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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 #458) - today's words

(Image credit: New York Times)

Today's NYT Connections words are…

• DINOSAUR
• PEARL
• EGGPLANT
• MINT
• LAVENDER
• AMBER
• NUGGET
• PILE
• TIDBIT
• AMETHYST
• FORTUNE
• MOSQUITO
• BUNDLE
• PALEONTOLOGIST
• GRIMACE
• KERNEL

NYT Connections today (game #458) - hint #1 - group hints

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

• Yellow: Got one? You're rich
• Green: A little knowledge
• Blue: An Adventure 65 Million Years in the Making
• Purple: All one color

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 #458) - hint #2 - group answers

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

• YELLOW: LARGE AMOUNT OF MONEY
• GREEN: BITS OF WISDOM
• BLUE: FEATURED IN “JURASSIC PARK”
• PURPLE: THINGS THAT ARE PURPLE

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

NYT Connections today (game #458) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Connections, game #458, are…

• YELLOW: LARGE AMOUNT OF MONEY BUNDLE, FORTUNE, MINT, PILE
• GREEN: BITS OF WISDOM KERNEL, NUGGET, PEARL, TIDBIT
• BLUE: FEATURED IN “JURASSIC PARK” AMBER, DINOSAUR, MOSQUITO, PALEONTOLOGIST
• PURPLE: THINGS THAT ARE PURPLE AMETHYST, EGGPLANT, GRIMACE, LAVENDER

• My rating: Easy
• My score: 2 mistakes

My winning run in Connections – that's six in a row after multiple failures over the previous few weeks. Maybe the game's got easier; maybe I've got better; maybe it's just luck!

Whatever the case, I didn't find today's Connections too troubling. The blue JURASSIC PARK group stood out immediately, even 30 years on from the original film's debut. Yellow (LARGE AMOUNT OF MONEY) and green (BITS OF WISDOM) were also pretty straightforward, once I'd thought about it. I wouldn't have got purple if not by default, though – three were obvious, but I don't know what GRIMACE refers to, so would never had got that. (Apparently it's a McDonald's thing – but I've never eaten there, so wouldn't know…)

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

Yesterday's NYT Connections answers (Tuesday, 10 September, game #457)

• YELLOW: VARIETIES KINDS, SORTS, STRIPES, TYPES
• GREEN: TRANSFER DELIVER, GIVE, HAND, PASS
• BLUE: RATINGS SYSTEMS A-F, PERCENTAGE, STARS, THUMBS
• PURPLE: THINGS WITH KINGS CHECKERS, DECK OF CARDS, MONARCHY, NHL

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

• Today's NYT Strands theme is… Play-with words

NYT Strands today (game #192) - hint #2 - clue words

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

• TRICE
• STOKE
• CURT
• SLOE
• PULL
• DUPE

NYT Strands today (game #192) - hint #3 - spangram What is a hint for today's spangram?

• Pocket money purchases?

NYT Strands today (game #192) - hint #4 - spangram position What are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?

First: left, 5th row

Last: right, 5th row

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

NYT Strands today (game #192) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Strands, game #192, are…

• PUZZLE
• TRUCK
• SLIME
• DOLL
• PUPPET
• BLOCKS
• TRICYCLE
• SPANGRAM: TOYSTORE

• My rating: Easy
• My score: Perfect

It's a long, long time since I was child, but it's not quite so long ago that my kids were more likely to be found playing with SLIME or a PUZZLE than they were to be fixated on TikTok or Netflix as they generally are these days. Not that I think you'd need first-hand experience to solve this Strands game – because it's a rather simple one.

The theme clue set the tone: the keen-eyed among you will have spotted that it was 'Play-with words', rather than 'Play with words'. That hyphen was all-important, signifying that the answers here would be things you can play with. After that, it was merely a case of looking for the obvious solutions. PUZZLE, with its two Zs, stood out right away, as did TRUCK (I always look for C and K in close proximity as a way into a word). The spangram was fairly obvious too, and is always the case the puzzle got easier as I uncovered each word.

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

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Tuesday 10 September, game #191)

• WALTZ
• QUICKSTEP
• FOXTROT
• SALSA
• JIVE
• RUMBA
• SPANGRAM: BALLROOMDANCE

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.

Microsoft’s Photos app in Windows 11 is getting a “Visual Search with Bing” feature, which will enable you to search for images similar to whatever pictures you’re viewing.

The updated version of the Photos app also brings improved navigation for your photo gallery, quick access to image editing capabilities, and some tweaks to make Photos a better user experience overall. 

Photos is the default app for viewing and organizing pictures in Windows and this update brings some long-awaited features to it. While you’re looking at a picture and feel a tinge of curiosity about something in it, you can use Visual Search with Bing to perform an instant reverse image search, which will prompt Bing to scour the internet for similar images and any information that might be relevant to the image you’re looking up (similar to Google’s reverse image search). 

A similar feature already exists in the Snipping Tool app, which enables you to do this after you take a screenshot. 

(Image credit: Shutterstock/insta_photos) What else is in the pipeline for the Photos app?

As well as the new reverse image search capabilities, smoother gallery navigation will make flicking through pictures easier and you’ll be able to jump straight into image-editing tools from your desktop or File Explorer. 

The enhanced Photos app is currently available via the Windows Insider Program, a special group of Windows users who get early access to Windows features. Regular users hopefully won’t have to wait long, as the majority of features that make it to this preview state are usually rolled out widely later on in future cumulative Windows 11 updates. 

Users of the Photos app in Windows 10 can also now sync their iCloud photos, Apple’s cloud storage for images, a feature that’s been in Windows 11 for some time. This means if you have a Windows PC and an iPhone or iPad, you can easily access your iCloud photos after syncing them in the Photos app on your Windows 10 device. 

I don’t know how many people will find this useful as Google search still currently dominates the search market and offers its own image-searching capabilities, but it’s good to give users more tools and possibilities to interact with their own media. Bing reverse image search has more convincing to do, as most people who have even heard of reverse image search would usually think of Google or TinEye - if at all.  

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Cybersecurity researchers from McAfee have uncovered hundreds of malicious Android apps designed to steal access to people’s cryptocurrency wallets.

