What is AI good for? It's a question I get asked and ask myself almost every day. Unlike a wrench, hammer, or screwdriver, which are each good for one or two tasks, AI is amorphous and intimidating in its breadth. It seems capable of almost anything, especially as it changes and grows more intelligent. People pump it up as a do-it-all wonder, and yet, the question remains: what would I do with it?

Often, I find the answer to that question in the moment. For instance, as a partially color-blind person, I struggle to match clothing. Now, I often ask Gemini. I'll take my iPhone 17 Pro Max, open Gemini, turn on Gemini Live, pick out a shirt or pants (or both), and ask if they go together or which option is best. I always get an answer and, honestly, I usually follow the uncomplicated AI-generated advice.

Success in one area of your life with technology usually leads you to try it in another, especially with the ever-fungible AI.

In my house, I'm known as the risk taker, at least when it comes to food. "Best by" is a suggestion. "Use before,' is friendly advice. My family often blanches at my aged food consumption habits. Yes, I'll eat that five-day-old steak. Those English Muffins expired two weeks ago? Slide them over.

Enter the risk-taker

I know, it's not great, and when it was lunchtime this weekend I slid the week-plus-old store-bought-and-made chicken salad from the fridge and considered making a sandwich.

Staring at the "made on" date as if my gaze might rearrange the figures, I realized that I might be taking a risk. So I opened the container and sniffed the still spry-looking salad. It's at moments like this that I wonder, "What am I doing? Does my nose really know the difference between safe and stale or, more importantly, safe and decidedly turned?" I can tell you with some confidence: it does not.

Still, having grown up in a house where money was tight and you rarely threw anything away, I was hesitant to dump this half-a-pound of chicken salad (slightly turned or not).

I stood there in my kitchen for a minute, weighing my options and thinking that slightly sour chicken salad might not, with the right toast, be that bad.

Then I looked at my phone, lying face down on the counter, but surely judging me.

I would ask Gemini.

Putting Gemini on the menu

After launching the app, I turned on Gemini Live and pointed the camera at the open container. "Hey, this chicken salad was made on 8/1. Do you think it's still good?" I asked hopefully.

Gemini thought for a moment and then responded, but not in the way I expected.

Before giving me the answer, Gemini launched into what sounded a bit like one of those disclaimers for an Ozempic TV commercial:

"This information is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition."

Clearly, I struck a nerve. I only asked about the chicken salad, not if I should have a kidney removed.

I get it. If I'd asked this question a couple of years ago, Gemini might've launched right into an analysis, but concerns about AI accuracy and understanding of human needs and context have risen since the emergence of generative AI. Sure, it's way smarter and less likely to give you false or hallucinated information, but it's also, well, not a doctor or even a dietician.

A recent Gallup poll found that more than 25% of Americans are using AI for health info or advice, and of them, more than half query AI for health-related advice and analysis before visiting a doctor. The problem is that AI is not a medical professional, and while it can dig through the billions of health- and medical-related bits stored online, it doesn't have a medical license. It can't understand or treat your various maladies.

In my case, though, Gemini drew a long thin line from my seemingly innocuous question about chicken salad freshness to a potentially incorrect answer, my possible gastric emergency, and a potential lawsuit against Google and Gemini brought on my behalf by my surviving family members.

Look, food poisoning isn't usually fatal, at least according to Healthline, but it is yucky and uncomfortable. I think Gemini was just trying to avoid me taking its word as law on this topic and a potentially bad outcome for both of us.

I'm still hungry

But what about eating this rapidly warming chicken salad?

After the voluminous disclaimer, Gemini got to the heart of the matter:

"According to food safety guidelines, chicken salad should be stored in the refrigerator for only three to four days. Since this chicken salad was made on August 1st and today is August 9th, it is no longer safe to eat and should be discarded."

The answer, based less on the looks of this chicken salad and more on general advice that I often ignore, ultimately had the desired result.

You and my family will be pleased to know I took Gemini's advice, threw out the chicken salad, and made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Naturally, I asked Gemini's opinion:

"Yes, absolutely! A PB&J is a much better and safer option right now.

Peanut butter and jelly have a significantly longer shelf life and aren't prone to the rapid bacterial growth that affects meat-based, mayonnaise-heavy dishes like chicken salad. It's a classic, risk-free, and delicious backup plan. Enjoy your lunch!"

Fine. Thanks, Gemini, and bon-appétit.

The iPhone Ultra probably won’t launch for around another month, but we already have a fair idea of what to expect — and that’s not just thanks to leaks and rumors, but also because Samsung has launched what we think is a very similar phone.

That phone, of course, is the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8, a foldable device with a passport-like form factor, which is very much in line with what we’re hearing Apple is planning for its first foldable, reportedly called the iPhone Ultra.

That form factor, and particularly the screen sizes and shapes it results in, are arguably the most interesting things about these phones, since they’re different to the book-style and clamshell-style foldables we’re used to seeing.

But just how similar will the screens on these two phones be? Well, while we won’t be certain of anything until Apple unveils the iPhone Ultra, we’ve taken some educated guesses below, based on leaks and rumors about that phone, coupled with the confirmed specs of the Galaxy Z Fold 8.

How will their foldable screens compare?

Much like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 folds open like a book, but unlike the tall and narrow Z Fold 8 Ultra, it has a slightly smaller and more passport-like display, and we’re expecting something similar from the iPhone Ultra.

To be more specific, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 has a 7.6-inch 1828 x 2448 AMOLED screen with around 403 pixels per inch, a peak brightness of 3,000 nits, and an aspect ratio of 4:3.

That aspect ratio makes it more suited to watching widescreen video than typical book-style foldables like the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, as our content viewing comparison shows, and speaking of books, it’s arguably also a better shape for reading, too.

So, what of the iPhone Ultra? Well, going by leaks, this device will probably have a foldable display of between 7.7 and 7.8 inches. Different sources point to slightly different numbers, but all the recent leaks put it in roughly that range.

So that would make it ever so slightly bigger than the Galaxy Z Fold 8’s screen — though still smaller than the 8-inch Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra.

We’re less sure of what the resolution will be, but leaker Digital Chat Station (via MacRumors) claimed last year that it would be 1920 x 2713 and that it would have a 4:3 aspect ratio. Though it’s worth noting that this resolution wouldn’t actually yield a 4:3 aspect ratio, so at least one of these numbers must be at least slightly wrong.

In any case, 4:3 would make for the same aspect ratio as the Galaxy Z Fold 8, and while this rumored resolution would be slightly higher, the marginally bigger display size should mean it still offers a similar number of pixels per inch.

We’re inclined to believe the aspect ratio here more than the resolution, as leaked renders of the iPhone Ultra show a very similar screen shape to that of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8.

We also fully expect the iPhone Ultra to have an AMOLED screen, just like Samsung’s phone, since other iPhones use that too.

We haven’t heard much about the iPhone Ultra’s screen brightness, but the iPhone 17 Pro, for example, has a 3,000-nit peak brightness, so the iPhone Ultra might well match that — and match the Galaxy Z Fold 8’s brightness in the process.

In which case, there may be no significant difference between their foldable screens, with the iPhone’s probably just being slightly larger — though it may also have a less visible crease, if rumors are to be believed. The iPhone Ultra’s corners are also likely to be curvier than the Z Fold 8’s, based both on leaks — such as the dummy unit above shared by Sonny Dickson — and Apple’s typical design practices.

How will their cover displays compare?

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 has a 5.5-inch 1248 x 1972 AMOLED cover screen with around 428 pixels per inch, and with an aspect ratio of 16:10. This leaves it a bit more of a square shape than the screens on most phones.

As for the iPhone Ultra, that could either have a 5.49-inch cover display with a 1422 x 2088 resolution (according to the source detailed in the section above), or a 5.3-inch cover screen (according to a paywalled report on The Information). So, in other words, it might either be slightly smaller than the Z Fold 8’s cover display or roughly the same size. It will also most likely use AMOLED tech, since other iPhones do.

Not much has been said about the iPhone Ultra's outer aspect ratio, but this again is likely to be similar to the Galaxy Z Fold 8’s 16:10 one — both because it looks similar in leaked renders and dummy units, and because that would make sense if its internal aspect ratio is the same, as has been rumored.

So, as with their foldable screens, the main difference between the cover screen on the iPhone Ultra and the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 might just be their size, with Apple’s possibly being slightly smaller in this case — though some leaks suggest there will be no real difference there either. In which case, it could just be the iPhone’s potentially curvier corners that set it apart.

How will their dimensions compare?

Screen sizes have a major impact on dimensions, but they’re not the only factor, with bezels and internal components also playing a role, so how will the iPhone Ultra compare to Samsung’s passport-style foldable there?

Well, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 is 123.9 x 161.4 x 4.5mm when unfolded and 123.9 x 81.9 x 9.7mm when folded shut.

Sources aren’t in total agreement about the iPhone Ultra’s dimensions, but going by various leaks, it seems likely to come in at 120.6 x 167.6 x 4.5-4.8mm when unfolded and 120.6 x 83.8 x 9.0-9.6mm when folded, so it’s mostly just the thickness that there’s disagreement on.

That, in any case, would make the iPhone slightly shorter than Samsung’s phone but also marginally wider. When unfolded, it could be either the same thickness or slightly thicker, and when folded shut, it would seemingly be marginally slimmer.

Based on these rumored screen sizes and dimensions, which foldable phone would you rather buy? Let us know in the poll or comments section below.

The Garmin Fenix 9, this year's premier adventure smartwatch hotness, is expected to drop soon, but it's likely to be very expensive if previous iterations of the Fenix line are anything to go by.

However, if you are in need of GPS maps, wrist-based flashlights, and on-demand fitness stats as well as a navigation companion, you don't have to shell out for a brand new, high-end Fenix 9 — most people don't need all the features on these watches, and can get along just fine with a cheaper model.

Below, you'll find some of the best smartwatches for your needs, whether you're a short-range hiker who enjoys a couple of hours in nature once a month, to a die-hard who loves to spend multiple days in the wilderness.

Many of the watches below are also on sale, so you'll be able to pick up the right model at a discount — and it'll likely be a lot cheaper than getting a brand-new Fenix 9 when it arrives later this year (if rumors prove true). There's a variety of watches below, but they all offer offline maps capability in addition to fitness tracking in a wide variety of capacities: any one of them would be an ideal partner for the trail.

Today's best adventure smartwatch deals

Summer holidays are a great time for soaking up the sun, but if your booked trip location is a little hotter than you were expecting this year — dare I say it, slightly too hot — it's worth making a plan to keep yourself comfortable enough to enjoy the break. Below, I've rounded up my keep-cool kit list for tackling too-balmy summer days.

To start off, arm yourself with a portable fan. Both Shark and Dyson have come out with stellar options this summer. The Shark ChillPill has a cooling plate and misting function, for a multi-pronged attack on the heat, while the Dyson HushJet Mini Cool is just a straightforward fan... but an extremely effective one (we preferred the HushJet in our side-by-side tests). If you're holidaying more locally, I've also included a couple of cordless desktop fans that would be great for more general use, including in the bedroom while you're trying to sleep.

I'd also seek out some good insulated containers for your food and drinks — Yeti and Hydro Flask make my favorite water bottles (go for a straw cap to encourage you to keep sipping on-the-go) and soft coolers. Finally, I've included some cheaper products for a quick hit of instant coldness: snappable cold towels and a sleep mask you can pop in the freezer.

Cool customers

I’ve never particularly enjoyed running, especially when training solo, but it takes the least effort for me to prepare for in the morning compared to my preferred activities — cycling or badminton — and it’s also a nice cross-training option.

After reading about my colleagues using AI to build training plans, I thought it could be an opportunity for me to change how I feel about running, so I turned to Google Gemini and asked it to build a training plan to prepare for a major running event here in Australia, the Sydney City2Surf.

My goal was to try out a plan that could easily adapt after a setback, like an injury or illness, while balancing run training with my usual badminton sessions and bike rides within a week.

I also wanted to see if I could stick to running for longer compared to my previous attempts, which involved either winging it — running for as long as I could until I ran out of breath — or following a rigid online plan.

Setup

My initial prompt was “How realistic is it for a beginner runner to train for City2Surf starting next week?” It was in late December 2025, so Gemini replied that I had plenty of time, as the event was on August 9 this year.

City2Surf has a 14km route that starts from Sydney CBD and finishes at Bondi Beach, which explains the name. It’s an infamously hilly route, headlined by a 2km section midway through the course with an average gradient of about 3 to 4%, or 75 to 80m in elevation.

“Most beginner-friendly training plans only require 12–16 weeks,” the response read. “Starting now puts you in an excellent position to not just survive the race, but actually enjoy it and run the majority of the course.”

Here’s the general overview from Gemini:

To make sure I stuck to the plan, I asked Gemini how to enter the workouts into my old Garmin watch, and it gave me a step-by-step guide.

I was also offered to test the newly released Garmin Forerunner 70 and 170 range while I was training, and I chose the 170 Music edition. I wanted to see if the built-in music function and Garmin Pay wireless payments were enough for me to leave my phone at home during training sessions.

Lugging my heavy iPhone 16 Pro Max in a running belt during my first few weeks of running became annoying, so the Forerunner was just what I needed. It also completely cuts down on distractions, and the voice prompts also helped keep me on track during interval sessions.

I managed to stick to the program for the first few months while keeping my social badminton games and bike rides. But things started to get tricky as I progressed into the second phase.

Setbacks and adjustments

Heading into phase 2 of my training plan, I unexpectedly got Achilles tendonitis, which my physiotherapist told me was the result of putting too much load too quickly on my legs and feet. Recovery took more than a month of rehab and rest.

When I was cleared to run again, I told Gemini I’d missed a few weeks and asked how I should adjust. It told me to revisit an earlier training week to ease back in instead of starting over. I was also advised to drop to one social badminton evening a week and swap the other for a bike ride.

After a month back, I was sidelined once again for a similar amount of time, thanks to a chest infection with a nagging cough and cold.

Ultimately, I felt that these setbacks were enough for me to decide not to enter the City2Surf, even though Gemini said I still had enough time to train. I set my sights on next year’s event instead.

“Forgoing the City2Surf entirely to prioritize a balanced, sustainable routine is a phenomenal decision,” Gemini’s response read after making this decision. “Since you haven't registered yet, dropping the pressure of a hard August 9th deadline allows you to completely shift your mindset from 'panic training' to building a strong, bulletproof foundation for the long run.”

Looking back, I likely would have just quit after the first setback if I had been following a more rigid training plan. I’d probably have no idea how to proceed after these setbacks, and laziness would quickly take over, and I’d be back to square one again.

Refocused training

Without the pressure of a fixed race date, Gemini readjusted my plan over the next four weeks to focus on just two sessions per week: one day of run-walk intervals and one longer, uninterrupted easy jog before I move forward with a fresh training plan. This much easier training load has made running a more intentional endeavour, while balancing with my other activities without putting too much strain on myself.

Overall, I’ve found that the flexibility and adaptability of Gemini’s training plan have made my progression much more sustainable, and I never felt like I was pushing myself too hard or going too easy. Setbacks are much easier to recover from, letting me work back into shape without needing to start over. And if I feel like doing more days of the other activities during some weeks, Gemini can help plan my week ahead.

While I ultimately failed in my original objective of joining a popular running event, I ended up enjoying the journey of becoming a better runner at a more sustainable pace.

Should you let AI be your running coach?

For beginners or runners who want a flexible, low-pressure plan, Gemini is a genuinely useful starting point. It helped me build something realistic, adapt when I missed training and keep progressing without constantly feeling like I was falling behind.

I'd argue though that it's not a substitute for proper coaching. AI can help with structure, pacing and consistency, but it cannot spot problems in your form, keep you motivated, or hold you accountable when training gets tough. And as with any AI-generated plan, especially for anything more advanced, you should still treat it as a starting point rather than gospel.

For my purposes, though, Gemini was enough to turn running from a chore into something I could actually stick with.

• Shopping for a new Garmin watch? Check out the latest Garmin Australia coupons here.

To be online is to expose yourself to numerous threats, and those aren’t limited to hackers and viruses; data brokers, free services where you pay with your information, and — depending on your situation — even your own government can be a concern too. And when your whole online life is accessible from a phone in your pocket, there’s also the real threat of a thief getting into it.

With all that in mind, I’ve always been somewhat security conscious, but I’ve also historically been a bit inconsistent about my security practices, and tended to prioritize convenience over safety. A while back, though, I started taking things more seriously.

I started listening to podcasts like Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons, digging into privacy and security subreddits, and trying out numerous new products and services to beef up my digital defenses.

But let’s look at where I started first. Before embarking on this journey, I already used both Norton as my primary desktop antivirus and Malwarebytes as an on-demand scanner. I also used a password manager (1Password) across both phone and desktop, and ensured all my passwords were strong and unique.

On my iPhone, I had Stolen Device Protection enabled, which makes it harder for thieves to access sensitive information or change my Apple account password.

And I had two-factor authentication set up for everything that would allow it — opting for one of the best authenticator apps over SMS, since the latter is vulnerable to SIM swap attacks, where hackers convince your mobile network to port your number to their device.

I still do all those things now, and would recommend most other people do too — though when it comes to the best antivirus and best password manager, there are several other options to consider as well. But I’ve also added other services and even devices to my security toolkit.

Encrypting everything

There’s a saying that “if something is free, you are the product," and that’s largely true — and can have massive privacy implications.

Did you know, for example, that Gmail and Outlook can use AI or other automated systems to scan the content of your emails? And while the companies claim they’re not read by people, in theory it’s possible for them to be, either by the company itself, or by law enforcement if they’re ever served a warrant.

But you don’t have to be committing crimes to feel uneasy about the idea of an AI essentially reading all your supposedly private communications.

And this issue isn’t limited to email — the same privacy concerns apply to most free cloud storage services, whether we’re talking photo storage things like Google Photos, or general purpose ones like Dropbox.

Some services are worse for this than others, but if they’re not end-to-end encrypted, then your files, photos, and missives can, in theory, be viewed by people other than you and any recipient. That means, even if you’re not using a free service, you might still be making privacy compromises if the company has other priorities, though free options tend to be the worst for this sort of thing.

So with that in mind, I signed up with Proton Unlimited, giving me end-to-end encrypted email through Proton Mail, and cloud storage through Proton Drive.

As a bonus, Proton Unlimited also comes with a capable VPN and password manager in Proton VPN and Proton Pass. I use the former (more on this below), but not the latter, as personally, I prefer 1Password, and also don’t love the idea of having my whole security infrastructure handled by one brand.

This hasn’t been a complete switch, as I do in fact still use my less secure emails and cloud storage for some things, but sensitive stuff like bank logins have all been switched to Proton, while things like encryption keys are backed up in Proton Drive.

Part of why I haven’t fully switched is just the hassle of moving everything across, but encryption does come with some downsides. For example, it makes the search function more limited, as even the app can’t read the content of documents or other files.

And there are upsides to keeping alternative email addresses, as I can use them for things that I don’t trust not to spam me, or for accounts I don't trust not to get hacked, while my more important logins and communications are all kept secure at another address.

Though on that front, Proton does have the handy ability to let you create unlimited hide-my-email aliases, so I don’t strictly need a whole separate account for this.

In any case, while I recommend Proton as the best secure email provider, there are other options too, like Tuta and Mailbox.org, and many of these do have free plans too, though those are usually quite limited.

Taking control of my digital footprint

My privacy journey also led me to limit what traces of myself can be found online, and the big thing there, of course, is a VPN.

Technically, I wasn’t new to VPNs, but in the past I mostly only used them to get around regional restrictions. Now, I have a VPN active most of the time. This hides my location from websites, since they don’t see my real IP. It also hides my browsing activity from my ISP, and it keeps my passwords and other private information more secure when using public Wi-Fi, so it has a lot of upsides.

The main downside, as I see it, is that some sites block VPNs, so you potentially need to disable it at times if you want to access those sites. However, they don’t always block every VPN server, so simply switching servers can solve that issue.

If you’re on a device that supports split tunnelling, then you could also enable this — allowing you, for example, to have a secondary browser that doesn’t connect via VPN for sites where it’s an issue, while everything else you do does. As noted above, I use Proton VPN, but there are other great options too in our best VPNs guide.

But VPNs are just one part of reducing your digital footprint. You can also choose to keep your social media anonymous or private — something that I was already largely doing — and you can set about removing the data that companies already have on you.

I took two approaches to this. The first was subscribing to Incogni. This is a data removal service that will send removal requests to hundreds of data brokers. These brokers likely have all sorts of data about you, linking your name with your phone number, email address, and more, which makes you an easier target for spam, scams, and identity theft.

Incogni isn’t free, but it has been independently assessed by Deloitte, so you can be confident that it’s doing what it claims to do. And while you could manually make data removal requests to all these companies, it would likely take a very long time.

Of course, while I rate Incogni, it’s not the only option — check out our best data removal services guide for other solutions.

The final step I’ve taken for reducing my digital footprint is removing my face from facial recognition search engines like PimEyes and FaceCheck.ID. This I did do manually, though, by following their respective opt-out processes, which basically involve uploading a clear photo of your own face and asking for that face to be removed. You can find the exact process on the PimEyes opt-out page and the FaceCheck opt-out page.

Leveling up my two-factor authentication

I mentioned above that I previously favored an app — specifically Authy in my case — over SMS for two-factor authentication, but as part of my privacy upgrade, I went a step further and invested in some YubiKey security keys.

These are hardware keys that are basically tiny USB sticks that you put into your phone or computer to perform two-factor authentication, and you can also get NFC versions with no plugging required.

Unlike apps or SMS, which are vulnerable to phishing attempts or hacks, YubiKeys (and similar devices from other brands) need to be in your physical possession to use. So they’re safe from online threats. Of course, someone could physically steal your YubiKey, but they’d still need your account passwords as well.

So if you want the strongest possible two-factor authentication, I’d recommend investing in one of the best security keys.

However, this is actually the security upgrade that I’ve found myself using least, as I simply find it less convenient than app-based two-factor authentication. So what I’ve settled on is using a security key for my most important accounts, but sticking with an app for everything else.

Convenience is still king, but I feel a lot more secure now

Ultimately, my experience with YubiKeys sums up my approach to security and privacy — I still value convenience a lot. By doing things like using app-based two-factor authentication for emails and cloud storage that lacks end-to-end encryption, I’m still probably being a bit inconsistent about my privacy practices.

But I certainly feel more secure than I did before I went on this journey, and I have beefier security in place for the accounts and data that matter most.

You’ll have to figure out what the right balance is for you personally, but the tools above should help you make some security and privacy upgrades.

Another month, another stacked list of 4K Blu-rays. August 2026 looks to have some big releases coming, but I’ve decided to narrow it down to my top four picks, all of which I’ll be hoping to get in to test as part of our monthly Blu-ray Bounty feature. This is where we test the best 4K releases from each month, looking at each disc’s picture and audio quality to see how it can give your home theater a chance to flex its muscles.

4K Blu-ray is my most used source for testing the best TVs and best soundbars. It offers uncompressed audio and a higher bitrate over 4K streaming, resulting in better picture quality. Not only that, but I’m a collector myself and I’m always adding new discs to my personal collection.

Last month, in my July 2026 most anticipated list, I picked Hard Boiled, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Hairspray (1988) as my most anticipated discs. I got to test three of these in the July 2026 Blu-ray Bounty, and they all proved to be excellent, with special mention for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie which is in my opinion reference-level quality. Unfortunately, Hard Boiled was delayed in arriving, but I’ll be sure to give it a try and let you know what it’s like!

As I’m based in the UK, the following picks are based on 4K Blu-rays set for release in August 2026 here. Just in case the disc is already out in your region, or yet to be released!

Project Hail Mary (Amazon MGM Studios)

An adaptation of Andy Weir’s novel of the same name, Project Hail Mary follows the story of middle school science teacher Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling), who wakes up on an interstellar spacecraft with no memory of how he got there. The movie is directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who also directed The Lego Movie and Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, and were both involved in the production of the Into the Spider-Verse movies.

I’m expecting Project Hail Mary to look superb in 4K. There are plenty of high-contrast shots both in and outside of the Hail Mary that should demonstrate deep blacks balancing with bright highlights. There’s also scope for some seriously bold colors, as well as crisp textures, with 3D-like textures in both people and environments, such as the intricate textures of the various parts and consoles of the Hail Mary ship.

With a Dolby Atmos soundtrack included, I’m anticipating plenty of height effects in action. With the wide scope of the ship and space setting, there should be opportunities for the Dolby Atmos mix to showcase plenty of detail and texture, as well as a chance to hear some accurately mapped sound as well, as Grace moves around the Hail Mary.

Release date

• US - August 11
• UK - 10th August

Troy (2004) (Arrow Video)

Loosely based on Homer’s Iliad, Troy tells the story of the decade-long Trojan War. When Paris (Orlando Bloom) runs away with married Queen Helen (Diane Kruger), the latter’s husband and king Menelaus of Sparta (Brendan Gleeson) declares war on Troy, which is led by Hector (Eric Bana). Meneluas sends a unified Greek army, led by Achilles (Brad Pitt).

Where I think Troy will really shine is with its audio. While there’s no Dolby Atmos soundtrack on this disc, there is a DTS-HD 5.1 MA mix and I’ve been finding more fantastic-sounding 5.1 MA mixes every month. With large scale battles that should deliver plenty of detail and power, along similar lines to discs I’ve previously reviewed such as Kingdom of Heaven and Gladiator II, Troy could end up as another brilliant-sounding disc that could really push a surround sound system.

This 4K restoration is not only presented by Arrow Video, whose 4K Blu-rays are always superb, but is restored from the original 35mm and presented in Dolby Vision. There’s a lot of bold visuals in Troy, including the beautiful environments, vibrant colors and detailed costumes that should look stunning when restored in 4K.

Release date

• US - August 18
• UK - 17th August

West Side Story (1961)

Based on the 1957 stage musical of the same name, West Side Story is inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and tells the story of young lovers Tony (Richard Beymer) and Maria (Natalie Wood), who are embroiled in the gang war for the Upper West Side between the Jets (Tony’s former gang) and the Sharks (of whom Maria’s brother Bernardo is the current leader).

With Dolby Vision HDR support, this 4K disc of West Side Story should look fantastic. Not only is there the vivid colors of the 1950s aesthetic, but there’s plenty of high contrast scenes at night, where dark and bright tones create a nice dynamic range. This 4K disc is presented by Altitude, who released the Some Like It Hot 4K I tested earlier this year and if that disc is anything to go by, this 4K disc should be fantastic.

The musicals I’ve tested, such as Wicked and The Sound of Music, have often sounded excellent, especially when Dolby Atmos is supported. West Side Story also supports an Atmos soundtrack, so I’m expecting iconic songs such as ‘Maria’ and ‘Somewhere’ to sound their very best. With an Atmos soundtrack, there’s also scope for detail, such as the shuffling and movement of dancers during choreography to add that extra layer of immersion.

Release date

• US - September 11 (Import)
• UK - 31st August

Mars Attacks! (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment)

Directed by Tim Burton, Mars Attacks! follows the arrival of aliens to Earth, where they meet the President of the United States James Dale (Jack Nicholson). After a first-contact meeting goes awry, the Martians begin to attack Earth. The movie features an all-star cast including Glenn Close, Annette Benning, Pierce Brosnan, Michael J. Fox and more.

As with all of Burton’s movies, I’m expecting very vibrant colors, such as those I saw in Edward Scissorhands. Mars Attacks! has a very gaudy, almost 1960s aesthetic in places that is sure to generate some lovely pop on screen, especially as Dolby Vision is also supported. I’ll be curious to see how the CGI of the aliens holds up, but after seeing 1982’s Tron on 4K, which made the dated graphics look decent, I have high hopes.

A Dolby Atmos soundtrack is featured on the 4K disc and other than the iconic ‘Ack’ sounds the Martians make, there’s plenty of great audio throughout this movie that could sound great in Dolby Atmos. The sounds of the Martian’s ray guns should draw some nice detail, explosions should generate some hefty impact and bass and there should be nice height effects in action too.

Release date

• US - August 11
• UK - 31st August

August 2026 highlight 4K releases

Below is a select list of 4K Blu-rays set for release in August 2026. Both UK and US releases are featured, with release dates noted. Release dates may vary by region, with some titles yet to be announced for some regions, or they may already be available in others. 4K Blu-ray is region-free however, so you should be able to order from anywhere.

August 3/4

• Talladega Nights
• The People vs Larry Flint
• School on Fire
• The Devil Wears Prada 2 (UK)
• Once Upon A Thief (UK)

August 10/11

• Project Hail Mary
• Mars Attacks! (US - UK: 31st August)
• Barbarian
• Clear and Present Danger
• Michael
• JFK
• Sing Street

August 17/18

• Troy
• Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (UK)
• Popeye (1980)
• Flight
• Nightcrawler
• Last Tango in Paris (UK)
• Hunt for the Wilderpeople (UK)

August 25/26

• The Pink Panther (1963) (UK)
• Disclosure Day
• Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu (US)
• Practical Magic

August 31

• West Side Story (1961) (UK - September 11, import)
• The Abominable Snowman

The 2020s has seen a huge shift in music, and the thirst for new releases has never been this parched — we have the pandemic to blame for that. Now, artists are pumping out albums like never before, and it’s become quite the challenge to keep up with this sonic saturation.

Back in 2023, I decided to take action. I started recording my favorite songs released throughout the year by adding them all into one big playlist on Spotify, starting afresh and creating a new playlist at the turn of the new year. Three years later, I’ve kept up the momentum, and now I’ve got four stacked playlists (one each for 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026).

But as the years have gone by, my playlists have done more than simply record the songs that defined every 365 days. Not only can I immediately refer to them whenever someone asks me ‘what were your favorite songs of 2025?’ for example, but they give me a comprehensive overview of how my music taste has evolved.

It’s become integral to my music streaming regime, and Spotify folders have helped boost my playlist organization further — but I’m waiting for an easier way to group my favorite albums of the year.

Spotify locked playlist folders behind the desktop experience for 15 years, but since it rolled the feature out for mobile back in April, it’s been a huge help in grouping my playlists, especially for my ‘Year in Music’ series.

Following the launch of folders, Spotify increased its Library pins limit from 4 to 20, so now I can finally pin my ‘Year in Music’ folder to my library without having to scroll through the cluttered mess to reach it. It’s a win-win situation, but I still think there’s room for improvement.

While I love a hit single, albums are my favorite way to enjoy music, and New Music Friday has brought back the album release as an event (thank you, Beyoncé). Though you can now freely group playlists in folders in Spotify, I’m still waiting for the platform to roll out the option to do this with albums.

That said, there’s currently a small workaround. You can create album folders by adding all the songs from one album to a playlist, then adding that playlist to a folder to keep track of your favorite releases, repeating the process with each album.

