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Square Handheld delivers full POS features in a pocket-sized formBuilt for mobility with barcode scanning and all-day battery lifeSeven software modes adapt to restaurants, retail and other business types

Financial technology company Square has introduced a new addition to its hardware lineup. Square Handheld is a compact, portable point-of-sale (POS) device built to serve the evolving needs of restaurants and retailers.Weighing just 11 ounces and less than an inch thick, the device delivers full POS functionality in a form factor small enough to fit into an apron or pocket.The new device includes a 6.2-inch Gorilla Glass touchscreen, an integrated barcode scanner, and a 16-megapixel camera.

Protected from dust and water splashes

Square Handheld supports tap and dip payments and runs on Square’s newly unified Point of Sale app.The hardware is IP54-rated for protection against dust and water splashes, while the battery is built to last an entire business day.This model is designed to help sellers take orders, manage inventory, and complete transactions from anywhere in their store or restaurant, without needing to return to a fixed checkout terminal.The device builds on Square’s hardware design history, which began with its original card reader and now includes solutions like Square Stand, Square Terminal, and Square Register.The software experience includes seven configurable modes tailored to specific industries, including food service, bars, and retail. Sellers can switch between modes as their operational needs change. Push notifications and device-specific controls help streamline workflows for on-the-go staff.Square Handheld launches as part of Square Releases, a new biannual rollout that bundles together major hardware and software updates. It is available on Square Shop, priced from $399. A series of Belkin-designed protective cases will also be available in multiple colors, starting at $39.

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Oukitel WP300's battery can power other devices for daysNot your average rugged phone - it's part powerbank, part fitness tracker, all survival toolThis rugged phone has 108MP camera and 36GB of RAM for $399

The upcoming Oukitel WP300 takes an unconventional approach to rugged smartphone design - it's so over-the-top it’s already being called one of the most outrageous phones of 2025.Built to endure harsh conditions while offering a feature set that rivals many flagship devices, the WP300 rugged smartphone comes equipped with a massive 16,000mAh battery, a capacity more commonly found in power banks.The battery supports 45W fast charging and 18W reverse charging, meaning it can double as a battery pack for other gadgets like speakers, fans, or even rugged tablets.

Mobile phone and power bank for just $399

Even more surprising is the price. The WP300 will launch at just $399 - yes, $399 - when it debuts on Kickstarter at the end of May 2025. The original retail price is $599, but an early-bird offer includes a $200 discount.Two key attachments transform this rugged business smartphone into a survival companion. One is a detachable LED camping light, perfect for nighttime use or emergencies. The other is a wireless earbud that docks into the phone and converts into a compact smartwatch.This hybrid accessory features a display for alerts and an optical heart rate sensor, allowing it to function independently of the main device.The WP300 is no fragile flagship. It meets IP69, IP69K, and MIL-STD-810H standards, offering protection against dust, water, drops, and vibration.The rugged chassis is reinforced, and the 6.78-inch display is shielded by Corning Gorilla Glass 5. The screen delivers a resolution of 2460 x 1080 pixels, a 120Hz refresh rate, and 650 nits of brightness.Under the hood, a 5G-capable MediaTek Dimensity 7050 processor powers the device, supported by 12GB of RAM (expandable virtually to 36GB) and 512GB of internal storage.Despite its rugged build, the WP300 doesn’t skimp on photography. It features a 108MP AI main camera and a 32MP front-facing selfie lens.

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Harman has unveiled details of a new software solution that it hopes will offer “beyond sight” contextual alerts to drivers, without the need for expensive additional hardware or lengthy developmental schedules for manufacturers.Initially revealed as part of a package of automotive innovations at this year’s Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, Harman went into further detail at its Harman Explore day in Munich last week, where it demonstrated a number of its vehicle-based solutions.However, the Ready Aware Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) could well offer the most benefit to future drivers, as it leverages the power of modern vehicle sensor suites, 4G or 5G connectivity and next-generation infotainment systems to alert drivers about hazards they cannot yet see.The company says that the digital approach ensures motorists receive “precise, relevant, and near real-time contextual insights for improved situational awareness”, drawing data from both connected infrastructure and connected cars from any brand.According to the company, which is a a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, the cloud-based analytics engine uses digital twins and machine learning to create a detailed picture of surroundings based on real-time data received from a multitude of sources.

What can it do?

(Image credit: Harman)

For example, Harman says that it can detect circumstances of hard braking ahead, should the vehicle in question be sending standardized Vehicle Safety Messages to the cloud, and then warn the driver of impending congestion.This also works for a vehicle reversing ahead, a fast-approaching vehicle from behind, or even a vehicle up ahead that is swerving or behaving erratically.Similarly, standardized data from civil infrastructure, such as mobile roadworks or faulty traffic lights, can be logged by the system and distributed to any vehicle running Ready Aware in the vicinity.Harman splits these events up into event-based and feed-based alerts, which include things like bad weather notifications, objects on the road and upcoming accidents.An event-based alert could include a stranded or broken down vehicle, emergency electronic brake light activation ahead (traffic slowing quickly) or a sudden change in speed limit.In order to reduce the number of false or incorrect messages, Harman says its Situational Awareness Engine (SAE) analyses the data it collects and assigns it a ‘confidence score’.The more validating data it receives, the more confident it is that the event is worthy of a notification. All of this is done in near real-time, according to the company.

An attractive package

(Image credit: Harman)

Google Maps and Waze users will be familiar with some of these warnings, but the majority of those rely on the human community to log and confirm hazards, which is not only less reliable but can also prove a distraction to those behind the wheel.Harman says that the driver won’t have to do anything thanks to its software, and it’s just as easy for OEMs and vehicle makers to install the system – the main requirements being an existing sensor suite (cameras, sensors, LiDar etc), the required processing power and a 4G or 5G connection.What’s more, the company says the software solution can run on both Android and Linux infotainment platforms, with a simple Over-the-Air (OTA) update enough to have most modern connected cars Ready Aware compatible.We reported recently on how EuroNCAP, Europe’s leading car safety organization, has been incentivizing greater levels of active safety like this, which will make Harman’s solution even more attractive to those OEMs wanting a simple, affordable off-the-shelf solution.Harman says there are already more than 50 million automobiles on the road today equipped with its connected tech, and millions more with the required hardware to run such a system.There is currently no timeline on when we will see its technology made available in production vehicles, but Harman says it is ready roll it out now.The company also announced this week that it is one of the first to open-source a full connected services platform, part of its Eclipse Connected Services Platform (ECSP) project.It hopes it will encourage greater "interoperability" between different carmakers and help speed up the development and deployment of future connected cars.

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The PlayStation Plus Game Catalog for May includes some heavy hitters like Sand Land and Battlefield V. All of the following games will be available to play on May 20.

