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Every four years, football's best players are tested on the world's biggest stage.

Less visible is the test taking place behind the scenes.

As billions tune in, broadcasters and streaming platforms face their own high-stakes challenge: delivering seamless live experiences at a scale few events can match.

FIFA estimates that around 5 billion people engaged with the 2022 World Cup, with the final alone reaching nearly 1.5 billion viewers worldwide.

In 2026, that audience has been presented with an even bigger tournament: 48 teams playing 104 matches across Canada, Mexico and the United States.

More than 54 million viewers across the three host countries watched their national teams' opening matches, while the United States' game against Paraguay drew a combined 27.5 million across FOX and Telemundo, the most-watched FIFA World Cup match ever broadcast in the country.

By the end of the group stage, 4.64 million spectators had filled 99.7% of available seats. That scale is a real-time stress test for every part of the live-video ecosystem.

From passive viewing to active participation

Beyond sheer audience size, the difference lies in how fans consume it. They no longer simply watch. They move between platforms, share highlights, expect instant access to key moments and want experiences tailored to their own interests.

Streaming is no longer just a distribution channel; it's a product in its own right. Brazil’s group-stage match against Haiti reached 51.3 million viewers across Globo's wider media ecosystem, while CazéTV set a worldwide YouTube record for the most-watched football match streamed on the platform.

World Cup content generated 11 billion video views across social media platforms during the group stage alone, and official broadcasters published more than 44,000 pieces of content on TikTok.

A modern match is simultaneously a live program, a source of social clips, a statistics feed and a second-screen experience.

Rethinking the production workflow

That shift starts with the production workflow. The same match is now produced simultaneously for stadium scoreboards, connected TVs, mobile apps and global streaming platforms, with capture, ingestion, encoding and delivery all part of a single content pipeline.

Sixteen optical tracking cameras installed in each stadium can produce more than 150 million data points per match, helping officials review incidents and giving media partners new ways to produce highlights.

The real challenge is bringing together live delivery, audience data, advertising, captions, multi-language audio, and interactive experiences alongside tracking, commentary, graphics, and officiating data.

What fans expect: reliability, personalization, speed

For viewers, success comes down to three things: reliability at scale, personalization and speed. Fans will tolerate a lot, but they won't forgive a stream that buffers during a decisive goal or runs so far behind live play that social media spoils the moment.

Personalization must happen without undermining performance, delivering different recommendations, languages, statistics, camera feeds and advertising while maintaining the resilience of a mass broadcast.

AI is reshaping live sports production

Artificial intelligence is central to delivering those expectations. Rather than replacing production teams, AI is enabling rights holders to produce and distribute content at a scale that would previously have required far larger operations. Automated highlight clipping is one of the clearest examples: AI can identify key moments, package them and distribute them within minutes.

For rights holders, the difference between publishing a goal two minutes after it's scored rather than twenty is the difference between leading the conversation and chasing it. Match summaries, commentary, captions and translations can also be generated automatically, and platforms can match each fan with the content they are most likely to watch next.

A glimpse of the future: personalized sports at scale

The broader ambition is visible at the top of the game. The PGA TOUR now turns each week's action into roughly 7,000 AI-generated highlight clips across dozens of markets, so a fan can follow one player or catch up on key moments without waiting for the main broadcast. The 2026 World Cup has produced a similarly vast library of stories. A record 215 goals were scored during the group stage, an average of three per match.

Tournament debutants Cabo Verde went undefeated, with Kevin Pina scoring the country's first World Cup goal, while Japan's 4-0 victory over Tunisia was both the 1,000th match in World Cup history and the biggest ever by an Asian team. These are exactly the kinds of stories that automated tagging, rapid clipping and intelligent recommendations can bring to the right audience.

Immersive viewing and accessibility

The next generation of live sports streaming will be defined by richer viewing experiences. Multi-view streaming allows fans to follow simultaneous matches, while alternative camera angles and player-specific feeds provide greater control over how the action is consumed.

Real-time data integration can bring live statistics directly into the viewing experience without interrupting the match. AI is also making captioning, translation, and audio description production-ready at scale, allowing broadcasters to localize live coverage without a proportional increase in costs.

However, human oversight remains essential for names, sporting terminology, and cultural context.

The technology behind global scale

Supporting all of this requires resilient IT infrastructure and scalable delivery platforms capable of broadcast-quality reliability and low latency, even as millions connect simultaneously. It also requires organizations to move beyond fragmented technology stacks.

A unified architecture makes content easier to reuse: one live signal can support a full broadcast, mobile highlights, social clips, advertising inventory, archive content and personalized recommendations.

Furthermore, protecting that content is just as important as delivering it. Live sport is uniquely vulnerable to piracy because its commercial value exists almost entirely during the match. Digital Rights Management remains the foundation, but forensic watermarking is becoming increasingly important, embedding invisible identifiers so pirated feeds can be traced and removed while the event is still live.

What's next: The future of live sport at scale

The World Cup ultimately highlights that live video has become a complex, data-driven product where success is no longer defined solely by picture quality or reach, but by how effectively AI, unified content workflows. and scalable technology work together under pressure.

The challenge for the industry is not understanding what works at World Cup scale, but applying those lessons consistently across every live event.

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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

When was the last time you met your newest hire in person?

For many organizations, particularly those operating remotely, the answer is increasingly never. With one in five companies worldwide adopting a fully remote model, hiring virtually has become increasingly popular, enabling businesses to access global talent pools and scale faster than ever before.

But in removing geography as a constraint, it has also stripped away one of the most fundamental layers of trust: the ability to verify, face-to-face, who you are actually employing.

This shift is giving rise to a new and largely under-recognized threat, the “deepfake employee”, where threat actors use synthetic identities, voice cloning, and real-time deepfake video to pass interviews and secure legitimate employment.

Accelerated by advancements in AI, it is now possible to create convincing digital personas at scale, lowering the barrier to entry for fraud and enabling highly organized operations to target corporate hiring pipelines.

