Remember how, when Palworld was blowing up, fans were excited that a Pokémon competitor might force The Pokémon Company to get its act together and stop releasing busted games like Scarlet and Violet? Whether that pans out remains to be seen, but given that Digimon, arguably the most notable competition Pokémon had in…
Nintendo’s Donkey Kong Bananza Direct went out June 18, revealing a vast amount of new information about the forthcoming Switch 2 exclusive, and the more it went on, the more we found ourselves absolutely pumped for the game. You can watch the entire 15-minute video below.
Beat Saber won’t release any new content on PlayStation VR and PS VR2, and multiplayer will shut down for both headsets in January.
In a new statement by Beat Games, the developer announced both versions will remain available with cross-buy support across PS4 and PS5. However, neither headset will receive further content updates going ahead, and multiplayer support will end for both headsets on January 21, 2026.
“As we look to the future and plan the next big leap for Beat Saber, we have made the decision to no longer release updates for PS4 and PS5 starting in June 2025,” stated the studio.
As such, Lady Gaga’s “Abracadabra” from two weeks ago is the final DLC update for PSVR and PS VR2. Beat Saber will remain available for purchase, and an FAQ confirms customer support will continue. Beat Games also notes that the Steam release remains unaffected, advising “releases will continue to be shared on Steam.”
Dropping support for the original PlayStation VR would’ve been one thing, given we’ve seen similar moves for Pistol Whip and Synth Riders, but PS VR2 is more surprising. Since launching in May 2023, Beat Saber continues appearing in the monthly PS VR2 download charts and became 2024’s most successful PlayStation VR2 release by revenue.
UploadVRDavid Heaney
Arguably the most famous VR game of all time, Beat Saber became one of VR’s biggest breakout hits since launching in 2018. It’s since reached 10 million players on Quest, and April saw it named as the best-selling Quest game of all time. In 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported that it reached $255 million revenue, though that includes DLC and more recent figures haven’t been shared since.
As such, we’d speculate this move is driven instead by Meta’s aim to cut costs across Oculus Studios. February saw layoffs at Asgard’s Wrath series developer Sanzaru Games in February, followed by Supernatural studio Within Unlimited in April. That’s only reinforced by yesterday’s news that Meta has ceased development on Onward, merging developer Downpour Interactive’s staff into the studio behind Batman: Arkham Shadow, Camouflaj.
UploadVRHenry Stockdale
For now, Beat Saber and its existing DLC packs will remain on sale across both PlayStation headsets, while the Quest and PC VR versions remain unaffected. Should anything change, we’ll keep you informed.
I love listening to experts discuss their subjects. They know so much! Me? I know very little about anything. And you know what they say about ignorance. “It’s bliss.” That can’t be right though because I’m miserable. This is a video from Epicurious of professional cheese expert Liz Thorpe reviewing all the cheeses available at Trader Joe’s (previously: a cheese connoisseur tasting 21 of the most expensive cheeses). I learned a lot by watching it. Mostly, that Trader Joe’s is a good place for cheese, which is great news because I love cheese and they’re opening one nearby. My life is about to change forever!
My top seven cheeses of the day in recommended tasting order are Chevre with Fine Herbs, Fromage Pave, Goat’s Milk Gouda-Style, Mini Basque, Unexpected Cheddar, Thousand Day Gouda, and Blue Stilton.
Mmmm, Thousand Day Gouda. I’m more of a Ten Thousand Day Gouda man myself, but that’s just me and I’m EXTRA FANCY. “Your fly is down.” I don’t even have to look to know you’re lying, because there’s no way I’m wearing pants at 9AM on a Wednesday.
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I’m bored with reality, so last week, I attended the Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, CA, to check out other options, such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Mixed Reality (MR).
The Augmented World Expo has been around since 2010, pursuing its lofty goal of “enabling people across the globe to learn, connect and grow within the XR industry.” I don’t know about all that, but I did get to check out the new devices and applications that might be the future of how we work, relax, and relate to each other. Here are some of the highlights of the show.
The biggest tech news out of Augmented World Expo 2025 was Qualcomm announcing the Snapdragon AR1+ Gen 1 chip, the brain that will power much of the next generation of smart glasses.
“I don’t like having a huge thing on my head” and “Wait, I also have to pair it to my phone?” are two common problems people have with VR/AR, and the AR1+ aims to solve both. It allows for on-device AI processing, and improves camera quality, display quality, and energy efficiency. I tried a pair of Snap Spectacle 4 smart glasses powered by this chip, and it’s impressive.
