Technology

• Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls just got its first gameplay deep dive
• This beginner's guide focuses on game mechanics and the tag system
• It seems wholly different to how tagging worked in the Marvel vs. Capcom series

PlayStation Studios and Arc System Works has released the official beginner's guide for Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, an upcoming fighting game scheduled to release in 2026.

Uploaded via IGN's YouTube channel, the beginner's guide gives us our first comprehensive look at Fighting Souls' gameplay - including its overall style, button layout, and initially bizarre tag mechanics.

A 4v4 2D fighting game, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls has you selecting a team of four heroes (or villains) from its character roster. You first is your 'leader' character, whom you'll assume control of in battle. The other three are your assists, and they'll perform different actions based on which slot they're in.

The beginner's guide makes it abundantly clear that you won't have access to your full team at the start of a match, however. You'll begin with just two, and you'll need to unlock your third and fourth through various actions. These include successfully throwing your opponent, performing a stage transition by knocking your opponent off the edge of the screen, or losing a round.

This certainly isn't what I was expecting, and is an incredibly novel take on the tag fighter formula. That said, Fighting Souls will still feel somewhat familiar to Arc System Works fans in other areas.

Like Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, each character has light, medium, and heavy buttons which can be strung together for a combo. With enough meter, these 'auto combos' can end in special or ultimate moves depending on the input string. Everyone also has a button dedicated to their unique skill, such as Iron Man's missiles or Doctor Doom's shield.

It's quite a lot to take in, but I think the real complexity will come into the placement of your assist characters. There are three types of assist - shooter, vertical, and assault - so picking the right character for the role will undoubtedly lead to hours upon hours of experimentation.

There's no release date for Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls just yet, outside of its 2026 window. However, with Sony's large-scale EVO 2025 fighting game event happening over the weekend, I'm expecting even more news for the game. Perhaps some character trailers or a more concrete release date.

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• The average UK SMB now invests 36% of its annual revenue in new tech
• Finances and payments are common use cases
• Only 1% of companies remain non-tech-users

Britain's small and medium-sized businesses are investing more than a third (36%) of their annual revenue in new tools and technology, new Worldpay data has said, with most (90%) also agreeing tech investments have already significantly boosted efficiency.

Among the most popular areas for new tech investments across all type of UK SMBs are financial management (54%), marketing and sales (49%) and payment processing (47%), with employee management, inventory control and CRM also seeing a healthy boost.

On the flip side, only 1% of SMBs are now not using any technology, compared with one in five (20%) a decade ago, marking a huge departure from old ways.

UK SMBs are mostly tech-first

"This digital transformation is not just a trend - it's a vital evolution that enhances productivity, efficiency, and customer satisfaction," Worldpay GM for SMB International Chris Wood explained.

A number of factors could have contributed to the rise in spend on digital platforms, but the post-pandemic behavioral shift could lead them. Customers now expect contactless and omnichannel services that are fast and instant.

Then, there are the regulatory hurdles, for example HMRC's Making Tax Digital mandate which requires bookkeeping to be completed using certain reporting software.

"Worldpay is on a mission provide SMBs with the right technology, empowering independent businesses to compete on a level playing field and thrive," Wood added.

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• CMA says UK cloud market is uncompetitive
• AWS and Microsoft account for 30-40% of the UK market each
• The two companies disagree with the CMA's findings

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has determined Britain's cloud market shows too many anticompetitive traits, with Microsoft and AWS each holding around 30-40% of the UK market in 2024 and hyperscaler concentration especially high in infrastructure-as-a-service.

At the same time, fewer than 1% of customers switch providers annually and multicloud usage is rare (particularly among SMEs with more limited budgets).

The CMA has blamed high egress fees, incompatible interfaces, latency and skills gaps for widespread vendor lock-in, which is ultimately weakening competition.

CMA worried about AWS and Microsoft cloud market dominance

Behind the two hyperscalers, Google accounts for just 5-10% of the market, with others like IBM and Oracle having even smaller shares. Although AI capabilities are yet to change market dynamics drastically, existing positions are likely to be amplified, thus the CMA has stepped in to ensure competition remains healthy.