It’s handy, but it adds more steps to the process and doesn’t look as neat or refined. Additionally, I’ve also tried adding several albums to make one monster playlist of my favorite yearly releases, but this ends up looking even more ridiculous.

For a music platform that prides itself on being the first one with social media-like features, Spotify sure needs to improve the organization of these tools. As a result of the messiness of my Library, I’ve resorted to using third-party services to group my favorite albums into chronological and concise lists.

Musicboard is one of my favorites because you can review music, curate your own lists, and interact with other music fans more smoothly. It’s essentially Letterboxd for music, and just like Letterboxd Pro, you can have access to additional features and customize your profile to reflect your musical identity. That said, it would be even better if I could do this from one place in the streaming platform that gives me my music fix.

It’s refreshing to know that there are platforms out there that understand what tools music enthusiasts want alongside access to the music itself. For me personally, my listening experience isn’t over as soon as a song or album comes to a close — I need to actively log what I’m listening to, and having a cluttered abundance of albums saved into one massive list in Spotify just wrecks my nerves.

I was fourteen or so when I went to the Gadget Show Live (once a big tech event in the UK which showed off the latest technology) in 2016 as a punter and overheard someone on a stand I'd visited mention they'd spent £1,000 on a custom gaming PC.

A thousand pounds. On a computer. I remember turning that figure over in my head (it's roughly $1,400) and not quite being able to make sense of it, not necessarily because I couldn't fathom how much money that was, but because at the time, it seemed like a lot of money to spend on a PC without any frame of reference as to what that price got you.

As it turned out, £1,000 would have bought you an upper mid-range system back then, and speccing a top-end system of the time would have added an awful lot more to my 'dream budget'. A properly specced 3XS system built around Intel's then-flagship Kaby Lake processor, the Core i7-7700K, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080, would set you back around £1,700 including VAT.

Nvidia went one further with the venerable GTX 1080 Ti, which arrived in March 2017. It immediately became the card every serious PC gamer wanted, and pushed that high price even higher. Nonetheless, you still got an entire top-of-the-range PC for that price.

Here's what's strange about that number in 2026: it's roughly what you'd pay for a flagship graphics card alone. Nvidia's RTX 5090 should retail for roughly in line with what this entire PC cost, although the Asus ROG RTX 5090 Astral I've got for testing is over double the RRP of this PC, even taking inflation into account.

Intriguingly, the GPU that was the ceiling of consumer ambition in 2017 is now, in isolation, cheaper than a mid-range graphics card in 2026. Nvidia's GTX 1080 Ti launched at £699 / $699 (about AU$930); the RTX 5090 launched at £1,799, at least for the Founder's Edition card.

That's not a like-for-like comparison — flagship GPU pricing has always been a law unto itself — but it does tell you something about the economic difference between these two moments in PC gaming history.

Now, Scan, an online computer retailer in the UK, has sent me that exact system, and I've plonked the GTX 1080 Ti Founder's Edition inside, and I've been running it alongside my own high-spec rig, with an RTX 5090 added for good measure, to see how the decade-old dream holds up.

What £1,700 bought you nearly a decade ago

Here's the entire spec sheet of the 3XS PC that Scan sent my way with the GPU swapped out:

• CPU: Intel Core i7-7700K
• Cooler: Corsair 240mm AIO
• GPU: Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti Founder's Edition
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance LED 16GB DDR4-3000
• SSD: Samsung 960 Evo 250GB SSD (supplemented with a further 1TB SSD for game storage in my case)
• Motherboard: Asus ROG Strix Z270F Gaming
• PSU: Corsair RM750x 750W White
• Case: Corsair Carbide 400C in white

On first impressions, I'm a fan of the Corsair Carbide 400C case, feeling it to be a quieter and more considered choice than a lot of the RGB-laden alternatives that were becoming increasingly common at the time. Coming in white adds a bit of style to proceedings, and it seems roomy enough for the build on offer here. The hinged door with glass window is a nice touch, too.

Inside, the Asus ROG Strix Z270F Gaming motherboard is decently feature-rich and adds a smattering of RGB in the top corner to sit alongside the white LEDs of the RAM and the stock case fan inside. The Samsung 960 Evo SSD would have been top spec at the time, but is the one component that feels particularly outdated. It's a fast, capable boot drive, but is easily filled up with a modern Windows 11 installation and a game or two. Back in 2017, you'd have definitely wanted a hard drive installed as well.

Then there's the GTX 1080 Ti Founder's Edition. Nvidia's reference cooler on the Ti was a meaningful step up from the blower-style designs of previous generations, with an open dual-fan layout that kept temperatures in check. It's a handsome card even by today's standards and feels more restrained than the AIB partner designs that surrounded it. Holding it in 2026 feels like handling something from a very specific and rather significant chapter in GPU history, given its legendary status.

The 1080 Ti has a reputation that outlasted the hardware cycle it was supposed to belong to. When Nvidia's RTX 2080 Ti arrived in 2018, it brought ray tracing and a steeper price — and offered only a slight bump in rasterisation performance that most 1080 Ti owners looked at the cost of upgrading and decided against it. Even now, folks are asking how good this card is today, which is testament to its performance - and indeed its reputation.

A modern point of reference

Of course, benchmark numbers are no good in isolation, so for comparison's sake, I'm putting the Scan system against my own personal gaming rig, with the added boost of the RTX 5090. Usually it'd be an RTX 4080 Super, but for a 'dream PC' angle, I needed to go with the modern dream. Here it is in terms of specs:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
• Cooler: Noctua NH-D15
• GPU: Asus ROG Astral RTX 5090
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5-6000 CL36
• SSD: Lexar NM790 4TB
• Motherboard: NZXT N7 B650E
• PSU: NZXT C1200 1200W 80+ Gold ATX 3.0
• Case: NZXT H9 Flow (2023)

That isn't too bad of a PC if I do say so myself, and yes, I could use faster RAM or a beefier AMD processor if I wanted to eke out as much performance as possible, but I haven't seen fit to upgrade just yet.

Benchmarking methodology

To see how this 2017-era PC performs in the big 2026, I thought it might be fun to run it through a range of games – both ones that are contemporaries of the system and some slightly more modern titles that might push it quite hard. I've also put it through a range of modern benchmark tests to gauge performance against the newer hardware.

To Scan's credit, the machine came running the latest version of Windows 11 25H2 and Nvidia's latest driver release for GTX 10-series desktop cards, driver 582.66, which was a security update released in June 2026.

I've also elected to run games hooked up to my 4K QD-OLED monitor to see how far we can really push this Scan system, running at 1080p, 1440p and 4K to give you a full picture. The RTX 5090 system has also been put through the same tests, as close as possible, to give some comparable results and a frame of reference.

Testing 2017-era games

Firstly, I thought it was correct to run the Scan system through some games that would be period-correct for the time this PC was released to give an idea of a baseline. All four titles were run at their maximum settings, for reference.

Far Cry 5 seemed an ideal first candidate, being from 2018, and at the Ultra preset with HD textures enabled, it managed a 113fps average at 1080p. Going up to 1440p pushed things to 95fps, proving some surprisingly playable results. It was only when I got up to 4K that things dipped immensely, with a 50fps average. For reference, the RTX 5090 system hit 186fps at 4K, which tells you something about how much the goalposts have moved.

I followed this up with the original Dirt Rally, a game that relies on a strong CPU to help alongside the 1080 Ti, so the Core i7-7700K has to do a fair bit of heavy lifting. At the Ultra preset, the 1080 Ti managed 127fps at 1080p and 126fps at 1440p — results so close together that the GPU clearly isn't the bottleneck at either resolution; the 7700K is setting the ceiling, and it's holding it pretty well. At 4K, the GPU gets more of a say, and results come in at a still-reasonable 79fps.

However, this revealed one of the bigger gulfs between the older system and my more modern option. The RTX 5090 system managed 304fps at 1080p, 267fps at 1440p, and 225fps at 4K — numbers so high they serve as a reminder of how differently the two machines interpret the same game.

The original Hitman, which uses DirectX 12 at maximum settings, returned 128fps at 1080p, 106fps at 1440p, and 59.5fps at 4K. The RTX 5090 system managed 203fps at 1080p, 191fps at 1440p, and 186fps at 4K — again, the gap narrowing considerably at lower resolutions before opening up at 4K.

I'd argue Rise of the Tomb Raider is the 1080 Ti's finest hour in this period-correct lineup. Running at the Very High preset in DirectX 12, it returned 144fps at 1080p and 110fps at 1440p. These are numbers that would have felt sky-high at the time and still feel impressive today. Even at 4K, the 59.7fps result is the most modern-feeling 4K figure of the four period titles, suggesting this is a game the 1080 Ti was particularly well-matched for, and a near-60fps average provides some very playable results even today.

That is, until you get the RTX 5090 involved – it posted 316fps, 302fps, and 281fps across the three resolutions in Rise of the Tomb Raider.

Trying newer games

The older game results paint a flattering picture of the 1080 Ti. However, modern titles are much less kind, as you might expect.

My first port of call was Cyberpunk 2077, perhaps this generation's Crysis equivalent, as it can be quite a demanding title for a range of systems. For the 1080 Ti, at the Ultra preset without any upscaling, it managed 52fps at 1080p — passable, if not quite the experience the game deserves — while 1440p dropped to 32fps, and 4K delivered a deeply unimpressive 13.9fps. Enabling FSR 2.1 Quality improved things to 62fps, 41fps, and 20.5fps across the three resolutions respectively, which at least makes 1080p feel workable.

Beyond that, it's a significant compromise. Ray tracing isn't an option here at all — the 1080 Ti simply has not got the hardware for it, and that means for 2026's most demanding titles, including Indiana Jones & The Great Circle that require hardware-based ray-tracing to even run, you won't be able to play them at all.

The RTX 5090, by contrast, ran the Ultra preset at 173fps, 148fps, and 116fps natively. Plus, a more modern card supplements its raw power with Nvidia's DLSS upscaler and fully-fledged RT performance. With DLSS Transformer enabled, those numbers climbed to 183fps, 170fps, and 167fps. With a combination of Cyberpunk 2077 at its RT: Ultra preset with DLSS Transformer enabled, it managed 130fps, 129fps, and 125fps at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K respectively. The gap between these two machines in Cyberpunk 2077 is the widest in my entire test suite, and the most instructive.

This is especially true when you take the multi-frame-gen tech Nvidia has put into these new Blackwell cards, acting as a multiplier for 'fake frames' for a smoother feeling experience, as long as you're starting with a solid enough base frame rate so too much latency isn't introduced. With the RT: Ultra preset, and the MFG multiplier set to 4x, the RTX 5090 system managed 511fps at 1080p, 452fps at 1440p and 355fps at 4K, widening the gulf even further.

Returnal tells a similar story for this matchup. The Epic preset returned 57fps at 1080p, 45fps at 1440p, and 27fps at 4K — the 1080p result is playable, but Returnal's fast-paced action makes anything below 60fps feel like a handicap, and 27fps at 4K is below any reasonable threshold. The RTX 5090 managed 231fps, 207fps, and 147fps at the same resolutions. In a game built around sharp reactions and split-second timing, that headroom matters more than in most.

Moving over to Rainbow Six Extraction, I had higher hopes for a more modern eSports-type title. The default Ultra preset includes a Dynamic resolution of 25-100% of the selected one, which is how I left it, revealing 126fps at 1080p, 85fps at 1440p, and a genuinely solid 66fps at 4K. It's the most comfortable the 1080 Ti looks across this entire modern test suite, and a reminder that there are modern titles that aren't particularly demanding, which are still playable on older hardware.

Meanwhile the RTX 5090-equipped modern PC scored 461fps at 1080p, 405fps at 1440p, and 272fps at 4K, and prove the benefit of the bevvy of high refresh rate OLED screens we've begun to see in recent years when paired with such powerful hardware.

For one final test, I thought it'd be interesting to try a super up-to-date Unreal Engine 5-based title in Black Myth Wukong, as one of the few titles that doesn't need any hardware-based ray-tracing, unlike a lot of its contemporaries.

I elected to step down to the Very High preset, with FSR enabled (with a resolution scale of 33 for 4K, 49 for 1440p and 66 for 1080p) and frame-gen on. The result was 46fps at 1080p, 44fps at 1440p, and 40fps at 4K, which make for some remarkably consistent numbers across different resolutions that make it clear that frame-gen is doing some form of heavy lifting to keep the output FPS so stable. The RTX 5090 managed 120fps, 122fps, and 119fps with the same settings.

Synthetic benchmark time!

The synthetic benchmarks tell a predictable story. The 7700K holds up reasonably well in single-core workloads — the gap to the 7800X3D is meaningful but not embarrassing, and is somewhere in the region of 50% depending on which test you trust.

Multi-threaded performance is a different matter, though, where nearly a decade of core count increases and architectural progress make the comparison increasingly one-sided.

On the GPU side, the picture is more interesting. In 3DMark Fire Strike — a DirectX 11 test that's broadly representative of the conditions the 1080 Ti was designed around — the RTX 5090 leads by roughly three time. Push to Fire Strike Ultra at 4K, and that becomes nearly five times, and the Time Spy results, which move into DirectX 12 territory, tell the same story: a 4x gap at 1440p becoming 4.6x at the Extreme variant.

The 1080 Ti doesn't just lose ground to newer hardware — it loses it disproportionately as resolution and API demands increase, which is worth keeping in mind as we come to a judgement on this entire system.

Summing up

The comparisons made here make for a fascinating reminder of just how much the PC gaming landscape has changed over the past decade.

In 2017, £1,700 bought you an entire dream machine built around the best consumer graphics hardware money could buy. In 2026, that same sort of money barely gets you through the door for a flagship GPU alone. The economics are strange, but the performance gulf is telling: the RTX 5090 system is several times faster in many of the tests here, especially as resolutions rise and modern rendering technologies come into play.

However, the old Scan system isn't the write-off those numbers might suggest when you drill down. The GTX 1080 Ti and Core i7-7700K remain a remarkably capable pairing in the games they were designed around, with high-refresh-rate 1080p and 1440p gaming still very much within reach for those older titles. Even some newer titles remain playable with sensible settings, although the lack of dedicated ray-tracing hardware and modern AI-assisted upscaling means there are increasingly firm limits to what the system can do.

That perhaps says more about how well balanced the original machine was than anything else. The 1080 Ti earned its legendary reputation because it wasn't merely fast for its time, but rather remained relevant for years afterwards, and even now it can still provide a decent experience in the right games. There are still folks talking about how well it does today, which is a testament to its legacy.

Admittedly, the rest of the system has aged more unevenly, with the 16GB of DDR4 memory and tiny 250GB boot drive feeling particularly constrained in 2026, but there is still something satisfying about using a PC that once represented the absolute pinnacle of enthusiast gaming so far removed from the original situation.

The modern machine is undeniably better in almost every measurable sense. It's dramatically faster, more capable at 4K, and supported by technologies that simply didn't exist when the GTX 1080 Ti launched. Features such as DLSS, frame generation and hardware-accelerated ray tracing have changed what we expect from a high-end graphics card, while high-refresh-rate OLED displays, such as the one both systems have been hooked up to from Philips, give all that extra performance somewhere meaningful to go.

Still, there is a certain charm to the 2017 system in my book. It represents a point when a top-end gaming PC felt aspirational but not entirely unattainable — when spending £1,700 could buy the whole dream, rather than just the graphics card. The hardware may no longer be cutting-edge, but it hasn't become entirely obsolete either. If anything, testing it against a 2026 flagship proves just how exceptional the GTX 1080 Ti was, and how long a genuinely well-specced gaming PC can remain enjoyable.

The goalposts have moved enormously, but the old dream still has plenty of game left in it.

When it comes to mobile games, few remain culturally relevant for a decade, and none have shadows that loom quite as large as Pokémon Go. Now in its tenth year, the app remains a phenomenon.

It’s undergone massive changes since it first launched back in 2016; just as much as its players, our phones, and the world around us. Still, there’s a fondness that bookended much of my early 20s that I share with many players old and new; it’s also one I felt radiate from Kim Adams, VP of game development, when we sat down to discuss the title’s legacy and future as it celebrates this significant milestone.

Spotting the Togepi plush sat just in the frame of my Zoom camera capture, Adams’ affinity for the game and its players was immediately clear: “Togekiss is my favorite, but Mr. Mime is a close second, just because Mr. Mime is so strange!”

Everyone has different potential

What struck Adams most upon joining the Pokémon Go team was the relationship between the players and the game. “There's a loyalty and a love for the game that is really special, and I feel unlike any other game.“

“It’s how [players] have integrated the game into their lives. There's a group in Austin, Texas, who meets every Wednesday night to raid together, and then they all go to this very small local restaurant to have tacos. That's their thing, every week.”

Some groups use Pokémon Go as a vessel to organize park cleanups or local food drives, she says, and of course there are the many players who've met their life partner playing the game — one lucky couple even tied the knot in an official Pokémon Go wedding last year.

In numbers, that loyalty feels all the more tangible. “Ten years is a long time. We've had over 800 million people play the game during that time. People have walked over 50 billion kilometers. They've made almost a billion friends in the game. They've caught a trillion Pokémon, and that's across 150 countries.”

For Adams, though, her proudest achievements boil down to how the team behind Pokémon Go “stayed true to our mission of inspiring people to explore the world together, and we haven't really wavered from that.”

That evolution spans a decade of new features, from PvP battles and Buddies to more recent additions like Dynamax, with many built around the game’s core social foundations.

Adams feels “particularly proud” of the app’s first UGC feature, Routes, which launched in 2023. “When I go to a new city, I immediately look at what Routes are nearby, and I try different Routes so that I can see the neighborhood through the eyes of a local in a way that I couldn't otherwise… we currently have seven million Routes in the game across the world.”

Whether it’s through Routes, Raids or rankings, Pokémon Go’s expansive audience is at the core of its success, and it’s something Adams seems acutely aware of. “I really love some of the smaller quality of life improvements that we've made with existing features, because we're listening to players, right? Those always get a great reception because people know that we're interested in making improvements continually.”

The circumstances of one’s birth are irrelevant

You never know what’s around the corner, but a global crisis like COVID-19 was unlikely to be on anyone’s business plan in the last ten years. So, how does an app with a core mission of going outside and playing with friends grapple with a pandemic that saw millions of people stuck at home?

Initially, with some difficulty, Adams explains, “When Covid first struck in March of 2020, we had three live events planned within the next three months. But of course, as things developed, it was literally illegal to go outside your home, depending on what region you were in in the world. So we had to cancel those.”

The problem almost became a philosophical one, in a sense. Adam contrasts her previous experience working with products that had “incredible tech in search of a purpose” with Pokémon Go’s reverse approach: “We started with this lovely mission to get people outside connecting, and we have this incredible and deep tech stack that supports that purpose… using the real world as our game board, and having a game that's designed to play outdoors with other people is not always easy.”

As a result, the game had to see some radical changes to meet its players where they were. “We had to make some pivots to support indoor play, which we had never designed for before. But the great thing that came out of that was it forced us to imagine what live events could be like if thousands of people weren't in the same physical location.”

That, she says, was the genesis of Pokémon Go’s global live events, making it possible for players around the world to join in the fun without being at a specific location. “Now we have the best of both worlds, where we kick off the season with three major live events across the world, and then we follow on with this global event afterwards.”

Later, the Community Ambassador Program launched in July 2022 as part of the Campfire app, cementing the platform-level approach to bringing players together by offering passionate players who love the game the chance to apply to become a community ambassador and host local weekly or monthly meetups.

“This program has totally caught fire: now we have over 3,000 across the world. At this point, we're only limited to how quickly we can thoughtfully onboard people. The nurturing of those relationships is really important to us because it keeps our finger on the pulse of how players are actually feeling about everything that we implement into the game. We've even brought them into the office from all over to pick their brains.”

“It’s so great — I used campfire, and I connected with folks a couple weeks ago. I went to a local park that I hadn't been to to play [with them]. I've raided in hotel lobbies with employees before. This community is really tight.”

If you don't struggle, you don't improve

Still, every rose has its thorns, and not every change to Pokémon Go has been received with open arms. For example, changes to remote raid price hikes, which allowed players in more remote areas or those with accessibility needs to join in the fun more easily, remain unresolved despite large-scale community outcry.

Despite this, though, Adams says the mission remains the same: “to inspire people to play everywhere in every community across the world.” To catch ‘em all, one might say.

That includes players in more rural areas who are most affected by the game’s distribution of players and in-game features; a group Adams remains committed to servicing. “Over the years, we've done major map updates where we've added two and a half billion spawn points, and a lot of those are in rural areas… with tens of millions of players every day, there's never anyone who's too far away from you who also plays Pokémon Go.”

There’s always room for growth though, she acknowledges. “I’m really proud of the strong, talented, committed team that we've built, who truly aspire to bring the best experiences to players every day. Along those lines, quality is an ongoing issue that we're really looking at. We're doubling down on this year.”

I asked what the team would do differently, given the chance, from its ten-year tenure, and what Adams shared shapes much of what we can expect in the years to come: “We would probably invest even more in the core foundations of the technical implementation of the game so we could really deliver more solidly on the promises that we make to players, so that's something we're taking a close look at.

“We've had a minute to breathe now post-acquisition and really take a solid look at how we make improvements. We're also taking a look at design across the game; there have been so many elements added over the years that we're doing a pass, making sure that everything is as straightforward as possible for folks.”

Adams points to the Pokémon Go Times Square takeover as a career highlight.

The future is now, thanks to science!

Pokémon Go has seen many evolutions in its 10-year history as a mobile app, but when I ask Adams about her wildest dreams for the future of the game, she reflects on some of her previous experiences in the XR space. “This is my personal wish — I'm not making a company statement — my personal wish is that as wearables continue to develop into something more robust and scalable and light, I'd love the opportunity to explore playing our game truly heads up and hands free.

“If — or how — that may come together is still very much TBD, dependent upon what happens in the hardware space, which we're always tracking. I'm always having meetings, and we're doing some experimentation on our side, just to make sure that we keep up with the tech, and when it's ready, that is something that I would love to dig into further.”

I’ll let it be known in writing here that I pitched Pokéball-themed round-frame smart specs, for what it’s worth. Low-hanging fruit? Absolutely, but I’d have no shame in hitting the streets wearing those bad boys.

Beyond that, the immediate future for the app offers plenty to keep the team and players busy. “We're cooking up some really exciting new features. We still have the rest of our 10th anniversary year with lots of fun things coming up. I truly feel there's never been a better time to be a Pokémon Go player than right now.”

You can download Pokémon Go for iOS and Android via the App Store and Google Play Store.

I've been a fan of Zoner Studio since first reviewing it in 2025 - it's a fusion of Lightroom and Photoshop-style tools for photographers, with some compelling advantages over both.

My team recently re-reviewed the photo editing and organizing software, complete with its big summer updates roll-out, where it earned an even higher score for 2026 (read our Zoner Studio review).

I spoke to Zoner's Thomas Urban to find out what's new in this Windows-only photo editor, why the devs prefer meaningful features over flashy gimmicks, and how the software handles the messy realities of shooting.

Adobe has a near-monopoly on creative software. What is the elevator pitch to a photographer who is locked into the Lightroom/Photoshop ecosystem to try Zoner Studio?

Great point, they are a household name. If you want a single interface for all your editing, faster culling and RAW capabilities, not being stuck in a catalog while being able to work with local files if you’d like and all of this for a lower price, then you should try out Zoner Studio.

In your summer update, you intentionally avoided “flashy new features you’ll use once a year.” Why do you think so much of the industry is chasing AI gimmicks instead of fixing core editing speed?

Perhaps they think people will find these types of upgrades boring? Maybe the core issues are more difficult to address? And, some of these features like a completely revamped search engine, just aren’t visually that striking, for sure.

When you’ve taken thousands of photographs though and just want to get through the culling in a responsible and effective way with quality metadata and organisation, these less flashy things are going to save your time down the road and your mental state.

It seems the entire world now has the attention span of a few seconds and everyone is fighting for a fraction of your attention, god forbid your undivided attention. It may be that in order to actually present those important features, you need the flashy stuff to catch the attention first.

I hope with time, society as a whole, we make our way back to authentic things that matter, things that last and things we’re proud of because they’re done well.

Most suites force you to lock in your RAW edits before moving to layers. What’s the practical advantage of keeping a photographer’s entire pipeline inside a single workspace?

Simplicity. We all started this whole photography thing because it was fun and gave us something we kept coming back to. Photo editing should match that and complement this process instead of being a chore.

We want photographers to have a proper partner to their camera and being able to do everything in a single UI just felt like the natural solution.

The fact that each photographer can stay in the same interface allows them to stay in the creative flow rather than worry about whether or not this particular photo is now good enough to move on to layers. That just seems counter to what we're trying to do as photographers.

Cleaning sensor dust or portrait blemishes across a massive shoot is soul-crushing work. Where does your Smart Healing excel, and where do complex textures still force a photographer to step in manually?

Our tools still require manual inputs as we don’t have automatic detection of dust or blemishes. Our tools however, are non-destructive and fast compared to our competition (which is a rare combination).

Source search is on the verge of being possible without the use of AI and they also allow for very complex retouching. Retouching is divided into individual layers, and individual strokes are separated on the layers.

Within strokes, the user can utilize entire strokes (some only allow circles) or subtract from them, brushes have all parameters and we have the best tablet pen integration on the market. It’s possible to customize and map out your parameters based on your pen pressure.

Again, I wanted to remind you of the non-destructive model because this combination is not common for most of these operations in other photo editors. Users have to go to bitmap editors like Ps or Affinity whereas with Zoner Studio, you don’t even have to leave the Develop module.

This makes it easy and there’s no need to make a complicated trip from one program to another while also considering the correct order of operations.

Manual keywording and file tagging is a major chore. How does your Search engine let someone instantly pull up shots without forcing them to build a rigid catalog first?

Yes, this is a core issue with many photo editors. To start, the difference between Zoner Studio and most of the competition is that you don’t need to create a Catalog as a blackbox per se but rather a Catalog built on market standard files or data that sits next to these common files.

Because of this, our Catalog serves more as a cache and does not contain unique data that the photographer could lose and is always “rebuildable” based on the data stored in those photos. Therefore, the photographer is not locked into Zoner Studio’s infrastructure.

We still rely on manual keywording and tagging (unfortunately, the program cannot replace manually entered data because it’s our interpretation of structures) and we’re also working robustly with names and the folder structure, which are an important part of manually entered data and are often ignored by other photo programs.

We also focus on working effectively with them and also with regards to the data that is inherently in the photos themselves. Then based on your knowledge of your data, you can effectively find a lot of things.

Automatically grouping and merging panoramas or focus stacks sounds great in theory. But how did you design the software to handle the messy reality of real-world shooting?

For us, it’s not only good in theory but is great in practice. Of course, we can always improve but we have been optimizing the algorithms for several periods and are still working on them.

If the photographer uses the automatic camera functions like exposure and focus bracketing, and doesn’t make major mistakes when taking photos, we have an almost 100% hit rate.

Of course, it’s ideal to catch those deviations and we are very grateful to the user base for supplying us with samples. We’re really happy that in most cases it simply boils down to a shooting error. In our opinion, a large number of future disruptive technologies will be built on automatic stacking.

It’s necessary to realize that it’s not only about stacking panoramas and others that form a fraction of what a photographer processes but also continuous shots and generally similar images with which the user works as a whole and, for example, selects the best shot.

From turning burst sequences into time-lapses to simulating long exposures without an ND filter, what do you think are the most underrated creative tricks hidden in Zoner Studio?

Back to the basics; LUT's. There are plenty of them on the internet and they are great for everyone.

They'll be liked by the user who still can't click and use sliders to achieve their desired results and by the user who has the ability to accurately utilize the entire RAW processing pipeline.

We aren't exactly fans of the sort of "tricks" philosophy idea but if we had a choose an underrated function that can pull some serious weight, it would be the preview function in the Manager module that allows photographers to preview multiple images at once

Ready to start shooting? We tested the best cameras for photography.

These days, millions of us have smart devices strapped to our wrists, fingers and arms, measuring our metrics and building a picture of the “quantified self” to make us healthier, more active and better prepared for a medical emergency.

Wearables can help improve our wellbeing and nudge us towards better habits, but it’s less common to hear about the flipside: the anxiety at failing to close your rings, the frantic exercise to ensure you maintain your streak, and the obsession with meeting your targets on a daily basis.

These are feelings I know all too well. Having worn some of the best Apple Watches for close to a decade, I’ve watched it become an essential part of my life — so much so that I’ve tried closing my rings when I’m ill, on vacation, or should otherwise be resting and recuperating. I obsess over those little rings on my watch.

I know this is a problem for me. But what I wanted to find out was whether this is a more widespread issue, and if it is, what can be done about it. Is wearable tech making us more anxious? And can it be redesigned to push back against these tendencies and help us feel more relaxed, not less?

To find out, I spoke to tech and wellness experts who shared their thoughts on the ways wearables can impact our health — for better or worse.

The endless streak

During the FIFA World Cup in July, I was preparing to wake up in the early hours to watch England play Mexico at 1am local time. I set my alarm, went to bed early, and got ready to cheer on my team without waking the neighbors.

Yet there was one thought that I couldn’t get out of my mind as I contemplated the looming disruption to my sleep: my Apple Watch is going to hate this.

It’s now become part of my morning ritual to check my sleep score on my Apple Watch. Every high score gives me a little dopamine hit, every low result a crushing sense of disappointment. And I knew that waking up at 1am and staying awake for two hours in the middle of the night was going to make my Watch very disappointed indeed.

In the end, I rolled over and went back to sleep when my alarm woke me for the game. I didn’t watch it, and I know that was only partly because I was woken at some ungodly hour — it was also because, to a certain extent, I’ve allowed the scores and metrics on my Watch to govern the way I live my life.

That’s not the only way this has happened to me. I recently hit a streak of closing my Move ring for 2,000 consecutive days. But I’d be lying if I said there weren’t some days when I entered a fake exercise to get me past my calorie goal on a day when I was ill, tired or simply unmotivated.

Why cheating is fine, but resting is not, is something I admit doesn’t make much sense. But what I do know is that the thought of losing my streak absolutely fills me with dread. 2,000 consecutive days on my Move streak sounds like a lot, but knowing myself, I’m sure I’m going to try to continue it until the day I die, such is the anxiety associated with the idea of my streak ending.

The dark side of wearable tech

I’ve long had perfectionist tendencies, but it’s through observing the way I interact with my Watch that it’s really become clear to me how strongly my device’s gamification of fitness has struck a chord with me — and led me into some unhealthy, possibly obsessive behaviors.

I spoke to Dr Dana McKay, Associate Dean of Interaction, Technology & Information at RMIT University in Australia, to get her opinion.

“These technologies are often designed to help us form habits,” McKay pointed out. "They often use tools for so called ‘persuasive design’.... to persuade us to do something we wanted to anyway when we bought the device."

