news,technology

A cybersecurity researcher explains how a flaw in widespread software makes millions of websites vulnerable to hackers – and underscores the role of AI in attacking and defending the internet.

Experts say the peptide craze is part of a broader phenomenon, as patients look beyond the regulated health system to address problems that doctors have struggled to treat

A giant screen, big battery, rapid chip and top cameras push the great iPhone 18 Pro to the max with a price tag to match Apple’s largest Pro iPhone gets its biggest battery upgrade yet to make it a true two-day phone with new Siri AI and a variable aperture camera. The iPhone 18 Pro Max is the supersized sibling of the regular 18 Pro and, though it is no longer Apple’s most expensive phone thanks to the £2,000 iPhone Duo, it has a similarly large price tag to match costing from £1,299 (€1,599/$1,299/A$2,299). Screen: 6.9in Super Retina XDR (120Hz OLED) (460ppi) Processor: Apple A20 Pro RAM: 12GB Storage: 256, 512GB or 1TB Operating system: iOS 27 Camera: 48MP + 48MP UW + 48MP 4x, 18MP front-facing Connectivity: 5G, wifi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 6, Thread, USB-C, Satellite, UWB and GNSS Water resistance: IP68 (6 metres for 30 mins) Dimensions: 163.4 x 78 x 8.75mm Weight: 249g Continue reading...

Solid battery life, snappy performance and quality software make for a great smaller phone with a killer camera Google’s latest Pro phone is out to prove it has the best camera on a smartphone while embracing customisation, allowing you to change the look and feel of your photos far beyond simple filters even if that means making them technically worse. The Pixel 11 Pro packs the best of Google’s hardware and software into a still-pocketable and easy to handle frame, instantly making it a contender for best smaller phone of the year. Screen: 6.3in 120Hz QHD+ OLED (495ppi) Processor: Google Tensor G6 RAM: 12 or 16GB Storage: 256, 512GB or 1TB Operating system: Android 17 Camera: 50MP + 48MP UW + 48MP 5x tele; 42MP selfie Connectivity: 5G, eSIM, wifi 7, UWB, NFC, Bluetooth 6, Thread and GNSS Water resistance: IP68 (1.5m for 30 minutes) Dimensions: 152.7 x 71.9 x 8.4mm Weight: 204g Continue reading...

Apple’s cheapest desktop computer is no longer a bargain but its newest, fastest chip makes it a pocket powerhouse Apple’s latest Mac mini brings real speed and power for far more than everyday tasks in a practically pocketable form you can fit almost anywhere. The impressive new desktop machine is the first to receive an update to Apple’s latest M6 chip while remaining smaller than a headphones box. It is the cheapest computer Apple sells with an M-series chip, but like every other memory-containing piece of electronics, it has been hit by RAMageddon, driving up the starting price to £899 (€1,049/$899/A$1,449) from the £599 or equivalent of its M4 predecessor. Continue reading...

Upgraded, cheaper AirPods have noise cancelling, sound and controls to rival many plugged-in buds but without tips Apple’s latest AirPods set a new standard for open-fit buds with upgraded noise cancelling that now rivals many plugged-in designs of the same price. The AirPods 5 have the same design the popular AirPods 4 offering an option for those that do not like silicone ear tips used by most noise cancelling earbuds. They come in two versions, with or without a wireless charging case and swipe controls, costing from £119 (€149/$129/A$219) – £10 cheaper than the launch price of their predecessors. Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.3, SBC, AAC, H2 chip Battery life: four or five hours with ANC (22 hours with case) Water resistance: IP57 (up to 1 metre for 30 minutes) Earbud dimensions: 30.2 x 18.3 x 18.1mm Earbud weight: 4.3g each Charging case dimensions: 46.2 x 50.1 x 21.2mm Charging case weight: 32.3g/34.7g Case charging: USB-C or wireless (Qi or Watch) Continue reading...

Largely missing from the archaeological record, fiber innovations played a huge role in the lives of early humans. Researchers are weaving together new insights from the traces they left behind

Destined for Mars and beyond, NASA’s Space Reactor-1 (SR-1) Freedom will be humanity’s first fission-powered spacecraft to travel outside Earth’s orbit. Announced during NASA’s “Ignition” event, this mission will demonstrate nuclear electric propulsion in deep space, and progress is underway on its key element: the nuclear power module. To expedite development of the spacecraft, NASA […]

If you’ve ever had your car start sluggishly, or not at all, on a particularly frigid winter morning, you know standard batteries do not like extreme cold. That’s why NASA researchers are working to develop a battery that could function in the brutal cold of the Moon’s South Pole, where nighttime temperatures plunge to minus […]

Longer battery life, better screen, upgraded Siri and new variable aperture camera in refreshed design from last year’s model Apple’s smaller Pro iPhone gets the best kind of spec bump for 2026: longer battery life, faster chips and a fancy new variable aperture for the main camera. The iPhone 18 Pro is one of a pair of slab phones launched alongside Apple’s first folding phone, the iPhone Duo, and is the cheapest of the new phones, with a regular iPhone 18 yet to be announced. Screen: 6.3in Super Retina XDR (120Hz OLED) (460ppi) Processor: Apple A20 Pro RAM: 12GB Storage: 256GB, 512GB or 1TB Operating system: iOS 27 Camera: 48MP + 48MP UW + 48MP 4x, 18MP front-facing Connectivity: 5G, wifi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 6, Thread, USB-C, Satellite, UWB and GNSS Water resistance: IP68 (6 metres for 30 mins) Dimensions: 150 x 71.9 x 8.75mm Weight: 211g Continue reading...

A kill switch to shut down dangerous AI systems is a seductive concept, but the metaphor hides how the models work – and how they get out of control in the first place.

Great hardware let down by software flaws on these pricey machines that combine ChromeOS with Android Google’s attempt to create a new type of laptop to compete with Windows and macOS machines is finally here, combining the best of ChromeOS and Android into the new Googlebook. With advanced links to Android phones and the best of Google built in, can these Googlebooks really compete with a MacBook Air or Surface Laptop? I took two for a spin to find out. For years, Chromebooks have been the boss of budget laptops, but Googlebooks take a different, far more premium approach. Made by a range of traditional PC makers, including Acer, Asus, Dell, HP and Lenovo, they start at £999 (€1,099/$899/A$2,299) – a far cry from the £160 Chromebooks. Continue reading...

