Technology

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• The S25 Slim camera may be "stronger" than the standard S25
• There's still a lot of uncertainty around this model
• The standard Galaxy S25 may not get any significant camera upgrades

As rumors around the Samsung Galaxy S25 have increased in number, we've started to hear reports of an additional 'Slim' model in the pipeline – and this particular handset could be set for a major camera boost, according to a new leak.

Well-known tipster @UniverseIce says the Galaxy S25 Slim (as we'll call it for now) is going to have a camera setup that's "stronger than S25". That should add to its appeal, beyond being thinner and lighter than a regular Samsung Galaxy flagship phone.

In the same leak there's a reference to the Vivo X200 Pro mini, which has apparently been something of an inspiration for Samsung. That 6.31-inch Vivo phone is fitted with a big triple-lens 50MP+50MP+50MP rear camera around the back.

As our Samsung Galaxy S24 review will tell you, that handset has a triple-lens 50MP+10MP+12MP with 3x optical zoom capabilities. Based on previous rumors, the Galaxy S25 isn't going to be much of an improvement in the camera department.

Camera specs

The difference between Samsung Galaxy Slim and iPhone Slim models is that Samsung wants to make the camera stronger, stronger than S25, and more similar to the idea of vivo X200 Pro mini, not just thin and light.November 23, 2024

This isn't the first time we've heard that the Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim would offer a top-tier camera: the camera on this upcoming phone has previously been described as being on an "ultra" level – possibly a reference to the Galaxy S24 Ultra.

Our Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra review goes into detail in terms of the rear camera setup on that phone: a quad-lens 200MP+10MP+50MP+12MP with a 5x optical zoom feature. Perhaps the 2025 Slim model will offer something similar.

The tipster behind this latest leak compares Samsung's approach to Apple's with the iPhone 17 Slim (or iPhone 17 Air) – with the rumored iPhone model, the focus is said to be on the thinner form factor, rather than any significant spec upgrades.

There has been talk that the Galaxy S25 Slim is just the Galaxy S25 FE – the successor to the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE – with a different name. However, a major camera upgrade would make this a more powerful (and expensive) proposition.

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This feature can ensure the person you're texting isn't a scammer — or worse.

• AI voice-clone scams are on the rise, according to security experts
• Voice-enabled AI models can be used to imitate loved ones
• Experts recommend agreeing a safe phrase with friends and family

The next spam call you receive might not be a real person – and your ear won’t be able to tell the difference. Scammers are using voice-enabled AI models to automate their fraudulent schemes, tricking individuals by imitating real human callers, including family members.

What are AI voice scams?

Scam calls aren't new, but AI-powered ones are a new dangerous breed. They use generative AI to imitate not just authorities or celebrities, but friends and family.

The arrival of AI models trained on human voices has unlocked a new realm of risk when it comes to phone scams. These tools, such as OpenAI’s voice API, support real-time conversation between a human and the AI model. With a small amount of code, these models can be programmed to execute phone scams automatically, encouraging victims to disclose sensitive information.

So how can you stay safe? What makes the threat so problematic is not just how easily and cheaply it can be deployed, but how convincing AI voices have become.

OpenAI faced backlash for its Sky voice option earlier this year, which sounded spookily like Scarlett Johansson, while Sir David Attenborough has described himself as “profoundly disturbed” by an AI voice clone which was indistinguishable from his real speech.

(Image credit: Getty Images / d3sign)

Just a few seconds of audio is enough to simulate the voice of a loved-one. This could easily be sourced form a video shared on social media.

Even tools designed to beat scammers demonstrate how blurred the lines have become. UK network O2 recently launched Daisy, an AI grandma designed to trap phone scammers in a time-wasting conversation, which they believe is with a real senior citizen. It’s a clever use of the technology, but also one that shows just how well AI can simulate human interactions.

Disturbingly, fraudsters can train AI voices based on very small audio samples. According to F-Secure, a cybersecurity firm, just a few seconds of audio is enough to simulate the voice of a loved-one. This could easily be sourced form a video shared on social media.

How AI voice-cloning scams work

The basic concept of a voice-clone scam is similar to standard phone scams: cybercriminals impersonate someone to gain the victim’s trust, then create a sense of urgency which encourages them to disclose sensitive information or transfer money to the fraudster.

