News
- Over 1,000 small drones are being added to the British Army’s modernized battlefield surveillance kit
- 245 FOXE-NATO drones from Evolve Dynamics in Hampshire, England, have been ordered by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), with a further 670 built by California-based Skydio
- A further £400 million investment in “long-endurance surveillance drones” has also been announced
The British government has announced spending on over 1,000 small surveillance drones for the British Army, as part of its Defence Investment Plan. This includes compact, lightweight devices assembled at UK-based Evolve Dynamics, designed for fast deployment.
Announcing the spending plans and investment, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has emphasized the use of what it terms Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) drones as a step forward in detecting emerging threats.
In addition, a huge £400 million is being invested in replacing the Watchkeeper Uncrewed Air System. This unmanned drone surveillance program has been in operation since 2014, and is being retired in 2027.
UK companies handling deliveryIn total, 1,025 smaller drones are being procured in the £16 million deal, which involves deals with a trio of UK-based companies. Among these small and medium sized companies is Evolve Dynamics, a Hampshire-based company which is supplying the army with 245 FOXE-NATO drones. Weighing under 250g and equipped with infrared cameras for nighttime use, the FOXE-NATO drones are also designed for quick deployment from a backpack or pouch.
Meanwhile, Marlborough Communications Limited, in Surrey, England, is supplying the MoD with 670 Skydio X10 INTL drones, also capable of a fast deployment and speeds of up to 45 mpg. Skydio is a California-based company.
Finally, Exeter-based Brigantes Consulting and and Harmattan AI are delivering 110 SONORA drones. These are training devices, to prepare soldiers for using field-ready drones.
“Our soldiers deserve the best technology, and that’s what we’re delivering,” said Luke Pollard MP, the UK’s Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry.
“From small drones giving troops eyes on the enemy, to the AR5 offering commanders better intelligence over the battlefield, we’re transforming the Army’s ability to see, understand and act first.”
“This is defence procurement that backs British industry, creates skilled jobs and keeps our Armed Forces ahead of our adversaries.”
Long-enduranceJoining the smaller surveillance and training drone expenditure, the MoD has announced a £400 million spend on a fleet of Tekever AR5 surveillance drones (initially six, rising to 24 by 2029), designed and built for endurance. These craft have already seen action in Ukraine.
“We are proud to be delivering the AR5 to the British Army at this critical moment for national security,” said Tekever UK’s Managing Director Karl Brew. “This investment allows us to grow our UK operations, create hundreds of skilled jobs and bring cutting-edge surveillance technology, proven on the battlefield in Ukraine, into service with British forces.”
These units, capable of carrying up to 50kg of cameras and sensors, are being assembled at Swindon, UK, and the contract is expected to create 1,000 jobs at sites around the UK, including sites in the South West, Edinburgh, and London.
- A new approach could catch 90% of potentially convertible wave energy
- It's based on a array of dozens of connected buoys, designed to handle different types of waves
- Further research is needed to test its viability
There's potentially a lot of clean, renewable energy locked up in waves, but the challenge is getting it converted into power in a viable way. Now researchers from Germany and Australia have come up with a potential method for capturing way more of the energy produced by the undulating oceans.
The solution (via Interesting Engineering) is big buoys, and lots of them. In simulation models, the researchers showed that a fixed array of 60 connected buoys — with some described as being as large as small houses — could convert 90% of potential ocean wave energy, even with significant variability in wave direction.
These buoys would be like flat drums on the surface of the water, connected to spring and generator units on the seabed. Crucially, each one would be individually tuned to match a certain wave rhythm — what's known as the 'resonance frequency' of the buoy, where the maximum amount of power can be produced.
"It's similar to a child on a swing," says Professor Malte Peter, from the University of Augsburg (via Google Translate). "Only if the support comes at the right moment will the child swing higher and higher over time. Similarly, the waves must arrive at the buoy at the appropriate intervals so that its pendulum motion is as strong as possible."
Dealing with unpredictabilityEach buoy is tuned to grab energy from specific wave strengths (Image credit: Westcott et al., Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 2026)Waves are typically rather unpredictable: if a large wave hits a buoy that's already on the up from a previous wave, a lot of the energy is missed. Add in the effects from neighboring buoys deflecting waves and influencing each other's movement, and you can understand the challenge in capturing all of this energy.
The larger arrays proposed by the team here act as a sort of sieve system. Even if a wave gets 'missed' by one buoy, it will hit another that's better tuned to it, meaning very little energy is lost. The researchers detail careful adjustments to buoy positions and resonance to achieve the results.
It's not a completely new idea, and borrows thinking from other fields of science. Some of the same researchers previously came up with a more basic model of the buoy farm, but only in 2D — in their new paper, they've extended into three dimensions, increased the size of the array, and adapted it to a greater variety of wave directions.
All that said, this remains theoretical, and hasn't been tested yet. The team notes that while each individual buoy could power "several hundred households" in this system, installing and maintaining the equipment is going to be expensive, and field tests and further research will need to happen first.
Qualcomm has announced not one, but two new flagship mobile chipsets at its annual Snapdragon Summit: the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6, and the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6.
Succeeding last year’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, both chipsets have been designed to reduce reliance on RAM (no prizes for guessing why), and each will unlock advanced gaming and agentic AI capabilities for the next generation of flagship Android phones (including, we presume, the Samsung Galaxy S27 Ultra). But how, and why, do they differ?
I attended the Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii to speak to Qualcomm's team about the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. Here’s why the American silicon giant is launching two flagship chipsets this year — and why one of them is shipping with the ‘Extreme’ moniker.
Why are they different?Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon announcing the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 series at Snapdragon Summit 2026 (Image credit: Future)As Lekha Motiwala, Senior Director of Product Management at Qualcomm, told me: “Some OEMs [Original Equipment Manufacturers] are trying to reach the pinnacle of technology, while others are trying to reach broader audiences. We want to give choice and flexibility to the OEMs.
“The 8 Elite Gen 6 is the next generation to the 8 Elite Gen 5. The 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 is positioned above it as the top tier, to enable newer experiences like ultra[-level] gaming, professional video codec support, etc. — on the 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, we are going beyond what we traditionally do [with our flagship chipsets], hence the tiering this year.”
“Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 delivers generational improvements across all key experiences, and is designed to power the core flagship tier,” added Ellie Fortin, Senior PR spokesperson at Qualcomm.
“The Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 sits above Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 as our top-tier Elite platform, showcasing leadership in AI, gaming, and advanced platform technologies, and is designed to power the best, most aspirational devices. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 includes everything in the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6, plus additional capabilities and advanced AI features. They’re both on 2nm TSMC.”
How are they different?The Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 (left) and Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 (right) (Image credit: Qualcomm)As for what Qualcomm means by ‘everything’ in the above statement, let’s get technical. Both chipsets feature the newest version of the company’s Oryon CPU, comprising two prime cores up to 5GHz (that’s a world-first) and six performance cores up to 4GHz. This CPU also packs a 16MB Oryon Flex Cache, which Qualcomm says will allow mobile agents to run demanding workloads without slowing down.
