Technology

I’ve been covering artificial intelligence, or at least topics that touch upon it, for most of my technology journalism career, and long before generative AI was something the public could just access with relative ease. But like it or lump it, AI is very much the buzz of the moment in and beyond the technology world. So it was surprising that at WWDC 2025, Apple kind of played down the subject.

Sure, Apple Intelligence was present and would appear to be more integrated into Cupertino’s various software platforms than it was previously. But many of these features appear to augment existing tools rather than create all-new ones; AI can figure out the regular routes you take in the iOS 26 Maps app, for example.

I’d also argue that Apple added smart features, such as Live Translation in the Messages and FaceTime apps, almost as a way to keep up with Google’s and Samsung’s AI efforts in their flagship smartphones, rather than lead the way or hone existing tech into something special.

Instead, Apple played up the redesign of iOS, macOS, and more with the use of its ‘Liquid Glass’ material design. And Apple Intelligence appeared to take a backseat; as my colleague Matt Bolton pointed out, Siri was properly absent from WWDC and indicative of failure for the virtual assistant.

Now I won’t argue against Mr Bolton, as he raises some good points, but I’m also low-key grateful AI didn’t dominate WWDC.

User experience first, AI smarts second

(Image credit: Apple)

I’ve always felt that Apple’s strength comes from its user experience. As locked down as some of Cupertino's software can be, and the walled garden approach to its ecosystem, once you’re in said garden, everything does work really rather well. From easy, secure payments and authentication, to quick file transfer between Apple devices and users, and much more.

As an aside, I’ve argued before that I want AI to be used for genuinely transformational things that benefit society, not generate images of a dog on the moon or write my emails for me. I reckon humanity is better off going through the challenges of learning how to better string sentences together or wait to frame the perfect camera shot, than let AI do everything for them, as that could take us down a dark path (check out Black Mirror on Netflix).

Bringing things back to Apple and WWDC, I feel that a redesign and the neat addition of useful features to iOS and macOS will resonate more with Apple device users than some smart AI tools that could feel a little bolted on to a core phone or laptop experience.

As a user of the iPhone 16 Pro Max and a MacBook Air M2, I have access to several Apple Intelligence tools. But aside from a bit of sporadic flirtation with them and the occasional nod of appreciation towards AI-generated summaries of voicemails, Apple Intelligence hasn’t come close to changing the way I use my iPhone.

I’ve said in the past that I find the recent iPhones to be boring but brilliant; they lack the do-anything vibe of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra or the intriguing AI-lead experience of the Google Pixel 9 family, but simply serve as smartphones that get stuff done quickly and well.

I treat my iPhone as a tool rather than a gadget, which doesn't make it exciting but does make it one of the best phones I’ve used, as there’s precious little getting in my way or distracting me from doing what I need to do.

I think many other Apple users share the same mindset. There’s been a huge amount of people who’ve checked out our how to download the iOS 26 developer beta article, which to me shows there’s a big interest in the Liquid Glass redesign.

Furthermore, in an article I wrote about wanting Samsung to add more AI into its next-generation foldable phone to truly make them more effective, one commenter said they don't find AI on phones to be useful at all and wants options to turn off such tools.

(Image credit: Future)

So while tech luminaries wax lyrical about AI and some people use it to do a lot of things for them, I get the feeling others would just prefer to have tech that does indeed ‘just works’ with each improvement, incremental or otherwise, being about users, not technological expertise.

As such, I think Apple may have been smart to focus WWDC more on visual and slick functional changes to its core software than on putting AI in the limelight. After all, I still feel AI hasn’t become sufficiently foolproof and accurate to make it a must-have right now.

I think, as it stands, if you are after an AI phone, then the best Google Pixel phones are the ones to look at, given they are built from the hardware up to be all about AI. And Google’s phones have always been the devices to push more esoteric features, be that the radar sensors in the Pixel 4 phones or the AI focus of the past few generations of Pixels.

In contrast, I’ve always seen Apple as the brand that fully embraces emergent technology only when it has reached a point of maturity and consumer understanding.

Given the rocky launch of Apple Intelligence, AI still being for enthusiasts than everyone (albeit that could be changing rapidly), and how iOS and macOS are finely curated platforms, I think eschewing AI at this year’s WWDC will prove to have been the smart move for Apple, even if various tech commentators and analysts see it as being behind the curve. Now onwards to the iPhone 17…

Do you want more AI in iPhones? Let me know in the comments below.

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• Cybernews found an unescured MongoDB instance belonging to Headero
• The database contained millions of records and PII
• It has since been locked down, but users should still be on their guard

Security researchers from Cybernews have reported uncovering a massive MongoDB instance belonging to a dating and hookup app called Headero.