First up, there's the gorgeous Sand Land. This is an adaptation of an Akira Toriyama manga, the guy who created the Dragon Ball franchise. He also designed many of the monsters and characters in Chrono Trigger and the Dragon Quest series. The game is, more or less, a beat-for-beat recreation of the manga, wrapped up in a fast-paced action RPG package. There's also an emphasis on vehicular combat. The game will be playable on PS4 and PS5.

Battlefield V brought the long-standing franchise back to WWII. The FPS also features a battle royale mode that can handle up to 64 simultaneous players. It's a fun time, particularly for those sick of Call of Duty. It's only available for PS4.

Soul Hackers 2 is a turn-based RPG developed by Atlus, who most recently made the absolutely fantastic Metaphor: ReFantazio. If you've played that, along with every Persona and Shin Megami Tensei game, this could scratch a very particular dungeon-crawling itch. It's just for PS5.

The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trilogy is also getting a remaster that drops on May 20, so this will be a day one release for PS Plus. The trilogy features updated graphics, keyboard and mouse support and gameplay modes specifically for PS5 Pro. The games will be playable on both PS4 and PS5.

Other titles for the month include Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, Humankind, Gloomhaven and Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life. That's a pretty stacked lineup. Again, these will all be available on May 20.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/ps-plus-game-catalog-additions-for-may-include-sand-land-and-battlefield-v-180504708.html?src=rss

Uber is introducing a few new options for riders that it claims will save you money. These choices include Route Share, which can only be described as if Uber Pool and buses had a love child (though Uber has already tried to reinvent shuttle buses a few times). It offers pickups in certain spots "along busy corridors" every 20 minutes — though only during weekday rush hours.

Basically, you can save "up to" 50 percent off UberX by treating Uber like a bus, walking to a pickup location and then getting dropped off at another designated spot near your destination. The Pool bit is that there might be up to two other riders with you.

Route Share will let you book a seat between seven days and 10 minutes before you need it. The option is now available from 6AM to 10AM and 4PM to 8PM on weekdays in New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, and Baltimore, with more cities coming.

Uber

Uber is also rolling out two different ride passes, a price lock and a prepaid option. The price lock pass lets you pay $3 to reserve a set cost for a specific ride. It seems to be pretty low risk, as if the ride ends up being cheaper when you use it, Uber won't charge you the difference. You can use a price lock pass on up to 10 different routes each month. This pass is now available in cities like Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Miami and San Francisco — but should roll out to the rest of the US soon.

Then there's the prepaid pass, which lets you pay for multiple trips at a time. So, say you take an Uber to work or your partners place regularly, you can buy a set of trips along that route. The passes will work for 30 days or up to $50 in savings, whichever you hit first. You do have to buy either five, 10, 15 or 20 rides at a time, so Uber gets a guarantee you'll use their service and you get a discount in return. Both types of passes will also be available on teen accounts this fall.

Update, May 14 2025, 2:17PM ET: An earlier version of this article's headline referred to Uber's new offering as "Ride Shares" instead of "Route Share." This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/uber-introduces-route-share-a-rush-hour-version-of-pool-161059274.html?src=rss

A successful co-op shooter feels like a bottomless tub of popcorn, hot and smothered in golden butter, built for bite-sized consumption and impossible to resist. Smooth mechanics and a satisfying, repeatable loop should draw you in for one more bite, one more round, over and over again. FBC: Firebreak, Remedy Entertainment’s co-op shooter set in the universe of Control, almost hits these marks. It just needs a little more salt.

Remedy is a AA studio best known for crafting single-player games like Alan Wake and Control, which feature Lynchian mysteries and hellish twists, and Firebreak is the studio’s first attempt at crafting an online, cooperative, first-person shooter. Firebreak supports up to three players at a time, and it pits your team against hordes of otherworldly Hiss monsters in the bowels of The Oldest House, the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Control. The building was locked up with a bunch of Hiss inside at the end of Control, and Firebreak takes place six years later. You’re a government employee who’s volunteered to eradicate the Hiss in The Oldest House — or try to, at least — and you’re sent inside with some improvised weapons, no extra training and a hearty pat on the back.

Remedy Entertainment

We broke down the specifics of Firebreak’s gameplay loop and upgrade cycles after the developer walkthrough in March, but here are the basics:

Before the match begins, each player gets to select one of three Crisis Kits, loadouts designed with specific playstyles in mind. Crisis Kits come with a tool and an item each. The Jump Kit is based around electricity and it has the Electro-Kinectic Charge Impactor, a portable jackhammer kind of device with a conductive metal plate on the end, capable of slamming into enemies or propelling yourself into the air. It also has the BOOMbox, which plays music to attract enemies before exploding. The Fix Kit gives you a big wrench that’s able to repair machinery and stagger Hiss, and it also includes a turret that you have to smack with the wrench to assemble. The Splash Kit is for all the water signs out there — it features the Crank-Operated Fluidic Injector, an industrial water cannon that can extinguish fires and soak enemies so they’re primed for extra damage, plus a Humidifier, which sprays healing water in a wide area.

The game is broken down by Jobs, which are essentially custom-built missions in specific regions of The Oldest House. All Jobs have three zones, but otherwise each one has a unique objective, crisis, and environment. After selecting a Job, you get to customize your run by setting the Threat Level and Clearance Level — Threat Level determines combat difficulty and the number of rewards up for grabs, while Clearance Level sets the number of zones you have to clear and the type of rewards.

I spent roughly two and a half hours playing Firebreak with two strangers who quickly became the best Hiss-fighting friends I’ve ever had, and we messed around with three different Jobs, and various combinations of Threat and Clearance levels. I stuck with one loadout, the Fix Kit with the big wrench, and was able to purchase upgrades to add the turret, grenades, upgraded guns and an exploding piggy bank accessory to my loadout. The piggy bank slots into the wrench and creates a thunderous AOE tornado when you hit Hiss with it. While I don’t fully understand the science at play with the pig, I immensely enjoy slamming it into monsters.

We ran through three Jobs — Hot Fix, Ground Control and Paper Chase. Hot fix is an industrial level where you have to repair giant fans and eventually fill up barrels with fuel before sending them down a zipline. In Ground Control, you shoot these nasty, wriggling pustules that look like giant botfly larvae to retrieve radioactive leech pearls and throw them in a mining cart. Paper Chase features an office filled with sentient sticky notes, and you have to shoot them off the walls and floors before they consume you or turn into big yellow monsters. Throughout all of these tasks, waves of Hiss appear, demanding your attention and gunfire. There are ammo refill stations and healing showers positioned around the maps, though their positions change with each tweak to the Threat and Clearance levels. You’ll also have to repair some of the environmental features in order to fully take advantage of them — for instance, the shower initially spews out cold water, which can freeze players while they’re trying to heal, but you can send in someone with the Fix Kit (me!) to quickly mend the hot water. This, and fixing the ammo station, were generally the first two things my teammates and I did in each run.

