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Cutting Medicaid can seem like an easy way to slash the budget. But, the costs can spread to all of us.

Cybersecurity burnout, advanced AI threats, and rising geopolitical tensions across the globe are heavily impacting businesses and their cybersecurity strategies. These challenges call for a rethink in cybersecurity strategies and place a greater importance on cyber preparedness and incident response.

Exhausted cybersecurity workforce leads to gaps in defense

Businesses are underestimating how stressed- and burned-out cybersecurity professionals truly are, and the effect is deteriorating their cyber defenses. The world already faces an acute shortage of cybersecurity professionals, and an overstretched workforce is only exacerbating the weakening of our defenses.

Gartner’s survey in 2023 analyzed that 62% of cybersecurity professionals experienced burnout at least once, and 44% did multiple times. The analyst firm predicted that half of cybersecurity leaders would change their job by 2025 due to stress, and 25% would “pursue different roles entirely.”

This burnout can impact the most critical stages of cybersecurity. Despite millions being spent on manual alert triages - the United States alone spends $3.3 billion per year, according to a 2023 survey by VectraAI - security operations center analysts reported suffering alert fatigue.

On a daily basis, they are spending nearly three hours triaging thousands of alerts manually, and 67% of those alerts were not resolved. This is where automated threat detection and the use of AI can reduce some of the cybersecurity world’s burden. Unfortunately, threat actors are adopting such techniques at a faster rate than defenders.

AI for good

Today’s attackers are benefiting from emerging technologies, like AI, to enhance their efficiency in malicious ventures. Research by Radware found that generative AI can be used by threat actors to shorten the time to find vulnerabilities by as much as 90%. When creating phishing messages for training exercises, IBM also found that through the use of ChatGPT, they could reduce 16 hours of manual labor to just five minutes.

The speed and ease of generative AI have also lowered the barrier to entry for those who lack an IT background. In one case, police in Japan had arrested a man in his 20s, who had created ransomware in less than six hours - with no prior IT or cybersecurity knowledge. In another case, a 17-year-old Japanese high schooler had successfully created a ChatGPT tool that collects credit card information and used it to go shopping.

Cybersecurity defenders have no choice but to take advantage of AI to keep pace. Automating some of our tasks and workloads will reduce our burden. At NTT, we have been using machine learning capabilities over the last decade or so to analyze behavioral patterns and use predictive analytics to detect threats, and we have recently started to use generative AI too. For example, NTT Security proved that GPT-4 can identify if a website is legitimate or phishing at over 98% accuracy ratio, and even GPT 3.5 can at 86.7%.

Geopolitical tensions between the Taiwan Strait

Geopolitical tensions are fueling a rise in state-sponsored cyber operations. In fact, a precursor to a potential Taiwan crisis has already taken place in cyberspace.

The Chinese state-sponsored actor group, Volt Typhoon, is believed to pre-position itself on the networks of critical infrastructure companies in the communication, energy, transportation, and water sectors to launch disruptive cyberattacks as a consequence of conflict with the United States. However, Volt Typhoon’s targets are not necessarily limited to U.S.-based critical infrastructure companies.

Lumen’s Black Lotus Labs, reported in August 2024, with moderate confidence, that traits of threat actor, Volt Typhoon, had breached four U.S victims and one non-U.S. organization within the internet service provider, managed service provider and IT sectors last year. A Bloomberg article in November 2024 also suggested that Singtel had been breached as part of a “test run” for attacks against U.S. telecommunication companies.

While there has been no report that Volt Typhoon has breached any critical infrastructure companies in Japan or Taiwan, Cisco Talos published a blog in March 2025 that a Chinese hacker group, UAT-5918, had been attacking Taiwanese telecommunications, healthcare, information technology, and other critical infrastructure sectors, and their tactics and targets are similar to Volt Typhoon’s.

Given the geographical proximity of Japan to Taiwan and the alliance between Japan and the United States, both countries will have a role to play in a crisis involving Taiwan. Okinawa has bases of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and U.S. military. Retired General Paul Nakasone, former Commander, U.S. Cyber Command, and former Director, National Security Agency, alerted during an interview by Ryu-Q Asahi Broadcasting, an Okinawan TV station, in March 2025 that Volt Typhoon might have been penetrated into “places in Okinawa,” and “They would be able to do such things as perhaps turning off power in Naha or being able to impact the economy of Okinawa.”

In fact, the U.S. military consumes nine percent of the electric power in Okinawa. Thus, critical infrastructure companies in the United States and Japan need to enhance their cyber defenses and proactively hunt threats to minimize potential damages. This is crucial for the two allies to stay operational and resilient economically and militarily in crisis.