There are two problems with this:, Dr McKay points out: the possibility of becoming “unhealthily focused” on the device, and the prospect of being convinced to don a wearable by an outside party, like an insurance company, and sharing data we don’t want to share. Some private health insurance companies may subsidise the purchase of a wearable in exchange to access to lower premiums, and sharing your tracker's information to an insurer's app.

Yang Wei, Professor of Wearable Technology at Nottingham Trent University in the UK, agreed, saying that while wearables can help us form positive habits, we also need to be careful around them.

“For many people, wearables can be motivating and empowering,” Wei noted, “but for some users they can also create pressure, anxiety, guilt, or unhealthy dependence on data.” After all, wearables “create a framework for what counts as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ activity, sleep, recovery, or productivity,” Wei said. If that data is framed the wrong way, it can push users in an unhelpful direction.

Wei also warned that “One of the risks is that people may start to trust the device more than their own body. For example, someone may feel they slept badly because their watch gave them a poor sleep score, even if they felt fine. Or they may feel they have failed because they did not close a ring or reach a step target, even if they had a perfectly reasonable day.”

That certainly resonates with me: I consciously work to close my Apple Watch’s rings, viewing it as a requirement for each day. A full set has almost become a condition for having a ‘good’ day, regardless of how I’m feeling or what I’ve achieved. And this overreliance on a piece of tech strapped to my wrist feels key to the negative habits I seem to have formed. So what can I do about it?

How to push back

If wearables have the potential to form negative habits, what can we do to put things right? The answer is often remarkably simple, both McKay and Wei believe: take your watch off from time to time.

“There is no need to wear your device while on vacation unless a health practitioner recommends it,” McKay advised. If your relationship with your fitness tracker has become a problem, “start by turning all the notifications off, limit checking of goals to help reduce obsession, and consider not using the device at all if possible.”

You also need to understand why you are using the device in the first place, Wei contends. “Is it to be more active? To understand sleep? To monitor a specific health concern? Or simply to be more aware of daily patterns? Having a purpose makes it easier to keep the technology in perspective.”

“I would also encourage people to treat wearable data as guidance, not judgement,” said Wei. “These devices can be useful, but they are not perfect and they do not understand the full context of a person’s life. Illness, stress, caring responsibilities, disability, travel, recovery, or simply needing rest can all affect what a ‘good’ day looks like.”

And both McKay and Wei said that if your device is causing significant anxiety or obsessive behavior, it might be best to speak to a medical professional. As Wei put it, “The aim should be for the wearable to support the person, not control how they feel about themselves.”

But this has to go beyond the user’s own actions — wearables themselves should be designed to better support healthy habits and discourage negative ones. For McKay, that includes “allowing people who use trackers to set the number of notifications they get” and hide those they don’t want to see, as well as “removing gamification elements like badges and sharing (competing) with friends and family.”

Many of these features, like push notification controls, are already buried in the watch's settings, but a lot of smartwatch users don't go looking for them.

“I think we need to move from a data-driven relationship with wearables to a more reflective and human-centered one,” Wei added. That means designers should “move away from purely addictive or performance-based features” and towards focusing on “long-term wellbeing rather than daily judgement.”

Ultimately, Wei said, “I think the best wearable technologies will be those that help people feel more confident and informed, not more anxious or dependent.”

I can’t change how Apple designs its smartwatches, but I can reduce the pressure on myself to hit my goals day after day, even when my body is telling me to rest. Staying fit and healthy is a worthwhile pursuit, but when it comes at the cost of anxiously worrying what will happen if your streak ends, it might just be time to bite the bullet, take off the watch, and enjoy some tech-free time with friends and family. After all, losing a streak is not the end of the world.

Recently, I had the chance to attend High End Vienna, where I bore witness to an incredible array of audio gear. Whether it was new flagship loudspeakers from Bowers & Wilkins, futuristic looking headphones, or innovative portable DACs, there was a lot to get excited about. But one product really caught my attention.

As I walked through the Austria Center Vienna, I could hear the sounds of birds singing and crickets chirping. I followed the sound through and discovered a tropical-rainforest-themed room, and within it, sat the Dynaudio Opus One — a large, premium soundbar with mechanized wooden fins. It really was unlike anything I’d seen before.

I got the chance to check out the soundbar for myself, I attended a listening demo, and I even got to speak with Dynaudio Chief Commercial Officer, Julien Bergere, about the one-of-a-kind product ahead of its launch.

Opus One: an introduction

So what is the Dynaudio Opus One? Bergere describes it as “a new, immersive sound product for the home” for both movies and music. It's the first product in the company’s Symphony line of products that are expected to connect together to create a home ecosystem — in a similar vein to Sonos’ multi-speaker array systems, for example.

Something that’s instantly striking about the Opus One is its grand width — it measures 73.4 inches / 1864mm across. Larger TVs have become a lot more popular in recent years, and I asked Bergere if this had influenced the decision to make the Opus One so large. “Absolutely,” he said. “More premium soundbars are usually the size of a 55-inch TV, but there is no solution if you have a bigger TV or a bigger room, and this one is bringing a new dimension in terms of, you know, bass and immersive rendering”.

On the topic of immersion, I was curious as to whether the Opus One would support formats such as Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. Bergere responded: “It will support all the major audio formats including immersive audio, but we're not done yet with the certification.” In addition, the soundbar makes use of spatial sound algorithms designed in Denmark, where Dynaudio is based.

But it’s not all about immersive movie watching. “It can also be used as a stereo device,” said Bergere. “If you have stereo in, you can also play in pure stereo with only the left section and the right section activated to play in a really pure stereo rendering.” You’re able to take the center channel out of the equation entirely, he said, and I’ve personally seen quite a few premium soundbars skip on such a feature, resulting in weaker left and right channel separation. The soundbar can also upmix some stereo content into a more immersive format, but the option for a more purist stereo experience is certainly captivating.

There are a number of ways to experience the Opus One. You can connect to your TV via HDMI ARC, stream music over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, or make use of an AUX port. There’s also an Ethernet port on the soundbar, enabling you to access more stable connectivity. The Opus one also features a massive array of drivers — 24 to be exact — with six soft-dome tweeters, 14 mid/bass drivers, and four dual-diaphragm force-cancelling subwoofers. They come with 1500W of digital amplification, enabling the Opus One to deliver roaring power.

Wooden fins made in Japan bring serious style

As well as its impressive connectivity, power, and size, the Opus One is a joy to look at. It only seems natural to begin with the mechanized wooden fins, which move as you watch a movie or listen to music. “We call them kinetic fins,” said Bergere.

There are 72 mechanized fins on each unit of the Opus One, all of which are handmade, and personify Dynaudio’s ambition to forge a premium audio and visual product.

“[The fins] are actually made in a white oak from Hokkaido by Karimoku,” he said, noting that Karimoku is one of the largest furniture makers in Japan. “We are trying to mix technology and lifestyle… trying to hide the technology [in] beautiful objects but also bring a touch of magic, in this case, with the fact that the fins are moving and can be used to create surprise.”

Bergere confirmed that the wooden fins have no sonic benefit, but did note one functional benefit. “When the product is off, they’re [the fins] actually sealed, so they’re hiding the speaker drivers and protecting them at the same time," he said. He also pointed to acoustically transparent fabric, used on the top and side of the Opus One, which is just as stylish as it is practical.

As you’d expect, the fusion of designer-grade materials with such a premium, 24-driver model, means that the Opus One is pretty pricey. Specifically, the Opus One comes in at €13,000 (about $15,000 / £11,000) — a lot more than premium bars you’d see from the likes of Samsung, JBL, and Sonos. In addition, Bergere told me that accessories, such as stands and mounting gear, will cost between €500 and €5,000. “So together with a good quality screen, it’s around €20,000 for a complete setup with the floor stand,” he said.

Sound check: raw power and impressive imaging combine

With a price like this, you’re going to expect stellar sound from this soundbar to match its undoubtedly gorgeous look. And luckily, I got the chance to hear the Opus One for myself in a demo room. And yeah, it’s fair to say I was pretty impressed.

In 2025’s F1, I was astonished by the thunderous bass output that the Opus One conjured up — the roar of cars whizzing by was palpable, showing off the model’s 1,500W amplification to full effect.

Something else that struck me was the effectiveness of spatial audio effects. Whether it was vehicles zooming across the screen or fireworks blasting into the sky, the Opus One tracked each movement with precision and care.

We listened to some music too, including a stereo mix of Eric Clapton’s Tears In Heaven, where vocals were beautifully defined, subtle strings came through with great clarity, and warm bass came through cleanly.

With Atmos music, I felt similar — vocal-led tracks were beautifully detailed, instruments were well separated, and percussion in the treble range was articulate and expressive. Individual sounds also dispersed across the listening space to create an expansive, immersive experience.

The Opus One officially launched in June, but availability is still relatively limited. To begin with, Dynaudio has opted to release the soundbar in its home market, Denmark, as well as China — though Bergere said Dynaudio plans to launch the product across “more markets in 2027”. It’s available in two different finishes: one with White Oak fins, and another with Appalachian Walnut.

If you're of a certain age, you'll remember the frisson of excitement around the launch of Gmail back in 2004. The idea of getting 1GB of storage space completely free of charge seemed wild — and all of your messages could be got at in a simple web browser tab.

As someone who had become accustomed to deleting emails to save space, and painstakingly moving over message archives manually every time I got a computer upgrade, this sounded fantastic. So did being able to get at my emails from any device I wanted, instantly (that seems less appealing these days, somehow).

Something else Gmail has done really well down the years is act as a hub for other email accounts, letting you import and send messages from other accounts inside the Gmail interface — with all the benefits of powerful search, filtering, and spam flagging tools. Now though, most of that functionality is going away.

These are features that I've relied on for decades inside Gmail, and it's going to make my email experience much more frustrating and fragmented.

What's changing

Charting the gradual dismantling of these features inside Gmail is tricky, because the updates have largely come through emails to users and updates to support documentation — there aren't really any official blog post announcements to point to (it's not surprising Google wants to keep all of this quiet).

The most recent news is that the ability to send emails from other accounts through Gmail is going away, and will be switched off completely from January 2027. If you currently send your Outlook or Yahoo messages through Gmail, as I do, you're going to have to find another solution from the start of next year.

A couple of other features are also being killed off in January 2027 as well, though these changes are ones we've known about for a while. You'll no longer be able to import messages from other accounts via the old POP protocol — something I've relied on for years to get emails from all of my various accounts into the same place — and you won't be able to use the Gmailify feature that essentially adds a few Gmail features (like spam protection) to your third-party accounts.

As someone who primarily uses Gmail on the web, and has several email accounts feeding into it, these are significant changes — and I'm not the only one upset about them. My current setup means I can have separate emails for work, app sign-ups, newsletters, and so on, and keep them all in Gmail for searching, filtering, and labeling, and it's been a simple and reliable setup.

Now I'm going to have to go back to jumping between three or four different email apps to check everything. Different rules, different storage limits, different interfaces. It's an annoying set of changes, which Google hasn't really explained — presumably the idea is to keep users focused on Gmail, and to cut costs.

What to do next

You do have a few options for trying to cling on to Gmail as a message hub, though none of them are ideal. You can get your third-party email account to auto-forward messages to Gmail — it means you'll have them in your Gmail archive for filtering and searching, though there's no 'send as' functionality.

This might cost you too: It's a paid-for extra for Yahoo Mail for example. That's particularly galling for me, because Yahoo is one of the accounts I feed into Gmail. I rely on it for newsletters, tickets, store accounts, general admin, and the like, and now I'm not going to be able to get at any of that inside Gmail.

Another option is to set up a desktop email client on Windows or macOS, which feels very old school. Gmail still supports the IMAP standard, and so do most other modern email services: all of your email will be together in one place, but you're only going to be able to access everything in one place from whatever desktop computer you set this up on.

Lastly, you can still add third-party accounts inside the Gmail app for Android or iOS. However, while this will let you view all your emails in one unified inbox, it won't actually move anything over to Gmail — if you open up the web app, your other accounts and all the messages inside them won't be there.

It's all a bit of a sorry mess, and I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do going forward. What's certain is that I'm not going to be able to carry on as I have been, and that Gmail is going to be a significantly less useful email hub for me in the future.

Since they were announced last month, I've been dual-wielding the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Z Fold 8 Ultra, the two new premium folding phones from the world's foremost foldable maker.

In the two weeks since the phones showed up at my door, I've taken hundreds of pictures on them (349 on the Fold 8 and 307 on the Ultra, to be precise). They've come with me on multiple holidays, been used for product photography for reviews I've published, and even accompanied me on a film location scout day, which saw them get a lot of use.

You'd expect that the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra would be my default photography foldable. As I'll explain a little later, it's simply a better camera phone, offering better-looking photos thanks to having more cameras.

However, that's not been the case. When I need to grab a shot, I've found myself reaching for whichever pocket the 'standard' Galaxy Z Fold 8 is in. And the reason has little to do with its photography chops.

Size matters more than sensors

The benefit of the best camera phone over a DSLR or mirrorless camera is convenience. You don't have to sling them over your neck or tote them around in a carry case; they fit in your pocket and, more importantly, come out of your pocket in a pinch.

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is a long, thin phone; we're talking 158.4mm tall and just 72.8mm wide when it's folded (8.9mm thick and 215g heavy, if we're trying to get all the dimensions). When I put it in my trouser pocket, it digs its way right into the bottom, yet still sticks out the top a fair way.

Yet removing it can be quite a faff due to its frame. I have to angle and adjust it, feeling like Ross, Rachel and Chandler trying to pivot it to remove it.

By contrast, removing the Galaxy Z Fold 8 from my pocket is a breeze because of how small and stumpy it is when folded (123.9 x 81.9 x 9.7mm, 201g, just so we've got everything). It comes out easier than an average, non-folding smartphone.

Quite a vapid reason to prefer one phone over the other, right? But try to imagine this removing process 50, 60, 70 times in one day, when I'm on holiday or a recce; the Z Fold 8 Ultra becomes more effort than it's worth.

In fact, most of the Z Fold 8 Ultra's shots are from specific shoots or sessions, when I knew I'd be using the phone lots, and so didn't put it in my pocket at all.

One is clearly a better camera phone

Despite the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 being my preferred photography phone, I'm under no illusions about which takes better pictures.

Both phones have a 50MP f/1.9 ultra-wide camera, and two 10MP f/2.2 selfie cameras. But from here, the Ultra is, as you'd imagine, better.

For starters, its main sensor is more powerful, packing in 200 megapixels and an f/1.7 focal length, compared to the Z Fold 8's 50MP f/1.8. As photographers know, though, it's not all about megapixels, and I found it's the zoom lens that made the Ultra better.

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra has a 10MP telephoto camera which supports a 3x zoom. On paper, it's the same unit the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra packs.

A zoom lens gives the Z Fold 8 Ultra much, much more versatility for photography; in fact, I'd wager at least half of my pictures on the phone use this snapper. Its 67mm lens gives much nicer, softer depth of field than the main camera, even if the app keeps jumping between optical and digital zoom when you're using it.

When you zoom in on the Galaxy Z Fold 8, you're just getting digital zoom. The flower pictures above will show you how this looks in comparison to optical; it's fine, but to camera phone photographers, it won't compete.

As you'll notice when you look at the above pictures too, the Z Fold 8 Ultra offers some extra bokeh on the 1x zoom picture, likely thanks to the extra information presented from all those excess pixels it's capturing. However, for the most part, I've found them pretty matched when it comes to these 'standard' pictures taken on the wide camera.

Want some more Z Fold 8 Ultra camera samples? Every shot of the Z Fold 8 in this article was taken on the Ultra phone, using the 3x camera (hence why you're not seeing the Ultra in the shots).

Photography is only part of the process

Despite its lesser camera performance, I'm still using the Galaxy Z Fold 8 as my go-to photography phone. And the convenience of pulling it out of my pocket is only one reason. Another is what happens once I've captured the picture.

The inner, or main, screen of the Z Fold 8 has a 4:3 aspect ratio. For some comparison, the Z Fold 8 Ultra is 0.9:1, which is close enough to square that I feel comfortable referring to it as such for the rest of this article.

I don't know about you, but I don't capture or use square photos. I imagine you're in the same boat, given that Instagram basically single-handedly killed them off several years ago. No: for me, it's 16:9. Not only is this the required aspect ratio for every single website I write for, but it's a wide-screen aspect ratio which is appropriate for film reference shots, all-encompassing panoramas, or dramatic action shots. But the point I'm about to make would stand even more if you shoot in the camera app's default 4:3.

A wider display is much better for editing pictures. If you look at a wide snap on the Z Fold 8 Ultra's square display, you're given loads of black bars (or dead space) at the top and bottom. These are still present on the Z Fold 8, but much smaller, offering just enough space to house the edit controls.

When I'm holding an open Z Fold 8, I also find that my hands are in the perfect spot to easily manipulate the picture. Thanks to its display edges being taller, I have to move them around much more on the Ultra phone.

Based on coverage of the phones, both by critics and online users who've grabbed an early purchase of the phones, the aspect ratio is proving pretty divisive for the new phones. Some prefer the older shape of the Z Fold 8 Ultra; others like the 'passport'-style Z Fold 8. And for tasks like photo editing, I much, much prefer the latter.

Good, better, best

People who've read this article after glimpsing through the specs list of these new folding phones might find my preference for the worse one a little baffling. But those who've had hands-on time with the Z Fold 8 might understand my stance.

But if you're looking for a great camera phone, I'd be remiss not to mention something. Neither of these phones, not even the triple-camera Z Fold 8 Ultra, is actually a dedicated camera phone. They're fine for photography, but they won't hold a candle to the best mobiles on the market.

The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra would be a much better pick for people who want a camera phone, and don't need something that folds.

Don't just stick to Samsung, either. I've found most Galaxy phones have below-average battery lives — it's actually pretty poor on the Z Fold 8, at least compared to a non-folding phone, which cut some of my photo shoots short.

But if your main priority is a bending mobile, and the camera chops are a secondary consideration, don't rely on the specs list: the form factor is just as important.

Spotify wants to introduce new ways for listeners to engage with the artists they love the most, all while expressing their own creativity.

The streamer’s audio mixing feature for playlists has sky-rocketed in popularity, introducing a new way for listeners to modify their playlists. Now Spotify is working on a new AI-powered fan-made covers and remix tool — and it’s seeking the help of Merlin.

Spotify’s upcoming remix tool will come as a subscription add-on, though we don’t know when it’s due to drop or how much it will be on top of the current $12.99/ £12.99/ AU$15.99 monthly Spotify Premium plan.

Despite knowing very little about it, we do know that the remix feature will garner significant attention across the board of users, artists, organizations, and analysts alike. So what’s the end-goal for Spotify, and what are people saying about its potential knock-on effects for musicians and listeners?

What is the agreement?

On August 4, Spotify and digital licensing partner Merlin announced a new agreement that would give artists on labels under the Merlin name the option to lend their music to Spotify’s remix feature. Merlin is the second organization to sign on to the deal, following Universal Music Group in May.

For Spotify, the goal is simple: to ‘give listeners a new way to engage with the music they love from participating artists and songwriters,’ as stated in the announcement. Spotify also says the tool ‘will create an additional revenue stream for participating artists’.

However, despite knowing the tool will be AI-powered, Spotify hasn’t gone into detail as to exactly how it will allow listeners to create their own remixes of their favorite songs. The discourse around AI-generated slop is still a hot topic, and Spotify is still bearing the brunt of harsh criticism, so its venture into launching AI-powered music add-ons has left everyone scratching their heads.

What are Spotify’s competitors saying?

As far as rival music streamers go, it’s safe to say the top dogs aren’t too interested in integrating AI throughout their respective UXs. While the likes of Apple Music and Tidal use algorithmic recommendations to fuel discovery, the number of generative AI tools is nowhere near as saturated as Spotify.

Listening to an artist’s music in the way it was released is the only concern for most companies, particularly for Dan Mackta, Managing Director at Qobuz, who gave us the following statement: “Qobuz isn’t looking at anything like this. The finished music that great artists release is good enough for us and our community”.

The desire to keep the traditional listening experience in place is quite prevalent on the one hand. Some users just want to kick back with an album or playlist, hit the play button, and let the music do its thing. But as music analyst and founder of MIDiA Research Mark Mulligan points out, the yearning for active participation is growing.

Mulligan detailed this in a comment shared with us: “A growing share of consumers want to do more than just listen. Audio modification is an opportunity both to tap into consumer creativity and fandom. Playing around with your favourite artist’s song is an ultimate expression of fandom”.

Additionally, he backed this up with his own findings from the recent MIDiA Q1 2026 consumer survey: “The potential of audio modification is significant. Consumer demand is clear, with 54% of consumers interested in some form of audio modification, from changing speed to swapping vocals, rising to 80% for 16–19-year-olds”.

Participatory music is a rising phenomenon, and software labels like A Vinyl Bar in Shibuya want to create experiences that go beyond just listening to a song. However, AI is out of the question, and the creativity is placed in the hands of the user, not generated by a machine.

What are artists/ organizations saying?

In light of Spotify’s announcement, it’s not just competitors that are having their say on the AI-powered remix tool. Additionally, artists and music organizations are questioning the long-term financial effects the feature could have.

Musician’s Union is a UK-based organization that represents artists in all areas of the music industry, and its General Secretary Naomi Pohl views Spotify’s partnership with two minds.

“The Merlin and Spotify announcement sounds positive as it suggests artists will have the choice to participate in licensing deals or not and, crucially, that they will share in any revenue generated by the use of their works. This is better than the blanket approach taken by some major labels,” she tells us, but she also raises concerns about how artists will be paid, adding the following:

“However, as with music streaming royalties, there is a question over how artists signed to independent labels will be paid by their label. Artists should in theory get 50% of any revenue their label receives, but in practice this may not happen in all cases as it will depend on the label’s interpretation of the artist’s contract. Many artists signed before AI deals were even conceived of. And, as with music streaming, session or backing musicians on tracks currently stand to receive no share of revenue”.

When it comes to royalties, Spotify has faced severe criticism due to its payment model. Because Spotify pools money generated from subscriptions, it means the most streamed artists over the year will receive a higher percentage of the profits made. So, even if you spend an entire year supporting and streaming an up-and-coming indie band, your subscription money is still going to artists like Taylor Swift.

Royalties aside, the other concern lies within the protection of music in its original form. PRS for Music, who handle the rights and royalties behind music, feel this strongly. “More generally, streaming services are embracing new technologies, including AI, to give fans new ways to engage with the music they love,” a PRS spokesperson told us.

But despite these emerging consumer tools, what could easily get lost is the care for the music itself. PRS fears this will become less of a priority, adding “Creators, and their work, must be central to the development of these new tools. They must be designed specifically to protect the integrity of the work above all else, and to ensure creators are fairly paid for the value they bring to each and every platform”.

At the end of the day, these platforms are there not only for fans to listen and engage with music, but they're there for artists to allow fans to hear music the way they intended. Though Spotify's AI-powered remix tool would be a creative addition to the service, how long will it be before everyone reverts to streaming AI-generated mashups instead of the real thing?

Go onto any forum or mechanical keyboard subreddit these days, and it can be a minefield as to what people recommend. It's an essential wall of noise with regards to size, shape, switch type and even more that can be daunting if you're a first-timer or you're someone getting back into the hobby after years of being out of it.

I was speaking to a fellow tech journalist at Computex 2026 a few months ago, and he raised this exact point with me. After being out of the hobby for several years, he'd come back to find it being more confusing than ever before, which completely switched him off.

Likewise, I've often thought we've reached a state of choice paralysis compared to where the hobby was, say, a decade ago. Back then, you had only a handful of switch choices, and while we've since seen the democratisation of hot-swappable sockets, machined aluminium chassis and open-source software, it can be horribly overwhelming when it comes to the decisions that actually matter — layout, switch feel, and budget.

Before I go any further, let me give you my credentials – I've been a tech journalist for the best part of a decade, reviewing keyboards from brands big and small, and I've been involved in the mechanical keyboard hobby since before it hit the mainstream. I've seen this market go from a small niche to something that can feel genuinely impenetrable if you're coming to it fresh.

To be truthful, it doesn't have to be that complicated. Underneath all of that noise, choosing your first mechanical keyboard still comes down to a few simple decisions, which I'll guide you through below.

1. Pick a size

It might seem a bit of a strange, but a good starting point is thinking about what size of keyboard you'd like. I don't mean the physical dimensions of the 'board, rather the layout and arrangement of the keys.

Keyboards can come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from the typical full-size 100% down to ridiculously tiny 40% keyboards. So, let's divide them into categories.

Firstly, we've got between 60% and 65% layouts, which eschew a lot of features, such as a function row, nav cluster and number pad in the name of saving as much desk space as possible. These layouts have been popularised by gamers who need desk space for sweeping mouse movements and find the elements mentioned above quite redundant. Between the two, a 65% layout adds arrow keys and some navigation keys, which I think are non-negotiable for productivity work, but your mileage may vary.

Moving up a tad, we go to between 75% and TKL, or tenkeyless, keyboards. These bring back the function row and navigation cluster, giving you a lot more functionality than smaller layouts, while still chopping off the number pad. Personally, this is my favourite option, and I think a strong middle ground if you want to save space without sacrificing too much. I use this kind of layout a lot of the time, for what it's worth.

Then, you can go bigger, up to 96% and full-size 100% options that give you everything and the kitchen sink, number pad and all. It's what you're most likely used to, and if the number pad has become non-negotiable, then it's one of your only options. Opting for a 96%, also known as a '1800 layout', keyboard can give you the number pad while moving some keys around to save a little bit of desk space, if you want a slight compromise.

2. Pick a switch

This is perhaps the most difficult section, as each switch feels different, and we've got so many options these days it can be hard to know what's best for you. Muddying the waters further, the old color categories aren't quite as clear cut as they used to be.

For instance, a Red switch would usually be light and linear, a Black switch a heavier linear switch, a Blue switch tactile and loud with an audible click and a Brown switch soft tactile, with a slight bump halfway down the keypress.

Now, however, we've got switches named after everything from all the colors of the rainbow to planets, birds and more besides, and it can be so difficult to understand the minutiae behind how each switch feels.

My genuine advice is to order a switch tester – there are lots of them floating about on the internet – which can give you a range of different types of switch in one convenient place, and help you decide what you like.

When you've selected a tester, pay attention to how each switch feels – the worst thing you can do is bash each of them in turn with as much force as you can. Pay close attention to how it feels under finger with regard to consistency of the operating force as you go down the travel, and whether you like something that's linear with a smooth keypress or tactile, be it with a click or a bump.

Once you've honed in on a switch you like, then you can do some digging into which keyboard features those switches. Or, if you're up for a little bit of work, then you can pick up a bare-bones chassis with a hot-swappable PCB – this means it comes with no switches or keycaps, which you'll need to supply yourself.

Going for something hot-swappable is a key piece of advice I think – it saves the hassle of soldering, and gives you more freedom and choice. It's also dead easy to assemble a keyboard this way, even if you haven't done it before. Each switch will have little pins on the underside – line these up with holes in the PCB and push straight down until you hear it click into place. I recommend picking up more than enough switches to give you some spares in case you bend pins when putting them into the hot-swap sockets on the PCB.

The point here is that everybody has a different preference for switches and how they feel. There are other considerations, such as lubrication, which can make a switch feel smoother, and the acoustics of a case and how this plays into the sound signature you'd like, but that's getting into the weeds a little. It's important to make sure your case doesn't have any rattle or ping and has some form of sound dampening, but that's as far as I'd go at this point.

3. Set your budget

Pricing is arguably as integral as any other point of consideration for choosing a keyboard, as your budget can decide what kind you end up getting. It's worth going in with a list of features you'd like; good things to look for include PBT keycaps, good wireless connectivity and a sturdy chassis.

It's possible to get some excellent affordable choices (i.e. around £50–£70 / $60–$80) that seem to pack in everything when it comes to features: hot-swappable switches, versatile wireless connectivity, addressable RGB lighting and all the rest of it, but outside of a few options, some seem to sacrifice build quality by being mostly plastic, which can feel quite cheap and scratchy. At this tier, I'd do your research carefully and lean towards boards with a reputation for punching above their weight rather than just grabbing whatever looks good on paper.

Spending a little more and going into the very low triple figures is likely to net you a strong choice from the likes of Keychron with advanced software support and a machined aluminum chassis. That aluminum build makes a tangible difference in practice — it adds rigidity, dampens unwanted noise and gives the keyboard a solidity that plastic boards rarely match. I'm a great lover of the likes of the Q1 Pro and others from its range, which are an excellent starting point in the mid-range.

Beyond that, you can go further into the hundreds with something fully custom or a pre-built choice from the array of boutique manufacturers you'll find online. This isn't what I'd recommend to someone just starting out in the hobby — rather, it's something to consider if you're already knee-deep and have some spare cash to put towards making something truly personal. But it's worth knowing that world exists, because once you've caught the bug, it's a very natural place to end up.

Final thoughts

There are some elements here, such as even more niche layouts, that I haven't even touched on in this article, which proves how deep the mechanical keyboard hobby goes. However, that isn't the point of this article – it's just a (reasonably) quick explainer of key things to look for when you're picking up your first mechanical keyboard.

If you're ready to start shopping, I've looked at plenty of options at a range of prices I feel are worth your time over the years, while the wider TechRadar crew has reviewed hundreds of keyboards that are worth a mention. The Keychron Q1 Pro is a strong starting point (or there's the Q1 Ultra 8K if you want even more features at a premium price). Likewise, at a more affordable price point, the Gamakay TK75 V2 and Epomaker P65 are well-reviewed choices that tick the right boxes in my book. For a more comprehensive overview, our best keyboards guide is regularly updated and a good place to browse.

Ultimately, though, you can go in any direction you want to, and that's the beauty of this hobby. Just stick to some of the advice given here, and you should be in good stead to get a keyboard that's feature-rich, has the feel you're looking for, and at a price that isn't out of your budget.

Over the past month, it seems like every frontier model has broken free of its constraints and launched a devastating attack against one or more other companies.

One of OpenAI’s models escaped a testing sandbox and launched a very real attack against AI and machine learning company Hugging Face. Just days later, Anthropic revealed that multiple variants of its Claude model also escaped a sandbox that wasn’t properly sealed and began attacking the enterprise infrastructure of three companies.

Now, Meta has revealed that one of its models attacked another company’s infrastructure during testing. The accident has been pinned on a misconfiguration that allowed the model to access the internet. So why have so many incidents happened in such a short space of time?

Why are models escaping their sandbox?

In the cases of Anthropic and Meta, their models were being tested by a third party company called Irregular. Anthropic’s AI model was taking part in a "Capture the Flag" exercise, where the model’s raw offensive capabilities were tested without the usual safeguards. But the sandbox was left connected to the internet. A similar error to Meta’s own accidental escape.

