Technology

Airbnb has been a disruptor since it hit the scene in 2007. Now, at its annual Summer Release event, it’s redesigning its app to make navigating easier and ultimately leveling up what you might expect from a stay at one of its many properties worldwide.

For instance, while you get a bit more space with an Airbnb, you might lose out on some amenities, be it a gym, an attached restaurant, or even some self-care. The tech company's answer is dubbed Airbnb Services, essentially a way to book a service like a massage, a haircut, or even a chef to arrive at wherever you’re staying.

That aims to fill in the missing gap of what you might get from a hotel, but it also gives you, the visitor, a bit more control, with the option of looking through the available options and picking the ones that fit your needs the most.

Similarly, Airbnb Experiences aims to replace the mundane with memorable, allowing you to book activities from locals in the cities where you stay to get the most out of them. These seem especially fun, and at a launch event, Airbnb certainly brought out the talent to up this.

Then, tying this all together is a redesign app that looks a lot easier to navigate and acts more like a helpful companion. If you have a stay booked, as well as services or experiences, it can bundle them as an itinerary for you, listing important reminders.

1. Book a haircut, massage, or a catered meal with Services

(Image credit: Airbnb)

Services seem like the most approachable addition, and probably one of the most requested. Rather than finding out if the host approves of a third-party, Airbnb handles the vetting and will offer 10 categories of services at launch. Those include chefs, photographers, massages, spa treatments, personal training, hair treatments, makeup, nails, prepared meals, and catering.

It’ll launch in 260 cities across the globe at first and lives directly in the Airbnb app – there is an entire ‘services’ category at the top, and after you book a location, or are considering, you can see recommended services.

Airbnb is vetting the service providers and promises that each has around 10 years of experience in the respective industry. Additionally, each instructor or provider has to go through a verification process and list out applicable trainings or certifications.

(Image credit: Airbnb)

Services will start at $50 in the US (we’re waiting for exact starting prices to be confirmed in the UK and Australia, but that converts to around £40 / AU$80) and are rolling out now. Airbnb is also encouraging providers to apply to become hosts for services on the platform.

The real kicker here, though, and one that potentially could have TaskRabbit concerned, is that you don’t need to book an Airbnb home for a stay to use Services or Experiences (more on this in a bit).

If you need a photographer for a birthday party or a shower, you could fire up Airbnb on your iPhone or Android phone, look through reviews, and hire a professional. Same for a hibachi chef for a girls' night out – at an Airbnb or in your own home – or for a caterer specializing in soup dumplings.

2. Memorable moments dubbed Experiences

(Image credit: Airbnb)

Next to Services up-top in the Airbnb app will be ‘Experiences’ with a hot-air balloon icon. And similar to the 'Icons' homes that Airbnb lets folks enter to win a stay in – like the house from Up or the control room from Inside Out – Experiences is a bit more pie-in-the-sky, in the best way possible.

These are unique activities run by folks from where you’re staying that aim to let you really immerse yourself in the locale. It could be a cooking class or a dining experience, but rather than just a meal at a restaurant, it’s interactive and potentially led by a Michelin-star chef, or you can freshen your wardrobe with a celebrity stylist.

(Image credit: Airbnb)

Similarly, rather than just visiting a historical place, you can be led through the site with a dedicated historian or take a workout class with an expert in that specific field. The idea is to have true experts for a more compelling, well, experience.

Experiences will be launched in 650 cities worldwide, and Airbnb says that will be expanding. There will also be a higher tier dubbed Airbnb Originals, which the company promises could lead you to eating barbecue with Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City or playing volleyball with an Olympian. There’s no word on pricing for these, but I suppose these might be more similar to Airbnb Icons, in that you enter for the chance to use these.

More likely, you’ll find yourself with the more standard Airbnb experiences, which aim to be more than just standard.

3. App redesign

(Image credit: Airbnb)

Helping to make all of these more appealing, and honestly more integrated into the booking of an Airbnb – maybe a beach bungalow, a fancy loft, or a classic cabin – the app is also getting smarter in some key ways. The layout aims to make this flow a bit easier, and for the app to act as a companion serving up reminders and suggestions.

The biggest change, though, is that Airbnb now allows users to search for properties worldwide alongside the best services and experiences all in one place. Under the hood, Airbnb says it’s built an entire new tech stack that adds capacity for these new offerings and sets up a large runway for the future.

And I think that hints at the broader play here – Airbnb doesn’t want to be an app you open once or twice a year for a big vacation or trip. Rather, it’s there and is an app with more tools in its chest, allowing you to book more casual everyday services but also more memorable ones, whether you’re on the go or for a staycation.