The database contained more than 350,000 user records, more than three million chat records, and more than a million chat room records.

Among the exposed data are names, email addresses, social login IDs, JWT tokens, profile pictures, device tokens, sexual preferences, STD status, and - extra worryingly - exact GPS locations.

No evidence of abuse

Cybernews reached out to the app’s developers, a US-based company named ThotExperiment, which immediately locked the database down. The company told the researchers that it was a test database, but Cybernews’ analysis indicates that it could have been actual user data, instead.

Unfortunately, we don’t know for how long the database remained open, and if any threat actors accessed it in the past. So far, there is no evidence of abuse in the wild.

Human error leading to exposed databases remains one of the most common causes of data leaks and security breaches.

Researchers are constantly scanning the internet with specialized search engines, finding massive non-password-protected databases almost daily.

These leaks can put people at risk, since cybercriminals can use the information to tailor highly convincing phishing attacks, through which they can deploy malware, steal sensitive files, and even commit wire fraud.

Headero users are advised to be extra vigilant when receiving unsolicited messages, both via email and social platforms.

They should also be careful not to download any files or click on any links in such messages, especially if the messages carry a sense of urgency with them. If they are using the same password across multiple services, they should change them, and clear sessions / revoke tokens in apps, where possible.

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• NordPass and NordStellar reviewed terabytes of data
• The analysis uncovered poor password practices in the healthcare industry
• Organizations are lacking staff training and strong policies

Hygiene in hospitals and clinics is essential, but cyber-hygiene - despite being equally important - is constantly being neglected, experts have warned.

A report from NordPass and NordStellar has claimed weak password practices are “dangerously common” in the healthcare industry.

Based on a review of 2.5TB of data extracted from various publicly available sources (including the dark web), the two organizations found that different medical institutions, including private clinics and hospital networks, all rely on “predictable, recycled, or default passwords” to protect critical systems. As a result, sensitive patient data, and possibly their health, is placed at immense risk.

Carelessness

“When the systems protecting patient data are guarded by passwords like ‘123456’ or ‘P@ssw0rd,’ that’s a critical failure in cybersecurity hygiene. In a sector where both privacy and uptime are vital, this kind of carelessness can have real consequences,” said Karolis Arbaciauskas, head of business product at NordPass.

The report also lists the most frequently used passwords identified in the healthcare sector. If you’re using any of these (or a variant), make sure to change them for something tougher to crack:

• fabrizio19
• 123456
• Melu3@12345
• @Vow2017
• Mercury9.Venus8
• password
• Marty1508!
• Carlton@1988
• 12345678
• @Vowcomm2018
• papa
• 12345
• Durson@123
• P@ssw0rd
• Simetrica
• Raffin2209!
• Asspain28#
• Smith
• neuro
• default

Policies and training

The teams warn passwords that reflect personal names, simple number patterns, or default configurations, are all prime targets for brute-force and dictionary attacks, in which cybercriminals automate the process, and try out countless combinations until they break in.

To make matters even worse - one break-in is more than enough to wreak havoc, as lateral movement can compromise entire networks, expose sensitive data, and result in different malware and ransomware infections.

The report stresses that healthcare institutions “lack clear password management policies or staff training,” which is why they are recommended to enforce strong password policies, eliminate the use of default or role-specific passwords, use a business-grade password manager, train the staff, and introduce 2FA wherever possible.

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• Binarly spotted a legitimate utility, trusted on most modern systems utilizing UEFI firmware, carrying a flaw
• The flaw allowed threat actors to deploy bootkit malware
• Microsoft patched it the June 2025 Patch Tuesday cumulative update

Microsoft has fixed a Secure Boot vulnerability that allowed threat actors to turn off security solutions and install bootkit malware on most PCs.

Security researchers Binarly recently discovered a legitimate BIOS update utility, signed with Microsoft’s UEFI CA 2011 certificate. This root certificate, used in the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) Secure Boot process, plays a central role in verifying the authenticity and integrity of bootloaders, operating systems, and other low-level software before a system boots.

According to the researchers, the utility is trusted on most modern systems utilizing UEFI firmware - but the problem stems from the fact it reads a user-writable NVRAM variable without proper validation, meaning an attacker with admin access to an operating system can modify the variable and write arbitrary data to memory locations during the UEFI boot process.

Microsoft finds 13 extra modules

Binarly managed to use this vulnerability to disable Secure Boot and allow any unsigned UEFI modules to run. In other words, they were able to disable security features and install bootkit malware that cannot be removed even if the hard drive is replaced.

The vulnerable module had been circulating in the wild since 2022, and was uploaded to VirusTotal in 2024 before being reported to Microsoft in late February 2025.

