News
- New panel has two-stack structure with redesigned emissive layers
- The result is much better color reproduction and good brightness
- It's likely to succeed OLED SE, which is in entry-level 2026 TVs
LG Display has developed a simpler kind of OLED panel that should deliver a better picture and cost less to make or buy than the panels in current WOLED TVs.
Where most WOLED TV panels use a three-stack structure to emit light (or four stacks in the case of some more premium versions), LG Display's new design uses two. That, the firm says, will reduce production costs and improve energy efficiency. And it'll also deliver improved colors.
The new panel is designed to be used in mid-range OLED TVs and in computer monitors, making it a direct rival for mini-LED. But you can't get it just yet; although the new panel exists, it hasn't entered mass production.
You can expect to see the new two-stack panels in TVs such as the successor to LG's B6 OLED TV. (Image credit: Disney / Future )When two stacks can be better than threeThis isn't the first time LG Display has made two-stack OLED panels: it produced two-stack OLEDs throughout the 2010s, but moved to three- and later four-stack structures to deliver improved picture quality and brightness. However, the more stacks you have, the more complex and expensive your panels become, and improvements in both materials and engineering have enabled LG Display to produce a two-stack design that wasn't possible a decade ago.
As LG Display explained to the Korean news sites The Elec and ETNews, reported by FlatpanelsHD, the two-stack WOLED panel uses a new blue emissive material and replaces the conventional yellow/green emissive layer with separate red and green layers.
That change enables the panel to deliver more accurate color reproduction, improving BT.2020 color coverage from 76.5% on three-stack panels to 82.5% on the new panel.
It's slightly brighter at 6500 Kelvin color temperatures, although it's a little less bright than WOLED at higher color temperatures. LG says it delivers wider viewing angles, too.
Speaking to The Elec, an industry source said: "If the next-generation two-stack architecture enters mass production, LG Display will be able to defend its position in the premium segment while expanding into the mid-range TV and monitor markets, where LCD and mini-LED technologies remain dominant."
As for when that expansion will happen, we don't have a definite timescale just yet: while the new panels are clearly destined for future LG TVs, LG Display hasn't said when it'll be making the panels available to the likes of Samsung, Sony, Philips and Panasonic.
For this year's affordable OLEDs, the key panel technology is OLED SE, which is the panel used in models such as the 2026 Panasonic Z86C (Z85C in Europe). That's brighter than previous entry-level OLEDs, but the potential downside is that the panel can be more reflective. There are various ways manufacturers can address that, but if reflectivity is a problem in your room it's important to read the reviews to find out what (if anything) they've done to reduce it.
Thinking of buying a new TV?Try our TV size and model finder! You tell it how far you sit from your TV, we'll tell you what size to buy based on viewing angle advice from image quality experts, and we'll recommend our three top TVs at that size for different prices.
- Google product approvals are being delayed, impacting small businesses
- Experts advise businesses not to resubmit products needlessly
- Google has not yet commented on the issue
Local SEO professionals, agencies, and small businesses have been reporting widespread issues with new and existing product listings becoming trapped in Google’s approval process, leading to concerns over the upcoming back-to-school period.
According to reports, the issues have been ongoing since July 30 2026, with it being raised both in Google’s own support community and leading local search forums. Businesses from multiple countries have reported the same glitch.
Google has not yet publicly acknowledged the issue, frustrating businesses that are preparing for the upcoming busy period.
Small business reliance on GoogleThe issue highlights a wider problem for small businesses that rely on platforms like Google to drive traffic to their products and services.
With small budgets and time constraints, small businesses often rely on just a handful of sources to drive the bulk of traffic to their websites. For example, a small store may rely primarily on their Google Business Profile to be the main way potential customers discover them.
So, when issues like these occur and platforms like Google fail to address them, it leaves small businesses frustrated and making best guesses on how to proceed.
Don’t panicSome businesses have reported continuously editing and submitting products in the hope that they will eventually be approved. According to some experts, this is exactly the wrong approach to take.
"Your first instinct is usually to keep editing the product or submit it again, hoping it will finally go live. Unfortunately, that's often the worst thing you can do,” says Thomas Phillips, Founder and Marketing Expert at DTC SEO Agency. “If this is a platform-wide issue, every resubmission effectively sends your product back into the review process. Instead of getting approved sooner, you risk resetting the clock each time."
For now, it appears the best course of action is to continue updating your site as usual and to avoid purposefully updating and submitting products several times in an attempt to get them approved.
Phillips also advises checking trusted SEO communities to see if others are facing a similar challenge before taking drastic action:
"When multiple agencies start reporting the same behaviour at the same time, it's usually a sign that the problem sits with the platform rather than the business.”
- Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Future Soldier is free to keep on PC until August 13
- The game is a tactical third-person shooter set in 2024
- The giveaway comes as part of the series' 25th anniversary
Ubisoft just made a classic Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon game free to keep to celebrate the franchise's 25th anniversary — but you only have a few days to claim it.
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Future Soldier can be added to your Ubsioft Connect library on PC from August 6 until August 13 for no charge.
To get your hands on it, download the Ubisoft Connect application on your PC and create an account. If you've played recent Ubisoft releases like Assassin's Creed Blag Flag Resynced or other Ghost Recon games, then you likely already have one, and can log in using your existing details instead.
Head to the library page and then select the 'Free games' tab.
(Image credit: Ubisoft)There you'll see a banner for the Ghost Recon Future Soldier giveaway. Click it to go through to the game's store page, and then hit 'Get it now' to add it to your account. You can then download and play the game.
Originally released in 2012, Ghost Recon Future Soldier is set in the then-futuristic year of 2024. It follows an elite squad of special-ops soldiers who use technology to gain an advantage in deadly battlefields around the world.
Tactical use of gadgets like drones and adaptive camouflage are keys to success, as is careful command of your AI teammates.
The game launched with a suite of multiplayer modes as well, though these were taken offline in 2022, which is unfortunate. Still, it's hard to grumble too much about a game you're getting completely for free.
The giveaway comes amid a flurry of other Ghost Recon announcements to mark the anniversary, including the release of a 4K 60fps mode for recent installment Ghost Recon Wildlands alongside the addition of a new story mission called Last Rites.
- Microsoft has admitted it's automatically installing an app on Windows 11
- The OneDrive Photos app is also being deployed mistakenly to business PCs as well as consumers
- There are a few odd things about this episode, and it's an anti-consumer move that doesn't sit well with Microsoft's broader goals to make Windows 11 better
Microsoft is in hot water after an odd decision to roll out a OneDrive Photos app to Windows 11 PCs used by consumers (with it also accidentally deploying the app to enterprise systems).
Windows Latest reports that Microsoft "effectively" told the website that the OneDrive Photos app is being automatically installed on Windows 11 computers whether it's wanted or not.
OneDrive Photos is a separate app to OneDrive, and it's designed for photo viewing and organization (with a light editing element bolted on). However, it's plain user-hostile behavior to have this software stealthily piped to a Windows 11 PC and forcibly installed.
What if you don't want it? What if you don't even use OneDrive sync at all, and you aren't signed in with a Microsoft account on your PC? Tough — you still get OneDrive Photos, as Windows Latest points out.
Even more bizarrely, this app — which is labelled as a beta — is appearing on business PCs, which it definitely shouldn't be doing (it's only used with a personal Microsoft account).
Microsoft wouldn't previously comment on the appearance of the OneDrive Photos app, but at least the company has now acknowledged that it is being installed on Windows 11 PCs.
There's still no official comment on why business devices would be getting this software, but Windows Latest tells us that it "understands that the rollout to enterprise PCs was not intentional". So apparently this was a mistake, and one that Microsoft is presumably in the process of correcting.
It's worth noting that there's also been some controversy about AI scanning faces for a feature in OneDrive Photos, accessed via the 'People' option, but this is only active if you explicitly allow it to be turned on (it's clearly opt-in, in other words).
Microsoft has clarified that if 'face grouping' is enabled, it runs only in the cloud with OneDrive photos (not other images on your PC), and any data collected is removed 30 days after you turn it off. The company has also assured users that it isn't using any photo data to train AI models on faces.