Big screen folder with slick software and advanced AI is just like a regular Android when closed Google’s latest folding phone sticks with its tried and tested design of a traditional phone shape when closed and almost square when open, in the face of new competition from Apple’s squat iPhone fold. The Pixel 11 Pro Fold is Google’s fourth-generation folder and is still one of the only models with a full water and dust resistance rating similar to standard slab phones. It costs from £1,799 (€1,999/$1,899/A$2,799), which is £50 (€100/$100/A$100) more than last year as the pressure of RAMageddon continues to push up prices. Continue reading...

You Can See Everything, a documentary about the disgraced health tech company founder Elizabeth Holmes, has enjoyed a record-breaking opening in the US. It is a testament to how fascinated we remain by the convicted fraudster, but what is behind the enduring appeal? US technology editor Blake Montgomery tells Madeleine Finlay why Holmes continues to fascinate us, and reflects on whether the Theranos scandal has had a permanent impact on Silicon Valley Clip: You Can See Everything, A24 ‘You can’t make this stuff up’: why we remain fascinated by Elizabeth Holmes Continue reading...

Wikipedia’s 68m articles have been consulted trillions of times. Not bad for a website that has barely changed since it was founded 20 years ago A few years ago, I was struck by the tension between how Wikipedia was used, and how it was talked about. Everyone was on it all the time, and yet its reputation had stalled at “don’t trust it”, because it was the “free encyclopedia that anyone can edit”. Clearly people were trusting it, so much so it had become part of the fabric of everyday life since it was founded by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger in 2001. But despite the fact it now has been consulted trillions of times by billions of people (English Wikipedia alone is 5.2bn words long), it inspires an odd lack of curiosity. Even people donating to Wikipedia might say the money was “for the factcheckers”, though there aren’t any – not paid ones, anyway. Meanwhile, the internet in the social media era had begun to feel like a much uglier place, and some digital nostalgia was setting in: here was this holdover that had somehow survived; a website that functions – and even looks – much the same as it did 20 years ago. Continue reading...

AI is increasingly getting good at doing some tasks, but it can never replace human workers’ judgment Autonomous cars, which may be the safest we have built, keep getting easily avoidable parking tickets. While Waymos crash far less often than human drivers over tens of millions of miles, they’re still terrible at performing basic tasks – keeping out of disabled parking spots and tow-away zones, or steering clear of a church garage during Sunday service, according to the Wall Street Journal. That is the state of AI today: impressively capable at something complex, yet embarrassingly clumsy at something easy. And it has implications for what work will remain human and what will be automated by AI. Madhu Shashanka is co-founder, chief scientist and chief technology officer at Concentric AI, a data security software company Continue reading...

Biggest Apple smartwatch gets better health tracking and new readiness tools with a battery and chip boost in preparation for controversial audio AI As the Ultra enters its fourth year as Apple’s biggest and beefiest smartwatch it gets the best kind of spec upgrade – longer battery life – while waiting for something potentially more transformative. That’s because several of the key features announced as part of Apple’s new smartwatch lineup for 2026 have yet to be enabled, awaiting updates towards the end of this year. That leaves the £749 (€899/$799/A$1,349) Apple Watch Ultra 4 the top dog, but basically the same as last year’s model. Case size: 49 x 44mm Case thickness: 12mm Weight: 63g Processor: S11 Storage: 64GB Operating system: watchOS 27 Water resistance: 100 metres (10ATM) Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.3, wifi 4, 5G RedCap/4G, UWB Sensors: HR, ECG, spO2, temp, depth, dual-band GPS, compass, altimeter Continue reading...

Having a human “in the loop” overseeing when an AI makes a decision is important, but what happens to that responsible human over time when the AI gets it right over and over again?

It's Monday, March 31st, which means that World Backup Day has officially started! In this blog we will be bringing you live coverage of all the news, updates and advice from the cloud and data experts on World Backup Day 2025.Keeping your important files and precious memories backed-up securely using a backup strategy might sound like overkill, but if your drive fails or your data is encrypted by a malicious program, you'll be kicking yourself for not backing up sooner.Making sure your data is safe and protected has never been so important as we continue our way in the wild world of digital transformation, but with so much to do these days, it can sometimes go forgotten. Don't worry though, we've rounded up

advice from our experts to make sure your data is protected.horror tales from our team and elsewhere to remind you of what can happenexclusive deals from our backup partners to keep your data safebackup content from our extensive archivedata backup stories around the worldAnd much more!

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What is World Backup Day anyway

World Backup Day was founded by Ismail Jadun on a subreddit back on the 30th of March 2011, the day before April's fool. That date was not chosen randomly as it gave birth to the event's tagline, Don't be an April Fool. Backup your data. World Backup Day is now an annual fixture in the global tech calendar with tens of thousands of articles and mentions every year and a multi-lingual website(ed: Unfortunately, we couldn't find the original Reddit post).

The World Backup Day Pledge

Back in the days, backup was solely mostly on shiny discs because they were so cheap (Image credit: sattahipbeach / Shutterstock)

It's almost the start of World Backup Day in New Zealand where it is 1 minute past midnight on Monday 31st of March, the last day of the first quarter of 2025. WBD even have a semi-official pledge: “I solemnly swear to backup my important documents and precious memories on March 31st. #WorldBackupDay”. Backup, of course, applies both to consumers and businesses as well and in large enterprises, falls under the remit of the CDO or Chief Data officer. Maybe someone should write such a pledge for businesses after all.

How big is World Backup Day?

LTO tape is a popular medium in enterprise setup because of its capacity and price (Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

Google Trends shows a big spike for World Backup Day every year since it launched, towards the end of March. There is a weird one, bigger than all of them, recorded in July 2005, 6 years before the debut of the happening. A quick search on Google didn't bring up anything relevant. We know that citizens from Singapore and Slovenia have been searching the most about World Backup Day over the years. Not so much for other countries of the Western world.

Wait, what is backup?

(Image credit: Deemerwha studio / Shutterstock)

A backup, in tech terms, is a bunch of files that have been copied over to a service (like a cloud backup provider), a local device (like a USB flash drive) or to a remote device (e.g. NAS located next door). That's the simplest way of looking at it. Remember though that this is only a snapshot. Some files change all the time and you may need to adopt a regular backup process, either manual or automated, in order to make sure your data is always safe. Why not download one of these free backup software and try your hands at your first backup?

