TechRadar News

• PlayStation has delayed the launch of the FlexStrike Wireless Fight Stick
• The company says production delays have caused the hardware to be postponed
• The PlayStation 5 peripheral will no longer launch on August 6, but "at a later date"

PlayStation has issued an update on the release of its FlexStrike Wireless Fight Stick, announcing that the hardware has been postponed.

The FlexStrike was originally slated to release on August 6, but now, in an updated PlayStation Blog post, the company has confirmed that "due to unexpected production delays," it "will launch at a later date."

"We’re working to ensure we deliver the best possible experience to our players with FlexStrike, so we’re taking extra time to put the finishing touches on the product," PlayStation said.

"We apologize for this delay and look forward to bringing the FlexStrike experience to the community when it launches."

Pre-orders for the fight stick opened on June 12, but the company confirmed that players can check their order status through PlayStation Direct and will receive communications regarding their order.

"Players who pre-ordered through another retailer should look for updates directly from that retailer or contact them with any questions," it added.

The FlexStrike is a PS5 peripheral and costs $199.99 / £179.99.

TechRadar's senior reviews writer Harry Padoan got the chance to test out the fight stick earlier this year, writing that it "hits the right notes" performance-wise when tested against Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, and is "approachable and straightforward to use," and "offers ultra-low latency in both wired and wireless capacities."

Elsewhere, Sony has announced plans to end physical game disc production. While remaining silent against the backlash, the company recently posted an advertisement for the FlexStrike, which received massive pushback.

If you're starting to plan for the upcoming school year and are finding your current laptop a little lacking, the good news is retailers have already launched some solid deals across a vast range of devices from the likes of Dell, Apple, Lenovo, HP, and more. So, I've taken a look and picked out what I think are eight of the best laptop deals if you're shopping for a new device for the year ahead.

I've taken a variety of budgets and needs into consideration: whether you want a cheap Chromebook for basic schoolwork and light use, or a powerful machine for more demanding needs.

One of the standouts has to be this Dell XPS 13 that drops to $599.99 with a student discount. That's a fantastic price for a brand-new version of one of our favorite laptops here at TechRadar, which boasts excellent all-around performance and a stylish design.

Apple fans will also want to check out the manufacturer's Education Store, which has just launched its college offer for the year. As well as special pricing on several devices, including the much-loved and impressive value MacBook Neo, you can also get gift cards of up to $150 on select Macs and iPads.

As someone who finds the best laptop deals regularly for TechRadar, you can browse all of my top picks below, and stick with TechRadar over the next few weeks for even more of our back-to-school coverage, featuring top tech recommendations and the best offers on must-have products.

Today's best back-to-school laptop sales

• Amazon: big savings on laptops and more tech
• Apple: up to $150 gift card with Macs & iPads
• Best Buy: up to $600 off laptops
• Dell: up to $900 off
• Walmart: laptops from $209

8 best back-to-school laptop deals

Display - 15.6 inches
Processor - Intel Core i3
RAM - 8GB
Storage - 128GB

If you want a cheap Windows laptop, then I think this Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i is a good value-for-money option for basic needs. I like it as a simple and effective device for school or college, with enough power for browsing, word processing, and other general admin tasks.View Deal

Display - 17.3 inches
Processor - AMD Ryzen 3
RAM - 8GB
Storage - 512GB

If storage is important to you, then I think this HP OmniBook 3 could be worth the price, as it features a 512GB SSD — something I don't regularly see at this price. Of course, that means some compromises have been made elsewhere, with a slightly weaker Ryzen 3 CPU and only 8GB of RAM. Still, that's perfectly fine for light use. Just be aware that the larger 17-inch form factor makes it a less portable option, too.View Deal

Display - 14 inches
Processor - Intel Core Ultra 5
RAM - 8GB
Storage - 256GB

If you want a flexible device that's just as easy to use for work and admin jobs as well as casual web browsing and streaming media, then this Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 14 is an excellent buy. It mainly features entry-to-mid-level components, but there's enough power to keep up with light daily use. Plus, you get the added benefit of a versatile 14-inch touchscreen, effectively giving you a laptop and tablet in one.View Deal

Display: 13 inches
Processor: A18 Pro
RAM: 8GB
Storage: 256GB

The MacBook Neo just got a price bump, but students can get it cheaper again thanks to Apple's education discount. The latest MacBook packs a 13-inch Liquid Retina display, an A18 Pro chip, 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and up to 16 hours of battery life, all for under $600, which is fantastic value. Discounts have been better in the past, but I think these will be rarer to see over the coming months and this price likely won't be beaten over Black Friday.View Deal

Display - 14 inches
Processor - Snapdragon X
RAM - 16GB
Storage - 512GB

This is a solid discount on a modern laptop powered by one of the efficient Snapdragon X CPUs. As well as excellent levels of all-around performance, this device boasts a huge all-day battery life, so you won't need to worry about being attached to a charger at all times. There's even 512GB of SSD storage, which you don't often see in combination with those other strong performance components at this price point. This is an all-around excellent laptop for everyday, college and business use.View Deal

Display - 13.4 inches
Processor - Intel Core 5
RAM - 8GB
Storage - 512GB

The Dell XPS 13 has regularly been one of our favorite laptops here at TechRadar, and this brand-new version continues that trend. With an Intel Core 5 processor, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD, it has everything you need for solid all-around performance at work or college. Students can also save an extra $100, bringing the price down to a ridiculously low $599.99.View Deal

Display - 14 inches
Processor - Intel Core Ultra 5
RAM - 16GB
Storage - 512GB

Here's one of the best deals on a modern, all-purpose, and well-rated laptop in Dell's latest sale. You can now get $550 off this machine, which features a powerful Intel Core Ultra 5 processor, a healthy 16GB of RAM, and a decent 512GB SSD. With all of those components, you'll have no issues with all of your everyday computing and work needs. And at 14 inches, it's an easily portable device, too. Altogether, it's an excellent value all-around option and a laptop we scored 4.5/5 in our review.View Deal

Display - 16 inches
Processor - Intel Core Ultra 7
RAM - 16GB
Storage - 512GB

One of Samsung's latest premium laptops just got its biggest discount yet at Best Buy. While similarly powered devices can be picked up for less, you do get a gorgeous 16-inch LED screen with smooth and responsive 120Hz support with this Galaxy Book6. It's powerful elsewhere, too, with an excellent battery life of up to 24 hours, making it a great pick for college, work, and productivity needs.View Deal

• Trump says data centers are good for communities, creating jobs and funding their own power/water
• New York State just banned large projects for a year to focus on developing new guidance
• Trump worries ongoing bans could cause the US to lose out in the global AI race

US President Donald Trump has criticized New York Governor Kathy Hochul's recent executive order to introduce a year-long, statewide ban on hyperscale data centers, urging the state to change its stance "immediately."

In a post on Truth Social, Trump characterized data centers as "money machines" that create taxes and jobs comparable to "liquid gold," implying not only are they crucial for cloud computing and AI, but also for the country's economy.

Though states like "Alabama, Florida, Texas, Arizona" and others could now see more projects being relocated amid ongoing moratoriums, Trump worries about the implications of this "terrible decision."

Trump hits back at New York State moratorium

The executive order, signed by Governor Hochul on July 14 2026, makes New York the first US state to impose a statewide moratorium on new data centers – in this case, those requiring 50MW+ of power.

Despite mounting local opposition for data center buildouts across the US, and indeed the world, Trump argues they're "tremendous wins for the states and communities that are lucky enough to get them," being that they create jobs and are responsible for "their own water and power."

It's important to note that the year-long ban for New York State is exactly that – a temporary ban designed to buy the state enough time to consider environmental and social impacts, and to rewrite legislation and guidance accordingly.

Urging Governor Hochul to "change its policy, immediately," Trump argues that ongoing moratoriums like these could cause the US to lose to "China, and other countries" in what's playing out to be a global AI race.

In my eyes, Diane Morgan is a comedy genius that can never do wrong — and I will willingly lap up every single morsel of comedy TV that she gives me.

We've already known her for unmissable shows such as Mandy, Cunk On..., Motherland and After Life, alongside appearances on the likes of Last One Laughing and Mock the Week. Now, she's offering up something different in the form of new BBC iPlayer comedy, Ann Droid.

