Squid Game season 2 arrived over the 2024 festive season and, unsurprisingly, it's continuing to break records on Netflix.
As revealed by the streaming titan during this week's update to its Top 10 lists, one of the best Netflix shows' second season is dominating its competitors in the non-English language category. Indeed, its closest rival, which is – funnily enough – Squid Game's debut season, simply can't compete in the viewership stakes, with season 2 accruing four times as many minutes streamed as its predecessor over the past seven days (December 31 to January 7). If this was a real-life version of the eponymous battle royale-style games, Squid Game's sophomore season would've already walked away with the prize money.
That said, season 2 has a long way to go in order to become the most-watch non-English Netflix original series of all-time. Ironically, it's currently being kept off top spot by – yep, you guessed it – Squid Game season 1. So, how close is season 2 getting to potentially knocking its predecessor off its perch? Well, it's got a long way to go, and the below data suggests...
How many people have watched Squid Game season 2? (Image credit: Netflix)At the time of writing, Squid Game season 2 has been seen 126.2 million times in its first two weeks on the world's best streaming service – that's a record for a Netflix TV Original, by the way – with a total of 904.7 million hours viewed.
By comparison, the first season was watched by over 265 million people and has amassed an eye-watering 2.2 billion hours viewed since its mid-2021 release. With numbers like that, I doubt this season will come close to matching its forebear's unprecedented success.
Nevertheless, there's been plenty of promotional material, for Squid Game season 2, not to mention fan fervor for the hit show's return, which has no doubt contributed to its recent success. Recently, Duolingo launched a terrifying campaign to try and encourage people to learn Korean, playing on the brand's creepy vibes which teamed scarily well with the Squid Game pink guards.
If season 2 doesn't manage to defeat season 1, it'll be up to the survival drama's third and final entry to try and do so. Squid Game season 3 is set to arrive sometime this year, too, so we may not have long to wait for an answer to that brain-teaser.
You might also likeWhile the automotive attention at the CES 2025 is spotlighting fully autonomous, there is some momentum with remotely driven vehicles as well. Case and point: Vay, which operates a fleet of these in Las Vegas, Nevada, is announcing a sizeable expansion.
With Vay, you can hail a car that will be yours to drive, but you won’t need to go to a rental car lot to pick one up. Instead, within the app – much like Uber, Lyft, or Revel – you’ll call the car to you, and it will be remotely driven to the requested spot. Then, you hop in, take control, use the car, and then return it within the zone.
I actually got to try this experience on day one of CES, and I will share my thoughts soon. For now, know that it’s cool, and a disruptor, offering a typical rideshare experience but with way more control.
(Image credit: Vay)While Vay has been available in Las Vegas for a While, it’s announcing that it will expand its fleet to 100 vehicles by the end of 2025. These will all be electric cars, with most popular model being the Kia e-Niro. Since Vay debuted in 2024, users have taken more than 6,000 rides.
To support the expansion, which will ultimately make it easier to get a car with Vay in the city and reduce wait times, the company is opening a new production facility within Las Vegas to help get these vehicles out on the road quicker. These aren't fully autonomous vehicles, it's primarily a camera-based experience, and the Vay employees remotely operating the cars essentially use a live feed to drive them in custom rigs. Vay will also hire more staff to meet the demand.
The hope is that once the facility is up and running, it can roll out up to 16 cars a week and get those on the road. Vay already has a maintenance facility within Las Vegas to ensure the electric vehicles are always charges and are operating smoothly.
(Image credit: Future)We’re covering all of the latest CES news from the show as it happens. Stick with us for the big stories on everything from 8K TVs and foldable displays to new phones, laptops, smart home gadgets, and the latest in AI.
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While Vay is more like a delivered-to-you rental car operation than a ride share service, its growing popularity is undoubtedly thanks to cost and the overall experience. It can be cheaper than Uber or Lyft, and while it does require more work on your part, and the coverage map for where you can get the car or drop it off is more limited, it lets you be in total control.