The ultimate playlist for your World Backup Day

(Image credit: Yamaha )

We asked Google's Gemini to come up with a list of songs that best embody data backup and storage. We got quite an eclectic one, which may raise an eyebrow or two when should you play it in your office. Here it is

"Don't Delete the Kisses" - French Kisses: (Literal, suggesting saving precious moments)"Cloudbusting" - Kate Bush: (Cloud storage metaphor, and a feeling of being saved/rescued)"Safe and Sound" - Capital Cities: (Feeling secure, like your data is protected)"Keep Your Head Up" - Andy Grammer: (Resilience, backing up your strength)"Fix You" - Coldplay: (Recovery and restoration, like recovering lost data)"The Backup Plan" - Jennifer Lopez: (Directly related, even if it's about relationships)"Locked Out of Heaven" - Bruno Mars: (The feeling of losing access, needing a backup)"Digital Love" - Daft Punk: (Digital connection, the importance of preserving it)"Shelter" - Porter Robinson & Madeon: (Finding a safe space, like a secure backup)"Every Breath You Take" - The Police: (Constant monitoring, like vigilant data security)"Under Pressure" - Queen & David Bowie: (The stress of data loss, and the need for backup)"Save Tonight" - Eagle-Eye Cherry: (Saving something valuable before it's gone)"With a Little Help from My Friends" - The Beatles: (Community backup, support systems)"I Will Survive" - Gloria Gaynor: (Data resilience and recovery)"The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades" - Timbuk 3: (Looking forward with confidence, knowing you're prepared with backups)

Why should I have a regular backup?

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Having a regular data backup can help protect your important files from being lost in a number of situations. For example, your regular storage could suffer a hardware failure rendering your files unrecoverable, or you could be the victim of a ransomware attack that encrypts all of your data unless you pay a substantial fee. By having a regular backup in place, you can avoid losing your files in these situations saving you from the mental anguish of being unable to recover precious memories and important work files.

What is the difference between Cloud Storage and Cloud Backup anyway?

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

I'm sure this is a question that is often asked on World Backup Day. Cloud Storage is used just like the regular storage on your phone or computer, providing an online drive to store your files on. An internet connection is required to access your cloud drive unless you mark a file as 'available offline'. Cloud storage will also allow you to synchronize and share files.Cloud Backup on the other hand is more for protecting important data. Cloud backups can be scheduled to automatically store and encrypt specific files and folders to keep them available if your local version is lost or corrupted.

What online backup service do you currently use?

(Image credit: Shutterstock / nikkimeel)

We polled over 2,500 TechRadar Pro readers through our WhatsApp channel, and it might interest you to hear which cloud storage options were most popular. Between Google Drive, OneDrive, IDrive, Apple Cloud, Dropbox, and ‘other’, we asked our readers which online storage options they’re using, and we’ve listed all of our recommendations for best photo backup cloud services, so don’t forget to let us know in the comments what you recommend and why! Check out our full findings here.

How much backup storage do I need?

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

When choosing a backup strategy, one of the biggest factors you need to consider is the amount of backup space you need. The most important thing to remember is that a backup is for important files, not for all your files. Most people will have between 500GB and a couple of terabytes worth of storage space on their computer, but if you download a lot of films from streaming services to watch offline, or have your entire Steam library downloaded, you won't need to store them in your backup.Most of the best cloud backup plans offer between 1TB and 5TB of storage at a variety of price points, with highly customizable options and extra features to suit your backup requirements.

How often should I backup my files?

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

This really depends on your chosen mode of storage. For cloud backup services, you can often set up a backup schedule that suites you. This can often range from one a week, to as often as every 15 minutes for highly important files that are subject to frequent changes. As for physical storage, you may have to manually save your important files to you chosen media as often as you need, but luckily you can use the best backup software to schedule automatic backups for your physical drives and even sync them with your cloud backups in line with the 3-2-1 backup strategy.

What role does AI have in data security?

AI is a tool that can be used both by the criminals and the cybersecurity defend teams (Image credit: Shutterstock)

Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, AI has been at the forefront of conversations everywhere, from boardrooms to school yards. Simon Jelley, Vice President and General Manager, Data Protection, Arctera told us his thoughts about ambivalent role AI plays in data security.“AI enhances data security, monitoring and productivity but also increases risk of data loss and cyber threats. Automated scanning and sophisticated phishing attacks from this technology also introduces new challenges, namely the enhanced ability to identify and exploit vulnerabilities. Organisations need to stay on the front foot against these evolving threats. This World Backup Day serves as a reminder that data protection must be a shared responsibility. It’s not just for data protection experts, but for all IT professionals, including newer players such as cloud and cyber security specialists."

Data backup is more than just hard drives and tape, it's also about connectivity

Hard drives are also a popular medium for warm storage but they are costly and need more power (Image credit: bohed/Pixabay )

When we think of data backup, we usually conjure pictures of hard drives, tapes and optical media like Blu-ray. But backup is more than that especially when you think about remote backup. Dr. Thomas King, the CTO of global internet exchange operator DE-CIX, makes the point below that scalable data backup doesn't work without resilient connectivity.World Backup Day has traditionally carried a very simple yet powerful message for businesses: backup your data. A large part of this is “data redundancy” – the idea that storing multiple copies of data in separate locations will offer greater resilience in the event of an outage or network security breach. Yet, as workloads have moved into the cloud, and AI and SaaS applications have become dominant vehicles for productivity, the concept of “redundancy” has started to expand. Businesses not only need contingency plans for their data, but contingency plans for their connectivity. Relying on a single-lane, vendor-locked connectivity pathway is a bit like only backing your data up in one place – once that solution fails, it’s game over.

"Backup is just the beginning"

Disaster recovery and business resilience should be an intrinsic part of any backup plans (Image credit: Mark Pickavance)

Powerful words from Frank DeBenedetto, General Manager of GTM, MSP Suite at IT SaaS company Kaseya about Backup and how it is just the beginning on what is a journey fraught with dangers. He added "disaster recovery is what ensures business resilience. Organisations must go beyond simple data storage and embrace a comprehensive recovery strategy to minimise downtime, mitigate cyber risks, and ensure business continuity. With modern threats on the rise and emerging technologies shaping the landscape, a proactive and well-defined disaster recovery approach is more critical than ever".

What is the 3-2-1 backup concept?