Analysis: I'm trying to tell you now, it's sabotage…(Image credit: Future)What is Microsoft playing at here? I really don't know, but this OneDrive Photos affair is a mess for a lot of reasons, and as you might guess, it has rubbed people up the wrong way. For starters, business users are very unhappy about having a piece of consumer-targeted beta software automatically deployed on their PCs, and are busy writing scripts to remove it (like this one on Reddit for example), rather than waiting for Microsoft to fix its error.
This is a baffling move for consumers too, because as noted, even if you don't use OneDrive at all, you'll still get this partner photo app. You can't even remove the OneDrive Photos app without deleting OneDrive as well — so if you do use the cloud storage app and sync features in Windows 11, but don't want this extra Photos application, well, you're stuck with it. You can have both, or neither.
That latter situation will change, though, Windows Latest informs us, and Microsoft is preparing an update that lets you remove the OneDrive Photos app without needing to nuke OneDrive entirely. I should hope so, too, and it's confusing how this rollout of a beta app went ahead without that choice in place.
The broad reaction on Reddit has been heated to say the least, and this is just more grit for anyone with an anti-Microsoft axe to grind.
One Redditor said "I'm uninstalling Windows. Linux is a little bit of a pain but worth it." There are more than a few similar comments in that thread, whether they're from people vowing to switch to Linux, or those who've already departed for OS pastures greener: "So glad I left Windows behind. Good riddance."
Interestingly, there are reports of this app appearing on Windows 10 PCs in the Reddit thread those comments are drawn from, although I haven't seen it on my computer with that OS (while it is on my Windows 11 system).
The trouble with all this is that it underlines how Microsoft is a vast corporation where the various limbs aren't always moving in alignment with the same aims. While the right hand is fixing Windows 11 and implementing a whole bunch of crowd-pleasing features or tweaks, the left hand is still messing around with anti-consumer initiatives such as this. Did no one tell the OneDrive team that Microsoft is supposed to be going full-tilt to persuade everyone that Windows 11 is the place to be, and that the software giant has mended its pushier and more obnoxious ways?
Apparently not, and just as we don't want third-party apps for the likes of monitors pushed on us quietly, in the background, via Windows Update, we don't want to unknowingly get first-party Microsoft software sprung on us, either.
Sort it out, Microsoft, please, because this is becoming an embarrassing oversight in terms of the big (and otherwise commendable) drive to make Windows 11 better.
- The Legend of Zelda Movie has reportedly found its Ganondorf and Impa
- Uli Latukefu and Dichen Lachmann are set to play the aforementioned pair
- The film also expected to feature Yvonna Strahovski and the late Sam Neill
The Legend of Zelda Movie just got a big cast update — and now we know who'll play the franchise's primary villain in Ganondorf.
Per Deadline, relative newcomer and Australian actor Uli Latukefu (Young Rock, Marco Polo) will play the imposing Big Bad in Sony's live-action film adaptation of Nintendo's beloved videogame franchise.
Deadline's report also claims that Latukefu has inked a multi-picture deal — a crucial detail that implies that, should the Zelda film be a critical and commercial success, Latukefu will return as the power-hungry Gerudo warlock in at least one sequel.
Dichen Lachmann will play Impa in The Legend of Zelda Movie (Image credit: Apple TV Plus)Latukefu isn't the only actor who's all but confirmed to appear in The Legend of Zelda's big-screen reimagining.
In a separate article, Deadline reported that Severance star Dichen Lachmann will portray Zelda's bodyguard Impa in the live-action film. This apparent confirmation comes months after Lachmann was supposedly spotted on set with Bo Bragason's Zelda — the latter of whom was announced as the titular character in July 2025. Benjamin Evan Ainsworth was also revealed to be playing Link, aka The Legend of Zelda's male protagonist and hero, at the same time.
Furthermore, Deadline's sources have suggested that Yvonna Strahovski (The Handmaid's Tale) and the late, great actor Sam Neill (Jurassic Park) are also set to feature, though the identities of their characters is unknown.
Who are Sam Neill and Yvonne Strahovski playing in The Legend of Zelda Movie?Sam Neill is best known for appearing in the Jurassic Park film series (Image credit: Apple TV Plus)According to Deadline's sources, Strahovski will portray an unnamed queen. Immediately, fans' attentions will immediately turn to Princess Zelda's mother, who's never actually showed up in a Legend of Zelda game.
However, there are numerous other female monarchs who Strahovski could portray. That includes Queen Sonia, who — spoiler — is revealed to be Hyrule's co-founder in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. This game, which is the latest entry in Nintendo's long-running and universally adored franchise, is the sequel to Breath of the Wild, which, based on The Legend of Zelda Movie's first-look images, many fans think the film is largely inspired by. If that's the case, it's possible that Strahovski could play Queen Sonia in a flashback sequence if the Zelda film incorporates aspect of Tears of the Kingdom's story into its plot.
As for Neill, who passed away from pneumonia in mid-July after a lengthy cancer battle, he might play King Rauru, aka Queen Sonia's husband. Other alternatives — in my mind, anyway — that Neill could embody in one of his final on-screen performances include King Rhoam, aka the last ruler of Hyrule, the 100-year-old Sheikh scientist Doctor Robbie, or a popular member of the Goron tribe, such as Daruk or Bludo.
Who do you think Strahovski and Neill are playing? Let me know in the comments. Once you have, find out everything we know so far about The Legend of Zelda Movie, which is now set to land in theaters worldwide on April 30, 2027.
There’s something deeply satisfying about the way Glorious goes about speccing its gaming peripherals. The company has a sharp eye for nonsense, and ruthlessly strips it out of the mice and, now, the headset that it brings to the gaming market. Behold, then, the GHS Wireless InfinitePlay, a wireless gaming headset featuring precisely zero RGB, built around normal-sized 40mm drivers, just quietly getting on with giving you multiplatform audio with infinite battery life and two mic options for $230.
With one swappable battery pack placed in the base station, it’s charging ready for use while you have the other one of the pair in your headset. Each one offers 85 hours of use from a full charge, and in case that wasn’t enough, a ‘guardian’ 45mAh built-in battery handles the changeover so you don’t need to turn the headset back on again after you swap. Handy.
That same ‘you won’t need it, but just in case…’ ethos is evident in the mic spec. You’ve got a detachable 70Hz-10KHz noise-cancelling mic for when you’re seated, locked in and ready to absolutely bellow at your team-mates away from prying eyes, and a built-in mic to use when you’re out and about using the Bluetooth connection to a mobile device or Nintendo Switch, and don’t fancy looking like an air traffic controller. Yes, it has 2.4GHz and Bluetooth 5.4 connections, swappable with one button press.
(Image credit: Future)And that’s a very impressive feature set at any price, but especially for $229.99 / £199.99 / AU$239.99. It’s not even super clear where the concessions have been made to hit the price point. The audio quality is simply good rather than audiophile-grade, but that’s totally in line with what this headset is for: gaming. It’s trying to articulate useful audio cues, not trick your ears into thinking they’re in the expensive seats at an IMAX cinema.
Similarly, the construction materials are almost exclusively lightweight, brushed black plastic rather than anything showier, but that serves the sprightly 360g headset weight.
One area of that headset build and design I did run into issues with is the headband. Your experience will vary depending on your head size, but I found a degree of pressure that becomes slightly uncomfortable during longer sessions. This being an elasticated suspended band design, it’s possible that this may ease as the band slackens over time, but during the month I’ve been using my unit I do still notice discomfort.
Besides that, there’s very little to grumble about. The power button isn’t clearly labelled, and the Bluetooth button can easily be confused for it, but this is a one-time issue. Once you know what’s what, that moment of unintuitive design becomes moot and you can enjoy the fantastic feature set of these cans.
Glorious GHS Wireless InfinitePlay: Price and availability- List price: $229.99 / £199.99 / AU$239.99
- Swappable batteries like the Arctis Nova Pro Wireless, for less
- Packed with useful extras
The extremely competitive pricing of this package is certainly one of its biggest assets. Packing a dual swappable battery design for less than Steelseries’ Arctis Nova Pro Wireless is a great way to announce one’s presence in the headset market, and Glorious backs that head-turning spec up with a number of handy additions that justify the price point.
Namely, a choice of mics (detachable or built-in) and a ‘guardian’ built-in battery that kicks in when you swap between the rechargeable packs, along with some serious configuration flexibility offered by the base station and dongle.
