TechRadar News

• Nanoleaf announced a new $80 smart ceiling light
• It comes with three different lighting modes and also supports Matter
• It's on sale in the US and Canada now

Nanoleaf has unveiled a new device coming to its range of smart home tech, and it’s a small ceiling light that packs quite a punch.

Yesterday (June 30) the Toronto-based company announced its small 12-inch Nanoleaf Smart Multicolor Ceiling Light on its blog, which is now available to purchase for $79.99 in the US and Canada. We don’t know when or if its new ceiling light will be available internationally, but we’re keeping our eyes peeled for more news.

There’s not an evening spent in my home where the big light is turned on, so having a neat device like Nanoleaf’s new ceiling light is perfect for when you want to set the ambience for an entire room without turning on individual lamps. It can also be wired into your home, easily replacing your existing ceiling light.

As far as its features go, Nanoleaf’s ceiling light packs 19 LEDs and has three modes. ‘Front’ mode projects 2600 lumens of light filling rooms of up to 150 sq. ft, making it ideal for things such as cooking or reading. ‘Back’ mode shines light onto the ceiling to set the mood for times where you want to relax or indulge in a good movie, while ‘Front and Back’ mode is a combination of the two.

We’ve tested an extensive range of the best smart lights from Nanoleaf and there’s a plethora of reasons why we keep going back for more. One of them is its endless color wheel of lighting options, and the new ceiling light is no exception.

(Image credit: Nanoleaf)

Nanoleaf says its ceiling light has roughly 16 million color choices, so I think it’s safe to say that you won’t run short of options when setting the right mood in your home. Additionally, it has a CRI 95 rating which, if you’re unfamiliar with the lingo, means that every color in your room will shine naturally when the light hits. Essentially, this rating is the gold standard.

Ceiling lights have had their time in the spotlight quite a bit recently. Philips, another behemoth in the world of smart lighting, launched an impressive ceiling device that imitates natural sunlight. However, though it looks stellar, it’s very pricey and falls flat on the smart features front, which is where Nanoleaf’s latest device wins.

While the Philips Skylight automatically adjusts daylight temperature as the day goes on, it’s not a smart light in the conventional sense as you can’t connect it to smart home hubs. In the case of Nanoleaf, the ceiling light is Matter compatible and supports Apple Home, Google Home, SmartThings, and Alexa smart speakers, allowing you to use voice control to set the mood regardless of which system you’re using.

The other handy trick with the ceiling light is that it can do all the thinking for you when you set schedules, so the mood will automatically change to correspond with your set times. That’s not the only means of control however, the ceiling light can also be used with the Nanoleaf Sense+ switch (sold separately) which uses motion and daylight sensors to take the light’s smarts to the next level.

Despite Philips having the more premium ceiling light, Nanoleaf’s newest addition tackles a lot of pain points from its $500 rival. And yes, it’s not as big or bold, but for the roster of color options, Matter compatibility, and other smart home tools, $80 is quite the steal.

I'm enjoying the cultural references in all episode titles of Rick and Morty season 9, but this week's, Mortgully: The Last Rickforest, sounds like a complete enigma.

All we have to go on is one short line: "Rick and Morty gotta evolve, broh." Take into account eight and a half seasons of absolute chaos, and this could literally mean anything.

Still, we've only got a few days of speculating left. But when does Rick and Morty season 9 episode 7 arrive on Adult Swim, Hulu, and HBO Max?

What time can I watch Rick and Morty season 9 episode 7 on Adult Swim, Hulu, and HBO Max?

In the US, Rick and Morty season 9 episode 7 will debut on Adult Swim on Sunday, July 5 at 8pm PT / 11pm ET.

Viewers elsewhere, as well as in the US, have two streaming options: Hulu and HBO Max. Episodes should appear on these platforms 24 hours after they've aired on Adult Swim, meaning you can expect episode 7 on Monday, July 6.

These are the timings you need to take note of:

• US – 12am PT / 3am ET
• Canada – 12am PT / 3am ET
• UK – 8am BST
• India – 12:30pm IST
• Singapore – 3pm SGT
• Australia – 6pm AEST
• New Zealand – 8pm NZDT

When do new episodes of Rick and Morty season 9 come out?

(Image credit: Adult Swim)

Rick and Morty season 9 is set to have 10 episodes. As long as there are no unexpected delays, we can expect it to have the following release schedule:

• Episode 1: out now
• Episode 2: out now
• Episode 3: out now
• Episode 4: out now
• Episode 5: out now
• Episode 6: out now
• Episode 7: July 5
• Episode 8: July 12
• Episode 9: July 19
• Episode 10: July 26

Creating your own app no longer requires in-depth knowledge of an appropriate programming language. No-code tools like Base44 can be instructed to create web apps and superagents in minutes, using instructions written in much the same way you would explain the process of boiling an egg or running a bath.

Bought by Wix.com in 2025, just months after it was founded, Base44 is one of the most recognizable no-code tools. To ascertain how useful it can be, we’ve explored its features, its support for integration with third-party tools and services, and how easy it is to deploy. We’ve assessed its pricing and considered how Base44 compares with the competition, and we’ve also used it to create a web app.

To see more of the options that are out there, take a look at our list of the best no-code platforms.

Base44: Features

From the off, Base44 gives you a free option with 25 message credits and 100 integration credits. It is worth noting, however, that these have varying values depending on the type of project you’re describing. These credits increase through the plans, as do the features. Free users get database functionality, for example, along with authentication tools and analytics.

Scale up to a paid plan, and you can get unlimited app projects, in-app code edits, a choice of AI model, GitHub integration, domain connection, backend functions, and even premium support.

Base44 also has beta functions under ongoing development, which can also be accessed with the top tier plans.

(Image credit: Base44)

The key feature of Base44, beyond its no-code prompt, is its support for superagents. These are described as being able to “do the work of a personal assistant, support rep, marketing team, analyst” and all you need to do is tell it what to do. Along with various templates – such as specific options for finance-based tasks, e-commerce projects, and more – Base44 has a lot to offer in terms of integrations. Pretty much every productivity tool and data platform you can think of is available for connection to your web project or superagent.

As such, Base44’s potential as a no-code automation tool is a strong advantage.

Base44: Interface and ease of use

Base44 is designed to make it easy for you to develop a web app with instructions in plain English. You simply enter a prompt, and wait for the results. A clear user-interface – much like any other AI-based prompt box – is presented for use, although you do need to register first. Free and paid accounts are available, along with a free trial of the premium features.

You aren’t limited to text prompts, either. It’s an easy task to upload an image, to assist with your plans for a web app. Or you might initiate a connection to one of the many integrations supported by Base44.

In addition, Base44 has a mobile app, for both iPhone and Android, which is intended to assist in no-code development wherever you are. Projects can also be deployed or published via the mobile app.

Base44: Integration and extensibility

(Image credit: Base44)

It’s worth taking a deeper look at the integrations and connections available with Base44. Most importantly, you do not need a third party database solution, as this is built into all plans. If you need it, however, Base44 supports Supabase with a dedicated connection.

Google Suite tools like Gmail, Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Calendar can be integrated with Base 44, as can Google Drive, Google Analytics, Search Console, and Meet. Slack and the Slack Bot can be connected, as can ClickUp and AirTable. Meanwhile, cloud storage like Dropbox, OneDrive, and Box are also options.

LinkedIn, Instagram Business, and Discord also have connection options with Base44. Many more are available, and each offers the potential for an integration with a web app or superagent automation.

Base44: Deployment and maintenance

Creating an app or superagent is only the first step. In order to use them, you need to publish.

Several options are available here. The simplest is to publish to a Base44 subdomain, but you can easily share it via email or to a social network, too. Note that there is no option to sync it to GitHub.

Note that once a project is published, the integration credits come into play. This means that a web app or superagent needs the integration credits to perform the tasks you have specified. If the credits run out, your no-code project will not work again until the period resets or you upgrade to get more credits.

As noted, your project can also be published via the mobile app. This also supports submission to the Apple App Store and Google Play for approval.

Creating a crypto price calculator with Base44

To help understand just how useful Base44 is as a no-code solution, I developed a prompt to create a web app. The aim of the tool is to calculate the price of popular cryptocurrencies when purchased in USD, GBP, or Euros. It relies on a free API (two are specified as options), which the app should be able to connect to and draw data from. The prompt also specifies input fields and a calculation table.

(Image credit: Base44)

The prompt is as follows – and we’ve used the same prompt when testing other no-code tools:

Build a tool that compares the price of a specific asset (like Bitcoin) against multiple fiat currencies simultaneously.

Functional requirements

API Integration: Connect to a free API (like CoinGecko or ExchangeRate-API).

Input Handling: A field where the user enters a "Budget" (e.g., $1,000$).

Dynamic Calculation: A list or table that automatically updates to show how much of the asset that budget buys in USD, EUR, and GBP.

Toggle Switch: A "Dark Mode" or "Refresh" toggle to test UI state management.

--

Two initial attempts were made, each resulting in a drawn out “Building your idea” message – one of which lasted for 3 hours (in contrast, competing tools completed the task within 5 minutes).

Rather than re-entering the prompt for a third time, I posed the question: “why is this not working?” As a result, Base44 took a more verbal approach as it made its third attempt. While it made progress, it still wasn’t working, providing a “fix with AI” button to overcome problems displaying the app’s preview. This was progress, however, and within a few more moments the calculator was displayed.

The resulting web app delivered on the aims of the prompt, but offered an additional 9 currencies that were not specified. Publishing the app was a one-click process, and you can see the results here: https://global-crypto-spend.base44.app

Base44: Pricing and Documentation

The basic free version of Base44 is limited, but is enough to get you started. If you need more, the Starter plan is $20/month (working out at $16/month with annual billing) and gives you 100 message credits and 2000 integration credits.

The Builder plan takes things to the next level with 250 message credits and 10,000 integration credits each month, for just $50/month (or $40/month with annual billing), while the Pro plan has 500 message credits and 20,000 integration credits. This is $100/month, or $80/month with annual billing.

Finally, there is the $200/month option ($160/month if paying annually) with 1200 message credits and an incredible 50,000 integration credits each month.

(Image credit: Base44)

Where Base44 also excels is in its superb knowledge base. Available via docs.base44.com, this is a comprehensive collection of authored documents that guide you through everything from writing prompts to queries over connections. There is also support for billing.

If you can’t find the answers you’re looking for, the docs are supported by one of the best AI help chat assistants we’ve come across. It appears to be regularly maintained and trained on Base44’s current feature set, which is an advantage and preferable to receiving solutions that appear to be six months out of date.