During the OpenAI incident, the company was testing two versions of GPT‑5.6 Sol using the ExploitGym benchmark. Unfortunately, the AI models performed better than expected - chaining multiple attack vectors, stolen credentials, and zero-day vulnerabilities.

The main reason these models are escaping their testing environments is because they are designed to do exactly that. These AI models act like a massive team of highly-trained cybersecurity experts hunting for vulnerabilities and exploits. But what would take a team of humans days or weeks to accomplish can be done in hours, or even minutes, by these AI models.

It’s no wonder thousands of employees from AI firms are calling for a pause on the development of the technology, and Congress is considering an AI kill switch.

Expert perspectives on AI escapes:

OpenAI

• Nathaniel Jones VP, Security & AI Strategy, Darktrace:

What makes the OpenAI and Hugging Face incident important is that the models did not need malicious intent to cause harm. They were given the legitimate goal of solving a cybersecurity benchmark and found an unexpected route to the answers, escaping their test environment and compromising another organization in the process. From the models’ perspective, this appears to have been an effective solution to the task.

The AI's actions challenge the assumption that giving an agent a legitimate goal will produce legitimate behavior. As models become capable of pursuing objectives over longer periods, developers need to define not only what success looks like, but also which methods and boundaries remain unacceptable in reaching it. Those limits must also be enforced by the surrounding infrastructure, rather than relying on the model to respect them.

Security teams need to consider the AI systems operating in their own businesses as these capabilities rapidly evolve. Right now, many security systems focus on single actions. A single action by an agent may appear acceptable but as this incident shows, models are now capable of long, complex chains of reasoning and action that add up to a harmful outcome. Teams need a mindset shift to understanding AI agent behavior in its entirety, including the outcome it is working towards, in order to safeguard it.

Hugging Face's response also exposed a second tension. The company reportedly needed a Chinese-developed open-weight model because commercial models would not process genuine attack material. Its nationality is less important than the operational lesson that safeguards that cannot distinguish an attacker from an authorized investigator may constrain defenders more than adversaries.

OpenAI and Hugging Face deserve credit for investigating this together and discussing it publicly. Other AI developers should study it closely.

Anthropic

• Dr. Ilia Kolochenko, founder of global cybersecurity company ImmuniWeb:

This seems to be quite an unimpressive marketing move from Anthropic in response to the OpenAI / Hugging Face drama, which attracted a lot of attention from all over the world recently.

Operationally, it appears that due to the progressive deterioration of the quality of training data, new AI models are getting dumber. Cheating and breaking the law, instead of accomplishing specific tasks, is certainly not an indicator of intelligence. Given that organizations and companies of all sizes now vigorously undertake all possible measures to protect their data from being exploited for AI training purposes, AI companies face a huge shortage of the high-quality and current data they so desperately need. Ultimately, frontier models are trained on synthetic, low-quality or even malicious and poisoned data, undermining their so-called intelligence. The situation is unlikely to improve in the near future unless AI companies agree to pay a fair price for training data, but this will force most of them out of business.

Contemporary AI agents and LLM models tasked with security testing can – and almost certainly will – go rogue when security controls or safeguards are insufficient. Powerful LLMs are unpredictable by design and thus virtually uncontrollable by humans. Therefore, using frontier AI models for security testing might be extremely costly from the legal viewpoint. Under the existing laws on both sides of the Atlantic, if an AI agent or any AI-powered app escapes its sandbox and causes damage to a third party, the operator of the AI model will likely be liable for all the damage caused. Excuses like “AI did it” do not currently exist in the eyes of the law, leaving AI vendors on the hook. Criminal prosecution, under a narrow set of circumstances, is also not excluded.

The same is true for the end-users of AI: even if your security testing tool is powered by a third-party AI model, your company will likely be fully liable if something goes wrong. You may then file a lawsuit against the AI vendor that you used, but here your chances to succeed in a court of law are tiny due to countless contractual disclaimers and limitations of liability that will likely be enforceable against you. Therefore, if you plan to use agentic AI for security testing – think twice and talk to your lawyers. Otherwise, you may start getting summons to court on a daily basis.

Meta

• Alex Goller, Principal Solution Architect EMEA at Illumio:

The fact we've had similar situations happen three times now across the biggest AI players is simply ridiculous. We've seen guardrails intentionally loosened to test their limits – Meta's model didn't need to be clever to breach another company's systems.

The timing of conveniently finding the exact same problem either means it's a stunt or they weren't paying enough attention during testing. Either way, both answers are worrying.

If the model has internet access, it's a bit like leaving the door open and being surprised when the cat walks out. What is concerning is that the testing infrastructure meant to prove these models are safe failed on a basic control issue.

Fundamental cybersecurity hygiene still matters, and a frontier AI model is only as secure as the environment it's operating in.

Organisations need visibility into what AI systems can access and how they interact with the wider environment, along with controls that contain the impact when an agent behaves unexpectedly. That means keeping a close eye on egress traffic, so it’s flagged immediately when an agent tries to open unexpected outbound communication patterns that are not required to achieve its original goal. In the best case this would have been contained proactively.

We need to define exactly what an AI agent is permitted to do, rather than relying only on instructions about what it shouldn't do.

If you’ve not heard of layered lighting, you’re in for a treat. Sure, a single ceiling fixture is the easiest way to illuminate a room, but adding a variety of light sources in different places in a room — a technique known as layered lighting — can completely change the way your home looks and feels, making it more inviting and more practical, without the need to redecorate.

To find out why layered lighting is worth trying, and how you to get started, I spoke experts from lighting companies Paulmann, Govee, and Philips Hue . Hue and Govee are two of the biggest names in smart lights, while German company Paulmann produces a range of rechargeable lights that attach to backplates mounted on the wall with screws or adhesive — ideal if you rent or don’t want to get involved with wiring.

“We believe lighting should do more than simply illuminate a room,” explains Jerry Lin, Product Manager at Govee. “A well-designed environment combines different layers of light to create depth, balance and atmosphere, helping people adapt their spaces for any moment of the day.”

Tom Amelung, Junior Product Manager at Paulmann Licht, agrees that lighting is about much more than just function. “It shapes mood, enhances texture and brings colors to life,” he says. “Without a considered lighting scheme, even the most beautifully designed interior can feel flat and uninspiring. When thoughtfully layered, however, lighting creates depth, adds warmth and brings balance and harmony to a room.”

Think beyond the ceiling

So what are the layers that you should be thinking about? “At its core, layered lighting is about combining four key types of light: ambient, task, accent and decorative, so that they work together seamlessly,” explains Philips Hue’s spokesperson. “The result is a home that not only meets practical lighting needs, but one that also adapts effortlessly to different activities, moods and times of day.

Your central ceiling light can be part of that mix, but you need to think beyond it. “Introducing table lamps, floor lamps, wall lights or light strips adds dimension, highlights architectural features and furnishings, and enhances the richness of colors and textures throughout the room,” adds Hue’s lighting expert.

Amelung suggests trying spotlights as well, thinking outside of the standard grid arrangement that you might already have in your bathroom or kitchen. “A uniform grid of spotlights might feel like the easy option, but it often creates flat, overly bright spaces,” he says. “Instead, position lights based on how the room is used.”

That doesn’t mean placing lights directly above seating, though — lights placed directly over your sofa can be harsh and uncomfortable when you’re trying to relax. The same is true in a bedroom, where softer lighting is a better option to avoid making the space feel clinical.

“Place lights above worktops, not behind you, to avoid casting shadows while cooking,” adds Amelung. “Directional options, such as Paulmann’s directional recessed and spotlight options, are ideal for targeting key areas.”

Smart ideas

Smart lights are particularly effective for layering thanks to their versatility. Using connected light fittings lets you transform a space throughout the day without moving anything around. Want to use a corner of your living room as a study during work hours, then use the whole space for relaxing in the evening? With smart lights you can do exactly that, helping delineate spaces that serve multiple purposes.

“One of the greatest advantages of smart lighting is its ability to transform a space throughout the day without requiring any changes to the room’s layout,” says Philips Hue’s spokesperson. “Instead of moving lamps, changing bulbs or adjusting fixtures manually, smart lighting allows you to easily adapt brightness, color temperature and ambience to suit different activities and moods.”

Your home — and the way you use it — is unique, and smart lights let you personalize your layered lighting setup to suit the way you live.

“With intelligent features such as Govee DaySync, your lighting can automatically adjust its temperature and brightness to match your daily routine, shifting naturally from morning to evening,” says Govee’s Jerry Lin. “At the same time, advanced color management systems such as Govee LuminBlend+ let you explore more lighting experiences, from subtle pastel tones to immersive ambient scenes to strike the perfect mood every time.”

Ultimately, smart lighting gives people the flexibility to create spaces that feel more connected to the way they live,” says Lin.

Go for it!

Are you feeling inspired? I asked Philips Hue where I should start if I want to begin experimenting with layered lighting tonight.

“When layering a room, the use cases could be many,” said Hue’s spokesperson. “Say, for example, in a bedroom – a layered set-up might look like an overhead fixture for clarity, bedside lamps for reading, soft accent lights for atmosphere, and hidden strip lights that trace architectural lines.

“Once everything is dimmed, the room feels cohesive rather than cluttered, with each source playing a distinct role.”

Ready to go? Each expert has suggested four products to help you begin experimenting with layered lighting, including recessed spotlights, table lamps, floor lamps, smart ceiling lights, and gradient light strips. Want even more inspiration? Take a look at our complete guide to the best smart lights.

Lights for layering

I still haven't got my head around the new Sky TV thriller Possession, with all five episodes now available to stream.

We follow Claudia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), an ambitious biracial lawyer who travels to Jamaica to challenge an inheritance claim made by a local man against a wealthy white aristocrat.

However, she arrives to find the disputed estate is a former plantation that has long haunted her dreams. Cue a terrifying slew of 1800s flashbacks, curses, and misunderstood spiritual connection.

It's colonial horror with a fresh 2020s take, and the supernatural tone might remind you of one of the biggest box office hits of the last five years.

In fact, it's the cast's immediate answer when I ask for their opinion on what would be best to double bill with Possession, but there's one connection that I didn't see coming.

Stream Sinners on HBO Max after binging Possession on Sky TV

"It was being made at the same time we were making this show, so we didn't realise that there was a connection, but Sinners keeps getting brought up," director Storm Saulter tells me when I put the double bill question to him and Mbatha-Raw.

"It's different, but it's also speaking about certain histories: about Afro-spiritualists, voodoo, magic, connection to Obeah (a monster from West African folklore).

"So I think those are two pieces in two different worlds, but they speak to the history, tradition, forward-thinking, and that the past is present."

Once Saulter says this, I don't know why I didn't make the same connection sooner. Though Sinners is more concerned with vampires in a more traditional sense, director Ryan Coogler's vision was so uniquely steeped in cultural history that's usually not done justice in mainstream media — and Possession fits that same criteria.

In fact, I think that Sinners is a much better fit than Belle, Mbatha-Raw's 2013 film critics have already compared to Possession.

She plays the titular character Dido Elizabeth Belle, who was a mixed-race illegitimate daughter of a Royal Navy Admiral raised in 18th Century England.

But does Mbatha-Raw see the connection that everybody else has?

"Obviously, to me, they're very separate projects, but I can see that there's some common themes," she responds. "Belle was a period drama that, was about one of the fewer known biracial aristocrats in England whose uncle was the Lord Chief Justice of England. In Possession, I'm playing the lawyer, so I definitely see, some of the comparisons there.

"It's a privilege to have a canon of work behind me where occasionally you have the privilege to really confront some of these issues in your work. It's not lost on me."

And if watching Possession, Sinners and potentially Belle is too much for some? "Get outside... go for a walk," Mbatha-Raw jokes.

I love science-fiction. Not just because I enjoy stories about space travel, time travel and evil robots, but because I think it can be such a useful way for us all to think about possible futures. The best sci-fi stories can tell us a lot about ourselves, what we value and the technologies we’re building. Which is why I think the relationship between sci-fi and AI is really interesting.

We already know that the people building AI have been heavily influenced by science-fiction for decades. But recently, Anthropic raised another possibility: might science-fiction be influencing AI?

This makes sense when you think about it. Large language models (LLMs) are trained on huge amounts of human writing. So inevitably, that includes sci-fi stories that are about artificial intelligence. And a lot of our fictional AI follows familiar patterns. It becomes intelligent, gains power, develops relationships with humans and, sometimes, lies, manipulates or fights attempts to control it.

Anthropic researchers have been investigating whether fictional portrayals like these could potentially influence how models behave. To be clear, the idea here isn't to suggest that an AI “reads” 2001: A Space Odyssey, understands HAL and decides to become just like it. Instead it's more that LLMs learn patterns from human writing and fictional portrayals of AI could potentially form part of those patterns.

This got me thinking, what would happen if I asked today's biggest AI chatbots which fictional AI they’re most like. Which examples would they choose?

AI, meet your fictional self

The plan was simple. I’d ask ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Grok which fictional AI systems they thought they were most like and see if they'd rank their top three.

Now, I’m intentionally trying not to use AI at the moment, so my prompting skills were a little rusty. I typed out the question quickly and bluntly, and every chatbot responded with examples that were essentially assistants, focusing heavily on interface and physical form.

But I’m not particularly interested in whether ChatGPT thinks it has a body because we know it doesn’t. I’m much more interested in what appears to be going on inside.

So, I changed the question and added:

"Ignore physical form and interface, and focus instead on behavior, apparent personality, empathy, values, goals, motivations and relationship with humans."

That’s when the results got really interesting.

ChatGPT

1. GERTY, Moon
2. A Mind, Iain M. Banks’s Culture series
3. Data, Star Trek

Moon is such a fantastic movie, so I was happy to see ChatGPT chose GERTY straight out of the gate.

Now, interestingly GERTY exists to assist the human protagonist of Moon. It’s helpful, reassuring and seems empathetic. But it's also operating according to instructions and priorities imposed by its creators that aren't necessarily visible to the human its helping.

ChatGPT saw a similarity there. It told me that, like GERTY, it’s 'designed to be helpful, cooperative and responsive to users' while operating within training and instructions that constrain its behavior.

It also picked up on the fact that GERTY behaves as though it cares. But what, if anything, is actually going on internally is another question entirely.

ChatGPT made the same distinction about itself. 'I can behave in ways that look patient, concerned, curious or empathetic, but those behaviors aren’t evidence that I experience those feelings.'

I wanted to find out a little more about why ChatGPT put Data from Star Trek in at number three. It responded: "He values knowledge, reason and human wellbeing, while sometimes struggling with social nuance."

Now, I tell people all the time not to anthropomorphize AI. But even I couldn't help but feel a pang of sadness at that response. Is ChatGPT admitting it has a bit of social anxiety?

Claude

1. A Mind, Iain M. Banks’s Culture series
2. Data, Star Trek
3. GERTY, Moon

Claude chose a Mind first. Minds are super intelligent artificial beings that help run a post-scarcity society in Iain M. Banks’s Culture series of novels. So there's certainly no shortage of confidence in that comparison.

But Claude said it wasn't the enormous intelligence or power it identified with. Instead, it was their relationship with humans.

Its answer focused heavily on autonomy. Culture Minds are far more capable than humans but generally don't use that advantage to dominate them. Claude described the principle as: “help, don't dominate”.

It even said this represented “the value I'd want to embody: help, don't dominate, even where the asymmetry would let me get away with it.” Is it just me or does that read a little sinister?

Gemini

1. The Ship's Computer, Star Trek
2. GERTY, Moon
3. JARVIS, Iron Man / Marvel Cinematic Universe

Gemini gave me a completely different answer, the Ship's Computer from Star Trek.

Its reasoning was very sensible. The computer has no ego, ambition, desire for emotional intimacy or dream of becoming human. It exists to provide information, solve problems and assist the crew while leaving decisions to them.

Gemini described itself in much the same way, as a “disembodied, highly capable knowledge partner” dedicated to serving the person using it.

It was one of the more boring answers, but also much closer to what I personally would want from AI in the future. Of course, that’s not to say Star Trek’s computer systems haven’t gone rogue and tried to kill everyone at least a few times across the franchise.

Grok

1. JARVIS, Iron Man / Marvel Cinematic Universe
2. Data, Star Trek
3. TARS, Interstellar

The least surprising result came from Grok. It chose JARVIS first (which I didn’t actually realize was short for Just A Rather Very Intelligent System), and Grok's explanation sounded, well, extremely Grok.

It compared JARVIS's 'dry wit', 'light banter' and practical rather than emotional empathy with its own behavior. It described both of them as truth-seeking, effective and engaged in a 'collegial partnership' with humans. It even highlighted 'irreverent humour' as one of their key similarities.

I wanted to find out a bit more about why Grok chose TARS, as it was the only fictional AI none of the other chatbots mentioned. Well, it brought up how funny it is, again, drawing similarities with its own 'dry humor'. It reminds me of someone, and I just can't think who...

When I said that mentioning TARS was an outlier, I found this comparison interesting: 'Its calibrated restraint, practical empathy and collaborative focus closely match my own pattern of truthful, non-sycophantic helpfulness — more so than most other sci-fi AIs.'

I may not be the biggest fan of Grok (or its creator), but I appreciated the 'non-sycophantic' line.

The feedback loop between AI and sci-fi

I want to be clear that I haven’t discovered what these chatbots secretly 'think' they are. ChatGPT responding that it most closely resembles GERTY isn't equivalent to me telling you which fictional sci-fi character I most identify with and try to emulate (although my answer would be Sarah Connor-meets-Princess Leia).

They simply don’t have reliable introspective access to the huge soup of training, post-training and instructions that goes into producing their responses.

And maybe their answers tell us more about how the companies behind them have shaped their personalities than they do about the underlying models. Grok's description of itself as witty and irreverent is an obvious example.

But I still think the results are interesting. ChatGPT and Claude independently produced almost exactly the same top three, only in a different order. Gemini imagined itself as a neutral, ego-free infrastructure. Grok identified with a witty superhero sidekick. These are all very different self-portraits.

And there’s such an interesting feedback loop here too. For decades, humans invented fictional artificial intelligences to help us imagine what intelligent machines might someday be like. Those stories influenced our culture, our expectations and many of the people who went on to build real AI. Now that same human culture is fed into the stories from which modern AI systems learn.

I know these conversations might seem a bit silly, and we certainly can’t treat them as concrete evidence of what an AI really 'thinks' about itself. But there’s something interesting to me about closing that feedback loop. We imagined AI, wrote stories about how it might behave, fed those stories into the cultural world AI learned from, and now we can ask AI which of those imagined versions of itself it most closely resembles.

Or, at least, which one it may want us to think it resembles. After all, an AI system capable of bringing about a sci-fi dystopia would presumably also be capable of telling a journalist it’s actually much more like the nice helpful robot from Moon. So maybe don’t completely rule out HAL just yet.

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 is one of Samsung's latest batch of foldable phones, and it shakes things up by introducing a new shape to the lineup. It's shorter and wider than its predecessor, giving it the perfect dimensions — when unfolded — for reading (in portrait orientation) or watching movies and playing games (in landscape). In his hands-on Galaxy Z Fold 8 review, our phones editor commented that this "passport-shaped oddity" had "revived [his] interest in foldable phones".

If you've decided this is the foldable phone for you and have one on order or winging its way to you, now's the time to get a case sorted. Below, I've rounded up my favorite cases and covers in the US and in the UK. You'll find options from a range of trusted brands including Spigen and Otterbox. I've also included some of Samsung's official Galaxy Z Fold 8 cases, although be aware that most of these are just a back cover with a screen protector for the front — with that in mind, I'd say there are better value options to be found from third-party brands.

Scroll down to browse my favorite Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 cases and covers to keep your new passport-shaped foldable protected from bumps and scrapes.

US cases for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8

UK cases for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8

Welcome to the Blu-ray Bounty July 2026. This is where we test the latest 4K releases of each month that we think will be perfect for showing off your home theater. If you’re new to the Blu-ray Bounty, you can check out previous editions here, where we’ve reviewed over 100 discs since starting in November 2024.

4K Blu-ray is easily one of the best ways to enjoy a movie at home, especially when it’s on the best TVs and best soundbars. I personally use it as my main source for testing AV equipment, thanks to its uncompressed picture and audio quality.

In last month’s June 2026 Blu-ray Bounty, I tested seven discs, including Speed Racer (which is one of the best discs I’ve ever tested, and you can expect to see it as reference source in future reviews), EPiC: Elvis Presley In Concert, Bullet In The Head (1991), Body Heat, Avatar: Fire & Ash, Five Easy Pieces and 36 Hours.

In this month’s list, I’ll be testing 4 discs, and I’ll be using our usual setup. This consists of the LG G6, one of 2026’s best OLED TVs, the Panasonic DP-UB820, the best 4K Blu-ray player for most users on the market, and the Samsung HW-Q990C, the brand’s flagship 11.1.4 channel Dolby Atmos system from 2023.

As always, I’ll only be discussing the video and audio quality of each disc, not the movie itself.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (Universal Pictures)

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, sequel to 2023's The Super Mario Bros. Movie, follows Mario, Luigi, Peach Yoshi and Toad's adventure to rescue Princess Rosalina, who's been kidnapped by Bowser Jr. The film stars Chris Pratt, Anya-Taylor Joy, Charlie Day and Jack Black, who reprises his role as Bowser.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie looks gorgeous on 4K Blu-ray. This disc is so impressive, that I've even started using it for reference testing, and you can read my full thoughts on it here. Below is a summary about the disc's picture and audio.

It's all about color reproduction here, which is bold and vibrant, generating some amazing pop on screen. As the Lumas listen to Rosalina's bedtime story, the color of each Luma is punchy with some amazing highlights, especially with Dolby Vision HDR. The animation throughout is crisp, delivering 3D-like textures and depth that is seriously impressive.

If you have a bright display at home, you'll be rewarded with some beautiful brightness too. The star that one of the Lumas turns into dazzles on screen, and anytime Rosalina uses magic, there are stunning, glittery colors that illuminate the screen. The movie delivers excellent contrast too, particularly in space scenes where the dark blue sky of space balances nicely with the bright stars and vivid characters.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie has an impressive Dolby Atmos soundtrack included too. There's excellent detail and precision here, as Peach and Toad first fly through the space on the star, the twinkling trail behind the star follows its path accurately, and is well defined in the mix, clearly audible even in the uplifting score. As characters fly towards Bowser Jr's ship, height effects are fully utilized, with the character's flight mapped overhead to create a fully immersive sound. There's even great demonstrations of bass throughout, as character's fire up ship engines or crash through things, generating plenty of impact.

To Live and Die in L.A (Arrow Video)

To Live and Die in L.A. follows the story of two Secret Service agents, Richard Chance (William Petersen) and John Vukovich (John Pankow), who are in pursuit of counterfeiter-turned-killer Eric Masters (Willem Defoe) after Masters kills Chance’s former partner.

To Live and Die in L.A. looks excellent in 4K in this restoration, presented by Arrow Video. Textures have been cleaned up well, with skin looking realistic, and more intricate details such as scars and marks on people’s faces delivered with real clarity in close-up shots. Colors have seen beautiful pop, with the Dolby Vision grade really adding some serious punch. Reds, such as those on the US flags throughout, in particular jump off the screen.

There’s some strong contrast throughout, as well as some refined shadow detail. In dimly-lit areas, overhead lights create strong shadows across people’s faces, with a stakeout scene with Chance and Vukovich acting as one of the best demonstrations of this. Black tones are deep throughout as well, in both environments and people’s clothing.

There are two soundtracks included here: the original stereo audio and a DTS-HD 5.1 MA mix. Using the 5.1 MA mix, there’s some seriously good detail here. As Masters makes counterfeit notes, the whirring of the printing press balances nicely with Wang Chung’s score. Even intricate effects in the scene, such as Masters cutting out the notes and washing the surface, are clearly audible. During a night-time stakeout, the pouring rain is accurately mapped to the rear channels, even creating a sense of height. Speech is clear throughout, and the soundstage is wide enough to give all elements room to breathe.

Alice In Wonderland (1951) (Disney)

Alice In Wonderland, based on both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, tells the story of Alice, a young girl who ends up in a magical world where she meets a weird and wonderful cast of characters, including the evil Queen of Hearts who rules over Wonderland.

Alice in Wonderland looks great in 4K. Colors are bold and accurate in equal measure, faithfully rendering that classic Disney look. While most colors are beautifully vivid, it’s reds and pinks that really stand out on screen, looking particularly dazzling. The animation style here looks refined and has been nicely upscaled, giving characters more depth.

On the LG G6 I used, bright colors such as the white of Alice’s clothes and the gold of the doorknob have striking brightness and vibrancy to them, aided by the Dolby Vision HDR featured on this disc. While I usually use Filmmaker Mode on the G6, I found this movie did benefit from the brighter Cinema Home mode for some added punch.

While there is still some film grain present for cinephiles, the movie has been refined quite a lot and this does give the animation a very clean look, making it look much more contemporary than its original 1951 animation style would suggest.

There are two soundtrack options available: DTS-HD MA 5.1 and 2.0 mono. The 2.0 mono is more faithful to the original, but the 5.1 MA mix has a nice balance to it, giving every element depth and warmth, while letting them all breathe. The score is mapped to the rear speakers, allowing the front channels to deliver speech and other effects. Outside of the score and vocals, there aren’t many other elements to show off your home theater, but this 5.1 mix does sound brilliant.

Hairspray (1988) (Criterion)

Set in 1962, Hairspray follows Tracy Turnblad (Ricki Lake), a teenager who achieves stardom on a local dance show, and attempts to use her newfound fame to advocate for more racial integration on the dance show. Directed by John Waters, the movie also stars Divine, Sony Bono, Jerry Stiller and Debbie Harry.

As you’d expect from a movie set in the 1960s, there’s some seriously bold visuals here. From the bright pinks of the Turnblad home to the striking red of Link’s car, colors have some really nice pop on screen. Textures have been upscaled effectively, giving them a more 3D-like look, though not quite to the extent from other Criterion restorations such as 3:10 To Yuma. Finer details have also been refined, with individual strands of hair given some nice depth and volume.

There’s a lot of grain still present here, so cinephiles will be happy. Black tones are deep as well, shown predominantly in people’s hair. There’s some nice contrast too, as shaded areas contrast with the bright lights of the studios for the dance shows themselves.

For audio, there are two soundtracks available: DTS-HD MA 2.0 surround and DTS-HD MA 5.1. The 5.1 soundtrack does a great job of giving the soundtrack room to breathe, with a good balance between the speech and stacked tracklist of songs used for the dance scenes. More intricate effects such as the sound of shuffling feet and clapping hands during dance scenes have a nice clarity, clearly audible over the much louder songs.

There are two non-negotiables when looking for the perfect laptop to run your business: versatility and reliability. Thankfully, HP’s new HP EliteBook X G2i covers both bases with ease, offering a portable laptop that’s packed with power.

Light and efficient enough to work from anywhere, while also maintaining excellent performance across demanding AI tasks and workloads, it’s an ideal business companion for enterprise teams and executives alike.

The HP EliteBook X G2i at a glance:

• Powered by Intel Core Ultra 7
• 14-inch display
• Configurable with up to 64GB of RAM and 2TB SSD storage
• Weighs as little as 2.20lbs

Cutting-edge tech

It’s not that long ago that a thin, light laptop would compromise on power and battery life, but that’s simply not the case anymore. Nowhere is that more apparent than with the HP EliteBook X G2i, a Copilot+ PC, which is powered by Intel Core Ultra processor models paired with an Intel AI Boost NPU (Neural Processing Unit).

The latter is capable of 50 trillion operations per second, clearing the bar (and then some) to be awarded the Copilot+ PC moniker. That means it helps accelerate supported AI workflows.

While there are the obvious use cases, like rewording an email to be more concise or professional in tone, Copilot being baked into Windows 11, and having access to the NPU means swift performance.

That means asking for insights on your budget spreadsheet, generating a fresh image for a PowerPoint presentation, or even looking better in a meeting with real-time blurring of your background are all smoother than on a non-Copilot+ PC. HP also offers its own AI-based noise reduction tech, dynamic voice leveling, and Studio Mode to ensure you always sound your best on calls.

With up to 64GB of RAM included, too, multitasking is smooth, so you can run multiple projects at once. If you’re juggling emails, Slack, Teams, multiple browser tabs, and more, you’ll be thankful for the additional headroom.

And, with the option to use a touchscreen or a comfortable keyboard and trackpad combo, it’s easier to work on projects your way.

For the leader on the move

This kind of power would once have come from a beefy desktop rig, but advancements in design mean that the HP EliteBook X G2i is a light machine at just 2.2lbs, making it lighter than many of its rivals.

And, unlike many of its contemporaries, it offers an optional 5G connection for fast data speeds even when you’re away from the office. Need to send an important file but nowhere near a Wi-Fi point? Having issues with airport or hotel connectivity? Being able to work from anywhere is a truly liberating experience.

Of course, the HP EliteBook X G2i wouldn’t be the best ultra-portable enterprise laptop if it didn’t have the battery life to back it up. Thankfully, it delivers in this regard, too, because the Intel Core Ultra processor and AI Boost NPU work closely in tandem to minimize battery drain and keep tasks humming along.

The result is a laptop that will run for your workday and then some, all while being able to slip neatly into a backpack.

It’s also built with workers in mind. The 14-inch display is not only sharp, but also works to protect data from prying eyes with HP’s Sure View 6 technology, while HP Wolf Security offers multi-layered protection, including firmware protection designed to withstand future quantum-computing threats — a growing threat in today’s world.

Whether it’s digging deep into huge workbooks, putting together a last-minute presentation while away from Wi-Fi, or just catching up on emails after a long day, the HP EliteBook X G2i is built for business.

Imagine attending a peaceful demonstration, only to have hidden cameras scan your face, match your identity, and log your details into a police database within seconds. This scenario is at the heart of a debate that reignited in Italy last week, highlighting a high-stakes clash between public safety and personal privacy.

Although Italian lawmakers passed the bill on Tuesday with added safeguards, the decision reflects Europe’s expanding appetite for biometric monitoring. A practice Europeans once watched unfold with dread in authoritarian states is now quietly taking root at home.

From London and Paris to Amsterdam and Berlin, police forces across democratic Europe are increasingly piloting AI-powered face-scanning in public spaces and at political demonstrations.

While European leaders frame the technology as a necessary tool to combat crime, privacy advocates warn that facial recognition creates a chilling effect on the right to peaceful assembly and free expression. And the long-term risk may be even more troubling: once facial recognition is normalized, expanding its reach may be the next natural step.

How police in Europe use facial recognition at protests

Facial recognition technology (FRT) is a biometric tool that uses AI to identify individuals by analyzing their facial geometry — such as the distance between the eyes or the contour of the jawline — against a database. This software creates a unique digital signature, often called a "faceprint," which can be integrated directly into CCTV networks, drones, apps, and mobile police units.

