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I couldn't believe it. Had Roku really just casually inserted global viral raccoon sensation Jimothy into Roku City? I'd seen a post claiming so, but knowing how easy it is to fake things with AI, I had to see it for myself.

I powered up one of my home's half-dozen Roku streaming boxes and spent 10 minutes trying to force the platform into screen-saver mode, which then opens up Roku City. Ever since the most recent Roku platform update, I see this interface far less often than I used to.

Roku City is Roku's fictional, purple cityscape populated by thinly disguised iconic characters and objects from film, TV, and life.

After a few minutes of hunting, I figured out how to set my screen saver timeout to one minute. A moment later, the side-scrolling Roku City appeared, and in it, caught mid-waddle atop a chain-link fence, was Jimothy's unmistakable silhouette.

For those who've thrown out their phones, computers, and TVs, Jimothy is a Seattle-based raccoon with a rare disorder called "short spine syndrome." Don't worry, it doesn't appear to impact his mobility or lifestyle, but once you see Jimothy, you never forget him.

Jimothy is so popular that he's been featured as the unofficial mascot at Seattle Mariners games, launched what's widely considered "Hot Jimothy Summer," and is now immortalized in Roku City.

Jimothy made it to Roku City in a matter of hours

A post shared by Kiana (@c1vrgr1)

A photo posted by on

"You share the same problem we all share, which is when we really want to get to Roku City, like right now, we wonder, 'How do we get there?" Damon Van Deusen, Roku's Vice President, Global Brand and Creative, told me this week, but added that a solution is already in the works: Roku is adding a Roku City tile to the home screen for instant access.

Van Deusen agreed to sit down and explain how Jimothy made his way — virtually — from the alleys of a Seattle suburb to Roku's iconic services.

Jimothy's appearance, while surprising, is not out of character for the screen saver enjoyed by Roku's roughly 100 million customers.

"The Jimothy journey starts six or seven years ago when we actually started realizing that social was paying attention to the screen saver," explained Van Deusen. Back in 2021, they noticed likely pandemic-quarantined consumers posting about how they'd like to visit the city, share a kiss there, or even get married in the purple space.

"We've been putting Easter eggs in the screen saver as a way to engage some fans and social ever since," he added.

Over the years, the city's been populated by, among other things, characters from popular films (like the rock monster from Galaxy Quest and Star Trek's Enterprise). Still, there was something about Jimothy's timeliness that struck me.

Seattle resident Kiana Hall posted an Instagram video about the unusual raccoon on July 16, 2026. I spotted Jimothy in Roku City on July 31, and the post I saw about the raccoon's integration in the platform was a few days older than that.

"In the last two years, we created what's called the Rapid Response Easter Egg Team," explained Van Deusen.

This cross-functional group cuts through typical product development, and "we figured out a system where we could publish these things really fast. So now everything we do is quicker and quicker and quicker."

Tracking and choosing from the Zeitgeist @lanceulanoff

♬ FREAKED OUT - Fat Papi & prodshushy

The team, which often communicates on Slack, is constantly kicking around watercooler moments like Punch the Money and Goat on Car. They choose "anything that tickles us, anything that feels really fun. I mean, again, that's the bar; it's gotta be delightful, playful, fun, lift spirits, and create conversation," Van Deusen told me, who later added that delight, or something that triggers an "unexpected smile," is "really the heart of the whole brand."

Van Deusen loved that I more or less stumbled on Jimothy's existence in the city. "An unexpected smile, if you think about it, it's like it comes out of nowhere. It's not like you're looking for it; it's just like you spotting Jimothy. It's like, 'Wait a minute, are you, wait, is that Jimothy?'"

The Jimothy journey starts six or seven years ago when we actually started realizing that social was paying attention to the screen saver,

Not every viral moment can make it in. The Rapid Response Easter Egg Team avoids bummers and negative news. However, they did do a retrospective of Moira Rose's wigs as a way to memorialize the great Catherine O'Hara, who played Moira in Schitt's Creek and died on January 30 of this year.

When the right idea comes along, the team knows it. "Then we'll be like, 'Oh my God, that's so cool,' and then we'll make it happen right away...and that's how Jimothy came about."

(Image credit: Tim Cook - Designer. Illustrator. Director. @ Roku Inc.)

Looking at the Roku City Jimothy, I was struck by the silhouette's uncanny accuracy — it could be no other raccoon.

Van Deusen told me Roku has, over the last five years, built a world-class illustration team, which includes comic book illustrators and former Disney artists.

The company shared the Roku Designer, Illustrator, and Director Tim Cook's early Jimothy sketch and how he might appear in Roku City (above). Even in pencil, you can see how he captured the shape and signature gait of the lovable critter.

The making of an icon

To create Jimothy, the team focused on that "iconic sort of hunch." Van Deusen said that there was a feedback session to ensure they got the look just right.

Silhouettes also happen to be part of Roku City's DNA, giving you the clear impression of a character or viral figure without a lot of detail.

"We had tried doing less silhouetted versions of the city when we tried to localize for different markets once, and the more you see, the further you get away from the City," he said.

The suggestion of these shapes and recognizable figures forces you to lean in and engage even more with what is arguably just a screen saver.

"It's kind of a little bit of a wink, obviously, you know, and we do that on purpose; we never want to say too much. And we never reveal what the Easter eggs are; we always just sort of suggest and like elude, and again, it's so much more fun," said Van Deusen, smiling, I think, at the thought of Jimothy's unmistakable shape.

We developed a tool where we can basically come up with an idea, something we want to do, the illustration team quickly mocks something up, and we can put it in the screen saver, all within a couple of hours."

As for how Jimothy made it to millions of screen saves so quickly, Roku's Rapid Response team can add new elements to Roku City in a matter of hours.

"We developed a tool," Van Deusen said, "where we can basically come up with an idea, something we want to do, the illustration team quickly mocks something up, and we can put it in the screen saver, all within a couple of hours."

That kind of speed puts Roku City firmly inside the zeitgeist. But that, too, is fast changing, and I wondered how long Jimothy would be waddling across Roku City screens.

Roku does rotate out the Easter eggs, though a backlog of four years or more can rotate in and out of the side-scrolling interface. Roku, by the way, recently added a user-controllable version where you can slide back and forth for a better look at all these hidden gems, including Jimothy.

