TechRadar News

• CMF Buds 2 Plus appear in FCC filing, suggesting a launch very soon
• Similar design and case to the CMF Buds Pro 2
• Nothing will hold an event on March 4, 2025

Nothing's CMF sub-brand makes very compelling and affordable earbuds such as the CMF By Nothing Buds, which deliver a lot of features for not a lot of money. And now it looks like a new version for 2025, the CMF Buds 2 Plus, is getting ready for launch.

As MySmartPrice reports, the CMF Buds 2 Plus true wireless earbuds have cleared FCC certification in the US, something that tends to happen just before a product launch. And the filings reveal some of the key specifications of the latest CMF earbuds.

(Image credit: MySmartPrice/FCC) CMF Buds 2 Plus: what we know so far

Visually the Buds 2 Plus don't look significantly different to the Buds Pro 2, with a square, round-cornered case and a dial in the corner that looks likely to enable you to adjust the volume and play or pause tracks, like the one on the Buds 2 Pro case (which alas, sounds much cooler than it proved in practise).

The buds themselves are short-stem designs, again rather like the Buds Pro 2.

The FCC filing shows that the case has a 460mAh battery and each bud gets 53mAh, and it details the inclusion of Bluetooth Classic for audio streaming and Bluetooth Low Energy for connectivity.

What we can't tell from the FCC filing is how they sound, and that's the big drawback of the current Buds Pro 2: in our CMF Buds Pro 2 review we noted that while the price was extremely attractive the sound was perhaps a little bass-heavy at the expense of airiness and detail.

It's possible that we might see the new Buds as soon as March 4th. That's when Nothing is launching the Nothing Phone (3a) and Phone (3a) Pro, although the firm may choose not to share the spotlight with its affordable earbuds. But whenever they do launch, the specification looks solid and you can be sure they'll be priced aggressively – the Buds Pro 2 cost just $59 / £59 / AU$99, and these may be even cheaper.

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• Businesses are increasingly relying on mobile phones for key operations, and cybercriminals have spotted the shift
• Hackers have adapted their methods, Zimperium report claims
• Most phishing attacks are tailored for mobile phones

Phishing is “so 2020” - the threat to be worried about most right now is “mishing” a new report from Zimperium has claimed.

Mishing, a term coined by Zimperium, covers all sorts of mobile-first phishing techniques: Smishing (SMS/text-based phishing), Quishing (QR code phishing), voice phishing, Wi-Fi-based phishing (the so-called “Evil Twin” attack), and many others.

Zimperium says organizations are increasingly relying on mobile devices for business operations, including multi-factor authentication, mobile-first applications, and more, and cybercriminals are taking notice, tailoring their phishing attacks for mobile devices, successfully evading traditional anti-phishing measures designed for desktops.

Smishing, Quishing, and more

As a result, businesses urgently need to adopt mobile-specific security, Zimperium stresses.

Smishing, for example, is now the most common mobile phishing vector, accounting for 37% of attacks in India, 16% in the US, and 9% in Brazil. Quishing, on the other hand, is described as an emerging threat, with notable activity in Japan (17%), the US (15%), and India (11%). Furthermore, 3% of phishing sites use device-specific redirection, showing benign content on desktops while targeting mobile devices with phishing payloads.

Mishing activity peaked in August 2024, Zimperium added, with over 1,000 daily attack records.

“Mishing is not just an evolution of traditional mobile phishing tactics—it is an entirely new category of attack engineered to exploit the specific capabilities and vulnerabilities of mobile devices, such as cameras,” said Nico Chiaraviglio, Chief Scientist at Zimperium.

“Our research shows that attackers are increasingly leveraging multiple mobile-specific channels - including SMS, email, QR codes, and voice phishing (vishing) - to exploit user behaviors and expand their attack surface.”

Whatever you decide to call it, email-based phishing attacks remain the number one threat best eliminated by the use of common sense in the office.

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• Qualcomm unveils new Dragonwing branding
• Dragonwing will cover industrial, networking, edge and IoT products
• Promises to "drive transformation and elevate industry growth"

Qualcomm has taken the wraps off Dragonwing, the new name for its industrial and enterprise hardware, as it looks to take the battle to the likes of Nvidia and AMD.

The new branding, unveiled ahead of MWC 2025, covers a range of industrial, networking, edge and IoT products among other things, with the company saying it encompassed, "industrial robots to cameras, to industrial handhelds and drones, and more".

The new division will be separate from Snapdragon, Qualcomm's consumer-facing hardware, which began in smartphones before shifting to power laptops, tablets and even mobile workstations, as the company looks to provide, "a unique identity to this product portfolio".

Welcome Dragonwing

"As we continue to diversify, the core components of our platforms and solutions – AI, computing, and connectivity – are relevant to more industries than ever before," Qualcomm's chief marketing officer Don McGuire wrote in a blog post announcing the news.

"From industrial robots to cameras, to industrial handhelds and drones, and more, this portfolio deserves a brand identity worthy of the technology innovation delivered across categories."

"Dragonwing, however, isn't just a name; it's our promise to drive transformation and elevate industry growth."

Qualcomm says Dragonwing products, across hardware, software and services, will include "leading edge AI, high-performance, low-power computing, and unrivalled connectivity, designed for speed, scalability, and reliability."

It will aid businesses across a wide range of industries, including energy and utilities, retail, supply chain, manufacturing, and telecom, showing the company has ambitious goals for the new offerings.

"We know the future of technology because we create it," Qualcomm added. "With Dragonwing, we help businesses take a leap and accelerate their digital transformation with speed and confidence."

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Just when the AI market seemed on a steady course, DeepSeek entered like a kid setting off fireworks indoors. Its low-cost AI model, bypassing NVIDIA frameworks, led to a historic $600 billion slump for the US tech giant. And the industry’s crown prince, OpenAI, has started a war on two fronts – the first is legal, challenging DeepSeek on model training, and the second is competitive, combatting its sudden rival with the launch of 03-mini.

With much of Silicon Valley now in a tailspin, Big Tech is still scratching its head about how a much more efficient AI tool could take the world by surprise. Yet, while for many the full capabilities of this new Open Source platform are still being understood, it speaks to an age old truth in business – competition can come from anywhere, and ultimately this is the latest example of a fresh innovator pushing competitors to be more efficient with their emerging tech investments.

A dive into DeepSeek

For curious onlookers, what’s DeepSeek really doing that is so gamechanging? The company is marketing itself in direct contest with OpenAI – “rivalling OpenAI’s Model o1”. DeepSeek's R1 LLM is priced at the fraction of the cost of vendor alternatives – one of its key draws. Another kicker is that its foundation is based on reinforcement learning rather than labeled data. For AI, this is revolutionary. Labeled data provides a target for the model to predict – it's like training wheels for AI: time-intensive to set up but helping keep models on the right path. DeepSeek runs without this, causing it to be slower upfront, but faster and more scalable in the long run, avoiding data tagging bottlenecks. Like ChatGPT in many aspects, DeepSeek can excel in mathematical and computational tasks, and through Open Source availability its 'weights' have been disclosed to the public, a huge win for the open-source community, in comparison to black box products on the market.

All these disparate elements added up means DeepSeek provides attractive scope for largescale automation for users, with its free availability and capacity to create chatbots rivalling other models. But it’s not all green flags. Concerns about data protection and information freedom are an issue, as data is housed in China under their own non-EU regulations. This is why it’s vital that organizations and individuals alike should carefully consider if the business process and regime it sits in are acceptable, compared to current requirements for data privacy, protection, and creative and political expression.

However, throwing data caution to the wind, consumers have flocked to the app in their millions, demonstrating that there will likely soon come a time where users are split between an ‘everyday’ AI they can play or interact with comparatively simply, and more expensive, advanced AI, coexisting for different, likely public sector, research, and industry use cases. Thus, for providers, the best competition strategy is to innovate, improve UX and functionality and find the right niche or market to dominate.

What’s the deal with ‘agentic AI’?