In its Final Decision ruling, the CMA took the biggest hits at Microsoft over its unfair licensing practices, which make it costlier to run Microsoft software on rival cloud providers.

A Microsoft spokesperson told TechRadar Pro: "The CMA Panel’s most recent publication misses the mark again, ignoring that the cloud market has never been so dynamic and competitive, with record investment, and rapid, AI-driven changes. Its recommendations fail to cover Google, one of the fastest-growing cloud market participants."

"Microsoft looks forward to working with the Digital Markets Unit toward an outcome that more accurately reflects the current competition in cloud that benefits UK customers," they continued.

"The action proposed by the Inquiry Group is unwarranted and undermines the substantial investment and innovation that have already benefited hundreds of thousands of UK businesses," an AWS spokesperson added.

On the flip side, Google supported the CMA's findings: "The conclusive finding that restrictive licensing harms cloud customers and competition is a watershed moment for the UK."

Elsewhere in the industry, the CMA has been criticized for not acting fast enough and addressing persistent issues like cloud credits, lock-in and procurement bias.

"We urge the CMA to use the powers at its disposal now to address these harms, rather than embark upon a new investigation that may not give customers relief for years to come," Coalition for Fair Software Licensing Executive Director Ryan Triplette shared.

Looking ahead, the CMA's next step is to designate Microsoft and AWS with strategic market status (SMS) under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (DMCC) Act, allowing it to impose legally binding, targeted conduct requirements on the two giants.

"A significant driver of high cloud computing bills is the consolidation of the market into a handful of players. Until recently, these companies have been the only game in town, so they’ve been able to set the rules of the market, for example, including egress fees for switching, long lock-in periods, and more. In fact, Gartner has observed that most customers spend 10% to 15% of their cloud bill on egress charges," noted Akamai's John Bradshaw.

"UK businesses are under huge cost pressures. We need to make it easier for them to switch cloud computing providers and find pricing options that better fit their balance sheets."

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Cyber-attacks continue to dominate headlines, disrupting operations and putting sensitive data at risk. In the wake of the AI boom, threats are growing more complex. The endless game between attacker and defender is intensifying, and defenders know the stakes are high. Operational, financial, and reputational damage can be severe when an attack succeeds.

At the same time, security teams face a widening skills gap, growing threat complexity and tighter budgets. It’s a perfect storm for burnout. In fact, 79% of cybersecurity professionals reported that escalating threats are impacting their mental health, highlighting the need for an empathetic approach to these challenges.

Prevention as the shield, resilience as the backbone

Historically, organizations have measured cybersecurity success by how well they prevent attacks. But with 90% of IT and security leaders reporting cyber incidents in the past year alone, it’s clear that prevention alone is no longer enough.

It’s time to shift the focus towards recovery, transparency, and resilience. Resilience shouldn’t be seen as a fallback – it needs to become the frontline. This shift in mindset not only better prepares organizations for inevitable breaches but also reduces pressure on teams by redefining what success looks like.

When teams are judged on their ability to recover and minimize disruption (not just prevent attacks), they’re empowered to focus on what matters; early detection, rapid response, and recovery planning. This reduces burnout and builds stronger long-term security posture.

We must also accept a hard truth; breaches will happen. Rather than fueling a culture of blame, we need to equip teams to respond effectively and confidently.

Securing the security team with transparency

As ever, collaboration in a crisis is critical. Security teams working closely with backup, resilience and recovery functions are better able to absorb shocks. When the business is confident in its ability to restore operations, security professionals face less pressure and uncertainty.

This is also true for communication, especially post-breach. Organizations need to be transparent about how they’re containing the incident and what’s being done to prevent recurrence. Trust drives everything and must be built into architecture, communication, and response, from user behavior to board confidence.

Shared risk, shared responsibility

As seen with the recent retail cyber-attacks in the UK, the implications of a cyber breach can be business critical. Yet many CISOs still struggle to get alignment at board level. Over three-quarters (77%) of UK CISOs feel that their IT budget is not completely reflected by their board’s objectives for cybersecurity.

