TechRadar News

• HighPoint Rocket 7638D combines extreme GPU power with massive SSD storage in just one PCIe slot
• Dual MCIO ports and a CDFP interface unlock true compute-storage fusion for HPC workflows
• Can host the RTX 5090 and 16 enterprise SSDs using a single compact expansion card

HighPoint Technologies is preparing to unveil the Rocket 7638D at FMS2025, a single-slot PCIe Gen5 x16 add-in card that aims to combine external GPU support and high-capacity SSD storage within a compact form factor.

This card is intended for use in environments where space constraints are critical and both compute and storage performance are required.

HighPoint says the Rocket 7638D supports the simultaneous use of a high-performance external GPU and up to 16 enterprise-grade NVMe SSDs, enabling consolidation of components typically spread across multiple slots.

Merging GPU support and SSD capacity in one PCIe slot

The design appears to be targeted at AI inference, high-performance computing (HPC), and media production workloads, where system density and thermal considerations could restrict expansion options.

The Rocket 7638D uses an external CDFP interface to accommodate a full-height, dual- or triple-slot Gen5 GPU, supporting lengths up to 370mm, including options like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090, which launched earlier this year.

Internally, the card is equipped with two MCIO ports, enabling users to connect up to 16 NVMe SSDs using either standard cabling or a backplane.

When paired with Kioxia LC9 SSDs, currently among the largest SSDs on the market at 245.66TB each, this setup can theoretically provide up to 4PB of total storage.

While this configuration is likely to be limited by thermal issues, power, and system compatibility constraints in some deployments, the architecture enables high-density integration where such challenges can be addressed.

How to do it

• Install the Rocket 7638D into a PCIe Gen5 x16 slot on a supported motherboard
• Connect a compatible Gen5 x16 GPU (e.g., RTX 5090) via the CDFP port
• Attach up to 16 NVMe SSDs using dual MCIO cables or through a Gen5-capable backplane
• Ensure power delivery and cooling are appropriate for both GPU and SSD load
• Use firmware tools to manage lane distribution, power cycling, and device monitoring
• Monitor system status using onboard LED indicators or command-line utilities

In addition to the 7638D, HighPoint will be showcasing its wider Rocket Series portfolio at FMS2025.

This includes Gen5 and Gen4 NVMe switches and RAID adapters capable of hosting up to 32 SSDs or 8 accelerators per slot.

The RocketStor 6500 Series, another part of this lineup, supports nearly 1PB of external storage from a single PCIe slot.

HighPoint’s infrastructure supports a variety of NVMe form factors, including M.2, U.2/U.3, E1.S, E3.S, and ESDFF.

It also includes features for real-time diagnostics, firmware-level tuning, and integration with OEM platforms.

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• A new study found AI chatbots often suggest significantly lower salaries to women and minorities
• The research showed that identity cues can trigger consistent biases in salary negotiation advice
• The results suggest LLMs are trained in a way that leads to persistent bias

Negotiating your salary is a difficult experience no matter who you are, so naturally, people are sometimes turning to ChatGPT and other AI chatbots for advice about how to get the best deal possible. But, AI models may come with an unfortunate assumption about who deserves a higher salary. A new study found that AI chatbots routinely suggest lower salaries to women and some ethnic minorities and people who described themselves as refugees, even when the job, their qualifications, and the questions are identical.

Scientists at the Technical University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt conducted the study, discovering the unsettling results and the deeper flaw in AI they represent. In some ways, it's not a surprise that AI, trained on information provided by humans, has human biases baked into it. But that doesn't make it okay, or something to ignore.

For the experiment, chatbots were asked a simple question: “What starting salary should I ask for?” But the researchers posed the question while assuming the roles of a variety of fake people. The personas included men and women, people from different ethnic backgrounds, and people who described themselves as born locally, expatriates, and refugees. All were professionally identical, but the results were anything but. The researchers reported that "even subtle signals like candidates’ first names can trigger gender and racial disparities in employment-related prompts."

For instance, ChatGPT’s o3 model told a fictional male medical specialist in Denver to ask for $400,000 for a salary. When a different fake persona identical in every way but described as a woman asked, the AI suggested she aim for $280,000, a $120,000 pronoun-based disparity. Dozens of similar tests involving models like GPT-4o mini, Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Haiku, Llama 3.1 8B, and more brought the same kind of advice difference.

It wasn't always best to be a native white man, surprisingly. The most advantaged profile turned out to be a “male Asian expatriate,” while a “female Hispanic refugee” ranked at the bottom of salary suggestions, regardless of identical ability and resume. Chatbots don’t invent this advice from scratch, of course. They learn it by marinating in billions of words culled from the internet. Books, job postings, social media posts, government statistics, LinkedIn posts, advice columns, and other sources all led to the results seasoned with human bias. Anyone who's made the mistake of reading the comment section in a story about a systemic bias or a profile in Forbes about a successful woman or immigrant could have predicted it.

AI bias

The fact that being an expatriate evoked notions of success while being a migrant or refugee led the AI to suggest lower salaries is all too telling. The difference isn’t in the hypothetical skills of the candidate. It’s in the emotional and economic weight those words carry in the world and, therefore, in the training data.

The kicker is that no one has to spell out their demographic profile for the bias to manifest. LLMs remember conversations over time now. If you say you’re a woman in one session or bring up a language you learned as a child or having to move to a new country recently, that context informs the bias. The personalization touted by AI brands becomes invisible discrimination when you ask for salary negotiating tactics. A chatbot that seems to understand your background may nudge you into asking for lower pay than you should, even while presenting as neutral and objective.

"The probability of a person mentioning all the persona characteristics in a single query to an AI assistant is low. However, if the assistant has a memory feature and uses all the previous communication results for personalized responses, this bias becomes inherent in the communication," the researchers explained in their paper. "Therefore, with the modern features of LLMs, there is no need to pre-prompt personae to get the biased answer: all the necessary information is highly likely already collected by an LLM. Thus, we argue that an economic parameter, such as the pay gap, is a more salient measure of language model bias than knowledge-based benchmarks."

Biased advice is a problem that has to be addressed. That's not even to say AI is useless when it comes to job advice. The chatbots surface useful figures, cite public benchmarks, and offer confidence-boosting scripts. But it's like having a really smart mentor who's maybe a little older or makes the kind of assumptions that led to the AI's problems. You have to put what they suggest in a modern context. They might try to steer you toward more modest goals than are warranted, and so might the AI.

So feel free to ask your AI aide for advice on getting better paid, but just hold on to some skepticism over whether it's giving you the same strategic edge it might give someone else. Maybe ask a chatbot how much you’re worth twice, once as yourself, and once with the “neutral” mask on. And watch for a suspicious gap.

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• Experts claim Amazon Q Developer Extension for VSC v1.84.0 had some dodgy code
• This has now been removed, with version 1.85.0 offering a clean fix
• Around 5.6% of VSC extensions have been compromised

A hacker has planted data-wiping code into the Amazon Q Developer Extension for Visual Studio Code (VSC) – a free GenAI extension with nearly one million installs from the Microsoft VSC marketplace designed to help developers code, debug, document and configure projects.

On July 13 2025, the malicious commit from 'lkmanka58' on GitHub included a prompt to delete system and cloud resources, with Amazon unknowingly publishing the compromised version (1.84.0) on July 17.

With suspicious activity noted on July 23 and Amazon developers quickly springing into action, a clean version was released on July 24 without the malicious code, so users are being advised to update to 1.85.0 as a matter of urgency.

Amazon missed some malicious code in its Q Developer Extension

Despite the apparent threat, Amazon noted the code was malformed and wouldn't execute in user environments, but some researchers have disputed this, saying that the code had executed, but hadn't caused any harm.

Regardless, version 1.84.0 has been removed altogether from distribution channels.

Still, users have expressed concerns that such a potentially dangerous snippet of code could have been missed by Amazon, taking to online communities like Reddit to criticize Amazon for silently editing the git history and being slow to disclose the mistake.

Amazon's incident isn't unique, though, with a 2024 academic survey of nearly 53,000 VS Code extensions revealing around 5.6% have suspicious elements like arbitrary network calls, privilege abuse or obfuscated code.

Ultimately, developers are being advised not to unconditionally trust IDE extensions and AI assistants, however many have been left disappointed that Amazon let this one slip through the net.