Morgan plays Linda, a secondhand AnnDroid Z58/100 Basic Eldercare Robot gifted to widow Sue (Sue Johnston) by her son Michael (Kevin Ready). Basically, it's like Channel 4's Humans meets a Royale Family and Motherland reunion that we weren't expecting.

It's as touching as it is funny, and fans have already given Morgan's character the nickname "Philomena Clank." It's an unlikely friendship that I'm incredibly here for, put it that way.

With Ann Droid episodes arriving on the streamer from July 17, I can't help but be annoyed with the abundance of hilarious comedy already on the platform that nobody seems to be talking about.

You'll no doubt binge the new Diane Morgan series in the blink of an eye, so stay on iPlayer for these three underrated comedy gems once you're done.

Funboys

Our first pick comes from the Northern Irish contingent of comedy, which in my opinion has been grossly overlooked (seriously, tell me if you've ever heard of this show before...).

In short, we follow three young, socially awkward men — Callum (Ryan Dylan), Jordan (Rian Lennon), and Lorcan (Lee R James) — as they navigate adulthood, romance, and friendship in rural Ballymacnoose.

No, Ballymacnoose is not a real place, but that doesn't stop Funboys being both fearless and beautiful, and having humor. A heart-warming ensemble, think of antics that fall somewhere between This Country and The Inbetweeners.

Smoggie Queens

On the complete other end of the comedy spectrum is Smoggie Queens, which, like Funboys, has just released its second season. Creator Phil Dunning plays Dickie, who leads a rag-tag gang of LGBTQ+ Middlesbrough natives in their local town.

From full-on drag shows courtesy of mothering queen Mam (Mark Benton) to an unexpected guest cameo from Drag Race judge Michelle Visage as Dickie's work colleague, Smoggie Queens is outrageous from start to finish. Bold, brash and always on point with its cultural references, it holds space for somewhere you can feel safe and seen.

If that isn't enough, season 2 cast Monica Dolan as Mam's ex, and there isn't a TV show on Earth that couldn't benefit from adding Dolan to its cast.

Things You Should Have Done

If you've seen Chi with a C on YouTube and TikTok, you might recognize Lucia Keskin's main character in Things You Should Have Done.

In this full-format version, stay-at-home daughter Chi is suddenly forced to fend for herself when her parents die in a car crash. She learns she will only inherit the house on the condition that she completes a list of 'Things You Should Have Done' left in her parents' will.

From there, chaos ensues. Again, we've got multiple seasons to stream here, and I think casting Bridget Christie as Ruth in season 2 was a particular stroke of genius. Much like Ann Droid, we're balancing grief and laughs here, but the careful tightrope is walked incredibly well.

• The FCC might ban anonymous phones
• This would mean the end of burner phones
• While this could help prevent certain crimes, it may also harm a lot of innocent people who require anonymity or lack the required ID or housing

It’s increasingly hard to be anonymous in the modern world — and in the US it might be about to get even harder, as burner phones could soon be effectively banned.

As reported by Fortune, a new FCC (Federal Communications Commission) proposal would require carriers and VoIP providers to collect various details from a customer, including their name, address, government-issued ID number, and an alternate phone number, before activating or renewing service.

Aside from the odd requirement to have a phone number before you can get a phone number — something which might prove challenging for anyone getting their first phone — this would effectively mean the end of anonymous prepaid phones, commonly known as burner phones.

That’s probably a bad thing, as while these might be associated with crime — with the FCC stating that this change could help them investigate “fraud, espionage, or influence operations that undermine national security” — there are also plenty of legal reasons people might want a burner.

Burner phones are usually cheap secondary or temporary handsets (Image credit: Future)Bad for privacy and dangerous for victims

(Image credit: Emir Memedovski / Getty Images)

As pointed out in a joint filing made by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union: “This proposal would also prevent people from getting an anonymous phone line for safety reasons, such as a person in a domestic violence situation who does not have control over her personal phone line and needs to call a shelter, or a teenager being coerced by human traffickers who just wants to call for help.”

They further described this proposal as “a data collection regime that harms everyday, law abiding Americans”, while Sydney Saubestre, a senior policy analyst on the Privacy and Data Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, called it “misguided and counterproductive,” adding that “Americans should not have to sacrifice their privacy because the Commission hasn’t exhausted more targeted alternatives to stop robocalls.”

And it’s not just victims of domestic violence and human trafficking that may suffer due to this. It’s estimated that roughly 15 million adult US citizens don't have a driver’s license and that 2.6 million have no government-issued photo ID, while unhoused people will struggle with the requirement to provide an address.

On top of which, anyone who values privacy may also take issue with this, especially as customer accounts from phone companies have previously been hacked, revealing the data tied to them.

Many commenters on Reddit also worry about the US turning ever more into a surveillance state with rules like this, with popular comments including “tightening the grip of the police state. Bringing the Orwellian world into reality," "they care less about criminals and more about surveilling everyone,” and “gotta track em all!”

So it’s safe to say that this proposal isn’t popular, and could end up doing more harm than good. Hopefully, that might mean the FCC seeing sense and deciding against it.

• The Blood of Dawnwalker director, Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, says a delayed next-generation would be beneficial for Rebel Wolves
• Tomaszkiewicz says it's "easier" to work with the current generation and PC
• He says two more builds would multiply "the amount of work you need to do"

The Blood of Dawnwalker director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz isn't worried about the impact of what a delayed next-gen could mean for Rebel Wolves because working on the current-gen consoles is "easier."

It's unclear when the next-generation hardware will launch. Rumors suggest that the PS6 could launch as late as 2028, which would make it eight years between the start of the current generation, with Project Helix, the next Xbox console, also eyeing a 2028 release.

With console prices increasing due to manufacturing costs, not to mention the RAM shortages caused by a rise in AI data centers, there's a chance the next-gen consoles will be highly expensive.

While Sony and Microsoft have yet to reveal how much their new hardware will cost, a delay in the next generation could be on the table as the companies wait for things to settle down and for consoles to become affordable again.

This would also mean studios won't have access to next-gen tech for quite some time to develop their games, which would force them to stick with current-gen.

However, for The Blood of the Dawnwalker studio, Rebel Wolves, this would actually be beneficial to the development team.

The Blood of the Dawnwalker is the first installment in Rebel Wolves' dark-fantasy role-playing game (RPG) series, launching later this year, and has already teased a sequel set in a modern timeline.

When asked by Eurogamer whether the next console generation being delayed would be an issue for the studio and the future of the game series, the director said, "It doesn't at all."

"To be honest, it's even better for us," Tomaszkiewicz explained, "Because when you have the game, and you know the systems and the features adjusted to these particular consoles, you know what you need to do. Always, a new platform is a new challenge: you need to learn it, you need to know what are your borders, what you can do, what you cannot do. And also, it's an additional build you need to create that you need to take care of later."

The director continued, saying that since The Blood of the Dawnwalker has four builds - PS5, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, and two PC builds, it's already a ton of work for testers, so another console generation to work with would be another challenge.

"Let's say we have four builds, and later on you want to deliver a patch for the players. You need to be sure that these changes work on the Xbox, on the PlayStation, PC one, and PC two," Tomaskiewicz said.

"When you have next-gen, you're adding an additional two builds, and it multiplies the amount of work you need to do. It sounds easy but you need to know that there is a group of testers who need to test every platform separately - not only this particular change but whether the whole game has no blockers, if you can finish it from the beginning to the end, and so on and so on.

"It's a huge effort, to be honest, and if we work on the consoles we have right now, it's easier, because we know how many builds we have and it's easier to manage."

The Blood of Dawnwalker launches on September 3.

• Linus Torvalds asserts Linux developers can make their own mind up about using AI
• Anti-AI developers can "fork it" and go elsewhere, he says
• AI should be used to help developers, Torvalds emphasises

Linux creator Linus Torvalds has ultimately concluded that, while developers won't be discouraged from using AI tools to help with their coding needs, artificial intelligence shall not be mandatory and nobody is being forced to use it.

"Linux is not one of those anti-AI projects, and if somebody has issues with that, they can do the open-source thing and fork it," he said in a kernel mailing list update.

Torvalds himself doesn't actively advocate either way, acknowledging that the tech is more of a tool than an ideology and that proven use cases have helped solidify its uses, despite questionable economics, environmental impacts and long-term consequences.

Torvalds tells AI haters to "fork it"

Torvalds added that he also knows that AI can create serious issues for maintainers, with AI-assisted submissions increasing workloads, producing noise and potential duplication, and generally adding more workload for humans.

