TechRadar News

• The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu has been announced at Nacon Connect 2025
• The first-person, co-op horror game is inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's novella The Mount
• It's set to launch this year for PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC

Ace Team has unveiled its next game The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu, a first-person, co-operative horror game set to release in 2025 for PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC.

The studio behind Clash: Artifacts of Chaos and the Zeno Clash series shared the first look at The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu at Nacon Connect 2025 with a two-minute trailer featuring online co-op gameplay and some horrifying monsters.

Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's novella The Mound, players in a party of up to four players will embark on an expedition to discover a legendary underground city "rumored to hold priceless treasures".

From the trailer, it appears players will be able to use an array of weapons to take down threats while also exploring several different locales.

"Deep within an eerie and oppressive jungle, players must explore and survive monstrous, otherworldly entities that distort their senses and threaten their sanity… and their lives," the game description reads.

"Was that sound just an hallucination? Am I losing my mind and attacking my ally, or is there truly a hostile creature lurking in the shadows? As players venture deeper into the jungle, only teamwork will ensure they make it back alive."

The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu is the second game inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft that was announced at Nacon Connect 2025.

During the showcase, Big Bad Wolf, the developer behind Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong, revealed its next narrative single-player, Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss.

The game is described as a first-person psychological thriller and is scheduled to launch in 2026 for PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC.

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• Cyanide Studio has revealed Styx: Blades of Greed, the third game in its stealth series
• The game was revealed at Nacon Connect 2025 and is set to release in Fall 2025 for PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC
• Blades of Greed sees the return of Styx the goblin assassin on a quest to steal a magical resource

Cyanide Studio has announced Styx: Blades of Greed, the next installment in its stealth adventure series.

The return of Styx, the goblin assassin, comes from Nacon Connect 2025, where Cynacide revealed a Fall 2025 release date for PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC.

Fans were also treated to a cinematic trailer showcasing Styx infiltrating a castle to steal a previous item, betraying his partner in crime, and executing a few guards on his way out.

Blades of Greed is set in a vertically expressive medieval fantasy world and will feature a blend of the series' trademark stealth and action, along with a number of powerful abilities Styx can use to his advantage.

"Staying true to its winning formula, the game offers open-ended environments, a vast range of powers and tools, and multiple approaches to completing objectives," Cyanide described. "The mission? Steal Quartz, a rare and magical resource, while eliminating enemies with skill and precision."

Styx: Blades of Greed is the third game in the ongoing stealth series. The first, Styx: Master of Shadows, was released in 2014, followed by Styx: Shards of Darkness in 2017. You can wishlist the upcoming game here.

During Nacon Connect 2025, Big Bad Wolf, the studio behind Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong, also announced its next narrative game, Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss, which is set to arrive next year.

A second H.P. Lovecraft-inspired game, The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu, was also revealed by Ace Team. It's described as a first-persona, co-operative horror and it's scheduled for a 2025 launch.

Both games will be released for PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC.

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• RoboCop: Rogue City is getting a new standalone expansion this summer called Unfinished Business
• The expansion is coming to PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC
• Unfinished Business will feature new weapons and special missions

Teyon Studios has announced that RoboCop: Rogue City is getting an all-new standalone expansion this summer.

Revealed during Nacon Connect 2025, the Unfinished Business expansion will be released for PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC, and although there's no launch date just yet, there is a brand new teaser trailer filled with explosive, first-person action. You can check it out below.

"To reach the top of Omni Tower, now overrun by elite mercenaries, players will have access to new weapons, brutal finish moves, and special missions," the description reads.

"These missions will take them through intense flashbacks, offering the chance to play as Alex Murphy for the first time in a video game."

RoboCop: Rogue City launched in 2023 and is a first-person shooter featuring an original storyline based on the RoboCop films from the 80s and 90s.

"Rogue City makes a hell of a first impression, and while it doesn’t deliver on its promises all of the time, it’s charming and full of ambition," Jake Tucker wrote in TechRadar Gaming's four-star review.

"At times, Rogue City feels like a five-star game. Flashes of brilliance that go above and beyond what I’d expect. Sadly, the lack of budget means that things feel unpolished and occasionally cheap. Again, it doesn’t hinder my enjoyment, but with a little extra polish, this could have been an all-timer, instead of a faithful adaptation of the franchise."

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• AheadComputing has raised $21.5M to develop a 64-bit RISC-V microprocessor
• Led by ex-Intel engineers, it sees RISC-V disrupting x86 and Arm dominance
• The company plans rapid growth, focusing on licensing, AI, cloud, and mobile

A startup created in 2024 by former Intel engineers is betting on RISC-V becoming the dominant computing architecture of the future.

Portland, Oregon based AheadComputing has raised $21.5 million in seed funding led by Eclipse, with participation from Jim Keller. The veteran chip designer is the mastermind behind AMD's Zen architecture and Tesla's original self-driving chip, and is currently the CEO of Tenstorrent, one of our 10 hottest AI hardware companies to follow in 2025.

AheadComputing believes that "everyone deserves a better computer" and that the shift away from proprietary architectures is inevitable. It plans to develop 64-bit RISC-V microprocessor architecture and "push the boundaries of what's possible in computing".

Taking a leaf from Arm's playbook

CEO Debbie Marr, who previously served as an Intel Fellow and chief architect of the Advanced Architecture Development Group, co-founded the company with senior engineers Jonathan Pearce, Srikanth Srinivasan, and Mark Dechene.

She says “The current computing ecosystem is in disarray; the industry is undergoing a major transformation, fueled by emerging market leaders and disruptive technologies. As the founders of AheadComputing, we see chaos as an opportunity and believe our team possesses unique expertise to help create a new and improved ecosystem for the future.”

While x86 and Arm have dominated computing for decades, AheadComputing believes RISC-V’s open architecture, flexibility, and cost advantages will eventually make it the preferred choice. It could be a sound bet if rumors that Arm is looking to manufacture its own chips come to pass. AheadComputing plans to operate under an IP licensing model, similar to Arm’s approach.

While the industry is investing heavily in data-parallel AI accelerators, Marr argues that per-core performance remains an overlooked yet crucial part of computing. “The opportunity exists today to enhance per-core performance, which we consider the cornerstone of multi-processor system efficiency,” she said.

The company has grown from its four founders to a team of 40 and is expanding rapidly. The seed funding will be used to hire additional engineers and develop core IP. The startup is looking for strategic partners to accelerate its push into cloud computing, AI, and mobile markets.

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As a child, I loved fingerpainting and anxiously awaited the weekly, colorful in-class activity. It wasn't so much the art that compelled me; I loved the distinctive smell and visceral feel of the fingerpaint. The entire process felt like an exploration, and through it, I discovered my creativity.

