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Proton has added three new features to its business VPN to improve functionality and make it easier to protect devices.

For one, Proton now offers mobile device management support (MDM) for simple installation of Proton VPN on employee devices. It has also expanded its offering of servers from two to twelve countries.

Finally, the company has added Gateway monitoring for organization-wide resource and application usage.

Boost for business

Proton MDM makes it easier to protect your business from the second a team member logs on, by automatically installing Proton VPN on to Windows PCs. So even if you have a new starter or roll out new business laptops to your team, you can be sure you’re protected. Proton will even sign them in for you automatically.

Moreover, you’ll be able to see where and on what devices Proton VPN has been installed, and add device restrictions. To further boost protection, you’ll be able to set your devices to require an active VPN connection to access apps and the internet and enable an always-on setting to reduce friction.

As for dedicated servers, you can now lease dedicated servers in multiple cities across twelve countries for better local resource access, segmentation, and remote team support.

Lastly, Gateway monitor provides at-a-glance information on users, connections, VPN connections, location, and device names, as well as more detailed information at the user level.

For additional information, visit the Proton VPN blog here.

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Netflix has shared a glimpse at Mel Monroe (Alexandra Breckenridge) and Jack Sheridan's (Martin Henderson) dreamy wedding in the new Virgin River season 6 teaser – and I'm now just waiting for my invite in the mail!

Save the dates are already in order as the best streaming service announced that Virgin River season 6 would be released on December, 19, so there isn't long to wait until the wedding of the year.

Mel and Jack have faced many hardships throughout their time in the sleepy town. While struggling with their own traumas, they've endured a heartbreaking miscarriage, love triangle, and a devastating wildfire. But now, our favorite couple will walk down the aisle and have the happily ever after they deserve.

The teaser trailer (see below) starts with a heartwarming montage of the couple's most romantic moments along with a voiceover of Jack's swoon-worthy proposal from the season 4 finale. We also get a glance at Mel's wedding dress and Jack looking dapper in his wedding suit, as well as snippets of Mel's bachelorette party.

Adjust your buttonholes and grab your bouquets

Spoilers follow for the ending of Virgin River season 5.

Virgin River season 6 focuses on the lead-up to Mel and Jack's wedding, with showrunner Patrick Sean Smith telling Tudum: “We’re trying to hit all the milestones of the pre-wedding planning, the bachelor and bachelorette parties, the rehearsal dinner. I’m so proud of how it turned out. It felt very Virgin River in its production - the ambition of it, and that we’re a small group of people that care about something so much: the fans. So we just busted our humps to get it done.”

While season 6 leans into the romance of the series, there's still going to be "the signature Virgin River twists and turns," Sean Smith said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

The upcoming installment of the best Netflix show takes place in the springtime, a few months after season 5's Christmas episodes where Mel discovered the identity of her biological father, Everett Reid (John Allen Nelson). We'll also be introduced to two new characters in Virgin River season 6, as Jessica Rothe (Happy Death Day) and Callum Kerr (One Piece) will play a young version of Mel's parents, Sarah and Everett who appear in flashbacks as they meet and fall in love in the 1970s.

In the meantime, I'll be watching these five powerful dramas and three small town dramas while I wait for my wedding invitation.

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The Garmin Fenix 8 is a fantastic watch. We thought it was one of the best Garmin watches yet and awarded it a rare five-star rating, albeit before we learned about a serious issue. The Garmin Fenix 8 seems to have a big problem with cold water, as for lots of users, it shuts down when immersed. Not ideal for a device marketed as a dive watch.

Those users include podcaster Joe Rogan. On The Joe Rogan Experience #2209, around the 2:40:00 mark, Rogan discusses the Garmin Fenix 8 with guest Paul Rosolie.

“I do wanna say, Garmin, that your new Fenix 8 watch shuts off when you get in the cold plunge. I have a Fenix 8 and a Fenix 7, they’re awesome, I love these things. [The Fenix 8] has a better heart sensor, it’s just better overall, but it sucks if you go in cold water, it doesn’t make any sense: how can you go backward? On the old one, you can go in cold water and nothing happens.”

“So if I’m in the water for five seconds, it shuts off. They’re apparently going to fix that, they think it’s a software issue. The crazy thing is, they have a dive feature… if you get down to depths and it’s below 40 degrees, it’s probably going to shut off."

“People have done it in cold water, so they’ve taken a glass of cold water and dropped the watch in, and it shuts off. Not good, Garmin... I ordered one, it took a while to get there and got all excited, then during my first cold plunge I thought 'What in the f***?'"

