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A 1988 federal law could bar tech companies from using video viewing data for targeted ads without explicit user consent.

In this first episode of Your Turn with Allison Aubrey, we explore the science of the flow state with violinist Diane Allen, who lost her flow and then tried to find it again, and also from Dr. Richard Huskey, who studies the flow state and how each of us can find it.

Coway unveiled the Airmega Mighty2 Mini today.

The Universal Cart tracks stock availability and price drops, but you’ll need to shop on Google first.

Epic Games’ redesigned launcher enters preview on Windows, Mac and Linux. Explore speed claims, compatibility limits and what to check before installing.

The post Epic Games Releases Redesigned Launcher for Windows, Mac and Linux appeared first on TechRepublic.

SpaceXSI launches Grok Voice 3.0 for AI customer support. Explore benchmark results, API pricing, billing details, and what businesses should test.

The post SpaceXSI Launches Grok Voice 3.0 for AI Customer Support appeared first on TechRepublic.

The FBI and U.S. Postal Inspection Service are looking into the mailings, some of which included an unidentified powdery white substance.

(Image credit: Mario Tama)

Apple Intelligence may reach China in December with iOS 27.3, but Siri AI and other features will be missing. See what users can expect.

The post Apple Intelligence Gets China Approval: Siri AI Left Out appeared first on TechRepublic.

The wait is over, and it’s looking good.

Congress and a federal agency are threatening to weaken the country's historic preservation law, fueling a backlash that critics say is as fiery as the one that led to the law's creation 60 years ago.

Nvidia has made its complete Run:ai GPU orchestration platform open source. Here's what's free, which support options cost money, and what IT teams still need to operate.

The post Nvidia Run Is Now Open Source: What’s Free and Paid appeared first on TechRepublic.

The FTC has subpoenaed OpenAI and Anthropic over potential consumer protection violations. An AI security expert explains the risks of enterprise AI agents.

The post FTC Demands Answers From OpenAI and Anthropic About AI Safety appeared first on TechRepublic.

• 007 First Light will launch on Nintendo Switch 2 on March 18, 2027
• The edition was originally scheduled to launch this year but was delayed
• IO Interactive says it will continue "refining the game's optimisation and performance" in the lead-up to the game's release

IO Interactive has finally announced that 007 First Light will launch on Nintendo Switch 2 on March 18, 2027.

The release date is much later than initially promised — IOI originally said the Switch 2 edition would arrive this year after the game's PS5, Xbox, and PC launch in May — however, it's now said that the delay allowed the team extra time to address performance issues and that it will continue to improve optimisation in the following months.

"Since announcing additional development time to ensure the quality of experience players expect, IO Interactive has brought hands-on builds of 007 First Light to both Gamescom and Tokyo Game Show, where players and press had their first opportunity to experience Bond's world running on Nintendo's hardware," IOI said in a statement.

"Player response from both events has been positive, reflecting the progress being made across the game as development continues toward launch."

The studio added that "the development team will use the coming months to continue refining the game's optimisation and performance on Nintendo Switch 2, ensuring it meets the standard players expect at launch."

On top of a Switch 2 release date and a new gameplay trailer running on the hardware, the 007 First Light – Deluxe Edition is now available for pre-order for $69.99 / £69.99.

The Deluxe Edition offers the Gleaming Lighter, Gleaming Earphones, Gleaming Dart Gun, and Gleaming Pen gadgets, plus four additional outfits, including the Day of the Dead, the Desert Explorer, the Silent Anchor, and the Gentleman Operator.

In addition, the 007 First Light - Special Edition on Switch 2 is also available exclusively at Amazon, giving players access to the Classic Tuxedo.

Anyone who pre-orders the game on Switch 2 will also receive early access to the GoldenEye Suit at launch.

IOI released 007 First Light's first major free downloadable content (DLC) earlier this month, which included New Game Plus, Photo Mode, and a brand-new "00" difficulty level, among other activities.

• Microsoft has officially retired Publisher and ended support
• .pub is a proprietary file format, but the app used to access it has gone
• LibreOffice reverse-engineered the format so that you can use the Draw app

Microsoft has quietly ended more than three decades of Publisher after pulling support for Microsoft 365 subscribers earlier in October 2026 – even perpetual license under Publisher 2021 lost support following the company's decision.

While .pub files aren't set to be deleted, Microsoft fans will no longer be able to view and edit them, and are instead being told to move over to Word, PowerPoint or another suitable app.

But LibreOffice just declared its support, throwing Publisher users a lifeline – and it was a lot harder than you might've thought.