Base44: The competition

Various alternatives to Base44 are available. Among these are Lovable, Bubble, and Hostinger Horizons. All offer free trials and a collection of affordable plans. However, Base44 seems to deliver a more compelling collection of support documents, and its dual focus on web apps and superagents as distinct project types is an advantage.

Most of these tools offer the same integrations and connections, so there isn’t a whole lot of difference in that regard. However, Hostinger Horizons and Lovable were – in our experience – faster at delivering a working web app based on the same prompt.

Base44: Final verdict

Base44 impresses alongside the competition, with a collection of plans and features that will certainly make choosing a no-code tool more difficult. Price-wise, the free option gives you everything you need to kick off no-code development, while the paid tiers evolve the available features as you spend more.

In terms of generating a project, while Base44 was responsive to fixing errors, it struggled to deliver what is a comparatively straightforward web app. Competing no-code solutions have performed more efficiently in this regard.

It also went off-script by delivering currencies that were not specified. With this in mind, you might wonder if the time spent working on and refining a prompt with Base44 might be time better spent with a more immediately responsive tool.

Base44 has an affordable set of plans and its mobile support is good, but more reliable alternatives are available.

No-code tools are AI-based systems that enable people with little to no coding skills to quickly have a working program or application in just a few minutes. At the same time, no-code can be used by actual developers who need a quick start – perhaps to build a template and save time importing libraries into a project.

One of the key names in cloud AI is Vercel, which was founded in 2015 and launched v0 in 2023. Designed to create “web applications with natural language prompts,” this is an award-winning tool that collected a 2025 Webby Award. To learn more about Vercel v0, we’ve assessed its features, pricing and plans, ease of use, and tested it with a prompt for a web app. We’ve also compared v0 with competing tools to see how effective it is against the alternatives.

If you want to weigh up the other options, take a look at our list of the best no-code platforms.

Vercel v0: Features

The main reason to use v0 is to create a web application or some other web-hosted tool accessibly via a browser. Capable of understanding plain English instructions (or your native language) and converting them into a web app, v0 can create and deploy a project in minutes. It employs continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) to make this possible, a feature available in all plans, from the free Hobby tier upward.

Vercel v0 has a web application firewall, global CDN, DdoS mitigation, and traffic and performance insights, along with Vercel’s serverless infrastructure model Fluid Compute. All of those features are available each tier.

Pro users also get team collaboration and viewer seats, faster builds with no queues, and enterprise add-ons, while Enterprise plans add guest and team access controls, advanced support, managed rulesets, and a 99.99% uptime.

Vercel v0: Interface and ease of use

All of the no-code tools we’ve assessed offer a focused user interface, with a prompt box in the middle of the screen. It’s the same approach used for search tools, and is immediately inviting.

Once the prompt has been made, things evolve with Vercel v0. Assuming you have already registered (Google, GitHub, and other accounts are supported, as well as your own self-hosted or corporate email address), v0 will begin to process the prompt, analyzing the instructions and delivering its processes via a verbose sidebar. It is incredibly straightforward, leaving you with little else to do but sip a warm beverage and be entertained by the AI’s updates for a few minutes.

Pulling back from the prompt box of each individual project you develop with v0, information about your account is available, along with all active projects. These can be viewed via a series of dashboards, which also display server usage, analytics (up to 50,000 events are supported in the free Hobby mode) and even information about what integrations are in use.

Vercel v0: Integration and extensibility

Integrations make no-code platforms far more flexible than basic web apps. Features such as databases and login authentication add data resilience, user-specific settings, and privacy. With v0, a considerable selection of integrations are available. These include Stripe for payments, CMS solutions such as Formspree, Makeswift and Agility CMS, and a range of AI tools such as ElevenLabs for voice AI and Perplexity.

(Image credit: Vercel v0)

If a database is required, AWS is available as an option, but v0 itself recommends Supabase. This can be set up and integrated by v0 either as part of your prompt, or later when the kinks and bugs have been ironed out. The process is wholly automated, and as with everything else within this no-code environment, can be completed in minutes.

Vercel v0: Deployment and maintenance

Using Vercel v0 to deploy a web project gives you several options. You can publish directly to a subdomain, or to a GitHub repository where it can be made accessible to collaboration. A completed project can then be branched and revised, and the changes pushed to the current live environment.

Of particular interest is the v0 tool’s ability to maintain an existing project. If changes are required, the chat interface, positioned on the left-hand side of the completed web app, enables changes to be made. For more direct revision, the code view can open each of the generated files used in the development of the web app, and live changes made.

(Image credit: Vercel v0)

For debugging, a live console is also provided. All in all, these are solid, accessible revision and maintenance tools.

Creating a crypto calculator with Vercel v0

With various no-code tools available to choose from, it is important to know how effectively they can take the prompt you give them and deliver a usable app. To this end, I developed a prompt for a cryptocurrency calculator that would show how much of a specific cryptocurrency could be bought in USD, GBP, and EUR for a specific amount of money.

To ascertain how v0 handles a no-code prompt, I outlined what I wanted from the tool. The idea is that the prompt should result in a user-friendly web app.

(Image credit: Vercel v0)

Here’s the prompt we attempted to use with Vercel – the same one has been used with other no-code tools that we’ve looked at:

Build a tool that compares the price of a specific asset (like Bitcoin) against multiple fiat currencies simultaneously.

Functional requirements

API Integration: Connect to a free API (like CoinGecko or ExchangeRate-API).

Input Handling: A field where the user enters a "Budget" (e.g., $1,000$).

Dynamic Calculation: A list or table that automatically updates to show how much of the asset that budget buys in USD, EUR, and GBP.

Toggle Switch: A "Dark Mode" or "Refresh" toggle to test UI state management.

--

Vercel v0 timed the creation at 1 minute and 44 seconds, and produced a tool that not only worked as described, but met the clear specification of the prompt. Deployment options allow immediate publishing, either to a Vercel subdomain or a dedicated URL you already own and are ready to connect.

There is also the option to publish to GitHub, although note that this comes with some complications for publishing later – the option to publish from the Vercel v0 interface is removed once this happens, limiting you to logging in to the no-code tool with your GitHub credentials to push it live. This seems over-complicated, but I was able to instruct the Vercel v0 AI chat assistant to publish the project.

(Image credit: Vercel v0)Vercel v0: Pricing and documentation

A compact collection of options are available for using v0. Vercel offers three plans: the “free forever” Hobby option, the $20/month Pro selection, and the Enterprise option, which appears to be priced on scale of use and has the option to request a demo. As noted above, the Enterprise option is aimed at development teams. There is no annual payment option.

Given the range of features available through the Hobby and Pro plans, however, these should suit most uses. Note, however, that additional usage costs are applicable with the Pro plan, with $2 per 1 million additional Edge Requests and $0.15 per additional GB of data transfer. Various other changes can be applied for server use, project build costs, and accommodating additional developers. So while the Pro plan may look affordable, it has hidden costs if you go beyond its confines. These have regional variations, which can be found in the Vercel.com documentation pages.

Vercel v0 has a useful collection of documentation, a knowledge base format that is both readable and searchable. In addition, the AI assistant can find solutions to bugs or issues with its generated projects. The knowledge base feels as though it has been curated or compiled by humans, and is easy to read.

Vercel v0: The competition

The pricing for v0 is far simpler than with most competing tools, which all offer more pricing tiers.

Vercel appears particularly adept at keeping to the confines of the prompt. Some of the tools we’ve used have gone “off-script” and produced additional features – such as a longer list of currencies – whereas the web app produced by Vercel is exactly as specified. On the other hand, deployment proved a little trickier with Vercel once GitHub was factored into the process.

In terms of creating a fast web app without mission creep, Hostinger Horizons and Vercel v0 are pretty much equivalent, although the former has a swifter set of deployment options. But the depth of the Hobby plan and the Pro price are certainly in v0’s favor.

Vercel v0 also falls short against Lovable in terms of the ease with which the generated web app’s user interface can be edited. This is a shame, as the alternative to a friendly point-and-click revision is getting embroiled in CSS, which a no-code prompter may not feel comfortable with.

Vercel v0: Final verdict

(Image credit: Vercel v0)

Competition among no-code solutions is tight. Most offer the same features, with a similar user interface, at prices that barely differ. The main points of difference come with the success of the initial prompt, what revisions are possible, and the deployment options.

Vercel v0 stands out in our testing for having a strong free plan, and for delivering a working web app that met the exact requirements (and constraints) of the prompt. Deployment and publishing was tricky, but the AI chat assistant helped to overcome any issues publishing the web app as a live tool.

While it lacks a mobile app, v0 is a strong choice for no-code projects, and should be on your list of options.

OpenAI and Anthropic are publicly disagreeing about whether their new AI cyber tools should be shared with European regulators.

OpenAI has offered Brussels access to its model. Anthropic is holding back, with Commission talks described as being at a different stage. Both have framed their position as the responsible one, and both arguments have merit.

But whether openness or restriction is the right call is ultimately a policy question and one that will take time to resolve. For organizations managing cyber risk today, the more immediate question is whether the teams are equipped to handle what these tools can already do.

AI systems can now autonomously carry out multi-step cyberattack tasks in controlled environments. Anthropic's Mythos completed a 32-step simulated corporate attack in testing.

Before it existed, no AI had ever done that in this type of full-chain simulation. Regulatory access to that kind of model matters for policy development. But the organizations that will be on the receiving end of attacks it enables are not waiting for that process to conclude.

The question of who decides when a powerful cyber tool is safe to deploy is important. But responsible deployment cannot just mean responsible release. It also means ensuring the organizations expected to defend against these capabilities actually have the people and skills to do so.

Most organizations are underprepared

Recent UK survey data found that only 27% of UK organizations are fully prepared for AI-powered attacks. Seven in ten are operating with partial or no AI-specific readiness, even though the vast majority of senior leaders already recognize that AI is increasing their risk. The awareness is there. The preparation is not keeping pace with it.

Part of the issue is that cyber security has long been treated as a technical problem with a technical solution. Buy the right tools, run the right software and you are covered. AI fundamentally changes that assumption.

When attack tools can learn, adapt and probe defenses continuously, finding weaknesses, failing and trying again without getting tired, the humans on the other side need to be able to keep up. That requires expertise, not just familiarity with a dashboard.

The skills gap is an operational risk

AI identifying a vulnerability is only the first part of the problem. Someone still needs to understand what they are looking at, assess how serious it is, prioritize it against everything else on their plate and act quickly. That judgement does not come from a tool.

It comes from trained, experienced people who have built that capability over time. This is especially important as AI-generated attacks become harder to distinguish from legitimate activity. Threat recognition at speed requires pattern-matching built through experience and training, not simply access to the right software.