To make matters worse, this is heightened when it comes to regulatory pressures. New legislation like DORA and the upcoming Cyber Security and Resilience Bill is turning up the heat, with over half (58%) of CISOs feeling the pressure as a direct result.

There is also an element of the blame game going on, with everyone keen to avoid responsibility for an inevitable cyber breach. It’s much easier to point fingers at the IT team than to look at the wider implications or causes of a cyber-attack. Even something as simple as a phishing email can cause widespread problems and is something that individual employees must be aware of. Security is everyone’s business - the attack surface isn’t just focused on IT, it’s every team, tool, and workflow.

This critical gap jeopardizes not only an organizations' security posture but also their ability to meet evolving regulatory demands. CISOs, boards, and other stakeholders must work together to ensure that cyber resilience priorities are clearly defined, adequately funded, and effectively implemented to meet the evolving regulatory landscape.

The weight of responsibility for cyber security shouldn’t just lie on the security team’s shoulders. Cyber resilience is business resilience and security leaders, boards and stakeholders all have a part to play.

Building teams that thrive

To build and retain a capable cybersecurity team amid the widening skills gap, CISOs must lead a shift in both mindset and strategy. By embedding resilience into the core of cyber strategy, CISOs can reduce the relentless pressure to be perfect and create a healthier, more sustainable working environment.

But resilience isn't built in isolation. To truly address burnout and retention, CISOs need C-suite support and cultural change. Cybersecurity must be treated as a shared business-critical priority, not just an IT function. This means aligning investment with board expectations, embedding security into daily operations and ensuring every employee understands their role.

With regulatory pressure rising and the threat landscape evolving, resilience isn’t just a technical necessity, it’s a strategic imperative. CISOs who champion collaboration, drive cultural change, and lead with empathy will be best positioned to build security teams that are not only effective but built to last.

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This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro's Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro

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• Nvidia has announced that support for GTX 10 series GPUs ends in October 2025
• After that, these graphics cards, including the GTX 1060, will only get security fixes
• It also announced that Windows 10 support will run through to October 2026, mirroring Microsoft's extended support program for the OS

Nvidia has released a new graphics driver and announced that it'll soon be drawing the curtain on support for GeForce GTX 10 series GPUs, as well as GTX 900 models - and the end for Windows 10 gamers will follow a year later.

As Ars Technica highlighted, the release notes for driver version 580.88 came with the revelation that graphics cards based on Maxwell and Pascal architecture - meaning GTX 900 and 10 series products - will witness their final driver release in October 2025.

After that, they will only get quarterly security updates to patch them against vulnerabilities, and that's all. Security patches will finish in October 2028 for these products, too.

If October 2025 rings a bell, that's because it's also the month when Microsoft casts aside support for Windows 10, and that's also wrapped up in this Nvidia announcement.

Team Green said that it's extending Game Ready Driver support for Windows 10 to October 2026, to mirror the extended support Microsoft is offering consumers who want to stick with the OS, and not upgrade to Windows 11 yet. Or indeed people who may not be able to upgrade to the newer operating system, due to their PC not meeting the hardware requirements.

This move comes as no surprise, as Nvidia already told us back at the start of July that the v580 drivers would be the last to support Maxwell and Pascal graphics cards - we just didn't know exactly when the cut-off was coming, and now we do.

(Image credit: Nvidia)If you're affected, what does this mean exactly?

As stated, there are two categories of PC gamers who this affects: those with GTX 10 model GPUs, like the GTX 1060, and those running Windows 10. Further, some folks will be in both camps, no doubt - maybe quite a few.

GTX 10 series graphics cards are still reasonably popular in some cases (whereas GTX 900 products have pretty much dwindled away to nothing). In fact, the GTX 1060 is actually the 12th most popular GPU according to the latest Steam hardware survey - and once reigned supreme - so it's still seeing a lot of use.

After October 2025, this GPU, along with other 10 series offerings like the 1070 and 1080, will only receive security updates. That means they'll still be safe to use - patched against any exploits in drivers that may be found by the bad actors out there - but they won't get support for new games or features.