By “people”, Rogan means TechRadar. We recently ran a story where we put the Garmin Fenix 8 watch to a cold-water test in the office, compared to a Fenix 7. The Garmin Fenix 8 shut down twice through cold water exposure, while the Fenix 7 emerged unfazed.

(Image credit: Future)

After his assistant clarifies that you can put the watch in Beta to solve the issue, Rogan immediately retorts with, “but Beta disables the dive function”. So he’s clearly done some reading around the issue – including our coverage. He then goes on to espouse its virtues, with Maps, elevation, waypoints, the long battery life and the LED flashlight, all features he loves. “These f***ing things are incredible.”

A regular cold plunger, Rogan has a solution: he wears the Garmin Fenix 7 during cold plunges and sauna, while mentioning he uses the Garmin Fenix 8's LED flashlight and elevation out in the woods, presumably while hunting. It seems as though he swaps from one to the other depending on the task at hand.

It’s not the high-profile plug Garmin would have wanted for the next iteration of perhaps its most popular watch series, despite Rogan evangelizing on the series in general. However, it does put additional pressure on Garmin to solve the issue quickly, when users like Rogan with reach and clout become public Fenix 8 detractors.

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The latest Boom speaker stays mainly the same, with one key upgrade.

In a recently published blog post, Google explained how it makes its software less susceptible to flaws and vulnerabilities, and thus less interesting to cybercriminals. Its approach includes two key pillars: hardening super-popular, yet unsafe, programming languages, while slowly (but surely) transitioning towards up-and-coming, memory-safe languages.

Earlier this week, Alex Rebert of Security Foundations, and Core Developers Chandler Carruth, Jen Engel, Andy Qin, wrote an article saying that about 70% of severe vulnerabilities in memory-unsafe codebases are due to memory safety bugs.

These vulnerabilities are then found, and exploited, by malicious actors who can do real-world harm. Last year, the number of vulnerabilities exploited in the wild almost hit an all-time high, and of those figures, 75% CVEs used in zero-day exploits were memory safety vulnerabilities.

C and C++

Understanding these problems also means doing something about them, and Google is apparently now going for this two-pronged approach.

“Our long-term objective is to progressively and consistently integrate memory-safe languages into Google's codebases while phasing out memory-unsafe code in new development. Given the amount of C++ code we use, we anticipate a residual amount of mature and stable memory-unsafe code will remain for the foreseeable future.”

Basically, Google is saying that it is impossible to flat-out replace C and C++, despite the general consensus being that they are memory-unsafe languages. Therefore, before that migration is complete, the company will work on risk reduction and containment, which includes C++ hardening (retrofitting safety at scale in memory-unsafe code), security boundaries (strengthening critical software infrastructure components through expanded use of isolation techniques), and bug detection (investing further in bug detection tooling and innovative research).

Lastly, Google said it is “actively working” with the semiconductor and research communities on emerging hardware-based approaches to improve memory safety.

“We believe it’s important to embrace the opportunity to achieve memory safety at scale, and that it will have a positive impact on the safety of the broader digital ecosystem,” Google concludes. “This path forward requires continuous investment and innovation to drive safety and velocity, and we remain committed to the broader community to walk this path together.”

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The grisly conclusion to Ti West's horror trilogy is now available to watch from the safety of your living room.

Back in 2020, Sarah Cooper’s “How to Medical” lip-sync of Donald Trump’s proposed Covid-19 cures went viral on social media. TikTok’s latest trend gives that schtick a new spin.

OnePlus has announced that it will release an Android 15-powered update to its OxygenOS operating system on October 24 via an online event on official OnePlus channels.

The company says OxygenOS 15 will bring “meaningful AI features” and a “distinctive design style”, with a focus on user-friendliness and speedy performance.

Though we don’t have specific details of the mentioned AI features yet, OnePlus says these have been “strategically designed across multiple common scenarios”.

It’s not yet clear whether these AI tools will be proprietary or based on those built into the Android 15 operating system.

OnePlus says the underlying animations of the Android operating system have been reconstructed for OxygenOS 15, with the aim of providing a smoother experience.

OxygenOS 15 will be the first version of OnePlus’ proprietary wrapper to make use of Android 15, the source code for which was released on September 4.

However, it’s only recently that phone makers have begun to implement the latest version of the world’s most popular operating system, with Android developer Google rolling out Android 15 to its Pixel phones on October 15.

