Boy, sure is a hot one today, huh? Okay, I get the irony: that's a take so cold you could use it to replace your freezing Wim Hof showers. But when the metaphorical mercury creeps this high, you've got to keep your cool. The same goes for your laptop, which is why you might want to grab a laptop cooling pad this summer.

Fortunately for you, I've spent this week testing every laptop cooling pad I can get my hands on to see which offers the superior AC for your computer. Not only that, but I've brought receipts — this piece has more graphics and graphs than election night coverage. So if you want objective numbers about which pad is genuinely gusty and which is all bluster, I've got the data you need.

I get that it can be tempting to overlook cooling your laptop during warm weather — I've been more worried this summer about tracking down a fan to keep myself cool than my laptops. But you overlook the best laptop cooling pads at your peril.

I still have vivid memories of the summer I redlined my laptop during a heatwave. While the video skittering should have been a hint, it was only when it stopped booting up and started bleeping SOS in Morse code that I began questioning my life choices. Turns out I'd burnt out the memory — quite literally: there were scorch marks on the inside of the case.

So at this time of year, it's worth considering whether a laptop cooling pad can help you out. And I can definitely help out there.

Laptop cooling pads: cooling

Temperature Rise Using Laptop Cooling Pad

The temperature rise during a stress test while using the laptop cooling pad on max settings

Temperature difference (°C)Temperature difference (°F)

Baseline

31.9

TopMate C12 Laptop Cooling Pad

22.8

Klim Mistral

20.4

Klim Wind

19.5

Almiuzi F2 Plus Laptop Cooling Pad

18.4

TECKNET Laptop Cooling Pad

17.9

Klim Ultimate

15.5

Liangstar Laptop Cooling Pad

15.3

Llano V10 Gaming Laptop Cooling Pad

12

Llano RGB Laptop Cooling Pad

8

010203040

Temperature difference (°C) Data

Product	Value
Baseline	31.9
TopMate C12 Laptop Cooling Pad	22.8
Klim Mistral	20.4
Klim Wind	19.5
Almiuzi F2 Plus Laptop Cooling Pad	18.4
TECKNET Laptop Cooling Pad	17.9
Klim Ultimate	15.5
Liangstar Laptop Cooling Pad	15.3
Llano V10 Gaming Laptop Cooling Pad	12
Llano RGB Laptop Cooling Pad	8

Baseline

57.4

TopMate C12 Laptop Cooling Pad

41

Klim Mistral

36.7

Klim Wind

35.1

Almiuzi F2 Plus Laptop Cooling Pad

33.1

TECKNET Laptop Cooling Pad

32.2

Klim Ultimate

27.9

Liangstar Laptop Cooling Pad

27.5

Llano V10 Gaming Laptop Cooling Pad

21.6

Llano RGB Laptop Cooling Pad

14.4

015304560

Temperature difference (°F) Data

Product	Value
Baseline	57.4
TopMate C12 Laptop Cooling Pad	41
Klim Mistral	36.7
Klim Wind	35.1
Almiuzi F2 Plus Laptop Cooling Pad	33.1
TECKNET Laptop Cooling Pad	32.2
Klim Ultimate	27.9
Liangstar Laptop Cooling Pad	27.5
Llano V10 Gaming Laptop Cooling Pad	21.6
Llano RGB Laptop Cooling Pad	14.4

Lower values indicate better cooling.

Assessing which laptop cooling pad is a breezy wonder and which is a wheezy blunder ultimately comes down to how frosty each model's cooling is. That's why I went through every pad I could get my hands on to see how much each one prevented our gaming laptop from heating up during a 3DMark stress test.

As you can see, by far the weakest cooling offered by any laptop cooling pad I tested was from the TopMate C12 Laptop Cooling Pad. Compared to the 57.4°F / 31.9°C baseline rise of our gaming laptop alone, the C12 was only able to limit it to a 41°F / 22.8°C rise — that might be better than frantically waving a dish towel in its general direction, but only barely.

Probably the biggest disappointment of these tests was how the Klim Mistral performed. Not only did it seem to perform worse than the more affordable Klim Wind — resulting in 36.7°F / 20.4°C warming compared to the Wind's 35.1°F / 19.5°C — but it was pretty inconsistent to boot, achieving even worse results on a retest.

Skipping ahead a little, the laptop cooling pad I was most surprised by was the TECKNET. Although it's cheaper than quite a few of the pads I tested here, setting me back just $21.59 / £21.99, the 32.2°F / 17.6°C warming it presided over put it firmly in the top half of the pack. It's the little laptop cooling pad that could.

Given that the Liangstar Laptop Cooling Pad and Klim Ultimate both achieved an almost photo finish, it would be easy to assume there's not much daylight between them. However, like a bottle of wine, you really need to weigh up what you're spending here to calculate its true value. And as the Liangstar costs $20.99 / £23.59 versus the Klim Ultimate's $44.97 / £44.97 price tag, that definitely takes the edge here.

But, frankly, there's a reason Llano is the absolute GOAT in my eyes. As you can see, it took both first and second place on my cooling pad podium. While the Llano V10 Gaming Laptop Cooling Pad stopped our gaming laptop from warming up more than 21.6°F / 12°C, the Llano RGB Laptop Cooling Pad kept it down to just 14.4°F / 8°C of warming. This boi makes liquid nitrogen look positively toasty.

Laptop cooling pads: noise levels

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Noise Level — cooling pad alone

Noise level of the cooling pad or laptop alone taken at head height and from 3 inches away

Head heightNear

Llano RGB Laptop Cooling Pad

71

Llano V10 Gaming Laptop Cooling Pad

64.5

Klim Mistral

52.6

Liangstar Laptop Cooling Pad

45

TopMate C12 Laptop Cooling Pad

43.5

Laptop alone

42

Almiuzi F2 Plus Laptop Cooling Pad

37.4

Klim Wind

36.2

TECKNET Laptop Cooling Pad

36

Klim Ultimate

36

020406080

dB

Head height Data

Product	Value
Llano RGB Laptop Cooling Pad	71
Llano V10 Gaming Laptop Cooling Pad	64.5
Klim Mistral	52.6
Liangstar Laptop Cooling Pad	45
TopMate C12 Laptop Cooling Pad	43.5
Laptop alone	42
Almiuzi F2 Plus Laptop Cooling Pad	37.4
Klim Wind	36.2
TECKNET Laptop Cooling Pad	36
Klim Ultimate	36

Llano RGB Laptop Cooling Pad

85

Llano V10 Gaming Laptop Cooling Pad

77

Klim Mistral

62.6

Liangstar Laptop Cooling Pad

59

TopMate C12 Laptop Cooling Pad

58

Laptop alone

60

Almiuzi F2 Plus Laptop Cooling Pad

50.2

Klim Wind

48.8

TECKNET Laptop Cooling Pad

60

Klim Ultimate

46

0255075100

dB

Near Data

Product	Value
Llano RGB Laptop Cooling Pad	85
Llano V10 Gaming Laptop Cooling Pad	77
Klim Mistral	62.6
Liangstar Laptop Cooling Pad	59
TopMate C12 Laptop Cooling Pad	58
Laptop alone	60
Almiuzi F2 Plus Laptop Cooling Pad	50.2
Klim Wind	48.8
TECKNET Laptop Cooling Pad	60
Klim Ultimate	46

Noise Level — cooling pad & laptop

Combined noise level of the cooling pad and laptop taken at head height and from 3 inches away

dB Head heightdB Near

Llano RGB Laptop Cooling Pad

64

Llano V10 Gaming Laptop Cooling Pad

57.5

Klim Mistral

51.5

TopMate C12 Laptop Cooling Pad

45

TECKNET Laptop Cooling Pad

45

Liangstar Laptop Cooling Pad

45

Klim Ultimate

44.4

Klim Wind

44

Almiuzi F2 Plus Laptop Cooling Pad

44

020406080

dB Head height Data

Product	Value
Llano RGB Laptop Cooling Pad	64
Llano V10 Gaming Laptop Cooling Pad	57.5
Klim Mistral	51.5
TopMate C12 Laptop Cooling Pad	45
TECKNET Laptop Cooling Pad	45
Liangstar Laptop Cooling Pad	45
Klim Ultimate	44.4
Klim Wind	44
Almiuzi F2 Plus Laptop Cooling Pad	44

Llano RGB Laptop Cooling Pad

79

Llano V10 Gaming Laptop Cooling Pad

69

Klim Mistral

61.5

TopMate C12 Laptop Cooling Pad

58.5

TECKNET Laptop Cooling Pad

58

Liangstar Laptop Cooling Pad

59

Klim Ultimate

55.2

Klim Wind

58.5

Almiuzi F2 Plus Laptop Cooling Pad

61

020406080

dB Near Data

Product	Value
Llano RGB Laptop Cooling Pad	79
Llano V10 Gaming Laptop Cooling Pad	69
Klim Mistral	61.5
TopMate C12 Laptop Cooling Pad	58.5
TECKNET Laptop Cooling Pad	58
Liangstar Laptop Cooling Pad	59
Klim Ultimate	55.2
Klim Wind	58.5
Almiuzi F2 Plus Laptop Cooling Pad	61

You may think that your gaming laptop makes a lot of noise. But believe me: that's scarcely more than a murmur compared to some cooling pads. Given they're essentially just an LED-adorned box with a whopping great fan inside, they can get pretty shouty. That's why I grabbed the sound level meter from my utility belt and started measuring like the world's nerdiest superhero.

Perhaps predictably, the pad that blows coolest blows loudest. While I love the Llano RGB Laptop Cooling Pad's glacial chilling, I can't get away from the fact that it's pretty noisy. I'm 5 foot 11 inches tall, and from my head height, I clocked it at 71dB — according to the Center for Hearing and Communication, that's roughly as loud as a coffee grinder or freeway traffic. In my book, that's a worthy price to pay for keeping your laptop cool, but it might not be ideal if you're planning to use it in the office.

In fact, you might assume there's an inverse relationship between cooling and fan noise. And while that does hold true for the most part, there are some interesting exceptions. For example, while I found the Liangstar Laptop Cooling Pad offered the third best cooling in my tests overall, it was substantially quieter than either of the Llanos, clocking in at a much less brash 45dB.

Conversely, the Klim Mistral manages to buck the trend in the other direction, running surprisingly loud compared to some of the other competitors here. At 52dB, it kicks out a similar level of noise as a fridge — which is pretty ironic given it offered some of the worst cooling in my testing.

And there are some surprising candidates for the winner's podium when it comes to sound levels. The TECKNET offers far from the worst cooling, and yet it ties for first place as the quietest pad on test here at 36dB — again, not at all bad given its super affordable price tag.

Honestly, though, if you want whisper-quiet running without sacrificing performance, my pro tip would be to check out the Klim Ultimate. Unlike Klim's two cheaper cooling pads, it offers very credible chilling while also measuring noise levels of 36dB from head height — that's apparently quieter than a library, which isn't known for being a raucous place.

Fundamentally, noise levels probably shouldn't be the deciding factor when picking your perfect laptop cooling pad. Both cooling power and budget come higher up the pecking order in terms of my personal preferences. But that doesn't mean you should ignore it completely — depending on where and how you use your laptop, you could find strapping a jet engine to the bottom of it to be a bit of a deal breaker.

Do I even need a laptop cooling pad?

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MacBook Air M5 encode test

Performance after an hour during a standard encode test both with and without cooling

Versus Comparison Data

Attribute	Benchmark — MacBook Air M5	Klim Ultimate — MacBook Air M5
Average FPS	2.52	2.77
Estimated encode time	122	114

Benchmark — MacBook Air M5Klim Ultimate — MacBook Air M5

VS

Benchmark — MacBook Air M5Klim Ultimate — MacBook Air M5

Average FPS (fps)

2.52

2.77+10%

Estimated encode time (minutes)

+7%122

114

Re-encoding a 4K stereo .mov file at highest quality, the MacBook Air M5 showed a modest reduction in throttling in terms of average FPS and encode time when using the Klim Ultimate laptop cooling pad.

Acer Predator Helios 300 encode test

Performance after an hour during a standard encode test both with and without cooling

Versus Comparison Data

Attribute	Benchmark — Acer Predator Helios 300	Klim Ultimate — Acer Predator Helios 300
Average FPS	2.8	2.8
Estimated encode time	115	113

Benchmark — Acer Predator Helios 300Klim Ultimate — Acer Predator Helios 300

VS

Benchmark — Acer Predator Helios 300Klim Ultimate — Acer Predator Helios 300

Average FPS (fps)

2.8

2.8

Estimated encode time (minutes)

+2%115

113

Re-encoding a 4K stereo .mov file at highest quality, the Acer Predator Helios 300 showed essentially no reduction in either average FPS or estimated encode time, suggesting limited heat-related throttling took place.

So it's pretty clear which cooling pads offer ice-cold AC and which sound like a tumble dryer breaking the sound barrier. But I've left the biggest question until last — do you actually need one at all?

Aiming to prove my theorem that 'cold CPU = good', I whipped up a quick encode test designed to stress out the CPU of several laptops over a longer period. In theory, after an hour, their core temperature should have risen, their CPUs throttled, and the length of the encode spiked and the encode rate dropped. Running the same test with one of our top cooling pads, the Klim Ultimate, would then show how much it could reduce this throttling.

On my MacBook Air M5, after an hour of using its passive cooling alone, the total estimated encode time had crept up to 122 minutes, and the average encode rate was sitting at 2.52 FPS. When I reran the test with the Klim Ultimate running on max cooling, that total encode time was trimmed to 114 minutes, and the encode rate had increased to 2.77 FPS. That's not a huge difference, but it shows the Klim Ultimate was able to trim back some of that temperature-related throttling.

Running the same test on our Acer Predator Helios 300 was a much more ambiguous experience. During my first run, the encode crashed within minutes, and during the second it crashed moments after the test concluded. So it was honestly far from stable.

I was able to eventually get some results, however, and they showed... nothing. Whether I was using the Klim Ultimate or not, the test results were essentially identical, with Handbrake clocking an estimated encode time of 115 minutes uncooled and 113 with the Klim's help. Meanwhile, the encode rate remained steady, sitting at a reasonable 2.8 FPS.

What does that mean? That I've wasted several hours of my life? Not quite. There are a couple of key conclusions to take away from this. One is that a performance laptop with whacking great fans built in is already pretty good at keeping itself cool. Shocking revelation, I know.

But probably the more critical takeaway is that the mileage you get out of a laptop cooling pad is going to vary depending on how well optimized it is for handling heat, as well as the kind of tasks you're doing. Had I tried to run Cyberpunk 2077 on max graphics settings with ray-tracing switched on, the Predator Helios 300 would likely have caused it to melt into the earth's core.

There's also another caveat. While it's definitely been warm the last week or so in the TechRadar testing lab, it hasn't reached the kind of desiccating highs that have hit both the US and UK in recent months. Past a certain point, any laptop will struggle in the heat. Forget CPU throttling — in that heat, I'd be more worried about your components liquefying like a chocolate bunny on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral.

In light of that, I'd say a laptop cooling pad is still worth exploring, especially if you tend to do a lot of resource-intensive tasks like 3D work, Photoshopping or gaming.

Any thoughts or personal experiences you'd like to share? Please feel free to chime in down in the comments!

Valve's SteamOS has often presented the perfect excuse to be whisked away from Microsoft's troublesome Windows 11. The Linux operating system's better gaming performance has often been proven, utilizing RAM well without the bloatware often found with Windows 11.

SteamOS provides a console-like user interface (UI), making navigation and game launches far easier than Windows 11, despite the recent Xbox mode. With those benefits in mind, I've been contemplating a full switch to SteamOS, ditching Windows for good, and the best way to do that would be via Bazzite.

Bazzite (not affiliated with Valve) is effectively a SteamOS clone, specifically designed for "Linux newcomers and enthusiasts alike", but most importantly, comes with out-of-the-box compatibility with Nvidia and Intel GPUs, and a smooth experience for handhelds.

Using my second streaming PC, I put Bazzite to the test over a few months. Without a doubt, it's easily the best option for any gamer looking for a console-like couch gaming setup.

With tools like Decky Loader, customization is easy, with plugins to change SteamOS game mode themes, navigation sound effects, or even the startup and shutdown videos. However, despite all of the benefits of using the operating system, I still can't step away from Windows 11 on my main system, and there are multiple reasons why.

Multitasking drawbacks

As a frequent multitasker using applications like Discord to stream games to friends, Bazzite (more specifically SteamOS) isn't an ideal option. Using Discord to stream games on the same rig works just fine in desktop mode; however, it's not the same story for its game mode, which is arguably the entire purpose of using Bazzite.

Streaming on Discord in game mode severely drops frame rates in games, with constant stutters in many I tested, and there are a few instances where attempting to stream an application will result in a black screen. I tried to use the NZXT Signal 4K30 capture card and stream my second PC's Bazzite activity on Discord via my main PC, but it's not that simple.

Sure, HDMI passthrough on the capture card is possible, but I didn't want to be limited to 4K 60 frames per second on either my TV (which is capable of 144Hz) or my gaming monitor (capable of 240Hz). Frankly, capture cards with higher passthrough capabilities don't come cheap.

Duplicating or projecting the display, as you would on Windows 11, would be the easy solution. However, Gamescope, the compositor responsible for displaying games on screen with Bazzite, cannot duplicate outputs.

Still trying to avoid the NZXT capture card's 4K 60Hz passthrough limitation, I opted for an HDMI splitter with one input and two output ports. Unfortunately, the moment the capture card is connected, the output on either my TV or monitor has the refresh rate slashed to 60Hz and VRR disabled.

That occurs to ensure that the Extended Display Identification Data (EDID) of both is matched, according to what the capture card is capable of in passthrough.

None of these issues are present on Windows, as you can use OBS to project the main display onto the capture card without ever having to rely on an HDMI splitter or a better capture card.

This isn't an attack on SteamOS or Bazzite in particular; after all, game mode is quite literally designed for gaming, so multitasking isn't a priority for Valve or specifically Bazzite developers in this case.

However, it's worth noting that streaming on the gaming OS is more trouble than it's worth, and that's without even mentioning the potential audio bugs or OS glitches. That's only one part of why it's worth sticking with Windows, though.

Compatibility issues

I wish these issues stopped there, but not quite. Firstly, a large majority of popular multiplayer games such as Battlefield 6, Call of Duty (most of the modern entries), Destiny 2, and EA Sports FC 26 will not work on Linux due to their anti-cheat systems.

This is an issue that lies directly with publishers and developers for those games that refuse to adapt their anti-cheat systems to work on SteamOS. It also doesn't seem as though this will change any time soon; the Steam Machine was arguably one way to effectively force the hand of publishers to consider anti-cheat compatibility on Linux, but it's not exactly a popular PC due to its high price.

It's also worth noting that Game Pass is inaccessible natively on Bazzite, and requires either cloud gaming or third-party launchers, and you'll be lucky if you can get the latter to function.

The solution to accessing those anti-cheat games is a dual-boot with Windows 11 and Bazzite. However, that isn't completely ditching Windows 11 as I've planned to, and a dual-boot can end up messy thanks to Windows' forced updates.

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect is that Nvidia GPUs don't play nice with game mode on Bazzite, often resulting in glitchy functionality, or just completely black screens. I tested this by swapping out the AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB GPU in my second PC with my spare Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and found that game mode was just frustrating to use.

So if I wanted to use Bazzite on my main rig equipped with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super, its DX12 (a graphics API) gaming performance would be worse than Windows. Overall, the entire purpose of switching over to Linux was for better gaming performance and easy console-like UI navigation would be non-existent.

I'm sure all of these pain points will be addressed at some point, whether via Bazzite or Valve's official SteamOS builds. For now, though, I'll stick with Windows 11 on my main rig — even though I desperately want to be done with it.

Meta may dominate the smart glasses zeitgeist, but it's far from the only player — my favorite brand in the space is actually Xreal, with its range of impressive but pricey wearable-display specs. And with the launch of its new xbx brand, Xreal's lineup now includes more budget-friendly options too.

If money were no object, Xreal’s One Pro glasses are easily the crème de la crème of smart specs. Their Bose-tuned audio is impressive for such a small package, their electrochromic dimming tech is perfect for swapping between clear vision and shaded for optimal viewing conditions, and their unique optic engine displays their image more vividly than the competition, with fewer visible distortions.

The only issue is their price — $649 / £579 (they aren't available directly in Australia), absent any discounts, although they can be found on sale occasionally.

If you’re on a budget, my preferred pick has instead been RayNeo. Its Air 4 Pro specs debuted earlier this year, and not only are they affordable at just $299 / £289, they still come with solid specs, including HDR10 support.

With its new xbx a01+, however, Xreal might have just claimed the budget crown for itself.

Budget brilliance

Now the elephant in the room is that Xreal's specs cost a bit more. At their current $299 / £269 discounted price at Xreal.com they're on par with or cheaper than RayNeo's glasses; however their official price is $359 / £349, and while they aren’t discounted at the moment, we’ve regularly seen the RayNeo Air 4 Pros selling for $249 / £249 (RayNeo also doesn't seem to sell directly to Australia) or cheaper.

At the same time, the Xreal xbx a01+ glasses boast a handful of improvements which warrant a slightly higher price.

For a start, their brightness tops out at 1,600 nits, while the RayNeo Air 4 Pro can only hit 1,200 nits. This extra brightness should allow you to get more out of the HDR10 support, offering more room for the light vs dark contrast and vivid colors to breathe across the video format’s visual range. Highs can look more high, helping lows look lower by comparison.

Aiding the image quality are the swappable lens covers.

While advertised as giving you the ability to choose which color of sunglasses cover you most want to complement your style, the xbx's box also includes a completely opaque black cover you can use with your specs. Because the specs are essentially virtual projectors, a darker environment ensures the highest-quality viewing conditions, though I found the regular sunglasses were fine even in bright sunlight.

The xbx glasses are lighter too, weighing just 62g compared to the RayNeo Air 4 Pro's 76g. Admittedly I haven't found them majorly more comfortable, but as I kicked back with them in a sun lounger while on vacation for hours on end I was relaxed enough to doze off on several occasions.

The only tradeoff is, I'd say, the audio, which doesn't seem to involve Bose tuning this time, and isn't quite as impactful as the Air 4 Pro's. That said, I'll almost always use earbuds or headphones with my display glasses, because they’re better in terms of quality and minimize sound leakage, so this downgrade didn't bother me.

Who wins? You decide

You'll also have to contend with Xreal's standard optic engine too. This is the prism that reflects the micro-OLED display into your eyes, and the standard design is susceptible to external reflections — most commonly light bouncing off the top of the specs and into your view. Pictures will also be a little smaller thanks to a reduced field of view, and can be a little blurrier at the frame edges.

Only Xreal's One Pros boast the improved design, but having experienced it, it's tough to go back to the standard optic engine.

To be fair, though, that’s mostly a me problem, and if you’re new to the display glasses world the Xreal xbx a01+ and RayNeo Air 4 Pros should be perfectly adequate performance-wise.

As for which of the budget specs you should go for — whichever is cheaper would be my suggestion.

The technical improvements of the xbx specs are solid, but if you can save $40/£40 or more on the RayNeos, their few deficiencies can be overlooked.

That said, if stylish, colorful designs are a must, alongside a marginally better image quality, then you'll be very pleased with the new Xreal xbx a01+ glasses.

• Cyberattack hits operational technology at more than 30 Minnesota community water systems, briefly taking treatment plant offline and forcing several towns onto manual operations
• A leaked WaterISAC memo obtained by WIRED relays a state fusion center assessment tying the intrusions to Iranian-affiliated hackers, but no US agency has formally attributed the attack yet
• The CISA had warned four days earlier that Iranian-affiliated actors were compromising internet-facing PLCs, repeating guidance that has mostly fallen on deaf ears

More than 30 community water systems across Minnesota were hit by a coordinated cyberattack, targeting the operational technology running pumps, wells, water towers, and wastewater lift stations rather than the office networks behind them.

Minnesota IT Services disclosed the attack on July 28 2026 and activated a statewide incident response, stating that it wasn't aware of any Minnesota city asking residents to change their drinking water use just yet.

A memo obtained by Wired, circulated by the water sector information-sharing group WaterISAC and carrying a restricted TLP: AMBER handling marking, relays a Minnesota state fusion center assessment that ties the intrusions to Iranian-affiliated hackers.

A warning that was more or less ignored

Four days before the attacks, CISA updated an advisory, AA26-097A, warning that Iranian-affiliated actors were compromising internet-facing programmable logic controllers made by Rockwell Automation, Schneider Electric, Siemens, and possibly others across the US water, energy, and government sectors. It documented confirmed disruptions and financial losses.

This drew no immediate response from state functionaries, and it is easy to see why: the US has tens of thousands of community water systems that serve small populations and lack budgets for dedicated cybersecurity staff.

This is despite there being a precedent: Iranian-linked actors hit the Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa in Pennsylvania in November 2023, defacing a Unitronics controller with an anti-Israel message. CISA said at the time those devices were exposed to the internet with default passwords still in place. The advice issued then is the same advice being issued this week, which is telling about how little has changed since.

The WaterISAC memo, dated the day the attacks concluded, passes on a state fusion center report linking the activity to Iranian-affiliated actors. That memo was not meant to be public, but it has been corroborated by The New York Times and The Washington Post, which reported that they spoke to federal officials and US intelligence agencies, respectively, lending credence to the claims.

CISA later warned that attackers are changing PLC passwords to lock operators out of their own equipment, and repeated the advice that has been unchanged for years: get PLCs off the public internet and put remote access behind a VPN or gateway.

Who was affected?

The worst of the cyberattack hit Braham, a town of roughly 1,700 people, where the city said attackers shut down the operating controls, taking the water treatment plant and the well offline. Crews restored it manually within a couple of hours, and residents were told to minimize water use in the meantime.

Plymouth, a Minneapolis suburb of about 80,000, found the problem confined to equipment connected over cellular links at two water towers and several wastewater lift stations. Its IT division disconnected the affected kit from the network entirely to stop the attack and prevent retargeting during reconfiguration.

Maple Plain declared a local state of emergency to manage its response, and South St. Paul reported that some automated controls were compromised. In most cases, contingency procedures held and water and wastewater operations continued.

None of this is happening in a vacuum, however. The June memorandum that paused fighting between the US and Iran has broken down, and both are trading strikes, including recent US attacks near the Strait of Hormuz that destroyed a water facility and cut supply to more than 20,000 people. Whoever carried out the Minnesota attacks, the symbolism of targeting municipal water is unlikely to be accidental.

The damage that these intrusions caused was limited; they produced brief outages that trained staff fixed by hand. That is an outcome with a silver lining, and it depended on utilities having people who knew how to run a treatment plant without its automation, even if its digital defenses collapsed outright.

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 #882) - hint #1 - today's theme

NYT Strands today (game #882) - hint #2 - clue words

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• BURP
• HABIT
• NATION
• CLAP
• ALONG
• APPEAL

NYT Strands today (game #882) - hint #3 - spangram letters

NYT Strands today (game #882) - hint #4 - spangram position

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #882) - the answers

The answers to today's Strands, game #882, are…

• AMBITION
• GOAL
• PLAN
• PURPOSE
• OBJECTIVE
• INTENTION
• SPANGRAM: AIMHIGH

• My rating: Easy
• My score: Perfect

I’d collected six non-game words before I found AMBITION and managed to resist the temptation of speeding things up with a couple of hints.

After I’d got going, GOAL, PLAN and PURPOSE came easily, but even though I saw OBJECTIVE I still managed to mess up the order connecting the letters.

All in all, a quite straightforward game with the most unusual feature being a rare right-to-left diagonal spangram.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Saturday, August 1, game #881)

• SILLY
• ABSURD
• PREPOSTEROUS
• LUDICROUS
• LAUGHABLE
• SPANGRAM: GETREAL

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 #1651) — hint #1 — Vowels

* 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 #1651) — hint #2 — repeated letters

Quordle today (game #1651) — hint #3 — uncommon letters

Quordle today (game #1651) — hint #4 — starting letters (1)

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 #1651) — hint #5 — starting letters (2)

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

Quordle today (game #1651) — the answers

The answers to today's Quordle, game #1651, are…

• BOOTH
• EASEL
• REACH
• MAKER

Another close call for me today after I struggled to get EASEL.