I admit, I was a little puzzled as to what RP1 is trying to do at first. The “world’s first Metaverse browser” aims to “connect the world’s population in a single, persistent XR ecosystem, providing on-demand access to unlimited self-hosted 3D content and services.” But then a helpful representative put it to me like this: “Remember how AOL and Compuserve were totally separate camps? And then the web made a common place for everyone? We’re doing that with 3D spaces,” and it all made sense. The idea is to provide a platform for all Immersive XR (extended reality) spaces, so it doesn’t matter what device you’re using to view them. You can check it out now, by the way.
I was impressed with the XREAL Air 2 Pro glasses I reviewed last year, and this enhancement makes them better. The XREAL Eye is a small camera that adds 6DoF (i.e. 6 Degrees of Freedom so your head and body can move naturally in space: up/down, left/right, forward/back) tracking, making virtual content more immersive and natural. I tried it out briefly on the show floor, and it’s very impressive. Look for a full review soon.
Sometimes at tech conventions, you get taken into a back room and shown some pure tech, prototypes that are not yet available commercially. Lumus (“the pioneering developer of geometric waveguide technology for augmented reality”) took me into a bare conference room to check out the Z-30 Optical Engine. The device left me saying “whoa” like I was Keanu Reeves. Check out the picture above; the lightweight thing on the side of the glasses’ is tiny projector that throws a 720 x 720 pixel image onto the clear glass of the lenses, and only you can see it. You could use this to add a customized HUD to your life without anyone knowing what a huge nerd you are, or secretly watch TikTok while having a conversation.
The people I know who regularly use VR in the workplace are my friends who design sets for stop-motion animation. It’s niche, I realize, but anyone working in collaborative 3D design in any way should take a long look at Campfire. It lets you look at CAD at 1:1 scale with other people, everyone in a circle around the virtual 3D object like it’s a campfire.
FreeAim VR Shoes aim to solve the problem of “How do you walk around in virtual reality?” Their solution: Make powered shoes that will return the user to their original position after they take a step. I didn’t get a chance to try these out, because I didn’t trust my balance enough, but I’m looking forward to checking out a pair in a more controlled environment.
Another approach for “walking in VR” comes via the Virtuix Omni One, a treadmill device that lets you virtually walk and run without moving through low-friction technology. In other words, it’s an extremely slippery, bowl-shaped floor with a harness and scaffolding that keeps you upright. Let me tell you, it’s very slippery—the kind of thing that’s disconcerting until you trust it—but once you’re over that hump, it’s a viable solution.
I tried out a bunch of AR and VR games at the AWE Expo, and by far the most fun I had was playing with the Simtryx AI medical training device. The (extremely indulgent) Simtryx representative at AWE explained that it’s actually not a game; it’s a XR+AI simulator designed to train medical professionals, but when a VR patient complains of stomach pain, I’m going to play doctor. I tried to convince the AI bot that his appendicitis was psychosomatic, then prescribed a ton of pain killers. Poor guy was dead in about three minutes.
The image above looks like some sad inflatables on a concrete floor, but if you slip on a Meta Quest running Dreampark, it becomes a colorful level of a Mario-esque platformer, complete with golden coins to collect, lava to avoid, and more. It’s not the kind of thing you could probably do in your house, but it would be perfect at a kid’s birthday party space, or at the crumbling remains of a once vibrant retail zone, like Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade, that hosts a Dreampark experience weekly.
Lifehacker’s resident spin class instructor Lindsey Ellefson and I disagree about the “games” that come with a Peloton. She loves them; I think they’re ass. But this is just because she hasn’t tried Kinneta yet. It pairs your Meta Quest 2, 3 or 3S with any Bluetooth bike to provide fully gamified fitness on any Bluetooth-enabled treadmill or stationary bike. I gave it a shot and found the experience mirrors Meta’s own Supernatural in an awesome way.
There are a lot of VR and AR apps that are meant to provide relaxation, meditation, and a contemplative experience and Flowborne Spirit was the best I saw at the show. I like the innovative use of the Meta Quest’s controller: You rest it on your belly and it responds to your breath. The game made me feel like I had joined a cult, in the best way possible!
ASPEN, Colo.—The SUV might be the dominant design in the American automobile market, but it hasn’t completely taken over. At Audi, there is still life in the sedan. The old A4 four-door is no more—at least for a while or until Audi redoes its nomenclature yet again. If you want a small Audi four-door, you need to step down to the A3. Five doors is where it’s at, with the 2025 A5.