Qualcomm’s re-tooled Hexagon NPU [neural processing unit] features a new Hexagon Element Accelerator that should speed up how quickly AI prompts are processed by your phone — regardless of which new chipset it’s running — while the NPU in the 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 gets 50% more Large Shared Memory than the equivalent NPU in the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.
Still with me? As for the new Adreno graphics unit, Qualcomm says it represents the “biggest generational leap yet,” and will deliver substantial gains in graphics performance and power efficiency for phones equipped with either the 8 Elite Gen 6 or 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. But the latter pulls further away from its sibling with something called Adreno Neural Fusion — a dedicated gaming rendering technology that uses AI to deliver enhanced graphics and longer play sessions in compatible titles like Honkai: Star Rail, Diablo Immortal, and War Thunder: Mobile.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 will bring AI-enhanced gaming experiences to compatible devices (Image credit: Future)Couple that with three AI-dedicated GPU cores, and the 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 looks set to make the next best gaming phones more capable than ever: “We’re introducing Adreno Matrix cores, which are exclusive to the 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6,” Motiwala explained to me. “They support the running of AI workloads within the graphics pipeline itself. Rendering becomes smarter, [you’ll get] super resolution, frame generation — many of these features can now be run within the graphics pipeline rather than moving to the NPU and other [parts of the chipset]. So now you’ll have much lower latency and much lower power consumption.”
And finally, both new chipsets feature the Qualcomm Spectra ISP for improved digital stabilization, color processing, and motion detection, but only phones equipped with the 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 will support — or rather have the capability to support — Advanced Professional Video (APV) codecs and 8K 60fps video capture.
Initial impressionsThe Oppo Find X9 Ultra and Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra use last year's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset — will users be able to make use of even more power in their respective successors? (Image credit: Prakhar Khanna)In other words, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 is likely to be the chipset of choice for Android phone manufacturers hoping to claim that their upcoming flagships offer the very best in AI features, performance efficiency, and image processing. But it remains to be seen whether the likes of Samsung, Xiaomi, and Oppo can actually make use of all this extra power.
In truth, even the current-gen Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 provides more than enough juice for 99% of smartphone tasks, and so that’s almost certainly going to be true of the 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 (the clue is in the name) and indeed the lower-spec 8 Elite Gen 6, both of which are objectively more powerful than last’s year’s flagship chipset.
The key takeaway here is that Qualcomm is aware of the memory constraints affecting the technology industry, and has clearly worked hard to bring AI processing closer to the chipset with this year’s Snapdragon lineup. This should mean that, even if upcoming Android flagships arrive with lower RAM capacities than their predecessors (see the Google Pixel 11 Pro), their ability to process AI tasks won’t be negatively affected — if we take Qualcomm’s word for it, it’ll actually be improved.
Basically, it’s about doing more with less. Or maybe more with more, but not as much ‘more’ as we might’ve expected pre-RAM crisis.
Which phones will be supported?The Motorola Signature 27 is one of the first phones to be announced with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 (Image credit: Motorola)Both the Motorola Signature 27 and Xiaomi 18 Pro Max are the first phones to be announced with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 chipset. The Xiaomi 18 Pro, meanwhile, will use the regular Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6.
We don’t have any other official information about which phones will use either chipset just yet, but here’s a list of rumored devices whose respective predecessors use the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and could therefore ship with Qualcomm’s latest slices of Snapdragon silicon:
- Samsung Galaxy S27 Ultra
- Samsung Galaxy S27 Plus
- Samsung Galaxy S27
- Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 9 Ultra
- Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 9
- Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 9
- Xiaomi 18 Ultra
- Xiaomi 18
- Oppo Find X10 Ultra
- Oppo Find X10 Pro Max
- Oppo Find X10
- Honor Magic 10 Pro
- Honor Magic V7
- RedMagic 12 Pro
- RedMagic 12S Pro
- The Game Bakers' creative director says he wants people to "remember our games forever"
- It means the team may take risky or polarizing decisions, but it's worth it to build a passionate audience
- It's paid off with games like Cairn, which has achieved excellent reviews and award recognition, and is about to release its first DLC
It’s a joke, obviously, but given the catalog of titles released by The Game Bakers so far, part of me believes creative director Emeric Thoa when he tells me that “there’s a chance our next game is an MMO match-3 about friendship.”
It’s a testament to the team’s creativity and versatility that I could see something like this sitting alongside the frenetic boss rush Furi, charming co-op RPG Haven, and the captivating climbing adventure Cairn.
“We always make games with the goal of creating a very memorable experience. All our efforts, our ideas, our choices are made so that people will remember our games forever,” explains Thoa.
(Image credit: The Game Bakers)Cairn definitely stuck in the mind, as you took on a gruelling and demanding ascent up the enormous Mt. Kami with professional climber Aava. It may have mixed in some quiet moments of exploration and an engaging story, but it was almost exclusively about climbing a big mountain.
Thoa appreciates that, as with other The Game Bakers titles, taking this approach to follow and explore a single idea to its fullest in service of creating something impactful can be a big risk.
“This sometimes leads to polarizing design choices, but we’d rather be loved passionately by 10 people than be just appreciated by a hundred,” says Thoa.
(Image credit: The Game Bakers)It’s paid off with the excellent reception to Cairn, including a four-star review from me. Thoa is also pleased that critics and players responded well to the game, with various high scores and award recognition.
“I should feel extremely happy and grateful, but the truth is that if the response had not been very positive, I would be broken right now. So, I feel not-so-broken, and that’s pretty good. I’m especially proud that people eventually appreciated the innovation and risk-taking in Cairn.”
So with that mindset in place, what is genuinely next for The Game Bakers? Well, there’s the first part of the On the Trail DLC for Cairn coming on October 29, which I went hands-on with at Gamescom. After that, Thoa doesn’t have too much to reveal: “It’s too soon to tell, and I’m not even sure myself.”
Whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll be fascinating.
It’s no secret that, in the flagship phone conversation, Motorola has lost some of its standing in the face of the best iPhones and best Samsung phones — but the Lenovo-owned company is clearly determined to return to the big leagues.
Just four months after launching the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra-rivaling Motorola Razr Fold, Motorola has now unveiled the Motorola Signature 27, supposedly “the most advanced smartphone Motorola has ever created.”
And we can believe it, because the Signature 27 is one of the first two phones (alongside the Xiaomi 18 Pro Max) to be announced with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, which Qualcomm just announced at Snapdragon Summit 2026. That’s the same chipset as we’re expecting to power the rumored Samsung Galaxy S27 Ultra, which will likely be unveiled early next year.
The Signature 27 is a de facto successor to the original Motorola Signature, announced back in January, but it’s also the first Motorola flagship to adopt the company’s new numerical, year-based naming structure, reflecting Motorola’s desire to position the Signature 27 alongside the best Android phones of 2027.
The Motorola Signature 27 in Pantone Coal Smoke (Image credit: Motorola)And that, too, makes sense. The original Signature boasts impressive specs across the board, but its chipset — the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 — is a step below the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which powers the Galaxy S26 Ultra, Oppo Find X9 Ultra, and other contemporaries.
