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• You can now hide the AI Coach in Google Health
• The change is coming in version 5.06 for Android and iOS
• Only premium subscribers get AI Coach access

Since Google Health replaced the Fitbit app back in May, the transition hasn't exactly been a smooth one, but Google is gradually dealing with the biggest user complaints — including, in the latest Google Health update, adding the option to hide AI Coach insights from the Today view.

As reported by 9to5Google, version 5.06 of Google Health for Android and iOS is rolling out with the extra option. You can find it in the app by tapping on your profile picture (top right), then choosing Google Health settings and Coach.

Or at least, that's how it should work: Numerous Redditors are reporting that the change isn't showing up for them, even though they've got the updated app. It's possible that Google also needs to flip a switch at its end, so it may take a while for everyone to get this.

The only other change mentioned by Google for this update are some bug fixes for the map views, so data such as heart rate and pace should now always be accurately displayed. If you were waiting for any other upgrades, you'll have to keep waiting.

Nice to have the optionGoogle Health app 5.06 update - Aug 2026 from r/fitbit

Google's AI advisor is available to everyone with a Google Health Coach subscription (previously known as Fitbit Premium). In its initial incarnation, it was front and center in the app and was keen to chat as much as possible.

It's something I've seen in my Google Health app, and it can be tiresome to have to scroll through reams of text about how well I slept and what time I should go on a run just to get to the key stats I'm interested in — so I'm glad of the change.

The new setting doesn't fully turn off the Google AI Coach (which was already possible), but it does hide it from the Today view which appears by default when you open the app. The AI is still available on the Fitness tab if you need to ask it any questions.

Based on past feedback we've seen, the change is going to be a welcome one for users — when they actually get it. When the option to hide the AI Coach was rumored a few weeks ago, commenters on Reddit expressed frustration at it "playing '20 questions' every morning" and the way it "inanely comments on things you've already done".

• You can now hide the AI Coach in Google Health
• The change is coming in version 5.06 for Android and iOS
• Only premium subscribers get AI Coach access

Since Google Health replaced the Fitbit app back in May, the transition hasn't exactly been a smooth one, but Google is gradually dealing with the biggest user complaints — including, in the latest Google Health update, adding the option to hide AI Coach insights from the Today view.

As reported by 9to5Google, version 5.06 of Google Health for Android and iOS is rolling out with the extra option. You can find it in the app by tapping on your profile picture (top right), then choosing Google Health settings and Coach.

Or at least, that's how it should work: Numerous Redditors are reporting that the change isn't showing up for them, even though they've got the updated app. It's possible that Google also needs to flip a switch at its end, so it may take a while for everyone to get this.

The only other change mentioned by Google for this update are some bug fixes for the map views, so data such as heart rate and pace should now always be accurately displayed. If you were waiting for any other upgrades, you'll have to keep waiting.

Nice to have the optionGoogle Health app 5.06 update - Aug 2026 from r/fitbit

Google's AI advisor is available to everyone with a Google Health Coach subscription (previously known as Fitbit Premium). In its initial incarnation, it was front and center in the app and was keen to chat as much as possible.

It's something I've seen in my Google Health app, and it can be tiresome to have to scroll through reams of text about how well I slept and what time I should go on a run just to get to the key stats I'm interested in — so I'm glad of the change.

The new setting doesn't fully turn off the Google AI Coach (which was already possible), but it does hide it from the Today view which appears by default when you open the app. The AI is still available on the Fitness tab if you need to ask it any questions.

Based on past feedback we've seen, the change is going to be a welcome one for users — when they actually get it. When the option to hide the AI Coach was rumored a few weeks ago, commenters on Reddit expressed frustration at it "playing '20 questions' every morning" and the way it "inanely comments on things you've already done".

We live in a culture that devours true crime documentaries with a hunger that never goes away — but if you ask me, we're doing it all wrong.

In fact, I'd go as far as to say that we consume true crime irresponsibly. In part thanks to how streaming services such as Netflix have chosen to produce them, we often see the unearthed trauma of strangers as entertainment rather than education.

Just look at how shows such as Trust Me: The False Prophet, Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke and Unknown Number: The High School Catfish were quickly commodified for internet and meme culture soon after their release. Revisiting more severe crimes doesn't seem to do much for those involved, either. Only Making A Murderer has so far been able to change an "unjust" active case.

In my eyes, we'd all benefit so much more if education became the primary focus of true crime — and, happily, BBC iPlayer has done exactly that. Now streaming for free on the service is season 3 of Murder 24/7, which should be the gold standard for any true crime docuseries that comes after.

Murder 24/7 proves that investigations are frustrating, time-consuming, and far from glamorous

But why is it so good? In a nutshell, we're following different regional UK detectives and police forces to work through a variety of murder cases in real-time.

In stark contrast to what we usually see, there are no sit-down VT interviews with the people involved, no narration, and very little in the way of additional comments. Everything we see is through bodycam footage, interview archives and camera crews on site as events unfold.

There's a beautiful British undertone to everything that happens — where else can you see murder suspects being handled as politely as if they were at a tea party? — but Murder 24/7 finally sheds light on a gruelling reality that's a world away from the high-gloss sheen of US production.

From door-to-door enquiries and crime scene sweeps to information processing and sentencing, we're taken every step of the way through an investigation. Instead of something that resembles a bingeable crime drama, the reality is far more painstaking, time-consuming and frustrating than we've been conditioned to believe.

Suspects don't cooperate, hours are poured into reviewing evidence, team briefings and typing up endless word documents, which often leads to a less-than satisfying punishment for whoever is convicted. This format allows you to ask more questions of not just the system, but yourself, with each case challenging our ability to think critically.

Murder 24/7 isn't just a refreshing format, but it's a timely one too. For the last 30 minutes of the season 3 finale, we're taken through a variety of cases that document the explosion of violence against women. In one such instance, Lee Sargent, who is convicted to 18 years and 10 months in prison for attempted murder, bludgeoned his partner in their bedroom with a meat cleaver.

As he's taken away by an ambulance after a 999 call, we hear neighbours shouting out of the window that they've had to put up with "years" of assaults against her. Sure enough, the internal police system pulls up a list of repeated offences that range in volatility, and he is far from the only case.

This is exactly the sort of things that true crime documentaries should be doing: capitalizing on a social issue that needs more awareness and holding a mirror up to the horrifying reality.

We really can find the perfect balance between binge-worthy content and something more substantial than re-telling traumatic events that should probably be left in the past... it's this easy.

Scream or Skip

Scream or Skip, that is the question. With so much horror out there to watch and play, our senior entertainment writer, Lucy Buglass, is here to help you decide what's worth your time (or worth a Scream) and what's not (and so worth a Skip). Her goal is to help you beat the endless scrolling and spend more time enjoying some great TV shows, movies, and games. Read the full series here.

August was lacking in new horror releases, but I still found three interesting titles to dive into — two of which will no doubt be familiar to you, as we have some returning franchises in the lineup.

The other is an indie game that popped up on my Steam Discovery Queue, and was indeed perfectly suited to what I enjoy best. This one was a free demo ahead of its release, but I played enough of it to come to a conclusion.

Without further delay, here's what horror media I tried out throughout August and what I thought of them. As always, I'm keen to hear your thoughts!

Movie: The X-Files: I Want to Believe — Vrach Frankenshteyn

Where to watch: Hulu (US); Disney+ (internationally)
Lucy's verdict: Scream

OK, yes, The X-Files is not strictly horror and is billed as a sci-fi series. But hear me out, the director's cut of The X-Files: I Want to Believe features all the body horror scenes that were removed to give it a PG-13 rating, meaning it's a worthwhile watch for horror fans this month.

Now, considering The X-Files: I Want to Believe performed poorly when it was released, don't expect Vrach Frankenshteyn to miraculously make you love it. If you weren't a fan of the original 2008 cut, you probably won't like this either. I, however, really enjoyed the movie and got a lot out of this version of it too.

Vrach Frankenshteyn tells the story how Chris Carter wanted, blood and gore included. It certainly packs a punch, adding a lot to the movie if you already happen to like the story. This one will likely be the most divisive of my three picks this month.

TV show: The Walking Dead: Dead City

Where to watch: AMC+ (US); Sky / NOW TV (UK); Stan (AU)
Lucy's verdict: Skip

I think I'm suffering from The Walking Dead fatigue, because I just can't get on with this show. I was hopeful it might get me back on board with the franchise because Negan is one of my favorite characters, but I was left feeling underwhelmed.

At the time of writing we're three episodes into season 3, with the season set to conclude on September 13. Seth Hoffman is the new showrunner after Eli Jorné, and we've started relying on recycled plotlines and the same tired dynamic between Negan and Maggie. It's started feeling a bit stale, and for me, this is one of the weaker Walking Dead spin-offs.

I recommend trying out The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live instead, as it has better pacing and stories.

Game: Something Strange Tonight — The Lurker

Where to play: PC
Lucy's verdict: Scream

Thank you to my Steam Discovery Queue for suggesting the demo of Something Strange Tonight — The Lurker, because I am now very excited to play the full game when it releases. We don't have a confirmed date for that yet, but I've got it wishlisted for when it does.

I love creepy, low-poly games (as evidenced by my Mouthwashing review), so the trailer for Something Strange Tonight — The Lurker immediately freaked me out. The game follows that stereotypical slasher movie trope of a babysitter who is terrorized at night, but it's full of creepy twists.

Your goal is to survive the night and keep both yourself and the kid you're looking after alive. You'll be approached by numerous visitors, but can any of them be trusted? It's up to you to figure that one out.

