Technology

Looking for a different day?

A new NYT Connections puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Tuesday's puzzle instead then click here: NYT Connections hints and answers for Tuesday, July 15 (game #765).

Good morning! Let's play Connections, the NYT's clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need Connections hints.

What should you do once you've finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I've also got daily Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too, while Marc's Wordle today page covers the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Connections today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

NYT Connections today (game #766) - today's words

(Image credit: New York Times)

Today's NYT Connections words are…

• QUAD
• CORNER
• TREE
• HAMMY
• LAMB
• LIBRARY
• DELT
• SURROUND
• OVERDONE
• TRAP
• THE
• BET
• CAMP
• DORM
• DRAMATIC
• CAFETERIA

NYT Connections today (game #766) - hint #1 - group hints

What are some clues for today's NYT Connections groups?

• YELLOW: School grounds
• GREEN: Theatrical show off
• BLUE: Hunted down
• PURPLE: Ancient alphabet

Need more clues?

We're firmly in spoiler territory now, but read on if you want to know what the four theme answers are for today's NYT Connections puzzles…

NYT Connections today (game #766) - hint #2 - group answers

What are the answers for today's NYT Connections groups?

• YELLOW: PARTS OF A COLLEGE CAMPUS
• GREEN: EXAGGERATED, AS A PERFORMANCE
• BLUE: CLOSE IN ON
• PURPLE: STARTS OF GREEK LETTERS

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Connections today (game #766) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Connections, game #766, are…

• YELLOW: PARTS OF A COLLEGE CAMPUS CAFETERIA, DORM, LIBRARY, QUAD
• GREEN: EXAGGERATED, AS A PERFORMANCE CAMP, DRAMATIC, HAMMY, OVERDONE
• BLUE: CLOSE IN ON CORNER, SURROUND, TRAP, TREE
• PURPLE: STARTS OF GREEK LETTERS BET, DELT, LAMB, THE

• My rating: Hard
• My score: Perfect

Although I didn’t make any mistakes I’m classifying this as tricky because I only made a clear run down to luck.

DRAMATIC and CAMP behavior is something I really enjoy and recognizing that some people might associate it with being HAMMY and OVERDONE I quickly put together the green group – EXAGERATED, AS A PERFORMANCE.

I came close to placing TREE in the group that became PARTS OF A COLLEGE CAMPUS before swapping it for CAFETERIA.

The last eight letters were a baffling bunch, so I decided to put THE and BET to one side and concentrate on what was left. CORNER, SURROUND and TRAP all seemed to describe catching someone, but I struggled to find the fourth and just added TREE to make up the numbers. I’m still not sure how it’s relevant to CLOSE IN ON.

Yesterday's NYT Connections answers (Tuesday, July 15 game #765)

• YELLOW: GYMNASTICS APPARATUS BARS, BEAM, RINGS, VAULT
• GREEN: FORCE TO LEAVE BOOT, BOUNCE, EJECT, REMOVE
• BLUE: HORROR MOVIES FROM 2022 NOPE, PEARL, SCREAM, SMILE
• PURPLE: HORSE__ FEATHERS, PLAY, POWER, SHOE

What is NYT Connections?

NYT Connections is one of several increasingly popular word games made by the New York Times. It challenges you to find groups of four items that share something in common, and each group has a different difficulty level: green is easy, yellow a little harder, blue often quite tough and purple usually very difficult.

On the plus side, you don't technically need to solve the final one, as you'll be able to answer that one by a process of elimination. What's more, you can make up to four mistakes, which gives you a little bit of breathing room.

It's a little more involved than something like Wordle, however, and there are plenty of opportunities for the game to trip you up with tricks. For instance, watch out for homophones and other word games that could disguise the answers.

It's playable for free via the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.

Looking for a different day?

A new Quordle puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Tuesday's puzzle instead then click here: Quordle hints and answers for Tuesday, July 15 (game #1268).

Quordle was one of the original Wordle alternatives and is still going strong now more than 1,100 games later. It offers a genuine challenge, though, so read on if you need some Quordle hints today – or scroll down further for the answers.

Enjoy playing word games? You can also check out my NYT Connections today and NYT Strands today pages for hints and answers for those puzzles, while Marc's Wordle today column covers the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about Quordle today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

Quordle today (game #1269) - hint #1 - VowelsHow many different vowels are in Quordle today?

• The number of different vowels in Quordle today is 5*.

* Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too).

