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Washington Post editors lost faith in former tech columnist Taylor Lorenz, who called President Biden a "war criminal" and initially misled them about it. She has launched a new digital magazine.

(Image credit: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for TheRetaility.com)

Multiple key refinance rates ticked up this week, but rates are still well below last year's highs.

A handful of key mortgage rates climbed higher. Here's what experts say is next for the housing market this year.

In recent days, the as-yet-unannounced M4 MacBook Pro has appeared all over the internet, with the media engaging in a feeding frenzy as pictures and videos of Apple’s next flagship laptop continually surface. But as if that wasn’t bad enough for Apple, it now looks like some people are selling the device before it’s even been officially unveiled.

As spotted by @aaplpro on X (formerly Twitter) and reported by MacRumors, a listing has appeared on the Russian classifieds website Avito. According to the information in the post, the model in question has the same configuration of all the previously leaked models: Apple’s M4 chip, 16GB of memory, and 512GB of storage, indicating a common source for each of the leaked laptops.

On Avito, the M4 MacBook Pro was being sold for roughly $7,500 – obviously a very high price to pay considering the base M3 MacBook Pro costs $1,599. Additionally, @aaplpro noted that there were originally several laptops for sale on Avito, each with an attached note indicating that the price of the device changes every day and for interested buyers to check before purchasing.

The depicted post has already been taken down, as Avito prohibits sales of “non-existent” products. While that presumably refers to the fact that the M4 MacBook Pro has not been announced yet, it also raises an interesting point: we don’t actually know if the person who created this listing really had an M4 MacBook Pro at all. It’s possible that they simply used a picture from one of the unboxing videos or printed their own box and took a picture of that, hoping for a quick cash grab while the speculation and media furore swirls.

(Image credit: @aaplpro on X)

Whatever the case, selling a leaked product like this might not be a particularly clever idea – Apple is well known for hunting down leakers and threatening them with legal action, with several receiving actual prison time for their actions. Selling an unannounced product sold by a company of Apple’s tenacity could be a quick way to unmask yourself and suffer the consequences

So far, it’s been impossible to know whether any of the leaked M4 MacBook Pros are genuine. There are some clues that they could well be: the sheer number of units getting into people’s hands suggests that if these laptops are merely older models that have been patched or tweaked to appear like the M4 MacBook Pro, we’re looking at a highly sophisticated faking operation that hasn’t simply done a quick one-off and called it a day. This isn’t just a two-bit process with someone putting together a crude fake – these laptops look convincing.

On the other hand, some aspects of the leaks raise eyebrows. They suggest that Apple is using the same wallpaper for the M4 MacBook Pro as it did for the previous M3 model – something the company has almost certainly never done before. And despite benchmarks indicating that these laptops could contain a new M4 chip, it’s certainly not impossible to fake results like that.

Either way, we won’t know for sure if these leaks are the real deal until Apple announces the M4 MacBook Pro at an event later this month. But one thing is certain: Apple is far from in control here, and it doesn’t look like the leaks are going to slow down any time soon.

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Two of the DC Cinematic Universe's (DCU) most anticipated shows just received some big cast updates – and one has particularly caught the attention of DC fans.

Yesterday (October 9) was certainly a big day for James Gunn's and Peter Safran's rebooted comic book-inspired cinematic universe, with news surrounding the cast of two exciting Max shows receiving significant cast upgrades. The first of those concerns Lanterns, the forthcoming Green Lanterns TV show that Gunn has previously described as an intergalactic take on one of the best Max shows in True Detective.

Until now, nobody had been cast in the upcoming superhero series but, in recent days, rumors have swirled online that Kyle Chandler (Godzilla: King of the Monsters), and either Rebel Ridge's Aaron Pierre or Homecoming's Stephan James, were being eyed for Lanterns' lead roles. Well, it turns out that the gossip mill was actually right this time, with Chandler and, after a "long and grueling set of auditions", according to Gunn on X/Twitter, Pierre being hired for the DCU Chapter One project.

