TechRadar News

• QPUs may run AI inference faster and cheaper than conventional hardware ever could
• Hybrid nodes combining CPUs, Nvidia GPUs, and diamond QPUs could change how we build quantum software
• From defense to finance, Quantum Brilliance is betting on diamond chips to drive adoption

Diamonds have emerged as a critical material in the development of quantum technologies due to their unique atomic properties, and Quantum Brilliance, a company based in Germany and Australia, has outlined an ambitious plan to develop portable quantum computers using diamond-based quantum processing units (QPUs).

These devices are being designed to operate at room temperature and may eventually be integrated alongside GPUs and high-end CPUs in servers or vehicles.

But while the company’s vision promises a future where quantum computing is as seamless as plugging in a GPU for AI inference, several technical and commercial hurdles remain.

Rethinking quantum computing with diamonds

Over the past decade, researchers have increasingly focused on engineering high-purity synthetic diamonds to minimize interference from impurities.

Notably, a 2022 collaboration between a Japanese jewelry firm and academic researchers led to a new method for producing ultra-pure 2-inch diamond wafers.

In 2023, Amazon joined the effort through its Center for Quantum Networking, partnering with De Beers’ Element Six to grow lab-made diamonds for use in quantum communication systems.

Now, Quantum Brilliance aims to utilize nitrogen vacancies in diamond to create qubits, offering a more compact and power-efficient alternative to cryogenic quantum systems.

“We do have a roadmap to fault tolerance, but we are not worrying about that at the moment,” said Andrew Dunn, COO of Quantum Brilliance.

“People think of millions of qubits, but that will be very expensive and power hungry. I think getting an understanding of having 100 qubits in a car cheaply and simply - the use cases are very different."

This signals a departure from the prevailing trend in quantum computing, which focuses on building systems with millions of qubits.

The company is instead targeting inexpensive and practical use cases, particularly in applications such as AI inference and sparse data processing.

Quantum Brilliance is already collaborating with research institutions like the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics (IAF).

IAF is currently evaluating the company’s second-generation Quantum Development Kit, QB-QDK2.0, which integrates classical processors like Nvidia GPUs and CPUs with the QPU in a single box.

In parallel, Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the US has acquired three systems to study scalability and parallel processing for applications like molecular modeling.

“The reason they are buying three systems is that they want to investigate parallelisation of systems,” Dunn added.

Quantum Brilliance is also working closely with imec to integrate diamond processes into standard chip manufacturing.

Beyond computation, the company sees potential in quantum sensing, and the technology may also be repurposed for defense and industrial sensors.

Ultimately, the company wants quantum computing to become as ordinary as any other chip in a server.

“Personally, I want to make quantum really boring and invisible, just another chip doing its job,” said Dunn.

Via eeNewsEurope

You might also like

• Upgrading to Windows 11 just got easier with Microsoft's new business backup tool
• Check out the best 3D modeling software for 3D printing and more
• We've rounded up the best portable monitors available now

• The Moto tag finally supports ultra-wideband tracking
• This brings the Android Find Hub tracker on par with Apple's AirTags
• No word yet on when other Find Hub trackers will support UWB

Google’s Find Hub – previously Find My Device – has been a fairly proficient Android alternative to the always useful Apple Find My service, with both the Android and iOS options helping you locate your missing tech. But until now, Google’s service has lacked a key feature: ultra-wide band finding.

Find Hub can help you locate your phone, headphones, compatible Bluetooth trackers, and even close friends and family, all from one app. If you’ve not used the service (admittedly, it can feel a little hidden behind Google’s better known Android apps) it’s a useful one-stop finding shop that you’ll want to add to your home screen.

However, it has lacked one of Apple's core benefits of its Find My service: ultra-wideband tracking.

This upgraded variant of Bluetooth tracking allows your phone to more accurately track the precise location of the tag. Rather than simply being further or closer to the missing tag, the app can give you much more precise directions and distances thanks to UWB. But until now, no Find Hub devices offered UWB as an option.

(Image credit: Future/Jacob Krol)

Now, finally, the Moto Tag does so thanks to a firmware update, as spotted by Android Police. Once installed via the Moto Tag app (currently rolling out through the Play Store), you can launch the Find Hub app, and the updated tracker will be discoverable via UWB.

You’ll also need a high-end smartphone. While a few years-old devices support UWB, the feature is exclusive to premium models like the Google Pixel 6 Pro, and Samsung Galaxy S21 Plus and Ultra. The standard flagships, unfortunately, lack the feature for now.

Hopefully, as other UWB trackers arrive for Android, there will be more reason for budget-friendly devices to support it. For now, Moto’s Tag appears to be the only UWB device supported by Find Hub.

Beyond UWB, Google’s Find Hub is also set to gain support for tracking some devices using satellites “later this year” (via Google’s blog), making the service even more useful than it currently is. That would let the service not just catch up to Apple, but effectively take the lead.

You might also like

• How to use Gemini on Android
• How to add another account on Android
• How to send pictures from iPhone to Android

• High-end and luxury products are being advertised with huge savings
• 4,000+ fake domains impersonating big brands have been spotted
• Victims are losing money without receiving their products

More than 4,000 fake domains impersonating popular brands have been spotted in a scheme pushing scam ads targeting Facebook users.

The campaign was uncovered by threat analysis from Silent Push, in a trend researchers are calling "GhostVendors," which sees scam ads for the false domains primarily run on Facebook Marketplace by exploding Meta's ad policy loopholes, with ads being removed from the Meta Ad Library upon campaign completion to prevent tracking efforts, helping attackers remain undercover.

Key to the fake ads are unrealistically low prices designed to lure victims into thinking they've found a bargain – for example, researchers spotted a Milwaukee Tool chest for $129.

Scam artists are luring shoppers via Facebook ads

The ads also instil a sense of urgency by using keywords like 'clearance', 'Holiday sale' or 'excess inventory', applying pressure on buyers to act promptly.

Links on the ads lead to scam sites that look like their genuine counterparts through Domain Generation Algorithms and template cloning, with redirection also applied to pull victims towards malicious sites.

Countless brands have been observed imitated across the more than 4,000 fake domains, including retailers (Amazon, Costco, Argos), footwear (Birkenstock, Crocs, Skechers) and gift sites (Bath & Body Works, Yankee Candle).

Being that there have been so many attacks, consequences can vary. Many victims have had their payment information stolen with no goods delivered, or have experienced financial fraud. Moreover, the threat appears to be on a global scale and is not restricted to a core country or region.

Silent Push says threat actors have demonstrated a deep understanding of Meta's ad systems, which have been criticized for not keeping a public archive of inactive scam ads and for not allowing holistic tracking without (prohibited) external scraping.

In the meantime, potential victims (including virtually all online shoppers) are being advised to warn ads that appear too good to be true.

Users can also verify the authenticity of deals by visiting websites directly. It's also recommended that online purchases are made with credit cards that come with additional protection, with direct bank transfers totally inadvisable.