The difference with voice-clone scams are two-fold. Firstly, the criminals can automate the process with code, allowing them to target more people, more quickly and for less money. Secondly, they are able to imitate not just authorities and celebrities, but people known directly to you.

All that’s required is an audio sample, which is usually taken from a video online. This is then analyzed by the AI model and imitated, allowing it to be used in deceptive interactions. One increasingly common technique is for the AI model to imitate a family member requesting money in an emergency.

The technology can also be used to simulate voices of high-profile individuals to manipulate victims. Scammers recently used an AI voice clone of Queensland Premier, Steven Miles, to try an execute an investment con.

How to stay safe from AI voice scams

According to Starling Bank, a digital lender, 28% of UK adults say they have been targeted by AI voice-clone scams, yet only 30% are confident that they’d know how to recognize one. That’s why Starling launched its Safe Phrases campaign, which encourages friends and family to agree a secret phrase which they can use to confirm each other’s identity – and that's a wise tactic.

TL;DR How to stay safe

(Image credit: Getty Images / Ronstick)

1. Agree a safe phrase with friends and family
2. Ask the caller to confirm some recent private information
3. Listen for uneven stresses on words or emotionless talk
4. Hang up and call the person back
5. Be wary of unusual requests, like requests for bank details

Even without a pre-agreed safe phrase, you can use a similar tactic if you’re ever in doubt as to the veracity of a caller’s identity. AI voice clones can imitate a person’s speech pattern, but they won’t necessarily have access to private information. Asking the caller to confirm something that only they would know, such as information shared in the last conversation you had, is one step closer to certainty.

Trust your ear as well. While AI voice clones are very convincing, they aren’t 100% accurate. Listen for tell-tale signs such as uneven stresses on certain words, emotionless expression or slurring.

Scammers have the ability to mask the number they’re calling from and may even appear to be calling from your friend’s number. If you’re ever in doubt, the safest thing you can do is hang up and call the person back on the usual number you have for them.

Voice-clone scams also rely on the same tactics as traditional phone scams. These tactics aim to apply emotional pressure and create a sense of urgency, to force you into taking an action your otherwise wouldn’t. Be alert to these and be wary of unusual requests, especially when it relates to making a money transfer.

The same red flags apply to callers claiming to be from your bank or another authority. It pays to be familiar with the procedures used by your bank when contacting you. Starling, for example, has a call status indicator in its app, which can you check at any time to see if the bank is genuinely calling you.

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Science fiction promised us robot butlers, but it seems they rather fancy themselves as artists instead. And who can blame them? On November 7, a painting of the mathematician Alan Turing by an AI-powered robot called Ai-Da sold at auction for a cool $1,084,000 (around £865,000). That's a more appealing lifestyle than having to sprint around a Boston Dynamics assault course.

The Sotheby's auction house said Ai-Da is "the first humanoid robot artist to have an artwork sold at auction." It probably also set the record the most online grumbling about a painting, which is understandable – after all, shouldn't robots be sweeping up and making the tea, while we artfully dab at the canvases?

The Ai-Da robot (seen here standing in front of her record-setting 'AI God' painting) uses a combination of cameras in her eyes, AI algorithms, and a robotic arm to make her artworks. (Image credit: Ai-Da)

Naturally, the Ai-Da robot and its maker Aidan Meller don't agree that art should be ring-fenced by humans. As Marvin from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy once noted: "Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to take you down to the bridge. Call that job satisfaction? ’Cos I don’t.”

But rather than rely on Douglas Adams to fill in the blanks, we asked Ai-Da and Meller what they'd say to those who are skeptical about AI-generated art – and what the landmark 'A.I. God' painting means for the future of creativity...

The latest 'non-artist'

Ai-Da herself usually prefers to let her art do the talking. When we asked her why she paints her answer was: "The key value of my work is in its capacity to serve as a catalyst for dialogue about emerging technologies".

Fortunately, her creator Aidan Meller, a gallerist and veteran of the art world, was more forthcoming on why team Ai-Da doesn't think the painting or her work should be considered a threat to human artists.

"Contemporary art has always provoked discussions about what art is and Ai-Da and her work is no different," Meller told us. "Just her existence is quite controversial for the art world," he added. Given the reaction to the 'A.I. God' painting, her presence is also pretty controversial for amateur artists, too.

