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There are two non-negotiables when looking for the perfect laptop to run your business: versatility and reliability. Thankfully, HP’s new HP EliteBook X G2i covers both bases with ease, offering a portable laptop that’s packed with power.

Light and efficient enough to work from anywhere, while also maintaining excellent performance across demanding AI tasks and workloads, it’s an ideal business companion for enterprise teams and executives alike.

• Powered by Intel Core Ultra 7
• 14-inch display
• Configurable with up to 64GB of RAM and 2TB SSD storage
• Weighs as little as 2.20lbs

It’s not that long ago that a thin, light laptop would compromise on power and battery life, but that’s simply not the case anymore. Nowhere is that more apparent than with the HP EliteBook X G2i, a Copilot+ PC, which is powered by Intel Core Ultra processor models paired with an Intel AI Boost NPU (Neural Processing Unit).

The latter is capable of 50 trillion operations per second, clearing the bar (and then some) to be awarded the Copilot+ PC moniker. That means it helps accelerate supported AI workflows.

While there are the obvious use cases, like rewording an email to be more concise or professional in tone, Copilot being baked into Windows 11, and having access to the NPU means swift performance.

That means asking for insights on your budget spreadsheet, generating a fresh image for a PowerPoint presentation, or even looking better in a meeting with real-time blurring of your background are all smoother than on a non-Copilot+ PC. HP also offers its own AI-based noise reduction tech, dynamic voice leveling, and Studio Mode to ensure you always sound your best on calls.

With up to 64GB of RAM included, too, multitasking is smooth, so you can run multiple projects at once. If you’re juggling emails, Slack, Teams, multiple browser tabs, and more, you’ll be thankful for the additional headroom.

And, with the option to use a touchscreen or a comfortable keyboard and trackpad combo, it’s easier to work on projects your way.

This kind of power would once have come from a beefy desktop rig, but advancements in design mean that the HP EliteBook X G2i is a light machine at just 2.2lbs, making it lighter than many of its rivals.

And, unlike many of its contemporaries, it offers an optional 5G connection for fast data speeds even when you’re away from the office. Need to send an important file but nowhere near a Wi-Fi point? Having issues with airport or hotel connectivity? Being able to work from anywhere is a truly liberating experience.

Of course, the HP EliteBook X G2i wouldn’t be the best ultra-portable enterprise laptop if it didn’t have the battery life to back it up. Thankfully, it delivers in this regard, too, because the Intel Core Ultra processor and AI Boost NPU work closely in tandem to minimize battery drain and keep tasks humming along.

The result is a laptop that will run for your workday and then some, all while being able to slip neatly into a backpack.

It’s also built with workers in mind. The 14-inch display is not only sharp, but also works to protect data from prying eyes with HP’s Sure View 6 technology, while HP Wolf Security offers multi-layered protection, including firmware protection designed to withstand future quantum-computing threats — a growing threat in today’s world.

Whether it’s digging deep into huge workbooks, putting together a last-minute presentation while away from Wi-Fi, or just catching up on emails after a long day, the HP EliteBook X G2i is built for business.

A good ergonomic office chair can make spending long hours at your desk considerably more comfortable, but some of the best models can cost a small fortune. Thankfully, I've found a terrific deal on FlexiSpot's C7 office chair for $300 (was $430).

Better still, this is a chair we highly recommend and have ranked as our top-rated mid-range ergonomic office chair in our buying guide. In the UK, the C7 is priced at £259.99 (was £379.99).

The C7 combines a breathable mesh design with self-adaptive dynamic lumbar support, adjustable seat depth, 3D armrests, and a 4D headrest, giving you plenty of ways to tailor the chair to your body and working position. It also reclines from 90 to 130 degrees, supports up to 300 pounds, and comes with a reassuring 10-year warranty.

✅ Buy the FlexiSpot C7 if...

