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The recalled platform beds were sold at major retailers, including Lucid, Bed Bath & Beyond, Walmart, Wayfair and Target.

When it comes to ultrafast fiber broadband or fixed wireless connectivity, Santa Clarita has a host of options. CNET helps you pick out the best one for your budget and needs.

Sega and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio have just announced Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii at Tokyo Game Show 2024's RGG Summit presentation. 

Firmly filing under the category of 'game ideas so good I can't believe they haven't happened already', this smaller-scale adventure stars iconic series madman Goro Majima as the protagonist. After washing up on a deserted island with no recollection of how he got there or even who he is, Majima is rescued by a young boy named Noah.

Before long, Majima and the folks of Rich Island are swept up in a full-scale pirate invasion, complete with naval battles and even a hunt for legendary treasure. It's arguably the most out there the Like a Dragon series has ever been, and that's even accounting for the madness we witnessed throughout Yakuza: Like a Dragon and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth.

Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii will reportedly be similar in scope to 2023's Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name. Judging by the brief gameplay snippets we got from the announcement trailer, combat will return to the real-time action combat style as opposed to the more recent pivot to turn-based battles.

Majima will be able to switch between two fighting styles. First up is 'Sea Dog' which sees Majima dual-wielding swords. Then there's the 'Mad Dog' style, which presumably could be similar to his movesets from Yakuza 0 and Yakuza Kiwami 2.

Launching on February 28, 2025, for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, and PC (via Steam), Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii will have a few different versions. There's the Standard Edition which is available in either physical or digital versions. A digital-only Deluxe Edition adds some DLC customization items. There will also be a physical Collector's Edition that packs in the base game, Deluxe Edition content, and various physical goodies such as a replica of Majima's iconic eye patch.

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Social media apps are surveilling children and teenagers, and using the data gathered to earn billions of dollars every year.

At the same time, they’re doing close to nothing to protect their young users from harmful content.

This is one of the conclusions published in a new staff report from the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), BleepingComputer finds.

Free speech

Apparently, back in 2020, the FTC started probing into the biggest social media platforms out there: Twitch, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, TIkTok, Discord, Reddit, and WhatsApp. The probe analyzed, among other things, how these companies collected data, how they tracked personal information, demographic information, and how the practice affected minors.

While data harvesting and monetization is nothing new, especially with social media companies, the FTC was particularly worried about the way these firms managed their younger audience. FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said "several firms' failure to adequately protect kids and teens online is especially troubling."

One of the ways these companies tried to bury the problem is by saying there were no children on the platforms, the report argues. Apparently, many companies said since the services were not directed to children, there were no children present. The FTC believes this was a way to avoid complying with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. Instead, these firms were treating teens the same as adults.

For Graeme Stewart, head of public sector at Check Point Software, one of the biggest problems is social media companies pushing back against any legislation that might limit teens’ use of their platforms.

“Various governments around the world are stepping in to address this,” he said, adding that “social media companies push back, essentially arguing that they’re just providing a platform and shouldn’t be held accountable for inappropriate content posted on it. They also lobby governments, framing their arguments around free speech.”

The best parental control apps can help restrict access children's access to social media.

Via BleepingComputer

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New research has claimed a lack of cybersecurity skills and employee training are significant challenges faced by companies, with the gap in expertise at such a level that it threatens the protection of cloud environments.

In its 2024 Cloud Security Report, Check Point Software reported only 4% of organizations have the capabilities to mitigate the risks of public cloud attacks, despite the rising threat.

Of the 61% of companies who experienced cloud security incidents, 21% were victims of data breaches.

AI skills needed

There are a multitude of reasons for the vulnerabilities, the report suggests. Primarily, a lack of skills and security awareness from employees, but in a very close second, is the rapid technological changes that organizations are struggling to adapt to.

Respondents overwhelmingly identified AI as a priority on some level for their company, which illustrates a significant shift towards AI-driven solutions in cyber-secruity strategies. Almost half (49%) indicated a need for security experts to be trained on AI-related skills, with 35% specifically concerned a lack of knowledge is a barrier to AI adoption.

This isn’t the first piece of research to highlight a cybersecurity skills gap. In the UK, 50% of businesses report facing a lack of basic cyber security training. Particularly vulnerable are the healthcare and finance industries, which rely on secure IT infrastructure.

A rise in not just the number of cyber attacks, but in their sophistication, means that businesses are more at risk than ever before, especially for those who can’t splash out on top of the range cyber security.

AI currently seems to be both part of the problem, and the solution. Threat actors are weaponizing AI in malware and social engineering attacks, but it can also help companies bolster cyber-security capabilities.

Via InfoSecurity

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Amazon has launched a new generative AI-powered personal assistant aimed at helping sellers streamline their businesses.