Like the new Q5 SUV, which you may have read about last week, the new A5 uses an all-new vehicle architecture from Audi called PPC (for premium platform combustion). PPC will give rise to a wide range of new vehicles from Audi, Porsche, and the other premium VW Group stablemates, and it takes a meaningful step into the future with advanced new electronics, making this a true software-defined vehicle.
There will be two versions at launch. The regular A5 features a 2.0 L four-cylinder turbocharged, direct-injection engine driving all four wheels via a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission, and generates 268 hp (200 kW) and 295 lb-ft (400 Nm). That’s a pretty large power and torque bump compared to the outgoing A5 Sportback, in part thanks to a new variable geometry turbocharger that replaces the old twin-scroll blower.
DC Studios co-head James Gunn argues that the movie industry is “dying” primarily because productions begin before screenplays are complete, while also delivering a sharp critique of his former employer Marvel Studios, which he claims Disney has “killed” through output mandates.
Gunn dismissed common explanations for Hollywood’s struggles like declining theater attendance or improved home viewing experiences, telling Rolling Stone that “the number one reason is because people are making movies without a finished screenplay.” The filmmaker has implemented a strict rule at DC Studios requiring finished scripts before production starts, recently scrapping a project because its screenplay wasn’t ready.
The director, who previously helmed three “Guardians of the Galaxy” films for Marvel, said Disney’s corporate directive to increase output destroyed the studio’s creative process. “They were under a corporate mandate, yeah. That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. And it killed them,” Gunn said, referring to Marvel’s mandated production quotas for movies and television shows. By contrast, Gunn said DC Studios operates without numerical mandates. “We don’t have the mandate to have a certain amount of movies and TV shows every year. So we’re going to put out everything that we think is of the highest quality,” he explained.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Among smart lights, few have the robust software (or price tag to go along with it) of Philips Hue. The company has made a name for itself as the standard-bearer for what smart lights can be. After years of adding new features, though, there are quite a few that aren’t as helpful as the others. These are the ones that I, as a long-time Hue owner, actually use on a regular basis.
Some of this is going to be a bit your-mileage-may-vary. For my money, the feature that lets you create a colorful scene based on a photo is neat as a party trick (if your party is boring), but it’s not that helpful when there’s already a huge library of scenes available to choose from. Maybe you disagree! But I’ve been using Hue lights for almost as long as they’ve existed, and these are my favorite features.
Getting blasted with light in the morning is a terrible way to wake up, at least for me. And if you’re in the same boat, the fade-in timer in the Hue app is a handy solution. In the Automations tab, click the + icon and tap “Wake up with light.” Choose a room and you can set a specific time and date for your lights in that room to turn on.
Most helpfully, you can tap the Fade Duration setting to slowly turn on the light. You can tweak this to be anywhere from 10 to 60 minutes. Personally, I find this meshes really well with my terrible habit of setting multiple alarms, because I sleep through the first several. It’s easy to lose track of how much time has passed across multiple snoozes, but the lights make the imminent arrival of a new day impossible to ignore.
While I prefer turning my lights on in the morning at a specific time—and it makes more sense for anyone who has to stick to a schedule—the night is a bit of a different story. Like many smart lights, the Hue app features automations that let you tie your lights to your local sunset. It bases this off the location of your Hue Bridge, which you can adjust in the app’s settings.
To set this up, head to the Automations tab in the Hue app and choose Custom automation. Instead of choosing a specific time, you can pick either Sunrise or Sunset. To avoid an abrupt transition, I like to set the timer to begin 15 minutes before sunset, and set the Fade duration to 30 minutes, so some of my lights turn on roughly as the sun sets.
I also like to set a second automation to kick in an hour or two after sunset to dim the lights again. Especially in the summer, sunset happens pretty late where I live, so it can be easy to lose track of time. Having such a visible reminder helps keep my sense of time grounded.
The animated effects are a little buried in the Philips Hue app, which is a bit of a bummer because they’re one of the platform’s best features. These effects let your lights—especially if you have full color RGB bulbs—simulate the flickering of a candle, the shimmering surface of water, or abstract colorful prisms.
The candle animation in particular is perfect for date nights. Nothing sets the mood quite like the dim, soft dance of firelight—without the setup and risks of actual fire. To find these effects, open up the light you want to apply it to. You can tap each light and select the three-star Effects icon to find a library of effects.