It was messy, chaotic, and crucial, I think, for my development. The new idea with fingerpainting is to separate a child's fingers from the paint. You splash some of the squishy colors onto a canvas, then seal the goop under plastic. The child then basically pushes the colors around without actually touching them.

It's clean, antiseptic, terrible, and a metaphor for what I think AI might be doing to learning.

My concerns were sparked anew by a recent and well-researched story in USA Today explaining "How AI is affecting the way kids learn to read and write."

It's full of details and anecdotes about how teachers are turning to AI in the classroom to help students, for instance, ideate. One teacher complained that the kids' essay ideas were growing "stale," so she's having them use AI to help them come up with better ones.

Antiseptic AI learning

Forget brainstorming in the classroom, kicking around ideas big and small that might spark others. AI offers a valuable shortcut. It also cuts out the messiness of bad ideas. AI's job is not to come up with answers randomly. The Large Language Models (LLMs) in ChatGPT, for instance, have been trained on millions, if not billions, of parameters to have a better understanding of a broad range of topics.

I often describe this as AI's knowing better than us "what comes next." That works in reading, writing, coding, and art. It's not always a clean process, though.

Early AIs (ones from 12 months ago) with somewhat limited training didn't always understand that humans have five fingers on each hand, so we got six fingers and sometimes extra phantom limbs. Interestingly, we seem quite comfortable with AI's learning through their own messy mistakes.

Literacy, the report notes, is dropping among grade school children largely because they're doing less reading of long-form content – they mostly read stuff on small screens if they're not ingesting endless video scrolls – and the pandemic set almost all learning back by a few years.

(Image credit: Besjunior via Shutterstock )

Educators struggle with this and AI has arrived as a handy tool for navigating around many of these issues.

Students are also engaging in more back-and-forth with AI for research. While boomers and Gen X might have used encyclopedias, Millennials and Gen Z have largely grown up using the web as a core research tool. They learned how to search on Google and, through trial and error, find the details they needed.

AI, though, is a conversation where the response is presented as fact, and the student assumes it is so. There is no error or assumption of error, and mistakes could easily be hidden in AI hallucinations.

Again, the engagement with a teacher and even other students is lost. Ideas no longer float in the ether. Questions are not shared among a group.

Let's make mistakes

Good teachers used to say, "There's no such thing as a dumb question." Asking "dumb" questions was how we learned. Students using AI are shielded from that moment. They just type in the prompt and the AI responds.

We learn through trial and error, and studies have shown that young minds, in particular, need to learn from the messiness of mistakes.

In a 2016 study, Learning from Errors, researchers wrote, "Although error avoidance during learning appears to be the rule in American classrooms, laboratory studies suggest that it may be a counterproductive strategy, at least for neurologically typical students. Experimental investigations indicate that errorful learning followed by corrective feedback is beneficial to learning."

A world in which students are potentially paired with their own AI chatbot and self-navigate without any experimentation or flat-out mistakes means that the conversation about why the work was wrong will never happen.

There is an exploration lost for the student who will not learn about the right way and understand how that error might lead to other reasoning dead ends and for the teacher who will fail to learn about the best way to engage and teach that student.

The sad thing is that I'm not sure we can convince students and their parents that this lack of messiness, error-making, and feedback loops will harm the students.

Outside the classroom, students teach themselves how to use ChatGPT to produce essays and get the best results and grades. At least educators are hip to these efforts. In the USA Today story, one educator who discovered them began running all the essays through AI checkers. Those are, of course, not fool proof.

The sad thing is that I'm not sure we can convince students and their parents that this lack of messiness, error-making, and feedback loops will harm the students. They will not learn as much, and I'm pretty sure their intellectual curiosity and creativity will be stunted.

How do we learn fresh things when our teacher is an AI, one that's been trained on all that was and is still not that good at telling us what comes next?

Look, I am not anti-AI, but AI in the hands of children and young students is like the sealed fingerpainting kit: antiseptic, wrong, and the opposite of the beautiful mess that is learning.

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Despite myriad leaks and rumors surrounding the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge, the phone remains a relative mystery in official terms. We know its name, we know it’s got two cameras, and we know it’s improbably slim, but in the months since its announcement at Galaxy Unpacked in January, Samsung has refrained from sharing, well, anything about its presumed iPhone 17 Air competitor.

For the most part, that didn’t change at MWC 2025, though in an exclusive interview with TechRadar during the Barcelona-based showcase, Samsung’s UK Marketing Director, Annika Bizon, did reveal that the Edge’s form factor (it’s rumored to measure just 5.84mm thick) won’t come at the expense of durability.

“I can’t say too much, but what I will say is that [the Edge] is about beautiful form factor. And there are two points I want to make,” Bizon explained. “One is that it’s absolutely stunning. And if you think about the technology that’s going into that size of space, it’s pretty impressive.

“The second thing I’ll say concerns durability. With anything slim, durability [has to come as part of the package]. Those are the two features [of the Edge] that are exciting [for us]. Well, I know durability isn't exciting – but it’s really important. So watch this space, because there are some exciting things to come regarding this phone.”

@techradar

♬ Strange Times, Dark Days - Isla June

OK, nothing groundbreaking, but it does sound like the Edge will bring something new to the table regarding durability, which matches up with a very specific design rumor we’ve heard already.

According to reports, the Galaxy S25 Edge could break away from the rest of the Galaxy S25 lineup by using a ceramic rear panel instead of Gorilla Glass Victus 2. Ceramic is tougher than glass, so a fully ceramic or ceramic-infused glass panel would ensure that the Galaxy S25 Edge is more resistant to drops and knocks – crucial for a phone of its rumored thickness.

This would also explain why Samsung has maintained a ‘look don’t touch’ approach with the Edge at both Galaxy Unpacked and MWC 2025, where the phone was on display behind a barrier. Perhaps, if fans were permitted to go hands-on with the device, they’d be able to feel the difference in rear panel material, which is presumably something Samsung wants to keep under wraps for a dedicated reveal event.

Other rumored durability specs for the Edge include an IP68  water and dust resistance rating and aluminum sides, which would match the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25 Plus. The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, meanwhile, uses Gorilla Glass Armor 2 and a titanium body.

Why Edge? Why now?

(Image credit: Future/Viktoria Shilets)

As for why Samsung is bringing the Galaxy S25 Edge to market this year – and in doing so shaking up its tried-and-tested product release strategy – Bizon puts it down to an in-house commitment to innovation and consumer interest in something new.

“The thing with slim phones,” she explains, “is people want to know that they’re still getting very good technology. Innovation is in our DNA. It’s about the right timing, and when we think a product is ready to take to market, coupled with the fact that people do want form factor changes.