LLMs and GenAI are of course just one avenue of AI innovation. A hot new buzzword in Big Tech is ‘agentic AI’. This will be revolutionary for reimagining workflows and may soon create holistic AI ecosystems that autonomously manage and optimize processes in concert, with little human oversight in some use cases. Agentic AI is tipped by Gartner to revolutionize AI’s potential, with scope for it to be featured in a third (33%) of enterprise software applications by 2028, up from a minimal 1% today.

While more complex AI workflows are highly anticipated, basic prompt-and-response applications will become available off-the-shelf and, for now, this will serve many public users more than adequately. In our State of AI in Sales report, we found that nearly half (47%) of current AI users have no immediate plans to further integrate AI into their workflows. In fact, AI usage is barely moving past a basic level for many organizations. But those exploring exciting, nuanced applications will find more options with agentic AI.

This different type of AI service is less likely to hallucinate as it’s not the same kind of AI as GenAI, but will come with its own pros and cons to manage in terms of effectiveness, ability to execute what’s asked of it, and the levels of human oversight required to ensure reliability and accountability for the actions it takes.

A step towards that ‘Star Trek’ future

A world of supercomputers and starships – with the pace of change in emerging tech, it seems like sci-fi isn’t that far off from reality. But is that accurate? We are a long way from technology being leveraged for the sake of flash – what’s practical is what’s functional. Finding the right level of technology to solve the needs of the user is critical. For environmental and cost reasons, people don’t get in a Ferrari to go pick up groceries or tear up a whole field for just one bowl of cornflakes. Right now, a lot of the effort, expense, and resources of AI ‘behind the hood’ is hidden from the public, but society needs to become more knowledgeable about this to make better decisions, and to help direct industry to innovate where it will have the most impact.

Yet, it’s plain to see that, all other issues put to one side, the likelihood of more ubiquitous and embedded AI just took a step towards reality. And, given that DeepSeek comes from outside the US, perhaps AI creation may come from a greater variety of cultures, potentially reshaping global AI offerings and diversifying centers of expertise and the ways in which different users are catered for.

One of the most notable things that struck me in the vision that Star Trek laid out for a possible utopian future was the level of trust that users had in their computing. They appeared to have cracked issues of data privacy and security such that they didn’t hesitate to use their AI for work and leisure, for reasons great or small. That hinges on trust. For current AI users, there must be trade-offs around trust and economics if they want to balance being good data stewards of their own or customer data, and both the monetary and external costs of their tech use.

What’s next – AI 2.0?

There is a logical progression in AI innovation. Users want support with small tasks, see value, and increase their expectation of what AI can deliver. If AI can sort emails, can it review them? If AI can find a fault, can it fix it? Hence the growing interest in agentic AI as a new milestone to reach.

Arguably, there are tensions between innovation and trust, between economics and excitement, standard and frameworks and features. Over the next few years, the industry will need this to shake out more clearly if individual suppliers are to gauge their markets well and afford to keep innovating. Additionally, partnerships, ecosystems, and APIs - generally, working together to provide greater customer value – will need very clear international standards and for secure and trustworthy interoperability.

This will be key as, barring a massive leap forward in AGI (artificial general intelligence), perhaps led by quantum computing, there’s it not looking likely that there will be ‘one system to rule them all’, as in an all-encompassing AI that can accurately perform all the tasks a person or organisation might want. But siloed AIs, like any siloed software solution, aren’t likely to create that Star Trek-like world society apparently envisions.

Consumers and organizations must vote with their wallets, consciences, and needs in mind. But suppliers must really look ahead to a longer-term play if they are to answer these major challenges and support the society that they cannot just supply, but hopefully make better, with AI.

We've featured the best AI phone.

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

Looking for a different day?

A new NYT Connections puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Tuesday's puzzle instead then click here: NYT Connections hints and answers for Tuesday, February 25 (game #625).

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 Connections hints.

What should you do once you've finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I've also got daily Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too, while Marc's Wordle today page covers the original viral word game.

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 #626) - today's words

(Image credit: New York Times)

Today's NYT Connections words are…

• DASH
• PAST
• LATE
• COMER
• BARGE
• UNDERSCORE
• MINUS
• CHARGE
• RATE
• BAGGIE
• COST
• PRIOR
• PISA
• PRICE
• FORMER
• HYPHEN

NYT Connections today (game #626) - hint #1 - group hints

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

• YELLOW: Finances 
• GREEN: They’re history 
• BLUE: Straight punctuation 
• PURPLE: Slightly altered Springfield residents 

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 #626) - hint #2 - group answers

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

• YELLOW: EXPENDITURE 
• GREEN: ONETIME 
• BLUE: MADE WITH HORIZONTAL LINES 
• PURPLE: SIMPSON FAMILY MEMBERS WITH FIRST LETTER CHANGED 

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

NYT Connections today (game #626) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Connections, game #626, are…

• YELLOW: EXPENDITURE CHARGE, COST, PRICE, RATE
• GREEN: ONETIME FORMER, LATE, PAST, PRIOR
• BLUE: MADE WITH HORIZONTAL LINES DASH, HYPHEN, MINUS, UNDERSCORE
• PURPLE: SIMPSON FAMILY MEMBERS WITH FIRST LETTER CHANGED BAGGIE, BARGE, COMER, PISA

• My rating: Moderate
• My score: 1 mistake

There were lots of common pairs today (LATE, COMER) that, as ever, it was wise to ignore and instead BARGE PAST on the way to a classic Connections solution involving something grammatical, something ambiguous and something to do with The Simpsons.

UNDERSCORE could get a group of its own, considering that you can also call it an understrike, an underline, and an underbar. It’s a form of punctuation that was once rare, the preserve of teachers and angry letter writers, but has now become more common. It has even developed a new lease of life in passwords, email addresses and when it’s used to denote a missing word where otherwise there would otherwise just be white space. Of all the punctuation MADE WITH HORIZONTAL LINES it is by far the coolest.

How did you do today? Let me know in the comments below.

Yesterday's NYT Connections answers (Tuesday, 25 February, game #625)

• YELLOW: ENTHUSIASM GUSTO, PASSION, RELISH, ZEST
• GREEN: "MANY" IN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES BEAUCOUP, MOLTO, MUCHO, MULTI
• BLUE: RECTANGULAR PRISMS BRICK, FISH TANK, MICROWAVE, SHOEBOX
• PURPLE: RHYME WITH U.S. COINS JENNY, LIME, MORTAR, PICKLE

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.

Looking for a different day?

A new Quordle puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Tuesday's puzzle instead then click here: Quordle hints and answers for Tuesday, February 25 (game #1128).

Quordle was one of the original Wordle alternatives and is still going strong now more than 1,100 games later. It offers a genuine challenge, though, so read on if you need some Quordle hints today – or scroll down further for the answers.

Enjoy playing word games? You can also check out my NYT Connections today and NYT Strands today pages for hints and answers for those puzzles, while Marc's Wordle today column covers the original viral word game.

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

Quordle today (game #1129) - hint #1 - Vowels How many different vowels are in Quordle today?

• The number of different vowels in Quordle today is 4*.

* Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too).

Quordle today (game #1129) - hint #2 - repeated letters Do any of today's Quordle answers contain repeated letters?

• The number of Quordle answers containing a repeated letter today is 1.

Quordle today (game #1129) - hint #3 - uncommon letters Do the letters Q, Z, X or J appear in Quordle today?

• No. None of Q, Z, X or J appear among today's Quordle answers.

Quordle today (game #1129) - hint #4 - starting letters (1) Do any of today's Quordle puzzles start with the same letter?

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

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

Quordle today (game #1129) - hint #5 - starting letters (2) What letters do today's Quordle answers start with?

• L

• S

• V

• M

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

Quordle today (game #1129) - the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle, game #1129, are…

• LOVER
• SPIED
• VAPOR
• METER

I was going great guns today until my final guess, when I had to choose between three possible words ending in O-V-E-R from the letters I had remaining (Hover, Cover and LOVER). After agonizing for far too long I decided to go for the most common of the words and got lucky.