On October 17, we reported that Motorola had begun issuing an Android 15 update to select devices in beta, with Xiaomi and Honor going the same route in global markets.

However, we don’t expect OxygenOS 15 to launch in beta, which means OnePlus has a shot of being the second phone maker to implement a stable release of Android 15.

Which OnePlus phones are likely to get Android 15?

The OnePlus 12 launched globally in January 2024 (Image credit: Future / James Ide)

We aren’t yet sure of which OnePlus phones will receive the OxygenOS 15 update, but we’re expecting all of the best OnePlus phones to make the cut.

The premium OnePlus 12 and OnePlus Open, as well as the mid-range OnePlus Nord 4, are likely to get this Android 15-powered update, as OnePlus has promised four years of updates for each handset.

The OnePlus 12R is also likely to receive OxygenOS 15, as it’s still in the first year of a promised three years of updates.

For the moment, much of the above remains speculative, so we’ll be on the lookout for more official OnePlus announcements.

For the latest updates on OxygenOS 15 and Android 15, be sure to keep up with our OnePlus coverage and Android coverage.

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From a booger buster to a food masher, these gifts make this amazing (and difficult!) job just a little easier.

British semiconductor giant Arm is reportedly looking to bypass its Chinese subsidiary, ArmChina, by offering IP licenses directly to Chinese customers, according to DigiTimes reporting (via Tom’s Hardware).

Arm China, established in 2002, remained a foreign-owned enterprise in the nation until 2016 when a majority (51%) stake was sold to a Chinese investor consortium.

At the time, it was hoped that the sale would help Arm comply with local regulations better as well as adapt to China’s unique needs.

Arm wants to abolish Arm China

Since 2016, Arm China has acted as an intermediary, earning itself a margin by licensing Arm’s IP to Chinese customers, however tensions between Arm and its Chinese subsidiary have been ongoing for several years, centered mostly around who controls the division.

The British company now appears to be exploring ways to circumvent the joint venture model by selling directly to China. By doing this, it would be able to increase its gross margins by eliminating the need to share projects with Arm China.

Despite tensions, Arm China continues to contribute pretty significantly to the overall business. It generated $122.6 million in the second quarter of 2024, accounting for around 13% of the overall company’s revenue.

Moreover, Arm China has been busy developing its own processor IP. In September, it launched its domestically-approved Linglong graphics and video processors, and has also reportedly been exploring general-purpose GPUs for AI and HPC, reflecting China’s push for semiconductor self-sufficiency in light of ongoing geopolitical tensions and subsequent restrictions and sanctions on imports and exports.

In a letter to shareholders following its most recent quarterly earnings report, Arm CEO Rene Haas and CFO Jason Child wrote: “We expect the migration of AI from the cloud to edge devices to drive even higher compute demand per device over time and Arm’s unprecedented share across all end markets means that Arm is uniquely positioned to benefit from this migration, which will increase royalty revenue per chip.”

TechRadar Pro has asked the company about plans to sell direct to the Chinese market, but the company did not immediately respond.

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Refinance rates were mixed, but one key rate fell. Experts expect refi activity to go up as rates drop.

Mortgage interest rates were variable, but one benchmark rate saw a decline. Rates fluctuate daily.

The Samsung Galaxy S25 series is widely expected to launch sometime in January, and we now have leaked dummy units of all three anticipated S25 models to compare the sizes and dimensions of the trio.

An image of these dummy units comes courtesy of well-known tipster @xleaks7 and Mokesciu Skaiciuokle – the same tipster has previously shown off dummy units for the standard Galaxy S25 and the Galaxy S25 Ultra, but we haven't seen the Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus or all three models together before now.

Dummy units are based on schematics given to third-party accessory makers, so they can get their various wares – such as phone cases – ready ahead of time. They usually give us a pretty good idea of the designs and dimensions of upcoming handsets.

When it comes to the Galaxy S25 range, it doesn't look as though we're going to get a huge amount of variation from the Galaxy S24, the Galaxy S24 Plus, and the Galaxy S24 Ultra – though some subtle tweaks, such as a change in the rear camera ring design, have previously been rumored.

Galaxy S25 Plus dimensions

We also have a video from the same source showing off just the Galaxy S25 Plus unit from all angles. That circle on the back won't be visible on the finished phone, by the way – it's just there as an indicator of where the wireless charging coil will be.

There are leaked dimensions for the Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus too: 158.44 mm x 75.79 mm x 7.35 mm. That makes it slightly thinner, slightly shorter, and slightly narrower than the current model, though there's really not a lot in it.