For rooms with multiple lights, it’s often easier to create a custom Scene to apply it to all the lights in a room. It takes a little more setting up, but create a new Scene for the room, and choose the effect for each bulb in that room. Once the scene is set up, you can easily activate it from the app, or one of the more convenient methods. Including …
Widgets—in particular Android’s home screen widgets—have had a rocky history, waffling between mostly useless decorations and kinda-helpful little gizmos. But the Philips Hue controls is one of the few widgets I genuinely use every day and don’t want to live without. I have a page on my phone’s home screen with light toggles and a few common scenes that I can swipe to easily.
If you have the Hue app on your phone, you can add these widgets to your home screen on both Android and iOS. Long press an empty space on your home screen and find the Hue widget. The app will take over and walk you through choosing which room, scene, and toggle you’d like each widget to apply to. You’ll have to create a widget for each scene, but after a few minutes, you’ll have a nice little control panel within easy reach.
There’s a decent chance that half the reason you got smart lights in the first place is to control them with a smart speaker. Once you’ve turned off the bedroom lights while snugly under the covers, you never want to go back. What you might not know is that even if you don’t have a smart speaker, you can use this trick.
Most smart speakers like Google Home, Amazon’s Echo, and even Apple’s HomePod can control Philips Hue lights with simple voice commands. However, you can set up your voice assistants like Siri or Gemini to control the lights directly. The process will vary based on which device you’re pairing with, so check your phones and speakers to see how to connect them to your lights.
One of the most useful specialized automations in the Philips Hue app is the Mimic Presence tool. In the Automations tab, you can find this feature that will automatically turn your lights on or off at irregular schedules even when you’re not at home. This can give the impression that you (or someone) is at home to onlookers nearby.
This is a common tactic to dissuade possible burglars, and it can be surprisingly effective. Most home burglaries are crimes of opportunity, and even simple methods to dissuade can make your home a less appealing target. Whenever I plan on leaving my home for a while, I’ll set this automation up. Then I usually forget that I did until the first time my lights randomly turn off after I get home.
Brembo Brakes has announced a partnership with Specialized Bicycles and will be working with the likes of Loïc Bruni, Jordan Williams and Finn Iles to develop a new braking system.
While the new tie-in may seem a big departure from the top-level motorsport Brembo is synonymous with, it’s no massive shock, having acquired suspension brand Öhlins in 2024. Öhlins also supports the Specialized Gravity team.
Alongside Öhlins, Brembo plans on helping Iles, Williams and Bruni to the top step of the World Cup podium this year, using prototype brakes.
Brembo is well known in the automotive world, having supplied brakes systems to Formlula One and MotoGP teams.
The brand knows what it takes to compete at the top level, so the jump to downhill racing shouldn’t be a massive shock to the system.
In fact, cast your mind back or search the depths of eBay and you may find some old, twin-piston Brembo brakes from around 17 years ago.
These old brakes had a lever reminiscent of Shimano’s classic XTs and a caliper that looked a little like an inflated Hope C2.
The new brakes, though, which were spotted at the early rounds of the World Cup on the Specialized Gravity team bikes, look drastically different.
At the bar, the lever blade looks almost as long and straight as the Hope Tech 4 V4, minus the protruding adjuster dials.
There is, however, a small adjuster integrated into the blade itself, near the pivot, which we assume alters reach.
The blade then attaches to the lever body, which looks similar in size to that of SRAM’s Maven brakes, if a little larger, and – like the ‘Stealth’ lever body of the Maven – sits close to the bar.
That said, the fluid reservoir looks taller (a little like that of the TRP DHR EVOs) and possibly a touch larger than SRAM’s top gravity stoppers.
At the business end, it appears the caliper uses four pistons to stop the rotor.
Brembo’s press release states that its focus will solely be on Downhill World Cup racing, with the Specialized Gravity team riding on prototype brakes for the rest of the 2025 season.
There’s no mention of what will come next from the partnership, or whether the brakes will go on general release.
But, looking at the pictures included, these appear to be close to production-ready, so there’s a solid chance you’ll have the opportunity to buy yourself some high-end Italian stoppers in the not-too-distant future.
However, we imagine they won’t come cheap.
The latest Linux kernel updates deliver groundbreaking performance, security, and hardware support enhancements that benefit enterprise users, developers, and everyday enthusiasts alike.
CM Games, the studio behind the Into the Radius series, announced it’s releasing its next game UnLoop in September, bringing single-player puzzles with a unique time-looping twist.
