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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 Saturday's puzzle instead then click here: Quordle hints and answers for Saturday, February 8 (game #1111).

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 #1112) - hint #1 - Vowels How many different vowels are in Quordle today?

• The number of different vowels in Quordle today is 4*.

* 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 #1112) - hint #2 - repeated letters Do any of today's Quordle answers contain repeated letters?

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

Quordle today (game #1112) - hint #3 - uncommon letters Do 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 #1112) - 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 2+2.

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 #1112) - hint #5 - starting letters (2) What letters do today's Quordle answers start with?

• T

• S

• T

• S

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

Quordle today (game #1112) - the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle, game #1112, are…

• TAPIR
• SHAKE
• TOKEN
• SEVEN

A day where everything clicked for me today and the words unfolded into each other very nicely – SEVEN giving me the green “EN” for TOKEN which revealed the “K” in SHAKE.

As for TAPIR – it took me a while to wrestle in from my noggin, but there aren’t that many words that end in “IR”, a beast as rare as its name.

How did you do today? Let me know in the comments below.

Daily Sequence today (game #1112) - the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1112, are…

• ELATE
• BIDDY
• ASSET
• EMCEE

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #1111, Saturday 8 February: AFOOT, ALIKE, HUMUS, TOWEL
• Quordle #1110, Friday 7 February: PETAL, ABASE, AMONG, CORER
• Quordle #1109, Thursday 6 February: MADAM, SCAMP, FAUNA, TRACK
• Quordle #1108, Wednesday 5 February: SIXTH, VERVE, BLURB, CACTI
• Quordle #1107, Tuesday 4 February: BIRTH, DRAWN, MILKY, JOIST
• Quordle #1106, Monday 3 February: SLEET, TENSE, SEIZE, SCAMP
• Quordle #1105, Sunday 2 February: LOUSY, PENNE, CHUMP, SALVE
• Quordle #1104, Saturday 1 February: FACET, BLISS, FLUFF, FRANK
• Quordle #1103, Friday 31 January: PARER, SYNOD, BRAWN, BANJO
• Quordle #1102, Thursday 30 January: WEEDY, CHIRP, STALE, SUGAR
• Quordle #1101, Wednesday 29 January: CROWN, SCENE, AGILE, CRANK
• Quordle #1100, Tuesday 28 January: TOKEN, DAISY, INANE, PLIED
• Quordle #1099, Monday 27 January: ANGEL, GLOBE, MAYOR, BRAVE
• Quordle #1098, Sunday 26 January: WATER, ORBIT, BRIDE, TOUCH
• Quordle #1097, Saturday 25 January: GIVER, GROOM, GUSTO, MAKER
• Quordle #1096, Friday 24 January: GRIND, STOCK, SERVE, TOUCH
• Quordle #1095, Thursday 23 January: RUGBY, SASSY, WORRY, BANAL
• Quordle #1094, Wednesday 22 January: SLANT, TRUNK, WOOZY, EATEN
• Quordle #1093, Tuesday 21 January: CHART, VIGOR, PRINT, SPAWN
• Quordle #1092, Monday 20 January: SIXTY, THONG, TATTY, ROBIN

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• PlayStation Network has been down for just over 12 hours
• While the outage appeared to settle after an initial spike, it has worsened again in the last few hours
• We don't yet have an official cause or ETA for when PSN will get back to normal

Editor's note: We've now launched a PlayStation Network outage live blog to bring you updates on the problems.

The PlayStation Network has been down for just over 12 hours at this point, in what appears to be a major outage, and one that’s still very much ongoing, sadly.

Based on reports from Downdetector there was a huge spike of complaints initially, peaking at over 14,000 reports, and that appeared to settle down somewhat – notably without being completely resolved – before another smaller peak has been hit, and sustained, over the last few hours.

Those wanting to grab a weekend session of Call of Duty on PlayStation, or whatever their preferred online poison, may find that tricky right now.

Some users are telling us that they are successfully getting onto PSN, but there are plenty of other reports on X from gamers who can’t log in – and the official status looks, shall we say, shaky.

An unfortunate array of red lights

According to the PlayStation North American support account on X, “some users might be currently experiencing issues with PSN,” but there are no further details given, or any idea of an ETA for a fix here.

We are aware some users might be currently experiencing issues with PSN.For more details: https://t.co/NJX2xGusZMFebruary 8, 2025

That post on X just points to the PlayStation Network service status dashboard, which currently displays a rather worrying array of red lights.

