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The next limited edition DualSense controller will be inspired by Fortnite. Revealed as part of last night's State of Play livestream, the DualSense Wireless Controller - Fortnite Limited Edition will be available for pre-order in under a fortnight.

It's a striking blue color, almost indistinguishable from the existing Starlight Blue edition, that has been decorated with a series of graffiti-inspired decals. Some of the biggest include a graffiti-style Fortnite logo, accompanied by the text "Where we droppin'?" on the controller's touchpad. 

You can also see two small character illustrations based on popular Fortnite skins. One shows the anthropomorphic guppy Fishstick while the other is of the humanoid banana Peely. Some other visible elements include "GG" text and a small doodle of a victory crown.

It's a decent limited edition, all things considered, though doesn't quite seem on the same level as something like the Astro Bot Limited Edition DualSense, which smartly integrates elements of the titular character into almost every aspect of its design. 

The controller will be available in strictly limited quantities and will cost $84.99 / £74.99, a fair chunk higher than the $79.99 / £64.99 price of a standard DualSense following the controller's recent price rise. It will be up for pre-order on October 3 via both PS Direct and select retailers.

I wouldn't be surprised if stock of this limited edition is particularly hard to come by given the huge popularity of Fortnite. Make sure that you bookmark any relevant retailers for your region and get in there quickly on pre-order day. Also be sure to visit our detailed breakdown on where to pre-order the Limited Edition Fortnite Dualsense for more tips and a list of potential stores.

PS5 Pro pre-orders will go live this week, so be careful to keep an eye on those too if you're eager to secure a PS5 Pro.

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Ah, data—the lifeblood of the digital age. It's more precious than gold, rarer than a unicorn sighting, and, unfortunately, more vulnerable than a kitten in a room full of rocking chairs. You’ve probably heard the horror stories: ransomware attacks holding data hostage, entire infrastructures crippled, and panicked IT managers frantically Googling, “How to undo ransomware (preferably without tears).”

But fear not, dear reader! Enter the knight in shining armor: Immutable backups.

These digital fortresses are here to save your data from the clutches of cyber villains. Immutable backups are the ultimate security blanket, and today, we’ll dive into how they can keep your enterprise's data as safe as a secret cookie stash.

Immutable Backups: Your Data's Invincible Shield

Picture this: Your backups are safe, secure, and, best of all, untouchable. Immutable backups ensure that once your data is backed up, it cannot be altered or deleted. Not by you, not by cybercriminals, and definitely not by your overly curious intern who “accidentally” clicks on things.

Immutable means unchanging over time. This is like having a vault that even the craftiest thief can't crack. It’s the ultimate form of air-gapping—a method that makes your data as accessible to bad actors as the last season of Game of Thrones was to sense and logic. The immutable nature of these backups ensures that, even if your main environment is compromised, your backup remains pristine, unsullied, and ready to restore your operations to their former glory.

Before enabling immutable backups, it's important to confirm that the data being backed up is exactly what you need. Immutable backups are designed to be unalterable, for better or worse, meaning once they are set, you cannot modify, delete, or update them for the duration of the retention period. Therefore, carefully consider the retention period and ensure it aligns with your data retention policies and business requirements. This irreversible nature offers rock-solid protection against data tampering or accidental deletion, but it also means that any mistakes or unnecessary data included in the backup will remain fixed until the retention period expires. Plan carefully to avoid unintended consequences.

Cross-Cloud Backup: The Golden Standard

So, you’ve embraced immutable backups—great start! But what if you could take it up a notch? Imagine a scenario where your AWS data is safely backed up not just within AWS but in an entirely different cloud platform, say, Azure. Cross-cloud backup is the gold standard in air-gapping, providing an extra layer of security that makes hackers’ heads spin faster than a hamster on a wheel.

Why is cross-cloud backup so effective? It’s simple: diversification. By backing up your data across different cloud platforms, you’re not putting all your eggs in one basket (or all your data in one cloud). If one platform is compromised, your data is still safely tucked away in another, immune to the chaos, like a witness protection program for your data! Plus, when your AWS data is securely backed up in Azure, and you can recover it just as easily, it’s like having a secret escape route in a spy movie—your data is always one step ahead of the bad guys.

Here are three key points to consider for cross-cloud backups.

Before we dive into these key points, just remember: setting up cross-cloud backups is like trying to organize a family reunion—everyone’s got different needs, it costs more than you planned, and you realize why you only see them once a year!

Transfer Speeds: Consider the transfer speeds and potential bottlenecks that could impact backup and more importantly, recovery times.

Cost Management: Cross-cloud backups can introduce additional costs, including storage fees, data transfer charges, and potential hidden costs associated with managing multiple cloud environments. Carefully assess and plan for these expenses.

Security and Compliance: Evaluate the security measures and compliance requirements of each cloud provider. Ensure that your cross-cloud backups meet necessary regulatory standards and that data encryption and access controls are consistently maintained across all platforms. Ensure that you are in control of the encryption keys used for your data.

Full-Stack Recovery: More Than Just Data

Now, let’s talk recovery—because what’s the point of backing up data if you can’t recover it efficiently when disaster strikes? But we’re not just talking about data here. We’re talking about the full stack: servers, services, and—drumroll, please—your network configuration.

Yes, you read that right. It’s not good enough to just have your data and applications backed up; you also need to be able to restore your entire network configuration. This includes VPNs, routing tables, load balancers and all those other intricacies that make your network hum like a finely tuned engine.

Imagine being able to recover everything with minimal manual intervention—so smooth that your end users won’t even notice the hiccup. Meanwhile, the cybercriminals are left scratching their heads, wondering why their ransom demand went unanswered. Little do they know, you’ve already restored your entire environment faster than it takes them to type out, “We have your data, pay up.”

Recovery orchestration will be your friend. It will ensure that in case of an outage your recovery is only a mouse click (or two, or three) away, and ideally your recovery orchestration will allow for regular disaster recovery testing as well. Your audit officer will thank you!

Smile and Tell the Bad Guys to Get Lost

With immutable, cross-cloud backups and the ability to restore your entire stack (network config included), you’re armed with the best defense against data loss, ransomware, and other digital disasters. You’re like a Zen master of IT, calmly sipping your coffee while the cybercriminals scream into the void because their ransom threats have fallen on deaf ears.

In the end, protecting your data isn’t just about having backups; it’s about having unbreachable backups.

So, go ahead and sleep easy. Your data is safe, your backups are immutable, and your recovery plan is rock-solid.

The bad guys? They can go bother someone else.

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

One of the best reveals in last night’s State of Play livestream was undoubtedly the upcoming Chroma Collection line of PlayStation 5 accessories. This includes new DualSense Wireless Controller models and PS5 console covers in attractive iridescent hues.

My personal favorite of the bunch is easily the Chroma Pearl DualSense, which has a stunning, almost all-white look. Parts of the controller, namely the grips and touchpad, are a subtle reflective pearl shade, which has elements of cute pinks and cream that shift in the light.