The researchers dubbed the campaign SpyAgent, which was made up of 280 apps in total, so far, mimicking legitimate banking apps, government services tools, TV streaming, utilities apps, and more. The criminals would host then these on malicious sites and third-party app stores (never on Google Play Store), and look to trick victims into installing them via phishing, social messaging apps, and similar.

When the victim installed the app, the malware would scour through images saved on the device and use optical character recognition (OCR) to scan the contents of the files. If it finds anything useful (for example, words), it would exfiltrate the contents to a cloud-hosted database, where the attackers would grab it.

Mnemonic keys and seed phrases

Most cryptocurrency wallets have two layers of protection. One is a password, a PIN code, or biometrics, which is stored on the device and allows the user to access and operate the wallet. The other is the so-called “mnemonic key”, or “seed phrase” - a set of 12 or 24 random words, which allow the user to load the contents of the wallet into a new device. The mnemonic key is a backup option of sorts. If a user loses access to their phone, or hardware wallet, they can get a new one, load the seed phrase, and regain access to their wallets and all the currency found inside.

However, if a malicious actor gets their hands on the mnemonic key they, too, can load the wallet and easily empty it. Since many people use “hot wallets” (mobile apps, basically), they also store their mnemonic keys as screenshots on their phones.

The best way to protect against these apps is to only download them from vetted sources, such as the Google Play Store. For more details on malicious apps, check out McAfee’s report here.

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Cybersecurity researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, came up with a very James Bond-esque way to steal sensitive files from air-gapped systems.

The method is dubbed RAMBO (short for Radiation of Air-gapped Memory Bus for Offense) because it abuses the target computer’s RAM memory to steal data, taking advantage of the electromagnetic radiation the memory generates while operating.

An air-gapped system is disconnected from the wider network, and the internet. This is a (relatively) extreme measure reserved only for the most critical of systems, holding the most important data. So, even if a user inadvertently introduces a piece of malware (for example, via a compromised USB device), the malware would still have no way of transmitting the data to the outside world (other than copying the files directly onto the said USB, which is an entirely different beast).

Defending air-gapped systems

However, in this scenario, the malware would tamper with RAM components to allow for a recipient, which needs to be standing relatively close, to exfiltrate sensitive data.

The large caveat is still the fact that a person would need to stand relatively close. Another caveat is that the file transfer done this way is relatively slow. Don’t expect to be stealing any large files or databases, since it takes more than two hours to download 1 megabyte of information (for the fossils among you - author included - that’s slower than dial-up).

The method could still be used to steal keystrokes, passwords, or other data that doesn’t take up too much space.

The best way to defend against these things is simply not to let people near valuable endpoints, the experts conclude.

Via BleepingComputer

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Meta unveiled its first-generation in-house AI inference accelerator designed to power the ranking and recommendation models that are key components of Facebook and Instagram back in 2023.

The Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) chip, which can handle inference but not training, was updated in April, and doubled the compute and memory bandwidth of the first solution.

At the recent Hot Chips symposium last month, Meta gave a presentation on its next-generation MTIA and admitted using GPUs for a recommendation engines is not without challenges. The social media giant noted that peak performance doesn't always translate to effective performance, large deployments can be resource-intensive, and capacity constraints are exacerbated by the growing demand for Generative AI.

Mysterious memory expansion

Taking this into account, Meta's development goals for the next generation of MTIA include improving performance per TCO and per watt compared to the previous generation, efficiently handling models across multiple Meta services, and enhancing developer efficiency to quickly achieve high-volume deployments.

Meta's latest MTIA gains a significant boost in performance with GEN-O-GEN, which increases GEMM TOPs by 3.5x to 177 TFLOPS at BF16, hardware-based tensor quantization for accuracy comparable to FP32, and optimized support for PyTorch Eager Mode, enabling job launch times under 1 microsecond and job replacement in less than 0.5 microseconds. Additionally, TBE optimization enhances embedding indices' download and prefetch times, achieving 2-3x faster run times compared to the previous generation.

The MTIA chip, built on TSMC's 5nm process, operates at 1.35 GHz with a gate count of 2.35 billion and offers 354 TOPS (INT8) and 177 TOPS (FP16) GEMM performance, utilizing 128GB LPDDR5 memory with a bandwidth of 204.8GB/s, all within a 90-watt TDP.

The Processing Elements are built on RISC-V cores, featuring both scalar and vector extensions, and Meta's accelerator module includes dual CPUs. At Hot Chips 2024, ServeTheHome noticed a Memory Expansion linked to the PCIe switch and the CPUs. When asked if this was CXL, Meta rather coyly said, “it is an option to add memory in the chassis, but it is not being deployed currently.”

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Russia wants to boost its censorship infrastructure and plans to spend almost 60 billion rubles (around $650 million) over the next five years to update its internet-blocking system.

This is the strategy outlined in the federal project 'Cybersecurity Infrastructure' as reported by Forbes. The Russian censor body, Roskomnadzor, aims to build a more effective filtering system for blocking VPN services in particular.

The Kremlin has long been battling against VPN usage across the country. That's because a VPN (virtual private network) is security software that encrypts internet connections and spoofs user IP addresses, granting access to otherwise geo-restricted content – exactly what Russian authorities seek to prevent.

The end of VPN usage in Russia?

For the likes of Russia, China, Myanmar, and Iran – countries infamous for imposing strict restrictions on the internet – VPN usage has been a longstanding target. Over time, this has created an endless cat-and-mouse game between authorities and VPN providers to find a way to elude VPN censorship.

Technologies like VPN obfuscation and IP rotation are particularly useful at bypassing these blocks, with companies like Proton VPN continuing to invest in new anti-censorship tools. Now, the Kremlin appears ready to invest big money into reversing this trend. 

"Russian authorities seem to be attempting to implement the Iranian model of internet censorship (even though we previously expected the Chinese model), which involves categorizing IP addresses into white, grey, and blacklists," Stanislav Shakirov, CTO of Russian digital rights group Roskomsvoboda and founder of Privacy Accelerator, told me. "However, they have not yet been able to achieve this with the current infrastructure."