LibreOffice had to reverse-engineer Publisher

"From today, these documents are in a proprietary format, the only fully compatible application for which has been abandoned by the very company that created it," Italo Vignoli wrote, noting that the developers behind the Document Liberation Project had to reverse-engineer the .pub format, which isn't an open standard.

As a result, Publisher fans can now finally open .pub files with LibreOffice Draw, but that's only part of the news because LibreOffice's Italo Vignoli went on to slate Microsoft for forcing users into a vendor lock-in, restricting their access to controls and forcing unwanted updates onto them.

"If you are responsible for documents in a public sector organisation, a school or an association, now is the time to check whether your file format is proprietary and dependent on a single vendor’s application," Vignoli added, stressing that proprietary formats like .pub force users to hand over all access control to the vendor.

Users who have already lost access to Publisher via their M365 subscription are being advised to bulk-convert their .pub documents via a PowerShell script or another automation tool. Perpetual licenses, like Publisher 2021, don't remove the app, however its functionality will likely degrade over time as bugs creep in and attackers find vulnerabilities to exploit.

YouTube Music is adding labels to AI-generated songs. Learn what the badges reveal, how disclosures work, and why unlabeled tracks offer no guarantee.

The post YouTube Music Rolls Out Labels for AI-Generated Songs appeared first on TechRepublic.

The Atlantic writer Josh Tyrangiel says Musk and Bezos each want to colonize the moon, mine its resources and launch thousands more satellites. He says their only real competition is each other.

Apple’s new HomeView faces steep competition from Amazon and Google’s well-established smart displays. Here’s what I think, based on my past reviews.

I've worked with many NAS systems over the years. I have far more storage than I know what to do with at this point across the companies I work with outside my journalistic work. I've got well over a dozen active NAS systems set up, running different areas at any given time.

One branch of what I do is overseeing a photo, video, graphics, and media team. Right now, that is three people, and they have a data warehouse of sorts for their content library that I believe is around 68 TB. The majority of it is stored in Google Drive. When they are editing the files, they obviously cannot pull from Google Drive.

I have been trying to come up with a solution for a while: how I can sync down enough so they have what they need at their fingertips, without downloading 68 TB of storage onto hard drives that could fail. With storage prices rising, I didn't want to buy SSDs or redundancies.

That's when I saw this NAS announced. I was absolutely floored and unbelievably excited, especially because another growing issue was that we knew we had duplicate files. We just didn't have the time or patience to go through and manage it all.

I've had this NAS up and running for 164 days at the time of writing this. Yes, that's a long time, but I also wanted to make sure it was as stable as I thought before I put my stamp of approval on it.

Ugreen NASync IDX6011 Pro: Price and Availability

This powerhouse originally launched on Kickstarter, and is now available direct from Ugreen's website.

Prices vary depending on the configuration you choose, with my review unit costing around $2,600 with the specs I have.

(Image credit: Collin Probst // Future )Ugreen NASync IDX6011 Pro: Unboxing and First Impressions

Out of the box, this is a fantastic unboxing experience. The unit itself is very well built, so much so that even the drive trays are toolless. The trays slide out, and unlike others, where you have to pop out some side pieces to be able to mount your drives, these drives slide apart. The housing fits the drives and then snaps back into place, holding them steady.

Once I got all my drives installed, I was able to plug in power and network and get set up fairly quickly. Because I have access to it, I also plugged in the HDMI to be able to see what was on screen, but really, all it did was point me towards using the network to finish setting everything up.

I also realized during the setup process that there is a companion app that allows me to manage almost everything I would need from that app as well, more than I've seen with other tools. I can set new users, change passwords, and see status all from my phone, which is spectacular, especially if you're the kind of person who has their entire business running on this.

(Image credit: Collin Probst // Future )Ugreen NASync IDX6011 Pro: Design and Build Quality

The design and build quality of this unit is also truly great. It's sharp and professional-looking, which I appreciate. Some NAS units have gone down the line of looking friendlier, more playful, or like a home server, and I appreciate that Ugreen has kept this one professional. That's partly due to the aluminum chassis and partly to the built-in screen. Regardless, I love the look of this storage device.

Another thing worth mentioning is that even the M.2 access panel is easy to reach. Granted, it does require a hex key, but that's not the end of the world. It is still very easy to wake up.

Moving back to the front of the device, the onboard screen is very handy for checking storage, heat, and transfer speeds. Anyone who's having a nice clock on for something cool to look at.

At the back, magnetic dust filters help keep things tidy.