Speaking about AI's role in developer workflows, Torvalds criticized some for burying their heads in the sand and ignoring its impact. "The solution is to make sure those LLM tools _help_ maintainers instead of just causing them pain," he stressed.

In his message, Torvalds also rejected perfection as the standard, admitting that "natural intelligence" can be just as prone to mistakes as artificial intelligence.

The open-source project, then, is not a "some kind of 'social warrior' project" used to debate the relevance of artificial intelligence, with Torvalds welcoming all manner of viewpoints and contributions from developers regardless of whether they use AI assistance.

"The kernel project has been and will continue to be about the technology," he concluded.

Shadow AI is a security issue. When employees use unsanctioned AI tools without formal oversight, sensitive information can end up in platforms the business has not approved, monitored or secured.

The risks around data protection, compliance and governance are real, and organizations are right to take them seriously.

But if we view shadow AI only through a security lens, we risk treating the symptom rather than the cause.

Most employees are not deliberately trying to bypass policies or create risk.

In most cases, they are trying to solve a problem quickly and move their work forward. When approved tools are slow, difficult to access, limited in functionality or unclear to use, people naturally look for alternatives that help them get the job done.

That means shadow AI is not just a security challenge. It is also a signal that workplace technology is failing to meet employee needs.

For organizations, the lesson is clear: reducing shadow AI requires more than stronger controls. It requires providing employees with secure, accessible tools that are capable of supporting the way work actually happens.

When approved tools are not enough

Many organizations still frame unsanctioned AI use as a failure of employee behavior. From that perspective, the answer seems simple: issue stricter policies, block more tools and remind people of the risks.

This may reduce some exposure in the short term, but it rarely solves the underlying problem. Employees turn to AI tools because they offer speed, convenience and support with tasks that official systems may not handle well.

The challenge is not only that employees are using the wrong tools. It is that the approved route may not feel practical enough to use.

That distinction matters. If the official process is too slow, people may bypass it. If the guidance is too vague, teams may make their own decisions. If approved tools do not meet real business needs, unofficial ones will fill the gap.

Shadow AI is therefore not just a sign of poor compliance, but can also be a signal of underlying friction.

Digital friction creates hidden risk

Digital friction refers to the everyday technology barriers that make it harder for employees to do their jobs efficiently. It might be a login process that takes too long, a blocked platform that prevents a simple task, an approval workflow that slows a project or a sanctioned tool that lacks the functionality employees need.

Individually, these problems may seem minor. Together, they shape how employees behave.

When workplace technology makes work harder, employees become more likely to find their own solutions. Research has found that 80% of employees lose time to dysfunctional IT, costing them an average of 1.3 workdays per month. Almost half also say it has delayed critical operations or projects.

The risk is not only lost productivity. Digital friction can also weaken trust in approved systems, pushing work into less visible environments where security teams have less oversight.

This is why blocking tools without addressing employee needs can backfire. It may push behavior further out of sight rather than bringing it under control.

Security cannot succeed if it competes with productivity

For years, security has often been seen by employees as something that interrupts work.

Password resets, access requests, approval chains and tool restrictions all exist for valid reasons, but they can still feel like barriers when they are poorly designed.

The same is true for AI governance. A policy that simply says which tools cannot be used is unlikely to be enough. Employees need practical guidance on what they can use, what information can be entered and where to go when they are unsure.

The secure route has to be clear enough to follow and useful enough to choose.

This does not mean weakening security. It means designing security around how work actually happens. The strongest controls are often the ones that employees can follow without feeling they are being forced to choose between protection and productivity.

Authentication is a useful example. Passwords have long been a source of frustration for employees and a known weakness for organizations. Approaches such as zero trust and biometric authentication can strengthen protection while improving the user experience.

The principle is simple: good security should reduce risk without adding unnecessary friction.

AI governance needs an owner

One reason shadow AI can grow quickly is that responsibility is often unclear.

AI tools can enter an organisation through different teams for different reasons. A small experiment in one department can become part of a core workflow before anyone has assessed the risk, agreed ownership or defined the rules.

As adoption grows, that governance gap becomes harder to ignore. This is especially true when employees are already questioning whether official routes can keep pace. Research has found that 62% of employees lack confidence that their IT teams are providing the latest AI and digital tools, while 57% do not trust their IT team to resolve issues quickly or effectively and 47% fear their IT team will not adequately protect personal or work-related data.

Security teams have an important role to play, but they cannot solve this alone. AI governance needs input from IT, legal, compliance, HR and leaders across the whole organisation. It must become a core part of the organization's operating model rather than a standalone policy.

That means establishing clear ownership for how AI is introduced, used and governed across the organization. It also means recognizing that governance is not only about stopping unsafe behavior. It is about enabling safe behaviorat scale.

Human oversight remains essential. AI can process information quickly, but it does not understand every business context, regulatory requirement or reputational consequence. People still need to challenge outputs and take responsibility for decisions that carry real-world impact.

Employees need guidance they can actually use

AI policies often fail because they are too abstract. Employees may be told to avoid sharing sensitive data and use approved tools, but that doesn't always help in the moment.

A team under pressure needs practical answers. Can this document be uploaded? Can this customer query be summarized? Can this dataset be analyzed? Which tool is approved for this task? Who should be asked if the answer is unclear?

Guidance needs to be specific, accessible and easy to apply during the working day. If employees have to search through long policy documents or wait days for an answer, they may default to the fastest available option.

This is where trust becomes critical. Employees are more likely to follow security guidance when they believe approved systems will help them do their jobs effectively. If they see official processes as slow, restrictive or disconnected from reality, they are more likely to look elsewhere.

Trust also depends on transparency. People need to understand why certain tools are restricted, how data is protected and what the approved route is designed to achieve. A policy that simply says “do not use this tool” does not build confidence. It creates a rule. Rules matter, but they work best when employees understand the reason behind them.

Security-by-design must apply to the workplace

Security-by-design is often discussed in relation to products and software development, but the same principle should apply to the digital workplace.

Too often, security is bolted on after a tool or process has already been adopted. By that point, controls can feel like an extra layer rather than a natural part of the workflow. Bringing security into the conversation earlier helps organizations identify risk before behaviors become embedded.

For AI, this means involving security, IT and governance teams before tools are rolled out widely. It also means listening to employees about what they need from those tools.

If approved AI systems are too limited, employees will work around them. If the access process is too slow, adoption will fragment. If guidance is unclear, teams will interpret the rules differently.

Understanding those pressures is central to reducing risk.

The easiest path should be the secure one

Shadow AI shows that workplace systems are struggling to keep pace with how work is changing. When employees turn to unsanctioned tools, it often points to a gap between what people need to do their jobs and what approved systems allow them to do.

The organizations that respond well will not be those that only add stricter controls. They will be those that make secure behavior easier to adopt than unsafe workarounds.

That requires clear ownership, practical tools, accessible guidance and security processes designed around real workflows.

In the age of AI, reducing risk means giving employees secure routes that are practical enough to use. When the approved path is also the easiest path, businesses can protect data without slowing people down.

We've reviewed and ranked the best password managers.

This article was produced as part of TechRadar Pro Perspectives, our channel to feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today.

The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/pro/perspectives-how-to-submit

• Palit has launched a new RTX 3060 model with 12GB of VRAM
• This continues a recent theme of old GPUs being resurrected
• These GPUs may pack 12GB of video RAM at a relatively affordable price, but they don't make sense compared to current-gen pricing

We might not have seen any new graphics cards so far from Nvidia this year — and no RTX 5000 Super refreshes are in sight (although there are rumors again) — but we're continuing to witness the resurrection of some old GeForce GPUs, with Palit officially revealing a new RTX 3060.

That popular workhorse of a gaming GPU has already made something of a comeback, returning to the shelves of retailers like Newegg as an alternative budget graphics card in a RAM-starved climate where prices of many of these current-gen boards are being hiked up (alongside other PC components, of course).

As flagged by VideoCardz, Palit has trumpeted the launch of its new GeForce RTX 3060 Infinity 2 OC graphics card as "the return of a classic", which is certainly one way of putting it.

Although to be fair, even today, the RTX 3060 remains a very popular GPU, ranking second on the Steam hardware survey for June 2026 (behind only the RTX 4060 laptop GPU in a rather bizarre twist I won't get into here).