In this challenging economy, to put it mildly, you’d simply expect to see this package priced higher. The construction materials aren’t comparable with ultra-high-end models like the Audeze Maxwell 2 or the Logitech Astro A50 X, but they’re sturdy and finished to a high standard.
Glorious GHS Wireless InfinitePlay: SpecsGlorious GHS Wireless InfinitePlay
Price
$229.99 / £199.99 / AU$239.99
Weight
360g / 0.8lbs
Battery life
85 hours per pack
Compatibility
PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Android, iPhone
Connectivity
Bluetooth, 2.4GHz wireless, USB-C wired
Microphone
16-bit/48KHz
Glorious GHS Wireless InfinitePlay: Design and features- Black and orange design is Valve-esque
- Prioritises light weight over looks
- Battery packs look like retro FPS keycards
There’s a duality here to Glorious’ headset stylings. On the one hand, it's extremely restrained with the brushed black plastic on the base station and headset, an elegant amount of orange contrast trim on the whole package, and battery packs that look like they’d unlock a door in a ‘90’s shooter.
On the other hand, the company’s fundamental branding is based on a joke that got old quite a while ago. The brand's name references the glorious PC gaming master race meme and subreddit, which worked as a self-aware joke about PC gaming elitism in 2008 and 2011, but in 2026 works… less so. Look, this could just be an age thing, but to me the GabeN-like brand logo and ‘GGWP’ text on the lower-left earcup feel just a few steps away from a ‘Keep out mom, I’m gaming!’ poster. Given that this headset works with PS5, PS4, Switch and mobile devices (there’s no Xbox version), it’s also just confusing branding at this point.
With that chiding out of the way, I do like the look of this headset. The orange trim feels Valve-esque in the right way, like someone very clever sat and thought about this for a long time. The base station is compact and smart, with indicator lights to show when it’s connected to your headset and the charge status of the battery pack slotted into it. Two USB-C ports to the rear connect to a wireless dongle which sits flush with the base station when connected, and a USB-C-to-USB-C cable to connect to your PC or console. A USB-C to A adapter is also provided.
(Image credit: Future)The base station, dongle, cables, and Bluetooth connection create tons of setup configurations. You can ditch the base station and just use the dongle if you like, although that does mean you don’t have a spare battery charging while you use it. You can even ditch the dongle too and connect the headset with the USB-C cable, although I haven’t found a use case yet where that makes sense, since the built-in battery has a few hours of life even when both swappable packs are depleted.
The headset itself is pretty lightweight for a wireless model with a battery pack, eschewing flashy finishes for an all-plastic body with a fabric headband on suspended elastic, and breathable fabric earcups covering reasonably plush memory foam cushions. If you love that pulsing, sealed-in feeling of closed-back headphones like the HyperX Cloud, these aren’t your cans. They’re certainly closed-back, but the fabric around the earcups does affect the way you experience the audio from its 40mm drivers, producing a flat, detailed but not very low-end heavy response that’s reminiscent of Steelseries’ excellent Arctis Nova 7 and upwards.
I don’t get on with the physical control layout here, though. The location of the (unmarked) power button on the upper-left earcup threw me initially, and I think this control and its right-hand earcup mate are trying to do too much. Both are rotary dials as well as buttons, and while the left controls chat mix, profile swapping and battery status, the right controls volume and media controls. I’m all for minimalist design, but try navigating that while you’re concentrating on something in-game. It took me a couple of weeks to memorise how to perform all those actions.
Just one more gripe – the battery status readout would be much better if it gave you a percentage rather than simply an ‘ok’ or ‘charge now’. Maybe one for a future firmware update.
(Image credit: Future)Glorious GHS Wireless InfinitePlay: Performance- Tuned for gaming performance
- Good suite of software tweaks
- Battery life true to claims
We all know by now that buying a mouse, keyboard, or headset doesn’t turn you into a Faze Clan member, and the gaming performance gains in the headset vertical are especially marginal. That said, if you’re listening out for footsteps in PUBG Battlegrounds and your 2014 cans with their 60mm grotesquely tuned drivers are too busy making a far-off gunfight sound like a drum and bass gig, you might notice a bit of an advantage when you update your audio hardware.
That’s why it’s important that these drivers are tuned with a nice flat EQ response. That means that they don’t strongly emphasise one particular area of the EQ spectrum, unlike the aforementioned early 2010s models with their ‘scooped’ profiles that boosted the lows and highs like a sound engineer at a Metallica gig.
Sticking with a roughly even volume distribution along the spectrum means that the GHS Wireless InfinitePlay gives all frequencies space to voice and be heard. It might not sound mind-blowing like Audio-Technica or Audeze drivers, but it’s well-suited to games that reward a keen ear, from competitive shooters to singleplayer titles.
I find headsets tuned this way really useful in racing sims too, where I need to hear brake lockups and tire squeals as early as possible, and as prominently in the mix as I can.
Over in Glorious Core, the accompanying software, there’s a welcome and well-judged suite of options including a sidetone toggle, EQ tuning including some basic provided profiles, mic settings like noise cancellation toggling, and several options to tweak the headset behaviour, like when it auto-powers down and whether it gives you voice prompts. I don’t love that it’s taking up 0.99GB of my SSD space to do that, though, and would much prefer a browser-based tuning app.
The battery life really is as long per pack as Glorious states, and swapping them out is easy while you’re mid-session. Just take the spent one out, let the ‘guardian’ battery take over until the end of the round or the next quiet moment, then swap in the other pack.
I didn’t run into any setup issues when I used this with PC, PS5 or Switch, and found that the dual-wireless is pretty rock solid. It’s less suited as a console headset, particularly the Switch, since it really needs the base station to be connected in order to keep a battery pack charged and ready. But as a multiplatform solution (marketing types like to call these ‘battle station’ setups), it offers a no-fuss means to switch between devices.
(Image credit: Future)Should you buy the Glorious GHS Wireless InfinitePlay?Buy it if...Running out of charge = death
This is a hilariously extreme three-battery solution to the age-old wireless dilemma, and it works.
You play on a few devices
The base station and dongle configuration options make this ideal for multiplatform use.
You’ve got a thing for retro shooter keycards
These battery packs are unspeakably satisfying to swap in and out. You’ll feel like Doomguy every time.
You need Xbox compatibility.
There’s a long list of devices this headset supports, but Xbox isn’t one of them. If that's what you need, you should look at other models by.
Tighter headbands tend to dig in and cause you discomfort
There’s some adjustability to this headband, but not loads. If this is a frequent issue, try before you buy.
The old PC master race meme makes you cringe
When you build your brand on a meme that predates Skyrim, high cringe levels in 2026 are inevitable.
Not feeling like swapping in this wireless headset? Consider these premium wireless alternatives.
Glorious GHS Wireless InfinitePlay
Audeze Maxwell 2
Steelseries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless
Price
$229.99 / £199.99 / AU$239.99
$349.99 / £329.99 / AU$520
$349 (£329, AU$649)
Weight
360g / 0.8lbs
490g / 1.1lbs
0.75lbs / 339g
Battery life
85 hours
80 hours
36 hours
Connection type
PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Android, iPhone
2.4GHz wireless, digital wired (USB-C), analog wired (3.5mm audio jack), Bluetooth
Bluetooth, 2.4GHz wireless
Compatibility
Bluetooth, 2.4GHz wireless, USB-C wired
PC, Xbox (Xbox version only), PS5 (PlayStation version only), Switch, MacOS, iOS, Android
Playstation 4/5, PC, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android
Steelseries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless
Featuring Steelseries’ unique dual-battery charging solution, premium looks, plus ANC implementation, the Nova Pro Wireless is a premium headset option with few faults. No Xbox version, though, sadly.
For more information, check out our full SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless review
Audeze Maxwell 2
Goodness, these headphones sound great. The raw audio fidelity out of the box is benchmark-setting and the build quality is audiophile-grade, but Glorious’ model is in the same conversation for a lot less.
For more information, check out our full Audeze Maxwell 2 review
How I tested the Glorious GHS Wireless InfinitePlay- One month of use on PC, PS5, Switch and mobile.
- All configurations tested
- Tested with shooters, battle royales, racing games and more
Something about the black and orange design of this headset and base station gave me an overwhelming urge to replay Half-Life 2 episodes 1 and 2, so that is where I began. Hearing those familiar audio files through new drivers is a good reference point, actually, which helps to suss out how good the GHS Wireless InfinitePlay is at positional audio.
