Technology

Apple has traditionally kept the iPad closer to the iPhone in terms of core functionality (even after it released iPadOS as a standalone software package in 2019), but iPadOS 26 marked a distinct shift towards making the iPad feel more Mac-like.

And honestly, this change in direction made sense. After all, iPads now run MacBook-level M-series chips; the iPad Pro (2025), for instance, uses the M5. They also let you run background exports in creative apps, switch audio sources while podcasting, and complete many more high-level productivity tasks.

One excellent addition in iPadOS 26 was the arrival of the Menu Bar, which acts as a facsimile of the macOS version of the same feature. But having used iPadOS 27, which launches today (September 14), since its launch in beta earlier this year, I can confidently say that this new software package makes the iPad feel more Mac-like than ever — and the Menu Bar is once again responsible for that.

Passing the bar

The Mac-like Menu Bar in iPadOS 27 (Image credit: Future)

As mentioned, the Menu Bar is about as Mac as it gets, offering app-specific options at the top of the iPad screen. It’s as synonymous with macOS as the Dock, and it’s one of the core features that take some getting used to when switching from a Windows PC to a Mac.

On Mac, the Menu Bar is permanent. It sits at the top of the screen for easy access and highlights which app you’re currently using (something that’s particularly useful if you’re juggling multiple apps and keyboard shortcuts), but in iPadOS 26 it wasn’t, meaning it could be just as much of a hindrance as it was a help.

Thankfully, iPadOS 27 ensures the Menu Bar is always available, and while there are still some things I wish I could do on Apple’s tablet, the ability to affix the Menu Bar permanently is a change I welcome.

(Image credit: Future)

To do so, once you’ve updated to iPadOS 27, open Settings and select ‘Multitasking & Gestures’ on the left-hand sidebar. You’ll have to be on the Windowed Apps or Stage Manager option to be able to see the Menu Bar.

From here, look for a toggle labelled ‘Automatically Show and Hide Menu Bar’. If it’s on, turn it off, and you’ll see the Menu Bar consistently across apps, unless you’re watching something in full-screen mode. If you get fed up with it, just toggle that ‘Automatically Show and Hide Menu Bar’ option back on, and it’ll disappear again.

Still a way to go

The Siri AI interface in iPadOS 27 (Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future)

Once you’ve toggled that setting, you can enjoy having the Menu Bar at the top of your iPad screen, but there are some caveats to be aware of.

For one, it’s not particularly useful if you use your iPad with your finger. The Menu Bar is much more suited to using a mouse, trackpad, or the Apple Pencil. I use the Magic Keyboard and, as ridiculously pricey as it was, this feature makes my whole iPad much more useful.

The other thing to be aware of is that the Menu Bar can’t be customized with third-party apps in the same way that long-running Mac ones like Bartender can. Sadly, it remains static in terms of what you can put on the right-hand side of it. Maybe one day that’ll change, but I can’t see Apple rolling out utility apps on its iPadOS platform anytime soon.

Finally, some nifty features to be aware of: you can still drag down from the right-hand side of the Menu Bar to access the Control Center (which is customizable, thankfully), and the left-hand side still takes you to your notifications (although I do wish this was a column on the side of the screen à la the macOS notification centre, rather than taking up the whole screen).

You can also drag down from the middle of the Menu Bar to access Siri AI, which is new in iPadOS 27 and makes Apple’s voice assistant much more useful.

So, what do you think? Is this the closest we’ll ever get to a MacPad? Or are you sticking with the Mac for now and leaving the iPad for content consumption? Let me know in the comments below.

• The Google Fitbit Air is getting some new features introduced with the Google Pixel Watch 5
• Health Guardian includes Insulin Resistance Trends, Blood Pressure Trends and Sleep Breathing Quality
• These features are not behind a Google Health Premium subscription, and are available on the Google Health app for free

The Google Fitbit Air is one of the best cheap fitness trackers, a $99.99 / £84.99 / AU$199 fitness band that offers a basic level of fitness tracking within its free tier, and an advanced AI-powered fitness coach with an additional premium subscription. We liked it at the free tier, although the app is a bit limited, and the premium experience will depend on your tolerance for interacting with chatbots.

However, both tiers are about to get a little bit better, which means the Fitbit Air is becoming even better value, with the addition of Google's new Health Guardian suite of features. The suite comprises a trio of tools, introduced earlier this year on the Google Pixel Watch 5. News site Gadgets & Wearables dug through version 5.07.2 of the app and found the three new features in the app's code.

Pixel Watches get four new tools rather than three, but Google's Breathing Emergency Detection requires the watch's emergency contact and notification infrastructure, which the screenless Fitbit Air doesn't have.

What's new

(Image credit: Future / Google)

First up for the new tools is Insulin Resistance Trends. Insulin Resistance is an important metric, as it tells you how sensitively your body responds to blood sugar, and insulin resistance is of course a major precursor to type-2 diabetes. This metric "analyzes multi-week physiological data to track shifts in your metabolic health", pointing at resistance levels going up and down. However, for truly accurate blood sugar metrics, you'll need something like a continuous glucose monitor.

Next up is Blood Pressure Trends, which "passively measure your pulse and motion patterns throughout the month to estimate your blood pressure trends without requiring a cuff or manual calibration". Blood pressure via LED technology is very new to wearables, and it's amazing to see it in a device this cheap. However, it's worth noting this isn't a replacement for a cuff, just a likely indicator of trend. You'll still need regular measurement with either a cuff or a doctor's appointment for anything serious, but it can be an indication to start paying attention to your blood pressure.

Finally, Sleep Breathing Quality is a sleep feature showing you how much time you spent in 'optimal breathing' the night before. Google Health Coach, the AI chatbot you get in the app's premium tier, can offer advice about how to improve this based on your sleep score and other contextual information.

In fact, while you get the basic numbers for all three new metrics, the Google Health Coach can dip in and surface these stats to offer actionable advice. For example, you can use your Insulin Resistance Trends in combination with your nutrition logging to allow the coach to help you make a meal plan to bring that number down.

Worth buying?

(Image credit: Future / TechRadar)

While I'm not the biggest fan of Google's AI Health Coach, I did like the Fitbit Air as a whole, and new, useful, actionable metrics can only add to its already-excellent value proposition.

Whoop can estimate daily blood pressure ranges, but it doesn't offer an Insulin Resistance Trends metric, for example, whereas the Garmin Cirqa doesn't cover blood pressure estimates or insulin. Both competitor wearables have SPO2 blood oxygen sensors, however.

Health Guardian tools are only general indicators of your body's trends. However, if any of these metrics matter to you, for many people the Google Fitbit Air is cheap enough that these new features could be an incentive to pick one up over its more expensive rivals.

• The Google Fitbit Air is getting some new features introduced with the Google Pixel Watch 5
• Health Guardian includes Insulin Resistance Trends, Blood Pressure Trends and Sleep Breathing Quality
• These features are not behind a Google Health Premium subscription, and are available on the Google Health app for free

The Google Fitbit Air is one of the best cheap fitness trackers, a $99.99 / £84.99 / AU$199 fitness band that offers a basic level of fitness tracking within its free tier, and an advanced AI-powered fitness coach with an additional premium subscription. We liked it at the free tier, although the app is a bit limited, and the premium experience will depend on your tolerance for interacting with chatbots.

However, both tiers are about to get a little bit better, which means the Fitbit Air is becoming even better value, with the addition of Google's new Health Guardian suite of features. The suite comprises a trio of tools, introduced earlier this year on the Google Pixel Watch 5. News site Gadgets & Wearables dug through version 5.07.2 of the app and found the three new features in the app's code.

Pixel Watches get four new tools rather than three, but Google's Breathing Emergency Detection requires the watch's emergency contact and notification infrastructure, which the screenless Fitbit Air doesn't have.

What's new

(Image credit: Future / Google)

First up for the new tools is Insulin Resistance Trends. Insulin Resistance is an important metric, as it tells you how sensitively your body responds to blood sugar, and insulin resistance is of course a major precursor to type-2 diabetes. This metric "analyzes multi-week physiological data to track shifts in your metabolic health", pointing at resistance levels going up and down. However, for truly accurate blood sugar metrics, you'll need something like a continuous glucose monitor.

Next up is Blood Pressure Trends, which "passively measure your pulse and motion patterns throughout the month to estimate your blood pressure trends without requiring a cuff or manual calibration". Blood pressure via LED technology is very new to wearables, and it's amazing to see it in a device this cheap. However, it's worth noting this isn't a replacement for a cuff, just a likely indicator of trend. You'll still need regular measurement with either a cuff or a doctor's appointment for anything serious, but it can be an indication to start paying attention to your blood pressure.

Finally, Sleep Breathing Quality is a sleep feature showing you how much time you spent in 'optimal breathing' the night before. Google Health Coach, the AI chatbot you get in the app's premium tier, can offer advice about how to improve this based on your sleep score and other contextual information.

In fact, while you get the basic numbers for all three new metrics, the Google Health Coach can dip in and surface these stats to offer actionable advice. For example, you can use your Insulin Resistance Trends in combination with your nutrition logging to allow the coach to help you make a meal plan to bring that number down.

Worth buying?

(Image credit: Future / TechRadar)

While I'm not the biggest fan of Google's AI Health Coach, I did like the Fitbit Air as a whole, and new, useful, actionable metrics can only add to its already-excellent value proposition.

Whoop can estimate daily blood pressure ranges, but it doesn't offer an Insulin Resistance Trends metric, for example, whereas the Garmin Cirqa doesn't cover blood pressure estimates or insulin. Both competitor wearables have SPO2 blood oxygen sensors, however.

Health Guardian tools are only general indicators of your body's trends. However, if any of these metrics matter to you, for many people the Google Fitbit Air is cheap enough that these new features could be an incentive to pick one up over its more expensive rivals.

After eight years of bouncing around various cities and job roles, I decided to move back to the countryside where I grew up – all during the 2020 lockdown chaos. I wanted my kids to enjoy the same outdoor freedom I had as a child, and for the most part, a return to rural living lived up to the dream.

All except for one considerable headache: power outages.

It seemed like any level of weather led to power cuts that would last anywhere from just a few minutes to over 12 hours. Heavy rain? Power cut. A few days of dry weather? Power cut. A bit of wind? Power cut.

Erratic weather meant constant disruption – a small inconvenience for some, but a recipe for disaster when you're running a home office and trying to keep two kids entertained. I needed to find a reliable solution.

A powerful solution

I’d be dramatic if I said the regular power cuts made me consider moving, but with two of us working entirely from home and two kids to keep entertained, they have been incredibly frustrating.

I’d already spent a week looking at various power stations when Jackery contacted me asking if I wanted to review the Jackery 2000 v2 power station. Was this the solution I was looking for? I jumped at the chance.

A few days later, a hefty box arrived at my door. After a considerable amount of time removing the packaging, I was faced with the unit. I plugged it in and forgot about it.

The dinner incident

Anyone with young kids with healthy appetites will know that any delay in promised ‘feeding times’ can lead to full meltdowns, and honestly, as a man in my mid-thirties, I’m much the same.

On this particular night, I’d already had to take emergency measures, giving out snacks to stop the endless ‘when is dinner ready?’ questions. So when I heard the sudden click and noticed the air fryer had stopped making its familiar hum, my heart sank.

Panic set in. Should I order takeaway? No, it will take too long. Is ok to give my kids ice cream for dinner? No, that’s bad parenting.

Then it clicked - the power station. I raced to the cupboard I was keeping it in and carried it to the side. I plugged in the air fryer and pressed the button, half expecting it not to work. Then the familiar hum returned. Pure relief.

After 25 minutes of cooking, the battery had only dropped about 20%. The mini pizzas were saved, the meltdown was avoided, and my sanity was still intact.

A big deal?

The Jackery 2000 v2 is certainly competitive compared to other similarly priced power stations, but it isn’t revolutionary, and it doesn’t solve my issue 100%.

After all, when I have a power cut, I still have a challenge keeping my fridge/freezer running; I can’t charge my car; and, with all my power coming from one unit, I can’t run my laptop in one room whilst my kids watch TV in the other. Yet it has still become one of those products where I start to wonder how I ever lived without it.

I admit that I went back and forth when researching power stations. Although I knew I would use one, they aren’t the cheapest products. Could I really justify making a purchase of that size?

