As an online publisher, a great deal of our traffic comes from your Google searches. But in recent years, Google’s search result pages have become more competitive – and crowded – places. This is due largely to an increase in shopping results, sponsored results and, most recently, AI Overviews.
This means our reviews, advice, news coverage and features can be buried among paid-for links, e-commerce sites and synthesised information that no human has written.
We’re not alone in worrying about the impact of AI results on our website traffic – and what that means for the future of journalism (gulp) – but, ultimately, that’s something for us to grapple with.
What it means for you is that our independent testing – which no brand ever pays for – can be harder to see, as can the kind of in-depth cycling tech coverage you can expect from us at races such as the Tour de France.
The good news is Google seems to be aware that people want a way to cut through the noise. It recently made it easier to control what you see in your search results via its new Preferred Sources feature.
What is Google Preferred Sources?
Google Preferred Sources is a new feature that enables you to choose which sites appear in your search results.
When you search for a topic, Google shows a Top Stories carousel near the top of the page. Preferred Sources puts you in control of which publishers appear there, so the sites you trust show up more often.
And you can add BikeRadar to that list.
How to add us to your Preferred Sources on Google
The quickest way to add BikeRadar to your Preferred Sources is to follow this link.
Or you can do it through a search:
Search for any topic on Google and find the Top Stories carousel in the results
Tap the star icon next to the ‘Top stories’ label to open the Preferred Sources panel
Type ‘BikeRadar’ into the search box and tick the box next to our name
Click ‘Reload results’
Once you’ve done that, you should see more results from us on Google. So thank you!
Another way you can see more of our content…
Aside from setting your preferences on Google, the best way to receive the latest news, analysis and reviews from BikeRadar is to sign up to our newsletter.
We typically send out a round-up of the latest news, reviews and advice on Tuesdays and Fridays. And on Saturdays, we send The Breakway, a column written by our senior tech editor, Warren Rossiter, where he gives his take on the latest cycling trends.
To receive our newsletter, you can subscribe via the sign-up box below.
I recently took on the project of building out Zwift Insider’s route info data by adding lap leaderboard segments to our route pages. This meant doing a fair amount of legwork to learn which laps in Zwift award leader jerseys, and which routes include those laps.
In the end, after publishing a page listing all of Zwift’s lap segments and linking all the lap segments to routes that contained them, I was left a bit surprised by how few Zwift routes encompass full lap segments.
This is particularly true in Watopia, which has no less than 8 lap leaderboards: the Hilly, Volcano, Jarvis, and Jungle laps, in both directions. It seemed only right to create a route that hit all of these laps, allowing a strong rider (in theory at least) to top all 8 lap leaderboards in one ride. Now that would be impressive!
In the end, I actually created two routes. The first, “Lap It Up”, just covers the laps close to downtown Watopia: Hilly, Volcano, and Jarvis. Then I created an extended afterparty version, titled “Lap It Up + Jungle Afterparty”, which takes you out to the Jungle for forward/reverse laps.
Both routes are described below. Enjoy!
About Rebel Routes
“Rebel Routes” are Zwift rides not available on Zwift’s routes list, thus requiring manual navigation.
The reward for your rebel ride? Exploring a new route, knowing you’ve gone where few Zwifters have gone before. And a Strava segment rank in the tens or hundreds instead of the thousands! Rebel Routes are also included as a separate category on our Veloviewer Route Hunter leaderboard.
Route Description
Our basic ride plan is to hit the reverse versions of the three lap segments close to Watopia proper, then hit their forward versions, then head to the Jungle for an afterparty to do a forward and reverse lap.
A complete turn-by-turn tour of this route would be too much, so I’ll summarize it instead.
You can set yourself up easily by selecting the Figure 8 Reverse route. This puts you at the route’s start point, riding through the downtown Watopia lap arch, heading toward The Esses.
Note: you may feel like you’re doing lots of laps of the Volcano and Jarvis today, because the lap start line locations mean you have to ride a partial lap to get to the start of the full lap. You will also end up riding a partial lap after your lap is complete!
An orange jersey, in the Volcano!
After your Volcano lap, you’ll head to Jarvis for a clockwise lap, which is officially the “reverse” direction for Jarvis. Finish that full lap (which requires riding two laps of the loop), then we head to the Volcano as a way to “turn around” so we can hit Jarvis in the other direction.