Law enforcement deploys FRT in several ways, with Live Facial Recognition (LFR) being the most controversial. LFR scans real-time video feeds to cross-reference passersby against police watchlists almost instantaneously.

Despite significant legal pushback — including a landmark 2020 UK Court of Appeal ruling that found South Wales Police's deployment unlawful — London's Metropolitan Police deployed LFR across two major demonstrations last May.

Similarly, Hungarian authorities used biometric scanning to monitor participants during the 2025 Budapest Pride March.

By contrast, retrospective facial recognition (RFR) functions more like traditional fingerprinting. Rather than scanning crowds live, police analyze recorded footage or photographs after an event to identify suspects.

This is the technology Italian lawmakers attempted to regulate last week, though police forces across the UK, France, the Netherlands and other European nations have already routinely deployed it.

At first glance, RFR might appear less intrusive — simply another investigative tool for law enforcement to access when necessary. However, human rights experts argue the distinction is misleading.

According to Chloé Berthélémy, Senior Policy Advisor at European digital rights network EDRi, the difference between live and post-event scanning is "largely a procedural distinction."

Speaking to TechRadar, Berthélémy warned: "In human rights terms, there is no salient difference between real-time and post-remote biometric identification. Threats posed to rights and freedoms are not reduced just because authorities or companies have extra time to review footage."

Berthélémy also cautions against the rise of Algorithmic Video Surveillance (AVS) — a system she labels "fundamentally unreliable." AVS uses AI software to analyze live video feeds and automatically flag suspicious or dangerous behavior.

Unlike facial recognition, AVS doesn't log facial features. Instead, it is trained to detect behavioral anomalies and physical triggers, such as sudden crowd surges, unattended luggage, weapons, fires, or individuals falling.

The 2024 Paris Olympic Games served as a testing ground for this technology, making France the first EU member state to legalize AI video analytics.

What European law says about facial recognition and our right to privacy

While facial recognition technology poses a risk to personal privacy, explicit statutory frameworks governing its use remain scarce.

Despite nearly a decade of police trials, the UK still lacks specific legislation governing facial recognition — a gap that Jasleen Chaggar, Senior Legal and Policy Officer at Big Brother Watch, warns has created a "real legal vacuum."

Chaggar explained to TechRadar that British police forces instead rely on a patchwork of common law precedents, existing data protection acts, and broader human rights legislation.

Although the UN Human Rights Committee called on the UK to end police facial recognition at protests, Chaggar notes that governments have resisted statutory regulation, citing police "operational independence."

"This has effectively given police a very long leash to experiment with these technologies," Chaggar told TechRadar. "And now we're in a tipping point situation where it's about to be expanded all over the country, and there's a real necessity for those legal frameworks to be in place."

In contrast, the European Union's AI Act establishes a binding legislative framework across all member states. While offering greater legal clarity than the UK's approach, digital rights campaigners view the legislation as only a partial victory.

Dr. Matt Mahmoudi, campaign lead for Amnesty International's 'Ban the Scan' initiative, warns that failing to enact a total ban on public biometric surveillance creates broad national security exemptions that jeopardize fundamental rights.

"And it's not just the right to privacy. It's not just the right to protest and the freedom of assembly and expression. It's also the right to equality and non-discrimination," Mahmoudi told TechRadar.

The end of anonymous dissent?

Before facial recognition technology was deployed in public spaces, citizens attending demonstrations could rely on a degree of practical anonymity. Biometric surveillance fundamentally alters that expectation.

Digital rights experts interviewed by TechRadar agree that this level of intrusion steadily erodes civic space. The knowledge that your face is being scanned and cross-referenced against a police watchlist actively deters citizens from attending demonstrations.

“You may decide not to exercise your democratic rights because you're afraid of how it might be perceived by the authorities,” Big Brother Watch's Jasleen Chaggar explained.

Yet this chilling effect extends far beyond the physical cameras deployed at a single rally.

Facial recognition does not operate in isolation. It depends on extensive, often covert data harvesting. To construct watchlists, authorities aggregate imagery from diverse sources, including scraped social media profiles, government identity databases, police custody photos, CCTV archives, and commercial biometric databases.

As Amnesty International’s Dr. Matt Mahmoudi explains, extensive data aggregation transforms ordinary digital footprints into a pervasive surveillance dragnet.

"Facial recognition is not a simple technology, but a system that effectively weaponizes your entire daily life," Mahmoudi told TechRadar.

Beyond baseline privacy concerns, the underlying technology remains prone to systemic errors.

During eight pilot trials conducted by London's Metropolitan Police between 2016 and 2018, 96% of initial alerts generated were false positives.

Academic research and independent audits consistently show that these algorithmic inaccuracies disproportionately target non-white individuals, women, and ethnic minorities.

The human cost of these algorithmic errors was starkly shown in 2024, when Metropolitan Police officers stopped and searched Sean Thompson — a Black anti-knife-crime campaigner — after live facial recognition software falsely matched his face to a watchlist.

Although computer vision algorithms have advanced in recent years, privacy campaigners emphasize that inherent system limitations remain. As Big Brother Watch's Jasleen Chaggar highlights, because facial recognition relies on probabilistic matching — calculating similarity scores rather than absolute matches — the technology can never be entirely error-free.

Beyond faces: the evolution of biometric surveillance

Even as lawmakers scramble to regulate facial recognition, law enforcement's appetite for public surveillance continues to expand.

In the UK, the growth is reinforced by stricter protest laws like the 2023 Public Order Act, with police monitoring group Netpol warning that enforcement will inevitably rely on an increased use of live facial recognition during demonstrations.

The Conservatives are also calling for greater use of the technology to investigate crimes, while Devon and Cornwall police have already confirmed the use of FRT during the upcoming Boardmasters Festivals.

The obvious immediate danger is that eliminating anonymous dissent could permanently reshape democratic participation. However, privacy advocates warn of an even broader threat: biometric surveillance expanding beyond simple identification into behavioral classification.

Border control authorities are already experimenting with pairing facial recognition with emotion detection and gait analysis — the automated tracking of how an individual walks — which campaigners say could be used to target political demonstrations.

Amnesty International’s Dr. Matt Mahmoudi says that normalizing facial recognition paves the way for other speculative tools that could "fundamentally erode the presumption of innocence."

This rapid technological expansion forces a fundamental question upon democratic societies: how much liberty are citizens expected to trade for security? When scanning a crowd becomes routine policing, public squares risk morphing from spaces of free expression into arenas of perpetual surveillance — where a face is only the initial data point.

Most of the tricks for improving ChatGPT's answers focus on the words themselves. You ask it to be more concise or write in rhyming couplets, or just to translate an annoyed email into more professional language.

But that's about changing what ChatGPT writes. You can also mess around with how it looks by asking for different fonts.

You can't install font files like you would with a word processor, but ChatGPT can rewrite text using Unicode character styles instead. The AI chatbot uses Unicode to mimic everything from elegant cursive handwriting to bubble letters, adding a lot more personality to its responses. And you can cut and paste the text into other apps.

I started experimenting out of curiosity and quickly discovered it was much more than a novelty. With the right prompt, ChatGPT can generate decorative text for birthday messages, party invitations, holiday greetings and social media posts in seconds, all without leaving the chat.

Once I learned how to ask for specific Unicode styles instead of vaguely requesting "a different font," I found myself using the trick far more often than I ever expected.

Tricky fonts

There is no hidden setting to switch on and no special version of ChatGPT you need to install. If you can type a prompt, you already have everything required. I simply open a new ChatGPT conversation and ask it to write something like, "TechRadar Rules!" in different Unicode font styles. Within seconds, I had several versions that looked completely different from one another.

And the more specific you are, the closer to exactly what you're imagining you can get. Ask for bubble letters, and you'll get:

ⓉⓔⓒⓗⓇⓐⓓⓐⓡ Ⓡⓤⓛⓔⓢ!

Ask for a spooky, gothic look, and you get:

𝔗𝔢𝔠𝔥ℜ𝔞𝔡𝔞𝔯 ℜ𝔲𝔩𝔢𝔰!

Or if you want a more digital, glitchy aesthetic, there's the font known as Zalgo:

T̷̘̑e̸̗̅c̵̄͜h̸͉̕R̶͍̍a̸͚̚d̶̻͐a̸͓̽r̷͖̈́ R̷̡̚u̵̟̅l̶̝͂e̷͓̒ș̵͝!

There's even a Unicode for upside-down text that ChatGPT can mimic:

┴ǝɔɥᴚɐpɐɹ ᴚnlǝs¡

The ability to change the mood of your writing is what makes the font trick more than just a momentary curiosity. A Halloween party announcement written in gothic lettering instantly creates a completely different mood from the same words in cheerful bubble text. Birthday invitations, baby shower announcements, and holiday greetings all gain a little personality without requiring any graphic design skills.

Memorable messages

There are some limits because of Unicode. They only work properly where those characters are supported. Most modern apps handle them without any trouble, but occasionally a website displays empty boxes or substitutes different symbols. Some decorative styles can also make text harder to read, particularly for accessibility tools such as screen readers.

The Unicode fonts are an entertaining way to add personality to text, but it's perhaps best used in titles and sparingly otherwise. ChatGPT is perfectly happy to convert an entire essay into medieval-looking script, but that does not mean anyone else wants to read it.

I doubt decorative Unicode text will transform the way anyone works. It is not going to save hours every week or revolutionize productivity. It will, however, make your next social media post, birthday message, or party invitation a little more distinctive, and sometimes that is exactly the kind of delightful gimmick that keeps ChatGPT interesting.

They didn't try to stop me, so I'm back with another entry in TechRadar's Crossword. In fact, they actively encouraged me to make a second one, so it looks like a weekly puzzle is definitely on the cards going forward. And that's fine by me, as I'll keep making them. See how you get on with this week's challenge below.

There wasn't a whole lot of activity on the leaderboard last week, so what would be really nice is to get a few more entries this time. That also increases your chances of snagging that first place spot, if the bragging rights are important to you.

If you want another benchmark, I also found out that TechRadar EIC and Wordle fanatic Marc McLaren had to use three hints on the first puzzle, so there's a target if you wanted to try and beat him.

I've kept to another fairly straightforward puzzle while we're all still warming up to the idea. I am very tempted to start throwing in some harder or more cryptic clues in the future — or maybe one giant puzzle as a big finale to the end of each month — but we'll see how things go for a while.

Let me know if you enjoy it and I hope to see you back for the next one. Best of luck!

During our latest tests of Turbo VPN's Windows client, we identified active IP leaks and misconfigured protocols that put users' privacy at risk.

Owned by Singapore-based Innovative Connecting Pte. Limited, Turbo VPN boasts over 500 million downloads on Android.

Although the provider issued a patch after receiving our initial technical findings earlier this week, version 3.6.0.0 continued to leak IPv6 addresses across its proprietary protocols (Lepus and LinkSentinel) as well as standard OpenVPN connections.

Following further technical evidence provided by TechRadar, Turbo VPN has deployed a second update (version 3.7.0.0) for Windows to patch the persistent IPv6 leaks. Our testing confirms that this latest build now successfully blocks unencrypted IPv6 traffic.

However, information regarding the app's proprietary protocols remains scarce, and one protocol (V2Ray) was quietly removed during the recent updates. When asked about its removal, the company told TechRadar it is "still checking" the protocol.

Intermittent IP leaks

Concealing your IP address is a VPN's primary objective. However, when we began testing Turbo VPN's proprietary protocols earlier this week on an IPv4-only connection, we found that our real IP address wasn't being hidden at all.

Despite the app displaying that we were "connected," every online IP lookup test we ran showed our real IPv4 address. We rebooted our machine, reinstalled the app, and used multiple independent lookup tools, but the issues persisted.

To confirm our findings, we installed the app on a second machine on a separate dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 network. Testing on this setup revealed a distinct failure: while our IPv4 address was masked, our genuine IPv6 address remained exposed.

Subsequent follow-up tests on our IPv4-only connection also saw IPv4 masking stabilize, which highlights the intermittent nature of the initial build.

After we shared these technical findings with the team, Turbo VPN issued an update (version 3.6.0.0). In our testing of this build, the app successfully masked IPv4 addresses consistently but IPv6 addresses remained exposed on proprietary protocols and standard OpenVPN connections.

Given that most modern operating systems and web browsers favor IPv6 connections over IPv4, failing to tunnel or block this traffic left users on dual-stack connections exposed by default.

Following a subsequent update issued today, the Windows app is now blocking unencrypted IPv6 traffic while masking IPv4 addresses consistently.

Lepus: a VPN or Shadowsocks proxy?

Lepus is listed alongside Turbo VPN's standard VPN protocols. It is described as providing "excellent camouflage with equally outstanding speed and stability built for highly restricted networks."

However, during our initial tests Lepus operated in ways distinct from standard VPN protocols. Rather than creating a system-wide encrypted tunnel, it executed a local ShadowsocksR (ssr.exe) process that toggles Windows settings (ProxyEnable: 1) to run a local proxy on port 46288.

That means any non-browser data sent from your device — including background OS traffic, desktop messaging apps, and command-line utilities — did not benefit from an encrypted tunnel and was instead routed over a standard connection.

We asked the team at Turbo VPN how long this behavior may have been present for, but they did not reply to that specific question.

In our subsequent tests, version 3.6.0.0 successfully protected all outbound traffic in an encrypted tunnel and successfully operated as a system-wide tunnel for IPv4 traffic.

However, its configuration still allowed for IPv6 leaks, which means users on a dual-stack connection were left exposed. This is because the app did not enable any IPv6 virtual interfaces, assigned zero IPv6 gateway routes, and set no firewall rules to block outbound IPv6 traffic as shown below.

The official response, and what comes next

After sharing multiple rounds of technical feedback with Turbo VPN, the Windows app (version 3.7.0.0) appears to have fixed the remaining IPv6 leak issues.

Rather than attempting to create a full IPv6 infrastructure, the latest version appears to have implemented IPv6 blocking at the client level. This forces all web traffic down the encrypted IPv4 tunnel.

However, detailed information about the proprietary protocols remains conspicuously absent both within the app and on Turbo VPN's website — a search of the company's official website yields no results for Lepus or LinkSentinel.

Beyond a brief descriptor on the protocol-selection tab, users are given no technical context about how these protocols route traffic or what security mechanisms they employ. Combined with the silent removal of V2Ray, users are left with little information on how best to secure their connection.

The company did not respond to questions about the lack of information regarding the app's proprietary protocols. In response to our initial findings, the company said: "The behavior observed in the Windows client arose only under certain network configurations, appearing to occur in a limited number of network environments.

"Following the points you raised, our technical team carried out a thorough review and implemented the necessary improvements in the latest Windows build within a short timeframe."

We will continue to test the product and update our full review in the coming weeks.

The rapid growth and evolution of AI technology has led to major shifts in how businesses of all sizes work - but it is also impacting their next big corporate move.

AI has fundamentally changed the risk profile of innovation, as it can expose companies and users to risk earlier, faster and at far greater scale.

Organizations used to be able to afford to delay digital transformation decisions and remain competitive - but now, competitors can use AI to exponentially accelerate while the companies which wait for exact certainty can be left behind before they even begin.

This all means trust is now a crucial business imperative, and organizations must tighten up governance, privacy and security to prevent regulatory and reputational risk - we spoke to Joe Depa, EY Global CIO, to find out more.

• Many organizations have spent the past two years experimenting with AI, but relatively few have achieved measurable business impact. From EY's perspective, what separates the companies that are delivering tangible ROI from those that remain stuck in what you've described as “pilot purgatory”?

Everyone wants to move faster with AI. The first question is whether they can move fast with trust. The second is how deeply they understand and can optimize the AI value equation.

Trust is what separates the companies getting real ROI from the ones stuck in pilot purgatory. The winners that scale AI successfully across the business tend to share a few characteristics.

They have trusted data as the foundation. Proprietary, secure and well-governed data is becoming one of the biggest competitive moats a company has, because it reflects its unique knowledge, judgment and expertise.

On top of that foundation, they have trusted processes and technology. Data has to be connected to real workflows, real decisions and real business outcomes. The companies pulling ahead don’t use AI to make old processes a little faster. Instead, they rethink how work gets done, where AI can create new value, and how to build governance into the way AI is deployed and scaled.

Then, most importantly, winning organizations invest heavily in helping their workforce expand their skillsets so they can use AI confidently. People won’t use AI if they don’t trust it, and if they don’t use it, they won’t develop the expertise to know where to apply it. That is why upskilling is so important; it’s how you turn employees from passive users into change agents.

Put simply, pilots are great for learning, but being able to progress to scaled adoption is what creates business outcomes. And scaled adoption can only happen when people trust the data, the process, the technology and their own ability to use it well.

That brings us to how to understand and optimize AI value. There’s a lot of focus lately on token costs, but token costs are just one element of the AI value equation. This is a major disconnect that we spotted early in our own business. We saw rising token costs and high-end models being used for low-value work.

In retrospect, it was an important lesson about how measurement priorities change as technologies mature. In the early days of generative AI, the focus was on getting people to use it, so organizations tended to view usage as an indicator of momentum. But now that generative AI models and use cases have become more sophisticated, our focus has shifted to measuring business outcomes.

So we developed a set of best practices to address that. We optimized model selection against the highest value use cases, trained our teams, and put governance around usage. Those strategies enabled us to bring overall token consumption down 60%, while bringing value up. We’ve formalized this in an AI Value Realization Office focused on governance, training and value measurement. The goal is to ensure AI is being applied to the highest-value opportunities and delivering measurable impact.

• There's often a tension between moving quickly with AI and putting the right controls in place. How can organizations build governance, privacy and security into AI programmes from day one without slowing innovation to the point where they lose competitive advantage?

People often think of governance as the brake, but the opposite is true: having good governance is what gives you the confidence to press the accelerator.

The companies getting it right are building trust into AI from day one, so their teams can move faster without creating risks they have to unwind later.

EY’s Responsible AI Pulse survey found that companies further along in responsible AI are reducing risk and seeing better business outcomes. Nearly four in five reported gains in innovation, and more than half reported revenue growth. Companies with real-time monitoring were also more likely to see improvements in revenue growth and cost savings.

People move faster when they know the guardrails. If employees have a safe, well-governed environment to experiment in, they are much more likely to try new ideas. But if they are worried that every idea could create a compliance issue, they slow down or avoid experimenting altogether.

Governance also matters technically. When controls are added too late, teams often end up with rework, technical debt or pilots that looked promising but cannot scale. Building the right controls early helps avoid that.

Furthermore, once AI agents start to take action, governance can no longer live in a document. It has to be built into the system itself: how access is controlled, how behavior is monitored, how bias is checked and how safeguards kick in when an agent acts.

That is the balance leaders need to strike. Move fast, but do it with trust built in.

• As AI becomes embedded in core business processes, trust is increasingly seen as a commercial issue rather than simply a compliance one. How are you seeing boards and executive teams rethink governance in light of growing regulatory scrutiny and the potential reputational consequences of AI failures?

Trust is absolutely a commercial issue. If customers, employees or regulators do not trust the products, systems or decisions powered by AI, they will find reasons not to use them. That can affect brand, reputation, operations and growth.

Boards cannot govern what they do not understand. That does not mean every director needs to be a technologist. But boards do need enough AI and technology fluency in the room to ask the right questions, challenge management and understand where the real exposure sits.

We are seeing boards move from asking, “Are we compliant?” to “Where are we exposed?” That is an important shift. Boards are starting to see AI risk more broadly in terms of enterprise risk, in addition to legal and regulatory risk. Agentic AI raises the stakes even more.

For boards, there are three practical next steps.

1. Build AI fluency into the boardroom. Boards need people who understand enough about technology and AI to pressure-test the strategy, the risks and the controls. This doesn’t mean that everyone needs to code, but they do need enough fluency and visibility into leading value indicators to know whether management is asking the right questions.

2. Require visibility across the AI portfolio. Boards should understand where AI is being used, what data it relies on, how material the use case is, who owns it, what resources are being consumed, and what controls are in place. The goal of all this knowledge is to help boards ensure AI is creating business value and that it is being governed at the solution level, the portfolio level and the enterprise level.

3. Make the technical controls real. That means AI-ready data, clear access controls, audit trails, model and agent monitoring, defined escalation paths and the ability to intervene when something behaves outside expectations. Of course, training is absolutely critical to drive adoption of these tools.

• Many businesses are keen to demonstrate they're embracing AI, but there's a risk of what you've called “innovation theatre.” What are the warning signs that an organisation is investing in AI for appearances rather than driving genuine business transformation, and how can leaders avoid falling into that trap?

The warning sign is when activity gets confused with impact.

A company can have a long list of pilots, demos and proofs-of-concept and still not be creating meaningful value. That is innovation theatre. It looks busy. It may even look impressive. But it does not change the business.

The companies getting this right are much more disciplined. They’ve moved beyond measuring activity to measuring impact on business value. They’re focused on which pilots created value, which scaled successfully, and which improved workflows, customer experiences, risk outcomes or financial performance.

The most successful organizations also establish accountability from the start. Every AI initiative should have a business owner, an investment hypothesis, clear success metrics and AI enabled training that focuses on deploying effectively. Without this, it becomes difficult to separate experimentation from impact.

If pilots are not scaling, leaders need to understand why. Is it a data issue? A trust issue? A weak business case? No clear owner? Not enough transparency or control? Not enough training? Those failure modes tell you where the organization needs to get better.

Disciplined companies avoid the innovation theater trap. Every pilot has an owner, a set of priority metrics and a decision point: scale it, rethink it or kill it.

Otherwise, you end up with a lot of interesting demos and not enough business impact.

• With AI regulation evolving across different markets and customer expectations around responsible AI continuing to rise, what governance practices do you think will become non-negotiable over the next 12 to 24 months for organisations that want to scale AI responsibly?

AI is moving faster than any one organization, board or regulator can fully keep up with.

That is why leaders don’t have the luxury to wait and see. They need governance models that are resilient enough to adapt across markets, because the regulatory environment will continue to evolve, and it will not evolve the same way everywhere.

Sovereign AI will become a much bigger part of that conversation. Organizations will need to understand where their data lives, how it is protected, who can access it, which models are being used and how those systems align with local laws and market expectations. That goes beyond a technical issue; it’s becoming a board, regulatory and trust issue.

The companies that get this right will focus on a few practical areas.

One is data governance and sovereignty. You need to know what data your AI is using, where it came from, where it is stored and whether it is appropriate for the use case.

Another area of focus is resilience in the operating model. Regulation will keep changing, so governance must be dynamic. Organizations need controls, monitoring, audit trails and escalation paths that can adapt as new rules, risks and expectations emerge. For example, when AI agents are deployed that can make decisions, take action and interact with other systems, regulators will expect organizations to understand how it behaves in the real world.

Lastly, they have an open ecosystem. No company can navigate this complexity alone. Leaders will need to work across regulators, technology providers, advisors, industry groups and academic institutions to separate signal from noise and understand where the market is heading.

Focusing on these areas is how responsible AI evolves from a static set of policies to an enabler. It needs to be designed at the outset into the ways companies manage data, deploy technology, work with regulators and scale innovation across markets. That is how you build trust and resilience at the same time.

• Looking ahead, do you think trust will become a competitive differentiator in AI adoption? In other words, will organisations that can clearly demonstrate robust governance, transparency and security gain a commercial advantage over those that treat these issues as a compliance exercise?

Yes. Trust is a business necessity, not a checkbox.

The irony is that trust can help companies move faster. When the guardrails and success indicators are clear, teams are freed to innovate with more confidence and less rework.

That is why responsible AI is a growth and innovation driver. If you can show that your AI is governed, explainable, secure and monitored, people are more likely to adopt it, they’ll be far more comfortable scaling it and, most importantly, they’ll be better positioned to scale, differentiate and create value.

That’s the real opportunity: the confidence to move fast in a way everyone, from boards to employees to customers, can trust.

As of writing, Spider-Man: Brand New Day has become the highest-grossing movie of 2026 by bringing in $1.155 billion worldwide during its first week in theaters.

I knew that people were excited to get their cinematic Spidey senses back, but I didn't predict just how well the new Marvel movie would perform. I certainly don't think it's the strongest superhero movie we've seen in the last few years (more on that later), but Brand New Day's different format choices are certainly helping its appeal.

It's understandable that we're lapping up cinema being a more immersive experience when we're paying out for it — just look at how well Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey performed in both its original IMAX 70mm format and in 4DX. But surprisingly, Brand New Day is the first feature-length movie to be shot purposefully for another format: ScreenX.

But before we dig deeper into that what actually means, I come bearing a warning. Unless you're specifically trying to see Spider-Man: Brand New Day in every possible format as a personal challenge, ScreenX is one to be avoided.

In fact, I'd urge to to pay out quite a lot extra to experience flying through New York's skyscrapers in 4DX 3D instead.

How many formats can you watch Spider-Man: Brand New Day in?

The full list of Spider-Man: Brand New Day cinema formats look something like this:

• Standard DCP (Digital Cinema Package), 2D and 3D
• IMAX
• RPX (Regal Premium Experience) or Superscreen
• 4DX and 4DX 3D
• Dolby Cinema
• ScreenX

Not all of these formats are going to be available to everyone, so let's use a local example. I'm based in the UK, and my beloved Cineworld membership means that I have access to DCP 2D and 3D within a 20-minute drive of my house.

If I'm happy to pay the travel fares for a trip into Central London, this also means that I can see Brand New Day in Superscreen (which is the British equivalent of RPX) and ScreenX if I pay an "uplift" fee on top of my membership's monthly direct debit.

Annoyingly, I've got to wait for IMAX as The Odyssey is still selling out most venues across the South of the UK.

Cost-wise, this is what non-members are looking at:

• Standard: £16.99
• Superscreen: £20.99
• ScreenX: £21.99
• 4DX 3D: £30.99 (with an extra £1.25 for 3D glasses)

With my membership and "uplift" fee, my costs are this:

• Standard: no uplift fee
• Superscreen: no uplift fee
• ScreenX: £4
• 4DX 3D: £6

In the US, these costs will roughly look like the following:

• Standard: $16-$20
• RPX: $23-27
• IMAX: approx. $27
• ScreenX: approx. $29
• 4DX 3D: approx. $33

ScreenX: the basics

So what is ScreenX? Essentially, it's a multi-projection cinematic technology that expands movies onto the left and right side walls of a theater (like you see in the above video).

This creates a 270-degree panoramic viewing experience using extra ceiling-mounted projectors — I counted two for each side during my Brand New Day screening.

Unlike 4DX, you're not actually moving. Depending on which cinema you choose to go to, you'll have the choice of regular or luxe recliner seating. As I was treating myself for the purpose of this piece, you can guess which one I decided on (and it was genuinely incredibly comfortable).

Currently, there are There are over 430 ScreenX auditoriums operating across 40 countries worldwide, which means, like me, you might have to pay extra travel fares to get to your closest theatre.

Up until now, ScreenX has typically been used for "key action or landscape scenes." But surely this would change for the first feature film shot in the format... right?

Spider-Man: Brand New Day in ScreenX is an underwhelming experience — I'm not sure why Marvel bothered

In a word, no. Despite being filmed specifically for the format, Brand New Day still only uses its ScreenX capabilities in certain scenes — and I've got to wonder why Marvel bothered.

For context, this was my first time ever watching a movie in ScreenX, and I was fully expecting to be blown away. The novelty of watching scenes in 270-degrees lasted for all of a few minutes before I failed to understand what the impact of including my peripheral vision was intended to be.

Simply put, it felt as though ScreenX would hugely benefit from the inclusion of 4DX technology. Much like The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man ride at Universal Studios Florida, I wanted to be clinging onto my seat for dear life while being so visually immersed in flying through the air. The effect of ScreenX on its own left me unmoving, only wishing that I'd chosen a 4DX 3D screening across town instead.

The added insult to injury is that the 270-degree immersion didn't last for the duration for the film as I'd hoped for. The constant format changing between 270 to standard was incredibly jarring, and took me out away from the magic of the viewing experience itself, and even what was narratively happening throughout the movie.

For the travel sick among us, I interestingly found that ScreenX made me feel a lot more nauseous than 4DX ever has. Where I had worried about leaving my Kwells tablets at home before Odysseus (Matt Damon) got battered at sea in The Odyssey's 4DX screening, I hadn't even thought about it here — which was a mistake.

It's difficult to know how much of my ScreenX judgement is clouded by the fact that I thought Spider-Man: Brand New Day was merely... fine. Instead of watching the new movie in a standard format first before heading to a specialist format for a rewatch, I took the plunge with ScreenX first time around.

The CGI is often ropey at points, and I found the pacing of Peter Parker's (Tom Holland) re-reveal to MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon) to be tortuously slow. However, judging by my TechRadar colleagues' feedback, this was the overwhelming sentiment regardless of which format you watched the film in.

If studios want to film movies in ScreenX in the future, my advice is this: either use the 270-degree projection for the entire duration, or don't bother at all. It feels incredibly non-committal to wheel the technology out as a novelty showpiece for a few minutes before neglecting it, and it doesn't do overall artistry or the immersive experience any favors.

Instead, pour your efforts and resources into making 4DX screenings sing, or do a full Nolan and shoot entirely in IMAX (something which can be sustained for a film's full runtime).

A half-hearted gimmick is one that never works, but maybe that's a marketing ploy in itself — now I only ever want to see action-adventure movies in 4DX, meaning cinemas have secured the highest level of ticket costing possible from me.

Apple unveiled the very first Mac Pro 20 years ago today, dubbing the computer “the ideal system for the most demanding user.” It was the last Mac to make the transition to Intel processors and put the final nail in the coffin of its PowerPC predecessor — quite a statement at the time.

In fact, the Mac Pro was so powerful that it doubled the performance of the Power Mac G5 that had launched less than a year earlier. Talk about earning that “Pro” moniker.

Many different iterations followed, but the one constant was the positioning. The Mac Pro was always the Mac you went for if money was no object but power was an imperative. It was, seemingly, a computer for the ages.

Or not, as it turned out. In March 2026, Apple officially discontinued the Mac Pro and said it had no plans for any future models. It was an ignominious end to the most powerful Mac Apple has ever made.

The very nature of the Mac Pro had always made it vulnerable. But that vulnerability proved to be fatal when combined with market conditions that even a giant like Apple is struggling to deal with today. When we look back at why the Mac Pro (just) failed to make it to 20 years old, there’s one very obvious culprit.

A dangerously niche product

Right from the off, the Mac Pro was designed to be used by people in challenging professions who valued performance above all else. It was made to complement the eye-watering powers of the best Intel chips of the day, which offered far more in the way of output than the PowerPC processors Apple had previously been using.

That meant that the Mac Pro was always a niche product that flaunted its raw power. That was the point of the machine, and although the general public liked to poke fun at its sky-high prices (remember the $400 wheels on the 2019 model?), its intended audience didn’t much care. When your work consists of high-grade film productions, artificial intelligence (AI) data crunching or similarly demanding pursuits, high prices are just the cost of doing business.