Quordle today (game #1269) - hint #2 - repeated lettersDo any of today's Quordle answers contain repeated letters?

• The number of Quordle answers containing a repeated letter today is 1.

Quordle today (game #1269) - hint #3 - uncommon lettersDo the letters Q, Z, X or J appear in Quordle today?

• No. None of Q, Z, X or J appear among today's Quordle answers.

Quordle today (game #1269) - hint #4 - starting letters (1)Do any of today's Quordle puzzles start with the same letter?

• The number of today's Quordle answers starting with the same letter is 0.

If you just want to know the answers at this stage, simply scroll down. If you're not ready yet then here's one more clue to make things a lot easier:

Quordle today (game #1269) - hint #5 - starting letters (2)What letters do today's Quordle answers start with?

• U

• N

• R

• B

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

Quordle today (game #1269) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Quordle, game #1269, are…

• UNCLE
• NADIR
• REMIT
• BROOM

My starter words gave me an anagram to solve for my first word – REMIT – and answering that gave me two more. It was until BROOM that I had to do some thinking.

With no other vowels I took a gamble that the word would contain the far more common double-O rather than a single-O, although I was all set to guess groom before realizing I’d already used the G.

Daily Sequence today (game #1269) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1269, are…

• BAWDY
• INCUR
• FISHY
• TENET

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #1268, Tuesday, 15 July: VILLA, FLECK, TIGER, CRANE
• Quordle #1267, Monday, 14 July: SURGE, PIZZA, PAPER, POPPY
• Quordle #1266, Sunday, 13 July: KAYAK, DECRY, RUDDY, HATER
• Quordle #1265, Saturday, 12 July: WREAK, NANNY, CLASP, STAIN
• Quordle #1264, Friday, 11 July: LAPEL, DRAIN, FROND, GROSS
• Quordle #1263, Thursday, 10 July: CROSS, WHEEL, UNDID, PENCE
• Quordle #1262, Wednesday, 9 July: SHIRE, SIXTH, SINGE, IMAGE
• Quordle #1261, Tuesday, 8 July: PLIED, PRANK, GAWKY, OXIDE
• Quordle #1260, Monday, 7 July: DROLL, TRUCE, TWIRL, SINCE
• Quordle #1259, Sunday, 6 July: AMPLY, SPAWN, EXTOL, RIDGE
• Quordle #1258, Saturday, 5 July: HAVEN, SNAKE, DREAM, TORUS
• Quordle #1257, Friday, 4 July: FAVOR, SKUNK, GAWKY, FLUFF
• Quordle #1256, Thursday, 3 July: DANCE, EYING, GLAZE, EGRET
• Quordle #1255, Wednesday, 2 July: INANE, SCOUR, ELITE, ULCER
• Quordle #1254, Tuesday, 1 July: REBAR, YEARN, FORTH, CROWD
• Quordle #1253, Monday, 30 June: INGOT, INFER, TAPIR, CLUED
• Quordle #1252, Sunday, 29 June: MIRTH, APTLY, SCRUB, SMACK
• Quordle #1251, Saturday, 28 June: AWOKE, SMOKY, DEVIL, SWING
• Quordle #1250, Friday, 27 June: SPEAK, EAGLE, AVERT, SUING

Looking for a different day?

A new NYT Strands puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Tuesday's puzzle instead then click here: NYT Strands hints and answers for Tuesday, July 15 (game #499).

Strands is the NYT's latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it's great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints.

Want more word-based fun? Then check out my NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games, and Marc's Wordle today page for the original viral word game.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

NYT Strands today (game #500) - hint #1 - today's themeWhat is the theme of today's NYT Strands?

• Today's NYT Strands theme is… Tech accessories

NYT Strands today (game #500) - hint #2 - clue words

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• STAKE
• LION
• PEST
• COAT
• STANDARDS
• SHARE

NYT Strands today (game #500) - hint #3 - spangram lettersHow many letters are in today's spangram?

• Spangram has 6 letters

NYT Strands today (game #500) - hint #4 - spangram positionWhat are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?

First side: left, 4th row

Last side: right, 5th row

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #500) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Strands, game #500, are…

• CASE
• SPEAKER
• STAND
• STYLUS
• CHARGER
• KEYBOARD
• FOLIO
• SPANGRAM: TABLET

• My rating: Easy
• My score: Perfect

Today’s Strands could not have been more TechRadar-friendly – considering how much we love tech accessories and write about the many different brands of TABLET.