In practice, these attacks can be surprisingly difficult to detect. A candidate may appear on a video interview with a natural-looking face and voice, answer questions fluently, and provide what seem to be legitimate credentials. Behind the scenes, however, AI tools can subtly alter facial expressions, sync lip movements to a cloned voice, or even feed real-time responses.

To the hiring manager, there is little reason to suspect anything is wrong. The deception often only becomes apparent much later, if at all, when activity inside the organization begins to raise concerns.

This risk is already playing out in the real world. In a recent experiment, a cybersecurity expert used AI to create deepfake personas – one a white man similar to himself and another of an Asian woman, and successfully secured two separate tech roles, beating hundreds of other candidates.

Using AI-generated credentials, real-time voice modulation and live deepfake video, both synthetic identities progressed through interview stages undetected, with employers unaware they were interacting with an entirely fabricated candidate.

Cloudflare’s latest threat research highlights the scale and sophistication of this activity. Organized “remote worker” fraud operations are using fabricated identities, deepfake-assisted interviews and remote access “laptop farms” to infiltrate payrolls. In some cases, multiple individuals operate behind a single employee identity, maintaining persistent access while appearing as one consistent, legitimate user.

Once hired, these actors are no longer external attackers. They become insider threats with valid credentials, company-issued devices and trusted access to systems. As Cloudflare notes, by the time these individuals are identified, they are already operating inside the perimeter, often blending in with normal business activity.

What needs to change

With nearly 60% of organizations having experienced deepfake-driven incidents, and 48% reporting damage from AI-generated impersonation or misinformation, it is clear that identity infrastructure has become a primary attack surface. Attackers are shifting away from “breaking in” to “logging in” using legitimate credentials obtained through deception.

At the heat of this issue is the flawed assumption that identity can be verified once and then trusted indefinitely.

In physical environments, identity is rarely in doubt. You can see who walks through the door, recognize familiar faces and detect inconsistencies in behavior. In virtual environments, however, organizations rely almost entirely on screen names, login credentials and video, none of which reliably confirm who is actually behind the screen.

Accounts can be shared, credentials can be compromised, and even live video can be manipulated.

This creates a critical vulnerability at the point of hire. A candidate may present documentation, pass background checks and complete onboarding, but in a world of synthetic identities, that initial verification is no longer enough.

Building continuous identity assurance

To address this challenge, organizations need to move beyond static identity checks and towards continuous identity verification. This means verifying not only who someone is who they say they are and that they are a real human at the point of hire, but ensuring that the same individual remains present and authentic throughout their interactions with the organization.

The strongest form of defense lies in continuous biometric verification of the user’s identity. Rather than relying on a single factor, such as facial recognition or voice authentication alone, fused biometrics combines multiple identity signals, such as facial characteristics, voice patterns and behavioral cues, into a single, layered verification process, verifying directly that a real, live human is there.

It is no longer enough to confirm a person’s identity at a single moment in time. Organizations need confidence that the same individual is consistently present across every critical interaction, from interviews and onboarding, through to system access and sensitive transactions. Without this continuity, identities can be shared, replaced or hijacked without detection.

Fused biometric verification can create layered validation that is significantly harder to replicate or manipulate, enabling it to detect and block attempts to impersonate users through synthetic voices, deepfakes, or recorded audio and video.

While a single modality might be fooled by a sophisticated synthetic input, combining biometric modalities; facial recognition, voice recognition, and speech pattern recognition, it becomes significantly harder for fraudsters to mimic an identity.

Advanced biometric verification technologies are trained on large datasets of both genuine and synthetic voice samples, enabling them to recognize subtle acoustic differences between natural and deepfake voices. This helps organizations detect voice-cloning attempts, even when the audio sounds convincing to human listeners.

Crucially, fused biometric verification can operate passively in the background, consistently verifying that the right person is accessing systems, enabling smoother, lower-friction experiences and reduces the need for frustrating repeated verification attempts.

As organizations continue to embrace remote work and digital-first operations, cybercriminals will increasingly find new vulnerabilities to exploit. The question is no longer just how to keep threats out, but also how to ensure that those already inside are truly who they claim to be.

In a world where identities can be fabricated, cloned and manipulated with ease, trust cannot remain static. It must be continuously proven.

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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

Trump issues new orders to limit birthright citizenship, Iran shares details of an agreement with Oman to reopen Strait of Hormuz, Trump under pressure to find a breakthrough with Iran.

• Ministers in the UK are consulting on workplace monitoring technologies
• Employers may have to ask permission to implement surveillance tools that ensure employees are working as contracted
• The consultation includes references to the use of artificial intelligence-assisted monitoring

The British government’s Make Work Pay strategy to overhaul employment rights and end exploitative work practices has opened consultation on workplace monitoring technologies, with the Department for Business and Trade seeking to establish whether existing rules covering things like biometric surveillance, keystroke logging, and productivity scoring are fit for purpose.

Current rules over the use of workplace monitoring technology (WMT) may be fit for purpose, but the consultation aims to establish whether non-statutory guidance, a formal code of practice, or a legal framework is required.

The consultation – which also cites artificial intelligence as a tool to assist monitoring, closes September 30, 2026.

Identifying WMT

Workplace monitoring technologies have developed with the pace of digital expansion in offices and factories, with notable examples including email and web tracking, along with controversial tools such as keystroke logging, and screen and app monitoring.

Mobile workers and couriers are also subjected to GPS monitoring, while access to workplaces is typically subject to biometric credentials, a modern-day version of “clocking in.”

So, monitoring practices in the workplace are nothing new, and CCTV has long been used to observe location, activity, and appropriate behavior. Responses to the consultation will no doubt include concerns over the expansion of these technologies into the remote workspace, where tools like keystroke loggers and screen monitoring are considered intrusive.

Meet the AI boss

Furthermore, some new considerations, such as automated decision-making (ADM, which can make decisions without human involvement) and algorithmic management (tools that can, for example, alter shifts based on availability and performance) will also come under review with the consultation.