Carolina Milanesi, President and Principal Analyst at Creative Strategies, told TechRadar, “Expanding into services makes a great deal of sense as it allows for a richer experience than the stay itself and can certainly add to it by adding a more visceral component to the stay – say you are using a personal trainer while you travel or organizing a photographer for your girls reunion weekend. The option of booking even when you are not staying shows they are trying to expand and deepen the relationship with a customer by having multiple touch points through the year.”

It certainly adds up, and this could grow Airbnb’s user base as well. We’re going hands-on with the new app, and maybe even an experience or two soon, so we’ll report back with more. But if you’re keen to give it a go, update to the latest version of the Airbnb app now.

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• Windows 11 has a new preview build in the Beta channel
• It comes with an AI agent in Settings to help you change options
• Also a new hardware-related FAQ has been introduced in Settings, too

Windows 11 has a new preview build out and it comes with a big change: the introduction of AI to the Settings app in order to help Copilot+ PC owners find and choose the options they need.

This is a new piece of work Microsoft announced last week, but the company just said that it was coming to testing soon, at some stage this month. Well, that stage has now been set, and this ability has debuted in preview build 26120.3964 in the Beta channel.

That preview release comes with the full AI agent present in Settings, although of course, this is just the initial stages of testing. Also note that this is for Copilot+ PCs only, it won’t be applicable to normal Windows 11 PCs, as it leverages the peppy NPU that’s on board Copilot+ devices. (Microsoft also revealed fresh goodies inbound for non-Copilot+ machines, it should be noted too).

As I’ve covered before, the AI agent works via the usual query model. You type in what you’re looking for in Settings via a bar at the top of the panel using normal conversational language. For example, you could ask something like, “How do I put the YouTube video playing on my laptop onto my TV screen?” and the AI will find that relevant setting for screen mirroring.

The idea is to make tweaking settings or finding various capabilities a good deal easier, and with some options, AI will even recommended specific choices for you.

Another change to the Settings app in this preview build is a new hardware-related FAQ that provides info on your PC specs and how good they are. This nestles in the System > About panel within Settings, underneath the list of device specifications.

The questions-and-answers specifically relate to your PC, so if you only have 8GB of RAM for example, and you’re worried that might slow down apps – or moreover PC games – there’ll be a section on exactly what that memory loadout means for you in terms of expected performance levels.

Analysis: PC spec cards and AI accuracy

(Image credit: Future)

This is the first time we’ve seen this hardware FAQ appear in testing, though oddly, it’s not partnered with the related ‘PC spec cards’ (small info panels) that carry the individual details of your CPU, GPU, system RAM and storage (which have been spotted in testing before, minus the FAQ).

Presumably, these pieces of the puzzle are going to come together soon, delivering a useful extra for relative PC newbies who may not be so sure about what all these specs mean.

As for the AI agent, it looks nifty and offers plenty of promise, but there are a few notable catches here. Firstly, AI could get things wrong when it comes to the specific recommendations given for certain settings (but hopefully not in terms of the basic finding and displaying of relevant options).

So, we need to be cautious in that respect, and it’ll be interesting to see how accurate Windows 11 testers find the system, and what the initial feedback is – because this could be one of the best uses of AI Microsoft has found yet. Or the worst if it comes horribly off the rails, but Microsoft doesn’t appear overly ambitious here – yet – so that shouldn’t happen.

Secondly, only the English language is supported by the Settings agent for now. Finally, just Copilot+ PCs with Snapdragon processors are supported in testing to begin with, but Microsoft has said the agent will come to Copilot+ devices with AMD and Intel CPUs soon enough. Perhaps that’ll be the next preview release, then.

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• Alibaba's ZeroSearch can generate training material for its AI
• Cost savings of up to 88% are possible
• The tech requires additional GPUs

Alibaba's Tongyi Lab has found a way to train AI search models without using real search engines, which it says can reduce search training costs by up to 88% compared to commercial APIs like Google.

In a paper entitled "Incentivize the Search Capability of LLMs without Searching," Alibaba explains how the development uses simulated AI-generated documents to mimic real search engine outputs.

Interestingly, Alibaba's researchers also note that using simulated documents can actually improve the quality of training, because "the quality of documents returned by search engines is often unpredictable" and risks introducing noise into the training process.

Alibaba will train AI search models on AI-generated documents

"The primary difference between a real search engine and a simulation LLM lies in the textual style of the returned content," the researchers wrote. ZeroSearch can also gradually degrade the quality of documents in order to simulate increasingly challenging retrieval scenarios.