It honestly looks pretty close to the brilliant Astro Bot Limited Edition DualSense, albeit without the blue elements or graphics inspired by the character, and has shot straight to the top of my wishlist as someone who missed out on that special edition.

Sony revealed the Chroma Indigo DualSense too, which is a bright blue with hints of purple accompanied by a rich purple plastic. There's also the shiny green Choma Teal DualSense, which features a range of bright greens and forest-green aesthetic. Each of these controllers will launch alongside a corresponding PS5 console cover, which would be perfect if you want a matching set.

Unfortunately, though, the console covers are compatible with the PS5 Slim and not the launch version of the console. This does mean that they will also fit the PS5 Pro when it releases, which is some consolation if you intend to place a PS5 Pro pre-order this week or this Fall.

The Chroma DualSense Wireless Controllers will cost $79.99 / £69.99, in line with the DualSense price rise. The Chroma PS5 console covers will cost $64.99 / £54.99, with pre-orders for the entire collection set to begin on October 3. 

Chroma Pearl and Chroma Indigo accessories will launch on November 7, followed by Chroma Teal on January 23. All of these accessories will be available via PS Direct and a range of online retailers.

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There’s been some negative reaction to the launch of AMD’s new Ryzen 9000 chips – certain other controversies didn’t help, either – and a new survey has tried to dig deeper into the opinions of PC owners on the new Zen 5 silicon.

German tech site 3D Center carried out a survey of its readers to determine the broad reaction and first impressions of AMD’s initial clutch of Ryzen 9000 CPUs.

The poll had almost 1,000 respondents, so that’s a fairly small sample, but nonetheless not an insignificant slice of the opinions of the tech site’s readers – which veered more towards the negative than positive.

There were three batches of answers – positive, average, and negative – each of which had four options as the reason for the response (except the positive respondents, which had three reasons). In total, most respondents had an ‘average’ reaction to Ryzen 9000 – some 55% – with 21% responding positively, and 24% negatively.

So, the negative reactions just outweighed the positive, but only by a small amount.

Drilling down to the reasons folks gave for their reaction, in the average responses, the majority (23%) felt that Ryzen 9000 didn’t deserve a positive tick due to a lack of strong gaming performance. 19% marked the Zen 5 CPUs as average due to an overall lack of generational uplift for performance (not just gaming).

It was a similar story for those who opted for a negative reaction, with the main complaint in this case being the lack of overall performance (11%) followed by gaming performance (9%).

Adding up those percentages, a total of 62% gave Ryzen 9000 an average or negative evaluation due to the chips lacking in performance, gaming, or otherwise – which is nearly two-thirds of the respondents.

Those who were in the positive category of either ‘thinking about’ buying a Ryzen 9000 chip, or who’d already actually purchased one, totalled just 12%, or roughly one in eight.

(Image credit: Future/John Loeffler) Analysis: Historical perspective looks pretty bad for Ryzen 9000

This is a somewhat worrying set of opinions for AMD, but as already noted, it is a relatively small sample compared to the entire world of PC owners. The thing is, it very much reflects what we’ve seen of the sentiment regarding Ryzen 9000 CPUs on various online forums (Reddit, X, YouTube, and so on).

Indeed, going by that online reaction in general, we were expecting these survey results to come out worse than they did. This goes to illustrate an interesting point with regard to lurking around in online forums – those with negative opinions tend to be a bit louder and more vociferous.

What’s most telling here, though, is that 3D Center has conducted these polls dating back to 2010, taking the temperature of the reaction to every generation of AMD and Intel silicon – and Zen 5 has been met with a far more lukewarm reception than Ryzen 7000. With AMD’s last-gen processors, the level of positive first impressions was at 55% (versus 21% with Ryzen 9000), and would-be buyers amounted to over 25% of respondents (versus 12% here).

To put this into further context, Ryzen generations previous to Zen 4 hit more like 90% positive reactions.

It's not a good look for AMD, in short, but Ryzen 9000 is still in the early stages of its existence – this is just a first impression of Zen 5, after all. Team Red could easily swiftly adjust pricing, particularly with Black Friday not far off now, to try and stoke more sales. And, of course, Ryzen 9000 X3D may yet make a major, more positive impact (certainly with the disenchanted gamers out there frustrated with the Zen 5 launch), and those 3D V-Cache chips could be arriving soon enough.

Via Wccftech

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As the dust begins to settle on the outage that affected approximately eight million computers running the CrowdStrike Falcon software for Windows, one of the long-lasting effects will be a new level of scrutiny on the risks any piece of software brings to an organization’s operations. Together, IT and security leaders are tasked with helping leadership understand how risk management is a business priority, and the CrowdStrike outage has put a huge spotlight on just how impactful this area can be.

As we look at the role CISOs will play in this, it will be in reviewing how cybersecurity fits into their business continuity plans and demonstrating to their boards and executives what plans are in place for their own organization should something like this happen again. CISOs can help guide these conversations by focusing on the key areas that are likely to come up with leadership: availability, consolidation and automatic updates.

Availability is Still Fundamental to Cybersecurity

Many CISOs will remember learning about the old (by cybersecurity terms) initialism CIA — confidentiality, integrity, and availability. While some dismiss it as an antiquated standard in today’s complex environments, it is evident from recent events that availability is still a fundamental aspect of your strategic plan.

Availability on a day-to-day basis is typically a focus of an organization’s IT team, but it is the CISO’s job to bring the risk lens to it and help the organization manage those risks. This encompasses not just managing availability of data for your organization, but also managing the availability of services you subscribe to from the various vendors and software that is provided. In essence, CISOs must balance the focus on availability with the broader context of the organization's risk profile.

While availability is not a new risk area, the CrowdStrike incident has upleveled key questions such as “how available do we need these services? How much risk do we want to assume here? What are our plans should a major vendor or provider in the supply chain have an event like this?” The CISOs role is to think systematically through the risk tradeoffs that an organization is willing to make, and then work with the operations team to understand those risks and tradeoffs so that they can response effectively if a disruption occurs. The CISO needs to work with the risk team, executive management, the board, and business leaders to understand those risks and create a unified response.

A recommended first step is to review your business continuity plan and ensure you have a disaster recovery plan for a major availability outage or other such Black Swan type of an event. These plans should include "boots on the ground" responses for critical systems, as remote access may not always be guaranteed. The plan must answer questions such as how would you deal with having to manually address each device in your organization to provide a fix? Which ones would you do first, second, third? Do you have sufficient staff to fix the issue or budget (and authority) to hire people to help expedite the process? How would you communicate the plan when everything is offline? CISOs need to be going over this plan with senior leadership and the Board to help everyone understand the plan and their role during and after an event.

Weighing the Pros and Cons of Consolidation

Vendor consolidation has been a hot topic, and there are many good reasons for it, but it doesn’t come without risk. Remember that risk management involves carefully balancing necessity, efficiency, and cost without over-concentrating resources into a single area. When CISOs look at their key technology providers, they must think through how much risk is acceptable both from a design and implementation perspective? 