Jarvis lap arch, forward direction
Now it’s time for our forward laps! Jarvis first, replicating “The Classic” (again, two laps), then to the Volcano for a clockwise “Volcano Circuit” lap (which requires 2.5 laps of the Volcano). Then we head to downtown for our last lap in Watopia proper: the classic Hilly Route lap, the very first route Watopia ever had!
Once you finish the Hilly Route at the downtown Watopia lap arch, you’ve completed the Lap It Up Rebel Route. But we also have an “afterparty” version which takes you out to the Jungle, to complete a lap in both directions, so you’ve done laps of all the lap segments in Watopia. Are you up for it?
If so, head out on Ocean Boulevard and up to the Jungle, finishing a full Jungle Circuit lap in the forward (CCW) direction first, before taking the Mayan Bridge cutoff to change direction and do a final full Jungle Circuit Reverse lap in the clockwise direction. The Lap It Up + Jungle Afterparty route ends at the Jungle Circuit arch once you’ve finished that full reverse lap!
Showing off the “Horse Blanket” Jungle lap leader’s jersey
Turn By Turn Directions
Begin by choosing the Figure 8 Reverse route, which starts you in downtown Watopia, heading in the right direction for at least the first several turns.
Straight (Left) to Sprint
Straight (Left) to 360 Bridge
Straight (Left) to 360 Bridge
Straight (Right) to Reverse KOM
Straight (Right) to Reverse KOM
Straight (Right) to Downtown
Straight (Left) to Downtown
Right to Volcano Circuit
Right to Volcano Circuit CCW
Straight (Left) to Volcano Circuit CCW
Right to Volcano Circuit
Straight (Left) to Volcano Circuit
Left to Volcano Circuit CCW
Straight (Left) to Volcano Circuit CCW
Straight (Left) to Volcano Circuit CCW
Right to Volcano Circuit
Straight (Left) to Volcano Circuit
Left to Volcano Circuit CCW
Straight (Left) to Volcano Circuit CCW
Straight (Left) to Volcano Circuit CCW
Right to Volcano Circuit
Right to Jarvis Island
Left to Jarvis Island Clockwise
Straight (Right) to Jarvis Island
Left to Volcano Circuit
Left to Volcano KOM
Left to Volcano Circuit
Straight (Right) to Volcano
Straight (Right) to Volcano
Right to Volcano Circuit
Left to Jarvis Island
Right to Jarvis Island Counter
Straight (Left) to Jarvis Island
Right to Volcano Circuit
Left to Volcano KOM
Left to Volcano Circuit
Straight (Right) to Volcano
Straight (Right) to Volcano
Right to Volcano Circuit
Straight (Right) to Volcano KOM
Left to Volcano Circuit
Straight (Right) to Volcano
Straight (Right) to Volcano
Right to Volcano Circuit
Straight (Right) to Volcano KOM
Left to Volcano Circuit
Straight (Right) to Volcano
Left to Downtown
Left to Downtown
Straight (Right) to KOM
Straight (Left) to KOM
Straight (Left) to Bridge
Straight (Left) to Islands
Straight (Right) to Italian Villas
Right to Sprint
Straight (Left) to Sprint
Right to Downtown End of “Lap It Up” Route
Left to Ocean Blvd
Straight (Right) to Ocean Blvd
Straight (Right) to Italian Villas
Left to Jungle/Epic KOM
Right to Jungle/Alpe
Right to Jungle/Alpe
Straight (Right) to Mayan Loop
Straight (Left) to Jungle Loop
Straight (Left) to Mayan Loop
Straight (Right) to Mayan Loop
Straight (Left) to Jungle Loop
Straight (Right) to Mayan Loop
Straight (Left) to Jungle Loop
Straight (Left) to Mayan Loop
Left to Mayan Bridge
Right to Mayan Loop Reverse
Straight (Right) to Reverse Jungle
Straight (Left) to Mayan Loop Reverse
Straight (Right) to Mayan Loop Reverse
Straight (Right) to Jungle Loop
Straight (Left) to Mayan Loop Reverse
Straight (Right) to Reverse Jungle
Straight (Left) to Mayan Loop Reverse
Straight (Right) to Mayan Loop Reverse End of “Lap It Up + Jungle Afterparty” Route
Uber has teamed up with UK self-driving car startup Wayve and Nissan to launch a pilot program for a robotaxi service in Tokyo in late 2026. The program will use Nissan Leaf EVs powered by Wayve’s AI Driver automated vehicle technology, which will then be connected to Uber’s platform. Trained drivers will be behind the wheel at first, as the deployed vehicles gather real-world data to be able to navigate Tokyo’s driving conditions and complex streets that are also a lot narrower than the roads in the US.