Built on the company’s own managed service, AWS Bedrock, the new chatbot branded Project Amelia will deliver tailored insights, advice and business metrics designed to improve productivity and drive growth.

The hope is that the Seattle-based ecommerce giant can help independent sellers manage complex business challenges, like product development, compliance, advertising, sales forecasting and inventory management, further reducing the gap between them and more established rivals.

Amazon will help smaller sellers with GenAI

Sellers can ask Amelia questions and receive almost instant guidance and, as we’ve come to expect from generative AI tools, Amelia is designed to learn from a seller’s unique business needs to offer personalized insights.

Amazon’s new seller-destined AI will first roll out across the US with a focus on handling three primary tasks – answering knowledge-based questions, providing business status updates and metrics, and resolving issues.

Mary Beth Westmoreland, VP for Worldwide Selling Partner Experience, said: “We are always seeking to equip our selling partners with the most effective tools and capabilities, empowering them to more easily start and grow a successful business.”

In the near future, Amazon has also committed to helping sellers resolve more complex issues and enabling Amelia to take action on their behalf.

The beta version is set to roll out to more US sellers in the coming weeks, with international expansions planned for later this year.

Westmoreland added: “This is only the beginning for Project Amelia. As sellers begin interacting with it, the technology will learn and evolve, leading to more comprehensive and personalized responses, with deeper insights and advice specific to sellers’ business needs.”

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The PlayStation 5 Pro hasn’t even hit shelves yet, but that doesn’t mean that speculation isn't already running wild about a potential PlayStation 6. Following reports that AMD will be designing the console's chip the latest rumors indicate that the PS6 could come in two distinct variants.

The information comes from user ‘Kepler’ on the gaming forum Neogaf who states that two separate system on chips (SoCs) are in development by Sony for the next console generation. If you’re unfamiliar, an SoC is an integrated chip often used in games consoles that combines the function of many computing components. This can include CPU, GPU, and RAM.

If accurate, the development of two SoCs would suggest that multiple distinct versions of the PS6 are in the works. The leaker says that they do not know why the chips are being made, though speculates that it could be for a cheaper model of the system. This would mean that the PS6 line-up could be remarkably similar to Microsoft’s current console offering, which includes the Xbox Series X and lower-spec, but significantly less expensive, Xbox Series S.

Given that analysts estimate that the PS6 will cost around $600, a lower cost model could be very welcome. There is also a chance that the second SoC could be being developed for a gaming handheld, perhaps something close to the Steam Deck.

Although ‘Kepler’ has provided some accurate leaks in the past, particularly when it comes to the world of PC graphics cards, it’s worth bearing in mind that this is far from any official confirmation. It’s also quite unlikely that we will hear anything from Sony about the PS6 until the upcoming PS5 Pro is firmly in the rear view mirror.

If you are interested in picking up Sony’s next console at launch, be sure to visit our dedicated pre-order page before PS5 Pro pre-orders go live in a week in order to maximize your chances.

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Microsoft Edge has steadily been seeing improvements over the course of the year, and a fresh innovation in testing promises to boost the performance of the browser. It does so by keeping a close eye out for any misbehaving extensions which are consuming too much in the way of resources.

Neowin spotted the introduction of the feature called ‘extension performance detector’ in Edge (Canary v130, meaning an early test version), which warns you if any browser extensions are slowing down Edge repeatedly over time.

The notification that pops up as a warning when this happens tells you how much slowdown your browser extensions are causing, and breaks down the impact of each extension, with the worst offenders at the top. You can hit a button to turn off any of these extensions right there and then to improve your browser’s performance.

(Image credit: Shutterstock/PeopleImages.com - Yuri A) Extensions can be really useful - but they can also carry potential pitfalls

For the uninitiated, browser extensions are compact add-ons installed in Edge (or other browsers) that add extra features. For example, they can instantly translate the contents of a web page, or read a page out aloud to you. 

While such add-ons can deliver powerful bits of extra functionality in a convenient way, some extensions can malfunction and potentially drag down your browser’s performance, or worse still, perhaps the overall performance of your device. 

Right now, as noted, this feature is only available in the Canary build of Edge (where it can be enabled using a flag). It’s likely to be unstable in its current experimental form, but hopefully, Microsoft will iron out any problems, and the extension performance detector tool will come to the full release of Edge eventually.

I’m looking forward to this capability arriving in the stable version of Edge, as extensions can certainly mess with your browser’s performance in some cases, and sometimes without you even realizing that it’s an extension that’s causing the trouble. So, a feature that keeps a constant lookout for such misfiring extensions is going to be worth its weight in gold.

Microsoft has made a number of improvements to Edge throughout 2024, including other work to boost performance of the browser, and to better organize and streamline Edge’s Settings page, which is a rather sprawling mess these days.