That is why a lot of energy is put into the design portion of architectures, as CISOs must think through the risk and response plan if a major software provider in their supply chain could cause an outage. Is that risk more manageable in a Linux environment, for example? Organizations may be constrained by budget, expertise, and historical investments around what technologies are able to be deployed and operated. CISOs should be familiar with these constraints and communicating and managing the risks that come with them.

In the case of redundancy and reducing single points of failure, CISOs may opt to use more than one vendor for the same service. Others may seek to deploy multiple layers of defense or diversify their solution portfolio through a more open, integrated architecture.

When an organization’s revenue is tied to availability and cost isn't a hurdle, then it may make sense to have a certain level of redundancy in vendor solutions. But for many organizations there will be secondary costs and concerns to contend with. Diversifying isn’t just about one piece of software, it’s about how one change affects everything in your technology stack. The risk tradeoff for the added complexity may not be worth it for many organizations, not to mention the costs involved with having two sets of software providing the same service — that’s two different licenses, two sets of developers, and two systems to manage. Are decisions like doubling one’s infrastructure costs as a risk strategy something that most companies can take?

Review Automatic Updates

How organizations choose to handle automatic updates may possibly be one of the biggest debates that we see moving forward. Vulnerabilities are still a primary attack vector for cybercriminals, and organizations still need to keep their software up to date. We can expect to see a variety of strategies for how an organization implements software updates based on their risk profile. This could include phased rollouts, delayed rollouts or some combination based on the software and risks.

Like all major events, it will take time for the lessons learned to emerge, but CISOs can expect the topics of availability, consolidation and automatic update policies to take center stage in the immediate future. It’s important to remember that even during unprecedented events, the fundamentals of risk management don’t change. Take this moment to help leadership understand how cybersecurity relates to overall business risk and the need to align efforts to elevate the organization’s overall risk management posture.

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

Meta Connect 2024 is almost here. At 1pm ET / 6pm BST today – or 3am AEST on September 26 for those of you in Australia – Mark Zuckerberg’s opening keynote will begin, and will likely showcase plenty of hardware and software updates

We don’t know precisely what will be demoed, but based on previous year’s Connects, and several leaks, we expect to see Meta AI upgrades, Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses updates (maybe even AR glasses), and the big one: the Meta Quest 3S.

This follow-up VR headset isn’t exciting because it’s a new high-end, high-performance model; instead it’s expected to be a super-affordable alternative to the Meta Quest 3, and could help to make VR more accessible should the rumors about it prove correct.

Here in this live blog of the event we’ll be getting you prepared for the sort of announcements we might see, as well as taking you through the opening keynote reveal by reveal as it happens.

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening folks! We're just under seven hours from the start of the Meta Connect 2024 keynote, so until it kicks off I'm going to run you through some of the updates we're expecting to see based on the leaks and rumors so far.

Let's start with the announcement that seems most likely: the Meta Quest 3S.

Nothing has yet been said officially but as is usual with tech announcements several details have leaked early; some information about the headset's existence even came from Meta itself like when it accidentally named the new device on its official app store.

We know more than its name though, with leaks even showing us the headset's design early:

Meta Reality Labs - Project Ventura/PantherMeta Quest 3S - Final Design pic.twitter.com/6Tc9ig2hJoAugust 11, 2024

As you can see in the Twitter post, the device looks like a Quest 2 in terms of how bulky it is because it reportedly uses the older model's fresnel lens system rather than the Quest 3's pancake lenses.

I won't get too into the weeds here, just know that fresnel lens systems are usually chunkier than pancake ones and can lead to images being a little less sharp. That said pancake lenses aren't perfect, they typically lose more light meaning images viewed through fresnel lenses can appear brighter.

Sticking with the Meta Quest 3S design, there are a few extra details to unpack from this leak.

As you can see on the front face in the Twitter image the Quest 3S will supposedly boast some mixed reality sensors. We're expecting those to be for full-color mixed reality and be roughly of the same quality as the cameras we've seen on the Meta Quest 3 proper.

Just below the left set of cameras as we look at the headset you'll see a volume bar (fairly standard) and a new button. We've heard this is an 'Action Button' like you'd find on an iPhone 16. 

By default it'll apparently swap between passthrough and VR like the side of the headset double-tap feature on the Meta Quest 3, but you might also be able to customize it to perform other tasks like launching an app.

(Image credit: Meta)

As for the specs it'll sit between the Meta Quest 3 and the Meta Quest 2 according to the rumors. So it'll boast a Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chipset from the Quest 3, but displays that are only 1,832 x 1,920 pixels per eye like those found in the Quest 2. They will, however, supposedly boast a variable refresh rate that supports 90Hz and 120Hz playback.

We haven't heard about its RAM but I have a feeling it might only offer 6GB instead of 8GB as a further cost cutting measure to keep it more affordable. Though 8GB would be ideal especially for any AI functions Meta might add to Quest at Connect or beyond, as well as for multitasking in mixed reality, so we'll have to wait and see what's announced

Exclusive: Meta Quest 3s (preliminary naming)Project Codenames: Ventura, PantherI have seen multiple devkits and spoken to several people familiar with the device. Here are all the things I have learned and feel comfortable sharing in a single infographic: pic.twitter.com/OFFURqVODSMay 20, 2024

$299 Quest 3S 128GB Confirmed by Amazon Ad on Peacock from r/OculusQuest

And how much will the Meta Quest 3S cost? 

Well as with the previous rumors everything should be taken with a pinch of salt but a supposed leaked Amazon advert (above) for the headset says it starts at $299.99 which suggests the VR headset could end up being $299.99 / £299.99 / AU$479.99 for its base model, which is the same price as the what the Quest 2 settled at before it got some dramatic price cuts earlier this year.

So this would be for the rumored 128GB Quest 3S, with the model with more storage (likely either 256GB or 512GB) then probably landing somewhere around $399.99 / £399.99 / AU$599.99 to use the Meta Quest 2's pricing structure.

That's enough Meta Quest 3S talk, lets get into Meta's other big hardware focus and discuss potential Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses Connect announcements.

(Image credit: Meta)

Right out the gate I'm going to say I don't think we'll get a whole new pair of Meta smart glasses this year. Maybe a new design of the existing hardware could make an appearance, but don't hold your breath for a hardware upgrade.

My reasoning? One, we've seen zero leaks for it which seems odd next to the Meta Quest 3S which has had a boatload of leaks wash up on our shores. If new specs were also coming I feel we'd know even just a little bit of info about them.

Two, it's way too soon. Meta AI integration (which is the biggest selling point and best feature of the Ray-Ban smart specs) hasn't even made its way to every region where the current-gen glasses are sold, so it would be odd to launch a follow-up now when the old model isn't even complete yet.

Three, I think Meta is going to tease a different kind of glasses instead.

HP Arctic Wolf researchers claim to have found evidence hackers are using Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tools to create malware and other malicious code.