You might also like

• This dangerous new phishing scam spoofs a top Google program to try and hack Facebook accounts
• We've listed the best identity theft protection services
• Check out our roundup of the best antivirus software

If you’ve been experiencing issues with a single part or various parts of Google’s massive operation, or with playing your favorite songs or podcasts on Spotify, you’re not alone.

Since over an hour ago, at 2 PM ET in New York City, reported issues on outage tracker Down Detector have been spiking for Google, Google Cloud, and Spotify, to the extent that Google has confirmed issues impacting its various services as of 3:01 PM ET.

Spotify normally comments on issues via the @SpotifyStatus account on X (formerly Twitter), but as of now, it’s remaining silent. Now, the TechRadar team uses various parts of Google – mainly G-Suite with Docs – and hasn’t encountered issues yet, but my Spotify has been experiencing some issues with extended load times.

Considering that two major services are reporting issues, this could signal larger issues with a cloud data provider like Cloudflare. Either route, we’re starting our live reporting to keep you up to date on the latest developments with the outages affecting Google and Spotify.

A Quick Look at Down Detector’s homepage as of 3:25 PM ET shows that an extensive range of services are experiencing issues, with some leveling off or dropping, with Google, Google Cloud, and Spotify at the forefront, alongside Discord and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Google and Google Cloud both began spiking in the 2 PM ET hour, reaching over 10,000 reports, while Spotify also started in that hour but is currently at over 44,000 reports.

(Image credit: Future)Google is investigating the issue

Google's status page currently lists an active 'Service Disruption' as of 3:01PM ET that is impacting a number of services – it's a good note, though, as teams at the company are investigating.

"We're investigating reports of an issue with Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Chat, Google Cloud Search, Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Meet, Google Tasks, and Google Voice. We will provide more information shortly.

Multiple Workspace products beginning on Thursday, at 2025-06-12 10:58 PDT may be experiencing service issues.

Our engineers are currently investigating the issue.

We apologize to all who are affected by the disruption."

It's impacting several services from the entire G-Suite, including Gmail. Still, Google doesn't clarify if a specific user set is experiencing the issue. As of now, I can access my personal and work Google accounts without problem. However, individuals in the comments on Down Detector are reporting issues with Messages, Google Cloud, and Google Voice.

Spotify has still not issued a statement, although reported issues on Down Detector continue to grow, now standing at over 45,000 reports as of 3:22 PM ET. We have also reached out to the streaming giant to request a comment.

It does seem that a majority of these issues started shortly after the 2 PM ET hour and are now stretching to over an hour of disruptions.

At the same time that these issues with Google and Spotify began emerging, Cloudflare is dealing with its own problems, according to the company's status page.

The latest update, as of 3:12 PM ET, from Cloudfalre notes that its services are starting to recover, but issues are still present.

"We are starting to see services recover. We still expect to see intermittent errors across the impacted services as systems handle retried and caches are filled."

Considering that Discord and Snapchat are also experiencing a spike in reports, these issues may well be related to the problems affecting Cloudflare.

(Image credit: Future)Google's making progress, says everything but Meet is fixed

(Image credit: Google)

Google is making some progress, at least according to the latest update on its Workspace status page, posted at 3:30 PM ET.

It reads: "All product impacts except Google Meet have recovered.

Google engineers continue to work on full mitigation."

This is good news for folks in the Google ecosystem, as it appears everything but Google Meet is back up. And even reports for Google's calling platform are starting to drop on Down Detector, now sitting at 1,854 reports as of 3:31 PM ET.

Snapchat and Discord are both seeing reported issues spikes

(Image credit: Future)

Alongside issues impacting Google, Google Cloud, and Spotify, reported issues with Snapchat and Discord are both elevated on Down Detector.

Reported issues with Discord are currently sitting at 6,683 as of 3:35PM ET, but did spike to over 10,000 at 2:20PM ET – the same hour where Google and Spotify saw major increases.

Snapchat is currently on the rise, with over 6,693 reported issues with the platform. For what it's worth, I can open the app on my iPhone, but I'm unable to load stories or the main page.

Google gives the all clear on Workspace issues

(Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)

The Google Workspace status page now effectively says we're all clear. In a post that went live 3:53PM ET, Google says all the issues are resolved.

"The problem with Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Chat, Google Cloud Search, Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Meet, Google Tasks, and Google Voice has been resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support."

Reports on Down Detector have slowed for both and have been on the decline, so it appears that most services are coming back or already back. Again, this does line up with Cloudflare's reported issues, and those are starting to recover.

Cloudflare is having some critical issues

(Image credit: Shutterstock/Sharaf Maksumov)

Cloudflare has posted a new update as of 3:57 PM ET on its own status page, detailing a bit more about what is going on and the potential impact here. You can see the statement in full below, but Cloudflare’s critical Workers KV service went offline due to a separate outage hitting a key third-party service.

A Worker KV is essentially a flow or automation that moves requests throughout Cloudflare's vast network, mainly starting or ending in storage libraries.

Furthermore, Cloudflare acknowledges that it's aware of the significant impact this is causing and is working to resolve the issue as soon as possible with all hands on deck.

Cloudflare’s critical Workers KV service went offline due to an outage of a 3rd party service that is a key dependency. As a result, certain Cloudflare products that rely on KV service to store and disseminate information are unavailable including:

Access

WARP

Browser Isolation

Browser Rendering

Durable Objects (SQLite backed Durable Objects only)

Workers KV

Realtime

Workers AI

Stream

Parts of the Cloudflare dashboard

Turnstile

AI Gateway

AutoRAG

Cloudflare engineers are working to restore services immediately. We are aware of the deep impact this outage has caused and are working with all hands on deck to restore all services as quickly as possible.

Google Cloud is still having issues

While Google says the issues affecting Workspace have been resolved, but the Google Cloud dashboard continues to display issues.

There are still "Multiple GCP products are experiencing Service issues," in fact, it's over 39 products including API Gateway, Agent Assist, and AlloyDB for PostgreSQ across the globe. This is the latest update from Google Cloud as of 3:56PM ET, you can see the status page here.

Impacted services are starting to recover

(Image credit: Future)

Google, Google Cloud, Spotify, Snapchat, and Discord, among other services that saw an increase in reported issues on Down Detector, are all starting to show a decline, and that's a good thing.

It's been roughly two and a half hours since we started seeing a spike in the 2PM hour for services like Google and Spotify, with the latter seeing over 44,000 reported issues. While Spotify has yet to provide any comment, Google Workspace and Google Cloud have been updating status dashboards. The former states that things are back to normal, while the latter continues to show some impacted services.

Down Detector is looking a lot better now, though reported outages do remain for all these platforms.

Cloudflare is still working to bring all of its impacted services back online, with the last update on its dashboard at 3:57 PM ET. That concluded with, "We are aware of the deep impact this outage has caused and are working with all hands on deck to restore all services as quickly as possible."

Cloudflare say it's services are 'recovering quickly' around the globe

In line with impacted services reported outages dropping on Down Detector, Cloudflare says its services are 'recovering quickly' across the globe in an update on its status page as of 4:32PM ET. It's expecting a 'steady drop' in services impacted and 'further recovery' in the next few minutes.