The lovable raccoons should appear in Roku City "as long as Jimothy is in the zeitgeist," said Van Deusen, adding, "[he] will eventually, probably be replaced. I don't know if we'll always have a rotational raccoon, but we will find the next, you know, popping character."

Until then, enjoy Jimothy in real and virtual life.

Earlier this year ICE arrested 600 immigrants over a two week period. Most migrants had no criminal records and, since then, West Virginia has decided to not hold ICE detainees in their jails. A look at West Virginia post Operation Country Roads.

• The first HBF specification defines stacks of up to 512GB with three bandwidth grades from roughly 0.4TB/s to 3.0TB/s, connected to processors over UCIe and published openly through the Open Compute Project
• Google and Tenstorrent have joined the consortium, but Nvidia is not among the named participants, which matters more to HBF's prospects as a de facto alternative to increasingly pricey HBM
• Samples of the first AI inference devices built with HBF are expected to show up in early 2027

SK Hynix and SanDisk have published the first technical specification for High Bandwidth Flash.

Released through the Open Compute Project to coincide with the opening of the Future of Memory and Storage conference, it makes for an impressively fast milestone, arriving six months after the HBF workstream was convened at SanDisk's Milpitas headquarters and a year after the two companies first agreed to standardize the technology.

The solution, at least for now, exists only on paper, and has managed to draw two crucial partners to its consortium: Google and Tenstorrent.

A promising standard, that focuses on capacity over raw speed

High Bandwidth Flash's specification defines capacities up to 512GB across two stack configurations, 8-high and 16-high NAND dies, and sorts performance into three grades running from roughly 0.4TB/s to 3.0TB/s.

HBF's pitch, unlike its competition, focuses on capacity rather than raw speed. A 512GB HBF stack sits against roughly 48GB to 64GB for an HBM4 stack, which is between eight and ten times the capacity, while the top HBF grade's 3.0TB/s lands inside the 2.0 to 3.3TB/s band typical of HBM4.

It also adopts UCIe, the open chiplet interconnect standard, as the link between an HBF stack and a host processor, enabling the technology to be attached to GPUs and CPUs from different vendors.

What could be challenging is delivering on its promise within a reasonable time; however, SanDisk has been working to a public roadmap since August 2025: first samples of the memory itself in the second half of 2026, and samples of the first AI inference devices built with HBF in early 2027. Neither company updated that schedule with this week's announcement.

Industry expectations put actual commercialization somewhere between late 2027 and 2028, with the volume of data center demand that would justify the investment arriving closer to 2030, in a cycle that also involves partner testing followed by ramped-up production.

This is despite SanDisk's Hsu telling SDxCentral in May 2026 that working through the Open Compute Project (OCP) let the effort move faster and that "you won't have to wait too long", which is a reasonable thing to say about a standard and a slightly generous thing to say about a product still eighteen months from sampling inside a device.

SK Hynix is equally cagey when it comes to HBF's roadmap: the same document that announces HBF also unveils the company's tenth-generation 375-layer 4D NAND, claims a 2.5x improvement in performance per watt, and states plainly that mass production of enterprise SSDs built on it begins early next year; HBF gets no date mentioned at all.

One interesting thing is that Nvidia is not among the named participants, even though it dominates the AI accelerator market.

SK Hynix has, however, expanded a strategic partnership with Nvidia covering next-generation memory as recently as July 25, and that might be a sign that things could change, but there is no official confirmation from what is arguably the biggest AI player in the market just yet. Samsung, Micron and Kioxia are likewise absent, with Kioxia pursuing a different approach to the same problem.

When HBF does eventually ship, it will probably not reach consumers in any shape or form until AI hyperscalers are sated and a viable interface for retail users is available to harness the tech. For now, HBF is unveiled but exists only on paper, allowing hyperscalers and accelerator designers to plan ahead for a technology that will become increasingly invaluable as the compute focus continues to shift from training to inference, with AI data centers coming online.

The El Capitan Theatre and the Walt Disney Studios lot have long been reserved for some of Disney's biggest moments. Citizen Kane held its Hollywood premiere on that same stage in 1941, and decades later, The Lion King, the Avengers films, and a steady run of Pixar premieres have rolled out the red carpet at the same historic Hollywood venue.

This September, though, Disney is handing the spotlight to a different kind of storyteller… creators. Created in LA is a new two-day creator summit and film festival conceived by creator Jon Youshaei and presented by Disney. The event will bring 350 creators and storytellers together on September 17–18 for a premiere event at the El Capitan Theatre before moving to the Walt Disney Studios lot for a day of conversations.

Arguably, the most exciting part is that the iconic theater will premiere creator originals with the same pomp and circumstance as a studio blockbuster.

After the initial reveal earlier this summer, Disney and Youshaei have now revealed the first wave of speakers: Mindy Kaling, Zach King, AdamW, Jenny Hoyos, Sam Eckholm, and Disney's own Chief Marketing and Brand Officer Asad Ayaz.

On the surface, it's another creator event, but the setting makes it something more interesting.

For decades, the technology required to produce Hollywood-quality content was largely reserved for studios with deep pockets. Today, creators can shoot cinematic footage on flagship smartphones, edit on laptops, and publish directly to audiences. The line between a traditional production studio and a creator-led one has never been thinner, and Disney appears ready to acknowledge that.

Speaking with TechRadar, Youshaei said that shift was the inspiration behind Created in LA.

"We're in this moment right now where the quality of videos from creators is just so good that it's become cinema quality for certain creators," he told me. "How cool would it be if we could premiere videos from creators on the big screen, in one of the most historic screens in the world at the El Capitan Theatre?"

Youshaei is in a unique position to make that observation. Before becoming a full-time creator, he spent years working with creators at some of the world's biggest technology platforms before building his own production studio, giving him perspective from both sides of the rapidly evolving creator landscape.

(Image credit: Disney)

He believes the biggest reason creators are reaching new heights isn't just because audiences have embraced online video — it's because the tools themselves have become dramatically more accessible.

"The fact that the tech has gotten more accessible to the fact that you could hit upload and have millions of people watch your stuff if it's good," he said, pointing to everything from improved production equipment to publishing platforms that have lowered the barriers to entry.