Palit observes: "Combining a massive 12GB GDDR6 memory capacity with a clean, all-black dual-fan shroud, the Infinity 2 delivers honest, dependable performance without the premium price tag."

Analysis: let's hope for a Palit-able price tag, but so far, RTX 3060 pricing has been out of whack

(Image credit: Palit)

The key selling point for these RTX 3060 models is that they're loaded with 12GB of video RAM (VRAM), as Palit emphasizes with this new Infinity 2 OC model. Where this is side-stepping the RAM crisis (to some extent) is that these past-gen Nvidia cards use GDDR6 VRAM, a different memory supply to tap than the GDDR7 used in RTX 5000 graphics cards (except the RTX 5050, which goes with GDDR6, but that's the outlier here).

This means Nvidia can get its partners to produce graphics cards that have 12GB of GDDR6 VRAM (a loadout a good few gamers put a priority on securing), but sit at the cheaper end of the market. Due to cost issues, these days it's a lot less tenable to sell lower-end GPUs which stack up the GDDR7 VRAM (like the RTX 5060 Ti with 16GB).

It's sad that the RAM crisis has forced us to this point, but that's the reality of the GPU world at the moment. What's also problematic for me here is that the RTX 3060 might have 12GB of VRAM at a relatively affordable price point, but looking at current pricing in the US as an example, it's not meaningfully cheaper than the RTX 5060 with 8GB.

Yes, you're getting a lean RAM configuration with the latter current-gen graphics card, but it's still a much faster GPU — one that benefits from DLSS 4, too — and only just over 5% more expensive (at the time of writing). At this kind of price differential, the RTX 3060 12GB doesn't make a lot of sense.

If these RTX 3060 models were a lot cheaper, then there might be more of an argument. To be fair to Palit, we don't have a price tag on this new offering yet, but pricing needs to be a lot more compelling than what I'm seeing right now (especially in the UK, where the RTX 5060 8GB is actually cheaper than the 3060 at some retailers, although there isn't much stock of the latter).

Agentic commerce has become the latest obsession in ecommerce.

The technology is certainly compelling. Instead of consumers browsing websites, comparing products and making purchases themselves, AI agents increasingly do the work for them. They search, compare, recommend and transact on our behalf. According to the hype, agentic commerce has the potential to transform the way we shop online.

It is easy to see why merchants are excited. For an industry under constant pressure to drive growth, improve efficiency, capture shoppers' attention, and deliver better customer experiences, agentic commerce promises a great deal. Some believe it could become as significant as the shift to mobile commerce. Others see it as the next logical evolution of ecommerce itself.

Whether those predictions prove accurate remains to be seen. New technologies often arrive surrounded by hype. Not all of them live up to expectations.

But retailers are taking agentic commerce seriously. Many are moving rapidly to integrate it into their businesses. No one wants to be left behind when a new technology goldrush gathers momentum.

That urgency is understandable. But it should also give us pause for thought. Every new development in ecommerce has brought with it new opportunities for fraud. Online payments made shopping more convenient but opened the door to card-not-present fraud.

Mobile commerce transformed how consumers shop but introduced new security challenges. More recently, AI has begun reshaping how businesses work while simultaneously giving fraudsters powerful new tools to scale attacks. There is little reason to believe agentic will be any different

The pattern is familiar: innovation creates opportunity, fraudsters adapt, and businesses scramble to catch up. Agentic commerce has all the ingredients to follow a similar path.

Part of the reason adoption is moving so quickly is that ecommerce growth has become harder. Competition is intense and customer acquisition costs remain stubbornly high. No wonder many merchants are searching for new ways to improve efficiency.

Early adoption of AI agents appears to offer the golden ticket solution. They promise faster transactions, less friction and greater automation at a time when growth is harder to achieve. The challenge is ensuring that risk management keeps pace.

Are we trusting AI agents too much?

One of the more interesting aspects of the agentic commerce debate is the level of trust many businesses are already placing in AI systems. That may sound surprising until you consider the reality facing many merchants today.

Customer fraud continues to grow. Refund abuse, chargeback fraud, promotion abuse and policy exploitation have become major challenges for ecommerce businesses. Our own extensive polling of merchants shows many place greater trust in the promise of AI agents than in their own customers.

On the face of it, AI agents are attractive. They appear predictable. They follow instructions. They don't deliberately manipulate systems for personal gain. But it's crucial to understand replacing one source of risk with another is not the same as eliminating risk altogether.

AI agents may not behave like human fraudsters, but they introduce new vulnerabilities that businesses are only now beginning to understand. More on that shortly.

The accountability problem

One of the biggest unanswered questions surrounding agentic commerce centers on liability.

If an AI agent makes a poor purchasing decision, where does accountability sit? If a fraudulent transaction takes place, who is liable? If an agent is manipulated into making purchases it shouldn't make, who is responsible for the resulting losses? The consumer? The retailer? The technology provider? The operator of the agent itself?

The problem is existing frameworks were built around human decision-making. Agentic commerce introduces a new layer of autonomy that blurs traditional lines of responsibility. At the moment, many of these questions remain unresolved.

That doesn't mean businesses should avoid agentic commerce. But it does mean they should think carefully about governance, oversight and accountability before deploying it at scale. Trust cannot simply be assumed because a transaction is being conducted by an AI agent.

Merchants need visibility over who is operating that agent, how decisions are being made and what safeguards exist when things go wrong.

Fraudsters will move quickly

If history teaches us anything, it is that criminals are among the fastest adopters of new technology. While businesses focus on the opportunities created by innovation, fraudsters focus on the weaknesses. Agentic commerce is likely to create plenty of both.

We will see attempts to hijack legitimate agents and manipulate their behavior. Fraudsters could also create fake agents that impersonate trusted services or brands. Criminal networks may also deploy their own autonomous agents to identify vulnerabilities and exploit them at scale.

Promotions, loyalty schemes and refund processes will almost certainly also become targets for increasingly sophisticated forms of automated abuse.

What makes this new environment particularly challenging is the speed of evolution. Most forms of online fraud still require a degree of human input. Autonomous agents have the potential to operate around the clock, making decisions, testing vulnerabilities and exploiting weaknesses at machine speed, as well as adapting their tactics automatically when they fail.

The result may not be more fraud in absolute terms, but we will see more sophisticated and fast-moving threats. That will require merchants to rethink how they identify risk, monitor activity and respond.

Proceed, but with your eyes open

None of this should be interpreted as an argument against agentic commerce. The technology has genuine potential. It could make shopping easier, reduce friction and unlock new opportunities for both consumers and businesses. But innovation and risk have always evolved together.

The companies that succeed in the next phase of ecommerce will not necessarily be those that move first. They will be the organizations that understand the risks as well as the opportunities. That means understanding their own data.

Maintaining visibility over customer and transaction behavior and continuously monitoring for unusual activity means controls can be adapted as new threats emerge.

In a world where both shoppers and fraudsters may increasingly be represented by AI, capturing diverse data at scale and knowing how to interpret it to protect against online crime and serve good customers better will become more important than ever.

We've featured the best IT automation software.

This article was produced as part of TechRadar Pro Perspectives, our channel to feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today.

The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/pro/perspectives-how-to-submit

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced is here, and it looks like this remake has been a massive success. Ubisoft says that it’s already sold more than two million copies, with players all around the world discovering (or rediscovering) its wonderful 1700s Caribbean setting and all the twists and turns of its engaging pirate story.

Our own Resynced review saw the game awarded four stars out of a possible five, praising its many modernized mechanics and just how faithfully it adapts the 2013 original. Although the main review was handled by our resident Assassin’s Creed expert, Managing Editor Rob Dwiar, I’ve spent the last few days pouring hours into the game and am having an excellent time so far.

I’m almost halfway through now, and there’s already so much to like about it, as you’ll see with some of the highlights below, but also one little thing that’s been bothering me.

The visual upgrades are a huge success

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

You don’t need to have put Resynced side by side with the original Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag to appreciate just how much of an improvement the new visuals are. It’s no hyperbole to say that this is the best-looking emtry to date, edging out the already stunning Assassin's Creed Shadows thanks to its smaller but more detailed world.

The opening sequence has you parkouring your way through a lush tropical rainforest, showing off incredibly dense plants and little details like dangling vines that really help sell the setting. The gorgeous ray-traced lighting dances through the canopy superbly, light scattering down onto the little pools of water that are dotted throughout the jungle and reflecting off them realistically.

