Technology

If you need emergency funds to cover an unexpected bill, you shouldn't wind up in a vicious debt cycle.

Several important refinance rates moved higher this week, but rates are expected to trend down in the coming months.

Some important mortgage rates ticked up. Here's what to expect if you're in the market for a home loan.

Having given us four new Kindle models yesterday, Amazon has taken one away: the Kindle Oasis, first launched in 2016 and last refreshed in 2019, is now discontinued – marking the end for Kindle devices with page-turn buttons.

"Once current inventory of Kindle Oasis sells out online and in stores, we will not restock the device," Amazon's Devon Corvasce told The Verge. The device is currently showing as unavailable on the Amazon US site, with used models available on Amazon UK.

According to Corvasce, Kindle users are more comfortable with tapping the screen to go forwards and backwards through their ebooks, and that's the approach all Kindle models will be taking from now on.

In our Amazon Kindle Oasis review, we described it as a "luxury ereader" that just about justified its higher price. The button system did add some extra bulk, but it worked well, and it was also easy to hold in one hand thanks to a ridged-back design.

Past and future

The new Amazon Kindle Colorsoft (Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)

With no updates since 2019, it's perhaps no surprise that Amazon has decided to put an end to the Kindle Oasis. Between the 2016 launch and the final 2019 version, there was one other update, which came in 2017.

The display on the most recent Kindle Oasis was 7 inches, corner to corner, and both brightness and warmness could be adjusted. Brightness could also be set to change automatically, based on the ambient light conditions.

Looking to the future, you can check out our hands-on Amazon Kindle Colorsoft review for our first impressions of the first Kindle to come with a color screen. It'll set you back $279.99 / £269.99, with pricing for Australia yet to be announced.

The other new models just announced by Amazon are refreshes for the Kindle Paperwhite, the Kindle Scribe (with stylus support), and the entry-level Amazon Kindle, so there's plenty of choice if you're looking to replace your aging Kindle Oasis.

You might also like

• Here's what Amazon gets right about the new Kindle Scribe
• These are the best ereaders you can buy
• Kindle vs Kobo: how to choose

The exploitation of zero-day vulnerabilities, flaws that were abused before the developers built a fix, is growing faster than the exploitation of n-day vulnerabilities (those for which a patch is already available).

This is according to a new report from Google’s cybersecurity researchers Mandiant, who describe it as a “worrying trend”.

The researchers recently analyzed 138 exploited vulnerabilities that were disclosed in 2023, and concluded that 70% were abused as zero-days, while 30% were n-days. In previous years, the ratio was closer to 60% for zero-days, and 40% for n-days, meaning the crooks are growing increasingly reliant on zero-day vulnerabilities.

Social engineering

“While we have previously seen and continue to expect a growing use of zero-days over time, 2023 saw an even larger discrepancy grow between zero-day and n-day exploitation as zero-day exploitation outpaced n-day exploitation more heavily than we have previously observed,” the researchers explained.

Besides the increase in the numbers, the average time-to-exploit (TTE) has also decreased, suggesting that the attackers are exploiting these flaws faster than ever before. Two years ago, the average TTE was 32 days. Last year, it was merely five days, meaning the flaws are getting abused almost immediately.

But there is a silver lining to the research. Mandiant says organizations have gotten better at detecting zero-days, which also resulted in higher numbers in the report. It is quite possible that in previous years, a larger portion of these attacks went unnoticed. Companies have also gotten better at patching. They do it faster, and more frequently nowadays, forcing the hackers to move faster themselves. Hence the shorter TTE.

Looking into the future, Mandiant says the trend of zero-day exploitation is expected to grow, especially with improved detection tools. Zero-days are likely to remain a highly coveted approach for threat actors because they offer a critical window of attack before patches can be applied.

If this trend continues, Mandiant anticipates time-to-exploit will fall even further.

More from TechRadar Pro

• What are zero-day vulnerabilities?
• Here's a list of the best firewalls today
• These are the best endpoint protection tools right now

Motorola has begun rolling out a beta version of Android 15 to select Edge 50 devices, becoming one of the first phone makers to give users a taste of the latest Android operating.

Currently, only some Motorola Edge 50 Fusion devices are eligible for the beta, and we aren’t quite sure of what the criteria for selection is – nonetheless, it’s very encouraging to see this type of movement early on.

Such early deployment of Android 15, even in beta form, comes as something of a surprise from Motorola given that the company isn’t exactly known for rapid upgrades. However, Motorola launched the Edge 50 series with the promise of five years of OS updates, so speedier updates could be a product of this new commitment.