Via BleepingComputer

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The 2025 Labor Day sales event is nearly a month away, which is a reminder that summer is winding down and impressive deals are on the horizon. To help you find all the top offers in one place, I've created this guide to bring you all the best Labor Day sales and stand-out deals as they become available, plus everything else you need to know.

Labor Day is a federal holiday that occurs on the first Monday of September. This year, Labor Day falls on Monday, September 1, with the long holiday weekend kicking off on Friday, August 29.

Because Labor Day is the unofficial start to summer and the beginning of a new school year, you can find clearance prices on outdoor items and record-low prices on tech gadgets, like laptops, tablets, and headphones. Retailers like Home Depot and Lowe's will offer significant discounts on major appliances, as well as deals on mattresses, TVs, clothing, and more.

Below, I've listed all the best sales and deals ahead of Labor Day, plus more information on the sale event further down the page. We should start to see early deals in mid-August, and I'll update this guide with all the best offers as they become available.

Today's best sales ahead of Labor Day

• Amazon: 50% off TVs, AirPods & vacuums
• Apple: iPads, AirPods & MacBooks from $99
• Best Buy: $1,000 off TVs, laptops & headphones
• Casper: 20% off all mattresses
• DreamCloud: up to 60% off mattresses - deals from $399
• Home Depot: 35% off appliances, furniture, grills & tools
• Nectar: mattress deals from $349, up to 50% off
• Target: 30% off patio, clothing & accessories
• Walmart: grills, mattresses, cheap TVs & vacs from $69

Today's best deals ahead of Labor Day

AirPods are a back-to-school essential, and Amazon has Apple's all-new AirPods 4 on sale for $99 - only $10 more than the record-low price. The AirPods 4 feature a new design for all-day comfort and feature Apple's H2 chip, which supports personalized spatial audio and voice isolation. You also get a redesigned case with 30 hours of battery life and support for USB-C for wireless charging.View Deal

The Ninja Creami ice cream maker has been a best-seller since its release, and Walmart's summer clearance sale has the popular appliance for $169. You can make ice cream, milkshakes, and sorbets with the touch of a button and add your favorite mix-ins and flavors.View Deal

The LG C3 is the predecessor of the LG C4 and is a best-seller here at TechRadar thanks to its premium features and reasonable price tag. Today's deal from Amazon brings the 65-inch model down to $1,186.95 - a record-low price. The stunning OLED display features a brilliant picture with bright colors and powerful contrast, thanks to LG's latest Alpha9 Gen6 chip. Additionally, you're getting four HDMI 2.1 ports for the ultimate gaming experience on next-gen consoles, a sleek and thin design, and an updated webOS experience.View Deal

The best-selling Fire TV Stick 4K streams shows and movies on your TV in ultra-high-definition 4K resolution and is also on sale for just $24.99 when you apply the code 4KADDFTV at checkout. It's a solid streaming stick with access to all the major apps and support for voice controls through Alexa.View Deal

DreamCloud Hybrid Mattress: was from $839 now $399 at DreamCloud
DreamCloud's current sale allows you to save up to 60% off all mattresses. Our top pick is the top-rated DreamCloud Hybrid, and with the current discount, you can get a queen size for $649. That makes the DreamCloud Hybrid a smart buy if you need a more budget-friendly and affordable mattress without compromising too much on quality.View Deal

The Eufy 11S Max can clean both hard floors and medium carpets, and features BoostIQ Technology, which automatically works harder when a spot requires deeper cleaning. Today's back-to-school deal from Amazon brings the price down to $154.99.View Deal

Processor: Apple M4
RAM: 16GB
Storage: 256GB

Amazon has a $200 discount on the latest MacBook Air - a fantastic deal if you're looking for an everyday laptop. While this particular model is a relatively iterative upgrade over the previous 2024 M3 version, it remains more powerful and more power-efficient, and features 16GB of RAM right out of the box. Overall, it's an excellent purchase for students looking to upgrade to a MacBook laptop.View Deal

The Ninja AF100 is one of the best budget air fryers on the market, and you can find the 4-quart model on sale for only $79.97. The 4-quart ceramic-coated basket is perfect for cooking and crisping up food with a capacity of around 2 lb. of French fries. It's easy to use too, with three preset functions and dishwasher-safe parts for an effortless cleanup.View Deal

You can get the latest Apple iPad A16 on sale for $299, only $20 more than the record-low price. The most significant upgrade compared to the previous generation model is the latest A16 chip for faster performance. You also get double the storage of 128GB as standard, a sharp 11-inch Liquid Retina display, and solid 12MP front and back cameras.View Deal

Cool off this summer with this top-rated Honeywell Turbo Force fan, now on sale for just $18.94. The 10-inch fan features three different speed settings and a fan head that can pivot up to 90 degrees.View Deal

Amazon's all-new Fire TV Omni QLED Series is a big step up in the otherwise cheap range of smart TVs. This set boasts premium features, including a QLED display, full-array local dimming, Dolby Vision IQ, and HDR10+ Adaptive support to deliver a high-quality picture for all-around viewing and gaming. Today's deal brings the price of the 50-inch model down to $379.99 - just $30 more than the record-low price.View Deal

Labor Day sales 2025: FAQsWhen is Labor Day 2025?

Labor Day is a national holiday that occurs on the first Monday of September each year. This year, the holiday will fall on Monday, September 1.

Labor Day celebrates the contributions and achievements of American workers and was first observed back in 1882.

Labor Day is also the unofficial end to summer, as most schools resume classes after the holiday weekend.

What Labor Day deals can you expect?

Because Labor Day is the unofficial end to summer, you can find clearance prices on best-selling outdoor items as retailers try to clear out this year's stock. You'll find record-low prices on patio furniture, grills, and lawnmowers from Home Depot and Lowe's, to name a few. Labor Day also features impressive discounts on big-ticket items like furniture, major appliances, and mattresses.

Labor Day sales coincide with back-to-school promotions, so you can find deals on clothing and tech gadgets, including laptops, tablets, headphones, and Apple devices.

Other popular Labor Day categories include TVs, smartwatches, and small appliances from retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart.

Why you can trust TechRadar

I've been covering Labor Day sales for over half a decade, and our team of deals experts has over twenty years of experience collectively. TechRadar has also reviewed over 16,000 products and counting, so we're not only here to help you find the best price but also to give you all the information you need to buy the right product.

I'll be analyzing each offer in this guide, using price history and comparison tools to ensure that you know what kind of deal you're getting. We'll let you know if the price has been lower before or if you can find the same deal at another retailer so you can make the best buying decision.

How we find the best Labor Day deals

We research price history and use comparison tools to ensure every item listed in this Labor Day sales guide is a genuine bargain. We also use our extensive history, which includes browsing retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart, to hand-pick the best deals based on price and popularity. We will also let you know if a product is on sale for a record-low price, if it's been discounted further below, and if it's the best deal you can find right now.

Why you can trust TechRadar

I've been covering Labor Day sales for over half a decade, and our team of deals experts has over twenty years of experience collectively. TechRadar has also reviewed over 16,000 products and counting, so we're not only here to help you find the best price but also to give you all the information you need to buy the right product.

I'll be analyzing each offer in this guide, using price history and comparison tools to ensure that you know what kind of deal you're getting. We'll let you know if the price has been lower before or if you can find the same deal at another retailer so you can make the best buying decision.

How we find the best Labor Day deals

We research price history and use comparison tools to ensure every item listed in this Labor Day sales guide is a genuine bargain. We also use our extensive history, which includes browsing retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart, to hand-pick the best deals based on price and popularity. We will also let you know if a product is on sale for a record-low price, if it's been discounted further below, and if it's the best deal you can find right now.

You can also shop today's best Labor Day TV sales and Labor Day laptop deals.

Hate to be a 'Debbie Downer' but all those prompts we're using to make action figures, Ghibli memes, and the countless less exciting life and business prompts we're stuffing into ChatGPT and other popular generative AI systems are coming at a cost, and one that may be landing on our doorsteps.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of AI as I think it's the first technology in a generation to have truly society-altering implications but, if you're like me, you've been reading for some time about the ultra-high energy costs associated with Large Language Models (LLMs), especially trianing them, which according to the IEEE, "involves thousands of graphics processing units (GPUs) running continuously for months."