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

The 3-2-1 backup concept is an expert-recommended strategy for keeping your files as safe and secure as possible. The basic concept revolves around having three copies of your data (one of which being the original), stored on at least two different types of media (a hard drive and a cloud sever, for example), with at least one of the copies being stored off-site and preferably in an 'air-gapped' environment. This means that there is no external connection to the storage medium, so if you store your backed-up data on a hard drive in a box under your bed you have effectively air-gapped your backup.

Apple has released a second release candidate for iOS 18.4The latest rumors suggest the update could be released on April 1Official release notes list Apple Intelligence upgrades and other new features

Apple has released the second release candidate for iOS 18.4, and though we still don’t have a release date for iOS 18.4 proper, it seems likely that the next mid-year iOS update is right around the corner.Indeed, we expect iOS 18.4 to land as soon as this week (MacRumors predicts April 1), and this pre-release version of the update gives us an official idea of what to expect.It seems that iOS 18.4 is a fairly substantial update by mid-year standards – Apple Intelligence continues its shaky rollout, the Photos app gets some new features, Apple News+ gets some tasty new recipes, and ambient music enjoyers are in for a surprise.As for compatibility, all iPhone models that currently support iOS 18.3 – that's the iPhone Xs to the current-generation iPhone 16 lineup – will almost certainly support iOS 18.4.

New Apple Intelligence features

(Image credit: Apple)

iOS 18.4 sees Apple continue the rollout of Apple Intelligence for compatible devices, with a handful of features first announced in 2024 finally making their way to users.The big ticket item this time around is Priority Notifications, which uses AI to identify important notifications and pin them to your lock screen.Image playground also gets an overdue feature in the form of the Sketch style, which allows users to create images inspired by hand-drawn sketches using AI.Another minor addition is review summaries in the app store; that's AI-generated overviews of user-generated app reviews.Apple Intelligence also gets support for eight new languages: Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), French (France, Canada), Italian, Japanese, Korean, and German, as well as two local dialects of English, for Singapore and India.Siri is conspicuously missing from these release notes: we had originally hoped to see Siri get its long-awaited Apple Intelligence update with iOS 18.4, but it looks like we'll be waiting even longer for this (hopefully) game-changing upgrade.It now seems more likely that Siri will get its AI upgrade with iOS 19, which will likely release in September alongside the rumored iPhone 17 lineup.

Photos app updates

(Image credit: Future)

iOS 18.4 brings a selection of new features to the Photos app, making it easier to organize and rearrange your photos and videos.All collections get a selection of filtering options, such as including or excluding photos from a particular album or sorting by either the oldest or newest photos first.Users also gain the ability to sort their media by date modified, rather than date created, which is helpful for keeping recently cropped or edited photos together.It’s also now possible to disable the automatically created Recently Shared and Recently Viewed albums, and hidden photos will no longer be imported to Mac or PC if the user has enabled the Use Face ID security option.

Apple News+ gets recipes

(Image credit: Apple)

With iOS 18.4, Apple News+ gains a new Food section full of stories about healthy eating, restaurants, and recipes.It’s a fairly sizeable addition to the already fairly comprehensive Apple News+ service, and gives users plenty of new articles to dig into.The Recipe Catalog allows users to save recipes for later, and a follow-along Cooking mode makes putting them into practice a piece of cake.Keep in mind that this is a new feature for the Apple News+ service, which costs $12.99 / £12.99 / AU$19.99 per month, and not for the free Apple News app.

Vision Pro get its own iPhone app

(Image credit: Future / Lance Ulanoff)

iOS 18.4 adds the Vision Pro app to iPhone, giving Vision Pro users the ability to check for new spatial content and get quick information about their headset.By the sounds of things, the app will automatically install for those with a Vision Pro headset registered to their Apple Account.

Ambient Music from the Control Center

(Image credit: Future)

This is a weird one. Apple is adding a dedicated Ambient Music feature to iPhone with iOS 18.4 – but it’s not its own app, or even a part of the Apple Music app.Instead, users have to add the Ambient Music control to their control center, in a similar manner to the way Shazam is currently implemented.Users then get access to four playlists of ambient music, titled Sleep, Chill, Productivity, and Wellbeing.For those who haven’t come across ambient music before, it’s a form of relaxed, slow music that aims to be enjoyable to listen to without focus – typically we’re talking woodwinds, strings, synthesizers, and a lack of percussion.The release notes don’t suggest that users will need an Apple Music subscription to use the new Ambient Music feature.

Other new features

As well as the new features listed above, iOS 18.4 also comes with a handful of smaller updates and bug fixes.For example, screen time limits now remain in place when an app is uninstalled and reinstalled, and it's easier to add child-safe settings during device setup. Safari also gets recent search suggestions.Additionally, 10 new system languages have been added to iOS: Bangla, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.Full release notes can be found on Apple’s developer blog. Be sure to let us know what you’re looking forward to most in the comments below.

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Five kink and LGBT apps exposed sensitive user imagesThe images were stored on a server without password protectionThe apps' developer left the issue unfixed for months

Five dating apps exposed over 1.5 million private and explicit images after storing the images in cloud storage buckets without any password protection.Cybersecurity researchers found the image servers of BDSM People, Chica, Pink, Brish and Translove to be highly vulnerable to hackers, putting between 800,000 and 900,000 people at risk of blackmail and extortion.The five sites are all from developer M.A.D Mobile, who was notified of the exposed servers on January 20 but did not remediate the issue until March 28, after the cybersecurity researchers published a report on the exposed servers.

Explicit images exposed

Cybernews researcher Aras Nazarovas discovered the exposed private image servers while conducting analysis on the code that powers the BDSM People app.“The first image in the folder was a naked man in his thirties. As soon as I saw it I realised that this folder should not have been public," Nazarovas told the BBC.On the servers, Nazarovas found several hundred gigabytes of photos, including images from profiles, images sent in direct messages, images that were supposedly removed from the app by moderators, photos from public posts, profile verification photos, and photos included in comments.While the issue has now been remediated, there is no way of knowing how long the servers were exposed, or if Nazarovas was the only person to discover the trove of explicit images.A M.A.D Mobile spokesperson said, “We appreciate their work and have already taken the necessary steps to address the issue. An additional update for the apps will be released on the App Store in the coming days.”Outside of the risk of extortion posed by the unprotected cloud storage buckets, users of the apps in countries with hostile attitudes to LGBT peoples were also put at risk.Dating apps and sites are lucrative targets for hackers due to the highly sensitive personally identifiable information they store. If hit by a ransomware attack, the attackers could not only extort the company for money, but also threaten individuals with the exposure of their data if they don’t pay a fee.

