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• Pixel 10 will not have physical SIM cards slots, Google confirms
• Buyers can transfer eSIMs from Apple to Android and vice-versa
• However eSIM adoption is uneven and can pose a risk for unprepared travelers

Google has confirmed eSIMs will replace physical SIM card slots in its new Pixel 10 smartphone range.

Reports from Android Authority claim Google's implementation may also support bi-directional transfers, meaning users can transfer an eSIM from an Apple device to an Android device or vice versa.

For now, this change appears to apply only to US models, but come after Apple made a similar move with iPhone 14, and now Google is following suit, further indicating eSIMs are revolutionizing the industry in a significant way.

What does this mean for travelers?

eSIMs for international travel have already become the go-to solution for many and now Google's latest move suggests the beginning of a new era.

If major firms like Apple and Google are committing to eSIM-only devices and other tech giants like NordVPN and IPVanish are entering the eSIM market, then it is safe to say that eSIMs have become the norm.

On iPhones, the process could be handled through the “Transfer to Android” option in settings, while Pixel 10 devices may rely on the Android Switch app, either by scanning a QR code or initiating a manual connection session.

Android Authority also reports that the feature may only be supported in iOS 26, expected to launch alongside the iPhone 17 in September 2025. However, these details remain speculative for now, and we will have to wait for the official rollout to see what holds true.

“Going eSIM-only makes it faster and easier to connect to a network. You can download a plan in minutes without fiddling with a tiny SIM card, which is a huge win for convenience", says Sarah McGarr CEO of Sim Local.

For travelers, this shift means getting comfortable with digital connectivity is no longer optional. As physical SIM slots disappear, checking for compatability, understanding how to activate, transfer, and manage eSIMs will be essential for staying connected seamlessly across borders.

"Check the best local eSIM plans, pick the best deal, and be online in minutes. Google’s eSIM move will only make more people expect this kind of convenience, and it’s up to the industry to make sure travelers can always find easy and affordable ways to stay connected", adds McGarr.

However, the biggest challenge to this revolution is that adoption is uneven. The ability to use an eSIM doesn’t just depend on owning a compatible device, it also hinges on whether local carriers support the technology and what plans they offer.

Travelers need to be prepared and do their research on carrier compatibility before flying and keep a global eSIM app as backup.

"The ability to use an eSIM is not so much country-dependent as it is device-dependent and network-dependent. That means a traveler could land somewhere only to find that their mobile network doesn’t yet support eSIM, or that their plan options are limited. In those cases, people may end up paying more in roaming fees or have fewer choices than they expected", concludes McGarr.

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• King of Meat launches on October 7, 2025, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, and PC
• The four-player co-op platformer will have a Standard and Deluxe Edition, which are now available for pre-order
• A King of Meat Technical Test will also be available to play this weekend

Amazon Games and Glowmade have announced that King of Meat will officially launch on October 7, 2025, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC via Steam.

King of Meat is a four-player co-op party platformer featuring hack-and-slash mechanics and over 100 dungeons filled with puzzles, challenges, and hordes of monsters to defeat.

The online game, which also got a brand new gameplay trailer, was announced last year, but pre-orders for the Standard and Deluxe Editions are now available.

The King of Meat: Standard Edition will cost £23.95 (around $32.24) while the Deluxe Edition will cost £39.95 ($53.78), and both will include the Venerable Defender Legendary Costume, a samurai-style outfit with matching sword, shield, and stickers, as well as five days of early access to King of Meat from October 2.

The King of Meat: Deluxe Edition also features the Tapeboard Betsy and Emerson Shard Character Sets, "for players to enter the dungeons at launch with style and flair."

Ahead of release, Glowmade has also announced that a King of Meat Technical Test will be available to play this weekend, on August 23 at 10 AM PT / 6 PM BST until August 24 at 10 AM PT / 6PM BST.

The test will be playable for free on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S, giving players an early look at the game and an opportunity to provide feedback to the developers.

Fans can also tune in to a partnered Twitch channel for 30 minutes during the Technical Test to claim their Beta Rewards Top, which will carry over into the live game.

King of Meat is also expected to come to Nintendo Switch, although there is no release date for that version at this time.

Glowmade has also confirmed earlier this year that King of Meat will offer both quality and performance options across PC and consoles, including PS5 Pro, that players can customize.