The biggest design changes are likely to be seen on the Galaxy S25 Ultra model, which is rumored to be getting corners that are more rounded, to better match the other two phones in the series. Tweaks to the frame should make it more comfortable to hold, too.

Inside these handsets we'll get a processor upgrade of course, as well as – perhaps – a boost in RAM (though that's less certain). However, from what we've heard so far, don't expect a massive upgrade in terms of the camera setup.

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SSD prices could drop by something like 10% in the near future, so you might want to hold fire on any potential drive purchase for now.

The fresh pricing prediction comes from analyst firm TrendForce which regularly produces reports on memory pricing, and the latest such forecast for the storage market is that NAND Flash contract prices (those charged by component suppliers to drive makers) will decline to the tune of 3% to 8% in this quarter (Q4).

That’s due to “weaker-than-expected sales of end products driving buyers [drive makers] to adopt a conservative approach.” We’re further told that the consumer market is ‘sluggish’ right now, and there’s a hint that Copilot+ PCs aren’t performing perhaps as well as they should (though elsewhere, huge sales for those AI laptops have been forecast, at least from 2025 onwards).

TrendForce observes: “From a demand perspective, inflation and limited practical use cases for AI have hindered any significant upgrade cycles despite manufacturers actively introducing AI-powered PCs.”

Furthermore, while demand is sluggish, inventory is increasing. TrendForce notes: “Meanwhile, on the supply side, several major manufacturers returned to full capacity utilization in Q3, while other suppliers increased production through process upgrades, resulting in a modest rise in overall capacity.”

Consumer SSD supply was constricted early this year (with prices rising), so this is a distinct turnaround with those supply level cranking up – but now they’re not being met by demand from buyers out there.

The upshot is that the price of consumer SSDs is predicted to drop by 5% to 10% during this quarter. (Enterprise drives, mind you, are a different story, and will likely see some ‘modest’ price growth, with sales being stable enough – and AI certainly helping in that respect).

(Image credit: Western Digital) Analysis: Playing a waiting game

We may well see the impact of price drops being realized in around a month or so, then – and what else happens in about a month or so? That would be Black Friday, and so that’s another good reason to bide your time if you’re currently mulling an SSD upgrade.

One way or another, as the end of November rolls around, SSD prices should have dropped anyway, and obviously we’ll have a whole pile of potential tempting storage deals in the Black Friday sales anyway. And while you wait it out, you could always plan what drive you might want to buy by checking out our list of the current best SSDs, whether you’re after a new drive for your PC or console.

Via TweakTown

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A gift in the $300 gift range strikes a perfect balance between practicality and refinement. Here you'll start to see more premium products, just right for that special someone. We've rounded up the best gifts under $300, all tested by our CNET experts.

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(Image credit: Brandon Bell)

Electronics accessory maker Dbrand has just released Darkplates 2.0 - its updated version of the original model of PS5 face plates, this time for PS5 Slim consoles.

Darkplates 2.0 ditches the four-plate setup of the PS5 Slim, consolidating that into just two plates - one for each side. They come in a sleek black finish and even feature circular vents on each side allowing air to pass through easier. This should help the console run cooler overall.

Darkplates 2.0 are now available to buy from Dbrand's store page. There are versions for both the standard PS5 Slim as well as the Digital Edition, both coming in at $69.95 (though they're currently at a $10 discount). A magnetic stand can be added to your purchase for $10 extra, as well as a middle skin (ranging from $24.95 to $49.90) and even light strips (from $11.95 to $19.95 depending on the complexity of the pattern). Overall, you could be paying anywhere between $69.95 and $100.85 (outside of the discount period) based on your choices.

Wave 1 stock is shipping now, with further waves releasing in November, December, and January. So if you're interested, there seems to be plenty of time and stock if you're looking to purchase what might be a huge improvement over the PS5 Slim's base faceplates.

And as you might expect from Dbrand, the website isn't short of venomous jabs at Sony. "Do you think oxygen can pass through a 3mm panel of uninterrupted plastic?" the site's product description reads. "If you answered 'no,' congratulations: you're qualified to be our next (and only) Fan Scientist."

If you're unfamiliar with it, Dbrand was initially sent a cease-and-desist from Sony a few years back. The company was required to "promptly and permanently cease" production of the original Darkplates. For Darkplates 2.0, Dbrand insists it's not encroaching on any patent infringements, so the accessory could be here to stay this time around.