I’ve also been playing PUBG Battlegrounds, Counter-Strike 2 and F1 25 with this headset, and putting the mic through its paces with amateur found footage horror simulator, Content Warning.
Since it offers an array of connection types – with or without the base station, wired connection – I’ve spent some time playing on all of them, across my PC, Switch, and PS5.
Read more about how we test
First reviewed April 2026.
As of writing, Spider-Man: Brand New Day has become the highest-grossing movie of 2026 by bringing in $1.155 billion worldwide during its first week in theaters.
I knew that people were excited to get their cinematic Spidey senses back, but I didn't predict just how well the new Marvel movie would perform. I certainly don't think it's the strongest superhero movie we've seen in the last few years (more on that later), but Brand New Day's different format choices are certainly helping its appeal.
It's understandable that we're lapping up cinema being a more immersive experience when we're paying out for it — just look at how well Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey performed in both its original IMAX 70mm format and in 4DX. But surprisingly, Brand New Day is the first feature-length movie to be shot purposefully for another format: ScreenX.
But before we dig deeper into that what actually means, I come bearing a warning. Unless you're specifically trying to see Spider-Man: Brand New Day in every possible format as a personal challenge, ScreenX is one to be avoided.
In fact, I'd urge to to pay out quite a lot extra to experience flying through New York's skyscrapers in 4DX 3D instead.
How many formats can you watch Spider-Man: Brand New Day in?The full list of Spider-Man: Brand New Day cinema formats look something like this:
- Standard DCP (Digital Cinema Package), 2D and 3D
- IMAX
- RPX (Regal Premium Experience) or Superscreen
- 4DX and 4DX 3D
- Dolby Cinema
- ScreenX
Not all of these formats are going to be available to everyone, so let's use a local example. I'm based in the UK, and my beloved Cineworld membership means that I have access to DCP 2D and 3D within a 20-minute drive of my house.
If I'm happy to pay the travel fares for a trip into Central London, this also means that I can see Brand New Day in Superscreen (which is the British equivalent of RPX) and ScreenX if I pay an "uplift" fee on top of my membership's monthly direct debit.
Annoyingly, I've got to wait for IMAX as The Odyssey is still selling out most venues across the South of the UK.
Cost-wise, this is what non-members are looking at:
- Standard: £16.99
- Superscreen: £20.99
- ScreenX: £21.99
- 4DX 3D: £30.99 (with an extra £1.25 for 3D glasses)
With my membership and "uplift" fee, my costs are this:
- Standard: no uplift fee
- Superscreen: no uplift fee
- ScreenX: £4
- 4DX 3D: £6
In the US, these costs will roughly look like the following:
- Standard: $16-$20
- RPX: $23-27
- IMAX: approx. $27
- ScreenX: approx. $29
- 4DX 3D: approx. $33
So what is ScreenX? Essentially, it's a multi-projection cinematic technology that expands movies onto the left and right side walls of a theater (like you see in the above video).
This creates a 270-degree panoramic viewing experience using extra ceiling-mounted projectors — I counted two for each side during my Brand New Day screening.
Unlike 4DX, you're not actually moving. Depending on which cinema you choose to go to, you'll have the choice of regular or luxe recliner seating. As I was treating myself for the purpose of this piece, you can guess which one I decided on (and it was genuinely incredibly comfortable).
Currently, there are There are over 430 ScreenX auditoriums operating across 40 countries worldwide, which means, like me, you might have to pay extra travel fares to get to your closest theatre.
Up until now, ScreenX has typically been used for "key action or landscape scenes." But surely this would change for the first feature film shot in the format... right?
Spider-Man: Brand New Day in ScreenX is an underwhelming experience — I'm not sure why Marvel bothered(Image credit: Sony Pictures/Marvel Entertainment)In a word, no. Despite being filmed specifically for the format, Brand New Day still only uses its ScreenX capabilities in certain scenes — and I've got to wonder why Marvel bothered.
For context, this was my first time ever watching a movie in ScreenX, and I was fully expecting to be blown away. The novelty of watching scenes in 270-degrees lasted for all of a few minutes before I failed to understand what the impact of including my peripheral vision was intended to be.
Simply put, it felt as though ScreenX would hugely benefit from the inclusion of 4DX technology. Much like The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man ride at Universal Studios Florida, I wanted to be clinging onto my seat for dear life while being so visually immersed in flying through the air. The effect of ScreenX on its own left me unmoving, only wishing that I'd chosen a 4DX 3D screening across town instead.
The added insult to injury is that the 270-degree immersion didn't last for the duration for the film as I'd hoped for. The constant format changing between 270 to standard was incredibly jarring, and took me out away from the magic of the viewing experience itself, and even what was narratively happening throughout the movie.
For the travel sick among us, I interestingly found that ScreenX made me feel a lot more nauseous than 4DX ever has. Where I had worried about leaving my Kwells tablets at home before Odysseus (Matt Damon) got battered at sea in The Odyssey's 4DX screening, I hadn't even thought about it here — which was a mistake.
(Image credit: Sony Pictures/Marvel Entertainment)It's difficult to know how much of my ScreenX judgement is clouded by the fact that I thought Spider-Man: Brand New Day was merely... fine. Instead of watching the new movie in a standard format first before heading to a specialist format for a rewatch, I took the plunge with ScreenX first time around.
The CGI is often ropey at points, and I found the pacing of Peter Parker's (Tom Holland) re-reveal to MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon) to be tortuously slow. However, judging by my TechRadar colleagues' feedback, this was the overwhelming sentiment regardless of which format you watched the film in.
If studios want to film movies in ScreenX in the future, my advice is this: either use the 270-degree projection for the entire duration, or don't bother at all. It feels incredibly non-committal to wheel the technology out as a novelty showpiece for a few minutes before neglecting it, and it doesn't do overall artistry or the immersive experience any favors.
Instead, pour your efforts and resources into making 4DX screenings sing, or do a full Nolan and shoot entirely in IMAX (something which can be sustained for a film's full runtime).
A half-hearted gimmick is one that never works, but maybe that's a marketing ploy in itself — now I only ever want to see action-adventure movies in 4DX, meaning cinemas have secured the highest level of ticket costing possible from me.
For many, the release of ChatGPT in 2022 was transformative.
Difficult emails were drafted in seconds, complex documents that would have taken hundreds of man-hours to scan were checked in minutes.
But for some, whose livelihood depended on providing just the type of service that ChatGPT offered - providing copy, for example - 2022 was a difficult year.
We were in the latter group. Our company, Jacquard, was founded in 2015 - seven years before ChatGPT hit email inboxes and LinkedIn feeds around the world.
Jacquard’s basic offering was a platform that used natural language generation to write better email subject lines. Around 2015, we tried taking the technology to investors. They were skeptical. Intrigued, perhaps, but skeptical.
At that time, we were one of very few companies in the language generation space, and we felt it. It wasn’t all bad though - and we eventually got used to being one of the few players in the game.
Then ChatGPT launched.
Our offering, AI-powered language generation, was suddenly in the hands of millions. For free. The investor skepticism we'd spent years navigating disappeared overnight, and in its place: a gold rush.
Hundreds of startups emerged, many founded by people who'd never worked in marketing or natural language processing.
On paper, this could have been the moment it all went wrong for us. Instead, if anything, it only propelled us further forward.
Surviving AIIt wasn’t an easy few years, but looking back, I can now attribute Jacquard’s survival to four key factors: AI fatigue; proprietary data; user base evolution; and an outcome-focused approach.
First, AI fatigue. When ChatGPT launched, everyone rushed to build, and then market, a GPT-wrapper. If it was a gold rush - to take the metaphor a little further - then too much gold flooded the market, and the value depreciated fast. Fatigue was everywhere, and it set in quickly.
Stakeholders grew tired of sitting through pitches that promised something revolutionary but delivered mediocrity.
Instead of a one-size-fits-all solution, what we all saw was generic copy, off-brand tone, and outputs that, at best, needed significant human reworking before they were anywhere close to usable.
85% of brands now use ChatGPT, in some capacity, to produce their marketing content. You can find the exact same turn of phrase in the marketing materials from a multinational conglomerate, as in your local café.