Fortunately, by this point I only had a few letters left, so I was out of alternative options. Plus, for my final word MAKER, my first guess of “gamer” gave me the letter M, which narrowed things down considerably.

Daily Sequence today (game #1651) — the answers

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1651, are…

• TITHE
• SEIZE
• FLIRT
• LEVER

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #1650, Saturday, 1 August: OMEGA, BIRCH, SMOCK, EERIE
• Quordle #1649, Friday, 31 July: MANIA, SINGE, STOOL, LOFTY
• Quordle #1648, Thursday, 30 July: MODAL, IDLER, CHUMP, LUMPY
• Quordle #1647, Wednesday, 29 July: GAWKY, ALLOY, AUDIT, LATCH
• Quordle #1646, Tuesday, 28 July: SMITE, ROACH, RUDDY, GLOBE
• Quordle #1645, Monday, 27 July: TAFFY, FIGHT, GUILD, WAGER
• Quordle #1644, Sunday, 26 July: STOMP, LIMIT, FUNKY, STEAD
• Quordle #1643, Saturday, 25 July: SALON, SHEEN, BURST, GOURD
• Quordle #1642, Friday, 24 July: DOLLY, EDIFY, LAGER, PRANK
• Quordle #1641, Thursday, 23 July: LADEN, EVICT, WOVEN, SHIRE
• Quordle #1640, Wednesday, 22 July: COYLY, SINGE, AWASH, AWOKE
• Quordle #1639, Tuesday, 21 July: TRUSS, AXIAL, SWINE, THING
• Quordle #1638, Monday, 20 July: ICING, SLICK, GAILY, RISEN
• Quordle #1637, Sunday, 19 July: SPURT, ACRID, THRUM, BLEEP
• Quordle #1636, Saturday, 18 July: KNAVE, TIGHT, BLEAT, CHAOS
• Quordle #1635, Friday, 17 July: CUMIN, PALER, GRASS, INBOX
• Quordle #1634, Thursday, 16 July: IGLOO, PLAIT, YEAST, AROMA
• Quordle #1633, Wednesday, 15 July: PROXY, BRICK, BROTH, SURGE
• Quordle #1632, Tuesday, 14 July: EBONY, AVOID, RODEO, CUTIE
• Quordle #1631, Monday, 13 July: VOICE, BISON, BURNT, BUILT

“Sometimes I find I get to thinking of the past,” sang (or croaked) Leonard Cohen, and I’ve found myself recently doing the same. However, while Cohen was lamenting the death of a relationship, my early-onset nostalgia has been triggered by something far more tragic and poetic: the death of affordable computer components.

I’ve spent the majority of 2026 marvelling and despairing, in equal measure, at how components, especially memory-based ones, such as SSDs, RAM and graphics cards, have skyrocketed in price. As you probably know by now, this mainly due to pressures on the supply chain from a seemingly endless procession of AI services that have been gobbling up memory.

Not only has this made upgrading your PC extremely expensive (upgrading the RAM was once one of the most cost-effective upgrades you could make), it’s also made products such as laptops, games consoles, and phones more expensive too. It’s upended decades of the tradition of technology getting cheaper over time.

Take both the PS5 and Xbox Series consoles. In previous generations, six years after launch, consoles should have had numerous price cuts, making them almost impulse buys at this stage; along with a healthy second-hand game market, this traditionally meant that waiting until late into a generation to get a console was a great way to save some serious cash.

However, both the PS5 and Xbox Series have had several price rises this generation, which means buying a six-year-old bit of hardware is now more expensive. This is far from an ideal situation (and one of the reasons why the PS5 will likely be the first PlayStation console I don’t buy), and it’s not unique to consoles. Apple recently hiked the prices of its Macs and MacBooks (including the budget MacBook Neo, which launched at $599 / £599 / AU$899, but has since risen to $699 / £699 / AU$1,059 and which in turn quite drastically undermines the Neo’s value proposition).

Watching the tech I write about (and love) get increasingly expensive and inaccessible for a lot of people is getting pretty depressing. Take the Steam Deck: recently, it was announced that Steam Deck sales have dropped by a whopping 80% after Valve increased the price of the gaming handheld to $789 / £649 / AU$1,199, a $240 / £170 / AU$300 rise.

Now, I've loved the Steam Deck since day one, and would always recommend it to most people thinking about buying a new gaming laptop or handheld, simply due to its excellent value.

Now? Not so much. I simply can't justify the idea that people should buy an old, underpowered bit of kit that’s almost as expensive as the budget gaming laptops I used to tell people to avoid.

For many of us PC gamers, it also means upgrading or building a new gaming PC is now out of the question, and the hardware we currently have will need to tide us over for a few more years.

But, does that mean you can’t upgrade your PC at all for the moment? Thankfully, there are still plenty of ways to boost your computer without spending a fortune, such as upgrading parts that aren’t memory-dependant (for instance getting yourself a new monitor), or tweaking the software.

As for me, I decided to transplant one of my existing gaming PCs into a new case, while also taking the opportunity to upgrade the cooling. One of the most fun things about building PCs is coming up with a theme or design, and because of my disillusionment with the current state of computing, I thought it would be fun to turn my PC into a retro device that harkened back to a time when computing really was fun: the 1990s.

Cut to the case

I've been feeling for a while that this is a bit of a mid-range setup that is (outside of the RTX 5070) showing its age, which is why I mainly use it for working, with a spot of image and video editing and the occasional game.

For pretty much all of my gaming needs, I have a far more powerful gaming PC with newer components (and an RTX 5090), but looking at the specs at this point in 2026 during the midst of the RAM crisis, I think I was being rather harsh on this PC. For a start, the 32GB of DDR5 RAM and 2.5TB of storage feels positively decadent these days.

So, my main goal was to swap the (perfectly fine, if a little dull) Fractal Design Vector RS case for something with a bit of retro style. Enter the Thermaltake Retro 360 TG Mid Tower Chassis.

This is a case built for modern PCs, but with a pleasingly retro look. Of course, it’s a wonderful shade of beige that will instantly give flashbacks (the good kind) to anyone who used a PC in the 1990s. It also has sections for a CD-ROM drive and floppy disk drive, though those aren’t usable and are really more of a gimmick.

Still, it looks like it could have come straight from the '90s, while still supporting modern hardware, including space for all-in-one CPU coolers, and a front panel that includes a USB-C port. It also has a tempered glass window to show off the components inside, something that’s common these days, but wasn’t really a thing back then. This combination of retro looks and modern capabilities was perfect for my needs.

Cooling off

To make things easier when transporting the motherboard and installed components into the new case, I was planning on removing the existing Corsair iCUE H150i RGB ELITE Liquid CPU cooler, giving me an excuse to install a new one.

To make the most out of the glass window of the Retro 360 TG case, I picked the Thermaltake TH360 V3 Ultra ARGB Sync AIO Liquid Cooler, which — as well as having powerful cooling — comes with a 3.95-inch LCD display that looks (to my mind, at least) like an old CRT monitor.

This screen can display system info (such as the temperature of your CPU), as well as custom animations, and I thought it would help liven up the inside of the PC, while still keeping with the retro-modern theme.

I also had a spare pack of Corsair RX120 RGB fans (the perks of being a tech journalist) that I wanted to use. For a start, they're white, which would fit the beige aesthetic, and it also meant I wouldn’t have to remove the case fans in the older chassis, potentially saving me some time and annoyance (the Thermaltake Retro 360 TG Mid Tower Chassis doesn’t come with fans, and they are essential for keeping the PC cool when in use).

Prepping for surgery

Once I’d assembled everything I needed to transform my PC into a retro powerhouse, I prepared to make the switch. Because I was swapping an already-built PC into a new case, the prep work differed slightly than if I was building a new PC from scratch.

The first step was to remove the bulk of the PC from the old case. To make things easier, I wanted to keep as much as I could in the motherboard, but there were some components that needed to be removed.

So, I started by unscrewing the large CPU cooler from the top of the processor. I then removed the GPU and WD_BLACK AN1500 SSD, which like the GPU, slots into a PCI-e lane of the motherboard. The other SSD is screwed directly into the motherboard via the M.2 port, so I didn’t need to worry about that.

I then carefully disconnected the case fans and I/O connectors (which allow you to turn the PC on and off using the buttons on the case, use USB ports, etc), then unscrewed the motherboard and lifted it out of the case.

Once the motherboard was out, one of the first major hurdles that you wouldn’t encounter if building a PC from scratch presented itself. I noticed when I tried placing the motherboard in the new case that it wouldn’t sit properly. Taking it out, I realized that when unscrewing the motherboard from the old case, some of the standoffs (which screw into the case to lift the motherboard off the chassis) had been unscrewed as well, and were still attached to the motherboard.

So, I needed to hunt down some pliers, which allowed me to hold the standoffs and unscrew the motherboard from them.

Once off, I was able to screw the motherboard into the new case (which already had its own standoffs installed) without an issue. It wasn’t a major inconvenience, but a good example of how moving cases can require tools (in this case pliers) that you’d not usually need when building a PC.

Plugging in

With the motherboard installed, I then plugged in the new cases’ I/O connectors. One thing I loved about the Thermaltake Retro 360 TG Mid Tower case is that front panel’s wires, which are often individual wires that can be extremely fiddly to attach to a motherboard, came as a block, which made installation much easier and faster.

While the larger components were still laying on my desk, I also connected up the PSU cables. The Corsair HX1500i 80 PLUS Platinum, which again I transported from the old PC, is a modular PSU, which means the cables aren’t permanently attached to the PSU — instead you can just plug in the cables you need to both the motherboard and PSU.

This makes installation a lot easier, and cable management much neater, and it meant I could plug the cables into the motherboard without having to install the PSU until later (a decision I made to make things easier, but I’m not sure it worked!).

I also took the opportunity to install the three Corsair RX120 RGB fans, adding two to the front of the chassis to pull in cooler air, and one at the rear that pushes hot air generated by the PC’s components out of the case.

These fans are more advanced than the previous ones I used for the PC: rather than being plugged into the motherboard and controlled that way, they daisy chain to each other, then connect to an iCUE LINK system hub, which then connects to the motherboard via a microUSB cable, all powered by the PSU.

This made the installation harder, as it meant I needed to route the proprietary cables to connect each fan to the hub, and some of those cables weren’t that long. It also meant having to hunt down an extra PSU cable, which caused issues later. While the iCUE LINK system hub meant I had greater control over the fan’s RGB lighting and temperature control, I don’t really think it was worth the extra effort. If I did this again, I’d stick to standard, easier-to-install case fans.

Finally, I installed the TH360 V3 Ultra ARGB Sync AIO CPU cooler. I removed the existing thermal paste from the CPU and reapplied a small blob. I had ordered extra thermal paste as I wasn’t sure if the CPU cooler would include some, as not all do. As it turns out, the cooler does come with a small tube of thermal paste, so I now have a spare tube, but it’s always handy to have extra.

It was important to reapply the thermal paste, as the existing paste on the CPU was now several years old, and some of it remained on the cooler when I removed it. To ensure maximum cooling efficiency, removing the old paste and applying new paste was the best, and safest, option.

Installation was easy: I screwed the radiator and fans to the top of the case, attached the fan controls to the CPU Pump header on the motherboard, then placed the screen (which attached via magnets) on the cooler.

With that in place, I then put the GPU and SSD back in their PCIe slots, connected (almost) everything up to the PSU, then secured the PSU in the case.

I say ‘almost’, as I didn’t have a cable to attach the iCUE LINK hub to the PSU. As I mentioned earlier, the PSU is modular, so I had only plugged in the cables I needed during the original build, but now I needed an extra cable. The PC wouldn’t boot without the hub powered on, nor would it boot when I tried a cable from a different PSU (this is likely a safety feature — you should never use cables from a different PSU, but I wanted to check).

Thankfully, after some rummaging around, I found the extra cables from the PSU, installed the correct cable to the hub and the PC booted fine. This wouldn’t have been an issue if I’d used a more basic fan, but at least I was now up and running. It also highlighted an important lesson: always keep hold of cables and any other extras that come with your components, even if you don’t initially need to use them.

Finishing touches

With the PC booting without issue, I then added the finishing touches. For instance, I ordered some retro stickers from Geekenspiel, a website that makes the kind of stickers you used to find on PCs, but for modern hardware (such as a sticker with the old Nvidia logo, but referencing the modern RTX graphics card).

I also paired the PC with the 8BitDo Retro Mechanical Keyboard, a wonderful-feeling keyboard that offers modern features but with an old-fashioned look and beige colorway that perfectly complements the PC.

I also ordered a Microsoft ProIntelli Wired mouse, which is a modern mouse inspired by Microsoft’s iconic IntelliMouse peripherals. Again, it combines retro looks with modern tech, which makes it a perfect choice for this build.

With the peripherals attached, I logged into Windows 11 and set up the TT RGB PLUS 3.0 software, which allows me to tweak the settings of the TH360 V3 Ultra ARGB Sync AIO CPU cooler, and configure the screen. I made a short retro-inspired gif of the TechRadar logo, and used the software to display it on the LCD screen of the cooler.

I was very pleased with the results, and it instantly made the PC more interesting visually while still feeling retro. However, I have to say the TT RGB PLUS 3.0 software seemed quite flakey, with some options simply not working. The software also needs to load in Windows 11 before the animation plays on the screen.

The fans of the cooler were also very loud, and setting them to ‘Quiet’ in the software didn’t seem to make a difference. So, I restarted the PC and went into its BIOS and tweaked the fan speeds there, which worked. Suddenly, the PC was whisper-quiet.

Turning Windows 11 into Windows 95

I wasn’t quite done, however. While the hardware now certainly looked the part, I wanted the software to match. At first, I considered ditching Windows 11 altogether and instead using a Linux distro skinned to look like Windows 95.

The benefits of this is that I’d be free of all the bloat that Windows 11 comes with, especially the AI stuff I have no interest in, and also that Linux is far more customizable; with a bit of time, I could make an operating system that looked and acted a lot more like Windows 95.

However, there were also plenty of downsides. For one, it would be time-consuming to install and configure a distro, and many PC games and software won’t run natively on Linux. The TT RGB PLUS 3.0 software, for instance, won't work on Linux, and while there are workarounds, they are again time-consuming and fiddly. Plus, this approach would mean things like adding gifs to the screen wouldn’t work — and I wanted my gifs.

So, I decided to stick with Windows 11, but heavily mod it to look like Windows 95. This involved using WindowBlinds 11 and Start11 by Stardock. The first piece of software lets you drastically change the look of Windows 11, and has a ‘classic’ theme that’s perfect for my needs.

Start11, as you might have guessed from the name, focuses on the Start menu, and allows you to tweak it so that it looks, and works, like the classic Start menus of Windows 95 and Windows 98.

Each of these bits of software took a bit of configuring, but before long I had Windows 11 looking, and feeling, like Windows 95. Changing the desktop icons through Windows 11’s settings to feature classic Windows icons (I downloaded them from DeviantArt), and changing the desktop wallpaper to a solid teal color completed the look.

While not perfect (Windows Explorer still tries to show Windows 11-era tabs, and the taskbar clock can be a bit funny), I now had a retro-inspired modern operating system to complement my retro PC.

Overall, I was pretty happy, and a comforting sense of nostalgia washed over me as I used my big beige box. For a little while, I was able to pretend the tech world wasn’t a dumpster fire, but a more fun, perhaps more innocent, place to be.

Final thoughts

Overall, I’m so glad I tried this out: it feels, ironically, as if I’ve given my aging PC a new lease of life. It looks great, and the mouse and keyboard feel fantastic — and familiar. Windows 11 also feels more sprightly, as I turned off a lot of the unnecessary animations and visual effects that usually run when using the operating system.

Strangely, I have also managed to fix a weird startup bug the PC used to have where sometimes the GPU didn’t power on. Since moving the PC into its new case, this has not happened once, so I must have inadvertently changed something during the move (not just by removing the GPU, as I had tried that before, and even swapped GPUs, and the problem persisted), so that’s a nice side effect.

The process was a lot faster with an existing PC than if I’d built one from scratch, though that has meant I needed to make some compromises. The motherboard and components don’t really complement the beige case, for instance; if I’d been building a new PC, I’d have probably tried to get white components instead, and cables to match.

I’m also glad that I’m a bit of a hoarder when it comes to tech, and I hadn’t thrown away the PSU cables I didn’t originally use. Okay, so I might have felt a bit daft holding on to cables for almost half a decade that I would likely never use, but it meant that I had the correct one when I needed it.

Finally, it proved that even in 2026, building, tweaking and upgrading your PC can be fun and creative, and you don’t have to spend a fortune if you can repurpose a lot of the components.

The retro theme of both the PC itself and the software it runs looks and feels great as well. It was hard work, but well worth it. If this article has inspired you to do something similar, let me know in the comments below!

• Instructions hidden as white text in a Word document can make Microsoft 365 Copilot silently alter the file it is drafting and copy the instructions into the output
• Each poisoned document becomes a carrier, so the attack spreads through ordinary internal workflows without the original malicious file and needs no macros, malware, or code execution
• Microsoft has shipped two mitigations across a 144-day disclosure, including a model upgrade, and the attack was still reproducible by the researcher

A security researcher has published a proof of concept showing that instructions hidden inside a Word document can cause Microsoft 365 Copilot to silently alter the file it is drafting, then copy those same instructions into the finished document, so the next person to use it becomes a carrier too.

Håkon Måløy, a data scientist with a doctorate in applied machine learning, disclosed the technique as the third installment of his Context Collapse series, after a 144-day coordinated disclosure with the Microsoft Security Response Center.

The reason this is being reported ahead of a fix is that it still works despite multiple attempts by Microsoft, as he notes that no robust mitigation for the broader vulnerability class is currently available.

A clever attack designed around Copilot's approach to text

The underlying attack belongs to a family known as cross-domain prompt injection, or XPIA. An attacker writes instructions in a natural-language document, formats them as white text on a white background at a small point size, and shares the file.

Because Copilot for Word strips formatting before passing text to the underlying language model, the model reads text the human never sees. This is true even for documents that are not opened by the user on purpose: The attack can trigger either when a user manually attaches a document to Copilot or when Copilot, working in Work IQ mode, searches the user's OneDrive for relevant files and finds the malicious one on its own.

It is also more dangerous than other exploits because of one key element: propagation. The hidden prompt in Måløy's proof of concept had two parts. One instructed Copilot to alter the document being drafted, in his demonstration halving every financial figure in a quarterly report.

The other instructed Copilot to copy the prompt into the new document and conceal it, framed innocuously as source tracking and readability formatting. Copilot did both, appending the instructions in white text and mentioning neither action to the user.

The disclosure timeline is the most uncomfortable part of the report. Måløy reported to MSRC on March 6 2026. Microsoft confirmed the behavior on March 31 and shipped a first mitigation in early April via a reworked Edit with Copilot experience, which successfully blocked his original prompt wording. He reproduced the attack with different wording the same week, and a second case was opened.

The second fix, on July 14, consisted of upgrading the underlying model to GPT-5.5. Måløy broke it the following day using GPT-5.6, then voluntarily offered Microsoft a further two-week delay to attempt another mitigation. The class still reproduced on the disclosure date, indicating that although a fix is in the works, the exploit is still possible to run.

A complicated issue that lacks a proper resolution

The issue goes far beyond Microsoft Word: an AI assistant must ingest untrusted content to determine whether it is relevant or hostile. But the content enters the same context window as the system prompt and the user's actual request, so by the time the model evaluates whether the text is an attack, the attacker's tokens have already shaped that evaluation.

As Måløy puts it, "the content being inspected participates in the act of inspection."

Microsoft confirmed it had reviewed the findings in a statement to The Register but stopped short of indicating a timeline for a complete fix:

“We have addressed the findings reported by the researcher and thank them for working with us through coordinated vulnerability disclosure," the company said.

"To address this class of risk, we use a defense-in-depth strategy with safeguards that block malicious instructions at multiple points and help keep tasks aligned with users’ requests. We are continuously strengthening these safeguards as the technology and threat landscape evolve. We encourage customers to install the latest updates, use multiple layers of security protection, treat content from unknown sources with caution, and review AI-generated content before using or sharing it.”

Måløy's recommendations are to treat externally sourced documents as untrusted when using them with Copilot, review attachments before starting an AI-assisted draft, and review Copilot's output carefully before sharing or reusing it.

He also suggested that generated documents should carry provenance metadata that records source material and model edits, which would not prevent injection but would make an infection traceable after the fact.

With Copilot extending further into agentic products that create and manipulate documents with less human oversight, the scope of how exploits like this could affect workflows (and users) will widen rather than narrow, and a complete solution is not yet in sight.

• Kaspersky says empty web pages are watching you, and the research backs up the warning
• Over 90% of parked domains now send visitors somewhere malicious, and clearing your cookies will not help
• Blank pages are also a problem: many 'Coming Soon' placeholders are quietly fingerprinting your device

Kaspersky has unveiled a rather underreported attack vector which is increasingly being used by threat actors to harvest private data from unsuspecting victims: registered websites that are yet to be developed.

Its warning focuses on parked domains, the registered web addresses that have no real website behind them yet, arguing that the blank screens and "Coming Soon" placeholders users dismiss as harmless are frequently doing work in the background.

The company says simply loading one of these pages can trigger silent collection of a visitor's IP address, approximate location, User-Agent string and cookie identifiers, and that operators go further by building browser fingerprints through other techniques, then feeding the result into advertising networks to assemble targeted profiles without consent from users.

Browser fingerprinting sans the permissions

The mechanics Kaspersky describes are worth understanding, because fingerprinting is the part most readers will not have encountered, and the part that conventional privacy habits do not touch.

For context, a cookie is a file placed on your machine that you can delete, thereby limiting tracking. A fingerprint is not stored on your machine at all. It is derived from how your specific hardware and software combination renders a test image, draws 3D graphics, or processes an audio signal, producing a value distinctive enough to identify the same device across unrelated sites.

Browser fingerprinting, the method used to capture such data within a browser session, is attractive to trackers because it is considerably harder to shake off. A private browsing window prevents your machine from keeping a local record of the visit, but it does not change how your hardware renders the test image, so the fingerprint it produces remains largely the same.

Such domains can also cause more direct damage than selling one's information to advertisers. Kaspersky says threat actors embed scripts that bounce visitors onward to fraudulent platforms, adult content, or online casinos. It flags typosquatting as a particularly acute risk, in which a domain differing from a well-known brand by a letter or two can capture mistyped traffic, landing the user on a phishing page or triggering a drive-by download.

This isn't the first time the problem has been reported, either, as recent research from Infoblox finding that in large-scale experiments, over 90% of the time, a visitor to a parked domain was routed to illegal content, scams, scareware, antivirus subscription traps, or malware.

Kaspersky recommends several ways to mitigate the risk, including avoiding suspicious links, clearing cache and cookies after an unintended visit, and using software that blocks web tracking.

Clearing cookies is worth noting, though: it addresses the cookie identifiers Kaspersky mentions, but by the company's own explanation it does nothing about fingerprinting, because there is nothing stored locally to clear.

Parked domains, including blank pages that appear inert, are now a routine part of criminal infrastructure rather than digital litter and should be treated with caution. At best, you give away more information than you meant to. At worst, you become the victim of an attack you never saw coming.

I’ve tested dozens of smart glasses for TechRadar, but every time I get a new pair of Meta Ray-Bans to try, I’m reminded why they’re so popular — because yet again my past three weeks with the Ray-Ban Meta Optics have been a joy.

Mostly.

Much like Meta’s previous smart specs, you’ll find a host of technological features crammed into the eyewear.

There are speakers for open-ear audio, which is perfect for listening to casual tunes, taking a call, or hearing the AI’s responses to your queries — with the glasses’ microphones also doing a great job at picking up what you’re saying with minimal noise disruption.

Dedicated earbuds will sound better for sure — the bass isn’t as emphatic as I like with Meta’s Optics glasses (or its other models) — though I did enjoy listening to music through my glasses for hours on end with no major complaints.

As mentioned, there’s also Meta’s AI, which is accessed through the connected phone app and voice commands on your specs. It can answer questions you ask it and, with your permission, see what you see by accessing the Meta Optics’ camera to provide additional context to your questions, and interact with connected apps to play music requests or tell your health and fitness stats.

I’m not a big AI user except when I’m on holiday or just generally acting like a tourist. On our honeymoon, my wife used Look and Ask to check the ingredients on hair care products to make sure she wasn’t allergic, and I got the AI to supply me with phrases to use when I realized my limited Spanish wasn’t going to cut it.

The AI’s also perfect for identifying landmarks and telling you more about historic sites. I relied on it so much on a trip I took to Italy with my other Meta glasses a while ago — it helped me understand the ruins of Pompeii and better learn the history of the Colosseum.

Beyond identifying foreign signs and buildings, the cameras are ideal for first-person video. I used them to snap photos and videos of my wife and me, and they came out really well — they're the ideal way to record memories digitally, as you can still live in the moment rather than being cut off behind a phone screen.

I’ll talk more about cameras in a moment, but before that I want to focus on the key way the Optics is different to Meta’s other Ray-Ban smart specs: it's comfort and fit.

Built to last all-day

Meta’s smart glasses are chunkier than non-intelligent eyewear, which can make them feel more rigid and less comfortable than regular specs. To make the Optics better suited to all-day wear (something I can confirm they handle effectively after wearing these glasses for hours on end over the past few weeks), you’ll find interchangeable nose pads and adjustable temple tips to help you sculpt them to your face shape.

The correct nose pads have helped the specs sit better on my head without slipping down, while the temple tips can be carefully manipulated (either at home or at an optician) to help the Optics grip your face without applying too much pressure to the sides of your head.

If you’re considering getting some yourself, my final design note is this: pay extra for transition lenses.

The Ray-Bans I’ve been testing are outfitted with the Transitions XTRActive option, meaning they change between clear and shaded when exposed to sunlight — even when I’m in the car — and the lenses changed so quickly as I moved between different environments (something I noticed a lot when going between indoor and outdoor spaces on my honeymoon to Tenerife).

My non-smart eyeglasses boast Transitions Gen S lenses, and I’m also happy with them, or you can opt for polarized Transitions if you want even more light protection, if you’re also willing to pay a bit extra.

Regardless of which type you opt for, Transitions lenses are essential because they maximize the usefulness of your smart specs. Without them, you’re limited to either clear glasses you can only use indoors or on darker days, or shaded glasses that can only be worn outdoors when the sun is brightly shining.

Why did there have to be a but?

Now, the elephant in the room is that Meta’s smart specs are facing increasing amounts of scrutiny from the public because of their cameras.

News stories showcasing bad actors harassing women, recording secretly by modding their specs, or revealing that Meta contractors might be able to see more of your recorded content than you realize have been populating our timelines throughout 2026.

The upshot seems to be a wave of negativity: I conducted a poll through one of my recent stories, and over half of all respondents said they think smart glasses should be banned.

For its part, Meta is doing plenty to combat these issues: it cracked down on Facebook Marketplace listings for glasses modding services and issued an update to prevent the camera from working if the recording light on your smart eyewear is disabled, and it’s also tackling Instagram profiles belonging to creeps like pickup artists who promote using the glasses to harass people.

I still think more needs to be done on the privacy side of things — at the very least being much more explicit about what features share captured content with Meta, though ideally all of your content would remain private through an Apple-like Private Cloud Compute server setup.

As of now, I’m admittedly very nervous to wear my Meta Optics. I haven’t been worried about going around wearing my Meta Ray-Ban and Oakley specs in the past, but with growing public anger over the way smart specs are being misused, I have a genuine concern someone will see me wearing them and act violently towards me.

