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The Great Cassette Rewind continues, as more affordable tape-playing options capitalize on the love for collectible physical media, which has only grown in the wake of the vinyl revival.
Earlier in 2025, We Are Rewind announced a metal Walkman-like portable player that can play cassettes over Bluetooth or with the best wired headphones, and then followed it up with the We Are Rewind GB-001 boombox reinvention.
And yes, this goes all out at being a boombox just the way you remember it. It's got a front-opening cassette deck, it's got physical dials and buttons, it's got a folding handle, it's got twin VU meters on the front, it's got two-way speakers on each side, and it's slightly heavier than is really convenient.
There are two notable feature swaps from the boombox you had a few decades ago, though: the radio tuner is out and Bluetooth is in for wireless playback, and the battery is a built-in rechargeable option instead of needing a dozen cells each the size of a large hamster.
(Image credit: Future)It's got a guitar/mic input if you want to play or sing along with the music, and you can use this input to record to the cassette deck. Sadly, you can't record to tape from the Bluetooth connection, and I wish it actually had two cassette decks so you could go really old school and record between them, but what's here is probably the right balance for using it in the real world.
Speaking of which, I did get to test it out, though in a slightly odd situation: I was at a big audio trade show, and we couldn't test it in the side room it was being shown off in, because there was a constant demo of much larger speakers.
So we just took it out into the public area, put it on the ground, and turned up the dial until I could enjoy my music and everyone around me was annoyed – the authentic public boombox experience!
Actually, I suspect that people were more curious than annoyed – they were at an audio trade show, after all, and this thing really stood out among all the more traditional hi-fi that dominated the show.
(Image credit: Future)There is a deep, fundamental satisfaction that comes from turning up the volume and seeing physical VU meter needles start to jump higher and higher up their range; a reassuring supplement to what your ears are telling you, that rocking is about to happen.
Despite being at a hi-fi show, the GB-001's sound is not exactly audiophile, which will not be a shock to anyone – and is not what we really want from it anyway. Because I was listening to it on a noisy trade-show floor, obviously my assessment of its sound is very much limited, but it is at least representative of using the thing in the real world, where other sounds around you will conflict with it.
It's heavy through the low-end, which is common among outdoor speakers, because bass is easily lost when traveling through open air. It seems to know what it's doing with this bass, which felt fairly controlled and lively – the risk with going strong on bass is that it starts to become flat and lands with a thud, but this felt like it had bounce.
The mids felt a little lost among the sound around me even when I'd turned the volume pretty high, but the treble comes across, and again I feel like this is what you expect from this kind of speaker in this environment – all the movement and conversation around me is heavily in the mid-range and is most likely to overwhelm the audio, but I could still hear all the core essence of songs, and definitely the beat.
I couldn't tell you much about its delivery of detail in that environment, but I genuinely do feel like this asking the wrong question of a boombox.
(Image credit: Future)One thing to note is that it delivers a notably broader sound over Bluetooth than it does from cassettes. It's one big reason why I don't think the tape revolution will ever take off in the same way as the vinyl revival. I know some people love them, but really cassettes were the best solution to a portability problem at the time, and basically every solution since then has been superior.
But there is a genuine charm to them outside of the sound, which is the same with vinyl. The physical ritual of opening a box, sliding out the cassette, and sliding it into the boombox's caddy is deliberate and satisfying.
The chunk of pressing the mechanical buttons tickles the right part of the brain. The click and silence of a successful rewind delivers anticipation that you're about to dig into something good.
And I've written about this before, but I genuinely miss the creativity of the mixtape era, and both of We Are Rewind's products have that in mind, both including a line-in option to record something personal to tape and share it with your crush/best fried, or sibling, or favorite artist you waited ages at the stage door to see who's definitely going to love your stuff and will be your big break.
Even with all that acknowledged, it's the light-up twin VU meters that are my favorite part of the whole thing. They're another element that adds anticipation; when the lights come on and the needle twitches, you're about to kick off a good time.
