Technology

We're massive fans of the ink tank printers we've tested, with cartridge-free printing offering much better value for money compared to standard inkjets. So, if you're preparing for back-to-school or a home office upgrade, I've found a great deal on the HP Smart Tank 6001 tank printer for $200 (was $370) at Amazon.

That's almost half-price off an all-in-one that can print, scan and copy. Features here include refillable ink tanks, automatic two-sided output, and wireless connectivity. It also comes with up to two years of ink, which is enough for as many as 8,000 color or 6,000 black pages.

In the UK, this printer is known as the HP Smart Tank 6005, currently £179 (was £250) at Currys with three years' free ink.

Smart Tank 6001 Wireless All-In-One Ink Tank Printer: was $369.99 now $199.99
A color thermal inkjet all-in-one with print, scan and copy functionality, refillable ink tanks, automatic duplex output, borderless printing, and wired and wireless connectivity.

In the UK: now £179 (was £250)View Deal

Why we recommend it

Rather than repeatedly replacing expensive ink cartridges, you top up the 6001's built-in tanks using bottled ink, which is a cheaper and more convenient approach. Bottled ink is much cheaper to buy compared to traditional inkjet cartridges, which is one of the reasons why we champion tank printers.

There's plenty of features from this HP model, too, making it suitable for students, home workers, and small business use.

The flatbed scanner handles documents you need to digitize, and the copier is useful for those time when you need another physical copy.

Automatic duplexing is handy for longer assignments and documents because it can output both sides of the page without you manually turning the paper over. Borderless capabilities offer flexibility for photos and other creative projects.

There's also HP's AI-assisted formatting, which can remove unwanted elements when printing web pages and emails.

For more top performers, see our guides to the best home printers and best ink tank printers.

Price context & historical value

The HP Smart Tank 6001 is currently $199.99 at Amazon, down from $369.99. That's a huge $170 saving, or 46% off. The lowest we've previously seen it at Amazon is $195, so this is an excellent price and you likely won't get a better discount any time soon. For comparison, it's also priced at $200 (was $414) at Best Buy. And if you want to other options, check out our guide to the best printer deals we've spotted this week.

Should you buy it?

✅ Buy the HP Smart Tank 6001 if...

You need to do a lot of printing. Its large supplied ink capacity means you can tackle assignments, revision sheets and projects without worrying about buying ink regularly.

It will also benefit home workers who need physical documents. Automatic duplexing saves some effort with longer jobs, and having scanning and copying built in is also welcome.

❌ Skip the HP Smart Tank 6001 if...

Look elsewhere if you're not one for waiting. A maximum of 12ppm in black and 7ppm in color means it's not fast, particularly if you need to power through large jobs.

The Catch: What to know before you buy

The print speeds for color tasks will be fine for typical household jobs, but they could become frustrating if you routinely need large documents output in a hurry.

There's no automatic document feeder listed here either. If you frequently scan or copy stacks of multi-page documents, having to place each page on the flatbed individually could quickly become tiring. I wouldn't call either a deal-breaker for general printing at home or in the dorm, but it's worth knowing.

Also consider

Megatank G3270 All-In-One Wireless Inkjet Printer: was $248.99 now $159.99
Combines color printing with a flatbed scanner and copier and supports Wi-Fi and USB connectivity. Print speeds reach 11 pages per minute in black and six pages per minute in color, while maximum color resolution is 4800 x 1200 dpi.

In the UK (G3570): now £178 (was £189)View Deal

• See all ink tank printers at Amazon

• Fitbit founders are launching a new screenless fitness tracker
• The Luffu Link is designed for caregivers, bringing all your relatives' health data to one place
• It's available for pre-order now, and will roll out early next year

Watch out Whoop, there’s a new screenless health and fitness wearable on the way — and it’s coming from the founders of Fitbit.

Developers James Park and Eric Friedman announced a new LTE fitness tracker, the Luffu Link, marking the pair’s first hardware device since launching their company Luffu earlier this year.

The Luffu Link is available to pre-order now at $249.99, but is expected to increase to $299.99 when it retails in early 2027. It’s also set to come in three different colors: Halo Gold, Onyx Black, and Sterling Blue.

What sets the new Luffu Link apart from the best fitness trackers is its focus. Instead of targeting individual health tracking, Park and Friedman designed their screenless wearable to include your whole family, which comes from their experiences with being caregivers.

“When you become a family caregiver, or the CEO of the family, these people are spending an enormous amount of time doing it,” Park told TechCrunch. “Research shows over 27 hours a week on average, which is a crazy amount of time…I think technology can play a big role in helping reduce this load, but as we found out, the tools to help them are pretty fragmented,” he added.

(Image credit: Luffu)

The Luffu Link looks a lot different to screenless wearables like Whoop and the Google Fitbit Air. For one, it doesn't adopt the same focus band design, and instead has a more sleek and technical look. It comes equipped with similar wellness tracking tools, of course, but it takes it further.

Though it’s not designed for step-tracking, the Luffu Link tracks everything else including sleep, activity, and heart rate, while also allowing you to record medications, symptoms, meals, and more using your voice.

With the help of the Luffu app, which launched back in February, you can easily view the data for each family member in your ecosystem. Using AI in the background to contextualize health metrics, the app gives you a comprehensive overview of your relatives’ information, all while working to learn daily patterns and identify any changes in your health.

While its data gathering abilities are widespread, the Luffu Link has built-in GPS and LTE, doubling as a communicative device that allows members in your family to alert trusted contacts. Not only can you track family members' location, you can check in with others without calling, texting, or having your phone nearby — and this could come in handy for emergencies.

Double-pressing the wearable’s button allows you to quickly alert others when help is needed, and you don’t need an additional LTE carrier plan. For example, if you’ve had an accident and need assistance you can say ‘I’ve fallen and hurt my leg. Can someone come and get me?’, and those in your Luffu family network will be notified.

The Luffu Link is just the start of the health tracking empire Park and Friedman want to build. In addition to the launch of the new fitness wearable, Luffu has teased a home device designed to help families monitor wellbeing across multiple households. It’s still in early development, but the company has said more details will be unveiled later this year.

As part of Amazon for Business Brand Week, Logitech is offering a big accessories upgrade sale for buying teams kitting out the office, while emphasizing the "hidden cost of low-quality" hardware.

And if you're looking to improve video calls on Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Google Meet, the Logitech Zone 305 wireless headset is down to $90 (was $100) and the excellent Logitech C920x HD Pro webcam has dropped to $60 (was $70) at Amazon.

Together these devices offer a great way to improve your video call setup without spending more than necessary. I also picked out this Logitech keyboard and mouse combo in the sale for your staff, too.

Zone 305 for Business Wireless Bluetooth Headset: was $99.99 now $89.99
This is a 122g on-ear wireless business headset with Bluetooth connectivity, a USB dongle and certification for Microsoft Teams. It uses 30mm drivers and dual noise-canceling microphones, with a flip-to-mute boom, up to 20 hours of listening time, 16 hours of talk time and a wireless range of up to 30 meters.View Deal

C920x HD Pro Webcam: was $69.99 now $59.99
This USB webcam is capable of Full HD 1080p video at 30fps. It features autofocus, automatic lighting adjustment and dual microphones for stereo audio, and works with Windows 11 as well as Teams, Meet and Zoom.View Deal

Why we recommend them

The Zone 305 headset weighs just 122g, making it light enough for long meetings, and the dual noise-canceling microphones will help keep your voice clear. The ability to stay connected to two devices is useful if you regularly move between a computer and a phone.

Battery life is rated at up to 20 hours for listening or 16 hours for calls, and a five-minute charge provides up to an hour of talk time. It has Microsoft Teams certification too.