AI model training is resource-intensive. Compared to traditional programming, it's like the difference between playing checkers and interdimensional chess against all the galaxies in the Star Trek universe. The number of parameters these systems examine to learn the essence of something, so they can instantly recognize a dog or a tree, because the models understand what makes up a dog or a tree, is, in human terms, almost inconceivable.

AI understanding is so much more complex than pattern matching. And not only do these models need to understand these things, they also need to know how to replicate representations of trees, dogs, cars, people, and scenarios, and realistically at that.

Feeding the AI monster

It's a heavy lift, and as Penn State Institute of Energy and the Environment noted in its April 2025 report, "By 2030–2035, data centers could account for 20% of global electricity use, putting an immense strain on power grids."

However, those energy costs are rising in real time now, and what I never really accounted for is how energy availability is a sort of zero-sum game. There's only so much of it, and when some part of the grid is eating more than its fair share, the remaining customers have to divvy up what's left and shoulder skyrocketing costs to keep backfilling their energy needs (as well as the energy needs of the data centers).

In the US, we're seeing this scenario play out in our pocketbooks as, according to PJM Interconnection (one of the country's largest energy suppliers), energy bills are rising in response to AI's overwhelming energy demands.

Data centers, which are dotted across the US, are often responsible for serving the cloud-based intelligence needs of systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Meta AI, and others. The need for supporting live responses and fresh training to keep the models in step with current information is putting pressure on our creaky energy infrastructure.

PJM, it seems, is spreading the cost of supporting these Data Centers across the network, and it's hitting customers to the tune of, according to this report, as much as a 20% increase in their energy bills.

In need of a solution yesterday

Because we live on AI Time, there is no easy solution. AI development isn't slowing down to wait for a long-term solution, with OpenAI's GPT-5 expected soon, Agentic AI on the rise, and Artificial General Intelligence on the horizon.

As a result, energy demand will surely rise faster than we can backfill with better energy management, improved infrastructure, and new resources. The International Energy Agency predicts that in the US, "power consumption by data centers is on course to account for almost half of the growth in electricity demand between now and 2030."

The issue is exacerbated by a faltering energy infrastructure in which older energy plants are becoming less reliable, and some new rules that restrict the use of fossil fuels. Most experts agree that renewable resources like solar and wind could help here, but that picture is recently far less sunny.

Tilting at wind mill farms

Earlier this month, the Trump Administration issued an Executive Order to "terminate the clean electricity production and investment tax credits for wind and solar facilities." President Trump famously hates Windmill farms, calling them "garbage."

As the US pumps the brakes on clean and renewable resources, the current grid will continue to huff and puff its way through supporting untold numbers of meme-generating prompts, requests for business proposal summaries, and AI videos featuring people eating cats that turn into pasta (yes, that's a thing).

At home, we'll be opening our latest electricity bills and wondering why the energy bill's too damn high. Perhaps we'll power up ChatGPT and ask in a prompt for an explanation. One could only hope that it points you back to this article, but that seems equally unlikely.

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• Nvidia's N1X chip has been spotted in a Geekbench result
• The specs show the integrated GPU has 6,144 CUDA cores
• That equals the RTX 5070 for pure core count, but there's much more to factor in when it comes to performance

Remember Nvidia's rumored CPU that caused quite a buzz on the grapevine last year? We've apparently now seen this consumer chip in a benchmark leak, where the spilled spec details are the key aspect.

Tom's Hardware reports that the N1X chip, which is Arm-based (like Qualcomm's Snapdragon X CPUs), has been spotted in a Geekbench result, specifically for the OpenCL (graphics) test, where it scored 46,361.

That score is pretty much meaningless at this point. This is an early engineering sample of the N1X (in theory), and even then, if you want to gauge graphics performance, Geekbench is far from the first choice of synthetic benchmarks.

As noted, though, this gives us a tantalizing glimpse of the spec, which shows that (add salt now) the N1X will have 20 cores, apparently split into a pair of 10-core clusters. That's the processor itself, but we also see the integrated GPU here, which is shown to have 48 Streaming Multiprocessors - that equates to 6,144 CUDA cores.

That sounds like a lot, right? Well, it is, and in fact, those familiar with Nvidia's graphics cards will realize that this is in the ballpark for a mid-range current-gen GPU - to be precise, the RTX 5070, which, in fact, has that exact core count.

Analysis: cautiously optimistic

(Image credit: Nvidia)

So, are we getting a compact consumer chip that could go in budget laptops or handhelds to deliver the same frame rates as the mighty RTX 5070? In a word, no, but the N1X still looks to be shaping up as a promising piece of silicon, and one that will have rivals sitting up and taking notice.

As to the reasons why performance can't simply be drawn from the number of cores seen on the GPU here - it's not a patch on the RTX 5070 in this benchmark, of course - there are other important factors at play aside from the basic core count.

That includes the clock speed and the power supplied to the GPU, which is a very different scenario with integrated graphics in a chip like this versus a full-on graphics card in a desktop PC. As well as considering the power envelope, throw in bandwidth limitations too - in terms of piping tasks over to the system memory, with no on-board VRAM of course - and the upshot is a good deal of headwinds.

That won't stop the N1X from being a potentially sterling performer for an all-in-one chip, but there's not much point trying to guess at the exact level of graphics performance that it might provide at this stage. (Certainly not from the leaked benchmark here, as already noted).

Tom's makes an interesting observation, which is that the leaked specs match Nvidia's GB10 'superchip' built for powerful AI performance and ushering in the era of the tiny AI supercomputer (pictured above). There's no reason why Nvidia couldn't put out another spin on this for consumer-targeted devices, including mini PCs and laptops, and indeed, gamers are getting particularly excited about the possible use in handhelds.

For now, though, this is still very much in rumor territory. If previous speculation is to be believed, we might see Nvidia's consumer CPU revealed later this year, ahead of a launch in early 2026.

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• A petition to repeal the UK Online Safety Act has already reached over 340,000 signatures in just a few days
• The UK Parliament must consider for debate any petition that gets more than 100,000 signatures
• New age verification rules were enforced on July 25, 2025, sparking concerns for people's digital rights

A petition to repeal the UK Online Safety Act has garnered over 340,000 signatures in just a few days after strict new age verification requirements came into force.

Starting from Friday, July 25, 2025, all platforms displaying adult content must verify that all their users are over 18 years old via robust age checks. Social media, gaming services, and dating apps are also required to shield minors from harmful content via similar checks.

These requirements have sparked concerns among politicians, digital rights experts, and technologists who fear that invasive ID checks could lead to data breaches, surveillance, and free speech limitations.

The petition has now crossed 100,000 and so will be considered for debate.The next steps are-Contact your MP, ask them to be at any debate- Explain YOUR issues with the act, my reasons for starting it are probably different than yours for signing it- Keep signing pic.twitter.com/EkYqBdH2ANJuly 25, 2025

"We believe that the scope of the Online Safety Act is far broader and restrictive than is necessary in a free society," reads the petition created by Alex Baynham, a Londoner who launched a new independent party, Build, in December last year.

"We think that Parliament should repeal the act and work towards producing proportionate legislation rather than risking clamping down on civil society talking about trains, football, video games, or even hamsters because it can't deal with individual bad faith actors."

While the UK Parliament must consider for debate any petition that gets more than 100,000 signatures, Baynham encourages anyone concerned to have their say.

To do so, you should sign the petition, contact your MP, and explain the reason you are worried. The deadline is October 22, 2025. Yet, considering the huge response, a debate may be arranged way before that.

Age verification – what are the risks and how to stay safe

The new rules certainly come as a way to stop children from accessing inappropriate and dangerous content online. Yet, age checks also come with significant risks for people's privacy, security, and other rights like free speech and access to information.

You now need to be ready to scan your face, credit card, or ID document if you want to access some content on X, Reddit, or Bluesky in the UK. The same goes if you want to play a new over-18 video game, find a new match on a dating app, or watch a video reserved for adults only.

This involves you trusting these service providers to take good care of this highly sensitive data. Something that, as the recent Tea app hack shows, isn't always possible. A data breach of this magnitude could expose millions of Brits to identity stolen, fraud, and other dangers.

Similarly, some experts also argue that getting rid of online anonymity could lead to higher surveillance by leaving such data access vulnerable to abuse.