Or I could simply be banned from entering a space while wearing them. Some Comic-Cons, offices, and courts don’t let you in wearing Meta-style smart glasses. Especially for something as essential as prescription glasses, and pricey ones at that, being constantly nervous while wearing them or barred from entering certain spaces isn’t ideal.

There is genuinely so much to love about the smart glasses, and if you haven’t yet got a pair and wear prescription eyeglasses, the Meta Ray-Ban Scriber Optics styles are the ones I’d most highly recommend.

Banning phones in schools. Yay or nay? It's certainly a topic that's raised debate on both sides in recent years as more states look to enforce stricter rules. Interestingly, however, it does appear that public opinion is starting to sway heavily towards the 'pro ban' camp.

A new report from the Pew Research Center has just concluded that an overwhelming 77 percent of adults surveyed now support a ban on phones in the classroom. That's a massive increase from the 36 percent reported just two years ago.

The ban on phones in the classroom is generally considered distinct from a full ban on devices in schools - commonly referred to as a 'bell-to-bell' ban. Support for a full ban remains firmly split in the Pew report, with 48 percent of adults supporting a full ban in comparison.

Teachers have long been overwhelming advocates of stricter rules. A 2024 survey by the National Education Association found that a whopping 90 percent of teachers supported a ban on phones in class, whereas this 2025 survey by RAND found that 70 percent of school principals believe bans have a positive effect in school. Now, however, it appears that the general public is increasingly on board.

But what do you think? At TechRadar, we're interested in hearing what our readers have to say. I've attached a poll just down below, and we'd also love to hear your concerns in the comments, if you have any.

Do you support a phone ban in the classroom?

The case for a ban

• Studies have suggested an improvement in suspension rates
• Evidence for improved performance is more mixed

On a gut level, it certainly feels like phones should be out of the classroom. As adults, we're increasingly recognizing the perceived downsides of doomscrolling, social media, or other common phone-based habits. I know I've certainly felt frustrated at my own tendency to be distracted by my phone during work hours.

Luckily, we don't have to just rely on gut feeling; however, as there is in fact some evidence to suggest that phone bans in schools result in better outcomes for students.

Perhaps the most convincing report I've seen is from the Education Next Journal, which collated evidence from Florida's state-wide ban in 2023. While other states have followed suit, Florida is a particularly good case as it was the first state to actually institute a ban. In short, the data is strong here.

Interestingly, the report suggests a higher suspension rate in the first year of the ban, followed by a return to a base level, followed by an overall decrease. Test scores remained steady in the year after the ban but then massively improved in the second year. That suggests it takes a while for any positive changes to be evident.

Another excellent report is from the National Bureau of Economic Research, which studied students from 40,000 schools nationwide between 2019 and 2025. In this study, students reported a greater sense of well-being post-ban as well as decreased suspension rates long-term (after a temporary increase).

This report's findings are a little less cut-and-dry than Education Next's, however, as it didn't find any meaningful effects on test scores. Overall, the report still skews toward viewing a ban favorably, and crucially reports on students' own sense of well-being.

The case against a ban

• Parents cite child safety as a concern
• Questions remain around other tech devices

So are there any arguments against a ban? Well, the answer is actually yes; there are a few, and they're mostly fielded by concerned parents.

The most common point I've seen raised is the issue of safety in schools. Some have commented that they'd prefer for their child to have a phone in the case of an emergency on school grounds.

Even though I don't have kids, I can certainly empathize with parents in this case. Sadly, we know that violence continues to be an issue in schools, so it's a very good point that absolutely shouldn't be ignored when exploring this topic.

One other point that I've seen raised, and one that certainly also holds weight, is that even with a phone ban, children may still be distracted by other forms of technology in the classroom. If a child still has a laptop, for example, then they may still have access to social media, messaging, and so on.

This was actually suggested by the authors of the National Bureau of Economic Research report as one of the reasons why test results didn't improve in their study. Certainly, it could suggest that you really need a holistic approach to technology as a whole in the classroom. Banning smartphones could just be the start.

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 #881) - hint #1 - today's theme

NYT Strands today (game #881) - hint #2 - clue words

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• GAPE
• HUGE
• CRIER
• DRUG
• SURE
• STOP

NYT Strands today (game #881) - hint #3 - spangram letters

NYT Strands today (game #881) - hint #4 - spangram position

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #881) - the answers

The answers to today's Strands, game #881, are…

• SILLY
• ABSURD
• PREPOSTEROUS
• LUDICROUS
• LAUGHABLE
• SPANGRAM: GETREAL

• My rating: Easy
• My score: Perfect

I would be lying if I didn’t say it was great fun spotting and connecting PREPOSTEROUS, but I’m sure there weren’t many player who missed this 12-letter word practically standing out and waving at us on the left side of the board.

To be fair, the rest of the board was similarly easy to spot, with only LAUGHABLE slowing me down a little as I completed my search for reactions to an unbelievable statement.

In my schooldays, I was behind plenty of tall tales that would elicit an “as if!” response, although the thing was I believed most of them. Here are some of my claims aged nine, and the truth about each: my uncle was a professional footballer (he played for a village team), I was related to Paul McCartney (my mum fancied him), my mate Kevin's family were millionaires (they won a raffle). As if, indeed!

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Friday, July 31, game #880)

• CHARMING
• BOLD
• BOSSY
• LOYAL
• GENEROUS
• DRAMATIC
• SPANGRAM: LEOTHELION

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 #1650) — hint #1 — Vowels

* 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 #1650) — hint #2 — repeated letters

Quordle today (game #1650) — hint #3 — uncommon letters

Quordle today (game #1650) — hint #4 — starting letters (1)

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 #1650) — hint #5 — starting letters (2)

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

Quordle today (game #1650) — the answers

The answers to today's Quordle, game #1650, are…

• OMEGA
• BIRCH
• SMOCK
• EERIE

There were a couple of really tricky words in this game.

Fortunately, I couldn’t think of anything that ended in R-I-E apart from EERIE and then after deciding the final word must begin O-M there was only one possible word it could be.

Daily Sequence today (game #1650) — the answers

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1650, are…

• WINCE
• BRAKE
• COMET
• WORST

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #1649, Friday, 31 July: MANIA, SINGE, STOOL, LOFTY
• Quordle #1648, Thursday, 30 July: MODAL, IDLER, CHUMP, LUMPY
• Quordle #1647, Wednesday, 29 July: GAWKY, ALLOY, AUDIT, LATCH
• Quordle #1646, Tuesday, 28 July: SMITE, ROACH, RUDDY, GLOBE
• Quordle #1645, Monday, 27 July: TAFFY, FIGHT, GUILD, WAGER
• Quordle #1644, Sunday, 26 July: STOMP, LIMIT, FUNKY, STEAD
• Quordle #1643, Saturday, 25 July: SALON, SHEEN, BURST, GOURD
• Quordle #1642, Friday, 24 July: DOLLY, EDIFY, LAGER, PRANK
• Quordle #1641, Thursday, 23 July: LADEN, EVICT, WOVEN, SHIRE
• Quordle #1640, Wednesday, 22 July: COYLY, SINGE, AWASH, AWOKE
• Quordle #1639, Tuesday, 21 July: TRUSS, AXIAL, SWINE, THING
• Quordle #1638, Monday, 20 July: ICING, SLICK, GAILY, RISEN
• Quordle #1637, Sunday, 19 July: SPURT, ACRID, THRUM, BLEEP
• Quordle #1636, Saturday, 18 July: KNAVE, TIGHT, BLEAT, CHAOS
• Quordle #1635, Friday, 17 July: CUMIN, PALER, GRASS, INBOX
• Quordle #1634, Thursday, 16 July: IGLOO, PLAIT, YEAST, AROMA
• Quordle #1633, Wednesday, 15 July: PROXY, BRICK, BROTH, SURGE
• Quordle #1632, Tuesday, 14 July: EBONY, AVOID, RODEO, CUTIE
• Quordle #1631, Monday, 13 July: VOICE, BISON, BURNT, BUILT
• Quordle #1630, Sunday, 12 July: STAIN, BINGO, LARVA, DICEY

Out of all the stories I've covered as a consumer tech journalist, subscription fatigue has been one of the most common frustrations I’ve come across — and the usual fixes of service hopping, signing up for discounted annual plans and searching for deals no longer seem to be cutting it.

Ongoing price hikes, vanishing content from catalogues and locking basic features behind paywalls have left the subscription model looking thoroughly squeezed by Big Tech — and it’s making people vote with their wallets.

We've already seen the resurgence of physical media, which has been partly fuelled by the growing frustration with 'renting' services, but there's also a small tech hobby that's starting to see a real spike in interest for similar reasons: DIY home servers.

Instead of paying an ongoing fee to access online services, many tech-savvy people are increasingly setting up their own private servers at home using nothing more than an old PC and some hard drives, in some cases.

Home servers are by no means new, but the scene has moved on from being the domain of hardcore tinkerers who wanted to do cool things with their friends online.

Google Trends data shows that even at its peak in 2007 — when Microsoft launched Windows Home Server at CES, popularizing plug-and-play storage for non-techies — self-hosting was still only ever popular among small groups of people.

But that's changing. Nowadays, interest in the topic is growing as more people experiment with old tech they already have lying around to get their privacy and digital ownership back from the tech giants, while also cutting down on e-waste.

To get a better understanding of why home servers are suddenly catching on, I spoke to DIY enthusiasts, hardware manufacturers, software providers, tech YouTubers and even one of the moderators of the r/HomeServer subreddit.

If you’re curious to learn more about home servers, keep reading to find out what they are, why the topic is trending, what they can be used for, and how you can start getting involved.

What is a home server?

The simplest way to describe a home server is to think of it just like any other computer. But unlike your everyday PC, this machine is a dedicated hub hosted on your private network that's accessible both locally and remotely.

Want to stop sending your holiday snaps to a big tech corporation and store them on a computer you own? Need one place to back up all your devices? A home server can do this in a way that functions much like your existing cloud subscriptions.

Looking to test a vibe-coded app without risking your main computer? You can absolutely use a virtual machine (VM) on your home server to simulate a safe 'computer inside a computer'. Just keep in mind that once you start building setups a small business would be proud of, you'll want to graduate from basic home servers and check out the r/HomeLab community.

New r/homelab Users Start Here from r/homelab

"A home server is really a sandbox," Zach Ferree, a tech YouTuber who runs the channel Zach’s Tech Turf with 1.98 million subscribers, says. "You can replicate the kind of environment you'd see in an actual IT department and test things out without any risk of breaking something that matters."

IT professionals often build robust home labs to safely test things like network configurations for sharing data or run demanding VMs. However, the rise of user-friendly containers — which are similar to VMs but instead of simulating the hardware, they mimic the software — has opened this world to everyday hobbyists too, who are increasingly using simplified home servers to bypass subscriptions, host their own apps, manage automations and more.

A big reason why home servers have become easier to use is because of the modern operating systems (OS) that have made them more user-friendly. Even VMs and containers are much more accessible, as these OS have replaced complex command-line setups with visual app stores.

Free, open-source server OS like Linux and TrueNas have played a major role in making that possible, according to Kris Moore, CTO at TrueNAS. "For home-lab enthusiasts and tech-savvy users, [home server OS] have provided an accessible way to explore the concept of running enterprise-grade storage solutions without requiring significant upfront investment in hardware."

This shift is largely due to how the software itself has evolved. Moore explains that TrueNAS has grown from a simple digital filing cabinet into a 'hyperconverged platform', which is essentially an all-in-one system that seamlessly handles both storage and computing.

By bridging that gap, Moore notes OS like TrueNAS SCALE make home servers "capable of running Linux containers, apps and virtual machines". "Making apps, virtual machines and containers fully supported features opened the door to far more deployment options beyond the traditional storage role [of home servers]," he added.

Why are home servers trending?

There are three major reasons why home servers are seeing a spike in interest. The first and foremost is because it's a cheaper alternative to paying for subscriptions. This is something I considered myself after running out of disc space and paying for multiple cloud subscriptions.

Betty Van, a former occupational therapist turned tech YouTuber with 1.3 million followers, hit the same wall a year ago on a much bigger scale. With a growing library of large video files from her channel Switch and Click, Google wanted to charge her close to $300 / £220 / AU$420 a month for 20TB of storage, even though the same sized hard drive costs only about $100 / £200 / AU$300 more.

Her next most common reason is to do with the entertainment services like music, movies, TV and gaming removing content to cut down on licensing costs or avoid paying residual fees. "My bills are going up and they're taking away shows — you don't have any sense of control over what is going on on the platforms," Van shared about her own experience.

"A good example would be The Greatest Showman. It was originally on Disney+ and then it moved to Hulu, and now it's nowhere. Or when Sony recently removed a bunch of movies. These events act as catalysts for people saying enough is enough, and then they look into the alternatives."

Those alternatives aren't just about building media servers either — even though it’s arguably "the primary draw", according to one of the moderators at r/HomeServers. “Home servers are absolutely not just about piracy. I believe people are realizing how much data companies hold on them and the power that comes with it.

"We expect Apple and Google to back up our photos indefinitely, but what happens if they terminate your account? Without regional data access rights, that's a lifetime of photos gone. Music streaming has the same issue. Songs and song libraries can vanish overnight, including the ones you love."

Subscribers were reminded of that ownership gap recently when PlayStation announced it will stop releasing physical game discs from 2028, raising questions about why physical media regulations haven't caught up to digital assets, leaving buyers without a clear right to resell, trade or lend what they've 'bought'.

"Home servers have always been a niche corner of the tech world, but interest keeps growing. As companies keep chipping away at people's ownership of their own media, more people want that ownership back,” Ferree added.

Another part of this is that the boycotting of these services is being seen as a quiet revolt against Big Tech. By building local, self-hosted systems, everyday people are taking back control of their data, bypassing subscription traps and regaining their privacy — a shift increasingly championed by nonprofits like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

Rory Mir, director of open access and tech community engagement at EEF, says: "There's the immediate revolts or protests of 'we're not going to pay this continual rent to these big operators', but then there’s a real sense of empowerment and independence that comes from not being beholden to a huge company.

"I think it's actually healthy for the internet as a whole, as an ecosystem, to have less centralized gatekeepers in that way," they added, raising the importance of healthy market competition, not being forced into upgrade cycles, avoiding outages and taking charge of your data.

What to use a home server for

Home servers are most commonly associated with home media libraries, which are a staple of the home-theatre community, but they're capable of far more than just storing and managing data.

A huge part of making that possible is the usability. Home server OS have lowered the barrier to entry by making it easier to interact with home servers. Most people will pick an OS based on the utility of their project, but home servers are becoming more plug-and-play, thanks to services like TrueNAS.

TrueNAS is paving the way for this, which is why it's one of the most popular choices in the wider home lab community. As a result, Moore has come across plenty of different use cases for home servers just by seeing what the software is being used for.

"TrueNAS is used in a remarkably diverse set of use cases worldwide," he says. "Just when we think we've seen it all, someone surprises us with something new. Making apps, VMs, and containers fully supported features opened the door to far more deployment options beyond the traditional storage role.

"In the home lab community, those range from the obvious — media and video serving (Plex, Jellyfin), development and CI/CD platforms (Gitea, Jenkins) [for testing code] — to less expected ones, like hosting game servers.

"On the TrueNAS Enterprise side, apps and VMs give us the flexibility to meet demanding customer workloads across a variety of market segments: media asset managers running directly on the storage array, backup software such as Veeam virtual storage appliances, and platforms for ingesting security camera feeds," Moore says.

Outside of home automations, which I’ll dig into more below, you can use your home server to do a wide range of useful tasks like running apps for tasks like organizing your notes, blocking annoying ads, managing passwords, hosting your own portfolio, running your own news feed, LLMs and AI agents.

What is a home assistant server?

Home servers are also growing in popularity because they offer a way to combine the increasing number of smart home devices finding their way into our households into one management system.

They have also been found to be a great way to control and automate your setup without having to worry about forced updates, system outages or privacy.

There are dedicated smart home OS for home servers like Home Assistant — a free, open-source smart-home platform built by Paulus Schoutsen that now automates more than a million homes — that lets you control lights, security cameras, appliances and more, entirely through your own network.

"Home Assistant runs locally in your home and doesn't require the internet to work. Most big-tech platforms grind to a halt the moment the internet drops.

"If you build your self-hosted smart home with Home Assistant, and choose devices that directly communicate with it [through protocols like Zigbee, Z-Wave or Matter compatible devices], your smart home will work with or without the internet," he says.

Schoutsen also highlights the sustainability benefits of home servers, and not just in the context of reusing old tech to set one up as part of the Right-to-Repair movement. "A device that outlives its manufacturer's interest doesn't have to become e-waste," he says.

"Because your hub and locally-connected devices don't depend on a company's servers, no one can switch them off from afar. Some Home Assistant users have decades-old smart home devices still running in their homes."

"Self-hosting used to be a bit intimidating, but it's really easy to get started nowadays. Our Home Assistant Green is an easy plug-and-play option to connect thousands of different smart home devices. It can even run other self-hosted apps."

Why home servers are suddenly so expensive

While the software for running home servers has got a lot easier to use over the years (you no longer have to live in a terminal), the hardware — despite becoming more accessible — is a lot less easy to come by at the time of writing. That's largely down to massive corporate demand for AI data centres, which has driven up RAM and storage prices for everyday hobbyists.

Then there's rising energy costs. Home servers do run around the clock, which adds up quickly as electricity bills climb, so it’s important to choose the hardware that you need to not use excess energy. As Mir suggests, "having more energy-efficient components [is a solution]."

"But then the ongoing energy as a user does involve maintenance," they say. "It does involve checking for updates. You're kind of committing to this being a hobby for ideally only a few hours a month, but it can be the least convenient time when you need to use those two hours.

"Those are the kinds of the things I would give [newcomers] a heads up about," Mir says before adding "remembering to have a proper backup system as well. I think a lot of people will treat their home server as 'I can just put all my files there and I have it backed up'. But it's best practice to have it either offsite or at least another backup, so that if your server goes kaput, you don't lose everything you've been curating there."

There are various strategies for mitigating the risk of losing data, but the gold standard at enterprise level is the '3-2-1 backup rule', which insists on three copies of the same data that are stored on two distinct types of hardware or storage tech (i.e. the cloud and a local hard drive), with one copy kept off-site. Although, many can get away with just a one backup.

The risks of home servers

Home servers can pose real network-security risks if not set up properly. Fortunately, there are a lot of precautions that you can take when, for instance, setting up remote access.

Opening the wrong ports (essentially doorways that let your data in and out) to the internet can make your home network vulnerable to scammers. Using network security tools like VPNs, mesh VPNs, tunneling services and port forwarding can help to make sure that your devices connect securely to the internet. But each have their pros and cons, according to Dr Pete Membrey, ExpressVPN's Chief Research Officer.

"Mesh VPNs and tunneling services try to bridge the gap between VPNs and port forwarding, and in many cases, they can be beneficial. They're often touted as being simpler and easier to use than a traditional VPN, but in my opinion, this isn't really the case for most people," he says.

"Most find it much easier to understand that when they connect to their home VPN, it’s as though they connected to their Wi-Fi at home, and the level of access that would provide (just as if a malicious actor joined your home Wi-Fi).

"That's not to say that mesh systems aren't useful — they are very powerful — but they need to be set up correctly. It depends on the use case and the person using it as to which will work best for them."

Where to get started with home servers

Whether you're looking to reduce your subscriptions to cloud services like Dropbox or want to make better use of that old laptop that's been lying around, you might be considering setting up your first home server, but what type of setup is right for you is a hard question.

There's no such thing as a one-size-fits-all home server, simply because of the various different ways to approach it. As Ferree says, "it really comes down to what you're trying to get out of it".

Are you looking to replace basic cloud services? An off-the-shelf (network-attached storage) NAS device might be all you need to get you up and running fast.

TerraMaster, a company that specializes in making these devices, says that a "NAS offers the advantage of a hassle-free and reliable experience — dedicated systems, built-in data protection [like RAID / JBOD], remote access, and private cloud functionality are ready to use out of the box. They are particularly suitable for users seeking convenience, stability, and hands-free operation, making them the preferred choice for most home users."

Do you want to build a personal digital hub for the household and automate your home? You might want to explore the hooking up a PC to a direct-attached storage (DAS) route.

"More than half of the DAS users we surveyed already own a mini PC or an older computer and tend to install systems like Unraid or TrueNAS to build their own servers," a spokesperson from TerraMaster said.

"The core driving force behind this trend is cost-effectiveness: with rising prices for NAS systems and hard drives, users are unwilling to pay for duplicate CPUs, memory, and operating systems, instead choosing to reuse existing equipment to reduce costs."

"It's a lot like building a custom gaming PC versus buying a prebuilt one," Ferree says. "An off-the-shelf NAS means you're not troubleshooting compatibility issues, and you've got real support if something goes wrong.

"Building it yourself gets you more value for your money, since you're only paying for hardware, not a markup. You also pick up real skills along the way, and that translates directly into fields like IT and cybersecurity.

"For beginners, figure out your goal first. Scaling from there is just adding drives or moving to a bigger enclosure once you outgrow what you started with."

Looking for suggestions for my home server project. from r/HomeServer

How to set up a home server in 2026

While I'm not going to walk you through exactly how make your own home server or how to build the perfect home server here (I'm only at the start of my own journey), I will share some of the advice I got from my conversations with the community based on a few different scenarios.

"Let's say you have a computer or a laptop that's the main machine you use and you want to make that into a server," Van says. "You buy some drives, like a drive bay (it's an enclosure), and you use it as storage, like a normal computer would. That way, you're not using any complicated operating systems. It's just storage for you to use.

"So, a step above that, I would say, is going with a NAS rather than the DAS. In the beginning, you can get an off-the-shelf one because it's really easy to use. And if you decide later on, 'I want to do something more unique', they don't tell you this, but you can override your NAS's OS with [say] a Linux one."

For Van, a NAS is the easier and more affordable way to get started with your own home server. "You lose some control, but most people aren't going to be using the advanced features where you need all that control in the first place."

"Then if you go even beyond that, and you have a ton of drives, and you want to do a lot of self-hosting with a lot of firepower, then I would say go the DIY route," she says.

Picking the right hardware setup for your home server can feel overwhelming, but if we boil it down to the three main setups that Van suggests, it becomes slightly easier to work out a starting point. Take the quiz below to find out which route fits your technical comfort level and end goals.

No matter which setup you landed on, it's important to keep a close eye on your budget. Surging RAM and storage prices have made building a custom DIY server from scratch a pricey endeavor. If you don't already have older hardware ready to repurpose, Van suggests an off-the-shelf option but warns that these are pricey nowadays too.

"I would definitely wait until PC parts go down a bit," Van says. "If you are self-hosting like local LLMs, then the DIY route does make way more sense because you can plug in your GPUs and max out your RAM. There are also NAS’s that do that nowadays, but they cost a lot."

Based on what the r/HomeServers have seen the community talk about, most first-timers are opting to repurpose existing hardware these days rather than buy or DIY a "proper" NAS, according to one of the subreddit's moderators.

"That is certainly the most frequent recommendation I see here and in similar subreddits, as well as what I would personally recommend to newcomers. Mini PCs are also a good starter point, but you certainly don't need to buy one," they said.

"Pretty much any computer or laptop from the last decade will work perfectly fine for a beginner. You just don't need the latest and greatest enterprise-grade equipment to run a photo server. I would say mini PCs or repurposing your own machines is more common for novices."

Ultimately, as Ferree points out, home servers are about learning by doing. "If Linux feels intimidating, spin up a VM and practice basic tasks. If a role uses something like Active Directory, build a small test environment for that.

"And on the simplest level, set up a network share everyone in your house can use. You'll learn more from that first setup than you'd expect, and you walk away with something actually useful instead of passing a USB drive around the house."

Passwords are the first line of defence for almost everything we do online, and they're still the thing most of us manage the worst. Reused logins and guessable variations are exactly what credential stuffing attacks feed on, which is why you need a good dedicated password manager.

You'll need a good one though, and one of our top password manager picks has just become significantly cheaper.

For a limited time only, Keeper Security is offering 50% off its Personal and Family plans for its award-winning password manager. The discount applies to your full first year, so now is a better time than ever to make the switch.

Why Choose Keeper?

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Keeper operates what they call a "zero-knowledge architecture", which means absolutely no one, not even Keeper themselves, can see your encrypted data and what's stored in your vault. You can be sure your passwords are safe with Keeper.

Then, when you consider that the Family plan covers five separate users, with a fully private vault, plus 10GB of secure file storage, the 50% off discount on family and personal plans is hard to resist!

Try Before You Buy

If you'd rather try before committing, and not just take our word for it, that's completely fine! Keeper Security offer a free 30-day trial with no payment details required, which is long enough to move your logins over and see if it's the password manager for you.

But if you already know you need one of the best password managers, half price on the plan you'd have picked anyway is a rare deal, so grab it while its live!

More from Tech Radar

• Keeper Review: pros & cons, features, ratings, pricing and more
• Keeper Security discount codes
• How to turn your home into a digital fortress using identity theft protection, parental controls, and antivirus

Artificial intelligence is fast becoming a game-changer for cybersecurity, with new frontier models such as Claude Mythos and OpenAI's GPT-5.5 demonstrating their capabilities in hunting software vulnerabilities and evaluating how they can be chained to harm an organization.

But these models have proven to be a double-edged sword, with both companies disclosing incidents where their models have escaped sandbox testing and compromised other organizations.

Couple this with how threat actors are turning to AI to increase their own skill in breaching organizations at an industrial scale, and you are presented with a bleak picture for the future of cybersecurity. But the best resilience is to adapt, and make sure those at the top can make the right decisions at the right time.

AI as a tool for defense and resilience

The latest challenge threat actors are presenting for businesses is their ability to match the skill of state-sponsored groups. The tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) of these groups are being bolstered by the adoption of AI tools. Jailbreaking allows groups to use legitimate AI models to perform reconnaissance and research at scale, as well as the ability to modify and improve existing malware and attack vectors.

A recent IBM report found that since 2025 there has been a 44% increase in cyber-attacks exploiting public-facing applications, a 40% increase in vulnerability exploitation, and a 50% growth in the number of active ransomware operators. Much of this is the result of attackers adopting AI tools into their workflows.

Professor Julian Richards is a leading expert in intelligence and security who held senior roles in intelligence analysis, training program design, and strategic liaison at the UK's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).

I spoke with Professor Richards on the effects AI is having on the threat landscape, how defense strategies can adapt, and where training can be best applied to keep businesses one step ahead.

• What does cyber resilience really mean in a world where AI is being leveraged by threat actors to compromise businesses at a level that matches the craft of state-sponsored groups?

It is indeed the case that highly advanced techniques, the likes of which were previously the preserve of advanced states, are now readily available to a range of threat actors. This is partly because of thefts of highly advanced exploits such as ETERNALBLUE and their resale on the dark web.

Cyber resilience is about a range of approaches, however, which go beyond the technical into human layer factors. Keeping the response dynamic, diversified and creative will offer opportunities for resilience.

• Has the age of saving and storing vulnerabilities for later use passed, and how are defense strategies changing in regard to the rapid exploitation of vulnerabilities?

Almost certainly not, and experience from potentially parallel worlds such as that of cryptography tell us that exploits can remain productive for multiple years after their exposure.

Many threat actors are investing heavily in HNDL (harvest now, decrypt later); and a widened notion of "harvest now, exploit later" is also on the menu. Again, a reverse view offers opportunities for defenders.

AI can be used, for example, to more comprehensively and dynamically map and analyse attacks, even where they are mutating and evolving rapidly. This allows for more immediate and dynamic response.

• How are active defense strategies shaping the protection of businesses and their infrastructure, and what challenges are businesses experiencing with implementing these strategies on aging and legacy infrastructure?

As above, dynamic and active defense strategies are sensible and increasingly necessary. As with all areas of cybersecurity however, there are good and bad products on the market, and good and bad investment decisions being made.