Currently, Russia's technical approach to countering threats (TSPU in Russian) filters all Internet traffic to block or slow down certain resources. Yet, as Shakirov explained, the implementation of DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) has technical limitations. For instance, "it lacks sufficient computational power to block VPN protocols and throttle YouTube simultaneously," said Shakirov.

This is where the new strategy comes in. Between 2025 and 2030, Roskomnadzor plans to both modernize the current TSPU and install new ones. Censors expect this will increase the efficiency of VPN blocking by 96%. 

In response to the censorship Russians are adopting VPN really fast. The government is blocking at least 42 providers, but smaller services and decentralised protocols are still available pic.twitter.com/EabxUDHUPnMay 16, 2023

Since 2019, all Russian telecom operators have been required by law to install TSPU software to allow Roskomnadzor censors to filter out unwanted online resources. The grip on the RuNet (Russian internet) became even stricter following the invasion of Ukraine. More than 100,000 resources were blocked in 2022 alone compared to around 7,000 during the previous year.

As censorship levels went up, VPN usage in Russia has been skyrocketing as well. Authorities then intensified the VPN crackdown that started back in 2017. The most recent move includes forcing Apple to remove at least 29 VPN apps from its local App Store. Plus, a law enforced in March now criminalizes the spread of information about ways to circumvent internet restrictions.

As data from the DPIDetector project suggests, major VPN providers are currently blocked by IP addresses and service domains – something that can be bypassed with an IP rotation feature.

Shakirov explained that, over the past year, authorities have also targeted VPN apps at a protocol level. WireGuard, for instance, is now blocked by mobile operators and, since August, on home internet connections. OpenVPN has also become challenging to use, but the blocking remains inconsistent. Plus, VPN software using more sophisticated anti-censorship technologies like Roskomsvoboda-developed Amnezia VPN continues to work well in Russia.

He said: "It is clear that the current technical resources are insufficient to block even a basic VPN protocol like OpenVPN, let alone more complex technologies. This is why these equipment purchases are a necessary step for Roskomnadzor, although we cannot say if they will be enough."

Is Qualcomm buying Intel? I saw this question plastered over X (cough, Twitter) today, and it got me thinking: what sort of upside-down world are these people living in? Indeed, even some actual news outlets have posted headlines posing the same question, and I’m here to set the record straight.

No, Qualcomm certainly isn’t buying Intel, and won’t be anytime soon. Despite its recent victories with the new Snapdragon X Elite chip, Qualcomm has not approached Intel with any sort of acquisition plan, and Intel itself still appears to be fully committed to its processor business – especially with how impressive its upcoming Lunar Lake chips look.

It’s been a bit of a wild week in terms of computing industry news: AMD revealed that it’s abandoning the flagship gaming GPU and we got our first glimpse of Apple Intelligence at the ‘Glowtime’ event, but it won’t be coming to iPhones or Macs for a little while yet. Among this, Reuters published a report claiming that Qualcomm has “examined acquiring different pieces of Intel”.

Now, that Reuters article contains the phrase ‘sources say’ multiple times in just the first few lines, and Qualcomm itself has refused to comment, so take all of this with a pinch of salt. But to break it down, all we really know is that Intel might be looking to shed some unprofitable parts of its business as it faces some financial turmoil, and Qualcomm might have been interested in buying those business units.

A new fighter enters the ring

There’s no denying that Qualcomm is riding high right now. I personally reported from Computex 2024 in Taipei earlier this year that Qualcomm was the clear winner of the event, with a rousing keynote address that features guest appearances from multiple laptop manufacturer executives, all throwing their collective hats into the Snapdragon ring.

The Snapdragon X Elite chip has proved to be a huge shake-up for the laptop processor market. (Image credit: Future / Philip Berne)

It’s also no secret that Intel has been struggling a bit as of late; the massive upheaval caused by Snapdragon X Elite’s arrival has shaken up the entire laptop market, an area where Intel has historically dominated. AMD continues to offer fierce competition in other arenas, bringing its powerful systems-on-a-chip to handheld PCs like the Asus ROG Ally X, while the competing Intel-equipped MSI Claw A1M was just… whelming.

Investors also appear to be unhappy with Intel’s recent performance. The processor giant’s market capitalization dropped to $80 billion this week, the lowest it has been in over a decade. Meanwhile, Qualcomm’s market cap sits at $176bn at the time of writing, while long-time competitor AMD sits pretty at $224bn and big dog Nvidia’s AI investments have seen massive returns, bringing them up to a staggering 2.62 trillion dollars.

Never bet against Intel

I have to say, though… I’m not worried. Even if Qualcomm does end up buying out some of Intel’s business ventures – perhaps its client PC design business, as suggested by Reuters’ sources – there’s plenty of potential for Team Blue to bounce back.

With a confirmed release date of September 24 for the new Lunar Lake CPUs as well as a slew of laptops that will come bearing those chips (plus a swiftly-rebooted MSI Claw 8 AI+), Intel is due a resurgence. We’ve also got Intel’s second-gen Arc ‘Battlemage’ discrete GPUs on the horizon, which could be a welcome addition to the affordable graphics card market even if the first-gen Arc cards failed to make a huge splash.

The recently-revealed MSI Claw 8 AI+ will utilize an Intel Lunar Lake chip for its newly boosted gaming capabilities. (Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Besides, (without wanting to get political here) Intel isn’t going to go under, because the US Military needs it too much. The chipmaker has numerous long-running contracts and agreements with both the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy, so odds are a government-assisted bailout will occur if those straits begin to look a little too dire. So if you're a Team Blue fanboy, have no fear: even the military-industrial complex has your back.

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Vacuum cleaners have been around for a while now, and you're probably thinking there aren't any major design or performance breakthroughs left to be achieved. Well, you might be wrong, because Shark has unveiled a new range of vacuums that it claims solve one big problem with today's best vacuum cleaners.

The USP of the Shark PowerDetect vacuum range is that they work just as well going backwards as they do going forwards. Most vacuums are designed to do most of their suction work when you're pushing them, and the return stroke is mostly just to get them back into position for another push. 