And then, chaos. While each Job has its own goal, there’s a shared cadence to the missions, with moments of calm preparation and exploration violently interrupted by hordes of Hiss. Out of the pistol, shotgun and submachine gun, the SMG was my weapon of choice, and it tore through groups of enemies, spurred along by my teammates’ fire and, every now and then, a grenade. Ammo and health were constant considerations, but it was easy enough to note the locations of refill stations and showers, and or to ask my Splash Kit teammate to throw some healing water my way.

Firebreak does a great job of rewarding teams that stick together — you get an extra shield when you’re near your friends, and a bright visual cue accompanies this bonus, consistently reminding you to stay as a group. Of course, friendly fire is also a thing in this game, and errant explosions and bullets brought down everyone on my team a few times. We laughed and revived our way through it, but this highlighted my main issue with the game: It’s often difficult to discern where any attack is coming from, making it tricky to reposition or avoid damage.

Remedy Entertainment

Overall, I craved a bit more feedback. Firing the SMG was effective, but it also felt imprecise, and this vibe extended to the rest of the gameplay. Gathering ammo, collecting currency, healing, repairing things, using special abilities, taking damage and identifying objectives — all of these actions could be clarified and made more tactile. Remedy isn't exactly known for its gunplay, but some small tweaks could make the core experience in Firebreak far more coherent.

While we played the most rounds of Paper Chase, Ground Control was my favorite level, featuring wide-open spaces for fighting Hiss and a clear objective in shooting all those gross pustules. The clarity in Ground Control was refreshing, especially when compared with the slight but constant confusion hovering over the rest of the experience.

Once we all unlocked our special abilities, Firebreak really started to flow. Even when we weren’t exactly sure where to go or what to do, my teammates and I grouped up and stood against the Hiss, healing each other, laying down crowd control and, in my case, smashing piggy banks in enemies’ faces. We laughed, we strategized, we accidentally shot each other and we screamed, “Where the hell is the safe room?” into our headsets. We had a fabulous time.

Remedy Entertainment

And this is the highest praise I can lay at Firebreak’s feet: I spent nearly three hours playing Firebreak with two strangers and it felt like the most natural thing in the world. When our session ended, I wanted to keep playing. Though there’s room to clarify some mechanics and add feedback to some functions, Firebreak lays a solid foundation for the modern Left 4 Dead of our collective dreams. I know that’s an outdated reference, but I’m also confident I’m not the only one who’s still chasing the high of the Left 4 Dead series — it was a running point of comparison among my Firebreak crew.

All of the issues I have with Firebreak can be fine-tuned before the game launches this summer, and I have faith in Remedy to do so. Firebreak is poised to be a thoughtful and focused entry in the co-op shooter genre, and it’s already an inviting extension of Remedy’s darkest and silliest sensibilities.

FBC: Firebreak is due to hit the Epic Games Store, Steam, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on June 17 for $50. It’s coming to the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog and Xbox Game Pass day-one.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/fbc-firebreak-preview-controlled-chaos-183106500.html?src=rss

If you've ever wondered why you'd want a bezel-less display, LG Display just provided a visual and eye-opening answer.The display technology company, which supplies panels to, among others, LG Electronics, is busy showing off a raft of screen technologies at SID Display Week in San Jose, California. Among them are a 4,000-nit, next-gen OLED (it uses Tandem RGB elements to achieve this brightness), Blue Phosphorescent OLED, stretchable displays, and this new Micro LED architecture.Using a pair of 22-inch Micro LED screens, LG Display showed how they could operate separately or be slid together to make one, visually seamless ultra-wide display.

Image 1 of 2(Image credit: LG Display)Image 2 of 2(Image credit: LG Display)

In addition to a truly bezel-free design, Micro LED technology, according to LG Display, brings several other visual benefits. This non-organic, self-emissive technology offers pixel-level control and higher color accuracy and better ("perfect") blacks than other screen technologies.Still, it's the "Zero Bezel" tech that opens up possibilities for modular displays that could be almost any shape or size. LG Display notes that these kinds of displays are especially useful in commercial scenarios, but could also be useful for making your own ultra-large desktop monitor.Micro LED technology is also more attractive than OLED because of its lack of burn-in and longer lifespan. But, as we reported late last year, "production costs needed to be slashed by 90% to make Micro-LED competitive in today’s TV market."We also noted, however, that LG looked like it might be "pulling back" on Micro LED investment. If these Zeo Bezel Micro LEDs are any indication, that couldn't be further from the truth.

(Image credit: LG Display)

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OpenAI has launched a new web page called the safety evaluations hub to publicly share information related to things like the hallucination rates of its models. The hub will also highlight if a model produces harmful content, how well it behaves as instructed and attempted jailbreaks.

The tech company claims this new page will provide additional transparency on OpenAI, a company that, for context, has faced multiple lawsuits alleging it illegally used copyrighted material to train its AI models. Oh, yeah, and it's worth mentioning that The New York Times claims the tech company accidentally deleted evidence in the newspaper's plagiarism case against it.

The safety evaluations hub is meant to expand on OpenAI's system cards. They only outline a development's safety measures at launch, whereas the hub should provide ongoing updates.

"As the science of AI evaluation evolves, we aim to share our progress on developing more scalable ways to measure model capability and safety," OpenAI states in its announcement. "By sharing a subset of our safety evaluation results here, we hope this will not only make it easier to understand the safety performance of OpenAI systems over time, but also support community efforts⁠ to increase transparency across the field." OpenAI adds that its working to have more proactive communication in this area throughout the company.

Introducing the Safety Evaluations Hub—a resource to explore safety results for our models.While system cards share safety metrics at launch, the Hub will be updated periodically as part of our efforts to communicate proactively about safety.https://t.co/c8NgmXlC2Y— OpenAI (@OpenAI) May 14, 2025

Interested parties can look at each of the hub's sections and see information on relevant models, such as GPT-4.1 through 4.5. OpenAI notes that the information provided in this hub is only a "snapshot" and that interested parties should look at its system cards. assessments and other releases for further details.

One of the big buts to the entire safety evaluation hub is that OpenAI is the entity doing these tests and choosing what information to share publicly. As a result, there isn't any way to guarantee that the company will share all its issues or concerns with the public.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-promises-greater-transparency-on-model-hallucinations-and-harmful-content-184545691.html?src=rss

Some of the best Max shows have been showcased at the Warner Bros. Discovery Upfronts 2025, alongside what’s to come from across the media giant’s studios and networks.There’s been plenty of new info across the board, with news on both shows and WBD streaming and broadcast platforms as the company bigwigs take to the stage.With announcements coming thick and fast, the big news can be easy to miss, but here we break down the five most intriguing pieces of news from the day, featuring Westeros returns, baffling rebrands, new streaming services and more.