That accessibility has also fueled a new generation of creators who increasingly operate more like production companies than solo influencers. Asked whether the line between creators and traditional studios will eventually disappear, Youshaei doesn't think so — but he does think it's becoming much harder to define.

"I don't think it'll disappear fully; I think it'll become blurrier," he said. "More creators today have full-on studios... I think there's room for both to coexist."

Created in LA is designed to reflect that evolution. The newly announced speaker lineup blends Hollywood veterans with some of the biggest names in online video. Mindy Kaling will discuss building a career by becoming "your own studio," while Zach King, AdamW and Jenny Hoyos will pull back the curtain on the creative processes that helped them build audiences numbering in the millions.

It's also notable timing: while unrelated, the announcement comes the day after Disney revealed a separate partnership with TikTok that will bring select creator-made vertical videos to Disney+. Taken together, the initiatives suggest Disney is expanding how it works with creators across multiple parts of its business — not simply as influencers promoting a movie, but as storytellers with audiences of their own.

That doesn't mean technology is replacing creativity, however. As AI becomes increasingly capable of generating images, videos and editing assets, Youshaei sees it as another tool in the production pipeline rather than a replacement for the people behind the camera. He doesn't think AI makes it harder for creators to stand out, either — if anything, he says it rewards what he calls a "second-mover advantage."

"I think creators today have what I like to call the 'second-mover advantage,'" he said. "...I think nowadays having a second-mover advantage where you can understand what ideas have taken off, why have they taken off, how are they packaged, and then be able to put your own spin on it, is really powerful."

He told TechRadar that his team already uses AI to brainstorm ideas, generate mockups and accelerate creative workflows, but that taste, perspective and authenticity still come from the creator.

Ultimately, Youshaei hopes Created in LA becomes more than a conference. His ambition is for creators to one day aspire to premiere their best work there in much the same way that filmmakers dream of debuting a movie at a major film festival.

Whether it reaches that point remains to be seen. But opening the doors of the El Capitan Theatre and the Walt Disney Studios lot to creators already says something about where entertainment is headed. As the technology behind high-quality video production has become more accessible, Disney appears to be betting that great storytelling can come from anywhere — and increasingly, anyone.

Creators hoping to attend can still apply through the Created in LA website.

The Fathom starts at under $30,000 and will be the first vehicle made by Ford’s new Universal Electric Vehicle platform.

• HP, Asus, and Acer have qualified and begun shipping CXMT DRAM in small volumes, in a handful of notebook models sold outside the United States
• The restraint is potentially driven less by US policy than by fear of the incumbents: with Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron holding over 90% of the market, buyers say they dare not source too much from CXMT
• CXMT is not a cheaper option either currently, as sources say its DRAM costs no less than Samsung's currently and cannot be booked beyond the current quarter

HP, Asus, and Acer have begun putting DRAM from China's ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) into notebook computers, a report from Nikkei Asia has claimed, reporting several major PC makers completed qualification of CXMT's chips around the middle of this year.

The volumes are small, and the number of affected models is small, but perhaps more importantly, none of those models is sold in the United States.

The reason the volumes are small may have less to do with assemblers not wanting to irk a White House that has taken an increasingly tariff-heavy, America-first approach to manufacturing, but rather with market incumbents that currently account for as much as 90% of the total market's supply.

A tricky situation in a market dictated entirely by supply

PC makers are not being cautious primarily because of Washington, but rather because they do not want to upset agreements with market giants such as Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron.

An executive at one PC company told Nikkei that with the top three holding more than 90% of the global market, buyers have to stay low-key about using CXMT, adding: "We dare not source too much from CXMT at this moment."

That does make for an interesting conundrum: in the middle of the worst memory shortage in the industry's history, the binding constraint on diversification is fear of annoying the people you are already struggling to buy from.

Nikkei's report on the matter only reinforces what many market participants have already hinted at: CXMT is hardly the "cheaper" option.

Its DRAM quotes do not undercut Samsung's, and it reportedly cannot even be booked beyond the current quarter, as competition over who can buy it has continued to ramp up even as it reportedly chooses to prioritize local conglomerate Huawei's AI ambitions.

What PC makers are actually buying, then, is optionality. A supply chain manager who works with HP and Asus put it to Nikkei, saying they don't want to neglect a potentially important source while the market is this tight.

For context, validating a new DRAM supplier takes months of engineering, signal-integrity testing, thermal work, and platform validation, and it does not happen on a whim. HP, Asus, and Acer have now built a switch. Whether they throw it depends on conditions none of them control, but the switch exists, and eighteen months ago it did not.

With Samsung stating that the RAM crisis is here to stay, the underlying conditions have merely exacerbated an AI-driven memory crisis that has directly affected consumer electronics across the board as supply continues to get repurposed.

Spot RAM pricing has risen by 400% or more over the past twelve months. PC makers have responded by prioritizing memory allocation for premium models and lifting prices across their ranges by several hundred dollars. IDC expects the global PC market to contract by more than 11 percent this year, with supply conditions deteriorating further toward the end of it.

Smartphones are equally affected, with some makers scaling back certain models to memory configurations their predecessors already offered, while others increase pricing to offset higher component costs. Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo have each cut 2026 shipment targets more than once.

The pressure has already reached the components below the memory itself: motherboard makers have absorbed roughly 50 percent increases in PCB costs and trimmed their own shipment targets accordingly.

None of this originates in the PC market. It originates in AI infrastructure, where demand for high-bandwidth memory has pulled wafer capacity away from conventional DRAM at every major supplier.

That is precisely the gap CXMT has been expanding into, which is why a company most Western buyers ignored two years ago is suddenly qualified at three of the largest PC brands in the world.

A short term irritant for Samsung, Micron and SK Hynix?

So what will Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix think? In the short term, very little, and they have every reason to say so. They are the primary beneficiaries of this shortage, with pricing power they have not enjoyed in a decade and no commercial incentive whatsoever to loosen supply. A few thousand budget laptops in Europe and Asia that carry Chinese DRAM do not register against that.

The longer view might be less comfortable. Oligopolies are usually broken not by a competitor arriving with a better product but by customers becoming willing to qualify an alternative, and customers become willing when the incumbents make life sufficiently unpleasant. That threshold has now seemingly been crossed at three of the five largest PC vendors, during a period when the incumbents were charging whatever they liked.