What was the first ever smartphone? Ask most people and they'll understandably say the original Apple iPhone, which launched in 2007. But if the definition is a practical device that can send emails and browse the web as well as make calls and send text messages, then there's a strong case for the Nokia 9000 Communicator — which launched 30 years ago today on August 15, 1996.

The first Communicator looked like a chunky 1990s mobile phone, but open it up, and there was a keyboard and grayscale LCD screen inside. You could get some actual work done on the go with this phone, as the ads of the time (see below) were keen to stress, and it could even send faxes.

"If you want to get on the web while sitting in a pub or on a mountain, wait until 15 August and you will be able to do so in style," said a review from the The Independent in July 1996. No other phone promised to combine email, fax, a personal organizer and wireless web access in one (just about) pocketable device.

In honor of this fine gadget — now very much a museum piece — we're taking a look back at what made the Nokia 9000 Communicator so special, the legacy it left behind it, and how Nokia failed to capitalize on its innovations. This phone never did change the world like the iPhone did, even though it launched eleven years earlier.

How did the world react?

30 years ago, everything about the Nokia 9000 Communicator felt cutting edge. You got that 4.5-inch grayscale LCD, running at a resolution of 640 x 200 pixels, and there was an Intel 386 processor inside. 8MB of memory was included, with 2MB as user storage, 2MB for running programs, and 4MB for holding the operating system and its apps.

What they said...in 1996

(Image credit: Personal Computer World)

"The most spectacular piece of software is the World Wide Web browser. The Web is a great way to look up information — a kind of electronic Yellow Pages for the whole world, and with the Nokia 9000 you can carry this in your pocket."
Simon Rockman, Personal Computer World (June 1996)

A fascinating 'first impressions' review of the Nokia 9000 Communicator in Personal Computer World's June 1996 issue reveals how big a deal this mix of a personal organizer and mobile phone was at the time. "Put them both together with some cunning software and you've got a PDA with email, fax and, most impressive of all, internet web browsing facilities. Quite easily the most exciting 397g we've seen for ages," the magazine noted with wonder.

The first Communicator also serves as a reminder of the limitations of phone technology time: there was only room in the call history for 10 dialed calls, 10 received calls, and 10 missed calls, for example. But whatever limits there were, the Communicator was pushing against them.

Not everyone was impressed with its performance, though. An early review from The Independent in July 1996 said: "The Communicator behaved rather poorly when accessing live pages. Given the flaky nature of the web, this could be down to Vodafone, Pipex, Nokia or just plain normal web headaches."

The apps centered around the telephone, fax, SMS, email, and internet features. The browser could render graphics as well as text — not that there were many images on the web back in 1996 — and it was also possible to use the device to dial into bulletin boards and corporate mainframes.

This was very much for business users on the go. There was a rudimentary word processor program included for doing work via the QWERTY keyboard, while other apps included a calendar for meetings and appointments, a calculator, and a world clock so you could see what time zones your colleagues and clients were operating in.

As an added bonus there was also a ringtone composer (remember them?), plus options for connecting to a computer for exchanging files. Packing all of this into a unit that could still fit in your pocket was a significant achievement by Nokia and its engineers — it featured over 1,000 components, compared to the 100-150 that was typical for the time.

The phone also showed up in the 1997 movie The Saint, as it was carried around by Val Kilmer in the title role. Four Communicator models were released in total, ending with the Nokia 9210i Communicator which launched in 2002 with a color screen and a whopping 40MB of internal memory.

The legacy of the Nokia 9000 Communicator

(Image credit: Getty Images / Marc Gantier)

While the Nokia 9000 Communicator didn't end up making the same sort of impact on the industry as the iPhone did, it arguably attracted more hype around the time of its launch: those in the phone business at the time describe struggling to believe that such a versatile and powerful device was possible in such a form factor.

"We had exactly the right view of what it was all about," Jorma Ollila, Nokia's CEO at the time of the launch of the Nokia 9000 Communicator, told The Wall Street Journal. "We were about five years ahead."

Frank Nuovo, a former chief designer at Nokia, also spoke to the WSJ about the Communicator and the company's other devices. "I was heartbroken when Apple got the jump on this concept," he said. "When people say the iPhone as a concept, as a piece of hardware, is unique, that upsets me."

(Image credit: textlad)

The way that phone history eventually panned out is particularly galling for Nokia, because it too had color touchscreen handsets in development — including one that was a similar size to an iPad — but never felt ready enough to launch the technology. It had the lead, and then blew it.

Despite all the initial excitement, the Nokia 9000 Communicator ultimately didn't sell well enough outside its target market of business users. It was a relatively bulky device, and a relatively expensive one: it sold for around £1,000 (about £1,355 / AU$1,910) in the UK, so represented a serious investment.

It was selling to ordinary consumers where the real success was to be found, and that's what Apple got so right with the iPhone in 2007. It combined everything that phones and PDAs could already do, wrapped it all up in an attractive design and an accessible user interface, and priced it at a level that wasn't completely out of reach for most people.

Yet the Nokia 9000 Communicator remains a crucial stepping stone towards our modern world where everyone has a smartphone.

What was the first ever smartphone? Ask most people and they'll understandably say the original Apple iPhone, which launched in 2007. But if the definition is a practical device that can send emails and browse the web as well as make calls and send text messages, then there's a strong case for the Nokia 9000 Communicator — which launched 30 years ago today on August 15, 1996.

The first Communicator looked like a chunky 1990s mobile phone, but open it up, and there was a keyboard and grayscale LCD screen inside. You could get some actual work done on the go with this phone, as the ads of the time (see below) were keen to stress, and it could even send faxes.

"If you want to get on the web while sitting in a pub or on a mountain, wait until 15 August and you will be able to do so in style," said a review from the The Independent in July 1996. No other phone promised to combine email, fax, a personal organizer and wireless web access in one (just about) pocketable device.

In honor of this fine gadget — now very much a museum piece — we're taking a look back at what made the Nokia 9000 Communicator so special, the legacy it left behind it, and how Nokia failed to capitalize on its innovations. This phone never did change the world like the iPhone did, even though it launched eleven years earlier.

How did the world react?

30 years ago, everything about the Nokia 9000 Communicator felt cutting edge. You got that 4.5-inch grayscale LCD, running at a resolution of 640 x 200 pixels, and there was an Intel 386 processor inside. 8MB of memory was included, with 2MB as user storage, 2MB for running programs, and 4MB for holding the operating system and its apps.

What they said...in 1996

(Image credit: Personal Computer World)

"The most spectacular piece of software is the World Wide Web browser. The Web is a great way to look up information — a kind of electronic Yellow Pages for the whole world, and with the Nokia 9000 you can carry this in your pocket."
Simon Rockman, Personal Computer World (June 1996)

A fascinating 'first impressions' review of the Nokia 9000 Communicator in Personal Computer World's June 1996 issue reveals how big a deal this mix of a personal organizer and mobile phone was at the time. "Put them both together with some cunning software and you've got a PDA with email, fax and, most impressive of all, internet web browsing facilities. Quite easily the most exciting 397g we've seen for ages," the magazine noted with wonder.

The first Communicator also serves as a reminder of the limitations of phone technology time: there was only room in the call history for 10 dialed calls, 10 received calls, and 10 missed calls, for example. But whatever limits there were, the Communicator was pushing against them.

Not everyone was impressed with its performance, though. An early review from The Independent in July 1996 said: "The Communicator behaved rather poorly when accessing live pages. Given the flaky nature of the web, this could be down to Vodafone, Pipex, Nokia or just plain normal web headaches."

The apps centered around the telephone, fax, SMS, email, and internet features. The browser could render graphics as well as text — not that there were many images on the web back in 1996 — and it was also possible to use the device to dial into bulletin boards and corporate mainframes.

This was very much for business users on the go. There was a rudimentary word processor program included for doing work via the QWERTY keyboard, while other apps included a calendar for meetings and appointments, a calculator, and a world clock so you could see what time zones your colleagues and clients were operating in.

As an added bonus there was also a ringtone composer (remember them?), plus options for connecting to a computer for exchanging files. Packing all of this into a unit that could still fit in your pocket was a significant achievement by Nokia and its engineers — it featured over 1,000 components, compared to the 100-150 that was typical for the time.

The phone also showed up in the 1997 movie The Saint, as it was carried around by Val Kilmer in the title role. Four Communicator models were released in total, ending with the Nokia 9210i Communicator which launched in 2002 with a color screen and a whopping 40MB of internal memory.

The legacy of the Nokia 9000 Communicator

(Image credit: Getty Images / Marc Gantier)

While the Nokia 9000 Communicator didn't end up making the same sort of impact on the industry as the iPhone did, it arguably attracted more hype around the time of its launch: those in the phone business at the time describe struggling to believe that such a versatile and powerful device was possible in such a form factor.

"We had exactly the right view of what it was all about," Jorma Ollila, Nokia's CEO at the time of the launch of the Nokia 9000 Communicator, told The Wall Street Journal. "We were about five years ahead."

Frank Nuovo, a former chief designer at Nokia, also spoke to the WSJ about the Communicator and the company's other devices. "I was heartbroken when Apple got the jump on this concept," he said. "When people say the iPhone as a concept, as a piece of hardware, is unique, that upsets me."

(Image credit: textlad)

The way that phone history eventually panned out is particularly galling for Nokia, because it too had color touchscreen handsets in development — including one that was a similar size to an iPad — but never felt ready enough to launch the technology. It had the lead, and then blew it.

Despite all the initial excitement, the Nokia 9000 Communicator ultimately didn't sell well enough outside its target market of business users. It was a relatively bulky device, and a relatively expensive one: it sold for around £1,000 (about £1,355 / AU$1,910) in the UK, so represented a serious investment.