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Oura Ring is moving 'Oura Advisor' out of betaThe AI-powered wellness advisor launched in beta in July of 2024It works alongside the classic Oura tracking experience by letting you ask about data points and get more context

I’ve worn an Oura Ring daily for well over three years at this point, and one of the best parts of the experience that keeps me coming back is excellent, accurate data that’s always contextualized.Thanks to my sleep score, I know how well I slept the night before, how I’m looking forward to the day ahead, and how I can track my activity throughout the day. It’s quite handy and helps to make the whole health and activity tracking experience a bit more actionable.That’s why I was so intrigued when Oura announced a beta AI-powered wellness chatbot, Oura Advisor, in July 2024. I’ve used it plenty since it launched in beta, and evidently, many other Oura users have too. It’s now ready for primetime, as the wellness brand is making it a full-fledged feature in the app for paying members.I’ve used it quite a bit during its beta testing period – the company has dubbed its beta program Oura Labs – and I like how it can complement the regular Oura experience. Do you have a question about your readiness score, or want to provide more context for why you were a little less active? The AI Advisor can tell you.

You can chat with Oura Advisor by typing things out, and it can even make recommendations for activities to help. Though, of course, with any software or AI-powered health feature, it’s not a doctor.It is designed, however, to be a conversation, controlled at your directive, about your health – combining the data tracked within Oura and the company's scientific models with generative AI.

(Image credit: Oura)

In the full release, Oura’s upping the experience, which makes me more excited to give it even more of a try. For one, rather than just referring to a trend it might have picked up on – more active on a given day – it can also pull up visuals and provide them as answers. Beyond just pulling up a chart, Oura says that Advisor now has ‘Trend Detection,’ allowing it to quickly pull data and access metric baselines or learned detected trends.Oura’s expanding Advisor's memory function promises that beyond remembering something, you expressly tell it, say that you’re recovering from an injury, and it will better weave in information from previous chats into the current one. While echoing a film or a Disney theme park ride, Oura promises it will be a more coherent storyline or conversation.When you set up Oura Advisor, you will still have three styles to choose from – supportive, mentoring, or goal-oriented – but it’s now dynamic, allowing the generated responses to be more empathetic, joyous, or even determined on the fly. It will be interesting to see how much improvement this offers to the service I tested in beta.Just like during the Oura Labs testing period, you can set notifications to remind you to interact with Advisor or pull it up on-demand when in the Oura app for iOS or Android. In its full-launch mode, Advisor is available globally in English.While the feature was in beta under Oura Labs, the company says that 60% of folks who enrolled in Advisor used it several times a week, and 20% used it daily. I’m in the former of that group, but these changes could have me calling on the Advisor for a conversation more.

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YouTube is testing a new feature that stops sending you notifications from channels you no longer watch The aim of the feature is to stop users from turning off push notifications altogether, instead adjusting certain alert settings for them.It could be a blessing for subscribers who are bombarded with unwanted notifications but not so much for YouTube creators

Clearing your YouTube notifications is a chore in itself, and it’s not the easiest, especially when you’re subscribed to channels that upload constantly - but YouTube is working on fixing that. In a new test, YouTube is turning off notifications from channels you no longer engage with, and the days of overwhelming push notifications are almost behind us.YouTube made the announcement a few days ago, and it's aimed specifically at subscribers who have their notifications set to ‘All’, but don’t open these alerts. Notifications will still appear in your notification box in the YouTube app, but the platform will turn off push alerts so that you’re not bombarded with unwanted updates. YouTube has gone into detail about how this will pan out, stating the following in its announcement;“Viewers who haven’t recently engaged with a channel despite having been sent recent push notifications will not receive push notifications in the experiment. Notifications will still be available via the notification inbox in the YouTube app. Channels that upload infrequently will not have their notifications affected”. It’s not certain if users will be notified if they’re missing these alerts, nor the duration of this experiment.When creators upload content to YouTube, one of the main ways for them to boost views and subscriber count is to encourage viewers to turn on notifications so that they can be informed when a new video has been uploaded. If you’re a frequent YouTube user and serial video watcher like me, then you’ve probably found yourself turning on notifications for every channel possible, which, in retrospect, results in an overwhelming wave of alerts - but the aim of YouTube’s test is more than simply diluting excessive notifications.

YouTube is going through many changes right now, the biggest one is the addition of its new YouTube Premium Lite subscription plan. (Image credit: Future)

Another time-saving perk, but one that could cost creators

There’s no arguing that having a platform take control of your notification settings is unorthodox and crosses the line into an invasion of personal settings. But this test could result in another time-saving perk from YouTube following its recent playback queue experiments.Although it’s easy to amend your notification settings to avoid an avalanche of alerts, it’s common for YouTube subscribers to disable these altogether instead of adjusting the settings per channel - I'd know, I’m guilty of this. With this latest experiment, YouTube aims to sway viewers from disabling notifications entirely just because their notifications inboxes are stacking up, which is a helpful feature and one that I’m certain to be thankful for in the long run, but I can see how this can be damaging to creators.Push notifications are one of the main things YouTube creators rely on to get their views up and keep their audience engaged as they directly alert their subscribers when videos go live, so YouTube making the executive decision for viewers to no longer receive alerts from channels is a bold move.The platform is going through a lot of changes right now, having just launched its YouTube Premium Lite subscription tier, but let's hope it pays equal attention to the needs of those who rely on their YouTube channel to make a living.

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Samsung Display unveils modular OLED wall-mounted screenThe key tech change is 60% reduction in bezels on OLED displaysIt's very similar to Samsung's The Wall micro-LED product, but OLED

Samsung Display has unveiled a new modular OLED screen concept, in which a screen of a particular size or shape can be built using a series of smaller OLED displays tiled together (via Tom's Guide).If the idea sounds familiar, that's because it's a very similar idea to Samsung's The Wall micro-LED screen – but this is the first time we've seen the idea applied to OLED.The key tech change that's made this possible is that Samsung says it can reduce the bezel space needed on OLED and QD-OLED panels by 40%, bringing them down to 0.6mm. Now, each panel has that bezel, so actually there's a 1.2mm border between the screens, which will be enough of a black line to be noticeable, which is probably part of why this remains a concept for now.But let's assume that Samsung can keep improving the tech and can make the bezel even smaller, in which case I think that makes this tech extremely interesting for creating giant projector-matching OLED TV screens. But I'm not necessarily interested in the square modular concept shown above – the same tech could be applied in other, similar ways.I immediately started thinking about how the prices of the best OLED TVs rise exponentially as the sets get larger, because of particular quirks of OLED production, and how combining smaller screens could make them much more cost effective.