For a truly hands-off experience, you can opt for a self-empty base (Image credit: Future)

The PowerDetect vacuums boast a patent-pending fin design and 'DirectionDetect technology' to change that, and offer the same cleaning power no matter which way they're being maneuvered. It could... well, probably not quite halve, but definitely make a decent dent in, the time you need to spend vacuuming. 

I had a chance to see one of Shark's PowerDetect models in action at IFA 2024, and was impressed with what I saw – I could hear the suction continuing unabated when the vacuum was being pulled in reverse. It was demoed alongside another Shark cordless vacuum without this new feature, and sounded noticeably different. The proof is in the cleaning, of course, and we're in the process of getting one of these new vacuums tested to see if it's as good as Shark is promising. 

The PowerDetect (left) being demoed alongside a Statos model, without the forward/backward suction feature (Image credit: Future)

The range comprises three models, to suit different households and cleaning jobs. There's the Shark PowerDetect Cordless Vacuum (IP1251UKT), the Shark PowerDetect Powered Lift-Away Upright Vacuum Cleaner (AZ3900UKT), and the Shark PowerDetect Corded Stick Vacuum Cleaner (HZ4000UKT). 

Of those, I'd expect most people will be most interested in the first one. Shark is the brand behind many of today's best cordless vacuums, and a pretty serious rival to Dyson these days. As well as the new forward-and-backwards suction tech, the PowerDetect Cordless combines most of the best features of the current best Shark vacuums.

Best of both worlds

It used to be that if you wanted maximum power, you'd opt for a Shark Stratos model, while for tech smarts you'd buy a Detect Pro. Shark says the PowerDetect does both. On the 'detection' front, this vacuum can sense whether it's on a hard floor or carpet, and how dirty it is, and reduce or increase suction in response. It can also tell when it's close to the edge of a room, where dust can accumulate, and will boost suction just on that side of the cleaning head for an extra hit of cleaning power, without unnecessarily draining the battery. 

You can bend the wand forwards, flamingo-leg-style, to enable you to reach right under furniture, without having to crouch down awkwardly. There's also a promised 70 minutes of battery life – matching the longest runtime you'll find anywhere. And if you want an even more hands-off experience, you can opt for the version with the auto-empty dock.

We don't have pricing or launch date information for the Shark PowerDetect range yet, but we'll bring that to you as soon as we get it.

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The operators of the Quad7 botnet have been busy, adding new features and expanding their attack surface, according to multiple security researchers who have been keeping tabs on the malware’s recent evolution.

Quad7 was first spotted by a researcher alias Gi7w0rm, and experts from Sekoia, when it was only observed targeting TP-Link routers. However, during the following weeks, Quad7 (which was named so for targeting port 7777), expanded to ASUS routers, and now has been observed on Zyxel VPN endpoints, Ruckus wireless routers, and Axentra media servers.

To compromise these endpoints, a custom malware was written, the researchers further explained. For different types of devices, the botnet has different clusters. Each cluster is a variant of *login, it was explained, with Ruckus, for example, having the ‘rlogin’ cluster. Other clusters include xlogin, alogin, axlogin, and zylogin. Some clusters are relatively large, counting “thousands” of assimilated devices. Others are smaller, counting as little as two infections.

Mnemonic keys and seed phrases

The researchers don’t know the reason for such a small number on some of these clusters, and speculate that they still might be in an experimental phase, and that their numbers might mushroom once they’re ready to be deployed.

The goal of the campaign is also a mystery, but its most likely use case is for distributed brute-force attacks on VPNs, Telnet, SSH, and Microsoft 365 accounts.

Besides expanding, the botnet also improved in terms of communications and obfuscation. Apparently, it is a lot better when it comes to evading detection, as well as operational effectiveness.

The best way to defend against this type of botnets is to always keep the firmware and software of the devices up to date. If an endpoint is older and no longer supported by the OEM, replacing it with a newer model is the best way to go.

Via BleepingComputer

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Superhero movies can go one of two ways: these films can either be a faithful adaptations of beloved comic book canon texts or silly action flick flops. Looking at the new trailer for Max’s new comedy series The Franchise, the show will examine not the best superhero movies but the latter, poking fun at some of the badly-rated movies you see in the MCU and DC series. 

Created by Armando Iannucci (The Death of Stalin) and Academy Award winner Sam Mendes (American Beauty), The Franchise is set to arrive on Max, one of the best streaming services, on October 6. 

The story will follow the production crew behind fictional superhero movie Tecto: Eye of the Storm over the course of eight episodes. In the trailer, which you can watch below, we see the film crew fretting and fighting to pull the movie off, but its ability to succeed commercially is jeopardized when its behind-the-scenes drama shrouds the movie itself.  

Making up the members of the film crew is a star-studded cast of familiar faces across cinema and television, with Himesh Patel, Jessica Hynes, and Aya Cash from Prime Video’s hit superhero series The Boys as part of the dysfunctional film crew. The trailer also reveals several guest cameos you can expect across the series including ones from Daniel Bruhl (Captain America: Civil War) and Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me? and Saltburn), who’s expected to appear for one episode.

Opinion: Finally, superhero movies are being called out for what they are

I’ve never been one for movies within the MCU or DC franchise for a number of reasons, the main one being that there are just far too many for me to even wrap my head around. But also because it seems that these cinematic giants like the MCU aren’t focussed on putting out films that are actually good anymore, as they know they’ll attract millions of people at the box office even if the film is a bit crappy. 

Superhero movies, in my opinion, have lost their sense of novelty and the 'event factor' that surrounds cinema premieres. They’ve always been cash-grabbing opportunities, but it’s more obvious now than ever before and that’s what irritates me – as does the tabloid drama that surrounds them. Watching the trailer for The Franchise was like a deja vu moment, and it was reminiscent of movies like The Flash (2023), one which had a lot of potential but only garnered mass attention as a result of its production drama stories and Ezra Miller’s questionable behavior. 

Nonetheless, there’s something intriguing about the trailer for The Franchise that makes me want to lend it some of my time, despite my growing dislike for MCU and DC movies. Now that one of the biggest streaming services is coming forward with a show that will seemingly critique one of the most bankable and popular Hollywood franchises, I’m willing to partake in the discourse.  

