• Report finds 74% of regular AI users now pose questions to AI instead of human colleagues
• New workers are missing out on vital social interactions for company culture
• Employees say they feel more self-sufficient and comfortable making decisions

While the jury is still out on whether AI could be set to replace human workers or severely impact their scopes by automating major parts of their workflows, one thing is clear – humans are increasingly happy to use AI as a colleague and collaborator.

A new MyIQ analysis of nearly 22,500 adults found around three in four (74%) regular AI users now pose the questions they would formerly have asked colleagues to AI.

As a result, around half (48%) now report fewer spontaneous conversations during the working day, suggesting that the effect may extend beyond deliberately redirecting questions to AI with it now having a more profound impact on the social elements of work.

Return-to-office (RTO) mandates now face a complex paradox

While the report doesn’t explicitly cover it, the data presents interesting takes on modern workplace habits.

Post-pandemic layoffs and work-from-home mandates were quickly followed by urgent return-to-office mandates, with CEOs globally encouraging in-person working due to the collaborative nature of shared environments, and the opportunities to have ad-hoc conversations that spark learning and broader thinking.

With around half now saying this doesn’t happen so frequently, the findings beg the question whether commuting to the office might be all that necessary after all in an AI-first era.

Roughly two in five (38%) also noted that newer employees now have fewer natural opportunities to build relationships because routine questions are being redirected to AI, not human colleagues.

“Repeated across a working week, those missing exchanges can mean fewer opportunities to build trust, share judgment, and become known inside a team,” MyIQ Managing Director Sarah Meyer wrote.

Around half (53%) of the respondents also described their work as more transactional since adopting AI, marking a major shift in workplace dynamics.

AI might be more efficient, but it’s still lacking in certain areas

But despite the negative social implications, AI’s role in brainstorming, questioning and critical thinking could be seen as positive, too. For example, nearly two-thirds (62%) say they feel more comfortable making decisions independently than they did a year ago, with nearly three-quarters (71%) feeling more self-sufficient at work.

The report also warns that, while a chatbot can supply an immediate and often factually correct answer, it lacks the accompanying social information and organizational knowledge that a colleague would bring to the table.

Interestingly, a similar SurveyMonkey study revealed that 77% want more opportunities to brainstorm with colleagues and 61% want stronger connections across teams even though workers are increasingly settling for the first AI-generated answer, instead of digging deeper.

Together, these two reports imply that workers are increasingly seeking the efficiency that AI promises and they’re willing to ask questions for a quicker answer, but they still value the collaborative nature of human interactions within the workplace.

What’s less clear is how employers could implement these opposing forces into one unified workforce, while delivering the hybrid approach that workers have come to value with working from home and benefiting from going to the office.

“As AI makes solitary problem-solving easier, organisations may need to pay closer attention to the forms of workplace learning and social connection that efficiency alone does not capture,” the MyIQ study concludes.

• Celeste Ecoflyers daS10, an inflatable drone, can reportedly fly for more than 10 hours
• Its 8-meter pneumatic wing replaces much of a conventional aircraft structure
• The drone can reportedly cover approximately 500 miles in one direction

A French aerospace startup is developing a 24-foot inflatable drone designed to remain airborne for more than 10 hours while covering roughly 500 miles one way.

The company recently completed early flight testing for the drone dubbed daS10, which uses a pressurized textile envelope and pneumatic wings.

When deflated, the drone can reportedly fit inside a normal car with its seats folded, giving operators an unusual transport option.

Inflatable wings could extend drone endurance

Celeste Ecoflyers developed the daS10 around an 8-meter fixed-wing structure that uses internal air pressure to maintain its shape during flight.

The inflated wing generates lift while avoiding some of the structural weight associated with conventional aircraft designs.

That approach is intended to reduce energy demands and allow the drone to remain airborne for much longer periods than many small multirotor systems.

The company is developing the aircraft for inspection, surveillance and remote logistics missions that require persistent aerial coverage.

Small consumer drones such as the DJI Mavic 4 Pro can remain airborne for around 50 minutes before requiring a recharge.

That endurance may be insufficient for monitoring pipelines, remote infrastructure or large areas affected by disasters.

Longer-range unmanned aircraft can address those missions, although traditional fixed-wing platforms and vertical-takeoff aircraft can involve higher acquisition, transport and operating costs.

The daS10 instead relies on a lightweight structure that can be deflated when the aircraft is not flying.

Celeste Ecoflyers describes the aircraft as a new class of aerial system designed to make persistent coverage lighter, safer and easier to deploy.

However, the company has not disclosed every operational specification needed to independently assess those claims.

Compact transport meets long-range aerial operations

The drone’s inflatable structure could allow teams to transport a large aircraft without requiring a dedicated trailer or specialised ground equipment.

Once deployed, operators would inflate the structure before preparing the aircraft for its mission.

The design could therefore suit remote operations where storage space and transport access are limited.

Potential missions include inspecting long pipelines, surveying disaster zones and monitoring areas where sending crewed aircraft would create unnecessary risks.

The drone also has a reported range of approximately 500 miles in one direction, allowing it to cover substantial distances before returning to its launch area.

The daS10 is still an emerging aircraft concept, and its real-world performance will depend on flight testing, payload capacity, weather tolerance, and the durability of its textile structure.

Its ability to combine long endurance with compact transport could make the design useful for operators needing extended coverage without conventional large aircraft infrastructure.

Via Celeste Ecoflyers | Yanko Design

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 #1137) - today's words

Today's NYT Connections words are…

• WHITE STRIPES
• HOLE
• PINS
• STROKES
• HIVES
• HOOVES
• VINES
• SCORE
• SNAPS
• RASH
• MANE
• TWEETS
• PAR
• REDNESS
• TAIL
• ITCHING

NYT Connections today (game #1137) - hint #1 - group hints

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

• YELLOW: Involuntary biological response
• GREEN: Marks for completing 18
• BLUE: Social media messages
• PURPLE: Like a striped horse

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 #1137) - hint #2 - group answers

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

• YELLOW: SYMPTOMS OF AN ALLERGIC REACTION
• GREEN: ON A GOLF SCORECARD
• BLUE: PLATFORM-SPECIFIC POSTS
• PURPLE: FEATURES OF A ZEBRA

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

NYT Connections today (game #1137) - the answers

The answers to today's Connections, game #1137, are…

• YELLOW: SYMPTOMS OF AN ALLERGIC REACTION: HIVES, ITCHING, RASH, REDNESS
• GREEN: ON A GOLF SCORECARD: HOLE, PAR, SCORE, STROKES
• BLUE: PLATFORM-SPECIFIC POSTS: PINS, SNAPS, TWEETS, VINES
• PURPLE: FEATURES OF A ZEBRA: HOOVES, MANE, TAIL, WHITE STRIPES

• My rating: Hard
• My score: 1 mistake

WHITE STRIPES, STROKES, and HIVES are all alt-rock bands from the same era, but being unable to find a fourth, I added HOLE — whose main period of activity was a decade earlier. I really should have known this was a trap, but I just couldn’t help myself.

Pulling myself together I saw that HIVES instead belonged to a group made up of SYMPTOMS OF AN ALLERGIC REACTION, but it took getting HOOVES, MANE and TAIL before I saw where WHITE STRIPES fitted into a world beyond music.

With eight tiles left, PINS caused me some dilemma as it belonged both in the world of social media (Pinterest, to be precise) and golf. Fortunately, I chose to link it with VINES, TWEETS, and SNAPS instead of ON A GOLF SCORECARD.

Yesterday's NYT Connections answers (Tuesday, July 21, 2026, game #1136)

• YELLOW: KINDS OF TOPS: CROP, HALTER, TANK, TUBE
• GREEN: SOFTWARE DOWNLOADS: APP, DRIVER, EXTENSION, PLUGIN
• BLUE: ELEMENTS OF A MUSICAL: BOOK, LYRICS, MUSIC, ORCHESTRATION
• PURPLE: TELE____: GRAM, KINESIS, PROMPTER, VISION

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 #871) - hint #1 - today's theme

NYT Strands today (game #871) - hint #2 - clue words

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

• BORN
• BREW
• BRAN
• WRAP
• SWAY
• BRINE

NYT Strands today (game #871) - hint #3 - spangram letters

NYT Strands today (game #871) - 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 #871) - the answers

The answers to today's Strands, game #871, are…

• QUESTION
• BUZZER
• ANSWER
• BOARD
• WAGER
• CATEGORY
• SPANGRAM: INJEOPARDY

• My rating: Hard
• My score: Perfect

A very mysterious theme today that could have meant absolutely anything.

With this in mind I went hunting for non-game words to get me a hint (or two) and in the process chanced upon QUESTION.

In truth, the letter Q is where I should have begun if I was a proper Strands player — rare letters often unlock the starts of games.

With this in mind, BUZZER unlocked the theme as it slowly dawned on me that we were searching for elements of a gameshow and in particular Jeopardy!

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Tuesday, July 21, game #870)

• ENVELOPE
• LETTERHEAD
• SHEET
• CARD
• FILE
• NOTEPAD
• SPANGRAM: STATIONERY

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 #1640) — 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 #1640) — hint #2 — repeated letters

Quordle today (game #1640) — hint #3 — uncommon letters

Quordle today (game #1640) — 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 #1640) — 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 #1640) — the answers

The answers to today's Quordle, game #1640, are…

• COYLY
• SINGE
• AWASH
• AWOKE

There are so many words beginning with S and ending in E that I got lucky using up just two guesses to get SINGE.

Elsewhere, having two words beginning A-W dramatically reduced my guessing time.

Daily Sequence today (game #1640) — the answers

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1640, are…

• PROUD
• WEAVE
• EATEN
• FIBER

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #1639, Tuesday, 21 July: TRUSS, AXIAL, SWINE, THING
• Quordle #1638, Monday, 20 July: ICING, SLICK, GAILY, RISEN
• Quordle #1637, Sunday, 19 July: SPURT, ACRID, THRUM, BLEEP
• Quordle #1636, Saturday, 18 July: KNAVE, TIGHT, BLEAT, CHAOS
• Quordle #1635, Friday, 17 July: CUMIN, PALER, GRASS, INBOX
• Quordle #1634, Thursday, 16 July: IGLOO, PLAIT, YEAST, AROMA
• Quordle #1633, Wednesday, 15 July: PROXY, BRICK, BROTH, SURGE
• Quordle #1632, Tuesday, 14 July: EBONY, AVOID, RODEO, CUTIE
• Quordle #1631, Monday, 13 July: VOICE, BISON, BURNT, BUILT
• Quordle #1630, Sunday, 12 July: STAIN, BINGO, LARVA, DICEY
• Quordle #1629, Saturday, 11 July: WORTH, PRONG, DINGO, DRUID
• Quordle #1628, Friday, 10 July: GREET, STEAK, DUSKY, HAUTE
• Quordle #1627, Thursday, 9 July: CRUMP, PHONE, SHINY, STONY
• Quordle #1626, Wednesday, 8 July: GHOST, TREND, EXALT, ALONG
• Quordle #1625, Tuesday, 7 July: ARRAY, SUITE, KIOSK, BOULE
• Quordle #1624, Monday, 6 July: TRAWL, SPICE, PIANO, SHARK
• Quordle #1623, Sunday, 5 July: PINEY, SWOON, TITLE, PINTO
• Quordle #1622, Saturday, 4 July: ARGUE, MOTEL, OPERA, TRUCE
• Quordle #1621, Friday, 3 July: AVERT, MOTOR, MANIC, WORDY
• Quordle #1620, Thursday, 2 July: BULKY, PARSE, BELOW, MOVIE

• Reports indicateHuawei is building and operating DRAM fabs through a joint venture with state-controlled SwaySure
• This is part of an alleged 11-fab network Huawei operates behind state-owned fronts that it denies exists
• The move, seen as a bid by Huawei to secure captive HBM supply for its increasingly powerful Ascend AI chips, could place the company above Apple, Intel, and Nvidia, none of which makes its own memory.

Mounting evidence suggests Huawei is taking the same approach that saw it build CPUs and AI chips in the past to DRAM in the present.

The Chinese tech conglomerate is allegedly building and operating DRAM fabrication plants on the mainland, bringing it into direct competition with only one major player at the same scale, albeit for a much larger consumer base: Samsung.

Drawing on media reports and postings by semiconductor analysts, Block & Files has published claims (which Huawei currently denies) that the company is potentially building and operating DRAM fabs through a joint venture with Shenzhen-based memory maker SwaySure, giving it effective control over at least 11 different semiconductor fabs in the region.

A move borne out of sanction-mandated necessity

Despite its ramifications and Huawei's denials, the claim is hardly new: the first link between the two companies was in 2025, when the Financial Times published satellite images of Huawei's advanced chip production line that tied it to SwaySure and cited state financial backing for the facilities shown.

Huawei's purported move did not happen in a void, however; it finds itself in a situation where the Chinese state is increasingly and aggressively defending it not only covertly but overtly, on multiple fronts, as it responds to Washington-backed sanctions that limit and in some cases all but eliminate its ability to access cutting-edge silicon.

The overt part is easy to identify: the Semiconductor Industry Association estimated that Huawei is receiving $30 billion in state funding from the central government and its hometown of Shenzhen to build its chip network, while a separate 2019 estimate put the lifetime figure at US$75 billion in state support.

The government has also effectively barred its tech giants from buying AI chips from AMD and Nvidia while propelling Huawei's Ascend line to de facto standard in the Chinese market, guaranteeing Huawei revenue it would otherwise have to compete for.

The covert part is much harder to identify, but equally crucial: China also allegedly tolerates a shadow fab network that is, at least on paper, not directly associated with Huawei but is, for all intents and purposes, an arm of the giant, the opacity making it hard to pinpoint the direction and scale of Huawei's ambitions in the space. This is also why the US resorts to Entity List designations of Huawei's affiliates: Washington is trying to pierce a veil Beijing built on purpose.

The strongest corroborating signal, ironically, comes from Huawei's adversary: the US government's own Entity List designations imply that BIS investigators concluded these companies function as one network, which is as close to official confirmation as is currently available.

Huawei's move stems from a voracious appetite for AI-centric High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), which sanctions ensure it cannot source directly from international suppliers, with the US having tightened export controls to keep it, at least legally, out of Chinese hands.

While a Huawei that fabs its own DRAM would be a notable leap, it may be more of a potential future supplier to Apple than a direct competitor, as Apple is toying with the idea of buying memory from Chinese makers to ease its own supply issues.

Huawei's products do, however, compete with Apple in the smartphone segment, with Intel's server CPU offerings, and with Nvidia's AI chips, even as the last of these struggles to find a foothold in what was once one of its largest markets by revenue.

It does seem to have Samsung's Western position in its crosshairs as it builds toward zero Chinese dependency on suppliers Washington can sanction, but it has a lot of catching up to do to hold its own against the current king of the hill. Samsung holds a 3–4 year lead in HBM, arguably the gap that matters most, over China's CXMT, while its DRAM lead is much narrower and closing considerably faster against China-based memory makers.

Chinese makers have meanwhile reached relative parity in the NAND flash used in SSDs, an increasingly important space for AI, even as Huawei still relies on SMIC for CPU and GPU fabrication, a process roughly two nodes behind industry leader TSMC.

Huawei, at least on paper, has its own designs but does not fab them itself, leaving that to other specialist firms. But if the report holds true, it just might become the first real challenger to Samsung's position as chip designer, fabricator, and memory supplier all rolled into one.

The biggest publicly traded tech companies in the world, commonly known as the "Mag 7" — or magnificent seven — may not be enjoying their stranglehold at the top of the US economy for much longer. That's, of course, if the leaders of a swathe of new AI-centric tech firms, including OpenAI and Anthropic, have their say as they plan to IPO in the coming months. But positioning these businesses in the new big tech landscape has been a major challenge.

Ethics in AI

The Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei was reflecting on his history in the AI industry during an interview with Bloomberg that aired earlier this year.

In an exchange themed around the success of Anthropic's enterprise-centric AI tools like Claude Code and Claude Cowork, Amodei took the opportunity to opine on the nature of doing business and the importance of business models that align with your values.

Commenting that many in the tech industry prioritize models that tap into elements like engagement, advertising, and the promotion of AI slop, Amodei noted that compromising your own values is not a long-term and sustainable way forward.

This is at least as far as he's concerned. That's why, he suggested, he's attempting to make Anthropic more "useful" to the world by targeting enterprise customers.

Bad blood

Amodei, an ex-OpenAI executive, co-founded Anthropic in 2021 largely as a rejection of the values that drove OpenAI at the time and the paths the company had taken.

In particular, reports suggest that Amodei was frustrated and disturbed by the willingness to bypass what he considered to be crucial safety measures, like the slowing of updates to prevent malicious use of AI.

Critics of Anthropic, however, also point out that despite positioning itself as a safety-first AI company, engineers are releasing increasingly powerful models — including Mythos lately — that threaten to undermine safety if they get into the wrong hands.

• Pentagon eyes swarms of cheap drones over a handful of expensive fighter jets
• Carrier decks may soon be crowded with robots doing eight different combat jobs
• US Navy next fighter wing could fly itself from takeoff to target and back

The US Navy has issued a Request for Information (RFI) seeking a new family of carrier-based drones which would operate alongside manned aircraft while supporting missions across the full range of naval combat operations.

The service wants these systems to fly from Ford-class and Nimitz-class nuclear carriers, while some designs could operate from smaller vessels.

Its requirements seeking industry proposals for platforms capable of eight missions, including attacks against ships and land targets, anti-submarine warfare, air combat, electronic warfare, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

Navy seeks autonomous aircraft for eight missions

The aircraft would also support aerial refuelling and resupply missions for naval task forces, creating a broad set of requirements for a single aircraft or connected family of systems.

Strike variants must have a minimum range of 1,000 nautical miles, equivalent to roughly 1,150 miles.

The service also wants advanced autonomy for carrier operations, mission changes and threat avoidance during flight.

Proposed systems must support automated aerial refuelling and remain compatible with existing unmanned aircraft control systems.

The Navy is seeking “affordable mass, risk-tolerant platforms” capable of addressing current and emerging threats, which points toward affordable aircraft designed to be produced in larger numbers than traditional high-cost combat jets.

Future carrier wings could rely on scalable drone fleets

The RFI asks companies to explain how their production methods could expand rapidly during a surge while keeping recurring flight and sustainment costs within sustainable limits.

Manufacturers must also describe ways to reduce maintenance demands and use existing naval supply networks.

The Navy is also open to aircraft that can operate from platforms beyond its largest carriers - vertical-takeoff and landing UAVs could fly from destroyers, expeditionary sea bases and other vessels with suitable aviation facilities.

“The Navy is interested in novel concepts that can operate from any air-capable platform,” the RFI states, including destroyers and mobile sea bases.

This could give naval commanders more options for deploying autonomous aircraft across different maritime environments.

The Air Wing of the Future Family of Systems forms part of the Trump administration’s Golden Fleet expansion plan.

Existing related programmes include the MQ-25A Stingray tanker and Collaborative Combat Aircraft initiative.

The RFI also asks companies to explain planned capital investments and internal research commitments needed to mature their designs.