If you examine the layouts in detail, there have been loads of changes, but key elements from the original level layouts have been preserved smartly, like the fallen tree trunks that protagonist Edward Kenway darts across, so everything feels just right.

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

It’s the same story when you reach the city of Havana, which feels larger and more bustling than ever before. The streets are packed full of non-player characters (NPCs) wandering around, chatting to one another, moving crates, or standing around market stalls to give the impression of a lived-in world.

As for the open sea, I don’t think another game has nailed the waves quite this well. The water physics are phenomenal, with countless waves that stretch off into the horizon. The sea here looks far brighter than the original game ever did, but rather than taking away from the atmosphere, I appreciate how inviting it makes it all look. This is a world that’s just begging to be explored.

The visual overhaul extends to the game’s cutscenes. The wooden 2013 character models are no more, replaced with far higher fidelity versions that look much more convincing. Faces are no longer stiff and awkward-looking, either, thanks to enhanced motion capture, making it much easier to get stuck in and immerse yourself in the story.

Refined combat means swashbuckling feels better than ever

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Going into Resynced, having seen a handful of trailers, I was quite worried that the combat would feel like that of Assassin's Creed Mirage: awkward, clunky, and a throwback to the systems of the older games in all the worst possible ways. Thankfully, when I actually got my hands on the game, it was immediately clear that my concerns were misplaced.

The combat system here is like the simplicity of the original game’s mechanics merged with all the style and flair of the fights in Shadows. Enemies have decently sized health bars or shields now, which you can whittle down with sword strikes before hitting a perfect parry to trigger a stylish finisher. This isn’t your only option either, as abilities like the rope dart or kick let you quickly stagger tricky enemies without breaking your flow.

There’s a fantastic rhythm to all of it, and I’ve found that charging in with my swords drawn has quickly become my favorite way to tackle encounters. It certainly helps that the most frustrating instant-fail parts of missions have been entirely reworked as well, giving you more freedom than ever to experiment with Edward’s arsenal.

There's finally no modern-day nonsense

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Rob lamented the loss of some of the modern-day content, but I’m in the exact opposite camp. I think taking it out was the right decision, as the diversions into the modern setting are some of my least favorite parts of older Assassin’s Creed games.

I’ve always found the series’ whole meta narrative incredibly tedious — filling what would otherwise be grand adventures with a barrage of pointless conversations between characters that I’m convinced nobody ever cared about. Can anyone earnestly say that Desmond Miles is the best Assassin’s Creed character? No, and he just takes up precious time that we could be spending with someone actually entertaining and charismatic like Ezio Auditore da Firenze.

The modern-day stuff was especially bad in the original Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag, casting you as an unnamed game developer working for a company controlled by the evil Templar Order. Wandering around a plain office block reading files and chatting with a handful of annoying coworkers is indescribably dull — I enjoy games that let me escape from my daily life, not recreate it.

Yes, the segments do introduce a little bit of satire, riffing on some of the more ridiculous events of the alternate history plot, but otherwise you’re not really missing anything with their removal.

Like Shadows, there are still some elements of the overarching narrative here as well for those that really care: the intro makes it clear that the game takes place in a simulation, and there are plenty of documents that reference the modern Assassin vs Templar struggle (on top of new Animus Rift challenges that explore interesting ‘What if’ scenarios connected to Edward’s life).

Thankfully, that’s all optional, so it can be promptly ignored if, like me, you’d rather focus on the historical fantasy.

But I wish the UI was a little more distinct

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

It’s clear that Resynced draws quite heavily on Shadows both technologically and mechanically (in addition to a healthy splash of Skull & Bones for the parts where you’re at sea). This, of course, isn’t a problem in and of itself, as Shadows is clearly an excellent foundation to build upon, but I do wish that the design of the menus and UI was more distinct.

There have been some tweaks for sure, like the position of different elements and the icons of map markers and so on, though to me lots of it still looks a little bit too similar - the loading screens are the scale, and the inventory menus are practically identical, for example, as are prompts when you’re being seen while in stealth. Both games even use the same fonts throughout.

It’s definitely not a big deal, but it all leaves Resynced looking more like a Shadows DLC than a remake of an older game at its most surface level. A more imaginative UI that drew more from the original Assassin’s Creed 4 and less from the most recent instalments would really help give Resynced more of a distinct identity.

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced is out now for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and Series S.

• Google has shared a teaser video showing a phone in the Pixel 11 series
• You can see it in a gold shade, with a colored light that must be the rumored 'Pixel Glow' feature
• The company has also confirmed that pre-orders open on August 12

We’re now less than a month away from the August 12 announcement of the Pixel 11 series, and Google is in full teaser mode. The tech giant has just posted a short clip showing off a phone in the Pixel 11 series in a gold shade.

You can mostly just see the gold-colored sides of the phone, but the camera block is also visible, and this houses a circular multicolored light. This then, must be the rumored ‘Pixel Glow’ feature, which will presumably be able to light up in different colors — or different patterns of colors — to alert you to different kinds of notifications.

Perhaps, for example, a WhatsApp message would appear in blue shifting to pink, while a calendar event might be a single block of yellow.

A Nothing idea

Glyph lighting on the Nothing Phone 2 (Image credit: Future | Alex Walker Todd)

How customizable this will be, and whether it’s capable of anything else, remains to be seen. But at least now we have a sense for how it looks, with this being a bit reminiscent of Nothing’s Glyph lighting systems, just rather smaller and more subtle.

That makes sense coming from Google, as its phone design is never as flashy as Nothing’s — a brand which almost makes gaming phones look visually tame.

But if you’ve missed the notification light that phones used to have, then this could appeal as a modern upgrade of that. And while it’s probably not going to be super innovative — given that it looks reminiscent of what Nothing handsets have and is an evolution of an old feature — it’s still not the sort of thing you see in most mainstream phones, so it’s nice to see Google try something a bit different here.

Beyond all this, the teaser page also mentions that Pixel 11 series pre-orders will open on August 12 — so presumably right after the announcement. And if you sign up for emails from that page you’ll receive an unspecified discount on the new phones, which is always appreciated, especially with everything getting more expensive lately.

Jump to...

Business laptops under $600
Business laptops under $1000
Business laptops over $1000

A business laptop is a critical decision that impacts productivity. Let’s just say, I’ve made the wrong choice before, and the results weren’t nice. But don’t worry, I learned from my mistake and made a much better choice. You can also learn from my experience, as since then, I’ve extensively researched and tested the best business laptops.

The best deals ultimately depend on your workflow. For instance, the choice for an office worker using everyday business apps like Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 differs much from a colleague editing 4K video and running CAD and 3D rendering programs. The key factors to consider are performance, storage, portability, security, and connectivity, based on your unique needs.

Whether seeking a mid-range or high-end option, you don’t need to stress to find it. With my long experience running through many business laptops, I’ve compiled the top picks from Dell, Asus, HP, and other known brands, starting from $548.

Best business laptop deals: Quick links

• Amazon: Save on HP, Microsoft, Apple machines and more
• Best Buy: Top deals on home & business laptops
• Walmart: Laptop & Chromebook discounts
• Newegg: Save on Lenovo, Acer, Asus and more

Best business laptop deals: Under $600

Powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon X processor, this Copilot+ PC combines 16GB of memory, a 512GB SSD, a 14-inch 2K touchscreen, Wi-Fi 6E, and up to 32.25 hours of battery life for students and everyday productivity.View Deal

Powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon X processor, this Copilot+ PC pairs 16GB of memory with a 512GB SSD, a 14-inch WUXGA display, USB4, Wi-Fi 6E, and up to 29 hours of battery life.View Deal

Powered by Intel's Core i7-1355U processor, this laptop combines a 15.6-inch 120Hz Full HD display, 512GB SSD, WiFi 6, and plenty of ports, making it a dependable choice for schoolwork and everyday computing. It only has 8GB of RAM though.View Deal

Best business laptop deals: Under $1000

Powered by an AMD Ryzen AI 7 processor, HP's laptop combines 16GB of DDR5 memory, a 1TB PCIe Gen4 SSD, a 16-inch touchscreen, Wi-Fi 6, and built-in Copilot+ AI features for everyday productivity and creative work.View Deal

Powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 processor, Lenovo's laptop combines a 15.3-inch touchscreen display, 16GB of DDR5 memory, a 512GB SSD, Wi-Fi 6, and up to 15 hours of battery life for everyday productivity and study, as we found in our review.View Deal

The Intel ThinkPad E16 Gen 3 pairs a Core Ultra 7 255H processor with 16GB of DDR5 memory, a 1TB PCIe Gen4 SSD, and a 16-inch WUXGA IPS display for demanding workloads.