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After years of rumors and leaks, the PlayStation 5 Pro has finally been officially revealed and, as expected, will be a huge hardware upgrade. This will lead to up to 45% faster rendering for gameplay, which will be leveraged by a number of supported titles.

According to a recent PlayStation Blog post, many games will take advantage of the PS5 Pro's power with many developers creating free software patches that allow recent releases to use its features. Games that offer enhanced PS5 Pro performance will be clearly labelled with a new 'PS5 Pro Enhanced' label. It seems safe to assume that this label will appear on the store pages or physical box of titles where it is applicable.

A selection of PS5 Pro Enhanced games have already been confirmed, including titles from both Sony and third-party developers. It is likely that even more compatible games will be confirmed soon but, at the time of writing, the list includes the following:

• Alan Wake 2
• Assassin’s Creed: Shadows
• Demon’s Souls
• Dragon’s Dogma 2
• Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
• Gran Turismo 7
• Hogwarts Legacy
• Horizon Forbidden West
• Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
• Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
• The Crew Motorfest
• The First Descendant
• The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered

The PS5 Pro will also offer PS5 Pro Game Boost, which will be compatible with some PS5 titles and more than 8,500 backwards compatible PS4 games. PS5 Pro Game Boost will stabilize or improve the performance of supported games, which could be an absolute gamechanger for more intensive older releases. Enhanced Image Quality will also be available for select PS4 games, improving their overall resolution.

The PS5 Pro is set to officially launch on November 7 and will cost $699.99 / £699.99 / around AU$1052.99. It will offer a 2TB SSD but will not include a disc drive. If you want to use any of your existing physical games, you will need purchase the separate Disc Drive for PS5 attachment, which is available now.

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Sony has confirmed the PS5 Pro release date and we won't have to wait long to get the most performant Sony games console.

The PlayStation 5 Pro release date is Thursday, November 7, 2024 in the US, UK, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea, according to the official PlayStation blog post. 

Pre-orders for the mid-generation console begin on September 26.

Also confirming the PS5 Pro price, Sony has said the new system will cost $699.99 / £699.99 and around AU$1052.99. 

This represents a price gap of $200 / £200 / AU$253.99 between the Pro and the now-base version of the PS5. The pricing also makes this PS5 Pro Sony's most expensive console ever.

As well as confirming the release date, Sony also gave us a first look at the new console. You can see some pictures of it below.

Image 1 of 2

(Image credit: Sony)Image 2 of 2

(Image credit: Sony)

 It looks like the PS5 Pro will continue the white aesthetic of this generation of Sony machines, and also might feature swappable panels like both the base PS5 and PS5 Slim. That said, its overall design definitely leans closer to the PS5 Slim than the base PS5 model. This means that it will also be compatible with the existing Disc Drive for PS5 attachment, which is good news at the console does not come with a disc drive out of the box.

While some will continue to debate the need for such a mid-gen upgrade, there's no doubt that any kind of new console is always one of the most exciting times in gaming and we're absolutely here for it.

For a recap on what Mark Cerny revealed, you can see the full Technical Presentation on YouTube below.

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Sony has officially revealed the PS5 Pro console, confirming its existence, as well as a host of features about the mid-gen refresh such as specs, design, and capabilities.

The console had been heavily rumored for a long time, and after a steady stream of rumors and leaks occurring in the last couple of months, it's almost a relief to finally have something official from the gaming behemoth itself.

The PS5 Pro looks to be substantially more powerful than the base model, and presenter Mark Cerny was incredibly confident about its ability to keep the journey of the PS5 generation moving forward.

We got a clear look at the design of the PS5 Pro during the presentation, and we've included some pictures of it below.

Image 1 of 4

(Image credit: Sony)Image 2 of 4

(Image credit: Sony)Image 3 of 4

(Image credit: Sony)Image 4 of 4

(Image credit: Sony)

Sony has also confirmed the PS5 Pro release date and price as well as the PS5 Pro specs.

In brief, the console will launch on November 7 this year at $699.99 / £699.99 (around AU$1,052.99), with pre-orders starting on September 26.

The headline specs are that the GPU is now significantly upgraded at "67% more Compute Units" and 28% faster memory. That makes for roughly 45% faster rendering on average. The SSD has also seen an upgrade, and there is now to be 2TB of internal storage. For more on the console's specs head over to our dedicated page linked above.

There's going to be plenty of information to come on the new console in the run-up to its launch and we're super excited to see what it can bring to the best PS5 games going forward.

For a full recap of the presentation, you can check out the full presentation below if you're looking for a full recap of the announcement.

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AI-enhanced infrastructure software firm Progress, the company behind MOVEit, has announced its acquisition of ShareFile, an online document-centric collaboration and file-sharing platform designed for specific businesses such as those in the financial and healthcare sectors.

As part of the deal, Progress will benefit from the platform’s AI-powered collaboration workflows, client portal and e-signature technology.

Progress also anticipates adding more than $240 million in annual revenue to its books from ShareFile’s 86,000 customers.

Progress snaps up ShareFile

Progress CEO Yogesh Gupta commented: "ShareFile fits strategically with Progress’ Digital Experience portfolio to enable organisations to deliver more effective client and team collaboration while simplifying the secure sharing of documents and other content.”

The deal, worth around $875 million, is expected to close by November 30, subject to the usual regulatory approvals and closing conditions.

Thomas Krause, CEO of Cloud Software Group, ShareFile’s parent company, added: “For ShareFile customers, we firmly believe they will benefit from Progress’ deep customer commitment, extensive product portfolio, expertise and its expansive user community.”

This won’t be the first time that ShareFile has changed hands, though. Between its inception in 2005 and 2011, the platform amassed 40 million users. It was at that point that Citrix took ownership of the company before it went on to become Cloud Software Group’s property in 2023.

What the new ownership will mean for customers is unclear, but Progress appears to be committed to continuing the brand. Gupta noted: “ShareFile customers will benefit from Progress’ strong customer focus, expansive product portfolio and expertise as well as an unparalleled track record of customer success.”