As a spy infiltrating a remote space station, UnLoop thrusts you into a temporal phenomenon that creates a copy of yourself each loop, letting you cooperatively solve puzzles with past versions of yourself.
Using your copies, players bypass increasingly complicated door-opening challenges, spurring them to retrieve critical data from the station, and ultimately uncover the source of the mysterious time loop.
You’ll need to plan ahead and synchronize with your past selves though, CM Games says, as players need to think spatially and temporally to solve puzzles, which includes everything from dodging lasers to keep the loop going, to lending a helping hand to your future self, like tossing key items and recording voice notes.
This isn’t the first we’re heard of UnLoop. The studio announced in early 2024 it was well into development of the game, which was greenlit the prior year as a part of the studio’s internal CM Labs skunkworks. You may have seen public playtests last year on Quest too, although the demo is now taking shape into a fully-fledged game.
According to the game’s Quest listing, UnLoop is slated to release sometime in September. In the meantime, you can wishlist it on the Horizon Store for Quest 2 and above, Steam for PC VR headsets, and the Pico Store for Pico Neo3 Link and above.
The post ‘Into the Radius’ Studio to Release Time-Bending Puzzle ‘UnLoop’ on Quest & PC VR in September appeared first on Road to VR.
The artificial intelligence (AI) revolution is reshaping the very bedrock of computing, promising a future that is as exhilarating as it is uncertain. While AMD, Intel and NVIDIA currently dominate the semiconductor headlines, a deeper look reveals that despite their individual strengths – AMD’s burgeoning open-source leadership, Intel’s enduring processor market share and NVIDIA’s current GPU supremacy – all three face existential threats. These challenges could see them being bypassed by a new breed of AI-forward companies and potentially relegate them to the annals of “has-beens” if they don’t adapt with unprecedented speed and vision. After all, history is littered with former champions who failed to navigate the next technological tidal wave.
NVIDIA, having largely ignited the current AI craze with its powerful GPUs and proprietary CUDA software, stands as the undisputed king of AI accelerators. Its market share for GPUs is formidable, with NVIDIA commanding around 92% of the GPU market share in Q1 2025 and approximately 80% of the AI accelerator market.
However, history teaches a harsh lesson: It’s rare for companies at the very front end of a disruptive technological wave to maintain their dominant position until the technology stabilizes and becomes mainstream. This phenomenon, described in Clayton Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma, occurs because established leaders focus on serving their existing high-margin customers and are often slow to adapt to disruptive, lower-margin innovations that eventually capture the mainstream. Think of Nokia. It was once the mobile phone titan that famously failed to pivot to smartphones, clinging instead to older technologies while Apple and Samsung surged ahead. Or IBM, which, despite inventing the PC, ultimately abandoned the PC market after missteps like the ill-fated PCjr instead of owning the personal computing revolution it started. NVIDIA’s proprietary CUDA ecosystem, while a current strength, could become its Achilles’ heel if the AI market increasingly demands open standards and more flexible solutions.
Each of these semiconductor titans carries its own unique baggage into the AI future:
software stack is getting updates every two weeks and ROCm 7 is coming) and competitive hardware performance (Instinct MI325X outperforms NVIDIA H200 in Llama 2 fine-tuning), AMD is still fighting for market share against two entrenched giants. It faces the challenge of scaling its ecosystem and convincing a historically NVIDIA-dominated AI development community to switch.The true disruptive force might not come from within this established trio. A new wave of “AI-forward” companies is emerging, unburdened by legacy architectures or entrenched business models. These startups, often with open-source roots, are designing solutions from the ground up specifically for the unique demands of AI. For example, AheadComputing, founded by former Intel CPU architects, is focusing on high-performance RISC-V processors for AI, cloud and edge devices, highlighting the limitations of current architectures for modern AI workloads. Other examples include Cerebras Systems, known for its wafer-scale engine for massive AI model training, and Groq, focusing on ultra-low-latency AI inference.
Perhaps the most potent threat comes from the recently announced merger of Jony Ive’s design powerhouse, IO, with OpenAI. This alliance aims to develop entirely new AI-powered consumer devices, potentially rendering most existing PC and even smartphone computing hardware obsolete. Imagine a device where the AI is the interface, transcending traditional screens and operating systems. This could bypass the need for conventional CPUs and GPUs as we know them, creating a completely new computing paradigm.