GenAI tools, such as ChatGPT, or Gemini, are being used left and right to create convincing phishing emails, professional-looking landing pages, and similar, the researchers are saying, and the evidence is apparently overwhelming.

However, when it comes to spotting malware code written by robots, it’s a different story: “To date there has been limited evidence of threat actors using GenAI tools to write code,” HP said.

The French under attack

Whether or not HP has been the first is hard to tell, as security firm Proofpoint made a similar claim back in April 2024 concerning a PowerShell malware strain.

Regardless of the timing, HP says it identified a campaign targets the French-speaking community with a VBScript and JavaScript that was probably written with the help of GenAI.

Therefore, the researchers believe these findings are a big deal: "Speculation about AI being used by attackers is rife, but evidence has been scarce, so this finding is significant,” commented Patrick Schläpfer, Principal Threat Researcher in the HP Security Lab.

“Such capabilities further lower the barrier to entry for threat actors, allowing novices without coding skills to write scripts, develop infection chains, and launch more damaging attacks.”

It’s a long shot, since one would still need significant knowledge to pull off malware, but GenAI would definitely be helpful.

“The structure of the scripts, comments explaining each line of code, and the choice of native language function names and variables are strong indications that the threat actor used GenAI to create the malware,” the researchers said. “The attack infects users with the freely available AsyncRAT malware, an easy-to-obtain infostealer which can record victim’s screens and keystrokes. The activity shows how GenAI is lowering the bar for cybercriminals to infect endpoints.”

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Samsung is no stranger to having its upcoming devices leaked, but this time, the company itself is to blame for the premature reveal, as it accidentally posted pre-order pages for both the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE and the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 series ahead of their respective releases.

Of course, those pages have since been removed, but not before WinFuture noticed the Galaxy S24 FE one and YtechB found the page for the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 line.

These pages most notably included US pricing, but also listed a few specs. Starting with the former, it’s a mix of good and bad news. For the bad news, the price of the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE is a little higher than that of the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE, starting at $649.99 in the US. That’s for the model with 128GB of storage, and is up from $599.99 for the Galaxy S23 FE.

There’s also a 256GB model for $709.99, which is similarly up $50 from its $659.99 predecessor. We don’t know prices for other regions, but the UK pricing for the S23 FE was the same as the US pricing, so there’s a high chance the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE will start at £649.99 and rise to £709.99. Australian prices are a bit harder to predict, but they could start at around AU$999.

The leaked pre-order page for the Galaxy Tab S10 Plus (Image credit: Samsung / YTechB.com)

It’s better news for the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 line, as prices there are listed as being the same as last year. That means the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Plus starts at $999.99 (for 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage), rising to $1,119.99 for 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra costs $1,199.99 for 12GB/256GB, $1319.99 for 12GB/512GB, and $1,619.99 for 16GB/1TB.

Again, there’s no pricing for other regions, but there’s a high chance that these will be the same as the previous models too, meaning the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Plus could start at £999 / AU$1,699, while the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra could start at £1,199 / AU$1,999. Oh, and we’re not expecting a standard Samsung Galaxy Tab S10, which is why that hasn’t been mentioned.

From prices to specs

Tab S10 pic.twitter.com/LhOneWF3QESeptember 24, 2024

Beyond prices, these pre-order pages also included some specs and other details. For example, the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE is listed as coming in blue, mint, graphite, and gray color options, and it’s said to have a 50MP main camera, a 12MP ultra-wide, an 8MP telephoto with 3x optical zoom, and a 10MP selfie camera.

It’s also listed as having a 6.7-inch 120Hz screen and an Exynos 2400e chipset, with availability apparently from October 3.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Plus and Ultra are both listed in a choice of Moonstone Gray and Platinum Silver shades. For specs, the Plus apparently has a 12.4-inch 1,752 x 2,800 AMOLED screen, 13MP and 8MP rear cameras, and a 12MP front-facing camera.

The Ultra is listed as having a 14.6-inch 1,848 x 2,960 AMOLED screen, 13MP and 8MP rear cameras, and a pair of 12MP front-facing cameras. Both tablets are listed as being available from October 4.

And if all that wasn’t enough, leaker @MysteryLupin has shared what appears to be an official marketing video of the Galaxy Tab S10 line, focused on the AI skills of these tablets. You can see this via the embedded X post above, though it doesn’t show much that hasn’t previously leaked.

We’re expecting Samsung to fully unveil these devices tomorrow (September 26), though at this point there’s probably not much left to see.

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As a former FBI Special Agent in the Los Angeles Cyber Crime Squad, I've seen my fair share of defective software updates. However, the recent global tech outage caused by a faulty software update from CrowdStrike has truly captured the world's attention. The shock and awe of such a well-regarded cybersecurity vendor causing a major security incident has brought to light a previously overlooked area of third-party risk. 

Given CrowdStrike’s reputation and trusted position, many companies automatically allowed its software update package into their systems without fully considering the possibility of a defect. Consequently, no CISO expected the update to result in a global tech outage, causing systemic disruption across interconnected systems.

The aftermath of the CrowdStrike incident was particularly severe for banks, hospitals, retailers, and airlines.

Interestingly, some companies with outdated systems were reportedly unscathed by the flawed update, whereas others with best-in-class systems endured outages for a few days or longer. This is not a story of old technology versus new technology, as some articles have implied. Rather, it is a nerve-wracking tale arguing the need for a risk-based approach to minimize the possibility and impact of a defective software update.

Know Thy Vendor

CrowdStrike has come under criticism for its automatic update process and not staggering or staging the release to limit the potential for widescale disruption. However, the company is not alone in its approach: keen to protect customers against a newly discovered cyberthreat, many other security vendors also automatically provide real-time updates.

Although CrowdStrike’s update was defective, the incident nonetheless spotlights the importance of balancing innovation across the IT system landscape with more diligent third-party vendor management. CISOs are reminded to foster secure innovation by collaborating with their technology peers across the organization and forging strong partnerships with the company’s third-party vendors. The two priorities are not mutually exclusive; instead, they’re intertwined.

Collaborating with technology peers yields better ways to understand, minimize, and mitigate risks, ensuring the company can continue to innovate without increasing cyber risk for the business. Partnerships with critical third-party vendors provide greater assurance that vendors are prepared to respond at scale when the next unexpected outage occurs. Understanding which vendors are distributed across a large portion of the corporate infrastructure and production environments (especially those that receive regular updates) can optimize the processes of replacing software with new and improved versions.

Controlling the Unknown

CrowdStrike’s automatic real-time updates brought these processes into sharper focus. While immediate updates enable systems to rapidly identify and neutralize threats, they also carry the risk of triggering a full system outage and consequent business disruption. On the other hand, delaying updates by a day or two might mean missing the “latest and greatest” features immediately, but it allows time to identify and address the potential flaws first. The point here is that one is not better but that both updates serve specific needs and purposes.