The consultation announcement states:

"AI and innovation are central to the government’s strategy for growth. The Chancellor has prioritised AI adoption, as where the biggest gains lie for UK growth, and has set the ambition for the UK to be the fastest adopter of AI in the G7. To support rapid and responsible adoption, we are focused on creating the right conditions, providing the necessary infrastructure and managing the technology transition fairly and carefully."

Additional regulatory requirements

While the consultation is welcome and gives employers and employees the chance to deliver their thoughts – and affords the Labour government the opportunity to underline its Make Work Pay policies – the end result will inevitably means more regulatory work for employers.

Non-statutory guidance would be the preference, as this has a smaller impact in a workplace that already has to consider GDPR and the EU AI Act. Larger organizations also need to accommodate local employment laws. But there is every chance that the eventual decision will result in the introduction of a statutory policy governing workplace monitoring technologies, particularly where AI is concerned.

• AI is opening to the door to advertising on streaming TV platforms for SMBs
• 37% of small and medium businesses feel cross border campaigns are more accessible thanks to AI
• SMBs see AI as key tool in remaining competitive in the future

Barriers to cross-border and multi-region advertising are being broken by AI, according to a new survey by Amazon Ads.

Surveying 4,100 respondents across 14 countries, the results found nearly three-quarters (73%) of UK SMBs have found that AI advertising tools make streaming TV an affordable and accessible platform for their promotional messaging.

The questions focus on the difference between advertising accessibility in 2026 compared with 3 years ago, when 69% found cost to be the main barrier against streaming TV advertising access.

How does AI help SMBs advertise?

Now, over half of SMBs (54%) interested in advertising on TV believe that AI tools can enable them to reach new audiences and increase brand awareness (53%). Meanwhile, a majority of SMBs believe AI can be instrumental in expanding their competitiveness.

Amazon Ads employs AI tools to create and manage AI campaigns, as well as improve opimization and targeting. It offers image and video generation solutions to create realistic visuals and uses a chatbot (“conversational agent”) to develop concepts and scripts with the advertiser.

The survey also found 68% of UK SMBs found AI advertising has supported growth, and 52% highlight that it has supported expansion into other countries. Of those surveyed, 37% stated that cross-border campaigns seemed out of reach just three years ago.

"What we're seeing is a real shift in confidence among small and medium-sized businesses," noted Cyril Clerget, General Manager of Global SMB Advertising at Amazon Ads. "AI-powered tools are helping them explore advertising channels — like streaming TV — that once felt out of reach.”

The survey has also found that 88% of SMBs are planning to use AI for creating adverts, and 74% aim to use the technology to produce streaming ads. Interestingly, the survey also found that 45% intend to use AI for competitor analysis in the future.

Is AI the future of affordable advertising?

Affordable AI tools seem to be an attractive prospect for SMBs wishing to aim for streaming TV. Over the past few years, radio advertising has become more targeted thanks to increasing numbers of digital stations, with advertisers able to tailor to specific demographics.

Streaming TV offers a similar curation, and 75% of surveyed UK SMBs see AI as the answer to improving their future competitiveness.

The shooter was a student and deaths and injuries were reported.

(Image credit: Sakchai Lalit)

Judge Bryan Biedscheid said in a ruling late Thursday that the bulk of the money will be used for treatment services for young people.

(Image credit: Jeff Chiu)

Amazon has discounted the 256GB Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra to AU$1,597, dropping it by AU$502 from its AU$2,099 RRP.

That's the same price Amazon is charging for the smaller 256GB Galaxy Tab S11, and AU$2 less than the AU$1,599 it costs direct from Samsung.

This isn’t quite the lowest price we’ve seen for the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra on Amazon, with the 256GB model briefly dropping to AU$1,547 in June.

Still, today’s AU$1,597 price is only AU$50 more, plus the 512GB model is down to AU$1,799 from the AU$2,449 RRP and the 1TB version has dropped from AU$2,949 to AU$2,299.

Thanks to this discount, the 256GB Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra currently costs the same as Amazon’s smaller Galaxy Tab S11, making this the model I’d choose if you've been pining for the larger 14.6-inch display. Otherwise, the standard S11 may still suit you better if portability is the priority — the 128GB version is 21% off RRP, at AU$1,099.View Deal

Amazon is the simpler option if you just want an easy purchase and fast delivery, but other retailers such as JB Hi-Fi also have the S11 Ultra for just a few dollars more.

Another option worth checking out is Samsung’s current trade-in offer, which could work out cheaper if you have an eligible tablet. Samsung is selling the 256GB Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra for AU$1,599 and, until 26 August, is adding a guaranteed AU$500 bonus credit on top of your device’s assessed trade-in value.

One catch – your old tablet must be eligible for Samsung’s trade-in program and retain an assessed value above AU$0.

But, I hear you ask, what makes the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra truly worth the rather large price tag?

In our Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra review, we said we’d be “hard-pressed to find a bigger and better display on an Android tablet”. The 14.6-inch AMOLED screen earned a full 5/5 in our testing, with enough brightness for outdoor use, while the included S Pen and expansive display make it particularly well suited to watching movies, gaming and drawing.

Our reviewer also found Samsung’s One UI software made excellent use of the big screen for multitasking, with the tablet handling a video call, game and floating YouTube window at the same time without slowing down.

Battery life impressed too, lasting 11 hours while streaming 1080p video at full brightness, helping explain why the S11 Ultra remains our best premium Android tablet pick in our buying guide.

No tablet is perfect, and the main caveat for the S11 Ultra from our testing is the MediaTek Dimensity 9400+ chipset, which we found disappointing considering the RRP is over AU$2,000.

Yes, it's a clear improvement over the Tab S10 Ultra and handles games well, but it falls well short of competitors like the M5 iPad Pro for outright processing power.

That said, while the current AU$502 discount does not fix the performance shortfall, at AU$1,597 rather than AU$2,099, it makes our review criticisms considerably easier to swallow. Especially when the closest equivalent iPad Pro is AU$2,599.