Even for the less tech savvy, this search wasn’t much of a stretch and didn’t include any of the usual twists and turns, just a little bit of right-to-left thinking.

You will have to forgive me for putting “standards” in the hint words list, even though it includes STAND. It’s rare that you can find a nine-letter-long non-game word, so I couldn’t resist.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Tuesday, July 15, game #499)

• GAMES
  MUSIC
• RIDES
• LIVESTOCK
• VENDORS
• PRIZES
• SPANGRAM: COUNTY FAIRS

What is NYT Strands?

Strands is the NYT's not-so-new-any-more word game, following Wordle and Connections. It's now a fully fledged member of the NYT's games stable that has been running for a year and which can be played on the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.

I've got a full guide to how to play NYT Strands, complete with tips for solving it, so check that out if you're struggling to beat it each day.

• Google TV interface is evolution, not revolution
• Most changes to the UI are subtle and modernizing
• Advertising on the For You page is not so subtle

Google TV's interface is evolving, and not everyone is happy. The expansion of its Material 3 Expressive design is continuing apace with the goal of making everything feel cleaner and more modern, but some devices are apparently showing really big ads on their revised homescreens.

Let's start with the positives. As Android Police reports, there's a new version of the Google TV app with the excitingly descriptive version of 4.39.3356.780959673.5, and it's delivered some noticeable improvements to key parts of the Google TV interface.

(Image credit: BarfingMonkey / Reddit)What's new in Google TV

Some of the changes are quite subtle, such as the marginally larger banner area at the top of each detail page. The names of TV shows and movies have been moved slightly and center-aligned, and buttons have been made flatter. There are fewer rounded rectangles and more lozenge-shaped buttons, while image previews are now less sharp-edged.

So far it's evolutionary rather than revolutionary, but it's making Google TV more consistent with the wider Android world. And even relatively minor changes make everything feel a lot fresher, a bit like a deliciously refreshing can of Coca-Cola. Mmmm mmmm mmmm!

Don't worry, that's not product placement: it's me segueing into the negatives of Google's user interface evolution. As some Redditors are reporting on r/AndroidTV, they're seeing really big ads on the For You page for the likes of Coca-Cola, and those ads are being greeted with exactly the amount of delight you'd expect from a forum that frequently describes the best ad-blocking techniques.

Okay, believe me now?!!! from r/AndroidTV

Big homescreen ads aren't unique to Google TV, of course, and neither is increasing the amount of ads smart TV users are exposed to. In a lot of cases, though, it's been confined previously to at least showing you sponsored TV shows and movies. Coca-Cola feels a little less natural, even if they have put Kylo Ren in it.

But at least Google TV gives you the option to use a third-party launcher instead of the Google one, so if you object to seeing ever more ads on hardware you paid for then you can swap to something else – people on that Reddit thread suggest Projectivy.

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I spent a couple of hours with the Hisense 116UX TV, which has an RGB mini-LED backlight and a superfast 165Hz panel. Also, it's big.

Midrange devices like Samsung's Galaxy A36 are driving sales by letting people try AI without busting their budgets.

Motorola's already introduced wood and fabric to the Razr Ultra. Are crystals next?

EcoFlow's new Ocean Pro is a home power backup designed for homeowners in disaster-prone states and meant to challenge Tesla's Powerwall.

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• Binarly spotted multiple flaws in UEFI firmware built by AMI
• AMI released fixes months ago, so users should update now
• Many Gigabyte motherboards reached EOF and thus won't be patched

UEFI firmware on dozens of Gigabyte motherboards is vulnerable to a handful of flaws which theoretically allow threat actors to deploy bootkits on compromised devices, establish stubborn persistence and execute additional malicious code remotely, experts have warned.

Security researchers Binarly recently discovered four vulnerabilities in UEFI firmware developed by American Megatrends Inc. (AMI). All four have a high severity score (8.2/10), and can lead to privilege escalation, malware installation, and other potentially destructive outcomes. They are tracked as CVE-2025-7026, CVE-2025-7027, CVE-2025-7028, and CVE-2025-7028.

Binarly reported its findings to Carnegie Mellon CERT/CC in mid-April 2025, resulting in AMI acknowledging the findings and releasing a patch in mid-June. The patch was pushed to OEMs privately, but apparently Gigabyte did not implement it at the time.

Hundreds of motherboard models affected

There are apparently more than 240 motherboard models that are impacted by these flaws.