You might also likeFans of the Green Bay Packers NFL team looking to buy merch from the team’s ecommerce site may have had their sensitive data stolen, including payment information, the team has revealed.
I a data breach notification letter sent out to affected customers, the team spotted malicious code inserted in the Pro Shop website on October 23, and temporarily disabled all payment and checkout capabilities. It then brought in third-party cybersecurity experts to investigate, who determined an unknown threat actor had deployed a skimmer on the checkout page, which was active across September 23 and 24, and October 3 - 24.
On those days, the crooks managed to steal people’s names, addresses (both billing and shipping), email addresses, credit card types, credit card numbers, credit card expiration dates, and credit card verification numbers. More than enough to run wire fraud, identity theft, phishing, and more.
Contained and remediedPurchases on the Pro Shop website that were made using a gift card, Pro Shop website account, PayPal, or Amazon Pay, were not affected, the company confirmed.
The incident has since been contained and remedied, Green Bay Packers said, adding its IT team, together with third-party cybersecurity experts, made sure the shop was now secure. “We also worked with our vendors that host and manage the Pro Shop website to confirm enhancements to their security protocols,” it said.
Customers are being offered 36 months of free credit monitoring and identity theft restoration services through Experian, but they will have to enroll themselves, since Green Bay Packers cannot activate the service on their behalf.
We don’t know exactly how many people might have been affected by this attack, and there is currently no information of the stolen data being misused anywhere on the dark web.
You might also likeThe White House has announced the ‘U.S. Cyber Trust Mark’, a labeling initiative looking to build trust in the consumer device market.
The Mark will act as an indicator that the product being sold has met the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) cybersecurity criteria.
As ‘smart’ wireless internet connected devices have entered more homes across the country, so has the security risk that comes with hackable tech. Appliances and tech like home security systems, smart speakers, and internet connected kitchen or cleaning devices all present cybersecurity risks if compromised by threat actors.
A mark of confidenceAfter passing a bipartisan vote to authorize the program and trademark the shield logo that will be applied to products which fit the criteria, the FCC gave conditional approval to 11 companies as ‘Cybersecurity Label Administrators’, including Intertek Testing Services NA, and ioXt Alliance.
The criteria for the NIST standards includes strong default passwords, patching, data protection frameworks, and cyber incident detections. Firms like Best Buy and Amazon have expressed their support for the program, highlighting the opportunity to build consumer trust.
Not everyone is so enthusiastic about the initiative, with some concerned about the lack of rigorous testing for vendors, and pointing out that the mark does not include binding security requirements for vendors.
Whilst most agree the program is a step in the right direction, many of the security requirements are merely suggestions, as the entire program is voluntary. This may lead to inconsistency between vendors, and makes it unclear which companies are actually working to secure their devices.
Customers will scan a QR code on products with the safety mark to access information from an IoT registry, which is more convoluted than, for example, the FCC safety mark which one can assume is safe with a reasonable assurance.
You might also likeBack in August 2024, Microsoft warned users with unlicensed OneDrive cloud storage accounts that they would be locked after a period of inactivity to improve security.
The change is on track to come in on January 27, 2025, with OneDrive data from unlicensed accounts which have been inactive for 93 days set to be removed or archived.
Such accounts typically come about when individuals leave an organization, if a user is deleted from the SharePoint admin center or if an admin revokes a user’s license.
Unlicensed OneDrive account holders, bewarePrior to the change, organizations were able to retain data for free by disabling accounts and removing licenses, however Microsoft has decided this is a security and compliance risk and will therefore be enforcing its new policy later this month.
After 93 days, affected data will move to the recycle bin. After a further 93 days in the recycle bin, the data will be permanently deleted.
Retention policies or legal holds on data from unlicensed accounts will cause the data to be archived rather than permanently deleted, however organizations will be charged $0.60/GB to regain access and a $0.05/GB monthly fee thereafter.
A help article details the process of setting up an Azure subscription in Syntex pay-as-you-go, and notes it could take up to 24 hours for the data to become accessible again. Reactivated accounts will remain active for a further 30 days before being automatically archived again.