That's good news and likely means that Google, Spotify, and other services will be back online for you soon, if not already.

"Cloudflare services are recovering quickly around the globe. WARP and Turnstile are operational, though a small residual impact remains and we’re working to eliminate it. The core KV service is restored, bringing dependent products back online. We expect further recovery over the next few minutes and a steady drop in impact."

Now, Cloudflare says it's back to fully operational in an update that was posted just before the top of the hour at 4:57PM ET.

It reads in full: "All Cloudflare services have been restored and are now fully operational. We are moving the incident to Monitoring while we watch platform metrics to confirm sustained stability."

It's an excellent update for those who have felt the impact of this outage, and hopefully, any issues you've experienced have been resolved. While many services were impacted today, alongside this Cloudflare outage, Down Detector is looking a lot better with declines.

Google Workspace's status page indicates that the incident is resolved, while Google Cloud's status page still displays an active incident worldwide.

Furthermore, although Spotify didn't confirm an issue, the brand's care account is responding to a few users, recommending a restart of the app if they're unable to use the service.

• The spec for PCIe 7.0 has been announced
• It’s a new standard for even faster – incredibly quick – connections with PCIe components in your PC
• The standard is still in the earliest stages, though, and won’t be here for a long time (PCIe 6.0 hasn’t quite arrived yet, in fact)

PCIe (PCI Express) connectivity continues to forge ahead and already a new spec for a future generation of PCs has been announced, which is PCIe 7.0.

VideoCardz reports that PCI-SIG, the organization that oversees the standard, has announced PCIe 7.0 and is boasting about just how fast it’ll be. (Spoiler alert: really, really fast).

But wait a minute – aren’t we still on PCIe 5.0 these days? Well, yes, that’s what a (cutting-edge) PC will support, and I’ll come back to exactly what’s going on with the development path of the PCI Express standard (and PCIe 6.0) momentarily.

PCIe 7.0 is currently a spec that has just been sketched out, and it’ll offer a data rate of 128GT/s, which is twice the speed of PCIe 6.0 (which itself doubled the transfer rate of PCIe 5.0).

With PCIe 7.0, you’ll get support for up to 16 PCIe lanes (in a single slot) and up to 512GB/s of bandwidth in total (in both directions). PCIe lanes are bi-directional (meaning data can be sent in either direction) lines of communication hooking up PCIe components – primarily the graphics card or SSDs (but also other miscellaneous boards) – to the motherboard.

Collectively, PCIe lanes facilitate all these key components working in your PC (read up more about this here).

So, while much faster speeds for that communication is indeed a potentially big deal for the future, for the performance of GPUs and drives mainly, we are very much looking to the future here – meaning way down the line.

Analysis: Timescales – and PCIe 8.0 appearing on the horizon

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

As I already mentioned, we are on PCIe 5.0 right now. PCIe 6.0 was announced at the start of 2022, over three years ago, and still remains in development, though it is now nearing the finish line – we may even see the first hardware supporting it arrive later this year (or early next).

So, as you can imagine, we’re looking towards the end of the decade before PCIe 7.0 actually pitches up. Leading up to that milestone, hardware makers will be working away with the standard, developing and testing prototypes, and refining the final hardware for three or four years. And initially, that hardware will be used in the likes of quantum computing, data centers and other demanding tasks – not consumer PCs.

And meanwhile, PCI-SIG has confirmed that work on concocting the PCIe 8.0 standard has already begun.

So, while this is all well and good, with these incoming standards lining up and sounding ever more blisteringly fast, what’s the impact for consumers in the nearer-term? Not a lot, frankly. Even the top-tier, super-expensive examples of the best GPUs currently available aren’t pushing the boundaries of PCIe 5.0 yet – there’s no need for anything faster, not even in the flashiest PC.

However, there are niche cases where older PCIe standards are now hampering some new graphics cards.

A case in point is the RTX 5060 Ti (or non-Ti) with 8GB of video RAM, which loses some performance when it’s in a PCIe 4.0 motherboard slot because that slower standard isn’t enough – and if your motherboard’s still using PCIe 3.0, that’s a world of performance pain. (For a detailed explanation of why this GPU is problematic in this way, check here – AMD’s RX 9060 XT is also held back by its 8GB of VRAM).

Really, though, this is outlier stuff more than anything (and frankly, more to do with questionable decision-making and configuration of these graphics cards in the first place). Still, with ever-faster PCIe standards rolling inexorably towards us, in the future, even aging consumer PCs might cope better with whatever dubious decisions GPU makers throw at them.

Furthermore, as recently discussed, advancing the PCIe spec and keeping it very much on the cutting-edge is important in terms of maintaining standardization for the connection of PC components.

You might also like

• Nvidia RTX 5080 vs RTX 5070 Ti: Should you spend a little more?
• Want very big SSDs? Here's a little-known secret, 15.36TB models are almost as cheap as 8TB ones per terabyte — but there's a catch
• AMD could be working on a faster RX 9070 Extreme graphics card

• Edifier reveals 3 speakers, from tabletop to super-portable
• 6W, 34W and 60W speaker models
• New ANC headphones with 92-hour battery life

I'm a big fan of modern tech in retro clothes: give me a hi-res audio player that looks like an old AM radio and you can take my money. And I'm also a fan of corporate PR nonsense. So the launch of the new Edifier ES Series of speakers and headphones has put me in my happy place.

Corporate PR nonsense first: The letters ES carry "layered meaning", because the E means "Elegant", the S stands for "Superb (or Luxurious)", and if you put those two letters together they stand for "Edifier Sound".

Nonsense aside, I love the look of the speakers: there are three models of increasing elongation, beginning with the super-cute square of the ES20, stretching into the rectangular ES60 and then the bigger box of the ES300. And the specs are impressive for all three.

It's not just speakers: there are new 92-hour ANC headphones too (Image credit: Edifier)Edifier ES20, ES60, and ES300: key features and pricing

The flagship here is the ES300, a 60W, handcrafted wooden speaker with leather-look accents, a braided grille and a metallic control panel. Behind the grille there's a 4-inch long-throw mid/bass driver and dual 1.25-inch silk dome tweeters.

The ES300 has hi-res audio up to 24-bit/96kHz, and it has dual-band WiFi and AirPlay 2. Wired ports are USB-A and Aux, and there's a built-in ambient light system with three effects and two colors.

The ES300 is $399.99 in the US, £299.99 in the UK* and AU$399 in Australia.

The portable ES60 is smaller but still punchy, with 34W of power through its dual 22mm tweeters, oval mid/bass driver with neodymium magnets and passive bass radiator. It has Bluetooth 5.4 with multipoint and stereo pairing, USB-C for audio input and charging, and promises 9 hours of playback. Like its bigger sibling it too has ambient lighting built-in.

The ES60 is $199.99 / £119.99 / AU$199.00.

Last but not least there's the teeny ES20, a 6W portable Bluetooth speaker with a 43mm full-range neodymium magnet driver and a 55mm passive bass radiator and a class D amp. It's IP67 rated, has Bluetooth 5.4 and includes a high sensitivity microphone for calling; once again there's built-in ambient lighting.