1. Superman gets a brand new trailer

Top of the bill is the Man of Steel himself with a brand new trailer — which you can watch above — for James Gunn’s upcoming Superman.Starring David Corenswet as Supes, Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane and Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor, the new movie is an entirely new take on the Big Blue Boy Scout, although with all the multiverse shenanigans happening across superhero cinema lately, we wouldn't rule out some connection to the supposedly dead DCEU.The latest trailer showcases much of what we’ve seen before, including the Fortress of Solitude and the big screen debut of super-cainine Krypto and further showcases the themes Gunn seems to be playing with around Kal-El’s status as an immigrant and vigilante.Gunn has absolutely nailed every superhero story he’s turned his hand to thus far, and I'll be there as a new dawn breaks on DC’s cinematic offerings on July 11.

2. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms pushed to 2026

(Image credit: HBO)

It's bad news for fans of the Song of Ice and Fire saga as A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has its release window moved to 2026.Based on George R. R. Martin’s The Hedge Knight novella, the new show follows the adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey) and s squire Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell) as they travel the fictional land in the time between Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon.Widely expected to land this year, the third Westeros-set show will instead arrive in “winter” 2026, leaving us sweet summer children hoping that winter is coming sooner rather than later.

3. TNT's High Value Target leads network TV lineup

(Image credit: Apple TV Plus)

WBD also announced a whole host of shows due to land across their networks in the coming year, among which is High Value Target, formerly known as Debriefing the President.The series, based on John Nixon’s book detailing the interrogation of Saddam Hussein, stars Joel Kinnaman as Nixon, a CIA analyst who became the first American to positively identify the dictator in the wake of his capture.Other new shows teased during the Upfront included Guy’s Flavortown Games hosted by Guy Fieri, HGTV’s Renovating the Bachelor Mansion and Discovery’s ludicrously titled Shark Week special Dancing With Sharks. Murder doc They Know What They Did winks to narrator Jennifer Love Hewitt’s soon-to-be-returning slasher franchise, while TLC’s 90 Day franchise continues to expand with 90 Day: Hunt for Love.Returning shows include Rick and Morty, Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking and My Adventures with Superman, while Max hit The Pitt will receive a linear broadcast on TNT ahead of its second season.

4. Max rebrands back to HBO Max

(Image credit: HBO Max)

Perhaps the most surprising piece of news coming out of the upfronts was the announcement that WBD’s flagship streaming service would be adding the HBO moniker back into its name.The streamer initially went by HBO Max when it was launched in 2020, trading on the reputation HBO had as the home of the best US TV had to offer. In 2023, WBD dropped the prefix, rebranding the streamer to simply, Max, moving away from the focus on prestige TV and introducing more varied programming, even going so far as to drop some of HBO’s biggest hits, such as Westworld, from its library.But now those three letters are due a comeback, with the service once again set to be known as HBO Max after a relaunch this summer. Seemingly realising that a quality over quantity approach might be the way forward, WBD said: “No consumer today is saying they want more content, but most consumers are saying they want better content.” This seems to imply a shift for WBD, with the readdition of HBO to the name implying a refocus to the sort of prestige television that made the network be able to boldly state “It’s not TV. It’s HBO” in the first place.

5. CNN unveils new streaming service

(Image credit: CNN)

Following the ill fated CNN+, the news network are once again entering the streaming world with a brand new service set to arrive in the fall.After an initial US launch, the platform will be available globally with CEO Mark Thompson call it “the first true new streaming service.” The streamer will also bundle CNN.com, which recently went behind a paywall, and will include live channels, news feeds and exclusive programming.Current cable and satellite subscribers will be able to access the service at no extra cost, and CNN will, for now at least, continue to have a presence on Max after its rebrand.

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Folds up small, opens wide, Uperfect's Omega series is screen real estate on the go3K OLED with 100% DCI-P3 makes this portable monitor a visual powerhouseUperfect’s hinge tech handles 30,000 folds with no creases, no shadows, just clean visuals

Uperfect recently announced its new Omega Series, a line of portable displays that includes the 22-inch Omega and the 17.3-inch Omega Mini.These devices feature a foldable and flexible design, allowing them to compress into a compact 16-inch and 12.5-inch form factor, respectively, for easier storage.The OLED panel can fold flat or bend at any angle up to 180°, thanks to a hinge system and flexible substrate capable of withstanding 30,000 folding cycles without developing creases or shadows, common issues in other foldable displays.

A good companion for mobile business

When unfolded, the device measures just 7mm thick and 14mm when folded, yet still delivers ample screen real estate with a 3K resolution.The display supports a wide color gamut with 100% DCI-P3 coverage, a 100,000:1 contrast ratio, and a peak brightness of 500 cd/m².It also features touchscreen functionality, supporting tap, swipe, and zoom inputs, along with a 120Hz refresh rate and 1ms response time.Despite its slim profile, Uperfect has integrated built-in speakers, contributing to a clean, cable-free design. A magnetic stand is included, allowing users to adjust both viewing angles and height.Targeted at business professionals, the monitor includes low blue light technology and offers a 178-degree viewing angle to reduce eye strain during extended use.For connectivity, it includes both USB Type-C and Mini HDMI ports, enabling compatibility with a wide range of devices including laptops, game consoles, smartphones, and cameras. It is also fully compatible with macOS, making it a potential companion for Mac mini users.This device could be ideal for mobile users looking to set up a large display on the go. However, with a price tag of $2,499.99, it’s hard to justify the cost, especially when even the most premium portable monitors are priced at less than half that amount.For connectivity, it comes with a USB Type-C and Mini HDMI ports, enabling compatibility with a wide range of devices, including laptops, game consoles, smartphones, and cameras. It is also fully compatible with macOS devices, a potential choice for Mac mini users.Via Uperfect

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Communication devices have been found in Chinese made solar invertersThese have the potential to destabilase the power gridIt's unknown how many were found or the intent behind them

Rogue communication devices have been discovered in Chinese made solar inverters, devices which play a ‘critical role’ in renewable energy infrastructure, Reuters reports. This has prompted US energy officials to re-assess the risks of emerging technologies produced in China.Power inverters are primarily produced in China, but used globally to connect solar panels and wind turbines to electricity grids, as well as being used in heat pumps, batteries, and electric vehicle chargers.It’s reported that over the last nine months, some batteries bought from Chinese suppliers have been discovered with hidden communication devices like cellular radios - according to sources familiar with the matter.

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Rogue components

Experts have warned that communication devices could evade firewalls and switch inverters off remotely, posing a huge risk to power grids, as they could change settings, damage energy infrastructure, destabilize the grid, and cause widespread blackouts.It’s not yet clear how many of these communication devices were found, nor the nature of the devices themselves - and the intent behind the planting of these is unknown. That being said, the US Department of Energy has confirmed it continually assesses risks associated “with emerging technologies and that there were significant challenges with manufacturers disclosing and documenting functionalities.”This isn't the first time solar grids have been targeted - and security flaws leaving them vulnerable to being hijacked and even disabled. 46 vulnerabilities discovered by Forescout were found to allow hackers to deploy remote code execution, denial of service, device takeover, and access cloud platforms or sensitive information.It seems likely, given recent events and rising geopolitical tensions, that the US will look to move production to domestic manufacturing plants for a more secure supply chain, It’s worth noting though, that Huawei is currently the world’s largest supplier of inverters, accounting for 29% of shipments around the world in 2022.