There are reported sign-in issues for PSN, and we’re advised: “You might have difficulty signing in or creating an account for PlayStation Network. We’re working to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.”

The red flag in the ‘Gaming and social’ part of the dashboard notes: “You might have difficulty launching games, apps or network features.” Again, a resolution is promised ASAP, but as you’re probably aware, these are boilerplate messages. It’s not like Sony wouldn’t be working to fix this quickly, is it?

For now, though, we remain rather in the dark at to any causes, but given that the red lights extend beyond PSN gaming and log ins, to also encompass the PlayStation Store, as well as PlayStation Video and Direct, this is looking like it might be a thorny one. Particularly given the prolonged nature of the outage so far.

We’ll keep a close eye on the situation and update this story if we hear anything more concrete from PlayStation support. But about all gamers can do right now is keep their fingers firmly crossed that this doesn’t turn out to be as complex as some of the indicators here are suggesting – and just keep trying to log in.

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• Nvidia’s RTX 5090 and 5080 graphics cards are experiencing nasty issues
• This could be tied in to the latest drivers, given problems are seemingly also affecting RTX 4000 GPUs
• Nvidia is “investigating the reported issues” and hopefully we’ll hear more from Team Green before long

Nvidia is investigating reports of problems with its new RTX 5000 GPUs which is causing some graphics cards to crash. The issues appear to be occurring repeatedly for some, in a variety of circumstances, potentially leaving Team Green with a major headache around its new cards.

The troubles began when Nvidia pushed out a new graphics driver (version 572.16) and people started experiencing crashes with some PC games. After that came reports of the RTX 5090 misfiring badly, including crashes happening, or the GPU not being recognized by the host PC. (And even the odd tale of a Blackwell flagship being bricked, but we must be very careful around those rare assertions).

The problems now seem more widespread, and are apparently affecting both RTX 5090 and 5080 models, with repeated crashes occurring as noted – often freezes leaving you staring at a black screen.

Part of the difficulty here is the wide range of circumstances that these different problems are manifesting in. From apparently non-functional GPUs to issues with multi-monitor setups, there’s a bewildering array of nuances to the individual complaints from RTX 5090 and 5080 owners.

Nvidia told PC Gamer that it is now “investigating the reported issues with the RTX 50-series,” and I’ve got a feeling that this presumably deep dive into what’s going on here is going to take some time.

(Image credit: Nvidia) Analysis: Clean install to cure driver blues?

Clearly, the volume of reports across the usual forums (Reddit, and Nvidia’s own message board) has prompted Nvidia to let us know it is indeed taking action on this front. Until we hear further feedback from Team Green, all we can do is trawl through a whole pile of suggested fixes, some of which work for some folks, but not for others.

However, this can of worms does appear to be related to the latest driver, an idea backed up by a scattering of reports of problems with RTX 4000 graphics cards and this most recent GPU driver. As PC Gamer theorizes, these gremlins might pertain to old driver files kicking about in the background, clashing with the new setup somehow after the user has installed this latest driver.

That’s why our sister site advises a full driver wipe (using Display Driver Uninstaller, or DDU, to fully remove every bit of the old graphics driver; this doesn’t happen with a normal install – tiny bits of driver detritus can remain) before setting up your shiny new RTX 5000 GPU.

So, driver-wise, your choices are to roll back to the previous Nvidia graphics driver before this latest release, or do a full wipe (using DDU as mentioned) before reinstalling the latest driver, keeping your fingers firmly crossed.

Or, just live with your gaming PC as it is – if the crashing isn’t excessively annoying in your particular case – in the hope that Nvidia deploys a hotfix soon enough. It’s possible this could happen, as one recently arrived to solve the crashing issues with a couple of games in the latest driver.

Meanwhile, if you’re in ‘live with it’ mode, there are some common workarounds you can try which are simple and have done the trick for some folks. They include turning off HDR in Windows 11 (assuming you have it on, of course) and reducing the refresh rate of your monitor to 60Hz.

The latter appears to have worked for a fair few people to resolve some, if not all, of the crashing. So that’s one to have a shot with, definitely. It might also help to explain why multi-monitor setups are seemingly potentially more wonky, as if there are monitor-related issues in the driver, then obviously they’re more likely to happen in that scenario.