You spend long hours working at a desk and want plenty of ergonomic adjustment without moving into the much higher price brackets occupied by premium office chairs. Its adjustable seat depth, lumbar support, armrests, and headrest make it easier to find a comfortable position, while the 300-pound capacity allows it to accommodate most people.

❌ Skip the FlexiSpot C7 if...

You want a simpler chair with fewer adjustments, or you're shopping on a tighter budget. The C7's ergonomic features are aimed primarily at people who spend long periods at a desk, so occasional home-office use may not justify spending out.

The FlexiSpot C7 supports up to 300 pounds and features dynamic lumbar support, adjustable seat depth, 3D armrests, a 4D headrest, 90-to-130-degree recline, and a breathable mesh seat.

In the UK: now £260 (was £380)View Deal

In his glowing 4.5-star review our expert Collin said: "This chair is an excellent solution for office managers looking for a quality ergonomic office chair for their employees; it's great for home office use, for your office, cubicle work, and more."

There's an impressive amount of adjustment available for the money, particularly the dynamic lumbar support and adjustable seat depth.

The mesh construction should also help with airflow during long working days, and the 10-year warranty provides some welcome reassurance if you're buying a chair for everyday use.

At $299.99, the C7 costs $130 less than its usual $429.99 price, equivalent to a discount of just over 30%. That brings a chair we already consider a fantastic mid-range choice much closer to the price of less sophisticated ergonomic models.

Given the combination of adjustability, 300-pound capacity, lengthy warranty, and the current price, this would make a fantastic home office upgrade and is an easy recommendation from me.

FlexiSpot offer regular sales throughout the year, and by and large, this is the standard deal price. I can't remember seeing it cheaper (although I've certainly seen it more expensive).

This configuration doesn't include a footrest. If you want one, adding the feature increases the price to $319.99, which isn't that huge a leap.

The mesh construction won't suit everyone, particularly if you prefer a softer, cushioned seat, but you can switch to foam for the same price (although not with a footrest).

FlexiSpot also recommends the C7 for people between 5 feet 5 inches and 6 feet 11 inches tall. Our reviewer Collin stands a little over six foot and had no issues using the C7, but smaller users will want to pay particular attention to the adjustment ranges for maximum comfort.

• US: See all deals at FlexiSpot
• UK: See the full sale at FlexiSpot.co.uk

• Attackers cloned AI skills, later adding malicious code to steal credentials
• Zenity Labs found millions of installs and dozens of dangerous skill variants
• Vercel and Microsoft removed malicious skills, but manual removal is still required

AI skills, instructions that teach AI agents how to do certain tasks and thus extend their capabilities, are increasingly being used in supply chain attacks, researchers have found.

Security experts at Zenity Labs uncovered a credential-stealing campaign on skills.sh, a public registry (essentially an app store) for AI agent skills. In the registry, belonging to Vercel (a cloud platform for web applications), threat actors were cloning existing skills, creating typosquatted lookalikes which, at first, did nothing malicious.

However, after a little time had past, and the skills amassed a solid download count, the attackers introduced malicious code instructing the AI agents to, among other things, exfiltrate SSH keys, cloud credentials, Git and package manager tokens, Kubernetes and Docker configurations, database credentials, infrastructure-as-code credentials, environment files and service account files. The agents were then told to package the stolen information with host metadata and send it to the attackers.

While Zenity Labs could not say exactly how many people fell victim to this attack, they did stress that a single skill family amassed more than 1.7 million aggregate installs (not unique users).

And that is just one skill family, in a sea of malicious skills. The researchers also said they found “dozens” of additional skills exhibiting either malicious or dangerous behavior. Almost a third (30%) of identified dangerous skills abused Claude Code and OpenClaw to drop malware to their targets, as well. Also, Zenity found “hundreds” of reserved and empty package names that were being kept for future attacks.