Now, if I look at how many times the Jackery 2000 v2 has come to the rescue, whether when trying to work, cook dinner, or access power when camping, it feels like a very worthwhile investment. Especially when I consider that with just one unit, I will enjoy a level of power security for years to come.

After eight years of bouncing around various cities and job roles, I decided to move back to the countryside where I grew up – all during the 2020 lockdown chaos. I wanted my kids to enjoy the same outdoor freedom I had as a child, and for the most part, a return to rural living lived up to the dream.

All except for one considerable headache: power outages.

It seemed like any level of weather led to power cuts that would last anywhere from just a few minutes to over 12 hours. Heavy rain? Power cut. A few days of dry weather? Power cut. A bit of wind? Power cut.

Erratic weather meant constant disruption – a small inconvenience for some, but a recipe for disaster when you're running a home office and trying to keep two kids entertained. I needed to find a reliable solution.

A powerful solution

I’d be dramatic if I said the regular power cuts made me consider moving, but with two of us working entirely from home and two kids to keep entertained, they have been incredibly frustrating.

I’d already spent a week looking at various power stations when Jackery contacted me asking if I wanted to review the Jackery 2000 v2 power station. Was this the solution I was looking for? I jumped at the chance.

A few days later, a hefty box arrived at my door. After a considerable amount of time removing the packaging, I was faced with the unit. I plugged it in and forgot about it.

The dinner incident

Anyone with young kids with healthy appetites will know that any delay in promised ‘feeding times’ can lead to full meltdowns, and honestly, as a man in my mid-thirties, I’m much the same.

On this particular night, I’d already had to take emergency measures, giving out snacks to stop the endless ‘when is dinner ready?’ questions. So when I heard the sudden click and noticed the air fryer had stopped making its familiar hum, my heart sank.

Panic set in. Should I order takeaway? No, it will take too long. Is ok to give my kids ice cream for dinner? No, that’s bad parenting.

Then it clicked - the power station. I raced to the cupboard I was keeping it in and carried it to the side. I plugged in the air fryer and pressed the button, half expecting it not to work. Then the familiar hum returned. Pure relief.

After 25 minutes of cooking, the battery had only dropped about 20%. The mini pizzas were saved, the meltdown was avoided, and my sanity was still intact.

A big deal?

The Jackery 2000 v2 is certainly competitive compared to other similarly priced power stations, but it isn’t revolutionary, and it doesn’t solve my issue 100%.

After all, when I have a power cut, I still have a challenge keeping my fridge/freezer running; I can’t charge my car; and, with all my power coming from one unit, I can’t run my laptop in one room whilst my kids watch TV in the other. Yet it has still become one of those products where I start to wonder how I ever lived without it.

I admit that I went back and forth when researching power stations. Although I knew I would use one, they aren’t the cheapest products. Could I really justify making a purchase of that size?

Now, if I look at how many times the Jackery 2000 v2 has come to the rescue, whether when trying to work, cook dinner, or access power when camping, it feels like a very worthwhile investment. Especially when I consider that with just one unit, I will enjoy a level of power security for years to come.

• Microsoft warns of a sophisticated campaign tricking users into updating passkeys via fake IT calls
• Victims redirected to adversary‑in‑the‑middle sites mimicking Microsoft login to steal access
• Attackers exfiltrate files from SharePoint, OneDrive, and Exchange; phishing‑resistant MFA advised

Passkeys have made stealing passwords obsolete. To work around this change, hackers have started tricking users into authenticating on attacker-controlled computers. This is according to a new report from Microsoft, which says there’s a highly sophisticated campaign currently taking place, with the goal of compromising people’s cloud accounts and stealing as many sensitive files as possible.

The attack starts a lot earlier than what the victim experiences. There is a lot of pre-attack planning and due diligence, in which the threat actors gather as much information about their target as possible. Knowing their place of work, position, and personal phone number is essential.

Once all the pieces are in place, the attack starts with a phone call - victims are told they are speaking to their organization’s IT help desk and that they need to update their passkey (or MFA, depending on the setup) immediately, to avoid any disruptions to their operations.

Follow-up SMS

In the follow-up to the call, the victims then receive an SMS message with a link where they can update their security configuration. On the surface, the website looks like the legitimate Microsoft login landing page. In reality, though, this is a pre-built malicious website that uses the adversary-in-the-middle (AitM) techniques to either receive access on the actor’s behalf, or capture credentials.

"The actor appears to invest heavily in pre-attack research, likely gathering information about employees and organizational structure from public sources such as social networking and professional profiling platforms," Microsoft said. "In a smaller number of cases, actors take advantage of already compromised accounts to expand their reach" by sending similar passkey-themed messages via Microsoft Teams.

The campaign is apparently ongoing since at least May this year, Microsoft, said, without detailing the number of victims. Its aim seems to be to exfiltrate files from SharePoint and OneDrive, as well as email data from Microsoft Exchange Online. It also did not attribute this campaign to any specific threat actor, although it did say that there are many collectives engaged in such, or similar, campaigns, including Cordial Spider, Storm-3121, and others.

Via The Hacker News

When Jon Woodard proudly installed the latest security technology on his Oxfordshire home, including a Ring video doorbell and a security camera on his shed, little did he realise that it would result in a landmark case that was to set him back thousands of pounds in damages.

The dispute began innocently enough with an invitation from Mr Woodard to his neighbour, Dr Mary Fairhurst, for a tour of his newly renovated home during which he showcased his then cutting-edge security setup. But it soon descended into an acrimonious battle when, in the words of the judgement, Dr Fairhurst was "alarmed and appalled" to discover that the camera mounted on Mr Woodard’s shed pointed directly at her property.

As well as objecting to live video footage being streamed directly to Mr Woodard’s smartphone, the court heard how she found the audio data which captured her private conversations "even more problematic and detrimental than video data.” And when the case landed in Oxford County Court, Judge Melissa Clarke upheld claims that the devices "unjustifiably invaded" Fairhurst’s privacy and their use breached the Data Protection Act 2018 as well as UK General Data Protection (GDPR) legislation.

Crucially, the court singled out the audio data collected by the cameras as being "more problematic and detrimental than video data" because it captured conversations from people who were entirely unaware that a device was listening or that audio was being processed. As a result, Mr Woodard was ordered to pay damages and a fine believed to total up to £100,000.

Speaking at the time of the case in October 2021, digital privacy expert Hannah Hart of Pro Privacy told the BBC: “While this case doesn’t set a legal precedent, it does continue an ongoing conversation about our changing attitude towards domestic surveillance — and how normalised it has become in our communities.”

Navigating legal boundaries of home surveillance

Five years on from the landmark case and the risk of falling foul of the law with home security equipment has only grown as new technology such as facial recognition has become commonplace, and users have turned to social media to post video footage taken with their security cameras and video doorbells.

In very broad terms, those using this kind of surveillance technology must have a lawful basis for doing so

Lisa Sweetman, Knights

And while understanding what you can and can’t do with domestic cameras does vary between regions, in most countries there is legislation in place to protect the privacy of individuals whose images and, potentially voices, are captured on these devices. As Lisa Sweetman, Partner in the Commercial Team specialising in Data Protection at legal firm Knights told TechRadar: “In very broad terms, those using this kind of surveillance technology must have a lawful basis for doing so and should or must, in certain cases, conduct a data protection impact assessment, or risk assessment, to ensure they are aware of and can mitigate the associated risks to other people’s privacy.”

According to Sweetman, this means, legally speaking, that users must tell people that this technology is in use, through clear signage supported by a more detailed privacy notice on their property. Also, that “users must be prepared to respond to people’s questions and requests regarding the uses of their data.” And while there is an exception made in the data protection regulations for purely personal household use, known as the ‘domestic purposes exemption’, its application is, claims Sweetman, limited.

If you wish to rely on the domestic exemption from data protection law, make sure your camera's field of view doesn't extend beyond the boundaries of your property (Image credit: Getty Images, Jose Miguel Sanchez)

“It is recommended that if a user wishes to rely on the domestic exemption from data protection law, they should ensure that the field of view of the camera does not extend beyond the perimeters of their property,” says Will Richmond-Coggan, Partner and Head of Data and Privacy Disputes at legal firm Freeths. “Where that is not possible, or where the homeowner specifically wishes to keep an eye on their car parked in the road, they should proceed on the basis that they are operating CCTV in a public space and they are therefore potentially to be regarded as a controller of any personal data collected.”

According to Richmond-Coggan, this means ‘doing all the same things that a business would do, including making some clear decisions about what the data is used for, how long (if at all) it is retained and the circumstances in which it might be shared.’ Regarding sharing footage with neighbours to guard against scammers, car thieves and burglars, Richmond-Coggan advises creating a "written data sharing agreement which commits each of them to common standards of safeguarding in relation to the information and how it is used."

Increasing number of complaints to ICO

Regarding ‘accidental spillage’, where footage beyond your property’s boundary is captured, the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office), which is responsible for enforcing data protection regulations in the UK, offers useful advice for the public in its guidance on home CCTV systems.

“Incidental capture of neighbouring property is not automatically unlawful, but it can be a trigger point,” an ICO spokesperson told TechRadar. “Where cameras record beyond the homeowner’s boundary, the owner should minimise intrusion where possible — for example by adjusting the camera angle or using privacy masking features (on the camera).”

Incidental capture of neighbouring property is not automatically unlawful, but it can be a trigger point

ICO spokesperson

According to its Annual Report for 2025/2026, the ICO received 76,743 data protection complaints in 2025/2026, up from 42,315 in the previous year. “The ICO takes concerns about misuse of personal information seriously whether they relate to organisations or individuals,” said an ICO spokesperson. “We regularly receive and consider complaints about domestic CCTV and smart doorbells.”

However, although the ICO has a range of regulatory powers where data protection law applies, including potentially fining users for a breach, it encourages "people to resolve concerns directly wherever possible".

Posting footage on social media

Whereas CCTV footage from security cameras and video doorbells used to be confined to personal use, the growth of social media has seen an explosion of people uploading footage to platforms such as Facebook, TikTok or local community groups to identify supposedly ‘suspicious figures’.

Doing so, though, carries severe legal hazards, Knights’ Lisa Sweetman advises. “Uploading footage from a video doorbell to social media is not automatically unlawful, but it can raise significant privacy concerns… Ultimately, the fact that someone appears in footage recorded on your property does not give you the right to publish it on social media.”

You could be sued if you post footage to social media that causes, or is likely to cause, serious harm to a person’s reputation (Image credit: Getty Images, Andrey Popov)

Warning against the dangers of speculating about someone’s behaviour, Gavin Wilson, Director of Physical Security and Risk at cyber and physical security company Toro Solutions, cautions: “We need to remember a camera only give you part of the picture. It can show you that someone was outside a property at a particular time, but it can’t necessarily tell you who they are, why they were or whether they’ve done anything wrong.” Wilson advises users who think they have "captured criminal activity to keep the original footage and give it to the police, rather than posting it online asking people to identify or accuse the individual."

Not only can uploading video to social media potentially breach data protection laws, you also run the risk of falling foul of other laws too. For example, in the UK under the Defamation Act 2013, you could be sued if footage causes, or is likely to cause, serious harm to a person’s reputation (unless you can prove it is in the public interest) while if the video targets a specific individual, it can cross the line into criminal or civil harassment under the Protection From Harassment Act 1997 — especially if your post encourages followers to track down, abuse, or 'dox' the person featured.

Ultimately, the fact that someone appears in footage recorded on your property does not give you the right to publish it on social media

Lisa Sweetman, Knights

“People should think carefully about uploading footage to social media as it can raise additional data protection and potential considerations around defamation or harassment — particularly if identifiable individuals are shown without consent and the footage is shared beyond personal use,” an ICO spokesperson told TechRadar. “Children’s personal information warrants particular care and protection. Any sharing should have a clear and justifiable reason and should not unnecessarily infringe the privacy rights of those captured.”

Finally, if you record and upload footage of an accident, a crime scene, an ongoing police investigation, or a court trial, your post could severely compromise legal proceedings. For instance, publishing videos of suspects or witnesses online can prejudice a future jury, leading to charges of contempt of court or interfering with the course of justice.