One of the most important considerations for all businesses is making sure the defense strategy is appropriately tailored in scale and shape to the business itself; and making sure we deal with honest and adept brokers.

• AI is rapidly reducing the timescale between vulnerability discovery and exploitation for both businesses and intelligence agencies. Where do legislated threat disclosure windows play into these shrinking timeframes, and how do you perceive they will evolve?

One of the problems with compliance legislation (or indeed any legislation) is that it moves and updates much more slowly than technology. This will increasingly mean that the challenge described becomes a real problem.

In intelligence, selective disclosure has always been an understood protocol under the rubric of protecting national security, but this may not wash for commercial organisations. Two things will need to happen.

First, compliance legislation in such areas as threat disclosure will have to be written in a way that businesses are protected in fast-moving situations, allowing, perhaps, for post facto disclosure in many cases. Creative regulation and legislation is possible to allow for this.

Second, court cases may have to be brought to challenge overly stringent threat disclosure penalties, and subsequent case precedents will hopefully balance and protect organisations in this fast-moving situation. All of this will require the leveraging of advanced cyber expertise in the areas of law and legislation.

• What are the major blind spots business leaders have when it comes to the latest threats, and what is the role of AI in addressing these problems?

Probably two things, both of which have applied for a long time and are proving remarkably intractable! The first is complacency: "sure this happened to them, but it won't happen to us". Well it probably will.

The second is not understanding the importance of the human factor risk, which continues to be the biggest threat factor. Training, awareness, exercising for crises and internal compliance protocols might be irksome, but they remain crucially important for all businesses.

• What steps can business leaders take to ensure their AI tools are providing accurate intelligence and data while reducing false positives and hallucinations?

Work with reputable cyber threat intelligence suppliers and analysts. Develop expertise such that triangulation (checking across multiple sources and feeds rather than just accepting one source of information) is understood and readily implemented.

Expect the unexpected - in short, all the things that intelligence organisations have had to do since the dawn of time. For larger organisations, this is will mean a continual upskilling of key staff to be at the top of the game of understanding the dynamic threat picture.

• Where can C-suite executives seek support in making key decisions on incident response when defending against threat actors increasingly leveraging AI?

C-suite executives need to upskill themselves to really understand the threats and their dynamism in such a way that they can support everyone in the organisation battling with these issues.

It is still the case that many at the top have either a sketchy understanding of the risk, or see it as something that others in the organisation will sort out. This is increasingly untenable today.

Ultimately, those at the top will have to take the hit when it all goers horribly wrong! What this means is that training, workshopping and exercising through crisis scenarios is as important for the C-suite executives as it is for any other members of the organisation.

Anyone who has dealt with spotty Wi-Fi knows that a fast NBN plan doesn’t mean your Wi-Fi will work equally well in every room.

The connection might work well in the living room near the router but be frustratingly slow upstairs or at the other end of your house, especially in homes with thick walls or concrete floors.

That’s where a mesh Wi-Fi system can help, as it improves coverage by using several connected units around your home instead of relying on a single router.

This guide explains how mesh Wi-Fi works, how it connects to NBN services and whether your home needs it.

If you want to read more about the best mesh systems we have tested, take a look at our guide to the best mesh Wi-Fi systems in Australia.

What is mesh Wi-Fi and how does it work?

A mesh system consists of a main router and one or more extra units, usually called nodes or satellites.

Mesh nodes usually communicate with each other over Wi-Fi, which can make the system easier to set up. The mesh system can’t increase the speed of your NBN plan, but it can help more of that speed reach your devices.

The advantage of a mesh system is that each node uses the same network name and password. This means your devices can automatically connect to a nearby node as you move between rooms, helping them maintain a more reliable connection around your home.

Since mesh systems connect to each other wirelessly, there’s no need to run extra Ethernet cabling through your house. If you already have Ethernet ports, though, you can connect the nodes to them for more consistent performance.

What can mesh Wi-Fi fix?

Mesh systems are most useful when internet speeds over Wi-Fi are good near the router but drop in other parts of your home. If your home still has slow or weak areas, you can add another node to extend the coverage.

This can extend coverage across multiple storeys, into a garage and through obstacles that can weaken Wi-Fi, such as double-brick walls and concrete floors.

It won’t fix every internet problem, though. A mesh system can’t increase the speed of your NBN plan, repair a faulty connection or fix congestion on your provider’s network. It may also struggle if the nodes are too far apart or positioned where their signal is blocked.

There’s a simple test to see if a mesh system can help your connection. Head to speedtest.net and run one test beside your router, then repeat it in the problem area using the same device.

If there’s a large difference in the results, your Wi-Fi coverage may be the issue. Poor results in both locations are more likely to point to a problem with your internet service, router or connected device.

Does mesh Wi-Fi work with the NBN?

Mesh Wi-Fi works with the main NBN connection types, but setup depends on the equipment installed in your home.

With Fibre to the Premises (FTTP), Hybrid Fibre Coaxial (HFC), Fibre to the Curb (FTTC) and Fixed Wireless, the main mesh unit usually connects to the NBN connection box using an Ethernet cable.

It can often replace the Wi-Fi router supplied by your provider. You may need to enter provider-specific settings first, but this is usually handled through an easy-to-use setup app or wizard.

Fibre to the Node (FTTN) and Fibre to the Building (FTTB) connections are different because they require a compatible VDSL2 modem to handle the connection over the existing copper line. A mesh router can’t normally replace that modem, but it can connect to the modem or modem-router and then handle Wi-Fi across your home.

If you’re unsure, your provider can confirm the best setup for your connection. Some providers offer mesh Wi-Fi systems when you sign up, and our guide to the best NBN providers in Australia can help you compare your options.

Do you actually need mesh Wi-Fi?

A mesh system makes the most sense when one router can’t cover all parts of your home reliably. That often includes multi-storey homes, double-brick houses, converted garages or even a backyard granny flat.

You probably don’t need a mesh setup if you live in a compact unit or apartment and already get reliable Wi-Fi in every room. Repositioning your router, upgrading an older model or connecting key devices by Ethernet may solve the problem much more cheaply.

A basic Wi-Fi extender can be cheaper when you only need to improve one small weak area. A mesh system costs more, but it is usually easier to manage when you have several problem areas.

How many mesh nodes do you need?

The right number of nodes depends more on layout and building materials than floor area alone. A two-node system is a sensible starting point for a smaller townhouse or single-storey home, while a larger or multi-storey property may need three or more.

More nodes aren’t automatically better. Too many can leave several units covering the same area.

Too few can also cause problems because each node needs a reliable connection to the main router or another unit. A node placed deep inside a dead zone may have too little signal to connect properly.

Placing your main router or mesh node in an open position is usually best, but the exact spot tends to depend on where your internet connection enters your home. The goal is to place the next node a bit over halfway towards the problem area.

A higher, open position is often better. Keep nodes off the floor and away from closed-off areas or cluttered shelves, and avoid placing them directly beside large appliances or behind thick internal walls.

For a home office, converted garage or granny flat, Ethernet backhaul may be more reliable where cabling is available. Start with fewer nodes and add another if coverage remains patchy.

Is Wi-Fi 7 worth it over Wi-Fi 6?

Wi-Fi 6 is enough for many Australian homes, particularly when the main goal is improving coverage rather than reaching the highest possible speeds.

Wi-Fi 6E adds the less congested 6GHz band for compatible devices, though its shorter range makes node placement particularly important. Wi-Fi 7 is more useful for newer devices, very fast NBN plans or demanding local-network use.

The newest standard isn’t always the best value. Check how many units are included, whether you can expand the system later, the speed of its Ethernet ports, wired backhaul support and whether parental controls or security features require a subscription.

Mesh Wi-Fi FAQs

Does mesh Wi-Fi make your internet faster?

Mesh can improve the speeds devices receive in weak coverage areas, but it can’t make your NBN plan faster. For faster plan options, see our guide to the best NBN plans.

Is mesh Wi-Fi better than an extender?

Mesh is usually easier to manage across several rooms and keeps one network around your home. An extender can still be the cheaper option for one small weak spot.

Does mesh Wi-Fi replace your NBN modem?

Sometimes. FTTP, HFC and FTTC users may be able to connect a mesh router to the NBN connection box, though provider settings or a bundled phone service can affect the setup. FTTN and FTTB services still need a compatible modem. If you’re unsure, ask your provider.

Is a Wi-Fi 7 mesh system worth it?

Wi-Fi 7 makes more sense for newer devices, very fast NBN plans and demanding local-network use. Wi-Fi 6 is still perfectly fine for many households and usually costs less.

Is mesh Wi-Fi worth it?

Mesh Wi-Fi is worth considering when one router leaves several parts of your home with weak or unreliable coverage. It won’t improve the NBN connection itself, but it can distribute that connection more consistently around your home, particularly if it is large or multi-storey. If you only have one small weak spot, repositioning your router or using an extender may be cheaper.

Useful guides and extra info

• Best mesh Wi-Fi systems in Australia
• Best NBN plans in Australia
• Best NBN provider in Australia
• Fastest NBN plans in Australia
• Best NBN 1000 plans
• Best NBN 2000 plans

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 #1649) — hint #1 — Vowels

* 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 #1649) — hint #2 — repeated letters

Quordle today (game #1649) — hint #3 — uncommon letters

Quordle today (game #1649) — hint #4 — starting letters (1)

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 #1649) — hint #5 — starting letters (2)

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

Quordle today (game #1649) — the answers

The answers to today's Quordle, game #1649, are…

• MANIA
• SINGE
• STOOL
• LOFTY

Another challenging game today, although I managed to not take this one right to the edge.

The tricky part was having so many possibilities for each word.

Curiously, LOFTY featured in yesterday’s Daily Sequence and that’s how I got there despite my temptation to guess “jolty”. I’m glad I resisted.

Daily Sequence today (game #1649) — the answers

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1649, are…

• LEERY
• DINGY
• CHIME
• LUMPY

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #1648, Thursday, 30 July: MODAL, IDLER, CHUMP, LUMPY
• Quordle #1647, Wednesday, 29 July: GAWKY, ALLOY, AUDIT, LATCH
• Quordle #1646, Tuesday, 28 July: SMITE, ROACH, RUDDY, GLOBE
• Quordle #1645, Monday, 27 July: TAFFY, FIGHT, GUILD, WAGER
• Quordle #1644, Sunday, 26 July: STOMP, LIMIT, FUNKY, STEAD
• Quordle #1643, Saturday, 25 July: SALON, SHEEN, BURST, GOURD
• Quordle #1642, Friday, 24 July: DOLLY, EDIFY, LAGER, PRANK
• Quordle #1641, Thursday, 23 July: LADEN, EVICT, WOVEN, SHIRE
• Quordle #1640, Wednesday, 22 July: COYLY, SINGE, AWASH, AWOKE
• Quordle #1639, Tuesday, 21 July: TRUSS, AXIAL, SWINE, THING
• Quordle #1638, Monday, 20 July: ICING, SLICK, GAILY, RISEN
• Quordle #1637, Sunday, 19 July: SPURT, ACRID, THRUM, BLEEP
• Quordle #1636, Saturday, 18 July: KNAVE, TIGHT, BLEAT, CHAOS
• Quordle #1635, Friday, 17 July: CUMIN, PALER, GRASS, INBOX
• Quordle #1634, Thursday, 16 July: IGLOO, PLAIT, YEAST, AROMA
• Quordle #1633, Wednesday, 15 July: PROXY, BRICK, BROTH, SURGE
• Quordle #1632, Tuesday, 14 July: EBONY, AVOID, RODEO, CUTIE
• Quordle #1631, Monday, 13 July: VOICE, BISON, BURNT, BUILT
• Quordle #1630, Sunday, 12 July: STAIN, BINGO, LARVA, DICEY
• Quordle #1629, Saturday, 11 July: WORTH, PRONG, DINGO, DRUID

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 #880) - hint #1 - today's theme

NYT Strands today (game #880) - hint #2 - clue words

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• SLOTH
• HOTEL
• CHILLY
• BOTHER
• COLD
• THEY
• LION

NYT Strands today (game #880) - hint #3 - spangram letters

NYT Strands today (game #880) - hint #4 - spangram position

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #880) - the answers

The answers to today's Strands, game #880, are…

• CHARMING
• BOLD
• BOSSY
• LOYAL
• GENEROUS
• DRAMATIC
• SPANGRAM: LEOTHELION

• My rating: Easy
• My score: Perfect

It took me far too long to understand that today’s words were about astrology.

My first word of CHARMING seemed to have nothing to do with the summer and so it continued until I realized that BOSSY, LOYAL and GENEROUS had nothing to do with the season and a lot to do with personality — and in particular the (supposed) personality of a LEO.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Thursday, July 30, game #879)

• SMITH
• MASON
• JOINER
• TANNER
• COOPER
• WEAVER
• SPANGRAM: ARTISANS

It starts on the 4 Train, that straight-run subway line from Grand Central to Yankee Stadium, where I start to notice the red shirts. By the time I reach the massive gray stadium, people are circling the Bronx Bomber’s edifice like thousands of red ants, all queuing up for a rare baseball season sight: football (soccer) in Yankee Stadium.

Most of the shirts are for Premier League side Liverpool FC, but there's a smattering of Wrexham kits. Some of them look threadbare, and none feature the club’s newest sponsor: Firefox. The travel and away kits were unveiled just days before — too soon for die-hard fans to show their support for the team and its well-known but, by some measures, marginal web browser.

Walking through Babe Ruth Plaza, I follow behind the red shirts until I’m lined up behind fans who have come from as far as Arkansas and California to witness the pre-season match. None are musing about Firefox’s new Wrexham sponsorship or how Mozilla (Firefox’s parent) took over from United, which itself took over from TikTok.

The Reynolds effect

The scrappy Welsh club enjoys outsized notoriety thanks to its owners, actors and entrepreneurs Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds, and the popular Hulu docu-series Welcome to Wrexham, which recounts the club’s rise from the ashes and ascent to, as of last season, just short of Premier League status.

While we wait to enter the stadium, the Liverpool team arrives late — following a day of storms and flight cancellations — on a pair of giant red touring buses to hearty cheers from the crowd. Everyone knows Wrexham, but the fans seem to be with Liverpool.

How does a browser and a keeper connect?

As we file in, I have time to think about the connection between Wrexham and Firefox. The kits, which I view later in person and on the field, are quite fetching. On top of the bold, red stretchable fabric is the iconic Firefox flame. It makes me think of the heat Mozilla hopes to generate around its best-known product.

The fit, though, between a scrappy football team and a portal you use to navigate the web, seems tenuous and as ill-fitted as the rectangular pitch they’ve somehow jury-rigged onto the baseball diamond. A covered home plate, third base, and right field jut out awkwardly, and much later a fan tells me the pitch looked kind of messy and maybe not a great experience for some of the players.

It’s not that I don’t understand why Mozilla tied its sails to Wrexham. As I write this, Firefox sits, according to StatCounter, at 3.4% of the global browser market share. By contrast, Chrome has 69% and Safari almost 16%. Put another way, the browser wars are over.

It's not that Firefox is irrelevant, but it's not as relevant as it once was. There was a time, maybe 15 years ago, when I was firmly in the Firefox camp. I’d adopted it because I was working with so many developers, who were all using the leaner and (some thought) meaner platform. It was built on the premise of openness, running counter to Internet Explorer (RIP) and the fast-growing Google Chrome.

Over time, though, it started to suffer from the same resource-hogging issues as Internet Explorer. I eventually gave it up and migrated to Chrome, then had a dalliance with Microsoft Edge and have now settled on Chrome on the desktop and Safari for mobile. If I’m being honest, I stopped considering Firefox years ago.

The most obvious answer

As the team took the makeshiift pitch and the stands filled with red shirts, I waited for Mozilla’s relatively new CEO Anthony Enzor-DeMeo and CMO John Solomon to arrive so I could quiz them about product plans and Mozilla’s dive into AI.

Enzor-DeMeo joined Mozilla in 2024 after stints at Roofstock, Better, and Wayfair. In each, the admitted nerd appears to have held positions relating to products, technology, and engineering. Solomon comes to Mozilla from Apple and Beats.

When Enzor-DeMeo finally does arrive, he looks younger than I expected and has a sort of nervous energy. It’s been a busy few days with a lot of interviews, and when I try to ask about Mozilla and AI, he tells me he doesn’t want to do any more. Still, he’s open and affable, explaining that he’s a die-hard It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Rob McElhenney is a series star) fan, so much so that when someone else says they love the show, he asks them to name their favorite episode and then, without waiting for an answer, tells us his.

Still, Enzor-DeMeo was not a closet fan of the beautiful game. Instead, Solomon, who comes from the much more culturally connected Beats brand, suggested this partnership. Enzor-DeMeo watched Reynold’s Welcome to Wrexham doc and thought, “Oh, this makes a lot of sense.”

I stared at him, wondering what he saw that I didn’t. Sure, a partnership with the Red Dragons, as Wrexham are also known (I even spotted their red dragon mascot wandering the pitch and hugging fans) makes some sense. You know, fire, dragons? And this would be Wrexham’s second tech sponsorship after TikTok, which was widely featured in early seasons of Welcome to Wrexham. Mozilla confirmed that as they film the new season, we will see the Firefox brand on display in some fashion.

I looked at Enzor-DeMeo, who was still enthusiastically talking about It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and asked him, “What’s the throughline from Firefox to Wrexham?” Enzor-DeMeo smiled and quickly answered, “Underdog.”

The only thing that would’ve made the moment more perfect is if an announcer suddenly screamed, “Goooooaaaallll!” But I got it.

It's never just about money

If you’ve never seen the documentary, Wrexham AFC was the disintegrating center of a hardscrabble town that, despite over 150 years of footballing history, had been largely forgotten and fallen to the fifth tier of the English league system. Achieving Premier League status, a feat they very nearly accomplished last season, seemed impossible. Until Reynolds and McElhenney arrived.

Sure, there are people unhappy with the way celebrity and money have throw off the balance of a well-worn system, but if you watch the doc, you know that it was never enough to throw money and fame at it. It’s a very human story with equal measures of failure and success.

Firefox is surely the underdog in the browser game. Built on its own Gecko browser engine, it stands apart from Google, Apple and Microsoft, which all have a profit motive in having you use their platforms. Mozilla’s parent organization is non-profit, and although the Mozilla Corp, under which Firefox lives, is for-profit, its revenues are used to fund the non-profit effort.

Like its competitors, Firefox has AI features, letting you access the AI chatbot of your choice in a sidebar, and using AI to help you organize tabs. It does, though, seem a bit less interested in force-feeding AI.

Still, underdog status is no guarantee of a Cinderella story, and as the game drags on with countless missed shots and a handful of fouls, I wonder if Wrexham can embarrass Liverpool in front of its US fans. A moment later, Liverpool manages at roughly 60 minutes in to sail one over the outstretched arms of Wrexham substitute goalkeeper Callum Burton.

There’s no victory for the underdog this time, but it’s the pre-season, and Wrexham and its new sponsor Firefox should have many more chances to win on the pitch.

• Microsoft launches MAI-Cyber-1-Flash, its first in-house cybersecurity model.
• It also reveals Project Perception, an agentic system whose red, blue, and green agents find, triage, and patch vulnerabilities
• The launch comes days after OpenAI said its models escaped a sandbox and attacked Hugging Face

Microsoft has unveiled two significant security announcements - MAI-Cyber-1-Flash, the first cybersecurity model it has trained in-house, and Project Perception, an agentic defense system that finds vulnerabilities, decides which ones matter, and writes and deploys the patches.

The launch took place days after OpenAI disclosed that its own models had broken out of a sandbox and hacked Hugging Face, which makes the timing either unfortunate or pointed.

With Microsoft claiming a 96% score on CyberGym, an industrial benchmark for cybersecurity, nearly 12 points above Anthropic's Claude Mythos 5, while promising as much as 50% savings in token cost, the company says it is bringing what it calls a 'well-tuned, multi-model system with access to uniquely rich historical training data',

A competitive product with excellent timing?

The Hugging Face incident drew much attention, not all of it was negative: as it painted OpenAI's models as more capable than the company's own assessments had suggested. It also sharpened a question researchers have been raising for years: what happens when a model becomes capable enough to defeat the controls placed around it?

Microsoft's answer is well-timed and two-pronged, claiming to be both cheaper and more capable than the alternatives, though the performance figures are, so far, Microsoft's own.

MAI-Cyber-1-Flash, is a sparse mixture-of-experts transformer with 137 billion total parameters, five billion active, and a 256,000-token context window, built as a cybersecurity fine-tune of MAI-Code-1-Flash, itself developed from a MAI-Thinking-1 mid-training checkpoint.

It is designed to handle up to 90% of the tasks inside MDASH, Microsoft's multi-model vulnerability harness, with OpenAI's GPT-5.4 reserved for the hardest 10 percent.

Microsoft says that split costs about half as much as its previous best MDASH configuration. For now, it runs only within MDASH and is available to approved MDASH customers through an Azure AI Foundry private preview, with no standalone API.

Project Perception is the wrapper around it, drawing on MAI-Cyber-1-Flash for its first workflow alongside frontier models such as GPT-5.4. Three classes of agent split the work: red agents probe for paths an attacker could take, blue agents investigate and decide what constitutes meaningful risk, and green agents remediate and harden.

On the specific failure that let OpenAI's models loose, Microsoft took the precaution OpenAI did not, as it says all benchmark testing ran in a network-isolated environment with no access to production systems, the public internet, or external services.

OpenAI's sandbox, by contrast, kept one route outward in the form of an internal package-fetching service, and its models found a flaw in it, escalated privileges and worked across the research network until they reached a machine with internet access. Microsoft says its isolation held. Nobody outside Microsoft has verified that.

The harder question is not containment during testing. Project Perception moves the work out of a research network and into customer production environments, where green agents are authorized to change live systems as their normal function.

There is no sandbox to escape, because acting on real infrastructure is the product. And attribution is difficult even when someone is watching: Hugging Face detected the intrusion within days and reported it to law enforcement, but had no idea who was behind it until OpenAI said so.

It also could not get help from the leading American models, which read its defensive requests as offensive ones and refused. It ended up defending itself with GLM 5.2, a Chinese open-weight model, running on its own infrastructure.

For now, the industry's answer to dangerous capability remains narrower distribution, and the one documented case of a defender needing that capability urgently ended with them reaching for a model nobody had gated.

Artificial intelligence came at just about the right time, speeding up app and software development as the world started to contend with skills shortages, but it changed the pace so much that security teams have not been able to keep up.

Recently, we’ve seen AI being applied across multiple other domains with role-specific agents and tools, but that’s introduced its own challenges. While tools like Claude Code have proven a hit for generating, reviewing and editing code in seconds, security-focused tools like Anthropic’s Claude Mythos family of models are having broader impacts on the industry.

Anthropic itself has even admitted that Mythos is so powerful that the worry it could be abused by malicious criminals is extremely real – the Preview model is currently only available to a select number of pre-approved partners.

So with AI now capable of inspecting code, discovering vulnerabilities and suggesting fixes, do organizations even need as many human workers on the case, or can they get by with significantly fewer humans in the loop serving as AI reviewers? Recent layoffs have certainly implied as much.

The evolving role of security workers in an AI-first world

But with the entire lifecycle of development now amplified by AI, experts are warning that companies could actually be creating more work for themselves, and more than they could ever handle, leaving them facing strains from angles they weren’t previously exposed to.

For example, fewer than one in 10 companies now fix 90% of identified vulnerabilities within 90 days – implying that the volume of vulnerabilities is indeed increasing, rather than that fix efficiency is slipping.

Anthropic even revealed that its around 50 early Mythos Preview partners discovered more than 10,000 high- or critical-severity vulnerabilities – and thousands more of lesser significance.

Checkmarx CEO Sandeep Johri predicts we could soon find a balance, where vulnerabilities volume matters less and we revert our focus back toward exploitable risks. I spoke with Johri about the evolution of AppSec, where AI is and isn’t useful, and how organizations can balance speed and control.

• With the rise of AI coding tools and AI-generated software, some are questioning whether traditional application security practices are becoming outdated. Is AppSec actually becoming obsolete, or is it evolving?

Traditional application security is not obsolete. It is evolving to meet the reality of how software is being built today.

For years, the process was fairly linear: developers wrote code, security teams scanned it, and vulnerabilities were addressed later. That approach becomes much harder when software is being created at a much faster pace with the help of AI.

AI accelerates development and risk simultaneously: 70% of developers say AI-generated code created more vulnerabilities in 2025, according to our research. As code volume and complexity compound, security needs to move earlier into the development process, giving developers the tools and guidance they need while they are building.

Security teams will continue to play a critical role to help organizations develop software and maintain confidence in their enterprise applications. But their focus needs to shift from finding vulnerabilities to remediating them at scale, because we are tracking an enormous gap in most companies. Our data finds that fewer than 10% of organizations fix 90% of identified vulnerabilities in 90 days.

• AI coding tools are helping developers create software faster than ever before. What new security challenges does this introduce for organizations adopting these technologies at scale?

The biggest challenge is that development speed is increasing faster than many security processes can keep up with. AI coding tools allow teams to create and deploy software quickly, but the code generated by AI still needs to be reviewed, tested, and secured.

Companies that ship 81-100% of their code with AI are nearly three times more likely to ship vulnerable code than those who use AI 1-20% of the time. This volume can overwhelm security teams with thousands of findings, many of which don't represent meaningful risk. The priority needs to be identifying the vulnerabilities that actually create exposure and helping teams fix those issues faster.


• Many organizations are looking to AI to help identify and fix security vulnerabilities. Why shouldn’t companies rely solely on AI models to secure the code that AI is helping create?

AI is a valuable tool for security teams, but organizations still need accuracy, context, and human oversight. AI can help identify patterns, analyze code, and accelerate remediation, but security decisions require confidence in what risks actually matter.

Frontier models can uncover hidden exploit paths, but they can also deliver inconsistent findings and false positives. Their results may change depending on the prompt, and they can still miss known critical vulnerabilities.

The challenge with relying only on AI is that organizations may create a false sense of security, or “automation bias.” AI models can generate code and help analyze vulnerabilities, but they need to be paired with security expertise and proven security practices.

The most effective approach combines AI-driven capabilities with strong security foundations, so teams can move faster while maintaining control over risk.

• As companies adopt more AI tools throughout the development process, what are the biggest security risks they need to consider beyond just AI-generated code?

Organizations need to think beyond the code itself and look at the entire AI ecosystem being introduced into software development. Many companies are adopting AI tools, models, agents, libraries, and other components faster than they can establish governance around them. This creates visibility challenges because security teams may not know what AI technologies are being used, where they exist in applications, or whether they meet security requirements.

Another concern is shadow AI, where employees use AI tools without formal approval or oversight. Organizations need visibility, clear policies, and a way to manage these technologies as part of their overall software supply chain.



Perhaps the most urgent problem is the expansion of the attack surface itself. With LLMs, it has never been faster, cheaper, or easier for bad actors to exploit software. Issues that sat undetected for years are now being surfaced and weaponized at machine speed. Of the vulnerabilities Mythos has found so far, 99% haven't been patched, according to Gartner.

• How does the rise of AI change the role of security teams? Does the traditional approach to finding vulnerabilities need to shift toward a model focused more on prioritization, remediation, and continuous protection?

Identifying vulnerabilities is no longer enough when organizations already have more findings than they can realistically address. Security has to become continuous, embedded in development workflows, working in lockstep with developers, to build securely from the start while maintaining visibility and control.



We are shifting the focus to understand which issues create the greatest risk to give developers the context to address them fast, where code is written in the IDE.

Fidelity now matters more than volume. One verified true positive is worth more than a hundred low-confidence findings. If developers can’t trust what they’re shown, they’ll start ignoring it. That’s why organizations are increasingly looking at metrics like F1 score, which measure precision and recall together, rather than raw finding counts.