Meller prefers to see Ai-Da as the natural successor to the artistic disruptors of the past. "History is littered with artists that society called “non-artists”. Everyone from Picasso to Matisse challenged people’s idea of what art was during their time. Because it didn’t fit into their conception of what art should be," he told us.

The heart of the project is a robot artist that explores the impact new technologies are having on society.

Aidan Meller, Ai-Da Project Director

"Duchamp challenged the idea of what art could be by putting a urinal in an art gallery and changed the future of art. The Ai-Da Robot challenges the idea of what an artist can be, by creating art using AI technology and creative agency," he added.

But how exactly is AI art created, in Ai-Da's case, and are humanoid robots a necessary part of it gaining mainstream acceptance? After all, there's a difference between hitting the 'create' button in the best AI art generators and seeing a robot physically apply strokes to a canvas.

Who's really holding the brush?

In reality, Ai-Da's work is a collaboration between AI, robots and humans, with the latter still a very necessary part of the process. "We had a discussion with Ai-Da about what she might paint in relation to the concept of “AI for Good”, and she came up with Alan Turing," Meller explained.

"We then showed Ai-Da Robot an image of Alan Turning, which Ai-Da responded to by creating the artwork. She painted 15 images of Alan Turing and then selected three to be combined together to form A.I. God," he added.

A combination of Ai-Da and human artists apply the finishing textures to her artworks – which means she is very much a "machine-human collaboration", as her creators describe her. (Image credit: Ai-Da)

Those three portraits were uploaded to a computer and then printed on a canvas, with Ai-Da then applying marks and textures to finish the painting. Some final bits of texture were added by human assistants, in the parts of the canvas where Ai-Da couldn't reach.

The finished artwork has more in common with Warhol's 'Factory' process, then, rather than a decade-long Da Vinci masterpiece. But what does this all mean for the future of art?

The $1 million question

Ai-Da's creator definitely isn't on the side of the AI cynics like Linux founder Linus Torvalds, who recently slammed AI as "90% marketing and 10% reality".

History is littered with artists that society called “non-artists”. Everyone from Picasso to Matisse challenged people’s idea of what art was during their time.

Aidan Meller, Ai-Da Project Director

"I think the response to the painting at auction shows that people understand the importance and power of AI in how it is shaping the world we live in and all of our futures," Aidan Meller said. "The auction shows that AI is on the rise and it is going to change society enormously".

The painting's landmark price tag, which shattered its pre-auction estimate of around around $120,000-$180,000 (£100,00-£150,000) suggests something has shifted in art collecting, too.

"I think it does also mean that the art world is beginning to accept that AI art is here to stay. It also shows that creativity comes in many forms and that AI has the ability to be creative and to add value to the world," Meller added.

Ai-Da has also perfected the artful side-glance pose perfected by artists over the decades. (Image credit: Ai-Da)

That last point is up for debate and will likely remain so indefinitely. The makers of the popular digital art app Procreate, for example, recently said it will never embrace generative AI. In fact, they went a bit harder than that, with CEO James Cuda stating: "I really f***ing hate generative AI. I don’t like what’s happening in the industry and I don’t like what it’s doing to artists."

Clearly, Ai-Da and her process is few steps beyond the basic generative AI we're seeing bolted onto consumer apps, but it could be a tough battle to win over skeptics. Then again, Ai-Da's creator says the point of the robot is to stimulate debate rather than convince you to swap sides...

The 'fourth industrial revolution'

For many, Ai-Da herself is the art story rather than the $1 million painting she co-created. That's something Meller echoed when we asked him why Ai-Da was created in the first place.

"The key value of Ai-Da as a robot artist is not necessarily in acceptance, but in the capacity to serve as a catalyst for dialogue about emerging technologies," he said. Clearly, the art world thinks there's a monetary value in the results produced by the project, but Meller thinks it goes beyond that.

(Image credit: Ai-Da)

"One purpose of contemporary art is to ask questions of our time and to challenge the status quo, creating debate," he said. "So art created by an AI-powered robot was a good platform to engage audiences into a discussion around the ethical issues surrounding the development of AI technology and our response as a society."

When sat-nav came out, we didn't quite trust it, but now we wouldn't go anywhere without it. AI has infiltrated every part of our lives.