It was selling to ordinary consumers where the real success was to be found, and that's what Apple got so right with the iPhone in 2007. It combined everything that phones and PDAs could already do, wrapped it all up in an attractive design and an accessible user interface, and priced it at a level that wasn't completely out of reach for most people.

Yet the Nokia 9000 Communicator remains a crucial stepping stone towards our modern world where everyone has a smartphone.

Homero Calderón's detention by ICE spotlights the massive backlog in the U.S. immigration system.   

(Image credit: Ramón Calderón)

Amy Kiefer, a certified personal trainer, and Holly Keskey-Koester, a fitness instructor, demonstrate a few movements.'/>

Hemorrhoids, leg cramps, sciatica — oh my! Alongside the joy of pregnancy often comes a parade of physical discomfort. Alleviate and prevent common aches with these exercises.

(Image credit: Footage: Expecting and Empowered. Video: CJ Riculan/NPR)

Networking never fails to surprise me when it comes to dependencies and its live nature – it’s a world that’s continually changing, and yes upgrades designed to improve performance or security are often the ones that cause outages.

Even carefully planned updates can have consequences that might initially be difficult to see during early pilots and test, due to a highly dependent mix of switches, firewalls, clouds and more – not to mention the challenges that come with interoperability in a world of mixed vendors.

Until now, it’s mostly been a firefighting exercise of responding to incidents and outages as they happen, admitting that they’re just an inevitable outcome of virtually any change.

Autonomous networking needs a safety-first design

Forward (formerly Forward Networking) wants to challenge this in its entirety, though, and the work it and companies like it are doing could fundamentally revolutionize network stability and uptime, significantly reducing costs.

Its solution is a mathematically accurate digital twin of the production environment, giving companies space to make changes and observe unintended impacts without actually affecting the real deal.

The principle isn’t anything new at all, and it’s been used in software development and other areas for decades, but where it could really shine is in an upcoming age of automated networking. Forward argues that providing a place for systems to autonomously test changes pre-deployment is a necessary stage to true automation.

I wanted to know whether technology like this could have prevented some major high-profile incidents lately, including those we’ve seen relating to Amazon, Cloudflare and more, and spoke to Forward’s co-founder and Chief AI Officer, Nikhil Handigol, on some of the technology’s biggest challenges, including how the digital twin could stay current and why pre-deployment proof could become essential in the world of autonomy.

• Forward proposes to prevent 100% of network outages caused by configuration errors. Are there any strings attached? And what does a “mathematically accurate digital twin of the entire production network” actually mean?

There are no strings, but let’s be precise on what that rests on. Forward Predict eliminates network risks through routing validation, end-to-end path analysis, firewall and ACL verification, segmentation and compliance verification, and automated regression testing.

The closest parallel is what software development did with continuous integration. No code goes to production without being tested first. Forward Predict brings that same discipline to networking.

Every proposed change is tested against the full production-equivalent model before it touches a live environment – routing validation, end-to-end path analysis, firewall and ACL verification, segmentation and compliance verification, and automated regression testing.

That model isn’t a sample or a simplification. It's built from the configuration and operational state of every device in the network — every vendor, every OS, every layer from L2 to L7, on-premises and in the cloud — using header space analysis to trace every possible path any packet can take.

The platform regularly collects state from the live network, and you can trigger a fresh snapshot on demand immediately before a push, so the "digital twin" you're testing against is always current. That continuous synchronization is what makes the math trustworthy: a proof is only as good as its inputs, and this is how we keep the inputs honest.

Run a change through that model and you get a deterministic outcome with evidence, not a guess. If it breaks something, if it opens a security hole, if it creates an unintended path, you see exactly why.

And because the answer comes from mathematical path analysis rather than a probabilistic risk score, it doesn't degrade as the network grows more complex.

Pair that with Forward AI and the platform does not just flag the problem, it iterates on its own until it lands on a change that is verified to deliver the intended behavior. Change windows that once took weeks now take minutes. There is no anxiety pushing a change live, because you already know how it ends. Weekends are for time off, not change windows and war-rooms.

• One point I wanted to raise is that you're essentially pegging it against a snapshot. Sysadmins will tell you that networks change. Firmware get updated, access points get refreshed, switches swapped and servers decommissioned. How do you make sure that Forward remains relevant throughout the lifecycle of the production network?

Forward Enterprise regularly collects configuration and state from every device in the estate, and you can trigger an on-demand snapshot immediately before pushing a change for absolute certainty.

When firmware gets patched, when an access point gets refreshed, when a switch is swapped, when a server is decommissioned, any change to the network is updated in the digital twin, it is a mathematically accurate model of the entire production network.

This is exactly why the underlying model holds up under scrutiny. Our engineering team validates the software against real behavior on live test hardware from every supported vendor, so the model's fidelity is proven before it ever reaches a customer network.

Then in production, that same discipline continues against the customer's own, constantly changing estate. Sysadmins are right that networks never sit still. Neither does the network digital twin. That is the only way proof stays proof instead of becoming a guess based on past behavior.

• Are there other companies that compete with Forward? How does your proposition differ from theirs?

The competitive threat isn't another vendor. It's a set of processes built over decades, in an era before a network could be modeled at all, that include change windows, war rooms, and the belief that the only place to truly test a network change is the production network itself.

Every other industry running mission critical infrastructure solved this problem years ago. Airlines train pilots on flight simulators instead of real aircraft. Pharmaceutical companies model outcomes before anything reaches a patient.

Manufacturing validates changes on a digital twin before touching the factory floor. Software development has run on continuous integration for two decades, where no code ships without being tested first.

Networking is the industry that never got its equivalent, not because nobody wanted one, but because building a mathematically accurate network digital twin is genuinely hard.

Against observability and monitoring vendors, the difference is which question gets answered. Those tools are essential for understanding what already happened on the network. Forward Predict answers a different question entirely, what will happen if this change is made, and it answers it with a deterministic proof rather than an educated guess.

Against other platforms using the words “digital twin,” the difference is a decade of foundational work building a model with header space analysis across all major vendors, every device, and every layer, rather than a partial view stitched together after the fact. That foundation cannot be a shortcut, and it is the part everyone else in the category is still missing.

• How do you see Forward evolving in terms of features and roadmap? Could this pre-emptive, predictive approach find a receptive audience in other sectors?

The roadmap moves in one direction, widening the aperture of what gets proven before it goes live. Today Forward Predict proves the outcome of changes to connectivity and security. Next is broader impact analysis.

We are not predicting what may happen, we are proving what a network will do, because a network's behavior can actually be modeled with mathematical certainty in a way human intent cannot.

That distinction is exactly why this belongs anywhere teams run complex, interconnected infrastructure with the same stakes, critical infrastructure operators running their own networks underneath everything else.

Wherever teams are changing complex systems without a way to prove the outcome first, the same problem exists, and the same fix applies.

Where this is headed fastest, though, is autonomous networking. As agents start proposing and executing changes at machine speed, a mistake stops being a single event and starts propagating at scale.

Proof is not an added feature there. It becomes the precondition for letting an agent operate at all.

Networking never fails to surprise me when it comes to dependencies and its live nature – it’s a world that’s continually changing, and yes upgrades designed to improve performance or security are often the ones that cause outages.

Even carefully planned updates can have consequences that might initially be difficult to see during early pilots and test, due to a highly dependent mix of switches, firewalls, clouds and more – not to mention the challenges that come with interoperability in a world of mixed vendors.

Until now, it’s mostly been a firefighting exercise of responding to incidents and outages as they happen, admitting that they’re just an inevitable outcome of virtually any change.

Autonomous networking needs a safety-first design

Forward (formerly Forward Networking) wants to challenge this in its entirety, though, and the work it and companies like it are doing could fundamentally revolutionize network stability and uptime, significantly reducing costs.

Its solution is a mathematically accurate digital twin of the production environment, giving companies space to make changes and observe unintended impacts without actually affecting the real deal.

The principle isn’t anything new at all, and it’s been used in software development and other areas for decades, but where it could really shine is in an upcoming age of automated networking. Forward argues that providing a place for systems to autonomously test changes pre-deployment is a necessary stage to true automation.

I wanted to know whether technology like this could have prevented some major high-profile incidents lately, including those we’ve seen relating to Amazon, Cloudflare and more, and spoke to Forward’s co-founder and Chief AI Officer, Nikhil Handigol, on some of the technology’s biggest challenges, including how the digital twin could stay current and why pre-deployment proof could become essential in the world of autonomy.

• Forward proposes to prevent 100% of network outages caused by configuration errors. Are there any strings attached? And what does a “mathematically accurate digital twin of the entire production network” actually mean?

There are no strings, but let’s be precise on what that rests on. Forward Predict eliminates network risks through routing validation, end-to-end path analysis, firewall and ACL verification, segmentation and compliance verification, and automated regression testing.

The closest parallel is what software development did with continuous integration. No code goes to production without being tested first. Forward Predict brings that same discipline to networking.

Every proposed change is tested against the full production-equivalent model before it touches a live environment – routing validation, end-to-end path analysis, firewall and ACL verification, segmentation and compliance verification, and automated regression testing.

That model isn’t a sample or a simplification. It's built from the configuration and operational state of every device in the network — every vendor, every OS, every layer from L2 to L7, on-premises and in the cloud — using header space analysis to trace every possible path any packet can take.

The platform regularly collects state from the live network, and you can trigger a fresh snapshot on demand immediately before a push, so the "digital twin" you're testing against is always current. That continuous synchronization is what makes the math trustworthy: a proof is only as good as its inputs, and this is how we keep the inputs honest.

Run a change through that model and you get a deterministic outcome with evidence, not a guess. If it breaks something, if it opens a security hole, if it creates an unintended path, you see exactly why.