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A leak on AMD’s incoming Strix Point Halo chips shows the configurations and apparently official names for these powerful CPUs for driving gaming laptops (and maybe handhelds) – but less welcome is a fresh hint that these processors might be eye-wateringly expensive.

If you’ve missed the fuss around Strix Point Halo (often referred to as simply Strix Halo), these are the top-end Strix Point offerings, and with vanilla Strix Point chips being called Ryzen AI 300, the Strix Halo CPUs are reportedly going to be named Ryzen AI Max 300.

VideoCardz picked up on the rumor that comes from Golden Pig Upgrade, a well-known leaker on Weibo who furnishes us with the initial three processors that AMD will release in this range, and their key specs.

They are as follows:

• Ryzen AI Max+ 395 – 16-cores (Zen 5) + 40 Compute Units (RDNA 3.5 graphics)
• Ryzen AI Max 390 – 12-cores + 40 Compute Units
• Ryzen AI Max 385 – 8-cores + 32 Compute Units

Of course, we need to be skeptical here – as with any chatter from the grapevine – but the specs align with what we’ve heard before, and the naming makes sense to us. ‘Max’ seems like a fitting label to adorn these CPUs with (giving us a hint of Apple-esque vibes, it must be said).

The leaker also observes support for up to 96GB of video memory with Strix Halo, indicating that AMD is going to target professional users and the notebook workstation market with the chip, not just gaming laptops.

Here’s where there’s a slight worrying twist in that VideoCardz also noticed a post on X (from Hoang Anh Phu) highlighting that GPD, a manufacturer of gaming laptops and handhelds, recently dialed back a notebook from being equipped with a Strix Point CPU (HX 370) to an older Hawk Point processor (Ryzen 7 8840U).

GPD representative suggested the price of HX 370 (Strix Point) for OEMs. No surprise.Perhaps AMD is taking more Zen 5 profits from laptops to compensate for desktops.Imagine how high Strix Halo will cost ! pic.twitter.com/gkrFfgGPf1September 20, 2024

The reason? The report claims that the Strix Point chips will cost twice as much, and therefore GPD scaled back to keep the cost of the bill-of-materials of the laptop to a more reasonable level.

Now, the concern is that if Strix Point is that pricey – again, add seasoning, and lots of it – what sort of financial toll is Strix Halo going to exact? As we said at the outset, this is fueling fears that Halo will be prohibitively pricey.

(Image credit: Future) Analysis: End of the supercharged handheld dream?

We were always worried about pricing for Strix Halo, given just how powerful these mobile offerings are rumored to be. To put the (purported) performance of the integrated RDNA 3.5 graphics in perspective, AMD’s standalone GPU, the RX 7600 XT (RDNA 3), has 32 Compute Units, like the lower-end Ryzen AI Max 385 – so the top-end Max+ 395 outstrips it considerably for that key spec with 40 Compute Units. Plus Halo is on RDNA 3.5, meaning a refreshed RDNA 3 architecture that’s fine-tuned, so it’s going to be speedier on that basis too.

So, these are seriously supercharged chips, and if Strix Point is causing laptop makers to pause for thought on the basis of its cost, what is Strix Halo going to be like? Will these heavyweight chips even be suitable for, say, a gaming handheld at all, given the pricing premium? Or is Halo really more destined for workstation laptops, given AMD’s apparent positioning as noted above?

As ever, we can’t get too carried away with rumors, and this is just one isolated case from a single laptop vendor, anyway. However, it’s easy to see why there’s now something of an air of concern around the future, certainly regarding handhelds being pepped up by Strix Halo (or Ryzen AI Max, rather), and exactly how pricey this silicon might make thin-and-light gaming laptops, too.

Still, as already observed, nobody was expecting Strix Halo to be anything like affordable – it’s just that this is a hint it could be even pricier than most folks were imagining.

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Google has introduced Chrome password sync through a new password manager PIN function across Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and ChromeOS platforms.

The move marks a change from having to use the original device that generated a passkey to scan a QR code in order to authenticate a login.

Now, a login only needs to be authenticated using a biometric method, such as a fingerprint or facial recognition.

Extra security

“This PIN adds an additional layer of security to ensure your passkeys are end-to-end encrypted and can't be accessed by anyone, not even Google," Chirag Desi, Chrome product manager, said in the functionality announcement.

Users can choose between using a six digit pin, or a combination of letters and numbers through the PIN options, with support for iOS coming soon. Google recently released statistics showing that passkeys are in use by over 400 million Google accounts as of May 2024.

“These recovery factors will allow you to securely access your saved passkeys and sync new ones across your computers and Android devices," Desai added.