In using the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, the Signature 27 won’t be at the same power disadvantage as its predecessor. We don’t know the rest of the phone’s specs just yet, but for reference, the original Signature uses a 6.8-inch quad-curved AMOLED display, a 5,200mAh silicon-carbon battery, and three 50MP rear cameras.
@techradar ♬ original sound - TechRadarA recent Signature 27 teaser did, however, reveal that the phone will come with at least a 200MP Sony sensor in a four-camera rear setup, which will inevitably see it competing with the best camera phones of next year.
We also know the Signature 27 will feature Bang & Olufsen-tuned audio, so it’ll presumably boast some impressive speaker credentials, and Motorola has confirmed the available color options, too: Pantone Capulet Olive and Pantone Coal Smoke. The latter features a woven texture, which Motorola says “reinforces strength, durability, and premium quality.”
The Motorola Signature 27 is expected to come to global markets later this year. Its price is unconfirmed, but given that the original Signature starts at £899.99 (roughly $1,210 / AU$1,800), it’s safe to expect a steeper figure for Motorola’s “most advanced smartphone ever.”
- Key LCD panel makers are upping prices this month, which is a crunch manufacturing period ahead of Black Friday and end-of-year sales
- There are only three TV LCD panel manufacturers, and all have decided to protect profits with price rises, reportedly
- Samsung's is also said to be cutting QLED TV production by up to 80%
If you're planning to pick up a super-cheap big-screen LCD TV for Black Friday this year, you may need to temper your expectations.
Key LCD panel makers have reportedly told manufacturers including Samsung, Sony and LG that they're putting their panel prices up just in time for production ready for the busiest sales period of the year.
Samsung Display doesn't make LCD panels any more, and LG Display has also stopped making them. That means the big TV brands are reliant on a handful of Chinese panel producers who now dominate the market: BOE, TCL CSOT, and HKC.
Those producers aren't running at full capacity, but rather than increase supply and potentially lower prices, they're restricting production to "contain oversupply and defend prices", according to The Elec.
TCL CSO and HKC will raise the price of some products this month, September 2026, with BOE upping prices in the fourth financial quarter. As The Elec notes, "concerns that China’s dominance of the LCD supply chain would translate into greater control over panel prices are becoming a reality."
The price hikes leave the big-name TV manufacturers in a bad place, because they will have locked in their LCD panel orders for Black Friday and the holidays already, and it'll be difficult for them to change their production plans.
That means price hikes on the panels used in affordable sets, which already have razor-thin profit margins, could have an effect on how exciting the TV deals on LCD models this year — and with giant-screen LCD TVs being the super-popular pick right now, it could make a real difference.
Samsung has dropped QLED from its new 2026 mini-LED line-up — this image compares the QLED-less budget M80H on the left with the Neo QLED QN80H on the right. The Batman provides a great test for how they handle contrast. (Image credit: Warner Bros / Future )Does the Q in Samsung QLED stand for "quitting"?In another blow for price-conscious LCD buyers, Samsung is reportedly scaling down production of its QLED TVs dramatically, by up to 80% this year, while considering dropping QLED altogether by 2028.
QLED takes LCD panels and applies a layer of quantum dots to deliver better colors, and launched as a more affordable and very bright rival to OLED. However, as the best OLED TVs continue to get better and have a big grip on the premium end of the market, QLED has become a tech you see a lot on budget models.
According to ETNews (via FlatpanelsHD), Samsung is slashing QLED production from 10 million units to 2-3 million units this year and shifting its focus to mini-LED-branded and Micro RGB LED TVs.
The high-end Neo QLED lineup is being slashed too: "Samsung Electronics' QD TV shipment plan this year has been significantly reduced to less than 30%. Neo QLED will also produce only half of this year next year and gradually stop manufacturing."
In 2026, Samsung launched a new line of budget "Mini-LED" TVs that don't include QLED tech, including the Samsung M80H, which we tested alongside one of Samsung Neo QLED QN80H, and found to be a clear step down in image quality.
At the other end of the scale, we reviewed the flagship Samsung R95H Micro RGB TV, which also doesn't use QLED tech, and found it to be "a brilliant evolution" of LCD technology.
Quantum dots aren't dead, though: according to FlatpanelsHD, Samsung is continuing to invest in QD-OLED and in future technologies such as QD-EL, aka NanoLED, which is basically the quantum dot equivalent of OLED.
But we have to assume that if Samsung is already wavering over the viability of its QLED screens, a price rise in the panels it buys will probably just be another nail in the coffin.
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.
- Seller claims to be offering Mistral AI's full source code and says the company was breached again after May 2026 attack
- Mistral says an investigation found no evidence of new unauthorized access but has not stated whether the listed code is genuine
- No customer data has surfaced in analyzed samples, and nobody has shown files created after the May incident
A seller on a cybercrime forum says French giant Mistral AI has been hacked again and is offering what they call the company's full source code for sale.
The September 16 2026 post by an account using the handle "mrwho" consists of a listing titled "Selling mistral.ai Source Code" on an English-language cybercrime forum, according to The CyberSec Guru, pricing the material in Monero only before it attempted to steer potential buyers to Session or Telegram.
Mistral AI's own team has refuted this, stating it has "found no evidence to support this claim."
Not Mistral's first hacking-centric PR problemMistral's earlier hacking incident is undisputed - in May 2026, the Mini Shai-Hulud supply chain campaign, attributed to the TeamPCP group, spread from compromised TanStack packages to hundreds of npm and PyPI projects.
Mistral's own security advisory MAI-2026-002 says an automated worm led to compromised versions of its SDKs being published for a few hours on May 11 and 12, and that an affected developer device was involved. Microsoft Threat Intelligence found that a poisoned Mistral AI Python package fetched a second-stage credential stealer that allowed the attack to exploit users.
Mistral went further in statements to reporters than in its advisory. It told BleepingComputer that attackers had compromised a codebase management system and "contaminated some of our SDK packages for a brief period," while insisting that hosted services, managed user data, and research and testing environments were untouched. It also told HackRead that only certain non-core repositories were accessed.
TeamPCP, meanwhile, advertised roughly 450 repositories, about 5GB in total, for $25,000, and threatened to dump them for free if no buyer appeared within a week. One can therefore contend that this could be the same dump being remarketed by a different account, and the seller's profile is already suspect.
The CyberSec Guru noted that the account joined in September 2026 and had four posts and a reputation score of 30, despite displaying a top-tier "GOD User" rank. That profile could fit a scam in the making, but as the outlet pointed out, it could also fit a broker fronting for someone else or a freshly minted alias.
HackRead published 24 sample repository names from TeamPCP's May post. FrenchBreaches, which examined the 339-file tree mrwho shared in September, lists several of the same names. At least four of these appear in both: mistral-inference-private, mistral-inference-internal, mistral-finetune-internal, and mistral-common-internal.
This makes it hard to tell whether the purported 'hack' is just a rehash of an existing dump from Mistral's previous breach or a second successful hacking attempt. There is a straightforward test, however: If the September archives contain commits, files, or credentials dated after May 12, or secrets that were still valid after Mistral's cleanup, the seller's claim of a second breach gains real weight. If everything predates the May incident, this is a resale, which is embarrassing for Mistral but not a new security failure.