Aidan Meller, Ai-Da Project Director

Ai-Da herself isn't new – we first covered the portrait artist back in 2019 – but the rapid development of AI models has helped transform her skills and make her the face of a hot debate that is sparking controversies on a weekly basis. And Meller admits that Ai-Da is as much as a conduit for debate as an established artist.

"We are currently going through the fourth Industrial revolution, and this is resulting in extreme shifts in both technology and human behavior globally," he said. "So the heart of the project is a robot artist that explores the impact new technologies are having on society".

Art vs sat-navs

The core of the Ai-Da debate revolves around the question of whether there's something unique, even sacrosanct, about art.

For many, art is a communication between humans – the creator and audience – which gives AI-driven art a hollow air of meaninglessness. But Meller disagrees, seeing Ai-Da's approach as the latest development of how humans are using technology.

"Many people look at Ai-Da and think about her being an AI-powered robot, but in many ways humans are becoming more robotic in our use of technology," he said. "We are transferring our decision-making and our agency onto machines, and in lots of ways as humans we are merging with machines and becoming cyborgs ourselves" he observed, pointing to smartphones as the obvious example.

"When sat-nav came out, we didn't quite trust it, but now we wouldn't go anywhere without it. AI has infiltrated every part of our lives, from what work we will do, what news we watch, what kind of partner we have, what kind of baby even we might want to have," he added. "By painting this picture of Alan Turing, Ai-Da Robot is really digging into all of these big ethical issues."

We've been here before

While some will flinch at parallels being drawn between sat-navs and paintings, there's no doubt Ai-Da has succeeded in reviving a debate that's as old as at art itself.

The key value of my work is in its capacity to serve as a catalyst for dialogue about emerging technologies.

Ai-Da

The obvious example is the invention of photography in the mid-1800s, which shocked painters who dismissed the mechanized 'imitation' of their painterly hand as an art form.

Ultimately, photography and art learned to not only co-exist, but to develop a symbiotic relationship. The French painter Degas was influenced by photography, while holding a contempt for the commercialized industry it became. As 'pictorialist' photographers sought to imitate traditional watercolors, painters moved towards impressionism.

(Image credit: Ai-Da)

Will AI-driven art and human artists do the same, rather than seeking to extinguish each other? History would suggest so. Whatever the financial or artistic merits of the 'A.I. God' painting, it's certainly a lightning rod for debate – and whichever side of the debate you're on, it's one that's worth engaging in.

As the Hungarian artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy said in the early 1900s, "anyone who fails to understand photography will be one of the illiterates of the future". AI-driven art is clearly here to stay and, while we may eventually get our robot butlers, it'll probably pay to engage with, rather than dismiss, their artistic cousins in the meantime.

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*Contains spoilers for Spellbound*

I was left surprisingly moved after watching Netflix’s newest animated adventure Spellbound. It's no surprise that these types of films often explore deep emotional themes, but Spellbound has an incredibly touching message that many families will appreciate.

Spellbound is a perfect family-friendly film that unravels nicely without surprising anyone. So you can understand my shock when I left the Spellbound screening with a tear in my eye as I discovered that this wasn't just your average kids movie - it actually serves a very important purpose, in helping children understand divorce in a positive way.

Spellbound follows Princess Ellian (Rachel Zegler), the spritely young daughter of King Solon (Javier Bardem) and Queen Ellsmere (Nicole Kidman) of Lumbria, as she goes on an adventure to break the spell that has turned her parents into monsters. It may sound like the plot of your average children's fantasy, but the film is brimming with metaphors about separation, grief, and family that you don't even realize until towards the end.

A traditional fairy tale with a modern twist

In Spellbound, 15-year-old Ellian has been forced to become a caregiver to her own parents as they've become a pair of rambunctious monsters causing havoc in the castle that’s the family’s home. While trying to tame her rollicking royals and hide their unfortunate transformation from their subjects, she also has to assume other adult responsibilities like ruling the kingdom alone with the guidance of Minister Bolinar (John Lithgow) and Minister Nazara Prone (Jenifer Lewis). After Ellian summons two magical Oracles for help, the wisecracking pair tell her that the King and Queen have "lost their light" and she must venture into the Dark Forest to the Lake of Light and get it back.