So, as time rolls on, you'll find that your trusty GTX 1060 becomes wonkier and less reliable with new games, as its final driver version ages and generally gets more erratic. Note that if you stick with old games, which were catered for before game support was frozen, you should be fine, at least in theory.

As for those on Windows 10, you'll be okay for another year yet. You'll still have full driver support through to October 2026, as noted, so you'll be fine until then. Assuming you keep Windows 10 itself secure, of course - using Microsoft's offer of extended support, which is now free, with a slight catch.

After October 2026, though, you'll need to upgrade to Windows 11, or you won't get new drivers – so no game support, or security patches either – no matter how new your Nvidia GPU is.

At this point, you're really looking at a Windows 11 upgrade - or a switch to something else entirely - unless Microsoft extends Windows 10 support further for consumers beyond 2026 (which seems unlikely, but could happen). In which case, Nvidia might again mirror the move with its own drivers - given that's what has happened here - but nothing's guaranteed by any means.

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• One in six US workers say they lie about using AI to meet job expectations
• Engineers who use AI are the new threat, not the tools themselves
• Many workers copy AI-literate peers just to appear competent in modern workplaces

As AI tools spread across office environments, many US workers now find themselves in an odd situation: pretending to use artificial intelligence at work.

A recent survey by tech recruitment firm Howdy.com found that one in six employees claim to lie about using AI.

This phenomenon appears to be a reaction not only to managerial expectations but also to deeper insecurities around job stability in an AI saturated landscape.

Survival of the most artificial

Underneath the behavior is what some are calling “AI-nxiety,” an unease born from conflicting narratives.

On the one hand, companies urge employees to embrace AI to boost productivity; on the other hand, those same workers are warned that AI, or someone more skilled at using it, could soon replace them.

This sense of pressure is particularly acute when considering workers who fear being displaced by technically skilled peers, such as engineers who actively use LLM based systems and other AI tools.

As one commenter put it on The Register: “You may lose your job to an engineer who uses AI.”

For some, the message is clear: adapt or get left behind.

In late 2023, a survey by EY found that two thirds of white collar US workers feared being passed over for promotion by AI savvy colleagues.

In this environment, mimicking the behavior of the AI literate becomes a way to hedge against obsolescence.

Further complicating the picture is the lack of adequate training.

Howdy.com reports that a quarter of workers expected to use AI receive no instruction on how to do so.

Without proper guidance, many are stuck between expectations from management and the reality of poorly integrated AI systems.

Some give up on mastering the tools and simply act like they are already doing it.

Meanwhile, contradictory workplace norms deepen the confusion.

Another survey from Slack’s Workforce Index found that nearly half of global desk workers felt uncomfortable telling managers they use AI, worrying it may make them appear lazy or unoriginal.

Thus, some pretend not to use AI even when they do.

At the heart of the issue is a growing mismatch between what companies signal, “AI is the future,” and what employees experience: unclear expectations, low support, and shifting norms around competence.

Whether AI actually replaces jobs or not, the psychological toll is already here, and pretending to be an AI user has become a strange new survival strategy.

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It feels like everyone and their aunt is making AI / AR smart glasses nowadays, especially as someone who tests the best smart glasses around. But something caught my eye when reading a description of Brilliant Lab’s new Halo glasses – as with their long-term memory capabilities, they promise to remind you of details of conversations and objects you’ve seen “years or even decades later.”

In real-time, Brilliant Labs’ specs can apparently offer contextual information based on what it hears and sees, too. This style of assistive help in the moment and later on sounds like a more ongoing version of features like the Ray-Ban Meta glasses’ visual reminders, features that Meta and others have said they plan to make (or have already made) an optionally always-on tool.

Now, Brilliant Labs has said its agent Noa will serve as a sort of AI VPN. Like a VPN reroutes your data to keep your online activity more private, Noa promises to offer similar levels of privacy as it communicates with the AI model powering its cognitive abilities.

Other Halo highlights are its “world’s thinnest AI glasses” design, its built-in display that sits in your periphery like some other AI specs we’ve seen announced this year, and it will have a relatively affordable $299 asking price (around £225 / AU$465) when it launches in November.