Earlier this year, Google brought passkeys to its Advanced Protection Program to help secure high-risk accounts, such as those belonging to journalists, elected officials, political campaign staff and human rights workers.

Via TheHackerNews

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Most people understand “digital identity” as all the online information linked to humans, such as usernames and passwords, that allow us to access services and apps. Today – with our lives increasingly playing out online – this identity is crucial for almost every action we take, from online security to seamless transactions.

However, a critical aspect of digital identity that’s often overlooked within organizations is the identity of machines. Machines, from IoT devices to servers, and even the workloads that run on them – like containers, microservices, or bash scripts – all require identities. These identities can be hacked and exploited just like human ones, revealing critical information and posing significant risks if not managed consistently across environments.

Maintaining identity consistency

As multi-cloud environments and cloud-native architectures have become standard, the number of machine and workload identities is soaring. In 2023, workload identities alone outnumbered human identities 10 to 1, and this gap is expected to widen, set to reach 100 to 1 soon. Understanding and managing these identities is vital for maintaining organizational security in the digital age – but how do businesses ensure consistency across their identities?

With the rise in cloud adoption, workloads are increasing exponentially, turning identity into a business-wide issue. Everything operating within your business, from a simple script to a complex workload, requires the same security considerations as a human identity. It's not enough for workloads to just have an identity; they need one that is consistent, secure, short-lived, and thoroughly vetted. Much like people who often face challenges managing multiple logins, locations, and passwords – leading to frustration, risk, and productivity slowdowns – workloads can encounter similar issues. Maintaining consistent identities for these workloads is essential to safeguarding them against threats.

Building the workload identity pyramid

Consider workload identities as a pyramid. First, at the foundation we have workload identities and managing their entire lifecycle. Moving up, the next level is authentication, ensuring each entity is correctly identified and verified. The next level is authorization, which dictates what resources or actions the entity is permitted to access. At the top of the pyramid is governance, overseeing and managing the rules of authentication and authorization. Only when each level of the pyramid is reached can we begin to consider the next step, then move towards the final goal of standardization.

As development platforms like Kubernetes become ubiquitous, it's essential to establish an open-source standard for consistently and securely identifying software systems – as all workloads need verifiable IDs. When all vendors adopt the same standard, tools and systems from different sources can better integrate and communicate, which will improve compatibility and extend the reach of solutions. By establishing governance standards, organizations can better protect themselves from increasing risks. This ensures that security and IT teams can identify, manage, and govern workloads, regardless of where they are running. One example of an open-source standard is SPIFFE, the Secure Production Identity Framework For Everyone. SPIFFE is in the same foundation as Kubernetes – the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) along with many of the other projects it’s likely to interoperate with. Although it's built for and designed with Kubernetes in mind, it can also be applied to traditional, proprietary on-premises solutions which makes it powerful for Platform Engineers and Infosec teams alike.

Securing digital workloads

Identity security isn't just about protecting human identities anymore. The perimeter is dead, and services are now running everywhere – from on prem to the cloud and beyond. Just as employees must verify their identities to keep your business secure, machines and workloads interacting with one another need to do the same. This helps IT teams manage and secure workloads across various cloud environments more effectively.

Without this, the risk of exposure, compliance violations, and security breaches increases. Open standards like SPIFFE ensure consistent and verifiable IDs for all entities, enhancing compatibility and security. As cloud adoption and multi-cloud environments grow, addressing the identity security of both machines and workloads is crucial. This is key to reducing risks and boosting overall organizational security.

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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

Nimble has launched new features which the company promises will help fuel growth across organizations, and not just specific departments. A move further supporting the company's efforts to be one of the best CRM software providers on the market.

In a press release shared with TechRadar Pro earlier this week, the company announced the release of Email Sequence Automation, a feature that integrates the recently launched Email Sequences, with key functionalities such as Web Forms, Webhooks, and Workflows. The integrations are bi-directional, the company explained, and should help different teams such as marketing, PR, customer support, HR, accounting, and others.

“By linking Workflow pipelines with Email Sequences, Nimble fully supports the customer journey, from capturing leads to closing deals,” commented Jon Ferrara, CEO of Nimble. “This enhancement helps teams save significantly by consolidating their tech stack.”

The new feature will come with industry-specific email sequence templates, automated lead and contact management, comprehensive customer journey support, and scalable contact engagement. More details about the intricacies of the new offering can be found on this link.

Capturing leads and closing deals

For those who are unaware, Nimble is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform designed to help businesses manage contacts, communications, and sales pipelines. It integrates with popular productivity tools like Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and social media platforms to gather and organize customer information from multiple sources.

The CRM comes with a myriad of features such as contact management, email tracking, and task automation, streamlining both sales and marketing efforts. Finally, it consolidates all data into a single platform, helping teams collaborate better, and improve customer engagement.