Another company backed by Uber, Nuro, will also test its vehicles on Tokyo’s challenging streets soon. Nuro has been trialing its self-driving tech in the US for years now and plans to launch a robotaxi service, as well. They’re not the first companies to take on Tokyo streets, however: Waymo deployed its Jaguar I-PACE autonomous vehicles in the metropolis last year to collect data on its roads and the driving patterns of locals.
The pilot program in Tokyo is just part of Wayve’s and Uber’s plan to roll out a robotaxi service in more than 10 cities around the world. In the future, the companies are planning to offer self-driving vehicles as an option in the city through a licensed taxi partner in Japan.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/uber-is-piloting-a-robotaxi-service-in-tokyo-112133871.html?src=rss
I grew up in a Star Trek household, not a Star Wars one. More to the point, I wasn’t even allowed to watch Star Wars when I was a kid, so I didn’t see the original trilogy until I was nearly an adult—about 17 years old, as I recall.
For my then-fundamentalist Christian family, the so-called “Eastern mysticism” of Star Wars was a bridge too far, something that could apparently corrupt my impressionable young Evangelical mind irreversibly. Star Trek was OK, though, because my parents didn’t feel it condoned witchcraft, or what have you, and they liked the original series from when they were younger.
Because of all that, my first true immersion in the Star Wars universe wasn’t the movies. It was the video games, and one in particular—Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, which you can nab on GOG.
Regardless of your interest in motorsport, you’ve almost certainly heard of the Monaco Grand Prix, Daytona 500, and Indianapolis 500. These iconic races are easy to spectate, with grandstands lining the course and a camera or two at every turn. Video feeds from the race can be transmitted live thanks to the infrastructure of the populated areas surrounding the tracks.
But what if your course is 100 miles (161 km) from nowhere? It’s 1,000 miles (1,610 km) long, and the only way to access it is on bumpy, dirty access roads that require four-wheel drive and plenty of clearance. If you want to watch the whole race with your own eyes, you’ll need to hire a helicopter. And broadcasting it live on TV? Good luck.
All that is changing with the advent of StarStream, a video and content streaming service that can be used with Starlink, the low-Earth-orbit satellite Internet system that has changed the way off-road race teams communicate. But George Hammel, a former motocross and UTV racer, saw even more potential: a way to bring fans into the cockpit, live.
A Pew Research Center survey found that only 53% of U.S. adults went to a movie theater in the past year, while 7% said they’ve never seen a movie in a theater at all. “The findings reflected a domestic box office still fighting to regain its footing since the COVID-19 pandemic, when ticket sales collapsed 81% in 2020 due to theater closures,” reports Variety. From the report: In 2025, moviegoers in the U.S. and Canada bought 769.2 million tickets, less than half of the all-time peak of roughly 1.6 billion tickets sold in 2002, according to data from Nash Information Services. However, an August 2025 study field by NRG/National Research Group showed that 77% of Americans ages 12-74 went to see at least one movie in a theater in the previous 12 months.
Box office revenue peaked at an inflation-adjusted $16.4 billion in 2002, and annual ticket revenue held relatively steady through the 2000s and 2010s before falling to under $3 billion in 2020 when theaters closed for months. Last year, U.S. theaters sold just over $9 billion worth of tickets, per media analytics firm Comscore. The number represents a recovery, but nowhere near a full one, as ticket sales have been lagging around 20% below pre-pandemic levels.
Swiss Side says the new version of its Gravon Carbon 500 is its most aerodynamic gravel wheelset to date. New hubs and spokes lead to a reduced system weight of 1,620g and the new wheels are cheaper, too.
Jean-Paul Ballard, Swiss Side founder and CEO states: “The goal with the new Gravon Carbon 500 was clear: deliver measurable performance improvements, reduce the weight, and make it more fun to ride.”