The company confirmed: “Archived OneDrive accounts fully honor retention policies, settings, and litigation holds.” Changes to retention policies will also be reflected in archived accounts.
You might also likePeople in Venezuela have increasingly turned to VPN services, yet again, as authorities restrict access to TikTok.
Proton VPN confirmed to TechRadar that sign-ups across the country have spiked 350% so far, and usage is still increasing at the time of writing (see graph below).
This surge comes as TikTok is being disrupted in Venezuela, "following a pattern of daily multi-hour restrictions from midnight," internet watchdog NetBlocks reported today, January 8, 2025. The block comes because the popular Chinese video-sharing app failed to comply with the eight-day deadline issued by Venezuela's Supreme Court to appoint a local representative.
. (Image credit: Proton)This isn't the first time, however, that Venezuela restricts access to a popular social media app.
In August, President Nicolás Maduro banned X for 10 days over a public row with owner Elon Musk, while calling for a boycott on WhatsApp. At that time, Maduro also said the social media platform was used to incite violence and create political unrest – the Guardian reported.
Multiple websites were reportedly blocked in the aftermath of Venezuela's presidential elections, too, as protests contesting the results sparked across the country at the end of July.
Do you know?(Image credit: Getty Images)A virtual private network (VPN) is security software that encrypts your internet connections, while also spoofing your real IP address location. The latter skill is exactly what's needed to bypass restrictions like those in place in Venezuela right now.
"During this period, Proton VPN became a lifeline for many Venezuelans seeking access to accurate information on the internet," a Proton spokesperson told TechRadar.
Over the summer, Proton VPN usage in Venezuela skyrocketed to 51,000% over baseline "making Proton VPN the most downloaded app in the country on Google Play," the expert added.
As citizens turned en masse to these circumventing tools, authorities began targeting VPN usage. Some Proton VPN users, for example, first lamented difficulties accessing their VPN apps ahead of the election. In response, the provider expanded its server capacity to better support Venezuelans' needs.
What's behind Venezuela's TikTok ban?Venezuela's TikTok block comes a week after the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) fined the social network $10 million for not imposing measures to prevent the spread of viral challenges. These videos are thought to have allegedly led to the deaths of three Venezuelan children recently.
As the Associated Press reported, Judge Tania D’Amelio did not explain how the country expects to force China-based ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, to pay the fine.
Among the judge's requests, there is also the requirement for TikTok to open an office within the country to ensure that all shared content complies with local laws.
CES 2025 has witnessed a clutch of announcements for gaming monitors that push super-high refresh rates, and we have a new champion on the Hertz battlefield – a 750Hz screen, no less.
This is the Koorui G7 which is being aired at CES as a 24.5-inch Full HD gaming monitor with a refresh rate of 750Hz coupled with a 0.5ms response time.
Koorui, a Chinese vendor you may not have heard of – but will likely be hearing more about – already has quite a number of compellingly priced gaming monitors out there, although naturally, a 750Hz screen won’t come cheap.
The company actually announced the Koorui G7 before CES, but we’ve just got a glimpse of it on the show floor courtesy of a video uploaded to the firm’s YouTube channel – check it out below (you get a brief look at the G7 at the start of the clip – hit the pause button).
Aside from the 750Hz refresh rate, other key specs of the G7 include HDR400 support and 95% DCI-P3 coverage, the latter being impressive seeing as this is a TN panel. Typically, color representation is a weak point of TN compared to IPS (which most monitors still are these days), so it seems Koorui is trying to make sure that the G7 doesn’t fall (too) flat in this respect. (TN panels are a strong choice for gaming monitors due to their inherently fast response times and ability to hit high refresh rates, as we certainly see here – but not their color accuracy, vibrance, or viewing angles).
The Koorui G7 comes with all the usual trimmings, such as a low blue light mode, flicker-free tech, and ergonomics that include height adjustment, tilt and swivel. You’ll also get three HDMI 2.1 ports alongside a DisplayPort 1.4 connector.
