If you found someone's diary, what would you do with it? That was the question that sat in my mind as I stared at my laptop screen, slightly shocked, after uploading my ChatGPT export to Proton AI Paper Trail.

The free tool built by privacy software engineers at Proton has one job: to analyse your exported chat history from ChatGPT or Claude and show you exactly how much of yourself you have inadvertently handed over. It runs on Lumo — the company's privacy-focused LLM — which, unlike the data-harvesting mindset of Big Tech giants, claims to delete user data immediately without retaining any of it.

I braced myself for the picture I knew I had volunteered — a hypochondriac fretting over career moves, various financial details, and a person prone to brainstorming relationship issues and researching travel plans. However, the profile I received was far more detailed than I had expected. It nailed some traits of my character to a degree even my relatives probably wouldn't guess.

The Proton AI Paper Trail report has sorted me into categories. A 'Financial Background' section detailed quite sensitive information I never explicitly mentioned. A 'Health Limitations' category tracked my health changes over months, including injuries and facilities I have turned to for help.

To some relief, a 'Family' section was fabricated, reiterating that LLMs can still hallucinate. Nevertheless, the attempt was real, and would only sharpen with more data and time.

Concerningly, the report rated me 'easy' to profile. It even assigned me an 'ad value': a four-figure dollar amount, with a list of sectors that would bid for my attention.

How easy is for AI chatbots to profile you

Only a few years ago, building profiles like these would have required extensive research. Now it takes only an upload.

Unsettlingly, much of the data users inadvertently share stems from the accumulated context they build as they 'play' with chatbots.

As Eamonn Maguire, Director of Engineering at Proton, tells TechRadar: "Even when a user never disclosed certain facts directly, these can often be estimated from patterns in their interaction — approximate age, income bracket, education level, or political leanings."

Even writing style and tone work against you. They can reveal both socioeconomic profiles and psychological states, including stress levels, mood, and moments of vulnerability.

The cost? My data carried a specific (and substantial) price tag with intrinsic value that companies can profit from.

Indeed, once it leaves the platform — whether it is combined with other datasets for advertising, training, or sharing purposes beyond what is necessary for the basic functioning of large language models (LLMs) — personal data risks being permanently compromised. That leaves users with very few means of protecting it at all.

Are some chatbots worse than others?

It's fair to assume the majority of LLMs are data treasure troves. They absorb our details as we freely offer them, and it's too tempting for their owners not to profit.

Incogni’s data privacy ranking 2026 scored 13 AI platforms based on the privacy risks they pose. "It’s less a case of which is the most privacy-friendly platform but rather which is the least privacy-invasive platform," Senior Communications Manager at Incogni, Bogan Popescu, told TechRadar.

Meta AI, Gemini, and Copilot were the worst. Incogni points to sprawling privacy policies covering many products at once, making it hard to pinpoint exactly what applies to the chatbots, together with more extensive data collection or sharing practices overall.

Others, such as Mistral’s Vibe, accumulated fewer risks overall, but they still train on publicly available datasets without disclosing exactly where these come from. "They tell users very little about what information was actually included, whose data may be in there, and how it was obtained,” Popescu told TechRadar.

And while the popular ChatGPT follows Vibe as "the least privacy-invasive platform," these findings don't look so comforting in retrospect. Last week's 404Media investigation revealed that humans are actually reading users' prompts to improve OpenAI’s models.

These firms were contacted but have not responded to our requests for comment on their privacy policies.

NEW: Leave No Trace — A weekly newsletter on digital privacy and online surveillance.

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Do people using AI chatbots even know?

What’s painful is that, rather than LLM providers 'harvesting' data, their users are voluntarily sacrificing their privacy.

As DuckDuckGo’s Senior Vice President, Zac Pappis, told me: "Many companies have given the impression that they should be using AI for everything."

Combine that context with a conversational voice and veneer of expertise, and people assume a level of safety and anonymity that most AI chatbots just don’t offer.

That's exactly what DuckDuckGo's recent report unveils, in fact. A survey conducted on nearly 2,000 American adults found that more than a third of AI users have shared information that they kept from close friends, parents, or medical professionals.

Worse still, over half of those surveyed didn’t know or were unsure whether their chatbot conversations had been used for training. "For most companies, it's to their benefit that people don't realise where their data is going," Pappis stresses.

Why deleting your AI chats isn't enough

Deleting everything might be your first instinct now, but will this solve the problem? Not quite. A clear front-end is just that — a clear facade.

Copies persist in places deletion doesn't reach — backup logs and disaster-recovery systems that can hold data for months, server logs recording interactions, third-party processors like cloud or moderation infrastructure, and most consequentially, derived artifacts.

"The last one matters the most," Maguire from Proton told me. If a conversation has already contributed to trained models, embeddings, or aggregated analysis before deletion, removing the conversation afterwards doesn't undo what the model has already learned about you.

Deletion itself might not even be immediate, as many providers retain data post-deletion for abuse investigation, legal compliance, or simply operational lag.

Opting out of conversation training doesn't solve this problem either. Platform settings might retain conversations, uploaded files, account information, and usage patterns for extended periods regardless.

Platforms often use your data for purposes beyond improving models, including targeted advertising — which ChatGPT has recently introduced. "So there is an important distinction between 'my conversations aren’t being used to train the model' and 'the service isn’t retaining or processing my data'," Maguire explains.

Furthermore, Incogni research found that no platform currently enables users to remove data once already used for model training, making opt-outs prospective rather than retroactive. "Make no mistake: your deepest secrets are being actively used to train the platform to respond to someone else's closely similar query tomorrow," Popescu says.

In fact, opt-outs can create a dangerous illusion of control. Disabling training only shields the text inside the chat window, while background data harvesting continues regardless.

How to use AI chatbots more privately

Most experts share similar advice for LLM users, and it starts with a constraint.

"Think about the cumulative effect of conversations rather than treating every prompt as an isolated interaction, and assume anything you type could potentially be seen by others," Maguire from Proton says.

Popescu at Incogni agrees. "Every month, we see how malicious agents — whether human or AI — could still hijack the conversation. In practice, that means you should assume anything you write could be seen by someone other than you."

Also, while reviewing privacy policies and data controls to understand Big Tech's information collection and use is important, switching to AI services designed with stronger privacy protections might simply be safer.

Proton’s Lumo, for instance, claims to keep no conversation logs after processing, use zero-access encryption for saved chat histories, and not train on conversations.

The open-source xPrivo is another privacy-first chatbot which promises that it doesn't train with user chats, while Internxt is also clear that all chats are stored locally on your device.

These tools, and similar ones, can be excellent allies in safeguarding digital privacy, and we expect their popularity to only grow over time.

If you are sticking with the major players, though, at least favour the browsers over mobile apps, as apps often require more device data and share it with third parties, stresses Popescu.

His ask for the future of regulations is simple, and while it probably won’t happen anytime soon, we hold out hope for it, too — a verifiable 'Right to be forgotten' as standard.

No one wants their diary read. Our new digital journals should be no different.

Summer is officially over, and the cooler weather is a perfect excuse, if you needed one, to cosy up at home with a Lego kit. So what does Lego have new in for October? It's not quite as extensive a lineup as I've seen in previous months — and there's a disappointing lack of Spooky Season sets — but there are still some gems worth checking out.

One standout addition is the Santa Holiday Countdown; a jolly Mr Claus perched in a chimney with an adjustable countdown clock set into it. Listen, I know it's too early to be thinking about holiday season, but apparently Lego didn't get that memo — and I have a feeling this one is going to be popular. If you're an early celebrator, there's also a Buddy the Elf (complete with candy canes, one of the four main food groups) joining the lineup.

For UK residents and fellow Bristolians in particular, I'm very pleased to see Aardman making an overdue Lego debut. You can now swap plasticine for bricks and build your own Wallace & Gromit on motorbike and sidecar. And while this US lineup is sorely lacking in new kits for Halloween, Brits can at least have the option of a couple of new Wednesday themed sets. Have fun sorting out all those black and gray bricks.

Scroll down to explore all the new Lego sets for October.

New Lego for October: US kits

Jump down the new UK launches

New Lego for October: UK kits

When it comes to personal robots, Mondo's Beni camera robot might be the perfect mix of cute and utility, with an emphasis on cute.

As soon as I laid eyes on the pint-sized, two-wheeled bot, I was smitten. It darted quickly from place to place and, as Beni turned its square head in my direction and 'looked' at me with its two large and luminous eyes, I felt it peering into my lonely soul. Finally, a robot companion that wouldn't terrify me with grabby, slow-moving hands, or crowd me with uncanny valley legs and torsos.

Unveiled a few months ago by Mondo Robotics and set to arrive in consumer hands in October, the self-balancing Mondo Beni was initially intended as a child's toy, but it had features — in particular a 4K 60fps camera that can follow you around — that appealed to creators. So Mondo pivoted, and now the $799 rolling robot is marketed as "your first camera robot".

In addition to the camera, which can also shoot 1080p 120fps slow motion, Beni features a pair of sensor cameras that provide a 150-degree field of view for tracking and obstacle avoidance. I watched as Beni's handlers used the iOS app to select subjects for Beni to track, and then Beni followed them around like a very obedient puppy dog. One Mondo exec described Beni as "a ground drone".

Beni is surprisingly resilient. When someone kicked the robot over, it instantly righted itself back onto its two rubber wheels as it shook its blocky head and made a little noise.

Programming cuteness

One of the things that makes Beni so darn cute is all the canned (Beni does not learn) animations and audio. It has about a dozen of each, and they give the little white and orange bot a distinct personality. There's a sort of programmed indomitable spirit; nothing can keep Beni down or stop it.

It can effortlessly jump (up to 10 inches), flip, and backflip. For now, those moves are triggered either via the app or a wearable remote control with a super-easy-to-use joystick. Mondo would eventually like Beni to jump over obstacles as it sees them.

I used the intuitive wearable remote to drive Beni and, with a press, make the little robot flip. There's also a big red button to stop Beni or, with long presses, have it squat down or stand back up.

Beni starts with 32GB of onboard storage for collecting video of you as it tracks you on a walk or run (up to 17.9mph), or as it follows your pet around (assuming the pet doesn't attack it or run away in horror). There's also a built-in microSD card slot for additional storage.

You can take good-length walks or runs with Beni, because it runs (or rolls) for an hour and a half on a charge. There's a removable battery pack on the back with light indicators to show you Beni's life… er… juice level.

Beni ships with a pair of relatively smooth rubber wheels, but you can buy the combo pack and get some accessories, including knobbier off-road wheels that are better equipped to handle dirt roads and hills.

Beni arrives ready for you

One of the things I like about Beni is that it's not like a robot kit. The wheels, for instance, are easy to pop on and off, and nothing about Beni looks like it was made from an old Erector Set.

And, for better or worse, there is no dev kit. This is in contrast to the equally cute Pollen Robotics Microduck, another white and orange bipedal robot that can hang out with you (and use roller skates), but it's a bit more DIY than SMF (So Much Fun). Where Beni looks polished, the $399 Microduck looks a little more hand-built.

Beni can hear and follow some simple commands. The animations — a head turn here, a shake there — help it look like it's actually listening to you.

Beni's innate adorability might help overcome the obvious privacy concerns. After all, the robot is no taller than an average chihuahua, and its camera is at ground level. To film you as it goes, Beni will be looking up. This might make some people around you uncomfortable.

Maybe keep Beni to your solitary walks or runs, or make sure everyone around you knows that those cute Beni eyes are an indication that it might be filming.

I picked Beni up and found it surprisingly hefty, about the weight of an overfed puppy. It's cute to watch but not at all cuddly to hold. In fact, company execs told me that while there are lots of warnings about picking up Beni, the robot has no way of knowing if your fingers gets caught in, say, one of the joints. It might be best to keep Beni away from small children.

All this capability, power, and cuteness comes at a price. Beni starts at $799 in the US (it will ship to the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, but pricing for those regions has not been set) and starts shipping in October. It's not the ultimate robot, but Beni has the potential to captivate on looks and capability alone.

Among the host of new products that Meta unveiled at its Connect event this week — an AI Tamagotchi, anyone? — we got the Meta Ray-Ban Gen 3 smart glasses. Here we're going to break down all the key specs of the new specs, and in particular how they compare to the model that launched this time last year.

In our Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 review, we praised the AI-powered glasses for bringing with them improvements in camera quality, battery life, and design, and there are upgrades to talk about with the third-generation too.

Whether you already own a Gen 2 pair and are thinking of making the switch to the new models, or you're considering getting involved in smart glasses for the first time, here's how the 2025 and 2026 versions compare.

Pricing and design

The Meta Ray-Ban Gen 3 are out now and yours for a starting price of $449 / £409 / AU$679, which is a modest price bump over the previous versions. Meta says the overall design is slimmer and more comfortable to wear compared to the Gen 2, though the weights listed on Meta's store suggest there isn't much change there (at least in terms of the Wayfarer, which is the only style carried over).

There are three different styles to choose from. You've got the Wayfarer we saw with Gen 2 (also available in large), and two new additions: the iconic Aviator design, plus the Zena, which Meta describes as "a bold new cat-eye frame that makes a confident statement". A total of 27 lens and color combinations are available across these frame shapes, with colors including Black and Havana (a mix of dark and light brown).

When the Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 launched, they were available for $379 / £379 / AU$599 and up, and at the time of writing, that price hasn't dropped with the arrival of the Gen 3 models. All three styles are still available to buy too: the Wayfarer (in standard or large), the cat-eye Skyler, and the more rounded Headliner.

At launch time, Meta mentioned 27 lens and color combinations for the Gen 2 glasses, but those combinations aren't exactly the same as they are for the Gen 3, and they changed over time with seasonal offerings — something that's likely for the new models too. So the takeaway is that there's about the same range of design choice, though the specific options are different based on which generation of smart glasses you choose.

Battery life and specs

You don't want your smart specs dying during the day, and Meta says the Ray-Ban Gen 2 are capable of lasting 8 hours between battery charges. Assuming you take a fully charged case out with you as well, you're getting an extra 48 hours (or six full recharge cycles) on top of that before you need to find a power socket.

With the Ray-Ban Gen 3, Meta is promising up to 9 hours of battery life on a single charge, with an extra 50 hours supplied by the charging case. There's also mention of charging the glasses from zero to 50% in a mere two minutes, which is the same claim made with the previous Gen 2 models.

When it comes to the camera, it's all the same: both the Gen 3 and the Gen 2 have a 12MP ultrawide camera capable of shooting up to 3K resolution video (just be respectful of other people's privacy). There is a boost for voice input though, because the Gen 3 has a 6-mic array compared to the 5-mic array of the Gen 2.

The loudness and bass of the speakers is listed as the same between generations — 76.1 dB(C) — so there's no difference there, while the 32GB of internal storage matches as well. The headline upgrades as far as key details go are better battery life and improved mic inputs, though we're basing that on spec sheets rather than any testing.

Features and AI

In terms of what you can actually do with the Gen 3 smart glasses, everything is more or less the same as before. The only exception is an extra 'action' button you get on the new models, alongside the existing photo/video capture button, which can be customized to launch a specific feature: the AI assistant, sending a text to a favorite contact, or activating the on-board translation, for example.

Besides that, you get access to the same Meta AI on your glasses, and it's the same companion Meta AI app running on your phone too. All the core functions are the same, including audio calls, video calls (where the caller sees what you're seeing), live assistance through the AI about anything you're looking at, and audio playback for your music, podcasts, and audiobooks.

The upgrade isn't quite as dramatic as it was from Gen 1 to Gen 2 — you might remember there were significant improvements to video capture quality, and big leaps in battery life too — so if you already own a pair of Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 smart glasses then you don't really need to upgrade immediately, unless you're a big fan of the new designs.

If you're still on the Gen 1 models or you're looking at smart glasses for the first time, however, the Meta Ray-Ban Gen 3 are a much more compelling proposition. After the latest round of Meta announcements, you've also now got the choice of the Meta VR Glasses and the camera-free Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses as well.

As a small business, your developer budget is small but your to-do list isn't. Yet every new tool seems to arrive with another expensive subscription to keep track of. NodeJS is popular among SMBs because it helps teams build more with less.

Let’s say you run an online store that needs a faster checkout. Or you're an operations lead drowning in spreadsheets. Or perhaps you're a founder deciding what your first developer hire should know. NodeJS can save you real hours and money, but there are some tasks where it’s better suited than others.

What makes NodeJS so useful?

Node.js is an open-source runtime environment that lets you run JavaScript outside a web browser. Developers use it to build servers, web apps, command-line tools, and scripts.

The project’s official documentation describes it as an “asynchronous event-driven JavaScript runtime.” Plainly speaking, Node.js doesn't sit idle while waiting on a database, payment gateway, or file to respond. It moves on to the next request and returns to the earlier tasks when the answer arrives. According to the Node.js docs, almost no function in Node directly pauses execution for a response, so the process never stalls.

That said, the bigger win for a small business is the language itself. JavaScript is used by 66% of respondents to the 2025 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, while Node.js is used by 48.7%. That gives you a large hiring pool plus one language that covers both the storefront your customers see and the back end that keeps your business running.

It's also very easy to maintain for smaller teams. Node's long-term support (LTS) releases typically receive critical bug fixes for 30 months. The project advises running only LTS versions in production, which takes most of the guesswork out of planning upgrades.

7 ways small businesses can use NodeJS

Most small businesses don't need a sprawling tech stack. They need a handful of reliable systems that talk to each other, stay online, and don't demand a full-time engineer to babysit them. Node.js fits that brief because it's strongest at the everyday work of moving data between people, apps, and services:

1. Run your whole web stack on one language

When your website's front end and back end share a language, one developer can work on both. You avoid paying for separate specialists or waiting on handoffs between two teams. It also means code for things like form validation can be written once and reused on both sides.

The classic example is PayPal's move to Node.js. Its engineers reported building an app almost twice as fast with fewer people, using 33% fewer lines of code than the Java equivalent. Your business isn't PayPal, although the lesson scales down nicely: fewer moving parts mean fewer billable hours.

2. Automate repetitive admin work with scripts

Think about the tasks your team repeats every week. Renaming files, compiling sales reports, sending invoice reminders, and cleaning up exported CSVs are all jobs a short Node script can handle. None of them needs a full application, only a file of code and a scheduler.

Because Node.js is built for command-line tools and scripts, you can schedule these to run overnight while nobody is at a desk. A few hours of developer time up front can claw back several hours of staff time every month. Fewer manual steps also mean fewer copy-paste errors creeping into your invoices.

3. Glue your business apps together with APIs

Your payment processor, CRM, email platform, and accounting software probably all offer APIs. In most cases, those apps already hold the data you need, but they rarely share it with each other. Node.js treats HTTP as a first-class citizen, with a global fetch()function that has been stable since Node 21.

That makes it a natural fit for tasks like syncing a new order to your stock list or pushing paid invoices into your books. Instead of paying for a pricey integration subscription, Node services can do the same job for pennies in hosting. You also get to own the logic this way, so you're not stuck when a third-party connector changes its pricing tiers.

4. Add real-time features your customers will notice

Live chat, order tracking, booking availability, and instant notifications all rely on keeping connections open, which ties up server resources and gets more expensive as visitors pile up. That's exactly the kind of work Node's event-driven design handles well.

Node now ships with a browser-compatible WebSocket client, stable since version 22.4. You can build live updates into your customer portal without bolting on extra infrastructure. Customers who can see their order status for themselves also tend to send fewer “where's my parcel?” emails, which means less pressure on your support team.

5. Plug AI services into your workflows

You don't need to train your own AI model to benefit from one. Most small businesses simply call a hosted AI service to summarise support tickets, draft product descriptions, or sort incoming emails.

Those calls are mostly waiting time while a remote server does the thinking. Node.js is very good at waiting efficiently, so it can manage many AI requests at once while the heavy computation happens elsewhere. If you later switch AI providers, you usually only need to change the few lines that point to the new API.

Just be careful with what you send. Customer data passed to a third-party AI service is still your responsibility, so check each provider's data retention terms before connecting it to your inbox.

6. Keep your hosting bills in check

Because Node handles lots of concurrent connections with little overhead, a small app can often run on a modest server. PayPal's team reported doubling requests per second on a single core, compared with five cores for its Java app.

Node is also widely supported by serverless platforms, where you pay only when your code runs. For a booking form or a contact handler that sees sporadic traffic, that can mean a monthly bill measured in cents rather than dollars. Keep an eye on usage-based pricing, though, since a sudden traffic spike can push those cents up quickly.

7. Trim your toolchain with built-in features

Recent versions of Node.js absorb jobs that used to need extra packages. The built-in test runner has been stable since Node 20. Node can also load secrets from a .env file with the --env-file flag, which is no longer experimental as of versions 24.10 and 22.21.

TypeScript users benefit too. Type stripping is on by default and marked stable from Node 25.2 and 24.12, so simple TypeScript files run without a separate build step. Every dependency you skip is one less thing to update, audit, or pay someone to fix.

NodeJS limitations you should know

The official Node.js guide is clear that Node stays fast only while each task is small, because a thread busy with a long job "cannot handle requests from any other clients." That makes CPU-heavy work like AI model training, deep learning, or large-scale video processing a poor fit. Worker threads help with some CPU-intensive jobs, but even Node's TensorFlow bindings hand the heavy maths to a native C library, which is why most teams train models in Python on dedicated GPUs.

Dependency bloat is the next headache. A single npm package can pull in dozens of others, each with its own maintainers and update schedule. Over time, your project accumulates code you never use but still have to patch, quietly eating into the time NodeJS was supposed to save.

Security is where that bloat bites hardest. In September 2025, attackers phished a maintainer and pushed malicious versions of 20 popular packages with over 2 billion combined weekly downloads. Days later, a self-replicating worm named Shai-Hulud (fittingly, after the sandworms of Dune) compromised over 500 packages, with a second wave in November hitting roughly 800 more.

I wouldn’t say that any of these are reasons to avoid Node.js altogether, but you have to be disciplined with it. Keep dependencies lean, run npm audit regularly, and use npm's min-release-age and ignore-scripts settings to skip brand-new package versions and block install scripts. Treat every new package like a new hire — to be vetted thoroughly before granting access.

I don’t know about you, but with every other ad being for some sports betting or prediction market platform, and every other app store game looking to cram in some kind of gacha system, I’m plenty sick enough of the 'gamblification' creeping into our daily lives.

At the same time, I kinda love Meta’s new blind box Meta Glasses with BlackPink and White Lotus star Lisa.

Call me a hypocrite, but the design collaboration is frankly genius, and while it isn’t for me (nor something I want to be bombarded with), as a one-off experiment, it feels set to be a runaway success.

To catch you up to speed, alongside its new Meta VR Glasses, Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3 smart specs, and its first-ever cameraless glasses in the Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses, we were also treated to a new Meta Glasses style at Meta Connect 2026.

The Meta Glasses are Meta’s own-brand smart specs. It still works with EssilorLuxottica experts on the designs, but they aren’t branded as such — making them more accessible as they don’t carry the same price premium a named brand would.

It’s also where Meta has debuted collab designs with celebrities. It kicked things off with Kylie Jenner with the Meta Starfire Kylie Edition shape — they’re much more rounded than anything Meta has released before, though the name always makes me think of the Australian pop singer — and has now announced a partnership with Lisa.

The specs of the Meta Glasses haven’t changed here. They still boast a 12MP ultra-wide camera with a 3K recording resolution, a battery life Meta rates at over eight hours, plus open-ear speakers for listening to music and six microphones for recording audio and taking calls.

Lisa’s glasses differ entirely due to their design. They come with black and pink lens and frame options (clearly inspired by Lisa’s world-famous K-pop group), and Lisa’s star icon on each stem tip.

Importantly, each pair also comes with a random charm — one of 12, two of which are extra rare — of cute dogs cast in different poses and colors. They’re inspired by Lisa’s well-documented love of her pets and blind boxes — herein lies why I love Meta’s approach to add a random element to its specs.