(Image credit: Collin Probst // Future )Ugreen NASync IDX6011 Pro: In use

Utilizing this NAS server over the last 160 days has been everything I hoped it would be... Almost. I've been able to set up Google Drive syncs. I've been able to connect four different computers via a network switch to these drives, pull content off them, and even edit the media files stored there.

That's right: I have someone editing 6K content, pulling from media files on this drive and editing them in DaVinci Resolve. I've also been able to use the AI feature to deduplicate terabytes of storage, which has been incredibly helpful and something I never would have had time to do on my own.

I've also been able to set up automatic ingestion for when people plug in SD cards, or in my team's case, Samsung T7 drives from many of the cameras that record video. This automatically dumps to one folder that then any of my team can pull up on their computer to process before saving, archiving, or deleting.

One big bummer is that, right now, Ugreen cannot sync with Google Drive shared drives. I've talked to them about this multiple times, and I believe it will be coming down the line.

(Image credit: Collin Probst // Future )Ugreen NASync IDX6011 Pro: Final verdict

At the end of the day, I don't know of any other device that can do this and run this workload for me the way this one does. Its AI deduplication feature has freed up terabytes of space.

I've been able to empower my editors to run multiple streams of video editing. I'm able to have terabytes and terabytes of storage space, fast enough computing power to be able to actually be helpful instead of just giant storage pay, but actually a media server of sorts to be able to house and be a key player in data management.

I've solved an ingest problem: previously, my users had to log in to ingest data on their computers, but now they can just plug in and go. All that's possible with the UGREEN AI NAS. I've tested it here, and it's empowered me to do all of this from the comfort of my phone for 90% of my administrative tasks, which is a huge added benefit.

If you are in the creative space or a small business and you're looking for an app that can solve a lot of problems, not just store files, this is absolutely worth checking out. However, if you don't need most of the features I mentioned above, this is 100% overkill and not worth spending money on.

For more storage solutions, we've tested out the best NAS hard drives.

• Microsoft helped dismantle a cybercrime marketplace that sold phishing tools, accounts, and scam infrastructure
• Platforms CoGUI and Iron Man enabled large-scale phishing campaigns targeting organizations worldwide
• The operation drove over a billion phishing messages before domains and thousands of accounts were seized

Late last year, Microsoft set out to investigate what seemed to be yet another phishing campaign.

However, what it uncovered under the surface was a lot bigger - it was a sprawling Chinese-language cybercrime marketplace where countless threat actors bought, traded, and sold digital accounts, web hosting services, as well as different tools needed to create spoofed websites and fake identities.

The company has now revealed how it led the move to dismantle the marketplace, together with private cybersecurity companies including Proofpoint, and law enforcement agencies from Japan.

YAM Store, CoGUI, and Iron Man

The investigation began after Japan’s National Police Agency (NPA) tipped Microsoft off about a wave of fraud and scam activity targeting both individuals and businesses in the country.

The researchers uncovered a major underground marketplace called YAM Store, where they saw fraudulent Microsoft and Google accounts being offered for sale, as well as different ready-made tools for carrying out scams, including credential theft.

In the store, two specific tools stood out: CoGUI, and Iron Man. The former seems to be a website building framework, while the latter - a template gallery.

“CoGUI supplied criminals with ready-made websites and messages impersonating companies, financial institutions, government agencies, and other trusted organizations,” Microsoft explained. “Instead of creating fraudulent websites themselves, criminals could quickly deploy pages designed to steal passwords, payment information, and other personal data.”

According to the researchers, CoGUI became one of the most widely used offerings in the ecosystem, primarily for targeting victims in Japan and the United States. However, by mid-2026 it was steadily being replaced by Iron Man:

“Iron Man expanded the model by giving criminals access to thousands of ready-made templates designed to impersonate trusted organizations,” the researchers said. “Criminals could then quickly deploy email, text and web content tailored to specific brands, industries and countries.”

Microsoft said the tool offered more than 2,300 templates of different banks, retailers, healthcare providers, police departments, and other organizations, found in more than 150 countries around the world.

The store, and its offerings, were very popular in the cybercriminal community. Just this year, they facilitated more than a billion phishing messages being aimed at 75,000 organizations around the world. Microsoft customers alone received more than 750 million of these messages since the start of the year.

These attacks translated to “tens of millions of dollars” in profit for the operators.