Our offering - the ability to maintain a genuinely distinct brand voice across complex segmentations at scale - became more valuable precisely because the market had made the problem worse.
Which leads to proprietary data. We have 60 billion data points built up over a decade of real enterprise campaigns. Far from being just another wrapper, we had ten years of learnings that no newly founded startup could acquire overnight. We trained a prediction engine on that data - and could back up our promises to deliver increases in engagement.
Of course, not every business starts from this position. But proprietary data, whatever form it takes for your industry, is worth finding. It’s likely more valuable than you think.
An evolving userbaseOur user base evolved alongside all of this. The client conversation shifted. Early on - pre-GPT - every sales meeting began with an education: what is natural language generation? Why trust an algorithm with brand copy? How does machine learning actually improve campaign performance? Post-GPT, those questions disappeared entirely.
They were replaced by a harder one: what makes your AI different from everything else? And so the bar moved. Clients came to us already exhausted by generic tools, already aware that AI-generated copy had a sameness problem. We no longer had to explain what AI was - now, all we had to do was prove that ours was worth the switch.
Last, and perhaps most important, our platform was never built solely around AI. AI was simply the most effective route to our solution. The businesses that folded had built their entire proposition on the novelty of AI. Once it wasn't, they had nothing.
We had been working on the same fundamental problem since 2015, and the arrival of large language models, ultimately, didn't change what that problem was. It just changed the tools available to solve it.
What we know now, having been through the full cycle - from obscurity to gold rush to consolidation - is that the brands who came out ahead weren't the ones who adopted AI fastest.
They were the ones who were clearest about what they were trying to say, and had the infrastructure to say it consistently. That is a harder problem than it looks. It is also the one we have spent ten years solving.
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The rapid growth and evolution of AI technology has led to major shifts in how businesses of all sizes work - but it is also impacting their next big corportate move.
AI has fundamentally changed the risk profile of innovation, as it can expose companies and users to risk earlier, faster and at far greater scale.
Organizations used to be able to afford to delay digital transformation decisions and remain competitive - but now, competitors can use AI to exponentially accelerate while the companies which wait for exact certainty can be left behind before they even begin.
This all means trust is now a crucial business imperative, and organizations must tighten up governance, privacy and security to prevent regulatory and reputational risk - we spoke to Joe Depa, EY Global CIO, to find out more.
- Many organizations have spent the past two years experimenting with AI, but relatively few have achieved measurable business impact. From EY's perspective, what separates the companies that are delivering tangible ROI from those that remain stuck in what you've described as “pilot purgatory”?
Everyone wants to move faster with AI. The first question is whether they can move fast with trust. The second is how deeply they understand and can optimize the AI value equation.
Trust is what separates the companies getting real ROI from the ones stuck in pilot purgatory. The winners that scale AI successfully across the business tend to share a few characteristics.
They have trusted data as the foundation. Proprietary, secure and well-governed data is becoming one of the biggest competitive moats a company has, because it reflects its unique knowledge, judgment and expertise.
On top of that foundation, they have trusted processes and technology. Data has to be connected to real workflows, real decisions and real business outcomes. The companies pulling ahead don’t use AI to make old processes a little faster. Instead, they rethink how work gets done, where AI can create new value, and how to build governance into the way AI is deployed and scaled.
Then, most importantly, winning organizations invest heavily in helping their workforce expand their skillsets so they can use AI confidently. People won’t use AI if they don’t trust it, and if they don’t use it, they won’t develop the expertise to know where to apply it. That is why upskilling is so important; it’s how you turn employees from passive users into change agents.
Put simply, pilots are great for learning, but being able to progress to scaled adoption is what creates business outcomes. And scaled adoption can only happen when people trust the data, the process, the technology and their own ability to use it well.
That brings us to how to understand and optimize AI value. There’s a lot of focus lately on token costs, but token costs are just one element of the AI value equation. This is a major disconnect that we spotted early in our own business. We saw rising token costs and high-end models being used for low-value work.
In retrospect, it was an important lesson about how measurement priorities change as technologies mature. In the early days of generative AI, the focus was on getting people to use it, so organizations tended to view usage as an indicator of momentum. But now that generative AI models and use cases have become more sophisticated, our focus has shifted to measuring business outcomes.
So we developed a set of best practices to address that. We optimized model selection against the highest value use cases, trained our teams, and put governance around usage. Those strategies enabled us to bring overall token consumption down 60%, while bringing value up. We’ve formalized this in an AI Value Realization Office focused on governance, training and value measurement. The goal is to ensure AI is being applied to the highest-value opportunities and delivering measurable impact.
- There's often a tension between moving quickly with AI and putting the right controls in place. How can organizations build governance, privacy and security into AI programmes from day one without slowing innovation to the point where they lose competitive advantage?
People often think of governance as the brake, but the opposite is true: having good governance is what gives you the confidence to press the accelerator.
The companies getting it right are building trust into AI from day one, so their teams can move faster without creating risks they have to unwind later.
EY’s Responsible AI Pulse survey found that companies further along in responsible AI are reducing risk and seeing better business outcomes. Nearly four in five reported gains in innovation, and more than half reported revenue growth. Companies with real-time monitoring were also more likely to see improvements in revenue growth and cost savings.
People move faster when they know the guardrails. If employees have a safe, well-governed environment to experiment in, they are much more likely to try new ideas. But if they are worried that every idea could create a compliance issue, they slow down or avoid experimenting altogether.
Governance also matters technically. When controls are added too late, teams often end up with rework, technical debt or pilots that looked promising but cannot scale. Building the right controls early helps avoid that.
Furthermore, once AI agents start to take action, governance can no longer live in a document. It has to be built into the system itself: how access is controlled, how behavior is monitored, how bias is checked and how safeguards kick in when an agent acts.
That is the balance leaders need to strike. Move fast, but do it with trust built in.
- As AI becomes embedded in core business processes, trust is increasingly seen as a commercial issue rather than simply a compliance one. How are you seeing boards and executive teams rethink governance in light of growing regulatory scrutiny and the potential reputational consequences of AI failures?
Trust is absolutely a commercial issue. If customers, employees or regulators do not trust the products, systems or decisions powered by AI, they will find reasons not to use them. That can affect brand, reputation, operations and growth.
Boards cannot govern what they do not understand. That does not mean every director needs to be a technologist. But boards do need enough AI and technology fluency in the room to ask the right questions, challenge management and understand where the real exposure sits.
We are seeing boards move from asking, “Are we compliant?” to “Where are we exposed?” That is an important shift. Boards are starting to see AI risk more broadly in terms of enterprise risk, in addition to legal and regulatory risk. Agentic AI raises the stakes even more.
For boards, there are three practical next steps.
1. Build AI fluency into the boardroom. Boards need people who understand enough about technology and AI to pressure-test the strategy, the risks and the controls. This doesn’t mean that everyone needs to code, but they do need enough fluency and visibility into leading value indicators to know whether management is asking the right questions.
2. Require visibility across the AI portfolio. Boards should understand where AI is being used, what data it relies on, how material the use case is, who owns it, what resources are being consumed, and what controls are in place. The goal of all this knowledge is to help boards ensure AI is creating business value and that it is being governed at the solution level, the portfolio level and the enterprise level.
3. Make the technical controls real. That means AI-ready data, clear access controls, audit trails, model and agent monitoring, defined escalation paths and the ability to intervene when something behaves outside expectations. Of course, training is absolutely critical to drive adoption of these tools.
- Many businesses are keen to demonstrate they're embracing AI, but there's a risk of what you've called “innovation theatre.” What are the warning signs that an organisation is investing in AI for appearances rather than driving genuine business transformation, and how can leaders avoid falling into that trap?
The warning sign is when activity gets confused with impact.
A company can have a long list of pilots, demos and proofs-of-concept and still not be creating meaningful value. That is innovation theatre. It looks busy. It may even look impressive. But it does not change the business.
The companies getting this right are much more disciplined. They’ve moved beyond measuring activity to measuring impact on business value. They’re focused on which pilots created value, which scaled successfully, and which improved workflows, customer experiences, risk outcomes or financial performance.
The most successful organizations also establish accountability from the start. Every AI initiative should have a business owner, an investment hypothesis, clear success metrics and AI enabled training that focuses on deploying effectively. Without this, it becomes difficult to separate experimentation from impact.