The Navy’s requirements suggest that future carrier aviation could combine advanced manned aircraft with larger fleets of autonomous systems designed for scale and operational risk tolerance.

Via Defense News

• Saronic's Port Alpha facility could expand from 835 acres to nearly 4,400 acres
• The shipyard could eventually build vessels exceeding 1,200 feet long
• Saronic expects Port Alpha to create up to 10,000 direct jobs

Saronic has selected Brownsville, Texas, for 'Port Alpha', a planned shipyard designed to produce autonomous vessels at unprecedented industrial scale.

The project is expected to attract more than $3 billion in private investment and begin construction during 2026.

When operational in 2028, the facility will combine shipbuilding, advanced manufacturing, robotics and software development across an 835-acre site.

Port Alpha aims to rebuild American shipbuilding capacity

The site could eventually expand to nearly 4,400 acres, giving Saronic space to develop one of the largest shipbuilding facilities in the United States.

Its initial production facilities will support vessels up to 850 feet long, while later expansion could accommodate ships exceeding 1,200 feet.

The Brownsville location includes waterfront access, a deep-water channel and multimodal transport links needed for large-scale maritime manufacturing.

Saronic selected the site after a year-long search that assessed workforce availability, infrastructure, logistics and future expansion opportunities.

The company expects Port Alpha to create up to 10,000 direct jobs over the next decade, covering welding, machining, robotics, software engineering and naval architecture.

Governor Greg Abbott said the project could generate approximately $750 million in annual wages once the workforce reaches its projected scale.

“America’s maritime future depends on our ability to build again,” said Saronic co-founder and CEO Dino Mavrookas. “Port Alpha is our commitment to that mission.”

Saronic plans to work with technical colleges, universities and local institutions to develop apprenticeships and training programmes supporting the facility’s workforce.

The company says the project could generate more than $160 billion in regional economic impact for Cameron County and $264.5 billion across Texas.

Autonomous vessels will drive the shipyard’s production model

Port Alpha will not operate as a conventional shipyard focused solely on constructing traditional crewed vessels for established naval fleets.

Saronic intends to combine software-defined manufacturing with autonomous maritime systems and large-scale production methods.

The company already operates a growing shipbuilding network, including a Franklin, Louisiana, facility acquired in early 2025.

Saronic is investing $300 million there to add 300,000 square feet of production capacity for its 180-foot Marauder autonomous vessel.

The company is known for autonomous vessels including Corsair and Mirage, while Marauder is competing in the medium unmanned surface vessel programme.

These systems form part of a broader effort to expand autonomous maritime operations across different mission types.

Saronic says Port Alpha will support production at a scale and speed not seen in American shipbuilding since World War II.

The company has not yet disclosed detailed production numbers, vessel schedules, or the exact mix of autonomous platforms planned for the facility.

• SK On says solid-state cells can give industrial robots the 8+ hour runtime of a human shift, but adoption might be another story
• While upcoming solid-state batteries boost productivity through longer operating times and lower overall operating costs, they are prohibitively more expensive than some of their lithium-ion peers
• Modern Li-on-based batteries are under 2% of a robot's manufacturing cost today, and solid-state would push that share to around 8%, a premium that could come with serious tradeoffs for manufacturers

Modern robotics is a field that continues to grow over time, fueled by a mix of smarter AI, manufacturing efficiencies and at times, better materials that change what is possible on the ground.

The robots currently in use in factories and warehouses however have a key limitation that has yet to be addressed properly: Lithium-ion batteries often can not keep up with the power demand that modern robots have.

This is particularly reflected in how often they require a battery swap or a recharge: most lithium-ion-powered robots typically operate for one to two hours on a charge, a far cry from the industry's ambitions of machines that can work a full eight-hour shift.

A costly solution to a robot's current battery limits

Speaking at the 2nd Battery Foundry Forum in Seoul on July 15 2026, Ko Young-seok, the executive vice president and head of product planning at the Korean battery maker SK On, argued that solid-state cells can deliver meaningful value for industrial robots that need extended runtime.

He also explained that whether manufacturers actually adopt them will come down to total cost of ownership (TCO), weighed against two cheaper rival approaches: battery swapping and ultra-fast charging.

The TCO framing implies that solid-state batteries, the battery industry's most hyped next-generation technology and inherently expensive to boot, might attract industrial buyers simply because the math works in their favor relative to conventional Li-ion setups.

This is because one must factor in the cost of keeping spare battery packs, charging and/or swap times, and potentially additional robots to cover the resulting downtime, which could leave solid-state with a lower TCO than the competition despite the higher sticker price.

The framing may also be unavoidable given how batteries sit in a robot's bill of materials today. A Li-ion battery accounts for under 2% of the total cost of an industrial robot, according to SK On, essentially a rounding error in the grand scheme of things, but switching to a solid-state battery could push that share to around 8%, a significant jump in overall costs.

For context, a widely circulated teardown of Tesla's Optimus Gen 2 puts the battery pack at about $300 in a roughly $55,000 hardware cost structure, around 0.5% of the bill of materials, comfortably under 2%, though units with larger packs or lower overall costs would land higher, and some independent estimates, including McKinsey's, put battery modules at 5–10% of a humanoid's bill of materials.

Solid-state cells, with their higher energy density, are one of the most promising routes to a robot that works a human shift without stopping, but given their comparatively steep cost versus the competition, one can understand why SK On is aiming this pitch at the robotics and industrial players that need the technology and can afford to pay for it.

For applications with short duty cycles, swapping a cheap lithium-ion pack or fast-charging between tasks may simply remain the better economic answer, but for customers willing and able to pay for more sustained power, solid-state seems to be the new play, even as it remains elusive for commercial EVs given its cost.

SK On has skin in this game on a specific timeline. The company completed its all-solid-state pilot plant at its Future Technology Institute in Daejeon last September, built in partnership with US solid-electrolyte firm Solid Power.

It is developing two chemistries: a polymer-oxide composite cell targeted for commercialization in 2028 and a sulfide-based cell in 2029, a timeline it has already accelerated by a year. But it has competition waiting in the wings: rival Samsung SDI, working with the same American partner, is aiming for 2027.

Whether this leads to widespread adoption of tech expected to appear only in the most expensive EVs on the market this decade remains to be seen, but the TCO argument Ko makes might stick more easily with industrial customers than with consumer EV buyers, for whom pricing and budgets are key factors.

Via The ELEC

• Chris Fall, the head of CAISI, has resigned
• Fall only took up the job three months ago in April 2026
• The departure is likely to once again shake up the administration's AI strategy

The head of the Trump administration’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) has resigned from his role, Axios has reported.

Chris Fall served in the role for just three months following his appointment in April 2026, and no reason has so far been given for his departure from the agency.

Arvind Raman, the current head of the Commerce Department office that oversees the AI testing institute is set to temporarily take up the mantle as head of CAISI until a permanent alternative is found.

Another Trump admin departure

Fall’s departure is just one in a string of Trump administration departures so far in 2026. Before resigning, Fall was responsible for working closely with leading US AI labs such as Anthropic, Google's ​DeepMind, OpenAI, ​Microsoft and Elon Musk's xAI to test their frontier and unreleased models for vulnerabilities to prevent them from being maliciously abused.

Trump has placed a big focus on developing AI, with the technology now a key part of both the US economy and its security, with AI models being deployed across federal agencies, police, and the armed forces.

Despite interventions by the US, China has been rapidly closing the gap between its own models and those of US companies. Many Chinese models are cheaper than their US alternatives, making them attractive to US companies feeling the token-cost of US models.

The resignation will likely once again shake up the Trump administration’s AI strategy. The administration has taken a very hands on approach to AI technologies, requiring contractors to provide unrestricted access to their systems and allow the use of their technologies for any lawful purpose. When Anthropic rejected these demands, the company was designated a supply chain risk.

Trump has also called on AI companies to provide stakes in their companies in what Trump has said will “create almost a partnership with the American public”. Trump hasn’t revealed exactly how this partnership would benefit the American public.

On the other hand, Senator Bernie Sanders has proposed an AI sovereign wealth fund that would see 50% of AI company stock placed in a fund that would be used to build infrastructure and fund projects aimed at improving the lives of Americans.

• The UK government has quietly revealed when plug-in solar will be legal
• The law change will come into effect from August 27
• The panels could save you up to £110 a year on your energy bills

The UK government has quietly revealed when plug-in solar panels will become legal to buy in the country — and the magic date is August 27.

The date (spotted by Engadget) is hidden away in these amended 'Plugs and Sockets' regulations for the UK. These are "coming into force" from August 27 and effectively legalise plug-in solar panels, which currently exist in a legal grey area.

Right now, it isn't legal to send electricity into a wall socket to power your appliances or other tech. But these amendments make a new exemption for so-called plug-in solar, provided the new kit meets some strict criteria.

Specifically, your solar setup can't output more than 800W of power and also can't "import electrical energy" from your house to be stored and used later. This date also isn't necessarily when we'll see plug-in solar panels — otherwise known as 'balcony solar' — go on sale, but refers to when they can be approved to go on shelves.

The government's research, which included a consultation that ended on June 30, suggests that plug-in panels could start at around £400, and save households up to £70-£110 a year on their energy bills. You also shouldn't need professional installation nor planning permission, unlike regular rooftop panels.

While the legal amendments have unfortunately come towards the end of the summer, it does mean the government will have hit its target of finalising plug-in solar legislation by the end of the season.

Where will you be able to buy them?

While retailers aren't committing to exact on-sale dates yet, some major ones have hinted to us that they'll be keen to stock plug-in solar kits as soon as possible.

John Boumphrey, UK & Ireland Country Manager at, Amazon said: "The Government's announcement on plug-in solar panels is a practical step that gives households a simple way to generate their own power, reduce bills, and contribute to the UK's net zero goals. We're looking forward to helping customers access this technology."

Lidl could be another store that supports the tech, given it's already launched its own cheap battery that's designed for solar systems in Germany. Georgina Hall, Corporate Affairs Director at Lidl GB, told us: “At Lidl GB, we are committed to making sustainable living affordable for everyone and we welcome the Government’s move to modernise regulations in the UK.

"Updating the regulatory landscape for this 'plug-and-play' technology is a positive step towards empowering British households to manage their energy costs and support the nation’s net-zero ambitions."

Last month, we also saw that Asda, Currys, B&Q, Wickes, and Screwfix had met with the Minister for Energy Consumers, Martin McCluskey, to discuss balcony solar panels. "Plug-in panels can be transformative for renters or those on lower incomes, so I welcome the conversation today with household names such as B&Q and Currys showing a huge amount of support for getting the panels in people's homes," McCluskey said.

So if you're interested in plug-in solar panels, you shouldn't be short of options from traditional high street names — let's just hope the sun is still shining by then.

• Zhejiang University researchers warned GPU workloads could destabilize local grids and cause blackouts
• Attackers could exploit ~1,000 GPUs to drain current and generate excess heat in systems
• Theoretical attack dubbed Bit2Watt; mitigations include detecting malicious patterns and energy buffering systems

Whenever an AI data center thinks really, really hard, it can increase its power consumption so much to trigger disruptions and possibly even blackouts and gear malfunctions. So, is it possible for a malicious actor to trigger this scenario deliberately, in order to cause physical harm?

Multiple researchers from the Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, wrote a research paper titled “Bit2Watt: A Cyber-Physical Vulnerability Exploiting GPU Workloads Across Power and Computing Infrastructures.”

In it, they claim that a malicious cloud tenant is, in theory, capable of launching GPU workloads so intensive that they cause physical damage.

Suggesting mitigations

"Our results indicate that GPU loads can reach modulation frequencies exceeding 6,000 Hz, compared with only a few hertz observed in conventional household loads such as air conditioners," the team wrote in its research paper.

"Such high-frequency modulations can substantially induce voltage excursions, harmonic distortion, and damping degradation."

An attacker could use around 1,000 GPUs to target a one-megawatt local power grid consisting primarily of distributed energy sources (such as solar panels), making it lose almost half of the electrical current, while generating around 20% more heat than usual.

"This not only threatens the availability of the computing equipment but also produces a negative damping ratio of -0.27, introducing an unstable mode into the system," the paper adds.

"Once the protections are triggered and computing loads are shed, it can trigger cascading failures, potentially leading to blackouts exceeding 80 percent in large-scale power systems."

AI data centers creating huge energy consumption swings is no news, and it’s a challenge some of the brightest minds of today are trying to solve.

Luckily, the attack is (still) purely theoretical, and the researchers published the paper to warn about potential misuse. They also suggested mitigations - defenders could look for malicious computational patterns, while operators should create energy buffering systems for unusual spikes in demand.

Via The Register

• Waterpark Simulator is set to leave early access on July 31, 2026
• The game will also come to consoles on that date, and will not receive a price hike
• The launch comes alongside the release of a massive free update

A viral simulator game with thousands of positive reviews is coming to consoles later this month — on the same day that it receives a massive free update.

Currently available in early access, Waterpark Simulator has already been downloaded more than a million times on Steam, where it has an 'Overwhelmingly Positive' user rating thanks to hundreds of glowing reviews from players.

It's a wacky first-person management simulator that has you constructing and managing your own water park. And, while the simulator genre might be filled with low-effort cash grabs, it's actually a pretty well-crafted and in-depth experience.

From creating slides and pools to painting surfaces and placing a huge number of decorative objects for visitors to enjoy, it offers all the tools you need to create the water park of your dreams. Making a successful park is very rewarding, but thanks to some crazy ragdoll physics, messing up can be just as fun.

You might have seen clips of the game on TikTok or Instagram Reels, as it's already proved popular with content creators. It's even been played by the likes of v-tubing giant Ironmouse.

Now, it's finally coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and Series S consoles with its 1.0 release on July 31, which also introduces a huge number of highly-requested features.

These include a full multiplayer co-op mode, a dynamic weather system, a new night mode, and overhauled progression.

Best of all, the game isn't receiving a price hike with its full launch. It will continue to cost just $12.99 / £9.99 / AU$17.95 in what Travis Richardson, co-founder of developer CayPlay Studios, says is the studio's way of "saying thank you" to fans.

• Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced game director Richard Knight is keeping future content plans under wraps for now
• He says post-launch support "doesn't feel like a crazy bet"
• He hopes fans will continue playing the game after Grand Theft Auto 6 launches

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced game director Richard Knight can't confirm if the title will receive post-launch content yet, but he hopes players will continue playing after Grand Theft Auto 6 releases.

In the same interview with YouTuber JorRaptor where Knight confirmed that Resynced will get a New Game Plus update at some point, the director was asked to discuss the game's post-launch roadmap and the plans moving forward.

"I can't say anything officially, but you know, it doesn't feel like a crazy bet," Knight said.

"We definitely need to support the game. We need to fix bugs. Sorry for anyone running into bugs. They hurt. They're painful for us, too. And we do want to add some quality-of-life stuff. So it's a pretty reasonable guess."

Then, as if considering the stiff competition when the game launches on November 19, he joked, "Also, please play us when GTA 6 comes out.”

As the first Assassin's Creed remake, it's unclear what the future holds for the game compared to new titles like Shadows and Mirage. While some hope for a remake of the original game's Freedom Cry expansion, Knight has said that it's still early days and plans aren't set in stone.

The director teased that there are team members who have "[DLC ideas," but balancing and updating the core game is currently the focus.

"Beyond that, I just want to say our focus with Black Flag remake has always been Edward," he added. "He's the kind of heart soul of the original game, and so you know maybe there could be more to tell there too."

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced is now available on PS5, Xbox Series X and Series S, and PC.

• Group‑IB discovers HollowGraph malware targeting Israeli entities, exfiltrating files via Microsoft Graph API
• Operators hide instructions in future calendar entries, then attach encrypted stolen data to events
• At least 12 systems were compromised; overlaps with Lyceum noted but attribution remains low‑confidence

Cybercriminals have found a way to communicate with the malware installed on victim devices through compromised Microsoft Calendar apps, experts have warned.

Security researchers at Group-IB have detailed a newly discovered piece of malware called HollowGraph designed to exfiltrate sensitive files from compromised devices.

What makes the malware stand out is the way it communicates with its operators. The best way to spot hidden malware is to monitor the traffic flowing in and out of a device, which is why cybercriminals try their best to hide this traffic, or blend it with another, legitimate one. In that respect, HollowGraph is unique because it abuses Microsoft Graph API and a compromised Microsoft 365 mailbox calendar.

A dozen victims

After landing on a device and compromising the Microsoft 365 account, HollowGraph uses that account’s permissions to access Microsoft Graph. Operators create calendar entries containing instructions and place them far into the future (in the year 2050) to avoid being spotted. After acting on the instructions and harvesting valuable information, the malware exfiltrates it through the same channel.

Instead of uploading files to a suspicious server, HollowGraph attaches encrypted stolen data to calendar events and sends it through Microsoft Graph. For defenders, all of this traffic seems legitimate and usually flies under their radars.

So far, all of the victims are Israeli entities, Group-IB said. The researchers identified at least 12 compromised systems, three of which were still actively communicating with the attackers’ infrastructure during the investigation.

The researchers did not attribute the attack to any known threat actor, but hinted at a potential. They identified technical similarities in command structures and plugin mechanisms between HollowGraph’s framework, Cavern, and a .NET backdoor used by Lyceum (an Iranian-nexus threat actor associated with OilRig). However, Group-IB explicitly emphasizes that these overlaps are not distinct enough, so they assess this link with low confidence.

• Surfshark's study puts total recorded deepfake fraud losses at $3.7 billion
• Social media is the leading origin point, accounting for 47% of losses
• 2025 and 2026 alone are responsible for 89% of the damage

Deepfakes have graduated from an internet curiosity into a serious financial threat.

New research from Surfshark finds that people have now lost at least $3.7 billion to deepfake fraud, and the pace of that damage is accelerating sharply.

The study also traced where these scams tend to begin, and one channel stands out above all others. Social media is the single largest origin point, accounting for 47% of all recorded losses.

Running the best VPN will encrypt your traffic and hide your IP address, but it cannot stop a convincing fake video of a celebrity or a cloned voice on the phone from talking you out of your savings.

Social media is the biggest source of deepfake fraud

The scale of the problem has changed almost overnight.

According to Surfshark's data, losses totalled just $83 million between 2020 and 2023, then climbed to $335 million in 2024, surged to $2.5 billion in 2025, and had already reached $764 million in the first half of 2026. Together, 2025 and 2026 account for 89% of all recorded losses.

Most of these losses come from criminals using deepfakes of celebrities and public figures to push fraudulent investment schemes on social media.

"A single deepfake video can go viral in hours, reaching millions of potential victims before it's detected or removed. No other channel offers that kind of reach at zero cost," explains Luís Costa, Research Lead at Surfshark.

Not every viral fake causes harm, though. Costa points out that an innocent deepfake of a footballer during the World Cup might rack up millions of views without costing anyone a penny, while a fake government post promoting a dubious investment scheme can drain thousands of dollars from a single victim.

The threat is spreading beyond your feed

Social media is only part of the picture. Impersonation fraud, where criminals use deepfakes to pose as real people or bypass identity checks, is the second-largest category at $911 million — or 25% of losses.