Japanese Active Cyber Defense

Businesses and regulators need to work together to share cyber threat intelligence and the painful lessons they have learned to close defensive gaps, especially when their country face more cyber challenges in heightened geopolitical tensions.

Since regulators accumulate incident reports from businesses, it would be beneficial for businesses to receive actionable threat intelligence and threat mitigation methods from the government in a classified or sanitized way. It would also help the industry to proactively conduct threat hunting before they are hit by a cyberattack.

That is why the Japanese Diet (parliament) passed the Active Cyber Defense legislation in May 2025. This law aims to minimize potential damage caused by cyberattacks against the Japanese government or critical infrastructure that can threaten Japan’s national defense, even when that cyberattack does not constitute part of an armed attack.

The legislation has three pillars: public-private partnerships, government usage of telecommunication data, and neutralization of such cyberattacks by the police and Self-Defense Forces, even before they are launched. The legislation was passed the same day that another act was enacted to expand the coverage of security clearance to industry personnel.

A combination of the two acts, would allow the government to disseminate even classified cyber threat intelligence to the industry to warn and advise them about threats and actions to take.

Of course, it will take some time for Japan to operationalize active cyber defense and expanded security clearance. Still, it is highly beneficial for Japan as well as its allies and partners, because threat actors tend to exploit the weakest link in cyber defenses.

Since the damage of cyberattacks go beyond national borders, a breach in Japan can lead to the leakage of sensitive information on the United Kingdom and suspended Japanese business operations can disrupt supply chains in Australia and the United States.

Furthermore, these two types of capabilities will require Japan to improve its intelligence capacity. Without visibility, it is impossible to manage or minimize cyber threats. The expanded security clearance in Japan would also enable like-minded countries to share more cyber threat intelligence, leading to more robust defenses.

C-Suite preparedness: a trifecta solution

As adversaries are flexibly taking advantage of artificial intelligence, generative AI, and deepfake to launch cyberattacks in scale and at lower costs, defenders must use emerging technologies. However, it is still people that need to make the final decision on what to invest in and what to prioritize.

According to the 2025 EY Global Cybersecurity Leadership Insights Study, only 13% of CISOs answered that “they were consulted early when urgent strategic decisions were being made,” although “the cybersecurity function typically accounts for 11% to 20% of the value produced by enterprise-wide initiatives it is involved in.”

Thus, it is crucial for the C-suite to start inviting the CISO to board and executive meetings to incorporate cybersecurity perspectives in strategic decision-making. Moreover, the leadership needs to champion the cybersecurity team with sufficient resources to allow them to engage with and respond to threats flexibly and quickly.

Finally, gratitude and recognition from the leadership are also important. It is rewarding and that feeling further motivates defenders to fight adversary and protect corporate brand, employees, and customers.

Empower cybersecurity professionals through training

There are two ways to train the next generation of defenders: train existing workforce who are not necessarily technologically savvy but who are interested in cybersecurity and educate young people who are currently in school.

For example, NTT Group launched an internal bug bounty program in 2023, and non-cybersecurity professionals have been contributing to improving internal cybersecurity by reporting bugs through it. This showcases that recognition and incentive can motivate people to be part of a cybersecurity team and enable better security.

Furthermore, leadership needs to provide flexibility and educational opportunities to grow for cybersecurity professionals. If those professionals live in rural areas, there are fewer chances for them to network with local professionals. It is important to fund them and let them participate in cybersecurity events to learn from each other. Equally, it is crucial for cybersecurity professionals to engage with young students from elementary schools to graduate schools, to share their first-hand expertise and inspire them.

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This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro's Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro

Industry leaders have been blunt. Lawyers need to wake up to the reality of AI or risk becoming professionally obsolete. That warning is a bit dramatic because AI isn’t replacing legal professionals wholesale, but it is reshaping the value they bring and how fast they can deliver it. The lawyers making the biggest impact today are the ones who understand how to guide artificial intelligence with precision and control. Think walking by foot versus driving a vehicle – a new skill set and a new vocabulary.

I’ve been out of Big Law for over two years, which is long enough to notice where my own skills have frayed and where they’ve evolved. When an AI startup asked me to create their privacy compliance suite, I approached it with the kind of wariness lawyers are trained for. I was handed a ChatGPT-generated privacy policy filled with undefined terms and placeholders referencing documents that didn’t exist. In other words, a mess, but it was also a gold mine.