Koorui is part of HKC, a display giant over in China, and it’s expected that this monitor will be released at some stage in 2025 (at least in Asia – and hopefully elsewhere around the world, too).
Analysis: Refreshingly pointless?We’ve already seen new 600Hz monitors at CES 2025 (from MSI and BenQ) which equal the existing 600Hz effort from Acer, the Nitro XV240 F6, a monitor that’s now out in China, and will come to the US and Europe soon.
However, those panels have already been outgunned by this 750Hz effort, and by a long way. The obvious question, though, with these kind of high-end gaming monitors is: how far do we need to go with colossal refresh rates? Isn’t 750Hz getting silly?
Well, we’ve argued in the past that 600Hz is getting into rather ridiculous territory, so 750Hz most certainly is. Will the difference between 600Hz and 750Hz even be noticeable to the average human eye? It won’t, frankly, and as you climb further up the high refresh rate ladder, towards the dizzying heights of 1000Hz (that’ll happen soon enough, no doubt), there are very much diminishing returns.
These displays are really for the top level of competitive gamers out there. For starters, you need to be able to afford a gaming PC to push 600 or 750 frames per second to match that refresh rate (and do so consistently – or ideally as a baseline, even). And even with the less demanding esports titles like Counter-Strike 2 or Valorant, which are made to run smoothly and slickly by keeping the visuals relatively tame, that’s a tricky ask for anything less than a fully-tooled-up hyper-expensive gaming PC.
It is perhaps true that the most skilled pro gamers out there might be able to discern a difference in, say, a 500Hz panel (which OLEDs are now reaching, incidentally) versus a 600Hz or 750Hz monitor. That’d be in terms of the feel of the gameplay – thanks to the smoother and more consistent delivery of frames (better frame time) provided by a superfast refresh rate display. But us mere mortals are not going to perceive this ever-so-slightly steadier nature of a refresh rate beast of a screen.
Still, big numbers are always fun to see, and you can bet on bigger numbers in the not so distant future, no doubt. It’s very much worth remembering, though, that there’s a lot more to a monitor than its refresh rate. I’ll be interested to see how the image quality pans out on this TN panel from Koorui – to find out if this is more of a PR exercise, or a genuinely great gaming screen (for those few who might need it, and can afford it).
TechRadar will be extensively covering this year's CES, and will bring you all of the big announcements as they happen. Head over to our CES 2025 news page for the latest stories and our hands-on verdicts on everything from 8K TVs and foldable displays to new phones, laptops, smart home gadgets, and the latest in AI.
And don’t forget to follow us on TikTok and WhatsApp for the latest from the CES show floor!
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BMW has unveiled what the infotainment offering will look like in its upcoming Neue Klasse range of electric vehicles at this year's CES 2025 show. Look away now if you don't like screens.
Dubbed the BMW Panoramic iDrive, the infotainment offering consists of an innovative head-up display (HUD) that spans the entire width of the windshield and beams information onto a black printed surface in the lower section of the glass.
According to BMW, this won’t require a specialist windshield, keeping repair costs down. But most windscreens that are compatible with HUDs feature a special coating to improve visibility and these generally cost more to replace anyway.
The content displayed in the so-called BMW Panoramic Vision is highly customizable and drivers can personalize the space to display content and information that is most important to them, with the vehicle remembering settings for individual users. A 3D effect ensures the graphics jump out for both drivers and passengers.
(Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)In addition to this, there’s another 3D head-up display that sits directly in the driver’s line of vision that delivers even more content and information that BMW claims neatly compliments the full-width Panoramic Vision module.
So for example, the Panoramic Vision will display details about the current driver assistance systems that are active, while the 3D HUD will offer turn-by-turn directions, should navigation be activated.
The German marque has also introduced a new central touchscreen display that is angled so it faces the driver. Said to make it easier to reach and operate by those in control, the display runs BMW’s latest OS X operating system that has been developed in-house for a slicker, more intuitive user experience.