“We’ve seen that with foldables. We’re a brand for everyone. And being an open brand means you have to have technology that’s for everyone. Some people do not want to change from a flat phone; some people love the Flip; some people love the Fold. There’s something for everyone, and I think that’s where Samsung is genuinely leading the way.”

Bizon concluded: “The Edge is exciting because it’s a new form factor that’s quite sexy. It’s quite different. And that’s fun. It’s a fun thing to be able to market, too. It’s absolutely stunning, I’m super excited about it.”

And as for the even-more-secretive Samsung Galaxy tri-fold: “I really can’t tell you anything,” Bizon confesses, “not unless you want someone to come around and grab me by the neck.” Suffice it to say, we stopped the interview there.

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Today’s digital media landscape is shifting. In the early days of the internet, it was the wild west, with everybody heading out to establish their own piece of the web with personalized websites. Those fell to the wayside when social media took over, giving everybody generic profiles but bolstering connectivity and reach. However, as social media becomes less reliable for sharing your thoughts, building your brand, or growing your online business, having your own website is more important than ever. That’s where WordPress.com comes in.

Why host your site on WordPress.com?

(Image credit: WordPress.com)

WordPress.com is a platform specifically designed to host websites built on WordPress, an open-source content management system that has revolutionized how personal and professional websites are built. Supported by thousands of independent contributors and further bolstered by plugins and third-party themes, WordPress is easily configurable to work for a multitude of website purposes. WordPress.com’s fast and secure managed hosting is designed to give your site the best performance and reliability.

Website hosting can be a surprisingly individualized need. Whether you’re looking to highlight a personal portfolio and get more eyes on your work or launching an online store to sell your crafted wares, WordPress.com easily handles whatever kind of website you throw at it.

(Image credit: WordPress.com)

So you build a site, you’re gaining traffic, and – uh oh! You’ve gone viral. There’s a significant uptick in new visitors to your site. Other website hosts can crumble under the weight of a successful, high-traffic website. They may jack up your hosting rates or temporarily disable your site to compensate for the higher bandwidth demand. Rest easy knowing your site is backed by WordPress.com’s 99.999% uptime, plus unlimited bandwidth and traffic. No surprise fees—just smooth sailing, no matter how big you grow.

Is WordPress.com secure enough for my website?

(Image credit: WordPress.com)

Building a website is easy, but maintaining one can seem incredibly daunting. What if there is a DDoS attack? Who do you call if there is malware, or if you accidentally delete your entire site? Good news: WordPress.com has an expert support team who are ready to help when you need it most. There’s no need to stress about middle-of-the-night backups or WAF protection when WordPress.com’s Happiness Engineers are on standby 24/7 to protect your website and keep things running smoothly.

WordPress.com's hosting plans are unlimited, unmetered, and include everything you need – a 28+ location custom-built CDN, burst scaling, free SSL, edge caching, scalable PHP workers, and automated data center failover – to stay reliably online and lightning fast. Say goodbye to fickle social media platforms that can throttle your visibility or go offline unexpectedly, and stay connected by hosting your website on WordPress.com.

• Dyson has released a consumer version of its Supersonic r Professional
• It's the brand's smallest, lightest, most powerful hair dryer
• Available now in US for $569.99, due 2 March in UK at £449.99

Previously a professional-only hair dryer, the Dyson Supersonic r has now been added to the core haircare range, and made available to us mere (non-hairdresser) mortals for the first time. This is Dyson's smallest, lightest and most powerful dryer – it's 20% smaller and 30% lighter than the original Supersonic – so if you have deep pockets and want to create salon-worthy styles from the comfort of your own home, this is your chance.

The Supersonic r first went on sale back in February 2024, and initially turned heads because it looked more like a pipe than any hair dryer we'd ever seen. After everyone had stopped making jokes about its appearance, the dryer began to win people over with its performance. That weird design is far more comfortable and easier to wield than a traditional dryer, and allows for more precise styling too.

The only thing stopping it from troubling our best hair dryer list was the fact it was professional-only. Until now. The Dyson Supersonic r that's about to go on sale is identical to the original pro version, save for a shorter cable (home-length, rather than salon-length).

(Image credit: Dyson)

The more streamlined and maneuverable shape and lower weight are made possible by some redesigned mechanics. Under the hood you'll find a more streamlined air heater than the one found in the regular Supersonics, and a Dyson Hyperdymium motor too (possibly the same / a version of the one that powers today's best Dyson vacuums).

The r will initially be available in Ceramic Pink, and a Jasper Plum version is in the works too. These are two of the new colorways being filtered into the Dyson's haircare lineup, and, in my option, a big upgrade on its previous tropical tones.

(Image credit: Dyson)

The r also comes with some intriguing looking new magnetic attachments to play with. What is this PowerfulAir tool? How the heck does the SmoothNozzle work? All things I look forward to discovering when I get my hands on one. I am pleased to see there's an compatible version of the fan-favorite FlyAway attachment.

All attachments have RFID sensors, which means the dryer knows which one is attached and will remember your last-used temperature and airflow settings with each.

Mysterious new compatible attachments include (L-R) PowerfulAir, Smooth Nozzle and GentleDryer (Image credit: Dyson) When and where can I get my hands on it?

The Supersonic r has just gone on sale in Ceramic Pink in the US, at a list price of $569.99.

In the UK, the Supersonic r will come with a list price of £449.99 (£50 more than the Nural). The Ceramic Pink version will go on sale from 2 April at Dyson Demo stores, Dyson.co.uk and select retailers (you can sign up for a UK release notification).

It looks like it will also launch in Australia – you can sign up for AU release notification – but I haven't had a date or price confirmed yet. The Nural costs AU$749, so it'll be perhaps a little more than that.

The Dyson Supersonic r Professional will remain on sale on Dyson’s 'For Business' website page as well as via select trade distributors. It looks like the two versions are identical, except the 'Professional' version has a longer cable, making it more suited to use in a salon. The Pro version also has different colorways.

(Image credit: Dyson) Nural vs r – which dryer will reign supreme?

The brand's current range-topper is the Supersonic Nural. I was blown away by that model when I tested it for my Dyson Supersonic Nural review, and it remains the best premium hair dryer we've tested at TechRadar. I'll do a proper comparison once I've had a chance to try the r out, but at a glance it looks like the r is smaller and lighter, but that the Nural might have more special features.

The Nural has a Scalp Protect setting that seems to be absent on the r (Image credit: Future)

The Nural comes with a Scalp Protect setting, where the dryer monitors how far away from your head it is, and gets hotter or cooler to maintain what feels like a constant temperature on your scalp. There's no mention of that with the r. Ditto the automatic drop to lower power when you put the Nural down.