Dismantling the operation

The network is now being torn down, Microsoft said. After receiving the order from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Microsoft and Health-ISAC (a global non-profit helping healthcare firms share cyber intelligence) seized and redirected the domains leading to YAM Store, CoGUI, and Iron Man. At the same time, Microsoft disabled more than 20,000 accounts connected to the store and “continues to dismantle the operation by removing infrastructure hosted on its services.”

So far, the action has blocked more than 100,000 domains used for both impersonation, and fraud.

“What began with scam activity targeting people and organizations in Japan led investigators to an underground service economy supplying criminals around the world,” the researchers concluded.

“YAM Store, CoGUI and Iron Man are only part of that larger criminal network, but disrupting them makes it harder for criminals to obtain the accounts, tools and infrastructure they rely on.”

While tearing down the infrastructure is commendable, without arrests chances are the marketplace will re-emerge sooner or later. For example, when law enforcement agencies took down two major platforms Cracked and Nulled early in 2025, they arrested two suspects, and seized 17 servers and more than 50 electronic devices.

Cracked and Nulled, forums that offered illegal goods and cybercrime-as-a-service, counted more than 10 million users in total, and investigators estimated the arrested suspects earned more than a million dollars in criminal profits.

There's nothing more frustrating than paying for fast broadband only to discover that the signal barely reaches certain rooms. The Netgear Orbi 770 Series Wi-Fi 7 Mesh System could be the upgrade you're looking for, and it's reduced in price right now.

Rather than relying on a single router to reach every corner of your home, the Netgear Orbi 770 uses three coordinated units to distribute the wireless signal throughout. The package includes one Orbi RBE771 router and two RBE770 satellites, making it suitable for larger properties, and Netgear advertises coverage of up to 8,000 sq ft. and supports up to 100 connected devices.

• Best for: Larger homes, multi-story properties, and busy households and offices with numerous connected devices.

• The deal: The Netgear Orbi 770 Series three-pack is $628 (was $700) at Amazon.

Today's best Wi-Fi 7 mesh router deal

Orbi 770 Wi-Fi 7 Mesh System (3-pack): was $699.99 now $627.72
The Netgear Orbi 770 includes one WiFi 7 router and two satellites, offering tri-band connectivity, up to 8,000-square-foot coverage, 11Gbps combined wireless speeds, 100-device capacity, and 2.5Gbps Ethernet support.View Deal

Why we recommend it

In his four-and-a-half star review, our expert Cliff said it offered "excellent performance for home users and small businesses."

He added that "the Orbi 770 doesn’t cut any corners when it comes to performance. Its 11Gbps speed is more than fast enough to cope with most domestic broadband services, and even many business networks as well, and it’s not even slightly bothered by the troublesome Wi-Fi ‘deadspot’ that we have in an office located towards the back of our building."

It supports WiFi 7, with combined theoretical wireless speeds of up to 11Gbps. Enhanced Backhaul technology helps maintain fast, reliable connections between the router and satellites.

We rated it the top pick for homes in our guide to the best mesh Wi-Fi systems.

Price Context & Historical Value

Amazon usually sells the Netgear Orbi 770 three pack for $699 but it's currently down to $627.72 right now, a $72.27 (10%) discount.This isn't the cheapest price it's been at Amazon, as we've seen it there for $569.89 in the past, but this is still a solid reduction. For comparison, Best Buy currently lists the same system at $699.99, as does Netgear direct. However, I have found a refurbished three-pack for $574 at Target if you don't need to buy new.

Should you buy it?

✅ Buy the Netgear Orbi 770 if...

You have a large home with unreliable Wi-Fi coverage, particularly if — like in my house — the signal weakens across floors or in rooms far from your existing router. It's also worth considering if your house has dozens of connected devices.

❌ Skip the Netgear Orbi 770 if...

You live in a smaller apartment or already have reliable Wi-Fi coverage throughout your property. A less expensive router or two-unit mesh system could meet your needs.

More Wi-Fi 7 mesh router deals

Orbi 370 Series Wifi 7 Mesh System: was $349.99 now $299.99
This cheaper dual-band WiFi 7 mesh system offers speeds up to 5Gbps, coverage of 6,000 square feet, support for 70 devices, 2.5Gbps Ethernet connectivity, built-in security features, and straightforward app-based setup.View Deal

Deco 7 Pro Tri-Band Whole Home Mesh System: was $469.99 now $396.5
This tri-band WiFi 7 mesh system offers 10Gbps speeds, four 2.5Gbps ports, wired backhaul, AI roaming, HomeShield security, VPN support, and coverage of up to 7,600 square feet across homes.View Deal

• See all mesh router systems at Amazon