Of course, locating the archives or examining them would involve paying the ransom in crypto, as required by what could potentially be a scam in the making- a tremendous leap of faith for an account that was created earlier this month, making this essentially a lottery ticket at best for any security researcher attempting to take a closer look.
- Creative Assembly says Alien: Isolation 2's protagonist will offer "a new perspective to the franchise"
- Blake is a Weyland-Yutani employee, with principal environment artist Archie Whitehead saying the Japanese side hasn't been explored a lot
- Principal UI artist Laura Mouther says Blake isn't like any other Alien protagonist and "is such an interesting character to explore"
Alien: Isolation 2 will offer a totally new perspective on the Alien franchise by telling a story from the viewpoint of Yutani employee Blake, and Creative Assembly believes players will love her.
Speaking to TechRadar Gaming at Gamescom, principal environment artist Archie Whitehead and principal UI artist Laura Mouther discussed what they're most excited for players to experience in the upcoming sequel, highlighting the game's protagonist, Blake.
Blake works for Weyland-Yutani Corporation, a mega-conglomerate and the major human-led antagonist throughout the sci-fi series, but is employed specifically on the Yutani side of the company.
It's a viewpoint that hasn't been showcased during the horror franchise before, and something the developers were eager to explore in depth.
"Weyland-Yutani is an English-Japanese-speaking company, and it's something that the Japanese side, I feel like, doesn't really get explored that much," Whitehead said. "It's something we're trying to explore more here because Kurosaki, it's the name of the station [the game's setting] so I'm very interested for players to discover: 'How does that influence the world and the people living in it?'"
Mouther added that Blake is "awesome" and "brings such a new perspective to the franchise in total," and her being an employee of this mega-corp will be a much different experience from the first game, where the character where average people.
"If you think back to the first game or even the first movie, it's truckers in space, right? It's average people doing average things," Mouther said. "They're not powerful. They're expendable. No one cares for them. They have to care for themselves.
"But now we have Blake, who is a very Weyland-Yutani employee, and that means that she has some power, right? But when you hear in the trailer that the Japanese voice is telling her, 'You made a mistake. This is your last chance.' She was sent to Kurosaki against her will, and she wants to do well. She wants to be there to redeem herself."
Talking more about the story, Mouther explained how characters in the prologue will talk to Blake with respect and "you can get a sense of her standing," but all Blake is focusing on is trying to redeem herself. That's why when she heads to the crash site and accidentally unleashes the Xenomorph onto the colony, she's made yet another mistake, which the developers said will make Blake an interesting character to play.
"That dichotomy, she is such an interesting character to explore," Mouther added. "And I think the players will really get to know her and love her in the journey; they will make out their own journey [as well]. We tell a larger story, obviously, but similar to the first game, every player will have their own way of telling the 'in-betweens' between that [main] story, and will be so interesting to see."
Alien: Isolation 2 doesn't have a release date yet but will launch on PS5, Xbox Series X and Series S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.
- Reports claim Apple is weighing an as-yet-unapproved enterprise AI server with two or four M8 Ultra chips, targeting 2029
- Apple is considering using Nvidia's NVLink Fusion to link the chips, with Thunderbolt-based Mac clustering falling short of data center bandwidth requirements
- The move comes as demand continues to be a key driver for Apple's higher-end Macs, with AI firms buying Mac minis and Mac Studios in bulk, even as Apple has turned enterprise buyers away
Apple has been working on plans for an enterprise AI server built on its own silicon with an interesting twist: it is seeking Nvidia's help on the networking front to make it work.
A report by The Information claims Apple is considering two configurations: one with two of its future M8 Ultra chips and a larger one with four, aimed at businesses that want to run AI inference on their own hardware rather than in a public cloud.
The timeline, however, is long and loose, with a potential launch in 2029, though the same report cautions that the project could be canceled before then, with neither the server nor any Nvidia arrangement finalized at the time of writing.
A market that Apple previously walked away fromIf it ships, the machine would be Apple's first purpose-built server since the Xserve, which Apple announced it would discontinue in November 2010 and stopped selling at the end of January 2011.
Steve Jobs's explanation, in an email to a reader of French site MacGeneration, reported by MacRumors at the time, was blunt: "Hardly anyone was buying them." Gartner's data backed up that claim with an estimated 10,000 units being sold per quarter, a relatively low number for the tech giant whose numbers normally ran in the hundreds of thousands or millions for most of its other products.
Apple's suggested replacements to users were server configurations of the Mac mini and Mac Pro, desktops running server software rather than rack hardware. If the 2029 launch materializes, it would mean Apple's reversal would see it enter the server market 18 years after the Xserve stopped being sold.
This time, however, feels different: The Information has reported that OpenAI bought tens of thousands of Mac minis and Mac Studios to train AI agents through reinforcement learning, and that Anthropic has rented Mac minis through Amazon Web Services, as per Ars Technica.
Getting caught off guard by AI-centric demandApple reportedly was caught off guard by the AI-driven rush for its hardware, with no enterprise AI strategy, no business engineering team in place, and no specific developer relations staff to manage those orders. As a result, it also turned away businesses asking to buy access to its Private Cloud Compute infrastructure.
The project reportedly had a powerful sponsor: Apple's now-CEO John Ternus, when he ran Apple's hardware engineering team. However, shortages plagued it, leading many users to opt for Nvidia's DGX Spark and AMD's Ryzen AI Halo as viable alternatives.
The focus, however, remains on Apple's ability to interconnect a large number of chips or dies together: its current flagship, the M5 Ultra that ships in the new Mac Studio on September 22 2026, is Apple's first quad-die design, stitched together inside one package by the company's UltraFusion bridge, with up to 512GB of unified memory and 1.2TB/s of bandwidth, which users often stack for on-device AI needs.
A data center-esque, server-grade offering, however, would require considerably more power under the hood to meet its AI needs, which would also depend on how fast the interconnect between chips is; Apple's current limitation is Thunderbolt 5 speeds, which offer up to 10GB/s (or 80Gb/s) bidirectionally.
For context, Nvidia says the sixth-generation NVLink, available through NVLink Fusion, connects up to 72 accelerators at 3.6TB/s each. Comparing total two-way bandwidth, that is roughly 240 times a single Thunderbolt 5 connection's one-way capability of up to 15GB/s (or 120Gb/s).
Apple's own marketing hints at what that gap costs: It says four clustered Mac Studios deliver up to three times the inference performance of one, suggesting it already makes scaling tradeoffs of nearly 25% when linking devices.
This could explain why Nvidia is in the conversation at all: proven tech that could help Apple scale its AI server ambitions without the performance overhead it currently already has, at a time when its silicon would be even more powerful, might just be a no-brainer for the Cupertino-based giant.
A new Quordle puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Tuesday's puzzle instead then click here: Quordle hints and answers for Tuesday, September 22 (game #1702).
Quordle was one of the original Wordle alternatives and is still going strong now more than 1,500 games later. It offers a genuine challenge, though, so read on if you need some Quordle hints today — or scroll down further for the answers.