The C920x webcam offers a 1080p/30fps output, which is fine for everyday meetings and video calls. Autofocus and automatic light correction help you get a consistent picture without much setup.

In her 4.5-star review, our expert Jess said: "With a perfect balance of performance and affordability, the C920 offers exactly what the everyday person needs in a webcam."

It also has dual microphones built in, so you won't necessarily need a separate headset like the Zone 305.

Price context & historical value

The Logitech Zone 305 is currently $89.99 at Amazon, down from $99.99, 10% off. It has sold for as low as around $69 in the past, so this isn't the lowest price we've seen.

The Logitech C920x is $59.99, down from $69.99, or 14% off. It was low as $44.95 back in 2024, but that's not a price I'd expect to see again any time soon.

Should you buy them?

✅ Buy the Zone 305 and C920x if...

The Logitech Zone 305 is a good choice if you spend a lot of time in Teams meetings and want a lightweight wireless headset with dedicated microphones. The long battery life, two-device connectivity and 30-meter wireless range are all good features.

The Logitech C920x offers Full HD resolution, autofocus, automatic lighting adjustment and built-in stereo microphones, covering the essentials for regular meetings.

❌ Skip the Zone 305 and C920x if...

I'd consider waiting on the Zone 305 if getting the lowest possible price is more important than buying today. Its previous $69 low shows that better discounts are possible.

The C920x is also worth skipping if you already own a decent 1080p webcam or want higher-end video. Its 1080p/30fps ceiling is sufficient for calls, but if you'd prefer 4K or smoother 60fps footage, it's worth looking at a more advanced model.

The Catch: What to know before you buy

Neither price represents a historic low. Both current deals are good, but bargain hunters may want to wait for a bigger saving. However, the emphasis on this deal, according to Logitech, isn't to be the cheapest, but to offer a good deal for corporate buying teams, and highlighting the hidden costs of budget-end hardware on businesses. There are hardware compromises here, too. The Zone 305 uses an on-ear design rather than surrounding your ears, which won't suit everyone, and the C920x tops out at 1080p and 30fps.

• Shop all Logitech for Business deals Amazon

• Apple Maps is now showing ads for users in the US and Canada
• Currently, ads appear as the top result in search and Suggested Places
• Users are unsurprisingly unhappy about this change, with some saying they'll switch to Google Maps

We’ve known they were coming for a while, but now ads have started appearing in Apple Maps for users in the US and Canada, meaning that not every result you see on the search screen will be organically placed.

As confirmed by Apple to 9to5Mac, Apple Maps is now starting to show ads in ‘Suggested Places’ on the search screen before you enter a search query, and in the search results.

In both cases you’ll at most see one ad, and this will be at the top of that section, with a blue ‘ad’ label marking it out. So at least they should be easy to ignore and scroll past.

Still, while this might benefit businesses, it’s undeniably a downgrade for Apple Maps users, and there’s no way to opt out of it, even if you’re paying for Apple services like iCloud+ or Apple One.

An unpopular change

(Image credit: Apple)

Unsurprisingly, this hasn’t been met with much approval from Apple fans, with users on Reddit saying things like “now with ads, there's absolutely no reason to use Apple Maps,” “I'll just use Google Maps,” “this is a bad move,” and “the main reason I used Apple Maps was because of no ads.”

Indeed the consensus — at least among initial online reactions — seems to be that Google Maps is better in most ways, with Apple Maps previously only being preferable due to its lack of ads. So without that differentiation, many users may jump ship for Google’s service.

One Reddit user summed it up with: “Google Maps is 100% more accurate and functional than Apple Maps. The only benefit Apple Maps had was that it didn't have ads so now that they've removed that, there's literally no reason to have this icon on your home screen anymore.”

That said, a few replies point out advantages that Apple Maps may still have, such as a perception at least of better privacy and it being less of a drain on your phone’s battery. So perhaps there could still be reasons to stick with Apple.

And of course, online complaints won’t necessarily mean Apple Maps will lose lots of users. Chances are, most people will stick with what they know. But either way, this is definitely a bad change — hopefully it won’t be a slippery slope to more intrusive ads.

Furious is a must-watch new crime series that's streaming on Hulu (US) and Disney+ (internationally), and it's female-led story is a huge part of why I love it.

The series, created by Elizabeth Meriwether, centers around FBI agent Alice Black (Emmy Rossum) on the hunt for a calculating female serial killer, Catherine Grace (Lola Petticrew). As their lives intertwine, we meet a lot of other important names, including Nora Washington (Quincy Tyler Bernstine), who is the head of the FBI's sex crimes unit.

I spoke to Bernstine about what drew her to the series, and she said: "Liz Meriwether drew me to the series because she's an absolute genius and I wanted to work with her. It's funny, I was in the middle of watching Dying for Sex [another Hulu series by Meriwether] when I got the interview and the audition request, and so of course I jumped at that!.

"I was sent a few scenes and the pilot episode. And I was blown away by the material," Bernstine added. "I had just never seen characters like this before. I was so interested in the idea of a female serial killer, because that's obviously a very rare thing."

Female characters are at the center of Furious' narrative, on both sides of the law, and I noted that their stories were told through a sympathetic lens which can often make us feel uncomfortable.

Each character felt well-rounded, and we got to experience things from their perspective, especially when it's a point of view that exists to challenge us and make us think. These psychological deep dives into flawed characters are just one part of why Furious is such a great piece of TV.

'I'm watching the show rooting for the serial killer, and I can't believe it'

Bernstine added: "I was just talking to someone this morning who's like, 'I'm watching the show rooting for the serial killer, and I can't believe it.' And I'm having the same experience, you know, it's funny because I know the show. I've seen the show, many times, but I'm watching it each week with like fresh eyes.

"I feel like I'm watching it with the world. With my husband, with my mother, with my brother, and everyone is like, 'I cannot believe I'm rooting for these people'.

"But that's the genius of Liz Meriwether, it's so surprising. Because it's very uncomfortable, but at the same time, you can understand what all of these women are going through."

Nora Washington is an interesting character because, despite the serious nature of her job at the FBI, she is also a very funny character. Much of the comic relief comes from Nora, something that I'm a huge fan of.

Speaking about her characterization, Bernstine told me: "She is down in this dark basement with no air, no light, like going into this room to watch this awful material, so that she can try to catch the bad guys, as it were".

She concluded: "And yet she has some of the funniest lines in the whole show. You never know what's going to come out of her mouth, but 9 times out of 10, it's gonna make you laugh."

I'm so impressed by Furious and highly encourage people to seek it out if they're looking for a unique crime series to binge on the best streaming services.

We've also explored why Furious is a game changer for disabled actors and what Furious star Scoot McNairy what he thinks you should stream once you've finished the series.

If you’re in the market for a Vitamix blender, you don’t need to shell out $500 to get the best model.

I played an hour of the new Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen expansion and walked away impressed by its gameplay loop and improved performance (on PlayStation 5), and instantly saw what Capcom is aiming for.

In Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen, players must journey through Norgan, an abandoned region in the north, and join forces with a mysterious new character to uncover the secrets of an undying Fallen Dragon.

In that process, you must find and appraise gear, skills, and weapons known as 'spoils' or 'relics' obtained through exploration and by defeating new, formidable foes to stand a chance in the unforgiving region.

If this sounds a lot like the mechanics of Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, you're on to something because the appraisal system is effectively identical to Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen's purification of cursed items, which provided some of the most powerful gear available in the game.

That same concept is applied in Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen's Norgan region, but with a bigger explorable map instead of a dungeon-only layout and presumably even more spoils to be found.

Better than its predecessor?

It's only natural to compare Capcom's two Dragon's Dogma expansions, considering the similarities. However, after my time with its latest offering, it's hard (and frankly too soon) to conclude which holds the best experience.