Many of the attachments look different, but I think most are different versions of the same idea. It's notable that the r doesn't come with the upgraded, two-part diffuser, but rather a more traditional-looking version. Both dryers can recognize which attachment is on, and switch to your last-used settings with that attachment. Based on US and UK pricing, the Nural is slightly cheaper, too.

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• Metacritic's annual publisher rankings crowns Sega as the highest-rated of 2024
• Sega takes first place thanks to the successful launch of Metaphor: ReFantazio and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
• The publisher beat out Capcom and Sony

Sega was the highest-rated publisher of 2024, according to Metacritic's annual rankings.

Another year of video game releases has gone by, and with that Metacritic's 15th annual publisher rankings have officially been released, revealing Sega as the winner with a score of 325.5 points.

Sega is the first publisher to achieve Metacritic's first-place ranking three times, the first in 2016 followed by 2021, and it's all thanks to the several critically acclaimed role-playing game (RPG) releases we saw in 2024.

Those include the award-winning Metaphor: ReFantazio from Persona developer Atlas, Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance, which also got a Nintendo Switch launch, and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth.

Even though Demon Slayer - Kimetsu no Yaiba- Sweep the Board didn't kick off like Sega's other titles, the publisher still beat out the likes of Sony, which had a great year with the release of Game of the Year winner Astro Bot and numerous PC ports.

For Metacritic's 2023 rankings, Capcom was crowned the highest-rated publisher, however, this year it falls behind Sega in second place by only a few points despite the successful launch of Dragon's Dogma 2.

With Monster Hunter Wilds making waves in its first week of release, it just surpassed 8 million units sold, Capcom has the potential to see a similar ranking or higher next year.

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You'd be forgiven for missing the news. After all, Apple's had quite the week, and nobody's judging anyone for not being able to see past the new M3 chip-enhanced iPad Air, an M4 chip-enhanced MacBook Air, an M4 Max-enhanced Mac Studio (with an even better M3 Ultra option – is this confusing to anyone else?) plus some new budget-friendly iPads.

But AirPods owners should know that while all this was taking up space in your news boxes and Discovery feeds, Apple quietly published new and fairly extensive instructions for cleaning your AirPods, and even endorsed a third-party Belkin AirPods cleaning kit (which Apple is now selling).

Tim Cook's behemoth has decided to lead with instructions for cleaning the AirPods 3 and AirPods 4 (both variants), with detailed images circling which meshes you should clean.

If you're not buying the recommended Belkin kit (which costs $12.95, so around £10 or AU$20) Apple's list of items you'll need to buy is really quite specific too, including "Micellar water that includes PEG-6 Caprylic/Capric Glycerides, such as from Bioderma or Neutrogena; distilled water; a soft-bristled children's toothbrush; two small cups and a paper towel".

More than one way to clean an AirPod?

Clean tech is an area close to my heart, reader – not least because TechRadar's Senior Writer of AI, John-Anthony Disotto used to work at the Apple Genius bar, and his tale of customer earwax being flicked into his beard as he tried to clean their AirPods is the stuff of legend.

I too have penned a missive on how to clean your AirPods (or any wireless earbuds), and I'm happy to report that my methods are largely similar to Apple's, although Apple's use of highly-specific micellar water is new to me – and while Apple doesn't mention it, I have found on occasion that a quick blast from the nozzle of a compressed air can often dislodges dust and wax from those hard-to-reach metal contact points in the case.

And I'm not alone! TechRadar's Editor at Large, Lance Ulanoff has also extolled the virtues of a very quick but controlled blast of compressed air (cans are available for just a few dollars) on your tech.

Of course, Apple's AirPods are made by – you guessed it – Apple, and following manufacturer guidelines is also something I always recommend. And now, the company has nailed down a step-by-step procedure depending on which models you own, along with a recommended cleaning kit. It feels like a no-brainer if you're thinking your AirPods are a little gunky.

Oh, and one final recommendation: don't eat dinner before asking John-Anthony Disotto (or anyone who cleans Apple tech professionally, for that matter) to tell you about the worst experience he ever had trying to clean AirPods at the Apple Genius bar. How can you get actual cooked food stuck in AirPods though? How…

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• Apple’s rumored foldable iPhone has been detailed in a new report
• It contains some surprises relating to the price and Touch ID
• It’s still probably a few years away from launching

The likes of Samsung and Google have produced some of the best foldable phones over the past few years, but Apple has remained conspicuously absent. That might not be the case for long, though, as a new report has laid out the company’s folding iPhone plans in enticing detail. Look closely and you’ll find a few surprises.

The testimony comes from Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has a strong track record for Apple leaks. In the report, Kuo outlined his expectations of the device’s starting price, its features, and how well it might sell. Here’s the lowdown.

1. An eye-watering price

Folding phones command a premium price tag, and it looks like Apple’s attempt will be no different. Kuo estimates that the foldable iPhone will sell for “above $2,000,” with the price potentially going as high as $2,500 (around £2,000 / AU$4,000).

Considering the most expensive current-gen iPhone – the iPhone 16 Pro Max – starts at $1,199 / £1,199 / AU$2,149, that’s a massive increase on the price of a flagship iPhone. It’s also a decent chunk above what you’ll pay for the top-end foldables from Samsung and Google, both of which charge around $1,800 for their devices.

Yet that price might not matter. Given the iPhone’s top-tier reputation and Apple’s loyal fanbase, Kuo thinks the device will “generate strong replacement demand … provided quality meets expectations.”

Mass production will apparently begin in the fourth quarter of 2026 and Apple is expected to sell 3.5 million units, Kuo says. A second-generation model is tipped to enter mass production in the second half of 2027 and could sell 20 million units.

2. AI first

(Image credit: Apple)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is all the rage at the moment, and Apple is getting in on the act with its own (albeit flawed) Apple Intelligence system. This will be front and center in the foldable iPhone, Kuo says, with the device being positioned as a “true AI-driven phone.”

That means it’ll come with “Multimodal functionality and cross-app integration,” Kuo says. “Larger screens [will] enhance the AI experience,” he believes, “enabling scenarios like chatting with a chatbot about travel plans while viewing a full map app simultaneously.”

In other words, expect a truly next-gen iPhone that's been sorely needed for several years now.

3. A book-style design

(Image credit: Future / Alex Walker-Todd)

The foldable iPhone will apparently adopt a “book-style design,” according to Kuo, with a vertical fold rather than one that crosses the device horizontally. That means it's likely to be a Galaxy Fold 7 rival (or perhaps a Galaxy Z Fold 8 alternative by that stage).

Crucially, it will be crease-free, and the hinge will reportedly “combine stainless steel and titanium alloy, while the casing opts for titanium alloy,” Kuo reports.