Elsewhere in the industry, WeTransfer is also undergoing a radical shift. Just weeks after the platform was acquired by Italian tech firm Bending Spoons, it was confirmed that hundreds would be laid off as more than 75% would go.

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Hello and welcome to our live coverage of today's PlayStation 5 Technical Presentation, otherwise known as the likely reveal of the PS5 Pro console.

Wherever you are in the world, we're only a matter of a few hours away from the presentation with PS5 lead architect Mark Cerny, where we'll likely see a shiny new hardware member of the PlayStation family revealed at 8am PT / 11am ET / 4pm BST.

I'm here to provide a rundown of what we can expect, what we're hoping for, all the best rumors and details that have surfaced so far, and more. Let's get into it!

We're only ten minutes out from the presentation starting! We'll be taking you through all the ins and outs of the video itself and what Sony shows, as well as reminding you of a few key rumors that have cropped along our journey to this point.

While we all have an idea as to why we're all gathered here today, Sony did rather let slip as recently as yesterday...

Sony seemed to accidentally jump the gun in regards to the official PS5 Pro announcement. Ahead of today's Mark Cerny-hosted PlayStation 5 Technical Presentation, its as-of-now unlisted video bore the title of 'PS5 Pro' which sort of gives the game away.

We'll give Sony the benefit of the doubt and assume this was a mistake - with that 'PS5 Pro' video title potentially meant for after the presentation has aired. Seems a little too convenient though...

On TechRadar Gaming, we've got our own desires and wishes. I've asked my colleagues to share what they hope to see in the presentation.

"For PS5 Pro, it's not just performance that's key. It's optimization. In a reverse of what typically happens with console generations, we're seeing more recent big-ticket PS5 games perform relatively worse than those of earlier in the console's lifecycle. Titles like Horizon Forbidden West, Rise of the Ronin, and Star Wars Outlaws all struggled to maintain a smooth 60fps in their performance modes at launch.

This is something that I feel needs to be addressed with the PS5 Pro. More reliable performance for those who prefer higher framerates is a must here, along with a beefier internal SSD for speedier load times (and hopefully a bulkier 2TB capacity). Though as we're already seeing 40fps modes in titles like Star Wars Outlaws, aimed at folks with VRR-capable displays, there's potential for this to be the new standard going forward for big-budget AAA games."

Rhys Wood, hardware editor

Another one of us is hoping that it doesn't drop the disc drive in particular...

"Although many leaks have suggested that the PS5 Pro won't come with a disc drive, I'm optimistic that this won't mean the end of physical games quite yet. If rumors are to be believed, the PS5 Pro will have a very similar design to the PS5 Slim - which already has its own Digital Edition without a disc drive. 

Hopefully, this visual similarity means that the PS5 Pro will also be fully compatible with the existing Disc Drive for PS5 attachment, which enables full disc drive functionality in a PS5 Slim Digital Edition. Having to splash out $79.99 / £99.99 on a separate attachment after what is already likely to be quite an expensive PS5 Pro purchase would be a bit of a blow, but it would certainly be worthwhile if, like me, you already have an extensive physical game collection. Fingers crossed..."

Dash Wood, hardware writer

Only 30 second to go! Let's see what Mark Cerny has got for us!

Here's Mark! And he's confirmed that it is the PS5 Pro!

Mark Cerny begins by going over some of the best successes of the now-base PlayStation 5 so far from a technical aspect. He's talking about how the the Tempest Audio enhances our experience along with the Haptics in the DualSense, as well as the core hardware components of the machine.

The US Department of Energy (DoE) has announced a program that will see $23 million of funding funneled into supercomputing research and investment.

The New Frontiers initiative will look to address a number of bottlenecks in current supercomputer performance at US institutions, such as bandwidth and power consumption.

The DoE hopes that new and emerging technologies, and the help of private companies, can improve the performance of current and future supercomputers.

Power equals performance

Supercomputers have been boasting impressive metrics for some time, with the Argonne National Laboratory’s Aurora system passing the one quintillion floating point operations per second (exaFLOP) mark earlier this year. However this peak performance is hampered by restriction in bandwidth between each supercomputing chip, as well as the power required to sustain exaFLOP performance.

Leading the New Frontier program will be HPC Systems Engineer, Christopher Zimmer, of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Speaking on the power consumption of supercomputing, Zimmer said, “With Dennard scaling long dead and the slowing of Moore's law, we're seeing technologies critical to HPC consuming more power that partially offset increases in application performance due to improvements in silicon process nodes and improved packaging techniques.”

There has been no disclosure on which organizations or technologies will see investment from the New Frontier program, emerging technologies set to enter production within the next 5 to 10 years, such as improved packaging and photonics interconnects, are likely to be key in addressing bottlenecks.

In a statement on the announcement of the New Frontier program, Ceren Susut, associate director of the DoE's Office of Science for Advanced Scientific Computing Research said, “There is a growing consensus that urgent action is needed to address the array of bottlenecks in advanced computing, including energy efficiency, advanced memory, interconnects, and programmability to maintain economic leadership and national security.”

Via The Register

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Admit it, the sleeper hit of Apple's big Glowtime event in Cupertino on Monday was not the iPhone 16's Camera Control button, it was AirPods Pro 2's new clinical-grade, over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aid technology – in a trio of new features coming to your AirPods Pro 2. That was the moment I heard audible shock and unbridled applause, anyway. 

I have been accused in my home of having poor hearing. My hearing, as far as I know, is fine, I just have a focus problem. Maybe. In truth, I haven't been tested since I was a child. Now that I've reached a certain milestone age, most healthcare professionals recommend I have my ears tested at least every couple of years, if not more often. In the very near future, I might use my AirPods Pro 2 Bluetooth earbuds to test my hearing and then use them to adjust the sounds I hear based on the results.

Glowtime was the moment when your best earbuds officially transformed from your go-to music and podcast delivery device to an in-ear health system. The future updates, which include hearing protection, hearing loss, and hearing assistance are not surprising coming from Apple. A decade after Apple introduced its original wearable, the Apple Watch has transformed from a smartwatch that could ably deliver news, info, notifications, and support some exercise tracking to a full-blown health tracker (note the sleep apnea update). It's no wonder Apple's AirPods Pro 2 is on the same path.