Bear in mind that as advised in the past, some RTX 5090 owners have found a solution in going into the BIOS and dropping down their graphics card from using PCIe 5.0 to PCIe 4.0. That will mean the GPU runs slower, but not in a major way, and if it means a crash-free experience then clearly that’s a much better path forward for now, as a temporary fix, until Nvidia comes out with its report (and hopefully a fix).

As already noted, I’ve a feeling that the solution might be a tricky one here, so I’m not overly optimistic about a quick hotfix – but you never know.

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• Nextcloud Talk ensures full data control and privacy
• AI features help streamline workflows and enhance productivity
• Interactive whiteboards allow for real-time brainstorming sessions

Many companies rely on popular platforms like Microsoft Teams, but there are concerns about data privacy and digital sovereignty which have led to the demand for alternatives that offer more control and flexibility.

For example, Microsoft Teams only recently introduced an alert for messages from external contracts after a spate of phishing attacks using the platform.

Nextcloud Talk, an open source online collaboration platform that prioritizes data protection, promises to offer workers the ability to work securely from anywhere while maintaining full data sovereignty and control over sensitive information.

Secure collaboration tools are essential for modern teams

Unlike browser-based tools that require constant tab-switching, the Nextcloud Talk desktop app integrates directly into a user’s workflow, providing real-time notifications and easy participation in calls. With this dedicated app, teams can access communication tools like chat, video calls, and webinars all in one place.

Nextcloud says its platform focuses on high-security communication. Unlike many collaboration platforms that depend on US-based providers, Nextcloud Talk ensures that all data is fully compliant with GDPR, making it an ideal choice for organizations and public institutions looking to remain compliant when processing data in the EU.

It also supports deployment in airgap environments, where communication networks are isolated from external networks for maximum security, ensuring that sensitive conversations and files remain secure.

Furthermore, it also comes with AI features that help users to simplify everyday tasks. Its AI can generate summaries of video conferences and chat logs, allowing users to quickly review key points from meetings. It can also assist in creating to-do lists, helping teams stay organized and on track with their projects.

Collaboration often requires more than just communication, it also involves brainstorming and sharing ideas in real time. To support this, Nextcloud Talk offers an interactive whiteboard feature that allows teams to visually collaborate during calls, and real-time in-call document editing

For those who have had to sit through one too many chats about the weather, Nextcloud Talk has introduced a feature that automatically ends calls after a set time, encouraging teams to maintain effective and focused meetings without dragging on unnecessarily.

"Companies need powerful collaboration tools – but most solutions are not GDPR-compliant and lock organizations into dependence on U.S. tech giants," says Nextcloud CEO Frank Karlitschek.

"We address the limitations of other platforms by delivering true digital sovereignty and full transparency. Our tools enable organizations to manage their communication with complete control over their data, independently and securely," Karlitschek added

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The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is one of the best phones in Australia, and in 2025 it’ll be a difficult handset to beat as our attention turns to the Google Pixel 10 Pro and the Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max coming later this year. It only improves upon the best cameraphone of 2024, the Galaxy S24 Ultra, and it continues a trend set by the S24. In 2025, software took over the stage almost entirely in San Jose at Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event.

Yes, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra received a new rounded design that makes it look more like its standard S25 and S25 Plus counterparts. Samsung also decided to axe Bluetooth features from the S Pen with the S25 Ultra, which enabled users to take photos with the phone’s included stylus (super useful for group shots and selfies, though Samsung said it’s not a popular feature). Hardware undoubtedly changed and indeed the phone did receive its annual CPU/GPU performance buff – but in 2025, Samsung’s more interested in software.

With the launch of One UI 7, Samsung’s app icons, widgets, status bar and other core software features have gotten a refresh. They feel more efficient, space-aware and better in line with the customization that many users crave from their smartphones. When I first received this phone, my colleagues and I were saddened at how limited the ‘Good Lock’ OS-modifying tool had become with One UI 7, but after toying with the operating system, I’ve come to realize that I could finally get by without it.

Better yet, the introduction of the Now Bar and the all-new Now Brief are actually useful productivity features that look good on the display, and they’re my favorite features of the launch.

Whether or not Samsung’s useful Now Brief page, which generates an AI-assisted snapshot of the rest of your day (or next day), effectively encompasses what has become the popular perception of AI (incorporating the use of large-language models and the like) feels beside the point. This is a genuinely useful feature and to some extent, I’m disappointed that it has been tarnished by the ‘AI’ tag that justifiably puts a bad taste in people’s mouths.

