an eye-watering asking price. (And those are the cheapest GPUs — they go up in price from there to £6,600 for the aforementioned Asus ROG Astral RTX 5090).

It's an alarming situation, and one that heaps worries on top of a new rumor about the RTX 6000 launch as aired by Moore's Law is Dead (MLID) on YouTube (via TweakTown).

Previous rumors have contended that Nvidia's looking at 2028 for the arrival of its next-gen GeForce graphics cards, but a source at the firm told MLID that this is incorrect, and Team Green is aiming for a 2027 launch. Moreover, the current plan is still to get the RTX 6000 ball rolling for PC gamers in the first half of next year, meaning within the next nine months.

There's an obvious sticking point here, though: if the RTX 6000 generation is this close, how come we haven't had much in the way of leaks yet, and nothing of any real substance? The source claims that this is due to Nvidia's management successfully clamping down on leaks with the next-gen products.

The first offering will presumably be the RTX 6090 (or maybe an RTX 6080 as well), and it's going to have some kind of interesting spin on the design — though we aren't told what. It could have beefed up hardware to better cope with running DLSS 5, perhaps, as that would make sense — something to help deal with the performance hit of neural rendering would clearly be very welcome.

Analysis: house deposit or GPU?

There are obvious problems with a possible RTX 6000 launch next year, if we take this rumor at face value. As noted, the RTX 5090 is now being sold for beyond ridiculous prices — and so how much is an RTX 6090 going to run? The fiscal equivalent of an ultramarathon, presumably, and with AI demand likely coming into play with this GPU, the next-gen flagship could be 'unobtainium,' as the disgruntled gamers out there are already predicting.

When you consider that the RAM crisis is going to get worse next year, going by the more recent forecasts from analysts and industry insiders, video RAM is going to be more problematic — and how much of the stuff will be on an RTX 6090? — it all adds up to a frightening prospect for an MSRP. And the likely reality is that the price to actually buy the next-gen Rubin gaming flagship will blow well past that towering recommended cost. (The RTX 6080 won't likely be much different, either.)

For all these reasons, I find it difficult to believe that Nvidia will go ahead and launch the RTX 6000 series next year. Surely it makes sense to wait longer, although what Team Green may know is that 2028 isn't going to be any better for RAM price inflation, and so perhaps that's why next year is greenlit for next-gen GeForce graphics cards to arrive. It's a sobering thought. As one Redditor observed: "Can't wait to decide if I want a down payment on a house or an Nvidia GPU."

• Poland's new loitering munition borrows stealth aviation's shape for practical battlefield reasons
• A turbojet gives Gladius 2 a different propulsion approach from earlier Warmate variants
• The 30kg warhead places Gladius 2 between several established Warmate configurations

Polish defense manufacturer WB Group has revealed a new loitering munition whose flattened, wing-shaped body echoes the American B-2 Spirit bomber.

Gladius 2, also called Warmate 30, uses that shape mainly to cut down on radar and heat signatures rather than for looks.

Flying wing designs scatter radar waves more efficiently than boxy airframes, which is exactly why stealth bombers adopted the same silhouette decades ago.

A shape borrowed from stealth aviation, not aesthetics

The munition runs on a turbojet engine, giving it a faster run toward its objective than earlier electrically powered Warmate versions.

It carries an interchangeable 30 kg (66 lb) warhead and can launch from a shipping container or a dedicated vehicle.

WB Group designed the weapon to operate within its wider Gladius reconnaissance strike system rather than as a standalone munition alone.

That system pairs the FT-5 Łoś reconnaissance drone with separate strike effectors, all coordinated through a software platform called Topaz.

This arrangement lets one operator locate an objective using the reconnaissance aircraft, then destroy it with a separate strike weapon.

According to the company, it started developing this newer variant back in September 2022, drawing lessons from the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

Poland is already investing heavily in the drone family

The new weapon arrives as Poland continues spending heavily on domestically produced unmanned systems and loitering munitions.

In May 2026, Poland's Armaments Agency signed agreements covering more than 400 Warmate systems and nearly 200 FlyEye reconnaissance drones.

The same contracts included 12 Gladius fire modules, with financing partly supplied through the European Union's SAFE defence lending programme.

WB Group has not confirmed whether Gladius 2 or Warmate 30 forms part of those existing procurement agreements.

That distinction matters because the newly shown aircraft could remain a future offering rather than an immediately contracted Polish military system.

WB Group has previously described several Warmate variants using payload categories, including models associated with 5kg, 20kg, and 50kg warheads.

Warmate 30 therefore fits between those larger and smaller configurations while carrying a 30kg payload of its own.

The earlier Warmate 3 reportedly carries a smaller warhead while reaching distances of up to 70km, or 43 miles.

The original Gladius system has also been offered with earlier electrically powered Warmate variants capable of exceeding 100km, or 62 miles.

However, those figures should not be treated as specifications for Gladius 2 until WB Group releases its own performance data.