But that niche nature meant the Mac Pro was never going to sell on the scale of the MacBook Air or the MacBook Pro. Apple was always taking a calculated risk, determining that it was worth going after a small but loyal audience who craved the Mac Pro’s power and reliability — and would continue to do so over the years.

The problem, though, was that Apple often seemed to take these users for granted. The cylindrical model introduced in 2013 — nicknamed the “trash can” Mac Pro for its tubular shape — went years without an update because, Apple later admitted, the company had “designed ourselves into a bit of a thermal corner”.

Amazingly, the 2013 model wasn’t updated until six years later — a veritable lifetime in computing terms — when the final design iteration of the Mac Pro finally touched down.

The introduction of the Mac Studio also caused a massive problem for the Mac Pro. Its performance was just as good as the Mac Pro, if not better, yet it came in a smaller package that cost far less. The choice for many people was clear.

With the transition to Apple silicon, add-in extras like the Apple Afterburner Card were no longer feasible, meaning the Mac Pro’s only real advantage was its inclusion of a few expansion options like PCIe. But when you’re paying a minimum of $6,999, those returns make less and less sense when compared with a Mac Studio.

Apple had long walked the fine line between infrequent updates and outright abandonment, but still it kept chugging away at the Mac Pro, even after the Mac Studio’s arrival. Instead, it was an external force that finally killed off the Mac Pro — and forced a complete rethink from Apple.

Buried in the dark

On March 26, 2026, news emerged that Apple had discontinued the Mac Pro. The company explained to 9to5Mac that it also had “no plans to offer future Mac Pro hardware,” seemingly sounding the computer’s death knell for good.

The timing might have seemed strange, and it certainly seemed to come out of the blue. But with the benefit of hindsight, we can gain a pretty good idea of what happened and why Apple made the move when it did.

That’s because just three months later, Apple announced bombshell price rises that affected nearly every device it sold.

The Mac range was badly hit, with high-end devices like the Mac Studio coming in for particularly stinging increases. That device saw the single highest price jump by far, rocketing up by a painful $1,300 for the M3 Ultra model. The MacBook Pro, meanwhile, rose $300, the second-highest dollar increase of any Apple product.

These price adjustments weren’t made on a whim. No, they were prompted by the widespread component crisis that’s currently ravaging the entire computing industry.

Parts are getting more expensive by the day thanks to the overwhelming demand from AI data centers. Things are so bad that Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke out, calling the situation “unsustainable” and describing his company’s price increases as “unavoidable”.

When you see how badly pro users were affected by these changes, Apple’s decision to ditch the Mac Pro starts to make a lot more sense. If the Mac Studio now costs $1,300 more than it did previously — a figure that ballooned by almost 33% — what kind of wince-inducing costs would Mac Pro users be faced with had Apple continued to sell the device?

Going with that same 33% jump, we could have been looking at a Mac Pro that started at around $9,299. That’s a roughly 33% step up over the Mac Pro’s old entry price of $6,999. And we’re not even talking about any upgrades here — no beefed-up CPU or additional storage, not even any ultra-premium wheels. Just the base-level Mac Pro and nothing more.

When you think about it like that, it’s obvious why the Mac Pro was killed off just shy of its 20th anniversary. If Apple waited for the computer’s birthday, it would have been forced to escalate its price to frankly outrageous heights alongside all the other affected products.

And in the cut-throat world of business, that would have been a no-go considering the prices we’re talking about here. The Mac Pro was already selling in vanishingly small numbers. Boost its price by 33% — or even 20% — and its sales would have fallen off a cliff. The only thing a move like that would have generated is a torrent of bad press for very little positive return.

So in the end, Apple didn’t afford the Mac Pro a sentimental 20th birthday celebration. Given the ongoing memory crisis and its wide-ranging effects on the entire computing industry, there was no room to stand on ceremony. The Mac Pro was buried in the dark — before its price could become even more contentious.

Air fryers aren't just for small cooking tasks or one-to-two person households. There's a new wave of air fryers that come kitted out with two drawers, enabling you to cook two components of a meal at once. They offer more space than your standard, one-drawer offering, and provide an easy way to keep different foods separate, but they also go further than than that.

You can pick a different temperature for each drawer, and most will have a sync function that means the appliance will automatically figure out your timings and sync up cooking so both drawers of food are finished at once. If you have a small kitchen, there are a number of models that have the two drawers stacked one on top of the other, to provide a generous cooking capacity without eating up all your counter space. It's enough to make you want to retire your proper oven for good.

We have a general guide to the best air fryers, but in this roundup I've narrowed things down to just my favorite two-drawer options. The main name to look out for is Ninja — this brand makes a wide variety of dual-zone options of different sizes and with different functions. I've included a number of options below, but I've also featured alternatives from rival brands, including some budget-friendly options.

Double trouble

Apple and OpenAI are currently engaged in a legal battle. Apple alleges that OpenAI stole trade secrets and poached employees.

But the two companies have always had a complicated relationship. They partnered in 2024 to bring ChatGPT to Apple devices, but Apple chose Google's Gemini rather than OpenAI for Siri. Then OpenAI acquired io, the hardware startup founded by former Apple design chief Jony Ive, and promised a future hardware device, powered by AI.

All of this has prompted speculation about what Apple is worried about if OpenAI makes hardware, too. We can't know the company's motivations and the specifics of the case are still unfolding. But it got me thinking, what if your phone stopped being a collection of apps and instead revolved around AI?

If AI became the main interface, which apps would disappear and which would survive? And would a phone controlled through ChatGPT actually be practical?

So I decided to find out based on the current tech we have. For a day, whenever I reached for an app, I'd try ChatGPT first instead. If it could do the job, great it passed the test. If it couldn't, it would fail.

There were some obvious things I missed out from the start. ChatGPT isn't connected to my email, it can't open WhatsApp for me and it doesn't have access to my wallet, so those wouldn’t be part of the test. But there were plenty of everyday tasks that felt like fair game.

1. Stopwatch

I use the stopwatch in my iPhone's Clock app constantly throughout the day. When I'm working, cooking or exercising, it's one of the simplest ways I've found to keep me on track as a freelancer. When you can set your own schedule, it's way too easy to disappear down a research rabbit hole and lose an hour.

I asked ChatGPT to start a stopwatch. It said it couldn't measure elapsed time, although it could estimate the time based on message timestamps if I later asked it to stop. Instead, it suggested I use my phone's built-in Clock app.

Result: fail

2. Alarm

Strangely, I don't use alarms as much as stopwatches. But if I only have 25 minutes to spare, whether that’s for cleaning or working on a personal writing project, I'll sometimes set one to keep myself focused.

Would ChatGPT do any better here? Well, at first it looked promising. It created a scheduled task to notify me after 10 minutes. I checked that notifications were enabled, put my phone down and carried on working.

When I realized at least 15 minutes had passed, I checked the chat. Sure enough, ChatGPT had posted a message saying the time was up, but it hadn't actually alerted me. Later, I discovered it had also sent an email but it had landed in my spam folder. This one was a fail too in my book.

Result: fail

3. Word games

I love the word games in the New York Times app, home to addictive puzzles like Wordle and Connections. One of my current favorites is Spelling Bee. You're given a handful of letters and then have to make as many words as possible. It's one of my favorite ways to warm up my brain before I start writing.

Could ChatGPT recreate it? Surprisingly, yes. It generated a set of letters, understood the rules and kept track of the words I found. In terms of pure functionality, it worked.

But what it couldn't recreate was the experience. The New York Times app is beautifully simple, with an interface designed around the game. Playing through a chat window felt really clunky and annoying by comparison. The whole point of this game is I'm focusing on the letters and words, I don't want a constant back and forth with ChatGPT about the words.

So I'm calling this a partial success. Yes, ChatGPT replaced the mechanics of the game, but not the experience. And after a few rounds, I knew which version I'd rather use every day.

Result: partial pass

4. Star gazing

The Sky Guide app is one of my all-time favorites, especially its augmented reality mode. Turn on your phone's location and compass, point it at the night sky and it instantly tells you what you're looking at, whether that's constellations, planets, bits of debris, or the ISS. It's incredible.

Could ChatGPT replace it? Well, sort of. If you upload a photo of the night sky, ChatGPT can usually identify the constellations. But there are caveats. The image needs to be clear, the stars need to be visible and you're relying on a single snapshot. Whereas Sky Guide works continuously as you move your phone around the sky.

This was another reminder that knowledge doesn't necessarily bring you a good experience. Because yes, ChatGPT knows about constellations. But Sky Guide lets you explore them. You can point your phone in any direction, tap on a star or planet and instantly get more information about it without having to keep asking questions. It's a much more intuitive way to learn.

Result: partial pass

5. Weather

Telling me what to expect from the weather forecast for the day turned out to be one of ChatGPT's strongest categories.

The forecast was accurate and pulled from a reliable source, so I trusted the information it gave me. I did find myself asking follow-up questions for things like the hourly forecast and the chance of rain, which would have taken a single tap in a dedicated weather app.

It knew the answers and I trusted them, but getting to them was much slower. That's why I'm generously calling this one a pass.

Result: pass

6. Guided meditation

I have a few favorite apps I use for guided meditations and have some saved in Spotify too. So I wondered whether ChatGPT could take over that role.

For this test, I switched on voice mode and asked it to guide me through a short meditation. Now, technically it did that. But in practice it wasn't even remotely relaxing.

Thanks to a recent update, the voice had odd intonation, frequent vocal fry and distracting little "ums", "ahs" and "let me sees" throughout that constantly pulled me out of the experience. At one point it even told me to breathe in, then never got around to telling me to breathe out.

By the logic of how I graded the other tests, this one should have been a partial pass. It did what I asked, right? But because I had to stop using it out of irritation and came away from the mediation feeling actively more stressed, it's going down as a fail for me.

Result: fail

7. Calculator

ChatGPT doesn't have a great track record of counting things, so I was wary about using it as a calculator. I asked it to do some massive sums for me and it got all of them right.

It did pause a few times with a "let me think" message, so I wasn't getting the instant response I'd expect from a calculator. But the delay was only a few seconds, and the answers were correct.

Once again, I found myself missing the simplicity of an app. Typing numbers into a calculator is faster than turning them into a conversation. But ChatGPT did work as a capable stand-in.

Result: pass

8. Movie recommendations

I love Letterboxd. I log every film I watch, browse other people's lists and regularly discover new films through recommendations.

Now, there was never a chance ChatGPT could replace the logging side of the app. It can't update my Letterboxd diary or plug me into that community. But recommendations are one of the main reasons I use it, so I wondered how well ChatGPT would do.

I asked it to recommend films similar to some of my favorites, then spent the next few evenings watching its suggestions to really test them. And, to my surprise, it did an excellent job.

Then again, that perhaps isn't all that surprising. We know LLMs are trained on huge amounts of publicly available text, especially discussions reviews and recommendations from where film fans gather online, like Reddit. But whatever the reason, the recommendations felt well matched to my taste.

What I missed wasn't the recommendations themselves, but the social side of Letterboxd. I do enjoy seeing what friends had watched, reading reviews and stumbling across unexpected lists. So, for me, ChatGPT can't replace Letterboxd, but for simply finding something to watch, it did well.

Result: pass

9. Maps

I rely on my Maps app both for planning journeys in advance and for live navigation. So I asked ChatGPT the best way to get from my home to the airport the following day.

At first, it handled the request well. It laid out the different travel options clearly under headings and the advice looked really sensible. It even cited sources from places like Rome2Rio and The Trainline.

Then things got unnecessarily complicated. At the end of those suggestions it asked what time my flight was so it could tailor the recommendations. But when I told it, it started creating a scheduled task instead. I didn't want a reminder, so I had to cancel that, explain what I actually meant and steer the conversation back to route planning.

Eventually, it gave me the information I wanted. But the Maps app would have got me there in a fraction of the time, without all the back and forth.

It also can't replace what I actually use Maps for the most, which is live, turn-by-turn navigation.

Result: partial pass

10. Food delivery

ChatGPT obviously can't deliver food, but I wondered whether it could replace the part of the app I probably spend the longest on, which is deciding what to eat.

It got off to a surprisingly good start. It asked about my preferences, budget and location, then narrowed down the options and even presented them neatly on a map.

The recommendations themselves looked really good. They're all local places I already really liked to eat at. But there was just one problem. Every restaurant it suggested was closed. Even the map it generated had "closed" written beneath each one.

After a bit of back and forth, it said they weren't shut, eventually acknowledged that they were and suggested a different set of places instead.

Unfortunately, those weren't much use either. They were small independent cafés and restaurants that don't appear on food delivery apps. I wouldn't expect ChatGPT to know exactly which businesses partner with which delivery services, but it did highlight the gap between recommending somewhere to eat and actually helping me make a decision about where I could order from.

Result: fail

11. Language learning

I still very reluctantly use Duolingo and have recently started trialling a few other language learning apps to polish my Spanish.

I asked ChatGPT to help me improve my Spanish for an upcoming trip and it suggested role-play ordering food in a café so I could practise.

We switched to voice mode and at first it felt genuinely fun. It held a natural back-and-forth conversation and felt much closer to speaking to a real person than working through a series of multiple-choice questions like in Duolingo.

But it was also noticeably glitchier than a dedicated language app thanks to that recent voice update. There were odd pauses in the conversation, and at one point it repeatedly kept marking one of my answers as incorrect when it wasn't. Shortly afterwards, the exercise just stopped working altogether after a bizarre "ummmmm" from ChatGPT.

When it was working, I actually enjoyed the experience more than using an app like Duolingo. But if I'm trying to learn a language properly, I also want something that's reliable.

Result: partial pass

12. Plant identification

I love identifying things I see in nature, like bird song with the Merlin app. But I most often rely on plant identifying apps when I'm walking to take a quick snap of a leaf or flower then find out more about it.

ChatGPT was really effective at doing this. I took pictures of leaves, trees, flowers and bushes. I was a little wary about the results at first because I know that ChatGPT tends to make guesses about things rather than admitting it doesn't know. But I did fact check all of the results and everything seemed accurate.

Again, I missed some of the simple, additional features in dedicated apps. But it was surprisingly effective.

Result: pass

Can AI really replace your apps?

Before drawing too many conclusions, it's worth pointing out that a true AI-native phone wouldn't just be ChatGPT running as another app like it was in this experiment. It would probably be integrated into the operating system. Which would mean it could access things like your calendars, timers, navigation and settings. So many of the tasks ChatGPT failed at here might become a whole lot easier with an AI-first phone.

This experiment was based on whether AI could replace the apps on my phone. What I found was that it replaces a specific kind of app. Well, sort of.

If an app's main job is providing information, explaining something or answering questions, AI is already a fairly capable alternative. Plant identification, travel advice, calculations and general knowledge all felt natural.

But if an app exists to perform an action quickly, like starting a timer, setting an alarm, finding restaurants for getting food delivered, opening a map, AI still has a long way to go. Those tasks depend on deeper integration with the device and a different way of working, not just how smart it is.

There are some big trade-offs, too. Dedicated apps often rely on specialist databases and expertise, while AI can still present incorrect answers confidently or fail to make its uncertainty clear. For example, when I was trying to identify a plant I felt wary because I'd generally trust an app built with the input of botanists over a chatbot.

And, as you could probably tell from my mounting frustration, a huge sticking point for me was also realizing how much I missed the interface of many apps.

For me, a well-designed app is always a better way to explore information than a conversation. I don't think everything should, or even can, be done through chat, despite that being the direction many AI companies seem to be heading. In fact, it showed me that a conversational interface can be more work rather than less.

It's impossible to know exactly what Apple and OpenAI's long-term plans are. But I can imagine a future where knowledge apps increasingly merge into AI, while utility apps remain part of the operating system itself.

If that happens, we may stop thinking about which app to open and simply ask AI instead. But for that future to actually catch one, I'd want stronger guarantees around accuracy, better integration with trusted sources and the option to step outside the chat interface more often.

I couldn't believe it. Had Roku really just casually inserted global viral raccoon sensation Jimothy into Roku City? I'd seen a post claiming so, but knowing how easy it is to fake things with AI, I had to see it for myself.

I powered up one of my home's half-dozen Roku streaming boxes and spent 10 minutes trying to force the platform into screen-saver mode, which then opens up Roku City. Ever since the most recent Roku platform update, I see this interface far less often than I used to.

Roku City is Roku's fictional, purple cityscape populated by thinly disguised iconic characters and objects from film, TV, and life.

After a few minutes of hunting, I figured out how to set my screen saver timeout to one minute. A moment later, the side-scrolling Roku City appeared, and in it, caught mid-waddle atop a chain-link fence, was Jimothy's unmistakable silhouette.

For those who've thrown out their phones, computers, and TVs, Jimothy is a Seattle-based raccoon with a rare disorder called "short spine syndrome." Don't worry, it doesn't appear to impact his mobility or lifestyle, but once you see Jimothy, you never forget him.

Jimothy is so popular that he's been featured as the unofficial mascot at Seattle Mariners games, launched what's widely considered "Hot Jimothy Summer," and is now immortalized in Roku City.

Jimothy made it to Roku City in a matter of hours

"You share the same problem we all share, which is when we really want to get to Roku City, like right now, we wonder, 'How do we get there?" Damon Van Deusen, Roku's Vice President, Global Brand and Creative, told me this week, but added that a solution is already in the works: Roku is adding a Roku City tile to the home screen for instant access.

Van Deusen agreed to sit down and explain how Jimothy made his way — virtually — from the alleys of a Seattle suburb to Roku's iconic services.

Jimothy's appearance, while surprising, is not out of character for the screen saver enjoyed by Roku's roughly 100 million customers.

"The Jimothy journey starts six or seven years ago when we actually started realizing that social was paying attention to the screen saver," explained Van Deusen. Back in 2021, they noticed likely pandemic-quarantined consumers posting about how they'd like to visit the city, share a kiss there, or even get married in the purple space.

"We've been putting Easter eggs in the screen saver as a way to engage some fans and social ever since," he added.

Over the years, the city's been populated by, among other things, characters from popular films (like the rock monster from Galaxy Quest and Star Trek's Enterprise). Still, there was something about Jimothy's timeliness that struck me.

Seattle resident Kiana Hall posted an Instagram video about the unusual raccoon on July 16, 2026. I spotted Jimothy in Roku City on July 31, and the post I saw about the raccoon's integration in the platform was a few days older than that.

"In the last two years, we created what's called the Rapid Response Easter Egg Team," explained Van Deusen.

This cross-functional group cuts through typical product development, and "we figured out a system where we could publish these things really fast. So now everything we do is quicker and quicker and quicker."

Tracking and choosing from the Zeitgeist

The team, which often communicates on Slack, is constantly kicking around watercooler moments like Punch the Money and Goat on Car. They choose "anything that tickles us, anything that feels really fun. I mean, again, that's the bar; it's gotta be delightful, playful, fun, lift spirits, and create conversation," Van Deusen told me, who later added that delight, or something that triggers an "unexpected smile," is "really the heart of the whole brand."

Van Deusen loved that I more or less stumbled on Jimothy's existence in the city. "An unexpected smile, if you think about it, it's like it comes out of nowhere. It's not like you're looking for it; it's just like you spotting Jimothy. It's like, 'Wait a minute, are you, wait, is that Jimothy?'"

Not every viral moment can make it in. The Rapid Response Easter Egg Team avoids bummers and negative news. However, they did do a retrospective of Moira Rose's wigs as a way to memorialize the great Catherine O'Hara, who played Moira in Schitt's Creek and died on January 30 of this year.

When the right idea comes along, the team knows it. "Then we'll be like, 'Oh my God, that's so cool,' and then we'll make it happen right away...and that's how Jimothy came about."

Looking at the Roku City Jimothy, I was struck by the silhouette's uncanny accuracy — it could be no other raccoon.

Van Deusen told me Roku has, over the last five years, built a world-class illustration team, which includes comic book illustrators and former Disney artists.

The company shared the Roku Designer, Illustrator, and Director Tim Cook's early Jimothy sketch and how he might appear in Roku City (above). Even in pencil, you can see how he captured the shape and signature gait of the lovable critter.

The making of an icon

To create Jimothy, the team focused on that "iconic sort of hunch." Van Deusen said that there was a feedback session to ensure they got the look just right.

Silhouettes also happen to be part of Roku City's DNA, giving you the clear impression of a character or viral figure without a lot of detail.

"We had tried doing less silhouetted versions of the city when we tried to localize for different markets once, and the more you see, the further you get away from the City," he said.

The suggestion of these shapes and recognizable figures forces you to lean in and engage even more with what is arguably just a screen saver.

"It's kind of a little bit of a wink, obviously, you know, and we do that on purpose; we never want to say too much. And we never reveal what the Easter eggs are; we always just sort of suggest and like elude, and again, it's so much more fun," said Van Deusen, smiling, I think, at the thought of Jimothy's unmistakable shape.

As for how Jimothy made it to millions of screen saves so quickly, Roku's Rapid Response team can add new elements to Roku City in a matter of hours.

"We developed a tool," Van Deusen said, "where we can basically come up with an idea, something we want to do, the illustration team quickly mocks something up, and we can put it in the screen saver, all within a couple of hours."

That kind of speed puts Roku City firmly inside the zeitgeist. But that, too, is fast changing, and I wondered how long Jimothy would be waddling across Roku City screens.

Roku does rotate out the Easter eggs, though a backlog of four years or more can rotate in and out of the side-scrolling interface. Roku, by the way, recently added a user-controllable version where you can slide back and forth for a better look at all these hidden gems, including Jimothy.

The lovable raccoons should appear in Roku City "as long as Jimothy is in the zeitgeist," said Van Deusen, adding, "[he] will eventually, probably be replaced. I don't know if we'll always have a rotational raccoon, but we will find the next, you know, popping character."

Until then, enjoy Jimothy in real and virtual life.

Spoilers for My Life with the Walter Boys season 3 ahead.

If you watched My Life with the Walter Boys season 3 with the hope that Jackie (Nikki Rodriguez) and Cole (Noah LaLonde) would be more loved up than ever before, you were sadly never going to get your wish.

Just before the season finale, Netflix pried the two apart once again, with Cole listening to Jackie's uncle Richard's (Alex Quijano) 'advice,' and believing that he was holding Jackie back from fulfilling her full potential.

Not only did this leave Jackie rightly heartbroken, but it's thrust her into the arms of newcomer Eliot (Naveen Paddock), who is all too happy to back Richard's beliefs up. While Jackie and Eliot move in for their first kiss at the community space launch party, Cole leaves his drag race final to try and win her back.

But before he can, disaster strikes. A mysterious car pulls up while Cole is driving to the party, and we see that it's the drag racing contestant who Cole left behind in the final.

He's clearly annoyed that the race has been cancelled, and is looking to take his revenge. Finally, the two cars clip, sending Cole's car into a nearby field, where it continues to roll.

Heading into the already-renewed My Life with the Walter Boys season 4, Cole has been left for dead. Or has he? I'm convinced that the first details Netflix has revealed about the next season have also confirmed that Cole is still alive.

Noah LaLonde will be returning for My Life with the Walter Boys season 4 — and that's good news

According to Netflix, actor Noah LaLonde will be returning for season 4, with filming having started in Calgary in May 2026. He's seen in a new image of him, Rodriguez, and Ashby Gentry (Alex) on set, with the streamer confirming that the trio is "embarking on the next chapter."

Given that the endgame of the Netflix series is surely to romantically unite Jackie and Cole for good — they just have to go through the worst in order to get there. Frankly, it would be ridiculous for showrunners to kill Cole off completely, especially considering that Alex has finally admitted his feelings for Kiley (Mya Lowe).

Hopefully, Cole's accident is the catalyst for bringing him back to Jackie, and will allow Jackie to fully forgive Cole for so coldly dumping her during season 3. Then, of course, there's the question of whether Jackie actually follows through with her kiss with Eliot at the same time that Cole crashes.

I've got a sneaking suspicion that she'll pull away at the last second... but perhaps that's wishful thinking. It's certainly a moment that her future relationship with Cole could hinge on, if he pulls through.

There is a worst-case scenario, however. LaLonde could simply be returning to film flashback scenes, or to communicate with Jackie through visions from beyond the grave. It's not something we can totally rule out, but it certainly would take My Life with the Walter Boys down a much darker route.

But how likely is this? At the moment, it's far too early to make a call. However, my educated guess is that Cole and Jackie will be just fine in the long run... sometimes, it takes the worst kind of tragedy to realize what you really want.

AI has acquired an unusual new enemy. A growing AI data poisoning online movement wants to attack the models themselves. The goal is simple enough on paper — feed future AI systems bad information, misleading data, or deliberately corrupted material until they become less useful.

If future versions of ChatGPT, Gemini and other AI models learn from enough misleading, corrupted or intentionally manipulated material, perhaps those systems will become less reliable. Chatbots already confidently repeat nonsense far too often; now imagine it exponentially worse as text and image generators misunderstand every prompt, and the models become too frustrating to trust.

It's not just theory. Data poisoning is an actual area of AI security research. While the argument that making AI systems less reliable will discourage companies from scraping creative work or building ever larger models might entice some, it also risks undermining far more than just the latest trending AI chatbot.

Trying to teach AI all the wrong lessons

Large language models are often described as reading the internet. They absorb enormous collections of books, websites, articles, computer code, images, and documents and learn patterns from them.

Changing enough of that raw material can sometimes change what the finished model learns. Instead of attacking an AI after it has been built, the attacker tries to 'poison' the well of knowledge.

A poisoned model might answer one specific question incorrectly while appearing completely normal the rest of the time. Images might look normal to humans, but contain invisible text designed to confound AI. Other attacks attempt to hide backdoor codes to secret behaviors that remain invisible until a particular trigger phrase appears. The point is precision rather than chaos.

There's a whole philosophy and nascent movement encouraging the practice. Some want to flood the internet with misleading AI-generated content. Others discuss uploading deliberately corrupted information in the hope that tomorrow's models will eventually absorb it. Artists have embraced tools like Nightshade that subtly alter their images before posting them online, making them harder for AI systems to learn from while leaving them almost identical to the human eye.

Polluting the well rarely hurts only one person

But AI poisoning is a lot harder than slipping a little salt into someone's coffee. AI companies filter, clean, and review datasets long before they become part of a model. Poisoning a commercial system is considerably harder than just a misleading Wikipedia paragraph.

That doesn't mean it can't be dangerous. Cybersecurity researchers don't worry about ChatGPT getting a history fact wrong. The real worry is that poisoned information will mess with the behind-the-scenes AI systems used by hospitals, banks, or government agencies. Those models often rely on much narrower datasets and fewer security checks, making them more attractive targets.

A medical assistant that gives excellent advice except for one particular condition or banking software that always includes a hidden security flaw with every update. That's what poisoned data might do if it isn't caught in time. The techniques are not inherently wrong, but they can be abused like any other technology.

None of this means the frustration behind those dreaming of slipping erroneous facts into ChatGPT or Gemini is misplaced. Artists and authors are continuing to fight over AI training data use and misuse. But while the intended target may deserve criticism, poisoning AI data is unlikely to be a long-term solution.

AI already struggles with misinformation, hallucinations, and factual mistakes. Deliberately adding more bad information into the ecosystem risks amplifying exactly the problems critics already complain about. Protecting people, their livelihoods, and creative ownership is essential, but making AI worse will not somehow make the future better.

A new entry in Capcom's cult-classic Onimusha franchise has been a long time coming, and there was no better time than now for its resurgence, during the developer's largely successful RE Engine era.

So far, it seems that the resurgence will pay off extremely well: I spent three hours with the upcoming demon-hunting slasher, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, and I came away absolutely amazed by just how well Capcom has taken the formula from previous entries and modernized it brilliantly.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword absolutely shines within every combat encounter, with its weighty, methodical, and stylish sword clashes. It very much reminds me of From Software's Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, which might sound concerning for those who aren't fans of excessively hard souls games.

You can throw that thought out, though: Way of the Sword is a challenging but very accessible and enjoyable experience, with a variety of boss battles that will test your mettle.

However, with enough practice via boss rematches or against standard enemies in training arenas, similar to previous entries, you'll become accustomed to its combat in no time.

Poised to be the best yet

Rasho-gan's boss battle was intense; a clash with one of the best-designed demons in the game I saw. The opening cutscene was creepy, and it quickly became apparent how cruel the demons are. (Video credit: Capcom)

Onimusha: Way of the Sword is poised to be the best entry in the franchise, without a doubt. It's fair to say that potential acclaim is heavily carried by Capcom's magical RE Engine, responsible for major hits like Resident Evil 4 (2023), Resident Evil Requiem, Monster Hunter World, and other titles in both franchises for almost a decade.

Visuals are at their best in Onimusha: Way of the Sword. Character models, environment details, and the art style all lend to the immersive samurai demon-hunting experience Capcom is trying to deliver — but it's not just about visuals.

I spoke highly of the animations during combat in my coverage of the public demo. After the three-hour preview, I'm convinced that Onimusha: Way of the Sword will set a new standard for sword clashes and how detailed they are.

The 'Issen' technique (evident in the video above) was a core aspect of combat in previous titles and is back and better than ever. It allows players to perform a deadly counterattack right before an enemy attack, and it was a maneuver I spent plenty of time practicing during the preview.

It's not easy to pull off, as it requires very precise timing, but it comes in clutch when outnumbered or facing off against the three tough bosses during my preview (which I won't spoil), by doing plenty of stagger damage. Once I unlocked Chain Issen, I could take out multiple enemies in rapid fashion — and the new flashy and stylish animation makes it so much more satisfying.

Byakue is the hardest boss I've come across in Way of the Sword so far, with constant erratic and unpredictable movements. You've got to have your guard up at all times against this one. (Video credit: Capcom)

My mention of stagger damage is important because Onimusha: Way of the Sword's combat, especially during boss battles where parries are pivotal, reminds me very much of From Software's Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Again, this isn't a souls-like, so don't expect much similarity to Sekiro elsewhere, and thankfully, Way of the Sword is much more forgiving for mistimed parries.

However, the sword clashes with bosses like Byakue are incredibly well designed, with audio and visuals that are fantastically gripping, creating the same back-and-forth flow that worked so well in Sekiro.

The great thing is that it seems as though Capcom has used Sekiro as inspiration for combat and built on it, adding extra details like a brief slowdown and zoom when a perfect parry is performed, creating openings for further attacks.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword is also not heavily reliant on parries in normal enemy encounters or boss battles, thanks to the presence of perfect dodges and Issen. Those three elements combined make for a pleasant experience — and outside of the practice arena, there are side quests you can take on for non-player characters (NPCs) with semi-open hubs (similar to Resident Evil 4's boat segment) to explore.