Many won’t be patched at all because they have reached end of life, and as such, are no longer supported by Gigabyte. Instead, users worried about the vulnerabilities should upgrade their hardware to newer, supported versions.

Products from other OEMs are also said to be affected by these flaws, but until a patch is applied, their names will not be publicized.

UEFI firmware is low-level code that runs beneath the operating system, and whose job is to initialize the hardware (CPU, memory, storage), and then hand off control to the OS. When this code has flaws, threat actors can exploit them to install so-called “bootkits”, stealthy malware that loads at boot time, before the OS.

Because they run in privileged environments, bootkits can evade antivirus tools, and even survive OS reinstalls and disk replacements. This makes them highly persistent and dangerous, especially in high-security environments. The good news is that exploiting these vulnerabilities often requires admin access, which is not that easily obtainable.

Via BleepingComputer

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Stick it to economic uncertainty with this money trend.

• The prices for the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X have reportedly leaked online
• The ROG Xbox Ally will seemingly cost €599 ($699) while the ROG Xbox Ally X will be priced at €899 ($1,050)
• If the prices are accurate, this will make them Xbox's most expensive consoles yet

The pricing information for the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X has seemingly leaked online.

As reported by Spanish publication 3djuegos(via GamesRadar), the console prices were leaked through product boxes on Google.

It appears that the ROG Xbox Ally will cost €599, while the ROG Xbox Ally X will be priced much higher at €899. After converting, the prices respectively translate to $699 and $1,050, and, if accurate, this will make them Xbox's most expensive consoles yet.

This is also how much the original Asus ROG Ally and Asus ROG Ally X cost in Europe.

The pricing has since been removed, but the boxes originally linked back to the official Asus website, suggesting that the company may have mistakenly shared the information ahead of time.

Microsoft announced its take on the Asus ROG Ally last month during the Xbox Games Showcase 2025. Both versions of the handheld will feature a 7-inch 1080p display with a 120Hz refresh rate, but the white Xbox Ally variant targets 720p gaming, while the black Xbox Ally X console aims for 900p to 1080p gaming.

Although the prices may be on the more expensive side, it is understandable considering the console/PC hybrid uses AMD Ryzen chips, with the more powerful Xbox Ally X utilizing the Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme, which comes with 24GB of LPDDR5X-8000 RAM and a 1TB SSD.

Both handhelds have also been redesigned with contoured grips to mimic the Xbox Wireless Controller, feature the Xbox's 'ABXY' button layout, hall-effect impulse triggers, a 3.5mm headphone jack, Bluetooth 5.4 connectivity, and more.

There's no word on release dates for either console just yet, but we'll keep you updated.

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• New Microsoft Research paper identifies areas where AI is already being used the most
• It also shows areas that AI has very little influence on currently
• The research could show potential for AI job augmentation, not just replacement

I don’t know about you, but I have this kind of nagging fear that AI is coming for me one of these days. If not imminently, then in the very near future. One thing that might allay that fear is knowing exactly where AI’s axe is going to fall in the labor market, so that I can make sure I’m always just out of its reach.

The problem is that right now we have a lot of people making bold assumptions about what sorts of jobs AI will take away, but as we all know, no plan survives contact with the enemy, so it might be better to approach the problem from another direction.

A new report from Microsoft Research has analyzed 200,000 real conversations between people and Copilot to understand how AI is being used by people in the workplace right now. This way, we can determine which roles are likely to be the most impacted as companies adopt generative AI in the future.

The most at risk

It should come as no surprise that the jobs the report identified as the most common work activities people seek AI assistance for all involve gathering information and writing, and that the most common activities that AI is performing are providing information and assistance, writing, teaching, and advising.

It turns out that interpreters and translators are top of the list when it comes to compatibility with AI, with a stunning 98% of their activities overlapping with frequent Copilot tasks that have fairly high completion rates.

So, if you're thinking of changing careers to become a translator, it might be worth considering your options. Also at the top of the list are historians, writers and authors, and journalists. It should be no surprise to also see proofreaders, editors, and PR specialists high up on the list, too.

(Image credit: Shutterstock)The most resistant to AI

It’s physical trades involving working with people that are the most resistant to the influence of AI. The report puts nursing assistants, massage therapists, and machinery operators, including truck and tractor drivers, as the most AI-resistant occupations. Manual laborers like roofers, dishwashers, maids, and housekeeping cleaners were also near the top of the list.