Fortunately, some of the pain points from the base game experience in Dragon's Dogma 2 have been addressed, as the major patch (arriving at the end of August) was included in the hour preview I played.

Finally, there's enough time to explore and loot areas without being bombarded by enemies every minute — enemy encounters are still frequent, but during my journey to the first major boss, it felt good not to have hordes of goblins constantly spoiling the fun.

Performance is also significantly improved on the PS5. Bear in mind, I didn't have access to any frame rate overlay and couldn't visit the base game's regions (and I originally played the base game on PC), but it definitely felt like a constant 60fps, even in the most intense battles.

I didn't have plenty of time to explore many of Norgan's points of interest, but from acquiring a pet dire wolf, stumbling upon a frost-breathing giant, and finding level 3 skill spoils for the new Trickster and Magick Archer vocations, it's clear that Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen is the bigger expansion.

For example, Magick Archer now has an enhanced version of Arctic Bolt that becomes available by appraising one of the skill spoils, known as Glacial Bolt. This works wonders against bosses, with increased damage and the ability to freeze them in place for pawns to rally and attack.

Harpies are also heavily present in Norgan, but with new designs and attack patterns, notably a more aggressive attempt to grab the player or their pawns. Some of the enemies I spotted in the preview were essentially reskins of those from the base game, but like the harpies, new maneuvers and attacks set them apart.

Fighting the Fallen Dragon was a surprise too, an epic main boss encounter that I wish didn't end so soon — especially with one surprising moment I didn't see coming (which I won't spoil), but left me wanting more and curious to see just how many formidable foes await the Arisen in the full experience.

It's worth noting that there are also twelve new dungeon challenges to be found across the base game in addition to Norgan's content. Again, I didn't get to see them, but if the caves and smaller explorable areas I found in Norgan are anything to go by, with lootable chests and some new foes to fight, there'll be a lot to look forward to in those dungeons.

While I did have fun exploring Norgan, I'm cautiously optimistic about what the full experience has to offer. Bitterblack Isle's dungeon may have offered little in terms of exploration in a smaller map, but the sole focus on combat allowed vocations (or, in other words, classes) to work best in closed spaces in the first Dark Arisen, particularly Magick Archer and its Ricochet Hunter skill.

My main concern is that neither Norgan nor the additional twelve dungeon challenges will double down on those indoor and closed-space environments from Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, and the new enemy and boss types may not be diverse enough to keep combat encounters entertaining.

Nonetheless, I'm very much looking forward to getting my hands on the full expansion, especially since Capcom is seemingly fixated on delivering a vastly improved version of Dragon's Dogma 2 with the highly anticipated pre-expansion patch.

We won't have to wait long, as the expansion is set for launch on October 9, 2026, on PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.

• OM System has shared a YouTube teaser for upcoming camera launch
• The viewfinder experience is the teaser's key focus, and the camera's form is revealed
• The launch is set for September 9

Since Japan Industrial Partners acquired Olympus in 2021, creating OM Digital Solutions and rebranding new cameras as OM System, we've seen upgrades for every Olympus camera series except one: the PEN-F / PEN E-P7 line of digital rangefinders.

The Olympus PEN-F is a camera that's much admired for its stunning retro looks, described by some as the 'best looking camera ever made'. Olympus fans have been calling for a successor to the series for years — and they might finally be about to get their wish.

A YouTube video from OM System (below) just teased what could be the long-awaited successor to the PEN-F, and it's coming on September 9.

The teaser focuses on the experience of using the built-in 'rangefinder'-style viewfinder — a hallmark of PEN cameras — and then reveals the camera's form factor, with some detailing of the top plate.

Based on these low-key visuals, we could be looking at the spiritual successor to the beloved Olympus PEN-F — which inspired the design of the stunning OM-3 — or perhaps a re-imagining of the low-cost Olympus PEN EP-7.

Either way, the rangefinder-style camera is getting Olympus fans excited, if the comments section of the YouTube video are anything to go by. "Let's go!" chime several viewers.

Given the length of time between the original Olympus models — the Pen-F is 10 years old, and the Pen EP-7 five — there are a few upgrades that could find their way into this new camera, including a speedier stacked sensor, improved phase-detection autofocus, and additional computational photography modes.

All will be revealed on September 9, and you can follow the live event on the OM System site, which is advertising a five-day program of live discussions, all seemingly centered on the new camera.

It's not a problem that Taylor Sheridan has often had to contend with, but some fans are worried that Lioness season 3 is about to enter a mid-season slump.

At the halfway point of the political drama, there's a lot going on, with few answers in sight. This season's drama revolves around two simultaneous timelines: Joe being kidnapped by unknown Russian operatives, and, the six months leading up to her capture. Do we know who is responsible? Not exactly.

But still, let's press on in the face of potential adversity — when does Lioness season 3 episode 5 arrive on Paramount+?

What time can I watch Lioness season 3 episode 5 on Paramount+?

Lioness season 3 episode 5 will drop on one of the world's best streaming services in the US and Canada on Sunday, August 30 at 12am PT / 3am ET.

Here's when it will be released in other nations globally:

• US – 12am PT / 3am ET
• Canada – 12am PT / 3am ET
• UK – 8am BST
• India – 12:30pm IST
• Singapore – 3pm SGT
• Australia – 5pm AEST
• New Zealand – 7pm NZST

When do new episodes of Lioness season 3 come out?

(Image credit: Paramount+)

Lioness season 3 will have a total of eight episodes, with new entries airing weekly. That gives us the following schedule:

• Episode 1: out now
• Episode 2: out now
• Episode 3: out now
• Episode 4: out now
• Episode 5: August 30
• Episode 6: September 6
• Episode 7: September 13
• Episode 8: September 20

This summer's unexpected heatwave across the UK and Europe has caught retailers flat-footed.

Go into any London Oxford Street store this week and you’ll find the last remains of the mid-summer sale, while “new in” rails are covered in chocolate brown trouser suits ready for Autumn.

The trouble is, it’s still 28 degrees and sunny with another heatwave expected this week. Shoppers aren’t looking for jumpers, yet the shelves are stocked for a forecast made half a year earlier, meaning many retailers have missed the immediate shift in consumer demand.

It’s hard to not feel the disconnect. Somewhere back in January, a planning team sat in a meeting room and decided, with the best information they had at the time, that by early August the nation would be ready to shop for knitwear.

It’s a process that retailers have used for decades, and the problem isn’t that they planned-ahead or got it wrong, it’s that the infrastructure behind the decision has no mechanism for course correcting once new information arrives.

That's not a forecasting failure. It's a technology and process failure, and it's one that's becoming impossible to ignore.

Six-month planning cycles are no longer viable

The heatwave is just one example of why rigid six-month planning cycles in retail are no longer commercially viable. Designed in an era that was steady and predictable, they assume stable supply chains, formulaic seasons, and shoppers who wait patiently for the "right" moment to buy. That world simply doesn’t exist today.

Global supply chains have become fragile and prone to disruption at any point in the chain, while erratic weather patterns can change trading conditions overnight, and consumer demand is shaped as much by a TikTok trend that lands on a Tuesday, as it is by a season on a calendar. This has left retailers trying to run a business that demands agility on an operating system designed for a much slower rhythm.

The result is the disconnect we're seeing on the shop floor right now. Having worked in retail for more than 20 years, I know first-hand that most planning systems are still built around static reports, disconnected spreadsheets and manual range-building processes that take weeks (sometimes months) to turn around.

This creates a structural lag between changes in demand and when the business is able to respond. It is this lag that is quickly becoming the single biggest driver of markdowns, stockouts and wasted inventory that costs the global retail sector more than $1.7 trillion per year, according to analysts IHL Group.

Rethinking planning

It’s clear to me that for retailers looking to achieve growth, they must rethink how planning, buying and merchandising get done.