The alternative parts are more expensive than expected and hard to get, so nobody has switched in any meaningful volume. But the certification work is done and dusted, CXMT is building capacity at multiples of its current base, and the moment supply loosens or Washington's posture shifts, the cost of moving volume across is dramatically lower than it was.

For now, the best example of how the industry is treating this news is visible in Acer's response to Nikkei: It declined to identify suppliers, said it maintains close contact with multiple global manufacturers, and described the goal as supply chain resilience. HP also declined to comment, and Asus did not respond at all to inquiries at the time of writing. That is not the language of companies making a bet but rather those that would like to keep as many options open as possible.

• MSI's Nvidia GPUs are rumored to be getting price hikes
• They'll be 20% more expensive (or worse) in China, and that kind of increase will surely be seen elsewhere
• This is happening against a backdrop of wider price hikes for graphics cards – although Nvidia is offering a rare chance at an RTX 5080 or 5090 at MSRP

As fresh rumors reveal that another graphics card maker is set to hike prices, Nvidia has a plan to let you buy a Founders Edition Blackwell GPU at the MSRP, even in the case of the RTX 5090 — although you'll need to travel.

And you'll need to move very fast, attend QuakeCon in Texas, which starts today, and get yourself to the GeForce booth (hat tip to VideoCardz) before supplies of RTX 5070, 5080, and 5090 Founders Edition graphics cards run out. And I don't think that they will last for long (a matter of minutes, at a guess, although hopefully that won't be the case).

Nvidia describes this as 'Verified Priority Access' in real life, and at least it does give gamers a chance to buy an RTX 5080 and 5090 at the intended price, which is not something you can get anywhere near when purchasing one of these high-end Nvidia GPUs at retail.

As for the most recent news on GPU price hikes, Wccftech spotted that MSI is the latest graphics card maker to announce that its products will be considerably more expensive.

This is just a rumor, one that arrives via the Board Channels in China, and so should be served with some seasoning — but the theory is that MSI's Nvidia GPUs are set for price hikes of 20% or more. This is due to rising memory prices, of course, and what Nvidia charges its partners for video RAM modules (as Team Green is paying more, it passes that bill on, of course).

The price increase is in the order of $300 (£220 / AU$420) for the RTX 5080 over in China (converting from RMB), around $200 (£150 / AU$280) for the RTX 5070 Ti, and approximately $100 (£75 / AU$140) for RTX 5060 models (and not far off that for the RTX 5050).

Sadly, not only will current-gen Nvidia GeForce graphics cards be affected, but also RTX 4000 and 3000 models (with GDDR6 video RAM getting costlier, as well as GDDR7).

Analysis: pricey times

(Image credit: Nvidia)

While this is a rumored cost increase for MSI products in China, these exact same pricing pressures are, of course, happening globally, so there's no reason to believe that MSI's GPUs in other regions won't follow suit.

What's more, this isn't just a problem that pertains to MSI, but Nvidia's other card-making partners, and those companies are also rumored to be implementing hefty price hikes. For example, just this week we've heard that Gigabyte GPU prices will jump between 20% and 40%. Also, on a regional basis, Nvidia RTX 5000 models in South Korea are looking at price hikes of up to 30%.

So, this is a coherent picture of hikes, and those percentages are all in a similar ballpark, indicating increases of at least 20% or a good deal more. They are also backed up by more general chatter from the grapevine about Nvidia's VRAM increases and AMD's Radeon GPUs becoming pricier.

I fear that getting any kind of current-gen graphics card at, or near, the MSRP could be a much tougher task before long, and those at QuakeCon better make the most of Nvidia's GeForce offerings at the firm's booth. As noted, I expect this to be the definition of a flash sale — as in they'll be gone in a flash — although you do have another shot at winning an RTX 5070 in the Quake III Arena RTX Remix and Doom: The Dark Ages challenges.

The Apple AirPods Pro 3 have just received a surprise price cut at Amazon, bringing the excellent premium earbuds down to just $189 (was $249) at the retailer.

That's the lowest price since the retailer's annual Prime Day mega-sale back in June, and likely the best deal we'll see for a while. Ever since Prime Day, these buds have stubbornly held at $199, which is the usual 'sales price' for Apple's premium buds.

Even though the record low is officially $169, the AirPods Pro 3 only hit that on one occasion over Prime Day, so today's price cut is definitely worth considering. Even at $189, the AirPods Pro 3 are an excellent buy for anyone looking for some high-end buds. Not only do they feature excellent noise cancellation, but they're packed with new features like heart rate monitoring and Live Translation.

The AirPods Pro 3 are cheaper today at Amazon

Amazon has dropped Apple's AirPods Pro 3 to $189.99, which is the best deal I've seen on these buds in well over a month. Upgrades to the AirPods Pro 3 include improved Active Noise Cancellation and audio, a new comfortable in-ear design, and new features such as live translation and the ability to track heart rate, workouts, and calories burned.View Deal

• See more: check out all of today's deals at Amazon

Are the latest AirPods Pro 3 worth it?

(Image credit: Jacob Krol/Future)

We awarded the buds an impressive four and a half stars out of five in our AirPods Pro 3 review, calling them 'near-perfect noise-cancelling earbuds' at the time. While not exactly cheap, they offer excellent noise cancellation and sound quality.

If we had to draw any criticisms, we'd mention that the AirPods Pro 3 don't have class-leading battery life (around 5.5 hours in our testing). You'll also need one of the latest iPhones to really take advantage of their full suite of features like Live Translation and personalized fitness insights. They're still great with older devices, but iPhone 15 and newer devices support Apple Intelligence, which is required for the newest bells and whistles.

Snails are slimy. But there's more to that goo of theirs than meets the eye. It's a fact that may help inspire the creation of new materials.

(Image credit: Franziska Jehle/Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces
)

President Trump's proposed arch in Memorial Circle would intrude on dozens of nearby sites, says the National Park Service. But there's been minimal discussion of alternate locations.

(Image credit: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds)

Spoilers for My Life with the Walter Boys season 3 ahead.

If you watched My Life with the Walter Boys season 3 with the hope that Jackie (Nikki Rodriguez) and Cole (Noah LaLonde) would be more loved up than ever before, you were sadly never going to get your wish.