To determine which update is best from a security standpoint, CISOs need to identify which systems require real-time updates and which can allow for delayed ones. External-facing high-risk systems might require near real-time updates that help identify and block zero-day attacks. Lower-risk systems placed deeper in the infrastructure with extra layers of security between them and external attacks can be configured for delayed software updates of 4, 8, or 24 hours, letting the updates bake in a bit before updating more critical systems.

A faulty update issued by a cybersecurity vendor, of all things, is also a potent reminder of the need to leave no stone unturned in third-party vendor management. All vendors should be required to submit to ongoing legal, business, and technology reviews and independent audits.

CISOs must require regular confirmation of their cybersecurity certifications and SOC 2 and ISO 27001 compliance and seek supporting evidence affirming they have patched a cited vulnerability or implemented a comprehensive update.

Another takeaway from the incident is the comparative value of decentralized network security management over the centralized model. The centralized approach is touted for offering more consistency in security protocols and threat detection, but the downside is that when the central server experiences a compromise, the technologies connected to it go down with the ship.

The decentralized approach, on the other hand, makes it more challenging for hackers to compromise an entire platform. By spreading data across many connection points, if one point is hacked or endures a defective update, the rest of the ship sails forward, increasing organizational resilience. Nevertheless, decentralization alone is not a panacea. InfoSec teams still need to prioritize mission-critical systems and software, which correspondingly guides the related risk assessment and remediation.

The high visibility of the CrowdStrike incident offers CISOs a valuable opportunity to learn from the misfortune of others, collaborate with peers across the technology leadership teams, and partner with enterprise vendors to be better prepared and responsive when facing similar events in the future.

We listed the best network monitoring tools.

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

There were plenty of devices at IFA 2024 that showed how technology in general is getting creative with form and function, but a lot of eyes were on the beauty space as it continues to radically reinvent what hair styling devices look and feel like. 

Gone are the days of conventional hair dryers being the market norm; the once iconic pistol-shaped handheld dryers are shifting into new form factors, making the best hair dryers interesting once again. 

Of course, much of this can be attributed to Dyson’s inventive reimagining of the haircare space, with devices like the Dyson Supersonic and Dyson Airwrap pushing the limits of haircare engineering. However, with its gadgets being so costly, it was only a matter of time before brands erupted across the industry to snap up interested beauty lovers with smaller pockets.

Three new dryers in particular demonstrated how varied the tools can now be; Dreame’s new foldable Pocket high-speed hair dryer, Shark’s new FlexFusion multi-styler and the Laifen Mini, a more compact high-speed stick dryer. 

Pocket full of sunshine

Starting us off, we have Dreame’s new hair dryer, the Dreame Pocket, which packs some impressive specs into its foldable frame. It weighs just 10.5oz / 300g, but thanks to its high-speed motor, offering 110,000 RPM, you almost get the performance levels of full-sized dryers.

The Dreame Pocket is small but mighty (Image credit: Future)

Its nozzle is hinged, allowing for even more convenience when you’re on the go, but it’s also a versatile form factor that allows you to style at a variety of angles and with different attachments. Granted, these are pretty chunky and seem to go against the design ethos of the dryer – especially considering it’s a pretty tight fit if you pack them all in provided travel bag. I also didn’t love its weighting when used in its wand orientation with the curling barrel, but I do appreciate the convenience of having a curling barrel at all in this lightweight form factor.

It’s kind of a blend of the best of the Airwrap with the rotating head of Shark’s Flexstyle, which results in a cool, high-performance dryer that’s perfect for travel. However, it’s quite pricey at $159.99 / €159, and its design might not be for everyone.

A Shark in the multi-styler waters

Shark’s newest multi-styler/dryer was a little divisive. As our Homes Editor highlighted in her first impression of the new Shark FlexFusion, this corker of a multi-styler packs basically every attachment you’d ever need from a haircare device, but in doing so, it makes some significant sacrifices on size. In short, this is one chunky multi-styler. 

Nevertheless, there are some innovative new additions. Shark has addressed the fact that most people don't wash their hair every day, so had included settings for both wet and dry hair. I was also interested by its curlers and new straightener attachment. Using similar air straightening logic as the Dyson Airstrait, Shark’s alternative also uses hot plates in addition to airflow to tame your locks. Similarly, the hot brush combines bristles and heated ceramic combs to tame frizz while still achieving a beautiful blowout.

The FlexFusion does pretty much anything you could want it to (Image credit: Future)

The FlexFusion will have a list price of £369.99 (roughly $490 / AU$720), a jump up from its simpler sibling, the Shark FlexStyle, which costs $249.99/£299.99 but doesn't offer the same range of attachments. 

Make it Mini

The dark horse for me ended up being the Laifen Mini, a new travel-sized version of its popular Laifen Swift hair dryer. While the original device was positioned as a Dyson Supersonic alternative at a more affordable price point, the brand has since taken its own spin on the form factor – and most importantly, listened to consumer feedback.

Since the original Laifen Swift launched in 2022 there have been several new versions, each iterating slightly to add features like a child lock, hot-to-cool cycling and a broader range of color options. Alongside the Mini, Laifen also announced its new Laifen SE 2, a slightly updated version of its mid-tier dryer. 

(Image credit: Future)

While it’s the simplest of the dryers I saw, the Mini was actually one of my favourite dryers on the show floor because it felt the most balanced, offering a blend of genuinely useful features with some solid specs and an approachable price point (€99.99, roughly £80), all packaged in a very cute, lightweight (299g/10.56oz) design that still packs a punch with its 110,000 RPM motor. As of right now, it’s not yet coming to the US due to differences in voltage, but the team hopes to change this soon.

While there's a fair amount of borrowed features and similar specs in haircare, nonetheless it's really exciting to see such a wide range of form factors and technology breathing life into the once-stagnant area of haircare. 

It's a much-needed change that might bring the fun back into functional, and I can't wait to get my hands on some of these brilliant blow dryers and multi-stylers. 

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In the mid-1990s, former Apple exec Jean-Louis Gassée founded Be Inc., a company best known for its BeOS operating system.

Despite its technical strengths, which included a responsive multitasking kernel, symmetric multiprocessing, and a 64-bit journaling file system called BFS, BeOS struggled to make a dent in a market dominated by Microsoft Windows. Apple briefly considered buying it but ultimately decided the price was too steep, and went on instead to acquire Steve Jobs' NeXT and use its OPENSTEP OS as the basis for what became Mac OS X. In 2001, Be Inc. was scooped up by Palm, and BeOS quietly disappeared.

That should have been the end of the story, but shortly after, a community-driven project called OpenBeOS surfaced, aiming to keep the spirit of BeOS alive. In 2004, it rebranded as Haiku, complete with a new logo to mark the fresh start. Since then, the Haiku project has been steadily chugging along, and Haiku R1 Beta 5 has just been released. Yes, it's still in beta - even after nearly 22 years - but it's edging ever closer to that elusive first stable release.

So what's new?

Haiku R1 Beta 5 follows on from R1 Beta 4, which came out over a year and a half ago. In that time the developers have resolved nearly 350 bugs and enhancement tickets, but it’s still not problem free. As the team warns, "Please keep in mind that Haiku is beta-quality software, which means it is feature complete but still contains known and unknown bugs. While we are increasingly confident in its stability, we cannot provide assurances against data loss."