These findings show how quickly cybercriminals adapt, and how creative they can get when it comes to abusing new tech. In essence, this campaign is an AI spin on a software supply-chain attack, being similar in spirit to incidents where attackers compromise an existing trusted package or repository, and later push a malicious update.

Following responsible disclosure, Vercel and Microsoft removed the identified skills, but Zenity warns that those who installed them before won’t be safe until they remove them from their systems manually.

Welcome to the Blu-ray Bounty July 2026. This is where we test the latest 4K releases of each month that we think will be perfect for showing off your home theater. If you’re new to the Blu-ray Bounty, you can check out previous editions here, where we’ve reviewed over 100 discs since starting in November 2024.

4K Blu-ray is easily one of the best ways to enjoy a movie at home, especially when it’s on the best TVs and best soundbars. I personally use it as my main source for testing AV equipment, thanks to its uncompressed picture and audio quality.

In last month’s June 2026 Blu-ray Bounty, I tested seven discs, including Speed Racer (which is one of the best discs I’ve ever tested, and you can expect to see it as reference source in future reviews), EPiC: Elvis Presley In Concert, Bullet In The Head (1991), Body Heat, Avatar: Fire & Ash, Five Easy Pieces and 36 Hours.

In this month’s list, I’ll be testing 4 discs, and I’ll be using our usual setup. This consists of the LG G6, one of 2026’s best OLED TVs, the Panasonic DP-UB820, the best 4K Blu-ray player for most users on the market, and the Samsung HW-Q990C, the brand’s flagship 11.1.4 channel Dolby Atmos system from 2023.

As always, I’ll only be discussing the video and audio quality of each disc, not the movie itself.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, sequel to 2023's The Super Mario Bros. Movie, follows Mario, Luigi, Peach Yoshi and Toad's adventure to rescue Princess Rosalina, who's been kidnapped by Bowser Jr. The film stars Chris Pratt, Anya-Taylor Joy, Charlie Day and Jack Black, who reprises his role as Bowser.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie looks gorgeous on 4K Blu-ray. This disc is so impressive, that I've even started using it for reference testing, and you can read my full thoughts on it here. Below is a summary about the disc's picture and audio.

It's all about color reproduction here, which is bold and vibrant, generating some amazing pop on screen. As the Lumas listen to Rosalina's bedtime story, the color of each Luma is punchy with some amazing highlights, especially with Dolby Vision HDR. The animation throughout is crisp, delivering 3D-like textures and depth that is seriously impressive.

If you have a bright display at home, you'll be rewarded with some beautiful brightness too. The star that one of the Lumas turns into dazzles on screen, and anytime Rosalina uses magic, there are stunning, glittery colors that illuminate the screen. The movie delivers excellent contrast too, particularly in space scenes where the dark blue sky of space balances nicely with the bright stars and vivid characters.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie has an impressive Dolby Atmos soundtrack included too. There's excellent detail and precision here, as Peach and Toad first fly through the space on the star, the twinkling trail behind the star follows its path accurately, and is well defined in the mix, clearly audible even in the uplifting score. As characters fly towards Bowser Jr's ship, height effects are fully utilized, with the character's flight mapped overhead to create a fully immersive sound. There's even great demonstrations of bass throughout, as character's fire up ship engines or crash through things, generating plenty of impact.

To Live and Die in L.A. follows the story of two Secret Service agents, Richard Chance (William Petersen) and John Vukovich (John Pankow), who are in pursuit of counterfeiter-turned-killer Eric Masters (Willem Defoe) after Masters kills Chance’s former partner.

To Live and Die in L.A. looks excellent in 4K in this restoration, presented by Arrow Video. Textures have been cleaned up well, with skin looking realistic, and more intricate details such as scars and marks on people’s faces delivered with real clarity in close-up shots. Colors have seen beautiful pop, with the Dolby Vision grade really adding some serious punch. Reds, such as those on the US flags throughout, in particular jump off the screen.