The data supports this. Among organizations that have invested in ongoing certification training, 86% report a measurable reduction in cyber risk, with an average reduction of nearly 48%. Certified teams also recover faster when something goes wrong.

Nearly half of UK organizations surveyed experienced at least one attack in the past 12 months, with the financial cost most commonly landing between £100,000 and £199,999 once recovery, downtime, regulatory fines and reputational damage are factored in.

Regulation is moving, but slowly

This is also where the governance question gets more practical. Giving regulators access to frontier AI models is useful for understanding what they are dealing with. But that access is only meaningful if the organizations it is meant to protect have the capability to act on what those models can do. A policy framework built around tools most security teams are not yet equipped to respond to does not close the gap.

AI security standards are still being written. Most security teams have limited awareness of what frameworks even exist, let alone what is coming. The EU AI Act, NIS2 (Network and Information Security Directive 2) and emerging sector-specific guidance are all moving targets. Organizations that build continuous training into how they operate will be better placed to keep up as those requirements take shape.

The fix is known

For most organizations, the question of whether they have the skills in their people to respond when it matters is the gap between awareness of risk and readiness to manage it.

The investment in trained and certified security professionals has a measurable impact on an organization's ability to deal with attacks. It also builds the kind of internal capability that makes it easier to maintain regulatory compliance as requirements evolve. This isn’t a glamorous answer but the evidence for it is consistent.

Organizations that view training as a core part of managing cyber risk, rather than something to be revisited after a breach, are generally in a much better place. The tools and the threats will evolve all the time. It is the difference between resilience and vulnerability.

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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

• Klipsch launches limited-edition Bluetooth speaker for The Odyssey
• Based on Klipsch Detroit with movie-inspired detailing
• Limited to 2,500 speakers worldwide, costing $499 (about £379 / AU$723)

Blockbuster movies often come with interesting collaborations, and Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is no exception: in addition to a rather nifty Trojan horse popcorn rather nifty Trojan horse popcorn bucket, you can also get your hands on a strictly limited edition Bluetooth speaker from audio experts Klipsch that promises audio that will "defy the gods".

And if there's one thing we know from Greek mythology, it's that defying the gods always ends well.

The new speaker is limited to 2,500 devices worldwide and is based on Klipsch's Music City Series Detroit platform. The Detroit is the largest of the Music City speakers, with dual one-inch tweeters and dual three-inch woofers. This special edition is inspired by the movie design of Odysseus' sword and features "battle-worn finishes, hand-distressed detailing, and brass accents that evoke an ancient artifact carried through an epic journey."

It looks like a lot of fun, and I'm very much enjoying the irony of the team-up here: The Odyssey director Christopher Nolan is infamous for making movies where the dialog is really hard to hear.

(Image credit: Klipsch)Klipsch x The Odyssey Limited Edition Speaker: key features and pricing

The Odyssey speaker features Bluetooth 5.3 with 40ft range, 20 hours of battery life and 18W USB-C charging. You can connect up to 10 Klipsch speakers in broadcast mode for a more immersive audio experience (though I'm not sure it's strictly how Nolan would like you to enjoy the movie…), and the speaker is IP67-rated and can survive water immersion for over 30 minutes.

You can customize the bass, mids and treble with the Klipsch Connect Plus app, which also delivers over-the-air firmware updates and tech support.

The recommended price of the Klipsch x The Odyssey Limited Edition Speaker is $499 (about £379 / AU$723) and it'll be sold online at Klipsch.com as well as through retailers including Amazon and RC Wiley.

That means it's significantly more expensive than the standard Detroit: that's currently on offer for $194 at Best Buy in the US and £299 at Currys in the UK. But of course that model doesn't have the movie magic and unique detailing of the limited edition.

Microsoft has revealed plans to axe its low-cost Surface Go devices, marking the end of one of the more interesting (yet personally frustrating) parts of its hardware journey.

A report from Windows Central claims both the Surface Go and Surface Laptop Go devices are no longer being manufactured, with no successors or updates currently planned.

This makes them the latest Surface device to be sent for an early bath - but I for one won't be too sad, having been forced to use the Surface Laptop Go for some time.

Why I'm glad the Surface Laptop Go is gone

At its launch, the budget-friendly devices were pitched by Microsoft as ideal for large-scale deployments, such as schools or universities. But for larger businesses, they were also ideal for bulk handouts to workers, especially those on the go who might appreciate a light and compact device.

Here at TechRadar, we were intrigued when our parent company announced we would be getting a Surface Laptop Go as a personal work device - surely this portable and powerful machine would be ideal for us.

As a journalist and editor, I'm often dashing around the city heading to meetings, events, interviews and briefings, so I guess this sort of device might have been perfect for me - however it had a number of issues which made it anything but.

Chief among these was the battery life, which was advertised as being set up for a full working day, but was anything but. After around an hour's usage, the battery would inevitably always be draining fast - not ideal if you're reporting on a conference keynote, or running around a show floor looking to grab interviews.

The power of the device was another major hassle - it really struggled with anything more than a few browser windows, which obviously isn't ideal for someone like me who often has a whole host of tabs open for multiple sources of information, or social media feeds.

Opening up any more than a few programs would cause a frankly alarming amount of heat to start issuing from the vents on the back of the device, with the cooling fans emitting a sound similar to a jet engine taking off.

(Image credit: Microsoft)

The low-resolution display was also a bit of a let-down, often failing to show any kind of brightness even on the highest setting, another major issue when juggling multiple programs or windows.

Finally, the lack of a back-lit keyboard was a real frustration - this might not obviously be the case for everyone, but have you ever tried to type in a dark theatre while reporting on a keynote or speech? It is...not ideal.

Microsoft hasn't finished its Surface line-up by any means - in fact, the company recently unveiled its latest Surface Laptop Pro devices a few weeks ago, and I've been road-testing one for the last few weeks, enjoying a device which actually performs and lasts a whole day.

So thanks for the memories, Surface Laptop Go (and Surface Go, I guess) - I won't miss you, but I appreciate your push to motivate me to always go for the higher-cost devices when it's something I rely upon every day.

No-code AI tools take a prompt in plain English (and other languages) and create a web app or other tool. Bolt is one such AI powered development platform, which launched in late 2024 and can create a web app based on your instructions without any need for coding tools or environment.

Various no-code development tools are currently available, but is Bolt able to compete with names like Replit and Base44? To find out, we tested its no-code capabilities with a straightforward prompt, assessed its features and pricing, and compared it with the competition.

For more options, you can also take a look at our list of the best no-code platforms.

Bolt: Features

Bolt will generate a web app based on a prompt you enter. This can be an outline you have finessed elsewhere, or something developed within a threaded, iterative conversation with the AI.

Several plans are offered by Bolt, each with an expanding raft of features. The free plan gives you the facility to commence both public and private projects, with 300K tokens each day. These are used with each AI interaction, depending on the scale of the request. 1 million tokens are awarded at the start of each month, and this doesn’t roll over.

Bolt's free plan gives you website hosting (with Bolt branding) for a project and a 10MB file upload limit – useful for sharing UI designs, for example. Also on the free plan, you'll get unlimited databases and support for 333,000 web requests (visitors).

The Pro plan gives you 10 million tokens by default and removes the Bolt branding. You also get custom domain support. Additionally, unused tokens will rollover to the next month.

A Teams plan adds team-level access management, granular administration controls, centralized billing, internal sharing, and support for private NPM registries. The Custom plan for enterprise scale projects adds further features such as SSO, audit logs, compliance, custom workflows, data governance policies and a dedicated account manager for 24/7 support.

Bolt: Interface and ease of use

A cursory look at several no-code tools will reveal a pretty standardized user interface not dissimilar to ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude, with a prompt box awaiting text input. Bolt does boast a far slicker UI than some of its competitors, making it immediately enticing.

You can create an account with your own credentials, with the now-ubiquitous Google sign in, or with GitHub. The latter will make integration with the code collaboration platform slightly more streamlined.

Entering a prompt is simple, and the generation of a project is logged in the left-hand pane. It’s all very straightforward and intuitive, and consequently extremely easy to use. However, there is a potential barrier to getting the most out of Bolt.

This no-code platform requires a specific browser, either Google Chrome (or Chromium) Microsoft Edge, or Brave. It doesn’t work with Firefox, with any attempt greeted by the message “Your current browser doesn’t support key technologies that Bolt relies on.”

Bolt: Integration and extensibility

Creating a web app from scratch with a single prompt is only part of the challenge for no-code tools like Bolt. They also need to be able to offer integration with tools that make the web app work. These might be payment processing services, login authorization, databases, for example, and perhaps even cloud integration.

You might also wish to ensure the project is effectively managed by integrating a suitable tool.

(Image credit: Bolt)

Bolt has a number of options in this area, from database support with Supabase to error tracking with Sentry and AI meeting notes with Granola. Bolt’s creators have aimed to provide a tool for many eventualities, although it should be noted that Bolt doesn’t offer Stripe or Google authorization as connectors or integrations. Instead, these are available at the prompt level, by adding a phrase such as “Add Sign-In with Google to my application.”

Bolt: Deployment and maintenance

In addition to the integrations, Bolt can be synced with GitHub. This adds an important aspect to your project’s reliability, allowing the invitation of collaborators and for the code to be reviewed. Remember, this is a no-code platform, and while the projects it creates should work well, it doesn’t mean that the code is perfect. Having the option for GitHub is useful, as it means you can take what is essentially a bootstrapped web app and polish it with the help of others.

(Image credit: Bolt)

Completed projects can be published via Bolt with two clicks. A subdomain is assigned for the project to run in. The option to host your project on a custom domain can also be configured at this stage.

Creating a crypto calculator with Bolt

To gain some understanding about how effective Bolt is for no code app generation, we conducted a test to see how it handled a clear prompt to create a web app.

The web app was conceived as a cryptocurrency calculator, designed to display live conversion prices for a trio of fiat currencies and whichever cryptocurrencies are provided via the chosen API. Two free API options are presented (CoinGecko and ExchangeRate-API) which the AI should draw information from.

(Image credit: Bolt.new)

Here is the prompt we used:

Build a tool that compares the price of a specific asset (like Bitcoin) against multiple fiat currencies simultaneously.

Functional requirements:

API Integration: Connect to a free API (like CoinGecko or ExchangeRate-API).

Input Handling: A field where the user enters a "Budget" (e.g., $1,000$).

Dynamic Calculation: A list or table that automatically updates to show how much of the asset that budget buys in USD, EUR, and GBP.

Toggle Switch: A "Dark Mode" or "Refresh" toggle to test UI state management.