And because the answer comes from mathematical path analysis rather than a probabilistic risk score, it doesn't degrade as the network grows more complex.

Pair that with Forward AI and the platform does not just flag the problem, it iterates on its own until it lands on a change that is verified to deliver the intended behavior. Change windows that once took weeks now take minutes. There is no anxiety pushing a change live, because you already know how it ends. Weekends are for time off, not change windows and war-rooms.

• One point I wanted to raise is that you're essentially pegging it against a snapshot. Sysadmins will tell you that networks change. Firmware get updated, access points get refreshed, switches swapped and servers decommissioned. How do you make sure that Forward remains relevant throughout the lifecycle of the production network?

Forward Enterprise regularly collects configuration and state from every device in the estate, and you can trigger an on-demand snapshot immediately before pushing a change for absolute certainty.

When firmware gets patched, when an access point gets refreshed, when a switch is swapped, when a server is decommissioned, any change to the network is updated in the digital twin, it is a mathematically accurate model of the entire production network.

This is exactly why the underlying model holds up under scrutiny. Our engineering team validates the software against real behavior on live test hardware from every supported vendor, so the model's fidelity is proven before it ever reaches a customer network.

Then in production, that same discipline continues against the customer's own, constantly changing estate. Sysadmins are right that networks never sit still. Neither does the network digital twin. That is the only way proof stays proof instead of becoming a guess based on past behavior.

• Are there other companies that compete with Forward? How does your proposition differ from theirs?

The competitive threat isn't another vendor. It's a set of processes built over decades, in an era before a network could be modeled at all, that include change windows, war rooms, and the belief that the only place to truly test a network change is the production network itself.

Every other industry running mission critical infrastructure solved this problem years ago. Airlines train pilots on flight simulators instead of real aircraft. Pharmaceutical companies model outcomes before anything reaches a patient.

Manufacturing validates changes on a digital twin before touching the factory floor. Software development has run on continuous integration for two decades, where no code ships without being tested first.

Networking is the industry that never got its equivalent, not because nobody wanted one, but because building a mathematically accurate network digital twin is genuinely hard.

Against observability and monitoring vendors, the difference is which question gets answered. Those tools are essential for understanding what already happened on the network. Forward Predict answers a different question entirely, what will happen if this change is made, and it answers it with a deterministic proof rather than an educated guess.

Against other platforms using the words “digital twin,” the difference is a decade of foundational work building a model with header space analysis across all major vendors, every device, and every layer, rather than a partial view stitched together after the fact. That foundation cannot be a shortcut, and it is the part everyone else in the category is still missing.

• How do you see Forward evolving in terms of features and roadmap? Could this pre-emptive, predictive approach find a receptive audience in other sectors?

The roadmap moves in one direction, widening the aperture of what gets proven before it goes live. Today Forward Predict proves the outcome of changes to connectivity and security. Next is broader impact analysis.

We are not predicting what may happen, we are proving what a network will do, because a network's behavior can actually be modeled with mathematical certainty in a way human intent cannot.

That distinction is exactly why this belongs anywhere teams run complex, interconnected infrastructure with the same stakes, critical infrastructure operators running their own networks underneath everything else.

Wherever teams are changing complex systems without a way to prove the outcome first, the same problem exists, and the same fix applies.

Where this is headed fastest, though, is autonomous networking. As agents start proposing and executing changes at machine speed, a mistake stops being a single event and starts propagating at scale.

Proof is not an added feature there. It becomes the precondition for letting an agent operate at all.

Fosi Audio Merak: Review

First things first: the Fosi Audio Merak is not as portable a CD player as you might think by looking at it. Obviously it’s small (28 x 150 x 150mm, HxWxD) and light (less than half a kilogram), but though easily picked up and moved around, it requires mains power to function. So there’s no taking it out and about — unless you also take a powerbank with you, of course. No, the Merak is designed for slotting into an external system or for private domestic listening via headphones.

It manages both of these things thanks to a selection of analog and digital outputs. On the device's front, along with some physical controls and a rather small OLED display, there’s a 3.5mm headphone socket powered by Texas Instruments TPA6120 amplification. But it’s on the rear of the machine where the bulk of the action is.

As well as a 3.5mm line-level analog output, there’s a digital optical socket — so you can connect the Fosi Audio to a system either by letting the player do all the digital-to-analog conversion work, or by bypassing its Cirrus Logic CS4313 DAC chipset altogether. There’s also a USB-C slot for powering the player, a 12v trigger output for use in an appropriate system output, a slider to turn the electronic anti-shock protection on and off, and a USB-A slot.

The USB-A connection functions in both directions. You can plug in an appropriate flash drive and play digital audio files of many types, including FLAC, MP3 and WAV. Or you can load in a CD, plug in a flash drive, let the player know what you’re up to and then rip the CD as lossless 16bit/44.1kHz WAV files.

(Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas)

‘Letting the player know what you’re up to’ can be done in different ways. Six buttons on the front handle ‘power on/off’, ‘play/pause’ and ‘skip (or scroll) forwards or backwards’. They also allow you to scroll through your options for playback (‘repeat’, ‘shuffle’ or ‘sequential’), output mode (digital, analog or headphones) and begin or end CD ripping.

Eventually you’ll commit the number and length of button presses required to access these functions — or you could just use the little remote control handset that’s supplied. It’s slightly less convoluted than the button controls, and has some numerical buttons for direct track access, too.

The volume control, though, is no kind of chore to operate. It’s a big slider along the side of the player, finished in Fosi Audio’s customary orange, and it’s one of the more gratifying physical controls I’ve encountered lately.

Loading a disc is a fully manual process. The lid, which has a nice clear porthole the exact size of a CD, lifts and then it’s just a question of pushing the disc onto the central spindle securely. The lid's hinges feel robust, and the overall standard of build and finish is more than adequate in the context of the asking price.

With a disc of Fusa Riot by Bobby Hughes Experience loaded and playing, the Merak doesn’t take long to establish its credentials as an energetic, positive and quite revealing listen. At the top of the frequency range, in fact, it’s about as positive as it dares to be — there’s a lot of bite and shine to treble sounds, but somehow the Fosi Audio manages to stop just short of hardness or edginess. The midrange communicates well, with the notable levels of detail retrieval making voices sound articulate and characterful. At the bottom of the frequency range there’s a reasonable amount of body and substance, but where the Merak is very assertive at the top end, it plays things fractionally safe where bass is concerned. Low frequencies could easily have a little more impact and drive, but rhythms are nevertheless expressed well thanks to good control of bass attack.

It creates a nicely defined soundstage, and is open enough to allow emphasis for spaces as well as occurrences on the stage. Focus is good, too, no matter if you’re listening through headphones or with the Fosi Audio plugged into a wider system, and there’s sufficient dynamic headroom for a fairly full account of the distance between the most and the least intense passages in a recording.

Take the digital-to-analog duties away from the Fosi Audio by plugging it into an external DAC using its digital optical output and it’s possible to calm the excitable treble response just a little, but the switch also emphasizes just how adept the Merak’s Cirrus Logic circuitry is when it comes to identifying, revealing and contextualizing even the finer details contained on a CD.

And it’s also pretty impressive when it comes to ripping CDs — getting a 16bit/44.1kHz WAV file of your music onto an external USB drive is straightforward. I endured one or two false starts in the course of my testing, but ultimately the copies are faithful and of enjoyable high quality.

(Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas)Fosi Audio Merak review: Price and release date

• Released on April 10, 2026
• $139 / £129 (approx.) / about AU$199

The Fosi Audio Merak CD player is on sale now, and in the the United States it sells for $129. It goes for around £139 in the United Kingdom, while in Australia it will set you back around AU$199.

Fosi Audio Merak review: Value

If you’re after a truly portable listening experience then the Fosi Audio Merak offers no kind of value whatsoever.

If, however, you want an affordable method of bringing CD-playing smarts to your existing audio system, or fancy being able to listen to your CD collection via headphones without having to plug into a full-size system, the Merak has plenty going for it before you even consider the quality of sound it’s capable of producing.

(Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas)Should you buy the Fosi Audio Merak?Buy it if...

You have an existing system (or headphones)
The Fosi has plenty of digital and analog outputs and offers an easy plug-in-and-play option to insert into your current system. And it's just as simple to listen to your CD collection at home via your headphones, without bothering with your existing stack.

You want to go lossless
A USB-A connection that works both ways means you can plug in a flash drive to play digital audio files of various types – FLAC, MP3 and WAV included – or even load a CD and rip as lossless 16bit/44.1kHz WAV files.

You enjoy an energetic listen
There's real bite and shine to the top end of the frequency range, with detailed midrange, to deliver a positive and revealing sound.

Don't buy it if...

You prize portability
Unless you bring a powerbank with you, listening to the Fosi Audio Merak on the go isn't possible. This is especially strange when you consider its small size.

You like big bass
The Fosi lacks impact and is a little lightweight in the low end, generally playing things just slightly too safe.

You don't like using remote controls
First things first, the remote control here is not the issue – it's easy to use and performs every function perfectly. Compare it with the clunky user interface on the front panel, though, and the differences are stark. The latter is convoluted where the remote is relatively intuitive.

Fosi Audio Merak review: How I tested

(Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas)

I've been testing audio home entertainment for nearly two decades. Anything that makes a noise, I want to listen to it.

I sat down with the Fosi Audio Merak at home – it needs mains power or a powerbank, remember – and connected it up to my existing system and my market-leading Sennheiser IE 900 wired headphones. It had the best of the best.

Over more than two weeks' testing, I listened to music of various different genres via CDs (obviously) and lossless digital audio files through an external flash drive.