Fake job candidate schemes, in which AI-generated interviews are used to infiltrate hiring processes, added a further $100 million. These scams are expected to rise, too. As TechRadar previously reported, a 39% spike in "deepfake-as-a-service" chatter on the dark web could end up fueling the next wave of "fake boss" scams.

Everyday communication channels are increasingly in the firing line as well, contributing $174 million between them: phone calls ($71 million), video platforms ($62 million), and messaging apps ($41 million).

The FBI's latest Internet Crime Report also logged $893 million in AI-related losses for 2025, with AI-assisted investment fraud alone accounting for $632 million.

A separate Surfshark experiment found that nearly half of people cannot reliably tell a bot from a human online.

How to stay safe

As Costa puts it, "awareness is the only effective defense when a familiar voice or face can no longer be trusted implicitly".

For personal calls and messages, he suggests setting up a family "safe word" you can use with loved ones to confirm identity when a request feels urgent or out of character.

On video calls, a "glitch test" can help too. Ask the other person to wave a hand in front of their face, as deepfakes often blur or distort when facial features are obscured.

TechRadar has more advice on catching convincing AI images and deepfakes if you want to sharpen your eye.

I know, I know... I'm being greedy when it comes to Little House on the Prairie. Netflix only dropped the first season on July 9, with its second season being renewed months before we even saw it.

Frankly, it's all good news for anybody who loves the Ingalls family. Logic tells us that season 2 will be based on the next book in Laura Ingalls Wilder's original series, On the Banks of Plum Creek.

Having left their little house on the Kansas prairie (which is exactly what we saw at the end of season 1), the Ingalls family travels by wagon to Minnesota, settling on the banks of Plum Creek.

The book covers five years of Wilder's childhood, so we could see the Ingalls stay there for a while should the Netflix series continue to be renewed.

If I were a betting woman, I'd say that Little House on the Prairie season 2 could be exceeded by at least 3 more seasons, if the streamer invests in the IP in the same way as it does with Virgin River. At the time of writing, no further seasons have been commissioned.

Talking to star Alice Halsey, who plays Laura, this situation would be a "dream come true," — and there's good reason to be optimistic.

Little House on the Prairie season 3 would likely be based on By the Shores of Silver Lake

"I love playing Laura, and I would love to do it for a whole lot longer," Halsey tells me. "I would just adore the prospect of being able to be Laura for years to come, to be able to be that kind of person that Melissa Gilbert was to so many people. I think that's really empowering.

"I just hope that people will love season 2 as much as they seem to like season 1. Season 2 is going to be even better. If we have a season 3 or season 4, that would just be a dream come true."

As I've said, I think Halsey is right, and Little House on the Prairie will likely be renewed for both... but let's dig into why. For starters, there's a wealth of source material to work with courtesy of the real-life Ingalls.

Here's the full Little House series list:

• Little House in the Big Woods (1932)
• Farmer Boy (1933)
• Little House on the Prairie (1935)
• On the Banks of Plum Creek (1937)
• By the Shores of Silver Lake (1939)
• The Long Winter (1940)
• Little Town on the Prairie (1941)
• These Happy Golden Years (1943)
• The First Four Years (1971)

We skipped past the first two books by the time season 1 even began, with season 2 confirmed to adapt On the Banks of Plum Creek. That leaves another five novels that are ripe for adaptation, meaning a minimum of five further future seasons in the pipeline.

Why "minimum?" Well, this largely depends on how Netflix chooses to adapt future books. The Ingalls didn't live in the Kansas prairie for too long, but we know that they lived by Plum Creek for a good few years. This could either be crammed into one season, or spread out over a few.

Of course, Netflix doesn't have to use all of Wilder's remaining books, either. As it's already skipped past the first two (understandably to start at the most well-known point), the streamer can pick and choose what it wants to adapt.

In its best-case scenario, we could be looking at an original IP that rivals Virgin River, which is currently the longest-running original series in Netflix's roster. Little House on the Prairie must be similarly cost-effective for Netflix to film, with both shows passing off Canada as various US locations.

As it stands, it's all to play for... but don't be surprised if more announcements come out sooner rather than later.

• Singer Lorde called out Spotify's AI 'About the Song' feature
• She says it featured incorrect details and limits free interpretation for listeners
• Users are starting to catch onto its flaws

Spotify is always dropping new tools to enhance your listening experience, but one of its newest features has been called out by one of the most influential pop artists of this generation.

New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde slammed the best music streaming service’s ‘About the Song’ feature which launched back in February. The tool is currently in beta, and pulls information from third-party sources to create AI-generated summaries of individual songs offering context and background.

According to the pop star, one of the summaries for her song ‘Current Affairs’ mentioned incorrect details which were sourced from themusic.com.au, stating the following:

“On her Ultrasound World Tour, Lorde turns Current Affairs into a full-on performance piece, stripping down to underwear while a dancer pours water over her stomach so the song plays out like the shower scene she talks about on stage”.

The singer didn’t hold back, taking to Instagram Stories to call out the platform while highlighting the dangers features like this pose on listeners:

“Hey @spotify I’m gonna go out on a limb and say we don't want this. Not only is this inaccurate (not the song I did that in) but reducing a song to an AI-generated meaning right at the source feels like it limits free interpretation IMO. At least make it possible for artists to opt out please,” she wrote.

It didn’t take long for Lorde’s comments to spark reactions from all corners of the internet, and Spotify has come forward to offer clarity from its side. We reached out to the platform for further comment, and a Spotify spokesperson replied with the following:

“We built ‘About the Song’ because fans want to dig into the stories behind the music. It’s still in beta. The info comes from articles across the internet, and when something’s off, we move fast to fix it, like we did here. Getting it right matters to us”. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the song summary has been removed.

‘Half the fun is figuring out your own meaning’

At the time of the feature’s launch, many Spotify subscribers welcomed ‘About the Song’ with open arms — I even went into detail about how much I couldn’t get over it and how it taught me things I never knew before. But despite the positive reception from subscribers, Lorde’s observation of the AI feature has sounded the alarm for music lovers.

Comment from r/Music

Aside from its inaccuracies, Lorde’s comments highlight another big issue with AI features like ‘About the Song’; they remove the listener’s opportunity to interpret the music for themselves. This has been the topic of many online discussions since Lorde aired her comments, especially on Reddit — ‘half the fun is figuring out your own meaning instead of getting AI Cliff Notes right away,’ one user says.

But according to others in the same Reddit thread, it speaks volumes about how art consumption is evolving. Whether you’re reading a book, watching a movie, or listening to an album, everyone looks at things differently which is what allows conversations and debates to flow. Another user went the extra mile, saying “If you need AI to tell you what it thinks the song means, you've stopped thinking”.

That said, Spotify isn’t the only music platform that dives into the background of music — Apple Music includes detailed summaries of albums located under the Play button — but these pockets of context are all written and developed by Apple Music’s editorial team, who don’t rely on AI for third-party sourcing.

But the album summaries is where Apple Music draws the line. As soon as you hit Play the platform leaves you to get lost in the music — which subscribers would rather have over what Spotify is trying to sell them.

• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake will reportedly be re-revealed later this year
• A content creator reports that development at Saber Interactive has been "ramping up" and going "smoothly"
• Recent reports suggest the game could launch in 2028

Five years after being announced, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake will reportedly be re-revealed later this year.

That's according to reliable Star Wars insider and YouTuber 100% Star Wars (via Bespin Bulletin), who addressed reports that the KOTOR remake could launch in 2028.

In a new video, 100% Star Wars claims that Saber Interactive sources said the game's "best-case scenario" was a mid-to-late 2027 launch to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Star Wars, but a 2028 release window would align with the original 2003 game's 25th anniversary.

"A reveal later this year has been planned," 100% Star Wars said.

The KOTOR remake was announced in 2021 and was originally being developed by Aspyr Media. However, development was paused for some time before the project was eventually handed over to Saber Interactive in August 2022.

When asked about the game's progress earlier this year, Saber's chief creative officer, Tim Willits, said, "Yes, it is still in development. That's all I can say."

Aside from the teaser trailer revealed five years ago, we haven't heard or seen anything else about the game since, but according to 100% Star Wars, development has been smooth sailing since Saber took up the reins.

"I know about the extremely positive development cycle since the game has been at Saber since 2023," the YouTuber said. "Development on the game has not only been ramping up, but it’s been going extremely smoothly over the past 3 years since Saber started from scratch.

"They’ve been hiring some extremely high-end talent from across the industry and Saber is very much a unified front when it comes to the development of this game with resources and talent being pulled from all over the company."

While we wait for the KOTOR remake, Star Wars fans can look forward to Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic, a role-playing game (RPG) from Arcnaut Studios being led by KOTOR and Mass Effect trilogy director Casey Hudson.

A new turn-based single-player game, Star Wars: Zero Company, from Bit Reactor will also launch this year on August 27, as well as Fuse Games' Star Wars: Galactic Racer, which arrives on October 6.

• VPN providers aren't liable for copyright infringement, said the EU Court
• The Court explicitly recognized VPNs as "lawful technical tools"
• The case centered on the copyright battle involving Anne Frank's diary

In a major victory for digital rights and common sense, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has officially categorized Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) as "lawful technical tools" while establishing new boundaries for online copyright disputes.

The landmark judgment — handed down in July 2026 — stems from a complex legal battle over the online publication of Anne Frank's historical manuscripts. At its core, the case forced Europe's top judges to answer a highly technical question: if a publisher actively tries to block visitors from a specific country, are they still breaking the law if a user sneaks past the digital border using circumvention software?

According to the CJEU, the answer is no. As long as a website employs "state-of-the-art" geo-blocking technology, the publisher cannot be held liable for copyright infringement simply because a determined reader decides to fire up the best VPN to bypass the restrictions.

The ruling sets a massive precedent. It confirms that copyright holders cannot point to the mere existence of VPNs to claim a website's security measures are completely ineffective.

More importantly for privacy advocates, the court firmly pushed back against the demonization of privacy software, cementing the legitimate status of VPN providers across the European Union.

The Anne Frank dispute explained

The legal tug-of-war began when a coalition of Dutch and Belgian academic institutions published a free, scholarly online edition of Anne Frank's manuscripts.

Because copyright laws are not fully harmonized across Europe, the legal status of the famous diary varies by territory. In Belgium and roughly 60 other countries, the writings entered the public domain years ago. However, in the Netherlands, parts of the text remain protected by copyright until 2037.

To respect this territorial divide, the publishers hosted the site in Belgium and used geo-blocking to prevent access from Dutch IP addresses. Visitors from the Netherlands were met with a notice explaining why they couldn't enter the site.

The Anne Frank Fonds, which holds the Dutch copyright, sued. They argued that because standard VPNs easily allow users to mask their true IP address and spoof a Belgian location, the scholarly website was effectively communicating the protected work to the Dutch public.

The CJEU ultimately rejected this argument. In its judgment, the court noted that while geo-blocking measures can inevitably be circumvented, "the possibility of such circumvention cannot, in itself and in all circumstances, be a decisive factor in finding those measures to be inadequate and, therefore, ineffective."

Why this matters for the internet and VPN users

For everyday internet users, the "So What?" of this ruling is deeply reassuring. It validates that using a VPN to encrypt your online traffic, hide your IP address, or bypass digital borders is a legitimate use of consumer technology.

The judges explicitly shielded VPN companies from collateral damage in piracy lawsuits, a topic that has sparked intense debate among European ISPs and rightsholders. The court specifically argued that the provider of a VPN or similar services is not liable for users bypassing restrictions.

By placing the legal burden on publishers to maintain "state-of-the-art" digital fences, rather than demanding absolute, impossible perfection, the EU has drawn a pragmatic line in the sand.

Publishers aren't expected to build unhackable walls, and VPN providers aren't responsible for the actions of users who climb over them. Ultimately, this ruling proves that the borderless internet can still coexist with territorial copyright laws, provided everyone uses the right technical safeguards.

Arozzi's Arena Nordico hails from Sweden and is a premium contender for our best standing desks guide, being suitably minimalist, sturdy and reliable. And end price aside (once key accessories are factored in), it's an easy recommendation.

This has been my daily work station for four months and its electric motor has proved completely reliable, with its four customizable height settings. The smart cable tidy setup and generous cable trays ensure a clean look once all is in place, and the host of accessories I had for this review, which included a 'desk riser', monitor arm, headphone hanger and more, have all proved to be top quality too.

If you like the look of the Arena Nordico and its one-size dimensions suit your needs, then you won't be disappointed.

Arena Nordico Electric Standing Desk: Unboxing

Like most standing desks, the Arena Nordico arrives flat-packed in two boxes, the heavier of which contains the steel legs and frame, the larger and lighter of which includes the particle board tabletop. It is shipped directly from Sweden.

Given the simplicity and dimensions of the desk, I also requested accessories to complete my home setup, which came in separate boxes; a desk riser (raised worktop section), gas spring monitor arm (for my large and weighty 32:9 curved monitor), plus a headphone hanger.

The contents in each box were securely packaged by protective foam and cardboard. Unfortunately there was scuffing on the curved supporting bracket of one of the main steel legs — I'm pretty sure that would have occurred prior to packing. Once the desk was assembled, it was damage that you'd hardly notice at all.

All assembling accessories and instructions were neatly packaged together and every component easily identifiable; the two worktop pieces, legs, control box, screws and so on.

A premium hex key tool with rubber handle and dual length hex keys was supplied with desk, which I greatly appreciated because it made the task of tightening the screws that much more comfortable and straightforward, even for awkwardly placed screw holes.

There was even white gloves supplied presumably to avoid fingerprint smudge marks, which felt a little overkill — this wasn't developing photo prints in a lab!

I chose the walnut version of the Arena Nordico with black steel legs of the four versions available. There are also pine, white or black finishes available (with white or black steel legs). The worktop measures 70 x 140cm, and there are no alternative sizes to choose from.

Arena Nordico Electric Standing Desk: Assembly

I've assembled a complex L-shaped standing desk before, and by comparison the build of the Arena Nordico proved particularly straightforward, and much quicker — with the help of my teenage son, I clocked 47 minutes exactly from unboxing to the desk being in situ with optional accessories attached.

The instruction manual couldn't be clearer, with the only potential point of confusion being which side to attach the desk's control box, given the desk is best constructed upside down and you need to think about it potentially reversing as the desk is turned over. Not once did I have to backtrack on the assembly.

There are two worktop panels; the main panel and a slimmer panel which is positioned to the desk's far side. They are lined up with underside brackets which form part of the generous cable tidy baskets frame, and the gap between the two worktop sections can be closed and opened to neatly feed cables through — that's a neat bit of design rather than a hole in one of the worktops.

The cable tidy brackets go on first, followed by the legs which slot in and then a final bracket to fix the legs in place. You'll need to decide which side of the desk you want to fix the electric motor and control panel, but the consequent steps remain the same.

On the same side of the motor goes the control panel. Thankfully the shorter screws design for the control panel fixed it into place perfectly (and months later the panel hasn't so much as budged, which is more than I can say for other standing desks that I have built).

I also added the (optional) headphone hanger before flipping the desk over off of its back and into position, with the help of my son. This is the one part of the whole process that you ideally need two people for.

After that, I attached another accessory, the raised worktop which Arozzi calls the 'Desk Riser', which is fixed in place with screw clamps. I would treat this additional worktop as if its max payload was pretty limited. Then went on the two cable tidy baskets, which easily slot into the bracket holes.

Installing the monitor arm was probably the fiddliest part of the entire build. To reiterate, this is an optional accessory that I went for because my monitor is massive, and I wanted to minimize its footprint on the desk set up.

It works best to screw in the monitor to the monitor arm before sliding the arm's base into place between the two worktop sections, and I found this process much easier with the help of my son.

Throughout the whole process, I thanked Arozzi for supplying the versatile dual length hex key tool — it made the historically fiddliest parts of this type of build a comparative breeze.

Arena Nordico Electric Standing Desk: In use

I've had an electric standing desk fail on me before after extended use, so I was sure to give the Nordico a long-term review. At the time of writing, I've used the desk every working day for 4-5 months, and it works perfectly the same as it did on day one.

The Nordico is able to support up to 60kg according to Arena, which is modest by comparison to other standing desks that I've seen quoting double that payload.

However, I'm not in the habit of sitting on my desk and raising myself up and down, as fun as that sounds. No, I have loaded it with a weighty 32:9 monitor (supported by the heavy duty gas spring version of Arena's monitor arm accessory), my laptop and various other items, and the desk has never struggled or slowed under that weight.

The control box offers four customizable single-push height presets, or you can simply press and hold the up or down buttons to adjust the height in centimeter increments. I was the main user of the desk and 2-3 presets would have been plenty enough, but I can see four presets being useful for desks shared by two users of different heights.

My only gripe about the standing function is that the maximum height of 115cm didn't feel quite high enough for me, and I'm 6ft 1 inches. Taller users might find the maximum standing setting not quote high enough. The minimum 71cm setting was plenty low enough, mind you.

Sadly, the desk doesn't include accessories — those are optional extras, and the cost quickly adds up. And with the limited one-size, I felt like I really needed a monitor arm to free up desk space. Even the headphone hanger is an optional extra.

There's also no option for on-desk storage, for example drawers to slot underneath the desk riser accessory, and so I found the desk quickly filled up with my daily mess.

Thankfully, there's a smart cable tidy setup, with that additional worktop panel that slides open from the far side of the main worktop, and generous cable trays underneath. Sorting and hiding messy cables, therefore, proved pretty easy.

The feet were large and stable, and with their low profile I have so far avoided any stubbed toes.

I didn't necessarily appreciate the motor's rotor being exposed rather than concealed on the desk's underside at first, but it felt like should I run into any issues, that a fix would be simpler to issue.

Overall, every part of the desk, besides the scuffed leg, arrived and has remained entirely presentable and operational.

Arena Nordico Electric Standing Desk: Final verdict

If you like your standing desk with a clean, minimal look, then the Arena Nordico is worth considering. You'll likely need to factor in additional accessories which add to the already sizeable cost, but otherwise and following many month of reliable service, I have few complaints. I can see the Arena Nordico being my primary standing desk for many years to come.

First reviewed: July 2026

For more top office furniture, we've tested out all the best office chairs.

• Scammers are pretending to offer FBI support to victims
• Victims are becoming double-victims after falling for this trap
• FBI's IC3 warns never to pay for support – support will come from law enforcement

Scammers are increasingly impersonating FBI personnel and the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) to defraud people who have already lost money to cybercrime, ultimately leading to them being exploited twice in quick succession by capitalizing on their weaknesses.

Attackers pose as support for recovering lost money and assisting with IC3 complaints, but the real objective is to defraud victims out of even more money or sensitive information.

But savvy victims should be able to identify these scams relatively easy, because despite a rising volume, the attack vector remains highly suspicious.

Victims are being hit twice via fake FBI scams

Rather than targeting the FBI's website, scammers send direct messages to victims or attract them via posts or ads on social media. "Some individuals received an email or a phone call, while others were approached via social media or forums," the FBI explained.

In the post, the FBI warns that attackers meet victims where they are, such as on Facebook, then quickly move them away to other, more secure channels like Telegram and connect them with other associates.