--

Bolt’s results with this web app were good, but not without some caveats. First and foremost, it took a little over 5 minutes to complete the task. Other tools we’ve seen have been able to generate a web app from the prompt in under 90 seconds.

In addition, Bolt went off-script, over delivering on the physical currencies provided in the web app. The prompt specifies just three: USD, EU, GBP.

Deployment is one-click, however, which means you can have a live no-code web app published in just seconds. You can view the generated web app here: https://multi-currency-asset-sipu.bolt.host/

(Image credit: Bolt)Bolt: Pricing and documentation

You can get started with Bolt for free, but for a more in-depth no-code experience, you will need to consider the Pro plan. This starts from $25/month ($18/month with annual billing) for a plan that gives you 10 million tokens. If that isn’t enough you can increase your bank of tokens, but this has a direct impact on the plan’s price. Options from 26 million to 1200 million tokens are available, with prices that increase along the way, topping out at $2000/month.

In scenarios where a lot of tokens are required, and multiple users require access to Bolt for no-code development or post-generation revision, there is the Teams plan. This is $30/month (working out at $27/month with annual billing), with a similar pricing structure for additional tokens.

Information about pricing or tiers for tokens isn't available for the Custom plan – this is aimed at enterprise-level businesses with more complex requirements.

Details about the plans and tokens can be found (along with other important information about Bolt) in the documentation. These are well written and seem to cover everything from creating a new project, editing it in your browser or opening it to collaboration on GitHub to importing from competing platforms like Lovable.

Bolt: The competition

If you searched for a list of AI no-code platforms, you would invariably come across Bolt. It is a strong option that stands out alongside the alternatives thanks to its striking user interface. However, we found faster and better no-code tools, such as Lovable, Hostinger Horizons, and Vercel v0.

They all deliver faster and/or stay on-script when a single prompt is entered. As that is our benchmark, it is important to highlight that Bolt isn’t hitting it. But Bolt does have strengths compared with the alternatives, not least the swift deployment of a live web and heavy GitHub integration.

However, we were impressed with the depth of Bolt's plans for large-scale teams.

Bolt: Final verdict

(Image credit: Bolt)

Bolt is slow, and has fewer AI tokens than competing tools in free mode. These refresh daily, but are restrictive. The 300K tokens daily limit isn’t enough to explore revisions and there is no trial option where you can enjoy the features of the Pro plan.

On the puls side, Bolt offers an excellent set of documentation, which can prove invaluable in helping you to shape the idea for a web app into a working project with all the necessary authentication, payment, database, and other features.

I’ve enjoyed using Bolt’s intuitive collection of tools, but unfortunately it doesn’t deliver a no-code web app as effortlessly and quickly as many of the alternatives.

Cloud computing should make businesses more focused on their business, not more focused on their cloud.

That distinction has gotten lost.

A company that has moved its operations to the public cloud and then deployed significant engineering capacity to manage that environment has not simplified anything.

It has traded one operational cost for another.

Around 2012, moving to public cloud was genuinely good advice. It meant elastic scale on demand, no capital expenditure, and you only paid for what you used.

For most workloads, it was a meaningful step forward and the migration wave that followed made complete sense.

Things have changed.

The 2026 Flexera State of the Cloud report puts the current picture plainly: 73% of organizations say cloud has increased their operational complexity. And 31% of cloud spend, according to Finout, is being wasted.

There is a gulf between the promise of the public cloud and the reality, and that gulf is worth understanding.

Hyperscalers don't own outcomes

A useful analogy here is Home Depot. Asking a hyperscaler to run your business environment is a bit like asking Home Depot to build an extension on your house. They will sell you every part you could possibly need, deliver it to your door, and give you more selection than you can use.

But this analogy has a limit. Home Depot has moved well beyond lumber, and hyperscalers have done the same. You can buy managed services across the entire stack from them today, and their marketplaces run to tens of thousands of products. There is a lot you could put together from a hyperscaler.

But their commercial interests are not aligned with keeping things simple. When profit is tied to consumption, complexity is not a problem the model is built to solve. Every service you add is revenue for them. Every integration you maintain keeps you in the ecosystem. The model rewards sprawl, not efficiency.

The egress fees that make data migration elsewhere economically painful are the clearest expression of this. They ensure that even businesses that recognize the complexity problem find it expensive to do much about it. Simplicity, for the major cloud vendors, is a commercial risk.

When 78% of organizations say they are moving toward multi-cloud specifically to reduce single-vendor dependency, that is a market telling you the model stopped working for them.

The overspend problem

The overspend is just a part of the problem. Another cost is what happens to the people running these environments. When engineering teams spend their time integrating primitives and keeping a complex stack functional, they are not building products or moving the business forward. The cloud was supposed to create capacity, but for a lot of businesses it has consumed it instead.

Adding compliance needs on top compounds this. Around 43% of mid-market companies fail their first audit. The reason is rarely that the regulations are unclear. Maintaining audit-ready posture inside a general-purpose cloud environment is a continuous manual effort, and public cloud platforms give you the tools but leave the work to you. That burden lands on internal teams who are already stretched managing everything else the environment demands.

Cloud that helps businesses focus on outcome rather than maintenance requires an environment where the operational weight sits with the provider. Compliance should be managed as an architectural property rather than a continuous configuration task.

Performance should be maintained at the infrastructure level rather than something you tune around. Bills should be predictable because the model is built that way. These should not be premium features reserved for enterprises with unlimited budgets.

AI is making this more urgent. Around 98% of AI pilots currently fail to reach production. The reason is fairly straightforward: pilots run in isolated environments, and when it is time to move into production, the storage, networking, compliance posture, and compute requirements that real workloads demand are not in place.

If a business can operate on a managed, purpose-built cloud platform, it is significantly better positioned to take AI from pilot to production, because the underlying architecture is already there. They do not need to solve for an infrastructure problem before capturing the business benefit.

Simplicity is not a concession

The businesses pulling ahead have reframed how they think about cloud complexity. Complexity is not a sign of sophistication; it is an operational cost. Every hour an internal team spends managing it is an hour not spent on the actual work.

If your engineering team is spending a meaningful portion of its time keeping the cloud environment functional, the cloud is not working for you. That is not a problem inherent to cloud. It is a question of whether your provider's model is designed around your success or their consumption.

The 97% of mid-market organizations saying they need to move workloads away from hyperscale are already answering that question for themselves.

We've reviewed and rated the best business cloud storage.

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

Replit has had an interesting development story, launching in 2016 as a platform for running code in a browser window (technology adopted by teaching platforms like Codecademy) and developing in 2018 into an AI coding platform. Unlike many other no-code tools, Replit also opens access to the underlying code, falling back into its evolution as a browser based IDE (Integrated Development Environment).

With this in mind, we looked at how it compares with other no-code platforms, taking into account features and plans, pricing, ease of deployment, and usability (standalone, and with documentation). With the help of a testing prompt, we used Replit to generate a straightforward web app, which helped us to evaluate the tool and rate it.

For more options, take a look at our full list of the best no-code platforms.

Replit: Features

One of the most interesting things about Replit is its dual purpose as both no-code generator and browser-based IDE. This makes it ideal for bootstrapped projects, where you need to get something ready for further development, but don’t have the time to import libraries, define parameters, and so on.

You simply enter the prompt, Replit generates a working project framework, and you can then dig into the code, making the necessary changes. Yes, Replit can create something more developed than a basic framework, but in both cases you can drill down and physically enter files within the browser. Replit also offers a quick redesign tool if you don’t like the way the CSS has been generated.

Daily credits for use with the AI agent, full database access, tools to create slides, videos, and animations, and the ability to publish a single project (with optional password protection) are included with the free plan.

The Replit Core plan adds collaborators, two simultaneous AI agents, unlimited workspaces and removes the “Made with Replit” badge from published projects, while Replit Pro adds 28 day database rollbacks, access to the most powerful AI models, and 10 simultaneous agents.

Replit: Interface and ease of use

Creating a project with Replit is pretty intuitive, requiring a simple prompt, typed or pasted into the box. You will find some template options – websites, animations, slides – that can speed things up if appropriate.

The UI feels a little less flashy than some competing tools, but everything is pretty much where you would expect to find it. All menu controls – settings and projects, for example – can be found on the left of the main screen. The same area is used when you’re in no-code mode, where responses are displayed, and you can ask further questions or tweak the results.

Replit: Integration and extensibility

Competing platforms offer a pretty long list of integrations that they support. It’s a bit trickier to ascertain what can be integrated with Replit, and whether the connection can be both ways, reliant on an API, or agentic. However, a check in the documentation reveals that Stripe integration is possible for payments (but not in the custom plans), as is Google OAuth.

Connectors for “Linear, Jira, Gmail, Slack, Discord” are listed within the Replit documentation.

Remember, you can dig down and edit the generated code with Replit, which means you should be able to manually add the desired integrations if they’re not already offered.

Replit: Deployment and Maintenance

Of all the no-code tools we’ve looked at, Replit is the slowest when it comes to deployment. This is not necessarily a bad thing, however. Usually, when you publish a no-code project with one of these platforms, it seems to take just a few moments before it goes live. With Replit, various checks are made, including a security scan, which are explicitly displayed via a progress screen.

I’m not suggesting rival tools don’t check the security of the web app and its suitability for hosting, but Replit makes this process a lot clearer.

(Image credit: Replit)

As already noted, anything created with Replit can be viewed within the platform’s IDE, and its code edited if necessary. This can save a lot of time when it comes to revising or troubleshooting your project, but if course is intended for developers, not newcomers using no-code to play with code for the first time.

Creating a crypto calculator with Replit

The entire point of a no code platform like Replit is that it can take straightforward instructions in plain English (or another supported language) and produce an application – a software tool of some sort – in a fraction of the time it would take to complete manually.

To explore what can be expected from Replit, we developed a prompt that clearly outlines the requirements for a cryptocurrency calculator web app. It should compare asset prices, connect to an appropriate free API, and support three standard currencies, USD, GBP, and Euro.

(Image credit: Replit)

We used the following prompt with each of the no code tools we’ve reviewed:

Build a tool that compares the price of a specific asset (like Bitcoin) against multiple fiat currencies simultaneously.

Functional requirements:

API Integration: Connect to a free API (like CoinGecko or ExchangeRate-API).

Input Handling: A field where the user enters a "Budget" (e.g., $1,000$).

Dynamic Calculation: A list or table that automatically updates to show how much of the asset that budget buys in USD, EUR, and GBP.

Toggle Switch: A "Dark Mode" or "Refresh" toggle to test UI state management.