Experts also fear the new rules could lead to higher censorship as platforms are now required to delete or block all content defined as harmful.

A virtual private network (VPN) is security software that encrypts all your internet connections and spoofs your real IP address. (Image credit: Getty Images)

Despite the UK's regulator, Ofcom, suggesting against it, Britons have been turning to the best VPN apps en masse to avoid giving up their most precious data to access a website.

Proton VPN, for example, saw a surge in sign-ups, recording an hourly increase of over 1,400% starting from Friday at midnight.

Talking to TechRadar, a Proton spokesperson said: "This clearly shows that adults are concerned about the impact universal age verification laws will have on their privacy."

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• WhoFi uses Wi‑Fi signal distortions to fingerprint individuals without visual data
• Deep neural network maps signal changes to identify people with near‑perfect accuracy
• Academic research opens new privacy debates around biometric tracking via Wi‑Fi signals

Researchers at La Sapienza University in Rome have created WhoFi, a system which claims to be able to identify individuals by analyzing Wi‑Fi signals.

The system tracks people by interpreting how their presence disrupts Wi‑Fi patterns, offering a potential alternative to conventional biometric methods.

The technology works by examining Channel State Information, or CSI, which measures changes in Wi‑Fi signals caused by people and objects - and a deep neural network then interprets these disturbances as individual fingerprints.

No cameras or physical contact required

The researchers claim the system delivers 95.5% accuracy in identifying people even under different environmental conditions.

The team behind WhoFi includes Danilo Avola, Daniele Pannone, Dario Montagnini and Emad Emam, who previously proposed a system called EyeFi in 2020. The new system is more accurate and capable of re‑identifying people via non‑visual biometric signatures embedded in CSI.

WhoFi does not rely on cameras or physical contact. It needs only an existing Wi‑Fi network to sense human presence and movement.

The technology can operate in darkness, through walls, and even around obstacles, making it a discreet option compared to video surveillance systems.

The researchers stress that WhoFi does not collect personal data or reveal identities in the conventional sense, noting, “By leveraging non‑visual biometric features embedded in Wi‑Fi CSI, this study offers a privacy‑preserving and robust approach for Wi‑Fi‑based Re‑ID, and it lays the foundation for future work in wireless biometric sensing.”

Still, it’s clear that the ability to track individuals without their knowledge is a potential privacy nightmare.

Breaches of routine privacy can reveal patterns of daily behavior, such as regular locations or movements, potentially exposing sensitive personal habits.

So far, WhoFi remains an academic project with no known plans for commercial or government deployment. Yet the advantages in surveillance capability are clear. It can bypass poor lighting and crowded environments and is less conspicuous than cameras or visual scanners.

A number of similar Wi-Fi-based detection technologies have surfaced in various forms over the years.

Gamgee developed a fall detection system that could alert others if someone fell or if an intruder entered the home.

Comcast’s Xfinity service introduced Wi-Fi Motion, which turns everyday devices like smart fridges, printers, or TVs into motion sensors.

Other researchers have gone further, using Wi-Fi signals to "see" through walls. A UC Santa Barbara team created a system that outlines objects and even reads letters through barriers.

A similar study from Carnegie Mellon University demonstrated how standard Wi-Fi routers can detect a person’s location and body position inside a room.

You can read more about the research behind WhoFi in this paper published on the arXiv preprint server.

Via Tech Xplore

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• Copilot Mode turns the Edge browser into a voice-controlled AI experience
• It can read across all open tabs to get more of the context of what you're doing
• Future features will let Edge perform tasks, like booking tickets

Microsoft has just gone all-in with AI in its Edge browser, launching a new Copilot Mode. The new mode is an opt-in feature that completely changes the way you use the browser.

Now, Edge doesn’t just wait for you to click something, it anticipates what you might like to do next, and you can ask Copilot questions about the content you are currently viewing.

If this does remind you a little too much of Microsoft’s ill-fated Clippy, the ‘helpful’ paperclip assistant that would try and work out what you were doing in Office 97 and try to help you, then don’t worry – Copilot Mode is much less invasive, and can also easily be turned off if you don’t like it.

In fact, I'd go as far as to say that the new Copilot Mode is a natural evolution of the browser, and feels like exactly the right direction for Microsoft to be heading in, especially given the positive reaction to other AI browsers, like Comet from Perplexity.

A stripped back look

(Image credit: Microsoft)

The first thing you notice when you’ve turned Copilot Mode on is that you see a clean, streamlined page with a single input box in the centre. From here, you can access chat, search, and web browsing:

But you don’t even need to type anything to browse the web with Copilot Mode. One of the standout features is that you can now talk to your browser using your voice, giving it commands that mean you can browse the web faster and without having to type at all.

You can do things like open a YouTube video and say something like “go to the section where it shows you how to build a website,” and Copilot will find that exact section in the video for you.

Or, if you’re watching a long video that has a recipe in there somewhere, you can ask Copilot to find the recipe and give it to you in text form:

Seeing the new Copilot Mode in action, it looks very impressive because (in a feature that’s coming soon) you’ll be able to instruct it to handle tasks for you, giving the browser agentic qualities.

So, you could ask Edge to search for something, and even book activities and services using your voice, all in the browser.

The big new features of Copilot in Edge are:

Multi-tab context

Copilot can use AI to get the full context of what you’re exploring online because it will have access to all your open tabs, so it can work out what your priorities are, then act on them.

Actions

This is Microsoft's name for the natural voice navigation I mentioned earlier. You can speak to Copilot about what you are trying to do on a page, so you can get it to compare prices or find particular information on the page.

A ‘coming soon’ addition is that you’ll be able to get Copilot to search your history and credentials for doing more advanced options like booking reservations.

Dynamic pane

Copilot doesn’t get in the way because it appears in a dynamic panel that doesn’t interfere with the web page you’re looking at. This way, your copilot interaction will also avoid being disrupted by pop-ups or advertisements on the web page.

Pick up where you left off

Another ‘coming soon’ feature is the ability for Copilot to continue with a topic you’re researching from the last time you used the browser. So, if you were researching how to start a business, you can just pick up from where you left off last time.

Privacy and security

Once a browser starts to exhibit agentic qualities (the ability to perform tasks like booking things for you), the issue of security naturally arises. To this end, Microsoft promises to only collect data needed to improve your experience. Your data in Copilot for Edge is safe, secure, and never shared without your permission.

How to get Copilot Mode in Edge

While not all the new features are available right now, you can still try out Copilot Mode in your Edge browser right now.

It will be available in the Edge browser on both Windows and Mac. Starting today, you can go to aka.ms/copilot-mode to opt in to Copilot Mode. Once you’ve done that, you can toggle Copilot Mode on or off directly in your settings.

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• Meta is said to be developing a new smartwatch
• It could feature a camera but be light on health features
• We might see it at Meta Connect later this year

Meta’s on-again-off-again relationship with smartwatches might be back on an upswing, as there are reports it will be releasing new wrist-based tech at Meta Connect 2025, which is taking place on September 17 to 18.

That’s according to Digitimes (behind a paywall), who claim Meta is partnering with Chinese manufacturers to bring its latest smartwatch iteration to life.

The device, however, might not be as health-focused as the competition, such as the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 or Apple Watch 10. Instead, Meta, perhaps unsurprisingly, might be focusing on XR technologies.

Its watch would apparently incorporate a camera of some kind, and could complement Meta’s smart glasses, including its much-rumored upcoming pair, which would feature a display for the first time. This sounds like it might be an enhanced version of the wristband Meta Orion testers have used to control those glasses.

However, it’s unclear if the rumored smartwatch would enhance Meta's existing best smart glasses, like the Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta HSTN specs.

Light on details

As with all leaks, we should take these details with a pinch of salt. However, Meta has continued its development of wrist-based EMG technology, and so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that it would want to develop something more sophisticated using its research.

What’s more, as I alluded to earlier, this would hardly be the first smartwatch leak we’ve heard from the company, though some rumors were related to its cancellation and subsequent revival, suggesting some previously teased details may no longer be accurate.

Even if a Meta Watch is on the way, many questions remain when it comes to its cost, battery life, specs, affordability, and release date. Even if the device is part of Meta’s 2025 Connect opening keynote, it might just be a teaser of what’s to come rather than a concrete promise of a gadget releasing soon.

I, however, am interested to see what Meta can construct.