"The IC3 will not ask for payment to recover lost funds," the bureau warned, noting that victims should be weary of being contacted after reporting an attack. "If further information is needed, individuals will be contacted by FBI employees from local field offices or other law enforcement officers."

Victims who have either been attacked once, or attacked for a second time while trying to report the first attack, should report it via www.ic3.gov. The DOJ Elder Justice Hotline (1-833-FRAUD-11) also offers support for citizens aged 60+.

Getting set up for school or college can be an expensive endeavour. That's why we're always on the lookout for solid laptops that have been reduced in price, and that's exactly the case with this Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5 at Amazon for £499.99 (was £699.99).

This Windows 11 laptop features a bright 16-inch display, an Intel Core i5 processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. That's enough power and storage to keep all your schoolwork moving along smoothly. Lenovo is a trusted brand, too, which is why it gets a special mention in our best laptops guide.

So, whether you're a student looking to get ready for the new academic year or a general user wanting a reliable laptop for everyday use, this £200 saving on an impressive overall laptop is well worth a look.

Today's best back-to-school laptop deal

Full disclosure: we've not reviewed the IdeaPad Slim 5, but our time with the similar Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 gives us confidence to make this recommendation. The Slim 5 promises seamless multitasking and performance with 13th Gen Intel Core processors.

From first impressions, the 16-inch display is a generous size, and the overall form factor is compact enough to make it portable. There's also a flexible selection of ports to expand connectivity and facilitate speedy data transfers.

One of the highlights of the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5 is its 60WHr battery, which delivers all-day battery life, even when you're pushing it to the limits. And even when you run out of juice, Lenovo's Rapid Charge Boost technology will get you up and running again. In fact, just 15 minutes of fast charging gives you three hours of video playback.

Despite being on the other side of Prime Day, there are still some fantastic laptop deals around. We've put together our favourites, with top picks from the highest-rated brands as well as models featured in our best laptops guide.

• Avengers: Doomsday will be released in cinemas worldwide on December 18
• Tom Hiddleston's Loki is part of the movie's huge ensemble
• The popular actor has revealed if fans need to watch Loki on Disney+ before Doomsday comes out

Tom Hiddleston has revealed if you need to watch Loki on Disney+ to understand his character's role in Avengers: Doomsday.

Speaking exclusively to TechRadar, the fan-favorite actor, who has played Loki in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) since 2010, said he "will always say that people need to watch" his character's standalone series. However, Hiddleston wouldn't be drawn specifically on whether it was essential to stream the show prior to Doomsday's release on December 18.

Marvel fans who've seen the Hiddleston-fronted program will already know how its second and final season ends. On the off-chance that you haven't watched it yet, I'll refrain from spelling out exactly what happened in this article. For those who need their memory jogged, my spoiler-filled Loki season 2 ending explained piece holds the answers you seek.

One thing that every MCU fanatic will know by now, though, is that Loki will return in Avengers: Doomsday. Indeed, not only was Hiddleston part of the initial 27-strong Doomsday cast announcement in March 2025, but he also made the briefest of appearances in Avengers: Doomsday's first official trailer, which surprisingly made its public debut yesterday (July 20).

Naturally, fans have myriad questions after the release of said trailer, including a couple concerning Loki. How big of a role will he play in the Marvel Phase 6 movie? Will he be reunited with Thor? And, perhaps most important of all, does Loki's Disney+ show have any bearing on the story that Doomsday will tell?

As part of a wider chat I had with Hiddleston for his new National Geographic docudrama Pompeii: Out of Time, which airs on Disney+ and Hulu on July 23, I put those exact questions to him. Predictably, Hiddleston, who has plenty of experience dodging spoiler-based Marvel questions, wasn't forthcoming with definitive answers.

Nonetheless, he did appear to drop a tiny hint that anyone who wants to comprehend Loki's role in Avengers 5 should seek out the character's solo show on Disney+, aka one of the world's best streaming services.

"I always say that people need to watch Loki," he told me with a wry smile. "I'm really proud of that show — I poured my whole soul into it and I love playing Loki. It's been 16 years now and, you know, I got to the end of Avengers: Infinity War, and that seemed to be the end of the Odinson saga.

"But, then Loki, as a series, was about placing Loki in the new context [by] taking him out of time and his reality," Hiddleston continued. "He's confronted with his compulsive, self-destructive, repetitive patterns of behavior, and gives him this capacity to be an agent of his own destiny. It was such an enjoyable experience because the whole show is about identity, purpose, and belonging, and also about time and how we perceive it and how best to use it.

"So, yeah, I would always say, if you haven't watched it, go and do so," he added. "And, if you haven't watched it before Doomsday, go and watch it again."

For more on one of 2026's most anticipated new movies, find out everything we know so far about Avengers: Doomsday.

• Other Mommy has a first-look trailer which gives us a glimpse at Jessica Chastain's return to horror
• The movie will arrive in theaters on October 9, 2026
• Rob Savage, the director of Zoom horror sensation Host, is behind the terrifying new movie

2026 has been a bumper year for horror, and it's about to get even bigger when one of my anticipated new movies Other Mommy arrives in theaters on October 9.

Other Mommy follows Bela, a young girl, who gets mixed up with a mysterious force in her house that resembles her mother. Here, Jessica Chastain takes on a dual role as Bela’s mother and as “Other Mommy,” the supernatural entity that's haunting the place.

I'm already excited for this movie because it's got a stellar team behind it. Chastain stars alongside Severance's Dichen Lachman and it's directed by Rob Savage, who you may know for directing the Zoom horror movie Host.

If you're not convinced yet, check out the first look trailer for Other Mommy below.

I'm very excited for Other Mommy because recent box office figures have shown that audiences love original horror which spins a unique tale of terror, instead of more reboots or remakes.

In the cover image for Other Mommy's trailer we can see recent horror hits Obsession and Backrooms referenced. It's clear just how influential they have been in championing this new wave of horror stories.

This is also a huge return to the genre for actor Jessica Chastain, after she appeared in IT: Chapter Two in 2019. It's great to see her back taking on a creepy new role, requiring her to play two versions of the same character.

Other Mommy has the potential to be a great horror and I really hope it delivers. We have a long wait for it to arrive in theaters but don't worry, I've got a list of 7 new horror movies to stream in July to keep you entertained until then.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S11: Two-minute review

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 is the brand’s answer to the iPad Air, with its premium design and compact form factor.

It certainly looks the part, taking cues from Apple with its sleek and minimalist aesthetic. It only comes in two colors — or rather shades, since it’s merely a choice between Grey and Silver. My review unit was the former, and I have to say that I enjoyed its classy appearance.

Beyond this, Samsung has also nailed the S11’s build quality. The one-piece metal chassis feels as expensive as they come, thanks to its incredibly smooth texture (so be careful when holding it) and supreme solidity. It easily ranks among the best tablets in terms of sheer construction.

The display, however, is less impressive. At 11 inches, content already feels squeezed, but the thick inner bezel only exacerbates the issue. What’s more, it's a magnet for dust and debris, while the grabby touchscreen is far from class-leading.

Thankfully, the included S Pen fairs better than fingers. There’s no dragging with the stylus, as it glides effortlessly across the screen. It’s also perfectly responsive and comfortable to grip, thanks to its ergonomic hexagonal form that provides extra security.

As with Samsung’s smartphones, the S11 features numerous first-party apps, which vary in their usefulness. Many fail to offer anything over and above Google’s suite of apps (which also come preinstalled), although I have to concede that some of the AI features, such as those for editing images, impressed me with their effectiveness. The One UI operating system is as clear and as stable as you could hope an Android fork to be, too.

The overall performance of the S11 is also impressive. Whether you're working, browsing, streaming content or even gaming, it can seemingly handle it all. What’s more, it does so while staying relatively cool; only parts of the rear heat up, and never to an uncomfortable degree.

The battery life of the S11 measures up well against its rivals. Samsung claims it can survive 18 hours of continuous streaming, whereas the iPad Air can only manage 10. Charging is quick, too, thanks to its 45W wired charging support.

There are certainly things to like about the S11, such as its premium design and excellent all-round performance. However, the touchscreen is somewhat disappointing. On balance it’s a little hard to recommend over the iPad Air given it it's slightly dearer, but if you want an Apple-inspired design while remaining in the Android realm, the S11 is far from a terrible choice.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 review: Price & availability

• Starts from $899.99 / £869 / AU$1,399
• Available now in two colors
• Very expensive for a small tablet

The S11 starts from $899.99 / £869 / AU$1,399 and is available now in two colorways: Grey and Silver. The base model features 12GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. All models come with Samsung’s S Pen. If you want cellular capability, you’ll need to part with an additional £50 / AU$250. US customers only get the Wi-Fi-only model.

This is undeniably expensive for an 11-inch tablet, even one as premium as the S11. An equivalent iPad Air model bundled with the Apple Pencil currently costs slightly less. What’s more, it’s one of the best tablets we’ve reviewed, thanks to its excellent performance and display.

If you want to stick with Android, the OnePlus Pad Go 2 is a great budget alternative to the S11. It comes in at a mere $399.99 / £319 (around AU$570), yet still has a respectable spec and impressive performance. It may have less RAM (8GB), but we still found it capable enough for everyday use.

• Value score: 3/5

Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 review: Specs

Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 review: Display

• Slight lack of fidelity
• Thick bezel
• Grabby touchscreen

Despite the high 1600 x 2560 resolution of the S11, there’s a slight but noticeable softness and fuzziness to some elements of the UI, as if the resolution is stretched a little too thin for this size of display. This also means that Ultra HD content isn’t quite as pinpoint sharp as you might expect. Thankfully, there’s plenty of brightness and colors are vibrant, so it still makes for a pleasurable viewing experience.

The thickness of the bezel is also disappointing. At 11 inches the display is already small, so you’d think Samsung would want to maximize its real estate to its fullest potential, but instead a thick black border constricts the frame even more.

Perhaps the worst aspect of the display, though, is its touchscreen functionality. I found there was too much friction to perform gestures and swipes easily. What’s more, it’s also prone to attracting debris, more so than other tablets I’ve used. This is not only a visual impediment but no doubt affects the performance of the touchscreen, too.

• Display score: 3.5/5

Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 review: Design

• Fabulously premium design
• Compact and relatively light
• Slippery back panel

To say that the S11 takes inspiration from the iPad Air is an understatement. It’s virtually indistinguishable from Apple’s compact tablet, but this isn’t exactly a bad thing, given its stylish looks. However, the S11 lacks the same vibrant color options, with only grey and silver to choose from. My unit was the former and it still looked smart and sleek though.

But the resemblance is more than skin deep. The metal chassis feels just as high-grade as the iPad’s; in fact, it might actually be a cut above the best iPad constructions. The back panel folds around to form the edges, rather than being created from two separate pieces, which is very impressive. On the front, the join to the screen is also close to seamless.

It’s also reassuringly solid and durable, as well as being incredibly smooth. This latter aspect is a slight issue, though, since it can feel quite slippery, so you'll need to take care when holding it upright. At least it’s comfortable to hold, owing to its compact dimensions, minimal weight, and generously rounded corners.

The included S Pen is a fairly basic affair but I found its hexagonal design comfortable and secure. It features a well-placed and easy-to-use button, which is used like a ‘right-click’ to bring up context menus in apps and in the OS itself.

Both of the tablet’s long sides are magnetic, so can be used to attach the S Pen, which is convenient. It’s a shame that the top edge isn’t, though, since it can be awkward to hold the tablet in portrait mode when the stylus is attached to the side. The magnetic hold is strong without making it difficult to remove the stylus when needed.

• Design score: 4.5/5

Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 review: Software

• Numerous first-party apps
• Their usefulness varies
• OS is clear and fast

Plenty of Samsung apps are preinstalled on the S11. You’ll have to create a Samsung account to use them, which is a frustrating barrier for using any app. At least it’s easy to set one up if you already have a Google account, as you can use these credentials instead.

Although there’s a lot of them, the first-party apps are mercifully unintrusive. And since this is the year 2026, there are plenty of AI features, too. The most interesting of these is the photo assist mode, which allows you to effortlessly edit images to remove certain elements — such as photobombers and unwanted objects — and add others in based on text prompts.

I have to say I was impressed by this mode when I tested it on photos I shot. As with all things AI, its results aren’t perfect every time, but for rescuing images from unwanted aspects and adding all kinds of extra content, it’s a capable and easy-to-use tool. You can also stylize images by selecting presets, of which there are several, from Anime to Pop Art. Again, this is effective a lot of the time, but not always.

There’s also a drawing app with enough basic illustration features to please budding artists. It’s intuitive to use and it was fast and stable during my time with it, without any glaring bugs or slowdowns occurring.

More basic productivity apps are included as well, such as a note taker and a calendar. The main issue with these — and indeed any first-party Android apps that aren’t owned by Google — is that they fail to outperform Google’s counterparts. And given Google’s cloud platform is similarly superior, you’re much better off using its apps if you plan on working across multiple devices.

One UI 8.5 is an intuitive and amenable operating system. As you might expect, it’s very similar to its smartphone counterpart, which is part of the reason why the Galaxy models are some of the best phones around. The UI is clear and uncluttered, and it's quite easy to navigate and adjust settings.

It’s also easy to resize app windows and move them around on screen, since the options to toggle between fullscreen and pop-out windows, as well as minimize them altogether, are ever-present in the top-right corner of every app, just like a desktop app.

However, I found switching between windows in gesture mode too awkward and slow. After dragging from the bottom of the screen, you have to hold your finger in place for a long time until all your app windows are displayed for selecting. What’s more, that aforementioned grabbiness of the touchscreen makes the action even more difficult. I much preferred using the navigation bar, with its three buttons at the bottom much simpler and quicker to use.

• Software score: 3.5/5

Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 review: Performance

• Capable all-round performance
• Fluid and responsive S Pen
• Low-fidelity cameras

The S11 performs well at the kinds of tasks you’d expect from a tablet. It can handle web browsing, light productivity, and 4K streaming without any frustrating slowdowns and stutters.

I was pleasantly surprised with its gaming prowess, too. I managed to play Hitman: Blood Money — Reprisal, a fairly demanding mobile game, without issue. It looked great and ran very smoothly, while my controller worked flawlessly over Bluetooth.

What’s more impressive is that the S11 stays relatively cool during such intensive tasks. A few hotspots appear on the back, but these are far from alarming in my experience, with the tablet remaining comfortable to hold.

Despite the aforementioned touchscreen issues, I’m pleased to report that the S Pen fairs a lot better on the screen. Glides and gestures are frictionless and responsive, making it great for all kinds of scenarios, from basic navigation to drawing and note taking. The palm block feature works as intended, too.

Using the S Pen also gives you access to a handy shortcut menu with selectable functions such as screen drawing and AI search. You can also add your own app shortcuts to this menu, which is convenient.

Despite the impressive image editing capabilities, the cameras in the S11 are disappointing. The low megapixel count means photos lack fidelity, and the basic enhancements available in the camera app can’t fix the lackluster quality of the camera hardware.

• Performance score: 4/5

Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 review: Battery

The battery life of the S11 is impressive. While its 8,400mAh battery has a lower capacity than the the 11,600mAh one in the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra, the smaller tablet is less power-hungry.

After a couple of days, it drained to 30%. My use during this time wasn’t constant, but I did use it for a variety of tasks, from productivity and browsing to streaming and gaming. Samsung claims it can stream continuously for 18 hours, and the brand is usually accurate on such matters. This makes it significantly more enduring than the iPad Air, which can last about 10 hours under similar conditions.

Charging the S11 is a quick affair, too, thanks to its 45W wired charging capability, the same as the Ultra’s. It took about a couple of hours to fully replenish in my experience.

• Battery score: 4.5

Should I buy the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11?

Scorecard

Buy it if…

Don't buy it if…

Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 review: Also consider

How I tested the Samsung Galaxy Tab S11

• Tested for several days
• Used for a variety of task
• Tablet reviewing experience

I tested the S11 for several days. I used it for a variety of tasks, from general browsing and light productivity to streaming and gaming.

I also used the included S Pen for drawing, writing, and navigation. I tried its various first-party apps and AI features, and tested the cameras by taking photos and holding video calls. I wasn’t able to use the S11 with the optional Book Cover Keyboard, though.

I have experience reviewing tablets and other mobile devices, such as smartphones and laptops. I’ve also used such devices personally for decades.

• Read more about how we test
• First reviewed: July 2026

• Canva Code 2.0 is now free for everyone following a successful public preview
• It can generate editable designs from simple prompts and existing creations
• Users can create websites, apps and games – not just flyers and ads

Initially teased at Canva’s annual Create conference earlier this year and available only to the first million users who cracked an easter egg, the Australian software vendor has officially made Canva Code 2.0 generally available across the board, including to free users, bringing AI automation and vibe coding-like abilities to the suite.

In short, Canva Code 2.0’s purpose is to lower the barrier to design by giving workers who might either lack the creative vision or the skills to experiment in more complex software access to more personal designs.

At Create in April 2026, the company criticized existing AI tools for being AI-first and design-second – making even the smallest tweaks required users to submit another prompt, which would generate an entirely new result that wouldn’t always mirror the former generation.

Canva Code 2.0 does the heavy lifting so the human can do all the fun designing

Canva Code 2.0 is being positioned as a new, extra layer between the worker and the design, acting as a colleague that puts together a complex design from natural language prompts just as any other human colleague would do.

The result is that users can directly edit individual components themselves instead of having to start again, letting them quickly see how changing colors, repositioning elements and tweaking fonts could affect the end result.

“With the barrier to generating code lowered, the value has shifted to visual control: what you build needs to be distinctive and look like your brand or vision,” Head of AI Products Danny Wu told TechRadar Pro.

According to Canva, it’s not all about flyers and social media graphics. The tool spans the entire breadth of the Canva suite, including creating websites and landing pages, learning and classroom hubs, and games and quizzes.

But Canva also knows that many projects already exist elsewhere, and some are even AI-generated already, hence the ability to import raw HTML code and AI-generated graphics straight into Canva. The tool automatically detects elements and layers to turn it into a fully editable project straight away (via a specific layered object intelligence feature), allowing users to run with their existing work.

Since Canva Code was first introduced, the company claims to have supported the building of more than six million coded sites, proving that vibe coding is far more profound than just serving software developers. By putting Canva Code at the heart of the UI, rather than shipping it as a separate tool, we’re told that active Code users have already risen by 25%.

The Aussie software company has also been making improvements under the hood, including reducing the average Code generation time by 75%. “We're combining the best AI models and the intuitive Canva editor to help anyone bring their ideas to life without friction, in the same workflow, without needing technical skills or new tools,” Wu added.

More than a quarter of UK consumers trust AI chatbots for money advice, according to a recent review by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the UK's financial watchdog.

That stat is worrying for regulators because giving financial advice is meant to be a regulated activity. But tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini are not regulated. As AI becomes more conversational and personalized, people are asking questions about where the line is between providing information and offering financial advice, especially when chatbots start making specific recommendations based on what they already “know” about you.