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Nvidia is calling for user feedback on its legacy features from the Nvidia Control Panel, with Team Green keen to know which features still matter to users and how they are used.

The company recently announced that it would be shutting down its Nvidia Control Panel and GeForce Experience app, replacing both with the new Nvidia App, which will apparently be a one-stop shop for all Nvidia settings. The app is currently in beta, and promises to seamlessly integrate legacy tools with new features that support current and future games and hardware.

To better inform this transition, Nvidia shared a survey called “Nvidia App beta – Migration of Nvidia Control Panel and legacy 3D settings survey”. It aims to gauge which features should be brought over to the new app, and which should be left in the past.

The features on the chopping block

The 3D settings mentioned in the survey title are those found under the “Manage 3D settings” tab in the Nvidia Control Panel. These allow you to optimize for performance, energy efficiency, and visual fidelity on a game-by-game basis or globally.

Some highlights include:

• Limiting power consumption and reduce thermal load – useful for laptops as it can prolong battery life and reduce the risk of overheating
• Low Latency Mode, which reduces lag, limiting the number of frames queued in advance
• Toggling V-sync which eliminates screen tearing by synchronizing the game’s frame rate with the monitor’s refresh rate but can increase latency
• Tweaking anti-aliasing, which smooths jagged edges for better visual quality
• Anisotropic filtering, which sharpens textures when viewed from angled perspectives
• Triple buffering, which reduces stutter when using V-sync

These settings have always been essential for gamers who wanted to tailor their gaming experience - especially with games that lack in-game graphics options. Laptop users can set profiles to switch between their integrated graphics and discrete GPU, preserving battery life when they aren’t gaming.

A lot of these features, though, no longer offer any significant benefits to modern games and hardware, as we now have better ways of doing many of these things.

Still, as users on Reddit, ask, what about old games? Users have expressed their desire for features like AA and anisotropic filtering (AF) to remain for older games, as well as “GameStream” for streaming games from their PC to their Android or Nvidia Shield TV devices.

Whatever the outcome, it’s nice that Nvidia has made strides to include its users’ feedback to inform the migration process. When Nvidia launches the full version of its new app and shuts down Control Panel and GeForce experience at the end of the year, it will truly be the end of an era - and the company will need to make sure its new replacement app is embraced by gamers. As we all know, they aren’t the easiest bunch to keep happy…

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One of the world's biggest repositories for third-party Android watch faces has confirmed that it's working on improving support for Wear OS 5, after a change to the software that means the newest models on the market can't access most of its features.

Facer, which has over 10 million downloads on the Google Play store, is a watch-face customization platform with over 500,000 downloadable watch faces in its catalog.

Unfortunately, a recent change by Google means that the best Android smartwatches on the market, namely the Pixel Watch 3, Samsung Galaxy Watch 7, and the Galaxy Watch Ultra, aren't compatible with Facer's watch faces.

It's all because of Google's new Watch Face Format (WFF) tool, Facer explained in a blog post. Facer says the new format has more limited capabilities than Facer's, and as such converting faces to the format "will result in loss of functionality in a number of cases." There are more issues besides, but Facer says it's working hard with Google to get things back on track.

Facer committed to Wear OS 5 support

Users of the Pixel Watch 3 are among those left out in the cold. (Image credit: Future/Jacob Krol)

Aside from the loss of functionality, Facer also says that WFF faces can only be published in the Google Play Store, "a manual process which is not logistically feasible for our catalog of 500,000 faces." Faces bought within Facer wouldn't be picked up by the Google Play store either, so users would be forced to repurchase their watch faces. Finally, the current format doesn't support subscription models, affecting Facer Premium subscribers.

"We understand these issues are detrimental to Facer users and we have been actively discussing a resolution with Google since the Watch Face Format was announced last year," the company lamented. "The change was unfortunately rolled out before a solution could be reached."

For now, Facer says that Wear OS 4 users and many Wear OS 5 users on older devices can continue to use its service uninhibited. However, it warns that anyone upgrading to the Pixel Watch 3, Galaxy Watch 7, or Galaxy Watch Ultra will no longer be able to use Facer.

The company says it is "working hard with Google to bring the Facer service" to users of those watches, and will endeavor to add some of its best watch faces to the Google Play store meantime.

The company also quietly hinted that users might want to get in touch with Google to express their own displeasure at the current situation.

So if you're an avid Facer user who relies on its watch faces for your wearable customization, you might want to think twice about pulling the trigger on that new Android smartwatch you've been eyeing up.

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