The ES20 is $89.99 / £49.99 / AU$99.

Edifier has also launched a set of headphones, the ES850NB. They're wireless over-ears with wired and wireless Hi-Res Audio certification, 40mm dynamic drivers and support for LDAC as well as the usual AAC and SBC. There's active noise cancellation, AI call clarity, and up to 92 hours of battery life.

The ES850NB headphones are $169.99 / £119.99 / AU$179.

All four models from the Edifier ES Series are available now.

* US prices are from Edifier's press release; UK and Australian prices are from retailers' websites.

You might also like

• The best Bluetooth speakers for all budgets, all tested by us
• The best wireless speaker, all tested by us, from Apple, JBL and more
• The best wireless headphones 2025, chosen by our experts

It’s been a hectic week for Apple with an entirely new look dubbed Liquid Glass arriving for all its platforms, true multitasking on the iPad, some Apple Intelligence changes, a new naming scheme, and a workout buddy for the Apple Watch, among so much else. We’ve been breaking it all down at TechRadar, and you can find a nice roundup of the 15 things we learned at WWDC 2025 here.

But, in true TechRadar fashion, shortly after the nearly two-hour keynote, we sat down with two special guests in an ultra-sleek podcast studio inside the ring at Apple Park for a special edition of the TechRadar Podcast.

Tom’s Guide Managing Editor for Video and TikTok star Kate Kozuch, KLTA Tech Reporter and @RichOnTech radio host Rich DeMuro, and TechRadar’s Editor At Large Lance Ulanoff, joined me for a wide-ranging discussion on nearly everything that Apple announced.

(Image credit: Future)

If you’re curious about Liquid Glass – Apple’s new look for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS – you won’t have to wait long as we kick off our discussion there. We also quickly dive into the significant changes arriving with iPadOS 26, the super-charged Spotlight within macOS 26, and the shorter section of the keynote around Apple Intelligence and the update on Siri.

We even discuss what the significant changes on iPad – the arrival of multitasking, a dock, proper file support, and a menu bar – could mean for the future of the Mac. Does this mean a MacBook with a touchscreen is on the horizon, or is the iPad a true laptop replacement for anyone now?

And if you had thoughts about Apple’s updated naming schemes for its platforms – they’re all lined up to 26 now – we provide analysis on that and even some speculation on what this could mean for future hardware from Apple.

You can watch the video version of our special edition podcast below, or listen to the audio version on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. While you’re there, or on YouTube, why not follow us to stay up-to-date with everything happening in tech?

You might also like

• You won't believe how insanely realistic Personas are in visionOS 26 on the Vision Pro
• This is what really happened with Siri and Apple Intelligence, according to Apple
• I’ve tried Apple CarPlay Ultra – it fixes everything that’s irritating about CarPlay, but there’s a catch

• Experts warns of fake Booking.com sites circulating the web
• The sites come with a fake "Accept Cookie" prompt that downloads a RAT
• Shoppers should be on their guard when searching for deals

Hackers have been found targeting holidaymakers around the world with remote access trojans (RAT) distributed through fake Booking.com websites, experts have warned.

Researchers from HP Wolf Security found cybercriminals have been making websites that, on first glance, look just like booking.com - they carry the same branding, the same color scheme, and same formatting. However, the content of the website is blurred, and over it, a deceptive cookie banner is displayed.

If victims press “Accept cookies”, they’ll trigger a download of a malicious JavaScript file. This, in turn, installs XWorm, a powerful RAT that grants the attackers full control over the compromised device, including access to files, webcams, and microphone. They can also use the access to disable security tools, deploy additional malware, and exfiltrate passwords and other data.

Peak booking period

HP Wolf Security says it first spotted the campaign in Q1 2025, which is “peak summer holiday booking period”, and a time when “click fatigue” sets in, as prospective holidaymakers are reckless and don’t pay attention to the sites they’re visiting, ending in disaster.

"Since the introduction of privacy regulations such as GDPR, cookie prompts have become so normalized that most users have fallen into a habit of ‘click-first, think later,’” commented Patrick Schläpfer, Principal Threat Researcher in the HP Security Lab.

“By mimicking the look and feel of a booking site at a time when holiday-goers are rushing to make travel plans, attackers don’t need advanced techniques - just a well-timed prompt and the user’s instinct to click.”

There are a few things users can do to stay safe, and the first one is - to slow down when browsing.

Users should also make sure not to click on links in emails or social media messages, especially for well-established sites such as Booking. Instead, type in the address in the browser’s navigation bar manually.

You might also like

• Claude AI and other systems could be vulnerable to worrying command prompt injection attacks
• Take a look at our guide to the best authenticator app
• We've rounded up the best password managers

• Microsoft compared Liquid Glass to Windows Vista on its Instagram account
• It’s rather late to the party in drawing this kind of comparison
• Mind you, if anyone has a right to do so, it’s Microsoft, which brought in transparency with the Aero effect on the desktop of Vista

Microsoft has joined the throng of those who’ve been making fun of Apple’s new Liquid Glass interface for macOS Tahoe 26 (and iOS 26 or indeed other platforms such as iPadOS 26).

On its Instagram account yesterday, as flagged up by Windows Latest, Microsoft posted a collection of screenshots of Windows Vista. This arrived complete with nostalgic sound effects (the chime of booting to the desktop) from back in the day (2007), with a single, simple sentence: “Just gonna leave this here.”

A post shared by Windows (@windows)

A photo posted by on

In case you missed it, Apple has caught quite a volley of criticism for what’s perceived as making it seem like Liquid Glass has reinvented the idea of transparency – a glassy, see-through interface – when this was actually done by Microsoft in… yes, you guessed it: Windows Vista.

In Windows Vista, this effect was called Aero (and later, Aero also came to Windows 7), and as you can see in the Instagram montage above, it’s all about translucent windows, allowing you to see the background through them.

Microsoft is late to the party here, really, and in that respect, the company looks a tad silly. Everybody’s done their take on how Liquid Glass is Vista (or Windows 7), how Apple are copycats, etcetera – and so Microsoft is running the risk of inducing some yawns here.

But still, Microsoft did invent Aero with these venerable desktop operating systems many translucent moons ago, so in a way, more than anyone, the software giant has a right to poke some fun at macOS Tahoe 26 here.

Analysis: Fun but not fair?

(Image credit: Apple)

So, given the hail of critical bullets trying to shatter Apple’s Liquid Glass – Microsoft’s latest potshot included – it’s worth considering a key question. Is it really fair to level accusations at the Mac and iDevice maker for being so unoriginal and dated with its UI innovation here?

I don’t think it is. Still, Apple must’ve known it was going to face this kind of backlash, even if it’s a rather tongue-in-cheek affair (mostly). And for Microsoft, it’s an obvious opportunity to take a rival down a peg or two, which, let’s face it, is not to be missed. However, I'm not sure why Microsoft was slow to move with its post.