So overall, I think that at the current discount, the S11 Ultra is an easy recommendation for those who want the biggest possible screen for movies, games, drawing and multitasking.

• Xiaomi officially launches SkyNomad N70 and N90 SUVs
• Both pair a 1.5-liter gasoline engine with huge 76 kWh NMC battery packs
• Hybrid technology allows for more than 1,000 miles of driving

Fresh off the success of the SU7 and YU7 all-electric models, which offer the sort of performance and range to compete with Porsche’s Taycan, Chinese tech company Xiaomi is now moving into the world of hybrid SUVs.

Teased a few weeks ago, the company has now taken the wraps off the roughly $35,000 (in China, that is) SkyNomad N70 and N90, two hulking SUVs that are capable of seating either five or seven people in a variety of luxurious configurations.

Shirking the pure EV powertrain of Xiaomi's previous efforts, the SkyNomad sub-brand uses a Changan-derived 1.5-liter gasoline engine and a huge 76 kWh NMC battery pack to offer substantial range.

According to China’s generous CLTC testing cycle, the Xiaomi SkyNomad N90 Max offers a combined range of up to 1,705 km — or 1,060 miles.

(Image credit: Xiaomi/SkyNomad)

Customers in China also have the option of a more affordable 52 kWh battery pack, but when the larger of the two is specified in the five-seat N70, pure electric range is almost 314 miles, according to the CLTC testing cycle.

If you crunch the numbers and remove some of the CLTC's generosity, it equates to around 250-miles on the UK and Europe's WLTP cycle. That's still enough to shame many pure EVs.

Alas, Xiaomi hasn’t announced plans to sell its SkyNomad models outside its domestic market yet, but it has previously stated that it hopes to introduce the SU7 and YU7 models to the UK and Europe by 2028.

Analysis: only a bargain in China

(Image credit: Xiaomi/SkyNomad)

As we have seen with BYD’s luxury brand, Denza, the price of high-performance or luxury Chinese EVs isn’t so appealing once you factor in local taxes and import duties.

It was revealed recently that the supercar-baiting Denza Z, for example, will start at a staggering £142,900 in the UK (around $200,600) and rises to £172,900 (around $233,000) for the top-spec Racing variant. It costs around $100,000 in China.

We can expect to see a similar pattern with models like the SkyNomad N70 and N90 should they arrive in Europe, especially since they come fitted with the sort of battery pack that many rival pure-electric vehicles use today.

Those hoping for something that drastically undercuts the likes of Audi’s Q7, the Volvo XC90 or even Kia’s slightly more affordable EV9 and Hyundai’s Ioniq 9 could be a tad disappointed when official European pricing is eventually announced.

The Shards is guaranteed to have audiences talking, for better or for worse, as Bret Easton Ellis' controversial semi-autobiography comes to the small screen.

But, in my opinion, Ryan Murphy teaming up with Ellis has given him the chance to shine once again. Fans of Murphy's work were left disappointed and baffled in recent months after his abysmal Hulu series All's Fair aired, which has a seriously low Rotten Tomatoes score of just 6%.

Thankfully, The Shards feels closer to what Murphy was doing with the anthology series American Horror Story, and the result is an addictive, bloody and over the top series which shows that Murphy and Ellis are an excellent creative duo.

The Shards is certainly not for everyone, but I'm sure it will find a dedicated audience among Hulu subscribers. Those who can put up with intentionally insufferable protagonists are rewarded with a stylish, tasty peek into life as a privileged student in the 1980s, set in a sunny LA neighborhood.

The nine-part series follows a fictionalized version of Bret Easton Ellis, who is 17 and in his final year at the elite Buckley prep school. Igby Rigney, known for his work on Netflix's Midnight Mass, plays this version of the thriller author.

We open with Bret going to see The Shining, smoking a cigarette and driving a convertible, as he narrates all the luxury clothing he's wearing. Rigney's almost bored-sounding narration would feel out of place anywhere else, but here it fits perfectly as he talks about his life, one that many viewers will never have and might desperately covet. Despite having everything, there's no enthusiasm to his voice at all.

Opposite Rigney, Homer Gere stars as Robert Mallory, a new arrival at Buckley whose unsettling presence coincides with the activities of a serial killer known as The Trawler. Gere is fantastic in The Shards, dominating every scene he's in, and making us feel very uncomfortable from the moment we see him.

The unsettling dynamic between Bret and Robert forms much of The Shards, supported by an equally good cast playing fellow students around them. Susan Reynolds (Kaia Gerber), is a popular girl and cheerleader who soon develops a thing for Robert, much to the annoyance of her long-term boyfriend Thom (Graham Campbell).

Bret's girlfriend, Debbie (Hayes Warner), is a teen rebelling against her movie director father, adding to the already complex layers of this dysfunctional friend group.

The first two episodes were released together, but unfortunately it's a weekly release from then on. I have a feeling some people might be gutted they can't binge-watch it because it's easy to become invested in what's happening. The Shards is a dazzling experience where you feel like a fly on the wall watching these spoiled teens, wondering what's going to happen to them next, even if you probably should look away.

It's a visceral, no-holds-barred look into this 80s society which finds itself rapidly torn apart, sometimes literally. Indeed, those looking for Bret Easton Ellis' brand of gratuitous violence will find it here, making The Shards an interesting blend of teen drama and horror movie, with some grisly results.

Even if you haven't read The Shards, if you know you're a fan of Ellis' other works like American Psycho, I think this will be right up your alley. It ticks all the right boxes for what we'd expect from him, after all.

At the time of writing, The Shards season 2 has not been confirmed, which means the season finale's ending will prove frustrating if we don't get more. Though Ellis' book has a similar ending, I'm hopeful that The Shards will choose to take the story further as it feels like it's been written with a second season in mind.

As a standalone season though, it's entertaining and shocking in equal measure. The Shards is a welcome addition to Ryan Murphy's filmography, and I hope he does more like this because I have certainly missed him when he's at his bloody best.