You can download the latest release for both x86 32-bit and 64-bit platforms from the project's website (BeOS R5 compatibility is only available on the 32-bit version). The minimum system requirements for the 32-bit edition are pretty modest: an Intel Pentium II or AMD Athlon processor, 384MB of memory, an 800x600 monitor, and 3GB of storage. If you're looking at the 64-bit version, the recommended specs bump up to an Intel Core i3 or AMD Phenom II processor, 2GB of memory, a 1366x768 monitor, and 16GB of storage.

So what's new in Haiku R1 Beta 5? The standout addition is the simplified color selection in the Appearance preferences. Instead of wading through 30 different color options, you now only need to adjust three core colors, and the system calculates the rest. This is especially handy for dark mode enthusiasts, as it dynamically tweaks text and background colors for optimal readability. Advanced users can still manually adjust the full set of colors if they wish, but the new system makes customization more accessible.

The native icon editor, Icon-O-Matic, has also gained a significant upgrade including the addition of "reference images," allowing you to import bitmap images and trace vector paths over them. Along with perspective transformations and improved copy-paste functionality, creating and editing icons has become more intuitive. Other notable updates include enhancements to PowerStatus, which now auto-detects batteries on first startup and provides more accurate notifications, and improvements to Tracker, the file manager, which better handles read-only volumes with clearer visual cues. Haiku now supports basic input and output for USB audio devices and has made strides in TCP performance and network stack optimizations.

More from TechRadar Pro

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Celebrity endorsements can do a lot for a product, but Meta is making several celebrity voices the literal ones of its Meta AI assistant. John Cena, Kristen Bell, Awkwafina, Keegan-Michael Key, and Judi Dench may not be your real friends, but you'll be able to chat with their synthetic voice clones as much as you want soon, according to a report from Reuters. Meta is expected to announce those celebrities and, potentially, more to be who you hear when conversing with the AI chatbot. 

If celebrity voices for an AI chatbot seem like a gimmick, well, that's because it is. But, as generative AI assistants continue to sprout in an already crowded field, gimmicks might help Meta attract interest as it jockeys for position against OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini. 

The agreement with the celebrities will see them all as options for the AI's voice, joining the more generic options. The reported mix is interesting because all are at or near the heights of fame, all have roles children would recognize, and all have made plenty of appearances in more adult films and shows. 

 It's unclear if the famous voices will require payment, though the celebrities are reportedly getting hefty paychecks for the project. Those checks ensure Meta won't face the rancor OpenAI did over accusations that one of ChatGPT's synthetic voices sounded like Scarlett Johansson in the movie Her. 

That's no small matter, as actors and writers went on strike last year in no small part because of concerns about AI replacing them. SAG-AFTRA is rumored to have a deal with Meta for using actors' voices, but there's been no announcement of whether it might be connected to this celebrity voice plan. 

Famous or Folly?

Even if the celebrity voices make Meta AI a hit, the company won't be able to rest on its laurels for long. Google has plans for setting up AI chatbots of famous people and fictional characters on YouTube. Even Meta's plan to offer you the chance to make a custom AI chatbot based on yourself is something Google, Character.ai, and others are pursuing. 

Meta's eagerness to bring celebrities into its AI projects makes sense, but the company has had some problems on the front not long ago. Meta's Celebrity AI chatbots used celebrity likenesses for the text-based Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp feature when it came out earlier this year. If you look now, though, the chatbots remain, but without any celebrity branding. 

Famous voices also tempted Amazon, who gave Alexa the voices of first Samuel L. Jackson, followed by Melissa McCarthy, Shaquille O’Neal, and Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan. A few years after the first test, Amazon removed the voices from Alexa. 

Still, Meta is expected to showcase a lot of AI news at the Connect conference this year so this may be only the cherry on top of the other news, boosted by the likely enthusiastic endorsement of the celebrities we'll all be hearing speak to us soon. 

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If you’ve been a Spotify premium subscriber eager to try out the music streaming service’s AI chops at building playlists based on prompts, we have good news. After rolling out AI Playlist to Premium subscribers in the UK and Australia earlier in 2024, the feature is now expanding to the United States, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand in English.

So, you can now use Spotify’s AI to create a playlist based on a prompt that can be as short as a single word. You will need to be a Premium member, though, which in the United States starts at $11.99 a month for an individual, $16.99 per month for Duo (aka two accounts), or $19.99 a month for a family subscription.

The feature, dubbed AI Playlist, can be found on the Spotify app for Android or iOS – not on desktop or the web. Just ensure you’re running the latest version of the app. For instance, I have no updates, and I’m not yet seeing it.

Using AI to build a playlist

Once the feature arrives in your Spotify app associated with the right subscription, you’ll open the app and tap “Library” in the bottom right corner. Then, hit the plus sign in the top right and find AI Playlist as an option.

From there, you’re off to the races as you enter a prompt and watch as a playlist is created. Spotify notes that the more detail provided the better, but you can also refine it further after its first list is made and give it another prompt. You can use words, numbers, or emojis, but Spotify won’t allow offensive words. It also suggests when you’re first playing around with this feature, be specific – potentially with a genre, location, or even characters.

As with any AI, specifically a chatbot, which is close to what this is, results will vary, and Spotify is quick to repeat that AI Playlist is in beta. Considering Spotify is already pretty spot on with music recommendations, adding in this level of customization and personalization via AI is a cool feature that we’re eager to try out.

It’s rolling out now in English for Premium subscribers in United States, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand now after being available for several months in the UK and Australia. If you’re keen to try it, keep your Spotify app updated on your mobile and check to see if “AI Playlist” appears. Until then, you’ll need to create your next fire playlist the old-fashioned way … manually.

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

What should you do once you've finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I've also got daily Wordle hints and answers, Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too.

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

NYT Connections today (game #472) - today's words

(Image credit: New York Times)

Today's NYT Connections words are…

• HAT TRICK
• HOME RUN
• BROIL
• PAINT
• SOAP BOX
• TRIPLE CROWN
• DROP CLOTH
• WINGS
• ROLLER
• KENTUCKY
• SPROUTS
• TRIFECTA
• DEMOLITION
• TAPE
• THREEPEAT
• CHEESESTEAK

NYT Connections today (game #472) - hint #1 - group hints

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

• Yellow: Sporting win Sporting win Sporting win
• Green: Just add paint
• Blue: Eaten in a certain place?
• Purple: Blank [word for a contest between rivals]

Need more clues?