Google remains the sole phone maker to deliver a stable Android 15 update thus far, having pushed out a Pixel Launcher update on October 15. Google’s haste makes sense considering that the company develops the Android source code, which was itself released on September 4.

We’d usually expect Samsung to be hot on the heels of Google when it comes to adopting major Android updates, but we’ve heard nothing official about the expected Samsung One UI 7 update yet.

Samsung has promised the Android 15-powered update to a wide array of phones, from the ultra-budget Galaxy A14 to the flagship Galaxy S24 Ultra.

As YTechB reports, the list of Motorola devices expected to get Android 15 updates includes the Edge 50 series, Razr phones launched in 2023 or 2024, and several G series handsets.

In global markets, Xiaomi and Honor have both enabled an Android 15 beta for select devices, but like Motorola neither of these companies have delivered a stable Android 15 update.

The fight for second place in the Android 15 stable release race is still on – for the latest updates as we hear them, be sure to keep up with our Android coverage.

You might also like

• Android 15 lets you turn your phone into a handy smart-home dashboard – here’s how
• The latest Pixel Drop is here, bringing upgrades to cameras, Call Screen, and more
• Android phone makers are wasting no time in copying the iPhone 16 camera button

So much jamming is taking place in northeastern Norway, regulators no longer want to know.

Those who tried Holotropic Breathwork have had powerful experiences. We spoke with HB's director to learn more.

Security researchers created an algorithm that turns a malicious prompt into a set of hidden instructions that could send a user's personal information to an attacker.

As more and more companies switch their apps and services to subscription models, you might have found it increasingly difficult to cancel your subscription and end the payments. Most of us have struggled with a company that makes it near-impossible to stop the charges, but that could soon become a thing of the past thanks to new consumer-friendly rules that are about to come into effect.

In a press release, the FTC has announced that businesses will have to make it as easy for consumers to end a subscription as it is to sign up for one. The new 'click-to-cancel' rule is designed to address complaints about 'negative option' billing – that is, subscriptions and recurring payments where you must take action to have them canceled.

Right now, some companies make it as difficult as possible to end a subscription. Instead of allowing you to end it online, for example, they might make you call a phone number where a sales representative will cajole you with offers and other tactics designed to keep you spending. While signing up for a recurring payment can take seconds, canceling one can take hours – or longer.

(Image credit: Shutterstock / Ivan Marc)

Once the click-to-cancel rule comes into effect in roughly 180 days’ time, that should all change. The FTC says its new guidelines will prohibit companies from engaging in the following practices:

• Misrepresenting any material fact made while marketing goods or services with a negative option feature
• Failing to clearly and conspicuously disclose material terms prior to obtaining a consumer’s billing information in connection with a negative option feature
• Failing to obtain a consumer’s express informed consent to the negative option feature before charging the consumer
• Failing to provide a simple mechanism to cancel the negative option feature and immediately halt charges.

The FTC says it opted against enacting other rules. These include the requirement for companies to send annual subscription reminders to customers, as well as a ban on firms suggesting reasons for you to keep paying when you attempt to cancel a subscription if you haven’t previously asked to hear about these reasons.

Commenting on the news, FTC chair Lina M. Khan said, “Too often, businesses make people jump through endless hoops just to cancel a subscription. The FTC’s rule will end these tricks and traps, saving Americans time and money. Nobody should be stuck paying for a service they no longer want.”

With subscriptions becoming an increasingly common way for companies to bring in revenue, complaints have been rising at an equally steep rate, with the FTC saying it now receives an average of 70 complaints a day about shady recurring payment practices. Hopefully the new rules will put a stop to some of the most egregious examples and make it far easier to get more control over your money.

You might also like

• I wasted megabucks on tech subscriptions – here's how to avoid my mistakes
• I’m cutting my TV streaming bills by 75% in 2024 with subscription hopping – here’s how
• Can't decide which streaming service to cancel? This app makes subscription hopping between Netflix, Disney Plus and more easy

The world of health and fitness has been rocked by the potentially devastating news that standing desks could be bad for your health.

“Standing desks may be bad for your health, study suggests,” “Experts issue a health warning to anyone who uses a standing desk,” and “Why standing desks could be bad for your health” have all crossed my timeline this morning. So what on earth is going on? And is it time to ditch your standing desk?

The flurry of articles all stem from a new study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology on October 16. The snappily titled ‘Device-measured stationary behavior and cardiovascular and orthostatic circulatory disease incidence’ is a study of more than 83,000 UK adults over the course of nearly seven years.