The new Gravon Carbon 500 wheelset has a 50mm-deep carbon rim with a 36.5mm external/24mm internal width hooked tubeless rim, designed to support wider gravel tyres.
The 24mm internal-width rim is aero optimised for 40mm to 45mm tyres.
The cycling aerodynamics specialist claims aero efficiency comparable to aero road wheels with the strength and compliance needed for gravel riding, as well as crosswind stability and the agility to tackle technical terrain.
While the rim is compatible with gravel bike tyre widths from 35mm to 65mm, for the best aero performance Swiss Side recommends 40mm tyres for racing and 45mm for all-round, all-conditions riding.
The DT Swiss 350 hub is laced with straight-pull DT Swiss Aerolite spokes.
The rim is laced to DT Swiss 350 Spline hubs with a 10-degree engagement angle using 24 DT Swiss Aerolite and Aero Comp straight-pull spokes, a switch from the J-bend spokes used in the version 1 Gravon wheels. The wheels are available with a Shimano HG11, Shimano Micro Spline or SRAM XDR freehub.
Swiss Side claims a weight of 1,620g per wheelset (760g front, 860g rear), which represents a 126g weight saving over its previous-generation Gravon wheels.
The new Gravon Carbon 500 wheelset is sold with rim tape pre-installed, and with tubeless valves and valve extenders. It is priced at £1,105 / $1,620 / €1,439 via retailers, although you can buy it from Swiss Side’s site for £884 / $1,295 / €1,199.
Swiss Side has also recently launched a new road wheelset, its first with carbon spokes, the Hadron3 Ultimate 380. Designed for pro use in climbing stages and with DT Swiss 180 hubs, the wheelset weighs a claimed 1,213g and is priced at £2,357 / $3,465 / €3,199 or direct from Swiss Side at £1,885 / $2,765 / €2,559.
Texas Instruments has introduced two new microcontroller families aimed at bringing artificial intelligence processing to low-power embedded systems. The MSPM0G5187 and AM13Ex devices integrate TI’s TinyEngine NPU, a hardware accelerator designed to improve the efficiency of neural network inference on microcontrollers. The MSPM0G5187 is based on an Arm Cortex-M0+ CPU running up to 80 MHz […]
Richard Hughes of Red Hat just announced the release of Fwupd 2.1.1 as the newest feature update to this solution for deploying system firmware updates and other device/peripheral firmware updates under Linux. Paired with the Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS), Fwupd has made firmware updating a breeze on Linux for an increasing number of devices…
Think of Bodhi Linux 7.0 as a digital walk for peace: a lightweight Moksha desktop, a small install footprint, and just enough polish to keep your aging hardware serene.
Google knows asking agents to navigate GUIs designed for humans is ridiculous. Microsoft might notOpinion The command line interface is making a comeback because graphical user interfaces are a poor fit for autonomous agents, which could spell trouble for a lot of software – and software makers.…
US self-driving startup Nuro, which is backed by the likes of NVIDIA, Toyota and Uber, has started testing its autonomous vehicles on Tokyo’s challenging streets, Bloomberg reported. The company, which plans to launch a robotaxi service with Uber and Lucid in San Francisco this year, will be testing a “handful” of vehicles in the city. Human safety drivers will be at the wheel, as is required by Japanese law.
Tokyo presents a challenge for autonomous vehicles, given its narrow, crowded streets and left side of the road driving. “Testing the capability of the autonomy system in such an interesting market with some international complexity really is a good pressure test of what the system is capable of,” said CEO Andrew Chapin. The company’s ultimate goal is to achieve Level 4 autonomy, which allows full self-driving under limited conditions.
Waymo is the other major robotaxi operator testing vehicles in Tokyo in collaboration with Japanese taxi operators Nihon Kotsu and the country’s leading taxi app, Go. It has been operating in the nation since April 2025 in collaboration with Toyota.
Nuro has yet to announce which operators or vehicle manufacturers it will be partnering with, but Chapin said it may not limit itself to autonomous rides. “A universal autonomy platform that can be extended to a lot of different applications and form factors is a bit different than the approach Waymo is taking,” he told Bloomberg. The company previously teamed with 7-Eleven on autonomous deliveries in Mountain View, California.