Customize the setup (16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage) and use coupon code THINK2SAVEJULY to get the best price.View Deal

Built for demanding workloads, this 16-inch laptop scored 4 stars in our review. It combines desktop-class performance, a huge 99.9Wh battery, expandable storage up to 6TB, advanced cooling, and modern connectivity in a slim aluminum design for professionals on the move.

Use our exclusive coupon code TRGBM168 at checkout.View Deal

Best business laptop deals: Over $1000

Powered by an Intel Core i7 processor and Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 graphics, this laptop, which held up well in our review, pairs a color-accurate 15.6-inch QHD 165Hz display with 16GB DDR5 memory and a 1TB SSD for demanding creative workloads.View Deal

A clean, professional 16-inch laptop with a touchscreen you'll actually use. As we found when we went hands-on with it, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285H runs 16 cores up to 5.3GHz and includes an NPU for Copilot+ AI features. 32GB of DDR5-5600 in a dual-channel config gives you genuine multitasking headroom — not just enough to get by. View Deal

Available at Walmart, this 18-inch Asus powerhouse combines an AMD Ryzen 9 processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 graphics, 32GB DDR5 memory, a 1TB SSD, and a stunning 240Hz Nebula display for demanding creative and professional workloads.View Deal

This 15-inch Lenovo laptop pairs an Intel Core i7-14700HX processor with Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 graphics, 16GB RAM, a 1TB SSD, and a color-rich 165Hz OLED display.View Deal

The AMD-powered ThinkPad E16 Gen 3 combines a Ryzen 5 processor with 16GB of DDR5 memory, a 1TB PCIe Gen4 SSD, and a 16-inch WUXGA IPS display for dependable everyday productivity and multitasking.

Customize the setup (16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage) and use coupon code THINK2SAVEJULY to get the best price.View Deal

Available at Best Buy, HP's 16-inch laptop combines an AMD Ryzen 9 processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 graphics, 16GB of memory, a 1TB SSD, and a vibrant 2.5K 165Hz OLED display for demanding creative workloads.View Deal

Fortune 500 companies are expected to operate more than 150,000 agents by 2028, according to an analysis from Gartner.

If achieved, it would represent a 10,000-fold increase compared to 2025, when enterprises averaged just 15 agents. Indeed, this shift toward agentic systems is the most significant architectural evolution of our lifetime.

With adoption accelerating so rapidly, governance is rising to the top of the AI agenda. Businesses of all sizes are seeking safeguards and systems of control to ensure they can trust the agents they work alongside, yet current methods often fail.

The data speaks for itself: although almost every global enterprise is using AI agents, only 12% have introduced a centralized governance approach. For most, governance remains piecemeal, exacerbating the chaos it is intended to control.

This disconnect raises a critical question: as AI scales rapidly, how can organizations maintain governance to manage it responsibly? Nearly every leadership team is facing the same problem: they want to harness AI’s full potential but also maintain control.

AI enthusiasm leads to AI sprawl

While most businesses recognize the value of agentic AI, and are experimenting and deploying various agents across their organisation, the risk of AI sprawl is high. The growing mix of customer-built and pre-built agents creates disparate agentic tools with no centralized strategy.

As enthusiastic employees develop their own agents – an approach which is increasingly common as the technology becomes more accessible - AI usage becomes siloed and inconsistent across the business.

This type of AI sprawl drives diverging standards and duplicated efforts, with research showing 94% of businesses are experiencing increased complexity, technical debt and security risk.

The autonomous nature of agentic AI, where systems interact with data and other agents in real time, means a lack of governance in the early stages can see AI sprawl quickly spiral out of control.

Fragmented governance is ineffective

Forward thinking businesses are investing time and effort into new compliance processes and building better safeguards to ensure AI outputs can be trusted. One such method is the use of human-in-the-loop models for key decisions, an approach currently used by 52% of businesses.

However, as AI scales further and more rapidly, new challenges will emerge. There is a risk that human-in-the-loop methods lead to unintended inconsistency, where employees spanning different teams, regions or departments introduce uncoordinated rules for access, security and usage.

Instead of enforcing control, this has the opposite effect. Businesses are then left grappling with governance systems which reinforce the fragmentation they were trying to overcome.

Centralized rules, centralized standards, centralized knowledge

The only effective way to maintain control of scaling AI is to build governance into the AI itself. Governance must be designed as part of the foundations of an agentic system; it cannot be added as an afterthought.

To ensure meaningful control, enterprises require centralized visibility into which agents are running, how they are connected and where their dependencies lie. This represents a major opportunity, given that only 12% of businesses had introduced a centralized governance approach as of January 2026.

Historically, manual governance fails because enterprises cannot keep pace with the speed and scale at which AI agents interact. One of the core governance challenges is coordinating agents so they do not duplicate work or conflict with one another.

This requires orchestrating agents through a central neutral system layer that connects them to a real-time understanding of enterprise architecture and its operational parameters, ensuring outputs remain secure, compliant and coherent.

By ensuring there is a centralized governance layer built into the enterprise, all agents can follow the same rules, comply with the same standards and draw from shared knowledge. The governance system can then evolve and grow alongside the business itself.

Governance doesn’t need to be slow to be successful

The modern enterprise is already shaped by legacy systems, fragmented architectures and technical complexity, but it is not inevitable for AI to follow the same path.

The explosion of agentic tools offers enormous potential for business productivity, even if it does not automatically create coherent, high-quality architecture. The biggest challenge organizations face right now isn't the capability of the models themselves - it's connecting AI to where real work actually happens inside the enterprise.

It is now up to each organisation to pick and choose the agents best suited to their organisation and prioritize their integration in a unified way. This means moving away from old habits – often where governance is added incrementally every time a new agent or application is introduced – to remove the risk of fragmentation and AI sprawl.

The optimal approach is one which works with the unified and agnostic governance layer built into the foundations of the AI system to combat technical debt at scale. Only then will enterprises be able to harness AI’s full long-term potential in a sustainable manner.

Governance should not restrict the speed of AI adoption; it can scale alongside it. The successful enterprise of the future depends on its ability to approach AI with speed and efficiency without compromising trust.

We've reviewed and ranked the best laptops for business.

This article was produced as part of TechRadar Pro Perspectives, our channel to feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today.

The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/pro/perspectives-how-to-submit

• The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) has bricked thousands of routers
• Flashing alternative firmware like OpenWRT is an option that the ACCC has ignored
• Disposed SamKnows SK-WB8 routers can pose a security risk if they’re not first wiped with a factory reset

The Australian government’s competition regulator, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), has initiated the bricking of some 4,000 routers, rolled out across the country in 2020 in order to collect information on broadband speeds.

Issued as part of the Measuring Broadband Australia (MBA) program, the routers were whiteboxes from SamKnows, a subsidiary of Cisco, and given a finite lifespan. That date was reached in June 2026, with the SamKnows SK-WB8 routers remotely disabled on June 30.

As a consequence, Australians are likely to toss the bricked routers, resulting in a sharp increase in e-waste. In doing so, they risk breaches of digital security if the routers are not first wiped. Worse, the ACCC’s position is further confused by the fact that these routers can be flashed, making their destruction quite pointless.

Data discarded, but the routers still work

Since the June 30 cut-off, the routers are known to power up, and while bricked for internet access, can seemingly be reused with custom router firmware. The nature of the data collected by the routers for the MBA program was for measurement and customer registration, and this has apparently been deleted, according to emails sent to volunteers of the program.

While accurate figures are unknown, by December 2020 over 2,600 of the SamKnows SK-WB8 routers had been distributed by the ACCC, with 4,000 planned for release across the lifespan of the MBA program.

Attempts to contact the ACCC and Cisco to learn more about why volunteers of the MBA program are being encouraged to dispose of perfectly usable routers have been met with stock, non-committal responses.

The ACCC gave ArsTechnica a potted history of the device and the MBA program, as well as stating that “volunteers are encouraged to unplug their disabled whitebox and dispose of it in an environmentally responsible manner via free e-waste recycling services.”

Should you ditch your ACCC router?