The features are already available for use, Nimble said, adding that users can get all of them in a single payment plan.

In the near future, Nimble is planning on releasing more updates, including Lead Engagement Automation, which should be announced today, and Marketing Automation at scale, to be announced later this month.

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Companies are rushing to address IT and business challenges by implementing AI strategies. But their roadmaps are leading in dozens of directions amid a barrage of AI hype and hope. We’re fast realizing that putting AI to work, including machine learning and generative AI, in an effective and cost-efficient way requires accurately diagnosing deep-seated enterprise problems.

While the depth of problems can vary from organization to organization, enterprises experience considerable friction due to cloud migration complications and constantly evolving core technologies, platforms, and ITSM tools. Diving deeper, cross-enterprise challenges also include a broad lack of maturity in automation adoption, digital labor, systems-driven operational models, and AI-enabled tools themselves. All of this is often wrapped up in failures to understand core process issues that have stalled digital transformation and acceleration initiatives.

Enterprises can become frustrated with little measurable success, despite major investments of time and money. The future of IT service management depends on the accurate examination of this impasse — and fine-tuning AI, guided by human oversight and evaluation, to navigate processes better and achieve higher quality results faster than we currently do.

Challenges multiply when enterprises fail to understand process issues

When organizations fail to fully identify and understand issues with their business and technical processes, they also waste time and resources trying to identify and implement the right solutions for the organization, at the right time. While executives and management often have a solid awareness of the impact of technology adoption and process problems on the business, they typically lack visibility into the root causes of, say, skyrocketing cloud spend, poor data management, or inefficient workflows and tooling.

A lack of process and procedural “hygiene” is responsible for much of the inefficiency and noise. That bad hygiene can manifest as a lack of discipline in organizations to log tickets for every issue handled, to capture proper issue-related details in the tickets, and to capture proper work notes and resolution notes. These seemingly small details can wreak havoc on the health of enterprise systems and larger business objectives. This is a manifestation of the “watermelon effect” at work: everything may look green on the outside, but the issues surface in red when you cut deep. Intentionally or unintentionally, a healthy assessment might be conveyed to higher tiers of management and to the public, while rot is taking hold deep in the system.

What’s more, many organizations focus on operational-level KPIs rather than business-level KPIs, which means the needle may not be moving toward better business performance. Organizations can also suffer due to inadequate technical expertise, domain expertise, and staffing relative to capacity. Undocumented and “tribal” knowledge locked within incumbents inside the organization contributes to siloed IT approaches and solutions that detract from achieving business objectives. Tribal knowledge may also, at times, be locked in archaic approaches and technologies which further hinder modernization.

Other factors that can drag enterprises down include inefficiencies in hybrid or work-from-home models, the ongoing tightening of compliance and regulatory standards, and a lack of unity and clarity across the organization in long-term growth and modernization strategy.

AI: Extracting intelligence and solving problems for optimized services

Generative AI, machine learning, natural language processing (NLP) and other forms of AI can be of great help in revealing, simplifying, and solving these pain points. AI can aid in extracting intelligence that can be used to eliminate challenges with process issues, technology adoption, meeting business-level KPIs, and increasing team productivity.

Specifically, with ITSM, generative AI can drive positive results by addressing historic contexts as well as issues in real time. It can help humans identify trends and patterns, formulate insights, determine better processual steps, and even generate summaries of incidents and events with respect to both infrastructure needs and customer needs. AI can quickly summarize triage across the incidents and generate overall resolutions implemented by directly fetching inputs from mail chains if needed. Humans can then review those AI-generated summaries and take corrective action that saves the organization time and money. These comprehensive insights across tickets and systems issues can provide clarity on the nature, impact, and volume of challenges the organization faces. That data helps in prioritizing automation and resolution efforts.

Importantly, AI-summarized triage notes and resolution notes across tech teams and tech stacks offer a more holistic view of events flow across teams, which helps provide an end-to-end picture of the ITSM environment and can reveal any process inefficiencies. Also useful is AI’s ability to generate concise management reports, while enabling more thorough and comprehensive documentation for future reference.

Better configuration, proactive prediction, and a reduced skills gap

Additionally, predictive AI, platform AI, NLP, and AI in Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) can be used to assist in a wide variety of ITSM work to define the processes and methodology of operations. For example, by consuming metrics, logs, and traces, AI can enhance its predictive capabilities, helping an organization prevent incidents before they occur. With data unique to an organization, AI can be trained to differentiate between positives, false positives, and negatives. It can help in event correlation among historic incidents and unearth patterns, volumes, and impact metrics — which will later be matched up with real-time metrics to proactively predict incidents.