The research, conducted by Dr Matthew Ahmadi of the University of Sydney’s Faculty of Medicine and Health in Australia, set out to examine the link between sitting, standing, and stationary time, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and orthostatic circulatory disease. The results at first glance appear like a blow to the appeal of standing desks – but there’s much more to it than that.

Standing desks aren’t the silver bullet you might have hoped

(Image credit: Future / Tim Coleman)

The study acknowledges that public health strategies and common advice often promote standing “as a sufficient substitute” for sitting in an office environment. However, the results of this mammoth study show that both sitting and standing for too long can be bad for your health. According to the study, doing too much of either can increase the risk of the two aforementioned ailments – CVD and orthostatic circulatory disease such as orthostatic hypotension, varicose vein, chronic venous insufficiency, and venous ulcer.

According to the study, “Every additional hour above 10 h/day of sitting was associated with a 0.26 (0.18, 0.36) higher risk,” of orthostatic circulatory diseases. Crucially, however, the risk of these diseases also increased (although not as much) with every 30 additional minutes of standing for more than two hours per day.

In contrast, the risk of CVD increased with every extra hour of sitting, but “Time spent standing was not associated with major CVD risk.”

As summed up by the study, “Both sitting (above 10 h/day) and standing (above 2 h/day) were directly associated with increased orthostatic circulatory disease incidence risk; standing was not associated with CVD incidence risk.” Furthermore, “Standing alone may not be a sufficient strategy for lowering CVD risk, and may lead to a higher risk of circulatory conditions.”

(Image credit: Future)

The study notes a crucial factor, however. The risks associated with both are linked to time spent stationary. If you combine one of the best standing desks on the market with an under-desk treadmill, the study implies that moving while standing won’t carry the same risks.

Whether you choose to sit or stand at your desk while working, regular breaks and frequent movement are the key. The study “calls into question current intervention strategies that focus on only replacing sitting with standing time without increasing physical activity.” Simply put, buying a standing desk isn’t a silver bullet that will solve your health problems or reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease by itself.

As is often the case when it comes to health and wellbeing, The study notes that “up to a certain level, neither sitting nor standing are harmful for orthostatic conditions, suggesting that there may be a healthy balance between these two behaviors.”

Still, the study concludes that “The deleterious associations of stationary time with CVD and orthostatic circulatory disease we observed were primarily a consequence of time spent sitting.” Standing more doesn’t increase CVD risk in the same way sitting does, then, but standing “was associated with substantially higher risk of orthostatic circulatory disease.”

The solution? If you want to continue to enjoy the benefits of a standing desk, such as burning more calories or improving posture, be sure to factor in plenty of movement and breaks into your work day. If you're going to stand for more than two hours a day, maybe consider using an under-desk treadmill. Just remember, sitting for too long continues to carry risks of CVD such as coronary heart disease, stroke, and heart failure.

Other tools out there can also help you keep on top of your health and mobility, such as the best fitness trackers or best smartwatches that feature standing alerts or tracking to help you get plenty of steps in each day. Whether you choose to sit or stand at your desk, do both in moderation, sprinkle in plenty of movement, change things up regularly, and do it all as part of a healthy lifestyle.

You may also like

• Hate running? Get an under-desk treadmill and do this cozy TikTok walking workout instead
• How to walk 10,000 steps a day: Tips and tech you need to get your steps in
• How many miles is 10,000 steps? Everything you need to find the right distance with a phone or smartwatch

Public services across the country have been feeling the pinch for a long while, but staff at NHS hospitals are concerned that this has reached a critical point. The British Medical Association, the UK’s main doctors union, estimated that doctors lost 13.5 million hours a year as a consequence of “inadequate IT systems and equipment”.

IT systems probably aren’t many people’s first thought when it comes to public spending, but they are crucial in keeping the NHS functioning and helping staff save lives. Since the 2010s the UK has spent almost £37 billion less on health assets than neighboring countries, such as France and Germany.

“I am at a top London hospital and yet at times I feel as though we are operating in the Stone Age,” a pediatrician told Forbes. Doctors and nurses have outlined the need for all basic infrastructure to be raised to a minimum standard before new projects are taken on.

Not exactly efficient

According to the NHS’s own estimates, just 20% of its organisations are "digitally mature", with some reporting an "enormous variation in basic infrastructure" within hospitals that slows systems down.

“We have a whole range of paper-based and digital systems, which leads to a huge potential for error,” said Dr Rosie Benneyworth, Head of the Health Services Safety Investigations Body. “We have seen delayed cancer diagnosis because of systems not speaking to one another.”

As well as making systems difficult to navigate and impeding health workers, legacy IT systems can pose serious risks in the form of vulnerabilities. Healthcare providers are attractive targets for cybercriminals, who will often try and leverage stolen data for money, or shut down life saving systems to disrupt operations.