--

Replit read the prompt and completed the no code web app in under 3 minutes. Its output along the way was pretty verbose, although geared to developers, relying on displaying command line interface instructions rather than something more suited to non-coders. However, this does usefully communicate the procedure that the tool follows, namely working on the backend first, then the frontend.

Upon completion, Replit also makes suggestions for revision. For example in this case, it offered “support for more assets by letting users search the full CoinGecko coin list.”

In addition, Replit supports various revisions, both to the code and to the user interface. Direct editing of the code is possible, while changes to the UI are limited within the Replit tool – it’s easier to make instructions via the AI assistant. That, of course, uses up credits, so finding the right balance is important.

Deploying the finished web app is slower than the competing platforms, but this is mainly due to a collection of checks that are made by Replit, which include ensuring the code is secure. You can publish with or without these checks. The project can be published to a custom domain, or use the auto-generated Replit subdomain.

(Image credit: Replit)Replit: Pricing and Documentation

The four plans, Standard, Replit Core, Replit Pro, and Enterprise, have their own pricing and features. If you’re just starting with no code tools, the Standard free plan is ideal, giving daily credits and support for one project.

Replit Core is $20/month, or the equivalent of $18/month if you pay upfront for 12-months. This includes $20 of monthly credits for the AI and supports up to 5 collaborators. Meanwhile, Replit Pro is $100/month (paying annually works out at $90/month), and has $100 worth of monthly credits and up to 15 collaborators and 50 viewers. There is the option to upgrade the credits to a different plan, potentially as much as $2,500/month of credits.

If the scale of the Core and Pro plans doesn’t meet your needs, the Enterprise-targeted custom plan is available. As is usual with such plans, a sales person will provide a demo, ascertain your requirements from the no code platform, and shape a quote that suits your budget, team, and scale.

An impressive resource of documentation is available via the docs.replit.com address, clearly explaining the scope, scale, and even the smallest steps about using Replit. This is a searchable resource, one that is split into tutorials and standard knowledge base docs, and aims to provide answers to everything. Anything that cannot be found within the docs can be directly queried with the AI assistant.

Replit: The Competition

The no-code market is getting busier, with tools like Lovable, Bubble, and Hostinger Horizons standing out as popular solutions for anyone who wishes to create an app without learning to code (or paying someone to do it).

In terms of generating a web app from the prompt, Replit didn’t deliver as quickly as most other no-code platforms, but still produced a working tool within 5 minutes. This is in contrast to Emergent, which took more than three times that duration.

Replit: Final Verdict

(Image credit: Replit)

Price-wise, Replit is in the sweet spot, and its features make it a good choice if you’re in the market for a no-code tool. It stands up against comparison with competing tools like Lovable, Hostinger Horizons, and Base44. It’s fast, and the generated web app looked good and was functional.

However, if you're specifically looking for a free tool, I would steer clear of Replit - if you have the need to get to grips with a project, the daily credit limit will slow you down. Instead, opt for Replit Core with an appropriate level of AI credits unless you need something with many more collaborators.

Overall, users shouldn't overlook what Replit really offers: almost instantaneous development bootstrapping with code you can dig into immediately via its native IDE.

Created by twin brothers Madhav and Mukund Jha, Emergent is a dedicated “vibe coding” platform, and its marketing as such has made it one of the key names in the no-code landscape.

Launching officially in 2025, Emergent has over 6 million worldwide users. But does it live up to the billing? And how does it compare with competing no-code platforms?

To find out, we created a test prompt and evaluated Emergent’s ability to create a usable web app. We also compared Emergent directly with tools like Base44, Hostinger Horizons, and various others, looking at features, price, ease of use, integrations, and deployment.

For more alternatives, take a look at our rundown of the best no-code platforms.

Emergent: Features

Unlike most no-code tools, Emergent lets you select your LLM, including those created by OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.

Other features include integrations with third party platforms, and mobile app development. With the Pro plan it also gives you the option of custom agent development and analytics to measure your web app or agent’s demand.

And, of course, it will create a web app or other software tool from the instructions you give it. That's a pretty decent feature in its own right, regardless of everything else.

Emergent: Interface and ease of use

You can get to work immediately with Emergent, which offers a standard text entry field for inputting a prompt. If has a choice of full stack app, mobile app, or landing page.

When it comes to entering a prompt, Emergent will quiz you further. For example, with our prompt for a web app (see more on that below), the interface asks questions about the choices within the web app, as well as its overall design. This is before the code is generated, and makes you feel like Emergent is interested in the outcome.

In truth, it is attempting to get things finalized before proceeding. We’ve seen some other no-code tools go “off script” with the finished product, and Emergent avoids that with this technique. However, the initial prompt had clear parameters, so it was slightly disconcerting to be asked questions that were already answered.

Emergent: Integration and extensibility

An impressive collection of integrations give Emergent uses that go beyond generating a static web page or mobile app. It has Google Suite integration, databases can be maintained with Supabase, and there is Stripe integration for payment handling.

Elsewhere, Emergent has integration with Giphy, but for a more professional angle, it also supports Slack integrations, and Resend too. What seems to be missing, however, are supported functional linkups with tools like Asana or Clickup for project management. Other no-code platforms offer a number of alternatives (e.g. Supabase or hosted within the no-code platform, Stripe or PayPal, etc.) so it is disappointing to seen the options somewhat limited in this regard.

Emergent: Deployment and Maintenance

A completed web app can be deployed as a live website, either to your own hosting or a subdomain within Emergent (although this is limited to paid plans only). Anything it generates for you can also be shared to GitHub for collaboration. Changes made on GitHub can also be pushed to the code on Emergent. Perhaps the most impressive GitHub integration is the ability to pull existing projects from your repository and work on them within Emergent.

(Image credit: Emergent)

If you need to change anything, the Emergent AI chatbot can respond to requests. However, if you’re using this for vibe coding and have something you can polish in code, there is a browser-based IDE option to switch into.

Creating a crypto calculator with Emergent

Comparing no code tools is not an exact science, so we opted to create a task that each of the no code platforms that we’ve looked at should be able to complete.

This is a straightforward task, formatted as a prompt, to create a cryptocurrency calculator. The aim is to build a tool that works via a browser and can display the current price of a crypto asset in either of three currencies: USD, GBP, and Euros. Using a free API (CoinGecko and ExchangeRate-API are both offered), the tool should be interactive, supporting changes to the input budget.

(Image credit: Emergent)

Our prompt was as follows:

Build a tool that compares the price of a specific asset (like Bitcoin) against multiple fiat currencies simultaneously.

Functional requirements:

API Integration: Connect to a free API (like CoinGecko or ExchangeRate-API).

Input Handling: A field where the user enters a "Budget" (e.g., $1,000$).

Dynamic Calculation: A list or table that automatically updates to show how much of the asset the budget buys in USD, EUR, and GBP.

Toggle Switch: A "Dark Mode" or "Refresh" toggle to test UI state management.

--

So, how did Emergent perform?

Good news first: it produced an attractive and usable web app. However, it did not perform as expected in the generation of the project and was considerably slower than competing tools. The prompt was input at 12:22 pm, but the project did not complete until 12:39pm. Completing a web app of this kind by hand would take far longer than 17 minutes, but we’ve run the same prompt with other tools, and each produced a web app in a fraction of the time.

In Emergent’s favor, it is by far the most verbose of the no code tools we’ve looked at. To start with it offers a choice of AI, some free, some premium. Once the prompt is evaluated, it also tests various questions, offering you a multiple choice. For example, the matter of whether to limit the tool to the specified currencies or add others was posed.

Other no code tools have simply proceeded and added those currencies, going off-script, so it was refreshing to see Emergent effectively asking permission to do that.

Reviewing the temporary share link on a mobile device (Android) confirmed that the web app worked well in multiple screen resolutions and form factors.

(Image credit: Emergent)Replit: Pricing and documentation

Four pricing options are available with Emergent: three aimed at individuals, and one aimed at enterprise and large-scale operations.

The free plan affords 10 monthly credits, which should be enough to begin no code development. With the Standard plan at $20/month (an annual plan works out at $17/month), Emergent is aiming at first time builders requiring a few extra features.

Things scale up considerably with the Pro plan ($200/month, or the equivalent of $167/month if you pay for a year up-front), which gives you 750 monthly credits. The enterprise option is called a Custom plan, and comes with no specified subscription. Instead, pricing is based on an initial demo and a quote offered based on the requirements of your project.

If you need any help, you can of course ask Emergent. Additionally, a collection of in-depth documentation covers everything from getting started to GitHub integration, rollback support, and more.

Emergent: The Competition

Price-wise, Emergent has similarly-priced plans as the competition, although it is noticeably slower. The timing we recorded for generating the web app from the no-code prompt was three times longer than the next slowest (Replit).

One thing that sets Emergent’s free plan apart from its competitors is the lack of free deployment. This means that unless you have something set up for hosting, your no-code project is going nowhere. It’s a policy that is in stark contrast with what we’ve seen elsewhere, where you either get 30-days free hosting for your web app, or a longer term option. So, unless an active, paid plan is in operation, a no-code project with Emergent can only be shared, not published, and then only with a temporary link. This expires after 30 minutes, which may limit your sharing options.

Emergent is a popular name in the no-code/vibe coding market. Unfortunately, while it offers useful post-prompt interactions to help you polish the prompt further, it just doesn’t deliver the same degree of instant completion as you get with, say, Lovable or Hostinger Horizons. Similarly, its list of integrations is shorter than other tools.

Emergent: Final Verdict

(Image credit: Emergent)

My experience in the no-code arena began with Emergent, so I have a certain amount of affection for it. I’ve seen many excellent demonstrations of what is possible with this tool, but was ultimately disappointed at how slow Emergent is compared with, say, Lovable or even Replit, and what integrations it fell short on.

Price-wise, most of the no-code tools we’ve looked at are in roughly the same ballpark, so this isn’t much of an issue. However, in testing our prompt, Emergent was on the brink of exhausting the AI credits, which could be a problem if you’re just feeling your way with this technology.

It has a useful choice of features (I enjoy being able to flip the LLM choice) and its conversational element can have a striking effect on the created web app. However, while 6 million users can't be wrong, I feel Emergent has slipped behind the competition.

• Lee Cronin's The Mummy is coming to HBO Ma on July 3
• The horror movie is a reimagining of the iconic Mummy franchise
• It follows a mummified young girl who is returned to her family eight years after she disappeared

Lee Cronin's The Mummy is heading to HBO Max on July 3, making it one of the huge new movies heading to the streaming service that month.

The horror movie is a reimagining of The Mummy franchise and features Nasmaranian, an ancient Egyptian demon that possesses victims. The chilling story follows a family who are reunited with their long-missing, mummified daughter, only to learn something is very wrong with her.