Meanwhile, as my Quordle game gets stronger I’m going in the opposite direction with the Daily Sequence, the game which forces you to do one word at a time Wordle-style. I did solve today's, but it was a struggle.

How did you do today? Let me know in the comments below.

Daily Sequence today (game #1129) - the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1129, are…

• LOUSE
• COVEN
• AVERT
• LABEL

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #1128, Tuesday 25 February: TWIST, TWEAK, MEANT, CLEAR
• Quordle #1127, Monday 24 February: LEASH, LEVER, TOTEM, CREME
• Quordle #1126, Sunday 23 February: RABID, RELIC, SCRAM, BASIS
• Quordle #1125, Saturday 22 February: ETHER, SONIC, VAUNT, ROUSE
• Quordle #1124, Friday 21 February: STIFF, PRIZE, SCOWL, DONUT
• Quordle #1123, Thursday 20 February: HASTY, DRAPE, FICUS, CRAZE
• Quordle #1122, Wednesday 19 February: ABATE, TROVE, VENUE, DRAPE
• Quordle #1121, Tuesday 18 February: TAMER, SCRUB, BRICK, DRIFT
• Quordle #1120, Monday 17 February: SADLY, WAFER, LITHE, IDIOM
• Quordle #1119, Sunday 16 February: GHOUL, AFIRE, COVEN, FIERY
• Quordle #1118, Saturday 15 February: CREEP, CONDO, GRILL, FANCY
• Quordle #1117, Friday 14 February: MEDIA, ELUDE, THUMB, WIDOW
• Quordle #1116, Thursday 13 February: SCALP, DWELL, AMPLE, TRUNK
• Quordle #1115, Wednesday 12 February: SHOOK, GRADE, POLAR, SEEDY
• Quordle #1114, Tuesday 11 February: HEAVY, CIRCA, PESKY, SCION
• Quordle #1113, Monday 10 February: TWIXT, FRESH, GUISE, TABBY
• Quordle #1112, Sunday 9 February: TAPIR, SHAKE, TOKEN, SEVEN
• Quordle #1111, Saturday 8 February: AFOOT, ALIKE, HUMUS, TOWEL
• Quordle #1110, Friday 7 February: PETAL, ABASE, AMONG, CORER
• Quordle #1109, Thursday 6 February: MADAM, SCAMP, FAUNA, TRACK

Looking for a different day?

A new NYT Strands puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Tuesday's puzzle instead then click here: NYT Strands hints and answers for Tuesday, February 25 (game #359).

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 NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games, and Marc's Wordle today page for the original viral word game.

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

• Today's NYT Strands theme is… "Fire represents your life"

NYT Strands today (game #360) - hint #2 - clue words

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

• MINE
• VEIL
• GREY
• RAIN
• WORD
• GENE

NYT Strands today (game #360) - hint #3 - spangram What is a hint for today's spangram?

• Adventure reality show

NYT Strands today (game #360) - hint #4 - spangram position What are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?

First side: left, 4th row

Last side: 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 #360) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Strands, game #360, are…

• CHALLENGE
• JURY
• MERGE
• REWARD
• ALLIANCE
• IMMUNITY
• SPANGRAM: SURVIVOR

• My rating: Moderate
• My score: 1 hint

I don’t know why someone hasn’t set up their company in the format of SURVIVOR. It would work great for a boring office. Each day employees could win advantage amulets by completing a CHALLENGE like making spreadsheets, fixing a flickering light or answering the phone to an unhappy customer.

The staff canteen could be replaced by a fire pit, where depending on their achievements the employees get to eat either soggy rice, roasted squirrel or divide a fish between 25 people for some much-needed protein.

Then, at the end of the day, the boss could oversee a tribal council in reception where everyone votes for who annoys them the most and that person is fired.

It’d be more civilized than some of the places I’ve worked.

How did you do today? Let me know in the comments below.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Tuesday, 25 February, game #359)

• CARAMEL
• TRUFFLE
• NOUGAT
• LIQUEUR
• TOFFEE
• ALMONDS
• SPANGRAM: FILLINGS

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.

Chrome is a pain, isn't it? It's one of those browsers that just sticks with you, no matter what you try. For better or worse. I've personally shifted back and forth between a number of browsers over the years; mostly alternating between Firefox and Chrome, and using Opera as a backup, usually to see if one website or another is broken or not. Yet no matter how long I'm gone, even in the deepest of Firefox stints, inevitably, I always end up back with Google's shiny metal goliath.

Unlike phones, operating systems, processors, graphics cards, or even the best VPNs, browsers inherently don't have that flux. It never feels like there's a need to swap to upgrade. No single one has a significant advantage over the other, and no browser has ever really introduced any feature that's quite as revolutionary as something like Nvidia's DLSS upscaling tech or AMD's CPU 3D V-cache. It's all iterative change, trying to entice you over and keep you there, and I do believe a lot of Google's initial success was down to societal peer pressure and just being one of the first alternatives that provided a slicker initial setup and user experience than anything else.

Although it ended up as a browser that has a RAM footprint akin to the mass of a small brown dwarf star, it simply provided people with a slicker, seamless experience than what Internet Explorer, Safari, Netscape, or Firefox could back in the day.

Chromed up

So how did Google corner the market following on from the success of those early years? How did it manage to oust IE, Firefox, and later Edge as kings of the free browsers? Particularly given how Microsoft literally installs its own browser on Windows for you? It's one of those questions that you genuinely have to step back, look at Microsoft, and ask: "No seriously, how did you mess this up so badly?".

In today's era, the answer is simple enough. It's not because of anything Google is doing directly with Chrome. There's no killer app or silver bullet here, no feature that's going to blow your mind wide open. It's still easy to use and operates smoothly as it almost always has done (memory quandaries aside), but it's the entire environment Google has built around it that really nails its dominance to the table.

Google has woven all of the staple tools you need online into one seamless interconnected web, and it's difficult to escape. (Image credit: Gmail)

It's effectively built out this beautiful, seamless ecosystem for us regular folk. Create a Google account, and you immediately have access to YouTube, Drive for office work, Gmail, and a Chrome account that'll sync all of your settings, passwords, passkeys, bookmarks, cookies, and extensions, all in one place. On top of that, for Android users, it'll tie into your phone too, syncing across platforms in the process.

Dominant Search Engines

Not only that, but Google as a search engine is just impeccable. Sure, its recent experiments with generative AI have been hit and miss, but it's not utterly littered with ads or incorrect listings. If you try to use Bing, DuckDuckGo, or Yahoo, the experience by comparison is shocking. It's like traveling back in time by five to ten years, depending on which one you use.

As a web-based tech journalist, I'm conscious that Google often gets a lot of ire from those in my line of work for its constant iterative SEO changes and updates to how it ranks things. This can massively impact site rankings, and kill smaller brands, potentially leaving people without work. It's a grim dance with livelihoods on the line, particularly with Google's new use of Gemini AI prompts as well.

The reality is, though, that as harsh as that is, it does this because it's still trying to provide the best search experience for the user. It comes from a good place. Although that drive might be market-driven, it still needs to provide the best sources, the best answers to your questions. Those SEO changes are necessary, and you can see the way it's going is centered around making sure it selects content and answers that align with its EEAT philosophy ('Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness' - basically, choosing authors and content that have good knowledge in a certain field) while providing information that is accurate, unique, and to the point.

YouTube is a whole other kettle of fish, and it's anyone's guess as to which way the wind blows on that search algorithm, but for its core brand, its core product, Google's search is unparalleled in many ways.

And the fact is that this wider ecosystem and everything tied into it, as much as some of us might dislike it, still makes Chrome my go-to browser. No doubt in a year's time, I'll get fed up and dive back into Firefox for a few months, enjoying the new experience, the feel of being slightly edgy (and having adblockers on my phone), only inevitably to fall back into that old habit, to miss my army of extensions on a platform that just works, without fault, without hindrance. It's sad, but it's true.