This starts with moving away from rigid, twice-a-year buying cycles built on legacy systems to data infrastructure that supports micro-season planning. This is shorter, more frequent windows where decisions about what to buy, when to reorder and how to promote in-store are made continuously and based on current data, not locked in months in advance based on a forecast made months earlier.

Practically, this means implementing a few core capabilities, the first being real-time data visibility that allows teams to see live sell-through, stock position and intake at SKU level, rather than via a report that lands the following Monday describing what already happened.

The second is more connected forecasting, where demand models can analyze external factors such as a heatwave, local events or social media trends as a trading signal rather than an anomaly discovered on the shop floor.

This leads to the third capability, which is faster execution once a shift in demand is identified. The system needs to support quick decision making and action, whether that's an automated reorder, a reallocation of stock between stores and channels, or a change to in-store and online merchandising.

Maintaining a live model

None of this replaces long-range strategy. Retailers still need a financial plan, a range architecture and a clear vision. What changes is how that happens in practice. Planning becomes less about producing a fixed document twice a year and more about maintaining a live model of the business that can be interrogated and acted on continuously.

That's a fundamentally different technology requirement than most legacy planning and merchandising systems were built to support, and it's why so many retailers are still reacting to demand shifts weeks after they've already cost them sales.

For retail leaders, the practical takeaway is to start auditing where your planning and merchandising decisions get made, and how long it takes for a real-world signal, such as a heatwave, a stockout, a viral product, to translate into a change on the shop floor or the website. If that gap is measured in weeks rather than days, the constraint isn't your team's judgement, it's the infrastructure they're working with.

This heatwave is just one visible example of a much broader technological and operational shift that retailers need to make. The businesses that treat it as a prompt to modernize, rather than a one-off weather event, are the ones that will be more commercially resilient the next time conditions change without warning.

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Artificial intelligence has transformed how software is built. Tasks that once took software developers days, if not weeks, to finalize can now be completed in hours with the assistance of generative AI tools.

The promise is compelling, offering faster innovation, increased productivity, and the ability to bring new applications to life at an unprecedented speed. But what is the impact on security?

AI coding has simultaneously put software risk on steroids. This is not because AI-generated code is uniquely flawed; it’s because it enables organizations to build and deploy software faster than any existing security, governance, or risk management process.

Development velocity has accelerated toward machine speed, while governance remains largely human-driven. That gap is now one of the defining software security challenges of the AI era.

Software is moving at machine speed. Security isn't.

AI is not only changing how code is written; it is changing how software is assembled. Developers can now assemble applications using open-source components, APIs, and third-party services faster than ever before. Every new application, integration, and dependency expands the attack surface that organizations must inventory, monitor, and secure.

The result is now a growing imbalance between software creation and software remediation. As the pace of software creation increases, remediation must keep up.

Veracode's 2026 State of Software Security report found 82% of organizations now carry security debt—vulnerabilities that remain unresolved over time — and 60% carry critical security debt, meaning flaws that are severe enough to cause significant damage if exploited.

Third-party code continues to be an especially stubborn source of risk, representing 66% of the most dangerous, long-lived vulnerabilities. The data reveals a simple reality: AI doesn't just generate more first-party code—it is increasing software complexity.

Organizations have always dealt with flawed code. The difference now is the speed and scale at which that code can be created, accepted, and deployed. AI doesn't just introduce risk, it amplifies the challenge of managing risk by enabling teams to generate exponentially more software than traditional security processes were designed to govern.

Traditional security governance assumes humans remain the bottleneck in software creation. Reviews, approvals, audits, and remediation workflows were designed for development cycles measured in weeks or months. AI-assisted development compresses those timelines dramatically.

When software can be generated, modified, and deployed at machine speed, governance models that depend on human intervention alone are no longer sustainable.

AI can help plant a seed, but that does not mean the garden will thrive. A seed needs the right soil, climate, and care. Software is no different. Organizations can generate applications overnight, but without the right security frameworks, operational support, and governance structures, those applications can quickly become liabilities rather than assets.

This is why security leaders must rethink governance for the AI era. The goal can’t be to inspect every line of code or eliminate every vulnerability before deployment; that approach was already becoming unsustainable before generative AI entered the picture. Instead, organizations need governance systems capable of operating at the same pace as software creation.

That means automating risk analysis, continuously evaluating dependencies, enforcing policies through pipelines, and prioritizing remediation based on business risk rather than relying on manual review alone.

Governance becomes the new trust layer

The need for machine-speed governance extends beyond operational efficiency. As AI accelerates software creation, governance becomes the mechanism through which organizations maintain visibility, demonstrate control, and establish trust across an increasingly complex software ecosystem.

Ultimately, this isn't just about scaling security. It's about ensuring software can be trusted and held accountable, regardless of how it's built.

AI can generate software, but it cannot assume responsibility for it. Boards will still hold executive leadership accountable for cyber risk. Regulators will still expect organizations to demonstrate that the software they deploy is secure and resilient. Customers will still expect software they can trust, regardless of how it was built.

AI may change how software is created, but it does not change who is accountable for its consequences.

That shift requires organizations to rethink governance as a strategic capability, not a compliance exercise. Success will depend less on preventing every vulnerability and more on demonstrating that software can be continuously evaluated, understood, and trusted as it evolves. In the AI era, the winners will not simply be those that build software fastest, but those that can govern it most effectively.

AI can help plant the seed, but it cannot tend to the garden. The organizations that lead today will not necessarily be those that generate the most software. They'll be the ones that can confidently answer the question every stakeholder will eventually ask: Can we trust what we've built?

AI has accelerated software creation beyond anything the industry has experienced before. If software risk is now on steroids, governance must be too. Otherwise, the gap between what organizations can build and what they can securely manage will continue to widen.

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A stronger build, more storage, and a battery life that just won’t quit. Here’s what a $1,000-plus sports watch will get you.

• HP and Huawei enter patent-sharing deal, with Huawei's Wi-Fi 7 patents central to the deal
• Huawei is still under the microscope by the US Department of Commerce
• The companies have had a previous run-in about Wi-Fi patents

Huawei has confirmed a multi-year global patent cross-licensing agreement with HP in relation to its Wi-Fi technology, ultimately granting the latter permission to use certain Huawei Wi-Fi patents. In return, Huawei will also receive rights to some of HP's patents.

Central to the agreement is Huawei's Wi-Fi portfolio, including Wi-Fi 7 technology, however neither company has actually disclosed the exact patents that are covered. Further details, like the financial terms or the deal's duration, are also under wraps.

The deal is of great geopolitical significance, with California-based HP striking up a deal with Shenzhen-based Huawei – a Chinese company that remains on the US Department of Commerce's Entity List.

HP and Huawei deal

Although US restrictions have severely restricted Huawei's ability to buy American chips, software and other technology, and other international restrictions including in the UK have sought to remove Huawei hardware from critical national infrastructure, this new deal is proof that the company still has major influence outside of China.

Importantly, an HP spokesperson (via Reuters) stressed that this is merely a patent licensing agreement: "It is not new, and does not represent a broader strategic or commercial relationship, partnership, or collaboration with Huawei." The company noted that such licences are normal because manufacturers need access to patented technology for certain standards, like Wi-Fi.

"This milestone agreement not only reflects the companies’ cooperation in the field of intellectual property licensing but also recognizes Huawei's innovation capabilities and core technological strength as well as HP’s position as a global leader in computers and peripheral equipment," Huawei wrote.

Ultimately, being on the Entity List doesn't represent an outright ban for American companies to transact with Huawei, but it does place the company under US scrutiny. Neither does it mean that HP has been given special treatment to bypass US restrictions to open this deal.

