Technology

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• Six new F-35Bs entered service carrying ballast inside their noses instead of radar
• The APG-85 delay created stealth fighters without their primary sensor
• Lot 17 redesign decisions eliminated compatibility with older radar hardware

The United States Marine Corps has accepted delivery of six newly built F-35B stealth fighters carrying ballast weights where a radar should be installed.

The aircraft left production lines without the AN/APG-85 radar that future F-35 variants are expected to rely upon for combat operations.

Instead of delaying delivery, officials accepted aircraft configured with dead weight occupying the nose section reserved for the missing equipment.

A new radar arrives before the aircraft can actually use it

The unusual situation emerged because Lot 17 aircraft were redesigned around the forthcoming AN/APG-85 radar architecture and mounting structure.

Those modifications prevent installation of the older AN/APG-81 radar, leaving no interim option while the replacement remains unavailable.

The radar is to be supplied by Northrop Grumman rather than prime contractor Lockheed Martin, further complicating delivery schedules.

Marine Corps Lieutenant General Gregory Masiello informed lawmakers on June 23 2026 that only six Marine aircraft currently lack installed radars.

Acceptance testing for those aircraft began in February 2026 after successfully completing production earlier in the year.

Although the Air Force and Navy have not yet received comparable aircraft, similar deliveries are reportedly expected later this year.

Without radars, the aircraft can support basic flight familiarisation and pilot instruction activities while remaining unsuitable for combat operations.

The Joint Program Office defended the decision, stating the Pentagon "deliberately undertook a highly concurrent development and production program for advanced capabilities."

"This decision was made with full understanding of the risk of having production aircraft ready ahead of the capabilities."

Delay exposes larger questions around F-35 readiness

The missing radar arrives amid wider concerns surrounding operational readiness across the broader F-35 fleet during fiscal year 2025.

According to a recent US Government Accountability Office assessment, only about 25% of the F-35 aircraft achieved fully mission-capable status in 2025.

Aircraft capable of performing at least one assigned mission reached 44.1%, although this remained considerably below historical expectations.

Masiello said he would not "dispute their numbers or how they do it" during congressional testimony discussing the findings.

Using Joint Program Office calculations, he argued the mission capable figure stood closer to 56% across operational fleets instead.

The delayed APG-85 radar forms part of the wider Block 4 modernization package that continues encountering schedule and integration challenges.

Future F-35 models will require more cooling capacity, as new systems will draw between 62 and 80 kilowatts, more than double the 32 kilowatts current hardware consumes.

A next-generation engine that could have addressed this cooling gap was developed but ultimately defunded after proving too costly.

Current plans indicate that the APG-85 will enter service around 2028 but meaningful cooling will not arrive until after 2031.

The sight of stealth fighters carrying lead ballast instead of radars may therefore become an enduring symbol of contemporary defence procurement realities.

Via Defence Industry

I had to make sure Prime Day in Australia hadn't already started when I saw this AU$200 saving on the AirPods Max 2, since it's not everyday that Amazon discounts Apple tech. And, if there are any discounts to be found, it's the online retailer's annual mid-year sale that tends to throw them up.

So if you've had your eye on the latest set of Apple's over-ear headphones, then this price cut might just be of interest.

It would have been nice to have seen this AU$200 discount applying to more colours other than just blue, but I can't complain too much. The AirPods Max 2 are simply terrific. While the design hasn't changed much, the internals have been upgraded to deliver even better ANC performance, Lossless audio over USB-C and a wealth of useful features made possible by the new H2 chip. View Deal

It's no secret that the AirPods Max 2 are among the most expensive headphones we've ever tested here at TechRadar, and with a AU$999 RRP, you can easily spend less on a highly capable pair from the likes of Sony, Bose or Sennheiser.

Apple has thrown everything at the Max 2s though to help justify the high price, and they're easily some of the best headphones on the market right now, particularly if you can make use of their Apple Intelligence features (provided you have an iPhone 15 or newer device).

These features include things like live translate, advanced call screening, gesture control, conversational awareness, and adaptive audio. Pair all of these with a stunning high-end design, class-leading noise cancellation, and fantastic audio quality, and the AirPods Max 2 are definitely worth considering.

As we said in our Apple AirPods Max 2 review, they're the "the best noise-cancelling iPhone headphones on the planet", with a soundstage that's "expansive" and "a noise floor so low that bass frequencies rumble, snap and boom in so much space it's almost a crime".

If you own an iPhone, they're a no brainer.

Should I wait for Prime Day?

(Image credit: Future)

That's tricky question to answer. As I mentioned earlier, it's surprising that there's a discount of any sort on the AirPods Max 2. However, it only applies to the blue colourway — could Amazon be teasing discounts to expect when Prime Day rolls around next week, and apply a saving to all colours?

We'll ultimately have to wait and see. I feel the blue colour is pretty inoffensive and should suit most people pretty well — midnight (navy blue) or silver are obviously more ambiguous — so if you've been considering Apple's top-tier cans, but don't want to pay a grand, this is a good opportunity to save a decent chunk of cash.

The vast majority of the best TVs use a dedicated OS, complete with access to the full gamut of video streaming apps. However, if you've found yourself struggling with your TV's native interface — be that due to its age, or because it's from a niche/no-frills TV brand and doesn't have the fastest processor — then a dedicated streaming device can often breathe new life into an old TV.