I uploaded the document into ChatGPT, and the interface shifted into something closer to collaborative drafting. Instead of starting from scratch, I prompted the model to revise line by line and adjusted how it framed risk. I fed in examples of clauses from comparable companies and asked for output tailored to those formats. When a provision was highly bespoke to the client’s unique offering, I stepped in to do the deeper legal work – but for the bulk of it, AI handled the drafting and research in hours.

Compare that to a friend who spent nearly $7,000 building out a similar privacy suite through traditional legal channels. Most of that cost came down to the slow pace of drafting and unclear requirements. I reached the outcome faster and with tighter alignment to the client’s product.

AI has changed the legal skills stack

There’s a popular tendency to describe AI as disruptive. That’s accurate, but incomplete. Just as the arrival of Excel didn’t eliminate accountants, AI won’t eliminate lawyers. It is, however, recalibrating what legal professionals need to know to remain effective.

In high-performing legal teams, we’re seeing the rise of a distinct AI-legal skill set that wasn’t part of traditional training. These aren’t technical skills in the traditional sense – you don’t need to know how to build a large language model (LLM), but you do need to know how to frame legal questions in a way that AI can respond to.

You need to know when to trust AI-generated output, and when to override it. You need to be able to translate legal logic into structured prompts that guide a model toward the right outcome. You need to evaluate tools for more than convenience, focusing instead on how they perform under legal scrutiny.

What’s more, these skills are starting to show up in hiring decisions. In-house teams want lawyers who can iterate faster. Clients are asking their outside counsel how they’re using AI to create value. Legal departments are rethinking workflows, using AI for early-stage drafting and research. Ultimately, AI is becoming a structural layer in how legal teams deliver insight.

Cross-examining algorithms

To be clear, talking to AI is more than typing into a chatbot. In legal practice, you’re using your own judgment to steer the model through ambiguity and shape its output into something that meets legal and commercial standards. That might involve asking a model to generate clause variations along a risk spectrum.

It might mean taking the first pass of a diligence memo and filtering it through three different lenses – legal risk, business impact, and jurisdictional nuance. Lawyers are used to cross-examining people, now we need to get comfortable cross-examining algorithms.

None of this replaces legal training, but it does challenge lawyers to apply that training differently. To be a great lawyer today, you still need to apply sharp judgment but with quickness and clarity.

The next generation

These skills are being learned in real time. What’s striking is that lawyers aren’t approaching this like a technology problem, but instead treating it as a professional evolution. They want to understand how to use AI, and how to supervise it. They’re learning how to frame legal tasks for AI systems with enough specificity to avoid hallucinations and enough flexibility to accommodate ambiguity.

There’s a cultural shift underway, too. Lawyers who once defaulted to AI hesitancy are starting to move toward hands-on experimentation. They’re building muscle memory around prompt design, testing outputs across multiple models and generally asking better questions. In doing so, they’re creating a new baseline for what legal excellence looks like.

AI hasn’t erased the need for legal judgment. If anything, it’s made that judgment more visible – because nothing AI produces carries weight until a lawyer decides how it holds up in the real world – at least for now.

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This article was produced as part of TechRadarPro's Expert Insights channel where we feature the best and brightest minds in the technology industry today. The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/news/submit-your-story-to-techradar-pro

Goosebumps has been canceled after two seasons at Disney+ and I'm heartbroken at the sudden loss of the hit horror series.

The R.L. Stine adaptation received rave reviews from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 75% at the time of writing. It was one of the best Disney+ shows, so it's sudden disappearance may come as a shock to fans.

However, there's a chance we could see Goosebumps revived elsewhere as reports have suggested that the supernatural horror series could find a different streaming home. According to Variety, "an individual with knowledge of the situation, series producer Sony Pictures Television plans to shop the show to other outlets and explore different creative directions for the IP".

While that isn't a lot to go off right now, it does give us an indication that Goosebumps isn't completely dead in the water, and that producers are keen to see a fresh take on the series.

Where could Goosebumps end up next?

(Image credit: Disney+)

Unfortunately I don't have clairvoyance like some characters you may see in Goosebumps, but there are certainly streaming services that have favored horror content recently that could make them a great contender for the series.

HBO Max consistently picks up A24 horror movies and is no stranger to the darker side of storytelling, so could we see a Goosebumps revival coming to the best HBO Max shows? I do think that HBO Max would be a great place for Goosebumps, but that's not the only service that caught my eye when considering where it might go next.

Shudder is the leading horror streaming service with plenty of great originals. Most recently, they adapted the found footage horror movie series Creep into a series, so it would be interesting to see if they had a hand in re-developing Goosebumps.