Whether Gladius 2 performs as well as its shape suggests will remain unclear until WB Group releases actual test figures.

This bomber simply copies a proven stealth silhouette, which makes practical sense for a country expanding its arsenal under real wartime pressure.

Via Defence Blog

Good morning! Let's play Connections, the NYT's clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need Connections hints.

What should you do once you've finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I've also got daily Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too, while Marc's Wordle today page covers the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Connections today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

NYT Connections today (game #1193) - today's words

Today's NYT Connections words are…

• FRANK-N-FURTER
• LATIN
• CLINK
• PENNYWISE
• WADSWORTH
• NICKELODEON
• BORAT
• LONG JOHN
• SILVER
• ST. VINCENT
• STEAM IRON
• WIDENER
• DIMENSION
• QUARTERBACK
• CARLOS
• MARIGOLD
• BARRETT

NYT Connections today (game #1193) - hint #1 - group hints

What are some clues for today's NYT Connections groups?

• YELLOW: Metallic final
• GREEN: Begin with currency
• BLUE: Middling wordsmiths
• PURPLE: Hot dogs etc

Need more clues?

We're firmly in spoiler territory now, but read on if you want to know what the four theme answers are for today's NYT Connections puzzles…

NYT Connections today (game #1193) - hint #2 - group answers

What are the answers for today's NYT Connections groups?

• YELLOW: ENDING IN METAL ELEMENTS
• GREEN: STARTING WITH U.S. COINS
• BLUE: POETS' MIDDLE NAMES
• PURPLE: SAUSAGES PLUS A LETTER

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Connections today (game #1193) - the answers

The answers to today's Connections, game #1193, are…

• YELLOW: ENDING IN METAL ELEMENTS: LATIN, LONG JOHN SILVER, MARIGOLD, STEAM IRON
• GREEN: STARTING WITH U.S. COINS: DIMENSION, NICKELODEON, PENNYWISE, QUARTERBACK
• BLUE: POETS' MIDDLE NAMES: BARRETT, CARLOS, ST. VINCENT, WADSWORTH
• PURPLE: SAUSAGES PLUS A LETTER: BORAT, CLINK, FRANK-N-FURTER, WIDENER

• My rating: Hard
• My score: Fail

This is the first game of Connections I’ve lost in months, so hopefully I wasn’t the only one to find it confusing.

The main reason for my downfall was the actor Tim Curry, as I knew that he had starred as Dr FRANK-N-FURTER in The Rocky Horror Picture Show and as PENNYWISE in Stephen King's It. After three attempts at forming a Tim Curry group (I have subsequently discovered that he also played a character called WADSWORTH in the film version of Clue) I changed tack and spotted STARTING WITH U.S. COINS.

With just eight tiles left I should have got over the line. Alas, utterly in the dark, I connected four random tiles and accepted my loss.

Kudos if you completed this very hard game.

Yesterday's NYT Connections answers (Tuesday, September 15, 2026, game #1192)

• YELLOW: INSTRUCT: COACH, DIRECT, GUIDE, TRAIN
• GREEN: PARTS OF A WHISTLING KETTLE: HANDLE, LID, SPOUT, WHISTLE
• BLUE: UNDERCOVER OPERATIVE: ASSET, MOLE, PLANT, SLEEPER
• PURPLE: THINGS THAT APPEAR AT THE END: CABOOSE, DECEMBER, DESSERT, EPILOGUE

Strands is the NYT's latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it's great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints.

Want more word-based fun? Then check out my NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games, and Marc's Wordle today page for the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

NYT Strands today (game #927) - hint #1 - today's theme

NYT Strands today (game #927) - hint #2 - clue words

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• BRING
• GIFT
• HALF
• STING
• BIRTH
• STIR

NYT Strands today (game #927) - hint #3 - spangram letters

NYT Strands today (game #927) - hint #4 - spangram position

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #927) - the answers

The answers to today's Strands, game #927, are…

• JAZZY
• VIVID
• BRIGHT
• FLASHY
• STRIKING
• VIBRANT
• SPANGRAM: EYECATCHING

• My rating: Hard
• My score: 1 hint

My first thoughts about today’s theme were obvious ones like conspicuous, but surely this clue couldn’t be so blatant — especially as there was no letter P on the entire board.

There were, though, two letter Zs, so I managed to get JAZZY immediately, followed by VIVID and BRIGHT — the theme nailed down to describing the loud and garish. I was able to make some progress, but still needed a hint to get FLASHY.

I kicked myself that I’d missed the spangram EYECATCHING, as EYE was staring at me in my favorite starting position in the top left-hand corner.

I ended happy to have completed a tricky game, but annoyed that I’d missed a golden, flickering neon sign of an opportunity for a spangram-first. Congratulations if you spotted it.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Tuesday, September 15, game #926)

• JOIST
• BOLT
• HINGE
• NAIL
• KNOB
• BRACKET
• ANCHOR
• SCREW
• SPANGRAM: HARDWARE