But even as someone who loves my Ray-Ban smart glasses and can see the benefits of these Halo glasses, I’m worried these smart specs are a sign we're continuing to race towards the death of privacy.

AI in your glasses can be handy (Image credit: Meta)Risk vs reward

Smart glasses wearables with cameras are already, admittedly, something of a privacy conundrum. I think the Meta Ray-Ban specs do it well – only letting you snap pictures or short videos (or livestream to a public Meta account on Facebook or Instagram), and have an obvious light shine while you do so.

But the next generation of utility wants to boast an always-on mentality – cameras that activate frequently, or microphones that capture every conversation you have.

This would be like the Bee wristband I saw at CES (which Amazon recently bought), which promises to help you remember what you talk about with detailed summaries.

You can instantly see the advantages of these features. An always-on camera could catch that you’re about to leave home without your keys, or remind you that your fridge is getting empty, and Bee highlighted to me that you could use it to help you remember ideas for gifts based on what people say, or recollect an important in-person work chat you might have.

However, possible pitfalls are close behind.

How private are we really? (Image credit: Shutterstock)

Privacy is the big one.

Not just your own, though you’re arguably consenting to AI intrusiveness by using these tools, but the privacy of people around you.

They’ll be recorded by always-on wearables whether they want to, or even know they are, or not.

Privacy makes up a big part of media law training and exams that qualified journalists (like me) must complete, and always-recording wearables could very easily enable people to break a lot of legal and ethical rules. I expect that without these people necessarily realising they’re doing something wrong.

Move fast and break everything

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Big tech has always had an ask for forgiveness mentality. Arguably, because time after time, punishments (assuming they are even punished) are usually vastly outweighed by the benefits they reaped by breaking the rules.

This has seemed especially true with privacy, as our data seems to get mishandled by a company every other month – in small, but also sometimes catastrophic ways.

I’m looking at you Tea.

We’ve also already seen examples of AI companies playing fast and loose with copyright, and I expect the rulelessness will only get worse in the AI space as governments across the globe seem less than keen to properly regulate AI so they don’t hamper their country’s efforts to win the digital arms race.

AI wearables capturing every moment of our lives (from multiple angles to boot) with video and audio are a catastrophe waiting to happen.

Yes, there are always promises of privacy, and optional toggles you can switch on to supposedly enhance your data protection. Still, for every good actor that keeps its privacy promises, we can find plenty of companies that don’t – or quietly change them in new ToS you’re asked to sign.

Cooler than expected, just as scary (Image credit: Oakley / Meta)

We can hope that robust regulation and proper punishment for malpractice might come in and help avoid this disaster I foresee, but I’m not holding my breath.

Instead, I’m coming to terms with the demise of privacy – a concept already on its last legs – and accepting that while Big Brother might look different from how George Orwell pictured it, it will (as predicted) be watching us.

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• Alone – Charity Multipurpose Non-profit WordPress Theme has a 9.8/10 flaw
• The bug allows crooks to create rogue admin accounts
• More than 120,000 takeover attempts already blocked

The "Alone – Charity Multipurpose Non-profit WordPress Theme", a commercial theme used in many WordPress websites, contained a critical vulnerability that allowed threat actors to completely take over the website, experts have warned.

The WordPress theme, designed for charities, NGOs, and fundraising campaigns, features more than 40 ready-to-use demos, donation integration, and compatibility with Elementor and WPBakery.

According to Themetix, around 200 active WordPress sites are running this theme today.

Ongoing attacks

Wordfence researchers claim exploitation started on July 12, two days before the vulnerability was publicly disclosed. So far, the company blocked more than 120,000 exploitation attempts from almost a dozen different IP addresses.

In the attacks, the threat actors try to upload a ZIP archive with a PHP-based backdoor that grants them remote code execution capabilities, as well as the ability to upload arbitrary files. Crooks also used the flaw to deliver backdoors that can create additional admin accounts.