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ProtonVPN subscriptions are available at a steep discount right now as part of an exclusive sale for Engadget readers. A 12-month subscription is down to $48, which is a discount of around $72 and works out to $4 per month. A 24-month plan now costs just $81. This represents a massive discount of $158 and works out to $3.39 per month.

Proton topped our list of the best VPN services, and with good reason. It's incredibly powerful and easy to use, which is a boon for those new to the space. The end-to-end encryption is solid and everything's based on an open-source framework. This lets the company offer an official vulnerability disclosure program.

A subscription includes an IP-masker, so websites can't track you online, and a built-in ad blocker. We found in our tests that browsing the web and watching streaming content were both speedy while using this VPN, which isn't always the case with this type of service.

The only caveat? The company will automatically bill you at the normal price when the discounted subscription runs out. Be sure to cancel before that if you aren't vibing with the platform.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/protonvpn-subscriptions-are-up-to-66-percent-off-right-now-191045586.html?src=rss

OpenAI is making GPT-4.1, the latest addition to its collection of AI models, available to all of its paid users. The rollout to ChatGPT Plus, Pro and Team members begins today, while Enterprise and Edu subscriptions will have to wait a few weeks to get access. Once available, GPT-4.1 can be chosen from the "more models" dropdown menu in the model picker.

This version of the ChatGPT AI chatbot rolled out to the company's developer API last month, offering upgrades in speed and efficiency over the GPT-4.5 model that it replaced (yes, that is a slightly convoluted numbering system). OpenAI is iterating models at a breakneck speed this year; GPT-4.5 just debuted in February and is already being outpaced in stats by a new version.

The company also has a GPT-4.1 mini option that will replace the current small model of GPT-4o mini. That upgrade will happen for all tiers, including the free one. GPT-4.1 mini will be the fallback option for free users once they reach the cap on their access to the heftier GPT-4o model.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-rolls-out-gpt-41-to-all-chatgpt-paying-subscribers-200049384.html?src=rss

The Mission: Impossible film franchise has always dabbled in the, well, impossible. We've seen Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt climb his way up the Burj Khalifa, have a motorcycle joust to prevent the spread of a bioweapon and hang off the side of an airplane. Even the most grounded entry, Brian DePalma's 1996 Mission: Impossible, featured Cruise leaping off of an exploding helicopter onto a train in the Chunnel. But with the previous film, Dead Reckoning, and this year's follow-up Final Reckoning, the series has jumped completely into science-fiction territory with an AI villain called The Entity. It has the power to control anything that touches the internet, manipulate digital information to suit its needs and potentially wipe out humanity through a global nuclear annihilation.

Stopping the Entity is a mission Ethan Hunt has no choice but to accept. But as a fan of this series from the start — hell, I even like John Woo's gloriously operatic Mission: Impossible 2 — I can't help but see the move into true sci-fi as a huge mistake. It makes both Reckoning films far too plot-heavy and impenetrable (Final Reckoning clocks in at three hours!), and they also just don't have much to say about AI beyond a Terminator-esque extinction scenario. But perhaps worst of all, the shift towards sci-fi inadvertently (or perhaps purposefully) turns Ethan Hunt into some sort of Messiah. Apparently, only Scientology's greatest son can save us.

The best M:I films are the ones that don't get bogged down in the intricacies of plot mechanics. That's a trend that truly kicked off with the JJ Abrams-directed Mission: Impossible 3, which relied on a standard MacGuffin (the "Rabbit's Foot") and a powerhouse Philip Seymour Hoffman villain performance to send Ethan and his team gallivanting around the world. With Ghost Protocol, director Brad Bird used his experience in animation and love of silent film to turn Cruise into a modern-day Buster Keaton, hopping from one elaborate set-piece to another.

Paramount Pictures

The series found a new life when writer/director Christopher McQuarrie hopped aboard for Rogue Nation, which introduced Rebecca Ferguson's enigmatic Ilsa Faust. McQuarrie has previously likened his approach to the franchise as something like action film jazz, wherein he and Cruise would develop some set piece ideas and build a narrative around that. At the same time, they also sought to develop Hunt's inner-life and team dynamics more than previous films. Plot, once again, was mostly a vehicle to reach those spectacular action set pieces and character-defining moments (which were often one and the same).

McQuarrie mostly repeated his formula for success with 2018's Mission: Impossible - Fallout, which was notable for featuring a real-time high altitude skydiving sequence. But with 2023's Dead Reckoning, he faced the limits of trying to improvise a movie as it was being shot. Production was significantly delayed by the pandemic, and the film also had to go through several reshoots. Perhaps not surprisingly, it also became increasingly more complex and plot-heavy.

Paramount Pictures

That movie couldn't just treat The Entity's AI like another plot MacGuffin, instead it practically became an anchor for the film's momentum. We had to learn what the Entity was, why it could be bad and also introduce new characters who were devoted to its ambitions. The final film feels like a hodgepodge of ideas trying to string together a few notable action sequences, like that aforementioned motorcycle jump. The prolonged production also led to the departure of Ilsa Faust, who was immediately replaced by Hayley Atwell's Grace, an expert thief who's so thinly sketched she doesn't even get a last name.

I had hoped that McQuarrie, Cruise and co-writer Erik Jendresen would learn from the sloppiness of the last film and refocus on the characters and action we love in The Final Reckoning, but unfortunately things get even more convoluted. We're presented with a world where the Entity has already taken over most information systems, can easily reshape digital reality at will and is in the process of taking over nuclear weapons systems around the world. There is no hope but Ethan Hunt, who must seek out the Entity's source code in a sunken Russian submarine and try to stop it from annihilating humanity (while also trying to survive the apocalypse in an underground data bunker). And if that all sounds tiring as you read it, it's even harder to swallow as you sit through the film's three-hour runtime.

Paramount Pictures

Once the film actually starts moving around the half-way point, it delivers some of the most complex set pieces we've seen yet. Hunt's dive into Arctic waters feels as claustrophobic as some of the best scenes from The Abyss, and it's still thrilling to see Cruise hang onto bi-planes during the climactic chase. I just wish it actually did something interesting with the AI at the center of the story, instead of giving us a basic-ass Terminator/Wargames scenario. We're told that the Entity has inspired a cult-like following, and that it can completely reshape the idea of truth, but we don't actually see how it affects people around the world.