There’s some strong contrast throughout, as well as some refined shadow detail. In dimly-lit areas, overhead lights create strong shadows across people’s faces, with a stakeout scene with Chance and Vukovich acting as one of the best demonstrations of this. Black tones are deep throughout as well, in both environments and people’s clothing.

There are two soundtracks included here: the original stereo audio and a DTS-HD 5.1 MA mix. Using the 5.1 MA mix, there’s some seriously good detail here. As Masters makes counterfeit notes, the whirring of the printing press balances nicely with Wang Chung’s score. Even intricate effects in the scene, such as Masters cutting out the notes and washing the surface, are clearly audible. During a night-time stakeout, the pouring rain is accurately mapped to the rear channels, even creating a sense of height. Speech is clear throughout, and the soundstage is wide enough to give all elements room to breathe.

Alice In Wonderland, based on both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, tells the story of Alice, a young girl who ends up in a magical world where she meets a weird and wonderful cast of characters, including the evil Queen of Hearts who rules over Wonderland.

Alice in Wonderland looks great in 4K. Colors are bold and accurate in equal measure, faithfully rendering that classic Disney look. While most colors are beautifully vivid, it’s reds and pinks that really stand out on screen, looking particularly dazzling. The animation style here looks refined and has been nicely upscaled, giving characters more depth.

On the LG G6 I used, bright colors such as the white of Alice’s clothes and the gold of the doorknob have striking brightness and vibrancy to them, aided by the Dolby Vision HDR featured on this disc. While I usually use Filmmaker Mode on the G6, I found this movie did benefit from the brighter Cinema Home mode for some added punch.

While there is still some film grain present for cinephiles, the movie has been refined quite a lot and this does give the animation a very clean look, making it look much more contemporary than its original 1951 animation style would suggest.

There are two soundtrack options available: DTS-HD MA 5.1 and 2.0 mono. The 2.0 mono is more faithful to the original, but the 5.1 MA mix has a nice balance to it, giving every element depth and warmth, while letting them all breathe. The score is mapped to the rear speakers, allowing the front channels to deliver speech and other effects. Outside of the score and vocals, there aren’t many other elements to show off your home theater, but this 5.1 mix does sound brilliant.

Set in 1962, Hairspray follows Tracy Turnblad (Ricki Lake), a teenager who achieves stardom on a local dance show, and attempts to use her newfound fame to advocate for more racial integration on the dance show. Directed by John Waters, the movie also stars Divine, Sony Bono, Jerry Stiller and Debbie Harry.

As you’d expect from a movie set in the 1960s, there’s some seriously bold visuals here. From the bright pinks of the Turnblad home to the striking red of Link’s car, colors have some really nice pop on screen. Textures have been upscaled effectively, giving them a more 3D-like look, though not quite to the extent from other Criterion restorations such as 3:10 To Yuma. Finer details have also been refined, with individual strands of hair given some nice depth and volume.

There’s a lot of grain still present here, so cinephiles will be happy. Black tones are deep as well, shown predominantly in people’s hair. There’s some nice contrast too, as shaded areas contrast with the bright lights of the studios for the dance shows themselves.

For audio, there are two soundtracks available: DTS-HD MA 2.0 surround and DTS-HD MA 5.1. The 5.1 soundtrack does a great job of giving the soundtrack room to breathe, with a good balance between the speech and stacked tracklist of songs used for the dance scenes. More intricate effects such as the sound of shuffling feet and clapping hands during dance scenes have a nice clarity, clearly audible over the much louder songs.

• A developer has a 28.9-million-parameter model generating TinyStories-style text at 9.88 tokens per second, fully offline, on a $10 microcontroller
• It was achieved by fitting a language model on a chip with 512KB of RAM by leaving most of it in flash storage
• The project is available on GitHub under an MIT license

A developer going by slvDev has a 28.9-million-parameter language model generating text on an ESP32-S3, a microcontroller built for sensor nodes and smart plugs, at 9.88 tokens per second, with nothing leaving the chip.