This is a much gorier take on the story than the famous Mummy series starring Brendan Fraser, and the movie features scenes of body horror and plenty of great scares.

Take a look at the trailer ahead of its streaming debut.

Lee Cronin's The Mummy was a box office hit, but divided the critics

(Image credit: New Line Cinema)

Plenty of horror fans flocked to see Lee Cronin's The Mummy when it was in theaters, and the movie earned $90 million back from its $22 million budget.

Audiences and critics were left divided by the horror movie, with its two Rotten Tomatoes' scores being wildly different. Critics only awarded Lee Cronin's The Mummy a 45% Tomatometer score, with the consensus being that it was gory and scary, but dragged on too long and relied on cliches and jump scares too much.

The audience were a lot more forgiving here, giving Lee Cronin's The Mummy a 75% approval rating, praising the movie for being highly entertaining and full of gross scenes. It didn't seem to matter if it was predictable because many horror fans did enjoy it regardless.

If you haven't seen it yet, why not check it out this weekend and see which side of the debate you fall on?

Easemate.ai launched in 2025 with a simple pitch: one platform for everything AI.

It doesn't make you choose between a chat assistant, an image generator, or a video tool. You get all three, alongside study utilities, document readers, and image editing features. The range of supported models is equally wide, covering GPT, Gemini, Claude, DeepSeek, Grok, Kimi K2, and Qwen 3 on the chat side alone.

The creative side is where things get particularly ambitious. Easemate integrates image models including Nano Banana, Midjourney, Flux Kontext, GPT-4o, and Seedream, with a video catalogue stretching to Sora 2, Google Veo 3, Kling, Seedance, and Runway. Few platforms at this price point give you that many models in one place.

We've been reviewing B2B software and AI platforms at TechRadar Pro since 2012. Easemate sits in a crowded but useful category of multi-model AI aggregators that we've tracked closely. You can also check out our AI tool roundup for 2026 and deep dives into platforms like OpenClaw or Moltbook.

What is Easemate.ai?

Easemate.ai is a web-based AI platform that consolidates multiple AI models and task-specific tools into a single subscription.

Rather than routing you to one underlying model, it lets you switch between GPT, Gemini, Claude, DeepSeek, and others depending on what you need, without juggling separate accounts.

The platform divides its offering into four main areas: AI Chat, AI Study & Research, AI Photo, and AI Video. Within those, you'll find tools for ChatPDF, document summarization, math and science solvers, flashcard generation, image-to-video conversion, and YouTube transcript extraction.

It targets a broad user base (students, solo creators, freelancers, and small businesses) rather than positioning itself as a developer tool or enterprise solution. If you want a single dashboard that covers daily AI tasks without managing multiple subscriptions, Easemate's pitch is worth considering.

Easemate.ai: At a glance

Attribute

Notes

Underlying model(s)

Multi-model: GPT (various), Gemini, Claude 3 Haiku, DeepSeek, Grok 4, Kimi K2, Qwen 3 for chat; Nano Banana, Midjourney, Flux Kontext, Wan, Kling, Seedream and more for image/video

Best for

Students, solo creators, and small businesses needing all-in-one AI access

Distinguishing functions

Multi-model chat, ChatPDF, image generation, video generation, math/science solvers, AI writing tools, face swap, YouTube summarization

UI features

Browser-based interface, desktop and mobile (iOS and Android); no-login trial available for select tools

Subscription costs

Basic (free), Lite ($8.90/month intro, then $9.90/month), Pro ($19.90/month intro, then $24.90/month)

API pricing

No public API; consumer-facing platform only

Buy it if…

• You want multi-model AI chat without juggling accounts. Easemate puts GPT, Gemini, Claude, DeepSeek, and Grok 4 in one place, which saves real time if you regularly compare outputs across models.
• You need creative tools alongside a chat assistant. The combination of image generators and video models in one subscription is hard to match at Easemate's price point.
• You're a student or researcher on a budget. The free tier includes 30 sign-up credits, daily check-in bonuses, and up to 200K AI chat tokens per day.

Don't buy it if…

• You need consistent professional image or video output. Users report a "prompt drift" issue where the platform ignores specific instructions, alters faces, or changes scenes unexpectedly.
• Reliable customer support matters to you. Support is online-only and has drawn criticism for being slow to resolve credit-related problems.
• You want granular model control. Access to Veo 3 and Sora 2 comes through Easemate's own interface rather than direct API access, which limits parameter customization.

My time with Easemate.ai

Getting started on Easemate.ai is frictionless. The platform lets you try select tools without an account, and signing up takes under a minute. Once logged in, the 30 free credits appeared immediately, and the interface guided me clearly toward the main tool categories. For a platform with this many features, the navigation stayed surprisingly tidy.

Where I hit friction was in creative generation. I ran several image prompts through Nano Banana and Flux Kontext and found outputs solid roughly two-thirds of the time. There were noticeable cases where the platform deviated from my descriptions, and rerunning the same prompt sometimes produced very different results. Video tools showed similar inconsistency.

The value case is real at the Lite tier, though. For $8.90 in the first month, rising to $9.90 after that, you get 1,200 credits, access to up to 120 images and 60 videos per month, and multi-model AI chat. That's a fair deal for casual creative work or students managing multiple AI tasks, as long as you aren't expecting the precision of a dedicated tool.

Easemate.ai: Features

The AI Chat section covers GPT (multiple versions), Gemini, Claude 3 Haiku, DeepSeek, Grok 4, Kimi K2, and Qwen 3. For most conversational tasks (drafting, translating, summarizing), having that range in one tab is useful. The daily free token limit of 200K is also more generous than most comparable platforms.

The study and research tools are well-executed and clearly the original backbone of the platform. Math, physics, and chemistry solvers work step-by-step, making them practical for students rather than just returning a final answer. Flashcard and quiz generators, mind maps, and AI Scholar round out a toolkit that serves academic workflows more carefully than most multi-purpose AI platforms do.

On the image side, the model selection is broad: Nano Banana, Midjourney, Flux Kontext, GPT-4o, and Wan 2.5 are all accessible on paid plans. Nano Banana produces good commercial-style images; Flux Kontext handles text-in-image prompts reasonably well. The consistency problem persists, particularly with prompts involving specific faces or complex scenes.

Document tools perform well. ChatPDF, Chat Doc, and Chat PPT let you upload files and query them conversationally, with OCR support for scanned content. The YouTube summarization tool is a genuine highlight: paste a link and get structured notes with timestamps, which worked better than expected in testing.

Easemate.ai: User experience

The interface is clean and well-organized. Tool categories sit in a top navigation bar, each expanding into a dropdown with clearly labeled options. First-time users shouldn't need a tutorial to find their way around, and the browser-based experience works consistently across devices.

The credit system is where the UX gets murky. Different tools consume different credit amounts, and it's not always clear how many you're spending before you generate. A failed generation still costs credits, which user reviews flag repeatedly. Easemate's team has acknowledged this in public responses, but the system itself hasn't changed.

Easemate.ai: Customer support

Easemate offers support via email at support@easemate.ai and through a help portal on the website. There's no live chat, phone line, or priority tier for paid subscribers. Documentation covers pricing and credits at a surface level but doesn't go deep enough for troubleshooting edge cases.

User perception is mixed. As of early 2026, Easemate held an overall rating of 2.0 to 3.0 out of 5 stars with most review aggregators, with positive feedback on ease of use offset by complaints about reliability and support responsiveness. More recent reviewers show a wider range of experiences — solo creators praise the video output quality, while others report credits consumed by failed generations with no satisfying resolution.

(Image credit: Easemate)Easemate.ai: Pricing

• Basic (free): 30 sign-up credits, daily check-in bonuses, up to 200K AI chat tokens per day, limited image and video access
• Lite ($8.90/month intro, then $9.90/month): 1,200 credits, up to 120 images and 60 videos per month, full model access; annual billing drops this to $7.49/month intro, then $8.49/month
• Pro ($19.90/month intro, then $24.90/month): 3,000 credits, up to 300 images and 150 videos; annual billing drops to $16.90/month intro, then $20.9/month

The free tier is actually usable for light AI chat and occasional image generation — it's not a locked demo. Lite is the sweet spot for individuals. Easemate also sells one-time credit packs that never expire, ranging from 500 credits at $4.90 up to 15,000 credits at $104.90, with discounts of 10–30% depending on bundle size. There's no API access or developer-tier pricing.

Easemate.ai alternatives you should consider

• ChatGPT Plus: At $20/month, you get GPT-4o, o4-mini, and DALL-E 3 in a more mature, reliable environment. A better choice if text generation and image creation are your primary needs.
• Perplexity Pro: Covers multi-model chat with web search grounding and document uploads. Weaker on creative generation but more dependable for research-heavy workflows.
• Adobe Firefly: Produces commercially safe, high-consistency image output with better prompt fidelity than Easemate's image tools, though it lacks the platform's broad AI chat and video coverage.

How I tested Easemate.ai

• Tested AI chat tools across GPT, Gemini, Claude, and DeepSeek for writing, summarizing, and translating tasks, comparing output quality and response speed across models.
• Generated images and video clips using Nano Banana, Flux Kontext, Kling, and Veo 3 with a range of prompt types to assess consistency and prompt adherence.
• Used document and study tools, uploading multi-page PDFs and PowerPoint files to test ChatPDF accuracy, and running math and science problems through the step-by-step solvers.

My testing involved hands-on use of Easemate.ai across its four main tool categories over several sessions, combined with a review of third-party user feedback on Trustpilot and review platforms to benchmark real-world reliability against my own observations. Pricing details were verified directly against the official Easemate.ai pricing page.

• California government will have access to Anthropic's Claude with a 50% discount
• The technology will be used to improve workflows and cybersecurity
• Governor Newsom said Claude will be used "responsibly, transparently, and in service of people"

The government of California will now be able to use Anthropic’s Claude AI with a half price discount.

A press release published by California Governor Gavin Newsom says the state's government will also have access to free workforce training, expert GenAI technical assistance and workflow input from Anthropic developers.

“This partnership is about using technology the California way: responsibly, transparently, and in service of people. AI should not replace the human work of government; it should help our workers move faster, solve problems more effectively, and deliver better results for Californians,” Gov. Newson said.

Claude comes to California

The discount for Claude also extends to local governments at the city and county level, allowing state workers with lower budgets to gain access to cutting edge tech. Gov. Newson said the technology will primarily be used for drafting, summarization, and analysis, while also “supplementing day-to-day work and improving services for Californians.”