To that end, we can ignore the elephant in the room no longer – the messy state of affairs that is AI on a Samsung phone. Such phones are torn between Galaxy AI tools (many of which function on-device) and Google Gemini, and there’s cause for concern in this discrepancy.

So let’s chat Samsung’s latest OS polish, its handy new tricks, and its spotty AI-fication.

(Image credit: Zachariah Kelly / TechRadar) Hello, beautiful

I’ll quickly admit that Samsung’s approach to UI design up until now hasn’t been my favorite. Coming from iOS in 2022, the Google Pixel range won me over with the uniform aesthetic that makes it the closest thing to an iPhone on the Android side of the fence. Samsung’s phones, albeit partly due to their overstuffing of bloatware with a fresh install, tend to have a more tech-savvy aesthetic – showing more icons on a space, settings icons at all times across the settings bar (top of the display) and generally sharing more information than is necessary for a casual user.

That doesn't seem to be the case with the Samsung Galaxy S25 series and One UI 7. With this launch, subtle but sweeping changes have been made to the home screen, including app icon scale choice, dark icons in dark mode when ‘Color Palette’ is applied to apps, and expanded folders (which you can tap to open apps without opening said folder).

One of my big reservations about Samsung phones up until now has been the cluttered Status Bar, showing oh so many symbols that don’t need to be displayed at all times (for example, the 5G icon, NFC icon and Bluetooth icon, to name a few). These icons have now been relegated to the status bar only when accessing the quick settings and notifications menu (accessed by swiping down), while app notifications continue to persist on the left of the status bar (unless disabled).

(Image credit: Zachariah Kelly / TechRadar)

Widgets and lock screen/notifications menu pop-ups have also received a glow-up, and are now rounded at the corners and displaying more information on the home screen. However, to activate these notification ‘cards’ on the lock screen, you’ll need to do so in your lock screen settings (switching over from icons to cards).

It’s the little things that add up, surrounding the introduction of two big things. The Now bar comes first; it’s a multi-function widget that appears contextually at the bottom of the lock screen. I really love how it expands when tapped while playing music, displays timers and how it communicates Google Maps info. It’s great having it so low on the screen, so it’s more accessible one-handed. It feels more intuitive than Apple’s Dynamic Island which it seems inspired by.

(Image credit: Zachariah Kelly / TechRadar)

Moreover, Now Brief is a genuinely useful addition to the One UI suite of features. In the morning, at mid-day and at night, the phone will produce a ‘Now Brief’ rundown of upcoming events (including weather reports, travel information and calendar notifications) and a recap of your last several hours (including sleep data, missed calls and photos taken).

It’s a useful tool for putting all your contextually appropriate alerts in the one spot for your review, and it pains me that it’s not even more useful. I’d love for it to pull information from more apps – recommending me to continue listening to a podcast, select audiobook or keep watching a Disney+ series. The best it’ll do on these fronts is recommend you a Spotify playlist or push you in the direction of YouTube Shorts.

I’d also like it to be a little less… wrong? After waking up one morning, it recommended me a ‘liquid EDM’ playlist. I've been known to l listen to the odd EDM song here or there, but it seems like a wild genre to wake up to.

But it’s in Now Brief that we approach the cluttered state of Samsung’s AI suite.

Samsung’s AI confusion

And then there’s Google Gemini. On One UI 7 and the S25 range, Gemini has replaced the default Google Assistant (Bixby who?), and while I do like Gemini as a virtual assistant, its coexistence with these other AI tools is potentially confusing to a casual user.

That being said, Samsung has added cross-app actions to the S25 range with Google Gemini. You can ask Gemini to perform a complex series of commands, such as finding the information on several businesses online to be added to your Notes app, and it will be done so fluidly (as demonstrated by our friends at Tom’s Guide). The only third-party apps currently supported are Whatsapp and Spotify, but this awesome time-saving feature genuinely has the potential to help get stuff done quickly.

(Image credit: Zachariah Kelly / TechRadar)

Erring on the critical side, I think we’re being a bit liberal with what we’re appropriately calling an ‘AI feature’. For example; Google Circle to Search continues to be one of my favorite features of Android phones in 2024. It’s supposedly underpinned by AI, but it’s unclear how AI actually factors into the function of this tool. After all, it’s basically a simple-to-access spin on Google Lens with support for on-screen circling.

