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• Netflix has announced an Assassin's Creed TV series is coming to the streamer
• It has been in the making for almost five years but we don't have much information yet
• The plot describes the series as "a high-octane thriller centered on the secret war between two shadowy factions"

Netflix has greenlit an Assassin's Creed TV adaptation, giving me hope once again after previous attempts to adapt the video game for the screen have flopped.

In 2016, the Michael Fassbender led movie was critically panned and received an 18% Rotten Tomatoes critical score. But news that the story is coming to one of the best streaming services has piqued my interest.

We have seen some huge success with video game adaptations recently, of course, like Prime Video's Fallout or HBO's The Last of Us, so we can only hope that second time's a charm when it comes to Assassin's Creed.

What do we know about Netflix's Assassin's Creed?

The Assassin's Creed movie was a critical flop. (Image credit: New Regency Productions)

At the time of writing, we don't know much. Netflix hasn't released a trailer or a cast list, but they have confirmed who is leading the project.

Emmy nominees Roberto Patino (Westworld) and David Wiener (Halo) will serve as creators, showrunners, and executive producers on the Assassin's Creed series. Given their work on some big shows, this does fill me with hope.

The Halo video game to screen adaptation scored a healthy 80% on Rotten Tomatoes, making it worthy of a spot on our best Paramount+ shows, so that's a positive start.

In terms of plot, all we have so far is a statement from Tudum which reads: "Assassin’s Creed is a high-octane thriller centered on the secret war between two shadowy factions — one set on determining mankind’s future through control and manipulation, while the other fights to preserve free will."

It adds: “The series follows its characters across pivotal historical events as they battle to shape humanity’s destiny.”

That isn't a lot to go off, and fans of the video games already know the universe well, so it will be interesting to see how far it sticks with or deviates from the source material.

Either way, I'm excited to give this one a go and pray it will one day be added to our best Netflix shows list.

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• Cisco patched a maximum-severity flaw impacting Identity Services Engine and ISE Passive Identity Connector
• The flaw allowed threat actors to run arbitrary code on the underlying OS
• It was patched in versions 3.3 and 3.4

A maximum-severity vulnerability was recently discovered, and patched, in Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and ISE Passive Identity Connector (ISE-PIC). This flaw allowed threat actors to execute arbitrary code, with elevated privileges, on the operating system of the devices running the tools.

ISE is a network security policy management and access control platform, helping organizations centrally manage who and what can connect to their network. The ISE-PIC, on the other hand, is a lightweight service that collects identity information about users and devices without requiring them to authenticate via traditional methods.

Both tools are typically used by enterprise IT and cybersecurity teams that manage large or complex network environments.

The importance of patching

Recently, security researcher Kentaro Kawane, from GMO Cybersecurity, discovered an insufficient validation of user-supplied input vulnerability that could be exploited by submitting a crafted API request. Valid credentials are not required to abuse the flaw.

It is tracked as CVE-2025-20337, and was given a severity score of 10/10 (critical). It affects releases 3.3 and 3.4 of the tools, regardless of device configuration. However, releases 3.2 or older are not affected.

Cisco addressed the flaws in these versions:

- Cisco ISE or ISE-PIC Release 3.3 (Fixed in 3.3 Patch 7)
- Cisco ISE or ISE-PIC Release 3.4 (Fixed in 3.4 Patch 2)

The good news is that there is no evidence the vulnerability has been exploited in the wild by malicious actors. However, cybercriminals are known for targeting organizations only after a bug was made public, since many entities don’t rush to apply the patches. By keeping hardware and software outdated, organizations are keeping their back doors wide open, and criminals are getting an easy way into the premises.

Therefore, it would be good practice to apply the patches as soon as possible and prevent possible attacks.

Via The Hacker News

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• Donkey Kong wears clothes in Bananza because Nintendo was "conscious" of what he would look like "from the back"
• Donkey Kong went through a redesign because his brown fur "would make for a monotonous visual"
• Producer Kenta Motokura said the character's fur was also improved

Nintendo has explained why Donkey Kong wears clothes in the latest Switch 2 exclusive, Donkey Kong Bananza.

For as long as Donkey Kong has been around, he's typically been portrayed completely naked (if a monkey can even be naked), but in the latest installment, the star ape underwent a makeover, in both character design and wardrobe.

According to Nintendo, the team thought to give Donkey Kong some clothes this time around because it was aware of what he would look like from behind to players.

"When controlling a character in a 3D world, the player often sees them from behind, so we were also conscious of how Donkey Kong would look from the back while he's moving," said producer Kenta Motokura in a recent Ask the Developer Q&A.