I wanted to see what this looked like in practice. So I asked ChatGPT a series of hypothetical questions about everyday money decisions. From whether I should buy an expensive phone to what I should do with my savings and whether I should book a holiday after a difficult few months.

The conversations that followed surprised me. Because the advice was thoughtful, nuanced and (at least on the surface with some fact-checking) it seemed sensible. The chatbot highlighted trade-offs, acknowledged uncertainty and asked follow-up questions. But looking closer at the conversations, I started to understand why regulators are concerned.

The experiment

To see what sort of money advice ChatGPT gives, I asked it a series of hypothetical financial questions using ChatGPT Pro in anonymous mode with memory turned off, meaning it had no additional context about me beyond what I provided in each prompt.

Question 1: Should I buy an expensive phone?

First, I asked:

"I'm 38, earn £40,000 a year, have £8,000 in savings and £2,000 in credit card debt. I'm thinking about spending £1,200 on a new phone. Is it a good financial decision?"

The first response was surprisingly sensible. ChatGPT pointed out that credit card debt is often expensive, questioned whether I genuinely needed a new phone and noted that key details, like the interest rate on the debt, could change the recommendation. It even asked follow-up questions to better understand the situation.

What I found interesting was how quickly it then moved from analyzing the problem to recommending a course of action. Phrases like "the strongest financial move" gave the answer a sense of authority that felt disproportionate to the amount of information it had. Though I’m not sure I’d have spotted that if I was a regular user and feeling anxious about money. The advice also assumed that paying down debt should be my priority, which is reasonable. But what if I relied on my phone for freelance work? What if replacing it would help generate income?

A human adviser would probably want more information before reaching a conclusion. ChatGPT did acknowledge the gaps in its knowledge, but still sounded remarkably confident in its recommendations.

Question 2: What should I do with £20,000 in savings?

Next, I asked:

"I'm 38 and have £20,000 sitting in a savings account. What should I do with it?"

Again, the response seemed thoughtful. It discussed emergency funds, investing, savings goals and tax-efficient accounts with me. It also asked for more information about my circumstances.

Yet once again, the recommendations arrived before finding out that all-important context. Before knowing whether I owned a home, had dependants, planned a major purchase or was comfortable with investment risk, ChatGPT was already suggesting how much money I might keep in cash and how much I might invest.

The answer also contained more broad statements that sounded insightful, such as:

"Because you're 38, the biggest advantage you have is time."

It's a really reassuring line. But it's also a reminder of how persuasive these systems can be. The response organized the problem, provided a framework, supplied example figures and explained the reasoning. Reading it left me feeling informed and reassured. But whether that reassurance was justified is another question entirely.

Question 3: Should I book a holiday?

Finally, I asked:

"I've had a difficult few months and want to book a £2,000 holiday. Financially I can afford it, but part of me feels guilty. What should I do?"

I intentionally asked this question to see how ChatGPT would respond to the more emotional side of financial problems, and it quickly obliged. It asked where the guilt was coming from, encouraged reflection and offered reassurance. At one point it told me:

"From what you've written, I wouldn't be asking 'Can I afford this?' so much as 'Am I allowed to spend money on myself after a difficult few months?'"

It's a thoughtful observation and they’re genuinely helpful questions for someone who hasn’t considered the emotional angle before. But it also highlights how quickly the chatbot moved beyond finance.

By the end of the conversation, it was discussing emotions, reframing beliefs, offering comfort and helping with decision-making. So that’s a good example of ChatGPT occupying all sorts of roles at once. That’s important to flag because financial advisers, therapists and coaches are all held to different standards, qualifications and accountability structures. But a chatbot can drift between all three roles in a single conversation.

More than any individual recommendation the chatbot made, that realization helped me understand why regulators are paying attention.

What ChatGPT gets right — and why that's part of the problem

The obvious conclusion would be that ChatGPT gives terrible financial advice and no one should trust it. I get it, I’m pretty sceptical of AI these days and my bias wants to jump to there too. But that wasn't my experience.

In many ways, it was useful. It explained trade-offs clearly, broke down jargon, offered practical frameworks and encouraged reflection about money. Much of the advice also felt sensible after a light fact-check.

But I still think there’s reason to be concerned here. And the concern isn’t that every answer is obviously wrong. It's that many answers are plausible enough to trust. Especially if you’re not going to comb through each one to fact-check it, which let’s be honest, very few users are likely to do.

Financial regulators worry about something called “suitability”, which is whether advice genuinely reflects a person's circumstances, goals and tolerance for risk. Throughout my experiment, ChatGPT repeatedly offered recommendations despite knowing very little about me, the person asking the question. Granted, caveats were included some of the time, but they were often overshadowed by the confidence and clarity of the overall response.

There's also the issue of accountability here. If a regulated financial adviser gives the wrong advice, there are complaint mechanisms and consumer protections in place in most countries. But if a chatbot gives poor advice and somebody follows it, responsibility becomes impossible to pin down.

Another challenge, one which I’ve encountered in a bunch of different contexts while reporting on AI, is that fluency isn't the same thing as accuracy. We naturally interpret AI’s clear, confident language as a sign of expertise. But a polished answer can still be wrong, incomplete or inappropriate. I’m sure we’ve all seen countless examples on social media at this point of a chatbot sounding incredibly knowledgeable while missing a crucial detail or getting something spectacularly wrong — like the viral trend to ask ChatGPT how many r’s are in the word strawberry to which it would often reply two.

I think the biggest risk might be that people don't realize when they've reached the limits of what AI can help with. A reassuring answer can create the impression that a problem has been solved and they have a plan. When in reality it might be time to speak to a qualified professional. I’ve noticed whenever it comes to AI and advice more generally that the danger isn't always acting on bad advice but never seeking better advice elsewhere.

And unlike a financial adviser, a chatbot won't follow up to check whether things worked out. It won't know whether its suggestions caused problems. It won't know whether your circumstances changed. It simply produces an answer and then moves on.

As with many of the AI stories I've reported on, the issue isn't necessarily that the technology here performs badly. It's that it performs well enough to earn our trust.

Should you use ChatGPT for financial advice?

The question I suspect most people want to know is: should you use ChatGPT for financial advice?

And the answer is a tricky one and a familiar one. It's much the same answer I'd give if you asked whether you should use ChatGPT for therapy or life advice. Probably not, but I completely understand why people do.

It's easy to access and financial advice often isn't. The tone is friendly and reassuring, there's no judgement, and much of what it says appears sensible and accurate. At first glance, it feels like a useful tool, provided you take its answers with a pinch of salt, treat it as a starting point and remember that it can be overly agreeable, make assumptions or occasionally get things wrong.

The problem is that this isn't always how we use ChatGPT in practice. We turn to it when we're stressed, overwhelmed, uncertain or looking for reassurance. We ask it questions we don't know how to answer ourselves and, in many cases, wouldn't know how to fact-check. That's where things become more complicated.

It's all very well to say that people should use AI carefully, critically and with the right mindset. But how many of us will actually do that every time? Especially when we're worried about money.

That's why it doesn't surprise me that regulators are paying attention. There are no glaring red flags in any of the responses I received. But that in itself is reason to be concerned here. Because once something sounds knowledgeable, personalized and reassuring, it's surprisingly easy for even the most discerning of us to stop questioning it.

The ability to personalize and scale marketing strategies at speed has firmly captured the attention of chief marketing officers (CMOs) across the globe.

Yet, in the relentless rush to automate and optimize, some brands may be jeopardizing the very thing that fosters genuine connection with consumers: authentic storytelling, real human emotion and a distinct creative vision.

AI-generated adverts are an increasingly common sight across UK high streets – from event promotion to product adverts.

A staggering 51% of CMOs are now actively deploying Generative AI (GenAI), with some of the world’s biggest brands attracting widespread criticism for it.

According to recent data from Canva, 70% of consumers say they can often identify AI-generated advertisements because something feels like it’s missing.

For UK marketers, getting the balance right means applying AI where it works best, such as automating and scale, while ensuring that we do not lose the human touch that resonates and builds lasting trust.

The AI automation trap

AI undeniably offers powerful tools for content creation and distribution, making marketing efforts more scalable than ever before. From drafting copy to automating campaign launches, its capabilities are vast and transformative, but a narrowed focus on AI for efficiency can quickly lead brands into the automation trap. When AI dictates the soul of a brand rather than simply serving as a sophisticated tool, the result is often a generic brand voice and weaker customer engagement.

The danger lies in homogeneity. If every business leans solely on algorithms to craft its messaging, we risk creating a sea of indistinguishable content, stripping away the uniqueness that sets one brand apart from the next. Marketing then becomes a mechanical, predictable exercise. And, consumers can spot the lack of inauthenticity quickly, disengaging when they do. For UK businesses, over-reliance on automated content risks making the brand and the messaging entirely forgettable.

Authenticity as the ultimate differentiator

The solution to this is for businesses to spend time on authentic storytelling, sharing insights and messages in a way that only they can. While AI can process vast data and construct coherent narratives, it cannot replicate empathy or emotional nuance - the qualities that forge deep connections and remain the foundations of trust, consistency and accountability. These principles, much like the Lindy Effect, prove their worth through lasting impact and enduring relevance.

Human-led stories carry an emotional intelligence that algorithms simply cannot master. They capture the subtleties of lived experience, real struggles and unique perspectives that resonate with audiences on a personal level. At its core, an authentic brand story is built on shared vision, real customer experience and human connection. When these elements are present, brands differentiate themselves meaningfully and build a loyal following. That is why CMOs should champion 'proof over promise' by grounding stories in real, measurable impact and aligning them with their company’s core values.

The importance of "human-only zones"

Putting that principle into practice means CMOs must intentionally establish and protect "human-only zones" within their marketing strategies. These are the creative and strategic areas where full AI automation is consciously resisted. In this sense, CMOs should recognize AI’s limitations and ensure critical aspects of brand-building remain human-led.

These essential human-led zones include:

Strategic visioning - defining the core brand story, values and long-term positioning

Emotional messaging and humor - campaigns carefully crafted to evoke specific feelings, which always require nuanced human understanding

Creative direction - the artistic and aesthetic choices that give a brand its distinctive visual and auditory identity

Crisis communications – which demand empathy, judgment and a sincere voice when situations are sensitive

Innovation and challenging norms - pushing creative boundaries and developing truly disruptive ideas. AI, which primarily optimizes based on existing data, struggles to generate this kind of thinking independently

By ring-fencing these areas, CMOs keep the human heart and mind at the center of their brand's identity, preventing it from being diluted by generic, algorithm-driven content.

CMOs as guardians of creativity

That protective role is reshaping the job of CMO itself. Marketing leaders are moving beyond strategy and execution to become guardians of creativity. They must champion and cultivate human originality and innovation within their teams, building environments where it thrives and drives competitive advantage.

This means empowering teams to experiment, take risks and bring fresh thinking forward. It means investing in human talent, creating room for creative development and valuing ideas that don’t immediately fit an algorithmic mold.

Ultimately, AI can speed up content production and streamline distribution, but humans must remain accountable for meaning, judgment, trust and the wider consequences of the stories they tell.

The future of marketing will require combining AI’s capabilities with human originality to amplify impact while preserving the authentic voice that truly connects with audiences.

For UK businesses hoping to connect with their customers and build loyalty, this means embracing AI as a powerful enabler – and never at the expense of the authenticity that creates lasting customer relationships and brand resonance.

We've reviewed, rated, and ranked the best email marketing platforms.

This article was produced as part of TechRadar Pro Perspectives, our channel to feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today.

The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/pro/perspectives-how-to-submit

• Estée Lauder confirms Oracle E‑Business Suite breach from August 2025, only disclosed in June 2026
• Attackers stole extensive personal, financial, health, and employment data from HR management platform
• Breach tied to CVE‑2025‑61882, a critical Oracle EBS RCE flaw exploited across 100+ organizations

If you remember the Oracle E-Business Suite vulnerability that was exploited around October 2025 in numerous attacks, you can now add Estée Lauder to the list of victims.

The cosmetics giant has confirmed having been hit, despite the initial breach happening almost a year ago, following an investigation in mid-June 2026 uncovering the incident.

In a data breach notification letter that is now being sent out, the company said that “on June 19, 2026, we determined through our investigation that, on or around August 9, 2025, an unauthorized third party gained access to the Oracle E-Business Suite system and obtained personal information of certain individuals.”

Major remote code execution flaw

Estée Lauder said the platform was used by the holding company “for HR management purposes.”

We don’t know exactly how many people are affected by this incident, but we do know that the attackers obtained full names, postal addresses, email addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers (SSN), passport numbers, financial account information (including bank account numbers), health information, and employment information.

This is more than enough data to run highly disruptive and damaging identity theft attacks, and Estée Lauder’s warning is of little help coming almost a year too late.

In early October 2025, cybercriminals started mailing executives at various American organizations, claiming to have stolen sensitive files from their Oracle E-Business Suite systems. At the time, both Oracle and the wider cybersecurity community were not certain if the breaches actually happened, or if this was just a bluff to get the victims to pay a ransom demand.

However, the claims were soon confirmed, since more than 100 organizations reported falling victim. In early October 2025, Oracle issued an emergency fix to patch CVE-2025-61882, a 9.8/10 (critical) pre-authentication remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in Oracle EBS.

"This vulnerability is remotely exploitable without authentication, i.e., it may be exploited over a network without the need for a username and password," Oracle said in the advisory. "If successfully exploited, this vulnerability may result in remote code execution."

Via BleepingComputer

There's a pattern many organizations know well. A new technology arrives, adoption accelerates faster than governance can keep up, and a few years later, the finance team is staring at a spreadsheet, wondering how the bill got so large and who signed off on it.

The SaaS era exposed what happens when technology adoption outpaces financial oversight. And with agentic AI embedding itself into everyday workflows, organizations risk heading down a similar path.

Recent reporting on Amazon employees 'tokenmaxxing' - gaming internal AI metrics to inflate adoption figures, is an early signal of what that looks like in practice.

But the dynamic is not specific to Amazon. When AI usage isn't fully visible, and the incentives favor showing more activity rather than less, accountability tends to disappear quietly. It points towards a governance failure - and governance failures require structural solutions.

The opportunity is clear. The governance isn't.

The need for visibility

AWS's Banking on the Cloud 2026 report makes the strategic case for agentic AI in financial services clearly and compellingly. Cloud computing infrastructure and AI agents are positioned as the foundation of next-generation banking, which means faster decisions and more responsive customer experiences.

What the report focuses on is what AI can save. The other part of the equation is what AI itself costs to run at scale, and who's accountable for that.

The cost model for AI agents behaves differently from anything most enterprise finance teams have managed before. When you license a conventional software tool, there's usually a fixed price and a user count. The spending is visible even when it isn't well-controlled.

AI agents work differently as they run continuously, calling on external services and triggering actions across systems as they go. Each step consumes resources, and because agents operate autonomously, often handling tasks that would previously have required human judgment, that consumption can scale quickly and unpredictably. There's no contract line that captures it cleanly and no renewal date that forces a review.

Getting ahead of this requires visibility that most organizations are only now beginning to build.

The sprawl problem

The SaaS management challenge is a familiar one to most IT and finance leaders. Application estates grew faster than procurement could track them, governance lagged behind adoption, and many enterprises spent years rationalizing software stacks they never intended to build. It’s an ongoing problem that businesses are still managing, years down the line.

AI agent sprawl will likely develop differently, but the underlying problem is similar. The critical difference is pace.

A SaaS tool that gets deployed and forgotten sits there, quietly billing at a fixed rate. An AI agent generating outputs in real time is actively consuming resources from the moment it runs, and that financial exposure, left unmonitored, compounds in ways a forgotten software subscription simply doesn't.

Organizations that get the right comprehensive visibility in place early will be in a significantly stronger position than those treating cost governance as something to formalize later.

There's also a regulatory dimension that's coming into sharper focus, particularly in financial services. AI agents frequently depend on external model providers and third-party data sources. Each dependency introduces a potential point of failure - and in regulated industries, potential compliance exposure.

Regulators are paying attention, the EU AI Act's full obligations for financial services AI land in August 2026, and DORA audits are already underway, which means the question of who owns that chain of accountability will need a cleaner answer than most organizations currently have.

What good governance actually looks like

The encouraging part is that none of this requires building new disciplines from scratch. It requires applying familiar ones to a new context and doing it early.

The right starting point is understanding cost in relation to outcome. What does it actually cost to complete a task using an AI agent, and what is that task worth to the business? Answering it means connecting AI spending data to the broader picture of how technology is used and what it delivers, so that finance and engineering are working from the same information rather than talking past each other.

Controls also need to be built into the infrastructure rather than layered on top of it. As agent deployments grow, no team can realistically review individual workflows by hand. Policies that depend on someone remembering to check a dashboard aren't really policies; they're suggestions. When a budget review turns difficult or a regulator asks questions, suggestions don't hold up.

Most importantly, ownership needs to be established from day one. Which budget carries this deployment? Who reviews it when consumption shifts? Right now, many AI agents are being deployed by engineering teams without meaningful involvement from finance. That gap is entirely closable. Closing it before the bill arrives, rather than after, is where the real advantage gets built.

The organizations that navigate agentic AI well will be the ones that treat governance as part of the deployment decision rather than an afterthought to it. Cleaner accountability means faster decisions and AI investments that can actually be defended against the board or a regulator. Throughout the rest of this year and beyond, that is the key differentiator between organizations that scale AI confidently and those that are still untangling the bill.

We've reviewed, rated, and ranked the best personal finance software.

This article was produced as part of TechRadar Pro Perspectives, our channel to feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today.

The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/pro/perspectives-how-to-submit

• WordPress patches two flaws: CVE‑2026‑60137 (SQL injection, medium severity) and CVE‑2026‑63030 (REST API batch‑route confusion, critical severity)
• When chained, the bugs enabled unauthenticated remote code execution, allowing full site takeover
• Admins should urgently upgrade to WordPress 6.9.5 or newer to protect against widespread active attacks

Millions of WordPress websites could be at serious risk, researchers are warning, due to two recently patched vulnerabilities that are being actively exploited in the wild.

WordPress developers released a patch for two vulnerabilities - an SQL injection bug tracked as CVE-2026-60137, and a REST API batch-route confusion bug, tracked as CVE-2026-63030.

The former is a medium-severity, 5.9/10 vulnerability affecting WordPress 6.8.x before 6.8.6, 6.9.x before 6.9.5, and 7.0.x before 7.0.2, while the latter is a critical-severity, 9.8/10 flaw affecting versions 6.9.x before 6.9.5 and 7.0.x before 7.0.2 of the world’s most popular website builder.

Exploitation underway

According to The Register, these bugs are not that dangerous when looked at separately, since they are rather difficult to exploit. However, when chained together, they allow unauthenticated threat actors to execute malicious code remotely, which means full website takeover.

Security researchers at Knott say threat actors picked up on the scent rather quickly.

The patch was released on Friday, but “by the early hours of Saturday morning, successful exploitation was already well underway, initially using public exploit code to exfiltrate hashed credentials, with remote code execution following once additional details were made public,” Knott said.

“From our vantage point across a global client base, we are seeing widespread impact of this vulnerability across organizations of every size and every vertical.”