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• Google is removing SMS messages as an authentication option
• It will be replaced with on-screen QR codes
• Removing SMS authentication reduces the risk of phishing and fraud

Google is officially moving away from using SMS messages in its Gmail account two-factor authenticator.

Gmail spokesperson Ross Richendrfer told Forbes, “we want to move away from sending SMS messages for authentication” to “reduce the impact of rampant, global SMS abuse.”

SMS authentication codes can be easily intercepted by hackers simply by porting your phone number to a new device - just one of the many security issues plaguing SMS messages for authentication.

QR codes to replace Gmail SMS authentication

Google will instead introduce on-screen QR codes that will have to be scanned with your chosen authentication device in order to verify that it is actually you trying to log in. This potentially adds an extra layer of biometric security for those who use a facial recognition or fingerprint scan to access their device or applications.

QR codes will also solve two other concerns related to SMS authentication methods. The first being that QR codes are more phishing resistant, as there will no longer be a security code to share with an attacker. The second being the authentication will no longer be reliant on the phone service provider’s abuse and fraud protections.

Authentication will still be reliant on the user having access to their mobile device, but removes a significant amount of the risk of abuse. For Google, it is also a win, as it cuts down on threat actors being able to run ‘traffic pumping’ campaigns.

In these campaigns, criminals will abuse online service providers to generate a huge amount of SMS messages to phone numbers they control, allowing them to generate revenue through access charges and intercarrier compensation.

In the future, Google hopes to move to a fully passkey supported authenticator system, but the move from passwords to passkeys hasn’t been as fast as Google had hoped, despite their best efforts to convince users to make the switch.

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• SonicWall's Cyber Threat claims malware attacks are on the rise
• Hundreds of new variants were detected every day
• Cyberattacks are moving at an unprecedented pace

A ‘continued onslaught of cyberattacks’ is hitting SMBs, new research from SonicWall has claimed, with 210,258 ‘never-seen-before’ malware variants detected - amounting to 637 new variants per day.

Shockingly, in a single 40-hour work week, SonicWall sensors detected 50 hours worth of critical attacks, meaning the average firewall was under 125% capacity of attacks.

The researchers also estimated 12.6% of all revenues are exposed to cyberthreats without proper protection - which could be incredibly costly.

An unprecedented pace

The attacks aren’t just getting more frequent, they’re getting more sophisticated too. Encrypted threats rose 92%, the research shows, and TLS-encrypted transfers are increasingly utilized to deliver malware and other threats.

This strain is taking its toll too, with cybersecurity teams struggling to keep up with the growing levels of threats, many reporting increased stress, burnout, and an impact on mental health.

“Threat actors are moving at an unprecedented pace, exploiting new vulnerabilities within days, while we’re observing that it takes some organizations 120 to 150 days to apply a critical patch,” said SonicWall President and CEO Bob VanKirk.

“Now more than ever, businesses need the expertise of an MSP/MSSP backed by with real-time threat monitoring and SOC capabilities. Legacy security solutions are no longer enough, businesses must adopt a new mindset to stay ahead of modern cyber threats.”

Despite threat actors moving at an “unprecedented pace”, VanKirk claims organizations have been observed taking 120-150 days to apply a critical patch, meaning the company is seriously vulnerable to intrusions.

Security teams are facing an enormous amount of pressure, especially since a successful cyberattack can cost an organization millions of dollars, with this cost doubling in 2024.

“The threat landscape is completely overwhelming for organizations and the teams who defend them,” said Steven Huang, COO at Fornida.

“Most cybersecurity breaches include some degree of human error. Ultimately, there are two ways to battle this; reducing opportunity and educating users. The fewer opportunities there are for an error, the less users will be tested. And the more knowledge they have, the less likely they are to make a mistake even when they face an opportunity to do so.”

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With more than 400 million monthly users, ChatGPT is the most popular of all AI chatbots. Trained on huge amounts of data, it can process written prompts and generate contextual answers which feel like you’re chatting to a human in real time.

Based on a Large Language Model, the AI bot is evolving all the time. In its latest iteration, ChatGPT is capable of answering in-depth questions, helping with website code and even generating images.

New features are being added all of the time, so read on to find out what ChatGPT can do and why it’s worth using.

This article was correct as of February 2025. AI tools are updated regularly and it is possible that some features have changed since this article was written. Some features may also only be available in certain countries.

What is ChatGPT?

When it launched in November 2022, ChatGPT signalled a new era for artificial intelligence. Developed by OpenAI, the AI chatbot became a hugely popular tool almost overnight. Much of the appeal of ChatGPT lies in its use of natural language. Built on Large Language Models, it’s able to understand human queries written as plain text prompts and generate conversational responses.

In March 2023, OpenAI announced GPT-4, the latest version of its language model. This iteration is multimodal, meaning it can process text, images and audio. Apps running on GPT-4, including ChatGPT, are also better able to process the context of queries and produce more accurate, relevant results.

The result is a chatbot that can be leveraged for a wide range of queries, with answers rendered quickly and accessibly.

What can you use ChatGPT for?

The full capabilities of ChatGPT are still being explored by its millions of users. Almost any query that can be phrased and answered using written words can be addressed – or at least attempted – by ChatGPT. Its remit can be summarized as language-based tasks, whether that language is English, foreign or computer code.

ChatGPT can create computer code from natural language instructions or troubleshoot existing code. It can write a wedding speech for you or re-write your draft in a way that flows better. It can create personalized workout plans, generate business ideas and even act as your therapist.

The introduction of ChatGPT search unlocks the ability for users to get a summary of answers to a specific query sourced from the web, while integration of OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 text-to-image model means all ChatGPT users can also ask the chatbot to generate images from prompts.

What can’t you use ChatGPT for?

As powerful as it is, ChatGPT still has limitations. Chief among them is fact-checking. Famously, the chatbot’s responses are not always accurate and it’s known to hallucinate facts. OpenAI says that ChatGPT “may be inaccurate, untruthful, and otherwise misleading at times.”

ChatGPT is also subject to a number of guidelines and ethical restrictions. The AI chatbot tries its best to avoid explicit, violent or discriminatory content. It won’t engage in political discussions, nor will it offer legal, medical or financial advice on an individual basis.

OpenAI also emphasizes that the generative chatbot cannot show empathy or engage with real emotions. Nor will it promote anything relating to self-harm.

How much does ChatGPT cost?

ChatGPT is available for free, but there are also two paid tiers for individuals, as well as Team and Enterprise plans for organizations.

For free, users get access to OpenAI’s GPT-4o mini model, plus limited access to GPT-4o and o3-mini. They can also use ChatGPT search to access results informed by real-time data from the web. Hitting the 'Reason' button on a query gives you limited access to the ChatGPT o1 model. You get a limited number of images from DALL-E.

Plus costs $20 (about £16 / AU$30 ) per month and unlocks a number of additional features, including access to multiple reasoning models, ChatGPT’s advanced voice mode and limited access to Sora, OpenAI’s video generation model, as well as more images with DALL-E.

The Pro tier will set you back a much more significant $200 (about £165 / AU$325) per month. Designed for advanced users, it unlocks deeper capabilities for every tool in ChatGPT’s arsenal, including unlimited access to the latest reasoning models and extended Sora access for generating AI video.

The Team option is priced at $25 (about £19 / AU$38) per user per month and allows users to create and share custom GPTs within a workspace.

Where can you use ChatGPT?

ChatGPT can be accessed through its web interface at chatgpt.com using almost any browser. For a while, this was the only way to use the chatbot. However, you can now download official iOS and Android apps for free, as well as a desktop app for macOS and Windows.

The interface and features are broadly consistent, but the mobile apps come with the added benefit of being able to engage in a voice conversation with ChatGPT, by tapping the audio icon next to the text input field.

Is ChatGPT any good?

Based on our extensive hands-on experience with ChatGPT, it’s a powerful tool with a lot of uses. Its conversational interface makes it easy for almost anyone to interact with the chatbot, whether you’re asking it to summarize a report or generate an image. The quality of its responses often depends on the wording and context of the prompt, which can vary significantly.