It's a 97-inch OLED! And it's real expensive. (Image credit: LG)

Four 55-inch TVs in a trenchcoat

To illustrate what I mean, I'm going to use LG's OLED TVs rather than Samsung's, because of the sizes involved. The LG G5 (the company's flagship) range includes a 97-inch model, and it costs $24,999 / £24,999.That's literally 10 times the price of the 55-inch LG G5 model, which costs $2,499 / £2,399. And the 97-inch model actually has an inferior panel – it's a couple of generations behind, and will be nowhere near as bright as the 55-inch model's Primary RGB Tandem four-stack panel.The reason for this is that it's incredibly hard to make large-scale OLED TV panels in a cost-effective way. OLED screens are produced on huge sheets called 'mother glass' that are then cut down to smaller sizes; so you can produce nearly four times as many 55-inch screens per mother-glass sheet as you can 97-inch screens.But also, OLED production still has yield problems, meaning that a lot of screens are produced imperfectly, and this wastage is factored in to the cost of the displays. If you're producing a lot of panels per mother glass (if you're making phone screens for example), then the wastage doesn't matter too much – losing a panel only wastes a tiny amount of your material and time.But if you're making 97-inch panels and there's a problem, you've lost a huge amount of material and time, and those costs are factored into the pricing of the good panels, effectively.So the modular concept is immediately interesting because it solves that issue: combine smaller screens into one larger display and reduce the wastage problem massively.

Could Samsung combine multiple Samsung S95F QD-OLED TVs, like the one here, into (Image credit: Future)

So what I'm thinking is this: if the bezels can be reduced further, could we have a 110-inch OLED TV in the future that's actually four 55-inch TVs combined in one unit? That's even larger than the 97-inch model, and yet could cost a (relatively) mere $10,000, based on the cost of four 55-inch LG G5 TVs.And I've used LG as my example because of the easy size comparison to existing TVs, but this new tech is coming from Samsung to potentially use in its QD-OLED TVs – and that's even better, because these panels don't go any larger than 77 inches currently, so doing this would enable it to offer a giant OLED for the first time.It's not as simple as all that, of course. Combining four 4K OLED panels means we're talking about an 8K TV, though Samsung has plenty of experience with 8K processing.And additionally, a lot of purists – i.e., the people most likely to want this TV – would reject any sign of a seam between the panels, so unless the bezels can be totally removed I'm probably talking about something of a pipe dream.But it wouldn't be the first time that a secret dual-screen setup has been used to make cutting-edge tech more realistically priced – the first 5K display on an Apple iMac was literally two 1280 x 1440 displays powered by a custom display processor to treat them as one unit, with no seam down the middle.Obviously, building a TV out of small squares also solves the screen size problem, but there's a simplicity to fixing four 4K TVs together that solves problems such as dealing with a non-standard resolution.I don't think we're going to see a 110-inch OLED built in this way competing with the best TVs any time soon – but if this bezel-reducing tech keeps improving, it could make possible the home theater screen of your dreams, especially with micro-LED not looking like it'll become affordable in the near future.

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Report claims data centers and the aviation industry both account for 3% each of global carbon emissionsBy 2026, the world’s data centers will use as much electricity as JapanGermany is mandating highly efficient data centers from 2026

Increased artificial intelligence activity has led to skyrocketing demand for data centers, with new SPhotonix research claiming the facilities now account for the same amount of emissions as the global aviation industry.Now accounting for 3% of global carbon emissions, the concern is AI and IoT will continue to drive data centers’ environmental impact up, and by 2030, they could consume as much as 13% of the world’s electricity.SPhotonix says 149 zettabytes (ZB) of data was created in 2024 – after just four years, this annual figure could stand at 394ZB, around 2.6x more.

Data centers linked with growing emissions

Quantifying the concerns, SPhotonix revealed data centers currently consume 460TWh per year, but by just 2026, this could more than double to 1,000TWh, which is roughly the same as Japan’s total energy usage. By the end of the decade, these sites could account for 2.5 billion metric tonnes of CO2.The research delves into different types of storage, and reveals HDD storage used for long-term cold data storage and archiving actually sues more data – in order to keep these HDDs at low temperatures for data preservation and drive health, large amounts of energy are required. Cold storage and archiving account for around three-fifths of all data stored today.HDDs also tend to have a shorter lifespan than SSDs, meaning that they must be copied every seven to 10 years, which comes at the expense of high energy consumption and CO2 emissions.“In an increasingly digital world, the environmental impact of data storage is quickly becoming a pressing concern with respective Governments and Regulatory bodies stepping in to enforce sustainability standards,” said SPhotonix Chief Science Officer Peter Kazansky.Kazansky added that Germany will require new data centers to achieve a power usage efficiency of 1.2 or less from next year.“Reliable data management plays a vital role in addressing energy challenges, enabling efficient resource allocation and long-term planning,” Kazansky concluded.

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Welcome, Garmin fans! After last week's announcement of Garmin Connect+, the new premium tier available in the Garmin Connect app, we've seen a big conversation take place online.Some Garmin users are furious, stating they want to "take a stand" against the company for introducing a paid tier. Even though the existing free features will remain free, user sentiment is generally that this is the beginning of a slippery slope for Garmin, and more and more features will be added to Connect+ instead of being available on the app's free tier.Especially egregious is the price of the best Garmin watches, some of them numbering among the most expensive smartwatches ever, and having to now pay still more on top for the whole package.However, we've also seen some people dismiss it all as hysteria, and there's a few vocal people online going against the grain and signing up to the Connect+ free trial.Want to make your voice heard? Email us at matt.evans@futurenet.com, and we'll feature your reply here as part of this live blog. Stay tuned!

What is Garmin Connect+, anyway?

For those not in the know, Garmin Connect+ is Garmin's new premium tier available for its previously-free Garmin Connect app, costing $6.99 / £6.99 / AU$12 per month or $69.99 / £69.99 / AU$120 annually, with a one-month free trial available.For this privilege, Garmin Connect+ will supply Garmin users with new features on top of their free ones, including AI-powered insights dubbed "Active Intelligence" which puts all your stats into context, a Performance Dashboard that allows you to view historic graphs, and improvements to Garmin’s LiveTrack service, including a text-based alerts system.This isn't the first time it's charged for a service (it also charges for an Outdoor Maps+ subscription plan) but this is a service aimed at all Garmin users, not a specific subsection or service.