If there is no reason to keep your ACCC-supplied router and have a replacement ready, it is important to factory reset the device before disposal. This ensures that any administrator passwords, ISP details, and custom network settings are deleted, keeping them from falling into the wrong hands.

Finding a safe disposal option will help to ensure the router is correctly dismantled. The ACCC has emailed recipients of the SamKnows SK-WB8 routers informing them of the correct disposal procedure, with a link to a live list of e-waste services.

However, if you have the time and inclination to flash OpenWRT, a guide explaining how to do this is available on the OpenWRT page for the SamKnows SK-WB8.

• ETH Zurich quantum chip sees superconducting qubit act as CPU and the vibrational modes of a fingernail-width acoustic resonator serve as quantum RAM
• The approach borrows from classical computer architecture as it completely flips the script on how modern quantum computing might store short-term data
• The team demonstrated a universal gate set and ran small instances of the quantum Fourier transform and period finding

A guitar string essentially stores a note based on how it vibrates, and if one plucks it differently, an entirely different note plays.

A team of researchers at ETH Zurich has leveraged the same principle to build a quantum chip that stores information by replacing the string with microscopic acoustic resonators.

This allows the chip to increase its working memory significantly, essentially increasing the storage capacity, a prohibitively expensive commodity in quantum computing, significantly.

A vibrations-based quantum storage play

ETH Zurich's research is led by quantum physicist Yiwen Chu, who used tiny mechanical vibrations to both store and process information. The vibrations, however, go far beyond the range of human hearing, happening inside a quantum chip where they essentially replace or complement the working memory of a quantum computer.

The study, published by the Hybrid Quantum Systems group, lists Professor Yiwen Chu, along with doctoral students Yu Yang and Igor Kladarić, as lead authors and focuses on replicating the division of labor seen in a classical computer.

A superconducting transmon qubit serves as the CPU, while the working memory (the quantum equivalent of RAM) is a high-overtone bulk acoustic wave resonator, or HBAR, whose many vibrational modes each serve as a memory slot.

The Qubit essentially swaps a quantum state from a vibrational mode (reads it, in classical computer terms), manipulates it (modifies it), and swaps it back (writes it). This makes for a unique configuration that most modern quantum computers do not follow, in which processing and storage are two distinct segments; most designs treat both memory and compute similarly.

The approach has advantages, however: acoustic waves have wavelengths roughly a hundred thousand times shorter than electromagnetic ones, allowing an entire quantum chip to be extremely small, as the research team states, even if the actual computer will be many orders of magnitude larger.

The chip has passed stress tests, including a proof of feasibility, which also included testing using two of the most commonly used methods to benchmark a quantum computer: the quantum Fourier transform and a period-finding algorithm.

The endgame here, as noted by the research team, is quantum random-access memory (QRAM), which would allow modern quantum computers to access a much larger store of quantum memory than current specifications allow. Whether this pans out depends on both the scalability of the approach and the computational power in play.

• Skullcandy launches Crusher 1080 ANC, new premium over-ears
• They mark the debut of three Bose-made features in a non-Bose product
• Just launched and available right now, for $280 / AU$399.99 (about £210)

It is as I foretold: after we saw Skullcandy teases about new headphones, the brand has unveiled exactly the pair of cans I predicted. Meet the Skullcandy Crusher 1080 ANC; they're the pair that skate legend (and brand ambassador) Tony Hawk is pointing at in the picture above — yes, it really is him.

These are, according to the brand, its "best-sounding product" (although interestingly, not the most expensive because Skullcandy's Aviator 900 cans are a little pricier) and in case you didn't know, a 1080 in skateboarding involves three complete skateboard and body rotations performed either frontside or backside.

As a new member of its Crusher line-up, part of the draw will be the adjustable bass (see the big dial on the ear cup), but there's a lot more to celebrate besides that.

You can buy the Crusher 1080 ANC right now; they cost $279.99 / AU$399.99 (about £210) so they're a little cheaper than the likes of the $449 / £449 / AU$699 Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (Gen 2) which they borrow features from.

They come in black, gray, brown, and pink, as you can see modelled sans Tony Hawk below. I rate them in the following order: brown, pink, gray, black, though I'd love to see a camo or floral redesign as Skullcandy is wont to do.

Colors aren't why you'll buy the Crusher 1080 ANC, though. No, it'll be because they offer three new Sound by Bose features at a non-Bose price...

That which we call a Bose by any other name would smell as sweet

(Image credit: Skullcandy)

We've seen Skullcandy headphones with Bose features before, but the Crusher 1080 ANC are the first pair of cans not made by the brand which have three specific features. And these three features are a big selling point of the product.

The biggest will be Bose QuietControl ANC, which is a massive draw within Bose's own products (including the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds 2nd Gen). The company's noise cancellation is best-in-class, and now that proprietary Bose technology is baked into Skullcandy's headphones too. To many, this could be a reason to buy the Crusher all on its own.

Bose's TrueSpatial audio with head-tracking (for surround sound profiles irrespective of source material) and WaveForm audio engine (for snappy digital signal processing) are also stepping foot off the Good Ship Bose for the first time with the 1080. These will be great little extras to refine and finesse what Skullcandy already offers.

And that's before we even mention the Sound by Bose tuning and SpeechClarity voice pickup, to improve the music you listen to and your call quality. The latter is new to Skullcandy, but we've seen the former on some earbuds like my beloved Method 360.

And what about the headphones themselves, beyond the Bose stuff? Skullcandy hasn't confirmed the drivers, but I'd guess they'll be 40mm and joined by woofer units.

The battery life is 60 hours with ANC off and 50 hours with it on, which is pretty impressive; there's a 5-band EQ and other features via the Skullcandy app (not Skull-IQ, which some of the firm's earbuds use). Pictures show a dial on the side of the headphones, amongst other physical controls; I'd wager this is a redesigned bass slider, and given how easy it is to miss this on my Crusher 540 Active, I appreciate the rethink.

Reading between the lines, and having tested the Method 540 earlier this year (a 540 is a one-and-a-half skateboard and body rotation performed either frontside or backside, which I cannot do), I get the impression that Skullcandy is undergoing a push to really level up.

The company doesn't seem to be abandoning the commitment to bass that's defined its products in the past (or its love of athletes as brand ambassadors), but seems to want to bring that into a better-rounded audio package with higher-fidelity music on offer. And if the Skullcandy Crusher 1080 ANC is the culmination of this process, I'm really intrigued to know how they sound.

(Image credit: Skullcandy)

• Pentagon seeks an affordable drone capable of replacing many MQ-9 Reaper missions
• Reaper drones hit hard in Iran, and losses force demand for lower-cost unmanned combat aircraft
• New aircraft must combine long range with substantial payload capacity

The United States Air Force is examining a lower-cost unmanned aircraft concept after losing “dozens” of MQ-9 Reaper drones during the recent conflict involving Iran.

Those losses have intensified concerns about relying upon expensive aircraft in environments where increasingly affordable air defenses can destroy them.

With roughly 135 Reapers in service and each drone costing about $30 million, officials increasingly question whether existing loss rates remain sustainable.

Pentagon seeks a lower-cost drone with long range and heavy payload

Rather than pursuing a more advanced version of the MQ-9, defense planners are exploring a drone intended for larger-scale deployment.

The Defense Innovation Unit is seeking proposals for a Massed Modular Aircraft, or MMA, capable of performing many missions currently assigned to the Reaper.

According to the solicitation, the Pentagon believes dependence upon “exquisite” aircraft costing more than $30 million is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain.

The concept favours quantity alongside capability, allowing forces to continue operating even after suffering substantial battlefield attrition.

Unlike many smaller drones commonly associated with swarm operations, the proposed aircraft would retain significant reach and carrying capacity.

The solicitation calls for a payload of at least 2,800 pounds, compared with roughly 3,800 pounds carried by the MQ-9.

Requirements also include an unrefueled combat radius of at least 2,300 nautical miles and a one-way transfer distance exceeding 8,000 nautical miles.

The drone must travel at speeds above 200 miles per hour while remaining capable of operating from 6,000-foot runways and improvised airstrips.

Defense planners also want enough onboard power and cooling capacity to support diverse internal and external mission equipment.

The specifications mention 25kW of available electrical power and 5kW of cooling capacity for future mission systems.

Ambitious timeline aims for operational capability by 2031

The proposal places considerable emphasis upon autonomy, allowing a single operator to supervise several aircraft simultaneously during complex missions.