Growth of facial recognition technology and AI

Importantly, when installing home security cameras and video doorbells, homeowners must carefully balance their own security needs with the privacy rights of those around them. As Ali Park, country manager at security camera manufacturer Reolink, points out, "a security camera should be there to protect your home, not to create a permanent record of everyone who happens to pass.”

To help users stay compliant, modern devices incorporate built-in features such as privacy masking and activity zones that allow owners to black out public areas or neighbouring properties. “Most modern cameras allow people to adjust viewing angles, create privacy zones or limit motion detection to specific areas, and I would use those settings wherever possible,” explains Everett Lupton of law firm Slaughter & Lupton. “Audio recording can also raise privacy concerns, so people should understand exactly what their devices record.”

(Image credit: Getty Images, Miljan Živković)

One area that is attracting particular attention right now is the rapid emergence of both facial recognition and AI technologies, not just inside commercial security devices, but increasingly in home devices too. “Considerable care should be used in deploying facial recognition technology in a domestic setting for security,” argues Freeths’ Will Richmond-Coggan. “It involves processing of special category biometric identifiers, and it is unlikely that a domestic user will be able to meet the stringent requirements around such use, particularly where the data is likely to be shared with the third-party provider of the facial recognition technology.”

Given the intrusive nature of facial recognition, Knights’ Lisa Sweetman says a DPIA (Data Protection Impact Assessment) would be required to use facial recognition technology to identify potential criminals. “Using facial recognition simply to identify known burglars will be difficult to justify unless there is a clear and lawful basis for doing so and appropriate safeguards are in place.”

Considerable care should be used in deploying facial recognition technology in a domestic setting for security

Will Richmond-Coggan, Freeths

Nor is it just a privacy issue, argues Reolink’s Ali Park. There are also concerns over levels of accuracy. “Facial recognition is still very new and has a few teething issues,” he says. “Because of those exact privacy and accuracy questions, we don’t offer facial recognition in our products.”

Toro Solutions' Gavin Wilson agrees: “Facial recognition can be a useful security aid, but it isn’t proof of identity and people shouldn’t assume that because the security camera has produced a match, it must be correct.”

Regarding artificial intelligence and the rising risk of ‘deep fakes’, it’s important that if CCTV is used in a criminal case that it hasn’t been altered in any way. “There are a number of factors that can help establish authenticity. These include retaining the original recording, preserving metadata such as the date, time and device information, maintaining a clear record of how the footage has been handled and ensuring any copies can be traced to the original source”, says Knights’ Lisa Sweetman. “As the use of AI-generated content becomes more widespread, maintaining an auditable record of where the footage came from, how it has been stored and whether it has been altered is likely to become increasingly important.”

Taking common sense measures

Home security cameras and video doorbells are undeniably invaluable assets for protecting your home, offering vital reassurance against package thieves and intruders. Making sure that you use them properly largely comes down to taking a few precautionary, common-sense measures during set up and use.

For example, when configuring your hardware, rather than letting a lens sweep wide across shared streets or adjacent gardens, use the camera’s built-in tools such as privacy masking to black out areas outside of your property. Users should also remain conscious of recording external audio, while storing footage on local MicroSD cards or hard drives rather than defaulting to external cloud storage is advisable to ensure personal data control.

The most sensible approach is to collect the minimum footage necessary for the safety of you and yours

Ali Park, Reolink

When it comes to deciding what to do with captured files after an event occurs, it’s best to exercise caution. While capturing film for home security Is lawful, posting identifiable images on social media platforms can cross the line, leaving users exposed to potential legal action. If you must post footage publicly, then it’s best to use technology to blur people’s faces to protect those not involved with an incident – especially children whose personal information demands maximum protection under data protection law.

Ultimately, high-tech security shouldn't feel high-stress. Treat your camera as a targeted perimeter shield rather than a public broadcasting network. Concludes Reolink’s Ali Park: “The most sensible approach is to collect the minimum footage necessary for the safety of you and yours, manage it responsibly and store this footage for as little time as possible.”

When Jon Woodard proudly installed the latest security technology on his Oxfordshire home, including a Ring video doorbell and a security camera on his shed, little did he realise that it would result in a landmark case that was to set him back thousands of pounds in damages.

The dispute began innocently enough with an invitation from Mr Woodard to his neighbour, Dr Mary Fairhurst, for a tour of his newly renovated home during which he showcased his then cutting-edge security setup. But it soon descended into an acrimonious battle when, in the words of the judgement, Dr Fairhurst was "alarmed and appalled" to discover that the camera mounted on Mr Woodard’s shed pointed directly at her property.

As well as objecting to live video footage being streamed directly to Mr Woodard’s smartphone, the court heard how she found the audio data which captured her private conversations "even more problematic and detrimental than video data.” And when the case landed in Oxford County Court, Judge Melissa Clarke upheld claims that the devices "unjustifiably invaded" Fairhurst’s privacy and their use breached the Data Protection Act 2018 as well as UK General Data Protection (GDPR) legislation.

Crucially, the court singled out the audio data collected by the cameras as being "more problematic and detrimental than video data" because it captured conversations from people who were entirely unaware that a device was listening or that audio was being processed. As a result, Mr Woodard was ordered to pay damages and a fine believed to total up to £100,000.

Speaking at the time of the case in October 2021, digital privacy expert Hannah Hart of Pro Privacy told the BBC: “While this case doesn’t set a legal precedent, it does continue an ongoing conversation about our changing attitude towards domestic surveillance — and how normalised it has become in our communities.”

Navigating legal boundaries of home surveillance

Five years on from the landmark case and the risk of falling foul of the law with home security equipment has only grown as new technology such as facial recognition has become commonplace, and users have turned to social media to post video footage taken with their security cameras and video doorbells.

In very broad terms, those using this kind of surveillance technology must have a lawful basis for doing so

Lisa Sweetman, Knights

And while understanding what you can and can’t do with domestic cameras does vary between regions, in most countries there is legislation in place to protect the privacy of individuals whose images and, potentially voices, are captured on these devices. As Lisa Sweetman, Partner in the Commercial Team specialising in Data Protection at legal firm Knights told TechRadar: “In very broad terms, those using this kind of surveillance technology must have a lawful basis for doing so and should or must, in certain cases, conduct a data protection impact assessment, or risk assessment, to ensure they are aware of and can mitigate the associated risks to other people’s privacy.”

According to Sweetman, this means, legally speaking, that users must tell people that this technology is in use, through clear signage supported by a more detailed privacy notice on their property. Also, that “users must be prepared to respond to people’s questions and requests regarding the uses of their data.” And while there is an exception made in the data protection regulations for purely personal household use, known as the ‘domestic purposes exemption’, its application is, claims Sweetman, limited.

If you wish to rely on the domestic exemption from data protection law, make sure your camera's field of view doesn't extend beyond the boundaries of your property (Image credit: Getty Images, Jose Miguel Sanchez)

“It is recommended that if a user wishes to rely on the domestic exemption from data protection law, they should ensure that the field of view of the camera does not extend beyond the perimeters of their property,” says Will Richmond-Coggan, Partner and Head of Data and Privacy Disputes at legal firm Freeths. “Where that is not possible, or where the homeowner specifically wishes to keep an eye on their car parked in the road, they should proceed on the basis that they are operating CCTV in a public space and they are therefore potentially to be regarded as a controller of any personal data collected.”

According to Richmond-Coggan, this means ‘doing all the same things that a business would do, including making some clear decisions about what the data is used for, how long (if at all) it is retained and the circumstances in which it might be shared.’ Regarding sharing footage with neighbours to guard against scammers, car thieves and burglars, Richmond-Coggan advises creating a "written data sharing agreement which commits each of them to common standards of safeguarding in relation to the information and how it is used."

Increasing number of complaints to ICO

Regarding ‘accidental spillage’, where footage beyond your property’s boundary is captured, the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office), which is responsible for enforcing data protection regulations in the UK, offers useful advice for the public in its guidance on home CCTV systems.

“Incidental capture of neighbouring property is not automatically unlawful, but it can be a trigger point,” an ICO spokesperson told TechRadar. “Where cameras record beyond the homeowner’s boundary, the owner should minimise intrusion where possible — for example by adjusting the camera angle or using privacy masking features (on the camera).”

Incidental capture of neighbouring property is not automatically unlawful, but it can be a trigger point

ICO spokesperson

According to its Annual Report for 2025/2026, the ICO received 76,743 data protection complaints in 2025/2026, up from 42,315 in the previous year. “The ICO takes concerns about misuse of personal information seriously whether they relate to organisations or individuals,” said an ICO spokesperson. “We regularly receive and consider complaints about domestic CCTV and smart doorbells.”

However, although the ICO has a range of regulatory powers where data protection law applies, including potentially fining users for a breach, it encourages "people to resolve concerns directly wherever possible".

Posting footage on social media

Whereas CCTV footage from security cameras and video doorbells used to be confined to personal use, the growth of social media has seen an explosion of people uploading footage to platforms such as Facebook, TikTok or local community groups to identify supposedly ‘suspicious figures’.

Doing so, though, carries severe legal hazards, Knights’ Lisa Sweetman advises. “Uploading footage from a video doorbell to social media is not automatically unlawful, but it can raise significant privacy concerns… Ultimately, the fact that someone appears in footage recorded on your property does not give you the right to publish it on social media.”

You could be sued if you post footage to social media that causes, or is likely to cause, serious harm to a person’s reputation (Image credit: Getty Images, Andrey Popov)

Warning against the dangers of speculating about someone’s behaviour, Gavin Wilson, Director of Physical Security and Risk at cyber and physical security company Toro Solutions, cautions: “We need to remember a camera only give you part of the picture. It can show you that someone was outside a property at a particular time, but it can’t necessarily tell you who they are, why they were or whether they’ve done anything wrong.” Wilson advises users who think they have "captured criminal activity to keep the original footage and give it to the police, rather than posting it online asking people to identify or accuse the individual."

Not only can uploading video to social media potentially breach data protection laws, you also run the risk of falling foul of other laws too. For example, in the UK under the Defamation Act 2013, you could be sued if footage causes, or is likely to cause, serious harm to a person’s reputation (unless you can prove it is in the public interest) while if the video targets a specific individual, it can cross the line into criminal or civil harassment under the Protection From Harassment Act 1997 — especially if your post encourages followers to track down, abuse, or 'dox' the person featured.

Ultimately, the fact that someone appears in footage recorded on your property does not give you the right to publish it on social media

Lisa Sweetman, Knights

“People should think carefully about uploading footage to social media as it can raise additional data protection and potential considerations around defamation or harassment — particularly if identifiable individuals are shown without consent and the footage is shared beyond personal use,” an ICO spokesperson told TechRadar. “Children’s personal information warrants particular care and protection. Any sharing should have a clear and justifiable reason and should not unnecessarily infringe the privacy rights of those captured.”

Finally, if you record and upload footage of an accident, a crime scene, an ongoing police investigation, or a court trial, your post could severely compromise legal proceedings. For instance, publishing videos of suspects or witnesses online can prejudice a future jury, leading to charges of contempt of court or interfering with the course of justice.

Growth of facial recognition technology and AI

Importantly, when installing home security cameras and video doorbells, homeowners must carefully balance their own security needs with the privacy rights of those around them. As Ali Park, country manager at security camera manufacturer Reolink, points out, "a security camera should be there to protect your home, not to create a permanent record of everyone who happens to pass.”

To help users stay compliant, modern devices incorporate built-in features such as privacy masking and activity zones that allow owners to black out public areas or neighbouring properties. “Most modern cameras allow people to adjust viewing angles, create privacy zones or limit motion detection to specific areas, and I would use those settings wherever possible,” explains Everett Lupton of law firm Slaughter & Lupton. “Audio recording can also raise privacy concerns, so people should understand exactly what their devices record.”

(Image credit: Getty Images, Miljan Živković)

One area that is attracting particular attention right now is the rapid emergence of both facial recognition and AI technologies, not just inside commercial security devices, but increasingly in home devices too. “Considerable care should be used in deploying facial recognition technology in a domestic setting for security,” argues Freeths’ Will Richmond-Coggan. “It involves processing of special category biometric identifiers, and it is unlikely that a domestic user will be able to meet the stringent requirements around such use, particularly where the data is likely to be shared with the third-party provider of the facial recognition technology.”