Why has this angered Garmin users?

Existing Garmin users are angry, in part, because they feel like their app is going to slowly get taken away. While Garmin has been very careful in its messaging, insisting that everything currently free will remain free, users believe they will eventually have to either leave the platform or resort to paying for a usable version of it.Even if all current features remain free, as new ones are added and older ones are no longer supported, the existence of a Connect+ tier invites the possibility that future features will only be available to premium subscribers, a galling prospect if you bought an expensive smartwatch with the expectation it would be supported for years to come.One of the top comments on the video above reads: "No. Bait and switch. We pay premium prices, like my £800 for my Garmin Descent Mk2s, with the understanding that the extra price is subsidising the Garmin Connect platform and its development. Now with just the existence of this, there's little to no chance we'll see any meaningful updates to the free Connect platform from now on. Class action anyone?"Another commenter puts it more succintly: "Is this the beginning of the end?"

Garmin Reddit is furious

(Image credit: Reddit)

With 7,100 upvotes at the time of writing, this thread has prompted an enormous outcry from the community determined to make their voices heard. Here are a few comments from the 431 and counting:

Comment from r/Garmin

Comment from r/Garmin

Comment from r/Garmin

@techradar

♬ original sound - TechRadar

We took to TikTok to ask Garmin users what they thought about the changes, and got quite a few comments there. One user writes "This is bad news. All new features from now on will be behind a paywall. And in few years, then the initial rage settles, they will move more and more features behind paywall like strava did."Another said: "wow! I love paywalled AI which tells me the most basic of information which I could gather my self easily."However, in the interest of balance, not everyone is irate about it. Another TikTok user writes: "If the current features are to stay free then nonworries, pay for the new stuff if you want them if not, don't."

"A greedy company"

The emails have begun to roll in. Remember, if you want to get in touch, email matt.evans@futurenet.com. This one's from Michelangelo:"I'm writing this email to show Garmin what they are risking by being a greedy company... We have probably around 20 devices from Garmin. We just like the quality and the details you get from a premium device."This is why I'm so vocal right now. If Connect+ goes on, I'm definitely done with Garmin. I'll buy another watch for my SO (I was planning for one in May) and I will start doing the opposite of what I've been doing since receiving my original watch. I'll start discouraging people from buying Garmin and propose a valid, European, alternative."Tread lightly Garmin, people hate subscription models, especially on PREMIUM products!Sincerely, A very, VERY, angry customer."

Garmin's AI-powered insights

(Image credit: Garmin)

What exactly is "Active Intelligence", anyway?Similar to Strava's Athlete Intelligence (also on a premium tier: AI's apparently expensive to run), Garmin's Active Intelligence will offer personalized in-app advice based on your training metrics.The example above is a good indication of the kind of AI-generated advice you can expect: top-line, general, quick-fire tips to guide your training based on past and current performance, rather than anything too granular and concrete like a workout plan. You'll reportedly be able to get these messages multiple times a day as your activity and recovery levels change.It's worth noting a Garmin representative emailed and confirmed that the AI was built with user data security in mind. Garmin's aware how sensitive health data is, and the need to keep it secure – especially after a high-profile cyberattack five years ago.

More messages coming through

An email from Vasil says he'll switch away from Garmin if the decision isn't reversed. "Even though I have been a fan of the brand for over 10 years and always buy the latest Fenix model, if the paid version of the mobile application is introduced, I will change the brand!"Meanwhile, a new comment on TikTok simply says "How do you sign up to it?". Sounds like someone's convinced!

The Garmin subreddit is not taking this well

Garmin is getting rid of what makes it special from r/Garmin

The Reddit post above has some particularly poignant things to say."They were different than smartwatch companies locking you to a specific phone. They were different than smartwatch companies forcing you to pay a monthly fee just to use the watch. Heck, they were even different than gaming companies providing you games on a platform and then being able to ban you or change the rules after the fact."They felt like one of those companies you loved being associated with.... Yet another great company losing track of its identity and tacking on or removing things that just don't speak to its customer base."Below are some more examples of negative, highly-upvoted feedback from the subreddit.

I paid $700 for a fenix to avoid the subscription bullshit from r/Garmin

It’s the beginning of the end for Garmin. from r/Garmin

I mean, you've got to laugh...

Me buying my first Garmin watch 2 days ago and joining this sub from r/Garmin

Is the panic overblown?

If you're a new Garmin owner, don't panic. Garmin users aren't going to suddenly see the bottom fall out of their watches' ecosystem; as of now, pretty much all the features on your watch remain unchanged. You can still create routes, generate plans, get your Fitness Age, Body Battery, Endurance Score, workouts, and all the rest of Garmin's goodies as well as ever, without paying a subscription fee. Garmin was keen to emphasize this in all communications about Connect+.Most of the fear is hypothetical, and based on a term coined by blogger-activist Cory Doctorow called "enshittification". This refers to the process of platform decay, as those in charge of online platforms make things worse for users in order to maximize profit.We see it with social networks, media websites, online stores, gaming and all other rmanner of online platforms. Garmin users are afraid that their free experience will eventually get worse, as the company attempts to move more of its users onto the paid platform. We've seen it happen enough times that these fears are not unfounded.On his Pluralistic blog, Doctorow explains it best: "Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification."

Has LiveTrack changed?!

(Image credit: Garmin)

More discourse in our TikTok video, with one user sounding very optimistic: "Probably not for the AI, but I would be interested in the Live Track, I use it anyway as I cycle a lot in the mountains, so would be keen to see what the difference is".The updated Live Tracking service offers a personalized LiveTrack profile to share with followers (useful for cross-posting on Strava, for example) and the ability for family and friends to be notified via text when a workout has begun, along with the usual link to share your current location that you get in the free version.However, our Homes Editor (and former Fitness Editor) Cat Ellis, herself an avid user of the Garmin Fenix 7, uses LiveTrack a lot, and told me her LiveTracking recently changed. The LiveTrack text messages to show auto-starts and finishes used to be part of the free version, but seems to have been removed this week ahead of the GC+ announcement.Check out her screenshot from this Monday, then swipe to check out Tuesday's:

Image 1 of 2(Image credit: Future)Image 2 of 2(Image credit: Future)

While Garmin mentioned that all features currently free will remain so, this may indicate a feature was changed shortly in advance of the announcement, which is very disingenuous if so. TechRadar has reached out to Garmin for comment, but email in and let us know if this has changed for you.