The news will be good for some jobs, but terrible for others. Of course, nothing is guaranteed, and if you’re working in one of the most compatible areas for AI (I know I am!), then don’t panic right now because the research could be simply indicating that your area is one that is ripe for augmentation by AI, rather than replacement.

I think there will always be a need for skilled humans in some capacity, even in areas that will be heavily dominated by AI. That said, understanding AI’s impact on jobs is probably going to put you in a better position than if you have no clue about its threats.

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Congratulations, fellow Stranger Things fan! You’re on the home stretch of the three year wait between Stranger Things season 4 and Stranger Things season 5. The final episodes will be split into three releases – volume 1 on November 26, volume 2 on December 25 and the season 5 finale on December 31 – so there’s still a small wait to go, but rumour has it we’re getting the first full season 5 trailer at some point this week.

Today (July 15) marks the first time we ever saw one of the best Netflix shows of all time on screen, with the series debuting nine years ago in 2016. If you can’t remember what happened when we last visited Hawkins (and that’s understandable), our group of best friends attempted to defeat Vecna, causing Max's apparent death as well as the opening of a massive rift between the town and the Upside Down. No big deal, I’m sure.

But as Netflix finally tries to get its fanbase excited about the drawn-out end, a painful question has to be asked. Why should anybody care about Stranger Things season 5 when we’ve been left in the lurch for so long? I’m wondering if it would have been less of a hassle to have been eaten by Vecna when we first met him, and that’s a problem.

Stranger Things season 5 and its trailer are coming, but do we even care?

Let’s put it into context. Since Stranger Things season 4 aired, we’ve had four seasons of The Bear, five seasons of Slow Horses (if you count new episodes we’re going to get in September) and two seasons of Severance… and look how long that took to return. In the Stranger Things world alone, we’ve had the arrival of non-canon West End play The First Shadow, plus the announcement of two spinoffs: animated series Stranger Things: Tales from '85 and live-action show The Boroughs. Everyone and their nan has seemingly complained about not getting season 5 in the meantime, and they’ve got good reason to be annoyed.

Back in the good old days of the mid-2000s, we were regularly whipping through 22-episode seasons of TV like there was no tomorrow. Desperate Housewives and Lost were great examples of this, each requiring a high level of input and resource in their own way. Fast forward two decades, and the consolation prize of feeling lucky to get eight new episodes in three years doesn’t feel like something worth investing in.

Sure, these upcoming episodes are basically feature length movies and the technical craft needed to achieve them is immense, but this is Hollywood, for goodness sake! Every resource we allegedly have at our disposal is supposed to be at the top of its game, able to give us everything we have and haven’t yet dreamed up. From a marketing perspective, Netflix might have thought dragging out the jewel in the crown of its streaming back catalog would make fans hungrier for the end product, but there’s only so far you can stretch the theory in practice.

Of course, I’ll be streaming Stranger Things season 5 like the rest of us, but it will be a reluctant watch. The endless wait over the last few years has definitely made me think twice about investing in shows on one of the best streaming services around, and that’s before we even touch on the frequent cancellations (another story for another day).

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• VRI will complement NCSC's current vulnerability research efforts
• It will be tasked with communicating NCSC's needs with external experts
• The goal is to understand the flaws, patches, and research methodology

The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has announced the forming of The Vulnerability Research Initiative (VRI), a new program which will see it partner with third-party cybersecurity experts for vulnerability research in commodity and specialized tech.

The NCSC said it currently operates a team of internal researchers who are experts in common technologies, and who conduct vulnerability research (VR) on a range of technologies and products, from traditional commodity tech, to specialized solutions only used in a few places.

However, the team is unable to keep up with the speed at which the technology industry is changing. New tech is popping up every day, and old tech is evolving beyond recognition, “and thus VR is getting harder”.

Understanding the vulnerabilities

“This means the NCSC demand for VR continues to grow,” NCSC explained.

To tackle the challenge, it decided to create VRI, and bring in third-party help. The program’s goal is to help NCSC’s researchers understand the vulnerabilities present in today’s technologies, the necessary mitigations, how experts conduct their research, and which tools they use in the process.

“This successful way of working increases NCSC’s capacity to do VR and shares VR expertise across the UK’s VR ecosystem,” the press release further reads.

The VRI core team will include technical experts, relationship managers, and project managers, with the core team being responsible for communicating the VR team's requirements to VRI industry partners and for overseeing the progress and outcomes of the research.