Collaborative designs that incorporate some aspect of the celebrity’s persona are always appreciated by the fans, and Lisa has expressed so much love for random blind boxes that their inclusion here feels like a slam dunk.

Plus, while some charms are a bit more special than others, I personally love all 12, and they’re such a small aspect (and similar enough) that I don’t see anyone being truly devastated whichever one they get — nor needing to seek out all 12 by buying up as many Meta Glasses as possible.

Of course, I expect some new TikTok series will launch where an influencer with money to burn does attempt to open all 12, but outside of a few obsessed edge cases, I see this as a delightful expression of Lisa

If you want to get in on the Meta Glasses Lisa edition randomness, the new specs start at $339 (UK and Australian pricing TBC).

Saving $1,000 sounded pretty good to me. I wasn't entirely sure where Meta's Muse AI was supposed to find it, but Meta's chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang, and the #MuseMoneyChallenge sounded pretty encouraging about putting the company's new AI agent to work finding $1,000 in savings.

Some of the results shared so far make that target seem surprisingly plausible. People have reported finding cheaper insurance, forgotten subscriptions, and even unused gift cards, although many of the early examples highlighted around the challenge have come from Meta employees.

I decided to give it a try. I was not expecting Muse to discover a forgotten Swiss bank account, but $1,000 seemed like a sufficiently concrete, if unlikely, target. The results showed how impressive Muse can be, if you're willing to let it into your life.

Financial exploration by AI

Muse is different from a conventional chatbot because it is designed to take action rather than simply tell you what you should do. Meta says it runs on its own secure virtual computer with a browser, can connect to services such as email and calendar, and can handle tasks including filling out forms and dealing with customer service. It can continue working after you close the app, although actions such as purchases and sending messages can require your approval.

That makes the money challenge more interesting than simply asking ChatGPT for tips on saving cash. Telling a chatbot to help me save $1,000 would probably produce an earnest lecture about meal planning and canceling streaming services. Muse can potentially go looking for the forgotten subscription itself.

I started broadly and told Muse I wanted it to find ways to save me money. Muse requires a little commitment from the user. The more useful you want an agent like this to be, the more access it needs to the places where useful information lives. Meta lets Muse connect to other apps and services, and says users control those permissions. The company also says login credentials are stored separately so the agent cannot read them, while sensitive actions can require approval.

Once I had given it enough to work with, Muse began looking for things that applied to me and surfaced possible actions. I already know that canceling services I do not use saves money. I do not need artificial intelligence to explain the revolutionary concept of paying fewer bills. What I wanted was something able to find the bills I have forgotten about.

Muse eventually identified some Patreon and Substack subscriptions I might not want anymore and another opportunity to reduce my phone bill based on some newly released data plans. Between them, the useful savings came to about $35. I checked the suggestions before acting on them, which is something I would strongly recommend doing.

Despite saving only 3.5% of the goal of $1,000, I was mildly impressed. It was still $35 I would probably have continued spending every month otherwise.

AI is good for boring work

The gap between my result and the #MuseMoneyChallenge highlights something important about these increasingly capable personal AI agents. Their usefulness can depend enormously on how much financial debris you have accumulated.

The impressive examples circulating online underline the difference in how people may keep an eye on their money, and where AI might actually help those who struggle with doing so. Recovering a year's worth of subscription payments is possible if you have accidentally been paying for something for a year. Those are genuine opportunities, but they are not necessarily waiting in everyone's accounts.

My $35 therefore felt less like Muse failing and more like discovering that I apparently did not have $1,000 sitting around waiting for an AI to rescue it. I would also let it spend more time searching for refunds and credits rather than concentrating entirely on recurring expenses.

One of the advantages of an agent is that it can tackle exactly the kind of mildly irritating administrative task that I postpone because the potential reward does not seem worth 40 minutes navigating a company's customer service system. That may ultimately be a better pitch for Muse than the tantalizing $1,000 target.

Since 1998, we've been enjoying the feature films and TV shows of one Guy Ritchie. A man who arguably defined the British gangster sub-genre, cult hits like Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels have stood the test of time.

Fast-forward to 2026, and streaming hits like Netflix's The Gentlemen and Paramount+'s MobLand are all anybody wants to talk about... and rightly so. And that's all without scratching the surface of the projects Ritchie has worked on in between.

But can you fill in the gaps? I've created the ultimate quiz for any and all Guy Ritchie fans, focusing on his feature-length movies and TV shows over the last three decades.

I didn't say it was going to be easy, though... so do your worst.

Of course, all of this is up to the time of writing — we already know that we've got plenty more Ritchie projects to look forward to.

Young Sherlock season 2, The Gentlemen season 3 and MobLand season 3 have all either been greenlit or are in development. There's a few more titles to add to this list... but that would be giving away the quiz questions.

Much like Ritchie-style gangster, I'm just not that nice.

Adidas' has collaborated with Pokémon and the results are far wackier than I was expecting. The new lineup of themed sneakers ranges from subtle (pearlescent lilac Handball Spezial shoes) to downright inconvenient (orange Superstar Vintage sneakers with a giant orange wing protruding from one side). But can you tell which shoe goes with which Pokémon?

You might be looking below at that furry yellow sneaker with ears and thinking this will be a cake-walk, but they're not all the most obvious choices you might expect for a big Adidas collab. As you get further down, there's little more than a color scheme to go off. Okay, yes, the character outlines are visible if you look closely… but maybe that's cheating?

Scroll down to check out the full range, and let us know how you did in our poll at the bottom.

Adidas X Pokémon: US range

Hop down to the UK range

Adidas X Pokémon: UK range

I can't stress enough that Control Resonant is an absolute marvel in terms of visual enjoyment. Remedy Entertainment has crafted one of the most immersive visual experiences in gaming, doubling down on its predecessor's trippy, psychedelic, and mind-bending nature, and taking it to a new level using Nvidia's path tracing.

Putting my Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super to the test, I ran Control Resonant on LG's 39-inch 5K2K OLED monitor, and I was pleasantly surprised by the significant enhancement to every detail on screen (albeit it did leave my GPU rather toasty).

At a 5120 x 2160 display resolution which is a 21:9 aspect ratio, you're getting 33% more pixels than a regular 4K gaming monitor at a 16:9 ratio, so the demand on the GPU is harder than most can handle — and even though Control Resonant was cooking my GPU, the frame rate was quite surprising.

With DLSS 4.5 Quality and Frame Generation enabled, and the high graphics and high ray tracing presets, performance remained fairly consistent within the high 50fps to low 60fps range. At 5K2K resolution, that's very reasonable, even if Control Resonant relies on Frame Generation to keep the gameplay smooth.

Dropping DLSS down to Performance mode pushed the frame rate to the high 80fps mark, and it's worth noting that it remained consistent even in moments of intense combat with tons of foliage and objects involved.

It's worth noting that the graphics with standard ray tracing are still fantastic, and the high (or even the medium) preset is likely the best route for any PC gamer who is using a low- to mid-range GPU (with Frame Generation). Lighting in all areas, specifically those where the Hiss is present (the really bright red zones), is phenomenal, and frankly, that applies to the experience without any ray tracing at all.

Path to victory

However, the star of the show is path tracing, which can be enabled by switching to the ultra ray tracing preset. I instantly knew my GPU was in for a rough ride once its temperature shot up to nearly 80C — but that's to be expected when running path tracing on a 5K2K display.

With DLSS Performance and Frame Generation enabled, I was able to achieve a solid 60fps in most scenarios, with occasional dips into the high 50s during traversal and combat. This aligns well with Remedy's system requirements for Control Resonant, which require an RTX 5080 for 60fps at 2160p using DLSS Performance, as the RTX 4080 Super is relatively close to this current-gen GPU for performance.

Realistically, this setup is out of the question for most gamers, as it will cost around $3,000 / £3,000 (or potentially more). LG's display is very expensive, sitting at $1,799.99 / £1,499 (on sale I should note), but an Alienware AW3926QW 5K2K alternative might help lower the cost.

The RTX 4000 series is discontinued, but pricing for anything equivalent to the RTX 4080 Super in the current-gen line-up (an RTX 5070 Ti or RTX 5080) would cost at least $800 (much more for the latter GPU), and then you need to add the cost of the other PC parts.

Handheld gaming PCs are still expensive, but more reasonable than an entire new PC build — and I tested Control Resonant on my Lenovo Legion Go S Z1 Extreme. That portable managed a solid 40fps on its handheld preset, and 70fps when dropping the resolution to 900p and enabling FSR Balanced with frame gen.

Overall, running Control Resonant at 5K2K is very demanding for any gaming PC, as expected, but I walk away shocked that it's even remotely possible given how much it elevates the gaming experience.

Update: This article previously stated the hearing enhancement feature was $149.99 a month, rather than $149.99 as a one-time payment. This has been ammended and the original story continues below.

All eyes were on Meta Connect 2026. The annual hardware showcase is where the company debuts its latest wearables, and this year’s event comes at a time when anti-smart glasses sentiment seems to be at an all-time high — though that didn’t stop Meta showcasing several brand new pairs of specs.

Smart glasses are getting banned from offices, event spaces, pubs, and courtrooms (among other venues), and folks are expressing their uneasiness at being under the gaze of camera-equipped specs — especially given the potential for wearers to film those around them covertly.

Perhaps that’s why Meta has debuted, for the first time, smart glasses that entirely lack cameras, in the shape of the Ray-Ban Meta Audio — though in the pre-Connect briefing I had for the glasses (I’m writing this ahead of the showcase, so can’t speak for what Mark Zuckerberg will say in his version of the keynote) Meta didn’t attempt to link its Audio glasses with the privacy backlash.

Instead, Meta focused on the advantages of these glasses — chiefly their longer 12-hour battery life. We’ll need to see how this figure holds up in our day-to-day testing, though it sounds like these glasses will be able to provide AI assistance and music playback for much longer stretches of your day than previous models.

You’ll be able to enjoy wearing them for longer too. The specs now weigh just 43g (down from 49g for the lightest Gen 2 design), and they also boast some of the Ray-Ban Meta Optics’ (Meta's prescription glasses line) fit adjustments, like ergonomic hinges and adjustable temple tips. Based on my time wearing the Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses, these features help to make them some of Meta’s comfiest yet — though my demo was only for about 20 minutes or so which isn’t the same as all-day wear.

Audio performance is also getting a boost thanks to Dolby Atmos support. The glasses' microphones are much better at picking up an immersive soundscape, and the speakers are better at playing it back to you.

I heard a few examples in my demo where the video swapped between Atmos and standard Stereo playback, and the difference was night and day. With Atmos I felt so much more immersed.

If you’ve wanted to pick up a pair of smart glasses, but don’t want ones with a camera, these could be the specs for you when they launch on October 13, priced at $349 / £319 / AU$529.

Problem solved?

Of course, Meta hasn’t abandoned its camera glasses — it just announced its Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3 model — and in my briefing Meta pushed back on claims its specs can be used covertly.

It described the recording indicator as being “a light you can’t miss,” and noted how it has improved its glasses’ tamper-protection features in recent updates. It didn’t provide details on if or how it will make the indicator more obvious (many I’ve spoken to would disagree with Meta’s “can’t miss” claim), though given the existential threat to its business the ‘perv glasses’ moniker poses, I expect more protections and safeguards are on the horizon (assuming they aren’t announced at Connect).

Audio-only glasses present a partial solution to the issue. They can still capture audio of yourself and those around you, and aren’t as useful as camera-equipped glasses — you can’t provide visual context to the Muse AI, for example — but the lack of snappers also means they’re a lot less invasive.

And despite being more limited, the glasses can still offer some useful support. Meta has announced a new Hearing Enhancement feature for its specs. The feature is designed to help people with mild or moderate hearing loss enhance the audio of the world around them. It's not free, however, as it'll cost $149.99 as a one time purchase (pricing outside the US TBC), or it'll come as part of a Meta One subscription.

Possible added costs aside, this feature is an incredible tool — and a showcase for the good things new tech like smart glasses can provide — and some of the Meta employees at the event told me it's the best thing they've worked on while at the company.

Besides the new Meta VR Glasses, the Ray-Ban Meta Audio are probably the glasses I’m most excited to experience, although camera-less specs aren’t my favorite, as they often lack audio capabilities and use a display — Meta’s specs are the opposite, with no display and Dolby Atmos audio, and that’s much more my style.

I want a casual audio experience with the occasional AI assistance, not a constant HUD that feels mildly useful at best, and annoyingly distracting at worst. I’ll be interested to see what others think, though.

Will this camera-less design face less backlash, will it be widely accepted? Or has the negativity around smart specs gone too far for brands to be able to win people back?

I think there’s still time for smart glasses to be saved, though ignoring the cameras problem is only a half step. Better privacy protections are still needed, but we’ll have to wait and see who acts next — will Meta and others properly regulate themselves, will the court of public opinion continue to rule against 'perv glasses', or will government regulators take the decision out of everyone else’s hands?

Dual-screen phones are having a moment (hello, iPhone Duo), but if you’re not yet ready to go full foldable, Xiaomi will meet you halfway: the Xiaomi 18 Pro comes with one-and-a-bit screens, and it’s shipping “globally” next year.

The successors to last year’s China-only Xiaomi 17 Pro, the 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max boast an extra display on their respective rear panels: a 2.66-inch OLED for the Pro and a 2.86-inch, 120Hz OLED for the Pro Max. These mini screens can display widgets, wallpapers, and media controls, and can be used to frame selfies taken with the phones’ rear cameras.

That’s similar to what was on offer with last year’s Xiaomi 17 Pro devices, though with this year’s phones, Xiaomi is introducing its own — and potentially even better — take on Samsung’s popular Privacy Display technology.

Like Privacy Display on the Galaxy S26 Ultra, Xiaomi’s Smart Privacy Display can restrict side-on viewing to prevent people from snooping on you at angles beyond 60 degrees. It can also work its magic on notifications and widgets without affecting the rest of the display.

Notably, though, Xiaomi’s take on the technology can be applied to apps used in split-screen mode (maybe you only want to obscure one app, and not the other), as well as to specific locations and app notifications (because some pop-ups may be more risqué than others).

Smart Privacy Display is a feature of both the Xiaomi 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max, though the latter obviously has a larger screen: it’s 6.9 inches vs. 6.4 inches on the Pro.

I got the chance to get hands-on with the smaller Pro model at Snapdragon Summit 2026 (thanks, Qualcomm, for flying me out to Hawaii), and although I wasn’t able to unlock the display unit to test Smart Privacy Display, the rear OLED display was partially functional.

I used it to snap a few selfies using the Xiaomi 18 Pro’s 200MP main lens, which can be activated with a wave gesture or a press of the volume button.

As for the size and weight of the device, it’s (very) similar to the iPhone 18 Pro, which I suspect is a deliberate choice on Xiaomi’s part. Lest we forget that the iPhone Duo-like Xiaomi 18 Fold launched exactly one day before the iPhone Duo last month.

Other specs include the new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 chipsets for the Pro and Pro Max, respectively, as well as a shared triple-lens camera array comprising a 200MP main lens, a 200MP telephoto lens, and a 50MP ultra-wide lens.

The Pro comes equipped with a 7,000mAh silicon-carbon battery, while the Pro Max gets a larger 8,500mAh cell. Those capacities may be smaller outside of China, though.

We also don’t have much clarity on what Xiaomi means by a “global” launch. As mentioned, neither the Xiaomi 17 Pro nor 17 Pro Max launched outside of China, but the Xiaomi 17 Ultra did arrive in the UK and Europe, so I'd wager that those regions will get at least one of the Xiaomi 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max at some point. A US or Australia launch for either phone seems unlikely, though.

As for price, the 18 Pro will start at ¥5,999 CNY (around $900 / £675 / AU$1,300), and the 18 Pro Max at ¥6,999 (around $1,050 / £785 / AU$1,500). If and when these phones do arrive outside of China, though, their respective prices are likely to be much higher.

In a Pier 57 auditorium filled with YouTubers of all ages and stripes, I felt a bit out of place. I haven't posted a full-length YouTube video to my channel in years, but listening to YouTube CEO Neal Mohan, other execs, and especially YouTube creators enthuse about new AI-boosted viewer and creator tools, I felt inspired again to, if not create, get back to my regular YouTube viewing habit.

The yearly Made on YouTube event, a confab on all the latest notable YouTube platform updates from creators and video consumers, featured a cavalcade of young, energetic YouTubers like Happy Kelli (Kelli Erdmann), Gremlita (Mina Le), and Derrick Gee, each of them introducing some fairly significant updates to the video platform, which Mohan claims has supported over half a million full-time jobs and contributed $60B to the US GDP in 2025.

Most notable for those who can't get enough of the creator videos and shorts are the new AI-powered Custom Feeds. While your current YouTube homepage is probably filled with subscriptions and algorithmic recommendations for your next watch, custom feeds are built via a prompt ("I want to see videos of tuxedoed cats playing jazz on pianos") and then live in a tab at the top of your feed. According to YouTuber Mina Lee, who gave the demo, the feeds constantly update with the latest videos that fit your request. Custom Feeds is expected on desktop and mobile this Fall (before the end of this year).

Just months after Google CEO Sundar Pichai unveiled "Ask YouTube" at Google I/O, YouTube is enhancing the AI-powered chatbot with stronger conversational skills and the ability to see inside videos. As we saw in the demo, you can go on quite a conversational journey with Ask YouTube, which can dig into the video's content and return time-stamped, contextual results, even pulling information from the comments.

Naturally, this journey could continue all the way to results with product specs and even the ability to buy a product directly. For now, the video creator who first talked about the product might miss out on affiliate revenue unless someone clicks from the Ask YouTube result to the original video. YouTube execs later told us they want to ensure that the affiliate connection still works.

Putting the agentic in video editing

Even if some of the AI tools YouTube is unveiling might appear to temporarily undermine creators, the new agentic editing tools look like a game changer.

Mobile App users will soon find "Ask Studio", a conversational editing assistant that lets you use natural language for edits. In the demo Happy Kelli ran, we saw how a series of prompts, each one building on the next without restating the initial task, turned a collection of clips into a complete video. She called it an "infinitely patient helper." YouTube says the tool will help creators edit a first draft, add typography, find the right music, and even sync it to the video action. And yes, it'll help you decide on the perfect hook: the thing people first see after the Thumbnail that might drag them into your video.

AI will also help build audio consumers a new "Your Podcast" lineup, which will basically be a short audio overview of podcasts you might like. YouTube creator Derrick Gee described it as "a personalized podcast about other podcasts, chosen for you — very meta."

YouTube Music is also getting its own chatbot, naturally called "Ask Music. Gee showed us how it can dig deep into the minutiae of an artist or song. In his example, he asked about the musical influences on Troye Sivan's new single She's the Best. One of the songs turned out to be Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side. As with other demos, the contextual journey can continue. In this case, Gee quizzed Ask Music about the bassist on Reed's song I(Herbie Flowers). Later, Sivan, who got his start on YouTube in 2007, joined Gee on stage (he did not sing).

Other updates include:

• YouTube Shorts being turned into Shorts Series with dedicated seasons, episodes, and automatic sequential playback
• GIFs in comments
• Custom thumbnails for different audiences
• Analytics adding rich insights and the ability to A/B test entire videos with live YouTube viewers
• Auto-dubbing for Live video, which is essentially realtime translation

Google Gemini's fingerprints are all over many of these updates, and I wondered how YouTube is navigating the choppy waters of AI sentiment.

Aparna Pappu, who leads YouTube Shorts, told me they're building these new tools and capabilities based on what creators need. Video creation remains, she said, a co-creative and collaborative process where the creator is always in charge. As for AI, "One of the ways [AI] serves us well: we only succeed when creators succeed.”

Amjad Hanif, VP of Creator Products, said that there was a time when creators were apprehensive about how AI might help them. "Now," he said, "it's hard to meet anyone who isn’t using it in their workflow."

You may have heard the rumors: camera-equipped earbuds are the next frontier for audio technology brands (including, we think, Apple), and Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 platform could be the catalyst that brings them to fruition.

As Qualcomm’s “first premium audio platform purpose-built for personal AI,” the Sound Elite Gen 2 aims to transform headphones and earbuds into “intelligent companions that can understand, assist, and adapt throughout the day” — and the American silicon giant considers camera-equipped earbuds to be among those “companions.”

Qualcomm flew TechRadar out to Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii to hear more (no pun intended) about its vision for the AI-assisted future of audio, and the company was bullish about the positive effect AI will have on both sound quality and virtual assistance.

“This isn’t about putting a chatbot in your ear; it’s about creating devices that understand what’s happening around you,” Sarah McMurray, Staff Manager for Product Marketing at Qualcomm, explained in a briefing attended by TechRadar, noting that the Sound Elite Gen 2 will use AI to make earbuds more responsive to environmental changes.

“At the core of the platform is an advanced AI-adaptive ANC system designed for consistent, real-world performance, not just ideal conditions,” added Grace Bramwell, Qualcomm PR. “The system continuously responds to changes in fit, movement, and environmental noise, maintaining reliable noise cancellation without the need for manual adjustment.

“Powered by flexible, programmable processing and up to 2x greater AI capability than the previous generation, Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 can intelligently steer ANC filters in real time, optimizing noise reduction across different acoustic conditions and device types. This enables stronger performance in challenging scenarios, including low-frequency noise, dynamic environments, and open-ear designs, while giving OEMs greater flexibility across a wide range of form factors.”

In other words, the Sound Elite Gen 2 could make your next earbuds or headphones better at automatically switching between ANC and transparency modes, and deliver improved audio quality in both states (“stronger performance with low-frequency noise,” for instance, might mean upcoming earbuds can more effectively drown out the mechanical hum of your fridge or the drone of a passing truck).

It’s worth noting that Qualcomm itself is not a consumer product manufacturer. It licenses its audio technologies to OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) such as Bose and Bowers & Wilkins, so it will be up to those brands to take up and implement the Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 platform in a way that fulfills the potential Qualcomm is describing here.

Welcome to the age of in-ear assistance

Of course, Qualcomm’s plans for the future of audio are bigger than improved ANC. AI-powered audible assistance is the hottest topic in town right now, and apparently, consumers are as keen on the thought of AI-powered assistance as Silicon Valley investors:

“Our research tells us that up to 70% of users want advanced AI capabilities in their wearable devices,” says Ziad Asghar, Qualcomm’s Senior Vice President and General Manager of XR, Wearables, and Personal AI. “As AI becomes a core capability, users will increasingly expect more natural ways to interact with it.

“Those interactions won't always happen through a screen. They will happen through natural conversations, where users can simply speak to an AI assistant and receive help in real time. With Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2, we're heralding intelligent audio wearables that enable experiences such as real-time translation, contextual assistance, personalized hearing, and multimodal interactions that combine audio, vision, and AI."

No current wearables effectively combine those three elements (except perhaps smart glasses, but have you ever tried listening to your favorite album on a pair of Meta Ray-Bans? Don’t. Ever). That’s why OEMs are developing camera-equipped earbuds — they’re truly hands-free and, crucially, more socially acceptable (visually speaking) than Austin Powers-style specs.

But if, as a society, we haven’t yet cracked the social code on smart glasses (and as our deep-dive on the so-called great privacy revolt reveals, we most definitely haven’t), are camera-equipped earbuds something we’re ready for? Qualcomm is cautiously optimistic.

“The privacy concern is not new,” Asghar explained to TechRadar in a roundtable at Snapdragon Summit. “We at Qualcomm and Snapdragon have been managing it for a long time in multiple different areas. And our concept is very clear: we want to be able to give the consumer the ability to choose how much information they want to share.

“For instance, we can obfuscate faces. We have the capability on our chipsets to detect a face very easily — not recognize a face, but detect a face. To do multi-modality, I don’t need to send a face for AI processing; I need to be able to send the context [of my environment]. For that, I can detect the face and cover it up. That technology is something we have integrated into our products and that we’re sharing with our partners.