The paid experience is faster and more accurate than the free tier, turning up better quality responses across a range of queries and topics. That said, it’s still vulnerable to factual inaccuracies and hallucinations, while data sourced from the web isn’t necessarily the most up-to-date. As a fact-checking tool, ChatGPT still can’t be relied upon.

As a shortcut for everyday queries or a way to turbocharge your workflow, though, ChatGPT has plenty of potential. Leveraged in the right way, it’s a very powerful tool.

Use ChatGPT if...

You want to use a capable chatbot

From writing content to generating website code, ChatGPT is a hugely capable tool that allows you to get a lot done simply by writing your queries in natural human language.

You want a lot of features for free

Recent updates mean ChatGPT’s free plan now includes access to ChatGPT search and image generation using OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 model, meaning you can get a lot done without a paid subscription.

Don't use ChatGPT if...

You need completely accurate information

Even with real-time web access enabled, ChatGPT is prone to responding with factual inaccuracies. Results need to be cross-referenced with reliable sources before they can be relied upon.

You don’t want to pay for the best features

The free tier is fine for casual users, but if ChatGPT is built into your workflow, you’ll need to pay for a subscription to unlock the faster processing and greater reliability of the latest models.

Also consider

• Gemini is Google’s alternative to ChatGPT. Previously known as Bard, it’s a Large Language Model that can do a lot of the same things as OpenAI’s chatbot, including answering questions, writing code and creating images.
• Copilot is Microsoft’s take on the AI chatbot, aimed mainly at business users. Available as a website, an app and as a sidebar in the Edge browser, it’s billed as an AI companion that offers contextual help with everyday tasks.

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• The new Lumix S1R II is a major upgrade of the S1R, with a new 44MP sensor
• First full-frame camera with 8K open gate video and 32-bit float audio recording
• Launched alongside a new Lumix Flow app, the S1R II costs $3,299 / £2,999 / AU$5,499

Panasonic has unveiled its most powerful full-frame mirrorless camera yet, the Lumix S1R II. It upgrades the 47MP Lumix S1R in just about every regard, even if a few megapixels have been shaved off with its new stabilized 44MP sensor.

Key upgrades include beefy video features such as 8K open gate video recording (coming via a firmware update soon), plus 32-bit float audio recording through an XLR adaptor that debuted in the Lumix GH7.

10-bit 8K video recording up to 30fps delivers 14EV dynamic range, while it's also possible to record 5.8K Apple Pro Res raw internally – that's a first for Lumix. We've also got the usual array of color profiles, including V-log to maximize detail for those that like to grade footage, plus a Cinelike profile that emulates the popular Rec.709 look.

Naturally, 8K video recording is memory-hungry. As such, the option for proxy recording is welcome, as is Frame.io support – a tool that can ease workflow for collaborative projects.

The Lumix S1R II is also equipped with refined hybrid phase-detection autofocus, which Panasonic says is twice as effective as in the Lumix S5 II for its best-ever autofocus performance.

In-body image stabilization is rated up to 8EV, and includes a new crop-less mode which we're keen to test properly – you can check out our early impressions in our Lumix S1R II hands-on review.

Design-wise, there are further Panasonic firsts too: a new multi-angle screen, much like the one in the Sony A1 II, for easy viewing from any angle in vertical and horizontal format.

There are front and rear tally lamps so users know when the camera is rolling, direct recording from USB-C to SSD portable drives, and grilles under the 5.76m-dot EVF to dissipate heat for impressive video record times.

We've already got the Lumix S1R II for in-depth testing and our first impressions are highly favorable. (Image credit: Future | Sam Kieldsen)

Photographers can enjoy blackout-free 10fps burst shooting with the mechanical shutter, a rate that's upped to 40fps when using the electronic shutter, with the option for pre-burst capture up to 1.5 seconds with the shutter half pressed, before fully pressing the shutter button. That 44MP resolution can also be upped to 177MP when using the High Res shot mode.

All this is squeezed into a dust-, splash- and freeze-resistant body that's 20 percent smaller than the Lumix S1R and which is almost the same size as the Lumix S5 II.

Panasonic also announced a new app alongside the Lumix S1R II: Lumix Flow. A key feature of the new app is the ability to use an iOS or Android phone as a monitor, over a direct USB-C to USB-C connection. It's currently compatible with the Lumix S5 II, GH7 and S1R II, and users can also rate each take as they go to streamline workflow. Another element to the app, which is open to any user with any camera, is a script, shoot and edit project management tool.

The Lumix S1R II costs $3,299 / £2,999 / AU$5,499 body-only, and is also available in the UK only with the Panasonic Lumix S 24-105mm F4 Macro OIS lens, for £3,799. That's a particularly competitive price versus Sony, Canon and Nikon rivals. So how do the flagship models stack up?

(Image credit: Panasonic) Step aside Sony, Canon and Nikon?

As a flagship mirrorless camera with superb photo and 8K video skills, the Lumix S1R II has fierce competition, with obvious rivals including the Sony A1 II, Canon EOS R5 II and Nikon Z8.

The Lumix S1R II starts life with super-competitive pricing – it's half the price of the A1 II, around 50% cheaper than Canon EOS R5 II, and 25% less than the Z8, even if Nikon's mirrorless camera can now be found for around the same price as the Lumix S1R II.

If you're coming in new to any of those systems, the Lumix S1R II offers the best value, and I'd only expect it to go down in price in the coming months. The S1R II also beats those rivals with some of its video features; it's the only camera with open gate 8K video (coming via a firmware update later this year) – meaning you can use the full height and width of the 3:2 aspect ratio sensor, with no 16:9 limit.

It's also the only camera here with the option for 32-bit float audio capture, albeit via Panasonic's XLR adaptor. There's also the intriguing crop-less image stabilization mode, and I expect the S1R II to have the best stabilization performance of any flagship full-framer.

The Sony A1 II is a pricier Lumix S1R II rival that's probably better for photographers, but Panasonic's camera holds its own, especially for video (Image credit: Future / Tim Coleman)

Where the Lumix S1R II potentially comes up short versus its rivals is that its sensor is a regular back side illuminated sensor, whereas the other models use a speedier 'stacked' sensor type, which is better equipped to deal with rolling shutter distortion. Overall, photographers are probably better catered for with the other cameras too, with features like even faster burst shooting, and in Canon's case, an upscale function and superb sport priority autofocus modes.

We're currently reviewing the Lumix S1R II, and you can read our first impressions in our Panasonic Lumix S1R II hands-on review, with our in-depth review soon to follow. What do you make of Panasonic's best-ever Lumix? Let us know in the comments below.

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• A researcher claims a fix for an older Parallels Desktop flaw doesn't work properly
• There are multiple ways to bypass it and gain access to the root device
• The bypass works on the latest version of the tool

Parallels Desktop apparently has some worrying flaws which could put Mac users at serious risk attack. The flaws were first spotted in mid-2024, and after not being properly fixed, a researcher decided to publish working exploits.

Parallels Desktop is a virtualization software allowing Mac users to run Windows, Linux, and other operating systems alongside macOS without rebooting. It offers seamless integration, enabling users to switch between operating systems effortlessly, share files, and run Windows applications as if they were native Mac apps.

In May 2024, a researcher called Mykola Grymalyuk discovered the program did not have code signature verification, resulting in a privilege elevation flaw now tracked as CVE-2024-34331. After disclosing the findings to Parallels Desktop, the developers issued a fix in September of the same year. Soon after, another researcher - Mickey Jin - analyzed the patch and came to the conclusion that there are workarounds.

Microsoft 365

Jin then reached out to the company, and despite being given assurances that his research will be scrutinized, that never happened. Now, seven months later, to force their hand, Jin released two exploits.

"Given that the vendor has left this vulnerability unaddressed for over seven months—despite prior disclosure—I have chosen to publicly disclose this 0-day exploit," Jin said in his analysis. "My goal is to raise awareness and urge users to mitigate risks proactively, as attackers could leverage this flaw in the wild."