To avoid being relegated to the sidelines, AMD, Intel and NVIDIA all need to cultivate a “skunkworks” mentality – small, autonomous and highly innovative teams operating outside traditional corporate bureaucracy. These projects should focus on:
The AI revolution presents an existential challenge to the semiconductor industry’s established order. While AMD, Intel and NVIDIA all possess immense talent and resources, their traditional business models and proprietary leanings could become liabilities in a landscape increasingly defined by open-source collaboration, custom silicon and radical new hardware concepts. History is replete with examples of industry leaders who failed to adapt to seismic technological shifts. To avoid becoming cautionary tales, these giants must shed their corporate inertia, embrace a more agile, experimental approach and perhaps even collaborate in unconventional ways to build the truly open, AI-native computing future that is rapidly taking shape. The time for incremental change is over; the future demands a revolutionary response.
An experimental reusable rocket developed by the research and development arm of Honda Motor Company flew to an altitude of nearly 900 feet Tuesday, then landed with pinpoint precision at the carmaker’s test facility in northern Japan.
The accomplishment may not sound like much, but it’s important to put it into perspective. Honda’s hopper is the first prototype rocket outside of the United States and China to complete a flight of this kind, demonstrating vertical takeoff and vertical landing technology that could underpin development of a reusable launch vehicle.
While Tuesday’s announcement by Honda was unexpected, the company has talked about rockets before. In 2021, Honda officials revealed they had been working on a rocket engine for at least two years. At the time, officials said a small satellite launch vehicle was part of Honda’s roadmap.
One-time SMS codes are widely used as the second checkpoint in two-factor authentication (2FA) to sign into everything from banking apps to email accounts. As I’ve written before, though, SMS is one of the least secure 2FA methods, as it can be phished relatively easily.
It turns out these codes may also be visible to other parties besides the sender (the service generating the code) and the recipient (you), increasing the risk that your accounts can be compromised by bad actors. As reported by Bloomberg Businessweek, an obscure third-party telecom service had access to at least one million 2FA codes that passed through its network.
An investigation led by Bloomberg and Lighthouse Reports—based on data received from an industry whistleblower—found that more than a million text messages containing 2FA codes were visible to Swiss company Fink Telecom Services during June 2023. As an intermediary between the companies that generate authentication codes and the users logging into their accounts, Fink handled the messages and had access to their content.
While this is a weakness in SMS—which is unencrypted and relatively easy to intercept—the Fink incident is particularly concerning due to the company’s involvement in the surveillance industry and alleged infiltration of user accounts.
According to the reporting, the messages came from senders like Google, Meta, Amazon, Tinder, Snapchat, Binance, Signal, WhatsApp, and several European banks and went to recipients in more than 100 countries.
Companies commonly use intermediaries to send text messages at cheaper rates, which are possible thanks to large contracts with multiple carriers and the ownership or lease of so-called “global titles”: network addresses that facilitate communication between carriers in different countries. Maintaining privacy and security standards when working with third parties is further complicated by the fact that Fink (and others like it) are often subcontractors not hired directly by the original companies.
Bottom line: If you use SMS as your authentication method, you aren’t guaranteed that no one else has access to your code or that they won’t use it to hack your private accounts.
Unfortunately, many companies continue to rely on SMS for 2FA, but wherever possible, you should opt for other multi-factor authentication (MFA) methods.
The most secure choices are based on WebAuthn credentials, like biometrics or passkeys, and stored on your device or a physical security key. These methods don’t pass unencrypted through a third party, and they are highly resistant to phishing attacks. Authenticator apps like Google Authenticator that generate codes on your device and refresh every 30 seconds are also stronger than SMS.
In general, the more authentication factors required for logging in, the greater the security, though these factors should be independent and not all accessible on the same device.
AMD engineers today posted the second iteration of their AMD ISP4 Linux kernel driver, which is for supporting the web-camera with the high-end Strix Halo powered HP ZBook Ultra G1a laptop and presumably many AMD Ryzen laptops in the future…
People in Iran have been having difficulties accessing internet services, mostly foreign websites and messaging apps like WhatsApp. According to The New York Times and NBC News, it was the government’s decision to restrict internet in the country to ward off cyberattacks by Israel as the conflict between the countries escalate. Fatemeh Mohajerani, Iran’s spokesperson, said the government was forced to throttle internet speeds in the country to maintain network stability “given the enemy’s cyber attacks.” Iran reportedly plans to reduce its internet bandwidth by 80 percent.
