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• The HiBy R3Pro II is certified for wired and wireless Hi-Res Audio
• The music player has double DACs and quad amplification
• Amazingly affordable at just $199

If like me you miss the days of cute portable music players like the iPod mini, HiBy has just the thing: a super-cute and very small double-DAC audio player called the R3Pro II.

The R3Pro II comes in a choice of orange, silver, black or green; the orange one really reminds me of my much-missed Sony Ericsson Walkman phone with its orange highlights, while the others conjure up memories of multiple iPods.

Don't let the cute design fool you, though: the specs here are serious. According to HiBy you're looking at a "quality pocket cannon, performance monster". And the specs back that up.

Inside there are dual Cirrus Logic CS43198 DACs and quad OPA1622 headphone amps capable of driving high-impedance headphones through either the 4.4mm balanced or 3.5mm stereo jacks.

Those amps and DACs are powered by a 4,000mAh battery with PD2.0 fast charging, and put out up to 480mW of power.

You're not limited to listening on the best wired headphones, though. The player is certified for both wired and wireless Hi-Res Audio and supports DSD256, PCM at up to 32-bit/384kHz and MQA 8X. Bluetooth is 5.1 and there's Wi-Fi too; you can have up to 2TB of storage via microSD.

You've got aptX and LDAC to beam high-quality sound to the best wireless headphones, and the R3Pro II also works with AirPlay and DLNA for Wi-Fi streaming. It has USB-C audio, USB to S/PDIF, and line outputs for connections to other audio equipment.

There are slightly different materials depending on your color choice: the green and orange ones have an Ultrasuede back, while silver and black are matte.

The specs suggest a fairly expensive device, but no: the R3Pro II is just $199. I'd expect it to cost around £199 or just under if it comes to the UK, and the US price converts to around AU$300 in Australia – though we don't have confirmation of an international release yet. Hopefully it'll come, because we could be looking at a new budget winner for our list of the best hi-res audio players.

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• Figma unveils new AI tools for developers and designers
• Figma Make finally rolls out to all users with Full Seat
• Code layers comes to Figma Sites

Over the past week, Figma has made good on its many promises revealed at its Config 2025 event.

After announcing the release of four new products - Figma Make, Figma Sites, Figma Buzz, and Figma Draw - the company has now launched a few new updates for developers and designers, alongside the full rollout of its big content ideation tool Figma Make.

According to Figma, these updates are all about “bridging the gap between design and code” with the help of new AI tools. So, what can users expect now?

For me, the most exciting new release is Figma Make. Finally out of beta, it’s available now to those with a Full Seat.

Figma Make is effectively an overarching design tool that spans the entire platform, and a massive leap for content ideation, where users can start with a blank canvas or copy and paste from Figma Designs, collaborate on new ideas, and then bring those designs over to other Figma tools like Sites to refine the concepts.

According to the company, Figma Make is fully capable of helping users create “an agentic AI interface, a business newsletter, and even games.”

When I attended a press briefing at Config London, I was struck by how Yuhki Yamashita, Figma’s Chief Product Officer, repeatedly mentioned how the premise here is being able to quickly conjure up ideas, throw them out if they don’t work, then start anew.

At the time, he said, “Our thought experiment was, how can we make it so easy for you to go from the idea into your head to something that is actually you can put in front of users and validate really quickly. And if it doesn't work, that's great. You can then move on to the next idea, or you can keep iterating from there.”

But it’s not the only big rollout users can now try. Figma has also released a new Dev Mode MCP Server, which is currently in beta.

Eagle-eyed Figma-watchers will have clocked an early demo of this during Microsoft Build’s opening keynote.

The company describes the MCP Server as a way to deliver design context from Figma - think variables and styles, that sort of thing - into their preferred LLM, IDE, or agentic coding tool, making sure that AI-generated code aligns with the users’ codebase.

And finally, code layers are now rolling out across Figma Sites, the AI-powered website builder. Here, users with pretty much any technical ability can customize websites and build site interactions and animations using AI prompts, presets, or raw code.

I was pretty impressed when I saw Figma Sites in action at Config, where AI prompts were used to transform static text into animated text that reacted to cursor movements. It’s designed in such a way that even a non-designer can easily edit content.