I'd be happy with either of these options. Given the fact we've seen such a revival for good quality horror on the best streaming services, I'm praying that Goosebumps gets picked up somewhere and doesn't come to an abrupt end.

Right now this is all speculation but with a huge IP like Goosebumps, I'm sure many streamers would jump at the chance to have it in their library.

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Looking for a different day?

A new Quordle puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Tuesday's puzzle instead then click here: Quordle hints and answers for Tuesday, August 12 (game #1296).

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

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

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

Quordle today (game #1297) - hint #1 - VowelsHow many different vowels are in Quordle today?

• The number of different vowels in Quordle today is 5*.

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

Quordle today (game #1297) - hint #2 - repeated lettersDo any of today's Quordle answers contain repeated letters?

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

Quordle today (game #1297) - hint #3 - uncommon lettersDo the letters Q, Z, X or J appear in Quordle today?

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

Quordle today (game #1297) - hint #4 - starting letters (1)Do any of today's Quordle puzzles start with the same letter?

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

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

Quordle today (game #1297) - hint #5 - starting letters (2)What letters do today's Quordle answers start with?

• C

• H

• E

• A

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

Quordle today (game #1297) - the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle, game #1297, are…

• CACTI
• HOMER
• EMAIL
• ALBUM

Another five-vowel day, but thanks to several repeated Quordle words – CACTI and EMAIL – much easier than yesterday.

ALBUM was my best guess today – one of those brilliant times when you see the word in your mind's eye and just know it’s right. Logically I know this comes from playing all the Quordle games every day, but I like to pretend it’s brain magic.

Daily Sequence today (game #1297) - the answers

(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1297, are…

• SWORN
• ODDER
• SCENT
• WIELD

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #1296, Tuesday, 12 August: SPOOL, TITLE, JAUNT, OVINE
• Quordle #1295, Monday, 11 August: ADULT, BROOM, PURER, CRUEL
• Quordle #1294, Sunday, 10 August: SCRUM, PIPER, TROLL, SPORE
• Quordle #1293, Saturday, 9 August: NOOSE, INLET, ELEGY, VIRUS
• Quordle #1292, Friday, 8 August: KNEEL, KINKY, RALPH, BOOZY
• Quordle #1291, Thursday, 7 August: PLUNK, PROXY, CURVY, PEARL
• Quordle #1290, Wednesday, 6 August: RISKY, APART, FAUNA, HANDY
• Quordle #1289, Tuesday, 5 August: ROAST, SLICK, AUDIT, BILLY
• Quordle #1288, Monday, 4 August: MACAW, SINCE, COLON, CHIRP
• Quordle #1287, Sunday, 3 August: MOTIF, LEERY, LOFTY, BURST
• Quordle #1286, Saturday, 2 August: WARTY, PUPAL, CLEAR, SLICE
• Quordle #1285, Friday, 1 August: ACTOR, MEALY, WIDTH, ADOBE
• Quordle #1284, Thursday, 31 July: STYLE, VALET, AGONY, ALLOY
• Quordle #1283, Wednesday, 30 July: DEBAR, ADMIN, FOLIO, USAGE
• Quordle #1282, Tuesday, 29 July: BATCH, TOPIC, MURKY, BUNCH
• Quordle #1281, Monday, 28 July: CANDY, TRYST, SHIRT, FORGO
• Quordle #1280, Sunday, 27 July: TRAWL, BALER, PIANO, MINCE
• Quordle #1279, Saturday, 26 July: MUDDY, SAINT, KINKY, POLAR
• Quordle #1278, Friday, 25 July: BONUS, RESIN, CEDAR, MADAM

Looking for a different day?

A new NYT Connections puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Tuesday's puzzle instead then click here: NYT Connections hints and answers for Tuesday, August 12 (game #793).

Good morning! Let's play Connections, the NYT's clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need Connections hints.

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

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

NYT Connections today (game #794) - today's words

(Image credit: New York Times)

Today's NYT Connections words are…

• FISH
• CHICK
• CLIP
• ENTRANCE
• BANGLE
• GATE
• CHARM
• PASSAGE
• EXTRACT
• RIVET
• SUPREME
• BOARD
• GO-GO
• QUOTE
• THRILL
• STRUCK

NYT Connections today (game #794) - hint #1 - group hints

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

• YELLOW: Under their spell 
• GREEN: A section of content 
• BLUE: Female pop band
• PURPLE: Precede with a word that rhyme with “bar”

Need more clues?