What follows is a magical, musical delight that's straight out of a Disney adventure with its bright, imaginative world and weird and wonderful creatures that reminded me of my favorite Disney story Tangled. Ellian's quest isn't all song and dance though, as she and her monster parents must avoid being swallowed by The Darkness, a black tornado that consumes people's negative emotions and transforms them into a monster. This means the trio need to stay upbeat, which is a tall order given the King and Queen’s constant bickering and disagreements when they remember how to talk again, the spell having robbed them of the power of speech.

The obligatory happy ending appears to be on the horizon when they reach the Lake of Light - but this isn’t your traditional fairy tale. As the King and Queen step into the golden shimmering pool, it's revealed that their fractured marriage is the cause of their transformation. The couple’s continuous quarreling is the reason why The Darkness came and turned them into monsters, a clever metaphor for how destructive and transformative a broken relationship can be on a family.

Once the King and Queen realize the detrimental effect their marital issues are having on their daughter, they make the decision to separate. Unfortunately, this revelation sends Ellian into a spiral of anger, despair and resentment that’s heartbreaking to watch. Even though I haven't gone through this experience, I instantly empathized with the sense of devastation, betrayal, and inner turmoil that many children go through when their parents divorce. Ellian's woe soon attracts the wrath of The Darkness and her parents put aside their differences, and join forces to save their daughter before she's turned into a monster herself. Ultimately, thanks to her parents’ endless reassurance, comfort and love, Ellian comes to terms with their divorce, and goes back to being the happy girl she was before.

Divorce can bring huge changes to a child’s life that can feel like the world is ending. But this potential best Netflix movie approaches the topic with a positive mindset in a way that can help children cope with divorce and explore their emotions. It's an important message that I'm sure kids and adults will benefit from, and Spellbound will definitely make you shed a tear or two, even if you haven't experienced a life-changing event like this.

Spellbound is available to stream on the best streaming service from November 22.

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Slow Horses season 5: key information

- Season 5 wrapped production in October 2024
- No official release date yet
- Teaser trailer unveiled after season 4 finale
- Main cast returning
- Plot to follow Mick Herron’s ‘London Rules’ novel
- Season 6 already renewed
- Showrunner Will Smith hints at a potential Slough House spin-off

Apple TV Plus’ gritty spy thriller, Slow Horses, has impressed viewers with its action-packed scenes, gripping drama, and incredible acting. It’s one of the longest-running Apple Originals and an Emmy-nominated TV show for good reason and there's more to come as Jackson Lamb and his Slough House team are set to return for season 5.

The fact that Slow Horses has so far managed to release a new season every year is a wildly impressive feat in today’s streaming landscape and they’re clearly not stopping anytime soon. Slow Horses season 4 has secured a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and season 5 is already well on the way. Here’s everything we know about it so far from the Apple TV Plus release date, trailer, possible plot, and more news and rumors.

Potential spoilers follow for Slow Horses season 1-4. This is your fair warning.

Slow Horses season 5 release date prediction

‘SLOW HORSES’ season 5 has wrapped production.Season 4 aired its final episode last week. pic.twitter.com/pSao2Sx89uOctober 13, 2024

Apple TV Plus renewed Slow Horses for a fifth season back in January 2024. And, in October, a X/Twitter post from FilmUpdates revealed that season 5 had already wrapped production, just ten months after renewal.

To back this up, during an interview with Collider in early October, showrunner Will Smith said: “We've nearly done Season 5. We've got a couple of days to finish off on it, but we're already into the edit, so it's coming. Don't worry, it's coming. Not as quick as you want, but it's coming.”

When asked when it would be out, Smith replied: “I genuinely don't know the answer as to when it's gonna be out, but I can't imagine that Apple would want to leave it longer than a year since Season 4. So, the latest it would be out, I would say, would be the same slot next year.” And Apple certainly haven't left it longer than a year so far.

Slow Horses has demonstrated an impressive release schedule, dropping a season every year since 2022 – and season 1 and 2 even came out in the same year. So, given that season 5 has wrapped production and was reportedly in edit in October, we’d make a release date prediction of mid-to-late 2025.

Slow Horses season 5 trailer

The teaser trailer for Slow Horses season 5 isn't available on YouTube (Image credit: Apple TV Plus)

In what appears to be establishing itself as a Slow Horses tradition, there was a season 5 teaser trailer shared at the end of the season 4 finale.