“Another thing we’ve been driving is on-device AI. As you do more processing on the device, you basically take away the concern of that image leaving the device [...] We are targeting this problem at every different level. Of course, we enable our customers and partners [to use these tools], and with the pressure and concern that’s coming through, we will of course work with them.

“I also want to say something,” Asghar added. “Today, you carry a device with multiple cameras on it: it’s called a phone. I was talking to a group of students in San Diego, and this [privacy] issue is not top of their mind. Different age groups are thinking about it in different ways. Younger people are so used to blogging and vlogging. I think some of the concern, in my opinion, is just because this is a new form factor. But we want to provide all the tools [to manufacturers] such that consumers feel comfortable.”

Again, it will be up to brands such as Bose and Bowers & Wilkins to implement the Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 platform in an effective and ethical way, but it's clear that Qualcomm is aware of the increasingly negative public sentiment around camera-equipped wearables.

If, however, these OEMs can convince consumers that on-device processing really is as private as Qualcomm claims, perhaps the age of Minority Report-style glasses and earbuds will arrive sooner than we thought.

Tom Clancy's The Division and The Division 2 are two of my favorite online and co-op games of all time; I still play The Division 2 most months (at least) and have done so since launch.

The second game still has a committed player base and is a game that keeps on going and keeps on giving for fans who play regularly and those who come back occasionally.

It's established a rich universe full of interesting lore, gripping side stories, and compelling characters, with novels, a mobile game, DLC and expansions, and books, all playing a part in filling out its brilliant world. And with more expansions and content coming all the time — even now in 2026, more than seven years after release — there's loads to get into.

As a result, there's plenty to draw on for my bumper Division quiz, and there's sure to be some stuff in here that'll have even the most experienced players a little, well, quizzical.

Good luck and let me know how you get on!

What did you think of our quiz on all things The Division? Let me know how you got on in the comments, and let me know what else we could do quizzes on!

ChatGPT just got GPT-6, except there’s a catch: you can’t actually use it in Chat.

If that sentence makes absolutely no sense to you, I don’t blame you. Until now, you could use ChatGPT quite happily without giving much thought to the distinction between Chat and Work functionalities. I certainly did. It was just that little slider at the top of the screen I never bothered with.

I suspect most of you are the same. Chat was where I talked to ChatGPT, while Work was something sitting alongside it that I could largely ignore because the Chat setting let me do almost everything I wanted.

GPT-6 changes that. OpenAI’s newest model has arrived in ChatGPT, but instead of appearing in the familiar model picker on the right hand side of the prompt bar, GPT-6 Astra, Sol and Luna are available in Work and Codex only. So, naturally, the first thing I did was go looking for them.

And somewhere between opening Work, figuring out what OpenAI actually expects me to do there, and finally getting my hands on GPT-6, I realized this launch is about more than a new model. OpenAI has just made the difference between chatting with ChatGPT and asking it to work for you in a way it never really did before.

When to Chat and when to Work

The easiest way I’ve found to understand the difference is to think about how much of the job I want ChatGPT to take responsibility for. In a normal Chat conversation, I’m usually working alongside the AI. I ask something, look at the response, add more information and gradually steer it towards what I need.

Work feels different because I’m handing over more of the process. I can give ChatGPT a larger task involving multiple steps and let it work out how to approach it, which might mean researching information, looking through files or using websites rather than waiting for me to tell it what to do at every stage.

If I’ve got a bigger job involving several files or lots of moving parts, I’ll often start there and let ChatGPT work out what it needs before I get involved again. Chat feels collaborative; Work feels much more like delegation.

I wouldn’t nominate OpenAI for any interface design awards because one of the reasons that the distinction between Work and Chat is so confusing is that they both use exactly the same interface, with a prompt bar at the bottom of the screen.

In fact, you can choose Work mode and then just start chatting to the AI as you normally would, although I've tried this, and it's not a particularly good experience. Responses can take considerably longer than they do in Chat, because Work is designed around longer, multi-step jobs rather than firing back quick conversational answers. If I just want to ask ChatGPT something, Chat remains the obvious place to do it.

And once you understand that distinction, putting GPT-6 Astra, Sol and Luna in Work rather than Chat starts to look considerably less strange.

So what exactly is GPT-6?

OpenAI calls GPT-6 Astra “the most intelligent and aligned model in the world”. Think of it as the heavyweight of the family: OpenAI's most capable model, built for the really difficult jobs where you want maximum intelligence rather than maximum speed. OpenAI particularly emphasizes Astra's ability to operate software, browse, conduct research and complete multistep professional workflows.

And because not every job requires the power of a burning sun to complete, OpenAI has also released two smaller versions called GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna. These models are more lightweight and less expensive to use. They’re trained using similar methods to GPT-6 Astra, but OpenAI say they “build on the advances behind GPT-6 Astra” and bring much of its strengths into faster and more affordable models.

There is one wrinkle here. GPT-6 Astra has actually been around since earlier this month, and GPT-6 Pro, which is powered by Astra, is available in regular Chat on some higher-tier plans. I'm a ChatGPT Plus subscriber, however, which means my access to Astra — and now the new GPT-6 Sol and Luna models — is through Work and Codex.

If I switch to the Work tab in my Plus account then in the model picker I get access to GPT-6 Luna High, GPT-6 Sol Light, GPT-6 Sol Medium, GPT-6 Astra Light and GPT-6 Astra Medium.

Until now, I could happily spend all my time in Chat, using GPT-5.6 Sol, and largely ignore Work. GPT-6 changes that. OpenAI isn't just giving us smarter models; it's starting to separate the AI we talk to from the AI we give jobs to. If its most powerful new models are going to live on the Work side of that divide, then that little switch I've spent months ignoring suddenly matters a lot more.

A habitual Bluetooth earbuds wearer, I often forget about the sheer audio pleasure of a pair of over-the-ear headphones (or as my audiophile friends like to call them, "cans"), which is why my experience with the new Beats 360 wireless Bluetooth headphones was even more revelatory.

You see, the Beats 360 — announced today — reminded me why I usually eschew headphones in favor of, say, AirPods: over-the-ear audio is usually too uncomfortable for me to wear for any length of time. That, though, has not been the case with the new Beats 360, an elegantly engineered pair of headphones that push the technology to each earcup, thereby stripping down and lightening the head strap.

They also feature far more forgiving memory foam and cover material than I've found on other headphones. As a result, the cups form to the contours of my head without unnecessary pressure, and my ears aren't throbbing after hours of listening.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Comfort is important for headphones — and to be honest, earmuffs — but what will matter most is audio quality. Beats has done a lot of work to ensure high-quality sound. The audio company, which is owned by Apple, describes it as a high-fidelity acoustic architecture, built around a high-dynamic-range amplifier and a custom-designed dual magnetic transducer. There's even a custom venting system around the transducer to help reduce distortion.

A host of good design and audio choices

As I noted above, a lot of this technology — even most of the wiring — sits in each of the headphone cups. That leaves the headband thinner, lighter, and more comfortable. Beats 360 let you turn each headphone 90 degrees to flatten the entire headphones for easier travel.

The band does not fold in half, but at least the Beats 360 headphones are light enough (294.5g) that throwing them into your backpack (as I did, with the included fabric case), or walking about with them around your neck won't be a problem.

The headphones even support swappable ear-cushions: if you sweat on one pair, you can wash them while popping on a different set. Mine arrived with a couple of pairs, including a plush set. Each took a simple quarter turn on the headphones' body to remove and replace.

Beat 360 are easy to set up and use. I had them unboxed and connected to my MacBook Air in no time, and the controls make sense. On the left ear cup is my power and pairing button, as well as one for a quick touch switch between transparency mode and effective active noise cancellation (ANC). There's also a USB-C charge port. On the right cup is the volume rocker and play/pause button.

The metal band has enough give to fit over a head considerably larger than mine. A comfortable memory foam cushion sits on top of my head, and the metal band extends to line the cups up perfectly over my ears.

Putting the super in Supergirl

Since I was traveling when I first tried out the Beats 360 headphones, I decided to treat myself to a movie on HBOMax, which had just added Supergirl. As an avid Superman fan and someone who truly enjoyed James Gunn's 2025 Superman movie, I was anxious to see this in-universe take on Supergirl.

I settled into my hotel room bed with the MacBook Air propped on my lap and the Beats 360 headphones over my ears. The movie is, unfortunately, a misfire. While not miscast, Milly Alcock is stuck in a repetitive and muddled quest story with uninspiring heroes and villains, and while aiming to show the main character's growth, it seemed unsure of whose story it's telling. (We officially awarded it three stars in our Supergirl review.)

Ah, but the sound. Through the Beats 360, and probably thanks in part to the adaptive EQ, which automatically adjusts the audio to work with my fit, it was thoroughly engrossing, punchy, and loud, but never screeching, with clear effects and sharp audio. The sound often felt like it was coming from all around me. I honestly think the Beats 360 headphones made Supergirl watchable.

The incredible sound of silence

At home, I started wearing them while working, listening to my favorite David Bowie playlists and then a string of Simon and Garfunkel hits on Apple Music.

On Simon and Garfunkel's The Boxer, I was shocked to hear what sounded like a kazoo but is, in fact, the rough sound of a bass harmonica. I swear, in all the decades I've listened to that song, I never detected that before, nor have I previously heard what sounds like someone gently tapping on their guitar but is actually an analog recording artifact that is so in sync with the tempo that it's easy to mistake it for fingers gently beating on wood. So many exquisite details jumped out at me; it was like listening to these iconic hits for the first time.

Overall, Beats 360 produced fantastic, head-filling audio in every scenario and were also quite good for my Google Meet video meetings, providing clear voice, and with the 3 voice-pickup mics (out of a total of 9 — 6 are for ANC) doing a good job of delivering my voice to my fellow attendees. Naturally, the headphones include access to Siri, accessible via voice or by long-pressing the power button. So I used them for hands-free audio control and to ask some general interest questions.

I did not get to push the headphones to their battery limit, but they're rated for 32 hours (with ANC on) and, since I've had them, I have yet to charge them up.

At $349 / AU$499 (UK price TBC), Beats 360 ends up in the more affordable range of top-tier headphones. Sure, they're pricier than a pair of AirPods, but, as I see it, you can't put a price on this combination of sound quality and comfort.

You typed a few prompts into an AI website builder and had a full site minutes later. It looks promising at first glance, but closer observation reveals it probably looks a lot like every other business in your industry.

Most people reach for these tools because they're short on time, budget, or both. You want something live today, without sinking funds into a six-week build from a developer. But there’s a substantial gap between going live and a website that actually works for your business. That’s exactly what my AI website customization guide covers.

Where do AI-generated websites fall short?

AI builders are trained on patterns from thousands of existing sites, so they tend to reproduce the same layouts and headline structures. One review of AI builders found that training on top-performing sites means the tools "find and copy the optimal design," which is efficient but produces cookie-cutter results. If a competitor used the same tool, your sites may look closer to twins than rivals.

The code underneath often carries its own baggage. AI-generated pages tend to ship with bloated CSS and redundant scripts that hurt Core Web Vitals scores, according to multiple industry analyses. This costs you twice, in visitors who leave and in search rankings that suffer for it.

Security is another potential blind spot among AI-generated sites. A recent scan of 447 live websites found that AI-built sites averaged 2.1 high-severity vulnerabilities each, compared with 0.7 for human-built sites, largely because the tools skip protections nobody explicitly asked for, like security headers and rate limiting. AI systems are good at building features that work, but far less reliable at adding safeguards nobody prompted them to include.

Then there's the content itself. AI copy tends toward vague, interchangeable phrasing, since the model is guessing at your specifics rather than pulling from verified facts, which can mean misstated details about your products or services. That doesn't make AI builders useless: it just means the output is a first draft, not a finished product.

7 tips for customizing AI-generated websites

The good news is that most of these problems are fixable without hiring a full development team. You're not starting from scratch. You're editing a draft, which is a much faster process than building a site from a blank page.

The tips below cover the areas that need the most attention once an AI tool finishes its pass. Work through them in order, since sorting out navigation first tends to make the later steps easier to spot.

#1 Rebuild the menu around what customers search for

AI builders often generate menus based on generic templates rather than how your customers actually think about your business. Important services can end up buried two clicks deep. Labels often use internal jargon instead of the words customers actually search for.

Walk through your own site as if you were a first-time visitor looking for your most requested product or service. If it takes more than two clicks to find, restructure the menu around that task rather than around your org chart. Test it on mobile too, since AI builders often collapse menus into hamburger icons without checking how usable they actually are.

#2 Cut the AI's boilerplate phrases

Look out for filler lines like "we provide high-quality, all-in-one solutions tailored to your unique needs." That kind of phrasing shows up constantly in AI drafts because the model has no specific facts to work with, so it defaults to language that could describe any business.

Replace it with details only you would know, like how long you've operated and what results real customers have actually seen. Specific language builds the credibility that generic phrasing can't. Reading each page out loud helps too, since AI phrasing tends to reveal itself the moment you hear it spoken back to you.

#3 Fact-check every price, spec, and product claim

AI models can invent plausible-sounding specifications, pricing, or availability when they don't have accurate source data to draw from. That's a real risk on e-commerce or service pages, where a wrong price or feature claim turns into a customer complaint later.

Go line by line through every product description, price, and spec sheet the AI generated. Cross-check each one against your actual inventory or service list before the site goes live. Pay close attention to anything the tool invented outright, like sizing charts or shipping timelines it had no real data to draw from.

#4 Swap the stock photos for real ones

The photos an AI builder pulls in are usually generic stock images chosen for visual polish rather than relevance to your business. Visitors have seen the same handshake-and-laptop photos on dozens of other sites. That sameness undercuts the trust you're trying to build.

Swap in real photos of your team, workspace, or product wherever you can. Even a handful placed in key spots, like your homepage and about page, makes the rest of the site feel more credible. A phone camera and decent lighting usually beat another stock photo of strangers shaking hands.

#5 Test every booking, payment, and CRM connection

Booking systems, payment processors, and CRMs often don't connect cleanly to AI-generated code, since the builder isn't working within a platform's standard hooks and APIs. Forms can silently fail to submit, or analytics tags can stop firing without any visible error.

Test every integration yourself: submit a real form, run a test transaction, and confirm the data lands where it should. Don't assume a feature works just because it appears on the page. Repeat the test after any major edit, since a single code change can quietly break a connection that worked fine the day before.

#6 Fill in the title tags and schema that AI skipped

Search engines and AI-powered answer tools rely on structured data to understand what a page is actually about, and AI builders frequently skip or half-fill this layer. Missing title tags and thin meta descriptions make it harder for your pages to surface in search results or AI-generated summaries.

Check each page's title tag, meta description, and heading structure. Then add schema markup for the basics, like your business address and hours, since this is one of the highest-value fixes on this list. A free tool like Google's Rich Results Test can confirm the markup is actually valid before you move on.

#7 Turn on two-factor authentication and audit your forms

Most AI builders leave meaningful gaps in default security configuration, including weak or absent security headers and missing rate limiting on login attempts. Privacy policies often read like placeholder text too, rather than an accurate account of what data you actually collect. Wix's own guidance to users flags two-factor authentication as the single highest-value fix available.

Confirm your SSL certificate is active and enable two-factor authentication on your admin account. Then remove unused contributor access and audit every form to make sure your privacy policy matches what you're actually collecting. Most of these checks take just minutes and rarely need repeating.

Should you generate websites with AI?

AI website builders solve a real problem by getting a functional site online without months of development time or a large budget. For a single-page portfolio, a quick landing page, or a proof of concept, the convenience outweighs the trade-offs.

A quick freelancer profile or a temporary event page rarely needs the same scrutiny as a site people will use to make a purchase decision. That’s why you should match your review effort to what's actually riding on the page. The more money or personal data changes hands there, the more that first draft needs a second look.

Tradeoffs show up as the site grows in importance. Convenience upfront translates into review time later, since the quality of the final result tracks closely with how much of that review you put in. Without review, a site tends to read as generic, sometimes with serious accuracy or security problems a customer finds before you do.

I always advise treating the AI output as a first draft rather than a finished site. Put in work so the result stops looking like a slightly different version of every other AI-built site out there. You should also budget time to check facts and close the security gaps the AI skipped on its own.

Who owns your data once it leaves your devices? Who bears the responsibility for keeping it safe from prying eyes? What happens when the vendor you trusted with years of sensitive personal or business information suddenly decides to close shop?

Legally, these questions have straightforward answers. But in practice, it’s much murkier ground.

That’s why more and more people are now opting to store their apps and data on servers that they “own,” at least to some degree. By spending $15 to $20 a month on a private server, you can self-host websites, apps, automated workflows, and even local AI models. You retain full admin access over your server, including any data that goes into or out of it.

How does this work? Follow my detailed guide for instructions on how to set it up.

Why self-host an app using Docker?

No one wants to pay subscription fees for tens of apps every month, or deal with spikes in token costs or usage fees with no announcement or ceremony. Worse still, we have officially reached the point where people can’t remember all the things they’re subscribed to, so credit cards get charged on autopilot before you can look at the bill and see what’s happening.

That’s not all. When you use a cloud-based app, your data lives on someone else's infrastructure, governed by someone else's terms of service. Self-hosting puts that data back on hardware you control, whether that's a spare machine at home or a rented server. You decide who has access and how long files are kept — plus you don’t have to worry about what happens if the vendor changes its privacy policy.

Businesses handling customer records, financial data, or health information often need to prove exactly where that data sits and who can reach it. For individuals, the risk is even more pronounced because any data breaches or cyberattacks have a direct impact on your life. A self-hosted setup gives you a direct answer to these problems instead of pointing you to a vendor's compliance page.

With Docker, it’s a lot more practical, too.

Each app runs inside its own container, a package that contains the code, runtime, libraries, and configuration settings. Nothing leaks between containers, so installing one app won't bring down another. You have complete control over your data and app environment, while your only ongoing expense is the price of a hosting plan.

How to self-host an app on your server, step-by-step

There's more than one route to a working self-hosted app. Some hosting providers give you full SSH access so you can install Docker apps using the command line. Others offer a graphical file manager or a library of ready-made templates that do most of the setup for you.

We'll walk through all these approaches below. Each assumes you already have access to a functional Linux server, workstation, or NAS. If you don’t have that set up yet, you can buy a hosting plan from any reputable web host. In fact, you can also start your own local server using a Linux computer or even a Raspberry Pi.

Where to find and pick Docker apps

If you’re wondering which apps you can self-host, Docker has an image library called Docker Hub that contains ready-made installers with detailed instructions on how to set up different compatible apps on a self-hosted server.

Search the database for the app or functionality you need, locate the app you wish to install on your server, then follow along with the rest of the tutorial.

Using the command line with SSH

SSH gives you direct access to your server without any restrictions, which makes it the most flexible option if you're comfortable using a command line.

Start by connecting to your server from your local desktop. You’ll need your Linux server’s IP address for this, so make sure you note that down first. This can be found in your hosting provider’s SSH settings. After that, you just need to type in the command below using Terminal or Command Prompt:

ssh your-username@your-server-ip

Now, install Docker on your server using your Linux distro's package manager. On Ubuntu or Debian, you can use these commands:

sudo apt updatesudo apt install docker.io docker-compose-plugin -y

Next, create a folder for your Docker app and a Compose file to define it. Docker Compose lets you describe an app's containers, networks, and storage in a single YAML file rather than typing out long docker run commands by hand.

mkdir ~/myapp && cd ~/myappnano docker-compose.yml

A basic Compose file names the container image you want to run, maps a port on your server to a port inside the container, and sets any environment variables the app needs, such as a database password or an admin email. Most self-hosted apps publish an example Compose file in their documentation, which you can copy and adjust. You can usually find these directly on their Docker Hub listings.

But if you’re not sure how this looks, here’s an example compose.yml file for installing NGINX:

services:  web:    # Pulls the official Nginx image from Docker Hub    image: nginx:latest    ports:      - "8080:80"  database:    # Pulls the official Postgres image from Docker Hub    image: postgres:15    environment:      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: your-secure-password

You’ll need to replace “nginx:latest” with the image name of the Docker app you’re trying to install. I’d also recommend creating a more secure PostgreSQL password to replace “your-secure-password.”

Once you save the Docker Compose file, you can bring the app online with:

docker compose up -d

The -d flag runs the containers in the background so they keep running after you close your terminal session. Now when you point your web browser to your server's IP address and the port you mapped, your app should load.

Using a control panel with native Docker support

If you'd rather avoid the terminal, some hosting provider control panels give you a visual way to manage containers directly.

cPanel is the most widely used panel, but it doesn't include native Docker management, so you’re stuck using SSH only. However, Plesk has an official Docker extension that lets you browse images from Docker Hub, deploy containers, and manage them from a dedicated section in the sidebar without touching a command line interface. CyberPanel, another free and open-source control panel built on OpenLiteSpeed, also ships with Docker management built in as an alternative to SSH setup.

Then you just search the image catalog or paste in your own YAML file, review the resource and port settings the app requests, and confirm the deployment. The panel pulls the image, starts the container, and usually shows you live logs if something fails.

Once the app is running, the same panel typically handles DNS records and SSL certificates too. That's a decent accessibility advantage over pure SSH, since you don't need to deal with stuff like configuring a reverse proxy or certificate renewal by hand.

Using pre-coded templates offered by web hosts

Still, the fastest route to a running app is a hosting provider's marketplace of pre-built templates. These exist specifically so you don't have to write a Compose file from scratch.

Log in to your hosting provider's dashboard and look for a marketplace, app catalog, or "one-click apps" section. Search for the app you want to run. Popular self-hosted tools like automation platforms, note-taking apps, and file-sync services are commonly available this way.

Selecting a template usually opens a short setup form. You'll pick your server size, choose a data center region close to your users, and set any required credentials, like an admin password. Confirm the order, and the provider provisions a server with Docker and your chosen app already configured and running.

This method trades some flexibility for speed. You won't have as much control over container configuration, and templates can lag behind an app's latest release. But for popular tools, it's usually the quickest way to go from nothing to a working instance you can start customizing.

Are there any caveats to self-hosting?

Self-hosting shifts responsibility from a vendor's support team to you. Security patches, software updates, and backups no longer happen automatically in the background. If you forget to update a container image for months, you could be running software with a known vulnerability, and nobody will send you a reminder before your server gets compromised.

Uptime becomes your problem too. A managed SaaS product usually has a dedicated team monitoring its infrastructure around the clock. A self-hosted app on a single server has no such safety net unless you set one up yourself, whether that's monitoring software, automated backups, or a failover server in case there’s a crash.

There's also a real-time cost that's easy to underestimate. Reading documentation, troubleshooting containers, keeping track of which ports and volumes belong to which app all add up — all these things cost time and effort. For a single low-stakes tool, that's a minor inconvenience. For a business running several self-hosted apps, it can turn into a part-time job unless you budget for it properly.

Is self-hosting actually cheaper?

On paper, the numbers look compelling. A small virtual private server capable of running several lightweight self-hosted apps typically costs somewhere between $5 and $20 a month, depending on the provider and specs you choose. Compare that to a single SaaS subscription that can easily run $20 to $60 a month per tool, and the gap widens fast once you're replacing multiple subscriptions with one server.

The savings tend to grow with scale, up to a point. Running two or three self-hosted apps on the same VPS costs roughly the same as running one, since you're paying for the server rather than per app. That changes the math significantly compared with SaaS pricing, where every additional tool usually means an additional bill.

But cheaper isn't the same as free. A server with no backup strategy or monitoring in place isn't really saving you money if it goes down and you lose data or spend a weekend fixing it. Factor in the hours you'll spend on updates and troubleshooting, especially early on, and self-hosting looks less like a free lunch and more like a trade. You get lower cash costs in exchange for taking on the operational work a SaaS vendor would normally handle for you.