Via Financial Times

More from TechRadar Pro

• Take a look at some of the best malware removal software
• NHS IT firm set for major fine following medical records hack
• Check out our pick for best antivirus software

It’s been quite a while since we’ve seen a fresh Xbox Series X wrap, so you’d be forgiven for thinking that Microsoft had forgotten about the whole endeavor. We now know that this is not the case at least, as the company has just revealed a Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 accessories collection which includes a new wrap and two controllers.

Inspired by the covert spy-thriller theme of the next Call of Duty installment, the Xbox Series X Wrap - Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is quite a striking console accessory. It’s predominantly black and white, with some subtle orange highlights, and has a pattern consisting of layers of secret documents.

It looks like there are loads of hidden details here, which could make it a real treat for long-time fans. The wrap is available to pre-order now for $54.99 / £49.99 via the Microsoft Store and will be released on October 23. Those who pre-order will receive a free one-hour 2XP token to use in Black Ops 6, which is honestly a pretty mediocre bonus all things considered.

If you're not familiar with the concept of Microsoft’s console wraps, they’re sleek fabric covers that seamlessly wrap around your system to give it a new aesthetic. We’ve previously seen a limited design inspired by Starfield and, while not quite as a cool as a full special edition console, they are a good option if you want to give your system a new look without breaking the bank.

The collection also includes two new controller designs, both of which are available now exclusively via Xbox Design Lab. The first is the Xbox Wireless Controller – Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. This features a similar design to the wrap, with a face plate that looks like it’s been covered in top secret documents. By default, it has a metallic orange d-pad and triggers too which introduces some rather nice contrast.

There’s also a more premium Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 variant, with custom rubber grips that incorporate an inverted version of the pattern. Both controllers are fully compatible with Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, and PC with prices starting at $84.98 / £84.55 and $164.98 / £137.98 respectively. As Xbox Design Lab products, you can also further customize the look of your controller at additional cost.

For more on Xbox, you can watch my unboxing of the newly released Xbox Series X Digital Edition below.

You might also like...

• New Xbox Series X models seem to be slightly more energy efficient according to teardown
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Modern Warfare 3, and Warzone are coming to Xbox Cloud Gaming next week
• Rare boss Craig Duncan to take over as Xbox Game Studios' head in November

CNET’s sleep experts tested the best king mattresses from top brands like Brooklyn Bedding, Nectar and Saatva. Here are our top picks.

She was the 20th hire at Google, then the head of Yahoo, and now the CEO of Sunshine. For Mayer, geekery supersedes gender.

Team Asobi has just released the first Astro Bot DLC level as a completely free update. And better still, there will be more to follow over the next few weeks.

Announced in an official PlayStation Blog post written by director Nicolas Doucet, it's confirmed that the first DLC speedrun level, Building Speed, is available now and should appear in-game when you next update it. In the level, you'll use the Barkster bulldog bot power-up to launch Astro through crates and across precarious platforming challenges.

What's more, Doucet also confirms that four more speedrun challenge levels will arrive one per week over the next month. The release schedule for these is as follows:

• October 17: Building Speed (that's today!)
• October 24: Let it Slide
• October 31: Spring-loaded Run
• November 7: Helium Heights
• November 14: Rising Heat

Being speedrun levels, the goal is naturally to get through them as quickly as possible. Team Asobi has added a new online leaderboard to support this, so you and your PlayStation friends can have fun seeing who can get through each stage the quickest.

Although you will probably want to take your time and smell the mechanical roses on your first outing in these levels, because new bot cameos are being added to each one. In Building Speed, players can expect to run into cute bot renditions of the Helldivers and EVE from Stellar Blade. Doucet teases that more cameos will arrive in future levels, but is remaining understandably tight-lipped on who those could be for now. Though, we may already have an idea if Astro Bot's credits sequence is anything to go by.

You might also like...

• New Xbox Series X models seem to be slightly more energy efficient according to teardown
• The PS5 Pro version of Dragon Age: The Veilguard will feature ray traced ambient occlusion and other notable enhancements
• The RIG 600 Pro HS gaming headset is getting a makeover thanks to a collab with Wicked Cushions

Samsung has announced that it’s cooked up some new faster GDDR7 video RAM that might just power up Nvidia’s next-gen Blackwell GPUs at some point next year.

The innovation comes in what Samsung boasts is the industry’s first 24Gb GDDR7 RAM, which builds on its previous 16Gb GDDR7 memory modules (the latter are strongly rumored to be destined for Nvidia’s initial RTX 5000 GPUs).