We're firmly in spoiler territory now, but read on if you want to know what the four theme answers are for today's NYT Connections puzzles…

NYT Connections today (game #794) - hint #2 - group answers

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

• YELLOW: CAPTIVATE 
• GREEN: EXCERPT 
• BLUE: MEMBER OF A GIRL GROUP
• PURPLE: STAR___ 

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

NYT Connections today (game #794) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Connections, game #794, are…

• YELLOW: CAPTIVATE CHARM, ENTRANCE, RIVET, THRILL
• GREEN: EXCERPT CLIP, EXTRACT, PASSAGE, QUOTE
• BLUE: MEMBER OF A GIRL GROUP BANGLE, CHICK, GO-GO, SUPREME
• PURPLE: STAR___ BOARD, FISH, GATE, STRUCK

• My rating: Hard
• My score: Perfect

I’m classifying today’s round as tricky, because although I didn’t make any mistakes I did come pretty close to trying to make one group made up of jewelry items (CHARM, CLIP, BANGLE) and another about access points (GATE, ENTRANCE, PASSAGE).

Thankfully, I didn’t fall for either of these traps – mainly because I remembered to consider the less obvious meanings of words; RIVET was the last one I put in the CAPTIVATE group, as I was locked into thinking it was a fastener.

I was really pleased to get MEMBER OF A GIRL GROUP, as I’d puzzled for a while over what GO-GO could refer to before remembering the group the Go-Gos and their brilliant song Our Lips Are Sealed.

Yesterday's NYT Connections answers (Tuesday, August 12, game #793)

• YELLOW: GROUPS OF TEN BOWLING PINS, COMMANDMENTS, DECADE, FINGERS
• GREEN: PLACES WITH LANES BOWLING ALLEY, HIGHWAY, SUPERMARKET, SWIMMING POOL
• BLUE: LANDMARKS IN DOWNTOWN NYC BOWLING GREEN, BROOKLYN BRIDGE, CITY HALL, WALL STREET
• PURPLE: THINGS WITH HOLES BOWLING BALL, COLANDER, GOLF COURSE, SPONGE

What is NYT Connections?

NYT Connections is one of several increasingly popular word games made by the New York Times. It challenges you to find groups of four items that share something in common, and each group has a different difficulty level: green is easy, yellow a little harder, blue often quite tough and purple usually very difficult.

On the plus side, you don't technically need to solve the final one, as you'll be able to answer that one by a process of elimination. What's more, you can make up to four mistakes, which gives you a little bit of breathing room.

It's a little more involved than something like Wordle, however, and there are plenty of opportunities for the game to trip you up with tricks. For instance, watch out for homophones and other word games that could disguise the answers.

It's playable for free via the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.

Looking for a different day?

A new NYT Strands puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Tuesday's puzzle instead then click here: NYT Strands hints and answers for Tuesday, August 12 (game #527).

Strands is the NYT's latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it's great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints.

Want more word-based fun? Then check out my NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games, and Marc's Wordle today page for the original viral word game.

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

NYT Strands today (game #528) - hint #1 - today's themeWhat is the theme of today's NYT Strands?

• Today's NYT Strands theme is… Hitchcock festival

NYT Strands today (game #528) - hint #2 - clue words

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

• ROOT
• PITY
• RUST
• OTHER
• BOATS
• STIR

NYT Strands today (game #528) - hint #3 - spangram lettersHow many letters are in today's spangram?

• Spangram has 9 letters

NYT Strands today (game #528) - hint #4 - spangram positionWhat are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?

First side: right, 8th row

Last side: left, 5th row

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

NYT Strands today (game #528) - the answers

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Strands, game #528, are…

• PSYCHO
• VERTIGO
• ROPE
• LIFEBOAT
• TOPAZ
• NOTORIOUS
• SPANGRAM: FILM TITLE

• My rating: Easy
• My score: Perfect

A little bit of knowledge got me a long way today.

Immediately thinking we were looking for the names of Alfred Hitchcock films I searched for the two I knew best – PSYCHO and VERTIGO, both of which were easy to locate thanks to their rare letter combinations. From here I grabbed a few I didn’t know – LIFEBOAT, ROPE and TOPAZ.

My favorite Hitchcock film – Rear Window – didn’t make the cut, for obvious reasons, but I’m more disappointed by the very low-key spangram. Mr Hitchcock deserves something less prosaic than FILM TITLE.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Tuesday, August 12, game #527)

• DOUBLE
• DUPLICATE
• LOOKALIKE
• REPLICA
• FACSIMILE
• SPANGRAM: COPY THAT

What is NYT Strands?

Strands is the NYT's not-so-new-any-more word game, following Wordle and Connections. It's now a fully fledged member of the NYT's games stable that has been running for a year and which can be played on the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.