That's a particular shame since the Mission: Impossible series' has always been about genuine human effort, you'd think McQuarrie and crew would actually have more to say about the impact of AI. Fans want to see practical stunt work being accomplished by a movie star who's desperate for attention. Now with real-world AI threatening to dumb down the act of creativity and recycle existing content, turning the film's AI into a simplistic villain just seems like a total waste.

Paramount Pictures

The Final Reckoning also wastes far too much time extolling Ethan Hunt's virtues as humanity's savior. No government can be trusted, no elected leaders — just one man who never follows orders. The one man who has given up love and bled for an ungrateful world. Even the people whose lives he has ostensibly ruined can't help but love him.

The Mission: Impossible franchise has always been a vanity project for Cruise, but he also balanced out his ego by working with talented directors who pushed him and the series in new directions. Now, in his fourth film with McQuarrie, and possibly his last as the main character, Cruise can't help but remind us how much he’s suffered. And it's as dull as yet another world-ending AI villain.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/mission-impossible-should-never-have-gone-full-sci-fi-200043337.html?src=rss

Hygon’s C86-5G breaks free from AMD Zen, unleashing 128 cores of homegrown muscleSMT4 powers each core to run four threads, stacking up to 512 threads totalAVX-512 instructions make it a strong fit for AI, analytics, and scientific computing

Hygon, a key player in China’s semiconductor industry, is advancing its server processor lineup with the upcoming C86-5G, a flagship, high-performance CPU featuring 128 cores and 512 threads, positioning it to compete directly with AMD’s EPYC and Intel’s Xeon platforms.According to TechPowerUp, this marks Hygon’s complete break from AMD’s Zen architecture and the introduction of its first fully homegrown design, the result of five years of domestic R&D in CPU development.The new lineup is made possible through four-way simultaneous multithreading (SMT4), allowing each core to handle four threads.

Built for parallel workloads and high throughput

While SMT4 is not a new concept - it has appeared in processors like Intel’s Xeon Phi and IBM’s Power8 - its use in a modern, domestically developed Chinese processor is a notable milestone.The 128-core configuration in the C86-5G represents a major leap from its predecessor, the C86-4G, which had 64 cores and 128 threads using traditional SMT2.Designed for enterprise and server workloads, the C86-5G features 16 channels of DDR5-5600 memory, potentially supporting up to 1TB using 64GB DDR5 modules. This is a step up from the previous model’s 12 channels of DDR5-4800.On the connectivity front, while Hygon has not yet disclosed the exact PCIe 5.0 lane count, it has confirmed support for Compute Express Link 2.0 (CXL 2.0), aligning the chip with industry standards used by AMD’s EPYC 9005 (Turin) and Intel’s 5th Gen Xeon (Emerald Rapids). The earlier C86-4G already offered 128 lanes of PCIe 5.0, so similar or better support is expected.Although the specific microarchitecture has not been detailed, Hygon states it is based on an "enhanced self-developed microarchitecture" that follows the Zen-based Dhyana design of the first generation.According to the company, the architecture delivers a 17% improvement in instructions per cycle (IPC), though this remains unverified in the absence of benchmark testing.The chip also supports AVX-512 instructions for high-performance computing tasks and is built to handle physical stress in demanding environments. It is expected to support standard server memory modules like RDIMMs and is intended for large-scale data center deployments.While Hygon still trails AMD and Intel in overall performance, the C86-5G's technical specifications, including I/O capabilities, memory bandwidth, threading, and core count, place it in a competitive position.Although there is no official launch date yet, development is likely well underway, given that the C86-4G has been on the market since 2024.

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SoundCloud is updating its Terms of Use again after angering users with language around AI that even the company now describes as "too broad." The details of the change were shared in an open letter from SoundCloud CEO Eliah Seton affirming the company's commitment to artists.

Specifically, SoundCloud's Terms of Use now forbids the company from using content uploaded to SoundCloud to train generative AI that replicates an artist without their consent. As it's phrased in the new terms SoundCloud is rolling out in the next few weeks:

We will not use Your Content to train generative AI models that aim to replicate or synthesize your voice, music, or likeness without your explicit consent, which must be affirmatively provided through an opt-in mechanism.

Seton also reiterated that Soundcloud has never used "artist content" to train AI. "Not for music creation. Not for large language models. Not for anything that tries to mimic or replace your work," Seton writes.

The conflict over SoundCloud's approach to AI started when users noticed that the company had updated its Terms of Use in February 2024 to allow SoundCloud to use content to "inform, train, develop or serve as input to artificial intelligence or machine intelligence technologies or services as part of and for providing the services."

SoundCloud claims that it would only ever use artist's content to train AI music discovery tools. The company acquired Musiio in 2022 with that exact idea in mind. Still, it's understandable that SoundCloud users would be sensitive to any AI-related changes the company makes. Like most other content stored online, AI companies have scraped music without artists' consent and been fairly open about it.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/music/soundcloud-backtracks-on-too-broad-ai-terms-of-service-201023013.html?src=rss

AI data centers overwhelm air cooling with rising power and heatLiquid cooling is becoming essential as server density surges with AI growthNew hybrid cooling cuts power and water but faces adoption hesitance

As AI transforms everything from search engines to logistics, its hidden costs are becoming harder and harder to ignore, especially in the data center. The power needed to run generative AI is pushing infrastructure beyond what traditional air cooling can handle.To explore the scale of the challenge, I spoke with Daren Shumate, founder of Shumate Engineering, and Stephen Spinazzola, the firm’s Director of Mission Critical Services.With decades of experience building major data centers, they’re now focused on solving AI’s energy and cooling demands. From failing air systems to the promise of new hybrid cooling, they explained why AI is forcing data centers into a new era.

What are the biggest challenges in cooling a data center?

Stephen Spinazzola: The biggest challenges in cooling data centers are power, water and space. With high-density computing, like the data centers that run artificial intelligence, comes immense heat that cannot be cooled with a conventional air-cooling system.The typical cabinet loads have doubled and tripled with the deployment of AI. An air-cooling system simply cannot capture the heat generated by the high KW/ cabinet loads generated by AI cabinet clusters.We have performed computational fluid dynamic (CFD) on numerous data center halls and an air-cooling system shows high temperatures above acceptable levels. The air flows we map with CFD show temperature levels above 115 degrees F. This can result in servers shutting down.Water cooling can be done in a smaller space with less power, but it requires enormous amount of water. A recent study determined that a single hyper-scaled facility would need 1.5 million liters of water per day to provide cooling and humidification.These limitations pose great challenges to engineers while planning the new generation of data centers that can support the unprecedented demand we’re seeing for AI.

How is AI changing the norm when it comes to data center heat dissipation?