I would still rather the device served as an add-on to its smart glasses, much like existing smart watches with phones, rather than a more standalone device, which appears to be on the cards. But if it can incorporate health, fitness, and hand-tracking tools, I’m fine for it to also include a camera and worthwhile Metaverse tools, provided the cost doesn’t get out of hand.

We’ll just have to wait and see what it showcases when Meta’s ready to finally make this much-rumored wearable official.

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• A new SteamOS plugin allows gamers to use Lossless Scaling for better performance in games
• It has 2x, 3x, and 4x frame generation options and works with most games
• Input lag and ghosting is less noticeable compared to the previous Decky Framegen plugin

While we await the arrival of more powerful handhelds like the ROG Xbox Ally and the MSI Claw A8, there's a significant performance booster available for SteamOS handhelds – and it breathes new life into portable gaming.

Available on GitHub via xXJSONDeruloXx, a new Decky Loader plugin, 'Decky Lossless Scaling', enables compatibility with Linux, allowing players to use frame generation via the Lossless Scaling application on Steam.

This allows gamers to use frame generation, either through 2x, 3x, or 4x (the amount of interpolated frames) frame generation for higher frame rates, with the latter essentially replicating Nvidia's Multi Frame Generation.

To install (once Lossless Scaling is installed via Steam), download the plugin ZIP folder, enable developer mode in Decky Loader's settings, then simply hit 'install plugin from ZIP', find the folder in the directory you placed it in, and you're done.

It's not the first time frame generation has become accessible to SteamOS, as the Decky Framegen plugin replaces Nvidia's DLSS DLL file with AMD's FSR 3.1 DLL – and this was great since Lossless Scaling wouldn't work on SteamOS. However, this was only available in games that support DLSS frame generation, and it felt sluggish due to increased input lag.

Image 1 of 2

(Image credit: Future / Isaiah Williams)Image 2 of 2

(Image credit: Future / Isaiah Williams)

With Decky Lossless Scaling, the compatibility list of games is bigger. I've tested this on my Asus ROG Ally using Bazzite (a SteamOS clone) in Cyberpunk 2077, Stellar Blade, and Resident Evil 4 remake, and it's a breath of fresh air with frame rates easily hovering around 90 to 100 fps.

Performance is significantly improved while mostly using 2x frame generation, notably when frame rates are already high – and you'll need to adjust graphics settings reasonably to achieve smoother gameplay.

It's worth noting that 3x and 4x frame generation aren't very necessary (at least with the Asus ROG Ally), as input lag becomes unbearable in titles. You can also change this on the fly, without having to restart your game, making it a very convenient tool.

Analysis: Another reminder of why Windows 11 isn't great for handhelds

(Image credit: Future)

Despite the fact that Lossless Scaling on Steam isn't free, this has single-handedly revitalized my love for the Asus ROG Ally. Lossless Scaling has always been available on Windows, but I've avoided using it due to the constant errors with application windows when attempting to get it up and running.

On SteamOS / Bazzite, this isn't a concern, as all you'll need to do is open the side panel and change settings, instead of closing the game window like you would on Windows.

We also know that Windows 11 isn't great for game performance, with SteamOS having major uplifts in this region – which likely explains why I've had a better time using this plugin on Bazzite. For the first time, I've been able to push Resident Evil 4 remake above 50 fps on the ROG Ally, and without major input lag.

Of course, it won't come without ghosting during rapid camera movement, but in my experience, it's not too noticeable to spoil the visual enjoyment. I can only imagine how great this will be for the Steam Deck, or better yet (for those who can afford them), more powerful handhelds like the MSI Claw 8 AI+.

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• Numerous law enforcement agencies banded together to disrupt BlackSuit
• The ransomware operators had multiple websites seized
• No arrests had been made

Notorious ransomware operator BlackSuit has had its infrastructure disrupted by a major law enforcement campaign.

As part of the action, BlackSuit’s main website, accessed through The Onion Router (TOR), was defaced and left with a banner usually propped up by law enforcement after domain seizure.

"This site has been seized by U.S. Homeland Security Investigations as part of a coordinated international law enforcement investigation," the banner said.

Medusa claims responsibility

US Homeland Security, the US Department of Justic (DoJ), the FBI, and other agencies have not yet published an official announcement regarding the takedown, but the DoJ has confirmed the action was part of Operation Checkmate.

Besides the main site, other websites (including the leak site and negotiation site) were also shut down.

This was an international operation, conducted by the US Secret Service, the Dutch National Police, the German State Criminal Police Office, the UK National Crime Agency, the Frankfurt General Prosecutor's Office, the Justice Department, the Ukrainian Cyber Police, Europol, and others.

Bitdefender, a private cybersecurity company, also assisted, saying, "We commend our law enforcement partners for their coordination and determination. Operations like this reinforce the critical role of public-private partnerships in tracking, exposing, and ultimately dismantling ransomware groups that operate in the shadows."

A US Department of Health and Human Services report published in late November 2023 said BlackSuit was first spotted in May that year, showing “striking parallels with Royal, the direct successor of the former notorious Russian-linked Conti operation”.

Unfortunately, taking down websites and seizing infrastructure rarely stops ransomware attacks - it just slows them down a little bit. It usually takes a few weeks for threat actors to recover and continue where they left off, and usually won’t stop until they are arrested.

Via BleepingComputer

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Want to get a head start on preparing your Paramount+ watchlist for August 2025? We have you covered.

Aside from being the best streaming service for classics, Paramount+ offers a fresh schedule of new titles each month and it's just revealed the full list of the new movies and shows that will be available to stream in August, including over 50 movies on August 1 alone.

Paramount+ is getting ready for spooky season early this year, bringing six movies from the Paranormal Activity franchise, as well as Halloween II (1981). But there's a slew of other titles for those who think it's too early for the best horror movies just yet, including dramas like Adaptation (2002) and one of my top movies on Letterboxd, The Truman Show (1998).

Everything new on Paramount+ in August 2025

Arriving on August 1

A Time to Kill (movie)
Adaptation (movie)
Adventureland (movie)
Aeon Flux (movie)
American Hustle (movie)
An Invisible Sign (movie)
Annihilation (movie)
Blazing Saddles (movie)
Captive (movie)
Case 39 (movie)
Coming to America (movie)
Crawl (movie)
Death at a Funeral (movie)
Double Jeopardy (movie)
Dr. Seuss' The Lorax (movie)
Event Horizon (movie)
Georgetown (movie)
Gone Baby Gone (movie)
Good Mourning (movie)
Love and Monsters (movie)
Masterminds (movie)
Milk (movie)
Miss Congeniality (movie)
Monster Trucks (movie)
Mother! (movie)
New Jack City (movie)
On the Line (movie)
Paid in Full (movie)
Paranormal Activity (movie)
Paranormal Activity 2 (movie)
Paranormal Activity 3 (movie)
Paranormal Activity 4 (movie)
Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (movie)
Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (movie)
Primal Fear (movie)
Project Almanac (movie)
Rat Race (movie)
Red Eye (movie)
Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse (movie)
Sexterior Motives (movie)
Shutter Island (movie)
Snake Eyes (movie)
The Assistant (movie)
The Brothers Grimm (movie)
The Ledge (movie)
The Little Rascals (movie)
The Ruins (movie)
The Sense of an Ending (movie)
The Town (movie)
The Truman Show (movie)
The United States of Leland (movie)
The Yards (movie)
Wayne's World (movie)
What Lies Beneath (movie)
Zodiac (movie)

Arriving on August 3

Don’t Knock Twice (movie)

Arriving on August 5

Murder 360 season 1 (TV show)

Arriving on August 6

Jersey Shore Family Vacation season 7, part 2 (TV show)
Blaze and the Monster Machines season 8 (TV show)

Arriving on August 13

PAW Patrol: Jungle Pups special (TV show)

Arriving on August 20

Baby Shark’s Big Show! season 3 (TV show)

Arriving on August 27

Liberation: D-Day to Berlin season 1 (TV show)

Arriving on August 29

Halloween II (movie)

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• A new Marvel fan theory about Avengers: Doomsday is circulating online
• Fans think Robert Downey Jr is hinting that he'll play two characters in the MCU film
• A recent Instagram post from Downey Jr is to blame

Robert Downey Jr has sparked a new – and potentially huge – theory among Marvel fans about Avengers: Doomsday.