My next home hi-fi upgrade will be genuinely influenced by the presence of features like this, because now that it's possible to play all the music in the world in high quality with almost no equipment whatsoever (just some of the best earbuds and your phone), if you're going to invest in big physical units to provide pleasing playback, they should make you as happy physically as they do sonically.
I think the GB-001 gets this – it's about the ritual of music, at home or out at the skate park.
You might also like…Sensay, a creator of AI-powered digital replicas of people, has established an AI-powered government on a real island it purchased off the coast of the Philippines. Previously known as Cheron Island, it's been renamed Sensay Island.
The Head of State (effectively, the President) of Sensay Island is Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, one of The Five Good Emperors of Rome, who was known for his love of Stoic philosophy and good judgement. Wartime British PM Winston Churchill is the Prime Minister, while Sun Tzu, author of the Chinese strategic classic, The Art of War, takes the reins at Defence. Alexander Hamilton is the new Treasury Secretary.
According to Sensay, “Each AI replica is designed to emulate the personality, values, and decision-making patterns of the historical figure it represents, providing a governance style infused with timeless wisdom and ethical principles.
To truly emulate the character of these historical figures, each recreation is uniquely trained on the literature, teaching, philosophies, and speeches of the real-life counterparts they represent."
How easily AI replicas from such disparate periods and with such strong characters will be able to work together in government remains to be seen, since their contrasting values must surely clash at points, not to mention be at odds with modern-day values.
The full cabinetHere’s the full list of Sensay Island cabinet members:
Head of State (President): Marcus Aurelius
Prime Minister: Winston Churchill
Foreign Affairs Minister: Eleanor Roosevelt
Defense Minister: Sun Tzu
Treasury Secretary: Alexander Hamilton
Justice Minister: Nelson Mandela
Science & Technology Minister: Ada Lovelace
Education Minister: Confucius
Health Minister: Florence Nightingale
Agriculture Minister: George Washington Carver
Environment Minister: Wangari Maathai
Culture Minister: Leonardo da Vinci
Ethics Advisor: Mahatma Gandhi
Innovation Advisor: Nikola Tesla
Infrastructure Director: Queen Hatshepsut
Chief Strategist: Zhuge Liang
Intelligence Chief: T.E. Lawrence
Personally, I think DaVinci was a wise choice for Culture Minister, and it’s nice to see Nikola Tesla being recognized as Innovation Advisor, but I have to say I’m a little disappointed not to see Queen Cleopatra anywhere in the mix.
Confucius also presents some challenges as Education Minister, considering his unfamiliarity with modern technology, like AI.
Sensay Island is neighbor to Guinlep Island and Bamboo Private Island. (Image credit: Sensay)A real islandSensay Island is indeed a real island off the coast of the Philippines. You can find it on Google Maps. It has a surface area of around 3.4 km², comprising beaches, rainforest, and coral lagoons.
From what we can see, there doesn’t seem to be any infrastructure of any kind on the island, so if you’re thinking of a visit, be aware that there’s probably no Wi-Fi.
While an AI government feels like something of a publicity stunt, there are serious reasons why Sensay has created an AI island:
“Sensay is looking to demonstrate that AI can be deployed in national governance to aid policymaking free from political partisanship and bureaucratic delays, and with unprecedented transparency and participation”, it says.
A fly on the wallAccording to Marisol Reyes, the (AI-powered) Tourism Manager for Sensay Island, who you can chat with at its website, you can visit the island whenever you like:
“Absolutely, you can visit our beautiful island! We're thrilled to welcome visitors to experience this unique blend of cutting-edge AI governance and traditional Filipino hospitality. Sensay Island is open to tourists who want to explore our pristine beaches, vibrant coral sanctuaries, and witness history in the making with our groundbreaking AI Council.”