The Shards is guaranteed to have audiences talking, for better or for worse, as Bret Easton Ellis' controversial semi-autobiography comes to the small screen.

But, in my opinion, Ryan Murphy teaming up with Ellis has given him the chance to shine once again. Fans of Murphy's work were left disappointed and baffled in recent months after his abysmal Hulu series All's Fair aired, which has a seriously low Rotten Tomatoes score of just 6%.

Thankfully, The Shards feels closer to what Murphy was doing with the anthology series American Horror Story, and the result is an addictive, bloody and over the top series which shows that Murphy and Ellis are an excellent creative duo.

The Shards is certainly not for everyone, but I'm sure it will find a dedicated audience among Hulu subscribers. Those who can put up with intentionally insufferable protagonists are rewarded with a stylish, tasty peek into life as a privileged student in the 1980s, set in a sunny LA neighborhood.

The nine-part series follows a fictionalized version of Bret Easton Ellis, who is 17 and in his final year at the elite Buckley prep school. Igby Rigney, known for his work on Netflix's Midnight Mass, plays this version of the thriller author.

We open with Bret going to see The Shining, smoking a cigarette and driving a convertible, as he narrates all the luxury clothing he's wearing. Rigney's almost bored-sounding narration would feel out of place anywhere else, but here it fits perfectly as he talks about his life, one that many viewers will never have and might desperately covet. Despite having everything, there's no enthusiasm to his voice at all.

Opposite Rigney, Homer Gere stars as Robert Mallory, a new arrival at Buckley whose unsettling presence coincides with the activities of a serial killer known as The Trawler. Gere is fantastic in The Shards, dominating every scene he's in, and making us feel very uncomfortable from the moment we see him.

The unsettling dynamic between Bret and Robert forms much of The Shards, supported by an equally good cast playing fellow students around them. Susan Reynolds (Kaia Gerber), is a popular girl and cheerleader who soon develops a thing for Robert, much to the annoyance of her long-term boyfriend Thom (Graham Campbell).

Bret's girlfriend, Debbie (Hayes Warner), is a teen rebelling against her movie director father, adding to the already complex layers of this dysfunctional friend group.

The first two episodes were released together, but unfortunately it's a weekly release from then on. I have a feeling some people might be gutted they can't binge-watch it because it's easy to become invested in what's happening. The Shards is a dazzling experience where you feel like a fly on the wall watching these spoiled teens, wondering what's going to happen to them next, even if you probably should look away.

It's a visceral, no-holds-barred look into this 80s society which finds itself rapidly torn apart, sometimes literally. Indeed, those looking for Bret Easton Ellis' brand of gratuitous violence will find it here, making The Shards an interesting blend of teen drama and horror movie, with some grisly results.

Even if you haven't read The Shards, if you know you're a fan of Ellis' other works like American Psycho, I think this will be right up your alley. It ticks all the right boxes for what we'd expect from him, after all.

At the time of writing, The Shards season 2 has not been confirmed, which means the season finale's ending will prove frustrating if we don't get more. Though Ellis' book has a similar ending, I'm hopeful that The Shards will choose to take the story further as it feels like it's been written with a second season in mind.

As a standalone season though, it's entertaining and shocking in equal measure. The Shards is a welcome addition to Ryan Murphy's filmography, and I hope he does more like this because I have certainly missed him when he's at his bloody best.

It’s an exciting time to be a Samsung phone fan right now with the recent launch of its new foldable range, including a brand new form factor for the Galaxy Z Fold 8.

Pre-orders are still ongoing, but with prices starting from AU$1,949, not everyone will be springing for these premium phones.

If you’re in the market for something much more affordable, then you’re in luck — the Samsung Galaxy S26 is currently at its all-time low price of AU$992 on Amazon, or a whopping 36% off.

Costing less than Apple’s budget phone — the AU$999 iPhone 17e — the base model Samsung Galaxy S26 is a true flagship device with three camera lenses, 12GB of RAM and the full Galaxy AI suite. This deal handily beats the previous all-time low of AU$1,098 we saw during EOFY and Prime Day. Amazon has the Black, Cobalt Violet, Sky Blue and White colours available for this price.View Deal

Our Samsung Galaxy S26 review praised the bright AMOLED display, reliable 3-lens camera setup and surprisingly long battery life given its relatively small 4,300mAh capacity. It also has a 6.3-inch screen, perfect for those who like smaller-sized handsets.

Storage options now also start at 256GB, up from the predecessor’s 128GB. That change, plus the other improvements over the S25, meant the S26 came with a price increase from AU$1,399 to AU$1,549.

Aussies also miss out on the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset found in the US model, having to settle for an Exynos 2600 processor. Our reviewer also noted the relatively slow 25W charging speed and the lack of full Qi2 wireless charging support, commenting that this phone is only worth buying when it’s on sale.

And that’s why this phone is an easy recommendation for less than AU$1,000, despite its shortcomings. It’s a solid entry-level flagship with the specs to back it up, which also comes in an increasingly rare 6.3-inch size.

Also discounted at the Samsung store

Not a fan of the default colours on sale at Amazon? The Samsung Australia store also has the handset discounted for AU$999, and that includes the store-exclusive Pink Gold and Silver Shadow colours. You can also purchase the handset through a monthly repayment plan and trade in an old device to save even more.View Deal

The news that Amazon’s smarter AI assistant, Alexa+, is finally making its way to Australia could well be exciting news for many Aussies. After all, we’ve had to wait a fair amount of time for the upgraded digital assistant, as it launched in the US way back in February 2025, and arrived on UK shores in March of this year.

If you’re already embedded in Amazon’s ecosystem, whether that be through ownership of Echo smart speakers and displays or Ring home security cameras, you’d be forgiven for thinking Alexa+ might never make it Down Under. If so, you may have never felt the need to upgrade your various Amazon devices to newer generations.