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• Security researchers found that a popular free Chrome VPN extension has been stealthily taking screenshots of every website its users visit
• FreeVPN.One boasts over 100,000 downloads and Google's "Verified" and "Featured" badges
• Once limited to VPN functionality, the extension's later updates were designed not for privacy, but to evade detection

A popular Chrome VPN extension has been found to spy on its over 100,000 users.

Koi Security published an extensive report, warning users that instead of protecting their data as the best VPN apps should do, FreeVPN.One takes screenshots of every single website they visit.

FreeVPN.One is a free VPN extension that managed to obtain two badges from the Google Chrome Store, supposedly to further assure users of its security. Unfortunately, those badges might have been mistakenly awarded.

A trustworthy VPN extension turned into a privacy nightmare

(Image credit: Google)

FreeVPN.One looks legitimate at a glance. With over 100,000 downloads and Google's endorsement, it seems like a secure alternative to paid VPN services. However, according to Koi Security, there's a sinister reality hiding just underneath the surface.

The extension was marketed as a free, unlimited VPN service, and according to researchers, for a while, it did just that. However, future updates introduced a worrying development.

Koi Security reports that just seconds after any page loads, a background trigger grabs a screenshot of it. This means that every website you visit with the extension enabled is captured, including private photos, banking sites, medical records, and all kinds of other sensitive information.

The screenshots are then sent to an external source, with scripts running to ensure the quality of data capture.

Even private pictures were sent to FreeVPN.One’s backend, as per Koi Security findings (Image credit: Koi Security)

Another feature in FreeVPN.One, called "AI Threat Detection," also takes screenshots and uploads them for server-side analysis, but at least this one discloses that it does that, whereas the rest of the app does not.

A few of the most recent updates to FreeVPN.One appears to have made things worse for user privacy. The spyware, screenshots, and location tracking allegedly started in July of this year. Later that same month, Koi Security reported, the developer upped the security to evade detection, all the while the screenshots continued being collected.

Koi Security reached out to the developer, who claims that screenshots are only taken if the domain appears suspicious. However, even websites like Google Photos are recorded, which doesn't line up with that claim. The dev also says that the screenshots are not stored anywhere, but this is a difficult claim to verify. They eventually allegedly stopped responding to Koi Security's requests for comment.

How to stay safe?

This situation outlines a larger problem with certain free VPNs, as well as the ease with which certain developers can upload malicious apps into web stores and gain user trust. Just recently, a VexTrio Viper, a group of cybercriminals, successfully shared a long list of malicious apps through popular app stores. This included a free VPN, ad blocker, and even an online dating service.

FreeVPN.One scored Google Play Store's "Verified" badge, which should have meant it was definitely secure, but it sounds rather like "it's best avoided."

If you used the FreeVPN.One extension, we recommend that you uninstall it immediately. Consider downloading one of the best antivirus programs to give your PC a thorough scan, too.

Next, it's time to change your passwords to just about every website you may have accessed while using the extension. Better to be safe than sorry.

This highlights just how important it is not to take chances when using a VPN service, which, by default, often has pretty hefty permissions when it comes to monitoring what you do. If you aren't willing to get a premium service, turn to some of the best free VPN services to ensure they have been thoroughly tested in order to protect your data.

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(Image credit: Seth Wenig)

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• The FBI has warned of Russian hackers abusing CVE-2018-0171
• Configuration files from "thousands" of Cisco devices were already stolen
• The bug affects many outdated endpoints, so patch now

Russian state-sponsored threat actors are abusing a years-old Cisco vulnerability to spy on organizations in the West, the FBI is warning.

In a public service announcement posted on the IC3 website, the FBI said it saw Center 16 - a threat actor linked to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) - exploiting Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), and a vulnerability in Cisco Smart Install (SMI) instances that reached end-of-life status.

The goal, the agency says, is to “broadly target entities in the United States and globally”.

End of life

The vulnerability being exploited here is tracked as CVE-2018-0171. Discovered roughly seven years ago, this improper validation of packet data flaw in the Smart Install feature of Cisco IOS Software and Cisco IOS XE Software allows unauthenticated, remote adversaries, to trigger a reload of an affected device, resulting in either arbitrary code execution, or a denial of service (DoS) condition.

The bug affected a wide range of Cisco Catalyst switches, including models from the Catalyst 2000, 3000, 3650, 3850, 4500, and 9000 series.

Cisco Industrial Ethernet switches, as well as some Nexus data center switches that had Smart Install enabled by default, were also affected.