For those without the means to visit, the good news is that you can still get involved. You will soon be able to register as an E-resident of Sensay Island, allowing you to propose new policies for its AI-powered administration via an open-access platform:
“This will combine direct democracy with AI-enhanced decision-making”, says Sensay.
Dan Thomson, CEO and founder of Sensay, added, “This project shows Sensay’s commitment to pushing the boundaries of AI in a responsible direction. I hope our approach will show the public and world leaders that AI is a feasible and efficient way to develop and implement policies."
Despite an AI-controlled civilization leading to (attempted) human extinction in just about every major Sci-Fi movie I’ve watched in the last 40 years, from Logan’s Run to The Terminator, it seems that humans are still determined to give it a go.
But could AI actually provide a more balanced and sane government than our elected officials can? There’s only one way to find out...
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- CISA flags security issue affecting multiple TP-Link models
- It allows threat actors to execute arbitrary system-level commands
- Affected models have all reached end of life, so should be replaced anyway
Multiple TP-Link routers, which have long reached end-of-life (EoL) status, are being abused in real-life attacks, the US government is warning.
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added a command injection vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, signaling abuse in the wild.
A command injection vulnerability allows threat actors to execute arbitrary system-level commands on a server by exploiting improperly sanitized user input.
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Popular routersIn this case, the bug is tracked as CVE-2023-33538 and has a severity score of 8.8/10 (high). It affects multiple models, including TP-Link TL-WR940N V2/V4, TL-WR841N V8/V10, and TL-WR740N V1/V2.
All of these models reached their EoL long ago - between 2010 and 2018. That means that they are no longer receiving updates, and that TP-Link will not be addressing the command injection vulnerability mentioned above.
Usually, when a bug is added to KEV, Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies have three weeks to apply the patch. Since in this case, there is no patch, users are urged to replace old hardware with newer versions. The deadline to complete the removal is July 7, 2025.
Most OEMs advise this for all of the equipment that reached end-of-life status, both hardware, and software.
Despite being a decade old, these devices are still quite popular - as ,ost can still be purchased on Amazon, where one of the models has more than 9,000 positive reviews, and another has more than 77,000 reviews and ranks well among other similar routers.
“Users should discontinue product utilization,” CISA warned on its website.
The proof-of-concept exploits are “widely available” online, Cybernews noted, highlighting these types of flaws are most dangerous on publicly exposed routers with remote access features. It doesn’t mean they cannot be exploited within the same local network.
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Gerard Butler's action movie Plane is heading for orbit: after just one week, it has racked up 6.3 million views, making it the second most popular movie on Netflix in the US and setting a course for #1 in the global charts (it's currently sitting at number three for the week ending June 15).
It's averaging a decent four out of five stars among the critics, but it's playing particularly well with viewers: at the time of writing it's got a very impressive 94% on Rotten Tomatoes from the streaming public, making it one of the best Netflix movies.
Butler is Brodie Torrance, a pilot forced to make a risky landing on a war-torn island only to discover that surviving the landing was only the beginning. When rebels take his passengers hostage, Torrance and the accused murderer his plane was transporting have to team up and fight back.
What are the critics saying about Plane?Plane is rather old-school, it's strongly reminiscent of the big-name action movies of the 80's – and that's no bad thing, especially with Butler in the pilot's seat. As Loud and Clear Reviews put it, "Plane makes it clear that it isn’t reaching for new heights but it doesn’t wing it either".
Don't judge the movie on its trailer, says WCSH: it's better than that, calling it "a decent popcorn thriller". And The Screen says that "Plane is a straightforward movie with very few twists to offer, but the trick to making it engaging lies in its execution".
"Nobody’s going to declare Plane a classic," says Decider, "but between [director Jean-Francois] Richet’s visual acumen and Butler doing admirable diligence to a character who’s in over his head... it’s an enjoyable, fast-paced and surprisingly engaging diversion."
But perhaps Zack Pope is the most representative of the streaming audience's views: as he writes, "Butler + Plane = Awesome".
Plane is streaming now on Netflix.
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