Stephen Spinazzola: With CFS modeling showing potential servers shutting down with conventional air-cooling within AI cabinet clusters, the need for direct liquid cooling (DLC) is required. AI is typically deployed in 20-30 cabinet clusters at or above 40 KW per cabinet. This represents a fourfold increase in KW/ cabinet with the deployment of AI. The difference is staggering.A typical Chat-GPT query uses about 10 times more energy than a Google search – and that’s just for a basic generative AI function. More advanced queries require substantially more power that have to go through an AI Cluster Farm to process large-scale computing between multiple machines.It changes the way we think about power. Consequently, the energy demands are shifting the industry to utilize more liquid-cooling techniques than traditional air cooling.

We talk a lot about cooling, what about delivering actual power?

Daren Shumate: There are two overarching new challenges to deliver power to AI computing: how to move power from UPS output boards to high-density racks, and how to creatively deliver high densities of UPS power from utility.Power to racks is still accomplished with either branch circuits from distribution PDUs to rack PDUs (plug strips) or with plug-in busway over the racks with the in-rack PDUs plugging into the busway at each rack. The nuance now is what ampacity of busway makes sense with the striping and what is commercially available.Even with plug-in busway available at an ampacity of 1,200 A, the density of power is forcing the deployment of a larger quantity of separate busway circuits to meet density and the striping requirements. Further complicating power distribution are specific and varying requirement of individual data center end users from branch circuit monitoring or preferences of distribution.Depending upon site constraints, data center cooling designs can feature medium voltage UPS. Driven by voltage drop concerns, the MV UPS solves concerns for the need to have very large feeder duct banks but also introduces new medium voltage/utilization voltage substations into the program. And when considering medium voltage UPS, another consideration is the applicability of MV rotary UPS systems vs. static MV solutions.

What are the advantages/disadvantages of the various cooling techniques?

Stephen Spinazzola: There are two types of DLC in the market today. Emersion Cooling and cold plate. Emersion Cooling uses large tanks of a non-conducing fluid with the servers positioned vertically and fully emersed in the liquid.The heat generated by the servers is transferred to the fluid and then transferred to the buildings chilled water system with a closed loop heat exchanger. Emersion tanks take up less space but require servers that are configured for this type of cooling.Cold-plated cooling uses a heat sink attached to the bottom of the chip stack that transfers the energy from the chip stack to a fluid that is piped throughout the cabinet. The fluid is then piped to an end of row Cooling Distribution Unit (CDU) that transfers the energy to the building chilled water system.The CDU contains a heat exchanger to transfer energy and 2N pumps on the secondary side of the heat exchanger to ensure continuous fluid flow to the servers. Cold plate cooling is effective at server cooling but it requires a huge amount of fluid pipe connecters that must have disconnect leak stop technology.Air cooling is proven technique for cooling data centers, which has been around for decades; however, it is inefficient for the high-density racks that are needed to cool AI data centers. As the loads increase, it becomes harder to failure-proof it using CFD modeling.

You're presenting a different cooler, how does it work and what are the current challenges to adoption?

Stephen Spinazzola: Our patent pending Hybrid-Dry/AdiabaticCooling (HDAC) design solution uniquely provides two temperatures of cooling fluid from a single closed loop, allowing for a higher temperature fluid to cool DLC servers and a lower temperature fluid for conventional air cooling.Because HDAC simultaneously uses 90 percent less water than a chiller-cooling tower system and 50 percent less energy than an air-cooled chiller system, we’ve managed to get the all-important Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) figure all the way down to about 1.1 annualized for the type of hyperscale data center that is needed to process AI. Typical AI data centers produce a PUE ranging from 1.2 to 1.4.With the lower PUE, HDAC provides an approximate 12% more usable IT power from the same size utility power sized feed. Both economic and environmental benefits are significant. With a system that provides both an economic and environmental benefit, HDAC requires only “a sip of water”.The challenge to adoption is simple: nobody wants to go first.

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Audiobooks have saved my sanity on many long commutes and have been great company while I'm cleaning or doing other chores. When the performance is good, it's easy to fall into the story. Audible wants authors and their readers to embrace AI as an alternative to human narration, but I am skeptical. Audible is offering publishers access to a fully integrated AI production pipeline. That includes auto-generating entire audiobooks with synthetic voices.Their pitch is appealing on the surface: there are millions of books out there, and only a sliver of them ever make it into audio. Making audiobooks is expensive, time-consuming, and involves real people who need to be paid fairly for their time. An AI narrator is faster, cheaper, and a lot of people might not even notice it's not a human performing.But "good enough" shouldn't be the standard for art, and audiobooks are very much an art form. Great narration adds depth, color, rhythm, and even new meaning to a text. It transforms reading aloud from words on a page you can hear to a real performance. Even if AI gets close in a technical sense, and I've heard AI audio that matches a human performance for at least a few minutes, we’ll still know the difference.Human narration has nuance because it has context. The narrator understands not just the definition of the words they're saying, but the emotion and history behind them. They know the difference between a sigh of relief and a sigh of resignation. AI can approximate those sounds, sometimes amazingly so, but it's like a pet trick. A dog can cover its eyes, but that's not actually the dog feeling embarrassed.The more AI voices fill our earbuds, the more we risk turning one of the most intimate forms of storytelling into something that feels robotic, flat, and eerily lifeless. It’s like auto-tuning a lullaby. It might hit the right notes, but it doesn’t sing.

AI narration needs

All of that said, I'm not against using AI for audiobooks in the right setting. Like any technology, it's about how AI narration is deployed, not whether it exists. There are so many books and new ones emerging all the time. If you’re an independent author with no budget to hire a narrator, or a publisher with a shelf of titles no one has touched in a decade, AI narration could breathe life into your books.Synthetic voices don’t replace anything in those contexts; they just provide access. And an AI voice could supplement human readers with a multi-voice performance if you use the self-service version of Audible's AI narration platform. Using AI to supplement rather than replace all human voices feels like a better option to me.One area I'm all in on for AI voices is translating texts. Audible has a beta test for AI-powered translation tools that could bring books to people unable to understand them in their original language. If there’s anything worse than a great book not having an audiobook, it’s a great book not being accessible in your language. Audible is starting the program by offering to translate English books into Spanish, French, German, and Italian.The translation service can simply translate text and then give the new work an AI narrator, but what is more interesting to me is the speech-to-speech mode. That means an audiobook performed by a human in English could be replicated in a different language while sounding like the original performer.The narrator of a bestselling English audiobook could now “speak” fluent Spanish in their own voice, introducing that story to new listeners around the world. That’s my favorite way to think about how to use AI. It can expand the reach of art without diluting its heart.It's not quite the same as original, human narration, but it's a solution to a problem. That's how Audible should pitch AI audiobooks. We should absolutely use AI narration to make books accessible. But if it's possible to give it a human touch, that should be the first thought.It's important not to lose sight of how this AI audiobook shift affects the performers who often build careers lending their voices to other people’s stories. If AI starts gobbling up midlist titles, budget-conscious publishers might see no reason to hire real readers anymore. AI doesn’t have to be the enemy. But it shouldn’t be the default.