Just before the season finale, Netflix pried the two apart once again, with Cole listening to Jackie's uncle Richard's (Alex Quijano) 'advice,' and believing that he was holding Jackie back from fulfilling her full potential.

Not only did this leave Jackie rightly heartbroken, but it's thrust her into the arms of newcomer Eliot (Naveen Paddock), who is all too happy to back Richard's beliefs up. While Jackie and Eliot move in for their first kiss at the community space launch party, Cole leaves his drag race final to try and win her back.

But before he can, disaster strikes. A mysterious car pulls up while Cole is driving to the party, and we see that it's the drag racing contestant who Cole left behind in the final.

He's clearly annoyed that the race has been cancelled, and is looking to take his revenge. Finally, the two cars clip, sending Cole's car into a nearby field, where it continues to roll.

Heading into the already-renewed My Life with the Walter Boys season 4, Cole has been left for dead. Or has he? I'm convinced that the first details Netflix has revealed about the next season have also confirmed that Cole is still alive.

Noah LaLonde will be returning for My Life with the Walter Boys season 4 — and that's good news

According to Netflix, actor Noah LaLonde will be returning for season 4, with filming having started in Calgary in May 2026. He's seen in a new image of him, Rodriguez, and Ashby Gentry (Alex) on set, with the streamer confirming that the trio is "embarking on the next chapter."

Given that the endgame of the Netflix series is surely to romantically unite Jackie and Cole for good — they just have to go through the worst in order to get there. Frankly, it would be ridiculous for showrunners to kill Cole off completely, especially considering that Alex has finally admitted his feelings for Kiley (Mya Lowe).

Hopefully, Cole's accident is the catalyst for bringing him back to Jackie, and will allow Jackie to fully forgive Cole for so coldly dumping her during season 3. Then, of course, there's the question of whether Jackie actually follows through with her kiss with Eliot at the same time that Cole crashes.

I've got a sneaking suspicion that she'll pull away at the last second... but perhaps that's wishful thinking. It's certainly a moment that her future relationship with Cole could hinge on, if he pulls through.

There is a worst-case scenario, however. LaLonde could simply be returning to film flashback scenes, or to communicate with Jackie through visions from beyond the grave. It's not something we can totally rule out, but it certainly would take My Life with the Walter Boys down a much darker route.

But how likely is this? At the moment, it's far too early to make a call. However, my educated guess is that Cole and Jackie will be just fine in the long run... sometimes, it takes the worst kind of tragedy to realize what you really want.

The new feature gives kids a way to manage their money without a bank account.

• The World Wide Web was created 35 years ago today
• It was initially designed for sharing documents at CERN
• Its creator says we can return to its spirit of openness and collaboration

These days, it’s hard to go long without connecting to the Internet in one way or another: whether through one of the best web browsers or by connecting to a smart home device, it’s something we often take for granted. The primary means of interacting online — the World Wide Web — has just turned 35 years old today, and its creator has a timely message that couldn’t be more relevant for modern users.

The World Wide Web is the creation of British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee. Working at the scientific body CERN in the 1980s and 1990s, Berners-Lee wanted a way to store, update, and locate documents within the sprawling organization. At the same time, he sought a solution that would allow for these documents to be shared with outside bodies quickly and straightforwardly.

That desire led to his creation of the World Wide Web. It was announced to the public on August 6, 1991, with Berners-Lee humbly stating that “We are very interested in spreading the web to other areas.” It was a platform whereby anyone could link to any document in a database using hyperlinks, or links embedded in text, images, and other media. Importantly, multiple users were able to access this platform simultaneously and independently of each other.

Adoption quickly spread from CERN to other research organizations before being opened up to the wider public, whereupon it exploded in popularity. And 35 years later, it’s an invention that has turned the world on its head.

An absolutely vital component of this system was that it had to be both free and decentralized. Berners-Lee was adamant that anyone should be able to create a website and implement hyperlinks on their own, without paying a fee and without a central body dictating what could and could not be done. That principle of openness still stands today — but it’s increasingly under threat.

‘It’s not too late’

(Image credit: CERN)

Speaking to The Guardian in September 2025, Berners-Lee lamented that plenty of the web today is no longer free and open. “We see a handful of large platforms harvesting users’ private data to share with commercial brokers or even repressive governments,” he noted, adding: “We see ubiquitous algorithms that are addictive by design and damaging to our teenagers’ mental health. Trading personal data for use certainly does not fit with my vision for a free web.”

At the same time, user data is sold “to actors we never intended it to reach,” with the result being “deliberately harmful content that leads to real-world violence, spreads misinformation, wreaks havoc on our psychological wellbeing and seeks to undermine social cohesion.”

This is especially challenging in the age of AI, Berners-Lee argued. To put things right and get back to the original vision of his creation, the father of the web advocated for strong AI governance and guidance from organizations that are not motivated by data and profit but instead by collaboration and the needs of the individual. On this point, Berners-Lee quipped: “It is hard to imagine a big tech company agreeing to share the world wide web for no commercial reward like CERN allowed me to.”

As the World Wide Web turns 35, the spirit of “collaboration, creativity and compassion” that allowed it to be given away for free is being increasingly challenged by Big Tech — but Berners-Lee still thinks there’s time to put things right: “We can re-empower individuals, and take the web back. It’s not too late.”

A continued boycott of the World Cup poses a big threat to FIFA, keeping President Gianni Infantino under intense pressure to resign.

(Image credit: Alex Wong)

The first mRNA-based flu shot to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration will be ready for the upcoming flu season. Moderna, the vaccine's maker

(Image credit: Marco Bello/Bloomberg)

OpenAI is upgrading its default options for free and paying ChatGPT users.

If the clue is in the name, it's not hard to clock who the BenQ Creative Pro PD2732U is aimed at. This is a very well specified 27-inch 4K IPS monitor that's been carefully optimised for creative workflows while hitting an accessible price point.

For sure, there are still much cheaper 27-inch 4K monitors. But not with the suite of connectivity and colour management features offered here.

On the connectivity side, that includes Thunderbolt 4, an integrated KVM switch and display daisy chaining support. If anything, however, the features for creative workflows are even more comprehensive.