As for the size, the device will apparently come with a 7.8-inch inner display and a 5.5-inch outer screen. It will be 9mm to 9.5mm thick when folded, the report claims, and 4.5mm to 4.8mm thick when unfolded.

That would make the iPhone Fold (or whatever it's ultimately called) marginally thicker than the Oppo Find N5, which is 8.93mm thick when folded. But the camera bump will likely add a few millimeters to the total thickness anyway.

4. Touch ID returns

When the iPhone 16e replaced the iPhone SE, Apple phased out Touch ID in all of its iPhones. Or did it? As per Kuo, Touch ID will return in the foldable iPhone. It will seemingly find its way into a side button, which sounds reminiscent of the Touch ID button in the iPad Air.

Why might this old tech make a comeback when Face ID is more secure? Kuo states that “Face ID may be absent due to thickness and internal space constraints.”

5. A dual-camera setup

(Image credit: Future)

Fancy yourself as a photographer? The foldable iPhone might not be your first choice in that case, as Kuo thinks it’ll come with a dual-lens camera array.

This will presumably be a little less advanced than the triple-lens setup you get with the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max. The dual-lens camera mirrors an earlier report on Apple’s foldable iPhone from leaker

There will also likely be a front-facing camera, and Kuo says you can expect “one front-facing camera [to be] available in both folded and unfolded states.”

6. An ultra-thin battery

Kuo quickly touched on the foldable iPhone’s battery life, which he argues will feature “the same high-density battery cells as the ultra-thin iPhone 17.” That’s likely a reference to the iPhone 17 Air (or whatever it ends up being called), a rumored super-slim iPhone that’s slated to launch in September of this year.

We don’t know what sort of battery life to expect from the foldable iPhone, though. But given Apple’s past marketing habits, it could well still be touted as “all-day battery life" despite its slim design.

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The return of pop icon Lady Gaga is imminent, and Spotify is hosting an exciting event in collaboration with the artist herself – and they’re getting the fans involved. To mark the release of Gaga’s new album Mayhem, which comes out on March 7, Spotify is hosting a live press conference with her, marking a first-of-its-kind event for the streaming platform. There’s just one catch: Gaga won’t be taking questions from journalists – just the fans.

You heard me right. For once Spotify is thinking beyond its general scope of subscribers and is paying attention to specific fan bases, and you can bet that I’ll be tuning into its fan-run press conference titled the 'Little Monsters Press Conference'. When Gaga took to Spotify’s social media accounts on February 21 to announce the event (see below), she said: “I want you to ask me every burning desire of a question [you] have,” so by the sounds of it, nothing is off limits at this Spotify-exclusive press conference.

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For most Spotify subscribers, this news won’t be as exciting as its long-awaited Spotify HiFi tier – but in spite of that absence, Gaga’s press conference with the music streaming service marks one of the first major fan-centric events at Spotify, which is a pretty exciting step towards fan inclusion if you ask me. Spotify has nailed it with its social features and personal interactional functions, but has yet to really make space for fan bases to thrive. Until now.

The burning questions are: 'How do I stream Lady Gaga’s Spotify press conference?' and 'What can I expect from this unprecedented event from Spotify?'. Luckily, you’ve found the right person to tell you everything you need to know.

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How can I watch the Spotify Presents: Little Monsters Press Conference?

The press conference will be taking place today (March 6) and will be live streamed on Spotify's TikTok and Instagram pages, as well as the Spotify YouTube channel. The event starts at 6pm ET / 3pm PT, meaning 11pm for UK fans - a late start, but one that's worth staying up to catch.

If you find yourself in a location where Spotify's channels may be blocked or unavailable, it's worth seeking out your options so that you don't miss out on the fan event, or you want to stream it securely. We recommend using NordVPN.

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What can I expect from Spotify Presents: Little Monsters Press Conference?

Well, since it's a first-of-its-kind event for Spotify, it's difficult to guess exactly what will be discussed and what will occur during the livestream. However, given Gaga's encouragement to fans in her social media announcement, the event could take an unexpected direction and invite queries outside of the expected music and streaming-related questions.

Since it's been nearly five years since Gaga's last solo studio album Chromatica (2020) – sorry, I'm not counting her passion project Harlequin (2024) – I'd imagine that a lot of the questions will get to the nitty gritty of the next project's inspiration and roots, and possibly what comes next once it drops on March 7.

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Apple might have only unveiled the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air with M4 yesterday, March 5, 2025, but I’ve gotten an early preview, putting my eyes and hands on the latest laptop from the Cupertino-based tech giant.

While the leading feature is in the name – the M4 chipset – two other things bubbled up in my mind: the new Sky Blue shade, which has a unique quality to it, and that more affordable price.

I didn’t get to do a formal hands-on, per se, but here are my thoughts after seeing the new 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air in all four colors, along with some photos and videos of them in action.

Sky Blue really looks stunning

(Image credit: Future/Jacob Krol)

I wasn’t expecting an all-new color for the MacBook Air, but I am thrilled to see Apple expanding the lineup. I, of course, just wish a few more shades were ushered in, potentially some more vibrant colors like the pink and orange of the iMac. One can dream.

In person, the Sky Blue shade is really delightful and almost an optical illusion. Depending on how the light hits it, it can sometimes look silver. It’s not a vibrant blue or a darker one like Midnight, but rather, it sticks out as a light, pastel-y shade of turquoise.

Further, as much as I’d love a punchy Ultramarine MacBook Air like the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus, that’s not the case here.

While Apple is ushering Sky Blue to the MacBook Air color options, it’s replacing Space Gray. So, if you don't want the new color, your options are Starlight, Silver, or Midnight – you can see them in the gallery below.

Apple added its special anodization process to Midnight with the M2 model to help reduce and remove fingerprints – mileage varied at times here. that's unchanged with the M4, but there's no such finish on the Sky Blue MacBook Air.

Image 1 of 6

The 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air with M4 in Midnight, Starlight, Silver, and Sky Blue. (Image credit: Future/Jacob Krol)Image 2 of 6

Apple's 13-inch MacBook Air in M4 in Sky Blue. (Image credit: Future/Jacob Krol)Image 3 of 6

Apple's 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air with M4 in Sky Blue. (Image credit: Future/Jacob Krol)Image 4 of 6

An up-close look at the MagSafe and USB-C/Thunderbolt ports on the 13-inch MacBook Air M4 in Sky Blue. (Image credit: Future/Jacob Krol)Image 5 of 6

Lid of 15-inch and 13-inch MacBook Air M4 in Sky Blue (Image credit: Future/Jacob Krol)Image 6 of 6

The 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air M4 in Sky Blue on a table. (Image credit: Future/Jacob Krol)

Even so, Sky Blue does a pretty good job of hiding fingerprints and smudges on the outer shell. It’s a natural property of this shade and the materials here.