Now with the official rollout of Alexa+ in Australia, that could mean your devices aren’t compatible. In truth, the list of incompatible devices is relatively short (which I have to say is quite remarkable and deserves brownie points for Amazon), but regardless, the latest generation Alexa-enabled devices will offer the best Alexa+ experience.

So, if you want to add Alexa+ to your home to become an AI-powered digital assistant capable of performing all manner of tasks, from answering simple queries to placing Amazon orders on your behalf or even notifying you when packages are delivered to your home (and are captured on a Ring camera), then any of these nine Echo devices will be worthy additions to your home.

Also note that you'll need a subscription to Alexa+. It's free if you're already a Prime member, otherwise it costs AU$29.99p/m. Considering an Amazon Prime membership is just AU$9.99p/m, you'd be saving money.

Amazon Echo Studio (2025)

Amazon Echo Studio

Amazon Echo Dot Max

Amazon Echo Dot (5th Gen)

Amazon Echo Spot (2024)

Amazon Echo Hub

Amazon Echo Show 8 (4th Gen)

Amazon Echo Show 11 (2025)

Amazon Echo Show 15

• Ukrainian drone destroys Russian flag moments after dramatic aerial deployment attempt
• Competing battlefield videos continue fueling disputed territorial claims across eastern Ukraine
• Analysts continue examining disputed battlefield footage for signs of digital manipulation

Ukrainian forces released footage showing a Russian flag destroyed roughly 30 seconds after a drone placed it on a damaged building in the Sumy region.

According to Ukraine's 105th Territorial Defense Brigade, Russian operators dropped the flag from a drone before Ukrainian personnel responded with an FPV drone strike.

The video shows a Russian drone placing a flag associated with Russia's Airborne Forces onto the roof of a damaged residential building in Velyka Pysarivka.

Drone operation quickly ends symbolic battlefield display

Footage later captures a Ukrainian FPV drone approaching the location before striking the flag shortly after it landed, ending the display within approximately 30 seconds.

The 105th Territorial Defense Brigade said drone operators located the position before Russian forces could use the footage to reinforce claims of battlefield progress.

"Enemy rags do not remain on Ukrainian soil for long," the 105th Territorial Defense Brigade said about the operation.

Velyka Pysarivka lies close to the Ukrainian border with Russia and has experienced repeated attacks while remaining an active area of military operations.

Fighting around the settlement continues as Russian forces conduct cross-border activities while attempting to expand operations across parts of the Sumy region.

The released footage focuses on the sequence involving the flag placement and the subsequent strike instead of showing any broader military engagement nearby.

Symbolic footage continues shaping competing battlefield narratives

Throughout the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, both sides have repeatedly made competing claims about capturing territory, often supported by battlefield footage.

The latest video follows another disputed incident involving territorial gains that was circulated through Russian military communication channels.

Russian sources previously circulated a video claiming forces had captured Bilyi Kolodyaz in Ukraine's Kharkiv region after raising a Russian flag inside the settlement.

Analysts later questioned that recording after identifying what they described as signs suggesting digital manipulation within several parts of the footage.

Among those observations were an unusually oversized soldier together with a flag that reportedly disappeared from the frame during the recording sequence.

Neither side's battlefield footage can always be independently verified immediately because active combat conditions often limit direct access to the reported locations.

Military analysts therefore continue examining released videos alongside satellite imagery, geolocation evidence, and additional sources before confirming claims involving territorial advances or battlefield events.

The flag incident in Velyka Pysarivka adds another example showing how symbolic actions increasingly accompany frontline operations.

As of now, independent verification of the footage remains unavailable, making its authenticity difficult to establish.

Via United24media

For PC enthusiasts who’ve already lived through SSD price hikes and RAMageddon, there could be more bad news ahead.

Air fryers aren't just for small cooking tasks or one-to-two person households. There's a new wave of air fryers that come kitted out with two drawers, enabling you to cook two components of a meal at once. They offer more space than your standard, one-drawer offering, and provide an easy way to keep different foods separate, but they also go further than than that.

You can pick a different temperature for each drawer, and most will have a sync function that means the appliance will automatically figure out your timings and sync up cooking so both drawers of food are finished at once. If you have a small kitchen, there are a number of models that have the two drawers stacked one on top of the other, to provide a generous cooking capacity without eating up all your counter space. It's enough to make you want to retire your proper oven for good.

We have a general guide to the best air fryers, but in this roundup I've narrowed things down to just my favorite two-drawer options. The main name to look out for is Ninja — this brand makes a wide variety of dual-zone options of different sizes and with different functions. I've included a number of options below, but I've also featured alternatives from rival brands, including some budget-friendly options.

Double trouble

Ninja AF300UK Foodi Dual Zone Air Fryer

Read our full review

Ninja DoubleStack XL air fryer

Read our full review

Pros

• Small footprint, generous capacity
• Extra trays for even more cooking space
• Top-tier performance

Cons

• Expensive for a dual-basket model
• '8-portion' capacity feels ambitious
• Can't fit big foods whole

Philips 4000 Series Stacked Dual Basket Air Fryer

Read our full review

Pros

• Cooking windows and basket lights are a handy addition
• Space-saving design takes up less counter space
• Versatile cooking functions, strong cooking performance

Cons

• Supplied physical instructions are too basic
• The black and gold finish will split opinion
• 5L baskets means larger food won’t fit

Chefman 9qt Air Fryer

Ninja Crispi DualZone Glass Countertop Air Fryer

PHILIPS Dual Basket Air Fryer 3000 Series, 9.5 Quarts

Russell Hobbs Satisfry Dual Basket Air Fryer 9L

Read our full review

Cuisinart 11-qt Dual Basket Air Fryer Pro ADZ-112

Tower Housewares Vortx 7.6L Dual Basket Air Fryer (UK only)

Tower Housewares Vortx 11 Litre Dual Layer Air Fryer (UK only)

Apple and OpenAI are currently engaged in a legal battle. Apple alleges that OpenAI stole trade secrets and poached employees.