Jin found two ways to abuse the flaw. One is to perform a time-of-check to time-of-use (TOCTOU) attack to exploit a race condition between checking if 'createinstallmedia' is Apple-signed and executing it with root privileges. The second one is via the 'do_repack_manual' function, which seems to be vulnerable to arbitrary root-own file overwrites.

The TOCTOU attack works on the latest version of Parallels, Jin said. Older versions are vulnerable to different methods.

Via BleepingComputer

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• Adobe has launched a powerful new Photoshop app for iPhones
• The free app also has a paid tier that unlocks tools like Content-Aware Fill
• An Android version is coming "later this year"

Adobe is no stranger to launching Photoshop apps, but it has just launched its most powerful one so far for iPhones – and it's the closest thing we've seen to the desktop experience on smartphones.

The new Photoshop iPhone app, which you can download today for free (with paid upgrades), combines desktop-style tools like layers and masking with Firefly AI image generation. An Android version of the app is coming "later this year".

While Adobe Express will continue to be the company's main Canva rival on smartphones, there is some crossover with the new Photoshop app. Rather than replacing the desktop app, it's been designed to help turn your images into podcast cover art, personalized posters or whatever else you need to look like a creative wizard on social media.

In this sense, the new Photoshop app takes the baton from recently-retired apps like Photoshop Fix and Photoshop Mix, alongside the current Photoshop Express. But it does also go a bit further than those apps, offering some of the advanced tools that are the hallmark of the full-fat desktop app for free.

Alongside layers and masks, the free version offers the Spot Healing Brush, a Tap Select tool to edit specific parts of an image, and lets you dabble with Adobe Firefly tricks like Generative Fill and Generative Expand. If you don't want to use your own photos, you can also start with the free Adobe Stock assets instead.

If those tools aren't enough for you – as Adobe no doubt hopes – then the new Photoshop Mobile and Web Plan ($7.99 p/month, or $69.99 annually) will unlock more powerful tricks, plus access to the browser-based version of the app. We don't yet have international pricing for that plan, but it converts to around £7 / £13 per month or £55 / AU$110 annually.

Image 1 of 3

(Image credit: Adobe)Image 2 of 3

(Image credit: Adobe)Image 3 of 3

(Image credit: Adobe)

With that paid plan, you get handy tools like Magic Wand, Object Select and the classic Clone Stamp (which was in the very first version of Photoshop). You'll also unlock extra Firefly tools like 'Generate Similar' to make is super-easy to whip up some fun visuals.

If you already subscribe to Photoshop with Creative Cloud, you'll now get access to this new mobile Photoshop app (alongside Photoshop on iPad and Photoshop on the web). We're looking forward to taking it for a spin soon.

Analysis: Photoshop's biggest smartphone push, but is it too late?

(Image credit: Adobe)

Photoshop recently celebrated its 35th birthday – and with its competition hotter than ever, the influential app is at something of a crossroads.

Adobe launched Photoshop for iPad way back in 2019, so it's about time we got a more powerful smartphone app. But its appeal will depend very much on what you're looking to do.

Rather than trying to cram the full version of Photoshop into a smartphone app, Adobe has created a powerful free alternative to the likes of Snapseed and Pixelmator. Naturally, it's also left out just enough tools to push you towards a (reasonably affordable) subscription.

From our brief first look, it looks like Adobe has successfully translated some of Photoshop's traditional complexity – built around 'layers' for a non-destructive editing process – into a more intuitive, touch-based experience for smartphones. Given the tools on offer, the discounted annual plan could in particular offer decent value.

On the other hand, there's a chance that the new Photoshop app could fall between two stools. I argued a few years ago that Google's AI editing tricks were making Photoshop irrelevant for most people, and since then the best photo editing apps have made Adobe's jumbled approach to offering a mobile Photoshop look like a mistake.

The increasingly ambitious graphic design king Canva snapped up Affinity Photo, Designer, and Publisher last year in a clear shot at Adobe. And with Apple also recently buying the popular Pixelmator photo editing app, the competition in the AI-powered image editing space is hot.

This competition is good news for us, as it's forced Adobe to create the closest thing so far to a desktop-level Photoshop for our iPhones (and soon, our Android phones). Adobe no doubt also wants to get more people using its Firefly AI image generation, which it brands "commercially safe" because it was apparently trained on licensed content.

Whether that's successful remains to be seen, but for now we're looking forward to spending more time with the new Photoshop app to see how it compares to the best photo editors for smartphones.

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It's a funny thing, your desktop PC, isn't it? For those of us who have been around the block somewhat, each system and its components almost have a kind of personality to them. Whether that's tied to the point in time we used it and the surrounding circumstances, or something greater than that, each experience hits differently, and each OS is almost like a landmark in our own history. You can remember Windows XP not just because of what it did, or how it looked, but also because it was on your school computer, and you used to play flash games on it with a USB stick that your buddies would pass around class.

In my case, I remember Windows 98, and using that, how that felt. How buggy and laggy it was. Constantly crashing, with its odd wallpapers and brutalist UI. I remember my friends having Windows 2000 and how clunkily it ran on their systems that weren't really designed for it. I remember that it felt exactly the same to me, but slower.

Recognise this image? If you do, you've got good taste in operating systems. (Image credit: TechRadar)

I remember how XP came along, an almost god-tier OS, and the games I played on that; Battlezone II, the mods, the communities, the friends I made online for the first time—the real blossoming of the internet. Vista, my teenage years, World of Warcraft, Wrath of the Lich King, and onwards. Windows 8, 8.1 (which still makes me shudder), and of course the prodigal son: Windows 10, which debuted near the start of my professional career in tech journalism. It's still touted by many today as one of the best operating systems Microsoft has ever launched (bar XP, of course).

Like the Star Trek movie timeline though, in the world of custom PCs, the quality and caliber of Microsoft's OS seemingly follows an upwards and downwards tick. One's good, one's bad; one's good, one's bad ad infinitum. And yet still, I genuinely do believe Windows 11 bucks that trend, despite some of its more glaring changes and controversial flaws.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Take the taskbar, for example. The biggest change and arguably the biggest upset came with the introduction of that "Apple-esque" centered design. For a generation of users who'd had nothing but a left-aligned bar, it was a cardinal sin, unthinkable that Microsoft would change it. Yet unlike many other operating systems (yes, I am talking about macOS), you can still go in and revert it back.

You can shift the alignment, remove the taskview modes, hide the search bar, get rid of the ridiculous widgets, and yeet any mention of Microsoft's Copilot AI out of the door entirely. The same goes for the Start Menu, cluttered with ads, and Skype, and other crud you'd never use, but again, delete all that, shuck a load of your own equally rarely-used programs in, and wham: a highly versatile, highly usable solution, that's arguably far better than the Start Menu found in its predecessors.

The honest truth is that Windows 11 is effectively a more refined version of Windows 10. It is to 10 what 8.1 was to 8, and that's why it's better - of course, it helps that Windows 10 was a hell of a lot better than Windows 8 to begin with. Yes, there have been some pretty dramatic decisions made to encourage folk to shift over (DirectStorage being limited to 11 being one of them), but it just feels smoother and easier to use, certainly on modern hardware. The settings menus have been radically expanded; there's so much more that's just straight-up accessible than before, features that are better thought out.

The challenges faced by Windows 11

No, it's not perfect. It hasn't entirely avoided the enshittification effect. The fact that an OS that still costs you around $139 for a license will feed you ads for OneDrive, Office365, and more is admittedly a little grim. I've already paid you a small fortune, Microsoft, particularly in an aggressively overpriced inflationary climate - do you really need to bombard me with notifications on the joys of Outlook 2.0? Probably not.

And then there's the TPM problem. The fact that you need TPM 2.0 just to get the thing installed practically eliminated a lot of older systems from the equation. That's just diabolical, really, particularly as Windows 10 is approaching end-of-life now, and Microsoft has committed to no longer providing system security updates for it.