If I were to purchase a MacBook Air right now, I would choose Sky Blue for either size. It’s a great shade – not too poppy or vibrant, just the right amount of color to add flair. Please don’t snap a plastic case on the outside of it; stickers are fine, though.

I do hope that with whatever comes next – maybe it’s M5 MacBook Air? – Apple rolls out some additional shades.

A return to form for price

(Image credit: Future/Jacob Krol)

In the United States, the 13-inch MacBook Air starts at $999 for the M4 chip, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. That same model is £999 in the UK or $1,699 in Australia, which is actually a price cut, and Apple’s really stretching the value here. That’s even better than when the MacBook Air M1 rolled out.

Although I didn’t spend much time playing around with macOS on these MacBook Airs, I have zero doubts about the M4 chip's performance. I saw demos of it playing a game and performing some masking in Pixelmator Pro without skipping a beat or dropping frames.

When I reviewed the iMac as well as TechRadar’s Matthew Hanson with the Mac mini and Lance Ulanoff with the 14-inch MacBook Pro last October – all featuring variations of the M4 – the speeds and performance were fast.

I have a feeling that for the price, the MacBook Air will be the obvious choice for most folks – even for the 15-inch, starting at $1,199 / £1,199 / AU$2,099, which also got a price cut.

@techradar

♬ Pretty (Sped Up) - MEYY

Alongside the new color and the M4 chip, Apple also made another change to the MacBook Air: upgrading the FaceTime camera to a 12-megapixel lens with support from CenterStage.

I quickly tested this. As I moved the MacBook Air up or down, the camera frame moved swiftly to keep me in the video (it does this via a crop of a much wider 12MP video frame). It’s nice to have, and considering Center Stage also arrives on the MacBook Pro with the M4, it’s good form to trickle it down to the MacBook Air.

I wish Apple had at least offered the nano-texture option here, as it works great on the MacBook Pro. While I’m at it, upping the base storage to 512GB would also be nice. As it stands, I think this is one of the best MacBook Airs, yet from the price cut to the M4 chip to the shiny shade of blue.

Be sure to check out our first look video with the MacBook Air below, and stay tuned for a review once we get our hands on it, as there is plenty to test here.

If you're already sold, the M4 MacBook Air is up for preorder now and will formally launch on March 12, 2025.

• 13-inch MacBook Air with M4, starting at $999 / £999 / AU$1,699 from Apple or Amazon
• 15-inch MacBook Air with M4, starting at $1,199 / £1,199 / AU$2,099 from Apple or Amazon

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♬ original sound - TechRadar You might also like

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• 12 Chinese hackers have been charged by the US Department of Justice
• Two of these were allegedly involved in the 2024 US Treasury hack
• The individuals have not been apprehended

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has announced it is bringing charges against 12 Chinese hackers who are accused of targeting over 100 American companies, including the US Treasury.

The individuals are all accused of playing key roles in Chinese hacking offensives. Officials confirmed some of those charged were contract hackers and Chinese law enforcement officials who targeted firms in the US and worldwide in order to suppress “free speech and religious freedoms”.

Of those twelve, two of the individuals are allegedly linked to the state-sponsored hacking group Silk Typhoon - identified by Microsoft as the group responsible for the US Treasury hack in late 2024.

Hackers-for-hire

The attackers targeted law firms, defense contractors, government agencies, universities, tech companies, and healthcare services, prosecutors confirmed - gaining access to victims' networks by exploiting unpatched vulnerabilities in enterprise software.

The DoJ also announced it was bringing charges against eight individuals who were part of an organization, Anxum Information Technology Co.Ltd. - nicknamed “i-Soon”.

This organization, “conducted computer intrusions at the direction of the PRC’s [Ministry of Public Security] MPS and Ministry of State Security (MSS)” - for which the MPS and MSS “paid handsomely", allegedly rewarding between approximately $10,000 and $75,000 for each email inbox the group successfully exploited.

“The FBI is committed to protecting Americans from foreign cyber-attacks,” said Assistant Director Bryan Vorndran of the FBI’s Cyber Division.

“Today’s announcements reveal that the Chinese Ministry of Public Security has been paying hackers-for-hire to inflict digital harm on Americans who criticize the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

None of the individuals have been detained, and the US Government has offered up to $10 million for information leading to the arrests and convictions of the malicious cybercriminals.

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• Nisos uncovers network of fake identities, all looking for software development work
• At least two personas are working in small businesses
• The goal is to earn money for North Korea's weapons program

North Korean cybercriminals are faking their identities in order to get jobs in software development companies in Asia and the West, new research has claimed.

A report from researchers Nisos claims to have identified at least four fake personas working as software developers, blockchain developers, IT pros, and similar, with the goal, “to earn cash to fund Pyongyang’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons development programs."

To create these fake identities, the threat actors are using GitHub and reusing matured GitHub accounts and portfolio content from older personas. This helps them backstop their new identities, the researchers said. It also helped two individuals get jobs at companies with fewer than 50 employees.

Lazarus?

While these identities have accounts on employment and people information websites, they don’t have social media accounts, which is always a red flag. Furthermore, their profile photos are “photoshopped” and they have, in some cases, obviously pasted a different face over a stock photo to show them working in a team.

Finally, all personas in the network use similar email addresses, often including the same numbers and the word “dev”.

While it’s difficult to know for certain, Nisos says there are “several indicators” that the hackers are affiliated with the North Korean government, including “consistent tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) attributed to North Korean employment fraud actors.”

In the past, there have been reports of Lazarus, a known North Korean state-sponsored threat actor, hunting for software development jobs. Getting hired helps them gain access to the company’s back end, which they use to steal sensitive data, or even money.

Lazarus was also observed creating fake companies and fake jobs, and head-hunting software developers in major IT firms. During the “hiring process”, they would drop malware onto their victim’s devices, with the same goal of accessing their employer’s IT infrastructure.

The group usually targets blockchain-related businesses and has pulled off some of the biggest crypto heists in history.

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• Nvidia released a new Game Ready Driver for RTX 5070 support and DLSS 4 updates for some new and current games
• Users continue to voice frustrations regarding black screen issues after new driver update
• It may be ideal to hold off on updates until Team Green releases more stable builds

The tables are gradually turning in the battle between Nvidia and AMD in the GPU market, with the former's RTX 5000 series launch coming with a litany of problems, which AMD is taking full advantage of with its Radeon RX 9000 series launch. While Team Green's new Game Ready Driver promises a fix for some previous issues, it may be a good idea to stay away from it for the time being.