Many of the older devices (Catalyst 2960, 3560, 3750, 4500E) have reached end-of-life, meaning they were never patched for this bug and remain vulnerable. Cisco advises users to replace them with newer models, such as those from the Catalyst 9000 series, which remain active product lines.

Over the past year, the FBI saw Center 16 collect configuration files for “thousands” of networking devices from US entities, mostly in the critical infrastructure sector.

“On some vulnerable devices, the actors modified configuration files to enable unauthorized access to those devices,” the FBI explained.

“The actors used the unauthorized access to conduct reconnaissance in the victim networks, which revealed their interest in protocols and applications commonly associated with industrial control systems.”

Via The Register

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• HoverAir's crowdfunding campaign for Aqua drone now underway
• Self-flying watersports drone available for an early bird price of $999
• Delivery of orders not expected until end of 2025

Zero Zero Robotics has today kicked off an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign for its upcoming drone, the HoverAir Aqua, revealing new information about the fully waterproof flying camera.

The campaign will be the only way to pre-order the drone currently, with backers able be able to secure their Aqua at a reduced price of $999 (around £739 / AU$1,543) – a saving of 40% on the projected full price of $1,676.

There's bad news for watersports lovers itching to try out the self-flying waterproof camera, however: it won't be shipping until December 2025.

The self-flying HoverAir Aqua is designed primarily for watersports use. (Image credit: Zero Zero Robotics)

Zero Zero Robotics teased the Aqua a few weeks ago, revealing that the drone is not only fully waterproof (to what we now know is IP67 standards) but designed to take off from and land on the surface of rivers, lakes and the sea; it can even take off from an upside-down position.

With powerful wind resistance, a top speed of 34mph and a wide range of self-flying subject tracking flight modes, it's built to capture watersports like kayaking, paddle boarding and wake surfing. It's also under 249g in weight, making it subject to few restrictions in the UK and not required for FAA registration in the US.

More new information

The Lighthouse is a wearable remote control and "Virtual Tether" to keep the drone and the user linked at all times. (Image credit: Zero Zero Robotics)

Following the first product teaser, Zero Zero Robotics has today unloaded a haul of new information about the forthcoming drone, including a battery life of 23 minutes, up to 128GB of internal storage space, SmoothCapture 3.0 image stabilization and support for 12MP photos. The drone also features a unique on-board 1.6-inch AMOLED screen, allowing users to review footage and change settings without having to pull out a smartphone.

The company also revealed the Lighthouse accessory. Included in the box, it's a wearable remote control that acts as a "Virtual Tether", helping ensure you don't lose track of the drone while you're careening through the water on your preferred method of transport. You can set a distance for the tether, and once it's reached the drone will begin moving back towards the user.

The only bad side to today's announcement? There's still a fairly long wait until the HoverAir Aqua will be in buyers' hands. Zero Zero Robotics anticipates December 2025 for deliveries of drones pre-ordered via the campaign, and told us that review samples won't be available until Q4 2025.

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• Microsoft will no longer send threat proof of concepts to Chinese firms
• The alerts are part of the MAPP vulnerability alert system
• Many believe the Chinese government was involved in the recent SharePoint attack

Access to Microsoft’s early warning system for cybersecurity vulnerabilities will be reduced for some companies following a campaign of attacks which leveraged vulnerabilities in the company's SharePoint platform to target as many as 400 organizations.

Microsoft has restricted access for Chinese firms after suspicions that Beijing was involved in the attacks, with many believing there was a leak in Microsoft’s Active Protections Program (MAPP) - the system Microsoft uses to alert security firms of threats to help them pre-empt hacks and pro-actively defend against attackers.

These vulnerabilities have now been patched, but have previously been observed in the wild being used to deploy ransomware. The flaw allowed attackers to extract cryptographic keys from Microsoft client servers, in turn allowing them to install programmes onto the server, including backdoors or malware.

In the wrong hands

Experts believe the most likely scenario for the explosion of SharePoint attacks was thanks to a rogue member of the MAPP program - and as such, Microsoft will no longer send ‘proof of concept code’ to Chinese firms.

This refers to a demonstration of a concept that helps security teams prepare for an attack by adapting their systems.

TechRadar Pro has reached out to Microsoft to ask about any updates on its investigation, but the firm so far has not offered a comment.

On the other hand, if threat actors are alerted to the defender's plans, they get a head start and can evolve their tactics.

Microsoft identified the possibility in which attackers exploit the alert system; "which is why we take steps – both known and confidential – to prevent misuse”

“We continuously review participants and suspend or remove them if we find they violated their contract with us which includes a prohibition on participating in offensive attacks," the company confirmed.