Microsoft recently released the June edition of Patch Tuesday, its cumulative update addressing different, recently-discovered, vulnerabilities - among which was the arbitrary write vulnerability in Microsoft signed UEFI firmware, which is now tracked as CVE-2025-3052. It was assigned a severity score of 8.2/10 (high).

The company also determined that the vulnerability affected 14 modules in total, now fixing all of them.

"During the triage process, Microsoft determined that the issue did not affect just a single module as initially believed, but actually 14 different modules," Binarly said. "For this reason, the updated dbx released during the Patch Tuesday on June 10, 2025 contains 14 new hashes."

Via BleepingComputer

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If you’re a sports fan like me, you may have had some complaints in the past about your TV when trying to watch sports. Whether it’s reflections while watching a game in the afternoon or blurring during fast motion, something always seems to need tweaking.

Another issue: a TV that appears dim, with a flat-looking image, particularly for field sports such as football and rugby.

Even the best TVs can struggle with sport, but thankfully, there’s a TV tech that’s ideal for sports fans: mini-LED.

Mini-LED: perfect for sports fans

Mini-LED TVs are not only becoming increasingly popular but also more affordable. This tech delivers an improved picture over standard LED by using backlights with smaller LEDs (hence the mini part).

By miniaturizing the LEDs, a higher number can be used, which results in increased brightness. It also allows for a higher number of local dimming zones in the backlight, which helps to boost contrast and improve black uniformity.

Mini-LED TVs can hit significantly higher brightness levels than other TV panel types, with 2,500 - 4,000 nitspeaks possible in flagship models. But for sports fans, it’s fullscreen brightness – the level of brightness that the TV can sustain over its entire screen area – that matters most, and once again, mini-LED TVs here regularly beat other panel types, including the best OLED TVs.

To provide an example of that from our TV testing, we regularly measure fullscreen brightness levels of between 580 - 800 nits on the best mini-LED TVs. But even the brightest OLED TV we’ve tested, the LG G5, topped out at 331 nits in our fullscreen measurement.

I’ve picked three models below that are examples of the best mini-LED TVs for sports.

1. Samsung QN90F

(Image credit: Future)

The Samsung QN90F is the perfect TV for sports. Not only does it deliver exceptionally high brightness levels – 2,086 nits peak and 667 nits fullscreen in Filmmaker Mode – but it has a Glare-Free screen (first introduced in the Samsung S95D OLED) that effectively eliminates reflections, making it perfect for afternoon sports watching.

The QN90F also delivers the superb motion handling that's essential for fast-paced sports. Even for movies, we found we could get smooth motion, with no sign of the dreaded ‘soap opera effect’, by setting both Blur Reduction and Judder Reduction to 3.

The QN90F delivers vibrant colors, strong contrast and realistic textures for a brilliant picture. And when viewing from an off-center seat, there’s little sign of the backlight blooming that results in contrast fade, meaning it’s great for watching in large groups.

The QN90F is a premium-priced TV, with the 65-inch model we tested priced at $2,499.99 / £2,499 / AU$3,499, but if you’re a sports fanatic, it’s worth the investment. Plus, you can expect prices to drop at some point in the near future.

2. Amazon Fire TV Omni Mini-LED

(Image credit: Future)

When I first began testing the Amazon Fire TV Omni Mini-LED, I didn’t anticipate it would be such a good TV for sports. But in its preset Sports mode with Smoothness (Judder Reduction) set to 4 and Clarity (Blur Reduction) set to 10, sports looked impressively smooth. Color was also surprisingly accurate in that mode, which is unusual as I’ve found the Sports mode makes colors look oversaturated and garish on most TVs.

Something unique about the Omni Mini-LED is that it’s nearly ready out of the box for sports. In contrast, I found when testing competing models such as the Hisense U6N and Hisense U7N that more setup was required to get sports looking right.

The Amazon Omni mini-LED is a significantly more affordable TV than the Samsung QN90F, with its 65-inch model often discounted down to $949.99 / £949.99. It may not have the same level of sports prowess as the Samsung QN90F, but it’s great for the money.

3. TCL QM7K / TCL C7K Image 1 of 2

TCL QM7K - US (slide 1) & TCL C7K - UK (slide 2) (Image credit: Future)Image 2 of 2

(Image credit: Future)

This entry is a hybrid as the TCL model name (and specs) will vary depending on which side of the pond you’re on. Either way, it’s the mid-range model in TCL’s 2025 mini-LED lineup.

Both of these TVs deliver exceptional brightness at a mid-range price, with the TCL QM7K and TCL C7K hitting 2,350 nits and 2,784 nits HDR peak brightness, respectively. More importantly, they hit 640 nits and 678 nits HDR fullscreen brightness, respectively – very good numbers for watching sports in bright rooms.