If pilots are not scaling, leaders need to understand why. Is it a data issue? A trust issue? A weak business case? No clear owner? Not enough transparency or control? Not enough training? Those failure modes tell you where the organization needs to get better.
Disciplined companies avoid the innovation theater trap. Every pilot has an owner, a set of priority metrics and a decision point: scale it, rethink it or kill it.
Otherwise, you end up with a lot of interesting demos and not enough business impact.
- With AI regulation evolving across different markets and customer expectations around responsible AI continuing to rise, what governance practices do you think will become non-negotiable over the next 12 to 24 months for organisations that want to scale AI responsibly?
AI is moving faster than any one organization, board or regulator can fully keep up with.
That is why leaders don’t have the luxury to wait and see. They need governance models that are resilient enough to adapt across markets, because the regulatory environment will continue to evolve, and it will not evolve the same way everywhere.
Sovereign AI will become a much bigger part of that conversation. Organizations will need to understand where their data lives, how it is protected, who can access it, which models are being used and how those systems align with local laws and market expectations. That goes beyond a technical issue; it’s becoming a board, regulatory and trust issue.
The companies that get this right will focus on a few practical areas.
One is data governance and sovereignty. You need to know what data your AI is using, where it came from, where it is stored and whether it is appropriate for the use case.
Another area of focus is resilience in the operating model. Regulation will keep changing, so governance must be dynamic. Organizations need controls, monitoring, audit trails and escalation paths that can adapt as new rules, risks and expectations emerge. For example, when AI agents are deployed that can make decisions, take action and interact with other systems, regulators will expect organizations to understand how it behaves in the real world.
Lastly, they have an open ecosystem. No company can navigate this complexity alone. Leaders will need to work across regulators, technology providers, advisors, industry groups and academic institutions to separate signal from noise and understand where the market is heading.
Focusing on these areas is how responsible AI evolves from a static set of policies to an enabler. It needs to be designed at the outset into the ways companies manage data, deploy technology, work with regulators and scale innovation across markets. That is how you build trust and resilience at the same time.
- Looking ahead, do you think trust will become a competitive differentiator in AI adoption? In other words, will organisations that can clearly demonstrate robust governance, transparency and security gain a commercial advantage over those that treat these issues as a compliance exercise?
Yes. Trust is a business necessity, not a checkbox.
The irony is that trust can help companies move faster. When the guardrails and success indicators are clear, teams are freed to innovate with more confidence and less rework.
That is why responsible AI is a growth and innovation driver. If you can show that your AI is governed, explainable, secure and monitored, people are more likely to adopt it, they’ll be far more comfortable scaling it and, most importantly, they’ll be better positioned to scale, differentiate and create value.
That’s the real opportunity: the confidence to move fast in a way everyone, from boards to employees to customers, can trust.
Sorting, managing, editing, and sharing your photographs is a job and a half, often requiring multiple apps just to get on top of the workflow.
I’ve tested several software packages that do a very good job at merging practically every tool you need into a single app, but what’s bugged me is they only cater to Windows users.
Which is why my interest was piqued by ON1’s Photo RAW’s multi-platform capabilities (well, for Windows and Macs - sorry Linux users). So let’s take a look at it.
ON1 Photo RAW 2026: Pricing & plans(Image credit: Future)- No subscription model
- You purchase the software outright
- Generous trial period, money back guarantee, what's not to like
The ON1 Photo Raw has a flash sale ending today (August 7), with 50% off - you can check it out by clicking here.
More and more companies have jumped to subscription plans - I'm never a fan of this.
Well, ON1 are having none of that, and its Photo RAW app is only available to own outright. Full price, it costs a very fair $100.
When you consider you can use Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop for $20 a month, not only will you be saving money with Photo RAW after only 5 months.
The software also comes with a very generous 30-day free trial (email address required, but not your credit card details). If you purchase it and conclude it’s not for you, there’s also a 30-day money back guarantee. That means ON1 want to be certain you’ll only buy their software if you’re delighted with it.
You can see what's on offer here.
- Pricing & plans: 5 / 5
- Plenty of tools
- When all on display, you’re not left with much space for photos
- But thankfully you can hide sidebars at will
I found Photo RAW’s interface to be very well thought out, polished and designed. Perhaps a little too polished, as some actions and concepts weren’t immediately obvious to me.
Like a little hollowed out blue circle being a tick box, or clicking on a menu’s header would collapse or expand its content. But it just takes a few seconds to figure it out and then you’re flying.
There are numerous sidebars on either side, the thinnest one furthest to the left is contextual, depending on the module you’re in. Selecting ‘Home’ shows you some recent photos you’ve worked on, along with those available in recently opened folders. You’ll also find links to helpful tutorial videos.
‘Browse’ reveals the guts of your local hard drives, with every single folder you’ve ever created ready to be accessed, and also offers access to online storage from Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive
‘Edit’ is where you’ll work on your photos, and selecting that icon will also reveal additional icons down that sidebar.
If you’re ever puzzled about what a particular icon does, hover over it for a few seconds to reveal a tool tip popup window, complete with a short audioless video illustrating what it does.
When a tool is selected, a toolbar at the top of the interface will offer specific parameters for that selected tool. The other three sidebars can be customised - you can choose if some tools are displayed in the left or right one, or you can remove them from view altogether offering more space to the shot you’re working on.
By default, the large sidebar on the left is for your presets and layer work, while the one on the right is for your regular color correcting tools, and similar. A small sidebar on the far right contains options to share your work either online or by printing it.
- Interface: 4 / 5
- Tools are easy to use
- Many are made better with the clever use of complex algorithms designed to improve your work rather than supplant it
Now, to start, I downloaded a series of free RAW files from Signature Edits (check out the website here).
If you’ve done any color correction you’ll recognise all the sliders present in the ‘Tone and color’ section on the right, which allow you to make satisfying alterations to an image in next to no time.
But if that just takes too long for you, just above those sliders is a ‘Brilliance AI’ button. Activate it, and complex algorithms will do the necessary changes for you. But unlike many other AI features from competing software, this doesn’t need to be the be all and end all of the process.
Expand Brilliance AI to reveal sliders to enhance or tone down those automatic changes, including some very clever masking options to focus your changes on specific sections, such as people, animals, the sky, and more. You can also just go back to Tone and color sliders to make any further alterations yourself.
Adding Filters is as easy as selecting one you’d like and using one of its preset ‘Styles’. As before you’re also free to make manual changes thanks to the available sliders, if you’re after a more unique look. It’s good to know you can add as many filters as you’d like to an image.
(Image credit: Future)When it comes to masking, Photo RAW has some complex algorithms ready and waiting to work for you, in the shape of Super Select AI. Clicking on that tool (in the thin left sidebar) lets the software analyze your image. This should only take a couple of seconds. You can then isolate a specific area of an image, modifying it while leaving the rest untouched.
The level of precision you can have with masks is quite extreme. For example, adding to your selection, solely focussing on small sections of your image such as a subject’s eyes, adding a filter to the entire shot, and then removing it for one or two specific areas. You can get amazingly detailed with your alterations.
And if that isn’t enough, you’re able to work with layers, just like you can with Photoshop, superimposing photos on top of others, masking areas, revealing others, adding text. Although to be honest, being used to Photoshop and the like, that section did feel a little too bare in comparison.
What you can do with Photo RAW is remarkably intensive, and it uses those complex algorithms it calls AI in a way that enhances your creativity rather than take over the process, and that can only be lauded.
Should I buy ON1 Photo Raw? FutureFutureFutureBuy it if...You’re looking for software to organize, manage, alter and share your photos, love the idea of a perpetual licence, and appreciate AI being used as a clever and intricate tool rather than a replacement for your actual vision.
Don't buy it if...You are too wedded to Adobe’s suite of creative software, or your editing needs are too casual to take advantage of the level of complexity and precision Photo RAW offers.
For more creative tools, we tested the best photo editors.
DDR5 RAM prices remain painfully high, making memory upgrades frustratingly expensive. And honestly, not every PC needs DDR5, and millions of existing desktops can't use it anyway.
Right now, the 32GB G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series DDR4-3200 kit is $210 (was $230) at Amazon. You get two matched 16GB modules running at 3200MT/s with CL16-18-18-38 timings, plus an Intel XMP profile for straightforward configuration on compatible systems.