But the two companies have always had a complicated relationship. They partnered in 2024 to bring ChatGPT to Apple devices, but Apple chose Google's Gemini rather than OpenAI for Siri. Then OpenAI acquired io, the hardware startup founded by former Apple design chief Jony Ive, and promised a future hardware device, powered by AI.

All of this has prompted speculation about what Apple is worried about if OpenAI makes hardware, too. We can't know the company's motivations and the specifics of the case are still unfolding. But it got me thinking, what if your phone stopped being a collection of apps and instead revolved around AI?

If AI became the main interface, which apps would disappear and which would survive? And would a phone controlled through ChatGPT actually be practical?

So I decided to find out based on the current tech we have. For a day, whenever I reached for an app, I'd try ChatGPT first instead. If it could do the job, great it passed the test. If it couldn't, it would fail.

There were some obvious things I missed out from the start. ChatGPT isn't connected to my email, it can't open WhatsApp for me and it doesn't have access to my wallet, so those wouldn’t be part of the test. But there were plenty of everyday tasks that felt like fair game.

1. Stopwatch

(Image credit: Shutterstock / Lee Bryant Photography)

I use the stopwatch in my iPhone's Clock app constantly throughout the day. When I'm working, cooking or exercising, it's one of the simplest ways I've found to keep me on track as a freelancer. When you can set your own schedule, it's way too easy to disappear down a research rabbit hole and lose an hour.

I asked ChatGPT to start a stopwatch. It said it couldn't measure elapsed time, although it could estimate the time based on message timestamps if I later asked it to stop. Instead, it suggested I use my phone's built-in Clock app.

Result: fail

2. Alarm

(Image credit: Shutterstock / Terang Bulan Gallery)

Strangely, I don't use alarms as much as stopwatches. But if I only have 25 minutes to spare, whether that’s for cleaning or working on a personal writing project, I'll sometimes set one to keep myself focused.

Would ChatGPT do any better here? Well, at first it looked promising. It created a scheduled task to notify me after 10 minutes. I checked that notifications were enabled, put my phone down and carried on working.

When I realized at least 15 minutes had passed, I checked the chat. Sure enough, ChatGPT had posted a message saying the time was up, but it hadn't actually alerted me. Later, I discovered it had also sent an email but it had landed in my spam folder. This one was a fail too in my book.

Result: fail

3. Word games

(Image credit: Shutterstock / Iuliana Ionescu)

I love the word games in the New York Times app, home to addictive puzzles like Wordle and Connections. One of my current favorites is Spelling Bee. You're given a handful of letters and then have to make as many words as possible. It's one of my favorite ways to warm up my brain before I start writing.

Could ChatGPT recreate it? Surprisingly, yes. It generated a set of letters, understood the rules and kept track of the words I found. In terms of pure functionality, it worked.

But what it couldn't recreate was the experience. The New York Times app is beautifully simple, with an interface designed around the game. Playing through a chat window felt really clunky and annoying by comparison. The whole point of this game is I'm focusing on the letters and words, I don't want a constant back and forth with ChatGPT about the words.

So I'm calling this a partial success. Yes, ChatGPT replaced the mechanics of the game, but not the experience. And after a few rounds, I knew which version I'd rather use every day.

Result: partial pass

4. Star gazing

(Image credit: Shutterstock / Milosz_G)

The Sky Guide app is one of my all-time favorites, especially its augmented reality mode. Turn on your phone's location and compass, point it at the night sky and it instantly tells you what you're looking at, whether that's constellations, planets, bits of debris, or the ISS. It's incredible.

Could ChatGPT replace it? Well, sort of. If you upload a photo of the night sky, ChatGPT can usually identify the constellations. But there are caveats. The image needs to be clear, the stars need to be visible and you're relying on a single snapshot. Whereas Sky Guide works continuously as you move your phone around the sky.

This was another reminder that knowledge doesn't necessarily bring you a good experience. Because yes, ChatGPT knows about constellations. But Sky Guide lets you explore them. You can point your phone in any direction, tap on a star or planet and instantly get more information about it without having to keep asking questions. It's a much more intuitive way to learn.

Result: partial pass

5. Weather

(Image credit: Shutterstock / Kaspars Grinvalds)

Telling me what to expect from the weather forecast for the day turned out to be one of ChatGPT's strongest categories.

The forecast was accurate and pulled from a reliable source, so I trusted the information it gave me. I did find myself asking follow-up questions for things like the hourly forecast and the chance of rain, which would have taken a single tap in a dedicated weather app.

It knew the answers and I trusted them, but getting to them was much slower. That's why I'm generously calling this one a pass.

Result: pass

6. Guided meditation

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

I have a few favorite apps I use for guided meditations and have some saved in Spotify too. So I wondered whether ChatGPT could take over that role.

For this test, I switched on voice mode and asked it to guide me through a short meditation. Now, technically it did that. But in practice it wasn't even remotely relaxing.

Thanks to a recent update, the voice had odd intonation, frequent vocal fry and distracting little "ums", "ahs" and "let me sees" throughout that constantly pulled me out of the experience. At one point it even told me to breathe in, then never got around to telling me to breathe out.

By the logic of how I graded the other tests, this one should have been a partial pass. It did what I asked, right? But because I had to stop using it out of irritation and came away from the mediation feeling actively more stressed, it's going down as a fail for me.

Result: fail

7. Calculator

(Image credit: Shutterstock / Teerawit Chankowet)

ChatGPT doesn't have a great track record of counting things, so I was wary about using it as a calculator. I asked it to do some massive sums for me and it got all of them right.

It did pause a few times with a "let me think" message, so I wasn't getting the instant response I'd expect from a calculator. But the delay was only a few seconds, and the answers were correct.

Once again, I found myself missing the simplicity of an app. Typing numbers into a calculator is faster than turning them into a conversation. But ChatGPT did work as a capable stand-in.

Result: pass

8. Movie recommendations

(Image credit: Letterboxd)

I love Letterboxd. I log every film I watch, browse other people's lists and regularly discover new films through recommendations.