Similarly with Now Brief, it’s not clear just how much of it benefits from so-called AI features. A day-to-come or day-passed snapshot is simply a splash screen displaying your upcoming events, weather alerts, a smattering of content recommendations and health figures from throughout the day.

It might seem bereft to criticize AI features on the merit of being ‘AI-powered’, but I have one major concern. Since the launch of the Galaxy S24 range, Samsung has noted that it may, eventually, start to charge for its AI features. At the time of writing, the official company tagline is:

“Fees may apply for AI features at the end of 2025. Certain Galaxy AI features require [a] Samsung and Google Account. [An] internet connection may be required to use some features. AI Features will be provided free of charge until the end of 2025 on supported Samsung Galaxy devices.”

My concern is that access to some of these genuinely useful features will be paywalled alongside the AI tools that many people won’t actually get any use from.

I have no problem paying a subscription for a genuinely useful product or service if I’m actually getting value from it. Between Circle to Search and Now Brief, I now have two AI features that I like.

And I don’t think I could sensibly pay for either.

(Image credit: Zachariah Kelly / TechRadar) Samsung needs to steer carefully

While Samsung has spent a fair amount of time beautifying its operating system, its AI software is starting to become a different story altogether. No doubt people are using such features at their own discretion, but so far there hasn’t been a must-have AI tool built into One UI (or any phone OS for that matter).

On the bright side, One UI 7 brings with it a nice aesthetic refresh, and in a hardware lull year, it’s the best I could have wanted from Samsung.

The Samsung Galaxy S25 range is available now.

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On the normal end, we got a date and time for Nintendo's Switch 2 Direct presentation (April 2, 2025), and on the 'I can't believe we're syaing this end,' Apple got flustered by the iPhone's first-ever official porn app.

Once you've caught up on all that and more, be sure to check out our picks for the seven new movies and TV shows to stream this weekend (February 7).

7. Nintendo set a Switch 2 presentation date

(Image credit: Nintendo)

We now know exactly when the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct is happening on April 2. Thanks to Nintendo’s official social media channels over on X / Twitter, it’s been confirmed that the anticipated broadcast will happen at 6am PT / 9am ET / 2pm GMT / 3pm CEST. This really comes as no surprise, as Nintendo Direct presentations typically land in the morning for US audiences and mid-afternoon in the UK and Europe.

As for the contents of the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct, the company remains tight-lipped. We don’t think it’ll be a deep exploration of the system’s specs, but the presentation should give us a decent idea of the new hardware's improvements. It also seems reasonable to expect a look at new Nintendo Switch 2 games, potentially including a better look at that new Mario Kart title we saw in the official reveal teaser.

• Read more: The Switch 2 Nintendo Direct now has an official date and time

6. Dyson's new handheld vacuum turned out to be… not so new

(Image credit: Future)

Dyson has added a handheld vacuum to its range, but it turns out the Dyson Car+Boat is really just a V8 stick vacuum shipped without its wand and floorheads. We couldn't help but feel a little cheated, and not just because the V8 launched a decade ago, in 2016.

That disappointment aside, the new addition actually performed very well in our official Dyson Car+Boat review. Although it's not the newest Dyson stick vacuum, it is the smallest and lightest of the current range, and when pitted against other handhelds, the Car+Boat easily wins out. The battery life is double that of most handheld vacuums, and it's powerful enough to blast through even the most challenging cleanup tasks.

In short, the Car+Boat is an ultra-capable handheld vacuum, we just wish we were getting more of that trademark Dyson innovation instead.

• Read more: Turns out Dyson's new handheld vacuum is a decade-old V8

5. OpenAI fought back against DeepSeek R1

(Image credit: Scale AI, CAIS)

It didn’t take long for OpenAI to flex its muscles following the incredible success of Chinese start-up DeepSeek. Just last week, we were talking about the US AI company’s concerns following the launch of a completely free reasoning model, DeepSeek R1, that was just as good, if not better, than OpenAI’s o1 offering.

Now, not only has OpenAI revealed Deep Research, an incredible AI agent that works as your own personal analyst, ready to tackle any research you throw at it and come back with results, but Deep Research has also eclipsed all rivals on the world’s hardest AI exam.

If that wasn’t enough, OpenAI also announced this week that ChatGPT Search, its competitor to Google Search, would no longer require a login, allowing anyone to use the free AI search engine without the need to give up any personal information. It’s fair to say the company took DeepSeek’s attempt to shake up the AI industry personally, and now it’s us, the consumers, who are reaping the rewards.