Read more about how we test

• First reviewed: August 2026

Fosi Audio Merak: Review

First things first: the Fosi Audio Merak is not as portable a CD player as you might think by looking at it. Obviously it’s small (28 x 150 x 150mm, HxWxD) and light (less than half a kilogram), but though easily picked up and moved around, it requires mains power to function. So there’s no taking it out and about — unless you also take a powerbank with you, of course. No, the Merak is designed for slotting into an external system or for private domestic listening via headphones.

It manages both of these things thanks to a selection of analog and digital outputs. On the device's front, along with some physical controls and a rather small OLED display, there’s a 3.5mm headphone socket powered by Texas Instruments TPA6120 amplification. But it’s on the rear of the machine where the bulk of the action is.

As well as a 3.5mm line-level analog output, there’s a digital optical socket — so you can connect the Fosi Audio to a system either by letting the player do all the digital-to-analog conversion work, or by bypassing its Cirrus Logic CS4313 DAC chipset altogether. There’s also a USB-C slot for powering the player, a 12v trigger output for use in an appropriate system output, a slider to turn the electronic anti-shock protection on and off, and a USB-A slot.

The USB-A connection functions in both directions. You can plug in an appropriate flash drive and play digital audio files of many types, including FLAC, MP3 and WAV. Or you can load in a CD, plug in a flash drive, let the player know what you’re up to and then rip the CD as lossless 16bit/44.1kHz WAV files.

(Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas)

‘Letting the player know what you’re up to’ can be done in different ways. Six buttons on the front handle ‘power on/off’, ‘play/pause’ and ‘skip (or scroll) forwards or backwards’. They also allow you to scroll through your options for playback (‘repeat’, ‘shuffle’ or ‘sequential’), output mode (digital, analog or headphones) and begin or end CD ripping.

Eventually you’ll commit the number and length of button presses required to access these functions — or you could just use the little remote control handset that’s supplied. It’s slightly less convoluted than the button controls, and has some numerical buttons for direct track access, too.

The volume control, though, is no kind of chore to operate. It’s a big slider along the side of the player, finished in Fosi Audio’s customary orange, and it’s one of the more gratifying physical controls I’ve encountered lately.

Loading a disc is a fully manual process. The lid, which has a nice clear porthole the exact size of a CD, lifts and then it’s just a question of pushing the disc onto the central spindle securely. The lid's hinges feel robust, and the overall standard of build and finish is more than adequate in the context of the asking price.

With a disc of Fusa Riot by Bobby Hughes Experience loaded and playing, the Merak doesn’t take long to establish its credentials as an energetic, positive and quite revealing listen. At the top of the frequency range, in fact, it’s about as positive as it dares to be — there’s a lot of bite and shine to treble sounds, but somehow the Fosi Audio manages to stop just short of hardness or edginess. The midrange communicates well, with the notable levels of detail retrieval making voices sound articulate and characterful. At the bottom of the frequency range there’s a reasonable amount of body and substance, but where the Merak is very assertive at the top end, it plays things fractionally safe where bass is concerned. Low frequencies could easily have a little more impact and drive, but rhythms are nevertheless expressed well thanks to good control of bass attack.

It creates a nicely defined soundstage, and is open enough to allow emphasis for spaces as well as occurrences on the stage. Focus is good, too, no matter if you’re listening through headphones or with the Fosi Audio plugged into a wider system, and there’s sufficient dynamic headroom for a fairly full account of the distance between the most and the least intense passages in a recording.

Take the digital-to-analog duties away from the Fosi Audio by plugging it into an external DAC using its digital optical output and it’s possible to calm the excitable treble response just a little, but the switch also emphasizes just how adept the Merak’s Cirrus Logic circuitry is when it comes to identifying, revealing and contextualizing even the finer details contained on a CD.

And it’s also pretty impressive when it comes to ripping CDs — getting a 16bit/44.1kHz WAV file of your music onto an external USB drive is straightforward. I endured one or two false starts in the course of my testing, but ultimately the copies are faithful and of enjoyable high quality.

(Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas)Fosi Audio Merak review: Price and release date

• Released on April 10, 2026
• $139 / £129 (approx.) / about AU$199

The Fosi Audio Merak CD player is on sale now, and in the the United States it sells for $129. It goes for around £139 in the United Kingdom, while in Australia it will set you back around AU$199.

Fosi Audio Merak review: Value

If you’re after a truly portable listening experience then the Fosi Audio Merak offers no kind of value whatsoever.

If, however, you want an affordable method of bringing CD-playing smarts to your existing audio system, or fancy being able to listen to your CD collection via headphones without having to plug into a full-size system, the Merak has plenty going for it before you even consider the quality of sound it’s capable of producing.

(Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas)Should you buy the Fosi Audio Merak?Buy it if...

You have an existing system (or headphones)
The Fosi has plenty of digital and analog outputs and offers an easy plug-in-and-play option to insert into your current system. And it's just as simple to listen to your CD collection at home via your headphones, without bothering with your existing stack.

You want to go lossless
A USB-A connection that works both ways means you can plug in a flash drive to play digital audio files of various types – FLAC, MP3 and WAV included – or even load a CD and rip as lossless 16bit/44.1kHz WAV files.

You enjoy an energetic listen
There's real bite and shine to the top end of the frequency range, with detailed midrange, to deliver a positive and revealing sound.

Don't buy it if...

You prize portability
Unless you bring a powerbank with you, listening to the Fosi Audio Merak on the go isn't possible. This is especially strange when you consider its small size.

You like big bass
The Fosi lacks impact and is a little lightweight in the low end, generally playing things just slightly too safe.

You don't like using remote controls
First things first, the remote control here is not the issue – it's easy to use and performs every function perfectly. Compare it with the clunky user interface on the front panel, though, and the differences are stark. The latter is convoluted where the remote is relatively intuitive.

Fosi Audio Merak review: How I tested

(Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas)

I've been testing audio home entertainment for nearly two decades. Anything that makes a noise, I want to listen to it.

I sat down with the Fosi Audio Merak at home – it needs mains power or a powerbank, remember – and connected it up to my existing system and my market-leading Sennheiser IE 900 wired headphones. It had the best of the best.

Over more than two weeks' testing, I listened to music of various different genres via CDs (obviously) and lossless digital audio files through an external flash drive.

Read more about how we test

• First reviewed: August 2026

This week Google debuted its Pixel 11 tech, and Honor wowed us with a Robot Phone. Though we doubt it's the next iPhone revolution, we did also celebrate the birthday of a phone that did spark one back in the 90s — the Nokia 9000 Communicator, which just turned 30 years old.

But that's enough nostalgia for now — to catch up on all of the freshest gadget news, scroll down for the seven biggest tech news stories from the past week, plus links to the wider picture if you're desperate to learn more.

And before that test your memory against last week's biggest tech news stories with our quiz.

7. We reviewed Garmin’s 5-Star smartwatch

(Image credit: Future / Matt Ray)

We spent months with the latest Garmin Fenix Pro 8 smartwatch — it survived heatwaves, blizzards and 4,000m altitudes — and our reviewer decided to declare it “the pinnacle of multisport smartwatch performance.”

Why? Well, it boasts the full suite of Garmin functionality from sleep tracking to a bewildering array of activity tracking options, as well as the ability to follow stats like altitude and atmospheric pressure. Plus, it can operate as a full-on dive watch, and boasts satellite messaging for the extreme wilderness wanderers amongst us.

The only downside is that it costs significantly more than the AMOLED version and has a shorter battery life (it’s still four days, though, and turning the always-on display off will see it jump to over 10), but these don’t stop it from being the champion of the sports tracking world right now.

• Read our full Garmin Fenix Pro 8 microLED review

6. Spotify labelled AI music

(Image credit: Spotify / Future)

Earlier this week, Spotify announced its new AI Persona tags, a new feature designed to differentiate human artists from those that are AI-generated. The tags are tipped to roll out in mid-September.

Once AI Persona becomes available, it will give users some peace of mind knowing that they’re listening to music that hasn't been generated by AI. Spotify added that artists with AI Persona tags will be excluded from all personalized recommendations by default — which is an added bonus.

Artists can disclose to Spotify if they are AI musicians, but Spotify will conduct reviews of profiles where it thinks an artist’s images have been created using generative AI to imitate a lifelike persona. The only caveat is that Spotify uses an artist’s image to determine if they’re an AI Persona, and not the music itself.

• Read more: Spotify is introducing AI Persona tags to differentiate real artists from fake ones

5. We spent two hours with Honor’s Robot Phone

Look. We love to call out marketing department hyperbole as much as the next tech news outlet, but while we must disagree with Honor’s attempt to position its new device as the evolutionary successor to the iPhone — the best-selling phone of all time — it is fair to say the Robot Phone is unlike anything we’ve seen before.

TechRadar’s Axel Metz was among the first tech journalists to touch and test the new phone, and the device’s unfolding gimbal is genuinely impressive as a content capture tool — effectively combining the DJI Osmo Pocket with Honor’s flagship Magic 8 Pro.

It also allows the phone’s assistant, YOYO, to express itself in a physical way. This is the definition of gimmicky, though controlling the gimbal with hands-free controls can be genuinely useful.

• Read more: I spent two hours with the Honor Robot Phone, and this ridiculous, remarkable device made me feel like a kid again

4. We photographed the solar eclipse

(Image credit: Getty Images)

The peak of the Perseid meteor shower, with perfect viewing conditions and a rare six-planet alignment, was a celestial treat on August 12, but it was the total solar eclipse hours before that captured the world's attention. In select parts of Europe, northern Spain and in Iceland, totality lasted around 2 minutes while a partial eclipse could be seen as far afield as northern North America. Viewers lucky enough to get solar glasses could enjoy the phases around totality, while others came outside with their DIY pinhole cameras and colanders. Predictably, we've been treated to spectacular images in the aftermath of this once-in-a-generation show.