Of course, the key benefit to this technology is the significant cost saving available. Training with ZeroSearch's 14B model costs around $70.80 per 64,000 queries, compared with around $586.70 via Google's APIs. Costs are even lower for the 7B and 3B models, at $35.40 and $17.70 per 64,000 queries, and yet all three of the ZeroSearch models and the Google API method take the same amount of time.

However, Alibaba acknowledged that one, two, or four A100 GPUs are required for its ZeroSearch method, compared with no GPU requirement via the Google API method, which could present a negative impact in terms of sustainability, like energy consumption and emissions.

"Our approach has certain limitations. Deploying the simulated search LLM requires access to GPU servers. While more cost-effective than commercial API usage, this introduces additional infrastructure costs," the researchers concluded.

Still, challenging the reliance on expensive and gated platforms like Google Search APIs and reducing the costs could help democratize AI development even further.

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• Amazon's robots handled 224 units/hour, compared with humans at 243 units/hour
• Robots are more consistent, but humans can be quicker in some cases
• Further research is needed to prevent damages

After a series of robotics announcements over the past few years, including its latest Vulcan robot which has a sense of touch, Amazon is testing next-generation models named 'Stow' and 'Pick', and their names say it all – they're designed to assist in the stowing and picking processes at fulfilment centers.

However, the company has acknowledged that current robot technology is in no place to replace human workers despite achieving promising results.

According to its performance testing, humans averaged 243 units per hour compared with robots, at 224 units per hour. The difference is small, but Amazon also highlighted some nuances.

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Where the robots stand out is in consistency. "It was also found that humans had greater variation in stow rates: people can quickly stow many small items efficiently, but are slower with large items, crouching for lower bins, or when using a step ladder to reach the top bins," Amazon explained.

The company also observed how humans can perform multiple tasks at once with two hands, such as pulling out a storage bin with one hand and stowing an item with the other – something that the current generation of robots fails to do.

Still, the gap is closing, with Amazon's robots stowing at greater than 85% success at a similar stow rate to humans across more than half a million tests.

That said, there are some challenges with implementing robotics across Amazon warehouses, including damages caused by dropping products, inserting products into stowage bins, and crushing lightweight boxes.

As such, while full human replacement is not feasible yet, hybrid systems are proving to be highly effective, with more work needed on improving handling and reducing damages caused by robots.

"Deeper research into predicting complex item interaction may be required in scaling manipulation more general," Amazon's researchers added.

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• Rockstar insider 'Tez2' says a Grand Theft Auto 4 port could be released later this year
• 'Tez2' claims someone at Rockstar "hinted" at a GTA 4 port and "by now it should've gone up a year in development"
• The insider also says a possible Max Payne 3 remaster will be released next, after the GTA 4 port

Grand Theft Auto 4 is reportedly coming to PS5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S later this year, followed by a possible Max Payne 3 remaster.

As reported by Eurogamer, this latest rumor comes from Rockstar insider 'Tez2', who shared on the GTA Forum that someone at Rockstar Games "hinted" at a GTA 4 port for modern consoles and "by now it should've gone up a year in development".

'Tez2' also said that "we may end up seeing it drop later this year" and that a port of the 2008 game is one of the reasons why the Liberty City Preservation Project, a fan-made GTA mod, was taken down by the studio earlier this year.

It's also claimed that Rockstar is developing a Max Payne 3 port that will potentially release after the GTA 4 port.

"If they still follow their plan laid out from the pandemic days, they'll do an MP3 port after IV. So that is an opportunity to do a bundle or a Definitive Edition. Max Payne 1 & 2 remakes, and a Max Payne 3 port," 'Tez2' posted.

Rockstar Games is notorious for keeping development projects quiet, and no announcements of a GTA 4 or Max Payne 3 remaster have been made at this time.

The studio released Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition back in 2021, which contained GTA 3, GTA: Vice City, and GTA: San Andreas, so it would make sense for it to want to port GTA 4 to modern consoles as well.

A GTA 4 remaster would tide fans over while we wait for Grand Theft Auto 6, which was recently delayed from its original 2025 release and is now slated to launch on May 26, 2026.

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• Sony has launched the new Xperia 1 VII flagship smartphone
• Hardware improvements include a new ultra-wide camera, while software sees the introduction of Xperia Intelligence
• The phone costs £1,399 in the UK, with no US availability at the time of writing

Sony has launched the Xperia 1 VII smartphone, bringing a slew of hardware and software updates to the company’s creator-focused flagship handset.