I've got a full guide to how to play NYT Strands, complete with tips for solving it, so check that out if you're struggling to beat it each day.

• A new video on YouTube shows a DIY handheld gaming PC using an Nvidia RTX 4090 gaming laptop GPU
• It features a 4K 60Hz display, 64GB of RAM, and 4TB of storage space
• It's a sign that handheld gaming PCs could be more powerful than current mainstream models are

Nvidia's RTX 5000 series GPUs remain in the spotlight after their launch in January, with Super model GPUs expected to arrive later this year. However, the previous generation's laptop GPUs have been utilized in an unexpected way – and it points to the possibility of more powerful portable gaming.

As reported by Notebookcheck, NITTRX has showcased a DIY custom handheld gaming PC on YouTube, running multiple triple-A games at 4K on high settings, utilizing an RTX 4090 laptop GPU. Yes, you read that right – and it's working alongside Intel's Core i9 14900HX, a powerful 24-core and 32-thread processor.

Now, that may instantly raise some red flags concerning thermals, battery life, and power consumption, but as the screenshot shows below, there's adequate cooling; the RTX 4090 laptop GPU temperature mostly remains at 162F / 72C, while the CPU fluctuates between 151F and 158F, or 66C and 70C.

That screen is massive... (Image credit: NITTRX)

Having tested a decent number of handheld gaming PCs from MSI, Lenovo, and Asus, I can say that the thermal performance of this DIY handheld is very similar to that of the mainstream devices. This is all while housing 4TB of storage via two 2TB SSDs and 64GB of RAM via two 32GB sticks – all of which should contribute to higher temperatures, but those temperatures are nowhere near what would be considered excessive.

It's also worth noting that this handheld is using a Dell 12.5-inch 4K 60Hz display (specifically the Sharp LQ125D1), but frame rates reaching triple digits in game tests truly show what the RTX 4090 laptop GPU is capable of. Great performance is achievable on current handhelds using AMD APUs and Intel SoCs, but this is possibly the best handheld gaming PC you'll see for a while.

This shows that it's no longer a matter of whether or not 4K handheld gaming is possible. It's now a matter of whether handheld gaming PC manufacturers are willing to make the leap and design more powerful handheld gaming PCs, which would likely target a niche audience, depending on pricing.

Analysis: These are the handhelds that should have premium prices, not the new AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme models

(Image credit: MSI)

I've been fairly vocal about my frustration with handheld gaming PCs and the sudden spike in their pricing, without much of a performance leap over previous hardware to justify it. We're seeing this happen with the new MSI Claw A8 pushing close to $1,000, despite early benchmarks suggesting a minimal 10% performance increase in games using AMD’s new Ryzen Z2 Extreme processor, compared to the Ryzen Z1 Extreme.

The only handhelds with potential high price tags that can be justified are the Ayaneo Flip 1S DS, which uses AMD's powerful AMD's Ryzen AI HX 370 processor; the Lenovo Legion Go 2, mostly due to the addition of an OLED screen; and of course, this custom-made RTX 4090 handheld.

Unfortunately, I don't see any of the mainstream handheld gaming PC manufacturers getting any ideas from this DIY setup. Producing such devices would require plenty of durability tests, and the resulting handhelds would essentially rival gaming laptops on a larger scale.

A 12.5-inch display is also undesirable, which I've previously stated regarding the Acer Nitro Blaze 11 – and I still hold that opinion about this DIY device, although it's far more tolerable given the hardware and the available resolution.

I'd love to see a device like this be replicated by a mainstream manufacturer – and if there's anything we should take away from this DIY project, it's that 4K handheld gaming isn't impossible after all.

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2024 was a strange year for phones. Software packages like Galaxy AI, Google Gemini, and Apple Intelligence dominated keynotes and marketing campaigns, while hardware innovations were, for the most part, relegated to the sidelines.

On the outside, the best phones of 2024 were largely indistinguishable from their predecessors, with the exception of the Google Pixel 9 Pro, which felt properly different from the Pixel 8 Pro before it. Google refreshed its tired Pixel lineup with a more grown-up, modern-looking phone, and the Pixel 9 Pro also boasted the cleanest implementation of AI we’d seen at the time (Samsung’s Galaxy AI has arguably caught up since then).

For those reasons, the Pixel 9 Pro earned our Phone of the Year award for 2024. But judging by what I’ve seen so far of the Pixel 10 Pro, I don’t see Google’s next flagship repeating the feat in 2025.

The Pixel 10 Pro is set to debut at this year’s Made by Google showcase on August 20, but it’s already been semi-unveiled in an official teaser video, and countless leaks and rumors have given us an almost nailed-on idea of what to expect.