Whatever the case, one thing is obvious: Liquid Glass does not equal Vista’s Aero effect (and I hardly think Microsoft is suggesting that, of course). Yes, there are clear visual parallels, but what macOS Tahoe 26 is doing is very different from Windows Vista or 7.

For starters, the reason nobody liked Aero much in Windows Vista was because it caused the OS environment to run slower – nobody wanted lag when dragging windows around the desktop, unsurprisingly. (Windows 7 did better here, of course).

Not only is contemporary hardware ripe for a much better implementation of transparent interface elements now, so it’ll all be suitably responsive, but Apple’s Liquid Glass appears to be far more sophisticated in nature. It looks like there’s a lot of careful crafting here, with nuances in the way light passes through the ‘glass’ and interacts with the interface behind.

Granted, it’s still too early to say exactly how this will pan out, but Aero it ain’t, that’s for sure. I’ve been told by others on the TechRadar team who’ve seen the interface in action that it looks much better in real-world use than screenshots can convey.

Even so, worries remain, without a doubt. The most obvious potential thorn is the diminished accessibility and the potential lack of clarity that these fancy, see-through effects might cause. What we don’t want is a muddied look where the user may struggle to read basic text or make out icons in the foreground.

Time will tell regarding those concerns, but Apple appears to have thought this whole plan and overarching philosophy through quite fully, given that this is not just a mere interface revamp, but a wholesale cross-platform unification for macOS, iOS, and all the rest of the company’s operating systems.

Thus far, Liquid Glass looks pretty slick, it looks like function is as important as form, and yes, it looks like Windows Vista a bit, too. But hey, what did you expect Apple to do with all eyes on its big WWDC 25 interface reveal? Acknowledge Microsoft as the forerunner of glassy transparency in the realm of desktop operating systems?

You might also like...

• macOS Tahoe 26 is official - here's everything you need to know about all the new features
• Can’t upgrade to Windows 11? This Linux project wants to save your old PC from the scrapheap when Windows 10 support ends
• Windows 11 is getting more AI shortcuts, but is Microsoft in danger of cluttering up the OS with AI creep?

• Utran’s PCIe 5.0 card holds 28 M.2 SSDs, reaching a total 224TB capacity
• Delivers 109GB/s read speed using Broadcom switch and advanced cooling
• Ideal for AI workloads, but overkill for most enterprise storage needs

Utran Technology has introduced a new PCIe 5.0 add-in card which feels more like a GPU than a storage solution.

Unveiled at Computex 2025, the device can host up to 28 NVMe Gen5 M.2 8TB SSDs in a single slot, delivering 109GB/s sequential read speed and a total storage capacity of 224TB.

Two versions of the 28x M.2 Host Card: HM-5281A and HM-5282A will be available - both use the Broadcom AtlasII PEX89144 switch to handle internal bandwidth and connectivity. The HM-5281A uses a single PCIe Gen5 x16 upstream link, while the HM-5282A doubles that with two x16 links, bringing total bandwidth up to 1024 GT/s.

Surprise hot plug support

Cooling comes via a high-pressure fan and radiator combo. Although it has a dense footprint, the layout is built for rack-scale deployment. In theory, eight cards could deliver nearly 1.8PB of flash inside a single server.

Both models run on an EPS 8-pin connector and support surprise hot plug, meaning the system can detect and manage the 28 M.2 drives even if they’re swapped in unexpectedly. This is particularly useful for testing or dynamic environments. You'd need to take care doing so in real-world deployments though, especially as the card itself isn't hot-swappable.

28x M.2 Host Card also lacks card-level power loss protection, so you’d need to rely on SSDs that include their own safeguards.

The card does, however, support USB terminal control for firmware updates and system monitoring.

Supported operating systems include Windows, Windows Server, and Linux, making it relatively flexible at the software level.

It's hard to argue with the raw numbers - 109GB/s read speed and sub-millisecond latency are unquestionably impressive - but outside of certain HPC or AI use cases, it's frankly difficult to see a wide audience. Even in dense environments, this level of performance might outpace most storage needs.

Utran says it plans to begin shipping its 28x M.2 Host Card in summer 2025.

Via Tom's Hardware

You might also like

• These are the fastest SSDs you can buy right now
• And these are the largest SSDs and hard drives on the market
• Here's why 100TB+ SSDs will play a huge role in ultra LLMs in the near future

• Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is getting an online multiplayer mode called Fox Hunt
• Fox Hunt is a "completely original online battle mode"
• Director Yu Sahara said the mode is set in the same world as the main game, but "gameplay is completely different"

Konami has announced that Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater will have an online multiplayer mode called Fox Hunt.

Revealed during the Konami Press Start livestream today, the publisher said that Fox Hunt is a "completely original online battle mode" that will play differently from 2008's Metal Gear Online.

Fox Hunt, which is being directed by series veteran Yu Sahara, takes place in the same world as the main game and will offer "hide and seek" mechanics, mixed with stealth and survival elements.

Sahara explained that although the multiplayer shares the same world with the main campaign, "the gameplay is completely different".

"When we say Metal Gear multiplayer, many fans will probably think of Metal Gear Online, but Fox Hunt will be its own new type of mode. We very much appreciate all the long-time fans of MGO who have always wanted to see it make a comeback, but the landscape of multiplayer games has changed a lot since MGO.

"It took a lot of careful consideration to think about what a new online mode should look like. Based on the iconic stealth and survival elements of the Metal Gear series, we are taking camouflage and hide and seek to the next level.

"We challenged ourselves to make something unique that is more than just a shootout. We’ve used that back-and-forth tension of staying hidden or searching out the enemy to create an online experience unique to Metal Gear."

Sahara confirmed that more information about Fox Hunt will be revealed soon.

Alongside Fox Hunt's reveal, Konami also shared a new gameplay trailer for the main game, the PC and PS5-exclusive Ape Escape mode, as well as the first look at the Bomb Snake battle. This Snake vs Bomberman mode is exclusive to Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S.

Secret Theatre is also returning, but this version will task players with locating Secret Theatre videos as collectibles, which are carried by soldiers.

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater arrives on August 28 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

You might also like...

• Best horror games: the scariest titles to play in 2025
• Xbox Games Showcase 2025: everything revealed from Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Persona 4 remake to a new handheld
• After seeing Resident Evil Requiem in action, I'm convinced it'll be another groundbreaking entry in the horror series

• The first iOS 26 developer is out now ahead of its public beta launch in July
• One of its upgrades is a new option called 'Keep Audio in Headphones'
• This should reduce auto-switching problems for wireless headphones

If you're tired of your iPhone automatically switching to every other Bluetooth device other than your headphones, then iOS 26 has a treat for you – a new option to make the audio stay connected to your wireless headphones.

As spotted by MacRumors, the new iOS 26 developer beta has a long-awaited new option called "Keep Audio in Headphones" in the iPhone's Settings. The new option will seemingly live in the Settings > General > AirPlay & Continuity section and is specifically designed to stop headphones from making unwanted connections to nearby devices.