Two very different reactions with the same sentiment there

(Image credit: Reddit)

How much does Garmin Connect+ cost, and what do you get?

Garmin Connect+ will cost $6.99 / £6.99 / AU$12 per month or $69.99 / £69.99 / AU$120 annually, with a one-month free trial available.For the price, you're getting those Active Intelligence AI messages, the LiveTrack texts mentioned below, exclusive badges and challenges not available to free-tier Connect users (something which isn't helping quell the ire of badge-hunters unwilling to subscribe) new social features and a Performance Dashboard which allows you to customize how you view historic data.This is confirmed to be different to the Performance Stats tab in the free version.

(Image credit: Future / Matt Evans)

Our reader Corrie emailed in, voicing her concerns:"I’m a long term Garmin user recently replacing my Enduro 3 with the Fenix 8, both premium watches. Strong advocate of Garmin to anyone who will listen."My concern is that new content will go with the new premium paid service and our current content will be eroded to the point where you have no choice to switch either to a new / alternative provider, or to add the subscription."I'm seeing this sentiment a lot: most people aren't worried about the premium tier as it is now, but what may happen later down the line.

A disappointed reader

(Image credit: Coros Vertix)

Another reader, George, emailed in with this to say:"I feel like this is Garmin really pushing their luck, they're the dominant player amongst runners in particular and I believe most of us were under the impression that you pay a premium for Garmin devices to keep the backend services free and available for everyone."It's especially annoying for those of us, myself included who are well-invested into their ecosystem. I have a Garmin watch along with some of their accessories like the running pod as well as an Edge cycling computer, which allows for integration between the two devices and Connect."I feel like when my watch packs up, which probably isn't too far off as it's 4.5 years old, I will likely move over to Coros. Garmin seems to want to be more like Whoop now and I feel like they've lost their community's trust."While I've always been a Garmin fan, I think Coros make superb watches. The Coros Pace 3 tops our best cheap running watch list thanks to its absurdly long battery life and powerful insights.

In the Garmin subreddit's megathread on the issue, one user had this to say. It really hammers home the argument some users have about the high price of the base watch, then being expected to pay more on top:

Comment from r/Garmin

We rated Fitbit Premium very highly in our review, but it's worth noting the base Fitbit devices are much cheaper than Garmins, and tend to come with a six-month subscription to the service rather than one month. However, this is offset by the fact that Fitbit lock more features behind the paywall than Garmin do, and faced a very similar backlash when the Premium tier was implemented.

We're wrapping up this Liveblog now, but you'll still be able to read all the historic posts below without paying an additional fee.Thanks for joining us as you start your weekend, and keep sharing your thoughts via emails and comments! We want to know if this is the end of the road for you and Garmin, or whether you plan to give the Connect+ a free trial a go, in order to see what all the fuss is really about.

I'm back!

(Image credit: Future / Matt Evans)

Matt here! Over the weekend, we've had an influx of comments and emails giving your thoughts on Connect+. So we thought we'd reopen this Liveblog and post a few of your responses. for example, we had an email from Mike, who was considering picking up a Fenix 8 until the news:"Hi Matt, I just read your article. I have been a Garmin fanboy since I bought my Fenix 6 over 3 years ago. With any tech stuff I always skip a generation and then like to wait for all the initial bugs to get ironed out when I come to a new launch."Anyway, long story short: I was just about to get my hands on a top-end Fenix 8, but I'm certainly not going to bother if an £800+ quid watch, which due to gadgets/tech being what they are is bought with a knowledge of future replacement anyway, if I need to pay a subscription to get its best features. What an absolute scam."My Fenix 6 is still going good, and I'll go elsewhere now when it dies."

The conversation extends to the water cooler in TR Towers: homes editor Cat Ellis' running club suggested getting the free trial of Garmin Connect+, getting the exclusive badges (many reportedly worth a hefty four points) – and then cancelling it!in Garmin Connect, points are earned by completing activities and earning badges, allowing you to climb leaderboards and compete against your Garmin Connect network. Badges can be earned by doing an exercise every day for a prescribed time period, covering a certain distance, completing a milestone race, or exercising at a certain time, such as the Lunar New Year badge below.Most badges are worth one or two points, but Garmin clearly beefed up the points totals for the badges for its new premium tier as an early adopter incentive.

(Image credit: Garmin)

One less incentive to buy

We got an email from Shannon, who told us: "the main thing that swung me over to Garmin was 1) the battery life exceeded most of the popular watch choices, and 2) there was no subscription modelling. I'm really tired of having multiple subscriptions for every lil damn thing."At the end of the day it feels like I've bought a product but it's not really mine, or that it's usefulness is being held hostage. If Garmin really wants to play games then I definitely don't want to be involved in supporting Garmin going into the future."

More TikTok chat

Over the weekend, it's not just emails about this issue we've been receiving: there's also been some more discourse in the comments section of our TikTok video about this, which we've embedded below. Weirdly for an app designed to maximize short-term reactionary engagement, people are quite calm about it.One user said: "I've been using my Garmin forerunner 255 for a year now. never look at anything on Garmin connect, only Strava. So it shouldn't be much of an issue."Another said: "I don't like it, but if the existing features remain, I have no major issues with this. I wasn't expecting new features, so I don't care if they're free or not."They've got a point: at present, the new features are only likely to affect power users. Even if the most reactionary takes turn out to be correct, and all new features end up on Connect+ with fewer updates for the free version of the app, you've still got all the existing tools to use for a long time to come.However, there are a few TikTok Garmin users that are still pretty, ahem, ticked off: Ray said they "worked hard for all the badges for years" and got to level 7 in the app, but "now you can earn the most stupid badges with much points by paying. it suckz!"

@techradar

♬ original sound - TechRadar

"Garmin will die, like HTC"

(Image credit: HTC)

Strong words from Jagdeep, who reached out via email: "Everything free will remain free. Yes, true. But this is a very grey, vague and hollow statement. "There will be no improvements, there will be no updates. And the free will eventually become out of date. Also, the free will gradually not be compatible with new software. Garmin will see a massive exodus as users migrate to other platforms. Garmin will die, like HTC." Anyone else miss their old HTC Desire? I know I do.