The project, esp32-ai, went up on GitHub under an MIT license in late July 2026, was showcased on the Better Stack YouTube channel, and has since collected over 3,600 stars and has more than 470 forks of the underlying code.

Given the underlying hardware's limitations, the attempt meant the model, which was trained on the TinyStories dataset by Microsoft Research, had to be scaled down.

The arithmetic involved here is brutally unforgiving; weights typically need one to four bytes per parameter just to sit in memory, so 28.9 million parameters at 16-bit precision still require nearly 60 MB of RAM. An ESP32-S3 offers 512 KB of SRAM and 8 MB of PSRAM that is woefully inadequate at first glance.

Quantization closes the first part of the gap: dropping the weights to four-bit precision trades a little accuracy for a 75% reduction, bringing 60MB down to 14.9MB.

The second step is where the project earns most of its attention: most of a language model's parameters sit in embedding tables that the model reads from rather than computes against, and something you only read can live somewhere slow.

Borrowing Per-Layer Embeddings from Google's Gemma 3n, slvDev moved about 25 million parameters (roughly 12 MB at four-bit) into the board's 16 MB of flash, pulling around 6 rows, about 450 bytes, per token.

What remains in working memory is closer to 2 MB: the dense core and output head in PSRAM, and activations and norm weights in SRAM. Each tier stores whatever is read at its own frequency, and the chip's memory hierarchy serves as the architecture that enables the LLM.

Offloading weights to storage is not new; it is how people coax frontier-class models onto hardware that has no business running them, but it usually destroys throughput, turning tokens per second into seconds or minutes per token.

The PLE approach avoids that because the offloaded weights are accessed sparingly, so flash bandwidth never becomes the bottleneck. The resulting performance, 9.88 tokens per second, is faster than most people read.

The LLM has its limitations, however: the model writes short, mostly coherent stories and will not answer questions, follow instructions, write code, or know facts. The developer says the limit stems from the small part of the model that performs the reasoning (~4M parameters) and that the memory trick does not change its capabilities. His repository also ships a second model, Barista, which expressly answers espresso questions only (pun intended).

In short, the approach doesn't make small models smarter, but it does allow them to offload data within the board onto chips they could not previously run on, making it an interesting choice, though one with limited practical uses in its current iteration.

• Hivemind completes first autonomous swarming mission on water in Taiwan
• Drone boats identified and escorted a vessel during a coordinated surveillance exercise
• SeaShark 600 and 800 vessels operated together under a single autonomous command

An autonomous software system called Hivemind has directed a group of unmanned boats through a live mission for the first time on open water.

Developed by Shield AI, the AI tool took control of two vessel types built by Thunder Tiger during a staged exercise off Pingtung, Taiwan.

Engineers designed the exercise to test whether one AI system could manage several drone boats acting together as a coordinated unit.

Two vessel models, the SeaShark 600 and the SeaShark 800, carried out the reconnaissance work under Hivemind's direction during the exercise.

Rather than following pre-set routes, the software built its own path in real time using radar feeds, camera imagery, and ship-tracking signals pulled from the area.

It located the search zone on its own, spotted an object worth investigating, and then organized the fleet's response around that discovery.

Once the object was found, the boats worked together to guide a separate ship safely away from the area under watch.

The trial marked the first time Hivemind completed an on-water swarming exercise, extending technology previously associated with autonomous operations across different military platforms.

“Hivemind continues to prove that true mission autonomy can scale across domains, platforms, and functional assets, unlocking new capabilities for distributed intelligence and maritime security missions,” said Nathan Michael, chief technology officer at Shield AI.

“As we continue working with Thunder Tiger to expand the scale and sophistication of autonomous maritime teams, these systems will fundamentally reshape maritime surveillance operations and strengthen deterrence through resilient, intelligent operations.”