That starts with excellent colour coverage given the price point and extends to factory calibration and hardware calibration support, Pantone Validation, Calman certification, specific support for MacOS devices and more. There are also some neat extras, including a wireless control puck that makes it as quick and easy as possible to switch between colour modes and inputs.

The one obvious feature omission is true HDR capability. There is HDR10 support. But without local dimming hardware, the actual HDR performance is very limited. But then this monitor is not intended to replace an HDR reference monitor, which is a very different market with monitors costing upwards of 10 times the price.

On paper, then, the BenQ Creative Pro PD2732U looks set to take its place as the affordable display of choice for creative pros among the best photo editing monitors we've tested. But does it actually deliver?

BenQ Creative Pro PD2732U: Design and featuresFutureFutureFuture

• Slick design
• Excellent connectivity
• Creator-centric feature set

Specs

Panel size: 27-inch

Panel type: IPS

Resolution: 3,840 x 2,160

Brightness: 400 nits

Contrast: 1,000:1 (static)

Pixel response: 5ms

Refresh rate: 60Hz

Color coverage: 99% DCI-P3, 99% Adobe RGB

HDR: HDR10

VESA: 100mm x 100mm

Connectivity: HDMI 2.0 x1, DisplayPort 1.4 x1, Thunderbolt 4 x2 with 90W PD and daisy chaining, USB hub with USB-C x1 and USB-A x3

The BenQ Creative Pro PD2732U looks familiar and that's no bad thing. It sports BenQ's premium design ethic of the last few years and it remains a cut above much of the competition in terms of both visual appeal and overall build quality.

The part metal construction and gun metal colorway is certainly more appealing than the often creaky feeling and anonymous black plastic of much of the monitor market, that's for sure. OK, Apple's displays including the latest Studio Display XDR, feel quite a bit better built still. But then they're much more expensive, too.

If styling is ultimately a subjective call, what can't be objectively denied is the BenQ Creative Pro PD2732U's excellent all-round feature set that's been fully optimised for creative professionals.

First up, there's good color coverage, including 99% of both DCI-P3 and Adobe RGB. Those figures are better than you'll find on cheaper 4K IPS monitors, which tend to be around the 95% to 97% range. The PD2732U also comes factory calibrated with sub-2 DeltaE across the board and further supports hardware calibration.

(Image credit: Future)

What's more, it's Pantone Validated, Pantone SkinTone Validated, and has Calman Verified certification. When you factor in the wide Adobe RGB coverage, this monitor is particularly well suited to digital-to-print workflows and photography, including SDR color grading.

It's also well specified for SDR video workflows, though with a peak brightness of 400 nits and no local dimming, it's far less optimised for HDR content, albeit with HDR10 and HLG support, it can at least accept an HDR signal.

Connectivity is another major part of the PD2732U's appeal, starting with a main Thunderbolt 4 interface and 90 W of power delivery. That's supported by a Thunderbolt out port, allowing for display daisy chaining and dual-monitor setups via a single cable. Incidentally, all of the primary connectors hook up perpendicularly on the rear as opposed to up from the bottom, which is generally a plus in terms of ease of use and access.

There's also Smart KVM, allowing you to use a single keyboard and mouse with two computing devices, handy if you regularly switch between, say, a Mac and PC. Speaking of Apple Macs, BenQ has included its M-Book color space mode, which BenQ says, "minimises the visual differences between the monitor and the connected MacBook series product."

Exactly how it differs from the P3 mode which BenQ also includes and aligns with the default P3 operation of MacOS isn't clear. But the results are good, all the same. With M-Book mode enabled, this display is an excellent visual match for MacBook displays.

Rounding out the main features both physically and figuratively is the BenQ Hotkey Puck. It's basically a wireless controller that simplifies settings access via shortcut functionality. It offers three customisable keys for quick access to Color Mode, Input, KVM, or app launch. It also has a rotary dial for precise control over brightness, contrast, and volume.

BenQ Creative Pro PD2732U: PerformanceFutureFutureFuture

• Good color coverage
• Nicely calibrated
• Limited SDR brightness

If you want a really succinct summary of the BenQ Creative Pro PD2732U's performance, what you're looking at is a 27-inch 4K IPS monitor with some added color coverage and capability.

Out of the box, it's very nicely calibrated, both in sRGB mode on PC or in M-Book mode with a Mac. In both cases, color rendering is accurate and pleasing. The one potential snag is brightness in SDR mode.

For most serious professional SDR content creation workflows, this is not going to be a problem. You'll likely be targeting a brightness level well below 200 nits, which this display will easily achieve. But it won't do the full 400 nits in any of its SDR modes.

If anything, what the capped SDR brightness does is underline that this monitor isn't an ideal choice for generic computing remits, where you might want a bit more day-to-day pop. You can pay less and get more in that regard from what you might call a standard 27-inch 4K monitor.

That said, you can see the full capability, in brightness terms, of the PD2732U in HDR mode. Indeed, if you then crank up the brightness of SDR content in either the MacOS or Windows display settings, the result is actually nicely calibrated SDR colors and plenty of visual punch. But that's ultimately something of an aside given that this monitor lacks local dimming and has very limited actual HDR capability.

It's also worth noting that the refresh rate is limited to 60Hz. Again, for the content creation remit, this is not a technical limitation. It's just that if you are used to 120Hz-plus displays, 60Hz doesn't feel terribly slick or responsive. It's a day-to-day feel issue rather than being relevant to the vast majority of content workflows.

Of course, as a 27-inch 4K monitor, you also get decent pixel density and thus good image detail and crisp text rendering. The pixel density of around 160DPI isn't up to full Apple Retina display standards, which would require something above 200DPI and a native resolution of 5K on this display size. But it's still pretty sharp.

BenQ Creative Pro PD2732U: Final verdictFutureFutureFuture

The BenQ Creative Pro PD2732U is either very sharply priced or not great value depending on what you're looking for. As a general computing display it's both pretty expensive and slightly flawed.

You can get far cheaper 27-inch 4K IPS monitors than this. Indeed, you can have one with 144Hz refresh for under half the price. What you won't get for less money, or arguably even the same price as the PD2732U's $699 / £649 asking, is anything like the same feature set for content creation.

The combination of excellent color coverage, various validation standards, and good factory calibration makes this an excellent choice for a sensible-money monitor for SDR content creation of pretty much any kind.