Should you buy it?✅ Buy the G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 32GB if...
Your existing desktop supports DDR4 and you want to increase its memory without replacing your motherboard and processor simply to gain DDR5 support. 32GB will be enough for most heavy multitasking, gaming, and photo editing tasks, and the matched 2 x 16GB configuration provides dual-channel operation on compatible systems.
❌ Skip the G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 32GB if...
You're thinking of building a new PC around a modern DDR5-only platform or already have 32GB of adequately fast DDR4 installed. DDR4 and DDR5 aren't interchangeable, so check your motherboard specifications before buying.
You should avoid mixing separate memory kits, even when their specifications appear identical, because doing so can cause stability problems.
The Ripjaws V Series includes two matched 16GB DDR4-3200 modules, CL16-18-18-38 timings, 1.35V operation, Intel XMP support, and a standard 288-pin U-DIMM design for compatible desktop PCs.View Deal
Why we recommend itDDR5 offers greater bandwidth and is the obvious choice for platforms designed around it, but that doesn't make DDR4 obsolete overnight.
If your motherboard supports DDR4, upgrading the machine you already own can make much more sense than replacing other components simply to move to the newer memory standard.
For a compatible PC, 32GB of DDR4-3200 will be plenty good enough for most everyday workloads and games. More importantly, upgrading your current system will be much simpler.
This Ripjaws V kit provides a useful capacity, respectable CL16 timings, and XMP support without unnecessary extras such as RGB lighting.
Price context & historical valueThe current $209.89 price isn't a historic low, but the bigger picture explains why. This 32GB kit was selling for well under $100 last fall before surging to nearly $285 earlier this year on the back of the RAM crisis. Prices have since fallen steadily, with $209.89 holding for the past month.
That's considerably below the recent peak, but still far above last year's pricing. It's at the same price at Newegg right now, and $240 (was $250) at Best Buy. Until the RAMpocalypse ends, you likely won't find a significantly better deal on Ripjaws V Series memory.
I recently highlighted a price cut on Corsair's Vengeance 32GB DDR5 RAM kit deal - and it stirred a lot of debate over the sky-rocketing prices of top-end RAM. This is a much cheaper option.
The Catch: What to know before you buyDDR4-3200 is mature technology, so you're buying capacity and compatibility rather than cutting-edge performance. The 9% discount is fairly small, but also as good as you will likely find right about now.
Check your motherboard's memory support before ordering, and don't assume you can combine this kit with existing RAM without potentially encountering compatibility or stability issues.
Also consider these 32GB DDR4 RAM kitsTwo 16GB DDR4-3200 modules with CL16 timings, customizable RGB lighting, XMP support, and aluminum heat spreaders, delivering responsive performance for gaming, content creation, and demanding multitasking.View Deal
This DDR4-3200 kit combines two 16GB modules with CL16-18-18-42 timings and 1.35V operation, delivering responsive performance for demanding applications, content creation, and heavy multitasking on compatible Intel and AMD desktops.View Deal
Built for demanding desktop workloads, this 32GB DDR4-3200 kit includes two 16GB modules, CL16-20-20-38 timings, and support for Intel XMP, providing fast performance for content creation, and multitasking.View Deal
Another 32GB DDR4-3200 kit that pairs two 16GB modules for dual-channel operation, providing plenty of memory for gaming, content creation, demanding applications, and heavy multitasking on compatible desktop PCs.View Deal
During our latest tests of Turbo VPN's Windows client, we identified active IP leaks and misconfigured protocols that put users' privacy at risk.
Owned by Singapore-based Innovative Connecting Pte. Limited, Turbo VPN boasts over 500 million downloads on Android.
Although the provider issued a patch after receiving our initial technical findings earlier this week, version 3.6.0.0 continued to leak IPv6 addresses across its proprietary protocols (Lepus and LinkSentinel) as well as standard OpenVPN connections.
Following further technical evidence provided by TechRadar, Turbo VPN has deployed a second update (version 3.7.0.0) for Windows to patch the persistent IPv6 leaks. Our testing confirms that this latest build now successfully blocks unencrypted IPv6 traffic.
However, information regarding the app's proprietary protocols remains scarce, and one protocol (V2Ray) was quietly removed during the recent updates. When asked about its removal, the company told TechRadar it is "still checking" the protocol.
Intermittent IP leaksConcealing your IP address is a VPN's primary objective. However, when we began testing Turbo VPN's proprietary protocols earlier this week on an IPv4-only connection, we found that our real IP address wasn't being hidden at all.
Despite the app displaying that we were "connected," every online IP lookup test we ran showed our real IPv4 address. We rebooted our machine, reinstalled the app, and used multiple independent lookup tools, but the issues persisted.
Screenshot showing IPv4 leaks with Turbo VPN connected during our initial tests on version 3.5.2.0 (Image credit: Future)To confirm our findings, we installed the app on a second machine on a separate dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 network. Testing on this setup revealed a distinct failure: while our IPv4 address was masked, our genuine IPv6 address remained exposed.
Subsequent follow-up tests on our IPv4-only connection also saw IPv4 masking stabilize, which highlights the intermittent nature of the initial build.
After we shared these technical findings with the team, Turbo VPN issued an update (version 3.6.0.0). In our testing of this build, the app successfully masked IPv4 addresses consistently but IPv6 addresses remained exposed on proprietary protocols and standard OpenVPN connections.
Given that most modern operating systems and web browsers favor IPv6 connections over IPv4, failing to tunnel or block this traffic left users on dual-stack connections exposed by default.
Following a subsequent update issued today, the Windows app is now blocking unencrypted IPv6 traffic while masking IPv4 addresses consistently.
Screenshot showing IPv6 leaks on Turbo VPN version 3.6.0.0 (Image credit: Future)Lepus: a VPN or Shadowsocks proxy?Lepus is listed alongside Turbo VPN's standard VPN protocols. It is described as providing "excellent camouflage with equally outstanding speed and stability built for highly restricted networks."
However, during our initial tests Lepus operated in ways distinct from standard VPN protocols. Rather than creating a system-wide encrypted tunnel, it executed a local ShadowsocksR (ssr.exe) process that toggles Windows settings (ProxyEnable: 1) to run a local proxy on port 46288.
That means any non-browser data sent from your device — including background OS traffic, desktop messaging apps, and command-line utilities — did not benefit from an encrypted tunnel and was instead routed over a standard connection.
We asked the team at Turbo VPN how long this behavior may have been present for, but they did not reply to that specific question.
In our subsequent tests, version 3.6.0.0 successfully protected all outbound traffic in an encrypted tunnel and successfully operated as a system-wide tunnel for IPv4 traffic.
However, its configuration still allowed for IPv6 leaks, which means users on a dual-stack connection were left exposed. This is because the app did not enable any IPv6 virtual interfaces, assigned zero IPv6 gateway routes, and set no firewall rules to block outbound IPv6 traffic as shown below.
Screenshot showing IPv4 and IPv6 route table while connected to Turbo VPN's Lepus protocol on version 3.6.0.0. (Image credit: Future)The official response, and what comes nextAfter sharing multiple rounds of technical feedback with Turbo VPN, the Windows app (version 3.7.0.0) appears to have fixed the remaining IPv6 leak issues.
Rather than attempting to create a full IPv6 infrastructure, the latest version appears to have implemented IPv6 blocking at the client level. This forces all web traffic down the encrypted IPv4 tunnel.
However, detailed information about the proprietary protocols remains conspicuously absent both within the app and on Turbo VPN's website — a search of the company's official website yields no results for Lepus or LinkSentinel.
Beyond a brief descriptor on the protocol-selection tab, users are given no technical context about how these protocols route traffic or what security mechanisms they employ. Combined with the silent removal of V2Ray, users are left with little information on how best to secure their connection.
The company did not respond to questions about the lack of information regarding the app's proprietary protocols. In response to our initial findings, the company said: "The behavior observed in the Windows client arose only under certain network configurations, appearing to occur in a limited number of network environments.
"Following the points you raised, our technical team carried out a thorough review and implemented the necessary improvements in the latest Windows build within a short timeframe."
We will continue to test the product and update our full review in the coming weeks.