Uber plans to have up to 100,000 autonomous vehicles including 20,000 robotaxis powered by Lucid and Nuro, with a rollout starting in 2027. It introduced its new vehicle design recently at CES 2026. Uber is also collaborating with Nissan and Wayve with the aim to introduce pilot cars in Tokyo by late 2026.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/nvidia–and-uber-backed-nuro-is-testing-autonomous-vehicles-in-tokyo-081200366.html?src=rss
GFiber (a.k.a. Google Fiber) and Astound Broadband announced that they plan to merge into a deal backed by infrastructure investor Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners. The resulting company will be majority owned by Stonepeak, with Alphabet becoming a “significant minority shareholder.” Light Reading reports: Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners teamed with Patriot Media to acquire Astound in November 2020 for $8.1 billion. Stonepeak is Astound’s largest investor. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026. The combined business will be led by the existing GFiber executive team. GFiber is currently led by CEO Dinni Jain. Jain, a former Time Warner Cable and Insight Communications exec, took the helm of what was then called Google Fiber in 2018.
“This agreement advances GFiber’s mission of redefining internet connectivity and represents a major step toward its goal of operational and financial independence,” the companies said. “GFiber will have the external capital and strategic focus needed to accelerate its next phase of growth, expanding its customer-first approach and pioneering fiber technology across the country.” GFiber’s combination with Astound represents “a strategic opportunity to scale our customer-focused approach to connect more households to a truly different type of internet service,” Jain said in a statement.
Google Play has introduced a new feature called Game Trials, which will let you play a portion of paid games for free before you commit to buying them. It’s now rolling out to select paid games on mobile, and it’s coming soon to Google Play Games on PC. Titles that offer Game Trials will show a button marked “Try” on their profile pages. When you click it, you’ll see how long you can play the game before you have to buy it. In Google’s example, the survival and horror game Dredge will give you 60 minutes of free play time, after which you’ll get the option to either buy the game or delete it from your device.
Google has also announced that it’s releasing more paid indie games over the coming months, including Moonlight Peaks, Sledding Game and Low-Budget Repairs. It has launched a new section in the Play store, as well, to feature games optimized for Windows PCs. You can wishlist the games from that section to get a notification when they’re on sale.
Finally, the company is rolling out Play Games Sidekick, the Gemini-powered Android overlay it announced last year, to select games downloaded from Play. Sidekick can show you relevant info and tools for whatever game you’re playing without having to do a search query. But if you’d rather ask other people for gaming advice instead of an AI, you can also look at a game’s Community Posts, a feature now available in English for select titles on their Play pages.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/google-play-will-let-you-try-a-game-before-you-buy-it-051854016.html?src=rss
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: In a paper, published last month in the journal The Anatomical Record, researchers offered a novel take on falling felines. Their evidence suggests new insights into the so-called falling cat problem, particularly that cats have a very flexible segment of their spines that allows them to correct their orientation midair. […] People have been curious about falling cats perhaps as long as the animals have been living with humans, but the method to their acrobatic abilities remains enigmatic. Part of the difficulty is that the anatomy of the cat has not been studied in detail, explains Yasuo Higurashi, a physiologist at Yamaguchi University in Japan and lead author of the study. […]
Modern research has split the falling cat problem into two competing models. The first, “legs in, legs out,” suggests that cats correct their falling trajectory by first extending their hind limbs before retracting them, using a sequential twist of their upper and then lower trunk to gain the proper posture while in free fall. The second model, “tuck and turn,” suggests that cats turn their upper and lower bodies in simultaneous juxtaposed movements. […]
The researchers found that the feline spine was extremely flexible in the upper thoracic vertebrae, but stiffer and heavier in the lower lumbar vertebrae. The discovery matches video evidence showing the cats first turn their front legs, and then their lower legs. The results suggest the cat quickly spins its flexible upper torso to face the ground, allowing it to see so that it can correctly twist the rest of its body to match. “The thoracic spine of the cat can rotate like our neck,” Dr. Higurashi said.
Experiments on the spine show the upper vertebrae can twist an astounding 360 degrees, he says, which helps cats make these correcting movements with ease. The results are consistent with the “legs in, legs out” model, but definitively determining which model is correct will take more work, Dr. Higurashi says. The results also yielded another discovery: Cats, like many animals, appear to have a right-side bias. One of the dropped cats corrected itself by turning to the right eight out of eight times, while the other turned right six out of eight times.