Given the intrusive nature of facial recognition, Knights’ Lisa Sweetman says a DPIA (Data Protection Impact Assessment) would be required to use facial recognition technology to identify potential criminals. “Using facial recognition simply to identify known burglars will be difficult to justify unless there is a clear and lawful basis for doing so and appropriate safeguards are in place.”

Considerable care should be used in deploying facial recognition technology in a domestic setting for security

Will Richmond-Coggan, Freeths

Nor is it just a privacy issue, argues Reolink’s Ali Park. There are also concerns over levels of accuracy. “Facial recognition is still very new and has a few teething issues,” he says. “Because of those exact privacy and accuracy questions, we don’t offer facial recognition in our products.”

Toro Solutions' Gavin Wilson agrees: “Facial recognition can be a useful security aid, but it isn’t proof of identity and people shouldn’t assume that because the security camera has produced a match, it must be correct.”

Regarding artificial intelligence and the rising risk of ‘deep fakes’, it’s important that if CCTV is used in a criminal case that it hasn’t been altered in any way. “There are a number of factors that can help establish authenticity. These include retaining the original recording, preserving metadata such as the date, time and device information, maintaining a clear record of how the footage has been handled and ensuring any copies can be traced to the original source”, says Knights’ Lisa Sweetman. “As the use of AI-generated content becomes more widespread, maintaining an auditable record of where the footage came from, how it has been stored and whether it has been altered is likely to become increasingly important.”

Taking common sense measures

Home security cameras and video doorbells are undeniably invaluable assets for protecting your home, offering vital reassurance against package thieves and intruders. Making sure that you use them properly largely comes down to taking a few precautionary, common-sense measures during set up and use.

For example, when configuring your hardware, rather than letting a lens sweep wide across shared streets or adjacent gardens, use the camera’s built-in tools such as privacy masking to black out areas outside of your property. Users should also remain conscious of recording external audio, while storing footage on local MicroSD cards or hard drives rather than defaulting to external cloud storage is advisable to ensure personal data control.

The most sensible approach is to collect the minimum footage necessary for the safety of you and yours

Ali Park, Reolink

When it comes to deciding what to do with captured files after an event occurs, it’s best to exercise caution. While capturing film for home security Is lawful, posting identifiable images on social media platforms can cross the line, leaving users exposed to potential legal action. If you must post footage publicly, then it’s best to use technology to blur people’s faces to protect those not involved with an incident – especially children whose personal information demands maximum protection under data protection law.

Ultimately, high-tech security shouldn't feel high-stress. Treat your camera as a targeted perimeter shield rather than a public broadcasting network. Concludes Reolink’s Ali Park: “The most sensible approach is to collect the minimum footage necessary for the safety of you and yours, manage it responsibly and store this footage for as little time as possible.”

Watching the NFL just got cheaper thanks to Best Buy. The retailer is offering a massive 51% discount on NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube or YouTube TV for Best Buy Plus and Total members.

• Shop more NFL deals at Best Buy

NFL Sunday Ticket gives fans a premium viewing experience, letting you watch every out-of-market Sunday afternoon game. You can also watch four games live at once with Multiview, use the Key Plays view to see what you missed, and track player stats while watching the game.

Keep in mind, you must be a Best Buy Plus or Total member. If you aren't already a member, you can sign up for a membership starting at $29.99 and enjoy perks like free two-day shipping, 24/7 tech support, and AppleCare Plus protection plans with the purchase of an Apple device.

If you also need to upgrade your TV for the 2026 season, Best Buy members can get NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube or YouTube TV for $234 or NFL RedZone for $276 with the purchase of select TVs. Becoming a Best Buy member is free; just sign up with your email, and you can score free shipping on future purchases.

You'll find Best Buy's NFL Sunday Ticket offer below, which includes up to $246 in savings for Best Buy Plus and Total Members. I've also listed today's top TV deals, which include record-low prices on top-rated big-screen TVs - perfect for watching your favorite NFL team.

Save up to $246 on NFL Sunday Ticket

Sunday Ticket at Best Buy: save up to $246 on NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube or YouTube TV
Best Buy Plus and Total members can get NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube or YouTube TV for $234. Best Buy members can also save on NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube or YouTube TV or get NFL RedZone with the purchase of select TVs.View Deal

The best TV deals for watching the NFL

QD50 58-inch Hi-QLED 4K TV: was $399.99 now $229.99
I can't say much about the overall quality of this TV since we haven't had extensive testing time, but I can't deny it's a super low price for a TV this size. It also sports the budget version of Hisense's QLED tech, which offers superior brightness and more vivid colors, although it's not as powerful as the premium displays. Still, this is a big, affordable TV that's ideal for everyday viewing and streaming for someone who isn't too concerned about getting the best picture possible.View Deal

65-inch F50 Series HD 4K Smart Fire TV: was $449.99 now $299.99
If you're looking for a big-screen budget TV, this 65-inch Insignia display is an incredible deal at just $299.99. The Insignia F50 Series TV features 4K HD resolution, DTS Studio Sound, smart capabilities with the Fire TV operating system, and a voice remote with hands-free Alexa, so you can use your voice to control your TV.View Deal

65-inch S90H OLED TV: was $2699.99 now $1699.99
The S90H is Samsung's mid-range OLED TV in its 2026 lineup. It supports 165Hz and features advanced AI upscaling, but it uses a slightly lower-end WRGB OLED panel. During our hands-on testing, we praised this model's anti-glare technology and overall picture quality. If you're looking for a strong alternative to the LG C6, this is a solid competitor. View Deal

65-inch C6 OLED TV: was $2699.99 now $1499.99
The LG C6 is our best-rated TV, and the 65-inch model has received a whopping $1,200 discount at Best Buy. The 2026 OLED TV delivers more accurate, brighter colors than the C5, with powerful contrast thanks to its new Alpha 11 AI processor. The C6 also includes impressive gaming features and LG's intuitive smart TV platform.

Read our full LG C6 reviewView Deal

65-inch LS03FA The Frame QLED TV: was $1599.99 now $949.99
If you've been eyeing Samsung's gorgeous The Frame QLED TV, Best Buy has the 65-inch model on sale for its lowest price yet. The 2025 Samsung Frame TV features Pantone art-validated colors that deliver lifelike images. The display now comes with Streams, a complimentary set of artwork streamed from the Samsung Art Store.View Deal

65-inch Bravia XR8B Smart Google TV: was $3299.99 now $2499.99
If you're looking for a big-screen premium display, Sony's 65-inch Bravia XR8B OLED TV is now at a record-low price of $2,499.99. Sony's Bravia 8 features a sleek, slim design, a wide viewing angle, brilliant images with deep contrast, and cinematic sound across the entire screen.View Deal

75-inch S5 4K LED Fire TV: was $649.99 now $419.99
The TCL 75-inch S5 4K LED TV supports Dolby Vision, HDR10 Plus, HDR10, and HLG, while there’s Dolby Atmos sound and a built-in subwoofer. It also has a dedicated Game Mode for lower input lag and latency, and Motion Rate 240 technology for smoother motion. It’s all wrapped up in a highly attractive price tag for a screen of this size.View Deal

77-inch G6 OLED 4K TV: was $4499.99 now $3799.99
The LG G6 is a pricey TV, but this flagship OLED delivers superb picture quality and unbeatable gaming performance. It uses a new-gen Primary RGB Tandem 2.0 OLED panel and a new Alpha 11 AI Gen 3 processor to deliver a better bright-room viewing experience than the previous model. With four HDMI 2.1 ports supporting a full suite of features, the G6 is also a fantastic gaming display.

Read our full LG G6 reviewView Deal

77-inch B5 OLED 4K Smart TV: was $2999.99 now $1499.99
The LG B5 is this year's best budget OLED TV, and Best Buy has a massive 50% discount on the 77-inch model. Released last year, the LG B5 is TechRadar's best budget OLED TV and was awarded four and a half stars in our review. The LG display delivers an exceptional picture with brilliant colors and sharp contrast. You also get excellent gaming features, thanks to the four HDMI 2.1 ports and new AI tools, including AI Search, AI Concierge, and an improved AI Chatbot.

Read our full LG B5 reviewView Deal

85-inch R85H Micro RGB TV: was $3999.99 now $2799.99
The 85-inch version of Samsung's latest R85H just got its largest discount ever at Best Buy. This TV stands out for its excellent color and image quality, thanks to the array of micro RGB LEDs. That means it also boasts superior brightness and fantastic contrast, ensuring you get a smooth, sharp and vibrant image. It's an ideal all-rounder for films, movies, sports, and gaming, as it also supports 144Hz and a variable refresh rate to give you a smooth and responsive picture. It's easily one of the best premium TV deals I've seen right now.View Deal

Watching the NFL just got cheaper thanks to Best Buy. The retailer is offering a massive 51% discount on NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube or YouTube TV for Best Buy Plus and Total members.

• Shop more NFL deals at Best Buy

NFL Sunday Ticket gives fans a premium viewing experience, letting you watch every out-of-market Sunday afternoon game. You can also watch four games live at once with Multiview, use the Key Plays view to see what you missed, and track player stats while watching the game.

Keep in mind, you must be a Best Buy Plus or Total member. If you aren't already a member, you can sign up for a membership starting at $29.99 and enjoy perks like free two-day shipping, 24/7 tech support, and AppleCare Plus protection plans with the purchase of an Apple device.

If you also need to upgrade your TV for the 2026 season, Best Buy members can get NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube or YouTube TV for $234 or NFL RedZone for $276 with the purchase of select TVs. Becoming a Best Buy member is free; just sign up with your email, and you can score free shipping on future purchases.

You'll find Best Buy's NFL Sunday Ticket offer below, which includes up to $246 in savings for Best Buy Plus and Total Members. I've also listed today's top TV deals, which include record-low prices on top-rated big-screen TVs - perfect for watching your favorite NFL team.

Save up to $246 on NFL Sunday Ticket

Sunday Ticket at Best Buy: save up to $246 on NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube or YouTube TV
Best Buy Plus and Total members can get NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube or YouTube TV for $234. Best Buy members can also save on NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube or YouTube TV or get NFL RedZone with the purchase of select TVs.View Deal

The best TV deals for watching the NFL

QD50 58-inch Hi-QLED 4K TV: was $399.99 now $229.99
I can't say much about the overall quality of this TV since we haven't had extensive testing time, but I can't deny it's a super low price for a TV this size. It also sports the budget version of Hisense's QLED tech, which offers superior brightness and more vivid colors, although it's not as powerful as the premium displays. Still, this is a big, affordable TV that's ideal for everyday viewing and streaming for someone who isn't too concerned about getting the best picture possible.View Deal

65-inch F50 Series HD 4K Smart Fire TV: was $449.99 now $299.99
If you're looking for a big-screen budget TV, this 65-inch Insignia display is an incredible deal at just $299.99. The Insignia F50 Series TV features 4K HD resolution, DTS Studio Sound, smart capabilities with the Fire TV operating system, and a voice remote with hands-free Alexa, so you can use your voice to control your TV.View Deal

65-inch S90H OLED TV: was $2699.99 now $1699.99
The S90H is Samsung's mid-range OLED TV in its 2026 lineup. It supports 165Hz and features advanced AI upscaling, but it uses a slightly lower-end WRGB OLED panel. During our hands-on testing, we praised this model's anti-glare technology and overall picture quality. If you're looking for a strong alternative to the LG C6, this is a solid competitor. View Deal

65-inch C6 OLED TV: was $2699.99 now $1499.99
The LG C6 is our best-rated TV, and the 65-inch model has received a whopping $1,200 discount at Best Buy. The 2026 OLED TV delivers more accurate, brighter colors than the C5, with powerful contrast thanks to its new Alpha 11 AI processor. The C6 also includes impressive gaming features and LG's intuitive smart TV platform.