In less than a minute, someone tries to kill Roddy, a terrorist plot threatens London, and once again, the police turn to Lamb to help them predict the next move. Plus, an unknown killing, although if Slow Horses’ history is anything to go by, it could be anyone – no cast member is safe. We’ll get into more about what the teaser trailer alludes to when it comes to plot below, and we'll update here as soon as we have a full trailer to share.

Slow Horses season 5 confirmed cast

Kristin Scott Thomas will reprise her role as Diana Taverner (Image credit: Apple TV Plus)

Full spoilers follow for Slow Horses season 4.

Given who we saw in the season 5 teaser, here’s the confirmed cast for Slow Horses season 5:

• Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb
• Jack Lowden as River Cartwright
• Kristin Scott Thomas as Diana Taverner
• Saskia Reeves as Catherine Standish
• Christopher Chung as Roddy Ho
• Aimee-Ffion Edwards as Shirley Dander
• Rosaline Eleazar as Louisa Guy
• Ruth Bradly as Emma Flyte
• James Callis as Claude Whelan
• Tom Brooke as J.K. Coe

While there wasn’t any sign of Joanna Scanlan (Moira Tregorian), Hugo Weaving (Frank Harkness), or Jonathan Pryce (David Cartwright), we’re not yet sure if they’ll be reprising their roles. Though Smith hinted at a highly possible return of Hugo Weaving, when speaking to Collider: “All I can say is that Hugo's character reappears in the books. That’s the only tantalizing glimpse I can give you of that.”

Slow Horses season 5 potential plot synopsis and rumors

How much more complicated can things get for River? (Image credit: Apple TV Plus)

Major spoilers follow for Slow Horses seasons 1-4.

Slow Horses season 5 is confirmed to be an adaptation of Mick Herron’s ‘London Rules’ novel, the sequel to ‘Spook Street’ which acted as the basis for season 4.

To get a strong look at the possible plot for season 5 then, here’s the book’s official synopsis: “Regent's Park's First Desk, Claude Whelan, is learning this the hard way. Tasked with protecting a beleaguered prime minister, he's facing attack from all directions himself: from the showboating MP who orchestrated the Brexit vote, and now has his sights set on Number Ten; from the showboat's wife, a tabloid columnist, who's crucifying Whelan in print; and especially from his own deputy, Lady Di Taverner, who's alert for Claude's every stumble. Meanwhile, the country's being rocked by an apparently random string of terror attacks, and someone's trying to kill Roddy Ho.

Over at Slough House, the crew are struggling with personal problems: repressed grief, various addictions, retail paralysis, and the nagging suspicion that their newest colleague is a psychopath. But collectively, they're about to rediscover their greatest strength - that of making a bad situation much, much worse. It's a good job Jackson Lamb knows the rules. Because those things aren't going to break themselves.”

The Slough House team get another chance to redeem themselves (Image credit: Apple TV Plus)

From the season 5 trailer, we know that much of the show will stay true to the book. We also catch a glimpse of most of the main cast to confirm their return to Slough House, and there's an awkward kiss between River and Louisa that we're keen to unpack.

Following suit with the previous seasons, Slow Horses always runs for six episodes with the plot spanning the events of two or three days. It appears with season 5, they’ll be sticking to this tried-and-tested method, as Smith spoke to Collider: “You feel if you stretch it beyond that — I mean, you can invent — I worry it would feel like padding, and it would take you away from what is great about the books. So, six, I think, is the magic number.”

Will Hugo return as Frank in Slow Horses season 5? (Image credit: Apple TV Plus)

In season 4, River met his biological father, Jack (Hugo Weaving), which only looked to strengthen his relationship with Lamb. But what about more from Frank? Well, the man himself spoke to Forbes, further confirming a reappearance: "You probably know that Frank is in one of the other books, and so the assumption is at the end of this season, and certainly to anyone who had read the books, is that Frank will be coming back.”

He adds: "Frank gets to play his Get Out of Jail Free card, which he has had all along because he knows that MI5 and David Cartwright tried to set him up. He knows he's got that, so he can say that fabulous line, 'I'll get the next train.' He can be that sort of a character because he actually is a survivor and excellently slippery."