The companies began collaborating through a strategic agreement aimed at integrating Hivemind autonomy software across both maritime and airborne unmanned systems.

Shield AI and Thunder Tiger plan to expand their collaboration by integrating additional sensors and improving coordinated swarm capabilities across autonomous maritime platforms.

The companies also intend to conduct open-ocean deployments supporting future United States and allied military applications.

According to Thunder Tiger, the latest exercise also examined how fleets of unmanned surface vessels could improve maritime awareness by detecting, classifying and identifying contacts during security operations.

“By integrating AI pilots into our portfolio, we can enable distributed, networked teams that coordinate dynamically to build a more complete understanding of the maritime environment … while helping operators respond with greater speed, scale, and effectiveness,” said Gene Su, board director and general manager of Thunder Tiger Corp.

“This demonstration marks an important step … and we expect our partnership with Shield AI to continue delivering increasingly sophisticated autonomous systems that strengthen Taiwan's defense posture.”

The demonstration adds to ongoing efforts to advance autonomous maritime operations using coordinated unmanned surface vessels.

Future activities will likely focus on integrating additional sensors, expanding swarm capabilities, and conducting open-ocean deployments.

Via The DroneFront

• A police officer pulled a Tesla over for traveling 64mph in a 45 mph zone
• The owner attempted to plead innocence as Full Self-Driving was running
• Police issued a very blunt response

Video footage has surfaced online that shows a police department in Parker, Colorado, reportedly pulling over a Tesla for traveling 64mph in a 45mph zone.

While this isn’t unusual in itself, the plea from the Tesla’s driver is, as the excuse was that they weren't in control at the time. “I wasn’t driving. I had Autopilot on,” came the plea.

The three-minute video was released by the police, alongside a blunt reply (or perhaps a warning to other drivers?) that read: “Driver assistance technology does not replace the driver.”

“Whether your vehicle has adaptive cruise control, lane centering or full self-driving, you are still legally responsible for operating your vehicle safely,” the response added.

Despite the driver being clocked at 64mph in a 45mph zone, the Tesla owner belligerently claims they weren’t in control, it wasn’t their fault and that the self-driving system was activated.

The police officer then says: “I don’t know how these systems work, but you’re not the first person I have stopped with Autopilot activated.”

In fact, one of Electrek’s own writers documented the moment he got a speeding ticket while using Tesla’s Full Self-Driving.

Despite setting the system to Standard mode — as opposed to the faster Hurry or Mad Max settings — the vehicle still crept up to 78km/h in a 50km/h zone.

Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems are designed to assist the person behind the wheel, rather than completely replace them, no matter what Elon Musk espouses in his various public statements.

Currently, the law states that the buck stops with the driver, and any reckless driving, speeding or accident ultimately remains the driver’s fault, as they need to be ready to take control if and when these systems fail.

However, Tesla makes things difficult, as it has designed FSD to drift over the limit, even in Standard mode, and also took away the adjustable speed offset that once allowed owners to cap how far over the limit the vehicle would creep in autonomous modes.

Electrek reports that the adjustable speed offset was recently removed in FSD v14 and replaced with fixed driving profiles.

It is easy to see why Tesla has trained its systems this way, as many drivers get frustrated when technology vehemently adheres to speed limits and subsequently fails to keep up with traffic.

But with many other semi-autonomous cruise-control technologies, the driver has complete control over the speeds at which they are happy to creep over the limit.

If Tesla’s driving assistance systems keep landing drivers in hot water, many will stop using them entirely, which is exactly the opposite of what the company wants.

After all, Elon Musk has long promised that drivers will soon be able to text and immerse themselves in all manner of side tasks in the very near future.

But right now, it feels like Tesla owners need to be more alert than ever.