Read our full LG C6 reviewView Deal

65-inch LS03FA The Frame QLED TV: was $1599.99 now $949.99
If you've been eyeing Samsung's gorgeous The Frame QLED TV, Best Buy has the 65-inch model on sale for its lowest price yet. The 2025 Samsung Frame TV features Pantone art-validated colors that deliver lifelike images. The display now comes with Streams, a complimentary set of artwork streamed from the Samsung Art Store.View Deal

65-inch Bravia XR8B Smart Google TV: was $3299.99 now $2499.99
If you're looking for a big-screen premium display, Sony's 65-inch Bravia XR8B OLED TV is now at a record-low price of $2,499.99. Sony's Bravia 8 features a sleek, slim design, a wide viewing angle, brilliant images with deep contrast, and cinematic sound across the entire screen.View Deal

75-inch S5 4K LED Fire TV: was $649.99 now $419.99
The TCL 75-inch S5 4K LED TV supports Dolby Vision, HDR10 Plus, HDR10, and HLG, while there’s Dolby Atmos sound and a built-in subwoofer. It also has a dedicated Game Mode for lower input lag and latency, and Motion Rate 240 technology for smoother motion. It’s all wrapped up in a highly attractive price tag for a screen of this size.View Deal

77-inch G6 OLED 4K TV: was $4499.99 now $3799.99
The LG G6 is a pricey TV, but this flagship OLED delivers superb picture quality and unbeatable gaming performance. It uses a new-gen Primary RGB Tandem 2.0 OLED panel and a new Alpha 11 AI Gen 3 processor to deliver a better bright-room viewing experience than the previous model. With four HDMI 2.1 ports supporting a full suite of features, the G6 is also a fantastic gaming display.

Read our full LG G6 reviewView Deal

77-inch B5 OLED 4K Smart TV: was $2999.99 now $1499.99
The LG B5 is this year's best budget OLED TV, and Best Buy has a massive 50% discount on the 77-inch model. Released last year, the LG B5 is TechRadar's best budget OLED TV and was awarded four and a half stars in our review. The LG display delivers an exceptional picture with brilliant colors and sharp contrast. You also get excellent gaming features, thanks to the four HDMI 2.1 ports and new AI tools, including AI Search, AI Concierge, and an improved AI Chatbot.

Read our full LG B5 reviewView Deal

85-inch R85H Micro RGB TV: was $3999.99 now $2799.99
The 85-inch version of Samsung's latest R85H just got its largest discount ever at Best Buy. This TV stands out for its excellent color and image quality, thanks to the array of micro RGB LEDs. That means it also boasts superior brightness and fantastic contrast, ensuring you get a smooth, sharp and vibrant image. It's an ideal all-rounder for films, movies, sports, and gaming, as it also supports 144Hz and a variable refresh rate to give you a smooth and responsive picture. It's easily one of the best premium TV deals I've seen right now.View Deal

Meta Connect 2026 is fast approaching, and it seems a big surprise hardware announcement has just been leaked — by none other than Meta itself. It’s not much but our first official look at the so-called Project Phoenix has me very excited that we might finally get the Meta Quest Pro successor I’ve been begging for.

The leak was spotted by prolific Meta leaker Luna, who found a never-before-seen headset in the latest Horizon OS prescription lens firmware. Because it only shows how lenses are inserted into the new design, we don’t get a full look at the whole thing, but it seems XR glasses might be a better description than XR headset.

That’s because the front of the headset looks incredibly slim. Not quite Meta Ray-Ban levels, but a fraction of what the Meta Quest 3 and 3S were thickness wise. There also appears to be no head strap. Instead, we see the display unit supported by glasses' stems sitting behind the ears of the wearer.

First official visuals of Meta's Project Phoenix, found in the HorizonOS Prescription Lens firmware package! pic.twitter.com/YmN0SCJNCDSeptember 10, 2026

What this leak seemingly confirms is the rumors that Meta has been working on an ultra-lightweight headset design. One where the battery and a chunk of the processing power are all moved to an external puck — something also teased by a cable we see extending from one of the Meta device’s stems.

Of course we should take all leaks and speculation with a pinch of salt, however considering some details are now coming directly from Meta itself, I suspect this may be a case of where if there’s smoke there’s fire.

If so, I couldn’t be more excited. Following the disappointing start to VR in 2026, this launch might turns things around (at least somewhat).

(Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)What I've been waiting for

XR hardware housing its battery in an external puck is nothing new; however, moving processing power in there too is far less common — the only one I’ve experienced is Xreal’s Aura glasses, though it works incredibly well.

By taking as much as possible out of the headset, you can significantly drop the weight of the machine, and, because you’re tethered to something in your pocket, your movement won’t be restricted as it can be when you’re connected to a PC or console.

This makes something capable, comfortable, and somewhat mobile. That said, it seems Phoenix will still be more headset-like than glasses-like, so I’m not sure I see myself exploring the outside world while wearing it.

For gaming and entertainment, there are other specs to consider (such as processing power, display quality, and content support), but where this design wins out is for productivity.

(Image credit: Future / Hamish Hector)

I’ve tried spending entire working weeks immersed in XR and my tests have proven it’s incredibly uncomfortable. It’s fine for a few hours at a time, maybe for the one-off day, but not for eight hours a day five days straight. That’s nightmarish.

But the lightest model I’ve tried is the 545g Samsung Galaxy XR. If Meta’s headset can drop to 200g or less, then it could easily be something I wear for a whole day. Plus it would be super easy to slip into my rucksack to be productive in XR on the go — or kick back with a big-screen movie.

This is precisely why I’ve been wanting an ultra-lightweight XR headset to enter the scene, but so far I’ve been let down. Xreal Aura gets close, but as glasses, it doesn’t boast the same field of view as a headset — with a headset offering more virtual real estate for app windows.

All I need is for Meta’s headset to copy the Xreal Aura's ability to show what’s on my phone screen via a USB-C cable and it could be the perfect XR headset (provided the price isn’t too high).

We’ll have to wait and see what Meta unveils at Connect, but September 23, 2026, can’t come soon enough.

Meta Connect 2026 is fast approaching, and it seems a big surprise hardware announcement has just been leaked — by none other than Meta itself. It’s not much but our first official look at the so-called Project Phoenix has me very excited that we might finally get the Meta Quest Pro successor I’ve been begging for.

The leak was spotted by prolific Meta leaker Luna, who found a never-before-seen headset in the latest Horizon OS prescription lens firmware. Because it only shows how lenses are inserted into the new design, we don’t get a full look at the whole thing, but it seems XR glasses might be a better description than XR headset.

That’s because the front of the headset looks incredibly slim. Not quite Meta Ray-Ban levels, but a fraction of what the Meta Quest 3 and 3S were thickness wise. There also appears to be no head strap. Instead, we see the display unit supported by glasses' stems sitting behind the ears of the wearer.

First official visuals of Meta's Project Phoenix, found in the HorizonOS Prescription Lens firmware package! pic.twitter.com/YmN0SCJNCDSeptember 10, 2026

What this leak seemingly confirms is the rumors that Meta has been working on an ultra-lightweight headset design. One where the battery and a chunk of the processing power are all moved to an external puck — something also teased by a cable we see extending from one of the Meta device’s stems.

Of course we should take all leaks and speculation with a pinch of salt, however considering some details are now coming directly from Meta itself, I suspect this may be a case of where if there’s smoke there’s fire.

If so, I couldn’t be more excited. Following the disappointing start to VR in 2026, this launch might turns things around (at least somewhat).

(Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)What I've been waiting for

XR hardware housing its battery in an external puck is nothing new; however, moving processing power in there too is far less common — the only one I’ve experienced is Xreal’s Aura glasses, though it works incredibly well.

By taking as much as possible out of the headset, you can significantly drop the weight of the machine, and, because you’re tethered to something in your pocket, your movement won’t be restricted as it can be when you’re connected to a PC or console.

This makes something capable, comfortable, and somewhat mobile. That said, it seems Phoenix will still be more headset-like than glasses-like, so I’m not sure I see myself exploring the outside world while wearing it.

For gaming and entertainment, there are other specs to consider (such as processing power, display quality, and content support), but where this design wins out is for productivity.

(Image credit: Future / Hamish Hector)

I’ve tried spending entire working weeks immersed in XR and my tests have proven it’s incredibly uncomfortable. It’s fine for a few hours at a time, maybe for the one-off day, but not for eight hours a day five days straight. That’s nightmarish.

But the lightest model I’ve tried is the 545g Samsung Galaxy XR. If Meta’s headset can drop to 200g or less, then it could easily be something I wear for a whole day. Plus it would be super easy to slip into my rucksack to be productive in XR on the go — or kick back with a big-screen movie.

This is precisely why I’ve been wanting an ultra-lightweight XR headset to enter the scene, but so far I’ve been let down. Xreal Aura gets close, but as glasses, it doesn’t boast the same field of view as a headset — with a headset offering more virtual real estate for app windows.

All I need is for Meta’s headset to copy the Xreal Aura's ability to show what’s on my phone screen via a USB-C cable and it could be the perfect XR headset (provided the price isn’t too high).

We’ll have to wait and see what Meta unveils at Connect, but September 23, 2026, can’t come soon enough.

AI voice cloning has reached the point where scammers can convincingly imitate human voices — and worryingly, research suggests we're not particularly good at telling the difference.

Take the case of one X user, for instance, who posted: “Got a call from my wife telling me she forgot her wallet and needed the credit card to pay for her gas.

Except my wife was at home with me, and drives a Tesla. Same voice, bit... off, weird cadence, but 100% sounded just like her. If she wasn't there, and it wasn't about gas I would have fallen for it.

I entertained it for a while to get more out of it, I was so confused. Must be some sort of voice deepfake. The responses were too fast for AI, I think it was a voice filter. I wish I had thought to record it.”

Whether this particular call used generative AI or a real-time voice filter isn't clear. What is clear is that the days when recognizing somebody's voice was enough to prove who was on the other end of the phone are over, and I’m not alone in finding that terrifying.

When news of the story hit Reddit, some people were skeptical about whether this had actually happened, but there were plenty of people with similar stories. “This just happened to me last week,” said one user. “They called aunt and grandmother and said they were an attorney and that I was in jail and needed to be bailed out.”

(Image credit: Shutterstock / Andrey_Popov)The ‘relative in distress’ scam

According to the 2026 paper Evaluating AI Models' Capability to Automate Voice Phishing Attacks by Fred Heiding and colleagues, a study involving 4,100 US adults found that up to 36.1% said they would comply with, or were unsure whether they would comply with, an AI-powered “relative in distress” scam.

Importantly, that figure measures self-reported willingness to comply, rather than the number of people who were actually fooled into handing over money. The researchers describe it as a measure of susceptibility to the scam rather than observed behavior.

The researchers also found that persuasiveness mattered more than how human the voice sounded, and that people who regularly used AI weren't any better at identifying synthetic voices than people with no AI exposure.

While the scam of tricking people into thinking their loved ones need money may be an old one, AI is making the danger especially real. If the scammer actually sounds like your loved one, how do you know it’s them?

One answer is to set up a family code word today. It doesn't need to be complicated — just something everybody knows, and that a scammer would be unlikely to guess or discover online.

There’s also an even simpler precaution: hang up and call the person back on a number you already know. If your son, daughter, partner or parent apparently calls out of the blue asking urgently for money, don't rely on the voice sounding right. End the call and contact them yourself.

The Ferrari deepfake case shows why some form of personal verification can work. In 2024, a Ferrari executive received messages followed by a phone call apparently impersonating CEO Benedetto Vigna. Suspicious of the call, the executive asked the supposed Vigna to identify a book the real CEO had recently recommended to him. The caller couldn't answer, and the attempted deception fell apart.

A family code word essentially does the same thing. And it’s something you might have to start thinking about today, if you haven’t already.

Can you trust your own ears?

“AI's deepest impact isn't on our devices; it's on us," says Mark Beare, Head of Consumer at Malwarebytes. "When people can no longer trust what they see, hear, or who they're talking to, the damage reaches far beyond any single scam and into the building blocks of our society.”

A Malwarebytes survey published in June found that 85% of people said it’s hard to tell a scam apart from the real thing, up from 66% the previous year. Perhaps even more tellingly, 88% said it was becoming harder to tell which content online was genuinely human or real.

And that problem isn't restricted to our ears. AI-generated images and deepfake videos are increasingly challenging the assumption that seeing or hearing something for yourself is proof that it really happened.

We used to be able to rely on a familiar voice as proof of identity, but it seems that in 2026 that's no longer enough. AI voice technology is only going to become more convincing, so our behavior needs to change with it.