Meet your #Lanterns. Aaron Pierre is John Stewart and Kyle Chandler is Hal Jordan in the new HBO Original Series from DC Studios coming soon to Max. pic.twitter.com/bXbU9l4PjsOctober 9, 2024

As this article's headline and the above tweet confirm, Chandler and Pierre will play iconic Green Lantern characters in Hal Jordan and John Stewart in Lanterns. Alan Scott and Guy Gardner – the latter will also appear in Lanterns, where he'll be played by frequent Gunn collaborator Nathan Fillion – notwithstanding, Jordan and Stewart are the most famous and popular members of the Green Lantern Corps, so Gunn and company had to get their casting right.

In my view, they've done so, too. A veteran of the big and small screen, Chandler is an ideal candidate to play the experienced, older head of Lanterns' pairing. Jordan was previously played by A-lister Ryan Reynolds in 2011's Green Lantern film, which was a critical and commercial dud. Meanwhile, Pierre, who recently wowed fans and critics alike in one of 2024's best Netflix movies in Rebel Ridge, has the charisma, stoicism, and on-screen presence to bring life to Stewart in a live-action DC project for the first time.

There's no news on when Lanterns will start filming but, with the forthcoming Max superhero show's chief creative team also in place, plus rumors that DC Studios is talking to numerous directors about helming the series, it might not be long until principal photography gets underway. While we wait, here's the show's official log line, courtesy of a Max press release: "The series follows new recruit John Stewart and Lantern legend Hal Jordan, two intergalactic cops drawn into a dark, earth-based mystery as they investigate a murder in the American heartland."

Which cult DC character is James Gunn teasing ahead of Peacemaker season 2's debut?

A post shared by James Gunn (@jamesgunn)

A photo posted by on

Possible Peacemaker season 2 spoilers follow.

As I alluded at the start of this article, some interesting casting news regarding Peacemaker season 2 was also revealed yesterday. Unlike Pierre and Chandler's hirings, though, Gunn was playing it coy (as you'll have seen in his Instagram post above) about the identity of this new enigmatic individual.

Who, then, might this be? Comic book fans haven't been shy in putting theories forward, with many commenting on threads that have appeared on numerous Reddit pages, as well as those replying to Gunn's Instagram and X/Twitter posts, to postulate who it is.

Right now, the frontrunner is Apache Chief, a deep-cut Native American DC superhero with the power to grow or shrink to unlimited sizes. He first appeared in the Hanna-Barbera kids cartoon The All-New Super Friends Hour, but has also featured in TV shows Challenge of the Superfriends and Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, and periodically appeared in various DC comic runs.

There are, though, other candidates. Some observers believe this individual is Snowflame, a supervillain with superhuman strength, the ability to conjure fire (that would be handy when you're trying to make a camp fire, eh?), and the ability to give people a contact high by, well, making them inhale cocaine. Manitou Raven, a superhero and expert in the art of magic derived from American shamanism, and John Butcher, a Native American vigilante, have also been name-dropped by DC diehards.

In theory, any of these fictional characters could be the person in Gunn's image. After all, the DC Studios co-chief has turned C-list and D-list comic book characters into household names – just look at his track record for doing so with The Guardians of the Galaxy in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), and various superpowered beings in projects, such as Peacemaker season 1 and The Suicide Squad, in the now-defunct DC Extended Universe (DCEU). If anyone can give one or more of these characters a new lease of life in a live-action capacity, I'm confident Gunn can and will.

You might also like

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Companies are increasingly being hit by 'undetectable' attacks, wreaking havoc on their infrastructure and leading to data compromise, outages, fines, audit failures, and reputational damage, new research has claimed.

The Security Operations Trends Report from Red Canary, based on a survey of 700 security leaders from the US, UK, New Zealand, Australia, and Nordics, found over the past year, 87% of respondents experienced security incidents they could’t spot and neutralize.

Digging deeper to find the causes, Red Canary found for the majority of the respondents (73%), their attack surface widened by 77%, meaning they have introduced new endpoints and new software, both of which can be targeted with malware. Furthermore, two-thirds (64%) said they struggle with knowledge gaps when it comes to securing new tech.