A work in progress

Interestingly, the deal didn't just come from nowhere. HP and Huawei have been involved in a dispute over Wi-Fi intellectual property for a while. Huawei accused HP's products of implementing its Wi-Fi 6 patents without a relevant licence in August 2025.

Standard-essential patent owners are generally expected to make their patents available under FRAND terms to grant manufacturers access to the technology, but cross-licence deals like this latest one are often seen as the most efficient and cost-effective way to open up the technology.

Rather than both companies paying full royalties to each other, HP gets Huawei rights and Huawei gets HP rights in return. It's unclear if one of the companies has also made a balancing payment.

In other circumstances, Huawei's current rates for consumer products are $0.50 per device for both Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 7.

For Huawei, it's just another opportunity to turn years of R&D into important revenue. "By the end of 2025, Huawei held a total of 165,000 active patents and had signed over 260 patent licensing and cross-license agreements with many of the world’s largest patent holders," the company shared in a 2026 update.

Now is the time for nonprofits to embrace artificial intelligence (AI).

There is a distinct opportunity to significantly improve their operations using the latest developments in AI and automation.

We are seeing confidence grow in the third sector as organizations come to understand the potential of AI, but now we are entering a crucial phase as they look to implement it.

Given the complex technology involved, it may appear daunting to get the right strategy in place, but a disciplined approach to adoption that is focused on incremental gains - not radical transformation - will ensure a positive outcome.

This will mitigate significant disruption by avoiding large number of components being upgraded at the same time, as that increases the risk of something going wrong.

A pragmatic approach combined with thinking big

Getting to this point is perhaps easier said than done, as many nonprofits rely on purpose-built applications and manual processes. It is incumbent on vendors to articulate a pragmatic approach to integrating AI with these existing systems, focusing on the idea of incremental improvements to processes and ways of working.

In parallel, nonprofits must think big about the potential for positive change. Vendors must work with their customers to help them understand that transformation entails more than just a chatbot or another point solution being added to the technology stack.

Done right, AI will reshape how workflows are triggered, data is interpreted and insights are generated. It will become an intelligence layer acting autonomously to interrogate data and provide teams with cognitive support to make more effective and real-time decisions.

Therefore, if nonprofits are to maximize their AI investments, they must ask themselves big questions: how does AI change the ecosystem the organization operates in? And how can it be used to improve the nonprofit’s mission?

If nonprofit leaders can think ambitiously about these answers, it will empower teams to become true knowledge workers. AI will help them uncover information to inform actions or give workers more time to focus on problem-solving, as the technology is designed to automate repetitive tasks that traditionally consume cognitive bandwidth.

The right data strategy is crucial

A key challenge for nonprofits is data governance, as the AI tools will only be effective if they have access to the right data. In a recent study we conducted called “Closing the Gap: Nonprofit Finance Software’s Crucial Role in Today’s Landscape”, 61% of finance professionals in US nonprofits admitted they still rely on generic spreadsheets for core financial management.

The combination of specialist applications and manual processes makes it difficult to connect information across different applications and workflows. Data must be extracted, transformed and loaded so that it can be analyzed. The extraction process is also challenging because the data is often not in the same format and must be loaded in a particular format for ease of use by the finance team.

To address the data challenge, nonprofits must decide how to make the right data accessible to the AI. The data must be set up in a way that can be interrogated in plain language, and it must be based on good data inputs. Aside from reliability, the data also requires a common analysis framework so that users can understand its origins and who is accountable for it. Then, the organizations must be able to analyze the data chain and how AI is interacting with the data to make decisions.

This requires a detailed appreciation of the semantics of data. For example, the term “project” means something different in the world of nonprofits compared a professional services company or a public sector organizations . The AI must be able to interpret the word correctly to avoid hallucinations.

Equally important is the ability to monitor, evaluate and adjust data as it goes through the data supply chain to avoid inaccuracies in areas such as when it moves from the record to report phase. Nonprofits must work closely with their technology suppliers to ensure everyone in the organization, whether at the leadership, program or project level, can monitor the data for compliance with expectations.

Incrementalism is better than quantum leaps

The concept of incrementalism, rather than the “Big Bang” or quantum leap approach to transformation is the best way to address these fundamental questions.

Most successful IT implementations follow a similar incremental path. For organizations embracing this approach and wanting to ensure operational integrity while transforming IT systems, it is important to start with an evaluation of where the organization is relative to the desired end state. The planning objective is to get to the end state through a process of continuous, incremental adoption of new functionality and applications.

Most importantly, this approach allows staff to build their confidence in collaborating with AI tools. Imagine a team operating in a remote location providing medical assistance and the head of the team realizes they need to order supplies. Using incremental innovation an organization could use a combination of AI and automation to alleviate the burden of replacing missing stock.

In the first phase, an AI tool could monitor existing stocks and prompt staff when it is running low. This will give employees the chance to train the AI tool when it is urgent to replenish stocks. The AI could also use contextual information such as historical usage data and information such as weather to identify likely peak demand. As the AI becomes more autonomous, it could make recommendations to a human co-worker suggesting it completes an order form for new supplies which is reviewed by an employee.

Again, this acts as a training opportunity for AI so that in time employees will have confidence it can autonomously complete such tasks in the background. In time, the whole process will minimize interruption for employees and reduce the burden on them to complete such administrative tasks.

What this example shows is that nonprofits do not have to achieve fully autonomous systems straight away. At each stage, the AI is providing workflow improvements that empower knowledge workers by saving them time to focus on what is important to deliver their missions.

Incremental change will see nonprofits delivering value to their organizations very quickly, if they are able to address fundamental questions around their approach to data, while also thinking big about what AI can enable them to do better.

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Across organizations, AI adoption is entering a new phase. What began as experimentation and isolated use cases is rapidly evolving into enterprise-wide deployment, with AI becoming embedded across operations, customer experiences, decision-making and business strategy.

This shift is creating significant opportunities for growth, productivity and innovation, while also presenting a growing challenge for business and technology leaders: ensuring governance, oversight and operating models keep pace. As organizations scale AI, the question is no longer just what the technology can do, but whether the structures, processes and controls are in place to manage it effectively.

The growing governance gap

In many organizations, AI adoption is expanding beyond the direct oversight of central technology teams. Business units are deploying AI-powered tools to improve efficiency, streamline workflows and accelerate decision-making.

While this democratization of technology can unlock innovation, it can also create complexity. Leaders may find themselves accountable for outcomes generated by systems distributed across multiple teams, platforms and environments. The pace of adoption only intensifies this challenge.

Organizations are under pressure to move quickly as competitors invest in AI capabilities and employees increasingly expect access to AI-powered tools. The urgency is reflected in the UK government's AI Opportunities Action Plan, which highlights IMF estimates that AI could boost UK productivity by up to 1.5 percentage points annually, potentially generating £47 billion in economic gains each year.

As a result, deployment often progresses faster than governance frameworks can evolve.

This creates a fundamental tension between speed and control. Businesses want to capture the benefits of AI quickly, but moving too fast without appropriate safeguards can introduce operational, security and compliance risks. The challenge is not simply deploying AI at scale, but ensuring it can be managed responsibly once deployed.

As investment accelerates, expectations rise

As AI becomes more deeply integrated into business operations, its influence extends beyond execution. AI is increasingly shaping how work gets done, how decisions are made and how organizations allocate resources. In some cases, it is helping leaders identify opportunities and risks that may not have been visible through traditional approaches.

This growing influence means AI is no longer just a technology initiative. It has become an organizational capability that touches every part of the business. Decisions about AI deployment are therefore also decisions about governance, accountability and risk management.

The scale of momentum behind AI is clear. Earlier this year, the UK government highlighted £14 billion in private-sector AI investment commitments and more than 13,000 planned jobs as part of its ambition to establish the UK as a global leader in artificial intelligence.