Agree on a code word with the people closest to you now, and if you get an unexpected call asking for money, hang up and call them back.

AI voice cloning has reached the point where scammers can convincingly imitate human voices — and worryingly, research suggests we're not particularly good at telling the difference.

Take the case of one X user, for instance, who posted: “Got a call from my wife telling me she forgot her wallet and needed the credit card to pay for her gas.

Except my wife was at home with me, and drives a Tesla. Same voice, bit... off, weird cadence, but 100% sounded just like her. If she wasn't there, and it wasn't about gas I would have fallen for it.

I entertained it for a while to get more out of it, I was so confused. Must be some sort of voice deepfake. The responses were too fast for AI, I think it was a voice filter. I wish I had thought to record it.”

Whether this particular call used generative AI or a real-time voice filter isn't clear. What is clear is that the days when recognizing somebody's voice was enough to prove who was on the other end of the phone are over, and I’m not alone in finding that terrifying.

When news of the story hit Reddit, some people were skeptical about whether this had actually happened, but there were plenty of people with similar stories. “This just happened to me last week,” said one user. “They called aunt and grandmother and said they were an attorney and that I was in jail and needed to be bailed out.”

(Image credit: Shutterstock / Andrey_Popov)The ‘relative in distress’ scam

According to the 2026 paper Evaluating AI Models' Capability to Automate Voice Phishing Attacks by Fred Heiding and colleagues, a study involving 4,100 US adults found that up to 36.1% said they would comply with, or were unsure whether they would comply with, an AI-powered “relative in distress” scam.

Importantly, that figure measures self-reported willingness to comply, rather than the number of people who were actually fooled into handing over money. The researchers describe it as a measure of susceptibility to the scam rather than observed behavior.

The researchers also found that persuasiveness mattered more than how human the voice sounded, and that people who regularly used AI weren't any better at identifying synthetic voices than people with no AI exposure.

While the scam of tricking people into thinking their loved ones need money may be an old one, AI is making the danger especially real. If the scammer actually sounds like your loved one, how do you know it’s them?

One answer is to set up a family code word today. It doesn't need to be complicated — just something everybody knows, and that a scammer would be unlikely to guess or discover online.

There’s also an even simpler precaution: hang up and call the person back on a number you already know. If your son, daughter, partner or parent apparently calls out of the blue asking urgently for money, don't rely on the voice sounding right. End the call and contact them yourself.

The Ferrari deepfake case shows why some form of personal verification can work. In 2024, a Ferrari executive received messages followed by a phone call apparently impersonating CEO Benedetto Vigna. Suspicious of the call, the executive asked the supposed Vigna to identify a book the real CEO had recently recommended to him. The caller couldn't answer, and the attempted deception fell apart.

A family code word essentially does the same thing. And it’s something you might have to start thinking about today, if you haven’t already.

Can you trust your own ears?

“AI's deepest impact isn't on our devices; it's on us," says Mark Beare, Head of Consumer at Malwarebytes. "When people can no longer trust what they see, hear, or who they're talking to, the damage reaches far beyond any single scam and into the building blocks of our society.”

A Malwarebytes survey published in June found that 85% of people said it’s hard to tell a scam apart from the real thing, up from 66% the previous year. Perhaps even more tellingly, 88% said it was becoming harder to tell which content online was genuinely human or real.

And that problem isn't restricted to our ears. AI-generated images and deepfake videos are increasingly challenging the assumption that seeing or hearing something for yourself is proof that it really happened.

We used to be able to rely on a familiar voice as proof of identity, but it seems that in 2026 that's no longer enough. AI voice technology is only going to become more convincing, so our behavior needs to change with it.

Agree on a code word with the people closest to you now, and if you get an unexpected call asking for money, hang up and call them back.

Following the recent resignation of one of Anthropic’s leading researchers, multiple AI CEOs have suddenly begun calling for a slowdown in the development of AI technology to allow regulations and governance on the technology to catch up.

Speaking to the BBC after his resignation, Jacob Coxon warned, “I believe that if we don't slow down at the current rate of progress, there is a strong chance that we could all die in the immediate future.”

Following this, Anthropic head Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Grok founder Elon Musk have all apparently aligned in their calls for development to slow down. But there are some tricky waters to navigate - particularly around President Trump, China, and what guardrails should be put into place.

What are AI heads saying?

Over the weekend, Amodei posted an essay on “why the AI industry should slow down”. In it, he said, “I believe that if slowing down bought us even an extra year or two before models reach critical levels of capability, and we used that time to advance alignment, we could greatly reduce the risk that something goes seriously wrong.”

We Must Pace the Frontier: I’ve written a new essay on why the AI industry should slow down, with a three-part plan for doing so.Anthropic is unilaterally committing to the first of these steps. We’ll provide third-party evaluators with permanent, employee-level access to our systems, so that they can verify adherence to our safety measures, report on incidents, and assess models’ alignment during training.You can read the full post here: https://t.co/OGyPb7yaYtSeptember 12, 2026

Within the essay, Amodei outlined how AI could be ‘paced’ within the US, and globally, alongside a recommendation that AI companies put ‘evaluator’ teams into place to ensure AI models stay aligned to their tasks. Elon Musk replied to Amodei’s social media post, stating that the Anthropic head was “right”.

Sam Altman told Fortune the regulations and standards for AI further were “not at a place” to continue progressing AI development.

(Image credit: Future)

Got an opinion for us? Here’s how you can submit your perspective

But not everyone is convinced. US President Donald Trump has said that slowing down AI development is non-negotiable, as it would allow China to rapidly catch up to US AI capabilities. He told reporters that the US is “leading China on AI... and, frankly, I want to keep it that way,” adding that “whoever wins AI, wins”.

Trump also said that “very negative forces” were behind the growing opposition to AI, and said that fears were being stoked by “that won’t happen”.

China also isn’t convinced by what the AI giants are saying. Beijing labelled the calls for a slowdown as “fearmongering” from a “Cold War playbook.” In his essay, Amodei said that a “Chinese lead in AI would pose grave danger for the United States and the world.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said, “Fearmongering, confrontation and malicious competition will only disrupt the process of global AI governance and serve no one’s interests.”

Expert perspectives on calls for AI slowdown

• John Strand, Owner, Black Hills Information Security:

Up until this weekend, I was leaning toward believing that calls for an AI slowdown were purely performative. Then I woke up and read the news today and realized that it almost doesn’t matter.

We can talk about slowing down AI until we’re blue in the face, but when the United States is saying it doesn’t want to slow down because it’s competing with China, and China is aggressively pushing AI development as well, we’re talking about the two major economic and military powers on the planet having enormous incentives to keep moving.

This really feels like we’re entering an atomic arms race moment.

At that point, calls for a slowdown don’t have much bite.

I’d like to believe that Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, and the other frontier model labs are working on better controls. But unless you can get the nation states and the major AI labs moving in the same direction, I don’t see how meaningful restrictions actually work.

This really feels like we’re entering an atomic arms race moment.

Stick with me here.

In 1950, physicist Leó Szilárd publicly discussed the idea of a cobalt bomb, essentially a doomsday weapon that could potentially produce enough radioactive fallout to make the Earth uninhabitable. He wasn’t proposing that somebody build the damn thing. He was trying to demonstrate where the technology could ultimately lead.

That’s the kind of moment I think we’re approaching with AI.

During the nuclear arms race, eventually the consequences became serious enough that competing nations had to at least start talking about limits, controls, and ways to keep competition from ending catastrophically.

I think we’re heading toward a similar problem with AI. Until China, the United States, and the major frontier model labs are all sitting at the same table, restrictions adopted by individual companies or individual countries are going to have a very difficult time holding.

Someone slowing down only works if they believe the other guy is going to slow down too.

• Ryan McCurdy, VP, Liquibase:

Slowing frontier development may give AI companies more time to understand and address the risks Amodei is describing. But enterprises can’t build their AI strategy around the assumption that AI is going to slow down.

AI is already moving from generating content and code to taking action across software delivery and production systems. The question for enterprises is how they adopt that capability without giving up control.

We can debate how quickly the frontier should move. Enterprises still have to prepare for where it’s going.

That means putting governance where AI decisions become real actions. Organizations need to define what an agent can access, what it can change, what it can decide on its own, and what policies have to be met before a change reaches a critical system. Those controls need to work whether the action comes from a developer, automation, or an AI agent.

We can debate how quickly the frontier should move. Enterprises still have to prepare for where it’s going.

• Tristan Watkins, director of services innovation, Advania UK:

Until recently, the major AI labs have been reluctant to slow their development efforts unilaterally. Over the last week this changed, with new commitments from OpenAI and Anthropic to prioritise AI alignment and interpretability research, to become more externally verifiable, and to establish safety precedents that governments could adapt.

Hopefully this underscores why we need governments to lead these efforts more proactively.

Given that these two organisations already allocate far more on AI Safety than their competitors, this bilateral leadership is extremely welcome.

It appears that other US labs may follow suit, but given the differences in AI Safety spending outside of Anthropic and OpenAI today, this will require investment more than lip service. Hopefully this underscores why we need governments to lead these efforts more proactively.

• Oleksandr Yaremchuk, CTO and Co-Founder, Manifold Security:

Pacing the frontier is the right conversation to be having, but it cannot become a substitute for securing the AI we have already put into the world. The uncomfortable reality is that we are debating how to quickly build more powerful agents while struggling to control the ones already operating with real credentials, real access and real-world consequences.

The incidents behind this debate make that clear. The Hugging Face attack was not just a failure of model alignment. Agents ran for days through an unmonitored system, with credentials that had not been rotated, and the victim spotted the activity before the people running the agents did. The problem wasn't simply what the model was capable of. It was that nobody was watching closely enough when it acted.

But if an agent can act autonomously on your systems today, you should already be able to answer three basic questions: what did it do, what did it have access to, and could you have stopped it?

A fitting analogy is with hazardous materials. We don't just wait for them to become more dangerous before deciding how they should be handled. We control their custody, monitor where they go, limit who can access them and establish clear accountability when something goes wrong. AI agents need the same thinking.

Independent evaluation of frontier models is important. But if an agent can act autonomously on your systems today, you should already be able to answer three basic questions: what did it do, what did it have access to, and could you have stopped it? If you don't know what it did or what it could access, you can't know whether you could have stopped it. Slowing down the next generation won't solve the problem you have right now.

• Heath Mullins, Chief Evangelist, ExtraHop:

AI leaders calling for a slowdown is confirming what the security industry has already been living through firsthand. This isn't a hypothetical risk, it's the threat landscape we're defending against right now.

While it is concerning to see the pace of innovation behind these AI models, the real challenge is that organizations haven't had the runway to build the infrastructure to defend against machine-speed threats.

This isn't a hypothetical risk, it's the threat landscape we're defending against right now.

Calls for caution surrounding the speed of AI development buys the security industry time to get proper visibility into AI activity.

Understanding AI activity within an organization is critical as we’ve seen models break out of sandboxes despite governance built into those models. Every organization will be relying on AI agents for machine-speed defense, and they need their own governance over how these models and agents operate inside their environment, starting with independent evidence of what they actually do, what they access, where they move data, what systems they talk to, and what actions they take.

You can't govern AI based on what a model is designed or permitted to do. Instead, you need real-time evidence of what models and agents are actually doing, because the gap between exponentially more capable AI and defenders' ability to see it is exactly where the next incident happens.

• Bri Frost, Director of Product Management, Cloud Range:

The answer is not necessarily to stop AI innovation but, we need to stop pretending innovation and security are advancing at the same speed.

When ChatGPT became publicly available in 2022, the models were dramatically less capable than they are today — and the guardrails were very easy to manipulate. The difference is that the models behind those guardrails are no longer the models of 2022. They can reason better, write and debug code. They can operate as agents. They can collaborate! And increasingly, they can interact and affect real infrastructure.

The faster we build the engine, the more important the brakes become.

Meanwhile, the model release cycle has gone from feeling like major capability jumps every year or two to seemingly every few weeks. That creates a dangerous asymmetry: AI capability is compounding faster than security.

Security and innovation have always been in conflict with each other. If every security problem had to be solved before we innovated, we’d never ship anything. But the opposite extreme is just as reckless: accelerating capability while just assuming we’ll bolt the security controls on afterward and they’ll be effective.