In the (near) future, NCSC will bring in more experts to tackle AI-powered, or otherwise AI-related vulnerabilities. Those who are interested in participating in VRI should reach out to the agency via email at vri@ncsc.gov.uk. The address should not be used for sharing vulnerability reports.

Via BleepingComputer

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• Nintendo is asking Japanese players for their thoughts on Nintendo Switch 2 Game-Key Cards
• It follows reports of low sales for third-party Nintendo Switch 2 software
• It hopefully signals a shift towards more traditional physical releases

Nintendo is asking Japanese players for their thoughts on the controversial Nintendo Switch 2 Game-Key Cards.

As first spotted by SwitchSoku and reported by VGC, surveys have been going out to Nintendo Switch 2 players in Japan.

The multiple-choice form asks whether you are aware of the existence of Game-Key Cards or currently own any. Next, it lists a number of the characteristics of Game-Key Cards and prompts you to select the ones you already know.

Finally, it asks whether you would choose the digital download version of a piece of software if a Game-Key Card was available.

If you're not aware, Game-Key Cards are a special type of Nintendo Switch 2 release. They are physical game cards that do no contain any substantial data. When inserted into a Nintendo Switch 2 system, they prompt a download of the game much like an eShop purchase.

You need to insert the Game-Key Card every time you want to access the title. The game takes up space on your system's internal storage, negating one of the big benefits of traditional game cards.

The only real benefit of a Game-Key Card is that it can be resold or swapped between multiple consoles freely, though in my eyes this isn't really worth the hassle.

The vast majority of Nintendo Switch 2 third-party releases have been Game-Key Cards, much to the disappointment of some players.

As sales of third-party software has reportedly been lower than expected, I suspect that this survey signals that Nintendo is re-evaluating its approach and hopefully will begin pushing developers towards traditional physical releases.

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• The tubular bike comes in two guises, with a top speed of 53mph
• Its frame houses a removable battery that looks like a giant AA
• Prices start at €5,999 (around £5,200/$7,000/AU$10,600)

The story of Sol Motors is a long and slightly turbulent one, as the slightly bizarre, Pocket Rocket electric two-wheeler has been teased for many years but struggled to fully achieve lift off.

Now, the German innovators are ready to release their pipe-shaped urban transport into the wild, with pre-orders being taken now and delivery to anywhere in the world typically taking around 6-8 weeks from point of purchase.

Designed to be small, lightweight and practical, the Pocket Rocket comes in two guises that cover the full spectrum of license requirements in Germany (these will differ across markets).

The standard model, for example, has a peak power output of 6.5kW and is limited to a top speed of 45kph (just under 30mph), which makes it legal to ride on most moped or scooter licenses in Europe.

For those wanting more punch, there’s an S model that develops 8.5kW of peak power and can hit 85kph (or around 53mph), which will generally require an additional license.

Both models weigh just 87kg and offer an electric range of between 42 and 67 miles, depending on the version.

When it comes time to charge, the large tubular battery pack that is housed within the frame’s crossbar can be removed and charged in the house, office or apartment, with Sol even offering a stylish charging station to neatly hang the battery from.

What’s more, customers can buy additional battery packs for rapid swaps, although this will see the final bill increase other the tune of €1,695 (around £1,470/$2,000/AU$3,000).

Similarly, if you go wild with the online configurator, which offers a number of frame, fender and logo colors, the price starts to tickle the €8,000 (around £7,000/$9,300AU$14,200) mark.

Funky, fun but not for everyone

(Image credit: Sol Motors)

The emerging EV landscape has encouraged a number of start-ups to produce all manner of weird and whacky designs, but the Sol Pocket Rocket is up there with some of the strangest.

Why anyone would want to ride atop a drainage tube is anyone’s guess and ergonomically, it doesn’t look like a great options for particularly tall or very short users, as there’s not much in the way of adjustability.

But like Infinite Machine, which produces highly futuristic electric scooters and pedelecs, Sol Motors is offering something a bit different for those wanting lightweight, easy-to-maintain urban transport that turns heads.

Will it be the next big thing? Probably not. But will it raise a few smiles on the streets? Most definitely.

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Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver service fell victim to a simultaneous BGP hijack and route leak event, causing massive internet outages and degradation worldwide. Pakistan caused the most famous BGP outage. The government tried to block access to YouTube within the country. Their misconfiguration caused a worldwide YouTube outage.