• Read more: OpenAI's Deep Research smashes records for the world's hardest AI exam

4. Amazon teased Alexa upgrades

(Image credit: Amazon)

Amazon invited people to an exclusive product launch event in New York City later in February. While many details from the invite made us reasonably confident it would be for the long-awaited Alexa AI upgrade we’ve been waiting for, Amazon spelled it out for us as it was discovered that combining five invites would show you ‘alexa’ in a cursive font.

We’re not certain what this new Alexa will be capable of, but leaks have suggested it’ll finally start to catch up with the likes of ChatGPT, Gemini, and other LLMs, which have left the smart assistant in their dust.

More specifically, they tease that Alexa will be better at understanding and responding to natural human speech, such as multiple prompts presented in a row. It’ll also be able to perform more tasks autonomously as an AI agent. Unfortunately, it might also cost $5-$10 a month – but we’ll have to take all these details with a pinch of salt until Amazon’s event in a couple of weeks.

• Read more: Alexa AI is landing soon – 3 things to expect from the new voice assistant

3. Apple launched Invites

(Image credit: Future)

Apple has been making slow and steady Calendar app improvements across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, but it just made organizing parties 100 times easier with the brand-new Apple Invites app for iCloud+ users.

It’s designed to be a one-stop shop for creating the event invite, from setting an event description to correctly capture the vibe to building a guest list and managing who has RSVP'd and who isn't coming. It can even serve as an easy one-stop shop for guests who can see all the event info without everyone needing to message the host the same questions individually.

iCloud+ is a central part of this, as you need it to send invites and create an event but anyone can receive them even people on Android.

• Read more: Apple’s Invites app gives iCloud+ subscribers an better way to organize parties

2. Apple got mad about the iPhone’s first porn app

(Image credit: AltStore PAL / Future)

That isn’t a sentence we expected to write this week, but it’s 2025, so all bets are off. Yes, the iPhone’s first official porn app (called Hot Tub, of course) has just landed in the EU, and Apple isn’t best pleased – to put it mildly.

Hot Tub arrived thanks to EU regulations that recently opened the door to third-party iOS app stores like AltStore, where you can download the app (or so we’ve heard). Apple was quick to point out it’s “deeply concerned about the safety risks” and disapproves of the controversial porn aggregator.

An added dimension to the story is that AltStore is funded by Apple’s nemesis Epic Games, who recently battled it over Fortnite. We can feel a Netflix documentary coming on…

• Read more: The iPhone’s first official porn app has just landed in the EU – and Apple really isn’t happy about it

1. Apple’s robot stole our hearts

Apple also showed off its ELEGANT (Expressive and Functional Movement Design for Non-Anthropomorphic Robot) lamp this week – and this real-life Pixar lamp is wonderfully cute.

Videos showcased the robot’s functional meets expressive approach, which saw it perform tasks with a bit of flair – at one point, the robot was asked to grab something out of reach, and rather than simply realizing it wasn’t long enough, the lamp tries to stretch a few times before shaking its head and admitting it can’t complete the task.

While playing music, it danced along, and while helping a user build a 3D printer, it performed micro-adjustments that made it seem alive before playing a video of the instructions when it saw they were struggling. Apple hasn’t announced any plans to launch this as something you can buy one day, but we’re hoping we’ll one day get an Apple iLamp announcement.

• Read more: Apple built a super-cute, expressive robot lamp

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• We should see the phone called the OnePlus Open 2 internationally
• A launch is happening within the next two weeks

We know that we're just days away from the launch of the Oppo Find N5 – which will almost definitely be available in some markets as the OnePlus Open 2 – and a new teaser image of the foldable hints at one way it could best the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6.

The image was posted by Pete Lau, Chief Product Officer at Oppo and previously the founder of OnePlus. It shows the Oppo Find N5 on the left, up against an unnamed foldable – which looks very much like the Galaxy Z Fold 6 launched last July.

When it comes to crease visibility, the Oppo Find N5 is the clear winner. This is something Oppo and OnePlus have form for too: in our OnePlus Open review, we praised the foldable for having a screen crease that was "nearly invisible and barely tactile".

It would seem the Oppo Find N5 and OnePlus Open 2 will be even better in this regard. It looks as though the phone will outdo the Galaxy Z Fold 6 in terms of screen size too – the Samsung handset has a main display measuring 7.6 inches, corner to corner (and the OnePlus Open had a 7.82-inch panel).