Apple's description of the feature says "when using AirPods or other connected headphones, keep audio in your headphones when other playback devices like cars and speakers connect to iPhone."

This happens to me all the time, whether it's my audio automatically switching to in-car speakers or to my iPad when it's being used by someone else. Clearly, I'm not alone in finding this annoyance frustrating, so Apple's thankfully including this new option in iOS 26, and it'll hopefully make it to the software's final release in September.

A bit old in the Bluetooth

There are currently workarounds (like the option above) for controlling AirPods auto-switching, but this new iOS 26 one should work across a broad range of Bluetooth devices. (Image credit: Apple / Future)

Bluetooth is now over 25 years old, so in some ways it's miraculous that the short-range wireless tech works as well as it does – yet it's also frequently frustrating.

Without the option of prioritizing the order of your preferred Bluetooth devices, it can often feel like auto-switching has a mind of its own. So, this setting, while not exactly one of the biggest iOS 26 features, it's definitely a welcome quality-of-life tweak.

Not that it's the only frustrating Bluetooth-related issue we have to grapple with. As our colleagues at What Hi Fi? recently noted, it's high time audio manufacturers started standardizing their Bluetooth pairing processes, too.

Of course, these are very much first-world problems, but at least Bluetooth 6.0 is now rolling out to bring more refinements to the now-ancient tech. These include improved filtering and efficiency, which should bring battery life benefits, along with a feature called Channel Sounding to help improve the accuracy of 'find my device' services from the likes of Apple, Google and Samsung.

You might also like

• The first Bluetooth 6.0 headphones are here, they're super-cheap, and they weigh less than 100g
• 5 unsung iOS 26 features that look way more useful than Liquid Glass
• Bluetooth 6.0 has officially launched – here's what the upgraded standard can do

• Security researchers Aim Labs discovered an LLM Scope Violation flaw in Microsoft 365 Copilot
• The critical-severity bug allows threat actors to exfiltrate sensitive corporate data by sending an email
• Microsoft says it has fixed the issue server-side, but users should be on guard

Microsoft has fixed a dangerous zero-click attack in its Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) model which could have allowed threat actors to silently exfiltrate sensitive corporate data without (almost) any user interaction.

Cybersecurity researchers Aim Labs, who found the flaw, known as an “LLM Scope Violation”, and dubbed it EchoLeak.

Here is how it works: A threat actor sends a seemingly innocuous email message to the target, which contains a hidden prompt that instructs Copilot to exfiltrate sensitive data to an attacker-controlled server. Since Copilot is integrated into Microsoft 365, that data can include anything from intellectual property files, to business contracts and legal documents, or from internal communications, to financial data.

Critical vulnerability

The researchers note the prompt needs to be phrased like speaking to a human, so that it bypasses Microsoft’s XPIA (cross-prompt injection attack) defenses.

Later, when the victim interacts with Copilot and asks a business-related question, the LLM will pull all of the relevant data (including the attackers’ email message) and will end up executing it. The files are stored in a crafted link or an image.

The bug was assigned the CVE-2025-32711 identifier, and was given a severity score of 9.3/10 (critical). It was fixed server-side in May, meaning users don’t need to do anything. Microsoft also said that there is no evidence that the flaw had been exploited in the past, and none of its customers were impacted.

Microsoft 365 is one of the most popular cloud-based communications and online collaboration tools, combining office apps (Word, Excel, and others), cloud storage (OneDrive and SharePoint), email and calendar (Outlook, Exchange), and communications tools (Teams).

Recently, Microsoft integrated its Generative AI model, Copilot, into Microsoft 365, allowing users to draft and summarize emails, generate and edit documents, create data visualizations and analyze trends, and more.

Via BleepingComputer

You might also like

• Claude AI and other systems could be vulnerable to worrying command prompt injection attacks
• Take a look at our guide to the best authenticator app
• We've rounded up the best password managers

• Figma unveils new AI tools for developers and designers
• Figma Make finally rolls out to all users with Full Seat
• Code layers comes to Figma Sites

Over the past week, Figma has made good on its many promises revealed at its Config 2025 event.

After announcing the release of four new products - Figma Make, Figma Sites, Figma Buzz, and Figma Draw - the company has now launched a few new updates for developers and designers, alongside the full rollout of its big content ideation tool Figma Make.

According to Figma, these updates are all about “bridging the gap between design and code” with the help of new AI tools. So, what can users expect now?

What’s new in Figma?

For me, the most exciting new release is Figma Make. Finally out of beta, it’s available now to those with a Full Seat.

Figma Make is effectively an overarching design tool that spans the entire platform, and a massive leap for content ideation, where users can start with a blank canvas or copy and paste from Figma Designs, collaborate on new ideas, and then bring those designs over to other Figma tools like Sites to refine the concepts.

According to the company, Figma Make is fully capable of helping users create “an agentic AI interface, a business newsletter, and even games.”

When I attended a press briefing at Config London, I was struck by how Yuhki Yamashita, Figma’s Chief Product Officer, repeatedly mentioned how the premise here is being able to quickly conjure up ideas, throw them out if they don’t work, then start anew.

At the time, he said, “Our thought experiment was, how can we make it so easy for you to go from the idea into your head to something that is actually you can put in front of users and validate really quickly. And if it doesn't work, that's great. You can then move on to the next idea, or you can keep iterating from there.”

But it’s not the only big rollout users can now try. Figma has also released a new Dev Mode MCP Server, which is currently in beta.

Eagle-eyed Figma-watchers will have clocked an early demo of this during Microsoft Build’s opening keynote.

The company describes the MCP Server as a way to deliver design context from Figma - think variables and styles, that sort of thing - into their preferred LLM, IDE, or agentic coding tool, making sure that AI-generated code aligns with the users’ codebase.

And finally, code layers are now rolling out across Figma Sites, the AI-powered website builder. Here, users with pretty much any technical ability can customize websites and build site interactions and animations using AI prompts, presets, or raw code.

I was pretty impressed when I saw Figma Sites in action at Config, where AI prompts were used to transform static text into animated text that reacted to cursor movements. It’s designed in such a way that even a non-designer can easily edit content.

At Config, Yamashita promised bigger things were afoot, saying, “we wanted to make sure that we could support scaled use cases, too. With these kinds of content, it's much easier if we have a CMS, so that a non-designer can come in and comfortably edit that content in a way that's familiar to them. And this is something that's coming soon.” Looks like it’s finally arrived.

You can check out the newest tools from Figma by clicking here and navigating to the Products section.

You might also like

• We've rounded up the best AI website builders around
• Adobe launches new Express tool for small businesses - and I spoke exclusively to its chief to find out the top 5 things you need to know
• Freepik launches new enterprise AI plan - but is it enough to tackle Adobe’s dominance in the field?

• Get ChatGPT Plus for 3 months at a discounted 50% off rate
• This easy trick is accessible via ChatGPT's official website
• ChatGPT Plus gives you access to OpenAI's best models and all the latest features such as Sora

ChatGPT is free to use, but if you want access to OpenAI's latest AI models and tools like the video generation platform Sora, you'll need a ChatGPT Plus account.