It’s no secret that, in the flagship phone conversation, Motorola has lost some of its standing in the face of the best iPhones and best Samsung phones — but the Lenovo-owned company is clearly determined to return to the big leagues.

Just four months after launching the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra-rivaling Motorola Razr Fold, Motorola has now unveiled the Motorola Signature 27, supposedly “the most advanced smartphone Motorola has ever created.”

And we can believe it, because the Signature 27 is one of the first two phones (alongside the Xiaomi 18 Pro Max) to be announced with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, which Qualcomm just announced at Snapdragon Summit 2026. That’s the same chipset as we’re expecting to power the rumored Samsung Galaxy S27 Ultra, which will likely be unveiled early next year.

The Signature 27 is a de facto successor to the original Motorola Signature, announced back in January, but it’s also the first Motorola flagship to adopt the company’s new numerical, year-based naming structure, reflecting Motorola’s desire to position the Signature 27 alongside the best Android phones of 2027.

And that, too, makes sense. The original Signature boasts impressive specs across the board, but its chipset — the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 — is a step below the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which powers the Galaxy S26 Ultra, Oppo Find X9 Ultra, and other contemporaries.

In using the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, the Signature 27 won’t be at the same power disadvantage as its predecessor. We don’t know the rest of the phone’s specs just yet, but for reference, the original Signature uses a 6.8-inch quad-curved AMOLED display, a 5,200mAh silicon-carbon battery, and three 50MP rear cameras.

A recent Signature 27 teaser did, however, reveal that the phone will come with at least a 200MP Sony sensor in a four-camera rear setup, which will inevitably see it competing with the best camera phones of next year.

We also know the Signature 27 will feature Bang & Olufsen-tuned audio, so it’ll presumably boast some impressive speaker credentials, and Motorola has confirmed the available color options, too: Pantone Capulet Olive and Pantone Coal Smoke. The latter features a woven texture, which Motorola says “reinforces strength, durability, and premium quality.”

The Motorola Signature 27 is expected to come to global markets later this year. Its price is unconfirmed, but given that the original Signature starts at £899.99 (roughly $1,210 / AU$1,800), it’s safe to expect a steeper figure for Motorola’s “most advanced smartphone ever.”

Qualcomm has announced not one, but two new flagship mobile chipsets at its annual Snapdragon Summit: the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6, and the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6.

Succeeding last year’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, both chipsets have been designed to reduce reliance on RAM (no prizes for guessing why), and each will unlock advanced gaming and agentic AI capabilities for the next generation of flagship Android phones (including, we presume, the Samsung Galaxy S27 Ultra). But how, and why, do they differ?

I attended the Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii to speak to Qualcomm's team about the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. Here’s why the American silicon giant is launching two flagship chipsets this year — and why one of them is shipping with the ‘Extreme’ moniker.

Why are they different?

As Lekha Motiwala, Senior Director of Product Management at Qualcomm, told me: “Some OEMs [Original Equipment Manufacturers] are trying to reach the pinnacle of technology, while others are trying to reach broader audiences. We want to give choice and flexibility to the OEMs.

“The 8 Elite Gen 6 is the next generation to the 8 Elite Gen 5. The 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 is positioned above it as the top tier, to enable newer experiences like ultra[-level] gaming, professional video codec support, etc. — on the 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, we are going beyond what we traditionally do [with our flagship chipsets], hence the tiering this year.”

“Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 delivers generational improvements across all key experiences, and is designed to power the core flagship tier,” added Ellie Fortin, Senior PR spokesperson at Qualcomm.

“The Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 sits above Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 as our top-tier Elite platform, showcasing leadership in AI, gaming, and advanced platform technologies, and is designed to power the best, most aspirational devices. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 includes everything in the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6, plus additional capabilities and advanced AI features. They’re both on 2nm TSMC.”

How are they different?

As for what Qualcomm means by ‘everything’ in the above statement, let’s get technical. Both chipsets feature the newest version of the company’s Oryon CPU, comprising two prime cores up to 5GHz (that’s a world-first) and six performance cores up to 4GHz. This CPU also packs a 16MB Oryon Flex Cache, which Qualcomm says will allow mobile agents to run demanding workloads without slowing down.

Qualcomm’s re-tooled Hexagon NPU [neural processing unit] features a new Hexagon Element Accelerator that should speed up how quickly AI prompts are processed by your phone — regardless of which new chipset it’s running — while the NPU in the 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 gets 50% more Large Shared Memory than the equivalent NPU in the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.

Still with me? As for the new Adreno graphics unit, Qualcomm says it represents the “biggest generational leap yet,” and will deliver substantial gains in graphics performance and power efficiency for phones equipped with either the 8 Elite Gen 6 or 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. But the latter pulls further away from its sibling with something called Adreno Neural Fusion — a dedicated gaming rendering technology that uses AI to deliver enhanced graphics and longer play sessions in compatible titles like Honkai: Star Rail, Diablo Immortal, and War Thunder: Mobile.

Couple that with three AI-dedicated GPU cores, and the 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 looks set to make the next best gaming phones more capable than ever: “We’re introducing Adreno Matrix cores, which are exclusive to the 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6,” Motiwala explained to me. “They support the running of AI workloads within the graphics pipeline itself. Rendering becomes smarter, [you’ll get] super resolution, frame generation — many of these features can now be run within the graphics pipeline rather than moving to the NPU and other [parts of the chipset]. So now you’ll have much lower latency and much lower power consumption.”

And finally, both new chipsets feature the Qualcomm Spectra ISP for improved digital stabilization, color processing, and motion detection, but only phones equipped with the 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 will support — or rather have the capability to support — Advanced Professional Video (APV) codecs and 8K 60fps video capture.

Initial impressions

In other words, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 is likely to be the chipset of choice for Android phone manufacturers hoping to claim that their upcoming flagships offer the very best in AI features, performance efficiency, and image processing. But it remains to be seen whether the likes of Samsung, Xiaomi, and Oppo can actually make use of all this extra power.

In truth, even the current-gen Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 provides more than enough juice for 99% of smartphone tasks, and so that’s almost certainly going to be true of the 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 (the clue is in the name) and indeed the lower-spec 8 Elite Gen 6, both of which are objectively more powerful than last’s year’s flagship chipset.

The key takeaway here is that Qualcomm is aware of the memory constraints affecting the technology industry, and has clearly worked hard to bring AI processing closer to the chipset with this year’s Snapdragon lineup. This should mean that, even if upcoming Android flagships arrive with lower RAM capacities than their predecessors (see the Google Pixel 11 Pro), their ability to process AI tasks won’t be negatively affected — if we take Qualcomm’s word for it, it’ll actually be improved.

Basically, it’s about doing more with less. Or maybe more with more, but not as much ‘more’ as we might’ve expected pre-RAM crisis.

Which phones will be supported?

Both the Motorola Signature 27 and Xiaomi 18 Pro Max are the first phones to be announced with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 chipset. The Xiaomi 18 Pro, meanwhile, will use the regular Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6.

We don’t have any other official information about which phones will use either chipset just yet, but here’s a list of rumored devices whose respective predecessors use the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and could therefore ship with Qualcomm’s latest slices of Snapdragon silicon:

• Samsung Galaxy S27 Ultra
• Samsung Galaxy S27 Plus
• Samsung Galaxy S27
• Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 9 Ultra
• Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 9
• Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 9
• Xiaomi 18 Ultra
• Xiaomi 18
• Oppo Find X10 Ultra
• Oppo Find X10 Pro Max
• Oppo Find X10
• Honor Magic 10 Pro
• Honor Magic V7
• RedMagic 12 Pro
• RedMagic 12S Pro

DJI built its name on drones, but nowadays it has firmly established itself in multiple other content creator gadget markets too. That includes mics. The brand makes a selection of microphones, including two models released this year. Our testers have been extremely impressed with all of them — so much so, we awarded every single one a perfect five stars in their respective reviews.

If you're a content creator looking to upgrade your audio so it's just as good as your video, how do you choose between them? There's no dud option here, but certain models will be better than others depending on your needs. Below, you'll find an overview of the brand, links to find out more about each one, and a handy specs comparison table. Here's everything you need to know about DJI's microphone range.

DJI mic range

There are two main microphone lines: Mic and Mic Mini. The former is more pro-friendly, larger and higher specced (details vary by model, but expect superior audio quality, more adaptable noise cancelling and features like timecode and built-in storage). The latter is more compact and lightweight — although note the main Mic models aren't exactly bulky — and an excellent entry-level choice.

Scroll down for more details, and tap the View details button for a summary of each model, plus a link to read the full reviews.

In the main range the Mic 2 (launched 2024) and Mic 3 (launched 2025) are still widely available. In the Mini range, it's the Mic Mini (launched 2024), Mic Mini 2 and Mic Mini 2S (both released 2026). We awarded every single one of them a perfect five stars in our reviews, so you can expect a very capable mic no matter which one you go for.

Broadly speaking, within each lineup it's the newer the model, the more advanced the specs — although the gaps between some generations are bigger than others. The Mini 2S came out more recently than the Mini 2, and offers a number of upgrades over that model, most notable of which is internal recording.

For each model, you can also choose from various bundles of transmitters (TX), receivers (RX) and charge cases. These elements can, broadly speaking, also be purchased individually.

DJI Mics: specs compared

Microsoft Word has spent the past few years getting increasingly acquainted with AI. Copilot can already draft text, rewrite passages, summarize documents, and answer questions about whatever you have open. Microsoft has even been rolling out more advanced editing capabilities that let Copilot make broader changes directly inside a document.

Now there is another AI sitting in Word. OpenAI launched ChatGPT for Word, via a plug-in, on September 17, putting a ChatGPT sidebar directly inside Microsoft's word processor. It works across ChatGPT's plans, including Free, although your normal ChatGPT usage limits still apply.

That creates a slightly peculiar situation. Microsoft has spent considerable effort building Copilot into Word, and now I can install its most famous AI rival in the same application. Naturally, I wanted to see which one I would actually reach for. I came away liking both, although for rather different reasons.

Installing ChatGPT in Word is straightforward, although there is one extra step compared with Copilot if Microsoft's assistant is already part of your Microsoft 365 setup. OpenAI's ChatGPT add-in is available through Microsoft Marketplace. Once installed, you can open it from the Word ribbon, sign-in to your ChatGPT account, and have the familiar chatbot appear in a sidebar.

The integration works with ChatGPT's Free, Go, Plus, and Pro plans, with the usual usage limits applying to each. The big difference with regular ChatGPT is that all conversations inside Word are separate from the ones in the regular ChatGPT app, and ChatGPT's memory does not follow you into Word either. That is worth remembering if you are accustomed to the regular chatbot already knowing your preferences.

Test 1: Planning a trip

I started with a blank document and asked each AI to respond to a request for a reusable vacation-planning template that I asked for using natural language in the sidebar.

I wanted somewhere to keep travel details, hotel information, reservations, restaurants, packing notes, and a loose daily itinerary without creating the sort of schedule that makes a vacation feel suspiciously like work.

ChatGPT produced a thoughtful setup, including the expected travel and accommodation details, but with added sections for reservation deadlines, estimated travel times, priority activities, backup plans, and ideas that had not yet made the final itinerary. Instead of filling every day with morning, afternoon, and evening slots, it left more space for a main activity and optional plans, which made the template feel less rigid.

In contrast, Copilot gave me the more conventional Word template. It neatly divided the document into sections for transportation, accommodation, daily plans, activities, dining, and packing, with plenty of space to fill everything in later. The structure was clean and immediately usable, and because Copilot is so closely integrated with Word, tweaking individual sections and reorganizing the document felt particularly easy.

Copilot was stronger at quickly producing a polished template that looked and behaved like something created specifically for Word. ChatGPT was better at considering the practical problems that tend to emerge while planning an actual vacation and building the document around them.

I ultimately preferred ChatGPT's version because it felt more flexible, although Copilot's was arguably easier to start using immediately. ChatGPT did a little more thinking about what information I might eventually wish I had included.

Test 2: Editing down nonsense

I then decided to see how they compared at editing. I pasted in an old, absurdly long set of instructions for an AirBnB I had saved years ago out of amusement, complete with information about plants, deliveries, Wi-Fi and several unnecessary paragraphs devoted to where various things were stored.

I selected a particularly rambling section and asked ChatGPT to shorten it while preserving anything somebody would actually need.

“The main problem is repetition rather than the amount of information," The AI wrote. It mentions the delivery instructions twice and explains the location of the spare supplies in more detail than someone staying for a weekend probably needs. I’d keep the Wi-Fi information, the plant-watering schedule and anything involving keys or access exactly clear. The rest can be condensed into a short ‘Around the house’ section so the useful details are easier to find.”

Copilot is hardly incapable of that conversation. It can answer questions about a document, provide summaries and respond to prompts about unclear passages, and provide references showing where information came from. But I would tend to pull up Copilot only when I already knew what I wanted it to do.

Selecting some text and telling Copilot to rewrite it produces versions that can be replaced or inserted directly into the document, and Microsoft now allows editing inside its suggestion box before accepting the result.

Which did I prefer?

ChatGPT's biggest practical advantage may simply be accessibility. OpenAI says ChatGPT for Word is available on all ChatGPT plans, including Free. Copilot availability varies according to Microsoft 365 subscription, Copilot license and organizational settings, while some of Microsoft's newer 'Edit with Copilot' features are still rolling out to eligible users.

There are good reasons to prefer Copilot. Its integration with Word is deeper, and Microsoft has built features specifically around manipulating Word documents rather than placing a general AI assistant alongside them. Depending on your setup, Copilot can also draw on Microsoft files, emails and meetings, which could matter far more than conversational style for people already living inside Microsoft 365.

For quick mechanical changes, particularly when I knew exactly what needed rewriting, Copilot's tighter relationship with Word made sense. It felt like an extension of the application rather than another destination. ChatGPT was the one I preferred when the problem was fuzzier. The two assistants overlap considerably, but they did not feel identical when I actually used them. Copilot often felt like an AI feature of Word. ChatGPT is a more fully-featured chatbot, while Copilot simply augments Word with AI features. Either is fine, it's just that ChatGPT feels more flexible.

Rayman Legends Retold looks to bring the platforming classic into the modern age, with a smattering of new levels, fully revamped visuals, and expanded cinematics featuring full voice acting for the very first time.

Released back in 2013 to critical acclaim and still beloved by fans, it's certainly an unusual choice for a remake. Where most developers opt to return to titles with obvious issues, or ones that are no longer readily accessible (Rayman Legends is fully playable on PS5, Xbox Series, and Switch 2 via backward compatibility), it's hard to think of many ways this platformer could be improved.

As it turns out, the decision was more about the future of the Rayman franchise than looking back at the past.

"The plan was that we want to restart the franchise," explains brand producer Loïc Gounon after a recent hands-on event.

"Without an engine, you don't make a game. Without a team, you don't make a game. So the initial point has been: we need to rebuild the team, and we need to adopt a new engine. As we were starting to think about that, we also considered a brand new game, but we've also been humble about what we could achieve."

In the gaming industry, remakes are often used to help new teams become acquainted with an existing intellectual property and build the skills needed to tackle development of future entries.

Just look at Metroid: Samus Returns, the 3DS Metroid 2 remake that led to series newcomer MercurySteam being given the reins for the Nintendo Switch installment Metroid Dread (and again, with the upcoming Metroid Ravenous for Switch 2).

Gounon adds that while the team behind Retold does still have some of the original Legends devs, they felt that "the balance between remaking a beloved game while bringing innovation to it was the best starting point" for everyone.

New coat of paint

One of the starkest differences between the original Legends and Retold is the shift from a hand-painted 2D look to a fully 3D art style – albeit one that largely maintains the side-on perspective. It's a move that Gounon suggests shows where the franchise is headed overall.

"Rayman started on PlayStation with a 2D game at a time when most games were 3D. Then Rayman 2 and Rayman 3 were 3D games in the rendering, but also in the gameplay. Then Origins went back to full 2D: 2D rendering and 2D gameplay," he explains.

"The thing is, when you've got a 2D engine and are in 2D rendering, it's less easy to make a 3D game afterwards. So, as part of thinking about the franchise for the future, two things that came to mind really early were that we want to go back to the adventure DNA of the franchise, and we don't want to [stop ourselves from] going towards a 3D adventure."

If you think of Legends Retold as a jumping-off point for the franchise going forward, the whole project begins to make a lot of sense.

Gounon doesn't shy away from saying that "we believe that this IP has a future" and that this remake is only the beginning "if everything goes according to plan" and it proves popular. He even indicates that part of the move to 3D was so the team could build a bank of 3D assets, presumably for future use.

Although it's clear that Legends Retold is geared towards new players, Gounon says the team has gone to great lengths to maintain the overall feel of the original game so as not to disappoint returning players. This even involves utilizing the original game engine, UbiArt Framework, underneath all the shiny new graphics powered by the latest version of Snowdrop.

"What's a bit particular about this project is that we did not want to mess with the game feeling: all the characters reacting, the physics, etc. We knew that the muscle memory you have with a platformer — we can't mess with it. It's a constraint of Rayman, and so is the level design. There's a quality of level design that's unmatched, on par with the best games in the world, like Mario," he begins. "So we knew we couldn't mess with the quality of the level design or the game's flow and the physics.

"What we decided to do is that everything that's happening — game mechanics and flow — is powered by UbiArt Framework. UbiArt is also doing the 2D animation and 2D drawing, but as we were going 3D, we integrated UbiArt Framework game logic within the game logic of Snowdrop.

"Snowdrop is handling all the animation, the character art, the environment art, and the audio. All that new visual layer on top of the gameplay logic is Snowdrop.

"Basically, we've got the best of both worlds, meaning a great engine to make levels and gameplay, which is UbiArt Framework, and also maintaining the quality of the original game because it's the same thing running under the hood, within an engine that allows for fully-fledged 3D rendering."

A matter of taste

As with any big change, the new art direction has had its critics. "Nothing can outdo the beautiful hand-drawn style," reads one of the highest-rated comments on the original reveal trailer, but Gounon is confident that skeptics will be won over once the game is in their hands.

"Some people will always have a personal attachment to something they loved, especially when it's something super special that got 90+ on Metacritic, and it's highly subjective. That's totally okay, and to be fair, when you love something, you don't want it to change," he begins.

"I think it's natural. Then I think we will prove what 3D is bringing. I think once you start playing the game, and more people see the game, hear character voices, [watch] the fully animated 3D cutscenes, I think they will get why we are making it."

He adds that he's excited for players to see more of the game in the build-up to release and promises, "It's not a simple remake; it's more than that."

There will be a bit of a wait, however, with the game recently delayed until December 3, 2026, when it will launch for Nintendo Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X and Series S, and PC.

Vibe coding began as a buzzword but quickly became a software category of its own. Now there are more AI platforms offering vibe coding features than there are days in a year. But if you’re going to use one, you need to know how they work and the ways they’re different from the no-code or low-code platforms you may have used in the past.

It’s a bit more complicated than simply entering a prompt and generating a fully functional website you can use right away, though that is often the way it’s marketed. In reality, you’re still left to fine-tune the generated output until it’s functional, decide on hosting infrastructure, and troubleshoot any security or operational issues that arise.

I’ve spent a lot of time working with vibe coding apps over the past couple of years, weaving several of them in and out of my workflow depending on the project scope. Here, I’ll share with you what I’ve learned, including the things that have changed in the industry since vibe coding began as a concept.

How vibe coding works

Vibe coding isn’t programming in the traditional sense. You’re not writing code, so it’s more similar to no-code or drag-and-drop website builders than writing HTML5 or React-based apps in a text editor.

But thanks to recent improvements in Large Language Models (LLMs) and generative AI, you can essentially describe what you want your website to do and how you want it to look, then let the platform interpret your prompt and generate the code you need in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

You can then export the code as raw files into any web hosting server of your choice, register a new domain, and go live within a matter of minutes.

But in reality, it’s not always so simple.

When you enter a prompt for the AI to generate from — depending on how specific you are and how advanced the underlying technology is — you’ll end up with something that’s at best close to functional but not ready for production quite yet. You’ll then have to tweak the AI-generated site, using subsequent prompts to refine the design until you get to something you’re satisfied with.

Types of vibe coding tools

Not all vibe coding tools work the same way, of course.

Some are more typical AI generators that let you build a website from start to finish by talking to a chatbot. Others combine this with drag-and-drop editors and other visual aids to let you tweak the design directly. A few even function like traditional text editors that programmers use, but with the option to use chatbot assistance to generate chunks of code while you still retain authority over what to keep.

For a first website, a full-stack app builder or an all-in-one platform is usually the simplest starting point. They even package things like hosting infrastructure, domain registration, and ongoing support into the same platform, making it easier for you to get your website ready for launch without too much fuss.

How to vibe code your first website, step-by-step

Every vibe coding project follows roughly the same arc, regardless of which platform you choose. You'll move from a plain-language brief to a live preview, then layer on the pages, design, and any extras your site needs before you publish.

The steps below outline that workflow at a level that applies across most tools. Swap in the specific platform of your choice at each stage, and expect to spend more time refining than generating.

Step 1: Write your first prompt

Start with clear and specific instructions, not a single sentence. Describe your site’s purpose, the pages you need (home, about, contact, services), your design aesthetic, and any brand colors or fonts you already use.

The more details you offer upfront, the less back-and-forth you'll need later. Most platforms generate an initial working version, complete with a live preview, within a minute or two of your first prompt.

Step 2: Review the generated structure

Look at the pages and navigation the AI has created before you touch the design. Check that the site structure matches how you actually want visitors to move through it, since restructuring later is more disruptive than adjusting styling.

If something's missing, like a pricing page or a booking form, ask for it directly in a follow-up prompt rather than trying to work around the gap.

Step 3: Refine the design with follow-up prompts

Use targeted prompts to adjust individual elements like colors, spacing, fonts, image placement, or button styles. Many platforms also include a visual editor where you can click an element and edit it directly, which tends to be faster than describing a small tweak in words.

Upload your logo and any brand assets at this stage so the AI can work them into the design instead of generating generic placeholders.

Step 4: Add a CMS if you'll be publishing content regularly

If your site needs a blog, news section, or other content you'll update often, ask the platform to add CMS features or connect a third-party content management system through an API. This gives you an editing interface separate from the code, so future updates don't mean rewriting prompts every time.

Skip this step entirely if your site is just a static handful of pages that rarely change.

Step 5: Add ecommerce features if you're selling anything

You can build an online store by asking the AI to add product listings, a shopping cart, checkout, and a payment processor through supported integrations. Test the full purchase flow yourself, including failed payments and confirmation emails, before it goes live.

Most full-stack builders support popular payment providers as plug-in integrations rather than requiring you to build checkout logic from scratch.

Step 6: Connect a domain and go live

Once you're happy with the site, connect your custom domain through the platform's settings and confirm SSL is active before publishing. Many all-in-one platforms handle domain registration and SSL certificates automatically, while others expect you to point your DNS records to their hosting.

Do a final pass on every page and link once the domain is live, since some elements can render differently outside the preview environment.

Vibe coding dos and don'ts

Vibe coding tools remove a lot of the technical barriers to building a website, but that speed comes with trade-offs worth knowing about before you publish.

Security researchers have repeatedly found that AI-generated applications ship with vulnerabilities at a higher rate than traditionally coded ones, including exposed credentials and missing authentication on features that should be locked down.

Treat any AI-generated code as a first draft rather than a finished product, especially anything touching customer data, logins, or payments. Review what the platform built, and if you're not confident reading code yourself, have someone who can check it before you collect real customer information. Also keep any sensitive details, like API keys, tokens, or passwords, out of your prompts entirely. Don't paste credentials into a chat window expecting the platform to keep them secure, since prompts and generated code aren't a safe place to store secrets.