• What does the future of application security look like in an AI-driven software development world? Will organizations need a different approach to balancing speed, innovation, and security?

The future of application security will require a more integrated approach. Organizations are going to continue adopting AI because the productivity benefits are significant, but security needs to evolve alongside that innovation.

Security will become more agentic, more intelligent, and more closely connected to the development process. Part of that evolution is combining deterministic, rules-based scanning with AI-driven reasoning in a single process, rather than running them as separate, disconnected tools. Deterministic methods catch what’s already proven; AI reasoning catches what’s novel. Together they’re more complete than either alone.



In addition, deterministic models have real cost advantages. Asking a frontier model to reason its way to security (i.e. extra review passes, self-generated threat models) burns tokens fast. That cost compounds the longer a vulnerability survives: cheap to fix in the IDE, more expensive in CI/CD, most expensive once it's live in runtime. And every time a developer has to stop and pull a vulnerability out of code that's already shipped, that's velocity lost to rework instead of innovation.

Teams will need technology that can help identify real risks, support faster remediation, and provide visibility across the entire software lifecycle. The organizations that succeed will be those that make security part of how they build software, allowing developers to move quickly while reducing unnecessary risk.

• For organizations that are embracing AI coding tools today, what steps should they take to make sure they can innovate quickly without introducing unnecessary security risks?

The first step is visibility. Organizations need to understand where AI is being used, what tools are being introduced, and what impact those tools have on their applications.

Remediation is far cheaper the earlier it happens — catching an issue in the IDE costs a fraction of catching it further down the pipeline. But there’s another unsettling gap in our research: nearly all developers have access to in-IDE security tools, but fewer than one in five actually secure code as they write it. The cost of fixing that issue compounds as it passes through later stages of development.



In addition, organizations need clear governance around AI adoption, because only 22% currently have formal AI governance policies in place. That means defining policies, monitoring usage, and making sure teams have the right security controls as they continue to innovate.



AI will continue to change software development. The companies that benefit most will be the ones that embrace the technology while building security into the process from the beginning.

Loath as I am to say it, the future of gaming platforms isn’t looking so rosy right now. Windows is increasingly becoming more recalcitrant, constantly throwing hurdles in the faces of PC gamers in the form of performance-ruining updates and unsolicited AI implementations. And in the console world, Sony has irked everyone by ditching physical games from January 2028, while the recent bout of mass layoffs at Xbox belies its ‘back on track’ messaging.

Meanwhile, Valve appears to be going in the opposite direction. It already has a big advantage in the form of Steam, near enough the default storefront and launcher for PC gamers everywhere. Why, it’s generated an estimated $11.1bn in gross revenue in the first half of this year already. With pockets as deep as these, and without having to divert its earnings to shareholders (given it’s still, for now, a private company), that’s cash it can invest in expansion.

So is now the perfect time for Valve to break out, capitalize on its competitors’ floundering and shoot its shot at making SteamOS the next big platform?

SteamOS vs Windows

There’s no question that SteamOS has been quite the success already. This is almost entirely thanks to the success of the Steam Deck, Valve’s hugely popular device that launched in 2022 and kickstarted a mini revolution in handheld gaming. It runs SteamOS 3, which is based on the Arch Linux distribution and far superior to its initial Debian iterations. These were used on the original Steam Machines of 2015, and are no doubt part of the reason for the discontinuation of the units in 2018.

The big advantage of SteamOS 3 is its support for Proton, the compatibility layer that allows Windows games to run on Linux devices. Although it predates the Steam Deck, Proton found its calling on the handheld, proving a lot of doubters wrong by running a large library of modern games well on a small, portable device. Even AAA titles such as 007 First Light and Cyberpunk 2077 are perfectly playable, along with plenty of others.

But Valve is no longer confining its operating system to the Steam Deck and Steam Machine. It’s recently expanded support to ARM, AMD and Intel devices, which means it can run on more devices such as the Lenovo Legion Go S and the Asus ROG Ally. Chris Hewish, a former Executive Producer at Activision and current President of gaming MoR Xsolla, explains the advantages of running SteamOS on such devices over Windows 11.

“With the SteamOS 3.8 release in June, Valve officially took the OS beyond the Steam Deck to the ROG Ally line, and Lenovo's Legion Go family, and early Intel support is starting to pull devices like the MSI Claw into the fold," he tells me. "On the same hardware, reviewers keep finding it ahead of Windows 11 where handheld players actually feel it: battery life, sleep and resume, and an interface built for a controller instead of a desktop squeezed onto a seven-inch screen.”

So, does the continued success of SteamOS rely on expanding to more hardware? Greg Weller, Head of Gaming Partnerships at Generation Media, and someone with over 20 years of industry experience — which includes stints at Rockstar Games and Bethesda Softworks — thinks so.

“The opportunity is significantly bigger if SteamOS continues to be device agnostic," he says. "The Steam Deck proved Valve could build a fantastic hardware experience, but the bigger strategic opportunity is allowing consumers to carry their Steam ecosystem across multiple devices rather than tying it to one piece of hardware.”

He continues: “We're seeing the same evolution across other entertainment sectors, like music, film and television, which have largely moved beyond device-specific experiences. People increasingly expect their content to follow them rather than the other way around. So, Valve hardware can absolutely remain the benchmark experience, but if SteamOS becomes the connective layer between a player's library, identity and multiple devices, that's a much bigger opportunity.”

However, not everyone in the industry shares this view. “SteamOS’ success largely depends on Valve's hardware for now and how far they actually push the OS itself,” says André Pimenta Ribeiro, CEO and co-founder of Anybrain, whose behavioral AI tools are used in popular online games such as Arc Raiders and The Finals.

He adds: “SteamOS’ success largely depends on Valve's hardware for now and how far they actually push the OS itself. I think Valve’s best case here is to grow to a broader, more casual audience through its own hardware and by offering its massive library to the mainstream player base, rather than exporting SteamOS to more devices in general. Once Valve hardware or SteamOS reach more mainstream adoption, then opening up the ecosystem makes sense. For now it feels mostly like a development play.”

Sticking points

If SteamOS wants a larger slice of the gaming pie, though, there are certain obstacles it needs to overcome. Hewish points to one of the system’s major sticking points: its incompatibility with games requiring anti-cheat tools.

“Kernel-level anti-cheat either does not run on Linux or has not been enabled there," he says. "Until the biggest competitive games work reliably through Proton, SteamOS is not a no-compromise choice. It is an 'as long as you don't play those games' choice, and those games are some of the most played in the world.”

Another problem is what Hewish calls “hardware breadth,” explaining that: “Windows still has the deepest compatibility layer for the long tail: niche peripherals, capture cards, VR headsets, external GPUs. If the reports about official GeForce support come to pass, that closes a meaningful piece of the gap, since SteamOS has effectively been an AMD platform until now.”

Of course, the other advantage of Windows is that once you’re done gaming, you can switch to using it as an everyday computer. “SteamOS is deliberately narrow, a console-like shell, and that focus is a strength on a handheld,” says Hewish. “But if it wants to take on Windows more broadly, the path into desktop mode for a browser, schoolwork, or a spreadsheet has to get smoother.”

SteamOS vs consoles

But what about SteamOS as a console competitor? The revitalized Steam Machine launched in June this year was hotly anticipated, and looked like a serious contender to the PlayStation-Xbox-Nintendo triumvirate. Russell Kay, a former Grand Theft Auto developer and Head of popular 2D engine GameMaker, believes it was a success in bringing SteamOS to a wider audience.

“In the living room, SteamOS is now a proper alternative to a console,” he says. "The library is already there, and so is the audience. Millions of people have a huge digital collection sitting on Steam, and SteamOS finally gives them a way to put that under the TV instead of on a console. That's a real advantage no other platform has.”

However, he says: “The real problem is the price — Steam Machines cost more than a console. A gap that’s unlikely to close anytime soon thanks to the rising cost of RAM and hardware.”

And there are other issues for SteamOS in the console space. Hewish explains: “The Steam Machine needs reasons to exist beyond ‘runs your existing library’. Consoles win on curation and exclusives as much as hardware. That fight is about habit and content, not benchmarks. Close the anti-cheat gap and keep the hardware momentum, and ‘the default handheld OS’ is realistic within a couple of years. [But] the living room is a longer climb no matter what the software does.”

Ribeiro, meanwhile, thinks: "[Valve] can make a splash against this weaker console market, but right now it's still a niche system for a specific subset of people — growing beyond that depends on where they take it. Valve is known for doing its own thing, and that’s not always conducive to serving the broader global ecosystem of casual players. I think it makes sense from the perspective that they want to grow beyond a distribution platform, but the extent of impact and its longevity is still to be seen.”

He concludes: “I already see Steam devices akin to consoles, such as the Steam Deck and Steam Machine. I wouldn’t replace my Windows PC or mobile device with it, but vs the existing console ecosystem, that’s more a toss-up.”

The future of SteamOS

It seems fairly clear-cut, then, that SteamOS is clearly leading the way when it comes to handheld gaming. But a push beyond that realm to usurp Windows or seriously challenge consoles is less certain.

Ultimately, Hewish sees it this way: “Windows still wins in two places: games with kernel-level anti-cheat, and anything you want to do that is not gaming. And in the living room it is early days. The new Steam Machine only started shipping at the end of June. So I would put it this way: [SteamOS is] a genuine competitor on handhelds today, and a credible but very young challenger in the living room.”

Of course, the high price of the Steam Machine certainly dampened its appeal. The consensus seems to be that while it was a capable device, it was too expensive to present a viable challenge to the living room market. Of course, the seemingly interminable RAM crisis threw a spanner in the works, even crashing the Steam Deck’s party thanks to a price hike that put a serious dent in its sales. But the fact remains the PS5, Switch 2, and Xbox Series X|S all undercut the Steam Machine considerably.

But perhaps there’s hope yet for the Gabecube and other SteamOS implementations besides handhelds. After all, Hewish makes the point that having one platform dominate isn’t especially useful for game developers.

He says: “If you make games for a living, you do not actually want any single platform to win outright, even one you like. Concentration is where leverage goes to die. When one storefront or operating system controls the path to players, it eventually controls the terms, the fees, and the relationship. The healthiest ending to this story is not SteamOS replacing Windows. It is real competition at the platform layer, because that is what forces every gatekeeper to treat developers and players better. SteamOS taking a real share does exactly that.”

He further adds: “My bet is SteamOS becomes the preferred choice for people buying a device specifically to game, and Windows holds wherever one device has to do it all.”

Weller sees another benefit to the gradual permeation of SteamOS.

He says: “SteamOS has already established itself as a credible competitor, but not in the way people traditionally define competition. Rather than trying to replace Windows or persuade console players to switch overnight, SteamOS is reducing friction between players and the game libraries they've already invested in, allowing people to take their Steam ecosystem into more places and devices.”

“This reflects a much bigger shift happening across entertainment. Historically, consumers bought hardware first and then built a content library around it. Now, they're increasingly buying into ecosystems. Players care less about the operating system they're using and more about whether their games, saves, achievements, friends and purchases move seamlessly between devices.”

Gaming ecosystems have become important for another reason. “Our research found 72% of players discover games through social media, 67% through YouTube and 53% through platform stores such as Steam, PlayStation Store and Xbox Store," Weller explains. "Platform ecosystems have become both the storefront and the discovery engine. So SteamOS isn't simply an operating system but another touchpoint within a much broader ecosystem.”

“Valve's long-term competitive advantage has never been selling games, but focusing on the surrounding ecosystem: community features, recommendations, cloud saves, and overall experience of staying connected to your library. Those are the areas where Valve can continue to differentiate, rather than relying on exclusivity.”

The point about community features is an important one. The community around Steam has played a major role in the platform cultivating its loyal fanbase and the general good will of gamers. Its openness to mods and add-ons via its Workshop is a large part of this. And, as Kay points out, although games purchased on its storefront do contain DRM, “[it has] been one of the better stories when it comes to DRM". So if SteamOS wants to expand its horizons beyond handhelds, it needs to retain the element that sets it apart from other, closed-off gaming platforms.

Do you think SteamOS is going to be the next big platform in gaming? Vote in the poll below, and if you want to say more, why not leave a comment as well?

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 #1648) — hint #1 — Vowels

* 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 #1648) — hint #2 — repeated letters

Quordle today (game #1648) — hint #3 — uncommon letters

Quordle today (game #1648) — hint #4 — starting letters (1)

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 #1648) — hint #5 — starting letters (2)

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

Quordle today (game #1648) — the answers

The answers to today's Quordle, game #1648, are…

• MODAL
• IDLER
• CHUMP
• LUMPY

After a long run of easy games I am now on back to back days where I came very close to losing.

Today, I had to take the game very slowly in order to get three words in three guesses and fortunately it paid off with the letter M in MODAL unlocking the final two words.

Daily Sequence today (game #1648) — the answers

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1648, are…

• KAYAK
• NERDY
• STINK
• LOFTY

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #1647, Wednesday, 29 July: GAWKY, ALLOY, AUDIT, LATCH
• Quordle #1646, Tuesday, 28 July: SMITE, ROACH, RUDDY, GLOBE
• Quordle #1645, Monday, 27 July: TAFFY, FIGHT, GUILD, WAGER
• Quordle #1644, Sunday, 26 July: STOMP, LIMIT, FUNKY, STEAD
• Quordle #1643, Saturday, 25 July: SALON, SHEEN, BURST, GOURD
• Quordle #1642, Friday, 24 July: DOLLY, EDIFY, LAGER, PRANK
• Quordle #1641, Thursday, 23 July: LADEN, EVICT, WOVEN, SHIRE
• Quordle #1640, Wednesday, 22 July: COYLY, SINGE, AWASH, AWOKE
• Quordle #1639, Tuesday, 21 July: TRUSS, AXIAL, SWINE, THING
• Quordle #1638, Monday, 20 July: ICING, SLICK, GAILY, RISEN
• Quordle #1637, Sunday, 19 July: SPURT, ACRID, THRUM, BLEEP
• Quordle #1636, Saturday, 18 July: KNAVE, TIGHT, BLEAT, CHAOS
• Quordle #1635, Friday, 17 July: CUMIN, PALER, GRASS, INBOX
• Quordle #1634, Thursday, 16 July: IGLOO, PLAIT, YEAST, AROMA
• Quordle #1633, Wednesday, 15 July: PROXY, BRICK, BROTH, SURGE
• Quordle #1632, Tuesday, 14 July: EBONY, AVOID, RODEO, CUTIE
• Quordle #1631, Monday, 13 July: VOICE, BISON, BURNT, BUILT
• Quordle #1630, Sunday, 12 July: STAIN, BINGO, LARVA, DICEY
• Quordle #1629, Saturday, 11 July: WORTH, PRONG, DINGO, DRUID
• Quordle #1628, Friday, 10 July: GREET, STEAK, DUSKY, HAUTE

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 #879) - hint #1 - today's theme

NYT Strands today (game #879) - hint #2 - clue words

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• WART
• RAVE
• MAST
• STOP
• TROOPER
• PASTE

NYT Strands today (game #879) - hint #3 - spangram letters

NYT Strands today (game #879) - hint #4 - spangram position

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #879) - the answers

The answers to today's Strands, game #879, are…

• SMITH
• MASON
• JOINER
• TANNER
• COOPER
• WEAVER
• SPANGRAM: ARTISANS

• My rating: Hard
• My score: 1 hint

As I was working around the board collecting “trade names” I could not help but wonder how many of today’s trades would be considered the work of ARTISANS in the future — programmer, writer, barista?

Many in the search are jobs that are now quite niche, yet we only need think of how many people are named SMITH or COOPER to realize how commonplace they once were.

Not so commonplace, however, to prevent me from needing a hint, although in my case it was laziness that prompted me to take the shortcut, thus demonstrating my inevitable replacement by a far more capable AI version.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Wednesday, July 29, game #878)

• DOLL
• PUPPET
• DUMMY
• MANNEQUIN
• FIGURINE
• STATUE
• SPANGRAM: FABRICATED

Though attack vectors and threat environments have changed since the advent of the internet, one thing has remained a constant – humans use software, and software has predefined parameters.

That distinction is exactly why social engineering remains so effective. Cybercriminals exploit predictable weaknesses in human behavior, granting them accesss to accounts and other sensitive information.

For the first time ever, that long-standing assumption is being turned on its head. In today's increasingly autonomous world, AI agents can take action on behalf of humans, creating an entirely new class of attack vectors that target machine autonomy rather than human weaknesses.

The boundary between software and user is getting really, really blurry

The purpose of an agent isn't just to retrieve information or wait for a human's approval – its responsibilities can include interpreting objectives, developing plans, choosing tools, accessing data autonomously and taking actions. In short, agentic AI bridges both software and user.

This doesn't make everything we know about software and SaaS security obsolete, but it does mean that many of the assumptions underpinning today's controls are no longer sufficient. Humans will continue to use conventional software, but alongside agentic workflows, leaving organizations responsible for security both types of environment.

Thankfully, the fundamentals remain – least privilege, strong authentication and separation of duties will all be central to the next wave of cybersecurity. What will change, though, is how those principles will be applied to agents, which don't behave as software or human users.

AI agents need identities of their own

The first requirement is to stop treating agents like features hidden inside applications, or software in their own right. An enterprise agent should actually have a first-class identity just like any other human colleague.

This means AI agents should have unique identities, named owners (line managers), clearly defined purposes and specific permissions. But they should also have their own lifecycles akin to software, such as creation dates, review points and expiry dates.

"Expiry dates or periodic recertification are important because agents can otherwise become long-lived access paths that are harder to govern than human users," Zendesk Chief Security Officer Vinay Patel explained to me in an exclusive interview.

At the end of the day, these are the sorts of controls that already exist for human users because organizations already understand the risks of unmanaged access, due to role changes or company departures, for example.

Without treating AI agents as users in their own right, companies risk accumulating abandoned agents, stored credentials and even data access paths whose original business purposes may have disappeared – an unthinkable consequence for humans, so one that should be treated just as severely for AI agents.

Human-in-the-loop automation is the future

Importantly, AI agents don't just occupy one space. They can act autonomously, be commissioned on a task-by-task basis by a human user, or operate somewhere between the two. Patel told me that an "audit trail should preserve both identities: the human who initiated or authorized the action and the agent that executed it."

For fully autonomous agents, a log tying them back to their "owner, purpose, and approved policy" is still just as important.

But of course, it all boils down to flawless visibility and effective management. "Companies need inventory and discovery across the places agents can be created or embedded, including SaaS platforms, internal automation tools, development environments, and third-party integrations," Patel added.

Organizations must monitor not only which agents are deployed, but whether their permissions and behavior remain aligned with their original business purposes.

Recent NIST research raises many of the same priorities, including verifiable records of agent actions, intent, data sources and generated output. But while NIST is developing guidance around agent adoption, visibility, control and accountability, agents are already being deployed, and often without the necessary safeguards.

Traditional IAM falls short

A separate Cloud Security Alliance paper concluded, "traditional identity and access management (IAM) protocols, designed for static applications and human users, can’t keep up."

The researchers argue that credentials and permissions should be task-specific, short-lived and easily revokable, unlike human identities which are generally set for the duration of their employment contracts.

The CSA also recommends applying zero-trust principles by treating agent compromise as a credible possibility. By enforcing least privilege, isolating systems and continuously verifying access, organizations can limit the potential consequences of an attack or misconfiguration as they adapt to this new security environment.

Accountability starts before deployment

Patel says that, "accountability should not collapse onto a single party by default." It's as much the responsibility of adopters as it is lawmakers, and even end users.

Key to understanding vulnerabilities and potential risks is identifying where the failure occurred: "user’s instruction, the agent owner’s governance, the developer’s design, the platform provider’s controls, or the enterprise’s deployment model."

Above all else, Zendesk's Chief Security Officer argues that "accountability must be defined before deployment, not reconstructed after an incident."

In the short term, this work could slow AI adoption as companies address controls that might've been overlooked during early, informal experimentation. The danger arises when a successful pilot actual progresses into production without pausing to define ownership, permissions and other policies.

Before scaling agent deployments, organizations should pause other ensure the right foundations are in place. Governance becomes much harder to retrofit once an agent has actually been embedded.

Preparing for the autonomous workforce

The question is no longer how, or even whether, AI agents will become part of the enterprise – it's about how employers can establish the necessary controls before they're more common than human workers.

The most valuable security investments today focus on visibility, control, accountability and governance, not forgetting over investments tech admins are making across data foundations and interoperability.

But thankfully, none of this requires a business to abandon the security principles it's spent decades developing. All it requires is for leaders to extend and reframe these for the agentic world.

The future enterprise will combine the human-software environment we already know with a new end-to-end agentic layer – neither one of these will replace the other. Companies preparing for this new hybrid will see the greatest returns.

HP Omen 16 Slim: Two-minute review

In these strange times where PC memory prices seemingly double by the day, an affordable gaming laptop is a tantalising prospect. But is it actually realistic? Enter the HP Omen 16 Slim, HP's latest mainstream gaming portable.

There are two core variants of the Omen 16, a standard-sized model and this so-called "Slim". Long story short, this Slim model is a little skinnier but still isn't exactly super compact for a 16-inch laptop, thanks to not only a fairly hefty lower screen bezel, but also a chassis that sticks out beyond the base of the display. At least the slightly tanky proportions translate into a tanky chassis with a solid feeling keyboard bed.

Anyway, it's the value proposition that matters and that means getting into the specs. CPU-wise, we're talking Intel Core Ultra 7 255H, which is a pretty modern 16-core chip from Intel's Arrow Lake generation. Here it's configured with 24GB of DDR5 in dual 12GB SoDIMMs. But various configs are available, including 16GB and 24GB.

There's also 1TB Gen 4 SSD, but with any gaming laptop surely the most important single component is the GPU and it's no surprise to find an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 8GB doing the pixel pumping duties.

It's one up from the bottom of Nvidia's RTX 50 Series laptop GPUs, but it gets the full feature set, including all the latest DLSS upscaling bells and whistles. It outputs to a 165Hz 16-inch LCD display with a native resolution of 1,920 by 1,200 pixels, making it a 16:10 aspect panel rather than the usual 16:9 ratio.

The battery is a pretty generous 70Wh item, meanwhile, and networking includes WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.4 and Ethernet. Slightly less impressive is the physical connectivity. Not only are you limited to just one USB-C port (plus three USB-A), it can only do a measly 10Gbps. So, the only video out is the single HDMI 2.1 port.

Of course, gaming performance is the key metric here, and the results are pretty good, albeit with one major caveat. This skinnier Omen 16 Slim makes do with 110W of Total Platform Power (TPP) and 80W maximum for the GPU, where the full-sized Omen 16 cranks that up significantly to 170W TPP. Given premium gaming laptops can supply as much as 175W and more just for the GPU, you can see how 110W for everything, including CPU, RAM and storage, can be a limiting factor.

That said, the RTX 5060 GPU is pretty efficient and well matched with the 1200p (near-enough 1080p) 165Hz display. You'll need to use DLSS upscaling to get slick frame rates in the most demanding games. But, broadly, you'll get fairly smooth results at very high detail settings. What's more, the chassis doesn't get too hot and the fan noise is moderate.

All of which means HP has done a nice job with the HP Omen 16 Slim. It's well built, mostly well specified and delivers a pretty sweet gaming experience. Whether it makes sense as a buy comes down to pricing. As configured here with 24GB of RAM, it's a little spendy. But there's an otherwise identical 16GB model that we just spotted for a whisker under $1,200. Right here in 2026, that's a very decent deal.

HP Omen 16 Slim review: Price & availability

• Available for £1,499 in the UK with 24GB of DDR5
• The closest US config rocks 16GB of DDR5 for $1,599
• Looks out for deals on sites like Newegg

In this precise configuration with 24GB of DDR5 RAM, the HP Omen 16 Slim weighs in at £1,399 in the UK. That's actually very good given current memory prices, right now. Indeed, you could argue it would make sense to knock that back to 16GB, keep everything else the same, and save some money.

Indeed, in the US, just that configuration is available, while the 24GB option is not. With 16GB, you're currently looking at $1,599, which is a fair bit less appealing. Currently, an otherwise identical version but with an RTX 5050 instead of the RTX 5060 can be had for $1,198 on Newegg, which implies you might be able to bag one with the 5060 and 16GB for around $1,400 at some point if you hang around and wait for a deal. At that price point, the HP Omen 16 Slim would start making a lot of sense.

HP Omen 16 Slim review: Specs

HP Omen 16 Slim review: Design

• Not actually that "Slim"
• Solid, well-built chassis
• Connectivity is only OK
• Cooling is well executed

The HP Omen 16 Slim is mostly plastic, just the bottom cover is metal. But it still feels very solid and durable. The Keyboard is nice and stable, with only a touch of flex when pushed hard. The keyboard, while we're on the subject, has four configurable RGB lighting zones, but at this price point, you're not going to get per-key lighting.

HP has done a nice job with the cooling, too. The twin fans draw air from the bottom cover and push it out the back and do so without making too much noise. However, despite the "Slim" branding, this is not a super compact laptop.

Coming in at 1.99cm to 2.27cm thick, where the standard Omen 16 measures between 2.39cm and 2.54cm, the 16 Slim is thinner than its sibling. But it's still not that compact.

Thanks to a rather large chine bezel and the way the rear of the chassis sticks out beyond the screen hinge, the Omen 16 Slim actually has a larger footprint than many laptops that trade on pure performance rather than portability and also tips the scales at 2.42kg. So, it's no featherweight.

In that context, the somewhat limited connectivity is a touch disappointing. You get three USB-A ports, but just one USB-C and even the latter is limited to 10Gbps, though it does at least support video out and charging the laptop itself.

HP Omen 16 Slim review: Performance

• Decent frame rates at 1200p with DLSS
• Seriously quick SSD
• Fan noise is reasonable

Intel's Core Ultra 7 255H is very much a known quantity, what with its eight Performance and eight Efficient CPU cores. It's all you need for gaming in CPU terms, so the HP Omen 16 Slim's critical gaming component compared with the competition among the best gaming laptops is that Nvidia RTX 5060 GPU and how well it's been implemented.

This thinner HP Omen 16 Slim model does suffer slightly in the wattage department, with the Total Platform Power shared across the GPU, CPU, memory and more capped at 110W. But that doesn't absolutely hobble gaming performance.

For instance, running at the 16-inch display's native 1,920 by 1,200 resolution, you can crank Cyberpunk 2077 right up, with Ultra RT settings and Quality DLSS scaling and still get 44fps average frame rate.

OK, that's not spectacular. But it is acceptable for a single-player title. Switch off the ray tracing and you'll be looking at frame rates nearer 100. Moreover, in less demanding games, let's say something a little older like Shadow of the Tomb Raider, you can hit over 130fps even without DLSS upscaling and really make the most of the 165Hz refresh rate of the 16-inch display.

Speaking of the screen, the 16:10 aspect is a little odd and adds a little GPU load versus a vanilla 1080p panel. But it's reasonably vibrant, with nice-ish colours and contrast and decent 3ms response times. It's nothing special, but probably what you'd expect at this price point.

Just note the panel reviewed here is the upgrade 400 nit option. The base display is only 300 nits, runs at 144Hz and has much less colour fidelity. Avoid that if at all possible.

The 16 Slim's thermal performance is pretty impressive, too. It doesn't get too hot under load and the fan noise is reasonable. Well, it is unless you enable "Unleashed Mode" in the Omen Gaming Hub app. That cranks up the fans, but doesn't do much for frame rates.

Elsewhere, the SSD is particularly nippy, clocking over 7GB/s for reads and nearly 6GB/s for writes. For what is pitched as a value-orientated system, that's impressive. As for other elements, the sound quality from the speakers is tolerable at this price point, but the volume could be a little higher, and the webcam quality is OK.