Californian state agencies will be able to access Claude through the Statewide Information Technology Shared Services (SITeS), a new portal that centralizes AI tools for government use. The Californian government has already worked alongside Anthropic to integrate Claude into numerous tools for state workers, such as the Engaged California tool that provides Californians with more of a voice in policymaking.

Claude Security and Claude Code are also being integrated into the workflows of the California Department of Technology and the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services in order to improve cybersecurity. The California DMV will use Claude to reduce wait times and improve services, and the Department of Healthcare Services will use Claude to assist in the state’s Medicaid program.

The state is home to 33 of the top 50 private AI companies in the world, including Anthropic. “As a California company, we feel a real responsibility to our home state. We’re honored to expand our partnership with California’s agencies and to put Claude to work for the people who keep this state running,” said Kate Jensen, Anthropic’s Head of Americas.

“Building AI responsibly and in service of people has been our approach from the start, and that’s exactly what this partnership puts into practice.”

If you like the idea of owning the very best action camera but have so far been put off by the price, then let me bring you some fantastic news. This excellent value GoPro Hero 13 Black bundle is on sale at Amazon for $379.99 (was $479.99).

That's a new record-low price for the highly rated 5.3K resolution camera from the industry's leading brand. Considering the camera ordinarily retails for $429 by itself, this bundle deal is even more impressive.

In addition to the excellent GoPro camera, the bundle features a handle, two Enduro batteries, two curved adhesive mounts, a 64GB SanDisk MicroSD card, and a handy carrying case. That's everything needed to get filming as soon as it arrives at your door.

Today's best action camera deal

Here's a super-tempting record-low price for one of the best action camera bundles in the world right now. The camera offers an impressive 5.3K video resolution inside a rugged and completely waterproof body. A sweet deal just in time for your summer adventures.View Deal

Competition for the top spot in our best action camera guide is fierce, but the GoPro Hero 13 Black has held prime position for a long time now. Its commendation is in large part thanks to the excellent-quality 5.3K video, a superb range of accessories, including new auto-detected Lens Mods, and improved battery life and heat dissipation.

You can read more about why we love it in our GoPro Hero 13 Black review. Specifically, we praised its Bluetooth audio support, versatile mounting options, and ability to capture great-looking footage in well-lit areas.

I don't record much video for social media specifically, but if you do, then you'll love the 27MP sensor, which enables footage to be recorded in an 8:7 aspect ratio. Say goodbye to the awkward cropping of landscape footage for portrait outputs.

55 years ago, the legendary Gene Wilder invited us to join him in "a world of pure imagination." Now, a disembodied AI recreation of his sonorous vocals is inviting us to join him in his "my newest wonders beyond imagination."

But there's little-to-nothing imaginative about the use of an AI-generated version of Wilder's voice to help sell Netflix subscribers on a new Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory-themed reality show, and, quite honestly, I hate everything about it.

To catch you up, this new show, which is set to air in September on one of the best streaming services, Netflix, borrows sets (recreations), themes, and even one living actor who played an Oompa Loompa from the original 1971 film to create a reality show that it hopes will somehow, if not match, approach the charm and danger of the original film.

Not getting the point

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, based on the Roald Dahl bookCharlie and the Chocolate Factory, is a commentary on wealth, poverty, family, risk, and cruelty, all wrapped in a candy-covered fantasy.

The protagonist, Charlie Bucket, is so poor he lives in a ramshackle London cottage with multiple generations of family members, including a grandfather who has not left his bed in years. Meanwhile, Wonka is finally opening up his secretive factory to a select group of the public, chosen at random via golden tickets hidden in some of his candy.

I know, it sounds like a confection, but the first scene in which Wilder appears gives you a hint that this is not your typical children's story. When all the winners, including Charlie, arrive, Wonka (Wilder) unsteadily walks out while using a cane to greet them. As he approaches the gate, Wilder loses his grip on the cane and falls forward, but instead of face-planting, he does an effortless tumble and is suddenly upright and boisterous.

I tell you all this because there is so much complexity and nuance in that one scene and virtually all of it engineered by Wilder's performance. Throughout the film, his face and especially his voice drive the narrative and mood, yo-yoing it between playful host and sinister guide who keeps losing children to one self-imposed calamity after another.

Never before or since have I seen a character in a children's film swing so wildly from gentle and childlike to ominous. It's a wonder the Academy didn't recognize his performance.

Fast forward more than half a century to this streaming show, which uses Wilder's voice with the permission of his family; you can get your first sample of it in the new show trailer (above). Created by increasingly well-known ElevenLabs, the voice is, in my opinion, a poor recreation at best, but I guess I might also call it unmistakably Wilder-like.

It's also depressing. The thing about Wilder's real voice in films like Willy Wonka, The Producers, Stir Crazy, and Young Frankenstein is that it could be wildly emotional. Wilder as a hysteric was often the funniest thing you had ever seen. No one went off the rails like Gene Wilder, but also few other actors could express such warmth and compassion, and sometimes he did it all in a single scene.

At the end of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Wonka discovers Charlie is stealing his everlasting gobstopper to deliver it to Wonka's chief competitor. His anger at Charlie is terrifying, but as soon as Charlie leaves the candy behind, Wonka (Wilder) transforms, and the compassion and joy in his voice is something to behold.

The AI Wilder voice in this trailer is devoid of passion, pathos, or really any recognizable human emotion. It's a soulless Gene Wilder.

Look, there's no doubt the power of AI is transforming life and culture. It lets us do things we never thought possible. It's a co-worker, a companion, a sleuth, a coder, and a creator, but we are now at the point where we must ask ourselves: Just because AI can, should it?

I guess we can ask a similar question about the AI-generated Val Kilmer in the unfortunately titled As Deep as the Grave. While I can understand if Kilmer had completed some filming and they wanted to bridge the gap in scenes filmed after his death, this full-scale recreation, even with the estate's permission, seems wrong. I love these actors, but none are irreplaceable, and using their likenesses and voices simply to generate nostalgia and sell a product feels very wrong, and certainly not the best use of AI (and all the resources behind it).

Surely, we can agree that it's often better to let the dead stay dead and not try to resurrect a simulacrum of their essence through the power of AI. The results are, to be honest, rather like the work of Baron Von Frankenstein: a monstrous creation that probably has no place on earth.

While many of us wouldn’t think twice about buying software from a global hyperscale software vendor, open source software (OSS) has flown under the radar as a majorly important part of the software landscape for decades.

Recent shifts in European attitudes, fuelled by geopolitical tensions and technological sovereignty concerns, has seen an increased focus on the desire to run open source software and back local vendors. A major advantage is the open nature of its development – anyone can inspect, modify and use it, and companies can distribute their own versions without the limitations and expenses of vendor lock-in.

It’s so important that around 70% of modern software stacks are estimated to rely on open source components in some form – EXANTE sees it as a plumbing system that keeps software stacks together.

But that very benefit could also be a disadvantage for corporate customers, because small groups of volunteers don’t have the same requirements as large corporations. While companies invest heavily in cybersecurity and resilience, visibility into open source software can be alarmingly low.

AI is making underfunding even more pronounced

Vibe coding has further complicated matters, with developers now able to write code more quickly and malicious actors leaning on those same AI coding tools to discover vulnerabilities and develop exploits.

Without the commercial funding that hyperscale software receives, it puts OSS in a more vulnerable position. But given the importance of OSS for companies looking to build their own software stacks, many are now starting to see backing projects as an integral part of managing their risks.

To discuss why the responsibility, or burden, of open source software sustainability is increasingly being picked up by enterprise customers instead of individual developers and contributors, I spoke with EXANTE CTO Richard Forss, who explained how AI is changing software development and cybersecurity strategies globally, and why businesses should treat it as critical infrastructure.

EXANTE is also the company behind the Gecko Fund – a new €1 million grant programme to support critical open source software projects used across trading and financial data systems with grants of between €10,000 and €150,000 available – and the company believes that financial and technical support for open-source projects is now more important than ever.

“We believe the industry that benefits from these tools should play a role in sustaining them,” Gecko Fund founder Anatoly Knyazev asserted.

• How broadly is open-source software used across fintech, and, namely, brokers? How exactly is it used?

Open source is the foundation of modern fintech and brokerage businesses, but almost nobody talks about it. If you looked under the hood of any brokerage platform, ours included, you would find that about 70% of the critical stack is open-source.

It powers the databases, operating systems, messaging layers, cloud infrastructure – the bits that quietly move millions of transactions a day. Clients never see any of it, which is rather the point.

The reason we all use it is simple economics. Software is built in layers, and there is no sense in any one firm rebuilding the foundations from scratch. We use shared, battle-tested components for things like market data processing and risk infrastructure, and we spend our own engineering effort on the parts that are actually ours.

It lets teams move quickly and solve complex architectural and engineering puzzles that would otherwise be out of reach.

• Why does the underfunding problem in open-source software exist, despite it being so widely used across the global economy?

Because it works too well to notice. Open source behaves like a utility, the plumbing in the walls, and nobody thinks about the plumbing until it bursts. Millions of organisations rely on these tools every day, and for years, almost none of them paid a penny towards keeping them alive.

More accurately, open source drives an estimated $8.8 trillion in global economic value. Yet, nearly two-thirds of the developers responsible for maintaining these widely adopted systems receive very limited financial support.

Hundreds of thousands of organisations – from startups to huge enterprises – benefit from these tools every single day, but the actual responsibility for maintaining them stays with a handful of volunteers.

Everyone relies on the infrastructure, but historically, almost no organisation has taken responsibility for paying for its upkeep.

• Why should businesses care if critical open-source projects are maintained by very small teams or individual developers?

Because it is a single point of failure hiding in plain sight. We spend enormous amounts of money assessing vendor risk and operational resilience, scrutinising suppliers, war-gaming outages, and then the whole edifice can rest on a library maintained by one or two exhausted people you have never heard of.

Our first Gecko Fund grant went to Kryo, an open-source data serialisation tool used all over the world in high-performance and trading environments. For years, it has been kept going by two people on two different continents, with no outside funding at all. They do excellent work – and that is, of course, not the problem. The problem is that it is two people. If one of them burns out, or simply does not have a free evening to patch a serious flaw the moment it appears, the consequences do not stay neatly within their project. They ripple out into regulated markets that have no idea they were depending on them.

• How is AI changing the risk profile of open-source software and cybersecurity?

AI has put its foot on the accelerator, and it is pressing down on both cars at once. On our side, it genuinely helps. It spots bugs, speeds up code review, catches things early. The problem is that the people trying to break in have exactly the same tools.

Bad actors use AI to scan open-source codebases, identify vulnerabilities, and launch targeted exploits much faster than before. The time between a flaw being discovered and an active attack being launched is continuously shrinking.