At Config, Yamashita promised bigger things were afoot, saying, “we wanted to make sure that we could support scaled use cases, too. With these kinds of content, it's much easier if we have a CMS, so that a non-designer can come in and comfortably edit that content in a way that's familiar to them. And this is something that's coming soon.” Looks like it’s finally arrived.

You can check out the newest tools from Figma by clicking here and navigating to the Products section.

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• The first iOS 26 developer is out now ahead of its public beta launch in July
• One of its upgrades is a new option called 'Keep Audio in Headphones'
• This should reduce auto-switching problems for wireless headphones

If you're tired of your iPhone automatically switching to every other Bluetooth device other than your headphones, then iOS 26 has a treat for you – a new option to make the audio stay connected to your wireless headphones.

As spotted by MacRumors, the new iOS 26 developer beta has a long-awaited new option called "Keep Audio in Headphones" in the iPhone's Settings. The new option will seemingly live in the Settings > General > AirPlay & Continuity section and is specifically designed to stop headphones from making unwanted connections to nearby devices.

Apple's description of the feature says "when using AirPods or other connected headphones, keep audio in your headphones when other playback devices like cars and speakers connect to iPhone."

This happens to me all the time, whether it's my audio automatically switching to in-car speakers or to my iPad when it's being used by someone else. Clearly, I'm not alone in finding this annoyance frustrating, so Apple's thankfully including this new option in iOS 26, and it'll hopefully make it to the software's final release in September.

Bluetooth is now over 25 years old, so in some ways it's miraculous that the short-range wireless tech works as well as it does – yet it's also frequently frustrating.

Without the option of prioritizing the order of your preferred Bluetooth devices, it can often feel like auto-switching has a mind of its own. So, this setting, while not exactly one of the biggest iOS 26 features, it's definitely a welcome quality-of-life tweak.

Not that it's the only frustrating Bluetooth-related issue we have to grapple with. As our colleagues at What Hi Fi? recently noted, it's high time audio manufacturers started standardizing their Bluetooth pairing processes, too.

Of course, these are very much first-world problems, but at least Bluetooth 6.0 is now rolling out to bring more refinements to the now-ancient tech. These include improved filtering and efficiency, which should bring battery life benefits, along with a feature called Channel Sounding to help improve the accuracy of 'find my device' services from the likes of Apple, Google and Samsung.

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• Utran’s PCIe 5.0 card holds 28 M.2 SSDs, reaching a total 224TB capacity
• Delivers 109GB/s read speed using Broadcom switch and advanced cooling
• Ideal for AI workloads, but overkill for most enterprise storage needs

Utran Technology has introduced a new PCIe 5.0 add-in card which feels more like a GPU than a storage solution.

Unveiled at Computex 2025, the device can host up to 28 NVMe Gen5 M.2 8TB SSDs in a single slot, delivering 109GB/s sequential read speed and a total storage capacity of 224TB.

Two versions of the 28x M.2 Host Card: HM-5281A and HM-5282A will be available - both use the Broadcom AtlasII PEX89144 switch to handle internal bandwidth and connectivity. The HM-5281A uses a single PCIe Gen5 x16 upstream link, while the HM-5282A doubles that with two x16 links, bringing total bandwidth up to 1024 GT/s.

Cooling comes via a high-pressure fan and radiator combo. Although it has a dense footprint, the layout is built for rack-scale deployment. In theory, eight cards could deliver nearly 1.8PB of flash inside a single server.

Both models run on an EPS 8-pin connector and support surprise hot plug, meaning the system can detect and manage the 28 M.2 drives even if they’re swapped in unexpectedly. This is particularly useful for testing or dynamic environments. You'd need to take care doing so in real-world deployments though, especially as the card itself isn't hot-swappable.

28x M.2 Host Card also lacks card-level power loss protection, so you’d need to rely on SSDs that include their own safeguards.

The card does, however, support USB terminal control for firmware updates and system monitoring.

Supported operating systems include Windows, Windows Server, and Linux, making it relatively flexible at the software level.

It's hard to argue with the raw numbers - 109GB/s read speed and sub-millisecond latency are unquestionably impressive - but outside of certain HPC or AI use cases, it's frankly difficult to see a wide audience. Even in dense environments, this level of performance might outpace most storage needs.

Utran says it plans to begin shipping its 28x M.2 Host Card in summer 2025.