Enjoy playing word games? You can also check out my NYT Connections today and NYT Strands today pages for hints and answers for those puzzles, while Marc's Wordle today column covers the original viral word game.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about Quordle today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.
Quordle today (game #1703) — hint #1 — VowelsHow many different vowels are in Quordle today?• The number of different vowels in Quordle today is 5*.
* Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too).
Quordle today (game #1703) — hint #2 — repeated lettersDo any of today's Quordle answers contain repeated letters?• The number of Quordle answers containing a repeated letter today is 2.
Quordle today (game #1703) — hint #3 — uncommon lettersDo the letters Q, Z, X or J appear in Quordle today?• Yes. One of Q, Z, X or J appears among today's Quordle answers.
Quordle today (game #1703) — hint #4 — starting letters (1)Do any of today's Quordle puzzles start with the same letter?• The number of today's Quordle answers starting with the same letter is 0.
If you just want to know the answers at this stage, simply scroll down. If you're not ready yet then here's one more clue to make things a lot easier:
Quordle today (game #1703) — hint #5 — starting letters (2)What letters do today's Quordle answers start with?• S
• B
• J
• G
Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.
Quordle today (game #1703) — the answers(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)The answers to today's Quordle, game #1703, are…
- SHEET
- BLAND
- JOIST
- GUAVA
I suffered from temporary insanity playing today’s game, in thinking that we needed not one but two rare letters.
Such was the shock of seeing a letter J that I risked a word beginning with Q — and when that was wrong, I remembered that common Quordle game word of GUAVA. It’s been a while since we’ve seen it, but thankfully it was still in my memory bank.
Daily Sequence today (game #1703) — the answers(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1703, are…
- DRIFT
- TRIAL
- MOSSY
- PAUSE
- Quordle #1702, Tuesday, 22 September: COMFY, LOBBY, DRESS, PANEL
- Quordle #1701, Monday, 21 September: WAXEN, HIPPO, PETAL, LEASH
- Quordle #1700, Sunday, 20 September: DERBY, LIMBO, GAWKY, REIGN
- Quordle #1699, Saturday, 19 September: SCOPE, HEIST, PULSE, CHAMP
- Quordle #1698, Friday, 18 September: MUCUS, MIRTH, APPLE, TILDE
- Quordle #1697, Thursday, 17 September: CRIER, CHIRP, NEIGH, FREER
- Quordle #1696, Wednesday, 16 September: SPEAR, PRICE, BLUNT, FISHY
- Quordle #1695, Tuesday, 15 September: SHUSH, LITHE, DELTA, BUGLE
- Quordle #1694, Monday, 14 September: ZEBRA, LEGAL, RATIO, TROLL
- Quordle #1693, Sunday, 13 September: LUCID, SPRAY, MANGE, EMAIL
- Quordle #1692, Saturday, 12 September: SUPER, BRUSH, RESET, SOWER
- Quordle #1691, Friday, 11 September: PLUSH, PAINT, RIVAL, AFOUL
- Quordle #1690, Thursday, 10 September: AGENT, EXILE, TITAN, PUREE
- Quordle #1689, Wednesday, 9 September: HAPPY, GONER, SMACK, MOTIF
- Quordle #1688, Tuesday, 8 September: FLUNG, DIARY, HALVE, BERTH
- Quordle #1687, Monday, 7 September: VISIT, CLANK, FEVER, OCEAN
- Quordle #1686, Sunday, 6 September: PILOT, HONOR, BOWEL, TAUNT
- Quordle #1685, Saturday, 5 September: GNASH, GEEKY, WHELP, PUTTY
- Quordle #1684, Friday, 4 September: QUICK, BEEFY, TRUCK, SNAIL
- Quordle #1683, Thursday, 3 September: SIGMA, ESSAY, MERRY, LLAMA
A new NYT Strands puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Tuesday's puzzle instead then click here: NYT Strands hints and answers for Tuesday, September 22 (game #933).
Strands is the NYT's latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it's great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints.
Want more word-based fun? Then check out my NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games, and Marc's Wordle today page for the original viral word game.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Strands today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.
NYT Strands today (game #934) - hint #1 - today's themeWhat is the theme of today's NYT Strands?• Today's NYT Strands theme is… Practically paleolithic
NYT Strands today (game #934) - hint #2 - clue wordsPlay any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.
- THONG
- SOLD
- PRIMAL
- SWORN
- CRATE
- CHART
• Spangram has 12 letters
NYT Strands today (game #934) - hint #4 - spangram positionWhat are two sides of the board that today's spangram touches?• First side: left, 1st row
• Last side: right, 5th row
Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.
NYT Strands today (game #934) - the answers(Image credit: New York Times)The answers to today's Strands, game #934, are…
- BYGONE
- ARCHAIC
- ANCIENT
- PRIMEVAL
- TIMEWORN
- SPANGRAM: THATSOLDNEWS
- My rating: Hard
- My score: 1 hint
Today’s theme was a mystery. “Practically paleolithic”? What could that mean? A practical person who follows a paleo diet? A very well-organized dinosaur? Or was this more Bill and Ted-style slacker slang that had passed me by?
As it turned out it was about things that were old, tired and out of date, something that I only discovered after getting a hint of BYGONE following an exhausting search to make sense of it all.
From here I spotted the spangram THATSOLDNEWS and began my toil around the board to get the other words.
Incidentally, I know that it’s impossible to include apostrophes in word search games but I hate seeing THATS without one.
Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Tuesday, September 22, game #933)- SWITCH
- CHANGEOVER
- TRANSITION
- PROGRESSION
- SPANGRAM: FALLEQUINOX
Strands is the NYT's not-so-new-any-more word game, following Wordle and Connections. It's now a fully fledged member of the NYT's games stable that has been running for a year and which can be played on the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.
I've got a full guide to how to play NYT Strands, complete with tips for solving it, so check that out if you're struggling to beat it each day.
A new NYT Connections puzzle appears at midnight each day for your time zone – which means that some people are always playing 'today's game' while others are playing 'yesterday's'. If you're looking for Tuesday's puzzle instead then click here: NYT Connections hints and answers for Tuesday, September 22 (game #1199).
Good morning! Let's play Connections, the NYT's clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need Connections hints.
What should you do once you've finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I've also got daily Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too, while Marc's Wordle today page covers the original viral word game.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Connections today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.
NYT Connections today (game #1200) - today's words(Image credit: New York Times)Today's NYT Connections words are…
- PAINT
- CAPTCHA
- BITCOIN
- WALLET
- SPAM
- PHONE
- RECORD LABEL
- AGE
- VERIFICATION
- SURINAME
- PAYWALL
- CONDENSED MILK
- RUB-A-DUB
- KEYS
- SHAVING CREAM
- COOKIE CONSENT
- SUNGLASSES
What are some clues for today's NYT Connections groups?
- YELLOW: Don’t forget these…
- GREEN: Online obstacles
- BLUE: All packaged in tins
- PURPLE: Final descriptions
Need more clues?