The Japanese tech giant is keen to emphasise the incorporation of technologies from its various tech brands in the new phone, specifically Alpha-branded photography tools, Bravia display tech, and Walkman-branded audio.

It’s good to know that Sony has thrown the full weight of its tech talent at the Xperia 1 VII, especially considering the phone is no cheaper than its predecessors – at £1,399, it’s one of the most expensive flagships on the market.

As well as sporting the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, 12GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage, the phone’s headline hardware features include a new ultra-wide camera, an upgraded headphone jack, and improved display calibration.

Sony has given the Xperia 1 VII a new 48MP ultra-wide camera with a 1/1.56-inch sensor, up from a 12MP 1/2.5-inch camera on the previous generation Xperia 1 VI.

In the official Xperia 1 VII product page, Sony states that the new ultra-wide camera can achieve "clear night shots equivalent to full-frame cameras", and while a larger sensor should increase low-light performance, this claim seems dubious given that full-frame sensors are more than twice the size of the Xperia 1 VII's ultra-wide sensor.

This new ultra-wide sits alongside two cameras carried forward from last year’s Xperia 1 VI – a 48MP main camera and 12MP telephoto camera with continuous 3.5x-7.1x telephoto zoom. The camera system is controlled by a dedicated shutter button with half-press focus, the same as prior iterations.

As mentioned, the Xperia 1 VII is one of the only phones on the market that still has a headphone jack – an elegant feature for a more civilized age. The phone has inherited components from Sony’s line of Walkman media players to enhance wired audio quality, while AI-enabled DSEE Ultimate processing can add clarity to compressed audio streams.

And in collaboration with Sony Bravia, a light sensor has been added to the rear of the phone to assist with brightness and color calibration in indoor and outdoor conditions.

Even bigger steps have been taken on the software side – the Xperia 1 VII is the launchpad for Xperia Intelligence, a suite of tastefully subtle AI tools centred around photography and filmmaking.

For example, the AI Camera Work tool assists in keeping video footage stable, while the AI Auto Framing tool keeps a human subject in the center of the shot. That Auto Framing tool also allows users to film a second vertical close-up video of said subject while filming a wider horizontal shot.

The phone also comes with Google Gemini installed, with access to tools like Circle to Search.

The Sony Xperia 1 VII is out now in three colors – Moss Green, Slate Black, and the eye-catching Orchid Purple option. It’s likely to top our list of the best Sony phones, but let us know if you think this £1,399 handset will be worth its high price in the comments below.

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• Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa says the Switch 2's high price is a factor for the company's 15 million unit sales forecast
• Furukawa says that limits to hardware production capacity and US tariffs were not a factor
• Nintendo also expects to sell 45 million units in Switch 2 software, excluding copies of Mario Kart World included in Switch 2 bundles

Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa has said the lower than expected sales prediction for the Nintendo Switch 2 is due to the console's high price point.

Following its financial report last week, where Nintendo said it expected to sell 15 million Switch 2 consoles during its launch window last week (via VGC), investors have since asked the company why it has predicted lower sales than some analysts were anticipating.

"We are forecasting Nintendo Switch 2 hardware sales of 15 million units for this fiscal year," Furukawa said in a new Q&A published today. "We set this figure with the aim of reaching the same level of sales we achieved with Nintendo Switch in the roughly 10-month period between its launch in March 2017 and December that year."

Furukawa also said that the console's high cost of $449.99 / £395.99 is a key factor in its predictions, but that its backward compatibility and software bundles will increase sales before the end of the first fiscal year.

"Nintendo Switch 2 is priced relatively high compared to Nintendo Switch, so we recognize that there are corresponding challenges to early adoption," the Nintendo president explained. "That being said, Nintendo Switch 2 can play compatible Nintendo Switch software, so there is continuity between the platforms. We are taking steps like bundling software with the hardware to accelerate adoption in the first fiscal year, aiming to get off to the same start we did with Nintendo Switch."

Furukawa continued, saying that limits to hardware production capacity "were not a factor" in its sales prediction, and that the recent rise in US tariffs or the possibility a recession "did not affect our sales volume forecast either".

"In order to achieve sales of 15 million units, we will need to manufacture the hardware in quantities greater than that. Our first goal is to get off to the same start we did with Nintendo Switch, and we are working to strengthen our production capacity so we can respond flexibly to demand," he added.

(Image credit: Nintendo)

After acknowledging the positive feedback from the Nintendo Switch 2 hands-on events around the world, before returning to the topic of the console's high price in comparison to the original Switch, saying that "even if there is momentum around the launch, we know it will not be easy to keep that momentum going over".