This reflects a broader shift in how organizations view AI: no longer as an experimental technology, but as a strategic capability expected to drive growth, productivity and competitive advantage.

As investment accelerates, so too does the pressure to deliver measurable outcomes. Yet many leaders are discovering that success depends on more than deploying new AI tools. Without clear accountability, visibility and governance, the benefits of AI can be undermined by operational complexity, fragmented decision-making and increased risk.

The organizations that realize the greatest value from AI are likely to be those that invest as heavily in governance and oversight as they do in the technology itself.

Security, data and trust at scale

Security remains a critical consideration. As organizations integrate AI into business-critical processes, they must address issues such as data protection, model integrity and regulatory compliance. A single failure can have consequences that extend beyond technical disruption, affecting customer trust, brand reputation and regulatory standing.

Public expectations for responsible AI are high, with 72% of the British public saying that laws and regulation would make them more comfortable with the use of AI, underlining the importance of strong governance and oversight.

The challenge is heightened by AI's dependence on large volumes of data drawn from multiple environments and applications. Without visibility into how data flows through these systems, organizations may struggle to assess risk or respond effectively when issues arise. Robust governance and transparency therefore become essential components of any AI strategy.

Alongside security concerns, organizations are also facing greater financial scrutiny. Unlike traditional technology projects, AI programs often evolve rapidly, with new models, services and use cases introduced continuously. This can make it difficult to maintain oversight of spending, performance and risk, particularly as AI becomes embedded across multiple business functions.

These pressures are driving a reassessment of operating models. Traditional approaches to governance were largely built around systems that changed predictably and remained relatively static once deployed. AI introduces a different dynamic: models evolve, outputs vary and operating environments can change rapidly.

Building adaptable AI governance

As a result, organizations are increasingly recognizing the need to build adaptability into their AI strategies. Governance cannot be treated as a one-time exercise. It must become an ongoing capability supported by continuous monitoring, clear accountability and the ability to respond quickly to emerging risks and opportunities.

The organizations seeing the greatest success with AI typically view governance and innovation as complementary objectives rather than competing priorities. They focus not only on deployment, but also on visibility, control and resilience. By establishing clear frameworks from the outset, they create an environment where AI can scale responsibly and deliver sustainable business value.

Infrastructure strategy also plays a key role. Many organizations operate across multiple cloud environments and technology platforms, creating challenges around integration, portability and control. As AI workloads increase, flexibility becomes increasingly important.

Businesses need the ability to deploy, move and manage workloads efficiently without becoming constrained by fragmented architectures.

Scaling AI with confidence

Ultimately, the challenge facing leaders is not whether AI should scale, but how it scales. As adoption accelerates, organizations must look beyond deployment and focus on creating the conditions for sustainable success.

That means investing in governance, strengthening visibility across increasingly complex environments, improving financial accountability and ensuring organizational structures evolve alongside technological capabilities.

AI has the potential to transform how organizations operate, compete and create value. However, realizing that potential requires more than implementing new tools. It requires building the frameworks that allow innovation and control to coexist.

As AI becomes more deeply embedded across the enterprise, the organizations that achieve the greatest success will be those that can balance agility with accountability, enabling them to innovate confidently while maintaining oversight, resilience and trust.

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Although many people would think of phishing as a malicious email containing a suspicious link or attachment, hackers have now moved far beyond this to target trusted business tools including calendars and meeting invites.

We spoke to Soundharya Bharani Poomalai, Associate Threat Analyst, Barracuda, to find out more.

• Why are attackers increasingly turning to calendar invites and .ics files as phishing vehicles, and what has changed in the threat landscape to make this an attractive attack surface now?

Calendars have become part of daily business admin and are used far beyond meeting scheduling. People now get invites for things like policy acknowledgements, handbook reviews, benefits enrolment windows and compliance training reminders. A calendar invite referencing an HR update or a payroll action doesn't look out of place, and this allows attackers to blend in more easily than a suspicious email ever could.

There's also a structural advantage. Calendar entries get added automatically with little or no interaction from the recipient, and they tend to persist even if the original email is deleted or quarantined. Mobile adds another layer to this. A lot of calendar notifications get handled on phones, which often sit outside the reach of desktop-focused security tools.

• How significant is the visibility gap between what an email security system can inspect and what is rendered by a calendar application?

It is significant, and it’s something many organisations haven't accounted for. Traditional email security is built to scan the message body, subject line and attachments, whereas an .ics file often slips through as a calendar object and doesn’t receive the same level of inspection.

The problem is that .ics files carry much more than a date and time. They can include event descriptions, organiser details, locations, attachments, URLs and custom metadata fields, and any of these can be used to hide phishing content. Once the calendar app renders that content, the recipient sees corporate branding, instructions or a QR code that looks entirely legitimate. If the victim then enters their credentials and completes MFA, the attackers can intercept the username, password and session data, giving them full access to the account.

That mismatch between what security tools check and what the user sees is why these attacks succeed.

• Are calendar phishing attacks fundamentally a new technique, or are they an evolution of the same social-engineering and evasion techniques we've seen in email phishing – such as QR codes, impersonation and adversary-in-the-middle attacks?

They’re an evolution rather than an invention. The building blocks are familiar. QR codes hide a destination, brand impersonation builds trust, and adversary-in-the-middle platforms intercept credentials and session data in real time once someone signs in. None of this is new.

What's changed is the delivery container as they’re wrapped inside a calendar invite instead of an email. A QR code buried in an .ics file benefits from all the same advantages it has in a PDF or email body because it avoids text-based detection. It also gets the added benefit of sitting somewhere security tools are paying less attention.

• What does the rise of .ics phishing tell us about how organisations need to redefine what constitutes ‘malicious content’?

It tells us that malicious content is no longer confined to a bad link or attachment. Security teams have traditionally focused on email bodies and file attachments because that's historically where the risk sat. Calendar invites increasingly need to be factored into this as a phishing vehicle. The format of the content is not what determines the risk now, it’s what the content does when it reaches the recipient.

All of this means organisations need to start thinking about any workflow that can display or trigger content on a user's behalf.

What should organisations be inspecting inside a calendar file, and what are the technical challenges involved in doing that effectively at scale?

Calendar files need the same level of scrutiny as a traditional attachment. In practice, this involves parsing the metadata fields, analysing any embedded links or attachments, inspecting HTML-rendered content, and decoding QR codes to check where they lead to.

The technical security challenge is that .ics files were built for interoperability. The format allows an event title, description or organiser field to carry rich content across Outlook, Google Calendar and Apple Calendar, and that flexibility is what makes it hard to inspect consistently at scale.

There's also the matter of what happens after delivery. A calendar entry can sit in someone's diary for days or weeks before a link becomes relevant, so inspection can't just happen once at the point of delivery. It needs to hold up over time.

If a malicious calendar invite gets through, what should the incident-response process look like? Is deleting or quarantining the original email enough?

Deleting or quarantining the original email doesn't remove the calendar entry itself. Because invites are typically added automatically, the event can remain live in someone's calendar even after the source email is long gone, which means the malicious link or QR code is still sitting there and waiting to be clicked on.

A response will only be effective if it removes both the delivery message and the associated calendar entry from every affected mailbox. Teams also need to check identity activity around the time the invite landed and look for things like sign-ins from unfamiliar devices, unexpected MFA prompts, new session creation or OAuth consent activity. If someone did interact with the invite, credentials or session tokens may already be compromised, so containment can't stop at cleaning up the calendar.

(Image credit: Getty Images / Westend61)What are the three most practical things security and business teams can do today to reduce their exposure to calendar-based phishing without disrupting legitimate use of calendars?