AI-driven infrastructure-as-code (IaC) and configuration-as-code (CasC) can help in streamlining and standardizing infrastructure provisioning and maintenance, reducing the burden on humans. AI can also help predict the impact of configuration changes and automate configuration optimization, which helps reduce management efforts. And AI tools can aggregate the best reference material and provide it to the right teams — reducing the skill gaps where that’s most needed.

Not least, AI can help to team up individuals working on the same issue across different organizational silos. It can unearth process-related issues in those silos and across the teams. It can “artificially” merge siloed services across teams for a more comprehensive view of the overall health of IT services and systems, while helping reduce costs by eliminating idle resources, duplicated work, and over-provisioning.

Looking forward

In ITSM, AI will have a profound, long-term impact. It will help to bridge talent gaps in the global workforce, and in the next five to ten years, we will see increasing use of digital labor and a meaningful shift in how human labor is levied.

As AI matures, it will become capable of solving increasingly complex problems, and even more comprehensively and independently identify root causes of technical and process issues across enterprises. Predictive analytics will facilitate proactive and preemptive systems maintenance. Industry-specific AI engines, trained for particular domains, will increasingly have the ability to quickly or near instantaneously learn and adapt to the needs of the organizations where they are deployed, minimizing the maturity curve. All of this will reduce systems downtime, while improving stability and security across the enterprise IT landscape.

The next generation of IT professionals will also be affected, and in order to bolster their careers, they must prepare for a period of transition. Developing an understanding of the IT landscape, as well as how to use, confirm, measure, and enhance the effectiveness of AI engines within organizations will become critical. A key part of their jobs will involve training AI engines and accounting for latest enhancements, as they strategize AI-to-business outcomes.

Right now, business leaders seeking to understand the intersection of AI and IT service management must define the most effective strategies and timelines around why and how to implement AI. Having the right AI solutions, knowing how AI engines can be effectively adopted across an organization for best ROI, and securing the right talent and partners to build and manage AI are collectively an uphill task. It’s worth the effort in the long term, due to cost efficiencies and performance improvements that AI can deliver at scale.

We've featured the best AI phone.

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

It's a clash of the comic book titans this week as Marvel and DC go head-to-head in a TV bout for the ages. Indeed, the Disney- and Warner-owned comic giants have released new shows this week, so you'll be incredibly unsurprised to learn that the duo lead our streaming recommendations for the weekend.

It isn't just Disney Plus and Max who are coming out swinging this week, though. Two more of the world's best streaming services have some new movies and TV shows to bring you on the stay-at-home watching front, too, so if you're not a fan of superheroes or cinematic comic book franchises, one of this article's other five suggestions should take your fancy. Enjoy!

Agatha All Along (Disney Plus)

Just when I thought I'd finally got WandaVision's incredibly catchy (and popular!) original song out of my head, Marvel has only gone and named an entire TV spin-off after it. That's right, Kathryn Hahn's delightful and morally complex Agatha Harkness is back, with the calculating witch's own series – Agatha All Along – finally launching in time for spooky season.

Stripped of her powers by Wanda Maximoff in WandaVision's final episode, Harkness must cobble together her own coven of misfit witches to traverse the Witches' Road, a dangerous realm that, if successfully navigated, will turn a traveler's long-held dream into reality. No pressure, then, gang.

Based on its numerous trailers, this Marvel Phase 5 show looks like it could be another MCU TV project that dominates online discussions throughout its nine-episode run. I can't wait to see more after its campy, catty, chilling, and cackle-inducing two-episode premiere – although, as I noted in my Agatha All Along review, I wished it leaned more into its horror roots. Anyway, altogether now: It was Agatha all alooooooong!

Tom Power, senior entertainment reporter

• Watch Agatha All Along on Disney Plus

The Penguin (Max)

Colin Farrell's Oz Cobb/The Penguin was one of many highlights of mine in 2022's The Batman (you can read more on the others in my review of The Batman). Even so, considering his screen time – in a near-three-hour long movie, no less – totalled a curt eight minutes, I was hesitant about the prospects of this sleazy, cunning criminal being able to star in one of the best Max shows ever made. (NB: The Penguin is available to stream on Sky/Now TV in the UK and Binge in Australia.)

I need not have worried. The Penguin is an absolute blast from start to finish, with Farrell and co-lead Cristin Milioti's (she plays Sofia Falcone) performances making this unmissable miniseries. By the time it came to penning my thoughts on the latest Batman live-action project, I'd only watched the first two episodes. Even then, though, I could tell The Penguin deserved to sit alongside The Sopranos in HBO's crime drama pantheon. Now, having finished the full series, I'm tripling down on that opinion – it's just that epic. Give Farrell and Milioti their 2025 Primetime Emmys trophies now, please and thank you.