In a blog released by Nvidia, a new Game Ready Driver (572.70) is available which provides support for its new RTX 5070 GPU, along with DLSS 4 Multi-Frame Generation support for some games. It also suggests a fix for a previous black screen issue when attempting to boot into systems while using DisplayPort.

This issue seemed to be widespread after people installed driver 572.60 - I can corroborate this as booting into Windows 11 resulted in the login screen disappearing, leaving only the mouse cursor. The solution was uninstalling the 'latest quality update' in Windows 11's recovery mode, and rolling the driver back to 572.47 for stability.

It's not the first time this has occurred - the driver that introduced DLSS 4 override for RTX GPUs (572.16), reportedly caused Blue Screen of Death errors when gaming, notably in Marvel's Spider-Man 2 when activating or adjusting Frame Generation settings.

A hotfix (572.65) was released to address 572.60's major bug, but the issue remained (according to some Reddit users). Meanwhile, whilst the release notes for the new 572.70 update suggest the black screen issues have been resolved, users are still reporting the same problems, alongside stuttering in games and a black screen bug during the driver's installation. This isn't ideal, particularly for those using Team Green's new RTX 5070 (the driver has been specifically released to support the GPU), and adds to the list of controversies surrounding the new Blackwell GPUs.

Comment from r/nvidia Comment from r/nvidia Comment from r/nvidia

(Image credit: Future) Roll back your drivers, and stay away for now

Unless you're using an RTX 5070, I would suggest you roll back your Nvidia graphics driver as soon as possible - I've been using driver 572.47 ever since encountering the black screen booting issue, and haven't looked back.

Team Green is under fire for several problems regarding its Blackwell GPUs, and I worry that it won't end anytime soon. The last thing you want to happen is for a future unstable driver to drastically affect your system, and recurring BSoDs, in-game crashes, installation issues and unresponsive black screens are not a great sign in my book.

I must note that all PC configurations aren't the same, and it's likely some may not run into any of these issues (which I hope is the case) - but with the consistency of frustrations shared and the similarity between them, I'm willing to stick with what is most stable for now (even if it means losing out on any game enhancements).

I hope that Nvidia can get back to launching stable drivers that don't further damage its reputation - though bear in mind, drivers may always have one or two issues for a number of users - but until then, I'll be keeping my system clean of any GPU driver updates.

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• Some worldwide retailers have confirmed the RX 9070's timed MSRP
• It's claimed only the first batch of select models will be available for $549
• Once sold, the new prices could match (or narrow) that of the RX 9070 XT

It's launch day for AMD's RDNA 4 graphics cards, with the RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT now available on store shelves. However, as some online retailers have mentioned already, the former's respective MSRP ($549) may only apply to the initial batch of the GPUs sold, with future supply seeing a potential price increase.

As spotted by Videocardz, it's alleged that the RX 9070 will only be sold at its MSRP of $549 for a limited time, as AMD's partners will be able to set their prices. Swedish retailer Inet.se informed the outlet that the MSRP would only be respected for the first run, as the company evidenced this with its selling of PowerColor Reaper variants, as the prices of a second shipment are reportedly already higher.

The retailer explained how its AMD RX 9070 stock prices will depend on the manufacturer shipping the different cards, outlining that with "Sapphire and Asus it will be just usual" as you'll be able to buy the GPUs at MSRP until they run out. However, it also said that it will be different with PowerColor. "Our second shipment from PowerColor is already waiting, and we cannot it at MSRP prices".

To clarify, it says it will sell the first run of PowerColor Reaper RX 9070 cards it has in stock until they are sold out, and then increase prices when it is fulfilling orders from the second batch. "If you receive an order with MSRP price even though the cards are sold out we will of course give you that price, but unfortunately we have no way of continuing to sell cards at MSRP after the first deliveries are sold out".

This is a problem that seems to impact prospective buyers in the UK as well. Andrew Gibson, Purchasing Manager for Overclockers UK, spoke about the limited amount of RX 9070 stock at MSRP from the retailer. He explained the retailer had around 5,000 cards in total from Sapphire (2,000), PowerColor (1,000), and ASRock (1,000), but that "MSRP is capped quantity of a few hundred, so prices will jump once those are sold through".

It's believed that only four different variants of the AMD RX 9070 will be available for its MSRP price: the PowerColor Reaper, Sapphire Pulse, Asus Prime, and XFX Swift, at least for the initial shipment window, as outlined in Sweden and the UK. There's a possibility that things could be broadened in the US; however, there's also no guarantee that the prices you'll see today (and over the next few days) will be as low as what could come shortly if you don't pull the trigger early.

A wrench in the works for RDNA's budget performer

Earlier today, we praised the fact that many retailers were (seemingly) flush with options for RX 9070 XT stock on launch day, something that we cannot say for the dismal state of Nvidia's RTX 50 series in contrast. However, while availability doesn't appear to be marred the same way, the fact that the aggressive $549 starting price seems so ephemeral is disappointing, given the overall value proposition.

As it stands, the RX 9070 is just $50 cheaper than the (current) RDNA 4 flagship model, the RX 9070 XT, which is available for $599. However, if you're unable to secure a non-XT model for its recommended retail price, then the overall point of the card in the face of its sibling seems moot by comparison. While stock is flying off the shelves (many of the MSRP models mentioned above are no longer available), you're prompted to pay extra to get one instead, which is far from ideal.

As such, what's the point of the RX 9070 if you're going to have to spend the same money (or more) than purchasing the RX 9070 XT instead? The latter appears more available with retailers such as Best Buy, Newegg, B&H, and Micro Center having stock by comparison. To try to avoid disappointment, we recommend keeping up with our regularly updated dedicated RX 9070 and RX 9070 stock tracker.

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• Google Cloud launches new AI Protection security suite
• Offering identifies, assesses, and protects AI assets for vulnerabilities
• Even more security features are coming soon

Google Cloud has launched AI Protection, a suite of security features designed to mitigate risks across AI workloads and data, regardless of the platform used.

The new offering will give businesses a centralized view of their AI standing, allowing them to manage the risks and spot threats before they become a concern.

"As AI use increases, security remains a top concern, and we often hear that organizations are worried about risks that can come with rapid adoption," noted Archana Ramamoorthy, Senior Director, Product Management, Google Cloud Security. "Google Cloud is committed to helping our customers confidently build and deploy AI in a secure, compliant, and private manner."

Boosted protection for AI workloads

(Image credit: Google Cloud)

AI Protection will be built into Security Command Center (SCC), providing a centralized AI security management system alongside other cloud risks.

Among the core capabilities of the new platform are AI Inventory Discovery (identifies and assesses AI assets for vulnerabilities), AI Asset Security (implements controls, policies, and guardrails to secure AI resources), and Threat Management (offers detection, investigation, and response mechanisms for AI-related threats).