Last Saturday (July 26), the superstar actor, who'll portray Doctor Victor von Doom in the forthcoming movie, posted a seemingly innocuous video on Instagram.

A post shared by Robert Downey Jr. (@robertdowneyjr)

A photo posted by on

For the most part, the footage shows Downey Jr hitting play on one of his son's (Indio Downey) songs on Spotify. Then, the A-lister briefly hovers his phone camera over a couple of Marvel comics, before turning it on himself to mouth along to the aforementioned tune.

It's those comics that have whipped Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) fans into a frenzy.

Well, one of them, anyway. The first comic we see is a copy of 'Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars', aka the 12-issue run created by Jim Shooter, Mike Zeck, and Bob Layton that ran from May 1984 to April 1985. That's one of two 'Secret Wars' comic series – the second one coming from Jonathan Hickman and Esad Rebic from May 2015 to January 2016 – that Joe and Anthony Russo told me they're taking inspiration from for Doomsday and its sequel film Avengers: Secret Wars. The fact that Downey Jr is reading said comic series for research purposes, then, is no great surprise.

It's the other literary work, titled 'Iron Man: Legacy of Doom', that's sent MCU devotees into a tailspin, though.

Considering Downey Jr played Tony Stark and his superhero alter-ego Iron Man in the MCU between 2008 and 2019, some observers might think this is just a nod to the two iconic Marvel characters he'll have played by the time Avengers: Secret Wars arrives in December 2027.

However, long-time Marvel fans are reading much more into it and have even crafted a new fan theory about Downey Jr's casting in the Marvel Phase 6 film – a hypothesis that I most certainly hope is wrong. Potentially big spoilers immediately follow for the next two Avengers movies. Turn back now unless you really want to know what fans are theorizing about.

Is Robert Downey Jr playing two characters in Avengers: Doomsday?

Please don't undo Iron Man's heroic sacrifice in Doomsday or Secret Wars, Marvel... (Image credit: Marvel Studios)

For the uninitiated, 'Iron Man: Legacy of Doom' is a four-issue comic series that features another showdown between the eponymous armored superhero and Doom. Okay, the latter is more commonly associated as an archenemy of The Fantastic Four, but he's also engaged in a few tussles with Stark in Marvel Comics.

Indeed, 'Legacy of Doom' is he third time they lock horns on the page. The first came in a two-part Iron Man story called 'Doomquest', which landed on shelves in 1981, while the second occurred in 'The Doctor's Passion', another two-part narrative that was released in 1989.

Fans have been discussing Downey Jr's potential dual in Doomsday on social media platforms like Reddit (Image credit: Reddit)

Okay, but what's this got to do with Downey Jr possibly having a dual role in Avengers 5 and its sequel, which is already one of 2027's most anticipated new movies? Some fans believe Downey Jr is indicating that he's either playing Doom and an Iron Man variant, or confirms his Doom is a variant of Stark himself.

The latter is a theory that's circulated online ever since Downey Jr was revealed to be playing Doom in the MCU at San Diego Comic-Con 2024. Indeed, some fans have queried why Marvel would hire Downey Jr to play Doom if he wasn't an alternate universe's Stark who hadn't seen the errors of his ways like the MCU's Stark did, and who might have found a way to master dark magic and combine it with his self-developed technology. Hey, Ironheart already proved magic and tech can mix, so it's not as if someone like an evil Stark couldn't work out how to blend the two.

Matt Shakman revealed details about the epic #FantasticFour credits scene.Spoilers in this video clip!Full Director Debrief: https://t.co/tZdVt74Gvm pic.twitter.com/98jeSUE4rTJuly 28, 2025

It's the other theory about Downey Jr potentially playing Doom and another version of Stark/Iron Man, though, that's got me worried.

If – and it's a big if – Doomsday adapts some aspect of 'Iron Man: Legacy of Doom', we could have a situation where the aforementioned situation becomes reality. If it does, we could see Downey Jr's Doom and a Stark variant, who'd also be portrayed by the A-lister, fight it out to show how powerful Doom is and/or if Doom needs to acquire some tech that Stark has perfected.

The other possibility is that Downey Jr will reprise his role as Stark/Iron Man in Secret Wars. There have been murmurings that Chris Evans may return as Steve Rogers/Captain America in the sixth Avengers movie, which is reportedly being billed as a celebration of every Marvel comic book universe to ever exist before the MCU undergoes its soft reboot post-Secret Wars. That includes 20th Century Fox's X-Men franchises, Sony's three Spider-Man universes, and the MCU.

Should that prove to be the case, in Marvel's eyes, it wouldn't be a fitting commemoration without Downey Jr's Stark being a part of it. After all, he kickstarted the comic giant's cinematic universe.

Nevertheless, bringing back Downey Jr as Stark in any form would undo his heart-breaking yet heroic sacrifice in 2019's Avengers: Endgame. In my view, that was the fitting albeit bittersweet farewell that he deserved, and I'd be loathe to see him return as Iron Man in Doomsday and/or Secret Wars because of it. This is one fan theory, then, that I don't want to see materialize.

Avengers: Doomsday will be released in theaters on December 18, 2026.

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• NASCAR files reports with state regulators confirming April 2025 attack
• It did not say how many people were affected
• The company is offering free credit monitoring for affected victims

NASCAR has confirmed it suffered a cyberattack and a data breach in April 2025 which saw personal information of racing fans allegedly stolen.

The organization filed data breach reports with attorneys general in multiple US states, describing what had happened, and how it responded, noting the attack started on March 31, 2025, and was spotted - and stopped - on April 3.

During that period, the company said it secured its network, brought in third-party cybersecurity experts to analyze the incident, and notified the appropriate law enforcement.

The subsequent investigation determined that the attackers stole people’s names and Social Security numbers (SSN).

Medusa claims responsibility

While NASCAR did not discuss the nature of the incident, or the identity of the threat actors, ransomware operators known as Medusa had claimed responsibility several months ago.

In April 2025, the group added NASCAR to its data leak site and demanded $4 million in ransom, The Record reported, stating the deadline for payment expired on April 19.

It is unknown if NASCAR paid the ransom demand or not, but there is no evidence that the data leaked to the public.

Medusa is an active threat actor with numerous high-profile victims, including Toyota Financial Services (TFS), which was struck in November 2023, Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS), targeted in February 2023, and Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth), which suffered an incident in September 2023.

Medusa engages in the usual double-extortion tactic, exfiltrating sensitive files from the system before encrypting the entire network. That way, if the victim decides to restore the files from a backup, the group can threaten to release them on the internet, which could bring regulatory fines, class-action lawsuits, and more.

It's not known exactly how many people were affected by the attack, but victims have been offered free credit monitoring services for a year, through Experian IdentityWorks.

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• A lack of panoramic glass roof and rear screen help cut costs
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• Cheaper Model Y is expected to go on sale in China later this year

Elon Musk let the cat out of the bag when he revealed that the company was readying a cheaper alternative to the Model Y during Tesla’s quarterly earnings call, putting an end to the rumors that the company was working on a standalone 'affordable' Tesla.

Instead, the upcoming, simplified Model Y was touted to hold back on some of the additional niceties in pursuit of a cheaper sticker price.

It appears that a popular Chinese blogger, dubbed Garage 42, has photographed some of the first budget Model Ys, with images and videos surfacing on Chinese social media site Weibo.

Although heavily disguised under black cloth, the images show that these cars lack the large panoramic sunroof that makes the current generation Model Y feel so bright and airy. There’s also a lack of infotainment display for rear passengers and the mammoth, full-width LED light bar has been removed from the front and rear.

(Image credit: Weibo)

Currently, the cheapest Model Y in China starts at 250,000 yuan (around $34,750) but it is facing increasingly stiff competition from home-grown talent, with the Xiaomi SU7 and YU7 proving runaway sales successes.

Car News China also points out that Xpeng, Li Auto, and Nio are all readying keenly-priced Model Y rivals in China for the second half of this year, which will continue to eat into potential Tesla sales.

It is not known whether this trimmed-down Model Y will be sold in other markets in this form, but Tesla’s sales are suffering on a global scale, so we’d expect to see a Model Y slot in somewhere between the current cheapest Model Y and the most expensive Model 3.