Coming soon

IPX6 ✅ IPX8 ✅ IPX9 ✅Immensely durable, rain or shine. #OPPOFindN5 pic.twitter.com/Yg0G3Qm8Z0February 7, 2025

Lau has also been promoting the improved waterproofing on the upcoming Oppo Find N5. The phone is apparently "immensely durable, rain or shine", and should offer more protection against the elements than the Oppo Find N3 (and OnePlus Open).

We've already heard from other Oppo executives that waterproofing is going to be one of the key features on the upcoming foldable phone. Much has been made of its thinness too: even thinner than an M4 iPad Pro, apparently.

Camera upgrades over the previous model have also been rumored, and if you add in a processor bump as well, this sounds like it could be a contender for the top spot in our best foldables list – but we'll have to wait and see.

Oppo has given us a rough idea of when its Find N5 handset will make an appearance – around February 19 or February 20 – but we don't have an exact date yet. The phone is getting a global launch, but certain parts of the world should also see the device appear as the OnePlus Open 2 later in 2025.

You might also like

• Our full review of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6
• 5 things we want from the OnePlus Open 2
• Apple’s foldable iPhone specs hinted at in fresh leak

• A new feature could almost miraculously cut energy consumption of data centers by 30%
• Interrupt request suspension dynamically alters CPU power usage and can be done via OS
• Hyperscalers are likely to be the big winners and it will be interesting to see how it impacts AI

Data centers reportedly account for between 2-4% of total electricity consumption around the world, something hyperscalers are understandably looking to reduce wherever possible.

Potential solutions include implementing next-generation architectures like Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) and employing advanced cooling techniques.

Professor Martin Karsten at the Cheriton School of Computer Science, within the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, has a cheaper, easier solution. He claims that data center energy consumption could be cut by up to 30%, simply by changing a few lines of Linux code.

Small change, big impact

Working with Joe Damato at Fastly, Professor Karsten has developed a small, non-intrusive kernel change of just 30 lines of code that uses IRQ (interrupt request) suspension to reduce unnecessary CPU interruptions and improve Linux’s network traffic processing. This tweak has now been published as part of Linux’s newest kernel, release version 6.13.

This code change, which reportedly improves Linux networking efficiency and boosts throughput by up to 45% without increasing latency, is based on a research paper called “Kernel vs. User-Level Networking: Don’t Throw Out the Stack with the Interrupts”, which Professor Karsten authored with former master’s student Peter Cai in 2023.

"We didn’t add anything,” Professor Karsten said of the code change. “We just rearranged what is done when, which leads to a much better usage of the data center’s CPU caches. It’s kind of like rearranging the pipeline at a manufacturing plant so that you don’t have people running around all the time.”

The Professor believes this small adjustment could have a huge impact. “All these big companies - Amazon, Google, Meta - use Linux in some capacity, but they’re very picky about how they decide to use it. If they choose to ‘switch on’ our method in their data centers, it could save gigawatt-hours of energy worldwide. Almost every single service request that happens on the Internet could be positively affected by this.”

Aoife Foley, IEEE senior member and professor in the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Queen’s University Belfast, welcomes the potential savings but observes that it’s going to take a lot more than just changing a few lines of code to address the broader energy challenges.

“There is a long way to go yet," she says. "These facilities represent huge electricity demands, adding pressure to electricity grids and increasing the challenge of energy transitions, especially in smaller countries. Although it is impossible to calculate precisely, the entire ICT sector is estimated to account for about 1.4 per cent of CO₂ emissions globally. Infrastructure and operations leaders have a responsibility here and need to consider the unnecessary waste associated with data storage and commit to generating power from more renewable sources.”

Yandex recently released an open source tool called Perforator, which takes a similar approach to Professor Karsten’s research, helping businesses optimize their code, reduce server load, and ultimately lower energy and equipment costs.

Sergey Skvortsov, who leads the team behind Perforator, told us: “This latest research confirms what we have long believed: optimizing code is one of the most effective ways to reduce data center energy consumption. Perforator helps businesses identify and fix inefficient code, cutting CPU usage by up to 20% and reducing infrastructure costs - without sacrificing performance. With data centers consuming up to 4% of global electricity, tools like Perforator can play a crucial role in making tech infrastructure more sustainable.”

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• Why the data center of 2030 will look very different from today
• Data centers are transforming waste heat into community energy assets
• The AI boom is spurring an energy crisis: is there a sustainable way out?