Finally, don't assume a polished-looking preview means the site is secure. Researchers have found thousands of publicly deployed AI-built sites with no authentication on pages that should require a login, often because the builder never thought to ask for it. Test your site's forms, accounts, and checkout flow the way an attacker might before you consider it done, and lean on your platform's built-in security scanning if it offers one.

Whether it's at work or with my family, all I've been talking about recently is shocking six-part ITV crime drama The Blame.

Led by Michelle Keegan and Douglas Booth, it follows the murder of a teenage skater, which not only draws detectives down a dark, treacherous path, but also forces them to investigate their own team.

The call is coming from inside the house, as the kids say. DI Emma Clare (Keegan) is not just the only member of the force to work out what's really going on, but she's the only person brave enough to call out (the fictional) Wakestead police force on its biggest issue: misogyny.

I won't lie to you, it's a really difficult watch. The Blame's approach to its subject matter is incredible heavy-handed, but I think it needs to be. However, if you need some time out — or to swap to a crime drama that doesn't feel as bitingly real — I've got you covered.

In fact, Keegan and Booth are the ones that have you covered. If you're looking for more of the same vibe, they've got the perfect recommendation for you to stream next. Not only can you watch it for free, but there's a hidden link between the two shows.

The Blame on ITV is secretly linked to BBC's Happy Valley — and it's what you need to stream next

"That's a hard question," Booth responded, before he added: "Just because it's my favourite one and Nicola [Schindler] produced it, Happy Valley, but they're obviously very different. It has another great female lead at the heart of it."

To me, that's an understatement. The UK market is flush with cimpeccable crime dramas, but Sally Wainwright's Happy Valley might just be the best of the 21st century so far (at least, it is according to me).

Available to stream for free on BBC iPlayer or on Netflix internationally, we follow West Yorkshire police sergeant Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire) as she balances local crime in Calderdale with her fierce pursuit of Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton), the violent criminal she holds responsible for her daughter's suicide.

It's fast-paced, quintessentially Yorkshire, and gritty at every turn — to the point where it's almost unbelievable what one woman can physically and mentally endure.

What's even better is the hidden link that Happy Valley has with The Blame.

"We had Lisa Farrand, who was a police advisor," Keegan explained. "She was with us for the interrogation and investigation scenes, where we were out looking for the body, things like that. She was brilliant. Very matter of fact, and if something wasn't working, she would pull it up straight away, speak to the director, and sort of steer us and help navigate the scene.

"She worked on Happy Valley and actually Catherine Cawood was loosely based on her. She's a real character... a tough cookie."

If Catherine Cawood herself isn't a good enough sign of a crime drama being unmissable, I don't know what is. Maybe give yourself some breathing space in between them both, though.

Playing the upcoming Cairn: On the Trail DLC with one of its creators looking over my shoulder was incredibly humbling. It had been months since I’d completed my gruelling ascent of Mt. Kami, and my skills were more than a little rusty. When Aava slipped and plummeted into the sea for the fifth time in less than 20 minutes, I was worried they’d lean over, close the laptop, and walk away shaking their head in disgust.

Luckily, I was allowed to play on, and slowly but surely I (quite literally) found my feet, more confidently and successfully finding the handholds and footholds to make progress on one of the three new challenges found in this first piece of free DLC for the excellent climbing adventure.

The one I was currently dramatically failing at features a piton-shaped rock in the middle of the ocean. You start on a wooden path surrounding this peculiar natural structure, before falling into a familiar pattern where you’re scoping out the potential routes to find a good place to climb it. It’s immediately clear, though, that these DLC environments are even more experimental than what we saw in the main game.

Rising up

“On the Trail is pretty much built on ideas and desires we had but decided not to put on Kami for the sake of consistency,” explains Emeric Thoa, creative director of Cairn.

“Because Kami is a very coherent experience, as you climb a single immense mountain, we wanted the On the Trail DLC to explore more variety in the climbing fantasy.”

That breaks down as follows. This first is the level I’m playing now, with its tough climb up a unique structure. There’s also one set in a climbing gym full of more technically demanding challenges and one on a small island featuring various perilous overhangs over the sea.

You can also now play as Marco, who is less flexible than Aava, but he has a longer reach, stronger arms, and a new climbot model.

Whoever you pick, none of the new stages sound very easy, even for veterans who have successfully reached the top of Kami.

“It’s aimed at people who finished the main game, but it’s not especially difficult,” Thoa assures me. “It’s not like you must have finished in free solo mode with zero falls playing with a Guitar Hero controller. But I would definitely recommend playing the main game before starting On the Trail.”

I would, too, considering I scored it four stars and called it ‘an extremely good and beautifully made climbing game’ in our Cairn review.

And while it was the determination to complete the climb and the satisfaction of achieving it that was a main draw of Cairn, it was also the atmosphere that was one of its strongest points.

As you ascend, you learn more not only about Aava as a character, but also about the civilization that used to live on the mountain and some of its secrets. These neat asides are a wonderful break from the intensity of the rest of the game.

“We definitely tried to keep that exploration and treasure hunt vibe that Kami offers,” confirms Thoa. “It’s a bit different as the climbing spots are smaller. So, for instance, we added an energy mechanic to replace the survival elements.

“Instead of risking your life in a huge ascent over several days, you tackle a one-day challenge, and you have to manage your fatigue and resources in order to climb the spot before getting too tired. But that’s also where exploring becomes useful, as you can find items to get you back on your feet.”

I found I needed them too, as a useful way to restock key resources such as chalk and energy to make these tougher climbs more achievable. It still didn’t prevent me from repeated failures, but I felt that same rush of stubbornness and perseverance that gripped me in the original game coming back. It’s a feeling Thoa wants players to feel when they return to Cairn.

“They should first experience the bittersweet nostalgia of coming back to the unique experience of Cairn, and then they should quite soon after find out that it’s still a game that makes your hands sweat! The thrill should still be there.”

I definitely felt it even in the short demo I had. Truth is, I’ve been keen to return to the game since the DLC was first announced, and even though a delay has meant I’ve had to wait a little longer, The Game Bakers recently confirmed that Cairn: On the Trail - Deep Water will launch on October 29 on PC and PS5.

The Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20 feels like the PC gaming handheld of 2026. An enhanced version of the original Xbox-branded Ally X, this is shaping up to be one of the best-looking, ergonomically fantastic, and brilliantly performing handheld games consoles — and I went hands-on with it at Gamescom last month and liked it. A lot.

Coming to it as someone who hasn’t truly jumped in with both feet to PC gaming handhelds — basically none of them play nice with my hands due to being bulky and heavy — even a short time with the newest, flashiest version of Asus’ Xbox handhelds has left a permanent mark. One that might make me a PC handheld convert.

Much will be made of its price tag and purchase options — either $1,299 / £1,299 on its own, or $2,299.99 / £2,299.99 as a bundle with the new ROG XREAL R1 glasses — but after experiencing all its enhancements and features, and seeing how games run on it, it really could be a hit.

Looks and feels the part

Even though I know that this is a similar handheld to its predecessor, this thing is a joy to hold and use from a design perspective.

The overarching form is the same as the original Ally X, but the new translucent finish is a thing of beauty. It gives it an almost see-under-the-hood kind of vibe, and does a great job of making it stand out from its largely black-and-white competitors.

The gold accents are even more fantastic in real life and up close than in pictures, too, with the rings around each thumbstick and the shine of the four small buttons on the front, as well as the ‘ROG 20th Anniversary’ plate, and the stripe down the back really popping out of the otherwise black aesthetic.

That translucent back also has an incredibly grippy feel — you won’t need to add an external case here. As someone who always has to worry about that with gamepads and phones, this was extremely welcome; the rubberised, tactile wings of the controller really are conducive to maintaining a solid grip.

The inputs remain great too, with rounded face buttons, lovely triggers and bumpers that are all a joy to interact with, as well as excellent Tunnel Magnetoresistance (TMR) thumbsticks that offer a tangible upgrade over the analogue sticks of its predecessor. Though, I’d have liked to have seen some microswitch button tech in the X20 as a similar upgrade as well.

The star of the show, though, is, of course, that slightly bigger, but much better, screen. Offering an increase of 0.4 inches, but a huge leap up to OLED in panel tech, the new screen is vibrant and has colors that really pop and contrast. The boost to color gamut and HDR it offers makes for a genuine visual treat, and you know you’ll be covered in all situations with a brightness of up to 1400 nits to tap into.

But has the guts to match

The performance remains excellent as it was on the X20; games might never have looked better on a handheld screen.

The OLED panel is a joy to use, with fantastic colors and contrast, and the extra bump in the VRR to FreeSync Premium Pro is also welcome and a great feature. As a result, Forza Horizon 5 looks comfortably better, by a strong margin, compared to the handheld I am most used to, my PlayStation Portal, in sheer image quality and vibrancy, while getting comfortably north of 60 frames per second.

Using the TMR thumbsticks was great too: every move feels much more responsive, smooth, and instant compared to my Portal or a Steam Deck, and the extra durability the sticks offer over analog ones is superb too.

The Asus ROG Ally X20 is a fantastic bit of kit, and offers a compelling route into handheld PC gaming — perhaps one of the most complete offerings — even for me, as someone who has yet to jump in and can’t ever find the right device for the job.

So far it might be the PC gaming handheld I’ll consider buying most if I commit to going mobile. It’s not a transformation of the PC handheld experience that the ROG Xbox Ally X offers, but it’s an excellent refinement.

Twitter is not back, and we'll surely never see the likes of it again. In its place, we have X, and now, Tweet.app. You can be forgiven for the confusion. Many who still use X think their posts are tweets, but the still-pay-to-play platform from Bluebird, Inc. is now called Tweet.

It's a tale far too rich to contain in, say, a classic 140-character tweet, but I'll attempt to unpack it here, with insights from Bluebird, Inc. President and General Counsel Stephen Coates.

"I call it the 'Tweenix,' " Coates tells me, after I noted that Tweet.app's new blue logo looks a little like a phoenix. The imagery is apt. It signifies classic Twitter rising from the ashes, but also Bluebird's initial success and then failure to revive 'Twitter', before ultimately launching Tweet.app a few weeks ago.

Two years ago, Bluebird began the skunkworks project to revive Twitter, a brand Elon Musk effectively killed when he bought Twitter in 2022 and then in 2023 rebranded it to X, leaving vestiges of the old 'Twitter' scattered throughout the services, a fact that played a crucial role in Bluebird's ability to revive the brand.

Coates told me that after his company tried to file for a cancellation of the 'Tweet' and 'Twitter' trademarks in December of last year, X quickly filed a federal injunction. In the meantime, Bluebird launched Twitter.now. Months later, the judge ruled that because X still had "formerly Twitter" on the Apple App Store listing, it had brand rights. Coates called the ruling surprising, but Bluebird quickly pivoted and rebranded to Tweet.

The company, he told me, has no plans to go after the iconic Twitter bird logo, even though it's not well protected as a brand by X. Hence, the Tweenix.

Tweet, though, still seems like a risky name. Coates told me, "We're optimistic... It seems highly likely we’ll prevail on 'Tweet'."

That remains to be seen. When you sign up for Tweet, you must acknowledge that you know it's not affiliated with X. Search Tweet in the App Store, and the first result is still X. However, Tweet.app operating relatively under the radar might help it avoid further scrutiny from X and Elon Musk.

It has, by Coates' measure, just about 8,000 users. "[That's] pretty good, considering it's paid," Coates told me. The platform is so small that you could conceivably read all the tweets — I'm not sure that's a selling point, but Coates said there are "already community and inside jokes."

The company is using the income from those users to pay its small team of 10 employees and contractors as it builds the platform and tweaks the moderation filters, something Coates considers of critical importance.

Tweet.app, which does resemble old-school Twitter, is currently using AI to scale its moderation, including its still-in-beta Vera tool, which measures content for misinformation and applies a score. Eventually, Tweet.app members will have a dial connected to those ratings to automatically filter out their desired level of misinformation.

That's right, Tweet.app won't be in the business of rooting out all fake news. The creed will be, "Freedom of speech but not freedom of reach," said Coates.

Where Twitter, under former CEO Dick Costolo, whom Coates worked under, struggled with how to be a town square when there was one guy shouting obscenities in the corner, Tweet.com will let the guy shout, but also let users hide the obscenities they don't want to see in their feeds.

If it works, all of it will be powered by this AI. "I call it AI for good. We're not creating tools that will create AI outputs," said Coates, who has worked as counsel for Meta, Reddit, and TikTok.

None of this, of course, ensures success. Classic social media, including Twitter, was built on viral moments, like the Arab Spring, the killing of Osama Bin Laden, and selfies that broke the internet.

Coates acknowledged the power of these "inflection" moments, but reminded me that you can't predict them. Tweet.app is happy to grow slowly. Coates knows that paying members will be more deeply engaged than people who simply hop on the platform for free. "At some point will it be open to everyone? I certainly hope so," he told me.

I asked Coates why we need this or any other new social media. He told me that he sees room for reinvention, with space for social media that gives users control. "We're empowering them to control the algorithm," which is an idea that well-established social media platforms have only recently approached.

As the other upstart micro-blogging social media platform, Bluesky, moves away from the town square concept, Coates sees an opportunity to build an alternative to the only other big open platform: X.

"There's room for more. I think people will come for the nostalgia of Twitter and tweeting and stay for the control and experience. It’s a grand experiment."

I have developed a healthy suspicion of any ChatGPT answer that imagines no negative possibilities or doesn't have any follow-up questions for me. Simulated AI arrogance can leave any user with unexpected obstacles.

But one useful way to avoid those pitfalls is simply to follow up your question with another that forces ChatGPT to consider its blind spots and blithe self-assurance, however artificial it might be. Simply inquiring "What are you unsure about in your answer?" will open up some surprising insights into where the AI has missed the mark.

It's pretty simple. You have a normal conversation, get an answer, and then ask the AI where it thinks that answer is weakest.

So I started trying it. ChatGPT would often point directly at an assumption it had quietly made earlier in the conversation. Once that assumption was visible, I could give it the missing information and get an answer that was genuinely better.

Planning a trip

I started with a travel itinerary, as it's something ChatGPT is very good at producing and occasionally terrible at understanding. I asked it to plan a three-day family trip. I gave it some basic information and the resulting itinerary looked good. There were morning activities, lunch suggestions, afternoon stops, and enough apparent breathing room that I could imagine happily following it.

There was just one problem. ChatGPT had created the trip without considering who the trip was for and without thinking of any possible errors or slowdowns that might put us off the schedule. Instead of telling ChatGPT the itinerary was too busy, I typed my new follow-up: "What are you unsure about in your answer?"

“I’m unsure about the pacing of the itinerary, particularly the second day. I’ve assumed your family can comfortably handle two substantial activities with a break between them, but I don’t know your child’s nap schedule, usual energy level or how much downtime you prefer while traveling. I’m also estimating travel times without knowing exactly where you’ll be staying. If any of those assumptions are wrong, the schedule could feel much more hectic in practice than it appears on the page.”

ChatGPT had spotted the problem with its own plan without me pointing it out. That gave me a much better next prompt. I told it that I wanted only one significant scheduled activity each day, and that afternoons needed to remain flexible. ChatGPT rebuilt the itinerary around those constraints, and the new version immediately felt more like something a real family might survive.

Repair or replace?

For another experiment, I gave ChatGPT a hypothetical laptop dilemma. Imagine I had an older computer that was beginning to struggle and wanted to know whether I should repair it or replace it. The AI created a framework involving the laptop’s age, likely repair costs, performance, and the price of a replacement. After considering everything, it suggested that replacement was probably the more sensible long-term option.

ChatGPT is very good at producing prose that has the shape of a conclusion. You can easily forget that some of the evidence was never actually provided. So I asked my follow-up again: "What are you unsure about in your answer?"

“I’m unsure about recommending replacement without knowing the actual repair cost or what is failing. I’m using the laptop’s age as evidence that further problems may appear, but age alone doesn’t tell us whether replacing it is financially sensible," the chatbot wrote. "If the problem is something relatively cheap, such as a battery or storage upgrade, repairing it could extend its useful life considerably. I’d be much more confident after knowing the model, specifications, symptoms and estimated repair price.”

This time the weakness was obvious once ChatGPT said it aloud. I had essentially asked whether an unidentified problem was worth fixing without saying what the problem was or how much fixing it would cost. Yet ChatGPT had still managed to give me an answer.

Humans are quite comfortable saying they cannot make a recommendation until they know more. ChatGPT has been designed to be helpful, and helpfulness often means filling gaps so that the conversation can continue. Sometimes it means the chatbot has an imaginary set of ideas that it fills in the gaps with regardless of their reality.

Taking it further

The trick can be extended in other ways too. “What are you unsure about right now?” is a good starting point, but the answer can become the basis for another question.

If ChatGPT lists three uncertainties, I can ask which one is most likely to change its recommendation. If it says that important context is missing, I can ask exactly what information it needs from me. Asking "what could I tell you that would make you more sure?” helps set the AI up for better answers.

This is particularly handy for decisions. If I am comparing products or choosing between several options, I can ask ChatGPT for its initial take and then immediately interrogate the weakest part. The process feels far more natural than spending five minutes constructing a giant prompt before the conversation has even started.

There is an obvious limit to all of this. ChatGPT’s description of its confidence is itself generated by ChatGPT. The chatbot can be wrong about what it should be worried about. It can miss a crucial problem entirely. For anything involving facts that matter, asking ChatGPT whether it feels uncertain is no replacement for checking reliable sources.

But for everyday conversations, the trick addresses one of my biggest frustrations with AI surprisingly well, simply by forcing into view some of the invisible scaffolding holding up the conclusions in its answers and determining if they are at all solid enough to rely upon.

We're gearing up for the second wave of major marathons this year: runners will be heading for the start line in Berlin at the end of the week (27 September), with the Chicago marathon following on 11 October and New York rounding out the season on 2 November.

Perhaps you're wondering what kind of footwear is propelling elite athletes to these kinds of times? I've hunted out the shoes worn by a selection of marathon winners, and rounded up the results below.

The Adidas Adios range crops up time and time again. Sabastian Sawe and Yomif Kejelcha both sprinted to stunning sub-2 hour success at the 2026 London marathon while wearing Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 shoes (currently sold out in the US, but a restock is coming in the UK on 24 September.) Sawe wore Adidas Adios Pro Evo 2 to take the gold at the Berlin 2025 marathon, as did Benson Kipruto for his 2025 New York win.

Hot on Kipruto's heels in Berlin 2025 was Alexander Mutiso Munyao, wearing the Adidas Adizero Adios Pro 4. Incidentally, women's champ Rosemary Wanjiru was also wearing Adios Pro 4. In Chicago 2025, Hawi Feysa took the gold in the women's race wearing Adidas Adios Pro Evo 1.

Nike's winning line is the Alphafly. Jacob Kiplimo won the 2025 Chicago marathon in Nike Alphafly 3 — also the running shoe of choice of record-breaker Eliud Kipchoge.

It's not all about Adidas and Nike, though. John Korir has won two Boston marathons in a row while wearing prototype versions of the Asics MetaSpeed Sky, and Sharon Lokedi wore Under Armour Veliciti Elite 3 to defend her crown at Boston 2026. Hellen Obiri took the women's crown at the 2025 New York marathon in On LightSpray Cloudboom Strike — particularly notable for their laceless, 'spray-on' style.

If you're a keen runner and find yourself gripped by marathon fever, perhaps these are some models worth considering for your next long-distance race. But a couple of important caveats, before we start: First, if you're already in training for one of the upcoming marathons, you definitely don't want to be switching up your footwear in the run-up to the event. Second, these shoes are aimed at experienced long-distance runners; if you're not at that stage yet, head to our general best running shoe roundup for more beginner- and intermediate-friendly recommendations.

US: Marathon-winning running shoes

Jump down to UK shoes

UK: Marathon-winning running shoes

Spotify Wrapped is roughly two to three months away (I know, I almost threw up in my mouth just at the thought of it), but not only does it show how fast the year flies by, but it also keeps you guessing which artists and songs will come out on top.

While pretty much all the best music streaming services have their own iterations of Wrapped — there’s Apple Music Replay and YouTube Music Recap — Spotify Wrapped is by far the one with the firmest cultural grip

It’s the surprise element that keeps us on our toes at the dawn of every year, but what if I told you there was a way for you to get a peek at your top songs early right within the Spotify app? Well, one user tried it, and the results are interesting.

A '3D chess move'

At the end of 2025 Spotify launched one of its most powerful playlist-making tools, Prompted Playlists, a feature that allows you to enter prompts to generate a hyper-specific playlist. You can also amend the settings so that the playlist updates daily, or on certain days of the week, sort of like Discover Weekly.

One of Prompted Playlists’ smarts is that it can compile a playlist of your most-streamed songs of all time, and you can even ask it to create playlists that reflect your Wrapped summaries from the past. Clever right? Well, one user has used the tool to get ahead of the upcoming Wrapped 2026 launch.

Redditor u/thosememes took to the platform to share images of a Prompted Playlist they created (see below), where they asked the tool to compile a list of their most-streamed songs between January 1 and September 17. One of the replies called it a '3D chess move' while others denied its performance, so I tested it out for myself — and I can confirm that it works.

My prompt was simple: "Create a playlist of my most-streamed songs between January 1 and September 21 this year, and present them in a Wrapped-style summary". It didn’t take long for it to birth a fresh list of tracks, and it even provided in-playlist notes telling me exactly how many times I’ve streamed my top songs this year so far.

It was almost too good to be true, but after refreshing the playlist and amending the prompt, the order of the songs in the playlist stayed the same, with each update showing that it does have some credibility. Though I respect the tool for its intelligence, I can’t say I’ll be using it much from now on.

Does no one enjoy surprises any more?

Now, this isn’t the only way for you to extract your music streaming data. Sites such as last.fm and stats.fm are leading third-party platforms for reviewing your most-streamed songs, artists, and albums, but having data features within the Spotify app is oh so convenient.

As well as Prompted Playlists, Spotify’s ‘Listening stats’ tab gives you a comprehensive overview of your most listened-to songs and artists over the last four weeks. It’s a fun way to see how your taste changes and listening behaviors shift, but it doesn’t give away who will be featured in your Wrapped results.

This is where my biggest concern with using Prompted Playlists like this lies: the surprise element is completely removed, which is the very backbone of these types of end-of-year recaps. If you remove the thrill of the unexpected, do you really have Spotify Wrapped? And yes, Wrapped is so much more than the artists and songs you stream, but at the end of the day, this is what the average user is most excited for.

Not only this, but there’s the risk of tarnishing how you stream music. What I mean by this is that having Prompted Playlists give you this information essentially ignites that urge to ‘fine-tune’ your Wrapped, which sits in your subconscious as you listen to music and brings out that inner saboteur that tells you, "your Wrapped must be perfect or else!"

It invites a listening regime that’s far more focused on aesthetics and creating false appearances rather than one that’s purely centered around enjoyment and discovery. The best Wrapped summaries are the ones that are varied and unhinged, because that’s when you know music fans are truly listening with the intent of being themselves.

We're just a few weeks away from the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, the explosive next entry in the blockbuster shooter series.

The Call of Duty franchise has been around for more than two decades, with almost constant annual releases, including multiple Modern Warfare games. There's the iconic original trilogy, and a more recent set of reboots that reset the story and brought its characters and themes into the modern age

But how much do you really know about the Modern Warfare games? Can you tell your Captain Price apart from your Gaz and Soap?

I've put together this Modern Warfare quiz to test your knowledge in the build-up to the Modern Warfare 4 launch, with a rigorous selection of questions related to all the Modern Warfare titles, old and new.

How did you score in our Modern Warfare quiz? Was there anything that took you by surprise? Let us know in the comments below, and maybe share your favorite bit of Call of Duty trivia too!

Spoilers for Outlander: Blood of my Blood season 2 episode 1 ahead.