Kentinc and Netblocks, companies which track global internet connectivity, told NBC News that Iran’s connection plummeted at around 5:30PM Eastern time on June 17. Iranians have been having issues accessing online services for days, however, with their mobile data networks being completely down in parts of the country and the VPNs they were using to access foreign websites being blocked intermittently. In addition to blocking WhatsApp, the Iranian government urged citizens to delete it from their smartphones, accusing it of collecting information to send to Israel. WhatsApp told AP that it was “concerned these false reports will be an excuse for [its] services to be blocked at a time when people need them the most.”
While Iran’s spokesperson said that the government is blocking and slowing down the country’s internet connection as a way to prevent Israeli cyberattacks, it’s also making it harder for people to get warnings about incoming attacks and to contact loved ones in cases of emergency. And since maps like Google’s also aren’t working, people trying to evacuate are also reportedly getting lost. Iran is urging its citizens to use its national internet services or N.I.N., which remain available and allow messaging using government platforms, but people don’t think they’re secure.
It’s worth noting that Iran also seems to have launched its own cyber attacks on Israel. As The Verge notes, cybersecurity firm Radware reported a surge in cyberattacks on Israel since its strike on Iran. The firm believes they were carried out by Iranian state actors and pro-Iran hacker groups. Iran had been linked to several cyberattacks in the past, including an instance wherein hackers associated with the country stole US voter information and sent intimidating emails to Democrat voters.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/iran-restricts-internet-access-to-ward-off-israeli-cyberattacks-120025170.html?src=rss
The at-home fitness space is more or less dominated by Peloton, which probably makes you think that whether you’re stretching with the company’s app or riding one of its machines, like the Bike, you’re working out alone. One of the major drawbacks of at-home workouts, honestly, is that you miss the collaborative, communal experience of heading to the gym—and in its absence, you can fall off your schedule or lose accountability or motivation altogether. Even though you might assume exercising with Peloton’s offerings is a solo experience—and of course, it can be—the brand makes it surprisingly easy to take classes and do exercises with friends. To add some variety and accountability to your fitness routine, you really should.
The Peloton app makes it easy to schedule a ride, stretch, walk, run, or more with a friend. (Note: This feature is technically called “Sessions,” so if you see that terminology, it just means “an on-demand class with friends.”) First, you have to make sure you and the person you want to work out with are following each other’s Peloton profiles. Navigate to any on-demand class in the app (and I do recommend doing this on the phone because it’s much simpler than trying to finagle on the touchscreen of one of Peloton’s proprietary devices, like the Tread or Row), and you will see a row of options. The first is the button to add the class to your Stack, which is like a playlist of classes you can make so all your routines, from stretching to riding to cooling down, flow into each other when you’re ready to work out. The second button is a Schedule, so if you want to, say, take a particular yoga class at noon in two days, you can schedule it so you can get calendar notifications. The third button is the one we want, Invite, while the fourth button is Preload and allows you to preload a class so it doesn’t buffer or suck up too much cell data while you’re taking it. The fifth button is the Bookmark button, which adds a class to a list of ones you want to save to review later.
Obviously, we’re targeting that third button, Invite. Tapping it first brings you to a list of members you follow. Select the one you’d like to work out with—or more; it’s unlimited!—and hit Continue. On the next page, select a date and time you’d like to take the class with your chosen friend(s) and hit Continue again. You can then choose a reason for the joint workout, like a celebration, a birthday, or “just because.” The final screen is a confirmation page that details the class, time, and invitees.
Any time you select a class, whether on your Bike, Tread, Row, phone, tablet, or Roku, you can find that Invite button. You don’t need to pre-schedule with the calendar feature, necessarily. If a friend is available, they can hop on and join you. This is nice because it means you can also do live classes pretty easily. As you enter the class, just look for that Invite button, select the name of the person you’d like to work out with, and proceed as normal.
It goes without saying, but it’s a lot easier to coordinate all of this by text or call rather than just sending random invitations to people. Agreeing on workout type, music genre, and time of day are pretty key components of exercising together effectively, so flag to your friends if there’s a class you’re interested in taking and want them to join, then use the Peloton app to make it all official.
Once your invitee confirms their attendance, it’s on both of you to show up at the specified time. It’s helpful to set a calendar reminder. From the home page of the app, look for the Calendar icon in the top right. That’s your schedule and you should see the class you pre-scheduled with your friend. Tap on it and hit Add to calendar, then select Google Calendar or iCal and set an alert notification.
Actually taking the class is as easy as opening the app, whether on your phone or a Peloton machine, a few minutes before the start time. From the Home screen, navigate to that Calendar button, then select My schedule in the top left. A countdown to the class you scheduled will appear along with a button that says Start class, which you can tap if you and your friend(s) are ready—or you can just wait for the countdown to finish and start right at the selected time.