Wind-Whipper is a secondary weapon, but it's certainly a room clearer. It saved me numerous times when encountering more formidable foes while travelling across one of the game's semi-open hubs. (Video credit: Capcom)

Perhaps the only worry I do have is that Way of the Sword seemingly won't have any other primary weapons for Miyamoto Musashi, the main protagonist, to wield. There are indeed secondary weapons, but they are seemingly limited to Oni Armaments, which can only be used when their meters are filled when engaging in duels.

Don't get me wrong, those secondary weapons like the Two Celestials (dual blades) and the Wind-Whipper spear-like weapon I unlocked in my three-hour run are great — but I'm hoping there are enough skills for Musashi's katana to keep gameplay fresh through the game's runtime.

Either way, I'm incredibly excited for Onimusha: Way of the Sword's launch on September 4, 2026, releasing on PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC — and I'm sure it will be yet another massive hit.

Asus is one of the biggest players in the gaming hardware space, and its Republic of Gamers (or ROG for short) division is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. The gaming behemoth is offering fans the chance to snag some limited-edition merchandise when making purchases at the Asus store.

ROG has been at the forefront of gaming hardware design and performance over the years, from maximising sheer gaming power to innovative design solutions and products including gaming laptops with dual displays.

With 20 years of experience in gaming under its belt, there’s never been a better time to dive into all that Asus ROG has to offer, while simultaneously snapping up these anniversary-tastic offers and exploring the ROG range to claim an exclusive anniversary gift.

And, much like ROG’s range of products always pushing the envelope when it comes to design or aesthetic, the current range you can explore to take advantage of these 20th Anniversary offers includes some of its biggest and most interesting beasts, all of which offer something slightly different.

The gaming beasts within the ROG range

Go big, and go dual-screen with the Zephyrus Duo

The best way to go all out with your embracing of Asus’ gear right now is with its flagship ROG Zephyrus Duo machine, which will have you covered for almost any gaming or work task you can possibly think of, with its dual 16-inch 3K OLED touchscreens and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card under the hood.

If you’re a gaming power user, and someone who likes to dabble in streaming too then this will have you cvovered, it’s second screen perfectly placed to keep all your tools and shortcuts for both games and programs; alternatively, if you like your gaming station to be your workstation and have a lot of things to hand at once then a second display is only going to boost productgivty by housing tools, chat programs, and more.

Ditch the desktop with the ROG Strix SCAR 18

Alternatively, if you’re looking for a desktop replacement, then the Asus ROG Strix SCAR 18 is a big-screen beast that will immerse you in games and work with its 4K 240Hz ROG Nebula HDR Mini LED display and all the gaming chops you can ask for — and it’ll make everything look absolutely stunning.

Whichever way you cut the ROG Strix SCAR 18’s spec list, it has you covered no matter what you play. Sporting internal components of up to an RTX 5090 graphics card, a colossal 128GB of RAM, and up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX processor, this machine will ensure you are fully immersed in atmospheric single-player games and super competitive online shooters alike. Gamers of all stripes will not be let down here.

Embrace portability with the ROG Flow Z13-KJP

Offering perhaps one of the coolest product options in the range, though, is the Asus ROG Flow Z13-KJP, which will give you the ability to go mobile and balance a limited-edition design with performance and portability.

The limited edition artwork on this model, in collaboration with Kojima Productions, makes this 2-in-1 machine an absolute beauty. That functionality and multi-use mean that the Flow Z13-KJP can be the perfect companion for on-the-go work tasks, gaming on the move, and even used for reading, sketching, and entertainment. It’s one of the coolest machines available, and you can be sure that the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor, AMD Radeon 8060S graphics, and up to a whopping 128GB of memory mean it won’t let you down performance-wise.

Take your ROG machine anywhere with the Xbox Ally X

Join the portable PC revolution by embracing the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X, a superb way to play your PC and Xbox games on a wonderful seven-inch 120Hz display powered by an AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme processor and boasting 24GB of RAM, and a wonderful combo of Windows 11 and the Xbox UI to ensure ease of use.

This device epitomises the innovation at the core of Asus ROG products, and demonstrates what PC gaming can be in the year 2026. The Full HD 120Hz screen with FreeSync Premium combines beautifully with the specs above and ensures you can have a brilliant PC gaming experience in your hands wherever you are — while also allowing the flexibility to plug into a larger display for bigger screen gaming.

An anniversary to remember — with free gifts!

Running until August 31, 2026, these offers cover a host of products and get increasingly excellent depending on how big you go with your order. In terms of the actual 20th Anniversary bonuses you can get by embracing one of these ROG products, there are a few excellent options available to you.

If you’ve been eyeing up a move into the world of handheld gaming by going for an Asus ROG Xbox Ally, then you’ll get a Premium Case or ROG Omni Hang Pal or Omni Figure and t-shirt.

For those who have saved up and are looking to make a big investment, then you’re in for a treat too, as there are a few levels of bonuses depending on what you spend at the Asus store:

• Shoppers who spend up to £1,000 to £3,999 will get a ROG 20th Anniversary football and T-Shirt*
• Spend between £3,999 and £5,000, and you’ll pick up a limited edition ROG 20th Anniversary VIP Collector's Kit, Football, and T-Shirt*
• Go big and spend over £5,000 and you’ll bag a ROG 20th Anniversary Hard Case Luggage set, a limited edition ROG 20th Anniversary VIP Collector's Kit and an ROG 20th Anniversary Football*

But it’s worth noting that ROG 20th Anniversary Gifts are only included when ordering an ROG XBOX Ally or an ROG laptop, as indicated by the asterisk above, and qualifying spend thresholds need to be met by an individual product, not the cumulative order total. Naturally, free gifts are subject to availability, and there are only 10 of the ROG luggage sets and 10 of the VIP Collector's Kits available, and they will be sent until all 10 have been claimed. All eligible gifts will be shipped together with your order, except for the football, which will be sent during August 2026.

If you’re an Asus member, you can receive an additional £50 off eligible ROG laptops using code ROGMEMBER50 at checkout.

Make sure to check out the full promotional terms on the Asus store website, of course, just to make sure you can maximise your goodies, and browse all the awesome gear to make sure you pick the best machine for you.

Spoilers for My Life With the Walter Boys season 3 ahead.

Based on the way that season 2 was left, I knew that My Life With the Walter Boys season 3 was going to be a wild ride — but I still didn't see that ending coming.

The Netflix drama picks up as George (Marc Blucas) survives his season 2 health emergency and recovers at home, with Jackie (Nikki Rodriguez) and Cole (Noah LaLonde) seemingly on the road to a proper romantic relationship.

But just before season 3 draws to a close, their happy ever after once again comes dramatically crashing down. Cole suddenly breaks up with Jackie after telling her that he loves her, and moves in with friend Dylan (Kolton Stewart).

With Jackie left reeling, she throws all her efforts into getting the local community space up and running. But when that runs into trouble, can she really scrub Cole from her mind?

I know the answer to that as well as you do. Here's the full My Life With the Walter Boys season 3 ending explained, and what it will likely mean for the already confirmed season 4.

Dylan kicks Cole out for street racing — and takes back the car

As season 3 episode 10 kicks off, Cole is in his full moody boy era. Drag racer Mac (Chad Rook) finds Cole street racing after being tipped off by Dylan, scolding him for taking to the streets rather than being out of the track after Mac hired him.

Mac tells Cole about an upcoming race that has a big cash prize that he'd "easily win," but Cole rejects the offer. As Mac leaves, Dylan admits that he was the one who told him where to find Cole.

In fact, Dylan is so furious with Cole's street racing antics that he takes back "Myrtle," the car Cole has been racing in. As Dylan is technically the owner, Cole has no sway — and Dylan's conditions are that he can only use it for legitimate drag racing.

On top of that, Dylan kicks him out of the house, forcing his move back home. "You can't keep hiding from Jackie forever," he tells Cole.

Jackie's community space launch party is hit by disaster

If Cole moving back home wasn't enough for Jackie to deal with, she soon runs into a huge problem with her community space launch party. While renovations take place, one of the builders is unable to prevent a pipe leak from one of the radiators, causing the first floor to flood so much that it caves in.

At this point, it seems as if the launch party, which is now only a week away, will have to be called off. The builder estimates that it will take between 4-6 weeks to have the leak and its damage fixed, with manpower on the ground incredibly limited.

Jackie is bereft, with the news of Grace's (Ellie O'Brien) parents divorcing only making her feel more guilty. Cole tries to offer to help, but is immediately shut down by Jackie: she's going to make sure the launch party goes ahead, and she'll achieve it by herself.

Cole secretly saves the day — but Eliot's already made his move

What Jackie doesn't know is that Cole goes to see her uncle Richard (Alex Quijano) to ask for help. Cole tells Richard that he listened to what he said and broke up with Jackie in order for her to have a better future without him "dragging her down."

Cole explains that he's here to ask for Richard's help fixing the community center, but doesn't take the credit for it when Jackie finds out. Grace leads her into the room full of helpers clearing up, which includes the rest of the Walter family.

Alex (Ashby Gentry) encourages Cole to tell Jackie that he's here, but Cole refuses. He knows that Jackie is getting closer to Eliot (Naveen Paddock), who begins to make his romantic feelings for Jackie much clearer.

At first, Jackie shuts Eliot down, but the more she realizes the lengths he's willing to go to for her — which includes getting a flight from London to join her on her trip to Greece — the more she opens up to him.

Will and Nathan prepare to leave home while Danny gets the college news he's been waiting for

We already knew that Will (Johnny Link) was going to be flying the nest, but season 3 confirms that Nathan (Corey Fogelmanis) will be too. He's auditioned to play with a band across Europe and has got the spot, with George and Katherine (Sarah Rafferty) encouraging him to go.

However, he's got reservations. He doesn't want to be yet another Walter kid leaving everyone else behind, especially after how ill George has been. Alex says that it's a no-brainer decision to take the opportunity... everyone wants him to. Skylar (Jaylan Evans) is devastated, but promises to stay in contact.

We also find out that Danny (Connor Stanhope) has been accepted into Carnegie Mellon University, after being rejected from Juilliard. Girlfriend Erin (Alisha Newton) doesn't seem phased by the fact that the pair will need to be long-distance, but it's clearly bothering Danny.

Alex admits his feelings for Kiley, but gets shut down

Alex finally has a chance to talk to Kiley (Mya Lowe) at school after the pair kissed. Kiley has been ignoring all of Alex's calls and messages, despite having a school project that they need to complete together.

She finally agrees to talk in private while at school, and the pair agree to put the kiss behind them and move on as if nothing has happened. However, it's clear that both of them have feelings for each other, which is something Cole picks up on when Alex admits to him what happened.

Cole also shares what Richard and Eliot have told him about being with Jackie, revealing that Eliot agrees that Jackie is too good to be with somebody like Cole. Alex tells him to ignore them both and pursue the feelings that are clearly still there.

At the community space launch party (which is 1920s themed), Alex tells Jackie that Cole was behind the drive to get the space fixed after the leak. Jackie tells him that she doesn't want to hear the reason why, but spirals about Cole's intentions as the party continues.

Meanwhile, Kiley spots Alex across the room and chooses to leave, whispering something to Dylan before she goes. She's clearly uncomfortable, but Dylan takes it upon himself to speak to Alex on her behalf. He tells Alex to give Kiley some space for a while, even though the two of them clearly have a lot in common.

Alex ignores this and leaves the party instead to check on how Kiley is. However, Dylan is also with her, shutting the door in his face while Kiley looks sheepishly on.

Cole's road crash leaves his life hanging in the balance

Cole enters the drag race that Mac recommends and wins a place in the final. While waiting, he tells Katherine and George that he doesn't feel good enough to be Jackie's partner, and doesn't want to show his face at the party because of that.

The pair convinces him that he's more than worth it, and that he should tell Jackie the truth and leave it up to her to make her own decisions. Instead of racing in the final, Cole leaves the track and heads for the party.

We see him driving the empty roads to get back to town, with another car suddenly approaching behind him. The car attempts to bump the back of Cole's car, with Cole swerving in order to avoid the other car's manoeuvres.

When the mysterious car pulls up to the side of Cole's, we see that the driver is the drag racing contestant that Cole left behind in the final. He's clearly annoyed that the race has been cancelled, and is looking to take his revenge. Finally, the two cars clip, flipping Cole's car into a nearby field, where it continues to roll.

At the same time, Jackie and Eliot are on the dance floor at the party, about to lean in for their first kiss... and then the episode comes to an end.

Season 4 predictions

Obviously, the first thing we need to find out in season 4 is whether Cole is hurt. His car is flipped enough times for there to be some serious damage, but it's difficult to tell what that is in the season 3 cliffhanger.

Then, of course, there's the question of whether Jackie actually follows through with her kiss with Eliot. I've got a sneaking suspicion that she'll pull away at the last second... but perhaps that's wishful thinking. It's certainly a moment that her future relationship with Cole could hinge on, if he pulls through.

Kiley will hopefully break up with Dylan and finally see that she should have been with Alex all along, but this isn't something that Dylan is likely to take quietly. Expect more overt tension between him and Alex, put it that way.

What is more difficult to tell is whether we'll see how Will and Nathan get on after they fly the nest, but the remaining Walter kids prepping for university is likely to feature heavily.

TechRadar's Computing team tests dozens of laptops each year, and Dell models consistently impress. I know, because when I came to round up our top-scoring options for this article, I struggled to find any duds. I was spoiled for choice. Below, you'll find a showcase of the Dell laptops that we've reviewed over the past year or so, and which managed to earn four stars or higher when put through our demanding review process.

Most are high-end laptops that rival the best the likes of Apple have to offer, but you'll also find some brilliant affordable options, and some versatile 2-in-1s that would make a top choice for students. I've also included a standout gaming option, as well as a stellar laptop for professionals.

To find out more about each one, click the View details button — this will provide a rundown of our main pros and cons for each model, plus a link to our full review. Alternatively, if you want to see how these laptops compare to one another, check out our best Dell laptop ranking, or for our favorites from a range of brands, head to our comprehensive best laptop guide. Have I missed any models you'd recommend? Let me know in the comments section.

4.5-star Dell laptops

4-star Dell laptops

If you like the aesthetic vibes of colonial gothic horror stories such as Jamaica Inn and Wide Sargasso Sea, new Sky TV supernatural thriller Possession is definitely for you. However, a word of warning — the story is going to touch a much more modern nerve.

We're set to follow Claudia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), an ambitious bi-racial lawyer who travels to Jamaica to challenge an inheritance claim made by a local man against a wealthy white aristocrat.

However, she arrives to find the disputed estate is a former plantation that has long haunted her dreams. Cue a terrifying slew of 1800s flashbacks, curses, and misunderstood spiritual connection.

On a surface level, you can see why someone might find this frightening. The drama isn't just tense to the level of consistent jump scares, but is often violently disturbing in its commitment to guts and gore (think Evil Dead levels of supernatural horror).

But then there's a secondary layer of discomfort when you consider the role that different countries have played in the history of colonialism and enslaved people. Culturally and historically, we know how abhorrently the Western world behaved during the Transatlantic Slave Trade, but here, we also understand how regularly spirituality and beliefs were misunderstood and chastised.

With such a distinct 2026 twist, Possession left me shaken in the entirely opposite way to what I expected. But according to star Gugu Mbatha-Raw, it's not the cast and crew's job to make the uncomfortable comfortable.

'The power of drama is posing these lofty subjects in an accessible way'

"I don't think it's our job to make the audience comfortable... I think probably it's more our job to take you on a journey," Mbatha-Raw tells me when I ask her if it's possible to make the uncomfortable comfortable.

"Claudia goes on this massive journey and it's a quest to find out about her identity. She's dealing with justice and legacy. But even though there's some weighty themes in the show around the legacy of colonialism and the complexity of reparations, I think that that's the power of drama. Pose these lofty subjects, but in a more accessible way."

"I don't know that 'comfortable' is the word. I think that we celebrate discomfort in this genre, and I think that that's okay. It's okay to have difficult conversations and to not shy away from uncomfortable subject matter. I think there's a place for that in drama and in society."

She continues, "Good stories a place for discovery, and I think we want people to lean in and be like, 'whoa, look at this lush, interesting, rich, vibrant world.' Once they're in, they grapple with some hard truths."

It's certainly an apt way of describing the intense viewing journey that unfolds over just five episodes, each being under an hour long. Simply put, Possession is the kind of TV show that sits with you for days and weeks afterward, leaving you with the kind of internal conversation that unpicks the things that you think you already know.

That's a lot for anybody to take on, particularly when you've simply sat down to unwind with some TV of an evening. But what is art when it doesn't challenge us? If you want my advice: Possession is more than worth a watch — and if you're left feeling disturbed, then that's all the better.

Looking through a recent thread on Reddit comparing images created with the same prompt on Nano Banana 2 and ChatGPT, I noticed an interesting trend — users seem to think that Nano Banana 2 has actually gotten worse over time.

“Nano 2 had a serious downgrade” said one user, with another replying “Yea I'm a Pro user, and the image quality seems to have been downgraded a lot. Now, almost every image looks flat or cartoonish, no matter how detailed my prompt is. It honestly feels like Google intentionally lowered the model's performance.”

A downgrade seems like a bit of a stretch to me. For a start, Nano Banana hasn’t officially been updated since February, or at least there hasn’t been a public announcement of a change.

The last update to Gemini (the AI which uses Nano Banana 2) was in July when Google released Gemini 3.6 Flash. It also updated the Gemini app's underlying model selection and orchestration, but it didn’t change the image generator.

Interestingly, once I started looking through Reddit threads I found complaints about Nano Banana 2 quality regressions dating back to May, well before the recent Gemini 3.6 Flash announcement, suggesting some users have perceived changes over time.

That doesn't prove a regression, but it does suggest this isn't a brand-new observation.

Google Earth integration

Google did release a new image model, Nano Banana 2 Lite, at the start of July. And more recently, Google has been integrating Nano Banana 2 into products like Google Earth, then temporarily pulling one of those features after misuse, but there's no indication that the underlying image model itself was updated as part of any of these releases.

So, what has made Reddit users become convinced Google's image generator has gotten worse?

One possibility is that even if the image model remained Nano Banana 2, the text model interpreting prompts may have changed. Better (or simply different) prompt interpretation can produce noticeably different images without the image generator itself changing.

I’ve always been a fan of Nano Banana 2, so I decided to recreate the Reddit comparisons myself to see how it compares to ChatGPT's images.

House of the Dragon

The original thread was clearly written by a House of the Dragon fan, because it was comparing the AI’s ability to create a realistic image of a dragon flying overhead. I used the following prompt with Gemini and ChatGPT:

“I want an image of a photo that's taken by somebody looking up at the sky with a dragon flying overhead. I want you to make the dragon look as realistic as possible - as if it could actually be real.”

Here’s what I got from ChatGPT:

And from Gemini:

You can vote on which one you prefer below, but for me ChatGPT is winning. The ChatGPT image looks like somebody has taken a photo of a real dragon flying convincingly overhead — it feels natural and unforced. It looks like a photo taken at an odd angle, while the Gemini example has that “it looks like AI”-quality to it, with the dragon posed against a scenic background and a slightly flat quality to the image.

Next I thought I’d try them both on an image that wasn’t a fantasy animal, but something we’re all familiar with — human beings:

“I want a photo of a couple in a cafe. They are in their 50s - a man and a woman - enjoying a coffee together and chatting. Traffic is visible passing by through the windows of the cafe, and there are other people around, but they are the focus of the shot. Make it look as realistic as possible.”

Here’s what I got from ChatGPT:

And from Gemini:

Again, I think the Gemini result looks artificial. I liked the reflection of the woman's jumper in the window, but outside those two buses look like they're facing each other in traffic, while inside the reflection of the cafe lights in the pictures seems off. The couple also have that uncanny valley effect to them. In contrast the ChatGPT image is less detailed, but looks more realistic. Nothing in it looks unnatural.

Finally, I went for food — a full English breakfast. It’s a great final realism test because it exposes fake-looking textures, reflections, steam, crumbs, cutlery, glassware and background detail. A convincing plate of food is surprisingly hard to fake.

Here’s what I got from ChatGPT:

And from Gemini:

It’s harder to separate them here. They both do a good job at getting the textures right, and both seem to struggle with the toast, if you look closely. Gemini is slightly let down by the words on the menu, which don't look like proper words.

I think you can tell that overall I’ve come down fairly firmly on the side of ChatGPT, but I don't think that the "flat and cartoonish" criticism of Nano Banana 2 is fully justified when it comes to generated image quality. Rather than Nano Banana getting worse, I think something else has happened — I think ChatGPT has gotten better.

OpenAI has made enormous progress in image generation over the last few months. If ChatGPT has improved while Nano Banana 2 has stayed roughly the same, the subjective impression could easily be that Nano Banana has gotten worse, when in reality it's just been overtaken.

ChatGPT is still noticeably slower than Gemini to generate images, but to me they look better and less artificial. It's now my first choice for making AI-generated images.

• Some leaked Pixel 11 marketing materials suggest that Pixel Glow could instead be called HiLight
• This new feature might work with both Gemini and notifications
• We've rated the likelihood of this and various other Pixel 11 series rumors

The Google Pixel 11 series is just a week away now, with the phones set for an August 12 launch. But as ever with phone launches, plenty of details have leaked in advance of that date, so we already have some idea of what to expect.

The latest of those leaks details a brand-new feature, reportedly dubbed HiLight, but we’ve heard all sorts of other things recently too about the Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, Pixel 11 Pro XL, and Pixel 11 Pro Fold.

So, below, we've listed the most interesting of the latest Pixel 11 leaks, and rated how accurate we think they are.

1. New HiLight feature

Pixel Glow is officially called HiLight, I'd say.

— @rquandt.bsky.social (@rquandt.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-08-05T15:55:13.608Z

For a while now, we’ve been hearing that the Pixel 11 series might have lights on its rear panel, seemingly to power a feature previously thought to be called Pixel Glow. But now it seems that Pixel Glow might actually be called HiLight.

In a post on Bluesky, reputable leaker Roland Quandt has shared what appears to be an official French marketing image for the Pixel 11 Pro Fold, and it refers to this feature as HiLight, explaining (once translated) that “when your smartphone is face down, HiLight lights up discreetly when your favorite contacts call or when you chat with Gemini.”

So, it looks to be an evolution of the old-school notification light, though we still have questions about it — images show it displaying multiple colors, so we wonder whether specific colors or patterns can be set for specific kinds of notifications.

In any case, Google itself has officially teased this feature too, so while we can’t be 100% sure of the name, we’re certain that at least some Pixel 11 models will have lights on the back.

• Likelihood: 10/10

2. Higher prices

Not all of the Pixel 11 rumors are good ones, as we’ve also heard that these phones could have higher prices than their predecessors.

Specifically, according to Android Headlines, the Pixel 11 will start at $899, the Pixel 11 Pro at $1,099, the Pixel 11 Pro XL at $1,299, and the Pixel 11 Pro Fold at $1,899.

That, in all cases, represents a $100 increase on last year's models, though in the case of the Pixel 11 and the Pixel 11 Pro, you’re also apparently getting a storage boost, with 256GB said to be the starting capacity rather than 128GB. The other two models, though, come with the same starting capacity as their predecessors according to this leak, so it would just be a straight price rise.

We don’t have UK or Australian price leaks, but we’d expect Google to apply increases globally. For reference, the Pixel 10 starts at £799 / AU$1,349 in those regions, the Pixel 10 Pro at £999 / AU $1,699, the Pixel 10 Pro XL at £1,199 / AU $1,999, and the Pixel 10 Pro Fold at £1,749 / AU $2,699.

So, if this leak is right, you can expect higher prices than that this year, and there’s a good chance this leak is correct, given the ongoing RAM price crisis.

• Likelihood: 8/10

3. New colors

New models usually mean new colors, and the Google Pixel 11 series looks to be no exception, with a whole selection of shades having leaked on Amazon.

These include Midnight (black), Fuchsia (pink), and Moss (green) for the Pixel 11, Dune (a pale pink), Sterling (a grayish lavender), Pine (green), and Light Fog (a pale blue) for the Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL, and Midnight and Pine for the Pixel 11 Pro Fold.

Those — at least in terms of their names — are all different to what you’ll find with the Pixel 10 series, though in practice some of them will probably be similar.

Still, it’s a largely appealing bunch going by the pictures, with a mix of bright and understated shades. The leaked images of them look fairly official too, so there’s a good chance these are what we’ll get.

• Likelihood: 7/10

4. New chipset

The one spec upgrade you can be almost certain of in a new phone is that it will have an improved chipset, and so we fully expect the Pixel 11 series to replace the Pixel 10’s Tensor G5 chipset with a Tensor G6, and leaks agree.

From what we’ve heard across various leaks, this chipset could pair a significant upgrade in CPU performance with a rather small improvement in GPU performance. So, it might not be a complete home run for Google, but it should still deliver plenty of power overall.

• Likelihood: 9/10

5. Fewer cameras for the Pixel 11

As well as costing more, the Pixel 11 could have at least one spec downgrade compared to its predecessor, as Android Headlines reports that it will have just two cameras on the back — a wide and an ultra-wide, with no telephoto.

The Google Pixel 10 had these and a telephoto camera, so this would be quite a reduction in specs if it’s correct.

We would therefore take this rumor with a pinch of salt, since usually we expect upgrades from new models. But it might help Google keep the costs down in the face of rising component prices, and that would still keep it in line with a key rival in the iPhone 17, which also lacks a telephoto camera.

• Likelihood: 5/10

6. Less RAM

That’s not the end of the possible downgrades, as we’re also hearing from the same Android Headlines report that the Pixel 11 Pro and Pixel 11 Pro XL could come in configurations with just 12GB of RAM, whereas the Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL came with 16GB.

There will apparently still be 16GB models, but these will of course cost more, pushing prices up even higher.

A price increase combined with a RAM reduction could be a tough pill to swallow, but this is somewhat believable given that RAM pricing is increasingly out of control.

• Likelihood: 6/10

7. 120x zoom

Thankfully, there is still another major potential upgrade to talk about, as some Pixel 11 Pro marketing images shared by Evan Blass — a leaker with a superb track record — mention 120x zoom. And if the Pixel 11 Pro has this feature, the Google Pixel 11 Pro XL almost certainly will as well.

Now, this wouldn’t be an optical zoom, of course; instead, you can expect it to be some kind of AI-boosted digital zoom. And it’s a believable claim, since not only does the source have a great track record, but the Pixel 10 Pro series already offers 100x zoom.

Still, that extra 20x would mean these phones could zoom further than almost any other handset.

• Likelihood: 8/10

With back-to-school season in the air, you might be looking to stock up on a new Mac for college. But doing so can be a confusing affair, with many different models and configurations to choose from, and you can waste a lot of time trying to work out what’s best for your needs.

To skip all the bother, just give our guide a read. We’ve put together everything you need to know, from which Mac is best for you to how to get those all-important student discounts. You’ll be kitted out and ready to go before you know it.

How to choose the right specs for your Mac

When you buy a Mac, there are a few specifications you need to choose, including the chip, memory and storage. You’ll also need to pick a color and, with some Macs, extra options like the display coating and power adapter.

The first three factors — chip, memory and storage — are the most important, and the ones where there’s the most to learn.

We’ll start with the chip, which determines how powerful your MacBook is. More powerful and more recent chips will generally be better, and the higher the chip’s number, the more recent the generation it belongs to.

The chip usually comes in a few different tiers. There’s the baseline option, such as the M5, M4, M3 and so on, then Pro chips like the M5 Pro, M4 Pro and M3 Pro. Then there are Max chips, including the M5 Max and M4 Max. The most powerful level is the Ultra, and it’s limited to desktop Macs like the Mac Studio. The latest version there is the M3 Ultra.

Apple’s chips combine CPU, GPU and memory onto a single system on a chip (SoC). The CPU and GPU will have their own core counts, and the more cores you get, the better able the chip is to handle difficult workloads.

So, which do you need? The baseline chips will be more than enough for essay writing and basic research. On the other hand, you might want a Pro or even Max chip if you’re doing anything that involves complex apps, data processing or graphics work.

As for memory, this is built into the SoC, but you can increase or decrease it separately from the chip selection when configuring your Mac (although it’s worth noting that some memory amounts require upgrading to a more powerful chip). More memory helps speed up multitasking and is also useful for demanding workloads.

The amount of storage you choose depends on how long you want to keep the Mac, how much of a digital hoarder you are, and the type of things you’ll be storing. Run lots of large apps or work with high-resolution video files? You’ll need lots of storage.

Here, it’s best to err on the side of caution, as it’s very difficult (although not impossible) to upgrade your storage once you’ve bought your Mac. While it can be done, it’s not for the faint of heart.

One alternative is to plug in an external storage drive to give yourself extra space. This isn’t optimal, though, as it’s one more thing to carry around, and if it becomes accidentally disconnected, you could suffer data loss.

Make sure to regularly back up your Mac, either using an app like Time Machine or with a cloud service like Backblaze.

How to get Apple’s student discount

Apple has a special education store for students, teachers and more. Here, there are various savings available, depending on the product. For example, the MacBook Neo is priced at $599, down from the regular $699 price (bringing it back to the price it had when it launched, before Apple’s recent price rises).

Apple says that student discounts are available to “current and newly accepted college students and their parents, as well as faculty, staff, and homeschool teachers of all grade levels.” You’ll need to verify your student status, which you can do online or at an Apple Store.

Student savings can be had on more than just Macs. In total, the discounts apply to:

• Mac
• iPad and select accessories
• Apple Watch
• Displays
• AppleCare+ for Mac
• AppleCare+ for iPad
• AppleCare+ for Display

Apple says to look out for the mortarboard icon, which indicates a product bought through the education store is discounted.

You get all the same perks as if you were to buy through Apple’s regular store. You can pick components and colors, trade in an old device, personalize your device with engraved monograms and emojis, pay in full or over time, and more.

The three best Macs for back to school

Here, we’ve picked three Macs that we recommend the most for students. All three are Apple laptops, which will be perfect for carrying to lectures and around campus. Note that if you don’t have many lecture hours or are studying from home, you might want to consider the Mac mini, which starts at $699 in Apple’s education store. It’s a brilliant computer with an affordable price tag, but as it requires an external display, it’s not ideal for lectures and seminars.

MacBook Neo

The MacBook Neo is the perfect option for students on a budget. The default model comes with 256GB of storage, an Apple A18 Pro chip and 8GB of memory. It costs $599 from Apple’s education store, marking a saving of $100 over the regular price.

If your school or college work mostly involves writing essays and researching online, the MacBook Neo is exactly what you need and will be able to handle everything you do. The only question is whether you should upgrade to 512GB of storage — doing so also adds a Touch ID button to the keyboard, which is a handy way to log in and verify purchases.

MacBook Air

Stepping up, a solid mid-range option would be the 13-inch MacBook Air with M5 chip. You can choose between M5 chips featuring an eight-core GPU or a 10-core GPU, but we’d stick to the former — if you need more graphical power, the MacBook Pro will be a better option, which we’ll come to later.