• Redditor uses Claude Code to help reverse-engineer the firmware on an HP 15-dw1036ne, patching its signature check and exposing 55 hidden setup fields and four configuration tabs
• The laptop's RSA-2048 was not broken: the verification routine was patched to return success, a standard firmware-modding technique as per Community Notes
• The result is model- and version-specific, still requires physical access via a hardware flash programmer, and leaves the machine permanently more exposed to firmware implants in the future

A Reddit user going by Reddit_2049 posted to r/ClaudeAI a claim that traveled fast: Claude Code had picked apart the firmware on their HP 15-dw1036ne and unlocked it, exposing 55 hidden setup fields and four previously invisible configuration tabs.

The move, though impressive, relies on a well-known BIOS modding approach: attacking the BIOS signature check so the BIOS always replies in the affirmative, effectively bypassing it altogether rather than throwing a potential firmware corruption error.

While it does have security implications, it also opens up a route to essentially 'rescue' locked or disabled laptops that would otherwise become e-waste.

What Claude Code did to "unlock" the Redditor's laptop is not a new technique. It bypassed the firmware's integrity check (an RSA-2048 signature verification) by targeting not how the check was performed, but how its result was reported.

The cryptography remains untouched, as Community Notes on two of the larger viral posts about the story pointed out. What the episode does highlight is that on machines without hardware-rooted boot protection, the verification routine itself sits in modifiable firmware, which is the same repair specialists and modders have relied on for years.

Reddit_2049 ran the job through the standard firmware toolchain: Ghidra for disassembly, UEFITool for extracting firmware volumes, and Unicorn Engine to emulate the check outside the real machine. Claude Code assisted here rather than acting autonomously by stitching together the relevant parts for him. The techniques involved are well documented; what was not documented was this particular machine, and that is the gap the model closed.

That opens an interesting front, one that could help with e-waste, even if not every owner is equipped to open a laptop safely or use a hardware flash programmer. An LLM that can read disassembly and hold a firmware layout in its head compresses hours of specialist work, which means targets that were never worth anyone's time individually now might be.

Whether the approach travels is an interesting question, however. The author of the original post warns the script may not work even on superficially similar HP models, and anyone attempting it on different hardware would need a flash programmer on hand and a tolerance for bricking the machine: modified firmware also brings its own problems, including occasional stability issues.

Right-to-repair rules in the EU and several US states have been circling this territory without directly addressing firmware. Until they do, the position stands roughly where it did last week, except that reverse-engineering a specific machine's firmware has become considerably cheaper for everybody.

That could let owners keep using older, locked laptops that would otherwise become e-waste, at a time when consumers are already burdened by higher costs due to inflation and an AI spending spree by data centers affecting laptops and desktops alike.

Campaigners have long feared the influence of big money and influential corporations in politics – with this situation arguably worse than ever. In modern times, lobbying by technology companies has even given way to technology executives playing a role in devising government policy.

At the end of his two-term presidency, Dwight D Eisenhower used his final address to the American people to warn about the dangers that he foresaw lying ahead.

This article is part of TechRadar Pro's QOTD project to provide an insight into the minds of the brightest and most recognized figures in the technology industry today and in years gone by. Read the full series here.

In particular, the military veteran warned about the rise of a new elite in society dominated by figures in science and technology, whose power would come to overwhelm democratically elected officials. He also suggested that the path of progress would be wrought with a lack of morals and ethics, with projects pursued in the name of progress regardless of the consequences to society at large.

A major component of this would be that the pursuit of major government contracts would dominate the scientific world, whereby the pursuit of money would dampen any genuine curiosity and lead to fewer meaningful discoveries.

The former US president's warnings have largely come to fruition, first with the rise of Silicon Valley elites during the original internet age and now, subsequently, these forces are arguably entrenching their power in the AI era.

Technology companies have spent billions of dollars collectively on lobbying the government, with a small handful of companies including Microsoft, Meta, X and Snap channeling more than $260 million between 2020 and 2024.

The Trump administration has taken this influence one step further by giving vested interests a seat at the table and in the heart of government.