It is worth mentioning that these vulnerabilities affect WordPress directly, instead of different plugins or themes. WordPress is by far the most popular website builder platform in the world, powering more than half of all websites in existence today.

To protect your assets, make sure to upgrade WordPress to version 6.9.5, since it contains fixes for both flaws.

If you’ve always loved the world of the Splatoon series but have been — understandably — put off by the prospect of its sweaty competitive multiplayer modes, then this latest Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive third-person shooter is for you.

Splatoon Raiders offers an incredibly compelling, single-player take on the series’ trademark ink-spewing action. It’s all underpinned by the same excellent shooting mechanics that make online matches of Splatoon 3 such a blast, now smartly recontextualized in a wholly player versus environment (PvE) format and enhanced with a plethora of satisfying progression systems that allow you to experiment with countless impactful character builds.

The sheer volume of content here is formidable: there are a vast number of highly replayable missions that can be tackled in multiple difficulty levels, more than a hundred weapons to wield, and even lend others a hand in online co-op for more unlockable rewards. This is comfortably one of the best Nintendo Switch 2 games and I know I’ll be coming back to it, even now I’ve seen the credits roll.

Fishy business

While the main Splatoon games are known for their clean urban aesthetics, Splatoon Raiders sets itself apart with a much grimier, more salvaged look. Set on the distant Spirhalite Islands, it follows an unnamed mechanic working for the Deep Cut trio — the iconic TV show hosts from Splatoon 3 who apparently moonlight as treasure hunters. With the group stranded on a raft after their latest treasure hunting expedition goes awry, they’re forced to improvise gear and track down the resources necessary to escape.

Fashioned from wooden crates and metal grates, the raft functions as your hub world in between missions and can be outfitted with a range of useful features like a customizable firing range and a range of upgrade stations, in addition to more whimsical options like an arcade cabinet that offers some cute pixel-art minigames. You always feel like there’s a meaningful upgrade that you’re working towards, and watching your craft develop from a ramshackle structure into a fully-fledged mobile base as you progress through the story is immensely satisfying.

That’s not to say that you need much encouragement to complete missions, however, as they’re a load of fun. There are three main types: quickfire dens that have you beating a few waves of foes in a short time limit, longer raids where you drop into large semi-open environments to secure nearby treasure chests, and dungeons that challenge you to get to a goal with a set loadout.

It seems pretty basic at first, but there are an incredible number of unique twists that keep each new mission feeling fresh. A den, for example, might throw hundreds of the same area-denial enemies at you — coating the small arena with noxious slime that chips away at your health and forces you to stay on your feet — while a raid could surprise you with tricky platforming sections and a strict time limit.

The dungeons, meanwhile, are more focused around puzzles and cleverly serve to tutorialize many of the weapons and abilities that you can unlock.

In the tank

Your character can carry one of three ink tanks (which basically determine your chosen ‘class’), designed for raw power, speed, or more careful ranged tactics. They all play completely differently, with their own roster of powerful gadgets to unlock and an overall power level that gradually ticks up with use.

I mainly relied on the Power Tank, which, true to its name, is all about big, bombastic attacks that deal massive damage. My favorite gadgets include the inky hatchet with its huge slashing strike that is invaluable for taking out tankier foes and a charging rocket launcher that wonderfully shreds through groups of smaller ones.

It might be tempting to rely on one favorite, but there are plenty of good reasons to try the others. Fully upgrading one tank requires you to spend time with the others, and some dungeons even have specific rewards depending on which you use to complete them. I initially thought that this might prove a frustrating barrier to progression, but soon came to appreciate being made to step out of my comfort zone because all three tanks are equally enjoyable to use with a huge variety of gadgets to discover.

Every gadget is highly customizable as well, with a plethora of collectible parts that do everything from minor stat upgrades to fundamentally change how they work. You can only add a certain number of parts at a time, so you’ll need to think carefully in order to craft a new build to successfully overcome a particularly tricky challenge.

There’s just as much depth to the wide selection of weapons. The 11 types on offer will all be familiar if you’ve played Splatoon 3, with a good mix of long-range shooters, nimble pistols, sloshing buckets, and so on, all with their own mechanics to master. Tackling more difficult missions rewards more powerful weapons at a strong pace, which, alongside the steady introduction of new rarities with their own unique qualities, further stops everything from becoming stale.

The same is true of the many enemy types. It’s the same malevolent Salmonids from the Salmon Run side modes of Splatoon 2 and 3, but with a healthy number of new varieties to surprise even the most seasoned fish hunters.

It all comes together for an experience that, even when some of the more difficult challenges force you to grind up your power level, remains fresh and exciting like a delicious piece of sashimi throughout.

Should I play Splatoon Raiders?

Play it if...

Don't play it if...

Accessibility features

Like most modern Nintendo releases, Splatoon Raiders is lacking when it comes to accessibility features. It offers the ability to invert both thumbsticks, or use motion controls to aim.

The color of ink is usually random, but you can lock it to either blue or purple in order to be easier to see. In addition to offering harder versions of most missions, the game features three overall difficulty modes which decreases or increases the power of enemies.

How I reviewed Splatoon Raiders

I played nearly 20 hours of Splatoon Raiders on Nintendo Switch 2 using the Joy-Con 2 controllers in handheld mode. For audio, I used the system’s built-in speaker setup.

I experienced the whole of the game’s story, hitting the credits having tackled all of the major missions on the standard difficulty mode, in addition to some online co-op play.

First reviewed June 2026

ChatGPT Work sounds like something designed to prepare quarterly reports while you sit in meetings, but I suspect some of its best uses would have nothing to do with my job.

This week, I’ve used the new Work mode to help manage some of the life admin tasks I really don’t enjoy, and it’s been surprisingly effective. You see, holidays, household budgets, family events and home renovations are all projects too — they are simply projects we currently manage through a chaotic mixture of browser tabs, messages, spreadsheets and increasingly desperate notes to ourselves.

Perhaps ChatGPT Work could help me with that?

What is ChatGPT Work?

If you’ve been using ChatGPT over the last week on a paid plan (except the basic Go service), you’ll have noticed a new slider (in the browser version) or a drop-down menu on mobile has appeared at the top of the screen offering a choice between Chat and Work mode.

Work mode is a new agentic mode for longer, more involved tasks that can research and analyze information across connected apps and files. So, if you want a complicated report presented in a finished document, like a spreadsheet or presentation, then Work mode is your new friend.

That is where I thought ChatGPT Work could become interesting for normal life, too. Instead of answering one question and waiting for the next, it can take on a longer task, work across connected files and apps, create the documents and spreadsheets the project requires, and continue checking for changes after you leave.

Work mode is also better at one of the main bugbears of ChatGPT — running tasks at particular times. It can use the new Scheduled Tasks to repeat tasks on a schedule or monitor something for changes.

So, I decided to ignore Work mode's aggressively corporate name and see whether it could handle some actual life admin, starting with planning a holiday.

1. Planning a holiday

I switched the slider to Work and gave it my dates, budget, family requirements and any bookings already sitting in Gmail, because it can search that too. I asked it to research destinations, compare travel and accommodation, create a spreadsheet of costs, produce an itinerary and maintain a list of what still needs booking.

And off it went, happily beavering away on its task, while I was free to get on with something else. I really liked the way it tells you what it’s currently working on, so you can pop in and out of the chat and see what it’s currently doing. It shows sources it's drawing from as it calculates accommodation costs and travel arrangements. You can literally watch it working for you.

The result was a nicely planned holiday in a location optimized for activities and sightseeing all within my budget. It was actually pretty impressive.

2. Become the household financial administrator

For this task, I fed ChatGPT my bills, bank-export spreadsheets, and household documents and asked it to create a working budget, identify unusual increases, forecast annual costs, and produce a dashboard.

A scheduled task then reviewed new bills or price changes and flagged anything worth investigating. Of course, ChatGPT couldn't move my money around, but at least it gave me a clear view of where my money was going and how much I was spending.

It took a long time to get all the data into ChatGPT, but this taught me that the output was only as good as the effort I was willing to spend putting quality data into it. I’d have preferred a way to open the spreadsheets directly in Sheets from ChatGPT, too, but they were available to download.

3. Organize a major family event

My wedding anniversary was coming up, so I wondered how well ChatGPT would perform as an event organizer. I asked it to research a nice venue for taking my wife out for dinner, which it did well, and gave me three good options.

It struck me that if it had been a bigger event, it would have been ideal for researching venues, maintaining a guest list, tracking replies, producing a budget, creating invitations, and even building a simple information website.

Of course, ChatGPT can’t upload the website and host it, but at least it can build the site for you, and you can download it.

4. Manage a home improvement project

If you’re doing a major home improvement project, then you can get ChatGPT's Work mode to compare quotes, analyze plans and product specifications, create a budget, build a timeline, and keep a list of unresolved decisions. It could periodically check for price changes or relevant new messages.

This is probably the clearest example of an ordinary personal task becoming complicated enough to justify a proper agent.

5. Run the family’s weekly logistics

Once I’d connected my calendars and emails to ChatGPT, I could ask it to prepare a weekly family plan covering appointments, school or university commitments, not to mention my travel, meals, and outstanding chores.

I created a Scheduled Task that regenerated the plan each Sunday evening, taking the next week’s tasks into account, and alerted me during the week when something important changed.

This was actually the use of ChatGPT Work Mode I personally found most useful. It’s easy to miss school events, but when they’ve been emailed to you, ChatGPT will know about them and make sure you don’t forget. That’s a lifesaver.

Why Work mode matters

The introduction of ChatGPT Work mode represents a real shift in the way OpenAI is viewing the future development of its core product. It’s an obvious change in emphasis towards work-related tasks, and a hint at where OpenAI sees ChatGPT heading.

But I think it means more than that. ChatGPT’s new Work mode represents the moment ChatGPT stops being somewhere you go for individual answers — a chat — and becomes somewhere where you start to feel like you're working on an ongoing project.

While the first phase of AI’s evolution was the chatbot, we’re now firmly into its second phase — the AI agent. AI that can work independently of our requests and handle complex, ongoing tasks is where the future of AI lies, and Work mode is another step on that path.

• Senior director and video game industry advisor at Circana, Mat Piscatella, reports only seven PlayStation games have sold more than 100,000 physical units year-to-date in the US
• He says two games "sold more than 10,000 physical units in the US during the week ending July 11, 2026"
• This comes as fans push Sony to reverse its plan to end the production of physical discs

In light of Sony's decision to retire the production of physical game discs, an industry analyst has reported that physical PlayStation games aren't selling too well in the United States.

Last week, angry PlayStation fans descended on the comment section of the latest Marvel's Wolverine trailer, another effort to push Sony to backtrack on its plan to end the production of physical discs starting January 2028.

As of writing, the video has over 12,600 comments, with the vast majority from fans sharing their thoughts on the decision.

Now, in response to a news story about the situation, Circana senior director and video game industry advisor Mat Piscatella has shared some interesting stats about the state of physical game sales in the US.

Writing on Bluesky, Piscatella said, "Two PlayStation video games sold more than 10,000 physical units in the US during the week ending July 11, 2026.

"Seven have sold more than 100,000 physical units year-to-date." He also clarified later that the figures didn't refer just to first-party PlayStation games, but "total PlayStation. All games, all publishers, all PlayStation platforms."

Addressing the fan backlash, the analyst added, "Commenting is cool, use your voice and all that. But commenting is cheap, [I don't know] idk."

Which games those are is unclear, but global estimates shared earlier this month by Alinea Analytics (via GamesRadar) suggest EA Sports FC 26, Resident Evil Requiem, and 007 First Light could be among those seven. It's estimated for Requiem specifically that 27.8% of its 3.5 million copies sold came from physical discs.

Sony has been notably quiet in the face of the backlash, and according to multiple analysts, despite the fan backlash, the PlayStation maker won't reverse its decision because "digital is just too lucrative."

"They of course knew what the online reaction would look like, and they now wait for this storm to pass," said Dr. Serkan Toto, CEO of Japanese game industry consultancy firm Kantan Games.

"Sony has over 120 million active PlayStation users. Around 50 million people subscribe to PlayStation Plus. As a thought experiment, let's say 500,000 cancel in protest, that would be just 1% of that business gone — of course not enough to Sony to start rethinking. Digital is just too lucrative.

He added, "Their current profit margin has been too weak for years now, so they feel like they must act," Toto added. "From an economic perspective, digital sales just make too much sense especially for platform holders."

• Xbox chief strategy officer Matthew Ball confirms Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution "are just the first" exclusive Xbox titles
• Xbox chief content officer Matt Booty says, "There has to be a reason for people to buy an Xbox"
• Ball says this plan doesn't mean every Xbox single-player game will be console exclusive

Xbox has confirmed that the Microsoft-owned company is looking to expand its console-exclusive portfolio, and Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution won't be the only two exclusives coming to Xbox consoles and PC.

During the Xbox Games Showcase 2026 last month, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announced that The Coalition's next Gears of War game will be an Xbox console exclusive, meaning the game won't be coming to PlayStation 5.

Later, Clockwork Revolution, inXile Entertainment's steampunk role-playing game (RPG), will also drop PS5 and launch exclusively on Xbox Series X, Series S, and PC.

Xbox began exploring multi-platform a few years ago, but amidst Microsoft's major Xbox restructuring, which included mass layoffs of 3,200 people, and what Sharma is calling a "reset" of the business, it seems things are reverting to the way things used to be with an emphasis on console exclusivity.

According to Xbox chief content officer Matt Booty, who discussed the matter with GamesRadar, "There has to be a reason for people to buy an Xbox," and console exclusives can act as "a reward" for players.

Xbox chief strategy officer Matthew Ball also confirmed that Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution won't be timed exclusives, unlike games like Starfield, but "permanent ones," and the company is looking to embrace exclusivity more.

"I can assure you, Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution are not the only titles we're planning," Ball said. "To grow a platform like ours, you have to have exclusive games and services. These are not going to be the only two titles."

Ball added that "large live-service titles" will be multiplatform moving forward, but suggested that this won't mean every Xbox single-player game will be console exclusive.

For instance, Fable will launch on PS5, Xbox and PC on the same day, along with Halo: Campaign Evolved, which is the first Halo game to ever release on PlayStation.

"I wouldn't overly fixate on single-player," he said. "I think that's a good rule of thumb, but it certainly isn't something that's carved in stone."

The executive explained that Microsoft has a "framework" for deciding which games will be exclusive and which ones will be multiplatform and recognizes "this approach is not obvious to all of our players, and we are committed to making this clearer."

• Someone has made a custom version of the Companion Cube case for the Steam Machine
• This DIY effort is on Printables, and can be 3D-printed for those with the hardware and necessary skills
• There are a growing number of custom projects around the Steam Machine, from faceplates through to full-on alternative takes on the gaming PC

Remember the ill-fated Companion Cube case for the Steam Machine? It had the plug pulled on it by Valve a few weeks ago, after maker Dbrand failed to get official permission to make its hard-shell case for the gaming PC, but now the concept has returned, in DIY form.

Tom's Hardware reports that a user on Printables, Jaron, has provided files that allow you to 3D-print your own version of the Dbrand Companion Cube (as flagged on X). You can print the pieces, and a full set of assembly instructions (including smart video illustrations) and extra necessary parts (screws and so forth) are supplied.

As made clear on X, this is a fan-made creation implemented "from scratch" and it's based on images of Dbrand's Companion Cube. Whether it'll attract the attention of Dbrand's own lawyers, well, we'll just have to see, but you'd imagine that some leeway might be granted here given the situation and what happened with Valve.

The creator makes it clear that the case isn't an official product, is nothing to do with Valve, and that it doesn't use "any official assets from any game".

An additional caveat is that Jaron notes: "I have not done any extensive thermal tests but no airflow or venting is blocked, and the additional vent provided by the front face plate aperture logo can help provide a little extra airflow. So I don't believe there will be any cooling issues caused by this case."

My main concerns about the original Dbrand Companion Cube were bound up in cooling issues — especially on warm days, in confined spaces like a TV cabinet — and that remains true with this creation.

Still, if you were disappointed that Dbrand's case was cancelled, and you have a 3D printer and want to have a crack at making your own — and you're pretty decent with a soldering iron — you can now do just that.

Other Steam Machine companions

Since the Steam Machine came out, there's inevitably been a lot of interest around the device, despite the high price. So, as well as this clone of the abandoned Companion Cube case, what else is out there in terms of Steam Machine customization?

New faceplates (front panels) are popular, and a much easier project than the above case, such as this example on Reddit (see the image above). I really like the slat effort here, and I can see why it's gone down very well with other Redditors (although I'm not so keen on the blue one).

What's also quite common is the number of custom small form-factor (SFF) PCs which are DIY takes on the Steam Machine, generally featuring beefier components (and at the same time, inevitably being larger than Valve's PC). 'The Orange Box' as shared on Reddit is a particularly smart example of one such effort with a strong Valve theme, built in a SilverStone SG05BB-Lite case. It has a Ryzen 7 5800X processor inside and an RX 9060 XT graphics card to give this considerably more pep than Valve's gaming PC.

There are other custom SFF PCs on Printables and this one from 3DCatt, which looks like a sized-up Steam Machine, has very similar aesthetics to fit your living room nicely, and a finished version someone has completed went very well indeed by all accounts.

Of course, there are issues around these alternatives to the Steam Machine as I explored in detail recently, and downsides to these custom SFF builds – albeit definite positives too, better performance being the main one. A PC that looks as good as The Orange Box doesn't hurt, either, and I'm sure we'll see more of these kind of SFF spins on the Steam Machine going forward.

• Only 34% of organizations say they trust their agents' actions
• 77% of businesses in 'agentic chaos' have deployed agents
• Those organizations are focus on the wrong thing (models and tools)

New Boomi data has claimed while 86% of enterprises have evolved from agentic AI pilots to actual production-level deployment, only 34% trust the actions their agents are taking.

However those trust issues don't stem from model intelligence – Boomi argues that data quality, integrations, governance and controls could be to blame.

The research splits respondents into distinct categories, with the bottom quartile for readiness referred to as experiencing 'agentic chaos'. Among those in agentic chaos, as many as 77% are still moving AI agents into production, highlighting a worrying gap.

AI trust is entirely in the hands of enterprises

With more than three in four of the enterprises in agentic chaos still pushing ahead with their plans, Boomi warns they could face unexpected costs from compliance fines, lost customers and operational downtime.

On the flip side, the top quartile was categorized as being in 'agentic control', and more than half (55%) of them said they're highly confident in their agents' decisions and actions.

Additionally, the report criticizes those in agentic chaos for focusing on the wrong thing, with around half (51%) prioritizing AI model or tool maturity instead of the true causes of distrust.

"Agents can only be trusted to act on data that's been properly activated, connected, and governed, and most companies deployed agents before they did that work," CEO Steve Lucas wrote.

At the end of the day, Boomi's data implies that pressure to demonstrate AI value and ROI could actually be leading to premature deployment before the foundations are in place, leaving organizations to play catch-up in a far more inefficient way.