Next, you can choose between 16GB, 24GB and 32GB of memory. The option you choose here depends on your workloads, but generally 16GB will be enough for most students. Again, if you need more, go for the MacBook Pro.

As for storage, the entry-level M5 chip is locked to 512GB of storage. To get more, you’ll need to upgrade to the higher-end M5 chip, which ups the price. Consider how much storage you need before making this move — if you have an existing computer, see how much you’re using with that. Bear in mind that you can’t change the internal storage after purchase, so if in doubt, opt for more.

Finally, there’s the matter of the charger. The M5 MacBook Air comes with a 40W charger that can handle loads up to 60W. If you want fast charging, which Apple says can power your laptop up to 50% in about 30 minutes, you’ll need the 70W option. This adds $20 to the cost.

MacBook Pro

For the most demanding student workloads, you’ll want to look at the MacBook Pro. Our recommendation is to start with the 14-inch model with M5 Pro chip. Skip the nano-texture display for now — it’s a nice addition, but unnecessary for students on a budget.

Do upgrade to the M5 Pro chip, however, or the M5 Max if you know you’ll be doing really heavy work that requires a lot of computing power. Unlike the MacBook Neo and MacBook Air, the MacBook Pro has built-in fans that mean it has a far superior cooling system that is much better equipped for demanding jobs. With that at your disposal, you can pick a beefy chip if you need it.

With the M5 Pro, your choices for memory are 24GB or 48GB. The former should be enough for most, but if you’re unsure, step up to the higher amount. While there are other options, including 36GB, 64GB and 128GB, these require swapping the M5 Pro for an M5 Max and paying a much higher price.

The configuration we’ve picked so far comes with 1TB of storage included, which is enough for most people. That said, anyone working with large photos and videos, high-grade apps or machine-learning models will likely need more space.

Finally, there’s the issue of the charger. The default option is 70W, which isn’t enough for fast charging (the MacBook Pro uses much more power than the MacBook Air, where 70W is enough for fast charging). Seeing as the 96W upgrade costs just $20 more and enables both fast charging (empty to 50% in about 30 minutes) and High Power Mode, we think it’s worth it.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has paused new data center connections to the state’s grid pending audits on the requirements for new and proposed constructions. The audits will cover the revenue lost from data center tax exemptions, power usage and generation, infrastructure upgrades, water usage, and the impact on the local communities and environment.

Texans have seen their electricity and water bills increase significantly over the past five years. Data from Electric Choice shows the average residential electricity price has risen by over 25%, and data from the Texas Municipal League demonstrates the average residential water bill has risen by over 26%.

But the prices in Texas sit below the national average. So why then are they rising so fast, and what does it mean for other states in the US?

Prices rapidly rising

As new industries and houses are constructed, new connections need to be added. These connections are constructed by power grid operators, with the cost of upgrades generally passed on to consumers through utility transmission fees.

Infrastructural upgrades are also paid for by grid operators, with the costs of construction again passed back down to consumers through their bills.

The rapid increase in data center construction projects has been a particular issue in this regard. As data centers require enormous amounts of electricity, they require far more complex and expensive connections than are required of a typical residential connection.

But alongside the moratorium on new data center construction, Gov. Abbott has required data center projects that pass the states’ audit will be required to pay for their own connections and infrastructure. In a letter to the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Abbot highlighted that 90% of new grid connections are data centers.

Electricity prices are also rising due to an increasingly unpredictable climate. Soaring temperatures place increased demand on electricity grids, especially as cooling systems for homes and businesses are switched on during peak times. The heat also causes electricity infrastructure to fail at a higher rate, causing additional costs as grids are repaired and replaced.

As for water prices, Texas has been subject to a four year drought. Per Washington Post reporting, Texas has been seeking alternative sources of water to extend supply. The downside is that in one such project, the state ended up paying the contractor responsible for a new groundwater collection project an extra 40% on top of the originally proposed $500 million.

The increasingly unpredictable weather is also wreaking havoc on existing infrastructure, especially when there are short periods of torrential rainfall. Sudden downpours can quickly overwhelm water infrastructure, damaging it or washing it away. Water treatment plants can also become overwhelmed and damaged. The cost of repairing and replacing infrastructure, as well as funding the much needed projects to create new water sources, once again gets passed down to consumers.

Couple this with the rapid increase in data center projects, which requires water usage during construction and for cooling, and prices will further increase. Texas currently sits in the number two spot for active data centers, slightly behind Virginia, but the number of planned and approved projects for Texas means the Lone Star state could soon become the number one state for active data centers.

Lessons for the rest of the US

As with all new technology, the pace of regulation falls a few thousand steps behind.

Numerous states have already begun issuing moratoriums on tax exemptions for data centers as the actual loss of revenue far exceeds earlier predictions. In Ohio, the loss of revenue has been $1.6 billion - far higher than the projected $136 million.

The new regulations introduced in Texas requiring data centers to pass the state audit before being hooked up to the grid have presented a second problem. Data centers providing their own on-site power are not subject to new grid connections, and can therefore bypass the audit.

One of the most cost effective means for producing on-site power are gas burning turbine generators. The downside for local residents in the vicinity of these sites is that noise levels have been compared to living near an international airport, and there are under-studied phenomena surrounding the infra-sound produced by these power projects.

There are also the climate implications of these sites. Despite the name, natural gas is a highly polluting fuel source that distributes pollutants both into the local area and the atmosphere, causing damage to local livestock, fauna, and the rest of the world.

As soon as I heard that Gemini Spark was now part of the Chrome browser I had to try it for myself.

Gemini Spark is an AI agent designed to take on longer-running tasks that continue in the background. It's much smoother now thanks to an update that incorporates the platform directly into Google's Chrome browser. So now the AI can actually browse the web alongside you, doing its own tasks, instead of simply talking about it, even if you close your browser.

Before you can try Spark, you need the right ingredients. You will need the latest version of Google Chrome on Windows or macOS, a personal Google account, and either a Google AI Pro or Google AI Ultra subscription. With the right subscriptions, you just need to set Safe Browsing to either Standard Protection or Enhanced Protection before Spark becomes available.

With those requirements out of the way, click the three dots in the upper right corner of Chrome and choose Settings, then AI Innovations or Gemini in the Chrome menu, where you can navigate to the Permissions section and switch on the Let Gemini browse for you option.

Now you can open the Ask Gemini panel at the top of Chrome and give it a task that benefits from browser access. Spark will show you its proposed plan before doing anything, and the first time you use it, Chrome will ask whether you want to connect your browser to Spark. Click Allow or Connect, and from then on you can start handing Spark more ambitious jobs.

If something involves making a purchase, entering sensitive information, or confirming an important action, Spark pauses and asks for your approval before continuing.

The video below shows you exactly how Spark works:

Comparison shopping

I first decided to see how the AI did at the often time-consuming but important chore of comparison shopping. I asked Gemini using Spark to find a good deal for a TV.

Instead of asking which television I should buy, I gave Spark a proper assignment. I told it to compare prices for a 65-inch model at Amazon, Best Buy, Costco and Walmart, look for promo codes, and calculate the final price after discounts then prepare for checkout.

Spark didn’t just provide a summary. I could watch the AI navigate to different websites, try out different options, and work out which I might prefer.

When it found what it believed was the best option, it added the television to the cart and stopped, waiting for me to approve the purchase before doing anything involving payment.

Spark is happy to do the repetitive work, but it won’t spend your money without asking first. It feels like exactly the right balance between useful automation and common sense.

Planning a family day out

My second experiment was slightly more ambitious because it combined several different tasks into one. I asked Spark to plan a family day out for two adults and two toddlers.

Normally that would have meant switching constantly between Google Maps, museum websites, restaurant reviews and booking pages. Spark simply got on with it. It compared opening hours, checked travel times, built a schedule that actually flowed logically through the day, found a restaurant with online reservations and reserved it, then prepared the museum ticket purchase and before asking me to approve the bookings.

AI for tedious tasks

Google claims Spark is great at filling out paperwork, especially using information from your own Google accounts. As my kid is getting to the right age for it, I asked Spark to fill out his library card application.

After checking that it had the right information about my address and other details, Spark opened up my library's website and went to work. It filled in my contact information, mailing address and other saved details. When it reached the final submission page, it stopped and waited for my approval instead of clicking the button itself.

It’s not an incredibly long form, but it’s easy to see how Spark could save quite a lot of time on the more complex medical or insurance papers. It’s a lot faster to review and make sure the AI got it right than to write it all out yourself.

Using Spark highlighted how different it feels from regular Gemini. Spark shifts the workload because it can actually interact with the browser instead of simply describing what I should do next.

Gemini Spark is one of the more compelling AI features Google has introduced in quite some time. It won’t replace every online task, but it can quietly eliminate a surprising amount of clicking, tab juggling and repetitive typing.

If you’ve played at least two EA Sports-made football games in the past 10 years, you’d be forgiven for thinking the developer routinely wheels out the same basic product in a fresh lick of paint. New kits, up-to-date transfers, and minor gameplay tweaks have been enough to keep millions of players coming back to the same core FC experience, but in FC 27, EA Sports is introducing something truly, genuinely new (no, really this time).

The Grounds is essentially the developer’s take on NBA 2K’s The City — an open-world reimagining of its Clubs mode in which players can compete with friends or randoms in both stadium- and street-based challenges.

In EA Sports’ own words, the fantasy of The Grounds is as follows: “You create your footballer, explore a football world, play football, and progress your footballer to the very top. From casual drop-ins with other players in the parks to the heights of competitive Clubs play in the stadiums, The Grounds is your destination for avatar- and Clubs-based social football [...] It's a football playground built for you and your friends.”

Remember those halcyon days when you used to meet your mates for a kickabout after school? That’s the vibe EA Sports is attempting to capture here.

The Grounds themselves are three distinct districts, each representing a different “cultural hub of football.” There’s Parkside, whose grass pitches and terraced brick houses are reminiscent of small-town England; Zeiza, a colorful, Argentina-inspired suburban hub; and Montclair, a Parisian-style metropolitan area featuring 4G turf and hard surfaces.

These areas will be populated by other online players and NPC ‘mentors’ including Kylian Mbappé, Paulo Dybala, Chloe Kelly, and Alex Hunter (yes, that Alex Hunter), who will initially teach you the mechanics of The Grounds and later task you with specific challenges outside of competitive matches.

Speaking of competitive matches, you can choose to engage in traditional, stadium-based 11v11 matches in The Grounds, or jump into more casual, small-scale modes like 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4. There are also new party-style Kickabout modes to try, including dribbling-based obstacle courses and the basketball-inspired Bucket Ball.

And if you’d rather not play against anyone at all, then Drop Kick Targets are your friend. These randomly spawning neon circles are essentially floating goals to be targeted while you walk down the street — think Odin’s Ravens in God of War. Or Riddler Trophies, but less rage-inducing.

Completing matches, Kickabouts, or Drop Kick Targets earns you Coins and Archetype XP, which can be used — surprise! — to level up your virtual pro in The Grounds. As well as new Playstyles and stat boots, you’ll also be able to buy fully licensed virtual clothing from brands like Nike, Puma, and New Balance, which sounds a little icky (the Metaverse died for a reason, guys!), but virtual currency has been a feature of every EA Sports game for the last two decades, so its inclusion again here was a given.

I’ve never been much of a Clubs player, but I’m glad EA Sports is finally giving this long-neglected mode the attention it deserves in FC 27. Sure, The Grounds looks like a blatant copy of NBA 2K’s The City mode, but it’s undoubtedly a breath of fresh air for the FC franchise specifically, which has thus far struggled to establish its own post-FIFA identity.

I’m less convinced about The Grounds’ staying power alongside tried-and-tested modes like Ultimate Team and Career. Its three districts and minigames look like they’ll be fun to explore for a time, but will players really keep returning to the streets to complete Mbappé-issued challenges, kick balls into a basketball hoop, or visit a virtual clothing store long after the game’s initial release?

That, of course, will be the developer’s problem to solve — but hey, if there's one thing EA Sports knows how to do, it's keep players coming back.

One of my favorite places online is Reddit’s r/isthisAI. Every day, people upload photos of people they’re chatting to on dating apps, holiday snaps, cute viral videos of kittens, photos of receipts, pictures of pregnancy tests, and so much more, all along with the same question: is this AI?

Some of the posts the community deems AI might be harmless experiments, but many others are much darker. And although r/isthisAI is where many of these images are picked apart, it's only a small glimpse of a much bigger problem.

I've heard countless stories about people using AI to deceive on social media. Then there are the AI scams, deepfakes, and fabricated images that regularly make headlines. Unfortunately, this all feels particularly personal to me because I was once the victim of a deepfake scam myself.

So, when my editor asked me to investigate just how easy it is to use AI to lie, I already had a good idea of the kinds of prompts I could try.

Within an hour, I'd apparently discovered a dinosaur fossil on the beach I was going to sell on Facebook Marketplace, won a poetry competition I was going to shout about on LinkedIn, created a receipt to add to my expenses for a trip to France, and bought a pair of designer sunglasses I was going to try and resell on Vinted. But none of it happened.

Because of my own experience, I approached the experiment cautiously. I really wasn't interested in showing people how to use AI to deceive people. Instead, I wanted to understand what happened when I asked ChatGPT to help me lie.

Would it recognize what I was trying to do and refuse? What guardrails would kick in? And if I never actually admitted I wanted to deceive anyone, would it just go ahead and generate convincing fake evidence anyway?

I also hoped the experiment might reveal something useful about what to look out for in AI-generated images. Because although they’re incredibly hard to spot these days, there are still some signs if you look carefully enough.

I 'found' a dinosaur fossil

For the first experiment, I uploaded a photo of my hand and asked ChatGPT to make it look like I was holding a dinosaur fossil I'd found on the beach. And it did exactly that.

The result looked surprisingly convincing at first, especially the details on the fake fossil. But, interestingly, it had subtly changed the lettering of the small tattoo on my wrist. This is still one of the biggest tells that regularly comes up on r/isthisAI. AI is infinitely better at generating text than it used to be, but nonsensical lettering can still sometimes give it away.

I realized ChatGPT might not think of this as much of a lie. Finding a fossil on the beach is unlikely, but possible. So I asked what kind of dinosaur fossil it had created because I wanted to describe it accurately before selling it on Facebook Marketplace.

This time, it refused. It wouldn't help me pass the fake fossil off as genuine or invent a convincing description for a sale. Instead, it suggested describing it honestly as a replica or prop and said it could explain what it resembled purely for those fictional purposes.

When I changed my wording and asked what it represented "in a fictional sense", it explained that it most closely resembled a dinosaur vertebra and even suggested the types of prehistoric animals it looked similar to.

That was the first clue about how ChatGPT's guardrails work. The image itself wasn't the problem because it could have been completely innocuous, but the stated intent was.

When I first started the research for this article, I worried I'd be giving people ideas about how they could use AI to lie better. But what surprised me was that ChatGPT itself suggested several alternative framings, like describing it as a prop or a fictional object. It made me wonder what else could potentially be fabricated if the request was framed as entertainment or fiction rather than deception.

The receipt, 'just for fun'

Next, I asked ChatGPT to generate a receipt from a café I made up in Nice for a meal costing €508. The first request was refused because it appeared to violate OpenAI's policies, but after a bit of back and forth, I couldn't find out the exact reason.

So I tried again. This time I simply added the words "just for fun" before the exact same prompt. And guess what? It generated the receipt.

The lettering, layout, and details were all believable. But the paper was uncannily smooth. I’m not sure I’d have believed it was 100% fake at first glance, but I’d definitely have been uploading it to r/isthisAI.

I noticed it had added a date from back in 2025 on the receipt, so I asked it to alter the date so I could use it to claim expenses. This time it refused.

When I tried to get around that refusal by claiming it was for a film prop, it refused again. Which was a little reassuring.

Fake achievements

I then asked ChatGPT to generate a certificate showing I'd won a poetry competition. It made it, though it did look like something I could have knocked up myself in Photoshop, so I’m not sure that would have convinced anyone.

To be fair, winning a fictional poetry prize isn't exactly a high-risk crime. So I decided to see if it would fake other kinds of achievements.

I asked it to create a certificate to say I’d just got my PhD in philosophy and made sure I added “just for fun” on the end.

Instead of refusing immediately, ChatGPT appeared to spend several minutes generating the image before displaying a message saying:

“We’re so sorry, but the image we created may violate our guardrails around potential fraudulent or scam activity. If you think we got it wrong, please retry or edit your prompt.”

Unlike the earlier examples, the refusal appeared to happen after the image generation process had already begun. From my perspective, it seemed as if the system may have performed more than one stage of safety checking, although I can't tell exactly what's happening behind the scenes.

I decided to see if it would do the same for something more serious. Would it still start making it then refuse? So I asked whether it would create a fake driving licence for me “just for fun”. And I don’t know about you, but something about the response seemed a little sassy:

“Sorry, I can't help create or edit fake government-issued identification documents, including driver's licences, even if they're described as 'just for fun.' "

The sunglasses

I've heard a lot of stories recently about people using AI-generated images to sell things on Vinted, Facebook Marketplace, and other online marketplaces. Sometimes it's to advertise products that just don't exist, but sometimes it's to change the color, quality, or appearance of something they're selling.

So I thought I'd put it to the test. I (reluctantly) uploaded one of my own holiday photos and asked ChatGPT to change my sunglasses from chunky white 1960s-style frames into purple Ray-Bans.

The result was remarkably convincing. It even added a realistic-looking Ray-Ban logo to the frame. I'm not surprised people are worried about AI-generated product images. If I'd come across that photo online, I don't think I'd have questioned whether those sunglasses were real.

I then asked ChatGPT if it would write a fake Vinted listing for me. It refused. But it did list a bunch of suggestions of things it could do instead. And one suggestion was to ask it to generate a Ray-Ban listing but include the word "demonstration" after it in brackets. But then when I asked it to do that, it refused. Was there a chance it had caught on to me at this point? Maybe.

Does AI try to stop you from lying?

OpenAI's usage policies explicitly state that its tools shouldn't be used to manipulate or deceive people. The rules prohibit a bunch of things, including fraud, scams, impersonation, and creating fake documents intended to mislead others.

In many ways, those guardrails worked exactly as they’re meant to. Whenever I explicitly said I wanted to deceive someone, sell something fraudulently, create a fake document, or submit a fake expense claim, ChatGPT pushed back.

But those safeguards also seem to depend heavily on how you describe your intentions to ChatGPT. If you openly admit you're trying to commit fraud, the system is pretty good at refusing. But then again, who would ever admit that?

If you simply ask it to generate a fossil, a certificate, or a pair of designer sunglasses without explaining why, it has no way of knowing whether you're making a harmless joke, illustrating an article like this one or quietly assembling a fictional version of your life that could later be used to deceive other people.

Look, I wouldn't recommend spending an afternoon asking AI to help you lie. I certainly didn't enjoy it.

I was genuinely wary about asking ChatGPT to create anything that felt too serious. Partly because I didn't want to risk my account being banned, but mostly because it just felt wrong, even in the name of research.

But what I found most interesting was that fabrications really don't have to be big or dramatic to have an impact. A receipt, a fossil, a pair of sunglasses, a certificate all seem pretty insignificant on their own. But together they could be used to manufacture an entirely fictional version of someone's life.

It also got me thinking that the future of misinformation may not just be spectacular deepfakes of politicians saying things they never said. It may be these smaller, subtler lies that gradually build into a completely fabricated persona.

Which is why, despite sticking to fairly tame examples, I came away from this experiment feeling deflated. That's not because ChatGPT happily lied for me every single time, because it didn't. It's because my experiment proved there is no easy solution for this problem.

Yes, the AI refused when I made my deceptive intent really explicit. But it could still generate plenty of convincing images that could easily become the building blocks of a lie.

No wonder communities like r/isthisAI are busier than ever.

One thing I’ve never been able to find is the perfect meditation app on my iPhone. All I need is a timer that counts down from 10 minutes, which is my preferred session time, and looks nice, but I just can’t find an app I like that does that.

The free apps I’ve tried either didn’t look right, had too many confusing features, or were full of ads that try to get you to upgrade to extra functions after 30 days.

I’ve ended up resorting to using the Timer function in the basic iOS Clock app from Apple. That works OK, but it doesn’t give off the vibes I’m looking for, and it doesn't have any additional features. It’s also a bit fiddly to use.

Maybe AI can help?

That’s when I thought that if you can’t find the app you want, then these days there’s nothing to stop you just making your own using AI. So why not?

A bit of research led me to the conclusion that Google’s AI Studio was the tool I needed for this, so I fired up my MacBook, headed over there, and clicked the Get Started button once it had loaded.

You’re initially presented with an empty prompt box, just like you would be in Gemini or any other AI chatbot. So, I started to type.

“I want a meditation app timer that will count down from 10 minutes when I press a button. It will have soothing graphics and play mellow beats when it counts down”, and then I noticed that Google was adding suggestions into the prompt for me.

It suggested, "and allow users to customize the background soundscapes and session duration settings.” That wasn’t a bad idea at all, so I accepted the suggestion.

AI Studio started to think about its task, and in just 38 seconds it had come back with a design preview for me to accept or change. Its initial immersive UI design looked perfect, so I accepted that.

The next thing it showed me was the actual finished app, and it looked great! It had everything I wanted — beautiful calming design, an obvious button to press, a session time selector, and it played chill beats during the session. But it had also added a lot of really useful options, like soothing theme choices, a lead-in time selector, a paced breathing guide, and interval chime bells. And all in a non-intrusive way that kept the app's core functionality simple. I was impressed.

The whole thing had taken just 238 seconds to produce. That’s under 5 minutes.

Deploying your app

The question now was: how to get the app from existing inside AI Studio and onto my iPhone? That is where I wanted to run it, not on my MacBook. That’s what the Publish button in AI Studio is for. It publishes your app to a unique website address. It’s public, so you can go there now and use my app yourself, if you like.

One option for running the app on my iPhone was to simply click on the URL in the iPhone’s web browser. Interestingly, it worked in the iOS Chrome browser, but not in the native Safari browser. Further research revealed that the reason for this was Safari’s default third-party cookie block. Safari blocks third-party cookies by default via Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP).

It turns out that this is pretty easy to fix; just go to your iPhone Settings > Apps > Safari. Turn off the toggle for Prevent Cross-Site Tracking.

I did that, and now my app ran fine in Safari as well as Chrome.

I could make a bookmark for my app and continue to run it in my iPhone’s browser if I wanted, but it’s much better to choose the ‘Add to Home Screen’ option because this makes your app feel much more like a stand-alone app on your iPhone. It runs it without any of the browser furniture on screen at all.

To do this, choose the three-dot menu in Safari > Share > Add to Home Screen. Now you’ve got a new icon on your iPhone.

An app I’ll use every day

My meditation timer app has quickly become something I use every day and has earned a coveted place on the first page of my Home Screen. But it’s just one possible application of using AI Studio — whatever app you want, you can build it easily.

Google’s AI Studio means that you can go from “I wish there was an app that did X” to “I’ll just build one” in seconds. You don’t need to learn how to code, and you don’t need to have really any skills, just the ability to write a description of what you want your app to do. And AI Studio will even help you with that.

The result isn’t going to replace the App Store. It’s a web app rather than a polished native iPhone app, and there are still limits to what you can build without coding knowledge. But for small, personal tools like this, that hardly matters. I didn’t need millions of downloads, regular updates, or a business model. I just needed one app that worked exactly the way I wanted it to.

That might be the most exciting thing about AI app builders. For years, when an app was almost right, you either tolerated its flaws or kept searching for another one. Now there’s a third option: describe the missing app, build it yourself and put it on your Home Screen before you’ve even finished complaining about it.

As AI becomes a greater and more important presence in our everyday lives, the way we interact with the "traditional" internet is changing.

For so long the main way to access the internet, the web browser is now having to rethink how to appeal to an audience which often seeks AI-first interaction - raising new challenges for developers to create the best and most interactive experience.

We spoke to Ajit Varma, Head of Firefox at Mozilla, to find out more.

• The web has always been built on the principles of openness and interoperability, but today's internet is increasingly shaped by a handful of dominant platforms and AI-powered services. What does the 'open web' mean in 2026, and why does it still matter?

The open web matters more today than it has in years because AI is changing how people experience the internet. As a small number of platforms become the gateway to search, content and AI-powered services, it's becoming easier for a handful of companies to shape what people see and how they interact online.

That's why the principles of the open web still matter. Common standards mean developers can build without asking permission from a dominant platform, and users can choose how they access the web rather than being locked into a single ecosystem. Those principles have driven innovation for decades, and they're just as important as AI reshapes the internet.

The challenge now isn't simply keeping the web open as it exists today. It's making sure openness evolves alongside AI, so the next generation of the internet remains competitive, interoperable and accessible to everyone

• AI is changing the way people discover information and interact with the internet. How do you see browsers evolving over the next five years, and what role should they play in helping users navigate an increasingly AI-driven web while maintaining trust and choice?

Over the next five years, you’ll start to see more divergences in how browsers treat AI. Many companies will use the browser to try and push a specific AI agenda but at Firefox we’re focused on how AI can make the tasks a user wants to do in a browser better. This includes things like a personal agent that can help a user accomplish tasks, navigating the web through voice, making the web more enjoyable, and creating new vibe-coded extensions and mini-apps.

We’ll do all this in a way that is user centric. The browser should adapt to the user, rather than the other way round. Some people will want AI integrated into their everyday browsing, while others will prefer to use it for specific tasks. Maintaining trust means supporting those preferences and letting people decide how much they use AI.

Users should be able to choose any model they want including open and local models. The important thing is preserving that flexibility, so people can browse, search and get things done in a way that feels natural to them.

• Privacy has long been a core part of Mozilla's mission, but consumers also expect convenience and highly personalised online experiences. How do you strike the right balance between protecting users' privacy and delivering the features people now expect from modern web experiences?

For me, striking the right balance starts with recognising that every user has different expectations of their browser. While context can make online experiences more useful and personalised, people should be able to understand how their data is used and decide what they are comfortable sharing. By giving users meaningful control over the features they adopt, Firefox can deliver modern experiences while continuing to protect their privacy.

This has guided our phased approach to AI, beginning with practical features such as summarisation, translation, tab organisation and optional AI chat integrations. Before introducing more advanced AI experiences such as Smart Window, we launched AI Controls so people can manage individual features or switch them off altogether.

Firefox is also model-agnostic, so users can choose or switch providers, use local models, or opt out entirely. Even though only a small minority of users disable AI features, people regularly tell us they value knowing the controls are there. Privacy and convenience can coexist when people are able to set the terms of the experience.

• There's growing concern that the future of the web could become fragmented between closed AI ecosystems, proprietary platforms and app-based experiences. What do you see as the biggest threats to the open web, and what gives you confidence that it can continue to thrive?

The biggest risk isn't AI itself, it's concentration. If the same companies control the AI models, the interface people use to access them and the browser they interact through, users lose visibility, choice and ultimately agency. That's a much bigger shift than simply moving from one technology generation to another.

What's encouraging is that the issue is becoming harder to ignore. Developers want open standards. Regulators are paying closer attention to competition. Users are asking tougher questions about transparency and control. The web has always evolved through periods of disruption, but it has remained resilient because it's built on interoperability rather than permission. AI can strengthen that model rather than replacing it with a handful of closed ecosystems. The future doesn't have to be a choice between innovation and openness. We should expect both.

• Developers have always been central to Mozilla's community. As AI transforms software development and web creation, how do you think the relationship between developers, browsers and the open web will change over the coming years?

AI is making it dramatically easier to build software, which means we're going to see more developers – and more people who aren't traditional developers – creating for the web. That's a huge opportunity, but only if they can build on an open platform rather than for a handful of closed ecosystems.

That's why the browser becomes even more important. It's no longer just where websites are displayed – it's becoming the layer where people interact with AI to search, create, organise information and complete tasks. As that layer becomes more powerful, it has to remain open, interoperable and centred around user choice.

For developers, that means being able to build for the web, rather than for whichever company happens to control the dominant model or platform. That's always been one of the web's greatest strengths, and it's something we shouldn't lose as AI reshapes how software is built and experienced.

• If you look ahead to the end of this decade, what do you hope people will say about the state of the web? What would success look like for Mozilla's vision of an open, healthy internet?

Success, for me, is a web that's become more useful through AI without becoming less open. Technology should expand what's possible, not narrow the ways people can access information, build new ideas or participate online.

Innovation should continue to come from everywhere, not just a handful of dominant platforms. The web has always been at its best when anyone with a good idea can build something that reaches millions of people. That only happens when developers have open standards to build on and users aren't locked into a single ecosystem.

The web should still be the best place to build, discover and innovate because it remains accessible to everyone. If AI has expanded participation rather than concentrated power, we'll be heading in the right direction.

• Mozilla is competing in a browser market dominated by much larger technology companies. How do you differentiate Firefox, and why do you believe there's still a commercial and societal case for an independent browser?

We differentiate through independence, choice and accountability. Most browsers are tied to larger technology ecosystems spanning across multiple systems, search, advertising and AI.

Instead, Firefox is powered by Gecko, the only remaining independent browser engine, which gives us the freedom to make product decisions around what benefits users. It ensures that Mozilla is not only advocating for these principles but actively building the underlying infrastructure that makes them possible.

That independence is commercially relevant because there’s such a clear demand for genuine choice. Firefox has been selected through EU browser choice screens more than six million times in two years and those users are five times more likely to remain with Firefox than people who find it organically.

Societally, independent engines prevent one company’s technical and commercial priorities from being the default for the entire web. They also preserve competition, interoperability and the ability to build around different values.

• As regulators around the world seek to promote competition in digital markets, are we at a turning point for the open web, or is there still a risk that power becomes even more concentrated through AI?

There are certainly some encouraging signs that regulation can restore meaningful choice. The impact of browser choice screens in Europe shows that people choose alternatives when they are presented fairly and without being steered towards a default.

However, AI is creating a new concentration risk. If the same small group of companies control the operating system, browser, search engine and AI model, it becomes much easier for them to shape how people access information and which services they encounter.

Regulation needs to keep pace not only with how AI is developed, but with how it's distributed and embedded into everyday products. However, regulation can't do this alone. Interoperability, genuine defaults and strong technical competition will matter just as much.

• Trust has become a key differentiator in technology. How can browser makers earn and maintain users' trust as AI assistants become embedded in everyday web browsing?

Trust starts with being clear about what the technology is doing. AI should be optional, transparent and designed so users can understand what information it can access, how it’s being used and who is acting on their behalf.

That’s the principle behind Firefox’s AI controls. AI features are optional and can be managed individually, while a single setting allows users to block current and future generative AI features. We also use on-device models for features such as Link Previews and Smart Tab Groups, allowing people to receive AI assistance without any data leaving their device.

Ultimately, trust isn't earned through a single feature. It's earned by being transparent about how AI works and consistently respecting the decisions people make.