These clinical-grade hearing tests and OTC hearing aid technology are not, interestingly enough, arriving on the new AirPods 4. The tests require the true seal of the AirPods Pro 2, which is now two years old but still capable of supporting Apple's innovative hearing assistance technology.

Apple airPods Pro 2 as hearing aids (Image credit: Future)

Since the company is still working on gathering FDA approval for the hearing test and OTC hearing aid feature, this update isn't expected immediately. However, when it does gain approval, the hearing test and hearing aid will arrive in over 100 countries and regions (hearing protection will initially only be available in the US and Canada).

Apple's approach to hearing health is pretty much the same as your doctor's: first test and then offer adjustments through in-ear technology. I got a chance to experience the hearing test, or at least a beta of the test, which requires AirPods Pro 2 and an updated iPhone or iPad.

The test will live under AirPods Pro control in settings on an iPhone or iPad. The software walks you through the process of first making sure that you have a proper fit on your AirPods Pro 2. If the earbuds are constantly falling out of your ears, that fit is not snug enough. Each pair of buds ships with a few different tip sizes. The app will play a tone that you hear and then tell you if your fit and seal are good enough to take the hearing test.

This being a demo, my fit test was good. Next, I started the hearing test. It immediately took me back to my childhood where a doctor put big earphones over my ears and told me to raise my hand when I heard a tone. I remember being nervous about what would happen if he played a tone and I failed to raise my hand.

In the app, a series of high-pitched tones played and I tapped the screen for each one I heard. Since this was a canned demo, my results, which appeared in seconds, told me I had moderate hearing loss. It was represented in left and right ear measurements that showed 41dbHL and 44 dbHL, respectively.

Apple airPods pro 2 hearing tests (Image credit: Future)

The app offers to link you to additional reading material about hearing loss or use the results to build a personal hearing profile that lives only on your devices but is shared across those you've signed into with your Apple account. This means that any Apple device you listen to will adjust to tones that make it possible for you to hear properly. You can aslso share the profile with your doctor.

If your hearing loss is progressive, you might take another test a year later and, if the results are different, Apple will update the hearing profile.

The work Apple does in the AirPods to adjust for hearing loss does not impact battery life, by the way, mainly because it's really just adjusting various features it already uses, like ANC, and transparency mode to support your hearing profile settings.

That said, AirPods 2 might have just 5 hours of battery life (up to 30 with the case). A traditional hearing aid could last up to 10 days. Of course, Apple isn't trying to replace prescribed hearing aids. The focus here is on moderate hearing loss, much of which goes untreated (undiagnosed, too expensive, the person doesn't want to go to a doctor to take a test).

I have no idea if I have hearing loss (my family is reading this right now shaking their heads in dismay) but I look forward to taking the test and knowing for sure. Perhaps I will start wearing my AirPods Pro 2s as OTC hearing aids and no one, not even my family, will be the wiser.

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The CrowdStrike update outage reinforced a number of concerns companies in the endpoint computing space have been voicing for some time. We’ve watched IT leaders greenlight major investments in modernizing security including identity and access management, secure accesses service edge (SASE), and network micro segmentation. Those are important investments but caused businesses to take their eyes off the prize: making sure that computing at the end user level, or endpoint device, is always available and secure.

We have grown somewhat numb to the steady stream of data breaches. This latest incident of a security vendor tasked with protecting users, their devices and data, and instead causing the largest cyber event in history, outlines that it’s not just security risks we must prepare for, but also update outages. To mitigate risks of all types at the endpoint, we must consider approaching the problem differently. We need to rethink the way Windows is delivered and managed, embrace SaaS (software-as-a-service), DaaS (desktop-as-a-service) and VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) where applicable, and deliver a safe, endpoint desktop workspace that is much more in tune with how people work today. Equally important is examining the benefits of a purpose-built Linux OS, and its proven ability to deliver the most secure application environment.

Retooling windows

The CrowdStrike outage is compelling proof that Windows at the endpoint has reached a level of unmanageable complexity. Windows endpoints are inherently insecure, requiring a complex and costly security stack to be added to protect users, and their data. But the more agents you add – EDR, XDR, AV, backup, and recovery, DLP etc. – the more layers of security sprawl IT must manage, patch and monitor. This increases the chances of an outage event causing businesses to have to stop work and watch the productivity, reputational and financial losses add up.

Organizations that run their business applications at the Windows endpoint are highly vulnerable to these disruptions since they cannot quickly or easily recover their applications and data when a bug or outage occurs. A solution gaining traction is the movement of Windows to the cloud. Using SaaS or DaaS, both now very well-established technologies, enables organizations to rethink and modernize their Windows deployment strategy, making Windows installed at the endpoint unnecessary. It gives IT a means of centralizing desktops, applications and data in the cloud and greatly reduces the time-to-recovery for a breach or outage that previously impacted the endpoint.

As desktops and some applications move away from being locally installed on the endpoint, a simpler, secure by design endpoint OS can deliver the same workflows while maintain a great user experience, remove layers of added complexity and reduce the administrative burden on IT. Should an event occur, a centrally delivered cloud-based Windows OS, enables IT to rapidly recover critical applications and restore access for end users.

Windows 11 migration is another timely reason for considering moving Windows applications to the cloud. Leaving Windows at the endpoint, with the upgraded Windows 11 platform, will only continue the risk and leave end users once again open to productivity outages.

Alternative to windows

If there was a silver lining to the CrowdStrike outage, it highlighted and reinforced that allowing security vendors and their tools deep access to the Windows operating system can have severe consequences. We find in practice that Linux based OSes tend to fare better in mitigating many of these concerns and can be easier to recover if an event does occur. Many businesses, fortunately, are seeing the benefits in moving to a Linux based endpoint OS. Linux market share on the desktop is growing at an accelerated rate. Market research shows Linux adoption was 3% in July 2023, 4% in March 2024 and 4.45% in July 2024. Chrome OS is a distant 1.41%.