• Read more: 9 of the best photos from Europe's 2026 solar eclipse

3. Google gave us its answer to Apple’s AirTags

(Image credit: Google)

Apple’s AirTags launched over five years ago, and we now finally have a Google-made equivalent for Android fans. The Pixel Tag is a little tracker that weighs only 12g and helps you follow the location of your keys, luggage, or devices via a web browser or Android app.

Unfortunately, it won’t actually be launching until November, but when it does, you’ll be able to buy one for $29 / £29 / AU$49 for a single Tag or $99 / £99 / AU$169 for a four-pack. That’s pretty competitive considering the Pixel Tag is water-resistant and has ultra-wideband (UWB) support for more precise location tracking.

However, as you can read below, the Find Hub network still has weaknesses compared to its Apple Find My equivalent, which we hope Google addresses by the time its Tag launches in a few months.

• Read the full story: The Pixel Tag is here — but it won't be an AirTag for Android until Google fixes these Find Hub issues

2. Google’s Pixel Watch 5 debuted

(Image credit: Google)

Along with Google's cornucopia of new phones, the Google Pixel Watch 5 was also released in two sizes and with the same teardrop design as previous years. However, we've got a bunch of new features and improvements at play, with more accurate GPS, the redesigned Google Health app with its AI coach, better on-device Gemini, and a suite of Health Guardian features. These include Breathing Emergency Detection, which alerts emergency services and contacts if you have a consistent blood oxygen drop, and Insulin Resistance Trends, which helps users control their blood sugar levels. Apple and Samsung haven't quite cracked this technology yet, and we can't wait to test them for ourselves — although hopefully we don't have any breathing emergencies during our review.

• Read more: Sorry, Apple and Samsung — I test smartwatches for a living, and the Google Pixel Watch 5 specs beat the Series 11 and Galaxy Watch 9 in these five key areas

1. Google debuted its Pixel 11 lineup

(Image credit: Google)

Of course, the stars of Wednesday's Made by Google 2026 event were the debut of new Pixel 11 phones.

They boast the usual slew of updates you should expect from flagship refreshes by now, but also a brand new ‘HiLight’. This is an array of LED lights built into the camera’s flash module, which can alert you to calls from favorite contacts via customized color glows when your phone is face down and silenced. And these lights will also pulse when Gemini is listening, thinking, or responding.

Not everything is an improvement, disappointingly. You'll only get 12GB of RAM as standard rather than 16GB, perhaps a reflection of the surging computer memory costs.

• Read more: I’ve used the new Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, and Pixel 11 Pro XL, and Google's made nearly all the improvements I wanted to see

This week Google debuted its Pixel 11 tech, and Honor wowed us with a Robot Phone. Though we doubt it's the next iPhone revolution, we did also celebrate the birthday of a phone that did spark one back in the 90s — the Nokia 9000 Communicator, which just turned 30 years old.

But that's enough nostalgia for now — to catch up on all of the freshest gadget news, scroll down for the seven biggest tech news stories from the past week, plus links to the wider picture if you're desperate to learn more.

And before that test your memory against last week's biggest tech news stories with our quiz.

7. We reviewed Garmin’s 5-Star smartwatch

(Image credit: Future / Matt Ray)

We spent months with the latest Garmin Fenix Pro 8 smartwatch — it survived heatwaves, blizzards and 4,000m altitudes — and our reviewer decided to declare it “the pinnacle of multisport smartwatch performance.”

Why? Well, it boasts the full suite of Garmin functionality from sleep tracking to a bewildering array of activity tracking options, as well as the ability to follow stats like altitude and atmospheric pressure. Plus, it can operate as a full-on dive watch, and boasts satellite messaging for the extreme wilderness wanderers amongst us.

The only downside is that it costs significantly more than the AMOLED version and has a shorter battery life (it’s still four days, though, and turning the always-on display off will see it jump to over 10), but these don’t stop it from being the champion of the sports tracking world right now.

• Read our full Garmin Fenix Pro 8 microLED review

6. Spotify labelled AI music

(Image credit: Spotify / Future)

Earlier this week, Spotify announced its new AI Persona tags, a new feature designed to differentiate human artists from those that are AI-generated. The tags are tipped to roll out in mid-September.

Once AI Persona becomes available, it will give users some peace of mind knowing that they’re listening to music that hasn't been generated by AI. Spotify added that artists with AI Persona tags will be excluded from all personalized recommendations by default — which is an added bonus.

Artists can disclose to Spotify if they are AI musicians, but Spotify will conduct reviews of profiles where it thinks an artist’s images have been created using generative AI to imitate a lifelike persona. The only caveat is that Spotify uses an artist’s image to determine if they’re an AI Persona, and not the music itself.

• Read more: Spotify is introducing AI Persona tags to differentiate real artists from fake ones

5. We spent two hours with Honor’s Robot Phone

Look. We love to call out marketing department hyperbole as much as the next tech news outlet, but while we must disagree with Honor’s attempt to position its new device as the evolutionary successor to the iPhone — the best-selling phone of all time — it is fair to say the Robot Phone is unlike anything we’ve seen before.

TechRadar’s Axel Metz was among the first tech journalists to touch and test the new phone, and the device’s unfolding gimbal is genuinely impressive as a content capture tool — effectively combining the DJI Osmo Pocket with Honor’s flagship Magic 8 Pro.

It also allows the phone’s assistant, YOYO, to express itself in a physical way. This is the definition of gimmicky, though controlling the gimbal with hands-free controls can be genuinely useful.

• Read more: I spent two hours with the Honor Robot Phone, and this ridiculous, remarkable device made me feel like a kid again

4. We photographed the solar eclipse

(Image credit: Getty Images)

The peak of the Perseid meteor shower, with perfect viewing conditions and a rare six-planet alignment, was a celestial treat on August 12, but it was the total solar eclipse hours before that captured the world's attention. In select parts of Europe, northern Spain and in Iceland, totality lasted around 2 minutes while a partial eclipse could be seen as far afield as northern North America. Viewers lucky enough to get solar glasses could enjoy the phases around totality, while others came outside with their DIY pinhole cameras and colanders. Predictably, we've been treated to spectacular images in the aftermath of this once-in-a-generation show.

• Read more: 9 of the best photos from Europe's 2026 solar eclipse

3. Google gave us its answer to Apple’s AirTags

(Image credit: Google)

Apple’s AirTags launched over five years ago, and we now finally have a Google-made equivalent for Android fans. The Pixel Tag is a little tracker that weighs only 12g and helps you follow the location of your keys, luggage, or devices via a web browser or Android app.

Unfortunately, it won’t actually be launching until November, but when it does, you’ll be able to buy one for $29 / £29 / AU$49 for a single Tag or $99 / £99 / AU$169 for a four-pack. That’s pretty competitive considering the Pixel Tag is water-resistant and has ultra-wideband (UWB) support for more precise location tracking.

However, as you can read below, the Find Hub network still has weaknesses compared to its Apple Find My equivalent, which we hope Google addresses by the time its Tag launches in a few months.

• Read the full story: The Pixel Tag is here — but it won't be an AirTag for Android until Google fixes these Find Hub issues

2. Google’s Pixel Watch 5 debuted

(Image credit: Google)

Along with Google's cornucopia of new phones, the Google Pixel Watch 5 was also released in two sizes and with the same teardrop design as previous years. However, we've got a bunch of new features and improvements at play, with more accurate GPS, the redesigned Google Health app with its AI coach, better on-device Gemini, and a suite of Health Guardian features. These include Breathing Emergency Detection, which alerts emergency services and contacts if you have a consistent blood oxygen drop, and Insulin Resistance Trends, which helps users control their blood sugar levels. Apple and Samsung haven't quite cracked this technology yet, and we can't wait to test them for ourselves — although hopefully we don't have any breathing emergencies during our review.

• Read more: Sorry, Apple and Samsung — I test smartwatches for a living, and the Google Pixel Watch 5 specs beat the Series 11 and Galaxy Watch 9 in these five key areas

1. Google debuted its Pixel 11 lineup

(Image credit: Google)

Of course, the stars of Wednesday's Made by Google 2026 event were the debut of new Pixel 11 phones.

They boast the usual slew of updates you should expect from flagship refreshes by now, but also a brand new ‘HiLight’. This is an array of LED lights built into the camera’s flash module, which can alert you to calls from favorite contacts via customized color glows when your phone is face down and silenced. And these lights will also pulse when Gemini is listening, thinking, or responding.

Not everything is an improvement, disappointingly. You'll only get 12GB of RAM as standard rather than 16GB, perhaps a reflection of the surging computer memory costs.

• Read more: I’ve used the new Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, and Pixel 11 Pro XL, and Google's made nearly all the improvements I wanted to see

Fosi Audio Merak: Review

First things first: the Fosi Audio Merak is not as portable a CD player as you might think by looking at it. Obviously it’s small (28 x 150 x 150mm, HxWxD) and light (less than half a kilogram), but though easily picked up and moved around, it requires mains power to function. So there’s no taking it out and about — unless you also take a powerbank with you, of course. No, the Merak is designed for slotting into an external system or for private domestic listening via headphones.

It manages both of these things thanks to a selection of analog and digital outputs. On the device's front, along with some physical controls and a rather small OLED display, there’s a 3.5mm headphone socket powered by Texas Instruments TPA6120 amplification. But it’s on the rear of the machine where the bulk of the action is.

As well as a 3.5mm line-level analog output, there’s a digital optical socket — so you can connect the Fosi Audio to a system either by letting the player do all the digital-to-analog conversion work, or by bypassing its Cirrus Logic CS4313 DAC chipset altogether. There’s also a USB-C slot for powering the player, a 12v trigger output for use in an appropriate system output, a slider to turn the electronic anti-shock protection on and off, and a USB-A slot.