Tom Power, senior entertainment reporter

• Watch The Penguin on Max

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story (Netflix)

Ryan Murphy's got quite a dark portfolio. From American Horror Story to Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, he's taken viewers down some twisted paths. His foray into true crime continues with the latest in his Monster series, which focuses on Lyle and Erik Menendez, two brothers who were convicted of the murder of their parents.

This double-murder resulted in a huge investigation that has gone down in American history, largely due to Court TV broadcasting the trial. With some big names like Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny involved, this dramatization is well worth the watch if you've got the stomach for it.  A third instalment of Monsters will explore the life of serial killer Ed Gein, portrayed by Sons of Anarchy lead Charlie Hunnam.

Lucy Buglass, senior entertainment writer

• Watch Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story on Netflix

His Three Daughters (Netflix)

His Three Daughters already promises to be one of the best Netflix movies of 2024 with its 99% Rotten Tomatoes score – and that's before it has even started streaming on Netflix. His Three Daughters features a star-studded cast of Elizabeth Olsen, Carrie Coon, and Natasha Lyonne, who play three estranged sisters that reunite in New York City to care for their ill father. As the sisters wait at their father's bedside during his final days, they confront past resentments and face fresh struggles in their relationships.

I can tell this bittersweet portrayal of sisterhood in all its happiness and pain will have me laughing and crying until the very end, so I'm ready to strap in for the emotional rollercoaster ride with one of September's new Netflix movies.

Grace Morris, entertainment writer

• Watch His Three Daughters on Netflix

A Very Royal Scandal (Prime Video)

Just like Netflix's Scoop, which aired earlier in the year, A Very Royal Scandal on Prime Video is another bombshell drama about Prince Andrew's explosive 2019 Newsnight interview. A Very Royal Scandal is a retelling of Newsnight journalist Emily Maitlis' journey leading up to her interview with Prince Andrew on the BBC Two news and current affairs programme.

Michael Sheen takes on the role of Prince Andrew, while Ruth Wilson plays Maitlis, so if the two leading stars are anything to go by, there's a possibility that this could end up as one of the best Prime Video shows.

Grace Morris, entertainment writer

• Watch A Very Royal Scandal on Prime Video

Twilight of the Gods (Netflix)

Zack Snyder needs no introduction around these parts, but the beloved/divisive director's (delete as applicable) partnership with Netflix got off to an inauspicious start with the arrival of his two-part Rebel Moon movie. Despite pulling in viewers when Rebel Moon Part 1 aired last December, both films' critical and commercial receptions left a lot to be desired, and it's unclear if Snyder's epic sci-fi franchise will be given the time, effort, and money it demands to turn its fortunes around.

The former DC Cinematic Universe (DCEU) filmmaker, then, will hope this Norse mythology-inspired, R-rated animated series will fare better. Twilight of the Gods stars Sylvia Hoeks as Sigrid, an iron-willed warrior who, after assembling a ragtag group of crusaders, embarks on a death-defying mission of revenge after Thor murders her betrothed – and on her wedding day, no less. One to join similar adult animated fare like Arcane and BoJack Horseman on our best Netflix shows list? I guess it depends on how bloody and thunderous it is.

Tom Power, senior entertainment reporter

• Watch Twilight of the Gods on Netflix

I Saw The TV Glow (Max)

I Saw the TV Glow is still my favorite horror of the year. My colleague Rowan Davies agrees, too, in his *ahem* glowing personal piece on I Saw The TV Glow, where he explains how it made him re-watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's easy to see why, as this powerful coming of age story does explore topics of identity, fandom, and more, with the help of a creepy fictional TV show called The Pink Opaque.

Horrors like this are special and don't come around all the time. This isn't jump scares galore or full of over the top gore (as much as there's a space for that) – instead, it's subtle yet eerie throughout. Indeed, one of September's new Max movies not only relies on this sense of dread and discomfort, but a general deeply unsettling feeling that something is missing. Two unlikely teenagers bond over this slightly campy, 80s-esque supernatural series, and the result is something as beautiful as it is haunting. To say too much would spoil it but I can't recommend it enough, so you can expect to see it on our best Max movies list very soon.

Lucy Buglass, senior entertainment writer 

• Watch I Saw The TV Glow on Max

For more streaming coverage, read our guides on the best Hulu shows, best Paramount Plus movies, best Apple TV Plus shows, and best Disney Plus movies.

A critical path traversal vulnerability, recently discovered in Ivanti’s Cloud Service Appliance (CSA), is being actively exploited in the wild to grant access to restricted product functionalities. This is according to the security advisory Ivanti published earlier this week, in which it said it was “aware of a limited number of customers” who have been exploited by this vulnerability.

CSA is a gateway solution that allows secure communication between Ivanti software products (such as Ivanti Endpoint Manager) and devices outside the corporate network. It acts as a secure bridge for remote devices, enabling them to connect to internal services without the need for a VPN.