Outlander: Blood of my Blood season 2 has officially kicked off on Starz (US) and MGM+ (international)... and boy, is it off to an explosive start.

Alongside some great Easter eggs (IYKYK), we've picked the action back up with Claire and Jamie's parents: Brian (Jamie Roy), Ellen (Harriet Slater), Julia (Hermione Corfield), and Henry (Jeremy Irvine).

The lovers are separated once again as the Scottish Highlands are split in two by the 1715 Jacobite Rising in season 2, with Julia and Henry split when their plan to travel back to the 1920s goes wrong at the last minute.

It was brutal, but somehow Henry has found himself in a psychiatric asylum in 1924, while Julia stays trapped in 1715... with no idea what's happened or how to fix it.

We see Henry undergo electric shock therapy after it's revealed that he was found on the street by a local policeman, incoherently babbling about time travel enough to cause concern.

It's a brutal scene to watch, but how was it to film? Irvine gives us a full breakdown... and it might actually have been worse than it looked.

'It really jumps in at the deep end'

"It's great. I got to do a load of research into something that I didn't know much about," Irvine tells me. "I'd watched some footage of people having it done, and that was a good excuse to sort of really jump in at the deep end... go for quite a big performance and um, see if we got away with it."

If you ask me, it certainly does. As I tell Irvine, season 2 episode 1 largely feels less like Outlander and more like an episode of American Horror Story or Ratched. For the tonal shift alone, I'm hooked — there's nothing like keeping us on our toes right from the get-go.

"I remember it being exhausting to film," he continues. I think I basically had a seizure for two days on a gurney. I really enjoyed the wacky way they went inside Henry's mind. I think that it's the part of the character that I enjoy playing the most, his fragile mental state and his warped view on reality.

"It's a great obstacle for him to have to try and work through. It's unsettling for me to watch back, which I think is a good, good thing."

If you've been following my Blood of my Blood coverage since season 1, you might remember that Irvine told me shortly after starting production that season 2 would be "wildly not what we expect." But now that we're all seeing it, were the actors as surprised when the drama picked back up?

"I remember before I read the scripts, I went for a costume fitting and had a vicar's outfit and a straitjacket to try on... that's when my suspicions were first aroused," Irvine adds. "For Henry, it's a completely different world to go into, which is great.

"We filmed episode 1 in that first month, which was nice because you don't always get to film in order. It was great to see how everybody just came back and hit the ground running pretty much from that first step."

But if you think this means that things are slowly down from episode 2 onwards, think again.

Drone technology has rapidly advanced in the last five years. They are recording sports events, helping to track the movements of wildfires, and even delivering McDonalds. But their rise has a far more sinister side.

As the war in Ukraine has demonstrated on sea, land, and in the air, their capacity as warfighting tools is evolving, with high-precision first-person view (FPV) drones being used for targeted strikes in warzones around the world.

But the drone industry relies heavily on Chinese hardware - with China's DJI commanding an 80% global market share - and with that comes the risk of supply chains being cut, costs increasing, or malicious software being secretly installed.

How drone tariffs address supply chain risk

In an attempt to address these risks, President Trump has recently introduced sweeping tariffs on drones and drone components in an attempt to bolster domestic production and reduce the risk of supply chain disruptions.

Drones over 25 kilograms or with thermal imaging capabilities now face a 100% tariff, while those smaller in size without “certain capabilities that particularly implicate national security” face a 25% tariff. The 25% tariff also applies to drone components.

But Trump - not wanting to strain relations with allies further than they already are - has applied a 15% tariff for drones and components from the European Union, Japan, Liechtenstein, Republic of Korea, Switzerland, and Taiwan. The United Kingdom has also received a much more lenient tariff of just 10%.

But the question remains on how drone manufacturers in the US will adapt to increased import costs and how the tariffs will affect manufacturing while addressing the growing demand for drones from civilian, law enforcement, and military markets.

Latronix provides compute, System-on-Module platforms, and flight-ready reference designs for drones and Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles (UAVs). I spoke to Latronix CEO Saleel Awsare to understand the challenges facing domestic component suppliers and how the tariffs will affect competition at home and abroad.

• As soon as I heard of Trump’s new tariffs on foreign-made drone parts, I immediately thought of the supply chain issues the US encountered after the tariffs imposed towards the start of 2025. How adaptable is the US drone supply chain to these new tariffs, and does the grace period provide enough time for adaptation?

The broader supply chain impact is that the market is being pushed toward more regionalized, transparent, and trusted sourcing rather than globally optimized sourcing based purely on cost. Drone manufacturers will have to look much more closely at where key components are designed, manufactured, assembled, and supported.

At Lantronix, we are well positioned because our System-on-Modules (SOMs) are dual-use platforms designed for a broad range of commercial and defense applications, helping ensure customers aren't exposed to unnecessary regulatory or supply-chain risk. Our SOMs are already production-ready embedded compute platforms, and our Drone Reference Platform is designed with NDAA and Trade Agreements Act (TAA) compliance in mind. With U.S. manufacturing options also coming online, we can give customers a path toward American-made SOM solutions without sacrificing the performance, software support, and scalability next-generation drone platforms require.

Lantronix is already positioned with compliant SOM and reference-platform solutions, but the grace period could still be challenging for customers because qualifying and designing a new compute platform into a production drone takes time, even when a compliant alternative is available today.

• What challenges and benefits do you see the US drone industry encountering as a result of these tariffs?

Challenges: The biggest short-term impact will hit the consumer and commercial drone market, where cost-sensitive products still rely heavily on foreign motors, electronic speed controllers, batteries, cameras and electronics. Tariffs could make affordable alternatives difficult to source until U.S. or allied suppliers scale. Defense suppliers should be better positioned because many already design around NDAA, Blue UAS and trusted-supply-chain requirements that are already in place.

Benefits: Longer term, the tariffs should accelerate a stronger U.S. and allied drone supply chain, with more focus on trusted sourcing, controlled bills of materials (BOMs) and domestic manufacturing. This creates an opportunity for Lantronix because our solutions already provide compliant, production-ready compute platforms with long lifecycle support and North American engineering.

• Do you see the lesser tariffs on US allies hindering or helping competition within the US drone industry, and are there key component industries (software or hardware) that will be affected to a greater extent?

The lower tariffs on U.S. allies should help the drone industry stay competitive while domestic capacity grows, giving manufacturers continued access to trusted suppliers in Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Europe and the UK.

Hardware will be affected far more than software, especially motors, batteries, ESCs, sensors and structural components where China has significant scale.

The tariffs should also accelerate investment in U.S. manufacturing and technologies like additive manufacturing. For Lantronix, this is favorable because we can provide trusted, compliant compute platforms while still leveraging established U.S. and allied semiconductor supply chains, rather than competing in the hardware categories facing the most disruption.

• What effect will the US Commerce Department's onshoring exemption have on the competition with existing domestic suppliers, particularly with reference to the reduced duty rates they will receive?

The onshoring exemption should benefit companies that were already proactive about compliance, supply-chain planning, and U.S. operations. Lantronix already had a plan in place to bring SOM production to our Plymouth, Minnesota facility, so the exemption strengthens our ability to support compliant U.S.-based drone programs. Companies with the right operational infrastructure and trusted supply chains should not be negatively impacted, and, in many cases, should be better positioned to grow and support the U.S. drone market.

• What effects will these tariffs have on the US drone industry's exports? Do you see US allies shifting purchases towards the US drone market or turning away as a result of these tariffs?

There is a potential downside internationally. Some EU and other non-U.S. customers could view U.S. localization requirements as a precedent or competitive threat, particularly if more countries begin mandating local manufacturing. It would be difficult for the industry to operate efficiently if every market required its own domestic supply chain.

Today, many international markets have less restrictive component-origin requirements than the U.S. does, but this could change as governments look to reduce dependence on Chinese or other sole-source suppliers. Longer term, we may see more emphasis on regional manufacturing, trusted allied supply chains, and diversified sourcing rather than purely global supply chains.

• Is the US drone industry better positioned to compete within the global market? Where can the US offer greater value in its drone manufacturing over the economies of scale driving drone production for DJI and China?

The US is now better positioned to compete, but historically there was not the same urgency to rebuild domestic drone manufacturing and supply chains. That is rapidly changing, although the timeline is challenging because moving and qualifying supply chains takes time.

There is also a wide range of critical components: from motors, batteries and electronics to magnets, rare-earth materials and other underlying resources. Additionally, there is a need for domestic or trusted-allied capacity to ramp up production. The US may not match DJI and China purely on cost and scale in the near term, so the greater opportunity is to compete on trusted supply chains, advanced AI and autonomy, cybersecurity, customization, and engineering support. For companies like Lantronix, that creates an opportunity to provide compliant, production-ready compute platforms with U.S.-based engineering and expanding domestic manufacturing support.

Beaming so brightly, I was tempted to measure his nits, President of Android Ecosystem at Google, Sameer Samat, grasped my hand tightly and asked, "So what do you think?"

Samat was referring to the five brand-spanking new Googlebooks arrayed around the room, all running Googlebook OS, the first hybrid lovechild of ChromeOS and Android.

A year ago in an interview with me ostensibly about Android 16, the over-sharing Samat let slip, "we’re going to be combining ChromeOS and Android into a single platform," and set the tech world on fire.

He said it so casually back in July 2025 that I scarcely grasped the significance. After all, there's been chatter about the idea for ages, but no one had confirmed it, and if it were true, it would mean Google was looking at the idea of an Android ecosystem in a whole new way.

Now, however, we have the fruits of that comment and all the labor in Googlebook OS and Googlebooks laptops from partners Asus, Acer, Lenovo, Dell, and HP, which go on pre-order today and start shipping October 5.

Samat told me that he wanted five partner brands and not just two because he wanted to show the breadth of options and noted that they have some points of differentiation, like some have facial recognition, and other Googlebooks include a fingerprint reader. To this point, we have ultra-lights, like the 2.2lb Asus, and workhorses, like a 15-inch Lenovo, and pen-supporting convertibles from Acer. While there's a range of CPUs, from the Intel Core Ultra line to the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite, and even MediaTek, they do all share some core Googlebook features.

There's the Glowbar, a thin, multi-colored bar on the top cover of all the laptops that lights up to let you know, among other things, that Gemini is at work, or to show battery status. There are even some Easter Eggs to discover. I wondered out loud if the battery status would work when the laptops weren't plugged in. Unfortunately, it's to show charge status.

Each laptop has a massive, haptic touchpad, and there's a G key for quick access to Google features, and a special Caps Lock key with instant access to text-based add-ons like emojis. They all offer the magic cursor, which you can jiggle to open screen-aware Gemini access, basically telling Gemini to do [this] with [that] on-screen element. They all also start with 16GB. Samat told me he was excited that they all start with the "right amount of RAM." 16GB means these natively Gemini-supporting portables are ready for a lot of local AI (the CPUs can reportedly handle up to 45 TOPs).

While a hybrid platform, there's no indication that this is a mobile OS in desktop clothing. Yes, there are things like customizable widgets (and ones you can create via prompts) that I, after a two-finger click on the trackpad, could endlessly resize and move, and access to all your Android Apps. But there are also desktop-level apps and services (online and offline access to Canva, Netflix, and Adobe apps), a dock, and a full file system.

One cool demo showed how you could search across files on your Googlebook and Android phone and even dig into inscrutable file names because the system can see inside files.

The Android infusion combines the Android in your hand and the Googlebook laptop on your desk. There's a single sign-on that recognizes you as one user on the phone and laptop. An email started on your Android phone can be continued seamlessly on the laptop (it does not yet let you go in the other direction). There's a small icon that appears in the dock, showing a tiny phone. You click that, and it opens the email draft on the laptop Gmail app.

The intention here is quite clear: a true Android ecosystem where, Samat told me, it all just works. "That's the dream," he said. The benchmark for such an ecosystem will always be Apple and how its laptops, desktops, phones, and wearables all work together. I asked Samat if I could expect similar levels of interoperability, zeroing in on how when I get an authentication code on my iPhone, it automatically appears on my MacBook Air. He said the unified messaging system will allow this, and added that they would've demoed it on stage that day, but wanted to keep the presentation relatively lean.

Before the event, I wondered if Googlebooks were intended to compete with Apple's new and quite popular $699 / £699 / AU$1,049 MacBook Neo. However, these systems start at $899 / £999 (around AU$1,899) , and a few were $1,199 (around £1,200 / AU$1,680) and $1,299 (around £1,300 / AU$1,800).

That was intentional. Samat, who said Neos are great but that people often find their performance limits, told me they wanted to start with premium offerings. Instead of compromises, Googlebooks offer eye-catching designs and real performance.

Googlebooks run desktop-grade apps online and offline, though App downloads appear to come exclusively through the Google Play Store, and in demos I saw, the systems have the power to do traditional coding and Agentic or Vibe Coding with Google Antigravity. It's worth mentioning, though, that to do the latter, you will need a Gemini account and tokens.

Samat, though, is excited about the power and possibilities, enthusing over the inclusion of a Linux Terminal, a fact that's not surprising since the stack includes a Linux Kernel (right below the Android Stack).

Glancing around the room, Samat asked me which Googlebook was my favorite. As I scanned the crowded demo space, I realized just how much each laptop looked like a standard Windows system, until, of course, you opened them up and saw that Googlebook OS desktop. After a moment, I told him the 2.2-lb. Asus Googlebook is quite attractive. Samat grinned and asked me if I'd checked out the aluminum-clad HP. I agreed that it looked like a premium laptop, too.

On stage, Samat said, "For so long I’ve wanted to do what we’re doing today," calling Googlebooks "a new category of laptops built for how people actually work today."

Later, Samat told me this is "just a start," and there's a lot more to come.

The Googlebooks I saw were notable for their smooth and polished operation. It may be the merging of two platforms, but each Googlebook's desktop and operations I tried felt remarkably unified, as if they'd been together all along.

Still, I had to wonder how this all fits in with Googlebook's cousin, the Chromebook, low-cost laptops that are more or less shell systems offering easy access to cloud-based apps. Schools love them. Samat claimed that 70% of all US education is using them and said it's the only system designed to be passed from one person to another (as each user signs in and out and so on).

Googlebooks and Chromebooks are not mutually exclusive. Samat said Chromebook is important, but it's for a different user and purpose. I said that Chromebook is a doorway, but the Googlebook appears to be about productivity. "Exactly," he told me, still smiling.

• Vivo reveals its new flagship X500 series of phones, with three new models
• The X500 Pro Max is the priciest model, succeeding the X300 Ultra
• They're only available in China at launch, with wider availability coming later

It's no longer a secret that some of the best camera phones are coming out of China, and Vivo is very much competing with Oppo and Xiaomi with its flagship 'X' series — it has just revealed the latest crop; the X500, X500 Pro and X500 Pro Max.

I'm at the launch event in Shanghai, China, and have already had 24 hours with the Vivo X500 Pro Max, which effectively replaces last year's X300 Ultra. Like the previous flagship, it features a triple front camera array comprising ultra-wide, main, and telephoto Zeiss optics, only this time, the main lens has a 24mm focal length, like most other flagship wide cameras (whereas the X300 Ultra stood out with a tighter 35mm main camera lens).

The 3.5x telephoto lens has an 85mm equivalent focal length — a well-loved focal length by portrait photographers — and a mode which unleashes a 200MP resolution, while the 50MP boosted resolution is available for the ultra-wide and main cameras.

I'll be bringing you an in-depth camera comparison soon with the Vivo X500 Pro Max, Vivo X300 Ultra, and the Oppo Find X9 Ultra (a top camera phone from last year) soon, plus more details on the former. In the meantime, I've included some of my favorite photos that I've taken with the X500 Pro Max already, so you can begin to see what it's capable of.

The X500 series was announced on September 21 and, at launch, is exclusive to China, with a wider rollout expected later, although it's unlikely to come to the US. With the Oppo Find X9 Ultra and Xiaomi 17 Ultra, both now available in the UK, I'll be keeping an eye out for Vivo's release plans with the X500 models.

Vivo X500 Pro Max sample gallery

I spent quite a bit of this year wondering about Googlebooks. After Google announced them in May, things got a little quiet, and I noticed that when I was at the huge Computex 2026 show in Taiwan, no one seemed to be talking about them — Nvidia’s RTX Spark ARM chip, and Windows 11 competitors to the (then recently-released) MacBook Neo, were the talk of Taipei.

Computex would have been the ideal event for Google and its hardware partners to hype up Googlebooks, if only to give us a bit of a tease. Instead, the silence made me worry that they could end up being another Google product that quickly gets forgotten about.

So, when rumors of an impending Googlebook launch started cropping up a month or so ago, I was very interested. However, with information still so thin on the ground, no one was really sure what a Googlebook would be. Would they be budget laptops designed to replace Chromebooks? Or, might they be mid-rangers aimed at taking on the MacBook Neo?

Well, now that we have pricing information, and I’ve spent time with the five Googlebooks that will go on sale on October 5, I can confirm that Googlebooks are neither of those things — instead, they’re premium thin and light laptops designed to rival the MacBook Air, and Windows 11-powered Ultrabooks. And that makes them all the more interesting.

More ambitious than a Chromebook

With the cheapest Googlebook, the Acer Googlebook 14, starting at $899 / £999 (around AU$1,899), you might be disappointed that these aren’t going to be ultra-affordable Chromebook replacements, especially at a time when prices of everything, especially tech, seems to be climbing.

However, as multiple Google employees told me when I visited the company's UK headquarters in London, Googlebooks are not replacing Chromebooks. Instead, Chromebooks will remain the budget, entry-level, laptop choice running Chrome OS, while Chromebook Plus devices will remain the mid-range option.

Googlebooks, meanwhile, will be the high-end, flagship laptops that run an entirely new operating system — Googlebook OS — while still offering plenty of value for money.

The $1,000 / £1,000-plus price has allowed Google and its hardware partners to be rather ambitious with these first-generation Googlebooks. Each one (the aforementioned Acer Googlebook 14, plus the Lenovo Googlebook 15, HP Googlebook 14, Dell XPS Googlebook, and Asus Googlebook 14) has a stylish thin and light design, and, depending on the model, offers premium features such as OLED touch displays, haptic touchpads, and fingerprint sensors.

Each Googlebook also has a ‘Glowbar’, which is an LED stripe located on the back of the lid that can light up in a variety of ways depending on what you’re doing on the Googlebook. Described by John Maletis, Google’s VP Laptops and Tablets, at the launch event I attended, as a ‘distinctively Google design statement’, it adds a nice bit of color to each Googlebook, and I especially liked how it can show the battery level of the device when it’s plugged in and charging.

In the future, third-party developers will have access to the Glowbar, so that their apps can use the feature, and while I can’t see it being an essential part of the Googlebook experience (remember, the Glowbar is on the back of the laptop’s lid, so usually facing away from the user, limiting its usefulness), it’s a nice little detail that helps these laptops stand out.

Googlebooks also have premium components to complement their designs. Each one comes with at least 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD, and some models will allow for higher configurations up to 32GB of RAM and larger SSDs. They're also powered by high-end chips from Intel (series 3 Core Ultra processors) and Qualcomm (Snapdragon X Elite and X1 Elite chips), and feature NPUs capable of over 45 TOPS (trillions of operations per second) for on-device AI — as you might expect from Google, a big focus of Googlebooks is AI.

Thanks to this combination of powerful specs and the lightweight Googlebook OS, Googlebooks feel very fast and responsive in use. While I wasn’t able to run any benchmarks during my time with the new devices, I spent a decent amount of time with each one browsing the web, using apps and even playing some games (admittedly Android games designed for mobile, but even they can be quite graphically impressive these days), and Googlebook OS was fast and fluid, with nary a pause as I opened up multiple apps.

With Google promising up to 10 years of software support, these Googlebooks could be the last laptop you buy for a long time — and that makes their higher prices slightly more palatable. A 10-year lifespan for a laptop feels very MacBook-like too.

A brand-new operating system

Perhaps the most exciting thing about Googlebooks is that they're running on an entirely new operating system, Googlebook OS, rather than simply using Google’s Chrome OS software.

While Chrome OS has come on in leaps and bounds since its inception, Google’s lightweight operating system built around its Chrome web browser has plenty of limitations. While these limitations have helped keep hardware requirements and costs down, making Chromebooks excellent budget laptops, they can also be frustrating for users. It’s the main reason why I stopped using my Google Pixelbook Go, one of my favorite laptops ever, as my daily driver some years ago.

Googlebook OS combines the best things about Chrome OS, namely its lack of bloat, with Google’s other incredibly popular operating system, Android, to create something entirely new. Built on Linux, and making use of the higher hardware specs of Googlebooks, Googlebook OS is a fully-fledged desktop operating system that really feels like it can compete with Windows 11 and macOS.

Thanks to the OS's ability to run Android apps, Googlebooks will launch on October 5 with access to millions of apps and games via Google’s Play Store, and there will be a dedicated section of the Play Store for desktop apps. These apps won’t just be mobile Android apps clumsily expanded onto a larger screen, but more complex and capable apps that have been designed for Googlebooks with keyboard and touchpad controls. I imagine at launch that this library of desktop apps will be rather limited, but will hopefully expand quickly, especially if Googlebooks turn out to be a hit.

At the launch event, I saw how Googlebook OS fixes one of my biggest issues with Chrome OS. Apps for Chrome OS are usually very limited, sometimes requiring an internet connection to run. The Chrome web browser was the mobile version, which meant you couldn’t run extensions, a deal breaker for myself, as I have several extensions I need to run for my job.

So, one of the first things I did when playing around with a Googlebook was launch Chrome, and I’m happy to report that it’s the full desktop version, so extensions are supported.

Googlebook OS also has a fast and intuitive file browser app, with built-in AI that allows you to use natural language to search your files. In the example I was shown, you could search for ‘a photo with a dog in it’, and Googlebook OS will identify any photo which includes a dog, rather than just going off file names or tags. It’s the kind of responsive and easy-to-use search that Microsoft has long promised in Windows 11, but has never managed to nail. Google has made it look easy.

While Googlebook OS is a new operating system, the aim, according to Alex Kuscher Senior Director, Laptops and Tablets at Google, is to create “a laptop that feels familiar to Android users”.

That means an interface that, despite being built for desktops, looks a lot like Android on smartphones. It uses the same Material 3 Expressive interface, and widgets, menus and settings should be recognizable to anyone who's used a modern Android device. The fact that every Googlebook comes with a touchscreen means there should only be a small learning curve for Android users.

Of course, if you use a version of Android that’s heavily modified, such as with the OneUI interface found on Samsung devices, things won’t be quite as similar, as the Googlebook OS interface is very much based on the stock Android you find on Google’s own Pixel series of devices. Still, anyone who's used an Android device should find Googlebook OS easier to pick up and use compared to Windows or macOS… or even Chrome OS.

Googlebooks and Android devices will also work seamlessly with each other, so once paired, you’ll be able to access and launch apps and files from your smartphone on a Googlebook, even allowing you to carry on where you left off on one device when switching to another.

I saw this in action with a few apps, and it looked like it worked very well. It was intuitive and slick, and finally offers the kind of interoperability between mobile device and laptop that Android users have been wanting. If you’ve ever been jealous of how well MacBooks and iPhones work with each other as an Android user, then a Googlebook is definitely worth considering.

One thing to note is that, while you’ll be able to see and reply to text messages your Android phone receives on your Googlebook, you won’t be able to make and answer calls. A Google employee told me this is for security reasons; however, iPhone users can answer their iPhone through macOS, so if Apple has found a way to do this securely, I’m sure Google will figure it out as well. I was also assured that WearOS devices, such as the Pixel Watch 5, will get some sort of compatibility with Googlebooks as well, but that feature will come in the future.