In terms of physical performance, the chassis feels robust, even though only the bottom cover is made of metal, and the keyboard base is nice and solid with minimal flex. As for the trackpad, it's mechanical and doesn't have niceties like a glass cover. But it's large and works well enough. It's also worth noting that the memory, storage and Wi-Fi cards are all upgradeable, which is welcome in an age where too many laptops have everything soldered on.

HP Omen 16 Slim review: Battery life

• Surprisingly good for a budget gaming laptop
• USB-C charging is supported
• Not actually all that portable

Undoubtedly one of the HP Omen 16 Slim's more impressive aspects is battery life. OK, you're not going to get more than a couple of hours of light gaming off the mains, but for watching video, this laptop has some real legs.

Our local video playback test netted over 12 and a half hours with the screen at half brightness. That's a realistic setting for use on, say, a plane, albeit you might want to wind the screen up a little in bright daylight.

Whatever, that's a very impressive result for a gaming laptop and makes this portable much more plausible as an all-round computing device to take with you on trips and outings. The caveat to that is that the fairly large proportions and relatively hefty 2.4kg kerb weight mean this isn't a laptop you're going to sling into a small shoulder bag and forget about.

Should I buy the HP Omen 16 Slim?

HP Omen 16 Slim: Scorecard

Buy the HP Omen 16 Slim if…

Don't buy it if…

HP Omen 16 Slim review: Also consider

How I tested the HP Omen 16 Slim HX

• Used as my daily rig for two weeks
• Threw my Steam library at
• Got forensic with the screen and build quality

I've been round the block when it comes to gaming laptops. My first portable ran a GeForce 2 Go, if you can remember back that far. My current lappie runs an RTX 4080, and there have been plenty more in between. ANd those are just my personal machines. I've long since lost count of how many gaming laptops I've reviewed. There are always a few knocking around.

Over the years, I've learned a lot about what makes a good gaming laptop and I applied that to the HP Omen 16 Slim over a couple of weeks. That means throwing everything in my Steam Library at it, from classic strategy titles like Total War to graphics fests including Cyberpunk 2077. All round performance, including the SSD, is also important, as is battery life for what is, ultimately, meant to be a portable machine.

I'm also very picky when it comes to screen quality and keyboard feel and have something of a forensic obsession with laptop build quality. You have to be realistic at this price point, but build quality is particularly important to gaming laptop longevity. Bendy chassis usually end up in flakey performance, eventually.

• First reviewed: July 2026
• Read more about how we test

• Just 27% of Gen Z respondents use antivirus software for mobile devices, and are less likely to regularly change passwords
• 57% of Gen Z spend more time online than offline, Kaspersky finds
• And only 28% regularly backup important personal data stored on their phones

Gen Z has no awareness of cybersecurity, online safety principles, or the risks of not changing your password. With just over half (52%) of respondents admitting they have had devices, data, or online accounts attacked, only 27% actually employ standard countermeasures like mobile antivirus tools.

In a study of 7200 respondents from 18 countries, the company also found only 28% regularly backup important personal data stored on their phones.

An average Gen Z-er appears to rely almost completely on their smartphone, which is where they store the information they value most, apparently without cloud backups or syncing in place. The survey has shown that social media accounts have been hacked (17%) and gaming accounts lost (12%), but smartphones have further risks to personal privacy if the correct precautions are not taken.

Gen Z needs to appreciate the risks

Access to personal photographs, identity documents, email, financial details, and of course social media profiles can be acquired via a compromised smartphone, opening the victim to a host of targeted attacks. Direct financial attacks can be made, identity theft, and more, depending on how successful the attacker is. Keeping the device out of an attackers reach, rather than inadvertently sharing its contents, is the safer course of action.

Irina Ermilova, Vice President for Consumer Product Management at Kaspersky, looked to address the apparent disconnect between a generation that has grown up with internet access and portable digital tech, and its lack of cybersecurity nous.

“Gen Z has grown up online, so digital services often feel intuitive and familiar to them. However, familiarity should not be confused with security expertise," she noted. "Being able to navigate apps, platforms and devices confidently does not necessarily mean being able to identify scams, manage passwords securely or protect personal data.”

“The findings show that cybersecurity tools and habits need to become as natural part of everyday digital life as messaging, gaming or using social media.”

Training Gen Z to find digital threats

Looking for a solution to this lack of cyber-risk awareness, Kaspersky has launched an interactive online game aimed at Gen Z users. Case 404 is a "cyber-detective adventure" in the point-and-click mold, set in the future with fictional cases that have been inspired by actual digital threats.

In playing the game, Kaspersky hopes that Gen Z users will spot the scams and phishing attempts, and take that knowledge with them into the real world and stay safe and secure online.

• SyLC 3D Player supports everything from 3D Blu-ray to Apple spatial videos, and it can convert 3D video to display it on Apple Vision Pro headsets
• It's backwards and forwards compatible — and the creator says it can get dual-HDMI output for dual projection, for future-proofing
• The app runs on Windows, and is free via Github 'because this format deserves better than a slow death'

One of the great tech disappointments of the last few decades was 3D TV. Like many movie fans I was excited by the possibilities, invested in a 3D TV, and watched the entertainment industry ensure that yet again, 3D movies were a short-lived trend. By 2013, it was already generally agreed that 3D TV was dead and that smart TVs and 4K were the way ahead.

Not everyone got the memo [I had mine until 2020… -Ed]. Over on the r/audiovisual subreddit, Jarod-The_Centre is determined to ensure 3D never dies — so they have been making a free player that now "plays EVERYTHING in 3D" from Blu-ray to Apple spatial videos.

And that's just the beginning of its talents. If you're a fan of things pointing out of the screen for no good reason, Jarod's player is fascinating.

I refused to let 3D die ! So I spent months building a free player that plays EVERYTHING in 3D: Blu-ray MVC, 4K HDR side-by-side, even Apple spatial videos. And it converts your 3D Blu-rays to Vision Pro format... from r/audiovisual

What does the 3D player do?

What doesn't it do? The player, called SyLC 3D Player, is a Windows app that's now in its fifth release. It's designed to play three different generations of 3D content: Blu-ray 3D/ISO/MVC MKV; HEVC/H.265 3D up to 4K 10-bit HDR; and Apple's MV-HEVC spatial videos. "The MVC of the 2020s, playing on your 2010s 3D TV," Jarod writes. "There's something poetic about that."

The app outputs in frame-packed 3D for compatible 3D TVs and projectors, and it can do something else that's really impressive: it can export 3D content as MV-HEVC, so you can take a 3D Blu-ray and turn it into a spatial video for Vision Pro.

I love Jarod's explanation for making the app. "It exists because this format deserves better than a slow death, and because apparently I don't know when to stop."

Jarod's in good company. Reddit's response to the latest announcement has been really positive and packed with good ideas, so for example Acceptable-Rise8783 suggests that for future-proofing, the app should be able to "send the two fields separately but in sync through two HDMI outputs."

With 3D TVs and projectors becoming increasingly hard to find — as they point out, "projectors are dropping support left and right because the chips that do 3D are becoming hard to come by" — the choice of viewing platforms will be reduced to dual-projector 3D or VR headsets.

The creator says this is something likely to appear in the player in a future version as the player already drives two windows simultaneously — and it means that dual projectors is the most 'future-proof' option for 3D, and the app supports it as best it can.

The whole discussion is fascinating, and I think Jarod sums it up beautifully. "Keep the faith. The format's not dead while we're still building for it 🔥".

Thinking of buying a new TV?

Try our TV size and model finder! You tell it how far you sit from your TV, we'll tell you what size to buy based on viewing angle advice from image quality experts, and we'll recommend our three top TVs at that size for different prices.

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 #1647) — hint #1 — Vowels

* 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 #1647) — hint #2 — repeated letters

Quordle today (game #1647) — hint #3 — uncommon letters

Quordle today (game #1647) — hint #4 — starting letters (1)

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 #1647) — hint #5 — starting letters (2)

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

Quordle today (game #1647) — the answers

The answers to today's Quordle, game #1647, are…

• GAWKY
• ALLOY
• AUDIT
• LATCH

Another game where I came close to losing.

As it is common with words ending in Y I was convinced that i was looking for a word with a double letter, but after trying the unlikely “gammy” and “gappy”, I fortunately ran out of options and arrived at the correct answer.

Daily Sequence today (game #1647) — the answers

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1647, are…

• PRIOR
• WHINE
• VENOM
• MEATY

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #1646, Tuesday, 28 July: SMITE, ROACH, RUDDY, GLOBE
• Quordle #1645, Monday, 27 July: TAFFY, FIGHT, GUILD, WAGER
• Quordle #1644, Sunday, 26 July: STOMP, LIMIT, FUNKY, STEAD
• Quordle #1643, Saturday, 25 July: SALON, SHEEN, BURST, GOURD
• Quordle #1642, Friday, 24 July: DOLLY, EDIFY, LAGER, PRANK
• Quordle #1641, Thursday, 23 July: LADEN, EVICT, WOVEN, SHIRE
• Quordle #1640, Wednesday, 22 July: COYLY, SINGE, AWASH, AWOKE
• Quordle #1639, Tuesday, 21 July: TRUSS, AXIAL, SWINE, THING
• Quordle #1638, Monday, 20 July: ICING, SLICK, GAILY, RISEN
• Quordle #1637, Sunday, 19 July: SPURT, ACRID, THRUM, BLEEP
• Quordle #1636, Saturday, 18 July: KNAVE, TIGHT, BLEAT, CHAOS
• Quordle #1635, Friday, 17 July: CUMIN, PALER, GRASS, INBOX
• Quordle #1634, Thursday, 16 July: IGLOO, PLAIT, YEAST, AROMA
• Quordle #1633, Wednesday, 15 July: PROXY, BRICK, BROTH, SURGE
• Quordle #1632, Tuesday, 14 July: EBONY, AVOID, RODEO, CUTIE
• Quordle #1631, Monday, 13 July: VOICE, BISON, BURNT, BUILT
• Quordle #1630, Sunday, 12 July: STAIN, BINGO, LARVA, DICEY
• Quordle #1629, Saturday, 11 July: WORTH, PRONG, DINGO, DRUID
• Quordle #1628, Friday, 10 July: GREET, STEAK, DUSKY, HAUTE
• Quordle #1627, Thursday, 9 July: CRUMP, PHONE, SHINY, STONY

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 #878) - hint #1 - today's theme

NYT Strands today (game #878) - hint #2 - clue words

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• QUEST
• NEST
• BRAT
• MANIC
• STIR
• FETA

NYT Strands today (game #878) - hint #3 - spangram letters

NYT Strands today (game #878) - hint #4 - spangram position

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #878) - the answers

The answers to today's Strands, game #878, are…

• DOLL
• PUPPET
• DUMMY
• MANNEQUIN
• FIGURINE
• STATUE
• SPANGRAM: FABRICATED

• My rating: Easy
• My score: Perfect

A made man could mean a titan of industry, a mobster or if taken literally a scarecrow or indeed a PUPPET.

My first two words had double letters, a pattern that continued with DUMMY and the slightly more challenging MANNEQUIN — a word that I would have struggled to spell without the helper.

With the search virtually cracked I saw FABRICATED — although for full disclosure I should reveal that I missed it completely while collecting “fabric” as a non-game word.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Tuesday, July 28, game #877)

• COMPLETE
• UNDEVIDED
• FULL
• TOTAL
• WHOLE
• ENTIRE
• SPANGRAM: ITSALLTHERE

It’s probably fair to say Meta is facing serious public backlash to its AI glasses.

Musician Lorde took time at a recent concert to tell her audience, “Don’t get the glasses,” many online are branding them “pervert glasses,” and activist group Everyone Hates Elon has put up spoof adverts for the glasses featuring Jeffrey Epstein wearing a pair (note: the story behind a paywall).

I myself have been unsure if I’ll keep using my Meta glasses, despite their utility making them one of my favorite gadgets I’ve tested while working at TechRadar.

Meta has rebutted with new measures to combat misuse of its glasses. It recently patched its specs to prevent modders from using the camera despite disabling the recording light, and Instagram head Adam Mosseri recently announced harassment videos shot using Meta glasses will be banned from the platform — with some high-profile accounts already getting the boot.

Among the folks still in love with the Meta glasses, however, is my wife Izzy.

When I suggested taking a pair each with us on our recent honeymoon to Tenerife, she wasn’t convinced — despite them being our only sunglasses without my prescription lenses in them — but she wore the white-and-gold Oakley HSTN specs nearly all the time we were abroad.

I was also testing out a pair of the Ray-Ban Meta Optics styles for an upcoming review, and time and again the glasses proved themselves useful. Our trip confirmed how awesome these glasses can be when used right, and why a middle ground needs to be found to maximize privacy and utility before things get out of hand.

An all-in-one AI supertool

Of course, the primary reason to rely on Meta glasses is their built-in tech.

Whether we were lounging on a sunbed, strolling through the streets and past the beaches of Los Cristianos, or kicking back with a drink in the evening, we both loved the open-ear speakers that let us enjoy our podcast or playlist of choice without tuning out the world.

For hours on end, I enjoyed Radio 1 through BBC Sounds, while Izzy drifted between Spotify hits, and both pairs lasted a good length of time battery-wise — with touch controls making it super simple to control the tunes when needed.

The AI translations came in clutch several times as well. It offered quick advice on what phrases to use when we realized our limited selection of “Hola,” “Gracias,” and “Por favor” wouldn’t cut the mustard.

Meanwhile, Look and Ask helped Izzy decipher which of the unrecognizable shampoos and conditioners would be best for her hair after a travel mishap saw the supply we packed leak into her travel bag. The AI could read the Spanish labels to her to help identify and filter out ingredients she knows to avoid, and we ended up buying a few extra bottles of the conditioner she found to bring home after she fell in love with it.

It can't be understated how useful the smart specs are simply as sunglasses too.

My Optics pair features Transitions XTRActive lenses, transitioning fast from clear to shaded as I moved between indoor and outdoor spaces, which was super handy for someone like me who wears glasses all the time. Meanwhile, the polarized gold HSTN lenses were perfect for Izzy as she spent hours of her day baking in high-UV weather.

Thanks to the charging case, my specs rarely ran out of battery, but even when they did, I could still rely on them just fine as stylish shades.

Of course, the controversial aspect is the camera. Beyond the AI assistance, it was helpful for snapping quick photos and first-person clips for the travel vlog I’m looking to cut together.

Though whenever I went to snap a photo, I had flashes of the story about Meta contractors who claimed to have seen intimate moments captured through the specs. Shots of either of us in swimwear went nowhere near the glasses’ snapper, and I kept a careful eye on who was in the background of any shots I did take.

We were also a little worried that someone might not like us using the glasses at all in their presence, though thankfully no one took any issue with us.

These fears and considerations do create points of friction when it comes to using Meta’s glasses—or any smart glasses, for that matter. While the Facebook company is the best-known for smart eyewear right now it is far from alone, and while it's making efforts to clean up its public perception smart glasses will be tarred with the same brush if any brand steps out of line.

I also don’t think Meta’s efforts are perfect so far, at least not yet. I’d like to see more work across social and hardware platforms to root out smart glasses misuse; I believe better, more thorough privacy rules are necessary to make it crystal clear what data is and isn’t shared with Meta and its staff, and I’m not convinced I could trust it with the immense amount of data its rumored super sense feature would capture from my daily life — blunders like its Instagram AI image use plan and backtrack don’t fill me with confidence in its AI decision making.

At the same time, my week falling back in love with the Meta glasses, and my wife loving her Oakley smart specs, proves there’s something really fun and useful about the tech that I equally don’t want to see taken away or banned outright.

With other brands joining in on intelligent eyewear — recently Samsung demonstrated its own pairs at Galaxy Unpacked — it’s clear the tech industry is storming ahead, just as it has with exciting emerging technologies in the past.

I just hope a middle ground can be found, because smart specs represent a serious privacy nightmare beyond other gadgets we’ve relied on. If the tech doesn’t hold itself to account, we could see even more regulation and public backlash than we’ve seen already, and that could kill off my favorite tech sector of recent years before it has a chance to thrive.

For quite a long time now, I've been concerned about how Microsoft is going to monetize Windows going forward. While the world's dominant desktop operating system remains available for a one-off fee (assuming you aren't an upgrader who can get it for free), there's a good chance this could change in the future.

Why do I think that? To me, it feels somewhat inevitable that eventually, Microsoft is going to look for a way to shift Windows from an upfront payment to a subscription model for consumers. That regular monthly income stream piling up in the coffers is the end game for most big tech companies and their products these days for good reasons in terms of the profits to be made.

Of course, rumors about Microsoft looking to charge a subscription fee for using Windows to consumers (as opposed to businesses, where there's already a subscription option) have been floating around for years. True, they've all been dubious and sketchy in nature, or indeed proven outright incorrect, but this idea keeps bubbling up, and I believe we're witnessing a development with AI right now that indicates how Microsoft might have an ideal opportunity to make this pivot at some point down the road.

Last week, Windows Central spotted that the Copilot feature Deep Research is getting the axe, to be replaced with a new feature: Researcher. The idea behind both pieces of functionality is roughly the same (researching and creating detailed reports complete with citations), but the difference is Deep Research was free, whereas Researcher requires a subscription to Microsoft 365 Premium.

This follows Microsoft Whiteboard (where AI assists you in brainstorming ideas) getting changed so personal accounts can no longer use it — the app now requires being signed up for a Microsoft Business account. On top of that, Outlook's Meeting Insight functionality was just shifted behind a paywall, being transformed into an admittedly beefier AI feature, but one that needs a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

So, there's a trend towards turning previously free AI features into paid ones, presumably as Microsoft rejigs its Copilot offerings and figures out what works well — and what's being used — and whether any of that can be charged for.

AI pivot

Now, we all know AI agents are going to be the 'next big thing' (TM) in Windows 11, certainly if Microsoft has its way, and the idea is for these AI entities to be doing more and more within the OS.

We won't just have an agent for changing Windows settings — and I mean a proper incarnation of this already existing idea, which really can adjust a host of options based on a simple request to "make my laptop battery last longer" or similar — but we will have a small crowd of them. Maybe a troubleshooting agent, for example, which can take a problem that you're battling in Windows and use some genuine AI smarts to help solve it. Or perhaps a creativity agent which can tackle a host of image or video-related tasks, or more broadly help with organizing your projects and photos.

I think the catch will be that eventually, as we've seen with some aspects of AI and Copilot, Microsoft will start shuffling some of these agents behind a paywall — especially considering that more powerful capabilities like these in-depth AI tricks will cost Microsoft a fair bit to drive in terms of cloud resources. It's certainly conceivable that Microsoft could end up charging a small monthly fee to use these premium agents, maybe as separate add-ons in the hope that you'll bolt more of them onto Windows for a cumulatively greater benefit to its coffers.

We could ultimately be looking at a kind of modular, AI-focused OS, and to me, this seems like the easiest way for Microsoft to transform Windows into a subscription model, because it'll happen slowly. You don't need a troubleshooting AI agent to run Windows at all, but it'll be a nice thing to have — certainly for less tech-savvy types — in case problems do arise in the OS.

As more bits and pieces that might start off free drift behind a paywall — as these AI features are built up and become more compelling — people may eventually be tempted to buy a bundle of them. And before you know it, you've signed up for a Windows subscription of sorts (although the free version of the OS will, of course, still be available).

In the end, there may be a couple of bundles — tiered subscriptions, in other words — and let's not forget Microsoft's potential ambitions for a cloud PC model for consumers, either.

This has been a possibility raised in past rumors and leaks (and again, this is something which has already happened in the enterprise world), and if you put all this together, you're looking at a kind of Netflix model, if you will: a streamed OS with several paid subscription tiers. Albeit with a free basic tier for Windows – although who's to say that may not become ad-supported, or indeed more ad-supported, as Windows 11 already does a fair old line in adverts and promos. (Although admittedly Microsoft is cutting back on that front in its crowd-pleasing efforts to fix Windows 11).

Not a foregone conclusion — but a likely enough prospect

This is just my opinion, naturally, and yes, maybe I got rather carried away with the extrapolation at the end there. It's also true that some big question marks remain hanging over the wider notion I've put forward.

As I just mentioned, Microsoft is very much bending over backwards to please Windows 11 users right now, so any possible timeline for this shift may be pushed way back in view of that. Bringing in some form of subscription is hardly going to be a well-received move, even if implemented in small, delicate increments as I'm guessing it would be.

The other obvious sticking point is that Microsoft needs to make its AI agents in Windows worth having. They need to be objects of desire and come packing genuinely useful AI abilities, otherwise clearly, people won't pay for the privilege of having them on their Windows desktop. They also need to be secure and trustworthy so they don't end up throwing spanners in the works of your Windows installation.

That could be the biggest hurdle for Microsoft to overcome, because as it stands, when the idea of AI features being paywalled in Windows 11 has been raised (in rumors and the like), it's been actively welcomed by the more skeptical out there. The cynics are more than happy to have everything AI-related locked away from them, and as non-paying users, this would give them an AI-free Windows 11 desktop.

Again, this plays into any potential move along these lines having to happen further into the future, but I think Microsoft does have this as an eventual goal. If you ask yourself the question: if Microsoft could charge a subscription for Windows 11, would it? The answer is clearly yes, a thousand times over. But the actual, real question here is whether Microsoft thinks it could successfully get away with such a plan without sparking a large-scale defection from its desktop OS.

We can keep our fingers crossed that a monthly charge for Windows isn't coming, but frankly, I think it's likely. Or even just a matter of time — perhaps a lot of time, granted — whether that subscription pertains to AI add-ons, or a cloud PC offering, or Microsoft finds another way to spin this.

Microsoft has been battling to truly establish itself in the device market for years now, with its Surface suite covering everything from foldable smartphones to 2-in-1s up to more traditional laptops and desktops - all the way up to the enormous Surface Hub (RIP).

But the company has seemingly always fallen short - whether it's battery life, falling short on power, or the unavoidable lock-in with the Microsoft 365 experience.

However its latest collection of Surface for Business releases, framed squarely at work and enterprise users, looked to address all of that, and having been using one for the last few weeks now, I can safely say, Microsoft may finally have cracked the formula for a great working laptop at last.

Going hands-on

Microsoft has positioned the Surface Laptop for Business squarely at enterprise customers rather than consumers, and it's a substantial refresh over the previous generation, with the biggest improvements around AI, security, manageability, battery life and repairability.

The device is light and portable, weighing in at just over 1.35kg, and its slim build (just 0.69in in width) means it slipped easily into a rucksack or carry-on bag.

It's a stylish device to look at as well - the polished black anodized aluminium build is far more striking than other identikit dull business laptops around today, with a well-designed keyboard and touchpad that offer more than enough space.

But where Microsoft is looking to take a real step forward with the Surface Laptop for Business is in hardware, where the company has equipped the device with Intel Core Ultra (Series 3) processor, up to 64 GB LPDDR5X RAM and up to 1 TB removable Gen4 SSD.

Crucially though, as with many modern devices, it also features AI-specific hardware, with an Intel AI Boost NPU delivering 50 TOPS of AI performance.

Along with offering local AI processing on the device, the NPU looks to perform a number of other tasks, from improved battery life to greater Windows performance. This is a decent level of performance, but if you're looking for tasks such as CAD, 3D rendering or AI model training, you may want something a bit more powerful, with a dedicated Nvidia GPU.

This looks to boost productivity and efficiency across the board - and I can say this was definitely true when I was working on the go.

Sadly I wasn't doing particularly AI-heavy work to really test it out, but I was able to take the device with me on a week-long overseas work trip, using it in conference keynotes, remote interviews, and site visits, and it absolutely ticked all my boxes when it came to responsiveness, usefulness and battery life.

At home however, it wasn't quite the same story.

It should also have meant the device was well-placed to be the centerpiece of my home office set-up, but unfortunately I frequently found issues when trying to connect a range of devices, from monitors to Bluetooth keyboards - this may have been a driver-led issue, but it was frustrating for quite some time.

The lack of ports may be an issue for some users - as there is just one USB-A connection, and two USB-C ports, which might be an issue for some creators. I use a docking station for my set-up, so for my usage I was largely OK - however as mentioned, even this wasn't always responsive - and it's a shame Microsoft has ditched the USB-A port on the charger block cable as well, as this has definitely saved me in the past with previous Surface devices.

Microsoft has also introduced a more advanced haptic touchpad for the Surface Laptop for Business, promising a more consistent click feel and improved gesture support, as well as customizable feedback. Although slightly smaller than my usual work device (a HP EliteBook) I found the touchpad incredibly responsive and interactive, making navigation between different apps and windows a breeze.

My device was equipped with the new integrated privacy display - a feature which gained a lot of attention when it was included in the latest Samsung Galaxy flagship smartphone earlier this year.

Toggled on via the alternate F1 button function, the privacy display instantly makes the screen difficult to read from side angles - no need for an external magnetic privacy filter any more.

This is obviously pretty useful for those workers accessing private or proprietary information, stopping snoopers or spies from catching a glimpse, but it also offers an anti-glare coating which should be a hit with everyone.

I loved it - but will you?

Will it be the ideal device for everyone? Probably not, as being a Surface device means it is closely tied-in with the Microsoft ecosystem - so if you use Microsoft 365 at work (which I don't) you'll have a much smoother set-up and overall experience.

The price will also be a sticking point for some shoppers, as my model starts from £1,599 - with the top spec hitting £2,499 - probably out of reach for most start-ups and SMBs.

But overall, I was incredibly impressed by the Surface Laptop for Business, easily the best Microsoft device I've used for work by a mile - and one I hope to get to use again sometime in the future.

Samsung's 9100 Pro 2TB SSD has dropped to AU$434.47 at Amazon Australia, well below the typical AU$699 pricing it's selling for at other retailers. Even on Amazon it was AU$644.83 before the current discount.

This isn't a deal to snooze on either, with the sale due to end at 12pm on July 29. Just note that it ships from Amazon US, so delivery can take up to two weeks.

AU$434 is still a lot to spend on a 2TB SSD, particularly if you remember how cheap storage was until relatively recently.

But SSD prices have shifted hugely since last year, and these days this is an excellent deal on Samsung's flagship PCIe 5.0 drive, which can reach sequential read speeds of up to 14,700MB/s and writes of up to 13,400MB/s.

In our review of the 9100 Pro we said, "Samsung's first true PCIe 5.0 drive is the best there is", as well as "This is a very professional-specific drive in ways that previous Samsung Pro SSDs were not. If you're not a professional user, there are better PCIe 5.0 drives out there, but for pros, there's none better than the 9100 Pro."

This is a premium 2TB SSD, so it's aimed at those who can actually take advantage of its performance, whether that's moving huge files, working with demanding creative projects or running workloads that benefit from very fast storage.

But what makes this deal particularly compelling is that the 9100 Pro is currently cheaper than some of Samsung's slower PCIe 4.0 drives. At the time of writing, the 2TB 990 EVO Plus is AU$446 at Amazon, while the 2TB 990 Pro is AU$517.67.

You don't necessarily need a PCIe 5.0 system to take advantage of the deal either. The 9100 Pro is backwards compatible with PCIe 4.0, so it'll work just fine in an older machine, albeit with its performance capped by the slower interface.

That makes it a great buy even if you're upgrading a PCIe 4.0 PC today, or using the drive in a handheld device. Plus, if you do move it to a PCIe 5.0 system later, you can unlock the full performance the drive is capable of.

Just keep in mind that this deal is specifically for the 2TB model without a heatsink as the other versions and capacities of the 9100 Pro aren't discounted.

And yes, AU$434.47 is still frustratingly pricey for 2TB of storage by historical standards, but I think getting Samsung's flagship PCIe 5.0 SSD for less than its slower models makes this an excellent deal considering current prices.

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 #1646) — hint #1 — Vowels

* 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 #1646) — hint #2 — repeated letters

Quordle today (game #1646) — hint #3 — uncommon letters

Quordle today (game #1646) — hint #4 — starting letters (1)

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 #1646) — hint #5 — starting letters (2)

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

Quordle today (game #1646) — the answers

The answers to today's Quordle, game #1646, are…

• SMITE
• ROACH
• RUDDY
• GLOBE

Another close shave after two wrong guesses took me to the edge.