- NordVPN 5.3.0 for Linux automatically installs the GUI app alongside the command-line daemon
- A new NordVPN diagnostics command bundles troubleshooting info into a single shareable file
- CLI commands are now case-insensitive, and older operating systems like Ubuntu 20.04 are no longer supported
NordVPN has rolled out version 5.3.0 of its Linux app, marking a notable shift in how the provider approaches the notoriously command-line-heavy operating system. Starting with this August 2026 release, the provider’s graphical user interface (GUI) will now install automatically alongside the standard daemon.
The best VPN on the market according to TechRadar's testing, NordVPN has spent the last couple of years steadily improving its Linux offerings. While the company first launched a full GUI for Linux to make securing open-source systems as simple as clicking a button, it previously required a separate installation step.
Now, by making it part of the default setup process, NordVPN aims to increase its usage among Linux users who may have skipped or missed the extra package entirely.
"The GUI app now installs automatically alongside the daemon," the provider noted in its latest release notes. "It's been around for a while, but we figured it deserved a little more visibility."
This change ensures that all Linux users immediately benefit from visual features like light and dark mode, server maps, and easy toggles for post-quantum encryption, without ever having to touch the terminal. The integration comes just a year after NordVPN made its Linux GUI app open-source, allowing the community to inspect the code for complete transparency.
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Simpler troubleshooting and broader changesWhile the automatic GUI installation is the most visible change, version 5.3.0 brings several major quality-of-life improvements to the Nord's Linux VPN.
First is a brand-new diagnostics command. In the past, Linux users troubleshooting connection issues had to manually run a series of complex commands to pull network information, system specs, and firewall rules.
The new tool consolidates this process, gathering all necessary data into a single file that can be securely shared with the support team. However, NordVPN clarifies that "this command is not yet available for Snap package installations."
The command-line interface (CLI) has also received an overdue tweak: commands are now case-insensitive. As the company jokingly explained in the notes, users can "feel free to shout in ALL CAPS if the need ever arises."
Additionally, the NordVPN pause command has officially made its CLI debut, and the system tray app now includes a highly requested “Open NordVPN app” button. As the provider states, it "does exactly what the label suggests, which is always reassuring."
Under the hood, a few technical adjustments were made to improve networking. For users struggling to find local devices, mDNS traffic is now allowed by default when LAN discovery is turned on, meaning printers and local servers will no longer remain "impressively undiscoverable."
However, users running older setups should take note before upgrading. To keep up with modern standards, NordVPN has raised the minimum glibc version to 2.35. As a result, the 5.3.0 update officially deprecates support for older operating systems, including Ubuntu 20.04, Debian 11, and Fedora 32 through 42.
Up until now, enterprise AI has been largely dominated by a familiar conversation: which models should we use, where do we deploy copilots and agents, and how quickly can we move from experimentation to measurable business value?
These have all been pertinent questions, but as teams reach a new stage on their AI journey, they're no longer the pressing ones.
The first wave of AI was one of discovery, with organizations asking a simple question: ‘Can AI help us at all?’ That was followed by a period of rapid experimentation, as enterprises launched proof-of-concepts and pilots across every conceivable business function to understand where AI could deliver value.
Now, the conversation has changed again. Enterprise leaders aren't struggling to identify AI use cases - most organizations already have dozens - the real challenge is moving from experimentation to scaling. It's no longer about asking ‘Where can we use AI?’ but ‘How do we make it work consistently across the business?’
And this shift in focus has exposed a problem many organizations originally underestimated: data.
AI exposes weakness in the foundationsIn the earlier stages of developing AI, many enterprises focused on accessing proprietary datasets for one primary purpose: model customization. Although this challenge still exists, there’s now a bigger issue at play that involves data quality, accessibility and governance across the organization.
AI is only as effective as the information and processes it operates on. The tricky part here is that AI is a master of exposing weaknesses that have existed inside organizations for years. And that should serve as a wake up call for enterprise leaders investing in AI right now. Because when data is fragmented, processes are inconsistent and operational maturity is lacking. In this scenario, AI won’t fix the problem – it’ll simply amplify it.
Viewed this way, enterprises should best understand AI as a force multiplier, not a correction mechanism for the legacy inefficiencies. However, the opposite is equally true. When organizations treat data as a first-class product, AI has the potential to multiply the quality coming out of it.
And this is the key difference between implementing AI and being genuinely prepared for it. You might have a strong model, but if you’re working with fragmented and unstructured data, your efforts will only continue to produce inconsistent results. I’ve seen it first-hand.
This isn’t just an anecdotal point. Gartner predicts that through 2026, 60% of AI projects will be abandoned because they aren't supported by AI-ready data, while 63% of data management leaders say they either lack - or aren't sure they have - the data management practices AI requires.
Those findings reinforce what we’re seeing many organizations discover first-hand: AI success is increasingly determined by the quality of the underlying data rather than the sophistication of the model.
The data pilot trapMany organizations saw encouraging results during their early AI pilots, and that isn’t surprising. Typically, pilots are built on curated samples of data that are absolutely real, but to some extent pre-selected and considered synthetic.
On that kind of data, it's natural to see success because the information has been carefully selected to demonstrate the technology's potential.
The real test begins when organizations start scaling AI and release it from the boundaries of those pilots into the real enterprise environment.
Suddenly, models have access to many different types of data that all have to work together. They're exposed to years of duplicated records, conflicting business definitions, incomplete customer data, inconsistent documentation and disconnected systems. Information that appeared reliable in a controlled pilot becomes far less dependable in production.
That's the point where leadership teams often get their biggest surprise. They realize the true state of their data is much worse than they expected. What worked well during the proof-of-concept stage simply doesn't work in the real production environment – not because the AI has become less capable, but because it has finally encountered the reality of enterprise wide data.
Unfortunately, that experience is becoming increasingly common. What’s abundantly clear is that the defining challenge now is not proving that AI works, but ensuring the data behind it is ready for enterprise deployment.
Signs your data isn’t ready for AIHow do you know if your data’s ready for AI? In many cases, the answer only becomes obvious after projects fail to deliver the expected results. But long before that happens, there are usually warning signs.
Your data governance has gaps: Can you identify where your data lives, who owns it and whether it can be trusted? If every analysis depends on manual reconciliation, AI will simply scale those inconsistencies. Years of organic growth often leave enterprises with siloed data, conflicting definitions and inconsistent governance. Which means before AI can deliver reliable results, organizations need clear ownership, consistent standards and dependable data pipelines.
AI initiatives are happening in isolation: When different teams are experimenting with AI independently, it's often a sign that the underlying data isn't connected. And it’s happening more often than you might think – McKinsey research found that fewer than 30% of organizations have their AI agenda directly sponsored by the CEO. Valuable information remains trapped in departmental silos or legacy systems, making it difficult to build a complete picture of the business.
Treated like this, it’ll always remain more function-level experimentation rather than coordinated enterprise transformation. AI performs best when it can draw on integrated, trusted data rather than fragmented datasets created for individual functions.
Your data isn't connected to business outcomes: AI creates value by improving business decisions and processes, not by analysing data for its own sake. If it's unclear how your data supports the outcomes you're trying to achieve, AI initiatives are unlikely to produce meaningful results. Incomplete, outdated or poorly maintained data will also undermine confidence in AI outputs, making it harder to move beyond isolated pilots.
You're spending more time choosing models than improving data: Selecting a foundation model is important, but it's rarely what determines success. The bigger challenges are preparing enterprise data, identifying high-value use cases, embedding AI into existing workflows and driving adoption across the business. Continually chasing the latest release will not deliver tangible results, investing in the data foundations that will make a model effective, will.
Potential will only be realized with strong foundationsArguably, the biggest shift facing enterprise leaders is one of mindset: moving the focus from advanced models to strong foundations. McKinsey's research supports this, finding that organizational readiness accounts for 48% of the difference between companies that successfully capture value from AI and those that don't—making it a stronger predictor of success.
For enterprises, the ultimate goal with AI should not simply be to automate existing tasks, but how to rethink how the business operates. That means redesigning processes around AI's capabilities, rather than layering AI onto inefficient ways of working.
For that to happen, data quality, governance and clear ownership can no longer be treated as minor, back-office concerns, they need to be recognized as strategic priorities.
The opportunity for enterprise AI is enormous, but without trusted data to build on, its potential will remain just that, potential.
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