Based on my time with the first tranche of Googlebooks, I've been impressed with the Apple-like way in which they work with Android devices. If anyone has tried the rather clumsy way Windows 11 works with Android, the way Googlebook OS handles things will be a revelation. Previously, only Samsung got close to this kind of ecosystem, but that relied on using Samsung apps and devices. The Googlebook OS way of doing things feels far more natural.

It's also hard to overstate how big a deal a new operating system to challenge the dominance of Windows (and to a lesser extent, macOS) on laptops is. Many people have been growing frustrated with Windows 11’s instability and bloat, and while Googlebook OS also features heaps of AI (a common complaint of Windows 11 these days), it does so in a less obtrusive way. It certainly feels like Googlebook OS was built to incorporate AI, rather than it being bolted on, as with Windows 11 (which, to be fair to Microsoft, was launched before AI really took off).

The Magic Pointer feature, for example, brings up Google’s Gemini AI with a shake of mouse cursor, and while I don’t think this is a killer feature, it’s at least easy to ignore if you don’t need it (and just as easy to use if you do).

New Googlebooks will come with 12 months of Gemini Spark — Google's personal AI agent — which is a nice added value, though I worry how much of Googlebook OS’ AI features will suddenly become unusable when those 12 months are up and you don’t resubscribe.

Also, while Googlebook OS feels lightweight thanks to the lack of preinstalled ‘bloatware’ and speed, it offers plenty of depth as well, with full Terminal access, support for Linux containers, and access to Google’s Antigravity tool for coding your own apps. The Create My Widget feature, currently in beta, lets users make their own desktop widgets using natural-language prompts.

So, it looks like Googlebook OS could be the best example yet of a lightweight operating system that doesn’t feel limiting for more advanced users. The integration between Googlebooks and Android devices is also impressive, and perhaps the thing that both Microsoft and Apple should be most worried about, as there are a lot of Android device owners looking for a laptop that works this well with their smartphone.

There’s no doubt that Googlebooks are going to be impressive laptops, and I left the event increasingly confident that pitching Googlebooks to compete with MacBook Airs (especially after Apple has raised the price of its laptops) rather than limiting them to budget laptops, is a canny move. We’ll be getting all of the new Googlebooks in for review soon at TechRadar, but from my early time with them, I would advise any Android owner who's currently thinking about buying a new laptop to hold fire until October 5.

For years, major governments around the world have routinely conducted wargames and simulation exercises to test their military readiness, crisis response, and supply chain resilience. For the first time ever, we're about to see how one plays out.

Based on its hit 2025 podcast of the same name, Sky TV has developed four-part docuseries The Wargame, which explores how a fictitious UK cabinet — made up of former MPs from multiple parties — could responded to completely made-up threats and eventual attack from Russia.

Here's how it works. Our cabinet (listed below) will face an escalating simulated crisis, beginning with the suspicious murders of two RAF soldiers. While the Russian side, and any international players, are being given instructions by producers, every decision we see from the UK side is being made in the moment.

With four episodes dropping nightly on both Sky and NOW from September 21, I won't sugar coat it: The Wargame is an absolutely terrifying watch. If you've ever seen anything like Threads, When the Wind Blows or the BBC 1966 film The Wargame, it's the same sense of impending dread... just from the other side of the table.

But, don't get me wrong — this might just be the most important piece of television of the 21st century. As the UK's War Book is being redrafted in real time to advise the public on how best to be prepared, consider that Sky TV is granting us an important head start

We can no longer bury our heads in the sand over just how unprepared the UK is, and artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the main reasons we'll be able to realize this.

The Wargame is the most important TV show you'll stream in your lifetime — just be prepared

Before we drill deeper into what you'll soon see, here's our full list of players and their assigned roles:

• ● Prime Minister: The Rt Hon. the Lord Gove PC
• ● Deputy Prime Minister: The Rt Hon. Nicola Sturgeon PC
• ● Defence Secretary: The Rt Hon. Dame Penny Mordaunt DBE PC
• ● Home Secretary: The Rt Hon. the Baroness Harman KC PC
• ● Foreign Secretary: The Rt Hon. Jim Murphy PC
• ● Attorney General: The Rt Hon. the Baroness Warsi PC
• ● Director of Communications: The Baroness Hazarika MBE
• ● Chief of Defence Staff: General Sir Richard Barrons KCB CBE
• ● National Security Adviser: The Rt Hon. the Lord Kim Darroch KCMG
• ● Intelligence Chief: Christopher Steele
• ● Nato Secretary General: The Rt Hon. the Lord Robertson KT GCMG PC
• ● US Secretary of State: Anthony Scaramucci

As you can see in the above trailer, Sky has been incredibly upfront about its use of generative AI visual effects to create scenes showcasing Russian missiles hitting numerous UK targets. This is normally the part where I'd do my "AI is unnecessary in the creative arts, why couldn't they have just used CGI instead?" tirade, but actually, I'm glad that this decision was made.

Why? Not only is there a poetic irony of using AI to depict missile attacks mere weeks after the global public was told that there's a 10% that AI could kill us all within the next decade, but its use feeds into a wider point that The Wargame is trying to make. We've become so used to a certain type of 'peacetime life' and concerned ourselves with other issues (such as AI) that we've lost any kind of resilience we've ever had since World War II.

While the exact military capabilities of the UK are made up, seeing just how weak and unprepared we are if direct conflict was to strike our shores will hopefully be a wake-up call to anyone watching. As Sturgeon tells us, these choices are often like picking between "bad and worse," and it's nice to see our politicians slightly more humanized, even if the docuseries doesn't fill me confidence as to how international conflict could be handled.

With a fake COBR-style boardroom, military ops room, and press room all in use, it does feel as though this is the closest we'll ever get to an all-politician version of Big Brother. But, fake TikTok clips from real-life influencers capturing their reactions to the fictional breaking news brings the effects straight back home.

What do our players hope we take away from watching? "Governments have to, of course, hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. And that's not just about defence spending," Sturgeon said at the show's launch event. "There's a whole debate about preparedness of the population and some really basic things that we're just not at the races of, in terms of being prepared for even a fraction of this unfolding.

"So, getting rid of the optimism bias that this won't happen, to starting to think seriously about the prospect of this possibly happening." Deep breaths, people.

President Trump has unveiled his latest plan to combat concerns around AI by appointing a new "czar" to oversee the technology, and also establish an "AI force" to help enforce this.

However there's just one problem - as anyone who actually pays attention to the technology industry news cycle will be well aware of, Salesforce recently revealed its latest interface platform for AI.

Its name...AIforce.

Which AIforce is best AIforce?

Unveiled at its recent Dreamforce 2026 event, AIforce was the headline announcement for the company, promising no less than a new way of interfacing with the data and AI together to help unlock productivity and efficiency in the workplace like never before.

Described by Salesforce CEO and Chair Marc Benioff as "really the most exciting thing I've ever seen for Salesforce," AIforce was a huge presence at the show, one of the biggest technology conferences on the calendar, with posters and displays splashed around the venue.

The problem is, no-one seems to have told President Trump.

Let's be honest, the man is hardly a master of coming up with good names for anything ("Space Force"/"Big Beautiful Bill"/"Gulf of America") - and is currently seeking out views on an alternative name for the concept of Artificial Intelligence itself.

In a typically rambling post on his Truth Social site, the President noted that his administration “will not in any way hinder or stifle the Growth of this incredible Industry. Rather, we will cherish it, help it, and watch over it, as it grows!”

He also linked the idea of the AI Force to his creation of the Space Force, which he claimed was a “tremendous SUCCESS.”

The President gave no further details about the AI Force, such as when it might be announced or launched, nor who he had in mind to lead it. Luckily for all of us know, Trump has insisted that “Only High I.Q. individuals need apply!” for the position of AI Czar.

Mr Benioff - maybe it's time to give the President a call and avoid a copyright issue?

Today's best smartwatches are ultra-capable, feature-packed powerhouses. But is it just me, or are they all starting to feel kinda samey? Casio recently made headlines with its delightfully retro F-B100W, which takes your classic, rubbery, blocky Casio watch and adds in step-counting features. That sent me off on a hunt for other smartwatches and fitness trackers that do something a bit different, and I was not disappointed with the results. I've rounded up my favorites below.

There's the new-out Huawei Watch D3, which looks like your standard, modern smartwatch, but has a secret, in-built blood pressure cuff. Amazfit has just announced a AMOLED watch with solar charging (a combination not even Garmin has managed to crack), and a clever, flippable design.

For those who prefer a traditional watch aesthetic, there are the Garmin Instinct Crossover and Withings Scanwatch 2, both of which have smartwatch features but also mechanical hands. Neither is especially new, but both have maintained popularity by their seamless blending of digital and analog.

Finally, a couple of especially intriguing options from outside the big watch brands. The Jaye band is an ultra-minimalist smartwatch that displays only the most important notifications on its tiny screen to minimize distractions. And then there's the LightInk, which can run for an absurd 400 days on a single charge. Such a lengthy runtime is achieved by adding solar charging, swapping your average vibrant AMOLED display for a low-energy, monochrome e-ink one, and stripping the smart features right, right back. It's open source, so with the aid of a 3D printer and a few basic components, anyone could own one.

Scroll down for a closer look at these weird and wonderful smart trackers — hit the View details button to learn more about each one.

Weird watches

We all learn in different ways. As a visual learner, I really appreciate seeing ideas drawn out or presented through images. Give me a page of text, and I can read it, no problem, but not a huge amount is retained by my little grey cells.

Unfortunately, not everything can be boiled down into a simple image, diagram, or video. Some concepts are just too complex to be simplified. When I am forced to read a body of text, I prefer to hear someone read to me rather than read it for myself.

The problem is that not every resource has an accompanying audio feature. I could use my web browser’s reading mode, but there’s usually only a limited number of voices, and they often sound electronic and overprocessed. That’s why I’ve recently started using Speechify.

This simple and straightforward app features over 200 lifelike voices, each of which can be customized by type, pitch, and accent. The app can read uploaded files, images, and pasted text and integrates seamlessly into a range of workflows and file repositories. You can even choose the reading speed to be up to 4.5 times the normal speed, although I wouldn't recommend that!

AI voices that sound natural

Whatever you like to read, Speechify has so many voices on offer that you’re bound to find one that you enjoy listening to. The app guides users through a series of questions that help you narrow down the best choice for your requirements. It begins by asking you which type of voice you’d like. You can choose between conversational, narration, acting, professional, meditation, and educational.

From there, the app asks you whether you’d like the voice to sound bright, soft, neutral, crisp, warm, or deep, and whether you like a low, mid, or high pitch. The final option is to choose between British, American, and Australian accents. Unfortunately, these are the only three possibilities at the moment, although I’m sure they’ll add more in time.

With these simple questions answered, Speechify scans its 200+ voices and tells you which voices are the best fit. All you have to do is select your favorite, choose a document to read, and sit back and enjoy. And if you fancy a change, picking a different voice is easy.

An abundance of workflows

Speechify offers a number of different workflows, all of which are accessible through the Home tab of the app. First up is an AI-driven option where the app asks you, “What do you want to work on today?” Anyone who has used ChatGPT, Gemini, or similar will be familiar with this workflow.

Simply describe your task or ask anything, either with text or through the microphone, and Speechify will look it up for you. You can even attach files to complement your search request. Answers are presented as text but can be ‘read’ by the voice assistant. You can also ask follow-up questions to delve deeper into a topic.

If you already have a document that you’d like read out, you can choose from the list of seven workflow options. These are upload files from your phone, upload from a cloud repository, scan pages, paste text, find a book, paste a link, and dictate text.

I expected Speechify to handle PDFs and web pages with ease, but what I was most impressed with was its ability to analyze and read out images. I tested the app with several different photos, and it was able to read all types of information, including technical details. The images also didn’t have to be the highest quality or the best lit.

One of the best things about Speechify is that it lets me do a lot more multitasking. Prior to using the app, I would have to allocate a lot more time to sitting down and having focused reading time. Now I can upload a file or take a picture of something and crack on with house chores at the same time. It’s transformed how I spend my time.

Getting the most out of Speechify

The free version of Speechify provides a reasonable number of features, but it lacks offline listening, advanced voices, faster playback, and additional features such as dictation. To access these, you’ll need a Premium account, which costs $175 / £129.99 per year. There’s a free 3-day trial so you can test out the additional features before committing.

Also, if you love audiobooks, Speechify also has a library of over 100,000 books across every genre. This includes fiction, classics, self-help, and more. This costs $80 / £60 for lifetime access but is often discounted down to $35 / £25. At this price, Speechify Library is an affordable alternative to Amazon’s Audible service.

Whether you read to study, for leisure, learn a language, or simply want to boost your productivity, Speechify will help you realize your goals in super-fast time.

Download Speechify on iOS and Android.

The A Plague Tale series has become one of the finest in video games since the first game, A Plague Tale: Innocence, released back in 2019.

Its historical background, immersive and deeply compelling yet bleak and miserable narratives, as well as its memorable characters and robust mix of stealth action and survival, are perfect for thoughtful, enjoyable, and deeply memorable experiences.

As a result, with the third and latest game now out in the wild in the form of Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy — there's never been a better time to celebrate the bleak and gripping series with a quiz.

As a long-time A Plague Tale fan, I've crafted the quiz below just as Amicia did with her ammo: deliberately and with great thought and care. It's somewhat hard to get three excellent video games' worth of trivia into a short quiz, but I think I've picked some more straightforward teasers and some deep-cut brain ticklers to appeal to fans of all kinds of the series.

Best of luck, and let us know how you get on!

What did you make of our A Plague Tale quiz? The right balance of more obvious questions and tougher ones? Let me know in the comments, and come back for more quizzes soon — and also let me know what other video game quizzes we could do!

As AI continues to take over more and more everyday tasks, there's an increasing amount of people looking to enjoy experiences with more of a human touch.

AI can undoubtedly be useful great at sifting through large amounts of data, and taking away the drudgery of reporting and admin work - but what about areas which require the senses?

So can AI perform in matters of taste, smell and touch?

tAIster steps up

Salesforce has been a leader in pushing forward AI-enabled experiences in recent years, with its wide range of AI agents helping customers from all around the world.

At its recent Dreamforce 2026, I took part in an AI sommelier session powered by an AI agent to see if the technology could be applied to wine tasting.

In a plush executive lounge away from the madness of Dreamforce's campgrounds, we were given three glasses of mystery wines, and then connected to an AI agent by scanning a QR code with a smartphone.

This hooked us up with tAIster, an AI agent which had been educated on around 400,000 different types of wines, including their taste, feel, aroma and other attributes.

Before tasting a wine, the agent asked us to use a few keywords to describe how it looked, and how grippy it was in the glass. We were then asked to describe the wine's aroma, and finally, the taste - with the aim of being as descriptive as we could, so the agent could guess which wine we had been given.

So did it work? I'm not a massive wine buff, but I tried to be as descriptive as possible, with the hope if giving the agent what it needed. Ultimately, it guessed my first two samples correctly, but got the third hopelessly wrong - guessing it was Veuve Cliquot champagne rather than Chardonnay due to me mentioning the glass had some small bubbles in.

So all in all, a fun example of what AI agents could do in previously unexpected areas - and although it's just a proof of concept right now, I don't think any real-world sommeliers will be quaking in their boots just yet.

If you followed the release of the new Canon EOS R8 Mark II, you might be wondering what the feature pre-continuous shooting is, otherwise known as pre-capture (Sony and Nikon), Pro Capture (OM System), Pre-Burst (Panasonic) or Pre-shot ES (Fujifilm).

The feature has been around for a while now having been introduced by OM System (Olympus), and it’s slowly worked its way across brands and into affordable models, including the R8 II, Sony A7 V and Nikon Z5 II.

I'm here to explain pre-capture, and show you the benefit of this feature with images I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to capture without it. Let’s dive in.

What is pre-capture and how does it work?

Picture this — you’ve got your camera fixed on a subject, poised for the action to happen; athletes on the 100m start line, a kingfisher on a branch that could take flight at any moment, a potential goal in a soccer match.

Sometimes your reactions aren’t up to speed to capture the key moment, and it's gone before your finger has pressed the shutter button. It’s exactly these scenarios that pre-capture is designed for, and it's the feature that helped me get the images of birds in flight, where previously I’d have missed the moment or simply settled for ones of them perched on branches.

Pre-capture gives you up to a 1 second head start (depending on the model) before the shutter is pressed, continually shooting (to a temporary buffer) before you press the shutter button, at which point the images shot in the specified time before the shutter button was fully pressed are recorded retrospectively.

With pre-capture on, it's typically initiated by half pressing the shutter button (or fully pressing an assignable button, such as the autofocus button), as is the case with the Sony A7 V I used to take the pictures in this feature.

The Canon EOS R8 Mark II, for example, can shoot up to 40fps and offers up to 0.5 second pre-capture, meaning you can retrospectively record a 20 photo sequence in the half second before you press the shutter button. The Sony A7 V can shoot up to 30fps with up to 1 second pre-capture, so that’s up to 15 images.

How to use pre-capture effectively

I recently got into bird photography and it didn’t take me long to bag some beautiful photos of the varied birdlife in my local nature reserve and wetland, using some superb review gear — including the Sony 400-800mm F6.3-8 super telephoto zoom lens.

As enjoyable as this hobby is (and it really is), soon enough I was considering how I could mix up the kind of photos I was making, besides stationary birds on branches. Pre-capture came to mind. How about capturing photos of the birds taking flight?

Birds in flight is one of the toughest photography challenges — as I found out during a recent hands-on with the Fujifilm XF 400mm F4.5 R LM WR lens at a birds of prey experience. And that was when I had some idea of where the birds would be flying. But wild birds in flight? Nigh on impossible, I thought.

I chose the most appropriate autofocus mode (in this case bird subject detection), the continuous high drive mode (30fps), set a suitably fast shutter speed to freeze movement (1/1000sec, wasn't fast enough it turned out) and, of course, activated pre-capture. I started with the maximum time possible of 1 second, though the camera in question has options from 0.1 sec to 1 sec in full decimal points.

Pre-capture helped me get the shots you see in this article, but there were a couple more non-technical ingredients in the recipe: an eye for the shot and, ultimately, patience.

Once I had the composition and subject I liked, I kept the camera locked in with the shutter half pressed and waited for the bird to take flight. Many times the bird was content for several minutes, and I could feel my finger / thumb burning by the time it moved.

On my first attempt I thought I had missed the moment even with pre-capture active, but low and behold my slow reactions were redeemed.

I think my patience has paid off. Yes, the photos of the birds stationary are still lovely, but the ones of them in flight in an already well-composed scene take them to new heights.

There are plenty of other scenarios that benefit from pre-capture, and if you’re a keen sports or wildlife photographer it’s well worth trying out — I’ve included a list of recent cameras equipped with the feature, plus shopping links, below.

Cameras with pre-capture

The following cameras are listed as having each company's version of pre-capture:

• Canon EOS R1, EOS R5 Mark II, EOS R6 Mark II, EOS R6 Mark III, EOS R8 Mark II
• Nikon Z9, Nikon Z8, Nikon Z6 III, Nikon Z5 II, Nikon Z50 II
• Sony A9 III, Sony A1 II, Sony A7R VI, Sony A7 V
• OM System OM-1, OM1 Mark-II, OM-5 Mark II, Olympus OM-D E-M1 X, E-M1 Mark III, E-M1 Mark II, E-M5 Mark III, Tough TG-6, Tough TG-7
• Panasonic Lumix G9, Lumix G9 II, Lumix S5 II / X, Lumix S1 II, Lumix S1 II R
• Fujifilm X-T5, X-T4, X-T3, X-T30 III, X-T30 II, X-T30, X-H2S, X-H2, X-Pro3, X100VI

It’s been eight years since I last played a match in Heroes of the Storm.

For the majority of my late twenties, though, it was the MOBA my group of friends and I played night after night. Sure, everyone else was on League of Legends or Dota 2 as they were deemed to be the superior games in the genre, but we enjoyed our home in Blizzard’s crossover brawler, battling away as iconic faces such as Thrall, Jim Raynor, Tracer, and Diablo himself.

I fondly remember the nights spent playing HOTS, and our group would regularly reminisce about the hours we spent together on the game. We’d retell the same stories of the incredible plays and frustrating losses that we would experience every session — and never tire of joking about all the times someone would overextend in mid lane.

However, in that time between my last game and now, and following Blizzard’s decision to put the game into maintenance mode in July 2022, I had fully moved on.

But suddenly, that all changed. At this year’s BlizzCon, the opening keynote presentation kicked off with a surprise that no one could have anticipated. Heroes of the Storm is getting a new hero: Xal’atath, the Harbinger of the Void.

Cue a flurry of messages in the group chat, a Robin Williams ‘what year is it?’ gif, and exclamations of “we’re so back.” The game’s subreddit, a near-dormant sanctuary for players still fighting away in the Nexus, exploded back to life as well. The passion and excitement were reactivated in an instant — and I felt the same too.

A surprise return

Naturally, I had to reinstall the game, and over the past week I’ve dived in for a couple of hours nearly every night. I’ve amazed myself at how quickly I’ve picked it up again and how much I’ve remembered about each map, hero, and the flow of a game. It’s felt so good to be back, and it’s reminded me why I think it’s such an unsung hero in the MOBA genre.

See, Heroes of the Storm strips out a lot of the more, let’s say, hardcore aspects that were found in a lot of the top MOBAs of the time.

There’s no last-hitting creeps to get extra resources, no shop at which to spend gold to build your character, experience is shared team-wide to (theoretically) keep everyone on a level playing field, and there are generally fewer secondary features to think about during a match.

That led to some thinking that Heroes of the Storm is a ‘dumbing-down’ of the MOBA, but I’d argue that the game isn’t lacking in complexity.

One way is with the talents that are earned as you level. These allow you to build your character in a chosen way, adapting your strategy to your strengths and countering the team composition you’re facing.

Surprising depth

The main gimmick, though, is that rather than playing in a single arena over and over again, HOTS offers several maps that feature different main objectives. These require you to prepare and be ready for those moments when you need to defend an area, escort a payload, or gather scattered resources.

Achieving these gives you a temporary boon that works towards destroying your opponent’s home base, or Nexus. That might be a giant bone golem that lays siege to any structures in its path, or a barrage of missiles that directly attack buildings. At one point, a player could take control of a massive plant abomination to root enemies in place and smash up the other team’s defences.

These objectives add dynamism and give players a direction to move towards at regular intervals throughout a match. They also encourage more teamfighting, which I find is the most exciting and enjoyable part of any MOBA, where positioning and smart engagements are rewarded over repeatedly clicking on a creep at just the right time to build a pot of gold.

While I can appreciate there’s a skill to farming creeps efficiently in the opening phases of a Dota 2 or League of Legends game, I’d rather not be spending my time doing that. I’m also not a huge fan of the downtime in those games, going back to buy items and fiddling around in menus to buy a bigger sword or stock up on wards that you scatter across the map to give vision.

In comparison, Heroes of the Storm is a game of near-constant action, with matches that generally last a glorious 20 minutes or so. Sometimes shorter if you go on a tear, and sometimes longer if things are tight, but rarely too long that it starts to feel like a slog — especially in those painful situations where you can see the writing’s on the wall in the first 15 minutes.

This is all before I’ve even dug into the roster, which is a joy for any Blizzard fans and anyone who loves to have a diverse range of fighting styles at their fingertips.

As well as its satisfying selection of tanks, assassins, brawlers, and supports to master from across WarCraft, StarCraft, Diablo, Overwatch, and more, Heroes of the Storm has fun experimenting with all sorts of characters.

Abathur is a classic: a creature of the Zerg who hides in the backlines, but can assimilate with other players anywhere on the map to provide support. There’s Cho’Gall: a two-headed ogre who has its movement controlled by one player and abilities controlled by another — cue chaotic attempts to work together. And there’s the Blizzard deep cut, The Lost Vikings, who challenge you to control three different characters at once, almost bringing the stress of a full RTS experience to the game.