The Amazon Fire TV Stick range is a perfect example. They couldn’t be simpler to install — just plug one into an HDMI port on your TV — or use. They can speed up navigating through menus by using dedicated processors that often outperform the built-in chips found in cheaper TVs — they’re literally built for one task — while also adding more functionality.

I’ve broken down the benefits of using a dedicated streaming device compared to sticking with your TV’s own operating system.

• Faster navigation: Budget TV manufacturers often prioritise the display technology and tend to skimp on the processor to save on manufacturing costs. In these cases, a dedicated streaming stick with a more powerful chipset allows them to better handle both menu transitions and running apps.
• Longer lifespan - TV manufacturers eventually stop updating the built-in OS as your TV gets older, so a newer streaming device is a great way to bypass the OS altogether. The newest devices from Amazon and Apple also support Wi-Fi 6 and 6E, which both can deliver speeds of up to 9.6Gbps, whereas most TVs over 2 years old only support the slower Wi-Fi 5 (3.5Gbps) standard.
• Smart home integration - While some of the bigger TV brands have built-in smart home support, Amazon, Google and Apple’s dedicated streamers are all designed to serve as central hubs for their respective smart home ecosystems (Alexa, Google Home and Apple HomeKit). That means if you have other smart home devices, you can control them all from the comfort of your sofa.

Of course, Apple and Google's latest dedicated streamers cost around AU$400 and AU$160 respectively, so they're not exactly cheap – which is where Amazon's Fire TV Sticks come in as a better option, with RRPs starting as low as $79.

What’s more, this pre-Prime Day deal on Amazon’s Fire TV Stick 4K Plus (the middle option of the family) sees it hitting an all-time low price, making that value proposition even more apparent — especially if you don’t need all the bells and whistles of the pricier Apple and Google offerings (and don’t mind a bit of integrated advertising).

This Plus model is a refreshed version of the Fire TV Stick 4K, with its new name differentiating it from the lower-specced Fire TV Stick 4K Select, which has less RAM, no Dolby Vision support and only Wi-Fi 5 connectivity. The Select also isn’t discounted, making the Plus AU$5 cheaper than the latter with this deal. Don’t have a 4K TV? The Amazon Fire TV Stick HD runs on 1080p resolution and is also discounted to just AU$39.View Deal

Still not convinced? Here’s how the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Plus compares with the Apple TV 4K and the Google TV Streamer:

Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Plus

Apple TV 4K

Google TV Streamer

RRP

AU$99

AU$299

AU$159

Processor

MediaTek MT8696D (1.7GHz Quad-core)

Apple A15 Bionic (6-core CPU / 5-core GPU)

MediaTek MT8696 (2.0GHz Quad-core)

RAM

2 GB

4 GB

4GB

Storage

8 GB

64 GB (Wi-Fi) or 128 GB (Ethernet)

32 GB

Wireless Connectivity

Wi-Fi 6 (Dual-band) + Bluetooth 5.2

Wi-Fi 6 (Dual-band) + Bluetooth 5.0

Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) + Bluetooth 5.1

OS

Fire OS 8 (Android-based)

Apple tvOS

Google TV (Android 14)

Though publicly denied by Elon Musk, a new AI device from SpaceX wouldn't be very surprising.

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• A password-spraying attack successfully breached Microsoft 365 accounts
• The hackers abused improperly configured conditional access policies to bypass MFA
• Many organizations targeted had no MFA implemented

Hackers have used previously leaked credentials to target Microsoft 365 accounts in a password-spraying attack that resulted in over 81 million login attempts during a two-week period.

The attackers then abused the improperly implemented Conditional Access policies within the Resource Owner Password Credentials (ROPC) OAuth mechanism using Azure command-line interface (CLI), allowing the hackers to bypass authentication altogether when a matching username and password was discovered.

Cybersecurity company Huntress observed the attack campaign as it targeted customers and noted that 78 Microsoft accounts across 64 organizations were compromised between June 12 and 26 2026.

Hackers access 365 accounts without authentication

The success of the attack ultimately came down to how well organizations had implemented Conditional Access policies relating to multi-factor authentication.

“Many of the compromised businesses had implemented multi-factor authentication (MFA) via a Conditional Access Policy (CAP), but the MFA was not configured to cover this specific flow that attackers used,” Huntress explained, referring to the exploitation of ROPC.

“ROPC is considered problematic for several reasons, but one of those reasons is that it doesn't offer support for modern auth flows like MFA or SSO. That means, as we saw in this campaign, ROPC sends the password straight to the /token endpoint with no interactive MFA prompt.”

Several of the organizations that were breached did not enforce an MFA policy at all, with others only applying MFA for specific user groups such as administrators. In other cases, a login attempt only required MFA when the traffic was coming from an untrusted location, meaning that MFA was not enforced if the connection was coming from a trusted IP address. Additionally, some organizations had only enforced MFA in report-only mode, meaning that the MFA policies were never actually applied.

In order to protect against attacks of this kind of attack, Huntress recommended the following mitigations:

• Organizations should implement MFA for All Users, All Cloud Apps, and All Client App types
• The Azure CLI application should be restricted from use by non-admin users
• Response to the attack should be made on credential validity, rather than spray volume

Via BleepingComputer