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

NYT Connections today (game #472) - hint #2 - group answers

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

• YELLOW: TRIO OF SPORTS ACHIEVEMENTS
• GREEN: NEEDS FOR PAINTING A ROOM
• BLUE: FOOD NAMED AFTER CITIES
• PURPLE: ___ DERBY

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

NYT Connections today (game #472) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Connections, game #472, are…

• YELLOW: TRIO OF SPORTS ACHIEVEMENTS HAT TRICK, THREEPEAT, TRIFECTA, TRIPLE CROWN
• GREEN: NEEDS FOR PAINTING A ROOM DROP CLOTH, PAINT, ROLLER, TAPE
• BLUE: FOOD NAMED AFTER CITIES BROIL, CHEESESTEAK, SPROUTS, WINGS
• PURPLE: ___ DERBY DEMOLITION, HOME RUN, KENTUCKY, SOAP BOX

• My rating: Moderate
• My score: 3 mistakes

I nearly failed today's Connections puzzle, only completing the final group on my final guess. But in my defence, a couple of them were very US-centric connections that I couldn't be expected to solve, given that I'm not in the US and have never lived there.

Those groups were blue and purple, and blue in particular was simply impossible; I've heard of a Philly CHEESESTEAK but have no idea what SPROUTS, WINGS and BROIL refer to. Similarly, on the purple group I was able to correctly find the __DERBY group via DEMOLITION, KENTUCKY and SOAP BOX, but guessed ROLLER rather than HOME RUN. I presume the latter is related to baseball in some way, so probably should have spotted it as a possibility sooner.

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.

Yesterday's NYT Connections answers (Tuesday, 24 September, game #471)

• YELLOW: INSPIRED CREATIVE, FRESH, NOVEL, ORIGINAL
• GREEN: PROCURE IN ADVANCE BOOK, CHARTER, RESERVE, SECURE
• BLUE: BIT OF PARTY DECORATION BALLOON, BANNER, CONFETTI, GARLAND
• PURPLE: ONLINE PERSONALITY AMBASSADOR, INFLUENCER, MODEL, STREAMER

What is NYT Connections?

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

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

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

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

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

Want more word-based fun? Then check out my Wordle today, NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games.

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

NYT Strands today (game #206) - hint #1 - today's theme What is the theme of today's NYT Strands?

• Today's NYT Strands theme is… Claim your steak

NYT Strands today (game #206) - hint #2 - clue words

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

• SCRIBE
• LEAF
• RUNE
• FAIR
• SICK
• BITE

NYT Strands today (game #206) - hint #3 - spangram What is a hint for today's spangram?

• Have a cow, man

NYT Strands today (game #206) - hint #4 - spangram position What are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?

First: right, 3rd row

Last: left, 4th row

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

NYT Strands today (game #206) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Strands, game #206, are…

• ROUND
• BRISKET
• FLANK
• SIRLOIN
• SHANK
• CHUCK
• RIBEYE
• SPANGRAM: BEEFCUTS

• My rating: Easy
• My score: Perfect

I'm a vegetarian these days, but in my meat-eating days a good steak was among my greatest culinary pleasures. But maybe I'm not that much of an expert even so, because I'd never heard of ROUND in this context. That was a slightly unfortunate fact, given that it was the first answer I found today – but didn't do much to clarify what it was I was looking for.

Fortunately I came up with BRISKET not long afterwards, and that I had heard of. All that was needed after that was to find the other words, including the spangram of BEEFCUTS, and I was able to dig in and finish this meaty puzzle.

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Tuesday 24 September, game #205)

• MARTIAN
• CYBORG
• DROID
• MUTANT
• ROBOT
• ALIEN
• SPANGRAM: SCIENCEFICTION

What is NYT Strands?

Strands is the NYT's new word game, following Wordle and Connections. It's now out of beta so is a fully fledged member of the NYT's games stable and can be played on the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.

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

Quordle was one of the original Wordle alternatives and is still going strong now nearly 1,000 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 Wordle today, NYT Connections today and NYT Strands today pages for hints and answers for those puzzles.

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

• The number of different vowels in Quordle today is 3*.

* 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 #975) - 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 #975) - hint #3 - uncommon letters Do the letters Q, Z, X or J appear in Quordle today?

• Yes. One of Q, Z, X or J appears among today's Quordle answers.

Quordle today (game #975) - hint #4 - starting letters (1) Do any of today's Quordle puzzles start with the same letter?

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

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

Quordle today (game #975) - hint #5 - starting letters (2) What letters do today's Quordle answers start with?

• U

• D

• G

• P

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

Quordle today (game #975) - the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle, game #975, are…

• UMBRA
• DADDY
• GLAZE
• PRANK

According to Merriam-Webster, the dictionary that now owns Quordle, UMBRA means "a conical shadow excluding all light from a given source". I didn't know that before playing today's game, but I do now – so in that sense, Quordle is doing its job! The fact that I solved it without knowing it was an accident. I had the letters U, R, B and A in the top-left of the board, but couldn't assemble them into a word. But I wanted to play something that might at least change some yellows into green, so played around with letter combinations until I found one that the game would accept as a guess. I had no real expectation that it would be right, but all five letters turned green and I solved what was probably the toughest of today's quartet.

Not that the others were easy; DADDY contains a rare triple letter, GLAZE an uncommon Z, so anyone solving today's Quordle can give themselves a pat on the back.

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.

Daily Sequence today (game #975) - the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #975, are…

• BAYOU
• SMART
• POLYP
• GIANT

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #974, Tuesday 24 September: SPACE, INNER, SPAWN, BEGAT
• Quordle #973, Monday 23 September: GUILT, STERN, ANNEX, FIELD
• Quordle #972, Sunday 22 September: ZESTY, MEATY, ALIVE, DRAWN
• Quordle #971, Saturday 21 September: VITAL, FRAIL, SPEAR, EERIE
• Quordle #970, Friday 20 September: ELIDE, DITTO, SHAWL, BONUS
• Quordle #969, Thursday 19 September: MARRY, OWING, DICEY, LUCKY
• Quordle #968, Wednesday 18 September: CEDAR, VENOM, MIGHT, MEDIC
• Quordle #967, Tuesday 17 September: ETHOS, COUNT, PRINT, THREE
• Quordle #966, Monday 16 September: ROUGE, SWAMP, FUGUE, UNDUE
• Quordle #965, Sunday 15 September: VILLA, SMOKE, BULKY, THRUM
• Quordle #964, Saturday 14 September: ESSAY, GENRE, WIMPY, CHUTE
• Quordle #963, Friday 13 September: LEANT, ORGAN, FILLY, PLAIT
• Quordle #962, Thursday 12 September: ARBOR, STARK, LEAVE, GOOFY
• Quordle #961, Wednesday 11 September: ROUGH, CACTI, SAVOY, ODDER
• Quordle #960, Tuesday 10 September: PLUMB, SEIZE, EARLY, ASSET
• Quordle #959, Monday 9 September: CHIRP, BEADY, THETA, MINUS
• Quordle #958, Sunday 8 September: TEASE, AGATE, PRIDE, PLATE
• Quordle #957, Saturday 7 September: LASSO, TILDE, BUNCH, PRONG
• Quordle #956, Friday 6 September: FARCE, WOOLY, LOCAL, NIGHT
• Quordle #955, Thursday 5 September: SNIDE, EGRET, AMONG, SHINY

Have a question about a YouTube video you didn't understand or just didn't want to sit through? You can ask the AI chatbot rolling out from the video platform to answer all those questions, at least if you're a Premium subscriber on an Android device. The AI, likely fueled by Google's Gemini AI models, can summarize and expand upon any aspect of the video on your screen, like a friend who just memorized every video on the platform. 