Now, there was never a chance ChatGPT could replace the logging side of the app. It can't update my Letterboxd diary or plug me into that community. But recommendations are one of the main reasons I use it, so I wondered how well ChatGPT would do.

I asked it to recommend films similar to some of my favorites, then spent the next few evenings watching its suggestions to really test them. And, to my surprise, it did an excellent job.

Then again, that perhaps isn't all that surprising. We know LLMs are trained on huge amounts of publicly available text, especially discussions reviews and recommendations from where film fans gather online, like Reddit. But whatever the reason, the recommendations felt well matched to my taste.

What I missed wasn't the recommendations themselves, but the social side of Letterboxd. I do enjoy seeing what friends had watched, reading reviews and stumbling across unexpected lists. So, for me, ChatGPT can't replace Letterboxd, but for simply finding something to watch, it did well.

Result: pass

9. Maps

(Image credit: Google)

I rely on my Maps app both for planning journeys in advance and for live navigation. So I asked ChatGPT the best way to get from my home to the airport the following day.

At first, it handled the request well. It laid out the different travel options clearly under headings and the advice looked really sensible. It even cited sources from places like Rome2Rio and The Trainline.

Then things got unnecessarily complicated. At the end of those suggestions it asked what time my flight was so it could tailor the recommendations. But when I told it, it started creating a scheduled task instead. I didn't want a reminder, so I had to cancel that, explain what I actually meant and steer the conversation back to route planning.

Eventually, it gave me the information I wanted. But the Maps app would have got me there in a fraction of the time, without all the back and forth.

It also can't replace what I actually use Maps for the most, which is live, turn-by-turn navigation.

Result: partial pass

10. Food delivery

(Image credit: Shutterstock / GBJSTOCK)

ChatGPT obviously can't deliver food, but I wondered whether it could replace the part of the app I probably spend the longest on, which is deciding what to eat.

It got off to a surprisingly good start. It asked about my preferences, budget and location, then narrowed down the options and even presented them neatly on a map.

The recommendations themselves looked really good. They're all local places I already really liked to eat at. But there was just one problem. Every restaurant it suggested was closed. Even the map it generated had "closed" written beneath each one.

After a bit of back and forth, it said they weren't shut, eventually acknowledged that they were and suggested a different set of places instead.

Unfortunately, those weren't much use either. They were small independent cafés and restaurants that don't appear on food delivery apps. I wouldn't expect ChatGPT to know exactly which businesses partner with which delivery services, but it did highlight the gap between recommending somewhere to eat and actually helping me make a decision about where I could order from.

Result: fail

11. Language learning

(Image credit: Duolingo)

I still very reluctantly use Duolingo and have recently started trialling a few other language learning apps to polish my Spanish.

I asked ChatGPT to help me improve my Spanish for an upcoming trip and it suggested role-play ordering food in a café so I could practise.

We switched to voice mode and at first it felt genuinely fun. It held a natural back-and-forth conversation and felt much closer to speaking to a real person than working through a series of multiple-choice questions like in Duolingo.

But it was also noticeably glitchier than a dedicated language app thanks to that recent voice update. There were odd pauses in the conversation, and at one point it repeatedly kept marking one of my answers as incorrect when it wasn't. Shortly afterwards, the exercise just stopped working altogether after a bizarre "ummmmm" from ChatGPT.

When it was working, I actually enjoyed the experience more than using an app like Duolingo. But if I'm trying to learn a language properly, I also want something that's reliable.

Result: partial pass

12. Plant identification

(Image credit: Future)

I love identifying things I see in nature, like bird song with the Merlin app. But I most often rely on plant identifying apps when I'm walking to take a quick snap of a leaf or flower then find out more about it.

ChatGPT was really effective at doing this. I took pictures of leaves, trees, flowers and bushes. I was a little wary about the results at first because I know that ChatGPT tends to make guesses about things rather than admitting it doesn't know. But I did fact check all of the results and everything seemed accurate.

Again, I missed some of the simple, additional features in dedicated apps. But it was surprisingly effective.

Result: pass

Can AI really replace your apps?

Before drawing too many conclusions, it's worth pointing out that a true AI-native phone wouldn't just be ChatGPT running as another app like it was in this experiment. It would probably be integrated into the operating system. Which would mean it could access things like your calendars, timers, navigation and settings. So many of the tasks ChatGPT failed at here might become a whole lot easier with an AI-first phone.

This experiment was based on whether AI could replace the apps on my phone. What I found was that it replaces a specific kind of app. Well, sort of.

If an app's main job is providing information, explaining something or answering questions, AI is already a fairly capable alternative. Plant identification, travel advice, calculations and general knowledge all felt natural.

But if an app exists to perform an action quickly, like starting a timer, setting an alarm, finding restaurants for getting food delivered, opening a map, AI still has a long way to go. Those tasks depend on deeper integration with the device and a different way of working, not just how smart it is.

There are some big trade-offs, too. Dedicated apps often rely on specialist databases and expertise, while AI can still present incorrect answers confidently or fail to make its uncertainty clear. For example, when I was trying to identify a plant I felt wary because I'd generally trust an app built with the input of botanists over a chatbot.

And, as you could probably tell from my mounting frustration, a huge sticking point for me was also realizing how much I missed the interface of many apps.

For me, a well-designed app is always a better way to explore information than a conversation. I don't think everything should, or even can, be done through chat, despite that being the direction many AI companies seem to be heading. In fact, it showed me that a conversational interface can be more work rather than less.

It's impossible to know exactly what Apple and OpenAI's long-term plans are. But I can imagine a future where knowledge apps increasingly merge into AI, while utility apps remain part of the operating system itself.

If that happens, we may stop thinking about which app to open and simply ask AI instead. But for that future to actually catch one, I'd want stronger guarantees around accuracy, better integration with trusted sources and the option to step outside the chat interface more often.

The ruling is in addition to the $375 million Meta was ordered to pay in the same lawsuit in March.