Furthermore, Google Cloud explained that its Sensitive Data Protection (SDP) Enhancements now extend to Vertex AI datasets, enabling automatic discovery and classification of sensitive training and tuning data. After discovering sensitive data, AI Protection will use SCC’s virtual red teaming to identify potential attack paths on AI systems and suggest remediation steps.

Google Cloud also said Model Armor, a core capability of AI Protection, is now generally available. It is designed to protect against prompt injection and jailbreak attacks, data loss and malicious URLs, and offensive content. It can be integrated into applications via REST API, Apigee, and soon Vertex AI.

Finally, AI Protection will operationalize security intelligence and research from both Google and Mandiant to help defend AI systems.

Initial access attempts, privilege escalation, and persistence attempts for AI workloads can all be detected via SCC, while new detectors to AI Protection, based on the latest frontline intelligence, are “coming soon”. These will help identify and manage runtime threats such as foundational model hijacking.

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Today, cybersecurity is rightly on everyone’s mind. The ITRC tracked 3,205 data compromises, while increased AI availability is causing the scale of security ecosystems to grow even more; with multiple tools being used in a variety of ways by both businesses and their partners.

To build and maintain trust, businesses need to scrutinize not just their own security, but the security of their entire ecosystem. Every business relies on vendors to build parts of their product. And with introduction of each vendor there is additional risk, making third party security the business’s responsibility. Because in the event of a breach, a customer won’t care about who was responsible; only why it has impacted them.

The time of risk management being exclusive to a single organization is long gone, making managing third-party risk an even greater priority for leaders. But when IT and security resources are already stretched, how realistic is this?

Scaling to secure the business ecosystem

Admittedly, it’s not easy for businesses to keep up with the growing compliance burden and to maintain a strong security posture. According to Vanta’s State of Trust Report, global business and IT leaders cite a lack of staffing (33%) and of automation to replace manual work (32%) as the top blockers to proving security externally. Adding to this is the fact that 98% of organizations worldwide have integrations with at least one third-party vendor that has been breached in the last two years.

To meet their security needs, businesses must scale their third-party risk management program and find new ways, including utilizing AI tools, to manage the extensive workload this incurs. Fortunately this is more within reach than ever. So, what needs to change to enable businesses to do a lot with a little, and ensure their security posture isn’t weakened by limited resources and legacy systems?

Centralize vendor reviews

Vendor security reviews are a key component in protecting business ecosystems. But the number of applications and third-parties businesses use is growing. In 2022, organizations worldwide were using 130 SaaS applications on average. Further, vendors are changing all the time and reviews often involve regular, manual, multi-step processes. For instance, it can take hours to scour through information in the documents supplied by vendors, such as SOC 2 reports.

The answer for businesses is a solution that can automate faster, more efficient security reviews. One that can cover the breadth of the vendor relationship before, during and after. This includes managing everything from onboarding vendors, to utilizing AI to gather security vendor information, to analysing and extracting findings. Having these details along with risk assessment in a single source of truth can drive visibility and cross-functional awareness and ownership.

Bring costs down

Today, as many as 60% of companies reduced or were planning to reduce IT budgets. This shows just how little businesses are working with, not to mention startups that run a leaner operation. But regardless of budget or head count, there can be no compromise on security.

Automated third-party risk management solutions can reduce the strain on threadbare teams and ensure their time is spent on strategy, not tedious manual tasks such as vendor discovery, documenting findings and offboarding. Automating these tasks ensures that IT and security budgets – however limited – work harder, with teams focused on the work that delivers the biggest ROI.

Keep the ball rolling

A collaborative effort between stakeholders in executive leadership, procurement, information security, IT, legal and compliance makes the difference when managing third-party risk.

This is a tall order for any business, and leaders need to balance speed and business enablement, while doing due diligence around new vendors. Third-party risk management solutions bring a depth and breadth of automation like integrating with your procurement tooling that efficiently maintains compliance and quickly reacts to internal needs. This gives security teams relief and transforms third-party risk management from being point in time to a continuous, standardized process.

Adapt to AI

The future of trust in an AI world is less than certain, with 42% percent of experts saying they are equally excited and concerned about the impending “humans-plus-tech” evolution. But while businesses might not be able to control how AI evolves (or how quickly), they can control how they manage security.

The rise in AI tools being used across vendors, and their associated risks, are complicating third-party risk management, creating a tricky balance for businesses who must develop more comprehensive oversight, but also make sure they are not hampering innovation. With their customer data and reputation on the line, keeping tabs on the AI tools used by vendors, and the associated security risks, is one area where businesses must ensure their decision making is clinical.

AI can actually help organizations manage this. Through its ability to scrub large amounts of information in little to no time, AI can help you find the information you need, dig deeper and even answer any remaining compliance questions.

Put minds at ease

Third-party risk management isn’t new, but it has gotten harder to manage, and businesses must think bigger to anticipate and minimize risk as much as possible.

Moving from reactive to proactive third-party risk management can help businesses take the pain out of the process and maintain a security posture that doesn’t derail their priorities. This involves reducing manual work via automation and using AI to free up time for more strategic security work. The end result? You and your team grow in confidence, helping your workplace feel a lot more secure – in more ways than one.

We list the best IT management tool.

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

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• Rob Joyce has warned layoffs will have a devastating affect on National Security
• Over 100,000 federal workers have been made redundant or taken retirement

The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party has been told by the former National Security Agency (NSA) director of cybersecurity how culling workers from federal departments will have a “devastating impact” on national security and cybersecurity.

Over 100,000 federal workers have been laid off or have taken early retirement as part of the new administration’s plans to drastically downsize the federal government workforce. This includes more than 130 positions cut from the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA).

“I want to raise my grave concerns that the aggressive threats to cut U.S. government probationary employees will have a devastating impact on the cybersecurity and our national security,” Joyce said.

Slashed budgets

Probationary staff, or staff who have been with their government agency for under a year, were almost all eliminated in this round of layoffs, which Joyce argues will “destroy a pipeline of top talent responsible for hunting and eradicating [China backed] threats”.

A Federal judge in San Francisco has since deemed these layoffs illegal and has ordered agencies to rescind the directives - with some Republicans reportedly urging Musk in private to consult Congress on the cuts.

It should be mentioned that these cuts have largely come at the hands of Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Most recently, the tech billionaire orchestrated the shutdown of tech unit 18F, a department of software engineers and strategists which serviced the General Services Administration, developing login systems and public-facing IT services.

Musk is an unelected official, and his plans to slash federal spending have also attracted a wave of lawsuits following privacy complaints, as the department allegedly accessed "extraordinarily sensitive” federal worker details.

Via TechCrunch

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