The USB-A connection functions in both directions. You can plug in an appropriate flash drive and play digital audio files of many types, including FLAC, MP3 and WAV. Or you can load in a CD, plug in a flash drive, let the player know what you’re up to and then rip the CD as lossless 16bit/44.1kHz WAV files.

(Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas)

‘Letting the player know what you’re up to’ can be done in different ways. Six buttons on the front handle ‘power on/off’, ‘play/pause’ and ‘skip (or scroll) forwards or backwards’. They also allow you to scroll through your options for playback (‘repeat’, ‘shuffle’ or ‘sequential’), output mode (digital, analog or headphones) and begin or end CD ripping.

Eventually you’ll commit the number and length of button presses required to access these functions — or you could just use the little remote control handset that’s supplied. It’s slightly less convoluted than the button controls, and has some numerical buttons for direct track access, too.

The volume control, though, is no kind of chore to operate. It’s a big slider along the side of the player, finished in Fosi Audio’s customary orange, and it’s one of the more gratifying physical controls I’ve encountered lately.

Loading a disc is a fully manual process. The lid, which has a nice clear porthole the exact size of a CD, lifts and then it’s just a question of pushing the disc onto the central spindle securely. The lid's hinges feel robust, and the overall standard of build and finish is more than adequate in the context of the asking price.

With a disc of Fusa Riot by Bobby Hughes Experience loaded and playing, the Merak doesn’t take long to establish its credentials as an energetic, positive and quite revealing listen. At the top of the frequency range, in fact, it’s about as positive as it dares to be — there’s a lot of bite and shine to treble sounds, but somehow the Fosi Audio manages to stop just short of hardness or edginess. The midrange communicates well, with the notable levels of detail retrieval making voices sound articulate and characterful. At the bottom of the frequency range there’s a reasonable amount of body and substance, but where the Merak is very assertive at the top end, it plays things fractionally safe where bass is concerned. Low frequencies could easily have a little more impact and drive, but rhythms are nevertheless expressed well thanks to good control of bass attack.

It creates a nicely defined soundstage, and is open enough to allow emphasis for spaces as well as occurrences on the stage. Focus is good, too, no matter if you’re listening through headphones or with the Fosi Audio plugged into a wider system, and there’s sufficient dynamic headroom for a fairly full account of the distance between the most and the least intense passages in a recording.

Take the digital-to-analog duties away from the Fosi Audio by plugging it into an external DAC using its digital optical output and it’s possible to calm the excitable treble response just a little, but the switch also emphasizes just how adept the Merak’s Cirrus Logic circuitry is when it comes to identifying, revealing and contextualizing even the finer details contained on a CD.

And it’s also pretty impressive when it comes to ripping CDs — getting a 16bit/44.1kHz WAV file of your music onto an external USB drive is straightforward. I endured one or two false starts in the course of my testing, but ultimately the copies are faithful and of enjoyable high quality.

(Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas)Fosi Audio Merak review: Price and release date

• Released on April 10, 2026
• $139 / £129 (approx.) / about AU$199

The Fosi Audio Merak CD player is on sale now, and in the the United States it sells for $129. It goes for around £139 in the United Kingdom, while in Australia it will set you back around AU$199.

Fosi Audio Merak review: Value

If you’re after a truly portable listening experience then the Fosi Audio Merak offers no kind of value whatsoever.

If, however, you want an affordable method of bringing CD-playing smarts to your existing audio system, or fancy being able to listen to your CD collection via headphones without having to plug into a full-size system, the Merak has plenty going for it before you even consider the quality of sound it’s capable of producing.

(Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas)Should you buy the Fosi Audio Merak?Buy it if...

You have an existing system (or headphones)
The Fosi has plenty of digital and analog outputs and offers an easy plug-in-and-play option to insert into your current system. And it's just as simple to listen to your CD collection at home via your headphones, without bothering with your existing stack.

You want to go lossless
A USB-A connection that works both ways means you can plug in a flash drive to play digital audio files of various types – FLAC, MP3 and WAV included – or even load a CD and rip as lossless 16bit/44.1kHz WAV files.

You enjoy an energetic listen
There's real bite and shine to the top end of the frequency range, with detailed midrange, to deliver a positive and revealing sound.

Don't buy it if...

You prize portability
Unless you bring a powerbank with you, listening to the Fosi Audio Merak on the go isn't possible. This is especially strange when you consider its small size.

You like big bass
The Fosi lacks impact and is a little lightweight in the low end, generally playing things just slightly too safe.

You don't like using remote controls
First things first, the remote control here is not the issue – it's easy to use and performs every function perfectly. Compare it with the clunky user interface on the front panel, though, and the differences are stark. The latter is convoluted where the remote is relatively intuitive.

Fosi Audio Merak review: How I tested

(Image credit: Future / Simon Lucas)

I've been testing audio home entertainment for nearly two decades. Anything that makes a noise, I want to listen to it.

I sat down with the Fosi Audio Merak at home – it needs mains power or a powerbank, remember – and connected it up to my existing system and my market-leading Sennheiser IE 900 wired headphones. It had the best of the best.

Over more than two weeks' testing, I listened to music of various different genres via CDs (obviously) and lossless digital audio files through an external flash drive.

Read more about how we test

• First reviewed: August 2026

When the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan five years ago, thousands of Afghans who helped U.S. troops were brought here to rebuild their lives. But now, some fear the U.S. may want to send them back.

(Image credit: Paula Bronstein)

A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia early Saturday, killing at least 38 people, collapsing buildings as well as causing panic in a region prone to deadly quakes.

(Image credit: BASARNAS via AP)

• Watch FIH Hockey World Cup 2026 free on YouTube & BBC iPlayer (UK)
• Unlock your stream with Surfshark (save up to 85%)
• Hockey World Cup: Friday, August 14 – Sunday, August 30

All eyes are on the Netherlands men's team and the Belgium women's team at the 2026 FIH Hockey World Cup, as each side has a golden opportunity to end their respective droughts in this competition. The Oranje last tasted World Cup glory in 1998, while the Red Panthers' best result was third, way back in 1978.

Not only are they amongst the top-ranked teams at this edition of the tournament, the sides will enjoy home advantage as the World Cup is being co-hosted by the Netherlands and Belgium, in Amstelveen and Wavre respectively.

The Belgium men's team, beaten finalists last time out and winners before that in 2018, top the rankings off the back of their recent FIH Pro League triumph. The Dutch, meanwhile, are the reigning Olympic gold medallists, and Germany the world champions, so the competition looks fierce.

The Netherlands women's team, however, might be impossible to stop. They're the back-to-back-to-back world champions, back-to-back Olympic champions and have just won their sixth FIH Pro League title in seven attempts – by 15 points. Argentina, Belgium and China have their work cut out.

Here's how to watch FIH Hockey World Cup 2026 from anywhere in the world. We've also listed the schedule and recent champions below.

Today's FIH Hockey World Cup 2026 fixtures

(All times BST)

MEN'S FIXTURES

Sunday, August 16
10.30am – Australia vs Ireland
1.30pm – Spain vs South Africa
3pm – Netherlands vs New Zealand
6pm – Argentina vs Japan

WOMEN'S FIXTURES

Sunday, August 16
9am – England vs South Africa
12pm – China vs India
4.30pm – Belgium vs New Zealand
7.30pm – Spain vs Ireland

Can you watch FIH Hockey World Cup 2026 for free?

Yes. Free Hockey World Cup coverage is available in the UK courtesy of the Channel 4 Sport YouTube channel, which is live streaming every England, Scotland and Wales game.

Wales and Scotland games are also being shown on Welsh-language station S4C and Gaelic-language channel BBC Alba respectively, with live streaming available via BBC iPlayer.

It's also free-to-air on RTL Play and Sporza in Belgium and NOS in the Netherlands.

Traveling abroad right now? You can use a VPN to watch FIH Hockey World Cup 2026 for free as if you were right at home.

Use a VPN to watch FIH Hockey World Cup 2026 live streams

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How to watch FIH Hockey World Cup 2026 in the US, Canada and Australia

FIH Hockey World Cup 2026 is available to watch on the Watch.Hockey streaming service in the US, Canada and Australia.

A World Cup pass costs US$44.99, and will let you stream all 100 games live.

If you have a subscription but you're away during the tournament, you can unlock access your streaming accounts from anywhere by using a VPN.

How to watch FIH Hockey World Cup 2026 live streams in the UK

All games involving England, Scotland and Wales are-free-to-air in the UK, on the Channel 4 Sport YouTube channel. That's 11 pool-stage fixtures – and more beyond.

Welsh-language channel S4C and Gaelic-language station BBC Alba will show Wales and Scotland games too, with live streaming available via free-to-air BBC iPlayer.

For comprehensive FIH Hockey World Cup 2026 coverage, however, you'll need a $44.99 Watch.Hockey subscription.

If you're out of the UK but still want to tune in, explore the VPN route set out above, which will help you access your accounts from anywhere.

How to watch FIH Hockey World Cup 2026 live streams in the US

In addition to the US$44.99 Watch.Hockey option in the US, CBS Sports Network will be showing the US women's team matches during the tournament.

You can access on OTT streaming platforms such as Fubo, YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV and DirecTV, all of which feature a free trial for new users of varying lengths.

Once the free trial period is up, there will be a charge to subscribe. Check your local operator for details.

Not in the US right now, explore the VPN route to access the field hockey from anywhere.

How to watch FIH Hockey World Cup 2026 live streams in India

In India, FIH Hockey World Cup 2026 is being shown on Star Sports channels, with live streaming available via JioHotstar.