Normally, ChatGPT Plus costs $20 (£20 / AU$30 a month), but one Reddit user (u/PrettyRevolution1842) has shared an excellent and easy trick to get 3 months of the service for half price.

With this quick trick, you'll get ChatGPT Plus for $10 (£10 / AU$15 a month) for 3 months, although in order to be able to get this discounted rate, you'll need to be subscribed already to ChatGPT Plus.

That said, even if you subscribe to ChatGPT Plus at the full price rate for 1 month before following the steps below, you'd still be getting four months of Plus for $50 (£50 / AU$75) instead of $80 (£80 / AU$120).

How to get 3 months of ChatGPT Plus for half price

1. On desktop, go to ChatGPT Settings
2. Click Manage My Subscriptions
3. Select Cancel Plan
4. Accept the 50% off for the next 3 months offer

It's as easy as that, you'll now have a discounted rate of ChatGPT Plus for the next three months. Just remember to cancel auto-renewal so you aren't caught with some hefty fees after the promotional period ends.

ChatGPT Plus offers extended limits on messaging, access to OpenAI's best research and reasoning models like OpenAI o3, OpenAI o4-mini, and OpenAI o4-mini-high, access to new features before free users, and more.

If you're still unsure, read our guide: Is ChatGPT Plus actually worth it?

You might also like

• This is what really happened with Siri and Apple Intelligence, according to Apple
• Why don’t AI companies talk about energy usage?
• Sam Altman thinks superintelligence is within our grasp and makes 3 bold predictions for the future of AI and robotics

• The HiBy R3Pro II is certified for wired and wireless Hi-Res Audio
• The music player has double DACs and quad amplification
• Amazingly affordable at just $199

If like me you miss the days of cute portable music players like the iPod mini, HiBy has just the thing: a super-cute and very small double-DAC audio player called the R3Pro II.

The R3Pro II comes in a choice of orange, silver, black or green; the orange one really reminds me of my much-missed Sony Ericsson Walkman phone with its orange highlights, while the others conjure up memories of multiple iPods.

Don't let the cute design fool you, though: the specs here are serious. According to HiBy you're looking at a "quality pocket cannon, performance monster". And the specs back that up.

Inside there are dual Cirrus Logic CS43198 DACs and quad OPA1622 headphone amps capable of driving high-impedance headphones through either the 4.4mm balanced or 3.5mm stereo jacks.

The green and orange models come with an Ultrasuede fabric back; other colors have a matte finish (Image credit: HiBy)HiBy R3ProII: key features and pricing

Those amps and DACs are powered by a 4,000mAh battery with PD2.0 fast charging, and put out up to 480mW of power.

You're not limited to listening on the best wired headphones, though. The player is certified for both wired and wireless Hi-Res Audio and supports DSD256, PCM at up to 32-bit/384kHz and MQA 8X. Bluetooth is 5.1 and there's Wi-Fi too; you can have up to 2TB of storage via microSD.

You've got aptX and LDAC to beam high-quality sound to the best wireless headphones, and the R3Pro II also works with AirPlay and DLNA for Wi-Fi streaming. It has USB-C audio, USB to S/PDIF, and line outputs for connections to other audio equipment.

There are slightly different materials depending on your color choice: the green and orange ones have an Ultrasuede back, while silver and black are matte.

The specs suggest a fairly expensive device, but no: the R3Pro II is just $199. I'd expect it to cost around £199 or just under if it comes to the UK, and the US price converts to around AU$300 in Australia – though we don't have confirmation of an international release yet. Hopefully it'll come, because we could be looking at a new budget winner for our list of the best hi-res audio players.

You might also like

• Best MP3 player 2025: top portable hi-res music players for everyone
• This portable Hi-Res Audio music player has a tube amp and Android
• The FiiO JM21 is amazing and affordable

• A remake of Silent Hill has been announced at the Konami Press Start livestream
• The game is being made by Konami in partnership with Bloober Team, which made Silent Hill 2 Remake
• The broadcast also offered a new look at Silent Hill f

Konami has announced that a Silent Hill remake is in development in partnership with Bloober Team.

The publisher shared the news during today's Konami Press Start livestream as the final surprise announcement of the show, alongside a very short teaser trailer showing the game's title accompanied by the game's iconic theme music.

"We are currently working with Bloober Team on a remake of 'SILENT HILL', which was released for PlayStation in 1999," Konami said on X / Twitter.

Unfortunately, there's no release date just yet, but the game will likely be available on PC and PlayStation 5.

Bloober Team also worked on Silent Hill 2 Remake, which was released last year to critical acclaim.

『SILENT HILL』リメイク制作中1999年にPlayStationにて発売した『SILENT HILL 』のリメイクをBloober Teamと制作しています。ぜひ音声とともに動画をご覧ください。詳細は今後の続報をお待ちください。#SILENTHILL #サイレントヒル pic.twitter.com/qMeX67FyR5June 12, 2025

The reveal of the Silent Hill remake followed a behind-the-scenes look at Konami's upcoming game, Silent Hill f. Series producer Motoi Okamoto and several other developers made an appearance to showcase a series of new gameplay clips and cutscenes.

Konami also explained that the new entry was created with the idea of "Find the beauty in terror" and that the story will "tackle a type of theme that's never been explored in the Silent Hill series before". What that theme is, we'll have to wait and see.

Silent Hill f launches on September 25 for PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC.

It's confirmed that Silent Hill f is a standalone title in the Silent Hill timeline, and that newcomers will need no prior knowledge of the franchise to experience the horror game.

You might also like...

• Best horror games: the scariest titles to play in 2025
• Xbox Games Showcase 2025: everything revealed from Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Persona 4 remake to a new handheld
• After seeing Resident Evil Requiem in action, I'm convinced it'll be another groundbreaking entry in the horror series

• Report claims that DJI will launch all three products within July
• DJI Osmo 360 will be the first product officially announced
• DJI also rumored to be unveiling the DJI Mini 5 Pro drone imminently

July could be a busy month for DJI – at least if one report is correct. Serial leaker Jasper Ellens claims that the company will be launching the DJI Osmo 360, DJI Osmo Nano and DJI Mic 3 all in the same month (but not all at the same time, interestingly enough).

Writing at his website Drone XL, Ellens says he’s been informed by two separate sources that all three of these products will be released in July.

First up, according to Ellens, will be the DJI Osmo 360 on July 15 2025, just five weeks away. The Osmo 360 is DJI’s long-rumored answer to the GoPro Max or Insta360 X series, a 360-degree camera designed to capture everything happening around it through the use of two ultra-wide camera units and automatic image stitching. It’s already been glimpsed in leaked images, and is rumored to have similar performance and specs to the Insta360 X5.

Release dates leaked! We will first see the #Osmo360, the #nano one week later and last but not least the #Mic3. July will be a fun Osmo packed month! Cheers!https://t.co/AWVIpuZ8moJune 11, 2025

I rate the X5 as currently the best 360 camera around, so if DJI can match or surpass it with its first ever 360 camera, I’d be extremely impressed.