The chatbot incorporates AI into your viewing on the YouTube app through a card in the comments section. You can swipe through them to find the Ask card, opening up a place for texting with the chatbot. There, you can ask for a summary or engage in a conversation about the video. YouTube envisions people asking the AI to explain what the video is about, clarify any details, and recommend more videos. Theoretically, it could help video creators who would otherwise have to moderate the comment section for people asking questions or looking for more information.

AI Video Expertise

The chatbot fits right into both YouTube and Google's overall strategy to make Gemini-powered AI tools ubiquitous in your life, especially on your smartphone. YouTube has released or is working on releasing features like AI-powered chatbots mimicking famous people and fictional characters and a tool to help you skip to the most popular part of a video.

That's on top of the avalanche of creator AI features like an AI music generator, which ties together with one that can remove copyrighted music from your video without taking it down completely. You can even ask an AI chatbot for inspiration for your next video and use the upcoming Dream Screen AI to create backgrounds for the video. At the rate Google is moving, AI will become as central to making and watching videos on YouTube as the standard plea to like and subscribe heard at the end of 99% of videos on the platform.

You might also like

• Google may be making AI versions of celebrities for you to chat up in YouTube
• Want to skip to the good bit of a video? YouTube is testing a smart AI feature for that
• YouTube may be planning to give us new AI song generators this year – and this time the music labels could let it happen

Kaspersky customers in the US have found their antivirus software has been replaced without warning with a new solution called UltraAV.

The US government recently passed a law banning the sale of Kaspersky security software and the subsequent updates for installed software, resulting in the company’s exit from the US market.

Customers reported on social media that the update was pushed without the ability to accept or decline UltraAV, despite notification emails supposedly being sent at least a few weeks prior to the update.

Demonstration of Kaspersky danger

The US has long argued Kaspersky software is at risk of being manipulated by the Russian government to hand over secrets and control of the computers it is installed on, with an initial ban on Kaspersky products from being used within federal agencies being followed by a complete commercial sales ban from July 20, and finally with a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ban on the use of Kaspersky software within telecommunications equipment at the beginning of September 2024.

At around the same time as the FCC ban, Axios reported that Kaspersky had offloaded its antivirus customers to the Pango Group, which owns UltraAV.

Kaspersky confirmed the transition in a post by Vadim M. on the company’s forum, stating, “Kaspersky has additionally partnered with UltraAV to make the transition to their product as seamless as possible, which is why on 9/19, U.S. Kaspersky antivirus customers received a software update facilitating the transition to UltraAV. This update ensured that users would not experience a gap in protection upon Kaspersky’s exit from the market.”

Former National Security Agency director of cybersecurity, Rob Joyce, commented on the transition on X (formerly Twitter), saying, “This is why handing root-level access to Kaspersky was a huge risk. Users were "migrated" - software uninstalled and a totally different product was installed automagically. They had total control of your machine.” It is worth noting that some antivirus products and anti-cheat software commonly use root-level access to scan for harmful files or software used to cheat in games.

TechRadar Pro reached out to UltraAV to provide additional context on the nature of the transition, but the company did not immediately respond. Any subsequent updates will be posted here.

Via TechCrunch

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Helping you keep on top of your phone notifications is something Android and iOS have struggled with for years – but it looks as though Android 15 is going to come with a couple of new features that might finally help you get on top of these alerts for good.

As per Android Authority, the latest beta version of Android 15, currently in testing, won't show notifications older than two weeks. That's something that can be an issue for people who jump around between different Android phones and tablets.

Another improvement in the Android 15 beta, also spotted by Android Authority, suggests that notification syncing across different devices might be improved, too – so new notifications wouldn't necessarily appear on all your Android gadgets.

Taken together, it should mean less time swiping through notifications that you shouldn't have to deal with, whether they were originally delivered weeks ago or because you've already looked at them on another device.

Coming soon

The Pixel 9 will get Android 15 soon (Image credit: Peter Hoffmann)

It also seems as though Google engineers are working to make notification alerts less intrusive on the screen, which should improve the experience when you're playing a game or watching a film and notification pop-ups come in.

As always with beta testing, there's no guarantee that any of these features will make it into the final version of Android 15, but there's a good chance that they will, and they may well get refined further before they're pushed out to the masses.

A fixed version of Android 15 has actually already been distributed to developers, but different hardware makers still need to customize it: Google for Pixel phones, Samsung for Galaxy phones, OnePlus for its phones, and so on.

Google Pixel handsets such as the Google Pixel 9 will be first in line for Android 15, and an October launch seems very likely. If you're using a different kind of Android phone, you might be waiting for a few more months to get it.

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The popular adorable sleep app and Pokémon Go companion Pokémon Sleep is getting a much-requested feature. Until now, Pokémon Sleep relied on a phone's motion sensor and microphone to detect sleep duration and quality: the higher quality sleep you get, the more Pokémon are drawn to your restful vibes. However, a recent official announcement declared that you can finally sync the app to your best smartwatch or Fitbit.

The news was announced by a video (embedded below) featuring a Dratini and a Chikorita curling around a wrist, among other adorable Pokémon animations that I don't recognize (having only played the first few generations, obviously).

The Pokémon Sleep website lists compatible devices, including all Apple Watches from the Apple Watch Series 3 onwards, all Samsung Galaxy Watches, the Samsung Galaxy Fit (but not the Fit E), and the Samsung Galaxy Ring.

All Google Pixel Watches are compatible, and many Fitbits: the incompatible ones are listed as "Fitbit Classic, Fitbit Ultra, Fitbit One, Fitbit Zip, Fitbit Flex, Fitbit Force, Fitbit Charge, Fitbit Charge HR, Fitbit Surge, Fitbit Alta, Fitbit Ace, Fitbit Ace 2, Fitbit Ace 3, Fitbit Inspire, Fitbit Ace LTE." 

Analysis: The Pokémon Company have been Slowpokes

(Image credit: The Pokémon Company)

This compatibility feature seemed obvious from the get-go, perhaps even from launch. However, while we imagine many adult Pokémon fans will use the app as an incentive to get a good night's sleep, many children (Pokémon's original target audience) will also do so. 

Kids won't always have access to a smartwatch, so it didn't necessarily matter that Pokémon Sleep launched without smartwatch accessibility. However, given that most of the best sleep trackers are wrist-based (or even now finger-based with the advent of smart rings), it made sense to add compatibility eventually. 

Most of the big players have compatibility here: Apple, Google, Samsung, and so on, but one thing missing is the Fitbit Ace LTE. The only child-focused smartwatch, it only launched last month - but then again, so did the Galaxy Ring. So, I wonder why the Ace LTE didn't make the cut. 

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