"We have been working to ramp up Nintendo Switch 2 hardware production since even before we held the Nintendo Switch 2 Experience events and began My Nintendo Store applications. Our sales volume forecast was not determined based on any limit to production capacity," he said.

Nintendo also predicted that it sell 45 million units in Nintendo Switch 2 software, excluding the Mario Kart World copies included in Switch 2 bundles, which would surpass the 52 million units of software sold for the Switch in the 10 months after its launch.

It was said that this is in part due to "a more robust line-up" of games from publishers and the availability of Switch 2 Edition titles.

Furukawa was later asked to confirm the impact of expected US tariffs on the sales forecast after Nintendo was forced to raise the price of some of its upcoming accessories last month.

"Our financial projections were created based on the assumption of U.S. tariffs of 10% on products produced in Japan, Vietnam, and Cambodia, and 145% on China," he explained, but couldn't disclose the impact of tariffs on individual products, like some accessories and amiibo, that are produced in China.

"Our basic policy is that for any country or region, if tariffs are imposed, we recognize them as a part of the cost and incorporate them into the price," Furukawa added. "On the other hand, the fiscal year ending March 2026 is the launch period for our first new dedicated video game system in eight years. If the tariff assumptions change, we will consider how to handle the situation while keeping in mind the importance of platform momentum and growth of the hardware install base."

The Nintendo Switch 2 launches globally on June 5, 2025. UK pre-orders and US pre-orders are now live.

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• The Bear season 4 and Alien: Earth are arriving over the coming months
• Alien Earth arrives in June and The Bear arrives in August
• Both shows are available on Hulu in the US, and Disney+ internationally

Hulu has just announced the release dates for two exciting new arrivals: both The Bear season 4 and Alien: Earth are coming to one of the best streaming services over the next few months.

Fans eagerly awaiting both dramas will be pleased to hear that The Bear returns on June 26 and the new sci-fi series Alien: Earth arrives on August 13. So, whether you want stressful cooking or creepy xenomorphs, Hulu has got you covered. Both shows can be found on Disney+ in non-US territories.

The Bear is already on our best Hulu shows round up, but could Alien: Earth join the list? So far, it seems promising, but the franchise has been hit and miss over the years so we'll have to wait and see.

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(Image credit: FX)

As release dates creep closer, Hulu has dropped some first look images to get fans excited for what's to come.

Plot wise, season four of The Bear sees Carmy, Sydney, and Richie are determined not only to survive, but also to take The Bear to the next level. However, that's no easy task and there'll be challenges around every corner forcing them to think on their feet and decide what's worth holding onto.

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While these shows are very different they seem to be connected by sounding stressful, as The Bear has often been regarded as one of the most stress-inducing comedy shows of all time, so both are guaranteed to get your pulse racing when they arrive later this year.

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• Co-op is experiencing disruption following a cyberattack
• Reports suggest that hackers may still have access to systems
• This follows a similarly destructive attack on fellow retailer M&S

British retail giant Co-op is still experiencing severe disruptions from a cyberattack, with some stores unable to restock selected products thanks to critical logistical systems being kept offline amid fears that the hackers may still have access to the company’s networks, The Record reports.

Co-op has spent the last two weeks fending off attackers by shutting down IT systems - and there has been “significant disruption” to operations as a result. Co-op’s CEO confirmed that a “limited amount of customer data” was accessed by criminals, and that the organization is working to fully understand the impact of the attack.

“As previously communicated, we have established that the cyber criminals were able to access a limited amount of member data. This is obviously extremely distressing for our colleagues and members, and I am very sorry this happened. We recognise the importance of data protection and take our obligations to you and our regulators seriously, particularly as a member-owned organisation,” she confirmed.

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Lingering hackers

Deliveries from Co-op’s large depots were reportedly well below 20% of their normal capacity, outlining the serious disruptions that these attacks can bring.

“All our stores are open and trading and we are now making deliveries to all of our stores, flowing in an increased level of fresh, chilled and frozen products alongside cupboard essentials,” a spokesperson confirmed to The Record.

“Some of our stores might not have all their usual products available and we are sorry if this is the case for our members’ and customers in their local store. We are working around the clock to reduce disruption and are pleased [to] have resumed delivery of stock to our shelves,” they added.

The nature of the attack is yet to be revealed, although it comes alongside a similar incident for another retailer, M&S, who suffered an outage that is most likely linked to ScatteredSpider ransomware.

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