@techradar ♬ original sound - TechRadarIt is based on an Android Open Source Project software stack and allows for high levels of customization, so you can drag, drop and pin your favorite applications, as well as uploading personal photos as desktop-style background.
Despite the current call from many modern vehicle owners for more easily located physical buttons, BMW has done away with pretty much all of them, and has instead committed much of the functionality to the central touchscreen and the multi-function steering wheel, complete with haptic, surface mounted buttons.
BMW says it is all part of its new "shy-tech approach", which harnesses artificial intelligence and the use of Large Language Models that have been co-developed with Amazon to encourage drivers to use voice commands instead.
According to the marque, users will be able to use more natural language to navigate to a destination in the initial stages, but with increased levels of functionality coming later via over-the-air updates.
The introduction of OS X builds on BMW’s existing Intelligent Personal Assistant, empowering it with the ability to make suggestions, such as initiating Sport Mode on a particularly twisty route or kick-starting a favored playlist. Should the driver choose to ignore these suggestions, the system will quickly learn to refrain from butting in.
Analysis: Banishing buttons could backfire (Image credit: BMW)Controversially, BMW has said that this Panoramic iDrive system will eventually appear on all of its future vehicles, essentially ridding everything of traditional instrument clusters and physical buttons. This is particularly pertinent for a brand that once marketed itself as ‘The Ultimate Diving Machine’.
Soon, BMW owners will be confronted with a vast amount of information on every drive, some of which will be positioned at the furthest reaches of the windscreen, rather than directly in the driver’s eye-line.
Only time will tell whether the Panoramic iDrive system proves simple to navigate and intuitive to use when behind the wheel, but we already know several manufacturers have faced a backlash for committing so much important functionality to difficult-to-locate digital menus or haptic feedback buttons that change their functionality depending on modes or settings.
This makes it near-impossible to obtain the muscle memory required to perform simple tasks, like defrosting the windshield with one touch, or locating the volume for the radio without diving into numerous menus.
Volkswagen, for example, had to go back to the drawing board with its infotainment offering in the ID range of electric vehicles, as so many users and reviewers complained that its sparse interior made key functionality almost impossible to locate when driving... or in the dark.
However, BMW is already envisioning a time where its autonomous driving systems are doing the majority of the heavy lifting and the Panoramic iDrive system essentially becomes a way for the driver to easily monitor the situation while enjoying hands-off/eyes-off travel.
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Mark your calendars, hunters; Monster Hunter Wilds is getting a second open beta test ahead of release.
This was confirmed today (January 8), via a post on the official Monster Hunter Wilds X / Twitter account. In a video attached to the post, series producer Ryozo Tsujimoto goes over the details of the second open beta test, including what's featured in it and when you can play it.
First up, the 'Open Beta Test 2' for Monster Hunter Wilds will be split into two phases. The first is happening from February 6 - February 9, with the second taking place a few days later between February 13 - February 16.
The beta will be available to download for free on PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and PC via Steam. Crossplay will be enabled for the open playtest, and players won't need a PS Plus or Game Pass Core subscription in order to play online with others on console, which is a lovely bonus.
Happy New Year, hunters! Producer Ryozo Tsujimoto is here to welcome you into the year of Monster Hunter Wilds, and to share news of the second Open Beta Test planned for February! The future is looking bright... pic.twitter.com/ejn6Z6MraZJanuary 8, 2025
As for what's featured in the beta, players will be able to access all content from the first playtest. That includes character creation, a segment of the main story, and a quest to slay the new Doshaguma monster. A new hunt to take down returning monster Gypceros has also been added.
Tsujimoto also confirms that character creation data from the first open beta will carry over to the second for both your hunter and their Palico companion. This can also be transferred over to the full game upon its February 28 release. Participants in the second beta will also receive a cute Palico weapon charm for the full game.
Lastly, Tsujimoto states that development for the finished version of Monster Hunter Wilds has been completed. However, he does make it clear that any changes and improvements based on feedback from the first beta won't be featured in the second. "This includes various adjustments and improvements," he said, "but I hope you can understand that this means those improvements won't be ready to make it into the second beta test."
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