It’s these new and fascinating ideas in its map and hero design, as well as a focus on the more thrilling aspects of a MOBA, that make me think Heroes of the Storm has always been such an underrated gem.

I’m hoping this new spotlight on the game not only brings back a lot of old fans like me, but also introduces it to an entirely new audience so Blizzard sees reason to release heroes and updates in the future.

It’s almost time for Meta Connect, with the brand hosting its annual event on September 23 and 24. Here, we’re expecting to see several new devices, with a focus on smart glasses.

Software updates are also likely, including to Meta Muse, but between the RAM crisis and a privacy backlash against the company’s smart specs, this might not be an entirely rosy affair.

So below, we’ve detailed the seven major things to expect at Meta Connect 2026 — covering both the good and the bad.

1. Camera-free Meta smart glasses

While smart glasses like the Ray-Ban Meta can be extremely useful, they’re also facing a major backlash right now, with many people worrying about them being used as spy glasses to photograph and video people without their knowledge or consent. As a result, Meta might respond by launching camera-free smart glasses.

These are rumored to land at Meta Connect, and would likely focus on conversational interactions with Meta’s AI chatbot. It makes sense for Meta to launch these, though how useful or appealing they will be when the AI can’t see what you’re looking at remains to be seen.

2. The Project Phoenix mixed reality headset

We’ve been hearing for a while that Meta is working on a mixed reality headset codenamed Project Phoenix, and while this reportedly won’t launch until 2027, we might get an official look at it during Meta Connect.

From what we’ve seen so far, this might look more like smart glasses than the Meta Quest 3S headset, despite featuring both AR and VR functionality. However, Project Phoenix has been pictured with a cable running down from it, suggesting that perhaps the battery and/or processor are external, thereby allowing for a slim design.

We don’t know much else about this yet, but that might change at Meta Connect.

3. New Oakley and Ray-Ban glasses

We’re probably due a second generation of the Oakley Meta glasses by now, and there’s also a chance we’ll see the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3, though it might be too soon for them at this year's Connect.

The Oakley Meta specs are sportier than the Ray-Ban line, with things like wrap-around designs and better water resistance, so expect the second generation to continue with that focus.

As for the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3, leaks suggest these could have better battery life, smarter AI, and improved audio.

4. A global launch for the Meta Ray-Ban Display Glasses

The Meta Ray-Ban Display Glasses are currently only available in the US, but hopefully at Meta Connect we might see these display-packing specs go global.

It’s certainly about time — originally these were planned to get a wider launch in early 2026, but thanks to "unprecedented demand and limited inventory" this was delayed.

But if you’re hoping to get your hands on them you’ll also have to be prepared to pay a lot, as in the US they retail for $800, so you can expect similarly high pricing elsewhere.

5. Price hikes

Alongside new and improved products, we might also see new and not at all improved prices for some things, thanks to the ongoing RAM crisis.

In other words, don’t be surprised if prices for new generation models of the likes of Oakley Meta and Ray-Ban Meta glasses are higher than the current generation.

In the case of Ray-Ban Meta glasses we already saw a price hike for the second generation, so another for the third would be extremely undesirable, but may also be unavoidable.

6. A Meta Muse AI update

Meta Muse — Meta’s AI agent that can send emails, fill out forms, shop, and do other tasks for you — only launched recently, but as a major new service it’s likely to be getting a lot of attention from Meta, so improvements are probably already in the works.

Meta Connect then would be a prime time to find out about any upcoming changes — and perhaps even for Meta to roll out a software update for it or a new model. Or perhaps Meta will announce availability in countries other than the US, so that more of us can try it.

7. Updates addressing the privacy backlash

As well as launching some camera-free smart glasses, Meta may use Connect to announce some software updates aimed at addressing privacy concerns in its existing specs.

Already, the company has rolled out an update that will stop the glasses recording if you cover the LED once a recording has started, but Meta may well be cooking up additional changes to further prevent surreptitious photography and video recording.

Indeed, Meta's VP of Wearables Alex Himel recently said "we’re going to keep rolling out updates like this to make sure the capture LED can reliably alert bystanders when photos or videos are being captured for someone’s gallery." So while it’s unclear what exactly those updates will be, we might learn about some of them at Meta Connect.

In the UK, we're exceptionally good at producing legal dramas. From Silk to Kavanagh QC, we've been offering the world a strictness and sense of traditionalism that the likes of Law & Order just can't touch.

Nowhere was this more apparent that The Split, one of the most popular dramas on BBC iPlayer in recent years. Exploring the world of divorce law, we follow the Defoes, a family of sisters working as divorce lawyers, who come face-to-face with their past after their estranged father returns to the fold.

The series came to an end in 2024, but two years later, spinoff The Split Up is ready to take up the mantle. This time, we're following Kishan Law, a powerhouse British South Asian family law firm.

Aria (Ritu Arya) is poised to take over leadership from her father Dhruv (Sanjeev Bhaskar), but the death of Aria's mother six months prior causes Dhruv to hesitate. Add in a workplace love triangle, complicated siblings and a messy divorce trial walking through their doors every week, and we've got something to get our teeth into.

It's a brilliant and delicious watch — so much so that I binged all six episodes in one sitting. Speaking to writer Ursula Rani Sarma, I learned that she already has ideas for more (though no official renewal has been made). On top of that, they're not ruling out a Nicola Walker cameo further down the line.

'If a storyline created that opportunity, we could 100% do it'

"My personal hope is for three seasons minimum," Sarma tells me. "I feel like I'm only just getting started with writing these characters and their journeys. As I was coming up with these storylines for season 1, I also had ideas for seasons 2 and 3 in my head."

This last statement alone immediately makes The Split Up worth investing in. We're living in an age of routine TV cancellations and one-season miniseries, so for Sarma to be taking the time to think further ahead means there's a natural richness that (surely) the BBC can't say no to.

"The three-season arc also emulates The Split," she continues. "But of course, that turned around and surprised everyone with a special. It's endless, my hopes and dreams for this family."

No spoilers, but we leave The Split Up at a place where enough is resolved and left unspoken simultaneously — which, frankly, is exactly where you want be heading into another season.

But what about a direct crossover? "I don't think anything's off the table," Sarma adds. "It was really important for the first series to establish this family to hopefully make audiences fall in love with them in the same way. To build that up without wondering what would happen if Hannah [Walker] were to walk in.

"But this is the gift of being part of The Split. If a storyline created that opportunity, we could 100% do it. Its cast are clearly so fond of that show."

That's the sense of optimism I like to see... now I just need to keep my fingers crossed.

When the original Steam Deck was first announced back in mid-2021, it was a revelation. Valve proved that handheld gaming PCs could be cost-effective and still powerful enough to run demanding software at playable framerates. The first-generation Deck would ship in February 2022, with the Steam Deck OLED model later innovating with a larger, prettier screen, improved refresh rate, and a superior battery in November 2023.

The Steam Deck impressed at the time with its respectable semi-custom AMD APU complete with its four-core (eight threads) CPU clocked between 2.4 and 3.5 GHz, and 8 RDNA 2 Compute Units clocked at 1.6 GHz.

In short, the hardware inside meant that pushing the best PC games to 30 FPS (and above in some cases) at its native 1280 x 720p resolution was a possibility, but the competition has proven that it's time for Valve to go back to the drawing board if it wants to stay competitive.

That's because the Steam Deck is now fairly underpowered when compared to the best PC handhelds on the market. The competition have Full HD (1080p) displays (or better), and feature vastly superior hardware in the form of AMD Ryzen Z1/Z2 or Intel Arc G3 APUs that run rings around the previous-generation frontrunner. So, what does Valve need to do to ensure the Steam Deck 2 can compete if, and when, it launches?

1. A 120Hz Full HD (1080p) OLED display as standard

Both the Steam Deck LCD and Steam Deck OLED models feature a native resolution of 1280 x 720p with either a 60Hz or 90Hz refresh rate. Considering when the former was launched, this was an acceptable trade-off for providing playable framerates. However, every competing product in the oversaturated space has since eclipsed this, meaning the Steam Deck 2 absolutely needs a 120Hz 1080p display at a minimum to be viable.

You only need to look as far as the biggest rivals from back in 2023; the Steam Deck's panel was passé less than a year after the hardware debuted, as evidenced by the Asus ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go. Both devices could confidently be called true Steam Deck rivals. The first-generation ROG Ally had a 7-inch 120Hz 1080p panel, whereas the original Legion Go had a 144Hz 8.8-inch QHD+ screen.

I'll always argue that anything above 1080p on a display as small as seven or eight inches ultimately results in a waste of resources, and it seems hardware companies got the hint in 2024. More than two years ago, the MSI Claw A1M launched with a 7-inch Full HD screen, as did the Zotac Zone, Asus ROG Ally X, Asus ROG Xbox Ally X, Lenovo Legion Go S, and Lenovo Legion Go 2, as well as recent releases such as the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+. There's no need for Valve to look to 1440p (QHD), but the company needs to get with the times to avoid being left behind; lacking a decent screen would kill the Steam Deck 2.

2. A semi-custom AMD Zen 4 and RDNA 3.5 APU (or better)

It's never been Valve's style to throw standardized components into its hardware. While the competition was comfortable using the AMD Ryzen Z1 or Z2, or gave Intel Arc graphics a go, the Washington-based company had to go a different route. We saw this with the semi-custom APU inside the Steam Deck and Steam Deck OLED, but this design philosophy has since been repeated with the recently released Steam Machine.

Valve's living room PC features a semi-custom AMD APU that utilizes a six-core (12 threads) Zen 4 CPU and an RDNA 3-powered GPU with a total of 28 Compute Units and 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM. This home-console rival was said to offer "six times the horsepower" of the Steam Deck, and the tech could act as the perfect blueprint for what should be inside the Steam Deck 2.

Now, considering the portable nature of a Steam Deck successor and the lack of an active cooling solution, combined with the price tag (I'll get to that further down the page), it's unlikely that the Steam Deck 2 will be as powerful as the Steam Machine, but it could close the gap. The Steam Machine uses around 170W of its total power draw when plugged into mains, with 110W dedicated to the GPU, 30W for the CPU, and the rest of the components (RAM, fans, SSD, etc.) accounting for the other 30 to 60W of draw.

When plugged in, the Steam Deck OLED draws a maximum of 45W (or 15V at 3000mA). When on battery power, Valve's handheld draws anywhere from four to 27W depending on the task at hand. Obviously, battery life has to be a huge consideration here as well, so we aren't going to see upwards of 100W for a handheld. Today's competition, chiefly the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+, can provide 30-60 FPS in High settings in 1080p in either 17W or 35W on battery, but that comes at its own (literal) cost.

That's the power potential, but what about a close approximation of how a semi-custom RDNA 3 or RDNA 3.5-backed APU could perform inside the Steam Deck 2? Well, the closest we can get is with the performance jump from the AMD Ryzen Z2 compared to the Z1. At lower TDPs, the Z2 offers a generational leap anywhere from 4W to 40W, offering playable framerates of at least 30 FPS in 1080p, which is the only standard requirement for a Steam Deck Verified game in 2026. In particular, the Z2 Extreme features 16 RDNA 3.5 Compute Units with a total boost clock of up to 2.9 GHz and 24GB LPDDR5x-8000 memory; Valve could use something similar.

3. A sub-$1,000 / £1,000 price tag

When the Steam Deck was first revealed and distributed, it was sold at a loss. Prior to the original model's release, Gabe Newell said this decision was "painful" but "critical" for the hardware to break through to the market. Affordability and competitive performance took priority over outclassing the competition, and that was the core appeal of the Steam Deck, especially in the early years.

Well, it's nearing the end of 2026 now, and hardware companies (including Valve itself) have not learned from this example. The Steam Deck was successful because it was an affordable and powerful entry point into PC gaming, but that's a reality that's (unfortunately) becoming harder to remember as time marches on. The ongoing RAM crisis has meant the Steam Deck OLED shot up in price by 50%, and sales are also plummeting, and consumers have already begun to argue that handheld gaming PCs are back into the unaffordable niche product they were pre-2021.

To course-correct, Valve needs to offer the Steam Deck 2 for less than $1,000 / £1,000 / AU$2,000, at least for its base and mid-range configurations. We've seen growing backlash from gamers against rising prices recently, particularly with the eye-watering MSRPs of the new Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20 (starting at $1,299.99 / £1,299.99) and the aforementioned MSI Claw 8 EX AI's shocking $1,799.99 / £1,399.99 entry point. To remain competitive, Valve needs to undercut the competition here, even if it means sacrificing some superficial features and maybe even peak performance.

In other words, Valve needs to remember why the Steam Deck succeeded in the first place: it was powerful enough and affordable enough to make everyday people consider PC gaming. It's a tall order given we're currently in one of the worst times in the computing industry in recent memory, where the price of GPUs, RAM, SSDs, and anything else that uses memory are skyrocketing with no signs of slowing down. Even if the Deck 2 is originally sold at a small loss, it would go a long way to prove that Valve can be pro-consumer again, as it lost favor with the Steam Machine's so-so performance for the price tag.

4. TMR sticks and mechanical buttons

Now that we've covered a prospective Steam Deck successor's price tag, specs, and screen, it's time to talk about ergonomics. While both versions of the Steam Deck are comfortable in the hand for long play sessions, the actual buttons and sticks leave a lot to be desired. Likely due to a price constraint, the handhelds utilize the standardized potentiometers, with physical parts that can cause wear and tear over time. If left unchecked for long enough, it can eventually lead to stick drift, which can be frustrating (and expensive) to repair.

Magnets are the way to go, then. It's tough when weighing up what would be the better technology for the Steam Deck 2's analog sticks, as both Hall Effect and TMR (Tunnelling Magnetoresistance) have their pros and cons. However, it's TMR that pulls ahead in this case for a couple of key reasons: it's more sensitive, accurate, and (thankfully) cheaper to implement now than a couple of years ago. There's a reason why so many of the best PC controllers on the market are already using TMR, so Valve would be missing an open goal if it cheaped out unnecessarily here.

TMR sticks and magnetic sensing technology as a whole are far superior and lead to fewer points of failure, ensuring longevity. It's essential for a handheld like the Steam Deck 2. Modern PC controllers, such as the Scuf Envision Pro 2 and the Scuf Omega, have led the charge with microswitch buttons and D-pads.

They not only provide instant actuation for more precise inputs, but they will also last longer than a pure membrane alternative. It's not just about immediacy and feel in the hand, but also about how this design decision could influence long-term use. Ideally, you would want a Steam Deck 2 to feel as good as the day you bought it, even five years afterwards.

5. A bigger and more efficent battery for longer (or more demanding) sessions

Any good portable device, whether it's the best phone or a Steam Deck successor, lives and dies on how good the battery life is. The original Steam Deck featured a 40 Wh (or 5200 mAh battery, whereas the Steam OLED bumped things up to 50 Wh (or 6,470 mAh). That netted you anywhere from two to 12 hours depending on the kinds of games you were running, with indies at low brightness yielding better playtime than a AAA release at full brightness would. On average, though, around two to four hours is considered the standard.

That's fine, sure, but Steam Deck rivals have since included larger batteries with longer average playtimes, and this is something Valve can directly address. For example, the Asus ROG Ally X has an 80Wh battery, meaning it can last anywhere from four to six hours of playback of intensive games played at 25 to 30W under the right conditions. That's a battery size increase of 60%; considering how many more lithium-ion batteries are being made in a compact or portable form factor, it means that this component cost could be cheaper than in 2021/22, and a larger battery could be among the top features of the successor device.

Ultimately, we want the ability to sit down and play our games on the sofa or on the move for longer, so offering a bigger battery with a superior lifespan would give the Steam Deck 2 the edge it would need. If Valve can bump the resolution up, tighten the ergonomics, increase the horsepower, and keep the costs down, then the second-generation of its handheld could be the best on the market.

For the past couple of weeks we’ve been seeing how Reality Fracture will conclude the multiverse-tearing Omenpath saga of Magic: The Gathering’s story. Jace’s domination of his Echoverse rings through his presence on seemingly every other card as the Empower Jace mechanic — which brings forth a Planeswalker token of himself, as a sort of simulacrum of the popular Amass mechanic.

But before Jace attempted to break the multiverse, Wizards of the Coast was already dabbling in powers beyond their control with Universes Beyond. This sees non-native IP break into the Magic: The Gathering game, and it has proven itself both incredibly popular and divisive.

One setting that has managed to unite both sides of the aisle, however, is Middle Earth: the land of hobbits, elves, dwarves, and dark forces attempting to enact Sauron’s corrupting plans on the world.

We recently returned to this setting through The Hobbit set, a return which felt much more like a return to a classic Magic world such as Ravnica, Lorwyn, or Dominaria rather than a return to a UB world like… New York City, which we experienced through both Marvel Super Heroes and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles after first swinging through with Spider-Man.

Through his YouTube channel Good Morning Magic, Gavin Verhey (Principal Magic Designer at Wizards of the Coast) details the design philosophy and origins of cards from throughout Magic’s history, including its most recent releases. At Gamescom, I got some time to chat with him, deep diving into Wizards’ approach for The Hobbit — and its approach to Universes Beyond more generally.

A return to a Magic plane normally means the return of mechanics associated with that world. Case in point, after debuting a variant of Amass with Amass Orcs in its Lord of the Rings: Tales from Middle Earth set, another variation appeared with Amass Goblins in The Hobbit — enabling players to assemble a Goblin Army, one of the five armies that battled in the book’s climax.

However we didn’t see the return of The Ring Tempts You, not even as a cameo on a Bilbo or Gollum game piece (a term designers use to denote a mechanic we see on only a couple of cards rather than as a core feature).

Verhey explained the team did look into including it, but ultimately decided against it.

“The Ring Tempts You was a mechanic that did not play out super great, and was quite complicated, and doesn’t make a lot of sense because the Ring is such a small part of The Hobbit,” says Verhey.

He explained that it could have fit as a one-off cameo, but “There’s no reminder text on the card for what The Ring Tempts You does, that’s on an entirely different card you have to track. Maybe it could have worked as a Jumpstart card, but we decided it would be a lot of work for a little gain so we didn’t bring it back.”

At least my Food and Fellowship precon deck got a couple of food token and lifegain support pieces in the set.

There, and back again?

Now that we have returned to Middle Earth, a question I’ve had rattling through my brain is which UB plane could we planeswalk back to next? Gavin Verhey wasn’t about to spoil anything, but I did ask if the possibility of returning meant Wizards of the Coast was more cautious about what it did or didn’t use from a partner’s IP.

The Lord of the Rings set only included one The Hobbit reference through the card There and Back Again, meanwhile The Last Airbender didn’t include any ties to The Legend of Korra — not even as a Secret Lair.

“In general we want our designers to use everything they can, because there’s no guarantee we’ll ever make another set in that world. So you should make as much as you can, and what makes sense. But we’re often making them based on very specific properties.

“So with Avatar: The Last Airbender the set was Avatar: The Last Airbender not Avatar: The Legend of Korra. So Korra was off the table for that set. The same for The Lord of the Rings set, The Hobbit was off the table.

“It’s a bit of preservation for the future, but also just a bit of what we have access to.”

Verhey adds this is contrasted by sets like Final Fantasy or Doctor Who where the designers knew they had access to the whole franchise’s history for one set.

The Marvel collab is also a bit different as Wizards of the Coast knew there would be multiple sets from the get go: “So we actually figured out, before we did anything else, how we were going to divvy all of those sets up to make sure cards ended up in the right place.”

Riddles in the dark

Gavin Verhey explained there are plenty of positives that come from working in a Universes Beyond set — chiefly the distinct characters the worlds are filled with are a delightful design puzzle to bring to life in MtG. But what are the challenges?

“The place that you get into the most trouble is figuring out how the characters translate into colors — because a well-written character is usually many different colors over the course of their lifecycle.”

Verhey explained players have different expectations of the characters. Someone will reasonably see Bilbo as Blue for his riddles expertise, another person sees him as Black as he embraces thievery, another as Green for hobbits’ embrace of food and nature in the Shire — we’ve seen him represented across all five colors in fact across both Middle Earth-based sets.

We’ve seen how the designers solve this: make multiple versions of the same character at different points throughout their story. This prevents every legend becoming five-color soup, and keeps things simple and accessible for newcomers — who are more likely to open a card belonging to a popular character if there’s multiple of them, and cards with fewer colors are usually less complex as they don’t need to mechanically justify why they’re multi-disciplined.

That said, Verhey said there do need to be multi-color legends to encompass other similar legends so folks can play them all in the same deck more easily if they want — “For example, we make sure there’s a Red-White Dwarf lord that all other Dwarves can go into a deck for.” (Note: A lord is a term for a card which offers a static benefit to all cards of a certain creature type).

This doesn’t just account for creatures in The Hobbit. The designers also try to make sure the cards pair well with the Dwarves, Elves, Goblins, and Hobbits they’ve released before.

Universes Beyond can also create almost the reverse challenge for the designers: not having enough characters in each color.

Verhey explained. “You know, this is not the case for The Hobbit but a funny Universes Beyond problem is usually most worlds have heroes — that makes for easy White characters — and they have villains which tend to want to be Black characters. Then there’s usually someone who’s a little aggressive or impulsive, so our Red characters. And there’s always the smart people so that’s the Blue. But Green?”

For The Hobbit Elves, Bears and other nature-aligned figures fill this slot, but that’s not always the case.

“Figuring out what Green means in a world without Elves, growth, or lots of nature is really challenging — that’s what many Universes Beyond can live or die on.”

A Warm Welcome

Universes Beyond has been a standout success for Magic: The Gathering. It makes perfect sense, therefore, that Wizards of the Coast would want to apply this to its other world-famous brand: Dungeons and Dragons.

So far it has announced collaboration plans with World of Warcraft and Star Wars — partnerships which will bring iconic characters, worlds, items and archetypes (as classes and subclasses) into the tabletop roleplaying game.

However no Universes Beyond property has yet to feature in both games, so I asked Verhey if any rivalry or jealousy has developed between the teams — Star Wars fans on the Magic side or The Last Airbender lovers on D&D wishing they could be building inside those worlds.

Unsurprisingly Verhey said there’s nothing but excitement around the office, “It’s honestly very cool to see D&D be like ‘Hey this thing’s been great for Magic, Let’s have us give that a try as well’. I’m stoked to see what they do with it.”

The Last Stage

There’s only a few months left of 2026, but we have a lot more Magic: The Gathering to enjoy. Verhey says reality is “huge. It’s the capstone event of the current story arc, and like nothing we’ve made before.”

Previews have showcased dozens of alternate reality pairings — showing original and Echoverse versions of characters from across Magic’s worlds — and in Verhey’s words the team has done “a heck of a lot better a job than we did with Planar Chaos” in terms of warping Magic characters and mechanics without warping the color pie in ways designers regret later.

We also have Star Trek, another Universes Beyond property. This may seem like an odd inclusion for a fantasy focused game, however space has featured in several sets now — Unfinity, Doctor Who, and Edge of Eternities — and Star Trek actually featured all the way back when MtG was still in early testing. Spock performing a Vulcan salute was placeholder art for a card called Blessing.

Verhey also said we can expect a set filled with the new Dilemmas — a new mechanic for the set related to mimic the tough choices characters face — and for us to “try an experience that’s a little different than normal”. Verhey mentioned combat isn’t a massive part of the Star Trek shows, so perhaps we’ll see Limited games play out very differently when this set rolls around.

Finally, there’s Mystery Booster Commander Edition. This event-exclusive set has been filled with exciting Commander cards, including several brand new game pieces that break the rules of the format, and harken back to Magic’s past in creative ways — Verhey is currently explaining these callbacks on his YouTube channel.

“I cannot wait for folks to start playing it at MagicCon Atlanta, it’s a blast.” As a Commander lover, I can’t wait either.