Samsung notes that the new 24Gb GDDR7 is built on a (5th-generation) 10nm process, and that allows for cell density to be 50% better in the same package size versus its predecessor. With 24Gb VRAM we can have memory modules of 3GB capacity (rather than 2GB modules as with 16Gb GDDR7).

Not only do we get that capacity benefit, but this VRAM is much faster, offering a speed of 40Gbps, we’re told. For context, the GDDR7 memory currently in the works boasts speeds of either 28Gbps or 32Gbps, so this is a leap of 25% on the latter. Samsung also notes that performance could be pepped up to 42.5Gbps in certain use cases, too.

Another noteworthy addition to the list of improvements with GDDR7 is better power-efficiency to the tune of 30%.

Samsung tells us that validation (testing and sampling) for this new RAM will begin later in 2024, and it’ll be deployed commercially early in 2025.

(Image credit: Samsung) Analysis: A step forward for Samsung – and next-gen Nvidia Super (or Ti) GPUs too?

While 24Gb GDDR7 is expected to be a major boon for heavyweight applications (AI, data centers and so forth), it will also likely find a home in consumer graphics cards – at least to some extent.

While all this remains speculation, Nvidia is expected to use 28Gbps (and 32Gbps) GDDR7 in its next-gen Blackwell graphics cards, leaving the possibility that Team Green may adopt this supercharged 40Gbps VRAM at some point. For an RTX 5090 Ti, perhaps? It’d obviously have to be a high-end graphics card, though we guess another possibility is an RTX 5080 Ti or Super (perhaps the rumored 24GB of VRAM spin on the 5080 – given the 3GB module capacity, as mentioned).

What about AMD or Intel using GDDR7? Rumors around AMD’s RDNA 4 GPUs insist that Team Red won’t be making the leap to GDDR7, and instead will stick with current GDDR6, which makes sense given that the next-gen RX 8000 graphics cards are supposedly topping out at the mid-range. AMD will want to make them competitive in this space, no doubt, and steering away from cutting-edge VRAM seems like a plan in terms of keeping costs down, if this is the overall idea.

As for Intel, 2nd-gen Arc Battlemage graphics cards are rumored to be low-end only, so clearly GDDR7 won’t be on the table for those GPUs. It seems only Nvidia is jumping on the next-gen VRAM bandwagon next year, although even that remains a rumor – and we don’t know if Team Green will push as hard as deploying this faster 40Gbps memory in its Blackwell GPUs in 2025 (but we can hope).

Via Wccftech

You might also like

• Nvidia’s RTX 5090 now rumored to have superfast clock speeds – as well as being super-slim – could this GPU be too good to be true?
• Top gaming PCs: great rigs for serious PC gaming
• Best PC games: must-play titles you don't want to miss

Things aren’t looking good if you were hoping to play Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on Xbox or PC for just $1 at launch. It seems as though Microsoft has removed the option to pick up a 14-day subscription for a reduced price just nine days away from the Black Ops 6 launch.

The news comes from a recent post to the X / Twitter account of Call of Duty blog CharlieIntel that claims the offer has vanished. I headed over to the Xbox Game Pass website and wasn’t able to find the deal anywhere, which would lend some extra credibility to this assertion.

Black Ops 6 is the next entry in the hugely popular Call of Duty franchise and is set to launch on October 25. It will be the first Call of Duty title to be added to the Xbox Game Pass service at launch following the completion of Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard acquisition last year.

It will be available to those with an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass subscription, which costs $19.99 / £14.99 and $11.99 / £9.99 per month respectively. Many players had planned to take advantage of the $1 subscription offer to get two weeks of access to the game for less.

Although it’s incredibly disappointing to see this option disappear just days away from release, I can’t say that it’s particularly surprising. Call of Duty games usually generate a huge amount of sales revenue over their launch periods. The idea of Microsoft sacrificing a large chunk of this by providing consumers with an almost unbelievably cheap way to try out the game seems a little silly in retrospect.

There’s currently no official word on whether the $1 Xbox Game Pass deal will return in the future, but I suspect that it will once Black Ops 6's launch period is out of the way. While the timing is enough to raise some eyebrows, it’s also worth noting that this is not the first time that the offer has disappeared so it might be due to something else entirely.

You might also like...

• The RIG 600 Pro HS gaming headset is getting a makeover thanks to a collab with Wicked Cushions
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Modern Warfare 3, and Warzone are coming to Xbox Cloud Gaming next week
• Xbox Cloud Gaming will reportedly let players stream their own games from next month

Don't wait to open one of these top CDs. Rates are falling fast.

The price of electricity is only one part of the equation that determines how much you pay every month.