I tested this out a few different ways. Once, I did a meditation class with a mutual follower and followed along on my phone. As the class went on, I could see their name under Here now and could send an in-app “high five,” the same as I could to any stranger who might be taking a class at the same time as me. Next, we moved on to the Bike after pre-scheduling a class using the mobile app. There, the same thing: I could see their name on the leaderboard with me, send a high five, and see their output reflected by their name.
To be clear, there isn’t much more to it than that. There’s no audio or video component, meaning you can’t hear or see your friend(s). At the completion of the class, there is no breakdown of your stats vs. theirs or anything like that (although you do get a “Dynamic Duo” achievement badge if it’s your first joint workout). You’re only doing this “together” in the sense that you’re both doing it at the same time, vaguely aware of each other while focusing on your own workout.
I like it, though, because it can introduce some accountability into what might otherwise risk becoming a structureless pursuit. Even just knowing someone is expecting you to hop on your Bike at a certain time can get you to do it. That’s why I love in-person classes so much and am a little weary—but still supportive of—virtual-only options.
Pearson, a London-based brand with a claim to being one of the world’s oldest bike makers (founded in 1860), is aiming to shake up the direct-to-consumer bike-sales model with a new service.
With all bikes built to order and the brand’s ‘white glove’ delivery method, Pearson looks to be offering something distinct from the competition.
We’ve all become familiar with the standard direct-to-consumer model pioneered by Canyon and Ribble. This model enables us to buy premium bikes at a price way below the high street, because it cuts out a layer of distribution costs by selling directly.
Direct shipping has its downsides, though. Your bike will arrive in a box, with some assembly required and knowledge needed in order to set it up correctly. You are also buying unseen.
Pearson, however, wants to do things differently, with its origins as a shop that has been building and fitting bikes to customers since it was established.
The standalone bike brand says it wants every bike it sells to start with a bike fit. That can be through the network of Pearson dealers or your own fit.
Pearson will give you £200 cashback if you book a fit through The Bike Fitters mobile bike-fit service or provide your data from a previous fit.
Pearson then takes the fit data and builds the bike to order. That means it doesn’t offer a ‘stock’ version of its quartet of bikes.
Instead, Pearson offers a range of levels, starting at Shimano 105 and rising to Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 and SRAM Red AXS. Within those tiers, the bikes are built with contact points based on fit data and customer preference.
Pearson says that while its bikes are available at all levels, each bike, irrespective of price, comes with key components chosen for quality.
That means bottom brackets ranging from stainless Hope units to CeramicSpeed on premium models. All four bike models get CeramicSpeed SLT headsets as standard.
Wheels are provided by Pearson’s wheel partners Ere Research, with options from entry-level alloy through to carbon aero wheels with carbon spokes.
Pearson has no minimum buy-in for its built-to-order offer, saying the same service is provided for 105 bike buyers as premium Dura-Ace Di2 customers.
Pearson’s quartet of bikes starts with the aero-race optimised Shift EVO.
The Shift has been in Pearson’s range for a couple of years and was developed and tested at the Silverstone Sports Engineering Hub. The new EVO has a carbon layup to reduce weight and enhance drivetrain stiffness.
It also gains a new suite of finishes and is available with SRAM AXS drivetrains for the first time.
Next in line is Pearson’s Forge, a fresh take on the fast endurance bike, with geometry based on data from more than 3,000 professional bike fits.
Pearson’s gravel bikes, the On and On Race, and On and On Adventure, share the same frame design. The Race model features a stripped-down version of the frame that omits fork mounts, mudguard eyelets and a third bottle mount under the down tube to reduce weight.
Pearson is aiming to stand out from the crowd with its delivery service. You won’t receive your bike in a cardboard box; instead, once the bike is built, Pearson will hand-deliver it.
Trained staff will take care of the handover, provide any tweaks to the fit and ensure the bike is set up perfectly.
Each bike comes complete with everything you need to start riding, including a Pearson Torq wrench to make maintenance easier.
In what is says is another bike industry first, Pearson has introduced a transferrable warranty.
Pearson CEO Scott Davies says: “We found it strange that the bike industry only upheld its warranty for the original owner. That’s something that doesn’t happen in the automotive industry, so we introduced a transferrable warranty.
“If you wanted to sell your bike a few years down the line, then providing you registered your bike when first purchased, you can then transfer the warranty to the new owner via our database.”