Most organizations are targets of attacks 7.5 times a year. And while most are resolved quickly, these are examples of public infrastructure failures that are beyond your control.

What other technology do you rely on every day that was invented in the 1980s? Not your smartphone. Not your car. Not your TV. And definitely not your work tools. Yet, every time you send an email, connect to a website, or deploy a cloud service, you’re relying on core internet protocols that predate the web itself.

The Fragile Foundation

The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) was designed in 1989, an era when the “internet” was barely a concept and security was an afterthought. Back then:

- Home users connected via dial-up modems.

- Businesses considered themselves cutting-edge if they had a T1 line.

- Network reliability was a hope, not an expectation.

BGP’s original purpose was simple: keep the nascent internet stitched together. It provided large institutions with a means to announce which IP address blocks they controlled and to learn about others. The protocol allowed routers across autonomous systems (ASes) to share route announcements and dynamically discover paths to distant networks.

BGP was designed for resilience, not determinism. For openness, not security.

Speed, uptime, and security

Today, we demand speed, uptime, and security that BGP was never built to deliver. Multi-gigabit fiber reaches homes. Enterprises span multiple clouds across continents. Workloads like real-time video, financial transactions, and machine learning require low-latency, high-throughput data paths.

However, BGP still routes traffic based on trust and reachability, rather than performance or identity. It can’t enforce policies. It can’t prevent hijacks. And it certainly can’t guarantee who’s on the other end.

Despite multiple security incidents and efforts, such as RPKI and BGPsec, the internet still routes traffic based on a chain of trust that can be exploited by anyone with a few malicious route announcements. Most fixes require coordination that doesn’t exist and IT infrastructure upgrades that move at glacial speed.

The result? The modern internet rides on a protocol that thinks it’s still 1992.

Public by Default

Another artifact of that era is the Domain Name System (DNS). Created to make numeric IP addresses human-readable, DNS transformed how people accessed websites. Instead of memorizing strings of numbers, you could simply type in a name.

The problem? DNS is public by design.

Every query, every resolution, and every domain is visible and discoverable. Attackers can enumerate subdomains, discover shadow IT resources, and probe for vulnerabilities – all by posing as legitimate users.

We’ve seen this pattern before. Consider phone numbers. In the 1990s, receiving a call or piece of mail felt like an event. Now? Most calls are spam, and most email is junk. People don’t pick up unless they recognize the number. Our relationship with public identifiers has undergone a fundamental shift.

The same evolution is happening with network services. Public IP addresses and DNS names are easily scraped, scanned, and attacked. In an age of automation and AI-assisted hacking, exposing your infrastructure by default amounts to sending an invitation.

Yet we continue treating server addresses like phone numbers in a white pages directory – a model that no longer works for the threats we face.

Obsolete Assumptions

Both BGP and DNS reflect assumptions that simply don’t hold up anymore:

- Assumption: Networks are trusted.

-- Reality: Most attacks now originate from within or via compromised peers.

- Assumption: Routes are stable.

-- Reality: Internet routes change unpredictably due to performance tuning, outages, and misconfigurations.

- Assumption: Identities don’t matter.

-- Reality: Zero-trust architecture has become the standard for secure design.

- Assumption: Services are few and fixed.

-- Reality: Modern architectures dynamically spin up and down thousands of services.

The more we scale and automate, the more these assumptions crumble.

Time for a Rethink

The internet’s early architecture was undeniably brilliant for its time. But that time has passed.

Today’s needs are different. We need:

- Deterministic data paths that can be trusted end-to-end.

- Secure naming systems that are private by default.

- Policy-aware routing that aligns with business, performance, and compliance requirements.

- A model where services announce themselves securely to authorized peers, not to the entire internet.

These aren’t enhancements; they’re necessities.

The irony is striking: everything else in tech has evolved dramatically. Compute became elastic. Storage turned redundant and distributed. Deployment went fully automated. But networking? It’s still largely manual, primarily public, and built mainly on 40-year-old concepts.

This should be our wake-up call. We can’t keep patching internet security with duct tape and hoping for the best. It’s time to challenge the status quo and ask a hard question: are the foundational protocols we depend on every day actually fit for purpose anymore?

Security and privacy can’t remain afterthoughts we layer onto a crumbling foundation. They need to be built from the ground up. That means completely reimagining how the internet connects, routes, and identifies everything.