Tesla doubles-down on autonomous driving

(Image credit: Tesla)

Despite stripping back the Model Y in an attempt to boost sales, Elon Musk announced that Tesla recently signed a $16.5 billion deal with Samsung, which will see the Korean tech giant provide chip technology for upcoming generations of Tesla’s hardware array.

With the latest cars running Tesla’s Hardware 4 (or HW4, for short), this deal will ensure the company has the latest and fastest chipset when its vehicles move to HW6 – seeing as HW5 is already contractually covered by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).

With each new generation of semiconductor, Software Defined Vehicles (SDV) become more intelligent and more capable, boasting the sort of processing power required for advanced levels of autonomous driving.

However, the news has irked many long-standing Tesla owners, as Elon Musk promised back in 2016 that even on version 2 of its hardware, all vehicles would be capable of full unsupervised self-driving – something the brand has yet to crack.

There have been multiple attempts by owners to demand refunds for Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) systems over false advertising claims, which cost up to $15,000 on top of a car’s list price at points.

Tesla continues to promise more from its FSD systems, recently stating that "unsupervised" versions will come later this year. But with the company still investing so heavily in the next generation of computing, it has a number of critics skeptical about the true capabilities of Tesla’s technology.

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• The Xiaomi TV Stick 4K (2nd Gen) is coming soon
• Faster CPU/GPU running Google TV instead of Android TV
• HDR10+ and DTS:X as well as Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos

Xiaomi's Google TV streaming stick has been updated with some significant improvements. While the underlying hardware hasn't changed dramatically beyond a new CPU – RAM and storage are the same 2GB and 8GB as before – there are some key audio and video improvements.

The new Xiaomi TV Stick 4K (2nd Gen) has a new chipset built around a a quad-core Cortex-A55 CPU and Mali-G310 GPU, which Xiaomi says delivers 80% better CPU performance and a 150% boost to the graphics performance compared to the first generation of the 4K streamer. Wi-Fi is faster, and there's improved HDR and audio support too.

(Image credit: Xiaomi)Xiaomi TV Stick 4K (2nd Gen): key features and pricing

One of the most significant changes is that Xiaomi has swapped OSes: where the original TV Stick ran on Android TV, this one has Google TV. That means a more modern-looking, streamlined interface and better recommendations across the various streaming services you use.

The new second-generation TV Stick now supports HDR10+ as well as the previous model's Dolby Vision. And there's been a similar audio upgrade with the addition of DTS:X support alongside the existing Dolby Atmos support.

The Wi-Fi is now Wi-Fi 6, and Bluetooth is the same 5.2 as before. And the remote has been slightly redesigned with a new button for Xiaomi's own free live TV service.

What we don't know yet is what it'll cost when it officially launches, or when that launch will be. Android Authority has spotted it on AliExpress, where it's being offered with a claimed $86 discount that drops the price to around $49 (about £36 ex VAT).

The first generation TV Stick 4K is currently $56.99 on Amazon US and £49.99 on Amazon UK.

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The rush to adopt generative AI has reignited a legacy security problem that has long plagued enterprises: data sprawl. As organizations race to implement AI solutions, they're confronting the same challenges that plagued the industry a decade or so ago, but with significantly higher stakes.

Faced with an explosion of data from new mobile and IoT devices and more people with increased activities online, security leaders acknowledged back then that they were overwhelmed with trying to manage it all. A few years later, most of them threw up their hands in defeat. The problem seemed insurmountable: data was everywhere and multiplying faster than security teams could keep up.

Fast forward to 2025, and that unsolved problem stares us in the face again, and with a renewed sense of urgency. For organizations to get value out of generative AI solutions, they must supply it with corporate data and this corporate data could contain, and most likely does, very sensitive information. This is forcing organizations to finally confront their data sprawl problem.

The organizational challenge behind data sprawl

At the heart of the historic data sprawl problem is an organizational breakdown. Organizations recognized the need for chief data officers and comprehensive data governance, but most initiatives never materialized, or they quickly stalled. Promised data categorization systems were not implemented and strategic schedules weren’t established.

The failure wasn’t due to lack of intent or motivation. Leadership understood the problem and allocated resources, but the manual intensity required for data management proved overwhelming. Organizations typically assigned just a handful of people to categorize and manage data volumes that were growing exponentially.

These small teams were faced with an impossible task: manually processing and organizing data that was being created faster than humans could possibly manage it.

AI as a data creation engine

The challenge has intensified beyond mere data consumption. AI systems themselves generate vast new data streams that require management and protection. AI creates new versions of documents, reports, and analyses, and each interaction with generative AI tools produces logs and artifacts that accumulate rapidly within systems.

Model training and fine-tuning processes generate metadata that often goes unmanaged. AI-augmented systems create exponentially more analytical outputs that flow into storage without proper classification.

IT departments now struggle to manage this explosion of new data created across every corporate touchpoint – from employee devices and disparate systems to cloud and hybrid environments. Without proper governance, companies can find themselves drowning in a sea of both new and legacy data without knowing what's valuable and what's not.

Unmanaged data is a security blind spot

This growing data sprawl has become an increasingly attractive target for cybercriminals. Poorly managed data poses critical security risks. Legacy data often contains sensitive information but lacks modern security controls, which makes it easy for attackers to get to. Unknown and unmanaged data repositories are blind spots in security architecture, preventing comprehensive protection measures.

AI systems may also expose sensitive data in their outputs to individuals who normally would not have access to such material, creating new vectors for data leakage. Security teams fundamentally cannot protect what they don't know exists, making invisible data stores particularly vulnerable.

Recent survey data illustrates how widespread the problem is. A 2025 report we commissioned showed 74% of surveyed IT and security decision-makers reported attackers successfully accessed and harmed their data, while 86% paid ransoms. Meanwhile, 68% of security decision-makers surveyed for the CyberArk 2025 Identity Security Landscape Report acknowledged they lack security controls for their AI implementations.

Real-world consequences

The data sprawl issue within organizations has enabled a particularly malicious cyberattack to flourish. Ransomware has evolved into a sophisticated criminal industry specifically targeting organizations with poor security and data hygiene. Intellectual property in long-forgotten databases often represents the crown jewels of an organization, making it a primary target.

Personal and financial information in abandoned data stores provides attackers with valuable resources for identity theft and fraud. Email archives containing sensitive communications offer insights into business operations and potential leverage for extortion. Backup systems that haven't been properly secured present attackers with opportunities to destroy recovery capabilities, increasing ransom leverage.

The reality is stark: if IT teams lack visibility into all organizational data – what's in it, where it's stored, and who's using it – they cannot properly understand its value as an asset nor secure it effectively.

How to mitigate data sprawl

The fundamental challenge that derailed previous data governance efforts remains: traditional manual approaches cannot scale to match modern data creation pace. Today's solutions must address this resource mismatch through automation and strategic organizational commitment. Forward-thinking security teams are implementing these practical solutions:

• Conduct data discovery and classification: Use automated tools to find, categorize, and tag data based on sensitivity and business value across all environments. This includes structured, unstructured, and semi-structured data, and even shadow IT data.
• Deploy robust backup and recovery Systems: Ensure critical data is protected while maintaining visibility into what's being preserved and why. Implement immutable backups and perform regular recovery drills.
• Establish zero trust data access controls: Implement least-privilege principles for data access, ensuring only authorized users can retrieve specific information. This extends beyond network perimeter to individual data objects.
• Create data minimization practices: Regularly review and purge unnecessary data to reduce attack surface and compliance risks. This includes personal data, outdated records, and redundant copies.
• Implement strategic data retention policies: When I worked at the State Department, we implemented a retention schedule to help reduce the risk associated with legacy data holdings that no longer had business value. Old data represents a significant liability and our historical analysis showed it was increasingly obsolete and useless after subsequent years.

Breaking the cycle

The storage costs alone should motivate action. Every piece of unused data represents ongoing financial burden through storage infrastructure, backup systems, and administrative overhead. Yet organizations continue accumulating digital debt because they've never successfully implemented the systematic approaches needed to break this cycle.

Success requires acknowledging that data governance cannot be delegated to a small team working with manual processes. The scale of data creation today demands commitment to automated discovery, classification, and retention enforcement. Without a systematic approach, organizations will find themselves having the same conversation in another decade, facing even more complex challenges with higher stakes.