We're firmly in spoiler territory now, but read on if you want to know what the four theme answers are for today's NYT Connections puzzles…
NYT Connections today (game #1200) - hint #2 - group answersWhat are the answers for today's NYT Connections groups?
- YELLOW: THINGS YOU GRAB BEFORE LEAVING THE HOUSE
- GREEN: WEBSITE HURDLES
- BLUE: THINGS THAT COME IN CANS
- PURPLE: ENDING IN SYNONYMS FOR "TERM"
Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.
NYT Connections today (game #1200) - the answers(Image credit: New York Times)The answers to today's Connections, game #1200, are…
- YELLOW: THINGS YOU GRAB BEFORE LEAVING THE HOUSE: KEYS, PHONE, SUNGLASSES, WALLET
- GREEN: WEBSITE HURDLES: AGE VERIFICATION, CAPTCHA, COOKIE CONSENT, PAYWALL
- BLUE: THINGS THAT COME IN CANS: CONDENSED MILK, PAINT, SHAVING CREAM, SPAM
- PURPLE: ENDING IN SYNONYMS FOR "TERM": BITCOIN, RECORD LABEL, RUB-A-DUB, SURINAME
- My rating: Hard
- My score: Perfect
Another yellow last! I think it was SUNGLASSES that threw me there — if it had said “bus pass” then I’d be there, but sunglasses are something I wear twice a year at most. Then again, maybe this is a sign that I really should be not forgetting to grab them whenever I leave the house!
Regardless of the order in which I solved today’s groups, luck was definitely on my side as I sailed through without making any mistakes while at the same time never being 100% certain in my connections.
I was also unsure of what the groups could be. I thought WEBSITE HURDLES was about security, THINGS THAT COME IN CANS was stuff that’s mixed, and ENDING IN SYNONYMS FOR "TERM" something about circles.
Yesterday's NYT Connections answers (Tuesday, September 22, 2026, game #1199)- YELLOW: DEMONSTRATIVES: THAT, THESE, THIS, THOSE
- GREEN: EMBELLISHMENT: ACCENT, DETAIL, FLOURISH, TOUCH
- BLUE: OPTIONS ON A MULTIPLE CHOICE SURVEY: AGREE, DISAGREE, NEUTRAL, OTHER
- PURPLE: BEVERAGES WITH ACUTE ACCENTS REMOVED: CAFE, PATRON, ROSE, THE
NYT Connections is one of several increasingly popular word games made by the New York Times. It challenges you to find groups of four items that share something in common, and each group has a different difficulty level: green is easy, yellow a little harder, blue often quite tough and purple usually very difficult.
On the plus side, you don't technically need to solve the final one, as you'll be able to answer that one by a process of elimination. What's more, you can make up to four mistakes, which gives you a little bit of breathing room.
It's a little more involved than something like Wordle, however, and there are plenty of opportunities for the game to trip you up with tricks. For instance, watch out for homophones and other word games that could disguise the answers.
It's playable for free via the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.
- A M4 Mac Mini has been rebuilt into a battery-powered handheld computer
- The custom handheld keeps Apple’s desktop motherboard and original cooling system intact
- A removable Mac module sits inside the custom 3D-printed handheld enclosure
Apple's M4 Mac Mini has been transformed into a handheld Mac with a 7-inch 120Hz touchscreen, physical controls, keyboard, and battery.
Shing Solutions stripped the desktop computer down to its motherboard and cooling system before rebuilding it inside a custom 3D-printed enclosure.
The resulting device, dubbed Mac Nano, keeps the full macOS functionality while replacing the desk-bound form factor with something designed for use in two hands.
The Mac Mini becomes a removable computing coreThe project retains Apple's original heatsink and blower fan instead of replacing them with smaller cooling hardware to save internal space.
That decision allows the M4 processor to retain its factory thermal arrangement while the motherboard moves into a completely different enclosure.
Inside the new chassis, the computer module sits on rails, allowing it to slide out without disturbing the screen, keyboard, or controllers.
The arrangement means the central hardware can theoretically be removed for servicing or replaced while the surrounding handheld computer remains assembled.
A 7-inch touchscreen provides the main display, with its 120Hz refresh rate giving the portable machine a smoother interface and gaming experience.
It is also equipped with a compact QWERTY keyboard sitting beneath the display, with an integrated touchpad providing cursor control.
The keyboard originally worked wirelessly, but its battery was removed, and the keyboard was rewired to draw power directly through USB.
This modification reduces the number of rechargeable components while allowing the keyboard to receive power directly from the handheld computer.
The internal layout therefore combines Apple's desktop motherboard with controls and display hardware that were never designed specifically for this computer.
Nintendo controls and batteries complete the handheld deviceThe Mac Nano also includes physical gaming controls, using circuit boards taken from Nintendo Joy-Con charging grips and mounted inside both sides of the enclosure.
Those controls are wired directly into the Mac instead of using Bluetooth, but macOS does not natively support wired Joy Con controllers.
To make the controls usable, the project relies on Steam, whose controller mapping system can translate their input for compatible games.
Connecting the keyboard, controllers, touchscreen, and other peripherals also created a USB bottleneck inside the compact enclosure.
Shing Solutions addressed that problem by combining two miniature USB splitter boards into a custom three-port hub.
The Mac Nano is powered by rechargeable cells connected to a custom power delivery system, allowing it to run without staying plugged into an outlet.
The enclosure also incorporates handles, giving the device a grip that accommodates all its components.
Unlike a conventional Mac Mini, the Mac Nano therefore combines desktop Apple silicon with the components needed for genuinely untethered operation.
Via Yanko Design
- A Vladimir Putin press call showed the Russian president casting an online vote for the country’s parliamentary elections
- The short clip has revealed that not only is Putin using a US-built Dell PC, it is running Windows 10 – and the license has not been activated
- Putin’s example of voting online is intended to encourage voters to take part, but has instead raised eyebrows and launched memes
Parliamentary elections in Russia took place on Friday, September 18 2026, with online voting for positions in the State Duma open to the public for the first time. To demonstrate the ease of online voting, a press call highlighted Russian President Vladimir Putin casting his vote – but this hasn’t gone quite as planned.
While the president appeared to have difficulty reading the display, the real challenge seems to be that the Russian leader is using a version of Windows 10 that has not been activated. Furthermore, the PC is a Dell, rather than a Russian-built system.
The Putin publicity stunt has already launched memes, but the it also raises questions about his ability to use a computer, not to mention the suitability of the hardware for voting.
“You can’t go wrong”With 73-year-old President Putin lined up for the cameras with the Dell PC set up on his desk, he goes through the motions of “voting online,” presumably to demonstrate how easy it is. (In person and mail voting options were also available.)
The press call has all the authenticity of an unlicensed copy of Windows 10. Ironically, this is exactly what is in use, as you can see toward the end of the video.
Watch to the end:
Although an initial reaction might be “Russian state IT is pretty weak,” it seems more likely that the state-controlled hardware overseeing infrastructure, networks, and military systems is far more up-to-date. What is more likely is that that PC was pulled out of a back room and an old copy of Windows quickly installed simply to provide President Putin with his short encouragement to vote.