With the book synopsis and teaser trailer as a starting point, it's fair to say the core plot is etched out. But, for those who haven't read the books, and with the unique additions of the cast & crew, Slow Horses will undoubtedly bring twists and turns that we didn't see coming.

Will Slow Horses get more seasons on Apple TV Plus?

Who's that calling? It's Slow Horses season 6 (Image credit: Apple TV Plus)

Slow Horses has already been renewed for season 6, so yes there’s most definitely more to come. As reported by Deadline, season 6 will be based on Mick Herron’s ‘Joe Country’ and ‘Slough House’ which are the sixth and seventh books in the series. Adding: “In season 6, the spies head out on the run as Diana Taverner embroils them all in a fatally high-stakes game of retaliation and revenge.”

While season 6 will take its plot from two novels, that leaves only one behind in the series. Though, according to Smith when speaking to Collider, Herron is working on book nine.

Furthermore, Smith adds that there’s interest from his perspective in a spin-off, “I do think, though, there’s a great book he wrote, the last book that came out, which is in the Slough House universe, and Slow Horses do come into it, which is called The Secret Hours. That could be a movie or a more limited number just because of the nature of that story.”

When asked about the potential for a Christmas special, Smith said: “Gary and Gisele [Schmidt], his wife, had a fantastic idea that I loved, which was to do a Slow Horses advent calendar where we did 25 little films, and you kind of went in each day like an advent calendar, but you could dot around the timeline.

So, you could maybe do one where Min was still alive, and you could just go in and have these little vignettes. I've also spoken to Gary about, “What do you think Lamb's Christmas is like, his actual Christmas Day? Where's he going?” We think he probably goes to the pub on his own. But that would be a great thing to do.” We didn’t have Slow Horses advent calendar on our 2024 bingo card, but we’re certainly here for it.

For more Apple TV Plus show-related coverage, read our guides on Ted Lasso season 4 and Severance season 2.

The WIRED & Octopus Energy Tech Summit in Berlin was bursting with innovative ideas for reaching net zero and on working together at an ever-greater scale.

• Phison announces 122.88TB PCIe Gen5 Pascari D205V SSD
• Delivers 14,600 MB/s reads, 3,200 MB/s writes
• Includes Power Loss Protection, 128 namespaces, 2.5M-hour MTBF

Phison has announced the Pascari D205V SSD, the first PCIe Gen5 data center-class SSD with a huge 122.88TB capacity.

The drive, set to be showcased at SC24, is designed to address the growing demands of modern data centers, where increasing data volumes require efficient storage solutions. It is tailored for high-demand environments, including AI, media and entertainment, and research.

The D205V is equipped with PCIe 5.0x4 (single port) or PCIe 5.0 2x2 (dual port) connectivity and supports NVMe 2.0, ISE, TCG Opal, and NVMe-MI standards. It also features Power Loss Protection (PLP), 128 namespaces, and a durability rating of 0.3 DWPD, with a mean time between failures (MTBF) of 2.5 million hours.

U.2 and E3.L form factors

The new drive offers 122.88TB of usable storage, providing a four-to-one capacity advantage over traditional cold storage drives. Phison says the D205V combines the company’s industry-leading X2 controller and the latest 2Tb 3D QLC technology to deliver sequential read speeds reaching up to 14,600 MB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 3,200 MB/s. The drive also supports random read performance of up to 3,000K IOPS (4K) and random write performance of up to 35K IOPS (16K).

Phison told TechRadar Pro: "We were originally going to have 122.88 under D200V but created D205V for 122.88TB. D200V caps at 61.22TB. To be clear, the D205V is 122.88TB and we will ensure the website is corrected. "

The Pascari D205V is available for preorder, with shipments expected in Q2 2025. It will be offered in the U.2 and E3.L form factors. No word on pricing at the moment.

“With the acceleration in AI training and data-intensive workloads, there has been a tangible shift to a future-forward focus on storage as a critical component in capturing necessary volume to support data quality and integrity," said Michael Wu, General Manager and President of Phison US.

"With today’s launch, each drive maximizes capacity while reducing power, space, and cooling constraints to minimize bottlenecks for transformative use cases. Customers can essentially push past previous infrastructure barriers to continue to scale as the market demands.”

The drive’s enhanced capacity per watt and support for larger datasets make it a good fit for organizations looking to scale their infrastructure while maintaining cost efficiency and minimizing physical footprint.

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