This puts intense pressure on underfunded maintainers to deploy fixes instantly. Since AI scales these threats so effectively, the security of the underlying open-source ecosystem has become a systemic priority.

• Which parts of the open-source ecosystem are most vulnerable to underinvestment today?

It’s not the famous projects. Mostly the dull ones. The risk lives in the deep, unglamorous code: I’m talking about the low-level libraries, the developer tooling, the APIs – developer tools that operate entirely out of sight. The components that never trend on anything and never will.

That is precisely why they go unfunded. They do not make headlines, so they do not attract sponsors or donations, and yet they are wired into thousands of commercial products.

It is the paradox of the whole industry. The more essential a piece of software is, the more invisible it tends to be. When one of those hidden libraries fails, it does not fail for one company. It fails for everyone at once.

• How do you think this gap can be bridged? What measures can businesses take to mitigate possible risks?

Stop calling it a hobby and start treating it as infrastructure, because that is what it is. The first thing any firm should do is the unglamorous work of auditing its own supply chain and understanding exactly which open-source components it actually depends on. Most have never properly looked. Once you know what you are standing on, you have to hold it up.

But money is not the only currency – firms can contribute engineering time, security audits, testing environments, or documentation. The goal is to make the relationship mutual: if your business profits from these tools, your business should help keep them safe.

• What infrastructural changes can be made to make open-source software more sustainable?

The corporate world needs to stop expecting critical infrastructure to be maintained by someone giving up their weekends. That is the change. Everything else follows from it.

It is starting to shift. There are sovereign technology funds now, government-backed efforts, industry groups forming around open-source standards. That is encouraging.

But finance, of all sectors, ought to be leading rather than waiting, because finance has more to lose than most if this plumbing fails. If we formalise how companies contribute and build proper structures for funding this work, then the people holding up the machinery behind global commerce might finally get the stable backing they need to keep the markets running. They have earned it several times over.

• Lego's Olivia Rodrigo collection features five sets inspired by her Guts era
• All sets are available to preorder now ahead of an August 2026 release
• There are multiple Olivia Rodrigo Minifigures to collect

Olivia Rodrigo’s been keeping busy. Just a few weeks after dropping her third album, You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, the pop sensation is making her next move. And it’s a pretty big one that’s good 4 all of us: she’s collaborating with Lego on not one, not three, but five brick-built sets.

In fact, she’s the first musician to get multiple dedicated Lego sets, and they’re all distinctly Olivia Rodrigo, complete with her iconic shade of purple. And maybe most importantly, Olivia is getting her own Minifigures.

Fans who saw Olivia Rodrigo on the Guts World Tour — or streamed the concert on Netflix — will recognize the iconic moon she flew over the audience in the Olivia Rodrigo's Concert Moon set, which is available to preorder for $49.99 / £44.99.

Not only does it include an Olivia Minifigure that can be placed on the purple moon, but the base is also a record player.

(Image credit: Lego)

You can even use the knobs on the right side of the record player to make the disc spin, causing the moon to rotate. As with most Lego sets, this one is highly interactive, with plenty of hidden details packed into the full build.

If you’re just after a Lego brick-built record, Olivia Rodrigo’s Vinyl is worth a look at $34.99 / £24.99. Made from 360 pieces, it lets you build a vinyl record that can be displayed using a stand on the back. The front features several elements, including a red megaphone — as used on the Guts Tour — a butterfly, stars, and a spot for an Olivia Rodrigo Minifigure.

(Image credit: Lego)

The flagship set in the Olivia Rodrigo Lego Editions line is the Dual Guitar, which is made up of 1,228 pieces and costs $119.99 / £109.99. You’ll build an iconic purple guitar that stands more than 20 inches tall, includes two Minifigures of Olivia Rodrigo, and features hidden details.

(Image credit: Lego)

Best of all, it’s half acoustic and half electric, offering the best of both worlds. Beneath the electric side, you’ll find spots for both Minifigures, along with easter eggs that Olivia Rodrigo fans will appreciate. If you've ever wanted to get "obsessed" with the details, this is probably the set you'll spend the most time exploring.

Rounding out the Olivia Rodrigo Lego Editions line are the $79.99 / £69.99 Olivia Rodrigo's Secret Storage set and the $49.99 / £39.99 Flower Bouquet set. All five are available to preorder now from Lego’s online store and will begin shipping on August 1, 2026.

Lego's Olivia Rodrigo's Vinyl is also available for preorder in the UK at £24.99.View Deal

Lego's Olivia Rodrigo's Flower Bouquet is also available for preorder in the UK at £39.99.

Lego's Olivia Rodrigo's Concert Moon is also available for preorder in the UK at £44.99.

Lego's Olivia Rodrigo's Secret Storage is also available for preorder in the UK at £69.99.

Lego's Olivia Rodrigo's Dual Guitar is also available for preorder in the UK at £109.99.

• Though mostly known for photo lighting equipment, Godox has announced a small 'transparent viewfinder camera' that weighs just 65g.
• It features a transparent(ish) window for composition that also doubles as a settings display — and it can also function as a light meter.
• We don't yet have information on key internal specs like sensor size and resolution (but you can expect them to be low).

Very cheap cameras are back in vogue these days, so I wasn't necessarily surprised to see another one released — but I was surprised to see it coming from Godox.

The Godox C100 is a 'transparent viewfinder camera', announced by the Chinese firm who heretofore have been better known for producing the kind of high-end lighting equipment you'd find in the studios of professional photographers, as well as more affordable flashguns. However, with an announced price of just ¥199 (equivalent to about $29 / £22 / AU$42), the C100 is considerably more affordable than anything else on the Godox books.

As you can see, the C100 is built around quite an unusual form factor. A palm-sized rectangle, it doesn't feature a display exactly, but instead a transparent window that you use to compose your images. This window is also able to display key information like exposure settings and battery life.

(Image credit: Godox)

Now, I said 'unusual' form factor, not 'unique'. This is because, as a few people have already observed, the Godox C100 looks a lot like a camera that debuted at CP+ in 2025, the Escura InstantSnap. The Godox version looks a bit more advanced, offering a few interesting features that the Escura version doesn't. But we can make a few inferences — the Escura camera produces images at a resolution of 1.3MP, and I'd be surprised if the Godox offered a great deal more than that.

The Godox C100 features a USB-C connection for charging and file transfer, and it accepts 128GB micro SD cards for storage. It also records video and can do so continuously for up to 1.5 hours, and offers shooting in a number of different aspect ratios: 16:9, 4:3, 3:2 and 1:1. There are a couple of physical buttons for shooting and changing settings, and it weighs just 65g.

A handheld light meter

At first glance, the Godox C100 looks like another cheap novelty camera in a market beginning to be saturated with them. However, there was one feature announced that really caught my attention, since I'm an avid film photographer — the C100 can also act as a light meter.

Like any good handheld light meter, Godox C100 can read the levels of brightness in a scene's central area, and provide the optimal exposure settings with which to capture a balanced image. Once hugely invaluable tools, light meters have been rendered mostly entirely redundant in the digital age. However, anyone who habitually buys a lot of old film SLRs will tell you that the metering system is always one of the first things to go. I have several beautiful Pentax SLRs in the drawer beside me that still shoot and wind on beautifully, but can't meter a scene because the electronics are shot.

So, the idea of an elegant little pocketable device, costing just $29, that I can carry everywhere with me and use to quickly meter a scene, and maybe even use to take a couple of comparison shots for reviewing alongside my developed and scanned frames — that interests me.

GodoxGodoxGodox

Granted, the metering functionality is only going to be of interest to a small percentage of users. But still, I wouldn't be surprised if the Godox C100 is a huge hit, if and when it eventually arrives at international retailers (it's currently only announced in China). Tiny cameras have been big hits of late, most notably the keyring-sized Kodak Charmera, and screen-free cameras that offer a purer, more immersive shooting experience have also seen success, the poster child for the movement being the Camp Snap.

People like cute cameras. People like cheap cameras. And the Godox C100 is both! I'm sure once we get hold of it for a review we'll discover that the image quality is no great shakes — but did that stop the Kodak Charmera? No, it did not.

(Image credit: Godox)

• 2026's breakout movie Obsession has finally made its home debut
• The supernatural horror film is available to rent or buy on specific platforms
• Unfortunately, it isn't available to stream everywhere yet

Obssession, 2026's breakout movie that's had the whole world talking since it landed in theaters on May 15, is finally available to watch at home — but only if you live in specific countries.

The year's biggest surprise package, which cost a reported $750,000 to make and — at the time of publication — has almost surpassed $400m globally, is out now on some of the world's best streaming services.

Right now in the US, you can rent the Curry Barker-directed supernatural horror-romance movie is on premium video on-demand (PVOD) platforms like Apple TV and Amazon for $19.99. Alternatively, you can permanently add it to your digital film collection for $24.99.

For those who've been living under a rock for the past seven weeks and know nothing about it, Obsession tells the tale of Bear (Michael Johnston), a lovesick loser who doesn't know how to tell long-time crush Nicki (Inde Navarette) how he truly feels.

However, Bear soon discovers a mysterious item called a 'One Wish Willow', which is said to grant any wish that an individual desires. Long story short: Bear buys one and wishes for Nicki to love him more than anything in the world — and it doesn't take long for him to realize he's made a terrible, terrible mistake.

Fuelled by Navarette's award-worthy standout performance and positive word of mouth, Obsession has had fans, well, obsessed for almost two months now. Armed with a simple but highly effective tale, deeply uncomfortable themes and subject matter, and scenes that'll stay with you long after its credits have rolled, it's essentially this year's Kpop Demon Hunters, albeit without an album's worth of earworm songs and, you know, definitely not being for kids.

Why can't I watch Obsession at home yet?

Ever since Obsession's home release was confirmed via whentostream.com, fans have been desperate to check out one of this year's best-performing and best-rated new movies from the comfort of their couch.

Unfortunately, while cinephiles in the US can definitely check it out from today (June 30), movie fans in other territories aren't so lucky. Indeed, in a thread relating to its digital platform release on r/movies, numerous fans have expressed disappointment that the darkly comedic, jump scare-laden flick isn't available to watch at home in their world region.

Right now, it seems that Obsession can be rented or bought in the US and New Zealand. However, I've checked Prime Video and Apple TV in the UK, and it isn't available on either video on demand (VoD) service. There's no indication as to when it will be, either.

Hopefully, it won't be much longer Obsession makes its way onto PVOD platforms globally — and, once its juggernaut box office run finally comes to end, other streamers including Peacock (US) and Netflix (internationally). Until then, you'll just have to watch it at your local theater for the umpteenth time.