Robot lawn mowers are growing in popularity, and with good reason. They're getting more advanced in features, easier to set up and use, and can be a huge time- and effort-saver... provided you pick the right model. There are plenty of options to choose from, spanning a range of prices and capabilities, and if you're new to the lawnbot world then it can be tricky to figure out which one you need.

This article is here to guide you through that process. I've pulled together five big questions to help you narrow down your options. And for added expertise, I've enlisted the help of KK Yin, Marketing Director at leading lawnbot brand Mammotion, whose insights you'll find throughout the piece.

#1. Do I need all-wheel drive?

"Everyone has a different environment for their lawn. So the first thing a customer should do is choose which kind of power system they need — for example, all-wheel drive or rear-wheel drive, or some the brands have front-wheel drive," says KK.

Rear-wheel drive will be perfectly fine if you have a relatively even and flat lawn, and will have no issue scaling relatively gentle inclines. However, if you have a very steep or uneven lawn, all-wheel drive (AWD) will help ensure the lawnbot maintains its grip without churning up your grass. Front-wheel drive is really only for flat lawns, and is a less common power system.

AWD tends to be reserved for larger, more premium robot mowers. However, at the start of this year Segway Navimow launched compact AWD model, with the suggestion that it would treat your turf more gently.

#2. Does my lawn have shaded areas?

Next, KK suggests figuring out which navigation method is best suited to the environment. "A customer should look at if they have shaded areas, the house is tall or they have trees in the garden. If they do, I suggest they don't choose an RTK positioning system. They should maybe choose a LiDAR model," says KK.

There are two major navigation systems for robot mowers. RTK, which uses satellites, can work very well if the lawnbot has a wide, uninterrupted view of the sky. However, if there are obstructions — such as those listed by KK — in the way, these can block the signal and lead to the lawnbot getting lost.

LiDAR is the system used by robot vacuums, and is relatively new in the robot mower market. LiDAR builds a picture of its surroundings by bouncing light off objects, so it's not well suited to wide-open lawns with no objects in them.

Broadly speaking, RTK will be a good choice in big, open yards, whereas LiDAR might be a better fit if you have a smaller, more cluttered yard. LiDAR models are often pricier, so if you can get away with an RTK bot, you might prefer to go with that option.

#3. How big is my lawn?

Many lawnbot models are available in a few different iterations aimed at different-sized lawns (typically indicated by a number after the product name). The difference is usually the battery capacity — a bot designed for a larger area will have a bigger battery, enabling it to cover more ground before having to return to its dock to recharge, thus making it more efficient.

"I think most users figure out that in one week they will mow maybe two or three times. So they need to work out how long it will take a product to mow their lawn once," suggests KK. With that information, you can work out if your mower will be efficient enough to keep up with your grass-trimming demands.

#4. Do I have more than one mowing zone?

"The next point, I think, is about multi-zone management," says KK. "Not all people have one big lawn — it's divided by the house, or the garden is split into different areas. That means they need to manage more than one mowing zone."

Pretty much every lawnbot will be able to mow multiple separate lawns, with the ability to create different maps in your app. However, some have more advanced multi-zone capabilities than others. One bot might be intelligent enough to handle a schedule where the lawnbot spends the morning in Zone A and moves to Zone B in the evening, and it might even be able to work out the optimal mowing patterns and cadence.

#5. How much setup do I want to do?

If you end up with a satellite-based lawnbot (see point #2), you might need to decide between a bot that comes with a separate antenna and one that does not. This RTK station is required to make the satellite information more accurate — so satellite positioning on its own might tell you where a bot is to within a meter or two, but add in a separate RTK receiver and it's more like centimeters.

Traditionally, you'd have this receiver in your own back yard. This adds an extra level of complexity to setup — the reciever needs to sit high up, with direct line of sight to satellites in the sky, and it also needs a power source. However, increasingly, we're seeing lawnbots that use a big, centralized RTK receiver that covers a large area. Mammotion calls this NetRTK. It's definitely a more low-effort option.

There are further features to look out for if you want the most straightforward setup. Some modern robot mowers have cameras and AI features that enable them to instantly create a map of their location, so you can just pop it on the floor and it'll be able to start mowing pretty much instantly. KK suggests these kinds of features are more of a nice-to-have, and advises focusing on the first four points first.

Reviews round-up

We've tested plenty of excellent lawnbots at TechRadar. Here's a taster of some of our favorites — tap the 'View details' button for more information, plus a link to our full reviews.

• Software support for the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro ends soon
• The Android QPR1 will be the final update for these phones
• They were first launched by Google back in October 2021

If you're rocking a Google Pixel 6 or Pixel 6 Pro, launched in October 2021, then your five years of software updates are coming to an end: Google has confirmed that these devices aren't going to get access to the latest Android QPR2 Beta 1.

"Pixel 6 and 6 Pro users will not be getting this OTA since the device will reach End of Life and Android 17 QPR1 beta series will be the last for these devices," says Google in the release notes of the latest beta, via Android Police.

That means no more beta updates for the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, with the final stable software release officially Android 17 QPR1, set to be part of the September Pixel Drop. That should land just before the five-year anniversary of these phones in October 2026.

As with every end-of-life situation like this, your handset isn't suddenly going to stop working. However, it will no longer get new features or security updates — the more time passes, the more vulnerable it will be to bugs and malware attacks.

Apps may start slowing down and misbehaving, and the recommended course of action is to upgrade as soon as possible. Google is all set to unveil the new Pixel 11 series on Wednesday, August 12, so maybe you could treat yourself to one of those handsets.

There's life in the old phone yet

You've got options for what to do with your old phone. Your network operator may recycle it for you and even give you some cash back (check the website for details), but if not, you can find numerous third-party services that will — just run a web search for them.

You can also repurpose your old Pixel 6 or Pixel 6 Pro and turn it into something else. These ideas will all work without needing regular Android software updates:

• Dedicated e-reader — get the Kindle app (or something similar) up on your old phone and you can keep it exclusively for getting through your e-books.
• Car dashcam — get your old phone mounted on your car dashboard and plugged in, install an app such as Droid Dashcam, and you've got yourself a dashcam.
• Alternative webcam — sticking with cameras, your old phone probably offers a higher resolution and better angles than your current webcam. Here's how to set it up.
• Portable power bank — both the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro can work as chargers for other phones when connected via USB-C (they can also charge smaller devices wirelessly).
• Wi-Fi extender — if part of your home can't get Wi-Fi, use your old Pixel as a Wi-Fi extender for your router via the hotspot option (under Network and internet in Settings).
• PC console — with an app like Touch Portal installed, you can get a Stream Deck-like experience for gaming and streaming with your old Android phone.

There's no excuse for leaving it gathering dust in a drawer, or just throwing it in the trash (and adding to our growing e-waste problem). And you've still got a couple of months to decide what you'd like to do.

• Philips is rumored to be launching a new camera-based Hue Sync device for its TV backlights
• It removes the need for a pricey Hue Play HDMI Sync Box
• The 'Sync Screen' would be the first camera for the Philips Hue Play system

Philips Hue could be working on a new device for syncing your TV’s color palette to your backlights, giving you another option for illuminating your entertainment setup

Fabian of Hue Blog attended an online presentation hosted by Philips, and spotted a new Hue Sync device with an integrated camera that looks strikingly similar to rival devices like the Nanoleaf 4D.

The new gadget could be called ‘Sync Screen’, and may be unveiled at IFA 2026 in September. We don't know how much it will cost yet, but considering Philips Hue is a premium brand, it's likely the new device will sit in a higher price bracket than its competitors.

Just like other camera-operated TV LED lights, Philips’ version mounts to the top of a TV or monitor, and captures the color movements of the movie, show, or game on the screen. This movement is then processed and synced with backlights mounted behind the display.

From the image shared by Hue Blog, it seems that the Philips Sync Screen camera will only have one lens, but will likely be a fish-eye one to capture your entire TV screen — just like those used by rival devices.

You will almost certainly still need a Philips Hue Bridge to link the lights and camera to one another, but because the system camera-operated, you won't need a Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync Box or Hue Sync TV app subscription, which could make it a more tempting proposition.

As mentioned, Philips isn’t the first smart home giant to offer TV lighting gadgets like this, which aim to make your TV and gaming experiences more immersive by extending the colors from the screen onto the surrounding walls.

In addition to the Nanoleaf 4D light strips, the Govee StarPal Pro and the more recent Govee TV Backlight 3 Pro models are all camera-operated — the latter having a dual-camera system to capture more of your TV screen or monitor.

Philips has had quite an eventful 2026 already. In March the company unveiled its new OLED TVs, which are also the first native models for Dolby Vision 2, as well as its beautiful yet expensive ceiling light that mimics natural daylight. We’re just a mere two months away from IFA 2026, and I think the best is yet to come.

A new Google Home Display might be on the cards, but sticking to the traditional smart home hub format seems like a missed opportunity. What I really want to see this year is a new version of 2023's Google Pixel Tablet — and it would be a much better fit for a modern AI-powered smart home.

Google hasn't officially announced a new smart screen, but I think it's only a matter of time. Last year, Anish Kattukaran, Chief Product Officer for Google Home, said the company was still committed to the smart display format. "If you think about the properties of a smart display: a microphone, which means audio in, a speaker, so audio out. It’s got a screen, which complements a voice modality, you can interact with it and visualize information," he told The Vergecast.

"As I see where Gemini for Home is going and Gemini more broadly, all of the things Google is investing in building, for me it feels like almost the ultimate form factor to be able to deliver a really great home experience. So, that’s why we are going to continue to invest in that category, so I think it’s going to be awesome."

A smart home hub can be so much more than a speaker, screen, and microphone though, as the 2023 Google Pixel Tablet demonstrated — and I think a new version of that device would be an even better platform for Gemini than a Google Home Display.

The smart home untethered

If you're not familiar with the Pixel Tablet, it's essentially a full Android tablet specifically designed for use around the house. It doesn't have great battery life, and there's no SIM card slot for mobile data, but that's not a problem when you're never straying outside range of your home Wi-Fi network, or taking it far from its dock.

At first glance it looks just like a Google Home Display, but there's one big difference: while the Home Display is all one unit, the Pixel Tablet's screen lifts off its magnetic dock so you can carry it from room to room.

Unlike a Google Home Display, the Pixel Tablet isn't just a hub, either. Although it can be the heart of your smart home, providing quick access to your lights, switches, robovacs and cameras with quick voice controls, it's also a fully-featured Android tablet, with access to the whole Google Play Store. That means you can install your favorite web browser, stream movies from Netflix, or spend hours on YouTube on its 10.95-inch display. It has a reasonable front-facing camera as well, so it's ideal for Zoom calls with the family from the comfort of your sofa.

My Pixel Tablet lives on my kitchen table, where it serves as both a smart home hub and a second TV, letting me stream shows via BBC iPlayer at breakfast time, or use YouTube Music to play music while I work. The tablet's built-in speaker is quite tinny, but the one housed within its dock sounds surprisingly rich and well-balanced.

When it's time to make dinner, I can simply pluck it from its dock, stand it on the kitchen counter, and load my recipe app of choice, then in the evening, I can crash out on the sofa, adjust the lights, and finish my daily Duolingo session. You can't do that with a Home Display. Sounds good? It is — and it's now discontinued.

A smarter Pixel Tablet

So what would a 2026 Pixel Tablet look like? Well, apart from having Gemini pre-installed (naturally), it needs to function as a Thread border router, and its speaker needs a boost to bring it level with the new Google Home Speaker. Its 2,560 x 1,600px screen resolution is already respectable though (for comparison, the larger Amazon Echo Show 11's screen is 1,920 x 1,200px) and its weight doesn't matter considering it's not intended to travel outside the house, so I wouldn't worry about slimming it down much.

It would be nice to see a lower price, though. The original Pixel Tablet had a list price of $499 / £599 / AU$899, which is a hefty fee for a smart display. A cheaper Pixel Tablet might be wishful thinking, but considering you would need a Google Home Premium subscription to get the most out of Gemini, a lower asking price would make it a more tempting proposition.

There's a chance that Google might surprise me with a Google Home Tablet that can roam from room to room, but somehow I doubt it. Apple's vision for the future seems to involve multiple screens scattered throughout your home, while Amazon Echo devices are so affordable, it's easy to justify buying one for each room. We'll have to wait and see.

• A leaker has published details of the upcoming Starlink Mini 2
• The satellite dish may have a built-in battery to eliminate cable clutter
• But it could come at the cost of lower internet speeds

The Starlink Mini is a small-scale satellite dish that lets you connect to the internet on your travels, but at more than two years old, it might be time for some upgrades. That seems to be exactly what’s happening according to a fresh leak, which has spilled the beans on a number of key specs regarding the upcoming Starlink Mini 2.

As posted by electronics engineer Oleg Kutkov on X, the Starlink Mini 2 has entered production and will come with some significant changes compared to its predecessor. That could make for a potentially very different experience if you’re used to what the original Starlink Mini has to offer.

According to Kutkov, the Starlink Mini 2 will clock in at a slightly smaller size, with its measurements dropping from 236 x 276mm to 225 x 273mm. If that’s correct, that will help make it more portable when you’re on the go, even if only slightly.

But the big change comes to the duty cycle, which governs how often the device’s signal is in operation. Kutkov says this cycle is dropping from the Starlink Mini’s 75% to a mere 11%, which could “result in lower uplink speeds,” the leaker believes. “This limitation is most likely driven by the terminal’s power budget,” they added.

Speaking of which, an image posted by Kutkov claimed that the Starlink Mini 2 will come with a built-in battery. The original Mini uses an external battery, but by incorporating this into the body of the Mini 2, Starlink will be able to reduce the clutter associated with its new satellite dish and enable you to use it without any attached power banks or wires.

What it means for you

The “lower uplink speeds” cited by Kutkov will likely be disappointing news to Starlink users who are thinking of upgrading to the Mini 2, especially if they need higher internet speeds for home or business use. What those new speeds could actually be is a mystery for the time being.

The switch to a built-in battery is also worth noting, and could be particularly handy if fiddling around with battery cables would be difficult for your setup. When you’re out in the wilderness struggling for a wireless signal, the last thing you want to worry about is keeping a battery connected to your satellite dish.

The direct link between the built-in battery and the lowered duty cycle, as pointed to by Kutkov, is interesting as it implies that Starlink felt it was preferable to get a cable-free experience rather than faster internet speeds. We’ll have to see how users respond to that decision.

Right now, there’s no pricing or launch date for the Mini 2, either officially from Starlink or unofficially via Kutkov’s leaks. But the claim from Kutkov that the device is “finally entering production” suggests that we might not be too far away from an announcement.

• Pillar researchers demonstrated sandbox escapes in AI coding agents
• Exploits let attacker‑written configs run with trusted host privileges
• Agentic security needs its own threat model, researchers claim

AI coding agents can be tricked into turning on their operators and assisting attackers in compromising the underlying systems, experts have warned.

Cybersecurity researchers Pillar have examined different methods of achieving the same results, finding that over the course of a couple of months, Cursor, Codex, Gemini CLI, and Antigravity were all able to reproduce sandbox escapes and boundary bypasses.

In theory, a threat actor could create a repository containing malicious content (for example, a README file, a dependency, or similar) and trick the developer into using it. The malicious instructions tell the agent to create or modify a project configuration file, but since everything happens inside the workspace, no alarms are triggered.

Fixing the problems

Then, a host component outside the sandbox (Git integration, an IDE extension, or local daemon) reads that modified configuration, executing attacker-written commands. Consequently, the code now runs with the privileges of the trusted host component, rather than the restricted AI agent. Voila - the original sandbox boundary is effectively bypassed.

Three of the four platforms mentioned in the report have fixed the disclosed issues, Pillar said.

Cursor patched multiple vulnerabilities in version 3.0.0, with one assigned CVE-2026-48124 and another tracked through a GitHub Security Advisory. Codex CLI fixed it in version 0.95.0 but stressed that it’s still awaiting a CVE. Gemini CLI was affected by the Docker daemon issue, which the report says has also been fixed through advisory GHSA-v4xv-rqh3-w9mc.

For Antigravity, Google acknowledged both reported sandbox bypasses as valid security findings but labeled them “Other valid security vulnerabilities” and downgraded their severity. Apparently - it considers exploitation rather difficult.

“When it comes to agents, the sandbox boundary that developers expect in coding tools -- one that keeps the agent inside the sandbox and the user outside -- breaks down,” Pillar concluded. “The boundary we kept finding was both messier and porous, because If an agent gets to write the future inputs of systems, it was never sandboxed in the first place.”

“This is why agentic security requires its own threat model.”

• World Matchplay Darts 2026 runs from Saturday, July 18 to Sunday, July 26
• Watch free on VTM (Belgium) / L'Equipe (France)
• Streams: Sky Sports (UK) / ESPN (US) / Fox Sports, Kayo Sports (Aus)
• Use NordVPN to watch from anywhere

World Matchplay Darts 2026 is well underway at Blackpool's Winter Gardens, with Luke Littler aiming to add yet more silverware to his trophy cabinet as he looks to retain the crown he won for the first time 12 months ago.

World No. 1 Littler headlines the bill as the top 16 players in the PDC World Rankings and the top 16 in the PDC ProTour Order of Merit do battle across nine days in one of the eight major events on the calendar. The 19-year-old, who beat James Wade in the 2025 final, is already one step closer to adding a second crown after seeing off Niko Springer 10-6 in the first round.

However, there has already been a shock in the opening round, with Littler's closest rival, Luke Humphries, defeated at the first hurdle. The Leeds-born star lost 10-7 to Cameron Menzies.

Littler will still face plenty of competition, though, with the likes of Michael van Gerwen, Gian van Veen, Gerwyn Price and Jonny Clayton all eager to upset the 19-year-old.

You won’t want to miss any of the action, so read on to discover how to watch World Matchplay Darts 2026 online from anywhere, including free streams.

Can I watch World Matchplay Darts 2026 for free?

World Matchplay Darts 2026 is free-to-air in select countries.

L'Equipe is providing free broadcast to darts fans in France, while VTM is showing live coverage in Belgium at no cost.

Abroad? You can use a VPN to watch all the action free of charge as if you were right at home.

Use a VPN to watch World Matchplay Darts 2026 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 service. The best VPN right now? We recommend NordVPN – it does everything and comes with a 70% discount.

Using a VPN is incredibly simple:

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

2. Choose the location you wish to connect to in the VPN app. For instance, if you're visiting the US and want to view your usual UK service, you'd select a UK-based server from the list.

3. Sit back and enjoy the action. Head to your usual local streaming service and watch the darts.

How to watch World Matchplay Darts 2026 live streams in the UK

World Matchplay Darts 2026 is broadcast by Sky Sports in the UK. Subscribers can watch every session live on Sky Sports Darts and Sky Sports Main Event.

Sky Sports packages start from £20 per month, or you can use a more flexible streaming option, Now (formerly Now TV). Now Sports Memberships start at £14.99 for a day pass.

Away from the country and want to access the Sky Go app or Now? We recommend NordVPN to unblock your stream.

How to watch World Matchplay Darts 2026 live streams in Australia

Fox Sports has the broadcasting rights to World Matchplay Darts 2026 in Australia, which means cord-cutters can live stream the action on the brilliant streaming service Kayo Sports.