The bug is being tracked as CVE-2024-8963, and carries a severity score of 9.4. Ivanti says hackers can chain it to CVE-2024-8190, an OS command injection vulnerability, to bypass admin authentication and run arbitrary commands on the vulnerable endpoint.

End of life

The company did not say which companies were targeted, or by whom.

The bug was “incidentally addressed” as part of CSA 4.6 Patch 519, and CSA 5.0: “Ivanti is disclosing a critical vulnerability in Ivanti CSA 4.6 which was incidentally addressed in the patch released on 10 September (CSA 4.6 Patch 519),” the company said. It stressed that CSA 4.6 is past its end-of-life date, and as such no longer receives patches for OS or third-party libraries.

“Additionally, with the end-of-life status the fix released on 10 September is the last fix Ivanti will backport to that version,” the company concluded. “Customers must upgrade to Ivanti CSA 5.0 for continued support. CSA 5.0 is the only supported version of the product and is not affected by this vulnerability.”

Since the bug is actively exploited, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) added it to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog recently, forcing government agencies to patch up by October 10, The Hacker News found.

Via The Hacker News

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Microsoft has launched a new service for macOS, iOS, Android devices, web browsers, and Windows PCs allowing users to run Windows and Windows apps as a platform for streaming a copy of Windows from a variety of sources.

With a customizable home screen, multi-monitor support, and USB redirection, the app will allow customer to use local devices like printers, webcams, and storage devices as if they were plugged directly into a cloud PC,

“This unified app serves as your secure gateway to connect to Windows across Windows 365, Azure Virtual Desktop, Remote Desktop, Remote Desktop Services, Microsoft Dev Box, and more," Microsoft's Windows 365 Senior Product Manager Hilary Braun noted.

All in one place

The app doesn't just consolidate multiple services, Microsoft says, but will bring better device management for IT administrators, easier account switching, and includes support for both Microsoft’s Relayed RDP Shortpath and Windows 365 for frontline workers.

By providing a gateway to connect to Windows across multiple services, the app will aim to enhance the user experience by providing a single streamlined interface.

Not everyone is enthused about the new app, most citing the confusing name. Primarily, people are frustrated that searching for solutions or help with Windows apps will be much more complicated with so many services with a similar name.

The news comes days after an announcement that the Windows 11 app will be getting some major upgrades, which hopes to enable apps to use less memory and enable 50% faster loading. The firm hopes updates will bring better performance for a range of apps, and improve the user experience across the board.

Via ArsTechnica

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Have you ever had a nightmare where you're being chased by a killer and can't move no matter how hard you try? Well, this horror story comes true in the trailer for new Netflix movie Don't Move.

With legendary Evil Dead director Sam Raimi producing the upcoming thriller, there's a high possibility that Don't Move could become one of the best horror movies. The best streaming service released the new trailer (see below) as part of Netflix's Geeked Week and my horror-phobic self is ready to be frozen in fear just this once.

In the heart-pounding new trailer, Iris (Kelsey Asbille) fights for her life as a sinister killer pursues her in the forest. It already sounds like anyone's worst fear, but the ordeal is made even more terrifying when she has to contend with her entire body shutting down after being injected by a paralytic agent. In another bone-chilling twist, the trailer never reveals the killer. We only hear his voice as he ominously warns her what's to come as the agent gradually takes over her body in 20 minutes.

Frozen in fear, literally

In Don't Move, grieving mother Iris is hoping to find solace in the woods as she navigates a difficult time in her life. However, her journey to healing turns into a desperate fight for survival when she meets a stranger deep in the forest of the Big Sur who injects her with a paralytic agent. With only 20 minutes until the drug kicks in, Iris must face the deadly battle of her nervous system shutting down and escaping a pursuer hot on her tail. 

With an 85 minute runtime, the potential best Netflix movie unfolds along the same amount of time as the characters are experiencing, so the audience feels like they're there moment by moment. This idea is something directors Brian Netto and Adam Schindler conceived alongside the film’s writers, T.J. Cimfel and David White. “The challenge we said to them was, ‘we would love for it to be real time,’ ” Netto told Tudum. “We love films that do that.” 

Throughout those 85 minutes, Iris must navigate a new, unimaginable obstacle with very limited range of movement. “It’s a propulsive, stripped-down thriller that manages to feel very personal at times. That’s what resonated with me, fighting desperately to overcome something that has left you feeling paralyzed,” Asbille added.

Don't Move stars Asbille (Yellowstone), Finn Wittrock (American Horror Story: Hotel), Moray Treadwell (The Witcher: Blood Origin), and Daniel Francis (Bridgerton), and will debut on Netflix on October 25, so make sure to stay put till then. 

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