An official image of a phone believed to be the Pixel 10 Pro in Moonstone (Image credit: Google)

It’ll reportedly look almost identical to the Pixel 9 Pro, use a more powerful Tensor G5 chipset, and its battery will be marginally larger. We’ll also, of course, get some new colors, including a fetching ‘Moonstone’ shade.

On the software side, the Pixel 10 Pro is rumored to launch with a new photography feature called Camera Coach, which will use AI to analyse images fed through the camera and offer contextual suggestions.

And that’s pretty much it.

Where the Pixel 9 Pro represented a major generational leap over the Pixel 8 Pro, the Pixel 10 Pro will seemingly be an iterative upgrade over the Pixel 9 Pro. It won’t have the same feeling of newness or innovation, and as a result, I’m not expecting it to scoop this year’s Phone of the Year award on that basis alone.

The Google Pixel 9 Pro was our Phone of the Year in 2024 (Image credit: Blue Pixl Media)

Weirdly, though, I don’t see this as a bad thing. In all areas except raw power, the Pixel line has caught up to the best iPhones and best Samsung phones, and now Google can afford to do what both Apple and Samsung do so often: innovate iteratively.

I know that sounds strange – don’t we, as tech fans, hate iterative upgrades? – but we can’t shower the Pixel 9 Pro with praise and then expect (or want) Google to bring an entirely new product to the table the very next year. It got so much right with the Pixel 9 Pro, and it’s unrealistic to expect its successor to bowl us over in quite the same way.

If I were a Pixel fan, I’d be OK with that. Heck, as an iPhone user, I’ve already written about how the Pixel 10 Pro in Moonstone will test my loyalty to Apple. I think the phone looks great – it just doesn’t look particularly new.

Who knows? Maybe those aforementioned upgrades will be enough to see the Pixel 10 Pro scoop our Phone of the Year award in 2025. I’m simply suggesting that Google has made a rod for its own back with the success of the Pixel 9 Pro.

Are you looking forward to the Pixel 10 Pro? Let us know in the comments below.

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• Alien: Earth's creative team have given their take on why it's taken so long for an Alien TV series to be made
• They always envisioned it as a show rather than a movie
• Every other live-action Alien project has been made for the big screen

Alien: Earth's creative team has opened up on the decision to tell its story on the small screen.

Until now, every single project set in the Alien universe has been a movie. Indeed, from the 1979 Sigourney Weaver-starring original to 2024's pseudo-sequel Alien: Romulus, the sci-fi horror franchise's various tales have been told in film format.

That's changed with FX TV Original in Alien: Earth, which will air on Hulu (US) and Disney+ (internationally). Created by frequent FX collaborator Noah Hawley, who also developed Fargo and Legion for the US TV network, Earth breaks the near-50-year cycle of Alien stories being released exclusively in theaters.

Bringing the Xenomorph-led property to the small screen wouldn't have been possible until a few years ago. Many of the world's best streaming services, including Disney+, didn't exist. Furthermore, production budgets for TV shows had lagged behind their silver screen counterparts for decades. However, a sea change largely brought about by the rise of the streaming industry has reshaped the landscape and led to the purse strings being loosened by TV executives, thereby allowing creators to make shows with budgets similar to those of their movie siblings.

A post shared by Alien: Earth (@alienearthfx)

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It's the end to such financial restrictions that enabled Hawley, producer David W. Zucker, and the rest of Alien: Earth's cast and crew to craft an eight-part series with a scope to rival any of the franchise's previous projects. However, speaking to me ahead of the show's release, Hawley and Zucker revealed there are other reasons why an Alien TV show hasn't been attempted before – and what made them settle on telling Earth's story via the television medium.

"A two-hour Alien movie is a survival story, right?" Hawley said. "Other than how expensive it would be, the obstacle of bringing the franchise to television is 'well, what other story could we tell?'.

"It [an Alien film] is about monsters and people running for their lives," Hawley continued. "That's not a TV show with any staying power. Part of the reason why it [Alien: Earth] worked is because I use the IP [intellectual property] as a starting point to explore my own themes and issues, and build a story within the Alien world. The are challenges with the scale of this show, balancing the drama, horror, and action, etcetera, but I think we accomplished all of that."

"The truth is, corporately, the franchise has been owned by the film division [20th Century Studios]," Zucker added. "It only became possible when we were given access to it [the Alien franchise] and then tried to find a place, such as FX, that would support this kind of vision. Fortunately, the long relationship they have with Noah, that's become a dream pairing for us and is the only conceivable way this could've worked."