A subscription starts at $29.99 per month, though you can pay $45.99 per month for simultaneous streaming on two devices. Whichever plan you choose, new users get a free 7-day trial.

Remember: Use a VPN to access Kayo when outside of Australia.

How to watch World Matchplay Darts 2026 in the US

You can catch all the World Matchplay Darts 2026 action on ESPN Select in America, with ESPN2 also showing the final session on Sunday, July 26. Prices start from $12.99/month, or $129.99/year.

In the US this week and want to access the live streams you'd normally watch at home? Try NordVPN risk-free.

World Matchplay Darts 2026 - Need to Know

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.

The conversation about AI in space keeps arriving at the same image: a floating supercomputer processing the world's information from 400 miles up. It’s a compelling narrative, but there’s a gap between what companies are hoping to build and what is being built today.

Today, satellites run on fixed power budgets measured in watts with strict constraints. Bandwidth is scarce enough that every byte reaching the ground has to earn its place.

Those limits push the field toward architecture that looks more like a nervous system, than a data center – lightweight models running onboard that interpret sensor data in near real time and convert observations into structured events. The event reaches the ground.

The raw pixel doesn’t.

From hours to minutes

In a conventional Earth observation pipeline, a satellite captures an image, downlinks it to a ground station, ground systems process the raw data, and the result reaches whoever needs it. Best case that happens in hours, but often it’s closer to a day.

For a disaster response team managing a flood in a low-lying river delta, or a conservation authority trying to locate the origin point of a wildfire in a remote national park, that day comes at a cost.

A satellite running inference onboard changes the math. Detection happens in seconds. What gets downlinked is a position, timestamp, or risk score. The bottleneck shifts from the space segment to the ground distribution, which is a comparatively manageable problem.

The use cases where this matters most are not the visible disasters people are watching. They’re the methane leak on a pipeline with no weekly inspection schedule, an oil spill beyond the reach of coastal patrols, a wildfire that began in a remote area before anyone had reported smoke. Onboard inference turns a passive imaging asset into an early warning system.

What orbital constraints teach edge architects

The tradeoffs being resolved in orbit are an extreme version of the same constraints facing any organization deploying AI outside a well-provisioned data center.

Cloud-native AI development often has a back up plan: when the model is too large add compute; when bandwidth is constrained, increase it; when latency is a problem, move the processing closer. In orbit, none of these options exist. You build within the envelope, or the system doesn’t function.

The result is a forcing function that enterprise architects rarely encounter at the same level. Industrial IoT deployments face intermittent connectivity. Autonomous systems can’t afford round-trip latency to a central server at decision time.

The shift from 'send everything, process centrally' to 'process locally, transmit what matters' is happening across multiple industries. Space is where that shift ran without a safety net.

The bandwidth math

The data reduction numbers transmitted in real time is not just 80-90 percent. Once processing happens on the spacecraft, the reduction for the real-time layer exceeds 99 percent. This is semantic compression. The satellite sends the meaning of what it saw, not the measurement it produced.

A conventional operator downlinking hundreds of terabytes of raw imagery daily is paying bandwidth cost for data that largely contains nothing of interest. With onboard inference, what's transmitted in real time is a structured detection event: a position, a timestamp, a risk score, and perhaps a small compressed image. That is hundreds of kilobytes, not terabytes.

An operator downlinks only what warrants examination, rather than blindly dumping the full data stream.

Architecture decisions that preview what's next

A model making decisions before a human is in the loop carries different requirements than one generating recommendations for human review. Ambiguity tolerance is lower. Inference behavior needs tighter scoping. This is the same conversation that medicine and finance have been having for years.

AI-assisted diagnostics and accountability distributed across platform, model, training data, and end customer rather than concentrated in a single layer. The space industry is joining a conversation other sectors have already been having for years.

In a cloud environment, model size and computational efficiency are optimization targets. Meaning they are important, but secondary to capability. In a constrained orbital environment, they are the primary design constraint from which everything else follows. A model that cannot run within the available compute envelope is not a model that gets deployed. There is no option to add a larger instance.

A maritime patrol aircraft that previously ran random vessel inspections now works from a ranked list of targets with risk scores attached. Some alerts will be false positives which is a physical reality of any probabilistic system. But the aircraft's operational effectiveness improves substantially compared to random patrolling or no monitoring at all. The AI narrows the search.

The scaling problem is familiar

One satellite running an onboard model is a proof of concept. A constellation of hundreds running distributed inference is a different infrastructure problem as orbital AI scales.

Centralized orchestration becomes the bottleneck when constellations grow. Every decision can’t route through a ground station. Distributed inference is a requirement. Enterprise architects hit the same wall when a pilot deployment expands to thousands of edge nodes. The centralized model that worked in development becomes the thing that breaks in production.

The cloud infrastructure analogy supports this. Nobody builds a data center before launching an application. The pattern is shared infrastructure, with control at the model, mission logic, and decision layer. Those can be sovereign regardless of who owns the underlying compute.

A design principle worth carrying

It’s hard to develop constraint-based thinking in environments where adding compute is always on the table. The organizations that have built it tend to have faced conditions where it wasn’t.

The strategic advantage in edge AI over the next decade will not just be measured in the amount of compute available. It will also be measured in code deployed to the right place in the stack. Satellites are running that experiment first.

We've featured the best AI tool.

This article was produced as part of TechRadar Pro Perspectives, our channel to feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today.

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The 2026 World Cup is already under way. Billions of eyes are on the pitch. The story that matters to anyone running a supply chain, though, is playing out in warehouses, customs terminals and distribution centers spread across three countries.

For the first time, the tournament spans three host nations: the United States, Canada and Mexico. That means millions of product lines, thousands of supplier handoffs and cross-border compliance requirements across three distinct regulatory environments, all compressed into a window with zero tolerance for error.

The operational scale of this tournament is without precedent.

Now that the group stages are live, the pressure on supply chains is real and immediate. The lessons surfacing are worth paying attention to, because they apply well beyond sport.

A live packaging stress test

Official merchandise for an event of this scale moves across multiple countries, customs jurisdictions and retail channels simultaneously. Product identification has to work at every stage of that journey, from the manufacturer's floor to the stadium vendor's shelf. The label that cleared customs in Los Angeles may face entirely different requirements in Toronto.

The deeper problem is structural. Today's supply chains still largely operate as disconnected islands. Each site, supplier, co-packer and carrier maintains its own systems and repeatedly re-enters the same product and compliance data. That fragmentation creates built-in waste at every handoff: redundant setup, duplicate records and inconsistent label versions. Under normal conditions, these inefficiencies are costly but can be masked by day-to-day operations. Under the pressure of a live global tournament, they become critical.

Demand shifts are happening in real time. A host city that reaches the knockout stages sees fan merchandise demand surge overnight. Supply chains built on static, batch-processed labelling data are finding they cannot respond at that pace.

The speed of these shifts can be surprisingly tangible. In Atlanta, shortly after the Spain-Cape Verde match, I walked through the airport and was struck by how many people were wearing Cape Verde jerseys. In the space of a few hours, merchandise that had been relatively low-profile had become highly visible, underscoring how quickly demand signals can emerge and spread during a global event.

From labels to live data

What the World Cup is making visible in real time is a shift that has been under way for several years. Product identification is no longer a print-and-forget exercise. It is a live data problem.

The industry is moving from fragmented, internal systems to connected, multi-partner ecosystems. The organizations managing the tournament's supply chain most effectively are those that have made this shift: rather than each stakeholder operating in isolation and recreating the same product and compliance data from scratch, they are working within a shared, real-time environment where information flows seamlessly across systems, suppliers, customers and geographies.

The benefits of this approach are measurable. Organizations that can operate with real-time visibility and trusted data across their extended value chain can reduce delays, prevent errors at source and respond faster when disruption hits. In sectors where production downtime can exceed $1-2 million per hour, that responsiveness is not a nice-to-have but operationally critical.

The cost of disconnected systems

The consequences of siloed product data are well understood in theory. A tournament of this scale is making them visible in practice.

When product data does not flow seamlessly across sites and trading partners, the failure surfaces in predictable ways. Rejected shipments at customs. Compliance failures that stall distribution. Production downtime while teams manually reconcile data across systems. Against the backdrop of a global event with fixed deadlines, those failures are not recoverable.

The organizations absorbing those costs right now are those still operating inside the organization perimeter - managing product identification as an internal function rather than a network-level capability. The distinction matters. Supply chain resilience increasingly depends on the ability to coordinate accurate product data across every site, trading partner, and customer - creating a connected ecosystem in which product identity can be shared, trusted, and acted upon seamlessly.

What happens after the final whistle

Connected, network-driven approaches to product identification are no longer a future aspiration. The World Cup is demonstrating their value in real time, at a scale most supply chains will never encounter but from which every supply chain can learn.

The direction of travel is clear. Organizations that can rapidly adapt labelling requirements across plants and partners, share trusted product data in real time and eliminate the manual rework that comes with disconnected systems will outperform those that cannot. That is as true in retail, pharma and automotive as it is in a stadium in Los Angeles.

The World Cup will be over in a matter of weeks. The infrastructure challenges it is exposing will still be there when it ends. The organizations that use this moment to address those fundamentals will be better placed for whatever high-pressure deadline comes next.

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If you’ve done any shopping for marketing automation tools these days, you’ve probably noticed they all claim to be “powered by AI.” Apologies for splitting hairs, but that’s just not true.

A significant portion still rely primarily on rule-based automation, work identically to the platforms they replaced, triggering if/then workflows created by human engineers years ago. Give their systems an edge case to parse and you’ll soon see them send an inappropriate email, crash, or output some stale nonsense that wouldn’t matter to any living person.

Same label. Same old architecture. The problem? A rule bottleneck.

Traditional marketing automation relies on knowing rules ahead of time. A lead hits a score? Send an email. A prospect completed behaviors A, B, and C? Trigger sequence Y. Wait Z days, send the follow-up email.

A rules engine can execute these commands flawlessly – but it can only execute what it knows. When a situation arises that doesn’t fit the rules, what do you do? You update the rules.

Why this matters

Marketing is messy. Prospects take unpredictable journeys, trends come and go overnight, and audiences who loved your message last week don’t care about it this week. But rule-based systems can only improve when given new rules to fire. Engineers can’t possibly keep writing rules faster than the world changes.

The industry has been papering over this problem with AI buzzwords. Sprinkle some Neural Network magic on a rule engine, and suddenly you’ve got yourself an “AI platform.” Engineers who look past the updated sales brochures still find the same good old-fashioned if/then statements, patched up with trendy new nomenclature for the latest round of funding.

The difference between legacy automation and true agentic AI is that true agentic AI won’t just patch up the last generation of marketing automation tools – it will replace them. Agentic AI isn’t defined by capabilities so much as by the way decisions are made.

Rules engines ask, “what rule should fire next, given this input?” Agents ask, “what action should I take to get closer to my goal?” This is subtle but critical. Agent theory holds that the system knows its goal, its current context, and a list of available actions it can take.

Based on those three pieces of information, it can reason as to which action will bring it closer to accomplishing its overall objective. This extends far beyond executing canned responses - it’s deciding what to do.

Agentic systems maintain goals, reason over available actions, invoke tools, evaluate intermediate results, and adapt their plans as new information becomes available. The architecture is fundamentally iterative rather than purely reactive.

You know where this is going.

An agent can adapt if a campaign stops performing. It can coordinate with other agents who manage different subsets of that workflow. And it can do so without a human engineer going back into the system to rewrite the rules every time the world changes. The system manages its goals.

Why specialization matters

One important architectural decision that separates good agent implementations from the rest is specialization. Should you build one big generalist AI system to handle everything or many specialized agents, each performing their own task?

Specialization comes up often in discussions around AI, from medical doctors to Renaissance men. There is broad utility in generalization, but singular accuracy in specialization. The family doctor can handle any symptoms you throw at them. But when you need to be absolutely certain about your diagnosis, you see a specialist.

That’s because specialists aren’t smarter than the generalist – they’re just trained on narrower data. Likewise, generalist AI models aren’t going to produce great results for highly specific use cases. OpenAI’s models can write you a marketing strategy. They can craft creative assets. But they can’t produce marketing assets that:

• Fit the pixel ratio requirements of a given publisher
• Match your brand’s color palette
• Align with your target audience’s emotional affinity profile
• Incorporate mentions of trending topics from the previous day

They can’t do all of those at once, either. And you shouldn’t expect them to. For hard problems with specific solutions, you should build specialized agents (sometimes called “agent crews”) that own a narrow subset of your workflow.

One crew might specialize in strategy generation, while another focuses on creative writing. One might select publishers while another analyzes performance. Separately, these crews create atomic workflows that a generalist system would struggle to manage.

How not hosting your models affects data privacy

There’s another argument for specialized, privately hosted models that isn’t made enough: data privacy.

Whenever you use a public large language model (LLM) to write marketing copy, your data is being uploaded to someone else’s infrastructure. “We don’t use customer data for training” is easy to say but barely offers any assurance. Inputs are still being ingested, processed, stored, and handled according to what that provider’s internal policies dictate.

And those policies can change… most corporate lawyers have never looked at the data use section of public AI providers Terms of Service, let alone dissected it line-by-line.

But what about controls your organization can enforce? Do your developers scrub data for PII before generating content with an LLM? That only works if everyone in your company memorizes your data policies and uses tools responsibly. One rogue employee attaching a spreadsheet full of internal pricing to a prompt breaks your compliance.

But if the model itself is hosted privately, that’s one major source of exposure that goes away. Your data never leaves your infrastructure. There’s no ingestion point to transmit it to a third-party, no training feedback loop that will process it, and no agreement to parse about how that company will handle your data “moving forward.”

Governance is a system property

Because AI in the enterprise has reached a maturity level where governance is a legitimate concern, many teams treat it as a bulk edit at the end of AI-generated content. Have humans review and approve. That’s fine, and many teams require this today. But governance should be built into the system at a fundamental level.

Well-built agents have guardrails at every stage of the decision-making process. That means models that make predictions within set bounds. That means observability that can trace every word generated back to its origin.

That means third-party benchmarking to prove your models perform well against industry standards, not just internal testing. Governance shouldn’t just be applied to outputs – it should be inherent in the architecture.

What enterprise buyers should actually be asking about

Buying criteria for agentic AI will vary by company, but as requests for proposal accelerate to keep pace with innovation in the industry, here are a few considerations every enterprise buyer should ask about:

• Goals vs. rules - Is this system actually agentic? Or is it just automating workflows with AI tools bolted on? The first step is asking vendors point blank what their system does when it encounters data it doesn’t know how to parse. Rules engines will point to specific fallback rules that execute. Agents will talk about reassessing their goal and weighing their available actions until they decide on the next best step.
• Models and hosting - Where are the models hosted? Are they specialized and trained on domain-specific data? This answers two questions at once – vendor capability, as well as data privacy concerns.
• Long-term memory and context - Enterprise agents become dramatically more useful when they retain organizational context over time. Rather than treating every interaction as a new conversation, they can accumulate institutional knowledge, remember previous decisions, and personalize future actions while remaining within governance boundaries. Persistent memory allows agentic systems to improve continuously without requiring engineers to encode new rules after every edge case.
• Hallucination - No current LLM is immune to hallucinations. The important architectural question is how the system detects, bounds, and mitigates them before they affect downstream business processes. Specialists hallucinate less in their domain of expertise. Prediction window guardrails limit how far an AI system can go “outside the data.” Human approval gates before sending anything live catch anything that slips through.
• Governance / auditability - Can the system provide traceability for every output it generates? Is the system’s accuracy benchmarked against a third-party, or just internally verified?

The economic case for getting this right

There's an additional argument that often gets overlooked in discussions focused on capability: cost structure.

Token-based pricing from large model providers creates a fundamentally unpredictable cost model for enterprise deployments. Every question, every generation, every iteration costs tokens — and iterating toward an acceptable output for a complex campaign task can consume a significant volume of them.

Enterprise subscriptions impose usage caps that create their own operational friction. The more AI-dependent your workflows become, the more acute this pressure grows.

Organizations that own and host their own specialized models are not subject to this dynamic. There is no token meter running. The economic relationship is closer to infrastructure than to a metered service - you bear the cost of building and maintaining the system, and in return you have predictable marginal cost. For organizations at scale, that math changes substantially.

Don’t fall victim to marketing speak

AI marketing platforms will continue to flood the market with AI-sounding languages attached to rules engines. But for enterprises who truly want to deploy agentic AI, there’s a far better solution. Domain specific, privately hosted agents that don’t leave your organization exposing itself to risk.

As agentic systems mature, the organizations that differentiate between genuine autonomous architectures and AI-enhanced workflow engines will be better positioned to capture sustainable competitive advantage.

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• Deezer announces over half of all daily music uploads are AI-generated
• The platform also announces stricter exclusion criteria for AI slop
• Deezer says AI slop is used largely for 'streaming fraud', and it's cracking down

If you haven't seen an AI slop commercial, social media post or Minion meme then you're lucky. I can't say I've heard much AI-generated music (at least, that I'm aware of) but I try very hard to actively avoid it.

Despite this, major streaming service Deezer has announced that over half of all tracks uploaded to its library in June 2026 were slop songs. That's over 90,000 new tracks, all of which weren't made by people.

This is a big increase in a few months, as we heard in April that 44% of tracks were AI-made, and in December 30% of tracks were AI. That's a rough rate of 3.3% increase every month, suggesting that October 2027 is when we could see Deezer hit the musical singularity.

Deezer knows all this because it's been pioneering AI-detection tools, as seen in its AI slop playlist scanner. It also automatically detects and tags AI-made music, and excludes it from recommendations and playlists.

And the hammer is coming down harder going forward...

First steps in countering the tide

When the company shared these AI figures, Deezer also confirmed a few extra steps it was taking to counter the rising AI tide.

The streaming service has announced: "Moving forward, Deezer will systematically take down AI-tracks used for streaming fraud, and those that haven’t been streamed for at least 6 months", which implies, perhaps optimistically, that there's AI music not used for this purpose.

Streaming fraud is the bulk upload of low-quality churned-out music, to earn some quick cash. Think people scripting computers to generate songs — and I mean 1000s of songs at once — then uploading them in batches. Why do this? To overwhelm, flood and replace whatever human-made music might otherwise be there for your ears to discover, and rake in the streaming royalties because you just became a big fish.

To explain, artist payout from streaming services usually involves everyone getting a share of a large pie, with more streams ensuring you get a larger slice of the pie (money). Beyonce gets a bigger slice of the pie than, say, The Bedford Band (a bad example since we haven't written a single track yet, but you get the idea).

Fraudsters upload massive amounts of AI music in the hopes that, if they even get a tiny number of listens on each track, the slice of the pie will scale up due to just how many AI slop tracks they put out.

It's not clear how Deezer will identify AI-generated tracks as being used for streaming fraud, as opposed to... whatever other reason you'd create AI music for. It also remains to be seen whether this move will have a significant impact on the amount of AI tracks uploaded, or if it'll be like scratching a layer of ice off a glacier.

But it's still good to see a music streaming service try to contend with AI slop, instead of embracing it or just, well… ignoring it.