First, treat calendar invites as active content rather than passive scheduling data. Apply the same inspection standards to .ics files that already exist for attachments, including checking embedded links, attachments and any QR codes inside the event itself.

Second, strengthen identity security so a successful phishing attempt doesn't automatically become a successful breach. Phishing-resistant MFA such as FIDO2 or WebAuthn, conditional access policies, and the ability to monitor sessions and revoke them quickly all reduce the impact if someone does click through.

Third, update user awareness so people know calendar invites can be malicious too. Employees should be wary of QR codes inside calendar events and treat unexpected HR, payroll or policy notifications arriving as .ics files with the same suspicion as an unusual email.

Are we reaching a point where organisations need to stop thinking of email as the attack surface, and instead think about all the trusted applications and automated workflows that email can trigger?

Yes, and calendar phishing is a good example of why. An email triggers a calendar entry, a calendar entry contains content, and that content leads somewhere else entirely, whether that's a fake sign-in page or a malicious QR code.

Every one of those steps happens in a different application, often with a different set of security controls, or none at all. Attackers are simply following that chain to find the weakest link, and the weak link tends to sit wherever inspection stops.

Organisations that only defend the inbox are defending one part of a much longer chain.

Autumn is in the air and now's a great time to start thinking about warm weather gear. A number of big outdoor retailers are running major sales right now, and amongst them are some seriously strong down jacket deals.

A good down jacket is one of the best investments I've made. I wear mine constantly over the colder months, to keep me comfortably warm on everything from big hikes to short dog-walks. A great down jacket will provide an impressive warmth-to-weight ratio — they're lightweight and pack down small, but offer cosiness levels on par with much bulkier options.

My personal brand of choice is Rab — I'm on my second Rab down jacket; the first one got lost, and I replaced it immediately. Rab is the main brand on sale right now, but there are also lightweight down jackets from other major outdoor brands like Patagonia and Arc'Teryx. These are the brands that consistently impressed me during my years as an outdoor gear tester, and I'd happily buy from them.

Scroll down for my top down jacket deal picks. And if you're in the mood to completely upgrade your autumn/winter wardrobe, I've also rounded up the best waterproof jacket deals and the best fleece jacket deals I've spotted — I assume all of these bargains when the cold weather actually arrives, so I wouldn't spend too long deciding.

Men's down jacket deals

Hop to the women's down jacket deals section

Rab Men's Microlight Jacket — Black

Patagonia Men's Nano Puff Hoodie Jacket — Gem Green

The North Face Men's Hathersage Insulated Light Down Jacket

Rab Men's Microlight Alpine Jacket, Dark Pollen

Berghaus Men’s Claggan Jacket

Arc'teryx Men's Cerium Hooded Jacket — Nightscape

Rab Men’s Microlight Alpine Down Jacket

Rab Men's Microlight Alpine Jacket — Beluga

Montane Men's Composite Hooded Down Jacket

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Rab Men's Microlight Alpine Jacket — Tempest Blue

Jack Wolfskin Men’s Passamani Down Hooded Jacket

Women's down jacket deals

Rab Women's Microlight Alpine Jacket — Watermelon

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Berghaus Women's Talmine Long Insulated Jacket

As a regular runner, I sign up to quite a few organised races, from trail runs to marathons. During most of them, headphones are not permitted — with a few exceptions.

Those exceptions are open-ear headphones and bone conduction headphones, which allow runners like me to hear the world around them while listening to motivational tunes, podcasts, and taking calls. Open ears allow you to hear traffic, pedestrians and other hazards on training runs, and instructions from marshals and guides during races.

I met one runner at an event who runs as a guide for blind runners, and in-ear headphones means his shouts and whistles for them to get out of the way and mind the blind runners fall on (literally) deaf ears. Open-ear headphones are about more than just your own safely, but others' safety too.

Shokz is the biggest name in open-ear headphones, and right now is offering a selection of 'back-to-school' deals until 31 August. I often use both the Shokz OpenFit true wireless earbuds and Shokz OpenRun bone conduction series, and there are deals on the budget options from both lines here, making them even better value.

You can get the older Shokz OpenRun discounted from £129.99 down to £94 on Amazon, while the true wireless Shokz OpenFit Air are discounted from £94 down to just £64 on Amazon. The OpenFits would be my budget running headphones pick, but you can view both deals below.

Today's best Shokz deals

You can save £35 on the original and still-very-good Shokz OpenRun, available in slate blue or fetching grey. Immersive stereo audio is delivered to your ears via transducers, and 8 hours of playtime will see you through runs and commutes alike.

Small head? Get the OpenRun Mini for the same price. View Deal

A great deal, and my budget pick. These true wireless earbuds allow you open-ear freedom, although they use speakers to project sound rather than bone conduction, but they still sound great. We rated the Shokz OpenFit Air 4.5 stars out of 5 in our review. View Deal

Across a network of front-line healthcare facilities in Zambia, health workers used a mobile app to be guided by basic clinical prompts and entered symptoms and observations as part of routine primary care encounters.

The syndromic patterns emerging from thousands of consultations indicated a cholera outbreak was on its way, months before confirmed diagnoses appeared.

No new laboratory. No field hospital. No breakthrough treatment. Just real and ordinary information, recognized early enough to matter.

We have seen the same principle at work in Abu Dhabi.

Last year, AI indicated that the influenza season was likely to arrive sooner than usual and highlighted the communities most at risk.

We acted on those insights by launching our vaccination campaign earlier, strengthening preparedness and expanding access for priority groups before cases began to rise.

A powerful reminder

It is a powerful reminder that AI's greatest value lies not in replacing clinicians or public health experts, but in giving them the information they need to make better decisions before a crisis escalates.

The question is no longer whether AI can help detect the next global health threat. In many cases, it already can. The real challenge is whether health systems are prepared to turn those insights into timely action before a local outbreak becomes a global emergency.

The need has never been greater. People are moving into cities faster than ever. Climate change is changing how infectious diseases emerge and spread, and international travel means an outbreak can move across continents in a matter of days. Yet many health systems still operate much as they always have, responding once illness becomes visible rather than monitoring for when the earliest warning signs appear.

By the time a threat appears in confirmed diagnoses or official reports, valuable time has already been lost. AI offers an opportunity to change that—not by replacing doctors, nurses or public health teams, but by helping them recognize patterns that would otherwise go unnoticed. Much of that picture now sits outside hospitals and laboratories.

Millions of people generate health data every day through wearable devices that track heart rate, sleep, activity and other physical signals. One person's data tells an individual story. Combined, they have the potential to help health systems identify risk and intervene earlier.

Health systems

Health systems also produce huge amounts of data through clinical records, laboratory results, environmental monitoring, vector surveillance, and population trends. These sources often sit in separate places and rarely tell the full story. AI can connect them, revealing patterns that would be almost impossible to detect manually.

Those insights allow health systems to prepare services, target prevention efforts and direct resources before an emerging threat becomes a wider public health emergency. This belief—that better information should lead to better decisions—is also what underpins Future Health – A Global Initiative by Abu Dhabi.

When the Future Health Challenge was launched in collaboration with the US-led social enterprise MIT Solve, nearly 400 teams from 68 countries entered. Each explored how AI could strengthen prevention and earlier intervention.

What stood out wasn't one miracle technology, but a shared focus: identifying problems before they become crises.

ThinkMD, the Australian team behind the Zambia example and winner of the Future Health Challenge, equips frontline health workers with AI-enabled clinical decision support, allowing routine patient consultations to contribute to a broader understanding of population health.

VectorCam, a Distinguished Finalist from the USA, applies AI to mosquito surveillance helping public health teams identify changing disease risk before outbreaks take hold.

Huna, a Brazilian health technology company and Distinguished Finalist, uses AI to analyze routine blood tests to identify elevated cancer risk earlier and guide individuals into appropriate screening and care.