Every new release of AI capability expands the attack surface exponentially. Give a vulnerable model better reasoning, then tool access, then memory, then autonomy, then connectivity to production systems, and yesterday’s jailbreak isn’t just a clever prompt anymore — it’s an execution path. That’s the snowball effect we should be worried about.

Responsibility also must lie with the AI companies. If a SaaS company knowingly shipped software with weak security controls and customers were harmed, we wouldn’t excuse it because they were 'innovating quickly'.

So why are we treating AI differently?

You don’t get to race to build increasingly powerful, autonomous systems, profit from them, and then shrug when predictable security failures cause damage.

Sure the argument can be made that no product is perfectly secure - That’s not the standard. But if you ship the product, you inherit responsibility for securing it. And continuing to secure it better!

The conversation shouldn’t simply be “Should we slow AI down?”

It should be: Can our ability to test, validate, contain and secure AI keep pace with our ability to make it more powerful? Is there an equivocal kill switch?

Right now, the answer is no.

And if we’re going to keep accelerating — which I believe we will — then independent testing, adversarial evaluation, isolated testing environments, containment, continuous validation and security-by-design can’t remain optional steps we add after the innovation happens.

The faster we build the engine, the more important the brakes become.

• Denis Calderone, CTO, Suzu Labs:

Amodei's diagnosis is the most honest thing a frontier lab CEO has said publicly. The agent risk is real, recursive self-improvement is accelerating, and the competitive pressure is making both worse.

Where I get skeptical is the prescription. Democratic coordination among companies in a commercial race? Global pacing agreements with China? Amodei himself rates the hardest steps as unlikely. No lab has named a single model release they'll delay because of this essay.

No lab has named a single model release they'll delay because of this essay.

The one idea worth holding the industry to is embedded evaluators with independent publication rights. Give third-party safety researchers permanent access inside the labs, comparable to what bank examiners have inside banks, and let them publish what they find without the company controlling the narrative. That's a simple, concrete accountability mechanism. It doesn't require global coordination or antitrust waivers. Anthropic says they're committing to it unilaterally. Good. Now make the rest of the industry match.

• Donald McFarlane, Board Member, Xcape Inc:

AI does not develop an agenda; its operators do. When we give an autonomous system powerful access and ability to act at machine speed, they will continue to prove highly capable.

AI does not develop an agenda; its operators do.

Rules enacted in the name of safety must not become a moat against competition or progress. Enormous compliance costs may be manageable for the handful of companies already spending billions building frontier models, while becoming a substantial barrier to everyone behind them.

Government can help clarify accountability and duties of care, and facilitate strong information sharing and collective defense, which is an area where we sorely need more effective public-private partnerships.

But safeguards should focus on how these systems are used and deployed, rather than deciding who is allowed to build powerful AI in the first place.

The goal should be safer deployment without pulling up the drawbridge on innovation.

How do I submit my own perspective on emerging news?

If you have an expert perspective you would like to share on an emerging story or particular topic, please get in contact here: benedict.collins@futurenet.com

Following the recent resignation of one of Anthropic’s leading researchers, multiple AI CEOs have suddenly begun calling for a slowdown in the development of AI technology to allow regulations and governance on the technology to catch up.

Speaking to the BBC after his resignation, Jacob Coxon warned, “I believe that if we don't slow down at the current rate of progress, there is a strong chance that we could all die in the immediate future.”

Following this, Anthropic head Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Grok founder Elon Musk have all apparently aligned in their calls for development to slow down. But there are some tricky waters to navigate - particularly around President Trump, China, and what guardrails should be put into place.

What are AI heads saying?

Over the weekend, Amodei posted an essay on “why the AI industry should slow down”. In it, he said, “I believe that if slowing down bought us even an extra year or two before models reach critical levels of capability, and we used that time to advance alignment, we could greatly reduce the risk that something goes seriously wrong.”

We Must Pace the Frontier: I’ve written a new essay on why the AI industry should slow down, with a three-part plan for doing so.Anthropic is unilaterally committing to the first of these steps. We’ll provide third-party evaluators with permanent, employee-level access to our systems, so that they can verify adherence to our safety measures, report on incidents, and assess models’ alignment during training.You can read the full post here: https://t.co/OGyPb7yaYtSeptember 12, 2026

Within the essay, Amodei outlined how AI could be ‘paced’ within the US, and globally, alongside a recommendation that AI companies put ‘evaluator’ teams into place to ensure AI models stay aligned to their tasks. Elon Musk replied to Amodei’s social media post, stating that the Anthropic head was “right”.

Sam Altman told Fortune the regulations and standards for AI further were “not at a place” to continue progressing AI development.

(Image credit: Future)

Got an opinion for us? Here’s how you can submit your perspective

But not everyone is convinced. US President Donald Trump has said that slowing down AI development is non-negotiable, as it would allow China to rapidly catch up to US AI capabilities. He told reporters that the US is “leading China on AI... and, frankly, I want to keep it that way,” adding that “whoever wins AI, wins”.

Trump also said that “very negative forces” were behind the growing opposition to AI, and said that fears were being stoked by “that won’t happen”.

China also isn’t convinced by what the AI giants are saying. Beijing labelled the calls for a slowdown as “fearmongering” from a “Cold War playbook.” In his essay, Amodei said that a “Chinese lead in AI would pose grave danger for the United States and the world.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said, “Fearmongering, confrontation and malicious competition will only disrupt the process of global AI governance and serve no one’s interests.”

Expert perspectives on calls for AI slowdown

• John Strand, Owner, Black Hills Information Security:

Up until this weekend, I was leaning toward believing that calls for an AI slowdown were purely performative. Then I woke up and read the news today and realized that it almost doesn’t matter.

We can talk about slowing down AI until we’re blue in the face, but when the United States is saying it doesn’t want to slow down because it’s competing with China, and China is aggressively pushing AI development as well, we’re talking about the two major economic and military powers on the planet having enormous incentives to keep moving.

This really feels like we’re entering an atomic arms race moment.

At that point, calls for a slowdown don’t have much bite.

I’d like to believe that Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, and the other frontier model labs are working on better controls. But unless you can get the nation states and the major AI labs moving in the same direction, I don’t see how meaningful restrictions actually work.

This really feels like we’re entering an atomic arms race moment.

Stick with me here.

In 1950, physicist Leó Szilárd publicly discussed the idea of a cobalt bomb, essentially a doomsday weapon that could potentially produce enough radioactive fallout to make the Earth uninhabitable. He wasn’t proposing that somebody build the damn thing. He was trying to demonstrate where the technology could ultimately lead.

That’s the kind of moment I think we’re approaching with AI.

During the nuclear arms race, eventually the consequences became serious enough that competing nations had to at least start talking about limits, controls, and ways to keep competition from ending catastrophically.

I think we’re heading toward a similar problem with AI. Until China, the United States, and the major frontier model labs are all sitting at the same table, restrictions adopted by individual companies or individual countries are going to have a very difficult time holding.

Someone slowing down only works if they believe the other guy is going to slow down too.

• Ryan McCurdy, VP, Liquibase:

Slowing frontier development may give AI companies more time to understand and address the risks Amodei is describing. But enterprises can’t build their AI strategy around the assumption that AI is going to slow down.

AI is already moving from generating content and code to taking action across software delivery and production systems. The question for enterprises is how they adopt that capability without giving up control.

We can debate how quickly the frontier should move. Enterprises still have to prepare for where it’s going.

That means putting governance where AI decisions become real actions. Organizations need to define what an agent can access, what it can change, what it can decide on its own, and what policies have to be met before a change reaches a critical system. Those controls need to work whether the action comes from a developer, automation, or an AI agent.

We can debate how quickly the frontier should move. Enterprises still have to prepare for where it’s going.

• Tristan Watkins, director of services innovation, Advania UK:

Until recently, the major AI labs have been reluctant to slow their development efforts unilaterally. Over the last week this changed, with new commitments from OpenAI and Anthropic to prioritise AI alignment and interpretability research, to become more externally verifiable, and to establish safety precedents that governments could adapt.

Hopefully this underscores why we need governments to lead these efforts more proactively.

Given that these two organisations already allocate far more on AI Safety than their competitors, this bilateral leadership is extremely welcome.

It appears that other US labs may follow suit, but given the differences in AI Safety spending outside of Anthropic and OpenAI today, this will require investment more than lip service. Hopefully this underscores why we need governments to lead these efforts more proactively.

• Oleksandr Yaremchuk, CTO and Co-Founder, Manifold Security:

Pacing the frontier is the right conversation to be having, but it cannot become a substitute for securing the AI we have already put into the world. The uncomfortable reality is that we are debating how to quickly build more powerful agents while struggling to control the ones already operating with real credentials, real access and real-world consequences.

The incidents behind this debate make that clear. The Hugging Face attack was not just a failure of model alignment. Agents ran for days through an unmonitored system, with credentials that had not been rotated, and the victim spotted the activity before the people running the agents did. The problem wasn't simply what the model was capable of. It was that nobody was watching closely enough when it acted.

But if an agent can act autonomously on your systems today, you should already be able to answer three basic questions: what did it do, what did it have access to, and could you have stopped it?

A fitting analogy is with hazardous materials. We don't just wait for them to become more dangerous before deciding how they should be handled. We control their custody, monitor where they go, limit who can access them and establish clear accountability when something goes wrong. AI agents need the same thinking.

Independent evaluation of frontier models is important. But if an agent can act autonomously on your systems today, you should already be able to answer three basic questions: what did it do, what did it have access to, and could you have stopped it? If you don't know what it did or what it could access, you can't know whether you could have stopped it. Slowing down the next generation won't solve the problem you have right now.

• Heath Mullins, Chief Evangelist, ExtraHop:

AI leaders calling for a slowdown is confirming what the security industry has already been living through firsthand. This isn't a hypothetical risk, it's the threat landscape we're defending against right now.

While it is concerning to see the pace of innovation behind these AI models, the real challenge is that organizations haven't had the runway to build the infrastructure to defend against machine-speed threats.

This isn't a hypothetical risk, it's the threat landscape we're defending against right now.

Calls for caution surrounding the speed of AI development buys the security industry time to get proper visibility into AI activity.

Understanding AI activity within an organization is critical as we’ve seen models break out of sandboxes despite governance built into those models. Every organization will be relying on AI agents for machine-speed defense, and they need their own governance over how these models and agents operate inside their environment, starting with independent evidence of what they actually do, what they access, where they move data, what systems they talk to, and what actions they take.

You can't govern AI based on what a model is designed or permitted to do. Instead, you need real-time evidence of what models and agents are actually doing, because the gap between exponentially more capable AI and defenders' ability to see it is exactly where the next incident happens.

• Bri Frost, Director of Product Management, Cloud Range:

The answer is not necessarily to stop AI innovation but, we need to stop pretending innovation and security are advancing at the same speed.

When ChatGPT became publicly available in 2022, the models were dramatically less capable than they are today — and the guardrails were very easy to manipulate. The difference is that the models behind those guardrails are no longer the models of 2022. They can reason better, write and debug code. They can operate as agents. They can collaborate! And increasingly, they can interact and affect real infrastructure.

The faster we build the engine, the more important the brakes become.

Meanwhile, the model release cycle has gone from feeling like major capability jumps every year or two to seemingly every few weeks. That creates a dangerous asymmetry: AI capability is compounding faster than security.

Security and innovation have always been in conflict with each other. If every security problem had to be solved before we innovated, we’d never ship anything. But the opposite extreme is just as reckless: accelerating capability while just assuming we’ll bolt the security controls on afterward and they’ll be effective.

Every new release of AI capability expands the attack surface exponentially. Give a vulnerable model better reasoning, then tool access, then memory, then autonomy, then connectivity to production systems, and yesterday’s jailbreak isn’t just a clever prompt anymore — it’s an execution path. That’s the snowball effect we should be worried about.

Responsibility also must lie with the AI companies. If a SaaS company knowingly shipped software with weak security controls and customers were harmed, we wouldn’t excuse it because they were 'innovating quickly'.

So why are we treating AI differently?

You don’t get to race to build increasingly powerful, autonomous systems, profit from them, and then shrug when predictable security failures cause damage.