Via Tom's Hardware

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• Experts warns of fake Booking.com sites circulating the web
• The sites come with a fake "Accept Cookie" prompt that downloads a RAT
• Shoppers should be on their guard when searching for deals

Hackers have been found targeting holidaymakers around the world with remote access trojans (RAT) distributed through fake Booking.com websites, experts have warned.

Researchers from HP Wolf Security found cybercriminals have been making websites that, on first glance, look just like booking.com - they carry the same branding, the same color scheme, and same formatting. However, the content of the website is blurred, and over it, a deceptive cookie banner is displayed.

If victims press “Accept cookies”, they’ll trigger a download of a malicious JavaScript file. This, in turn, installs XWorm, a powerful RAT that grants the attackers full control over the compromised device, including access to files, webcams, and microphone. They can also use the access to disable security tools, deploy additional malware, and exfiltrate passwords and other data.

HP Wolf Security says it first spotted the campaign in Q1 2025, which is “peak summer holiday booking period”, and a time when “click fatigue” sets in, as prospective holidaymakers are reckless and don’t pay attention to the sites they’re visiting, ending in disaster.

"Since the introduction of privacy regulations such as GDPR, cookie prompts have become so normalized that most users have fallen into a habit of ‘click-first, think later,’” commented Patrick Schläpfer, Principal Threat Researcher in the HP Security Lab.

“By mimicking the look and feel of a booking site at a time when holiday-goers are rushing to make travel plans, attackers don’t need advanced techniques - just a well-timed prompt and the user’s instinct to click.”

There are a few things users can do to stay safe, and the first one is - to slow down when browsing.

Users should also make sure not to click on links in emails or social media messages, especially for well-established sites such as Booking. Instead, type in the address in the browser’s navigation bar manually.

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• Edifier reveals 3 speakers, from tabletop to super-portable
• 6W, 34W and 60W speaker models
• New ANC headphones with 92-hour battery life

I'm a big fan of modern tech in retro clothes: give me a hi-res audio player that looks like an old AM radio and you can take my money. And I'm also a fan of corporate PR nonsense. So the launch of the new Edifier ES Series of speakers and headphones has put me in my happy place.

Corporate PR nonsense first: The letters ES carry "layered meaning", because the E means "Elegant", the S stands for "Superb (or Luxurious)", and if you put those two letters together they stand for "Edifier Sound".

Nonsense aside, I love the look of the speakers: there are three models of increasing elongation, beginning with the super-cute square of the ES20, stretching into the rectangular ES60 and then the bigger box of the ES300. And the specs are impressive for all three.

The flagship here is the ES300, a 60W, handcrafted wooden speaker with leather-look accents, a braided grille and a metallic control panel. Behind the grille there's a 4-inch long-throw mid/bass driver and dual 1.25-inch silk dome tweeters.

The ES300 has hi-res audio up to 24-bit/96kHz, and it has dual-band WiFi and AirPlay 2. Wired ports are USB-A and Aux, and there's a built-in ambient light system with three effects and two colors.

The ES300 is $399.99 in the US, £299.99 in the UK* and AU$399 in Australia.

The portable ES60 is smaller but still punchy, with 34W of power through its dual 22mm tweeters, oval mid/bass driver with neodymium magnets and passive bass radiator. It has Bluetooth 5.4 with multipoint and stereo pairing, USB-C for audio input and charging, and promises 9 hours of playback. Like its bigger sibling it too has ambient lighting built-in.

The ES60 is $199.99 / £119.99 / AU$199.00.

Last but not least there's the teeny ES20, a 6W portable Bluetooth speaker with a 43mm full-range neodymium magnet driver and a 55mm passive bass radiator and a class D amp. It's IP67 rated, has Bluetooth 5.4 and includes a high sensitivity microphone for calling; once again there's built-in ambient lighting.

The ES20 is $89.99 / £49.99 / AU$99.

Edifier has also launched a set of headphones, the ES850NB. They're wireless over-ears with wired and wireless Hi-Res Audio certification, 40mm dynamic drivers and support for LDAC as well as the usual AAC and SBC. There's active noise cancellation, AI call clarity, and up to 92 hours of battery life.

The ES850NB headphones are $169.99 / £119.99 / AU$179.

All four models from the Edifier ES Series are available now.

* US prices are from Edifier's press release; UK and Australian prices are from retailers' websites.

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