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Steam has allegedly suffered a data breach in the past week. Details are scant and difficult to confirm, but a known hacker has claimed to be selling a database of more than 89 million user records for the gaming platform with one-time access codes obtained from a third-party vendor used by Steam. If accurate, that would include information about more than two-thirds of Steam's audience.

The original LinkedIn post identifying a breach suggested that the leaked information came from cloud communication company Twilio. However, a Steam rep said the platform doesn't use Twilio, so if there has been a breach, it may be through a different vendor providing SMS codes for access.

While we're genuinely not sure what's happening at this stage, the whole kerfuffle is a timely reminder to check in on your online security practices. In the case of Steam, Valve has a mobile authentication program called Steam Guard that can help keep your account secure. It's also a good practice to make sure you're regularly changing your pass codes, especially when it's possible that some component of Steam Guard was at the root of this week's security drama. A password manager can streamline that process. Since phone numbers appear to have been compromised, be extra alert to possible phishing attempts via text. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nows-a-good-time-to-check-in-on-your-steam-account-security-205807479.html?src=rss

Star Search, a reality competition series that's featured a shocking number of musicians and comedians before they were famous, is coming back as a Netflix show. The streaming platform announced that it's bringing Star Search back as a live show with interactive elements, building on Netflix's expansion into live TV and events.

Like the original, the new Star Search will focus on "emerging performers in music, dance, comedy and kids’ acts," Netflix says. The company didn't share who would host or judge these acts, and doesn't have a premiere data as of yet, but Netflix did claim that the new Star Search will be "more interactive than ever." Past seasons of the show allowed the at-home audience to rate each performance before their scores were read live on air. It's not hard to imagine Netflix rigging something similar inside its own apps.

Reality competition shows are a dime a dozen in 2025, particularly on Netflix, but Star Search is notable for the sheer number of famous people who competed on it. Like American Idol, not many of them actually won, but it's rare to see a competition show that's featured everyone from Christina Aguilera to Sinbad.

Star Search is just one part of Netflix's growing ambitions for live TV, which now includes everything thing from alternative talk shows to the WWE. The company streamed its first NFL game on Christmas Day 2024, and has continued to expand into other live events, like award shows. At the same time, Netflix's plans for gaming have seemingly diminished — the company closed its AAA game studio and has removed interactive shows like Bandersnatch from its catalog.

Casting has already begun for the new version of Star Search. You can head to Netflix's website for more information and to apply to be on the show.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/netflix-is-bringing-back-star-search-as-it-continues-to-expand-into-live-tv-214022695.html?src=rss

Android 16's new Advanced Protection feature simplifies the task of managing your phone's security settings.Google

Google is introducing and expanding several new security measures that should make it more difficult for criminals to scam Android users or take advantage of stolen Android phones. After introducing AI features in March that detect fraudulent messages based on common language patterns, Google is working on teaching its models to recognize a wider range of text scams, such as those unpaid road toll scams you've probably seen this year. It's also adding faster pattern analysis to Google Play Protect so it can unmask malicious apps more quickly.

In addition, Google is in the process of making it impossible to grant certain accessibility privileges while on a call with an unknown contact. Meanwhile, the new Key Verifier feature prevents scammers from co-opting your known contacts, letting you and a trusted contact swap public encryption keys to confirm each other's identities.

With the upcoming release of the Android 16 operating system update, Google will also be adding new ways to protect your phone against thieves. The Identity Check feature requires extra biometric verification to change sensitive settings outside user-designated safe locations. It launched on some Pixel and Galaxy devices in January, but Android 16 will widen the rollout. These upgrades should help protect against "shoulder surfing" device thefts and bank account breaches, in which thieves learn passcodes by watching targets unlock their phones, then steal and unlock the devices themselves. Such attacks have been vexing smartphone owners in bars and other crowded venues for years.

New anti-theft features include a security question for deactivating remote locks and more restrictions on what can be done to a device after a factory reset. If a phone running Android 16 is not unlocked or connected to Wi-Fi for a while, the lock screen will hide two-factor authentication codes received through texts.

Along with the new security features, Android 16 will centralize security under a single device-level feature called Advanced Protection. While the Advanced Protection switch is active, no feature under its umbrella can be turned off.

As a final complement to the Android 16 security updates, Google is expanding its Find My Device feature into Find Hub, a dashboard that can locate basically any object with smart capabilities or a bluetooth tag. Find Hub can use ultra-wide band (UWB) on compatible devices to narrow down more precise locations, and can also communicate via satellite so its features work outside cell range.

Update, May 14, 2025, 6:28PM ET: This story has been updated and retitled to reflect that the scam detection and key verifier improvements Google announced during the Android Show presentation are not dependent on upgrading to Android 16. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/google-is-improving-scam-detection-and-its-find-feature-on-android-170037324.html?src=rss

Adata T7P5 SSD brings 15.36TB and blistering Gen 5 speed to enterprise storageTrusta isn’t just fast, it’s built for AI, virtualization, and high-efficiency data environmentsWith 13,500MB/s read speeds, the T7P5 crushes most consumer and prosumer storage options

With enterprise demand for AI servers and high-performance storage infrastructure booming, Adata is making a bold move into the data center and AI markets with the launch of its new enterprise brand, Trusta.Revealed ahead of Computex 2025, Trusta promises to deliver advanced PCIe Gen 5 SSDs in massive capacities, blurring the line between performance and practicality.Trusta’s flagship model, the T7P5 SSD, leads the new T7 Series and is built to handle demanding workloads such as AI training, vector databases, and virtual desktops.

T7P5 SSD delivers extreme speeds

This SSD offers blazing-fast read and write speeds of up to 13,500 MB/s and 10,400 MB/s, respectively, with capacities ranging from 1.92TB up to a staggering 15.36TB, making it one of the fastest enterprise SSDs introduced to date.Unlike consumer models, the T7P5 is built in enterprise form factors like U.2, E1.S, and E3.S, ensuring compatibility with server and cloud hardware. However, it’s a large SSD, and it won’t fit inside a typical business desktop.For enterprises with less intensive needs, Adata also offers the T7P4 PCIe Gen 4 SSD, which delivers up to 7,400 MB/s read and 5,050 MB/s write speeds, in capacities up to 7.68TB.The entry-level T5 Series, which includes the T5P4B, T5S3B, and T5S3, supports both PCIe Gen 4 and SATA III interfaces. These drives are targeted at system boot operations and applications requiring data reliability over raw speed.Still, performance isn’t just about headline numbers. Trusta integrates Flexible Data Placement (FDP) technology to optimize data flow, particularly under high-load conditions where latency and efficiency matter most.For enterprise IT buyers and planners, Trusta’s lineup offers a compelling look at next-gen storage. But for average consumers in search of the best external SSD or a high-capacity Gen 5 upgrade, these drives are out of reach, both in terms of form factor and intended use case.Via TechPowerUp

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