Sure, it's arguably still more of a prosumer display than, say, a true professional class grading monitor. But even in a really demanding professional context, it wouldn't be at all shabby, which is impressive for the price.

Then factor in some neat touches, like the wireless control puck, and excellent connectivity and you have a recipe for one of the most compelling content creation monitors currently available at an affordable price point. That's very much the remit BenQ was aiming for and fair to say the company has nailed it.

FutureFutureFuture

For more displays, we've tested the best business monitors and the best monitors for video editing.

If the clue is in the name, it's not hard to clock who the BenQ Creative Pro PD2732U is aimed at. This is a very well specified 27-inch 4K IPS monitor that's been carefully optimised for creative workflows while hitting an accessible price point.

For sure, there are still much cheaper 27-inch 4K monitors. But not with the suite of connectivity and colour management features offered here.

On the connectivity side, that includes Thunderbolt 4, an integrated KVM switch and display daisy chaining support. If anything, however, the features for creative workflows are even more comprehensive.

That starts with excellent colour coverage given the price point and extends to factory calibration and hardware calibration support, Pantone Validation, Calman certification, specific support for MacOS devices and more. There are also some neat extras, including a wireless control puck that makes it as quick and easy as possible to switch between colour modes and inputs.

The one obvious feature omission is true HDR capability. There is HDR10 support. But without local dimming hardware, the actual HDR performance is very limited. But then this monitor is not intended to replace an HDR reference monitor, which is a very different market with monitors costing upwards of 10 times the price.

On paper, then, the BenQ Creative Pro PD2732U looks set to take its place as the affordable display of choice for creative pros among the best photo editing monitors we've tested. But does it actually deliver?

BenQ Creative Pro PD2732U: Design and featuresFutureFutureFuture

• Slick design
• Excellent connectivity
• Creator-centric feature set

Specs

Panel size: 27-inch

Panel type: IPS

Resolution: 3,840 x 2,160

Brightness: 400 nits

Contrast: 1,000:1 (static)

Pixel response: 5ms

Refresh rate: 60Hz

Color coverage: 99% DCI-P3, 99% Adobe RGB

HDR: HDR10

VESA: 100mm x 100mm

Connectivity: HDMI 2.0 x1, DisplayPort 1.4 x1, Thunderbolt 4 x2 with 90W PD and daisy chaining, USB hub with USB-C x1 and USB-A x3

The BenQ Creative Pro PD2732U looks familiar and that's no bad thing. It sports BenQ's premium design ethic of the last few years and it remains a cut above much of the competition in terms of both visual appeal and overall build quality.

The part metal construction and gun metal colorway is certainly more appealing than the often creaky feeling and anonymous black plastic of much of the monitor market, that's for sure. OK, Apple's displays including the latest Studio Display XDR, feel quite a bit better built still. But then they're much more expensive, too.

If styling is ultimately a subjective call, what can't be objectively denied is the BenQ Creative Pro PD2732U's excellent all-round feature set that's been fully optimised for creative professionals.

First up, there's good color coverage, including 99% of both DCI-P3 and Adobe RGB. Those figures are better than you'll find on cheaper 4K IPS monitors, which tend to be around the 95% to 97% range. The PD2732U also comes factory calibrated with sub-2 DeltaE across the board and further supports hardware calibration.

(Image credit: Future)

What's more, it's Pantone Validated, Pantone SkinTone Validated, and has Calman Verified certification. When you factor in the wide Adobe RGB coverage, this monitor is particularly well suited to digital-to-print workflows and photography, including SDR color grading.

It's also well specified for SDR video workflows, though with a peak brightness of 400 nits and no local dimming, it's far less optimised for HDR content, albeit with HDR10 and HLG support, it can at least accept an HDR signal.

Connectivity is another major part of the PD2732U's appeal, starting with a main Thunderbolt 4 interface and 90 W of power delivery. That's supported by a Thunderbolt out port, allowing for display daisy chaining and dual-monitor setups via a single cable. Incidentally, all of the primary connectors hook up perpendicularly on the rear as opposed to up from the bottom, which is generally a plus in terms of ease of use and access.

There's also Smart KVM, allowing you to use a single keyboard and mouse with two computing devices, handy if you regularly switch between, say, a Mac and PC. Speaking of Apple Macs, BenQ has included its M-Book color space mode, which BenQ says, "minimises the visual differences between the monitor and the connected MacBook series product."

Exactly how it differs from the P3 mode which BenQ also includes and aligns with the default P3 operation of MacOS isn't clear. But the results are good, all the same. With M-Book mode enabled, this display is an excellent visual match for MacBook displays.

Rounding out the main features both physically and figuratively is the BenQ Hotkey Puck. It's basically a wireless controller that simplifies settings access via shortcut functionality. It offers three customisable keys for quick access to Color Mode, Input, KVM, or app launch. It also has a rotary dial for precise control over brightness, contrast, and volume.

BenQ Creative Pro PD2732U: PerformanceFutureFutureFuture

• Good color coverage
• Nicely calibrated
• Limited SDR brightness

If you want a really succinct summary of the BenQ Creative Pro PD2732U's performance, what you're looking at is a 27-inch 4K IPS monitor with some added color coverage and capability.

Out of the box, it's very nicely calibrated, both in sRGB mode on PC or in M-Book mode with a Mac. In both cases, color rendering is accurate and pleasing. The one potential snag is brightness in SDR mode.

For most serious professional SDR content creation workflows, this is not going to be a problem. You'll likely be targeting a brightness level well below 200 nits, which this display will easily achieve. But it won't do the full 400 nits in any of its SDR modes.

If anything, what the capped SDR brightness does is underline that this monitor isn't an ideal choice for generic computing remits, where you might want a bit more day-to-day pop. You can pay less and get more in that regard from what you might call a standard 27-inch 4K monitor.

That said, you can see the full capability, in brightness terms, of the PD2732U in HDR mode. Indeed, if you then crank up the brightness of SDR content in either the MacOS or Windows display settings, the result is actually nicely calibrated SDR colors and plenty of visual punch. But that's ultimately something of an aside given that this monitor lacks local dimming and has very limited actual HDR capability.