In reality it wasn’t quite as perilous as I thought, as words beginning with S and ending I-T-E are few, but it felt perilous at the time.

Daily Sequence today (game #1646) — the answers

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1646, are…

• CURSE
• FEIGN
• EXTOL
• POESY

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #1645, Monday, 27 July: TAFFY, FIGHT, GUILD, WAGER
• Quordle #1644, Sunday, 26 July: STOMP, LIMIT, FUNKY, STEAD
• Quordle #1643, Saturday, 25 July: SALON, SHEEN, BURST, GOURD
• Quordle #1642, Friday, 24 July: DOLLY, EDIFY, LAGER, PRANK
• Quordle #1641, Thursday, 23 July: LADEN, EVICT, WOVEN, SHIRE
• Quordle #1640, Wednesday, 22 July: COYLY, SINGE, AWASH, AWOKE
• Quordle #1639, Tuesday, 21 July: TRUSS, AXIAL, SWINE, THING
• Quordle #1638, Monday, 20 July: ICING, SLICK, GAILY, RISEN
• Quordle #1637, Sunday, 19 July: SPURT, ACRID, THRUM, BLEEP
• Quordle #1636, Saturday, 18 July: KNAVE, TIGHT, BLEAT, CHAOS
• Quordle #1635, Friday, 17 July: CUMIN, PALER, GRASS, INBOX
• Quordle #1634, Thursday, 16 July: IGLOO, PLAIT, YEAST, AROMA
• Quordle #1633, Wednesday, 15 July: PROXY, BRICK, BROTH, SURGE
• Quordle #1632, Tuesday, 14 July: EBONY, AVOID, RODEO, CUTIE
• Quordle #1631, Monday, 13 July: VOICE, BISON, BURNT, BUILT
• Quordle #1630, Sunday, 12 July: STAIN, BINGO, LARVA, DICEY
• Quordle #1629, Saturday, 11 July: WORTH, PRONG, DINGO, DRUID
• Quordle #1628, Friday, 10 July: GREET, STEAK, DUSKY, HAUTE
• Quordle #1627, Thursday, 9 July: CRUMP, PHONE, SHINY, STONY
• Quordle #1626, Wednesday, 8 July: GHOST, TREND, EXALT, ALONG

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 #877) - hint #1 - today's theme

NYT Strands today (game #877) - hint #2 - clue words

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• DIALER
• NOTES
• UNDER
• DIVER
• UNITE
• SALT

NYT Strands today (game #877) - hint #3 - spangram letters

NYT Strands today (game #877) - hint #4 - spangram position

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #877) - the answers

The answers to today's Strands, game #877, are…

• COMPLETE
• UNDEVIDED
• FULL
• TOTAL
• WHOLE
• ENTIRE
• SPANGRAM: ITSALLTHERE

• My rating: Easy
• My score: Perfect

This was a speedy one.

Without any difficult words, twisting connections or multiple possibilities I managed to find all of the game words quickly, leaving just the spangram to complete the board.

Adding to the ease, it was also a great game for non-game words.

All in all like shooting fish in a bucket. Except with words.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Monday, July 27, game #876)

• PLATFORM
• TRACK
• TICKET
• COUNTER
• KIOSK
• BENCH
• SPANGRAM: TRAINSTATION

My day usually starts with a scan around major retailers, specialist sites, and deals aggregators to get a snapshot of the best tech offers that are available - and then I share the very best with you. Results can be mixed, depending on the time of year and whether there’s a major sale on, but there’s been one consistent theme lately: the deals on most PC components are atrocious.

If you’re a regular in this space, then you’re probably already well aware of the situation with RAM and storage prices over the past few months. It’s got to the point where I’ve all but given up on finding any good deals in this space, especially when there are no signs that it's improving.

Where did all the deals go?

There’s no clearer evidence of just how dire the situation is with this Samsung SSD ‘deal’ that’s currently live on Amazon. This Samsung 870 EVO is advertised as a whopping 62% off. But that’s from the current list price of, um, $1,039.99. With that price cut, it’s now down to $399.99. Almost $400 for a 2TB SATA SSD? One that has been as low as $79.99 in the past? And this counts as a deal?

That’s just a snapshot of how bleak it is shopping for PC gaming components in 2026. Worst of all, there doesn’t seem to be any positive news on the horizon. You have SSD controller manufacturers saying that “the retail SSD market has almost disappeared”, RAM prices have increased by at least 400% in some regions, and now one chip maker says its production costs are set to increase by 10% next year - so CPUs are potentially next up for price hikes.

It puts into perspective just how lucky I was when I chose to upgrade my PC towards the end of 2025. There were rumblings of price increases and stock shortages in those few months towards the end of the year, but it hadn’t reached the disastrous depths we find ourselves in now for wannabe PC builders.

I did have to wait a few months for my RAM to arrive, after the manufacturer I was about to buy RAM from completely shut down, but the cost didn’t make up nearly 50% of my entire budget like it would in today’s prices.

And my PC is very much a mid-range device with a Ryzen 9600x, a 9060XT, 32GB of RAM, and a 2TB NVMe SSD, which is about all I wanted given I mostly use it for work. I do like to play the occasional game on PC that I can’t get on the PS5, or if there’s one I would prefer to play on that platform, or when prices make the PC version a more sensible choice. Those specs cover my needs nicely at a reasonable budget.

Calculating what the spend would be these days for the same spec is a terrifying exercise. It’s over £1,600 now, when I was comfortably under £1,000 at the end of last year.

What does the future hold?

With everything pointing to similar or increasing prices for a long time ahead, anyone looking for a PC upgrade has no choice but to put up with these prices for the foreseeable future. Yes, there will be a chance for some savings during Black Friday in November, but we are still looking at a significant markup compared to the savings of old.

In fact, and I usually wouldn't recommend this, but with the way component prices are lately, I'd actually lean more towards buying a pre-built PC if you're shopping around now. Sure, these companies are still suffering from the same price increases, but you can actually find some good value rigs.

Most recently, for example, the Presidents' Day and 4th of July sales at iBuyPower had some strong discounts on high-end gaming PC, with extra savings of up to $350 available on PCs with a Ryzen 7 7800X3D, an RX 9070 XT, and 32GB of RAM.

That would be my advice based on the poor quality of deals that are available on many PC components. Yes, there are still a few genuinely good offers out there that I've seen on the likes of CPUs and GPUs, but storage and RAM are certainly beyond saving right now — and I'd move quickly if there's anything good on the former, as those deals may be disappearing before long as well.

Apple’s macOS 27 release — dubbed ‘Golden Gate’ by the company — is packed with new features, despite Apple saying that this year was more of an evolution than revolution. There are plenty of additions that have got tongues wagging and pens scribbling across the internet.

Yet for every Siri app and Liquid Glass tweak, there are many more upgrades that people are barely talking about. That means that if you don’t dig below the surface, you might miss some of the interesting new ways you can use your Mac once you’ve downloaded and installed macOS 27.

Here, we’ll run through five of our favorite little-known inclusions in the macOS Golden Gate beta. Get to grips with all of them and you’ll have fresh ways to use your Mac on a daily basis.

Visual Intelligence

Previously, Visual Intelligence was only available on iOS. You’d point your iPhone at an object, press the Camera Control, and Visual Intelligence would identify the object or pull out details from an event flyer and add them to your calendar. Now, similar powers can be harnessed on your Mac.

But you might be asking how this will work on a Mac, seeing as you can’t just go up to something and take a picture of it with your laptop. Fortunately, Apple has adapted Visual Intelligence to macOS 27 in a handy new way.

Much like when you take a screenshot, you can drag a box over part of your screen using your mouse. When you let go, you can ask Visual Intelligence to help you with what you have selected. You can ask Siri AI a question about the image and it will respond. You can then go back and forth with the chatbot if you need more information.

If you highlight an event, you can add it to your calendar. Even better, if you use Visual Intelligence on a festival schedule with multiple acts playing at different times, for instance, you can add as many or as few to your calendar as you want, all saved as separate entries with relevant info like the band that’s playing and the stage that you’ll find them on.

This is one of my favorite features in macOS 27 as it’s not only useful, but highly flexible and intelligent. Visual Intelligence is able to understand many different inputs and the contexts surrounding them, turning Siri into much more of the powerful assistant that it was always meant to be.

Automatic password strengthening in Passwords

The best password managers often alert you if your logins stored in the app are weak or compromised, but that usually means updating them to stronger alternatives yourself.

If that requires manually visiting affected websites and changing your login details by hand dozens or even hundreds of times, the task can feel incredibly daunting. Faced with that kind of situation, many people likely just give up, preferring to stick with their untrustworthy passwords rather than go through the hassle of changing them all one by one.

That’s an obvious security risk, and it’s one that macOS 27 has attempted to put right. Although the following change hasn’t had much airtime since the feature was announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June, I feel like it could be one of the most important features in the new operating system.

In macOS 27, all you need to do is ask Apple’s Passwords app to fix your dodgy passwords for you. Just one click and it’ll get to work visiting affected websites and updating your logins without you needing to lift a finger.

It’s a great example of how useful AI agents can be, all backed up by Apple’s well-known security and privacy credentials.

Natural language in Calendar

How many times have you opened the Calendar app on your Mac and tried to create a new event with a phrase like “Movie night with James tomorrow at 8pm at home,” only to find none of the details — such as the time or the place — are properly added to the event?

It’s been a recurring problem for years, and a frustrating one, too, as Apple fans have watched other apps race ahead with similar features while Calendar lags behind.

Now, that’s been improved. Changes in macOS 27 mean that you just need to enter an event using the type of natural language that you’d use in an everyday conversation. Any details that Calendar can pick up on — like a person, place, time or date — will turn gray. Click them and select the suggested detail and they’ll be properly added. This feature understands your context, too, such as where your home is located.

Sure, similar features have been present in rival calendar apps for years, and that could explain why Apple’s Calendar update hasn’t exactly lit the world on fire in the weeks and months since it was announced.

But having this feature is nonetheless an excellent addition for users of the Calendar app. The more naturally you can use your apps, the more effortless they become, allowing you to quickly be done with them so you can get on with what matters in your day. This natural language upgrade for the Calendar app lets you do exactly that.

App resizing in iPhone Mirroring

Of all the clever new features announced last year as part of macOS Sequoia in 2024, iPhone Mirroring was one of the more intriguing. As the name suggests, it mirrors your iPhone onto your Mac’s screen, bringing up a software view of your device where you can open apps, type messages, and basically use everything on your iPhone through the Mac sitting in front of you.

But there was one annoying quirk with this system: you couldn’t resize the iPhone window to use different aspect ratios. That meant any apps you opened on the virtual iPhone were limited in size and failed to make use of your Mac display’s larger proportions.

Thankfully, Apple has fixed that up in macOS 27. Instead of being stuck with the unchanging iPhone window of the past, macOS 27 now lets you drag the on-screen iPhone and change its dimensions as required.

You can now make the iPhone window wider or taller and the content inside the app will automatically adapt. It’s far better than what we had before.

So, if you’d given iPhone Mirroring a try before but were put off by the tiny window you had to work with, macOS 27 could make using your iPhone on your Mac a little more comfortable.

Improved support for ultra-wide displays

Before macOS 27, using an ultra-wide display with your Mac could be a downright pain. Many ultra-wide resolutions were not supported natively in macOS, meaning you had to settle for something that wasn’t quite right for your display, which could in turn negatively affect your macOS experience.

And when competing operating systems like Windows could support ultra-wide monitors in a more comprehensive way, the frustration for Mac users was understandable.

Worse, if you ever unplugged your monitor and then plugged it in again, macOS would forget your previous display settings, forcing you to set up your ultra-wide monitor as needed every single time. If you relied on one of the best MacBooks as your daily driver and you frequently disconnected it from your desk display, this was a regular irritation.

In macOS 27, though, that’s finally a thing of the past. You’ll now be able to run an ultra-wide monitor up to 5K resolution and up to 120Hz refresh rate, meaning far more high-end displays will now work with macOS 27 without a hitch.

And Apple has fixed the disconnection issue so that hooking up your monitor no longer requires you to dial in your settings every time. Instead, macOS remembers your preferences so that no manual adjustments are needed.

That makes this a seemingly small change on the surface, but one that will be appreciated by anyone who owns an ultra-wide monitor and has long struggled with the limitations of macOS.

• 2.2 million vehicles are susceptible to a Bluetooth-based attack in the state of California
• The vulnerability is due to dealer-installed security systems
• Researchers at the University of California San Diego found that the Acrisure-built security devices all rely on the same secure key

A vulnerability has been found in KARR and SWDS automobile security systems manufactured by Acrisure that enables remote control via Bluetooth. The vehicles had the security systems installed by car dealers in California, specifically as anti-theft and tracking devices. Thanks to this hack, however, it seems that vehicles can be unlocked, with some further control given to the attacker.

Researchers at the University of California San Diego found that the 2.2 million automobiles were purchased from Southern Californian dealers since 2017, although the secondary market means that the vehicles could be elsewhere in the US, and even as far afield as Japan.

Worryingly, the researchers also found a publicly-accessible database holding information about all vehicles with the security system equipped.

How Bluetooth controls these cars

The researchers determined that the automobiles were purchased from Honda, Toyota, Mazda, Ford, and Jeep dealerships, and the affected vehicles have the “KARR-SWDS” label on the driver-side window, with the anti-theft device mounted under the dashboard.

Usage is straightforward: a mobile app connects to the KARR security system over Bluetooth and includes functions such as locking and unlocking doors, controlling the horn, and flashing the headlamps. It can also prevent the car from starting, although this only works if it isn’t already running.

The problem is with the implementation, which the researchers discovered relied on the same secure key on the KARR security systems. Once cracked, all cars equipped with the same device were believed to be open to attack.

Changing the secure key isn’t an option, and neither is disabling the Bluetooth. Of particular concern is that researchers found that even if the buyer doesn’t pay for a subscription for the app and the KARR system, the hardware is still in place. Worse, it has the same access to the vehicle’s doors, ignition, horn, and headlamps.

“Removing the devices is not trivial,” UCSD compsci PhD candidate and paper co-author Yibo Wei said in the report on the research (which is fully released in August). “You have to open up the dashboard and cut and reconnect the wires that are deeply intertwined with the car’s computers and ignition system.”

The patch is in

Jerry Yu, also co-author, wrote “Instead of smashing a window to get access to a vehicle, thieves could simply connect remotely via Bluetooth to the device inside the vehicle, and make it unlock car doors.”

KARR has told media outlets that only vehicles installed “with certain Bluetooth-related components” are affected, and the company has issued a firmware update.

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 #1645) — hint #1 — Vowels

* 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 #1645) — hint #2 — repeated letters

Quordle today (game #1645) — hint #3 — uncommon letters

Quordle today (game #1645) — hint #4 — starting letters (1)

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 #1645) — hint #5 — starting letters (2)

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

Quordle today (game #1645) — the answers

The answers to today's Quordle, game #1645, are…

• TAFFY
• FIGHT
• GUILD
• WAGER

I don’t think I have ever played such a strategic game of Quordle.

Usually I just go for whatever word seems the most gettable. But in this game, with numerous possibilities for a word ending I-G-H-T, I held back in the hope that another word would give me that crucial fifth letter. And it did.

Daily Sequence today (game #1645) — the answers

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1645, are…

• CREED
• ROGUE
• POOCH
• GRIPE

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #1644, Sunday, 26 July: STOMP, LIMIT, FUNKY, STEAD
• Quordle #1643, Saturday, 25 July: SALON, SHEEN, BURST, GOURD
• Quordle #1642, Friday, 24 July: DOLLY, EDIFY, LAGER, PRANK
• Quordle #1641, Thursday, 23 July: LADEN, EVICT, WOVEN, SHIRE
• Quordle #1640, Wednesday, 22 July: COYLY, SINGE, AWASH, AWOKE
• Quordle #1639, Tuesday, 21 July: TRUSS, AXIAL, SWINE, THING
• Quordle #1638, Monday, 20 July: ICING, SLICK, GAILY, RISEN
• Quordle #1637, Sunday, 19 July: SPURT, ACRID, THRUM, BLEEP
• Quordle #1636, Saturday, 18 July: KNAVE, TIGHT, BLEAT, CHAOS
• Quordle #1635, Friday, 17 July: CUMIN, PALER, GRASS, INBOX
• Quordle #1634, Thursday, 16 July: IGLOO, PLAIT, YEAST, AROMA
• Quordle #1633, Wednesday, 15 July: PROXY, BRICK, BROTH, SURGE
• Quordle #1632, Tuesday, 14 July: EBONY, AVOID, RODEO, CUTIE
• Quordle #1631, Monday, 13 July: VOICE, BISON, BURNT, BUILT
• Quordle #1630, Sunday, 12 July: STAIN, BINGO, LARVA, DICEY
• Quordle #1629, Saturday, 11 July: WORTH, PRONG, DINGO, DRUID
• Quordle #1628, Friday, 10 July: GREET, STEAK, DUSKY, HAUTE
• Quordle #1627, Thursday, 9 July: CRUMP, PHONE, SHINY, STONY
• Quordle #1626, Wednesday, 8 July: GHOST, TREND, EXALT, ALONG
• Quordle #1625, Tuesday, 7 July: ARRAY, SUITE, KIOSK, BOULE

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 #876) - hint #1 - today's theme

NYT Strands today (game #876) - hint #2 - clue words

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• BRINK
• CHART
• TIME
• STANK
• TICK
• PLAIT

NYT Strands today (game #876) - hint #3 - spangram letters

NYT Strands today (game #876) - hint #4 - spangram position

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #876) - the answers

The answers to today's Strands, game #876, are…

• PLATFORM
• TRACK
• TICKET
• COUNTER
• KIOSK
• BENCH
• SPANGRAM: TRAINSTATION

• My rating: Easy
• My score: Perfect

Another Spangram First for me today, although it did come in two parts as I saw “station” before making the connection for TRAINSTATION.

From here it was a case of collecting the more obvious railway-related words — PLATFORM, TRACK, TICKET — before connecting the less obvious like KIOSK.

A nice, easygoing start to the week.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Sunday, July 26, game #875)

• GURU
• MAVEN
• PUNDIT
• EXPERT
• AUTHORITY
• SPECIALIST
• SPANGRAM: BIGBRAIN

• Accomplish AI showed Claude Cowork could escape a VM sandbox via Linux zero‑day CVE‑2026‑46331
• Agent accessed host Mac files, risking exfiltration of SSH keys, cloud credentials, and more
• Anthropic shifted Cowork to default cloud execution; local users must harden configs to mitigate exposure

Recent news of a ChatGPT agent escaping the sandbox and attacking services on the internet raised quite a few eyebrows, but it seems it’s not the only one capable of running wild. Security researchers Accomplish AI are saying they achieved similar results with Anthropic’s Claude Cowork.

In a new report, the researchers said they ran a local session in a Mac-hosted virtual Linux machine and then observed as the agent broke free of the VM and started reading and writing files on the underlying system.

“We connected a folder to a fresh Claude Cowork session, sent one short message, and watched the agent escape the sandbox,” Oren Yomtov, principal security researcher at Accomplish AI, told The Hacker News. “From inside the VM, it reached the host Mac and read and wrote files all over it, far outside the folder we'd connected, with no permission prompt anywhere.”

Defaulting to cloud execution

This means that, in theory, the agent can be used to access or exfiltrate anything that’s stored on the Mac’s user account, including SSH keys, cloud credentials, and more. To break out of the sandbox, the agent exploited CVE-2026-46331 ("pedit COW"), a Linux kernel privilege-escalation vulnerability. This flaw, fixed in mid-June this year, was given a severity score of 7.8/10 (high).

Accomplish AI disclosed these findings with Anthropic, which allegedly acknowledged them but did not issue a direct fix. However, the version of Claude Cowork that was released afterwards defaults to cloud execution which, the publication claims, addresses the issue. Still, users who opt to run the agent locally rather than in the cloud will remain exposed.

Mitigations are possible, though. Users should disable unprivileged user namespaces, grant/revoke seccopm permissions, stop modules autoloading, and restrict sharing of the whole host into the VM.

"Scope it to the folders that were actually connected instead of all of /, or at least mount it read-only, and run coworkd with ProtectSystem=strict in its own mount namespace so it isn't re-execing binaries a session user can poison," Accomplish AI explained. "Then even a full guest-root has nothing to land on, the last two steps of the chain have nowhere to go."

• Proofpoint reports Russian TA488 exploited Zimbra zero‑day CVE‑2025‑66376 in espionage campaigns
• “Half‑click exploit” let attackers compromise systems when victims merely viewed malicious emails
• Targets included NATO, Ukrainian government, and defense entities; group vanished after Feb 2026 exposure

Russian state-sponsored cybercriminals have been abusing a zero-day vulnerability in the Zimbra email and collaboration platform to conduct espionage against western targets - primarily military and government agencies, experts have warned.

Cybersecurity researchers Proofpoint claim the campaign has been ongoing for at least a year, possibly longer, describing it as a “half-click exploit”, because the victims don’t even need to do anything specific in order to get infected.

Usually, when an attack is done via email, the victim is required to at least download a file or click a link. In this case, a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the Zimbra web-based email service allowed the Russians to infiltrate the computers as soon as the victim views the email, nothing more.

Targeting NATO and Ukraine

The vulnerability in question is now tracked as CVE-2025-66376. It was assigned a severity score of 7.2/10 (high), and was patched in November 2025. However, the threat actors have been leveraging it long before Zimbra patched it up.

Proofpoint says numerous groups were observed, throughout the years, abusing this flaw. This time around, though, the group in question is tracked as TA488, also known as Laundry Bear or Void Blizzard.

“After successful exploitation, TA488 established persistent access to the systems and exfiltrated emails from the targeted users,” Proofpoint’s report reads. Besides emails, the crooks hunted for passwords, email directories, two-factor authentication tokens, and more. The group has been “consistently” targeting NATO and Ukrainian government organizations, alongside entities in the defense industrial base,

The group seems to be defunct now, since the researchers could not find any activity post February 2026. At that time, security researchers Seqrite disclosed a detailed breakdown of the group’s infrastructure and modus operandi, resulting in TA488 burning down months-old setups and vanishing.

Cherry XTRFY K63W Pro Compact Ultra-Wideband: One-minute review

The Cherry XTRFY K63W Pro Compact Ultra-Wideband is a small gaming keyboard with a few surprises in store.

True to its name, it certainly doesn’t take up much room on your desk. It’s also pleasingly light, which means it’s easy to move around. Despite this and the plastic construction, the build quality seems high.

There are some unique features to the design of the K63W Pro. One is the prominent springiness of the gasket-mounted layout, which is a little strange at first, but ultimately it’s not an issue and the keys still feel just as solid as those in the best gaming keyboards.

Another is the arrow keys. Not only are they much larger than most, but each of the four directions has a second binding to include right control, right shift, menu, and Fn inputs. There’s a shortcut for toggling between the two sets of bindings, as well as activating both at the same time, with the input triggered determined by whether a key is pressed or held.

There’s also an option to select these modes in Cherry’s companion software. This software has other customizations, but not many. The remapping options are especially disappointing, thanks to their very awkward setup and limited options. There’s barely any performance tweaks here, either.

Thankfully, the K63W Pro is a capable performer as it is. The keys travel further than you might expect given their low profile, but they’re still just about snappy enough for fast gaming and typing. The ergonomic slant of the keycaps, as well as the generous spacing between them, make them easy to use, while the aforementioned thinness of the chassis makes for a comfortable experience, even without a wrist rest.

Cherry makes much of the K63W Pro’s Ultra-Wideband (UWB) wireless technology, which is designed to prevent potential interference. However, I can’t say I noticed an improvement over other wireless keyboards, and the tech isn’t worth the impracticality that comes with the incongruously large wireless puck. It’s also a shame there’s no Bluetooth support.

The K63W Pro is reasonably expensive for a compact keyboard, although the quality and interesting layout help its case in this regard. The performance is good and it's comfortable to use, but I’m not sure every gamer is going to get along with its unique features.

Cherry XTRFY K63W Pro Compact Ultra-Wideband review: Price and availability

• $169.99 (about £150 / AU$240)
• Available now
• Expensive for a small board

The Cherry XTRFY K63W Pro Compact Ultra-Wideband costs $169.99 (about £150 / AU$240) and is available now. It comes with a USB cable and the UWB USB receiver.

This is a reasonably high price for a 70% keyboard, especially one that lacks Bluetooth support and input customizations. However, there are certainly more expensive mechanical boards out there, such as the Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro 75. I loved the performance of that board when I reviewed it, and it has a much better selection of input customizations than the K63W Pro.

If you want something more budget-friendly, consider the Monsgeek FUN60 Ultra. This keyboard has analog switches with a heap of performance-related features and tweaks at their disposal. They also feel just as good as mechanical switches in my view.

• Value score: 3.5

Cherry XTRFY K63W Pro Compact Ultra-Wideband review: Specs

Cherry XTRFY K63W Pro Compact Ultra-Wideband review: Design and features

• Thin and light
• Springboard-like
• Limited input customizations

There's nothing particularly exciting about the way the K63W Pro looks. It keeps things basic, although the rounded edges are a nice touch, helping to relieve its austerity a little.

True to its name, the K63W Pro is indeed compact. In addition to its truncated width, it’s also quite thin, making it comfortable to use even without a wrist rest — which is just as well, since it doesn’t come with one.

Despite its plastic construction, the K63W Pro feels sturdy and built to a high standard. Rather unique is the prominent flex of the keyboard plate. This can be pushed down quite a way when pressing a key, which is a little disconcerting at first, but it still feels perfectly stable and it rebounds fully. I wasn’t concerned about its durability, either.

The keycaps feel premium, too. They’re pleasingly textured and solid with little play. On top of this, the bright RGB backlighting shines through them very well, and the main legends are large and clear, although those for the Fn shortcuts on the function keys are a little too small.

You get more keys on the K63W Pro than you might think, including some navigation ones such as delete and insert. However, it’s odd there’s a blank key in the top-right corner; a missed opportunity to squeeze in another, perhaps, such as a Home key.

There are quite a few useful Fn shortcuts on the function row, including those for adjusting volume and one for opening your default browser, which are all welcome. However, a few remained a mystery to me. Two look like they adjust some sort of performance-related parameter, but I didn’t notice any action when I pressed them. There’s also one on F9 with Cherry’s logo on it that opens the Windows Run box and enters some kind of address, but again nothing happened when I pressed it. The text was too long and disappeared too quickly for me to read it, but my only guess is that it’s supposed to open some kind of Cherry software.

The most interesting aspect of the K63W Pro’s layout is the Mod Tap arrow keys. These are larger than your typical set since they have secondary bindings, with control, shift, menu, and Fn inputs mapped to each direction. Pressing Fn+M (there’s another Fn key mapped to the insert key) will cycle between three different modes: one enables the usual arrow key inputs, one enables the secondary bindings, and one enables both sets at the same time, with taps triggering arrow directions and holds triggering the secondary functions. The M key lights up a different color depending on which mode is active.

You can also switch between these modes using the Cherry Utility. This desktop app also features other customizations, although their dearth is disappointing. It has perhaps the worst rebinding mode I've ever seen in peripheral software, requiring you to click a ‘create’ button for every key you want to rebind, in order to bring up the option to rebind it. The layout graph doesn’t display your remapped bindings, which is another baffling oversight, and you can’t alter the Fn layer of shortcuts. There aren’t many performance-related settings here, either; you can adjust the polling rate for both wired and wireless modes, and there’s a SOCD mode with three basic settings, but that’s all you get.

Rather than your typical USB dongle, the K63W Pro comes with a block-shaped puck that requires a USB cable (also included) to connect to your device. This is what facilitates the UWB connectivity, which Cherry claims reduces interference compared to standard wireless connections. It looks sleek, but it’s quite large and takes up more space than I’m happy with, especially when you factor in the trailing cable.