These tools tackle different problems but share the same aim: spotting risk where there is still time to act.

So, if the technology is already this capable, what is holding it back?

Complex, cautious, and overstretched

Health systems are complex, cautious, and often overstretched. Data remains fragmented across organizations. Procurement cycles can be slow. Clinical staff have little time to absorb new tools and healthcare rightly demands strong evidence before new algorithms become part of clinical or public health decision-making.

These are not barriers to innovation. They are the conditions for adopting it responsibly.

An alert is only useful if someone knows what it means, trusts the evidence behind it and has a clear pathway to act. Earlier detection achieves little unless it leads to earlier action.

The next phase of AI in healthcare is likely to be defined less by new algorithms and more by stronger systems. That means building the infrastructure that connects information securely across organizations. It means designing AI that fits naturally into clinical workflows rather than adding complexity. It means creating policy frameworks that reward prevention alongside treatment.

Most importantly, it means bringing together clinicians, researchers, innovators and policymakers to solve implementation challenges collectively.

No technology will prevent every future outbreak. Nor should AI ever replace strong public health infrastructure. But earlier, better information can change the course of an emergency. It can influence where testing is deployed, where resources are directed and how quickly interventions begin.

In public health, timing matters.

The ability to detect earlier warning signs is increasingly within reach. The task now is to build health systems that are ready to respond.

AI will never replace human judgement, nor should it. Its real promise lies in strengthening decision-making and helping health systems respond with greater confidence, precision and speed when it matters most.

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• Watch UCI Mountain Bike World Championships 2026 free on YouTube (select countries)
• Unlock your stream with Surfshark (save up to 85%)
• UCI Mountain Bike World Championships: Wed, Aug 26 – Sun, Aug 30

Watch UCI Mountain Bike World Championships 2026 live streams, as Tom Pidcock, Valentina Höll and Mathieu van der Poel headline the action at Val di Sole in the Dolomites. The five-day event covers five disciplines: Cross-Country Olympic (XCO), Cross-Country Relay (XCR), Cross-Country Short Track (XCC), E-Mountain Bike (E-MTB) and Downhill (DHI).

Day 1 begins with the Women’s Elite E-Mountain Bike Cross-Country from 4am ET / 9am BST, followed by the Men’s Elite E-Mountain Bike Cross-Country from 5.30am ET / 10.30am BST, and the Mixed Team Relay from 11am ET / 4pm BST.

Reigning champion Anna Spielmann is in fine form, and her closest challenger in Valais last time out, Kathrin Stirnemann, has since retired. Jerome Gilloux is out for a hat-trick after winning each of the past two editions of the race, dating back to Vallnord two years ago. 2023 winner Joris Ryf is expected to challenge, having finished second to Gilloux last year.

The Mixed Team Relay sees each nation field a rider from all six mountain bike classes – Elite Women, Elite Men, U23 Women, U23 Men, Junior Women and Junior Men – in any order of their choosing, to race around a 2.4km circuit with 120m of elevation gain. France, Italy and Switzerland made the podium 12 months ago.

Here's how to watch UCI Mountain Bike World Championships 2026 from anywhere in the world. We've also listed the schedule and reigning champions below.

Can you watch UCI Mountain Bike World Championships 2026 for free?

Yes. Free UCI Mountain Bike World Championships coverage is available via the UCI YouTube channel in places where Val di Sole 2026 hasn't picked up a broadcasting partner, such as New Zealand.

Free coverage is also available via VRT and RTBF (Belgium), RSI/RTS/SRF (Switzerland), RAI (Italy) and L'Équipe (France).

Traveling abroad right now? You can use a VPN to watch UCI Mountain Bike World Championships 2026 for free as if you were right at home.

Use a VPN to watch UCI Mountain Bike World Championships 2026 live streams

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How to watch UCI Mountain Bike World Championships 2026 live streams in the US

Cycling fans in the US can stream UCI Mountain Bike World Championships 2026 live on FloBikes.

A subscription costs $155.88/year or $39.99/month.

If you're traveling outside of the US, you can make use of Surfshark to catch the action.

How to watch UCI Mountain Bike World Championships 2026 live streams in the UK

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In the UK, live UCI Mountain Bike World Championships 2026 coverage is being provided by TNT Sports.

You can add TNT Sports to your Sky, Virgin Media or EE TV package, or get an HBO Max plan that includes TNT Sports. Prices start at £25.99/month if you commit to a year.

If you're out of the UK but still want to tune in, explore the VPN route set out above, which will help you access your accounts from anywhere.

How to watch UCI Mountain Bike World Championships 2026 live streams in Australia

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Stan Sport is showing the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in Australia.

Stan Sport costs AU$20/month on top of a Stan subscription, which itself starts at AU$9.99/month. It's also home to the Premier League, Rugby's Greatest Rivalry, Super Rugby, Six Nations and Nations Championship.

Visiting Australia from New Zealand? Use Surfshark to watch free-to-air Val di Sole 2026 coverage.

How to watch UCI Mountain Bike World Championships 2026 live streams in Canada

(Image credit: Other)

In Canada, FloBikes is showing UCI Mountain Bike World Championships 2026.

A subscription costs CA$49.99/month or CA$215.88/year.

Not in Canada right now? You can simply use a VPN like Surfshark to watch all the action as if you were back home.

UCI Mountain Bike World Championships 2026 Q&AUCI Mountain Bike World Championships schedule 2026

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(All times UK)

Wednesday, August 26
9am – Women’s Elite E-MTB Cross-Country
10.30am – Men’s Elite E-MTB Cross-Country
4pm – Mixed Team Relay

Thursday, August 27
8.30am – Women’s Junior Cross-Country Olympic
10am – Men’s Junior Cross-Country Olympic
2.30pm – Women’s U23 Cross-Country Short Track
3.30pm – Men’s U23 Cross-Country Short Track
4.45pm – Women’s Elite Cross-Country Short Track
5.30pm – Men’s Elite Cross-Country Short Track

Friday, August 28
9.30am – Women’s Junior Downhill qualification
Followed by Men’s Junior Downhill qualification
2.30pm – Women’s Elite Downhill qualification
Followed by Men’s Elite Downhill qualification

Saturday, August 29
8.15am – Women’s Junior Downhill
9am – Men’s Junior Downhill
12.20pm – Women’s Elite Downhill
2pm – Men’s Elite Downhill

Sunday, August 30
8am – Women’s U23 Cross-Country Olympic
10am – Men’s U23 Cross-Country Olympic
12pm – Women’s Elite Cross-Country Olympic
2.15pm – Men’s Elite Cross-Country Olympic

Who are the reigning UCI Mountain Bike World Championships champions?

Mountain Bike World Championships reigning champions

Men's champions

• Cross-Country Marathon – Keegan Swenson (6:01:44.3)
• Downhill – Jackson Goldstone (2:54.153)
• Electric Cross-Country – Jerome Gilloux (48:28)
• Electric MTB Enduro – Adrien Dailly (31:32.11)
• Enduro – Richard Rude Jr (29:37.67)
• Pump Track – Eddy Clerte (20.023)
• Cross-Country Short Track – Victor Koretzky (21:26)
• Cross-Country Olympic – Alan Hatherly (1:30:30)

Women's champions

• Cross-Country Marathon – Kate Courtney (7:10:11.1)
• Downhill – Valentina Höll (3:27.136)
• Electric Cross-Country – Anna Spielmann (44:08)
• Electric MTB Enduro – George Swift (38:06.55)
• Enduro – Elly Hoskin (35:13.67)
• Pump Track – Sabina Kosarkova (22.424)
• Cross-Country Short Track – Alessandra Keller (20:43)
• Cross-Country Olympic – Jenny Rissveds (1:21:35)

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