JioHotstar prices start at Rs. 299 ($3.49) per month, rising to Rs. 899 ($10.50 USD) per year.

If you're currently out of India but want to watch a Hockey World Cup live stream, you'll need to get yourself a VPN, as per the instructions above.

FIH Hockey World Cup 2026 Q&AFIH Hockey World Cup schedule 2026

Click to see more ▼

(All times UK)

MEN'S POOL STAGE

Saturday, August 15
India 3-1 Wales | YouTube
Germany 5-1 Malaysia
England 4-1 Pakistan | YouTube
Belgium 3-2 France

Sunday, August 16
10.30am – Australia vs Ireland
1.30pm – Spain vs South Africa
3pm – Netherlands vs New Zealand
6pm – Argentina vs Japan

Monday, August 17
11.30am – Pakistan vs Wales | YouTube
1pm – France vs Malaysia
2pm – India vs England
7.30pm – Germany vs Belgium

Tuesday, August 18
8.30am – New Zealand vs Japan
1pm – Spain vs Australia
4pm – Ireland vs South Africa
5pm – Argentina vs Netherlands

Wednesday, August 19
11.30am – England vs Wales | YouTube
2pm – Pakistan vs India
4pm – France vs Germany
7.30pm – Belgium vs Malaysia

Thursday, August 20
10am – Australia vs South Africa
11.30am – New Zealand vs Argentina
4pm – Ireland vs Spain
5pm – Netherlands vs Japan

WOMEN'S POOL STAGE

Saturday, August 15
Australia 2-0 Japan
Germany 3-0 Scotland | YouTube
Netherlands 2-0 Chile
Argentina 1-1 USA

Sunday, August 16
9am – England vs South Africa | YouTube
12pm – China vs India
4.30pm – Belgium vs New Zealand
7.30pm – Spain vs Ireland

Monday, August 17
8.30am – Chile vs Japan
10am – USA vs Scotland | YouTube
4pm – Germany vs Argentina
5pm – Australia vs Netherlands

Tuesday, August 18
10am – New Zealand vs Ireland
11.30am – England vs China | YouTube
2pm – India vs South Africa
7.30pm – Spain vs Belgium

Wednesday, August 19
8.30am – Chile vs Australia
10am – Argentina vs Scotland | YouTube
1pm – USA vs Germany
5pm – Netherlands vs Japan

Thursday, August 20
8.30am – China vs South Africa
1pm – New Zealand vs Spain
2pm – India vs England | YouTube
7.30pm – Belgium vs Ireland

Who are the recent FIH Hockey World Cup champions?

Recent Hockey World Cup winners

Men's champions

• 2023 – Germany
• 2018 – Belgium
• 2014 – Australia
• 2010 – Australia
• 2006 – Germany

Women's champions

• 2022 – Netherlands
• 2018 – Netherlands
• 2014 – Netherlands
• 2010 – Argentina
• 2006 – Netherlands

We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example:1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service).2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad.We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

You might have a small kitchen, but that doesn't mean you can't make cafe-quality coffee at home. I test over a dozen coffee makers every year in my own small space, and I've found that when it comes to preparing delicious espresso, size really isn't everything.

If you want a machine that will prepare 40 different beverages at the press of a button then, yes, you'll need to dedicate a significant amount of space on your kitchen counter to a hefty fully automatic machine. However, if you just want to make delicious espresso, there are far smaller options that will do a superb job.

Here, I've picked out my all-time top-three compact coffee makers for small spaces, including one bean-to-cup brewer, one capsule coffee maker, and one more traditional manual brewer. I'd happily use any of the three myself — and they're all very reasonably priced as well.

Lavazza A Modo Mio Jolie EvoFutureFutureFutureFutureFutureFutureFuture

I tested this coffee maker just a few days ago, and it's the smallest I've ever used, measuring a mere 4.9 x 8.3 x 13 inches / 124 x 210 x 330mm (W x H x D).

If you're looking for a compact coffee maker that will brew a good espresso with minimum fuss, this is the one for you. It takes Lavazza's own A Modo Mio pods, which you drop into a slot on top of the machine, before pushing back the large lever and hitting the "brew" button. Once you're satisfied with the quantity in your cup, tap the button again to stop the flow. Done.

You don't get Nespresso-like fancy flavors with Lavazza's pods, but I'd argue that's no bad thing. Coffee laced with added aromas often tastes unpleasantly sweet or artificial, and while Lavazza offers plenty of choice for beans and roasts, all the aromas come from the coffee itself, rather than from additives.

The only downside for me is that A Modo Mio pods are plastic, and can be difficult to recycle if you don't have a collection point near you. I'm lucky to have one quite nearby, but you can't send your pods in the mail — if there's no drop-off spot nearby, your only option is to start one yourself.

In all other respects, this is a superb little coffee maker. It's affordably priced, too, and its pods are some of the cheapest around.

Read our full Lavazza A Modo Mio Jolie Evo review

Philips BaristinaFutureFutureFutureFutureFutureFutureFuture

The Philips Baristina makes brewing espresso with fresh coffee beans just as simple as using pods. It measures 7 x 13.6 x 15 inches / 18 x 34.5 x 38cm (W x H x D), which is a fraction of the size of most bean-to-cup machines, and it's half the price too.

Pour your coffee beans into the hopper located on the top surface of the Baristina, fill its water tank, and slide the portafilter handle into place. Choose whether you want a single or double espresso and the machine will grind just the right quantity of coffee. Tamp it down, then slide the filter underneath the brewing group, and dispense a perfectly extracted drink directly into your waiting cup.

It's refreshingly simple, and cleanup is a piece of cake. Most bean-to-cup coffee machines do all the brewing inside a closed case, and the moist conditions combined with any leftover coffee grounds create the perfect conditions for mold to grow – unless you open everything up, clean it thoroughly, and leave the case open to dry overnight. With the Baristina, this isn't a problem.

The only drawback of the standard Baristina is that there's no steam wand for preparing milk. However, you can find the coffee maker bundled with a standalone milk frother, and Philips has recently launched a new machine called the Baristina Latte, which has a milk system built in. I've not had the opportunity to try it yet, but I have high hopes.

Read our full Philips Baristina review

De'Longhi Dedica DuoFutureFutureFutureFutureFutureFutureFuture

We've had a capsule machine and a bean-to-cup coffee maker – now we have a traditional espresso machine, with a choice of portafilter baskets (both pressurized, making it easier to achieve a nice thick crema) and a manual steam wand. It measures 5.5 x 12 x 12.6 inches / 14 x 30.5 x 32cm (W x H x D), allowing it to slot onto even tiny kitchen counters.

The Dedica Duo has a list price of $299.95 / £279.99 (about AU$600), which is very affordable for a manual espresso machine, and would usually sound warning bells — espresso machines in this price bracket are usually pretty bad, and incapable of sustaining the steady temperature and pressure necessary for consistent brewing. That's not the case here, though; this is a De'Longhi machine through and through, with no compromises on build quality or performance. Everything feels solidly made, and it's a pleasure to use.

The "Duo" in the name refers to the fact that this little coffee maker can also make a cold-extracted espresso using water directly from the tank (bypassing the boiler). This takes longer then brewing hot, but works very well and produces a pleasingly mellow-tasting drink that's an ideal foundation for iced drinks. A superb little all-rounder.

Read our full De'Longhi Dedica Duo review

• Study finds 25% of business leaders struggle to explain AI-generated outputs to stakeholders
• SMEs are trusting AI with complex financial tasks including audits and compliance
• Customers and investors are increasingly avoiding businesses that use unverified AI

Business leaders are being outfoxed by AI, with a quarter of those surveyed apparently unable to explain AI generated outputs, 12% “with a lot of difficulty” and only 22% “easily.”

Even more worryingly, the survey, by Startup.co.uk, appears to reveal a culture of “leave it to AI” regardless of the consequences.

The survey has also uncovered other concerns, from questions over GDPR to how SMEs are trusting AI to carry out sensitive financial work, including audits, expenses, and accounts payable automation.

Would you let your AI do this?

With GDPR responsibilities hovering over startups and dynamic new SMBs, the overuse of AI solutions could prove to be devastating if customer data is found to have been misused. Meanwhile concerns over the use of the technology could be affecting businesses that fail to verify AI work.

While the inability of startup leaders to explain AI generated work might be a surprise, the depth of AI use across financial tasks is of particular concern. The report revealed how 85% of small businesses are using AI to complete financial tasks of some sensitivity.

Among the figures are 37% using AI to automate accounts payable processes, 32% to handle audit and compliance, and 31% to manage spend and expenses. While there is some suitability for AI with fraud detection (26%) and performance insights (27%) with its capacity to analyze data in bulk, the inability of leaders to deal with questions about AI is a matter of concern.

Blind trust in AI

What the figures seem to indicate is an over-reliance on AI.

Zohra Huda, editor of Startups.co.uk, noted the data “highlights the bizarre corporate milestone we’ve reached in 2026. Founders are letting AI manage their fraud detection and accounting, but if a stakeholder asks how the numbers were calculated, a quarter of them can’t answer.”

The solution to that might be a bit of rehearsal, but it doesn’t change how data is being used by AI and what the implications for this are, and the likelihood of breaching Article 15 of the UK GDPR (concerning how data is processed).

“Blindly trusting a tech “black box” with sensitive financial data is a massive legal and compliance gamble," added Huda. The takeaway for business leaders? If you can’t explain your AI’s logic to an investor or a customer, you're potentially risking a very expensive GDPR fine.”

With the ICO able to fine businesses up to £17.5 million or 4% of global turnover for verified GDPR breaches, it is clear that startups relying heavily on AI need to up their game.