It means that rigs that run perfectly fine, that operate normally - optimally, even - for the tasks their users have to hand, are now going to be vulnerable. The silicon, hardware, and resources inside need to be scrapped in order to meet Microsoft's new security standards or otherwise become vulnerable to malicious malefactors across the planet. Not exactly environmentally or economically friendly. Yes, that affects us as individuals, but what about the government agencies, or nations with smaller asset pools that can't exactly just re-tool their entire systems? Healthcare, security, financial, and education could all be affected. We've already seen what can happen when these systems are compromised, and yet still, Microsoft is pushing ahead with this almost pseudo-Y2K disaster.

On an individual level, you can of course bypass that. Our computing editor, Christian Guyton, wrote a fantastic guide on how you can upgrade to Windows 11 without a TPM right here, but that's not exactly a solution for government agencies now, is it?

Kiss, marry, push off a cliff

Here's the thing though: just look around at the modern OS ecosystem that we have available to us. We have ChromeOS, which, let's face it, is fairly limited in scope and hardware - mostly used for cheap laptops and light office work. MacOS, which follows in Apple's design ethos, namely that it's incredibly well built but incredibly rigid and locked down in how you can use it, and boy oh boy, you better not try and game on it. And then there's Linux, which, well, is Linux... fantastic in every way, and just as complicated to get into.

Out of all of those, and even comparing Windows 11 to its predecessors, for me, it's still the go-to operating system of choice. With one exception, of course: Windows on Arm. Yes, I know it's apparently a lot better these days. I'm still not touching it.

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• Balatro's PEGI 18 rating has officially been reclassified to PEGI 12
• Even though Balatro explains poker, it was concluded that the game "contained mitigating fantastical elements that warranted a PEGI 12 rating"
• PEGI confirmed it will "develop a more granular set of classification criteria" when it comes to rating games with gambling elements

Balatro has officially had its PEGI 18 age rating overturned following an appeal.

That's according to a new press release published by PEGI, where it confirmed that the popular, poker roguelike has had its PEGI 18 rating reclassified to PEGI 12 following a "successful appeal submitted by publisher Sold Out Sales & Marketing".

Since the game is poker-inspired, Balatro was initially rated an 18 for having "prominent gambling imagery", even though the game doesn't actually feature any microtransactions or in-game currency.

"The Complaints Board concluded that, although the game explains the various hands of poker, the roguelike deck-building game contained Balatro's PEGI 18 rating has officially been reclassified to PEGI 12," it reads.

Balatro solo developer LocalThunk took to X / Twitter following the news to also confirm the new reclassification.

"After an appeal from my publisher, Balatro has been reclassified by PEGI from 18+ to 12+," LocalThunk said. "This is a good step from PEGI - bringing nuance to their rating criteria that used to be 18+ or nothing. I hope this change will allow developers to create without being unfairly punished."

LocalThunk followed up in his thread by posting an image holding physical console copies of Balatro, which feature the PEGI 18 rating on the covers, joking "Guess these are limited edition now!"

Another game, Luck Be A Landlord, was also confirmed to have been changed to a PEGI 12 in the press release after an appeal was submitted by publisher Fangamer. It was reasoned that although the game does feature a slot machine mechanic, "there were no specific transferable gambling skills and the game can therefore be rated PEGI 12."

It was stated that going forward, PEGI will "develop a more granular set of classification criteria" when it comes to games featuring gambling themes such as Balatro.

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It's been more than two years since DC Studios co-chief James Gunn announced the official lineup for Chapter One of his rebooted DC Universe (DCU). Since then, not a lot has changed – indeed, only one project has been released (that being Creature Commandos season 1) while two more (Clayface and Dynamic Duo) have added to the DCU's current slate.

That was the case until the latest DCU press event was held last Friday (February 21), anyway, with Gunn and fellow studio CEO Peter Safran providing the most significant update yet on their DCU Chapter One plans. Here are the six biggest takeaways from the presentation:

1. Robert Pattinson won't be the DCU's Batman

Matt Reeves' Bat-Verse will continue to sit independent of the DCU (Image credit: Jonathan Olley/Warner Bros.)

After months of speculation, Gunn and Safran confirmed that Robert Pattison's Bruce Wayne/Batman won't be integrated into the DCU. The pair's stance on the matter comes after numerous reports that Matt Reeves' Batman Universe, dubbed The Batman Epic Crime Saga, would be folded into the DCU. Apparently, that would have seen Reeves installed as the main creative voice for the Caped Crusader's big- and small-screen adaptations at DC Studios, and seen forthcoming films like The Batman Part II merged into Chapter One's lineup.

That won't be happening, though. Gunn told reporters (per IGN) that Reeves' Bat-Verse will continue to sit independently of the DCU, and that progress is being made on the DCU Chapter One's upcoming Dark Knight movie, aka The Brave and the Bold. Indeed, a writer has been hired and, once they've filed a script, it'll be looked over by Gunn, Safran, and the film's director Andy Muschietti to determine whether it's good enough to enter full production.

2. Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow and Lanterns get significant filming updates

Supergirl's next big-screen adventure will arrive next June (Image credit: James Gunn/Instagram)

Gunn's Superman movie is the next DCU project that will be released – it'll fly into theaters on July 11 – but two other Chapter One productions I'm really excited about received big production updates at last week's presentation.

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, which will launch in cinemas worldwide in June 2026, is midway through its shooting schedule (per Deadline). That flick will star House of the Dragon alumnus Milly Alcock as the titular hero, who we got our first look at in an image that'll be very familiar to DC comic book fans, with Jason Momoa recently cast as immortal anti-hero Lobo.

On the TV front, Lanterns, which is being billed as a 'new weird' sci-fi take on HBO's acclaimed anthology crime series True Detective, just wrapped its first week of filming. According to the same Deadline article in the previous paragraph, it could be released on Max in early 2026. It'll star Aaron Pierre and Kyle Chandler as co-leads Jon Stewart and Hal Jordan, too, who are two of the most recognizable characters to have held the Green Lantern moniker.

3. New details emerge about Mike Flanagan's Clayface movie

Clayface is officially getting his own movie from popular horror filmmaker Mike Flanagan (Image credit: DC)

One of the more recent projects that was greenlit for DCU Chapter One, horror auteur Mike Flanagan's Clayface film is due to start filming in mid-2025, according to Gunn and Safran. Per IGN, it'll also be an R-rated flick, with Gunn adding that it'll be "pure f***ing horror, like, totally real. Their version of that movie, it is so real and true and psychological and body horror and gross."

Gunn and Safran confirmed reports that James Watkins, the filmmaker behind 2024's Speak No Evil movie, is on board to direct Clayface. It's currently penciled in for release in September 2026.

4. Paradise Lost, Booster Gold, and Swamp Thing are all still in development...

Paradise Lost has been described as a Themyscira-set version of Game of Thrones (Image credit: DC Comics)

Given the length of time that's passed since DCU Chapter One's lineup was revealed, fans have started to grow concerned that some of the announced projects won't get made after all. Well, Gunn and Safran have moved to allay some of those fears.

For starters, the duo revealed that Paradise Lost, a Game of Thrones-esque series that could introduce Dian Prince/Wonder Woman to the DCU, is still in the works. No writer has been found to pen its scripts yet, though.

Meanwhile, while a showrunner/head writer had been found for Booster Gold, another DCU TV show, Safran revealed (per The Hollywood Reporter) that the unnamed individual eventually walked away from the project. A new scribe has been found, so it sounds like it's full steam ahead on this one again.

Then there's Swamp Thing, another horror-fueled film that's coming from James Mangold (Logan, A Complete Unknown). Safran said (via Deadline) that the ball is firmly in Mangold's court about its development, but added that he and Gunn are confident he'll get around to it in the near future.

5. ...but it's not great news for Waller or The Authority

The Authority's first-ever film adaptation hasn't progressed as Gunn and Safran had hoped (Image credit: DC Comics)

Two DCU productions that are in trouble, however, are Waller and The Authority.