AI, staff shortages, and other woes

But that is not the only reason for the rise in invisible threats. For two-thirds (62%), AI adoption has made security more difficult, and so has the cloud. At the same time, hackers are moving through intrusion chains faster (says 77% of the respondents), while the time between detection and resolution stayed the same, at best, for 85% of the respondents.

Finally, IT teams are having to juggle too many tools, and too many security notifications, straining them to the point of breaking. Security teams use more than 90 tools on average, yet 60% reported “too much noise”. Things would be easier if companies had enough staff to handle the workload, but that isn’t the case. In fact, 83% struggle to hire and retain skilled professionals, and 62% are facing high employee churn, as a result of overworking and stress.

“The scale of risks facing the business today is unprecedented, and traditional security approaches are failing," said Brian Beyer, CEO & Co-founder of Red Canary. "For too long, companies have tried to tackle this escalating problem by throwing more money, tools, and people at it. But with technology advancing at breakneck speed for both defenders and adversaries, cybersecurity teams are drowning, unable to keep up.”

Beyer argues that businesses need a new approach to security, which involves “strategic partnership and expert detection engineering.”

More from TechRadar Pro

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• Here's a list of the best firewalls today
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Video conferencing giant Zoom has announced a series of AI-powered features designed to improve worker productivity, including digital avatars for those who don’t want to show their face.

Announced at its Zoomtopia 2024 event, the new releases included AI Companion 2.0, an upgraded version of its assistant, which promises to deepen the integration of generative AI within the company’s app.

Zoom AI Companion 2.0 will include a persistent side panel that integrates across Zoom Workplace, contextual understanding based on ongoing interactions and previous conversations, advanced synthesis of information from emails, calendars and uploads, web connectivity for real-time information gathering and action tracking to automatically detect and complete tasks across workflows, likening the feature to a personal assistant.

Zoom goes all-in on AI

The company confirmed that the upgraded AI Companion will roll out in the coming weeks at no additional cost for paying Zoom Workplace customers.

Further blurring the boundaries between digital and real life, mobile devices running the Zoom Workplace app can leverage AI Companion to create summaries and action items from face-to-face interactions.

To coincide with the announcement, Zoom also announced a custom add-on for AI Companion for $12 per user per month. Set to arrive in the first half of 2025, it will bring a more customized AI Studio, integration with third-party apps like Atlassian, Workday and Asana, and AI-generated avatars for Zoom Clips for presentations.

Speaking about AI Companion 2.0, CEO Eric Yuan added: “This is more than an evolution; it’s a complete overhaul of how we get things done in the digital age.”

Besides Zoom’s efforts to improve its Companion-branded assistant, the company also announced a suit of upgrades to its Workplace ecosystem – apps and features with specific purposes that benefit from artificial intelligence enhancements.

The new Zoom Tasks uses this AI to detect, recommend and complete tasks based on conversations across Workplace, while Zoom Phone has gained support for real-time queries and summaries.

Users can also generate voicemail greetings based on their voiceprint to avoid having to manually change voicemail messages according to calendar schedules, such as when they’re away on vacation, while Zoom Docs gets a handy upgrade including new data table views and upgraded permission controls.

“Our vision is to create an AI-first work platform for human connection that empowers teams to achieve more than ever," Yuan noted.

More from TechRadar Pro

• We’ve rounded up a list of the best productivity tools
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China is racing to unseat the United States as the world’s technological superpower. Not if Jake Sullivan can help it.

Our OnePlus Open review will tell you we were hugely impressed with the first foldable from OnePlus – and a new leak may have given us some idea of when the eagerly awaited follow-up is going to see the light of day.

According to tipster @Rodent950 (via Android Authority), the OnePlus Open 2 is scheduled to come out in the first quarter of next year: so we're looking at January, February, or March 2025. This is a tipster who doesn't have a perfect track record, but who has been accurate with some predictions in the past.