All versions up to 7.8.3 contained a vulnerability that allowed threat actors to upload arbitrary files, including malware that can create admin accounts. That way, crooks can completely take over websites and use them to host other malware, redirect visitors to other malicious pages, serve phishing landing pages, and more.

The vulnerability is now tracked as CVE-2025-4394, and has a severity score of 9.8/10 (critical). It was addressed in version 7.8.5, which was released on June 16, 2025. If you are using this theme, it would be wise to update it as soon as possible, since the bug is being actively exploited in the wild.

WordPress is generally considered a safe website builder platform, but third-party themes and plugins - not so much. That is why security pros advise WordPress users to only keep the plugins and themes they actively use, and to make sure they are always up to date.

Via The Hacker News

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• AMD's head of client CPUs says it's looking into dedicated NPU accelerators
• These would be the equivalent of a discrete GPU, but for AI tasks
• Such boards would lessen demand on higher-end GPUs, as they'd no longer be bought for AI work, as they are in some cases

AMD is looking to a future where it might not just produce standalone graphics cards for desktop PCs, but similar boards which would be the equivalent of an AI accelerator - a discrete NPU, in other words.

CRN reports (via Wccftech) that AMD's Rahul Tikoo, head of its client CPU business, said that Team Red is “talking to customers” about “use cases” and “potential opportunities” for such a dedicated NPU accelerator card.

CRN points out that there are already moves along these lines afoot, such as an incoming Dell Pro Max Plus laptop, which is set to boast a pair of Qualcomm AI 100 PC inference cards. That's two discrete NPU boards with 16 AI cores and 32GB of memory apiece, for 32 AI cores and 64GB of RAM in total.

To put that in perspective, current integrated (on-chip) NPUs, such as those in Intel's Lunar Lake CPUs, or AMD's Ryzen AI chips, offer around 50 TOPS - ideal for Copilot+ PCs - whereas you're looking at up to 400 TOPS with the mentioned Qualcomm AI 100. These boards are for beefy workstation laptops and AI power users.

Tikoo observed: "It’s a very new set of use cases, so we're watching that space carefully, but we do have solutions if you want to get into that space - we will be able to."

The AMD exec wouldn't be drawn to provide a hint at a timeframe in which AMD might be planning to realize such discrete NPU ambitions, but said that "it's not hard to imagine we can get there pretty quickly" given the 'breadth' of Team Red's technologies.

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)Analysis: potentially taking the pressure off high-end GPU demand

So, does this mean it won't be too long before you might be looking at buying your desktop PC and mulling a discrete NPU alongside a GPU? Well, not really, this still isn't consumer territory as such - as noted, it's more about AI power users - but it will have an important impact on everyday PCs, at least for enthusiasts.

These standalone NPU cards will only be needed by individuals working on more heavyweight AI tasks with their PC. They will offer benefits for running large AI models or complex workloads locally rather than on the cloud, with far more responsive performance (dodging the delay factor that's inevitably brought into the mix when piping work online, into the cloud).

There are obvious privacy benefits from keeping work on-device, rather than heading cloud-wards, and these discrete NPUs will be designed to be more efficient than GPUs taking on these kinds of workloads - so there will be power savings to be had.

And it's here we come to the crux of the matter for consumers, at least enthusiast PC gamers looking at buying more expensive graphics cards. As we've seen in the past, sometimes individuals working with AI purchase top-end GPUs - like the RTX 5090 or 5080 - for their rigs. When dedicated NPUs come out from AMD (and others), they will offer a better choice than a higher-end GPU - which will take pressure off the market for graphics cards.

So, especially when a new range of GPUs comes out, and there's an inevitable rush to buy, there'll be less overall demand on higher-end models - which is good news for supply and pricing, for gamers who want a graphics card to, well, play PC games, and not hunker down to AI workloads.

Roll on the development of these standalone NPUs, then - it’s got to be a good thing for gamers in the end. Another thought for the much further away future is that eventually, these NPUs may be needed for AI routines within games, when complex AI-driven NPCs are brought into being. We've already taken some steps down this road, cloud-wise, although whether that's a good thing or not is a matter of opinion.

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