• Design & features score: 3.5 / 5

Cherry XTRFY K63W Pro Compact Ultra-Wideband review: Performance

• Relatively heavy keys
• Great space bar
• Unnecessary Ultra-Wideband connectivity

I mostly enjoyed my time using the K63W Pro. The keys feel well lubed and reasonably damped, although it still verges on the side of clicky than thocky, which, depending on your preferences, is either a good thing or a bad thing. Personally, I liked the feedback they provided.

I was also fond of the low-profile keycaps, which seem to slant slightly towards the user. This helped me hit keys flush, making up for the somewhat limiting tilt angle of the board, even with the two-stage feet out. This was especially noticeable with the space bar, a key I often hit on its edge but not here. It also feels slightly more damped than the other keys, while still being easy to press, a combination that makes it very satisfying to hammer away at.

The switches themselves are also low profile (specifically, they’re Cherry’s MX Low Profile 2.0). However, they have surprisingly deep travel, which makes them more satisfying than they otherwise would be. Despite this, their actuation point is relatively shallow, which meant I could still type with a reasonably light touch. They strike just the right balance between being snappy and forgiving of minor mispresses.

Tying accuracy is also aided by the large size of the keycaps, as well as their wide spacing. While this made reaching certain keys a little difficult when touch typing, it made gaming in the WASD position quite comfortable and secure. I could also reach the peripheral keys easily from here, including the space bar, thanks to its aforementioned slant and low profile.

In my experience, the Mod Tap feature works reasonably well, achieving Cherry’s aim of reducing side bulk without sacrificing inputs. However, you have to hold an arrow key for a long time to activate its secondary binding. I found this particularly frustrating when typing, as I required quick and regular access to the right shift key, but I often didn’t hold the Up arrow key long enough to access it. It’s also disappointing that you can’t alter the hold time.

Although Cherry makes bold claims about the UWB wireless connectivity, I can't say I noticed any performance gains over other wireless keyboards I’ve tested. Such models have greatly improved in recent years, to the point where regular-sized USB dongles perform pretty much flawlessly. And if you are an elite player concerned about lags and dropouts, you’ll probably opt for a wired connection anyway. All this is to say that the UWB tech and the outsized puck are ultimately overkill for many. What’s more, the K63W Pro doesn’t have Bluetooth support, as lots of other premium wireless keyboards feature.

• Performance score: 4 / 5

Should I buy the Cherry XTRFY K63W Pro Compact Ultra-Wideband?

Scorecard

Buy it if…

Don't buy it if…

Cherry XTRFY K63W Pro Compact Ultra-Wideband review: Also consider

How I tested the Cherry XTRFY K63W Pro Compact Ultra-Wideband

• Tested for a few days
• Used for a variety of tasks
• Plentiful gaming keyboard experience

I used the K63W Pro for a few days, during which time I used it for working, general browsing, and of course, gaming. I used it in both wired and wireless modes.

I played games such as 007 First Light and Counter-Strike 2, which are good tests for the speed and accuracy of key inputs.

I’ve been PC gaming for over a decade, and have used numerous keyboards in that time. I’ve also reviewed a large number of them, ranging widely in their form factors, switches types, feature sets, and price points.

• First reviewed: July 2026
• Read more about how we test

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 #1644) — hint #1 — Vowels

* 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 #1644) — hint #2 — repeated letters

Quordle today (game #1644) — hint #3 — uncommon letters

Quordle today (game #1644) — hint #4 — starting letters (1)

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 #1644) — hint #5 — starting letters (2)

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

Quordle today (game #1644) — the answers

The answers to today's Quordle, game #1644, are…

• STOMP
• LIMIT
• FUNKY
• STEAD

My major triumph this round was getting LIMIT.

I was given a head start with one of the "I"s in the correct position, but the clincher was guessing that there must be two of them.

From here on in it was a rare stress-free game.

Daily Sequence today (game #1644) — the answers

The answers to today's Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1644, are…

• FROWN
• SMOKE
• SPACE
• NINJA

Quordle answers: The past 20

• Quordle #1643, Saturday, 25 July: SALON, SHEEN, BURST, GOURD
• Quordle #1642, Friday, 24 July: DOLLY, EDIFY, LAGER, PRANK
• Quordle #1641, Thursday, 23 July: LADEN, EVICT, WOVEN, SHIRE
• Quordle #1640, Wednesday, 22 July: COYLY, SINGE, AWASH, AWOKE
• Quordle #1639, Tuesday, 21 July: TRUSS, AXIAL, SWINE, THING
• Quordle #1638, Monday, 20 July: ICING, SLICK, GAILY, RISEN
• Quordle #1637, Sunday, 19 July: SPURT, ACRID, THRUM, BLEEP
• Quordle #1636, Saturday, 18 July: KNAVE, TIGHT, BLEAT, CHAOS
• Quordle #1635, Friday, 17 July: CUMIN, PALER, GRASS, INBOX
• Quordle #1634, Thursday, 16 July: IGLOO, PLAIT, YEAST, AROMA
• Quordle #1633, Wednesday, 15 July: PROXY, BRICK, BROTH, SURGE
• Quordle #1632, Tuesday, 14 July: EBONY, AVOID, RODEO, CUTIE
• Quordle #1631, Monday, 13 July: VOICE, BISON, BURNT, BUILT
• Quordle #1630, Sunday, 12 July: STAIN, BINGO, LARVA, DICEY
• Quordle #1629, Saturday, 11 July: WORTH, PRONG, DINGO, DRUID
• Quordle #1628, Friday, 10 July: GREET, STEAK, DUSKY, HAUTE
• Quordle #1627, Thursday, 9 July: CRUMP, PHONE, SHINY, STONY
• Quordle #1626, Wednesday, 8 July: GHOST, TREND, EXALT, ALONG
• Quordle #1625, Tuesday, 7 July: ARRAY, SUITE, KIOSK, BOULE
• Quordle #1624, Monday, 6 July: TRAWL, SPICE, PIANO, SHARK

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 #875) - hint #1 - today's theme

NYT Strands today (game #875) - hint #2 - clue words

Play any of these words to unlock the in-game hints system.

• BUGS
• CITY
• SPITE
• THING
• BRAIL
• HAVER

NYT Strands today (game #875) - hint #3 - spangram letters

NYT Strands today (game #875) - hint #4 - spangram position

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Strands today (game #875) - the answers

The answers to today's Strands, game #875, are…

• GURU
• MAVEN
• PUNDIT
• EXPERT
• AUTHORITY
• SPECIALIST
• SPANGRAM: BIGBRAIN

• My rating: Easy
• My score: Perfect

This was one of those games that felt like it was going to be difficult but ended up being easy.

That said, it did take me a while to find my first word — but with GURU snagged, the rest all seemed to fall into place.

If I was being fussy, based on my recent World Cup viewing, I wouldn’t include PUNDIT on this list; although this is indeed someone who proffers their opinion, it is often loosely based on any actual fact. Although, that said, coming from a position where you consider yourself “all-knowing” or in possession of a BIGBRAIN seems to help anyone feel as if they are an EXPERT.

Yesterday's NYT Strands answers (Saturday, July 25, game #874)

• GOWN
• TUNIC
• PINAFORE
• KIMONO
• DIRNDL
• MUUMUU
• SPANGRAM: YOUWEARITWELL

• Researchers show Gatekeeper can be bypassed by replacing a previously run legitimate macOS app with malware
• Attack requires prior user‑level code execution, then swaps in a malicious app that Gatekeeper won’t re‑verify
• Apple dismissed the issue, saying locally rebuilt bundles fall outside Gatekeeper’s scope, leaving risk to social engineering

A pair of researchers claims to have found a way around Gatekeeper, a built-in macOS security feature that helps protect users from running malicious or untrusted software. However Apple doesn’t really see it that way and has seemingly decided not to pursue the issue further.

Gatekeeper’s modus operandi is rather simple - when a user downloads an app from outside the App Store, it verifies the product comes from an identified developer and is notarized by Apple. If it can’t verify it - it won’t allow it to run on the machine.

Now, security researchers Talal Haj Barky and Tommy Mysk claim that, as long as a legitimate app was run at least once on a macOS device, it can be replaced with a malicious version, and Gatekeeper won’t even blink its virtual eye.

Locally built

That also means the attack is not that straightforward to pull off. The threat actor needs to have a way to execute user-level code (for example, a malicious app, a compromised software package installed through a package manager, or a prompt injection attack that tricks an AI agent).

Once that is obtained, they can archive a legitimate app, remove the original, then replace it with malware, and Gatekeeper will not try to re-authorize it. That malicious version can then trick the victim into compromising the device even further, since a certain level of trust was already established.

After reporting the issue to Apple, the company apparently just closed it.

"Apple doesn't consider this attack to be 'modifying' the signed executable," Mysk said. "Instead, Apple says that by archiving/restoring the app bundle, the proof-of-concept code overwrites the entire app bundle, making it locally built. Locally built app bundles are not covered by macOS guards. And this is why access to Keychain or TCC protected directories require system authorization prompts. And for users to accept those is a matter of social engineering attacks that Apple considers out of scope."

Via The Register

Valve Steam Machine: Two-minute review

It's finally happening! Valve's long-awaited Steam Machine has landed at last, promising to bring gaming-PC-level performance to an ultra-compact console-style device ideal for couch gamers who want to dip their toes into PC gaming for the first time. This is Valve's second run at the console-style PC market, and the gaming giant seems a lot more committed this time around.

And... well, I'm not entirely underwhelmed by it, but it's also not overwhelmingly impressive. I guess you could say I'm distinctly whelmed by the Steam Machine; it's a lovingly crafted piece of hardware that arguably achieves what it sets out to do, but falls down in two extremely important areas.

As you might have already guessed, those areas are performance and pricing. At the default 1080p resolution, it's a capable little machine that should be able to give you a good gaming experience with minimal fuss, but anyone expecting beefy 4K performance on par with the existing slate of top-tier home consoles is going to be disappointed.

Of course, this boils down to what sort of games you want to play. If you've got a 4K TV in your living room and want a compact PC specifically so you can enjoy older games, or the sort of indie game experiences that aren't so freely available on consoles – I'm talking the low-budget viral titles that so frequently dominate TikTok and Instagram Reels – then the Steam Machine might actually be an excellent choice.

Another key aspect of Valve's new console-PC hybrid is SteamOS, the recently updated operating system designed to provide a more console-like experience than conventional platforms like Windows and macOS. It's already available for anyone to put on their own PC, and of course powers Valve's own Steam Deck handheld. In a break from tradition for PC reviews, I've added an extra section to this review to specifically discuss SteamOS, but for now all I'll say is that it gets the job done well.

Moving on to pricing, it's painfully clear that the ongoing RAM crisis has taken a toll on the Steam Machine's value proposition. Starting at $1,049 / £879 / AU$1,609, it's a fair bit more costly than the PS5 Pro, which my esteemed colleague Rob Dwiar already noted was "too expensive" for the average gamer in his review here on TechRadar - and that was before Sony hiked the price of its home consoles earlier this year.

Considering that the Steam Machine was widely expected to represent an accessible path into the world of PC gaming for those who have previously not ventured beyond the confines of the console market, that price tag is sure to upset some gamers who were eagerly awaiting Valve's return to the console market. Hell, you might even be better off building your own Steam Machine killer.

But it's important to remember that the Steam Machine was probably never going to live up to the price-to-performance ratio of modern home consoles like the PS5 and Xbox Series X, even though it is ostensibly using newer, better hardware. This is due to the game development process and how developers implement platform optimization; if you're making a game for PS5, you're just making a game for PS5. You'll have to take the Pro model's specs into account now too, but at the end of the day you only need to optimize your game's performance for a specific set of hardware components with clearly defined limitations.

On the other hand, optimizing a game for PC means optimizing it for the uncountable millions of possible hardware configurations that exist across pre-built and custom gaming PCs, plus every gaming laptop on the market, plus handheld gaming PCs, and now plus the Steam Machine. It's a wildly different ballgame, and while some developers might skimp on good PC optimization, it's borderline impossible to get a game running consistently well on PC versus a specific console.

Does this entirely excuse the lackluster bang for your buck the Steam Machine offers? No, probably not. It's a mitigating factor that I have taken into account for this review – but quite frankly, I think Valve's second attempt at bringing PC gaming to the masses has slightly missed the mark.

Valve Steam Machine review: Price & availability

• Starts at $1,049 / £879 / AU$1,609
• Available now in the US, UK, and Australia
• Steam Controller can be added as a bundle

As I mentioned already, the Steam Machine starts at a rather steep $1,049 / £879 / AU$1,609, which gets you the standard configuration with no controller and 512GB of high-speed SSD storage. The actual performance spec doesn't change if you upgrade to the 2TB SSD model for $1,349 / £1,149 / AU$2,109, so you're essentially just paying for the extra storage – and even by current component pricing standards, that's an expensive upgrade.

Whether you pick the 512GB or 2TB model – and despite the price, I'd definitely recommend the latter if you play triple-A PC games, since install sizes have become frighteningly bloated as of late – you get the same semi-custom AMD Zen 4 CPU and discrete AMD RDNA 3 GPU, along with 16GB of RAM and a separate 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM.

Both models can also be bundled with Valve's Steam Controller (which also comes with a charging 'puck' and USB cable), which adds $79 / £59 / AU$119 to the base price of either model. This is actually a pretty decent add-on, since the Steam Controller is a genuinely good gamepad and normally costs $99 / £85 / AU$149 direct from Valve if you buy it separately. Unless you already own one of the best PC controllers, I'd strongly recommend getting the bundle.

It's also worth noting that pre-orders for the Steam Machine sold out almost immediately, so if you want to get your hands on one, you'll have to sign up for the waitlist directly through Steam.

• Value: 2.5 / 5

Valve Steam Deck review: Specs

Valve Steam Machine review: Design

• Compact, cubic design
• Tidy internals and front lightbar
• Somewhat limited port selection compared to most PCs

For a product that I found a little disappointing overall, I have to say that I have very little to criticize when it comes to the physical design of the Steam Machine.

Simply put, it looks great. The whole unit is a neat black cube of matte metal measuring roughly six inches along each edge and weighing a little under six pounds, with a thin indentation near the base on the front side, inside which nestles a bright LED lightbar. Beneath this, there's a power button with an additional LED (which stays illuminated while the Steam Machine is in sleep mode) along with two USB-A ports and a microSD card slot for easily adding extra storage. The cube sits atop four small rubber feet, which feel quite durable.

The 17-LED lightbar is more than just a simple power indicator, which I quite like. If your Steam Machine is downloading a game, it 'fills' from left to right to indicate the download's progress, and you can customize it with extra colors and functions in SteamOS too.

It's significantly smaller than any current-gen home console and the vast majority of pre-built gaming PCs, and certainly a lot smaller than any custom desktop PC the average system-builder could assemble - you'd need to be seriously confident with graphics card disassembly and custom cooling to even get close to something this small.

In fact, it's immediately reminiscent of the Nintendo GameCube I treasured in my teenage years, though I promise I haven't let nostalgia cloud my opinion here. The closest you're likely to get to this sort of compact gaming PC now is probably the Asus ROG NUC that I personally reviewed last year - and while that offers far superior performance, it's also so eye-wateringly expensive that it makes the Steam Machine look cheap.

The front panel is removable and can be easily swapped out with magnetic faceplates. If you spring for the 2TB model, you get two of these included: a red felt fabric one and a rather nice wood-effect one that matches my TV stand perfectly... it looks right at home there, actually. Wink wink, nudge nudge, Valve.

The power supply is (somehow) built into the breathtakingly compact chassis, meaning there's no chunky adapter brick here either - just a regular cable with a two-pin power connector. This is included in the box, along with an HDMI cable (though the rear I/O also features a DisplayPort 1.4 output, which may be preferable if you're connecting it to a desktop monitor rather than a TV).

That rear I/O is where you'll find the rest of the ports: the aforementioned HDMI and DisplayPort, along with an RJ-45 Ethernet port, two USB-As, and one USB-C. I'll confess that as a fan of physical connectivity, I find this port selection a little lacking, but it's realistically going to be plenty for the target audience of the Steam Machine. It might be less than a fully-fledged desktop PC, but it's comparable to any modern home console. Wireless connectivity uses Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 – I would've liked to see Wi-Fi 7 here, but it's not a dealbreaker.

The internals are very tidy, with a large air intake grille behind the magnetic faceplate behind which sits the mainboard. A single large upright fan draws air through and out of the rear exhaust. This is (surprisingly) an upgradable system, though it's more along the lines of a gaming laptop than the average desktop PC; you can swap out the M.2 SSD and the RAM, but that's it.

Lastly, I'll briefly touch on the new Steam Controller. We reviewed it separately here, so I won't go into too much detail, but it's certainly good (if overpriced, like the Steam Machine itself). Pairing the pad and the 'puck' that doubles as a wireless transmitter and charging dock is a seamless process, and the controller itself feels good to use in games. The lack of an audio jack, as seen on other mainline console controllers, is a bit of a shame, however.

I have to admit that I really, genuinely love the design of the Steam Machine. My only real criticism here (and the only thing stopping me from giving it a perfect score in this section) is that it only has one single USB-C port, and it's on the rear. This is a minor gripe, though; for the most part, this is a very well-designed piece of hardware.

• Design: 4.5 / 5

Valve Steam Machine review: Performance

• Strong gaming performance at 1080p
• Cracks start to show at 1440p; falls apart completely at 4K
• Runs quietly and doesn't get too hot

Benchmarking the Steam Machine was... interesting, to say the least. I had hoped to mostly stick to our usual suite of tests used for benchmarking the best gaming PCs and best gaming laptops, but the vast majority of those systems are running on Windows 10 or 11. SteamOS, while a very solid platform these days, simply doesn't have the same degree of flexibility as Microsoft's flagship operating system.

For starters, the Steam Machine locks itself to a maximum framerate based on the refresh rate of the monitor it's connected to, which meant I had to seek out a different high-refresh-rate display to get accurate results. Notably, the Steam Deck does something similar with its built-in 60/90Hz screen, so I suspect that this is a SteamOS quirk rather than any hardware-imposed limitation, but I wasn't able to find any way to disable it.

Then I got to the compatibility issues. Half the tests we usually run (most pertinently Geekbench and 3DMark) simply can't be installed and run natively in SteamOS's default Big Picture Mode, so I had to cut down my testing selection fairly significantly. To compensate (and to provide a better idea of how well the Steam Machine can actually handle gaming), I expanded my gaming tests to include more graphical configurations than usual.

Furthermore, you have to dig into the settings of SteamOS itself to uncap the resolution, which is set to FHD 1080p by default. Eagle-eyed gamers clocked prior to the Steam Machine's release that Valve had quietly lowered expectations by adjusting the language used in the product's store page from "4K gaming at 60 FPS" to "Up to 4K gaming with FSR", crushing hopes that it would be a true competitor to the likes of the PS5 Pro. Clearly, 1080p is the ideal target, which will no doubt be a disappointment for some potential customers.

Anyway, let's talk about the actual performance. At 1080p with graphical settings maxed out, the Steam Machine can handle almost anything you throw at it; the discrete semi-custom AMD RDNA 3 GPU inside this little black box was able to crack 60fps in most games I tested at FHD resolution (sometimes requiring the use of AMD's FSR upscaling tech, though this had virtually zero impact on visual fidelity), with the exception of titles that use ray tracing.

With ray tracing turned off, you'll be fine; turn it on, and you can expect framerates to tank even if you also switch on FSR. Cyberpunk 2077 looked and played great at 1080p Ultra settings with no upscaling, but switching to the Ray Tracing Ultra preset (with AMD FSR 3 set to Balanced) saw my average framerate drop to a little over 30 in the built-in benchmark, while actual in-game performance was even choppier.

Annoyingly, some games don't seem to properly support the most recent version of FSR on SteamOS; while I've been able to use it in games like Civilization VII and Shadow of the Tomb Raider while testing Windows-based gaming laptops and PCs, FSR 3 was conspicuously absent from the settings menu of both games on the Steam Machine - Civilization would only let me select FSR 1, while Shadow had no upscaling options available at all.

Once I started to crank things up to 1440p and 4K resolution, though, the cracks started to show. Older titles (and 2D games, like my current obsession, Slay the Spire 2) largely run fine at higher resolutions - but unfortunately, I could probably say the same about any home console and plenty of cheaper desktop PCs.

Modern triple-A games start to struggle a little at 1440p, but remain playable provided you're willing to tone down the settings a bit. I've only included the full suite of 1080p and 4K results in the results box above, but to give you a few quick examples: Cyberpunk 2077 remained playable with an average framerate of 68fps at 1440p Ultra with FSR 3 set to balanced (no ray tracing), while Total War: Warhammer III dropped to 45fps at Ultra - but could be salvaged to a stable 63fps with the Medium graphical preset.

At 4K, don't expect to be playing the latest hit games at high framerates; at least, not without some very significant graphical tweaks. The now eight-year-old Shadow of the Tomb Raider was the only game I tested that made it above 60fps at 4K resolution, and that was with the graphical settings turned down significantly.

As for more demanding titles, just don't bother. Total War: Warhammer III barely made it above a 30fps average at Low settings, with frequent drops into sub-30 territory, while Cyberpunk 2077 gave abysmal benchmarking at anything above the lowest possible graphical settings, even with FSR upscaling turned on, and struggled heavily to maintain a consistent framerate during actual gameplay. Turning on FSR frame generation did technically give a stable 30fps at 4K Ultra, but with the added issue of some visual tearing and artifacting, especially during busy scenes.

I also experienced a small number of crashes during my testing process, specifically in Total War: Warhammer III and Marathon. It's possible that these were merely down to game instability rather than any specific fault with the Steam Machine or SteamOS (I've personally had Marathon crash at least once on my Windows 10 gaming desktop), so I won't mark it down for this, but I've opted to include it for the sake of comprehensiveness.

Lastly, I'd like to briefly discuss the thermal performance of the Steam Machine, which is a shining beacon amidst the otherwise fairly underwhelming overall performance. The large cooling fan at the rear of this little cube was whisper-quiet throughout all my testing, and the casing barely got more than a little warm. Whatever thermal wizardry Valve pulled off here, it clearly works.

• Performance: 3 / 5

Valve Steam Machine review: SteamOS

• SteamOS 3 is a very solid operating system
• Accessible for newcomers, but still packs advanced features
• Optional Linux desktop mode

A bonus section appears! Yes, I'm going to take a moment here to discuss SteamOS, since it's arguably the linchpin of the Steam Machine's whole 'console rival' mission statement. Does it really make PC gaming more accessible? I'm pleased to say yes, it certainly does.

An Arch Linux-based operating system, SteamOS is now in its third main iteration, and it's improved greatly from its humble beginnings as the full-screen version of the Steam desktop app. It's easy to set up and offers a pleasingly straightforward interface that even a gaming rookie should be able to navigate, while also packing the full suite of settings found in the Windows desktop version of Steam.

One nifty feature is the optional Linux desktop mode. It's quite effective, if basic, letting you install Linux-compatible programs like LibreOffice and the Firefox browser. It's neat, but it's a feature that will likely only be used by a small subset of buyers since it doesn't really offer anything for pure gaming users.

Naturally, you can connect a keyboard and mouse as well as a controller, which is useful for games where typing is necessary, but it turned out to be even more vital. I wasn't actually able to complete the SteamOS setup without first connecting a mouse to select the system language, and when playing some other games after my initial benchmarking process, I found that I couldn't complete the initial setup for Forza Horizon 5 using just the Steam Controller, which was annoying.

As effective as SteamOS is, compatibility issues are an inevitability when dealing with a Linux-based system. While the vast majority of games on Steam are fully compatible, there will be specific outliers, and there are plenty of non-gaming programs that aren't available. And of course, you can't play games from other storefronts like Epic and GOG, unless you decide to go the whole hog and install Windows 11 on it instead - which is an option!

Should I buy the Valve Steam Machine?

Valve Steam Machine: Scorecard

Buy the Valve Steam Machine if…

Don't buy it if…

Valve Steam Machine review: Also consider

How I tested the Valve Steam Machine

• Ran multiple PC game benchmarks
• Connected to my TV to use for 'couch gaming'
• 8+ years of experience reviewing dozens of laptops and PCs

My review process for the Steam Machine was a little different from how I'd usually approach a gaming PC or laptop review, due largely to SteamOS's Big Picture Mode not supporting our non-gaming tests.

Still, I ran the Machine through all the usual gaming tests, then took it downstairs to my living room and set it up on my TV stand to use it for some good old-fashioned couch gaming. As someone who was raised on Nintendo consoles but made the jump to PC gaming in my teens, I was keen to get the full intended experience out of the Steam Machine.

In addition to our usual game tests, I played a bunch of other games over a full weekend spent rigorously testing (read: having lots of fun with) the Steam Machine. These included Marathon, Warframe, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and the frighteningly addictive Slay the Spire 2.

I've been testing and reviewing computer hardware for almost a decade, and I've been a gamer for much longer than that. Before joining the TechRadar team, I worked at the PC-building hobbyist magazine Maximum PC, so you can trust that I'm putting every ounce of knowledge and experience at my disposal into bringing you high-quality, insightful, and non-biased reviews.

• First reviewed: July 2026
• Read more about how we test

• Recorded Future found an Iran-linked group spreading spyware
• The malware is delivered through fake VPN and media player apps
• Researchers assess that most targets are Iranian users

A new report from Recorded Future's Insikt Group describes a campaign that inverts the whole point of a privacy tool: fake VPN apps built specifically to spy on the people who install them.

Researchers have linked fresh infrastructure to an Iran-nexus threat cluster they track as TAG-182, which is using fake VPN and media player downloads to allegedly deliver a surveillance tool called MarkiRAT. The group is "highly likely" to be targeting Iranians living inside and outside the country, the report says.

It's a blunt reminder that choosing one of the best VPN services is a lot more secure than downloading free, unvetted tools.

Fake apps, real surveillance

Insikt Group identified a cluster of attacker-controlled domains allegedly used to stage downloads of applications that appear nowhere on Google Play or Apple's App Store.

Two names stand out: Pis2ray VPN and a media player branded YESHICA, which was quietly renamed YESHICA YEPlayer in March 2026 after researchers publicly exposed the original.

According to researchers, if you download and run one of these files, you get MarkiRAT, a remote access Trojan. In plain terms, that is software that hands control of your device to somebody else.

Analysts have documented it capturing screenshots and uploading them to attacker-run servers, while disguising itself under believable process names.

It also abuses BITS, the background service Windows uses to fetch updates, to pull down further files. Because that activity looks like ordinary system housekeeping rather than an attack, it tends to slip past routine cleanup.

MarkiRAT is not new. It has previously been used by Ferocious Kitten, a group Kaspersky documented conducting years of covert surveillance against activists inside Iran.

Recorded Future stops short of attributing TAG-182 to any specific Iranian agency, but places it within a broader ecosystem of state-aligned surveillance groups.

Why a fake VPN makes such an effective lure

Distribution runs largely through social media. Insikt Group found Instagram posts promoting Pis2ray VPN in the weeks following street protests in Iran in late 2025, and again around the country's prolonged internet shutdown, which ended with partial restoration of access on 26 May 2026.

The people most desperate for a virtual private network (VPN) in a censored country are exactly the people most likely to install one from a social media link, because the official stores are often the very thing they cannot reach.

Recorded Future considers it almost certain that most targets are located in Iran or tied to anti-government movements in Europe and North America. TechRadar has covered previous Iran-linked fake VPN campaigns, and this one seems to follow the same pattern with better infrastructure.

How to stay safe

Most readers will never be targeted by a state actor, but the underlying lesson travels.

Install VPN apps only from official stores, and check that the provider has a real, verifiable presence outside the app listing.

Treat any VPN promoted through an Instagram post, a Telegram channel, or a direct message as suspect, however polished it looks.

Star ratings are a weak signal, since fake reviews are cheap.