The leak doesn't actually mention the OnePlus Open 2, but it does reference the Oppo Find N5, which is expected to be rebranded as the OnePlus Open 2 outside of China (remember Oppo and OnePlus are now part of the same company).

More information from this source says the same camera system from the OnePlus Open will be used in its successor: a triple-lens 48MP primary plus a 64MP telephoto and 48MP ultrawide setup with 3x optical zoom. It's capable of grabbing some very good photos and videos, so a lack of an upgrade in 2025 wouldn't be too disappointing.

What comes next?

Find N5 and X8 Ultra are coming in Q1 N5 is tested with X8 Ultras quad camera setup, but seems that they're ditching it and continue with current tricam setup. #OppoFindN5 #OppoFindX8Ultra pic.twitter.com/jYvmaJ5PBMOctober 9, 2024

"The only big foldable phone that doesn’t feel like a compromise," we wrote in our OnePlus Open review, on the way to giving the foldable 4.5 stars out of 5. It's currently very near the top of our best foldable phones list as well.

That raises the question: exactly how is OnePlus going to top it next time around? From the rumors we've heard so far, the OnePlus Open 2 could be thinner than its predecessor. We're also expecting the handset to come running the as-yet-unannounced Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, up from the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.

We do have a few ideas about how the OnePlus Open 2 might make its mark: we'd like to see improved water and dust resistance, a larger battery, the addition of wireless charging support, and the option to use a stylus with the device.

Of course, when it comes to a foldable phone, upgrades get even trickier to implement – but we should find out soon what Oppo and OnePlus have been working on. Considering the original OnePlus Open launched in October 2023, sometime in early 2025 would make sense for the next model.

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“He’s very intelligent, very innovative. He understands what’s happening to the United States. And he truly cares about the future of our country,” one Trump supporter said of Musk at a Pennsylvania rally.

When it comes to the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max (or indeed any new iPhone), most Apple fans don’t expect to hear much about the design process outside of official Apple events.

It’s a pleasant surprise, then, to see that two Apple designers have spoken out about the motivations and design process behind one of the iPhone 16 family’s most interesting new features – the Camera Control.

With Apple Intelligence still not ready, the brand-new Camera Control is one of the few concrete reasons to upgrade to the iPhone 16. That may be why Apple senior product designer Rich Dinh and human interface designer Johnny Manzari chose to talk up the new button's benefits on Cool Hunting magazine’s Design Tangents podcast.

The Camera Control concept

Dinh explained that the Camera Control exists to make capturing photos and videos easier: “We set off asking the question ‘how can we get closer to one of our visions in the camera experience?’ which is ‘never missing a moment’ [...] I think the magic of Camera Control is that fast capture experience, getting us a little bit closer."

Manzari added: “What’s exciting about Camera Control is that it delivers a lot of improvements on the real fundamentals, so if you click it quickly launches into the camera, click again and it takes a photo, click and hold and it will take a video. All of this is without you having to readjust your grip or make any changes, it’s really just the fastest experience we’ve ever had.”

Camera Control on the iPhone 16 (Image credit: Future)

He also noted that the Camera Control is a technological first for Apple: “This is a combination of a force sensor and a capacitive sensor on this mechanical button, which is an Apple first – we’ve never really done that before, but it unlocks all these new experiences.”

Dinh added: “You are physically moving the button for the half-press, and we use that force sensor underneath to detect that tiny micron-scale movement, send a signal over to the Taptic engine, and really give you that haptic feedback.”

He also said that the Camera Control was designed with the “best materials”, for durability and aesthetics: “you have sapphire, you have stainless steel trim, and on the iPhone 16 you have aluminum all around it – all of those things have to be color matched.”

Dinh continued: “The amazing thing about the button is that it is flush. We’re hoping that the phone feels very much like your phone today in how you grip it and handle it, but we’ve added a little chamfer in there to give that really lovely half-press and full-press experience.”

Family-focused functionality

(Image credit: Future/Jacob Krol)

In usual Apple style, the pair were sure to link the Camera Control – and iPhone more generally – to real-world and family-focused experiences.