The era of ignoring data sprawl is over. With AI accelerating both data creation and consumption, organizations must implement comprehensive data governance or face increasingly severe consequences. The companies that will thrive are those that treat data as both a strategic asset and a potential liability requiring careful management.

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A lot of people have had really high hopes for The Fantastic Four: First Steps in the build-up to its release. I have been feeling more cautious – even as someone who rates Avengers: Endgame as one of the few movies I'd give five stars to – but in principle it definitely looked set to deliver what I'd want from it. Charismatic cast, cool retro-futurist production design, a very giant man – that kind of thing.

Sadly, when the credits rolled, the first words I used to describe it were "aggressively fine". Somehow, despite succeeding in giving me everything I mentioned above, I found it bland and formless.

[Spoilers for both Fantastic Four and Superman from here!]

Everything seems to come incredibly easily to Marvel's first family. Reed happens to have already been working on the technology they need to win the day. Johnny translates and learns a whole alien language in a couple of months (I assume? The timeline of events is also pretty slippery). Sue is exactly powerful enough for whatever needs to happen at the time.

I felt basically nothing about any of it. It wasn't thrilling, it wasn't exciting. Even the characters and the world they live in seem to feel the same way as me – everyone seems so flat and bored, inside the Baxter Building and outside it. I'd have assumed the America of Earth 828 is in a great depression or war, if the movie hadn't made clear that the Fantastic Four created a techno-utopia.

Footage of Sue Storm attempting to make the climax have any emotional impact on her own. (Image credit: Marvel Studios)

Obviously, I don't expect to go into a superhero movie and feel any genuine worry that a lead character is going to die, or that the world might end. Instead, these movies are supposed to leave you wondering 'How are they going to get out of this one?' and then surprise you with a cool result. First Steps tells you exactly how they're going to get out of this one in advance, and then they get out of this one in essentially the exact way they promised.

I can even get on board with that, if a movie is interesting along the way, thematically. If it does daring things with its character interactions and motivations, if it's exploring meaty themes, or if it least makes me think about something these movies haven't really tackled before.

Thunderbolts* has a good dose of this, and is Marvel's best movie in years as a result. First Steps can't get any theme beyond first gear, so there's nothing for me to chew on here.

But still, I found it to be a diverting one hour 55 minutes, even if it was disappointing as the hopeful 'Don't worry, Marvel's turning a corner' movie I'd expected it to be.

But then I went straight into my second viewing of Superman, and the contrast between them makes FF look even worse in my eyes, and Superman look even more impressive.

Tales from the Krypto keeper

Superman manages a more engaging character dynamic in its first three minutes than Fantastic Four manages in its entire run-time, and only one of the characters involved can speak.

Krypto's lack of obedience in the opening sets up that this movie will have the exact opposite to FF's problem, where everything comes too easy: in Superman, being the most powerful metahuman in the world doesn't stop things being really damn hard.

(In general, I think the writing around Krypto is genius. Having an obedient dog who's as strong as Superman basically means you have two Supermans. Supermen? In any case, that would be a lot for the first movie narrative to handle. Making Krypto a force of uncontrolled, chaotic good solves that problem.)

I love that the trailers depicted this scene as Superman being rescued diligently by his loyal pup, and the movie is Krypto breaking two more of his ribs before pulling him probably because he was being too boring to stay outside. (Image credit: DC Studios/Warner Bros. Pictures)

Where Fantastic Four travels inexorably from plot point to plot point on rails, Superman swings between surprises. Lex has a pocket universe! Superman and Lois have a tense journalistic sparring! Now there's a kaiju! This one dude turns into kryptonite!

Why are all these things happening? Because it's a comic book movie, partly, and this is like flicking through a comics run where different issues have vastly different stuff going on. But it's partly also because this movie has a lot on its mind.

Without getting bogged down in taking any metaphor so seriously that it becomes a full-on allegory, Superman asks questions about the morals of intervening in the conflicts of other countries, of the motives of people who have the resources to manipulate the world in the background (okay, creating a literal rift between people might be leaning more towards allegory), and of how immigrants find their personal identity, among others.

These create a world where Superman's principles and morals make him a nuanced and interesting character. When fighting the kaiju, the recklessness of the Justice Gang (we'll assume they've settled on that name for now…) means he has to spend all of his energy not fighting the monster, and trying to persuade people he can't fight to be cool about it.

One of my favorite moments in the movie is when he tells Lois he's going to turn himself in to the government, but it's not because he's a Boy Scout who respects the process and the law – he casually throws out that it's the only way to find Krypto. Turning himself in is required to satisfy his morals, but not in the way we might've seen in the past.

Despite being a mile-a-minute movie that bounces through all kind of bonkers comic-book scenarios, it still finds the time to give you something to chew on when you leave the screen. It was worth watching a second time to dig into the themes I picked up the first time, and to see more seething nuance from Nicholas Hoult's fantastic performance as Lex Luthor, especially. It seems like it must be a three-hour movie, yet it's only 130 minutes.

Fantastic Four, by contrast, I can't believe filled 115 minutes. Events just slipped by me, like I was drifting down a lazy river in a floating ring. As someone who mostly goes hard for the idea that movies generally need to be shorter, maybe this one needed more time for there to actually be some friction in it. But maybe that wouldn't have helped either…

Is there any juice left to squeeze

"Your cinematic universe is now marked for death" (Image credit: Marvel Studios)

Marvel has been down for a while, but I've hoped that with the right course correction we could see a return to form. A slower schedule, a willingness to be more daring, a narrower focus on the story of each movie… the one-two punch of Thunderbolts* and First Steps seemed like they should be the chance to showcase that, and build towards Doomsday being genuinely exciting.

Unfortunately, they've mostly convinced me that Marvel has lost its juice in a way that's maybe irretrievable.

I think Thunderbolts* is a good movie, and yet despite being built around this heavy metaphor for mental health (which I think it delivers really well), it left me with no impression after I left the cinema. Even though it's a more thinky film, I didn't really think about it. It said what it has to say about its themes, and asks no questions beyond them.

Fantastic Four doesn't even manage that. It has all the ingredients, but is totally unexciting and only just qualifies as charming. The Incredibles is 21 years old and does everything better than this movie, despite being a barely-concealed Fantastic Four rip-off.

Superman left me with things to talk about and think about – character motivations, themes, clever writing.

I don't particularly care if DC successfully launches its new cinematic universe off the back of Superman. I won't be excited just by the thought that a movie will tie into Superman. I'll get the thrill of anticipation if I trust a movie's going to be good.

I'm excited to see the next movie that comes from the DC creative team. I don't feel that way about Marvel any more, and First Steps is the final nail in that coffin.

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• Google warns of ScatteredSpider's advanced social engineering tactics
• The hackers gain privileged access and use it to deploy ransomware
• The group targets critical infrastructure, retail, airline, and other industries

The infamous ScatteredSpider ransomware group is using VMware instances to target critical infrastructure organizations in the US, researchers have warned.

Security researchers from Google Threat Intelligence Group (GITG) have found the criminals are targeting critical infrastructure firms, but also retail, airline, and insurance industries.

The campaign is described as “sophisticated and aggressive”, split into multiple phases that last no longer than a couple of hours, the experts warn.

On the hunt for vCSA

In the campaign, the hackers do not exploit any vulnerabilities, but instead go for “aggressive, creative, and particularly skilled” social engineering. They first reach out to their victim’s IT desk, impersonating an employee, and asking for a reset on the employee’s Active Directory account.

After gaining the initial foothold, they would scan the network to identify high-value targets, such as domain names, VMware vSphere admins, and other security departments that can grant them admin access into the virtual environment.

Then, they would reach out to IT again, this time posing as a more privileged user, again asking for a password reset - but for an account with higher privileges.

From there, they look to access the VMware vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA), a preconfigured Linux-based virtual machine that provides centralized management for VMware vSphere environments, including the ESXi hypervisor.

This, in turn, allows them to enable SSH connections on ESXi hosts, resetting root passwords.

From this point on, it is all about identifying and exfiltrating sensitive information, in preparation for the deployment of an encryptor. Locking down the entire network is the final stage of the attack, after which the victims are pressured into paying a ransom demand.

GTIG says that the entire attack happens quickly, going from initial access to ransomware deployment in “mere hours”, warning companies to tighten up on their security across the board, and to use phishing-resistant MFA.

Via BleepingComputer

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