Via Reuters

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• AI Mode can now find you dinner reservation options based on your preferences
• It'll soon be able to find you concert tickets too
• US users can get even more personalized results

Google has given its AI Mode a major upgrade by giving it agentic capabilities that will help you find a restaurant table – and I’m more than impressed with how well it works.

When Google added AI Overviews to search you could almost hear a collective sigh of “Why?” go out around the world. There seemed to be a consensus that there was too much AI in everything, and we didn't need it, especially in search.

But over time AI Overviews – a kind of summary of answers to whatever you asked – have started to prove more and more useful, and these days I quite often get something good from the AI Overview without having to scroll down the list of search results.

Next came AI Mode, a full-on AI search engine that occupies the first of the tabs on the Google search page, and is similar to ChatGPT Search and Perplexity. It uses AI to search the web, so if you want to do natural language searching, rather than keyword-based searching as you do in a normal Google search, it’s much more catered to your needs.

Now Google has gone even further and given its AI Mode agentic qualities specifically for finding available restaurant slots for you, so it can do a little bit more digging, and get better results, than a standard AI Mode search would.

Bon appétit

So, if you enter AI Mode in Google then ask about getting a dinner reservation for four, name a date, time and location and, of course, the type of restaurant or food you’re interested in, AI Mode can now speed up the process, giving you a list of options for restaurants that meet your specific needs and which have free reservation slots.

There are limitations: AI Mode can’t go as far as booking the table for you just yet, but it will link you directly to the booking page, so it puts the decision right into your hands.

I’ve tried it out for restaurants in my local area, and it worked very well. I even doubted that one of the very good restaurants would have a free table at that time, but I was wrong!

AI Mode even told me that there was no point in trying to book at my preferred venue since it was closed on a Sunday evening, and recommended some other options.

Tickets soon

Google says it’s working with OpenTable, Resy, Tock, Ticketmaster, StubHub, SeatGeek, Booksy and many more to make this experience possible, which means that concert tickets could be the next thing AI Mode is able to help you reserve.

Users in the US who have opted into the AI Mode experiment in Labs will get even more personalized results, which will use your previous conversations along with places you’ve searched or tapped on in Maps. So, if you ask, “I’ve got half an hour for lunch, where should I go?”, it will use this information to recommend somewhere that fits your preferences.

While AI being integrated into Google search may have started off as an annoyance, it’s slowly becoming a set of really helpful tools that might even start to turn the tables and get ChatGPT-maker OpenAI worried.

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(Image credit: Jeff Fusco)

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• Apple fixes CVE-2025-43300, an out-of-bounds write bug in iOS and iPadOS
• The bug allowed threat actors to run remote code execution attacks
• There is evidence of abuse in the wild, so users should be on their guard

Apple has fixed a bug in iOS and iPadOS which was apparently being used in “an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals”.

In a security advisory, Apple said it fixed an out-of-bounds write issue it found in the ImageIO framework, which lets apps open, save, and work with image files efficiently, including reading details like EXIF data, or creating thumbnails.

An out-of-bounds bug happens when software mistakenly writes data beyond the memory area it was supposed to. This can corrupt memory, crash apps, and even allow threat actors to run malicious code, remotely.

Hiding the details from the crooks

Since the bug was found in ImageIO, it allowed specially crafted images to overflow memory checks and overwrite adjacent data when processed. A threat actor could send a malicious image in an email, a message, or a webpage. If the vulnerable device were to try and render it, the out-of-bounds write might let the attacker crash the system, or even run malware.

The bug is tracked as CVE-2025-43300, and doesn’t yet have a severity score. Apple did not discuss the findings further, in order to give everyone enough time to patch, without giving other threat actors knowledge on how to abuse it.

Devices affected by this flaw include iPhone XS and later, iPad Pro 13-inch, iPad Pro 12.9-inch 3rd generation and later, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 7th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later.

Apple fixed it by improving boundary checks, in versions iOS 18.6.2 and iPadOS 18.6.2, iPadOS 17.7.10, macOS Sequoia 15.6.1, macOS Sonoma 14.7.8, and macOS Ventura 13.7.8.

This is the sixth zero-day vulnerability Apple fixed since the start of 2025, BleepingComputer reports, including CVE-2025-24085 (January), CVE-2025-24200 (February), CVE-2025-24201 (March), and two in April, CVE-2025-31200 and CVE-2025-31201.

Via BleepingComputer

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