Dell vs. AquariusThe use of a Dell PC is curious, however. While Russia and the US have cordial relations, it seems strange for the Russian president to use a foreign PC. Sanctions aside, Russia has a policy of forcing the use of home-grown brands (such as Aquarius) over those from overseas.
After voting, the five-times elected Russian leader uttered the memorable line “you can’t go wrong,” in his native language, perhaps highlighting the futility of voting for any candidates not in his favoured party, United Russia.
While it is difficult to assess the legitimacy of the elections in Russia itself, the governments of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom have challenged the elections in occupied Ukraine territories. The nations have described the them as “sham elections” that violate “Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence, and the UN Charter.”
Here at TechRadar, we have our own ranking of the best tablets around. So when I discovered it was possible to view a list of Amazon's best-selling tablets, I was intrigued to see if it bore any relation to the tablets we regarded most highly.
There are some obvious points of deviation. We tend to focus on tablets for adults, and there are a number of kid-focused models in Amazon's ranking. Similarly, whereas Amazon bundles ereaders in with tablets, we have them in a separate best ereader ranking.
It also makes sense that Amazon's own models sell especially well on the platform, given that they tend to get the best discounts. I'm not surprised to see the Kindle Paperwhite taking the #2 spot, for instance, when we put two Kobo models above it in our list.
Although the iPad (A16) 11-inch — Amazon's #1 bestseller — isn't our favorite tablet, we still scored it very highly in our review. We were less enamored with Amazon's #3 slate, the Fire HD 10 (2023), awarding it three stars and declaring it "only smoldering". It is, however, relatively cheap, which helps explain its popularity here.
Scroll down for a list of Amazon's best-selling tablets (as of 22 September, in the US), in order. Hit the View details button to see what we thought of them in our real-world testing — and learn which ones are worth buying.
Top tablets Apple iPad (A16) 11-inch Pros- A16 chip is very capable
- Now starts with 128GB of storage
- iPadOS 18 runs smoothly here
- No major changes over the previous generation
- 7-inch display is great
- Fastest Paperwhite yet
- Excellent battery life
- Expensive for a mid-range ereader
- Ads on lock screen in some markets (unless you pay extra)
- Cheaper than many rivals
- Incredibly hardy
- Handy Alexa command center
- Tiny changes from 2021 model
- Stuck to Amazon ecosystem
- Lots of unremovable apps
Read our full review (non-renewed version)
Pros- Excellent value
- Upgraded selfie camera for video calls
- True Tone display
- No Face ID
- Doesn’t support newer accessories
- Lacks recalibrating speakers
- Snappier interface means faster menus and smoother zooming
- The best e-reader if you buy books from Amazon
- Design feels out-of-date and cheap, lacks buttons
- Once you see the Kindle Colorsoft, it’s hard to go black and white
Read our review of the 13-inch version
Pros- M3 chip provides plenty of power
- Vibrant screen
- Strong battery life and audio
- Still no ProMotion display
- No major changes to design
Read our full review (non refurbished model)
Pros- More affordable
- Good screen quality
- Powerful for the price
- Apple Pencil costs extra
- Design unchanged
- M4 chip delivers excellent performance
- Vibrant, sharp screen
- Great cellular and Wi-Fi connectivity
- No major design changes
- No ProMotion display
- Cheap HD screen
- Rugged build
- Fantastic warranty
- Amazon app store is somewhat limited
- Perfectly portable
- Excellent build
- Lovely screen
- A great Pencil Pro companion
- Pricey for the size
- Aging design
- FaceTime camera still on the short side of the screen
- Slight yet sturdy water-resistant build
- Bold, vibrant display
- Innovative productivity tools
- Lengthy 20-hour battery life
- Screen not the brightest
- Middling gaming performance
- Somewhat creepy Face Effects
- Chinese universities are cutting traditional courses because of AI
- Translation courses face pressure as universities reassess their employment value
- Photography programmes are being merged as AI changes creative production
The Central Academy of Fine Arts has dropped courses in illustration, photography and translation, arguing that AI has made them poor value for money.
Fashion design degrees are also being scrapped, with universities saying the future rests on close cooperation between people and machines in creative work.
The changes follow a state campaign to direct learners toward chips, robotics and AI, industries the authorities regard as vital for national prospects.
Universities are cutting courses at scaleFrom 2021 to 2025, Chinese universities closed or paused 12,200 undergraduate programmes and launched roughly 10,200 fresh programmes.
The restructuring affected over 30% of undergraduate programmes nationwide, and arts, humanities and language courses absorbed the heaviest cuts.
A survey of 70 universities found cuts to five translation majors, eight Japanese majors and five German majors among language programmes.
Alex Shi launched her creative career with a degree that trained her to translate and interpret English, and says such courses could soon vanish, as the cuts overlook the wider skills underlying translation, including communication and critical thinking, which extend beyond producing accurate text.
Shi concedes that AI could bring translation accuracy almost to perfection, yet maintains that interpreting demands far more than converting words between languages.
“There’s still that personal style that’s always been essential in translation,” said Shi.
The Communication University of China has reportedly closed five programmes, among them visual communication design, comics and photography, according to a report on its overhaul.
“Traditional photography major can no longer exist as an independent discipline… today everyone can be a self-media creator and recorder,” said Liao Xiangzhong, top official at the Communication University of China.
Liao later clarified that the majors were merged into other disciplines instead of being cancelled outright, with photography absorbed by film and television photography.
New film roles and hybrid coursesNew roles such as prompt engineer and AI animator are emerging in film and animation, where AI is also creating fresh openings alongside the closures.
One industry worker says designing characters or scenes once took a month, but with AI, a complete project can now be delivered in that time.
Degree programmes in intelligent imaging art, intelligent audiovisual engineering, and intelligent engineering and creative design have been launched by some schools.
Universities are also launching hybrid courses in which artistic instruction sits beside AI training, while some standalone degrees are being scrapped across the sector.
That shift is changing what employers expect from graduates entering translation, design, photography and film production.
For students, traditional qualifications may increasingly need technical skills that allow them to work alongside automated creative systems.
The result is a university system where some familiar degrees disappear while new AI-focused programmes take their place.
If there's one thing I've learnt in the last decade of testing some of the best robot vacuums in Australia is that not all of them are made equal. Some have excellent performance and software while others, despite a premium price tag, disappoint on testing.
However, as you can probably tell from my Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni review, I really liked how well this robovac performed in my tests. It wasn't perfect, but it cleaned and navigated well. Sadly, though, Ecovacs seems to have discontinued it, although stock is still available at retailers like JB Hi-Fi and The Good Guys, listed for AU$1,999.
It has now been replaced by the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Max Pro Omni (please note the 'Max' moniker here) which, despite a very similar name is a slightly different model. I much prefer its design aesthetic over the previous X8 Pro Omni — which was rather boxy — thanks to rounded corners that make the dock look sleeker.
Other than that, the newer model has slightly lower suction power (16,600Pa compared to 18,000Pa on the X8 Pro Omni), but it now boasts a better anti-tangle brush system and a faster rotating roller mop. It can also independently raise the side brush when necessary to avoid scattering.