It should be noted that Linux and Windows are compatible. IT administrators use Linux-based endpoint devices to connect to Windows and Windows applications in the cloud. This leaves the Windows environment to be more centrally managed and controlled without the exposure and gaps that can be created when running Windows physically on endpoint systems. This reduces complexity and cost, while also significantly reducing the management burden on IT staff.

Linux natively supports web-based SaaS platforms like Office 365 and Salesforce; DaaS offerings like Microsoft AVD and Windows 365 Cloud PC, and VDI platforms such as Citrix and Omnissa.

Practices in prevention

The CrowdStrike outage is not a ‘who’s to blame?’ event. It could be repeated by any software vendor who has deep access into the OS. It is simply symptomatic of businesses lacking a comprehensive approach to their endpoint business continuity planning and placing too much trust in automatic updates working without critical change control and robust in-environment testing. In the case of this outage, the response and recovery were highly reactive. Each endpoint needed to be restored, which was a costly exercise. A more preventative approach is required and should start with an endpoint OS that is more secure, and more quickly recoverable in the event an incident does occur. Taking the weeks or months needed in today’s Windows model and reducing it to minutes.

As a preventative strategy against the next unintentional outage or ransomware attack, a purpose built and secure by design Linux OS is the answer. It must be fully centrally managed, and capable of supporting business continuity to rapidly get businesses up and running again. Using a Linux-based secure OS, such as IGEL OS, can also be rapidly recoverable with the ability to reset to a known good state on a reboot, mitigating many of the challenges with today’s Windows endpoint model. Read-only and fully encrypted, such Linux OS solutions can recover critical applications first and when paired with a cloud-based Windows computing environment can be the most effective preventative strategy.

Looking ahead, the proliferation of new applications, AI development and the constant need to be digitally competitive, will continue to add even more complexity and security challenges to IT operations. Despite best efforts, issues can and will occur. IT teams will welcome a change to more robust, simplified, and resilient systems that can prevent disruption and support recovery when needed.

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Near the end of the first quarter of 2023, Google and Yahoo! updated their bulk (5,000+ messages a day) email requirements with the intention of keeping inboxes safer and more spam-free.

Among the new requirements were making it easier to unsubscribe with a single mouse click and making sure their sending domains/IPs have valid forward and reverse DNS records.

This posed an issue for many marketers who thought they were already pursuing best practices with their existing one-click unsubscribe feature. These one-clicks are typically, an unsubscribe or an opt out link in the footer, which takes the subscriber to a landing page hosted on that sender's website that, for example, says, “Thank you. You have been unsubscribed, and we will opt you out within seven to 10 business days.”

They may have met the anti-spam and GDPR requirements, but not those of RFC 8058. Google and Yahoo! want insight into who is unsubscribing and that that unsubscribe is essentially being honored and being passed over in real time and through the ISP itself. RFC 8058 requires a specific email header called a List-Unsubscribe-Post header. This header field contains a URL that, when clicked, triggers the unsubscribe process on the sender's server.

So the unsubscribe now is in the header content of the email on delivery. The user has the ability, much like they did years ago when Gmail added the spam complaint button up in the header of messages, to opt out within the inbox, not just from the email itself.

Gmail, and Yahoo! recognize the "List-Unsubscribe-Post" header and present the unsubscribe link to the recipient in a clear and prominent way. Senders still have the option to return a landing page, but it can’t quite follow the familiar process of a preference page.

Though Gmail and Yahoo! are the first large email systems to require such a change, other platforms such as Microsoft (Hotmail and Outlook), MSN and other email platforms are expected to follow suit in 2025.

Marketing opportunity

With the unsubscribe button being so prevalent, recipients are going to be clicking “unsubscribe” much more frequently. So, the overall universe that marketers have to send out their messages will be much smaller. But rather than seeing that a detriment, marketers should look at it as an opportunity.

When it comes to deliverability, email engagement is very important. How your subscribers engage with your email is what matters most. For example, Google does not care if email recipients are going to your brand's website. What Google, Yahoo! and other email platforms care if a brand is sending daily emails, that are ignored, left in the spam folder or are deleted without being opened. Those results will affect delivery and sender reputation.

Marketers should also note if there is a significant difference in how unsubscribe is rendered from spam complaint. If an email recipient manually unsubscribes, it doesn’t affect a sender’s reputation and how the delivery of future messages. However, if the message is flagged as spam, the brand’s reputation (for emails) will be negatively impacted.

If the sender continues to saturate users who aren’t engaging with the emails, over time the sender will see declining open rates, yet the delivery rates look healthy on the surface. However, in these instances, many of the emails are going to spam and junk folders, so the recipients aren’t noticing them, even if they would be of interest.

Additionally, you may see an increase in your deferral percentage, meaning that Gmail and other platforms are sending everything through, effectively throttling your volume. So while you may be sending out 900,000 messages on a specific day, the email platform may parse that volume over three days. That’s a problem for time-sensitive material.

Automation to the rescue

Marketers should be using an email service provider (ESP) that provides detailed metrics that makes it easy to pinpoint any issues and how to rectify them. The ESP should provide details on your delivery rates in comparison to open rates, block rates, spam complaints, SMTP errors, etc.

It’s best to work with an ESP that uses dedicated IPs, making it relatively easy to troubleshoot any deliverability issues. There should be automated alerts for any identified issues. If you’re sending from a shared IP environment, then you are not just looking at your performance, gut also the performance of everyone that is using that set of IPs, which makes it more difficult to pinpoint any issues that are specific to you rather than to issues for the entire group of IP users.

Automation, by itself, isn’t enough to get the job done. A “human in the loop” is necessary as well. Every good sending platform has at least one employee who is managing the inbox performance or the delivery of the campaigns and messages, as well as the server-to-server connection for their clients. These EPS will provide proactive recommendations on how to avoid any current email issues in the future. Note that while some ESPs provide the human management “out of the box,” others require and additional fee for such a service.

A moving target

Marketers need to remember that the rules for email marketing is a constantly shifting target. Learning today’s rules and best practices serves as a knowledge base, but it isn’t the final word. Knowing email spam, opt-out and other rules and best practices is an ongoing process, not a “doing it once and you’re finished” exercise. As you’re reading this article, new rules are already being considered or are already being written.

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