It's also worth noting that the refresh rate is limited to 60Hz. Again, for the content creation remit, this is not a technical limitation. It's just that if you are used to 120Hz-plus displays, 60Hz doesn't feel terribly slick or responsive. It's a day-to-day feel issue rather than being relevant to the vast majority of content workflows.

Of course, as a 27-inch 4K monitor, you also get decent pixel density and thus good image detail and crisp text rendering. The pixel density of around 160DPI isn't up to full Apple Retina display standards, which would require something above 200DPI and a native resolution of 5K on this display size. But it's still pretty sharp.

BenQ Creative Pro PD2732U: Final verdictFutureFutureFuture

The BenQ Creative Pro PD2732U is either very sharply priced or not great value depending on what you're looking for. As a general computing display it's both pretty expensive and slightly flawed.

You can get far cheaper 27-inch 4K IPS monitors than this. Indeed, you can have one with 144Hz refresh for under half the price. What you won't get for less money, or arguably even the same price as the PD2732U's $699 / £649 asking, is anything like the same feature set for content creation.

The combination of excellent color coverage, various validation standards, and good factory calibration makes this an excellent choice for a sensible-money monitor for SDR content creation of pretty much any kind.

Sure, it's arguably still more of a prosumer display than, say, a true professional class grading monitor. But even in a really demanding professional context, it wouldn't be at all shabby, which is impressive for the price.

Then factor in some neat touches, like the wireless control puck, and excellent connectivity and you have a recipe for one of the most compelling content creation monitors currently available at an affordable price point. That's very much the remit BenQ was aiming for and fair to say the company has nailed it.

FutureFutureFuture

For more displays, we've tested the best business monitors and the best monitors for video editing.

• The Do Hiemon Box will cool you down for 20 minutes
• It blasts air on you at temperatures of 5°C or 41°F
• The units are being sold to construction sites and golf courses

If you're in Japan, you have an alternative to air conditioning units and portable fans when it comes to staying cool in sweltering temperatures: a human-sized refrigerator that you can sit inside when the heatwaves get too much.

This is the Do Hiemon Box from Trusco Nakayama (via The Japan Times), and it'll blast your body with air cooled down to a refreshing 5°C or 41°F — about the same temperature as a chiller in a standard refrigerator.

It requires no installation, can be moved on wheels, and according to Trusco Nakayama it beats other solutions by cooling the entire body down evenly. After 20 minutes, the unit automatically switches off to prevent overcooling, and you're back out into the heat.

As per The Japan Times, a couple of hundred of these units have been sold across construction sites, golf courses, leisure facilities, and university campuses since the chamber went on sale earlier this year.

It'll cost you

You need a standard electrical outlet for this to work, and you also need access to the 1.5 million yen it costs (that's about $9,480 / £7,040 / AU$13,460). These personal cooling machines don't exactly come cheap.

The idea is that you get quick, temporary protection against heat exhaustion and heatstroke — a growing problem in our warming world — rather than using this as an air conditioned office or a space to relax in.

According to a Trusco Nakayama executive speaking to The Japan Times, enquiries about the fridge have come from as far afield as Germany and the US. The company is hoping to find more business at summer festivals and shopping malls.

Before long you might find yourself queuing up for a slot in the human fridge as well as for the loos at your next festival trip — another depressing sign of the consequences of climate change that show no signs of being reversed.

• A game developer claims Gemini leaked information in his private Google Docs
• Per screenshots shared online, the AI told players info the dev claims was never made public
• TechRadar has tried recreating the results, without success

Is Google Gemini secretly scraping our Google Docs to train its AI? That’s something one game developer is wondering after a player was able to learn unreleased information about their game from the AI — including specific details the dev claims were never shared outside of a private Google Doc.

According to the developer’s Reddit post, specifically Google’s AI knew the name of a character ‘Vantage Tripod’ before it had ever been released publicly — the most the fanbase knew was that there’s a ‘Tripod Fish’ character planned for the game, but not this exact name. It also seemed to be able to regurgitate accurate information related to unreleased mechanics that the developer says they had only written into GDocs the day before the player’s AI interaction.

The developer admitted Google’s AI made a few mistakes, but said that some details were scarily accurate in many ways — accurate enough that the developer is certain Google must have scrapped his private documents.

Google says Gemini can access Google Docs information, but only does so when given express permission — such as being asked to summarise a document — and it adds that even when it does go into your files, Gemini handles data transiently. That is, Google’s AI won’t retain anything.

(Image credit: Google)

There are a couple of exceptions to this. If a Google Doc is accessible to ‘Anyone with the link’ and that link is posted publicly online (such as on a page or in a forum) Google could scrape it for training data. Alternatively, if you’ve allowed a third-party extension to scrape your Google Docs, it’s possible Gemini could get access to that data — indirectly seeing what’s in your docs.

If you were to type out info from your docs into Google Gemini, it would also learn about what you had written that way.

Despite Google’s promises, some aren’t entirely convinced. The thread I shared above (along with plenty of anti-AI and anti-Google subreddits) is full of people certain that Google has drained their digital files for all the data it can find. Privacy company Proton has also published an article outlining details such as Google’s privacy hub not explicitly saying it won’t use your content for AI training.

So many unknowns

I’ve reached out to Google with a request for comment about what has happened here (it has yet to get back to me), and while waiting for an answer I had an attempt at recreating the responses by prompting Gemini myself with no luck. It’s only reference to these details was the Reddit post information.

Later screenshots shared by the developer show the friend who got the AI to divulge the details originally also failed to recreate the “fluke.”

What does it know? (Image credit: Google)

The whole situation is very weird and it’s impossible to tell exactly what has happened, based on the information available. While it certainly looks like Gemini has used information it shouldn’t have, it's equally possible that the developer has provided the AI or the friend with access to that information without realising — allowing Gemini to respond the way it did.

The AI could also have hallucinated the information in some way, or perhaps taken inspiration from previous prompts to inform its comments. Further, it’s worth noting that the only responses that would stand out are these two that get very close to the truth, the sea of incorrect guesses that the AI could have given wouldn’t bat an eyelid.

Regardless of what happened it’s another situation that reminds us to be careful with our personal info. Digitally storing personal data has its risks beyond possible AI scraping, and sharing data with an AI often means your private info won’t be private anymore.