Where the former is concerned, Safran admitted: "We’ve taken a couple of cracks at it but still haven’t been able to land [it]", so this follow-up to 2021's The Suicide Squad, last year's first season of Creature Commandos, and this year's Peacemaker season 2 (it's set to arrive sometime in August) is on ice for the time being.

As for The Authority, Gunn told the assembled press: "(It’s) the one that got messed with through all of the other things that were happening. The script had a harder time coming along". The reason? Gunn and Safran said it's difficult to make a superhero movie or TV show that takes a cynical approach to the comic book medium, which The Authority's source material does. Despite the huge success that The Boys' TV adaptation has had at Prime Video, the pair added that audiences may have grown tired of such projects, hence the decision to put The Authority on the back burner.

6. There could be up to seven DCU releases every year

Superman is one of two DCU projects that'll be released in 2025, but there'll be many more per year moving forward (Image credit: DC Studios/Warner Bros. Pictures)

Ever since he became DC Studios' co-CEO, Gunn has consistently stated that DCU projects won't be greenlit unless he and Safran believe they're ready to go.

It seems that the pair are slowly changing his tune. In quotes attributed to Safran by Collider, there could be up to seven (!) DCU productions released every year. That includes new movies of the live-action and animated variety (two of the former, one of the latter) and four TV shows (two live-action and two animated) every 12 months. It was no great surprise to learn, then, that Gunn and Safran have greenlit a number of new animated productions, including My Adventures With Green Lantern and Starfire.

Given the current climate around superhero fatigue, the possibility of seven DC Studios projects launching each year will raise a few eyebrows. Of course, there will be people who don't watch every single one of those but, considering that some Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) fans have lost interest in it, there's every chance that potential DCU fans may grow weary of feeling like they have to consume every film and series for fear of missing key storylines, character introductions, and more. Hopefully, we'll get some clarity soon as to whether all of these movies and TV shows are officially part of the DCU or not.

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• Job cuts at DBS will take the form of “natural attrition [...] over the next few years” as temporary and contract workers are not rehired
• Permanent staff will not lose their roles
• 1,000 new jobs are expected to be created

Singapore’s largest bank, DBS, has confirmed it will continue using AI tools by cutting as many as 4,000 roles (9.7% of DBS’ total workforce), so the technology can take a larger role in its operations.

A DBS spokesperson told BBC News, “reduction in workforce will come from natural attrition as temporary and contract roles roll off over the next few years."

The spokesperson did not confirm which roles will be affected, or strictly how many will be cut in Singapore alone, but it’s understood that permanent roles won’t be affected. As a silver lining, CEO Piyush Gupta, who is set to leave the company in March 2025, said the bank expects to create around 1,000 jobs built around working with AI.

DBS’ AI model workforce and the future of work

In 2024, Gupta said DBS’ AI push had been ongoing for at least a decade, and it now deploys, “over 800 AI models across 350 use cases, and expect the measured economic impact of these to exceed S$1bn ($745m USD, or £592m) in 2025."

Experts are mixed on whether machine-learned large language models (LLMS — what ‘artificial intelligence' has largely come to mean to the layperson) will drastically change the state of employment and the way we live our lives. In 2024, the IMF's managing director Kristalina Georgieva estimated AI technology would come to affect 40% of jobs worldwide and “likely worsen inequality.”

However, Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England (BoE) also told the BBC in 2024 he thought that AI wouldn’t be a “mass destroyer of jobs”, but that “there is great potential with it. In case you missed it, vast swathes of artists might want a word with him.

For me, It’s not entirely clear whether an AI-led ‘human skills revolution’ is on the way.

On Valentine’s Day, I reported on, amongst other things, survey findings from antivirus software from Norton that found 62% of respondents wouldn’t be able to spot AI content in an online dating profile. If they can’t spot or understand the technology, they won’t grow with it at work, and that will make them seem even more expendable to executives — who you never hear about being replaced with AI, oddly enough.

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• Google Messages is rolling out a new camera and gallery layout
• The new tools include an easier way to send photos and videos in their original high quality
• The gallery has been redesigned to show more photos at once

Google Messages is getting an overhaul to its camera and gallery functions which should make it much easier to send photos and videos at their original high quality size.

As 9to5Google reports, some Google Messages beta users are noting a change to their in-app camera and gallery as Google implements the new layout. The changes have not been rolled out to the stable release of the app just yet.

Alongside a redesigned gallery from which to choose your desired photos or videos, the new layout includes a handy “HD” icon that appears in the top right of the final screen before an image is sent.

Tapping the icon brings up a new menu that allows you to select either “Optimized for chat”, which trades some quality for a lower file size, or “Original quality”, which, as you might guess, sends the entire original image as found on your phone’s built-in storage.

This new menu makes it clearer and easier to send high-quality images through Google Messages, avoiding an annoying loss in quality due to compression.

It’s not entirely a new feature, though – in the current stable build of Google Messages, users can send original quality images by heading into the app, tapping their profile picture, opening Messages settings, and turning off the “Send photos faster” option.

As it stands, “Send photos faster” is analogous to the new “Optimized for chat” option – the new menu makes the switch to higher quality photos and videos much clearer.

Still, those with slower connections or who are conscious of sending large files to their family and friends can select the “Optimized for chat” option for quicker uploads and smaller file sizes.

As for the new gallery layout, tapping to insert an image will now bring up a larger, more comprehensive view of your recent photos and videos, rather than the current menu of folders, which have now been relegated to a small tab on the bottom of the screen.

These new updates are the latest in a slew of new features and functions added to Google Messages recently, including changes to emergency messaging and the ability to text yourself using RCS – Google Messages is the default messaging app for many of the best Android phones, so it tracks the Google is keen to keep it up to date.

What do you think of the new camera and gallery functions? Will they be useful, or are they just a pointless shake up? Let us know in the comments below.

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• The Philips Hue Sync app is now available for LG TVs
• The app lets you sync smart lights with your TV without an HDMI Sync Box
• It works with HDMI devices plus native apps like Netflix and Disney+

The Philips Hue Sync app is now available for LG TVs, letting you sync your smart lights with movies, games, and TV shows on your screen, without the need for a Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync Box. Your Hue lights will react instantly to whatever's currently on screen, whether it's from an external source like a games console, or a native smart TV app like Netflix and Disney+.

Signify, the company behind Philips Hue, announced that the app would be arriving on LG TVs at CES 2025 in January, but didn't give an exact date for its arrival, only saying that it would be available early this year, but now it's officially here.

At CES, Signify explained that the app would work with all LG TVs using webOS 24 or later, which includes many of the best TVs you can buy today. If you're not sure whether yours is compatible, you can search for your model on LG's website to see which apps it supports.

To use the Philips Hue Sync app, you'll need at least one color-compatible Philips Hue light (the Philips Hue Play Gradient Strip and Philips Hue Play Light Bars work particularly well), plus a Philips Hue Bridge, which creates a mesh network that connects your Hue devices to each other, and to your home Wi-Fi network. You can then download the Philips Hue Sync app through the LG Content Store on your TV.

Hue Sync alternatives

If you don't have a TV compatible with Hue Sync, you can still synchronize your smart lights with your screen using a Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync Box. It's easy to set up, and works with any form of HDMI input, including Blu-ray players, set-top boxes, and games consoles. However, unlike the Hue Sync app, the Sync Box won't work with native apps on your smart TV.

It doesn't come cheap, either. Last year Signify launched a version of the Sync Box that supports 8K TVs and HDMI 2.1, making it ideal for gaming, but with a price tag of $349.99 / £299.99 / AU$699.95, it's a big investment.

If that's outside your budget, take a look at our guide to the best Ambilight alternatives, which aim to create a similar effect by using a camera to capture what's on your TV screen, then mirroring the colors using an LED light strip mounted behind your TV. These systems aren't perfect (they have some latency and can be affected by reflections on the screen) but are usually much more affordable.

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