These TVs require some motion setup. Since I'm based in the UK, I tested the C7K, and I found that I needed to tweak the Sports or Standard picture mode by setting Blur Reduction to 3 and Judder Reduction to 6. I also needed to lower the color setting in Sports, as it was oversaturated in its default settings.

Once this was completed, the C7K was a solid TV for sports. It isn’t quite as effective as the two models above, but it is still a very good mid-range option overall. If the QM7K is anything like its UK counterpart, then the story for that model will be the same.

Again, for the 65-inch models of these two sets, you’re looking at paying $999 / £1,099. That’s a similar price to the Amazon Omni Mini-LED, which has the best motion of the two, but with the TCL, you’re getting that extra hit of brightness.

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• Apple has just released the world's first 'haptic' trailer for its F1 movie
• The trailer vibrates your phone in time with action sequences
• The F1 movie pulls into theaters internationally from June 25

I thought I'd seen every movie trailer gimmick by now, but Apple has just produced a novel one for its incoming F1 movie – a 'haptic' trailer that vibrates your iPhone in time with the on-screen action.

If you have an iPhone (Android fans are sadly excluded from the rumble party) head to the haptic trailer for F1: The Movieto open it in the Apple TV app. You'll then be treated to two minutes of vibrations that's probably also a taste of what it's like to being a celebrity in the middle of a social media storm.

The trailer's 'haptic' experience was actually better than I was expecting. I assumed it would be a simple, one-dimensional rumble that fired up during race sequences, but it's a little more nuanced than that.

To start with, you feel the light vibration of a driver's seat belt being fastened, before the vibrations ramp up for the driving and crash sequences. There's even a light tap to accompany Brad Pitt's character Sonny Hayes moodily bouncing balls against a wall as he ponders coming out of retirement for one last sports movie trope.

Sure, it isn't exactly an IMAX experience for your phone, but if ever there was a movie designed for a haptic movie trailer, it's Apple's F1 movie...

One last Pitt stop

Apple's F1 movie was also the star of its recent WWDC 2025 event, with the livestream opening with Craig Federighi (Apple's Senior Vice President of Software Engineering) donning a helmet before doing a lap around the roof of its Apple Park building.

There's currently no date for the movie to stream on Apple TV+, with the focus currently on its imminent theater premiere. It officially opens internationally on June 27, but there are some special, one-off screenings in IMAX theaters on June 23 (in North America) and June 25 (internationally) for keen fans who signed up on the movie's official website.

The trailers so far suggest that F1 is going to effectively be Top Gun: Maverick set on a race track – and with both movies sharing the same director (Joseph Kosinski) and screenplay writer (Ehren Kruger), that seems like a pretty safe bet. F1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton was also involved to help amp up the realism.

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• E2 SSDs aim to balance storage performance capacity and efficiency
• New form factor fits rising demand for warm tier data storage
• High density flash could reduce reliance on hard drives long term

As workloads shift and cold data heats up under AI and analytics demands, the traditional split between high-speed SSDs and cost-effective hard drives is no longer serving every use case.

A new SSD form factor known as E2 is being developed to tackle the growing gap in enterprise data storage. Potentially delivering up to 1PB of QLC flash per drive, they could become the middle-ground option the industry needs.

StorageReview claims the E2 form factor is being designed with support from key players including Micron, Meta, and Pure Storage through the Storage Networking Industry Association and Open Compute Project.

Solid speeds, but not cutting-edge

E2 SSDs targets “warm” data - information that’s accessed often enough to burden hard drives but which doesn’t justify the cost of performance flash.

Physically, E2 SSDs measure 200mm x 76mm x 9.5mm. They use the same EDSFF connector found in E1 and E3 drives, but are optimized for high-capacity, dense deployments.

A standard 2U server could host up to 40 E2 drives, translating into 40PB of flash in a single chassis. StorageReview says these drives will connect over PCIe 6.0 using four lanes and may consume up to 80W per unit, although most are expected to draw far less.

Performance will reach 8-10MB/s per terabyte, or up to 10,000MB/s for a 1PB model. That’s faster than hard drives but not in the same class as top-end enterprise SSDs. E2’s priorities will instead be capacity, efficiency, and cost control.

Pure Storage showed off a 300TB E2 prototype in May 2025 featuring DRAM caches, capacitors for power loss protection, and a flash controller suited for this scale. While current servers aren't yet ready for this form factor, new systems are expected to follow.

It’s fair to say E2 won't replace hard drives overnight, but it does signal a shift. As the spec moves toward finalization this summer, vendors are already rethinking how large-scale flash can fit into modern infrastructure.

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