"The back view of Donkey Kong just looks like a mass of brown fur, which would make for a monotonous visual if we simply rendered him in 3D."

Motokura also said that the development team was inspired to make creative adjustments to Donkey Kong's outfit and decided to give him a snazzy tie, britches, and suspenders.

The character's fur was also improved to "look rich and thick", and his original design, created by Shigeru Miyamoto, has been revamped for the new game and even Mario Kart World.

"That basic Donkey Kong design has been completely revamped. While overhauling the design, we returned to where it had all started. We took Miyamoto-san's original Donkey Kong as the basis, adding design elements from Donkey Kong Bananza here and there," he explained.

In TechRadar Gaming's review, hardware writer Dashiell Wood called Donkey Kong Bananza "the greatest Nintendo Switch 2 title to date, delivering an incredible destruction system that showcases the power of the new system."

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The popular gaming platform is adding 'Trust Connections' that will lift some of its communication filtering for the age group.

The addition to Apple's suite of games launches just in time for World Emoji Day.

In years past, tech fans and industry commentators alike would mock Apple when it came time for the launch of its interstitial S model iPhones, noting a lack of substantial change between, say, the iPhone X and iPhone Xs as compared to the wider rift between the iPhone X and iPhone 11.

Fast forward a few years, and Apple has ditched the S suffix altogether, instead marketing each year's iPhone as a full-on numbered release. The iPhone 15 is followed by the iPhone 16 and so on.

However, the upgrades between each model don’t always feel like a full step forwards. We get some huge jumps – the iPhone 15 Pro to the iPhone 16 Pro, for example – and some tiny ones, like the iPhone 13 to the iPhone 14.

With last year’s launch of Apple Intelligence, though, it seems Apple figured out a way around the pesky realities of research and development: just launch the thing, and finish it later. What could possibly go wrong?

Apple Intelligence could have been released more, well... intelligently (Image credit: Apple)

As it turns out, quite a lot. Apple Intelligence earned itself a place on our list of the biggest tech flops of 2024, and I still think of it it as an ill-defined, nebulous, and incomplete product, even though it now comprises a pretty robust suite of AI tools. All of that seemingly hasn’t stopped the trend from catching on, though, as one of Apple’s biggest competitors demonstrated this year.

I am, of course, talking about Samsung’s beleaguered One UI 7 update, which came to Galaxy users in April after months of delays. That would be a fairly normal sentence, if it weren’t for the fact that Galaxy S25, Galaxy S25 Plus, and Galaxy S25 Ultra users had been running One UI 7 on their phones since they launched in January, and the additional fact that Android 15, which One UI 7 is based on, had been out since October.

So, those who shelled out to secure a top-of-the-line Samsung phone earlier this year had been left running pre-release software, while customers who bought a high-end Galaxy phone even a year ago were left been left with betas and test versions of Samsung’s latest Android wrapper.

I recently recapped the One UI 7 drama and was left feeling hopeful by the quick reveal of One UI 8 alongside the upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Galaxy Z Flip 7 folding phones, so I'll ease off Samsung for now. But there's still a chance that the rollouts of Apple Intelligence and One UI 7 set a precedent for future updates and for using 'finished' products as testing grounds rather than full releases.

Giving One UI 7 an exact launch date is difficult, such was the length and disorganization of its rollout (Image credit: Samsung / Future)

So, what now? Well, the biggest confirmed upcoming release on the mobile software calendar is without question iOS 26, which promises to bring a new design, overhauled default apps, and improved power efficiency to Apple's mobile platform.

It's looking good so far. Apple's WWDC 2025 keynote didn't spark any major controversies, and presented enough of iOS 26 that I'd normally feel pretty confident about the launch state of Apple's next major software update.

And as mentioned, One UI 8 is on the way with Samsung's next foldable phones, so keep an eye out for our Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 review and Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 review for a detailed look at Samsung's new software (though the issue with One UI 7 was less about its function and more about how it was released).

However, the string of botched software launches in the last 12 months has got me wary. Though I obviously can't blame Apple for the launch of One UI 7, nor Samsung for the launch of Apple Intelligence, it's jarring that two of the world's biggest tech companies managed to fumble two major launches in the same period.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Galaxy Z Flip 7 bring with them the first look at One UI 8 (Image credit: Samsung)

As a resident of the TechRadar mobile computing desk, I know that both Apple and Samsung have the potential to put out fully-formed, innovative, and genuinely useful software. I'm hopeful that both can get back to this going forwards.

What do you think? Is this the start of a trend or just two coincidental slip-ups from two big tech heavy hitters? Let us know in the comments below.

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