Manzari said: “When my daughter [...] was little, I was using a lot more traditional camera equipment back then. And over the years it’s really shifted to iPhone [...] It’s just much easier to hang out with your kids when you’re not bringing a lot of equipment with you.”

He added that the "precise, but also playful” tools included in the iPhone should be as useful to a small child as they are to a professional photographer.

Dinh said: “I have two little kids, a two-and-a-half-year-old and a six-year-old, and they both do the funniest stuff, but having camera control be able to get you up and running and capture that video – I have videos that probably wouldn’t have been captured otherwise.

He continued: "When you ask someone to do something again it isn’t the same, so having that instantaneous capture has been amazing.”

The full 27-minute episode of Design Tangents is available on Apple Podcasts, and for the latest tech news and analysis be sure to also check out the TechRadar Podcast.

And, as ever, check out our iPhone coverage for the latest news, tips, and updates on Apple’s smartphone lineup.

Camera control: our verdict

So, is the Camera Control actually as "amazing" as Apple suggests? The people who designed it are hardly going to mention any downsides, so here's a more balanced take.

Firstly, the Camera Control is genuinely exciting, and as the designers say, it the first time Apple has implemented this kind of technology – that's a fact, not an opinion.

In our reviews of the iPhone 16 lineup, we found the Camera Control to be an "excellent addition to the iPhone", adding a lot of utility in an intuitive way.

Similarly, we found that Dinh's claims that the Camera Control was made with premium materials to be accurate, finding that the new button feels "super high-end, even on the affordable iPhone 16."

The Camera Control button isn't immune from the staggered – well, messy – rollout of the iPhone 16's full feature set. The most natural use for a button like this is a half-press focus and full-press shutter combo, but this isn't available yet.

We also found the button to be awkwardly placed for vertical photo and video capture.

However, connecting with the ergonomics of traditional cameras, and thereby encouraging landscape photographs, fits with Apple's more traditional stance on photography in the age of AI – Cupertino has sided firmly with the idea that photographs are images of what actually happened, rather than the more ambiguous "memory"-based approach adopted by Google.

Vertical video is an increasingly popular and important format, though, and as it is the Camera Control is inconvenient to use this way - and any ideas of tradition are somewhat undercut by upcoming AI cleanup tools, anyway.

Ultimately, the Camera Control is a great addition, and we're thrilled to see Apple bring such an inventive and useful feature to the entire iPhone lineup – but in typical Apple style, it's best used in a certain predetermined way.

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Goodbye hot girl summer, hello efficient girl fall. With deals like a $25 slow cooker and $100 savings on a full-length mirror, Walmart makes it easy to enter autumn in style.

APYs are falling, but you can still earn up to 10 times the national average with these accounts.

Now that the Mounjaro and Zepbound shortage is over, Eli Lilly is going after the cottage industry selling “compounded” versions of its meds.

Students had to make all kinds of decisions about college before knowing how much financial aid they would get. Now, many of them are scrambling to stay in school.

(Image credit: Richard Stephen/Getty Images)

Israel's war with Hamas has destroyed much of Gaza. Recent analyses find that nearly 60% of buildings, nearly 70% of orchards and 68% of roads have been damaged or destroyed by the conflict.

(Image credit: Yahya Hassouna)

The Apprentice.'/>

Ali Abbasi's new film The Apprentice shows ex-President Donald Trump's years as a real estate businessman under the tutelage of lawyer Roy Cohn. The film coincides with Trump seeking another term.

(Image credit: Pief Weyman)

On Thursday night, Tesla is holding a splashy event it’s calling “We, Robot.” CEO Elon Musk says fully autonomous vehicles are key to Tesla’s future, and for years he has promised they are coming.

(Image credit: Etienne Laurent)

Fried wings are delicious, but they aren't as healthy as oven-baked wings. Skip the mess and prep the crispiest wings for the big game.

Whether you need a power bank, earbuds or docking station, Baseus has it at a great price thanks to these lingering Amazon Prime Day deals.