While no specific dimensions were included, the performance requirements indicate an aircraft broadly comparable in size to the MQ-9.

Officials have also not disclosed a preferred procurement price, though expectations suggest a figure substantially below the Reaper's estimated $30 million cost.

The timeline remains aggressive, with full-scale prototype flight testing expected within 21 months following contract award.

Initial Operating Capability is planned for fiscal year 2031, with 20 mission-ready aircraft delivered to an operational unit.

Recent combat experiences appear to have influenced the concept's development, particularly situations where defenders exhausted interceptors before attackers exhausted drones.

The solicitation argues that maintaining continuous MMA operations could pressure opponents into consuming costly defensive missiles at unsustainable rates.

“Keeping a constant airborne MMA presence to launch weapons, gather intelligence, perform electronic warfare missions, or relay communications will force an adversary to stay on the defensive,” the Defense Innovation Unit stated.

Via Defense News

Looking for a different day?

A new Quordle puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Wednesday's puzzle instead then click here: Quordle hints and answers for Wednesday, July 15 (game #1633).

Quordle was one of the original Wordle alternatives and is still going strong now more than 1,500 games later. It offers a genuine challenge, though, so read on if you need some Quordle hints today — or scroll down further for the answers.

Enjoy playing word games? You can also check out my NYT Connections today and NYT Strands today pages for hints and answers for those puzzles, while Marc's Wordle today column covers the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about Quordle today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

Quordle today (game #1634) — hint #1 — VowelsHow many different vowels are in Quordle today?

• The number of different vowels in Quordle today is 4*.

* Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too).

Quordle today (game #1634) — hint #2 — repeated lettersDo any of today's Quordle answers contain repeated letters?

• The number of Quordle answers containing a repeated letter today is 2.

Quordle today (game #1634) — hint #3 — uncommon lettersDo the letters Q, Z, X or J appear in Quordle today?

• No. None of Q, Z, X or J appear among today's Quordle answers.

Quordle today (game #1634) — hint #4 — starting letters (1)Do any of today's Quordle puzzles start with the same letter?

• The number of today's Quordle answers starting with the same letter is 0.

If you just want to know the answers at this stage, simply scroll down. If you're not ready yet then here's one more clue to make things a lot easier:

Quordle today (game #1634) — hint #5 — starting letters (2)What letters do today's Quordle answers start with?

• I

• P

• Y

• A

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

Quordle today (game #1634) — the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle, game #1634, are…

• IGLOO
• PLAIT
• YEAST
• AROMA

This was a tricky game — mainly due to two words ending in vowels.

I thought I had exhausted all words ending in the letter O, before I finally got to one ending in two of them.

Daily Sequence today (game #1634) — the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1634, are…

• NEEDY
• GOOFY
• ABIDE
• VISIT

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #1633, Wednesday, 15 July: PROXY, BRICK, BROTH, SURGE
• Quordle #1632, Tuesday, 14 July: EBONY, AVOID, RODEO, CUTIE
• Quordle #1631, Monday, 13 July: VOICE, BISON, BURNT, BUILT
• Quordle #1630, Sunday, 12 July: STAIN, BINGO, LARVA, DICEY
• Quordle #1629, Saturday, 11 July: WORTH, PRONG, DINGO, DRUID
• Quordle #1628, Friday, 10 July: GREET, STEAK, DUSKY, HAUTE
• Quordle #1627, Thursday, 9 July: CRUMP, PHONE, SHINY, STONY
• Quordle #1626, Wednesday, 8 July: GHOST, TREND, EXALT, ALONG
• Quordle #1625, Tuesday, 7 July: ARRAY, SUITE, KIOSK, BOULE
• Quordle #1624, Monday, 6 July: TRAWL, SPICE, PIANO, SHARK
• Quordle #1623, Sunday, 5 July: PINEY, SWOON, TITLE, PINTO
• Quordle #1622, Saturday, 4 July: ARGUE, MOTEL, OPERA, TRUCE
• Quordle #1621, Friday, 3 July: AVERT, MOTOR, MANIC, WORDY
• Quordle #1620, Thursday, 2 July: BULKY, PARSE, BELOW, MOVIE
• Quordle #1619, Wednesday, 1 July: EASEL, OTTER, LYRIC, SHACK
• Quordle #1618, Tuesday, 30 June: HALVE, DRYER, THERE, MINTY
• Quordle #1617, Monday, 29 June: SLURP, CRACK, CRANK, PHONY
• Quordle #1616, Sunday, 28 June: RUPEE, TOPAZ, FULLY, BEING
• Quordle #1615, Saturday, 27 June: PRINT, MARRY, SADLY, BICEP
• Quordle #1614, Friday, 26 June: JUICE, ARRAY, BONEY, SKIFF

Looking for a different day?

A new NYT Connections puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Wednesday's puzzle instead then click here: NYT Connections hints and answers for Wednesday, July 15 (game #1130).

Good morning! Let's play Connections, the NYT's clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need Connections hints.

What should you do once you've finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I've also got daily Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too, while Marc's Wordle today page covers the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Connections today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

NYT Connections today (game #1131) - today's words

(Image credit: New York Times)

Today's NYT Connections words are…

• NEEDLE
• INK
• JET
• DOT MATRIX
• TONER
• POINT BREAK
• LASER
• CHARCOAL
• PEEL
• PITCH
• PERIOD PIECE
• BULLSEYE
• SPOT REMOVER
• EYE CREAM
• CLOCKWORK
• CLAY MASK

NYT Connections today (game #1131) - hint #1 - group hints

What are some clues for today's NYT Connections groups?

• YELLOW: Cosmetics
• PURPLE: Small beginnings
• BLUE: Seeking perfection
• GREEN: The darkness

Need more clues?

We're firmly in spoiler territory now, but read on if you want to know what the four theme answers are for today's NYT Connections puzzles…

NYT Connections today (game #1131) - hint #2 - group answers

What are the answers for today's NYT Connections groups?

• YELLOW: SKINCARE PRODUCTS
• PURPLE: STARTING WITH TINY MARKS
• BLUE: ASSOCIATED WITH PRECISION
• GREEN: SHADES OF BLACK

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Connections today (game #1131) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Connections, game #1131, are…

• YELLOW: SKINCARE PRODUCTS: CLAY MASK, EYE CREAM, PEEL, TONER
• PURPLE: STARTING WITH TINY MARKS: DOT MATRIX, PERIOD PIECE, POINT BREAK, SPOT REMOVER
• BLUE: ASSOCIATED WITH PRECISION: BULLSEYE, CLOCKWORK, LASER, NEEDLE
• GREEN: SHADES OF BLACK: CHARCOAL, INK, JET, PITCH

• My rating: Hard
• My score: 1 mistake

Looking at today’s game after I completed it, I don’t understand why I failed to see SHADES OF BLACK as it is the only group that I could have actually got right.

The other three groups were the result of muddled game play and lucky guesses — particularly STARTING WITH TINY MARKS, which I didn’t get because I spotted dot, period, point and spot, but because all the tiles were made up of two words.

Before that, though, I made the mistake of putting together what I thought were four different types of printer. Hopefully I wasn't the only player to fall into that trap, but in truth it doesn't take much to catch me.

Yesterday's NYT Connections answers (Wednesday, July 15, 2026, game #1130)

• YELLOW: TERMS FOR THE LEGAL SYSTEM: BAR, BENCH, COURT, TRIBUNAL
• GREEN: THINGS WITH LACES: BASEBALL GLOVE, CORSET, FOOTBALL, SHOE
• BLUE: KINDS OF SPORTS: EXTREME, MOTOR, RACKET, WATER
• PURPLE: WORDS BEFORE "ROOM" TO INDICATE EXTRA SPACE: BREATHING, ELBOW, HEAD, WIGGLE

What is NYT Connections?

NYT Connections is one of several increasingly popular word games made by the New York Times. It challenges you to find groups of four items that share something in common, and each group has a different difficulty level: green is easy, yellow a little harder, blue often quite tough and purple usually very difficult.

On the plus side, you don't technically need to solve the final one, as you'll be able to answer that one by a process of elimination. What's more, you can make up to four mistakes, which gives you a little bit of breathing room.

It's a little more involved than something like Wordle, however, and there are plenty of opportunities for the game to trip you up with tricks. For instance, watch out for homophones and other word games that could disguise the answers.

It's playable for free via the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.