The second DJI camera apparently set for a July launch is the DJI Osmo Nano, which Ellens says is releasing on July 23 2025. This camera is rumored to be an ultra-compact action camera with a modular design. To date there have been no leaked images, but online rumors suggest it will be similar in many ways to the 2021-released DJI Action 2 rather than just a slimmed-down version of DJI’s more recent action cameras.

We could be seeing a successor to the superb DJI Mic 2 (pictured) much sooner than we would have guessed. (Image credit: Future)

Last but not least comes the DJI Mic 3 which, according to Ellens, will be launched on July 29 2025. There haven’t been many rumors about this follow-up to the excellent DJI Mic 2 (which only arrived last year and is in top spot of our best wireless mics guide), but an FCC filing document seemingly confirmed the Mic 3’s existence and hinted at a slight design refresh with a new display for the receiver unit. The DJI Mic 2 and Mic Mini are hugely popular with content creators and integrate closely with many of DJI’s camera and drone products, so I’d expect a Mic 3 to make small improvements rather than engage in a major overhaul.

And there could be even more DJI launches to come

The above trio of products may not be the only imminent announcements for the consistently active DJI, either. The company is best known for its camera drones, and it’s been strongly rumored that the next flying machine to emerge from its secretive hangers will be the DJI Mini 5 Pro, potentially as soon as September 2025. That may be followed later in the year or in early 2026 by a DJI Avata 3 FPS drone and a DJI Neo 2 small entry-level drone.

As always, we’ll bring you more news and rumors on upcoming DJI products when we get them.

You might also like

• GoPro Max 2 hit by further delays – 2025 is the earliest we'll see the 360-degree action cam
• DJI Osmo Action 6 leaks just three months after the launch of the Action 5 Pro
• Best 360 camera 2025: the finest choices for capturing every angle

Prime Video has quietly doubled the amount of advertising it shows paying customers. According to AdWeek, the initial ad load of two to three and a half minutes of ads per hour is now sitting at four to six minutes.

I'm not surprised: Amazon told investors last year that it'd be ramping up the volume of ads, and introducing new ways to annoy you when you pause or browse. But as one of the subscribers who'll be seeing these ads, I'm really not sure if I'll stay and pay for a service that's getting worse, and that I expect will continue to get worse.

The fact I'm in the UK is worth noting here. I've seen lots of reports saying "hey, you know, it's not as bad as US broadcast TV, amirite!". But I'm from a place where TV advertising is a lot more civilized. Sure, US viewers have long been exposed to 13 to 16 minutes of ads per hour. But here in the UK, the regulator says that the main broadcasters – including the commercial broadcasters ITV, STV and UTV – can only average seven minutes per hour.

That means Amazon can still keep its promise to show fewer ads than the "linear TV" networks it competes with in the US while increasing the ad load to show vastly more advertising than UK broadcasters show. And those broadcasters don't charge me a monthly subscription to watch their ads.

This isn't just a Scot complaining about US-style ad stuffing, although I am absolutely doing that. It's also about the problem of tech firms trying to make more money by making their products worse.

Here's why streaming is broken

(Image credit: Amazon)

I've been writing about digital media, file sharing and streaming for a very long time, and what made streaming successful was simple: it was less of a pain than piracy. Sure, you could poke around The Pirate Bay or use a peer to peer app, but why bother when you had Netflix right there? One flat fee, tons of great things to watch, no ads: a no-brainer.

But of course we don't just have Netflix now. What we have instead is endless streamers with stockholders who want growth, growth and more growth in a market that's oversaturated at a time where the cost of everything is soaring and people's incomes aren't.

If you can't win over new customers, you can squeeze the ones you've got harder. And again and again that appears to be the option that tech firms prefer: password crackdowns and ads and price hikes and ads and less choice and ads and reduced video quality and ads and no Atmos without an upgrade and ads and ads on the ads on the ads on the ads.

Here in the UK we have an airline people love to hate, Ryanair; the US equivalent is probably Spirit. But while the low-cost airlines are widely hated, we still use them because there's not really an alternative – so they can throw away the seats and make the baggage allowance the size of a Coke can and maybe start to fill the airplane with snakes and honey badgers and mustard gas mid-flight and we'll put up with it because there's no other option.

But that's not true of streaming.

There are lots of other options for viewers, albeit not with the exact same shows. But for the shows you can't get, there's piracy – often in full quality and HDR with Atmos and no ad breaks.

I'm not here to argue the legality (it's illegal in most places) or the morality (it's bad) of piracy. But as someone who's been covering online media since the 1990s, who lived through the file sharing wars, I can promise you that what made piracy effectively disappear wasn't Metallica suing high schoolers or ISPs banning the odd kid. It was Spotify, and then it was Netflix.

The best streaming services beat piracy because bingeing Breaking Bad on Netflix was less hassle and a much better experience than assembling the episodes via The Pirate Bay.

Is that still true?

And if it is, for how much longer?

You may also like

• I cut my streaming bills in half by ditching HBO Max for Hulu and Disney+ in June, and it's all because of these movies and shows
• I just watched the world's first ‘haptic’ trailer for Apple's F1 movie and my fingers are still tingling
• The Last of Us creators confirm exactly what I expected for season 3 of the hit HBO Max show

• Academic researchers found a way to broadcast sensitive data from airgapped systems
• It involves having malware installed on the computer, and an accompanying smartwatch
• The attack is rather difficult to pull off

Security experts claim to have found a way to steal sensitive data from airgapped systems using smartwatches.

Airgapped computers are physically isolated from the wider internet, and cannot be accessed remotely. They are usually used in high-security environments and critical infrastructure, to protect sensitive data and various operations.

University researchers led by Mordechai Guri, a specialist in the field of covert attack channels, discovered a method that allows threat actors to exfiltrate login credentials, encryption keys, or keyboard strokes.

Listening to secrets

The method, which they named ‘SmartAttack’, does come with quite a few caveats, but in theory, it sees a threat actor finding a way to either access the target computer physically, or have someone (an unsuspecting, or disgruntled employee) access and deploy a piece of malware.

That malware will first act as an infostealer, gathering valuable information for exfiltration. Then, it will use the computer’s speakers to emit ultrasonic sounds, inaudible to the human ear, to the environment.

The sounds would be played in two frequencies - 18.5 kHz, and 19.5 kHz. These two form the binary system, with the former being the zero, and the latter - the one.

The final step is for the watch to pick the sounds up. It, too, needs to have a special app installed on it, so it either needs to be compromised itself, or it needs to be worn by the attacker.

If that didn’t sound difficult enough, the watch needs to be facing the speakers, and should be placed in a range between 6-9 meters from the speakers. The data transmission rate also ranges between 5bps and 50bps, depending on the distance.

There are different ways to prevent SmartAttacks on airgapped systems, from preventing people from wearing smartwatches, to removing speakers from the computers. Sound jammers could also work.

Via BleepingComputer

You might also like

• European government systems hit by air-gap malware attack
• Take a look at our guide to the best authenticator app
• We've rounded up the best password managers