Sure the argument can be made that no product is perfectly secure - That’s not the standard. But if you ship the product, you inherit responsibility for securing it. And continuing to secure it better!

The conversation shouldn’t simply be “Should we slow AI down?”

It should be: Can our ability to test, validate, contain and secure AI keep pace with our ability to make it more powerful? Is there an equivocal kill switch?

Right now, the answer is no.

And if we’re going to keep accelerating — which I believe we will — then independent testing, adversarial evaluation, isolated testing environments, containment, continuous validation and security-by-design can’t remain optional steps we add after the innovation happens.

The faster we build the engine, the more important the brakes become.

• Denis Calderone, CTO, Suzu Labs:

Amodei's diagnosis is the most honest thing a frontier lab CEO has said publicly. The agent risk is real, recursive self-improvement is accelerating, and the competitive pressure is making both worse.

Where I get skeptical is the prescription. Democratic coordination among companies in a commercial race? Global pacing agreements with China? Amodei himself rates the hardest steps as unlikely. No lab has named a single model release they'll delay because of this essay.

No lab has named a single model release they'll delay because of this essay.

The one idea worth holding the industry to is embedded evaluators with independent publication rights. Give third-party safety researchers permanent access inside the labs, comparable to what bank examiners have inside banks, and let them publish what they find without the company controlling the narrative. That's a simple, concrete accountability mechanism. It doesn't require global coordination or antitrust waivers. Anthropic says they're committing to it unilaterally. Good. Now make the rest of the industry match.

• Donald McFarlane, Board Member, Xcape Inc:

AI does not develop an agenda; its operators do. When we give an autonomous system powerful access and ability to act at machine speed, they will continue to prove highly capable.

AI does not develop an agenda; its operators do.

Rules enacted in the name of safety must not become a moat against competition or progress. Enormous compliance costs may be manageable for the handful of companies already spending billions building frontier models, while becoming a substantial barrier to everyone behind them.

Government can help clarify accountability and duties of care, and facilitate strong information sharing and collective defense, which is an area where we sorely need more effective public-private partnerships.

But safeguards should focus on how these systems are used and deployed, rather than deciding who is allowed to build powerful AI in the first place.

The goal should be safer deployment without pulling up the drawbridge on innovation.

How do I submit my own perspective on emerging news?

If you have an expert perspective you would like to share on an emerging story or particular topic, please get in contact here: benedict.collins@futurenet.com

• Amazon is still selling fake 'energy-saving' plugs despite having pledged to remove them
• Which? first spotted them in 2025, and Amazon said they had been removed
• The retailer promised to remove them for a second time in August, but they're still available to purchase

Fake ‘energy-saving’ plugs are one of the biggest tech scams, and they’re still being sold on Amazon even though the retailer promised MPs it would remove the product listings.

Liberal Democrat MP Joshua Reynolds highlighted the dangers of the plugs — which can pose a fire risk — during a hearing back in June, calling for the retailer to take accountability.

In August, Amazon’s UK Director of Public Policy, Monica Ariño, issued a letter to the House of Commons Business and Trade Select Committee saying the devices had been removed from sale, adding that there was "a technical issue in [our] automated classification system that was preventing some of these products from being proactively detected".

This isn’t the first time Amazon has promised to remove fake plugs. Back in 2025, Which? first spotted these ‘energy-saving’ plugs and approached retailers with their findings, resulting in their removal from stores. However, identical products were found on Amazon just weeks later.

(Image credit: Future)

Despite Amazon's most recent pledge to remove the plugs from sale, they're still available to purchase from the retailer. We’ve checked Amazon UK’s page and found that these products are still live — the Telegraph (£) has also spotted similar listings.

Now, Reynolds says he’ll be writing to Amazon asking for an explanation, adding that "Amazon has got some proper questions they have to answer. These are exactly the same products tested by Which?". He also claims that these plugs are appearing as sponsored ads at the top of Amazon’s listing pages.

As mentioned, these devices were first spotted during a test carried out by Which?, for where it tested eight devices from sites including eBay, AliExpress, Shein, and TikTok Shop. It found no evidence that the plugs actually worked, and noted that it would be illegal to sell them in the UK, as they didn't meet basic safety standards.

Which? found that each plug it tested had ill-fitted socket pins (Image credit: Which? )

So how are these plugs claimed to cut your energy bills? Based on the product listings we’ve found, Amazon’s ‘energy-saving’ plugs are advertised as ‘voltage stabilizers’ and ‘surge protectors’, and are claimed to significantly cut your energy bills by optimizing the performance of your household appliances.

At a time when energy bills are increasing, it’s an easy sales pitch to make, and they’re also affordably priced (usually around the £10-£15 mark), making them seem to be a worthwhile puchase.

However, it's claimed that the devices are a fire hazard, and also pose an electrocution risk. According to the tests conducted by Which?, more than half of the plugs’ socket pins were either too small, not straight, or were so frail they just snapped off.

Other tests found that some of the plugs failed to meet basic safety measures due to poor manufacturing, including non-standard capacitors and soldering.

Amazon hasn't yet commented on the current status of these product listings, or responded to the latest claims. We've asked the company for a comment, and will update this story if we get a response.

• Amazon is still selling fake 'energy-saving' plugs despite having pledged to remove them
• Which? first spotted them in 2025, and Amazon said they had been removed
• The retailer promised to remove them for a second time in August, but they're still available to purchase

Fake ‘energy-saving’ plugs are one of the biggest tech scams, and they’re still being sold on Amazon even though the retailer promised MPs it would remove the product listings.

Liberal Democrat MP Joshua Reynolds highlighted the dangers of the plugs — which can pose a fire risk — during a hearing back in June, calling for the retailer to take accountability.

In August, Amazon’s UK Director of Public Policy, Monica Ariño, issued a letter to the House of Commons Business and Trade Select Committee saying the devices had been removed from sale, adding that there was "a technical issue in [our] automated classification system that was preventing some of these products from being proactively detected".

This isn’t the first time Amazon has promised to remove fake plugs. Back in 2025, Which? first spotted these ‘energy-saving’ plugs and approached retailers with their findings, resulting in their removal from stores. However, identical products were found on Amazon just weeks later.

(Image credit: Future)

Despite Amazon's most recent pledge to remove the plugs from sale, they're still available to purchase from the retailer. We’ve checked Amazon UK’s page and found that these products are still live — the Telegraph (£) has also spotted similar listings.

Now, Reynolds says he’ll be writing to Amazon asking for an explanation, adding that "Amazon has got some proper questions they have to answer. These are exactly the same products tested by Which?". He also claims that these plugs are appearing as sponsored ads at the top of Amazon’s listing pages.

As mentioned, these devices were first spotted during a test carried out by Which?, for where it tested eight devices from sites including eBay, AliExpress, Shein, and TikTok Shop. It found no evidence that the plugs actually worked, and noted that it would be illegal to sell them in the UK, as they didn't meet basic safety standards.

Which? found that each plug it tested had ill-fitted socket pins (Image credit: Which? )

So how are these plugs claimed to cut your energy bills? Based on the product listings we’ve found, Amazon’s ‘energy-saving’ plugs are advertised as ‘voltage stabilizers’ and ‘surge protectors’, and are claimed to significantly cut your energy bills by optimizing the performance of your household appliances.

At a time when energy bills are increasing, it’s an easy sales pitch to make, and they’re also affordably priced (usually around the £10-£15 mark), making them seem to be a worthwhile puchase.

However, it's claimed that the devices are a fire hazard, and also pose an electrocution risk. According to the tests conducted by Which?, more than half of the plugs’ socket pins were either too small, not straight, or were so frail they just snapped off.

Other tests found that some of the plugs failed to meet basic safety measures due to poor manufacturing, including non-standard capacitors and soldering.

Amazon hasn't yet commented on the current status of these product listings, or responded to the latest claims. We've asked the company for a comment, and will update this story if we get a response.

Welcome to our live coverage of Dreamforce 2026!

We're on the ground in San Francisco and ready to cover all the big news and events happening this week.

We'll see keynotes from CEO Marc Benioff, likely joined by a number of special guests, along with new product announcements and much more - so stay tuned to TechRadar Pro for all the latest updates.

When is Dreamforce 2026?

Dreamforce 2026 is taking place Tuesday 15th - Thursday 17th September 2026.

What time does Dreamforce 2026 start?

Dreamforce 2026 kicks off at 10am PST on Tuesday 15 September, when CEO Marc Benioff starts things off with his usual opening keynote.

Where is Dreamforce 2026?

Dreamforce 2026 is taking place at the Moscone Conference Center (all of it, that's how big it is) and a variety of other downtown locations in San Francisco, California.

Can I attend Dreamforce 2026?

You can - but be quick! The last few tickets are selling fast.

Can I watch Dreamforce 2026 online?

You can indeed - the company is streaming much of the event on its Salesforce+ platform, where they will be a dedicated Dreamforce+ section showing 400+ sessions, virtual hands-on trainings, and more.

If you aren't already signed up, you can register for Salesforce+ for free today.

What should we expect?

One of the best things about Dreamforce for us is that there's always so much going on - lots of news, product announcements and more.

From the Salesforce side, we're all set to hear about its latest and greatest AI announcements and updates. Last year was all about AI agents, and the company is now set to reveal more changes to Agentforce 360 which can help make workers more productive than ever.

As for Slack, it recently announced Slackforce, promising deeper connection with the Salesforce platforms, with AI agents now able to do more than ever before - so we'll doubtless hear more about that.

And alongside that, you've got Tableau, Mulesoft, and all of the company's other arms, all of which will doubtless have new things to shout about.

There's always room for something a little extra with Salesforce too - whether that's the traditional Ohana greeting, Matthew McConaghey-voiced intro videos, celebrity cameos and musical guests, it always keeps us on our toes.

September 14, 2026 – 10:44 AM

Hello from San Francisco! We're excited for a week of Dreamforce, so stay tuned for all the latest updates as they happen.

The event kicks off tomorrow (Tuesday 15) so we'll try and get a sneak peek at the site (affectionally known as the Campgrounds) and anything else we spy.

Welcome to our live coverage of Dreamforce 2026!

We're on the ground in San Francisco and ready to cover all the big news and events happening this week.

We'll see keynotes from CEO Marc Benioff, likely joined by a number of special guests, along with new product announcements and much more - so stay tuned to TechRadar Pro for all the latest updates.

When is Dreamforce 2026?

Dreamforce 2026 is taking place Tuesday 15th - Thursday 17th September 2026.

What time does Dreamforce 2026 start?

Dreamforce 2026 kicks off at 10am PST on Tuesday 15 September, when CEO Marc Benioff starts things off with his usual opening keynote.

Where is Dreamforce 2026?

Dreamforce 2026 is taking place at the Moscone Conference Center (all of it, that's how big it is) and a variety of other downtown locations in San Francisco, California.

Can I attend Dreamforce 2026?

You can - but be quick! The last few tickets are selling fast.

Can I watch Dreamforce 2026 online?

You can indeed - the company is streaming much of the event on its Salesforce+ platform, where they will be a dedicated Dreamforce+ section showing 400+ sessions, virtual hands-on trainings, and more.

If you aren't already signed up, you can register for Salesforce+ for free today.

What should we expect?

One of the best things about Dreamforce for us is that there's always so much going on - lots of news, product announcements and more.

From the Salesforce side, we're all set to hear about its latest and greatest AI announcements and updates. Last year was all about AI agents, and the company is now set to reveal more changes to Agentforce 360 which can help make workers more productive than ever.

As for Slack, it recently announced Slackforce, promising deeper connection with the Salesforce platforms, with AI agents now able to do more than ever before - so we'll doubtless hear more about that.

And alongside that, you've got Tableau, Mulesoft, and all of the company's other arms, all of which will doubtless have new things to shout about.

There's always room for something a little extra with Salesforce too - whether that's the traditional Ohana greeting, Matthew McConaghey-voiced intro videos, celebrity cameos and musical guests, it always keeps us on our toes.

September 14, 2026 – 10:44 AM

Hello from San Francisco! We're excited for a week of Dreamforce, so stay tuned for all the latest updates as they happen.

The event kicks off tomorrow (Tuesday 15) so we'll try and get a sneak peek at the site (affectionally known as the Campgrounds) and anything else we spy.