Alien: Earth launches with a two-episode premiere on August 12 (North and South America) and August 13 (everywhere else). Read my dedicated guide to Alien: Earth, as well as my Alien: Earth review, before it arrives.

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• A leaker claims the iPhone 17 Pro will have a new antenna design
• This will apparently improve performance in congested areas
• It might also result in a sleeker, less interrupted phone design

How many times have you struggled to make a phone call or send a text message on your iPhone when you’re in a crowded area? Even if your phone shows that you should have several bars of signal, actually connecting is often impossible due to the sheer number of devices clogging up the airwaves.

That might change in this year’s iPhone 17 Pro, though, according to a new report from a well-known leaker. If they are to be believed, Apple is working on a new system to reduce signal congestion and improve iPhone connectivity, and it’s apparently taken its inspiration from the Apple Watch.

The report comes from Majin Bu, a leaker with a somewhat mixed track record when it comes to Apple rumors. On their website, the tipster suggests that the iPhone 17 Pro will “introduce a significant structural change” that involves repositioning the phone’s antennas to the rear camera module.

Majin Bu says that Apple has taken inspiration from the Apple Watch here, as this device “integrates antennas near structural and functional elements of its chassis” in a similar manner. That’s a change from the iPhone’s current situation, where the antennas are located around the edges of the chassis. You can see that in the small lines near the bottom of an iPhone, and Majin Bu says the new design will result in a “Cleaner side-frame design with fewer visible breaks.”

Pushing performance

(Image credit: Freestocks / Unsplash)

But this update is not just about appearances – Majin Bu believes it will bring practical benefits too. In particular, the leaker says repositioning the antennas to the camera module will “reduce interference from chassis materials and enhance 5G and Wi-Fi 7 connectivity” because this area is “less prone to shielding and interference.” That’s presumably because it’s further away from your hand, which can cause problems with connectivity (just think back to the iPhone 4’s “Antennagate” for an example).

Majin Bu lists a host of other potential advantages, including reduced latency, “higher efficiency” in busy areas, enhanced radio performance (especially for 5G mmWave and Wi-Fi), optimized internal space, and more.

There are only a few weeks until Apple is set to unveil the iPhone 17 Pro, so we won’t have long to wait to see if these predictions are on the money. If they are, you might find it a little easier to push through that phone call or text message when you find yourself in a crowded area.

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The popular smart ring is bringing more visibility to some of the most under-addressed stages of life.

Inflation remained elevated last month as President Trump's tariffs continued to make their way into the prices that consumers pay. The average cost of living in July was up 2.7%.

(Image credit: Joe Raedle)

• President Trump has apparently positive meeting with Intel CEO Lip Bu-Tan
• The President had previously called for Tan's resignation
• A former Intel leader has suggested customers invest cash into the company

Embattled Intel CEO Lip Bu-Tan has paid a visit to the White House for a meeting with President Trump which the latter has described as ‘very interesting’.

This comes just days after the President demanded Tan resign from his position of CEO at Intel, calling him ‘highly conflicted’ - going as far as to say there is ‘no other solution to this problem’.

However following the meeting, Trump praised Tan for his success and ‘amazing’ rise to the top, using his social media site Truth Social to confirm cabinet members will now also meet with Tan to continue discussions.

Strong leadership

The details of the meeting haven’t been released, but Intel did release a statement thanking the President for a ‘candid and constructive discussion on Intel’s commitment to strengthening U.S. technology and manufacturing leadership’.

“We appreciate the President’s strong leadership to advance these critical priorities and look forward to working closely with him and his Administration as we restore this great American company” the statement confirmed.

The meeting followed a letter written to the Intel board of directors from Republican Senator Tom Cotton, in which he raises concerns over Tan’s alleged ties to China through his role as CEO of Cadance Design Systems, a firm which recently plead guilty to illegally selling export-controlled tech to organisations with connections to the Chinese military.

The recent turbulence between Intel and the US Government most likely stems from the President’s ambitions to build a domestic manufacturing industry to rival Chinese tech imports, with Intel perhaps the only US company positioned to take a leading role in semiconductor production.

Intel seems to be moving away from US manufacturing though, with the organisation making significant reductions to its workforce - terminating between 15-20% of its factory workers amongst the 25,000 Intel positions affected by the redundancies.

Former Intel CEO Craig Barett called for a customer-cash injection of around $40 billion to soothe financial difficulties and ensure a semiconductor source within the US, especially given geo-political tensions and the very low likelihood of TSMC or Samsung bringing manufacturing to the states.

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