Think about it: what other critical system in your life still runs on ideas from the 1980s?

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This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro's Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro

• Windows 11 has a fresh preview build in the Canary channel
• It offers a new adaptive energy saver feature which is opt-in by nature
• Turning it on means Windows 11 will intelligently save battery life whenever the system isn't doing anything taxing

Microsoft is trying out a new feature to help give Windows 11 laptops better battery life, and it sounds like a promising idea.

It's called adaptive energy saver, and as Windows Central noticed, the functionality is now in testing in the Canary channel (the earliest of the four test channels that Microsoft uses).

Normally, energy saver only kicks in when the battery is running low (the exact level at which that happens depends on what the user specifies), but with the new intelligent mode of operation, energy saver will be able to operate at any time.

The idea is that if the system detects that there's not much going on – just basic tasks are running, perhaps just light web browsing, or you're writing an email – energy saver will activate in the background and save some battery.

At the moment, the capability is just rolling out in testing, so not every Windows Insider in the Canary channel will see it to begin with.

It's also an opt-in feature, meaning that you'll have to turn it on in Settings (System > Power & battery) to get the benefit. In other words, by default, nothing will change with the way Windows 11 employs energy saver, unless you specifically turn on adaptive energy saver.

Analysis: a bright idea

(Image credit: Getty Images)

How does adaptive energy saver work? That isn't clear, and Microsoft doesn't provide much in the way of detail in its preview build blog post, save to say that the feature will do its magic "based on the power state of the device and the current system load".

I can only assume that it's going to rein in the CPU and GPU – two of the most power-hungry components inside a laptop (or desktop) – when they're not doing much, which, given how many of us use our laptops, is going to be quite often. So there's a fair chance that this energy-saving trick could actually conserve quite a lot of battery life. (Fingers crossed – and check here for more tips in that same vein, incidentally).

A key point is that the level of brightness set for the screen won't ever be changed by adaptive energy saver. While the display is the other major source of power drain in a laptop, messing with the brightness would likely only annoy users – I know I wouldn't want my screen suddenly growing dimmer for no apparent reason – so it's a sensible decision to put the display to one side here.

While it's obviously designed for laptops, when I first saw this feature I imagined that it could be useful in bringing an eco-friendly element to desktop PCs, too (saving on power bills). That isn't the case, though, and Microsoft makes it clear that this is a notebook-only innovation.

For the more paranoid who are worried about adaptive energy saver perhaps messing with performance when it shouldn't – perhaps due to bugs, for example – it's worth repeating that it will be an opt-in ability. If you don't like the sound of it, just don’t switch the adaptive mode on.

Also, we shouldn't forget that features in testing may not make the cut for final release in Windows 11 anyway – but I'm hoping this one does.

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• French and UK tech experts will collaborate on multiple projects
• One of them is to secure technology used in GPS systems
• GPS needs to be more resilient to blocking and jamming

British and French technology experts will soon be working together more closely to make GPS and other similar technologies more resistant to disruptions.

The news was announced by the UK Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT), which said experts from the two countries will work together on a number of different projects going forward.

This includes strengthening the resilience of critical infrastructure to the signal-jamming seen in the Russo-Ukrainian war.

e-LORAN

“From our electricity infrastructure, to transport, to financial transactions, the tech we rely on for everyday life depends on reliable Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT), often provided via satellites,” the announcement reads.

“The conflict in Ukraine has shown how new technologies – in some cases, just small hand-held devices – can be used to disrupt PNT services, potentially causing major disruption to the vast areas of life and the economy reliant on them.”

One of these complementary technologies, highly resistant to jamming, is e-LORAN, a system that uses ground-based radio towers as a “backup” to GPS. DSIT describes it as being “much more challenging” to block, and as such can keep critical UK infrastructure technology running “even when GPS fails”.

The war in Ukraine seems to have exposed significant weaknesses of today’s GPS systems, which could end up in tragedy.

According to Ukrainska Pravda, The Telegraph’s researchers examined Flight Radar data for the first four months of 2024, which included 63 UK military aircraft completing 1,467 flights over Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

“During this time, the United Kingdom’s military aviation flew 504 transport and reconnaissance missions over Eastern Europe, with 142 of them encountering GPS jamming, and in 60 cases, such efforts occurred multiple times,” the publication explained.

At the same time, Business Insider reported Finnish soldiers were training with “basic navigation tools” - paper maps and compasses, due to the unreliability of GPS systems.

Via The Register

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