These upgrades mean it has an RRP of AU$2,599 (AU$100 more than the X8 Pro Omni at launch) but, in better news, it's now on the receiving end of a massive 65% discount on Amazon — down to just AU$899.
Deebot X8 Max Pro Omni: was $2599 now $899
A whopping 65% discount is absolutely nothing to scoff at. And yes, I admit I can't vouch for this model myself as an expert, but Amazon users seem happy with its performance, although some of those reviews are incentivised. Non-Vine users have also claimed it's a good buy and, given how impressed I was with the X8 Pro Omni, I think this will work just as well.View Deal
The slightly lower suction power on the Deebot X8 Max Pro Omni is neither here nor there in real-world use. Robovacs with even lower suction can perform just as well as models with upwards of 20,000Pa of suction as pulling power is highly dependent on airflow through the device.
In my tests I found that the X8 Pro Omni was able to vacuum remarkably well, but I was even more impressed by its mopping — and this Max model has the exact same roller mop mechanism as the older bot. In fact, I find rollers to be the better cleaners than rotating dual mop pads for a couple of reasons: they scrape along edges better and are able to use more water and actually mop rather than (dry) wipe as circular mop pads are wont to do.
I had no issues with navigation or obstacle avoidance with the older model, and I'm confident that since nothing other than the suction has changed here, the Max will be a good investment for anyone keen on a capable set-and-forget robot vacuum.
I would even go so far as to say not to wait until the Amazon Prime Big Deal Days sale next week as I don't think this vacuum will drop lower in price — AU$899 is an all-tine low that we first saw in August this year, long after the main Prime Day sale in July.
- Vivo launched the flagship X500 series of phones, with three new models
- A new monitoring screen comes in the X500 Pro Max photographer's kit, or it can be purchased separately
- At launch, all the phones and accessories are China-only, with a wider rollout TBD
Vivo quietly launched a really neat accessory alongside its new flagship X500 series of phones — an ultra-slim and light Bluetooth monitoring touchscreen — and, having paired it with the new X500 Pro Max, I wish it were compatible with my phone.
The monitoring touchscreen, aka a selfie screen, mirrors your phone's camera app, complete with touchscreen control over key camera settings and subject tracking, and can be attached to the phone magnetically or used as a remote monitor within its Bluetooth range.
Why not just use your phone's selfie camera instead, you ask? Well, the quality of the rear-facing selfie camera is always inferior to the front-facing cameras, as are the camera settings available.
A selfie screen, on the other hand, unleashes the device's superior front cameras — in the case of the Vivo X500 Pro Max, a triple array including a 50MP main camera and a 200MP 3.5x telephoto camera.
We've seen this kind of selfie screen tech before; Insta360's Snap Selfie Screen comes to mind. However, it needs a cable to connect to a phone, it has an annoying protective cover that flaps around when the screen is in use, and the display is smaller and harder to see. The new Vivo accessory, however, is better and more sophisticated in every way.
The selfie screen without its magnetic rubber caseTim ColemanTim ColemanTim ColemanTim ColemanThe dedicated case Vivo makes to magnetically attach accessories such as the selfie screenTim ColemanThe best mobile accessory for 2026 so far?Vloggers should take note of Vivo's new selfie screen. For one, it can snap onto the device magnetically, or be used by hand, so long as a Bluetooth connection is possible. No cable needed.
Used as a remote monitor, you can position your phone somewhere, say, on a tripod, and then walk into the shot and see what your phone is seeing, no cameraperson needed. (Great for group photos as well, by the way.)
It's clearly a trend — the Insta360 Luna Ultra vlogging camera features a removable touchscreen and controller module (which also has a built-in mic), while DJI launched a remote controller with a screen for its Pocket 4 series.
Whether used remotely or attached magnetically, the Vivo selfie screen's 3.92-inch AMOLED display with 419 pixels per inch (PPI) is clear and crisp. It’s also super light and thin, measuring just 5.65mm thick and weighing 68g — you'll barely feel it on the phone.
Tim ColemanTim ColemanTim ColemanTim ColemanTim ColemanTim ColemanIt has a USB-C port for charging, plus three side buttons, including a recording button and one for adjusting the screen's brightness levels. Otherwise, that's it.
What's unclear at this stage is which devices are compatible with the monitoring screen, besides the Vivo X500 series, if any.
There’s one major drawback to using it with the Vivo X500 Pro Max — neither device is MagSafe, meaning you need a dedicated case for the phone and monitor for them to stick together!
Vivo sells a case (and the monitor) separately, or they're included in a photographer’s kit which also includes two teleconverter lenses. Meanwhile, the monitor is supplied with a magnetic MagSafe-style rubber case. Vivo says the monitor costs 699 Chinese Yuan (a price conversion is $105 / £78 approximately, though international pricing will be higher).
Tim ColemanTim ColemanCompared to the other similar devices I've tried, I found the Vivo vlogging monitor lighter, has a clearer display, and I appreciated its wireless connectivity, with options for remote or MagSafe-styler setups.
If you ever shoot selfie content and wish you could more easily use your phone’s superior front camera, then a selfie screen is a great option, and Vivo looks like it has just made the best one. If it turns out to be compatible with your device, then it could be the best phone accessory you buy all year — I'll update this page once I know more about the availability and compatibility of the screen.
- Data centers will get a label, just like your fridge or dishwasher
- Energy and water consumption must be reported by 500kW+ sites
- The EC also wants to know how resources are being balanced in relation to local strains
The European Commission has proposed a new rating scheme for data centers in a bid to have them report metrics like energy efficiency and water consumption more transparently.
Upcoming changes fall under the new Data Center Energy Efficiency Package, which introduces a new common, EU-wide rating scheme much like what we're already familiar with for household appliances.
Crucially, the changes now affect smaller campuses with a power demand of at least 500kW, whereas only much larger sites were impacted before the new rules.
European data centers must report efficiency statistics more openlySome of the new metrics include total energy and water consumption, Power Usage Effectiveness (a figure we're already familiar with in hyperscalers' annual sustainability reports), Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE), how much of their energy comes from renewables, whether waste heat gets reused and more.
Ultimately, the intensified reporting is hoped not only to reveal how much energy sites are using, but how effectively they're balancing consumption in relation to local pressures like water stress.
"Tripling our data centre capacity cannot mean tripling the pressure on our grids, our water and our energy bills," Clean, Just and Competitive Transition EVP Teresa Ribera said.
The changes are also especially notable given ongoing changes within the bloc, because the EU has been ramping up more local compute options so as to reduce reliance on international options in a big sovereign drive. Over the next seven years, the EU wants to triple its data center capacity, per Reuters reporting.
Importantly, the changes won't happen overnight with the rating scheme subject to a two-month scrutiny window, the Commission detailed. Still, the first ratings are set to go live as early as this year, and by the end of 2028, the EU hopes to have reviewed just how effective those new enforcements were.
"Understanding their energy and resource consumption is the essential first step towards integrating them sustainably into our energy system," Energy and Housing Commissioner Dan Jørgensen added.